RUTHFULLY YOURS

In 1938 Dorothy Thompson, known for being the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany, penned the following: “Write it down that the democratic world broke its promises and its oaths, and capitulated, not before strength, but before terrible weakness, armed only with ruthlessness and audacity.” Thompson’s words echo much of what is currently occurring in the world today.

In 1939 Thompson was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential woman in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt.  In Thompson’s Let the Record Speak, one is hard pressed not to see certain similarities today with what occurred a mere 76 years ago in the world. The players may be different but the fascist urge — be it Nazism, Marxism, Communism, or radical Islam — is still quite evident. Thus, Thompson wrote

The world has been treated to a display of brute force which is entirely in harmony with the Nazi Weltanschauung.  Exactly what has happened has been predicted for years by independent students and reporters of National Socialism.  The whole program could have been charted by any one of us. And that the procedure should be bolstered by egregious lies might also have been predicted. Still, the leaders of the Third Reich evidently believe that there is no limit to the credulity of the human race [emphasis mine].

Consequently, we have a President of these United States who impotently stands by as President Putin annexes the Crimea while the White House “repeatedly insists that Russia’s move is illegal and won’t be recognized.”

Paul Roderick Gregory reminds his readers that “[c]ivilized countries understand that wars over territories threaten the foundation of world peace. Apparently Putin does not.”  Thus, …” [a]n agreement between nations, freely reached, can change a border. But no state may use force or threat to compel another to surrender any part of its territory. Territorial integrity thus takes territorial conflict off the table and removes what, in the long course of history, has been far and away the most frequent cause of war.”

It is why C. Bradley Thompson in his 2012 piece entitled “Why Marxism? Evil Laid Bare” asserts that “it is the single worst blight to have affected human life over the course of man’s entire history; and second, those who advocate it represent the very definition of human evil and must be openly judged and condemned accordingly.”  In fact, “the only thing that compares to the fanaticism of the communist revolutionary in our world today is the Islamic jihadist.”

In her March 16, 1938 post, Dorothy Thompson asserted that

…as Jews are beaten in the streets, as men and women of the most eminent distinction are condemned to exile, imprisonment and economic ruin, as a smooth, swift, ruthless organization proceeds to totalitarianize… nothing that is happening is worse than what has been happening in Germany itself for five years; nothing has happened that was not planned; nothing has happened that was not predicted; nothing has happened of which the world was not given a blueprint in advance!

And as the radical Islamic world, natural heirs to the fascist urge, surges in power in Europe as well as in America, recent survey results indicate that slightly more than half of French Jews interviewed believe there is no future for Jews in France.

In May 1938 the prescient Thompson wrote that

the only advantages which the dictatorships possess today derive from the clearness of their policies and from the fact that the imaginations of their leaders encompass a wider range of possibilities.

Thus, “the failure to comprehend the dictatorial mind is the greatest weakness of democracy.” In fact, “all dictatorships accept [war] with complete realism. That is their strength [.]” Thus, “the Fascist powers do not put any limit whatsoever upon their possible expansion” and “dictatorships shrink before no methods, nor do they dream of asking for universal rules to apply to themselves as well as others.”

Consequently, in 2014 have we not countless examples of Islamic demands that we conform to their wishes concerning freedom of speech restraints, school activities, worship rituals, food restrictions, entertainment limitations, sharia law, even artistic logos on shoe products? Yet they “will arrest and condemn to death any foreigner who attempts intervention in their internal affairs, [as they] openly announce their own intention of intervening in other countries’ internal affairs.”

In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that “[p]erhaps the pacifist-humane idea is quite a good one in cases where the man at the top has first thoroughly conquered and subdued the world to the extent of making himself the sole master of it.” Consequently, when Czechoslovakia was “disposed of” and “dismembered” the “very basis and spirit of Anglo-Saxon law was violated.” 

And thus we come to American foreign policy under Barack Hussein Obama. 

We have an American President who purges American military commanders, reduces American military might, has no genuine respect for veterans, and has consistently ignored the plight of medical care for veterans until he could no longer avoid the issue. We have a commander-in-chief who simply does not treat the war on terror as the nation’s highest priority, making one question this man’s commitment to America’s safety.

And sadly, we have a people who have not taken to heart that “peace is not the absence of war. Peace is a positive condition — the rule of law.” If peace is “established on betrayal, [it] can only maintain itself by further betrayal.”

Under the helm of Obama, whose scandals and lies are now legion, we may have peace but it is “peace without virtue.  Therefore, it is not peace — but the initiation of a terrific world crisis.”

Henceforth, “write it down that [on February 12, 1938 when Germany dictated a peace treaty, the] — so-called Christian and democratic civilization accepted [totalitarianism], without risking one drop of brave blood.”

Like Hitler, Putin did not make his move until he “was perfectly sure that nobody was going to oppose him.” And the “effect of all this is not only to fill the Fascist powers with arrogance, but, what is much worse, to fill the democratic countries with a sense of defeatism.”   

In his article titled “Yesterday Communism, Today Radical Islam” David Satter has written that “in dealing with an ideological opponent,… we must show the fanatics that they cannot win because we will not lose.  In the long run, it is determination as much as military power that will make our victory possible.”  

What has happened to that American spirit — that belief in our values and ideals that make us exceptional — that have made us the stalwart protector of freedom both here and abroad?  The ideological opponent may be across the pond or right here in our country; yet, either way Americans must now stand up and be counted as voices of conscience and determination, notwithstanding the weakness or indifference of our leaders.

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com