This is an amazing analysis. Thanks for all the time and thought you put into this question. I 'd just like to comment on the following quote before I continue reading (and please correct me if I'm missing something):
"When the Nazis came to power they promoted the idea that the Jewish people were collectively responsible for the defeat of Germany in World War 1 and more generally for most everything that had ever gone wrong in Germany, along with Bolshevism. At first with lots of support from the western powers, the Nazis seemed to many western leaders to be a great bulwark against the specter of communism that all the capitalists were so terrified of."
First of all, Germans had a good reason for blaming "the Jews" for what happened in WWI, at least from what I've read about it. During the war, Germany had received many Jews who were escaping from Russia. They had had a very open, generous policy as I understand it. But during that same time, the (international) Zionists were negotiating with Britain for a homeland. Britain was compelled to make an agreement to promise Jews a homeland in Palestine in exchange for economic support for the war effort from wealthy Jews. After Germany's defeat, it became clear that part of the dividing up of the "spoils" of the war--which included the dividing up of the Ottoman empire amongst the allied countries--was that the Jews were waiting for their promised homeland. Certainly it was the wealthy Jews who had betrayed Germany, but the stigma was attached to Jews in general--as you say, "the Jewish people ... collectively."
My second comment is on the part about "all capitalists" being afraid of communism. This was most certainly not the case. From the beginning of the 20th century (actually even throughout the 19th century), monopoly capitalists (the big guys, that is) had conceived that if they could concentrate all of the business dealings in the hands of the state, and control the state at the same time, then they could control all of the capital. This was the idea of centralized communism. This has been well documented. Particularly, Anthony C. Sutton has laid this out in detail in his book "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution." The pretense of capitalists being afraid of communism was just that: pretense. No, they started it! They formulated it, pushed it, paid for it, and supported communism for decades in the USSR until it finally could no longer be supported.
And I find it very interesting what you have said about capitalist states looking for ways to get the most out of workers and pay them the least. That's exactly what communism has attempted to do.
Good writeup and problem definition but I want to point out as you note the miseducation of Germany Israel and the US was known and spoken against in the Global South and US by DuBois Morrison etc. and ignored by the same exceptionalism in the West.
Your comment looks interesting, but I can't exactly follow it. Maybe missing some punctuation. Can you expand on what you said, and be a little clearer?
Nov 27, 2023·edited Nov 27, 2023Liked by David Rovics
Comment was meant for Rovics. The post is about coming to terms with nazi exceptionalism and realizing the ubiquity of genocide. The exceptionalism is a western misunderstanding taught in school though criticized in western circles that are marginalized. Morrison for example writes in Sources of Self Regard (1995) page 14 “LET US BE REMINDED that before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third. The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another.” W. E. B. Du Bois, in The World and Africa, (1956) wrote, “There was no Nazi atrocity—concentration camps, wholesale maiming and murder, defilement of women or ghastly blasphemy of childhood—which Christian civilization of Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race born to rule the world.” Aimé Césaire in Discourse on Colonialism (1955), wrote (page 19) “Europeans tolerated Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.”
This is an amazing analysis. Thanks for all the time and thought you put into this question. I 'd just like to comment on the following quote before I continue reading (and please correct me if I'm missing something):
"When the Nazis came to power they promoted the idea that the Jewish people were collectively responsible for the defeat of Germany in World War 1 and more generally for most everything that had ever gone wrong in Germany, along with Bolshevism. At first with lots of support from the western powers, the Nazis seemed to many western leaders to be a great bulwark against the specter of communism that all the capitalists were so terrified of."
First of all, Germans had a good reason for blaming "the Jews" for what happened in WWI, at least from what I've read about it. During the war, Germany had received many Jews who were escaping from Russia. They had had a very open, generous policy as I understand it. But during that same time, the (international) Zionists were negotiating with Britain for a homeland. Britain was compelled to make an agreement to promise Jews a homeland in Palestine in exchange for economic support for the war effort from wealthy Jews. After Germany's defeat, it became clear that part of the dividing up of the "spoils" of the war--which included the dividing up of the Ottoman empire amongst the allied countries--was that the Jews were waiting for their promised homeland. Certainly it was the wealthy Jews who had betrayed Germany, but the stigma was attached to Jews in general--as you say, "the Jewish people ... collectively."
My second comment is on the part about "all capitalists" being afraid of communism. This was most certainly not the case. From the beginning of the 20th century (actually even throughout the 19th century), monopoly capitalists (the big guys, that is) had conceived that if they could concentrate all of the business dealings in the hands of the state, and control the state at the same time, then they could control all of the capital. This was the idea of centralized communism. This has been well documented. Particularly, Anthony C. Sutton has laid this out in detail in his book "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution." The pretense of capitalists being afraid of communism was just that: pretense. No, they started it! They formulated it, pushed it, paid for it, and supported communism for decades in the USSR until it finally could no longer be supported.
And I find it very interesting what you have said about capitalist states looking for ways to get the most out of workers and pay them the least. That's exactly what communism has attempted to do.
Thanks for your thoughts. CarryOn!
Good writeup and problem definition but I want to point out as you note the miseducation of Germany Israel and the US was known and spoken against in the Global South and US by DuBois Morrison etc. and ignored by the same exceptionalism in the West.
Your comment looks interesting, but I can't exactly follow it. Maybe missing some punctuation. Can you expand on what you said, and be a little clearer?
Comment was meant for Rovics. The post is about coming to terms with nazi exceptionalism and realizing the ubiquity of genocide. The exceptionalism is a western misunderstanding taught in school though criticized in western circles that are marginalized. Morrison for example writes in Sources of Self Regard (1995) page 14 “LET US BE REMINDED that before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third. The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another.” W. E. B. Du Bois, in The World and Africa, (1956) wrote, “There was no Nazi atrocity—concentration camps, wholesale maiming and murder, defilement of women or ghastly blasphemy of childhood—which Christian civilization of Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race born to rule the world.” Aimé Césaire in Discourse on Colonialism (1955), wrote (page 19) “Europeans tolerated Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.”
Yes, exactly!
Thanks!