The sad thing is people think in binary lot of the time. Given that these claims can’t be verified but can’t be disproved either, one should keep their minds open. However, popular opinion actually sways to believe that the claims are indeed false. There is no undecided neutral stance in case of a failed but non-decisive proof.
Why should one keep their mind “open” for every crackpot who has the ability to write a book and make claims? As Cecil has pointed out, this wasn’t exactly a scholarly research effort. Again, not to ignore some of Higham’s claims, some of which may have legs,but the proof is rather thin and poorly documented as judged by scholarly publishing standards.
Because, unless you can definitely prove the claim is false, you can’t know whether it is. The fact that it is farfetched excuses you to assign it a low plausibility but not impossibility.
Gyan9 said:
Um, no. One can draw the conclusion that it is disproven since there is a lack of evidence, or one can remain open and not draw either conclusion. The practical difference between these two positions is nil. The only distinction comes in the event of new evidence being presented that justifies the claim. If a person has already concluded and is thus not open to the new evidence, you have a point. “It’s been disproven, I don’t have to look at the new evidence.” However, an intellectually honest person who has concluded (provisionally) that the previous evidence was lacking so the claim is not true will evaluate the new evidence on its merits, and re-evaluate their previous decision in light of the new evidence. This is equivalent to making no decision regarding the claim - both are open-minded to the evidence.
Given that condition, I stand by my original assertion.
Imagine this vague hypothetical scenario.
Someone has to make a choice based on a certain condition. That condition has two states. Now, he tests the first state, can’t prove it, but doesn’t disprove it either. He has two options
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Assume 2nd state is true. Make decision. Set himself up for a possible downfall, where the reason he assumes for his downfall is anything other than that assumption. In rare cases, realizes that it is wrong.
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Be open-minded. Not make immediate decision. Wait some more time. Or conduct more tests, despite first test. Make decision, when it is critical he make one, based on assumption. Not necessarily assume 2nd state is true. Set himself up for a possible downfall, knowing that one possible reason could be incorrect assumption.
The difference being, if you take not proven as disproven, you limit your analysis of course of events to 2nd state being assumed true.
Sadly, most people behave the first way. That is, they aren’t intellectually honest.
From Merriam-Webster
prejudice : 2) * an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge*
(my emphasis)
Most people have it, without possibly knowing that they don’t possess sufficient knowledge. But it exists.
I agree with Gyan9. There is a lot of prejudice masquerading as skepticism in these discussions.
As far as treason goes, sure technically it wasn’t treason until after we were at war, but a lot of people felt it was treasonous. It certainly was immoral, in my opinion. The great thing about opinions is that they cannot be proven or disproven.
[list=a]
[li]You demonstrate partisanship & hostility masquerading as reasoned argument. The source you cited has been exposed as a sensationalist document, written solely to sell books. Therefore, it is of limited credability.[/li][li]In America, the standard is always “innocent until proven guilty”. Wild speculation & rumormongering is not proof.[/li][/list=a]
Everybody here demonstrates partisanship to one world view or another. I am only reflecting the hostility that was directed at me as soon as I set foot in these forums. There is definitely a political correctness here. Whoever deviates from that is attacked. I was also frustrated by the obtuseness of the other members.
Higham’s book has not been exposed as anything. Your claim that it is a sensationalist document written solely to sell books is wild speculation for which you offer no proof. It is possible that it is all true and the author simply neglected to list his sources. Certainly his claims are specific enough that they could verified or falsified if somebody took the time to look up all the documents. If I had the time, I would do it.
Actually, samclem you are wrong. The constitutional definition of treason doesn’t say anything about a declaration of war.
The US Constitution Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
German U-boats were sinking US shipping in the Atlantic before war was declared. That makes Germany a de facto enemy, and aiding said enemy by giving them oil was an act of treason.
Would providing aid and comfort to the North Vietnamese while we were fighting them be an act of treason? War was never declared, but we were engaged in a de facto war.
It’s not even as if Higham’s film biographies have that high a reputation amongst film historians. For example, in his Editor’s Notes appendix to This Is Orson Welles (Harper Collins, 1992), the Reader’s own Jonathan Rosenbaum has this to say (p506-7):
In fairness to Higham, Welles was notoriously unreliable in constructing versions of his past, but Rosenbaum is clearly aware of this.
Generically arguing about the lack of footnotes in a book being cited is a good thing. Still, for the rabid right to attack sources is ludicrous. Until I hear some apologies for the utter lies and slimey innuendo of recent times (anyone here think Chandra Levy was killed by a Congressman? Were you ever that gullible?), I’ll have to take such denials as spin control.
If the case isn’t proven… isn’t that why we have The Straight Dope in the first place?
Meanwhile, all of this is moving farther and farther away from the remark that justanobody made in the first post: That Cecil’s remark about the American holdings in Germany losing value was wrong. I don’t know that it is, but the arguments presented so far seem to point in that direction. I note that Cecil, once again in a thread about this column, has yet to defend the main criticism of it.
Ask Jane Fonda. She was not and cannot be charged with treason.
DRomm writes:
I am not sure what to make of these comments. If the argument is that I am a member of the “rabid right,” there does not seem to be any basis for further discussion. If the argument instead is that because certain parties are guilty of lies and innuendo, other parties are not required to provide credible sources for their claims, I fail to follow the logic. I am not interested in getting into a debate over which political faction has taken greater liberties with the facts. As the present discussion demonstrates (again), they both do.
No. It is not the purpose of the Straight Dope to prove outlandish claims, but rather to examine the basis for those claims. If the sourcing is thin or nonexistent, we need proceed no further.
You need to understand the argument made by John Loftus, which I’ll repeat from the column: “He says that the value of German industrial assets in which Bush and friends invested increased during World War II, in part due to slave labor, and that Bush benefited from this increase when the assets were returned–supposedly he got $1.5 million when UBC was liquidated in 1951.” Loftus was referring to all of the German industrial assets in which Bush and friends had an interest, not those connected with a particular region or company. Moreover, he was claiming that the means by which Bush realized a profit on his German holdings was the liquidation of the Union Banking Corp. in 1951. UBC was a New York bank controlled by German industrialist Fritz Thyssen. Thyssen’s core investments were in basic industries such as coal and steel.
To quote the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey of 1945 (http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm): “Commencing in the autumn of 1944 … Germany’s steel industry was knocked out, its electric power industry was substantially impaired and industry generally in the areas attacked was disorganized. There were so many forces making for the collapse of production during this period, however, that it is not possible separately to assess the effect of these later area raids on war production. There is no doubt, however, that they were significant.”
This is sufficient to defeat Loftus’s argument. It is not necessary to establish that a particular plant in a particular region was bombed, merely that German heavy industry in general was badly damaged–Thyssen’s wealth was based on such industry, and in Loftus’s argument the value of Bush et al.'s German holdings rose and fell with Thyssen’s. Conceivably one might demonstrate that the Allies purposely avoided Thyssen’s plants, but I have seen no persuasive evidence that this was the case.
While I don’t doubt the amount posted, I’d dearly love for someone(anyone) to post an authoratative primary source for the figure involved. From whence does it come? Please, primary source only.
Cece:
No, I don’t think you’re a member of the rabid right, but you did punt this question, and that seems typical of the Bush apologists: Answer a lesser charge (that of GHWBush) while sliding over the more serious question(s) of George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush.
“If the argument instead is that because certain parties are guilty of lies and innuendo, other parties are not required to provide credible sources for their claims, I fail to follow the logic.”
You neatly cut off my first sentence: “Generically arguing about the lack of footnotes in a book being cited is a good thing.” I’m in favor of discussing sources, and their credibility. This is very different from discussing unsubstantiated accusations and rumormongering.
On the other hand, “I am not interested in getting into a debate over which political faction has taken greater liberties with the facts. As the present discussion demonstrates (again), they both do.” is puzzling. My major point is that you left out a LOT of information.
Meanwhile, the rabid right (not you) has no credibility whatsoever until they apologize, which will happen when the temperature drops in Hades. To equate uncovering the facts about Walker and Bush with the witchhunts of the 90s is asinine. How are they similar? C’mon, I want to know. One is history, dealing with people long dead, with a paper trail and corporate filings. One is lies, made for a power grab, with outlandish charges made and disproved in court.
You write, “No. It is not the purpose of the Straight Dope to prove outlandish claims, but rather to examine the basis for those claims. If the sourcing is thin or nonexistent, we need proceed no further.” The problem is that the sourcing for the connections between Walker and Bush to Hitler and the Nazi party is strong and a matter of public record. True, a lot of them go through Thyssen, whose connection was stronger and who was, at least for a time, proud of his financing of Hitler, but their association with “Hitler’s Angel” should be held against them. Further, I didn’t see any “outlandish claims” in the question. As you mention in the column, several American companies did business with Nazi Germany when it was the government of a country we were not at war with. That didn’t make it right, and it made them culpable over the death camps and they helped kill American soldiers. (Some companies paid huge fines after the war.)
Re Loftus’ argument on the value of German holdings: Well, the value of the holdings was dependent on how much they got paid for them, not whether they were bombed out. And $1.5 mil was a princely sum for property you seem to be saying was slag. How did this happen? Who paid for what? How much had Walker and Bush invested to get the $1.5 mil?
The question of George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush’s ties to Hitler and the Nazis is a good one, of historical interest, and you punted by barely scratching the surface, letting some slimey people off the hook. Maybe they weren’t Bunny Harriman or Fritz Thyssen, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions. As mentioned in the other thread, I wrote a column that, I feel, does a better job answering the question. I don’t have your resources and so relied on web postings, but I think I covered more ground more completely. www.romm.org/prescott.html .
For example, you keep referring to “the liquidation of UBC in 1951” whereas I refer to it as “after Thyssen died and the assets were unfrozen”. You make it sound like everything was forgiven in 1951, when what really happened was that the company dissolved at the death of its major stockholder and the government didn’t bother to keep the freeze on the assets of a company that didn’t exist anymore.
The question, before you amended it, was “Were Bush’s great-grandfather and grandfather Nazis” and the short answer is “yes”.
This is, I believe, the second time Cecil has commented on this thread, which is basically a continuation of the “dittohead” thread, where Cece intervened 3 times, making a total of 5 applications of spin control. Does anyone get the feeling that the CIA (Capital Investment Agency) really wants to keep the lid on this one?
Take your Prozac, kid. :rolleyes:
OK, now that you’ve officially accused Cecil of being corrupt and a liar, I figure it’s time for the gloves to come off.
It’s idiots like you who feed the reactionary fantasies of idiots like Limbaugh. Just because you read something in a book or on the Internet doesn’t make it true. Just because you want something to be true doesn’t make it true. Just because it makes your enemies look bad doesn’t make it true.
Go away. The last thing liberalism needs is mindless zombies.
DRomm writes:
There is no point in continuing this discussion. Let me make a couple last clarifications and then I’m calling it a day.
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I did not amend the question. I changed one line in the answer. Originally I wrote, “The book alleges various misdeeds by George W.’s father, George H.W., and his grandfather, Prescott Bush, who had been a U.S. senator.” I changed this to, “The book alleges various misdeeds by George W.'s father, George H.W., his grandfather, Prescott Bush, and his great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker. Since space is limited we’ll focus on the accusations against Prescott Bush, which in my opinion are the most serious.”
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No one disputes that G.H. Walker, Prescott Bush and their associates financed Fritz Thyssen, who in turn financed the Nazis. This is not the same thing as saying Walker and Bush were Nazis.
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DRomm writes:
This seems completely confused. The company in question was the Union Banking Corp., a New York bank. Its major stockholder was E. Roland Harriman, a U.S. citizen. According to the 1942 vesting order, “all of [the] shares are held for the benefit of [a Dutch bank], which bank is owned or controlled by members of the Thyssen family.” UBC was not a partnership and I see nothing to suggest that it automatically dissolved upon the death of Fritz Thyssen.
- Some feel I was trying to absolve Bush and his associates of any complicity in the rise of the Nazis and German rearmament during the 20s and 30s. That was not my intention. Those interested in an independent view of the subject are invited to read “The Indiscreet Charm of the Bush Nazi Web Conspiranoids” at http://www.thethresher.com/indiscreet.html by journalist Phil Leggiere. Leggiere writes:
“While the evidence amassed [in a book by two LaRouchies] in no way directly implicates Prescott Bush or Brown Brothers Harriman as Nazi supporters, a strong case is made for their complicity in aiding and abetting the Nazi cause for profit long after the nature of the Nazi regime became clear to any informed observer, and even after the US declaration of war against Germany.”
Leggiere has more confidence in his ability to distinguish fact from fantasy in a LaRouchie book than I do. Furthermore, I think he overstates matters in saying “a strong case” has been made that Prescott Bush aided and abetted the Nazi regime after the declaration of war. That said, his characterization of the activities of Bush et al prior to Pearl Harbor strikes me as pretty close to the mark.
Leggiere goes on to say:
“There is little evidence that the free-form meta-diplomatic modes of international financial deal making developed by Harriman, Bush and company in the 1920s and '30s signaled pro-Nazi or pro-fascist political ideology. However, it did help form a template for U.S. international finance and politics in which support for dictatorships, (financially in the '30s, financially and politically-militarily during the cold war) would become business as usual in U.S. foreign policy. One of the most interesting aspects of both the Simpson and the Aaron and Loftus books is their examination of how the private sector style of international affairs pioneered by Dulles, Harriman, Lovett and Bush in the '30s gradually metaphorphosed, during and after World War 2, into the official realpolitick of the U.S. government, often under the guidance of these same men. The ruling precepts of anti-communism and free trade that guided the international banking elite in the '30s in their dealings with Hitler would become the official policy through which the U.S. would support a wide variety of corporate-friendly dictators throughout the world, from the '50s to the present.”
I find little to argue with here. Let’s leave it at that.
I didn’t accuse Cecil of being corrupt and a liar, just part of a system that consistently pushes discourse to the right.
But if something is true, then it is true, and no amount of denial can make it not true.
I am enjoying myself thoroughly, so I am staying. You go away! The last thing liberalism needs is sycophantic sheep.
You may as well put the gloves back on. I didn’t feel a thing.