Fwd: Truth is the First Casualty of War

[Brad De Long]

>Brad De Long wrote:
>
>>  >Author Michael Zezima makes the case that the U.S did not enter WWII to
>>>stop fascism or to make the world a safer place.  To the contrary, the U.S.
>>>business class traded with Hitler and Mussolini up to and even during the
>>>war.  Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh's public Hitlerphilia were symbolic
>>>of big business's admiration for Hitler's anti-communism.
>>
>>This is completely incoherent. "The U.S." does not equal "The U.S.
>>business class"--especially not in 1940, when the U.S. business class
>>loathed FDR...
>>
>
>glb wrote:
>
>"Completely incoherent"?
>
>Methinks Mr. DeLong is not comfortable with the facts of "Western" 
>collusion & support of fascism (Chamberlain and the key people in 
>his cabinet; French PM Daladier...

This is worse than incoherent. I think that the French and British 
governments of the 1930s made *bad* mistakes. I think they grossly 
underestimated the threat from Hitler. I think they grossly 
overestimated the threat from Stalin.

Nevertheless, when the chips were down, the British and French 
governments *declared* *war* on Nazi Germany in early September 1939. 
They didn't have to do so. And they were the only governments to 
declare war on Hitler, rather than wait out as much of WWII as 
possible in the hope that Hitler would not attack them.

Brad DeLong

(footnote: FDR would have declared war on Hitler--in fact did all he 
could to try to bring the U.S. into WWII earlier--but could not carry 
a congressional majority with him).