In the early months of 1947, President Harry Truman and Dean Acheson, his secretary of state, made up their minds to prop up Greece’s openly fascist monarchy against a popular revolt they had cast as a Soviet threat. After much hand-wringing, Truman went to Congress on March 12 to ask for $400 million in aid, not quite $5 billion today when adjusted for inflation.
Truman and Acheson knew the Greek intervention would be a hard sell: Congress was in no mood to spend that kind of money, and the war-weary public harbored hope for FDR’s vision of a postwar order built on the principle of peaceful coexistence. As the speech went through its multiple drafts, Arthur Vandenberg, Republican senator from Michigan and a presence in the planning of America’s postwar posture, offered advice that must be counted elegantly forthright, if diabolic in its cynicism.
It comes down to us today, and for good reason. “Mr. President,” Vandenberg said during White House deliberations, “the only way you are ever going to get this is to make a speech and scare hell out of the American people.”
Truman made his since-famous “scare hell” speech. The Greeks got their $400 million (a remarkable proportion of which was embezzled by government ministers), and the American public was kept scared for the next 40–odd years — the Cold War years.
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The world is watching in horror as Covid chaos unfolds on the streets Down Under, with heavy-handed elite police piling in on lockdown protestors using an arsenal of weapons that would be the envy of any authoritarian regime.
The online images are all too familiar: helmeted and masked police in body armour with batons held high, clubbing protestors lying on the ground as incapacitating pepper smoke burns their eyes and chokes their breath.
Meanwhile, mobs of rowdy protestors take over city streets, blocking traffic and disrupting the working week as they throw projectiles at ‘whoop-whooping’ police cars. Mayhem reigns.
But where is it? Burma? Hong Kong? Venezuela? Nope, it’s my home town of Melbourne, Australia.
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Rare Instance of a Professional Athlete Hospitalized for Coronavirus
Many politicians, including United States President Joe Biden, like to drone on about how everybody should take experimental coronavirus vaccine shots. Yet, even if we suppose the shots provide much help against coronavirus, many people are at so little risk from coronavirus that it seems very foolhardy for them to risk the side effects of the shots.
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Dennis Kucinich Places Close Third in Cleveland Mayor Primary
On Tuesday, Dennis Kucinich just missed qualifying for the general election for mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland native who previously served as mayor of the city in the 1970s before going on to several terms in the United States House of Representatives came in a close third in the primary election. The first and second place primary candidates will compete for votes in the November general election.
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Coronavirus Crackdowns and the Ratchet Effect
One of Robert Higgs’ great contributions to understanding government is his exploration of what he terms the ratchet effect. In a 2011 interview posted at the Mises Institute website, Higgs provided this succinct description of the ratchet effect...
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September 11 Remembered, Minus the Propaganda - RPI's Daniel McAdams With Tom Woods
I was really happy to join my great friend and brilliant communicator Tom Woods to look back at Sept. 11, 2001 with 20 years of hindsight. Tom and I discussed how it felt to have the "baptism of fire" of joining the Ron Paul Congressional Staff just after the NY and DC attacks. What was it like to live through 9/11 from a half mile away? What was Capitol Hill like in the mayhem just after 9/11? What was my first job interview with Dr. Paul really like? Listen to my interview with Tom Woods here...
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Children are Next in Line for Mandated Coronavirus Vaccine Shots
Much attention is focused on President Joe Biden in a Thursday speech announcing that the coronavirus testing alternative United States government employees had been able to use to avoid the mandate to take experimental coronavirus vaccines is being eliminated and that regulations are in the works to require all employees at companies with 100 or more employees to take the “vaccines” or be tested weekly.
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