Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathizer.

[Nye Bevan]

In many threads which reference Nazi Germany some DUer brings up Prescott Bush's "Nazi ties" or claims that he was actually a Nazi.

Here is what the Anti-Defamation League has to say about this:

Rumors about the alleged Nazi "ties" of the late Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, have circulated widely through the Internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated.

Despite some early financial dealings between Prescott Bush and a Nazi industrialist named Fritz Thyssen (who was arrested by the Nazi regime in 1938 and imprisoned during the war), Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathizer.

http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/cyber-safety/c/internet-rumors/prescott-bushs-alleged-nazi.html

[morningfog]

1. Interesting you find the need to defend bushes.

Not surprising, but interesting. Fuck nazi Prescott bush.

[Nye Bevan]

5. Ooooh, a DUer "defended a Bush". Ooooh, how "interesting".

Let's snidely "thank him for his concern"! Aren't I so clever?

[morningfog]

9. Not clever at all. When considered in context of

your posting history, it is wholly unsurprising. I'm just surprised you didn't find a way to bring some racist angle into it yet.

[Nye Bevan]

14. Oh noes! A "Bush defender" and a "racist"! Why has that DUer not been banned?????? (nt)

[morningfog]

15. Beats the hell out of me.

[panzerfaust]

54. Perhaps because there are still enough people on DU who believe in freedom of speech?

Not that this is a situation which will of necessity long continue.

My own thought is that there is ample evidence (see my posts on this, and other threads) that Bush was, at minimum, a NAZI sympathizer. It is certainly a matter of historical record that several companies in which he held directorship were seized for trading with the enemy when we were at war with NAZI Germany.

However, I have always found that I learn more by engaging in discourse with those with whom I disagree than by listening only to those whose opinion is the same as mine.



It will not be surprising to me if such a shocking view will be banned from view by Jury Decision.

[treestar]

64. Bushes just want to make money

Also, it is hindsight to claim people knew what the Nazis would become before it happened.

I hate Bushes as much as any other Republicans, but they would not have been Nazi sympathizers. They don't come off as racist in that sense as other Republicans do. What they want is money and there was some to be made at the time.

[grasswire]

75. I don't believe the Bushes just want to make money.

They are mostly interested in being TPTB along with their Skull & Bones brotherhood -- the pullers of the levers, and they want to perpetuate the dynasty. They are influenced by Malthus and Hegel. They have dabbled in eugenics and have supported population control for the "lesser" groups of human beings. George Herbert Walker Bush, as a congressman, was so over the moon for population control for those groups that his fellows nicknamed him "Rubbers" -- a moniker he hated.

[treestar]

63. Your posting history indicates a complete lack of objectivity

on certain matters, too.

It is so interesting that people find themselves OK to judge something they are doing too.

It has been pretty consistent which posters are on which side, so this idea that it's somehow wrong to stay on a side coming from someone who always stays on their side is hilarious.

[sabrina 1]

31. Well thank the gods you didn't try to defend Ron Paul who has killed and tortured tens of thousands

of innocent people, the Bushes as we all know, are upstanding Patriotic Americans despite dealing with Hitler financially even after the beginning of WW11 to the point where we now have seen the record of those activities.

But Ron Paul, that's a different story. He's no Ari Fleischer, or Peter King or Clapper or any other upstanding Republicans who are being praised for their support of the Surveillance of Americans.

Fuck Ron Paul.

All hail to the Bushes and Fleischer and King and Clapper and even Cheney bless his heart, well, bless whatever they planted in him to keep him going.

Today I saw on DU, defenses of the Bushes, Peter King, Clapper. What next, Fox 'News' is a great American news channel?

[delrem]

33. Nicely put.

[CreekDog]

32. You defended Thatcher too, ohhh, how "interesting"

[Chan790]

59. How does one...

name themselves after Aneurin Bevan...one of the great Labour leaders of the 20th century, a man who declared himself the mortal enemy of Winston Churchill and Conservatism...and go on to defend Thatcher and Bushes? The intellectual disconnect is astounding. I think our less-than-esteemed faux-Welsh-Labour-leader is taking the piss...or he's taking the name of people he does not understand.



A biography for anybody who wants to read more about a politician we all should look up to: http://www.nyebevan.org.uk/biography/

[Ohio Joe]

62. Thanks

I'm sorry to say, I had never heard of this man before. I appreciate the info

[treestar]

65. So you are saying that as long as an accusation is aimed at Thatcher or the Bushes

it must be true? If I call Bush a pedophile then it must be true and any attempt to deny that is defending Bush and thus suspicious?

[CreekDog]

66. Nye Bevan (the DUer, not the man) wrongly said that Thatcher didn't support illegal wars

recently, to defend her upon her death.

he's being criticized for wrongly defending the wrong things that Tory has done.

and conservatives across the board.

[HardTimes99]

96. OT somewhat, but (channeling my inner LBJ here) I'd dearly love to hear

Bush deny he's a pedophile

[CreekDog]

67. Simple. By naming himself that, if one googles for the name

one gets a lot of liberal stuff.

of course, the liberal stuff is not the work of "Nye Bevan" the DUer, but of the man himself.

[Occulus]

99. It's the same thing with DUers who have "dem" and "liberal" and "leftist" and "Obama"

in their screen names.

More often than not, they're anything but.

People still are fooled.

This site has been infested and will not last long as it is. The POS jury system had fully compromised DU. This is not an opinion. This is a point of fact, and is borne out by objective observation.

[cali]

39. fuck that. I despise the bushes but I like facts more than I despise them.

and it's evident that the bush/nazi stuff is way overdone.

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=102;t=000448;p=0

<snip>

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

<snip>

According to journalist Joe Conason, Prescott Bush's involvement with UBC was purely commercial and he was not a Nazi sympathizer.[9] The Anti-Defamation League[10] and historian Herbert Parmet[7] agreed with that assessment.

<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescott_Bush#Business_career

You want to insinuate the I'm some right wing nazi sympathizer, have the hell at it, but let's see you counter my citations with some of your own.

[Swagman]

43. "According to journalist Joe Conason, Prescott Bush's involvement with UBC was purely commercial"

killing for profit.

[cali]

46. yes. killing for profit. no different than the thousands upon thousands of U.S.

businessmen (and women) who do that daily now. reprehensible? Undoubtedly. but not singular and not some goosestepping nazi that some people here seem to need him to be.

[panzerfaust]

48. Bush continued as director of several NAZI front companies even after we were at war with Germany

These companies were finally seized for trading with the enemy. I suppose one could argue, as you apparently do, that such "purely commercial" support of the most horrific crimes the world has ever seen is just fine.

Oddly, the US Congress saw it differently and

On October 20, 1942, under authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, the U.S. Congress seized UBC and liquidated its assets after the war. The seizure is confirmed by Vesting Order No. 248 in the U.S. Office of the Alien Property Custodian and signed by U.S. Alien Property Custodian Leo T. Crowley.

In August, under the same authority, Congress had seized the first of the Bush-Harriman-managed Thyssen entities, Hamburg-American Line, under Vesting Order No. 126, also signed by Crowley. Eight days after the seizure of UBC, Congress invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act again to take control of two more Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses - Holland-American Trading Corp. (Vesting Order No. 261) and Seamless Steel Equipment Corp. (Vesting Order No. 259).

From ... http://rense.com/general42/bshnazi.htm

I also think it quite likely that Bush was one of the capitalist cabal who planned a Fascist-leaning coup to replace FDR in 1933 - only to be stopped by the amazing Marine General Smedley Butler who they had picked as the country's new leader.

Here are two books which should be studied in every US history class:

War is a Racket: The Profit Motive Behind Warfare by General Butler

The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR by Jules Archer

[Ian David]

58. You win. n/t

[hack89]

109. Rense? And John Buchanan? Some industrial strength CT woo there. nt

[Douglas Carpenter]

121. your source rense.com is on the most extreme end of batshit crazy, crackpot conspiracy theorist site

Jeff Rense is an American conspiracy theorist and radio talk-show host of the Jeff Rense Program, broadcast on US satellite radio via the Rense Radio Network and Internet radio.[1]

Rense's radio program and website, Rense.com, cover subjects such as 9/11 conspiracy theories,[2] UFO reporting, paranormal phenomena, Holocaust denial,[3] Zionism, tracking of new diseases and possible resultant pandemics, environmental concerns (see chemtrails), animal rights, possible evidence of advanced ancient technology, geopolitical developments and emergent energy technologies, complementary and alternative medicine among other subjects.

Rense's show has been accused of being among "conspiracy-oriented Internet radio shows that often feature antisemites and extremists" by the Anti-Defamation League.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Rense

http://rense.com/

[treestar]

61. lol could it be just an attempt to be objective

and not to exaggerate claims into untruth?

[Electric Monk]

2. Why would you try and defend the BFEE patriarch here?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

[Nye Bevan]

6. Because the use of cliched falsehoods that have been debunked multiple times bores me (nt)

[morningfog]

11. Bores you such much you start a thread about it?

Lol, you're letting your mask slip on this one.

[MrMickeysMom]

34. Looks like you fly swatted it!

Guess they buzzed away cause they couldn't answer it... Hmm....

[Occulus]

101. WHAT mask?

This one's been obvious from day one, and if we had mods instead of fully-compromised juries, he'd have been gone in his first week.

[GreenStormCloud]

137. There were mods on DU back in 2004.

If the "he'd have been gone" that you are talking about the Nye Bevan guy, he has been a DU member since 2004. The mods passes him for a bunch of years.

[Behind the Aegis]

12. Actually, the article EM provides debunks the "P. Bush is a Nazi", as well.

Which makes me wonder why he used that article, given your OP.

[Douglas Carpenter]

3. that's true he was not. One can despise the Bush family or some of the Bush family without making

up stuff that is not true

[Electric Monk]

8. FFS, his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act

nt

[Rex]

13. And before Fritz Thyssen was arrested, he helped Hilter rise to power

and Prescott worked right along side of him. BUT HEY, no big deal about that. The OP wants to play the stupid game, so we can play since a lot is left out by the ADL.

[cali]

41. and so did thousands upon thousands of U.S. business men

we don't tend to talk about it here but Joseph Kennedy was 100x more the Nazi sympathizer than Prescott. Does that make John or Robert or Teddy any the less democratic heroes? No. Does the fact that Prescott wasn't a Nazi sympathizer make shrub any less the dismal little warmongering toady of the 1%? Of course not?

For fuck's sake.

[TheKentuckian]

74. I guess one can climb up on a cross for accuracy but do keep in mind that

the defense of being so greedy that you don't give a fuck if it is NAZIs that are bringing in the money isn't really one, it kinda puts you even lower than a NAZI. No matter how twisted and evil, at least they have some form of principle and wicked objectives to reach.

"He was just in it for the money" seems to even more hollow to me, not an elevated status. Completely devoid of even twisted honor, mindless avarice and soulless entropy.

Not an improvement to me, the potential to sink to anything as the "cost of doing business" is even more boundless the ideological sort who at least operate on their own framework.

A distinction with the difference of being able to actually be more pervasive and bound to nothing save Mammon. This is the sort that would never find bottom if wealth and power are at stake and in pursuit of them would do more evil than any ideological nightmare ever could over a much more sustainable period.
Both groups are full blown sociopaths so it really doesn't matter who is marginally worse for the purpose of the discussion.

[reusrename]

87. This thread was tweaking my jaw until I got to your post which provides clarity.

He was to amoral to be a good Nazi.

He kept stealing the soap.

[HiPointDem]

84. bush had direct financial ties to the financial angel of the nazi party. kennedy had no revealed

financial ties to any nazi entity.

he was reportedly anti-semitic & ran with the 'cliveden set' while he was us ambassador.

not sure why funding the party is not equivalent to 'sympathy,' or why funding it without having 'sympathy' is less culpable than funding it with 'sympathy'.

No further action was ever taken nor was the investigation continued, despite the fact UBC was caught red-handed operating a American shell company for the Thyssen family eight months after America had entered the war and that this was the bank that had partly financed Hitler's rise to power.

The most tantalising part of the story remains shrouded in mystery: the connection, if any, between Prescott Bush, Thyssen, Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC) and Auschwitz.

Thyssen's partner in United Steel Works, which had coal mines and steel plants across the region, was Friedrich Flick, another steel magnate who also owned part of IG Farben, the powerful German chemical company.

The US National Archive documents show that BBH's involvement with CSSC was more than simply holding the shares in the mid-1930s. Bush's friend and fellow "bonesman" Knight Woolley, another partner at BBH, wrote to Averill Harriman in January 1933 warning of problems with CSSC after the Poles started their drive to nationalise the plant. "The Consolidated Silesian Steel Company situation has become increasingly complicated, and I have accordingly brought in Sullivan and Cromwell, in order to be sure that our interests are protected," wrote Knight. "After studying the situation Foster Dulles is insisting that their man in Berlin get into the picture and obtain the information which the directors here should have. You will recall that Foster is a director and he is particularly anxious to be certain that there is no liability attaching to the American directors."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

There is also some debate about kennedy's purported 'sympathy' with the nazis. at least one of his biographers says it ain't so:

http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/01/09/david-nasaw-author-of-the-patriarch

[Douglas Carpenter]

91. what we see is the same sort of conspiracy theorist logic that proclaims Barack Hussein Obama

is both a Marxist and a Muslim. Basically one starts from the premise that they don't like the person and assumes the absolute worse about them and any of their associations. In the world that Barack Obama grew up in and in the world of members of his immediate and extended family - what are the possibilities that he would have been around any number of Muslims and Marxist including some people who went on to believe in political Islam or support Marxist political movements? About as likely as anyone raised and deeply involved in the Irish American community would be exposed to Noraid/Sinn Fein/IRA supporters and sympathizers - in other words about 100% - Someone working at the pinnacle of New York international industrial investment in the 1920's and the 1930's - what are the possibility that they would have some business dealings with German Industrialist? What are the possibilities that some of those German Industrialist would have at least some business connections with the German Nazi movement?

But its is very hard to argue with conspiracy theorist because connections can always found. And if someone doesn't like the person to begin with and are looking for nasty things to believe about them - it is easy enough to do. George Herbert Walker Bush did more to degrade and debase American domestic politics more than just about anyone else in living memory. His idiot son went on to cause more harm to America than almost anyone else I can ever think of in all our history. But were the Bush's Nazis, Nazi sympathizers or Nazi collaborators? Only in the sense and probably less so than the Harriman's and the Kennedy's. Which means no - that statement is simply not looking at history fairly or realistically.

[HardTimes99]

98. Well put and argued. I would go even further and say that false accusations

against the Bush clan tend to dilute the seriousness of those accusations that have actual merit, like taking us to war by committing fraud upon the American people (Bush) or explicitly violating the Geneva conventions by authorizing torture (Cheney).

[Rex]

130. What a strange thing to post.

George Prescott Bush helped fund Hitlers rise to power, you have a problem with that?

[Occulus]

102. This is what happens when the community decides what's acceptable and the rules are so fluid.

The jury system is and will remain a fatal mistake for this site.

[Nye Bevan]

123. I think the jury system is great.

I posted for several years under the old system (mods) as well as under the jury system since the start of DU3. And I definitely prefer the jury system (even though I have been the victim of bad jury hides on a couple of occasions).

Also, I believe that DU3 is very effective at dispatching trolls (the real kind, as opposed to the OMG THIS GUY DISAGREES WITH ME HE'S OBVIOUSLY A TROLL kind).

[cali]

40. +1. I love people who stand up for facts even when they don't fit their world view.

[MelungeonWoman]

4. As long as the end result is capitalism,

EVERYTHING else is okay.


kthxbuy.

[Rex]

7. But before he was arrested.

Ya he worked for a fella that helped Hitler rise to power.

[backscatter712]

10. Oh, that's right. He only attempted a coup d'etat against FDR in the Business Plot.

And he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for that meddling Smedley Butler!

[markiv]

17. Smedley Butler great hero

Smedley Butler on Interventionism
-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

[MannyGoldstein]

16. But he was a leader of an attempted coup against FDR

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

[mattclearing]

18. Without getting into the actual issue...

I think it's amusing how those two paragraphs are the entirety of the link. No further info, no documentation. Just the assertion as fact.

[davekriss]

30. I too find it amusing

There is nothing there in the ADL page. It simply states Prescott was not a nazi nor nazi sympathizer but offers no evidence to help us see their assertions as true. The page is not worth the pixels its written on. There's nothing there.

[panzerfaust]

49. And for the rest of the story ...

War is a Racket: The Profit Motive Behind Warfare by General Butler

The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR by Jules Archer

How far along the conspiracy was, how committed, how large, how likely of success are all open to question.

However there is no doubt that many prominent Americans and American companies openly supported Fascism in Italy, Germany and Spain - among them: William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Kennedy, Henry Ford (portions of whose The International Jew: The World's Problem Hitler incorporated into Mein Kampf), Charles Lindbergh, John Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon (At the time Secretary of Treasury), DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil (Today's Exxon), ITT (Forbes 2008 pick as "America's Best Managed Company&quot and General Electric as well as many others.

At root, in a democracy, one can hold whatever beliefs one wishes. However when, as in the case of Bush, one actively trades with a nation with which we are at war a line must be drawn, as it was with Bush's companies.

Bush did not cease in his directorship of several NAZI front companies, nor did he direct that these companies break off trade with our enemies - it was left to the US Congress to seize these companies for trading with the enemy.

How this is consistent with Bush NOT being at least a NAZI sympathizer is beyond my understanding.

[mattclearing]

60. Thanks for this.

I've read a few versions of the story, but was wary of being drawn into a debate. In my experience, when a blanket assertion is made without supporting evidence or even basic justification, generally the facts do not favor the statement being made.

[SoCalDem]

77. I think this escapade had a LOT to do with GHWB "going patriot" as young as he did

during WWII.. Al Gore possibly did the same when his daddy (also a preeminent senator) had some "trouble".

Neither of these two young men "had" to go to war, but it did assuage some of the angst their fathers were undergoing....and helped to burnish the family legacy.


....the sins of the father... and all that entails

[HiPointDem]

85. i don't think his private beliefs matter; he helped fund the party & hide nazi assets. if he

did so without being a 'sympathizer' it's almost worse.

[HooptieWagon]

19. True...Nazi Colloberator is more accurate.

He had holdings in a German Steel Co that used slave labor from Auschwitz. He had assets seized by the US govt in 1942 under the Trading With The Enemy Act. Laundered gold for top Nazis.
http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

Then there also were his ties to the attempted coup d'etat of the US govt... attempted overthrow of FDR's presidency...broken up by Gen Smedly Butler (whistle-blower).

[Progressive dog]

20. Prescott Bush is dead, it really doesn't matter except as history

His son and his grandson have left there own legacies. As bad as they were, they didn't inherit a Nazi gene.

[factsarenotfair]

22. History matters.

And NO ONE said that they "inherited a Nazi gene."

[Progressive dog]

23. I said matter except as history, not history doesn't matter

and my reference to a Nazi gene was to emphasize that it only mattered as history.

[HiPointDem]

86. the past is present. so 'only as history' is just crap. history is now; we are history.

[Progressive dog]

111. Unusual interpretation but meaningless to the discussion

[HiPointDem]

114. it's not unusual at all, nor is it meaningless to the discussion. the present is the product of

past actions, thoughts, feelings. to understand today, you have to understand the past.

no such thing as 'just history'.

[Progressive dog]

116. Not in a sense that relates to the OP in my view

Whether GWB's grandpa was or was not a "Nazi sympathizer" has bearing on what GW Bush is.

[aquart]

28. Deflection. It isn't the nature, it's the nurture.

They were brought up that way.

[sabrina 1]

35. They inherited the money he made dealing with the Nazis.

[Swagman]

44. yes and it's called 'blood money' for a damned good reason

and despite them not inheriting a 'nazi gene' they carry on regardless as though they might have.

[Progressive dog]

56. Yes they did and that's one of the reason's

we need a much higher inheritance tax on large accumulations of wealth, an income tax that doesn't favor capital over labor, and a steeper progression to the income tax. We have to stop all the plutocrats, not just the Bushes.

[hlthe2b]

21. Unbelievable...

[Electric Monk]

24. Oh, is this thread in response to William Pitt's thread earlier quoting Hunter S Thompson?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023019807

WilliamPitt (54,565 posts)

"It would be easy to say that we owe it all to the Bush family from Texas..."
"...but that would be too simplistic. They are only errand boys for the vengeful, bloodthirsty cartel of raving Jesus-freaks and super-rich money mongers who have ruled for at least the last 20 years, and arguably the last 200 years. They take orders well, and they don’t ask too many questions. The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees, except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don’t mind admitting it. They worship money and power and death. Their ideal solution to all the nation’s problems would be another 100 Year War. Coming of age in a fascist police state will not be a barrel of fun for anybody, much less for people like me, who are not inclined to suffer Nazis gladly and feel only contempt for the cowardly flag-suckers who would gladly give up their outdated freedom to live for the mess of pottage they have been conned into believing will be freedom from fear. Ho ho ho. Let’s not get carried away here. Freedom was yesterday in this country. Its value has been discontinued. The only freedom we truly crave today is freedom from Dumbness. Nothing else matters."

- Hunter S. Thompson

Hmmmm....

[villager]

38. No wonder that set off the OP -- Thompson called out "the cowardly flag-suckers!"

..."who would gladly give up their outdated freedom..."

[panzerfaust]

51. Gonzo journalism at its best.

[Trajan]

25. Just what we need in DU ... Bush Apologists ...

You are quite a piece of work ....

[aquart]

26. So what were those legal troubles? Prescott spit on a sidewalk?

[Jamastiene]

29. This looks interesting.

[Behind the Aegis]

37. More interesting is the anti-Semitic site being used to "prove" the OP is false.

Which it doesn't actually do. IMO, the OP is true, it doesn't mean P. Bush is a good guy, quite the contrary, he was a rancid POS that, like his legacies, collaborated with a number of vile peoples in order to turn a quick buck, even at the expense of his own nation.

[Swagman]

45. let's face it : most nazis were probably not really nazis...

they just enjoyed the killing and mayhem and the camaraderie of like-minded because it seemed OK to them.

[HiPointDem]

88. what anti-semitic site?

[Behind the Aegis]

92. rense.com

[HiPointDem]

94. where is it cited in this thread?

[Behind the Aegis]

95. Really? Right below where you just posted! Now below my post!

[HiPointDem]

97. ok. i see, thanks.

[H2O Man]

134. wishing I could

recommend your post

[mbperrin]

36. Perhaps a more factual look would help.

http://rense.com/general42/bshnazi.htm

National Archives Prove
George W. Bush's Grandfather Traded
with Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor
By John Buchanan
Exclusive to The New Hampshire Gazette
10-10-3

[Swagman]

42. Fritz Thyssen was an avid Nazi supporter and funded them but was arrested

when he realised he had made a terrible mistake.

The Thyssen name is not very popular amongst older NewYorkers.

[nebenaube]

107. It's not limited to NY either...

The old Germans I knew growing up didn't care for the name either as one of them pointed out the name on a bag of commissary chicken and made a crack about it.

[cali]

47. So was Averell Harriman a Nazi? If Prescott was than surely he was too, right?

is that none of those who go on about it and point to his ties to Brown Brothers Harriman, care to follow the Harriman part of the story.

While Averell Harriman served as Senior Partner of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., Harriman Bank was the main Wall Street connection for German companies and the varied U.S. financial interests of Fritz Thyssen, who had been an early financial backer of the Nazi party until 1938, but who by 1939 had fled Germany and was bitterly denouncing Adolf Hitler. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act (enacted 6 October 1917), business transactions for profit with Nazi Germany were illegal when Hitler declared war on the United States. On October 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City.[4]

The Harriman business interests seized under the act in October and November 1942 included:[citation needed]

Union Banking Corporation (UBC) (from Thyssen and Brown Brothers Harriman)
Holland-American Trading Corporation (from Harriman)
Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation (from Harriman)
Silesian-American Corporation (this company was partially owned by a German entity; during the war the Germans tried to take the full control of Silesian-American. In response to that, American government seized German owned minority shares in the company, leaving the U.S. partners to carry on the portion of the business in the United States.)

The assets were held by the government for the duration of the war, then returned afterward; UBC was dissolved in 1951.
World War II diplomacy

Harriman was a candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 1952, and again in 1956 when he was endorsed by Truman but lost (both times) to Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson. Harriman was generally considered to be on the left or liberal wing of the Democratic party, hence his losing out to the more moderate Stevenson.

His presidential ambitions defeated, Harriman became a widely respected elder statesman of the party. In January 1961, he was appointed Ambassador at Large in the Kennedy administration, a position he held until November, when he became Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs. In December 1961, Anatoliy Golitsyn defected from the Soviet Union and accused Harriman of being a Soviet spy, but his claims were dismissed by the CIA and Harriman remained in his position until April 1963, when he became Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He retained that position through the transition to the Lyndon Johnson administration until March 1965 when he again became Ambassador at Large. He held that position for the remainder of Johnson's presidency. Harriman was the chief U.S. negotiator at the Paris peace talks on Vietnam.

[HiPointDem]

89. harriman also did business with nazis and helped hide nazi assets. what difference do his private

'sympathies' make, since we all know that US allies/enemies change with the political weather?

he helped fund the nazis & helped hide their assets.

[Rex]

131. Seems some here cannot stand it when someone types the truth.

Prescott Bush helped fund Hitlers rise to power...funny how some here cannot stand the truth being typed out.

[dipsydoodle]

50. But he did trade with the enemy

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

[David__77]

52. I encourage everyone to thoroughly study the putrid history of the Bush family.

And to draw their own conclusions.

[cap]

53. If he was truly on the up and up

why are the documents detailing his companies involvement with Nazi Germany a secret?

Why was the Congressional investigation squashed and its documents sealed?

It's been over 50 years. Usually secret documents start to get declassified at this time. Why not these? It would surely support your claim, or not.

[hobbit709]

55. worse, he was a profiteer. and should have been charged under The Trading With The Enemy Act.

[trumad]

57. Funny about DU

It's always---and I mean always the same folks who come into a thread like this and defend a very shaky OP that defends shitbirds like Prescott Bush.

We've got one defender who is yelling---hey---it's a fact, it's a fact--- so how dare you disagree----then others pop in to pretty much demolish that fact---but to no avail---it's still a fact in the mind of the Prescott defender---so we're all wrong.

Then of course you have the history of someone who posts a Prescott Bush love OP.

Let me tell you something you silent trolls---- Most DU'ers know you are trolls..... it's just that you are just good enough to hang on at DU.

[Nye Bevan]

69. As Eleanor Roosevelt said,

"Great minds discuss ideas. Small minds discuss people".

[trumad]

72. And as trumad said--

defend a POS like Prescott Bush and you are a douchebag.

nuff said.

[Junkdrawer]

68. Does this mean the "2 terms and switch parties" rule is still in effect?

We gotta suffer Jeb for 8 years? Fuck.

[Iggo]

70. Yes he was.

[Octafish]

71. He wasn't in uniform, but he shared many NAZI goals.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6843822

[summerschild]

118. I've been sitting here reading this thread thinking "Where's Octafish when you need him?!!"

[Octafish]

124. Wall Street and MIComplex meets NAZIs, Mafia, Eugenicists, Big Oil...

When Iran was a democracy, Prescott Bush was sad.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2596898

Thanks, Summerschild. Going after the BFEE is police work.

[summerschild]

125. You never cease to amaze!

When you post, I have to read every word and every link! I always learn!

Thanks for your valuable input, Octafish!

[H2O Man]

136. Seconded!

He is DU's best.

[zappaman]

73. Fuck that whole family.

Couldn't care less if he was a nazi or not.
Still a major douchebag.

[elfin]

76. Looks like the Jebbies are trying to clean up the past

Starting with great gramps in order to clear the decks for 2016.

Next up rehabbing the rest of his family including wife and kids. Supporters need an early start - there is so much to tidy up.

[summerschild]

119. I watched them rewrite Wikipedia for months in advance of 2004 elections

cleaning up ALL the bushy-tales, including Gramps. And PNAC too. They were some busy little bees!

[Aristus]

78. Rumor alone is sufficient proof of guilt.

The republicans taught me that.

[Soundman]

79. The Bush family was run out of Ohio or a reason! n/t

[HiPointDem]

80. well, i guess if the adl says so, we must believe. even though whatever his *beliefs,* he was

clearly doing business with nazis.

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

By the late 1930s, Brown Brothers Harriman... and UBC had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal and US treasury bonds to Germany, both feeding and financing Hitler's build-up to war.

Between 1931 and 1933 UBC bought more than $8m worth of gold, of which $3m was shipped abroad. According to documents seen by the Guardian, after UBC was set up it transferred $2m to BBH accounts and between 1924 and 1940 the assets of UBC hovered around $3m, dropping to $1m only on a few occasions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

also, thyssen was not arrested in 1938, but in 1941, after he'd fled to france.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/68276289

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/594746/Thyssen-family

so if the adl gets such a simple & public fact wrong their scholarship on other matters isn't worth much.

[madrchsod]

81. really? the bush family? shit they were nothing compared to the koch family

http://www.auschwitz.dk/Women/Koch.htm

http://unknownjournal.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/%E2%96%BC-report-the-kochs-their-nazi-past-american-oil-the-foundation-of-republican-ideology/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Koch

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/does-it-surprise-you-to-discover-that-the-kochs-have-a-nazi-past/question-3348581/?link=ibaf&q=koch+family+ww2

this is the family that runs the republican party. their intent is to turn this country into a one party state.

[HiPointDem]

82. There is no connection between the american koch family and ilse koch whatsoever.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022193577

[HooptieWagon]

105. Koch is a common German surname.

The litteral translation being "Cook". I would think there are as many Kochs in Germany as there are Cooks in the US. In fact, some Cooks in the US changed their name from Koch when they immigrated in the 1800s.

[HiPointDem]

115. the american kochs came to the US from Netherlands in the 1880s. They're nothing to do

with ilse koch, eric koch, or any german koch unless the connection is way back in history, & i know this because i did the genealogy.

[Initech]

83. He did attempt to overthrow the FDR presidency for a fascist corporatocracy.

Sometimes I wonder if they succeeded:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plot

[Lint Head]

90. Doesn't negate the fact that George W Bush is a torturing and murdering war criminal who

should be in prison along with Condi Rice, Rumsfeld and Dick "The Prick" Cheney. Here's a book that gives the evidence as opposed to internet speculation.

[NightWatcher]

93. Don't worry, you can go vote for Jeb in 2016

Till then let's not defend what the bushes may or may not have done 70+ years ago.

[jmowreader]

100. If I remember correctly...

I don't have a link for this, and the recollection is a bit hazy, but Shrub's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships apparently told the ADL it had to announce Prescott Bush wasn't a Nazi sympathizer before they would be eligible for funding. We talked about it on either DU1 or DU2.

[Electric Monk]

103. Hmm...

[nebenaube]

108. Yes..

And if one thinks that shrub didn't scrub the record they are nuts.

[nebenaube]

104. Bullshit...

I knew about it before the Internet even existed.

[intaglio]

106. So he was not part of the plot to overthrow Roosevelt?

Or was Smedley Butler a liar?

[hack89]

112. You need to look every closely at sources for this story

Butler never specifically implicated Bush in his testimony in front of Congress.

The "coup" was widely viewed at the time as a hoax.

Rense, Prison planet, and John Buchanan seem to be the primary sources for stories implicating Bush.

[Drew Richards]

110. Revisionist claptrap

[AverageJoe90]

113. That may be true, BUT.....

Even so, it doesn't excuse his culpability. Same thing goes for Henry Ford, and many other wealthy people in this country; none of these people were outright fascists, but that didn't stop them from helping the Nazis rise to power......really, it was their fear of Communism that led to this more than anything else.

[Taverner]

117. He was a war profiteer

Not sure his thoughts on the Nazis other than good business

[Rosa Luxemburg]

120. Why did you post this?

[Nye Bevan]

122. Asked and answered. Read the thread (nt)

[NaturalHigh]

126. That's my understanding too.

[Dawson Leery]

127. The unrec feature needs to be returned.

I would also remind you that GHW Bush (41) once was center left on social issues. Once the "Christian" right came along, he went along with them.

The BFEE is all about power for the oligarchs.

[Zen Democrat]

128. Prescott Bush was charged with Trading With The Enemy and his assets were seized.

Do you trust The Guardian?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

[JackRiddler]

129. ADL defending the Nazi-financing Bush! Love it!

It's okay, as he enriched his firm by funneling money to the Nazis, he didn't have a Nazi-sympathizing fiber in his body. It was just business! What's wrong with that?

You are a fine satirist. Thanks for the laugh.

[Generic Other]

132. Henry Ford was a Fascist too

Ford built trucks for the Nazis. 90% of their trucks were built by Ford during WW2. After the war, Ford demanded reparation for his bombed Axis factories.

How is this any different than what Prescott Bush and the banks did? They funded every goddamn bullet fired at American soldiers. Fuck them. They played both sides for the money.

Ever heard of the Trading with the Enemy Act? Here's a Guardian article from 2004:

<snip>

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

And those Nazis formed the foundation of the Bush CIA.

Where in the hell do you get off trying to whitewash this family's treasonous criminality?

[truebrit71]

133. Welcome to ignore....

...you can have your own opinion, but you can't have your own facts..

[Nye Bevan]

135. .

[Spirochete]

138. At the very least

while the whole rest of the country was tightening up its' belt, sacrificing things like sugar, coffee, clothing, etc. for the cause, P. Bush couldn't even give up making money by dealing with the very enemy the rest of the country was fighting against. I guess wartime sacrifices were just for the little people back then, too. If he wasn't a Nazi, he was certainly a Nazi enabler.

[Octafish]

139. Grandson George Walker Bush is a NAZI stooge.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2418676