Smedley Butler Stopped American Fascist Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR

[Octafish]

Their aim was to put an end to "Socialist New Deal."



United States Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler exposed their conspiracy.
The treason was chronicled by the great Dave Emory in this interview with author Jules Archer.
For more, the BBC's "Document" program did an excellent report.

Gen. Butler's good work is seldom mentioned in high school history --
which is about the extent of most American citizen's knowledge of their nation's past.

You almost never read that Butler received two Medals of Honor for his gallantry
during war, which he called a "racket."

Oh well, DU. It's just another fascist conspiracy at play.

The Plot to Sieze the White House

by Jules Archer

Hawthorn Books: New York
244 pp.

Smedley Darlington Butler (1881-1940) blew the whistle on the little- known plot of the title. He was on public television the fall of 1993 in "The Road to Rock Bottom"--Part 2 of The Great Depression series (Blackside production). Near the end it shows Butler in shirtsleeves, urging on 10,000 of the war veterans who had marched to Washington and camped in Anacostia DC. It was July 1932. The Bonus Army asked for early payment of moneys promised for 1945. "Some were the same men who had fought under Smedley Butler in the Spanish-American War, the Philippines campaign, the Boxer Rebellion, ...Caribbean interventions, the Chinese intervention of 1927-8, and World War I" (p 3).

Butler, a major general at 48, retired from the Marine Corps in 1931. He had faced gunfire 120 times. Columnist Will Rogers wrote of Butler, "He is what I would call a natural born warrior. He will fight anybody, any time....He carries every medal we ever gave out. He has two Congressional Medals of Honor....You give him another war and he will get him another one....I do admire him" (p 116).

Except the two years in China, Butler spent the last third of his service in police work and administration. During this time a disillusion with war spread through Europe and America. The mood fed on books like ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT and MERCHANTS OF DEATH.

August 21, 1931, Butler spoke to an American Legion convention in New Britain CT. Looking back, he reflected on his career. His remarks stunned the audience. Few papers dared report even part of the speech:

"I spent 33 years...being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism....

"I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street....

"In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested....I had...a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions....I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three cities. The Marines operated on three continents..." (p 118).

CONTINUED...

http://www.eclectica.org/v1n1/reviews/wharton_plot.html

The story of how Gen Smedley Butler exposed an American Fascist conspiracy to overthrow FDR NEVER GETS MENTIONED in the contemporary college curriculum or what passes for journalism, nor historic context on the nightly news, either.

And that is a shame.

Those Democrats -- and pukes and pindependents -- who give a damn about democracy will see that his story is told, which is why DU is so important. This place spreads the Truth about the fascist bastards, whose sons and grandsons, and those of their cronies continue to haunt America.

To those who stand in the way of its message: Go to hell.

[MrScorpio]

1. Smedley Butler was one of America's greatest patriots

His "War Is A Racket" statement should be read by everyone

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

[Octafish]

6. That's why the Wall Street fascists chose him.

People would follow a hero.

General Smedley Butler: an Honest War Hero

EXCERPT...

Big Business plots to overthrow Roosevelt

In the summer of 1933, shortly after Roosevelt's "First 100 Days," America's richest businessmen were in a panic. It was clear that Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. He had to be stopped at all costs.

Their answer was a military coup. It was to be secretly financed and organized by leading officers of the Morgan and Du Pont empires. This included some of America's richest and most famous names of the time:

Irenee Du Pont - Right-wing chemical industrialist, founder, American Liberty League, assigned to execute plot.
Grayson Murphy - Director of Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel and a group of J.P. Morgan banks.
William Doyle - Former state commander of the American Legion and a central plotter of the coup.
John Davis - Former Democratic presidential candidate and a senior attorney for J.P. Morgan.
Al Smith - Roosevelt's political foe, former governor New York, codirector of the American Liberty League.
John J. Raskob* - A high-ranking Du Pont officer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party.
Robert Clark - One of Wall Street's richest bankers and stockbrokers.
Gerald MacGuire - Bond salesman for Clark, former commander of the Connecticut American Legion.

*In later decades, Raskob would become a "Knight of Malta," a Roman Catholic Religious Order with a high percentage of CIA spies, including CIA Directors William Casey, William Colby and John McCone.

The plotters attempted to recruit General Smedley Butler to lead the coup.

They selected him because he was a war hero who was popular with the troops. The plotters felt his good reputation was important to make the troops feel confident that they were doing the right thing by overthrowing a democratically elected president.

However, this was a mistake: Butler was popular with the troops because he identified with them. That is, he was a man of the people, not the elite.

CONTINUED...

http://www.real-debt-elimination.com/real_freedom/portal_to_dictatorship/smedley_butler/honest_war_hero.htm

I remember reading, I'm still looking for the quote, how "their" newspapers would convince the people.

[Odin2005]

24. Wow, why am I not surprised that Al Smith and John Raskob were involved?

Smith, Raskob, and pals were the DLC of their day.

[bobbolink]

31. Wasn't Prescott Bush also among them?

[troubledamerican]

34. Prescott Bush, Goodyear Tire, Heinz, DuPont, Birds' Eye, Maxwell House...

J.P. Morgan, Bethlehem Steel, Fortune Magazine...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

[leveymg]

53. Prescott was central to the plot - he was chosen to be the chief liaison with Hitler's Germany

HARPER'S (7/29/07): Prescott Bush was "key liaison" w/Nazis in ...It appears that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the new German government. Prescott Bush, of course, went on to service as a us ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/.../duboard.php?az...all...

Edited on Thu May-15-08 03:35 PM by leveymg
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651

TITLE 1934: The Plot Against America
DEPARTMENT No Comment
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED July 28, 2007

I’m back from the land of heather and thistles, not to mention wee drams and lukewarm ale, but on my way out a friend at the BBC alerted me to this, a not-to-miss program on the BBC this morning, accessible over the next several days by internet. It’s the story of the Plot Against America. I don’t mean the Philip Roth novel, nor even the Sinclair Lewis book, It Can’t Happen Here, but rather the historical events upon which these two works of fiction were based.

In November 1934, federal investigators uncovered an amazing plot involving some two dozen senior businessmen, a good many of them Wall Street financiers, to topple the government of the United States and install a fascist dictatorship. Roth’s novel is developed from several strands of this factual account; he assumed the plot is actually carried out, whereas in fact an alert FDR shut it down but stopped short of retaliatory measures against the plotters. A key element of the plot involved a retired prominent general who was to have raised a private army of 500,000 men from unemployed veterans and who blew the whistle when he learned more of what the plot entailed. The plot was heavily funded and well developed and had strong links with fascist forces abroad. A story in the New York Times and several other newspapers reported on it, and a special Congressional committee was created to conduct an investigation. The records of this committee were scrubbed and sealed away in the National Archives, where they have only recently been made available.

The Congressional committee kept the names of many of the participants under wraps and no criminal action was ever brought against them. But a few names have leaked out. And one is Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the incumbent president. Prescott Bush was of course deep into the business of the Hamburg-America Lines, and had tight relations throughout this period with the new Government that had come to power in Germany a year earlier under Chancellor Aldoph Hitler. It appears that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the new German government.

Prescott Bush, of course, went on to service as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut, and his son, George H.W. Bush emerged from World War II as a hero.

The Plot Against America portrayed in this episode of the BBC series “Document” gives fascinating insight into a dark and little known piece of American history in which the nation stood on the brink of betrayal. The role of the most powerful political dynastic family in the nation’s history in this whole affair is shocking.

Some of the other prominent figures in American finance and industry involved in this coup plot were "leading officers of the Morgan and Du Pont empires. This included some of America's richest and most famous names of the time:

Irenee Du Pont - Right-wing chemical industrialist and founder of the American Liberty League, the organization assigned to execute the plot.
Grayson Murphy - Director of Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel and a group of J.P. Morgan banks.
William Doyle - Former state commander of the American Legion and a central plotter of the coup.
John Davis - Former Democratic presidential candidate and a senior attorney for J.P. Morgan.
Al Smith - Roosevelt's bitter political foe from New York. Smith was a former governor of New York and a codirector of the American Liberty League.
John J. Raskob - A high-ranking Du Pont officer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. In later decades, Raskob would become a "Knight of Malta," a Roman Catholic Religious Order with a high percentage of CIA spies, including CIA Directors William Casey, William Colby and John McCone.
Robert Clark - One of Wall Street's richest bankers and stockbrokers.
Gerald MacGuire - Bond salesman for Clark, and a former commander of the Connecticut American Legion. MacGuire was the key recruiter to General Butler." http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/27/112936/440 ; http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Coup.htm

BOTTOM LINE: When you put together the new National Archives evidence contained in the BBC report referenced by Klein and Horton with the older material published about Gen. Butler, we now have solid sourcing to establish the following:

In 1934, Prescott Bush conspired with leading figures on Wall St. to form an alliance with Nazi Germany in an attempt to overthrow FDR.

Treason.

Mark

P.S. - Now, take this a step further and combine it with Justice Arthur Goldberg's comment that "the Dulles Bros. were traitors" and former CIA Counter-intelligence Chief James Jesus Angelton's admission that he was given that job of head of Agency security on condition that he not polygraph "40 of Allen Dulles' best friends." I'll betya five-to-ten that you'll find Prescott Bush's name among those 40 Nazi-linked traitors who infiltrated CIA upon its founding.

Yes, Virginia, there are American Nazis. And, for a while they took over the country. Time to identify them all, and drive them and their inheritors out of positions of power and privilege.

[leveymg]

55. There's another side to this story - how Allen Dulles and friends moved Nazi gold out of Europe

under the guise of Operation Safehaven. Only a small fraction of the loot made it to the U.S. Treasury. If you want to buy people's silence about a huge crime, treason, nothing is more effective than making them accessories to lesser crime, like looting captured enemy assets. See, http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp2.html; c.f., http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8870134/The-OSS-and-Project-SAFEHAVEN

On December 6, 1944, the State Department released its long awaited Circular Instruction to U.S. Missions about Safehaven matters. The release of the Circular marked the beginning of the political and diplomatic phases of Safehaven under the Department of State.

Collecting data and evaluating the data were largely confined to the OSS. Within the OSS, Safehaven was confined to the SI (Secret Intelligence) and X2 (counter-intelligence) divisions. X2 often played the dominant role within the OSS, especially with the more important neutrals of Switzerland, Portugal and Spain. X2 was particularly involved in the German effort to transfer looted assets to foreign countries. For the OSS, this meant little more than a redirection of its intelligence operations to obtaining economic data. Cooperation between the OSS and Safehaven was on an informal basis until November 30, 1944. At the end of November, instructions sent out to all OSS stations detailed the intelligence requirement expected to be generated by the Safehaven program. In substance, Safehaven was piggybacking on already active OSS operations.


Under such conditions, it is hardly surprising that Safehaven was dependent on the personalities of the various OSS station chiefs. As already mentioned, the OSS operation in Spain was compromised because of the ambassador. In Switzerland, Allen Dulles was the station chief. Dulles had already been exposed by an earlier operation in a joint program with the British of spying on Americans and was suspected of being sympathetic with the Nazi cause. Dulles had deliberately been sent to Switzerland where he would have the most temptation to help his clients. By the time Dulles had reached Berne, he was aware that he was being watched. Dulles knew he was unable to use official channels to help his clients in the United States. Thus, Dulles used his Vatican connections to help the Nazis and Vatican couriers to help his clients in America, as the Vatican couriers held diplomatic immunity. The Vatican readily agreed to help Dulles in their zeal to regain their own assets in Germany and further their fanatical anti-communism philosophy.

Declassified files show that Slovenian bishop, Gregory Rozman, was trying to arrange the transfer of huge quantities of Nazi-controlled gold and Western currency that had been discreetly secreted in Swiss banks during the war. The bishop had been sent to Berne with the aid of Dulles’ friends within the intelligence service. For a few months, the Allies were successful in preventing Rozman from receiving the funds. Then suddenly, Rozman had the funds for his Nazi friends residing in Argentina. Dulles had fixed it. This action may be only the tip of the iceberg. In 1945, the U.S. Treasury Department accused Dulles of laundering the funds from the Nazi Bank of Hungary to Switzerland. Similar charges were made against Dulles’ agent Hans Bernd Gisevius, who had worked as an OSS agent while serving at the Reichsbank. The State Department quickly took over the case from the Treasury, after which the investigation was silenced and quickly dropped.7 Gisevius may have also been involved in the ratlines.

In fact, Dulles’ career in Berne during WWII is marked by several money laundering cases. After the Nazis tipped Dulles off that the Swiss codes had been broken, Dulles shifted his operation to the banks of Belgium, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, using a roundabout route through Japan aided by Vatican couriers. 8 After the end of the war all the banks in these countries refused to allow allied investigators to look at their books. One of Dulles’ dirtiest tricks may have been an effort to buy more time to move Nazi gold through Switzerland. A former East Bloc intelligence officer has confirmed that Dulles warned the Nazis the Japanese code had been broken at a crucial time. Shortly after warning the Nazis, the SS suddenly told the High Command to use tighter code security and to stop using the radio. They suddenly stopped using Ultra and switched to couriers. For once, the Allies had no information on the German battle plan. This most likely explains how the German’s were able to launch the Battle of the Bulge as a complete surprise.13

Dulles and his comrades certainly exerted a large amount of influence to ensure US investments in Nazi Germany were not seized for repartitions. In Switzerland, the SS had purchased a large amount of stock in American corporations and laundered their money through the Chase and the Corn Exchange banks. Even more brazen was the case of Pan Am clippers hired by W.R. Grace Corporation to transport Nazi gems, currency, stock and bonds to South America. The operations were the product of Dulles’ money laundering for the Nazis. 11 Several American officers readily admit that much of the Nazi gold was never turned over to them. One officer admits to being in a huge vault filled with gold, gems and currency that never appeared in any US files.9

Dulles had been a backer of Germany for a longtime and he envisioned Germany as a bulkhead against the Soviets. The young Lt. William Casey was another OSS agent that shared Dulles’ views of a German bulkhead. Casey served in the SI division in France and the Lowlands after they were recaptured. In a report from Paris, Casey wrote that Safehaven was a valuable field of endeavor, especially because of the potential for leverage with German financial circles, etc., in the future. 12 Following the war, Casey entered a career on Wall Street before becoming a director of the CIA under Reagan.

In 1946, Dulles’s men simply changed their OSS uniforms and became the War Department Strategic Service Unit. Sometimes they were War Department Detachment and others the Document Disposal Unit. In effect, there were two factions left over of the OSS. One a liberal faction took orders from the President and the other under the control of Dulles. The latter faction was hoping for a conservative victory by Dewey so they could unleash their émigré army against the Soviets. Dulles had a secret ally in Region IV around Munich, where the Counter Intelligence Corp (CIC) was helping to recruit ex-Nazis.14

BTW: This is the basis for intelligence agency self-financing that became the norm. The French added a modification by using the revenues from IndoChina drug trafficking to fund operations in Vietnam, networks that were later taken over by the CIA. Also, ONI and OSS made a compact with the Italian and Corsican mobs as early as 1944, as well as making deals with the American Mafia to reduce waterfront sabotage operations. This was the basis for the CIA partnership with Lansky, Lucianno, Genovese and Trafficante families - a must-read on the subject, McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, available in its entirety at http://www.drugtext.org/library/books/McCoy/default.htm .

[Octafish]

63. Dr. Mengele financed operations with illegal drugs from his South American redoubt

The Senate's had more than a quarter century. What did they find out?

" . . . according to declassified CIA documents released by two Republican
senators.

Mengele's reported involvement in drugs could explain how he was able to
finance his life and travels in South America for years, according to one
of the senators, Alphonse M. D'Amato of New York. One CIA document said
Mengele may have used a farm machinery business in Paraguay 'as a
mechanism to move or launder large sums of money, as well as to cover the
movement of illicit narcotics.'

But the 28 heavily censored pages of long hidden CIA records were often
vague and inconclusive, D'Amato and Sen. Arlen K. Specter of Pennsylvania
acknowledged at a news conference. Because many sentences were blacked
out to conceal the CIA's sources of information about Mengele, it is
difficult to determine what data in the documents might be credible . . .

. . . Referring to the documents, Specter said, 'They're vague, but that's
the starting point for our investigation.'"

-- Los Angeles Times
Service, 2/27/85

SOURCE: http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg05117.html

Well, whatever they found out they didn't make public. Going by the continued success of the illicit drug trade, it really must be protected at the highest levels of government, as I believe former DCI William Colby was quoted as saying.

Thank you, leveymg, for the important information about finances and the NAZI and the link to Dr. McCloy's excellent work regarding the international narcotics network. Here's what I wanted to add (pardon the roundabout sourcing, time constraints today, but I will be back...).

Please know that I really appreciate the brave work you are doing and have done to expose these traitors. It is an honor to know you.

[bear425]

70. I think you and Leveymg should collaborate on a book

You both have such a collective knowledge base that would be of great interest to so many people.

Thank you both for getting the truth out there.

[leveymg]

77. And an honor and pleasure

to collaborate with you, too. It's people like, my inky friend, that make DU worthwhile.

If you feel like talking about some kind of project, give me a yell on the PM.

[mod mom]

61. Had dinner last year w Edwin Black, author of "IBM and the Holocaust"

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

American corporate involvement needs to be exposed to everyone. Those with ties to this involvement need to be condemned instead of the factually challenged re-written history praising them for their life accomplishments. Traitors is correct!

[bjobotts]

84. They've been trying ever since to control America's economy through deregulation of their activities

[bjobotts]

85. Using an army of lobbyists rather than marines and dollars rather than guns to make a fascist corpo

[Octafish]

103. Wow! What was Mr. Black like?

What did you talk about?

Eugenics and the California connection? IBM and the Holocaust?

The man is a national treasure.

Sorry, my Friend. I don't mean to sound too nosey, but that must've been some evening.

If I were there, I'd ask him about the case of Abraham Bolden, the first African American to serve on the White House Secret Service detail -- assigned there at the insistance of President Kennedy. Bolden reported the President's security detail was lax and drank heavily when traveling with the JFK. For telling the truth, he got demoted and shipped to a desk job in Chicago. While there, he heard about a planned attempt on the President's life early in November, 1963. The plot was broken up, but remained virtually unknown for decades. Bolden tried to tell the story to J Lee Rankin, chief counsel for the Warren Commission, but was immediately framed, tried and convicted -- on the testimony of a couple of Mafia goons. Although one later recanted, Mr. Bolden spent six years in the federal pen.

[anonymous171]

46. Yep. nt

[valerief]

2. K&R (note: Seize not Sieze) nt

[Octafish]

7. My bad! LOL! It's from the original source...

...still, as editor...!

Here's a bit more, in penance:

Wall Street's Plot to Seize the White House: Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism

[Bigmack]

3. Not much of a warrior, tho.....

During his 34 years of Marine Corps service, Butler was awarded numerous medals for heroism including the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (the highest Marine medal at its time for officers), and subsequently the Medal of Honor twice. Notably, he is one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, and one of only three to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.

Why did he hate Murika so much?

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Thothmes]

12. most of those awards were for killing brown folks

in various South American Countries

[Bigmack]

26. That why he wrote... War is a Racket....

Oh.... and those brown people... they fight real well, so bravery is bravery... even in a bad cause. That's why I hate the fucking Wars the US is in, but I love the troops... even when they're assholes.

[cascadiance]

49. He was actually nominated for the medal of honor three times!

[redqueen]

4. K&R

[Octafish]

9. Gen. Butler was a real maverick.

The guy didn't want to see the Corps "ruined."

Maverick Marine:

General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History

(excerpt from chapter called "To Hell with the Admirals")

By Hans Schmidt

Denied the commandancy, Butler did not dig in for a prolonged sulk as major general manqué. In the letter in which he vowed to block Naval Academy rivals for the next fifteen years, he also alluded to a resilience that precluded anything like General Barnett's last stand as commander of the Pacific: "We must keep our faces to the Sun and out of the shadow. Keep our tails up and go on and what ever comes of this, it will be for the best in the end." Several months later he was making up his mind to retire. He met with Arthur Burks for advice, after which Burks wrote him thoughtfully summarizing the pros and cons. Burks observed that "the mental uncertainty which prompted you to ask me to that conference was totally unlike you, and came down in favor of early retirement and an offer fromJoseph Alber's lecture bureau. Smedley had said that now he would never be commandant, and that the Corps was being ruined. Burks argued that he might stay in to try and save it. But there was the prospect of "leaping" from the "top of the heap" in the marines to "a neighboring heap which may be higher, if your legs are springy enough-which they won't be at sixty four." And if Smedley were to succeed his father in Congress, he would "be back in the driver~s seat," with no military regulations to hamper him.'8

With what he thought was almost half his life ahead of him, Butler decided to retire. The decision preceded the Mussolini incident. Being beaten at the top rung of command politics did not, however, mean he would go out quietly. Now definitely an outsider in Corps and navy politics, he continued in command at Quantico and resumed his extracurricular public speeches. Recent developments freed him from careerist constraints and from any need to defer meticulously to superiors. Despite not going out of his way to foment trouble, this fragile situation soon broke down, and he again ran afoul of brittle and maladroit chiefs in the Hoover administration.

In a speech on "how to prevent war" delivered to the Philadelphia Contemporary Club in January 1931, Butler related an anecdote about Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini while making the point that "mad-dog nations" could not be trusted to honor disarmament agreements. Butler recounted a story told him by an unnamed friend who had been taken by Mussolini for a high-speed automobile ride through the Italian countryside, in the course of which the dictator ran down a child and did not bother even to slow down: "My friend screamed as the child's body was crushed under the wheels of the machine. Mussolini put a hand on my friend's knee. 'It was only one life,' he told my friend. 'What is one life in the affairs of a State.'" '~

The Italian government protested, Rome newspapers denounced the speech as "insolent and ridiculous," and Mussolini issued a categorical denial: "I have never taken an American on a motor-car trip around Italy, neither have I run over a child, man or woman." Secretary of State Stimson issued a formal apology to Mussolini for "discourteous and unwarranted utterances by a commissioned officer of this government on active duty." Smedley was placed under arrest and ordered court-martialed by President Hoover. 20

The New York Times, in its lead story, characterized this as surprisingly severe and as yet another instance of the State Department dominating the navy. It was the first time a general officer in the U.S. services had been court-martialed since Major General Fitz John Porter was cashiered for disobedience of orders following a Union Army battle loss in 1862. More recently there had been the famous 1925 prosecution of Colonel Billy Mitchell, and the upcoming Butler trial promised similar fireworks. A cabinet officer warned Hoover that he could "see no profit in putting the Admirals up against a dashing Marine with a unique flair for publicity." And in a bizarre non sequitur, the Navy Department released a brochure, "The United States Navy in Peace Time," which included the commendation:

"Probably no finer example of successful arbitration by American officers has been demonstrated in recent years than the peacemaking achievements that crowned General Butler's efforts in China in 1927 and 1928." 21

CONTINUED...

http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/butler02-by_schmidt.html

The man who wrote "War Is a Racket" was a peace maker. A man of Integrity. A true Hero.

[redqueen]

13. A true Hero, indeed.

It's shameful that he's swept under the rug to facilitate the MIC.

[anonymous171]

47. Wait, they fired him because he insulted Benito fucking Mussolini?

:wtf:

[glitch]

5. The real heroes rarely make it into the history books. Thank you for your service Octafish

of relentlessly informing this little piece of the populace.

[Octafish]

11. You're welcome, glitch. The Nuevo Reich wants to bury the lessons of the past...

...so they own the media, the universities...the banks.

Robert McNamara and Smedley Butler

by Tom Gallagher
Published on Monday, July 13, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

There’s been a lot of ink spilled in the past week over how we ought to think about the late Robert McNamara. (And yes, real ink, not just virtual – even the remaining real newspapers were in on it.) Does the fact that he came to realize that the Vietnam War (“McNamara’s War” to some) was wrong even as he continued to pursue it as Lyndon Johnson’s Defense Secretary make him a better or a worse person? And what of his willingness to say it publicly – but only three decades later? There may be a more useful way to think about him, however. And it involves considering him not in conjunction with, say, Henry Kissinger, who followed a course similar to his but apparently without hesitation, but more in terms of General Smedley Butler, someone who did learn from his experience.

Butler, of course, achieved far greater clarity than the ever-hedging McNamara did. Butler’s story is fairly well known: four years after a military career that included service in Cuba, China, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, Haiti, and France, he wrote a book called “War is a Racket.” He gave speeches in which he would say things like, “during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

Whether any of this later-in-life understanding made Butler a better or worse person I do not know. What I do know, though, is that what Butler was willing to say and write was extremely helpful to more than one generation of antiwar activists: “Hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. Listen to this guy, he should know.”

Likewise, I suggest to no one that they should get over their antipathy to Robert McNamara if that is what they feel – the evil that he and Kissinger and the rest did will long outlive them. And anyone who no longer hates the criminals should certainly remain outraged at their crimes. But let us take something of value out of McNamara’s life.

When we encounter potential military recruits looking to serve in one of the nation’s seemingly always available wars but not looking too closely at exactly what it is we’re fighting for because they assume our leaders wouldn’t lead them astray on matters of life and death, let’s tell them about Robert McNamara. If the man in charge of one of our wars could later write that what the US did at the time was “wrong, terribly wrong,” don’t we all owe it to ourselves to take a closer look at where those in power are leading us today?

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/13-6

Thank you, glitch. You've been more than shouldering your share of making the happy happy. Your friendship means the Multiverse.

[Odin2005]

25. I am reminded of a quote:

"There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. It is hardly better than to treat the history of embezzlement or of robbery or of poisoning as the history of mankind. For the history of power politics is nothing but the history of international crime and mass murder (including it is true, some of the attempts to suppress them). This history is taught in schools, and some of the greatest criminals are extolled as heroes."

--Karl Popper

[Posteritatis]

10. A man who is entirely, unforgivably too obscure

I've sub-taught that period in college courses a couple of times at the freshman level and make a point of at least dropping his name. Those what-iffy branching points are always an interest to me, and he exemplifies a potentially dramatic one.

[Octafish]

18. What would the students say when they learned about Butler?

How many, if any, had heard about him? Was there a typical reaction? Where there any expressions of surprise?

1934: The Plot Against America

BY Scott Horton
Harper's
July 28, 2007

I’m back from the land of heather and thistles, not to mention wee drams and lukewarm ale, but on my way out a friend at the BBC alerted me to this, a not-to-miss program on the BBC this morning, accessible over the next several days by internet. It’s the story of the Plot Against America. I don’t mean the Philip Roth novel, nor even the Sinclair Lewis book, It Can’t Happen Here, but rather the historical events upon which these two works of fiction were based.

In November 1934, federal investigators uncovered an amazing plot involving some two dozen senior businessmen, a good many of them Wall Street financiers, to topple the government of the United States and install a fascist dictatorship. Roth’s novel is developed from several strands of this factual account; he assumed the plot is actually carried out, whereas in fact an alert FDR shut it down but stopped short of retaliatory measures against the plotters. A key element of the plot involved a retired prominent general who was to have raised a private army of 500,000 men from unemployed veterans and who blew the whistle when he learned more of what the plot entailed. The plot was heavily funded and well developed and had strong links with fascist forces abroad. A story in the New York Times and several other newspapers reported on it, and a special Congressional committee was created to conduct an investigation. The records of this committee were scrubbed and sealed away in the National Archives, where they have only recently been made available.

The Congressional committee kept the names of many of the participants under wraps and no criminal action was ever brought against them. But a few names have leaked out. And one is Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the incumbent president. Prescott Bush was of course deep into the business of the Hamburg-America Lines, and had tight relations throughout this period with the new Government that had come to power in Germany a year earlier under Chancellor Aldoph Hitler. It appears that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the new German government.

Prescott Bush, of course, went on to service as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut, and his son, George H.W. Bush emerged from World War II as a hero.

The Plot Against America portrayed in this episode of the BBC series “Document” gives fascinating insight into a dark and little known piece of American history in which the nation stood on the brink of betrayal. The role of the most powerful political dynastic family in the nation’s history in this whole affair is shocking.

CONTINUED...

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651

As long as there are good teachers to tell them they are living in NAZI gangster times, we have a good chance. And it gives me hope that so many young people on DU work to spread the word about these fascist traitors.

[Posteritatis]

27. Well, they were freshman classes, so the bar was set with a shovel

None at all had heard of him, or didn't show it if they had. I liked dropping fairly esoteric names like Gavrilo Princip or Smedley Butler or Stanislav Petrov. It was also a crappy time slot so half of my students were in a coma at the time, but there were quite a few looks of "!" from the survivors, especially at the latter two. I didn't have time to go into much detail on any of them given the material to be covered in the lecture, but getting the names and what they did out is still doing just that.

I'm not especially surprised that all three were obscure to my students, between the timeframe and the fact that it was at a Canadian university to boot, but it was definitely an eye opener to some of them, which was exactly what I wanted. Of course, we had our runins with that ourselves; the eugenics movement in North America really had its start in my hometown.

[OnyxCollie]

40. I have political science professors who have not heard of Smedley Butler.

They tend to dismiss me and my arguments as "normative" and "polemic", and question if I want to be a social scientist or an "advocate."

I find being normative, polemic, and advocative to be lesser impediments to conducting scientific study than being ignorant, gullible, and egotistical but, as they say, YMMV.

[blackbird13]

96. college history and Butler

I have taken several college history courses here in the
American South and never heard any mention of General Butler.
I first heard of him in the documentary "The
Corporation." This does not really surprise me, since one
of my American History professors was an admitted religious
conservative and the other, while politically neutral in
class, was known to be a libertarian-leaning Republican. 
Even that great anti-textbook, "Lies My Teacher Told
Me," didn't mention Butler. By the way, does anyone know
if the college textbook adoption process is similar to the
high school process?  

[AntiFascist]

14. K&R....and don't forget the involvement of George W Bush's grandfather...

Prescott Bush.

According to BBC radio:

http://kenhirsch.net/prescottbush.html

Later in the McCormack-Dickstein report, a shipping company called Hamburg-America Line was accused of providing free passage to Germany to American journalists willing to write favorable copy on Hitler's rise to power. The company is also alleged to have brought Nazi spies and pro-fascist sympathizers into America. John Buchanan has studied this latest section of the report and has discovered that one of the company's managers came from a very famous family. "The thing that surprised me most was to discover in the documents of this company that Hamburg-America Lines had, in fact, been managed on the U. S. side at the executive level by Prescott Bush as part of a web of Nazi business interests that were all seized in late 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act by the U. S. Congress and Prescott Bush is the grandfather of the sitting President of the United States."

Of course, at the time it was perfectly legal to have dealings with Hitler's Germany. Prescott Bush was not called to account for this until America entered the war.

[cascadiance]

16. Watch this BBC documentary on Prescott Bush's involvement in this...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/36409

http://www.vloggingtheapocalypse.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=763&title=WHITE_HOUSE_COUP___SMEDLEY_BUTLER___PRESCOTT_BUSH

[AntiFascist]

20. Prescott Bush also helped bring Nixon into power...

Also, this webpage gives an interesting historical perspective on ultra right-wing groups:

http://chris-floyd.com/plot/

These groups also acted as intelligence networks. They infiltrated unions, leftwing groups, and universities, and sold their information to industry. One example of such an intelligence agency was the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, headquartered in Chicago and operated by Harry Jung. Jung later relocated to New Orleans where he was an associate of Guy Banister, who also hailed from Chicago. Banister's Detective Agency was spying for right-wing businesses as well. Some believe it may have been Jung's hotel in New Orleans that the famous Congress of Freedom meeting took place in the Spring of 1963. At this meeting, with Edwin Walker and Joseph Milteer in attendance, a police informant reported there was talk of murdering national leaders.

[Octafish]

22. J Edgar Hoover ''watched'' over Butler.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the FBI

We know who "watched" over Hoover.

And Prescott and Averell Harriman -- through their lawyer and former partner, Allen Dulles -- watched over Angleton.

[AntiFascist]

28. This explains much about the earliest connections between...

intelligence, the mafia, anti-Communists, and the Vatican:

In Italy, 1947, Angleton participated in an OSO operation given to a group called SPG, or Special Procedures Group, in which propaganda and other means were used to keep the Italians from voting any Communists into office.7 Other means included the Mafia. "Wild Bill" Donovan, founder of the OSS, helped release "Lucky" Luciano and other Mafia criminals from jail in New York so they could return to Italy and provide not only contacts, but if necessary, the strong-arm tactics needed to win the war against incipient Communism in Italy. Angleton’s later reported contacts with the Mob may well stem back to this period.

One of the groups most interested in defeating the communists in Italy was, not surprisingly, the Vatican. Angleton both gave and received intelligence to and from the Vatican. Among Angleton’s most famous agents in Italy was Mons Giovanni Montini. Montini would become famous in 1963 when he became Pope Paul VI.8 Angleton has been named as a source for funds which were used to defeat the Communists. In return, evidently, Angleton obtained access to the Ratlines the Vatican was using to move people out of Europe to safety abroad. Angleton and others from the State Department used the Ratlines to ferry Nazis to South America.9

Also, it seems that Oswald must have been involved with counter-intelligence ops, via Angleton.

[bobbolink]

32. Thanks! I knew Prescott Bush was in there somewhere.....

..and of course, our stellar press made this very clear during the campaigns of both 41 and 43.

:(

[Uzybone]

15. K&R

I was shocked when I read the story. America has a funny way of unremembering some of its history.

[cascadiance]

19. As Thom Hartmann would note this is a symptom of our textbooks being censored by Texas school system

Since just about all of our text books are made by big companies there and they are beholden to the requirements of the Texas school system's requirements... And you can bet that the powers that be wouldn't want anything to "taint" the Bush family name!...

http://web2.ade.org/ade/bulletin/N083/083035.htm

How they control what's said about evolution...

http://www.texscience.org/files/censorship-texas/

[Bluenorthwest]

54. some of my older family would note that Texas Republicans

are, along with money, the root of all evil. The text books are a symptom, and not a coincidental one either.

[Beartracks]

44. Reminds me of when Republicans complain about "rewriting history."

Well... what if it was originally written wrong?

[conscious evolution]

17. K&R

[Naturyl]

21. "War is a Racket" is required reading.

It's not too often a decorated two-star general spills the beans about the whole war profiteering industry.

K&R.

[Odin2005]

23. That's something they will never teach you in history class

During WW2 all the Right's pro-Fascist behavior was "conveniently" forgotten because of the need to keep Big Business happy making stuff to crush said Fascists.

[bleever]

29. Thank you for all you do to shine a light on scrubbed history.

The bad guys, and the good guys.

At least Butler didn't get "suicided", as befell other heroes you've often mentioned.

:patriot:

[bobbolink]

30. The Plot To Overthrow FDR -- dvd

http://www.amazon.com/Search-History-Plot-Overthrow-Channel/dp/B000FKP0NM

Our gratitude, General Butler! :patriot:

[ellie]

33. Butler rocks

See my avatar.

[ControlledDemolition]

35. K&R. JFK could have done with a few Butlers on his Secrete Service detail! n/t

[Octafish]

104. Oh yeah.

Have you seen this? This image is from video taken at Love Field.
It clearly shows the "Why?" shrugs and reaction of Secret Service Agent Henry J. Rybka,
just ordered OFF THE BUMPER OF JFK's LIMOUSINE.



VIDEO:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=JFK%20secret-service&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#

Details: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4516451&mesg_id=4523696

One more thing: President Kennedy and the nation certainly could have used many more Smedley Butlers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The generals and admirals surrounding Kennedy needed to learn more than a lesson about duty, loyalty and their responsibilities to the Constitution.

[OnyxCollie]

36. K&R. nt

[santamargarita]

37. I wonder who our next Smedley Butler is going to be?

:think: I sure hope there is one.

[cascadiance]

39. Perhaps they were afraid Pat Tillman would have been one...

[Octafish]

60. He or she knows they are being watched.

My mom's friend's kid is an active-duty officer with several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, going back 18 years now. I asked once if this person had expressed thoughts about the war or the then-commander-in-chimp. The woman said they are unable to communicate freely by phone, because the officer reported all phone calls are monitored.

[Marr]

38. If they'd succeeded, I wonder who's side we would've been on in WW2?

Actually, I don't think there's any need to wonder.

[Jim Sagle]

86. And what if Al Smith had become president instead of FDR?

No doubt we'd have joined Nazi Germany's holy crusade against "the Reds and the Jews."

I (and many others) would no doubt not be around to discuss it.

[begin_within]

41. My grandparents knew Smedley Butler.

My grandfather fought in WWI as a Marine. Later he was commander of Camp Matthews near San Diego (now UCSD sits there). Unfortunately my granfather died at 58, 16 years before I was born, so I never met him. Both of my parents served in the Marines and I remember as a kid hearing the name "Smedley Butler" mentioned around the house a few times. I had no idea who Smedley Butler was but to me it sounded like the name of a comic character, somebody that would be a minor recurring character in a Bullwinkle cartoon. That's all I could make of it. So it really meant nothing to me beyond that. But years later I was talking with my Mom about it and she said her parents knew Smedley Butler socially, as they were active in Marine circles both in San Diego and in Quantico, Virginia. I bet there are probably some letters in this house; we have boxes of old letters and I should sit down and go through them. Maybe there's a letter from Smedley Butler among them.

[peacetalksforall]

57. Don't ever throw out the letters whether or not there are any between your parents and Butler.

If you throw them out and later, if you or someone in your family, even someone not yet born, get into geneaology, you will regret it. I didn't throw anything, but someone in the familty did and they would have been so valuable. I can't begin to explain the value - and I don't mean value in terms of money. It was the informative intelligence and understanding, a legacy.

[begin_within]

69. You're so right. My stepmother threw out a lot of my stuff,

while I was away at college and now I find that unforgivable. We still have a great deal of stuff in my Mom's house where I live now, and I sometimes go through some of it out of curiosity. My grandparents bought this house in 1938 and someone in the family has lived here ever since, so it's like an archaeological dig. One time I came across my grandfather's promotion papers in the Marine Corps, and one of them was signed by President Woodrow Wilson, another signed by Theodore Roosevelt Jr. when he was secretary of the navy. There are boxes of letters and we looked at a few once, and wrote down the addresses. My grandparents and my Mother lived in several places in the La Jolla area of San Diego in the 1920s, including directly above the cave store. We drove to the address of one of the other places expecting to see a house there but it had been replaced in the meantime by a large ugly apartment building. Since I never got to meet my grandfather, as he passed away 16 years before I was born, these letters, photos and papers are about the only way I have of knowing him.

[sasquatch]

42. Rest in peace wherever you are Smedley Butler

[MagickMuffin]

43. Great report Octafish

This kinda reminds me of John Perkins who wrote "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" and "The Secret History of the American Empire" he worked for the NSA.

http://www.johnperkins.org/


:kick: & RRRRRRR

[Octafish]

106. Smedley Butler, Meet John Perkins

Thank you for the connection, MagickMuffin! Perkins saw the light, too.

Smedley Butler, Meet John Perkins

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Published on Friday, November 19, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

EXCERPT...

“I was a high class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers,” Butler said. “In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

In a speech in 1933, Butler said the following:

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”

Smedley Butler, meet John Perkins.

Perkins has just written a book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (Barrett Koehler, 2004).

It is the War is A Racket for our times.

SNIP...

His job was to convince the governments of the third world countries and the banks to make deals where huge loans were given to these countries to develop infrastructure projects.

And a condition of the loan was that a large share of the money went back to the big construction companies in the USA – the Bechtels and Halliburtons.

The loans would plunge the countries into debts that would be impossible to pay off.

“The system is set up such that the countries are so deep in debt that they can’t repay their debt,” Perkins said. “When the U.S. government wants favors from them, like votes in the United Nations or troops in Iraq, or in many, many cases, their resources – their oil, their canal, in the case of Panama, we go to them and say – look, you can’t pay off your debts, therefore sell your oil at a very low price to our oil companies. Today, tremendous pressure is being put on Ecuador, for example, to sell off its Amazonian rainforest -– very precious, very fragile places, inhabited by indigenous people whose cultures are being destroyed by the oil companies.”

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1119-24.htm

A "racket" is what we today call "conspiracy."

Would that that more good men and women stopped going around with their eyes wide shut.

[Mithreal]

45. K&R nt

[LaPera]

48. Fucking republicans are preaching the same exact socialism bullshit about Public Option health care.

Back in FDR day not one republican voted for Social Scurity nor supported FDR SS programs,

Yet millions of republicans take advantage of the same democratic SS government program, even as they continue to find ways to gut & destroy the SS progam they despise so today.

[Greyhound]

50. I'm glad you pointed this out,

but I do have to mention that there are several of us here that have been talking about Gen. Butler for years and years here on DU.

Now that it has come out on the TeeVee, it suddenly becomes a revelation.

Will anybody ever listen to the people that actually know things and are right?

[Octafish]

59. Thanks for reminding me, Greyhound...

Your question lies at the center of our current dilemma. For our Constitution and nation to survive requires the free exchange of ideas and information. That's why the Founders included the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, the Press and religion. Today, the mass media pretty much toe the government line from ABCNNBCBSFauxNoiseNutwork to Corporate McPravda at NYT and WaPo.

DU has proven to be a mighty engine for truth. What makes it go are good DUers like you, my Friend. That's why I included a link in the OP ("NEVER GETS MENTIONED") to the GOOGLE query: Smedley-Butler + DemocraticUnderground.com. While it's not perfect, it returned 2,600 links.

I really appreciate you understand and care, Greyhound. It is thanks to you and DU and everyone else who knows the truth and tells it, there are more good people who learn the story of Gen. Butler and how he stopped the fascist coup against FDR.

[bobbolink]

91. To answer your question, NO.

It's highly doubtful that anyone will ever listen to us.

Not until we get sponsorship from WalMart or General Motors.

:grr:

[autorank]

51. Perfect n/t k*r

"At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, Fort Myer, Virginia, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of Civil Service employees left work to line the street and watch the U.S. Army attack its own veterans. The Bonus Marchers, believing the display was in their honour, cheered the troops until Maj. Patton charged the cavalry against them — an action which prompted the Civil Service employee spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

[geckosfeet]

52. I always amazes me that people think the US treats it soldiers and vetrans well.

Wikipedia: Bonus Army

Following his election, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not want to pay the bonus early either, but handled the veterans with more skill. In March 1933, Roosevelt issued an executive order allowing the enrollment of 25,000 veterans in the Civilian Conservation Corps for work in forests. When they marched on Washington again in May 1933, he sent his wife Eleanor to chat with the vets and pour coffee with them, and she persuaded many of them to sign up for jobs making a roadway to the Florida Keys, which was to become the Overseas Highway, the southernmost portion of U.S. Route 1. The third-strongest hurricane ever measured, the September 2, 1935 Labor Day hurricane, killed 258 veterans working on the Highway. Most were killed by storm surge flooding. After seeing more newsreels of veterans giving their lives for a government that had taken them for granted, public sentiment built up so much that Congress could no longer afford to ignore it in an election year (1936). Roosevelt's veto was overridden, making the bonus a reality.

Perhaps the Bonus Army's greatest accomplishment was the piece of legislation known as the G. I. Bill of Rights. Passed in July, 1944, it immensely helped veterans from the Second World War to secure needed assistance from the federal government to help them fit back into civilian life, something the World War I veterans of the Bonus Army had not received. The Bonus Army's activities can also be seen as a template for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, and popular political demonstrations and activism that took place in the U.S. later in the 20th century.

It may be better now, but they had to fight congress for it.

The practice of war-time military bonuses began in 1776, as payment for the difference between what a soldier earned and what he could have earned had he not enlisted.<1> Before World War One, the soldier's military service bonus (adjusted for rank) was land and money — a Continental Army private received 100 acres (40 ha) and $80.00 at war's end while a Maj. Gen. received 1,100 acres (450 ha). In 1855, Congress increased the land-grant minimum to 160 acres (65 ha), and reduced the eligibility requirements to fourteen days of military service, or one battle; moreover, the bonus also applied to veterans of any Indian war.<2> Breaking with tradition, the veterans of the Spanish-American War did not receive a bonus, and, after World War One, their not receiving a military service bonus became a political matter when WWI veterans received only a $60 bonus. In 1919, the American Legion was created, and led a political movement for an additional bonus.

Wikipedia: Bonus Army

[redqueen]

56. Interesting aside, there. (nt)

[peacetalksforall]

58. I'm curious. How has the History Chanel covered Butler. Honestly, sufficiently, barely?

[onager]

65. Barely, AFAIK.

But I've been in Egypt working for almost 4 years (came back to the US in March). Over there, we only got History Channel International.

I'm one of those who have mentioned Butler on DU for a long time. I spent 6 years in the Marines, including nearly 2 years as a Drill Instructor in San Diego. So I often taught "History & Tradition" classes to new recruits, which naturally included Butler.

You can see Butler in the 4-hour miniseries "The Great Depression," telling the Bonus Marchers to "raise hell." A short but great clip.

His autobiography "Old Gimlet Eye" is apparently out of print and fetching big bucks on Amazon.com. (I have an ancient photocopy from a library on a Marine base.) It was co-written with the most famous journalist of that time, Lowell Thomas.

Which shows why it was so hard to silence Butler - he had a LOT of high-placed friends.

e.g., when Butler was cashiered in 1931, a fairly prominent New York lawyer offered to defend him free of charge at his court-martial. That lawyer was Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Butler tells this story in his autobiography.)

BTW, when Butler was "fired," it was done in a particularly humiliating way, and his autobiography tells the story in detail. His second-in-command came to his house at Quantico and informed Butler that he had been removed from command, effective immediately, and was being put under house arrest.

This had not happened to ANY American General since 1862. Being traditional, Butler offered his sword in "surrender." His assistant commander refused to accept it.

At the time, Butler was the youngest Major-General in the history of the Marine Corps, and was (and is) the only Marine officer to win the Congressional Medal of Honor twice.

Another interesting note: Butler came from a fairly prominent Democratic political family in Pennsylvania. His father had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, IIRC. (A job held during WWI by FDR.)

[peacetalksforall]

71. Thanks for the background, the lead to the miniseries, and the autobio.

I will pursue.

It's so great to learn all this. Thanks for what you have done - including the instructor role. So important.

I think we need Oliver Stone.

[peacetalksforall]

79. Side proposal or request. Since you have taught and since you have been in Egypt

for four years, I would be curious to hear you talk about the form and quality of courses given to our soldiers on cultures and respect. Are they only taught the culture of the people of the country where they will be stationed, or the area in general? How is religion taught. What is the adequacy of the training? What is emphasized.

Do you have a blog? If you start one, I think people would be interested. We could use some education.

Including mythology. I threw that one in there with a little smile - in light of the thread in progress that quotes a leader of The Family - a current thread about the reason for the collapse of the Japanese economy in the 90's. The Family - something we found out about the leadership of the house on 'C' street.

I think knowing what was taught is helpful in understanding what our children were dealing with in their assignments.

Perhaps, however, it's off limits. Just a thought. Education is where it's at - like learning the twists and turns in his life - it's a big window of education. What a woven thread to where we're at today.

P.S. If you're hesitant to start a thread or blog - just introduce it by saying you were requested to do it.

[onager]

80. I don't really know much about the education nowadays.

I was in the Marine Corps long ago. But thanks for the kind words.

As for culture and respect, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, some troops were using a "Guide To Iraq" dating from WWII. That wasn't bad. The information in that book was still useful and relevant, especially the parts about respect for the local culture and customs:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-07-15-booklet-iraq_x.htm

In Egypt I lived in Alexandria, probably the most tolerant city in Egypt due to its long history of foreign residents etc. Going back to those Greek foreigners who ran Egypt for nearly 4 centuries, the Ptolemies.

Coincidentally, I was working in Saudi Arabia as a civilian when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. So I had a ringside seat for Desert Shield/Storm. (Though I lived in Jeddah on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, far from the fighting.)

I talked to quite a few troops who came thru Jeddah. They weren't allowed alcohol so introductions to the local bootleggers were a priority. In Saudi Arabia, the nickname for illegal booze is saddiqi - Arabic for "my friend." The Islamic prohibitions on alcohol always struck my atheist self as funny, since the word "alcohol" itself is Arabic. From "al-kohl," meaning "the spirit."

As for starting a blog, I'm too lazy and would rather keep a low profile. :-)

[Libertas1776]

89. I would say barely at best

I think they once mentioned it in that show "Weird US." Of course, no surprise, they concluded that there was really no evidence to support this overthrow conspiracy or very few were involved. Big surprise there. It seems that anyone who actually mentions the affair somewhat acknowledges it but always shrugs it off as fabricated or trumped up. Most historians sadly, I think, choose to ignore it.

[bobbolink]

94. Please watch THE PLOT TO OVERTHROW FDR

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=628728631767818729

[bobbolink]

93. As I wrote upthread.... DVD--THE PLOT TO OVERTHROW FDR

Very well done.

My only quibble would be that if it were a bit longer, it could be more complete.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=628728631767818729

[rucky]

62. This would make a great movie!

[onager]

66. It has been made into a (TV) movie.

"The November Plan" in 1976, starring Lloyd Nolan as Butler and Meredith Baxter Birney. (!!!)

Good luck finding a copy. I've been trying to find it for years:

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/146222/The-November-Plan/overview

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074980/

[RedCloud]

64. Butler a credit. North a disgrace to the marines. Which one got famous?

So much for the "liberal"media myth.

[kestrel91316]

67. The conspirators, INCLUDING PRESCOTT BUSH, should have been executed.

[cascadiance]

90. And perhaps by doing so spared us of the mess we had for the last 8 years to boot!

[Greyhound]

100. Congress buried the whole thing, nobody was even prosecuted.

Does this sound at all familiar?

Our "Tree of Liberty" is long overdue for a good soaking.

[XanaDUer]

68. Hello, Octafish!

:hi:

Good to see you! Thanks for posting this very intersting post. I will read up more on this American hero.

XD

[govegan]

72. Good story, good message

Most who find General Butler's War is a Racket interesting would be interested as well in Scott Nearing's brilliant work War, which is appropriately subtitled "Organized Destruction and Mass Murder by Civilized Nations." Published in 1931, Scott's book clearly outlines the coming of the second great world war.

The gains of war are, in the main, ruling class gains. The losses of war, are in the main, mass losses. There are exceptions, but this generalization is true on the whole.

The science of war, like other sciences, has been created by the ruling class. The art of war, like the other arts, has been fostered by the ruling class. War, as an institution, has been organized and aggrandized by the ruling class. In earlier times, war was its greatest game. In modern times it is its supreme adventure. The ruling class builds and uses the war machine, and the balance sheet of war stands in its favor.

Both ends and means must conform to the ethical and moral code which we have accepted and laid down for ourselves. It is a betrayal of trust to adjust our means and ends to those of our opponents.
--Scott Nearing, 1972

[Hamlette]

73. not so unusual, FDR himself considered a dictatorship

to hold the country together and save the country/economy when he couldn't get Congress to act quickly enough. Dictators and fascists didn't have as bad a name as they do now.

[HiyaEmerald Eyes]

74. Dr. my eyes

[bertman]

75. Many thanks, Octafish, for posting this. We can get the word out even if the textbooks

are censored.

The fascists LOVE the military heroes so here's one that we can use to show what is REALLY going on with our military.

I appreciate your ongoing efforts to educate us all.

Recommend.

[Octafish]

105. You're welcome, bertman. Credit goes to DU and all good DUers who give a damn about Democracy.

I learn here, too.

Regarding this post: I didn't do a good job of highlighting DUers' contributions in the OP. If you scroll down to "NEVER GETS MENTIONED" underneath the quote box and click, it should open up the GOOGLE for a search of "Smedley Butler + DemocraticUnderground."

This place and good residents deserve the credit.

Regarding the good General Butler: To a man, of combat veterans whom I have had the privilege of meeting are -- and, unfortunately, were -- staunchly opposed to war. On the other hand, and on the whole, the biggest pro-war hawks I've met manned the rear or never served.

Perhaps we can start a Smedley Butler Society and keep the man's memory alive. What would it take?

[David Zephyr]

76. Thanks for keeping this story alive. The BBC program is a must see for all DU'ers.

K&R.

[cascadiance]

92. We should lobby Free Speech TV or Link TV to carry it...

Heck Link TV is already carrying shows like African School from the BBC. Wouldn't seem like it would be too costly for them just to get that one half hour show on too. And hopefully get it out to more of the American public to see its relevance to current events and to be wary of what is going on now with the banksters that is hearkening back to what happened then!

[tomp]

78. ...temporarily. nt

[swilton]

81. K & R

& B (bookmarked) :hi:

[lyonn]

82. This has got to be worth bookmarking....

Don't have time now to read this in detail but it looks fascinating. And - all the responses from so many golden oldies of DU responding makes me feel positive. I've been watching too much tv news and it causes a panicky feeling. The truth is out there, we just need people like you and others on DU to spread the word.

[Orsino]

83. I learned about it in a goddamned *game* book.

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/ww2/weirdwar2/

[opihimoimoi]

87. K&R good one...exposes/reminds us of Mil indust complex

We were warned and yet????

They out foxed us

Still do but less and less as a shift from secrecy to transparency is taking grip....

[yurbud]

88. the greatest heroes of American (and probably everybody else's) history are ignored or erased by

the financial elite who cannot tolerate those who don't act like loyal employees.

[bobbolink]

95. Here is the 43-minute video!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6156677&mesg_id=6156677

Please watch!

[Echo In Light]

97. It's amazing how so many today mock the notion of such elements diligently at work behind the scenes

Never underestimate the power of denial.

[formercia]

98. General Smedley Butler would have made a great DU member

We owe him a debt of gratitude.

What if the coup had succeeded and the US had become a de-facto ally of Nazi Germany. I dread to think of the consequences.

[Karenina]

99. bttt!

[newspeak]

101. so, they make this academy award movie about Patton

What a hero!!! My great uncle was under Patton, he hated the man. He came back a broken man, after being captured by the Nazis twice. Hear that? Twice!!! I can just imagine the scenario "Get out there boy there's nothing wrong with you. If you get captured a third time, ya might get a medal or something." His mind was shattered-he'd go crazy, thinking the Nazis were attacking the house.

And then all of the accolades for McArthur. I knew McArthur was involved in the Bonus March tragedy--attacking our own vets--but I didn't know Patton was a Major at the time. Men like these two are glorified, while men like Gen. Smedley Butler, who actually stood for the soldiers, are lost in the dusty bin of forgotten history. SHAME!!! SHAME!!!

[redqueen]

102. A crying shame, it is. (nt)