UltimateBob on April 13, 2009 at 1:30 PM

Thanks.

Siemens also invented the gas chambers, disguised as showers, for the Nazis.

UltimateBob on April 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM

I think you’re confusing Siemens, the electronics company with IG Farben, the makers of Zyklon B.

Siemens did have a slave labor camp in the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex.

IG Farben was disolved after WWII and many of their executives tried for war crimes.

The IG Farben building in Frankfurt became Supreme Headquarters, Allied European Forces after WWII and is now occupied by the University of Frankfurt.

peter_griffin on April 13, 2009 at 1:41 PM

As you suggest there is no easy fix. The fact is all kinds of companies including many American firms are engaged in doing business with repressive regimes and providing products and services which can be used to enhance that repression. Companies won’t stop trading. If they do stop or if their home government passes laws restricting trade, a host of middlemen will turn up and the regimes will still get the products they want. That is how Iran gets specialized printers made in Israel to make huge propaganda posters going around Israeli and Iranian prohibitions on such transactions.

Companies like Google, Yahoo, Nokia, and Siemens should understand that they have a big stake in freedom.

IMHO, their stake in freedom supercedes their fiduciary obligations to their shareholders. Classic case in point is “IBM and the Holocaust” (nice book to read if you haven’t already). It also brings into question the fine line between capitalism and moral responsibility. At some point, corporations, just like individual citizens, need to ask themselves – is this really worth the profit? Unfortunately, if the corporation does not ask that question and goes the other route, should we (as a society) force them to do otherwise? We have 2 options:

(1) via government regulation : which is meddling into free markets and is a conservative anathema

(2) by a massive movement to not use their products : however that is easier said than done. For example, in the case of IBM during WWII, they were the only realistic option for computation, so it would have been akin to cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Comments?

I don’t remember anything about Siemens inventing the gas chambers or developing them for Nazi use. Can you cite an on-line reference about the Siemens connection?

Loxodonta on April 13, 2009 at 12:01 PM

I wish I could – I’m at work now and I’m being blocked by the company’s system from searching for anything holocaust related.

I recently toured the concentration camp at Dachau, and was told this by an English-speaking tourguide.

Ordinary American on April 13, 2009 at 11:11 AM

Do not worry. No one is listening. Just say anything you want. Trust me.

DasObamaReich on April 13, 2009 at 11:16 AM

I can’t tell you how relieved I am. Now I can tell you what I really think. Hold on a minute. Someone’s at the door. I’ll be right back.

That’s just alarmism. We still have free speech, so long as you watch what you say.

petefrt on April 13, 2009 at 11:53 AM

I am now back. Yes, it is really me and not one of the men in black ski masks who did not just break down my door. No indeed. No one broke down my door. The people person at the door did not wear a ski mask and did not have a gun. No, it was a special delivery person from the Government Stimulus Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. I have won an all expenses paid trip to a beach resort on an island paradise off the coast of Florida. I will be a special guest at this resort where I will be given the VIP treatment for an undetermined period of time. I will not be considered an enemy combatant. It sounds like fun. It may be quite a while before I post more comments on HA.

Loxodonta on April 13, 2009 at 11:57 AM

By whom? Us? How?

Dark-Star on April 13, 2009 at 12:08 PM

I don’t know how to stop them. It may help to publicize their actions and the consequences, as has been done here.

I suppose the UN Security Council could ban selling such equipment to Iran, but I doubt the UN would do it. And even if they did, I doubt that would stop Iran from obtaining it through some other means. However, such action might well slow Iran’s acquisition of technology that it can use to become a nuclear armed, totalitarian police state.

As in North Korea, the Iranian regime seems determined to become a major world threat. But to do so, they must also threaten, crush and propagandize their own people. I suppose it’s my old-fashioned values speaking, but I get angry when people are crushed by tyranny, even when they aren’t Americans and live on the other side of the world.

It didn’t work out that way in the end

Lol, the whole world is moving towards collectivism. The name does not matter, the underlying principle is taking over the world. What exactly are you talking about?

StartinOver on April 13, 2009 at 11:15 AM

This is exactly why I worry when an administration wants some new power and says to anyone concerned about granting that authority, “We would never do that.” Even if this were so, the next administration might, but by then, the frog in the pot of water has become accustomed to the increasing temperature. Whether it’s surveillance or creeping socialism/fascism, we are in great danger of becoming a nation of boiled frogs.

Loxodonta on April 13, 2009 at 11:57 AM

By whom? Us? How?

Siemens also invented the gas chambers, disguised as showers, for the Nazis.

UltimateBob on April 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM

I don’t remember anything about Siemens inventing the gas chambers or developing them for Nazi use. Can you cite an on-line reference about the Siemens connection?

What I remember is that Siemens supported the Nazi’s, and that they and BMW, Krupp, Leica, VW, etc. used millions of slave laborers in the concentration camps. Like some other German firms, I believe they made a paltry compensation payment in the 60′s.

already building a IP Address database of his enemies who use a keyboard as their weapon of choice.–fogw

BTW, it was unsettling to watch GWB snicker when he suggested that citizens blog out their frustrations.

What potential-fascist measures that Homeland Security began are metastasizing under BHO’s permeation of power.

Question: what time limits for existence did Bush impose on all of the new federal bureaucracy that he created? He managed tax cuts only on temporary basis, and stimulus as a rebate to be repaid by the tax payer–that was DUMBER than dumb since it cost the feds a lot to do all of that processing. But when it came to augmenting federal powers beyond Constitutional allocation (upon departure, crowning the Treasury Secretary as an untouchable Czar accountable to no one), Bush made way for Obama’s obtuse Socialist radicalization. Globalists suck, regardless of party. And morons need not argue that I don’t respect or appreciate GWB. Bush certainly had his strengths that were a blessing to our nation! And as a man, I respect him immensely. As our president, I respected him and praised his beneficial work accomplished, though I certainly pointed out his flaws that injured American citizenship in favor of open border globalism that only benefits the fascist aristocrats (regardless of party, they are represented everywhere and pull our strings). Those poor policies benefit organized crime, particularly within governments, our own especially. Bush, though, maintained the highest standards of integrity with respect to those serving within his administration including Border Patrol and the Military. But selectively prosecuting abusively his own while ignoring or abstaining from prosecuting national enemies that include criminal illegal aliens and their knowing employers leaves Bush within the collection of abusive prosecutors who disregard rule of law. He’d bend over so far backwards to prosecute his own, yet he refused to permit the pendulum of justice to prosecute the corrosive organized criminal elements (within the government) that prosper in America via the illegal alien industry.

That irony assimilates Obama’s selection of the tax cheat incompetent TurboTax fraud Geithner as Treasury Secretary, particularly following Bush’s augmentation of that appointment as a power in and of itself.

I’d tell you what I think about this, but someone might be listening.

Ordinary American on April 13, 2009 at 11:11 AM

Do not worry. No one is listening. Just say anything you want. Trust me.

DasObamaReich on April 13, 2009 at 11:16 AM

I can’t tell you how relieved I am. Now I can tell you what I really think. Hold on a minute. Someone’s at the door. I’ll be right back.

That’s just alarmism. We still have free speech, so long as you watch what you say.

Ordinary American on April 13, 2009 at 11:11 AM

Do not worry. No one is listening. Just say anything you want. Trust me.

DasObamaReich on April 13, 2009 at 11:16 AM

I can’t tell you how relieved I am. Now I can tell you what I really think. Hold on a minute. Someone’s at the door. I’ll be right back.

Ehh… eh… eh…. Echelonnnn……..

Oh… excuse me…

I doubt if the Obama administration will object. Rahm more than likely is already building a IP Address database of his enemies who use a keyboard as their weapon of choice.

fogw on April 13, 2009 at 11:23 AM

Washingtonians already ran out the original Cyber Security Chief and substituted an Obamaman in order to facilitate your premise, that US citizens are already documented.

Lenin reportedly said that capitalists would sell the rope with which the Communists would hang them. It didn’t work out that way in the end,

US Progressives have most certainly been working it out that way in America. An idea has no “end”.

Russia has Iran’s confidence and they have their deals, regardless of who says what to Obama for Affekt. Western Civilization has been selling Islam anything for a price. European industries (French and German specifically) were in bed with Saddam Hussein selling biological and nuclear armaments despite UN decrees and their own nations’ proclamations.

Good post, Ed. Life ain’t fair. The Iranians need to take hold of their own existence, just as the Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis and Palestinians do. Problem being, as is, the West supports Islam, not the peoples of any particular locale. Intention is of no matter as results prove reality.