We knew this was going to happen. Those opposed to restoring some sense of fairness and sanity to our governmental system are fighting tooth and nail, using every trick in the book, including race-baiting and distraction. How should we react? Press on.
Entrenched forces that have a system working for them will do everything they can to keep the status quo just as it is. Barack Obama and the progressive forces that helped bring him to power are seeing this play out every day. There is foot-dragging on health care, and there are attempts to distract and to divide, using things like the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. incident and the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
It won't stop until it has been shown, again and again, to be a losing strategy, even counterproductive. It can only be confronted and defeated, again and again. It will take dedication and determination, a refusal to despair, and a willingness to persevere in the face of relentless opposition.
After the evacuation from Dunkirk of the defeated British Expeditionary Force in late May of 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill spoke to the British people. He prepared them for the inevitable attempt by the German Armed Forces to invade the British Isles.
We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
Our fight is not against the Nazis, it is against the corporate forces that have manipulated our societal systems to benefit themselves, and the public be damned. Our fight is one of ideas, not bullets. Our struggle is a civil one.
Demographics and time are on our side. The currents of politics have shifted in our direction. The tactics of division, and the theory of laissez-faire deregulation, have been shown to be the cynical and bankrupt stratagems that they are. We are living with the fallout of their catastrophic failures.
If we are to prevail, in our own fight, in our own time, we must fight, day in and day out, on every possible front. We must show that our ideas are superior, that our spirit is stronger and more positive, and that our vision for America is the fairer, more patriotic one.
We must never surrender.