The Great Fight Back:
December 8th, 1941
On this day, exactly eighty-three years ago, Winston Churchill awoke from the greatest sleep of his life.
Although all but the smallest corners of Europe were groaning under the yoke of Nazi rule, he knew that morning that the tide had turned, that the forces of good, the forces of justice, who had been retreating from the onslaught of fascism, had finally rallied.
On this day, exactly eighty-three years ago, the west planted its feet firmly against fascism and began the Great Fight Back.
“December 7th is a day that will live on in infamy forever.”
Those words, spoken by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were spoken on the 8th.
On that day, the United States tied its courage to the sticking place, planted its feet firmly in the earth, and declared that it would once more defend, to the dead, the values it had so long upheld.
December 8th is the day that the Great Fight Back begins.
If you listen closely, you can still hear the sounds of American resolve echoing through eternity.
The clash of hammers, the roar of engines, the tightening of heartstrings – if you listen, you will hear.
A new American man was born on December 8th.
An American who was no longer content with the peaceful comfort of isolation and prosperity.
An American who saw himself, not as a man who had been freed from the bondage of other men, but as a man who had been made to free other men.
Until December 8th, 1941, America had been a nation apart, a state whose interests were entirely internal.
But, on that day, everything changed.
Hundreds of thousands of American men woke up on the 8th, made themselves some coffee, and walked straight into the recruitment center to enlist.
December 8th was the greatest outpouring of human conviction in America’s history.
October 8th was the greatest in Israel’s.
Everyone knows someone who put everything down to go and fight for the Jewish people on October 8th. Some people enlisted, some people returned, some people completely uprooted their lives.
But Israel is only the canary in the coal mine.
What is at stake for Israel in this war will be at stake for the world in the next.
The west has shown so much weakness in the recent past that the gathering storm has been able to grow unchallenged.
A synagogue was burned to the ground in Melbourne.
An English bus filled with Jewish children was boarded by antisemitic teenagers who tormented and harassed the kids.
An American CEO was assassinated in broad daylight and the bleeding hearts of the nation took to the streets to cheer.
In this modern blitzkrieg, many old and famous institutions have fallen.
The Ivy League, the Oxford Debating Society, The New York Times, the BBC… you name it.
But the blitz cannot go on forever.
At a certain point, the brave men and women of the west, the freedom-loving among us, will plant their feet into the ground and say enough is enough.
It is time for our great fight back to begin in earnest.
If you listen closely, you can still hear the sounds of our ancestors as they geared up for theirs.
It is time to tie our courage to the sticking place, to bind ourselves to our convictions, and to make peace with the war that has been waged against us.
Liberty and justice, peace and freedom, now and forever.
It took 911 days after December 8th, 1941, before the Allies were ready to retake Normandy, just under three years.
But, after the 8th, Churchill was no longer worried.
He believed with a perfect faith that the forces of freedom would defeat the forces of tyranny, and, once the great American freedom-lovers had been woken up, victory was only a matter of time.
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Now, December 8th is also an important historical date because it is my birthday.
If you would like to help me celebrate, please share my work and/or consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
All I want for my birthday is a renewed commitment to freedom and justice from the American people.
Failing that, I would just like your money and support.
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Spread Love, Spread Light,
Am Yisrael Chai