Seventy years ago today, May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain. He had been warning the world about the dangers of Nazism for almost a decade. He had been warning the world about the dangers of Communism since 1918. By the time Churchill became Prime Minister, the British had seen Nazis overrun Poland, Denmark, and Norway. Churchill was watching helplessly as the German Army routed the combined armies of France, Britain, Holland, and Belgium.
Churchill did not just face the fury of Hitler's hordes. Stalin had been a close and effective ally of Hitler since August 1939. Mussolini would soon join with Germany against Britain. Japan menaced Commonwealth democracies and British interests in the Pacific. Enemies were everywhere. At the time Churchill became Prime Minister, it was Britain alone against the collective evil of socialism: Nazi, Fascist, Communist. It fits the agenda of many to label Nazism and Fascism as "right wing". In fact, they are both forms of socialism and represent the tyranny that is the natural consequence of that political system.
Churchill was sixty-five when he first became Prime Minister. Three days after taking the premiership, Churchill told the British people what to expect: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." His moving words were no exaggeration when he spoke them. Beyond that, few people in May 1940 thought that Britain could actually win the Second World War.
Churchill led a nation wishing and willing to be led. His eloquence spoke to minds which understood the evil of their enemy and to hearts which would bet their lives to defeat that evil. Churchill also saw the danger posed by Islam. In his book "The River War", a twenty-five year old Winston Churchill wrote this:
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
Where are the Churchills today? The free countries of the world are led by Chamberlain-esque appeasers who refuse to face the evil of radical Islam, a danger to freedom no less daunting than that Churchill had the courage to stand up to seventy years ago.
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
Winston Churchill
This is Marvin, a veteran of World War II. Marvin was born to Chinese parents in the Chinese community of Locke on the Sacramento River Delta east of the Bay Area. Marvin worked at the U.S. Navy facility, Mare Island, at Vallejo. His small size served him well to work in the tanks and compartments of the submarines being repaired or built at Mare Island. For many years, Marvin has worked on the restored World War II-era Baloa-class submarine U.S.S. Pampanito at Pier 45, San Francisco. Note Marvin's ever-present cup of coffee.
