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ramapo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:17 AM
Original message
The business plot to overthrow Roosevelt
Here's something not taught in US History. Just picked this up from a link on the daily LBN stock market thread. I never heard about this until today.

"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..."

The plot was exposed to Congress. Hearings were held but the findings were whitewashed for the public report. The media did not report the story. The Army officer who exposed the plot tried to denounce the cover-up but with little success.

Certainly some parallel to today's situation. We didn't have a military coup but a corporate coup.

Here's a link for more including reference to a couple books on the subject...
http://mirrors.korpios.org/resurgent/Coup.htm

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jpgray Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:18 AM
Response to Original message
1. Heard about this. We need another Roosevelt about now. (nt)
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bryant69 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:20 AM
Response to Original message
2. What's Ironic
If this story is true (which, I must admit, I'm not so sure it is) is that President Roosevelt believed that the actions he was taking were necessary for the preservation of Capitalism and the Corprorate leaders. And his actions nuetered the Unions for a long time (possibly forever). They were struggling for pension plans and he gave them social security.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com
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ret5hd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:24 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. it is true (as far as i can determine, anyway)
google general smedley butler
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ramapo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:33 AM
Response to Reply #3
6. Yes it happened
Soem quick research turns up a number of articles.

Another irony is that conservatives have always railed against Roosevelt, accusing him of having thwarted democracy and turning the government into a monster.
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On the Road Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:29 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. There Were Congressional Hearings
And it was not only Smedley Butler but another retired general who was approached. There were two major witnesses.

I hate it when things like this go into the memory hole. To preserve democracy, we have got to remember the attempts to destroy it.
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K-W Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:34 AM
Response to Reply #2
7. That's the long and short of liberalsim.
Some business leaders refused to give up some of thier luxery to try and save the system.
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tom_paine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:27 AM
Response to Original message
4. Ah, back to the days when Prescott Bush was "Hitler's Angel"
Not much has changed from the Busheviks. They STILL don't liek democracy and they STILL want to rule with unchecked power.

Unfortunately, they are much closer than Prescott could have ever dreamed during his sweatiest night masturbating to his friend Hitler and all the money he was helping the Bush Family make.
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Gman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:57 AM
Response to Original message
8. This is the very same element that stole the 2000 election
Only the names have changed.
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Hamlette Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 11:58 AM
Response to Original message
9. nearly the same thing they did to Clinton
except they didn't wait 100 days. They formed a cabal to raise money to impeach him within weeks of the election. Before he was sworn into office.

For the same reasons?
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 12:30 PM
Response to Original message
10. some more information:
Edited on Mon Feb-09-04 12:33 PM by Minstrel Boy
Here are some details from "Trading with the Enemy" by Charles Higham, subtitled "An expose of the Nazi-American money plot, 1933-1949" (The DuPont and Morgan names, and many others, ought to be among the most reviled in US history):

"Early in 1934...along with friends of the Morgan Bank and General Motors, certain Du Pont backers financed a coup d'etat that would overthrow the President with the aid of a $3 million-funded army of terrorists.... Who was to be the figurehead for this ill-advised scheme, which would result in Roosevelt being forced to take orders from businessmen as part of a fascist government or face the alternative of imprisonment and execution? Du Pont men allegedly held an urgent series of meetings with the Morgans. They finally settled on one of the most popular soldiers in America, General Smedley Butler....

"The backers of the conspiracy selected a smooth attorney, Gerald MacGuire, to bring word of the plan to General Butler.... With great intensity the fascist attorney delivered the scheme to the general. Butler was horrified. Although there were many things about Roosevelt he disliked, a coup d'etat amounted to treason, and Butler was nothing if not loyal to the Constitution. However he disclosed nothing of his feelings. With masterful composure he pretended interest and waited to hear more.... When MacGuire returned, it was with news of more millions and more extravagant plans, which included turning America into a dictatorship with Butler as a kind of Hitler.... After MacGuire left on the second occasion, the general got in touch with the White House. He told Roosevelt of the entire plan.

...

"The Du Pont's fascistic behavior was seen in 1936, when Irenee du Pont used General Motors money to finance the notorious Black Legion. This terrorist organization had as its purpose the prevention of automobile workers from unionizing. The members wore hoods and black robes, with skull and crossbones. They fire-bombed union meetings, murdered union organizers, often by beating them to death, and dedicated their lives to destroying Jews and communists....

"At the same time, the Du Ponts developed the American Liberty League, a Nazi organization whipping up hatred of blacks and Jews, love of Hitler, and loathing of the Roosevelts. Financed by Lammot and Irenee to the tune of close to $500,000 the first year, the Liberty League had a lavish 31-room office in New York, branches in 26 colleges, and 15 subsidiary organizations nationwide that distributed 50 million copies of its Nazi pamphlets...."

Simultaneously, the Morgan family sponsored an underground fascist terrorist cell called the Iron Guard, fronted by the "Midtown Sporting Club" in NYC. It was funded by the Morgans, several Wall Street Investment firms and the German General Staff.

From Alex Constantine's Virtual Government:

"'The penalty for betraying our secrets is death,' was the warning John Roy Carlson received upon infiltrating the group.... 'We have men watching every one of you, men without mercy.... They are the guardians of the Iron Guard. You are the soldiers of Christ....'

"After swearing never to divulge information regarding the secrets of the Iron Guard, he was permitted to attend a 'ritual war' ceremony: 'A half dozen straight-backed chairs, several armchairs and a small round table with an open Bible laying on it composed the furniture. Across the pages of the Bible lay a bayonet. Several rifles leaned against the wall. I sat down facing the emblem of the Iron Guard, a large black circle and an inner circle of white. Within the circles was a red arm holding in its fist a flash of lightening.'

"Herman Schmitt, the leader of the Guard, stood in the circle and blurted, 'We are fascists, American fascists! Democracy is a tool to do away with Christianity. The time is ripe for something entirely new - fascism!'"

Then there's Standard Oil and IG Farben, Rockefeller, William Farish, Dulles, Bush, and all the rest. Higham calls them "The Fraternity," the network of pro-Nazi business leaders who built fortunes and evaded justice as they traded with the enemy to the detriment of the US war effort. (The name "Farish" sound familiar? His descendent is Bush's UK ambassador. The families are old friends. Bloodlines mean a great deal to these people.)

Throw in Project Paperclip and the last 50 years of American history, and it looks as though the great, fascist families of America have had themselves quite a tidy little coup after all.
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Wapsie B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 12:39 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. Are all these organizations
still in business in one form or another?
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htuttle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 12:45 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Yes, most of them are still in business
If you want to follow yet another angle of research on the nasty history between the wars (1930's), look up some of the stuff written by I.F. 'Izzy' Stone on the subject.

He did some really blistering exposes on the Hitler-collaborating corporations at the time. There was one book of his in particular -- I think it was called, "What is Fascism?" -- that I thought was really good.
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Wapsie B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 12:53 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. Thanks.
Now the idealist in me would want the next Democratic President to go after groups like this. But the pragmatist in me realizes that he would probably end up like one of the Kennedy's if he did.
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JHB Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 12:53 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. No...(not directly, that is)
Edited on Mon Feb-09-04 01:00 PM by JHB
I think most of them dried up after Pearl Harbor from a combination of loss of rank-&-file and investigation/prosecution of the hardcore members as enemy collaborators.

However, change the names of the funders to Scaife, Coors, and Olin (among others), and you'll find plenty of parallels with modern-day Washington think tanks and "media watch" groups, conservative publications, conservative student groups, etc.

ON EDIT: While I'm not aware of any of those 30's organizations still being in business under the same name, that doesn't mean they went away. As others note, they just went underground for a while and resurfaced at the right wing of the Republican Party.
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 12:53 PM
Response to Reply #11
15. Alive and well in the Republican Party.
Nazis and Nazi sympathizers made a home for themselves in the Republican Party as part of "ethnic outreach committees".

Nazi collaborators involved in George HW Bush's 1988 campaign included:

1.Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust denier, Austin App.

2.Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush." Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.

3.Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.

4.Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.

5.Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi groups.

6.Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukrainians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish wartime pogroms.

http://alexconstantine.50megs.com/cia_nazis_and.html
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JohnOneillsMemory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 01:01 PM
Response to Original message
16. This is amazing. And exactly the coup perpetrated today!!
I just sent this out to my email block of co-conspirators.

The corporateers tried to nip the New Deal in the bud and bring in overt Fascism. Smedley Butler stopped them but they're succeding covertly since 1976.

Instead they are rolling the New Deal back by starving the programs, demonizing the 'left' and militarizing the culture with paid-for propaganda organs and racist boogeymen...

You can flinch away from characterizing this process as Hitlerian
BUT it is exactly what Hitler did to a disillusioned population of hyper-nationalistic master-race wanna-bes like our Fallow Merkins.

I think I need to see my beautiful sunny girlfriend after reading this. ergh.
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JohnOneillsMemory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 02:49 PM
Response to Original message
17. Kick. Template for today's culture wars. Tell your undecided friends. n/t
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ramapo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 03:19 PM
Response to Reply #17
19. Still around...the Du Pont & Morgan families, American Legion, Republicans
Not to indict today's family members or the American Legion.

The Du Pont and Morgan families were heavily involved. The American Legion was going to play a central role also. I always thought the Legion was formed as a veterans organization. Their true purpose was as a force of strikebreakers made up of former military.

Du Pont played a central role in rearming Germany prior to WWII and was heavily invested in fascist Italy. (like US sales to Iraq?)

After the coup was exposed, Roosevelt was subjected to an unrelenting propaganda attack. (sound familiar?)

Read on...you'll find that the current bunch of Republicans have a rich history to draw upon...

The Attempted Coup Against FDR (with tie-ins to JFK assassination)
http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr399-fdr.html

An American coup d'etat?
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1373/n11_v45/17471772/p1/article.jhtml?term=

Coup d'Etat American Style
http://members.aol.com/discord23/coup.htm
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 03:07 PM
Response to Original message
18. It's a history that sets a valuable context for understanding
Edited on Mon Feb-09-04 03:09 PM by Minstrel Boy
what the forces behind Bush are trying to accomplish.

It's unfortunate the deplorable record of leading American industrialists and investment bankers during the 1930s and '40s is not better known. They're loyalty was stateless: it was to corporatist rule, just as Cheney's is. In other words, fascism.

At the end of the war, it was these same figures who, with the Nazi spy Gehlen and his intelligence agency grafted onto the OSS, founded the CIA and America's National Security State.

From "Ratlines:The CIA & The Nazis":

Many of Rockefeller's dealings with the Nazis were through Rockefeller controlled shell corporations centered in Latin America. The dealings were facilitated by Nelson Rockefeller's appointment to the post of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, by Forrestal in 1940. This was the position of the top spy in Latin America, the post was suggested to Forrestal by Rockefeller himself. Rockefeller had proposed to Harry Hopkins that England and Hitler fight each other to the death, regardless of which side won, the U.S. had to be ready to pick up the pieces to increase corporate America's economic influence. In essence Rockefeller's only concern was to safeguard corporate America interests. His definition of totalitarian was limited to the USSR. Once Nelson Rockefeller accepted the position he informed his staff that their job was to use the war to take over Latin American markets. Rockefeller also used his position to see to it, that the Nazis got anything they wanted in South America such as refueling bases while forcing the British to pay cash. Additionally he effectively blackmailed Britain by the threat of withholding or blocking the shipment of raw materials and food to Britain. Rockefeller's chief aim was to drive the British out of Latin America and monopolize the markets for himself. In each country he set up coordinating committees composed of reactionary executives from Standard Oil of New Jersey, United Fruit and General Electric.... Further, a pro-Nazi bloc of countries led by Peron of Argentina was actively involved in helping hide escaping war criminals. Peron was a friend of none other than Allen Dulles.

Dulles and their firm were not the only investors in Germany at this time. Many of the top corporations in the U.S. initiated direct investments on their own among these are GM, ITT, Ford, and GE. Likewise other Wall Street firms specialized in German investments such as Dillon Reed & Co. who favored loans to the Deutsche Bank, Siemens and Frick's interests Key players at Dillon included James Forrestal, William Draper, Paul Nitze, Ferdinand Eberstadt and C. Douglas Dillon all of whom later served in the government. Brown Brothers & Harriman was another such firm and of course Harriman later served in the government as well. This was the firm in which Bert Walker; George Bush's grandfather and father were associated with. Bush's grandfather was instrumental in setting up a deal to take over Hamburg-America Line a Nazi front company used for espionage. Prescott Bush hired Allen Dulles to hide his assets invested in Germany from authorities. In 1942 Prescott Bush was charged with running Nazi front groups and those assets were siezed.

In just this little snippet of history we have nine individuals (counting the Dulles brothers) all associated with Wall Street firms serving the wealthy, who later went on to serve later in the government. Forrestal was mentioned earlier in the context of promoting policies opposing the views of Truman. We need to look closer at the past Directors of the CIA to fully establish the connection between Wall Street and the CIA. Four of the past Directors including Wild Bill Donovan as head of the OSS there have been Wall Street lawyers, Donovan, Dulles, Colby and Casey. These four have been at the head of the CIA for a total of twenty-one years out of the fifty two-year history of the CIA or almost half the time. The remaining Directors have all came from the elite class as defined by Domhoff in an earlier chapter. Clearly we have established a revolving door between the wartime government and Wall Street as well as establishing the same revolving door between Wall Street and the CIA.

The question of how extensive the work of Dulles was in acting, as a middleman in setting up deals between the rich and the Nazis cannot be answered with any great certainty. However, a document prepared by Pruessen for the State Department totals over a billion dollars. Remember that is only deals in which Dulles was personally involved in and that it is a floor value, there may be additional deals that Pruessen failed to uncover. Likewise, Commerce Department records shows that investments in Germany increased 48.5% from 1929 to 1940. Additionally many US firms bought direct interest in German firms and in turn plowed the profits back into the Aryanization (seizing of Jewish firms) or arms production. Among those firms are International Harvester, Ford, GM, Standard Oil of New Jersey and du Pont.

http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/ratlines.htm
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JanMichael Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 04:27 PM
Response to Original message
20. Read "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis.
He took several Depression Era events, people too, and fictionalized them into a real live coup.

Smedley Butler is represented as well as Father Coughlin the hugely successful radio preacher who was spurned by FDR then turned into a Nazi sympathizer...

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Eloriel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-09-04 04:57 PM
Response to Original message
21. Fascinating info
Thanks to both mad_as_hell and Mistrel Boy.

Here are some links that may be of interest to anyone interested in this subject (altho I think the material here in this thread is a great and fairly succinct overview):

Reality 501: A DU Course Syllabus
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=6920&forum=DCForumID70&archive=yes


REALITY 501: Course Syllabus Special Addendum - The 60s
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=14030&forum=DCForumID70&archive=yes


Reality 501: Syllabus UPDATE
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=8535&forum=DCForumID70&archive=yes


The US, the Saudis, and oil (a piece of Eloriel's Big Picture)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=8558&forum=DCForumID70&archive=yes


One more time: LEO STRAUSS AND THE NEO-CONS
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=7200&forum=DCForumID70&archive=yes
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