Libération article on Edwin Black

[Eric Rosenbloom]

jbor wrote:
> The line of argument goes something like
> this: establish a connection between a company (eg IBM), a political figure
> or family (eg the Bushes), or indeed a critic (eg Paul de Man) or literary
> interpretation, and Nazism, and in that way you will discredit them for all
> perpetuity. The hidden agenda is in the promotion of some alternative
> company or political figure/clan or critic or interpretation (or, indeed,
> simply the author of the alleged exposé himself.) The Nazis were "evil"
> therefore IBM ( ... etc ) is "evil". QED. It is a strategy which is
> simplistic and manipulative and quite offensive in its reduction of WWII and
> its consequences to the status of rhetorical instrument, to the mouthpiece
> of propaganda.
> 
>     "By 1945, the factory system - which, more than
>      any piece of machinery, was the real and major
>      result of the Industrial Revolution - had been
>      extended to include the Manhattan Project, the
>      German long-range rocket program and the death
>      camps, such as Auschwitz.It has taken no major
>      gift of prophecy to see how these three curves
>       of development might plausibly converge, and
>                 before too long. ... "
>                                  (T. Pynchon, 1984)

The foolish and dangerous idea is that defeating Nazi Germany (and
Fascist Italy, and Imperialist Japan), we defeated evil. The quote from
Pynchon reminds one that the Nazi program was not an aberration of the
industrial capitalist system -- it was the culmination. It wasn't
business as usual, but it was business as could only be dreamed of
before: no labor unions, no international laws, slave labor, human
pharmaceutical testing, death in general as an industry instead of a liability.

Industrial capitalism is still the norm, and new international laws and
treaties are being drawn up to better favor of the freedom of global
capital. And the USA wants to build more rocket bombs.

IBM wasn't evil, it just exploited a golden opportunity, as did
thousands of other  companies large and small at the time, in their
responsibility to keep the shareholders happy in dividends. And today
they to do the same thing with the resources and labor of "developing" companies.

So I don't think it's unfair to tarnish today's company with its past.
They did not simply respond amorally to an opportunity, but Hitler too
responded to their needs. And those needs are still the same.

"I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration." --Adolf Hitler

--
Erik (R)



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