HEROES - too many, or not enough?

Leadership is organic in nature. Among the animals there is always a leader of the herd or the pack, who is stronger, more intelligent and willing to risk greater danger than the rest. So what is the difference between a leader and a hero? A hero can be either of two types. One, he seems to be guided by destiny to be just at the right place at the right time, to perform whatever is desperately needed, when all the efforts of others are not quite adequate or seem to be failing. He needs to have no other qualities than this special 'something' which makes the difference. His fame may be temporary, but it is nonetheless gratefully acknowledged. Later, his popularity might dim. Even if he was rewarded not long after his service was given, there is no assurance that the future will grant him anything unusual, not even continued popularity. But a code of honor, which our ancestors had, and we would do well to revive, made it incumbent upon them to honor the deed performed, and to thank the gods for bringing this man into their midst.

The second type of hero is graced with something else. He embodies an ideal; his performance is of so high a character, so lofty in motive and given without any selfinterest, that he becomes an example, teaching a level of conduct that, if implemented among those able to follow him, would improve the whole performance of the tribe and ennoble it. These heroes are the most loved but often also the most tragic. Tragic, because no man can be a god; he can only be a mortal with many human limitations and shortcomings. Tragic, because the impulse to love such a man is often to elevate him to a saviour role which can only end in tragedy when such a 'god' fails by showing his human qualities.

Perhaps this classification of heroes is in itself lacking. Are there not heroes of the second type who could only become an ennobling ideal because their lives had been so guided or fortuitous that they emerged at the right place and time through no deliberate act on their part but which enabled them to experience the events that immortalized them and gave us their uplifting example? There are; and their destiny seems to be in the hands of the Norns, to teach us what we need to acquire in the way of understanding.

Biographers make it a point to study the life of a certain hero to see if they can discover that 'something' which set him apart from others, or which sent him down an untrodden path at the end of which a great deed was done. They have noted that with few exceptions such heroes were neither prosperous or comfortable at the start, nor did they have happy personal lives. In other words, unfavourable circumstances frequently enabled a hero to become a hero. This is good news for the despondents. Often their opponents were strong and powerfully entrenched. Often their personal lives, if not sorrowful, were ludicrous or disasterous. Why?

Their contemporaries concluded at first that the gods were showing contempt for the individual or were toying whimsically with a helpless mortal, but the truth was the opposite. Their more complacent fellows could not find within themselves the hidden resources with which to handle an unfamiliar situation. Hence, it became the work of the Norns to so shape the life of an individual they had chosen to meet this emergency, that he would drop all other considerations and devote the total resources of his mind and will to listening to the promptings of his higher self and to finding the solution to the problem before him. This explains why some heroes began life as failures. When they experienced rejection or dissatisfaction or both, they were ready to go in a different direction.

The satisfied and comfortable persons are only the herd which follows the leader. -- Their loyalty is often to a leadership of the past; they have become comatose and cannot conceive of any other. The government, the religion and the social mores have been handed down to them, and they make little or no effort other than to absorb what they have been given.

Once in a while we will see an example of one from the herd who becomes a hero but who makes no waves about it, is not noticed and does not want to be. In that case the awakening is entirely due to outside circumstances thrusting themselves into his life and creating such a shock wave that he could only react to them by exerting himself in a most unusual way. Such an individual will only evolve into a Type One hero, but he nevertheless deserves respect and honor for whatever he performs at the needed time. However, this is not necessarily the background for the ordinary, 'little' man. If you are thinking in terms of a fireman or policeman, their job requires them to exert more than the average individual requires in years. Whatever the renumeration, they would not have chosen these jobs if they had not wanted to be challenged.

The impulse of this controlled, degenerate society that we live in is to disparage heroes and mock their efforts. This is why Americans demand that their heroes be perfect, an idea which would have shocked our ancestors who, with their very capable vision, were unable to see perfection even in their gods. Nature was neither good, nor evil, it was simply more or less challenging at different times. All were to exert themselves during the more challenging times and to enjoy the benevolence of more peaceful periods. Thus life was varied, interesting, and it offered many lessons for the intelligent mind to contemplate.

Like a pendulum, we have swung between worshipping the 'one and only', oh so 'perfect' life offered to us by christianity's propaganda peddlers, and the burning, scalding hate and malice underlying the 'antihero' theme of the media's image of life. The effect of this is to Judaize Christ so that he will not be treated in the anti-hero style, and to disparage all genuine and realistic heroism to inhibit the further emergence of this characteristic in our people. The psychological effect throws the individual into despair and dependency. Some give up thinking that only Christ can save them, while others 'throw in the towel' and accept an 'eat, drink and fornicate' philosophy for tomorrow it will all be over. Knowing that heroism cannot be snuffed out in our people, they resort to choosing our heroes for us and shaping our reactions as if we were their puppets or robots needing programming. Only those heroes emerge which have their stamp of approval. In medieval times it was the Church's martyrs and saints who were elevated. Today it is some wimpy, liberal do-gooder whose example can only weaken our resolve to save our folk, our culture and the future of our children.

But even in our totally brainwashed, controlled society, the genetic impulse to genuine heroism cannot be snuffed out. The movies revised the old Thirties comic strip of 'Superman' - or so the public was led to believe. What emerged was a temporary popularity, then satiation, then boredom. To the media's surprise, out of nowhere, evolved an interest in the original comic books. Reprints of the first four issues of 'Superman' published in 1938 have sold out in a surprising number of copies. Critics evaluated these first issues as depicting Superman as more 'human', and Clark Kent as less 'wimpy'. Even Lois Lane was described as a somewhat short-tempered, bitchy, though sharp and intelligent girl with more or less ordinary American girl features and sporting a China doll bobbed haircut. The glamorous Brenda Starr came later to satisfy girls who wanted their heroines to look like movie stars. The conclusion of the critics was that Americans were, as usual, going through a 'phase' in which they tired of their heroes when in fact what was emerging was a need for real heroes -- flesh and blood ones like their ancestors knew. Extraordinary people, but human people; people who are therefore interesting, as all real heroes are.

Never underestimate the value of 'critics' in the media's propaganda efforts. They are the back-up squad of killers who manage to finish off the image who didn't quite die. 'So they want their old heroes again! Don't worry. We can handle it!'

So now you've been told that the American public is in it's down-swing, 'make them more human' phase. The bottom of the phase of course, is anti-hero hate and annihilation. In 'Superman III' make him a heel, a criminal, a psyche and a degenerate. That's making him 'human'. Human with a vengeance! Why didn't he just rape Lois Lane instead of seducing her? Remember, they know they can go too far and make people, not just repugnant (O.K.) but alarmed (never wake the sleeping giant of wrath!).

This brings us to the question of whether we should honor any particular heroes other than our Gods. Is it enough to honor them on Heroes' Day? I think it evolved quite naturally in our psyche to honor the ordinary or unknown hero on that day, a convenient holiday for us, November 11. Certainly, our greatest battlefield hero, Herman the Cheruskian, who won the fight in 9 C.I. against the Romans and thus saved northern Europe from the ravages of a degenerate, sold-out 'civilization', deserves the greatest of honors. However, this super-hero had many human failings. His personal life was a disaster. Not only his friends but his closest of kin opposed him. He even went through a 'lost' phase in which he joined the enemy's forces and became a Roman mercenary. At the time that seemed the practical thing to do. The gods had shown their disfavor to him, so he thought. All that remained was to make as comfortable an existence for himself as possible, and far away from the strife and personal animosity of his homelife. But destiny knew what it was doing. From the Romans Herman learned advanced military warfare and technology and could see it in operation, with all its weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He knew then that it was not invincible. He knew also, from what the Romans taught him, that the weakness of his people was its tendency to be divided as a result of pride, vanity, misunderstanding or whatever. Unity, he knew, was what his people needed. The right kind of unity at the right time.

Each of the other heroes we may choose will find some objection from somewhere from somebody. Rudyard Kipling was English. Jack London wrote about heroes and had a racialist philosophy on an instinctual level, but his own life was muddled and a struggle though not purposeless. Friedrich Nietzsche was German. Was he also a misogynist? What really made him a mental cripple at the end? So we're Americans. Ah, but you can find fault with Jefferson, Jackson and Lee if you try. But while you are noticing flaws and mistakes, are you also noticing that the Establishment has refused to honor these individuals, even to the point in the case of Lee, of deliberately dishonoring him by refusing him recognition (in Virginia the day honoring him was abrogated). Martin Luther King Jr is honored instead by a wreath laid each year by the Vice-President.

Jefferson was a genuine populist President who would have recoiled in horror at the America of today. Never mind the fact that he started out a Freemason and a Rosicrusian. He was mistaken about the motivetions behind the French Revolution and other things. Nevertheless, his integrity and honesty forced him to acknowledge his past imperfect idealism and, while President and later even more so as an ex-President, he excoriated all the old evils, paralyzing our true sovereignty even today. Was Jackson cruel to the Seminole Indians? He valued the destiny of his own people more. Was he less than democratic when he had battleships sent to Charleston to give notice that the tariff laws were not nullified? He wanted national unity, and he fought the Bank of the U.S. to a standstill, and publicly denounced it in the grandest of epithets. Unlike integrationist and miscegenationist Martin Luther King, Lee advocated the purity of racial heritage. One should be proud of 'both parents'. His wife of 39 years was an invalid during most of their marriage but he upheld his honor by adhering to the codes of his society, transferring his love to his children and shunning any extramarital activities, compromising any other man's wife or any of the several young single women to whom he was drawn during the course of his life and whose identity remained unknown until 50 years after his death. Older and more morose, he became heroic through his fatherly concern for his soldiers and for his suffering people after the war, ignoring comfort and easy money at every chance. He refused all recognition and reward for his accomplishments, and strangely enough, the public reacted by making him a greater hero.

Maybe you've now heard the 'Mexican Version' of the Fall of the ALamo? Davy Crockett didn't die inside the walls of the old mission. Santa Ana's troops captured the last six survivors and took them before their leader. Santa Ana was interested in the tall Tennessean and was told he was a Congressman. However, to his chagrin Santa Ana learned that Crockett had resigned before he went to Texas and thus had no political influence whatsoever. Now we come to the part of the story about which the Mexican historians say they don't understand because witnesses could not understand English. All they know is that a shouting match ensued between Santa Ana and Crockett with the result that Davy Crockett grabbed a knife and lunged toward Santa Ana. He was stopped, and he and the other five men were quickly slain for insubordination!

Maybe it is true that we have not learned the full story about each of the men we think we know so very well. Each one could have some particular shortcoming sure to be pointed out and condemned if known, but no person of conscience takes any of his failings lightly, and in most cases, suffers far more than the public ever knows, and puts up a false front to please others whom they think are their critics. But in the case of a genuine hero, we must ask ourselves, 'Could anyone else have filled the role at that time?', and the answer will be 'No'. A hero has an unique personality, but his role and services are a familiar one of uplifting our spirits and urging us onward, so that we do not retreat and lose all.

Why do we recognize an event like the Battle of Rorke's Drift? Certainly not American, and what do we care about a battle which occurred in the southern part of Africa? These soldiers, many of them Welsh, Irish and Scottish, were by some standards rejects or misfits from middle-class society, who had drifted into an occupation whereby they could earn a living and yet experience some adventure and excitement. They got what they asked for - no soft, dull life for them.

Before their call to destiny, they would have been considered by their contemporaries exceedingly ordinary men - some of them too much addicted to liquor, probably brought on by living in a forsaken wasteland far from their kinfolk. But the fight they put up under incredible odds for so long made them heroes of undeniable stature. Were they much different from the men in the Alamo?

These events show us the quality and dedication which lie under the surface of the ordinary members of our folk whom we must not ignore, deny or disparage. Their lot is hard enough in good times, and in today's conditions they are hanging on by their fingernails to what they hope is a better tomorrow with better leaders. Society has failed them, and ourselves, to our bitter woe. It has been said before by a well-known person that if we reject the hands held out in love and compassionate aid from our ancestors we have doomed ourselves.

We know not how others feel; but we know that for us there is but one destiny which will make our lives worth living; and as we cannot deny love, as it is part of our nature, or children, as having them is our future, we will fight on in spite of everything. Odin, give us victory! Tyr, stir us to the highest of efforts! We can conquer, and we shall!

J.H.P.

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