RUTHFULLY YOURS

This is the most recent installment of exclusive interviews with Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College, on his book revealing how communists, from Moscow to New York to Chicago, have long manipulated America’s liberals/progressives. Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century is based on an unprecedented volume of declassified materials from Soviet archives, FBI files, and more.

“Face it,” says Michael Novak, “you are going to have to read this book.” Big Peace’s own Peter Schweizer calls Dupes the “21^st century equivalent” to Whittaker Chambers’ classic Witness.

Big Peace: Professor Kengor, we’ve been doing these interviews for several months now. As an astute observer of dupes, we trust you’ve been watchful for the biggest dupe of 2010.

Kengor: I have, and the competition is steep. It’s not easy to pick one. As honorable mention, however, I’d like to acknowledge New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican. Bloomberg may be the successor to duped liberal Republicans like Senator Mark Hatfield, though Hatfield was suckered during the Cold War by communists, whereas Bloomberg’s weakness appears to be Islamists. Perhaps if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls for a nuclear freeze, Bloomberg could rally the masses for a march at Central Park.

Big Peace: You’re thinking of Bloomberg’s comments supporting the Ground Zero mosque.

Kengor: Yes, during those comments, Bloomberg got choked up, such was his stirring defense of religious tolerance. Liberals likewise were moved to tears, once again exhibiting their famous religious tolerance.

Such religious tolerance, ironically, is not being practiced by the Muslim planners of this Cordoba House near Ground Zero. Those planners obviously know it’s a very poor decision to build this mosque there.

Bloomberg’s defense of their decision, and, more so, his condemnation not of those demanding the mosque but of critics, was quite troubling. The critics rightly see the location of the mosque as unnecessarily provocative and insensitive. Bloomberg, however, chastised them as, essentially, provocative and insensitive, saying they should be “ashamed of themselves.” It’s kind of like liberals during the Cold War: the bad guys are the anti-communists, not the communists.

Similarly, recall Bloomberg’s remarks regarding the Times Square bomber, where he suggested the perpetrator was “homegrown,” someone with a “political agenda,” probably protesting Obama-care. Likely a disgruntled conservative, perhaps a Tea Party type—some knuckle-dragging Neanderthal from the right.

Big Peace: That assessment from Bloomberg came in his interview with Katie Couric.

Kengor: Yes, which was remarkably condescending, and you know Katie and her clients on the left loved it, as did Islamists. That’s the nature of the dupe: You inadvertently serve or please the enemy, especially with naïve or ill-informed comments.

Also from Bloomberg, and less noticed, was his considerably less vocal support for the request by Bill Donahue’s Catholic League to light up the Empire State Building for the centennial of Mother Teresa’s birth in August, when, to the contrary, the building had been aglow in red and yellow to commemorate the anniversary of Mao’s Red China the previous October.

Big Peace: That contrast is unbelievable, and it actually happened.

Kengor: Sure did. But for Bloomberg, it could have been worse, I suppose. What if, say, he erected a statue of Joseph Stalin?

Big Peace: That brings us to your dupe, or dupes, of the year, and is likewise unbelievable. In fact, a group of Americans have indeed erected a statue to Stalin.

Kengor: My dupes of the year are the folks at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, who erected a statue honoring Joseph Stalin.

Big Peace: The National D-Day Memorial actually erected a statue to Stalin?

Kengor: Yes.

Big Peace: Did Stalin have anything to do with D-Day?

Kengor: Nothing whatsoever. He wasn’t there, and neither was a single Russian troop. Stalin and the Soviets had nothing to do with D-Day.

Actually, let me amend that slightly. In a significant way, Stalin had a lot to do with D-Day. He arguably caused D-Day, or, at least, helped set in motion the series of events that led to D-Day. Remember your history: World War II was launched when Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact August 23-24, 1939. They mutually agreed to invade, destroy, and partition Poland. Hitler’s path was cleared. On September 1, one week after that pact was signed, the Nazis invaded Poland. On September 17, two-and-a-half weeks later, the Soviets invaded Poland. By the end of September, Europe was at war. Stalin helped start World War II, which, of course, ultimately would force the Normandy landing, D-Day, June 1944.

So, in point of fact, Stalin did have something to do with D-Day.

Remember that stunning scene at the start of “Saving Private Ryan,” where your grandfathers were getting their arms blown off on the beaches of France? Stalin helped make that possible.

Big Peace: Why is the statue there? What’s the thinking?

Kengor: It’s there to honor the USSR as partner of the United States during World War II. The Soviets became our ally once Stalin’s (perceived) pal, Hitler, betrayed him and their pact, and eventually invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941.

Personally, I’d have no argument with some kind of general tribute to the Soviet soldier at the D-Day Memorial. These suffering souls were victims not only of Hitler but that beast, Stalin, who, incidentally, was responsible for upwards of 60 million deaths of Soviet citizens. Worse still, Stalin’s Great Purge of his military high command just prior to World War II allowed the Nazis to decimate the Red Army once they invaded Russia, leading to higher casualties among Soviet soldiers than those of any nation in all of World War II. The Soviets themselves painfully acknowledged this after Stalin’s death. That was among Nikita Khrushchev’s specific criticisms of Stalin during his 1956 “Crimes of Stalin” speech.

Big Peace: So, a statue to Stalin is not only historically inaccurate but, you would argue, morally unjust?

Kengor: That’s my position. Erecting statues to Stalin was what Stalin did, all over the USSR, in fact. I’ve heard of Stalin building statues to Stalin, and the Kremlin doing so, and the Politburo, but Americans? I never thought I’d see the day.

Of course, why am I surprised? Such is the wretched state of American education, from public schools to our outrageously biased, immorally over-priced, monolithic left-wing universities, which preach diversity.

We don’t know this Cold War history, or the crimes of communists. We had New Yorkers in 2009 lighting up their tallest skyscraper for Mao Tse-Tung, and now we have the D-Day Memorial pouring the mold for Uncle Joe.

Really, I find it a fitting testimony to John Dewey, Columbia University educator and founder of modern public education, who happened to be a Potemkin progressive duped by Stalin and the Soviets.

Big Peace: In the last few weeks, we talked about “Stalin’s dupes,” including FDR being duped by Stalin (click here and here). Is history repeating itself?

Kengor: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Dewey’s disciples aren’t teaching the past, and now America’s students are repeating it. FDR and his “progressive” pals were duped by Stalin once, and now some Americans are being duped by the man again—from the grave. Uncle Joe is howling from his tomb.

Big Peace: Is the Stalin statue still up?

Kengor: The statue was protested so vigorously, especially through the vigilance of Lee Edwards’ terrific group, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, that it has been temporarily taken down, though the plan is to relocate it to a different part of the exhibit. So, this isn’t over. Not until Stalin has a stake in his chest, draped with garlic in a sealed coffin, will this nightmare be over. Until then, keep your crosses and torches.

Big Peace: And until then, what was done in 2010 was done.

Kengor: Correct, which is why those responsible for erecting the statue to Stalin at the National D-Day Memorial are the Dupes of the Year for 2010.

Big Peace: Professor Kengor, have a happy New Year.

Kengor: I will, but it would help if the D-Day folks had the good sense to dispatch Uncle Joe to the ash-heap of history, where he belongs.