Bush Fulfills His Grandfather’s Dream

By David Swanson, OpEdNews

 
It's remarkably common
for a grandson to take up his grandfather's major project. This occurred to me
when I read recently of Thor Heyerdahl's grandson taking up his mission to
cross the Pacific on a raft. But what really struck me was the BBC
story aired on July 23rd, 2007, documenting President George W. Bush's
grandfather's involvement in a 1933 plot to overthrow the U.S. government
and install a fascist dictatorship. I knew the story, but had not considered
the possibility that the grandson was trying to accomplish what his grandfather
had failed to achieve.
Prescott Sheldon Bush
(1895 to 1972) attended Yale
University and joined the
secret society known as Skull and Bones. Prescott
is widely reported to have stolen the skull of Native American leader Geronimo.
As far as I know, this has not actually been confirmed. In fact, Prescott seems to have
had a habit of making things up. He sent letters home from World War I claiming
he'd received medals for heroism. After the letters were printed in newspapers,
he had to retract his claims.
If this does not yet
sound like the life of a George W. Bush ancestor, try this on for size:
Prescott Bush's early business efforts tended to fail. He married the daughter
of a very rich man named George Herbert Walker (the guy with the compound at Kennebunkport, Maine,
that now belongs to the Bush family, and the origin of Dubya's middle initial).
Walker
installed Prescott Bush as an executive in Thyssen and Flick. From then on, Prescott's business
dealings went better, and he entered politics.
Now, the name Thyssen
comes from a German named Fritz Thyssen, major financial backer of the rise of
Adolph Hitler. Thyssen was referred to in the New York Herald-Tribune as
"Hitler's Angel." During the 1930s and early 1940s, and even as late
as 1951, Prescott Bush was involved in business dealings with Thyssen, and was
inevitably aware of both Thyssen's political activities and the fact that the
companies involved were financially benefiting the nation of Germany. In
addition, the companies Prescott Bush profited from included one engaged in
mining operations in Poland
using slave labor from Auschwitz. Two former
slave laborers have sued the U.S.
government and the heirs of Prescott Bush for $40 billion.
Until the United States entered World War II it was legal
for Americans to do business with Germany, but in late 1942 Prescott
Bush's businesses interests were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Among those businesses involved was the Hamburg America Lines, for which
Prescott Bush served as a manager. A Congressional committee, in a report
called the McCormack-Dickstein Report, found that Hamburg America Lines had
offered free passage to Germany
for journalists willing to write favorably about the Nazis, and had brought
Nazi sympathizers to America.
(Is this starting to remind anyone of our current president's relationship to
the freedom of the press?)
The McCormack-Dickstein
Committee was established to investigate a homegrown American fascist plot
hatched in 1933. Here's how the BBC promoted its recent story:
"Document uncovers
details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American
businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with
the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to
involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds
Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed
that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat
the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about
this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy."
Actually, if you listen
to the 30-minute BBC story, there is not one word of so much as speculation as
to why this story is so little known. I think a clue to the answer can be found
by looking into why this BBC report has not led to any U.S. media
outlets picking up the story this week.
The BBC report provides a
good account of the basic story. Some of the wealthiest men in America
approached Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, beloved of many World War
I veterans, many of them embittered by the government's treatment of them.
Prescott Bush's group asked Butler
to lead 500,000 veterans in a take-over of Washington and the White House. Butler refused and
recounted the affair to the congressional committee. His account was corroborated
in part by a number of witnesses, and the committee concluded that the plot was
real. But the names of wealthy backers of the plot were blacked out in the
committee's records, and nobody was prosecuted. According to the BBC, President
Roosevelt cut a deal. He refrained from prosecuting some of the wealthiest men
in America
for treason. They agreed to end Wall Street's opposition to the New Deal.
Clearly the lack of
accountability in Washington, D.C., did not begin with Nancy Pelosi taking
Dubya's impeachment off the table, or with Congress' decision to avoid
impeachment for President Ronald Reagan (a decision that arguably played a
large role in installing Prescott Bush's son George H.W. Bush as president), or
with the failure to investigate the apparent deal that George H.W. Bush and
others made with Iran to not release American hostages until Reagan was made
president, or with the failure to prosecute Richard Nixon after he resigned.
Lack of accountability is a proud tradition in our nation's capital. Or maybe I
should say our former nation's capital. I don't recognize the place anymore,
and I credit that to George W. Bush's efforts to fulfill his grandfather's
dream using far subtler and more effective means than a military coup.
Bush the grandson took
office through a highly fraudulent election that he nonetheless lost. The
Supreme Court blocked a recount of the vote and installed Dubya.
Prescott's grandson proceeded to weaken or
eliminate most of the Bill of Rights in the name of protection from a dark
foreign enemy. He even tossed out habeas corpus. The grandson of Prescott, that
dreamer of the 1930s, established with very little resistance that the U.S. government
can kidnap, detain indefinitely on no charge, torture, and murder. The United States under
Prescott Bush's grandson adopted policies that heretofore had been considered
only Nazi policies, most strikingly the willingness to openly plan and engage
in aggressive wars on other nations.
At the same time, Dubya
has accomplished a huge transfer of wealth within the United States
from the rest of us to the extremely wealthy. He's also effected a major
privatization of public operations, including the military. And he's kept tight
control over the media.
Dubya has given himself
the power to rewrite all laws with signing statements. He's established that
intentionally misleading the Congress about the need for a war is not a crime
that carries any penalty. He's given himself the right (just as Hitler did) to
open anyone's mail. He's created illegal spying programs and then proposed to
legalize them. Prescott
would be so proud!
The current President
Bush has accomplished much more smoothly than his grandfather could have
imagined a feat that was one of the goals of Prescott's gang, namely the elimination of
Congress.