History repeating?

"There was a story that a mob of people was going around asking Germans to kiss the flag," Mr. Milch said. "My great-grandfather told them he didn't kiss anybody's flag, whether it was American or German."

While reading the New York Times the other day I was amazed by this article. Posthumous pardons granted for German Montanans who were jailed for sedition during World War I. Crimes of sedition that were petty to say the least:

Seventy-nine Montanans were convicted under the state law, considered among the harshest in the country, for speaking out in ways deemed critical of the United States. In one instance, a traveling wine and brandy salesman was sentenced to 7 to 20 years in prison for calling wartime food regulations a "big joke."

The following passage piqued my interest:

Mr. Work, who was conducting research for the book when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, said he had found the similarities between 2001 and 1918 to be eerie.

"The hair on the back of my neck stood up," Mr. Work said. "The rhetoric was so similar, from the demonization of the enemy to saying 'either you're with us or against us' to the hasty passage of laws."

Is this what those who question the U.S.A.'s Weltanschauung have got to look forward to?



Link to Article

[edit on 8-5-2006 by Beelzebubba]

You raise a good topic by pointing out the fact that American xenophobia and right-wing populism really spiked during WWI. This was even true of "progressive" Christians during the run-up to The War. It took the massive effusion of blood that followed to burst some cherished views among progressives regarding the pre-ordained "upward evolution" of humans and society toward some manmade millennial socio/political order. (finds himself standing in a corner, muttering about run-on sentences, having wandered away from your thread topic... )

My wife's grandfather was thrown in jail for a time in Minnesota because he refused to serve in any capacity which forced him to carry/use a weapon. And they beat him up pretty good, too.

UnAmerican, they called it...

It wasn't that he was unwilling to serve, but that he was unwilling to serve in any fashion which required killing someone. This grew from his religious convictions (SDA), at a time when Congress's "granting" of conscientious objector status had not been officially offered to SDA's. (Conscientious objector status for a group or individual can be withdrawn at Congress's discretion, by the way...)

In the end, he ended up serving as a male nurse with the 88th Division in France and saw some of the heaviest of fighting. But he stuck to his "guns", as it were. And that meant "no gun" for him, but a front-row seat on the violence...

This could easily happen again...our ability to have extreme nationalistic emotions manipulated is no less than anyone else's...maybe even greater, considering the perception by many, of America's special status in "the family of nations".

Let's face it, public education has (more in the past than now) been used as a primary tool to inculcate someone's idea of "patriotism". I think, nowadays, you will probably find more of this in the "homeschooling" movement.

I should be receiving (tomorrow) from Amazon a copy of "The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation" by Richard Gamble. I'll let you know how it reads.

For anyone who is interested in the subject Beelzebubba has touched on, the following link will provide a good starting place:

www.publiceye.org...

Chip Berlet and his associates have done mega-work on this tendency in the American psyche.

Good topic Beelzebubba,

And timely...

I am simply aghast that people were sentenced for up to 20 years for exerting their fundamental rights. The internment of Japanese Americans in World War II just shows a continuation of this kind of fear and hatred.Japanese internment.

Your link to publiceye.org is very thought provoking and is something that explains why we are headed down the path that we are. Zealots in power are terrifying, no matter their persuasion.

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (KJV).

I await your critique of "The War for Righteousness", it sounds like a great read.

Thanks for your excellent post!