A Deeper Swell

There is tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current where it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

         — William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

I don’t have time for much reading these days, but, thanks to Larwyn and LGF, I at least keep abreast of what’s going on. A lot of things are happening at once — the fake “news” stories coming out of Iraq, the imminent Shia coup in Lebanon, the Pope’s visit to Turkey, the fallout from the recent election and the possibility of a cut-and-run from Iraq — all are being covered in depth by the blogs and alternative media.

Some of these are important stories. So why do most of them feel like ephemera?

The daily news is like the wind-whipped whitecaps on the ocean, a lot of violent froth on the surface, dangerous to surfers and small craft, but having nothing to do with the larger movement of the sea. The deep swells are the movement of history; they are scarcely noticeable to a beleaguered swimmer treading water and gulping spray on the surface. But their slow-moving effects are much larger and more permanent.

When Aldwulf and Hunwald set off in a tiny boat from 6th-century Schleswig, headed for the coast of Britain, they didn’t know that they were part of the “Anglo-Saxon settlement of England”. They were just a couple of cousins looking for a better life, escaping bad harvests and population pressure in the lowlands of pagan Germany. If there were newspapers in those days, there would have been no headlines saying, “Colonization of Celtic Britain Begins”. By the time the import of these events became clear, the English kingdoms of southern Britain were well-established, and Aldwulf and Hunwald were long dead.

And so it is with our current events. Larger forces are in motion, ones which will take decades or centuries to resolve into historic clarity. None of us can see what’s really going on; we can blink away the salt foam, crane our necks up, and maybe see the beginning of another large swell heading our way. But the flow of the tide and the destination of the coming storm are not — and cannot be — known to us.

Yet we must take the current where it serves, or lose our ventures.

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The emergence of Coalition to Preserve Civilization and the 910 Group is part of the deeper swell. The time has come for events like these, as many individuals wake up and realize that they are not alone in their determination to resist the twin juggernauts of Islamic Fascism and Multiculturalism.

The Instapundit link to my CPC post has generated a lot of interest, and reactions are starting to come in. Arguments within the Right are particularly strident, and I will eventually post about some of the issues raised. The libertarians at reason.com checked in, quoting from my post simply to ridicule me.

But that’s OK. When you put on the gloves and get into the ring, you expect a bloody nose every now and again.
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Here’s another kind of reaction, one that is more typical of the responses. This is from our Swedish commenter and correspondent LN, whom many of you know from his earlier guest posts. This was his comment on the CPC post last night:

Obviously I must elucidate what I earlier proposed — I take the liberty to use the Baron’s own words.

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You of the 910 group assert that you are an international movement, with members in India, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Norway, and Canada, as well as the U.S.A. You comprise a self-selected group of people who share common goals: to oppose Islamic Fascism wherever it is found, and to promote the emergence of liberty in all the dark corners of the planet where ordinary people are degraded and oppressed.

And now a new “network of networks” is said to have been formed under the 910 umbrella, calling itself “The Coalition to Preserve Civilization”. This Anti-Islamofascist movement needs to become a world wide coalition, with its own Anti-Islamofascist portal on the Internet.

You will be required to overcome the stifling fog of Political Correctness and Multiculturalism that infuses every aspect of modern discourse, and would enervate those who seek to preserve our culture.

You will need to identify and work with other organizations in Europe and elsewhere who are working against the Islamofascist threat.

Not only Americans are sleepwalking, just as almost everybody used to do before the world wars of the last century.

Most people prefer not to see the changes, many people, not seldom with almost a religious keenness, pretend nothing is happening — dhimmitude, what is that?

None of this is about government action. This is not an outline or plan for a government program. It’s not a strategy for military action. It’s about an information war.

Our leaders are in the process of abandoning us, and are beginning to cut deals with all the nice, moderate muslims and even with the terror masters. This is a grass-root networking effort designed to fight the threatening Islamicization of the western world. Time is 5 to 12, active Muslims are sneaking into our parliaments and municipalities — the walls of Vienna are being sapped.

But you cannot act in silence and darkness. You must be known to the world — at least initially you must be known to the governments, the press and the ‘citizens who care’ in the relevant countries.

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According to the Swedish Constitution, documents, all mail etc. that arrives at the Swedish Government, to Ministers, to the Parliament, to Municipalities etc. is registered — cannot disappear — and is public domain. Everybody is entitled to read it or get a copy if they pay for it. Every large newspaper with self-esteem cover the daily mail harvest at the different departments in Stockholm. This is called ‘The Principle of Public Access to Official Records’ and is supposed to be a very rare phenomenon on this globe.

Seen from my Swedish standpoint, therefore Mr. Fitzgerald’s idea of questioning Ehud Olmert about his knowledge of Islam, appeared to be an efficient way to challenge a president, a prime minister, a foreign minister, a minister for immigration, etc. and to awake and create public awareness in the body of citizens.

Mr. Fitzgerald: “And come to think of it, why shouldn’t this little quiz, which so clearly will elicit for us information about the comprehension of Infidel leaders everywhere, be given, in one form or another, all over the world”, beginning with those in Washington (President Bush, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes, Nancy Pelosi — [insert additional names here]), [and in] London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Wien, Bruxelles, Amsterdam, Reykjavik, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Warszawa and Copenhagen?

“Why shouldn’t we all demand that those who presume to protect and instruct us take this test?”

Synchronous all over the western world by ordinary mail — not email, the press and all the appropriate leaders receive this letter — the press receive the same letter as an ‘open letter’. In this magnificent way the “The Coalition to Preserve Civilization”

1.		announces its coming into being, and
2.		challenges the person in question.

Of course the calamity howlers will maintain that this is too complicated, too expensive.

HELL NO!

I proffer my services and I will pay for paper, envelopes, and the postage in the Swedish theatre of operations.

DO THINK ABOUT IT.

ln

I forwarded LN’s proposal to the 910 Group and suggested that he contact them and offer his services. His education and skills are very valuable. He could abandon the flame wars in Gates of Vienna comment threads and become part of the deeper swell, to take the current where it leads.

The process that is unfolding right now is much larger than any of us, and is not controllable by any one person or group of people. Each of us can only contribute what he has to offer, working towards what he knows is right, and accept the fact that the final result is not currently knowable.

Frodo:		I wish it need not have happened in my time.
Gandalf:		So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

Image credit: Tony Hopkinson.