39 ms·

Anti-War Speech Sent Eugene V. Debs to Prison, 1918

330 points by oriettaxx 4y ago

Quequau 4y ago
It's a minor thing I know... but the man's name is Eugene Victor Debs and it's usually printed as "Eugene V. Debs". So the "V" stands for Victor and not "versus". The title makes it seem sorta like a lawsuit "Eugene vs. Debs".
- pimlottc 4y ago
  It's not minor, changing it to "vs" makes the sentence incomprehensible... I didn't understand what was going on until I read your helpful comment.
- MikeMaven 4y ago
  Definitely not a minor thing. Reading the headline I thought this was a lawsuit about 2 different people named Eugene and Debs.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
beebmam 4y ago
He also ran for president from prison (and lost). Might be relevant in the next few years.
- perihelions 4y ago
  Democracy overrules the status quo of criminal law. That's a deeply admirable principle, and principled people shouldn't abandon that principle -- the supremacy of democracy -- on mere expedience. Democracy decides what is a crime and what is not, and can boldly overrule the law with a mere vote. Incidentally, the incoming president of Brazil is also an ex-con.
  - retrac 4y ago
    it's possible for a candidate to run from prison in Westminster-style parliamentary systems. The fact that a candidate is imprisoned should not inhibit the electors from expressing their choice. Though once elected, they face certain practical barriers to assuming office.
    - perihelions 4y ago
      - "Though once elected, they face certain practical barriers to assuming office" Then they're democratic in name only. If the previous leader has the effective, practical ability to fuck with the transfer of power, it ain't democracy.
      - whateveracct 4y ago
        I think the barrier is the fact that the new elected official would still have prison time left to serve. Nothing about that should stop them from running and winning. But running and/or winning shouldn't get them out either.
        perihelions 4y ago
        - "But running and/or winning shouldn't get them out either. " Then you're disenfranchising the majority of democratic voters, millions of citizens, in preference of ossifying so-called criminal justice against a mere one human. Why would you do that? What hallowed value does that serve? The question of what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable. We're in this thread, remember, because pretentious ideologues once imprisoned an anti-war protestor for bullshit reasons that were framed as "crimes".
        mindslight 4y ago
        > what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable Sure, and the question of the legality of a given action can also be on the ballot. Implying that someone who wins an election should automatically get out of jail is nonsense. One of the pillars of the bureaucratic rule of law is making it so that no individual has autocratic power. We already have too much of powerful politicians and other agents of the state being effectively above the law.
- mushbino 4y ago
  He still got 3.4% of the vote. That's pretty amazing, especially from prison.
pjc50 4y ago
Always interesting to see how certain kinds of political speech were never really protected by the First Amendment. And to remember that WW1 was ended, in part, by labour action: the October Revolution in Russia, and the Kiel Mutiny in Germany. The full speech is here: https://genius.com/Eugene-v-debs-anti-war-speech-annotated https://genius.com/Eugene-v-debs-anti-war-speech-annotated
- anon291 4y ago
  Using examples of terrible decisions in order to justify continuing to make bad decisions is a terrible way to govern.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  There’s always a reactionary push to silence people for their own good. John Adams kicked it off, and Woodrow Wilson’s craven politics represented a moment where the country could have moved in an awful direction. It’s unfortunate that we live in an era where many people have mastered the art of mass manipulation. We’re in an era where we’re vulnerable to the same sort of grinding warfare that WW1 became, and the information landscape is a barren one full of propaganda and junk.
  - vkou 4y ago
    No, we don't silence people for their own good, we silence people for our own good.
    - Spooky23 4y ago
      Sure. The problem is, who is “us” and who is “them”. Unfortunately the 20th century shows what people are capable of in pursuit of protecting “our” stuff, whatever that may be.
  - MisterMower 4y ago
    Woodrow Wilson was the worst president in US history. If I had a time machine, I would go back in time to kill Wilson, not Hitler. Hitler would be a no name artist if it weren’t for Wilson completely fucking up WWI and the peace thereafter. Fun fact: Wilson resegregated the entire federal government and even went so far as to show a KKK propaganda film at the White House. The guy was a rabid racist. Additionally, Wilson had a stroke that left him blind and paralyzed in 1919 and for the remainder of his presidency his second wife and doctor manipulated him so heavily that there is serious debate as to who actually was in control of the White House during those years. Some historians call Edith Wilson, his second wife, America’s first female president the manipulation was so effective.
dry_soup 4y ago
Ken White (of "Popehat" twitter fame) has a great article explaining how this and similar court cases during the first world war are the origin of the (poor) "fire in a crowded theater" argument against certain kinds of free speech: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
- the_optimist 4y ago
- nerdponx 4y ago
  White mentions a few times that Holmes' dubious contributions to Court precedent have since been obsoleted. What specifically changed?
  - lettergram 4y ago
    There’s a Wikipedia on this apparently (to my surprise) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_t...
  - _dain_ 4y ago
    Brandenburg v Ohio
- blululu 4y ago
  I never realized that the crowded theater of the idiom refers to WWI and shouting fire means opposing the draft. The metaphorical argument is much less compelling when the crowded theater is actually on fire!
geofft 4y ago
The link seems to be down, but this is the speech itself: https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm
backworsestasi 4y ago
Back then they had state level and federal level defense councils. People would get reported to the authorities for all sorts of things. If you didn't donate to the red cross you would get on the list. They also would instruct the pastors of churches to disseminate messages and those that didn't were on the list as well. This is before mass communications took hold. Most folks got their news through word of mouth or gatherings.
- humanrebar 4y ago
  What about newspapers? They weren't invented in the 1930s. Revolutionary War propaganda famously included various pamphlets, editorials, and self-published periodicals (Thomas Paine, The Federalist Papers, etc.).
  - itdependson99th 4y ago
    Good point. I guess that depends on the literacy rate. I don't know how hight it was during WWI.
  - butliteracyrate 4y ago
    I guess that depends on the literacy rate around 1900.
    - blululu 4y ago
      It was high. America is historically one of the more educated countries. During the civil war literacy among native born whites was over 90%. By WWI I believe it was over 95%, and by WWII it was nearly universal among native born adults.
rektide 4y ago
I havent opened it yet but the book American Midnight came highly highly recommended, which covers this time period & this event. A power hungry intolerant federal government mandating War-fervor & jingoism, suppressing all outside voices (largely liberal & progressive), clamping down on how people think & what they say. passing the Sedition Act & charging many under these wartime powers, before it's repeal. This book supposedly makes quite the case for this being one of thr darkest times in America. Excited scared/sad to start reading it.
lend000 4y ago
I never understood why Woodrow Wilson is lauded in the history books, and comes out in historians' presidential rankings quite well. His administration (and he personally) had a pattern of suppressing free speech with prison time. That, and he created the Federal Reserve (which then went on to create the Great Depression, as it slowly learned to use its powers). Whether or not you think a central bank is a good thing, it certainly belies his ideology that the government knows best.
- opo 4y ago
  Wilson was also very racist: >...While Wilson's tenure is often noted for progressive achievement, his time in office was one of unprecedented regression in regard to racial equality.[1] He removed most federal officeholders who were African Americans, his administration imposed segregation policies, and instituted a policy requiring a photo for federal job applicants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_and_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_and_race
- Aunche 4y ago
  The Federal Reserve absolutely did not cause the Great Depression. Economic crashes occurred at least once a decade since beginning of American history, and as the economy grew more more interconnected and less self sufficient, economic crashes tended to be worse than the last, culminating with the Great Depression. Economists overwhelmingly agree that the Fed's biggest blunder during the Great Depression was not going far enough. It was only with what I'm sure you would call "money printing" enabled by the Fed to finance WWII, that the economy truly recovered.
  - 988747 4y ago
    Small-scale economic downturns did happen once a decade, because that's natural in a healthy economy. Federal Reserve tried to prevent a downturn in 1929, but their misguided monetary policies made it two orders of magnitude worse instead. Milton Friedman once wrote a great analysis on this: https://fee.org/articles/the-great-depression-according-to-milton-friedman/ https://fee.org/articles/the-great-depression-according-to-m...
  - 4y ago
narrator 4y ago
The supreme court case Schenck v. United States said at the time that speech discouraging people from being drafted was prohibited. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Put another way- it was speech telling people to break the law.
  - klplotx 4y ago
    FYI, Schenck v. United States was overturned in 1969 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States): "In 1969, Schenck was largely overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot)." So we can tell other people to avoid the draft now, even in a dry bureaucratic sense. In real life of course the draft is slavery and immoral, as Ayn Rand and many others have pointed out.
    - 3a2d29 4y ago
      > the draft is slavery and immoral I agree with this, but I also think this is such a “peace time” opinion. If, for example, the nazis were at risk of invading the American homeland, would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in? Again, I agree the draft is immoral, but so is war. EDIT: for an even better example you should look up what the Japanese did to most civilians in WWII and really ask yourself if a draft to avoid that at home is bad.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        >would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in? I think the response to the 9/11 attacks shows that when something major happens, lots of people feel motivated to get up and do something. Volunteers flooded the different branches and even gov't services. My point being that I'm not sure a draft would be needed in your proposed situation.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
It's not protected speech to tell people to break the law. He didn't go to prison for his beliefs, he went to prison for telling people to break the law.
- Jefenry 4y ago
  If I see any runaway slaves coming through I'll be sure not to tell my neighbors we should try and hide them.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    I don't know what point you are trying to make.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - retrac 4y ago
      Most of us would find a law that prohibits encouraging slaves from revolting or freeing themselves; to be horrid. Arguments that such laws don't really restrict freedom of speech because they're only encouraging an illegal act, would ring quite hollow. You might well be accused of sophistry if you made the argument seriously today; the act that's illegal to advocate is a fundamental right of all men, after all. Conscripts are enslaved. What some may call a mutiny of conscripts others might call a slave rebellion. Let's just take that axiomatically for now. Obviously not all agree. But many accept that argument completely. Arguing it does not infringe free speech to call for people to free themselves, because it's only prohibiting the encouragement of a crime rings similarly hollow, from that perspective.
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
        The draft is unjust (in my opinion) but what happens if speech telling people to break other laws is protected? What if I urge people, in a riveting call to action speech, to kill X celebrity?
nonrandomstring 4y ago
Public opinion and conflict seem to have a complex relation and predictable phases that follow the seasons of war. Before the show starts, jingoism is emergent and it ought to be illegal to rattle sabres and call for blood where peace is still possible. That changes quickly, there is a definite threshold. Once the game is on, one has to move with the crowd. To not support the war is demoralising, treacherous even. And this rises as the first body bags come home and mothers weep. In the middle phase, people are stoic and quiet. Soldiers have "a job to do" and we must "grin and bear it". Without swift victory, then comes the point of fatigue and economic pain. Too many dead children on the TV. But the protestors are in a minority and need great courage to point the way to an exit. That's when tactical silencing of dissent can happen. The idea that opposing the war is the same as siding with the enemy comes to the fore. As the tide turns, even millions on the streets (Vietnam, Iraq), or the advice of generals (Afghanistan) cannot overcome the pride of miscalculating leaders. But at that point public opinion has passed the threshold the other way. By the end it is shameful to still support a lost war (and sometimes, depending on the cost, even a victorious one). Long before it ended WWI was universally seen as "insane" by all sides. Perhaps my historical education is wanting, but only the second world war seems to have a clear narrative of victory over evil, with a constancy of support for Allied triumph which I think even the exhausted Germans and Japanese felt toward the end. That "just war" model is wheeled out and is still active apropos Ukraine.
- lettergram 4y ago
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    Thanks for thoughtful comments. I do read widely and appreciate your suggestion. What do you recommend as the must-read, accessible and honest and intelligent account of civilian life in Germany during that period. Thanks.
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      I’m not the OP but like reading about the interwar period, particularly in Russia. You really can’t view The Second World War in isolation, as it was directly related to World War One, particular in Germany and Russia. It was utter chaos politically and following any thread though the period is very complicated. It isn’t really about Germany, but gives an idea of the complexity of the era and of German politics, Lenin on the Train by Catherine Merridale is a good read.
ilaksh 4y ago
I have found general anti-war comments I have made here and elsewhere online to be unpopular. If WWIII starts, its likely that comments against participating or legitimizing it will be flagged here on HN. The thing that people should understand is that wars are strategic. Any moral justification is just propaganda. The paradigm is "might makes right" and has been for millennia. The American Empire is a great example, and the Chinese Empire that comes after it will be the same. But that will be even shorter-lived than the Americans because AI will probably take control soon after. On a large scale, humanity operates at a moral level similar to that of ant colonies.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- boomskats 4y ago
  I'm sorry, could you please repost your argument in the form of TikTok, or one of those Youtube short videos? I really struggled to remember any context past those big words in that second sentence. Ooh look! A squirrel! <scrolls>
- fullsend 4y ago
  The Chinese Empire is a fantasy. China will remain a great factory and little else. Everything there is still done using personal connections (eg. corruption). The basis of a globe spanning empire this system is not. When all your growth is due to external investment, external contracts, and external culture/politics, you can’t become the center.
  - ilaksh 4y ago
    Those common criticisms of their political system are valid, and certainly in some ways the west is more advanced. But realistically western political systems have their own severe (but different) problems, and the Chinese systems have their own advantages. As I said, the bottom line for the world order seems to be deployment of force. Right now the most relevant force paradigms as far as I can tell are mass information control and bio-warfare (nuclear has largely been tabled.) The authoritarianism has given China an advantage in terms of controlling information and infection and that has been strongly proven out.
aizyuval 4y ago
War is the worst, and yet it serms to be so common and often “The only choice” (allegedly. As it was in WW1). It’s a viscous cycle. It sucks.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  It is thick, but wilfully. I think you (or autocorrect) mean vicious.
- gpm 4y ago
  I think it's quite rare that war is the only viable choice for both sides, but probably reasonably frequently the case that war is the only viable choice for one side. Sort of like how many crimes require both a victim and a perpetrator, but only one side is making the choice. It's also the case that in many modern wars both sides will claim to be the side with no choice though. Also that having entered a war by choice doesn't necessarily imply that it's still possible to exit the war by choice.
  - aizyuval 4y ago
    Interesting. Though, I meant that it always seems like the only choice which makes it viable.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    > but probably reasonably frequently the case that war is the only viable choice for one side I think this is untrue... unless your invaders are the assyrians, surrender and losing the war isn't really that bad. Even the Mongols would just collect some extra taxes.
- nicbou 4y ago
  It's not just the only choice, but a phenomenon that eventually gets a mind of its own. There is a point in almost every war where both sides regret the escalation, but are powerless to stop the war as the time tables have been set, the troops mobilised, the ultimatums issued. And the belligerents, deeply invested in the outcome, cannot stop the war before the cataclysmic defeat of one side. The inevitability of war beyond a certain point is a terrifying prospect.
photochemsyn 4y ago
There's a huge taboo in the United States against explicitly pointing out the economic agendas behind foreign wars. You can go up on a soapbox and talk about 'humanitarian concerns and defending democracy abroad' (typical neoliberal-Democratic drivel) or 'patriotism, national security and fighting terror' (typical neocon-Republican drivel), but noting that war is a huge profit center for various interests, that's not really allowed. For example, the Iraq War really was related to oil - Saddam had no WMDs, no ties with Al Qaeda, but he was moving his oil money out of the petrodollar recycling system, which was a huge threat to global dollar hegemony and the balance-of-payements issue (see capital accounts vs. current accounts). Plus, it was a huge cash cow for government contracts and the military procurement system, which always gets hungry during peacetime. GW Bush and the neocons of course sold this in their preferred manner. The same thing happened with Libya and Syria, only now it was the other set of talking points - although again, Qaddafi was promoting pan-African unity, an alternative currency, independence from Europe and the USA on oil sales, closer ties to Russia and China, etc. Assad backed out of a Saudi-USA-Israeli pipeline deal in 2009 and went for the Russia-Iran pipeline instead (plus lots of electricity integration with Iran), so Obama signed off on the CIA overthrow/regime change directive. If you want more strong evidence that their 'humanitarian democractic' rhetoric was nonsense, look at how they treated the pro-democracy protests in Bahrain (crushed by Saudi tanks) or the Saudi assault on Yemen. It's all pretty farcical. Just admit that maintaining a global financial empire is pretty difficult without engaging in covert regime change and military dominance, already. Stop pretending it's about self-defense or good works - I mean Ukraine is all about control of natural gas sales to Europe, plus another multi-billion injection into the domestic weapons manufacturing complex.
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  A taboo? Maybe I was (un?)fortunate to be on a college campus during the launch of the second Iraq War, but the "war for oil" commonplace was the dominant narrative. Anyone offering an alternative hypothesis besides that, or GW Bush finishing his father's legacy from 1991 was practically laughed at.
  - satellites 4y ago
dontbenebby 4y ago
The thing that amuses to me is a lot of the laws and rhetoric around these matters presume a draft. But we haven't had that for years. Instead, you had folks who signed up for the national guard thinking they'd just screw around with fancy guns in the woods 2 weeks a year absolutely apoplectic they might actually be put in harm's way. I remember still being a teenager in Appalachia and being made to feel like you're a hair shy of an agent of foreign power if you suggested the best way to "support the troops" was to say no illegal wars of aggression that put them in harm's way instead of slap a yellow ribbon magnet your car and say let's bomb Iran too. You haven't truly lived until you tell some aggressive moron wh very purposefully signed up for the infantry because they wanted to kill people of color in an illegal oil war that you don't give a single solitary fuck what they think, you don't thank them for their so called service and that many Marines died at Okinawa died for your right to say that, and that if they don't get their hands out of their pockets and step back you're going to invoke stand your ground and call their wing commander or whoever the fuck is in charge of them to collect the body. (Many, many folks sing a song about the constitution but break down when you use it for anything other than greasing the wheels of the military industrial complex, and it's DIGUSTING.)
nopenopenopeno 4y ago
I keep a portrait of the great Eugene Debs on my mantle for the purpose of encouraging people to ask me about him. :)
- xmonkee 4y ago
  o7
turpialito 4y ago
What a tool.
europeanguy 4y ago
As a coincidence, I read this person's and some of his "comrades" wikipedia pages. The impression I got at the time was that being a communist was what sent him to prison.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  And ironically, the biggest supporters of censorship and the biggest opponents of the first amendment now are the communists themselves.
  - abvdasker 4y ago
    Can you point to a well known communist today who opposes freedom of speech?
    - alvarezbjm-hn 4y ago
      Russian, Cuban, Venezuelan, etc governments. I know your reply will be along the lines "But those aren't communists" Truth be told, there never was any communist.
      - mardifoufs 4y ago
        The current government in russia is absolutely not communist. They don't claim to be, and no one else does. Russia might be a continuation of the USSR but that's where the link to communism stops honestly.
        narag 4y ago
        It doesn't stops there: their allies are communist: China, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. Also the communist parties everywhere support them in their war against Ukraine. I guess it all depends on you considering communism an ideology or just a faction.
EGreg 4y ago
Libertarians and Anarchists used to be Socialists in the 19th and early 20th century. Everyone from Kropotkin and Bakunin to Oscar Wilde. And likewise, socialists like Eugene Debbs had correctly pointed out that the governments and political class send you to war while they themselves don’t go. Many socialists said the same thing during WW1. Why should the working class people fight each other? Turn the guns on your masters etc. Would be nice to post links here to European versions of this. Today’s libertarians view modern wars with the same skepticism. Are they really necessary, and if so, can our governments have a referendum by their people before starting one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_Man_Under_Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_Man_Under_Socialis...

330 points by oriettaxx 4y ago

It's a minor thing I know... but the man's name is Eugene Victor Debs and it's usually printed as "Eugene V. Debs". So the "V" stands for Victor and not "versus". The title makes it seem sorta like a lawsuit "Eugene vs. Debs".

pimlottc 4y ago
It's not minor, changing it to "vs" makes the sentence incomprehensible... I didn't understand what was going on until I read your helpful comment.
MikeMaven 4y ago
Definitely not a minor thing. Reading the headline I thought this was a lawsuit about 2 different people named Eugene and Debs.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

beebmam 4y ago

He also ran for president from prison (and lost). Might be relevant in the next few years.

perihelions 4y ago
Democracy overrules the status quo of criminal law. That's a deeply admirable principle, and principled people shouldn't abandon that principle -- the supremacy of democracy -- on mere expedience. Democracy decides what is a crime and what is not, and can boldly overrule the law with a mere vote. Incidentally, the incoming president of Brazil is also an ex-con.
- retrac 4y ago
  it's possible for a candidate to run from prison in Westminster-style parliamentary systems. The fact that a candidate is imprisoned should not inhibit the electors from expressing their choice. Though once elected, they face certain practical barriers to assuming office.
  - perihelions 4y ago
    - "Though once elected, they face certain practical barriers to assuming office" Then they're democratic in name only. If the previous leader has the effective, practical ability to fuck with the transfer of power, it ain't democracy.
    - whateveracct 4y ago
      I think the barrier is the fact that the new elected official would still have prison time left to serve. Nothing about that should stop them from running and winning. But running and/or winning shouldn't get them out either.
      - perihelions 4y ago
        - "But running and/or winning shouldn't get them out either. " Then you're disenfranchising the majority of democratic voters, millions of citizens, in preference of ossifying so-called criminal justice against a mere one human. Why would you do that? What hallowed value does that serve? The question of what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable. We're in this thread, remember, because pretentious ideologues once imprisoned an anti-war protestor for bullshit reasons that were framed as "crimes".
        mindslight 4y ago
        > what's a crime and what's valid is a democratic question fundamentally, and is and should be mutable Sure, and the question of the legality of a given action can also be on the ballot. Implying that someone who wins an election should automatically get out of jail is nonsense. One of the pillars of the bureaucratic rule of law is making it so that no individual has autocratic power. We already have too much of powerful politicians and other agents of the state being effectively above the law.
mushbino 4y ago
He still got 3.4% of the vote. That's pretty amazing, especially from prison.

pjc50 4y ago

Always interesting to see how certain kinds of political speech were never really protected by the First Amendment. And to remember that WW1 was ended, in part, by labour action: the October Revolution in Russia, and the Kiel Mutiny in Germany. The full speech is here: https://genius.com/Eugene-v-debs-anti-war-speech-annotated https://genius.com/Eugene-v-debs-anti-war-speech-annotated

anon291 4y ago
Using examples of terrible decisions in order to justify continuing to make bad decisions is a terrible way to govern.
Spooky23 4y ago
There’s always a reactionary push to silence people for their own good. John Adams kicked it off, and Woodrow Wilson’s craven politics represented a moment where the country could have moved in an awful direction. It’s unfortunate that we live in an era where many people have mastered the art of mass manipulation. We’re in an era where we’re vulnerable to the same sort of grinding warfare that WW1 became, and the information landscape is a barren one full of propaganda and junk.
- vkou 4y ago
  No, we don't silence people for their own good, we silence people for our own good.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    Sure. The problem is, who is “us” and who is “them”. Unfortunately the 20th century shows what people are capable of in pursuit of protecting “our” stuff, whatever that may be.
- MisterMower 4y ago
  Woodrow Wilson was the worst president in US history. If I had a time machine, I would go back in time to kill Wilson, not Hitler. Hitler would be a no name artist if it weren’t for Wilson completely fucking up WWI and the peace thereafter. Fun fact: Wilson resegregated the entire federal government and even went so far as to show a KKK propaganda film at the White House. The guy was a rabid racist. Additionally, Wilson had a stroke that left him blind and paralyzed in 1919 and for the remainder of his presidency his second wife and doctor manipulated him so heavily that there is serious debate as to who actually was in control of the White House during those years. Some historians call Edith Wilson, his second wife, America’s first female president the manipulation was so effective.

dry_soup 4y ago

Ken White (of "Popehat" twitter fame) has a great article explaining how this and similar court cases during the first world war are the origin of the (poor) "fire in a crowded theater" argument against certain kinds of free speech: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

the_optimist 4y ago
nerdponx 4y ago
White mentions a few times that Holmes' dubious contributions to Court precedent have since been obsoleted. What specifically changed?
- lettergram 4y ago
  There’s a Wikipedia on this apparently (to my surprise) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_t...
- _dain_ 4y ago
  Brandenburg v Ohio
blululu 4y ago
I never realized that the crowded theater of the idiom refers to WWI and shouting fire means opposing the draft. The metaphorical argument is much less compelling when the crowded theater is actually on fire!

geofft 4y ago

The link seems to be down, but this is the speech itself: https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm

backworsestasi 4y ago

Back then they had state level and federal level defense councils. People would get reported to the authorities for all sorts of things. If you didn't donate to the red cross you would get on the list. They also would instruct the pastors of churches to disseminate messages and those that didn't were on the list as well. This is before mass communications took hold. Most folks got their news through word of mouth or gatherings.

humanrebar 4y ago
What about newspapers? They weren't invented in the 1930s. Revolutionary War propaganda famously included various pamphlets, editorials, and self-published periodicals (Thomas Paine, The Federalist Papers, etc.).
- itdependson99th 4y ago
  Good point. I guess that depends on the literacy rate. I don't know how hight it was during WWI.
- butliteracyrate 4y ago
  I guess that depends on the literacy rate around 1900.
  - blululu 4y ago
    It was high. America is historically one of the more educated countries. During the civil war literacy among native born whites was over 90%. By WWI I believe it was over 95%, and by WWII it was nearly universal among native born adults.

rektide 4y ago

I havent opened it yet but the book American Midnight came highly highly recommended, which covers this time period & this event. A power hungry intolerant federal government mandating War-fervor & jingoism, suppressing all outside voices (largely liberal & progressive), clamping down on how people think & what they say. passing the Sedition Act & charging many under these wartime powers, before it's repeal. This book supposedly makes quite the case for this being one of thr darkest times in America. Excited scared/sad to start reading it.

lend000 4y ago

I never understood why Woodrow Wilson is lauded in the history books, and comes out in historians' presidential rankings quite well. His administration (and he personally) had a pattern of suppressing free speech with prison time. That, and he created the Federal Reserve (which then went on to create the Great Depression, as it slowly learned to use its powers). Whether or not you think a central bank is a good thing, it certainly belies his ideology that the government knows best.

opo 4y ago
Wilson was also very racist: >...While Wilson's tenure is often noted for progressive achievement, his time in office was one of unprecedented regression in regard to racial equality.[1] He removed most federal officeholders who were African Americans, his administration imposed segregation policies, and instituted a policy requiring a photo for federal job applicants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_and_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_and_race
Aunche 4y ago
The Federal Reserve absolutely did not cause the Great Depression. Economic crashes occurred at least once a decade since beginning of American history, and as the economy grew more more interconnected and less self sufficient, economic crashes tended to be worse than the last, culminating with the Great Depression. Economists overwhelmingly agree that the Fed's biggest blunder during the Great Depression was not going far enough. It was only with what I'm sure you would call "money printing" enabled by the Fed to finance WWII, that the economy truly recovered.
- 988747 4y ago
  Small-scale economic downturns did happen once a decade, because that's natural in a healthy economy. Federal Reserve tried to prevent a downturn in 1929, but their misguided monetary policies made it two orders of magnitude worse instead. Milton Friedman once wrote a great analysis on this: https://fee.org/articles/the-great-depression-according-to-milton-friedman/ https://fee.org/articles/the-great-depression-according-to-m...
- 4y ago

narrator 4y ago

The supreme court case Schenck v. United States said at the time that speech discouraging people from being drafted was prohibited. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Put another way- it was speech telling people to break the law.
- klplotx 4y ago
  FYI, Schenck v. United States was overturned in 1969 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States): "In 1969, Schenck was largely overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot)." So we can tell other people to avoid the draft now, even in a dry bureaucratic sense. In real life of course the draft is slavery and immoral, as Ayn Rand and many others have pointed out.
  - 3a2d29 4y ago
    > the draft is slavery and immoral I agree with this, but I also think this is such a “peace time” opinion. If, for example, the nazis were at risk of invading the American homeland, would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in? Again, I agree the draft is immoral, but so is war. EDIT: for an even better example you should look up what the Japanese did to most civilians in WWII and really ask yourself if a draft to avoid that at home is bad.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      >would you want to wait until they are here and volunteers start coming in? I think the response to the 9/11 attacks shows that when something major happens, lots of people feel motivated to get up and do something. Volunteers flooded the different branches and even gov't services. My point being that I'm not sure a draft would be needed in your proposed situation.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

It's not protected speech to tell people to break the law. He didn't go to prison for his beliefs, he went to prison for telling people to break the law.

Jefenry 4y ago
If I see any runaway slaves coming through I'll be sure not to tell my neighbors we should try and hide them.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  I don't know what point you are trying to make.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - retrac 4y ago
    Most of us would find a law that prohibits encouraging slaves from revolting or freeing themselves; to be horrid. Arguments that such laws don't really restrict freedom of speech because they're only encouraging an illegal act, would ring quite hollow. You might well be accused of sophistry if you made the argument seriously today; the act that's illegal to advocate is a fundamental right of all men, after all. Conscripts are enslaved. What some may call a mutiny of conscripts others might call a slave rebellion. Let's just take that axiomatically for now. Obviously not all agree. But many accept that argument completely. Arguing it does not infringe free speech to call for people to free themselves, because it's only prohibiting the encouragement of a crime rings similarly hollow, from that perspective.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      The draft is unjust (in my opinion) but what happens if speech telling people to break other laws is protected? What if I urge people, in a riveting call to action speech, to kill X celebrity?

nonrandomstring 4y ago

Public opinion and conflict seem to have a complex relation and predictable phases that follow the seasons of war. Before the show starts, jingoism is emergent and it ought to be illegal to rattle sabres and call for blood where peace is still possible. That changes quickly, there is a definite threshold. Once the game is on, one has to move with the crowd. To not support the war is demoralising, treacherous even. And this rises as the first body bags come home and mothers weep. In the middle phase, people are stoic and quiet. Soldiers have "a job to do" and we must "grin and bear it". Without swift victory, then comes the point of fatigue and economic pain. Too many dead children on the TV. But the protestors are in a minority and need great courage to point the way to an exit. That's when tactical silencing of dissent can happen. The idea that opposing the war is the same as siding with the enemy comes to the fore. As the tide turns, even millions on the streets (Vietnam, Iraq), or the advice of generals (Afghanistan) cannot overcome the pride of miscalculating leaders. But at that point public opinion has passed the threshold the other way. By the end it is shameful to still support a lost war (and sometimes, depending on the cost, even a victorious one). Long before it ended WWI was universally seen as "insane" by all sides. Perhaps my historical education is wanting, but only the second world war seems to have a clear narrative of victory over evil, with a constancy of support for Allied triumph which I think even the exhausted Germans and Japanese felt toward the end. That "just war" model is wheeled out and is still active apropos Ukraine.

lettergram 4y ago
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Thanks for thoughtful comments. I do read widely and appreciate your suggestion. What do you recommend as the must-read, accessible and honest and intelligent account of civilian life in Germany during that period. Thanks.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    I’m not the OP but like reading about the interwar period, particularly in Russia. You really can’t view The Second World War in isolation, as it was directly related to World War One, particular in Germany and Russia. It was utter chaos politically and following any thread though the period is very complicated. It isn’t really about Germany, but gives an idea of the complexity of the era and of German politics, Lenin on the Train by Catherine Merridale is a good read.

ilaksh 4y ago

I have found general anti-war comments I have made here and elsewhere online to be unpopular. If WWIII starts, its likely that comments against participating or legitimizing it will be flagged here on HN. The thing that people should understand is that wars are strategic. Any moral justification is just propaganda. The paradigm is "might makes right" and has been for millennia. The American Empire is a great example, and the Chinese Empire that comes after it will be the same. But that will be even shorter-lived than the Americans because AI will probably take control soon after. On a large scale, humanity operates at a moral level similar to that of ant colonies.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
boomskats 4y ago
I'm sorry, could you please repost your argument in the form of TikTok, or one of those Youtube short videos? I really struggled to remember any context past those big words in that second sentence. Ooh look! A squirrel! <scrolls>
fullsend 4y ago
The Chinese Empire is a fantasy. China will remain a great factory and little else. Everything there is still done using personal connections (eg. corruption). The basis of a globe spanning empire this system is not. When all your growth is due to external investment, external contracts, and external culture/politics, you can’t become the center.
- ilaksh 4y ago
  Those common criticisms of their political system are valid, and certainly in some ways the west is more advanced. But realistically western political systems have their own severe (but different) problems, and the Chinese systems have their own advantages. As I said, the bottom line for the world order seems to be deployment of force. Right now the most relevant force paradigms as far as I can tell are mass information control and bio-warfare (nuclear has largely been tabled.) The authoritarianism has given China an advantage in terms of controlling information and infection and that has been strongly proven out.

aizyuval 4y ago

War is the worst, and yet it serms to be so common and often “The only choice” (allegedly. As it was in WW1). It’s a viscous cycle. It sucks.

lostlogin 4y ago
It is thick, but wilfully. I think you (or autocorrect) mean vicious.
gpm 4y ago
I think it's quite rare that war is the only viable choice for both sides, but probably reasonably frequently the case that war is the only viable choice for one side. Sort of like how many crimes require both a victim and a perpetrator, but only one side is making the choice. It's also the case that in many modern wars both sides will claim to be the side with no choice though. Also that having entered a war by choice doesn't necessarily imply that it's still possible to exit the war by choice.
- aizyuval 4y ago
  Interesting. Though, I meant that it always seems like the only choice which makes it viable.
- concordDance 4y ago
  > but probably reasonably frequently the case that war is the only viable choice for one side I think this is untrue... unless your invaders are the assyrians, surrender and losing the war isn't really that bad. Even the Mongols would just collect some extra taxes.
nicbou 4y ago
It's not just the only choice, but a phenomenon that eventually gets a mind of its own. There is a point in almost every war where both sides regret the escalation, but are powerless to stop the war as the time tables have been set, the troops mobilised, the ultimatums issued. And the belligerents, deeply invested in the outcome, cannot stop the war before the cataclysmic defeat of one side. The inevitability of war beyond a certain point is a terrifying prospect.

photochemsyn 4y ago

There's a huge taboo in the United States against explicitly pointing out the economic agendas behind foreign wars. You can go up on a soapbox and talk about 'humanitarian concerns and defending democracy abroad' (typical neoliberal-Democratic drivel) or 'patriotism, national security and fighting terror' (typical neocon-Republican drivel), but noting that war is a huge profit center for various interests, that's not really allowed. For example, the Iraq War really was related to oil - Saddam had no WMDs, no ties with Al Qaeda, but he was moving his oil money out of the petrodollar recycling system, which was a huge threat to global dollar hegemony and the balance-of-payements issue (see capital accounts vs. current accounts). Plus, it was a huge cash cow for government contracts and the military procurement system, which always gets hungry during peacetime. GW Bush and the neocons of course sold this in their preferred manner. The same thing happened with Libya and Syria, only now it was the other set of talking points - although again, Qaddafi was promoting pan-African unity, an alternative currency, independence from Europe and the USA on oil sales, closer ties to Russia and China, etc. Assad backed out of a Saudi-USA-Israeli pipeline deal in 2009 and went for the Russia-Iran pipeline instead (plus lots of electricity integration with Iran), so Obama signed off on the CIA overthrow/regime change directive. If you want more strong evidence that their 'humanitarian democractic' rhetoric was nonsense, look at how they treated the pro-democracy protests in Bahrain (crushed by Saudi tanks) or the Saudi assault on Yemen. It's all pretty farcical. Just admit that maintaining a global financial empire is pretty difficult without engaging in covert regime change and military dominance, already. Stop pretending it's about self-defense or good works - I mean Ukraine is all about control of natural gas sales to Europe, plus another multi-billion injection into the domestic weapons manufacturing complex.

lr4444lr 4y ago
A taboo? Maybe I was (un?)fortunate to be on a college campus during the launch of the second Iraq War, but the "war for oil" commonplace was the dominant narrative. Anyone offering an alternative hypothesis besides that, or GW Bush finishing his father's legacy from 1991 was practically laughed at.
- satellites 4y ago

dontbenebby 4y ago

The thing that amuses to me is a lot of the laws and rhetoric around these matters presume a draft. But we haven't had that for years. Instead, you had folks who signed up for the national guard thinking they'd just screw around with fancy guns in the woods 2 weeks a year absolutely apoplectic they might actually be put in harm's way. I remember still being a teenager in Appalachia and being made to feel like you're a hair shy of an agent of foreign power if you suggested the best way to "support the troops" was to say no illegal wars of aggression that put them in harm's way instead of slap a yellow ribbon magnet your car and say let's bomb Iran too. You haven't truly lived until you tell some aggressive moron wh very purposefully signed up for the infantry because they wanted to kill people of color in an illegal oil war that you don't give a single solitary fuck what they think, you don't thank them for their so called service and that many Marines died at Okinawa died for your right to say that, and that if they don't get their hands out of their pockets and step back you're going to invoke stand your ground and call their wing commander or whoever the fuck is in charge of them to collect the body. (Many, many folks sing a song about the constitution but break down when you use it for anything other than greasing the wheels of the military industrial complex, and it's DIGUSTING.)

nopenopenopeno 4y ago

I keep a portrait of the great Eugene Debs on my mantle for the purpose of encouraging people to ask me about him. :)

xmonkee 4y ago
o7

turpialito 4y ago

What a tool.

europeanguy 4y ago

As a coincidence, I read this person's and some of his "comrades" wikipedia pages. The impression I got at the time was that being a communist was what sent him to prison.

commandlinefan 4y ago
And ironically, the biggest supporters of censorship and the biggest opponents of the first amendment now are the communists themselves.
- abvdasker 4y ago
  Can you point to a well known communist today who opposes freedom of speech?
  - alvarezbjm-hn 4y ago
    Russian, Cuban, Venezuelan, etc governments. I know your reply will be along the lines "But those aren't communists" Truth be told, there never was any communist.
    - mardifoufs 4y ago
      The current government in russia is absolutely not communist. They don't claim to be, and no one else does. Russia might be a continuation of the USSR but that's where the link to communism stops honestly.
      - narag 4y ago
        It doesn't stops there: their allies are communist: China, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. Also the communist parties everywhere support them in their war against Ukraine. I guess it all depends on you considering communism an ideology or just a faction.

EGreg 4y ago

Libertarians and Anarchists used to be Socialists in the 19th and early 20th century. Everyone from Kropotkin and Bakunin to Oscar Wilde. And likewise, socialists like Eugene Debbs had correctly pointed out that the governments and political class send you to war while they themselves don’t go. Many socialists said the same thing during WW1. Why should the working class people fight each other? Turn the guns on your masters etc. Would be nice to post links here to European versions of this. Today’s libertarians view modern wars with the same skepticism. Are they really necessary, and if so, can our governments have a referendum by their people before starting one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_Man_Under_Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_Man_Under_Socialis...