Let’s rush to Dr. Chesler’s aid with baskets — and an e-mail Inbox — filled with money to help her out. (In the film clip above, Uncle Billy arrives with the basket of money at 3:36.)

Phyllis Chesler, who has fought for equality for women and against totalitarianism and anti-semitism, needs financial help immediately to continue her work. Think of Jimmy Stewart standing on the snowy bridge in It’s a Wonderful Life, driven to his wit’s end by his very goodness and his enemy’s malice, weighing the possibility that he is worth more dead than alive. Now — whether you know it or not — YOU are one of the people she has helped selflessly and now Phyllis Chesler needs your financial help in order to continue her good work that blesses you in more ways than you will ever know.

Dr. Chesler tells her story eloquently at her own Web site and Pajamas Media — here is the point in her career where it looks like the bottom fell out because the liberal mainstream media turned on her for illuminating their creeping embrace of totalitarianisms:

I have been publishing books and articles for more than forty years. They have always been well and widely reviewed. This all changed in 2003, when I published my twelfth book, The New Anti-Semitism. Then, I suddenly became persona non grata in my publishing, media, activist, and social circles. In 2005, when I published my thirteenth book, The Death of Feminism, I condemned feminist leaders for having abandoned a universalist vision of human rights in favor of multi-cultural relativism. This meant that feminists would do anything to avoid being called “racists” or “Islamophobes.” Many feminists focused obsessively on the quintessential evil of Israel and America and, in so doing, sacrificed the cause of women’s rights both here and in the developing, Muslim world.

And thus, in 2003, I began writing for Frontpage magazine, City Journal, the Washington Times, Intellectual Conservative, National Review, and Pajamas Media where I am now happily ensconced.

I was no longer welcome at my old haunts such as the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I still occasionally published pieces in the Times of London, the London Guardian, and Canada’s Globe and Mail. The usual mainstream media opportunities were no longer mine to claim nor were the old watering holes.

Mind you: I have no regrets about being censored, blackballed, marginalized, or demonized as a “neo-conservative” or as an “Islamophobe.” Anyone who isn’t similarly demonized is part of the problem.

The following is a list of the issues, from 2001 to the present, on which Dr. Chesler was either the first, or among the first, to sound the alarm (most of the wording is hers — I’ve made some long sentences into the bullet list below):

• among the first to write about a possible second Holocaust of Jews in Israel the first to challenge the danger of memorializing a previous Holocaust instead of saving people from current and future Holocausts
• among the first to warn of the Iranian threat
• among the first to begin documenting the systematic bias against Israel, Jews, and America in the mainstream media, in the academy, and among progressives, including feminists
• the first to begin a systematic study of Islamic gender apartheid as it has penetrated the West in the form of honor killings and honor-related violence.
• among the handful who first analyzed the dangerous biases against Israel and America at the United Nations and among human rights groups
• the first to write about the psychoanalytic roots of Islamic suicide terrorism and the psychological dimension of jihad.

Donations to Dr. Chesler are tax-deductible. All donations of any amount are welcome — remember, even the smallest donation is a practical way of saying, “Thanks for safeguarding my freedom,” and “Keep it up!” All donations will be acknowledged. If you donate at least $500, Dr. Chesler will autograph your choice of one of her books and mail it to you.

The easiest way to donate is through PayPal. Dr. Chesler has a PayPal donation button at her Web site. Or, just login to your PayPal account, click the “Send” tab and fill in the amount you are donating and Dr. Chesler’s e-mail address:

pchesler@phyllis-chesler.com

Or you may send a check made out to “The Phyllis Chesler Organization,” which is Dr. Chesler’s 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization. Mail your checks to Dr. Chesler in care of her lawyers at the following address:

Your donations will support Dr. Chesler so that she may continue to inform Americans and Westerners about the following dangers we need to understand to safeguard our freedoms:

• the danger of jihad and terrorism
• the nature of Islamic gender and religious apartheid.

Your donations also will be used to help Dr. Chesler to continue to find, work with, and support Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents and feminists. Dr. Chesler says she “absolutely cannot continue without your help.”

Be very afraid of what your world will be like if Dr. Chesler does not get the financial support she needs to continue her work. Invest in your freedom and the future of America and give generously to Dr. Chesler now.

My father got me hooked on the work of Eric Hoffer when I was in high school in the late 1960′s, starting with his most famous book, The True Believer. And I came upon the work of Jamie Glazov thanks to the kind invitation of David Swindle, associate editor of FrontPage magazine and assistant managing editor of NewsReal Blog. David asked me if I wanted to comment on his post in support of Phyllis Chesler and Jamie Glazov, which he wrote after Naomi Wolf threw a blogospheric fit over the punksmacking that Dr. Chesler administered unto her on Aug. 31, “The Burqa: the Ultimate Feminist Choice?,” which did not take and had to be repeated on Sept. 2, “Wolf Demands an Apology, Chesler Won’t Back Down,” AND on Sept. 3, “Chesler-Wolf-Glazov: Round Three.” I was one of the first bloggers to jump into the fray in support of Dr. Chesler with my post, “Phyllis Chesler punksmacks Naomi Wolf — couldn’t happen to a nicer girl,” and Jamie Glazov was not far behind with his post, “Why Naomi Wolf loves the burqa.” (In addition, my dear friend Little Miss Attila had pointed remarks for Wolf here and here.)

Since “Jamie” can be either a male or female name, I wanted to find a photo and the Wikipedia biography of Jamie Glazov before responding to David’s generous invitation. What a wonderful revelation to find him! If you truly want to understand the psychological foundation of totalitarian movements, read Eric Hoffer’s books, starting with The True Believer. (In contrast, Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism is more like a taxonomy of totalitarianism: he tracks who, what and where, but not much why, and the work of Eric Hoffer, which ought to have been his North Star, is not a cloud on his horizon let alone a star in his sky — the magnitude of the omission is stupefying.) After listening to the videos below, I have the sense that Dr. Glazov is a true intellectual heir of Eric Hoffer in his understanding of the Left, especially with his explanation of how the fall of Communism created a vacuum for the Left that they are now filling with their embrace of Islam. I have been mystified about that — I think he explains it perfectly.

As I listened to him I realized that I bring to conservatism tools that have a proven ability to support the individual’s ability to realize his or her full potential and simultaneously reduce indicators of negativity throughout a population without imposing any precepts or behaviors on everyone in it. And I felt really, truly called to start writing more about it. Well, it was nice being thought of as rational and sane while it lasted. Sigh. But I’ll tell you this for sure — it’s definitely not crazier than the belief that you can kill hate by shooting it or appease your way to peace.

I highly recommend listening to Dr. Glazov in the following two videos from May 2009: