That song is all about how the war was bad because it was working class people fighting and dying there, and not the sons of the rich and powerful. That's a great summation of the "pop" anti-war movement at the time: the war is bad because we're getting drafted. Very little or nothing about "oh hey this war is bad because we are committing tons of war crimes and atrocities at damn near the same level as the SS". Or even "hey maybe we have no business at all stopping a communist movement in another country when that's what their people want". Nope, all about US and how the war impact AMERICANS. And then when the war ended it was retroactively considered "bad" because we lost and because it made the veterans sad. God boomers suck.

Of course at the time there we plenty of folks who were anti-war based on solid principles. But what do you know, they happened to be leftists like the Black Panthers. Just another example of the left holding the torch for what is right while the rest of the country acts like fucking depraved assholes.

Edit: listening to the latest Chapo episode now, Matt just reminded me, once the draft went away the anti-war movement dried up.

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Oh yeah, absolutely. Wages were up, people were beginning to not die of TB, Labour parties were getting power, and the unions were making progress on workers rights.

    The suffering of The Great War utterly murdered a sort of utopian Aristo-Fabian alliance that was developing in England and a good chunk of Europe against capitalism. (Though Russia and Germany were probably too far gone, maybe not AH though.) WW1 and the flu basically ended the upper agrarian classes.

    I'm more talking about the high art and the cultural superstructure. I can't imagine Lord of the Rings without WW1.

    I don't simp aristos, they were monsters. But when they went down they went bravely and not without an admirable trait here or there. Cant say that about today.

    Can you imagine Jeff Bezos dying with a sword in hand? Writing an art song about the passing of their world?

    How did we get to these pissants being rulers of the world? These are our grand fucking foes!?