- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
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I recently was in the BMW museum and they actually had a whole section dedicated to their Nazi past and how they want to never do that again. Do with that what you will but at least they’re not shoving it under the carpet.
Doing business with Nazis because it’s profitable. Nazis died, BMW regrets.
Doing business with fossil fuel because it’s profitable. Earth dies, BMW regrets.
I see a pattern here
Hmmm… Maybe we shouldn’t prioritize profits over all else?
Nah, nvm. That can’t be right.
Nah they literally used extermination camp forced labour, that much we know without doubt so they were pretty damn complicit. Tried to research whether BMW ever actually made gas vans, but couldn’t find a definitive confirmation or good evidence to the contrary from a reputable source, so gonna say they might have.
Other than the giant swastika, does it bother anyone else that the kerning is uneven? The B is farther away from the M than the M is from the W.
Well it didn’t
Now that you mentioned it, it does bother me, but it might have been on purpose.
BMW stands for Benelli (?) Motor Werk(s), so essentially it’s:
(Location) -space- (Factory Type)
At least that’s my assumption for it, because otherwise, it being Nazi Germany, if that was a typographical error, the person stamping those would probably be shot
It is Bayerische Motoren Werke. Funnily enough, that’s wrong orthography, it should be Bayerische Motorenwerke, so you have a point.
So lets stop to consider, regardless of that nazi memorabilia.
You live under a fascist dictatorial regime. There are very few options available for you to live a relatively uneventful life.
Either you’re an open, true, supporter, a passive one or a dissimulated dicident. Yes, there are more options available, but lets take these as the most broad categories.
Now let us consider that your regime an enacted several acts of domestic, unprovoked violence, internal purges and other assorted brutal and unpredictable actions against social peace and stability, in order to cement its unquestionable power over an entire nation.
Then, that same regime advances to a state of war, where all resources and infrastructure are comandeered to bolster the military.
At some point, companies are put a very simple option: either they cooperate and remain active or they refuse and suffer the consequences, that at best can be simple nationalization and purge of the heads.
Considering all of this, BMW supporting Germany’s war effort is understanble.
Do I agree with that decision? No. But do I understand it? Yes.
Cooperate and live or refuse and die? Not an hard choice, especially if a lot of money is put on the table.
cool nazi apologia
thats a lot of words for “companies dont care about anything except money”
we get it, they followed what the country’s trends did regardless of the cost
To be fair, while everyone likes to think they’d be resisting nazi rule, most people, including you, would have most likely fallen in line and at least pretended to be pro-nazi.
Okay…?
Okay, so the people at the top of that company were terrified for their lives too. Everyone complied or died. They chose to comply. Just like you would have.
Do I think the money earned during that time should be given to survivors and their families? Yes. Do I blame them for complying? No.
Okay, so I am from a country where we got rid of a fascist government less than 50 years ago, thus ending 4 decades of dictatorship. The memory of those days are still quite fresh in our collective memory, regardless the new right wing zealots going to far lenghts to retell a very well and publicly documented history.
And that history is an history of repression, social stagnation and political persecussion. And denunciation.
KGB, the famous KGB, created a reputation for repression by brutality but here it was impossible to tell who you could trust. Your neighbour, your loved ones, that person you encountered every day on the bus, your coworkers… besides the very easy to spot and identify agents that could at random approach you on the street, question and drag you off to the nearest police station or detention center, with no expected time to return home, if ever.
It took, technically a military coup, an inside job, to take this repressive regime. Luckily, it was never their intention to instate a military junta and democracy was instead established.
People could either support, tolerate or endure the regime. There was no other options. Thousands conspired for decades and died in the process. The slightest suspicion and any one could end behind bars, deported to one of the colonies, where prison conditions were even worse, as if such thing could be possible or simply gone, occasionally dragged out of their house, in the middle of the night, in a very loud and public exibition of force for everyone to see and never to comment but by whispers.
That is how fascism, and by extension, any dictatorship enforces complacency.
Not many are willing to become heroes and even less survive to tell the tale. The notion that when dark times arise a great hero will come is an hollywood creation.
If we don’t hold corporations accountable for these types of things, they’ll be more likely to go along with it next time. All of the corporations that helped the Nazis should have been dissolved, had their assets liquidated, and used to pay reparations.
Could you be so kind and explain how would you ensure those who would be losing their livelyhoods survive? And their families?
We tend to peg a face to a company and demonize the whole from one person, like the tweeter debacle and that hair enhanced loon that bought it out of a whim, motivated by spite.
How many have lost their jobs already and how many more would lose them if the company was to be dissolved for punishment in their spread of false information (thus, aiding and abetting) that have led to the terrible losses and even worst for many?
Or perhaps Facebook, with their assistance with covering and gagging the genocide in Myanmar?
This doesn’t mean I disagree with severely punishing these entities. Fine them in millions and billions, force them to break into competing entities, severely regulate and control their actions. But kill a company because, and in this particular case for BMW, they could cooperate or cease to exist, perhaps in horrendous ways?
That would make the punishment as bad or worst than the crime.
I don’t agree with your dichotomy, but ignoring that for a second, saying “the punishment as bad or worse than the crime” makes it sound like you think someone losing their job is “as bad or worse” than genocide - maybe reconsider
Wherever you work, are you so powerful there that you can refuse to follow intructions or operational guidelines? Are you so financially secure you can just quit your job and leave if you are aware the company is involved in unethical practices? Don’t you those who depend or rely on you for security in their lives?
If so, congratularions.
But many, if not most, don’t have that power and security. They need to work in order to live and take care of others.
Going back to the tweeter/musk debacle: how many were purged from the company or left it for dissent, how many stayed, even though they knew the company was going to engage in behaviours and practices completely contrary to its history and how many have really signed up for the new boss’s “vision”?
Crude analogy but valid enough.
If the company was to be dissolved as punitive action, as you suggest, where would those who stayed because they had to find jobs, considering they would be condemned by association?
Wait, let me try to answer that on your behalf: it would be necessary to lead proper investigations, to determine who was voluntarily, willingly, involved and those who were stuck with no other option.
Or are you perhaps suggesting that no matter what, the moment you complied, regardless your personal agreement, you are as guilty as those who made the initial decision that turned the company on its head?
This isn’t a black and white world. Please stop to consider these downfall of your decisions onto others.
your analogy between twitter employees not quitting because of Musk’s purchase of Twitter company, and BMW workers not quitting because of BMW’s active participation in the holocaust isn’t just crude, it’s appallingly disrespectful.
I ask you again to think about whether you really mean that losing one’s job is “as bad or worse than” genocide.
I’d be happy to discuss with you, what I think someone could do if they find themself working for an organisation perpetrating atrocities (or encouraging them, as Twitter and Facebook are) - a sneak preview of my opinion is “they could certainly do more than sit there” - but I don’t think there’s any chance of it a productive conversation unless we can agree that being rounded up and exterminated is universally, objectively, worse than being fired from a job.
Contrary to your expectations, I’m very open to have a dialogue.
Please, elaborate your point.
Contrary to your expectations, I’m very open to have a dialogue.
Please, elaborate your point.
Let’s be clear here too. There was real dissent in Germany and the Nazis shipped those who fought back to camps first. These people just doing their jobs made their choice.
For a moment I thought you were talking about the USA.
Heerily similar, isn’t it?
Heerily
Can’t tell if that typo was intentional or not…
Just plain stupidity. Did not bother to look it up in the dictionary and fumble it.
Yikes, I also looked into the background of Ferdinand Porsche, and man, he was a real Nazi summabitch.
They did nazi that coming
i think that pun’s older than the internet
Can we leave that unfunny overdone joke on reddit?
All dad jokes have been banned until father notice
Well this got disappointingly stupid in no time at all. What I see here is something roughly like the same proportion of idiots as one would typically expect on Reddit.
Maybe it’s not just reddit. Maybe people in general are fucking stupid trolls when posting anonymously on the Internet. I’ve this kind of reply a lot as Lemmy gains users. I’m convinced it’s not a reddit thing. People suck.
