[Peace-discuss] The Christmas Truce of 1914: "Threat to National Security"?

[E. Wayne Johnson]

All the more reason to support and applaud the Tea Parties.


On 12/26/2010 2:45 PM, Robert Naiman wrote:
> I wonder what role the Pope's call for a Christmas truce played in the
> actions of the troops. The Pope's call was on the governments, and the
> governments rejected it, but media reported the Pope's call and
> perhaps some of the troops knew about it and this gave some of them
> more courage to act on their own initiative.
>
> If that's true, perhaps it's a precedent with some relevance for today.
>
> The Milgrom experiment is often invoked to suggest the tendency of
> people to follow authority, even when the instructions of authority
> are barbarous.
>
> But an important thing that the Milgrom experiment found was that if
> one person speaks up, others are much more likely to rebel.
>
> In larger social phenomena, "one person speaking up" doesn't
> necessarily cut it, if that is not a person of authority. But the
> broader point remains; if someone can construct a credible
> counter-authority, decisive change is possible.
>
> In the Vietnam War documentary "Hearts and Minds," there's a
> compelling scene in which Daniel Ellsberg describes watching one of
> the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations at the Pentagon from the window of
> Robert McNamara's office, and thinking to himself as he watched,
> "Those people are following their consciences. What would happen if I
> followed mine?"
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 10:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook<galliher at illinois.edu>  wrote:
>    
>> "NOTHING appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a
>> philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the
>> few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments
>> and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this
>> wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side of
>> the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is
>> therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim
>> extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to
>> the most free and most popular..."
>>
>> --David Hume, "Of the First Principles of Government" (1768)
>>
>> On 12/25/10 9:32 PM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>>      
>>> It's cool.
>>>
>>> And cute, too.
>>>
>>> But the sad truth is that these young men who could see the benefits
>>> of friendship, and had in their hands the tools (the weapons) to
>>> stop the war, CHOSE (made a conscious decision) to hunker back down
>>> under their Evil Masters and horrifically slaughter one another for
>>> over 3 more years.
>>>
>>> After all, it was what your government expected of you...
>>>
>>> "Shooting Germans is sort of like shooting rabbits."
>>>
>>> And they fought to make WW2 possible.
>>>
>>> Cheers.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 12/26/2010 3:56 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:
>>>        
>>>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/the-christmas-truce-of-19_b_801243.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>          
>> The Christmas Truce of 1914: "Threat to National Security"?
>>      
>>>> As we celebrate Christmas 2010, 100,000 US troops languish in
>>>> Afghanistan, and Bradley Manning sits in "maximum custody
>>>>
>>>> <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daphne-eviatar/bradley-mannings-confinem_b_800737.html>"
>>>> in Quantico for the alleged crime of disclosing classified
>>>> "secrets" about U.S. foreign policy - "secrets" like the video
>>>>
>>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-army-iraq-attack>
>>>> of U.S. troops killing two /Reuters/ employees in Iraq, a video
>>>> that the U.S. military refused to release to /Reuters/.
>>>>
>>>> It is a particular stain on our country to be at war during the
>>>> Season of Peace, just as it is a particular stain on our country to
>>>> be at war during the Olympics. "Peace on Earth" should stick in our
>>>> throats a bit this holiday season, when our own government is
>>>> bombing other people's countries, a practice which we have, so far,
>>>> been unable to stop.
>>>>
>>>> The idea that there is something especially offensive about
>>>> prosecuting war during Christmas is longstanding. On December 7,
>>>> 1914, Pope Benedict XV called for
>>>>
>>>> <http://www.harrisondaily.com/opinion/article_758ae5c8-a68d-59f3-9a4f-bb5df3dbcbce.html>
>>>> an official Christmas truce in the war in Europe, "that the guns
>>>> may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang."
>>>>
>>>> The Pope's call was rejected by the warring governments, and two
>>>> words he used suggest a reason: "at least." The Pope's remarks
>>>> strongly suggested that he objected to the slaughter on the other
>>>> 364 days as well. And so, the generals may have argued, it was a
>>>> slippery slope. Allow the troops to have a Christmas holiday from
>>>> killing each other, and they might begin to get even funnier ideas.
>>>> Next they'll be demanding Easter, then Yom Kippur and Eid al-Fitr.
>>>> Soon you won't be able to have a war on any day of the year. So
>>>> there was no official truce.
>>>>
>>>> However, in what was arguably one of the most morally compelling
>>>> acts of spontaneous mass civil disobedience in recorded human
>>>> history, German and British troops took matters into their own
>>>> hands, negotiating their own Christmas cease-fires in their
>>>> opposing trenches on the Western Front, exchanging Christmas carols
>>>> and gifts, and even playing soccer. The story is told in the 2005
>>>> movie, Joyeux Noel ("Merry Christmas"), which was nominated for an
>>>> Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. It would be a
>>>> significant advance in human civilization if this movie would take
>>>> its rightful place alongside "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a
>>>> Wonderful Life" as standard Christmas fare.
>>>>
>>>> It's particularly appropriate to reflect on this history now, as TV
>>>> talking heads repeatedly pontificate without a shred of evidence
>>>> that the WikiLeaks disclosures "threaten our national security,"
>>>> because in its time, as Stanley Weintraub reported in his 2001 book
>>>> "Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914
>>>> <http://books.google.com/books?id=vUKgAAAAMAAJ>," not only was the
>>>> Christmas truce considered a threat to "national security" in the
>>>> warring countries; even the knowledge that it had taken place was
>>>> initially suppressed. The /New York Times/ finally broke the press
>>>> blockade on December 31, 1914, after which the British press
>>>> followed suit.
>>>>
>>>> Doesn't it seem ridiculous today that news media initially tried to
>>>> suppress reports about the Christmas truce of 1914, apparently in
>>>> the belief that such information was a "threat to national
>>>> security"?
>>>>
>>>> Won't it seem ridiculous someday that people who knew better once
>>>> claimed that WikiLeaks was a "threat to our national security," and
>>>> were taken seriously?
>>>>
>>>> How long do you suppose that will take to occur?
>>>>
>>>> Merry Christmas. Let there be peace on earth.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy
>>>> www.justforeignpolicy.org<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org>
>>>> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org<mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
>>>>          
>>      
>
>
>
>    

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20101226/3369ea73/attachment.html>