Spreading Democracy - but not at gunpoint

[RickSp]

Helen Thomas gets it right - democracy and freedom can not be spread at gunpoint.

Since its birth, the United States has always been a beacon light of freedom and has spread the good word about democracy and self-government through ideas and aid -- but not at gunpoint. Has Bush ever heard of the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps, the Voice of America and exchange student programs? The United States was the model of freedom for the rest of the world until the president kicked off his new macho doctrine of pre-emptive war, with the unprovoked attack on Iraq being the first test of that theory. This arrogant policy has cost us the admiration of a legion of liberty-loving friends and allies. It reversed our longstanding adherence to international law and our historical commitment to use force only when we are attacked -- and then only as a last resort.

Peaceful means best way to spread freedom

Should we spread democracy by example or by using miltiary might to enforce our will on others?

[jose]

The freedom to sell your next 30 years to pay a bank loan? freedom to take a job ANY job to pay off that debt, that to me is the new slavery

[RickSp]

Quote by: jose The freedom to sell your next 30 years to pay a bank loan? freedom to take a job ANY job to pay off that debt, that to me is the new slavery

If this is your concept of slavery, the only thing that comes to mind is the phrase, "grow up, kid."

[Chris the Chees]

Since its birth, the United States has always been a beacon light of freedom and has spread the good word about democracy and self-government through ideas and aid -- but not at gunpoint.


Not being from the USA, and having the view of an outsider; I can gurantee that the USA does not have the image of "a beacon light of freedom and has spread the good word about democracy and self-government through ideas and aid".

It is in my opinion, and most other people I know, a nation ruled by arrogant, profiteering, imperialists. Who have on numerous occasions intervened in foreign business, in order to further their own selfish goals.

[Gorgo]

Yup. I live here, and I agree. Marshall Plan, all of it, it's about greed and empire.

Quote by: Chris the Chees It is in my opinion, and most other people I know, a nation ruled by arrogant, profiteering, imperialists. Who have on numerous occasions intervened in foreign business, in order to further their own selfish goals.

[Samildanach]

Beacon of light and freedom....hahahahaha...whoever wrote that really has their head right up their ass.
Arrogant profiteers who dont give a shit about the human condition, only keeping the world economy under the thumb is more like it.

[RickSp]

I think it best not to repond to this obvious lack of historical perspective, especially as my suggestion would in all likelihood be anatomically impossible anyway.

[Gorgo]

To whom and to what do you refer, RickSP?

[RickSp]

Quote by: Gorgo To whom and to what do you refer, RickSP?

I should have been more clear. I found the last British contribution to the thread to be a bit out of line.

[Catch 22]

Quote by: Gorgo Yup. I live here, and I agree. Marshall Plan, all of it, it's about greed and empire.

Seconded, all that revisionist history was just thomas trying to make the bush administration look even worse. Lot’s of lefties have been doing it as of late. Hell, gore vidal wrote a book about the founding fathers that revered them so that he could intersperse regular comments attacking Bush.

[Chris the Chees]

Quote by: Gorgo Yup. I live here, and I agree. Marshall Plan, all of it, it's about greed and empire.

Hmm, let’s have a think about that.

Who was the USA's major trade partner during the interwar and post war periods? Which nations brought the USA out of the great depression, in mutually beneficial trade agreements, to build an economy and supply a war effort?

The answer to these questions is European nations.

A new question, which nation was almost totally reliant on European trade and recovery to insure her own economic growth?

The United States of America!

In short the USA could not sell her goods too nations with no money. The USA needed the Marshall plan as much as Europe.

Hmm, I guess that the USA wasn’t being so selfless after all, quite the reverse. I imagine that this was all pointless, as patriotic rhetoric nearly always over takes reason. If I were to state the same ideals and conclusions to a "liberal" many of my comments would be considered superfluous, in regards to my aims. However with a conservative mindset nothing I state on the subject will ever be enough.

I think it best not to repond to this obvious lack of historical perspective, especially as my suggestion would in all likelihood be anatomically impossible anyway.

I am incredibly sorry, next time I will limit my self to "half truths", in light of your naivety.

However if you change your mind and decide, “respond to this obvious lack of historical perspective”, then be my guest. I'm sure I would enjoy dissecting your own lack of historical objectivity, as much as you would revel in what you describe as my "obvious lack of historical perspective".

[Gorgo]

I don't think you're the one that Rick was referring to when he was talking about anatomy, there Chris.


Yes, none of that is to say that everything that the U.S. does is destructive. Of course it isn't. But I did have to laugh every time I heard someone say that the U.S. does not invade other countries without having been attacked. Hell, that's all they've ever done. Even Japan was basically under economic siege when it stupidly bombed a U.S. military base on a U.S. colony.

[Chris the Chees]

I don't think you're the one that Rick was referring to when he was talking about anatomy, there Chris.

Being British, and reading his statements I find that rather difficult to believe. I will, of course, take back my comments, should he confirm that I have made an error.

The comment which suggested that I was the target of his post: -

I found the last British contribution to the thread to be a bit out of line.
Of course if it is a responce to the other British individual who posted, then my responce still stands, as the other Brits comments mirror my own.

Yes, none of that is to say that everything that the U.S. does is destructive. Of course it isn't.

I would agree with that assessment, only to hasten to point out that only the vast majority, rather than all, of US foreign policy is corrupt.

[Gorgo]

I'm in full agreement. That is also not to say that the U.S. is alone in having corrupt foreign and domestic policies, but it is the one (in concert with countries like Great Britain) with the most devastating effect at the moment.

[RickSp]

Quote by: Chris the Chees I am incredibly sorry, next time I will limit my self to "half truths", in light of your naivety. However if you change your mind and decide, “respond to this obvious lack of historical perspective”, then be my guest. I'm sure I would enjoy dissecting your own lack of historical objectivity, as much as you would revel in what you describe as my "obvious lack of historical perspective".

Yo Fromage, I was actually referring to the dude who suggested that Helen Thomas had her "head up her ass." At the very least ungentlemenly. I find an outburst of a predictable anti-American rant based on the first phrase of the first sentence of the article to be more than mildly annoying. So I wasn't referring to you. Then again your your conventional revisionist accounting of post WWII rebuilding efforts is shallow at best.

[Gorgo]

Shallow maybe, but true.

Quote by: RickSp Then again your your conventional revisionist accounting of post WWII rebuilding efforts is shallow at best.

[RickSp]

Quote by: Gorgo Shallow maybe, but true.

Nope pretty obviously false. An understandable whine no doubt justified by being sick and tired of Americans taking credit for rebuilding Europe, but false all the same.

Cheese's claim in a nutshell is that here was nothing altruistic about the Marshall Plan because America benefited from it as well as Europe. He essentially is saying, "You greedy bastards, you gave us billions when we really needed it, how dare you?"

In 1947 the US pledged up to $20 billion, or almost 10% of the yearly US GDP at the time, to help rebuild Europe. Over the next six years it actually delivered $13 billion. And yes, the US did benefit from increased European trade.

The fallacy in Cheese's rant is that the $13 billion was taken out of the US economy. The US was booming after the war, responding to the pent up demand of both the depression and the war years. The US domestic market was vastly larger than any European markets at the time. The demand for goods and services in the continental United States alone was suffienct to keep US industry busy. The Marshall Plan removed capital from the economy and effectively shifted production from the US to Europe. Yes, in the long run everyone benefited from increased trade but in the years immediately after the war, the transfer of billions to Europe hurt the US economy.

I think Helen Thomas' use of the Marshall Plan was not the best example of America as America as the "beacon light of freedom", but that is another discussion.

[Gorgo]

I don't think anyone said that there was nothing altruistic about the Marshall Plan. That would be like saying that there was nothing altruistic about slave owners. Certainly, slave owners could be and were very altruistic at times.

"The favored illustration of "generosity and goodwill" is the Marshall Plan. That merits examination, on the "strongest case" principle. The inquiry again quickly yields facts "that `it wouldn't do' to mention." For example, the fact that "as the Marshall Plan went into full gear the amount of American dollars being pumped into France and the Netherlands was approximately equaled by the funds being siphoned from their treasuries to finance their expeditionary forces in Southeast Asia," to carry out terrible crimes. And that the tied aid provisions help explain why the U.S. share in world trade in grains increased from less than 10% before the war to more than half by 1950, while Argentine exports reduced by two-thirds. And that under U.S. influence Europe was reconstructed in a particular mode, not quite that sought by the anti-fascist resistance, though fascist and Nazi collaborators were generally satisfied. And that the generosity was overwhelmingly bestowed by American taxpayers upon the corporate sector, which was duly appreciative, recognizing years later that the Marshall Plan "set the stage for large amounts of private U.S. direct investment in Europe," establishing the basis for the modern Transnational Corporations, which "prospered and expanded on overseas orders,...fueled initially by the dollars of the Marshall Plan" and protected from "negative developments" by "the umbrella of American power."

It is, again, of some interest that thoughts of that nature were "silenced with surprising effectiveness" during the 50th anniversary celebration of this unprecedented act of generosity and goodwill, the strongest case put forth by admirers of the "global meliorism" of the world's most powerful state, hence of direct relevance to the question being addressed here.

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles...elativity.html
"The "prevailing orthodoxy" has occasionally been submitted to tests beyond the record of history. Lars Schoultz, the leading academic specialist on human rights in Latin America, found that U.S. aid "has tended to flow disproportionately to Latin American governments which torture their citizens,... to the hemisphere's relatively egregious violators of fundamental human rights." That includes military aid, is independent of need, and runs through the Carter period. More wide-ranging studies by economist Edward Herman found a similar correlation world-wide, also suggesting a plausible reason: aid is correlated with improvement in the investment climate, often achieved by murdering priests and union leaders, massacring peasants trying to organize, blowing up the independent press, and so on. The result is a secondary correlation between aid and egregious violation of human rights. It is not that U.S. leaders prefer torture; rather, it has little weight in comparison with more important values. These studies precede the Reagan years, when the questions are not worth posing."

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti...15&ItemID=2804

"Actually one of the purposes of the [post World War II] Marshall Plan, this great benevolent plan, was to shift Europe and Japan from coal to oil. Europe and Japan both had indigenous coal resources but they switched to oil in order to give the US control. About $2bn out of the $13bn Marshall Plan dollars went straight to the oil companies to help convert Europe and Japan to oil based economies. For power, it's enormously significant to control the resources and oil's expected to be the main resource for the next couple of generations."

[jose]

Some comments by
ron paul

15.  What if we discover that democracy can’t be spread with force of arms?

16.  What if democracy is deeply flawed, and instead we should be talking about liberty, property rights, freemarkets, the rule of law, localized government, weak centralized government, and self-determination promoted through persuasion, not force?

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/co...5/cr012605.htm
I hope this is "grown up" and "in line" enough to promote consructive debate.

[RickSp]

Quote by: Gorgo For example, the fact that "as the Marshall Plan went into full gear the amount of American dollars being pumped into France and the Netherlands was approximately equaled by the funds being siphoned from their treasuries to finance their expeditionary forces in Southeast Asia," to carry out terrible crimes. And that the tied aid provisions help explain why the U.S. share in world trade in grains increased from less than 10% before the war to more than half by 1950, while Argentine exports reduced by two-thirds. And that under U.S. influence Europe was reconstructed in a particular mode, not quite that sought by the anti-fascist resistance, though fascist and Nazi collaborators were generally satisfied. And that the generosity was overwhelmingly bestowed by American taxpayers upon the corporate sector, which was duly appreciative, recognizing years later that the Marshall Plan "set the stage for large amounts of private U.S. direct investment in Europe," establishing the basis for the modern Transnational Corporations, which "prospered and expanded on overseas orders,...fueled initially by the dollars of the Marshall Plan" and protected from "negative developments" by "the umbrella of American power."

That paragraph alone was sufficiently convoluted as to make parsing it of questionable utility. I did like the Marshall Plan as a conspiracy to fund French intervention in Vietnam. Not suprising that you provided links to Chomsky. His conspiracies always have a mobious-like quality to them. Or perhaps they are more like Escher's snakes, perpetually twisting and turning, one end devouring the other.

I do agree that there was much about the Marshall Plan that was bad. I'm not convinced that the Marshall Plan was a good idea or even necessary. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that if the US had not enacted the Mashall Plan, there would be Brits bitching about that too.