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Rating: 
Summary: A sixty year old treasure of truth uncovered
Review: This book is probably more relevant today than when its initial version was published over sixty years ago in a series of editorials in "The Saturday Evening Post" by Garet Garrett. If you think the current debate about whether President Bush "lied" about going to war with Iraq is interesting, you need to read this book. When FDR was running for his unprecedented third term, he won on a platform of keeping the USA out of the wars ravaging the rest of the world.
In October, just a couple weeks before the 1940 presidential election, FDR said "The United States is at peace and will remain at peace. We will not participate in foreign wars. There is no secret plan or agreement that would or could involve the nation in any war." FDR was elected on that platform, with polls showing the vast majority of Americans declining to get sucked into another war to rescue the Europeans from the marauding criminals like Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, or Japan. Of course history has shown that to be an enormous lie. This book shows how FDR cleverly inched us into the war, first with "Lend Lease" then armed convoys, then the oil embargo of Japan, which forced Japan's hand and made Pearl Harbor inevitable.
Unlike the shrill accusations against Bush today, Garrett only points to established facts, and not second guessing about whether there may have been intelligence failures. And he did this while events were unfolding in a world that most of us have forgotten ever existed. The loans to the Europeans to keep them from starving to death after WW I were repudiated and American generosity was turned against us by Europeans who thought we were just greedy to want our loans repaid. When Hitler was at their throats because the UK and France and others refused to bear the cost of defending themselves, it was America's "obligation" to save them again. One can see that there were many alternatives to expending American blood and treasure and forcing the US into war, not the least of which was to let Hitler and Stalin, the greatest criminals in world history, fight themselves until they both were eliminated from the world stage. Given the ingratitude the Europeans have repeatedly shown for our sacrifice, it is an interesting scenario to contemplate.
The editorials also cover much history regarding Woodrow Wilson, the League of Nations, the "America First" groups, the American Communist Party as a puppet of Stalin, and much more. The book shows the extraordinary, behind the scenes coordination of the administration and "outside" groups to march the country to a war it did not want, and thought it was voting against when it reelected FDR.
This book is a great source of many good quotes, and shows why Congress has never declared an official war since then.
One facinating sidelight is a speech given by then Attny General Robert Jackson, soon to become Supreme Court Justice, and he of the famous quote that the "Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact" advocating legislating from the bench and using judicial powers to act more like dictators than jurists. He might well be called the grandfather of the liberal judicial activists who permeate the bench today.
Of course FDR may well have been right, and leading Americans into a war they said they did not want, in spite of themselves, may be one of the reasons that democracy survived the onslaught of the totalitarian criminals who ruled Germany and the Soviet Union, but if so, FDR must also then be called the greatest liar in the history the United States, too.
Rating:
Summary: Would that Garet Garrett were alive in this hour
Review: This collection of essays by the unjustly forgotten Garrett perfectly complements his other, longer essays in "The People's Pottage." His broadsides on Franklin Roosevelt's policies and his laments for a republican (little "r") America turning imperialistic will make you see American history between the two great wars in a new light.
He also challenges conventional wisdom: for example, he maintains that essentially America aggressed against Japan and Germany first, and explains why. You may not find his facts and thesis so easy to overthrow as you might think. This man was an editorial writer for the Saturday Evening Post (which editorials make up most of this book under review) for years and didn't let the idiocies and tyrannies of his day pass unnoticed.As a neutralist ("isolationist" being nothing more than an unfounded slur) Garrett has much to say to us today. Given our endless wars and interventions which have made the world less safe, not more, and our 700 military bases flung across the globe, we could do much worse than sit down and consider what this great writer said.
Rating:
Summary: Would that Garet Garrett were alive in this hour
Review: This collection of essays by the unjustly forgotten Garrett perfectly complements his other, longer essays in "The People's Pottage." His broadsides on Franklin Roosevelt's policies and his laments for a republican (little "r") America turning imperialistic will make you see American history between the two great wars in a new light.
He also challenges conventional wisdom: for example, he maintains that essentially America aggressed against Japan and Germany first, and explains why. You may not find his facts and thesis so easy to overthrow as you might think. This man was an editorial writer for the Saturday Evening Post (which editorials make up most of this book under review) for years and didn't let the idiocies and tyrannies of his day pass unnoticed. As a neutralist ("isolationist" being nothing more than an unfounded slur) Garrett has much to say to us today. Given our endless wars and interventions which have made the world less safe, not more, and our 700 military bases flung across the globe, we could do much worse than sit down and consider what this great writer said.
Rating:
Summary: A True Political Education for Women?
Review: Without becoming experts on history, it would be generous if the male historians might "update" women on the progress or lack of it, given the fact that women did not enter colleges in great numbers until the 1960's and 1970's, leaving millions of women in the dark with regard to politics and political dealings. Few have the knowledge to begin to discern the impact of these early periods involving wars, foreign relations, and economic importance of decisions made then to properly provide the perspective that is uniquely female and that they require in order to make decisions "based upon history and tradition." This loss is greatly disadvantageous to women when it comes to defending and helping to decide current and future directions for the nation by helping them to exercise their citizenship rights. Recent immigrants are no better off in that regard, not to mention the number of children who were not privileged to view history as many older adults do at this time. American reconciliation requires both a healthy respect for prior history, and a healthy knowledge of it in order to consider themselves full participants as citizens.
Rating:
Summary: A True Political Education for Women?
Review: Without becoming experts on history, it would be generous if the male historians might "update" women on the progress or lack of it, given the fact that women did not enter colleges in great numbers until the 1960's and 1970's, leaving millions of women in the dark with regard to politics and political dealings. Few have the knowledge to begin to discern the impact of these early periods involving wars, foreign relations, and economic importance of decisions made then to properly provide the perspective that is uniquely female and that they require in order to make decisions "based upon history and tradition." This loss is greatly disadvantageous to women when it comes to defending and helping to decide current and future directions for the nation by helping them to exercise their citizenship rights. Recent immigrants are no better off in that regard, not to mention the number of children who were not privileged to view history as many older adults do at this time. American reconciliation requires both a healthy respect for prior history, and a healthy knowledge of it in order to consider themselves full participants as citizens.
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