Loyal citizens who stand for Americanism
October 17, 2017 9:27 AM Subscribe
A Night at the Garden - a short archival documentary of a pro-America rally held at NYC's Madison Square Garden, in 1939.
Q&A with director Marshall Curry.
Executive-produced by Laura Poitras as part of the Field of Vision series.
(The man at 04:15 is Isadore Greenbaum.)
(via open culture)
Q&A with director Marshall Curry.
Executive-produced by Laura Poitras as part of the Field of Vision series.
(The man at 04:15 is Isadore Greenbaum.)
(via open culture)
Well, it was billed as just that, however: "PRO AMERICAN RALLY".
posted by progosk at 9:36 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by progosk at 9:36 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Well, it was billed as just that, however: "PRO AMERICAN RALLY".
c.f. MAGA. The far right often employs linguistic sleight of hand (or bait-and-switch).
posted by ryanshepard at 9:40 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]
c.f. MAGA. The far right often employs linguistic sleight of hand (or bait-and-switch).
posted by ryanshepard at 9:40 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]
Yeah, feels a little weird (and clickbaity at best) to post this without fairly important context.
posted by ripley_ at 9:57 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by ripley_ at 9:57 AM on October 17, 2017 [7 favorites]
Well, it was billed as just that, however: "PRO AMERICAN RALLY".
The Richard Spencer crowd doesn't usually bill their gatherings as "Concentration Camps and Secret Police Rallies" either.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:10 AM on October 17, 2017 [16 favorites]
The Richard Spencer crowd doesn't usually bill their gatherings as "Concentration Camps and Secret Police Rallies" either.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:10 AM on October 17, 2017 [16 favorites]
Uh, yeah, before clicking I read the FPP as sarcasm because 1939 triggers my Trivial Pursuit "knowledge" that Hitler was Time's Man of the Year in 1938...plus the reference to night. Contesting a clarification made in the comments is strangely defensive...
posted by lazycomputerkids at 10:42 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by lazycomputerkids at 10:42 AM on October 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'll have to watch the rest of the video later, but the Q&A was a good read. I wasn't confused by the post framing because I don't know when I've ever heard about a "Pro-America Rally" that was anything but an Anti-Something Rally. I'll possibly allow exceptions for the American Revolution or Civil War, but neither of those things was happening in 1939. The only things I could imagine this being in context were an isolationism message or a Pro-The-Right-Kind-Of-American Rally. The parallels to events before and since this rally are obvious but it seems like they're forgotten too often.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 10:43 AM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 10:43 AM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
a little weird (and clickbaity at best) to post this without fairly important context.
I took my cue from the director’s own approach in editing the piece (as per the Q&A):
posted by progosk at 10:45 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
I took my cue from the director’s own approach in editing the piece (as per the Q&A):
At first I thought I’d make a traditional documentary—with an explaining the background of the group. But when I started cutting the footage together, I realized there was real power in just watching it unfold, without explanation.But quotation marks around “pro-American” would not have been out of place, admitted.
posted by progosk at 10:45 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
That's what's so great about Americanism. It stands for whatever you want America to be.
posted by Naberius at 10:48 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Naberius at 10:48 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
Look at all those loyal and patriotic Americans standing up and saluting their flag.
*sheds tear*
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell would be so proud!
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:48 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
*sheds tear*
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell would be so proud!
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:48 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
The bit towards the beginning is rather sloppily edited, which is a shame, because it could depict a historically interesting overlap of rote American patriotism and rabid fascist nationalism.
While the DAB were most certainly Nazis, some of those "Nazi salutes" you're seeing are likely Bellamy salutes to accompany the oddly intercut Pledge of Allegiance. It was standard practice to salute the American flag with that gesture from 1892 until 1942. Nationalism likes to plunder from and pervert patriotism -- "Pro-American," indeed -- and that's one bit of the latter that hadn't yet been fully abandoned to the former. In light of recent flag-saluting events, I think it's especially poignant.
There is some controversy over possible smears of individuals using cropped pictures of them Pledging Allegiance to the stars'n'stripes to show the person is a Nazi sympathizer, but, to be clear, this ain't that. These were definitely, totally, undeniably Nazis with a capital N. They had swastikas and a whole Hitler Youth wing and everything. There's plenty more footage on YouTube. It's fascinating.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:58 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
While the DAB were most certainly Nazis, some of those "Nazi salutes" you're seeing are likely Bellamy salutes to accompany the oddly intercut Pledge of Allegiance. It was standard practice to salute the American flag with that gesture from 1892 until 1942. Nationalism likes to plunder from and pervert patriotism -- "Pro-American," indeed -- and that's one bit of the latter that hadn't yet been fully abandoned to the former. In light of recent flag-saluting events, I think it's especially poignant.
There is some controversy over possible smears of individuals using cropped pictures of them Pledging Allegiance to the stars'n'stripes to show the person is a Nazi sympathizer, but, to be clear, this ain't that. These were definitely, totally, undeniably Nazis with a capital N. They had swastikas and a whole Hitler Youth wing and everything. There's plenty more footage on YouTube. It's fascinating.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:58 AM on October 17, 2017 [1 favorite]
I mean, it's almost a certainty that trump's father was there that day, right?
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:10 PM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:10 PM on October 17, 2017 [6 favorites]
From the director's Q&A:
Q: Who was the guy who ran out on stage and got beaten up at the rally?
A: He was a 26-year-old plumber’s helper from Brooklyn named Isadore Greenbaum. When he ran on stage to protest, he was beaten up and had his pants ripped off as he was thrown from the stage. He was also arrested for disorderly conduct and fined $25.
There was a debate at the time over whether the Bund should be allowed to have a rally, which – like so many things about the event—seems eerily contemporary. Greenbaum explained to the judge the day after the rally, “I went down to the Garden without any intention of interrupting. But being that they talked so much against my religion and there was so much persecution I lost my head, and I felt it was my duty to talk.” The Magistrate asked him, “Don’t you realize that innocent people might have been killed?” And Greenbaum replied, “Do you realize that plenty of Jewish people might be killed with their persecution up there?” (New York Times, 2/22/39)
The Washington Post published this today:
When Nazis rallied in Manhattan, one working-class Jewish man from Brooklyn took them on:
Shortly after the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay area in 1989, the Los Angeles Times spoke with local residents about the likelihood that they, too, would experience a significant quake at some point in the near future.
One man the newspaper spoke with was stoic about the prospect.
“When it comes, it comes. Not much use worrying about it,” local fisherman Isadore Greenbaum told the paper. “I remember when one hit a ways back, some of the people didn’t know what it was, and I told ’em it was just a whale scratching its back.”
What the Times doesn’t seem to have known is that they were speaking with someone with a proven track record of bravery in the face of danger. Isadore Greenbaum was arrested in 1939 for charging the stage at a rally of 22,000 Nazi sympathizers in the middle of Manhattan, enduring a beating at the hands of the uniformed stormtroopers who were providing security before being dragged away by the police.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:09 PM on October 17, 2017 [16 favorites]
Q: Who was the guy who ran out on stage and got beaten up at the rally?
A: He was a 26-year-old plumber’s helper from Brooklyn named Isadore Greenbaum. When he ran on stage to protest, he was beaten up and had his pants ripped off as he was thrown from the stage. He was also arrested for disorderly conduct and fined $25.
There was a debate at the time over whether the Bund should be allowed to have a rally, which – like so many things about the event—seems eerily contemporary. Greenbaum explained to the judge the day after the rally, “I went down to the Garden without any intention of interrupting. But being that they talked so much against my religion and there was so much persecution I lost my head, and I felt it was my duty to talk.” The Magistrate asked him, “Don’t you realize that innocent people might have been killed?” And Greenbaum replied, “Do you realize that plenty of Jewish people might be killed with their persecution up there?” (New York Times, 2/22/39)
The Washington Post published this today:
When Nazis rallied in Manhattan, one working-class Jewish man from Brooklyn took them on:
Shortly after the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay area in 1989, the Los Angeles Times spoke with local residents about the likelihood that they, too, would experience a significant quake at some point in the near future.
One man the newspaper spoke with was stoic about the prospect.
“When it comes, it comes. Not much use worrying about it,” local fisherman Isadore Greenbaum told the paper. “I remember when one hit a ways back, some of the people didn’t know what it was, and I told ’em it was just a whale scratching its back.”
What the Times doesn’t seem to have known is that they were speaking with someone with a proven track record of bravery in the face of danger. Isadore Greenbaum was arrested in 1939 for charging the stage at a rally of 22,000 Nazi sympathizers in the middle of Manhattan, enduring a beating at the hands of the uniformed stormtroopers who were providing security before being dragged away by the police.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:09 PM on October 17, 2017 [16 favorites]
This is frightening and sad. I got goosebumps watching that.
posted by Fizz at 2:05 PM on October 17, 2017
posted by Fizz at 2:05 PM on October 17, 2017
Last time the Nazis were openly rallying in the US in numbers they were the booster club for a foreign power and got beat down by pro-war patriotism. Getting out of it this time is going to be more complicated.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:07 PM on October 17, 2017
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:07 PM on October 17, 2017
I mean, it's almost a certainty that trump's father was there that day, right?
...and it's almost a certainty that it's no longer problematic for the president's followers.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:07 PM on October 17, 2017
...and it's almost a certainty that it's no longer problematic for the president's followers.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:07 PM on October 17, 2017
Getting out of it this time is going to be more complicated.
Maybe. The thing is, it is now well understood what nazis stand for, and desire, and that they are serious about achieving those ends. And to be clear - those goals can only be accomplished through violence. The violence is baked into the ideology and it cannot exist without it.
In fact, it's that violence that is so appealing to most nazis, in my estimation. The trend has been away from violence and not towards it. To whatever extent that continues, nazis will continue to be marginalized as a result, because the entire philosophy is predicated on violence.
History doesn't repeat so much as echo - and echos attenuate.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 10:52 PM on October 17, 2017
Maybe. The thing is, it is now well understood what nazis stand for, and desire, and that they are serious about achieving those ends. And to be clear - those goals can only be accomplished through violence. The violence is baked into the ideology and it cannot exist without it.
In fact, it's that violence that is so appealing to most nazis, in my estimation. The trend has been away from violence and not towards it. To whatever extent that continues, nazis will continue to be marginalized as a result, because the entire philosophy is predicated on violence.
History doesn't repeat so much as echo - and echos attenuate.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 10:52 PM on October 17, 2017
The Magistrate asked him, “Don’t you realize that innocent people might have been killed?” And Greenbaum replied, “Do you realize that plenty of Jewish people might be killed with their persecution up there?” (New York Times, 2/22/39)
One of those times when you wish you could just suddenly appear in the courtroom in a blaze of light (and probably enough weird subatomic radiation to give everyone in the place cancer) and go, "I'm from the future. He's right. You're wrong."
posted by Naberius at 6:03 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]
One of those times when you wish you could just suddenly appear in the courtroom in a blaze of light (and probably enough weird subatomic radiation to give everyone in the place cancer) and go, "I'm from the future. He's right. You're wrong."
posted by Naberius at 6:03 AM on October 18, 2017 [4 favorites]
What America Taught the Nazis: In the 1930s, the Germans were fascinated by the global leader in codified racism—the United States.
posted by homunculus at 5:49 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 5:49 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
I came across the above article in this piece about the new Wolfenstein game:
'Wolfenstein II' Shows Us That Nazis Were an American Problem All Along: One of the biggest video games of the year has stumbled onto the third rail of American politics.
posted by homunculus at 5:50 PM on October 28, 2017
'Wolfenstein II' Shows Us That Nazis Were an American Problem All Along: One of the biggest video games of the year has stumbled onto the third rail of American politics.
posted by homunculus at 5:50 PM on October 28, 2017
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posted by ryanshepard at 9:33 AM on October 17, 2017 [10 favorites]