Profits at the Expense of Patriotism Is a Dangerous Game

by Lawrence Kadish
October 20, 2022 at 4:30 pm

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19009/profits-patriotism

Today's American mega-billionaires need to think long and hard about where their allegiances lie: perhaps reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before our nation's flag might be a good place to start.

If past history is any indication, their current corporate behavior will become their personal legacy illuminated under a harsh and revealing spotlight.

American industrial giants, General Motors and Ford, found that to be the case when lawyers dug through national archives in the 1990s and discovered documents that revealed how these two corporations had their German-based subsidies working hand-in-glove with the Nazi regime both before World War II and during the conflict.

Company spokesmen were quick to suggest that those firms were operating at a distance but researchers begged to differ. History records that there is reason to be skeptical of corporate "spin."

IBM also found itself being questioned about its business relationship with the Nazi regime. A 2002 report that found that its computing machines helped the Third Reich managing to commit mass murder on an industrial scale.

Today, social media founders such as Mark Zuckerberg need to think long and hard about their corporate relationships with countries such as China -- nations that seek to assume the role of a global superpower at the expense of the United States. Published reports reveal that Zuckerberg has long regarded China as a crucial market for his products, only to find that the Chinese may now be seeking to "out-Zuckerberg" him by developing their own online "virtual universe" – a massive undertaking that Zuckerberg has sought to introduce as his next very big (and presumably very profitable) venture.

What he and other corporate executives are learning is that profits at the expense of patriotism is a dangerous game to play. The dividends for such a strategy will eventually be revealed to all and history will ask, "At what price was your nation's future put at risk?"

Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.

© 2024 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

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14 Reader Comments

Ben Leuenberger • Oct 25, 2022 at 10:17

What we all need to recognize is that all these corporate leaders, a la Zuckerberg, Larry Page, etc. are all committed leftists or communists. Patriotism, especially in connection with USA is not a "value" in their understanding of the universe. I can only surmise that their reason of condoning their corporate behavior is that a) what they are doing is good and righteous, b) maximizing profits is to be pursued no matter what, c) Globalists will preserve their place in the sun, regardless of a world order dominated by Communist/Totalitarian forces or not. Therefore, we should not expect a change of mind in this respect by any of these despicable titans of industry.

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w. a. carr • Oct 21, 2022 at 09:17

Henry Ford was a major collaborator with Nazi Germany right until the Declaration of war after Pearl Harbor. He was even personally decorated by Hitler. He was of course a committed antisemite.

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cammo99 • Oct 21, 2022 at 08:54

We must pray that such people become fee from their worship of greed. The temple on the Hill where more millionaires gather in one place under one roof in a city that boasts more millionaires than anywhere else reside. It is unfair perhaps to blame the Zuckerbergs without including all who put money first as their God. My money says in God We Trust: To many only trust in their money.

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J. Maccabee • Oct 20, 2022 at 22:26

Yup, these giant wealthy corporations and individuals traded with Hitler for hell on Earth and profit. Scum like Prescott Bush--that would be U.S. Senator Bush? Father of H.W. Bush and grampy of W. Bush. Rich New England aristocrat Prescott was never prosecuted.

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Surdey Germain • Oct 20, 2022 at 21:04

All these big corporations tycoon are to be despised and they all should be in jail by now because of their corruption. They are morally unfit to do anything not to talk about giving us lessons.
They are the destroyers of our Western Society. And the US president and his administration are part of it !
Dire times are ahead of us !

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Bull Herman • Oct 20, 2022 at 20:45

US billionaires began whoring off the nation's wealth for short term gain in the 1980's. You can thank Michael Milkin and the beginnings of globalization for this. Think of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics when Ubberoth reached out to the Red Chinese. Or how Mexican Maquiladoras spread all along the Southern Border states. That was the beginning of US jobs being exported.
It became the corporate norm in the 1990's. The dismantling of the Iron Curtain encouraged more job exporting. By then, the Clintons had opened the spigot full force to Red Chinese takeover of US market forces.
Come 2000 we have Socialist teachers in high school and woke professors in colleges. Censorship and cancel culture is chic. Church, family values, and the Constitution are dirty icons of the past.
Now we have reached the peak. Will we drift over the edge fully embracing Socialism?

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oldguyincolorado • Oct 20, 2022 at 19:48

Excellent points. A good read about IBM is "IBM and the Holocaust" by Edwin Black (2001) published by Crown Publishing.

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James Brice • Oct 20, 2022 at 19:38

Sweden and Switzerland were countries that also cooperated with the Nazis during the war. Switzerland helped with German finances and gold transfers. Sweden sold steel to the Nazis. To be fair, both countries would have been easy for Germany to invade and conquer. At least some Jewish people managed to be saved by these countries during the war.

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Steven • Oct 20, 2022 at 19:17

Everything is for sale. Even our own government and those running it run to the sales counter at every opportunity.
Why attack business people when those in government can't wait to sell out the US, and often, not even to the highest bidder.
Rather than simple cash transactions, votes may be in the sales package.
It's amazing the US has lasted this long.
When you sell out your country, there's definitely no guarantees.
Actually, if it wasn't for the business community, the country likely would have collapsed long ago.

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Solomon • Oct 20, 2022 at 18:56

Profiteering brought destruction upon the Kingdom of Israel and the profiteers as it tore through morality and society. This it seems is the disease that is raging in the USA. Not only amongst the Captains of high tech and industry, but also Politicians and the media owned by conglomerates, self serving rather than cementing the national interest.. Profiteering is not Capitalism
A wake up call is overdue

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Woman of Steel • Oct 20, 2022 at 18:22

There are more important things than money. What a shame that in America's universities, they don't teach love of country anymore.

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M J Jones

Woman of Steel • Oct 21, 2022 at 03:23

Is love of one's country taught anywhere in the Western world these days? It certainly isn't in British universities where the emphasis is on shame for wrongs that happened hundreds of years ago eg. slave trading etc. Then there is gender changing, safe spaces for the distressed, trigger warnings that there might be something to upset the snowflakes who go to university these days. Let's get rid of Shakespeare, he's so old, stale and definitely too pale and so difficult to understand. Now they are all being taught not how to think, but what to think. Our present government and politicians are bad enough, but what are today's potential leaders going to be like? I hope to God there will be no war or we will have lost before a single bullet is fired. Patriotism has become a dirty word.

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Kate H Armstrong

M J Jones • Oct 22, 2022 at 10:29

In total agreement with you MJ Jones. We are today inhabiting the world described by George Orwell in his convincing prophesy - '1984'. A world of absolutism and total control, similar to Nazi Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union. How, in a much-vaunted 'democratic' West, was this permitted? Simple: secrecy and the political power entrusted to too many self-obsessed, Money and Power mad individuals. 'Patriotism'? Unknown to ambitious political climbers; such as they despise the ideal of Country or National Unity first. In the words of the poet Louis McNeice in 1939 as he viewed Hitler's Europe ... 'We are dying Egypt, dying' .... yet we keep voting the murderers into power?

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Mike Moore • Oct 20, 2022 at 17:33

Excellent analysis! You, sir, are a patriot and a gentleman.

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