by Jayne Friedman, ©2021
(Mar. 23, 2021) — “We are going to fundamentally change America.” — Barack Obama
When you hear “Cancel Culture,” do you yawn and go back to watching your latest TV series? Would you pick your head up for “Intolerant Culture”? How about “Social Justice Culture”?
The word “Cancel” is strategic. It’s benign. It’s meh! But you know when you hear it, it means something has been morally and politically forbidden by the ruling class. You have been warned. If you persist, you will be isolated, targeted and branded (“racist,” most likely). Dare to speak what has been forbidden and you will suffer the fate of all unfree people of the world.
Many famous notables, companies, rituals and traditions have been scorned and “canceled” by the Left and have already faded into oblivion in American society.
EVOLUTION, NOT REVOLUTION
Culture is fluid; transitional, not compulsory; and static! The culture I grew up in was one of intact families, holiday parades, kids riding bikes till dark, mothers wearing aprons, fathers coming home at six, eating dinner as a family. We were immersed in Cowboys and Indians, Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet values. That was a time capsule. It lasted for however long it served our culture.
And then came Elvis, The Beatles, The Jeffersons, All In The Family and the bikini. Our culture was pulsing with raw sexual energy, exposed racial inequalities, TV ethnic families and a war that ripped this nation from its moorings.
We were no longer innocent and reverential. We confronted, we demanded, we marched, we raged and then we danced a three-day weekend as drug-influenced, tie-dyed nimble bodies on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York. It was called Woodstock. The weekend was filled with song artists long gone, drugs, rock n’ roll, unfinished bathroom facilities and a half-million attendees in the venue alone. Along the roads leading to the farm were half a million more! The counterculture was born!
COUNTERCULTURE = REJECTION OF THE GREATEST GENERATION
The hippies of the ‘60s looked different, acted without restraint, inhaled drugs, embraced sexual liberation, communal living, and feminism, just as they passionately rejected American materialism. Except that American materialism––widespread economic prosperity––is what provided the comfort and the opportunity with which hippies could be hippies! They were mostly white and mostly members of the middle class.
Interestingly, today, we have Black Lives Matter (BLM), who are once again mostly white middle-class youth, and they too heatedly reject traditional American values that they now label “racist.”
The counterculture drove a crater through our country. To one side, it reflected progressive, noble ideals of no war, equality for all and free speech, as long as it was counterculture speech. To the other side, it was a mugging of America’s moral underpinnings and original intent. We were in a Culture War then. We are in a Culture War now.
THE END!
The counterculture movement reached the end of its natural life in the early ‘70s. The movement caught fire, spread and engulfed many a follower. It had a profound impact on society and made substantial advances toward its goals of rejecting everything traditional and creating havoc to change the system. But as often happens, economic realities were such that many hippies had to turn to conventional institutions to sustain their own lives. You can thank a hippie for the “what’s your sign?” meditation, yoga, an Underground Press, and psychedelic drugs.
Peace Out, Man!
WHAT’S NEXT?
Here we are, once again in the roaring ‘20s. We survived the counterculture wars but we have been deeply affected and changed forever. Our theater, film, music and art have been infiltrated by those who unshackled our culture and converted it to a coarse, abrasive, in-your-face and provocative absence of culture! It slaps the young in their faces, demanding them to be oppositional, challenging, anything but mainstream.
We breathe the counterculture every day. Today, in 2021, it has been re-branded. You are either a Democrat or a Republican, a Leftist or a Patriot, a Patriot or a racist!
“SOCIAL JUSTICE” SO-CALLED CULTURE
Here is just a tiny sampling of the mess that Cancel Culture has made:
a. Be less white!
b. A log-flume ride at Disney World and Disneyland–– inspired by the antebellum South!––is forced by the Left either to be deconstructed and/or re-themed.
c. So goes HBO’s decision to ax Gone with the Wind, a 1939 movie with “racist depictions.”
d. The TV show “Cops” was gutted because it glorified the police.
e. They are even after Cracker Barrel restaurant. The atmosphere hearkens back to Jim Crow days, according to Left-wing activists, who clearly are unaware that it was Democrats who not only created the Ku Klux Klan but the Jim Crow laws as well!
f. Statues and monuments defaced and toppled in the name of perverted Social Justice. George Washington, Francis Scott Key, Ulysses S. Grant, Christopher Columbus, Confederate Generals, Robert E Lee, Appomattox statue commemorating Confederate American soldiers and Thomas Jefferson; even black heroes!
RX: CANCEL SOCIAL JUSTICE CULTURE!
- Proudly back President Donald Trump’s right to be heard and join his new social media platform when it launches in a few months! If he has no right to be heard and can be “social- justiced,” then so can each and every one of us!
- Stand proudly and respectfully for our National Anthem.
- Back the BLUE! No defunding Police whatsoever!
- Reject Twitter––it’s dangerous and libelous, PERIOD!
- Fight back within your community when public schools are forced to be renamed, for instance schools named after Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Paul Revere, which should not be relegated to the bin of obscurity.
- Learn the history you are being told no longer exists. Find it. Do your research. Take a free course online from Hillsdale College.
- In your sphere of influence, start a thousand lights of purpose. Be a man’s man. Be a homeschooler. Be a proud patriot. Be a relentless conservative voice. Worship how you choose. Never allow the Left to snuff out your purpose. We will be the floodlight that douses the dark cloud of activist ruin. The Left’s iron curtain will be the Conservative’s iron spine!
- Become a Keyboard Warrior. We are all now the Common Man’s Journalist.
- Fight the entire Cancel Culture! You know how––call, e-mail, write on social media pages, contact your politicians, et al.
- Use the pronouns “he” and “she.”
- Do not allow anyone to label you a racist (unless you are one)!
Are you tenacious enough to stand up and fight back? Are you tenacious enough to support Mike Lindell, Gina Carano (actress fired by Disney), Goya Foods, Senator Josh Hawley?
Are you American enough to Make America Great Again?
This is awesome and well done! I agree wholeheartedly!
The title should have been “Culture dEvolves”. We aren’t improving but getting worse. This is nothing; one day you will see how bad things can really get. ” 21 For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will again. 22 And if those days had not been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” Matthew 24
Thank you for writing what so many are afraid to say, even though in their hearts they know the truth! Hopefully your comments on Left’s iron curtain will be the Conservative’s iron spine..will give the courage it takes to Speak out and Make America Great Again!
I certainly hope it does. The courage to have an iron spine is often confused with being rigid. It’s not. Rather, it’s a reliance of quiet confidence.