American Dynasty

Paraphrasing a passage from Machiavelli's The Prince, Kevin Phillips writes "a ruler can ignore the mob and devote himself to the interests of the ruling class, gulling the inert majority who constitute the ruled". He then says "Borgia references aside, 21st-century American readers of The Prince may feel that they have stumbled on a thinly disguised Bush White House political memo". These pointed words would sting regardless of who uttered them, but coming from Phillips, a former Republican strategist, they have an added piquancy.

In American Dynasty: How the Bush Clan Became the World's Most Powerful and Dangerous Family, Phillips traces the rise of the Bush family from investment banking elites to political power brokers, using their Ivy League network, vast wealth and questionable political manoeuvering to occupy the White House and consequently, shake the foundation of constitutional American democracy. Citing the Bush family mainstays of finance, energy (oil), the military industrial complex and national security and intelligence (the CIA), Phillips uses copious examples to show the dangerous alliance between the Bushes' business interests (huge corporations such as Enron and Haliburton) and the formation of national policy. No other family, Phillips says, that has fulfilled its presidential aspirations has been so involved in the ascendancy of the arms industry and of the 21st-century American imperium--often at the expense of regional and world peace and for their personal gain.

It is hard to tell what offends Phillips the most: the Bushes' systematic deceit and secrecy, their shady business dealings, their cronyism, or their family philosophy that privileges the very wealthy and utterly dismisses all the rest. It is clearly all of these things combined. But at the top of Phillips' list is the dynastic nature of their family power, for it is that concentration of power and influence that strikes at the heart of our democracy. Past administrations have transgressed, albeit not so egregiously and other political families have had dynastic ambitions, but none has succeeded as thoroughly as the Bushes. Jefferson and Madison would be horrified and, according to Phillips, we should be too. --Silvana Tropea, Amazon.com

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A Revealing Glimpse Into A Murky World - Rated
Kevin Phillips has written an illuminating exposé of the Presidential family's roots in the world of military-industrial intrigue and high-level international manoeuverings. Some of the revelations/allegations are simply jaw-dropping - the overall impression the reader gets, is that in America there is, and has been for many years, an elite group of politicians, bankers and industrialists who basically don't care how they make large amounts of money, as long as their businesses and dynasties become ever and ever richer and more powerful. In short,there's big money in war. Who would have believed, for example, that the Bush forbears were, through various channels, bankers to the Nazi regime? Incredible if true - and not Dubya's fault, of course - but Phillips seems to have made a good case, and has obviously done his homework. The historical connections then seem to have morphed into the present-day world of more familiar cases like Iran-Contra, Enron, Halliburton, and the rest.

A critic would argue that you could draw a chart and make connections between any number of prominent figures at totally different ends of the spectrum. But Phillips draws the compelling conclusion that some of America's heroes are tin gods, to say the least.

A little hard going at times, but a challenging read - if you accept the author's arguments, many serious questions remain to be answered.

Superb account of creeping corporatism - Rated
This is an outstandingly useful study, not just of the Bush family, but of a brutal and rapacious ruling class. Its power bases are Wall Street, the Pentagon, the CIA, the Texas-based oil business and the British alliance. Its corporatist fascism is destroying America's democratic and republican traditions.

CIA director Bush Senior thwarted Carter's efforts to get the US hostages out of Iran, helping to get Reagan elected. After becoming vice-president in 1981, Bush arranged the arming of the mujehadin and Saddam. Bush illegally sold arms to Iran and used the funds to back the Contra terrorists. In August 1990, Thatcher encouraged Bush's attack on Iraq: "George, I was about to be defeated in England when the Falkland conflict happened. I stayed in office for eight years after that."

Leading the religious Right, Bush junior portrays America as a new Rome beset by barbarians, and Iraq as Babylon. These fundamentalists use the Bible to justify pre-emptive war (Esther 8:11); Jeremiah 50:8-20 promises that Israel will gain 'from the destruction of Babylon'.

The Bushes look after their own: the richest 1% has doubled their share of US income since 1980. The ratio of executive pay to factory workers' pay went from 42:1 to 419:1. The USA and Britain now have the least social mobility in the developed world.

Texas capitalists oppose immigration control because they want cheap labour. "In addition to laws inimical to unions, the proven solution for keeping costs down has been Mexican laborers - either illegal immigrants or temporary guest workers ... Their presence in the Texas labor market also applied downward pressure on other wages."

The Republican Party and the Labour Party have common policies: imperialism and warmongering, fraud and corruption, government support for religion (faith schools), a class hatred of trade unions, support for freedom of capital (which equals slavery for workers) and for offshore tax havens, a rhetoric of compassion and inclusiveness but a policy of secrecy, deceit and lies.

Capitalism in absolute decline generates this kind of politics: the EU and Russia are going the same way too.

A rather loose attempt at establishing a dynasty - Rated
I don't know how devastating this book is. Phillips fails to pin anything directly on the Bushes, but rather compiles an impressive array of circumstantial evidence to point to a shady past that goes back four generations in the so-called "Bush Dynasty."

The book has been well researched and will provide plenty of fodder in this election campaign. Phillips charts the numerous ties the Bush family has had with the military-industrial complex over the last 80 years, and its links to the various military intelligence services during this time, culminating in the CIA. This book raises a lot of doubt as to the supposed candor of father and son who, as Phillips has illustrated, have done a pretty good job of re-inventing themselves over the year.

Phillips explored the Religious Right in depth, calling into question the sincerity of Dubya's convictions. Phillips seems to view Dubya's re-christening in the church as a calculated move to bring him closer to the Texas electorate, which is probably the most religiously conservative state in the country. Billy Graham, who is credited with showing Dubya the light, has a long history in the Republican Party dating back to Eisenhower.

But, where this book suffers is in Phillips' attempt to make a case for a Bush Dynasty. While it is unprecedented to have a son follow so closely on the heels of his father into the White House (the Adamses were separated by 24 years, and a much changed American society), it hardly bespeaks a dynasty. But, Phillips continually presses this point, fearing that dynastic politics will be the ruin of our Republic.