Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted an article on Huffington Post today about irrational hating of Hillary and its historical parallel with the Roosevelts. It mentions a military coup concocted by millionaire industrialists to overthrow the American government in 1933 - and I got to wondering, why have I never heard of this? I did a few minutes of exploration - find it below the flip.
"The intense hatred of the Roosevelts was a dominant feature in the American political landscape during the decade of the 1930s and prompted efforts to impeach him and even a plot to depose him by a military coup planned by high ranking officers of Wall Street's richest corporations, including Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel, JP Morgan, and DuPont. The "vast right wing conspiracy" had its own Richard Mellon Scaife. Robert Clark, one of Wall Street's richest bankers and stock brokers pledged half of his $60 million fortune to help finance the coup. His deputy, former Commander Gerald Macguire of the American Legion, a Wall Street bond broker, equated Roosevelt's reforms to Communism and explained the purpose of the coup to a co-conspirator, "We need a fascist government in this country to save the nation from the Communists who want to tear it down and wreck everything we have built in America." The 1933 coup attempt was only averted by the courage of General Smedley Butler, the popular World War I warrior who had been tapped by Wall Street to lead the plot and who instead exposed and denounced it."
[Emphasis mine]
First of all, I have a long memory and passing interest in American history - and I'm amazed that I've never heard about this. Wikipedia has a short section speculating about why it wasn't more widely publicized. And the wikipedia article on the retired general recruited to lead the plot, Smedley Butler, is fascinating in and of itself:
Butler and his men took the rebel stronghold on November 17, 1915, in which he received his second Medal of Honor, for which he also received the Haitian Medal of Honor. Major Butler recalled that his troops "hunted the Cacos like pigs."
But more importantly, doesn't this make the very basic Republican talking point - that leaving Iraq would be like appeasing Hitler - extremely suspect? Given that some of the richest and most powerful businessmen in America were actively working to overthrow the presidency and establish a fascist government?
So I guess that when someone parrots that line about appeasement (as someone inevitably does - like McCain at the Republican YouTube debate) trot this out. Republicans are the pro-business party, and pro-business interests in 1933 weren't just appeasing, but actively conspiring. As if that line weren't a tired cliche anyway.
Especially since the BBC reported that Prescott Bush was involved?
Man, sounds like a great story. Someone should write a book....