I couldn’t read #1 due to the paywall but #2 is a damned interesting read and I highly recommend others take the few minutes to do so.
Though I knew some of it already—like Ford’s antisemitism, the partnering of corporations with fascist governments, the number of Russians who died on the eastern front^1—I was not previously aware of the degree and breadth of involvement of US corporations and the rich and powerful or their exploitation of pow and concentration camp labor in germany. Fucking hell.
Appreciate the sources and will add #2 to my thought processes and read the others when I get time.
Somewhat related, I found interesting Kendi’s assertion that capitalism and slavery were inextricably (or maybe intrinsically) linked from the beginning in the colonies that became the USA. That exploitation of blacks was interwoven into the economies, particularly the south. No doubt you’re well aware but other readers may find this an interesting bit to chew on. Capitalism is fundamentally about exploiting natural and human resources. I maintain that if it were legal, corporations would happily revert to slavery if it were legal again — as evidenced in #2 with GM making use of free concentration camp labor.
All that said, I think it is disingenuous to generalize the claim that communism is the bulwark against fascism without acknowledging how many Stalin put to death. So fascism was defeated, concentration camps closed and their prisoners freed. What was the bulwark against Stalin’s purges? To contrast the USSR with Nazi Germany and throwing about the term totalitarian with no mention of the type of power Stalin held, I mean, come on. While it does not detract from the ease with which liberal democracy can and has devolved into fascism, it very much calls into question the general conclusions stated about communism as some ideal.
Fascism is a manifestation of human nature. Not all humans but a percentage that are more tribalistic, lacking empathy, preferring social hierarchy to egalitarianism, more prone to fear of the other due to isolation and ignorance. It is a natural evolution of conservatism. But authoritarianism, a key piece of fascism, is always a problem because too many humans have a bent to that power structure.
My thoughts on all this are always forming and evolving. But that’s where my head is at right now.