Tax Breaks For Treason-- Big Ones

Farish II wasn't shot for treason, nor was Prescott Bush... and the spawn of both have gone on, together, fighting for fascism

During World War II corporate America wasn't sure if it wanted to take sides. Most of the ruling families were fascists and had long backed Hitler and Mussolini. And they loathed Roosevelt and loathed democracy. Many of them-- let's take Big Oil-- continued selling oil to the Nazis after the U.S. entered the war. None of the big names in American industry-- Mellons, DuPonts, Rockefellers, Morgans, Bushs, et all-- were ever punished for aiding and abetting while American soldiers were dying on the battlefields.

Sunday Digby reminded us that the American ruling class-- and not just the Republicans-- are up to no good again.

Republicans are not only looking to cut the corporate tax rate, but they have been pushing to open a permanent tax loophole by switching to what’s known as a “territorial” corporate tax system, which would mean that corporations could permanently park money offshore and never pay taxes on it. The Republicans have also endorsed a misguided push to give corporations a tax windfall worth tens of billions of dollars through a tax repatriation holiday.

It reminded me that I buried an important bit of information in a long and convoluted post ostensibly about Ratko Mladic on Saturday. It wasn't really about Mdadic. And the quote, from Glen Yeadon's Nazi Hydra in America was set in the context of corporate collaboration with fascism and the Republican Party's flirtation with the Nazis. Remember, no one was punished. Here's the key quote you need to keep in mind while debate rages about how much more to give these corporations in tax loopholes and giveaways:

On March 26, 1942, Senator Truman accused Standard Oil of treason. Standard had delivered the new tetraethyl lead gas additive to both Germany and Japan. Standard was the major supplier of oil to both the Nazis and Japan. In his appearance before the Senate committee, [William Stamps] Farish II, the president of Standard, was asked if Standard had delivered the oil to Japan that made the attack on Pearl Harbor possible. He answered that Standard Oil was an international company.

His grandson and great-grandson, also heirs to the rabidly fascist DuPont dynasty, went on continue working with the rabidly fascist Bush family. William Stamps Farish III (pictured above) is widely considered the worst and least effective U.S. Ambassador to Britain in history. The family continues to finance the Republican Party and other extreme right-wing groups to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.