Tuesday, November 25, 2003

<< MediaReform do you know any versions of history that Chomsky didn't explain? You can't even say how World War 2 started without getting your filters on first. You don't know how the US enetered WW2 without researching it? Come on.
>>

Is this really too complicated for you?
the question was not how the US entered WWII. The question was when did the US policy makers decided that Hitler had threatened US interests.
the context is that it wasn't the minute that Germany declared war on us. are you following this at all?
the point is what wrongs business elites are willing to commite in the name of profit. we are talking about how US policiy makers supported Hitler and specifically how they saw Hitler's fascsim as a way to penetrate economically Europe and to undermine much feared labor movements and the left.
"The rise of facism in the interwar period elicited concern, but was generally regarded reather favorably by the US and British governments, the busines world, and a good deal of elite opinion.

Hitler was chosen as the representative of the moderates who promised "social order, anti-Bolshevik laws, and protection for foreign capital," Schmitz observes. The American chargé d'affaires in Berlin wrote Washington in 1933 that the hope for Germany lay in "the more moderate section of the [Nazi] party, headed by Hitler himself...which appeal[s] to all civilized and reasonable people," and seems to have "the upper hand" over the violent fringe. In 1937, the State Department saw Fascism as compatible with U.S. economic interests. A report of the European Division explained its rise as the natural reaction of "the rich and middle classes, in self-defense" when the "dissatisfied masses, with the example of the Russian revolution before them, swing to the Left." Fascism therefore "must succeed or the masses, this time reinforced by the disillusioned middle classes, will again turn to the left." Not until European Fascism attacked U.S. interests directly did it become an avowed enemy.

and that includeds Italian fascism. State Department roving Ambassador Norman Davis praised the successes of Italy in remarks before the Council on Foreign Relations in 1933, speaking after the Italian ambassador had drawn applause from his distinguished audience for his description of how Italy had put its “own house in order . . . A class war was put down.” 

George Keenan wrote in April 1941 that German leaders have no wish to see other people suffer and that they are "most anxious that their new subjects should be happy in their care".

This is about what rich and powerful men are willing to do for profit. Engand was even more supportive of Hitler becasue of industrail, commercial and financial reasons and "a policy of self-preservation for the British establishment".

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