The Progressive Era and How it Continues to Shape our Country Today

Beginning in 1914, war was raging across Europe. Across the Atlantic in the United State, the country sat divided over whether or not to send to troops into the rising conflict. While men in power believed sending American forces into the war was the best option, they went to drastic lengths to silence any and all Antiwar protestors and movements. 

The suppression of antiwar dissent during World War I revealed the fragility of First Amendment protections during times of national tension. Unfortunately, this was not the first time the First Amendment had been debated. This ongoing argument dated back all the way to Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. 

Later, beginning in 1918, this debate arose again. Despite constitutional guarantees of free speech, hundreds of activists—including prominent socialists, pacifists, and civil libertarians—were imprisoned under the Espionage and Sedition Acts for criticizing the war effort. This historical moment demonstrated how easily democratic societies can marginalize principled dissent when national, internal conflict rises. The persecution of antiwar voices not only violated fundamental rights but also undermined the very democratic principles these actions aimed to defend. Such historical episodes as this one, underscored the critical importance of free speech protections, especially during moments of national conflict when unpopular opinions are most vulnerable to systemic silencing. 

Now in our modern world of today, opposing views are still often pushed to the back burner of media. Antiwar voices get sidelined in mainstream media. It's basically a rigged game where defense companies target news networks, so they're not exactly motivated to critique military spending. Media outlets rely on military and government sources, which creates an echo chamber of pro-intervention narratives. Anyone questioning these operations gets painted as unpatriotic or naive. 

Websites like Antiwar.com and The American Conservative are doing the real journalistic work - digging into the human costs of military interventions, challenging official stories, and showing how endless wars benefit defense contractors more than actual citizens.

The result? A media landscape that desensitizes war, turns conflict into a mere game, and keeps most Americans comfortably numb to the real violence happening in their name. These alternative sites force people to actually think critically about foreign policy instead of just swallowing the mainstream propaganda. It's not a conspiracy. I have even found myself caught into the scheme. This system is just how governmental power protects its own interests. And those interests definitely don't include honest conversations about war. 

AntiWar.com

The American Conservative