Question: Is Kevin Phillips right in American Dynasty?
Answer: Kevin writes to sell books.
The critical ponderable regarding Kevin writing to sell books is the distinction between facts and how they are taken and then what they are taken to mean. I can say downrightly that Bonesmen do not feel dynastic or entitled to rule, so far as I have experienced them either up close or from afar. They feel entitled to do whatever they want/can do because they regard themselves as the repositories of freedom in the legal and social context of this nation and indeed the entire world. They feel that on principle everyone is so invested and so entitled, as indeed on principle everyone is, though so few are aware that they are and thus able to get the job done. This radical unitarianism is expressed by their central icon, which is also their name — all are bound for the same place.
The Bushes and Bonesmen in general are strong proponents of meritocracy. They practice it. Meritocracy is the opposite of monarchy.
Both the light and the dark sides of the original and recent Bonesmen, which includes the families who produced the Bushes, emerged in recent history from activity following the defeat of the Confederacy. On the light side financial, legal and technical support for building out the trade and industrial infrastructures. Also philanthropic support of countless beneficial institutions. Also selfless government service. Also academic and religious leadership.
All of this extended the victory — “won the peace,” in today’s parlance — made in 1865, gradually uniting and strengthening the nation such as that was then seen desirable and possible.
Mixed in with those activities were dark ones that most principals would not have considered dark at the time or at least would have considered necessary evils to support goods underway to achievement. I will not agree with rationalization, but the difference between doing bad knowing you are doing bad and doing bad thinking you are doing good is significant. Doing bad thinking you are doing good is harder to correct, and therefore a far worse evil, than doing bad knowing you are doing bad. The Nazis, the Communists and now the Arab-Muslim Totalitarians illustrate this point.
In my experience the typical pattern is that when Bonesmen do bad they know it and they do it because they think they must, because they can see no other way to get some good done. The fault in this approach is more in not waiting to figure out how to do good directly than it is in misapplying means to ends, that is, doing bad thinking you are doing good, which really is a horrible thing, extremely destructive and usually only correctable by liquidating the doer.
In every case means should match ends on moral grounds and Bonesmen are rightly faulted, in my experience and opinion, for frequently not applying sufficient effort to discover such means, namely good means, when they have a good end in view. I have direct experience of this and I have called the fault down in strongest terms when I saw it. We are seeing instance of it today in Iraq. Not the whole situation, but elements of it.
This weakness and fault, and all the damage it does throughout society, however, is a far cry from monarchial ambition. I have never found even the slightest trace of that in Bonesmen, including the ones I have observed from afar. What I do not like about them is their arch promotion of private interest as the solution for nearly all problems. That is an epistemological, theological, theoretical and moral failing of trades and trading men, of Cromwellians, not of monarchs, and it causes great pain to very many.
Monarchs are not concerned with the tension between private and public interest. They take themselves as the embodiment of both and so do not discuss the matter. Bonesmen are keenly aware of the matter and vigorously discuss it.
Bonesmen do not come from monarchial families and they do not have monarchial impulses. Overbearing impulses, yes, certainly, most unpleasant ones on numerous occasions, and I speak first hand, but not monarchial ones. Monarchial impulses are another breed of cat. Bonesmen New England ancestors tended to be Puritans, more akin to Cromwell than to the Crown (Tories).
They evolved as wealthy traders, tradesmen, industrialists, educators and clergy do, with prestige, secrecy, intrigue and bearing and also overbearing position, but monarchial impulses are not their nature. Only West Pointers match or exceed Bonesmen in fostering radical diversity, the very opposite of monarchial uniformity.
We have Tory descendants in this country, and they do have monarchial impulses. But the Bushes and Bonesmen are not among them. The monarchial impulses here used to concentrate in The New York Social Register, in which I was included in 1971-2. I do not know where they concentrate now. My impression is that they are dispersed — thankfully — and so rendered even more impotent than they were 30+ years ago, when they had ordinary participatory influence on national policy, no matter which political party’s representatives strode the halls of government.
Kevin has published a book. Referring to George I and George II is a cheap shot. Our nation should be grateful for the service of the Bush family.
AMDG
