The Plot Against American Democracy That Isn’t Taught in Schools

We speak to award-winning journalist Jonathan Katz about his new book “Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire.” The book follows the life of the Marines officer Smedley Butler and the trail of U.S. imperialism from Cuba and the Philippines to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Panama. The book also describes an effort by banking and business leaders to topple Franklin D. Roosevelt’s government in 1934 in order to establish a fascist dictatorship. The plot was exposed by Butler, who famously declared, “War is a racket.” The far-right conspiracy to overthrow liberal democracy has historical parallels to the recent January 6 insurrection, says Katz.
JFK to 9/11 A documentary by Francis Richard Conolly.
In an excerpt from Gangsters of Capitalism, Jonathan M. Katz details how the authors of the Depression-era "Business Plot" aimed to take power away from FDR and stop his "socialist" New Deal
2022: Former President Donald Trump endorsed a recently unveiled plan by a cadre of his former staffers to strip tens of thousands of federal workers of their civil service protections and fire them at will under the next Republican administration.
“Gangsters of Capitalism”: Jonathan Katz on the Parallels Between Jan. 6 and 1934 Anti-FDR Coup Plot
The Corporate Coup Against FDR – Jonathan M. Katz Pt. 2/2
Wealthy bankers and businessmen plotted to overthrow FDR. A retired general foiled it.
The consternation had been growing in the months between Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election and his inauguration, but his elimination of the gold standard in April 1933 infuriated some of the country’s wealthiest men. Titans of banking and business worried that if U.S. currency wasn’t backed by gold, inflation could skyrocket and make their millions worthless. Why, they could end up as poor as most everyone else was during the Great Depression. So, according to the sworn congressional testimony of a retired general, they decided to overthrow the government and install a dictator who was more business friendly. After all, they reasoned, that had been working well in Italy.
“Gangsters of Capitalism”: Jonathan Katz on the Parallels Between Jan. 6 and 1934 Anti-FDR Coup Plot
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (executed by the Nazis in 1945) argued that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. This is because while we can protest against or fight evil people, against stupid ones we are defenseless as all attempts at reason fall on deaf ears.

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