by Richard L. Franklin
7/16/07
To construct my argument for this rather dismal possibility, I want to take us back to the late 30s and the rise of Nazism. As Hitler went about building his military machine and making his intentions patently clear, two potential obstacles to his plans were a possible military detente of England, France, and the Soviet Union plus Germany's almost total lack of the resources necessary to complete the building of his huge war machine. Germany was stunningly bereft of necessary natural resources. Unlike previous great wars when nations only needed 'blood and iron', war now required a plethora of materials that were nowhere to be found in Germany.
These materials were available in abundance to the Soviet Union, the US, and the British Empire, either within their own boundaries or within states that were within the orbit of their imperial control. America alone was producing 70% of the world's oil. The Middle East had not yet arrived as a petroleum giant, and was only producing 7% of the world's oil needs. In any case, even this small oil production in the Middle East was controlled by giant British, American, and Dutch corporations.
To say that more than blood and iron were now needed to wage modern wars is a huge understatement. Rubber and gasoline were still important, but a huge range of other materials had become just as essential. Modern steel was vastly more complicated in its sundry alloys than simple iron was. To create the various forms of steel needed for the machinery of war, a state needed supplies of less available metals such as chromium, antimony, tungsten, nickel, cobalt, vanadium, mercury, titanium, and molybdendum --- the latter being essential for creating the cutting tools needed to manufacture the weapons of war. The US had a virtual monopoly over the latter metal. Of course, the wheels of war still ran largely on rubber, but the German landscape was not exactly replete with rubber trees. The Brits, on the other hand, controlled much of the world's rubber supplies with its huge fleet of warships and a large merchant marine fleet.
So how did Hitler manage to garner huge amounts of all these needed materials? Simple. He was the darling of the most powerful corporations of the capitalist world. His violent hatred of any form of communism or democratic socialism made him a beloved icon for the great overlords of capitalism. They would see to it that both he and Mussolini would not go lacking for any of the critical materials needed to build the Nazi war machine. In short, Hitler's hatred of the left was the key to his membership in an international club of corporate fascist capitalists.
Consider the following symbolism. Henry Ford, who all but worshipped his friend Adolph, kept a bust of Hitler on his desk, something that often startled visitors to the inner chamber of one of the world's greatest capitalists. As for the office of Herr Hitler, visitors were often surprised to see a life size portrait of Henry Ford adorning the wall. One can scarcely exaggerate the weight of this symbolism.
As a result of the admiration of Hitler by the ruling industrial aristocracies of England and America, war materials poured undeterred into Germany, allowing Hitler to nearly complete his vast military machine by roughly 1940. Not only that, he often obtained huge supplies of materials on credit dispensed by the capitalist corporations of the West.
Some excellent historians believe a signed mutual defense pact between the English, French, and Russians would have stopped Hitler cold in his military plans. In fact, Hitler was terrified of such a potential pact between Russia and England. He knew he could never engage in his acts of territorial invasion if it meant unleashing the dogs of war at a time when he faced formidable enemies on both fronts and was also burdened with the controlling of newly occupied territories.
Churchill understood this, but his views were suppressed by the appeaser Chamberlain, who never took Hitler as seriously as Churchill did. Chamberlain also was far more sensitive to the views of the ruling aristocracy of England than the more realistic Churchill. The man who would one day lead his country to victory strongly favored a mutual defense pact between England and Stalin despite his dislike of the murderous Stalin. He understood that Stalin was a despot of enormous proportions, but Churchill also was a practitioner of Realpolitik.
He correctly surmised that Hitler would not have embarked on his various territorial adventures in Europe if it meant going to war simultaneously with Russia on one front and the English and French on the other front. Keep in mind this hugely important fact: in 1938, Hitler's war machine was far from being completed. He needed another two or three years of feverish activity to complete it.
The blind hatred of Russia by the ruling classes of England made the very thought of a pact with Russia anathema. They were basically blinded to the realities of the world situation by their greedy, mindless, capitalistic prejudices. The myopic love of numerous American capitalists for Hitler and Mussolini permitted a vast selling of key materials the Nazis sorely needed to complete their war machine. The blind hatred of any socialist state, democratic or otherwise, led the ruling class of England to steadfastly block the signing of a pact with Stalin, an agreement Stalin would have been happy to sign onto. As you know, he eventually settled for a second best 'solution' and signed a pact with Hitler. Ironically, it is sometimes said that it was Russia that ultimately defeated Nazi Germany, thusly adding weight to Churchill's foresight and the myopia of the British ruling aristocracy.
A fanatical hatred of any socialist system combined with a quasi-religious admiration for almost any predatory capitalist system has dictated the foreign policy formulations of America ever since day one. We are told we must hate Castro because he is an allegedly brutal dictator. Of course, that is not the true reason. The American oligarchy loved Fulgencio Batista, even though he was a dictator of immense cruelty. Comparatively speaking, Batista was satanic, while Castro and Guevara were near saints in any comparison.
Batista, however, was a close friend and caretaker of the landed aristocracy of Cuba, the American megacorporations, and the American Mafia. What the American ruling class hates about Cuba is not Fidel Castro. Their hatred is a passion about the entire socialist experiment that has succeeded despite the enormous obstacles put in place by the US and nearly a half century of US terrorism constantly thrown against that little island (i.e Operation Mongoose).
The more obvious manifestations of hatred for the left by America's ruling corporate caste has been the virulent hatred of left wing reformers such as Michael Moore. The hatred oozes out steadily in many forms from the oil megacorporations, the automobile industry, the insurance industry, the Democratic Leadership Council, the PNAC cabal, and the corporate media cartel --- just to mention a few of the rabid haters of the left.
All of which brings me to this question. Will these fanatical haters of nearly all forms of socialization actually end up destroying the planet? Will a recklessly capitalistic Empire America ultimately make the planet unlivable through global warming? How about disaster via a spread of hitherto unknown, incurable tropical diseases as the planet warms? How about the right wing passion for making new weapons of war capable of wiping out massive populations? On a smaller scale, how about the clouds of depleted uranium poisons now drifting from the Middle East over England in a kind of ironic payback? Who knows what the guys are bottling nowadays at Fort Detrick, one of the most fearsome, feckless, and fanatical defenders of Empire America? Could there be a Dr. Strangelove walking the corridors of that immense factory of death? Will hatred of the left and all they stand for eventually lead to the flooding of major cities such as New York City, London, and so on, through global warming? Frankly, I don't like the looks of a future controlled by leaders of the same ilk as a Bush or a Blair or a Howard, and so forth.
Try to imagine a world in which the socializing of solutions for human problems was the rule rather than the exception. Imagine a world in which the hypothetical social contract that was once so deeply delved into by the greatest of the Enlightenment thinkers had prevailed in the real world. Imagine the world that one of the most hated figures of the left once upon a time poignantly sang about:
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
- John Lennon
(Mr. Franklin is the author of 'The Mythology of Self Worth')
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