Americans once took great pride in the defeat of the Nazi scourge that threatened to run roughshod over the 20th century and beyond. Under the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt, America mobilized not only to heal from the devastation of the Great Depression, but also became a global leader of industrial power supplying the Allies with the tools they needed to fight the war before entering the fight herself in 1941.
Coming out of that scarring experience, there was great hope that the world would finally be raised out of the fires of imperialism, poverty and war. The UN charter enshrined Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, respect for sovereignty and a mandate for economic cooperation into law giving hope that a new age of brotherhood was upon us.
Despite certain pushbacks by US Statesmen to the Anglo-American special relationship, and military industrial complex that began to take on a life of its own, FDR’s vision for world peace continued to die throughout the Cold War.
Perhaps it was allowing RAND Corp computer modelers to shape international policy, or perhaps it was the FBI-McCarthyite witch hunts and constant threat of global nuclear annihilation that caused once-courageous Americans to become gullible and fearful. Whatever the cause had been, the fact that major components of Hitler’s intelligence apparatus and unapologetic fascists were repurposed after the war to be used to combat Communism throughout the Cold War did not help. (more...)
What Happened to America’s Anti-Fascist Traditions?
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