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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 12/17/2008 : 03:54:31
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In the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930's, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was forging ahead with plans and programs that many industrialists and Wall Street bankers perceived would radically redistribute wealth in America.
In the summer of 1933, as this story goes, a broad Wall Street-centered group which had studied and approved of European fascism decided to bankroll a group called the American Liberty League (ALL) to overthrow Constitutional democracy and carry out a fascist coup. The alleged plan called for ALL to be given $30 million to form a private army of 500,000 veterans, which would seize power. There were many well-known members and supporters of ALL:| The American Liberty League was a U.S. organization formed in 1934 by conservative Democrats such as Al Smith (the 1928 Democratic presidential nominee), Jouett Shouse (former high party official and U.S. 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, notably Prescott Bush and members of the Du Pont family. |
The alleged coup, called the Business Plot, fell apart in 1934, when former Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler -- a two-time Medal of Honor recipient -- testified to a Congressional committee that he had been approached to lead the fascist insurrection.
The committee (then known as the McCormack-Dickstein Congressional Committee, and years later to be infamously known as the House Un-American Activities Committee) corroborated Butler's testimony of a treasonous plot, yet, remarkably no governmental action was ever taken. Much of the evidence acquired by the committee was suppressed.
My own opinion is that the fascist coup probably was planned, but that, despite being the violent plot's main target, FDR made a deal with its backers that he would not have them prosecuted, and would have the whole affair swept under the rug, in return for them backing off their opposition to his New Deal programs. If this is true, the Business Plot is probably one of the greatest acts of untold conspiracy in US history.
If we are heading into a new Great Depression, another such plot, this time against President Obama, is not unimaginable.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 12/17/2008 05:22:36
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2008 : 10:29:32 [Permalink]
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| Yes, the business plot is interesting. Fascinating too how a traitor to the United States could still get his son and grand-son in the oval office... Money sure goes a long way. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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WarfRat
New Member
49 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2008 : 12:35:35 [Permalink]
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Simon
The ALL article's neutrality is in question on wikipedia.
Wikipedia's article on Prescott Bush states:
"On July 23, 2007, the BBC Radio 4 series Document reported on the Business Plot and the archives from the McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings. The program made no allegations about Prescott Bush"
So which article is correct? |
"I believe...that one benefits the workers...so much more by forcing through reforms which alleviate and strengthen their position, than by saying that only a revolution can help them." |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2008 : 13:22:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by WarfRat
Simon
The ALL article's neutrality is in question on wikipedia.
Wikipedia's article on Prescott Bush states:
"On July 23, 2007, the BBC Radio 4 series Document reported on the Business Plot and the archives from the McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings. The program made no allegations about Prescott Bush"
So which article is correct?
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Both could be correct. One might simply have a more comprehensive list of plotters than the other.
One thing to bear in mind is that Fascism was quite popular in the USA in the 1930's, and not just among the rich. There were somewhere near 25,000 members of the German American Bund, an openly Nazi group. Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh both expressed admiration for the Nazis. Prescott Bush is alleged to have done business with the Nazi regime, supposedly right into the war period. It wasn't until WWII itself that such sentiment in America became as unpopular as being a lover of Al Qaeda might be today.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 12/18/2008 13:49:41 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2008 : 14:05:59 [Permalink]
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Yes, many people in the West were quite friendly toward the ideas, especially as a barrier against the perceived danger of communist.
'Better Hitler than Blum (French chief of state at the time; Jewish and liberal)'. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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WarfRat
New Member
49 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2008 : 14:41:27 [Permalink]
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HM
Fascism in the US is not in question. A number of Americans rooted for Max Schmelling in his boxing match against Joe Louis.
What is in question is Simon's charge the Prescott Bush - Patriarch of the Bushes was a traitor based on ONE wiki article. An article whose neutrality is in question.
"Both could be correct" - I respectfully disagree. The ALL article by Wiki's admission is of questionable neutrality and I would label it as conjecture. The Prescott Bush article is per Wiki is not of questionable neutrality. So I would label it as fact.
Just trying to keep ya honest with your arguement.
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"I believe...that one benefits the workers...so much more by forcing through reforms which alleviate and strengthen their position, than by saying that only a revolution can help them." |
| Edited by - WarfRat on 12/18/2008 14:43:16 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2008 : 15:38:45 [Permalink]
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The existence of the business plot is fairly well known and was confirmed by a congressional investigation.
The Prescott's association with the third Reich is just as well documented.
From what I know, the plot really did not go far. It started as a vague idea and got abandoned very early when Butler went public.
At that stage, the various plotters had made little more commitment than to sit down and speak in general terms about how to do it.
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2008 : 17:02:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by WarfRat
HM
Fascism in the US is not in question. A number of Americans rooted for Max Schmelling in his boxing match against Joe Louis.
What is in question is Simon's charge the Prescott Bush - Patriarch of the Bushes was a traitor based on ONE wiki article. An article whose neutrality is in question.
"Both could be correct" - I respectfully disagree. The ALL article by Wiki's admission is of questionable neutrality and I would label it as conjecture. The Prescott Bush article is per Wiki is not of questionable neutrality. So I would label it as fact.
Just trying to keep ya honest with your arguement.
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The Prescott Bush Wiki article simply states that a particular documentary doesn't mention Prescott Bush. Of course, there's nothing inherently dishonest in saying the documentary doesn't mention him, even if he were known to be part of the Business Plot, but it's also somewhat null and useless information. Not mentioning is not the same as absolving. (Nor would mentioning him prove his guilt.)
Nor does not mentioning him contradict an article that does mention him by name. The PB article also doesn't say he wasn't part of the plot -- which also is not very informative about what he may have done. The articles could indeed be consistent with one another, as they do not directly contradict each other on Prescott Bush.
I don't give a damn about the Bush bloodline, BTW. Whatever Prescott did, G.H.W Bush fought against the Axis in WWII. My great grandfather was a slave-master and Confederate soldier. That didn't stop me from having diametrically opposite sympathies.
Prescott Bush's personal involvement, if any, is fairly irrelevant to whether the Business Plot was a real act of treason which was cut short. I'm more interested in what was attempted, than who precisely tried to do it. Because if the Business Plot was a real coup attempt, it was a remarkably vicious conspiracy, which is almost completely missing from US History textbooks.
BTW, Max Schmelling himself was a decent guy, and was quite friendly with Joe Lewis -- probably more so than most white American boxers of the time were toward blacks. Of course, the reason so many Americans rooted for Schmelling is, as you point out, another matter.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 12/18/2008 17:07:36 |
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Did a US fascist coup nearly happen in the 1930s?
