Reply #7: The queen is good pals with William Stamps Farish III [View All]

[starroute]

He's a close friend of the Bush family who is currently US ambassador to Great Britain. He and the queen share an interest in raising horses, and she's stayed at his horse farm in Kentucky several times while visiting the US.

His grandfather, William Stamps Farish Sr., was the head of Standard Oil who got into trouble for not only continuing to do business with the Nazis after the start of US involvement in World War II, but for supplying them with a patent for artificial rubber while withholding it from the US Navy. Other members of his and his wife's families also had strong fascist, right-wing, or German sympathies during that period.

The truth is that World War I was in large part a family quarrel, with the monarchs of many of the countries involved all being grandsons of Queen Victoria. World War II wasn't much different, even though most of the monarchies were gone. For the ruling classes, it was a struggle over control of resources, not over ideology.

The queen may be annoyed as hell at Bush for making her miss her favorite soap opera -- but I'm sure she doesn't hold his family's business connections against him for a moment.