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Quote of the Day: Plus ça Change
“From their roosts in the great cities, and certain collegiate eyries, the left wing intellectuals of almost every feather (and that was most of the intellectuals in the country) swooped and fluttered in flocks like sea fowl – puffins, skimmers, skuas and boobies – and gave vent to hoarse cries and defilements. … No depravity was too bizarre to ‘explain’ Chambers motives for calling Hiss a communist. No hypothesis was too preposterous, no speculation too fantastic, to ‘explain’ how all those State Department documents came to be copied on Hiss’s Woodstock typewriter. Only the truth became too preposterous to entertain.”– Witness, Whittaker Chambers
I was born in 1952, the year that Whittaker Chambers publisher Witness. For all these years I somehow missed out on learning much about the late 1940s and the events that led up to the Hiss trial and eventually the McCarthy hearings. I finally picked up a copy of Witness and set about plugging the gaps in my education. The book is something of a hard slog as Chambers tends towards the philosophical and only sprinkles in the narrative at intervals but it is well worth a read if you have not.
It occurred to me several times that what Chambers wrote could just as well have been written in an online column today. It has been 67 years since these words were published. The leftists we struggle against today are a second or third generation removed from the leftists of early post-war years but the the tactics are instantly recognizable. You have to give them credit for persistence.
Can we hang hang on long enough to beat them in the long game? I think so. What do you think?
The more things change …
Published in Group Writing
Chambers didn’t think so. He famously opined that, when he abandoned communism, he was switching from the winning to the losing side.
You are correct that the book, while a long slog, is definitely worth the read.
The hard core leftists have always been less than 10% of the population. In the 1950’s-1980’s the middle and right Americans believed in basic (Judaeo-Christian) morals. We would argue and allow a few leftist values such as Welfare, Abortion, and Same Sex “Marriage” to keep the peace. Without a common moral system, it’s now much harder to stop them.
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If, as I suspect, the definition of “long game” extends well beyond the current Republic, then that would be a definite “maybe.”
I hate to break it to you but “we” have been losing ground steadily, if not since late 1901 then certainly since 1913. Today the combined forces of the worst Elected Ruling Class ever and the corrupt to the core Deep State (no “so-called” here you local buffoons) possess all of the high ground save ONE seat. And even if they cannot take that one by force sooner they will get it in 2025 (or 2029 at the latest). The damage they do between now and then will continue to be massive (and non-reversible). The retribution after that point will be even worse. The sun is setting on this little experiment.
In this “fatalism” the hope in the “long game” comes from Chambers himself (as quoted by W. F. Buckley in the forward of my 50th anniversary edition of WITNESS):
Thanks for the additional quote philo. Chambers really did have a defeatist streak. I found myself not in agreement. No question that conservatism has been on the defensive since 1913 or before. However, I am not ready to throw in the towel. Even my lefty relatives have a core of decency and I believe there is a point where they will say (as Chambers did) , “no more, this is wrong”.
On the one hand, the global Communist threat is largely gone but on the other, the American elite is more monolithically anti-American, anti-freedom.
The Algiers Hiss case was open class warfare. Patrician Hiss versus grubby commoners Chambers & Nixon. The Ivy Leaguers who populated 100% of the top echelons in State and CIA resented the idea of one of their own being called to account by lesser types-guilt or innocence was a secondary concern. The FBI (lots of ethnic Catholics and small town non-patrician Protestants) versus State Dept also fit the class divide.
Feels like the class war is back. In spades. And the left holds more ground.
Directly from the book:
Indeed, and in those days most of the nation was not so gullible and willing to believe what the top told them. Now a huge chunk of the population just goes along, I mean, whatever! We must take our schools and mainstream media back, whatever that might mean.
I know people who still refuse to believe that Alger Hiss lied and was a traitor to the US.
Chambers may have had no confidence in human agency to “win,” but he was a Christian. Christ has already won the victory. Chambers knew that.
I have had my ninth graders read this book as part of their US history course. It is long, but it is powerful.
Yes. Everything they do fails eventually. Humans always prefer lies to Truth but they don’t like the consequences of those lies so like Rome, they turn back to the truth after killing it and persecuting everyone who spoke of it.
Furthermore, with genetic engineering and sex robots, we will be able to more effectively reduce the number of people dependent on government welfare thereby making leftism less appealing.
What’s more, leftism isn’t fun anymore: sex is rapey, you can’t like your country, you can’t eat meat dressing up for Halloween is cultural appropriation, your either a victim or a victimizer so whatever you are you should feel offended or guilty. Conservatism is all about grilling.
Wow! Big deep book for 9th graders.
So far, I’ve had three out of four read it in 9th grade. The fourth wouldn’t have gotten as much out of it at the time, too young for it; I’m saving it for his course in American government in 12th grade, which is next year.
They will also remember the book because it is told in a story form.