The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
::
I've seen this figure elsewhere, and though I cannot speak to it's accuracy, I've no reason to disbelieve it either.
In the late 1930s, with the storm clouds of war again building up over Europe and Asia, the same drama was replayed. Conservative, small-town America could see that there would be another war and tried to keep the United States out of it. Kauffman concentrates especially on the America First Committee. "It was not in any way pro-fascist or pro-Nazi, though of course anyone who opposes a war in modern America gets tagged as an enemy symp," he writes. The America Firsters believed in the libertarian position that the country should be sufficiently armed to repel any attack on it, but stay out of the war unless attacked. Public polling in 1940 showed that about 80 percent of the people agreed. Kauffman doesn't go into Roosevelt's machinations to goad the Japanese into attacking, but once the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, war was inevitable. Once again, the "just leave us alone" instincts of most Americans were trampled upon.
And here as well:
But if most intellectuals and a few politicians identified powerfully with the plight of the Republicans, when Madrid finally fell to the Nationalists on April 3, 1939, most Americans who paid the moment much heed at all were just as relieved that the war was over as they had been saddened by its outcome. Rossevelt had been entirely correct in his assumption that there was a powerful antiwar sentiment in the country, one which would not have supported an overt act against the Nationalists or for the Republicans any more than it would have tolerated involvement in the Ethiopian conflict. The loss of democracy in Spain was not worth a war. (Emphasis is, of course, mine.)
(Emphasis is, of course, mine.)
The US decided that the going to war was not the way out of the decade long depression. Call that passive if you like. I call it the realization that America didn't (yet) have a life-or-death stake in the madness spreading across Europe, Asia and Africa. Whatever business US companies did with the Nazis, the US carried on business with whatever allied countries were available as well.
America was more concerned at the time in rebuilding the economy (which might mean doing business with whomever could pay) and thinking, for example, about what kind of interstate highway system to build. Americans weren't as concerned about Europe in 1939 as they were wondering if mom and pop were going to be able to keep the farm (21% of the workforce in 1930 were farmers, so if you weren't a farmer, you likely had relatives who were) or if they were going to be able to find or keep a job (so they could send money back to mom and pop). Did it take an attack on the US to jar them out of this? For a sane person, why wouldn't it? "It Can't Be Just About Us"--Frank Schnittger, ETian Extraordinaire
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 17
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 10 3 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 1 6 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 3 32 comments
by Oui - Sep 6 3 comments
by gmoke - Aug 25 1 comment
by Oui - Sep 19
by Oui - Sep 18
by Oui - Sep 1719 comments
by Oui - Sep 154 comments
by Oui - Sep 151 comment
by Oui - Sep 1315 comments
by Oui - Sep 13
by Oui - Sep 124 comments
by Oui - Sep 1010 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Sep 103 comments
by Oui - Sep 10
by Oui - Sep 92 comments
by Oui - Sep 84 comments
by Oui - Sep 715 comments
by Oui - Sep 72 comments
by Oui - Sep 63 comments