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October 12, 2008

Contemplating Columbus Day: Once, We Had Heroes

By David Yeagley

I’m just an Oklahoma Indian. I can’t explain America’s modern disdain for greatness.

Once, we had heroes. Today, we have "rock stars," male or female (Beyonce), dead (Elvis) or alive. America has political "rock stars," too—like Barack Hussein Obama, a foreign (?) [VDARE.COM note: Or not] Negro who excites absolutely unmerited public hysteria. In times of social confusion, the need of an object for catharsis seems exigent.

America once had worthier objects of admiration. Social emotion was spent on those who demonstrated successful values. America once lavished the wreaths of honor on real achievement. Hysteria was more historical. Mania was marked by a clearer relationship between the quality of the man and the condition of his worshippers.

Such a relationship may still exist, but, judging from many media idols of modernity, we gasp in dismay: "You value that?!"

In 1828, Christopher Columbus was extremely popular in American society. American author Washington Irving published a four volume work called The Life and Voyages of Columbus. It was released first in London, then in a three volume edition in America, by G. & C. Carvill (New York). It was translated into many languages, and published in a dozen countries. There were ninety printings in the next thirty years. Irving’s work was but one thrilling wave in the ever-increscent tide of international cultural adulation for Christopher Columbus.

William E. Curtis, State Department’s Director of Bureau of the American Republics, created the Convent of La Rabida at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The crowning exhibit was a replica of the convent in Spain where Columbus laid his plans to sail west, beyond the Ocean Sea. Curtis said it was

"a fact that the effigy of ‘the Admiral of the Indies’ has been painted and carved more often, perhaps than [that] of any other except the Saviour of Mankind, and that the world is reminded of its obligations to him [Columbus] by more monuments than have been reared to the honor of any other hero of history." (Chautauguan, p.4. See Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise, p.348).

America was to be forever and intimately connected with the Genovese Titan. America was that great. America deserved such a hero. America was the culmination of centuries of European civilization and development. There must be a name to go with it all.

That name was Columbus. America was once called "Columbia." Columbia, Gem of the Ocean and Hail Columbia were both in the running for the national anthem in the nineteenth century.

But that was a different day. Much of modern American society has thrown history to the wind. Thanks to the liberal control over the American educational system, there is no history—only race, sex, visceral anti-Christianity, and straightforward indoctrination with anti-American values.

The unleashed passions of a confused multicultural society naturally focus on the antithesis of a character like Columbus. Today America must have a Obama, a left-wing radical, an international, interracial, figure, to ride the wave of juvenile abandon. The American public is dizzy with vagaries, ambiguities, uncertainties, and all such ideological opiates that allow the lower nature to ascend. This is what Obama represents—the lower, weaker nature of the populace. He calls forth decided dependency, with the presumption of rights and deserts.

Of course modern American society hates Columbus. Columbus represents a depth of character and purpose that is not only incomprehensible to the infantile, but frightening, and therefore evil.

A vast array of educators, who themselves have contributed little or nothing of creative, constructive value to society or to human personhood, cannot see anything worthy of emulation in Columbus. They despise the motivation of religion, and offer essentially psychological nihilism to young people. Worse, they offer the spirit of anger, resentment, protest, and dissatisfaction. They dress a natural, puerile rebellion in the vapid attire of academic ideology, perpetuating immaturity—of thought and character.

True power of personhood is despised. The raw strength of a man is anathematized. Columbus is the devil, to them, the ultimate dead white European male. Liberals prefer the living, black Barack, tantalizingly exotic, Hussein Obama.

What do Republicans offer in contrast to the anti-American, Third World Negro? Sarah Palin, a patriotic white female American from the northern regions. It seems inexorable. The great white male is simply "out."

Recognition of true greatness is also out. Which is why America lionizes political "rock stars," social architects (attorneys) demographic engineers (congressmen), movie actors and media personalities. (You know your society is sinking when mere news reporters vie with government leaders for social authority.)

Ann Coulter says anti-Americanism is a modern WASP, Ivy League tradition, writing that "McCarthy's real 'victims' were ...elite WASP establishment policy-makers. Sedition always held a strange attraction for Ivy League types with three names, like John Stewart Service, Harry Dexter White, George Catlett Marshall, and William Sloane Coffin. It was a quirky thing about WASPs. They took perverse pride in harboring the periodic traitor." [Treason, p.83].

So is this all an Oedipal problem?

Dr. David A. eagley [email him] is an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation (Lawton, Oklahoma). His articles have appeared in TheAmericanEnterprise.com, FrontPageMagazine.com, VDARE.com, and on his own web site, BadEagle.com. He is a speaker for the Young America’s Foundation, and for the John Birch Society. David Yeagley’s columns for VDARE.COM include An American Indian View of Immigration, and To Deport or not to Deport. David Yeagley is the author of Bad Eagle: The Rantings of a Conservative Comanche and Altered States: The State of the Dead and the State of the Holy . Dr. Yeagley has contributed to Persian Heritage Magazine and served its editorial board since 1998. Recently, Dr. Yeagley was commissioned by the Oklahoma Historical Society to write a symphonic music score for the 1920 silent movie, “Daughter of Dawn”. Release date is projected in 2009.