A JEWISH PERSPECTIVE ON GW BUSH
For 70 years the Bush family has hidden their three-generations-long connection to Nazis, anti-Semitism and eugenics. For a Jewish person, learning that the President's family fortune and political connections began with financing Hitler is a serious matter. It may have accounted for GW getting few Jewish votes.1
Unlike recent US Presidents, GW Bush has appointed no Jewish cabinet members. He does, however, have a Jewish press secretary, Ari Fleischer, who will add ethnic credibility in the event questions arise regarding the President's Hitler connection.
Somewhat uncomfortable around Jews, Bush is aggresively reaching out to the African American community despite getting less than 10% of their vote. Recently, CNN showed Black ministers posing with Bush and then holding a press conference announcing the end of both the civil rights era and the influence of "agitators" and "radicals" like Jesse Jackson.
In Nazi Germany, there were Jewish leaders, the Judenrate, who similarly advised their followers not to resist Adolf Hitler. Elevating a few members of a targeted group is an effective way to disarm your victims. This 1939 quote from a leading American eugenicist perfectly describes the Bush technique:
"
We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."2
Bush's assurances of equality and opportunity stand in stark contrast to his past actions and family history. The seeming diversity within this administration is, quite literally, skin deep. All of GW's cabinet appointees--including his minority appointees and advisors--are associated with right wing think tanks and foundations connected to white supremacists, the CIA, or eugenics, the pseudo-science of racial superiority. Many--including Stephen Goldsmith, Tommy Thompson, Elaine Chou, John Ashcroft, Marvin Olasky, Linda Chavez, Karl Rove, and Spencer Abraham--are colleagues of, or are organizationally associated with, Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve.3
According to The Bell Curve, Blacks are genetically inferior. Having a low IQ, they can't help but have out-of-wedlock children, live in poverty, or resort to criminal activity. This conclusion is then used to justify building more prisons, privatizing schools, and eliminating affirmative action, welfare, and many social programs. 4
Undoubtedly, some people share this view of African Americans. Re-packaged as "compassionate conservatism"--a motto coined by the CIA's Manhattan Institute--this kind of subtly-coded racism is exactly why Bush appealed to many white voters.5
However, it's not just Blacks and Jews who need to be concerned about the Bush presidency. Bush's cabinet has striking parallels to and many of the exact same corporate players as the IG Farben oil, pharmaceutical, chemical, and munitions cartel that formed the industrial base of Nazi Germany. By means of their vaccines, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and pollution, these corporations and their modern day subsidiaries have already caused the death, illness, and injury of more people than the Nazis did.6
The Bush-Nazi connection began in the 1930s when GW's grandfather, Prescott Bush, and Prescott's father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, made fortunes in the Wall Street offices of Brown Brothers-Harriman. They were managing directors for companies funneling laundered money and strategic materials to Nazi Germany. These banks and shipping companies were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act when the US Congress characterized them as Nazi front organizations.7 It is true, as defenders of the President say, that the Bush family was not alone in its support for Hitler. Among the legendary American corporations and individuals who backed the Third Reich were Henry Ford, JP Morgan, the Du Ponts, Allen and John Foster Dulles (America's first CIA director and President Eisenhower's Secretary of State), Charles Lindbergh, Jr., William Randolph Hearst, Alcoa Aluminum, Rockefeller's Standard Oil (Exxon), General Motors, ITT, and Chase Bank.8
Today, this history is suppressed by the corporate media, which depend on advertising from the very same companies that put Hitler in power, but prominent Americans were not always shy about being fascists. In the 1930s, America's industrial elite was so openly pro-Hitler that in 1937 William E. Dodd, US Ambassador to Germany, was quoted in the NY Times as saying: "A clique of US industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime.... "8
Immediately following WWII, the US government brought thousands of Nazis to America, provided them with false identities, and established them in the newly formed CIA, in universities, in the media, in medical and psychological research institutions, and in the US military. 9 Former Presidents Bush, Reagan, and Nixon used many of these former Nazis as advisors, fundp;raisers and campaign aides, and they were an essential element in building the extreme right wing of the Republican party.10
After WWII, Allen Dulles, a Bush associate who was instrumental in financing the Third Reich, became the first CIA director. His brother, John Foster Dulles-the largest stockholder in Standard Oil/IG Farben after Rockefeller--became US Secretary of State. Reagan's CIA director, William Casey--who worked with the Dulles brothers in bringing Nazis to the US--created the Manhattan Institute-the think tank that invented GW Bush's political agenda and advises him on a daily basis.11
It was the first Bush administration which gave Saddam Hussein the chemical and biological weapons we've spent the past decade trying to locate in Iraq. It was the anti-Semitic, anti-Christian Arab oil partners of the Bush family that our soldiers risked their lives to protect in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. The corrupt dynasties which oppressively rule these Arab nations were among Hitler's closest allies in WWII.12
After WWII discredited Nazism, its American sympathizers, who numbered in the millions, realized the need for a fresh vehicle to disseminate their views. What they came up with-combining fascism, states rights, and white supremacy with a new interpretation of Christianity--has emerged in recent years as the immensely powerful and well-funded Christian far right.13
When John Ashcroft addressed the commencement ceremony at the anti-Catholic, anti-Mormon, and until recently, racially segregated, Bob Jones University and solemnly intoned, "We have no king but Jesus," were we hearing patriotism, faith, or fascism? (Ashcroft was misquoting a Baptist Revolutionary War slogan, "No King, No Pope," according to Revolutionary War historians.) As Missouri Attorney General, Ashcroft certainly knew of the US Supreme Court decision declaring Bob Jones University to be racist and revoking its tax deferment.14
Ashcroft's denial under oath that he knew what Bob Jones represented, like claims he did not know Southern Heritage magazine routinely defended slavery, are hard to believe. As evidenced by numerous pamphlets and books from the 18th and 19th century, Southern slave-owners extensively used the Bible to justify slavery, which they claimed was ordained by God.15
In Mein Kampf, in his speeches, and in his governmental policies, Adolf Hitler frequently exploited religion and religious symbols as shown by the following of numerous possible examples:
Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people.
--Adolf Hitler speech, April 26, 1933, during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant
A number of German ministers were instrumental in helping Hitler come to power by lending their credibility as men of faith. Perhaps these ministers believed Hitler would institute a faith-based government--as GW Bush claims he will do today.
Everyone knows the statement of Reverend Martin Niemoeller:
In Germany they came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.
What most people don't know is that Reverend Niemoeller--now the most frequently quoted opponent of Nazism--had initially been an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazi party. 16 Will America's religious leaders end up like Rev. Niemoeller after he was arrested by the Gestapo--denouncing GW Bush from behind the barbed wire of a modern-day Auschwitz? Will opposition to Bush, Ashcroft, and vouchers fail because Democrats are afraid to be accused of being anti-religious?
Like Hitler, Bush's first act as President was an attack on First Amendment freedom of speech--a gag order on overseas agencies receiving funding if they even mentioned birth control or abortion. Likewise, the Third Reich began with executive orders suspending the civil rights of the German people.
"Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed."
--From Hitler's Decree for the Protection of the People and the State, 1933.
Confusion as to the real position on abortion within the Bush administration exactly mirrors Hitler's seemingly contradictory efforts concerning birth control, sterilization, and abortion.
"In Nazi Germany, abortion was strictly prohibited . . . Aryan women were to reproduce to increase the master race. Abortion was declared an act against the state . . . . Under the Weimar Republic, birth control information had been widely disseminated. In 1933, birth control centres were closed and the advertising of contraceptives stopped. Women were encouraged not to work and financial incentives were introduced to encourage childbearing. In contrast, Jewish women were forced to have abortions . . . abortion and sterilization were used by the state against groups it considered racially undesirable." 17-18
Apart from complaining about his background, you might ask what I as a Jewish American want from GW Bush. Like many Americans I believe he is not a legitimate president; however, the US Supreme Court has allowed this coup-like election to proceed. Therefore, I'm resigned to accepting that for the next four years we will have a Nazi in the White House.
All I'd ask of President Bush is something very simple for him to do. Mr. President, please make a public statement-as many of the corporations associated with you have already done--acknowledging your family's past relationship with Nazi Germany, and then, apologize for it--as the Pope recently did.
Unlike your father, former President Bush, who said it was time to forgive Nazi Germany's war criminals, you have made seemingly sincere speeches about the Holocaust while fundraising at synagogues and Jewish community centers. 19
Now it's time for you to complete the "healing process" you are always referring to and publicly repent for your family's part in bringing the Holocaust about.
1 "The Bush family fortune came from the Third Reich."-John Loftus, former US Justice Dept. Nazi War Crimes investigator and President of the Florida Holocaust Museum, quoted in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 11/11/00, <www.newscoast.com/headlinesstory2.cfm?ID=35115>.
2 From Margaret Sanger's 12/19/39 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, Grossman Publishers, 1976. Also see Sanger's Birth Control Review , <www.hli.org>/issues/pp/bcreview/index.html>.
3 See: "GW Bush's Rainbow Cabinet," <http://baltech.org/lederman/spray/>.
4 For links to The Bell Curve see: <www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/049.html>, <www.fair.org/extra/9501/bell.html>, <www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/022.html>.
5 "GW Bush, Jesus and the Manhattan Institute," <http://baltech.org/lederman/spray/>.
6 The GW Bush Gang: IG Farben 2001, <http://baltech.org/lederman/spray/bush-farben-1-5-01.html>.
7 See: Office of Alien Property Custodian, vesting order # 248. Order signed by Leo T. Crowley, Alien Property Custodian, executed October 20, 1942; Fed Reg Doc 42-11568, Filed Nov. 6, 1942 11:31 AM; 7 Fed Reg. 9097 November 7, 1942, and The Secret War Against the Jews by former US Dept. of Justice Nazi War Crimes prosecutor, John Loftus.
8The Secret War Against the Jews; Trading with the Enemy; <www.shorejournal.com/elkhorn/> and "Chase Manhattan Bank's Right Wing Relationship" <http://baltech.org/lederman/spray/,www.jewishxpress.com/chasebankandthenazi>.
9 <http://www.datafilter.com/mc/paperclip.html>.
10 <www.jewishxpress.com/nazisinbushs1988campaign>, Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/10/98; David Lee Preston, "Fired Bush backer one of several with possible Nazi links," 9/10/98; Washington Post articles by Jack Anderson on Nixon/Nazi connection, Nov 1971, including "Nixon Appears a Little Soft on Nazis"; "GOP's Open Door, Who's Coming In?" Washington Post 9/21/71 by Peter Baestrup; The Secret War Against the Jews, by John Loftus and Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right and the Reagan Administration.
11 NY Times, June 12, 2000, "Bush Culls Campaign Theme From Conservative Thinkers, " Gov. George W. Bush has said his political views have been shaped by the work of Myron Magnet of the Manhattan Institute.
12The Secret War Against The Jews, John Loftus.
13 See: Nazis In America by Myrna Estep Ph. D., <http://www.feminista.com/v3n10/estep.html>.
14 See: "Bob Jones University v. The United States,"<www.multiracial.com/government/bju-v-us.html>.
15 <www.lawsch.uga.edu/faculty/dwilkes_more/his29_racism.html>;<http://homepages.go.com/homepages/m/i/k/mike_shr1/slavery/>.
16 See pp. 235-240, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer.
17 <http://www.cbctrust.com/abortion.html>.
18 "Hitler himself, and the Nazi doctrine he created, were unequivocally opposed to any individual right to abortion." -Gloria Steinem, Ms Magazine., Oct. 1980.
19 4/14/1990, New York Times quotes President George Bush as stating, "Let's forgive the Nazi war criminals." Also see <www.foxnews.com/fn99/elections/president/broder_03060 0.sml> , "GW Bush speaks at Holocaust Museum."
--Past articles by Robert Lederman about Bush, West Nile Virus, Mayor Giuliani, The Manhattan Institute and Eugenics can be found at: <http://Baltech.org/lederman/spray>.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics), <ARTISTpres@aol.com>, (718) 743-3722