It must be very difficult to become a healthy adult in a family with a history of multi-generational pathology. Normalcy must be an impossible goal to reach if your grandfather robbed bones from graves and then made money for and with Hitler’s war machine.

The Bush family has all of the outward appearances of success. They are wealthy, white, except for Jeb’s “little brown ones,” hold powerful positions and can trace their ancestry back to the bluest blooded New Englanders. Most of them attended Yale, a prestigious institution of higher learning and more importantly a place that can guarantee entry into the rarified world of the American elite.

It has long been rumored that Yale’s secret Skull and Bones society held Geronimo’s bones. According to recent news accounts, not only does the Skull and Bones society hold Geronimo’s remains, but they were stolen by a man named Prescott Bush, the current president’s grandfather. Prescott Bush was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma in 1918. The Apache leader Geronimo was held at Fort Sill at the time of his death and was buried there. A recently unearthed letter from one Skull and Bones member to another alleges that Bush and a group of friends in his unit desecrated Geronimo’s grave, stealing his skull and bones.

Prescott Bush went on to become a United States senator and progenitor of two future presidents. He also was a criminal. Granddaddy Bush was a director of Union Banking Corporation (UBC) in New York City. The assets of that bank were seized by the United States government in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemies Act. America’s enemy in 1942 was Hitler’s Germany.

UBC was an investment bank owned by a bank that was controlled by the German Thyssen family. The federal government concluded that UBC shares, "are held for the benefit of ... members of the Thyssen family, [and] is property of nationals ... of a designated enemy country."  

Fritz Thyssen wrote a book called, “I Paid Hitler.” The seemingly cheesy title tells it all. Thyssen gave money directly to Adolf Hitler beginning in the 1920s. The Thyssen industrial empire relied on slave labor provided by the Nazis and they were Prescott Bush’s business partners.

Is it truly surprising that George W. Bush displays such pathological behaviors of his own? He comes from a family that demonstrates a blatant disregard for the most basic moral norms. Prescott Bush was a traitor in war time and a grave desecrater. George W.  stole his way into the presidency and is now prepared to risk confrontation with China, Russia and the rest of the world in order to use nuclear weapons against Iran. Not only would he fulfill the neocon dream of taking over the Middle East but he also hopes to stop his unprecedented slide in the polls and prevent being impeached.

Bush always felt entitled to get what he wanted. If granddad feels entitled to make money with a declared enemy during wartime, then the grandson will surely be entitled to become president by hook and crook and then inform us that he is the “decider” for us all.

When black people are in any way troubled, their family histories are dissected and examined. We hear endlessly about our “pathologies” and how they have made us worthless and are responsible for everything wrong with America.

We rarely hear about any other group being pathological. The Bush family certainly is. They are pathologically greedy and hungry for power. They aren’t even very good at being a family. When George W. and Barbara Bush lost their three year old daughter to leukemia in 1953, they didn’t even have a funeral. The Bushes gave her body to medical science and moved on. The worst, poorest, most supposedly pathological black family would not let a child leave this world without a funeral. The term pathological seems to be applied only to the down trodden.

The Bush family role in the founding of the Skull and Bones society is a horrific tale. Prescott and his pals not only thought it was amusing to desecrate a grave but to take the bones and use them in bizarre rituals to cement their claims to privilege.

Thousands of Americans beg, borrow and steal to pay for their children to go to Yale and schools like it and they have good reasons for doing so. The eastern elite institutions can give a leg up in climbing the social, economic and political ladder.

It is certainly important to the Bush clan. Outgoing CIA director Porter Goss, and Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, were both members of the same Yale fraternity as the president’s uncle, William Bush. America is now ruled by the Skull and Bones society and Yale frat buddies. (If John Kerry had won we would still be ruled by Skull and Bones.)

In almost every culture on earth, it is considered a sin to desecrate a final resting place. Such actions bring misfortune, or so most people believe. It would be a shame if we all suffered because a bunch of Yalies thought it would be funny to steal a dead Indian’s bones.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BC. Ms. Kimberley is a freelance writer living in New York City. She can be reached via e-Mail at [email protected]. You can read more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at freedomrider.blogspot.com.

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