Proteus over at Eject! Eject! Eject! has a series of articles entitled Eject! Eject! Eject!: STRENGTH (part 1) and Eject! Eject! Eject!: STRENGTH (part 2).
Proteus’s forthcoming book of essays are something I look forward to purchasing, even though they will continue to be online for free. His essay Power was my introduction to Proteus and I’ve been a big fan ever since.
His latest essay is a worthy read as well. I’m tempted to quote it, but every section I clip is just too big. I hate to chant the standard mantra of bloggers, but Go Read The Whole Thing.
Done?
OK, the heart of the essay (which does tend to ramble a bit) is:
Because we, the American people, are the only ones who can decide whether or not to give up in failure and defeat or carry on to the victory of a free and stable Iraq, we find we ourselves – the common, average American – are to be the battleground. We are the soldiers. We are the weapons. We are the targets of the enemy strategy. Our hearts, our spirit – that is the front line. All the players know this, too. This is our war, more than it is the Marines’ or Al Quaeda’s.
Our war. Ours.
So we need to find the strength to fight this war. And this search will not be a quick or easy one, for our strength lies both obvious and on the surface in some places, and in other places, very, very deep.
This is a critical, essential search, for the manifest strengths and beauty of our Western Society have been under such sustained attack, for so long, that we are beginning to believe this parade of lies launched against us. We have to stop it. We have to fight it. And we have to beat it. On this everything else depends.
This will be a long and circuitous journey. I’m sorry; I wish it were not so. But we must, we must find the strength we need to sustain our spirits against an onrush of negativity, pessimism, defeatism and despair that is so deadly precisely because it is so antithetical to the natural character of the American people.