Phil Donahue on America’s War Fever (Video)

By on January 9, 2012 in News 19

On Piers Morgan Tonight of all places, Phil Donahue (who was kicked off MSNBC for being too anti-war in the wake of 9/11), speaks about the Bizarro world our political leaders live in when it comes to honest discussion about how America goes to war. (Side note: checking out the book Donahue references War Made Easy by Norman Solomon is enlightening.) Discussion starts around 35 seconds into this clip.

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  • WretchedBeast

    Phil looked so sad watching Santorum.

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    1:10 Donahue says
    “It looks like we have become a warrior nation.”
    The US has been at war the entire time of its existence.
    Peace has never broken out in the US, ever.
    Funny how high school civics class never mentions that fact.

  • 5by5

    Here’s what’s sad: that useless effluvium Piers Morgan has a show, and Phil Donahue, who was CORRECT about the war, doesn’t.

    Hey MSNBC execs, how idiotic are you?

    I hope CurrentTV hires Donahue. They’re picking up nearly everybody else MSNBC stupidly throws away despite their high ratings….

  • chinagreenelvis

    I was going to say something similar, actually. Phil Donahue has a lot of fantastic things to say, but ha makes a common mistake by saying “This is not the country my father fought for.” Clearly he forgets about the Asian detention camps that were set up during World War II, into which any chinky-looking bastard on the West Coast was thrown.

    People are always complaining that the state of things are getting worse when what is really happening is that they are merely discovering the way things have always been.

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    > Clearly he forgets about the Asian detention camps that were set up during World War II

    i was thinking about that the other day when Gordon Hirabayashi died
    that the largest ethnic group in the US are German Americans (17%)
    but there were no camps for them during WW2

    it did remind me that the constitution is regularly ignored
    whenever it gets in the way of freedom

  • Anonymous

    There were camps for German Americans in WWII.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_internment 

  • Samsonbalishag

    I strongly dislike the little pop-up comments throughout the clip.  Let me focus on what they’re saying, don’t try to tell me what to think about it.

  • Anarchy Pony

    It’s that the idiots in the US think that peace comes from domination and control, RULE of law. Not simply coexistence and cooperation.

  • chinagreenelvis

    Hah. They didn’t get an apology.

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    the United States government
    detained and interned over 11,000 German enemy aliens
    they were all citizens of Germany
    there is no proof that US citizens of German ancestry
    were interned by the US gov
    http://www.jstor.org/pss/407521

    my America born uncles
    of German ancestry & German speaking
    worked in the camps as translators

  • D.D.B.

    It seems there has been more and more sane commentary about all this lately.
    Hoping to hear more!
    Nicely done Phil.

  • Monkey See Monkey Do

    The best line in that clip was “Im not brave enough to be a pacifist”.

  • jigglyboobs

    amen. glad i’m not the only one who notices.

  • jigglyboobs

    um, almost…really they believe that cheap labor, cheap goods and cheap oil come from domination and control; they could give a flying fuck whether it’s peaceful or not, which is why america has never NOT been at war.

  • Anarchy Pony

     That’s the The Powers That Be, Joe on the street loves him some peace out the barrel of a main battle tank.

  • Anarchy Pony

     That’s the The Powers That Be, Joe on the street loves him some peace out the barrel of a main battle tank.

  • Anarchy Pony

     That’s the The Powers That Be, Joe on the street loves him some peace out the barrel of a main battle tank.

  • Anonymous

    He’s right and wrong about his “father fought for.” Most US wars have been fought for profit (Spanish) or a cause (WWI WWII). But these wars, Grenada, Iraq (Iran?) are fought for nothing. They are fought to feed Boeing or General Dynamics or Dick Cheney or CNN. 

  • Jin (仁)

    ww1 was also a for profit war and was the launching pad for america’s imperial aspirations, and if ww2 was fought for such principled reasons why did the US get involved so late in the game, when the mainstream rhetoric was isolationism, and then afterwards not prosecute collabos like ibm and ford who made multi millions from german contracts? don’t kid yourself, there is very rarely such a thing as a ‘just’ war, even if it is anti-fascist, anti genocide, there is always some americans (plural) and american corporations profiting from that same misery, death and destruction.

    that said i otherwise totally agree with what you are saying. boeing, general, dynamics and the rest can rot in the buddhist hell of flayed corpses on hooks for all i care.