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Flashback 1930s: A Time Before Military Adulation
By Steve Penfield | September 9, 2024 | 51 Comments
Before the federal takeover of broadcasting took hold about a century ago, Americans had a healthy distrust of military propaganda. Now that independent journalism is taking shape on the internet, the D.C. Imperials are having to work harder to whip up the next batch of War Fever. Let’s hope they keep failing.
Long before U.S. politicians gave their overwhelming support for brutal massacres in Vietnam to Iraq to Palestine, Americans let their empty pride of "winning" two world wars dissolve their prior restraint from engaging in such reckless violence. The pro-war censorship of global elites today is merely a continuation of the press crack downs in the 1930s that silenced its critics and struck fear into others for generations to come. But it wasn't always this way.
Flashback 1930s: A Time Before Military Adulation
By Steve Penfield | September 9, 2024 | 51 Comments
Before the federal takeover of broadcasting took hold about a century ago, Americans had a healthy distrust of military propaganda. Now that independent journalism is taking shape on the internet, the D.C. Imperials are having to work harder to whip up the next batch of War Fever. Let’s hope they keep failing.
Long before U.S. politicians gave their overwhelming support for brutal massacres in Vietnam to Iraq to Palestine, Americans let their empty pride of "winning" two world wars dissolve their prior restraint from engaging in such reckless violence. The pro-war censorship of global elites today is merely a continuation of the press crack downs in the 1930s that silenced its critics and struck fear into others for generations to come. But it wasn't always this way.
With flag-waving and loyalty oaths now enshrined into the Greater USA mythos—and ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, AM talk radio, NFL and Hollywood competing to see who can be the most slavishly pro-military—it may be difficult to believe that patriotic Americans once thought much differently on the issue of endless global policing. And many such Americans were not afraid to say so. Just a century ago, loyal American media figures and politicians (both liberals and conservatives with a more independent outlook) had no hesitation in criticizing both the merchants of death along with the gullible serfs who did their bidding. [Editor's note: The professional NFL football entertainment games are just as staged and faked as the WWE.]
Americans were reluctant to fight in Europe's Great War in 1917, when Congress voted for Americans to join the battle. In this great 8-minute video by historian Carlton Meyer, he recalls how:
Only 73,000 Americans volunteered for service during the first six weeks after Congress declared war. This led to the Selective Service Act of 1917. The war was unpopular and 350,000 draftees never reported for service.Even mainstream sources like ABC News in its coffee table encyclopedia The Century would concede (much later) that after World War 1, a solid majority of Americans had come to realize that we had erred in entering Europe's clash of empires. While preferring a permanent U.S. role as "international policeman," the federal broadcasting behemoth admitted:
By the 1930s, a poll would show that more than 70 percent concurred that it was "a mistake for the United States to enter the last war." (page 95)Americans didn't just come to these conclusions on their own. They had much help. And they had some legitimate news options then.
In the period leading up to the Great War and for years afterwards, some (but certainly not all) writers and publishers spoke clearly and strongly against the foolishness of open warfare. H. L. Mencken, one of the nation’s most popular columnists of the 1920s and 30s, routinely skewered both soldiers and the entire military caste. For example, Mr. Mencken, a syndicated columnist with the Baltimore Sun as well as the editor of American Mercury magazine, would write in 1929:
Of all the arts practised by man, the art of the soldier seems to call for the least intelligence and to develop the least professional competency. Every battle recorded in history appears as a series of almost incredible blunders and imbecilities—always, at least, on one side, and usually, on both. (A Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 217)To understand how anyone could survive in American journalism while making statements like that (as were common for Mencken) one has to consider the political atmosphere of the time, which was markedly different than today.
Sober Attitudes on Military Mischief Thrive… for a While
To appreciate the culture of the 1930s, I’ll start with some relatively minor figures of the era. Marine Major General Smedley Butler authored the book War Is a Racket in 1935 and went on a popular speaking tour, following his prominent 34-year military career. Either this one man had more integrity than over 10 million soldiers that came after him, or society then had a much greater appetite for the truth. Maybe some of both.
Please go to The Unz Review to continue reading.
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Mind wars. A total lasting permanent mind fuck courtesy of the Pentagon.
It will never happen. Right, sure thing. Hand a criminal government common law documents and they are removed. Want to know what tyranny is? Tyranny is when you have oligarchs taking control of the nations wealth with 535 US corporate executives giving standing ovations to their master.
Let's get this straight. The US is accusing Iran of supplying Russia with ballistic missiles but the US can supply Ukraine with an endless supply of weapons and munitions including HIMARS missile systems to strike Russia?
This is how the Pentagon started the "cold war" with the Soviet Union; because it was extremely profitable:
This US Army PsyOps patch doesn't pull any punches "You've just been fucked by PsyOps. Because physical wounds heal" pic.twitter.com/kqHXJDmQYD
— Mirage Men (@miragemen) April 17, 2013
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