Letter: We enter 2018 with red lights flashing

While reading President Truman’s Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s “Present at the Creation,” chapter after chapter nurtured my patriotism and pride in being a fortunate citizen of the USA. History’s hidden nuances, as witnessed by this front-line gentleman and statesman of the events, participants, failures and triumphs of that post-World War II era, gave me much needed comfort and hope in the midst of 2017’s dismal, near calamitous governmental disarray.

Although reading the highly lauded 770 pages of Acheson’s narrative with scholarly notes may not interest everyone, to the curious I offer just two statements from among many that jumped off the printed pages: 1949 (p. 257) “what little was left of social, economic and political stability seemed about to submerge. The other world superpower [Russia] appeared determined to push this process forward in the apparent belief that chaos was the stage preparatory to communism.”

1952 (p. 693) “[I was] shocked and surprised ... to learn from a Soviet encyclopedia that ‘Soviet Patriotism is indissolubly connected with hatred toward enemies of the Socialist Fatherland ... The teaching of hatred toward the enemies of the toilers enriches the conception of Socialistic humanism by distinguishing it from sugary and hypocritical ‘philanthropy’.“

Consider, if you will, whether these sentiments of past Soviet communism have changed that much within today’s Russian autocracy.

With this in mind, we enter 2018 as whistles and bells, flashing red lights and unfurled banners signal warnings for the new year ahead. Neither prayers, silence nor submissiveness are sufficient armaments to avoid repeating history’s follies. The American ballot box is democracy’s safe harbor, provided our will and ways are allowed to keep Putin and his determined minions out of our democratic processes.

A heartfelt welcome to the new year and a wish for protection in behalf of Robert Mueller and our justice system.

Donna Glazier Dalton, Provo