I would like to thank Dr. Thomas Fleming and his staff at Chronicles for putting out the best magazine in the United States.  I have been a reader for many years and have never been disappointed—until now.  In the November 2001 issue, Dr. Fleming’s Foreword discussed the destruction of our country and announced, “The party is over; it is time to call it a day.”  I understand his despair, but the last place I want to read about it is in Chronicles.

The party may be over, but the real fight is just starting.  It may be too late to do anything, but I would not bet on it.  I will grant that whatever is coming over the horizon will be ugly, but the game is far from over.  I have three children; thus, I have no intention of retreating to a monastery or curling up with a good book while their lives and futures are wrecked.  Dr. Fleming suggests that we will “salvage” something from the wreckage of Western civilization.  What?  Our family silver?  An oil painting of Grandpa?  I do not mean to be flip, but that is not the attitude we need during these troubled times.

As for Dr. Fleming’s remark about wasting your life in a White Power movement, I am not a member of any such group, nor do I intend to join one; still, Dr. Fleming will not find me chuckling at the people (many of them decent folks) who understand what is happening and are desperate to do something—anything.  True, I would much prefer a mass organization of alert, educated, determined Americans demanding action in a civilized way, but I don’t see that happening right now.

I am a U.S. government employee living in Colombia and a former U.S. Marine officer, and I have seen what happens in a country when it goes over the edge.  Contrary to what Dr. Fleming may think, there isn’t going to be any slow withering away of America.  What we can really expect is a long period of decay and rising political, ethnic, economic, cultural, and social heat, followed by an explosion that will inaugurate a prolonged period of overt, vicious civil conflict.  Needless to say, we are well into the first period of decay.  Nobody can say what will spark the explosion, but I would guess a lengthy economic downturn, followed by either a major disaster or foreign-policy catastrophe.

Dr. Fleming is right in his assessment of the terrible situation in which we find ourselves, and I agree 100 percent that, to save our people, we must first experience a moral and cultural rebirth.  But I am convinced that this will take place in the midst of violent and unprecedented civil strife, predominantly along ethnic lines.  Instead of giving a world-weary shrug, we should encourage our people to keep their powder dry.  I am not suggesting that we should assemble weekly to crawl through the woods with weapons in our hands.  But we need to prepare to take action in an emergency—armed or not—and think about what we can and should do as a people if the storm should break over us.

Perhaps Dr. Fleming is right.  Maybe our situation is futile, and we are doomed.  But my gut tells me to be ready to fight to defend my family and my people, and I don’t mean by writing letters to a newspaper or magazine deploring the sad state we’re in.  Introspection and intellectual meandering will not save us.  Serious thinking about our situation, coupled with organization and, when necessary, resolute action, might save us.

Chronicles has a vital role to play in the process.  Please make sure you are where you are needed at this time of crisis.

        —An American in South America

Dr. Fleming Replies:

I think this is an apples-and-oranges argument.  I am asking people to observe reality; my correspondent wants them to prepare for action.  The two, while not mutually exclusive, are quite distinct.

I do not see any inclination, by the way, out here in Middle America, to take the situation seriously.  Most people continue to send their kids to government schools; most people think abortion is acceptable in some circumstances; most people accept Martin Luther King, Jr., as the patron saint of America.  By the time some of them wake up, it will be too late.  It is probably too late already.  The plain truth is that there is no party, no movement, no faction, no prominent political leader who will tell the truth about anything, much less outline a program to lead us back to sanity.

So the question is not whether American civilization will collapse but when—and what are we prepared to do about it.  Until we are willing to give up the fiction that we are living in a decadent period of the Roman Empire—say, the reigns of Nero and Caligula—we can never appreciate our situation.  The barbarians rule our world just as surely as they ruled Rome during the sixth century.

Up until a few years ago, I thought that Bubba might have a little fight left in him; but Bubba watches the WWF and the Playboy Channel, and his wife is on Prozac.

I don’t know what will happen, but I do know something of the way we live now, and the servile and degrading response of Americans to September 11—“Please take away my liberties” and “I promise not to think ill of Arabs”—is a dramatic illustration of how far we have sunk.  I am a Christian, so I am very far from being world-weary.  I am ready for any creative or productive action, but revolutions are made by communities.  Single men and little groups are only terrorists.