Today’s readings reminded me of two recurring themes in this class. The first, that those who want a war typically have those less fortunate actually fight the war for them. We are often told that it was courageous, brave, strong spirited Americans that stood up to fight in WW1. While without a doubt, there was a huge portion of these types of individuals do so, we get a different point of view in Zinn’s reading for today. He highlights the fact that some Americans were deathly afraid of fighting in the war, even going to the extent of mutilating themselves so they were unable to be drafted. Along with this, there was a common theme of conflict of interest. Jeannette Rankin, member of the house of representatives, is quoted as saying “I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for the war” (Zinn p 372). It is this difficulty that led so many Americans to struggle with going to fight for their country. In a land of freedom, Zinn did not make it seem like Americans had much of choice in terms of their personal decision to fight in the war.<\/p>\n
The second theme I noticed in this reading is the theme that we often unite ourselves by finding a common enemy to direct our attention towards. Zinn quotes Joseph Tumulty, Wilson’s advisor, as saying “the conflict between Republicans and Democrats was unimportant compared with that which threatened them both.” (Zinn p. 375). Another example of this can be found on page 363 where Zinn refers to thoughts from DuBois as he says “American capitalism needed international rivalry- and period war- to create an artificial community of interest between rich and poor, supplanting the genuine community of interest among the poor that showed itself in sporadic movements” (Zinn p. 363). Zinn argues here that in order to suppress the poor, who may have different opinions and goals of the wealthy elite, American wanted to find a common enemy to direct its energy towards, that will distract the poor with fighting the war, and give credibility and authority back to the officials in power at the time. This was the best alternative to dealing with these uproars from the lower and sometimes middle class, as opposed to having the disagreements and opposition arising domestically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today’s readings reminded me of two recurring themes in this class. The first, that those who want a war typically have those less fortunate actually…<\/p>\n