Grab your Tinfoil Hats...

[Soylent Brice]

i'm sitting here reading all these stories on DU today, and it dawned on me.

Bush was not trying to make out like a bandit with his cronies by ripping off America.

Bear with me on this.

I think Bush was doing one thing, and getting rich just happened to be a bonus.

I think Bush was purposely trying to run the country into the ground. The systematic dismantling of the United States of America was the only goal here. I think the intent was to marginally disrupt any and all branches of the government. This in the form of politicizing the DOJ and other similar instances, neutered our ability to ever be able to piece the country back together again.

it's a pretty commonly shared belief that W invaded Iraq for every reason but what we were told, including oil and getting back at Saddam for his plot to kill his daddy. If these are acceptable reasons as to why he would invade Iraq, then what I'm proposing shouldn't be too much of a stretch either.

Go back to the FDR admin, and the Business Plot. They wanted to take over. Plain and simple. The Business Plot was a failed attempt at a military coup. I think they realized that with how the system was set up it would never really be possible to do such a thing. I think instead the next plan was too infiltrate the government throughout, establish relations with the likes of the Bin Laden family, et. al, and to basically tear it all down. To bring us to our knees.

We have seen this type of vindictive behavior from him before. Outing a CIA agent comes to mind, as well as Siegelman.

As i read about dealerships being closed (dealerships that are actually successful)and the near collapse of the entire economy in general, and two quagmires, and a multi-trillion deficit, and absolutely no visible accountability, it becomes more and more clear that the big picture is a USA that is so crippled that it will take nothing short of FDR era policies to fix all of this. Policies, mind you, that we'll never see this day in age because the rightwing mouthpiece media has been instructed by their masters to ensure that the masses will reject anything that DOESN'T reek of rightwing "reaganesque" policy failures.

If anything, a crippled USA is much better mark for them. They win either way. Either they cripple us enough to complete their coup (which they didn't due to a democratic presidential victory - kind of threw a wrench in their plans) or the consolation prize which is the tantrum-inspired "if i can't play with that toy i'll just break it" destruction of our economy and government.

Does this mean I think we'll never rebound? No.

What this DOES mean is that it will take a shitload of work. In the meantime the bigger picture needs to be realized as to WHY this happened, and this scenario is the only thing that seems to make any sense to me as of yet.



edit: for poor proofreading on my part. typing in a hurry.

[babylonsister]

1. I think you give him/them way too much credit.

In every attempt they've made, at anything, it's like the gang that couldn't shoot straight. They were incompetent, irresponsible, and contemptuous of anyone who had better ideas.

I don't think they had an end game, but also don't think they thought they'd fail so miserably.

[Captain Hilts]

2. And too much credit to the influence of his grandfather also. nt

[Soylent Brice]

6. Keyser Söze

lame example, but demonstrates my point.

they could never identify the true mastermind, even though he was right there in their faces, because they overlooked him. who would believe that a crippled small-time crook could be THE legendary Keyser Söze?

i'm almost 100% confident that jr wasn't "in charge", more likely poppy. but don't overlook the obvious. Hamlet feigned insanity. there are many examples.

that mentality is exactly why a lot of people are reluctant to believe there was any wrongdoing at all. the "george is too stupid" to do anything like that is how he was "re-elected", and why shit like the patriot act and military commissions act got passed.

besides, i warned you about the tinfoil hat. lol

[BeFree]

26. I'm with you

The mentality that says GW was stupid is a ruse. Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. were in gov for years and all planned to destroy our freedoms while raking in our dough.

They have been wildly successful and here we got folks saying it was all an accident. Bullshit.

[kimmerspixelated]

47. Exactly, the PNAC comes to mind.

[stopbush]

19. Exactly. Bushco would have had the same effect on a hospitalized patient

had they been trying to perform open heart surgery.

Even if you try your very best, you can't properly do a job for which you have no training, experience or aptitude. Just because one doesn't intend to do harm doesn't mean harm won't be done.

[woofless]

20. Agreed, and in any case

W has always been nothing but a tool. He couldn't PLAN a bowel movement.

[Soylent Brice]

24. as funny as that is,

to deny that he could have any inkling that what he was doing would fuck everything up is naive. he may be a dumbass, but he's still a bush. and in any case the family (poppy et. al) could have been calling the shots but he was still the triggerman. a willing and totally complicit triggerman.

[femrap]

31. I think W was successful

at creating a fascist society....Corporations rule in tandem with the gov't. And how the BIGGEST HEIST IN HISTORY....all the billions going to the Banksters.

And we still haven't even dealt with The Derivative Problem.

We are living the decline of the american empire. China is the up and comer.

And yesterday Obama was talking about mandatory miles/gallon for US cars in 2016....for Goddess' sake! We need ELECTRIC CARS that require no oil. OIL is over. GM will simply move all its plants out of the United States....kill the unions. Watch the movie, 'Who Killed the Electric Car?'

Serfing, USA.

[DCKit]

52. They can't meet 35mpg without electric cars in the mix.

And the excuses about why they can't build them are falling on deaf ears. Except for the batteries, everything about electric should be easier to engineer and less expensive to build. Hell, they've been on notice for 35 years and were still beat to market with the hybrids by the Japanese and, until last year, were still claiming we wouldn't buy either hybrids for pure electric cars.

[femrap]

80. Sometimes I wonder if GM isn't making

all of these mistakes on purpose....so they can go bankrupt, dissolve the Unions, and move production overseas. Or are the CEOs and VPs really that stupid?

It's a toss up for me.

[rucky]

37. It doesn't take much talent to ruin things.

[Beam Me Up]

38. How did they "fail"?

If the intention was to, essentially, overthrow the Republic? They may not have succeeded completely but I would hardly call it "failure." It looks quite obvious to me that they put in place the infrastructure for a police state. It may not look like one YET but what kind of social disruption would it take to begin to implement more openly the police-state polices which are already in place? The strategies for invading Iraq and Afghanistan were being worked on prior to 9/11. Obviously the so called "Patriot Act" was already written. They implanted vast surveillance programs and cloaked them under "national security." I'm sure I don't need to list all the things they've done over the last eight years -- and these are just the ones we know about. But apparently you want to believe all this just "happened," that it was the result of "incompetence." I don't understand how anyone can think that. It would be like a village idiot always accidentally answering the math question right. There are policies and policy decisions which look "foolish" because they do not achieve the aims as stated in the public state. The "war on drugs" (which was the template for "the war on terror") is the perfect example. But when one looks closer one realizes that what look like "down sides" from the public state perspective, are "benefits" when looked at from the point of view of a secretive, natonal security state / military industrial complex / hydrocarbon industry / international banking, perspective.

They really do hate us for our freedoms. WE, especially the educated classes of the American people, are THE biggest threat to their global hegemony. WE take "democracy" and all that seriously. Anyone who hasn't read Michael Hasty's 2004 article, "http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_203.shtml">Paranoid Shift," should do so.

Perhaps the biggest hidden reason people don’t make the paranoid shift is that knowledge brings responsibility. If we acknowledge that an inner circle of ruling elites controls the world’s most powerful military and intelligence system; controls the international banking system; controls the most effective and far-reaching propaganda network in history; controls all three branches of government in the world’s only superpower; and controls the technology that counts the people’s votes, we might be then forced to conclude that we don’t live in a particularly democratic system. And then voting and making contributions and trying to stay informed wouldn’t be enough. Because then the duty of citizenship would go beyond serving as a loyal opposition, to serving as a “loyal resistance” -- like the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, except that in this case the resistance to fascism would be on the side of the national ideals, rather than the government; and a violent insurgency would not only play into the empire’s hands, it would be doomed from the start.

Forming a nonviolent resistance movement, on the other hand, might mean forsaking some middle class comfort, and it would doubtless require a lot of work. It would mean educating ourselves and others about the nature of the truly apocalyptic beast we face. It would mean organizing at the most basic neighborhood level, face to face. (We cannot put our trust in the empire’s technology.) It would mean reaching across turf lines and transcending single-issue politics, forming coalitions and sharing data and names and strategies, and applying energy at every level of government, local to global. It would also probably mean civil disobedience, at a time when the Bush regime is starting to classify that action as “terrorism.” In the end, it may mean organizing a progressive confederacy to govern ourselves, just as our revolutionary founders formed the Continental Congress. It would mean being wise as serpents, and gentle as doves.

It would be a lot of work. It would also require critical mass. A paradigm shift.

[babylonsister]

46. Most notably, the quagmire that is Iraq.

They had no clue. Thought they could bong in there, defeat Saddam, and the soldiers would be pelted with flowers in gratitude for the Iraqis' new found freedom. Didn't quite work out that way, did it. And I don't see any foresight in the planning or implementation of what was planned.

[Hannah Bell]

68. The building of the giant bunker embassy didn't clue you in?

There was no intention to leave or "restore democracy". The intention was to occupy.

[Deja Q]

41. I'll second that.

+1

[SpiralHawk]

3. Bleeding the Beast

That's the catch phrase for a fundie-Republicon Homelander program to make America FAIL. They do anything and everything they can to take down America.

[napoleon_in_rags]

42. If that's the case, they have foreign operatives on their side too.

I was reading last night about the landscape of mafia connections, mostly Russian, that Madoff was in the middle of, and that were pulling strings on Wall Street up to the financial meltdown. Bearing in mind that most truly powerful Russian mafia are ex-KGB, you've got a situation where people not far from the Soviet KGB are utilizing holes in regulation, created by republicans, to crash the US economy with Republicans cheering them on. That's a pretty weird picture if you ask me...

[SalviaBlue]

4. Well, the Cons wanted to shrink the government

"down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

[Echo In Light]

5. As an aside: isn't it theorized that a plane was supposed hit the WH on 9/11?

Food for thought

[The Hope Mobile]

8. Who proposed that theory? nt

[Echo In Light]

12. Considering the gazillion different sources on the subject, I have no idea. However...

...considering the OP's suggestion (neocon coup) I find the idea interesting that, from that perspective, had a plane struck the White House, or Congress building on Capitol Hill, a more overt implementation of totalitarian infrastructure, something the Bush/Cheney machine clearly pushed for on many levels, may have occurred.

[The Hope Mobile]

32. I hadn't heard that though I don't entirely rule it out but I think that

what happened happened because Bush/Cheney et al wanted it to and it would be to their benefit to create a theory that they were also supposed to be attacked and get it out there to make it look like they were also being threatened and therefore not complicit. They got their coup.

[Tutankhamun]

63. Bin Laden would rather have Bush alive to help destroy the USA.

I doubt he would have wanted to hit the White House and risk killing his greatest ally, GWB. Of course it's possible he knew well in advance that GWB wouldn't be in the White House that morning.

But if that were true, there would be relatively little point to targeting the WH. He'd only be hitting a relatively small target and likely kill nobody while destroying a building with only symbolic value.

Bin Laden has benefitted imensely from Bush's actions post 9-11 (and his inaction pre-9-11).

[The Hope Mobile]

74. I still think they were in partnership on 9/11. I think that's why

the WH wasn't actually hit.

[truedelphi]

75. When the planes were grounded, all the plots that had not yet been brought to fruition

Were stalled. I know that it was suspected that there were planes to hit in Chicago (Sears Tower) and in Dallas or Houston. So the notion of one hitting the WH doesn't seem at all that absurd.

Thank goodness Leon Panneta had the sense to stop the planes that day. If he had waited for our President to do it, (ie Bush) we'd still be waiting!

[Lilith Velkor]

66. There were reports of the DC Mall burning that day

That means the Capitol.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. I'm no conpsiracy theorist,

but I've been maintaining for quite a while, in real life and here at DU, that this is nothing but what The Powers That Be (consider Carlyle Group as one of The Powers) have decided to do, and it is all playing out as planned.

It was important to get W into office, and that was nicely taken care of by Jim Baker and The Supremes. After that, we got Cheney and the rest of the swine.

Invading Iraq was going to happen, regardless of 9/11, which just made it easier, since people are too fucking stupid to stop and understand that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

Iraq had oil and a strategic spot in the Middle East.

So, The Powers That Be got to ride roughshod over the American economy for almost eight years, putting us so far into hock that we'll never get out. TPTB liked that, since the future of our country isn't their concern.

When it came time for the 2008 elections, TPTB let John McCain have the nomination, since they knew he couldn't win and he's just a nice old figurehead who would do everything they told him to do. And he did.

They let the young black guy win. It's sort of an inside joke, since it will be that young black guy who presides over the economic demise of the United States.

We're bankrupt. Busted. The torture issue is almost collateral, since a bankrupt country can't afford the luxury of investigations or trials.

The Powers That Be are loving it, because it's all going according to plan.

Eight years from now, or maybe even four, they'll be back with a shiny new candidate whose identity hasn't even been made public yet.

And they'll take it all over again, and start it up the way they want. Somewhere inside that, Cheney will be King..............

[Soylent Brice]

10. you said it all right here:

"this is nothing but what The Powers That Be... have decided to do, and it is all playing out as planned."

absolutely.

NOTHING this huge and expansive happens in a "oops, we fucked up" way.

and yes, i do believe that they'll get enough steam in them to produce a candidate that will be appalling enough to be appealing to their base again, and soon.

[KoKo]

21. Somewhere along the way there should have been "stops"....but there weren't.

Total corruption of the Military/Industrial/Corporate Media Coup. There was little if any pushback. If they were merely incompentent, (gang who couldn't shoot straight) somewhere along the way they would have been stopped. The worst of it became apparent with the bogus Clinton Impeachement followed by an election decided by the US Supreme Court. A stolen election that then allowed the "Final Solution" to occur.

Someday it will be sorted out in history...but long after most of us here are gone. And, even then will the truth of it all ever be known.

[Echo In Light]

28. I think there's a fairly simple conclusion drawn if one connects obvious dots

But much of that depends on what one finds to be an acceptable view re their govt and country. Basic denial and indifference on the part of the American populace has been the primary enabling force behind this entire neocon/PNAC horror show. Try talking with people about it, even randomly, and you'll find a very high % of those who don't buy the official version of 9/11, yet don't really care one way or the other ...and like it or not, all of it rests on that crime as it was their great justifier, their "new Pearl Harbor," used to bolster public support for the prearranged plans and legislation they had created and wanted to implement.

[KoKo]

54. Given the McCorporate Media we've had for a couple of Decades...it's no wonder

that "basic denial and indifference" seem to persist. And, I agree...the folks I try to talk to seem to not care "one way or the other." They are too involved in their own lives, childrens problems and etc. to get into a "Big Picture" of what went wrong and how do we fix it. They don't really see much wrong...even though they didn't like Bush at the end of his term. They just figure "It is what it Is...Politicians all lie." They don't get into the MORAL/LEGAL stuff we here on DU get into.

Sad.....and there's nothing to be done about that...it seems.

[underpants]

36. Good one- in the meantime Dick must have realized that he didn't destroy something

like a file or files or a single document. He is raising hell because he knows that they only way to make sure that kid Obama doesn't let people know about it or worse yet use it behind the scenes is to get one of their sleeper cells in DoJ into the mix "reviewing memos" that Cheney wants released. One of these ops can get his/her hands on it and get rid of it.

A pretty good conspiracy theory I think.

[Occam Bandage]

9. Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice. nt

[Echo In Light]

15. The notion that powerful people with convergent interests don't collude or act in malice is absurd

Especially considering the track record of this bunch. And Bush/Cheney certainly did manage to get, and undo, quite a bit of what they wanted despite being so 'incompetent.'

[Occam Bandage]

16. I wouldn't attribute incompetence to the instances of them successfully accomplishing their agenda.

I do attribute incompetence to their agenda resulting in the destruction of their party as a result of the poor governance in which their agenda results.

[Echo In Light]

17. They've made it clear they don't care about their party, so it doesn't constitute incompetence

[Occam Bandage]

27. They only made that clear after the "Permanent Republican Majority" fell apart

under the weight of its own incompetence. When people fail miserably, they often claim that success wasn't their goal. Doesn't make it so.

[Echo In Light]

29. Perhaps. Although I doubt that various outcomes weren't considered/weighed early on

...yet, whatever it is we're actually dealing with here, a coup of sorts, was going to be implemented as planned regardless of potential outcomes ...and whose to say which outcome, per se, has been arrived at...yet?

[Occam Bandage]

30. It's certainly possible. nt

[bvar22]

44. You're hung up on the fallacy that "Party" makes a difference.

Did the Military Budget INCREASE this year?

Are any of the master War Criminals going to be held accountable?

Is the "Democratic Health Care Reform" going to funnel $Billions to the Health Insurance Industry?

Are LABOR Unions still being exterminated?

Are good American Jobs still being shipped out to Low Wage Countries?

Is NAFTA going to be "re-negotiated"?

Are the Welfare Executives on Wall Street still getting huge Bonuses?

Has the "Unitary Executive" been dismantled?..Patriot Act?...Military Commissions Act...?

Is our military still going to still be deployed to the Middle East hot wars without any fundamental policy changes for the foreseeable future?

The "Democrats" have won HUGE victories in 2006 and 2008, but has anything really changed?


NOW we have Your Children’s Money too !!!
And there is not a fucking thing you can do about it!
Now THIS is “Post-Partisanship” !
Better get used to it!!
Hahahahahahahahaha!

[Echo In Light]

45. "Bipartisan = A larger than usual deception is being carried out against the American populace."

~ George Carlin

[Soylent Brice]

18. you're saying their incompetence lead to

fucked up policies which lead to this disaster, alone?

that there was no plan to bilk taxpayers out of money through, let's say something as simple as KBR contracts?

would you say that even that is plausible?

and if so, how come a conspiracy of any other kind wouldn't be?

[Occam Bandage]

25. "KBR contracts" are a drop in the bucket when it comes to military spending.

The MIC gets its sugar. They don't need a war to justify it. Heck, the overwhelming majority of military spending over the last eight years has nothing to do with Iraq and nothing to do with Afghanistan.

Iraq was completely unnecessary as an excuse to spend money. You might say that Iraq spending is extra spending they couldn't have otherwise given the MIC, but that ain't quite true either. The run-up to Iraq resulted in the canceling or scaling-back of many other projects, from next-generation personal weapons systems to the massive Crusader artillery system. Rummy came into office with a plan to completely overhaul the military at enormous cost by buying as much technology as the nation could afford--his so-called "revolution in military affairs." They ended up giving up on most of that idea as the wars grew too expensive.

[Hannah Bell]

71. Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration

This report, prepared for Representative Henry Waxman, documents the growth of private contractors that provide federal services, as well as the explosion of wasteful contracts and the boom in contractor fraud.

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/resources/part5/chapter14

[ControlledDemolition]

67. What about incompetence by design? n/t

[Echo In Light]

78. "Incompetence" as a strategic ruse, and hence quickly adopted by M$M

...as a safe "criticism."

Ham-fisted is more palatable than Fucking Evil.

[Glorfindel]

11. No tinfoil required...many people think exactly as you do

Here's an interesting article on that very subject:

http://happyvalleynews.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/grover-norquist-successfully-drowns-federal-government-in-bathtub/

[Soylent Brice]

13. !!

"like some third-world dictator looting the treasury before he seeks asylum in a non-extradition country."

exactly.

thank you for the link!

[kjackson227]

14. Well, considering the crime family that Bush comes from...

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING would surprise me when it comes to him, his family, and his criminal administration...

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bushco/bush_crime_family.htm

Conspiracy theory??? Who knows, but where there's smoke, there's fire.

[Soylent Brice]

22. another great link. thank you!

[global1]

23. And It Really Didn't Take A Lot of Genius Here.......

Poppy Bush just said - we can have all this happen - if you put my idiot son in as the President. He hasn't succeeded in anything he's done all his life. He'll screw it up without us having to do much and he won't have a clue that he helped us.

[RufusTFirefly]

33. Interesting thought. I think the incompetence meme is both wrong and dangerous

Suggesting that Bush screwed up is like suggesting that members of Congress aren't serving their constituents.

In both cases, the problem is the wrong vantage point.

I don't think Bush screwed up at all. In fact, I think his plan was a whopping success. He's bankrupted the government and made his buddies rich. Appointing screwups like "Brownie" was deliberate. It reinforced the public's fallacious notion that government is the problem, not the solution, and that if you want to get something done efficiently and right, you need to privatize. This also explains why Bush was so adamant in opposing SCHIP. The program proves that a federally administered health program works well. And you know where that would lead...

And as to whether members of Congress are properly serving their constituents, they definitely are. It's just that we the people aren't their constituents.

[Beam Me Up]

39. I agree totally. n/t

[Soylent Brice]

40. this statement alone is monumental:

"It reinforced the public's fallacious notion that government is the problem, not the solution, and that if you want to get something done efficiently and right, you need to privatize."

ABSO-LUTELY.

[lunatica]

34. They were turning the US into a Corporate Fascist State.

They told us what they were doing. They wrote PNAC (Project for a New American Century) which outlined their intent to build an even larger military power which they would use to keep all other countries from becoming as strong as the sole Super Power United States. To do that they need soldiers and to have soldiers they need to destroy the middle class so that the only way to make a decent living is to join the military or stay in poverty. They wanted to privatize everything so that the jobs would all be service jobs paid at the lowest wages possible with the ordinary citizen kept in poverty.

When they wrote PNAC they realized they needed something like 'a Pearl Harbor event' in order to immediately set their plans onto the fast track. And lo and behold if they didn't get exactly what they wanted! We all saw how damn fast they moved to set their plans in place after 9/11. They did their best to get Unitary Presidential Executive power which is basically a dictatorship in which the President has all the power, including the unquestionable power to throw anyone in the world in jail, the power to spy on anyone they want and the right to basically create law with the use of signing statements.

It's naive to think they were incompetent. They were actually wildly successful, but they didn't count on the internet. For years they quietly bought up the media and it worked as the MSM became Bush's Propaganda Arm.

And they aren't going to go away. Especially if they aren't brought to justice. They will go underground and build their plans again. Only they'll remember the internet and find a way of controlling that by the time they're ready to take control.

[Soylent Brice]

43. the internet, thus far, has proven to be the silent assassin.

information and the sharing thereof has always been the best way of organizing against tyranny.

[kimmerspixelated]

48. But it's hard to destroy

a moneymaker. Too many huge businesses run by rethugs would go belly-up if they didn't have their internet businesses, so the rethugs can't kill the messenger quite so easily.

[NRaleighLiberal]

35. If he went from a success to a presidential failure, I would agree - but all through life he had the

anti midas touch - everything he touched turned to shit.

[lunatica]

51. As President he was only the figurehead

My theory is that he became President because his brother was otherwise tied up in Florida because they needed Florida to go to Bush. They stole the election and they made sure the dispute went to the Supreme Court with James Baker heading up the charge like a general charging into battle. Bush was not anyone's first or second choice but they needed to have a Bush as President and he was available. The reason they needed a Bush is because the family has connections which go back at least as far as Prescott Bush and the Skull and Bones secret fraternity, and GHW Bush being an ex-CIA director also has connections everywhere. I'm sure Bush was in on the PNAC plan but only up to a point because he really is a fuck up mentally, though he's cunning and mean. He had power but the neo-cons were running the PNAC agenda and they had power over him. It was all a very real conspiracy to take over through an invisible coup with their lawyers rewriting laws, etc. They would have done it too but for the internet.

I think that now that we're hearing protestations from individuals who were close to Bush (Condi and Hughes unwittingly incriminating themselves and the highest Officials of the Bush Administration) means they're plans have truly unraveled. Cheney is making a superhuman effort to salvage something because he has to do something to keep himself out of jail.

[Hannah Bell]

69. The connections go further back than that:

GHW's great-grandfather:

David Davis "D.D." Walker (19 January 1840 - 4 October 1918):

Founder Ely & Walker (still exists as part of Burlington industries: http://www.elyandwalker.com/)

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



D.D.'s first cousin:

David Davis (March 9, 1815 – June 26, 1886):

Yalie, Lincoln's campaign manager, Illinois rep, US Supreme Court, US Senator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Davis_(Supreme_Court_justice)



GHW's grandfather Walker:

George Herbert "Bert" Walker (June 11, 1875 – June 24, 1953):

Director of: W.A. Harriman & Company; Harriman Fifteen, American International Corporation; Georgian Manganese Corporation; Barnsdall Corporation; American Ship & Commerce Corporation; Union Banking Corporation; G.H. Walker & Company; Missouri Pacific Railroad; Laclede Gas and the New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railroad.

"Walker was the father of New York Mets cofounder George Herbert Walker, Jr. (Skull and Bones or S&B 1927), Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center CEO Dr. John M. Walker, Sr. (S&B 1931) (father of Judge John M. Walker, Jr.) and CIA officer Louis Walker (S&B 1936).

Golf's Walker Cup is named for him. "He also coheaded the syndicate, (with W. Averell Harriman), which rebuilt the famed sports venue of Madison Square Garden and the Belmont Race Track, 1925. His brother-in-law Joseph Walker Wear was one of the founders of the Davis Cup."

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



GHW's grandfather Bush (Prescott's dad):

Samuel Prescott Bush (October 4, 1863 – February 8, 1948):

Ran Buckeye Castings for Frank Rockefeller, Harriman = client. Chief of Ordance for WWI War Industries Board. Board of Cleveland Federal Reserve. Herbert Hoover's Committee for Unemployment Relief during the Depression.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Bush




Barb Bush's dad:

Marvin Pierce (17 June 1893 – 17 July 1969):

President of McCall Corporation, the publisher of the popular women's magazines Redbook and McCall's.

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



Barbara Bush's grandpa:

James Edgar Robinson (15 August 1868, near Marysville, Ohio – 27 January 1932):

Ohio Supreme Court

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Robinson


GHW's brothers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H.T._Bush

A former president of and director of the St. Louis-based Boatmen's Bancshares from 1978 to 1986, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Saint Louis University (1985-92), chairman of the Missouri Botanical Gardens (1991-93) and president of the Municipal Opera Association (The MUNY) (2005-06).<1>

In 2005, reports emerged that Bush had garnered significant profits from the sale of Engineered Support Systems, a defense contractor working for The Pentagon in Iraq and Afghanistan.<2> Further reports in 2006 corroborated these stock sales in the range of $1.9 million.<3>




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

Jonathan Bush founded J. Bush & Co. which provided discreet banking services for the Washington D.C. embassies of foreign governments for many years. In 1997, Riggs Bank bought J. Bush & Co. and made Bush CEO & President of Riggs Investment, a firm based in New Haven, Connecticut.

On May 15, 2004, The Washington Post published an item about Jonathan Bush which states: "A political Web site written by a Democratic operative drew attention yesterday to the fact that President Bush's uncle, Jonathan J. Bush, is a top executive at Riggs Bank, which this week agreed to pay a record $25 million in civil fines for violations of law intended to thwart money laundering."<2>



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

Prescott Bush, Jr. (born 1922), Prescott Bush's eldest son, served as chairman of the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce. (This guy is HUGE in China, the kingpin of the Bush entry into China & Chinese offshoring. Wikipedia killed the detailed article on his activities in China; one of the very early entrants.



This doesn't even go into the various cousins currently scattered though gov't & media, not the older geneaology, where the Bushes were "in society" for a long time.

They've been *very* connected for a very long time. The folks who dismiss Bush as a dimwitted figurehead for Cheney & Rumsfeld don't get it.

[Hannah Bell]

70. Nother thing I wonder about: all George I's sons married "beneath them",

so to speak. So far as I can tell, none of the wives were particularly rich, high society, or high achievers. On the surface, with their connections & money, they should have married higher up the ladder, so to speak.

I think it's interesting they didn't.

[Atman]

60. So how did Shit Midas achieve the most powerful position on Earth?

With a Daddy who was head of the CIA? You can't fathom that he was maybe PLACED THERE?

.

[Wednesdays]

49. Means, motive, opportunity...all there

So, 'tis possible.

The question is, now what? :shrug:

[Spike89]

50. Bush et al. are true believers

They didn't plan for everything to fail (seriously, how do they benefit?). I could buy that they didn't care if chaos occurred on the road to their fascist dream state, but I believe they think everything would work great if they only had more time, less opposition, etc. etc.

To a real believer, nothing can ever prove them wrong--if they fail, it is always because they didn't do it purely enough, that people didn't have the patience to live through the bad times in order to get to the promised land, or that the other guys sabotaged them.

It isn't classic stupid and it isn't pure evil. It is unexamined faith in an ideology that is flawed. In this case, their ideas are seriously flawed. However, just about any ideology is likely to end up with a failed government if it isn't examined and adjusted in response to reality.

[tom_paine]

53. Been saying this for years, Brice.

The very idea that all of this was due to "incompetence" is as laughable as saying everyone "getting out of the way", so that Livia's son Tiberius could become Emperor of Rome after she poisoned Augustus is a "tinfoil hat conspiracy theory".

Denial of horrific right-out-there-in-the-open truth (usually the most horrific truths ARE right out in the open) may well be the most powerful human drive existant.

If not, it's a close second only to Sex Drive.

In any case, we can look at the history of Ancient Rome and laugh at Livia's and/or Tiberius' obvious machinations to ensure the Claudian Family deposed the Julian Family because we have no stake in it and because the history reads like a neon arrow pointing to Claudian culpability.

This is how historians and anyone with any ability to connect dots will certainly view the history of Imperial America and the Bushian Family from their first attempt to overthrow FDR in 1935

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

to their more sophisticated and successful attempts, such as the assassination of "American Germanicus", which would be JFK, or maybe JFK, RFK, and MLK together constituting our "American Germanicus" who's death was necessary for the Bushian conquest to continue apace.

No Kennedy murders, no Nixon. No Nixon, no BushCheneyRumsfeld.





As Nixon could never bring himself to speak of the JFK assassination, which he called "The Bay of Pigs Thing", also psychologically telling was Poppy Bush's queer reactions and comments at Gerald Ford's funeral.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Bush+Kennedy+assassination+%22Ford+funeral%22&aq=f&oq=

God, how I'd love to waterboard ol' Poppy. That pampered Caesar would crack like an EGG! Bet he was the Control Officer, though, not the triggerman. Caesar doesn't pull triggers himself...

As FDR once said, "In politics, there are no accidents. If it happened, you can bet it was planned."

We are either living through the culmination of a plan that has likely been in the works for decades, or perhaps just the inevitable outcome of patricians pursuing the purple robes of Emperor, as Sulla lead to Crassus lead to Julius Caesar lead to Augustus, Tiberius and then Caligula and Nero.

As always, as the patricians of Rome dared not call themselves King lest they violate the cherished Central Myth of the Plebs, so must our Bushies make themselves Emperor without calling themselves such.

They have patience, and they are almost there.

[opihimoimoi]

55. Bush and his PNACers and NEOCONs took America for a ride down the tubes.

The evidence points toward intentional disruptions and changes to our Society....Bush is Party to a massive fuckup...FUBAR as they say in Tonga...

He was only the Titular Dufus in charge but the buck stops w him....and...he didn't realize he was being used by Cheney....until too late....

Dick is the real asshole ....

[KoKo]

56. And..."Shock & Awe".. "Stolen Election, 9/11, Invade Iraq/Afghanistan/Kill Bad Guys/

Implode the Stock Market/Take down Banks/ Unions/Pensions and Mutual Funds..making sure whoever succeeded you had to deal with it all and would lose Congressional Seats in 2010 and probably the next election.

Game Plan...A+ for SUCCESS for Hedge Funds/Corporate Bank Americans and Wall St.... and F- for long term health of Average American.

[opihimoimoi]

58. Them guys are EVIL ...there is no other EXPLANATION....They are the PERSONIFICATION of EVIL

8,000 Plus Americans dead

38,000 wounded, some with amputations and blindness

87,000 suffering from PTS...= depression, mental challenges, divorces, etc...

National Debt at 11 Trillion$$$$ 10 of which because of Reagan, PopsBush, and WBush...Clinton was bringing the damn thiung Down when W came aboard..

They broke the Law to TORTURE

They changed the Law to CONTROL

They LIED to AMERICA, the WORLD and our Allies

They are EVIL BULLIES who ROBBed us of our loved ones, Our Treasury, and of our FUTURE

Pigs? No.... Pigs are not EVIL......no, these Assholes are CLOSET SATANists.....Period....

[KoKo]

62. And...down the memory hole is where the MSM want's them to go....

The worst President/Veep and Administration in History!

[G_j]

57. destabilizing the middle east was part of that

no doubt

[Atman]

59. I've posted about this many times in the past.

I think I even have a few Journal posts about it. It starts with George H.W. Bush's calls for a "New World Order." Or even earlier, with his involvement in Eugenics, and Prescott's funding of the Nazis. Whatever way you look at it, this family is evil incarnate. They have NEVER, EVER produced anything of value to "their country." Everything they've been about enriches themselves, while harming others. Forever, throughout the history of the Bush Family.

So I see it as no stretch to claim that Bush's entire goal was to bring down the entire American system for his (his family's) own enrichment and power. One only has to ask what the hell they were talking about when Grover Norquist spoke of "drowning the economy in a bathtub." What the hell was that supposed to mean? Yet, here we are...several trillions of dollars in impossible debt while unsustainable off-the-books wars continue longer than WWII, with no end in sight. And who profits from them? Bush, Cheney, et al.

I'm in complete agreement with you. There is no rational explanation why a president would continue to cut taxes and funnel the money to his 1% "base" while waging unnecessary, insanely expensive and expansive wars. No rational explanation at all...unless framed in the context of breaking the bank and bringing down the entire system. None at all.

While I believe Bush is/was a fucking idiot, I also believe he was at least knowledgeable enough about the family history and the family goals to be able to stand before a podium and lie through his his teeth in order to facilitate those ends.

.

[Name removed]

61. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bridgit]

64. Yup, Starving The Beast is still part of their fiscal policy

http://www.ndol.org/print.cfm?contentid=251788

[live love laugh]

65. "I think Bush was purposely trying to run the country into the ground." DUH

That's the neocon plan ala Grover Norquist.

The whole effort, however, is treasonous and BushCo should be tried for treason not just for torture but for this "dismantling".

[lunatica]

72. Reading the responses on this thread is educational

Your tin foil idea seems to have morphed into some very knowledgeable responses about real conspiracies, not fake ones.

[Badgerman]

73. If true then why isObama shielding them? just asking.

[truedelphi]

76. Maybe because possibly he is not any better.

While Bush diverted some two trillion dollars on account of the two wars begun under his adminsitration, Obama is continuing those wars.

Obama voted for FISA, voted for the Bush Bailout, and has really awful people running the economy - Geithner and Bernanke don't show any improvement over Paulson.

Obama is a warmer and friendlier version of Bush, but most Americans do not read the small print. He still has kept the ability to have secret renditions, and the nine trillion bucks leaked to Wall Street from the Main Street middle incomed doesn't surprise me. Obama has forgotten all about his former stance on the Israeli-Palestine situation - he now is firmly on Israel's side, whereas before he was much more balanced.

Mountain tops will be plunderred for their coal, and the carbon taxes will end up impacting the middle incomed more than the big polluters.

Monsanto will continue to plunder the small family farmers and destroy agriculture here and abroad.

But all is as it should be in a Banana Republic.

[ShortnFiery]

77. Excellent Points. Tkx. :-) nt

[nichomachus]

79. You're on the right track, but Bush may just have been a useful idiot

There is a definite plot afoot to destroy the US. One of its current architects is Grover Norquist.

Their goals are:

1. Destroy the middle class - check
2. Destroy the unions - check
3. Drive down wages - check
4. Eliminate government social programs - check
5. Eliminate Social Security and Medicare - on the agenda
6. Weaken public education - check
7. Eliminate taxes on the ultra-wealthy and corporations - check
8. Privatize the infrastructure - underway

Greg Palast has been telling us this for years. It's all laid out in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

Oh -- and the next step in their playbook is to deal with the civil unrest that will follow the successful completion of their agenda. Hence, doing away with Posse Comitatus and the establishement of Blackwater.

They test drove this agenda in a number of countries -- many of them in Latin America. Now, they're doing it here.

Bush may or may not have been in the loop on this. My guess is that he had his own agenda, but the corporatists just rode along on top of that to achieve their overall goals.

I'm not sure if we've passed the point of no return on this, but if we aren't, we're damned close.

[Festivito]

81. Destroy Democracy around the world while yelping its name.

Destroy democracy here, and the rest of the world's democracies fall later.

We know the CONs do the opposite of what they say, and do the things they claim their enemies do.

[Orsino]

82. Bush was sticking up for his ruling class.

By ensuring that all of them got richer at our expense, any personal gains of his own were not very significant. He was, and remains, a class warrior. Whatever talent he possesses was always focused there.