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.
Writings 
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. 
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