We are taking on all comers at NR. Not just the presidential contenders hiding in basements, or the thugs rioting in our cities, or the unalloyed leftist ideologues fulminating in our newsrooms. We’ve got a special thing for the ChiComs, to use a term that should never have gone out of style (and hasn’t in these precincts). They are the foes in what is surely too a fight (the fight?) for our civilization, and for the future of this nation as Freedom’s beacon to the world.
This is why we fight. This is why we need your help. And that is why we have launched our Summer webathon. It seeks vital material help, to the tune of $250,000, which is by no means even close to how much real assistance we require. But $250,000 it is, and there are now two weeks remaining in this drive towards it. The facts may seem grubby to some, but this is a real effort, with real-time info, which we feel obliged to share: As of Monday morning here in NYC, we have registered donations from 1,193 selfless people, tallying $107,417.00. That means we are 43 percent of the way towards our objective. There is a long 57 per cent to go.
Back to China. Red China. When Bill Buckley forced himself into the media pool traveling with Richard Nixon on his historic 1972 journey to meet with mass-murder Mao, he filed a report (his March 17, 1972 NR essay, “Vini, Vidi, Victus”) that unloaded both barrels:
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.
We’ll get this article to you in full in the next couple of days. Anyway . . . the utter foulness of Mao and Chinese Communism had been on NR’s lips since our very first issue in 1955. Closing out the premier appearance of The Week was an editorial on Alger Hiss defending Yalta in The Pocket Book Magazine. We wrote of that journal’s editor:
“Dear Mr. Watts: Why did you ask a Communist for his views on Yalta in the first place? But having done so, why did you fail to call attention to the fact that he is a convicted liar? What have you got for your next issue — “How Chiang Benefited from the Marshall Mission,” by Mao Tse-tung?
Thus ended the editorial. But what has never ended is our utter determination to keep Red China — and all its threats and intentions for global dominance, its penchant for mass murder and brutality, its aiding-and-abetting media and corporate lackeys — front and center as a cause, as a thing our readers must know about, as an economic powerhouse which simply has no intention of “liberalizing.” Visit NRO any day and you are sure to find exceptional analyses on these matters by the likes of Jimmy Quinn and Therese Shaheen and Christ O’Dea and Michael Auslin and Jianli Yang and so many more experts. They are working diligently, whether they know it or not, alongside Bill Buckley, standing athwart history — athwart the possibility of a China-dominated future — yelling Stop.
That’s the kind of journalism we need a lot more of, and it’s the kind of expertise your support makes possible. So NR’s Red China coverage is a big reason many (God bless them one and all) are responding to our Webathon appeal. But various folks have various motivations, some expressed along with donations. We share some of such here:
- Dan spots us 200 smackers and offers a little literary criticism: “I first read your print magazine when I was 10 in 1984, and today we seem closer to 1984 than at any time in my life. Keep up the great work to defend reason, diversity of opinion, and conservative principles!” George had them nailed. This means the world to us — thanks very much.
- Michael sends NR $100 and shakes his head: “When a face of the Dems says a statue of Father Damien is a symbol of ‘white supremacy,’ you know they’ve become unhinged. Time to cancel the Dems.” The party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Left, but then you knew that Michael. Many thanks.
- Patricia allots $50 to the cause and we compare notes: “Thank you, please continue to speak out so we can stamp out sparks of socialism, false history facts, and blatant attacks on the Constitution and the Founders of this great nation.” We’re stamping as fast as possible, thanks to good friends such as you.
- Craig sends $200 and sizes up what he’s just done: “A drop in the bucket but at least it is more than a gesture.” Pretty big drop if you ask us. Thanks much Craig.
- Carol donates 20 bucks and a strategic plan: “It’s time to take a stand. Being a senior citizen with hearing problems, my small contribution is the only way I can do it. I hope you receive many, many small contributions from citizens just like me.” Your lips to God’s ears! And Carol, you may have a hearing problem, but you most definitely don’t have a kindness problem.
- Alexander sends a staggering $2,500 and a short pep-talk: “Keep up the good fight!” Keeping! God bless. And holy mackerel too!
We have 13 days left to find another — let’s call it 2,000 — contingent of generous friends to come to NR’s aid. A fact: We fight those fights that need to be fought. Another fact: You need us to be in the thick of it, to hold the line, and then to begin the operation of pressing back the enemies of liberty. There’s no gift too small, no gift too big — your personal circumstances and means are known to you, and we have no moral claim on even your loose change. But that doesn’t mean we cannot appeal to your sense of reality, to your hunger for the kind of intelligence and sanity NR uniquely provides. And now that all heck has broken loose, to your desire to support at least one institution not afraid to say, We have brought a gun to a knife fight. We are fighting. You help us to stay in the fight through your generous donation, of $10, or $20 or $50 or $100 — can you do that? Has the Almighty looked kindly upon you so that $250 or $500 or $1,000 or more is possible? If that is the case, will you please donate? It would mean so much to us, true, but truth is, it would also mean so much to you. Donate here. To show your support by check, if such is your preference, make it payable to “National Review” and mail it to National Review, ATTN: Summer 2020 Webathon, 19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, NY 10036. In advance of your generosity, thanks for your support.
