'Angry Days' Shows An America Torn Over Entering World War II

[Story]

During the debate over whether to invade Iraq, or whether to stay in Afghanistan, many people looked back to World War II, describing it as a good and just war — a war the U.S. knew it had to fight. In reality, it wasn't that simple. When Britain and France went to war with Germany in 1939, Americans were divided about offering military aid, and the debate over the U.S. joining the war was even more heated. It wasn't until two years later, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war against the U.S., that Americans officially entered the conflict.

But from 1939 through 1941, Americans were deeply divided between interventionism and isolationism.

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175288241/angry-days-shows-an-america-torn-over-entering-world-war-ii

 

[Foxer55]

My concerns here are twofold but in the same vein. I have personally stopped listening or paying attention to NPR because of what seems to be a constant litany of left leaning propoganda. On that basis, I question whether this book is really an academnic assessment of the topic or just another new age apologist looking for a way to make money off of their gripes.

I'm well studied on WWII, its causes, its execution, and its outcomes. My own conclusion is WWII, like many other conflicts we have faced and are facing, arose out of gross inaction, mismanagement, and indifference by the very people who were conflicted about its reality and necessity. The book excerpts in the article seem to me to be the same ole excuses and complaints. The comments to the article by NPR readers seem to confirm my suspicions.

But that's not to say I disagree with Story posting the link, it sorta confirms my view of NPR.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

NPR is a BBC wannabe. They even nicked the BBC's logo.

 

[Edward]

NPR is a BBC wannabe. They even nicked the BBC's logo.

I wish there were more BBC wannabes... the standard of 90% of mainstream commercial television over here is shockingly poor.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Compared to what you'll find on the rest of the American radio dial, NPR is a beacon of journalistic integrity. Since deregulation of radio and the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine, commercial broadcast news has become a sluice basin of petty ideological bickering promoted by "journalists" who owe more to Gorilla Monsoon than to Edward R. Murrow. We have become a generation of Americans who hear everything, and know nothing.

As for the isolationist/interventionist debate, I'll just say that Charles Lindbergh was, from start to finish, The Lone Ostrich. He was a great aviator, a brilliant technologist, and a naive, delusional fool.

 

[dhermann1]

Did you guys actually listen to the interview? Not so bad. They put me off at the beginning when they say (twice) that the US lost 50,000 killed in WW I, when it was actually 150,000. I wish they had focused on who the different factions in the pro and anti war debate were, and what segments of society they represented. They were excessively focused on Charles Lindberg. She doesn't explain that the vast preponderance of Ivy League students in those days were conservative Republicans, or conservative Democrats, as in the case of JFK.
The real story of that time is in the Congress. There were some real titans in those days who we hear nothing about today, people like William Borah and Hiram Johnson.
The interviewer clearly knows nothing about the subject, but has also clearly read the book, so she asks some good questions.
I think they white wash Lindberg a little. He was clearly a very warped man, outside of his real technological genius. Some of his anti Semitic and racist remarks just drip with venom.
I suggest listening to the interview. The author has not even covered half the story, but still has a lot of interesting information to contribute.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Republican party was deeply split on this issue -- the "Taft Wing," led by Robert A. Taft of Ohio, was militantly isolationist, and they expected to control the nomination of the party's presidential candidate in 1940. However, the aggressive Taftites alienated the moderate Eastern Republicans who first tried to promote Thomas A. Dewey for the nomination, and when he failed to come up with the votes, the Deweyites threw their support to Wendell Willkie -- a midwesterner, like Taft, but a pro-New Deal, pro-Interventionist candidate.

This move infuriated the hard-core Taftites, and they threw their support to the America First movement, which began just a month before the 1940 Election. However, the attention it received in the press far outweighed its actual appeal to the public -- the group was poorly organized, it had no effective central fundraising apparatus, and aside from a general opposition to involvement in European affairs it had no particular political focus: its leaders spanned the spectrum from Taft to Socialist leader Norman Thomas, which made it extremely difficult for the organization to agree on anything other than broad declarations of isolationism. The group's major rallies in 1941 further alienated moderates with their domination by the extreme right wing elements of the movement, culminating in Lindbergh's nationally-broadcast, overtly anti-semitic speech at Des Moines. The group was finished as a significant factor in the debate well before Pearl Harbor.

 

[Foxer55]

Lizziemaine,

As for the isolationist/interventionist debate, I'll just say that Charles Lindbergh was, from start to finish, The Lone Ostrich. He was a great aviator, a brilliant technologist, and a naive, delusional fool.

People like Lindbergh are usually on their own path and follow their own star, nevertheless, they do leave their own mark on the world. One of my favorites is Werhner von Braun. While his methods were madness, his overpowering singlemindedness and genius forcibly created a new tomorrow.

 

[Foxer55]

LizzieMaine,

This move infuriated the hard-core Taftites, and they threw their support to the America First movement, which began just a month before the 1940 Election. However, the attention it received in the press far outweighed its actual appeal to the public -- the group was poorly organized, it had no effective central fundraising apparatus, and aside from a general opposition to involvement in European affairs it had no particular political focus: its leaders spanned the spectrum from Taft to Socialist leader Norman Thomas, which made it extremely difficult for the organization to agree on anything other than broad declarations of isolationism. The group's major rallies in 1941 further alienated moderates with their domination by the extreme right wing elements of the movement, culminating in Lindbergh's nationally-broadcast, overtly anti-semitic speech at Des Moines. The group was finished as a significant factor in the debate well before Pearl Harbor.

My view of all - ALL - of these people is they were bickering fools who had not the faintest clue that WWII and the fate of the world had been cast in stone on 11 November 1918. History was boiling up around them while they continued their petty arguments.

 

[Stearmen]

Did you guys actually listen to the interview? Not so bad. They put me off at the beginning when they say (twice) that the US lost 50,000 killed in WW I, when it was actually 150,000.

The number of U.S. service men killed in WWI to direct combat was 53,513. Another 63,195 died from disease and accidents. For a total of 116,708. So both numbers are right. In contrast, the French lost 1,357,800 and the Germans lost 1,773,700 in direct combat deaths.

 

[dr greg]

It's worth noting that Australia lost more men than that from a population 1/20th the size of the US but there was no Isolationist movement here, the colonial embrace was too strong.....

 

[Foxer55]

Stearman,

The number of U.S. service men killed in WWI to direct combat was 53,513. Another 63,195 died from disease and accidents. For a total of 116,708. So both numbers are right. In contrast, the French lost 1,357,800 and the Germans lost 1,773,700 in direct combat deaths.

What I find most shocking through all of this is that Russia lost upwards of 20 MILLION people in WWII. That is a staggering number and the majority of them were men. Not surprising they tend to be a bit paranoid.

 

[dhermann1]

Thanks, Stearman. I thought that 50,000 number sounded a bit low, but I didn't realize there were so many sickness deaths. Does that include the influenza deaths?
What I find interesting in my reading of the pre war period is that the segments of society that you would expect certain attitudes from do not coincide with current political alignments.
Many of the isolationists were people who had been part of the Progressive movement in previous decades. The Progressives were against BOTH big business AND big government (to oversimplify it a little). Hiram Johnson of California was the extreme example if this. Then again, many of the old Republican Progressives from the early part of the century, Harold Ickes is a good example, became strong New Dealers in the 30s.
By the same token, most southern Democrats, who were extreme conservatives on domestic issues, were stronger inteventionists during the run up to the war.
Our modern political deliniations just don't line up with those of 75 years ago.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Most of those old Lafollette Progressives were midwestern populists who had always had a deep distrust of what would become eventually become known as the "Eastern Establishment," and there was a deep thread of nativist anti-Semitism in their makeup, boiling out in their dislike of "international bankers," "the Rothschilds," and other such boogeymen. Charles Lindbergh's father, who had served in Congress during the 1910s, was a member of this movement -- and likely the source of many of his son's beliefs. Many of these beliefs persist today among the tinfoil-hat crowd.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Even America's entry into the war did not diminish Lindbergh's admiration for Germany because even then he believed that it was a big mistake to go to war against Germany.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The most interesting thing about Lindbergh is that his deepest views were profoundly shaken when he toured an extermination camp in 1945, and he was forced to confront the ultimate result of the "advanced, technocratic Aryan society" he had advocated. He concluded that technology, in the end, was *not* the answer to humanity's problems, and over the last third of his life he became a militant environmentalist, particularly concerned with the white race's oppression and cultural contamination of "primitive, indigenous peoples" around the world.

And yet, he insisted to the end of his life that he was right about America First. Cognitive dissonance, meet your poster boy.

 

[Story]

Originally Posted by V.C. Brunswick View Post
NPR is a BBC wannabe. They even nicked the BBC's logo.

I wish there were more BBC wannabes... the standard of 90% of mainstream commercial television over here is shockingly poor.

..and both the BBC and NPR have stumbled in their quest to maintain journalistic integrity.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Stearman,



What I find most shocking through all of this is that Russia lost upwards of 20 MILLION people in WWII. That is a staggering number and the majority of them were men. Not surprising they tend to be a bit paranoid.

I wonder if it inspired Stalin's famous quote about one death being a tragedy but a million deaths a statistic.

 

[Edward]

..and both the BBC and NPR have stumbled in their quest to maintain journalistic integrity.

Who hasn't?

I'd still take one BBC a thousand times over the competition. [huh]

 

[Story]

Who hasn't?

I'd still take one BBC a thousand times over the competition. [huh]

The point is that even gold standards can get sloppy and rest on their laurels. Recognizing that and then never hesitating to throw the BS flag is the first step in keeping them honest.