General Smedley Butler was by the time of his death the most decorated Marine in US history. In his own words, Gen. Butler claims to have "pacified Mexico for American oil companies, Haiti and Cuba for National City Bank, Nicaragua for the Brown Brothers Brokerage, The Dominican Republic for sugar interests, Honduras for US fruit companies, and China for Standard Oil." And it was Butler's proven history of success at helping corporate interests by utilizing military force that promised to make him useful in 1930s America.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal -- with its populist nature -- had come into effect, making him despised by the corporate elite. General Butler was approached by members of the corporate elite, who presented him with a plan to form an organization of half a million veterans -- an organization that would later march on Washington DC and takeover vital government functions; "FDR would be persuaded to put Butler in charge of Civilian Conservation Corps camps which were to serve as support facilities during a paramilitary phase.'' Central to the plot was Gerald MacGuire, a Murphy & Company employee.
According to Gen. Butler, the conspirators included representatives from: "JP Morgan, DuPont, and Goodyear Tires." However, Butler was tired of being a self-described "gangster for capitalism," and he spoke before a Congressional Committee, detailing the full extent of the plot. We also learned that the attempted coup involved the owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, and Maxwell House. Among the alleged conspirators was also Prescott Bush, the patriarch of the Bush clan, Nazi war profiteer, senator, father to the director of the CIA, and grandfather to a man who would start two false wars. No one was prosecuted, and many of the alleged conspirators simply denied Gen. Butler's revelations.
Though America has currently fallen to tyranny, sunken by the weight of a contrived War on Terror, perhaps there are some more individuals like General Butler -- individuals with principle, who don't put a price on freedom, who eventually develop a conscience and stand up to the military-industrial complex. As the debate over Obamacare continues to rage, the possibility of another Business Plot increases daily.
