Blog Post #5: Anti-War Voices

 

    The progressive timeline era youtube video shed light on silenced anti-war voices. More specifically, in 1919, there were four significant anti-war protesters named Schenck, Debs, Frohwerk, and Abrams.  All four of these men were thrown in jail by the Sedition Act of 1918. Moreover, the men were jailed because the Sedition Act of 1918 made it a crime to criticize the government. Nowadays, people are allowed to criticize the government and often do so. For example, on websites such as Antiwar.com and the American Conservative, several articles criticize the current presidential administration. I interpret these websites to be radical and swing to the right.

    Additionally, it seems as if most of the articles that appear on these websites are opinion-based and not reliable academic sources. For example, this conflict of interest article does not cite any sources and has a sassy/biased tone. Additionally, I watched part of the author of the article's youtube video elaborating on his point and it seems as if some of the information is not truthful with a possible hidden agenda. Therefore, I suppose these antiwar voices are not mainstream because of the opinion-based nature and lack of fact-checking. Before this assignment, I had never heard of websites such as these existing because I pay more attention to mainstream media. However, there are benefits to reading sites such as these because of the marketplace of ideas, which states multiple ideas should be voiced so the best ones can rise to the top. As a result, the best ideas can be a consensus of what the truth ultimately is.