SLOUCHING TOWARD GOMORRAH

                                     by Robert H. Bork

         Book review by Mrs. E.R.M. (And my thoughts will be included)

            Mr. Bork starts this slide of America toward Gomorrah back to the sixties. I have always thought it started when this great nation of God's kingdom joined the United Nations. (And thus we joined the world order in building a new one world government in which America loses her sovereignty.)

            Mr. Bork believes that a nations moral life is the foundation of its culture. Thus Welcome to America --1998 and the rough beast which the Visionary poet Keats foresaw in 1919, which is now a monster of decadence, a plague several generations in gestation. We as a nation are now slouching not toward Bethlehem but toward Gomorrah, the Biblical city, burned to the ground for the sinfulness of its people. (Here in 1998, two years after this book was written we have gone further on down that road. Mr. Bork reminds us that our nation is in such serious moral trouble that its very foundation is crumbling. Of our President back there in 1996 Mr. Bork wrote: (Quote) ---"Thirty years ago, Clinton's behavior would have been absolutely disqualifying. Since the 1992 election, the public has learned far more about what is known euphemistically as the 'Character issue. Yet none of this seems to affect Clinton's popularity. It is difficult to conclude that something about our moral perceptions and reactions has changed profoundly. If that change is permanent, the implication for our future is bleak."(Unquote)---(Well then how would you characterize things today?)

            Mr. Bork lists the root of our decline in the rise of modern Liberalism, which stresses the equality of the outcome rather than opportunities. And radical individualism, the drastic reduction to the limits of personal gratification. The weakening of the intellect, from the role of the Supreme Court as an agent of Modern Liberalism to the trouble in religion. He also stresses the assault of the radical feminism on American institutions, and our freedoms, to the killing for convenience of abortion and euthanasia. (Thus, Judge Bork was sounding an alarm for all America in 1996, when he wrote this book. But today in 1998 it does not seem that our nation has noticed this warning.)

            Judge Bork believes that to understand our current plight and the direction in which we are moving then we must look back and understand the 60's. That being the time when the moral integrity of our nation came under full blown attack because the radicals of the 60's have today taken over or heavily modified the cultural institutions they once sought to destroy. Thus we can accept our fate, and try to insulate ourselves, and our loved ones from the devastating effects of a degenerate culture, or we can chose to halt the beast. To oppose Modern liberalism in every arena will be the test. To Judge Bork the understanding of our problems and the will to resist may be our only hope. (Looking at the news on T.V. here in February of 1998, how does it look to you?)

            Not a single American institution from popular music to Higher education, to science, has remained untouched here in America. Modern Liberalism is powerful because it enlisted our powerful cultural Elites. These are the ones who man the institutions, that manufactures, manipulates and disseminate ideas, attitudes, and symbols, universities, churches, Hollywood, the National Press, print and electronic, foundation staffs, the public interest organizations and such. Much of the Democratic Party and some Congressional Republicans as well, and large sections of the Judiciary, including all too often the majority of the Supreme Court.

            This is perhaps not a conspiracy but a syndrome, for these institutions are now controlled by the people who view the world from a perspective not generally shared by the public at large. Why did this happen? The American people have been asleep, they allowed themselves to be eaten hollow by the assumptions that flowered into Modern Liberalism. When the push came in the 60's, and empty and guilt ridden establishment surrendered. But why now? Liberalism has been with us for a long time, in fact for centuries. Why then did it become Modern Liberalism here in the latter half of this century? Altho it seemed that the radicalism of the 60's had failed, still it did not. Theirs was but a temporary defeat for they and their ideology are all around us today. Thus we need to understand the 60's to be able to see where we are moving as a nation today.

            It is easy to blame the Vietnam War for the rage of the 60's.  But many of the youth of that day who were asked to fight for America were of a pampered generation which valued personal convenience above almost every thing else. What is not understood is that the NEW LEFT were out to see that America and South Vietnam should be defeated. People like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and yes, various Clergy were in the thick of that fray. President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara were afraid to bomb the north. Thus our political leaders decided that America should not win the war. And they settled for many body bags of our young men, and a host of those who were maimed, and then backed out of the war.

            Yes, the war in Vietnam still stirs anger in this nation, and that is because many of the people that undermined America then are still in out culture today, and still working against us. Why then did the best educated, most affluent members of the baby-boomer generation hate the culture that had lavished privileges upon them? Many things led to this, but one of the things was that this was a spoiled generation, with too much concentration on this in the universities, and the pampering by the parents, who failed to do the teaching each generation must have in the home, the schools and the churches. And in this case those youth that rebelled turned against all that their parents stood for.  And yet there were many young people who rode thru this rebellion still a part of their families and schools and churches, but they were ignored by the media, for all concentration was for those in rebellion. Those young people who came thru this period depended on their earlier development of ideals. Where as the rebellion with the idea that there would never be any want in their future led many youngsters into boredom. They were led by the NEW LEFT who were masters of this process. As the Rock Stars brought forward one of their promoters was quoted as saying: “I look for someone the parents will hate.” As Religion went out the window then Rock Music found its place in leading the young into the forest and to destruction.

            There were many, many casualties in the 60's among the young, but some came thru it and moved on but still with their feeling hidden as to what they were thinking. But the Far Left moved to capitalize in their part in the Dumming down of America. They have wrecked the universities in the process, and those institutions have not as yet recovered. Race relations were turned up side down in the universities and before we knew it all this was the fault of the white male in America.

            The mood and message of the 60's did not remain safely within the universities, it took to the streets. And then because of the violence the new left of the 60's collapsed but no it was not dead. It collapsed as a political movement, and because of its violence repelled most Americans and because it never was a popular movement even among many of the young, for they saw thru this movement and had nothing to do with it. Today we have in place of it the radical feminists, the black extremists, animal rights groups, people from The American Way, The American Civil Liberties Union, NARAL, and Now, and Planned Parenthood. Each of these pursue a piece of the agenda of the Cultural and Political left. And then in the 1980's the movement of all of these splinter groups began to come together. The New Left has become the spokesman for the radical values expressed by many of the former groups and the fixation on equality has penetrated our society, and its institutions much to our disadvantage. Their idea of liberty has now become license in language, popular culture and sexuality. Everything is now political and the correct term is "Political correct.” Western imperialism, Colonialism, and racism are now the words to use to describe America.

            One of the NEW LEFT's ambitions so says Judge Bork was to move the Democrat Party further to the left of the American center, and to convert it to a more liberal stance from the traditional liberal-labor ideology the party had held since the days when F.D.R. built his coalition.

            For those who dislike what we have become the task is not just to resist, but to attack the many manifestations of corruption and restore some things of what marked where we once were. This will not be easy for the formulation of the 60's are now deeply embedded in our opinion forming institutions and our culture. The consequences of liberalism, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness has been pushed too far. Sector after sector of the American life has been ruthlessly corrupted by the liberal ethos. It is an ethos that aims simultaneously at political and social collectivism on the one hand and anarchy on the other. But current liberalism's rot and decadence is merely what liberalism has been moving toward for better than two centuries. As long as the institutions of family, church and school neighborhoods remained strong, America was O.K. Looking back we see the changes accomplished in our slide toward Gomorrah.

            Our current set of values is inhospitable to the self discipline required for such institutions as marriage and education and hospitable to no fault divorce and self-esteem training. Actually liberty can only be the space between two walls---the walls of morality and law based on morality. It is sensible to argue how far apart the walls should be set, but it is cultural suicide to demand all space and no walls.