The Plot to Overturn the Constitution

I was listening to an interview on Henry Raines' show on American AM radio in Tampa (through the auspices of RadioPower.com) concerning an foiled attempt made in the 1930s to overthrow FDR's Administration and replace it with a Fascist alternative. It wasn't something I had heard much about before.

Apparently the plot was exposed by General Smedley Butler (the most decorated military man of WWI) in front of a Congressional Committee. He had been approached by folks apparently representing the Morgan Bank and other major capitalists who were not thrilled with our Constitution and wanted to remove most of the rights of individuals. They offered Butler the chance to be the "front" for this new government but hadn't counted on his commitment to country. Butler testified before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee in 1934, saying that he was to have led a military coup if the approach that was made to him had been carried out.

In 1935, Butler wrote a short book,"War Is A Racket", which discussed how businesses profited from War and why it was in the interest of major industries to keep wars going on as a profit making mechanism. An interesting text sample (given the amounts that are now being paid to private contractors in Iraq):

A few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation – it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Butler was a big influence on Truman during WWII when his Congressional committee kept industrialists from overcapitalizing and profiting from the war effort.

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Thinking about Butler, I started looking at what was happening in America now (Memorial Day is the kind of holiday that really DOES make you think.) Bush and Cheney and their ilk have eliminated Habeas Corpus, have consistently lied to the population to make their war happen, and have allowed billions of dollars to be spent without trace to major corporations that support their candidacies. They have pointed the finger at those who want the troops home (68% of America at last count) to make them seem traitors.

Then there are items like Directive 51, which would give Bush dictatorial powers if there were a catastrophe (like Katrina, for instance). This is, supposedly, to preserve the Constitution... but in reality, it brings us away from a government of, by and for the people.

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The plot Butler exposed in the 1930s came out of the frustration with the Great Depression. What is coming out of the Great Miasma that Bush has us in right now? Think about it.

Under The LobsterScope