There
was an unexpected bonus. The lavishly descriptive historic document,
describing the scientific and social upheaval which surrounded the
global 1917-18 influenza mega-event, also exposed the political scandal of the
Democrats’ challenge to U.S. Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy (R-WI) –
one Woodrow Wilson, president of the United States.
What a
joy it was to read the insane (read “insane”) demagoguery of this
strange, callous Wilson, whose misadventures into censorship,
fanaticism, domestic spying, scandal-mongering, and intimidation of
American citizens, are enough to absolve the patriotic Joseph McCarthy
of his so-called “excesses” (so-called by Democrats of the liberal
persuasion) in flushing out communists and pseudo-communists during the
1940s to 1950s.
All of
those accused of selling out America during the McCarthyite “witch
hunts” were, needless to say, not Communists. But, for me, just lighting
a fire on the tail feathers of U.S. intellectuals, Hollywood cynics,
left-wing radicals, and Communist sympathizers of the time, was
cathartic, rewarding, satisfying.
I don’t
hate Joseph McCarthy. I never did. While he might have thrown a few wild
pitches, he also threw a hell of a lot of strikes, and for that I give
him a whole chorus of atta-boys.
What I did hate, and do yet, is treacherous, lying, deceitful, America-hating God-awful communism
– scourge of freedom everywhere, and murderer of the masses in the
millions. The only things that stopped its excesses at our shores were
the so-called “excesses” of patriots like Joe McCarthy. And there were
none like him. He did noble work, despite his vociferous detractors.
Senator
McCarthy had a lot going against him before he even launched his bid to
thwart communist leanings in the United States. For one thing, the man
looked evil. That was not his own failing. Everyone is answerable to
one’s own DNA, which apportions appearance, temperament, talent,
intelligence (or lack thereof), longevity, vulnerability to one disease
or another, and preference of a political party. (No, strike that last.
It is suspected but not proven.)
Want to
spread out the wings of this little flight of fantasy? Many look evil.
Maybe I do as well. Dark eyes, black hair (okay, that was 30 years ago),
scowling, but with a certain beguiling devil-may-care expression one
might even call handsome. Hey, where did all this go off the rails?
But Joe
McCarthy? He was easy to dislike. Especially if you were a little
sensitive about someone flaring off about communists to begin with. So
the intellectuals, “las artistas favoritas”, the union shills, the
darlings of Hollywood, the scruffy denizens of the Golden Coast, they
really got their butts in a snit over anyone who in the press even
suggested that communists weren’t good for Amerika. Me? I was lonely
back then, and am even more lonely today. From an idealogical
perspective, anyway.
But
let’s turn back the clock to the days of Woodrow Wilson’s smothering
attack on freedom in the United States, when no excuse could make up for
his insufferable assaults on the rights of the average citizens of this
country.
You must
ask yourself – have you ever read about these despotic campaigns put in
motion by President Woodrow Wilson? Not me. I was ignorant of this
whole revolting period of executive excesses until I undertook to learn
about influenza. Thank God I did. Because I intend to use this chance
encounter with truth to hold the heads of the great Democratic liberals
of the World War I era underwater until Nancy Pelosi cries, “Will you
dammit quit waterboarding already?”
I don’t
know all there is to know about this strange interlude of U.S. history,
which is buried beneath the shame and treachery of liberal America when
the media (as they do now) give a pass to leftist causes.
But I
will learn. In the meantime, I will share with you information exposed
by John M. Barry of the rampant, rabid despotism of Mr. Woody Wilson,
president of the United States 1913-21, who held his own nation captive
in his steely, top-hatted, dour, frosty grip for years, then ducked into
the history books with not a whimper about his disgraceful antics for
which to apologize.
I was
born in 1937. Not a year eliciting universal excitement and ardor for
its historic importance, would you say? But I can hardly be blamed for
that. I couldn’t talk intelligibly at the time, have made some tenuous
improvement in that department since, didn’t have a clue about how to
write, and political parties were as strange to me as pasteurized milk.
But the war to end all wars, while it was kaput, was only a precursor to
the wars to end all worlds. So in some sense this was a pivotal time –
if not for mankind, at least for me.
Here are
some of the thunderclap revelations that John M. Barry, brilliant
author of “The Great Influenza”, gives us based on his research into the
life and times of Woodrow, who went in a chameleonic transformation
from isolationist to liberal internationalist to global
interventionalist, forging swords from ploughshares and inserting the
United States into the bloody, ravenous, unforgiving trenches of Europe.
In his
zeal, Wilson portrayed his fellow Americans as traitors, protestors as
enemies, and bewildered citizens as onerous miscreants. In his
transformation from spineless caterpillar to flitting butterfly, he left
no doubt that he wanted war, and proclaimed that those who disagreed
would be ground under his heel.
“The
hard line was designed to intimidate those reluctant to support the war
into doing so, and to crush or eliminate those would not. Even before
entering the war, Wilson had warned Congress, ‘There are citizens of the
United States, I blush to admit . . . who have poured the poison of
disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life . . . Such
creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out.’”
Mr. Barry’s stunning revelations continue:
“The
government compelled conformity, controlled speech in ways, frightening
ways, not known in America before or since. Soon after the declaration
of war, Wilson pushed the Espionage Act through a cooperative Congress,
which balked only at legalizing outright press censorship – despite
Wilson’s calling it “an imperative necessity.”
And this – an outrageous, in-your-face capitulation to federal government thuggery “justified” by presidential fiat:
“Thousands
of government posters and advertisements urged people to report to the
Justice Department anyone ‘who spreads pessimistic stories, divulges –
or seeks – confidential military information, cries for peace, or
belittles our effort to win the war.’ Wilson himself began speaking of
the ‘sinister intrigue’ in America carried on ‘high and low’ by agents
and dupes.”
Not
Hitler, not Stalin, not Mussolini exceeded the iron grip of our own
homegrown despot, President Woodrow Wilson, in wresting the will of the
nation from its own citizens. But this shameful chapter is purged from
the history books, hid from prying eyes, and left to fester in the
archives of the Democratic Party of yesteryear.
McCarthyism?
An instant, iconic catchphrase, capable of evoking visions of sinister
clandestine warfare against – what? Innocent, decent Americans? Or
scurrilous cells of Communist conspirators?
And Wilsonism?
Why what is that? Sounds vaguely familiar, yet benign, and totally
innocuous. The difference is that the president, the press and the
denizens of the left conspired to demonize the one and market the other.
The story presented here, from the pages of author John M. Barry’s “The Great Influenza”: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History – A
New York Times Bestseller—reveals itself to be not only a fearsome tale
of pandemic ferocity, but an expose as well of the untold story of the
Democratic Party’s scandalous precursor to McCarthyism,
which would not emerge on the American scene until almost 20 years
later. Truth is stranger than fiction. And sometimes late in arriving.
But thank God – here it is.
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