The Peculiar American

Feeling Geopolitics in the Gut
Found this article in the NYT "On This Day" archive where Truman asked the nation to forego meat on Tuesdays and Poultry/Eggs on Thursdays to help feed Europe. This was in 1947, a full two years after the end of the WWII and when the full dimension of the Soviet threat was becoming apparent.

Mr. Kranis suggested also that housewives buy the cheaper cuts and grades of meat, rather than choice steaks and chops, to bring down prices and reduce waste. He said that 75 per cent of the cheaper meats were not being used on the average American dinner table.

"If the housewife will make greater use of the cheaper cuts," said Mr. Kranis, "we will have about 25 per cent more use of the entire animal. This will help feed starving Europe and cut our meat bills at home.

There's more:

Food from the United States, Secretary Marshall said, would deter the march of hunger, cold and collapse, not only enabling Europe to recover its economic stability but also contributing to the resolution of a crisis that could mean the difference between the failure or attainment of world peace and security.

Bringing international diplomacy in as an unseen guest at the table of every American family, Secretary Marshall declared that the American larder was the "vital" instrument of peace and called on the people to "tighten our belts, clean our plates and push ourselves away from the table" to relieve the hungry of Europe.

Wow. I had always heard of the Marshall plan, but I had no idea that the American commitment to Europe in the Cold War reached the point that there was an "unseen guest at the table at the table of every American family."

It's hard to imagine an American president making a similar appeal today. Imagine Bush telling us that there is an unseen guest in the pasenger seat of every car and asking us to voluntarily stop driving one day of every month to reduce our dependence on imported oil. We keep hearing how the War on Terror is shaping up to be another Cold War and how we need to fashion a democratic and prosperous Middle East the way we rebuilt Europe. But remaking an entire region of the planet in our image requires real sacrifice. Are the American people really that committed? I hope so. So far our leaders keep telling us we can do it on the cheap.