It was a clear autumn day in Washington, DC on October 27, 1941, when President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his Navy Day speech to the American people. Halloween was later that week, but Adolf Hitler and his Wehrmacht war machine were scaring the administration. Roosevelt used his address to highlight the threat posed to the Western Hemisphere—America’s hemisphere—per the longstanding Monroe Doctrine. The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was six weeks hence, and Americans were leery of getting involved again in Europe’s perennially bloody wars. Charles Lindbergh and the “America First” movement, which represented America’s isolationist current, objected to greater involvement. Roosevelt needed to make the case that the Nazi threat to America was real. He noted, earlier that month, that a German U-boat had attacked an American destroyer, the USS Kearny, causing eleven American combat fatalities. “America has been attacked,” Roosevelt declared. “The USS Kearny is not just a navy ship. She belongs to every man, woman and child in this nation. . . . Hitler's torpedo was directed at every American.”
Read more ....
WNU Editor: This essay is broken into two parts .... the first part is a look at how fake news helped to get the U.S. involved in the First and Second World Wars .... the second part is a look at how the decline of critical thinking in today's society is making us susceptible to fake news.
Related Posts :
Emails read while commuting 'should count as work'
Energy drinks ban for children in UK - Government Mulls on Proposal
Does Jonathan Sacks really speak for "all Jews"?
"Monkey this up"-- a reminder that racial attitudes are not dichotomies
Brexit fallout: Panasonic to move Europe headquarters from UK to Amsterdam