04/4/11

The Truman Doctrine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmQD_W8Pcxg

The Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry Truman on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere. Truman stated the Doctrine would be “the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”  Truman reasoned, because these “totalitarian regimes” coerced “free peoples,” they represented a threat to international peace and the national security of the United States. While his request was limited to $400 million in military aid to two governments, Truman’s rhetoric had assumed that the US had assumed a permanent global resposibility.

If Truman never became president and made this doctrine, Greece and Turkey could have been taken by th Soviet Union and fallen to cummunism. Communism could have spread to major portions of the world as well as to the US. Then the fear of the Americans that the communist will take away their freedom would come true.

04/4/11

Truman’s Fair deal

The fair deal was a legislation program announced by President Truman in 1945.President Truman called the Congress to increase the minimum wage, expand the public housing, Social Security, national health insurance, and aid to education. The purpose of this legislation aimed the economy from wartime to peacetime.

I think this such of legislation program was a  inevitable result after WWII because the goverment had to do something to help those soldiers. In order to  give them a stable life, the goverment provided them a job, house and education opprturnity.

04/3/11

Civil Rights During the Truman Era

During Truman’s presidency, he focused much of his attention on the civil rights movement in America. While this seems like a good thing, the timing was wrong. Truman’s attempts at enacting civil rights legislation did not receive much popular positive public response. This was a time during the anti-communist movement during the Cold War. Some of Truman’s civil rights movements included something called “To Secure These Rights” which was a document that called on the federal government to assume the responsibility for abolishing segregation and ensuring equal treatment in housing, employment, education, and the criminal justice system.

I think that American society would have eventually come to enact some of this legislation because eventually people would come to realize that they are not being treated fairly and begin to fight for that right. Such legislation is definitely important to me because as an Asian-American in society, which some may consider a minority. Despite the efforts put in by Truman and other presidents to provide equal rights for all minorities there are still some setbacks today that many have to face. It seems that the civil rights movement is a fight that will never end.