Dry Bones
Opinion
THE BEAST
IN THE EAST
i4 cS. 1938
AHMADINEIAD IS
HITLER,
AND HE'S
TRYNG TO
GET NUCLEAR
WEAPONS
►
Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us .
Editorial
Corporate Responsibility
L
ast week's JTA exclu-
sive investigation into
General Motors' activities
in Hitler's Germany was more
than just finger-pointing at sins
seven decades old.
The issue of corporate respon-
sibility is as immediate as today's
headlines. And, no surprise,
Jewish interests share the fore-
front.
Modern corporations confront
moral dilemmas every day. The
thirst for oil has made America
and its allies dependent on anti-
Semitic, anti-Israel and even
anti-American regimes around
the world.
Shouldn't the development of
fuel-efficient vehicles, alternative
energy sources and Alaskan and
other domestic oil be America's
No. 1 priority? Isn't a corpo-
rate-governmental "Manhattan
Project" to drastically reduce the
need for imported oil the moral
imperative to be demanded by
our business leaders?
There are many other moral
dilemmas that corporations
face today. Anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel interests around the
world have turned the tables,
portraying Israel as Nazi-like
and demanding divestment from
companies that do business with
the Jewish state. Corporations
must summon the moral back-
bone to continue withstanding
these forces of hate.
A pervasive issue is the poten-
tial misuse of Third World labor.
Open trade borders and the quest
for lower prices have brought
into question the working and
political conditions in far-flung
countries. Even China, which
exports billions in goods to the
United States, has been accused
of suppression of its Christian
population and Falun Gong sect
and utilizing slave labor.
The most effective safeguard is
for corporations to closely moni-
tor their foreign operations and
not to condone or participate in
exploitative practices.
As the JTA investigation
"Hitler's Carmaker" pointed out,
corporations cannot operate in a
moral vacuum. They cannot par-
ticipate in anti-Semitism or rac-
ism or work counter to America's
interests.
During the 1930s, GM presi-
dent Alfred P. Sloan Jr. did busi-
ness with Hitler despite the Nazi
regime's horrendous persecution
of Jews. In 1936, he supported
anti-Semitic and racist pressure
groups in an attempt to defeat the
re-election of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt. In May 1941, even
as the Germans were ravaging
Europe and bombing London, he
expressed ambivalence toward
the outcome of the war.
The callousness and anti-
Semitism of some top American
auto executives in the 1930s
helped fuel the disaster that
became Nazi Germany. GM needs
to fully cooperate with historians
and come clean regarding its pre-
war activities, just as Ford Motor
Co. did in the wake of Henry
Ford's virulent anti-Semitism
as expressed in his Dearborn
Independent newspaper and his
English versions of the Protocols
of the Elders of Zion.
The lessons learned should
serve as a compass for current
corporations
operating in
times that
might prove
just as turbu-
lent.
The purpose
of the JTA
investiga-
tion was not
to imply that
GM was to
blame for the
onset of World
War II. The German automaker
Daimler-Benz (now merged into
DaimlerChrysler), of course,
was a major supplier of tanks,
aircraft engines and other war
implements for the Nazi regime.
Other German automakers such
as Audi, BMW and Volkswagen
and their Japanese counterparts
like Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi
and Isuzu were among their
countries' war suppliers.
Entranced by the lure of huge
profits, these automakers may
have accelerated Hitler's Final
Solution, but the war would have
come regardless. It's notable that
CIVILIZED WORLD
IGNORING THE
THREAT.
`y-
DryBonesBlog.com
GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler
have built various support pipe-
lines to the American Jewish
community ever since the Allies
exposed the horrors of Hitler to
an unbelieving world.
But make no mistake: In cast-
ing light on the shameful activi-
ties of 1930s-era GM executives
profiteering in a country with an
official policy of anti-Semitism,
the JTA investigation warned
that by ignoring or masking his-
tory, we might be destined to
repeat it.
E-mail letters of no more than 150
words to: letters@thejewishnews.com .
Reality Check
Little Town Blues
W
e spent the
Thanksgiving holi-
day Up North, and
since the weather was unseason-
ably mild decided to take in the
Saturday morning holiday parade.
Late November is a time when
most tourists are gone, and those
who attended the parade were all-
year residents of the town. They
greeted one another by name,
even knew the names of the dogs
who trotted by.
I sometimes try to imagine
what it would have been like
to grow up in a place like this;
where you called the grocer and
the pharmacist and the guy
who owned the diner by their
first names and nobody was a
stranger.
In a sense, I did. The old
Detroit neighborhoods around
Central and Mumford Highs
were very much like small towns.
Predominantly Jewish small
towns, to be sure, but with that
same close-knit quality to them.
I also understand that it really
isn't the same thing at all. The
December Dilemma is the case in
point.
I never had much patience for
people who got exercised about
that sort of thing. An American
Christmas is such an all-embrac-
ing cultural event that I couldn't
muster up much outrage about
creches and caroling on pub-
lic property. When I attended
Roosevelt Elementary, we sang
carols in music class and none of
us seemed damaged by it.
Somewhere along the line, I
even learned the first lines of
"Silent Night" in the original
German. After all this time they're
still in my memory. "Stifle Nacht,
heilige Nacht. Alles kalm, einsam
wacht."Amazing.
Not sung in our house, of
course, but what's the harm of
knowing a few carols?
But while watching
this parade, with almost
the entire town turned
out for the high school
marching band and
the floats sponsored by
local businesses and
churches, I had some-
thing of an epiphany.
More than half of the
kids back at Roosevelt
were Jewish. The carols were just
music to us, nothing more. But
what happens if you are one of
only two or three Jewish kids in
the entire school and lacked all
the reinforcing institutions that
existed back in the old neighbor-
hoods? Then the songs take on
a somewhat different tone. Now
they are a reminder that you can
never really belong.
It was just a few days after this
that I read about Keith Ellison, the
newly elected Congressman from
Minnesota. He will
be the first Muslim
to serve in the House
of Representatives.
Ellison, who grew up
in Detroit, said he
would not take the
oath of office on a
Bible. He would do
it with his hand on a
Koran.
That seems per-
fectly reasonable to me. But his
statement touched off a firestorm
on the cable channels that special-
ize in meaningless furors. People
were angry with Ellison, accusing
him of disloyalty to America and
dark, traitorous intentions. "If a
man won't swear on the Bible,
how can you trust anything he'd
say," e-mailed one viewer.
Swearing on the Bible can never
be allowed to be a test of devo-
tion to America. Those who can't
grasp that have no clue what the
Establishment Clause and free-
dom of religion are all about. Yet,
this stupid argument raged on for
days; and it reinforced what I'd
been thinking.
Years ago, a well-meaning
reader asked me if I could tell
her about "some of your Jewish
Christmas traditions." Aside from
sending her a blank piece of paper
by return mail, I didn't know how
to answer without embarrassing
her. But suppose a Jewish kid in a
small town somewhere is called
upon in class to answer the same
question. Not so easy to pass it
off with a laugh then. Then it's a
dilemma.
I still think that "Joy to the
World" is a magnificent piece of
music. It's still my world, just not
my joy.
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com.
.
December 14 2006
27