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Investigation: USMC General Smedley Butler and the US Corporate Coup

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posted on Mar, 5 2011 @ 10:33 AM
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I think you will find this explains the USA's involvement and growing involvement in expanding their interests overseas and why IT WILL NOT STOP.
That is besides going into all the Bildeberger and original bloodline history but just a recent past event of what lies behind the agenda which i'm sure most awaken human resources already know.

Smedley Butler on Interventionism (had video attached but not sure how to get on here)
youtube 1933 whitehouse coup
-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And 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.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

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 benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). 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.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.



UPDATE: BBC RADIO INVESTIGATES THE WHITEHOUSE COUP

The "Business Plot" (also the Plot Against FDR and the White House Putsch) was an alleged political conspiracy in 1933 wherein wealthy businessmen and corporations plotted a coup détat to overthrow United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934, the Business Plot was publicly revealed by retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testifying to the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional Committee. In his testimony, Butler claimed that a group of men had approached him as part of a plot to overthrow Roosevelt in a military coup. One of the alleged plotters, Gerald MacGuire, vehemently denied any such plot. In their final report, the Congressional committee supported Butler's allegations of the existence of the plot, but no prosecutions or further investigations followed, and the matter was mostly forgotten.

On July 17, 1932, thousands of World War I veterans converged on Washington, D.C., set up tent camps, and demanded immediate payment of bonuses due them according to the Adjusted Service Certificate Law of 1924. This "Bonus Army" was led by Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant. The Army was encouraged by an appearance from retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, who had considerable influence over the veterans, being one of the most popular military figures of the time. A few days after Butler's arrival, President Herbert Hoover ordered the marchers removed, and their camps were destroyed by US Army cavalry troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. Butler, although a self-described Republican, responded by supporting Roosevelt in that year's election.

In a 1995 History Today article Clayton Cramer argued that the devastation of the Great Depression had caused many Americans to question the foundations of liberal democracy. "Many traditionalists, here and in Europe, toyed with the ideas of Fascism and National Socialism; many liberals dallied with Socialism and Communism." Cramer argues that this explains why some American business leaders viewed fascism as a viable system to both preserve their interests and end the economic woes of the Depression.

The American Liberty League was a United States organization formed in 1934 by conservative Democrats such as Al Smith (the 1928 Democratic presidential nominee), Jouett Shouse (former high party official and US Representative), John W. Davis (the 1924 Democratic presidential nominee), and John Jacob Raskob (former Democratic National Chairman and the foremost opponent of prohibition), Dean Acheson (future Secretary of State under Harry Truman), along with many industrialists, and members of the Du Pont family. Also members were Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors, John Jacob Raskob, Jouett Shouse (later Chairman of the Democratic Party), Jay Cooke II, Captain William Stayton, and about one hundred thousand other members.[1]



The League stated that it would work to "defend and uphold the Constitution" and to "foster the right to work, earn, save and acquire property." The League spent between $500,000 and $1.5 million in promotional campaigns; its funding came mostly from the Du Pont family, as well as leaders of U.S. Steel, General Motors, General Foods, Standard Oil, Birdseye, Colgate, Heinz Foods, Chase National Bank, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. It reached over 125,000 members and supported the Republicans in 1936.



In the year of its founding, 1934, the League was accused by Smedley Butler of being involved in a fascist Business Plot to overthrow President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Butler was a retired Marine Corps general and strong supporter of President Roosevelt. Butler said that he was approached to lead a group of 500,000 veterans to take over the functions of government. Butler speculated in his congressional testimony that the League was somehow involved with a plan to found a para-military fascist veterans organization, an 'American version' of the 1930s French Croix-de-Feu. The final McCormack-Dickstein Committee report refused to include this "hearsay" material. No prosecutions or further investigations followed, and historians[2][3] and contemporary journalists[4] largely rejected the idea that any such plan was near execution.[5]



The League labeled Roosevelt's Agricultural Adjustment Administration "a trend toward Fascist control of agriculture." Social Security was said to "mark the end of democracy." Lawyers for the American Liberty League challenged the validity of the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act), but in 1937, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the statute. The League faded away and disbanded in 1940.
References

1. ^ Wall Street: a history : from its beginnings to the fall of Enron, Charles R. Geisst, Oxford University Press US, 2004 ISBN 0195170601, 9780195170603 438 pages page 238
2. ^ Burk, Robert F. (1990). The Corporate State and the Broker State: The Du Ponts and American National Politics, 1925-1940. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-17272-8.
3. ^ Sargent, James E. (November 1974). "Review of: The Plot to Seize the White House, by Jules Archer". The History Teacher 8 (1): 151–152. doi:10.2307/491493.
4. ^ Author unknown (December 3, 1934). "Plot Without Plotters". Time Magazine. www.livejournal.com...
Author unknown (November 21, 1934).
"Gen. Butler Bares 'Fascist Plot' To Seize Government by Force; Says
Bond Salesman, as Representative of Wall St. Group, Asked Him to Lead
Army of 500,000 in March on Capital -- Those Named Make Angry Denials
-- Dickstein Gets Charge.". New York Times: 1. ;
Philadelphia Record, November 21 and 22, 1934
5. ^ Schmidt, Hans (1998). Maverick Marine (reprint, illustrated ed.). University Press of Kentucky. pp. 224. ISBN 0813109574.

References

* John Braeman, Robert H. Bremner and David Brody, eds. The New Deal: The National Level. Ohio State University Press. 1975.
* Douglas B. Craig, After Wilson: The Struggle for the Democratic Party, 1920-1934 University of North Carolina Press. 1992.
* Frederick Rudolph, "The American Liberty League, 1934-1940," American Historical Review 56 (October 1950): 19-33. online at JSTOR
* George Wolfskill. The Revolt of the Conservatives: A. History of the American Liberty League, 1934-1940. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962).

On 15 August 1934, after the onset of strikes that would last until 1938, the American Liberty League, funded largely by the Duponts and their corporate allies, was chartered in Washington. In its six years of existence, the Liberty League fought New Deal labor and social legislation, rallied support for the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, and sought to build a bipartisan conservative coalition to defeat the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration and the trade union movement.



The Liberty League called upon businessmen to defy the National Labor Relations Act, hoping the Supreme Court would declare it unconstitutional, and led "educational campaigns" against social security, unemployment insurance, minimum wages, and other New Deal policies. After the New Deal's great victory in 1936, the Liberty League adopted a lower profile. Earlier, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in attacking the "economic loyalists," who were so visible in the leadership of the Liberty League, mocked the league's definition of "liberty" in his last speech of the 1936 presidential campaign, retelling a story, attributed to Abraham Lincoln, of a wolf, removed by a shepherd from the neck of a lamb, denouncing the shepherd for taking away its liberty. The league formally dissolved in September 1940.



Its influence on conservative politics in the United States was large. In the aftermath of the 1938 elections, conservative Democrats and Republicans in Congress stalemated New Deal legislation, using Liberty League themes of opposition to government spending, taxation, and communist influence in the administration and the labor movement to gain support. The Liberty League supported the early activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the National Lawyers Committee. The league's attempt to recruit and fund conservative scholarship and university forums on public policy issues prefigured the creation of corporate-funded conservative "Think Tanks."



The issues raised by the Liberty League in the 1930s remain unresolved, as does its role in history. For those who see "big government," the regulation and taxation of business, and the redistribution of wealth to lower income groups as absolute evils, it has been vindicated by history and is posthumously triumphant. For those who see government as a shepherd or steward seeking to prevent society from reverting to a socioeconomic jungle where the strong devour the weak, it stands condemned as the champion of "free market" policies that today promote economic instability and social injustice, both in the United States and the world.



Bibliography

Brinkley, Alan. "The Problem of American Conservatism." American Historical Review 99, no. 2 (April 1994): 409–429.

Leuchtenburg, William E. The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Rudolph, Frederick. "The American Liberty League, 1934–1940." American Historical Review 56, no. 1 (October 1950): 19–33. A useful early postwar critique that captures the New Deal generation's view of the league.

Wolfskill, George. Revolt of the Conservatives: A History of the American Liberty League, 1934–1940. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. The best introduction to the Liberty League.



posted on Mar, 5 2011 @ 02:16 PM
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Here's a re-enactment of his speech. Pretty cool. I knew Butler's story but was unaware of this speech so many thanks.




posted on Mar, 5 2011 @ 02:49 PM
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reply to post by TheLoony
 


thanks for the video appreciate it
well so far this has got no attention so either everyone already knows or just don't care
so much for change



posted on Mar, 5 2011 @ 02:58 PM
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reply to post by laslidealist
 


Well done , I have quoted this guy a lot on ats to soldiers here .
Butler is a brave man who did it all and told his story to try and tell people the truth about war .
ALL these years later and people STILL don't listen !
Star and flag for you .


Peace
Not
War



posted on Mar, 5 2011 @ 03:41 PM
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reply to post by laslidealist
 

History is interesting, eh? What is also interesting is the history NOT taught in schools. I know I was given a "watered down" version of it in school. I never went to college so I don't know if he gets brought up there but certainly not in high school. Unless you are a fifteen year old reading ATS. If I had known this in high school I certainly would have brought it up.Then again, I wasn't there much even when I was as it was mostly mindless drivel but I digress.

Smedley Butler crops up every six months or so around here. It's new to those starting the thread - not knocking the OP I'm just saying - and it's big enough a deal to start a thread over it. So much is hidden from us. Like this that didn't even happen. I'm surprised they didn't sick Bernays - or just his tricks as they knew them by this time - on Butler to try and make him look like a fool.



posted on Mar, 5 2011 @ 05:02 PM
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reply to post by TheLoony
 

Ty i appreciate the reply
I went to college and he is not mentioned anywhere and we all know why (same as Tesla).
I keep trying to tell everyone it should be no surprise what is happening today because this man told you almost 80 years ago what was going on and did his best to stop it.
And complete idiots and fools still believe in the USA as the savior.
Just a thought- maybe the USA itself actually represents Satan as we are seen as the savior but we all know the evil agenda behind the war machine.
Can you imagine how devastated he felt and the burdened he carried the rest of his life not being able to save the country HE FOUGHT FOR and put his life on the line.
Kind of funny how they got MacArthur to get rid of him and and we all know about him but not General Butler.
Maybe the Georgia Guide stones were right



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