Leaders
of Our Nation's Godly Heritage
EarsToHear.net
He That Has Ears To Hear, Let Him Hear
(Matthew 11:15-30)
Challenging both secular wisdom and religious doctrines. - Will our descendants know moral virtue?
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Leaders
of Our Nation's Godly Heritage
Last Updated Monday July 05, 2010 10:06 PM -0400
Also see
Founder's Quotes & more &
Warnings from the wise
Resource: OrderInTheCourt.org is part of Heritage Foundation's comprehensive effort under a 10-year Leadership for America campaign to preserve the rule of law.
PATRIOT'S DECLARATION
And with any battle worth fighting, there comes suffering and sacrifice - a price to pay for our cherished freedom. The Founding Fathers of this Nation, in another fight for freedom from tyranny, signed their names to the Declaration of Independence just below these words of commitment: "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Of the fifty-six signers: 17 lost their fortunes, 12 had their homes destroyed, 9 fought and died, 5 were arrested as traitors, and 2 lost sons in the War.
The Americans Who Risked Everything by Rush Limbaugh Jr. ...These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging. And remember, a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor. They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card burners here. They were far from hot-eyed fanatics yammering for an explosion. They simply asked for the status quo. It was change they resisted. It was equality with the mother country they desired. It was taxation with representation they sought. They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled.
...Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason. All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered. ...John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his family.
...Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact. And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark. He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship Jersey, where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father. One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons' lives if he would recant and come out for the King and Parliament. The utter despair in this man's heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his answer: "No."
...The 56 signers of the Declaration Of Independence proved by their every deed that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history. "And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
"The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth." Thomas Paine
"Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the House when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress [John Hancock] to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?" Benjamin Rush
"There! His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward on my head!" John Hancock
"We must hang together or assuredly we shall hang separately." Benjamin Franklin
"Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!" George Washington
"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood." John Adams
"It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. ... I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not." John Adams
"It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can. A better system of education for the common people might preserve them long from such artificial inequalities as are prejudicial to society, by confounding the natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice." John Adams (letter to Count Sarsfield, 3 February 1786) Reference: Our Sacred Honor, Bennett, 264.
"On the distinctive principles of the Government ...of the U. States, the best guides are to be found in...The Declaration of Independence, as the fundamental Act of Union of these States." James Madison
"[T]he flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them. ... The Declaration of Independence ... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man." Thomas Jefferson
"Independence Forever." John Adams toast July 4, 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence -- the day both he and Thomas Jefferson died.
David Barton of
Wallbuilders.com
is an historian who speaks around the country to share the truth about the
American founding, using the original writings of the Founders. This information
is no longer presented in our public schools, but it was for the first 200+
centuries of our nation's existence. Here are the You Tube links where you can
hear this history, in the Founders' words. I hope you'll share this with others
after viewing, even to Deists.
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http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F53E14803F7CF0DD&search_query=david+barton+wallbuilders
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Is America A Christian Nation? (1 of 5)
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Is America A Christian Nation? (2 of 5)
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Is America A Christian Nation? (3 of 5)
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Is America A Christian Nation? (4 of 5)
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Is America A Christian Nation? (5 of 5)
Rev. John Witherspoon - American Minute with Bill Federer - November 15 -
He lost two sons in the Revolution, was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration and served on 120 Congressional Committees. His name was John Witherspoon, and he died November 15, 1794.
Born in Scotland, a descendant of John Knox, he was President of Princeton, leader of a New Jersey committee to abolish slavery, and taught 9 of the writers of the U.S. Constitution, including James Madison. Other students became Vice-President, Supreme Court Justices, Cabinet Members, Governors, Senators and Congressmen.
John Adams said he was "A true son of liberty...but first, he was a son of the Cross."
On May 17, 1776, the day Congress declared a Day of Fasting, Rev. Witherspoon told his Princeton students: "He is the best friend to American liberty, who is most...active in promoting true and undefiled religion...to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy of his country. It is in the man of piety and inward principle that we may...find the uncorrupted patriot, the useful citizen, and the invincible soldier. God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable."
For endnotes, books, or to contact Bill about speaking, visit www.AmericanMinute.com P.O. Box 20163, St. Louis, MO 63123 1-888-USA-WORD, 314-487-4395, wjfederer@aol.com
"How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law."
"There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.
Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust."
Martin Luther King Jr. quotes
challenging apathy and complacency.
"In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the
silence of our friends."
"A man who won't die for something is not fit to
live."
On a cold winter night in 1956, while attending a meeting at church, he learned that his house had been bombed. King rushed home to find that the bomb had exploded on his front porch. The rest of his family was safe inside. An angry crowd wanted revenge, but Dr. King calmed them. "I want you to go home and put down your weapons." He told them that violence would not solve their problems and reminded them what the Bible teaches. "We must meet hate with love." When he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Dr. King declared that "Nonviolence is the answer to the most crucial political and moral questions of our time."
What was it that influenced our Founding Fathers
to declare a Declaration of Independence and produce our great Constitution of
freedom? From where did they derive their motivation?
What is it that now influences American leaders? From where do they derive their
motivation? Does character make a difference? Some insight is offered
below Highly recommend
America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations by
William J. Federer.
See also:
The Importance of Morality and Religion in Government - Founding
Fathers: Quotes -Founding Fathers: Short Biographies -
From Revolution To
Reconstruction and what happened afterwards. Research
professors Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman reviewed almost 15,000 historic
writings of the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and they
found that more than a third of the quotes in their writings came directly from
the Bible.
Over 15,000 writings of America's founders were examined to determine the primary sources for establishing our government. The number one source was the Bible. From these writings it has been determined that Jeremiah 17:9 and Isaiah 33:22 were the basis for separation of powers and America's three branches of Government. Ezra 7:24 was the premise for tax exemptions. Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution was derived from Exodus 18:21 which formed the basis of a Republic form of Government. The judicial branch of government in Article III Section 3, was derived from Deuteronomy 17:6 and Ezekiel 18:20.
Religious liberty is often called the first freedom because our Founding Fathers valued it so highly. The Fathers recognized that religious freedom in America must be protected with great vigilance. That is the guarantee of the Constitution, and that is the promise of our government throughout the generations from the 1780's until the 2003 Supreme Court decisions. Of those who wrote and signed the Constitution, twenty-nine were Episcopalians, nine Presbyterians, seven Congregationalists, two Lutherans, two Dutch Reformed, two Methodists, two Roman Catholics, one Quaker and one Deist. See America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations (p.180) by William J. Federer and the following references: 1. A Worthy Company: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution (p. viii-ix) by M. E. Bradford 2. Christianity and the Constitution - The Faith of Our Fathers (p. 43) by John Eidsmoe 3. Faith of Our Founding Fathers (p. 30) by Tim Lahaye 4. The Myth of Separation (pp. 24-24) by David Barton
Another resource provides a list: Denominational Affiliations of the Framers of the Constitution, contrary to the myth, this chart shows that only 3 out of 55 of the framers classified themselves as Deists (with doubts that they were actually deists.)
Benjamin Franklin's Virtue Chart: Did you know that in 1726, at the age of 20, while on an 80-day ocean voyage from London back to Philadelphia, he developed a "Plan" for regulating his future conduct? He was partially motivated by Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." He followed the plan he created "pretty faithfully" even to the age of 79 (when he wrote about it), and he was even more determined to stick with it for his remaining days because of the happiness he had enjoyed so far by following it. See also: Ben Franklin and the Apostle Paul.
Noah Webster was born in West Hartford, Connecticut. His most famous work was the American Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1828. Webster used a large number of verses from the Bible to clarify the context in which a word was to be used. He also tried to free the American language from British influences, changing the spelling of certain words. For instance, the word "colour" became "color." Noah Webster's other publications include the "Blue-Backed Speller" (so named because of its blue cover) that was used by generations of children, a History of the United States in 1832, and a translation of the Bible in 1833. This great educator stated that "Education is useless without the Bible."
Thoughts from leaders to contemplate
Benjamin Franklin - In the beginning of the Contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection - Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need His Assistance? AND: I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous." (The Busy-body, No. 3, 18 February 1728) Reference: The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Bigelow, ed., vol. 1 (350)
Article I of the Constitution begins: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." Section 8 of Article I then goes on to enumerate those powers, of which James Madison wrote: "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."
Samuel Adams - Crying "No taxation without representation," he instigated the Stamp Act riots and the Boston Tea Party. After the "Boston Massacre," he spread Revolutionary sentiment with his Committees of Correspondence. Known as "The Father of the American Revolution," Samuel Adams, who was born SEPTEMBER 27, 1722, called for the first Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence. A cousin of 2nd President John Adams, Samuel Adams wrote in The Rights of Colonists, 1772: "Among the natural rights of Colonists are: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to defend them...The supreme power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property without his consent." As Massachusetts' Governor, Samuel Adams wrote to James Warren, February 12, 1779: "A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." Samuel Adams ended: "If we would enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people." American Minute for September 27th
George Washington - “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.” And: "[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man... and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous."
President John Adams' From his March 23, 1798 national Fasting and Prayer proclamation: "As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and blessing of Almighty God; and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him, but a duty whose natural influence is favorable to the promotion of that morality and piety, without which social happiness cannot exist, nor the blessings of a free government be enjoyed; and as this duty, at all times incumbent, is so especially in seasons of difficulty and of danger, when existing or threatening calamities, the just judgments of God against prevalent iniquity are a loud call to repentance and reformation;" (www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=44)
Theodore Roosevelt, in his book The Strenuous Life, published 1900 The true Christian is the true citizen, lofty of purpose, resolute in endeavor, ready for a hero's deeds, but never looking down on his task because it is cast in the day of small things; scornful of baseness, awake to his own duties as well as to his rights, following the higher law with reverence, and in this world doing all that in him lies, so that when death comes he may feel that mankind is in some degree better because he has lived.
Calvin Coolidge - "We do not need more intellectual power, we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen. If the foundation be firm, the foundation will stand."
President Herbert Hoover - "While I can make no claim for having introduced the term, 'rugged individualism,' I should be proud to have invented it. It has been used by American leaders for over a half-century in eulogy of those God-fearing men and women of honesty whose stamina and character and fearless assertion of rights led them to make their own way of life." The Challenge to Liberty, 1934
President Harry S. Truman - "Let us all stand together as Americans. Let us stand together with all men every where who believe in human liberty. Peace is precious to us. It is the way of life we strive for with all the strength and wisdom we possess. But more precious than peace are freedom and justice. We will fight, if fight we must, to keep our freedom and to prevent justice from being destroyed. These are the things that give meaning to our lives, and which we acknowledge to be greater than ourselves. This is our cause: peace, freedom, justice. We will pursue this cause with determination and humility, asking divine guidance that in all we do we may follow the will of God." January 1951
Dwight D. Eisenhower - "This is what I found out about religion: It gives you courage to make the decision you must make in a crisis and then the confidence to leave the result to a higher Power. Only by trust in God can a man carrying responsibility find repose." September 1952, in reference to his decision to postpone by one day the D-Day assault on Normandy, France
American Minute for November 9th: On NOVEMBER 9, 1954, President Eisenhower addressed the National Conference on the Spiritual Foundation of American Democracy at the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel, Washington D.C.: "Now Dr. Lowry said something about my having certain convictions as to a God in Heaven and an Almighty power. Well, I don't think anyone needs a great deal of credit for believing in what seems to me to be obvious...This relationship between a spiritual faith...and our form of government is...so obvious that we should really not need to identify a man as unusual because he recognizes it." Eisenhower continued: "Our whole theory of government finally expressed in our Declaration...said...Man is endowed by his Creator...When you come back to it, there is just one thing...man is worthwhile because he was born in the image of his God...Democracy is nothing in the world but a spiritual conviction...that each of us is enormously valuable, because of a certain standing before our own God." Eisenhower concluded: "Any group that...awakens all of us to these simple things...is, in my mind, a dedicated, patriotic group that can well take the Bible in one hand and the flag in the other, and march ahead."
World War II ended in Europe on MAY 7, 1945, when German emissaries met at General Dwight Eisenhower's Headquarters, a schoolhouse in Reims, France, and signed an unconditional surrender. The War in Europe lasted five and half years, costing millions of lives. After the war, Eisenhower was elected the 34th President by the largest number of votes in history. In remarks broadcast from the White House as part of the American Legion "Back-to-God" Program, February 7, 1954, President Eisenhower stated: "As a former soldier, I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth-that there are no atheists in the foxholes. They know that in time of test and trial, we instinctively turn to God for new courage...Whatever our individual church, whatever our personal creed, our common faith in God is a common bond among us." At the next year's "Back-to-God" Program, February 20, 1955, Eisenhower stated: "Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first - the most basic - expression of Americanism." American Minute for May 7th
Ike and the Death Camps - Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, Washington, DC - When General Eisenhower learned about the camp, he immediately arranged to meet Generals Bradley and Patton at Ohrdruf on the morning of April 12th. By that time, Buchenwald itself had been captured. Consequently, Ike decided to extend the group’s visit to include a tour of the Buchenwald extermination camp the next day. Eisenhower also ordered every American soldier in the area who was not on the front lines to visit Ohrdruf and Buchenwald. He wanted them to see for themselves what they were fighting against.
During the camp inspections with his top commanders Eisenhower said that the atrocities were “beyond the American mind to comprehend.” He ordered that every citizen of the town of Gotha personally tour the camp and, after having done so, the mayor and his wife went home and hanged themselves. Later on Ike wrote to Mamie, “I never dreamed that such cruelty, bestiality, and savagery could really exist in this world.” He cabled General Marshall to suggest that he come to Germany and see these camps for himself. He encouraged Marshall to bring Congressmen and journalists with him. It would be many months before the world would know the full scope of the Holocaust — many months before they knew that the Nazi murder apparatus that was being discovered at Buchenwald and dozens of other death camps had slaughtered millions of innocent people.
General Eisenhower understood that many people would be unable to comprehend the full scope of this horror. He also understood that any human deeds that were so utterly evil might eventually be challenged or even denied as being literally unbelievable. For these reasons he ordered that all the civilian news media and military combat camera units be required to visit the camps and record their observations in print, pictures and film. As he explained to General Marshall, “I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’”
His prediction proved correct. When some groups, even today, attempt to deny that the Holocaust ever happened they are must confront the massive official record, including both written evidence and thousands of pictures, that Eisenhower ordered to be assembled when he saw what the Nazis had done.
President John F. Kennedy - In his inaugural address, he said: "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans—ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country...Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own. There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction." Also: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." In a speech to have been given November 22, 1963 These words were written by President John F. Kennedy that was to be delivered in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy never delivered the speech, but his written thoughts remain. "We in this country, in this generation, are by destiny rather than choice the watchman on the walls of world freedom. We ask therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of peace on earth, goodwill toward men. That must always be our goal. For as was written long ago, 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.'" And: "A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces, but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers." From a speech, Oct. 27, 1963 -- “A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” John F. Kennedy
At the end of the year, 1962, President John F. Kennedy stated: "We mark the festival of Christmas which is the most sacred and hopeful day in our civilization. For nearly 2,000 years the message of Christmas, the message of peace and good will towards all men, has been the guiding star of our endeavors...the birthday of the Prince of Peace."
Ronald Reagan - “Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid. That’s why the Marxist vision of man without God must eventually be seen as an empty and a false faith—the second oldest in the world—first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with whispered words of temptation: ‘Ye shall be as gods.’ The crisis of the Western world, Whittaker Chambers reminded us, exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God... This is the real task before us: to reassert our commitment as a nation to a law higher than our own, to renew our spiritual strength. Only by building a wall of such spiritual resolve can we, as a free people, hope to protect our own heritage and make it someday the birthright of all men.”
Editorial from a Romanian newspaper
Why are Americans so united? They don't resemble one another even if
you paint them! They speak all the languages of the world and form an
astonishing mixture of civilizations. Some of them are nearly extinct, others
are incompatible with one another, and in matters of religious beliefs, not even
God can count how many they are. Still, the American tragedy turned three
hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the
White House, the army, the secret services that they are only a bunch of losers.
Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed on the streets nearby
to gape about. The Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping
hand. After the first moments of panic, they raised the flag on the smoking
ruins, putting on
Silent as a rock, I watched the charity concert broadcast on Saturday once, twice, three times, on different tv channels. There were Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, Robert de Niro, Julia Roberts, Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen, Silvester Stalone, James Wood, and many others whom no film or producers could ever bring together. The American's solidarity spirit turned them into a choir. Actually, choir is not the word. What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the American soul. What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill Clinton, nor Colin Powell could say without facing the risk of stumbling over words and sounds, was being heard in a great and unmistakable way in this charity concert. I don't know how it happened that all this obsessive singing of America didn't sound croaky, nationalist, or ostentatious! It made you green with envy because you weren't able to sing for your country without running the risk of being considered chauvinist, ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean interests. I watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who fought with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that would have killed other hundreds of thousands of people. How on earth were they able to bow before a fellow human? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit which nothing can buy.
What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases which risk of sounding like commonplaces. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.
Only freedom can work such miracles!
As Associated Press
reported about Mr. Nistorescu: Nistorescu, managing director of the
daily newspaper Evenimentul Zilei — News of the Day — published his editorial
Sept 24, two days after watching a celebrity telethon in New York for victims of
the
Like his other columns, "Ode to America" was meant for domestic consumption. No one knows when — or how — the article first reached the other side of the Atlantic. But Nistorescu figures it began when someone pulled it off the English-language version of his daily's Web page and sent it to a friend.
Since then, thousands of Americans at home and expats around the world have e-mailed it to friends, saying it captured their nation's spirit. It has been read out to U.S. soldiers and on radio talk shows and posted on U.S. Web sites.
Nistorescu says he had no idea his "Ode to America" would resonate so far
Nistorescu remains surprised and touched by the success of the piece, one of thousands he has penned in a more than 20-year career.
"It is all about the American spirit and how freedom cannot be crushed," he says.
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