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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Letters 03-14-07
Wednesday 14 March @ 14:41:18 |
 Dialogue on Resistible Rise of Fascism between Richard Weil and Ed Felien
I enjoyed the essay, “The Resistible Rise of Fascism” in the [March 7] issue. It was clear, well organized, and very interesting. I’d like to add one or two other comments, though.
That’s a good point about nobody winning World War I, though feudalism was largely gone from Europe by that time. But not sure that the Western Powers so much overthrew the democracies that arose from the Austro-Hungarian Empire as these states didn’t have the traditions and middle class to sustain them. One, Czechoslovakia, lasted until the late 1930s, and under other circumstances there might have been a chance for Hungary and maybe the Baltic states. (Austria stayed a democracy too.) Poland probably was hopeless given its conditions. The monarchies certainly were impossible.
The U.S. didn’t engage the Germans in Europe until 1944? What about the landings in Italy the year before??? The Italian campaign was brutal. That sweeping statement about capitalists standing by while Hitler and Stalin fought is rather sweeping, though Churchill did say something similar. But I disagree with the conclusion of the paragraph. People are rarely quite that calculating.
I certainly agree with you—and Goering and Orwell—about a government staying in power by manipulating fear. Here’s a nice discussion on the “war on a noun”. I helped rewrite this particular “criticism” section:
Wikipedia: War on Terror_Criticism
Very interesting about Dresser, but I’m not sure the connections are quite that simple. Are you sure Bushes owned the company? Granted it was tied in with Harriman, who had close Bush ties, but I think the links aren’t that simple. This following link seems to indicate some distancing from Halliburton, and indicates at least some of the loss of stock price as due to asbestos suits:
Wikipedia: Dresser Industries
They all certainly seem dirty enough, and I wish there was a real smoking gun that would sink the whole stinking bunch, but it’s rarely that clear. The fact that Bush & Cheney haven’t been impeached and convicted for their Niger yellowcake lies doesn’t bode well for this country’s sense of outrage. But one can hope.
Best wishes with your work!
Richard Weil
St. Paul
Ed Felien responds:
Thank you very much for responding. I appreciate your critical questions.
Of course, the sweeping generalization about World War I is a little too pat. I agree there are inconsistencies in that thesis. Have you read The Great Transformation by Karl Polyani? It begins, if I remember it correctly, “Nineteenth Century civilization has collapsed.” He was talking about the end of feudalism.
Your point, “these states didn’t have the traditions and middle class to sustain them,” is correct but my point is that the capitalist class aligned itself with the military and convinced the petit-bourgeois and unorganized working class elements to “help restore order.”
Of course, you’re right about the German’s fight with the Allies in Italy. Somehow, I always think of that as an anomaly. The Allies invade Sept 3 and the Italians surrender Sept 8, and then the Germans move in. But, you’re right. The fighting was brutal and it did predate Normandy by eight months. But I do believe it is incontrovertible that the Russian army defeated the German army after Stalingrad and was on its way to Berlin. There were a number of pro-German elements (Alan and John Foster Dulles were most prominent) connected with the State Department and OSS. I’m sure you know about the lawsuit by two concentration camp survivors suing the Bush family for their interest in a Silesian factory that used concentration camp labor. The suit alledges that Prescott Bush and others influenced FDR not to bomb railroad lines leading to the camps. The Bush family ties to nazi elements is fascinating, but I didn’t have the time or space to devote to it. I did a little of it in the Pulse cover story, in "Covered in Oil" [Nov. 16, 2005].
Kevin Phillips in his Bush Dynasty does a good job of suggesting Prescott Bush was the real owner of Dresser Oil, through his work with Brown Harriman. My guess is that Herbert Walker (Prescott’s father in law) turned it over to him. Prescott names his first kid George Herbert Walker Bush, and his first grandson is George Walker Bush. Prescott and George I were notorious for sending thank you notes. I think they probably carried the name as a thank you for the oil company. In any case they were running it into the ground. The asbestos suits were probably going to ruin them. (Did you know that during the last year of the Republican Congress they were still trying to get legislation through that would absolve them of liability in those suits?) So they went hunting with Cheney and they worked it out that Dresser would become part of Halliburton for $7.7 billion. Halliburton was worth just barely that, so it would seem the Bushs took over Halliburton. That’s my read, but I have yet to see anyone else talk about it in print.
Listen up, Amy Klobuchar
Senator Amy Klobuchar, how many more children, women and men must Bush kill? How many more soldiers and allies must he sacrifice? How many more illegal wars must he start? How many more lies must he tell? How many more people must he torture? How many more people must he spy upon? How many more elections must he steal? How much more of the Constitution must he wreck? What does his private army of contractors really do? How many more civil liberties must he take? How much more secrecy must he cloak the government in? How much more authority must he take from Congress and the states? How much more money must he grab from taxpayers? How much further must he drive America into bankruptcy? Even Vlad the Impaler and Idi Amin didn’t kill as many people as Bush. Is Congress so composed of the indolent, the craven, the cowardly and the corrupt that it will not stop the American tyrant?
Michael Barrett
Minneapolis
Repeal Bush’s martial law
Many thanks to Ed Felien, Max Sparber and Sid Pranke for their excellent news stories on the rise of facism in America. We must watch for U.S. Senate bill 513, soon to be introduced, which would repeal Bush’s martial law.
Robert Pionke
River Falls, Wisc.
Daughter of John Fields
Thank you for doing the article on John Fields and our troops [Pulse cover story, “Troops suffer from non-support,” 2/21/07 by Chante Wolf]. John is my father and I was his first-born. My mom saw the difference in him from before the Vietnam War to after he came home from the war. I was born in 1970 and since my birth I’ve had numerous unexplainable medical issues. My mom and dad separated shortly after I was born due to his flashback periods, which were pretty violent from what I’ve heard. My mom always instilled in me that it was not him, it was the war, and he would never hurt anyone, especially women and children, but when he was in flashback mode he was somebody else. She told me how one day he picked me up gently and cried saying he knew he could not be around me ’cause the thought that he’d hurt me, by accident, and not know, would kill him.
Years later I tracked him down and thank God I did because by that point he had received help and became not only my hero but [the hero of] his other two children and new wife. I saw him a week before his passing and the last thing he said was how sorry he felt for my medical issues cause he felt it might possibly be from Agent Orange. He was sobbing as he was telling me this. He felt personally responsible for this. Here he was near death and he was more concerned for my health and what Agent Orange may have done to me because, as we’ve read, it can be passed on. That’s the kind of man he is:, a truly caring, sensitive, intelligent, for the people and environment. The whole article is so touching and informative. Thank you.
B.B.
U.S. created harm’s way
Here is U.S. Rep. John Kline’s approach—put the troops in harm’s way, refuse to take the troops out of harm’s way, then use harm’s way as a reason to continue funding this mess. Kline will “not deny additional funding for our troops in harm’s way.” He’s using the troops as pawns and then trying to come across as a noble a stand-up guy in funding them.
As if anyone who is protesting this “war” wants the funding to stop but the “war” to continue. Kline is not funding this endless “war”; he’s funding “the troops who are in harm’s way.” Kline acts as if the “war” is out of his control and he’s powerless to take the troops out of harm’s way. A child can see through the game they’re playing.
“War” protesters are just awful. They want to deny our soldiers fresh bullets to continue this immoral “war.”
Frank Erickson
Minneapolis
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