"The League" by Bill Mills (2013)

Given enough time; and the opportunity; history will always repeat itself. It may not happen in your lifetime, but through the ages it always has, and we humans seem to learn nothing from it. That may be the most important message in this book, if the author intended there to be one. As Harry Truman used to say, “The only thing new is the history you don’t know.”

As the United States went to war in 1917, a civilian “army” of volunteers; numbering about a quarter of a million people, at a time when our population was just about 100 million in total; went to work spying on one another under the guise of “protecting the home front”. The unintended consequences of this well intentioned action played out across the nation as the American Protective League infiltrated Unions, busted up strikes, and generally intimidated anyone with an opinion against the war in Europe. This should be starting to sound familiar right about now, as we struggle with our own sense of what is right and wrong with the “War on Terror”, and the recently disclosed actions of the NSA.

Between 1917 and 1918 this group was like a miniature NSA, listening to everything said by their co-workers and friends. They even had their own newspaper/magazine called “The Spy Glass”, which gave tips on turning in your neighbors. Even preachers were not immune to this feeling of power, and in at least one case, a clergyman sent in a report about a fellow clergyman with whom he did not agree. 

That the APL became somewhat of a place for people to go in order to “get even”, or a place to settle personal scores should not be surprising at all. It’s human nature. Erich Maria Remarque wrote, in "All Quiet on the Western Front", that “even a dog trained to eat potatoes will snap at meat given the opportunity. Men behave the same way when given the opportunity to have a little authority. Every man is a beast underneath all his manners and customs.”

This book is both timely and informative. It is timely in respect to our current situation in the War on Terror, in which our own government is spying upon us; and informative in the sense that very few Americans alive today really have any idea that what we are experiencing now in relation to “national security”, has all been done before. The lesson of this book is simple; it was a bad idea then, and remains so today.

The Black Box and George Orwell

About 4 years ago Sue and I disconnected from cable TV; our remotes were almost worn out from constant clicking in search of something worthwhile to watch. Think about it; you sit down in front of the television, remote in hand, confident that there is something of interest on at least one of the 150 channels available to you. So, you start clicking away; like a kid at the beach, searching for that one perfect seashell; only to find that they are all unsatisfactory in one way or the other. So, you are left empty handed.

Now I don’t know about you, but we have a TV that is as flat as Twiggy was in 1967; and at the same time; high tech. In other words this means that I have a flat screen 50” television that asks me to “Please Be Patient” when I turn it on, as well as pauses while it locks onto the state of the art digital signal which is supposed to make me feel like I am part of the show. But, with each click taking about 30 seconds to produce an image on the screen, I can click through all 150 stations at the rate of one every 30 seconds, or two per minute. Divide the 150 channels by 2 per minute and that means it takes 75 minutes to cycle through them all, unless I find something that interests me. And to accomplish this feat, I need to add about 30 seconds to each station I land on while ascertaining whether or not I want to remain there. So that makes a total of I minute per station, divided by none, which equals 2 and a half hours to check out all the stations. Phew!! Sounds like work to me.

So, we cut the cable. It was like cutting an umbilical cord, in some ways giving us a bit more leisure time in our leisure time. Of course we had to get one of those “converter” boxes which the government was originally supplying to everyone for free with a voucher. This kind of had me scratching my head a bit, as the government had never before concerned itself with the change from Hi-Fi to stereo; or even helped us out with the switch from vinyl recordings to 8 tracks to cassettes to CD’s and MP3 players. I had to ask myself, “Why the deadline to convert all the TV’s? And why does my government want to give me something that I didn’t need until they made it necessary?” These are two valid questions.

I read a lot, so I always go back in my mind to something I may have read which applies to the situation at hand. It didn’t take me too long to figure it out. The box is a two way system, allowing me to intercept what is broadcast, but also a camera and audio device for Big Brother to look into my living room. Remember George Orwell’s “1984”? Kind of like that, only with better programs.

I know, you’re laughing at me. But all the same, each time I pass the box, I wave and say hello.