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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33095 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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Cory Doctorow’s identification of “enshittification” is a valid and cogent examination of how platforms go to die, and when abstracted, how markets, empires, and other middlemen in general go to shit and either collapse or become niche, or capture the market and become permanently shitty.

It occurs to me now that one of the great strengths of American libertarian-capitalism, as it was in the 20th century, was an environment competitive enough to reduce the incentives and pressures to enshittify, primarily by the freedom to open a truly competitive business. The old could adapt and become competitive once more, but in doing so, they’d lose the benefits of enshittification; great for the customer, but hidden from execs on the bottom line.

But larger organs of power and money have both adapted, the way evolving systems tend to do, and have found ways to capture market forces and regulatory oversight, and entrench their enshittification without fear of ever being unseated. Late stage (enshittified) capitalism and late stage democracy are feeling their oats.

Most noticeably, in my opinion, was the way the American power-sliding-leftward culture captured academia and media, which used to be the oversight mechanisms keeping a free people educated and informed about the agglomerating nature of socialism and fascism. Now, all problems in society are laid at the feet of capitalism and free markets without examination of other possible governmental or societal causes. Any power shifts to the left are framed as “reforms,” and power shifts to the right are framed as “corruption” and “fascism.”

But that’s just leftism, not enshittification, you may (rightly) point out. Ah, but the fiscal effects: taxes must increase because budgets must increase. Why? Solving problems is no longer the goal of the government; now, issues must be managed. Societal woes must be serviced by specific groups of unionized government employees. Union contracts have to be renegotiated because wages have to increase with inflation and/or remain a multiple of the minimum wage. Training programs have to be run during working hours to avoid systemic oppression affecting intersectionally underprivileged clients. Multisyllabic words have to be repurposed to adequately and loquaciously describe innovative and ever more lucrative forms of enshittification.

This is a problem. What are some solutions?

But larger organs of power and money have both adapted, the way evolving systems tend to do, and have found ways to capture market forces and regulatory oversight, and entrench their enshittification without fear of ever being unseated. Late stage (enshittified) capitalism and late stage democracy are feeling their oats.

Most noticeably, in my opinion, was the way the American power-sliding-leftward culture captured academia and media, which used to be the oversight mechanisms keeping a free people educated and informed about the agglomerating nature of socialism and fascism. Now, all problems in society are laid at the feet of capitalism and free markets without examination of other possible governmental or societal causes. Any power shifts to the left are framed as “reforms,” and power shifts to the right are framed as “corruption” and “fascism.”

Was academia and media really all that different back then, as "oversight mechanisms keeping a free people educated and informed about the agglomerating nature of socialism and fascism?" Or was it largely a façade then as it is today?

Earlier today Ron Unz posted a lengthy article about some WW-II revisionism synthesizing a bunch of his earlier commentaries on the topic, but what surprised me most was a related article he linked containing shocking pre-war correspondence that I had never heard of before, although I am no stranger to WW-II revisionism.

The context is that when the Germans captured Warsaw they captured the original facsimiles of secret correspondence from the Polish Ambassador to the United States, the authenticity of which have been confirmed many times over. Here's a document from the collection, a secret report dated January 12, 1939 (pre-war) by Jerzy Potocki. This is a translation of the full secret report on the situation in the United States as perceived by the Polish ambassador:

There is a feeling now prevalent in the United States marked by growing hatred of Fascism, and above all of Chancellor Hitler and everything connected with National Socialism. Propaganda is mostly in the hands of the Jews who control almost 100% [of the] radio, film, daily and periodical press. Although this propaganda is extremely coarse and presents Germany as black as possible–above all religious persecution and concentration camps are exploited–this propaganda is nevertheless extremely effective since the public here is completely ignorant and knows nothing of the situation in Europe.

At the present moment most Americans regard Chancellor Hitler and National Socialism as the greatest evil and greatest peril threatening the world. The situation here provides an excellent platform for public speakers of all kinds, for emigrants from Germany and Czechoslovakia who with a great many words and with most various calumnies incite the public. They praise American liberty which they contrast with the totalitarian states.

It is interesting to note that in this extremely well-planned campaign which is conducted above all against National Socialism, Soviet Russia is almost completely eliminated. Soviet Russia, if mentioned at all, is mentioned in a friendly manner and things are presented in such a way that it would seem that the Soviet Union were cooperating with the bloc of democratic states. Thanks to the clever propaganda the sympathies of the American public are completely on the side of Red Spain.

This propaganda, this war psychosis is being artificially created. The American people are told that peace in Europe is hanging only by a thread and that war is inevitable. At the same time the American people are unequivocally told that in case of a world war, America also must take an active part in order to defend the slogans of liberty and democracy in the world. President Roosevelt was the first one to express hatred against Fascism. In doing so he was serving a double purpose; first he wanted to divert the attention of the American people from difficult and intricate domestic problems, especially from the problem of the struggle between capital and labor. Second, by creating a war psychosis and by spreading rumors concerning dangers threatening Europe, he wanted to induce the American people to accept an enormous armament program which far exceeds United States defense requirements.

Regarding the first point, it must be said that the internal situation on the labor market is growing worse constantly. The unemployed today already number 12 million. Federal and state expenditures are increasing daily. Only the huge sums, running into billions, which the treasury expends for emergency labor projects, are keeping a certain amount of peace in the country. Thus far only the usual strikes and local unrest have taken place. But how long this government aid can be kept up it is difficult to predict today. The excitement and indignation of public opinion, and the serious conflict between private enterprises and enormous trusts on the one hand, and with labor on the other, have made many enemies for Roosevelt and are causing him many sleepless nights.

As to point two, I can only say that President Roosevelt, as a clever player of politics and a connoisseur of American mentality, speedily steered public attention away from the domestic situation in order to fasten it on foreign policy. The way to achieve this was simple. One needed, on the one hand, to enhance the war menace overhanging the world on account of Chancellor Hitler, and, on the other hand, to create a specter by talking about the attack of the totalitarian states on the United States. The Munich pact came to President Roosevelt as a godsend. He described it as the capitulation of France and England to bellicose German militarism. As was said here: Hitler compelled Chamberlain at pistol-point. Hence, France and England had no choice and had to conclude a shameful peace.

The prevalent hatred against everything which is in any way connected with German National Socialism is further kindled by the brutal attitude against the Jews in Germany and by the émigré problem. In this action Jewish intellectuals participated; for instance, Bernard Baruch; the Governor of New York State, Lehman; the newly appointed judge of the Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter; Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, and others who are personal friends of Roosevelt. They want the President to become the champion of human rights, freedom of religion and speech, and the man who in the future will punish trouble-mongers. These groups, people who want to pose as representatives of “Americanism” and “defenders of democracy” in the last analysis, are connected by unbreakable ties with international Jewry.

For this Jewish international, which above all is concerned with the interests of its race, to put the President of the United States at this “ideal” post of champion of human rights, was a clever move. In this manner they created a dangerous hotbed for hatred and hostility in this hemisphere and divided the world into two hostile camps. The entire issue is worked out in a mysterious manner. Roosevelt has been forcing the foundation for vitalizing American foreign policy, and simultaneously has been procuring enormous stocks for the coming war, for which the Jews are striving consciously. With regard to domestic policy, it is extremely convenient to divert public attention from anti-Semitism which is ever growing in the United States, by talking about the necessity of defending faith and individual liberty against the onslaught of Fascism.

At least from the 1939 perspective of the Polish ambassador to the United States, the purported role of the media as "oversight mechanisms keeping a free people educated and informed about the agglomerating nature of socialism and fascism" was a farce then as it is now.

In an alternate universe, FDR doesn't die in 1945. He refuses to nuke the Japanese and the war drags out for 2 more years, tripling the number of American war dead. In 1949, after an incredible 16 years on the throne, FDR retires with a popularity rating in the teens. In the mean time, the Soviet Union has taken advantage of his weakness to absorb large amounts of Europe into its sphere including Austria and Finland. Hokkaido is now a Russian island. The communist party wins a plurality in French elections. In the United States, FDR is widely regarded as akin to Neville Chamberlain.

To me, it seems like FDR's biggest sin was that he was simply wrong about Communism. The Pollyanna attitude of his administration toward the Soviet Union is shocking when we read about it today. And his interventions during the Great Depression were largely ineffective. FDR died at the right time. His historical legacy remains intact because of Truman.

In an alternate universe you could also have posited what actually happened and say this would have destroyed the legacy of FDR and Churchill, you cannot underestimate the power of post-war narrative building. I grew up hearing "If the United States hadn't defeated Hitler we would all be speaking German right now" and genuinely believing that we stopped Germany from conquering the entire world. So that map looks good in comparison to that post-war narrative and the legacy of those involved remains intact.

If France and Germany stay out of the war, what alternative map do you think arises that looks better than the one we ended up with? An Eastern Europe dominated by the Soviets was bad, but it's a dream world in comparison to one dominated by the Germans. Considering that the non-Jewish Poles either executed or forced into labor by the Nazis during the relatively brief period of occupation numbers in the millions, being a Soviet satellite was a walk in the park in comparison. More likely, though, the Germans would have lost the war in a similar manner to how they actually did (no, I don't think there were enough troops defending the west to have made a difference), except the Soviet Steamroller wouldn't have stopped at the Elbe. Stalin would have taken all of Germany, plus Finland, Greece, Yugoslavia, Austria, and Italy. And that's assuming that Hitler never pushed into Denmark or the Low Countries, which would have been easy pickings. I don't see how the US, UK and France all stay out of this war and the result is somehow better.

An Eastern Europe dominated by the Soviets was bad, but it's a dream world in comparison to one dominated by the Germans.

I can imagine a dream world where Germany becomes the leader of a continental European entente that includes Poland in the fold. Hitler made peace offers in 1940 that entailed making Poland an independent protectorate, is that really different from their EU and NATO membership today? That map looks like the map of today but minus a Cold War that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war...

Hitler wanted an alliance with Poland against the Soviet Union, and the Poles were inclined to negotiate with the Germans until some bad timing with leadership transitioning and pressure from the British to not negotiate with the Germans.

When Germany was in its strongest negotiating position in 1941, the Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess solo-piloted an airplane to Scotland, strapped on a parachute for the first time, and bailed out in an attempt to go around Churchill and make contact with England's peace factions. Apparently the peace offer was "the Nazis would withdraw from western Europe, in exchange for British neutrality over a planned attack on Russia". It's hard to doubt the sincerity of Rudolf Hess wanting to avoid war with Great Britain given what he did as the leader second in command only to Hitler.

Hess, by the way, was tried as a major war criminal at Nuremberg and convicted. He received a sentence of life in prison, and remained in prison longer than any other German leader until he committed suicide at the age of 93.

I won't speculate who would have won a war between Germany and the Soviet Union in either of those alt-history scenarios. Whoever wins that war, there is no chance in my mind the outcome would have been worse than what actually happened, with Churchill refusing every peace offer made by the Germans and settling for nothing less than unconditional surrender after the complete destruction of Europe and tens of millions of deaths, the Soviet conquest of Eastern Europe, and the "denazification" psychological warfare that consolidated the truth regime we all live under today.

I can imagine a dream world where the Soviets become the leader of a continental entente that includes Poland in the fold. Is the Warsaw Pact really any different than EU or NATO membership today? That is, I can if I pretend that the USSR wasn't a horrible state that killed millions and violated the human rights of everyone else. You can continue to play a game of "let's pretend" and claim that anti-German propaganda was merely post-hoc rationalization for the US getting involved in war, but it doesn't fly. The German state actually was that bad. Any "independent" Poland in such a system would only have been independent to the extent that the German transplants would have had some form of self-government after liquidating the native population. This isn't some wild speculation; it's what Hitler said himself, and what Hitler started to implement during the occupation.

Is the Warsaw Pact really any different than EU or NATO membership today?

Yes, because the Warsaw Pact became the immediate enemy of Western Europe, and West Germany (composed mostly of former Nazi leadership) became the immediate ally of the West. How is this at all coherent? Why couldn't we just skip to that part where Germany is allied with Western Europe against the Soviet Union (which is what Hitler explicitly wanted) without destroying Europe and gifting the USSR half the continent? If Poland had entered the fold as a satellite for Western Europe as Germany had wanted, and as Poland is today, then that is the more logical outcome unless you buy into the post-war propaganda lies that Germany aspired to conquer Western Europe and the world. Hitler also wanted Great Britain as an ally against the Soviet Union, so why was a Total War with unconditional surrender necessary to align West Germany with the West against the USSR?

The US, Great Britain, and France wanted war with Germany and Germany did not want war with them. Instead, we fought an entire World War and destroyed Europe in order to create a pact for a true enemy to the West. It's completely incoherent and unjustifiable without the post-war mythos.

That was the appraisal of General Patton by the way:

We may have been fighting the wrong enemy (Germany) all along. But while we're here (on the Soviet border), we should go after the bastards now, 'cause we're gonna have to fight 'em eventually.

Patton wanted to arm the just-defeated Germans and attack the Soviet Union, proposing we "may have been fighting the wrong enemy." How do people's hearts not sink for Europe when they realize what could have been avoided if the West hadn't waged total war with unconditional surrender demands on Germany, rebuffing Germany's peace offers every step of the way? Obviously, their mind is on the post-war mythos rather than the reality of the situation at the time which is much harder to defend without relying on those narratives.

You're leaving out the part where the Nazis still control Germany and Eastern Europe. The situation today isn't what Hitler wanted because Poland and all the rest are actually independent countries run by their own people and not satellites settled with German transplants with the native population relegated to second-class citizens at best and exterminated at worst. They also have at least some semblance of modern democratic, liberal institutions that Hitler never would have tolerated. This is what the West thought was worth fighting a war over.

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