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Smedley Darlington Butler was born in 1881. He was a Major General in the US Marine Corps, and witnessed the horrors of the First World War first-hand. He retired in 1931, ran as a Republican Candidate for Senate in 1932, and died in a Philadelphia Naval Hospital in 1940. He was awarded two congressional medals of honor, one for the capture of Vera Cruz in Mexico, in 1914; the other for the capture of Fort Riviere in Haiti, in 1917. He also received the distinguished service medal in 1919. In the 1930s General Butler made a nationwide tour, giving his speech 'War Is A Racket'. The speech and accompanying booklet were so well recieved that he wrote a longer version as a small book. A book which has since gained notoriety as an honest appraisal of modern warfare and the growth of an industry driving it. The text provides an honest analysis of war profiteering from the misery of the First World War. ...
tract "It is not a coincidence that the century of war coincided with the century of central banking,” wrote Ron Paul, the libertarian candidate "sensation" for the presidential elections in 2008 and 2012, in the book End the Fed. This discussion explores in short, the powerful pamphlet by Major General Smedley Butler, "War is a Racket", demonstrating, specifically, who profited economically and who, in turn, bore the weight and violence of WW1, assuming that a war is never fought with the acquiescence of the population. However, this monograph goes further, looking for a reinterpretation of the official American history of the First World War through the lens of libertarian discourse. The aim is thus to understand, from another perspective, the fundamental cause of the paradigm shift from nonintervention to intervention taking place during this war, linking it to the project which led to the creation of the League of Nations and the growing importance of the US in the world. Finally, a fundamental connection will be established, exploring the theories argued in the book A Foreign Policy of Freedom, between the policies of Woodrow Wilson and the foreign policy of the United States throughout the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
Press for Conversion!
Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism2004 •
In the early 1930s there was a homegrown fascist plot to overthrow the U.S. government and install a dictatorship. This plan was exposed by recently-retired Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, who was the most popular military leader in the US. Butler pretended to go along with the conspirators in order to learn who was behind it. He then blew the whistle by testifying to a government committee on "unAmerican activities." Butler named the corporate leaders who were planning to oust President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The committee however did not pursue the main culprits behind the fascist plot and did not include many of their names in their report. This incensed Butler who then held press conferences and went on the radio to name the top corporate leaders behind the fascist plot. This issue of press for Conversion! contains original research examining who these American fascists were. They were associated with a powerful corporate organisation called the American Liberty League. Many of the companies that the plotters owned and controlled are now among the world's wealthiest corporations. Learn the names of the plotters and their companies, who financed them and how they schemed to overthrow the White House and empower a fascist government in the United States.
2011 •
Editor (with Spencer Tucker), author of 33 short articles, sole compiler/editor, Vol. 5 (Documents Volume). Named Booklist, Editors’ Choice: Reference Sources, 2014. The version here is two files: Vols. 1-2, and Vols. 3-5. Offering exhaustive coverage, detailed analyses, and the latest historical interpretations of events, this expansive, five-volume encyclopedia is the most comprehensive and detailed reference source on the First World War available today. • Provides comprehensive coverage of the causes of the war that allows readers to fully understand the complex origins of such a monumental conflict • Supplies detailed analyses and explanations of the events before, during, and after World War I, such as how the results of the war set the stage for the global Great Depression of the 1930s, as well as detailed biographical data on key military and civilian individuals during World War I • Includes a chronologically organized document volume that enables students to examine the sources of historical information firsthand • Covers all key battles, land and sea, and their impacts, as well as the critical technological developments that affected the war's outcomes