Larisa Alexandrovna: All the President's Nazis (real and imagined): An Open Letter to Bush

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Larisa Alexandrovna
All the President's Nazis (real and imagined): An Open Letter to Bush
Posted May 15, 2008 | 07:48 PM (EST)




Dear Mr. Bush,

Your speech on the Knesset floor today was not only a disgrace; it was nothing short of treachery. Worse still, your exploitation of the Holocaust in a country carved out of the wounds of that very crime, in order to strike a low blow at American citizens whose politics differs from your own is unforgivable and unpardonable. Let me remind you, Mr. Bush, of your words today:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to Israel's parliament, the Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Well Mr. Bush, the only thing this comment lacked was a mirror and some historical facts. You want to discuss the crimes of Nazis against my family and millions of other families in Europe during World War II? Let me revive a favorite phrase of yours: Bring. It. On!

The All-American Nazi

Your family's fortune is built on the bones of the very people butchered by the Nazis, my family and the families of those in the Knesset who applauded you today:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.

Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp. (search), a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism.

--snip--

Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as other financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.

Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/all-the-presidents-nazis_b_102022.html

[babylonsister]

1. Rec'd! She's great at connecting the dots. nt

[G_j]

2. well that raised the blood pressure a bit,

* IS the modern day nazi
war criminal..:argh:

[KamaAina]

3. It goes a tad bit deeper than that

Thyssen actually served as a Nazi party delegate to the Reichstag.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Thyssen#Weimar_Germany

In November, 1932, Thyssen and Hjalmar Schacht were the main organisers of a letter to President Paul von Hindenburg urging him to appoint Hitler as Chancellor. Thyssen also persuaded the Association of German Industrialists to donate 3 million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party for the March 1933 Reichstag election. As a reward, he was elected a Nazi member of the Reichstag and appointed to the Council of State of Prussia, the largest German state (both purely honorary positions).

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. General Motors and Exxon also made the German War Machine possible

Hopefully, by Bush saying what he did, (he doesn't know history), history may reach
the masses.

[Octafish]

14. IBM made the paperwork manageable.

New York Times reporter Edwin Black chronicled the role of the computer in NAZI times...

IBM and the Holocaust

by Edwin Black

This book will be profoundly uncomfortable to read. It was profoundly uncomfortable to write. It tells the story of IBM's conscious involvement-directly and through its subsidiaries-in the Holocaust, as well as its involvement in the Nazi war machine that murdered millions of others throughout Europe.

EXCERPT...

So how did it work?

When Hitler came to power, a central Nazi goal was to identify and destroy Germany's 600,000 Jews. To Nazis, Jews were not just those who practiced Judaism, but those of Jewish blood, regardless of their assimilation, intermarriage, religious activity, or even conversion to Christianity. Only after Jews were identified could they be targeted for asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and ultimately extermination. To search generations of communal, church, and governmental records all across Germany-and later throughout Europe-was a cross-indexing task so monumental, it called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed.

When the Reich needed to mount a systematic campaign of Jewish economic disenfranchisement and later began the massive movement of European Jews out of their homes and into ghettos, once again, the task was so prodigious it called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed. When the Final Solution sought to efficiently transport Jews out of European ghettos along railroad lines and into death camps, with timing so precise the victims were able to walk right out of the boxcar and into a waiting gas chamber, the coordination was so complex a task, this too called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed.

However, another invention did exist: the IBM punch card and card sorting system-a precursor to the computer. IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success. IBM Germany, using its own staff and equipment, designed, executed, and supplied the indispensable technologic assistance Hitler's Third Reich needed to accomplish what had never been done before-the automation of human destruction. More than 2,000 such multi-machine sets were dispatched throughout Germany, and thousands more throughout German-dominated Europe. Card sorting operations were established in every major concentration camp. People were moved from place to place, systematically worked to death, and their remains cataloged with icy automation.

IBM Germany, known in those days as Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, or Dehomag, did not simply sell the Reich machines and then walk away. IBM's subsidiary, with the knowledge of its New York headquarters, enthusiastically custom-designed the complex devices and specialized applications as an official corporate undertaking. Dehomag's top management was comprised of openly rabid Nazis who were arrested after the war for their Party affiliation. IBM NY always understood-from the outset in 1933-that it was courting and doing business with the upper echelon of the Nazi Party. The company leveraged its Nazi Party connections to continuously enhance its business relationship with Hitler's Reich, in Germany and throughout Nazi-dominated Europe.

Dehomag and other IBM subsidiaries custom-designed the applications. Its technicians sent mock-ups of punch cards back and forth to Reich offices until the data columns were acceptable, much as any software designer would today. Punch cards could only be designed, printed, and purchased from one source: IBM. The machines were not sold, they were leased, and regularly maintained and upgraded by only one source: IBM. IBM subsidiaries trained the Nazi officers and their surrogates throughout Europe, set up branch offices and local dealerships throughout Nazi Europe staffed by a revolving door of IBM employees, and scoured paper mills to produce as many as 1.5 billion punch cards a year in Germany alone. Moreover, the fragile machines were serviced on site about once per month, even when that site was in or near a concentration camp. IBM Germany's headquarters in Berlin maintained duplicates of many code books, much as any IBM service bureau today would maintain data backups for computers.

I was haunted by a question whose answer has long eluded historians. The Germans always had the lists of Jewish names. Suddenly, a squadron of grim-faced SS would burst into a city square and post a notice demanding those listed assemble the next day at the train station for deportation to the East. But how did the Nazis get the lists? For decades, no one has known. Few have asked.

The answer: IBM Germany's census operations and similar advanced people counting and registration technologies. IBM was founded in 1898 by German inventor Herman Hollerith as a census tabulating company. Census was its business. But when IBM Germany formed its philosophical and technologic alliance with Nazi Germany, census and registration took on a new mission. IBM Germany invented the racial census-listing not just religious affiliation, but bloodline going back generations. This was the Nazi data lust. Not just to count the Jews - but to identify them.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/b/black-edwin/ibm-and-the-holocaust.html

Imagine what Bush and his cronies are managing to do with today's computers: TIA spying, identifying, classifying...

[frog92969]

46. Chimpy has a bachelor's degree in history from Yale.

He knows what the deal is, he's just being arrogant as usual.

[kestrel91316]

49. The ultimate irony - doesn't Bush have a DEGREE in history, lol???

[myrna minx]

5. K&R n/t

[Jack Rabbit]

6. You go. LaLa

What this blind adoration finally proves to me is that the right-wing regime that has overtaken Israel cares nothing for its people, its heritage, and the tragic history that they now honor by applauding a man whose family-fortune was built on the bodies of their loved ones. Like their Republican (and Lieberman) counterparts in the United States, Likud does not represent its people, rather, it represents its owners. Likud has traded Israel, its Jews, their heritage and history for the same golden calf purchased and sold by the far-right wing in the United States.

How true and how sad.

I look forward to the day when Bush and his neoconservative lieutenants are tried for their crimes. If I believed in the death penalty, then I would say that the journey of Bush and Cheney should end under the same scaffold in Nuremburg where war criminals of a bygone era ended theirs.

[AntiFascist]

23. Excellent points...

the radical right factions of the Israeli government are as bad (if not worse in some ways) than the radical right in the US. A Mossad defector has documented how the bombing of Libya was brought about through false flag intelligence, for instance. Decades ago the Israeli right decided how Islamic terrorism could be used to their benefit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. This should be above the fold in every news paper

and at the top of every news cast

Ain't holding my breath

[marmar]

9. Maybe it will make the Fahrenheit 9/11 sequel.....

n/t

[defendandprotect]

20. This info has never been mentioned in corporate-media . . .

it's buried very deeply --- like Bush being AWOL ---

[Synnical]

8. Past time the Bush Family was held to account

for their fortunes and family name recognition.

Of course, the Kennedy family has similar issues.


The Harriman's were always scary.

But the Clinton's do not.

Nor does Obama.

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[defendandprotect]

19. Bush family . . . "Trading With The Enemy" . . . !!!

[SalmonChantedEvening]

10. K&R! lala stomps the coward king

as only she can :hi: :hug: :loveya: :yourock:

thanks for this marmar :hug: :pals:

[marmar]

11. You're welcome, SCE......

And you're right, it's a classic LaLa ass-kicking!

[David Zephyr]

12. Kudos to Larisa Alexandrovna! I thought I was alone. Thank goodness this is getting out.

Well, apparently I wasn't the only one who immediately thought of the Bush family's long established history with the Nazis when GW Bush made his comment.

Come on, fellow DU'ers. Let's get this story out.

Bush brought it up and now is the perfect time to push the media into reporting the Nazi past of the Bush family.

He brought up the subject.

[SpiralHawk]

13. The K and the R

Thanks Larisa...

[SpiralHawk]

15. Wow - this is a powerful passage

"...The unprovoked attack on Poland by Germany was a war crime just as your attack against Iraq - based on lies - is a war crime.

"This is not my opinion. This is not a political attack. This is a fact."

[bleever]

16. Read the complete piece.

She lays out the history of Bush family crimes and W's own Nazi parallels very well.

[SoCalDem]

17. I'm emailing this one to the White House..Thanking Bush

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3291666&mesg_id=3291666

[defendandprotect]

18. Are the Israelis really not aware of this Bush/Nazi history . . . ??? Really-????

[Amerigo Vespucci]

21. I wonder if Olbermann will connect these same dots...

...hard to say. Larisa's piece is like a K.O. "Special Comment" on steroids. We'll find out soon enough, I'm sure. I think it's safe to say that Olbermann's been reading the same headlines we have, and I'm sure he's well-versed in Bush Family History. Would MSNBC allow him to do something similar to Larisa's article, or would he have to sanitize it (condemn Bush for the remarks with no mention of Prescott)?

:popcorn:

[wurzel]

28. Can you e-mail KO?

[The Wizard]

22. It was Bush who appeased

bin Laden by removing U.S. bases from Saudi territory after 9-11. bin Laden said he attacked the U.S. for having military bases on sacred Saudi land. Then Bush deposed Saddam Hussein, a man bin Laden felt was an apostate. bin Laden also predicted Bush would attack a Muslim country in retaliation for 9-11 and that would help recruit new people for his terrorist forces.
The Bush and bin laden families have been doing business for years. The Bush's and the Saudi royals have been doing business for years. Most of the 9-11 Kamikaze pilots were Saudi nationals and the operation was funded by Saudi nationals. How much are the Saudis charging for oil now?

[DinahMoeHum]

35. Yep, more projection bullshit from W.

:evilfrown:

[SeattleGirl]

24. This piece made me cry, and made me want to throw shit.

I knew about Bush's family ties to the Nazi's, and Prescott's attempt to overthrow the US government, but this:

"You know what I'm gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don't you Herman?" a then Governor George W. Bush allegedly asked a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.


When the journalist, Ken Herman, replied that he did not know, Bush reportedly delivered the punch line: "I'm telling 'em they're all going to hell."

enraged me even further.

HOW COULD ANYONE LIKE THIS, WITH HIS SHAMEFUL LINEAGE, BECOME THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?

[2peaches2]

47. Where did this quote come from?

I have ordered several of the books recently mentioned like this one about IBM. Are there others out there that I can access? Thanks....

[Norrin Radd]

25. kr

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

26. From the Huff link...

I am ashamed of you Mr. Bush. I am ashamed of those who applauded your political porn played out against the hallowed backdrop of the Holocaust. I am ashamed of those reporters with you, who between them could not muster the moral courage to call you out on your ugly rhetoric and ask you about your own family Nazi ties. You are, sir, the most abhorrent human being of my lifetime. I dare say, in the lifetime of this nation.



In my lifetime as well.

[Mongooseflies]

27. It's high time

the MSM take up this topic. The timing couldn't be better either.
Firing another torpedo into the sinking ship that is the GOP


:think:

[DemoTex]

29. One of the best op/ed pieces this year! You GO, Larisa!

K&R

:kick:

[redqueen]

30. Thanks to Bush for giving us a reason to delve into his family's NAZI-SUPPORTING past.

Pass these links around!

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651

[Broadslidin]

31. The "Death Head Centerpiece" of this lucifugous leader's library...

[DinahMoeHum]

37. Heh heh, Bush just opened up a can of shit-on-stink.

Bush and Cheney are RADIOACTIVE.

Here's to the Republikkkans getting shellacked in November

:nuke::nuke::nuke:

[Ian_rd]

32. Nazi-Appeasement as a Metaphor vs. Nazi-Financing as a Reality

Bush loses.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Stuart G]

34. K & R ...

[xxqqqzme]

36. Boom!

Now that is some fine writing! I am in awe.

[BrklynLib at work]

38. I sure hope this Pandora's Box cannot be shut, and all this history serves to

finally bring justice those that profit from war...both past and present.
This is an exquisite editorial..

[flashsmith]

39. Nazi Hydra in America: Excellent overview

Get the big picture here: http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/noon.html . The Nazi's are all over the place.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

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

[Quixote1818]

41. K and R

[thereismore]

42. Do you think we will ever hear the name Prescott Bush and Nazis in the same sentence on TV? nt

[libodem]

43. Who's the Nazi now,

Mr Bush?

[Cleita]

44. Also, if he wants to talk about the invasion of Poland,

anyone who is familiar with it finds eerie similarity in how Bush invaded Iraq. It seems right out of Hitler's playbook.

[arcadian]

45. The Thyssen family - some highlights

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

Fritz as you mentioned. But check out all the Thyssen's who were born in South America. There is an art museum in Madrid that was financed by the Thyssen family, the whole Spainish fascists connection and then there is this little gem, Margit Gabriella Lujza Freiin Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva.

"During the final days of World War II, on 24 March 1945, she hosted a party for SS officers, Gestapo leaders, Nazi Youth, and local collaborators at the Thyssen's castle at Rechnitz during which 200 Jews were slaughtered."

[lala_rawraw]

48. Mar and everyone

Thank you so much for posting this and for your kind words. I had no idea this would have such an affect on people. I went to the dentist, got a root canal, heard Bush say this and drove for an hour like a mad-woman to write my anger out. I went to bed and when I got up, it was everywhere. Thanks for posting Mar and thanks to all of you for your really wonderful words of support.:)

[marmar]

50. You're more than welcome LaLa....Thanks for opening our eyes.

:applause:

[BreweryYardRat]

52. Your remarks are much appreciated, ma'am.

I'm considering leaving copies of your excellent report (with the appropriate supporting documents attached) around my city. Doubt it'll change any minds, but it's worth a shot.

[Bozita]

53. Mike Malloy read it on the air tonight. The whole thing!

Great job, Larisa.

[lala_rawraw]

54. yes, i heard...

i had no idea he would... i linked to his reading of it here:
http://www.atlargely.com/2008/05/mike-malloy-rea.html

[juno jones]

51. K&R!