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How America has become
a multicultural nut-house
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Posted: March 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
WorldNetDaily
MONDAY
MARCH 7
2005
2005 WorldNetDaily.com
How America has become
a multicultural nut-house
Posted: March 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
This is a true story about America, about how the magnificent
Judeo-Christian culture of my youth - which represented the hope of liberty
for the world's oppressed - was so easily turned into mush in my lifetime.
Let me begin with a brief story about my father. When he was only three
years old, my dad was sentenced to death. That's right. The Turkish
government was engaged in a deliberate campaign to force him, his mother and
infant sister, along with hundreds of thousands of other Armenians, into the
Syrian desert where they would die of starvation, disease, or worse -
torture and death at the hands of brutal soldiers or roving bandits.
It was 1915, at the peak of Islamic Turkey's gruesome, premeditated genocide
of the Christian Armenian population in that country. Those not butchered
outright - the men were often killed immediately - were driven into the
Derzor, the Syrian desert east of Aleppo, to perish. My father's father, a
doctor, had been pressed into the Turkish army against his will, to head a
medical regiment.
"One of my earliest recollections, I was not quite three years old at the
time," my dad, Vahey Kupelian, told me shortly before he died in 1988, was
that "the wagon we were in had tipped over, my hand was broken and bloody,
and mother was looking for my infant sister who had rolled away. The next
thing I remember after that, mother was on a horse, holding my baby sister,
and had me sitting behind her, saying, 'Hold on tight, or the Turks will get
you!"
The three of them rode off on horseback, ending up in Aleppo, one of the
gateways to the desert deportation and certain death. Once there, my
grandmother Mary, always a daring and resourceful woman, realized what she
needed to do.
After asking around to find out who was in charge, she bluffed her way into
getting an audience with Aleppo's governor-general. Since her Armenian
husband was in the service of the Turkish army - albeit by force - she
played her one and only card, brazenly telling the governor-general, "I
demand my rights as the wife of a Turkish army officer!"
"What are those rights?"
"I want commissary privileges and two orderlies," she answered.
"Granted."
In this way, by masquerading as a Turkish officer's wife, Mary bluffed her
way out of certain death, saving not only her own life and those of her son
and daughter, but also the lives of her husband's two brothers, whom she
immediately deputized as "orderlies." The group then succeeded in sneaking
several other family members out of harm's way, and my grandmother kept them
all from starving by obtaining food from the commissary. Thus was my family
spared, although little Adolphina, my father's infant sister, was unable to
survive the harshness of those times, and died shortly thereafter.
As for my grandfather, Simeon Kupelian: After an unusually bloody battle
between the Turks and the British, he and the other doctors, all Armenians,
tended to the Turkish wounded as best they could. Immediately after this, a
squadron of Turkish gunmen came and killed them all, including my
grandfather.
One and a half million Armenians perished in those years at the hands of the
Turkish regime, the 20th century's first genocide.
On returning to their beautiful home in Marash a couple of years later, Mary
and son Vahey, who was then about 6 years old, found it had been ransacked.
Their fine tapestries had been pulled off the walls, ripped and urinated on.
Everything that could be carried out had been stolen, and everything else
had been deliberately broken. Everything. Every single pane of glass in the
French doors was broken, even handles on drawers were destroyed.
Eventually, the hardships of their life led my father and grandmother to do
what millions of persecuted people have done over the last few hundred
years. They made the long voyage to the one country that welcomed them and
offered them freedom and an opportunity for a new life - the most blessed
nation on earth, their promised land: America.
Life wasn't easy in this new land, but both mother and son managed to
overcome many obstacles, learned English eagerly, built a life for
themselves, went to college and pursued careers. Dad got married and had a
family. I was the middle of three children; he provided for us, protected
us, worried about us, loved us. He also rose to the top of his chosen
profession - aeronautical engineering - becoming the Army's "Chief Scientist
for Ballistic Missile Defense." He lived a good and full life in a blessed
land.
That's just one story - my story. Now multiply it by millions of similar
cases of dispossessed and persecuted people coming to America, and you'll
have a vague idea of what America has long represented to the freedom-loving
people of this world.
Born Greek-Armenian, my dad became an American, as did thousands of other
Armenians fleeing the genocide. As did Jews fleeing the Nazi Holocaust,
Chinese seeking freedom from totalitarianism, Vietnamese and Cambodians
escaping from their war-ravaged land, and countless others coming to America
for a better life - starting with the English Pilgrims that came here to
escape religious persecution. In short, the "huddled masses yearning to
breathe free" have come to these shores from every land, speaking every
language - but wanting to become Americans.
'Mother of exiles'
Inscribed in bronze at the base of the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus'
transcendent 1883 poem, "The New Colossus," captures the spirit of America's
big-heartedness and generosity perhaps more than anything else, except for
"Lady Liberty" herself.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from
land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty
woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild
eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. Give
me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The
wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless,
tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
There has always been something different about America, which enabled this
magnanimous nation to wrap her arms around the "wretched refuse" of other
nations.
This nation of immigrants was bound together by a spirit, you might say. For
although one cannot become French or Chinese or Russian, one can become an
American - by embracing that spirit.
Becoming a naturalized American citizen therefore meant more than passing
the federal government's screening process and stumbling through a few
civics questions. It meant an implicit and heartfelt agreement to abide not
only by the nation's laws, but by its hidden, unwritten "laws" as well - the
principles that made up the invisible but vital fabric of Western
Civilization: the individual as citizen-sovereign; a balance of freedom and
responsibility; unlimited opportunity - to succeed or fail; independence and
self-reliance; tolerance; the work ethic; equality under the law; and other
core Judeo-Christian values.
Underlying all of this, in turn, was the common belief - a belief so deep
and unquestioned that it underpinned all of our major institutions - that
there is a God, that He is the God of the Bible, that the 10 Commandments
and the Sermon on the Mount are the foundation of a good life and a great
society, and that America had been uniquely blessed by that God. These were
the underlying assumptions infusing America's dominant culture.
All that started to change in the 1960s. Actually, the nation's moral and
cultural foundation had been under attack for decades, but the '60s is when
the attacks literally spilled out into America's streets, resulting in
unprecedented cultural chaos by decade's end.
One of the first times I personally remember feeling the foundations of
America tremble was in 1964 during my 9th-grade civics class. A girl - I
don't remember her name, but I think she was from Tennessee and she had a
very thick southern accent - answered a question from the teacher by
mentioning something about God.
"How do you know there is a God?" the teacher shot back.
It was like an earth tremor - just a faint quiver really, a precursor to the
tidal waves to come a few years later - a smiling, casual, off-handed swipe
at "the world as we knew it."
How did the little southern girl know there was a God? Clearly taken aback,
she answered the teacher earnestly, incredulously, her voice breaking:
"Because ... there is!" She had, quite naturally, offered up the best answer
anyone could possibly give.
The teacher had questioned the unquestionable, injecting doubt into a room
of impressionable young boys and girls. It was one of those moments you
remember 40 years later because it created a spark, a momentary contact with
another dimension - that alien dimension of cynicism and disbelief.
Within a few years, the gathering tides of rebellion against traditional
America would come crashing down with great ferocity and on many shores. One
key area was the Civil Rights Movement.
Despite the fact that America had long-since forsaken slavery, and - thanks
to the movement led by Martin Luther King Jr., which culminated in the
landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act - had outlawed segregation and made great
strides in moving beyond racism altogether, a demand for "black studies"
nevertheless arose in the nation's colleges.
The idea was that past denigration and mistreatment of blacks necessitated
special emphasis on their culture and accomplishments. "Black pride" was
born and "black studies," "black history" and the like proliferated through
the nation's university campuses.
Although most people didn't comprehend it at the time, "black pride" and
similar "liberation movements" did not arise out of the mainstream of the
Civil Rights Movement, which had arrived, in King's famous "I have a dream"
speech, at the ultimate solution to racism: the "color-blind" society where
people would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character." This enlightened vision of America - which would have
completed the promise of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are
created equal" - was hijacked by forces of the '60s radical left. These were
people who did not want peace and racial harmony. They condemned racial
integration as "Uncle Tomism" and "co-optation." Their aim was to indict
America as a racist oppressor as a means to foment division, revolution and
societal transformation.
But all this was off the radar of most Americans, who, under the sway
perhaps of the nation's collective guilt over slavery and segregation,
cautiously accepted "black studies."
It didn't end there, however. Soon there were "women's studies" and "gay and
lesbian" studies. Before long, the world of academia was awash in
"multiculturalism."
Wait a minute, you might ask, what's wrong with multiculturalism? Doesn't
exposing students to other cultures and values serve to enrich their
understanding of the world and its peoples?"
Of course. And there would be nothing wrong if that was what was actually
going on.
In reality, however, as Robert Bork explains in "Slouching Towards
Gomorrah," multiculturalism had been conjured up solely to serve as a
battering ram, "a philosophy of antagonism to America and the West," an
"attack on America, the European-American culture, and the white race, with
special emphasis on white males ..." The proof, he noted, is evident in the
multicultural curriculum choices:
A curriculum designed to foster understanding of other cultures would study
those cultures. Multiculturalism does not. Courses are not offered on the
cultures of China or India or Brazil or Nigeria, nor does the curriculum
require the study of languages without which foreign cultures cannot be
fully understood. Instead the focus is on groups that, allegedly, have been
subjected to oppression by American and Western civilization - homosexuals,
American Indians, blacks, Hispanics, women, and so on. The message is not
that all cultures are to be respected, but that European culture, which
created the dominance of white males, is uniquely evil. Multiculturalism
follows the agenda of modern liberalism, and it comes straight from the
Sixties counterculture. But now, in American education, it is the dominant
culture.
To fathom what's been happening to America, you simply must understand that
during the 1960s, the moral foundation of America came under a full-blown
assault. The radicals of the '60s - including, by the way, Bill and Hillary
Clinton - have today either taken over or profoundly altered the key
institutions they originally wanted to destroy, from government to the news
media, from education to religion.
A generation later, the various "liberation" movements - "sexual
liberation," "women's liberation," "gay liberation" and so on - have
blossomed into rampant infidelity, divorce and family breakdown, gender
confusion, AIDS, abortion and other mammoth problems. Moreover, the
multicultural madness that started in the '60s has infused virtually all of
American society with unending confusion.
Today, in the rarified but toxic air of multiculturalism and political
correctness, all cultures and all values are of equal value: The most
ignorant, oppressive, suffocating, women-hating culture, where young
people's hands and feet are amputated as punishment for petty offenses, is
now worthy of equal respect to Western culture, which has provided most of
the world's knowledge, progress, food, medicine, technology, quality of
life, representative government and liberty.
This virtual brainwashing of a generation has had its intended effect. New
York Times journalist Richard Bernstein spent two years documenting the
effects of multicultural ideology. The result, notes Bork, "is not an
impressionistic book or one based on an ideological predisposition; it is a
report of empirical findings."
He points, for example, to the remarkable change in attitude towards
Christopher Columbus between 1892 and 1992. Though not a single new fact
about Columbus's life and exploits had been uncovered, the country's mood
swung from one of uncritical adulation to one of loathing and condemnation,
at least among the members of the "intellectual" class. The change was
accomplished by the aggressive ideology of multiculturalism. The Columbus
turnaround is merely a specific instance of more general alterations in our
moral landscape.
Another example: Thanksgiving visitors to historic Plymouth Rock should be
prepared for a shock, writes Douglas Phillips, president of Vision Forum.
"If you walk fewer than a hundred yards from Plymouth Rock and ascend to
Cole's Hill, the magnificent burial ground of the 50 Pilgrims who perished
during the first cold winter of 1620, you not only will encounter hundreds
of demonstrators who gather on the last Thursday of every November to
disabuse the memory of the Pilgrim fathers. But you also can read the new
monument plaque that describes the devastating effect of Christianity on
North America, the 'genocide' of Native Americans by the Pilgrims and the
importance of treating Thanksgiving as a 'National Day of Mourning.'"
This moral inversion caused by multiculturalism, which proclaims that all
cultures are equal, has extended to virtually every area of society:
All religions are equal: Witches and Satanists are now afforded the same
respect as Christians and Jews. As just one example, U.S. District Court
Judge Dennis W. Dohnal ruled in 2003 that officials in Chesterfield County,
Va., discriminated against Cyndi Simpson, a Wiccan, when they barred her
from opening the board of supervisors' meetings with prayer.
Britain's Royal Navy went a step further, allowing an officer to conduct
satanic rituals on board one of its ships. Chris Cranmer, a 24-year-old
naval technician and non-commissioned officer on the frigate Cumberland, was
given his own satanic altar where he could dress up in black robes and
perform ceremonies to worship the devil using bells and candles. Cranmer
says he's a "Magistrate of the Society of the Onyx Star Black Guard," and
believes he is evil.
"From a military perspective, I believe in vengeance. If I were asked if I
were evil, I would say yes," he told London's Daily Mail newspaper, which
notes that permission to worship on board was granted the Satan-worshipper
under equal-opportunities legislation.
As with religion, where good and evil now are afforded equal respect, so in
the area of sexuality, what was bizarre and unmentionable a generation ago
is today a civil right:
All sexuality is equal: In 2004, thousands of same-sex marriage ceremonies
were conducted throughout the U.S. - in open defiance of the law - under the
banner of fundamental fairness and non-discrimination.
Even adult-child sex - euphemistically called "intergenerational sex" - is
making surprising headway into the mainstream, based on today's pervasive
climate of moral equivalence among all forms of consensual "love."
Self-righteous child-molesters claim their cause is simply the latest in a
long line of civil rights movements and eagerly anticipate the day society
will shed its ancient taboos and grant full "sexual rights" to young
children and the adults that "love" them.
This worldview whereby we declare all human cultures and moral codes, from
the fairest to the foulest, to be equal in value is made possible only by
the total abandonment of any objective standard of right and wrong.
Despite the fact that multiculturalism has rewritten history, demonized
Western culture and turned civilization on its head for a generation,
Americans for the most part just floated along with this charade, year after
confusing year - until Sept. 11, 2001.
The otherworldly shock and horror that we experienced on that particular
Tuesday morning was followed by a crash course in radical Islam - a very
strange and menacing culture indeed.
We learned that those who wantonly murdered thousands of American civilians
and threatened even greater destruction justified their acts as being
required of them by Allah. We learned that "shaheeds" (martyrs) - those
Muslims who die while killing "infidels" ("unbelievers," primarily Jews but
also Christians and Americans generally) in "jihad" or holy war - are
indoctrinated, often from an early age, by radical Islamic clerics.
And what is the jihad message taught in so many mosques and madrassas
(religious schools) throughout the Middle East? Just this: As soon as the
first drop of your blood is shed in jihad, you will feel no pain, all your
sins will be forgiven, and you will be transported instantly to paradise
where you will recline comfortably for eternity on plush green cushions, to
be lavished with the choicest meats, the finest wines and endless sex with
70 virgins. In addition, all of your family members will be admitted into
heaven, as part of your reward.
We learned that our nation's borders were scandalously unprotected and our
immigration policies full of holes easily exploited by terrorists. We
learned that our beloved country was targeted for even more horrific terror
attacks - using biological, chemical or even nuclear weapons - by a maniacal
cult of jihadists spread out over 60 nations. We learned that "terror cells"
and "sleeper" suicide warriors were already in the U.S., intending to strike
and inflict indiscriminate terror and death. We learned that a
well-developed network of Islamic terror supporters was operating freely
within the open American system, conducting fundraisers and providing
support for known terror groups - in their mosques, meeting halls, and even
on American college campuses.
How exactly did the United States of America "become the scene of one of the
most hideously bedeviled conflicts of all time?" asked New York University
literature professor Carol Iannone in the New York Press.
Quite simply, it happened because America lost its grasp of its own historic
character, and embraced "diversity" as a national goal. In the name of
equality and nondiscrimination we invited mass immigration from every part
of the globe, and made no demands on the newcomers to become Americans. In
fact, we gave up our American core, adopted multiculturalism and declared
all cultures equal. We invited the new groups to celebrate themselves while
we cravenly permitted libelous denigration of our own past. Like fools we
prated that diversity is our strength, when common sense and all of history
tell us that strength comes from unity.
Absolute nondiscrimination meant we no longer enforced standards, made
judgments, distinguished between good and evil, friend and foe. We grew
lazy, stupid and careless - about our borders, about national security, even
about previous terrorist attacks against us. We worried over our "hate
crimes" and our "racial profiling," while men resided in our midst who
seethed with murderous fury even against our children and plotted our
destruction. Now we have a fifth column, fear further assaults and labor
under a draconian security regime that is changing the nature of our lives.
Marketing multiculturalism
It's easy to blame '60s radicals, university Marxists, cowardly politicians
and an elitist press for today's multicultural madness. But the fact is,
millions of Americans have bought into it. Why?
Isn't it obvious? Since the 1960s, America - from her government to her
schools and even to her churches - has steadily fallen away from the
Judeo-Christian values that previously illuminated and gave life and
strength to the nation's institutions. This is equivalent to turning out the
country's lights: And when you turn out the lights, everything looks the
same color in the dark - that's multiculturalism.
Moreover, no longer guided by universal standards of right and wrong,
Americans have had nothing more reliable than their own feelings to guide
them in the moral realm. And as modern marketing well knows, when people are
operating primarily on the basis of feelings and emotions, they're wide open
to every sort of manipulation imaginable.
Remember, marketing is the application of the knowledge of human psychology
to the task of persuasion. And what psychology has taught the marketing
world is that the most powerful persuasion of all takes place not through
above-the-board appeals to reason, but by directly targeting the emotions.
By way of illustration, cigarettes were once sold on the basis of "great
taste" and "fine tobacco." Not all that convincing - but then, there aren't
a whole lot of "benefits" and "features" to sell with cigarettes. Then along
came the "Marlboro Man." Created in 1955 for Philip Morris Co. by
advertising giant Leo Burnett, this icon of the quintessential American
cowboy is probably the most famous brand image to appear in our lifetimes.
The rugged, masculine trademark made Marlboro the world's best-selling
cigarette.
What does the "Marlboro Man" - a rancher on a horse - have to do with
cigarettes? Nothing, except that the ubiquitous cowboy evoked within
millions of men feelings of masculinity, independence, wide open spaces and
freedom. So successful has been the decades-old campaign that on some ads
the image is reduced to little more than a saddle and a splash of red, but -
like Pavlov's bell - it still subtly makes people salivate for the mythical
place called Marlboro Country.
For the last generation, commercial marketing has aimed not so much at
extolling the intrinsic value or usefulness of a product to consumers, but
rather, at conditioning the consumer to associate the product with a
particular feeling.
Bottom line: If the marketer can elicit in you a feeling - the right feeling
- he has won. Game over.
With this principle in mind, let's look at how the public is so easily
persuaded to abandoned long-held loyalties. How are people so easily
persuaded that Columbus, a national hero for 500 years, and the Pilgrims,
revered and studied by generations of school children, were actually
genocidal racists? How are our former sentiments opposing homosexuality or
Wicca so readily transformed into "enlightened tolerance" and open support?
Pick a topic - let's say, same-sex marriage.
Imagine you're participating in a televised one-on-one debate. You're
defending traditional marriage. There you are on one side of the set, and
facing off against you is a lesbian. Not just any lesbian, but an
attractive, young, eloquent, educated, sensitive, well-dressed lesbian - and
to all appearances a fine human being. She looks you right in the eye and
says, in a disarmingly mainstream and reasonable tone: "I love my country, I
obey its laws and I pay my taxes. I'm an American, and have all the same
rights you do. In fact, I've served my country in the military and have put
my life on the line. I've lived monogamously with my partner for 18 years.
We truly love each other and want nothing more than to be married and to
live out our lives in peace and happiness - just like you. What's the matter
with that? Why shouldn't we be allowed to be married? How does it hurt you?"
You have 30 seconds to respond before the commercial break.
How can you neutralize the powerful, positive emotions your opponent has
skillfully invoked? Will you offer up a statement about the dangers of
altering the traditional definition of marriage? Will you point out that
children do better with both a mother and father? Will you say the Bible
clearly condemns homosexual acts?
The debate will be won by whoever touches the most feelings, the strongest
emotions of sympathy in the audience.
Therefore, unless you're an extraordinarily gifted and charismatic debater -
you lose. And when you lose, millions of people out in TV land are pulled a
few inches further away from common sense values, and a few inches closer to
embracing, or at least resigning themselves to accepting, same-sex marriage.
The lesbian debater appeals to Americans' basic traits of tolerance,
inclusiveness, fair-mindedness and honor toward veterans. Every statement
she makes tends to create in the viewer positive feelings, not toward
same-sex marriage per se, but toward her - yet it's the viewers' attitudes
toward same-sex marriage that will change.
Each hidden persuasion is like "money" accruing in the "emotional bank
account" of the listener - and when there are enough funds (strong feelings
of sympathy) in the listener's account, he or she has been "persuaded" of
the justness of these two women being married. Of if not persuaded, at least
"neutralized" in terms of offering any effective opposition to same-sex
marriage.
Watch how the feelings accumulate in the listener's "bank account" until
they reach critical mass: "I love my country" (patriotism - cha-ching). "I
obey its laws and I pay my taxes" (responsible citizen - cha-ching). "I'm an
American, and have all the same rights you do" (appeal to fairness -
cha-ching). "I've served my country in the military and have put my life on
the line" (she's a veteran! - double cha-ching). "I've lived monogamously
with my partner for 18 years" (loyalty - cha-ching). "We truly love each
other and want nothing more than to be married and to live out our lives in
peace and happiness - just like you" (true love - cha-ching). "Why shouldn't
we be allowed to be married? How does it hurt you?" (personal intimidation -
cha-ching).
Now imagine how the television viewers are reacting to this debate.
Many of us in the audience find our feelings have been stirred by the
lesbian's touching appeal. We like her. We want her to be happy. Our
positive feelings toward her start to subtly eat away at our long-held
conviction that same-sex marriage is wrong. Those warm emotions give rise to
a stream of thought-whispers that orbit our minds at light speed: Maybe I've
judged these people too harshly just because they're different. Maybe they
could make each other happy if they were married. After all, heterosexual
married couples have lots of problems, and half of them get divorced - so
what difference does it really make? We start to doubt our prior beliefs,
wondering if they're as hallowed as we've thought, or rather just some
antiquated religious notions about sex and sin that don't really apply in
today's world. Then the thought occurs to us, as though from divine
revelation: Don't we all long to love and be loved? Maybe that is the
ultimate truth. She's right, it doesn't hurt anyone else for her to be
married to her partner. It's mean-spirited to deny other human beings their
happiness. I like her. I want her to be happy.
Seduction complete.
If we were anchored in the Judeo-Christian moral standards that are
responsible for the singular success of the Western World, all this
emotional persuasion would be for naught. We'd easily discern the truth of
the debate and just be amused at the feeble attempts at manipulating our
feelings. But after several decades of public education that reflects not
the values of the nation's founders, but those of '60s radicals and
reformers, millions of Americans are just plain confused.
The farther we stray from the rock of unchanging spiritual principles, the
easier it is to get swept away by clever appeals to our feelings - including
the need to prove to others that we are "tolerant." Increasingly, that means
"tolerant" of evil.
There's no end to the variety of emotional manipulations to which we fall
prey, and there are no words to describe the stunning ease with which we
have been seduced to throw away that which is most precious to us.
In C.S. Lewis's seven-volume "Chronicles of Narnia," the poignant and
brilliantly insightful final book, "The Last Battle," describes how the
good-hearted but naïve inhabitants of Narnia throw away their cherished
civilization - losing both their lives and their world itself - by falling
for a shabby ruse perpetrated by a few cunning and unprincipled characters
When you read it, you can't help thinking, "Oh my gosh, this isn't even a
very clever con game; it's crude, full of contradictions, and easily seen
through from a thousand different directions." You just want to shake them
and say, "Don't you see what you're falling for?"
Nevertheless, as the con men ruthlessly play on the doubts and fears of the
Narnia folk, their lies take hold and the light of civilization goes out.
Haven't we in America done exactly the same thing? Look at the shabby ruse
we've fallen for. We've traded Western Civilization for vain delusions,
cheap thrills and laughably illogical doctrines. Like the townsfolk in "The
Emperor's New Clothes," we all know the king is wearing no clothes - we can
plainly see the truth - but we play along out of fear and intimidation.
We're afraid of confrontation, of losing the love and approval of others, of
being labeled "judgmental," "racist," "bigoted" or "homophobic." So, we
quietly allow our minds to be twisted, as we surrender our former beliefs
and bequeath an unknown country to our children and grandchildren.
How strange. Out of the thousands of years of suffering and oppression that
comprise human history, a light burns brightly for just a couple hundred
years. The American experiment - a revolutionary idea that the common man
can be free, master of his own government, so long as he himself is ruled by
God. For a short time this brilliant young country dazzles all the world and
all of history, not just with its power and productivity and progress, but
with its goodness.
And then, out of pure hatred - the same rage and rebellion institutionalized
in communism, Nazism and all the other "isms" that have paved the world's
roads with corpses throughout the last century - haters of Truth scheme to
extinguish this shining light. So they concoct an absurd, fantastic ruse -
that cannibal societies are as worthwhile as Western ones, that animals
should have the same rights as human beings, that white people are
inherently racist and oppressive, that sexual perversion is perfectly normal
and noble, each passing year bringing new and more bizarre delusions to be
held up as truth.
How much stranger still that we've bought it.
Can we get the real America back? Only time will tell. But if we do, it very
likely will be due to the efforts of the current generation, which still has
some memory of the real America.
The "great melting pot" - E. pluribus unum - depended on an ideal. But the
melting pot become corrupted without this guiding spirit. Millions now
residing here are not loyal to American values. Rather than unified and
"color-blind," the nation is divided and segregated. On top of everything
else, America literally has been invaded and we are at war.
Recognizing they must take rapid steps to reverse course, policy makers
entertain options for better policing the nation's borders, screening
potential immigrants and re-evaluating those already in. But just over the
horizon is the more painful work - of revisiting the madness of
multiculturalism, political correctness, rebellion against America's
founding values and the spiritual confusion that rebellion has caused. But
revisit them we must, since it is they that have led to both the present
invasion and the resulting near-paralysis over how to deal with the problem.
If we don't change course, America will end up the loser. Even if the
current "terror war" went away - if it were all only a bad dream from which
we awoke with the World Trade Center towers still standing - we would still
lose America to the long-term invasion and conversion of our basic identity
that has been under way for decades.
Epilogue
Toward the end of her life, my grandmother Mary Kupelian wanted to travel
overseas one last time to visit her old-country relatives. I went with her,
as her bodyguard, you might say. I will never forget the time I spent with
her and those in her village - virtually all of whom, it seemed, were
somehow related to me. I will never forget her stories about what she and my
father went through during the Armenian genocide, and I'll never forget what
a survivor she was, to pick up the few shattered pieces of their lives and
to come to America to start over.
And I will never ever forget the night we finally returned to the United
States. Our plane from Athens arrived at New York's Kennedy Airport too late
for us to make our connection to Washington, D.C., so Grandmom and I slept
in the airport terminal that night, up in the second floor lounge. We were
both tired, and very happy to be back in America.
After a while, Grandmom shuffled off to the ladies' room. On her return, she
described for me - her old woman's voice brimming with excitement - how
everything in the restroom was so clean and shiny and modern, how there was
hot and cold running water, how everything worked properly - so totally
different from where we had just been. And she said she felt like kneeling
down and kissing America - right there on the floor of the restroom of JFK
airport - so grateful was she for being back in the USA.
My grandmother, who decades earlier as a "homeless, tempest-tossed"
immigrant had found refuge in this generous land, had once more come home
through the "golden door."
To this day, whether due to some special blessing from God or just because
there's so much contrasting darkness throughout the rest of the world,
America remains - despite unrelenting assaults by enemies within and without
- the national light of the world. May she always remain so.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding has been excerpted from the February edition of WND's monthly
Whistleblower magazine, a comprehensive expose of multiculturalism and its
effects on America. The article is an abbreviated version of a more in-depth
exploration of multiculturalism from the forthcoming book by David Kupelian,
"The Marketing of Evil."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Kupelian is vice president and managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com
and Whistleblower magazine, and author of the forthcoming book, "The
Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us
Corruption Disguised as Freedom.
a multicultural nut-house
--------------------------------------- -------------------------
Posted: March 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
WorldNetDaily
MONDAY
MARCH 7
2005
2005 WorldNetDaily.com
How America has become
a multicultural nut-house
Posted: March 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
This is a true story about America, about how the magnificent
Judeo-Christian culture of my youth - which represented the hope of liberty
for the world's oppressed - was so easily turned into mush in my lifetime.
Let me begin with a brief story about my father. When he was only three
years old, my dad was sentenced to death. That's right. The Turkish
government was engaged in a deliberate campaign to force him, his mother and
infant sister, along with hundreds of thousands of other Armenians, into the
Syrian desert where they would die of starvation, disease, or worse -
torture and death at the hands of brutal soldiers or roving bandits.
It was 1915, at the peak of Islamic Turkey's gruesome, premeditated genocide
of the Christian Armenian population in that country. Those not butchered
outright - the men were often killed immediately - were driven into the
Derzor, the Syrian desert east of Aleppo, to perish. My father's father, a
doctor, had been pressed into the Turkish army against his will, to head a
medical regiment.
"One of my earliest recollections, I was not quite three years old at the
time," my dad, Vahey Kupelian, told me shortly before he died in 1988, was
that "the wagon we were in had tipped over, my hand was broken and bloody,
and mother was looking for my infant sister who had rolled away. The next
thing I remember after that, mother was on a horse, holding my baby sister,
and had me sitting behind her, saying, 'Hold on tight, or the Turks will get
you!"
The three of them rode off on horseback, ending up in Aleppo, one of the
gateways to the desert deportation and certain death. Once there, my
grandmother Mary, always a daring and resourceful woman, realized what she
needed to do.
After asking around to find out who was in charge, she bluffed her way into
getting an audience with Aleppo's governor-general. Since her Armenian
husband was in the service of the Turkish army - albeit by force - she
played her one and only card, brazenly telling the governor-general, "I
demand my rights as the wife of a Turkish army officer!"
"What are those rights?"
"I want commissary privileges and two orderlies," she answered.
"Granted."
In this way, by masquerading as a Turkish officer's wife, Mary bluffed her
way out of certain death, saving not only her own life and those of her son
and daughter, but also the lives of her husband's two brothers, whom she
immediately deputized as "orderlies." The group then succeeded in sneaking
several other family members out of harm's way, and my grandmother kept them
all from starving by obtaining food from the commissary. Thus was my family
spared, although little Adolphina, my father's infant sister, was unable to
survive the harshness of those times, and died shortly thereafter.
As for my grandfather, Simeon Kupelian: After an unusually bloody battle
between the Turks and the British, he and the other doctors, all Armenians,
tended to the Turkish wounded as best they could. Immediately after this, a
squadron of Turkish gunmen came and killed them all, including my
grandfather.
One and a half million Armenians perished in those years at the hands of the
Turkish regime, the 20th century's first genocide.
On returning to their beautiful home in Marash a couple of years later, Mary
and son Vahey, who was then about 6 years old, found it had been ransacked.
Their fine tapestries had been pulled off the walls, ripped and urinated on.
Everything that could be carried out had been stolen, and everything else
had been deliberately broken. Everything. Every single pane of glass in the
French doors was broken, even handles on drawers were destroyed.
Eventually, the hardships of their life led my father and grandmother to do
what millions of persecuted people have done over the last few hundred
years. They made the long voyage to the one country that welcomed them and
offered them freedom and an opportunity for a new life - the most blessed
nation on earth, their promised land: America.
Life wasn't easy in this new land, but both mother and son managed to
overcome many obstacles, learned English eagerly, built a life for
themselves, went to college and pursued careers. Dad got married and had a
family. I was the middle of three children; he provided for us, protected
us, worried about us, loved us. He also rose to the top of his chosen
profession - aeronautical engineering - becoming the Army's "Chief Scientist
for Ballistic Missile Defense." He lived a good and full life in a blessed
land.
That's just one story - my story. Now multiply it by millions of similar
cases of dispossessed and persecuted people coming to America, and you'll
have a vague idea of what America has long represented to the freedom-loving
people of this world.
Born Greek-Armenian, my dad became an American, as did thousands of other
Armenians fleeing the genocide. As did Jews fleeing the Nazi Holocaust,
Chinese seeking freedom from totalitarianism, Vietnamese and Cambodians
escaping from their war-ravaged land, and countless others coming to America
for a better life - starting with the English Pilgrims that came here to
escape religious persecution. In short, the "huddled masses yearning to
breathe free" have come to these shores from every land, speaking every
language - but wanting to become Americans.
'Mother of exiles'
Inscribed in bronze at the base of the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus'
transcendent 1883 poem, "The New Colossus," captures the spirit of America's
big-heartedness and generosity perhaps more than anything else, except for
"Lady Liberty" herself.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from
land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty
woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild
eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. Give
me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The
wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless,
tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
There has always been something different about America, which enabled this
magnanimous nation to wrap her arms around the "wretched refuse" of other
nations.
This nation of immigrants was bound together by a spirit, you might say. For
although one cannot become French or Chinese or Russian, one can become an
American - by embracing that spirit.
Becoming a naturalized American citizen therefore meant more than passing
the federal government's screening process and stumbling through a few
civics questions. It meant an implicit and heartfelt agreement to abide not
only by the nation's laws, but by its hidden, unwritten "laws" as well - the
principles that made up the invisible but vital fabric of Western
Civilization: the individual as citizen-sovereign; a balance of freedom and
responsibility; unlimited opportunity - to succeed or fail; independence and
self-reliance; tolerance; the work ethic; equality under the law; and other
core Judeo-Christian values.
Underlying all of this, in turn, was the common belief - a belief so deep
and unquestioned that it underpinned all of our major institutions - that
there is a God, that He is the God of the Bible, that the 10 Commandments
and the Sermon on the Mount are the foundation of a good life and a great
society, and that America had been uniquely blessed by that God. These were
the underlying assumptions infusing America's dominant culture.
All that started to change in the 1960s. Actually, the nation's moral and
cultural foundation had been under attack for decades, but the '60s is when
the attacks literally spilled out into America's streets, resulting in
unprecedented cultural chaos by decade's end.
One of the first times I personally remember feeling the foundations of
America tremble was in 1964 during my 9th-grade civics class. A girl - I
don't remember her name, but I think she was from Tennessee and she had a
very thick southern accent - answered a question from the teacher by
mentioning something about God.
"How do you know there is a God?" the teacher shot back.
It was like an earth tremor - just a faint quiver really, a precursor to the
tidal waves to come a few years later - a smiling, casual, off-handed swipe
at "the world as we knew it."
How did the little southern girl know there was a God? Clearly taken aback,
she answered the teacher earnestly, incredulously, her voice breaking:
"Because ... there is!" She had, quite naturally, offered up the best answer
anyone could possibly give.
The teacher had questioned the unquestionable, injecting doubt into a room
of impressionable young boys and girls. It was one of those moments you
remember 40 years later because it created a spark, a momentary contact with
another dimension - that alien dimension of cynicism and disbelief.
Within a few years, the gathering tides of rebellion against traditional
America would come crashing down with great ferocity and on many shores. One
key area was the Civil Rights Movement.
Despite the fact that America had long-since forsaken slavery, and - thanks
to the movement led by Martin Luther King Jr., which culminated in the
landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act - had outlawed segregation and made great
strides in moving beyond racism altogether, a demand for "black studies"
nevertheless arose in the nation's colleges.
The idea was that past denigration and mistreatment of blacks necessitated
special emphasis on their culture and accomplishments. "Black pride" was
born and "black studies," "black history" and the like proliferated through
the nation's university campuses.
Although most people didn't comprehend it at the time, "black pride" and
similar "liberation movements" did not arise out of the mainstream of the
Civil Rights Movement, which had arrived, in King's famous "I have a dream"
speech, at the ultimate solution to racism: the "color-blind" society where
people would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character." This enlightened vision of America - which would have
completed the promise of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are
created equal" - was hijacked by forces of the '60s radical left. These were
people who did not want peace and racial harmony. They condemned racial
integration as "Uncle Tomism" and "co-optation." Their aim was to indict
America as a racist oppressor as a means to foment division, revolution and
societal transformation.
But all this was off the radar of most Americans, who, under the sway
perhaps of the nation's collective guilt over slavery and segregation,
cautiously accepted "black studies."
It didn't end there, however. Soon there were "women's studies" and "gay and
lesbian" studies. Before long, the world of academia was awash in
"multiculturalism."
Wait a minute, you might ask, what's wrong with multiculturalism? Doesn't
exposing students to other cultures and values serve to enrich their
understanding of the world and its peoples?"
Of course. And there would be nothing wrong if that was what was actually
going on.
In reality, however, as Robert Bork explains in "Slouching Towards
Gomorrah," multiculturalism had been conjured up solely to serve as a
battering ram, "a philosophy of antagonism to America and the West," an
"attack on America, the European-American culture, and the white race, with
special emphasis on white males ..." The proof, he noted, is evident in the
multicultural curriculum choices:
A curriculum designed to foster understanding of other cultures would study
those cultures. Multiculturalism does not. Courses are not offered on the
cultures of China or India or Brazil or Nigeria, nor does the curriculum
require the study of languages without which foreign cultures cannot be
fully understood. Instead the focus is on groups that, allegedly, have been
subjected to oppression by American and Western civilization - homosexuals,
American Indians, blacks, Hispanics, women, and so on. The message is not
that all cultures are to be respected, but that European culture, which
created the dominance of white males, is uniquely evil. Multiculturalism
follows the agenda of modern liberalism, and it comes straight from the
Sixties counterculture. But now, in American education, it is the dominant
culture.
To fathom what's been happening to America, you simply must understand that
during the 1960s, the moral foundation of America came under a full-blown
assault. The radicals of the '60s - including, by the way, Bill and Hillary
Clinton - have today either taken over or profoundly altered the key
institutions they originally wanted to destroy, from government to the news
media, from education to religion.
A generation later, the various "liberation" movements - "sexual
liberation," "women's liberation," "gay liberation" and so on - have
blossomed into rampant infidelity, divorce and family breakdown, gender
confusion, AIDS, abortion and other mammoth problems. Moreover, the
multicultural madness that started in the '60s has infused virtually all of
American society with unending confusion.
Today, in the rarified but toxic air of multiculturalism and political
correctness, all cultures and all values are of equal value: The most
ignorant, oppressive, suffocating, women-hating culture, where young
people's hands and feet are amputated as punishment for petty offenses, is
now worthy of equal respect to Western culture, which has provided most of
the world's knowledge, progress, food, medicine, technology, quality of
life, representative government and liberty.
This virtual brainwashing of a generation has had its intended effect. New
York Times journalist Richard Bernstein spent two years documenting the
effects of multicultural ideology. The result, notes Bork, "is not an
impressionistic book or one based on an ideological predisposition; it is a
report of empirical findings."
He points, for example, to the remarkable change in attitude towards
Christopher Columbus between 1892 and 1992. Though not a single new fact
about Columbus's life and exploits had been uncovered, the country's mood
swung from one of uncritical adulation to one of loathing and condemnation,
at least among the members of the "intellectual" class. The change was
accomplished by the aggressive ideology of multiculturalism. The Columbus
turnaround is merely a specific instance of more general alterations in our
moral landscape.
Another example: Thanksgiving visitors to historic Plymouth Rock should be
prepared for a shock, writes Douglas Phillips, president of Vision Forum.
"If you walk fewer than a hundred yards from Plymouth Rock and ascend to
Cole's Hill, the magnificent burial ground of the 50 Pilgrims who perished
during the first cold winter of 1620, you not only will encounter hundreds
of demonstrators who gather on the last Thursday of every November to
disabuse the memory of the Pilgrim fathers. But you also can read the new
monument plaque that describes the devastating effect of Christianity on
North America, the 'genocide' of Native Americans by the Pilgrims and the
importance of treating Thanksgiving as a 'National Day of Mourning.'"
This moral inversion caused by multiculturalism, which proclaims that all
cultures are equal, has extended to virtually every area of society:
All religions are equal: Witches and Satanists are now afforded the same
respect as Christians and Jews. As just one example, U.S. District Court
Judge Dennis W. Dohnal ruled in 2003 that officials in Chesterfield County,
Va., discriminated against Cyndi Simpson, a Wiccan, when they barred her
from opening the board of supervisors' meetings with prayer.
Britain's Royal Navy went a step further, allowing an officer to conduct
satanic rituals on board one of its ships. Chris Cranmer, a 24-year-old
naval technician and non-commissioned officer on the frigate Cumberland, was
given his own satanic altar where he could dress up in black robes and
perform ceremonies to worship the devil using bells and candles. Cranmer
says he's a "Magistrate of the Society of the Onyx Star Black Guard," and
believes he is evil.
"From a military perspective, I believe in vengeance. If I were asked if I
were evil, I would say yes," he told London's Daily Mail newspaper, which
notes that permission to worship on board was granted the Satan-worshipper
under equal-opportunities legislation.
As with religion, where good and evil now are afforded equal respect, so in
the area of sexuality, what was bizarre and unmentionable a generation ago
is today a civil right:
All sexuality is equal: In 2004, thousands of same-sex marriage ceremonies
were conducted throughout the U.S. - in open defiance of the law - under the
banner of fundamental fairness and non-discrimination.
Even adult-child sex - euphemistically called "intergenerational sex" - is
making surprising headway into the mainstream, based on today's pervasive
climate of moral equivalence among all forms of consensual "love."
Self-righteous child-molesters claim their cause is simply the latest in a
long line of civil rights movements and eagerly anticipate the day society
will shed its ancient taboos and grant full "sexual rights" to young
children and the adults that "love" them.
This worldview whereby we declare all human cultures and moral codes, from
the fairest to the foulest, to be equal in value is made possible only by
the total abandonment of any objective standard of right and wrong.
Despite the fact that multiculturalism has rewritten history, demonized
Western culture and turned civilization on its head for a generation,
Americans for the most part just floated along with this charade, year after
confusing year - until Sept. 11, 2001.
The otherworldly shock and horror that we experienced on that particular
Tuesday morning was followed by a crash course in radical Islam - a very
strange and menacing culture indeed.
We learned that those who wantonly murdered thousands of American civilians
and threatened even greater destruction justified their acts as being
required of them by Allah. We learned that "shaheeds" (martyrs) - those
Muslims who die while killing "infidels" ("unbelievers," primarily Jews but
also Christians and Americans generally) in "jihad" or holy war - are
indoctrinated, often from an early age, by radical Islamic clerics.
And what is the jihad message taught in so many mosques and madrassas
(religious schools) throughout the Middle East? Just this: As soon as the
first drop of your blood is shed in jihad, you will feel no pain, all your
sins will be forgiven, and you will be transported instantly to paradise
where you will recline comfortably for eternity on plush green cushions, to
be lavished with the choicest meats, the finest wines and endless sex with
70 virgins. In addition, all of your family members will be admitted into
heaven, as part of your reward.
We learned that our nation's borders were scandalously unprotected and our
immigration policies full of holes easily exploited by terrorists. We
learned that our beloved country was targeted for even more horrific terror
attacks - using biological, chemical or even nuclear weapons - by a maniacal
cult of jihadists spread out over 60 nations. We learned that "terror cells"
and "sleeper" suicide warriors were already in the U.S., intending to strike
and inflict indiscriminate terror and death. We learned that a
well-developed network of Islamic terror supporters was operating freely
within the open American system, conducting fundraisers and providing
support for known terror groups - in their mosques, meeting halls, and even
on American college campuses.
How exactly did the United States of America "become the scene of one of the
most hideously bedeviled conflicts of all time?" asked New York University
literature professor Carol Iannone in the New York Press.
Quite simply, it happened because America lost its grasp of its own historic
character, and embraced "diversity" as a national goal. In the name of
equality and nondiscrimination we invited mass immigration from every part
of the globe, and made no demands on the newcomers to become Americans. In
fact, we gave up our American core, adopted multiculturalism and declared
all cultures equal. We invited the new groups to celebrate themselves while
we cravenly permitted libelous denigration of our own past. Like fools we
prated that diversity is our strength, when common sense and all of history
tell us that strength comes from unity.
Absolute nondiscrimination meant we no longer enforced standards, made
judgments, distinguished between good and evil, friend and foe. We grew
lazy, stupid and careless - about our borders, about national security, even
about previous terrorist attacks against us. We worried over our "hate
crimes" and our "racial profiling," while men resided in our midst who
seethed with murderous fury even against our children and plotted our
destruction. Now we have a fifth column, fear further assaults and labor
under a draconian security regime that is changing the nature of our lives.
Marketing multiculturalism
It's easy to blame '60s radicals, university Marxists, cowardly politicians
and an elitist press for today's multicultural madness. But the fact is,
millions of Americans have bought into it. Why?
Isn't it obvious? Since the 1960s, America - from her government to her
schools and even to her churches - has steadily fallen away from the
Judeo-Christian values that previously illuminated and gave life and
strength to the nation's institutions. This is equivalent to turning out the
country's lights: And when you turn out the lights, everything looks the
same color in the dark - that's multiculturalism.
Moreover, no longer guided by universal standards of right and wrong,
Americans have had nothing more reliable than their own feelings to guide
them in the moral realm. And as modern marketing well knows, when people are
operating primarily on the basis of feelings and emotions, they're wide open
to every sort of manipulation imaginable.
Remember, marketing is the application of the knowledge of human psychology
to the task of persuasion. And what psychology has taught the marketing
world is that the most powerful persuasion of all takes place not through
above-the-board appeals to reason, but by directly targeting the emotions.
By way of illustration, cigarettes were once sold on the basis of "great
taste" and "fine tobacco." Not all that convincing - but then, there aren't
a whole lot of "benefits" and "features" to sell with cigarettes. Then along
came the "Marlboro Man." Created in 1955 for Philip Morris Co. by
advertising giant Leo Burnett, this icon of the quintessential American
cowboy is probably the most famous brand image to appear in our lifetimes.
The rugged, masculine trademark made Marlboro the world's best-selling
cigarette.
What does the "Marlboro Man" - a rancher on a horse - have to do with
cigarettes? Nothing, except that the ubiquitous cowboy evoked within
millions of men feelings of masculinity, independence, wide open spaces and
freedom. So successful has been the decades-old campaign that on some ads
the image is reduced to little more than a saddle and a splash of red, but -
like Pavlov's bell - it still subtly makes people salivate for the mythical
place called Marlboro Country.
For the last generation, commercial marketing has aimed not so much at
extolling the intrinsic value or usefulness of a product to consumers, but
rather, at conditioning the consumer to associate the product with a
particular feeling.
Bottom line: If the marketer can elicit in you a feeling - the right feeling
- he has won. Game over.
With this principle in mind, let's look at how the public is so easily
persuaded to abandoned long-held loyalties. How are people so easily
persuaded that Columbus, a national hero for 500 years, and the Pilgrims,
revered and studied by generations of school children, were actually
genocidal racists? How are our former sentiments opposing homosexuality or
Wicca so readily transformed into "enlightened tolerance" and open support?
Pick a topic - let's say, same-sex marriage.
Imagine you're participating in a televised one-on-one debate. You're
defending traditional marriage. There you are on one side of the set, and
facing off against you is a lesbian. Not just any lesbian, but an
attractive, young, eloquent, educated, sensitive, well-dressed lesbian - and
to all appearances a fine human being. She looks you right in the eye and
says, in a disarmingly mainstream and reasonable tone: "I love my country, I
obey its laws and I pay my taxes. I'm an American, and have all the same
rights you do. In fact, I've served my country in the military and have put
my life on the line. I've lived monogamously with my partner for 18 years.
We truly love each other and want nothing more than to be married and to
live out our lives in peace and happiness - just like you. What's the matter
with that? Why shouldn't we be allowed to be married? How does it hurt you?"
You have 30 seconds to respond before the commercial break.
How can you neutralize the powerful, positive emotions your opponent has
skillfully invoked? Will you offer up a statement about the dangers of
altering the traditional definition of marriage? Will you point out that
children do better with both a mother and father? Will you say the Bible
clearly condemns homosexual acts?
The debate will be won by whoever touches the most feelings, the strongest
emotions of sympathy in the audience.
Therefore, unless you're an extraordinarily gifted and charismatic debater -
you lose. And when you lose, millions of people out in TV land are pulled a
few inches further away from common sense values, and a few inches closer to
embracing, or at least resigning themselves to accepting, same-sex marriage.
The lesbian debater appeals to Americans' basic traits of tolerance,
inclusiveness, fair-mindedness and honor toward veterans. Every statement
she makes tends to create in the viewer positive feelings, not toward
same-sex marriage per se, but toward her - yet it's the viewers' attitudes
toward same-sex marriage that will change.
Each hidden persuasion is like "money" accruing in the "emotional bank
account" of the listener - and when there are enough funds (strong feelings
of sympathy) in the listener's account, he or she has been "persuaded" of
the justness of these two women being married. Of if not persuaded, at least
"neutralized" in terms of offering any effective opposition to same-sex
marriage.
Watch how the feelings accumulate in the listener's "bank account" until
they reach critical mass: "I love my country" (patriotism - cha-ching). "I
obey its laws and I pay my taxes" (responsible citizen - cha-ching). "I'm an
American, and have all the same rights you do" (appeal to fairness -
cha-ching). "I've served my country in the military and have put my life on
the line" (she's a veteran! - double cha-ching). "I've lived monogamously
with my partner for 18 years" (loyalty - cha-ching). "We truly love each
other and want nothing more than to be married and to live out our lives in
peace and happiness - just like you" (true love - cha-ching). "Why shouldn't
we be allowed to be married? How does it hurt you?" (personal intimidation -
cha-ching).
Now imagine how the television viewers are reacting to this debate.
Many of us in the audience find our feelings have been stirred by the
lesbian's touching appeal. We like her. We want her to be happy. Our
positive feelings toward her start to subtly eat away at our long-held
conviction that same-sex marriage is wrong. Those warm emotions give rise to
a stream of thought-whispers that orbit our minds at light speed: Maybe I've
judged these people too harshly just because they're different. Maybe they
could make each other happy if they were married. After all, heterosexual
married couples have lots of problems, and half of them get divorced - so
what difference does it really make? We start to doubt our prior beliefs,
wondering if they're as hallowed as we've thought, or rather just some
antiquated religious notions about sex and sin that don't really apply in
today's world. Then the thought occurs to us, as though from divine
revelation: Don't we all long to love and be loved? Maybe that is the
ultimate truth. She's right, it doesn't hurt anyone else for her to be
married to her partner. It's mean-spirited to deny other human beings their
happiness. I like her. I want her to be happy.
Seduction complete.
If we were anchored in the Judeo-Christian moral standards that are
responsible for the singular success of the Western World, all this
emotional persuasion would be for naught. We'd easily discern the truth of
the debate and just be amused at the feeble attempts at manipulating our
feelings. But after several decades of public education that reflects not
the values of the nation's founders, but those of '60s radicals and
reformers, millions of Americans are just plain confused.
The farther we stray from the rock of unchanging spiritual principles, the
easier it is to get swept away by clever appeals to our feelings - including
the need to prove to others that we are "tolerant." Increasingly, that means
"tolerant" of evil.
There's no end to the variety of emotional manipulations to which we fall
prey, and there are no words to describe the stunning ease with which we
have been seduced to throw away that which is most precious to us.
In C.S. Lewis's seven-volume "Chronicles of Narnia," the poignant and
brilliantly insightful final book, "The Last Battle," describes how the
good-hearted but naïve inhabitants of Narnia throw away their cherished
civilization - losing both their lives and their world itself - by falling
for a shabby ruse perpetrated by a few cunning and unprincipled characters
When you read it, you can't help thinking, "Oh my gosh, this isn't even a
very clever con game; it's crude, full of contradictions, and easily seen
through from a thousand different directions." You just want to shake them
and say, "Don't you see what you're falling for?"
Nevertheless, as the con men ruthlessly play on the doubts and fears of the
Narnia folk, their lies take hold and the light of civilization goes out.
Haven't we in America done exactly the same thing? Look at the shabby ruse
we've fallen for. We've traded Western Civilization for vain delusions,
cheap thrills and laughably illogical doctrines. Like the townsfolk in "The
Emperor's New Clothes," we all know the king is wearing no clothes - we can
plainly see the truth - but we play along out of fear and intimidation.
We're afraid of confrontation, of losing the love and approval of others, of
being labeled "judgmental," "racist," "bigoted" or "homophobic." So, we
quietly allow our minds to be twisted, as we surrender our former beliefs
and bequeath an unknown country to our children and grandchildren.
How strange. Out of the thousands of years of suffering and oppression that
comprise human history, a light burns brightly for just a couple hundred
years. The American experiment - a revolutionary idea that the common man
can be free, master of his own government, so long as he himself is ruled by
God. For a short time this brilliant young country dazzles all the world and
all of history, not just with its power and productivity and progress, but
with its goodness.
And then, out of pure hatred - the same rage and rebellion institutionalized
in communism, Nazism and all the other "isms" that have paved the world's
roads with corpses throughout the last century - haters of Truth scheme to
extinguish this shining light. So they concoct an absurd, fantastic ruse -
that cannibal societies are as worthwhile as Western ones, that animals
should have the same rights as human beings, that white people are
inherently racist and oppressive, that sexual perversion is perfectly normal
and noble, each passing year bringing new and more bizarre delusions to be
held up as truth.
How much stranger still that we've bought it.
Can we get the real America back? Only time will tell. But if we do, it very
likely will be due to the efforts of the current generation, which still has
some memory of the real America.
The "great melting pot" - E. pluribus unum - depended on an ideal. But the
melting pot become corrupted without this guiding spirit. Millions now
residing here are not loyal to American values. Rather than unified and
"color-blind," the nation is divided and segregated. On top of everything
else, America literally has been invaded and we are at war.
Recognizing they must take rapid steps to reverse course, policy makers
entertain options for better policing the nation's borders, screening
potential immigrants and re-evaluating those already in. But just over the
horizon is the more painful work - of revisiting the madness of
multiculturalism, political correctness, rebellion against America's
founding values and the spiritual confusion that rebellion has caused. But
revisit them we must, since it is they that have led to both the present
invasion and the resulting near-paralysis over how to deal with the problem.
If we don't change course, America will end up the loser. Even if the
current "terror war" went away - if it were all only a bad dream from which
we awoke with the World Trade Center towers still standing - we would still
lose America to the long-term invasion and conversion of our basic identity
that has been under way for decades.
Epilogue
Toward the end of her life, my grandmother Mary Kupelian wanted to travel
overseas one last time to visit her old-country relatives. I went with her,
as her bodyguard, you might say. I will never forget the time I spent with
her and those in her village - virtually all of whom, it seemed, were
somehow related to me. I will never forget her stories about what she and my
father went through during the Armenian genocide, and I'll never forget what
a survivor she was, to pick up the few shattered pieces of their lives and
to come to America to start over.
And I will never ever forget the night we finally returned to the United
States. Our plane from Athens arrived at New York's Kennedy Airport too late
for us to make our connection to Washington, D.C., so Grandmom and I slept
in the airport terminal that night, up in the second floor lounge. We were
both tired, and very happy to be back in America.
After a while, Grandmom shuffled off to the ladies' room. On her return, she
described for me - her old woman's voice brimming with excitement - how
everything in the restroom was so clean and shiny and modern, how there was
hot and cold running water, how everything worked properly - so totally
different from where we had just been. And she said she felt like kneeling
down and kissing America - right there on the floor of the restroom of JFK
airport - so grateful was she for being back in the USA.
My grandmother, who decades earlier as a "homeless, tempest-tossed"
immigrant had found refuge in this generous land, had once more come home
through the "golden door."
To this day, whether due to some special blessing from God or just because
there's so much contrasting darkness throughout the rest of the world,
America remains - despite unrelenting assaults by enemies within and without
- the national light of the world. May she always remain so.
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The preceding has been excerpted from the February edition of WND's monthly
Whistleblower magazine, a comprehensive expose of multiculturalism and its
effects on America. The article is an abbreviated version of a more in-depth
exploration of multiculturalism from the forthcoming book by David Kupelian,
"The Marketing of Evil."
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David Kupelian is vice president and managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com
and Whistleblower magazine, and author of the forthcoming book, "The
Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us
Corruption Disguised as Freedom.