One good overview is "Democracy in the Industrial Societies" in Noam Chomsky's Deterring Democracy (Verso).
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Peter K. <peterk at enteract.com>
>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 9:58 PM
>Subject: Re: Another CIA Revelation
>
>
>> >>
>> I know this annoys the hell out of people, but Germany and Japan and Italy
>> - Afghanistan - were "democratized with bombs."
>
> Depends what you mean by "democratized." What the US and Britain did
>following the war was to reinstitution the traditional fascists order right
>back into power. This was done by undermining and basically destroying the
>left based Resistance movement which was worker and peasant based. The US
>had no beef with fascism as long as it wasn't conflicting with US interests.
>That's why the US supported Hitler and Mussolini when they came to power.
>There are class aspects of WWII which are mostly ignored in the mainstream
>for obvious reasons....they tell the wrong story. Europe in general was ripe
>for revolution prior to WWII and afterwards because the business community,
>by and large, sided with fascism...Its in their bones, sort of speak. Same
>story in Greece....
>
>Plenty of good books on the topic...try The Politics of War by Kolko, or The
>Splendid Blond Beast by Christopher Simpson. I don't really know about Japan
>all than well, but I think the story is basically the same with the US
>undermining the left based and popular worker lead movement. The US did
>support labor rights in Japan after the War but moved onto the "reverse
>course" when the situation started to get out of control. That's why the US
>supported the Japanese in Korea right before the Korean war broke out, or
>the French in Vietnam against the will of the overwhelming majority of the
>population.
>
>Its a long story well documented by plenty scholarship...its pretty much
>conceded by more the more mainstream historians now, but the usual response
>is that the US had no choice but to do what it did since the
>communists-whoever they maybe-were set to take over the world. That's our
>job.-Tony
>
>
>
>
>Good point about India.
> > Bush was being moronic when he included Iran in the axis of evil as well.
> >
> > peace,
> > Peter
> >
> >
> >
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