the_dunk_tank
It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
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Source? My understanding is that there was a vocal minority of businessmen and isolationists in congress, but saying the US “almost” joined the Axis seems a stretch.
The Dulles brothers fought for years for a one-sided peace with the Nazis. One of them was an influential politician and the other one of the founders of the CIA. They, and the first director of the OSS (the precursor to the CIA), wanted to peace out the Nazis and join them against the Soviets. Many of the first OSS operations were basically helping the Nazis against the Soviets secretly, and helping develop connections with crime-rings for illicit funding.
There’s a channel on YouTube called EyesWideOpen that has a series on the origins of the CIA, and many episodes cover this.
Like this is just ONE example. But the literal founders of the CIA were explicitly trying to help the Nazis and join them.
But it’s important to understand that a “country” is a fiction. The “USA” is just some words, an idea. The people in it have nothing to hold them together, other than this. When I say the US wanted to join the Nazis, I ofc mean very powerful and influential people very nearly got exactly that to happen. Just because of the efforts of people like FDR that it didn’t happen. There are always factions, individuals etc.
I’m ambivalent about this portrayal.
On one hand, anticommunism was absolutely a motive force for the US before, during, and after the war. By “the US” I mean the government as such, its official actions and policies.
But on the other hand, hyping up a nascent version of what would become a paramilitary organization (the CIA) as the de facto state is itself an exaggeration. For whatever meddling the OSS got up to, that isn’t the same kind of power as the ability to command the military, as FDR had. Unless there is some secret dealings between FDR and the Nazis, or a substantive possibility that FDR would be couped by Nazi sympathizers, it’s really hard to imagine the US proper siding with the Nazis around 1940 when the US was already heavily backing Britain in terms of both word and direct material aid.
This kinda sounds like saying money is imaginary. It is only true in the most trivial sense. Countries do exist in the sense that power exists and social relations are real.
I think your point is simply to emphasize that there are factions within any state, so even if FDR wants one thing, he isn’t the state itself. But I think this is a weak argument when the US was demonstrably opposing the Nazis and aiding Britain through its foreign policy when it entered the war.
I digress though. I’m going to go down the rabbit hole and watch some of the videos about the OSS you recommended. Definitely not doubting the nefariousness of that group.
I meant that not FDR, not the Dulles, not the capitalists that backed the Nazis, not the Eugenics societies etc. are the “USA”, the “USA” is an idea, like money yes. That might be “dumb”, but it’s true. And like money, the way you and I see it is much different from how the people at the top see it.
People like us might look at the US when it entered the war and superficially see FDR and the military supporting Britain against the Nazis. But that is just one faction within the state apparatus. And only temporarily in power. After WW2, Allen Dulles became the longest running director of the CIA, and his brother Foster became the Secretary of State during Eisenhowers presidency.
There are other factions, older and more established sometimes, more “permanent”, that were under the covers doing everything they could to support the Nazis, and saw much of what FDR did as completely against their interests and view of what the “USA” is.
After WW2, and the end of the FDR era, they in many ways won.
The result really makes it seem like the nazis weren’t defeated in WW2, but were only internationalised and institutionalised by the US after it.
Just do a cursory reading of the founding members of the NATO army, the intelligence agency of Western Germany, the first ministers of the state there etc. And then check out the Nazi and fascist “stay behind” orgs that wreaked havoc on Europe after WW2. In Italy with P2, in Turkey and Greece, in France where Allen Dulles (secretly running the CIA after JFK fired him - there is good evidence of this, good book would be The Devil’s Chessboard) supported a coup against France etc etc.
yeah the most popular and powerful dude in the US with every branch of government stacked on his side, if we discount him & his allies--the pro-nazi anticommunists don't look so marginalized and uninfluential then!
… yeah, but then the Dulles brothers literally became the most powerful men in America during the Eisenhower presidency, and ruled American foreign policy for almost a decade outright, not even from the shadows anymore.
So the efforts of FDR and his allies was not enough to keep the Nazis and anti-communists from gaining control of the USA.
And then creating NATO using former Nazi generals and officials, formed illicit organisations in Europe to kill communists, commit terrorist acts and coups, murdered millions of people in Asia and the Americas etc.
So good job FDR, you won, for what 8-10 years?
events a decade after ww2 are not admissible for talking about what the US was going to do in ww2? i'll never contend the former nazis didn't "win the peace" and the mccarthyites became very important,
but you need to contend with where these people were at the time, and how far their ideas for the war were (not) implemented in reality.
Decades? They saved a bunch of Nazis from Nuremberg. The formation of NATO and the state apparatus of west Germany happened just a couple of years after WW2 ended. The stay behind orgs were formed DURING WW2…
Agreed the timeline is shorter than decades. Perhaps the earliest significant shift was with FDR’s replacement by Truman, who also replaced the Secretary of State with someone more anticommunist.
If you really try to see the big picture of the history of power in the US, the Nazis and fascists really ruled for the vast majority of it.
From the genocide of native Americans, to slavery and racial segregation. The overexploitation of immigrants, the extreme caste system of races etc.
Arguably only for a couple of decades around the turn of the 20th century and around WW2 that more progressive, or even leftist, factions managed to gain any power. And truly only during less than 10 years around WW2 that they actually had any real power.
Hitler immediately declared war & let his fleet go open season on US shipping, there was no way in hell lmao