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Capitalism, Fascism And World War 2 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Gary Sudborough
Email: IconoclastGS (nospam) aol.com (unverified!) |
28 Sep 2002
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The relationship between fascism and capitalism as illustrated by the events of World War 2. |
Most Americans know enough about the Nazi holocaust to thoroughly despise the horrible events that occurred- the torture, executions, concentration camps, forced starvation, gas chambers and the attempted extermination of the Jews. I wonder what Americans would think if they knew that the part of this Nazi terror apparatus which operated on the Russian front was incorporated into the CIA after World War 2. The Nazi SS officer was Reinhard Gehlen, and he and his group were employed by the CIA for their knowledge of the Soviet Union. The SS death squads that followed the German advance into the Soviet Union were very brutal, killing any communists and Jews they found. The CIA used Nazi war criminals like Klaus Barbie, Walter Rauff, Otto Skorzeny and others in South America to impart their knowledge of torture techniques and concentration camps to the police and militaries there. Klaus Barbie was involved in the 1980 Bolivian coup known as the "cocaine coup" that is described in former DEA agent Michael Levine's book The Big White Lie.
There is a close and often ignored relationship between fascism and capitalism. German corporations financed Hitler's rise to power and were rewarded by slave labor. Krupp, I.G. Farben and other corporations used Jewish and Slavic slave labor. Alfred Krupp called girl babies born to his slaves "useless feeders" because they were not as strong a potential worker as were boy babies. These girl babies were gassed.
American corporations invested heavily in Nazi Germany, and many like General Motors and Ford had factories there, which also used slave labor and produced war materials for the Nazis. US corporate investment in Germany accelerated rapidly after Hitler came to power. Investment increased 48.5% between 1929 and 1940, while declining in the rest of continental Europe. American bombers deliberately avoided hitting these US factories, and they received compensation from the American taxpayer for any damage after the war. US oil companies sold oil to the Nazis and oil on credit to the fascists in Spain.
Many American capitalists were openly sympathetic to the Nazis. Henry Ford wrote a book called The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, and he is mentioned in Mein Kampf. James Mooney, the General Motors executive in charge of European operations, was awarded the Order of Merit of the Golden Eagle by Adolph Hitler. There were op-ed pieces by Nazis like Hermann Goehring in Hearst newspapers in the United States.
The Nazis broke unions, lowered wages, abolished overtime pay, decreased business taxes and increased business subsidies. Their program bears a strong resemblance to the Republican agenda in this country.
The CIA was very concerned about the survival of capitalism in Europe after World War 2 because the anti-Nazi resistance movements in many countries like France, Italy and Greece were led by communists and socialists. Therefore, many bankers, industrialists, judges, lawyers, educators, etc. who were fascists were put back in power because they were the most virulently anti-Communist. Britain even invaded Greece to fight the Greek communists, who had driven the Nazis from their country, and the United States later took over with massive military aid to Greek fascists and former Nazi collaborators. The Italian Communist Party was poised to win postwar elections in Italy. Consequently, the CIA mounted a huge disinformation campaign there and gave millions of dollars to opposition parties.
I have a theory that World War 2 in Europe was at least in part the second attempt to destroy socialism in the Soviet Union. After the Bolshevik revolution, every capitalist nation on Earth invaded Russia in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy this alternative to capitalism. Then, there was a wave of repression against leftists in the capitalist countries. In the United States the IWW was destroyed, socialists like Eugene Debs were imprisoned, and anarchists like Emma Goldman were arrested and deported. Other anarchists like Sacco and Vanzetti were framed and executed.
Although the Nazis attacked other capitalist countries, the focus of their military onslaught was the Soviet Union. Over 80% of German casualties took place on the Russian front, and the vast majority of their military forces were located there. The Nazis lost 300,000 men at Stalingrad alone. The United States stayed out of the war for three long years as Russia bore the brunt of the fascist attack and only entered as Russian forces were driving the Germans rapidly back toward Berlin. American policymakers had to be worried that all of Europe would go communist.
Mussolini said that fascism is corporatism, but I think that is much too mild a description. Fascism is essentially corporate power coming down with a vengeance on the heads of working people, although fascists often mask their real agenda with some populist rhetoric and even call their parties things like National Socialist, etc. I maintain that what we have in most countries of the world today is really fascism, but fascism cloaked in a facade of democracy and supported by an extremely efficient propaganda system. Bertram Gross wrote a book called Friendly Fascism, but I think with George W. Bush in power, it is getting less friendly by the minute.
The ideas I have expressed in this article are so startling to most Americans that I need to give references: The Arms of Krupp by William Manchester, Understanding the F-Word by David McGowan, The Splendid Blond Beast by Christopher Simpson and Turning the Tide by Noam Chomsky. |
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Capitalism's Injustices
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Capitalism's Injustices |
by Gary Sudborough
IconoclastGS (nospam) aol.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
28 Sep 2002
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There are numerous and obvious examples of capitalism's injustices, which should make the American people very disillusioned and angry with the system. Large sections of America's manufacturing base have been transferred to sweatshops in Third World countries, throwing thousands of Americans out of good-paying jobs and creating what is called the "rust belt" in America's heartland. America's family farmers are being forced into bankruptcy and replaced with corporate agribusiness. The savings and loan bailout cost every American several thousand dollars in taxes. The frequent IMF bailouts cost the taxpayer even more. In addition, the tax burden is increasingly being shifted from corporations to the middle class and poor. Many corporations pay no income tax by sheltering assets in offshore subsidiaries. The CEOs of large corporations now make about 500 times the average worker's wage. While corporations fatten their bottom line with public money, welfare for the poor is cut and thousands of Americans suffer from hunger and being homeless. The infant mortality rate in some inner cities in the US is equivalent to that of a Third World country. Those of the poor who resort to crime are incarcerated by the prison-industrial complex and put to work for corporations at far less than the minimum wage. The US has the largest prison population in the world. Corporations like Westinghouse buried tons of radioactive waste in cardboard boxes and created large toxic zones around the plants that made nuclear weapons. Pacific Gas and Electric company polluted communities with chromium six. Then, there are the recent scandals of corporations like Enron, Global Crossing, World Com, Tyco and Arthur Anderson. Some employees have lost their life savings in these corporate scandals. Corporations cause wars to protect their hegemony over the natural resources and cheap labor of other countries. One would think that the American people would be clamoring for democratic worker ownership of factories and an end to all these abuses. After all, workers would never vote to send their jobs overseas, pollute their communities, steal their retirement savings or cause wars.
That is not the case, however, and with every war out come the flags and God Bless America signs. Why? I think the answer is an extremely efficient corporate propaganda system and the fact that most people live comfortably in the suburbs and attribute that condition to capitalism, rather than to decades of struggle and sacrifice by workers before them.
At one time in the United States there was child labor, horrible working conditions, 12 hour workdays, extremely low wages and no social security, unemployment compensation or sick pay. This did not change because Rockefeller, DuPont, Morgan, Mellon and the other robber barons decided to be generous. They fought the 8 hour day, the end of child labor and every other progressive reform tooth and nail. They hired goon squads and Pinkertons to bust the heads of strikers and used state militias to machine gun strikers and their families, as occurred in the Ludlow massacre of coal miners in Colorado. Ironically, socialists, communists and anarchists, the people Americans have been taught to despise, were at the forefront of the struggle to attain prosperity for American workers and a safety net if they became ill, disabled or elderly.
Now, reactionary fascists like President George W. Bush are attempting to roll back all these reforms by the magician's trick of diverting attention and emotions to war, nationalism and patriotism, while wealth is redistributed upward and Social Security is privatized as well as schools and public services. It is time for a new generation of Americans to fight back if they have the courage. |
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Greek WW 2 |
by Dontask
RiniCav (nospam) aol.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
01 Oct 2002
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No offense but your article was kind of zzzzz. I really needed info on Greek WW 2 but you gave me a bunch of American stuff. If you did more research it would be better. |
