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Octafish

(55,745 posts)
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 01:23 AM Jan 2013

What would the world look like if the NAZIs had won World War II?

Last edited Tue Jan 8, 2013, 09:18 AM - Edit history (2)



A superpower could attack innocent nations with impunity to steal their oil and grab whatever else they got.

Children, including the Homeland's own citizens, could be tortured and killed in the name of national security.

Secret police could spy on every citizens' public and private communications, associations and affairs.

Elections would be decided by appointed officials rather than the People, 5 to 4.

The rich would not only get richer, they'd enjoy immunity from prosecution.

The poor would not only get poorer, it's austerity for the rest of us until poverty is the new normal.

Ignorance would be the sole purpose of both the news media and public education.

Money would trump peace.

And there is Justice only for "Just Us."




139 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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What would the world look like if the NAZIs had won World War II? (Original Post) Octafish Jan 2013 OP
... mindwalker_i Jan 2013 #1
Know your BFEE: Like a NAZI Octafish Jan 2013 #16
Full Godwin in one Fumesucker Jan 2013 #2
Bwah! Recursion Jan 2013 #19
You beat me to it. UnrepentantLiberal Jan 2013 #21
The rarely attempted double full Godwin Fumesucker Jan 2013 #22
. UnrepentantLiberal Jan 2013 #25
Even the Russian judge gave him a 10! Bucky Jan 2013 #42
It rings a bell. UnrepentantLiberal Jan 2013 #44
No, it was just a standard joke in the Cold War years of my youth Bucky Jan 2013 #47
It was East German judges, too... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2013 #113
I'm a whipper-snapper and I remember those. Heywood J Jan 2013 #57
Hey, I'm still pissed about that Korean boxing match NBachers Jan 2013 #110
He musta been triple dog-dared to do it! MADem Jan 2013 #126
Olympic was the service rendered by the United States... Octafish Jan 2013 #68
Yes, and now we have Homeland Security and we're headed toward implanted ID chips Fumesucker Jan 2013 #70
Personally, I don't see the humor. Octafish Jan 2013 #75
Hey, Octafish... I agree with you. bvar22 Jan 2013 #102
Operation Paperclip... Javaman Jan 2013 #71
General Reinhard Gehlen rose to become head of West German (NATO) intel... Octafish Jan 2013 #79
I really do not understand the "Godwin Law" Hugabear Jan 2013 #132
There's more than one accepted meaning of Godwin's law. Fumesucker Jan 2013 #133
The butterflies would be different. nt. hay rick Jan 2013 #3
... cyberswede Jan 2013 #6
Bradbury probably wouldn't have been allowed to be a writer. Kablooie Jan 2013 #10
I saw what you did there...... cliffordu Jan 2013 #23
Tyme Travell Ink Octafish Jan 2013 #72
For many people, the internet is that library. hay rick Jan 2013 #86
I tell good folk it's like the Library of Alexandria on your desktop. Octafish Jan 2013 #90
And sadly... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2013 #114
nicely done No Compromise Jan 2013 #4
+1 gateley Jan 2013 #76
The late Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) expressed very similar thoughts... Octafish Jan 2013 #78
I remember Church very well. dixiegrrrrl Jan 2013 #87
The super rich got smart... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2013 #115
Volfenschtein! SirChanceAlot Jan 2013 #5
''Money trumps peace.'' Octafish Jan 2013 #85
they did n/t librechik Jan 2013 #7
Looks that way to me, too, librechik. To Brennan, too. Octafish Jan 2013 #92
thanks Octafish! librechik Jan 2013 #139
And we never would have seen Hogan's heroes. Kablooie Jan 2013 #8
Or, Kelly's Heroes! longship Jan 2013 #18
Change The Oligarchs Can Believe In... WillyT Jan 2013 #9
Modern Times do share that particular peculiarity with NAZI Days. Octafish Jan 2013 #95
Snappier uniforms RudynJack Jan 2013 #11
kick samsingh Jan 2013 #12
Hope Gov. Don Siegelman reads this. Octafish Jan 2013 #99
he needs to be pardoned samsingh Jan 2013 #100
Octofish, have you read The Man in the High Castle Starry Messenger Jan 2013 #13
Yeah, I was going to say someone already wrote that book....nt eilen Jan 2013 #17
One of most BRILLIANT, most amazing alternate history books ever written... Moonwalk Jan 2013 #20
Right, the Nazis are alluded to in the story. Starry Messenger Jan 2013 #59
Plot Against America - Phillip Roth Old and In the Way Jan 2013 #127
You might also want to check out "Fatherland".. Javaman Jan 2013 #73
I have the paperback version. amandabeech Jan 2013 #120
Thank you for the heads-up, Starry Messenger! Have you read ''We''? Octafish Jan 2013 #118
+1, Star. Mc Mike Jan 2013 #122
Just served as Juror on alert of OP RobertEarl Jan 2013 #14
Why would someone alert on this? leftstreet Jan 2013 #24
Here's where the results from all the jurors can be found: AnotherMcIntosh Jan 2013 #27
Interesting Oilwellian Jan 2013 #28
Great point (n/t) a2liberal Jan 2013 #30
Apparently some "Nazis" think it's impolite to point. Kurovski Jan 2013 #105
The 5-4 decision is a pretty obvious reference Chathamization Jan 2013 #129
Octafish a troll??? Blue_In_AK Jan 2013 #34
That's what I immediately thought. AnotherMcIntosh Jan 2013 #60
A touch of unintended irony. allrevvedup Jan 2013 #38
Brennan? truebluegreen Jan 2013 #45
Could be worse. allrevvedup Jan 2013 #46
It's anti-Semetic and should be locked michigandem58 Jan 2013 #41
The OP minimized nothing. He assumed everyone with even a rudimentary education.... OldDem2012 Jan 2013 #83
While it does not rate an alert, it is not "the truth" treestar Jan 2013 #66
Hmmm. What did Octafish post that was not the truth? In all the years I've been reading.... OldDem2012 Jan 2013 #84
Another reason why alerter's should not remain anonymous. Old and In the Way Jan 2013 #128
Agreed RobertEarl Jan 2013 #130
Death, death and more death. Rex Jan 2013 #15
What would fix that? Octafish Jan 2013 #98
The sick thing is who would be bankrolling the Nazi party after the war. Rex Jan 2013 #103
Feels like home. raouldukelives Jan 2013 #26
Sacha Baron Cohen just went up in my book. Octafish Jan 2013 #119
Likely, the Russians would have kicked his ass out eventually anyway. redgreenandblue Jan 2013 #29
It's easy to assume Russia would have ended up winning davidpdx Jan 2013 #36
Oy. I guess somebody's been watching Oliver Stone's revisionist silliness. Bucky Jan 2013 #43
Yup, I did watch that. redgreenandblue Jan 2013 #49
This reminds me of a scene from the recent movie "The Dictator" Initech Jan 2013 #31
Historically speaking, Hitler could've conceivably won if the Business Plot succeeded against FDR. Selatius Jan 2013 #32
you forget the Einstein letter.. napoleon_in_rags Jan 2013 #58
The fascist coup against FDR should be in ALL U.S. history textbooks... Octafish Jan 2013 #125
It can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis was a great book about Nazis taking over the US. libinnyandia Jan 2013 #33
uh, no that's certainly not what it's about cali Jan 2013 #35
Thank you for the heads-up, libinnyandia! Octafish Jan 2013 #131
I'm stunned by how few think of what could have happened if Japan had won the war davidpdx Jan 2013 #37
I am also stunned Shankapotomus Jan 2013 #48
I didn't know about the Aleutian Islands davidpdx Jan 2013 #52
Except Japan didn't have a fart's chance in a whirlwind after Pearl Harbor. dairydog91 Jan 2013 #61
The reason there chances were dismal was because FDR went all in right after the bombing of PH davidpdx Jan 2013 #136
That is a fascinating question and a good reminder: USA forgave the Japanese War Criminals, too. Octafish Jan 2013 #134
In a way they did win thanks to people like stultusporcos Jan 2013 #39
Thanks to banking, there are no borders for individuals and organizations with means. Octafish Jan 2013 #121
Where's the part about exteriminating Jews and murdering 12 million people? michigandem58 Jan 2013 #40
If the Nazis had gone through with Generalplan Ost, the Holocaust would be an addendum. dairydog91 Jan 2013 #64
Read the book "The Fourth Reich" by Jim Marrs Casandia Jan 2013 #50
I wonder whether there would be an Internet with countless political discussion forums Nye Bevan Jan 2013 #51
Thank you, Octafish! Everytime you pull out "Know your BFEE" I smile.... Raster Jan 2013 #53
Frightening when you really think about it. There is only one on your list.... OldDem2012 Jan 2013 #54
Even that line has been crossed. Octafish Jan 2013 #96
I've made it a personal habit to always look for your "know your BFEE" posts.... OldDem2012 Jan 2013 #101
Thank you, OldDem2012. Octafish Jan 2013 #138
South Carolina blm Jan 2013 #55
No Stephen Colbert! Kurovski Jan 2013 #106
Now is the time on Nazi earth when we dance! Adenoid_Hynkel Jan 2013 #56
Here you go Capt. Obvious Jan 2013 #62
Yup. Europe would be a significantly different place...nt SidDithers Jan 2013 #63
Very poor analogy treestar Jan 2013 #65
Didn't Newt Greengooch write a series of "alternate history" novels where the nazzies won? Erose999 Jan 2013 #67
No, he and a co-author wrote 1 book. MicaelS Jan 2013 #89
Philip K Dick wrote a great book on that.. ananda Jan 2013 #69
"SS-GB" By Len Deighton. Paladin Jan 2013 #74
I posted the map above Capt. Obvious Jan 2013 #117
imported comment from another thread about Republicans perfectly describes what would happen... No Compromise Jan 2013 #77
Nazis are bad! zappaman Jan 2013 #80
What would Nazis do to our food supply?What kind of designer drugs would they sick on the population No Compromise Jan 2013 #81
Old Tom Jefferson rolling in his grave, rolling in his grave, KurtNYC Jan 2013 #82
People wouldn't be screaming for more gun control regjoe Jan 2013 #88
Wow... The United States is just like Nazi Germany... Ohio Joe Jan 2013 #91
+1 for being right! n/t zappaman Jan 2013 #93
We would all have good Sauerkraut and not that shit in a jar snooper2 Jan 2013 #94
Kicking! n/t Hotler Jan 2013 #97
Just as I thought. Kurovski Jan 2013 #104
K&R. nt OnyxCollie Jan 2013 #107
Comparing the United States to Nazi Germany in anyway... iandhr Jan 2013 #108
Where do you think the NAZIs got their ideas? Octafish Jan 2013 #116
Like this: Gore1FL Jan 2013 #109
You are exactly correct. n/t truth2power Jan 2013 #111
I seem to recall a book entitled... awoke_in_2003 Jan 2013 #112
I'd imagine that if Germany had indeed won the war, LanternWaste Jan 2013 #123
I used to think that, too. Then I read 'Friendly Fascism' by Bertram Gross... Octafish Jan 2013 #124
We write what we want to, we say what we want to, we see what we want to. LanternWaste Jan 2013 #135
I appreciate that, LanternWaste. My main concern is Secret Government and its continuation... Octafish Jan 2013 #137

Bucky

(53,755 posts)
42. Even the Russian judge gave him a 10!
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 07:08 AM
Jan 2013

I don't know if yall whippersnappers are old enough to get that reference.

Bucky

(53,755 posts)
47. No, it was just a standard joke in the Cold War years of my youth
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 07:45 AM
Jan 2013

If someone did a good job or pulled off a stunt (or did a spectacular job at screwing up) kids would say "A ten, a ten, a ten, annnnd the Russian judge gives him a four." It was an Olympics thing.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
68. Olympic was the service rendered by the United States...
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 11:34 AM
Jan 2013

...especially in making certain elements feel right at home.

Here's the story, which, for some reason, didn't get much mention outside this one article in The Times.



Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times, November 13, 2010

WASHINGTON — A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.

SNIP...

Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés. Scholars and previous government reports had acknowledged the C.I.A.’s use of Nazis for postwar intelligence purposes. But this report goes further in documenting the level of American complicity and deception in such operations.

The Justice Department report, describing what it calls “the government’s collaboration with persecutors,” says that O.S.I investigators learned that some of the Nazis “were indeed knowingly granted entry” to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts. “America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became — in some small measure — a safe haven for persecutors as well,” it said.

The report also documents divisions within the government over the effort and the legal pitfalls in relying on testimony from Holocaust survivors that was decades old. The report also concluded that the number of Nazis who made it into the United States was almost certainly much smaller than 10,000, the figure widely cited by government officials.

SNIP...

The full report disclosed that the Justice Department found “a smoking gun” in 1997 establishing with “definitive proof” that Switzerland had bought gold from the Nazis that had been taken from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. But these references are deleted, as are disputes between the Justice and State Departments over Switzerland’s culpability in the months leading up to a major report on the issue.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html



Home of relatively free labor and land of brave shoppers, for those in the know.

Fumesucker

(45,851 posts)
70. Yes, and now we have Homeland Security and we're headed toward implanted ID chips
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 11:40 AM
Jan 2013

Hoocoodanoed?



But that doesn't change the fact you got a full double godwin, a true thing of beauty.



Octafish

(55,745 posts)
75. Personally, I don't see the humor.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 11:53 AM
Jan 2013
Documents reveal CIA knowingly recruited five of Eichmann's associates

February 5, 2005
by Yossi Melman,
Haaretz

Five of Adolph Eichmann's Nazi assistants were recruited and employed by the Central Intelligence Agency after World War II, according to recently declassified intelligence documents.

The information came to light after a lengthy battle waged by the non-profit group, The National Security Archive, whose goal is to expose government documents under the framework of the Freedom of Information Act.

The newly-revealed documents are based on internal investigations in the CIA's history department. The agency has steadfastly refused to make the documents public for fear they would cause embarassment.

The revelations cast a negative light not only on American intelligence activity but also the U.S. Army's conduct in Germany at the conclusion of the war. The military made efforts to recruit members of the SS and the Gestapo into its ranks despite simultaenously waging a campaign of de-Nazification over vanquished Germany, a process which included arresting and trying Nazi war criminals.

CONTINUED...

http://www.haaretz.com/news/documents-reveal-cia-recruited-five-of-eichmann-s-associates-1.149350

bvar22

(39,909 posts)
102. Hey, Octafish... I agree with you.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 07:01 PM
Jan 2013

Invoking Goodwin's Law IS a Logical Fallacy.
There ARE occasions when references to Hitler & The Nazis ARE appropriate and valid.
There is no logical reason to exclude these names, facts & history from discussion or debate, especially when one looks at the current state and direction of the USA and The World. There ARE parallels that it would be unwise to ignore.


Now, THAT said,
I did laugh at the "Full Goodwin" post.

Javaman

(62,394 posts)
71. Operation Paperclip...
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 11:40 AM
Jan 2013

Operation Paperclip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II (1939–45). It was conducted by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), and in the context of the burgeoning Soviet–American Cold War (1945–91). One purpose of Operation Paperclip was to deny German scientific knowledge and expertise to the USSR,[1] the UK,[2] and (divided) Germany itself.

Although the JIOA's recruitment of German scientists began after the European Allied victory (8 May 1945), US President Harry Truman did not formally order the execution of Operation Paperclip until August 1945. Truman's order expressly excluded anyone found "to have been a member of the Nazi Party, and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazi militarism". However, those restrictions would have rendered ineligible most of the leading scientists the JIOA had identified for recruitment, among them rocket scientists Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph, and the physician Hubertus Strughold, each earlier classified as a "menace to the security of the Allied Forces".

To circumvent President Truman's anti-Nazi order and the Allied Potsdam and Yalta agreements, the JIOA worked independently to create false employment and political biographies for the scientists. The JIOA also expunged from the public record the scientists' Nazi Party memberships and régime affiliations. Once "bleached" of their Nazism, the US government granted the scientists security clearance to work in the United States. Paperclip, the project's operational name, derived from the paperclips used to attach the scientists' new political personae to their "US Government Scientist" JIOA personnel files.[

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
79. General Reinhard Gehlen rose to become head of West German (NATO) intel...
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 12:16 PM
Jan 2013

...which we see today has had a problem in overlooking the continuing influence of Nazis in German political life.



Germany's neo-Nazi investigation exposes institutional racism

Despite talk of integration, the racist assumptions that hindered the hunt for a murderous gang are reflected in German institutions

Ben Knight
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 November 2012

The last alleged member of the German neo-Nazi gang that murdered nine immigrants has been charged, a year after her arrest uncovered a decade-long terrorist campaign – but the case has also uncovered some uncomfortable truths about racism in Germany's institutions. Last week, German state prosecutors chose the first anniversary of Beate Zschäpe's arrest to reveal the charges they would be levelling against her. Because she is alleged to be the only surviving member of the murderous trio that called itself the National Socialist Underground, the prosecutors took a calculated risk and charged Zschäpe with complicity in all the group's known crimes: 10 murders, two nail bombings and 15 bank robberies.

The judiciously timed announcement ended the first chapter of one of the most momentous criminal investigations in unified Germany, and next spring's trial could potentially uncover the true extent of Germany's underground neo-Nazi network. Even if it doesn't, the court case will hopefully give new urgency to the obstructed parliamentary investigations into the authorities' failure to stop the NSU.

Since last November, four separate committees (one federal, three regional) have drip-fed the country with revelations of incompetence or criminal collusion in every security body from the federal and state police forces to sundry intelligence agencies. Four secret service chiefs have lost their jobs.

Above all, the investigation has revealed how racist assumptions hindered detective work. We learned, for instance, that the police were so convinced that only the Turkish mafia would murder Turkish Germans that officers set up fake kebab shops and sent undercover investigators among the families of the victims.

While those infiltrating detectives found that the Turkish community suspected far-right extremists to be behind the killings, their suspicions were ignored. Meanwhile, numerous paid neo-Nazi informants – some of whom had contact with and supplied weapons to the real killers, the NSU – wilfully kept the authorities in the dark.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/13/germany-neo-nazi-investigation-institutional-racism



An excellent resource from the National Security Archives of George Washington University:

The CIA and Nazi War Criminals

My two cents on the BFEE turd Gehlen.

Most importantly: Thank you, Javaman, for caring about what is going on and standing against them.

Hugabear

(10,340 posts)
132. I really do not understand the "Godwin Law"
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 02:23 PM
Jan 2013

Yes, I know what Godwin's Law refers to. I just don't understand it.

Basically we can never ever ever ever ever ever EVER compare anything to any aspect of Nazi Germany - no matter how close the comparison might actually be.

Fumesucker

(45,851 posts)
133. There's more than one accepted meaning of Godwin's law.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 02:39 PM
Jan 2013

The original Godwin's law was more of an observation, like Newton's laws are an observation of nature not something made up to control people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Godwin's law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies[1][2]) is an argument made by Mike Godwin in 1990[2] that has become an Internet adage. It states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."[2][3] In other words, Godwin observed that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis.


There are many corollaries to Godwin's law, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself)[3] than others.[1] For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.


Which is why I called the OP a "full Godwin", it hit both of the biggies dead center, an analogy to Nazis and lost the debate by default in the first post.

I actually agree more than disagree with the OP but it is pretty funny in an internet geeky sort of way. Consider it a form of black humor that helps me cope with something uncomfortable to think about if you wish.


Kablooie

(18,546 posts)
10. Bradbury probably wouldn't have been allowed to be a writer.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 01:56 AM
Jan 2013

So the butterflies would have remained the same.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
72. Tyme Travell Ink
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 11:41 AM
Jan 2013

Don't step off the path?

Nobody tells a story like Ray Bradbury.

I heard him speak (over KPFK a long time ago) and he said he got his education thanks to the Los Angeles Public Library.

Would that more people spent the time there, learning. This world would be a very different place, indeed.

hay rick

(7,495 posts)
86. For many people, the internet is that library.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 12:54 PM
Jan 2013

And Google is the new Dewey Decimal System.

Easy availability of information doesn't seem to have done much to keep the citizenry informed.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
90. I tell good folk it's like the Library of Alexandria on your desktop.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 02:03 PM
Jan 2013

Or, thanks to smart phone technology, in your shirt pocket.

The trick is using the GOOGLE search terms -- and that's where it's important to, eh, phrase things properly.

Speaking of RAM:



The CIA's History Problem is Our History Problem

By David Wallace
Fri Jun 16, 9:22 PM ET

The author David Lowenthal once noted that the "past is a foreign country." The past might be better described as being more like a moving target - always in transition and susceptible (and vulnerable) to becoming unrecognizable to what we once believed. And more often than not new revelations are disorientating and troubling.

SNIP…

Such is the case with recent news accounts in the Washington Post and the New York Times that in the late 1950s the CIA knew that Adolf Eichmann was living in Argentina and had a pretty close pseudonym for him (Clemens instead of the actual alias of Klement), but did nothing to bring him to justice. That the CIA sought the cooperation and protection of Nazis, even those guilty of war crimes, after World War Two to serve its Cold War struggles is not news. But the extent of these relationships and the depths the CIA went through to protect them is news. These disclosures have been made possible through the ongoing efforts of the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG), launched over eight years ago by the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act (Public Law 105-246). The key that unlocked this unsavory history has been the unparalleled access granted to the IWG into formerly secret government records and archives.

Concern over these disclosures extend beyond the sad facts surfaced by the IWG: such as official protection of Nazis residing in the United States and the CIA's post-war use of top Eichmann aides. They also include the entirely unconscionable fact that it has taken generations for the CIA to disclose this information, and only did so after a special act of Congress supplemented by years long battles to protect them from public knowledge. IWG member Thomas H. Baer pointed to such battles when he thanked the CIA for finally coming clean this past week. However, coming clean occurred only after "reversal of policy of thinly veiled noncompliance" with the IWG's legal mandate and the ongoing efforts of members of Congress and (some) IWG members and staff in making an "ironclad case decrying CIAs misinterpretation of its obligations."

Why has the CIA taken so long to open such records and archives? And do the excuses proffered around protecting national security really hold any credible value? I think the answer to the second question must be no, of course not. As to the first question, that is a trickier one, but one must look beyond the legal loopholes that protect secret information for such inordinate periods and look to see what agendas are at play. Clearly one agenda is to provide a simplistic and comforting (and at times woefully inaccurate) past as a means of enabling an ignorant, but strongly held, patriotism as a form of social glue that (kind of) holds society together. But a simplistic and comforting and inaccurate past can only be realized through the unreasonable, though legal, controls granted to the CIA over its historical records and archives. And it is in these seemingly rationally derived controls that the past itself can be held hostage.

CONTINUED w/links...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-wallace/the-cias-history-problem-_b_23206.html



Most importantly: Thank you, hay rick, for knowing what's what and standing up to oppose the evil. Readers are Leaders.
 

awoke_in_2003

(34,582 posts)
114. And sadly...
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 02:04 AM
Jan 2013

libraries are dying. I remember when I was in high school taking the train into downtown Cleveland to the huge public library there. It was a bookies heaven.

 

No Compromise

(373 posts)
4. nicely done
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 01:47 AM
Jan 2013

but I'm not real happy with the implications of this...this is now worldwide, who is going to stop them? Hitler could only dream of the technology we have today for spying/police state, and the propaganda is beyond Goebbels wildest dreams.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
78. The late Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) expressed very similar thoughts...
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 12:07 PM
Jan 2013

...back in the late 1970s, the last time there was any serious public investigation by Congress of the National Security State.





Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and John Tower (D-Texas) examine a weapon developed for a CIA assassination program.


Frank Church and the Abyss of Warrantless Wiretapping

John Nichols
The Nation
BLOG | Posted 04/26/2006 @ 12:00am

Thirty years ago, on April 26, 1976, the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, delivered its final report detailing the lawlessness of U.S. intelligence agencies and the need for Congress to reassert the Constitutional system of checks and balances to order to rein in the cloak-and-dagger excesses of the executive branch of the federal government.

The committee, mercifully referred to by the last name of its chair, U.S. Senator Frank Church, D-Idaho, produced fourteen reports on the formation of U.S. intelligence agencies, the manner in which they had and were continuing to operate, and the abuses of law and of power -- up to and including murder -- committed by these agencies in Chile, the Congo, Cuba, Vietnam and other nations that experienced the attention of U.S. authorities in the Cold War era.

The committee also made 96 recommendations for how to do that. Some of those recommendations, such as the committee's call for creation of a permanent Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and for a ban on assassinations of foreign leaders, were implemented. But, as the current controversy over President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program illustrates, the potential abuses about which the Church Committee warned were not entirely -- nor even adequately -- thwarted.

It was not for lack of trying by Senator Church, one of the most courageous legislators in American history, and his colleagues on the committee. As Senator Church said when the committee completed its work: "The United States must not adopt the tactics of the enemy. Means are important, as ends. Crisis makes it tempting to ignore the wise restraints that make men free. But each time we do so, each time the means we use are wrong, our inner strength, the strength which makes us free, is lessened."

SNIP...

Three decades after the Church Committee submitted its final report, President Bush admits to ordering the NSA to spy on the telephone conversations of Americans on American soil without obtaining warrants.

Most of Congress stands idly by.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=79968





Here's a most prescient quotation of the late Sen. Church, on the subject of using America's spying technology on the American people -- specifically outlawed in the legislation that established the CIA:



“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”





An "abyss." It must be an open secret, for it is plain -- for those who bother to look and see -- that an abyss is precisely where our nation has fallen.

dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)
87. I remember Church very well.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 01:11 PM
Jan 2013
because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government,
no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know.



Where we are today is no surprise to me.
What DOES surprise me is how few people are paying attention to what is happening.
"few" as in % of population as a whole.
Not only NOT paying attention, but laughing and mocking the folks who try to warn others.
True crab pot mentality.

which really should NOT surprise me, if history is any lesson.

 

awoke_in_2003

(34,582 posts)
115. The super rich got smart...
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 02:08 AM
Jan 2013

and went global. War has always been about the rich getting richer, no matter what patriotic bunting you put on it. The rich realized that it isn't other nationalies that are the enemy, but other classes. The class war is now worldwide.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
85. ''Money trumps peace.''
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 12:52 PM
Jan 2013

This is news to many people. Some get visibly angry when it's brought to their attention:



" target="_blank">Hear and see George W Bush say it at a press conference on Feb. 14, 2007.

"Let's put it this way. Uh. Money trumps peace. Sometimes. Heh heh heh.
In other words, commercial interests are very powerful interests. Throughout the world."
-- Crazy Warmonkey George Walker Bush, appointed pretzeldent

I remember Cindy Sheehan tried to bring it to our attention.

Unfortunately, not many people listen to Ms. Sheehan -- especially those in authority.


PS: Wilkommen auf DU, SirChanceAlot. Hope there's not an Abschied to go along with that.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
92. Looks that way to me, too, librechik. To Brennan, too.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 03:06 PM
Jan 2013

Carl Brennan. He spotted what Carla Binion and Russ Bellant reported. Like today, DU responded then:



Carl Brennan (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-27-04 04:23 PM
Original message

Nazis in the Republican Party

The other day I posted some information on Nazi links to the Republican Party after Bush tried to imply in an ad that the democrats are Nazis.

A Fresh Look

by Carla Binion

Nazis and the Republican Party

Investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says in BLOWBACK that after World War II, Nazi émigrés were
given CIA subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U.S. These Nazis assumed prominent positions
in the Republican Party's "ethnic outreach committees." Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not
come to America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist political agendas.

snip

Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking Nazis on the intelligence payroll "for
their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare," among other purposes. The most important Nazi
employed by the U.S. was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's most senior eastern front military intelligence officer. After
Germany's defeat became certain, Gehlen offered the U.S. certain concessions in exchange for his own
protection. Gehlen promoted hyped up cold war propaganda on behalf of the political right in this country, and
helped shape U.S. perceptions of the cold war.


Journalist Russ Bellant (OLD NAZIS, THE NEW RIGHT, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY) shows that
Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, built the Republican émigré network. Pasztor, who served as
adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich, belonged to the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate
Hungary's Jews. Pasztor was founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council.


Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week,
disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The
article prompted six leaders of Bush's coalition to resign.
According to Russ Bellant, Nazi collaborators involved in the Republican Party included:
1.Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a
member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust
denier, Austin App.
2.Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush."
Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.
3.Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.
4.Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.
5.Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi
groups.
6.Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukrainians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish
wartime pogroms.

more

http://www.bartcop.com/nazigop.htm

ORIGINAL DU2 THREAD: Old school.



Most importantly: Thank you for standing up to them, librechik. It is an honor to be in the fight with you and all good DUers.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
95. Modern Times do share that particular peculiarity with NAZI Days.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 03:12 PM
Jan 2013

The rich seem to have not only amassed the greatest wealth in human history, they also enjoy the greatest political power in human history. One example is the role of nuclear weapons in the hands of the protectors of greed heads fresh off Wall Street and into government self-service:

The story connects a few dots from the present day back to World War II.



War crime, Yakuza, Secret Government. Why not?



Japan’s Nuclear Industry: The CIA Link.

By Eleanor Warnock
June 1, 2012, 10:18 AM JST.
Wall Street Journal Blog

Tetsuo Arima, a researcher at Waseda University in Tokyo, told JRT he discovered in the U.S. National Archives a trove of declassified CIA files that showed how one man, Matsutaro Shoriki, was instrumental in jumpstarting Japan’s nascent nuclear industry.

Mr. Shoriki was many things: a Class A war criminal, the head of the Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan’s biggest-selling and most influential newspaper) and the founder of both the country’s first commercial broadcaster and the Tokyo Giants baseball team. Less well known, according to Mr. Arima, was that the media mogul worked with the CIA to promote nuclear power.

SNIP...

Mr. Shoriki, backed by the CIA, used his influence to publish articles in the Yomiuri that extolled the virtues of nuclear power, according to the documents found by Mr. Arima. Keen on remilitarizing Japan, Mr. Shoriki endorsed nuclear power in hopes its development would one day arm the country with the ability to make its own nuclear weapons, according to Mr. Arima. Mr. Shoriki’s behind-the-scenes push created a chain reaction in other media that eventually changed public opinion.

SNIP…

Mr. Shoriki, backed by the CIA, used his influence to publish articles in the Yomiuri that extolled the virtues of nuclear power, according to the documents found by Mr. Arima. Keen on remilitarizing Japan, Mr. Shoriki endorsed nuclear power in hopes its development would one day arm the country with the ability to make its own nuclear weapons, according to Mr. Arima. Mr. Shoriki’s behind-the-scenes push created a chain reaction in other media that eventually changed public opinion.

CONTINUED...

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/06/01/japans-nuclear-industry-the-cia-link/



After President Carter was out of office, it was pretty much full-steam ahead for the Japanese bomb during the Pruneface Ronnie-Poppy Bush years. Hence, Fukushima Daiichi Number 3 and other select Japanese reactors were set up to process plutonium uranium fuels.



United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium

By Joseph Trento
on April 9th, 2012
National Security News Service

The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.

The diversion of U.S. classified technology began during the Reagan administration after it allowed a $10 billion reactor sale to China. Japan protested that sensitive technology was being sold to a potential nuclear adversary. The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers. Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclear weapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.

SNIP...

A year ago a natural disaster combined with a man-made tragedy decimated Northern Japan and came close to making Tokyo, a city of 30 million people, uninhabitable. Nuclear tragedies plague Japan’s modern history. It is the only nation in the world attacked with nuclear weapons. In March 2011, after a tsunami swept on shore, hydrogen explosions and the subsequent meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant spewed radiation across the region. Like the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan will face the aftermath for generations. A twelve-mile area around the site is considered uninhabitable. It is a national sacrifice zone.

How Japan ended up in this nuclear nightmare is a subject the National Security News Service has been investigating since 1991. We learned that Japan had a dual use nuclear program. The public program was to develop and provide unlimited energy for the country. But there was also a secret component, an undeclared nuclear weapons program that would allow Japan to amass enough nuclear material and technology to become a major nuclear power on short notice.

CONTINUED...

http://www.dcbureau.org/201204097128/national-security-news-service/united-states-circumvented-laws-to-help-japan-accumulate-tons-of-plutonium.html



Those of who have seen The World at War series on the tee vee are familiar with the black and white footage and great narrative chronicling the main events and figures of World War II. One of those episodes was entitled "The Bomb" and featured an interview with John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War to President Roosevelt and President Truman.



Here's part of what Mr. McCloy said about the Atomic Bomb – the use of which he counseled only as a last resort, after warning Japan to surrender (around 7:30 mark of Part 2):

“Besides that, we’ve got a new force, a new type of energy that will revolutionize warfare, destructive beyond any contemplation. I’d said, I’d mention the bomb. Mentioning the bomb, even at that late date, in that select group, was like, it was like they were all shocked. Because it was such a closely guarded secret. It was comparable to mentioning Skull and Bones at Yale – which you’re not supposed to do.”

After the war, McCloy was the United States High Commissioner to Germany, administering the U.S. zone of occupation, making him one of the front-line leaders of the Cold War. In that capacity, one of the questionable things he did was to forgive several NAZI industrialists and war criminals.

The great cartoonist Herb Block, HERBLOCK, depicted McCloy holding open a prison door for a NAZI, while in the background Stalin took a photo (if anyone has a copy or link to the cartoon, I’d be much obliged). About 15 years later, Mr. McCloy served the nation as a member of the Warren Commission.

While he wasn’t a member of Skull and Bones, McCloy certainly worked closely with a bunch of them, including Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush. As a Wall Street and Washington insider, "Mr. Establishment" he was called, Mr. McCloy used the offices of government to centralize power and wealth. That is most un-democratic.

Mother Jones goes into detail:



The Nuclear Weapons Industry's Money Bombs

How millions in campaign cash and revolving-door lobbying have kept America's atomic arsenal off the chopping block.

— By R. Jeffrey Smith, Center for Public Integrity
Mother Jones
Wed Jun. 6, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

Employees of private companies that produce the main pieces of the US nuclear arsenal have invested more than $18 million in the election campaigns of lawmakers that oversee related federal spending, and the companies also employ more than 95 former members of Congress or Capitol Hill staff to lobby for government funding, according to a new report.

The Center for International Policy, a nonprofit group that supports the "demilitarization" of US foreign policy, released the report on Wednesday to highlight what it described as the heavy influence of campaign donations and pork-barrel politics on a part of the defense budget not usually associated with large profits or contractor power: nuclear arms.

As Congress deliberated this spring on nuclear weapons-related projects, including funding for the development of more modern submarines and bombers, the top 14 contractors gave nearly $3 million to the 2012 reelection campaigns of lawmakers whose support they needed for these and other projects, the report disclosed.

Half of that sum went to members of the four key committees or subcommittees that must approve all spending for nuclear arms—the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and the Energy and Water or Defense appropriations subcommittees, according to data the Center compiled from the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. The rest went to lawmakers who are active on nuclear weapons issues because they have related factories or laboratories in their states or districts.

Members of the House Armed Services Committee this year have sought to erect legislative roadblocks to further reductions in nuclear arms, and also demanded more spending for related facilities than the Obama administration sought, including $100 million in unrequested funds for a new plant that will make plutonium cores for nuclear warheads, and $374 million for a new ballistic missile-firing submarine. The House has approved those requests, but the Senate has not held a similar vote on the 2013 defense bill.

CONTINUED...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/nuclear-bombs-congress-elections-campaign-donations



It isn't ironic or coincidental. It is the Establishment, the in-group, the Elite, the One-Percent that’s pretty much gotten the lion’s share of the wealth created over the last 50 years. The same group that’s pretty much had their fingers on the atomic button ever since the Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as profited from the development of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and the almost continuous state of war since then. For lack of a better term, I call them the BFEE, or War Party.

Most importantly: Thank you for standing up to the evil warmongering, WillyT. People know who's who.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
99. Hope Gov. Don Siegelman reads this.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 04:36 PM
Jan 2013


Siegelman made the mistake of being an honest Democrat in an age of warmongers and the rise of open bigotry in politics, a time when the scum of the earth and "money trumps peace" crowd rule.



The Pork Barrel World of Judge Mark Fuller

by Scott Horton
Harpers

EXCERPT...

The recusal motion rested upon details about Fuller’s personal business interests. On February 22, 2007, defense attorneys obtained information that Judge Fuller held a controlling 43.75% interest in government contractor Doss Aviation, Inc. After investigating these claims for over a month, the attorneys filed a motion for Fuller’s recusal on April 18, 2007. The motion stated that Fuller’s total stake in Doss Aviation was worth between $1-5 million, and that Fuller’s income from his stock for 2004 was between $100,001 and $1 million dollars.

In other words, Judge Fuller likely made more from his business income, derived from U.S. Government contracts, than as a judge. Fuller is shown on one filing as President of the principal business, Doss Aviation, and his address is shown as One Church Street, Montgomery, Alabama, the address of the Frank M. Johnson Federal Courthouse, in which his chambers are located.

CONTINUED...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000762



Doss Aviation is huge. And it's still just the tip of the dirty BFEE iceberg.

samsingh

(17,548 posts)
100. he needs to be pardoned
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 04:59 PM
Jan 2013

has anyone brought this to the President's attention? perhaps through Biden or Hillary?

Starry Messenger

(32,342 posts)
13. Octofish, have you read The Man in the High Castle
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 02:08 AM
Jan 2013

By Philip K Dick. Amazing book. Kind of off topic for your thread, but I think you'd enjoy it. Set in a world where the Axis powers were victorious.

Moonwalk

(2,322 posts)
20. One of most BRILLIANT, most amazing alternate history books ever written...
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 02:33 AM
Jan 2013


But really it's more about what would have have happened if the Japanese (and the Nazis) won WWII, with the focus on an alternate 1960's world where the Western half of the U.S. has been under the control of the Japanese empire for 20 years; the Eastern Nazi half is talked about, but is not the focus of the story.

However, P.K. Dick did start to write a sequel to the novel where he *did* focus on the Nazi half of America...he stopped after deciding it was too depressing and there was no way he could finish it. So that was how he would answer the question.

If you haven't read Man in a High Castle get it and read it--NOW. No other author as ever written a better, smarter alternate history on the topic of WWII and "what if the losers had won instead?" Really. Others writers have tried, but no one--no one--has ever been able to top this book. It isn't just a great thought experiment, it is a literary masterpiece.

Starry Messenger

(32,342 posts)
59. Right, the Nazis are alluded to in the story.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 09:39 AM
Jan 2013

They aren't the focus, but you kind of get veiled hints of really really bad shit going on elsewhere. And the fact that Frink had to hide the fact that he was Jewish, or else he'd get turned over to the Nazi half of America in an agreement the Japanese fascist government had with them.

I have to underscore the literary masterpiece description you give to it. Completely true, a complex and wonderful book that holds up to rereadings.

Old and In the Way

(37,540 posts)
127. Plot Against America - Phillip Roth
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 01:21 PM
Jan 2013


The Plot Against America, in which he imagines the 1940 election of Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh, the aviator famous for being the first man to traverse the Atlantic on a solo flight, was also an open supporter of Hitler and the Nazi party. (Roth supplements the novel with a real chronology of Lindbergh's life, including several quotes indicating his Nazi sympathies.) Yet, Lindbergh remained tremendously popular in the States. This dichotomy (a vocal proponent of dictatorships gaining a following in the land of the free) is the bouncing point for Roth's novel.

In classic Roth style, The Plot Against America is narrated by a young boy from urban New Jersey, in this case a youthful version of the author. As the novel opens, young Philip describes his Jewish neighborhood as like any other ethnic enclave in the city; the residents being ten times more likely to buy a racing form at the newsstand than a copy of the daily Yiddish paper. They were Jews, certainly, but they were American first. "Our homeland was America" states Roth, "Then the Republicans nominated Lindbergh and everything changed."

http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/historicalfictionreviews/fr/plotAgainstAmer.htm

Given the MIC in place at the time, not so hard to imagine, really...

Javaman

(62,394 posts)
73. You might also want to check out "Fatherland"..
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 11:42 AM
Jan 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(novel)

Fatherland is a bestselling 1992 thriller by the English writer and journalist Robert Harris. It takes the form of a detective story in an alternative history in which Nazi Germany won World War II. The novel was an immediate bestseller in the UK. It has sold over three million copies and has been translated into 25 languages.[1]

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
118. Thank you for the heads-up, Starry Messenger! Have you read ''We''?
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 10:24 AM
Jan 2013

Science Fiction is my passion. Unfortunately, the times...

Regarding Mr. Dick's book: I look forward to an excellent read. The Japanese and German governments, I remember, had plans to divide up the world. Then, they'd turn on each other for final victory.

"We" by Eugene Zamiatin was published in 1924. The guy was one of the Russian Revolution's intellectual lights. He didn't like the way the democrats and Mensheviks got the ziggy, courtesy of Lenin and Stalin. Anyway, his novel predates 1984 and Brave New World. Every person in the world has a number -- It also discusses the military conquest of space. Absolutely amazing read. Here is one translation in PDF form:

http://mises.org/books/we_zamiatin.pdf

(Sorry about Mises, it's just a repository for this book.)

As Harry Harrison wrote in his dedication to Bill the Galactic Hero: "For my shipmate Brian W. Aldiss who is reading the sextant and plotting the course for us all."

Mc Mike

(9,106 posts)
122. +1, Star.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 11:15 AM
Jan 2013

It's a book about a book that was written by a book. (High Castle about Grasshopper, written by I Ching). Mr. D probably used the I Ching to write High Castle, to boot. (A book written by a book about a book written by a book.)

Imagining a world where the denizens imagine our world. Says the WWII 'Double V' aim of 'Victory against Fascism Abroad and Victory against Fascism at Home' was only partially realized in the first part, and 'far less achieved than is commonly believed' in the second part.

A novel that eloquently says American nazi power types are still pulling their nazi moves, and actual nazis are still exerting organized power. Really enjoyable to read, too, like most PKD books.

Oilwellian

(12,647 posts)
28. Interesting
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 03:59 AM
Jan 2013

The alerter automatically assumed this OP was about America, when it was never mentioned in the OP. The irony is just precious.

Chathamization

(1,638 posts)
129. The 5-4 decision is a pretty obvious reference
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 01:24 PM
Jan 2013

to Bush vs. Gore. I can't think of any 5-4 decision by elites to pick leaders under the Nazi regime. The Nazis also seemed to be big on deficit spending and large public works projects, so the comment about austerity rings hollow.

 

allrevvedup

(408 posts)
38. A touch of unintended irony.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 06:19 AM
Jan 2013

On the other hand this term's cabinet picks have been encouraging so far and we could do a lot worse than Kerry, Hagel and Brennan. I honestly feel we're moving in the right direction again for the first time in decades.

k/r

 

allrevvedup

(408 posts)
46. Could be worse.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 07:37 AM
Jan 2013

Much worse. He's close to Obama and that's what matters. I guess we could argue about drones and enhanced interrogation and renditions under Bushler but I'll settle for somebody who won't hand us a Nov. 22.

 

michigandem58

(1,044 posts)
41. It's anti-Semetic and should be locked
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 07:07 AM
Jan 2013

The OP is vauge about who the comparison is to, but the OP minimizes the horrors perpetuated by Nazi Germany.

OldDem2012

(3,526 posts)
83. The OP minimized nothing. He assumed everyone with even a rudimentary education....
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 12:42 PM
Jan 2013

....already knows about "the horrors perpetuated by Nazi Germany".

In what way is the OP's post anti-Semitic (your spelling is incorrect, btw)? Please explain.

treestar

(82,383 posts)
66. While it does not rate an alert, it is not "the truth"
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 10:49 AM
Jan 2013

and makes the board look like it has shallow thinking people on it.

OldDem2012

(3,526 posts)
84. Hmmm. What did Octafish post that was not the truth? In all the years I've been reading....
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 12:45 PM
Jan 2013

....his posts, he has never been known to lie about anything.

Please explain what you meant.

Old and In the Way

(37,540 posts)
128. Another reason why alerter's should not remain anonymous.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 01:23 PM
Jan 2013

You can learn quite a bit about a poster just by what he/she alerts on...and how often he/she uses the feature.

 

RobertEarl

(13,685 posts)
130. Agreed
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 01:32 PM
Jan 2013

A lot of alerts violate the TOS and CS. They are disruptive, rude and over the top. Yet they get away with such constantly.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
103. The sick thing is who would be bankrolling the Nazi party after the war.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 07:22 PM
Jan 2013

It would have been the BFEE.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
119. Sacha Baron Cohen just went up in my book.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 10:31 AM
Jan 2013

That is genius, every word art. Thank you for the heads-up on an incredible speech, raouldukelives.

Did you see Ali G interview Buzz Aldrin?



Cohen's lucky he didn't get launched.

redgreenandblue

(2,088 posts)
29. Likely, the Russians would have kicked his ass out eventually anyway.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 04:07 AM
Jan 2013

He could have never broken their will to resist. Even had Moskow fallen, the Russians would have fought to the last man, woman and child. He could have never maintained a grip on the Soviet territories.

A much more interesting question: What would have happened had Truman not stolen the nomination for vice president?

davidpdx

(22,000 posts)
36. It's easy to assume Russia would have ended up winning
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 06:04 AM
Jan 2013

But keep in mind it was the US that was supplying their military (as well as England) to help them fight the Germans. Their "Communist paradise" would have had a much more difficult time fighting with out that help. Also the Russians and Japanese stayed neutral until very late in the war. If Japan had maintained their gains they would have smelled blood and Russia would have had the enemy coming from both sides.

Bucky

(53,755 posts)
43. Oy. I guess somebody's been watching Oliver Stone's revisionist silliness.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 07:28 AM
Jan 2013

Before swallowing that Stalinist apology in one big gulp, read this debunking of the "Untold" history

==> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/19/oliver-stone-s-junk-history-of-the-united-states-debunked.html

Generally I like Stone's movies. His take on Dubya was letter perfect. But his ridiculous documentary (at least when I watched the episode on how WW2 played out) had more than a couple of howlers--particularly those trying to excuse Stalin's totalitarian aggression and his short-lived alliance with the Nazis. It's simply bad history (not that a re-focused attention on the role the Soviets played in defeating the Nazis isn't way overdue).

Specifically to your post: Truman did not steal the nomination. He was selected for the job by the same Democratic process by which FDR got nominated and elected four times. Were party bosses involved? Of course! A democracy of 140 million people is going to organize itself somehow and the elevation of party bosses within an electoral process is perfectly legitimate. Those bosses simply didn't want Wallace a heartbeat away. Wallace had no claim to that job other than the personal support of FDR. If that alone could trump the will of the Democratic Party Convention, then it would be an example of one person's decision overriding the decision of the many. That may be many things, but it ain't democracy in action.

Selatius

(20,441 posts)
32. Historically speaking, Hitler could've conceivably won if the Business Plot succeeded against FDR.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 04:24 AM
Jan 2013

The aim of the people behind the plot to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt was to install a pro-fascist government that melded government power and private/corporate power.

The people behind the plot favored similar solutions to the Great Depression that Hitler was implementing in Germany to get people back to work. He was re-arming Germany and ramping up production to produce the machines of war.

In order to get support of the major captains of industry, war contracts were doled out and deals were cut between the Third Reich and major corporations that controlled mining, milling, and production centers. By marshaling the great industrial capacity of Germany was Hitler then in a position to build a war machine rivaling any other in the world at the time. He simply lacked the manpower of Russia or the United States and their bigger capacity for industrial production to wage a protracted conflict.

If, on the other hand, the United States was run by a government that was friendly to Hitler and fellow fascists across Europe, the manpower issue would be eliminated. There would be more than enough men to overpower both the Soviet Union and the British Empire on the battlefield and eliminate the threat of democracy by ordinary people.

napoleon_in_rags

(3,991 posts)
58. you forget the Einstein letter..
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 09:33 AM
Jan 2013

That warned the US pres. about this new possible tech called the atom bomb. Einstein was jew who fled Europe to US persecution. If US was nazi, likely that letter would have been written to Stalin.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
125. The fascist coup against FDR should be in ALL U.S. history textbooks...
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 12:59 PM
Jan 2013

...and brought up in the news media.

The Business Plot makes me nervous by Smarmie Doofus.

Yet, the coup against FDR is hardly mentioned. Thank you -- and DU -- for remembering, Selatius.

Had the Business Plot succeeded, Germany would have had a most powerful ally before the Anschluss and later the invasion of Poland, let alone Barbarossa. Coupled with American manpower, know-how, and industrial might, there'd be no stopping the Reich. Oh. Hang on...

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
131. Thank you for the heads-up, libinnyandia!
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 02:19 PM
Jan 2013

Sinclair Lewis was prescient, with his work discussing fascism, the religious right, and concentration camps for the doubters.

A book review:



IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE by Sinclair Lewis

Book review by Jodey Bateman

Sinclair Lewis, the first American to receive the Nobel Prize For Literature, wrote this satirical political novel in 1935, a time when the United States and Western Europe had been in a depression for six years. In this novel, Sinclair Lewis asks the question – what if some ambitious politician would use the 1936 presidential election to make himself dictator by promising quick, easy solutions to the depression - just as Hitler had done in Germany in 1933.
The hero, Doremus Jessup, a small-town newspaper editor in Vermont, turns 60 years old the year the dictator is elected. Doremus struggling for a year with the new government’s attempts to censor his paper and ends up in a concentration camp. Within a year he escapes to Canada, from there, he goes on missions back into the states for the underground resistance movement against the dictatorship.

While Doremus Jessup could be anybody, the identity of Buzz Windrip, the power-hungry senator who makes himself a dictator would be obvious to any American in 1935. Parallels are made in his dictatorial control of his own un-named state with the career of Huey Long, senator from Louisiana. In 1935 Long had a mass organization, the Share the Wealth League, and was planning to challenge Roosevelt for the Democratic nomination for the president in 1936. (While Lewis was writing his novel, Long was assassinated.)

The identity of the main ally of the fictional dictator would be equally obvious, Bishop Peter Paul Prang, the popular radio preacher who endorses Buzz Windrip’s campaign, is based on Father Charles Coughlin, the most popular radio speaker of the thirties who had a weekly program on CBS in which he denounced President Roosevelt and the Jews for causing and perpetuating the depression. Father Coughlin’s fans included the father of Pat Buchanan, a candidate for the Republican nomination for the president in the year 2000.

The parallel between Father Coughlin and such present-day TV evangelists as Pat Robertson is equally obvious. (In his novel, Lewis foresees that TV would have even greater propaganda potential than the radio – this fictional dictator introduces mass coast-to-coast TV broadcasting in 1937 - something that did not happen in reality until 1948.)

CONTINUED...

http://www.motherbird.com/Can'tHap.htm



Here's "It Can't Happen Here" in PDF format: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html

Most importantly: Thank you for caring about the subject, libbinnyandia. My aim is to prevent Mr. Lewis' vision of a fascistic USA from coming to pass.

davidpdx

(22,000 posts)
37. I'm stunned by how few think of what could have happened if Japan had won the war
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 06:15 AM
Jan 2013

They may not have invaded the US, but they certainly would have controlled a big chunk of Asia.

davidpdx

(22,000 posts)
52. I didn't know about the Aleutian Islands
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 08:23 AM
Jan 2013

I just happened to go check and that was a small scale invasion of a couple of the islands as a diversion where the Japanese were trying to play an end around to keep us guessing what they were doing. Fortunately we didn't fall for it.

dairydog91

(951 posts)
61. Except Japan didn't have a fart's chance in a whirlwind after Pearl Harbor.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 10:14 AM
Jan 2013

Their ground forces were stretched to the limit in China even before they committed to a second front. Even without China swallowing up Japan's military, America had a vastly greater industrial capacity; Even with America committing much of its industrial capacity to building up for a ground war with Germany, American production lines produced roughly 5 warships for every one produced by Japan (The discrepancy was less great for submarines, but also extremely severe in terms of Destroyer Escorts, which America produced 500 of while Japan produced none).

davidpdx

(22,000 posts)
136. The reason there chances were dismal was because FDR went all in right after the bombing of PH
Thu Jan 10, 2013, 12:49 AM
Jan 2013

I wouldn't say they had no chance though. Certainly their strategy left something to be desired. Also we had already been producing stuff for Britain and Russia so in terms of manufacturing we were already ramped up. The decision to fund The Manhattan Project also made a huge difference.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
134. That is a fascinating question and a good reminder: USA forgave the Japanese War Criminals, too.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 03:17 PM
Jan 2013

In the name of military science, we forgave the big shots...



The Pentagon and the Japanese Mengele

The Abominable Dr. Ishii

By CHRISTOPHER REED
Counterpunch Weekend Edition May 27-29, 2006

Editors' note: Under the overall codename Project Paperclip US intelligence agencies made similarly diligent efforts to acquire the research records of Nazi doctors working in the death camps. They also brought over several of the Nazi medical experimenters and set them to work in US military research centers such as Ft. Detrick. The Nazi research was quickly put into play in the field. In 1950, the CIA's Office of Security, headed at the time by Sheffield Edwards, opened a project called Bluebird whose object was to get an individual "to do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation." The first Bluebird operations were conducted in Japan in October 1950 and were reportedly witnessed by Richard Helms, who would later run the Agency. Twenty-five North Korean POWs were given alternating doses of depressants and stimulants. The POWs were shot up with barbitutes, putting them to sleep, then abruptly awoken with injections of amphetamines, put under hypnosis, then interrogated. The operation was, of course, in total contravention of international protocols. The Bluebird interrogations continued through the duration of the Korean War. This history is laid out in detail in our book Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press, Verso, available from our office. AC/JSC.

Everyone has heard of Auschwitz, but what about Pingfan? This Japanese germ warfare headquarters and laboratory in Manchuria, northern China, did not hold as many victims, but atrocities committed there were physically worse than in the Nazi concentration camp, and lasted much longer.

Many people know of Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi SS "Angel of Death" and a physician (though not chief medical officer) at Auschwitz from 1943-45. There, he deliberately infected prisoners with deadly diseases and conducted fatal surgeries, often without anesthetic. He escaped and lived in South America undiscovered until after his death at 68 in 1979 in Brazil.

But who has heard of Dr. Shiro Ishii? He was the chief of Japan's well financed, scientifically coordinated and government approved biological warfare program from 1932-45. Ishii rose to general and supervised deliberate infection of thousands of captives with deadly diseases. He also conducted grotesque surgeries, but the unique medical specialty of Ishii and his surgical team were dissections, without anesthetic, on an estimated 3,000 live, conscious humans. In 1959, Ishii, a wealthy man, died peacefully at home in Japan at the age of 67.

SNIP...

General Willoughby and officials of MacArthur's Supreme Command for the Allied Powers in Tokyo had succeeded in suppressing evidence from Ishii and colleagues, but separate inquiries were made by the International Prosecution Section (IPS). Its lawyers gathered evidence including detailed statements from defecting Japanese bio-scientists from Pingfan. The latter testified to human live vivisection, the dumping of lethal germs in Chinese water supplies and food stores, as well as aerial spraying. Yet all was silenced even though the information went to the top.

IPS documents stamped "to be read by the Commander-in-Chief U.S. forces" were sent to President Harry Truman in 1947. No word has ever emerged on what Truman thought or said about this evidence. It is one of many still unknown facts about the Japanese-American conspiracy to conceal the complete account of the Japanese bio-warfare horror.

At Fort Detrick, Maryland, the main U.S. installation for BW, records remain on file of the thousands of tissue slides, preserved organs (some labeled "American&quot removed from living bodies, with medical schedules and reports on perverse surgical procedures on screaming and writhing human specimens.

General Willoughby listed the five most important items providing "the greatest value in future development of the United States BW program." These included the Japanese scientists' "complete report" of "BW against man" that Willoughby described as "the only information available in world"; "field trials against Chinese" such as Powell described; using animals as deadly bacteria conveyors" ("U.S. has done little work in this field&quot ; and a "summary of the human experiments." The G-2 heard it all.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/reed05272006.html



Part of a great thread on DU2: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2523565&mesg_id=2523626
 

stultusporcos

(327 posts)
39. In a way they did win thanks to people like
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 06:57 AM
Jan 2013

William Averell Harriman
Fritz Thyssen
Prescott Bush
Robert A. Lovett
Henry Ford
Alfred P. Sloan Jr

Just to name a few

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
121. Thanks to banking, there are no borders for individuals and organizations with means.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 10:44 AM
Jan 2013

A bit on society:

Vietnam and Iraq Wars Started by Same People

Know your BFEE: Merchants of Death

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

Please forgive busted links and missing images, these are old posts. The text, I hope, provides enough for those interested in getting more detail via the sources and GOOGLE.

Most importantly: A hearty welcome to DU, stultusporcos! Thank you for spelling out the winners.

 

michigandem58

(1,044 posts)
40. Where's the part about exteriminating Jews and murdering 12 million people?
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 07:00 AM
Jan 2013

Maybe the world would be different, huh?

dairydog91

(951 posts)
64. If the Nazis had gone through with Generalplan Ost, the Holocaust would be an addendum.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 10:38 AM
Jan 2013

The plan, such as it was, was pretty much to exterminate a bare minimum of 50% of the population of Eastern Europe, including Russia. That would have amounted to many tens of millions.

Edit: Of course, that was in Nazi fantasy land. Probably more likely that they would have been caught in the largest and most violent insurgency in world history.

Casandia

(602 posts)
50. Read the book "The Fourth Reich" by Jim Marrs
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 08:14 AM
Jan 2013

So scary, thought provoking, controversial, and filled with references.

Nye Bevan

(25,406 posts)
51. I wonder whether there would be an Internet with countless political discussion forums
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 08:22 AM
Jan 2013

in which anybody could criticize the Government or any Government official without fear of reprisal?

Oh, and do you know any Jewish people? They would not exist.

Raster

(20,996 posts)
53. Thank you, Octafish! Everytime you pull out "Know your BFEE" I smile....
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 08:24 AM
Jan 2013

...not because it is amusing, because someone still connects the dots. Someone does NOT let the crimes and criminals of the BFEE just slither down the rabbit hole.

OldDem2012

(3,526 posts)
54. Frightening when you really think about it. There is only one on your list....
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 08:43 AM
Jan 2013

...that we may not yet be practicing, at least not openly: "Children, including the Homeland's own citizens, could be tortured and killed in the name of national security."

The remainder, sadly, has become a reality for the America in which we now live.

And also sadly, the pressure is building toward another revolution or civil war based largely on the haves versus the have-nots. Historically, no government has survived for very long when the people no longer believe that government represents their interests.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
96. Even that line has been crossed.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 03:30 PM
Jan 2013

A US child was killed by drone without trial or much noticel: Third U.S. Citizen Killed by Obama’s Yemen Drone Strikes was a 16-Year-Old Boy

The torture part, courtesy of the US Justice Department: John Yoo: President can order child's testicles crushed, not contractor transparency

It got worse in Iraq -- a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of September 11 -- where children were brutalized in front of their parents for "information." It is incredible, but true.

Remember those photographs that never came out? Their loss makes it easier to move on, legally, I guess.

And you are absolutely correct: The idea that the government represents the people's interests is belied by the fact it conducts business contrary to the interests of the people and in the interests of individual corporations -- what once were called "special interests" before Reagan made "Liberal" into a four-letter word.

Most importantly: Thank you, OldDem2012, for standing up to the Banksters or Gangsters, whatever these corrupt traitors are that use power and profit for their own benefit and to the nation's detriment. Your kind words are especially appreciated.

OldDem2012

(3,526 posts)
101. I've made it a personal habit to always look for your "know your BFEE" posts....
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 05:57 PM
Jan 2013

....because no matter how much I think I know, I always learn at least something from your comments,

Thanks to you as well.

treestar

(82,383 posts)
65. Very poor analogy
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 10:48 AM
Jan 2013

No, the US is not even a glimmering of that bad.

We may not have liked the 2000 decision, but at least it was made under our system, not by force. Al Gore respected it and so did his supporters. I don't like Dubya either but that doesn't mean reality is suspended.

The rich can get richer under many systems.

At least we have a system to use to challenge anything we don't like and a say in who is elected.

Second sentence uses generality to create a specific. If there are abuses, they are not the norm.

Erose999

(5,624 posts)
67. Didn't Newt Greengooch write a series of "alternate history" novels where the nazzies won?
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 10:50 AM
Jan 2013

I think he wrote a series where the South won the civil war too.

MicaelS

(8,747 posts)
89. No, he and a co-author wrote 1 book.
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 01:39 PM
Jan 2013

Supposed to be sequels, but they have never been written. Axis Victory in WWII.

I have read the works in bold.

Works of Literature

1945 by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen (1995)
'48 by James Herbert (1996)
A Thousand Suns by Alex Scarrow (2006)
The Afrika Reich by Guy Saville (2011)
After Dachau by Daniel Quinn (2001)
All The King's Men by Gordon Stevens
All Evil Shed Away by Archie Roy (1970)
Attentatet i Pålsjö skog by Hans Alfredson (1996)
Axis of Time, series by John Birmingham (2004..2007)
The Big Time by Fritz Leiber (1957)
The Bush Soldiers by John Hooker (1984)
The Children's War and A Change of Regime by J.N. Stroyar (2001)
Clash of Eagles by Leo Rutman (1990)
Collaborator by Murray Davies (2003)
December 7, 1941: A Different Path by David L. Alley (1995)
The Divide by William Overgard (1980)
Farthing, Ha'penny, and Half a Crown, series by Jo Walton (2006..2008)
Fatherland, by Robert Harris (1992)
In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove (2003)
K is for Killing by Daniel Easterman
The Last Article by Harry Turtledove (1988)
The Leader by Guy Walters (2003)
Living Space by Isaac Asimov (1956)
Making History by Stephen Fry (1996)
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (1962)
Pavelićeva oporuka (Pavelić's Will) by Mirko Ćurić
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)
The Proteus Operation by James P. Hogan (1985)
The Sound of His Horn by Sarban (1952)
SS-GB by Len Deighton (1978)
Swastika Night by Katharine Burdekin (1937) Not an alternate history
Timewyrm: Exodus (Doctor Who novel) by Terrance Dicks (1991)
Through Road No Wither by Greg Bear
The Ultimate Solution by Eric Norden (1973)
The Year Before Yesterday by Brian Aldiss (1987)

 

No Compromise

(373 posts)
77. imported comment from another thread about Republicans perfectly describes what would happen...
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 11:57 AM
Jan 2013

This is from another thread describing Republicans, but as I was reading both threads, just look at how perfectly this describes what we would expect to see if Nazis took over the US....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022151049


I don't see any hypocrisy, but planning. They want the USA to collapse to profit their friends.

They are completely consistent. They send money to their friends they steal from the people in the way of deficits they run up. They never had any intention of paying for the wars.

Their subsidies, tax breaks for the rich, etc. were exactly the same thing. Their overpriced RX program made their friends wealthy. The contracts for going to war made their friends richer than anyone has ever been.

Their theft from veterans, homeowners, the poor, the disabled, the elderly - that went to their friends. Democrats are foolish in this way.

A party that believes all people are equal and deserve equal treatment, don't disenfranchise voters to continue the theft; don't discriminate to keep wages low; steal the parks, the schools, the jobs, the very roads, don't do half the things that the GOP are doing today as they have for years.

They are thieves and their greed knows no bounds. They have invented a religion, taken from Ayn Rand and a perverted christianity, that says they are better, superior, deserve more. This flies completely in the face of what Democrats and those who are seeking to better their lives depend on, believe in, must have to live.

They don't care if we live. Any party that advocates constant warfare for nefarious reasons, lies all the time without considering the cost, does not respect the living. No matter how many unpaid for unborns they wave to cover their sin, they hate the living.

The sooner Democrats and others get it through their thick heads that the GOP is not having a temporary aberration, not suffering from stupidity or senility, the sooner we will tackle the problem. Our outrage is music to their ears, they consider it the mewling of the weak.

They only understand one thing, and that is being swept out of office. Everything else is just more fun for their media to make even more money off of. Nothing else,






 

No Compromise

(373 posts)
81. What would Nazis do to our food supply?What kind of designer drugs would they sick on the population
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 12:28 PM
Jan 2013


I wonder, would they try to take over our FDA and use it to sell their bad drugs with no testing, and put cancer causing agents in every food product on the shelves?

God, that would be scary!

Ohio Joe

(21,607 posts)
91. Wow... The United States is just like Nazi Germany...
Tue Jan 8, 2013, 02:11 PM
Jan 2013

All I needed to do was throw together a few things that have a passing resemblance, throw in some complete woo and completely ignore a crap load of other stuff and... It's right before my eyes

iandhr

(6,852 posts)
108. Comparing the United States to Nazi Germany in anyway...
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 12:25 AM
Jan 2013

... is vile and disgusting.

6,000,000 slaughtered in the holocaust. There is no event that compares.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
116. Where do you think the NAZIs got their ideas?
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 10:09 AM
Jan 2013

You might be surprised to learn about the role played by prominent Americans:



Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

by Edwin Black
Sunday, November 9, 2003

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a so-called Master Race.

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little-known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the pseudoscience aimed at "improving" the human race. In its extreme, racist form, this meant wiping away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in 27 states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the 20th century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little-known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles Goethe, as well as members of the California state Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.

CONTINUED...

http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/offSiteArchive/www.sfgate.com/index.html



PS: I agree totally that the NAZIs and all they did are disgusting. That's why I wrote the OP.
 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
123. I'd imagine that if Germany had indeed won the war,
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 11:31 AM
Jan 2013

I'd imagine that if Germany had indeed won the war, we'd not have the opportunity nor the liberty to freely ask questions such as "what if Germany had won the war?" in a public forum without fear of reprisal or incarceration.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
124. I used to think that, too. Then I read 'Friendly Fascism' by Bertram Gross...
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 12:31 PM
Jan 2013

...on the recommendation of a college chum back in the early 1980s.



Friendly Fascism - The New Face of Power in America

by Bertram Gross

EXCERPT...

Friendly fascism portrays two conflicting trends in the United States and other countries of the so-called "free world."

The first is a slow and powerful drift toward greater concentration of power and wealth in a repressive Big Business-Big Government partnership. This drift leads down the road toward a new and subtly manipulative form of corporatist serfdom. The phrase "friendly fascism" helps distinguish this possible future from the patently vicious corporatism of classic fascism in the past of Germany, Italy and Japan. It also contrasts with the friendly present of the dependent fascisms propped up by the U.S. government in El Salvador, Haiti, Argentina, Chile, South Korea, the Philippines and elsewhere.

The other is a slower and less powerful tendency for individuals and groups to seek greater participation in decisions affecting themselves and others. This trend goes beyond mere reaction to authoritarianism. It transcends the activities of progressive groups or movements and their use of formal democratic machinery. It is nourished by establishment promises-too often rendered false-of more human rights, civil rights and civil liberties. It is embodied in larger values of community, sharing, cooperation, service to others and basic morality as contrasted with crass materialism and dog-eat-dog competition. It affects power relations in the household, workplace, community, school, church, synagogue, and even the labyrinths of private and public bureaucracies. It could lead toward a truer democracy-and for this reason is bitterly fought...

These contradictory trends are woven fine into the fabric of highly industrialized capitalism. The unfolding logic of friendly fascist corporatism is rooted in "capitalist society's transnational growth and the groping responses to mounting crises in a dwindling capitalist world". Mind management and sophisticated repression become more attractive to would-be oligarchs when too many people try to convert democratic promises into reality. On the other hand, the alternative logic of true democracy is rooted in "humankind's long history of resistance to unjustified privilege" and in spontaneous or organized "reaction (other than fright or apathy) to concentrated power...and inequality, injustice or coercion".

A few years ago too many people closed their eyes to the indicators of the first tendency.

But events soon began to change perceptions.

CONTINUED...



Thanks to the velvet fist of friendly fascism and its twin concentration of power and wealth, things for us today aren't that far off from a totalitarian state.

Dissent is allowed in order to provide a relief valve. Without it, limited as ours online and in real life is, pressure would build for revolutionary change.

Consider the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling: Money and speech are intertwined, meaning the rich can be heard -- whether through ownership of mass media like Rupert Murdoch, or by purchasing air time, like the Swift Boat Liars in 2004.
 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
135. We write what we want to, we say what we want to, we see what we want to.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 03:23 PM
Jan 2013

We write what we want to, we say what we want to, we see what we want to.

But as I say that without agenda, it may simply be lost.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
137. I appreciate that, LanternWaste. My main concern is Secret Government and its continuation...
Thu Jan 10, 2013, 01:04 PM
Jan 2013

...for example, despite the changes in administration, the Safari Club comprised of foreign governments assisted CIA to continue programs started during Nixon and Ford administrations, but ordered halted by President Carter; and the uninvestigated crimes of the National Security State, such as the military's involvement in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Without the People's awareness, others in government who are unaccountable not only can use state power for secret ends, they use their position for personal gain. This trend, plain to those who remember the nation before Nov. 22, 1963, is accelerating. And that is why I post on DU.

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