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How many people are aware of the attempted coup in the u.s. during the great depression?

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dysfunctional press Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 09:45 AM
Original message
How many people are aware of the attempted coup in the u.s. during the great depression?
Edited on Tue Jan-29-08 09:48 AM by QuestionAll
i've got to admit- it was news to me.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Coup.htm

THE BUSINESS PLOT 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. Roosevelt had to be stopped at all costs. The 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 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.

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. When the plotters approached General Butler with their proposal to lead the coup, he pretended to go along with the plan at first, secretly deciding to betray it to Congress at the right moment.

What the businessmen proposed was dramatic: they wanted General Butler to deliver an ultimatum to Roosevelt. Roosevelt would pretend to become sick and incapacitated from his polio, and allow a newly created cabinet officer, a "Secretary of General Affairs," to run things in his stead. The secretary, of course, would be carrying out the orders of Wall Street. If Roosevelt refused, then General Butler would force him out with an army of 500,000 war veterans from the American Legion. But MacGuire assured Butler the cover story would work:

"You know the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President's health is failing. Everyone can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second…"

The businessmen also promised that money was no object: Clark told Butler that he would spend half his $60 million fortune to save the other half...



"we have got the newspapers" yeah, just like in 2000 and 2004. thanks for signing that telecom act, mr. clinton.

oh, and how did it al end? with the coup plotters in jail?
of course not- this is AMERICA...

...In fact, the Committee whitewashed the public version of its final report, deleting the names of powerful businessmen whose reputations they sought to protect. The most likely reason for this response is that Wall Street had undue influence in Congress also. Even more alarming, the elite-controlled media failed to pick up on the story, and even today the incident remains little known. The elite managed to spin the story as nothing more than the rumors and hearsay of Butler and French, even though Butler was a Quaker of unimpeachable honesty and integrity. Butler, appalled by the cover-up, went on national radio to denounce it, but with little success.
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TechBear_Seattle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 09:47 AM
Response to Original message
1. Wasn't Prescott Bush involved in that coup attempt?
Yes, I've heard of this. I'm also pretty certain that Bush's grandfather was a key player (clearly, treason runs in the family.)
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tom_paine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 09:51 AM
Response to Reply #1
4. Yep. Grandpa Prescott was going to be Ambassador to Nazi Germany
due to his warm relationships with his Nazi pals.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml
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neutron Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:56 PM
Response to Reply #4
19. This reminds me what they're doing to Clinton RIGHT NOW
Edited on Tue Jan-29-08 02:58 PM by neutron
on our very own corporate controlled airwaves.

Even after they screwed Al Gore, Howard Dean and John Kerry,
they are still at it until the day comes when they finally piss off too
many of us.
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RUMMYisFROSTED Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:59 PM
Response to Reply #4
22. The thing that bothers me is that it was never brought up in 2000.
Low blow?
Complicity?
Ignorance?

Nor in 2004.

Low blow?
Complicity?
Ignorance?
Too late?
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underpants Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 09:48 AM
Response to Original message
2. We should have a Gen. Smedley Butler day
He also wrote "War is a Racket"
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havocmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 09:52 AM
Response to Reply #2
6. Sounds like a splended idea. Perhaps the first Monday before SOTU ?
Hell, I am writing Senator Tester now!
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underpants Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 10:39 AM
Response to Reply #6
8. His birthday is July 30th
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tsuki Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:53 PM
Response to Reply #2
17. His name would have been forgotten except that he objected to
turning the troops on the veterans of WWI who wanted their bonuses. The VFW has kept his name alive. The ReThugs have tried to bury it for the last 75 years.
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annabanana Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 07:12 PM
Response to Reply #2
27. What an excellent idea! He sure needs to be better known
by ALL Americans.
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havocmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 09:50 AM
Response to Original message
3. Am aware of that little chapter of our history.
And always wonder
where have all the Smedleys gone.
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GliderGuider Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 10:21 AM
Response to Reply #3
7. Gone to graveyards, every one
When will they ever learn?
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Virginia Dare Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 09:51 AM
Response to Original message
5. They failed then, but they succeeded in 2000...n/t
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OneGrassRoot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 10:40 AM
Response to Reply #5
9. Isn't that the truth. K&R and bookmarked. n/t
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flashl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 10:45 AM
Response to Reply #5
10. And, in 2002 - 2004, all demonstration elections in the purest form. n/t
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wtmusic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 11:16 AM
Response to Original message
11. Is that in Zinn's "People's History"?
I had not heard of this -- thanks for sharing.
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dysfunctional press Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:48 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. no, it doesn't come up...
and i'm not sure how much a fan zinn was of fdr overall, either...mostly because of how he drew the u.s. into ww2.

although i'm SURE that he would not have sided with the industrialists over fdr.
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nadinbrzezinski Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 11:18 AM
Response to Original message
12. I do, but you are right, most folks are not
then again we don't teach no history no more.... and this one, EVER
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dysfunctional press Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:49 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. civics isn't generally taught anymore either, let alone being required...
as it was when i was in high school in the 70's.
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mod mom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:50 PM
Response to Original message
15. HARPERS: 1934: The Plot Against America
1934: The Plot Against America

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.

-snip

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651
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mod mom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:52 PM
Response to Original message
16. BBC Radio Report: The Whitehouse Coup
The Whitehouse Coup
Monday 23 July 2007



The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.




http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml
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tsuki Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:55 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. And George Walker. nt
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mod mom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:56 PM
Response to Reply #18
20. I read somewhere that the Great Depression was an effort by the same robber barons
can't remember where? Have you ever heard this?
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Kansas Wyatt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 02:58 PM
Response to Original message
21. Better question....
Why is it NOT being taught in public schools across this nation?

Perhaps we would not be in the fascist mess we are in today, if it had been taught in schools all over the nation. At least people would be more open to... It can happen here.
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Igel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 03:08 PM
Response to Original message
23. It sounds like it was a conspiracy to commit a coup.
An attempt to put together a group to commit a coup. Sounds like they made a bit of progress. But it's not an attempted coup; even the writer didn't make that claim.

An attempted coup would be a failed coup, what they would have done had Butler agreed and when they implemented their plan, FDR had managed to stay in power.

It's a useful distinction. Rather like the distinction between losing a baseball game and thinking about starting a baseball team, or having a business fail versus thinking about starting a business.
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cobalt1999 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 03:15 PM
Response to Original message
24. It's true, although there are some serious glaring errors in that version.

1) "We have got the newspapers." B.S. Hearst and FDR were buddies. In fact Hearst torpedo'ed the Al Smith's campaign in order to push FDR

2) Al Smith advocated an even more progressive platform than FDR did.

3) The American Liberty League wasn't formed in FDR's first 100 days but over a year later. It was primary concerned not with his New Deal policies but with a perceived (probably correct) view that FDR was grabbing power going beyond what the constitution allowed potentially leading to a dictatorship.
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dysfunctional press Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 05:57 PM
Response to Reply #24
25. hearst had a pretty sizable fortune to protect as well...
if push came to shove, i think that he would have been likely to play ball with the conspirators.
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happydreams Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 09:57 PM
Response to Reply #24
30. FYI. Hearst tried to hire Mussolini to write for him. He succeeded in
getting Herman Goring to do so. Hearst was an ardent pro-fascist
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annabanana Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 05:58 PM
Response to Original message
26. Gee! THIS isn't in my kid's Social Studies book. . . . . .
surprise surprise.
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Subdivisions Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 07:15 PM
Response to Original message
28. This time it's the entire corporate cabal staging the coup, and
doing a bang-up job of it too.
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TheCentepedeShoes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 07:25 PM
Response to Original message
29. I don't think I was aware of it
until I ran across Jules Archer's book The Plot to Seize the White House in the library back in the 80's sometime. I think it was originally published in the mid 70's.
It certainly wasn't covered in history class.
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