Michele Bachmann Loves Her Some Jews

Virtually everything about Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann's extreme right, Know Nothing political reeks of all the classic strains of anti-Semitism. Except, anti-Semitism is no longer in fashion among the evangelical right in America. Right wing extremists like Bachmann have found easier scapegoats to replace Jews of late-- gays and immigrants particularly-- and Jews, particularly Israeli Jews-- are now seen as absolutely essential to their fevered, deranged vision of Armageddon. Few Jews are taken in by the partisan hysteria by Bachmann and her ilk about President Obama's mainstream policies on an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Take a look at the string of consecutive tweets above... a little obsessive for a self-styled teabagger candidate for president? The tweets and her hysterical shrieking about Israel are certainly not primarily aimed at Jews anyway, but at evangelical GOP primary voters in Iowa and South Carolina.

J Street has watched as the far right of the GOP has made common cause with the Likkud and attempted to pry loose Jewish American voters from their Democratic roots. They've been trying since the post-Nixon '70s and it's never worked. Even last year, they reportedthat the American Jewish community stood its ground as a fundamentally liberal and progressive constituency in the midst of a huge Republican wave election. American Jews remain strongly supportive of President Obama and his Middle East policy, as well as the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement's positions on the Middle East." The polling was unambiguous.

So is the history. American Jews tend to recall the role Republicans and extreme rightists like Bachmann played in the holocaust when Republican and Big Business titans of the '20s and '30s financed the rise of the Nazi Party and-- at least in the case of Ford and IBM-- the holocaust itself. A few passages from Glen Yeadon's book Nazi Hydra in America for anyone of the Jewish persuasion unaware of what good friends the Michele Bachmanns of the world have always been to the Jewish people. And it goes way beyond just the Bush family and Prescott Bush hiring Allen Dulles to hide his Nazi assets instead of divesting himself of Nazi money and activities.

[Secretary of the Treasury Andrew] Mellon and [the Harding Administration's crooked Attorney General, Harry] Daugherty were not the only officials sympathetic toward IG Farben and Germany. There were many more, some of whom became Nazi supporters in the 1930s. Besides supporters in the government, IG Farben found a multitude of support on Wall Street. Many from Wall Street later rose to high government positions, particularly in the OSS during the war, and as economic advisors during the postwar denazification period... [A]ctions by the 1920s Republican administrations had an enormous [detrimental] effect on the US war effort in the 1940s. ... Almost 70 percent of the money flowing into Germany during the 1930s came from U.S. investors... Both United Fruit and Standard Oil of New Jersey continued to trade with the Nazis after the outbreak of war... By 1934, John Foster Dulles was publicly supporting Nazi philosophy... The most significant action Dulles took during the war severely crippled America's war effort... one way to get an airport named for you in the capital of the U.S.

As Secretary of State Dulles used Sullivan & Cromwell to help carry on his support for former Nazi businessmen. He supported Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen's bill to return all property held by APC to its previous owners... Nazis and their collaborators.

Prominent GOP fascists, John Foster & Allen Dulles

John Foster Dulles became a director of IG Farben, while his brother served on the board of a leading German bank that became closely associated with the Nazis. Both were masters at drawing up arrangements hiding American corporations Nazi involvement. Following WWII, as head of the CIA, Allen Dulles as in an ideal position to continue the cover-up of American corporate involvement with the Nazis, as well as helping scores of war criminals escape justice.

...Even the bluest of the "blue chips," IBM, actively sought business with the Nazis during the war. Dehomag, IBM's German subsidiary, supplied the Hollerith machines that played a prominent role in the Holocaust. Without Hollerith machines the efficiency with which the Holocaust was carried out would have been impossible. The roundup of the Jews would have been slowed to a snail's pace by forcing the Nazis to divert additional manpower to the task of locating their Jewish victims. Hollerith machines were located in every concentration camp and were serviced by Dehomag representatives under the full appraisal of the New York office.

The inclusion of IBM provides a look at the mindset of corporate America. Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust details the ruthlessness of corporate America in its pursuit of profits. When the Nazis came to power, IBM was under the direction of Thomas Watson, who actively sought out a contract to provide the equipment for the Nazi census.

Up until then, Watson's career had been less than ethically stellar. Watson learned his business skills from John Patterson, the ruthless founder of the National Cash Register (NCR). Watson rose quickly in the ranks of NCR, learning to use frivolous lawsuits against competitors, as well as the threat of lawsuits against competitors' customers. At NCR, Watson was placed in charge of driving out competitors selling used equipment. He quickly adopted the tactics of the robber barons to establish a monopoly by using predatory pricing, threats of lawsuits, bribes and even smashed storefronts. On February 22, 1912, Watson was indicted for criminal conspiracy to restrain trade and found guilty.

The criminal behavior and lack of ethics illustrated by Watson's early career was pervasive between the wars. When the Nazis seized power, Watson saw an opportunity to expand in Germany. In the depths of the Great Depression, Watson increased IBM's investment in Germany by nearly a million dollars. Even more gratifying was the secret pact Watson concluded in October, 1933 which gave Dehomag commercial powers beyond the German borders. Previously, all IBM subsidiaries had been confined to a single country. With Dehomag now established as the defacto "IBM Europe," the Nazis were able to conduct statistical services throughout Europe. In effect, Watson had established a cartel much like I.G. Farben's.

... In 1940, Professor Gaetano Salvemini of Harvard was quote as saying that 100 percent of American big business was sympathetic to fascism. Corporate America's support for fascism was so great that U.S. Ambassador to Germany William Dodd proclaimed:

"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime...

Certain American industrialists [Mellons, duPonts, Rockefellers, Bushes, Fords, Morgans...] has a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism to occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there.

Propagandists for the fascist groups try to dismiss the fascist scare. We should be aware of the symptoms. When industrialists ignore laws designed for social and economic progress they will seek recourse to a fascist state when the institutions of our government compel them to comply with the provisions.

Americans have never been told the truth about the extent of corporate America's involvement with the Nazis. The media has spoon-fed Americans into believing that only a handful of companies traded with the Nazis. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, well over 300 American corporations were arming Nazi Germany during the war in violation of the law.

Many of these corporations took extraordinary steps to maintain communication with their German offices and to conceal their Nazi involvement from the U.S. government. They could have severed all links with Nazi Germany, but instead chose to continue support a regime at war with their own country. In doing so, these corporations became willing accomplices to the Holocaust, traitors to their country and guilty of war crimes. Those responsible for such actions and crimes should have received justice at the end of a hangman's noose. Sadly, none were even charged.

And Obama is hardly the first Democratic president to have trouble with fascist Members of Congress. Among the Republican Party caucus in Congress who were working for the Nazis during FDR's time were Stephen Day (R-IL), Hamilton Fish (R-NY), John Alexander (R-MN), Philip Bennett (R-MO), Usher Burdick (R-ND), Cliff Clevenger (R-OH), Henry Dworshak (R-ID), Clare Hoffman (R-MI), Bartell Jonlman (R-MI), Harold Knutson (R-MN), Gerald Nye (R-ND), Paul Shafer (R-MI), Henrik Shipstead (R-MN), William Stratton (R-IL), and Jacob Thorkelson (R-MT). Not all Nazis in Congress were Republicans but the vast majority were and this isn't surprising because the Republican Party "employed known Nazis in election campaigns... Most of the members of Congress came from the upper Midwest, especially Minnesota and Michigan where there were strong anti-union movements, and several ministries that preached the Nazi line of hatred of Jews... The Democratic Party tried to purge fascists from its ranks in the primary, unlike the Republican Party, which made no such attempts, and even encouraged the Nazis with anti-Jewish campaigns."

In regards to their enemies, the Roosevelt and Clinton administrations have several similarities. Clinton was plagued by the vicious smears inspired by Richard Mellon Scaife while it was Irénée du Pont hatching the plots against FDR. Both Presidents faced a hostile press for the most part. Additionally, both faced bitter opposition from the Republicans. Neither enjoyed bipartisan support in any notable sense of the word. In fact, the Republicans many of whom were openly pro-fascist opposed every effort of Roosevelt to prepare for the coming war.

Roosevelt had numerous bitter enemies within Congress. Some were openly pro-fascist. The Nazis in Germany sought throughout the 1930s a cause by which they could ignite the native fascists in America and prevent the U.S. from entering the war. The American Bund was first proposed as such an element in which all Americans of German extraction would rally behind.

...Nye’s opposed all major defense measures in the Senate. He led the fight against Lend Lease and he openly collaborated with many groups seeking appeasement regardless of their political leanings. On the floor of the Senate he charged that the British and not German submarines had sunk the Robin Moor, only later did he withdraw the baseless charge. He initiated a probe of Hollywood, but the investigation failed after he admitted that he had not seen the movies that he had labeled as "war propaganda." He arranged for a Bund member to air his defeatist views before the Senate and later used his congressional frank to mail copies of the speech to thousands. As a member of Congress, he was perhaps the biggest booster for the American First Committee.

Nye also praised the virulent anti-Semitic Gerald Smith for publishing The Cross and the Flag.

...There is no better way to establish the fascist nature of many of these congressmen than quoting them. One such Congressman and Steuben Society member was Republican House member John Schafer from Wisconsin. His congressional record was one of complete opposition to any defense measure. In speaking with Carlson, investigative reporter posing as a pro-fascist, Schafer was quoted as follows talking about a revolution against democracy:

"The Bloody kind. There will be purges and Roosevelt will be cleaned right off the earth along with the Jews. We’ll have a military dictatorship to save the country."

Schafer leaves little doubt as to his feelings about democracy in the quote. Another Senator, Republican Rufus Holman from Oregon, openly praised Hitler on the floor of the Senate. The small excerpt below from the speech leaves no real doubt as to his pro-Nazi views.

"I doubt if the right is all on one side among the present belligerents. At Least Hitler has broken the control of the international bankers and traders over the rewards for the labor of the common people of Germany.

In my opinion it would be advantageous if the control of the international bankers and traders over the wages and savings and the manner of living of the people of England could be broken by the English people, and if the control of the international bankers and traders over the wages and savings and the manner of living of the people of the United States could be broken by the people of the United States."

The code words of international bankers and traders meant Jews. Holman inserted several pro-Nazi propaganda pieces into the congressional record as well. Nor was this the only time Holman had praised Hitler. As Oregon’s State Treasurer, he had praised Hitler’s sterilization program resulting in the amendment of Oregon’s sodomy law in 1935 to include all moral degenerates and sexual perverts whether, they had committed a crime or not. Oregon at the time used castration rather than vasectomy.

Republican Senator Thomas Schall from Minnesota placed material from James True in the Congressional Record. True was a notorious Jew baiter and inventor of the infamous Kike Killer, a nightstick.

Republican Representative Louis McFadden of Pennsylvania was another Congressman that supported True. McFadden believed in the international Jewish conspiracy. He believed the Jews were not suffering from persecution in Germany under Hitler. He was virulent in his opposition to Roosevelt’s plan to allow 200,000 Jews to emigrate to the U.S. He believed those that supported such a plan, like Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins were part of the conspiracy by the "Jewish-controlled administration." McFadden believed Perkins real name was that of a Russian Jewess, Matilda Wutski.

Do you think if history was taught in schools, Americans would be electing neo-fascist politicians like Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, Chris Christie, John Kasich... and Michele Bachmann?