The Choice That Actually Counts

It is now obvious the "change" we were promised will be a trip back to 1999. I don't see how even the most ardent mob of Obama-worshippers, the one likely to go after me with torches and pitchforks for even daring to question their secular saint, could argue otherwise if and when Hillary Clinton takes over Foggy Bottom from Condi Rice.

So, now we know the "change" we're actually going to see is a n application of lipstick on the imperial pig, rather than translating the whole bloated monster into some tasty chops and sausage. What are you planning to do about it?

I didn't know about Antiwar.com when I first came to the U.S., back in 1996. I was a good little liberal-democrat leftist mainstream-media reader. Over the years, between them and LewRockwell.com, I've learned that being a patriotic American means opposing the Empire, not enabling it. Unlike some sites and magazines, Antiwar.com has been a consistent critic of Empire itself, rather than Democrats or Republicans that took turns at its helm. It should be intuitively obvious even to the most casual observer that the Empire is a bipartisan effort, and that opposing it isn't a matter of criticizing William J. Clinton, George W. Bush or Barack H. Obama personally, but as men who were elected to be chief magistrates of a confederated republic yet crowned themselves Emperors of the known universe instead.

Needless to say, serving the Empire is much more profitable in material terms than opposing it. But while American citizens and residents have no choice in giving up a portion of their earnings to the Leviathan, they do have a choice when it comes to supporting Antiwar.com. With the failing Empire trying to bolster its image (but not mend its ways) by crowning Obama, it's clear that the fight to save the American Republic is nowhere near over.

If you are true American patriots, if you believe in your country as "well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all" but "champion and vindicator only of her own," a country that "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy" but "will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example," then I urge you to contribute to Antiwar.com today and thus make a real choice for actual change.

Full disclosure: While I am a columnist for Antiwar.com, and they do pay me for it, this isn't about me. I would just as gladly write for free (and have in the past), because I believe in the ideas of liberty and justice.

Manufacturing Guilt

Commenting on Shirking Duty, Predrag writes:

The Serbs are generally conflict shame [sic] people, which will say it is very important for us not to offend even our enemies (up to a certain point). It may sound ridiculous but here are a couple of examples.
Even after all this wars that happened during the past decade I still have some “friends” of other Balkan nations. When I visit them at their homes, it is totally normal for them to have dozens of items showing their national insignia in their homes and they are proud about it. Serbs are different, when they are having a visit from a friend of another Balkan nationality; they tend to hide their national insignia so their visitor is not offended by it.

I've observed this phenomenon firsthand. It's perfectly OK to be a Slovenian, Croat, Albanian, "Bosniak" (whether with the lilacs or with the crescents, "Montenegrin" (of the Doclean kind) or whatnot, but God forbid you have an icon on the wall, let alone a flag or anything actually remotely national. It's perfectly OK for them to talk how they were "oppressed" and "victims of genocide," but when a Serb mentions politics that's "hurting their feelings."

Well, too bad. For them, I mean.

Here's how I riddle this. The whole conflict-avoidance/shame thing is an inferiority complex manufactured after WW2 to make the Serbs governable. Historically, Serbs are a tough lot to rule. Those princes and kings that ended up merely in exile were fortunate.

Consider also that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had an overtly anti-Serb platform; their principal enemy was "greater Serbian bourgeoisie," i.e. the crown and the merchants/free peasants that supported it. Originally (at least since its 1928 congress in Dresden), the CPY championed the abolition of Yugoslavia and the "liberation" of Croats, Slovenians, Macedonians, Montenegrins... oh, and the annexation of "Kosova" to Albania (that's a subject for another article...). The Nazis did exactly that in 1941, but by 1945 - thanks to Soviet and British support - the Communists found themselves in possession of Yugoslavia. Suddenly dividing it up did not seem like such a good idea. But how could they hang on to power in Serbia, where they were extremely unpopular?

The answer was to manufacture guilt. Long before the term "moral equivalence" was coined, the children in socialist Yugoslavia learned that Chetniks (Serbian royalists who fought for the king) were no different than the Ustasha (Croatian Nazis who conducted a mass extermination of Jews and Serbs so brutally even the German Nazis were disturbed by it). Anyone familiar with "political correctness" of today will recognize the matrix along which the Serbs - defined as "oppressors" of everyone else by the virtue of their existence - were treated in comparison with Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, Muslims and Montenegrins (the latter three given nationhood by Tito).

The reason Slobodan Milosevic became so wildly popular in the 1980s is because he dared challenge that matrix. When he said "No one is allowed to hit you" to the Serb demonstrators in Kosovo Polje (at the time getting clobbered by ethnic Albanian police) April 1987, Milosevic tapped into a vein of popular resentment that ended up bringing him to power.

Ironically, the West labeled Milosevic "the last Communist" and answered him with - Communist propaganda! The whole "genocidal Serbian aggressor" line, peddled since the early 1990s, reeks of it. Considering it originated with Slovenian, Croat and Bosnian Muslim separatists (who were the product of Tito's system), that should not be surprising.

Currently the torch-bearer for the notion of Serb Guilt are the so-called "reformers" - the media, NGOs, and political parties composed of erstwhile Reds who simply switched masters, and now work for the Empire (or the EUSSR). Every day, in every way, they peddle the line that Serbs are evil as a people, that they need to "reckon with the past" and "embrace the future" and atone and apologize and repent...

For sixty years (at least) the Serbs have been trapped in a matrix that insists their very existence is evil, abominable and shameful. This is how they've been kept enslaved. No man or woman who accepts being inferior can truly be free. But they are not kept in bondage by chains and whips, but by the force of ideas implanted into their minds.

Only by rejecting this manufactured guilt and by understanding who made it and with what purpose can the Serbs begin their path to freedom.

Shirking Duty

Robert E. Lee called duty the "most sublime word in the English language," and urged everyone to "Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.”

But as Julia Gorin reminds us, many fall short when faced with what needs to be done:

"By shining a light on our Kosovo mischief, I am merely doing my duty as an American. But there are Americans who have a greater responsibility than I to save the U.S. from this bipartisan treachery, Americans who should be most on the case at this eleventh hour: Serbian-Americans."

So, where are they? I don't count; I'm not an American citizen, just someone who's lived in this country for almost a dozen years. Besides, I've definitely not kept silent, what with having been a columnist for the past eight. Yet I'm an exception, rather than a rule.

Why is this? Julia has a theory:

"I understand the reasons that Serbs shy away from this duty. They want finally to be liked, and more than anything else to fit in; indeed, the modern Serb rejects his Serbhood. As well, a Serb knows he will instantly be painted with the “Oh, but this is coming from a Serb; of course you’d say that” brush. Notice this is never a consideration or stumbling block for the Serbs’ enemies..."

While true to a great extent, it's not the whole reason. I personally know people who fear that any sort of public expression of opposition to the current U.S. policy in the Balkans would have negative consequences to their careers, wealth, property, and even lives. I know people who believe their voice can't change anything. But they are saying something, with their silence: they are saying that their cause is not worth speaking out for, much less fighting for.

I, quite obviously, disagree.

Now, here's the real kicker: most of these Serbs who don't dare so much as whisper in public have no qualms about bemoaning the current situation in private, lamenting the state of the Serbian nation today and wishing for someone to step in and save it. Which brings me to the point I want to make, using the words of a brilliant American playwright:

"Look, if you think we're wrong... then I respect that. But if you think we're right and you won't speak up because you can't be bothered, then God... I don't even want to know you."