It’s JUST Business – IBM and the HOLOCAUST

[Free Soul]

@gambit

Sir, some of my most favoured and respected thinkers and historians are Jewish people. Please i again plea - Please Don’t Distract the topic in discussion.
Millions of Jewish people were slaughtered by Nazis, till this date a true figure could not be ascertained, it was well in excess of 6 million.

Not only poor Jewish but Gypsies, coloured people and people of not belonging to pure Aryan race were massacred.

In case of IBM and huge US corporations it was just a case of ‘It’s Only Business’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aklTcGtXDtA

 

[gambit]

@gambit

Sir, some of my most favoured and respected thinkers and historians are Jewish people. Please i again plea - Please Don’t Distract the topic in discussion.
Millions of Jewish people were slaughtered by Nazis, till this date a true figure could not be ascertained, it was well in excess of 6 million.

Not only poor Jewish but Gypsies, coloured people and people of not belonging to pure Aryan race were massacred.

In case of IBM and huge US corporations it was just a case of ‘It’s Only Business’

Am not challenging historians because the book's author is:

The son of Polish survivors, Washington-based writer Edwin Black is the author of the award winning Holocaust finance investigation, The Transfer Agreement, and is an expert on commercial relations with the Third Reich.

...So according to the book's jacket.

Am not defending IBM or even trying to whitewash the company's history with the Nazis. But I think it is hilarious that some of the people who are in this discussion so eager to implicate a famous American icon in a horrific event that they would equally eager to deny ever happened.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

Some Jews were killed but the truth has been suppressed by the victors. And we know Americans are liars so...

Gambit's post was completely off the track and then your answer didnt help due to wrong choice of words whether or not it was a mistake.

the events are undeniable. millions suffered at the hands of Nazis and the biggest portion of them were the poor Jewish families. Hitler will be condemned for the rest of the time for sure but the thread here is about those who made a fortune out of this big human disaster.
the culprits that escaped the punishment are the likes of IBM who made money out of the ethnic cleansing in the World War 2 by providing smart ethnic profiling to an obnoxious party.

 

[Free Soul]

Am not defending IBM or even trying to whitewash the company's history with the Nazis.

thanks Sir.

And please note that i do consider any person who denies that millions of jewish people were massacred by Nazis –is a bigoted Racist.

You must have also read ‘Holocaust Industry’ by Norman Finkelstein, I find people who use the suffering of the fallen of the Holocaust as a license to commit same crimes to others even more despicable than a guy who is mentally deranged and denies Holocaust.

One can have a field day taking-on low calibre holocaust deniers, but when it comes to admitting to blatant criminal corporatism and finding the biggest criminals amongst themselves – people shy away and try to discredit the person raising the questions.

 

[gambit]

thanks Sir.

And please note that i do consider any person who denies that millions of jewish people were massacred by Nazis –is a bigoted Racist.

You must have also read ‘Holocaust Industry’ by Norman Finkelstein, I find people who use the suffering of the fallen of the Holocaust as a license to commit same crimes to others even more despicable than a guy who is mentally deranged and denies Holocaust.

One can have a field day taking-on low calibre holocaust deniers, but when it comes to admit to blatant criminal corporatism and finding the biggest criminals amongst themselves – people shy away and try to discredit the person raising the questions.

IBM, like all businesses, was and still is, about making money thru a mean. For IBM, it was and still is thru technology. Not services but about hardware and tangible physical products. If IBM's past relationship with the Nazis is morally odious, then what are we to make of Mitsubishi or BMW or Krupps? The decision to associate one's business with something and/or someone with a morally questionable motive, large or small scale, should be examined under the business's core philosophical principles. I can make money with crooks as well as with honest people. Some of us are quite adept at dealing with both types.

So what are my core philosophical principles that would enable me to sleep at night knowing that my business was made SPECIFICALLY to support a criminal enterprise? Was IBM's core philosophical principles involved genocide? Or was IBM's relationship with the Nazis a natural -- but completely avoidable -- desire of any business to make money? If I can make money from crooks as well as with honest people, I can also CHOSE to make money from one but not the other. The IBM of WW II is not the same IBM of today. Edwin Black did an excellent job with the book but it should not be used to judge a business of today when decisions are rarely made alone by its corporate leadership and when some of those decisions in the past were made by different corporate leaders.

 

[Free Soul]

desire of any business to make money? If I can make money from crooks as well as with honest people, I can also CHOSE to make money from one but not the other

Sir you have honourable ideals, but i am not filled with optimism that the current corporate world shares your ideals.
Just looking into very recent past and present, current banking crisis across the world, in US in EU in UK, the bankers knowingly destroyed the economy, the whole banking system collapsed greed is such that it would take us days to discuss their immorality.

The IBM of WW II is not the same IBM of today

I would second your above opinion, but i am not naive enough to think that the current corporate world has changed for the good, rather in my opinion it has deteriorated even further.

IBM and such likes are making sales pitches to the Nazis of this day and age.

The idea is all the same – same as described by Edwin Black.
It’s JUST Business.

 

[gambit]

I came to know of this while listening to not just any ordinary person but greats like Noam Chomsky,...

Noam Chomsky an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics”

Chomsky is as intellectually dishonest as the definition will allow. Chomsky is anti-capitalism but is a millionaire who have no hesitancy in hawking his books to legions of politically naive and gullible young people. If Chomsky called out IBM and say that based upon this past relationship with the Nazis, the IBM of today should be morally condemned, then Chomsky should give back the DoD money he received while at MIT.

Say what...??? You did not know that the Pentagon financed Chomsky's work in linguistics, of which many politically neutral PhDs have had cast dubious eyes at his work, and that Chomsky was well aware of the source of his work?

By the way, try this parody of Chomsky-speak...

The Chomskybot

If you cannot understand a thing about each generated paragraph, do not despair, no one does. And that is how Chomsky intended his blather. Brilliant of the man, really. If a young person decide to challenge Chomsky-speak, and therefore Chomsky himself, peer pressure alone would shut him up. No one wanted to appear unsophisticated.

Anyway, Chomsky's work in linguistics qualified him to said title of 'Father' only in popular and politically biased opinions, hardly by peers and working professionals in the field. Whatever Chomsky produced from DoD's money does have an influence on the software programming of today's US war machines and he has no moral reservations about it. So on the one hand, he received money from the Pentagon, an institution he called the 'most evil' in the world, then on the other hand, he go on the speaking circuit and railed against the financial hand that fed him. And emotional woe would befall upon any young person -- by his peers -- willing to exercise critical thinking skills against Chomsky's contradictions.

 

[Free Soul]

@Gambit

^^ For one that does not fit the bill we see character assassination as above –no matter how much respected the person is worldwide, the truth cant be swallowed. For above, i have already posted in this thread as follows.

One can have a field day taking-on low calibre holocaust deniers, but when it comes to admitting to blatant criminal corporatism and finding the biggest criminals amongst themselves – people shy away and try to discredit the person raising the questions.

Chomsky , Zinn , Amy, Tariq Ali, Arundhuti Roy, Norman Finkelstein would never be to some people’s taste, how can they be. They don’t fit the bill. No matter how much evidence these learned people put forward.

I know there is some special love for Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Finkelstein – once their questions could not be answered, then they were termed as ‘Jew Hating Jews’a campaign of discrediting these persons was started by the likes of Alan Dershowitz.


goodluck with detracting the thread again.

cheers

 

[gambit]

@Gambit

^^ For one that does not fit the bill we see character assassination as above –no matter how much respected the person is worldwide, the truth cant be swallowed. For above, i have already posted in this thread as follows.

One can have a field day taking-on low calibre holocaust deniers, but when it comes to admitting to blatant criminal corporatism and finding the biggest criminals amongst themselves – people shy away and try to discredit the person raising the questions.

Chomsky , Zinn , Amy, Tariq Ali, Arundhuti Roy, Norman Finkelstein would never be to some people’s taste, how can they be. They don’t fit the bill. No matter how much evidence these learned people put forward.

I know there is some special love for Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Finkelstein – once their questions could not be answered, then they were termed as ‘Jew Hating Jews’a campaign of discrediting these persons was started by the likes of Alan Dershowitz.


goodluck with detracting the thread again.

cheers

I made no mention about Chomsky being a Jew. Did I?

When you brought up Chomsky, you did what is called the 'appeal to authority' argument, or at least you wanted some credibility to your argument by bringing in special characters who made and/or have some relationships to the subject. If you bring in Chomsky, he is open for criticism, especially when/if he said anything about the book. So if you agree with me that the IBM of today is not the same as the IBM of yesterday when it had a relationship with the Nazis, then what is the point of this discussion in the first place, especially when NONE OF YOU have read the book? The book came out in 2001, how many of you were matured enough back then to know what it was about? Am 49. How old are you?

Thomas J. Watson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In particular, critics point to the coveted Order of the German Eagle medal that Watson received at the Berlin ICC meeting in 1937, as evidence that he was being honored for the help that IBM's German subsidiary Dehomag (Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft mbH) and its punch card machines provided the Nazi regime, particularly in the tabulation of census data. The most recent study of the matter, however, argues that Watson believed, perhaps naively, that the medal was in recognition of his years of labor on behalf of global commerce and international peace.[4] Watson soon began second-guessing himself for accepting the medal, and eventually returned the medal to the German government in June 1940. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler was furious at the slight, and he declared that Watson would never step on German-controlled soil again. As anticipated, Dehomag went into revolt, its management decrying Watson's stupidity and openly wondering whether or not it would be best if the firm separated from its American owner. The debate ended when Germany declared war on the United States in December 1941, and the German shareholders took custody of the Dehomag operation.[4] But during World War II, IBM subsidiaries in occupied Europe never stopped delivery of punch cards to Dehomag, and documents uncovered show that senior executives at IBM world headquarters in New York took great pains to maintain legal authority over Dehomag's operations and assets through the personal intervention of IBM managers in neutral Switzerland, directed via personal communications and private letters. Whether this was with or without Watson's direct involvement is unclear.

Black's book was more than just about historical truth and its revelations to the public but also about moral lessons. It showed that greed transcends borders and that greed can blind a person's eyes to the great immorality that actually happens around him. For IBM's and Dehomag's executives, it was their greed that helped the Nazis committed the Holocaust, an event that many here continues to deny at their convenience. What about IBM's efforts to the Allies? How do you reconcile these contradictions? How about reading the book? No, wait...That is toooooo much work. Better to just post the book, make a few comments, attract the right 'commentators' with their usual moral condemnations of US and the Jews, and call it a 'discussion'.

 

[Free Soul]

@Gambit
Mate defend Nazi supporters and their cronies all you want, no one can deny what Black, Finkelstine and Chomsky have laid in front of the world.

US corporation IBM with patronage of US government that too president Roosevelt.
Watson the IBM CEO throughout 1930s (when persecution of Jews had already started in Nazi Germany) maintained a deep interest in international relations, both from a diplomatic and a business perspective. We are talking of one of the biggest corporation in US at that time, he had open patronage of Roosevelt , He was known as President Roosevelt's unofficial Ambassador in NY and often entertained foreign statesmen. In 1937, he was elected president of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and at that year's biennial congress in Berlin stated the conference keynote to be (the very spine chilling ridiculous slogan)"World Peace Through World Trade". That phrase became the slogan of both the ICC and IBM.

US was one of the biggest earner of money and capital from Nazi Germany when Jewish persecution was at full swing. IBM had its most profitable foreign operations setup in Nazi Germany throughout 1930s, Look up Edwin Black’s book, where he shows Watson's (remember the foreign statesmen entertainer of the US) pursuit of profit led him to personally approve and spearhead IBM's strategic technological relationship with the Third Reich. In particular, The IBM CEO Watson received German Eagle medal in Berlin in 1937.

The so called awakening of conscience after 3 years of enjoying the 'Order of the German Eagle' after setting up head counting and statistical machineries throughout the Nazi oppression, receiving money from third Rich. With full knowledge of the atrocities.

Sir Gambit, please by all means discredit Chomsky, Black and Finkelstine.

Cheers

 

[gambit]

@Gambit
Mate defend Nazi supporters and their cronies all you want, no one can deny what Black, Finkelstine and Chomsky have laid in front of the world.

Who am I defending? Is it the same as 'what' am I defending? If you agree with me that the IBM of today is not the same as the IBM of Nazi Germany, then your charge is meaningless.

Look up Edwin Black’s book, where he shows Watson's (remember the foreign statesmen entertainer of the US) pursuit of profit led him to personally approve and spearhead IBM's strategic technological relationship with the Third Reich. In particular, The IBM CEO Watson received German Eagle medal in Berlin in 1937.

That is funny considering I told you that I have the book and that NONE OF YOU have read it.

 

[Free Soul]

Did the above happen or not? and by all means say NO!.. it didn’t happen!

The biggest holocaust denier is Israel and US it's self.

 

[jayron]

Current Major Companies that Helped the Nazi War Effort « Herodotus Wept

 

[Free Soul]

It was a strategic Technological alliance, It was only about the money, the blood soaked dirty despicable money.

The machines were custom designed for the Third Rich, and the solutions were custom designed. IBM engineers had to talk to Rich personnel to customize and enhance the equipment for the noble use. The output of the machines had to be configured for the punch cards and machines for the specific use, and how cross tabulation is done was discussed.

Na come on, Watson wasn’t a Fascist he was a Capitalist (even worst a true corporatist). extreme one without a conscience.

The concentration camps were in every sense IBM Customer Sites.

below Chomsky, Black, Zinn, Moore on IBM and Holocaust, decide for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eajsDM7yZtw