I think the purpose is not entirely confirmed. Thing is - nobody actually forced them to specifically train neo-nazis groups. Those SS parades in Estonia? All it would take is a single call from Washington saying “Yo, stop giving us bad press” and they’ll stop. But it doesn’t happen. Of all the anti-communist, of all the nationalist groups, the ones that get propped up are those specifically with Nazi ties and Nazi symbolysm.
It’s a whole thing. “We started using shotguns, the Germans complained they were inhumane and said shotgunners would be executed on sight. So we said we’d start executing flamers and stuff, they shut up. Murica!”. It’s more meant to highlight the hypocrisy of calling for shotguns to be banned, while using flamethrowers and poison gas. Which is not entirely unreasonable
I can believe that. Another, non US example, is the massive mania for the supernatural in the post-perestroika USSR and post-soviet Russia. We had people “charging water” in front of a TV, we had people pay absurd money to go see the likes of Alan Chumak. Plus the re-emergence of church.
All of that promotes an idealistic view of the world and thus prevents material analysis
On the one hand - lol. On the other…
It does seem that this island isolation has installed in England a sense of invincibility. That they are safe and sound on that little island, free to invade whoever, without getting invaded themselves. Which is also one of the reasons Blitz and V-series bombs were such a horrible shock - suddenly the enemy could well reach the “cloudy Albion”. But of course after the Nazis got tied up in USSR and the threat relented, the furious sense of invincibility returned - as evidenced in the screenshot.
The same sense of invincibility, I would argue, was inherited by the USA. Bigger island, bigger guns, same chest thumping. Pearl Harbor was Yankee version of the blitz - a horrible insult to their self aggrandised worldview, an insult that had to be returned a hundredfold. To be reduced to the level of those dirty continentals, that can and do get invaded?! Unthinkable!
Now I am not sure where to go with this, exactly. But I do think it’s a phenomenon that is worth some examination.
Anecdotal, but my father’s a teacher and he noted this to be a disturbingly more frequent trend. The school he works at is quite popular among the various types with pretense at affluency in the city (i.e. regional ministers, businesspeople). And more and more often he notes this attitude of parents towards teachers - they are seen as hired servants, essentially. And are expected to do a lot of basically parenting duties in terms of upbringing. “Outsourcing the care” as this here ghoul put it. Needless to say, it screws up the kids.
Seems pretty standard. It’s a continuation of the “good” old “immigrants are taking our jobs”