Inspired by @gregolear on tonight's Narativ Live - we were talking about America being a nation compromised of losers who make their own freedom, here's my 2013 essay...on that very subject. It's about ROCKY. https://www.ericgarland.co/2013/09/07/why-america-needs-to-see-rocky-before-it-starts-another-war/

Never mind my garbage Syria analysis.

But I stand by this: "The film Rocky actually cut through all of the depression of the 1970s by highlighting one last myth about America – that it is where the downtrodden go for refuge. *We are the children of losers who survived.*"

"We are the descendents of people who knew what an ass kicking felt like. We had a deep empathy that came from our families, our neighbors who just wanted peace and an honest day’s work.

How do we get something like that back? I don’t know."

I know now. And Putin helped.

This is what our enemies failed to recognize about America: we are resilient. Everyone here, no matter how they came to live in America, has some history of a serious ass-kicking.

And every American can access that sense of humility and fairness and longing for justice.

America has been brutally attacked, turning our own weaknesses against us.

That attack was successful beyond measure. But it wasn't fatal. It wasn't final.

And that is why we will get back up.