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The Woodrow Wilson you never knew
Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | Sunday, January 2, 2011 | Paul Kengor

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 ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: beck; communists; glennbeck; woodrowwilson
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To: Ditto

Progressivism is communism light, all the chains of regular communism, but with only half the murders.


21 posted on 01/02/2011 3:11:45 PM PST by infidel29 (Since 0bama is NOT a uniter, can we change the acronym to just plain P.O.S.?)
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To: DesertRhino

Just look up the “National Security league”.

Wilson’s “Four Minute Men” were paid to pose as the average guy on the street and support the president and his policies. Kinda like Obamaturfers named Ellie light who send letterss to papers around the nation supporting Obama’s “good works”.


22 posted on 01/02/2011 3:12:41 PM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: Ditto

Muslims fight amongst themselves all the time. Because one group doesn’t like another doesn’t make either one a paragon of virtue.


23 posted on 01/02/2011 3:14:09 PM PST by Free Vulcan (The cult of Islam must be eradicated by any means necessary.)
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To: bilhosty
My opinion of Wilson is that basically he was a southern Conservative.

I see your point, but I think it needs pointing out that this is not the same as "conservative."

Wilson was a Southern Aristocrat. This was the source of his arrogance, racism, and autocratic tendencies--is much ballyhooed idealism as well.

24 posted on 01/02/2011 3:16:20 PM PST by tsomer
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To: Ditto

Oh, puh-leeze. Wilson “hated” Communists for one reason and one reason alone — all tyrants hate all other tyrants because they’re the competition.


25 posted on 01/02/2011 3:18:00 PM PST by TiAhr-02L
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To: perfect_rovian_storm
Yeah, sure. Maybe we should amend our views on Adolph Hitler as well. He didn’t like communists either.

I considered saying that, but held back because it may seem in poor taste -- but now that somebody else said it I'll second it.

26 posted on 01/02/2011 3:18:04 PM PST by TiAhr-02L
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To: DesertRhino
Most everything you said was right. But, Princeton where he was President was a really a southern school in the north. When he signed the last progressive bill that he signed he expressed his desire that this would be the end of the progressive era and he expressed his distaste for it. There were still others who felt there was more to go on that agenda. He was no leftist unless he had to pretend to be. Many people thought at the time he sold out by watering down the left agenda on his legislation for instance by not nationalizing the banking industry when he singed the federal reserve act. Although Beck might disagree he gave the conservative bankers who ran the national Dem party everything they wanted.
27 posted on 01/02/2011 3:18:50 PM PST by bilhosty (Don' t tax people tax newsprint)
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To: Free Vulcan

A little like Castro and Che.

After helping Castro gain power in Cuba, Che fled in fear for his life.


28 posted on 01/02/2011 3:25:19 PM PST by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: Ditto

To another stupid writer:

Wilson was anti-communist?

Really? And that is somehow deserving of respect?

The NAZIs (National Socialists) were also anti-communist.

And the parallel does not end there.

Wilson was a National Socialist, just like all the Progressives out there. They hated the communists because the communists were blatant regarding their end-goals.

Another parallel is that he bridged the Statist ideology of academe with politics. Hitler also bridged that gap. In fact, Hitler had his ass handed to him in his first elections. It wasn’t until academe decided the “evolution” approach to National Socialism wasn’t fast enough that they needed some military muscle. When they picked Hitler as their man, that’s when he one. And that is why academe even in England (who had been on their knees before German academe for over a century) approved of Hitler at first.

The socialists wanted to infect the body populace and brainwash them so that the people would demand to be controlled by the Ruling Elite.

This is why the socialists and communists fought so much, even though they have the same goal.

Socialists get to the intoxication of Statism one shot at a time. Communists chug the whole bottle.

But this is only one reason why Woodrow “the horse-faced” Wilson was a steaming pile of shit. He was an elitist, academic asshole and the damage he caused tens of millions to suffer unnecessarily should haunt him in hell for all eternity.


29 posted on 01/02/2011 3:28:25 PM PST by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Prepare for survival.)
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To: DesertRhino
Huge sense of his moral and intellectual superiority.

I'm tending to think that is probably the best description of Wilson and the majority of the 'Progressives' of that era. Without question, there was a lot of corruption at the time as well as some social ills brought on by rapid industrialization and urbanization that did need to be addressed in some form.

But people like Wilson were so damn cocksure they had all the answers and their answers were the only answers. They either ignored well founded objection to their policies or just steam rolled their policies through without considering potential negative consequences.

I don't think they were some well oiled machine looking to destroy the Republic. I think you are corect and hubris is the best way to describe them.

If some of the tactics Wilson used such as censorship had been used by his opposition he would have been screaming to high heaven. But he saw no problem using those tactics when it supported his 'enlightened vision.'

All and all, not a good guy to have in high office.

30 posted on 01/02/2011 3:32:10 PM PST by Ditto (Nov 2, 2010 -- Partial cleaning accomplished. More trash to remove in 2012)
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To: Ditto

All very interesting, but the real question is: what did Edith Galt think about Communism? She was the President for much of Wilson’s post war term of office after all.


31 posted on 01/02/2011 3:33:14 PM PST by centurion316
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe
To another stupid writer:

I wouldn't consider Prof Kengor to be stupid. He's a rock-ribbed conservative. You should read some more of his writing before you make those kind of charges.

32 posted on 01/02/2011 3:37:18 PM PST by Ditto (Nov 2, 2010 -- Partial cleaning accomplished. More trash to remove in 2012)
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To: Ditto

Any writer who, by 2011, does not see that being anti-communist is not in and by itself a respectable trait, is stupid or is a propagandist.

If someone was an anti-communist and they were a flaming socialist, they are no different. This writer presented Wilson as being not-so-bad because he was anti-communist. That, in my book, is pretty stupid.

No offense to you. But this country needs to wake up and draw a line between the Ruling Elite and the people. Eff what label the Ruling Elite apply to themselves to help foist themselves upon the people.


33 posted on 01/02/2011 3:51:47 PM PST by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Prepare for survival.)
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To: perfect_rovian_storm
Hitler liked Stalin, divvying up Eastern Europe, before he didn't like
Stalin, as in Operation Barbarossa.

I liked the story of Wilson as president of Princeton. He was
sucking up to Andrew Carnegie for the purpose getting an
endowment for a law school.

Carnegie shows up for the visit, Wilson asks for the law school,
and Carnegie rebuffs him, saying "You don't need a law
school. You need better rowing facilities. Rowing is a much
pursuit for young men than the study of law."

Princeton got the rowing facilities...

34 posted on 01/02/2011 3:55:38 PM PST by Calvin Locke
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To: Ditto
Communism is just flavor of statism. If someone approves of fascism, but decries socialism, he is simply upset at a challenge to his flavor of statism.

Woodrow Wilson was an anti-communist. He was also the 2nd most destructive statist in the history of the American presidency. There is no conflict, there is only a limitation on scope of terminology.

Hitler was an anti-communist, and a dedicated statist. Just like Woodrow Wilson.


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

35 posted on 01/02/2011 4:20:01 PM PST by The Comedian (Government: Saving people from freedom since time immemorial.)
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To: Ditto

So the rehabilitation of Woodrow Wilson is occurring. I never thought I’d live to see it.


36 posted on 01/02/2011 5:54:50 PM PST by backwoods-engineer (Imagine Cass Sunstein's boot stamping on Lincoln's beard, forever.)
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To: GAB-1955
how was Wilson different from any other politician of his day?

The nation had made considerable progress toward civil rights -- nowhere near equality, but on the way, and might well have gotten there (with much less trouble than we had in reality) over the next few decades had it not been for racial revanchists led by Wilson. For example, the civil service had been desegregated (obviously a policy supported by "other politicians of his day") until Wilson segregated it (and dismissed nonwhites in all but menial positions).

Wilson’s restrictions on free speech were in wartime, or immediately thereafter

So? There was no declaration of martial law, which is the only Constitutionally provided mechanism for modifying the operation of the law on account of war.

Many of his wartime institutions were immediately repudiated by the Republican Congress of 1919 and 1921

If they recognized the evil of Wilson's agenda, why don't you?

37 posted on 01/02/2011 7:54:47 PM PST by TiAhr-02L
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To: DesertRhino

GREAT quote.


38 posted on 01/03/2011 8:05:23 AM PST by StrictTime (I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.)
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To: Ditto
Wilson came along at a time of transition. In his younger days he'd been rather conservative in a classical liberal Grover Cleveland Democrat way. He took up with the rising progressive movement when he entered politics and they took up with him.

But still, he was far from a Marxist or a Communist. And he never abandoned his racist views. So anywhere you put him on the political spectrum is bound to be an oversimplification.

Wilson's views were a hodgepodge. He'd call himself a liberal on the question of rights and liberties, but he was horrible on civil liberties. He saw himself -- or his supporters painted him -- as a decentralist Jeffersonian, but he brought in bureaucratic control of the economy like no one else.

Europeans have trouble understanding Wilson's moralism and utopianism, but I suspect he would have fit in better in one of the states he helped create than in the US. He supported national self-determination -- that's clear. It's one thing he really believed in during his later years. His confusions about other things are those that Poles or Czechs or Hungarians went through when they tried to figure out just what they wanted government to do and not to do.

The New York Times blog had a discussion of why Wilson is now such a bogeyman for Beck and other conservatives nowadays. People say what you'd expect them to say. I suspect the answer is that he has all the negatives and not many positives.

Wilson was the archetype of the professor in politics, the liberal intellectual, who has done so much mischief in government over the years. He wasn't a popular hero, like FDR, and didn't see the country through an economic crisis. He also can't claim to have decreased racial discrimination, as LBJ could.

39 posted on 01/04/2011 4:06:13 PM PST by x
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To: Ditto

He was a Commie. Period.

Regards, Doodle


40 posted on 01/04/2011 4:09:38 PM PST by YankeeDoodleRebel
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