In his remarks to Sen. Ted Cruz’s Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness hearing concerning ongoing attempts to silence dissenters to climate change dogma, Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts—one of the greatest enemies of free speech in government today—made an analogy between the threat of communism and climate change.

What we have here is just one of the clear national security challenges of our time. Just as we were focused on protecting the planet from the threat of communism in the 1950s, we need to be focused on protecting the planet from the threat of climate change now.

The statement is fascinating because, in the 1980s, then-Representative Markey opposed every move the Reagan administration made to protect the planet from the threat of communism.

Consider, for example, the Sandinistas. After a “fact-finding” trip to Nicaragua in August 1983, Markey came back to America and uncritically repeated the Sandinistas’ propaganda. He told the Boston Globe (August 19, 1983):

Daniel Ortega, coordinator of Nicaragua’s Sandinista junta, said “he does not want to export revolution. He wants to have peace with the US.”

Markey said that when he asked Ortega about censorship of the media and restriction of religious freedom in Nicaragua, “He said he would lift the restrictions if he believed there was any kind of normal situation in his country. But because the US was massing for war on his northern border and because the US had someone such as Henry Kissinger, who was a central figure in the assassination of (former Chilean President Salvador) Allende, how could he be expected to exist as though a normal situation was at hand?”

Markey’s response was not to condemn the communist dictator for (his weak attempt at) trying to justifying his repression, but to placate him by saying, “I assured him the vast majority of people in this country never want to see another Marine set foot in Nicaragua.”

Markey knew Ortega was lying. Not only had the Sandinistas been caught multiple times exporting weapons to El Salvador and beyond by August 1983, but their rhetoric made their plans clear. At a Sandinista rally in 1980, a key ally of the Sandinistas, Grenada’s Marxist dictator Maurice Bishop announced: “By 1981, we will be able to speak not just of revolutionary Cuba — not just of revolutionary Nicaragua — but also of revolutionary El Salvador, Revolutionary Guatemala and Honduras!”

Speaking of Grenada, Markey wrote an article in the Boston Globe (December 2, 1983) heaping scorn of the island’s liberation by American soldiers and Marines:

The operation demonstrated that 1600 82d Airborne paratroopers, 700 Rangers, 1800 Marines, several dozen Navy Seals and a flotilla of ships can successfully overwhelm a rag-tag Cuban and Grenadan force smaller than the Boston Police Department.

He goes so far as to mock the American medical students, rescued as a result of the invasion, for being grateful:

Excited interviews and ground-kissing aside, the only time the students were in danger, if ever, seems to be when we invaded Grenada — not before.

President Reagan later responded to those who mocked the rescued American students in a speech to those very students at the White House: “Some of you also wrote of your anger that certain people belittled the danger that you were in. And I must say this angered me a little, too. It’s very easy for some smug know-it-all in a plush, protected quarter to say that you were in no danger. I have wondered how many of them would have changed places with you.”

Markey told the Globe:

The administration next claimed the invasion came in the nick of time to block a strategic Soviet foothold in the Caribbean — a justification supposedly bolstered by a treasure trove of Grenadan documents.

But as more documents have been made public, it appears that Soviet influence existed more on paper than in reality, and Soviet and Cuban projects had more economic value than military.

For example, the infamous airport, which the administration once painted as a strategic threat, apparently was being built mainly to attract tourists. The Canadians reportedly wanted to build a $16 million hotel near the facility. And even now, the United States is considering a request from Grenadan businessmen to finish the airport.

He also said:

The true threat to stability there is not the arms cache in Grenada or communist-inspired subversion, but rather poverty, social injustice and repressive governments.

Here is what the documents really said: “The Revo has been able to crush Counter-Revolution internationally, airport will be used for Cuban and Soviet military.” Additionally, as President Reagan wrote in his memoirs:

The barracks used by the Cuban “workers” on Grenada contained enough weapons and ammunition to equip thousands of terrorists. In the Cuban embassy, we found hollow walls stuffed with more weapons, plus documents linking Grenada’s Marxists to Havana and Moscow, including one letter sent six months before by a Soviet general to the commander of the Grenadan army that boasted Grenada could be proud of itself for becoming the third outpost of Communism in the New World — after Cuba and Nicaragua — and adding that soon there would be a fourth, El Salvador.

If you cannot forecast that communist control of Latin America will be a problem, then you cannot forecast the weather in 50 years.

Mark Steyn made a point about the celebration of 25 years since the fall of the Berlin wall that could apply to his showdown with Sen. Markey:

Consider one of the men present at today’s celebrations: Gerhard Schröder, chancellor of a reunited Germany until his defeat by Angela Merkel in 2005 and now performing a little light “consulting” for Rothschild and one or two others. What was Herr Schröder doing back in the Eighties? Well, he was writing to Egon Krenz, deputy to East Germany’s head gaoler Erich Honecker and the man who very briefly succeeded him 25 years ago. Here’s Schröder schmoozing Krenz:

“I will certainly need the endurance you have wished me in this busy election year. But you will certainly also need great strength and good health for your People’s Chamber election.” 

The only difference being that, on one side of the wall, the election result was not in doubt. In other words, Schröder and a big chunk of the west’s political class were part of the problem.When a free man enjoying the blessings of a free society promotes an equivalence between real democracy and a sham, he’s colluding in the great lie being perpetrated by the prison state.

The friends of communists back then should not be able to discuss the defeat of communism now without being called out on it.