The night after the attack, President Roosevelt had CBS News's Edward R. Murrow and Roosevelt's Coordinator of Information William Donovan over for dinner at the White House, and all the President wanted to know was whether the American people would now accept war. Donovan and Murrow assured him the people would indeed accept war now. Donovan later told his assistant that Roosevelt's surprise was not that of others around him, and that he, Roosevelt, welcomed the attack. Murrow was unable to sleep that night and was plagued for the rest of his life by what he called "the biggest story of my life" which he never told, but which he did not need to. The next day, the President spoke of a day of infamy, the United States Congress declared the last Congressionally declared war in the history of the republic, and the President of the Federal Council of Churches, Dr. George A. Buttrick, became a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation committing to resist the war.
Decades later, World War II would become a Good War having been fought for the noblest of causes, yet also having been forced on reluctant heroes (despite the need for them to act on those noblest of causes). And so, bloodlust now demands that each December 7th your local warmongers and corporate media outlets perform certain primitive rites in honor of the God of War who is so disgracefully maligned by current events that lack the rosy glow of decade upon decade of sweet-smelling bullshit.
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