Quo Vadis is a Latin phrase meaning “Where are you going?” and that’s a question that deserves an answer…a good answer.
I was eleven years old when The War (WW2) ended with the surrender of Japan in Tokyo Bay on the deck of the USS Missouri. With the end of the war it seemed that America had come out on the top of the heap, it was a world power…a “superpower” if you will. As Americans we thought there was nothing on earth that we couldn’t do, build or invent, and for several years we did just that. We not only had television, but we had COLOR television. We not only had automobiles but we had one that boasted it was “The Standard of the World” …and back then, it was.
Quo Vadis, America? We went through the 1950’s in a blur of wild music, wild colors and all sorts of hallucinogens to “expand” the mind. The 1960’s were a turbulent time indeed…we lost a President, a presidential candidate and a civil rights leader to assassins. The country was becoming divided over the color of a man’s skin, and it was not a friendly discussion. At the same time, somewhere in the Gulf of Tonkin, an event took place…or didn’t. At any rate America began its plunge into what became the Vietnam War.
The United States had out produced, out-thought and outfought the Axis Powers in WW2 and now we were facing a different kind of enemy. The Korean “police action” had been a different sort of battle also, ending in a “truce” of some sort…not the most glorious ending for America.
Vietnam, and you could choose which side of the equation you were on, at home, was a country-splitter if ever there was one. There were as many on one side, saying we didn’t belong there and that our troops were “baby-killers” as there were people who said we had to be there to stop the domino effect of one country after another falling prey to Communism. The Red Menace was on a lot of people’s minds, almost from the day WW2 ended and Russia became a potential enemy.
Politics was a puzzle in those days and you didn’t really know which side to take because they kept switching stories and reasons. Even today, I’m not sure that we understand the meaning of Vietnam, or Korea, for that matter.
As America stumbled into, and through, the 1970’s into the 80’s, we had some good things happen. Probably the most outstanding event was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the tearing-down of the Berlin wall. We were going to see a unified Germany and the comparison between the East and the West was both stark and startling. One could say that East Germany, under Russian governance, had stopped making any forward progress for a dozen or so years. Our excursion into Southeast Asia was over and we’d left the battlefield something less than a winner. America bound up its wounds and wondered what might be next. Who would be our next adversary?
The answer was not too long in coming when our Embassy in Tehran was overrun and prisoners taken. Iran had ousted the Shah and his regime and had replaced it with a very strict Islamic government…which was not favorable to the United States.
Quo Vadis, America? Slowly, almost imperceptibly, a dark shadow was creeping over Europe. Even the most ardent of Europeans didn’t recognize what was happening to the continent. What had started years before, as a method of obtaining cheap labor, was morphing into something that, in just a few years, would become almost uncontrollable. France, once the cultural center of the 16th and 17th Century world, along with Sweden, Denmark and even the United Kingdom, found themselves dealing with people that steadfastly refused to do what they were supposed to do, work cheaply. What was this insubordinate “plague” that was taking over in greater numbers than was comfortable?
Islam is what it was…and is. What the hordes of Mohammed could not achieve centuries before, in violent struggles, was now being accomplished without violence…almost. The Plan was simple…take over the world and then the world would be “peaceful”. Any sort of dissention during the takeover would be dealt with harshly and be an example to the rest that Islam was here to stay.
If there is anyone reading this that does not understand what Islam is, you should become educated, and quickly. Briefly, Islam is (and this is my explanation of it) a violent, demanding, cult, dreamed up by a pedophile warlord back in the 600s. He wrote down all the things HE liked to do, most of which are condemned in civilized countries, and that became the basis for the Qu’ran, Islam’s holy book. By alluding to a higher power (Allah) and claiming only to be The Messenger, it was possible for him to declare that he was only doing his deity’s work.
Parting shot: So, America…where ARE you going? Will you succumb to the dumbing-down so that the next generations will not be aware of what’s happening? Never mind that the pattern is laid out before them, in what’s soon to be Eurabia…can we hold on? There is a Latin phrase, sic transit Gloria, which means all glory passes…but are we going to let it? Quo Vadis, America.
Image: CCO Creative Commons; Excerpted from: https://pixabay.com/en/person-curve-bend-road-street-1030796/
