Diana West's word on Thanksgiving

Diana West, one of my favorite writers, has added another great post to her outstanding and growing body of work: Festival of illusion. Ms. West brings to mind a more peaceful time, a time when families, for one day, stay home; when streets are silent; when the frenetic energy stops, just for a second... Today, we see mothers shopping at WalMart at midnight, sometimes with babies in the carts, sometimes not. We need a peace to return to our nation - not one of Shari'a Law - but a peace of times when we just don't swoop down upon the stores that make shopping more "convenient". In Festival of illusion, Ms. West reminds us that:

...Thanksgiving is above all my favorite holiday, maybe because it retains its essence. Not so other special days on the calendar. The wild orgy of consumption beginning the day after Thanksgiving has long rendered the Christmas season the most pagan of religious holidays. ...But in what may be an inversion of American exceptionalism, our singular sense of ourselves has somehow insulated our entire nation from what it's like to play for keeps -- from what it means to live in a new age of Islamic jihad. With the exception of our military families, we, as a people, have remained insulated from our time of war. Maybe this all started, at least in earnest, after September 11, when President Bush, even as he prepared to fight "terror" -- that politically correct and historically misleading term for jihad violence -- implored Americans to get back to those shopping malls, just as if the nation could fight a war in perpetuity without ever noticing it... Is that good? It doesn't feel good... but how about the president asking Americans to avoid driving one day a week? Without any thought of sacrifice... Of course, the election indicates Americans were feeling something -- that things were going wrong in Iraq and elsewhere... If such dissatisfaction goads us... to face up to the difficult, politically incorrect and uncomfortable facts of beating back global jihad, it would be something to be truly thankful for.

Please read Ms. West's entire article. We seem unaware of the "high stakes" we are involved in against the global islamic jihad that has been declared upon, not only Western nations, but nations such as Russia as well. I read recently, front page news actually, that Russia expects to become a Muslim/Islamic nation perhaps before mid-century. Do you think that will change the geopolitical landscape? What will it take to raise us from our lethargy? Islam has declared war against the world indiscriminately - against Christians, Jews, Hindus - against everyone. What is the international community going to do about it? Wait for the UN to send in blue-fluffed "peace keepers" like the ones in Lebanon who hide in the dark of night so that the caravans of re-supply can get to Hezbollah unscathed? Shame on us if we don't rise to this "curse", this overt attack against our way of life. Our national cowardice will never be forgiven. People are being slaughtered; small nations are under attack; and the UN curses Israel. (Islamic Extremists or Muslim Islamists) God bless our brave troops and undercover agents wherever they may serve. May we be worthy of them and of their blood and sacrifice.