War Drums Are Beating at FreeRepublic.com

Starting with the downing of the US Navy spy plane, the neocons at the Free Republic web site have been rattling sabers regarding the People's Republic of China. Many u2018Freepers' were especially enraged by articles such as Lew Rockwell's u2018China Is Right’ and and Karen De Coster's u2018Dance of the War Mongers'. Now, with the announcement by President Bush regarding sale of advanced weaponry to Taiwan, there are open calls for war on Free Republic.

Granted, the majority of these posts are probably meaningless Internet chest-thumping, but they are instructive nonetheless: they demonstrate just how easily the State/Media conglomerate can use propaganda to maneuver a populace into war and maintain war fever once the body bags start to arrive.

This is nothing new and certainly predates the Internet. From the War of 1812 to Desert Storm, every declared and undeclared war in our history has been preceded and supported by some form of State propaganda: let me illustrate with two examples.

The Spanish-American War

U.S. President Cleveland had issued a proclamation of neutrality in the Cuban Insurrection against the Spanish in June of 1895, but pressed by business interests represented by elements of the Senate, Cleveland backtracked and warned that the US might take action in Cuba if Spain failed to resolve its crisis.

During this period, both during the fading days of Cleveland's presidency and after the election of U.S. President William McKinley, the US military was developing war plans concerning Spanish possessions in the New World and in the Pacific. After the election, we moved both ships and troops into these areas, arguably starting down the road from Republic to Imperial power.

Both Hearst’s New York Journal and Pulitzer’s New York World, via sensational reporting on the Cuban Insurrection, helped develop anti-Spanish sentiment in the United States. The steady drumbeat of anti-Spanish rhetoric exploded into frenzy after the U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana Harbor. This war frenzy certainly contributed to President McKinley's call for 125,000 volunteers to augment the standing army of 28,000 regulars.

The Great War: World War One

As the u2018Great War' raged in Europe, most Americans had no European ties and were not interested in expending treasure or blood in a war u2018over there'. However, Allied and German propaganda caused much furor among “hyphenated” European- Americans and in that community opinions about the war were sharply divided. Most markedly, more than eight million German-Americans lived in this country and many were pro-German. At the same time, anti-German sympathies were the norm among the upper and business classes, the media and academe.

US President Wilson, as a member of both the Eastern upper classes and the academe, was solidly in the Pro-Allied camp, while publicly proclaiming US neutrality to ensure re-election. On April 13, 1917, days after our entry into the war Wilson created the Committee on Public Information to promote the war domestically while publicizing American war aims abroad.

This was a propaganda apparatus unparalleled in world history. Under the leadership of journalistic muckraker George Creel, the CPI functioned as a de facto public censor, vetting nearly all published material about the war and helping to draft legislation such as the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. In the months prior to our entry into the war and especially after our entry when it was nearly criminal, antiwar viewpoints were rarely heard.

Modern Times

How does this dusty history relate to our current events and what's the Freeper tie-in?

First of all, I contend that the vast majority of the US public has absolutely no interest in yet another pointless war on the Asian landmass. Three were more than enough and resulted in hundreds of thousands of lost American lives and countless trillions of American treasure spent. Not to mention the increase in State power that is the result of any war.

Secondly, those intelligentsia with belligerent and bellicose attitudes towards China are remarkably similar to the armchair warriors of World War One. They are concentrated in our Eastern Elites: descendants of the same crowd of media, academe and political statists.

Thirdly, my friends at Free Republic are making the same sad mistakes that their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers made. They are falling under the gradual spell of State propaganda that is moving us ever so slowly into a position of war and foreign entanglements impossible to escape.

A truly Free Republic does not need to make war thousands of miles from its borders. An Empire does and will.

    April 27, 2001