Taking on the ChiComs, yesterday, today, and tomorrow
Now at this midway point of NR’s webathon effort (we seek to raise $250,000; to date nearly 1,300 kindly souls have contributed a total of $112,000), instead of only asking, we also give.
Give what? How about Bill Buckley’s classic on-the-scene accounts of President Nixon’s historic, Mao-toasting trip to Red China? Throughout the junket, one of the boys on the bus, Bill, armed with his press pass and biting wit, tossed withering barbs and darts at the U.S. and ChiCom flacks — utterances that proved confounding, down-putting, and scene-stealing.
Here comes the giving: The pieces (published by NR in March 1972) are wonderful conservative gems we’re making available to our friends and readers. You’ll find they remain timely.
The first article, “Veni, Vidi, Victus,” is a fresh WFB analysis of the consequences of the Nixon administration’s outreach to Communist China. And by “fresh analysis,” we mean a 4,500-word tongue-lashing.
Here’s a taste:
We have lost — irretrievably — any remaining sense of moral mission in the world. Mr. Nixon’s appetite for a summit conference in Peking transformed the affair from a meeting of diplomatic technicians concerned to examine and illuminate areas of common interest, into a pageant of moral togetherness at which Mr. Nixon managed to give the impression that he was consorting with Marian Anderson, Billy Graham, and Albert Schweitzer. Once he decided to come here himself, it was very nearly inevitable that this should have happened. Granted, if it had been Theodore Roosevelt, the distinctions might have been preserved. But Mr. Nixon is so much the moral enthusiast that he alchemizes the requirements of diplomacy into the coin of ethics; that is why when he toasted the bloodiest, most merciless chief of state in the world, he did so in accents most of us would reserve for Florence Nightingale.
You’ll find the entire essay here. The second piece, “Richard Nixon’s Long March,” collects Bill-the-Reporter’s filings. It’s big. It’s brazen. Here’s another slice of quintessential Buckley:
And then the ballet of the night before, said Mr. Nixon, was “very dramatic — excellent theater [C+ would have been a generous rating], and excellent dancing [B] and music [C–] and really superb acting [B–]. I have seen ballets ail over the world, including the Soviet Union and the United States. This is certainly the equal of any ballet I have seen.” Bullsticks. It is not the equal of any ballet Mr. Nixon has seen. Oh dear. One has the feeling that if Mr. Nixon, in his second term, having decided to patch up our difficulties with the Devil, travels down to conduct a summit conference, he will tell Charon that he has used ferries all over the world, but that Charon’s is absolutely the equal of any he has ever ridden on.
Find the entire piece here. Do enjoy both.
As for the current webathon: To paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan, we’ve got a little list. Well, not so little: It consists of 420 articles NR has published in the last year on Red China (find NR’s China-coverage warehouse here). We most vigorously contend now, as Bill did in 1972, as NR has done without pause since its 1955 founding, that Red China is a deadly threat. Indeed to the Chinese, but also to all mankind. Reporting on its malicious ways and means, its plan for, yes, global domination — which would come at the cost of freedom and unalienable rights — is a daily focus of NR.
No other publication tells the truth so unrelentingly about the quite real (and disastrous) consequences of a Red China unchecked. Nothing — not Antifa, not (gulp!) a Biden administration — compares with the looming historic trauma of a PRC that has a fully implemented “Belt and Road” stranglehold on global commerce, with a Peking-dominated Pacific and Southeast Asia, with Politburo bankers (they make Mr. Potter look like the model of charity) owning the debt and livelihood of the world’s nations, with Party corporate billionaires rampaging as they swipe any and all patents and technologies.
China, very much red and very much Maoist, in all of its dirty dealings (COVID-downplaying . . . NBA-controlling . . . Hong Kong–conquering . . . Christianity-suppressing . . . Uyghur-eliminating . . . Taiwan-threatening . . . technology-swindling . . . ) is a top issue of NR. Make that a top fight of NR.
When you support NR in this critical fundraising drive, you will be acknowledging NR’s indispensable role in telling those truths that must be told for all to hear about Communist China. Look at that list of 420 (and growing daily) articles, editorial, essays, and commentaries. Then imagine the public debate without the vital voice of NR. Imagine a world without NR. Should that be a reality?
To quote Bill Buckley: “Bullsticks!”
Your support keeps NR thriving today. It will keep it consequential tomorrow — all on behalf of the principles that you cherish. While there’s no obligation to donate, we ask that you take our appeal seriously. Do so and if you find, as surely you will, that NR’s critical voice must be sustained, that it must persist, that it must speak truth to commie power, then — especially if you have never yet contributed to any webathon appeal — please make a contribution. Others who have done so — whether by the Widow’s Mite or the Millionaire’s Loose Change — have provided a benefit not only to NR but also to you.
We are almost halfway to our goal. Help us get there by donating here. You do so with our deep appreciation.
