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| 1942 headline |
If you have an inkling to unearth the front page of a newspaper from the early 1940's, you will find yourself in a different America.
I've been obliged of late to peruse a lot of news copy from 1942 on, particularly the Cleveland Press and Plain Dealer (PD). The front page of the PD's Nov. 20, 1944 issue contains no less than 20 headlines. Save for one, they all pertain to WWII. Some examples:
Metz Falling As Nazi Front Cracks
Geilenkirchen Taken; French Enter Alsace, Enemy Dropping Back
War Summary
British Women Fighting
Conversely, on the PD's Feb. 15, 2015 front page, there is no mention of Afghanistan. Obviously our military action in Afghanistan and WWII are not comparable. Same goes for our media consumption. There was no television news during WWII. You had the paper and the radio. And to be sure, the War was priority number one. That's because nearly every family had a young man participating in it. They had some skin in the game, literally.
The vast majority of today's Plain Dealer readers don't care much about Afghanistan. It's not their war. They "support" the troops as long as their kid doesn't have to be one of them. I wrote about this insidious disengagement last Memorial Day.
Incidentally, going to see American Sniper does not make you a patriot.
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| 1941 ad clipping |
But that is not the point of this post. This is about Obama's formal request for Congress to authorize the use of military force in the war against ISIS.
I have my disappointments with Obama, but I am squarely behind this move (too bad it's six months late). Critics call the request too vague. I laud that very quality. Because while I don't think it's going to wake the somnambulant American public, perhaps it will compel the braying donkeys and lumbering elephants to battle over the specifics of how we shape our engagement in this miserable mess. Perhaps it will foster ownership outside of the White House and Pentagon.
I am hopeful, dear reader, but I'm also fearful that this country has become so huge and calcified, it may be beyond governance.
From sea to shining sea indeed.
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24 comments:
This miserable mess, as you call it, is Islamic fundamentalist assholes, killing Jews, Christians, and other Muslims who don't agree with their extremism. One problem our president has is calling it what it is. It's not about random people targeting other random people. This country IS NOT beyond governance. But it is without governance right now and will be until we elect a leader. The community organizer thing just didn't work out and most Americans realize that.
One of the problems Mr Obama (and many others) runs into is this: He doesn't have the luxury of just dealing with Muslim extremists or fundamentalist Islam or historical Islam.
He has to deal with Islam.
Approximately 1.9 billion if 'em.
MR
Dunno. The Saudis and Jordanians seem none too pleased with ISIS's brand of Islam.
Hiya Ms E-
"ISIS" are to Islam as the Klan are to Protestantism. Crips and/or Bloods in the desert with satellite phones.
MR
Mz E-
One can make the case that Jordan is the United States's best ally in that part of the world. And yes, I am well aware of the nations that that includes.
MR:
"The community organizer thing just didn't work out and most Americans realize that."-Bill
What we really need is a return to a good ole Imperialist like 'W' right Bill? Why...no one cautioned that removing Saddam would leave a power vacuum in the region rife for an escalation in sectarian violence.
Ultimately I think the homeboys are gonna take care of ISIS. When al Qaeda condemns your tactics as unacceptable you've lost a lot of support. The U.S, needs to exercise great restraint regardless of the saber rattling by the Cons and Netanyahu.
RJ
RJ
Hey RJ-
The whole "community organizer" motif is just the result of a reflex, like 'Saul Alinsky radical' and "Kenyan anti-colonial world view" that have been made meaningless by repetition sans comprehension. They seldom know exactly what community he worked in or what he organized there. They know virtually nothing of Saul Alinsky's life and work aside from the fact that Newt repeated his foreign-sounding name ad infinitum. They don't know that he (Alinsky) was the recipient before his death of a prestigious Catholic recognition, the Pacem in Terris award, inspired by the work of that radical rabble rouser...Pope John XXIII. "Kenyan anti-colonial" is STILL repeated even though Mr Obama as a child barely knew the Kenyan father that the faux motif was built on.
MR
PS-FULL DISCLOSURE: I personally have had the opportunity to do a modest spot of community organizing myself, inspired by a friend of ours, a Jewish carpenter we call "JC". Very rewarding work.
@MR-
As EO'B would say. " Good on You". I've always found that criticism rather strange as well. Stereotypical "Community Organizing", in my experience, is hard, thankless work You'd think it might even fall under that "Self-Reliant" umbrella. HiHo.
RJ
Good morning, RJ, howyadoin today?
A bit of a tangent, but have you seen the Affordable Care Act figures today?
11.4M enrolled in the enrollment period just ended? Up from the administration's predicted 9.1M but off the CBO's predicted 12M? There's somewhat around 80% retention after the first year?
Howdat for hi-jinx?
MR
Hey, RJ!
Didja notice Noot Gingrich kept right on making a fetish of saying Saul Alinsky's name during the previous campaign? Could it be because his name sounds like an immigrant and vaguely Jewish?
MR
MR, I am getting your comment notices, but the comments are not posting. Give ol' Mr. Gore's Internet a few hours. If it does not update, I'll post for you.
Dumb ol' Internet.
Going to war against ISIS is all well and good, but I've heard no one discussing what victory looks like. We can't kill our way out of this problem- http://goo.gl/7qrxpZ - so how do we go about ensuring that ISIS or something similar doesn't re-emerge from its ashes? How do we help Arab nations provide hope and opportunity to their young people? Or do we embrace genocide as legitimate foreign policy and thus become the enemy we despise?
Sure Jack. Jobs for Jihadist's. That's a plan
@Jack-
That whole "War" business is fucked up.(War on Terror, War on Drugs, etc) There is no way to victory over Islamic sectarian violence. That chit been going on for centuries. But in terms of the USA problem, as long as 8-9million Israel's(note Israel does not = Jew)enjoy one of the highest standards of living on the planet courtesy of U.S. largesse while 1.2 million Palestenians languish in the Worlds Largest Outdoor Prison(Gaza) the U.S. is going to be viewed in a dim light in the whole region. But back to ISIS. There's a good article in the Atlantic about their apocalyptic philosphy. And, of course, there are some sons of Abraham in 'The West' who'd like to help them out. In all likelihood...we're(the unwashed secular masses) screwed.
RJ
P.S.
"What could possibly go wrong?"
"The Obama administration announced on Tuesday that for the first time it would permit the export of armed drones to allies. [...]
The announcement comes two weeks after Jordan’s King Abdullah visited the U.S. and supposedly asked President Obama to sell unmanned surveillance drones to his country in order to better fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The move could help U.S. allies in the Middle East battle the terror network that has rolled up large swaths of territory."
RJ
Hey Mz E-the stuff is showing up on my screen fine.
If someone were to be deliberately blocking my comments, we at least know that they're pretty good judges of content, quality and character.
thanks-MR
@ RJ-If it's any balm to your concern, one can make a strong case that it is in fact Jordan who is out best ally in the North-African/Middle east world.
"Our". Not "Out."
MR
Jobs and unemployment are in fact an immense factor in unrest among Arab youth. Among 15-24 year olds it's 25%, spiking to 40% on occasion. It's some of the world's highest. It is estimated that unemployment in the Middle East/North Africa region costs those states $40-$50B in lost opportunities and productivity. Sorry for this cliché, but 'idle hands...'
It's not a factor that can be mocked or ignored.
MR
I wrote a major research paper in college comparing the news coverage of the time (primarily the NY Times) to to primary and secondary sources on the WWII Battle of the Bulge. The battle was 2or 3 days old before the papers called the offensive more than a minor skirmish in the Ardennes. The censorship or willfull hiding of the gravity of the situation was astounding to a person who was raised in the midst of the brutally visual reporting from Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.
Today the coverage is more akin to the British papers and their coverage of Queen Victoria's Little Wars.
Censorship? In wartime? NOOO!
Some of the readership here are, like myself, old enough to remember 'Live via Telstar' IDs on our television screens. Telstar was the first commercially viable television relay satellite, and it could relay a signal to any given ground point for maybe twenty minutes of its roughly two-and-a-half hour orbit. Imagine that: 10 minutes per hour. It went on-line in July 1962.
So there was no Telstar in December 1944. There were also no satellite telephones, geosynchronous relay satellites, e-mail, microwave relay towers, or fax machines as we commonly think of them. The Transatlantic cables were, for obvious reasons, under military control.
Given the limits of contemporary technological capabilities, the practical needs of the military and a desire to get it right the first time (if for no other reason than to spare the next-of-kin undue grief) I dunno. Two to three days seems pretty reasonable.
A tangent of sorts: I suspect you may already know this, Joe, but for others, shortly after the Battle of Midway the Chicago Tribune ran a story which could have let the Japanese know that the Navy was reading their mail-that we had broken some of their most sensitive encryption measures. Along with the Manhattan Project and the development of the proximity fuze, it was one of the most sensitive secrets of the war. It was decided that prosecution would only draw further attention to the story.
MR
If memory serves* it was at least two weeks before the magnitude of the German offensive was revealed. It is hard to hide the battle results when the telegrams begin to arrive back home.
* it was more than 30 years ago I did the research.
I guess describing them as a "brutal,vicious death cult" is just to soft! By describing them as Islam" you elevate them to the level they want. They want to be thought of as the "Islamic State". They are nothing but thugs and murderers. THERE IS NO HOLY WAR! Just a bunch of thugs given power because of Republican lies!
Not the country young Erin. The world.
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