Anti-Semitism, racism and a Bush Family organization
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Binion121900/binion121900.html
By Carla Binion
December 19, 2000 | Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush's brother, Prescott
Bush, belong to a political organization, AmeriCares. AmeriCares is a CIA
front that supports rightwing military operations while posing as a
humanitarian group.The late J. Peter Grace, the chair of AmeriCares from 1982
to 1995, also worked with the ultra-right racist think tank, the Liberty
Lobby. Grace was the key participant in Project Paperclip, a covert operation
which recruited 900 Nazi scientists to work in the U. S. after World War II.
Many of those Nazis had been found guilty of experimentation on humans. ("
Censored 1999: The News That Didn't Make The News ," Seven Stories Press,
1999)Sara Flounders is a writer and co-coordinator of the International
Action Center (IAC), a group that has opposed U. S. sanctions on third-world
countries. In an article published in "Censored 1999," Flounders reported
that Barbara Bush was then AmeriCares ambassador-at-large.Flounders said
George H. W. Bush's brother, Prescott Bush, was on AmeriCares board of
directors. As former CIA director, George H. W. Bush is aware of J. Peter
Grace's part in bringing Nazi scientists to the U. S., and of Grace's work
with the Liberty Lobby.Here's a brief look at the Liberty Lobby's history:
According to Deborah Lipstadt (Denying the Holocaust, Penguin Books, 1994),
the far-right organization, the Liberty Lobby, was founded by Willis A.
Carto. Lipstadt says that The Wall Street Journal has labeled Carto and the
Liberty Lobby anti-Semitic. She writes that investigative columnist, Drew
Pearson, identified Carto as a Hitler "fan." Pearson said the Liberty Lobby
is "infiltrated by Nazis who revere the memory of Hitler."Lipstadt writes
that The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes Carto as the most powerful
anti-Semite in the U. S. The ADL also says the Liberty Lobby heads a
"publishing and organizational complex that for more than two decades has
propagated anti-Semitism and racism in the United States."Carto once sued The
Wall Street Journal for calling the Liberty Lobby anti-Semitic. The District
Court for the District of Columbia ruled against Carto saying it would be
hard to find a case where evidence of anti-Semitism was "more
compelling."Conservative William F. Buckley once said the Liberty Lobby is a
"hotbed of anti-Semitism," and the conservative magazine Human Events
reported that Carto has long been a Hitler sympathizer. Lipstadt says Carto
has a "revulsion for Jews and a belief in the need for an absolutist
government that would protect the 'racial heritage' of the United
States."Lipstadt writes that the racist Carto also believes Jewish people and
African-Americans are "at the root of civilization's problems." Carto argued
during World War II that Jewish influence on American policy had blinded the
U. S. to the advantages of uniting with Hitler. He later organized the Joint
Council for Repatriation, for the purpose of returning all black Americans to
Africa.In 1957, Carto told Judge Tom P. Brady, founder of the
anti-civil-rights organization, the White Citizens' Council, that the
Citizens' Council should unite with the Joint Council for Repatriation but
keep the link between the two groups secret. At the time, Brady was also a
member of the Mississippi Supreme Court.Why would George H. W. Bush, his
brother Prescott, and Barbara Bush actively support an organization whose
chair worked with the Liberty Lobby? If that were the only thing amiss about
AmeriCares and its history, it might be different, but there's
more.AmeriCares also funnels money and "humanitarian" supplies to various
right wing military forces, including, for example, contra forces in
Afghanistan. Sara Flounders says the AmeriCares Web site reveals that its
shipments tend to go "wherever the CIA is most active."The New York Times,
August 13, 1985, reported that a front organization of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's
Unification Church (The Nicaraguan Freedom Fund) funneled $350,000 to
AmeriCares. New York Newsday, April 13, 1988, reported that AmeriCares tax
returns showed AmeriCares gave cash and supplies to Contra leader Adolfo
Calero.Former AmeriCares chair, J. Peter Grace, also played a prominent role
in putting together the fascist coup that overthrew democratically elected
Salvador Allende in Chile. Sara Flounders says AmeriCares presents itself on
its web site as the "humanitarian arm of Corporate America."One corporation,
the large oil company Amoco, has given more than $46 million to AmeriCares.
Flounders mentions that Amoco was a direct beneficiary of the Gulf War.In the
context of the recent presidential election, where the complaints of
thousands of disenfranchised African-American and Jewish voters were largely
ignored by Jeb and George W. Bush, the Bush family's willingness to actively
support an organization once chaired by J. Peter Grace is not
surprising.AmeriCares' support of ultra-rightwing regimes, and Grace's help
in bringing Nazis to the U. S. and his assistance in overthrowing
democratically elected leaders, are actions that fit right in with what
happened in the 2000 election.If it should turn out that African-Americans
were definitely targeted for "voter cleansing,"—if black people were in fact
falsely declared felons and deliberately removed from voter roles by the
thousands, that would seem to be standard practice for folks who knowingly
and contentedly hobnob with reactionary regimes, and who tacitly condone
people such as J. Peter Grace and his peers.
Articles in "Censored 1999" and the other Project Censored books are
evaluated by academics and professional journalists, such as Project Censored
Director Peter Phillips, Sonoma State University; Ben Bagdikian, former
editor at the Washington Post and professor emeritus and former dean,
Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley; Dr. George
Gerbner, dean emeritus, Annenberg School of Communications, University of
Pennsylvania; Julianne Malveaux, economist and columnist; Herbert I.
Schiller, professor emeritus of communication, University of California, San
Diego; and many others.
