It’s not every day that pundits, like me, enjoy near-instant results on their commentary. But no sooner than a fortnight since I opined that the recent spate of book bannings might well come to include the Bible because it is filled with depictions of incest, rape, genocide, fratricide, witchcraft, slavery, infidelity, torture and idolatry, my fearless, albeit tongue-in-cheek, forecast has come true.
A Utah school district near Salt Lake City, CBS News reported, “has banned the Bible from elementary and middle school classrooms after a parent complained some verses were too vulgar or violent for children. The district (The Davis School District) says it has a pending complaint about ‘The Book of Mormon’” (not the Broadway show, but the scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).
I grew up learning Old Testament Bible stories from the time I started elementary school 69 years ago. Stories of one brother killing his sibling (Cain and Abel), another seemingly intent on killing his twin (Esau and Jacob), deceit worthy of a “Succession”-like series (the whole episode of Jacob and his children) … and so on.
I’m not convinced Bible stories, or any literature, for that matter, turns one into a monster or an emotionally fraught individual. I’m more inclined to place responsibility for forging the psyches of the next generation on parents and their community (which includes the political system). Let’s let parents, not government, set guidelines for their children.
Prescott the Bush Patriarch: Driving home through Greenwich, Conn., Sunday I saw a sign for the Bush-Holley House. I thought it might be associated with Prescott Bush, a former U.S. senator from the Nutmeg State and the father and grandfather of two presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was a Colonial Era house, built in part in 1728 and acquired by Justus Bush (originally Bosch) in 1738. Its occupants included 10 enslaved adults and children by the end of the century.
But I digress from the main story I wish to impart. With Gilda wielding her iPhone as we drove, we delved into the history of Prescott Bush.
Brace yourselves, but did you know that the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol was not the first time so-called American patriots tried to thwart the will of the people by overtaking the U.S. government?
Shortly after Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, a plot was allegedly conceived to install a retired Marine Corps major general as a fascist dictator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot). The so-called Business Plot or Wall Street Putsch was the brainchild of wealthy businessmen.
Lo and behold, Prescott Bush was cited by attorney Scott Horton in a 2007 Harper’s Magazine article as being part of the Business Plot. No proof has ever substantiated this claim.
A Republican, Bush’s politics leaned toward social activism. He supported birth control, Planned Parenthood, and the United Negro College Fund. He voted in favor of the Interstate Highway System, the Peace Corps, the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, and the 24th Amendment to the Constitution which prohibits imposing a tax on the right to vote in federal elections.
As we contemplate another run for president by Donald Trump, it is enlightening to read what Prescott Bush said about an earlier Republican blowhard. In voting to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy, Bush said the Wisconsin senator has “caused dangerous divisions among the American people because of his attitude and the attitude he has encouraged among his followers: that there can be no honest differences of opinion with him. Either you must follow Senator McCarthy blindly, not daring to express any doubts or disagreements about any of his actions, or, in his eyes, you must be a Communist, a Communist sympathizer, or a fool who has been duped by the Communist line.”
