Before the Dark Times
This post may permanently mark me as a crazy person . . . [dramatic pause] . . . but does anyone else agree that the Second World War basically destroyed the United States of America?
Watching "The War," all I could think was that there used to be this non-militaristic, generally peace-loving country full of earnest, well-meaning folks, and then . . . those people became subjects to the greatest military power ever, run by a military-industrial complex with ties so close to Congress (and the executive) that actual democracy became impossible. And war, after war, after police action, after war, and rumors of war . . . with Iran.
Heresy? Or truth?
P.S. Remember my Midwestern roots folks. In 1940, my people were probably isolationists. (My guess is that my grandparents voted for Willkie, at least the ones who voted did. But they would have preferred Taft.)
Update: This is not to say that "The War" may not have been a necessary war. We were, after all, attacked--and we then attacked the actual country that attacked us, not . . . some other country. And then the Cold War . . . I'm not denying either the Soviet Union's evil intentions or the need for U.S. resolve. But, from a certain perspective, December 6, 1941, was the last Saturday of a long cultural weekend.
posted by Number Three @ 7:47 PM
13 Comments:
If not for these reasons (which I suspect were probably older than WWII, but whatever), then certainly it's guity of giving an entire generation of Americans the idea that wars always had a clear aggressor who was evil, that wars could be won outright, and that just and democratic nations could be readily formed out of the tyranical ashes of these agressor nations. World War II just wasn't like other wars. In fact, I can't think of another conflict in the history of the world that was like it.
Good points. I wonder if WWII has become more important in terms of ideological/mythological terms as the event has receded.
Don't forget that WWII was a major spur to the civil rights movement. It dramatized the evil of racist ideology, gave blacks the opportunity to serve in integrated troops, and exposed the hypocrisy of Jim Crow & its treatment of those returned black soldiers (among others).
Cold War? Did I mention the Cold War? As in, we won it. No more communist menace. The bitch up and died. How could that have happened were it not for the national strength and sense of purpose we got from WWII? A peaceful, prosperous Europe; a free and non-imperialist Japan. Shall I go on?
I'm not saying the fruits of WWII were all good. But COME ON! We got heroism hangover for a reason. That's one hell of a good times binge.
You're right about one thing - you are certainly a crazy person.
War is not the exception, Mr. Kucinich, it is the part of the human condition. It wasn't created by a war machine built on economic self interest and it certainly didn't start in the 20th century. It has always been and always will be.
And, for the record, neither Germany nor Italy attacked the United States. And, also for the record, we attacked those countries much quicker and with much more force than we did Japan. If you think FDR wasn't chomping at the bit to get us involved in Europe, you're nuts.
CL, are you trying to suggest that WWII somehow resembled the Iraq War? I hope not. Germany may not have attacked us directly, but they attacked our allies in the UK, they were allied with the Japanese (who DID attack us), and THEY declared war on US a few days after Pearl Harbor. That qualifies as a threat level several light years beyond Saddam's purely speculative menace. If we directed more immediate military fury toward the European theater, it was a tactical move driven by the larger conflict, not merely b/c FDR was a warmonger. He certainly took extensive steps to aid the Brits short of war (lend-lease, etc.) long before he took the final plunge.
I agree that war is often necessary. #3 has once again stumbled into Kucinich territory with this post. But it's a far reach for either of you guys to equate these two wars--if that is, in fact, what you're trying to do.
TMcD,
You're right; I'm not saying that. I didn't mean that as a post justifying the Iraq war and I hate that everytime we talk about past wars now it seems like we're talking about this one.
What I was doing was challenging the idea that our entrance into WWII was much different from our entrance into any foreign war, past or future - that it was somehow particularly justified or "clean."
We were right to react the way we did against Japan. That's easy.
Separate and apart from that attack, in a complete other part of the world, we began a campaign against Germany, first from the air and then on the land.
(I realize that Germany declared war on us but, c'mon - you can't be suggesting we go after every country that does THAT. A certain, small population of the American government wanted to be in Europe and that's why we were in Europe.) The war in Europe was a war we chose to enter.
Germany was absolutely no immediate threat to us in 1942; none. We could have spent all of our resources attacking the actual threat (Japan) and then switched over to Europe instead of fighting a two front war.
In fact, historians now recognize (if they ever doubted) that the destruction of Germany (certainly of the Wehrmacht) was done at the Russian front. Hitler doomed his military with decisions made before the first American set foot on European soil.
Does that mean we shouldn't have fought in Europe? No, of course not. We probably ought to have been there in the autumn of 1940 (or even 1939, when even the French showed a little backbone). It's just that we weren't forced into fighting in Europe.
I'd really like to do away with this sweetheart notion of America as pacifist Chuck Norris - refusing to fight until the very last moment and then coming out and kicking everyone's ass.
December 1941 was very, very far from the last moment.
OK, I'll take that point. There was an element of choice in both how and when we went into that war, even if, I'd say, there wasn't much choice about the FACT of our eventual entry. Recognizing the nature of that conflict, FDR did want to go to war, and he had been preparing Americans for that possibility for several years (even if he lied about his intentions somewhat during the 1940 campaign).
But I'm not so sure that Japan was a "separate" endeavor from that against the Germans. We simply made a decision to save the Brits first and let the Pacific wait a bit. Given the greater strategic costs at stake in Europe, that made a lot of intuitive sense. Germany may not have threatened us directly, but its war effort was arguably the greater threat to our interests. And even if most of the bloodshed was on the Russian front, we didn't want to leave the land war to them alone.
TMcD,
Of course you're right. But you recognize these as choices. I don't think everyone does. I also don't think most people recognize that there was strong anti-war (as #3 says, isolationist) sentiment. (Or even that, to the extent that there was a pro-war sentiment, much of it was aimed at the USSR.)
Two of the major misconceptions about WWII are that we had no choice but to fight and that we had the best military.
We certainly did have a choice (even if you suggest it was when not if). And our military wasn't best until, say, early 1944 (maybe mid-1943 for the air corps).
The lead up and entry into the war was just as complicated as that of any war we have ever or will ever fight. I don't think that's part of Ken Burns' history.
Kucinich territory? I'm not even in greater Kucinistan!
But, to venture into Outer Kucinolia, for a moment, I'm not sure that the U.S. won the Cold War. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed--but if you're a good liberal, in the broader sense, like me, you knew that that system was not sustainable. (Btw, that's a point on which Curat Lex, the tenacious one, Ronald Reagan, and me all agree--how is that for building consensus?) But the cost to the U.S. and its institutions was high, much higher than is often realized. Today we live with a national security state that dominates the system of limited government that we all valorize--again, I think CL, TMcD, RWR, and I all agree here. The seduction of American power sometimes makes us forget that power is not what the U.S. is supposed to be about.
Maybe we lost the Cold War, too. The French, the Germans, the Dutch, hell, maybe even the Poles won.
"greater Kucinistan."
Now that's funny.
I'm totally going to use that.
#3, doesn't the Spanish-American War undermine your case? A war fueled by an imperialist media, a dubious provocation, and the interests of arms merchants (as Emma Goldman, for example, documented at the time). And, of course, that was a war prior to WWII during your supposed golden age. Going back farther, couldn't we throw Texas on that same heap?
Thank you Tenacious, I came here to post that exact point. We are far less imperialist now than we used to be. Our democracy is also far more participatory than it used to be, although I'd argue that's thanks to rising standards of living and technological advances.
Please, let's not forget the legacy of Teddy Roosevelt, who did more than embarass himself week in and week out at the Nationals games' Presidential footraces.
I'm not sure that we're less imperialistic than we used to be. We're, um, occupying a country right now where our ground troops are in-country w/o a status of forces agreement (SOFA) with the "local govt," and I swear that I hear well-connected and influential folks on my teevee say that we can replace the leader of that country, if we want/need to. Our civilian contractors in said country enjoy the kind of extraterritoriality that Europeans enjoyed in China at the turn of the 20th century.
The U.S. in the 19th century engaged in some expansionist wars, and it had some imperialistic ambitions. Sure. But there was not a massive military establishment, and it wasn't taken as a given that the U.S. may bomb any country we feel like bombing.
I would also say that there was a lot of domestic oppo to imperialism, including the Mexican War, which was opposed by no less than Abraham Lincoln at the time.
And TR is a disgrace in the pantheon of RFK presidents races. I wonder if they'll continue the tradition in the new stadium?
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