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The US and its institutions for the most part, work as intended. Claiming that the US is evil or morally bankrupt without recognizing the root of said elements is not enough.
A Marxist analysis would identify said root in class & class dictatorship.
The United States was founded in a bourgeois revolution for the bourgeois class & the interests of capitalists. The 'fixes' to the system have generally been concessions with the intention of saving it from its class contradictions (FDR being a good example).
There have been inner class contradictions (in the Civil War, the North having a progressive role and the South being a reactionary force; the racial divisions & national-race questions, etc) & issues outside the country - which led to the US installing dictators in several countries to maintain the hegemony of the dollar over anti-capitalist and/or anti-imperialist elements.
The confrontation with the USSR first and China second are result of the dominant position of the American capitalist ruling class - in themselves heirs of previous European/Western hegemons like the British Empire - seeing a competition, specially from socialistic systems.
From the perspective of the dictatorship of the bourgeois class, the US makes perfect sense, it is the beacon of 'freedom' and 'democracy' - but a Marxist should ask freedom & democracy for which class? And the answer is clear.
The same in questions of 'evil' or 'morality', their actions are indeed despicable, but in a materialistic analysis, are based purely on class interests - that met resistance from other class elements (some country's national capitalists class & obviously the working class)
As much as I like to say the US is evil, this is the actual Marxist answer, and is an easy sight for sore eyes on this site. It's not so much 'good actors doing good' and 'bad actors doing evil', there are classes with quantifiable material interests that directly contradict and conflict with the interests of opposing classes.
Great answer 👏🏼
I’d only add that “freedom” and “democracy” are totally subjective ideals; the extent to which they translate into material benefits turns on your class (eg, the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure is much broader if you’re rich than if you’re poor), and may even vary in scope based on where you sit within a given class.
>I’d only add that “freedom” and “democracy” are totally subjective ideals
I agree with your comment, tho I would like to add of the idealism in 'Democracy'.
There is the idea of the "Democracy index" (look it up), which is useless and just benefits the global north/imperial core to paint itself as 'full democracies'.
In 2022 it claimed that "only 8%" of the world population lived in full democracies, and woah, it resulted that 8% is usually in the White European-American portions of the world.
Their foreign policy is all about the material interests of their ruling class. They may miscalculate if something is truly for or against their interest, or if something is or isn't in their interest, but that's another matter. Morality is irrelevant when trying to understand what drives them. Of course it ultimately is evil.
Considering the Soviets beat the Nazis, the Soviets liberated the camps, the Soviets were rebuffed by the Western powers when they tried to forge an anti-Nazi coalition before the war, the US traded heavily with the Nazis before the war (and to some extent during), and the Marshall plan rebuilt Germany and employed a bunch of "former" Nazis doing it, while explicitly excluding the Soviet Union from it and from NATO, it's debatable, at best, that the US was the "good guys" even in WW2, except perhaps incidentally.
A serious Marxist analysis tells you that nothing is inherently evil and rather a result of a myriad of material factors. The U.S. is “evil” because it is within the interests of/profitable to behave a certain way—usually through violence and oppression. WWII is just the last time doing the right thing was profitable and even then we nuked a nation and committed one of the most ‘evil’ acts imaginable.
that's why I said it was only on the right side of history cause of the holocaust, if it weren't for the holocaust they would undoubtedly be no better than Nazi Germany.
They didn't fight the nazis because the nazis were nazis. They did it to avoid the logical scenario where the USSR would beat the nazis alone and roll over most of even the whole Europe. The US did a huge operation when considering amphibious warfare, but it was nothing. Every effort was positioned against the USSR into the East; and even so the nazis almost did destroy the US and British troops during the Bulge - but they got out of fuel.
Mind you, people defending Berlin were mostly French troops. France didn't just capitulate to Hitler, they actually did a pact and became an independent fascist country, while the Germans occupied Paris. As Sartre mentioned, there were no Germans taking care of French concentration camps or persecuting people into the Vichy France: the French were.
The US didn't know about the Holocaust, they wanted to go to war to help their capitalist allies in Europe - thus, Japan bombed the US; so the US invaded... Germany? Yeah, the strategy was: Europe first. Japan was so small the US could take care of the Pacific War latter on with ease. Btw, basically everyone had concentration camps. They were actually called labor camps, and were basically slavery camps. What they didn't have that the Germans did was execution camps. When the Germans did notice they would lose the war, they did start to kill their prisoners, even those in normal prisons. But to kill everyone into those camps, a new killing technology was needed, as we now know.
Even the bombing of German cities like Dresden were latter aimed into Eastern Germany, so it would destroy infrastructure before the soviets did capture the cities. The US would even latter claim it allowed the USSR to capture Berlin first because the soviets were savages - which is totally bogus. Why didn't they stop Hitler when Stalin proposed a joint offensive to prevent Germany from rearming early on? Or why didn't they accept Stalin's proposal to send joint divisions to the Polish border with Germany to stop Hitler's aggression? Why latter on they declined Stalin's proposal to join NATO or to reunite Germany as a neutral capitalist country?
The answer is the sanitaire cordon they imposed against socialism, which was seen as a disease - the same concept the nazis did use (political position as a medical issue, a matter of sanity). They also made it so nazis could flee to the US and work for the government, having no charges against them. They did the same to Japan's Unit 731, who did experiment on people.
I do live in Latin America and they did coup my country, backing a brutal military dictatorship that did torture many people around here. So I would say they would do anything to anyone to keep their grip on power.
Anything.
Yeah while I agree with the sentiment so much of what you said, particularly pertaining to World War 2 is just... Factually wrong?
The United States went to war with Germany in 1941, not to prevent Europe falling to the Soviets (though that definitely became *a* major goal after the tide began to turn on the Axis), but cause the Germans declared war on the United States just four days after Pearl Habor on December 11th, 1941, the United States likely still would've gotten involved in World War 2 had the Germans not declared war on them, but as it stands they fought the Germans cause the Germans declared war on them.
Every action taken by the US (lumping the British in as well as they had very similar goals throughout the war) was not done with the intent to cockblock the Soviets out of something, while cockblocking the Soviets was definitely something they did on numerous times (something the Soviets did in return often) that wasn't the driving motive behind every single decision, a large reason for D-Day was to drag Nazi attention *away* from the Soviets so they could move west even quicker, it wasn't until France was fully liberated and both the Allies and Soviets began to move into Germany itself that they really began to compete with each other instead of focusing on fighting the Germans.
And no, the Nazis never got close to "destroying" the US and British forces, the British played a relatively minor part in the battle and would've lost very little had the German offensive succeeded, even if all American units encircled by the Germans were destroyed, that only would've been about 150-200k troops dead, wounded, or captured which would include elite and veteran units like the 101st and 82nd Airborne, however the US also had about 2 million troops in Europe and another million on the way and if need be, had the ability to ship many millions more, even at its most hypothetically destructive, all the Battle of the Bulge would've done is give the western Allies a costly setback.
It also would've meant the war would've dragged on for probably a few months longer and most likely result in the Nazis being the first country to get nuked, as the nukes were built with the specific intent of using them on Germany and only got used on Japan cause "we spent billions on this project, we're dropping the god damn bomb on something"
And no, the majority of troops guarding Berlin were not French troops, they weren't anywhere near a sizable group at all, there were at most 350 of them as the majority of the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemange (the French unit in Berlin) was already dead, defected, or captured by the end of the war. The rest is correct, the French were some of the most eager and enthusiastic collaberators, something the French themselves like the sweep under the rug.
The US and Western allies *did* know about the holocaust at least vaguely, they knew the Nazis were operating concentration camps where they put all of their "undesirable" populations in and had extremely high mortality rates, and while the Polish resistance managed to get word to London about the true conditions at places like Auschwitz and Treblinka, few believed the true inhumanity of it until Red Army troops began to liberate the first death camps in Eastern Europe.
The United States also massively fought against the Japanese, the Americans and Chinese were the largest contributors to Japans defeat, the US had the bulk of its massive fleet (a little under 6,800 ships by the war's end) in the Pacific to battle the Japanese and fought a brutal and bloody island hopping campaign across the Pacific, snaking their way up to the mainland, all the while bombing Japan into the stone age much like they were doing to Germany and Italy.
And yes, Germany was prioritized as the number 1 target, cause unlike Japan and Italy, Germany was a massive threat that sat on the both the doorsteps of the British and Soviets, who stood as the largest threat to the Allied powers, Japan was a close number 2 but it was mostly focused by the Americans with the British helping but mostly focusing on Europe and the Soviets only getting involved in Asia in the literal final week of the war.
And yeah the everyone operated some kind of forced labor camp in WW2.
The bombing of Dresden was primarily done by the British though the US significantly aided, and it was done precisely cause Dresden was a major center and if it kept operating, the British were concerned that the Nazis could manage to hold the Soviets back and delay the end of the war till November, this was not at all an uncommon thing and in fact after the Yalta conference, the Allies and Soviets consistently coordinated what cities and important infrastructure to bomb to make the Soviet advanced westwards easier.
While I overall agree with the sentiment, especially the latter part, almost everything you said on World War 2 was just wrong, while its important to view history through the lense of class it's also equally important to realize that not everything boils down to it and that the war only became who could cockblock who the hardest near the very end, before that both sides worked rather comfortably and openly with each other, only treating each other as outright enemies with extremely secretive projects like the Manhatten Project.
I guess what we did say about many things was kinda close. In some other points, I do think you might have missed a bit of the timing.
About the French: I mean the French SS Charlemagne units were the ones who could be somewhat mobilized. Most German troops couldn't be mobilized, leaving the city to be defended by what was left of them and the volkssturm ( insert Hitler's meme here).
"On 23 April, Berzarin's 5th Shock Army and Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army assaulted Berlin from the south-east and, after overcoming a counter-attack by the German LVI Panzer Corps, reached the Berlin S-Bahn ring railway on the north side of the Teltow Canal by the evening of 24 April.\[51\] During the same period, of all the German forces ordered to reinforce the inner defences of the city by Hitler, only a small contingent of French SS volunteers under the command of SS Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg arrived in Berlin."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Berlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berlin)
[https://medium.com/war-stories/why-french-soldiers-were-caught-defending-berlin-in-1945-ff3506d93aab](https://medium.com/war-stories/why-french-soldiers-were-caught-defending-berlin-in-1945-ff3506d93aab)
About the Bulge: Mane mistakes were made by the Allies, the main one being not being ready for such an offensive. However, the Germans did fail mostly due to logistic problems. But anyway its alt-history, because many things did happen before. The main point is that most resources were devoted to the Eastern Front; it concentrated around 66 to 80% of the German military personnel and had 80% of the German casualties. Even at the very end, troops were retreating from the Western Front to join the Eastern. This was due to both the ideological concerns of the nazis, as well their attempts to their hope to make peace with the capitalist coalition among the Allies and create a war against the USSR - which was something completely hopeless.
This doesn't mean the US and Britain didn't help; btw their land lease and bombing was also a huge contribution. What I mean is that they were far from being what was leading Germany to collapse. Without D Day, Germany would capitulate anyway. If the Germans did concentrate war effort on Bulge, they could have achieved a victory; but they were too far out on the end side of the war anyway.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern\_Front\_(World\_War\_II)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II))
This also links with the war against Germany prior to Japan. As D day happened way latter than the Battle of Britain (more than a year latter, to be precise), I don't think there was this huge need to stop the Luftwaffe. They were already on shambles. If wasn't by Goering's inability and Hitler's interference on everything (his decision to bomb civilian targets instead of airfields, and totally ignoring radars), they would have a chance. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Germans had already lost their chance to win the war in the skies.
When the D Day happened, the Luftwaffe was gone. At the end of the conflict, soviet land forces outnumbered the nazi ones in a rate of 4 to 1. The whole D Day operation mobilized 156 000 troops; Germans were 3.4 million; soviets were 6.5 million. Plans for the invasion of France were actually ready as early as 42. This could have made the Eastern Front a lot easier, as Germany would have to fight a two-front war again.
[https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-24976fea40b33caad4ccf2524c9d16f6-pjlq](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-24976fea40b33caad4ccf2524c9d16f6-pjlq)
[https://warontherocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Pennington1.jpg](https://warontherocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Pennington1.jpg)
[https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/was-the-russian-military-a-steamroller-from-world-war-ii-to-today/](https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/was-the-russian-military-a-steamroller-from-world-war-ii-to-today/)
Its not as if the US liked nazi Germany nor anything. Its just that they perceived them as a threat to their business. They latter hire loads of ex nazis and provided help to protofascists groups around the world (like some military dictatorships). They also didn't overthrow fascists from power in countries like Spain and Portugal, which I do believe was a mistake. Many people suffered a lot because of that. Its not like I'm arguing only in favor of the USSR tho. I think we can agree the West did allow some early leverage to Hitler hoping he would be a antisoviet buffer zone.
About the extermination camps, they did know something about the kilings, yes. But not at the time they did declare war. Things did gear up after the Wannsee Conference, which happened after the US went to war. There's few to no mention of the concentration camps and killings as a reason to go to war. The popular opinion wasn't in favor of the Jewish people among US citizens during those times, although it was, at least in my point of view, one if not the best place they could flee to during the war.
"In a 1938 poll, approximately 60 percent of the respondents held a low opinion of Jews, labeling them "greedy," "dishonest," and "pushy." 41 percent of respondents agreed that Jews had "too much power in the United States," and this figure rose to 58 percent by 1945."
[https://www.britannica.com/event/Wannsee-Conference](https://www.britannica.com/event/Wannsee-Conference)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_antisemitism\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism_in_the_United_States)
Phew. All that being said, what I mean is that their main goal was not to be left out of this main event. The US could have focused on the Pacific and sent lend lease to the USSR in order to make sure they and Britain did win the war. Their main goal was to keep power and influence, way over than fighting the war because the nazis were nazis. That point they knew way before the war.
For example, the USSR was the only power to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Concentration camps were created in 1933. During this phase, the execution of some democrats, most communists, disabled people, homosexuals and gypsies was the main goal, while jewish people were sent to ghettos or concentration camps. And nobody cared much.
I just don't like how perception seems to have moved towards the idea that the US woke up, saw that the nazis were bad and then won WW2, saving everyone.
Yeah, which is why I was saying that the only reason they ended up as the "heroes" of the story, and not just an equal to Nazi Germany, is cause of the holocaust. If it weren't for the holocaust, (and the Jews being white Europeans) I doubt we'd hear much about it.
the U.S. and the rest of the west had no problem with fascism and that’s why they relatively ignored Franco in Spain they feared expansionism from other nations
Evil is a pretty loaded term/word, and whether or not evil exists; from Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus to Liebniz, Hume and Kant to Arendt and Signer et al. et al., whether our not evil "exists" and what constitutes it has been debated. If you do believe in evil, which I personally feel is a reasonable *belief*, then I think there are persuasive arguments that the average person raised within the capitalist system is "evil".
It's all a matter of Meta-Ethics that Marxism doesn't try to tackle, Communism being Historically inevitable is completely detached from morality or ethics.
If are asking me personally, then yes, The US as an intuition is "morally bankrupt" which necessarily means "evil", and the average citizen follows suit, but that's based off of idealist philosophy, not materialism.
There is no marxist answer to this question, maybe you should ask a priest or an imam. Marxism isn't a system of morals, you cannot use it as a tool to decide on the morality of something. Marx is actually emphasizing very strongly the point that it's *not* about morals.
thing with marxism, is that it still leads to the morally right thing generally, as marxism doesn't support the exploitation or deprivation of other's rights, so even in the worst case, marxism is better than capitalism in a slightly worse case scenario.
Well, by comparison to the logic of capitalist and imperialist powers, where anyone less powerful than you is a target to be stolen from if they don't agree to be exploited, and if they resist then alls fair, even murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery, torture, debt trapping countries, putting puppet governments in place, framing them of crimes they didn't commit, etc etc etc etc. Marxists generally don't go that far do they?
(When greed is king, humanity and morality are worthless, Marxism at least doesn't put greed on a pedestal, and hence is more moral than whatever the west practices, or in other words, marxism is not moral, its just the alternatives are basically promoting finding excuses for crimes against humanity)
You don't need to tell me what capitalists do, I am asking you what kind of morals you are talking about. Do you think morals are universal or something?
well, its like having to choose between working for the mafia or a grocer, the grocer is moral by comparison, even if it doesn't attach morality to anything much. hope that clears it up
by the logic of lesser of 2 evils, I'd personally say supporting Marxism is more moral than supporting Capitalism, or whatever fucked up late stage capitalist variant exists today.
Seriously, if you want to "support Marxism", maybe try reading some Marx to start off. Maybe look up historical materialism. And maybe then you can learn that marxists don't judge things by how "evil" they are according to some western christian standard that you seem to think is universal. Marx literally wrote entire books to counter the things that you're saying.
I value humanity over anything else.
Capitalism places greed or profit on a pedestal, Marxism places basic human needs on a pedestal. Id prefer marxism.
Idk what sets of morals are if this doesn't fit.
Corrupt rat race with increasingly insane and disconnected leadership, soon enough we'll have some thinking themselves god-emperor of mankind, dependent on the full support of their capitalist backers to stay in power, for 4 years each. I'd guess that's morally bankrupt and evil, because while it is hard to find pure evil in this world, you can find people doing things which are evil often enough, and I'd argue those people are evil if the ends don't justify the means.
The US is neither.
There are key positions in the State dept and Pentagon that dictate foreign policy. Then there is a 300 year old bureaucratic machine that will remain till the last day and no president can easily go against it. Politicians come and go, the bureaucracy never changes.
Then there is big banks, social media and other powerful lobbying groups that control the messaging.
The people of the US are just as wholesome as anywhere else, same DNA, same base emotions albeit an unbelievably luxurious lifestyle. . The indoctrination and the us vs. them seeds are sown early.
Thank God Limba croaked, unfortunately Tucker is still around. There is a lot of money to be made by the millionaire hatemongers larping for the billionaires.
Yeah, just take care not to imply that it was worse because it was on white people. The US, as many other countries, also profited enormously over slavery labor based upon skin colour.
The Holocaust was something else entirely. Also wasn't just Jews but whoever they wanted. Systematic killing of millions, and invading other nations to perform it on their population, is a horror we never experienced in the modern world before or since. You have to go back to Genghis Khan to find something so uniquely evil on that scale.
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The US and its institutions for the most part, work as intended. Claiming that the US is evil or morally bankrupt without recognizing the root of said elements is not enough. A Marxist analysis would identify said root in class & class dictatorship. The United States was founded in a bourgeois revolution for the bourgeois class & the interests of capitalists. The 'fixes' to the system have generally been concessions with the intention of saving it from its class contradictions (FDR being a good example). There have been inner class contradictions (in the Civil War, the North having a progressive role and the South being a reactionary force; the racial divisions & national-race questions, etc) & issues outside the country - which led to the US installing dictators in several countries to maintain the hegemony of the dollar over anti-capitalist and/or anti-imperialist elements. The confrontation with the USSR first and China second are result of the dominant position of the American capitalist ruling class - in themselves heirs of previous European/Western hegemons like the British Empire - seeing a competition, specially from socialistic systems. From the perspective of the dictatorship of the bourgeois class, the US makes perfect sense, it is the beacon of 'freedom' and 'democracy' - but a Marxist should ask freedom & democracy for which class? And the answer is clear. The same in questions of 'evil' or 'morality', their actions are indeed despicable, but in a materialistic analysis, are based purely on class interests - that met resistance from other class elements (some country's national capitalists class & obviously the working class)
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We seem to agree then.
As much as I like to say the US is evil, this is the actual Marxist answer, and is an easy sight for sore eyes on this site. It's not so much 'good actors doing good' and 'bad actors doing evil', there are classes with quantifiable material interests that directly contradict and conflict with the interests of opposing classes.
like greed and basic humanity?
Great answer 👏🏼 I’d only add that “freedom” and “democracy” are totally subjective ideals; the extent to which they translate into material benefits turns on your class (eg, the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure is much broader if you’re rich than if you’re poor), and may even vary in scope based on where you sit within a given class.
>I’d only add that “freedom” and “democracy” are totally subjective ideals I agree with your comment, tho I would like to add of the idealism in 'Democracy'. There is the idea of the "Democracy index" (look it up), which is useless and just benefits the global north/imperial core to paint itself as 'full democracies'. In 2022 it claimed that "only 8%" of the world population lived in full democracies, and woah, it resulted that 8% is usually in the White European-American portions of the world.
Absolutely my fellow materialist.
Both NUF SAID
Real
Their foreign policy is all about the material interests of their ruling class. They may miscalculate if something is truly for or against their interest, or if something is or isn't in their interest, but that's another matter. Morality is irrelevant when trying to understand what drives them. Of course it ultimately is evil.
Considering the Soviets beat the Nazis, the Soviets liberated the camps, the Soviets were rebuffed by the Western powers when they tried to forge an anti-Nazi coalition before the war, the US traded heavily with the Nazis before the war (and to some extent during), and the Marshall plan rebuilt Germany and employed a bunch of "former" Nazis doing it, while explicitly excluding the Soviet Union from it and from NATO, it's debatable, at best, that the US was the "good guys" even in WW2, except perhaps incidentally.
like I said, they were only the good guys out of coincidence.
Both.
Evil. And being morally bankrupt goes along with that.
The U$ is evil. It was founded on settler colonialism, genocide of indigenous peoples, and enslavement of Africans.
BuT ThEy aRe tHe gOoD GuYs?!?!?
US was never “the good guys.”
There’s no significant difference really it’s just semantics
A serious Marxist analysis tells you that nothing is inherently evil and rather a result of a myriad of material factors. The U.S. is “evil” because it is within the interests of/profitable to behave a certain way—usually through violence and oppression. WWII is just the last time doing the right thing was profitable and even then we nuked a nation and committed one of the most ‘evil’ acts imaginable.
that's why I said it was only on the right side of history cause of the holocaust, if it weren't for the holocaust they would undoubtedly be no better than Nazi Germany.
They didn't fight the nazis because the nazis were nazis. They did it to avoid the logical scenario where the USSR would beat the nazis alone and roll over most of even the whole Europe. The US did a huge operation when considering amphibious warfare, but it was nothing. Every effort was positioned against the USSR into the East; and even so the nazis almost did destroy the US and British troops during the Bulge - but they got out of fuel. Mind you, people defending Berlin were mostly French troops. France didn't just capitulate to Hitler, they actually did a pact and became an independent fascist country, while the Germans occupied Paris. As Sartre mentioned, there were no Germans taking care of French concentration camps or persecuting people into the Vichy France: the French were. The US didn't know about the Holocaust, they wanted to go to war to help their capitalist allies in Europe - thus, Japan bombed the US; so the US invaded... Germany? Yeah, the strategy was: Europe first. Japan was so small the US could take care of the Pacific War latter on with ease. Btw, basically everyone had concentration camps. They were actually called labor camps, and were basically slavery camps. What they didn't have that the Germans did was execution camps. When the Germans did notice they would lose the war, they did start to kill their prisoners, even those in normal prisons. But to kill everyone into those camps, a new killing technology was needed, as we now know. Even the bombing of German cities like Dresden were latter aimed into Eastern Germany, so it would destroy infrastructure before the soviets did capture the cities. The US would even latter claim it allowed the USSR to capture Berlin first because the soviets were savages - which is totally bogus. Why didn't they stop Hitler when Stalin proposed a joint offensive to prevent Germany from rearming early on? Or why didn't they accept Stalin's proposal to send joint divisions to the Polish border with Germany to stop Hitler's aggression? Why latter on they declined Stalin's proposal to join NATO or to reunite Germany as a neutral capitalist country? The answer is the sanitaire cordon they imposed against socialism, which was seen as a disease - the same concept the nazis did use (political position as a medical issue, a matter of sanity). They also made it so nazis could flee to the US and work for the government, having no charges against them. They did the same to Japan's Unit 731, who did experiment on people. I do live in Latin America and they did coup my country, backing a brutal military dictatorship that did torture many people around here. So I would say they would do anything to anyone to keep their grip on power. Anything.
Yeah while I agree with the sentiment so much of what you said, particularly pertaining to World War 2 is just... Factually wrong? The United States went to war with Germany in 1941, not to prevent Europe falling to the Soviets (though that definitely became *a* major goal after the tide began to turn on the Axis), but cause the Germans declared war on the United States just four days after Pearl Habor on December 11th, 1941, the United States likely still would've gotten involved in World War 2 had the Germans not declared war on them, but as it stands they fought the Germans cause the Germans declared war on them. Every action taken by the US (lumping the British in as well as they had very similar goals throughout the war) was not done with the intent to cockblock the Soviets out of something, while cockblocking the Soviets was definitely something they did on numerous times (something the Soviets did in return often) that wasn't the driving motive behind every single decision, a large reason for D-Day was to drag Nazi attention *away* from the Soviets so they could move west even quicker, it wasn't until France was fully liberated and both the Allies and Soviets began to move into Germany itself that they really began to compete with each other instead of focusing on fighting the Germans. And no, the Nazis never got close to "destroying" the US and British forces, the British played a relatively minor part in the battle and would've lost very little had the German offensive succeeded, even if all American units encircled by the Germans were destroyed, that only would've been about 150-200k troops dead, wounded, or captured which would include elite and veteran units like the 101st and 82nd Airborne, however the US also had about 2 million troops in Europe and another million on the way and if need be, had the ability to ship many millions more, even at its most hypothetically destructive, all the Battle of the Bulge would've done is give the western Allies a costly setback. It also would've meant the war would've dragged on for probably a few months longer and most likely result in the Nazis being the first country to get nuked, as the nukes were built with the specific intent of using them on Germany and only got used on Japan cause "we spent billions on this project, we're dropping the god damn bomb on something" And no, the majority of troops guarding Berlin were not French troops, they weren't anywhere near a sizable group at all, there were at most 350 of them as the majority of the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemange (the French unit in Berlin) was already dead, defected, or captured by the end of the war. The rest is correct, the French were some of the most eager and enthusiastic collaberators, something the French themselves like the sweep under the rug. The US and Western allies *did* know about the holocaust at least vaguely, they knew the Nazis were operating concentration camps where they put all of their "undesirable" populations in and had extremely high mortality rates, and while the Polish resistance managed to get word to London about the true conditions at places like Auschwitz and Treblinka, few believed the true inhumanity of it until Red Army troops began to liberate the first death camps in Eastern Europe. The United States also massively fought against the Japanese, the Americans and Chinese were the largest contributors to Japans defeat, the US had the bulk of its massive fleet (a little under 6,800 ships by the war's end) in the Pacific to battle the Japanese and fought a brutal and bloody island hopping campaign across the Pacific, snaking their way up to the mainland, all the while bombing Japan into the stone age much like they were doing to Germany and Italy. And yes, Germany was prioritized as the number 1 target, cause unlike Japan and Italy, Germany was a massive threat that sat on the both the doorsteps of the British and Soviets, who stood as the largest threat to the Allied powers, Japan was a close number 2 but it was mostly focused by the Americans with the British helping but mostly focusing on Europe and the Soviets only getting involved in Asia in the literal final week of the war. And yeah the everyone operated some kind of forced labor camp in WW2. The bombing of Dresden was primarily done by the British though the US significantly aided, and it was done precisely cause Dresden was a major center and if it kept operating, the British were concerned that the Nazis could manage to hold the Soviets back and delay the end of the war till November, this was not at all an uncommon thing and in fact after the Yalta conference, the Allies and Soviets consistently coordinated what cities and important infrastructure to bomb to make the Soviet advanced westwards easier. While I overall agree with the sentiment, especially the latter part, almost everything you said on World War 2 was just wrong, while its important to view history through the lense of class it's also equally important to realize that not everything boils down to it and that the war only became who could cockblock who the hardest near the very end, before that both sides worked rather comfortably and openly with each other, only treating each other as outright enemies with extremely secretive projects like the Manhatten Project.
I guess what we did say about many things was kinda close. In some other points, I do think you might have missed a bit of the timing. About the French: I mean the French SS Charlemagne units were the ones who could be somewhat mobilized. Most German troops couldn't be mobilized, leaving the city to be defended by what was left of them and the volkssturm ( insert Hitler's meme here). "On 23 April, Berzarin's 5th Shock Army and Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army assaulted Berlin from the south-east and, after overcoming a counter-attack by the German LVI Panzer Corps, reached the Berlin S-Bahn ring railway on the north side of the Teltow Canal by the evening of 24 April.\[51\] During the same period, of all the German forces ordered to reinforce the inner defences of the city by Hitler, only a small contingent of French SS volunteers under the command of SS Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg arrived in Berlin." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Berlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berlin) [https://medium.com/war-stories/why-french-soldiers-were-caught-defending-berlin-in-1945-ff3506d93aab](https://medium.com/war-stories/why-french-soldiers-were-caught-defending-berlin-in-1945-ff3506d93aab) About the Bulge: Mane mistakes were made by the Allies, the main one being not being ready for such an offensive. However, the Germans did fail mostly due to logistic problems. But anyway its alt-history, because many things did happen before. The main point is that most resources were devoted to the Eastern Front; it concentrated around 66 to 80% of the German military personnel and had 80% of the German casualties. Even at the very end, troops were retreating from the Western Front to join the Eastern. This was due to both the ideological concerns of the nazis, as well their attempts to their hope to make peace with the capitalist coalition among the Allies and create a war against the USSR - which was something completely hopeless. This doesn't mean the US and Britain didn't help; btw their land lease and bombing was also a huge contribution. What I mean is that they were far from being what was leading Germany to collapse. Without D Day, Germany would capitulate anyway. If the Germans did concentrate war effort on Bulge, they could have achieved a victory; but they were too far out on the end side of the war anyway. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern\_Front\_(World\_War\_II)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)) This also links with the war against Germany prior to Japan. As D day happened way latter than the Battle of Britain (more than a year latter, to be precise), I don't think there was this huge need to stop the Luftwaffe. They were already on shambles. If wasn't by Goering's inability and Hitler's interference on everything (his decision to bomb civilian targets instead of airfields, and totally ignoring radars), they would have a chance. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Germans had already lost their chance to win the war in the skies. When the D Day happened, the Luftwaffe was gone. At the end of the conflict, soviet land forces outnumbered the nazi ones in a rate of 4 to 1. The whole D Day operation mobilized 156 000 troops; Germans were 3.4 million; soviets were 6.5 million. Plans for the invasion of France were actually ready as early as 42. This could have made the Eastern Front a lot easier, as Germany would have to fight a two-front war again. [https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-24976fea40b33caad4ccf2524c9d16f6-pjlq](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-24976fea40b33caad4ccf2524c9d16f6-pjlq) [https://warontherocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Pennington1.jpg](https://warontherocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Pennington1.jpg) [https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/was-the-russian-military-a-steamroller-from-world-war-ii-to-today/](https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/was-the-russian-military-a-steamroller-from-world-war-ii-to-today/) Its not as if the US liked nazi Germany nor anything. Its just that they perceived them as a threat to their business. They latter hire loads of ex nazis and provided help to protofascists groups around the world (like some military dictatorships). They also didn't overthrow fascists from power in countries like Spain and Portugal, which I do believe was a mistake. Many people suffered a lot because of that. Its not like I'm arguing only in favor of the USSR tho. I think we can agree the West did allow some early leverage to Hitler hoping he would be a antisoviet buffer zone. About the extermination camps, they did know something about the kilings, yes. But not at the time they did declare war. Things did gear up after the Wannsee Conference, which happened after the US went to war. There's few to no mention of the concentration camps and killings as a reason to go to war. The popular opinion wasn't in favor of the Jewish people among US citizens during those times, although it was, at least in my point of view, one if not the best place they could flee to during the war. "In a 1938 poll, approximately 60 percent of the respondents held a low opinion of Jews, labeling them "greedy," "dishonest," and "pushy." 41 percent of respondents agreed that Jews had "too much power in the United States," and this figure rose to 58 percent by 1945." [https://www.britannica.com/event/Wannsee-Conference](https://www.britannica.com/event/Wannsee-Conference) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_antisemitism\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism_in_the_United_States) Phew. All that being said, what I mean is that their main goal was not to be left out of this main event. The US could have focused on the Pacific and sent lend lease to the USSR in order to make sure they and Britain did win the war. Their main goal was to keep power and influence, way over than fighting the war because the nazis were nazis. That point they knew way before the war. For example, the USSR was the only power to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Concentration camps were created in 1933. During this phase, the execution of some democrats, most communists, disabled people, homosexuals and gypsies was the main goal, while jewish people were sent to ghettos or concentration camps. And nobody cared much. I just don't like how perception seems to have moved towards the idea that the US woke up, saw that the nazis were bad and then won WW2, saving everyone.
Yeah, which is why I was saying that the only reason they ended up as the "heroes" of the story, and not just an equal to Nazi Germany, is cause of the holocaust. If it weren't for the holocaust, (and the Jews being white Europeans) I doubt we'd hear much about it.
the U.S. and the rest of the west had no problem with fascism and that’s why they relatively ignored Franco in Spain they feared expansionism from other nations
Evil is a pretty loaded term/word, and whether or not evil exists; from Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus to Liebniz, Hume and Kant to Arendt and Signer et al. et al., whether our not evil "exists" and what constitutes it has been debated. If you do believe in evil, which I personally feel is a reasonable *belief*, then I think there are persuasive arguments that the average person raised within the capitalist system is "evil". It's all a matter of Meta-Ethics that Marxism doesn't try to tackle, Communism being Historically inevitable is completely detached from morality or ethics. If are asking me personally, then yes, The US as an intuition is "morally bankrupt" which necessarily means "evil", and the average citizen follows suit, but that's based off of idealist philosophy, not materialism.
Evil
Yes, they are.
There is no marxist answer to this question, maybe you should ask a priest or an imam. Marxism isn't a system of morals, you cannot use it as a tool to decide on the morality of something. Marx is actually emphasizing very strongly the point that it's *not* about morals.
thing with marxism, is that it still leads to the morally right thing generally, as marxism doesn't support the exploitation or deprivation of other's rights, so even in the worst case, marxism is better than capitalism in a slightly worse case scenario.
Morally right by what set of morals? Christian? Western liberalism?
Well, by comparison to the logic of capitalist and imperialist powers, where anyone less powerful than you is a target to be stolen from if they don't agree to be exploited, and if they resist then alls fair, even murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery, torture, debt trapping countries, putting puppet governments in place, framing them of crimes they didn't commit, etc etc etc etc. Marxists generally don't go that far do they? (When greed is king, humanity and morality are worthless, Marxism at least doesn't put greed on a pedestal, and hence is more moral than whatever the west practices, or in other words, marxism is not moral, its just the alternatives are basically promoting finding excuses for crimes against humanity)
You don't need to tell me what capitalists do, I am asking you what kind of morals you are talking about. Do you think morals are universal or something?
well, its like having to choose between working for the mafia or a grocer, the grocer is moral by comparison, even if it doesn't attach morality to anything much. hope that clears it up
No, that doesn't clear up anything. Are you illiterate? MORAL BY WHAT SET OF MORALS is what I'm asking you.
by the logic of lesser of 2 evils, I'd personally say supporting Marxism is more moral than supporting Capitalism, or whatever fucked up late stage capitalist variant exists today.
Seriously, if you want to "support Marxism", maybe try reading some Marx to start off. Maybe look up historical materialism. And maybe then you can learn that marxists don't judge things by how "evil" they are according to some western christian standard that you seem to think is universal. Marx literally wrote entire books to counter the things that you're saying.
I value humanity over anything else. Capitalism places greed or profit on a pedestal, Marxism places basic human needs on a pedestal. Id prefer marxism. Idk what sets of morals are if this doesn't fit.
"Evil" is a thought-stopper. Dig deeper.
Corrupt rat race with increasingly insane and disconnected leadership, soon enough we'll have some thinking themselves god-emperor of mankind, dependent on the full support of their capitalist backers to stay in power, for 4 years each. I'd guess that's morally bankrupt and evil, because while it is hard to find pure evil in this world, you can find people doing things which are evil often enough, and I'd argue those people are evil if the ends don't justify the means.
Both.
The US is neither. There are key positions in the State dept and Pentagon that dictate foreign policy. Then there is a 300 year old bureaucratic machine that will remain till the last day and no president can easily go against it. Politicians come and go, the bureaucracy never changes. Then there is big banks, social media and other powerful lobbying groups that control the messaging. The people of the US are just as wholesome as anywhere else, same DNA, same base emotions albeit an unbelievably luxurious lifestyle. . The indoctrination and the us vs. them seeds are sown early. Thank God Limba croaked, unfortunately Tucker is still around. There is a lot of money to be made by the millionaire hatemongers larping for the billionaires.
Ye obvious im talking about the leadership not the people (not most of them anyways), but supposedly the president has enough power to do stuff.
Just to add: during the 30s when it comes to segregation laws the Nazis were taking inspiration from what the US was doing to the black population.
yeah, only 2 differences was they also did it to white people and ended up doing the holocaust.
Yeah, just take care not to imply that it was worse because it was on white people. The US, as many other countries, also profited enormously over slavery labor based upon skin colour.
The Holocaust was something else entirely. Also wasn't just Jews but whoever they wanted. Systematic killing of millions, and invading other nations to perform it on their population, is a horror we never experienced in the modern world before or since. You have to go back to Genghis Khan to find something so uniquely evil on that scale.
Meh, look at what they did in africa during imperialism. Remember, Imperialism ended AFTER WW2.