Vermont in the 1840’s: a Time of Revival, Religion, and Expanding Horizons

Paul Andreas Fischer

6/1/2015

Paul Searls

Vermont in the 1840’s: a Time of Revival, Religion, and Expanding Horizons

The population growth of the early 1840’s was fueled by deforestation efforts as agricultural potential expanded greatly. The population had matured and was now part of a great effort to redefine the national identity that had progressed across New England. Early secessionist movements in New England after the war of 1812, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson in reaction to early attempts to expand liberty throughout the Quebec peninsula (Buchanan, lecture) had become directed inwards; the small state and nation as a whole began to see a unique transformation. Important factors of this internal revolution can be seen as religious and political changes (these forces were still operating in lockstep), expansion of economic frontiers as well as technological competitiveness with Southern states who already enjoyed an economic transformation, and educational maturation. All of these combined into a new and cooperative effort to bring a new dawn to the Vermont countryside and the bustling townships which finally saw westward expansion stunted by squabbling over the nature of westward states and military paranoia of invasion from the North and Atlantic.

The religious revival is nationally noted for the education of African-American citizens and slaves, along with their baptism (Thornton, lecture). This revival can also be seen in the unanimously white states of the North, as the young nation had finally seen reason to expand educational efforts in the countryside and established extensive schooling efforts which saw literacy rates rise (Opal, lecture). Liberty was not the sole goal of these efforts, and the nature of the debates which shaped up affected Vermont in a unique manner.

Two primary objectives of the revivalism in Vermont are of particular interest. Which one came first is not immediately apparent, but logically it can be deduced that the stronger was a reaction to the weaker as this is the nature of successful social movements, society defined as a growing entity (Weiner, lecture). Firstly, the temperance movement attracted a great following in a young state (both in demographics and politically); it is likely the great population shifts described later in economic analysis of the state encouraged a persecution of apple orchard farmers who provided the raw materials which fueled the degenerative behavior of alcohol consumption. “An average of one in every four adults volunteered to take one temperance pledge” (Potash, 182). While demographics are unavailable, it is known that this effort was certainly unappreciated in rural and military circles; the latter had militias in which whisky was used as a reward and the former depended on distilleries to boost consumption of their crop.

What sort of political reaction may have occurred cannot be certain, but prosecution of secret groups and the anti-masonic sentiments of the state may be an endogenous reaction to these events in play. “Rousing greater moral and political ardor among Vermonters than temperance or any other reform was the issue of anti-masonry” which played a major role in the natural backlash which occurred as other states likely proved all too willing to provide a bountiful amount of alcohol, but had much less incentive to purchase the raw materials Vermont was capable of producing.

This came pursuant to various political and economic changes which had occurred in Vermont prior to the establishment of significant organized religion in the public sphere. While by the 1840s, Vermont was on the threshold of breaking through with new threshing machines that would transform agricultural capabilities and allow the conquest of the American South later after allegations of unfair democratic procedures and unconstitutional secession (which is only permitted in the event a state or states’ constitution is in conflict with the United States’ constitution, not when federal statutes and state statutes or constitutions conflict). “In the years following the war of 1812, New York Governor Dewitt Clinton backed the projected Erie Canal that promised to reroute trade form the rapidly growing Great Lakes trade region and Montreal to the Hudson River and New York City” (Potash, 168).

While temperance movements may have decried this as a corruption of social morals and code at the time, the economic success of the action cannot be denied; trade across Lake Champlain subsequently increased by a factor of 500%. This is double the rate of agricultural growth in Addison County as measured by sheep count after 1832 pursuant to recovery from the banking crisis at the time (Potash, 173). Slowly for industrialists hoping to finally dot the Vermont countryside with urban areas, but rapidly given modes of transportation and conservative social values, the state saw a distinct demographic transformation.

“In the decade after 1820, although the population increased by almost 19% to almost 280,652, a large number of towns actually lost population” (Potash, 167) though it is possible this change was not as beneficial as it first appears. Unlike today, when the expansion of the technological frontier can rapidly expand economic horizons, during that time period it was difficult to make significant gains, even as economic policies appeared to work. This is likely due to natural barriers from toxic substance use and semi-natural pollutants (medicine and industry were equally barbaric in the release and exposure of workers and customers to dangerous elements). These changes economically have roots in educational changes that occurred at the time.

Prior to the 1840s, “during the 1820s and 30s Middlebury graduated three times as many students as the University of Vermont” (Potash, 179). This gives an example of this principle in action as no significant technological gains are reported until 1850 when this trend can be presumed to have reversed: with an excess of Middlebury graduates in comparison to UVM graduates, despite an abundance of the former, local economic systems simply became saturated without industrial or agricultural concerns to support them; closer to the lake and transportation proved to be more fertile ground for educational investment. In modern times, we can see that as the population increases in intelligence, such as when lead was removed from paint, automobiles and the environment in general, the economy and graduation rates also increase in kind; in this case it can be seen that a change of around 5 points in IQ resulted in triple the number of college graduates and corresponding gains in gross domestic product.

Earlier reference to sheep in Addison county plays a particularly important role to early Vermont educational development. While it is well known that timber played an important role in Vermont’s history, “the state’s economy flourished initially, then absorbed war-time setbacks, and slowly overcame them, while developing an increasingly precarious agricultural dependence on a single crop, wool” (Potash, 146). The expansion of the agricultural capacity of the state must have marched hand in hand with widespread deforestation. With this would come the educational maturation which allowed Vermont citizens to lead some of the most brilliant military victories in the United State’s history as well as several key technological innovations which played a key role in the survival of the state despite numerous human rights violations and keen competition for valuable resources, whether maple sugar to flavor tobacco or the granite which formed the foundation of the nation’s political and economic capitals.

Works Cited:

 Buchanan, Andrew. "US Military History." University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. 2013. Lecture.

 Opal, Jason. "American History to 1865." McGill University, Montreal, Quebec. 2010. Web.

 Potash, P. Freedom and Unity: A History of Vermont. Vermont Historical Society: 2004.

 Thornton, Kevin. "US History to 1865." University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. 2010. Lecture.

 Weiner, Mathew. "Introduction to Logic." University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. 2014. Lecture.

Marginalization of Intelligentsia and Extermination of European Jewry in Nazi Germany

Paul Andreas Fischer

4/15/2015

Marginalization of Intelligentsia and Extermination of European Jewry in Nazi Germany 

The breakdown of academic institutions was felt throughout Germany. Despite Alfred Hitchcock’s assertion that “trading a few books” seemed well worth the military conquests made by Germans, the reality was that the nation was one in freefall and tatters, on a scale virtually unprecedented in the history of mankind. The elimination of the lower end of the “tail” on a natural bell curve through eugenics and euthanasia programs has been well publicized. However, the marginalization of the other tail, the intelligentsia, is less well understood. It will be necessary to work from the Nicosia and Huener anthology, Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany, in order to formulate a concise explanation for the exact method and procedure which resulted in a nation on the forefront of technological progress to become the mechanism for the most destructive killing machine in history.

        This breakdown will be seen as responsibility for development of Nazi racial ideology, experimentation and opportunism as well as the consequences for breaches in scientific ethics, and the direct involvement of educated medical professionals in methodological killing as well as in development of the systems, social and scientific, which made this possible. Throughout, it will be analyzed through two lenses. Firstly, the crackdown on tobacco use and production in 1941-2 offers a pericope of cumulative radicalization and of the marginalization of those adequately qualified to hold academic posts in Nazi Germany while offering as well a tangible and previously underexplored explanation for why the final solution was not issued until 1942, and how during a wartime economy 10 percent of national insecticide production would be suicidally diverted to what Nazi leaders referred to as the Jewish problem. Then to expand from this, information will be offered on the destruction of medical and scientific institutions and the role leaders in medical and scientific professions played in using the threat of disenfranchisement to bully subordinates into compliance, use of cumulative radicalization to brainwash citizens to racial ideologies, and in the actual act of killing itself, from development of the newest techniques of mass murder and post-traumatic stress disorder minimization to the selection of prisoners to be killed.

The Final Solution to the Tobacco Question and Confluence to the Holocaust

        It is not currently known exactly how much nicotine from tobacco was used during the war years, but one can assume it was substantial; in the post-war years of 1945-50 2,500 tons of nicotine-based insecticide was used worldwide^[1]. While annual use of Zyklon B, the killing agent commercially sold as an insecticide, was almost thirteen times greater than the amount used to commit Holocaust, it has been shown that the purchases after 1941 (when gassing commenced) were made primarily at one time and constituted almost a quarter of national supply^[2]. Hand picked land is about fifty times less efficient than that treated with insecticide, and that is the sort of prohibitive cost which could have hindered Nazi leaders from recognizing their racial goals early in the regime.

        Battling tobacco was not new to the Nazi agenda, but before 1941 this policy had been couched in terms of anti-internationalist agendas. Hitler hoped to use the fact that Jewish Marxists in the professors’ rebellion of 1848 had advocated tobacco use, or at least fought religious anti-tobacco sentiments, as evidence of a Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy. It also reinforced racial ideology as he described tobacco as “the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor.”^[3] 

        Yet legal sanctions only began in 1938; until 1941 tobacco seemed to be safe against the prejudices of an academic system gone woefully and extensively awry. The Universal Tobacco Institute continued to operate, as did the hundreds of thousands of Germans the industry employed. Then, eerily close to the first testing of Zyklon B in concentration camps for victim gassing, a militant operation was launched to drive out the tobacco industry. “The Reich Institute for Tobacco Research in Forcheim, ear Karlsruhe, perfected methods to remove nicotine” during the war, which supplemented waste materials to be processed into insecticide for use by the agricultural industry.^[4] This was carried out with military efficiency, and while it cannot be known precisely when the change occurred, with estimates variable throughout the war, it can be said with certainty that between 1938 and 1948 tobacco use dropped from almost 130,000 tonnes to just over 30,000 tonnes.^[5] The industry would not recover to pre-war levels until 1965.

        While the act of smoking had thus far been viewed perhaps as a form of “passive resistance”,^[6] after this turning point it also became part of the Nazi’s ultimate ideological goal: racial purification. Convictions were never pressed against the seller of Zyklon B, the Degesch Administrative Board, and though all members were arrested for sometime, charges were dropped within weeks. The board members claimed to have no recollection of foreknowledge of the destination of the gas. Whether the same can be said for the anti-smoking campaigns which created such a surplus in the first place will unfortunately never be known. It can be known that there must have been someone with knowledge of the ideological value of the decision in order to move focus from the Physician’s League’s earlier role of spreading “biographical information about Jewish colleagues who were still practicing medicine” and cementing the scientific basis of the ideological claims of the party.^[7]

        However, the sudden prosecution of tobacco executives in Nazi Germany was not logically sound or based in science. Research consisted of handfuls of industrial workers who smoked “extremely heavy” amounts of tobacco correlated with data from questionnaires that were empirically useless, which can be seen repeated today in anti-smoking campaigns.^[8] Fortunately, what prevented modern science in the USA from following the same path as German scientists did on this matter was adjustment of tobacco studies for levels of exercise in 1999 and demonstration over the years of the actual effect of air pollution and how much air pollution can be generated by a cigarette. This resulted from a rigorous and thorough adherence to the scientific method which was sadly missing in Nazi controlled institutions, which pursued ideological goals before establishing a firm causal to correlative experimental proof. In addition to shooting the anti-tobacco campaigns full of holes, such adherence also could have easily shown fallacies in the logic of racial and euthanasia programs, as the groups played important social roles previously and with rapid industrialization and the entourage of dangerous chemicals had begun to play a technological role that far outweighed what little sadistic gains were made from “experimentation” on murdered victims.

        Ultimately the medical profession had the highest level of Nazi Party, SS, and SA membership among professions at the time. This involvement was spurred onwards by promises of job prospects and respect, but retained with the overwhelming death, first of eugenics then war and then industrial murder. It was encouraged at a young age, even in university with characters like Karl Astel who, a “vocal Anti-Semite and high-ranking SS officer, Astel was also a militant anti-smoker and teetotaler who banned smoking at the University of Jena and soon became known for snatching cigarettes from the mouths of students who dared to violate the ban.”^[9] Turning a blind eye to the Hippocratic Oath and medical ethics became only too easy as more and more professionals felt they owed their sick success to the regime.  

Fascism and Medicine: Cure-all Against Sound Logic

        The insistent role of fascism in the medical field had played into earlier euthanasia and eugenics programs which crippled the national understanding of many diseases by eliminating (to use statistical, and not qualitative language) the null values in society; “physicians, dentists, pharmacists - selected those destined for the gas chambers” which reinforced the random brutality of what occurred to those in charge as well as overwhelmed subordinates, and psychological sadism or mental illness did play a role, it is not necessary to look farther than the experiments of Mengele or others to see this. The lack of professional discernment for qualifications and ethics also enabled later reinforcement of racial ideology which evolved from old wives’ tales at the formation of the Reich into a pseudoscience by marginalizing the influence of doctors and professionals whose careers were staked in understanding these ailments or the impact of pollutants which are now known to cause them. With no small irony “the same academic research institutions that gave birth to modern medicine and medical science and medical education also fostered what was to become the greatest program of human destruction in the history of humankind.”^[10]

        This had already begun in 1936 with a nationwide eugenics and euthanasia program which resonated with calls for racial purification and touched on trends being tested in other nations with sterilization. A poster in support of the program read “We are not alone!” but left out the destruction to German society, starving babies, and industrial contamination which followed. While in other nations, intact academic institutions recognized the social and technological value of these populations, the defunct academic system in Germany allowed the same demagoguery to dominate in the medical system as had already consumed the political system. The two worked seamlessly to support each other and ensure that radicalization of the population occurred.

        As Germany prepared for war, medical licenses or approbations were provided with increasingly lower levels of training and as a reward for party membership or loyalty. With the declaration of war doctors began to receive emergency medical licences, or notapprobations, and membership in the SS was admirable. They were deployed, medical professionals of all stripes, to select healthy prisoners, in which there was unanimous compliance. All that separated the doctors was unique sadism on the behalf of a few. This was an organization of death, and the mission and goal was the destruction of Germany’s foes. Compounded by the madness of murder perpetrated on a systemic scale, sadistic doctors found themselves with an open licence, not just in medicine, but in all matters life, death, and pain in between. Examples of torture include radiological scanning with lumbar punctures uniquely painful, “psychological” experiments in which prisoners were simply poisoned with sausages, and violently induced blindness and other disease.

        Fortunately, the experimentation did not pan out for German scientists, and the pressure to produce increased. Rather than a return to the hypothesis or theorems being tested (or in practice in this case), which would have been necessitated by scientific method, this was pursued by an economical doubling down on the same old concepts previously rejected. Two things made this decision incontrovertible for Nazi leaders at the time: the coming declaration of war in 1938 and availability of nicotine-based insecticide. Without these catalysts, it is likely that the ivory tower would have provided the protection needed to ensure success in reversing the fundamental fallacies in logic which resulted in some of the greatest tragedies ever seen.

---

[1] Ujváry, István. "Nicotine and other insecticidal alkaloids." In Nicotinoid Insecticides and the Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor, pp. 29-69. Springer Japan, 1999, 2.

[2] Hayes, Peter. From cooperation to complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich. Cambridge University Press, 2007, 296.

[3] Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 51.

[4] Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 49.

[5] Forey, Barbara, Jan Hamling, John Hamling, Alison Thornton, and Peter Lee. "International Smoking Statistics Web Edition A Collection of Worldwide Historical Data Germany." P N Lee Statistics and Computing Ltd. October 24, 2011. Accessed April 16, 2015, 10.

[6]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 52.

[7]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 79.

[8]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 47.

[9]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 50.

[10]  Nicosia, Francis R., and Jonathan Huener. "Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices." Legacies (2004), 94.

The Downfall of the First Republic: Polish Nobility, Five Eternal Rights, Three Contributing Failures, and Three Conspiring Powers

Paul Fischer

2/4/2015

John Huener

The Downfall of the First Republic: Polish Nobility, Five Eternal Rights, Three Contributing Failures, and Three Conspiring Powers

Polish nobility were guaranteed five eternal and invariable principles in the constitution of 1793. Unfortunately the monarch and the people were notably left out. Without the absolutism of France (which also failed) or the great rights of Venetian or German merchants and burghers, the middle class, Poland found itself following a colonial model in the chaos of the ancien regime in Europe. The downfall of the First Polish Republic in 1795 was the result of a series of coinciding factors, each of which will be addressed fully and with concise clarity.

The primary contributing factors to the downfall of Poland that will be addressed are economic destabilization, civil strife and political turmoil, as well as an incapacity to perform militarily in such a way as to maintain Poland’s borders in the new nation-state system imposed on much of Europe by nationalism, in a geopolitical sense. Inability to compete economically with other nations created a myth of Poland as a nation without a purpose. Specific trade inequalities as well as industrial non-competitiveness will be seen first, and as a contribution to the exacerbation of other elements of the devolution of the Polish state before its removal from political maps (if not from that of cultural identity).

Economic malaise: The New World and Europe’s Grain Basket

Poland lies along the Oder and Vistula rivers and with the unification of Lithuanian and Polish lands through personal union with the creation of the Republic of the Two Nations in 1569, a great amount of grain harvest was gained. As control of these far flung regions began to disintegrate, so to did the economic prosperity of Poland. The rest of Europe underwent nationalization in an industrial sense, while Polish reforms came too little, too late.

While German reforms granting power to burghers were necessitated by squabbles within the Holy Roman Empire, and in France and Italy these protections were de facto incorporated with their national development in the middle ages, it was not until 1791 that “Poland transformed from a nation of gentry to a nation of proprietors” (Taras, 34). This late realization of economic equality and prosperity to national success meant that “putting-out” systems in Europe took longer to occur in Polish lands, and with them the seeds of industrialization which made European colonial ambitions reality.

Historically, nature had protected Poland from the malevolent forces of economic sabotage or instability. When civil wars or marauding Tartars devastated the farmlands, merchants and nobility were comfortable to wait for times to change, safe in the knowledge that it was impossible for rudimentary military operations to effectively control the territory (at times this included Poland’s own rulers). Unfortunately, divides which economically split these nobles would also result in military conflict later on.

The shift towards Moscow and the Orthodox church resulted in times of entire regions simply refusing to pay tribute or taxes,  and in the Great Deluge, the nation was torn apart in civil war waged by Poland’s elite nobility. Costly military  and political conquests, such as union with Lithuania began to fall apart because “to Orthodox nobles, especially in the distant eastern borderlands, taking service with Moscow often seemed to offer a more promising path of advancement” (Lukowski and Zawadzki, 56).

When economic tithes stopped coming to Roman Catholic authorities, the progression of other country splitting heresy, such as that in Prussia, began to become more commonplace, and the crown and military found itself in a disadvantage. This was worsened by the introduction of New World markets, destabilizing demand for raw materials that Poland was known for. Their economic advantage was destroyed as England’s industrialization provided eastern lands with better products, in a similar manner to the colonies, which undermined the historical technological advantages Polish merchants and forces enjoyed.

Five Liberties, and How Oppression and Repression Tear Poland Apart at the Seams

When the big three neighbors of Poland, Austria, Russia, and Sweden, that were primarily responsible for the nation’s fall, were disorganized and ineffective at projecting power beyond their own borders, Polish chariots established an effective rule over one third of continental Europe. However, as these nations consolidated under the power of some of the most effective rulers in history, and in France the absolutism of Louis XIV became the envy of Europe, Polish compromise made political change grind to a halt. Even in wars within Poland, there was no satisfaction and the nobles expressed indignation at their “oppression” or at the inability to act in a reactionary manner, in either case neither side’s ambitions could be fulfilled, and consequently little conquest, economic development, or other trade marks of the absolute monarch such as imperialism could be fulfilled.

This was endemic and intrinsic to a policy change forced upon the king, “nothing new” in which the Polish Sejm or parliament, “hereby affirmed for all time to come that nothing new may be enacted by Us and our Successors save by the common consent of the senators and the envoys of the constituencies” (Lukowski and Zawadzki, 64), which meant that even funding for a defensive war that the monarch approved of could take three or four years to be approved, if at all. The weakness of a central authority in Poland is illustrated in the case of certain magnates or nobles which held more economic wealth than the royal treasury. Polish neighbors had no love for this egalitarian noble led state, much later, after the fall, Prince Metternich, the Austrian Chancellor stated, “Polonism is only a formula, the sound of a word underneath which hides a revolution in its most glaring form” (Taras, 36). For foreign nations, in pre-revolution and pre-napoleonic Europe, revolutionary ideals were more hated even than the most bitter foes.

Under one king, August III, “only one session of the Sejm was able to pass any legislation at all” (Taras, 31). Enemies of Poland, and of religious authority alike took full advantage of this system to make a mockery of attempted nationhood. The inability to rule was compounded by liberum conspire under which Polish nobility had the right to conspire against authority, and indeed even to wage warfare against the king.

Moving from Polish insurrections to foreign policy, seeing that “this system also generated self-destructive tendencies, especially when skillfully exploited by Poland’s foes” (Taras 32), draws a vivid picture of the conspiracy of multiple malevolent forces in the fall of Polish authority. With one third of the population dead due to war and war-related famines and hardship, and substantial territory lost, this authority had dwindled for nearly a century before the famous partitions and direct involvement of foreign belligerents.

Polish Military and Geopolitical Power: More Than Technological Disadvantage

Neighboring nations had a contempt for national Poland. The viewpoint of the rest of the world was that Poland was a nation, once too powerful to deal with, with unchanging ideology in the face of a rapidly changing world. While Renaissance and middle age era kings of Poland were able to boast resounding victories over heretics and foreign opponents alike, by the time gunpowder fuelled war machines took dominance, the nation fell apart on the battlefield as well as at home.

While the ultimate elimination of the Polish state was diplomatic, a result of treaties and occurred gradually over the last decade of the 18th century in partitions, it was causally linked to vicious warfare which left the country and people in tatters. With no choice but to fight, and no war machine to fight with, it was easy for foreign nations to dictate terms to Polish nobility, a class that by this time was facing humiliation in the face of successful peasant authority throughout Europe. Poland had no choice to throw its power behind a monarch or decentralize into the peasant masses, either option was fundamentally undermined by the very constitution Poland considered to be the premier among democratic or republican movements at the time.

This was one example of a compromise that failed. Where once, in times of duchies and feudal rule, compromise gave Poland unprecedented authority in negotiations and in integrating new cultures and classes, now this conciliatory nature tore the nation to pieces. With nationalist ideologies spreading in Europe, a mixed background of constituents made consolidation impossible, except through the guiding force of the greater powers.

Unfortunately for occupying powers, this did not work. Poland was ripped apart, eaten digested, and excreted nearly in whole, and periodic nationalist rebellions proved this point. While they did little to restore the Polish state, the idea of a Polish nation remained so ingrained to its people behavior that nearly 150 years later, the state was able to rise again, a testament to the strength this culture possessed.

The nation survived bitter persecution and is now stronger for that effect. Without the conspiring influence of war and struggle, however, it is possible that Poland could have exerted control over some greater lands and resources. Failure to recognize the future of Europe as interconnected to the destiny of Poland is a failure that is not likely to repeat itself. Thought that which has seen Poland survive thus far is the fierce loyalty to land and nation, and this remains paramount in this nation-state as it has successfully repulsed attempts by the Soviet Union and other powers to absorb their cultural identity.

Works Cited:

Lukowski, Jerzy, and W. H. Zawadzki. A Concise History of Poland. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print.

Taras, Ray. Consolidating Democracy in Poland. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. Print.

Watergate: Trial and Tribulation, A Commander-in-Chief Laid Low

Paul Fischer

2/1/2015

Felicia Kornbluh

Watergate: Trial and Tribulation, A Commander-in-Chief Laid Low

One of the first questions that arises while reading All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein is the historical authenticity of the events and journalistic integrity involved. It becomes very clear with further research, as well as sources, that the biggest challenge to the events that occurred is the typo on page 43. Of course, it must be first noted that ultimately the story was confirmed by Richard Nixon’s resignation as a correctly placed political and legal noose began to tighten around his ill-gained structures of power. Bernstein wonders at first how deep the conspiracy can go, and without the corporate trails of money that are prevalent today, with soviet infiltration at the forefront of the public opinion, it is safe to say that the extent of this corruption was if anything underestimated. Yet it is still important to reaffirm this before moving to the primary purpose of this paper, the evaluation of the artistic value of this work and its impact on popular culture and opinion. As Sussman says, “We’ve never had a story like this. Just never.”

It is also important to note the solidity of the accusations and events, because it played an important part in explaining how the American public could believe this extraordinary story. Bernstein was so confident in the public’s belief, with good reason after the prosecution’s interrogation of Nixon and his men and the devolution of the administration, that he was able to frame the story in a publicly accessible and theatrical manner. This despite generally conservative alignment shifts coincident with the incarceration and removal of voting rights of approximately 25% of voters, mostly African-American and democrats by the turn of the millennium.

Without making direct accusations, the book ominously points to a greater surveillance and corruption than can even be proven. As white house aides and Republican leaders alike attempted to stifle investigation into the Watergate incident, Woodward and Bernstein are both rebuffed handily. Unlike a manufactured scandal, such as when the FBI attempted to frame Martin Luther King Jr. for the beating of white women, which are shallow and ill-planned, this investigation has a breakthrough contributing to its authenticity as well as the dramatic flow of the story line.

Perhaps the greatest attribute to the story is that an alignment shift was not created. While the long term implications for the Republican party, and American democratic procedures cannot be understated, some might argue that this was a bone. In the coming election presidential candidate George McGovern seized this up, and overestimated the public’s belief and investment in these events. He made a number of extraordinary claims, and Republicans were able to use this to their advantage in counter-stories published, mocking investigative efforts.

The author uses suspense to his advantage as he closes in on Haldeman. For his source the “stakes seemed to quadruple” whenever Haldeman’s name was mentioned. Forced to do it himself, Woodward had to find a way to obtain absolute certainty in the confirmation. As FBI realizes that there is an inside informant, and some of the stories are coming “nearly verbatim” from bureau reports, maneuvering becomes tight. Jubilation breaks out as it is confirmed from secret grand-jury testimony by Hugh Sloan, a leading member of the conspiracy that the slush fund in question was in fact used for dirty political tricks.

Seeing Woodward and Bernstein as foils of each other is impossible. At the beginning of the story, this seemed to be the case, but by the time the story is confirmed, they act as one and if anything have reversed in roles as journalists. In late October, the doubt must have been crushing. The administration was dirty, but it is not clear how or what machinations were in place to ensure the survival of the corruption.

The sick surprise of having their big break nearly defeated is gut-wrenching. There is a perfect relief when finally, “Stoner [Sloan’s lawyer] said he would not recommend making any apology to Bob Haldeman."  The sacrifice of the journalists is also critical to the book’s literary success. These were men willing to risk incarceration, even while following all of the rules, in order to see justice done to a demagogue who was using corruption to maintain his “popular” rule: Nixon, the president of the United States himself.

Finally, Nixon “accepted the resignations of Ehrlichman and Haldeman and Dean.” Then on national television he took responsibility for the actions of his subordinates. As the tapes unraveled, so to speak, and the president’s men are brought into the limelight, the story is rated as B-plus, then Butterfield laid out the whole story before the senate committee and the country, and the story is more than a B-plus. While the president continued to insist that he was “not a crook” and called the stories “scurrilous” in nature, his authority was compromised. Though he believed that “one year of Watergate was enough,” the nation would never recover from the breach of sacred trust by an executive in this manner.

Apocalypse Now: Horrors of a Heart of Darkness

Paul Fischer

1.24.2015

Felicia Kornbluh

Apocalypse Now: Horrors of a Heart of Darkness

Apocalypse Now opens to destruction in the jungle of Vietnam, as Jim Morrison’s smooth definitive psychedelic rock song The End plays, a Captain Willard’s smoking head and torso are superimposed, letters are strewn on the nightstand, but sleeping now the soldier has disappeared into a haze of smoke and Cordon Bleu. The soft beating of a helicopter transitions to the fan in a squalid apartment with cheap blinds..

“Saigon. Shit.” This soldier dreams of the jungle, of returning to the pain he left behind. Director Francis Coppola is put in a dirty place between anti-war sentiment that can guarantee this film popularity, and the squelching  necessity to portray the US Army in a positive light. He does neither. But this is done brilliantly. The story is based on Heart of Darkness, and the struggle to find God in war is one that resonates with the violence and prejudice of that novel. Yet the mission is not to carry out this violence, but to stem the violence. In a special operations assignment a bloodthirsty American colonel must be terminated. The captain is accustomed to death, “but this time, it was an American, and an officer.”

The target, Kurtz, represents an American dream, and this is used to bring the film home to every American. Regardless of whether they are accomplished or flunky hippies, everyone has had a moment of desire to be this man. Watching the betrayal of the American dream is as captivating as it is intriguing.  The absurdity of an expensive flame-throwing tank being utilized against a village is emblematic of the entire war for American viewers. A bombed church shows the destruction of values too many Americans identify with themselves.

The war was presented as finished, won. Yet the soldiers cannot leave their boat. The countryside crawls with Vietcong. Even on the patrol boat, riverside attacks occur, and the soldiers are helpless, inadequate or improper firearms and little shielding give them virtually no choice but to simply speed onwards, deeper, losing a crew member in the process. Suspicion is a dominant theme in this film, a paranoia looms large. Deeper in the jungle, the remnants of a post-apocalyptic war machine lie in ruin. Yet apocalypse in a temporal or legitimate sense cannot come quickly enough for the soldiers.

By showing a soldier burning alive, as chopper machine guns mow down villagers, the film depicts the horror of war. It is hard to believe that these are the same that were just shortly before seventeen year old surfers. Captain Willard cannot imagine how Colonel Kurtz can be fighting a worse war than that already sanctioned by the US Military. Soldiers and officers alike consider the Vietnamese to be natives, with only nominal respect shown for the dead and wounded. Then the Captain executes an innocent civilian. The viewer is in shock. Good and bad are wrenched in the same way the American at home was betrayed with the announcement of My Lai and illegal incursions into Cambodia.

As the war had been a sick carnival, the soundtrack and cinematography collide corrosively. Soldiers smoke marijuana, officers drink. tripping on acid, they are welcomed to the “asshole of the world.” As they arrive to the colonel, the barbarity of the actions of the soldiers he defends with the barbarity of the land he has come to. Seeing the heart of Cambodia, corrupted like this golden child of America, who now sees violence as a genius, the viewer is brought into the heart of darkness. The apocalypse now written on Kurtz’s temple is a call to arms, but one that the viewer will never answer. The jungle and quiet crickets isolate the evil completely. We can only look on with horror.

The end of the river comes as the end of the war. Awaiting an airstrike, the Captain confronts this mad, evil genius. “It smelled like slow death” and in the center, was this man’s lair. Without a timeline the entire film, urgency suddenly becomes paramount. Complete the mission and return to the boat by 2200 hours, or everyone will become engulfed in the flames of napalm. The Colonel’s slow words betray this urgency, his psychopathic nature, already aware of the Captain’s intent to terminate his command.

“He dies when it dies,” the words of the Colonel’s brainwashed civilian photojournalist indicate the paralysis and uselessness of the situation. A prisoner now, the Captain wakes up with the head of a soldier in his lap. He breaks down into tears. The Colonel lullabies him with read poetry. With the behavioural instincts and natural barbarity of a cat, Colonel Kurtz eats raw garlic as he quotes Heart of Darkness, “I’ve seen horrors, horrors you have never seen… you have no right to judge me.” He has been gripped by the barbarity of the villagers and war alike. As the film begins, it ends, Jim Morrison sings, and the Captain mows Kurtz down with savage justice, in war paint his machete against the red of fire like the sword of Gabriel. The Colonel’s last words: “The horror. The horror.”