THE ALTER NATIVE
Davis, Jefferson S.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA: PRELUDE TO WORLD WAR III? by John Kelley "If the Soviet Union hesitated even ten years ago, before intervening militarily in Hungary, how much less certain the Communist rulers...
...In 1954 the United States government, operating through the CIA, overthrew the legallyconstituted Guatemalan government of Guzman Jacobo Arbenz...
...The only alterNatve civilization's side of euthanasia appears to rest in abolishing Social Security in favor of transferring its burden to private hands...
...This so-called "insurance" is based on the assumption that those now paying for Social Security will, in their seniority, be supported by their descendants via Washington...
...Agreed...
...Kelley notes cogently that America's "containment" — Continued on Page 11 Page 7...
...Seven years later we once more violated the OAS Charter in the Bay of Pigs fiasco...
...For with Social Security taxes currently being drawn from workers' paychecks at a rate close to ten per cent, workingmen would hardly support an increase in this sector...
...In 1967 the United States had seven hundred thousand soldiers stationed in thirty countries, was a member of four regional defense alliances and an active participant in a fifth, had mutual defense treaties with forty-two nations, was a member of fifty-three international organizations and was furnishing military or economic aid to nearly one hundred nations around the world...
...Apparently not the least disconcsrted over Social Security's impending bankruptcy, Humphrey has called for a fifty per cent increase in Social Security benefits, and asked — believe it or not — that payment for this increase be met from current tax funds, necessitating a further tax hike above what'shis-name's surtax...
...The State Department should expose the Warsaw Pact "joint action" for the fraud it was...
...Kennan, Stimson and Harriman dissented from this position at the time, and have been proven correct by recent Cold War history...
...in truth hardly a single non-Russian unit entered Czechoslovakia...
...by John Kelley "If the Soviet Union hesitated even ten years ago, before intervening militarily in Hungary, how much less certain the Communist rulers of Eastern Europe must be of this and lesser forms of help today...
...Evidently President Johnson's advisers forgot the 1933 Montevideo Conference Resolution ("No state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another...
...If this individual works from ages twenty-two to sixty-five, he will, upon retiring, receive maximum yearly benefits of $3876...
...While that is one possible conclusion to be drawn from Russian actions, there exist other views that I find more convincing...
...when the U. S. ordered the Marines into the Dominican Republic in 1965...
...With rising inflation — which, incidentally, hurts pensioners most — it would appear exceedingly foolhardy to escalate the trend...
...face...
...Kelley wisely reminds us now is the time to encourage liberal trends amongst the satellites, for as he emphasizes the Czechoslovakian incident rather than heralding increasingly dismal days for democracy in Eastern Europe parallels the Congress of Verona where repressive forces at the behest of Count Metternich triumphed but momentarily over liberal movements in France, Spain and Italy...
...Barry Goldwater, in 1964, attempted to expose this dole for the boondoggle it is, and immediately acquired the onus of persecuting the elderly — as well as wanting to NUKE the world...
...On the other hand, were he to invest $700 yearly (considerably less than next year's Social Security grab) in a private program, this worker would receive three or four times the returns of Social Security, with no penalty for his industry after age sixty-five and no cessation of payments to dependents upon his death...
...And hopefully, in this year of our National Political Circus, Social Security will become one of the featured acts...
...Present workers are now financing those currently drawing benefits, their tax not going into a trust fund but a misnamed welfare system...
...But now divine inspiration appears to have caused Hubert to move Social Security to the front lines of the current campaign...
...Questioning what might be our wisest response to Russia's invasion of Czechoslovakia, Mr...
...Continued on Page 10 THE ALTER NATIVE by Jefferson S. Davis Sand Down A Rat Hole Until recently berating Social Security was analogous to questioning the sanctity of motherhood — it was irrefutable...
...The drawbacks to this approach (beyond those weaknesses of the present system) should appear obvious, even to an economic illiterate like Hubert...
...But when he concludes propter hoc any American response pointless not to say pernicious, I dissent, feeling such a conclusion fails to consider the contemporary political climate of Eastern Europe...
...A man earning an average of $6600 per annum will, together with his employer, pour $580.80 into Social Security each year...
...Kelley describes "containment" of Communism as an element overemphasized by America's Cold War diplomacy...
...For under close scrutinization, Social Security appears a dismal failure...
...Further, as James Burnham suggests, Russia's invasion might hold for America lavish propaganda value...
...For if this same man dies, his family receives nought for his toils, and if he should reach age sixty-five and wish to remain productive, to the extent of earning in excess of $1600 per annum, his monthly check from Washington dries up to a trickle...
...You can't do business with capitalist America...
...You can't do business with the Communists...
...In this issue my heretical colleague, John Kelley, has contributed a provocative essay on Russia's intervention in Czechoslovakia, stirring me to reply, not to the main thrust of his article, which I endorse wholeheartedly, but to certain of its nuances which I find disconcerting...
...Is it not likely that Pravda, noting our post-war interventions, has concluded: "We told you so...
...By the terms of his own analogy, Russia's apparent triumph in Czechoslovakia is truly a precursor to its inevitable evanescence of influence...
...The policy of inaction Mr...
...Indeed the cynical might ask if W. W. Rostow et al have ever bothered to read the 1928 Clark Memorandum...
...This is a classic diplomatic maneuver as well as a page from recent Russian diplomacy, for you will remember how Russia cunningly took advantage of our 1956 embarrassment over Suez to savagely thwart Hungary's democratic evolution...
...Max Frankel in SOVIET AND CHINESE COMMUNIST POWER IN THE WORLD TODAY (1966) The recent Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia prompted the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers of similar ilk to proclaim: "We told you so...
...At another point in his essay Mr...
...And America would react most prudently — would it not — by encouraging liberal energies awakening amongst the satellite nations...
...It is a myth to believe that the Social Security Page 6 REVIEWS by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Kelley urges will hardly encourage liberals in Eastern Europe...
...Indeed because of our confused understanding of the difference between Soviet aggression and the spread of Marxist-Leninist ideology, we have implicitly declared the entire world as our "sphere of influence...
...no American response sanity's side of nuclear retaliation will effect a "Russian aboutsystem is insurance for the aged...
...I can not help wondering what the Russians thought of our 1954, 1961 and 1965 Latin American interventions...
...Finally (though the passage of time has now rendered this suggestion academic), we should have, if military victory was not then beyond our grasp, immediately taken the necessary military measures to end the war in Vietnam...
...Such mild policies would hardly back the Russians into a serious great power confrontation, yet would unequivocally transmit to the satellites encouragement for their liberal evolution...
...Kelley decides that as the Russian action appears minutely calculated (I wonder...
...But if such a hike were added to the present Administration's monstrous budget, the Administration could hide it easily within those twelve digits...
...The most incredible aspect of this development of Pax Americana (to use the title of Ronald Steel's recent book) lies in the fact that prior to the 1949 ratification of the NATO agreement, with the exception of the ill-fated Franco-American Alliance of 1778-1801, the United States had never bound itself to the defense of another country's territories...
...But, most liberal economists poohpooh such statistics, assuming, as usual, that the day of reckoning never occurs on terra firma...
...The point of this article is not an evaluation of the wisdom of these American interventions, but a simple acknowledgement that "spheres of influence" are very much with us today...
...Yet, America would assuredly radiate this encouragement if it suspended cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union, postponed indefinitely disarmament talks with the U. S. S. R. on the obvious grounds that the Kremlin's word seems to lose something vital in its translation, and finally, canceled that stupid daily flight, considered by U Thant as such a balm to international relations, between New York and the Icebox Kingdom...
...An argument less easily dismissed by these economic mythologists is that, based on the same investment, a private annuity will pay more than Social Security...
...In the end, Social Security appears beneficial only to those administering it, and Hubert's hopeful alterations could only aid electioneering politicians with a bent towards ever greater promises...
...This, of course, assumes that he will live to age sixty-five and that he will retire...
...After the Fall Carnival of 1964, it appeared Social Security would glide blissfully along, tapping the workingman and employer every payday for a fund with no assurance of solvency when the worker reaches retirement...
...Near the end of the Second World War, Cordell Hull went into ecstasy over the possibility of ending spheres of influence: "As the provisions of the Four-Nation Declaration are carried into effect, there will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, for balance of power or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguard their security or to promote their interests...
...One hardly can feel "insured" upon discovering the entire system has assets of about $20 billion compared to current obligations greater than $420 billion, and that there is no guarantee of future payment...
...Most importantly, State should publicize the invasion as a brutal reminder that Russia is the world's primary practitioner of Imperialism and hardly a benign big brother to those emerging nations, who either from naivete or venality, seek its companionship...
Vol. 2 • October 1968 • No. 2
