Post World War II European Arrogace

The Truman Doctrine, put forth by President Harry Truman when he addressed Congress on March 12, 1947, essentially stated:

"The United States will defend free people and their free institutions at any place at any point in the world where outside communist aggression threatens that nation's internal stability."

The Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift

The United States was now committed actively to opposing the spread of Soviet-style Communism. The first plan that put this policy to use on a large scale was the Economic Recovery Plan of 1947, also known as the "Marshall Plan." In a commencement speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, George C. Marshall, a former general and now Truman's secretary of state, proposed that the nation make a huge economic commitment to rebuild the war-torn nations of Western Europe. 

His objective was to "restore the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole." Marshall believed that the American economy depended on open markets. Thus, rebuilding the economies of Europe would guarantee American prosperity by providing an outlet for the nation's goods. 

Marshall also contended that economic stability in Europe would translate into political stability, that Communism would have little appeal to well-fed and employed Europeans. 

Between 1948 and 1951, the United States sent $13 billion in aid to Western European nations. West Germany benefited the most from the plan. Between 1947 and 1951, a period that historians refer to as the "German miracle," West Germany's economic output increased 312%. 

As the United States invested heavily in the reconstruction of Western Europe, it also struggled with the Soviet Union for influence in Eastern Europe. This struggle became evident during the 1948 Soviet blockade of Berlin. After the end of World War II, the Allies had divided the city of Berlin, and the country of Germany as a whole, into four zones, one controlled by the Soviet Union, and the other three controlled by Great Britain, France, and the United States.

In response to growing American economic and military power  in Europe, the Soviet Union cut off western links to Berlin, which was located inside the Soviet-occupied zone.

Truman, in turn, ordered a massive, year-long airlift of medical supplies, food and clothing for West Berliners. Eventually, the Soviets lifted the blockade. In 1948 and 1949, however, the Soviet Union sponsored Communist revolutions in Eastern-bloc countries such as Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary.

In response, in April 1949, twelve nations of Western Europe and North America signed the North Atlantic Treaty, creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The goal of NATO was to coordinate the defense of Western Europe. An attack on any of its member nations was equal to an attack on all, with each nation obliged to battle their common foe. 

Primary support, both militarily and monetarily, came from the United States.

A re-post from http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture24.html

12 Billion!

Cheaper then Government medicine and much more effective!

Bullets are speeding faster out of gun shops in U.S.
A SHORTAGE OF AMMUNITION
Demand is up despite drop in crime rate

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By David A. Fahrenthold and Fredrick Kunkle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 3, 2009

In a year of job losses, foreclosures and bag lunches, Americans have spent record-breaking amounts of money on guns and ammunition. The most obvious sign of their demand: empty ammunition shelves.

At points during the past year, bullets have been selling faster than factories could make them.

Gun owners have bought about 12 billion rounds of ammunition in the past year, industry officials estimate. That's up from 7 billion to 10 billion in a normal year.

Read more

Russia Sending Missiles to Iran?

Pajamas Media » Wary of an Israeli Attack, Putin Arms Iran

Two days before Netanyahu disappeared, the Times of London solved that maritime mystery. There were no logs in the hold of the Arctic Sea. Instead, there were log-shaped S-300 Russian anti-missile missiles, and their destination was not Africa but Iran. Desperate to interrupt the Russian effort, Israeli security forces who had the ship under surveillance leaked the plot. Russian forces swooped in to cover up the outrage before the world could find the smoking gun, making a lame attempt to put the whole thing off as a hijacking.

Hey where is the US press reporting on this?!

Update to the Crowd Size in DC 12 Sept 2009

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From DC Tea Party

Conclusion: probably well more than 850,000 in the crowd.

Came across this on the web and it is worth reading. Those that were there know the enormity of the "party". Those that don't have be mislead by the "old"failing media outlets.

Webster what...thats right the Man!

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"It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country." --Noah Webster, On Education of Youth in America, 1790

Sam Adams not only a good beer!

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"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." --Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1775

New Yorkers Must be proud...

Of their Senator!

This is from the Wall Street Journal....

Charlie Rangel Hides Income and Assets - WSJ.com

When you're a powerful Congressman and working diligently to increase tax rates to pay for President Obama's health-care plan, we suppose it's easy to lose track of one of your checking accounts. That would be the one at the federal credit union with a balance somewhere between $250,001 and maybe as high as $500,000. And when you're crunched for time and pulling together bills to pass in a rush, we guess, too, that you might overlook several other investment accounts, even if some of them are sizable, such as the ones Mr. Rangel missed at JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Oppenheimer and BlackRock.

Our Country has been stolen from under our noses and is being run into the ground by crooks!

From the NY Post...

The problems with Rangel's 2004 disclosure report were so glaring that apparently they caught someone's attention, forcing Rangel to write a letter correcting his failure to fully disclose transactions that year.

I think i will just write a litter to the IRS when i fail to disclose all of my "extra" income... Oh that is right in the health care bill, the gov't can look in to my bank account and other such places to see my net worth!! Joy!!!

The Goose and the Gander...

Is this a great country or what? When we, as Americans, can protest against our leaders without retribution.

Analysis: Press Largely Ignored Incendiary Rhetoric at Bush Protest - Political News - FOXNews.com

News outlets that are focusing on the incendiary rhetoric of conservatives outside President Obama's town hall meeting Tuesday ignored the incendiary rhetoric -- and even violence -- of liberals outside an appearance by former President George W. Bush in 2002.

When Bush visited Portland, Ore., for a fundraiser, protesters stalked his motorcade, assailed his limousine and stoned a car containing his advisers. Chanting "Bush is a terrorist!", the demonstrators bullied passers-by, including gay softball players and a wheelchair-bound grandfather with multiple sclerosis.

One protester even brandished a sign that seemed to advocate Bush's assassination. The man held a large photo of Bush that had been doctored to show a gun barrel pressed against his temple.

"BUSH: WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE," read the placard, which had an X over the word "ALIVE."

Another poster showed Bush's face with the words: "F--- YOU, MOTHERF---ER!"

A third sign urged motorists to "HONK IF YOU HATE BUSH." A fourth declared: "CHRISTIAN FASCISM," with a swastika in place of the letter S in each word.

Although reporters from numerous national news organizations were traveling with Bush and witnessed the protest, none reported that protesters were shrieking at Republican donors epithets like "Slut!" "Whore!" and "Fascists!"

Frank Dulcich, president and CEO of Pacific Seafood Group, had a cup of liquid thrown into his face, and then was surrounded by a group of menacing protesters, including several who wore masks. Donald Tykeson, 75, who had multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheelchair, was blocked by a thug who threatened him.

Protesters slashed the tires of several state patrol cruisers and leapt onto an occupied police car, slamming the hood and blocking the windshield with placards. A female police officer was knocked to the street by advancing protesters, badly injuring her wrist.

The angry protest grew so violent that the Secret Service was forced to take the highly unusual step of using a backup route for Bush's motorcade because the primary route had been compromised by protesters, one of whom pounded his fist on the president's moving limousine.

All the while, angry demonstrators brandished signs with incendiary rhetoric, such as "9/11 - YOU LET IT HAPPEN, SHRUB," and "BUSH: BASTARD CHILD OF THE SUPREME COURT." One sign read: "IMPEACH THE COURT-APPOINTED JUNTA AND THE FASCIST, EGOMANIACAL, BLOOD-SWILLING BEAST!"

Yet none of these signs were cited in the national media's coverage of the event. By contrast, the press focused extensively on over-the-top signs held by Obama critics at the president's town hall event held Tuesday in New Hampshire.

The lead story in Wednesday's Washington Post, for example, is headlined: "Obama Faces 'Scare Tactics' Head-On."

"As the president spoke, demonstrators outside held posters declaring him a socialist and dubbing him 'Obamahdinejad,' in reference to Iran's president," the Post reported. "People screamed into bullhorns to protest a bigger government role in health care. 'Nobama Deathcare!' one sign read. A young girl held up a sign that said: 'Obama Lies, Grandma Dies.' Images of a protester wearing what appeared to be a gun were shown on television."

On Sunday, The New York Times reported that a Democratic congressman discovered that "an opponent of health care reform hanged him in effigy" and was confronted by "200 angry conservatives." The article lamented "increasingly ugly scenes of partisan screaming matches, scuffles, threats and even arrests."

No such coverage was given to the Portland protest of Bush by The New York Times or the Washington Post, which witnessed the protest.

Bill Sammon is vice president of news and the Washington managing editor of FOX News Channel.