Comments on: Poor Mexico, Poor America: One More Time

By: Don Guillermo

Don Guillermo — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:03:44 +0000

Dr. Fleming's words are prophetic. Realistically, however, there is nothing we can do to reverse these trends short of coercion, and that would be immoral. So, I've resigned myself to the decline of Western culture and civilization, and see my own role and that of kindred spirits like Dr. Fleming, as "a candle in the night." I don't expect to reverse the night, but I hope to "keep the fire burning" through the night. The West is already falling, and it deserves to fall because it has rebelled against God, and God is just. There is a Judgment Day, when God will put all aright, and the predators whom we have had to suffer will receive their recompense, as we will ours. The West will fall, but God will never allow Christianity to perish. As long as we resist the evil, we are not defeated. It is because of our candles in the night and God's abundant grace that Christianity will endure in the post-Western era. Naturally, we must salvage the best of our Western heritage and preserve it for future generations, but we must do so knowing that we are the antiquarians of a great civilization that is already dead. Our mourning is our resistance. Yet, we know how the Story ends, we know that our side, God's side, wins, and that is our hope.

By: mark

mark — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:58:52 +0000

I don't care if Mexicans learn Virgil or not. Why should anyone? They're Aztecs, for god's sakes. Whether they do or don't learn of their rich cultural heritage is of no concern to me. Frankly they are not going to go away and by sheer willpower they will inherit California, it appears. What we are fretting about here is a psychological problem not amenable to education, classical or otherwise. The Mexicans want their land back and we don't know how to oppose them because the American citizenry doesn't know how to conceptually deal with the anxieties of holding on to the territory one has been bequeathed. We have never been invaded before, in short. Give us some time. Sooner or later these anxieties will work themselves through the political system. Perhaps a new party dedicated purely to land concerns of the type we are experiencing will form, and we will dispense with the stupid and worn-out concepts of "Right" and "Left" and other idiocies.

By: TJF

TJF — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:28:41 +0000

I thank Dr. Wilson for reminding this senile old man of what he has told me more than once about the Gonzalez family of SC. I would say, in defense of Spain, that compared with the Yankee empire that fought them in Cuba, the Spanish imperialists by the end of the 19th century were fairly benign. Even in their heyday in Mexico, the Spanish--greedy, corrupt, and inefficient as they were--were better rulers than the Mexican elites have proved to be.

By: Clyde Wilson

Clyde Wilson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:47:16 +0000

Dr. Fleming, The Gonzales brothers of Carolina were Cubans whose sister or aunt married into the distinguished Low Country Elliott family in the antebellum period. (William Elliott, author of a marvellous, outstanding piece of American literature, CAROLINA SPORTS BY LAND AND WATER.) There was considerable interchange and sympathy between Charleston and Havana in that period. Both Cubans and Carolinians living between a black population and a nasty imperial power (Spain and Yankees). Just opposite the capitol in Columbia is a monument to Nathan Gonzales, who was killed on that spot by a brother of Governor Pitchford Ben Tillman for a newspaper editorial he had written.

By: Sean Scallon

Sean Scallon — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:05:44 +0000

It makes sense to at least try an recreat something like the culture of 100 years ago where immigrants could assimilate into a broader Anglo-Celtic-American culture of its founding either in school, work or in the voting booth while maintaining the local language and writing close to home.

You don't think the WASPs of yesteryear were just as alarmed at all the Eastern European Jews and the socialist ideas some of them had pouring into New York? And yet, because of the broader culture of that time, there was no Bolshevik Revolution in the U.S. Today we have even more exotic immigrant groups coming to the U.S. and the WASPs can only ponder whether or not abhorring femal genital multilation is cultural bigotry or not.

Recreating this culture is the best of a bad situation and may very well liberate European Amnewricans from their self-hate and self-absement. Not doing so could very well lead to a bilingualism similar to that of Canada enshrined in the Constitution, a serious Chicano separatist movement in the Southwest similar to that in Quebec and a political correctness with the force of law, as we also see in Canada and Europe.

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:00:58 +0000

An example of how relatively normal Spain is: Spanish basketball team poses for offensive picture (and continues to deny that it's offensive. It's only offensive in loony societies like America.)

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:20:29 +0000

Dr. Fleming,

since the poor tend to be more nationalistic, I suspect the Mexicans find the idea of reconquest comforting.

Also, I find even left wing foreigners will become nostalgic for their homeland when in America.

However, the Mexicans I've met haven't ever mentioned reconquest...

By: TJF

TJF — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:33:16 +0000

One thing I cannot figure out is how many Mexicans actually care about the propaganda. The ones I run into, apart from middle class college kids of the 2nd and 3rd generations, seem more interested in getting a job or dealing drugs. They do bring with them an anti-European ideology but most have been too poor and ignorant to have much of any ideology. Don't worry, though, our public schools and media and ethnic wardheelers will do their best.

By: Allen Wilson

Allen Wilson — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:09:51 +0000

Arkansas has a small Spanish influence centered mainly in Hot Springs, which is alleged to have been discovered by Hernando De Soto. This story is more or less the founding myth of the state. It is for this reason that the old bath houses on Bath House Row are mostly done in a Spanish colonial style. When De Soto left the hot springs, heading North and eventually to Oklahoma, he passed through the area where I am right now, and the path he likely took can still be traced in areas, but without any real certainty.

I believe that De Soto financed that expedition with his share of looted Inca gold.

There are legends of lost Spanish silver mines in this area, and when I was a teenager, my neighbour pointed one out to me, located off a dirt road way back in the woods, under a hole of water. The story was that after the Spaniards left, the creek eventually changed course and covered the old mine. He claimed to have swam down into the mine when he was a teenager. There apparently was a hole under the creek, but whether it really was an old Spanish mine is another question.

Mexicans who come here dont seem to care about the Spanish part of local history, and so far, it hasn't been warped into a multicultural Mexican-appeasing propaganda campaign, but give them time.

By: TJF

TJF — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:59:25 +0000

An autobiographical note: I have both Scottish and Irish ancestors, though the Irish may have been refugees from the '45. My Scottish Calvinist great grandmother, however, converted when she married a Catholic. I was brought up as an anti-Christian atheist, though by my early teens we occasionally, for reasons of propriety, attended the Episcopal Church, which I joined formally in my early 20's. When my father died, some 25 years ago, I began to think of returning to his family's tradition, which is the tradition of the West, whether one likes it or not.

One aspect of Spanish influence on the Low Country can be seen in the architecture and cuisine that English colonists brought by way of Barbados, where some of the more important families had been established before moving to Carolina. There are a few Spanish surnames in the state, including Gonzalez, a famous newspaper editor 100 years ago, but I don't know whence or when they came. Louisiana, however, has a great deal of Spanish blood, and not just form the Canary Islands, though it has mostly merged with the French. Ironically, I have never taken much interest in Spain or the Spanish language, not out of any hostility, but one gets caught up in other things. The best thing we could do for the Mexican immigrants is to teach them real Spanish, but, as I pointed out in my article, the Mexican national myth hates Spain, despite the transparent fact that the ruling class is predominantly Spanish and light Mestizo.