[PAA-Discuss] Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream

[Sarah Gonzales]

I urge you to listen to the BBC documentary that was aired just last  
week - simply jaw dropping. Real Player is required. This documentary  
details the actions of several wealthy, right wing businessmen who in  
the 1930's plotted to take over the US government and the Whitehouse  
in an effort to install a fascist dictatorship. The most interesting  
individual brought to light is none other than Prescott Bush  
(grandaddy Bush). I have known for a long time about Prescott Bush's  
business seizures due to his personal and business related financial  
support of Hitler, but couldn't find sources of information I would  
consider to be credible. But I for one, consider the BBC to be  a  
credible information source.

Warning - this will make you very angry if you haven't already had  
your temper flared yet today.

	http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

A US Congressional committee was formed to investigate the  
allegations and detailed information on the history and findings of  
the committee are below.
The McCormack-Dickstein Committee was the first House Committee On Un- 
American Activities (HUAC).
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack-Dickstein_Committee

In their final report, the Congressional committee supported General  
Butler's claims on the existence of the plot, but no prosecutions or  
further investigations followed, and the matter was mostly forgotten.  
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.

Below is a commentary on the documentary and of course, to date, no  
US media outlet has picked up the story - perhaps we can DO something  
about that.

Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream
by David Swanson | Jul 28 2007 - 2:01pm
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/9012

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  
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.
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