6 June 2024
Last night, I made a command decision about this summer, my summer. I stated that I want to rest, relax, enjoy fun activities, and the pleasure of cooking and eating home-made meals. I do not want to be chained to “doing translation.”
Those words were uttered at about 10 p.m., just before going to bed. By midnight, I’d not fallen asleep, but I persisted in trying to enter the Land of Nod.
I did nod off, for about twenty minutes of very deep sleep. Fully enough of Level 6 (which has somehow been online-re-categorized into Stage 4) sleep-time to REM re-charge the creative-battery! It became obvious to me by 1:15 a.m. that I was spending more time trying to fall asleep than I would have spent in yielding to the demands of My Muse. She must have felt neglected. She’s undoubtedly finding a way to let me do all of that productive relaxation along with those linguistic feats, and feasts, of fancy.
At 1:30 a.m., I marched downstairs to work on more final review-translation of Chapter 11 into Chapitre 11 of L’AUBE.
Spending time with Colonel Arthur Carmichael is always a soothing experience for me, as I recall writing certain portions of Book Two. I’ve mostly, if not completely, forgotten the British English that is used with fun and ferocity in this portion of THE DAWN set in Chichester, West Sussex, England. I had to pull out my book on the subject. I consequently laughed out loud when I read that Arthur, in the midst of hearing British English idioms and locutions that he doesn’t understand, wonders if he could find a book on that rather unique language!
I’d gotten Arthur through a ghastly dinner with his fellow Allies, two RAF officers and a Free French major. He’s resolutely climbed the stairs to his bedroom on the second floor of the Arts & Crafts country house. That abode has been commandeered by the War Ministry for stationing of military personnel. Due to the sounds of explosions in the distance, he and the Free French major subsequently find themselves on the landing of an exterior staircase. There, they silently witness the sights and sounds of dogfights in the skies over West Sussex.
Their eyes follow tracer fire trails until, suddenly, a large white explosion informs them of tragedy during that full-moon night of 15 September 1940.
These aerial attacks had been announced over the wireless to the Air Ministry command center by a military observer whose calm, unflappable voice states:
“Hostile planes approaching from the southwest.”
I give immeasurable thanks to the Brits for having so valiantly faced their Blitz of 1940, an evil assault on civilians and on civilisation that, to a much much smaller extent, remains underway nowadays, albeit in far more subtle ways. The enemies of the Brits are largely within, just as they are in my nation. Today’s Fifth Columnists are typically home-grown groaners. They’re loud, lazy, impatient louts and narcissists. The covert and secretive ones are also groaners, about not getting paid enough treason-money from those dark, primarily foreign, sources. The entire lot lacks impulse control. They don’t know their limits. Triggering them has become sport for patriots of any nation.
The next four paragraphs are mainly interior monologue of Arthur, after he’s bid a gentle good-night to Roland Monfils, the Free Frenchman. With four pages left in the chapter, I had decided to call it a night. My Muse, however, wanted me to review the translation of just one more page, which I did accomplish from 1:30 until 2:30 a.m.
Although these words were penned sometime during the summer of 2009, I was stunned to recognize them as compellingly descriptive of the present continuing crises in America, in the UK, and in Europe.
I do not write fiction, hoping to see it come true. I write fiction because of what I, and My Muse, “see” as universal truths that must be stated. And I wrote THE DAWN after having researched the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, not the past decade or two, or three, in America, England, and France. During that time frame I did my best to live my life, outside of the limits of an ever-encroaching Nanny State and corrupt Federal government.
During those years, I also perceived appalling parallels between those years entre les guerres, between the wars, and the post-Cold War era, especially in America, that now suffers from an affluent cesspool that’s in dire need of deep and complete draining.
During those years I also learned my personal limits, well, and wisely.
It’s very important to know your limits. I’d spent an hour yesterday morning, culling through unwanted clothes to donate to Goodwill. Such an activity always spurs my imagination in directions I cannot always perceive. I could have spared myself two hours of insomnia, had I realized how certain mental and emotional processes during the day shall inevitably lead to the need for artistic expression during the night.
Those limits, however, aren’t truly limits. They’re gateways to the here-and-now, and then to the future. This gateway to today, and into tomorrow comes directly from the historic past.
In early 1940, Colonel Arthur Carmichael read a top secret military synopsis which briefed him on the findings of various incipient secret intelligence groups. These groups had been requested by the U.S. Government to infiltrate traditional patriotic organizations in America. The purpose of this assignment was to detect any enemy infiltration into these normally peaceful organizations. To his great dismay and stunned belief, Arthur found a fairly high level of infiltration by enemy agents: people of a decidedly American stripe who were actually pacifists, Nazis, Fascists, Communists, anarchists, and freelancers, spies who worked for the highest price. These people, some of whom were born American, wore the disguise of patriotism. Very few Americans knew the truth behind their trained, memorized, staged, and thoroughly bogus words and actions.
Those enemies in our midst are the Fifth Column. The term came from a Nationalist general during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. Emilio Mola spoke those words during a radio address in 1936 while his army approached Madrid. He sent out a message to his followers that the four columns of his forces were outside the city: these columns would be supported by a fifth column of supporters inside the city. The designed intent of the words, Fifth Column, was to demoralize the existing Spanish government from within. The Nationalist coup ultimately failed; it remains unclear whether any Fifth Column support ever existed for General Mola.
The question as to whether or not a Fifth Column is effective is irrelevant; its very existence during peacetime is a threat to freedom. The idea of anyone harboring a secret need to disguise beliefs, activities, motives, and identity during peacetime is not conducive to trust among individuals in a society. The element of suspicion is used cleverly by any leaders who seek to weaken the threads of trust and goodwill which form the fabric of society. It is difficult to trust a neighbor when one suspects, or fears, that he or she does not believe in a common goal as common as defense of the nation or abiding by the law or even fair and impartial justice.
The glue which cements the wills of individuals into a stable society has long been diluted and destroyed by the mischief-makers of that society, be they politicians, press, or power-hungry people with an agenda that never ends. Thus, individuals who wish to undermine the threads of trust and goodwill which tie a society together can find no better way to sow the seeds of distrust and dissension than through instilling the suspicion that a person is a threat to America; and, even better, the fear that this threat to life and liberty is living nearby.
These agents of demoralization know well, from observation, the ties of trust and goodwill which bind the fabric of society. These people have not partaken in the humble, honest acts of human kindness that instill decency, civility, and compassion in any society. They cynically sneer at the very thought of weaving the underpinnings of a moral life, one which believes in God and country. They engage not in building the foundations of civil society but in conspiring to destroy it.
Their motives are many; their endgame is power. Their path is usually paved with the good intentions of others who unwittingly allow them the freedom of access to the avenues of life in American society: baseball games; charity functions; county fairs; even high society balls. These individuals prefer to remain anonymous and to reside in the areas which have become known in America as “flyover country.” And yet they also deftly infiltrate the parlors of the swells in major cities. What is a good philanthropic event without the presence of an off-beat face or two? Not that these moral saboteurs ever wish to look like kooks or even bohemians. They try to blend in, to approximate the appearance, smell, and speech of the average American which, in the 1930’s, was not a difficult thing to do.
They know well their enemy, those gullible believers of a civil society engaged in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They privately snicker at the simplicity of the American fools, those naïve products of this soft democracy, those greedy pigs of capitalism, the pawns of political parties. They savor the thoughts of the panic they will arouse when the filaments of trust among neighbors, family members, friends, and, best of all, churchgoers, degenerate into suspicion and fear.
They know that without trust between neighbors, closed doors become more than a symbol of privacy. They are well aware that the practice of saying one thing in public, but believing quite another thing in private does not build trust among the citizenry. The cohesive components of a small town, once united by the bonds of goodwill and a shared higher purpose, can only crumble from within when tremors of trepidation or even terror are felt by the citizens within that small town. Perhaps it is this basic element of fear which the Fifth Columnists most effectively use against a free nation. Fear is the greatest weapon any dictator has ever used against his own people and against the peoples of other nations. Fear is the foundation of terror. Through terror, freedom is constricted, much like the airway to the heart and lungs that is quite capable of being cut off by the stranglehold of hands or by the internal grip of horror.
Prior to World War II, the goal of the Fifth Columnists in America was threefold: spread disinformation, dissent, doubt, and defeatism; discover any information useful, helpful, or of potential aid to their dastardly leaders; and, as benignly as possible, recruit dissidents. The Fifth Columnists, disguised with phoney names, phoney identification papers, phoney lives, phoney motives, and phoney purposes, joined military veteran organizations such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars; and volunteer organizations such as Lions Club, Kiwanis, the Benevolent and Protective Order (BPO) of Elks; and many other groups composed of patriotic, selfless Americans.
Those groups quietly help and minister to the less fortunate and needy among not just Americans, but people around the world. Those groups and many other aggregations of Americans nobly, anonymously, and humbly prove that America is a giving nation. Therein lays her greatness and her vulnerability. Because of her generosity of liberty, all of those groups were capably infiltrated by enemy agents to spread the propaganda barrage of lies, lies, and more lies.
Au debut de l’année 1940, le colonel Arthur Carmichael lut une synthèse militaire top secret qui l’informa des conclusions de divers groupes de renseignements secrets naissants. Le gouvernement des États-Unis avait demandé à ces groupes d’infiltrer les organisations patriotiques traditionnelles en Amérique. Le but de cette mission fut de détecter toute infiltration ennemie dans ces organisations normalement pacifiques. À sa grande consternation et à son grand étonnement, Arthur découvrit un niveau assez élevé d’infiltration par des agents ennemis : les gens d’un genre décidément américain qui furent en actualité des pacifistes, nazis, fascistes, communistes, anarchistes, et les indépendants, c’est-à-dire, des espions qui firent leur travail pour le prix le plus élevé.
Ces personnes, dont certaines furent nées américaines, portèrent le déguisement du patriotisme. Très peu d’Américains connurent la vérité qui se cacha derrière les paroles et les actions de ces individus qui furent formées et pratiquées, mémorisées, simulées et entièrement fausses.
Ces ennemis au milieu de nous sont la cinquième Colonne. Le terme vint d’un général nationalist durant la guerre civile espagnole de 1936-1939. Emilio Mola prononça ces paroles lors d’un discours de radio en 1936 tandis que son armée s’approchait Madrid.
Il envoya un message à ses partisans, indiquant que les quatre colonnes de ses forces étaient positionnées à l’extérieur de la cité ; ces colonnes seraient soutenues par une cinquième colonne de partisans à l’intérieur de la cité. L’intention à dessein des paroles, la cinquième colonne, fut la démoralisation du gouvernement existant d’Espagne de l’intérieur. Le coup nationaliste finalement échoua ; il reste vague si tout soutien de la cinquième colonne jamais n'existât pour le général Mola.
La question quant à oui ou non une cinquième colonne est efficace est pas pertinente ; son existence même en temps de paix constitue une menace pour la liberté. L’idée de quelqu’un puisse éprouver le besoin secret de dissimuler ses croyances, ses activités, ses motivations et son identité en temps de paix n’est pas propice à la confiance parmi les individus dans une société. L’élément de suspicion est utilisé habilement par n’importe quel chef qui cherche à l’affaiblir les fils de la confiance et de la bonne volonté qui forment le tissu de la société. Il est difficile de faire confiance à son voisin lorsqu’on soupçonne, ou craint, qu’il ou qu’elle ne croit pas en un objectif commun aussi commun que la défense d’une nation, le respect de la loi ou même en la justice équitable et impartiale.
La colle qui cimente les volontés des individus dans une société stable avait été longtemps diluée
et détruite par les fauteurs de troubles de cette société, soient-il les politiciens, la presse, ou des personnes assoiffées de pouvoir dont l’intention cachée est sans fin. Ainsi, les individus qui souhaitent saper les fils de la confiance et de la bonne volonté qui lient ensemble une société ne peuvent trouver d’aucun meilleur moyen de semer les graines de la méfiance et de la dissension qu’en inculquant le soupçon qu’une personne est une menace pour l’Amérique, et, mieux encore, la peur que cette menace pour la vie et pour la liberté ne vive à proximité.
Ces agents de la démoralisation connaissent bien, pour les avoir observés, le liens de confiance et de bonne volonté qui unissent le tissu de la société. Ces personnes ne participent pas aux actes humbles et honnêtes de la bonté humaine qui inculquent la décence, la civilité et la compassion dans toute société. Ils ricanent cyniquement à l’idée même de tisser les bases d’une vie morale, une qui croit en Dieu et en la patrie. Ils ne s’engagent pas à bâtir les fondations de la société civile mais à conspirer pour les détruire.
Leurs motivations sont nombreuses ; leur fin de partie est le pouvoir. Leur sentier est d’habitude pavé des bonnes intentions d’autres qui sans le vouloir leur permettent d’accéder librement aux voies de la vie dans la société américaine : jeux de baseball, événements de charité, foires de comté, même bals de la haute société. Ces individus préfèrent rester anonymes et resider dans les régions que l’on appelle en Amérique « flyover country ».
Et pourtant ils également infiltrent avec dextérité des soirées des « swells » dans les grandes villes. Qu’est-ce qu’un bon événement philanthropique sans la présence d’un ou deux visages excentriques ? Non pas que ces saboteurs moraux veuillent jamais ressembler à des cinglés ou même à des bohèmes. Ils essayent à cadrer avec l’apparence, l’odeur et la langage de l’Américain typique qui, dans les années 1930, ne fut pas difficile à faire.
Ils connaissent bien leur ennemi, ces croyants candides d’une société civile s'engagés dans la vie, la liberté et la poursuite du bonheur. Ils ricanent en privé de la simplicité de ces imbéciles américains, ces produits naïfs de cette démocratie molle, ces cochons cupides du capitalisme, les pions des partis politiques. Ils savourent les pensées de la panique qu’ils susciteront lorsque les filaments de confiance parmi les voisins, les membres de la famille, les amis, et, mieux encore, les pratiquants, dégénéreront en suspicion et en peur.
Ils savent que sans confiance entre voisins, les portes fermées deviennent plus d’un symbole de la vie privée. Ils sont bien conscients que la pratique à dire une chose en public, mais à croire tout autre chose en privé, ne bâtit pas la confiance parmi les citoyens.
Les composantes de la cohésion d’une petite ville, une fois unie par les liens de la bonne volonté et d'un but plus élevé partagé, ne peuvent que s’écrouler de l’intérieur lorsque les tremblements de la trépidation ou même de la terreur sont sentis par les citoyens dans cette petite ville. Il se peut que cet élément fondamental de la peur soit utilisé le plus efficacement par la cinquième colonne contre une nation libre. La peur est la plus puissante arme que tout dictateur avait jamais utilisée contre son propre peuple et contre les peuples d’autres nations. La peur est le fondement de la terreur. Par la terreur, la liberté est serrée, beaucoup comme les voies respirantes au cœur et aux poumons qui peuvent être coupées par l'étranglement des mains ou par l'emprise interne de l’horreur.
Avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le but des membres de la cinquième colonne en Amérique fut triple : répandre la désinformation, la dissension, le doute et le défaitisme ; découvrir toute information utile, constructive ou susceptible d’aider leurs ignobles dirigeants ; et, de la manière la plus inoffensive possible, recruter des dissidents.
Les membres de la cinquième colonne, déguisés avec de faux noms, de faux papiers d’identité, de fausses vies, de fausses motivations et de faux objectifs, rejoignirent des organisations militaires de vétérans telles que la Légion américaine et les Vétérans des guerres étrangères ; et des organisations bénévoles telles que le Lions Club, le Kiwanis, le Benevolent and Protective Order (BPO) of Elks ; et bien d’autres groupes composés d’Américains patriotes et altruistes.
Ces groupes aident discrètement et s'occupent de gens moins chanceux et d'indigents parmi non seulement les Américains, mais aussi les gens dans le monde entier. Ces groupes et bien d’autres associations d’Américains prouvent noblement, anonymement et humblement que l’Amérique est une nation généreuse. C’est par là que l’on trouve la grandeur et la vulnérabilité de cette nation libre. En raison de la générosité de l’Amérique envers liberté, tous ces groupes furent habilement infiltrés par les agents ennemis pour le but de disséminer le déluge des mensonges, les mensonges et plus de mensonges.