Revisiting (and Reliving) 1938 (1 Viewer)

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Revisiting (and Reliving) 1938
By Rick Richman

“It is 1938; Iran is Germany; and it is racing to acquire nuclear weapons.” Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly punctuated his speech in Los Angeles earlier this month with that sentence. It was an effective rhetorical device, conveying both a sense of threat and a sense of urgency.
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But 1938 may be relevant in more ways than as a rhetorical device. Revisiting that year, through Winston Churchill’s compelling account in “The Gathering Storm,” is an instructive exercise, and one the Iraq Study Group might consider as it completes its deliberations.

* * *​

February 20, 1938: Churchill spent the entire night without sleep, “consumed by emotions of sorrow and fear” -- the only time he went sleepless even after he became Prime Minister. He had received a call late that evening informing him that Anthony Eden had resigned as Foreign Secretary.

Eden, who shared Churchill’s views about Germany and Italy, had found himself almost isolated in the Cabinet, opposed by the Chiefs of Staff who “enjoined caution and dwelt upon the dangers of the situation.” Churchill was despondent over the resignation:

I must confess that my heart sank, and for a while the ark waters of despair overwhelmed me. . . . I watched the daylight slowly creep in through the windows, and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of Death.
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A precipitating factor in Eden’s resignation had been Neville Chamberlain’s decision to enter into direct negotiations with Italy. Chamberlain’s position was that:

His Majesty’s Government would be prepared . . . to recognize de jure the Italian occupation of Abyssinia, if they found that the Italian Government on their side were ready to give evidence of their desire to contribute to the restoration of confidence and friendly relations.

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Read More: American Thinker: Revisiting (and Reliving) 1938

 

[jujuman13]

Unfortunately we in the Western Nations do not have any Politician who even approaches the stature of a Winston Churchill.
President Bush is not even remotely like Winston's pet dog, although PM Blair could well be termed President Bush's pet poodle.
President Bush is rather like a charging rhinoscerous, he saw or imagined he saw a red flag and charged without actually knowing where he was going or how long it would take to get there.
And we place our trust in characters like these. Pitiful.

 

[Hatuey]

Unfortunately we in the Western Nations do not have any Politician who even approaches the stature of a Winston Churchill.
President Bush is not even remotely like Winston's pet dog, although PM Blair could well be termed President Bush's pet poodle.
President Bush is rather like a charging rhinoscerous, he saw or imagined he saw a red flag and charged without actually knowing where he was going or how long it would take to get there.
And we place our trust in characters like these. Pitiful.

George Washington? Thomas Jefferson? Harry Truman? Teddy Roosevelt? FDR?

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Unfortunately we in the Western Nations do not have any Politician who even approaches the stature of a Winston Churchill.
President Bush is not even remotely like Winston's pet dog, although PM Blair could well be termed President Bush's pet poodle.
President Bush is rather like a charging rhinoscerous, he saw or imagined he saw a red flag and charged without actually knowing where he was going or how long it would take to get there.
And we place our trust in characters like these. Pitiful.

lmfao if Churchill was alive today you people would be calling him fear mongerer who was using the Nazi's to scare the people into voting for him and an excuse to take away civil liberties. Pitiful.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally posted by TOT:
lmfao if Churchill was alive today you people would be calling him fear mongerer who was using the Nazi's to scare the people into voting for him and an excuse to take away civil liberties. Pitiful.

As if you knew what that was.

How about that piece of crap Newt Gingrich, if you want to talk about taking our civil liberties.

We Fight for Liberty by Having More Liberty and Not Less
By Keith Olbermann MSNBC Countdown

Thursday 30 November 2006
And finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment about free speech, failed speakers, and the delusion of grandeur.

"This is a serious long term war," the man at the podium cried, "and it will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in the country."

Some, in the audience, must have thought they were hearing an arsonist give the keynote address at a convention of firefighters.

This was the annual Loeb First Amendment Dinner in Manchester, New Hampshire - a public cherishing of Freedom of Speech - in the state with the two-fisted motto "Live Free Or Die."

And the arsonist at the microphone, the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, was insisting that we must attach an "on-off button" to Free Speech.

He offered the time-tested excuse trotted out by our demagogues, since even before the Republic was founded: widespread death, of Americans, in America, possibly at the hands of Americans.

But updated, now, to include terrorists ... using the internet for recruitment ... end result, quote "losing a city."

The Colonial English defended their repression with words like these.
And so did the Slave States.
And so did the policemen who shot strikers.
And so did Lindbergh's America-First crowd.
And so did those who interned Japanese-Americans.
And so did those behind the Red Scare.
And so did Nixon's Plumbers.
The genuine proportion of the threat is always irrelevant.

The fear the threat is exploited to create ... becomes the only reality.

"We will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find," Mr. Gingrich continued about terrorists formerly Communists formerly Hippies formerly Fifth Columnists formerly Anarchists formerly Redcoats.

".... to break up their capacity to use the internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech."

Mr. Gingrich, the British 'broke up our capacity to use free speech' in the 1770's.

The pro-slavery leaders 'broke up our capacity to use free speech' in the 1850's.

The FBI and CIA 'broke up our capacity to use free speech' in the 1960's.

It is in those groups where you would have found your kindred spirits, Mr. Gingrich.

Those who had no faith in freedom, no faith in this country, and, ultimately, no faith even in the strength of their own ideas, to stand up on their own legs, without having the playing-field tilted entirely to their benefit.

"It will lead us to learn," Gingrich continued, "how to close down every website that is dangerous, and it will lead us to a very severe approach to people who advocate the killing of Americans and advocate the use of nuclear and biological weapons."

That we have always had 'a very severe approach' to these people is insufficient for Mr. Gingrich's ends.

He wants to somehow ban the idea.


Even though everyone who has ever protested a movie or a piece of music or a book has learned the same lesson:

Try to suppress it, and you only validate it.
Make it illegal, and you make it the subject of curiosity.
Say it cannot be said - and it will instead be screamed.

 

[Moot]

As if you knew what that was.

How about that piece of crap Newt Gingrich, if you want to talk about taking our civil liberties.

IMO, the problem with free speech as it is being used today is that almost anyone can get in front of camera or on the radio or write an op-ed and say just about anything they want, no matter how outrageous or untrue and not be held accountable. The more outlandish, inaccurate and inciteful it is, the more press coverage they seem to get. That to me doesn't seem like the kind of freedom of the press or free speech the forefathers had in mind.

However, I strongly believe that without freedom of the press and free speech we don't have democracy. So I don't know what the answer is to epidemic of spin meisters and fearmongers among us. I just hope the majority of people are smart enough to recongnize them for what they are.


***

"lmfao if Churchill was alive today you people would be calling him fear mongerer who was using the Nazi's to scare the people into voting for him and an excuse to take away civil liberties. Pitiful."

Prior to Churchill's becoming PM he wasnt very well liked and publically scorned for trying to bring back the gold standard inflation after WWI, which may have contributed to the Great Depression. But the Brits obviously got over it and saw that he was right man, in the right place, at the right time.

I think that might be what Jujuman13 meant. That for our time right now, we don't seem to have someone like a Churchill, Lincoln or a Washington who can step up to the plate and lead us out of this mess.

But maybe you're a little bit right, ToT. Perhaps people are a llittle too cynical these days to recognize a great leader if one did come along. But then, maybe the same could be said for a messiah as well.

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally Posted by Moot
I just hope the majority of people are smart enough to recongnize them for what they are.

The answer to this is obvious. And it is your comment here which is the key. It is up to each and everyone of us to decide for ourselves. It is the "marketplace of ideas" that is the engine of democracy. Once you lose that, you become totalitarian.

Of coarse, right now, we have neither.

The US is a "corporate oligarchy!"

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

As if you knew what that was.

How about that piece of crap Newt Gingrich, if you want to talk about taking our civil liberties.

Sorry free speech is not absolute, someone ought to inform the jihadist sympathizer and renound leftist hack Olberman of the clear and present danger clause. Words mean things, and printing the propaganda of of our enemies during times of war is tantamount to treason. Fuc/k Olberman and anyone who thinks that the 1st amendment applies to the tyrants Ahmadinejad and Chavez.

 

[Trajan Octavian Titus]

Prior to Churchill's becoming PM he wasnt very well liked and publically scorned for trying to bring back the gold standard inflation after WWI, which may have contributed to the Great Depression.

They also called him a fear mongerer.

But the Brits obviously got over it and saw that he was right man,

Not until the Nazis took over Poland and were much stronger and harder to defeat than they were when Churchill warned the world about them. The same thing is happening today with Iran, the useful idiots preach of negotiation and appeasment all the while claiming that the people warning of the threat are war mongerers.