prosperity for enough of the population to assure against the rebellions that so threatened the thirties… The biggest gains were in corporate profits, which rose from $6.4 billion in 1940 to $10.8 billion in 1944. But enough went to workers and farmers to make them feel the system was doing well for them.” So, to continue feeding this “cortopratocracy” and preserving the alliance between the military and business, “a permanent war economy” was needed. And so, in this case, a climate of fear and paranoia about communism was needed, “which would steeply escalate the military budget and stimulate the economy with war-related orders. This combination of policies would permit more aggressive actions abroad, more repressive actions at home.”, according …show more content…
In 1947, President Truman significantly increased the developing Cold War through his efforts to implement the strategy of containment. Indeed, In March of that year, he offered military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey in order to assist the governments of each country in resisting and fighting communist rebels. So creating a national unity for militarization of the budget and for the suppression of any domestic opposition to such foreign policy, was the best solution for the US government to counter this Communist expansion. That’s why they proceeded to execute the Loyalty Oath programs, to extend the Justice Department prosecutions and to apply numerous anti-Communist legislations. In this context, “Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin could go even further than Truman”, in Howard Zinn’s words. As a chairman of the Permanent Investigations Sub-Committee of a Senate Committee on Government Operations which was established in early 1950s, he expanded the first Red Scare of 1920, by continuing the investigation of the State Department and the military, looking for any suspected or “active Communist”. He even investigated the State Department’s Overseas Libraries, removing about 40 books by people he considered Communists, and burning some of them. Leaders of the Communist Party were prosecuted under the Espionage Act for conspiring to teach and advocate the overthrow of the government by force, based on the baseless evidence that Communists at that time were distributing Marxist-Lenists