Posted on 01/02/2011 1:59:54 PM PST by Ditto
On the heels of a recent Sunday magazine profile of Glenn Beck, The New York Times published a roundtable discussion among six scholars on the issue of President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson has become a popular Beck target and has suddenly emerged as a hot topic in our current politics.
"I hate Woodrow Wilson!" shouted Beck at February's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.
For the record, I was at that gathering, and I'm a conservative, I like Beck and I don't hate Wilson. My take on Wilson, however, is very different from what I'm hearing from Beck or from scholars on the left or right, whether pro-Wilson or anti-Wilson.
It relates to a crucial aspect of Wilson that needs to be better known and that, dare I say, might even prompt Beck to amend his view -- slightly, perhaps.
First, let me say that I agree with several important criticisms of Wilson. His views on race and segregation were deeply offensive. His wielding of state power was often repressive, even abusive, particularly during wartime.
And the long progression of a seemingly nonstop, ever-increasing centralization of policy and programs in Washington arguably began under Wilson.
Yet, one critical component of Wilson is missed by both sides, which conservatives should like and liberals might not: Wilson was stridently, vocally anti-communist. He staunchly opposed Bolshevism in particular.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Communism isn’t the only big problem in the world. The income tax and the Federal Reserve both happened on Wilson’s watch.
Yeah, sure. Maybe we should amend our views on Adolph Hitler as well. He didn’t like communists either.
So was Fidel Castro . . . until he declared himself to be one.
Yet he insisted the Kaiser turn over power to the German Social Democratic party. Not the Catholics. Not the conservatives. Only the socialists would do.
Hitler was stridently anti communist as well yet I still hold a strongly negative opinion of him. Imagine that.
Considering the fact that the nazis learned everything they knew about prpaganda from Wilson’s propaganda team, (See Edward Bernays) it isn’t surprising.
He was a man of the progressive left who understood the destructiveness of the communist left. He observed how communists lied to and sought to manipulate his fellow progressives.The problem with this is that "the progressive left" are active enablers of communism.
So the above paragraph translates as follows:
He was an enabler of communism who understood the destructiveness of the communist left. He observed how communists lied to and sought to manipulate his fellow enablers of communism.
Doesn't make much sense, does it?
Kind of like LBJ's opposition to communism. He was willing to send hundreds of thousands of US soldiers thousands of miles away in a (noble) crusade against communism... while at the same time enacting colossal communist edifices at home.
The bottom line is progressives lay the ground work for communists... and are nowadays virtually all active communists themselves.
Sorry, Paul, I don't find Wilson's "anti-communism" very impressive. At the very least, it shows how stupid he was in his inability to connect the dots from progressiveness to communism. At worst (and most likely) he was just engaged in a kind of internecine warfare to see who would be the international leader of communism... himself or Lenin. He just didn't want the snot-nosed roosky to take top spot in the leadership of the global commintern.
Beck and Goldberg are wrong. Wilson was no villain. A fumbling idealist, yes, but not a monster.
Got any Wilson info stashed away?
I guess one can call Wilson one of Karl Marx “useful idiots”
He was stridently, vocally anti-constitutional nor did he "hold these truths to be self evident . . . " nor pledge his life, fortune and sacred honor to defend those principles.
He is rightly scorned.
“Wilson was no villain. A fumbling idealist, yes,”
If you value free speech, abhor racism, think the Fed and the income tax have destroyed us,,,etc etc. The differences are at best, academic. he was a b@stard first class who destroyed lives.
And why is it so hard to call someone a villian when they display a haughty elitist arrogance which they forcefully impose on those they view as beneath them? Sound like the definition of a villian to me. Hell, even Lenin and Hitler were “idealists”.
“Wilson was no villain. A fumbling idealist, yes, but not a monster.”
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
CS Lewis
Much like Obama, look at who he surrounded himself with. Men like Bernays, Lippman and Creel who used the “Comittee on public information” to spread propaganda through crowd psychology. The use of citizen informants who reported on neighbors who spoke out against the administration and its policies.
I am reading through Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Facism right now and he writes about Wilson a good deal.
His main southern tie was to be born in Virginia,,and that he packed his cabinet with some racists from the south who brought along their segregation ideals.
It’s honestly hard to find anything admirable about the man.
From his sick personal beliefs, to his running of the economy in war as a defacto dictatorship, to arresting people for speaking against the draft, he was he worst stereotype of a dictator. Not surprising for a preachers kid who was an ivy league educator. Huge sense of his moral and intellectual superiority. Beck is right.
I don’t think the Fed and the income tax have destroyed us. (I don’t like them, but I don’t think they’re fatal). I despise his racism, but how was Wilson different from any other politician of his day?
Wilson’s restrictions on free speech were in wartime, or immediately thereafter, when he had Palmer turn on the Communists. Many of his wartime institutions were immediately repudiated by the Republican Congress of 1919 and 1921, including his propaganda agencies.
So was it OK for the French to poison Wilson?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.