Man, Smedley Butler underwent a hell of an arc. From being a proud soldier of American imperialism, to becoming the father of modern police forces, to foiling a fascist plot to overthrow the country and becoming an outspoken anti-war advocate. He went from one end of the political spectrum to the other.
And guess who was one of the conspirator? Big daddy (Prescott) Bush.
Gods, in the span of 20 years we’ve gone from a president descended from an attempted fascist overthrow to watching the fascist overthrow happen through “legal” means.
I love that I never learned about this until I read history books for fun as an adult. You’d think that young students, growing up in this country, should know what the wealthy class has done in full to try and keep them oppressed, whether it’s the Business Plot, the Battle for Blair Mountain, the violent government response to rail strikes, etc. etc. etc.
But no.
Schools don’t teach this stuff on purpose.
The curriculum is written by the very class that these moments in history shades. Of course they’re not taught.
the Battle for Blair Mountain
Welp, here’s another rabbit hole on the list. See yall later 👋😀
Let me know how you come out. Happy digging rabbit. Happy digging.
Edit: One of the crazy things in that wiki article to me was it listed ~1,000,000 shots fired, and only about 34 dead.
That would mean if the average person shot 100 rounds, and they knew 300 other people in attendance, on average 1 of those 300 may have actually shot someone dead.
I liked the movie League of Extraordinary Gentle back in the day, but now I know what he meant when he quoted Americans as “fire enough bullets and hope to hit the target”
I would recommend Chill Goblin’s Oliver Anthony, Welfare, and Blair Mountain.
This story all comes down to how much you trust Smedley, which, having read his biography, I’m not sure that I do.
Why not? He’s a pretty decorated war hero.
I mean, his early life was riddled with fucked up actions (mostly carrying out orders to create Banana Republics), but it’s exactly why he turned around on the government and called them out on the bullshit. There is very real evidence the plot existed, but those responsible escaped trial most likely due to Roosevelt’s interference (strange how robber barons suddenly got quiet about his New Deal).
It just took the another 90 years or so.
took them 90 years but it worked out in the end
Now we get to contrast both approaches and assess what we’ve doomed ourselves to. Future historians will appreciate this case study.
So they didn’t prosecute a single individual in this attempt. Guess our government as always allowed insurrection go unpunished in our country. Just like Trump and his J6th people.
right wing insurrection*
mlk and malcom x were persecuted, nazis are the ones getting a pat on the head, which tells you what you need to know about the us government.
FDR waved prosecution in exchange for the fascist senators involved. Voting for his legislation.
Even better, it allowed for a political dynasty to come from it anyways. Prescott Bush, the father of George H. W Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, was one of the parties involved with the Business Plot, and the Bushes seemed to do a fine job carrying on his legacy.
Stop making me sad sir! I see you reciting facts, and putting reality on full display. This only means that it doesn’t matter what we do, fascism will always be a lurking and sometimes more than lurking threat. Even if you stop it’s current plans, it’s always there, unpunished, ready to rear it’s ugly head in future generations.
STOP MAKING ME SAD, SIR!!!
No, it means next time the world goes to war with fascists, they need to finish the job. All their hate and evil is a thought virus, a meme. And the only way to kill a virus like this is to eradicate its hosts. Society and media have not been able to properly vaccinate us
Wow. This makes so much sense.
Should’ve been executed tbh.
We’d have a much better country if they’d done that, no doubt.
If we had executed all of the traitors after the Civl War, instead of letting them return to their basically untouched power structures, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
There were no consequences for taking up arms against the United States a century and a half ago - why would there be consequences for something like a coup?
Fair point.
This whole mentality of forgiving treason so the country can move forward is a nice get out of jail free card for the rich assholes that keep getting us all killed.
When the powerful people do it, the state will protect them while socialists got the rope for essentially shit posting because the plebs liked it a bit too much.
They didn’t prosecute anyone because there was essentially no evidence beyond the accusation of one man, and even then no-one was accused of doing anything beyond talking about it
Found a conspirator.
Although seriously, it’s mentioned in the Wikipedia article that the investigating committee said there is strong evidence of the plotting. They didn’t prosecute anyone becaus of course rich people won’t be prosecuted. I have read rumours that Franklin Roosevelt may have made some backroom deal.
He 100% did. In return for not releasing the evidence and basically scrubbing it’s from the history books. He got some of his Great Society legislation passed. Which they promptly gutted and rendered useless. Because fascists are remorseless sociopaths.
Smedley Butler was a hero on so many levels, a modern day Cincinnatus. He proved himself in battle again and again, and the rich and powerful offered him a throne. He turned it down, because he was a decent man. A man of conscience.
Truth, and it invokes fond memories of some of my favorite Bean books, although Orson Scott Card can go fuck himself.
I would imagine that it is a bizarre feeling to see people admire so deeply characters that you created, but hate your guts.
I don’t see this with JK Rowling. She pretty much ended the love affair people had with the Potter universe. At least that is true in circles that I hang in. 20 years ago my friends were in love with Harry Potter. They had merchandise everywhere. Now it’s nearly a total boycott.
With Card though, people just can’t let go of those characters. They’re able to separate them so much from him that they can hold onto their love.
Maybe it’s because he doesn’t go out of his way to push his bullshit beliefs down people’s throats whereas Rowling really loves being in the spotlight, pissing people off. Well, that and people just tend to feel a deeper connection to the Ender/Bean characters.
I’ve read all of them but one, and it was the one that came out way later to cover what happens with Ender between Game/Speaker. I bought it, I just never got around to it. Those books gave me a feeling I never got anywhere else. I need to read them again with that newer one in the proper place.
Sorry, you just got me thinking.
The whole ‘death of the author’ thing is my preferred brand of copium for this.
Writing talent is not reserved for people who aren’t complete shitbags - it’s just that often, shitbags write to their shitbag interests and that comes over clearly in the work or with very basic analysis. Sometimes they don’t. It’s best to consider the work on its own merits without too much emphasis on authorial intent, as much as is possible.
Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow were the very first things that popped to mind when I heard this phrase. It’s the kind of thing that makes me say “Don’t avoid reading if you want to, but maybe avoid buying new printings and opt for second-hand/library copies instead”.
I remember learning about this as a kid from, of all places, a 1976 detective show called City of Angels (starring Wayne Rogers). Ten-year-old me thought it was so cool they would even broach such a topic on TV. As ways to become radicalised go …
Huh that’s really interesting. I had heard of Smedley Butler but was unaware of the plot until I watched the movie Amsterdam. It doesn’t pretend to be an accurate depiction, even the names are changed but the coup attempt is the same
Major General Smedley Butler seemed like a fairly respectable guy. He was like the worst choice the Wall Street plotters could’ve picked. The man had already been denouncing capitalism and Wall Street, so of course he testified to Congress when rich people tried to get him to overthrow democracy.
Very strange indeed to pick Smedley. But actually like with many secret plots, if you go into the details, the conspirators can be surprisingly inept. The December plot to overthrow the Russian tsardom and replace it with a republic comes to mind. It failed because of lack of coordination, communication, and one of the major co-conspirators lost his nerve at the last minute and thus did not add numbers to the troops of rebels. There was plenty of idealism but it lacked the nerves and good plan execution.
Took them damn well long enough but they finally saw it through
