The Enduring War

Hitler unleashed his war 70 years ago today; he remains the Great Excuse of the colonial powers that vanquished the Third Reich. The empires were obliged to dismantle themselves in the two decades following, but despite a show of trying to make amends for decades of exploitation, the desire to keep up the standard of living among the colonizers defeated any such stated goals. The Allied powers (in both wars) shared contempt for non-white races; what was exceptional among the Nazis was the reduction of the Slavic and Gallic peoples to the same level. The French have not forgotten the introduction of the STO (Service Travaille Obligatoire - Mandatory Work Service) which was intended to drain France of young men, removing both prospective fighters & reproductive resources.

Today's imperial apologists brag that their nations civilization the conquered & occupied peoples. The dark secret of the apologists for the West is that Hitler was not an exception. There is a neo-fascist contingent that asserts this, and therefore lauds him; but most of the neo-imperialists are, and remain, liberal imperialists of the Wilson-Churchill-Reagan variety. All the rhetoric about 'America's leadership' is a politically acceptable euphemism for White leadership -- even in the paradoxical situation of the present, when the president is half-and-half. (I forget which black comedian said she would be wild for Obama until he started to make mistakes, and then she'd start to complain about 'that mulatto'.) While Lincoln was right, that the Founders meant to set slavery on the road to extinction, slavery, occupation, and empire were & remain the driving forces of a country in which many have reverted to the first two decades of the 20th century, before the wars obliged earlier generations to attempt to rid themselves of that heritage.

Quentin Tarantino is only the latest to exploit the covert & consciously-denied identification with the Nazis: 'Nazis ain't got no humanity.' This is always the excuse for Nazi-like behavior -- the national enemies are always 'inhuman', and the imperialist justifies the empire on the basis that he wants to be rid of the inhuman enemies in order to let the more human ones live better.

Until the old colonial powers are capable of parting with the fruits of empire, and sharing them with equally without preaching responsibility to the recipients whose ancestors were the producers of the wealth to begin with, we can look forward to more pretend-repudiation of Hitler & more emulation, under deadly euphemisms, of the same mindset.