The Lion of Idaho series: Borah and the end of US neutrality during World War I

At the outbreak of World War I, the United States was a neutral country wondering: “Should we go to war?”  At issue was the sinking of the RMS Lusitania (sunk May 7, 1915) which claimed the lives of 128 Americans.  Was the US now involved?  Senator Borah urged his fellow legislators to take a hands-off approach.  He begrudgingly accepted the US’s invasion of Mexico during the coincident Pancho Villa Expedition and felt that the Lusitania did not merit breaking neutrality.

More importantly concerning whether to stay neutral or not was the selling of weapons to European belligerents.  In tail-wagging-the-dog fashion then – as today – the role of weapons manufactures was in question.  Is it a breach of neutrality to sell weapons to other states involved in war?  Borah’s Senate colleague Robert La Follette, a remarkable statesman in his own right, took up this issue.  “It is repugnant to every moral sense,” La Follette said, “that governments should even indirectly be drawn into making and prosecuting war through the machinations of those making money by it.” (197)

The war drums were beating steadily by this time.  Calls to go to war were made in the name of patriotism.  And the weapon sales that La Follette was arguing against were already taking place.  Although in 1914 Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan had “advised bankers that loans to belligerents would be inconsistent with our ‘true spirit of neutrality’”, the US government decided on the laissez-faire option.  And war became good for business:

[T]he Government announced that it would not approve or disapprove credits made by American banks for the purpose of facilitating belligerent purchases in the United States. […]  So much prosperity arose from the purchases made by the Allies in the United States that in August, 1915, the Government of the United States agreed that the belligerents might float public loans in this country. (198)

JP Morgan & Co. positioned the United States to support the Allies which “fueled charges the bank was conspiring to maneuver the United States into supporting the Allies in order to rescue its loans”.  The bank funded Russia, France and England.  After the war Morgan & Co. managed the reparations from and loaned money to Germany.

Borah eventually voted for joining the war saying, “I make war alone for my countrymen and their rights, for country and its honor” (203).  Was Borah picking one current among many leading to war that he deemed acceptable, running with it, arguing for it almost as a proxy?  Liberty is quite the concept to fight for but can also serve to blind one to the complexities of many situations, especially ones involving world politics.  Near the end of his life, as the next world war was breaking out, Borah infamously said, “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler – all this might have been averted,” garnering scorn.  But who knows what would have happened if Borah could have addressed the German as men discussing pure concepts of liberty, etc.

I feel that in the events of war Borah maintained his integrity: another post could be the topic of his relation/opinion about banks.  I will let Claudius Johnson conclude with these stirring words re: Sen. Borah:

By inheritance, by instinct, by environment, by education, and by profession Borah is an individualist.  By the same token he has always stood for national individualism.  Political isolation and political isolation only, will, in his opinion, give us peace and the opportunity to work out our own democratic destiny.

Populism, democracy, aristocracy and dictators - post-election thoughts/complaints

The Bernie bumper stickers are fading.  All the hopes and dreams represented by a candidate are now forgotten as we move forward in our new reality.  This is the forgetting of the casually involved, those who activate their attention/have their attention activated for them only for the duration of the presidential election process.  Others remain involved: “the involved minority” always active on the periphery.

How much do you research politics and economics?  Oh, if you’re like me do you (sometimes?) spend more time reading about sports than you do about topics that actually matter to your life?  And keep in mind these ideas of state are debated by motherfuckers who study this shit full time.  Which means your part-time, exclusively tuned-in only during the months around the election research amounts to a drop in the intellectual bucket.

What is the right way?  Kaleidoscopic, myriad interests.  Fundamentally different moral bases that people operate from.  Different levels of intellect demanding different levels of stimulation.  What are the foundational ideas of a nation?  Of a people?  Of a family?  How do you debate merits of a presidential candidate when you cannot agree to common definitions of words you debate with?

Is it not time to reach a consensus on fundamentals instead of the clusterfuck of interests that our distracted attention spans so cloudily focus on for brief periods of electoral time?  Can we not cede – if we do not already in practice do – the responsibilities of deciding our interest to those who are more intelligent?

We do cede decision-making powers to others since our government, fed-state-local, is representative.  How do you decide what being intelligent is, though?  That is a big question and recently I was considering the work of Jose Ortega y Gasset in this light.  Basically, let an aristocratic class solve our problems – this has been the state of affairs in so many times and places throughout history.  Heck, you may even say that it is the case today, though we celebrate some kind of ideal of democracy.

Everyone is equal and gets to have a say.  Mob rule.  Isn’t this the ideal?  Is this possible?  Desirable?  I’ll be honest: based on the way my fellow Americans behave I would like a beneficent dictator to take over.  Remember, dictator did not always have a negative connotation.  If only those that rule today had the interests of the people in mind . . . um, never gonna happen, right?

Efforts toward perfection

There’s your choice: no fucking choice . . .  Sad, what are our options?  I am firmly ensconced in the choices I’ve made – happy, really – in a redoubt of familial obligations, duties by choice.  This limits, in my mind, what I can do, what I should do.  Also this redoubt jibes with the idea of primarily changing oneself.  First yourself and then the world and how goddam true that is.

We want the United States to change but ignore that role in ourselves – a bit ingenuous though.  I will say that some of those out acting (striving, being activists) have made the turn, have changed themselves, are the change they want to see.  Good.  A single man as I once was might live simply – ask a lot of questions – and go forth as an agent of change, go fight for what is right.  That is what some of those activists are.

But back it up a minute.  What change is on offer?  You took to the streets for Trump but didn’t do anything during Obama’s time?  Whoa, whoa, whoa, I need to slow down and back up a minute myself.  Think Standing Rock.  Yes, people have been involved.  The structures run deep and the Standing Rock people are experiencing what a challenge to these structures gets you: attacks by dogs, acoustic bombardment to achieve psychological disruption, being sprayed with water while it is fucking freezing out.  Oh, and even more insidious: you get to stand up for a cause while most of the nation carries on in ignorance which allows the powers that be to continue with their sundry mistreatments/criminal acts.  That is the cruelest thing of all.

And it is what any person questioning any system must face: How docile has the status quo rendered the great masses of people?  How has this docility been countered?  By protesting?

I want to say that if on an individual basis everyone examined their lives we would have a populace that would have moved past fossil fuels for rational and spiritual reasons. And perhaps that is assuming too much.

But there is this idea of mass man, of mass society and it is undeniable and it stares one in the face every day.  In deciding tactics, this fact of mass society must be considered.  In deciding whether or not to even act, this fact of mass society must be considered.  The bull is still caged.  The bull writhes and bucks, relaxes then violently kicks.  What good to stand outside the cage and attempt to dictate right action to the bull?  One must prepare for and contemplate what to do once the gate is opened and the bull emerges.

In talking about mass society, Ortega y Gasset (OyG) contrasts the mass of people with minorities, minorities being groups where each member must “separate himself from the multitude for special, relatively personal, reasons”.  Minorities used to run the world, OyG argues.  But now the majorities have stepped forward and live as an unquestioning, non-deciding mass that follows rather base pleasures and who live unexamined lives.

Striving is what separates the two groups, as OyG elucidates:

For there is no doubt that the most radical division that it is possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatures: those who make great demands on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of themselves, but for whom to live is to be every moment what they already are, without imposing on themselves any effort towards perfection; mere buoys that float on the waves.

Damn.  Never mind, it’s off to Standing Rock for this chap.  But again, hold on a minute: is that my “effort towards perfection” as OyG states?  It sure as heck would involve “piling up difficulties and duties”.  Après election and being in this world in general I will at least keep asking questions.  And read some more Ortega y Gasset as well.

Not Really, Literally

I believe my first exposure to the word/concept of “literally” was in an academic setting, used in a class or as a word to remember for spelling.  And that definition was something like: “adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression”.  To my mind, simply put, the term literally was used in cases where a common figure of speech or colloquial saying actually happened.  For example: you would say “It’s literally raining cats and dogs” only if an airplane carrying cats and dogs exploded in the sky creating such a downpour.

Alas, literally has seemed over the last decade or so to mean the opposite of this cherished definition.  Now, in a crazy downpour, you are likely to hear someone say, “It’s literally raining cats and dogs”.  No cats.  No dogs.  Literally is used for emphasis, it is an intensifier.

The benchmark of critique of this apparent change in usage is David Cross’ bit about the word.  How galvanizing that was in my critical view of the word: “[B]ecause when you misuse the word literally you are using it in the exact opposite way it was intended.  When you fuck that up you fuck that up so bad it’s not like a little goof, it’s not like when you said penultimate and meant ultimate where you’re off by one, you completely fucking misuse it.  You should stop using the word, forever, until you figure it out.”  Excoriating.

But, inevitably, things change.  I remember my Linguistics prof in college saying that the task of language was to get across meaning.  If what you say conveys what it is you meant to convey then you are correct.  If tend to agree with that.  So, I thought, let’s not be so critical of the misuse of literally.  Apocryphally, I heard somewhere that the definition had changed since the misuse is now so common – fair enough.

But when I went to track down proof of the change of the definition of literally I came to a stunning discovery: the definition, for as long as the word has existed could mean BOTH.  I should have known.  Merriam-Webster’s definition No. 2: in effect : virtually.  Shucks.

Still, to not let it go.  I would say definition No. 1 is the dominant definition.  The feeling is that those not familiar with the intricacies of language have co-opted the word.  In an unknowing fashion.  That is the what the critique of its No. 2 use is picking up on, whether or not it actually is correct be damned.  Does it represent a decline in national literacy?

Metaphorically, I see the misuse (yeah: misuse.  Why not, let’s be a militant grammarian.) as a sign of people’s need for certainty.  They need concretize what they are saying, to disambiguate what they are saying.  It is a running away from the horrible vicissitudes of life, the gnawing sensation that reality is not what it seems.  There are questions that people have about life – and especially life in the United States right now – questions which they cannot quite formulate.  Metaphor is shunned.  What is on the surface is simple, graspable.  I feel like using the word literally (misusing) is a code for all these feelings.

Post election observations, or, Fuck you mainstream media

My joy in this election result comes from sticking it to the mainstream media.  Apparently ridicule can only go so far, or loses its efficacy once the insult has been cast and the laughing has subsided.  A liberal media?  Fuck that.  The mainstream media are basically the cheerleaders of Corporatism and ignorance – don’t think motherfucker, consume.  How long has it been since the mainstream media has served the people instead of simply serving the people to advertisers?  (There are some bright spots in the press: Democracy Now, The Intercept . . . Russia Today – really a Russian news agency that does a better job than most American outlets.)

And joy from watching the election coverage as the commentators grappled with the idea that not everyone is a college-educated bandwagon-rider who benefits from the system (i.e. enviro-destruction with a green face, off-shoring of jobs, militarism, and finance, finance, finance) like they are.  Fuck them!  And really a fuck you to the average American whose wagons are ridiculously tied to this bandwagon so mindlessly, emulating those they actually have only a tenuous connection to – most of that connection comes from laughing at the ridicule heaped on those who want to change the system.  Wake up!   Where do you truly get rewards from?  Who is making you throw your goddamned God-stamped morals out the window?  Don’t you realize it?  Break the fucking spell!

And to see the reaction by media pundits, anchors and show host: what is it that you decry in this election result?  What garners such looks of disbelief and shock and your outraged responses?  Surely not your complicity in the system that has steadily impoverished the average American?  Surely not you lack of coverage of the increasing wealth gap, the freezing of any increase in real wages over the last 40 years?  Surely not your lack of covering the link between policy and arms manufacturers?  Surely not calling out the bullshit companies that make so-called “food” and that you so hungrily accept advertising money from?  How can you criticize someone newly elected president who has not done anything with the office yet while at the same time have such a damning laundry list of misdeeds and inaction hanging around your neck?  Fix that goddamned problem first.

Trump may prove to be whatever, whatever, etc. – we’ll find out soon enough.  And his average follower is most likely a fucking moron – that typifies Americans supporting both of the candidates this election anyway.  But, to my sources of joy:  hooray! for the sentiments of change and hooray! to the ridiculous confusion of mainstream culture.

Kony(Clinton/Trump) 2016 -or- Kony Baloney

Remember the Kony 2012 thing?  “One thing we can all agree on”?  Critical observers met this with frustration since Joseph Kony was one of many in a line of disreputable characters and issues: it took slick production and deft social media manipulation to get people involved.  Why this?  Because it is the way of the world.

It is the same today with the presidential election.  The points to get involved before the election are legion – so many ways to get involved, so many topics to study-up on and make decisions about.  But it is the presidential election, with all its history and glamor that stirs people from their slumbers.  Like when white people protest, novel things happen each election cycle.  As with white people protesting, things get fucked up.  It seems with each prezzie election the wheel is remade again and again and again.

Kony was effectively (if not explicitly) condoned by our national security apparatus.  The aims of the movement would have helped move the American pieces on the chessboard in a beneficial way.  So too, the presidential election allows for beneficial manipulation of the American public.  It’s like: “This is your time to express yourself through your vote and don’t forget: your vote counts!”  With the subtext: “Oh yeah, and don’t do anything else.  Don’t pay attention to anything except the mainstream media.  Keep giving a fuck about sports.  Keep watching TV shows and movies.  And . . . vote!  Good job!”

With the election we have all come to the alert and are paying attention.  Let’s not talk about the Deep State.  Let’s not talk about leaving the world in a livable state seven generations from now.  Let’s not talk about the selling of our souls for Saudi crude. 

Extreme Metaphor: US Election Edition

Voting itself is a metaphor – I’m talking about the big one, the prezzie election held every four years.  (Local elections don’t dip their toes into metaphor to such a colossal extent.)  To start, e.g., Trump’s phrase “Make America Great Again” flies in the face of what the Presidential Election (PE) stands for: the election itself stands for greatness.  Voting stands for democracy since just about everyone gets to do it.  How dare you Donald for suggesting a return to greatness!  Indeed, Hillary has tapped into this narrative saying she thinks America is already great: greatness embodied by the election itself.

But let’s take a step back.  Let’s ignore the differences between the two.  In this anno domini 2016 let’s meld the candidates together and then we can look at the conditions that permit them to be there, the conditions that permit them to be there but are not discussed. 

In effect, what are the candidates metaphors for?

First and foremost they represent the idea that one man or woman can fix things.  The office of the President is sacrosanct.  The President is the leader of the free world, the captain of the great and gleaming ship that is America, the States so painfully and exquisitely United. 

The President is a fixed star.

And what about America rotates around this fixed point?  The idea that the United States is the savior of the world, no less.  To me this is the toughest code to crack: things have changed but we pretend to live in an unchanged world.  It ain’t the years after WWII.  A blind eye may so easily be turned to the US’s role in the world.  What am I talking about?  I’m simply talking about selling ones soul.  It is in our faces every day (well at least on page 2 or 3 of the newspaper, maybe at the bottom of the front page): our involvement in the Middle East.  Our involvement in Central America.  Our 800 bases outside of the United States.  The story seems so old by now, so banal.  “Yeah, we’ve propped up third world dictators but that’s how the game is played.”  “We need to support our allies overseas.”  Do people think about our past?  Do people think about our present?  That we are still doing shit like that today? 

I feel like there is a moral rule that I never learned and that rule is: you can do bad shit as long as you ignore the fact that you do it.  Done.  No biggie.  We support Saudi Arabia for oil interests, duh – but also for stability in the Middle East.  Get it? 

And this is not to be talked about in the debates.  And this will not come to a referendum vote come November.

It’s got to be something in the DNA of America itself.  Keep moving west and don’t look back.  Or things are so awesome in day-to-day life here that it is just too easy and convenient to ignore – or turn that blind eye towards – the fucked up stuff.

And that is the level that the candidates for President are approached on: they represent us and we are much more concerned with salacious sex-style scandals than the soul of America gliding inexorably down the halls of hell.