"The Myth of American Isolationism" Topic

"America in the 1920s and 1930s is often characterized as havingbeen isolationist in the realm of security policy. This article offers a critique of this characterization. American diplomacy in the 1920s was subtle but ambitious and effective. American policy in the years leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor was in fact quite responsive to
events on the European continent. Isolationists did exist, of course, but they never came close to constituting a majority. In short, American isolationism is a myth…"
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Amicalement
Armand

You know, you'd HAVE to be a Harvard History professor to discuss US popular sentiment and the run-up to WWII without once mentioning the Nye Commission, the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the CPUSA, Lindbergh, the American First Movement or the Bund.

Isolationism? But wasn't that one of those times when the number of registered immigrants made a huge peak?

After all, many people today do seem to somehow correlate the two as if you can't have one without the other.

Dan

It seems every single thing concerning America is "a myth?"
Perhaps it's very existence is a myth, perhaps there is really no Old Glory and only English soldier companies -- maybe I'm not even real..???????

Regards
Russ Dunaway

Russ,

Lol. Nothing is real any more in the West, because planting doubt is always the prelude to planting new realities. :)

These days I not only wonder what country I'm in, but most often what planet I'm on. Or if I've been thrown into some sort of alternate timeline.

I almost expect universities and their social engineers to have a massive book burning event one of these days.

Dan
PS. There are some people who love to discredit all historical reports written by people who actually lived and witnessed events back then, and who had access to other reports and testimony now lost to time:
TMP link

Dan, book burnings are SO 20th Century. What you do now is "deascensioning." Any book not in line with current trends winds up in the library book store, four for a dollar. It gets them off the shelves and away from students, and you can pay for a subscription to something digital. Digital texts, of course, may read very differently next year, but can you prove it?

I love my kindle, but the more politically suspect a book is, the more I want paper and hard covers.

"Digital texts, of course, may read very differently next year, but can you prove it?"

Robert, believe me, I could tell you a few stories about that very subject. Even digital photos gone or swapped.

Dan

As I recall, the American isolationist movement ended just after Hitler attacked the Soviets. It's almost like they all got a phone call or something.

Yeah. I think we swung the pendulum from one extreme to the other after that, and spread our troops and investments way too thin and far. Hopefully we'll learn to stop in the middle next chance we get and learn avoid the extremes.

It might seem like we are trying to swing the other way again and do what TJ said, "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – but entangling alliances with none."

But maybe we could modify that policy to mean "entangling alliances" ONLY with a chosen few that we know will be there to have our backs, and not the ones who, calling themselves our allies, are always trying to stab us politically in the back at every turn (like making public our troop locations out of spite) or trying to destroy our economy, strip us of our manufacturing base and destabilize our society in other ways, like pressuring us to accept treaties, laws and policies that are not for the entire world to decide for us (the same way they don't want others to do to them).

In other words we need to find and resolve to stick to a very clear middle ground.

Dan

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Robert,

I still resist my wife's constant attempts to go completely paperless.

Dan

Dan, if you can find a copy, there's a book entitled Making People Disappear" by Alain Jaubert. Among other things, it has multiple copies of the same photograph as the Great Man has minor imperfections corrected and purged colleagues removed from the group. Show your wife that one, and she may rethink a bit.