What it would have been like then if things were like they are now.

Suppose the current media posture about American military and security activities had been in effect during World War II. It is easy to imagine that happening. In the 1930s, after all, the well-connected America First Committee had been arguing for years about the need for America to stay out of “Europe’s wars.” Aware of these popular views, the House extended the draft by only a one-vote margin in 1941. Women dressed in black crowded the entrance to the Senate, arguing against extending the draft. Several hundred students at Harvard and Yale, including future Yale leader Kingman Brewster and future American president Gerald Ford, signed statements saying that they would never go to war. Everything was in place for a media attack on the Second World War. Here is how it might have sounded if today’s customs were in effect:

December 1941. Though the press supports America’s going to war against Japan after Pearl Harbor, several editorials want to know why we didn’t prevent the attack by selling Japan more oil. Others criticize us for going to war with two nations that had never attacked us, Germany and Italy.

October 1942. The New York Times runs an exclusive story about the British effort to decipher German messages at a hidden site at Bletchley Park in England. One op-ed writer criticizes this move, quoting Henry Stimson’s statement that gentlemen do not read one another’s mail. Because the Bletchley Park code-cracking helped us find German submarines before they attacked, successful U-boat attacks increased once the Germans, knowing of the program, changed their code.

January 1943. After President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill call for the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers, several newspapers criticize them for having closed the door to a negotiated settlement. The press quotes several senators complaining that the unconditional surrender policy would harm the peace process.

May 1943. A big-city newspaper reveals the existence of the Manhattan Project and its effort to build atomic weapons. In these stories, several distinguished scientists lament the creation of such a terrible weapon. After Gen. Leslie Groves testifies before a congressional committee, the press lambastes him for wasting money, ignoring scientific opinion, and imperiling the environment by building plants at Hanford and Oak Ridge.

December 1944. The German counterattack against the Allies in the Ardennes yields heavy American losses in the Battle of the Bulge. The press gives splashy coverage to the Democratic National Committee chairman’s assertion that the war cannot be won. A member of the House, a former Marine, urges that our troops be sent to Okinawa.

August 1945. After President Truman authorizes dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, many newspapers urge his impeachment.

Read the whole thing.

And just to drive home how awful today’s media has gotten, I give you “Saddam: a tribute” which regales us with such learned opinions as this one:

Saddam would have had his work cut out to match these figures. So, why are the Iraqis better off without him? The only answer available is that now they are “free”. Well, we all value freedom. Some value it more than life, and those who do certainly go on about it. Nonetheless, they are probably a minority.

Living under tyranny may not be ideal, but it is not impossible. In the Soviet Union, life took on a character of its own, in which the human spirit managed to flourish in spite of the political constraints. The literature generated in those conditions can still inspire us. Today, many former Soviet citizens feel no more free under the yoke of global capitalism than they did before, and some would like to see the return of Stalinism.

No, this isn’t a screed written by some International A.N.S.W.E.R. organizer.  This guy is as mainstream-journalism as they come:

David Cox is a writer and television producer. He has contributed to many publications, including the New Statesman, Prospect, the Times and the Observer, mainly on communications and environmental issues.

He has made programmes for ITV, the BBC, and Channel 4, mainly about current affairs and history. He lives in Battersea, London.

I would like to get some names from Mr. Cox of the people who lived under Stalinist rule and would prefer that to the “yoke” of global capitalism.