Leadership and the Humanities Class Blog Posts

One thing that struck me as a particularly concerning similarity between the outbreak of COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu is the way that misinformation spreads faster than science can keep up with. It seems that by nature, science and responsible scientific discoveries lag behind the demand for information in a pandemic-type crisis. Similar to a sort of power vacuum, a vacuum to fill public discourse with information leaves open a huge possibility for dangerous disinformation. 

Misinformation can and did come from non-scientific sources, but in both the Spanish Flu and COVID During the Spanish flu, incidents of scientific leaders disseminating rushed information caused massive problems that may have led to avoidable deaths. During the Spanish Flu pandemic, many doctors over-prescribed aspirin, which led to spikes of poisonings across the world. Many people ran with the idea of aspirin treatments, taking lethal doses in response to a panic brought on by the pandemic. In the beginning of COVID-19, the World Health Organization had a more conservative approach to the general public wearing masks, advising that there did not yet exist sufficient evidence to support the benefits. That position quickly changed, but the debate of masks has already progressed to the point where it was no longer a societal given. The public responded as societal movements typically do, riddled with panic and division that the scientific community then had to grapple with and change their stances on with greater public health in mind. 

It is natural for scientific processes to be consolidated into shorter timelines in crises like pandemics. Spikes in death rates demand a faster response, this is not surprising nor is it an illegitimate response. However, I think that we as members of society have a duty to exert a certain amount of patience (and caution) with scientific organizations, so as not to pressure leaders into rushed announcements. While some misinformation absolutely has malintentions, other incidents can be caused by the lag between what guidance the general public needs to hear and what scientists are ready to disseminate to larger portions of society.

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I am incredibly concerned about the fact that our country is not learning from history and repeating mistakes from pandemics in the past. I am particularly concerned that the Covid-19 pandemic has so many parallels to the Spanish Flu that occurred in 1918. Our president, Donald Trump has made a fool of our country. In Trevor Noah’s video, we are shown clips of him making fun of the corona virus constantly and disregarding the hundreds of thousands of deaths in America that have stemmed from the virus. Trump is compared to President Woodrow Wilson in the video because he  is making many of the same mistakes Wilson did while he was president during the Spanish Flu. 

It is incredibly embarrassing that over 100 years later our world is using the same failed technologies that it did in the nineteenth century to fight a deadly flu. You would think that we would have had many more advancements since then. Another cause of concern I have from these sources is that the message of how deadly the virus is, is not conveyed. Our president has downplayed the severity of the virus which has resulted in many people becoming more relaxed with social distancing and mask wearing. Not wearing a mask and distancing yourself from others will certainly bring your chances of exposure to the virus substantially higher. Overall, this video really opened my eyes to how concerning the parallels are between the spanish flu and covid-19 and that we are not learning from our past mistakes to make for a safer and healthier world.

 

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In grade school, I was always told that the reason we took history class was so that we could learn the patterns, and acknowledge our mistakes so that we don’t repeat them. I know for a fact that we studied Spanish influenza, but apparently,  the federal government did not study it, as we are making all the same mistakes that the federal government did in 1918.

Spanish influenza spread very similarly to COVID19, and the way the United States handled them is disturbingly similar. In both cases the president, Woodrow Wilson, and Donald Trump did not validate the severity of the disease when it started, even after seeing the tolls, it took on other countries. The medical professionals advised wearing masks, but in 1918 and 2020, people still refuse to wear their masks, which prolongs the pandemics and allows more casualties. In the video, Trevor Noah says that wearing masks is what eventually got the pandemic to end yet knowing that people still wouldn’t wear masks. Will we will able to learn from our mistakes, or continue this pattern? If we can let mistakes with pandemics be repeated, what’s to stop the same thing from happening with wars or other dangerous things?

Another scary thing I learned is the effects that misinformation during a pandemic can have. Beyond believing the misinformation that the presidents spoke, that snake oil and injecting yourself with disinfectants will kill the disease, nationalities were targeted. After the great war, when Spanish influenza broke out, people blamed the Germans. When COVID breaking out, people are looking towards the Chinese, as China is where the outbreak started. Although something may have originated in a place, it is dangerous to blame a country or a people, because this is how implicit prejudice gets ingrained into society. In today’s society is it possible to acknowledge the history, and where the disease originated, without creating divisions in society?

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Trevor Noah’s video about the coronavirus pandemic and introduced some really daunting parallels between government response to the Spanish Flu and Covid-19. One similarity that I found very interesting was Wilson’s and Trump’s respective downplaying of the severity of the given pandemic. What I don’t quite understand about this is that while Wilson had a pretty firm political motivation for this (i.e. maintaining support for WW1,) Donald Trump’s passive response to the coronavirus pandemic has seemed to have more abstract motives, expressing primarily that he didn’t want to cause a panic. Clips from historical documentaries that Trevor Noah included in his video described somewhat similar reasoning from President Wilson, and this leads me to the question as to what genuine harm comes from panic in response to a genuinely grave global situation. Why do certain government officials express more fear toward the idea of panic than toward its cause, especially when as justifiable as in the case of a pandemic? Perhaps the idea is that fear threatens national morale, but is this worth upholding at the expense of human lives?

I was also interested in Trevor’s precautionary reference to instances of U.S. public reopenings as Spanish Flu cases became less prevalent. If certain cities held public events and caused a second wave when cases were almost down to zero, how can we be sure when it’s safe to fully reopen? I think the lesson to be learned here is that the transition until pre-corona life should be as gradual and methodical as possible, so it’s important to emphasize that with every milestone of successful pandemic response, we should still be careful. On another note, I was surprised to learn that certain cities issued fines for citizens who went into public areas without wearing masks. I think that this could be a really effective incentive to follow mask mandates, but I don’t believe this would be enforced in many U.S. communities today. If it could be, how might citizens respond?

With the significant advances in medical technology over the past century, it’s fascinating to see the direct parallels in the United States’ response to these two pandemics. Considering the pressure of the Sedition Act on early 20th century Americans in remaining passive about the Spanish Flu and the continual sentiment among certain Americans that mask mandates are an infringement upon civil liberties, how significant of a role has the extreme promotion of patriotism and its associated ideals played in the United States’ difficulties in responding to this pandemic?

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This is the second time I have had to complete a reading or watch a video regarding the similarities of the COVID-19 pandemic with the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. When the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the generations who survived the coronavirus will all agree that no matter where you were in the world, COVID-19 symbols were everywhere- from seeing people sport trendy face masks to signing compact agreements that legally bound you to abide by social distancing protocols to even hearing the word “corona” come up in every conversation you overhear. COVID-19 has managed to pervade all of our lives in an instant. As winter approaches, I am a bit anxious about our future. Both the Spanish flu article and the YouTube video pointed out that there was a second outbreak of the Spanish flu in America because some cities and states went back to “normal” too soon. While many cities and states have limited their business operations, I still wonder if our next COVID-19 outbreak will be because of other safety precautions besides people wearing their masks. For instance, if many people do not get their flu shot this season, could this possibly increase the entire population’s risk of being affected by COVID-19?

Aside from this, Trevor Noah and Dr. Bezio’s podcast highlighted the Lesson of 1918, which has evidence to prove how bringing crowds of people back too soon will increase the chances of the virus resurfacing again. Trevor Noah goes on to say that the mismanagement of the U.S. federal government is what has already caused the COVID-19 pandemic to claim the lives of thousands of more people that could have been avoided if proper leadership was in place. This fact should not be surprising because history shows us that the same cause-effect relationship was present during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Also, Trevor Noah points out that the general distrust of leadership has caused many Americans to not follow social distancing guidelines seriously. If all of this is true, how can we, as a collective society, collaborate across differences and distance to achieve the same common goal: find a cure for the COVID-19 virus so that we can start rebuilding what was once “normal” in our daily lives?

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As detailed by the article along with the video, the Covid-19 pandemic is similarly grasping the world as the Spanish Flu did. Clearly, both diseases were deadly and harmful to society; but, after utilizing today’s material along with further articles and research that I looked into, the situations were quite different. Primarily, the ability to convey mass messages and protective media was incredibly different in the 1918’s than it is today. Back then, it makes sense that the Flu was incredibly harmful and deadly as spreading safety measures and precautions were incrementally more difficult than it is today. However, with the use and access to mass media today, the spread of knowledge, data, and correct/unpoliticized news should be seamless, and the safety and health of people should be much more attainable amidst a global epidemic.

While the video displayed an immense amount of political bias, I believe that the message it was trying to convey was correct. I find it difficult to seriously listen to and learn from things that are used as political propaganda because they typically aren’t credible sources. The video we watched focused more on bashing Donald Trump that it did discuss the similarities between the Spanish Flu and the Covid-19 pandemic, which I find problematic but that is beside the point. The emphasis of the video linked Trump to Wilson and clarified how his poor management of the pandemic has allowed it to spread to the point that it is now. The video referenced neglect of science, fact, and willingness of Trump to acknowledge the pandemic for what it truly is, which is understandable. With access to billions of people, the pandemic should not have gotten to the point it is and the use of media should have been more effectively managed to cultivate a safe and justified response to the pandemic. While that didn’t happen, hopefully, the future will learn from our 21st-century mistakes and utilize the tools they have to dismantle a pandemic; something that the world failed to do throughout 2020.

To connect this to me personally, I am shocked at the lack of comparison in the media between Covid-19 and the Spanish Flu. The words Spanish flu trigger a reaction in the minds of many that imitates fear due to the teachings of the Spanish flu in schooling and through discussion and self-search. The Spanish flu is a big name event that is recognized worldwide as a deadly pandemic that the world never wants to see again. The Covid-19 outbreak has panned out to exhibit similar traits to the Spanish Flu, so I am concerned as to why the media has not compared the two and utilized the fear factor to normalize everyday life again. If the media had demonstrated the true similarities between the two viruses, i believe that people would have taken COVID more seriously, so I am disappointed in the media and the government for not illustrating that comparison for the well being of society,

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After reading the “Spanish Flu” by History.com article and watching the “COVID-19 vs. Spanish Flu – If You Don’t Know, Now You Know” video by Trevor Noah, I was shocked to learn of the tremendous similarities between COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu. Furthermore, I was even more surprised that I was never previously aware of these numerous similarities between COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu. Similarly to my peers, when COVID-19 escalated into a global pandemic and catalyzed the shutdown of the United States in March, I was in complete awe that the United States could ever shut down to the extent that it did. Yet, I was entirely oblivious to the fact that the United States experienced an extremely similar chain of events in 1918 due to the Spanish Flu. For example, The History.com article points out that in the United States “hospitals in some areas were so overloaded with the [Spanish] flu patients that schools, private homes and other buildings had to be converted into makeshift hospitals, some of which staffed by medical students.” Furthermore, Trevor Noah acknowledges the fact that during the Spanish Flu, “thousands protested mandatory masking measures.” I am very fascinated that history within the United States is practically repeating itself as approximately a century following the Spanish Flu, COVID-19 has caused people of the United States to act in a very similar manner and experience the same ramifications as the Spanish Flu. 

Furthermore, I am surprised that the media has not greatly emphasized the comparability of the Spanish Flu and the COVID-19 pandemics as many Americans could be ignoring social distancing and quarantine rules because they feel that the government has no concrete evidence for their decisions to mandate masks or order shutdowns of public places. However, in reality, the trends of the Spanish flu mirror the COVID-19 pandemic thus far in many ways.

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What I found so interesting reading this article and watching the video is that I’ve learned about World War 1 numerous times but have never learned about the role the Spanish influenza played in it. I did not know that many of our deaths towards the end of the war were due to the rapid spread of the disease rather than battlefield casualties. I am left pondering who this part of the narrative seems to be left out. It makes sense that they wouldn’t advertise it during the war because it would lower moral but why did my history classes leave it out?

Another thing I found kind of funny when watching the video was the point Trevor Noah made when he said that we really haven’t come that far. We still don’t have many solutions to slow the spread of disease other than wear a mask and to stay away from infected people. We have come far in the sense that we know more of what causes these diseases and the many ways they spread but have not improved the solutions to these problems. Additionally, we make the same mistakes like as soon as restrictions are lifted we all immediately flood the streets, we don’t have parades like they used to but the spike of people going out is the same.

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After watching the video and reading about the Spanish Flu and Covid-19, I found it extremely interesting the similarities between these two pandemics. I expect COVID-19 to be more controlled due to the similarities and lessons learned from the Spanish Flu. The Spanish Flu infected 500 million people and killed around 20-50 million people worldwide. The first wave of the Spanish Flu had mild symptoms but the second wave was much more deadly. This is frightening because this could easily happen with COVID-19. It is known that history seems to repeat itself I hope that the second wave of this virus won’t be as deadly as the Spanish Flu. In the article called “Spanish Flu,” it is written that “Citizens were ordered to wear masks, schools, theaters, and businesses were shuttered.” This proves the parallel between the Spanish Flu and COVID-19. The government during the Spanish Flu and COVID-19 seemed to deal with the pandemic in similar ways. Wilson and Trump both underplayed the virus which made the spread in the United States to be even more rapid and detrimental to society and the health of the people. Both presidents were more interested in economic interests. 

The Spanish Flu and COVID-19 have an unbelievable amount of similarities. The technological advancements in the world today make it surprising to see how many similarities there are between the two pandemics. We would expect that the lessons learned about the Spanish Flu would give the world an idea of how to deal with and contain the virus. The medical advancements and research completed in the past 100 years make it surprising how the world does not know how to contain a pandemic. I hope within next year the world can make a vaccine and prevent the virus from killing even more millions of people.

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Similarly to my classmates, after the video and reading, I was taken aback by the comparisons to the Spanish Flu of 1918 and Covid-19 of 2020, in the viruses themselves as well as the world’s responses to them. I don’t remember learning very much about the Spanish Flu in past history classes, or maybe I did and just didn’t find it as interesting because I couldn’t relate to the concept until now. It is crazy to think about this fact, that reading about the Spanish flu at this time last year I could never imagine the whole country shutting down, social distancing, and wearing masks 24/7- yet that has become our reality today and now I don’t think twice about it.

I found many facts about the Spanish flu from the reading specifically fascinating, such as that it was named the Spanish flu because Spain was one of the only areas that covered the outbreak through media. This shows how influential media was at the time, which is another comparison to Covid, as the media is where we are learning most of our information, which is usually misinformation therefore causing more panic and harm than good. I found another concept peculiar- the fact that the Spanish flu did have a large effect on healthy young people such as soldiers, with more soldiers dying from the virus than in the war. This is interesting because Covid seems to be severely effecting a mostly older, more immune compromised population.

All in all, after learning more about the Spanish flu, I definitely feel extremely uneasy and anxious about the future of the Covid pandemic. It is clear that the United States has trouble learning from history and avoiding the potential to repeat past mistakes. I am not sure what 2021 is going to look like, but I just hope our country can pull it together and it looks better than this.

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I found both the reading from the History Channel on the Spanish Flu of 1918 to be very interesting. More specifically, I thought that it was interesting how we use the same methods to deter that virus as we did and are still doing with the Covid-19 virus. I find it weird that over 100 years have passed since the Spanish Flu yet we are still using the same methods of deterring the virus: wearing masks, quarantining, limiting the number of people we see, keeping some businesses closed, and more. I’m surprised that there haven’t been more technological advancements in that 100 year time period that could further assist us in helping to get rid of the virus. In addition to that, I found it horrifying that over 1/3 of the global population died from the Spanish Flu. On another note, as I read I wondered about how the flu had an impact on European reconstruction after the First World War. Due to the number of people who died and the quarantining that was done, there must have been a large lag where nothing was truly being done. The article left me wondering many things… After the First World War had ended and the Spanish Flu begun, did the United States continue to bring soldiers home from being abroad or did they slow down the return of soldiers to limit the chance that the flu would be brought to the United States? Also, did the United States halt foreign interactions such as trade during this time?

 

After watching Trevor Noah’s video on the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the Covid-19 Pandemic that we are living through today, I found the similarities between presidents to be very interesting and honestly weird. Woodrow Wilson, the president during World War I and the Spanish Flu, played the Spanish Flu off as if it were some small illness that wasn’t going to affect him. In addition to that, President Wilson censored the media in hopes that the American population and community would not freak out from the virus. When we look at today’s Covid-19 Pandemic, we also see that Trump has downplayed the virus like former President Wilson. Something that I just looked up was that Woodrow Wilson was infected with the Spanish Flu, similarly to how President Trump recently tested positive for Covis-19. Overall, I found the article and the video to be very interesting because they both allowed me to understand a more in-depth comparison of the Spanish Flu and Covid-19.

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After watching COVID-19 vs. Spanish Flu and reading about the effect the Spanish Flu had on not only the United States but the rest of the world, I was taken aback by the similarities of the two situations. One of the main things that bothered me was the fact that it has been over 100 years since the last global pandemic of this same magnitude, yet we still use the same equipment and techniques to fight against it. I would have thought that after the millions of people that died and over a half a million that died in the US alone, everyone would be invested in finding techniques and new innovations to completely stop or at a minimum minimize, the amount of damage that could be caused by another pandemic.

I also found it interesting how the second wave of the Spanish Flu was even more dangerous than the first, at least here in the US. With that being said, the decision to reopen businesses and start to go back to normal life here in 2020 should definitely be in question. You would have thought after seeing the damage a second wave caused in 1918 would cause lawmakers to be a little more hesitant about making the decision to reopen.

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The video, “COVID-19 vs. Spanish Flu – If You Don’t Know, Now You Know”, is a prime example of the idea that learning from history is necessary. In the introduction of the segment it is stated that “hardly anyone alive has seen a pandemic like this before”, and this is the reason why the world is struggling with it so much. With what we have seen from the reaction to COVID-19 by Americans, it seems like this is the first pandemic to have ever existed. There are shocking similarities in how the nation reacted (and is reacting) to COVID-19. For example, the federal government downplaying it. Woodrow Wilson downplayed the Spanish Flu, and in a striking similar fashion Donald Trump has/is downplaying COVID-19. This was done in order to not cause citizens to be alarmed, however in both cases it did more harm than good. One would think that the response to COVID-19 would be better than a pandemic over 100 years ago, however it seems that history was not looked back upon. Everyone knows that you are supposed to learn from history, especially the mistakes in history. Trevor Noah states, “so far America has made all the same mistakes with Corona that it did with the Spanish Flu”. Americans need to figure out how to learn from history, and fast, otherwise we are bound to fall into the trap of continuing to repeat the worst part of history–– the second wave. COVID-19 is on track to model all that happened during the Spanish Flu, and if we don’t make changes to our response, the worst is yet to come. 

It is up to the federal government, especially the President, to make these changes (quickly) because, “it is not too late to learn from history” (Noah). Right now, and going forward, what the United States needs is a leader who is going to take his job seriously, especially when it comes to the lives of thousands of Americans. The biggest problem the United States faces is that there are citizens who “don’t believe in the virus” and this idea was ignited by the President denying its severity and not doing all he could do to inform the citizens of how to act in response to it. We are where we are today because of the mistakes made at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and if things don’t change quickly, it doesn’t look likely that we will get out of it anytime soon.

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In the article “Spanish Flu”, we learned the origins and the history behind the deadly 1918 pandemic. The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic infected 500 million people worldwide. The pandemic killed 20-50 million people worldwide. Citizens of the time were “ordered to wear masks, schools, theaters and businesses were shuttered and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues before the virus ended it’s deadly global march”. The first wave of the spanish flu was generally mild. Individuals who were infected experienced mild flu symptoms. However, the second wave appeared again within the same year. Individuals who were infected during this time usually died within hours or days of developing symptoms. All in all, around 3 percent of the world population died from this pandemic. Not only did the Spanish Flu wipe out entire families, but also took a heavy toll on society. The funeral parlors were overwhelmed, people had to dig their own graves for family members, the economy was negatively impacted, and there were not enough farmers to harvest crops. 

Different cities tried to stop the Spanish Flu by utilizing different tactics. New York City tried to slow the transmission of the flu by implementing shifts on the subways. Missouri closed schools and movie theaters as well as public gatherings. San Francisco residents were fined $5 if they were caught without wearing a mask. Whereas, Philadelphia claimed that the Spanish Flu was a “normal flu”. 

Fast forward to 2020 and we are once again facing a global pandemic. Sadly, we have yet to learn from our mistakes of 1918. We were too slow to respond to Covid due to the mismanagement of our government. Our lack of leadership led to misinformation regarding dangerous cures. In addition, our lack of trust made it harder for the right treatments to be spread. Covid continues to spread across the world and infect millions of people. At the rate at which we are progressing, I question if Covid will have a second wave like the Spanish Flu did. If we don’t act quickly and follow the rules recommended to us, our future as we know it could be extremely deadly. 

 

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I’ve learned that the closest thing to the Coronavirus outbreak was the outbreak of Influenza A in 1918, but I didn’t realize how similar the timeline of events matched our last few months of quarantine. Just about everything that Trump and the United States government did wrong, were the same mistakes that were made in 1918. There are parallels between Trump and Woodrow Wilson, who both ignored and underplayed the severity of the virus. In both cases, it only left the country in worse hands than if we had taken the necessary precautions in the first place. What really surprised me were the similarities of how things started opening up again. I obviously knew that researchers and scientists were making these suggestions based on what they knew, but I didn’t know that it was also because they saw the exact thing happen before. The fact that in 1918, people started opening up too early and then there was a second wave, but we still decided to do the same exact thing 100 years later, completely shocks me. In his video, Trevor Noah says that the “un-American thing” to do is not learn from our history. We’ve been learning about many problems in years past that are present now, but this is concrete proof that we are all too good at repeating history and our mistakes. How is it that so much time has changed, and almost everything around us has improved, but yet we are still no better than we were 100 years ago?

The biggest thing I pulled from the video was Trevor Noah’s point about the lack of trust in leadership. This is a bigger problem that only seems to be getting worse and worse, especially in our current state. The problem is, our leaders, Trump specifically, tell us to ignore the Coronavirus for months. This only made the problems for us even worse causing us to go into quarantine. Our leaders are supposed to be helping and protecting the people but during that time, that was the last thing they did for the people who needed government assistance. People were left without pay and life essentials such as food and other basic necessities. Thes problems went on for months and are still going on. Then there are the many events of injustice that have occurred over the past few months that went ignored by the same systems that are supposed to correct these problems. I think there has always been a certain level of distrust with the government by the people, but throughout 2020, the government made it so much worse for themselves by messing up in every way that they could. This is a bigger issue that needs to be addressed but I wouldn’t even know where to start. The people don’t trust the government to do what it is supposed to do, and the government hasn’t been doing it’s job effectively, so how does this problem get fixed? Is there a way to rebuild the trust the people should have for the government?

The last thing I want to mention was something that was said at the end of the video which was that it is too late to stop us from getting to the point that we are at because what has happened has happened, even though it could have been avoided. However, it is never too late to learn from history. I think we need to take more seriously the value of learning our past. Being knowledgeable about history is only beneficial if that knowledge is applied for the greater good.

 

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After reading “War is the Heath of the State”, one can see that it is clear that the United States government did not care about its own people but rather the economy. Although the US claimed that they would stay neutral at first, president Willson declared war when the Germans said that they would attack the ships that brought supplies to their enemies. Zinn discusses that this was just an excuse to get America to be involved in the war. The purpose is obvious; Zinn mentioned that “Hofstadter wrote of “economic necessities” behind Wilson’s war policy”, and explains that the country was going through a period of hard times when business was depressed, unemployments was a big issue, farm prices were low..etc and allying with other countries like England helped the economy. Thus, one can see that the purpose of this war was to benefit the economy and for the government to serve itself while putting its people at risk, as the socialist party said that the declaration of the war was “a crime against the people of the United States”.

The purpose of the war was capitalistic, as the rich elites had influenced the decision of the US to join the war. Socialism at that time had made a remarkable gain and became instantly popular as it advocated against war with its views criticizing the government for placing the economy before the people. Zinn mentioned that a newspaper wrote, “probably no party ever gained more rapidly in strength than the Socialist party just at the present time”. Besides, the government has restricted citizens from presenting their opinion if it goes against the war, taking away their right to freedom of speech. “The Espionage Act was used to imprison Americans who spoke or wrote against the war”. Again, we see how the American capitalist government has put the life of poor people at risk only for speaking against the first world war in order to benefit itself and the economy; this further proves that the American society would not survive without classism.

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Zinn does a good job explaining the interest levels of World War 1, which is something that never got explained to me. I knew that the Woodrow Wilson stated at the beginning of the war that the United States would stay neutral; however, once Germans attacked the US ships, the United States entered the war. I thought that once this happened that the people of the United States would come together and mostly be on the side of fighting. Zinn makes it clear that the war was actually not popular with most of the people in the United States and that most people did not volunteer to join the military. This war was needed on both an economic standpoint and a unity standpoint, which both did not fully go the way it was supposed to.

In the Crash Course video, John Green talks about how World War 1 is one of the most interesting topics to talk about. He goes on and talks about who is to blame for the war. Green states that “The German character isn’t to blame for WW1 and in fact, no national character has ever been to blame for any war.” I thought this was interesting since when learning about wars, blaming the aggressors is normally how I was taught it but apparently that is not always the case.

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I find it interesting how Zinn is almost always defiant towards the stances of the government.  And, a lot of it is with credence, Zin realized that the government uses war in order to serve its own needs.  As, “War is the health of the state”  While its own citizens are dying in a war between almost all nations their governments are thriving.  In America Zinn claims that we didn’t go to war out of a need to protect our citizens but because of, “The balance of power and economic necessities.”  Further, “But by 1915, war orders for the Allies (mostly England) had stimulated the economy, and by April 1917 more than $2 billion worth of goods had been sold to the Allies. As Hofstadter says: ‘America became bound up with the Allies in a fateful union of war and prosperity.’”  So, Wilson entered the war out of spite, and because of economic interests.  And, while the US was ultimately successful I think we all agree it’s not worth it for 116 thousand Americans to die out of economic interests.  

Zinn takes the stance of popular resistance like many socialists during this time.  And, Zinn realizes that the war was massively popular during this time.  Mostly because of the booming economy, which is basically the reason why we entered the war.  But, Zinn claims this is mainly because of government propaganda.  Writing, “The government had to work hard to create its consensus. That there was no spontaneous urge to fight is suggested by the strong measures taken: a draft of young men, an elaborate propaganda campaign throughout the country, and harsh punishment for those who refused to get in line.”  Wilson realized that if the war was unpopular they would be largely unsuccessful, as public opinion is everything in a democracy. 

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As the Crash Course video heavily argued, it is impossible to place the full blame on any one country. A Serbian shot Archduke Frans Ferdinand, but Austria-Hungary was the one to declare war on Serbia, but Germany gave Austria-Hungary a blank check, declared war on Russia and moved through Belgium (which brought Britain into the war), but Russia was the first to mobilize. The US was initially neutral, which is wildly uncharacteristic if you consider America’s global position later in the twentieth century. 

I don’t think that you can really blame anyone for World War I. The countries of Europe were itching to show off their military, form alliances, practice imperialism and boost nationalism. Apparently a war was the best way to do this. One of the most surprising things was how little the United States wanted to do with it at first. 

Zinn describes how President Woodrow Wilson had promised that the U.S. would stay neutral.  This changed when Germans sunk the Lusitania, which killed Americans, effectively bringing the U.S. into the war (even if the economics were more attractive than avenging the dead Americans). The war was not extraordinarily popular in the United States. W. E. B. Du Bois thought that America was exploiting the world. Most citizens were against the war as well, which prompted the U.S. to pass the Espionage Act (punishing anti-war speech), which more or less stepped on the First Amendment, despite arguments saying that it didn’t. 

The world was a mess when the war ended in November of 1918. The U.S. was no exception. Anti-Immigration sentiment was growing even more. A bomb set off in front of the Attorney General’s home only made matters worse, and prompted the government to deport immigrants that were for property destruction. Two Italian immigrants (Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti) were charged for a murder and executed, with their background (immigrants) leading to their accusation. The war may have helped the economy, but it did not help society.

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When reading about America’s connection around the world a couple things stuck out to me. When thinking about countries inability to function within isolationism ideals a couple things struck me. I initially thought that the struggle to be a self sustaining nation was something that was understandable for small countries that might not have developed a strong and highly functioning system of trade within their country. Or maybe depending on their geographical location production of essential goods might not have even possible. When thinking about the United States however, I just assumed we of all countries could most certainly live self sustainably. What I learned is that for first world, major world powers like America, isolationism is nearly impossible. I think for a place like the US, there are a great deal of countries that rely on trade for their economy to flourish. America itself even relies heavily on countries like China for the production of the majority of goods sold in the United States.

Zinn breaks down the false sense of unity within the global power that is the United States. The ability to aid countries around the world should in fact bring the country together, but in reality it tears the country apart. Due to the United States constant role in foreign affairs I believe it has lost sight of some of the issues that Americans face at home and within communities. I believe in the majority of the work that the US does outside of the country, but I believe that we must first formulate plans and have conversations as to how we can help improve our own affairs while still being able to provide for nations outside of the US. I think it all comes down to balance, and the United States hasn’t quite figured out the perfect combination of both foreign and domestic affairs just yet. Someday I am hopeful that we will.

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