The White House has quelled the rumor that the bust of
Churchill was sent back[1].
It was just moved so that no one could see it. At least that is what they
claim.
As the White House states:
The version lent by Prime Minister Blair was displayed by
President Bush until the end of his Presidency.
On January 20, 2009 -- Inauguration Day -- all of the art lent
specifically for President Bush’s Oval Office was removed by the curator’s
office, as is common practice at the end of every presidency. The original
Churchill bust remained on display in the residence.
As Palmer stated[2]:
Lenin adopted Marx's governing ideas:
1.
that capitalism exploited the workers,
2.
that it necessarily produced and preceded socialism ,
3.
that history
was logically predetermined,
4.
that class struggle was the law of
society,
5.
that existing
forms of religion,
government, philosophy, and morals
were weapons of the ruling class.
Marx's theory is the objective truth. Following the path
of this
theory, we will approach the objective
truth more and
more closely, while
if we follow
any other path we cannot arrive a t anything except confusion and
falsehood . From the philosophy of Marxism, cast of one piece of steel, it is
impossible to expunge a single basic premise, a single essential part, without
deviating from objective truth, without falling into the arms of bourgeois-reactionary
falsehood.
Lenin was a convert. He discovered Marxism; he did not
invent it. He found in it a theory of revolution which he accepted without
reservation as scientific, and on which he was more outspokenly dogmatic even
than Marx himself. His powers of mind, which were very great, were spent in
demonstrating how the unfolding events of the twentieth century confirmed the
analysis of the master.
Thus we should consider the comparison of the current
president with Churchill along these lines.
Churchill was fundamentally a capitalist; he saw unions and
socialism as a true threat to core British values. Churchill became an opponent
of socialism; it took away the drive to produce and destroyed the core of
British creativity.
Churchill despised Communism. He saw it for what it was and
he saw Stalin as abject evil, despite the blinders that FDR had.
Churchill understood History; he was a writer of History,
albeit often for his own purposes. History was highly uncertain for Churchill.
There were times when he wondered as to the ultimate outcome, from Gallipoli
and especially at the beginning of WW II. The current president sees his work
as inevitable, the country will ultimately move to his was of seeing it. It is
predestined and those who do not see it are obstructionists.
Churchill saw his Party as a vehicle for his ideas, ideas
that were often in conflict with his peers. Churchill changed parties to ensure
the integrity of his ideas. Churchill did not see the Party as a way to control
the people. He saw that the people needed to be convinced through actions as
well as words.
Just some thoughts.
[2]
Palmer, R., A History of the Modern World, Knopf (New York) 3rd Ed
1965. Palmer was at Princeton when he wrote this first in the early 1950s and
then in the mid-1960s. It is doubtful that anyone at Princeton would write this
today, in fact one could readily assume they would likely agree with Marx!
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