Idealistic nonsense. I mean, Americans don't care about history. And they really don't care about WW1. But history classes have to at least pretend to cover WW1. Even long before I was a leftist, the official story taught in schools never made sense to me. The Germans sank the Lusitania, and that made Americans mad. Okay it wasn't great of course, but seems kinda flimsy of a reason by itself. So they add the Zimmerman Telegram. It's pretty silly to take it seriously, but I guess it's taught as this is just something that made even more Americans angry at the Germans?

So the way the history is taught, you are forced to conclude that the US public eventually just got so angry with Germany that they demanded the US enter the way. The problem of course is a.) the US public still wasn't frothing at the mouth angry and I think a majority still didn't want to get involved, and b.) politicians NEVER give a single fuck what the public wants or doesn't want with respect to war. Never have, never will. The idea that US politicians just saw Americans getting angry and thus had no choice but to declare war is ludicrous.

So in steps the REAL reason: if the Allies lost, US investors were gonna lose out big on loans made to support the Allied war effort. Reading Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism, it's just so obvious that that's what was going on. After the war, there was an official hearing or something that determined that was the real cause. But all this gets buried because Americans cannot entertain either historical materialism or the notion that the US gets into wars for less than noble reasons.

Anyways, :amerikkka: , as always.

  • cactus_jack [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Man, next you are going to tell me Americans didn't care at all about yellow cake and aluminum tubes. Tell me when America nakedly admitted entering a war on the side of capital.

    When they don't bother to gin up an excuse, that's when capital will have finally won.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Tell me when America nakedly admitted entering a war on the side of capital.

      The Korean War leaps to mind.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Nah. That goes back at least as far as the Monroe Doctrine. Arguably the Barbary Wars.

          • Dolores [love/loves]
            ·
            2 years ago

            the Barbary War the US was violating the environment of international treaty and commerce by refusing to pay off the pirates. Everyone else did.

            and the monroe doctrine is funny because its neither a treaty, nor enforced for like 100 years after it was outlined.

            anyway the raison d'guerre of the Korean War was expressed through the treaties that created the United Nations, even though the US were the only enthusiastic sponsors (also the Soviets idiotically abstained from the security council in protest of the emplacement of the ROC on it)

            • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              US was violating the environment of international treaty and commerce by refusing to pay off the pirates.

              :hasan-ok-dude:

              And then they did it again in 1812 because the international standard was to let the British press gang you.

              the monroe doctrine is funny because its neither a treaty, nor enforced for like 100 years after it was outlined.

              It was routinely enforced, with a particular eye towards Euro/African pirates. Hell, the Spanish American War was a very explicit consequences of its enforcement.

              • Dolores [love/loves]
                ·
                edit-2
                2 years ago

                i stand by the Barbary even if i'll amend the monroe doctrine to 60-70 years. you dont get to say the western hemisphere is yankee turf with the french army in veracruz

                holding north african monarchs as illegitimate for enforcing tax & seizure on trespassers as if that wasn't how all countries operated. a system of treaties with them to ensure safe passage for a country's ships is no different from ones between european countries, except historiography calls north africans "pirates"

                • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  2 years ago

                  you dont get to say the western hemisphere is yankee turf with the french army in veracruz

                  The Jeffersonians were on better terms with the French than the Spanish. Hence the ongoing dispute over Cuba.

                  holding north african monarchs as illegitimate for enforcing tax & seizure on trespassers

                  Oh come on. We're not seriously going to pretend the glorified troll toll to the Mediterranian set up by Morocco was about trespassing. They were doing the same shit in boats that the Europeans were doing on horseback - textbook robbery barony.

                  a system of treaties with them to ensure safe passage for a country’s ships is no different from ones between european countries, except historiography calls north africans “pirates”

                  Everyone was a pirate when you were Spanish. Africans didn't have any kind of monopoly on the term.

                  • Dolores [love/loves]
                    ·
                    2 years ago

                    what about the British extorting south american nations and doing their bullshit all over the gulf? were the yanks friendly with them too or did they just lack the capability to enforce a monrovian sphere of influence?

                    not sure ive heard anything notably positive about yankee-second empire relations either.

                    but with "highway robbery"---the europeans did that. on water. you'll forgive me if i dont certify privateering and merchantilist trade controls from absolute monarchies as more legitimate than the barbary lords. its still "we'll shoot you if you dont pay us" if you've got a stamp & document

                    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      what about the British extorting south american nations and doing their bullshit all over the gulf?

                      Ask President Madison why he had to paint his house white.

                      not sure ive heard anything notably positive about yankee-second empire relations either.

                      Depends heavily on where you're standing.

                      you’ll forgive me if i dont certify privateering and merchantilist trade controls from absolute monarchies as more legitimate than the barbary lords

                      Winning grants a certain degree of legitimacy.

                      Besides, if they'd lost, you'd be smugly dismissing the North African Empire as the illegitimate scourge tyrannizing the poor Atlantic vassal states.

                      Establishing a Rules Based International Order doesn't mean you're the good guys. It just means you built the dominant coalition. Which Atlantic Europeans ultimately did.

                      • Dolores [love/loves]
                        ·
                        2 years ago

                        i dont think we disagree except on semantics lol

                        imma tap out this was fun tho i like litigating 2 century old policy