Program Information

Michael Parenti: FUNCTIONS OF FASCISM & REAL CAUSES OF WW II

Series:

Subtitle:

Parts three and four of a four part series

Program Type:

Commentary

Featured Speakers/Commentators:

Michel Parenti

Contributor:

Maria Gilardin Contact Contributor

Date Published:

Nov. 12, 2005, 6:22 p.m.

Summary: Who financed the Fascists of the 30s? Many measures enacted by fascists were similar to those enacted n the US today. In his talk on WWII Parenti shows how the West supported Hitler's rise to power in order to use him against the USSR.

Credits:

Notes: Part three/four
THE FUNCTIONS OF FASCISM
Parenti says that fascism is a new order and consciousness that served the same old power structure and promised to solve the ills of the many while protecting the interests of the few. He answers in detail who financed the Fascist parties and what services the fascists rendered in return. Many of the measures enacted by fascists were frighteningly similar to those enacted today: They include the privatization of state owned enterprises, reduction of corporate taxes and inheritance taxes, defeat of unions, and the suspension of civil liberties.

Part four/four
THE REAL CAUSES OF WORLD WAR II
Who inside Germany was resisting the rise of Hitler and why were they not supported by Britain and France? Why did the Western Allies allow Hitler to take over Austria and Czechoslovakia? Why did Britain and France refuse to enter an anti fascist alliance with the Soviet Union? Why did Britain and France do nothing while Hitler conquered Denmark and Norway even though they had finally already declared war against Germany in 1939. The West, says Parenti, saw Hitler as a bulwark against communism and the Soviet Union and were hoping that the two countries would bleed each other white.

Michael Parenti is among our leading progressive political analysts. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1962 and has taught at colleges in the US and abroad. The focus of his lectures is American democracy, US foreign policy, and the invented reality of the media.

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