Yeah, I've heard about that but don't know much about it. You are of course referring to Bush's grandfather Prescott, who did business with the Nazis even after it was illegal, and who's had some other shady dealings. I keep meaning to read the Kevin Phillips book on the Bushes, which lays this all out in great detail.

I didn't mean to single out Yale, per se, as a source of many of the people who have been screwing (and screwing up) the country, as one of the places that these people have been using to recruit future generations of fellow travellers, most likely because they themselves went there, and thus find it to be a convenient recruiting place, especially since they know that many of its graduates will go on to become powerful and important people someday in all walks of life. Perhaps Harvard was seen as too liberal and Priceton too academic, but Yale just about right. I dunno. But at this point I immediately find myself suspecting anyone who went to Yale, especially during the 60's. And let's not forget that Gore and Obama were Harvard men.

Go Crimson? ;-)

I know about Skull and Bones. I believe that both Bush and Kerry were members. Hmm. Something about Kerry that I will never quite trust (especially after he called for giving Bush--BUSH!!!--the line item veto last year).

But I think that, as jojo++ has pointed out, it's less about a certain kind of person being pulled to Yale, as it is about a certain kind of person being recruited to attend Yale, and then recruited into this quasi "secret society" of future powerful people (not merely restricted to S&B, but to anyone who went to Yale and was invited to join their extended circle--Davis himself wasn't a "Bonesman", which a caller asked about and which seemed to upset him somewhat) if they appear to be suitable material for it by its leaders.

Again, I think that my mafia analogy is apt. The actual mafia tends to recuit from its family and neighborhood--i.e. known entities who can be monitored, tested, evaluated and recruited in person, and then held to a very tight code of "honor" and behavior, with dire consequences for unapproved behavior. So why not this "mafia", with Yale as its "neighborhood", Skull and Bones as its "family", and acceptance into and rejection from the world of rich and powerful people and organizations being the pertinent inticement and punishment mechanisms? Thugs are thugs, however they dress, and tend to operate according to similar rules and conventions.

Vito Corleone had his Five Points and Cosa Nostra, Saddam his Tikrit and Ba'ath, Bin Laden his Wahhabi Madrassas and Al Qaida, and Bush his Yale and Skull and Bones.

Makes perfect sense to me.

I saw two very interesting a sobering talks this weekend on CSPAN that shed some interesting high-level light on these "in the weeds" developments.

One was by Chalmers Johnson, on his recent book Nemesis, who claimed that the US is headed from republic towards empire and that there's likely little to nothing that we can do about it due to the power of the M-I complex. It gaves the current goings-on some helpful perspective that basically put Bush in a much broader and longer-term context that also included Clinton and many Dems. Very enlightening, if also depressing.

The other was by libertarian Victor Gold, on his recent book Invasion of the Party Snatchers, about how the GOP has been taken over and destroyed by the radical neocon and religious right, and corporations, and that there's no hope for it--but not much in Dems, either. In many but not all ways it complemented and paralleled Johnson's views on what's going on. I found it to be somewhat encouraging in how he predicted the demise of the current GOP, but also discouraging in how pessimistic he felt about Dems being able to fix things. Then again, he is a libertarian, so what can you expect.

We are clearly living in a pivotal time, that can either go in a very, very bad direction (for most people), or in which we still have the ability--however remote--to keep ourselves from going over that cliff. I'm trying to hold onto the latter take on things, but when you're confronted by this stuff on a near daily basis--and by Dems not appearing to be willing or able to go all the way in combating it, or the public appearing to really give a damn--it's hard to stay optimistic, however cautiously. But I will try nonetheless. What choice is there?

Let's hope that for now, Dems don't allow this legislation to pass, or even see the light of day, and are smart enough to use it against BushCo. Do you know what its status is right now--I haven't been following this closely enough? Has it been presented to congress, and what do Rockefeller and Reyes (now there are two people you want to be stuck in a foxhole with--NOT), as well as Reid and Pelosi, have to say about it? (And do I even want to know...)

Let's not let Harvard completely off the hook here. Yale might have all the spooks, and Chicago all the neocons, but Harvard is where many neolibs come from, e.g. Rubin and Summers (although Rubin also has a law degree from Yale--hmm).

I certainly don't want to oversimplify this as "Yale is evil". That would be silly and idiotic. But clearly, there's a pattern here with Yale's close relationship with old east coast WASP money, finance, intelligence, and armaments (let's not forget that CT is home to a major naval base and some huge defense contractors).

Basically, it served as this "mafia's" version of the proverbial social club (or, in modern times, the Bada Bing club), more a safe and convenient recruiting and plotting ground for future evils than "evil" in and of itself. I'm sure that it's a wonderful school in most other ways.