1917...1917.....Remind yourself as you read.

I was reviewing the writings of the little known Harper's writer Walter Karp in order to make a point elsewhere - when I came across the following.

This is Karp writing at sometime in the late 70's or early 80's (he was dead by '89). Concerning Woodrow Wilson and the run-up to WWI.

"Enjoy".

>>>>>>>>p147
The triumph of Woodrow Wilson and the war party struck the American republic a blow from which it has never recovered. If the mainspring of a republican commonwealth - its "active principle," in Jefferson's words-is the perpetual struggle against oligarchy and privilege, against private monopoly and arbitrary power, then that mainspring was snapped and deliberately snapped by the victors in the civil war over war.

The sheer fact of war was shattering in itself. Deaf to the trumpets and the fanfare, the great mass of Americans entered the war apathetic, submissive, and bitter. Their honest sentiments had been trodden to the ground, their judgment derided, their interests ignored. Representative government had failed them at every turn. A President, newly reelected, had betrayed his promise to keep the peace. Congress, self-emasculated, had neither checked nor balanced nor even seriously questioned the pretexts and pretensions of the nation's chief executive The free press had shown itself to be manifestly unfree-a tool of the powerful and a voice of the "interests." Every vaunted progressive reform had failed as well. Wall Street bankers, supposedly humbled by the Wilsonian reforms, had impudently clamored for preparedness and war. The Senate, ostensibly made more democratic through the direct election of senators, had proven as impervious as ever to public opinion. The party machines, supposedly weakened by the popular primary, still held elected officials in their thrall. Never did the powerful in America seem so willful, so wanton, or so remote from popular control as they did the day war with Germany began. On that day Americans learned a profoundly embittering lesson: they did not count. Their very lives hung in the balance and still they did not count. That bitter lesson was itself profoundly corrupting, for it transformed citizens into cynics, filled free men with self-loathing, and drove millions into privacy, apathy, and despair.

Deep as it was, the wound of war might have healed in time had Wilson and the war party rested content with their war. With that war alone, however, they were by no means content. Well before the war, the war party had made its aims clear. It looked forward to a new political order distinguished by "complete internal peace" and by the people's "consecration to the State." It wanted an electorate that looked upon "loyalty" to the powerful as the highest political virtue and the exercise of liberty as proof of "disloyalty." The war party wanted a free people made servile and a free republic made safe for oligarchy and privilege, for the few who ruled and the few who grew rich; in a word, for itself The goals had been announced in peacetime. They were to be achieved under cover of war. While American troops learned to survive in the trenches, Americans at home learned to live with repression and its odious creatures-with the government spy and the government burglar, with the neighborhood stool pigeon and the official vigilante, with the local tyranny of federal prosecutors and the lawlessness of bigoted judge's, with the midnight police raid and the dragnet arrest.

In this domestic war to make America safe for oligarchy, Woodrow Wilson forged all the main weapons. Cherisher of the "unified will" in peacetime, Wilson proved himself implacable in war. Despising in peacetime all who disturbed the "unity of our national counsel," Wilson in wartime wreaked vengeance on them all. Exalted by his global mission, the ex-Princeton professor, whom one party machine had groomed for high office and whom another had been protecting for years, esteemed himself above all men and their puling cavils. He could no longer tolerate, he was determined to silence, every impertinent voice of criticism, however small and however harmless. Nothing was to be said or read in America that Wilson himself might find disagreeable. Nothing was to be said or read in America that cast doubt on the nobility of Wilson's goals, the sublimity of his motives, or the efficacy of his statecraft. Wilson's self-elating catchphrases were to be on every man's lips or those lips would be sealed by a prison term. "He seemed determined that there should be no questioning of his will," wrote Frederick Howe after personally pleading with Wilson to relent. "I felt that he was eager for the punishment of men who differed from him, that there was something vindictive in his eyes as he spoke."<<<<<<<<<<<<

Much more at:http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Democracy_America/AmericaFreeNowDead_BA.html

Spell Edit - fred

I was wondering if his goal of total war involving every person in the country was some sort of reaction to the Civil War. The old "we could have won if the troops hadn't been stabbed in the back" meme.

His book "Indispensable Enemies" is also uniquely instructive.

That book will really change how you think of the Democratic Party - for the worse, I'm afraid.

But Karp may well have forseen the real cause of the "spinelessness" that has plagued our official Dems for the last 25 years.

As I always say: Our elected reps. find democracy all well and good - but they'll be damned if they are going to "goof up" and do anything that could lead to leather Nascar jackets in the Senate cloak room!

recommended

There were no great principles involved. It was basically a turf battle among monarchs who were all grandchildren of Queen Victoria. It was a "shirts and skins" type conflict, rather than a struggle of good and evil.

Far from "making the world safe for democracy," World War I made the world safe for Hitler, because he never could have come to power if Germany had not been forced to give up its monarchy and (unfairly) made to accept blame for starting the war (all the countries were spoiling for a fight) and subjected to demands for reparations that crippled its economy. So the end of World War I left a nation full of desperate, resentful people with weak, ineffective governments.

Another casualty of World War I was the willingness of Americans to believe stories of atrocities. The British had put out an unending stream of horror stories about German troops tossing babies on bayonets, cutting off women's breasts, and other atrocities, almost all of which were later proven untrue.

That's why, twenty years later, when the stories of the Holocaust began reaching the West, many people didn't believe them and dismissed them as Allied propaganda.

Hmmmm, good thing we haven't created any more of THOSE lately, isn't it?

At least not in the sense that it was fought only for the pride of foolish noblemen.

I've seen the argument laid out quite convincingly that it was actually started to prevent Germany from securing access to oil. The pipeline would have gone through Serbia. Britain did not want that happening whatsoever.

But they lost the empire anyway. So I suppose that ultimately it was unnecessary.

children, a family quarrel that killed and displaced millions.

... painted him as an intellectual isolationist, who absolutely positively did NOT want us to be involved in the - or any - war.

My, my, my ....

It doesn't look like Wilson had wanted to go to war, but once he made up his mind in favor of it, he was implacable.

To be fair, his decision did coincide with rising public antipathy towards Germany, following unrestricted submarine warfare.

And something that Dubya wouldn't even be able to understand let alone think up himself.

This isn't of course excusing the fact that Wilson was a flaming racist who thought Birth of a Nation was the best movie he'd ever seen.

Another chance to pit the untermench against each other and engage in War-Profiteering.

"The Plan" moves forward. It's hard to tell when it started. One timeline runs into another. Kind of like a wire fence, overlapping and uneven. They scoff at this accusation. Everything is so uncontrollable according to them. But it's definitely there.
As far as I'm concerned it's globalization. A global corporate state ruling over weak nation states with "market based economies and the rule of law". Adam Smith part one: (goods and services moving freely across borders) and Adam Smith part two: (labor moving freely across borders.) A borderless world where mankind becomes HOMELESS! If you need an identity in the future pick a corporation you like cause that's all your getting. I'm McDonald's, I'm Starbucks, I'm Nike, I'm a Pepper!

One thing is for sure. This whole nightmare of a vision has come from the USA! There may be some fellow travelers in the European Elite but for the most part we are living in the belly of the beast...

This is why I'm not even paying attention to the "Iraq Study Group Report" It doesn't mean anything in the long run. They still want to "westernize" the ME! The plan moves forward as usual.

If you want your country back then wage a war on the political and business elites. Especially the Wall Street bankers and the multi-national corporations. It's the only way to be free OF THEM!

The Plan I mean. But then, to raise such an idea is to invite a shitstorm of criticism and "conspiracy theory" finger pointing. For all the posturing to the contrary, America has always been controlled by the wealthy classes and today that means the bankers and the corporations who dictate the rules and influence government policy far more than the electorate.
The dream of globalization has already unleashed tremendous suffering in the world for the little people. Of course, the upside is that we get everyday low prces at Wall Mart (and who can afford to shop elsewhere? Oh well, I never see anybody famous shopping there).
SIGH.

I'll have to find it back, I've lost it for the moment.

It shows that we've been here before and came through alright.
Shows hope for us today. (The Dems winning illustrate this of course.)

This here American Democracy thingy seems to be pretty stubborn about
keeping itself around. It lets itself get pushed around quite a bit but if
someone tries to take it out, it calmly stands up and asserts it's
authority.

It ain't perfect but I'd prefer it to a stab in the eye with a flaming shish-kebab.

Whatever that means.


---

But a shish-kebab for lunch sounds pretty good right now.

a solid document.

You're so right, FDR eventually became president about 10 years later. Things change, sometimes even for the better! MKJ

It's different this time. We good. They bad.

Wow. That puts Stay the Course in context.

K&R

If Woodrow Wilson won office in 2000, there would be no anti-war movement going into Iraq, and if there were, he would have crushed it by now by imprisoning anti-war leaders and cracking down on socialists, unionists, and other "troublemakers." He was responsible for driving the anti-war movement underground and provoking the 1st Red Scare.

Those who don't pay attention to history give us shit like Iraq.

Here's my take on it - not quite worthy of Walter Karp, but you do what you can...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3006712&mesg_id=3006712

Thanks for posting this piece, Fred! I hope everybody reads it. We need to REMEMBER.

Europe's Socialist parties had been at the forefront of antiwar movements and disarmament movements throughout Europe in the decade leading up to the First World War. In fact, several modern historians have somewhat revised the impression that the pre-war period was marked by rapidly rising militarism and virulent nationalism. The growth of Socialist parties, peace movements, and disarmament movements was very widespread throughout Europe and many historians now argue that militarism was actually declining.

Yet when the trigger for war came unexpectedly, the Socialists throughout Europe completely abdicated their responsibility. The German Social-Democratic Party cowardly caved, approving war despite their own better instincts. The reason? They were widely tipped to win the next German elections, due in 1918, and they wanted to appear "responsible" and capable of governing to other voters.

Similar pathology gripped the French Socialists and ultimately brought about support from the British Liberals (who also had been antiwar).

Something our Democrats ought to remember.

It's amazing to me that * a man that loathes historical context is actually following a failed blueprint to war and oppression of the American people....

How do we rid ourselves of this cancerous tumor in our midst..