Posted on 04/27/2024 10:38:51 PM PDT by RandFan
“Look up your history. The U.S. (and U.K.) were planning to be at least as punitive as 1919, if not more. It was only as the Cold War dawned that that changed.”
I’m thinking that maybe you need to take that “look up history” advice. Your record of accuracy seems to be a bit below par.
https://providencemag.com/2023/04/the-marshall-plan-at-75-an-act-to-promote-world-peace/
April 3rd, 2023 marks the 75th anniversary of Congress passing the European Recovery Act, better known as the Marshall Plan after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall. The passing of this huge foreign aid bill, in tandem with the establishment of NATO and the Truman Doctrine’s emphasis on containment, laid the foundation for U.S. foreign policy in the decades ahead and, ultimately, victory in the Cold War.
The best way to summarize what the European Recovery Act’s program (European Recovery Program or ERP) sought to achieve is by looking at the Act’s official title:
An Act to promote world peace and the general welfare, national interest, and foreign policy of the United States through economic, financial, and other measures necessary to the maintenance of conditions abroad in which free institutions may survive and consistent with the maintenance and stability of the United States.
“An Act to promote world peace …” Many believed that the dire conditions in Europe at the end of the First World War directly contributed to the rise of aggressive fascism in Italy and Germany and that weak institutions allowed Japan’s military to run rampant in the Far East. Unlike the vision of Wilson’s 14 Points, which called for dramatic democratic change but was accompanied by a series of Versailles-like treaties that pummeled the losers, the Marshall Plan was designed to provide aid to former friends and foes alike – even the Soviet Union was offered aid. The U.S. position was that hungry people and derelict industries were a recipe for revolution, famine, and aggression.
The ERP recognized that world peace was tied up with events in Europe and that European instability had a way of destabilizing global affairs. The Act’s title tells us very clearly that peace was in the “general welfare, national interest, and foreign policy” objectives of America. It was in the U.S. interest to avoid seeing Communism take over Germany and other major industrial powers, as Hitler and Mussolini had after World War I. It was in the U.S. interest for Europeans to not only feed but also defend themselves. Moreover, it was in the U.S. interest to revitalize global trade, reopening markets for U.S. goods. Just as Europe’s depression of the 1920s was in part responsible for the Crash of 1929, the U.S. must avoid a repeat of those conditions twenty years later.
That's exactly my point. The U.S. did not allow Japan to have a military. So the U.S. military WAS Japan's military. The entire cost of defending Japan was on the U.S. On essence, Japan was a protectorate of the United States. You really think that was free?
Beignets and cafė au lait at the Morning Call. Yeah, I was drinking coffee at an early age.
We lived in New Orleans when I was a child. I remember the wooden roller coaster at Ponchatrain as well as the the big Walgreens on canal with upstairs soda shop and restaurant. School clothes and Christmas shopping at Maison Blanche department store. What was the name of the drug store with the purple front, I remember there was one on Napoleon Ave.?
Maison Blanche (that’s French for White House for those of you in Rio Linda). Damn. That brings back memories, too. Don’t recall the purple front drug store, though. I’m 73. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
I remember it as my brother and I would ride our bikes past it when we were headed to the Napoleon theater for Saturday movies. Nothing like going down memory lane (I'm not much younger than you).
Everything changed one November Dallas day in 1963.
“At the same time, we built fallout shelters, and post-apocalyptic dramas like On the Beach (1959) were taken as sagely prophetic.”
Good movie as far as acting, drama and the simple “Waltzing Matilda” score. Horrible movie as far as it’s supposed science goes.
KB had purple logo and I think was all over Louisiana but New Orleans based
Maybe that was it
Katz and somebody
I remember the observation deck on the trade mart end of canal by the river which is four seasons now
The “beach “ at ponchatrain
Spinnakers
The HoJo shooter I think they bagged him from a chopper
Christians on canal I think in an old church
Things have changed
The zombies and Amish own the quarters at night
It’s an Amish time now whereas metro is still white
Im down there twice a year
It’s just different and less safe and more hipsters and DuMonde closes at 11 which really sucks
I could live there even now uptown on garden district but you’d have to watch it
Most freeper type folks live on the north shore or Mississippi
You can live in bay St. Louis cheap and still be in the CBD in 45 minutes if traffic is lite
That’s nothing to me
Caveat
Id be leery my wife driving around Orleans parish at nite without me
Sounds like you’d be right to be leery. Last time I was in NO was January 2001 for the Shot Show. My husband and the friends we were with had never been to NO so of course they wanted to see the Quarter. Even then I wouldn’t go there at night by myself (I’m female). It was fun going back and wandering down memory lane. I’m a southerner through and through. If it’s in your DNA there’s no changing it, not that I’d want to.
Amen to last sentence in particular
I lived outside the south and overseas much of 81-96
After being raised in Mississippi with New Orleans being our “city”
Now I’d be hard pressed to live outside the south at 66
” Battle of Berlin
Result: Soviet victory
• Death of Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officials
• Unconditional surrender of German garrison in Berlin on 2 May
• Capitulation of Germany on 8 May
• End of World War II in Europe
V-E day is celebrated on May 8th, when Germany capitulated to the Soviets.”
World War II was essentially a Russian victory, something conservatives are reluctant to admit because the Russians were “commies.” But although we make a big deal of our “victories” on D-Day and at the Battle of the Bulge, those are like minor skirmishes compared to Stalingrad. Stalin may have been a “commie,” but he saved the world from Hitler, and for that, we should be grateful.
“Well, there was a whole lot more depth to it
than just one song by Bill Haley...”
There was also Elvis!
The Americans and the Brits did more than the Soviets. We cleared North Africa, Italy, France, and did all the strategic bombing which so hobbled Germany. We also supplied decisive levels of logistics to the Soviet efforts.
Just because Stalingrad had a higher death toll than the battles of the Americans does not make it a more decisive battle. The Ruhr was the industrial center of Germany and the air and later Allied ground war against the Ruhr was of utmost importance.
The Soviets were indeed horrid commies and were guilty of countless humanitarian atrocities of which the Katyn Forest Massacre is one of the more famous. Their treatment of the other “liberated” eastern European countries provided many more examples.
Just because Stalingrad had a higher death toll than the battles of the Americans does not make it a more decisive battle. The Ruhr was the industrial center of Germany and the air and later Allied ground war against the Ruhr was of utmost importance.
The Soviets were indeed horrid commies and were guilty of countless humanitarian atrocities of which the Katyn Forest Massacre is one of the more famous. Their treatment of the other “liberated” eastern European countries provided many more examples.
The Allied victories in North Africa, Sicily, France and the Ruhr and the bombing campaigns don't matter. All that matters is that the Soviets occupied the bombed-out ruins of Berlin.
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