Woe to Ahab! Elijah arises!

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Eight decades later and across the globe, Filipino legislators are proposing a revised Anti-Terrorism Act, prompting Greenpeace Philippines country director Lea Guerrero to comment: “The COVID-19 health crisis must not be used as an excuse to suppress the rule of law and fundamental rights, or as a cover to fast track policies that are not in the interest of the Filipino people.”

YES, the force of righteousness arose 80 years ago as the anti-fascists confronted the tyrant Hitler and the false-god Hirohito (indicted by the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal of 2000). In the first year of World War II, as the Sitzkrieg (Twilight War, Churchill’s name for the Phoney War) gave way to Fall Gelb (German invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and France), the leaders of societies still neutral had to address the life-and-death struggle between the barbaric power-grabbers and the civilized adherents of the Almighty.

Curtis Bok (Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia) explained to the National Lawyers Guild, May 31, 1940: “Most of us shall have to imagine what happens to our civil liberties in war time. We can be quite sure they will be restricted and a great part of that restraint will be by common consent. We may expect to hear more and more about democracy and freedom and to see less and less of them.” On that day, the German war machine closed the Lille Pocket in France, diverting the Axis from the Dunkirk evacuation, but trapping thousands of Allied troopers in the besieged city of Lille.

Eight decades later and across the globe, Filipino legislators are proposing a revised Anti-Terrorism Act, prompting Greenpeace Philippines country director Lea Guerrero to comment: “The COVID-19 health crisis must not be used as an excuse to suppress the rule of law and fundamental rights, or as a cover to fast track policies that are not in the interest of the Filipino people. Moving forward and learning lessons from the pandemic, the government should realize that citizens are not their enemies but are partners in nation building, and should encourage active and critical people participation in governance.”
President F.D. Roosevelt told the U.S. Congress, May 31, 1940

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(https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/fdr18.htm): “The one most obvious lesson of the present war in Europe is the value of the factor of speed. There is definite danger in waiting to order the complete equipping and training of armies after a war begins.” As of May 31, 2020, that wartime lesson was largely unlearned since only Taiwan, Vietnam, New Zealand and South Korea have managed to avoid the worst of the ravages wrought by the pandemic that was first reported in China.

Henry R. Luce (Editor of Time and Life) told listeners over Station WABC, June 1, 1940: “The gigantic conflict now raging threatens our national existence in any particular you may wish to name… If you are interested in labor unions — then they are threatened… And if you are interested in the right to worship God in your own way–then that most definitely is threatened. I do not say the Christian religion can perish. By all the promises we hold most dear, it cannot. But the Christian Church can be driven from the face of the earth back into the catacombs.” The Nazis and the obedient subjects of Hirohito did try to invalidate the Good News embodied by the brethren of Christ the King. The Hitlerites and the Shintoists failed. In the present, the Church Militant contends with abortionists, jihadists and chauvinists in Pakistan, Nigeria (Boko Haram), and China, among others.

Nicholas Murray Butler (President, Columbia University) delivered a warning at the 186th Commencement, June 4, 1940: “Vast and far-reaching forces of human emotion, human ambition and human greed cannot be lightly dealt with or waved aside with some magic formula… Where despots have gained unprecedented authority, those over whom they are so cruelly ruling must unhorse them. Where the forms of civil, religious and political liberty still exist, they must be strengthened and given new power over the hearts as well as over the minds of men. Faith must not be lost.” Joining Hitler and Hirohito in the rogue’s gallery of World War II were Mussolini, Vidkun Quisling, Ante Pavelić, Artur Seyss-Inquart, Anton Mussert and Wang Jingwei. In our current circumstances, the despots range from dynasts and warlords to Communist chairmen and the corrupt administrative officer of a state university.

Paul Reynaud (Premier of France) pressed that “We are fighting for the independence of all” over radio from Paris, June 6, 1940: “Our first duty is to recognize our faults. In their governments the public opinion of democracies long lacked clear-sightedness and courage… We must admit it once and for all and close this chapter of the history of the world with the indomitable energy of those whose eyes were opened.” That was their undoing 80 years prior, ignoring the peril of Hitlerism until it was too late. Similarly, and for too long, many postmodern Terrans have ignored the poisonous Draconis (the Deceiver in Revelation 12:9) that has been invading their homes, thus, in this year of the White Metal Rat, we should never forget the genesis of the pandemic, the snakeheads who traffic in narcotics and slavery, the loan sharks who trapped Sri Lanka in debt diplomacy, and the bratty Ding-a-lings who carve bad names into 3,500-year-old Egyptian relics. We also await that day the Lord shall “slay the dragon that [is] in the sea.” [Isaiah 27:1]

Hanford MacNider (formerly Assistant Secretary of War and former Commander of the American Legion), called for the re-Americanization of America over Columbia Broadcasting System from Chicago, June 6, 1940: “We cannot have a sound national defense with our credit impaired and a constantly-increasing national debt. We cannot have it with a people divided among themselves by campaigns to set up an ugly, un-American class consciousness. We cannot have it by coddling and wet-nursing subversive and destructive elements which, like the treacherous fifth columns abroad, might well break down our effort and our faith.” An alarum of eight decades in the past. But for June of 2020: “All Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd.” Acknowledgement by the Donald from the Rose Garden who also stated: “My administration is fully committed that, for George and his family, justice will be served. He will not have died in vain. But we cannot allow the righteous cries and peaceful protesters to be drowned out by an angry mob. The biggest victims of the rioting are peace-loving citizens in our poorest communities.” [Statement by the President, 01 June 2020, The White House] While America remains polarized between those who argue that “Riots Are the American Way” and those who opine that protests against police brutality does not legitimize rioting (looting, vandalism), Asians (tourists, expats) as well as Asian-Americans (and Pacific Islanders) are discriminated by both the Ku Klux Klan and black supremacists.

[https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Dirty-secret-of-black-on-Asian-violence-is-out-3265760.php; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/asian-americans-describe-gut-punch-of-racist-attacks-during-coronavirus-pandemic] As Americans grapple with domestic racism, Han chauvinism and hegemonism are issues in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

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