IBM, Disney, Bush: Nazis?

[davemarc]

From: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
>
> Up until 11 December 1941 any U.S.-registered corporation or individual
> could have legally engaged in business with the Nazis. Up until 11
December
> 1941 the American government (and thus the American people) honoured a
> pledge of neutrality towards -- if not indeed an actual treaty (i.e. a
> signed *business* contract) with -- the Nazi government *and* its war
> machine.

As far as I can tell, the above is somewhat simplistic.  The US Neutrality
Acts prior to the one of 1939 included an arms embargo, which would have
severely hampered trade by some US-registered corporations.  As far as
honoring a pledge of neutrality is concerned, the Neutrality Act of 1939 and
some subsequent legislation were designed to favor Britain and France over
Germany.  Furthermore, by mid-1940 polling showed that a majority of the
American people supported intervention on behalf of Nazi victims even if it
meant military entanglement.  By the end of 1940, FDR had agreed to
Churchill's suggestion in establishing the land-lease act (I believe that's
what it's called) and he had also initiated the first peacetime conscription
in US history.  So despite "official" neutrality and influential
isolationists within the US, the government and people did shift away from
neutrality toward the Nazi government *and* its war machine.  (While, I
note, engaging in all sorts of civil injustices within its own borders.)

>Up until 11 December 1941 then, *all* American citizens, in the
> sort of logical void which is being constructed in the wake of these
> "reports", were in complicity with the Nazi program. That would include an
> awful lot of the genocide, war crimes etc. What's more, it would be pretty
> hard to imagine that not one person who was in some sort of advisory
> capacity to the American bureaucracy, or employed in its secret service,
> knew of or had reported on what was happening in the Lagers. *This* is the
> "historical record". Correct me if I'm wrong on any of it. Please.

There's not much to correct in the above because it's in the form of
conjecture.  The facts are well-documented.  Since the 1930s, it has been
recognized that much of the world (especially governments) essentially stood
by as Nazi persecution intensified.  Such passivity in the face of genocidal
activity seems to be a historical standard, but that doesn't make Nazi war
crimes "legal"; nor, as has been discovered, does it free related activities
from legal activism.  Indeed, as knowledge of the extent of Nazi crimes and
complicity has "sunk in" over the decades (due in part to Gravity's Rainbow)
and individuals have become more empowered in courts (which include civil
courts--no need for a law to be broken for a suit to be leveled), there has
been a growing realization that victims of Nazi persecution are, in fact,
free to sue (or attempt to sue) their persecutors and those who were
complicit in the persecution.  Is that kind of legal activism in the wake of
genocide really so horrible that it warrants equation with a "culture of
blame" that fueled the genocide itself?  I think not.  It's more in the
tradition of civil rights struggles that seek to empower the persecuted and
protect others against similar persecutions.

The equation that the Nazi "culture of blame" is equal to the post-genocide
series of lawsuits against Nazis and their associates could be interpreted
as suggesting that lawyers suing IBM for complicity are just as
reprehensible as Nazis pursuing genocide.  In the case of the Nazis, the
"culture of blame" was fundamentally a case of the oppressors blaming the
victims, with extraordinarily dire consequences as well as a lack of legal
standing among the victims.  That is not the case in the lawsuit against
IBM.

d.