The Men Who Wear the Star

[Steelhead]

Diana rightly questions the sincerity of the Ford Motor Company in its
sponsorship of Schindler:

>Steely notes Ford's rather ungracious attitude towards our Hebrew
>brethren.  But the spokesmodel for the firm swore on NPR the other day
>that there was no relation to this "past" that they have put behind them
>and the sponsorship of said film.
>
>hmmm....

My friend Ben Sonneberg, who used to edit the wonderful journal Grand
Street, tells the story of Texaco. Texaco's CEO during the run-up to WWII
was a Norwegian-American man called Torkild Rieber. Rieber was fanatically
pro-Nazi. He was the first American to start shipping oil to Franco's
fascist in Spain. He shipped oil to Mussolini and to Hitler via
international cut-outs. A fellow executive at Texaco informed on Rieber to
the US State Department, saying "the leadership of Texaco is pro-Nazi and
openly boasts of it as well as being willing to do all within its power to
injure the English and help the Germans." When this leaked to the press,
Rieber was deposed as CEO. But he did not regret his decisions. He said he
considered the oil sales to the faciscts "good business." Rieber was never
tried for "trading with the enemy," abetting crimes against humanity, or
treason. In fact, he remained a director the company and retired to a life
of leisure.

Texaco saw its problem as mainly one of public relations. To improve its
image, Texaco began sponsoring the Milton Berle show, with ads that urged:
"You can trust your car to the man who wears the star." (A subliminal
reference to the star of David sown on the jackets of the Jews?) How does
Sonnenberg know these details? His father Ben Sonnenberg, Sr. was the pr
guru who advised Texaco on its strategy.

Schindler's List is really the false story of how capitalism with a human
face can triumph over fascism and, by implication, socialism. It placates
the audience with the assumption that the genocide against the Jews (no
mention of gypsies, socialists, or homosexuals) was really an aberration
caused by the ascencion into power of a few mad and evil people--and not
rooted in a culture of extreme prejudice.

Ford's sponorship of the film is the perfect coda to this otherwise banal
and dangerously false enterprise.

Steely