Surviving Capitalism (Not) : NATO’s Nazi Beginnings: How the West implemented Hitler’s goals

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, June 21, 2012

NATO’s Nazi Beginnings: How the West implemented Hitler’s goals

Click here to access article by Robert S. Rodvik from Voltaire Network.

Western capitalist elites harbored bitter resentment against the Soviet Union which had a system that did not permit private ownership of the economy. In 1918 immediately after the Soviet Union's revolution capitalist ruling circles sent numerous forces into that war ravaged country to restore capitalism, but were unsuccessful and eventually gave up.

With the rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933, capitalist elites began to view them as another
way to accomplish this. As the author has shown, many capitalists in other countries aided and abetted Germany's ascendency. The temporary "unholy alliance" resulted from the deranged thinking of Hitler and his cronies who were probably drunk on power resulting from their initial easy victories in Europe. I am referring to Hitler's crazy idea of attacking England. If he hadn't been so stupid, who knows what course history might have taken. Although the author's documented resources differ a bit from mine, his analysis of this period is in complete conformity with my understanding.

I see parallels today between some neo-liberal policies and the Nazi concept of "untermenschen" which informed the latter's horrendous racist policies toward various ethnic groups--gypsies, Slavs, and Jews. Today I see evidence everywhere that they are pursuing basically the same genocidal policies--although in most cases much more subtle and sophisticated--toward migrants, indigenous people whose resources they covet, and all those whose labor they have no use for: the handicapped, uneducated and unskilled, the elderly, etc. The mad drive to slash safety nets for large segments of the 99 Percent within their own nations together with their other neo-liberal policies suggests a similar attitude toward all people who they regard as dispensable in their new world order: their new "untermenschen".