America First - and a break...

Are we watching history repeat itself? Perhaps not, not after this last week… Charles A. Lindbergh made this “America First” speech on April 23, 1941, 84 years to the day before Donald Trump made his speech outlining his peace plan which would cede Eastern Ukraine to the Dnipro River, the entirety of Kherson Oblast, and Crimea, to Russia. And Trump, like the America First movement of 84 years ago, has said that the Russia-Ukraine War is “not our war”.

On December 7, 1941, the US would be at war with the Empire of Japan, and four days later, Adolf Hitler, Reichs-Chancellor of Germany, would declare war on the US under the terms of the Axis Pact. Hitler would have to give up Disney - his favorite movie was “Snow White” - and Coca-Cola, the prime sponsor of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games - and one of his retirement estates in Los Angeles.

Ford would continue to build trucks and tank engines in the Reich, General Motors would continue to build Messerschmitt fighter planes, including the Me-109 and the Me-262, the world’s first jet fighter plane. Senator Prescott Bush would continue his close ties with Hitler and the Third Reich - as would Wall Street and its financiers (see https://www.reformation.org/wall-st-hitler.html) and the American Progressive Eugenics movement, which funded Hitler’s Institute for Racial Sciences to the tune of millions of dollars in the 1930s (see https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/eugenics-and-the-nazis-the-california-connection/) as well.

Charles Lindbergh won international fame in 1927 after completing the first non-stop, solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. As Hitler’s armies marched across the European continent, many Americans began to imagine American participation in the war. Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee, advocating “America First,” championed American isolationism in the following speech:

“There are many … interventionists in America, but there are more people among us of a different type. That is why you and I are assembled here tonight. There is a policy open to this nation that will lead to success–a policy that leaves us free to follow our own way of life, and to develop our own civilization. It is not a new and untried idea. It was advocated by Washington. It was incorporated in the Monroe Doctrine. Under its guidance, the United States became the greatest nation in the world.

It is based upon the belief that the security of a nation lies in the strength and character of its own people. It recommends the maintenance of armed forces sufficient to defend this hemisphere from attack by any combination of foreign powers. It demands faith in an independent American destiny. This is the policy of the America First Committee today. It is a policy not of isolation, but of independence; not of defeat, but of courage. It is a policy that led this nation to success during the most trying years of our history, and it is a policy that will lead us to success again.

We have weakened ourselves for many months, and still worse, we have divided our own people by this dabbling in Europe’s wars. While we should have been concentrating on American defense we have been forced to argue over foreign quarrels. We must turn our eyes and our faith back to our own country before it is too late. And when we do this, a different vista opens before us. Practically every difficulty we would face in invading Europe becomes an asset to us in defending America. Our enemy, and not we, would then have the problem of transporting millions of troops across the ocean and landing them on a hostile shore. They, and not we, would have to furnish the convoys to transport guns and trucks and munitions and fuel across three thousand miles of water. Our battleships and submarines would then be fighting close to their home bases. We would then do the bombing from the air and the torpedoing at sea. And if any part of an enemy convoy should ever pass our Navy and our air force, they would still be faced with the guns of our coast artillery and behind them the divisions of our Army.

The United States is better situated from a military standpoint than any other nation in the world. Even in our present condition of unpreparedness no foreign power is in a position to invade us today. If we concentrate on our own defenses and build the strength that this nation should maintain, no foreign army will every attempt to land on American shores.

War is not inevitable for this country. Such a claim is defeatism in the true sense. No one can make us fight abroad unless we ourselves are willing to do so. No one will attempt to fight us here if we arm ourselves as a great nation should be armed. Over a hundred million people in this nation are opposed to entering the war. If the principles of democracy mean anything at all, that is reason enough for us to stay out. If we are forced into a war against the wishes of an overwhelming majority of our people, we will have proved democracy such a failure at home that there will be little use of fighting for it abroad.

The time has come when those of us who believe in an independent American destiny must band together and organize for strength. We have been led toward war by a minority of our people. This minority has power. It has influence. It has a loud voice. But it does not represent the American people. During the last several years I have traveled over this country from one end to the other. I have talked to many hundreds of men and women, and I have letters from tens of thousands more, who feel the same way as you and I.

Most of these people have no influence or power. Most of them have no means of expressing their convictions, except by their vote which has always been against this war. They are the citizens who have had to work too hard at their daily jobs to organize political meetings. Hitherto, they have relied upon their vote to express their feelings; but now they find that it is hardly remembered except in the oratory of a political campaign. These people–the majority of hardworking American citizens, are with us. They are the true strength of our country. And they are beginning to realize, as you and I, that there are times when we must sacrifice our normal interests in life in order to insure the safety and the welfare of our nation.

Such a time has come. Such a crisis is here. That is why the America First Committee has been formed–to give voice to the people who have no newspaper, or newsreel, or radio station at their command; to the people who must do the paying, and the fighting, and the dying if this country enters the war.

Whether or not we do enter the war rests upon the shoulders of you in this audience, upon us here on this platform, upon meetings of this kind that are being held by Americans in every section of the United States today. It depends upon the action we take, and the courage we show at this time. If you believe in an independent destiny for America, if you believe that this country should not enter the war in Europe, we ask you to join the America First Committee in its stand. We ask you to share our faith in the ability of this nation to defend itself, to develop its own civilization, and to contribute to the progress of mankind in a more constructive and intelligent way than has yet been found by the warring nations of Europe. We need your support, and we need it now. The time to act is here.”

Lindbergh said in his speech that “[w]ar is not inevitable for this country. Such a claim is defeatism in the true sense. No one can make us fight abroad unless we ourselves are willing to do so”, but he was proven wrong when Hitler declared war on the United States less than 8 months later, four days after the Pearl Harbor attack, by a Japanese Empire bound on increasing the area of influence of its Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

And Putin is closely following the path laid down by Aleksandr Dugin in 1997, and don’t be fooled, the intended eventual enemy to be conquered is the United States itself:

“At the basis of the geopolitical construction of this [Eurasian] Empire," Dugin writes, "there must be placed one fundamental principle--the principle of 'a common enemy.' A negation of Atlanticism, a repudiation of the strategic control of the United States, and the rejection of the supremacy of economic, liberal market values--this represents the common civilizational basis, the common impulse which will prepare the way for a strong political and strategic union" (216). … Within the United States itself, there is a need for the Russian special services and their allies "to provoke all forms of instability and separatism within the borders of the United States (it is possible to make use of the political forces of Afro-American racists)" (248). "It is especially important," Dugin adds, "to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements-- extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics" (367). … Dugin's Eurasian project also mandates attacking the United States through Central and South America. "The Eurasian project," Dugin writes, "proposes Eurasian expansion into South and Central America with the goal of freeing them from the control of the North" (248). 48 As a result of such unrelenting destabilization efforts, the United States and its close ally Britain eventually will be forced to leave the shores of Eurasia (and Africa).” https://dn720006.ca.archive.org/0/items/foundations-of-geopolitics-geopolitical-future-of-russia-alexander-dugin-english/Foundations-of-Geopolitics-Geopolitical-Future-of-Russia-Alexander-Dugin-English-auto-translation-with-appended-original.pdf The Russian original begins on p453, don’t bother with the lousy machine translation…

And so all is going very, very well for Putin, and he gets a bit overconfident, and blows it - or his ballistic missiles blow up a church in Sumy, Ukraine on Easter Sunday, killing 32 people and injuring 80 more, and Trump tells Putin “Vladimir, STOP!”:

And, of course, Vladimir does not stop, because Vladimir’s goal is to win the war which he has not succeeded in doing for the past three years, having lost half the territory initially taken, and locked in a stalemate in Eastern Ukraine. Perhaps Trump has changed his mind, and now believes that Putin is the aggressor - which has been patently obvious since the outset. Trump perhaps has found out that Vladimir is not his “friend” and never has been - and that Putin started the war, probably in large part to steal Ukraine’s rich stock - perhaps trillions of dollars’ worth - of rare earth minerals and fossil fuels. And this pits Trump against Putin, because Trump wants those resources, too, and it doesn’t look like Vladimir is interested in sharing - he wants it all for himself and is willing - has been willing - to fight for it.

So Putin is not only not a friend, he is a competitor - and an enemy. And it has become obvious that “peace negotiations” and the “peace deal” are just plays for time, so Putin and Russia can grab more land, land with those resources, money in the bank. And Trump wants that money, that land, those resources, and Putin has been playing Trump for a fool, stringing him along, leading him down the garden path, and the longer things get drawn out, the less Trump gets. And it’s been a pretty effective tactic, too.

It turns out that the current crop of isolationists - perhaps backed by the Russian secret services in the West, as suggested by Dugin, above - have helped Putin and Russia, by being willing dupes, or unsuspecting dupes, but dupes just the same, much like the America First movement was duped by the Nazis in the early 1940s, all the way up until Germany declared war on the US four days after Pearl Harbor.

What happens to the isolationists after this week is to be seen, because a rare earth mineral/fossil fuel deal was signed by Trump and Zelenskyy, giving Trump a monetary interest in Ukraine’s kicking the Russians out of Eastern Ukraine - and Crimea, too, since there are huge petroleum plays in the Black Sea off the coast. They won’t be like the American Communists who were ardent isolationists (and America First-ers) after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Treaty, but when the Nazis invaded Russia, turned like a school of fish changing direction overnight at the behest of Moscow Center and became ardent supporters of an Eastern Front. I think there will be a change, though, perhaps a change of emphasis, perhaps dropping the matter entirely.

But up to this point, the triumph of Russian propaganda has been one of Putin’s few triumphs in this war, he very nearly fooled the President of the United States into giving him trillions of dollars worth of natural resources and rare earth minerals which the Russians could not get in three years of fighting - and that would have been a scam for the record books if Putin had pulled it off.

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This is post #800, since August 1, 2021. It’s time to take a little bit of a break, and get some other things done. I’ve got nearly 200 draft posts waiting, though, and it will be fun to flesh some of those out, especially those from 2021, when The Great Plague was still raging, at least according to government and media flacks, so I’ll be back…

One thing I’ve noticed is that at least half and perhaps up to 75% of the people subscribed have never received a single email from this Substack - including recent subscribers - so I’m going to be trying to remedy that. This could be a type of shadow-banning, Substack, like nearly all of the tech companies is run by people of “liberal” sensitivities, and they are interested in freedom of speech - for themselves, but not necessarily for others. I’ll be composing an email to be sent out to all of my listed subscribers, and I’ll try to figure out what is going on - and how to remedy it.