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I am not going to urge you to vote (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.ca
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I am not going to urge you to vote.

I am simply going to express my opinion that anyone who does not vote at this election is a traitor to the Republic. And never knowingly will I shake hands with him or sit down to a meal with him. For, in the hour of gravest peril, he failed to do the only specific duty which is laid upon him as a citizen of this Republic. No one has a "duty" to be President, no one even has a "duty" to be a soldier until summoned by our Commander in Chief, but the humblest or laziest member of our society has a duty to vote.

Henry Luce, October 1940

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[–] [S] 5 points 6 days ago (1 child)

Under him and with his leadership we can make isolationism as dead an issue as slavery [ 😬 ]

At that time, in that place and context, "isolationism" meant "we don't want to get involved in the war in Europe." That was literally what Luce was talking about. It wasn't about proxy wars in Viet Nam, it was about whether we should let Hitler do his thing in Europe and Japan do their thing in the Pacific and we'd be fine and safe in America, so why bother getting involved?

To put it in modern terms, should we be helping Ukraine defend themselves against Russia?

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  • [–] 2 points 6 days ago*

    It wasn't about proxy wars in Viet Nam

    I can't say he was thinking specifically of that when he wrote his famous editorial but what he did afterwards does not support this idea.

    Vietnam became a major cause for Luce and he encouraged his publications to follow his lead. An ardent interventionist, he supported greater involvement in the conflict. Speaking before a group of Time Inc. staff after a 1960 trip around the world he stated:

    “. . . the policy I advocate is intervention — intervention. I advocate interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Long years ago, there was a very young man in the State Department whom I met …. up in Baghdad. He was a very minor fellow… and he was saying, ‘You know, the great phoniness and stultification of …. diplomatic thing is non-interference in internal affairs.’ It isn’t true; everybody does interfere. We interfere if we give money or if we don’t give money. We ought to interfere more and better.”

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