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Topic: history/fiction

topic by liz beech 11/29/2001 (12:18)

reply top I posted a message on this board yesterday about the Marshall plan after WW11 based on my understanding, partly based on information in a BBC tv programme in the late 80's and partly based on information given to me by my father, who worked in the War Office during WW11 and in the aftermath of hostilities. I received the most vitrioilic response to this posting, and, as before, was left with the impression that saying anything about American foreign policy is taboo according to certain people using this board. Maybe I don't have all the 'facts', maybe I'm completely 'wrong' about everything to do with American foreign policy that I thought I 'knew'. That said, it doesn't make it easy to 'hear' what is being said when so much personal trashing is going on. I care very much about life on earth. I feel for the people who lost relatives and friends at the WTC and, for that matter, at the Pentagon - though that's hardly ever mentioned - perhaps because the Pentagon personnel are considered less worthy of note because they were working for government departments. But this has been said time and time again. I care/we care. I jusr want the personal attacks to stop and this board to be about sharing 'facts' as we know them, speaking from our hearts, and not resorting to distracting the discussion by insults, innuendo and humiliation. The seeds of war?

reply by Someone 11/29/2001 (12:27)

reply top Hi Liz, This is exactly the reason I decided to NOT to publish my email. I want to learn and share but do not have time to respond to hate emails though. If you have the option, simply filter those senders out. Meaning send them to 'trash' without even wasting a second. It is the history of man kind that we like status quo and do not want anyone telling us otherwise. Peace.

reply by andy 11/29/2001 (13:48)

reply top The redneck posts are just a reminder from the 'real world' that we are swimming upstream. They will only make us stronger in the long run. Don't let them have any power over you. A few of these people may even wake up.

reply by D 11/29/2001 (14:01)

reply top Liz, You should post anything you wish - even if that means critisising American, British, Arab, Israeli, A.N.O foreign policy. Ignore the nonesense and adopt an anonymous alias if you feel the need to do so - at least then you can't be bugged :-}

reply by liz beech 11/29/2001 (15:35)

reply top Thanks to you all for the response. ...so far.................I wanted to say what I said because I care. Actually 'Someone' even though I really appreciate the spirit in which you posted, I feel quite able to 'take it', and am not going to 'filter' the reality, Just want to say 'all we need is love' or 'love your enemies'..shit what cliches! but what else can you say at a time like this. P>S> my water company collapsed today - Glastonbury, Somerset, England (called Wessex Water) appparently the 7th biggest corporationin the world N-Ron? (US) went/is going bust. Their spoesperson (American) when interviewed by Jon Snow of Channel 4 (UK) said that he was 'unaware' of the 'international situation' but was very concerned about the 'knock on effect for US economics and unemployment' we, here, Glastonbury, Somerset, England (pop.8,000) have a town meeting tonight where the smell from the sewage works created by this water 'facility' is being discussed - oh well! just another day in the real world -(to paraphrase `Neil Young'). It's a blue moon tomorrow, as in 'once in a blue moon' (two full moons in the same month - astonomy not astrology' so I wish everyone a special feeling of' once in a blue moon' to feel the love and give the love.

reply by Sandra 11/29/2001 (16:02)

reply top Liz, I haven't had time to read any posts on the board lately so I haven't read what you said about the Marshall Plan. However, what I can say was that the Marshall Plan is part of the self-involved, self-congratulatory Great Mythmaking Machine that Americans have built for themselves over the last few decades that makes them the most politically and historically illiterate populace on the planet. Illiterate peasants in the hills of Guatemala have a better understanding of reality. The Marshall Plan was used by the US gov't to manipulate European political economic fortunes to suit American imperial interests. In the post-war imperial world, the US gov't has *never* *ever* done anything out of the kindness of its heart to anyone. Yes, the Marshall Plan certainly did help in many ways but an absolutely necessary component to it was American interference and bullying tactics toward European elections, dissident activities (like unions and leftist political parties) and so on. It was hardly the selfless act of benevelence the US touts it to be.

reply by Kathy Johnston 11/29/2001 (17:59)

reply top Sandra: In my opinion your comments about the Marshall plan are not well founded. It is true that after WW2 the U.S. foreign aid that took shape placed great emphasis to ensure a capitalist world and one in which solidified U.S. interests like the Foreign Assistance Act. But The Marshall Plan was merely an act of generosity by the American people to rehabilitate the economic structure of Europe. And to suggest that it was designed to do anything but restore Europe and Japans economic health is self serving.

reply by Sandra 11/30/2001 (14:32)

reply top >>But The Marshall Plan was merely an act of generosity by the American people to rehabilitate the economic structure of Europe. And to suggest that it was designed to do anything but restore Europe and Japans economic health is self serving. >> Then the designers of the plan themselves were 'self-serving.' Herewith a quote from Alan Dulles himself: 'The Marshall Plan ... is not a philanthropic enterprise ... It is based on our views of the requirements of American security ... This is the only peaceful avenue now open to us which may answer the communist challenge to our way of life and our national security.' (Allen W. Dulles, The Marshall Plan) The Marshall Plan was all about manipulating and interfering in internal European development to destroy ot contain the Left--communism, socialism, social democrats, capitalist reformers. In those days, the US equated *anyone* slightly left of center with Stalin. It was all about ensuring its hegemony over the future of Europe. Please stop parrotting official propaganda and self-serving myths. The US gov't would never hand over more than $13 billion in loans to anyone simply out of the kindness of its heart. It never has and it never will. Such decisions are based on cynical imperial self-interest. A further quote: 'The Plan of Plans What was what became known as the Marshall Plan? At first, it was a generous proposal to help the Europeans get back on their feet by providing them with some wherewithal to boost their recovery. A condition of this financial aid was that the European governments must themselves take the first steps towards economic collaboration with US economic interests. The offer was made to all the war-affected countries, including the Soviet Union and its satellites, although it was fairly clear at the time that with Europe already divided by Churchill's Iron Curtain (a term he coined in a speech he delivered in Fulton, Missouri in 1946), the Soviet bloc was unlikely to participate. Sure enough, it declined, claiming that its sovereignty would be endangered by accepting U.S. help. As a result, the Marshall Plan became strongly identified with American anti-communist foreign policy (supporting the 'free world' as a buffer to the spread of communism), and this aspect went down well with Marshall Plan sceptics in the U.S.' Far from advancing peace, the Marshall Plan was designed to institutionalize Washington's hegemony over its imperialist rivals, stave off further dissident developments in Europe from labor and leftist political parties, and maximize economic pressure against the Soviet Union. Here's a review of one of the better known books on the Plan: The CIA and the Marshall Plan Sallie Pisani People have the right to choose their own form of government. That lofty principle, affirmed by Churchill and Roosevelt in the Atlantic Charter, was to guide our post-war foreign policy. But suppose that people given a chance to choose their government make the 'wrong' choice? Suppose they choose a government unfriendly to the interests of the United States, an undemocratic form of government at odds with our national interests? What then? Out of this conflict sprang the CIA's first peacetime covert operations. In this book Sallie Pisani shows how the U.S. added a Cold War corollary to the principle of self-determination: massive foreign aid and nonmilitary covert operations to reshape war-torn Europe in the image of the U.S. Pisani tells, for the first time, the story of the top CIA operatives who were instrumental in developing the non-military covert intervention policies of the early Cold War years and the Office of Policy Coordination that carried them out. Through interviews with Deputy Director of Plans Richard Bissell (Bay of Pigs), OSS officer and later CIA official John Bross, CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston, CIA field operative Kermit Roosevelt, and Frank Lindsay, head of paramilitary operations for OPC, Pisani traces covert operations from their roots in the New Deal and World War II through the years of the Marshall Plan. 'This work makes a significant contribution, chiefly in its analysis of the rise to positions of power in the CIA of those who advocated a clandestine approach to America's foreign policy goals. Especially useful are the discussions concerning the relationship between U.S. foundations (e.g., Ford) and the new clandestine organizations within the government, particularly the Office of Policy Coordination; the reasons why key individuals moved from these foundations to OPC; the rising interest in the uses of covert propaganda as an adjunct to the European Recovery Program (ERP, the Marshall Plan); and the way in which funds for these operations were secretly funneled to European assets (notably within the labor movement) through the cover of the Marshall Plan.'--Loch K. Johnson, author of America's Secret Power: The CIA in a Democratic Society and A Season of Inquiry: The Senate Intelligence Investigation __________________ SALLIE PISANI is assistant professor of history at Monmouth College in New Jersey.

reply by Kathy Johnston 11/30/2001 (17:47)

reply top Sandra: Your attempt to render Alan Dulles's interpretation of The Marshall Plan as one which would convey the deeds and merits you attest to is laughable. A post war stabilization that would have included the Soviet Union, had they agreed to participate, would have made the CIA's work under Dulles a hell of a lot easier, no doubt. But Dulles was not an architect of The Marshall Plan. And although coincidental with time, the CIA's covert non-military opertations were not part of The Marshall Plan. Secondly, almost all of the money in the form of goods and equipment came in the form of grants, not loans. Your attempt to portray the efforts of The Marshall Plan as some type of quid-pro-quo or loans to be paid back is rediculous. True enough that The Marshall Plan became more paletable to the then Republican Congress once Moscow refused to participate. But the plan, when it was conceived, did not exclude any nation from participating regardless of 'country or doctrine' to quote Marshall himself.

reply by Barb 12/1/2001 (21:16)

reply top I totally agree that this board is best served by everyone stopping the humiliation, insults, personal attacks, etc. and for the purpose of sharing FACTS. Of course, there will be opinions -- many of them strong -- but can we all at least try to give our opinions without purposely insulting others. The board seems to be a microcosm of what goes on when people refuse to listen to other people's sides - like Liz said, WAR. Although I must say I disagree with most of the opinions of the posters, I am here to learn other people's ideas.