A man named Smedley

Hiding or classifying wrongdoing will always harm us.

Hiding or classifying wrongdoing will always harm us.
One of the guys at the Y gave me an earful about my recent article titled, History as Written Here and Elsewhere. It seems he has trouble seeing his beloved nations leaders wearing other than white hats. I, too, would like to believe weve never done wrong but history doesnt agree. Rather than rant on about this, Im going to pass my side of the argument to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and long-deceased Major General Smedley Butler.
Nancy Pelosi, bless her heart, promised that the first order of business once the Democratic Congress took control, would be to drain the swamp. Of course she was referring to the quagmire of bloated privilege and profiteering that has become business as usual in Washington D.C.
The swamp is vast and vile. As Speaker Pelosi works to drain it, I hope shes strong enough to withstand inevitable counterattacks because shes stepping on the toes of heavy-hitters who will do whatever it takes to keep things going their corrupt way. Corruption in government wasnt invented by the Bush administration. It has been an integral part of our legislative and administrative processes for literally centuries. When it reached a climax in the 1850s, a band of straight arrows broke from their parties to organize a new party of reform, the Republican Party. Ironic, isnt it.
Once in a great while someone rises above the slime of corruption to blow a whistle. One such was a Marine two-star general named Smedley Butler. Butler was a combat hero, one of only 19 to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor twice. He was born in 1881, joined the Corps at age 16 and rose through the ranks to become the most decorated Marine ever. Being a plain talker, he rubbed his superiors wrong and so was passed over for Commandant of the Corps though he was the Marines top-ranking officer at the time.
Butler knew the swamp. The swamp called on him in the mid 1930s because he was popular with his troops and a national hero. He was approached by the American Liberty League to head a movement to remove President Roosevelt and his cabinet from office. The plan called for Butler to lead a march of 500,000 veterans into Washington to depose Roosevelt.
The League, headed by executives of Du Pont, the Morgan Bank, Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel and Wall Street (represented by a bond salesman named Gerald MacGuire) and others, was attracted to fascism by Hitlers success in lifting Germany out of the Great Depression. When asked what form of government would replace Roosevelts administration McGuire was perfectly candid. We need a fascist government in this country to save the nation from the communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America. The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers, and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader.
Butler considered their proposition but instead of reporting back to the industrialists, he blew the whistle on them before Congress, implicating many highly placed conspirators. But so many in Congress were in bed with the perpetrators that the planned coup detat, thereafter known as The Business Plot, was quietly swept under the carpet. The New York Times gave it two bland paragraphs with no follow-up. Our nation was never informed about what almost hit it and given the complete absence of coverage in American history books, it never will be.
They didnt go away. That core of self-serving power manipulators is alive and well today. And with the richest 10 percent of the population now controlling more than two-thirds of the nations capital, they effectively manipulate our economy and affairs of state through their investment in the electoral process and office holders. This swamp certainly needs draining, but given the power of the alligators, it will take a mighty and concerted effort to actually accomplish the job.
Regarding the Military-Industrial Complexs control over foreign policy, Butler expressed his view (ungrammatically) in a 1935 issue of the magazine, Common Sense, in which he reflected on how a corrupt government steered his military career:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of a half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Be assured that Americas self-interested interventions in those nations are most certainly documented in their history books. Across geography and time only one modern nation has bullied so many small nations, The United States. Accepting that other nations students understand that reality better than our own young people do is a necessary firststep toward cleaning up our global image.
I invite anyone to challenge these facts.

Comments may by addressed to: rgraef@verizon.net.