The Dark Underbelly Of "America First"

Since Trump's campaign spewed it, we've heard the phrase "America first!" uttered countless times, including at rallies as well as speeches after Dotard's inauguration. But one common theme remains: few of Trump's followers - or for that matter, Americans in general - are aware of the dark history of the America First movement.

In an article appearing in the January 21, 2017 issue of The Atlantic we learn:

"The America First Committee (AFC), which was founded in 1940, opposed any U.S. involvement in World War II, and was harshly critical of the Roosevelt administration, which it accused of pressing the U.S. toward war. At its peak, it had 800,000 members across the country, included socialists, conservatives, and some of the most prominent Americans from some of the most prominent families. There was future President Ford; Sargent Shriver, who’d go on to lead the Peace Corps; and Potter Stewart, the future U.S. Supreme Court justice. It was funded by the families who owned Sears-Roebuck and the Chicago Tribune, but also counted among its ranks prominent anti-Semites of the day."

But this tells very little of the actual story. Or how the AFC's  tentacles subsequently spawned what would mutate into the military -industrial complex. An entity we were first warned about by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, e.g. in January, 1961:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

To learn more about the "America First" bunch and their spinoffs one needs to go to a serious monograph like  Russ Bellant's  'Old Nazis, The New Right and the Republican Party', South End Press, 1991)  Therein we learn:

The America First Committee was an organization founded in the early 1940s and whose charter and organization was dedicated to opposing all effort to aid Allies facing the aggression of Nazi Germany.

Bellant shows in detail how the propaganda and activist arm of the German Nazi party in the U.S. (the German -American Bund) was likewise active in building up sympathy  for Hitler and the Axis powers.  Indeed, prior to Pearl Harbor the zeitgeist had settled in among American Firsters that in the event of any war, the Axis  needed to prevail.  (Bellant, p. 34).     When war was declared after Pearl Harbor a common trope was that the AFC had been "disbanded" but this was patently untrue. It had merely metamorphosed into other groups and a spectrum of anti-American activities. This included spreading Nazi propaganda and militating against any war effort.

What we behold now, for those aware of history, is Trump and his White Nationalist supporters, hearkening back to the days when the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler were idolized by those screeching "America First".  Maybe this is why - after the Charlottesville VA conflict, Trump praised the marching neo-Nazis as "some very fine people".

What "America First" really meant in that earlier crass, anti-Semitic era is perfect isolationism to the extent of not entering a conflict that might bring U.S. power to bear against "Herr Hitler".    As I  pointed out, the AFC didn't disband after the U.S entered World War II, but it coalesced - along with two other groups (the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies and the American Vigilante Intelligence Federation) into what became known as The American Security Council.   

The Atlantic piece doesn't reference them, but the top players in launching the ASC were Gen. Robert Wood and William Regnery, a publisher and long time Nazi sympathizer whose publishing company (Regnery Press) was also responsible for such illustrious works as those below:  












As we see here, the primary obsession of Wood and Regnery was communism.. Hence, it made sense for them to back Hitler and the Nazis to take down the Soviet Union and the commies.  This also likely led to the U.S. importing former Nazi spies via Operation Bloodstone  following WWII - and under the aegis of Allen Dulles of the O.S.S.  the precursor of the  CIA.  Readers can learn more here:


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Bloodstone_B_CS.html

Concerning Regnery, a 2012 TIME article observed

"As the country moved to the right, the firm became a hit machine, first under Henry's son Alfred now under president and publisher Marji Ross".

More on the ASC background: the first intended targets of the ASC were trade unions which were believed to be infiltrated by commies.  It is no coincidence that in the Third Reich trade unions also came in for special scrutiny and indeed, destruction. As we learn from author Ian  Kershaw ('Hitler Nemesis', p. xxxiii):

“Leaders of big business, though often harboring private concerns about current difficulties and looming future problems for the economy, for their part were grateful to Hitler for the destruction of the left-wing parties and trade unions."

The ASC knew that it couldn't go that far in the U.S. but it could implement a massive surveillance system. Less known is that the ASC worked in tandem with an original Army surveillance program  that had been going on for some time. This was documented in: Army Surveillance in America: 1775-1980, Chapter 7: Watching the Workers, (Yale University Press, 1991).

The technique was described by former FBI agent William Turner as:

'"a dossier system modeled after the FBI's, which was intended to weed out employees and prospective employees deemed disloyal to the free enterprise system." 

Is it possible that Trump's repeated "America First" themes and rhetoric embody a signal or message that would bring back the worst excesses of the original America First movement, especially its ties to  Nazi sympathizers and later (via the American Security Council)  an exhaustive spy system to monitor workers?  We don't know, but what we do know is that Trump is a confirmed authoritarian who would love nothing better than to be a law unto himself. We also know, from the Charlottesville conflict,  that he fancies neo-Nazis and White nationalists.     

Anyone who knows history and the sordid past associated with America First, ought to be consumed by foreboding every time they hear the words uttered by Trump -  whether he knows about the original meaning or not. 

Footnote:  Seems a conservo blogger is a tad miffed that "leftists" have called out Trump for Nazi-sympathizing but not Louis Farrakhan. Of course, there's a slight little difference here: Trump occupies the presidency, arguably the most powerful position on the planet (with the nuke codes) while Farrakhan is a basic nobody and has been.  No one is saying Farrakhan is innocent of anti-Semitism. But to make a fuss about left "hypocrisy" for not calling him out when he lacks one millionth the power or influence of Trump is take myopia to a depth way beyond any rational reckoning and clearly within the realm of false analogy and red herrings.

Former Nazi and S.S. War Criminals Receiving Social Security? What Gives?

The account in yesterday's Denver Post was blunt (p. 13A, 'Probe Sought in U.S. Payments to Nazis/'):
"Former Auschwitz Guard Jakob Denziger lived the American Dream. His plastics company in the Rust Belt town of Akron, Ohio thrived. By the late 1980s he had acquired the trappings of success: a Cadillac DeVille and a Lincoln Town car and investments in oil and real estate.  Then the Nazi hunters showed up. In 1989, the U.S. government prepared to strip him of his citizenship. Denziger packed a pair of suitcases and fled to Germany. He later settle in a pleasant town on the Drava River - where he lives comfortably, courtesy of U.S> taxpayers.

He collects a Social Security payment of about $1,500 a month, nearly twice the take home pay of a Croatian worker. Denziger, 90, is among dozens of suspected war criminals and S.S. guards who collected millions of dollars in Social security payments after being forced out of the United States, an Associated Press investigation learned."

How could this be? Why aren't all these swine rotting in their unmarked graves after being hung by the neck?  I mean, think about it! Among those receiving benefits were armed SS troops who guarded the network of Nazi camps where millions of Jews died; and a Nazi collaborator who engineered the arrest and execution of thousands of Jews in Poland. Is this an abomination? Yes indeed it is! Every American ought to have veins popping from his head in outrage. (Ok, there's plenty of stimuli for outrage now I admit, but c'mon! Nazis getting Social Security with your taxpayer dollars and not long after a "Debt Commission" had been formed to parse cuts to Social Security?)

According to an earlier Post report Sunday we learned there "are at least four living beneficiaries. They include Martin Hartmann, a former SS guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Germany, and Jakob Denzinger, who patrolled the grounds at the Auschwitz camp complex in Poland."

Hartmann moved to Berlin in 2007 from Arizona just before being stripped of his U.S. citizenship. Denzinger fled to Germany from Ohio in 1989 after learning that de-naturalization proceedings against him were underway. He resettled in Croatia and now lives in a spacious apartment on the right bank of the Drava River in Osijek, Croatia - near where we had originally planned to visit this fall - then changed our minds opting for Switzerland (Good thing!).

How could this travesty occur? By what fell mechanisms and duplicitous horse manure could our government - which fought the Nazis in WWII - turn to supporting them in their  old age using taxpayer money? Any of those Nazi helpers ever heard of the prime moral directive? (The ends never justifies the means.) But how often have we seen expediency trumping morals? Way too often! (Such as Reagan dispatching arms - including poison gas- to Saddam in the 1980s, to gain leverage against Iran)

Internal U.S. government records obtained by the AP revealed that during the Reagan Administration his  Justice Department used a special branch, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) , to skirt lengthy deportation hearings and increased the number of Nazis it expelled from the U.S.   Social Security benefits became the lure (or leverage)  to secure agreements in which Nazi suspects would accept the loss of citizenship and voluntarily leave the United States.

Since 1979, the AP analysis found, at least 38 of 66 suspects removed from the country kept their Social Security benefits. The four who are still alive are living in Europe. In newly uncovered Social Security Administration records, the AP found that by March 1999, 28 suspected Nazi criminals had collected $1.5 million in Social Security payments after their removal from the U.S. Since then, the AP estimates the amount paid out has reached into the millions.

Legislation that would have closed the loophole failed 15 years ago. The Social Security Administration expressed outrage in 1997 over the use of benefits, the documents show. Blowback in foreign capitals reverberated at the highest levels of government.Austrian authorities were furious upon learning after the fact about a deal made with Martin Bartesch, a former SS guard at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria.  In case you may not recall this camp - let me show a photo - taken after the Russians uncovered its horrors:

Neal Sher, a former OSI director, said the State Department cared more about diplomatic niceties than holding former members of Adolf Hitler's war machine accountable.  This is beyond disgusting and spits on the memories of the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who died fighting the Nazi filth. Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said the loophole should be closed.

"Someone receiving an American pension could live very well in Europe or wherever they settled. We, in effect, were rewarding them. It didn't make any sense."

Amid objections, the practice known as "Nazi dumping" stopped, but the benefits loophole wasn't closed. Why not?  Maybe for the same reason the Nazi Wartime Disclosure Act was shot down in 1999 so never became law.

According to a Baltimore Sun article ('Government May Soon Open Files on Nazi War Criminals', Aug. 2, 1998, p. 20A):

"Under pressure from Congress, the Justice Department and other agencies may be forced to declassify tens of thousands of top-secret documents describing the U.S. intelligence community's dealings with Nazi war criminals in the Cold War years. Legislation to open most of those files has already passed the Senate and could come up for a vote in the House this week. Some historians suspect that the opened files could cause 'tremendous embarrassments' for the United States."

Less than one year later the GOP congress voted against passage, and that was it. No one has heard much about it since.  

Does any of this really surprise any attentive American who’s not got his or her nose buried in some smart phone texting …or sending tweets? Recall then O.S.S. (precursor to the CIA) head Allan Dulles (later to become head of the CIA) officially implemented the policy of importing former Nazi spies via Operation Bloodstone . This was done to help the U.S. set up its own intelligence service to spy on the Soviet Union.

Interested readers can learn more here:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Bloodstone_B_CS.html

I also don't find it unusual or odd that these giveaways to the Nazis occurred under a Republican administration. (None of the press reports mention this, good ol' Neolibs that they are, but it doesn't take much to trace the dates).   Also, the GOP  was very big on Nazi links back in the day....around the Reagan and pre-Reagan era.  For those of us in deep politics, the history of the Nazi-backed Republican Heritage Groups is well -known. All this is well documented  by Russ Bellant, in his book 'Old Nazis, The New Right and the Republican Party' ( South End Press, Boston, 1991, p. 77). Bellant painstakingly documents how Nazis, and former S.S. infiltrated the Republican Heritage Groups and Council from the time of Reagan's ascension in 1980. He provides actual letters written and received as well as how their agenda is spelled out. He also notes a key figure who had established connections many decades earlier, i.e.

"Philip Guarino helped establish the ethnic division of the GOP in 1952. He was vice-chair of the Republican Heritage Groups Council from 1971-75."

By April 8, 1980, Guarino "was a senior member of the Republican Party National Committee, which at the time was concentrating all its efforts on getting Ronald Reagan elected President." (Recall Reagan also gave a nod to these vermin when he visited the grave site of a Waffen S.S. in Bitburg, W. Germany. The PR at the time was that it was "an accident", but don't buy it for a second!) The "ethnic division of the GOP" refers to Ukrainian and Latvian assistants and associates, or members of the extension group affiliated with the German Waffen S.S. which had helped carry out pogroms during WWII- usually butchering Jews and communists in their own nations. (Recall, Hitler often conflated the Jews with Marxists, communists based on the fact Karl Marx was a Jew.)

There isn't much to be happy about but at least one gutsy lawmaker is paying attention. U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, a senior Democratic member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. She said she plans to introduce legislation to close the loophole. As she stated:

"It's absolutely outrageous that Nazi war criminals are continuing to receive Social Security benefits when they have been outlawed from our country for many, many, many years," 

The problem, of course, is that she will need Repub votes in order to get it done.

Given how these guys love the Nazis, I wouldn't hold your breath!

The Bowe Bergdahl Case: Let The Biggest Hypocrites Cast The First Stones!

This revolting, disgusting display of hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy, is this what we’ve finally become?

Are we now so filled with foul bilious hatred, are we now so consumed with soul-destroying fear, do we now despise our own selves so much that we would actually protest the return of one of our own? Is that it?

Is that what we’ve become? - Jim Wright, today on smirkingchimp.com

First it was Benghazi, then it was the eruptions against Edward Snowden's justified whistle blowing (and the ninnies and cowards in the country calling him a "traitor") and now - in the wake of a POW release, we have the Bowe Bergdahl hair on fire screeching that "Oh my god, no! This guy DESERTED! How can any town hold a celebration for him!! He's a TRAITOR! BWAAAHAHAHAHA!"

Ok, let's get a grip and kick some lamo, defunct and defective ass here. It seems as soon as the most minor informational conflict comes into play now ('Hero released, no wait, deserter!'), half the fucking country goes nuts, as is occurring now with Bergdahl.   Was he a deserter? We don't know. That remains to be ascertained. Should he have been left in Afghanistan if he was? NO! Because we as decent Americans -as opposed to walking turds - leave no soldier behind, and we certainly don't pre-judge a man before he's had his day and say in a proper judicial venue - NOT the court of public opinion. (Of course, if Steve Rattner had his way, even a proven war hero would have been left behind rather than make the trade for 5 Taliban. Though Rattner did say this a.m.- in response to Eugene Robinson's question-  that if it was "a Senator, or even Joe Scraborough" we'd make any deal necessary. Hmmmmm.....so you really don't respect any of our serving soldiers, eh Steve?)

Let's accept ab initio as a proposition to work with that any war, even a minor,  localized conflict (compared to WWII - which my dad fought in),  is likely to lead to clusterfucks and the proverbial fog of war, not to mention so much propaganda you don't know who's telling it straight. The military can't be relied on for the truth because they themselves have left a long trail of bullshit behind, and from the time they launched these two wars of choice, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the sake of memory jog, anyone recall the Jessica Lynch story? We were fed the line that she was rescued in Iraq while on some mission and was a "heroine". Lynch herself exposed the bullshit some time later when she said she never even fired her weapon and was knocked unconscious - and remained so - for most of the time any firefights went on. The whole Jessica Lynch rescue story was a Pentagon 'dog and pony' show to appease the masses - make 'em feel good.

Anyone recall Pat Tillman?  The former NFL star (Arizona Cardinals)  like so many - promptly signed up for God and country in the wake of 9/11. Some time later, in Afghanistan, he was killed - we were told this occurred while bravely engaged in a firefight with the "enemy".  This soothed many minds until the truth came out that he was killed by friendly fire. The Pentagon - as in the case of Jessica Lynch -  tried to bury the real story and push a phony PR one.

My point is that you need to exercise caution when confronted with "hero stories" or "traitor stories" - especially the latter since they are most likely to arouse screeching and accusations. As sober citizens we therefore don't respond to network dog whistles but instead let the truth find its way out ....as it will in the Bergdahl case. For those that pre-judge and have screamed "Traitor!" - they themselves need a wake up call from our own history (which too many of our countrymen either forgot or never knew in the first place.)

What is a traitor, after all? Is it a young, disillusioned kid who probably - once he was in theater- saw Afghanistan for the stupid, money-wasting fiasco it was and wanted to back out?  OR - might it be an actual government or political party,  that does business with the enemy - to the extent of taking them on for service in a government agency (CIA)? You get my point? For example, the CIA in cooperation with the Vatican helped thousands of Nazis escape to South America along the infamous “ratlines” set up just before the end of World War II. This is all thoroughly documented in a number of books, especially Aarons and Loftus’: Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis, and the Swiss Banks, 1998, St. Martins Press)

In addition, then O.S.S. head Allan Dulles (later to become head of the CIA) officially implemented the policy via Operation Bloodstone to import former Nazi spies to help the U.S. set up its own intelligence service to spy on the Soviet Union (Never forget – despite the lunatic tea party portrayals – the Nazis were the mortal enemies of the Marxist –Socialists in the Soviet Union!)

Readers can learn more here:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Bloodstone_B_CS.html
Much of this would have been fully revealed to Americans' eyes in the Nazi Wartime Disclosure Act, but it was shot down in 1999 so never became law. According to a Baltimore Sun article ('Government May Soon Open Files on Nazi War Criminals', Aug. 2, 1998, p. 20A):

"Under pressure from Congress, the Justice Department and other agencies may be forced to declassify tens of thousands of top-secret documents describing the U.S. intelligence community's dealings with Nazi war criminals in the Cold War years. Legislation to open most of those files has already passed the Senate and could come up for a vote in the House this week. Some historians suspect that the opened files could cause 'tremendous embarrassments' for the United States."

Less than one year later the GOP congress voted against passage, and that was it. No one has heard much about it since. Perhaps the GOP Neocons and their fellow travelers knew then, as they do now, they didn't want to let the "cat out of the bag"  The primary ones who voted against it were, of course, the Repukes and their right wing reactionary confederates - the same  Foxite drones screaming for Bowe Bergdahl's head now (to the extent they won't even let Bergdahl's hometown in Idaho celebrate his return in peace.)

Maybe these characters would do well to recall that their favorite party, the GOP, was very big on Nazi links back in the day....around the Reagan and pre-Reagan era.  For those of us in deep politics, the history of the Nazi-backed Republican Heritage Groups is well -known. All this is well documented  by Russ Bellant, in his book 'Old Nazis, The New Right and the Republican Party' ( South End Press, Boston, 1991, p. 77). Bellant painstakingly documents how Nazis, and former S.S. infiltrated the Republican Heritage Groups and Council from the time of Reagan's ascension in 1980. He provides actual letters written and received as well as how their agenda is spelled out. He also notes a key figure who had established connections many decades earlier, i.e.

"Philip Guarino helped establish the ethnic division of the GOP in 1952. He was vice-chair of the Republican Heritage Groups Council from 1971-75."

By April 8, 1980, Guarino "was a senior member of the Republican Party National Committee, which at the time was concentrating all its efforts on getting Ronald Reagan elected President." (Recall Reagan also gave a nod to these vermin when he visited the grave site of a Waffen S.S. in Bitburg, W. Germany. The PR at the time was that it was "an accident", but don't buy it for a second!) The "ethnic division of the GOP" refers to Ukrainian and Latvian assistants and associates, or members of the extension group affiliated with the German Waffen S.S. which had helped carry out pogroms during WWII- usually butchering Jews and communists in their own nations. (Recall, Hitler often conflated the Jews with Marxists, communists based on the fact Karl Marx was a Jew.)

It then may also be no coincidence that neo-Nazis have been observed and documented amongst these proper "democracy" protestors in the Ukraine, overturning statues, harassing those who disagree with them and in general carrying on like rogues and thugs. But how much do you hear of that in the Western Press?  To make a long story short, part of the GOP agenda dating from the original Nazi infiltration, evolved to overturning elected governments that didn't meet the Reagan- Far Right "smell tests".  (The mistake of Obama was in allowing too many of these GOOps to remain at State where they could cause havoc.)

Let's also note Bellant's claims re: associations, groups - apart from establishing direct ties of former S.S. affiliates to the GOP, were also well substantiated in the Newsweek article ('The Right Wing Web', February 22, 1999, p.34).  The reason for reinforcing Bellant's book is that the putative basis for widespread former Nazi use and recruitment (including in our intelligence agencies, e.g. CIA) would have been laid bare....but it seemed evident to me even then that the GOP congress wished to cover its party tracks and all possible links to Nazi interests.

SO tell me now: Can a political party which has knowingly harbored known Nazis - even allowing them to be integrated into its "Heritage" groups, be trusted  when its lackeys and pols scream "traitor" - directing it at a forlorn, confused kid who likely never knew what the fuck he was getting himself into in the first place?  WHO are the REAL enemies here?  I submit they're not immature kids who sign on to something they later find out is BS, but mature, cynical fuck-faces that enlist the services of the most wretched, dastardly murderers the world has ever known.

I say let the biggest hypocrites - namely the ones who voted down the Nazi Wartime Disclosure Act and belonged to the Republican Heritage Groups when known Nazi-S.S. links were established - to get their asses out there and toss the first stones at Bowe Bergdahl when he lands in the US of A. I am betting they won't have the balls to even show their faces, but instead will push their foolish, FOX- brainwashed pawns out front to do it for them. You know the ones, the same types that responded to the Clive Bundy dog whistle in Nevada- and beat their chests senseless while declaring themselves "patriots" and everyone else scumballs or "traitors".

While we're at it we can add the Reepo blowhard Saxby Chambliss to the list too! This is the dirt bag from Georgia who never served a day himself, but had the nerve to try to slime the (Vietnam) service bona fides of Max Cleland in the 2002 election- by trying to link him to Osama Bin Laden and Saddam. Shitheads like Chambliss have no right to mouth off at all about "security" or "traitors" and they definitely need to STFU about Bowe Bergdahl.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/eric-boehlert/56249/when-fox-news-declared-war-on-a-military-family

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/ted-rall/56267/going-after-bergdahl


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jim-wright/56250/negotiating-with-terrorists

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/56230/the-us-military-is-a-terror-organization-a-nation-of-cowards-fears-freeing-taliban-pows

and:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/russ-baker/56243/what-would-afghan-spending-buy-at-home