Posted on 06/21/2013 8:28:43 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
In the first hour of his show on monday, Glenn discussed the revolutionary nature of large wars and how they change everything. He specifically mentioned WW1 during the show, which is something I've long thought of myself but I also thought perhaps I was being too aggressive in my beliefs. Coinciding with this blog post, I also posted an article from The Nation which was published in 1917, in which the progressives' eagerness cannot be contained:
Our cause, then, can give us a calm conscience. But that is not enough. The question is whether we can remain true to the American tradition in time of war. War necessitates organization, system, routine, and discipline. The choice is between efficiency and defeat. Pork will have to go. Government by "deserving Democrats" will have to go. The executive side of the Administration will have to be strengthened by the appointment of trained specialists. Socialism will take tremendous strides forward. A new sense of the obligations of citizenship will transform the spirit of the nation. But it is also inevitable that the drill sergeant will receive authority. We shall have to give up much of our economic freedom. We shall be delivered into the hands of officers and executives who put victory first and justice second. We shall have to lay by our good-natured individualism and march in step at their command. The only way to fight Prussianism is with Prussian tools. The danger is lest we forget the lesson of Prussia: that the bad brother of discipline is tyranny - which our fathers fought to put down and our immigrants came to our shores to escape. It would be an evil day for America if we threw overboard liberty to make room for efficiency.
Blandly titled " The American Tradition and the War", it's disgustingly obvious that the target was the fundamental transformation of 'The American Tradition'. It's not like this is the only example, John Dewey published an article titled "The Social Possibilities of War". Now think about that for a second - in war, the progressives see "social possibilities". In the past I've flippantly made comparisons to Rahm Emanuel, but when you read articles like this it becomes pretty clear that the progressives knew full well what they were doing, and why.
After all, the progressives pushed through four constitutional amendments in two presidential terms.(Four of them!) What is that, if not revolutionary?
After World War 1, Wilson's war-time centrally planned state was largely dismantled, but consider the "American culture". Between the movies and media, the changes in how women behaved(via feminism), the beginnings of the non-profit/leftist-"civil-rights" axis, continued Union agitation, and a whole host of other things outside of government(Largely, the "American culture" that we recognize and live with today), the progressives did indeed achieve one of the most fundamental transformations they could achieve: (as Aldous Huxley points out; correction)
In the past we can say that all revolutions have essentially aimed at changing the environment in order to change the individual. I mean there’s been the political revolution, the economic revolution, in the time of the reformation, the religious revolution. All these aimed, not directly at the human being, but at his surroundings. So that by modifying the surroundings you did achieve, did one remove the effect of the human being.
Again, the cultural differences compounded with the governmental differences of not just four constitutional amendments and their effects, but then you have the changes in judicial behavior, and the regulatory state that harasses the people, by that time, was well under way.
I am convinced the establishment of the Federal Reserve is/was the cornerstone of Progressive plans for the USA.
How a society organizes it money is more important to people’s behavior than how it organizes even food.
With gold and silver as currency, the Government is forced to compete with the free-market for money - for tax revenue, and for interest rates. It is impossible to run long-term deficits or long-term social engineering progreams
What we see now is that with fiat money, money is created by Gov’t whim. Without this, there could be no welfare state.
The Fed is certainly a part of the picture, I added that into my posting, thanks.
Glen?
Are you talking about Glen Beck?
Don’t discount the insidiousness of the 17th amendment,it is just as evil as the 16th amendment. The Progs knew what they were doing.
What an ass!
The 16th and 17th amendments were truly devastating. However the 17th does provide damning testimony against the direct election of a president by popular vote because it shows how it works at the state level and the election of senators.
As always, nothing.
He builds up, postponing and never reveals and probably hopes people forget (I guess).
Even his “reveals” are usually old news.
Personally, I think he is a fraud, and not sure why people hang on every word but oh well......as he repeats this behavior over and over and over
The intrusive state started long before WWI. The U.S. Civil War initiated the idea of Big Government Solutionism, killing over 600,000 people.
When the PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL charade is exposed for what it is it collapses as we are witnessing now with THE FOREIGNERS REGIME.
You beat me to it. Those, for me, were the true watershed. At that point the federal government tapped into what looked like a limitless source of funding and broke the principal direct link between it and the state governments in making Senators directly elected. I note with bitter amusement the debates on the income tax - the proponents called the opponents paranoid in thinking the amount would ever be more than 10%. And the fact that direct election of Senators was more “democratic” was a deliberate marginalization of the very principle of state government, and it wasn’t accidental. The “Prussian methods” mentioned in the article referred to the forcible unification of Germany under the Prussian Hohenzollerns in 1871, which was still a pretty new thing at the time. One state, one government, with the “right” people in charge. It’s a progressive’s wet dream.
And what does that have to do with my question to the poster, are they talking about Glen Beck?
I do not disagree, if we expose toe fungus to sunlight it dies.
Absolutely it was. Reading comments from Woodrow Wilson and his staff on the juicy opportunities to make New Soviet Men out of Americans was chilling.
I personally wouldn’t want to go all the way back to letting state legislatures elect senators. I would support electing senators on an electoral college model where the candidate who wins the most districts, wins the election.
Here in MI there is considerable support for dropping the winner take all system of electing the president and dividing the electoral votes according to districts won.
Love to discuss the election of Senators with you sometime when I have time to give it full consideration. I actually am inclined to go back to the naming of Senators by the state governments - I don't think it even was election in all cases - but I'd love to hear your points to the contrary.
America’s entry into WWI was certainly one of the major “turning points for the worse” in world history. The Germans unfortunately brought it on themselves with that damn Zimmermann telegram, though....
The United States had the ability to directly monetize its debt by printing United States Notes, Gold Certificates, and Silver Certificates. Instead, in effect, it circulated promissory notes from a banking cartel (This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private, and is redeemable in lawful money at The United States Treasury or any Federal Reserve Bank, later shortened to: This note is legal tender for all debts, Public and Private.)
Taxing the income (wages exchanged for labor, actually) opened a new era of public spending, and having the Senate elected by the people directly watered down the relevance of the State Governments, paving the way for the Federal Leviathan we have today.
Is this his bombshell?
Who knows?
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