as for WW II, i'd agree with howard zinn. WW II could have, and should have, been prevented. rather than "talk up" WW II, to use your phrase, i'd prefer to approach it from zinn's perspective.
WW I was one of several causative factors of WW II. and racist, anti leftist, warmongering, democrat Woodrow Wilson, with his nonsense about making the world safe for democracy while he did all in his power to destroy it in the USA, is a role model for and antecedent of shrub, ashcroft, et al. in the finest american tradition, collectively congress backed him.
you're right: we don't have suppression like that today. there's nothing to suppress. where are eugene debs, the wobblies, an anti-war movement that's against all US wars including those in columbia, the philippines, et al, when we need them? the american people are on a long vacation, still believing ronald reagan was right when he told them not to worry because things would all take care of themselves.
also, the kind of suppression you're alluding to isn't necessary due to the world's largest, most powerful, most effective propaganda machine. and the most indifferent, passive, depressed, cowardly, uninformed, self centered, unmotivated electorate in the western world.
but rest assured, should what the founding fathers term the "beast" awaken, suppression equaling, and likely exceeding, anything seen during WW I, WW II and after, will meet it with both barrels. don't for a moment think the right wing, and its middle road fellow travelers, haven't thought of the possibility, aren't ready for it, and aren't looking forward to it with relish. nothing would more firmly embed shrub, and people like him, in the american fabric than something domestic and challenging to suppress.
between you and me and the list, i'm not an absolutist about anything except absolutism. it's too much like not thinking.
R
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Dawson
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 9:00 PM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] taft
Zzzzz... You're trying to talk up somebody who criticized WWII? Hell,
that's one of two modern wars I would have signed up for. What a truly bad
and inept reference.
I'm an absolutist about the First Amendment, but the left is mostly blowing
smoke out its ass about repression in this war. We are not being
suppressed. You want suppression? Check out resisters to WWI.
----- Original Message -----
From: "R" <rhisiart at charter.net>
To: "LBO-Talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 8:45 PM
Subject: [lbo-talk] taft
> from no less a pinko leftie than Robert Taft. my how US politics has
> changed.
>
> R
>
> Robert Taft, December 19, 1941, in Chicago:
>
> As a matter of general principle, I believe there can be no doubt that
> criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of
> democratic government. Perhaps nothing today distinguishes democratic
> government in England so greatly from the totalitarianism of Germany as
the
> freedom of criticism which has existed continuously in the House of
Commons
> and elsewhere in England. Of course that criticism should not give any
> information to the enemy. But too many people desire to suppress criticism
> simply because they think that it will give some comfort to the enemy to
> know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel
> better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned,
> because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do
> the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the
enemy,
> and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.
>
> Source: The Papers of Robert Taft (Kent, 1997), p. 303.
>
>
>
>
> _____________________________
>
> Quis custodiet istos custodes?
> "Who will watch the watchers?" ~ "Who is to guard [us from] the guards
> themselves?"
> -- Juvenal's Satires, VI. 347, circa 110 AD
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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