Hugh Murray

I have taught at universities in the US, the UK, Germany and China and I have published in numerous academic journals. I was active in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s demanding equal rights for Blacks. NOW I SUPPORT CIVIL RIGHTS AND DEMAND EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL CITIZENS, INCLUDING WHITES AND MEN. (For some of my more formal writing, go to http://www.anthonyflood.com/murray.htm you can find photos, etc.) For most of my writing, see Tulane University's Library, Special Collections.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Joe McCarthy: Blacklisted by History

BLACKLISTED BY HISTORY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF SENATOR JOE MCCARTHY

AND HIS FIGHT AGAINST AMERICA’S ENEMIES (NY: 2007)

BY M. STANTON EVANS

Rev. by Hugh Murray (complete review)

On 22 February 2012 Reuters reported that Russian leader Vladimir Putin “praises Cold War-era scientists…for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets so that the U.S. would not be the world’s sole atomic power…Spies with suitcases full of data helped the Soviet Union build its atomic bomb, he told military commanders. They were carrying the information away not on microfilm but literally in suitcases. Suitcases!” (Story by Steve Gutterman).

In the May 2009 Smithsonian Michael Walsh writes of “George Koval: Atomic Spy Unmasked.” The man was born in Iowa, became a Communist, left for the USSR where he was trained. He returned to the US at the beginning of WWII to work for the US government on atomic projects in Oak Ridge, Ohio. and elsewhere. He returned to the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. He died there in 2006, and in 2007 Putin posthumously bestowed on him a gold star as recognition of his efforts at stealing American secrets. Putin identified him as “Delmar.” A book published in Russia in 2002, THE GRU AND THE ATOM BOMB focused on the Soviet military spy network and the man with the code name Delmar, “who with the exception of…Klaus Fuchs may have done more than anyone to help the Soviets achieve its sudden, shocking nuclear parity with the US in 1949.” Anyone writing prior to 2007 would have no way of connecting Koval with Delmar.

Morton Sobell, a co-defendant of the Rosenbergs, had been convicted and served several years for spying. Like others accused of these types of crimes, Sobell maintained his innocence over the decades. However, in an interview published in the New York Times on 9/11/2008, Sobell finally admitted his guilt.(Wikipedia, Atomic Spies)

American Theodore Hall (born Holtzberg) died in 1999 in Cambridge, England, where he had resided for decades. As a precocious student at university in America, he had joined the John Reed Club, a Communist student organization. Hall became the youngest physicist to work on the atomic project at Los Alamos. The New York Times obituary headlined, “Theodore Hall, Prodigy and Atomic Spy, Dies at 74.” Hall was never charged nor convicted of espionage, but apparently admitted his deeds to friends and reporters in the late 1980s.

Some of these cases we have learnt of only recently. Were there others spying for the Soviets? Who was stuffing the suitcases described by Putin? No wonder Putin could smile, brag and gloat - perhaps, smiling about more than he revealed in his speech. Even now, do we know all? Or are there more shocking revelations to come?

Evans’ book notes that the FBI was aware as early as December 1942 “that J. Robert Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist then becoming a central figure in the atomic energy project, was identified by Communist leaders as a secret party member who had to be inactive because of the wartime work he was doing.”(p. 6) Evans also notes that a Communist leader in Californian declared in November 1945 that Oppenheimer had informed them “several years ago that the Army was working on the atomic bomb.”(318 –footnote, emp. mine) If he told them this, say in 1942, what else was he revealing to them? “Like Hiss, Remington would later be convicted in federal court for lying about his Red connections, which meant the Truman loyalty program had been incapable of discharging a flagrant risk found guilty by a jury. Along with Oppenheimer, Condon, Service, and Adler – all holding down significant federal posts in 1950 – the Remington case made it clear that the alleged security crackdown under Truman was a myth.” (330)

Yet, when McCarthy first made his charges about Communists holding federal jobs in early 1950, many thought, and still think. he was being irresponsible.

There can be little doubt that the Soviets gathered important data from their agents and spies in the US – including those working for the American government. In February 1950 McCarthy, in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia claimed that Communists were on the federal payroll, and many were in the US State Department. Whether he alleged 205 or 57 became one of the first big disputes, but it is a diversion. The question was, were there subversives in the State Department and other high government offices?

Unfortunately, there are two major omissions that illustrate a major flaw in Evans fact-filled book. Had these been included, and the issues that they represent been fully analyzed, then the book might provide better understanding to the McCarthy era.

1) Though Evans refers to Democratic Representative Samuel Dickstein, a Congressman who helped establish what would later become the House un-American Activities Committee, Evans neglects to mention that Dickstein was a paid agent of the Soviet Union.(49) Soviet agents were in high places. 2) In 1943-44 Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles was compelled to resign, but not because he was accused of being a Soviet agent (indeed, he had opposed US recognition of the Soviet takeover of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia during the era of the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact). Although Welles had several marriages, he was forced out because he was also homosexual and had solicited sex with men.

These two cases show that there were Soviet agents in government in high places – sometimes in most unexpected places. Also, the Roosevelt Administration was more willing to force the retirement of a friend of the President because he was homosexual, than to fire Communists and Soviet agents. To rephrase: the government deemed both Communist subversives and homosexual security risks as threats, though at different times, it seemed more interested in firing one than the other. The red scare and the lavender scare were conflated in the minds of many, and some blame McCarthy, not only for the effort to rid the government of Communists and Soviet agents, but also of gays. The reality was for more complex than is revealed in Evans book.

Why were homosexuals considered security risks? At the time, homosexuality was a mental illness and homosexual activity was a crime. Thus, the assumption in government was that their promiscuous behavior would lead to possible arrest and blackmail whereby they might reveal the nation’s secrets. In theory, this was not limited to gays, for there was the lingering image from WWI of the seductress Mata Hari passing on Allied secrets to the enemy Hun. The issue would arise later when J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI discovered that Sen. John Kennedy had had a liaison with a pretty European gal who was thought to be an East German spy. Yet, in reality, men having a good time with women did not result in punishment. Indeed, it might enhance one’s reputation and result in promotion. On the other hand, having a gay relationship was ground for dismissal.

The issue of reds and lavenders is conflated from the outset of McCarthy’s charges of Communists employed by in the State Department in February 1950. The following week Secretary of State Dean Acheson appeared before a Senate committee on another matter, where he was questioned about security in his department. Replying for Acheson on this issue was Dept. of State official, John Peurifoy who announced that 91 had recently been dismissed as security risks. However, under further questioning, it became clear that they were fired NOT for being Communists or Soviet agents; they were fired for being gay.

When McCarthy demanded the firing of subversives, the Democratic Truman Administration, and even more so that of Republican Eisenhower, responded by firing sexual deviants instead.

When McCarthy made his charges of Communists in the State Department, the Senate passed such a resolution to investigate the allegations. Democratic Sen. Millard Tydings of Maryland was selected to chair the process. Evans is particularly good at detailing the misuse of the committee by Tydings and its Democratic majority. Tydings colluded with the Truman Administration and representatives of the State Department to investigate McCarthy, to allow his enemies like Owen Lattimore to expound at length and without interruption, to refuse to call McCarthy’s witnesses, to belittle the Wisconsin Senator, to whitewash any investigation of the Dept. of State, to issue a committee report that was incomplete, that lied about previous investigations conducted by the Republican controlled 80^th Congress; in short, the Tydings committee was a kangaroo court determined to avoid investigating Communists in government and smear McCarthy instead. Moreover, to prevent McCarthy from subpoenaing pertinent material, Truman had State Department files moved to the White House. The Democrats developed a policy of smear and cover-up, while finessing the issue the committee was created to investigate – Communists in government. Meanwhile, the liberal press portrayed McCarthy as the bully and mudslinger.

Furthermore, when McCarthy revealed information about suspected subversives in government, the Truman Administration was far more worried about detecting McCarthy “moles,” than rooting out Communist spies. Evans reveals how the Trumanites investigated thoroughly seeking out employees who were suspected of providing information to McCarthy. Truman seemed to deem a whistle blower for McCarthy as a greater threat than a Soviet agent.

Were there subversives in State? Evans details the Amerasia case whereby an official of State provided secret material to the journal that had Communist connections. J. Edgar Hoover thought the case was “air tight,” but in 1945 a deal was made by higher-ups. The DA who was to prosecute told the grand jury that the stolen material was of little import, Amerasia was an academic journal, and the incident should be ignored. Following his lead, the grand jury voted against an indictment. John Service, who was charged with stealing the papers which included military information, remained an employee at State. Worse, informants later revealed that Service spent considerable time viewing the security files of many employees of the State Department. As there was then no proper filing system, anyone who viewed the files could also remove damaging material, and no one would be aware that it was missing. Such was security at State.

But there had been problems in other areas of government, too. Lauchlin Currie (“the Soviet’s man at the White House on China policies,” Arthur Herman, Joseph McCarthy, p. 111), for example, was an executive assistant to President Roosevelt in the early 1940s, with a specialty on China affairs. In 1941 Currie arranged to have Roosevelt appoint Owen Lattimore as the President’s personal advisor to China’s Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek. Of course, Lattimore, like Currie, was hostile to Chiang and sympathetic to the rebel forces in Yenan under Mao Tse-tung. The Americans in this group of China hands invariably reported that Chiang was “dictatorial,” “feudal,” “fascist,” “reactionary,” “corrupt,” etc. By contrast, their reports of Mao and his rebels were glowing: “democratic,” “popular with the peasants,” “rational,” “progressive,” “resisting the Japanese,” etc. After Japan surrendered, the Soviets marched into Manchuria, where they aided the Communists under Mao. Should the US aid Chiang? The China hands in State said no. The 80^th Congress passed resolutions to aid Chiang, but subversives in the Treasury Dept. delayed and obstructed any transfer of money to the Chinese Nationalists. When military aid was promised, again there was delay and obstruction. Documents reveal it was purposely delayed. Finally, when a small portion of the promised military materiel arrived in China, it was defective. Was this American incompetence, or treason? Who were the culprits?

When Republicans asked, “Who lost China?” Democrats replied, “It was not ours to lose in the first place.” Nevertheless, the Soviets were aiding the Communists, while subversives in the US government were preventing American aid from reaching Chiang and the anti-Communists. Evans is superb in presenting much of this material. And the same people in the American government were also writing off the little Chiang, Synghman Rhee of South Korea. Moreover, the American leadership was planning to assassinate Chiang and award Taiwan to Mao and the mainland Communists. Indeed, In January 1950 Secretary of State Dean Acheson announced that South Korean and Formosa were beyond the American security perimeter. One weakness in Evans book is why Truman decided to about face in summer 1950. After declarinf South Korea beyond the security perimeter (and thus liable to be seized by the North Korea), Truman decided to go to war (or police action) to defend South Korea and then placed the 7^th fleet near Taiwan to prevent the mainland Communists from invading that island. This was a major policy change. Who made the change? More relevant, who had favored the old policy of appeasing the Communists?

When there were public cases where officials were identified as Communists or spies, the Administration often pressured the accused to resign, but slowly, over time. McCarthy wanted them fired, and complained that by allowing them to resign, they entered a revolving door whereby those exposed as subversives simply left one department for another, where in the new section no one would be aware of the possible danger. Thus, the security problem would begin all over again. Or those who were forced to resign left for positions with the UN, the International Monetary Fund, or other such influential posts.

After the Republican victory in 1952, McCarthy became chair of a committee and hired various researchers, including a young attorney, Roy Cohn, who had helped in the prosecution of the Rosenbergs. Cohn was aided by another young enthusiast, G. David Schine. They travelled to Europe to expose the imbalance of materials in the American library reading rooms, that were meant to counter the Marxist culture of the Communists. However, many of the books intended to promote the American way, were written by Communists and fellow travelers who undermined the West and praised the Soviets. Cohn and Schine sought to purge the libraries, and liberals were quick to denounce them as book burners. (Of course, the left had proudly burnt Nazi and right-wing materials in 1945.) Still, one wonders if Orwell’s Animal Farm or The God That Failed collection existed in these libraries. Certainly the Voice of America had continued its WWII left-wing approach to broadcasts: criticizing conservatives and praising socialists and communists. Even in 1950 during the Korean War, VOA was broadcasting attacks on South Korea’s anti-Communist, Rhee. One wonders if VOA broadcasters preferred Kim Il Sung, founder of the present dynasty in North Korea. But to liberals of Europe and America, Cohn and Schine were simply a pair of intolerant witch-hunters.

McCarthy charged that there was treason in military bases in New Jersey, where radar and sophisticated technical research was conducted. There was good reason to believe that secrets from Jersey shore were washing up in Eastern Europe. One officer, Maj. Gen. Kirke Lawton, alarmed about the problem of subversion in the area, cooperated with McCarthy. Unfortunately, Lawton would then be sacked. His replacement, Gen. Ralph Zwicker, was initially cooperative with the McCarthy inquiry, but quickly learnt the lesson of Lawton. Over night, Zwicker changed tactics from cooperation to obstruction of and lying to McCarthy and his committee. In time Zwicker was promoted. That was the Army way.

The Evans book includes so many facts and exposes of the liberals that one cannot detail them here. Yet, sometimes Evans spotlights the trees and misses the forest. This is especially true of the Army McCarthy Hearings.

While McCarthy maintained that there was treason in New Jersey and that to expose and end it was the purpose of the hearings, the Army had another view. It maintained that Roy Cohn had threatened to destroy the Army through the hearings because the Army was not granting sufficient privileges to his friend, the now draftee, Private G. David Schine. The subtext was simple – Cohn wanted hearings to undermine the Army because he felt it was mistreating his boy friend. The issue was not Red treason, but Lavender revenge.

McCarthy had been an amateur boxer while a student at Marquette University and he had served during WWII; he had a macho image. In the 1952 election campaign, McCarthy planned to make a speech attacking the Democratic nominee for President Adlai Stevenson. There were some rumors about the divorced Democrat, and McCarthy proposed a television address to denounce the Stevenson campaign as one filled with “pinks, punks, and pansies.” Democrats heard of the project and threatened to expose Eisenhower’s liaison with his WAC chauffeur, Kay Summersby. The family guy Ike had even considered divorcing Mamie to marry his driver.(David K. Johnson’s The Lavender Scare, pp.121-22) With the treat of retaliation, McCarthy then abandoned that speech and the Democrats remained silent about Eisenhower’s indiscretion.

On McCarthy, David Johnson writes, “notorious for his attacks on alleged Communists in government, [McCarthy] was often pressured by his allies to denounce homosexuals in government, but he resisted and did not do so.”(Wikipedia, “gay bashing”) Furthermore, “McCarthy was not involved in any of the congressional investigations or hearings into homosexuals in government. Though he was a member of the congressional committee that spent several months examining the homosexuals-in-government issue, McCarthy mysteriously recused himself from those hearings.”(Johnson, Lavender, p. 3) Johnson speculates that the reason may have been that McCarthy, 43 and unmarried, was himself vulnerable on this issue.

In the Army-McCarthy hearings the Left, the Army, and the Eisenhower Administration sought to destroy McCarthy. The Army again used deception and diversion, the Eisenhower Administration used cover up, and all used anti-gay prejudice to smash the McCarthy assault. Army Council Welch spent much time inquiring about a cropped photograph of Private Schine with army officers. Instead of the GOP questions like “Who lost China?” Welch queried, “Who cropped the Schine photo?” Cohn was called as a witness. His “own performance on the stand was, as he admitted a quarter-century later, ‘a disaster’…The unsympathetic [Sen.] McClellan pressed him on whether there was something ‘unusual’ about his relationship with David Schine. Cohn shifted uneasily and said no. Then Welch had his sport with him. Earlier he had worked in a nasty comment about ‘pixies’ and ‘fairies’ having handled the cropped photograph, which raised gales of laughter from the audience…”(Herman, p. 273) The hearings were televised. In an era when I Love Luch could not use the word ‘pregnant’ to describe her condition, the liberal Welch was taunting Cohn with words implying he was queer. Yet, McCarthy is the man whom history portrays as the bully and mudslinger.

There were tapes made of the Army officials preparing their trumped-up case against Cohn about trying to destroy the Army. Their whole purpose was to obfuscate, divert attention from the question of possible spies on Jersey military bases, and point instead to Cohn’s queer-love vendetta against the Army. The Army knew there was nothing to Cohn’s “threat”; the entire Army case against McCarthy and Cohn was a fraud. The tapes would reveal that. And when McCarthy sought to subpoena them, Eisenhower invoked Executive Privilege to deny revealing the tapes. Evans explicates how the New York Times and Washington Post cheered as the President rejected the demands of Congress for such data. They expounded how Eisenhower was simply upholding the Constitution and the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government. The liberal Establishment all agreed with Ike, Congress had no power to subpoena the tapes.

Evans is superb at exposing the hypocrisy of the liberals – for when Congress demanded another set of tapes in the 1970s from President Richard Nixon, those very same newspapers reversed themselves and joined the demand. When Nixon invoked Executive Privilege to prevent Congress from snooping into the President’s affairs, the liberals denied there was such a privilege, and responded with impeachment. But in the 1950s the same liberal Establishment praised Ike for doing what they would later condemn Nixon for doing. The liberals did not demand the impeachment of Eisenhower – they demanded the destruction of McCarthy.

“On June 1 [1954, liberal Republican] Ralph Flanders gave one of the nastiest, ugliest speeches ever made in the Senate Chamber…It compared him[McCarthy] to Hitler…and accused him of homosexuality…Flanders spoke of Cohn’s ‘passionate anxiety’ to protect David Schine and insinuated that McCarthy had his own reason to keep Schines’s ‘services available.’ He urged the Mundt subcommittee to investigate the ‘real issue at stake’ in the McCarthy-Cohn-Schine triangle.”(Herman, p. 274) McCarthy did not marry until he was 44, and liberal columnist Drew Pearson had provided information which was published in Nevada alleging that McCarthy had partaken in gay activities. On the other hand, Evans discounts the story that McCarthy or Schine were homosexual, but concedes that Cohn was.

The Army McCarthy hearings were followed by the Senate’s censure of the Wisconsin Senator in December 1954. All the Democrats joined with half the Republicans to condemn McCarthy. (Democrat Sen. John Kennedy did not vote because he was in hospital recuperating from back surgery.) Thereafter, McCarthy would cease to be a political force. Spent, he drank more and died in May 1957 at age 48. His name became an “ism,” a synonym for witch hunts, irresponsible charges, cruelty, smears, and bullying.

But was McCarthy right? Putin gloats in 2012 because of the help provided by American spies who helped to make the USSR/Russia a nuclear power. Putin knows what is in the archives of the spy agencies in Moscow. However, what is held in the archives of the agencies in Beijing? Herman writes (p. 168): “In 1945 George Marshall went to China to try to arrange a truce between the warring factions and to propose a coalition government. Chiang refused, and despaired of Marshall’s and the American government’s naivete in dealing with the Communists. The result was an American aid embargo to force Chiang’s hand, which lasted until April 1948 – while Mao’s Communists were receiving constant supplies and training from Stalin. When the Truman administration finally lifted the embargo and authorized an aid package of $400 million, it delayed delivery until November. By then the Communists were poised for their victorious campaign.”

Evans clarifies this even more. The US withheld aid toChiang until he formed a coalition government with the Communists. In effect, this gave the Chinese Communists a veto power over aid to Chiang. Because the Communists refused to enter into an agreement with the Nationalists, the US government responded by cutting of aid to Chiang. Under the circumstances, the Communists did not enter into the coalition, and Chiang received no American aid. Meanwhile, the Communists received Soviet aid and grew more powerful.(Evans, 416-17)

“Sinister figures like Lauchlin Currie flit in and out of the story,…, and FE [foreign expert] officials like [John Stewart] Service and [John Carter] Vincent worked hard to undermine official and public support for the Nationalists. One of the critical factors in Chiang’s collapse, a rampant inflation and a worthless currency, was certainly engineered by Soviet agents in the Kuomingtang and the American Treasury Department…But when all is said and done, if Chiang would have been an inadequate leader for the Chinese people, Mao was a disastrous one. If Chiang was willing to countenance corruption and incompetence, Mao was prepared to commit mass murder: perhaps as many as 50 million would die between 1949 and 1969 thanks to Mao’s policies.”(Herman, 168)

McCarthy was demanding that some of those responsible for America’s pro-Mao policy be exposed, fired, and not transferred to another government department or to the UN.

Evans reveals another aspect of the Cold War – but occurring prior to McCarthy’s prominence. The FBI and other investigations of Communists in government had taken place, especially with the Hitler-Stalin pact. The FBI even had a list of people to be detained in case of emergency, like J. Robert Oppenheimer. However, in 1944 government agencies began to remove such anti-communist files to basements, or remote locations, away from personnel offices. Then many of those files were discarded or disappeared. In 1950 when McCarthy charged that there were subversives on government payrolls, in time the government would finally tighten security.

In any bureaucracy, whistle-blowers are usually unappreciated and often considered a threat by and to the directors of the department. When McCarthy encouraged everyday workers in government to send him information about possible subversives, both the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations saw him as a threat. Their actions demonstrate they considered McCarthy “moles” more of a threat than Communist “moles.”

In taking on the government, McCarthy felt the wrath of the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations, and he endured the hatred of the Left and the Liberal Establishment. The New York Times, the Washington Post, Edward R. Murrow of CBS, academia, all pitched stories with sufficient spin so that McCarthy would finally strike out. After the censure by the Senate, the Establishment had won. It might have advised McCarthy, in the manner of the friends of Job, “to curse God and die.” McCarthy may well have cursed some, but it is unlikely he cursed God. He died two years after censure, along with his reputation.

Putin’s boast of 2012 must make us ponder. Who stuffed the suitcases for Stalin? Did American “advisors” pull the rug from Chiang and propel Mao to power in China? Did subversives inside the American government help to accomplish this – and all the millions of murders that ensued? (In March 2012 even Chinese Communist Premier Wen Jiabao called the Cultural Revolution an “historical tragedy” disaster for China.) It is time to reconsider McCarthy, and books and by Evans and Herman’s can help us to do just that.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Act of Valor - Movie, or Video Game?

Rev. by Hugh Murray

I expected a good movie but was disappointed. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! This is not a film; it is a video game. It begins with a scene in the Philippines with a woman in an ice-cream truck at an international school and a bomb. Then confusion. At times the fighting is at night, and one is unsure who the Seals are. Another time, a truck chase - but who are the Seals? The film is constantly loud, action, over the top. A good film has build up, time to breathe and try to follow the plot. A good film included discussion of the problems faced and how the group might solve them. Then there is the split between the plan and the unexpected elements that make the audience wonder if the good guys will succeed. None of this is provided in the Act of Valor. Also, you need time to identify with the actors. Too often, I found them indistinguishable. Overall, I found it hard to stay awake.
Worse, there was a kind of cultish aspect to the film. "My dad, my grand father were all fighters." "I received this flag from my great, great..." I do not mean that there is something wrong with many generations defending the best ideals of their country. But if the unit is based on merit, then even the son of an Amish should be able to join. Do you have to trace your ancestry to the Mayflower to be a Seal? There is this exclusive club aspect to the film that probably turns off possible recruits.
The Seals in this film may be heroic; they may be terrific, brave, patriotic men. But this film is a bore.
Contrast this with the great recruiting film, Top Gun. That had everything. By comparison, this is one dimensional, loud, a shooting gallery in which one hardly cares about the outcome. This film has many guns, but it is no Top Gun. As cinema, Act of Valor is an Act of Failure.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Should Churchill Have Saved the British Empire?

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire

By H. W. Crocker III (Regnery, 2011)

Rev. by Hugh Murray

How does one describe world history of the past few centuries in large print in 350 pages? Selectively. Clearly, Crocker cannot include every crucial encounter, every major battle, war, treaty, or policy. Does he include all the important points?

Around 1600 some thought England overpopulated with some 4.4 million souls. It was not yet the United Kingdom, and yet from these small islands were launched ships that conquered a quarter of the globe. How does one explain this?

In an early chapter on the dispute between England and its 13 American colonies, Crocker quotes John Adams in a reference that might be summarized as “demography is destiny”: “…our people,…,will in another century become more numerous than England itself. Should this be the case,…,it will be easy to obtain mastery of the sea; and then the united forces of all Europe will not subdue us.”(p. 32) Thomas Paine in COMMON SENSE said something similar: “…there is something very absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.” More recently, Pat Buchanan has written that Europe and traditional America are doomed because Third World immigrants are overwhelming them in their own homelands.

However, is demography destiny? The British Empire may provide sufficient examples that it is not. True, England did lose its 13 colonies by 1783. Yet, even then, England was approximately 5 millions, while the American colonies were less than 3.

If demography is destiny, how can one explain the British Empire? One good feature of Crocker’s work is that he provides statistics (imprecise as they may be) of British and British-led armies against various native opponents. So often, the British were outnumbered – frequently overwhelmingly outnumbered, and yet the British defeated their more numerous foes. Crocker describes the courage of the British leaders, some of the wounds inflicted upon them, and yet how they were able to establish an empire.

The mechanical, fatalistic approach – the continent rules the island and not the reverse - is disproven by Britain. Around 1850 the entire British presence in India was 100,000; yet they ruled over approximately 250,000,000. The British islands dominated the subcontinent of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and more: Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Oman. In addition, by 1900 nearly half of the continent of Africa was also under British rule. The island ruled simultaneously all these places plus important trading areas in China, the continent of Australia, and a large section of North America (Canada), and smaller islands scattered across the globe. A famous phrase was grounded in reality – “The sun never sets upon the British Empire.” How does one explain this? Clearly, demography is not necessarily destiny.

We are aware of how Cortes, with a few hundred Spaniards and horses defeated the millions of Montezuma in Mexico. How Pizarro and his few conquered the Incas with their masses of men. The British accomplished similar feats, - from the raids by Francis Drake and English pirates on Spanish islands and homeland ports, to the defeat of its massive Armada. The British also won land battles against enormous odds.

At the Battle of Plassey, with some 3,000 men, only a third British, Robert Clive defeated the Indian sepoys with 50,000.(133) Charles Napier, outnumbered 10 to 1, defeated 22,000 Ballucks at Meanee in India in 1843, and the following year, some 26,000 at the Battle of Hyderabad.(122)

Yet, there were some occasions where the British were badly defeated, and Crocker includes these setbacks. In the 1840s some 16,000 British and Indians were slaughtered after Afghanistan had promised safe passage through the Khyber Pass. The British won revenge shortly after by returning to the country, occupying Kabul, and destroying the villages responsible for the attacks.(136 )

In South Africa some 20,000 Zulus slaughtered 1,300 British defenders at the Battle of Isandlwhana, with almost every corpse desecrated. A little later, at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, 120 Brits and colonials held off 4,000 Zulus. However, following that 4,000 British soldiers defeated 15,000 Zulus and burnt their capital at Ulundi.(198-99)

Overall, one may generalize, the British defeated numerous enemy forces on nearly all continents even though they were usually outnumbered, and sometimes overwhelmingly so. There were a few areas where the British had trouble. One was in South Africa against the Boers, the Dutch settlers who sought to retain their independence against the encroaching English. Unable to defeat the Boers, who resorted to guerrilla warfare, the British rounded up the Boers’ families, herding them into concentration camps with barbed wire fences. Using Mao’s analogy before Mao uttered it, the Boer guerrillas – the fish who swam in the water of the people, were cut off and isolated from their sources of supplies and support. The British policy of concentration camps succeeded and the Boers were subdued.

One important battle omitted by Crocker was that between British crack troops and American irregulars. The British coalition had just defeated mighty Napoleon in his come-back attempt at Waterloo in 1813. The newly established United States, which had purchased Louisiana from Napoleon in 1803, thereby lost its friend in Europe at Waterloo. Suddenly, America had to confront alone the might of the victorious British Empire. Veteran troops of the European conflicts were sent to seize New Orleans in 1814-1815 (during the War of 1812). The Americans were ill prepared, but under the leadership of Andrew Jackson, a motley group of defenders – Americans, pirates, Cajuns, Blacks – were organized behind a canal- embankment. The British, under Gen. Pakenham, disembarked south of New Orleans, and marched upstream where they encountered the American front line. In what some contend was a prelude to trench warfare of WWI, the Americans behind the embankment fired from relative safety at the oncoming enemy. In the end, Americans casualties numbered 71; the British 2,000, including Gen. Pakenham himself. The British withdrew. Of course, in WWI, the British suffered grievous losses against the forces of the Central Powers. (One error in Crocker’s book: he writes of the Axis powers of WWI.(94) Italy was part of the Axis in WWII, but in WWI it was NOT among the Central Powers. Indeed, in the Great War Italy became an ally of Britain and France.)

In simplest terms, the British invariably defeated Third World peoples in battle, often though vastly outnumbered, often conquering them. A small number of British sailors and soldiers might defeat massive armies of Third Worlders. Demography was not destiny. The British did, however, experience a much tougher time in battles against Americans, Boers, Germans, and other Europeans.

Victor Davis Hanson in CARNAGE AND CULTURE has written about the superiority of the Western soldier first evidenced in the wars of ancient Greeks against the Persian Empire. That superiority generally continued until the mid-20^th century, and Britain was the primary exhibit of this generalization. Britain did conquer a quarter of the world – with France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, Netherlands, Spain, and America, gobbling up much of the rest. Britain would face its greatest challenges when warring against other white peoples.

What did the British Empire do to or for its conquered peoples? Overall, the British created infrastructure, roads, ports, railroads, telegraph lines; it helped develop products like rubber, tobacco, cotton, tea, gold, and provided world-wide markets for these products. It was the British Empire that embarked upon a crusade against slavery, and in so doing, battled ever more and ever deeper into Africa to end the practice. Strange, but the Empire grew in its quest to abolish slavery. In time, the British brought Western law, Western values, fair play, sport, and even the English language as a unifying element. The British Empire ruled before the madness of multiculturalism infected its leaders; so the British could seek to end slavery no matter what the local practice was. The British could seek to end the burning of widows, no matter what the religion of the people maintained. Cannibalism, the murderous Thuggee, and other practices were abolished and could be abolished before multiculturalism declared all cultures equal.

What else did the British Empire do? It brought modern medicine. It brought written language to some areas (no written language had been invented in sub-Saharan Africa; nor had the wheel). Even confronting older cultures, the British added something important. What was Hong Kong before the British acquired it? Nothing. What was Singapore before the Brits? Nothing. Indeed, what was America? And the British developed Australia, Canada, and other lands.

On several pages Crocker states how the British admired the warlike peoples against whom they fought.(288) There is some irony here. He also notes that in 1831 some 42% of the British Army was composed of Irishmen – Protestants often officers, Catholics in the infantry. The Irish outnumbered the English in the British Army. Yet, most Brits did not admire the Irish. And the enmity was mutual.

Crocker’s short book presents biographical sketches of the courageous men who made the British Empire – Drake, Henry Morgan, Cornwallis, Raleigh, the Duke of Wellington, Clive, Gordon, Kitchener, Lawrence of Arabia, Churchill, Ian Smith and others. His range is several centuries and many continents. The writing is clear. Crocker’s Chapter 2 is an utter waste and fantasy (an alternative history) and nearly turned this reader away from the otherwise worthy volume.

Yet there is an important “fantasy” question that Crocker does not, yet should have raised. 1) Could Churchill have saved the British Empire? 2) Should he have saved it? Most are aware of how Britain and the US stirred National Liberation Movements in WWI in order to help defeat the empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomans. At the peace treaties new nations were carved from old empires: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Albania. Yet one often neglects – and Crocker is typical here –the German contribution to National Liberation Movements. Thus, in 1916 from a German Uboat Sir Roger Casement emerged to help lead a revolt of the Irish against the Brits. No need to recount the failures of the revolt and its related Easter Uprising in Dublin. But it is from this failed attempt that finally sprang a more independent Irish Free State under De Valera, one of the rebels of 1916.

It was also in WWI that some of the Germans inspired a new excursion of guerilla warfare in Africa. Most of the German colonies, deprived of supplies from the Vaterland by the dominant British naval forces, had to capitulate. However, in German East Africa, the colonials relied on ingenuity and the natives, first to survive Allied blockade and invasions, and then forging their guerrilla forces, by war’s end, the German-Africans were preparing to invade British colonies to the South. Africans were also aware of the how well they did with little support from Europe.

In WWI the British also stirred the Arabs to revolt against the Ottomans, but unlike in Europe, few new nations immediately resulted. At the peace tables Lebanon and Syria were given to France, while the British won Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Trans Jordan. Saudi Arabia became independent. To muddle the situation, the British had also promised a homeland for the Jewish people in the Trans-Jordan area.

The newly created Soviet government in Russia had publicized secret documents by the Allied coalition concerning their desire to carve up the lands of the Central Powers. The Soviets’ early response was to attack imperialism and permit nations to secede from the Russian Empire. So Armenia, Georgia, and other nations came to exist, for a short time. But soon thereafter, most of these lands were re-incorporated into the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders sought to portray their new land not as an empire, not as Russian, but a union, multicultural, composed of many peoples, customs, and languages, and all prospering under “socialism.” Even Jews were given a homeland in the new USSR, in Birobizhan in eastern Siberia. There was the Communist answer to Zionism.

The common notion that the Left and the National Liberation Movements are intertwined with, if not identical to, the Left was reinforced after WWII. Mao’s China, Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam were not merely Left, they were Communist. The Algerian FLN fought against France, and seemed Left, as did the Egyptian military that overthrew King Farouk, then seized Suez, and negotiated the large Aswan Dam project with the Soviets. In newly independent nations of Africa, many leaders proclaimed their policy African Socialism, some even spurning American aid for that of the Soviets. Castro “liberated” Cuba from being an American satellite, and Che fought to spread socialist revolutions throughout the hemisphere. National Liberation and the Left were essentially the same; or were they?

When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, one of his aims was to “liberate” Germans at home and abroad. For example, with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, and the peace leaving only a tiny slice to constitute the new Austrian republic, many Austrians, whose language and culture were Germanic, sought to unite with their larger, German neighbor. While the victorious Allies spoke of self determination of nations, they implemented the policy only when it suited the national interests of the Allies. The Allies had just defeated Germany, taken its colonies, taken away German majority areas to give them to Poland, and the Allies were not about to let Austria enlarge Germany, no matter what the Austrians and Germans desired. Germany was so weak following its defeat in 1918 that France occupied the demilitarized Ruhr in 1923, and the German government responded by supporting a strike, and printing evermore Reichsmarks for the strikers. The inflation of the German currency in 1923 is a textbook case on worthless paper money. There were economic and political consequences of this inflation. To prevent another such catastrophe, Hitler ordered German troops to occupy the German “demilitarized” Rheinland. Later, the Saar voted overwhelmingly to return to Germany under Hitler’s leadership. Although Hitler intervened before a plebiscite could be held, there were many Austrians who approved the unification of Austria with powerful and prosperous Germany, including the Cardinal, who the day after the Anschluss, stepped from his car and raised his arm in a fascist salute. Germany’s growing pride and prosperity encouraged others. After political negotiations, German troops were permitted to incorporate the 3.5 million Germans who had been assigned to live in Czechoslovakia. The Sudentenland Germans were added to Germany without a shot being fired. All of this was in accord with liberal ideals of self-determination of people. Hitler was not an imperialist, trying to subjugate other people into his German Reich, he just wanted all the Germans. He was a leader of National Liberation. Then, Hitler violated the Wilsonian doctrines when German armies marched into the rump state of Czechoslovakia. He took over Prague and the 7 million Czechs in their lands, but even then he was a “liberationist” for he allowed 4 million Slovaks to secede and become independent under Monsignor Tiso, while smaller crumbs were awarded to Hungary and Poland.

The free city of Danzig had voted for a Nazi Party, and the population, overwhelmingly German, sought to enter the Reich. Moreover, East Prussia was separated from the Reich, although its population was mainly German, because the Allies of 1918 wanted to allow Poland access to the sea. Poland was unwilling to compromise on these areas. The Poles did not care if most of the people in these areas preferred Germany. They no longer cared about self-determination or Woodrow Wilson. They wanted to keep what they had. And Britain and France encouraged the Poles to stand firm and avoid compromise. Poland did not yield to German threats in 1939. Then Hitler made a secret deal with Stalin’s Soviet Union. In September 1939 Germany launched the blitzkrieg against Poland. As German armies swept so quickly across the borders, Stalin had to move fast to get his share of the Polish pie. By October 1939, Poland was no more.

Britain and France had kept their promise to Poland and declared war against Hitler’s Germany. But nothing happened in the West. While in the east Poland was crushed in a month, in the west Sitzkrieg was the word to describe the non-war. After all, did it make any sense for Britain to go to war to save Poland now that Poland had disappeared? Surely, England would come to its senses, avoid war, and recognize the changes in eastern Europe.

But Chamberlain had other ideas. His government now planned to strangle Germany economically, depriving it of essential war materiel by occupying Norway. The Norse government apparently agreed to British occupation. But before the Brits could come, the Germans struck, marching into Denmark, and then with the aid of a Norwegian politician, Vidkun Quisling, the gates were opened to German occupation. The Norwegian fiasco toppled the Chamberlain government, and he was replaced by the more hawkish Churchill.

Next German armies stormed through the Netherlands, Belgium, and into France, - even capturing the unobtainable jewel of WWI, Paris. In weeks the mighty French Army was defeated and the government sued for peace. Meanwhile, many British troops were stranded on the continent being squeezed into an ever smaller pocket near Dunkirk. They were trapped; Hitler could have destroyed them. Instead, he stopped his armies and bombers. He allowed the British to evacuate in an armada of small ships. This was a major gesture of peace. Hitler admired the British; he desired peace; he did not seek to destroy the British Empire. If England would simply give him a free hand in Europe, he would not disturb their empire. This would be a reasonable method to restore peace to the world. Unfortunately, Churchill dismissed such peaceful proposals; the war went on.

Its hope for peace spurned by the British, Germany then began to pursue an alternative strategy. If Hitler could not count upon a unity of interests between the world-wide British Empire and a German dominated Neurope, then Germany would have to attack both the British Isles and its Empire. The latter would be accomplished by support for National Liberation Movements, even if this meant the destruction of the British Empire.

In 1933 when Hitler was first appointed Chancellor, there was a strange conjuncture of interests between the Nazis and Zionists – both sought the removal of Jews from Germany. While in January 1933 few Jews in Germany were Zionists, there numbers grew as Nazis imposed ever more restrictions upon those who remained in the Vaterland. An agreement was signed between the German government and Zionists whereby German Jews who left for Palestine might get credits for some of their possessions in Reichsmarks so they might import German goods to the Middle East. While Jewish organizations of the Left were boycotting German products, Zionists in Palestine were importing them. The agreement succeeded in getting 50,000 Jews out of Germany with products worth some $100 million Reichsmarks.

In Palestine, however, there was rising resentment against the new immigrants, and the anti-Jewish feeling rose and riots against them raged. The leader of this anti-Jewish faction was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and the British authorities sought to keep the peace between the Arabs and Jews.

In the Depression of the 1930s, many were dissatisfied with a world one fourth British. As Hitler seemed to revive German pride and prosperity, his nation won admiration, even from unexpected areas. Thus in 1935 Persia changed its name to Iran to alert all that it was not a Semitic nation, but an Aryan one.

In Ireland, the blue shirts of fascism never achieved power, but they had connections to the opposition, Fine Gael Party. Even in England Sir Oswald Mosely’s New Party had segued into the British Union of Fascists.

In India, as rumbles of war rose, how would India react? For the likes of George Orwell, who had served as a policeman in Burma, this was not a question, - he and India should fight for the British Empire. But Gandhi had other ideas. He hoped to achieve independence through use of non-violence. Gandhi even urged this method upon the British. Crocker mocks Gandhi’s advice: “Gandhi advised that the British should foil the Nazis by surrendering unconditionally to them and thus defeat them through moral example….Winston Churchill (…) had other, more robust ideas.”(149) Orwell wrote in opposition to Gandhi’s pacifism, but that pacifism may not have been so peaceful within India. The Indian National Congress “sponsored an anti-British ‘Quit India’ campaign that called on Indians to act as saboteurs, blowing up trains, cutting telegraph wires, and rioting.”(149) Yet, Crocker generally dismisses as a “bust” the alternative led by the Mayor of Calcutta, Subhas Chandra Bose. Although mayor, because of his antagonism to British rule, the authorities held him under house arrest. With the aid of the German Abwehr, Bose escaped, fled to Afghanistan, and then because of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, flew to Moscow and thence to Berlin. In Berlin, Bose broadcast on German shortwave against the British in India. He also met with Indian POWs in Europe and recruited them to join the German SS. Later in the war, he sailed in a German UBoat to Madagascar, where he transferred to a Japanese UBoat. The war in Asia had spread in December 1941, and now Bose recruited Indian POWs taken by the Japanese to form the Indian National Army. Bose also proclaimed a Provisional Republic of India government, and declared war on Britain and the United States. His government was recognized by several nations including Ireland. By the time the INA reached 40,000 at its height, Japan was in retreat. There was a major battle in Burma between the INA and Indians loyal to Britian. The British won, and Crocker concludes the Bose effort was no real threat.

Yet, others drew different conclusions. Paul Scott, the author of THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN (The Raj Quartette), portrays British officers as confused, shocked, and hurt that their own captured soldiers could turn against them and join the INA. Worse, they feared that they must defeat the INA while still on foreign soil in Burma, for if it reached India proper, all of India might quickly fall into the arms of Bose. The INA was defeated in Burma, and India remained British. Bose died in a plane crash at war’s end. Nevertheless, there is a statue of him in Calcutta, and many Indians revere the two men whom they believe led them to independence, Gandhi and Bose.

Nazi policies toward Zionism changed as the 1930s wore on. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem put pressure on the British to halt Jewish immigration. Once war broke out between Britain and Germany in 1939, it was then impossible to ship Jews to Palestine. And with the conquest of Poland, Germany suddenly had millions of more Jews under its sway. What would be the solution? When the war began to turn against the Germans, some proposed an exchange of trucks for Jews. One fierce opponent of any such deal was the Grand Mufti. Not only did he broadcast to the Middle East on German radio, telling his nationals to kill the Jews, not only did he meet on occasion with the German Fuehrer, but the Mufti even went to some of the concentration camps to show support for and admiration for the Nazi policy toward Jews.

And what was happening in the Middle East? Britain ruled Palestine, but France held nearby Lebanon and Syria. In 1940 France was led by Le Marshall in Vichy, a collaborator with Hitler’s Reich. Egypt was British, but the war came to North Africa when Mussolini’s forces in neighboring Libya invaded Egypt. They did poorly, but were supplanted by Germans under Rommel. Suddenly, the invasion of Egypt was ominously real. Jews in Egypt began planning evacuation to South Africa. The Muslim Brotherhood, and organization formed in the 1920s, admired the Nazis, and were planning to join with Rommel the moment he broke through the British defenses. If the Germans could take Egypt, the Suez Canal would be neutralized, and Palestine (and its Jews) surrounded, and perhaps under Nazi supervision, or worse, that of a restored Grand Mufti. (Look at some of the novels by Lawrence Durrell in the Alexndria Quartet for more on this period).

Even in 2012 Palestinian leaders could be seen raising their arms in the Hitler salute as they continue their national liberation war against Israel and the Jews. The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt remained in the background during the “Arab Spring,” but it, with its even more fanatical Muslim allies won 2/3s of the Egyptian vote. Its policies are clearly anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, with several more anti-s. To a lesser extent, this ideology is true of all the Arab Spring movements. To what extent are these National Liberation Movements a gift of the Third Reich?

The Hitler regime was anti-Jewish, but in its foreign policy, it was not anti-Semitic. The Grand Mufti was a Semite. So were members of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1940 a pro-Axis revolt occurred in Iraq, led by relatives of Saddam Hussein (he would come to prominence only later). The British crushed this rebellion in Iraq rather quickly, but it was another indication of how volatile the Middle East was. Both Britain and Stalin were unsure about Iran, so both occupied different sectors of that nation in WWII.

The Germans dismembered Yugoslavia, but a “liberated” Croatia was formed. Also a Bosnia. Germans recruited to the SS Muslims from the area who wore fezes atop the standard SS fare. In each of these areas one can see how National Liberation Movements can stem from Nazism as well as from the Left. (For more on the Germans as being anti-Jewish, not anti-Semitic, and in league with many National Liberation Movements, see some of the writings of Prof. Steven Farron of South Africa.)

The American Empire also felt the sting. In the American Philippines, the aged antagonist of American invasion, Aguanaldo, endorsed the new government established by the Japanese. And the Puerto Rican independence movement, harking back to it Spanish origins, preferred a Franco-type island to that imposed by its Anglo conqueror. This movement became more prominent shortly after WWII when some of its members shot up the US Congress and sought to assassinate President Truman.

And here I speculate – but watching an old film with Brad Pitt playing an Austrian who goes to Tibet in the late 1930s, I wondered, was this based upon an individual’s desire to explore, or an effort to link a liberated Tibet with the New Germany?

Bottom line – by 1945 Germany, Italy, and its allies were crushed. However, most of the National Liberation Movements it sponsored, encouraged, supported, and allied with continued to simmer, some to grow, and some to rise to leadership of their respective nations. And by 1950, much of the British Empire was gone. Even more by 1960. And by 1970 – what British Empire?

Would this have occurred had Churchill made a deal with Hitler in 1940? Hitler would have had Neurope and a free hand to tackle Stalin without fear of British attack on his rear, and the British might retain their empire.

Today, the British Empire is a memory. Would many of its former colonies be better had they remained British? Would Burma? Ghana? Bangladesh? Sudan? Go down that long list of lands. Are they better off now? It is not always an easy answer. The British Empire that ruled a quarter of the globe performed many good acts to improve the health, the education, the roads, the ports, the railroads of the natives. It challenged the superstitions of the natives and sometimes forced them to abandon their native customs, like slavery, burning widows, cannibalism, etc. It often brought law and reduced corruption. I suspect that many would fondly recall the rule of Britannia, and evoke a sense of loss that it withered away.

But it did not wither. WWII, and especially the German policy of rousing National Liberation Movements meant that people all over the world fought against the British Empire. The question I ask is, had Churchill, or Halifax, or even Chamberlain, agreed to peace in 1940, then German support of National Liberation Movements would not have occurred. And the Empire would have been stronger. Perhaps, it would still rule one fourth of the globe. There might be some good in that. And instead of making a deal with the devil to defeat Hitler, the British Prime Minister would have made a deal with the other devil to defeat Stalin.

Yet, there is something that we dislike about this proposal. If Hitler had defeated Stalin, Germany would have ended far stronger than before. Jews would no longer live in Europe. Britain, Empire and all, would be a junior partner in a National Socialist world, which might even extend to Tibet.

Churchill sought to save the British Empire when he refused all peace feelers with Hitler. He risked the empire to keep Britain free. It was a gamble. Britain won the war, but lost her empire. The Nazis lost, but some of their National Liberation Movements succeeded and some continue to this day.

As the British Empire recedes into history, we can wonder at the island that ruled so many parts of so many continents – and ruled them well.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

THE REPUBLICANS, PROTESTANTS, AND CHANGE IN AMERICA By Hugh Murray

Watching the GOP Presidential debate on CNN tonight (26 Jan. 2012) I was suddenly struck by the change in the Republican Party and also the US. The Republican Party was established in the 1850s as a party opposed to slavery (and in some cases, opposed to the slaves too). To some extent it grew out of the Whig Party, and then the Know-Nothing or American Party, which tended to be anti-Catholic. The Republican Party was basically the party of Northern Protestants, and perhaps some of the small Northern Black population.

In the South, the Republican Party did not exist. Lincoln did not receive a single recorded vote from the South in the Presidential election of 1860. Neither slaves nor free Blacks could vote. In the South there were few Catholics – Louisiana being the exception; and fewer Jews, though Louisiana elected to the national Senate the first Jewish member, Judah Benjamin.

While war against the South was popular in some areas of the North, not all shared the hostility to slavery. New York City had a large Catholic population, many of whom were poor Irish who did not relish fighting in a war to free Blacks who might then compete with them for the same lowly jobs if slavery were abolished. When the Lincoln Administration resorted to conscription to fill army ranks, an anti-draft riot was sparked in New York, with many blaming Blacks for the draft and the war; the angry mob even burned a Black orphanage. The Democrats retained many Catholics in their ranks. Some even suggested that New York City also secede from the Union, for then none would be drafted. Meanwhile, General Grant’s order expelling Jews from his theater of war also tended to push Jews into the Democratic Party. By contrast, in the South, Pres. Davis’ Cabinet member Judah Benjamin was sometimes referred to as “the brains of the Confederacy.”

After the defeat of the Confederacy, the victorious Northern Republicans feared that as the Southern States were restored into the Union, they would reelect their old rebel leaders, and indeed, some of the leaders of the rebellion now sought their old seats in the national Congress. For the Republicans, it became imperative to allow Blacks to vote in the South so the anti-rebel party, the Republicans might stand a chance. Almost all the Blacks were Protestants, except in Louisiana, and they voted the Republican ticket. The Democrats demonstrated where they stood by making their national campaign song , “We Are the White Man’s Party.”

By the 1870s the pattern was developed: generally in the South, Blacks (mainly Protestant) voted Republican, and whites (also mainly Protestant) voted Democrat. By 1900, however, few Blacks in the South were still permitted to vote.

In the North, the Republican Party remained the party of Protestants. New immigrants, often Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish, German, Hungarian, etc., might end in the Democratic fold, which also had some Protestants.

The racist views of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson tended to reduce even more the role of Blacks in the US political sphere. Entry into WWI roused new hatreds: of the Hun, the Red, the slacker, the Kraut, the radical. A new Puritanism seemed to pervade both parties. Sacrifice for the war! And the drunken German-Americans and the anti-British Irish-Americans had to be punished. Their beer gardens and saloons would vanish. Victory in WWI and then Prohibition. The Republicans could then enjoy the prosperity of the Harding- Coolidge years. In 1928 the Democrats rejected their KuKlux candidate, whose appeal was not limited to the South, and spit at their white robes by nominating New York Governor Al Smith, a Catholic. While Smith carried Massachusetts and Rhode Island, he lost many states of what had been the “solid South” to Republican Herbert Hoover, the humanitarian, Quaker, engineer who had organized relief to starving people in Europe.

The Great Depression and massive unemployment altered the image of Hoover, and another New York Governor was chosen by the Democrats in 1932, the aristocratic Franklin Roosevelt. Simultaneously, Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor in Germany. As the 1930s wore on, foreign policy grew in importance. Many progressive Republicans, aware of how the media had fooled Americans into believing anti-German atrocity propaganda in 1914, were determined not to be duped into another foreign war. Roosevelt, though speaking of peace, was determined to support Britain, as had been Wilson before him. American Jews were moving even more solidly into the Democratic fold (except 1939-41) when some were neutral in the anti-imperialist war against Britain, France, Holland, and Belgium, conducted by Germany with its ally, the USSR. Both Col. Charles Lindburgh and Paul Robeson could try to keep America out of war in 1940. America First had a powerful ring in much of middle America. Many German-. Italian-, Irisn- and other Americans began to question their allegiance to the Democrats. But others did not like what they saw on Movietone News in the theaters – the rape of Nanking, the marching German armies into Austria, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, and finally into Poland. FDR was conducting a small, undeclared war against Germany, when the Japanese attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Overnight, the America First organization disbanded. Most Americans went along with the war; some with more enthusiasm than others.

With victory against the Axis and imperial Japan, America suddenly faced a new threat – the Soviet Union. Now German-Americans were determined to show how patriotic they were, and became active anti-Communist Republicans. Meanwhile, many Jews, who had been delighted by the effort to smite Nazism, were less enthusiastic about the new crusade. Indeed, some were members of the main anti-fascist movement as they saw it, and they joined the Communist Party. It was not only the Rosenbergs who were Jewish and who sent American atomic secrets to the Soviets. For example, the espionage of physicist Theodore Hall, who worked on the Manhattan Project, was not discovered until the 1990s. Hall was born Theodore Holtzberg.

By the 1950s it was clear that Republicans could once again construct a winning majority. The Democrats were on the defensive, and the far Left was crumbling as its members, its unions, its fraternal organization, were blacklisted and isolated.

But in the mid-1950s the initial steps were taken to transform America. In part, it was a revolution from above; in part, from below. From above, the US sought to take its place in the sun, not in the manner of Pres. McKinley, going to war against Spain in the Philippines “to Christianize them,” (they were mainly Roman Catholics), but to bring them freedom and democracy. In the Cold War, the Communists could readily spotlight the hypocrisy of Americans who spoke of freedom, while denying the vote to Blacks in the South, segregating them into separate schools and other institutions. Aware of how segregation damaged the image of America as freedom’s bulwark, there was demand for change, from above. In 1948 Pres. Truman ordered the integration of the armed services, and in 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools. From below, in 1955 Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat on a public bus to a white man, and the Montgomery bus boycott ensued. From this boycott Rev. Martin Luther King emerged as a leader. In 1960 the sit-in began, in 1961 the Freedom Rides, in 1964 Mississippi’s Freedom Summer. Change was demanded from above and below.

With the integration struggle in the South, over time white Protestants often abandoned the Democratic Party for the Republicans. And the few Blacks who had been voting, were now suddenly swept up with the large numbers of new Black voters into the Democratic Party. Both Blacks and whites remained mostly Protestant, but now they were switching parties.

Northern Blacks had often been Democrats since the 1920s, but the percentage voting Democrat reached landslide proportions. Most were Protestants. With Black demonstrations of the early 1960s, and then riots, and the rise in crime, and anti-white racism, many ethnics groups in the North began to seek refuge in the Republican Party. The change in immigration laws in the 1960s also led to large-scale numbers from Latin nations, and many of them joined the Democratic coalition. Rural white America, shrinking in influence, remained a mainstay of the Republicans.

In 1952 Republicans nominated Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who had been raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, but who had left that church. He joined the Presbyterians when elected President. His opponent, Democrat Adlai Stevenson, had been a Unitarian. The Democrats nominated Catholic John Kennedy for President in 1960, and he won, and he won even in many southern states. In 1984 the Democrats nominated Walter Mondale for President and a Catholic woman, Geraldine Ferraro, for Vice-President. In 1988 the Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, was Greek Orthodox, and his wife Kitty was Jewish. The Bush family included in-laws who came from a wealthy Mexican family. In 2000 the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman, was a Jew. In 2008 the Republicans chose Sarah Palin, a woman for the #2 place on the ticket; the Democrats nominated Barack Hussein Obama, for President. Obama had a foster father who was a Muslim, and he himself was Black.

Generally, the Republican Party was the Protestant party in the US. Some may have been on the edge, like Quakers Hoover and Nixon, or a Unitarian like Taft, but overall it was the Protestant Party. Protestants are still, barely, the majority religion in the US.

In the Republican debate prior to the South Carolina GOP primary in January 2012, four candidates stood on the stage – Rick Santorum, a dedicated Roman Catholic who has had links to the extreme Opus Dei organization; Newt Gingrich, a convert to Roman Catholicism; Mitt Romney, a Mormon; and Ron Paul, a Baptist, is the only Protestant. Yet, Paul is the least likely to win the Republican nomination.

Perhaps more telling in the illustrating change in America – the US Supreme Court is compose of nine members. Today, six are Roman Catholics and three are Jews. The majority religion is not at all represented on the highest court in the land.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Pres. Obama's State of the Union Speech - HYPOCRISY

"Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom. No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody."
So declared President Obama in his State of the Union Address on 24 January 2012. He speaks of fairness. He speaks of applying the same rules from top to bottom. Well, what about affirmative action? The means different rules for Blacks, for Hispanics, for Amerindians, for some Asians, and much harder rules for white men and other Asians. Affirmative action is a bailout for the lazy, for the druggies, for the criminals, and an impediment to all who work hard. It is a copout for schools who cannot bring some groups up to graduating. It is a handout to those who vote Democrat. It is unfair and an outrage. It shows the utter hypocrisy of President Obama and the media who fail to expose his hypocrisy. Too bad, this time no one in Congress shouted out "You lie!"