History Information.

 

President George H. W. Bush acted as a throwback to the center-right Presidents like Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gerald Ford. They were definitely conservative people, but they weren't extremists. President Bush Sr. was a person whose Presidency was old school, mainline conservative. He wasn't as conservative as his predecessor Ronald Reagan. For decades, Bush Sr. was a member of the establishment by being Director of the CIA, worked at the United Nations, and his father Prescott Bush had a political career too. George H. W. Bush was born on June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts. His parents were Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. Weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Bush met Barbara Pierce at a Christmas dance. George H. W. Bush joined the U.S. Navy when he turned 18 years old in 1942. By 1943, he was the youngest commissioned pilot in the naval air service. Bush Sr. married Barbara Pierce in January of 1945 while he was on leave.  George H. W. Bush worked in the oil business early on. By 1948, he graduated from Yale University (he was a Skulls and Bones member) and took up a job in the oil industry. He moved his family to Texas. 1952 was the year when he co-founded Zapata Petroleum. His father, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate from Connecticut in the same year. Bush Sr. had his own political aspirations too. So, he became chairman of the Harris County Republican Committee. His father retired from the Senate in 1962. George H. W. Bush lost his run for the U.S. Senate in 1962. Later, he won an election to the U.S. House of Representatives being the first freshman in 63 years to be offered a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee. George H. W. Bush back in the 1960s was wrong to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1970, George H. W. Bush ran for the Senate after giving up his House seat. He lost the election to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen. By 1971, Richard Nixon appointed him as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. George H. W. Bush and Nixon were friends. By 1974, he was appointed to be chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in China by President Gerald Ford, and he was named Director of the CIA in 1976. 

George H. W. Bush worked in the CIA for a short period of time, and George H. W. Bush decided to publicly run for President in 1979. He faced off against Ronald Reagan, who was a skilled politician. He was an actor, so he used many tactics to win the 1980 election. Reagan told someone that he was paying for the microphone Mr. Green who even got George Bush Sr. to cheer Reagan on. Reagan wanted to balance his ticket, so he picked George H. W. Bush to appeal to moderates and center-right people. After Reagan's landslide victory, George H. W. Bush would be Vice President of the United States of America from 1981 to 1989. As early as 1987, George Bush Sr. publicly ran for President. He enlisted many of the Reagan team and neo-cons to help him out. One low point of his campaign was when he promoted the Willie Horton ad that played to racist stereotypes, fear-mongering, and agitation that divided Americans. He won the election against Mike Dukakis as the Democratic Party was having a political civil war between moderates (in the DLC, etc.) and progressives among other reasons. Mike Dukakis rode in a tank and did actions that didn't inspire a mass coalition to vote for him. Jesse Jackson just had more charisma, eloquence, and inspiration than Dukakis, but Jackson lost the Democratic primary. President George H. W. Bush was sworn in on January 20, 1989. The oath was given by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. On February 6, 1989, President Bush promoted his bailout plan for the troubled savings and loans banks. It gave for the sale of $50 billion in government bonds to finance the bailout. It also gave the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) regulatory oversight over the S&Ls. The Bush administration signed the historic semi-automatic rifle ban on March 14, 1989. He was urged to do so by the federal drug czar William Bennett. The Exxon Valdez oil spill took place on March 24, 1989. It was the worst oil spill on American territory other than the Gulf of Mexico oil spill years later. The tanker of Exxon Valdez dumped 240,000 barrels of oil into waters causing massive environmental damage. Bush sent aid to Poland when it had a Communist government on April 17, 1989. The Tiananmen Square Massacre took place on June 4, 1989, when Chinese pro-democratic protests advocated for freedom. The People's Liberation Army, the military arm of the Chinese government, used tanks and armored cars to suppress the protests. From 700 to 2,700 people were killed by governmental forces. President George H. W. Bush condemned China's actions plus he suspended the sale of American weapons to China. The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 was passed to bail out Savings and Loans. Troubled banks were dealt with by the governmental body of the Resolution Trust Company. The Berlin Wall falls on November 9, 1989. Then, people could peacefully travel between Eastern and Western Germany. Communism ends all over Eastern Europe. By 1990, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, and Romania end Stalinist Communist rule. The Soviet Union comes to be gone by December 1991. Gorbachev has resigned. Bush and Gorbachev make sure that the Soviet Union and the Cold War ended as peacefully as possible. The minimum wage is increased. George H. W. Bush supports the anti-drug laws that gave more than $3 billion to War on Drugs enforcement policies, federal prison expansion, and anti-drug programs like treatment facilities. President Bush Sr. supports arms reductions in 1990 with Gorbachev. Bush promoted new taxes on June 26, 1990, after his no new taxes pledge. 

President George H. W. Bush allowed America to invade Panama to capture Manuel Noriega (he is brought to America to stand trial for drug trafficking). One of the greatest events of the Bush Sr. administration was when President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990. This has helped over 43 million Americans, and it has forbidden discrimination based upon disability in employment, public accommodations, and transportation. The ADA helped tons of lives. President Bush Sr. supported Germany reunification by October 3, 1990. Many people were afraid that German reunification would harm Europe, but it didn't. Bush Sr. was wrong to veto the Civil Rights Act of 1990. The budget was passed on November 5, 1990, filled with cuts of $500 billion over the five years along with getting $140 billion in new taxes. President Bush sent troops into Saudi Arabia, and he signed the Clean Air Act to fight air pollution by November 15, 1990. He caps military forces in Europe with the CFE Treaty and allowed many immigrants via the Immigration Act of 1990. Bush Sr. was famous for promoting his Thousands of Points of Light plan to promote volunteerism in American society. 

In August 1990, Bush signed the Ryan White CARE Act, the largest federally funded program dedicated to assisting persons living with HIV/AIDS. Throughout his presidency, the AIDS epidemic grew dramatically in the U.S. and around the world, and Bush often found himself at odds with AIDS activist groups who criticized him for not placing a high priority on HIV/AIDS research and funding. Frustrated by the administration's lack of urgency on the issue, ACT UP, dumped the ashes of HIV/AIDS victims on the White House lawn during a viewing of the AIDS Quilt in 1992. By that time, HIV had become the leading cause of death in the U.S. for men aged 25–44.

Later, in 1991, America and its allies have a military operation to get Iraqi forces out of Kuwait on January 17, 1991. Iraq invading Kuwait threatened oil prices, and the Persian Gulf War was debated heavily in Congress. Many people supported and opposed that war. Operation Desert Storm was filled with military bombings, military troops fighting, and aerial attacks. After 100 hours after the start of the ground assault, a cease-fire was made. Many neo-cons in the Bush Sr. administration wanted to invade Iraq, but President George H. W. Bush refused to do so citing ethnic divisions and the burden of an occupying force in one nation. President Bush lifted most American sanctions against South Africa as the movement to end apartheid was nearly completed in their goal by July 10, 1991. START I was signed in 1991 to reduce nuclear arms. One of the most controversial actions of George H. W. Bush was his support of Clarence Thomas to replace retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall. The Senate confirmed Thomas with a close 52-48 vote. Clarence Thomas is an open book being a far-right extremist. Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, wanted to steal the 2020 election too. He would be so extreme that he would vote to gut the Voting Rights Act in Section 5. George H. W. Bush signed the Civil Rights Act of 1991 making it easier for employees to sue employers on the grounds of discrimination by November 21, 1991. 

George H. W. Bush declared a new world order against the Persian Gulf War, and he ran for President in 1992. The Soviet Union officially ended on December 31, 1991. The recession caused unemployment to rise to 7.1 percent in December 1991. This was its highest mark in 5 years. By February 1, 1992, President Bush met with new Russian President Boris Yeltsin to talk about U.S. Russian relations. They publicly declare the end of the Cold War. By this time, George H. W. Bush faced many problems like a recession. President Bush won the New Hampshire primary, but he faced a strong challenge from the Knight of Malta Patrick Buchannan (he is the conservative Roman Catholic who helped to increase the magnitude of the culture wars in our modern time). President Bush Sr. wanted $24 billion in aid to help states in the former Soviet Union. Bush sr. dealt with more agreements to deal with nuclear arms reductions among Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. This was on May 23, 1992. Bush Sr. attended the Earth Summitt at Rio de Janeiro to address climate change and fight to stop global warming on June 12, 1992. In 1992, Bush Sr. signed a U.S. Russian nuclear agreement to reduce nuclear warheads to 3,000 and 3,500 by the year 2003. After the LA Rebellion in 1992, George H. W. Bush promoted a supplemental appropriations act to help aid inner cities, especially in Los Angeles, California. Bush Sr. signed coverage for the unemployed for 26 weeks of benefits. The unemployment rate was 7.8 percent by 1992. President Bush and Dan Quayle ran for office in the 1992 election. Bush's education platform consisted mainly of offering federal support for a variety of innovations, such as open enrollment, incentive pay for outstanding teachers, and rewards for schools that improve performance with underprivileged children. Though Bush did not pass a major educational reform package during his presidency, his ideas influenced later reform efforts, including Goals 2000 and the No Child Left Behind Act.

Bill Clinton was the scene as a new type of politician. Clinton was viewed as a change agent who talked about taxing the rich, investing in the middle class, and preparing for the future. William Jefferson Clinton also was in support of the moderate DLC movement that wanted to go away from some of the FDR New Deal liberalism into the centrist neoliberalism. George H. W. Bush was shocked at the growing popularity of Bill Clinton, and then Ross Perot was in the race. These factors caused Bush Sr. to lose the 1992 election to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton won 43 percent of the vote and 370 Electoral College votes, Bush had 38 percent with 168 votes, and Perot had 19 percent with no electoral votes. American troops were in Somalia by December 9, 1992, in the UN sponsored Operation Restore Hope. The goal of this mission was the humanitarian distribution of food and medical aid plus more supplies to Somalis suffering. Somalia experienced starvation, drought, and violence for a long time. 

George H. W. Bush continues in public life and attends the inauguration of his son, George W. Bush, as the 43rd President of the United States of America. This is the first time, since John and John Quincy Adams, that a father and son have been elected President. George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton have grown to be great friends. They worked together to promote charity and aid to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. George Bush Sr. criticized Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and even his own son (George W. Bush) for the handling of foreign policy after 9/11. Bush Sr. supported John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 when they ran for President. Both of them were defeated by Democratic leader President Barack Obama. President Barack Obama awarded President George H. W. Bush the 2010 Medal of Freedom during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on February 15, 2011. George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Jeb Bush never supported Donald Trump because of the obvious reasons (Trump's policies are overtly bigoted and authoritarian. Trump has a tendency to use over-the-top ad hominem attacks against people who disagree with him. Also, Trump disrespected Jeb Bush and his wife.  So, Trump is one of the most corrupt Presidents in American history). In August 2017, after the violence at Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, both Presidents Bush released a joint statement saying, "America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred in all forms[. ...] As we pray for Charlottesville, we are all reminded of the fundamental truths recorded by that city's most prominent citizen in the Declaration of Independence: we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights." He skydived on his 90th birthday in 2014. 

George H. W. Bush's wife, Barbara Bush, passed away on April 17, 2018, at the age of 92. Her funeral was held at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston four days later. Bush, along with former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush (son), Bill Clinton, and First Ladies Melania Trump, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush (daughter-in-law), and Hillary Clinton attended the funeral and posed together for a photo as a sign of unity. Former President George H. W. Bush did another skydive for the 8th time that the former president did a parachute jump, including on his 80th and 85th birthdays. 

On November 1, 2018, Bush went to the polls to vote early in the midterm elections. This would be his final public appearance. President George H. W. Bush passed away on November 30, 2018, at the age of 94 years old. He had a battle with vascular Parkinson's disease, and he transited at Houston, Texas. He was the 2nd longest-living President in American history. Bush lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol from December 3 through December 5; he was the 12th U.S. president to be accorded this honor. Then, on December 5, Bush's casket was transferred from the Capitol rotunda to Washington National Cathedral where a state funeral was held. After the funeral, Bush's body was transported to George H.W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, where he was buried next to his wife Barbara and daughter Robin. At the funeral, former President George W. Bush eulogized his father saying, "He looked for the good in each person, and he usually found it." Bush Sr. was a lifelong Episcopalian like many Presidents were. He regularly attended St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston. The legacy of President George H. W. Bush was that he was a President in transition. He saw the end of the Cold War and the start of the new school post-Cold War era. During his Presidency, he saw the monumental foreign policy changes in the world with a lot of dedicated care. Some of his great accomplishments would be promoting the reunification of Germany and ending the Cold War in a fashion that didn't cause WWIII. He was a center-right President domestically. Some of his policies were very legitimate in defense of the environment, defense of disability rights, and in defense of many policies. He made errors too. President George H. W. Bush worked across the aisle to make many laws as he was a center-right conservative. Therefore, George H. W. Bush sailed the ship from the end of the 20th century that impacted our world in the 21st century. 

 

My late 4th cousin Maynard H. Fleshman lived from February 9, 1933, from West Virginia to January 8, 2021, at South Williamson, Pike County, Kentucky. We shared the same ancestor of Goerge Perkins I (b. 1815). He married Esther Perkins (b. 1816). George Perkins I and Esther Perkins had a child named George Perkins II (1847-1932). George Perkins II married Fannie Lou Blackstock (1848-1949), and their child was Sophronia Perkins (1870-1926). My 1st cousin Sophronia Perkins married Sam Casey (1863-1938) in 1899. One of their children was my 2nd cousin Mary Fannie Artis (1895-1958). She was married to George Artis Jr. (1891-1935). Their daughter was Lucile Artis (1911-1982). My 3rd cousin Lucille Artis married Hillary Fleshman (1906-1998). Their child was Maynard H. Fleshman. Maynard H. Fleshman was a great family man. His first wife was Rose Cunningham Fleshman (b. 1936). Their children are Anthony Fleshman Sr. (1956-2015. He was married to Velma Greene, and their son is Brian Fleshman), Cecillia La Vonne Fleshman (b. 1959), Cecile Wright, and Millicent Caternia Fleshman (b. 1961). Maynard Fleshman married Elsie M. Mason on October 29, 1985, at Kentucky. This came after Rose Cunningham Fleshman passed away. Maynard Fleshman served in the U.S. Army and was a proud third-generation railroader, having worked for Norfolk and Southern Railroad before his retirement. He was active in the Christ Temple Church. Fleshman was a Sunday School superintendent and Chairman of the Deacon Board. Maynard H. Fleshman's grandchildren are Brian D. Fleshman and Mickey D. Fleshman. His brother Isaac Fleshman lives in Youngstown, Ohio. 

 

Ruby Dee's life in the 1990s was all about hard work. The 1990s was a very special decade. It was a decade at the end of the 20th century but just before the existence of the 21st century. It had culture, controversies, music, and historic developments like the end of the Cold War. Unprecedented technological development from cell phones, the Internet, the cloning of Dolly the sheep, and personal computer helped to grow the economy worldwide. Also, we have seen the growth of positive, non-stereotypical African American TV shows and movies like Living Single, NY Undercover, Moesha, Malcolm X, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Malcolm and Eddie, Martin, In Living Color, Smart Guy, etc. I experienced great times during that decade filled with excitement, fun, and intellectual development in outstanding ways. In 1990, I was 7 years old, and in 1999, I was 16 years old. It was a time when people played outside a lot, there was a carefree attitude in many cases, and it was highly an abundantly creative atmosphere. It was a time of self-expression, movements for racial justice growing (against police brutality, against gun violence, and against all forms of injustice in general), and a time where Blackness was expressed with great courage. 

 

With constant research, it is no secret that the Rockefeller political/economic interests along with other Pilgrim Society-allied groups have influenced U.S. politics since the days of the Eisenhower administration at least. The families of Morgan, Whitney, Harriman, and Bruce influenced the Truman administration. For example, Dean Acheson or the Secretary of State under Truman was a CFR member and a Pilgrim Society member. He was part of the Scroll and Key (from Yale), and his son would be a member of the Skulls and Bones. His daughter married William Bundy (a close friend of David Rockefeller). CIA Director Walter Bedell Smith was a member of both the CFR and the Pilgrim Society. He was a co-founder of the Bilderberg group back during the 1950s with Prince Bernhard and David Rockefeller. Smith was the one who supported the evil CIA coup of Guatemala in 1954 after the Guatemalan government wanted to nationalize United Fruit. Smith was linked to the Dulles Brothers. Averell Harriman was a CFR member and a Pilgrim for years. Dwight D. Eisenhower was a CFR member and a Pilgrim executive. We know that John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles were CFR members and members of the Pilgrim Society. Both of them were involved in the Rockefeller Foundation. President John F. Kennedy was different from the Eisenhower administration. JFK changed foreign policy by being in favor of many nationalist and socialist movements (which was taboo back then). He didn't want a super military involvement in the Vietnam War forever, he signed a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union in 1963, he called for a long-term goal of peace in his American University speech (back in 1963 too), and he refused to support an invasion of Cuba. This caused hostility from the establishment towards JFK on many issues. Many Ford and Rockefeller Foundations tied people were in the administrations of JFK and LBJ like Robert McNamara (a Pilgrim), Dean Rusk (a CFR member, a Pilgrim, and a member of the Bilderberg Group), etc. Even Lyndon Johnson once tried to convince his friend Nelson Rockefeller to run for President against Richard Nixon in 1968. Even during the Obama years, Rockefeller, Open Society, and Ford Foundations have links to cabinet members. The CNP funded the Trump campaign in many ways. Trump has many establishment ties like being in a 94 guest December 2000 dinner with people like Henry Kisinger, Lynn Foerester de Rothschild, Richard Perle, etc. Trilateral Commission member Dina Habib Powell was part of the Trump cabinet. Rex Tillerson (who is now a critic of Trump) was Secretary of State under Trump. This proves that the leaders of the Democrats and the Republicans are funded (in many cases) by the same establishment interests. They may debate on issues dealing with taxes and cultural wars, but they share similarities on long-term foreign policy matters, the war on terror, civil liberties, and other economic issues. We live in a time when far-right extremists are proposing and passing laws violating the human rights of my people and other people. When one group's rights are threatened, all of our rights are in jeopardy, so we have to be clear on that point. Therefore, we should have our independent thinking, but we should have the progressive core convictions that justice for all, environmental justice, voting rights, health care for all, racial justice, civil liberties, equality for all, and the love of truth be preserved forever and ever. 

By Timothy