"Why We Are At War" by (President) Woodrow Wilson (1917)

[Up2Late]

I found this FREE e-book last night at the "Historical Text Archive" website, and I though some here might want to read how a REAL President goes about explaining to the American People why (and How) we will be going to war.

<http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=66>

Why We Are At War

by Woodrow Wilson

from Chapter 4: "We Must Accept War"

Message to the Congress April 2, 1917

(clip)

...What This Will Involve

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the Governments now at war with Germany, and as incident to that the extension to those Governments of the most liberal financial credits in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs.

(clip)

...It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training.

It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived taxation. I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed.

It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast loans....

(much more at links)

<http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=66&cid=4>

<http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=66>

[Kagemusha]

1. Ah, this is where the evil income tax was introduced.

That's what Republicans would say, anyway.

[Demeter]

2. And Congress Fought This Man Tooth And Nail

too bad they didn't win.

[400Years]

3. Woodrow Wilson was a terrible president

He lied his way to war as well.

He ran on a campaign to stay out of the war and then as soon as he got it, he jumped right in.
He lied just like bush.

[DrGonzoLives]

4. Thank you

I get sick and tired of hearing so called "progessives" defending a virulent racist, imperialist asshole.

[Ignacio Upton]

7. I wish people knew more about Woodrow Wilson before supporting them

He was alright on economic issues, and even then he was willing to call unionizers who didn't fold into the Samuel Gompers mold of thought as "Bolsheviks." He encouraged a lynch-mob atmosphere of paranoia worse than what Bush is encouraging now with the Freepers.

[Up2Late]

5. That has to be one of the most ignorant statements I've ever seen here.

What do you base your comments on? Do you have any links to any facts to back your words up, or just RW revisionist history that is widely available on the internet?

The links to back up what I say are in the two posts on the subject (other than this one) at my DU Journal.

[400Years]

6. I would suggest you read

Origins and Meaning of WWI by John Zerzan

Zerzan, John: "Origins and Meaning of World War 1". Telos 49, Fall 1981, 97-116.

Or perhaps this quote from Howard Zinn will help you:

President Woodrow Wilson—so often characterized in our history books as an “idealist”—lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to “make the world safe for democracy,” when it was really a war to make the world safe for the Western imperial powers.

by the way, your comments smacks of knee-jerk reactionism.

Why would you assume I don't have a reason to make those statements?

[Up2Late]

10. John Zerzan!?! American Anarchist/Primitivist Philosopher John Zerzan?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zerzan>

John Zerzan (born 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works critique (agricultural) civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Some of his criticism has extended as far as challenging domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time. His four major books are Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive (1994), Against Civilization: A Reader (1998) and Running on Emptiness (2002).

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/mayday/story/0,7369,475181,00.html>

Anarchy in the USA

John Zerzan doesn't have a car, a credit card or a computer. He lives a quiet life in a cabin in Oregon and has sold his own blood plasma to make ends meet. So why does corporate America think he is the Antichrist? Duncan Campbell meets an improbable guru

Wednesday April 18, 2001
The Guardian

John Zerzan is sweeping the porch of his small cabin-style home in the university town of Eugene, Oregon. It is a glorious, spring, cherry blossom day, and it is hard to imagine that the slight, bearded soul in khaki shorts and a T-shirt bearing the legend "What goes up must come down" is really the bete noire of technology and capitalism, the man regarded by the Wall Street Journal as a cross between Fagin and the Antichrist.

Zerzan is an anarchist author who believes that our culture is on a death march and that technology in all its forms must be resisted. He corresponds and sympathises with Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. He believes that civilisation has been a failure and that the system is fast collapsing, and he has been blamed by some for the mayhem at the Battle of Seattle in 1999. This weekend, when it hosts the Free Trade Area of the Americas talks, Quebec City becomes the latest magnet for international protest and a focus for many who are attracted to Zerzan's views.

(more at link)
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/mayday/story/0,7369,475181,00.html>

Oh GIVE ME A BREAK!

I'm not into the psychotic rantings of Anarchist/Primitivist Philosophers, a.k.a. Radical lunatics. And what's that, born in 1943? So I guess that means everything he knows about President Woodrow Wilson is what he learned in the psychedelic 1960's.

BTW, This is the first time I've ever been accused of being a knee-jerk reactionary, what a joke.

Why would you assume I don't have a reason to make those statements? I didn't, I just knew, and now I'm sure, that you didn't read any of what I posted links too, and probably even the text I posted.

So if you're not going to read what I posted, why are you bothering me?

This is not the forum for attacking the opinions of people you disagree with, this is for READING the articles posted and THEN commenting on what you READ.

If you are not going read what I posted, why don't you move on and go insult other members with your prejudicial statements.

I suggest you go to the Library and read some of the actual newspapers of the time. Everything on the internet, about how we got into WWI is either missing or Revisionist BS. Unless you are afraid you are on some sort of terrorist watch list, which you just might be.

That's all the time I'm going to waste on you and your Anarchist friends.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[400Years]

16. You attack the messenger, because you can't don't want to deal with

the message.

That is a typical avoidance technique.

[yurbud]

8. even put together the Creel Commission to figure out how to sell war

[400Years]

9. well, it looks like Up2Late went to bed Early

[Up2Late]

11. No, Network trouble

Comcast Sucks sometimes.

[400Years]

13. Since you like Wikipedia so much, I'll use it to bust your little fantasy

Committee on Public Information
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Committee on Public Information, also known as the CPI and the Creel Commission, was established under President Woodrow Wilson as an independent agency by Executive order 2594, April 13, 1917. Consisted of George Creel (Chairman) and Secretaries of State (Robert Lansing), War (Lindley M. Garrison), and the Navy (Josephus Daniels) as ex officio members.

Its purpose was to influence American public opinion toward supporting U.S. intervention in World War I via a vigorous propaganda campaign. Among those who participated in it were Wilson adviser Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays, the latter of whom had remarked that "the essence of democratic society" was the "engineering of consent", by which propaganda was the necessary method for democracies to promote and garner support for policy. Many have commented that the CPI laid the groundwork for the public relations (PR) industry.

The CPI at first used material that was based on fact but censored to present an upbeat picture of the war. Very quickly, however, the CPI began churning out raw propaganda picturing Germans as evil monsters. Hollywood movie makers joined in on the propaganda by making movies such as The Claws of the Hun, The Prussian Cur, and The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin. These titles illustrated the message the CPI tried to convey. CPI pamphlets were created and warned citizens to be on the lookout for German spies. Dozens of "patriotic organizations," with names like the American Protective League and the American Defense Society, sprang up. These groups spied, tapped telephones, and opened mail in an effort to ferret out "spies and traitors." The targets of these groups was anyone who called for peace, questioned the Allies' progress, or criticized the government's policies. They were particularly hard on German Americans, many of whom lost their jobs, and were publicly humiliated by being forced to kiss the American flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or buy war bonds.

Committee work was curtailed after July 1, 1918. Domestic activities stopped after the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. Foreign operations ended June 30, 1919. The CPI was abolished by executive order 3154 on August 21, 1919.


Sedition Act of 1918
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

The Sedition Act of 1918 was an amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917. The Sedition Act forbade an American to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, flag, or armed forces during war. The act also allowed the Postmaster General to deny mail delivery to dissenters of government policy during wartime.

In practice, the Espionage Act, as amended by the Sedition Act, was used to persecute individuals or groups who disagreed with presidential or congressional policy. Historically, these types of acts have been suggested and/or passed when a presidential administration or congressional majority has lost general public support and additional judicial tools are necessary to minimize public dissent. The Sedition Act was the most recent attempt by the United States government to limit “freedom of speech,” in-so-much-as that “freedom of speech” related to the criticism of the government, or, more applicably, the political policies of the presidential administration or congressional majority.

The Espionage Act made it a crime to help wartime enemies of the United States, but the Sedition Act made it a crime to utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States' form of government.

Socialist Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison under this law.

The Sedition Act was repealed in 1921. Modern legal experts view the Sedition Act as being antithetical to the letter and spirit of the United States Constitution, specifically the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Anti-governmental-defamation laws similar to the Sedition Act are still in place in some of the world's most repressive countries, including North Korea and Libya.
============================

Sounds alot like Bush to me.

Woodrow Wilson was a liar and a fascist.

[400Years]

14. The Palmer Raids

Palmer Raids
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The 1918 to 1921's Palmer Raids were a series of controversial raids on American citizens and resident and non-resident aliens in the United States, based on their assumed political beliefs.

The raids are named for Alexander Mitchell Palmer, United States Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson. Palmer stated his belief that Communism was "eating its way into the homes of the American workman," and that Socialists were responsible for most of the country's social problems.

The crackdown on dissent had actually begun during World War I, but accelerated significantly after the end of the war. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a background factor. In 1919, the U.S. House of Representatives refused to seat Socialist representative from Wisconsin, Victor L. Berger, because of his socialism, German ancestry and anti-war views.

On June 2, 1919 a number of bombs were detonated in eight American cities, including one in Washington that damaged the home of Palmer and another one reportedly detonating near Franklin Roosevelt. With strong support from Congress and the public, Palmer clamped down on political dissent and radical labor unionism. Palmer and his 24-year-old assistant, J. Edgar Hoover, orchestrated a series of well publicized raids against apparent radicals and leftists, using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Victor Berger was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a charge of sedition. (The Supreme Court of the United States later threw out that conviction.)

J. Edgar Hoover was put in charge of a new division of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, the General Intelligence Division. By October 1919, Hoover's division had collected 150,000 names in a rapidly expanding database. Using the database information, starting on November 7, 1919, Palmer's men smashed labor union offices and the headquarters of Communist and Socialist organizations, without search warrants, concentrating on foreigners. In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 of the arrestees, including well-known radical leaders such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and placed them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union (The Buford, called the Soviet Ark by the press). In January 1920, another 6,000 were arrested, mostly members of the Industrial Workers of the World union. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 radicals were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported. All in all, by January 1920, Palmer and Hoover had organized the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, rounding up at least 10,000 individuals.

The public reaction to these raids was favorable, stirring up a storm of anti-communist sentiment. A group of young men in Centralia, Washington, hanged a radical from a railway bridge. The coroner's report stated that the communist "jumped off with a rope around his neck and then shot himself full of holes." For most of 1919, the public seemed to side with Palmer.

Palmer announced that a Communist revolution was to take place on May 1 (May Day), 1920. Following initial panic, the non-appearance of the revolution led to criticism of Palmer over his disregard for civil rights and accusations that the entire Red Scare was designed to secure him the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. In the event, he lost the nomination.

Many of the radicals deported to the USSR became loyal citizens there until Stalin had most of them shot, as potential traitors, in the 1930s Soviet purges; others were quickly disillusioned by what they found in Russia and left.

[400Years]

15. Woodrow Wilson is the scumbag that gave us J. Edgar Hoover

So much for his legacy.