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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Gangsters of Capitalism": Jonathan Katz on the Parallels Between Jan. 6 and 1934 Anti-FDR Coup Plot
January 26, 2022
We speak to award-winning journalist Jonathan Katz about his new book Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of Americas Empire. The book follows the life of the Marines officer Smedley Butler and the trail of U.S. imperialism from Cuba and the Philippines to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Panama.
The book also describes an effort by banking and business leaders to topple Franklin D. Roosevelts government in 1934 in order to establish a fascist dictatorship. The plot was exposed by Butler, who famously declared, War is a racket. The far-right conspiracy to overthrow liberal democracy has historical parallels to the recent January 6 insurrection, says Katz.
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/26/jonathan_katz_book_gangsters_of_capitalism
Excerpt: So, according to the sworn congressional testimony of a retired general, they decided to overthrow the government and install a dictator who was more business friendly. After all, they reasoned, that had been working well in Italy.
How close this fascist cabal got, and who exactly was in on it, are still subjects of historical debate. But as the dust settles after the pro-Trump attack on the U.S. Capitol, and as it becomes clearer how close lawmakers came to catastrophe, the similarities to the Business Plot are hard to ignore.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/13/fdr-roosevelt-coup-business-plot/
empedocles
(15,751 posts)on resulting research.
FDR seems to have said nothing on record on this.
If anyone has any clues?
RKP5637
(67,032 posts)The US is awash with RW authoritarian assholes.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)RKP5637
(67,032 posts)lot of monitoring going on ... but yet some of these actors are in the US gov. making it very chilling. And we still have trump waltzing around, organizing his next run for pres., but not seriously held accountable for much ... in terms of really serious repercussions. With the 1/6 group, I hope that is yet to come.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)The voting rights act is essential as well.
Fingers crossed and all that.
crickets
(25,896 posts)mitch96
(13,822 posts)program about it also...There is record of the coup in the library of Congress.
I can't remember where I read or heard it but FDR got a bunch of his new deal legislation pushed thru with a threat to the legislators behind the plot. Push FDR's programs thru or face the firing squad for treason.... Good motivator.
The GOP has been trying to dismantle those gains ever since... YMMV
m
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Totally agree, the cons will destroy all of it if allowed.
Kid Berwyn
(14,653 posts)Muckrock also rocks
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/aug/29/smedley-butler-fbi/
More data
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.
Continues
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Coup.htm
The rich think they own the planet and all that is on, in, around, and near it and to them that includes governments.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)mitch96
(13,822 posts)BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)malaise
(267,845 posts)Very important