Bush Fulfills His Grandfather’s Dream

2007-07-31

Richard Moore

Original source URL:
http://countercurrents.org/swanson270707.htm

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream
By David Swanson
27 July, 2007
Afterdowningstreet.org

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 <a http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/

document/document_20070723.shtml aired on July 23rd 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 Bush¹s 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.

You can watch these videos too
ttp://video.google.com/videoplay?
docid=-6164809897767438853&pr=goog-sl
Also Watch this Video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?
docid=8795795223394289910
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