By Berl Falbaum
“A society does not have to go mad for its representatives to adopt policies of madness. A new flood of events, unexpected, alarming, and badly understood, can seep open the door of power to men and forces whose true natures are not recognized in time.”
That assessment could very well be made of Putin’s war in Ukraine or Trumpism here at home and the danger it represents to our democracy.
But what makes it so prescient is that it was written by Samuel Pisar in his book, “Of Blood and Hope” in 1979 (Macmillan Publishing Co.).
Here are just some of his dire warnings:
On the arms race:
“... the feverish arms race, stimulated at each phase by new technological breakthroughs, goes on and on...We stand poised for destruction. Within hours the smallest conflict can turn into a massive conflagration that will take the lives of millions.”
On democracy:
“Does it still have the will to survive or does it merely throw off a few more brilliant sparks, like a dead star flaring up briefly at the end of its journey?”
On the U.S.:
“America is now engulfed by its own self-doubts. How many peoples continue to call in the darkness: ‘America, are you still there?’ A United States that is not healthy in its own fiber, that is unable to live up to its moral commitments at home and abroad, leaves an orphaned world unprotected and exposed to camps and to gulags.
“The fear, the despair, the suffering, the mounting anger at the root of international issues and debated so bloodlessly and impersonally by myriad diplomates, economists, and politicians and that endanger what remains of our freedom and of peace.”
On the energy crisis:
“An alarming economic reality, to be sure, but is it not primarily a drama for the rich? The inability of the Western consumer to control his insatiable appetite for oil and gas at a level his country can afford...”
On terrorism:
“The methods of its current practitioners scarcely differ from the gerund rules that prevailed in the ghettos and the camps, where hostages were taken and shot routinely for on other reason than to sow panic and fear.”
On hunger:
“The gnawing starvation that sucks the will out of two-thirds of mankind and subjects who continents to political and social convulsions...”
He points out that international conferences held through the years on the environment, hunger, poverty, human rights, unemployment have all failed. (As I wrote in my own book on the environment, the world has had 26 summits on the environment and after each one things only got worse).
Who was Pisar?
Born in Poland, Pisar, who died in 2015, was a Holocaust survivor, imprisoned for four years in several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, between the ages of 12 and 16.
As the Allies swept into Germany, Pisar, having escaped during a death march, was hiding in a barn when he heard a “hum.” He peeked out and spotted a tank with a five-pointed white star that he concluded was an American tank. He charged out, waving his arms, when a black American soldier popped out of the tank. Pisar dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around the soldier’s legs, and using the only English words he knew, exclaimed “God, bless America.”
He became an international famous lawyer, working at the highest levels for governments throughout the world. His list of clients reads like a Who’s Who of the most powerful officials and senior business executives in numerous countries.
Among world figures commending his books on back covers are: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the famous novelist and Russian dissident; Moshe Dayan, one of Israel’s most prominent military leaders who was chief of staff during the 1956 Suez Crisis; Arthur Schlesinger Jr., American historian, social critic and intellectual; Willy Brandt, Germany’s chancellor 1969-74; Norman Cousins, political journalist, author and professor; and others of similar stature.
Pisar concludes: “Today, the dangers are of a different order--more complicated, more universal, more insidious. Courage in the face of the “enemy” has become a much subtler ingredient, because we can no longer threaten to eliminate a hostile world power without, at the same time, threatening to eliminate ourselves. Moreover, today the enemies are manifold; they are everywhere and nowhere; they are difficult to locate, difficult to resist, difficult to contain.”
How we deal with these enemies, Pisar wrote, “May well determine whether our children and grandchildren will live free or as slaves, as we reach the shores of the third millennium.”
This and much more in his book written more than 40 years ago sounds all too familiar. The problem? We haven’t learned a thing. Actually, we’re in worse shape than when Pisar warned us of the dangers we face.
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Berl Falbaum is a veteran journalist and author of 12 books.
