when I was introduced, it was also seething. The tone was set by another speaker on the program,
who predicted that the open housing bill 'will lead to government control of private property, theCommunists' number one goal.'"
In order to reduce the seething masses to docility, Bush began by citing the British Empire liberal,
cultural relativistm, and theoretician of "organic change," Edmund Burke: "Your representative
owes you notHispanics, and other minorities were risking their lives in the Vietnam war. How could they be only his industry, but his judgment," Burke had said. Bush then recalled that blacks,
denied open housing? "Somehow it seems fundamental that a man should not have a door slammed
in his face because he is a Negro or speaks with a Latin American accent." Open housing would be
a ray of hope for blacks and other minorities "locked out by habit and discrimination," Bush
concluded. Bush says he looked at the now silent faces of the audience, and then turned to thank themoderator. ""It was then that the applause began, growing louder until there was a standing ovation. (^)
All the ugliness that had gone before seemed to wash away, and I sensed that something special had
happened." Conjuring up the vision of this alleged triumph in the late 1980's, Bush had the gall to
write: "More than twenty years later I can truthfully say that nothing I've experienced in public life,
before or since, has measured up to the feeling I had when I went home that night." His sycophant,the mythograph Fitzhugh Green, adds: "Bush had spoken from his personally held values. He
clearly had found the decent core of those who had heard him. Complaints against his vote on this
issue slowed to a trickle. This matter was another marker on his trail toward the acceptance of black
Americans." [fn 16]
These accounts have nothing to do with a true historical record, but rather illustrate the blatant,
Goebbels-style big lies which are shamelessly dished up by the Bush propagandists. The
mythologized accounts of this episode wish to leave the distinct impression of Bush as a 1960's
fighter for civil rights, in contradiction to his entire political career, from the 1964 civil rights bill to
racist eugenics to Willie Horton. Comgenocidal daily work in the Congress, we also obtain the proper framework in which to evaluate theparing these fantastic accounts to the reality of Bush's (^)
truth of Bush's public explanations of his role in Iran-contra and other scandals. Bush stands out as
one of the most accomplished liars in the highly competitive field of postwar American politics.
But we shall not conclude that Bush devoted the entirety of his Congrepromotion of race science and global depopulation. He was also concerned with providingssional career to the
constituent service. This service came in the form of Bush's central role in the implementation of a
sophisticated strategy by the oil cartel to maintain its ground-rent tax privileges at the highest rate
that the climate of public opinion would permit. Within this strategy, Bush worked to protect the oil
depletion allowance as the principal tax giveaway enjoyed by the cartel.
The oil depletion allowance was a 27.5% tax writeoff for oil producers that had been introduced in
1926, allegedly to strengthen the US petroleum industry. The impact of a 27.5% depeltion
allowance was that many of the largest oil companies, including some of the wealthiest corporate
giants, paid a very low rate of corporate income tax. On July 10, 1969, CongrePodell of New York wrote an open letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills inssman Bertram (^)
which he pointed out that, primarily as a result of the high oil depletion allowance, Gulf oil had paid
an effective tax rate of only .81% on more than a billion dollars of 1968 income, while Mobil had
paid 3.3%, and Atlantic Richfield had paid 1.2%. In his letter, Podell paid ironic tribute to the oil
cartel's "passionate devotion to old- fashioned virtues, such as greed" to the point that the "oilindustry makes the mafia look like a pushcart operation" while "through our various tax loopholes, (^)
professional tax evaders like the oil industry churn like panzers over foot soldiers." [fn 17]
In 1950, President Truman had declared that no tax loophole was "so inequitable" as the depletion
allowance, and cited the example of one oilman who enjoyed a tax-free income of alomst $5 million