Bush, Butler and Santayana

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MalignD at aol.com [mailto:MalignD at aol.com]
> Sent: Saturday, July 1, 2006 06:09 PM
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Why we should have reservations about the Germans
> 
> > <<you were probably joking, I'm probably ranting...>>
> > 
> I was joking, you are ranting.   And probably only on the P-list would 
> someone compare Prescott Bush, no matter how odious, to Hitler.
> 
> 

not explicitly, certainly; and I was talking about important US historical figures in general (and a widespread ignorance of them which certainly includes my own ignorance), not specifically about Hitler.  

So if that comparison seemed implicit, I'd like to clarify the context as it appears to me: the idea of doubt that a movie like Schindler's List (whatever its merits or lack thereouf) could be educational for the pg13 audience in Germany - and the notion (admittedly in jest) that such a knowledge-void implied Santayana's dictum led me to a feeling of solidarity in ignorance

which in turn inspired me to cite 2 personages I believe to be important ones who I lived for almost 50 years before learning about: 

Butler, a marine major general who turned against war - surely deserving of folk-hero status - who wrote movingly against it in mainstream publications such as Readers Digest;

 and P Bush, whose profit-nexus with Hitler's war machine lasted beyond Pearl Harbor and was terminated at the US government's choice, not his, and yet his stalwart politicking rehabilitated the family name to the extent that even through numerous rowdy democratic elections the business link has never become much of an issue. (though whether this demonstrates a lamentable ignorance of history or an admirable willingness to forgive and forget isn't clear to me, and perhaps neither of those explanations suffices)

I have a great deal of admiration for the work ethic and accomplishments of the Bush family.  Prescott Bush wasn't even a major player in the pro-fascist faction: other Brown Brothers Harriman partners, GE, Standard Oil, the DuPonts, and of course Henry Ford, were all bigger Nazi-lovers than he.  Further, the threat of worldwide socialism and their inevitable liquidation under that scenario would have made Fascism attractive to them.  Clever people, of the hawk party, not my favorite, but objectively worthy of respect, all of them.  

I have a genuine love, though, for what Butler did: made public some of the financial reasons for warfare, and indicated that there are indeed moral problems with that kind of profit.  Spoke up like a major prophet!

Hitler was one of a kind.  Thank goodness we don't have anybody here like that.  Or if we do, that I don't know about them.