DIKKON EBERHART
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Darkest Hour

1/19/2018

13 Comments

 
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Dikkon Eberhart



I used to publish politically oriented posts.  During the past year, I’ve forsaken them in favor of posts that fall instead under one or another of the general topics GOD, LIFE, and WRITING. 

This one is political, and it falls under LIFE.  Life includes the political, especially when the point of the post is supported by ancient wisdom. 
 
 
 
 
Have you seen the movie “Darkest Hour?”  If you have not, please do.    
 
Perhaps you have heard about it even if you have not seen it.  It is the new Winston Churchill biopic, directed by Joe Wright and starring Gary Oldman among others. 
 
The movie covers the month of early May, 1940, through early June.  In early May, both France and Belgium fall to the German Nazi attack.  With much of the British government disenchanted by the leadership of Neville Chamberlain, who favors appeasing Hitler, Churchill is brought out of relative obscurity—he is a disliked and maligned Conservative—and he is presented to King Edward VI. 
 
The King, with teeth clenched, asks Churchill to form a government, as Prime Minister.  Churchill agrees, and, as they say, the rest is history. 
 
In early June, the Miracle of Dunkirk occurs, and the movie ends.  But, historically, that’s the beginning of many, many dark hours.
 
 
 
 
Why should you see this movie? 
 
First of all, it is brilliantly done, in terms of acting, directing, set design, makeup, cinematography, and script. 
 
Second of all, it happened (not all of it: the scene in the Underground did not occur in actuality.) 
 
Third of all, its event begins an historical triumph of freedom and of western decency as a Christian culture over Axis tyranny.  I believe we MUST remember and embrace this history, or else we may go through the same darkest hour all over again. 
 
 
 
 
Churchill set in motion the wavering hearts of the British public and galvanized his government to resist the Axis.  Hitler was poised to invade Britain.  In order to soften the county for his invasion, Hitler sent his air force to bomb London, particularly, and other locations, so the British would crumble before his army when it waded ashore.  This began the Battle of Britain, an air war that stirred the hearts of the Allied world.
 
 
 
 
Here’s a snapshot--
 
Thursday, August 15, 1940
 

Blue skies over Britain. 
 
Never before have more sorties of bombers been flown against the battered democracy in Britain than Hitler sends today. 
 
Luftflotte 5 strikes northern England from its base in Norway.  Luftflotten 2 and 3 hurl themselves once again across the Channel.  It is high tide in the Battle of Britain, and Hitler’s invasion itself is only moments away.  Britain is virtually bankrupt. 
 
Despite the evacuation of 338,226 troops from France—the Miracle of Dunkirk—her army is toothless, nearly all of its weapons abandoned on the French shoreline. 
 
Hitler owns Europe.  His U-boats own the North Atlantic.  The RAF is stretched too thin: every fighting plane—every spitfire and hurricane—is airborne.  There are no reserves at all.  The War Cabinet calculates that “pilot wastage” is running at a rate of 746 men per month, way more than are being trained. 
 
When asked for his war plan, Churchill replies, “My plan is we survive the next three weeks.” 
 
 
 
 
The question then, possibly the question which might emerge nowadays: Will the democracies consent to their own survival?  A secret warrior, code named Intrepid, is even at that moment negotiating with President Roosevelt for the loan of 50 rusty, outmoded destroyers…anything, in fact, that might stem the tide.  He’s the one who phrased the question above.  Will the democracies consent to their own survival?
 
 
 
 
Three hundred twenty-four years before this, Shakespeare died.  Here’s another way to ask that same question.  Will the democracies be Hamlet, or Horatio?  Will they dither and muse?  Or will they—as bluff soldiers do—march across a stage strewn with the corpses of the better-notters…and survive? 
 
Roosevelt can do nothing openly to help.  The dithering American public will not allow it.  This conflict on the far side of the world is not theirs. 
 
Only twenty years before, they consented to pull Europe’s chestnuts out of the fire, and what good has that done?  Now three massive tyrannies are spreading like cancers across the other side of the world--Hitler’s, Mussolini’s, Tojo’s—the capitalist system seems to be in ruins, and if there is any hope during this bloody century, it must be in the Soviet worker’s paradise (wherein a few eggs need to be broken to make an omelet, indeed, but Stalin should be given a tolerant pass about his tyrannous internal egg-breaking).   
 
 
 
 
The question then, the question now: Will the democracies consent to their own survival? 
 
That which is great is also that which is miserable.  The greatest single idea of democracy is that the people rule; they have their say.  The greatest single weakness of democracy is that, while the people are saying—on and on—the gray ideas will ensnare them, and they won’t see the black and the white. 
 
What is the case today, in 2018?  Hitler wrote Mien Kampf: he told the democracies what he planned to do, in advance.  
 
Today, in Iran, in North Korea, and elsewhere, tyrants almost daily tell us what they plan to do, in advance. 
 
Will the democracies consent to their own survival? 
 
 
 
 
It takes a mighty provocation for a democracy to fight and especially to fight to the death.  Tyrants always get the upper hand right away quick: they don’t hold back.  But the democracies cry, “Wait!  Wait!  Let’s talk.  Surely, surely, we can talk this problem through.” 
 
It’s what tyrants count on; it gives them time. 
 
Which they need…because there’s this other thing about the democracies.  As Victor Davis Hansen has pointed out, when the democracies are finally put to it, when they finally perceive the choice to be either black or white, at long last, free men and women stand up to be counted, and then the tyrants are toast.             

Ancient wisdom. 
 
 
 
 
Churchill, evening, August 15, 1940.  The Battle of Britain lasted through mid-September, but this was the end of its last, worst days—before little Britain and her spitfire pilots banished the massive German air force from its skies: 
 
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
         
 
 


13 Comments
Betsy
1/19/2018 11:42:27 am

You are an intricate weaver.

Reply
Dikkon
1/19/2018 04:27:55 pm

Thanks, Betsy, for following my yarn!

Reply
Lynne Gilliam
1/19/2018 11:51:19 am

We have not seen this yet and I appreciate this back story info very much ! Thank you Dikkon.

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Dikkon
1/19/2018 04:30:30 pm

You're welcome, Lynne. It's a fine movie, and I hope you do see it. It's good to hear from you; enjoy dear Phippsburg. And please say hi to Dana for us.

Reply
floyd samons link
1/20/2018 01:03:52 pm

Stirring and stimulating post, friend. It doesn't seem like it should take a lot of wisdom to look at history and grasp the future.... but common sense isn't so common, is it.

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Dikkon
1/20/2018 03:05:13 pm

No, it isn't. And history is so little taught nowadays that there are whole legions of people who don't really know what happened in the past and therefore have no good way to make predictions based on current events. It's a real problem for society at large.

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Peter Cutler link
1/21/2018 12:12:27 pm

Excellent piece! We must indeed remember and study history and accept what we need to learn from it. Surely, "freedom is not free" and it takes fortitude to maintain it. Warriors are a necessity to keep a free society since bullies, be they personal or international, will be deterred and hopefully reformed only through targeted and justified violence. Unfortunately our educational system has been thoroughly infiltrated by those who wish to weaken America and who have persisted in concealing the truth from so many of our young people. Keep on shining the light, as you do in a number of different perspectives.

Reply
Dikkon
1/21/2018 01:11:02 pm

Thanks, Pete, for the compliment.

The lack of historical awareness on the part of much of our youth poses a serious threat to the West. Considering the possibility of our-right war, since they have been taught not to consider WINNING, many of them embrace pacifism instead as the more admirable posture.

NOT an admirable posture when facing a bullying tyrant!

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Dikkon
1/21/2018 01:12:39 pm

You probably get it - but I meant "OUT-right" war, not "OUR-right war"!

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David Murphy
1/23/2018 09:12:18 pm

Dear Brother:
My wife and I saw “Darkest Hour.” Powerful! Amazing acting. Drama at it’s finest. Leadership, division, fear, ideology and prejudice were all on display - just like in America today. Your summary is beautifully written! Thank you!

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Dikkon
1/24/2018 08:23:18 am

You're welcome, brother David. Yes, it does look, on the screen, very familiar--as you say "America today." Among other things, let's stand up for historical knowledge: it might just save us a war.

Interesting that the wonderful movies "Dunkirk" and "Darkest Hour" have come out so close to one another. Maybe there is a hunger in our culture building up for truth?

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Betty Draper link
1/24/2018 09:57:59 pm

My husband and I saw the movie, we gave it 10 stars...best one I have seen on Churchhill, ever. It was so close to where we are in America now it was frightening except we both believe our president is the man for this hour. I loved that they showed Churchhills, frailties, his weaknesses and at the same time, his heart for his country. Courage comes in strange packages, not wrapped up neatly with a bow but he came wrapped up in bailing wire, poking everyone, even himself. I wanted to stand up and clap at the end and I did clap quietly and I did not stand up. I heard a few others softly clap too. I hope next time I presented with the opportunity to stand and clap, I will take courage by the hand and do so. Good piece brother on this movie.

Reply
Dikkon
1/25/2018 08:03:28 am

Thank you, Betty, for your compliment upon this piece. I feel the same way about the excellence of the movie and its timeliness for us in America today. Ditto about President Trump - exactly the right man for the moment. I hope you do clap more loudly next time; we all need that extra inspiration (I do too) publicly to show our approval. We Christians and conservatives have been too much beaten down and made to feel that we should be silent. Bah!

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