National Parks Are Told to Delete Content That ‘Disparages Americans’

                                                                              The New York Times

On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall delivered a commencement address at Harvard University. The speech had been given no public build-up because Marshall had told President Harry S Truman that he wanted none. In fact, the State Department had been discussing the policy that Marshall was revealing for at least two months.

Europe, two years after the end of World War II, was still suffering. City dwellers were hungry. Starvation threatened. Governments were spending what little money they had to feed their citizens, leaving little capital for economic development. Something had to be done.

Marshall was at Harvard to say that the United States was going to do something. It was going to assist European countries to redevelop their economies, which, among other things, would provide a market for American goods.

“The truth of the matter,” Marshall said, “is that Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products–principally from America–are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help, or face economic, social and political deterioration of a very grave character.”

The United States at that time was the only major industrial power whose economy had been left untouched by the war. “It is logical,” Marshall continued, “that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace.”

Obviously what Marshall was proposing—the plan that came to bear his name—was an act of benevolence. But the proposal had something in it for the United States—what we came to call enlightened self-interest.

America had just fought a war that had cost billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. Maintaining peace and security for the United States could be maintained—but at a price. The men and women in the United States government at the time understood that.

In the years that followed, few critics called the United States a “sucker” for the Marshall Plan or claimed that America was being “ripped off”. The plan succeeded in assisting western Europe to recover and prosper in the years that followed, providing economic and social stability that continues.

America’s interests were well served by the investment—about $13 billion (roughly $174 billion today).

We can count the Marshall Plan among the benevolent acts that we can be proud of—along with the decision to end segregation, provide foreign aid to lesser developed countries, adopt programs to feed the hungry at home and abroad, fight HIV-AIDS in countries where it’s endemic, and much more.

But we know as a nation, that we’re not perfect, that along with our generous acts, we have experienced acts of cruelty and injustice, so that our pride must be tempered with humility. We need to remember our history—all our history—so that we remember who we are and what we’re capable of: the things we can be proud of and those that shame us.

There’s a certain symmetry that attaches to the efforts of the current administration. It wants to expunge mention of times in our past where we failed to live up to our ideals, and at the same time it is reducing supplemental food assistance in America for families and children living in poverty, reducing medical care for those who can’t afford to pay for it themselves, eliminating aid to poorer countries where children will starve without that assistance, all the while lowering taxes for the very wealthy. This is the same government that pursues an intentionally cruel policy deporting productive, law-abiding immigrants who may lack legal status but who work, pay taxes, marry and raise families here and have done so for years. At a time, it should be noted, when the country faces a labor shortage.

There’s a lot of chest-thumping going on of late, but flag-waving chauvinism is not patriotism. There’s something troubling about crowds shouting “U S A” repeatedly, as though America had just won the Super Bowl. Patriotism can take many forms, but essentially it comes down to this: selflessly serving the public interest, whether it takes the form of military service, or voluntary service abroad in the Peace Corps, or in our inner cities, or a host of other ways. We should be able to love our country for the good it does, for its fairness and generosity, for its support of those in desperate straits whether at home or abroad. Our strength allows us to act benevolently when the situation calls for it without asking what we’ll get in return. At the very least we’ll earn goodwill, which is being undervalued currently for the benefits it will give us.

We’re living in a difficult moment for our country. A great deal of damage is being done to our institutions, and it will cost us dearly in real, tangible ways. It’s important to remember that we’ve had dark times before, and we’ve emerged stronger from them, not because a messiah showed us the way, not because a bombastic, draft-dodging demagogue led us, but ultimately because we remembered who we were and what we believed in. America has been blessed with great resources, and we have worked hard to develop our country. We need to restore our faith in ourselves and remember who we are.