Lots of sympathetic coverage on the BBC this morning and an interesting interview with former British Prime-Minister John Major about his relationship and friendship with George Bush Snr. He spoke in the highest regard about the former U.S. president but said that his focus on foreign policy may have contributed to him being seen as less successful in his domestic policy, contributing to his electoral defeat in 1992. He had visited him several times in recent months and clearly liked him very much.
At the time of this writing, the last proper president. The ADA, the 1990 OBRA, a properly executed regional war pursued for the correct strategic reasons, and a proper response to the collapse of the main geopolitical rival of the US. Maybe the next president will be as good.
Quote from: Todd on December 01, 2018, 06:52:47 AM
At the time of this writing, the last proper president. The ADA, the 1990 OBRA, a properly executed regional war pursued for the correct strategic reasons, and a proper response to the collapse of the main geopolitical rival of the US. Maybe the next president will be as good.
Interesting - thanks.
God rest his soul!
The Washington Post was characteristically contemptuous
https://mobile.twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1068731765794123778 (https://mobile.twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1068731765794123778)
In contrast, Clinton, Trump, and Gorbachev were gracious.
Quote from: Todd on December 01, 2018, 06:52:47 AM
At the time of this writing, the last proper president. The ADA, the 1990 OBRA, a properly executed regional war pursued for the correct strategic reasons, and a proper response to the collapse of the main geopolitical rival of the US. Maybe the next president will be as good.
Oh really? is that the one with the near total destruction of civilian infrastructure, and massive civilian casualties through bombing dwarfed by the ongoing and far higher civilian causalities caused by exposure to depleted uranium? And where they left without removing the dictator?
Now compare with the figures from Obama's much maligned drone strikes.
Or is the war you were referring to the invasion of Panama? ("Operation Just Cause", ffs)
Also: if you're underwhelmed by Dim Son's presidency then those criticisms can be laid at Poppy's doorstep for having elevated him, putting dynasty over country.
In spite of his flaws, even great leaders have made mistakes, Bush senior was the last good Republican president the United States had. The Republicans have gone downhill since Bush senior. Heaven can only guess what type of moron they would put in the presidency after Trump.
He was a decent man and comported himself with dignity. His war record record speaks for itself. (I'm waiting for Trump to denigrate it, "I like war heroes that weren't shot down.") He was a steady hand during the breakup of the Soviet Union.
There are some things that do him so credit.
There were the "Willie Horton" ads, a race-baiting campaign that blamed Dukakis for a murder committed by a black man on some sort of prison release. Dukakis had no hand in the program, although the crime was committed while Dukakis was Governor.
The Iraq war was not a great succes in the long term. It was good to see the U.S. act in a forthright manner. Bush told Hussein to retreat from Kuwait by a certain date or the US would intervene, and the US intervened just as he said we would. He built a broad coalition to support the invasion, which was a military success. But the US withdrew with the assumption that Hussein would fall, except he didn't fall. Many Iraqi civilians died, and they were still stuck with Hussein. Shiite forces tried to take over but the US failed to support them. The world was left with the awkward military aftermath - no fly zones, etc. In the end when Hussein was toppled in the second war Iraq came to be dominated by Iran-aligned Shiite groups. Hard to see that as a good outcome.
When the US fell into recession late in Bush's presidency he seemed remote and took the view that the economy would fix itself, no need to worry. Maybe that was true, but it wasn't what the country needed to hear from the President at the time. That is what led to his downfall. If his messaging had been better, perhaps we would have been spared Clinton.
He was the US President which (over)saw the general Fall of Communism, and did not oppose the German Reunification. This is enough for me to think of him as of a hero.
The last proper president we had was Barack Obama
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 03, 2018, 12:20:01 PM
He was a decent man and comported himself with dignity. His war record record speaks for itself. (I'm waiting for Trump to denigrate it, "I like war heroes that weren't shot down.") He was a steady hand during the breakup of the Soviet Union.
There are some things that do him so credit.
There were the "Willie Horton" ads, a race-baiting campaign that blamed Dukakis for a murder committed by a black man on some sort of prison release. Dukakis had no hand in the program, although the crime was committed while Dukakis was Governor.
The Iraq war was not a great succes in the long term. It was good to see the U.S. act in a forthright manner. Bush told Hussein to retreat from Kuwait by a certain date or the US would intervene, and the US intervened just as he said we would. He built a broad coalition to support the invasion, which was a military success. But the US withdrew with the assumption that Hussein would fall, except he didn't fall. Many Iraqi civilians died, and they were still stuck with Hussein. Shiite forces tried to take over but the US failed to support them. The world was left with the awkward military aftermath - no fly zones, etc. In the end when Hussein was toppled in the second war Iraq came to be dominated by Iran-aligned Shiite groups. Hard to see that as a good outcome.
When the US fell into recession late in Bush's presidency he seemed remote and took the view that the economy would fix itself, no need to worry. Maybe that was true, but it wasn't what the country needed to hear from the President at the time. That is what led to his downfall. If his messaging had been better, perhaps we would have been spared Clinton.
Interesting analysis. In retrospect the failure to support the Shiite forces against Hussein led to disastrous consequences.
Quote from: Florestan on December 03, 2018, 01:41:03 PM
He was the US President which (over)saw the general Fall of Communism, and did not oppose the German Reunification. This is enough for me to think of him as of a hero.
I personally don't see communism so much as evil as damn impractical. Sure, I can understand, after the horrors of Stalin's and Mao's regime it is easy to label it as evil but it must be remembered that theirs was never true Communism. Like I said, it's damn near impossible to achieve true communism. I'm sure Marx never claimed mass murder to be a part of it. Impractical, and certainly wouldn't ever recommend it because it attracts base personalities and the worst possible outcomes we all know... But that logic could be applied to many religions as well, should we forbid them too?
Quote from: Alberich on December 05, 2018, 11:14:56 AM
I personally don't see communism so much as evil as damn impractical. Sure, I can understand, after the horrors of Stalin's and Mao's regime it is easy to label it as evil but it must be remembered that theirs was never true Communism. Like I said, it's damn near impossible to achieve true communism. I'm sure Marx never claimed mass murder to be a part of it. Impractical, and certainly wouldn't ever recommend it because it attracts base personalities and the worst possible outcomes we all know... But that logic could be applied to many religions as well, should we forbid them too?
I'm not sure Marx
advocated communism, so much as believed it was the inevitable endpoint of political/economic evolution.
I don't think communism is good, even in an ideal manifestation. I think what works best is capitalism with strong socialist elements. The marketplace is a marvelous system of optimizing economic systems, but it must be bound by laws and regulations which constrain it so that it optimists the wellbeing of the population as a whole, not the wellbeing of a small fraction of wealthy individuals. The US and some other countries are failing in that regard, recently. The wealthy can become entrenched and the poor locked in poverty and social programs are required to distribute opportunity broadly.
Quote from: Alberich on December 05, 2018, 11:14:56 AM
I'm sure Marx never claimed mass murder to be a part of it.
(http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/marx_terror_quote.jpg)
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 05, 2018, 11:26:38 AM
I'm not sure Marx advocated communism, so much as believed it was the inevitable endpoint of political/economic evolution.
If
The Communist Manifesto is not advocating communism, then words have lost their meanings.
Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2018, 11:57:07 AMIf The Communist Manifesto is not advocating communism, then words have lost their meanings.
It's been a long time since I read any Marx, but it is my recollection that he advocates communism in the same sense that a weatherman advocates a hurricane.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 05, 2018, 12:08:19 PM
It's been a long time since I read any Marx
No offense meant but it shows. :)
Normally I wouldn't urge anyone to waste his time on drivel, but if you feel like it please read The Communist Manifesto. It's not too long --- this being perhaps its only quality. You'll be surprised to learn that many of the... but hush, I'll not be a spoiler.
No, really, try it. In the light of your remark that "I think what works best is capitalism with strong socialist elements" --- and I'm fully aware that (1) socialism does not equate communism, and (2) "socialist" has become a meaningless term of abuse, exactly as "fascist" has --- I'm confident your rejection of communism will be stronger than before (re)reading it.
My rejection of communism does not rest on the rhetoric or arguments used to support it, but on the fact that the central idea is unworkable, and on the results that have been produced. Marx had a lot of insight into the instabilities that capitalism is subject to, but he did not understand that an unstable system can be stabilized by external controls.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 05, 2018, 12:43:07 PM
My rejection of communism does not rest on the rhetoric or arguments used to support it, but on the fact that the central idea is unworkable, and on the results that have been produced.
I agree completely.
Quote
Marx had a lot of insight into the instabilities that capitalism is subject to, but he did not understand that an unstable system can be stabilized by external controls.
And yet a lot of fools (academics included) still consider him a genius...
Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2018, 12:51:05 PMAnd yet a lot of fools (academics included) still consider him a genius...
I consider him a genius. He had insights that transformed the understanding of economics. His application of those insights was disastrously wrong. He died before anyone tried to seriously put them into practice. He might well have been as horrified as anyone to witness the results.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 05, 2018, 12:56:08 PM
I consider him a genius.
Woooopss... :laugh:
QuoteHe died before anyone tried to seriously put them into practice.
Imho, this does not exonerate him in the least. Ideas have consequences. Nietzsche learned it the hard way, albeit just as posthumously as Marx.
Quote
He might well have been as horrified as anyone to witness the results.
We'll never know but if his writings are anything to judge by, I'm quite skeptical of it.
Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2018, 01:02:57 PMImho, this does not exonerate him in the least. Ideas have consequences. Nietzsche learned it the hard way, albeit just as posthumously as Marx.
I'm not aware of bad consequences that Nietzsche's actual ideas had. The fact that the Nazi's became infatuated with a distorted version of his views pedaled by his sister after his collapse and death is not his fault.
Communist apologists are the equal of nazi apologists. Sad but not surprising to see one here.
And who would that be?
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 05, 2018, 03:27:59 PM
And who would that be?
Not you.
At least nazi apologists never say "real nazism has never been tried."
Communism is good (and continues to be the only hope for human survival in the face of capitalist environmental destruction). George H. W. Bush was bad (and should have been convicted of war crimes). For more hot takes, please subscribe to my newsletter.
Quote from: amw on December 05, 2018, 03:48:01 PM
Communism is good (and continues to be the only hope for human survival in the face of capitalist environmental destruction).
Because it will return human civilization to the stone age? :laugh:
I shouldn't make fun, I agree, sort of.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 05, 2018, 03:51:29 PM
Because it will return human civilization to the stone age? :laugh:
I shouldn't make fun, I agree, sort of.
It's ok I'm used to it >_>
I tend to make fun of my own views a lot, shitpost about Stalin etc, but in all seriousness—although I've been very critical of the Chinese Communist Party in a lot of respects, I've felt significantly more encouraged by initiatives from the Communist Party of Cuba addressing climate change, environmental degradation & public health; the ongoing attempts in Venezuela, Bolivia & Ecuador to move away from fossil fuels; the growth of indigenous socialist-oriented collectives and mutual aid groups in non-socialist countries eg the Zapatistas in Mexico; the growth of Native American political consciousness following the Standing Rock and Keystone XL protests; the Ecosocialist International drawing links between indigenous peoples & climate activists throughout the Americas and so on. And historically obviously we have the anti-desertification efforts of Thomas Sankara which has now led to a coalition of African countries working to protect the Sahel. I wouldn't necessarily qualify the PRC's "great green wall" efforts or India's mass tree planting efforts because those are neither environmentally conscious (monocultures of particular trees can do more harm than good) nor offset the severe environmental damage both countries are causing in the interests of capital. And Western countries & the Middle East (and white Americans, Canadians, Australians etc) are simply too invested in fossil fuels, technology and consumption to ever divest at this point, imo, until some kind of economic catastrophe actually makes those things unattainable/unprofitable. Historically I would have to include the USSR in this as well.
Quote from: amw on December 05, 2018, 08:09:36 PM
It's ok I'm used to it >_>
I tend to make fun of my own views a lot, shitpost about Stalin etc, but in all seriousness—although I've been very critical of the Chinese Communist Party in a lot of respects, I've felt significantly more encouraged by initiatives from the Communist Party of Cuba addressing climate change, environmental degradation & public health; the ongoing attempts in Venezuela, Bolivia & Ecuador to move away from fossil fuels; the growth of indigenous socialist-oriented collectives and mutual aid groups in non-socialist countries eg the Zapatistas in Mexico; the growth of Native American political consciousness following the Standing Rock and Keystone XL protests; the Ecosocialist International drawing links between indigenous peoples & climate activists throughout the Americas and so on. And historically obviously we have the anti-desertification efforts of Thomas Sankara which has now led to a coalition of African countries working to protect the Sahel. I wouldn't necessarily qualify the PRC's "great green wall" efforts or India's mass tree planting efforts because those are neither environmentally conscious (monocultures of particular trees can do more harm than good) nor offset the severe environmental damage both countries are causing in the interests of capital. And Western countries & the Middle East (and white Americans, Canadians, Australians etc) are simply too invested in fossil fuels, technology and consumption to ever divest at this point, imo, until some kind of economic catastrophe actually makes those things unattainable/unprofitable. Historically I would have to include the USSR in this as well.
Venezuela? Petroleum is the main bastion of their economy, and their utter incompetence in extracting it has led to one of the great humanitarian crises of the world. That's not my definition of "moving away from fossil fuels." ??? They would be perfectly happy to stay with fossil fuels if they could get a drill rig running.
This is an interesting listen:
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/06/19/621570477/the-measure-of-a-tragedy
Oh I definitely agree that the past ~40 years of Venezuela's energy and climate policies have been absolutely awful. However they've recently (iirc) reached a point where the majority of the country's electricity is produced via renewables, with almost all crude and natural gas going for export, & there has apparently been an active move to increase the portion of revenues gained from selling electricity to neighbouring countries and decrease the relative portion gained from oil & gas exports. Hearing about this was the first thing that suggested maybe Chavismo wouldn't turn out to be a total garbage fire. I have no idea what the latest developments are though because it's almost impossible to get any accurate information about Venezuela from international & Western news outlets.
Quote from: amw on December 05, 2018, 03:48:01 PM
Communism is good (and continues to be the only hope for human survival in the face of capitalist environmental destruction).
There are three attributes in this world that a person cannot feature simultaneously, because featureing any two of them is mutually exclusive with featuring the third. They are: intelligent, honest and communist.
I was interested to hear, from his son at the funeral, that George Bush Snr didn't like broccoli.
Quote from: vandermolen on December 06, 2018, 05:29:15 AM
I was interested to hear, from his son at the funeral, that George Bush Snr didn't like broccoli.
And he had a steak and grey goose vodka secretly delivered to him just a few months ago by his friend and Secretary of State, James Baker. My kind of bloke.
Quote from: amw on December 05, 2018, 11:29:15 PM
Oh I definitely agree that the past ~40 years of Venezuela's energy and climate policies have been absolutely awful. However they've recently (iirc) reached a point where the majority of the country's electricity is produced via renewables, with almost all crude and natural gas going for export, & there has apparently been an active move to increase the portion of revenues gained from selling electricity to neighbouring countries and decrease the relative portion gained from oil & gas exports. Hearing about this was the first thing that suggested maybe Chavismo wouldn't turn out to be a total garbage fire. I have no idea what the latest developments are though because it's almost impossible to get any accurate information about Venezuela from international & Western news outlets.
Maybe what you read in international news outlet is actually true! 25,000% inflation.
I suggest you listen to the podcast I linked above. It features a Venezuelan economist working at Harvard who decided that conventional economic statistics don't capture what is happening in Venezuela and who has formulated different statistical criteria to describe the current state of the economy.
Quote from: vandermolen on December 06, 2018, 05:29:15 AM
I was interested to hear, from his son at the funeral, that George Bush Snr didn't like broccoli.
His aversion to broccoli was well known
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/23/us/i-m-president-so-no-more-broccoli.html
Quote from: vandermolen on December 05, 2018, 12:03:27 AM
Interesting analysis. In retrospect the failure to support the Shiite forces against Hussein led to disastrous consequences.
I don't want to jump into the lions' den again, speaking of politics, but Herbert Walker Bush was about the only adult who at the time didn't remember where he was when John Kennedy was shot. There is credible evidence that he was indeed in Dallas. The Bay of Pigs debacle in 1961 executed by the CIA which had a bad habit of messing around in Latino affairs, was named "Zapata", curiously the name of HW Bush's oil company.
The Bush family itself is deeply corrupt, having been involved in war profiteering in WWI by Prescott Bush and illegal banking to the Nazi's by Samuel Prescott Bush, George's father that was stopped by Congress in 1943. Haliburton made billions from the disastrous Iraq invasion. I don't see how HW Bush could have escaped the misdeeds of his family. In fact, they were from Prescott Bush, members of the Skull and Bones Society in Yale that curiously furnished most of the movers and shakers over the past century.
This following is only a sampling of what is freely available about the Bush family on the web.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bush-familys-links-to-nazi-germany-a-famous-american-family-made-its-fortune-from-the-nazis/5512243
Someone mentioned that the US is governed by an oligarchy. Actually, given the above and several others, this is not far from the truth.
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on December 06, 2018, 07:13:56 AM
I don't want to jump into the lions' den again, speaking of politics, but Herbert Walker Bush was about the only adult who at the time didn't remember where he was when John Kennedy was shot. There is credible evidence that he was indeed in Dallas. The Bay of Pigs debacle in 1961 executed by the CIA which had a bad habit of messing around in Latino affairs, was named "Zapata", curiously the name of HW Bush's oil company.
The Bush family itself is deeply corrupt, having been involved in war profiteering in WWI by Prescott Bush and illegal banking to the Nazi's by Samuel Prescott Bush, George's father that was stopped by Congress in 1943. Haliburton made billions from the disastrous Iraq invasion. I don't see how HW Bush could have escaped the misdeeds of his family. In fact, they were from Prescott Bush, members of the Skull and Bones Society in Yale that curiously furnished most of the movers and shakers over the past century.
This following is only a sampling of what is freely available about the Bush family on the web.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bush-familys-links-to-nazi-germany-a-famous-american-family-made-its-fortune-from-the-nazis/5512243
Someone mentioned that the US is governed by an oligarchy. Actually, given the above and several others, this is not far from the truth.
One could argue the root of the mid east problems is WW1 as the Ottoman empire was distributed to England and France interests ignoring cultural/ethnic fractures in the region.
Quote from: relm1 on December 06, 2018, 07:24:00 AM
One could argue the root of the mid east problems is WW1 as the Ottoman empire was distributed to England and France interests ignoring cultural/ethnic fractures in the region.
Actually, those cultural/ethnic fractures had far deeper roots in history. The Ottoman Empire used its iron fist to brush them under the carpet and keep them there. After its fall the outcome was inevitable, short of another single powerful state to keep the status quo, which given the circumstances was an obvious impossibility. A situation not dissimilar to the break up of Yugoslavia, a country where deep and big fractures had been brushed under the carpet by Tito's iron hand, something which could no more be accomplished by his ineffectual successors.
Quote from: relm1 on December 06, 2018, 07:24:00 AM
One could argue the root of the mid east problems is WW1 as the Ottoman empire was distributed to England and France interests ignoring cultural/ethnic fractures in the region.
England profited by the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire. a treeful of plums fell into its lap. The French didn't do much to get Syria and Lebanon. TE Lawrence organized a ragtag army to hound the Turks from the East and South. The problem with the Sykes-Picot agreement was drawing lines in the sand when indeed they should have been according to tribes, the same mess they made in Africa.
Quote from: relm1 on December 06, 2018, 06:27:17 AM
And he had a steak and grey goose vodka secretly delivered to him just a few months ago by his friend and Secretary of State, James Baker. My kind of bloke.
Mine too!
;D
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on December 06, 2018, 08:02:26 AM
England profited by the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire. a treeful of plums fell into its lap. The French didn't do much to get Syria and Lebanon. TE Lawrence organized a ragtag army to hound the Turks from the East and South. The problem with the Sykes-Picot agreement was drawing lines in the sand when indeed they should have been according to tribes, the same mess they made in Africa.
Yes, I don't disagree. The 'mandates'' were another form of colonialism.
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on December 06, 2018, 08:02:26 AM
England profited by the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire. a treeful of plums fell into its lap. The French didn't do much to get Syria and Lebanon. TE Lawrence organized a ragtag army to hound the Turks from the East and South. The problem with the Sykes-Picot agreement was drawing lines in the sand when indeed they should have been according to tribes, the same mess they made in Africa.
The french were horrific to Algeria and the colonies they owned. Worst of all was post WW2 atrocities after they themselves were victims of tyranny. They treated African's and Vietnamese as subhuman in the 1950's 1960's. Very cruel times. Just calling a spade a spade. My take the Bush family, George W. Bush was a kind and gentle man who sadly wasn't very smart. He was played by Cheney who was more cunning than he was. George H.W. Bush was a shrewd man who lacked political savvy. Ultimately sharp but didn't know how to express it to the masses in a way a politically savvy man like Reagan understand, who lacked Bush Seniors mind but was extremely gregarious and still had a conscious. Unlike modern day republicans.
Quote from: relm1 on December 06, 2018, 04:40:31 PM
George H.W. Bush was a shrewd man who lacked political savvy. Ultimately sharp but didn't know how to express it to the masses in a way a politically savvy man like Reagan understand, who lacked Bush Seniors mind but was extremely gregarious and still had a conscious. Unlike modern day republicans.
Your impression of Reagan would be a bit wrong then. Reagan was the driving force (and the other key player was Schultz ) See eg The End Of The Cold War, Robert Service. It is alas a dry read.
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on December 06, 2018, 07:13:56 AM
This following is only a sampling of what is freely available about the Bush family on the web.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bush-familys-links-to-nazi-germany-a-famous-american-family-made-its-fortune-from-the-nazis/5512243
This article is cross-referenced from the above one, written in 2003 after a visit by George W Bush to Auschwitz.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/06/bush-j05.html
I found the following profoundly shocking, given how the word "evil" was thrown around at the turn of this century. George Bush could never be counted on to be a great thinker or speaker, so he said they are EVIL, so we were supposed to believe his rallying cry.
I was thinking back then:
Tell us, oh Great Leader, what the heck does Iraq have to do with the 9/11 attacks? Oh, they're "evil" and we're spreading "freedom" while killing half a million people and displacing many more. The pernicious missing link is of course Bin Laden who allegedly carried out them out which was the pretext for invading Iraq and finishing the job left by Bush Sr. This is really terrible in hindsight.
In a speech delivered in Krakow that same day, Bush declared that the concentration camps "remind us that evil is real and must be called by name and must be opposed." He continued: "Having seen the works of evil firsthand on this continent, we must never lose the courage to oppose it everywhere."
The cause of the Holocaust, Bush suggested, was "evil." For the US president, the word "evil" serves to cover up a multitude of sins. He has used it repeatedly to describe the Islamic fundamentalist group that carried out the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. On numerous occasions he has referred to the leader of Al Qaeda as "the evil one." This particular expression serves a very immediate political purpose, since it avoids naming Osama bin Laden and thereby calling to mind the longstanding business association between the Bushes and the wealthy bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia.
The existence of "evil" constitutes the only explanation given by the Bush administration for the emergence of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Such a semi-mystical and religious presentation (which, of course, assumes that the United States government embodies "good") has the advantage of precluding any consideration of politics or history...
The use of the word "evil" serves a similar function in the case of the Holocaust. This attempt to obscure the social, political and economic roots of the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s and the horrific crimes that followed is not unique to Bush. The adoption of anti-communism as the core of the post-World War II US ideology made any analysis of the anti-socialist roots of fascism inconvenient. Rather, communism and fascism were equated as "totalitarian" and "evil."
...It was widely understood that the Nazis, like Mussolini's fascist party, had been elevated to power with the backing of big business for the purpose of smashing the socialist workers' movement and eradicating the threat of revolution.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, the US occupation authorities found themselves obliged to recognize the culpability of German big business in the crimes carried out by the Nazi regime. Gen. Telford Taylor, one of the principal prosecutors in the Nuremberg war crimes trials, pressed for the conviction of some of the top German industrialists. One of these was Friedrich Flick, the co-owner of the German Steel Trust with Fritz Thyssen. From 1932 on, he was one of the main financial contributors to the Nazis and the SS.
Prescott Bush and the Nazis
In Bush's case, covering up the historical origins of fascism in Germany serves a particular, indeed personal, function. While the president's father had dealings with the bin Ladens, his grandfather made a considerable share of the family fortune through his dealings with Nazi Germany. Some have suggested that the Bushes' assets have their ultimate source, in part, in the exploitation of slave labor at Auschwitz itself.
From the 1920s into the 1940s—after the Second World War had begun—Prescott Bush was a partner and executive in the Brown Brothers Harriman holding company on Wall Street and a director of one of its key financial components, the Union Banking Corporation (UBC).
Together with his father-in-law George Herbert Walker—the current president's great grandfather—Prescott Bush controlled another asset of the holding company, the Hamburg-Amerika shipping line, which was utilized by the Nazi regime to transport its agents in and out of North America.
Another subsidiary of the Harriman group, Harriman International Co., struck a deal with Hitler's regime in 1933 to coordinate German exports to the US market.
UBC, meanwhile, managed all of the banking operations outside of Germany for Fritz Thyssen, the German industrial magnate and author of the book I Paid Hitler, in which he acknowledged having financed the Nazi movement from 1923 until its rise to power.
In October 1942, 10 months after it had entered the Second World War, the US government seized UBC and several other companies in which the Harrimans and Prescott Bush had interests. In addition to Bush and Roland Harriman, three Nazi executives were named in the order issued by Washington to take over the bank.
An investigation carried out in 1945 revealed that the bank run by Prescott Bush was linked to the German Steel Trust run by Thyssen and Flick, one of the defendants at Nuremberg. This gigantic industrial firm produced fully half the steel and more than a third of the explosives, not to mention other strategic materials, used by the German military machine during the war years.
On October 28, 1942, the US government confiscated the assets of two firms that served as fronts for the Nazi regime—the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation, both controlled by UBC. A month later, it seized Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation (SAC), directed by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law, George Walker.
The seizure order, issued under the Trading with the Enemy Act, described Silesian-American as a "US holding company with German and Polish subsidiaries" that controlled large and valuable coal and zinc mines in Silesia, Poland and Germany. It added that, since September 1939 (when Hitler unleashed the Second World War) these properties had been under the control of the Nazi regime, which had utilized them to further its war effort.
Among SAC's assets was a steel plant in Poland in the same district as Auschwitz. The plant reportedly used the concentration camp's inmates as slave labor.
Among those who have investigated the links between the Bushes and the Nazis is John Loftus, a former prosecutor in the Justice Department's War Crimes Unit, who now heads the Florida Holocaust Museum in Saint Petersburg. Loftus has charged that the Bush family received $1.5 million from its interest in UBC, when the bank was finally liquidated in 1951. "That's where the Bush family fortune came from: It came from the Third Reich," Loftus said in a recent speech.
Loftus argues that this money—a substantial sum at that time—included direct profit from the slave labor of those who died at Auschwitz. In an interview with journalist Toby Rogers, the former prosecutor said: "It is bad enough that the Bush family helped raise the money for Thyssen to give Hitler his start in the 1920s, but giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war is treason. The Bush bank helped the Thyssens make the Nazi steel that killed Allied solders. As bad as financing the Nazi war machine may seem, aiding and abetting the Holocaust was worse. Thyssen's coal mines used Jewish slaves as if they were disposable chemicals. There are six million skeletons in the Thyssen family closet, and a myriad of criminal and historical questions to be answered about the Bush family's complicity."
Prescott Bush was by no means unique, though his financial connections with the Third Reich were perhaps more intimate than most. Henry Ford was an avowed admirer of Hitler, and together GM and Ford played the predominant role in producing the military trucks that carried German troops across Europe. After the war, both auto companies demanded and received reparations for damage to their German plants caused by allied bombing.
Quote from: SimonNZ on December 02, 2018, 09:00:22 PMOh really? is that the one with the near total destruction of civilian infrastructure, and massive civilian casualties through bombing dwarfed by the ongoing and far higher civilian causalities caused by exposure to depleted uranium? And where they left without removing the dictator?
Yes.
Quote from: amw on December 05, 2018, 03:48:01 PMGeorge H. W. Bush was bad (and should have been convicted of war crimes). For more hot takes, please subscribe to my newsletter.
Moral labels are irrelevant in practical terms, particularly when applied to foreign policy. While it is true that Bush I, like every president since at least FDR, committed war crimes, it must be remembered that prosecution for such crimes is relegated to leaders of weak or defeated powers and will be until such time that a meaningful global enforcement mechanism for international law is agreed to and adopted by all sovereign nation states. Don't expect a change this century.
Apparently the only thing worse than the Nazis was overthrowing the Nazis. ::)
Quote from: Ken B on December 08, 2018, 06:52:57 AM
Apparently the only thing worse than the Nazis was overthrowing the Nazis. ::)
Quote from: General Curtis LeMay
I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.
Quote from: Todd on December 08, 2018, 06:59:30 AM
Because Nazi justice is renowned for its fairness. And because Curtis Le May was President.
Quote from: Ken B on December 08, 2018, 07:30:14 AM
And because Curtis Le May was President.
I thought the point was simple, but allow me to explain it to you: LeMay was honest and understood that had the US lost he likely would have been tried and executed. Fortunately, the US won and we were the ones who got to perform the executions after shoddy show trials. (I know you stand by the validity of the trials, which is certainly your prerogative.) This is one reason why winning big wars is so important.
As to FDR, he was Commander in Chief, and as such he was ultimately responsible for the actions of the military. Comes with the job. Also, he imprisoned an entire race of Americans during the war. That's one of those actions that borders on being a war crime. Certainly, when leaders in other countries engage in similar actions, they are considered downright unwholesome.
Quote from: Todd on December 08, 2018, 07:44:41 AM
I thought the point was simple, but allow me to explain it to you: LeMay was honest and understood that had the US lost he likely would have been tried and executed. Fortunately, the US won and we were the ones who got to perform the executions after shoddy show trials. (I know you stand by the validity of the trials, which is certainly your prerogative.)
I don't know if Ken really stands by it but I certainly don't --- USSR prosecuting Nazi Germany is a bad and tasteless joke. Stalin prosecuting Hitler!
Risum teneatis, amici?
Quote from: Ken B on December 08, 2018, 06:52:57 AM
Apparently the only thing worse than the Nazis was overthrowing the Nazis. ::)
I think of Gulf War One as an example of "destroying the village in order to save it", so I'd see an analogy closer to Vietnam than WW2.
Quote from: Todd on December 08, 2018, 07:44:41 AM
I thought the point was simple, but allow me to explain it to you: LeMay was honest and understood that had the US lost he likely would have been tried and executed. Fortunately, the US won and we were the ones who got to perform the executions after shoddy show trials. (I know you stand by the validity of the trials, which is certainly your prerogative.) This is one reason why winning big wars is so important.
As to FDR, he was Commander in Chief, and as such he was ultimately responsible for the actions of the military. Comes with the job. Also, he imprisoned an entire race of Americans during the war. That's one of those actions that borders on being a war crime. Certainly, when leaders in other countries engage in similar actions, they are considered downright unwholesome.
You aren't defending your claim. Curtis Le May making an observation about "victor's justice" is not an admission he committed any war crime. It is certainly no proof FDR did. Interning the Japanese Americans was a very bad act, but it wasn't a war crime.
How exactly do you know what I think about Nuremberg?
One thing I will say. Justified or not they were not just show trials because several were acquitted, including Schacht.
Quote from: Florestan on December 08, 2018, 09:11:05 AMUSSR prosecuting Nazi Germany is a bad and tasteless joke.
So was the US prosecuting Nazis.
Quote from: Senator Robert Taft, Kenyon College, 1946
The treatment of enemy countries has seldom been just after any war, but only now are we beginning to get some justice into our treatment of Germany. Our treatment has been harsh in the American Zone as a deliberate matter of government policy, and has offended Americans who saw it and felt that it was completely at variance with American instincts. We gave countenance to the revengeful and impracticable Morgenthau plan which would have reduced the Germans to economic poverty. We have fooled ourselves in the belief that we could teach another nation democratic principles by force. Why, we can't even teach our own people sound principles of government. We cannot teach liberty and justice in Germany by suppressing liberty and justice...
I believe that most Americans view with discomfort the war trials which have just been concluded in Germany and are proceeding in Japan. They violate that fundamental principle of American law that a man cannot be tried under an ex post facto statute. The hanging of the eleven men at Nuremberg will be a blot on the American record which we shall long regret.
The trial of the vanquished by the victors cannot be impartial no matter how it is hedged about with the forms of justice. I question whether the hanging of those, who, however despicable, were the leaders of the German people, will ever discourage the making of aggressive war, for no one makes aggressive war unless he expects to win. About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice.
In these trials we have accepted the Russian idea of the purpose of trials, government policy and not justice, having little relation to our Anglo-Saxon heritage. By clothing vengeance in the forms of legal procedure, we may discredit the whole idea of justice in Europe for years to come. In the last analysis, even at the end of a frightful war, we should view the future with more hope if even our enemies believed that we have treated them justly in trials, in the provision of relief and in the final disposal of territory. I pray that we do not repeat the procedure in Japan, where the justification on the grounds of vengeance is much less than in Germany.
Quote from: SimonNZ on December 08, 2018, 09:32:59 AM
I think of Gulf War One as an example of "destroying the village in order to save it", so I'd see an analogy closer to Vietnam than WW2.
The first Gulf War was not about doing anything beneficial for Iraq or Iraqis. It was about enforcing the Carter Doctrine.
Quote from: Ken B on December 08, 2018, 03:04:00 PMHow exactly do you know what I think about Nuremberg?
You've written about it before. On this forum.
And there is unequivocal evidence that FDR and his senior military commanders committed war crimes. Strategic bombing of civilian centers in Germany and the fire bombing of Japanese cities, organized by LeMay as it happens, were war crimes using the standards of "justice" applied by the Allies and established under international law after the war. Total war relies on systematic application of techniques that result in the murder of millions of civilians. But, again, the US won, so we got to apply victor's justice.
You will note also that I did not write that internment was, strictly speaking, and taking into account the standards of the day, a war crime. Today, it would be considered ethnic cleansing and could be prosecuted as a crime against humanity. Well, I mean, if the US was not the most powerful single nation state on earth and its head of state could be held accountable under international law.
There are war crimes and there are war crimes. Bombing of civilian centers in Europe and Japan meet the definition of terrorism. Hiroshima was selected specifically because it had been more-or-less untouched by U.S. bombing and the destructive power of the atomic bomb would be more evident. The fact that the US was at some level ashamed of this action is demonstrated by the fact that Harry Truman lied in his address to the U.S. after the attack, when he described Hiroshima as a military base. There was a small military garrison in Hiroshima, but the bomb targeted the city center, not the military base in the outskirts.
But there is something to be said for intent. It can be honestly argued that the intention was to end the war as soon as possible. And the U.S. made a genuine effort to help its former enemies return to stability and prosperity when the war was over.
Quote from: Todd on December 09, 2018, 07:20:53 AM
And there is unequivocal evidence that FDR and his senior military commanders committed war crimes. Strategic bombing of civilian centers in Germany and the fire bombing of Japanese cities, organized by LeMay as it happens, were war crimes using the standards of "justice" applied by the Allies and established under international law after the war. Total war relies on systematic application of techniques that result in the murder of millions of civilians.
[...]
You will note also that I did not write that internment was, strictly speaking, and taking into account the standards of the day, a war crime. Today, it would be considered ethnic cleansing and could be prosecuted as a crime against humanity.
Honestly, aside from their early pact with Hitler, the USSR comes out of WWII with cleanest hands. US efforts to "rebuild" West Germany consisted of putting lots of former Nazis back in power with the understanding they'd stay on the US's side to fight the Soviets—for all the show trials and everything, it was East Germany that was most thoroughly denazified, at a certain cost (a highly restrictive surveillance state—but then we had, and still have, one of those in the US and Five Eyes countries as well—and the Berlin Wall).
As well, virtually all of the US's wars over its history would be considered illegal & involving war crimes if the US lacked the military and economic power to withstand international sanctions and condemnation. Historical reading of note. (https://archive.org/stream/WarIsARacket#mode/2up)
Quote from: amw on December 10, 2018, 09:27:37 PM
Honestly, aside from their early pact with Hitler, the USSR comes out of WWII with cleanest hands. US efforts to "rebuild" West Germany consisted of putting lots of former Nazis back in power with the understanding they'd stay on the US's side to fight the Soviets—for all the show trials and everything, it was East Germany that was most thoroughly denazified, at a certain cost (a highly restrictive surveillance state—but then we had, and still have, one of those in the US and Five Eyes countries as well—and the Berlin Wall).
You claim that in the post-war period West Germans suffered and East Germans prospered? East German border guards shot and killed citizens who were simply trying to cross the frontier and leave East Germany. That and the Stasi is your definition of clean hands?
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 10, 2018, 09:34:45 PM
You claim that in the post-war period West Germans suffered and East Germans prospered?
No, more that West Germany continued to have Nazi collaborators in their military, security services, etc and East Germany didn't.
Quote
East German border guards shot and killed citizens who were simply trying to cross the frontier and leave East Germany.
American border guards shoot and kill people who are simply trying to cross the frontier and enter America. This isn't a
good thing but it's also not a particularly unusual thing.
Quote
That and the Stasi is your definition of clean hands?
The USSR in WWII had relatively clean hands. The Stasi was a project of the postwar period, much like most of the USA's current intelligence agencies, & had the usual issues caused by the Soviet deep security state (NKVD/KGB), its attempts to gain political power to overthrow Stalin/Khrushchev/Brezhnev/whoever else it decided to overthrow, & those figures' attempts to resist it without alienating it. The Stasi also happened to be pretty effective at getting rid of Nazis, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a primary means of doing so.
Quote from: amw on December 10, 2018, 09:57:11 PM
American border guards shoot and kill people who are simply trying to cross the frontier and enter America. This isn't a good thing but it's also not a particularly unusual thing.
No. They do not. They intercept, take into custody, temporarily detain, and deport people who are simply trying to cross the frontier and enter the United States. Those entering may occasionally become violent, requiring a violent response, and there are mistakes and/or individual agents who use their position as an excuse to express their sadistic impulses.
QuoteThe USSR in WWII had relatively clean hands. The Stasi was a project of the postwar period, much like most of the USA's current intelligence agencies, & had the usual issues caused by the Soviet deep security state (NKVD/KGB), its attempts to gain political power to overthrow Stalin/Khrushchev/Brezhnev/whoever else it decided to overthrow, & those figures' attempts to resist it without alienating it. The Stasi also happened to be pretty effective at getting rid of Nazis, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a primary means of doing so.
Stalin made a truce with Hitler and was prepared to turn over his enemies to the Nazi's, until Hitler reneged. That is your definition of clean hands. Stalin ordered the order of Polish military officers and civilians in 1939. Very clean hands. And Stalin, by the way, murdered more political opponents than Hitler, according to most historians. Clean hands.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 10, 2018, 10:08:44 PM
No. They do not.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2017/03/27/judge-let-border-patrol-agent-swartz-murder-case-proceed/99696226/ (https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2017/03/27/judge-let-border-patrol-agent-swartz-murder-case-proceed/99696226/)
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/border-patrol-agent-kills-woman-attempting-cross-texas/story?id=55457805 (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/border-patrol-agent-kills-woman-attempting-cross-texas/story?id=55457805)
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Authorities-Identify-3-Killed-in-Border-Patrol-Pursuit-Crash-on-I-15-442814733.html (https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Authorities-Identify-3-Killed-in-Border-Patrol-Pursuit-Crash-on-I-15-442814733.html)
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Father-shot-by-border-agent-while-holding-his-3848597.php (https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Father-shot-by-border-agent-while-holding-his-3848597.php)
(etc)
QuoteStalin made a truce with Hitler and was prepared to turn over his enemies to the Nazi's, until Hitler reneged. That is your definition of clean hands. Stalin ordered the order of Polish military officers and civilians in 1939. Very clean hands.
Relatively speaking, Stalin committed fewer crimes against humanity in 1939-45 than Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt, Churchill, the Japanese Empire etc. You can draw what conclusions you like from that statement, but it is (as far as I know) true. 1931-36 or 1948-51 would be different stories obviously.
Quote from: amw on December 10, 2018, 10:50:29 PM
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2017/03/27/judge-let-border-patrol-agent-swartz-murder-case-proceed/99696226/ (https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2017/03/27/judge-let-border-patrol-agent-swartz-murder-case-proceed/99696226/)
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/border-patrol-agent-kills-woman-attempting-cross-texas/story?id=55457805 (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/border-patrol-agent-kills-woman-attempting-cross-texas/story?id=55457805)
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Authorities-Identify-3-Killed-in-Border-Patrol-Pursuit-Crash-on-I-15-442814733.html (https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Authorities-Identify-3-Killed-in-Border-Patrol-Pursuit-Crash-on-I-15-442814733.html)
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Father-shot-by-border-agent-while-holding-his-3848597.php (https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Father-shot-by-border-agent-while-holding-his-3848597.php)
(etc)
I didn't say bad things never happen. Half a million or more people are removed per year. You've cited a handful of deaths, not all of which were deliberate.
Donald Trump's conduct has been a disgrace, but any country has a right to decide who is permitted to enter and who isn't.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 05, 2018, 11:26:38 AM
I'm not sure Marx advocated communism, so much as believed it was the inevitable endpoint of political/economic evolution.
Thank you for polite response. And a perfectly valid point. To be sure, it has been some time since I read Marx as well (I think Das Kapital is more interesting than Manifesto).
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 10, 2018, 11:15:26 PM
I didn't say bad things never happen. Half a million or more people are removed per year. You've cited a handful of deaths, not all of which were deliberate.
Donald Trump's conduct has been a disgrace, but any country has a right to decide who is permitted to enter and who isn't.
She cites the prosecution of a man for murder as evidence he was allowed to kill. Puerile.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 10, 2018, 11:15:26 PM
I didn't say bad things never happen. Half a million or more people are removed per year. You've cited a handful of deaths, not all of which were deliberate.
Donald Trump's conduct has been a disgrace, but any country has a right to decide who is permitted to enter and who isn't.
Quote from: Ken B on December 11, 2018, 06:47:32 AM
She cites the prosecution of a man for murder as evidence he was allowed to kill. Puerile.
She's an unabashed apologist for Stalin and communism --- what else can you expect from her other than ideologically motivated, blatant distortion of reality?
Quote from: SimonNZ on December 08, 2018, 09:32:59 AM
I think of Gulf War One as an example of "destroying the village in order to save it", so I'd see an analogy closer to Vietnam than WW2.
I'd amend that to Gulf War II, only a half million casualties!
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on December 10, 2018, 08:45:26 PMBut there is something to be said for intent.
There is. Especially for victors who get to rationalize the immoral, criminal, and evil acts performed in their name. I doubt the hundreds of thousands of civilians incinerated by Allied bombs convinced themselves of the good intent of the underlying strategic decisions.
Of course, if there is something to be said for intent, one might wonder what can be said about the world being forced by the US to adopt the US dollar as the primary reserve currency rather than the world using an alternative (eg, a currency basket). The intent there doesn't seem so wholesome. One can also sort of determine an intent not quite as wholesome as you imply when reconsidering the strategic bombing and fire bombing campaigns while also considering the fact that the strategies had strong critics at the time, and that they have been found lacking in strategic merit since the war.
Victors write history, and all that.
So we're back to the only thing worse than Nazis are people who defeat Nazis.
Quote from: Ken B on December 15, 2018, 06:30:01 AM
So we're back to the only thing worse than Nazis are people who defeat Nazis.
Meh.