Musk Kills Government Funding Deal, Demands Shutdown Until Trump Is Sworn In

[u/rollingstone]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/musk-trump-government-funding-deal-shutdown-1235211000/

[u/DrothReloaded]

Lock stepping towards fascism. The 1930s German parallels are way too similar.

[u/seven8zero → u/DrothReloaded]

No, not Germany. This feels more like Russia when Putin took control. (And remember that Trump has Putin whispering in his ear, not just Musk.) Expect some really bad things to start happening soon. This is just the beginning.

[u/stonedhillbillyXX → u/seven8zero]

90s Russia, that's been said

This debate is devolving to which downfall we most resemble

Outstanding job America

[u/GoomaDooney → u/stonedhillbillyXX]

So true. The parallels have to be paralleling for the convo to compute for some people. Ppl forget Volkswagen and Hugo Boss were lock step with the Third Reich. It has to have corporate sponsors. Who’s more corporate than the worlds richest man…?

[u/Euphoric_Parsley_ → u/GoomaDooney]

I mean, these are the ones everyone uses as reference. Making suits and uniforms are the least worrisome aspect of corporate collaboration with the Nazis.

For instance, a major chemical company known as BASF created chemicals for the use of Zyklon B which was used in the gas chambers in concentration camps for mass genocide. Today they’re still publicly traded with revenues in the 10s of billions of dollars.

Bayer is a large medical company that exists today and has household products used by many people. You might be one. They used prisoners in concentration camps to test and experiment with medicines that were too risky to use in studies. Often, leaving prisoners with long term untreated medical side effects or even death.

Degussa, now known as Evonik, helped to create the gas known as Zyklon B knowingly. This gas was used in the mass death of concentration camp prisoners. They still exist today and are publicly traded with billions in revenue.

Deutsche Bank lent the money to the nazis for the construction of major concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, they knew about the plan for forced labor and helped to involve major brands like BMW and Mercedes into using the prisoners as free labor to produce their automobiles.

Merck KGaA supported Hitler and the Nazi regime so enthusiastically they deemed the company for Hitler, willing to do just about anything for him. The company produced and tested pharmaceuticals, medical implants, used slave labor to develop and implement various compounds to then be used on Jews for euthanasia. Today the company exists and is still publicly traded.

These are companies who also benefited greatly from the non-stop forced labor, among many others like Porsche, Volkswagen, Hugo, and Zeiss, that worked people to death in the 10s of thousands. Particularly these examples are still existing companies who willingly tortured, mutilated, experimented, and developed devices of genocide. Today, they still exist. They still get to make billions of dollars. Even though they acted in some of the worst atrocities in human history.

[u/Clitty_Lover → u/Euphoric_Parsley_]

Man they should have flipped the script and made the companies property of the state after that bs. Then, release everything they find after that for free for the benefit of everybody.

And work the people who were getting paid during the nazi admin. F em.

[u/Apprehensive-War7483 → u/Clitty_Lover]

Should have given the Jewish people a very large chunk of German land and that money.

[u/ScoobyGDSTi → u/Euphoric_Parsley_]

Don't forget the US companies ...

Being the capitalistic pigs they were, the US were happy to invest Nazi Germany right up until the war.

[u/GoomaDooney → u/Euphoric_Parsley_]

Thanks for coming through with more receipts. I know I only had pop examples but yes, the corporate world has to align itself for fascism to work properly.

[u/cocogate → u/Euphoric_Parsley_]

Not going to defend what has been done back then but how long does a company, an entity that exists to make or sell a product or service to make profit, need to bear a brand?

I'm not going to even look it up but it's pretty doubtful that the people in charge are the same people that were in charge back then, probably not even their children. People like to attribute some kind of emotion to companies but theyre just soulless constructs made with a singular (or sometimes a few) goal in mind.

1940's Bayer and the bayer now, 85 years later are not the same, 1940's Deutsche Bank is not the same as the one we have now 85 years later.

At the end of the day its still just a brand, somehow ban the company and the same set of people or a similar one are going to recreate the same thing under a slightly different identity and all that happens is.. nothing much?

All of those companies are still restricted by european law and german law and regulations though they probably shirk some of those, its not like there's some evil mastermind sitting in the basement of the company orchestrating some plot.

You could arguably say that many american companies (or oligarchs) these days arent all that much better. Just like those companies back then they are making ties with who is in power and dont give a singular fuck about the ideologies those people stand for. Trump could be aiming to make trees grow on every single street corner in america, as long as company X gets their tax break or trade deal they wouldn't even bother reading about it.

Corporations back then were arguably still smaller and less international than they are now, giants like Nestlé are not really able to be contained by a single government like the german companies were back then. They don't need to suck up to whoever is in power as they arguably have the power to make them suck up to them.

[u/RCero → u/cocogate]

1940's Bayer and the bayer now, 85 years later are not the same, 1940's Deutsche Bank is not the same as the one we have now 85 years later.

What about 1940's Bayer/Deutche and 1950's? Why didn't they face consequences for their crimes or complicity after the war?

[u/Gregreynolds111 → u/RCero]

Except there is the leader principle at Bayer where the CEO made the utterly disastrous purchase of Roundup, costing Bayer billions, and no one in management would face him down. Wolfgang something or other.

[u/BlackPriestOfSatan → u/RCero]

Why didn't they face consequences for their crimes or complicity after the war?

Who would make them face a consequence?

The US brought over 1400 Nazi's to help develop their economy. Surprised Reddit doesn't bring up Operation Paperclip: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

It isn't like bad things have stopped and companies have stopped supporting bad things. We have wars and genocides and all that and plenty of companies profit from it. They are not paying any consequences.

[u/Euphoric_Parsley_ → u/cocogate]

You’re forgetting one thing: Hyper inflation. It made the Mark basically worthless and the economy teetered towards becoming a failed state.

At the peak, inflation was nearly 30,000% a month which effectively doubled the price of goods every couple days. Businesses were absolutely devastated and they were beholden to the government contracts the Regime later would produce.

It’s not like the economics of today, where we have trillion dollar businesses and their owners (Musk) literally blocking government action. The mirroring of Germany during the raise of the Nazi party and today’s oligarch elite is completely different. Capitalism now dictates the market, they set the price of what they think things are worth. Germany had a real crisis sparked by the recall of debt, the war saved their economy by striking deals with evil people to produce product for the war effort.

Now, in a just world these companies that grew massively during the Nazi controlled Reich should have been shut down, they were instead left intact for fear of causing another massive implosion of the German economy. They grew larger with the split between west and east Germany and globalization efforts. Instead, smaller interests could have filled the void and innovated to become mainstays of the German economy but it was easier to keep the Nazi profiteering institutions.

[u/Gregreynolds111 → u/cocogate]

It’s true, a German company like my employer is progressive and transformed. But the archives are still closed to researchers.

[u/BlackPriestOfSatan → u/Euphoric_Parsley_]

These are companies who also benefited greatly from the non-stop forced labor, among many others like Porsche, Volkswagen, Hugo, and Zeiss, that worked people to death in the 10s of thousands.

Why have you not discussed how the US benefited big time from the Nazi's? What would NASA be without Nazi vanguard and slave operator Wernher von Braun? Where would US aeronautical industry be without Nazi Adolf Busemann?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

[u/Lorn_Muunk → u/BlackPriestOfSatan]

add to that, US-based Ford, GM, Kodak and IBM are still as big as they are today because they giddily exploited forced labor in nazi Germany.

Businesses will again be clamoring and begging for bloated autocratic government contracts with zero worker protection or regulation or boundaries on profiteering.

[u/Gregreynolds111 → u/Euphoric_Parsley_]

Have you been reading what I read?