1
00:00:01,520 --> 00:00:09,160
Speaker 1: What's overthrowing the government? My consortium of shady financial interests?

2
00:00:09,840 --> 00:00:15,120
Speaker 1: What's yeah, I don't know, I got no. Uh. This

3
00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:19,200
Speaker 1: is behind the Insurrections of the Find Behind the Bastards

4
00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:22,919
Speaker 1: mini series about fascist attempts to seize power. Uh. And

5
00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:26,520
Speaker 1: this is our last episode of this beautiful mini series.

6
00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:29,520
Speaker 1: We did have a seventh episode planned, but UM, I

7
00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:34,040
Speaker 1: had some personal news. That's that's gonna alter our work

8
00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:35,760
Speaker 1: schedule a little bit. But we will get to that

9
00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:40,479
Speaker 1: episode at some point, but not next week. UM. My

10
00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:43,559
Speaker 1: guest with this one, as as with always on our

11
00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:47,879
Speaker 1: mini series, Jason Petty a k A. Prop. What's alwa's al?

12
00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:51,400
Speaker 1: What's properties in a building? Now? Prop? I'm gonna come

13
00:00:51,479 --> 00:00:55,800
Speaker 1: right to the chase. Have you heard of the business plot? No?

14
00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:00,960
Speaker 1: Oh good? Oh well. One of the things that's fun

15
00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:04,280
Speaker 1: about this is that, um, one of our characters from

16
00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:07,880
Speaker 1: behind the Police is the main character of this story. UM,

17
00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,080
Speaker 1: our old friend Smedley Butler. Yeah, the guy who ran

18
00:01:11,160 --> 00:01:14,360
Speaker 1: the police in Philadelphia, the marine l that's that's going

19
00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:18,679
Speaker 1: to be exciting. Yeah, I know that guy. So the

20
00:01:18,720 --> 00:01:22,320
Speaker 1: business plot is there's a reason why you haven't heard

21
00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:24,320
Speaker 1: of it. Uh. A lot of people have put in

22
00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:26,080
Speaker 1: a lot of effort to make sure that people don't

23
00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:32,480
Speaker 1: talk about this anymore. UM. Imagine a cadre of plutocratic bankers, financiers,

24
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:36,360
Speaker 1: and media moguls all conspired to take over US democracy

25
00:01:36,600 --> 00:01:40,800
Speaker 1: and institute of fascist state hidden as a fake democracy. UM.

26
00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:46,320
Speaker 1: Shouldn't take a whole lot of imagination. Yeah. Um, that's

27
00:01:46,360 --> 00:01:48,680
Speaker 1: what people say to record industry is yeah, the record

28
00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:51,440
Speaker 1: industry or the way a lot of our government works

29
00:01:51,520 --> 00:01:54,800
Speaker 1: right now, like the fact that Janet Yellen uh had

30
00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:57,440
Speaker 1: financial ties to one of the giant hedge funds that

31
00:01:58,120 --> 00:02:00,400
Speaker 1: shut down the game stock trading and stuff like. Yeah,

32
00:02:00,440 --> 00:02:03,920
Speaker 1: you know, it may sound that sounds familiar to people, UM,

33
00:02:03,960 --> 00:02:06,800
Speaker 1: but usually we're talking about it. Most people were talking

34
00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:08,560
Speaker 1: about you know when we talk about like, well, there's

35
00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:12,240
Speaker 1: a codra of elites who control you know, the government. Um,

36
00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:14,919
Speaker 1: they meet it in sort of a deep state. Since

37
00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:18,480
Speaker 1: but there was a time where the wealthiest men in

38
00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:21,840
Speaker 1: America engaged in a very real conspiracy to have a

39
00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:25,560
Speaker 1: paramilitary army sees the levels of power overthrow the president

40
00:02:25,600 --> 00:02:29,200
Speaker 1: and institute of fascist state. UM. And there's people alive

41
00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:31,600
Speaker 1: today who lived through it. It happened in the thirties.

42
00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:36,760
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, yeah, this is this is a story

43
00:02:36,840 --> 00:02:40,480
Speaker 1: people should know. Um, I think you'll find this one interesting, props. So, okay,

44
00:02:40,639 --> 00:02:41,919
Speaker 1: is gonna this is gonna be one of those ones

45
00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:45,840
Speaker 1: where I'm like, I'm actually going in Yeah, this is

46
00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:50,000
Speaker 1: a fun one. Yes. So our our story starts with

47
00:02:50,040 --> 00:02:52,080
Speaker 1: one of my favorite historical figures. As I told you,

48
00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:56,720
Speaker 1: Major General Smedley Butler. We're talking about old Smedley again. Um,

49
00:02:56,760 --> 00:02:58,880
Speaker 1: so we're gonna start by talking about him because he's

50
00:02:58,919 --> 00:03:01,920
Speaker 1: at the center of all this. So okay. Smedley Butler

51
00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:04,120
Speaker 1: was born in eighteen eighty one, who was the eldest

52
00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:08,080
Speaker 1: son of a Quaker family from Westchester, Pennsylvania. His father, Thomas,

53
00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:11,400
Speaker 1: was a congressman and his maternal grandfather was in Congress

54
00:03:11,440 --> 00:03:13,520
Speaker 1: as well. So this is a guy who comes from

55
00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:17,080
Speaker 1: a lot of privilege in power. Um. He attended the

56
00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:19,839
Speaker 1: Haverford School, which is a secondary school for rich kids

57
00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:23,680
Speaker 1: from Philadelphia, and he thrived in this upper crust, elite institution.

58
00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:26,639
Speaker 1: He became captain of the school baseball team and quarterback

59
00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:29,079
Speaker 1: of the football team, and he seemed to be on

60
00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:31,960
Speaker 1: the road to a career in politics or business. But

61
00:03:32,040 --> 00:03:35,400
Speaker 1: then thirty eight days before his seventeenth birthday, he left

62
00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:38,720
Speaker 1: school to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. UM.

63
00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:41,160
Speaker 1: So he's on like a path to follow you into

64
00:03:41,200 --> 00:03:44,440
Speaker 1: business or into politics, and then when he's sixteen, he

65
00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:47,119
Speaker 1: leaves home to join the Marines. Now this pisses off

66
00:03:47,120 --> 00:03:49,480
Speaker 1: his dad, who didn't want his kid joining the Marines.

67
00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:52,920
Speaker 1: But the reason Smedley had joined is that the Spanish

68
00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:55,240
Speaker 1: American War had just started, which we chatted about of

69
00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:58,640
Speaker 1: it last week, and Smedley wanted to fight UM. So

70
00:03:58,720 --> 00:04:00,720
Speaker 1: he lied about his age too the Marines and was

71
00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:04,280
Speaker 1: commissioned as a second lieutenant. He landed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,

72
00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:06,200
Speaker 1: shortly after it was captured, and he didn't see any

73
00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:09,240
Speaker 1: action there. His unit was sent back to the mainland

74
00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:11,440
Speaker 1: and he could have been cashiered out, you know, gone

75
00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:14,480
Speaker 1: back into go you know, doing a business thing. But

76
00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:16,359
Speaker 1: he decided to stay in the Marines and take a

77
00:04:16,360 --> 00:04:19,839
Speaker 1: commission as a first lieutenant and go fight in the Philippines. UM.

78
00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:22,880
Speaker 1: He was not immediately good at war. He was initially

79
00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:25,479
Speaker 1: tasked with garrison duty, which boared him so much that

80
00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:27,640
Speaker 1: he just spent all of his time drunk. He was

81
00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:30,599
Speaker 1: at one point relieved of command temporarily due to something

82
00:04:30,640 --> 00:04:32,440
Speaker 1: he did in his bedroom, which is all that we

83
00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:36,240
Speaker 1: know about the incident. He did. He did something with

84
00:04:36,279 --> 00:04:39,160
Speaker 1: alcohol in his bedroom that made his superiors be like,

85
00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:46,000
Speaker 1: this guy can't be in charge of people for a while. Yeah, yeah, Phil,

86
00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:52,360
Speaker 1: Phil in the blanks, you know. Um. So in October

87
00:04:52,440 --> 00:04:55,600
Speaker 1: of eighteen nine, he saw his first combat action when

88
00:04:55,640 --> 00:04:57,920
Speaker 1: he led three Marines to conquer a town from the

89
00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:00,480
Speaker 1: people who you know lived there, right, Like, this is

90
00:05:00,520 --> 00:05:03,920
Speaker 1: a colonial, brutal colonial war, still colonial, got it? Like

91
00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:06,120
Speaker 1: he's he's a he's the bad guy right there. We're

92
00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:09,120
Speaker 1: we're the bad guys in that war. Um. Yeah. And

93
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:12,159
Speaker 1: Butler fell in love with battle and with the Marine Corps.

94
00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:15,360
Speaker 1: He just was very it was very good at fighting.

95
00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:19,960
Speaker 1: Like he this is a really difficult, desperate situation, and

96
00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:25,039
Speaker 1: he comports himself well, he's good at leading men in combat. Um.

97
00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:29,119
Speaker 1: And he becomes after fighting so enthralled with the Marine

98
00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:31,760
Speaker 1: Corps that he hires a tattoo artist to give him

99
00:05:31,760 --> 00:05:34,480
Speaker 1: a full from his neck to his belly tattoo of

100
00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:40,240
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps emblem like this, He's very into the Marines. Okay,

101
00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:44,840
Speaker 1: loves him some being a marine. Yeah, you're getting a

102
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:47,960
Speaker 1: full day. That's that's that's some being affleck you know

103
00:05:47,960 --> 00:05:51,360
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But I think, yeah, there's I know people,

104
00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:54,040
Speaker 1: including some Marine bets, who will argue that the Marine

105
00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:58,240
Speaker 1: Corps kind of the cultist of the of the military branches. Um. Yeah,

106
00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:00,440
Speaker 1: And some might argue that's because they're the best at

107
00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:03,479
Speaker 1: what they do. Um. But Butler is definitely drinking the

108
00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:08,240
Speaker 1: fucking kool aid. Right. So he gets sent to China

109
00:06:08,320 --> 00:06:10,760
Speaker 1: next as part of the US detachment sent over during

110
00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:14,040
Speaker 1: the Boxer Rebellion. He's wounded in combat and despite having

111
00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:16,080
Speaker 1: a bullet like, one of his men gets hurt and

112
00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:18,120
Speaker 1: he runs out to get him and gets shot in

113
00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:20,120
Speaker 1: the leg. And despite having a bullet in his leg,

114
00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:23,920
Speaker 1: he drags multiple men to safety while actively under fire

115
00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:27,560
Speaker 1: and bleeding. Um and again the box Rebellion another brutal

116
00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:32,920
Speaker 1: colonial action. Um, but he's he comports himself very well. Now,

117
00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:35,560
Speaker 1: at that time, commissioned officers were unable to receive the

118
00:06:35,560 --> 00:06:37,760
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor, otherwise he probably would have earned one,

119
00:06:37,760 --> 00:06:41,119
Speaker 1: but he received some decorations for his gallantry under fire.

120
00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:45,000
Speaker 1: Smedley Butler would spend the next couple of decades as

121
00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:48,800
Speaker 1: he would grow into what was probably the best soldier

122
00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:54,320
Speaker 1: in the American Empire. Like he is an exceptional imperial soldier. Um.

123
00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:56,520
Speaker 1: He fights in the Banana Wars, which were a series

124
00:06:56,520 --> 00:06:58,880
Speaker 1: of police actions and intervention in the Caribbean and in

125
00:06:58,960 --> 00:07:02,320
Speaker 1: Central America made on behalf of US business interests, killing

126
00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:06,080
Speaker 1: people for He's he's killing people for banana companies. He's

127
00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:09,359
Speaker 1: killing people for United you know. Uh. He fights in Honduras,

128
00:07:09,400 --> 00:07:12,600
Speaker 1: where he was constantly near death with fever and received

129
00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:16,720
Speaker 1: the nickname Old Gimlet Eye because his eye his every

130
00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:19,400
Speaker 1: like he was. He looked terrifying. He was this gaunt,

131
00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:25,040
Speaker 1: scar filled monster with bloodshot eyes. Um and like just feverish. Yeah,

132
00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:27,160
Speaker 1: that's his Old Gimlet Eye is, Like he looks like

133
00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:31,680
Speaker 1: a fucking a wraith. You know. I love this guy.

134
00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:38,360
Speaker 1: He's except for his except for his colonial colonial stuff. Yeah. Yeah,

135
00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:42,440
Speaker 1: he's fighting on the wrong side, but he's objectively a badass. Um.

136
00:07:42,520 --> 00:07:45,840
Speaker 1: So Butler racks up promotion after promotion. He enforces US

137
00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:48,680
Speaker 1: foreign policy in Nicaragua. He sent us a spy during

138
00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:50,800
Speaker 1: the Mexican American War. He sent us a spy to

139
00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:53,520
Speaker 1: Mexico City or one of the wars that we fall

140
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:55,640
Speaker 1: with Mexico. He sent us a spy to Mexico City

141
00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:58,640
Speaker 1: to help the United States gather information for the Siege

142
00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:00,800
Speaker 1: of Vera Cruz, which a lot of people don't know

143
00:08:00,880 --> 00:08:03,040
Speaker 1: we were doing in the early nineteen hundreds, We like

144
00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:07,720
Speaker 1: bombed Vera Cruz. Yeah, yeah, there's a good warren Zevon

145
00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:10,840
Speaker 1: song about it. Butler was one of nearly sixty American

146
00:08:10,920 --> 00:08:13,440
Speaker 1: servicemen who received Medals of Honor for their service in

147
00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:16,520
Speaker 1: Mexico because he fights in in Vera Cruz as well. Uh,

148
00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:18,800
Speaker 1: And virtually all of those medals were complete bullshit, Like

149
00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:21,440
Speaker 1: they hand out sixty medals of honor for the siege

150
00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:24,800
Speaker 1: of Vera Cruz, and they're doing it because Woodrow Wilson,

151
00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:27,920
Speaker 1: the President, knows that, like this is an ugly colonial war,

152
00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:29,560
Speaker 1: and he wants to dress it up by making it

153
00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:32,040
Speaker 1: look like by putting out a bunch of stories of

154
00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:35,040
Speaker 1: heroism and stuff. So he hands out the military's highest

155
00:08:35,040 --> 00:08:36,920
Speaker 1: honor like candy. And there's actually a bunch of It's

156
00:08:36,920 --> 00:08:39,000
Speaker 1: a big controversy at the time because a lot of

157
00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:41,600
Speaker 1: veterans are like, you're devaluing the Medal of honor by

158
00:08:41,679 --> 00:08:45,120
Speaker 1: using it this way UM and Smedley. Butler receives one

159
00:08:45,120 --> 00:08:47,480
Speaker 1: of these show medals of honor and he tries to

160
00:08:47,520 --> 00:08:49,800
Speaker 1: return it, arguing that he'd done nothing to deserve it

161
00:08:49,840 --> 00:08:52,120
Speaker 1: and he shouldn't get it, but he's ordered by his

162
00:08:52,160 --> 00:08:55,920
Speaker 1: superiors to keep the medal and wear it on his uniform. UM.

163
00:08:56,040 --> 00:08:58,280
Speaker 1: So you're seeing he's started. He's starting to like realize,

164
00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:00,760
Speaker 1: like that's kind of messed up. Why why, like I

165
00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:03,199
Speaker 1: I don't deserve this, don't give this to me? Um

166
00:09:03,400 --> 00:09:06,040
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, he's he keeps me, He keeps me

167
00:09:06,120 --> 00:09:10,360
Speaker 1: like imbalanced. Yeah yeah, yeah, you're gonna he's he's he's

168
00:09:10,360 --> 00:09:14,920
Speaker 1: a growth story, Smedley. Smedley is always changing, especially knowing

169
00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:16,880
Speaker 1: because of the behind the police stuff, like I know

170
00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:19,560
Speaker 1: where this guy lands where I'm just like, why am

171
00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:22,520
Speaker 1: I feeling any stupidly about you? Yeah? It's it's that's

172
00:09:22,600 --> 00:09:24,520
Speaker 1: that's not even quite Yeah, well we'll talk about it.

173
00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:27,600
Speaker 1: So in Haiti. In Haiti, Butler wins his second Medal

174
00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:30,760
Speaker 1: of honor UM and this was one for actual fighting.

175
00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:32,840
Speaker 1: His unit was sent into the country when the president

176
00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:35,920
Speaker 1: was murdered by a mob. Butler and his troops repeatedly

177
00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:38,920
Speaker 1: outnumbered by insurgents, and over a long campaign succeeded in

178
00:09:38,960 --> 00:09:42,240
Speaker 1: breaking the insurgency and establishing order for the U. S

179
00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:46,200
Speaker 1: back dictatorship. Butler himself helped organize the Haitian police, and

180
00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:49,040
Speaker 1: in his own recollection, he and his men hunted enemy

181
00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:53,040
Speaker 1: rebels quote like pigs. Um. So again this he is

182
00:09:53,080 --> 00:09:56,319
Speaker 1: a brutal soldier of empire, like building the police force

183
00:09:56,360 --> 00:10:00,880
Speaker 1: for a dictator. Um. You have to kind of look

184
00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:05,640
Speaker 1: at what. Yeah, it's not great. Um, it's not great now.

185
00:10:05,760 --> 00:10:08,800
Speaker 1: Smedley was promoted to brigadier general at age thirty seven.

186
00:10:09,280 --> 00:10:11,840
Speaker 1: He was in remains one of the most highly decorated

187
00:10:11,880 --> 00:10:14,240
Speaker 1: soldiers in the entire history of the United States military.

188
00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:17,120
Speaker 1: He's got two medals of honor. Um, and he's he's like,

189
00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:20,480
Speaker 1: you know, as a general rule, generals don't get medals

190
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:23,040
Speaker 1: of honor, certainly not two of them. Um, they don't

191
00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:25,520
Speaker 1: tend to be fighting guys. But Smedley is a fighting guy.

192
00:10:25,559 --> 00:10:27,520
Speaker 1: He's not a stand back and give orders. He should

193
00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:30,400
Speaker 1: get stuck in kind of dude. Um. He desperately wanted

194
00:10:30,400 --> 00:10:32,080
Speaker 1: to fight in France during World War One, but he

195
00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:35,120
Speaker 1: was not assigned combat duty. This is probably because by

196
00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:37,079
Speaker 1: the later stage of his career, he was seen as

197
00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:40,520
Speaker 1: politically unreliable due to the tendency he developed over the

198
00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:43,560
Speaker 1: years to say exactly what he felt. But the retired

199
00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:46,120
Speaker 1: in late nineteen thirty one. He ran for Senate in

200
00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:49,680
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two, supporting prohibition, but he was defeated. And

201
00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:51,679
Speaker 1: in the late stage of his career, while he's still

202
00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:53,760
Speaker 1: in the Marines, is when he's running the police in

203
00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:58,320
Speaker 1: Philadelphia during that brief tenure. UM. So this is you know,

204
00:10:58,360 --> 00:11:01,440
Speaker 1: our story starts after he's he you know, he took

205
00:11:01,480 --> 00:11:03,240
Speaker 1: what he learned in Haiti and tried to apply it

206
00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:05,360
Speaker 1: to the Philadelphia police. It didn't work out great. But

207
00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:07,439
Speaker 1: he's kind of the father in a lot of ways,

208
00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:11,120
Speaker 1: one of the fathers of militarizing the U. S. Police. UM.

209
00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:13,920
Speaker 1: And now he's he's retired, he tries to get into politics.

210
00:11:13,960 --> 00:11:16,560
Speaker 1: He's not good at it. UM And by the early

211
00:11:16,640 --> 00:11:20,480
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties Smedley Butler, who is probably the greatest soldier

212
00:11:20,520 --> 00:11:23,960
Speaker 1: in any empire ever had UM had started to change

213
00:11:23,960 --> 00:11:26,240
Speaker 1: his mind on some things. A lot of this had

214
00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:28,520
Speaker 1: to do with the Great Depression and a social movement

215
00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:31,400
Speaker 1: that has spawned called the Bonus Army. The gist of

216
00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:33,760
Speaker 1: it is that when the economy crashed, a bunch of

217
00:11:33,760 --> 00:11:36,280
Speaker 1: World War One veterans found themselves unemployed, in a lot

218
00:11:36,280 --> 00:11:39,400
Speaker 1: of cases, homeless and starving. These guys had been given

219
00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:42,800
Speaker 1: what we're called service certificates in nineteen twenty four, which

220
00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:45,320
Speaker 1: was the government saying we will pay you a bunch

221
00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:47,760
Speaker 1: of money for what you did in the war, but

222
00:11:47,920 --> 00:11:50,480
Speaker 1: not yet because these were bonds, so they couldn't redeem

223
00:11:50,520 --> 00:11:53,960
Speaker 1: them until nineteen forty five. Right. It was like imaginary money,

224
00:11:54,080 --> 00:11:56,839
Speaker 1: imaginary money that like, in thirty years, this will be

225
00:11:56,960 --> 00:11:59,240
Speaker 1: enough money to maybe retire on, but like not now.

226
00:11:59,480 --> 00:12:01,840
Speaker 1: But there's we're starving now, you know, like I can't

227
00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:06,480
Speaker 1: wait another fifty years? Cool? Um, So obviously don't seemed

228
00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:09,160
Speaker 1: like a good deal. But after two years of economic collapse,

229
00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:11,240
Speaker 1: a lot of people just couldn't wait anymore. Uh. And

230
00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:14,360
Speaker 1: in June of nineteen thirty two, more than forty veterans

231
00:12:14,400 --> 00:12:17,920
Speaker 1: protested in Washington, d c u. They called themselves the

232
00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:22,359
Speaker 1: Bonus Expeditionary Force or the Bonus Army, and they advocated

233
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:25,080
Speaker 1: for Congress to pass an immediate soldiers bonus for serving

234
00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:27,800
Speaker 1: in World War One. Now again, we're all living through

235
00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:30,000
Speaker 1: our own version of of something similar. So you know

236
00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:35,040
Speaker 1: what comes next. Congress adjourned without actually doing anything. Here

237
00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:37,600
Speaker 1: we go. This pisses the bonus army off and they

238
00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:40,480
Speaker 1: started getting loud and unruly, so the shot two of them,

239
00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:43,719
Speaker 1: which eventually provoked a riot the whole massive men set

240
00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:45,840
Speaker 1: up this enormous camp in order to hold up and

241
00:12:45,880 --> 00:12:48,560
Speaker 1: wait for Congress to do something. Right. They like, build

242
00:12:48,559 --> 00:12:50,880
Speaker 1: a camp and they're like, we're not leaving until you

243
00:12:50,920 --> 00:12:53,840
Speaker 1: give us some fucking money. Um. The bill makes its

244
00:12:53,880 --> 00:12:57,000
Speaker 1: way into Congress, but it gets defeated. Congress, based on

245
00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:59,800
Speaker 1: some powerful financial interests, decides it's too expensive to pay

246
00:12:59,800 --> 00:13:03,120
Speaker 1: these veterans UM, so they lose. They don't get their bonus.

247
00:13:03,120 --> 00:13:05,720
Speaker 1: But the camp doesn't disperse. Um. And when the camp

248
00:13:05,760 --> 00:13:08,760
Speaker 1: doesn't disperse, the Hoover administration announces that it's sending in

249
00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:11,920
Speaker 1: the army to evict the soldiers. Now, it was at

250
00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:14,960
Speaker 1: this point that General Smedley Butler visited the camp. Um.

251
00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:16,760
Speaker 1: He told the soldiers that he thought they were well

252
00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:19,760
Speaker 1: within their rights to lobby Congress. Corporations can why can't

253
00:13:19,880 --> 00:13:23,080
Speaker 1: Why can't people like us? You know? Um? He spent

254
00:13:23,160 --> 00:13:25,560
Speaker 1: the night there with the men, he had breakfast with them.

255
00:13:25,559 --> 00:13:27,240
Speaker 1: He told them they were good soldiers and he was

256
00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:29,720
Speaker 1: proud of them. Um And a week or so later

257
00:13:29,800 --> 00:13:32,040
Speaker 1: he leaves. In a week or so later, America's most

258
00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:35,280
Speaker 1: overrated general, Douglas McArthur disperses the crowd with a mix

259
00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:39,400
Speaker 1: of men on horseback and poison gas. Um and this

260
00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:44,360
Speaker 1: radicalizes Butler. Um. Initially he just becomes very anti Herbert

261
00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:47,520
Speaker 1: Hoover and and you know, advocates for Hoover to get

262
00:13:47,520 --> 00:13:49,720
Speaker 1: his ass kicked in the election that year. And Hoover

263
00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:52,400
Speaker 1: does lose reelection that year. It turned out to maybe

264
00:13:52,400 --> 00:13:56,880
Speaker 1: be a bad idea. I can't turn on the people. No, no,

265
00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:01,000
Speaker 1: And he's a ship president in general. Um So, obviously

266
00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:04,839
Speaker 1: Fdr Franklin Delano Rose about wins wins the election that year,

267
00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:07,640
Speaker 1: he becomes the president. He promises Americans a new deal,

268
00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:10,559
Speaker 1: which wealth they capitalists saw as a clear sign that

269
00:14:10,640 --> 00:14:13,199
Speaker 1: Roosevelt was about to open the door to Soviet communism

270
00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:18,120
Speaker 1: and take all of their money. Why are you also

271
00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:22,040
Speaker 1: scared all the time? Man? We're gonna talk about that.

272
00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:24,480
Speaker 1: There's an interesting story there. Um So. One of the

273
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:26,840
Speaker 1: men who get scared by the New Deal is a

274
00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:29,480
Speaker 1: guy named Robert Sterling Clark, and he's the heir to

275
00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:33,200
Speaker 1: the singer sewing machine for fortune. Um. Everybody's seen a

276
00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:36,000
Speaker 1: singer sewing machine. That's the kind of money this guy has,

277
00:14:36,200 --> 00:14:39,240
Speaker 1: you know. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, And we're talking singer

278
00:14:39,280 --> 00:14:42,160
Speaker 1: sewing machines in the thirties when everybody uses them all

279
00:14:42,200 --> 00:14:44,560
Speaker 1: the time. Actually, every house had it. It's yeah, it's

280
00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:50,680
Speaker 1: not a hobby. It's the only way you have pants. Um.

281
00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:53,360
Speaker 1: Another guy who got scared was a Wall Street financier

282
00:14:53,400 --> 00:14:57,400
Speaker 1: named Grayson M. P. Murphy. And another was Prescott Bush,

283
00:14:57,640 --> 00:15:00,880
Speaker 1: the father of President George H. W. Bu And who

284
00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:03,040
Speaker 1: is it that? Yeah, yeah, he he really doesn't like

285
00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:07,080
Speaker 1: the New Deal. Um. And Prescott Bush is an investment

286
00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:10,720
Speaker 1: banker on Wall Street at the time. Um okay, yeah,

287
00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:13,800
Speaker 1: So these three are the best known members of what

288
00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:16,480
Speaker 1: came to be called the Business Plot. And we'll talk

289
00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:18,720
Speaker 1: about them all a bit more. But before we get

290
00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:21,640
Speaker 1: into their plan to overthrow the United States government and

291
00:15:21,680 --> 00:15:24,440
Speaker 1: institute a fascist state, I should probably make it clear

292
00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:27,200
Speaker 1: that a lot of rich Americans in the nineteen thirties

293
00:15:27,280 --> 00:15:29,560
Speaker 1: wanted to at least see FDR thrown out on his

294
00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:32,320
Speaker 1: ask for suggesting that rich people be taxed to stop

295
00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:35,640
Speaker 1: poor people from dying in the street. Again, not surprising

296
00:15:35,640 --> 00:15:42,360
Speaker 1: to anyone that it's not It wasn't new then, Yes, um,

297
00:15:42,480 --> 00:15:44,640
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read of I found a very good summary

298
00:15:44,760 --> 00:15:47,440
Speaker 1: of of kind of this situation and the American culture

299
00:15:47,480 --> 00:15:50,120
Speaker 1: at the time from a college thesis by Bradley Galka

300
00:15:50,160 --> 00:15:52,360
Speaker 1: of the University of Albany that I really recommend reading.

301
00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:54,560
Speaker 1: He does a great job of putting this all together.

302
00:15:54,920 --> 00:15:59,040
Speaker 1: Quote William Manchester, in his book The Glory and the Dream,

303
00:15:59,120 --> 00:16:01,720
Speaker 1: describes the fear which upper class Americans had of a

304
00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:05,320
Speaker 1: lower class revolt in the months before Roosevelt's inauguration. Among

305
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:08,400
Speaker 1: the propertied classes, he writes, the distinction between the poor

306
00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:12,080
Speaker 1: wanting bread and a full on communist revolutionary was often

307
00:16:12,160 --> 00:16:15,000
Speaker 1: non existent. The rich would have to take their security

308
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:17,640
Speaker 1: into their own hands. If the government could not keep order,

309
00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:20,200
Speaker 1: each man must look to his own Businessmen in a

310
00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:23,320
Speaker 1: number of cities formed committees to cope with nameless terrors,

311
00:16:23,320 --> 00:16:27,360
Speaker 1: should railroad and telephone lines be cut and surrounding highways blocked,

312
00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:31,240
Speaker 1: Candles and canned goods were stockpiled. A Hollywood director carried

313
00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:33,200
Speaker 1: with him a wardrobe of old clothes so that he

314
00:16:33,240 --> 00:16:36,320
Speaker 1: could disappear into the crowd on a moment's notice. In

315
00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:39,760
Speaker 1: New York hotels, discovered that wealthy guests who usually leased

316
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:42,360
Speaker 1: suits for the winter, were holding up in their country homes.

317
00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:46,000
Speaker 1: Some had mounted machine guns on their roofs. Manchester goes

318
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:48,000
Speaker 1: on to say that the paranoid elites were not really

319
00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:51,520
Speaker 1: so paranoid. The evidence strongly suggests. He writes that had

320
00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:54,520
Speaker 1: Roosevelt in fact been another Hoover, the United States would

321
00:16:54,520 --> 00:16:57,320
Speaker 1: have followed seven Latin American countries whose governments had been

322
00:16:57,360 --> 00:17:01,320
Speaker 1: overthrown by depression victims. So there is revolution in the air,

323
00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:03,600
Speaker 1: and it scares the funk out of these people there

324
00:17:03,640 --> 00:17:07,680
Speaker 1: bolton machine guns to their country houses, you know. Um.

325
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:10,760
Speaker 1: So the fears of this particular group of rich white

326
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:13,280
Speaker 1: dudes were further confirmed by the fact that left wing

327
00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:16,320
Speaker 1: writers and intellectuals were louder than ever in their anticipation

328
00:17:16,320 --> 00:17:19,720
Speaker 1: of a coming communist revolution. Things were, from the outside,

329
00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:22,440
Speaker 1: at least, looking pretty good in Soviet Russia, compared to

330
00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:24,640
Speaker 1: at least the reality that a lot of Americans knew.

331
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:28,400
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty two, the socialist presidential candidate we used

332
00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:34,600
Speaker 1: to have socialist presidential candidates tripled his share of the

333
00:17:34,680 --> 00:17:38,920
Speaker 1: vote from the nine election. Um, and uh, yes, so

334
00:17:38,920 --> 00:17:41,320
Speaker 1: socialism is actually doing starting to do pretty well in

335
00:17:41,359 --> 00:17:44,840
Speaker 1: American politics. Socialism was mainstream in a way that seems

336
00:17:44,840 --> 00:17:49,320
Speaker 1: impossible now. One example of how mainstream it was, Governor

337
00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:52,760
Speaker 1: Floyd Olson of Minnesota announced that he would not take

338
00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:55,800
Speaker 1: any recruit for the National Guard, who quote doesn't carry

339
00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:59,280
Speaker 1: a red card, because he said, Minnesota is a left

340
00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:04,520
Speaker 1: wing state. Like, I'm communists in the army. I'm the

341
00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:13,800
Speaker 1: governor of Minnesota. What world is this? Okay? Yeah? So yeah, Obviously,

342
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:15,640
Speaker 1: if you've got a left wing governor of an entire

343
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:18,760
Speaker 1: state saying Minnesota is socialist and we're raising an army,

344
00:18:18,960 --> 00:18:25,440
Speaker 1: a lot of capitalists are going to get freaked out. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah.

345
00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:30,280
Speaker 1: The right wing governor of Kansas, Alf Landon declared that quote,

346
00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:33,600
Speaker 1: the iron hand of a national dictator is in preference

347
00:18:33,600 --> 00:18:36,800
Speaker 1: to a paralytic stroke. So the right is saying we

348
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:39,080
Speaker 1: need a dictator, and the left is saying we need

349
00:18:39,119 --> 00:18:42,960
Speaker 1: an army. Um. You might recognize this as kind of

350
00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:45,320
Speaker 1: identical in rhetoric to both what we were hearing in

351
00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:48,320
Speaker 1: Portugal and Spain before those countries had couz Right, Portugal

352
00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:51,760
Speaker 1: saying like an iron chancellor. Yeah, he's saying, maybe the

353
00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:54,840
Speaker 1: iron hand of a dictator, you know, yeah, same rhetoric.

354
00:18:55,560 --> 00:18:58,960
Speaker 1: Republicans were surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, willing to

355
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:04,080
Speaker 1: endorse outright fascism over socialism. Senator David Reid of Pennsylvania,

356
00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:07,720
Speaker 1: a Republican, stated, if this country ever needed a Mussolini,

357
00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:10,320
Speaker 1: it needs one now. Wait wait, wait, you let that

358
00:19:10,320 --> 00:19:14,080
Speaker 1: come about your mouth. He let that come out of

359
00:19:14,080 --> 00:19:17,840
Speaker 1: his mouth. Okay, okay, you are not you are not thinking.

360
00:19:17,880 --> 00:19:21,440
Speaker 1: You're not thinking a long game, big homie. Okay, long game.

361
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:24,439
Speaker 1: Things turn out kind of upside down for Mussolini. But

362
00:19:24,520 --> 00:19:28,400
Speaker 1: that's a story for another day. So in saying this,

363
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,320
Speaker 1: Senator Reid was tapping into what was at that point

364
00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:35,639
Speaker 1: more or less an American meme, a surprising love of Mussolini.

365
00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:39,879
Speaker 1: Benito Mussolini was huge in America in this period. This

366
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:43,000
Speaker 1: is like the twenties and thirties. People did not know that.

367
00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:45,760
Speaker 1: So I did not know because I spent so you know,

368
00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:49,879
Speaker 1: obviously during this time, I'm I'm in Harlem. Yeah. My

369
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:52,679
Speaker 1: whole history is what's happening with black people right now?

370
00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:54,280
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. So I never even thought

371
00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:59,440
Speaker 1: about my lord, Like there was Mussolini standing yeah, okay, yeah,

372
00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:01,280
Speaker 1: that's what's half sting with white people at the time.

373
00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:09,399
Speaker 1: They're getting real jazz. You here have been jazz. Mussolini

374
00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:11,919
Speaker 1: kind of fly man. That guy. Look at the way

375
00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:18,119
Speaker 1: he wears boots. So. Historian John P. Diggins argues that

376
00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:20,760
Speaker 1: a large number of American journalists in the twenties and

377
00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:24,080
Speaker 1: thirties supported Italy's fascist regime from the March on Rome

378
00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:26,440
Speaker 1: out up to the outbreak of Italy's invasion at the

379
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:29,520
Speaker 1: Ethiopia in ninety five. That's kind of what like stops

380
00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:34,640
Speaker 1: the Mussolini uh honeymoon period when he gasses a bunch

381
00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:38,399
Speaker 1: of people to death. Um, But up until that point,

382
00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:41,159
Speaker 1: he's really big. Diggins writes that a large number of

383
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:45,000
Speaker 1: American journalists quote succumbed to fascist propaganda and if you

384
00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:49,120
Speaker 1: actually prostituted themselves in the pay of the Italian government.

385
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:53,199
Speaker 1: So Mussolini spends a lot of money, um, trying to

386
00:20:53,320 --> 00:20:55,960
Speaker 1: push articles and think pieces that would give fascism a

387
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:59,040
Speaker 1: positive reputation in the United States. He's bribing reporters and

388
00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:02,560
Speaker 1: editors UM to write articles that make fascism seem good.

389
00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:06,879
Speaker 1: Now History and Jeanne mcnowne uh notes that he Mussolini

390
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:10,480
Speaker 1: spent particular effort influencing quote, the financiers who needed to

391
00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:12,959
Speaker 1: be able to count on favorable future conditions for their

392
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:17,200
Speaker 1: European investments. Mussolini's favorite target and his best friends in

393
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:23,480
Speaker 1: the United States were JP Morgan and his family. You

394
00:21:23,560 --> 00:21:27,800
Speaker 1: go dropping his names, he's out of nowhere names. We're like, wait,

395
00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:30,800
Speaker 1: that guy, Like, the story just turned so weird, that

396
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:36,880
Speaker 1: JP Morgan, that JP Morgan loved fascism turns out wild.

397
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:38,680
Speaker 1: This is when I wish I had one of those

398
00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:43,920
Speaker 1: buttons so I could do that. Yeah. Now, another big

399
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:48,440
Speaker 1: Mussolini fan and his primary propaganda distributor was the Press

400
00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:52,640
Speaker 1: Syndicate run by William Randolph Hurst UM, also big fan

401
00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:56,760
Speaker 1: of fascism. So we'll talk a little bit more about

402
00:21:56,800 --> 00:21:58,040
Speaker 1: Hurst in a bit, But I want to note that

403
00:21:58,040 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: there were also some very good reporters at the time

404
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:02,159
Speaker 1: who saw what was happening, what Mussolini was doing, and

405
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:06,240
Speaker 1: who spoke out against it lucidly improperly. The Chicago Tribunes

406
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 1: George Selds was probably one of the best journalists for this.

407
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:13,880
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, far away fascism has been attacked, exposed,

408
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:16,680
Speaker 1: and denounced by the same publications which for years ran

409
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:20,040
Speaker 1: articles lauding Mussolini and his notable backers in all lands

410
00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:22,880
Speaker 1: and the Hurst Newspapers, which published from nineteen thirty four

411
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:26,200
Speaker 1: to Pearl Harbor dozens of signed propaganda articles by Dr

412
00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:29,480
Speaker 1: Gebel's Gearing and other Nazis now call them names, but

413
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:32,680
Speaker 1: no publication which takes money from certain big business elements

414
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:36,280
Speaker 1: will dare name the native or nearby fascists. In many instances,

415
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:39,640
Speaker 1: the publications themselves are part of our own fascism, and

416
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:43,880
Speaker 1: that selves is kind of recognizing. And it was one

417
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 1: of the few guys to be like, really try to

418
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:48,119
Speaker 1: drum home, drive them openly and this he wrote this

419
00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:50,440
Speaker 1: obviously after World War two started. It like, oh, yeah,

420
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 1: as soon as we're war, y'all are against Mussolini and Hitler.

421
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 1: But you let them publish fucking articles before you before

422
00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:02,720
Speaker 1: this ship happened. Come on, you ignore, yeah. Selds argued

423
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:06,320
Speaker 1: that fascism, American fascism was not just limited to lunatic

424
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:10,480
Speaker 1: fringes of society, but was influential in major economic, social,

425
00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:13,800
Speaker 1: and political circles. He asserted that there were communists in

426
00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 1: the United States who quote organized big business in a

427
00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:19,800
Speaker 1: movement against labor, signed a pact with Nazi agents for

428
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,439
Speaker 1: political and economic penetration of the US, founded a million

429
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: dollar a year propaganda outfit to corrupt the press, radio schools,

430
00:23:26,520 --> 00:23:28,800
Speaker 1: and churches, and delayed the winning of the war through

431
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 1: the acts of dollar a year men looking out for

432
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:33,560
Speaker 1: present profits and future monopoly rather than for the quick

433
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 1: defeat of fascism. And there's a lot of these guys.

434
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:41,639
Speaker 1: And like, when you're looking at American corporations who directly

435
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 1: with their money supported fascism and funded fascist propaganda. You're

436
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:49,640
Speaker 1: talking General Motors, you're talking the DuPont Corporation, and you're

437
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: talking Readers Digest who were weigh ins in fascism. God

438
00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 1: dog man, It's like, yeah, there's no ending, bro, there's

439
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 1: just no Wow. We don't talk about the time Reader's

440
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 1: Digest was whole hog for Mussolini. Yeah, like again, yeah,

441
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,440
Speaker 1: that's number three. The name you never thought you'd get.

442
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 1: When the last time you said, will you because you

443
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 1: when the last time any of y'all said the word

444
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 1: reader's digen. I've been published in them and I don't

445
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: think about them. Roberts, what that's funny? Yeah, but you

446
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:32,360
Speaker 1: know who won't fund a fascist propaganda campaign to convince

447
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 1: financiers that Benito Mussolini has the right idea? Pick me,

448
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 1: pick me, pick me. I know the answer to the

449
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:38,880
Speaker 1: answer and the answer who who is it? Who won't

450
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 1: do that? Sophie, the Fine Products and Services that sponsor

451
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 1: this podcast nailed it, nail We're back, and God almighty,

452
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:55,400
Speaker 1: I know that JP Morgan. The bank does advert throw

453
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: in random adds sometimes, and I kind of hope one

454
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:03,919
Speaker 1: came in and between as we're talking about incredible. Uh,

455
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: it's very funny, Um, very funny. So uh, this is

456
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:11,679
Speaker 1: all all of this stuff that we're talking about, is

457
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 1: what's cooking off in the background when a funkload of

458
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: rich guys and we don't know all of the folks

459
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: involved or who they were. We'll talk about why near

460
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: the end of this, but obviously some of them are

461
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: JP Morgan, like um, William Randolph Hurst is is almost

462
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: certainly a part of it. There's a good chance Henry

463
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: Ford was, but we don't know exactly who was involved.

464
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: We know some of the people though, including George H. W.

465
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 1: Bush's dad. So at any rate, this cabal of financiers

466
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: and rich guys pick a couple of patsy's to do

467
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: the grunt work because they decide, okay, you know, the

468
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 1: very wealthiest men are like, Okay, we need to find

469
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,199
Speaker 1: a way to take power, and we need to do

470
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: it stealthily because Americans won't stand for an open fascist coup. Um,

471
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:54,439
Speaker 1: so we're going to need They pick a couple of

472
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: guys to kind of do the grunt work of actually

473
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: organizing this fascist coup. And the dudes they pick are

474
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,920
Speaker 1: are Gerald C. McGuire and Bob Doyle, um. And they're

475
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:08,360
Speaker 1: these guys are bond salesmen, right, their stock traders essentially, um.

476
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: And they're both veterans imaginary money again, yeah, their imaginary

477
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: money guys. Uh. And they're both members of the American Legion,

478
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,880
Speaker 1: which had been established to support veterans rights and activities.

479
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: And they're both vets, you know, um, which is not

480
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people are vets. World War

481
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 1: One's just ended. So these guys, like these rich dudes,

482
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: some of whom were had also been veterans. UM had

483
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 1: watched what had happened with the Bonus Army in d C.

484
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: They'd seen tens of thousands of veterans march on Washington

485
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: UM and obviously they hadn't supported those guys getting any

486
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: money because it would have been taxing rich people. But

487
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: they thought there was potential and having tens of thousands

488
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 1: of combat hardened men march on the capitol, and they

489
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 1: basically started saying to themselves, what if we could harness

490
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: that kind of force and put it under the control

491
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: of a guy that we control and they trust, maybe

492
00:26:56,000 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: we could overthrow the government. WHOA And Americans wouldn't be

493
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 1: because they'd say, oh, these are our vets, you know,

494
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: they're they're coming into fix things, you know. Yeah, well there,

495
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: you know, we support our troops exactly. It's a good idea,

496
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: you know, you get to overthrow. So obviously they're looking

497
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 1: at who can we who can we put in control

498
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:17,880
Speaker 1: of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of veterans

499
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 1: who will be easy for us to control, but also

500
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: who everyone respects and loves and who no one's going

501
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: to accuse of any ulterior motives. Oh my god, who

502
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: is it. Well, it's the perfect soldier of empire, the

503
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: greatest imperial warrior whoever existed, Retired General Smedley Butler. They're like,

504
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: this is the guy who can do it. And he

505
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,679
Speaker 1: and they look look at all of these all of

506
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 1: these wars that we profited from, that we got America

507
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: into to make money. He fought in and ran things.

508
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: Like he he's already done this for us. He's perfect,

509
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,919
Speaker 1: you know. Damn Yeah. So I'm gonna quote right up

510
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: by our Kia Publishing for what happens next. Yeah yeah,

511
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: they's yeah, like he's he's the obviously, he's who you

512
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 1: go with. Quote. During a first meeting with Butler, McGuire

513
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 1: and Doyle asked the Major General to speak at a

514
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 1: Legion convention in Chicago, claiming they wanted to point out

515
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 1: the various problems with the Legion's leadership. But there was

516
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:12,440
Speaker 1: at first open to this idea, knowing that the Legion

517
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 1: had several administrative issues that ultimately compromised veteran benefits. So

518
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, the Legions having a vote in convention

519
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 1: to like vote on it's its leaders. You know, we

520
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 1: are also vets and like we you know obviously you're

521
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 1: you're the guy we respect the most. Would you give

522
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: a speech about some of the problems our organization is happening?

523
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 1: And he's like, sure, you know, it seems like a

524
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: reasonable thing to do. He's always going to try to

525
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: help out soldiers when he can. Um. But then he

526
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 1: as he kind of looks through the speech that they've written,

527
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: he realizes that it says almost nothing about the American

528
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: Legion leadership and is instead entirely about the gold standard

529
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: and about how the government needs to go back to

530
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: the gold standard. Yo, I the clapper because I'm like,

531
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 1: that is a juke. That is a really good june. Yeah,

532
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:02,479
Speaker 1: that's that's that's a zag. And Smedley's like, wait a second,

533
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: what I thought you wanted me to help get the

534
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: American Legion working better? Why the funk? Do I care

535
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 1: about the gold standards? I care about that? Yeah? Yeah. Um.

536
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 1: So they were like, basically the what was that The

537
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 1: actual case here is that all of these bankers were

538
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: scared that they had gold back loans from the government

539
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 1: that weren't going to be paid back in full by

540
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: the president. Um. And you know, they also kind of

541
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: wanted to get Butler used to working for them as

542
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 1: their agents and see if they could like use them further.

543
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: It's a couple of things going on here that is

544
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 1: textbook rich guy man, very textbook rich, like just right

545
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: on the nose. And what they don't realize about Butler

546
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 1: is that he's not the perfect imperial soldier anymore. By

547
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 1: this point, he's he's become a socialist um and he

548
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: doesn't bite. Uh. He actually thought McGuire might be mentally

549
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: ill because what the guy was suggesting seems so strange

550
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: to him. And Butler's impression of McGuire didn't change over

551
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 1: the next few months, because the stockbroker keeps approaching the

552
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: old general with new requests to address the American Legion

553
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: for really incoherent reads what seems to Butler incoherent reasons, okay,

554
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 1: and so in August of nineteen thirty three, Butler and

555
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: McGuire meet again, and by this point Butler had started

556
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: to realize that McGuire was working for someone. He starts

557
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: to piece together there's a through line for all these

558
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: weird things he's asking me to do. There's gotta be

559
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 1: someone pulling the strings behind this um now, because McGuire

560
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: was the kind of guy who only valued money. He

561
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,479
Speaker 1: saw Butler's reticence and decided that, like, oh, he's not

562
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 1: suspicious because I'm asked him to do weird things. He

563
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: wants to know that I have backing. So he basically

564
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:41,880
Speaker 1: flashes a huge pile of cash and Butler's so so

565
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 1: rich guy only thinks yeah that everybody thinks like rich guys. Yeah.

566
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: Butler's like, it's really weird that you keep asking me

567
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: to make all of these bizarre political addresses to the

568
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 1: American Legion. And McGuire's like, hey, I got a hundred

569
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: grand right, Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, but what are you

570
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: talking about though? Yeah, And this actually makes Butler more

571
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: suspicious because in his mind, no honest man has access

572
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: to a hundred thousand dollars. Keep it real, but like,

573
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to like you, bro, But like, day,

574
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: that's a great answer. Was like what what? Well, he's

575
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 1: changed at this point, but there's he goes through a

576
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 1: very satisfying evolution. McGuire admits that he has a backer.

577
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 1: He says like, yeah, I work as a bond salesman

578
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: for Grayson Murphy, who's a wealthy Wall Street financier who

579
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: had also been a colonel during World War One, but

580
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 1: not like a real like his job had been coordinating

581
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: with the Red Cross. He got a rich guy job

582
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: in the army for the war, you know. Um, So

583
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: McGuire had paid a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars

584
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: to underwrite the start of the American Legion because it

585
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: starts after World War One, and he thought of it

586
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 1: as as an investment, right, like Murphy's putting the American

587
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: Legion together because he has a really rich guy is like,

588
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 1: it's probably a good idea to have an organization of

589
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: combat veterans who I can kind of direct, right, Yeah,

590
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 1: there's a plot going on here. Butler and McGuire start

591
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: talking about McGuire's backers, and McGuire admits to Butler that

592
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:09,719
Speaker 1: his boss, Grayson, is one of nine Richmond who were

593
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: trying to pay for a national convention of the American

594
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 1: Legion in d C. Now by this point, Smedley Butler

595
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: knew something very crooked was going on, and Bradley Galka

596
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: writes quote Butler did not commit to anything, but rather

597
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: waited and listen to what McGuire had to say. The

598
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: two met at the beginning of September. When asked if

599
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 1: he had begun recruiting men to go to the National Convention,

600
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: Butler said no. He told McGuire that he would not

601
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: even consider cooperating unless he was allowed to meet with

602
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: one of the principal backers of the plot. McGuire promised

603
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: to set up a meeting as soon as was possible.

604
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: Treated his word, McGuire arranged for Butler to meet with

605
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: one of the principles the following week. The man was

606
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 1: actually an acquaintance of the general. His name was Robert

607
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 1: Sterling Clark, known to Butler as the Millionaire Lieutenant This

608
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: is the Singer Guy. Clark had been a junior officer

609
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 1: under Butler's command in China during the Boxer Rebellion. According

610
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: to Butler, Clark had been a batty sort of queer

611
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: fellow who did all sorts of extravagant things. Tell him

612
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 1: a batty bad like like as in like how we

613
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: say that girls a batty, or like as in batta

614
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: b a t t y like this, this he's this,

615
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: you know. There he goes to war with this guy,

616
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 1: and everyone knows this kid is a millionaire and he's weird,

617
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: right like he's a rich kid, you know. He's yeah.

618
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, what do you mean by a batty?

619
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: Like and I was like, wait, you're calling him a

620
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: batty and then saying, well he does queer stuff like

621
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 1: you just called him a batty like, bro, Like just okay,

622
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: now I get it. Yeah you know so man, Yeah

623
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: that's clarify that so so so so wait so make

624
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:45,880
Speaker 1: sure I'm following along. So at this point, Smedley's antennas

625
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: are all like his spidy in angling all over the

626
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: place like some now right something. He's saying yeah, and

627
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: then he's like, and I don't trust you rich kids

628
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 1: like y'all never see no combat. You ain't no blood

629
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: on your hands. Man. You you stayed on the words

630
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 1: the whole time. He wasn't running with the wild dog,

631
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: So help me understand. And then he goes and he

632
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 1: meets what he's rich dude. He's like, I remember this kid, Yeah,

633
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: this fucking kid. Yeah yeah. And he's also he's also,

634
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 1: this is kind of the guy that Smedley's a very

635
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: intelligent man. He thinks something is fishy and he's like,

636
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:19,359
Speaker 1: I want to go up the food chain. I want

637
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 1: to follow the money up and I want to talk

638
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 1: to you. I'm want to talk to the guy. Give

639
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: any money, you know. Um. So the General meets with Clark,

640
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: this millionaire air uh, and Clark's first question was whether

641
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 1: or not Butler had read the speech that that Clark

642
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: had helped write for him, and Butler was like, he says, yes,

643
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:38,280
Speaker 1: but it looks as if it were a big business speech.

644
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: There's something funny about that speech. Mr Clark. Now, once

645
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: it was clear that Butler knew he was being used

646
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: for some purpose, even though he wasn't sure what that

647
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: purpose was, Clark drops the act. So Butler says that,

648
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 1: and Clark's like, Okay, you know something's going on. So

649
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:54,280
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna tell you the truth. And he tells

650
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: Butler this quote. You understand just how we are fixed.

651
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: I have got thirty million dollars. I do not want

652
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: to lose it. I am willing to spend half of

653
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: the thirty million to save the other half. If you

654
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:07,319
Speaker 1: go out and make this speech in Chicago, I am

655
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 1: certain that they will adopt the resolution, and that will

656
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,920
Speaker 1: be one step towards the return of gold. To have

657
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: the soldiers stand up for it. We can get the

658
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 1: soldiers to go out in great bodies to stand up

659
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: for it. And obviously gold isn't the end goal here,

660
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: but that's how they want to like start things. That's

661
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 1: they're starting it. Yeah, And and this guy admits like, look,

662
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: I am trying to use you to keep my money,

663
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: and I'm willing to spend half of my money to

664
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: keep the other half. You know. That's what's important to me,

665
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: is continuing to be a rich man. Yeah. Now in uh,

666
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: there's there's some sort of like a kind of a

667
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:43,399
Speaker 1: dark and twisted but kind of good financial advice in that,

668
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 1: like I'll spend half of it is if it's gonna

669
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: make my other half double. Yeah, it's like he said,

670
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,799
Speaker 1: he's also saying like I'm I'm afraid that the decisions

671
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: being made by this government will reduce my class it all. Yeah, Yeah,

672
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 1: that that's what I'm saying. Like this is like dark,

673
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: like okay, this is this is why they wealthy. It's like, well,

674
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: I'm not just sitting on this stuff and I'm not

675
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 1: willing to burn at all, but I'll spend on what's

676
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:14,360
Speaker 1: gonna protect the other half and increased the other half.

677
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It's how rich guys think,

678
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 1: you know, it's how rich guys think. Point. This enrages

679
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: Butler when when he said, like, Butler is kind of

680
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: barely able to keep himself from just like flipping out

681
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: at this guy. Because Butler he had been obviously an

682
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 1: Imperial soldier, but his entire career, his focus, the thing

683
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:33,799
Speaker 1: that kept him going was the well being of the

684
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 1: soldiers under his command. Right, he had risked his life

685
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 1: repeatedly and been wounded to protect them in under his command.

686
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: And this rich guy is saying, I want to use

687
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 1: your fellow soldiers for my own to keep my money.

688
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: And Butler's like fuck that and fuck you, like you know,

689
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: at this point, yeah, we're done. Yeah. Now, at this point,

690
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 1: Smedley didn't quite realize that his entire career up to

691
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: that point had been doing the same thing in other countries. Right,

692
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 1: had been like risking the lives of his men to

693
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 1: protect the money of rich people. He doesn't quite get

694
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 1: that yet, but he sees that what he he understands

695
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: what this guy is trying to do now, right, Um,

696
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: So he gets angry and he tells the millionaire how

697
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: he feels I took an oath to sustain democracy, and

698
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: that is what I'm going to do and nothing else.

699
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: I Am not going to get these soldiers marching around

700
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: and stirred up over the gold standard. What the hell

701
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 1: does a soldier know about the gold standard? Um? Damn.

702
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 1: Different when it's direct, man, when you see it like

703
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:36,080
Speaker 1: rather than like at a systemic or like a you know, ah,

704
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:40,839
Speaker 1: indirect way like you said, like ultimately you know you're

705
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 1: at least in our most recent wars, you just went

706
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: to protect somebody's money and to hold up a crooked regime,

707
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But if somebody couldn't. But

708
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 1: if like if your general stood up to you and

709
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:58,880
Speaker 1: just said, hey homie, uh, this place got oil, so

710
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:01,359
Speaker 1: we need to kill these people to get it, like

711
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: you would be like nothing to do that. You know

712
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I'm not gonna do that. What are

713
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 1: you're talking about? You know what I'm saying. But like

714
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:09,319
Speaker 1: when it's in your face the way it was with him,

715
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 1: He's like, no, listen, here's the thing. I'm rich and

716
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: I'm might lose it, so I need you to go

717
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 1: get my money. Yeah. And this is this is a

718
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: bit of a spoiler, this it being this direct for

719
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:28,400
Speaker 1: him is what helps him realize what the rest of

720
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 1: his career had been. Like this really is. We're not

721
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: quite there yet, okay, McGuire. Like, Butler's like, I am

722
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 1: not going to do this thing for you. I'm not

723
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 1: gonna go fucking put my neck on the line for

724
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:44,399
Speaker 1: the gold standard. And McGuire's like, all right, all right,

725
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 1: and he's like, can I use your phone? And while

726
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:50,479
Speaker 1: Butler listens, McGuire gets on the phone in Butler's house

727
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 1: or not McGuire. Uh. Sterling gets on the phone in

728
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:56,479
Speaker 1: Butler's house and he calls McGuire the guy who would

729
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: was his gopher um and tells him that Butler's not

730
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 1: coming to the American Legion convention. And Sterling tells McGuire

731
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: to use forty five thou dollars that he'd given him

732
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 1: to flood the convention hall with telegrams urging a return

733
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 1: to the gold standard. And that's exactly what happens at

734
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: the convention. The telegrams flow in and the result solution

735
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: is passed, condemning like the move away from the gold standard,

736
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 1: And you know, Sterling kind of does this to show

737
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:22,359
Speaker 1: off to Butler, like, Okay, well if you're not going

738
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 1: to do this. Let me show you what I can accomplish.

739
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 1: I can just pay forty five grand to get fucking

740
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:30,719
Speaker 1: flyers put up and like will flood them with propaganda

741
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: and make it happen. And Butler takes this as the

742
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: lesson that it is right, that these are powerful men,

743
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 1: and this is like they do have the ability to

744
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:43,479
Speaker 1: to make this ship happen. UM. So for a little while,

745
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: that's kind of all it is. It's this weird thing

746
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 1: over the gold Standard, and Butler it feels off to him,

747
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: but he doesn't think much more about it until the

748
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: next year, August of nineteen thirty four, when Gerald McGuire

749
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 1: comes up to his house again and he and Butler

750
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:00,359
Speaker 1: meet and McGuire tells the general quote the him has

751
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,279
Speaker 1: come to get the soldiers together, and McGuire, who's a

752
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:05,879
Speaker 1: veteran himself, is referencing the Bonus Army. He's basically coming

753
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 1: up and being like, hey, you know, the things are

754
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 1: still hard for veterans. Why don't you and I work

755
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 1: out something where we can get another group of soldiers

756
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: together and maybe march them on Washington UM. And Butler's

757
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: like willing to have this conversation. Right, he's not willing

758
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 1: to do the gold standard thing, but like, oh, you're

759
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: talking about getting people together because veterans need some money. Absolutely,

760
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: that's my whole thing. Yeah, But then the conversation turns.

761
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:31,879
Speaker 1: McGuire tells Butler that he'd just gotten back from an

762
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,239
Speaker 1: overseas trip and it was on It wasn't a vacation,

763
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: but his wealthy backers were paying him to go scouting.

764
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,240
Speaker 1: And this is what McGuire says, quote. I went abroad

765
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: to study the part that the veteran plays and the

766
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 1: various setups of the governments that they have abroad. I

767
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:47,720
Speaker 1: went to Italy for two or three months and studied

768
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: the position that the veterans of Italy occupy and the

769
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:52,799
Speaker 1: fascist setup of government, and I discovered that they are

770
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: the background of Mussolini. They keep them on the payrolls

771
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 1: in various ways and keep them contented and happy, and

772
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 1: they're his real backbone, the force on which he may

773
00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 1: depend in case of trouble to sustain him. But that

774
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:05,280
Speaker 1: set up would not suit us at all. The soldiers

775
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: of America would not like that. I then went to

776
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:09,799
Speaker 1: Germany to see what Hitler was doing and his whole

777
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:12,839
Speaker 1: strength lies in organizations of soldiers too, but that would

778
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: not do. I looked into the Russian business. I found

779
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: the use of soldiers over there would never appeal to

780
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 1: our men. Then I went to France and I found

781
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: just exactly the sort of organization we are going to have.

782
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: It is an organization of super soldiers. And what he's

783
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: talking about, you remember the cross of Fire that we

784
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: talked about last episode in France, that French veterans organization.

785
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 1: You've got five officers, a thousand officers and n c

786
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:39,719
Speaker 1: o s and they control the votes of five million men,

787
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:42,239
Speaker 1: and they're very, very far right right, and they have

788
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: a role in the insurrection that happens over in France,

789
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: which has just happened at this point. So these rich

790
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,360
Speaker 1: guys watch what happens in France and almost succeeds and

791
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,280
Speaker 1: are like, oh, you know, that's that's not a bad idea.

792
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: Why don't we set up a veterans organization like that? Yeah,

793
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: So that's what McGuire fires like. We need to build

794
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 1: the same thing that they have in France, because if

795
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: we can get five million votes or so, like a

796
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 1: coalition of five million votes, we can win any election.

797
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:10,800
Speaker 1: We want we can get rid of, you know, Roosevelt,

798
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,359
Speaker 1: or we can march them on the capitol, you know,

799
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: if we have half a million soldiers. So Butler said, alright, like,

800
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not against this idea. If you want

801
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:23,359
Speaker 1: to organize a bunch of veterans to to to make

802
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: political changes, act as a voting block, that makes sense

803
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 1: to me because I care about veterans issues. Um, but

804
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:31,480
Speaker 1: what do you want to use them for? Right? Why

805
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: are you why are we building this because he's still

806
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:36,720
Speaker 1: suspicious of this guy over the Golden State doing yeah,

807
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:38,800
Speaker 1: And McGuire shares them, like, no, they're going to support

808
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: the president. That's what we want them to do, is

809
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 1: to kind of support the president and his efforts to

810
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: fix the economy. And Butler points out when McGuire says this,

811
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:48,760
Speaker 1: Butler points out that like, well, in all these speeches

812
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 1: you wanted me to give earlier, you would have me.

813
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: You wanted me to oppose all of FDR's policies. So

814
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: why are you trying to make a veterans organization to

815
00:42:56,400 --> 00:43:00,719
Speaker 1: support FDR now? And McGuire responds, don't you understand that

816
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 1: the setup has got to be changed a bit? Now?

817
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 1: We have got him. We have got the president. He

818
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: has got to have more money. There's not any more

819
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 1: money to give him. Eight percent of the money now

820
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: is in government bonds. And he cannot keep this racket

821
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 1: up much longer. He has got to do something about it.

822
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 1: He has either got to get more money out of

823
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 1: us or he has got to change the method of

824
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: financing the government. And we are going to see to

825
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:22,359
Speaker 1: it that he does not change that method. He will

826
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:24,799
Speaker 1: not change it. They're worried about him, like going into

827
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:28,240
Speaker 1: debt and devaluing the dollar and stuff. Um. So, Butler

828
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:31,319
Speaker 1: sees where this is going, and he asks McGuire straight up,

829
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:33,759
Speaker 1: the idea of this great group of soldiers then is

830
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: to sort of frighten him, is it. McGuire lying said

831
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 1: that no, they don't want to scare FDR. They just

832
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:42,760
Speaker 1: want to support him. And then he introduces a new idea.

833
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 1: He tells Butler, you know, the president's overworked, and he's

834
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: he's an old man, he's not healthy. Wouldn't it be

835
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: nice if we could give FDR an assistant president. We

836
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: can use this big armed group of veterans to convince

837
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 1: the president to create a new cabinet position. Secretary of

838
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,359
Speaker 1: General Affairs, and this person will do all of the

839
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: actual work of the president, and he'll institute policies that

840
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 1: my rich backers nowhere going to fix things for the

841
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:10,919
Speaker 1: American people. F DR will still be president, but he'll

842
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: just be ceremonial and will be controlling things. And this

843
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: big armed group of veterans will make sure that everybody

844
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:24,320
Speaker 1: plays that right up under our noses. Bro So McGuire

845
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 1: tells Butler that this is all necessary because the president

846
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: is sick, and even if it's not true that he's

847
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 1: unable to do the job anymore, the American people will

848
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: believe them if they say he's sick, because quote, we

849
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: have got the newspapers. He's talking about the fact that

850
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: William Randolph Hurst is one of the guys involved in

851
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:44,959
Speaker 1: this plot. Like whatever, whatever we need the American people

852
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,360
Speaker 1: to believe, they'll believe because we control the newspapers. So

853
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: all we need to do is organize this body of men. So,

854
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: in suggesting this, McGuire's rich backers were looking to treat

855
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: FDR kind of the same way Mussolini treated the King

856
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: of Italy or Hitler treated Hindenburg. In his last of course,

857
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 1: McGuire didn't point this out to Butler, but he asked,

858
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 1: would you be interesting and heading up this super organization

859
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: of veterans that we're going to use to take power.

860
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,240
Speaker 1: So he's all on the table now, like we're going

861
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: to take over the government. We're going to do it

862
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: in a way that's not obvious. We're going to use

863
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:17,919
Speaker 1: the newspapers to make sure people don't know that we've

864
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 1: just stopped FDR from having any power, and we're if

865
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 1: things are going to be run by the rich um

866
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: and but so he's like, do you want to be

867
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: the guy who leads this army of veterans into the

868
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: capital to demand these things? And Butler response, I'm interested

869
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: in it. I'm interested in this veterans organization, but I

870
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 1: don't know about heading it. I am very greatly interested

871
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 1: in it, because you know, my interest, my one hobby

872
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: is maintaining a democracy. If you get these five thousand

873
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,879
Speaker 1: soldiers advocating anything smelling a fascism, I'm going to get

874
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 1: five thousand more and lick the hell out of you

875
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,960
Speaker 1: and we'll have a real war right at home. He's

876
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: a direct man. Yeah, I love it. He's like, look

877
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 1: made mean wars I fought. Do you think I'm scared

878
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 1: of you? Like yeah, Like and this like if you

879
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:04,799
Speaker 1: do this and I think you're trying to create a

880
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 1: fascist state, I'll raise an army and I'll win. Like

881
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: you don't know about actual war vet like I actually

882
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:15,240
Speaker 1: know the veterans. Yeah. Yeah, So this makes McGuire backpedal

883
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 1: a little bit. He's realized he's maybe like gone, he

884
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 1: was maybe a little bit too open about what they

885
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:21,600
Speaker 1: were planning to do. And he insists like, we're not

886
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:23,760
Speaker 1: trying to overthrow. We just want to support the president.

887
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 1: We're not trying to take power. We want to support him.

888
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:28,760
Speaker 1: And Butler says, well, if that's the case, you're gonna

889
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:30,319
Speaker 1: need a lot of money, right, This is not going

890
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 1: to be a cheap thing to do. And McGuire is like, well,

891
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: we've got three million dollars on hand, you know, and

892
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:37,319
Speaker 1: problem money and a problem we get access to three

893
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,880
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars if necessary. And so Butler again it's like,

894
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:43,320
Speaker 1: who in the funk is putting up this money? Honest,

895
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:47,640
Speaker 1: men don't have three million dollars to throw around, And

896
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:49,760
Speaker 1: so he's like, where are you getting all of this money?

897
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 1: And I know, it's not just Clark Um or Sterling,

898
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: the guy that I had met earlier. And McGuire says,

899
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 1: you know how Clark told you he would spend half

900
00:46:57,200 --> 00:46:59,879
Speaker 1: of his uh fortune to save the other half. Well,

901
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other rich guys who feel the

902
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: same way, right, Prescott Bush and JP Morgan and all

903
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: these all these other dudes feel the same way. So

904
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 1: Smedley Butler meant what he said. He was absolutely committed

905
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 1: to American democracy and he never actually considered helping. But

906
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:16,840
Speaker 1: he knew the danger of what he was hearing and

907
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: he wanted to be able to expose it, and to

908
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: do that he was going to need a corroborating witness.

909
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 1: So his goal now too becomes, I need someone else

910
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: credible to be witnessed to the whole plans that we

911
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: can go testify to Congress just in case, Dude, Smith dog,

912
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 1: This dude's antenna's are like they are a tuned because

913
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 1: to be like you can't just be like f you

914
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:40,800
Speaker 1: and storm the room because these people don't need you.

915
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: Don't find somebody else, you know what I'm saying. And

916
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:47,919
Speaker 1: it's like the understanding that like just that power play

917
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: when you in a role with people that wealthy, they

918
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 1: always feel like they in charge. But that but that

919
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: power is given to them. If you don't, if you'll

920
00:47:56,719 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 1: give a shit about their money, you know what I'm saying,

921
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 1: then the power don't matter, you know what I'm saying.

922
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:05,120
Speaker 1: Then you realize really what's happening here. It's like, oh wait,

923
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:07,839
Speaker 1: y'all got all this money and you still need this

924
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: meeting with me. So there's some you know what I'm saying.

925
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: So like he had his antenna's enough to be like,

926
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: I need to make sure because it's not like these

927
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 1: people can't put me away. I need somebody over here

928
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: to watch all this happening because they wield in all

929
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 1: his power and I am you know what I'm saying,

930
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:24,400
Speaker 1: Like right now, I'm in their good graces right now,

931
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 1: They're still hungry for me. So let me make sure

932
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 1: I'm playing his antenna's are art? I love it? Yeah?

933
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 1: You know he's he's thinking, he's thinking, and he's thinking

934
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 1: that right up by Arcadia Publishing again for What Happens Next.

935
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: Having previously worked as the police captain of Philadelphia, Butler

936
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 1: reached out to a Philadelphia record writer, Paul come Lely, French,

937
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: who agreed to meet with McGuire as well. During this meeting,

938
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 1: McGuire told French that he believed a fascist state was

939
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: the only answer for America and that Smedley was the

940
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: ideal leader because he could organize a million men overnight.

941
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 1: So French, the very skilled journalist, comes in and kind

942
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: of on the guys of like, yeah, you want the

943
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: press on your side, let's talk about what you're trying

944
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: to do. And he's like, French is clearly a good

945
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:09,319
Speaker 1: interview and gets mugguire to admit, like, yeah, I want

946
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:10,880
Speaker 1: to We want to make a fascist state. It's the

947
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 1: only way forward for America, and Butler's the best guy

948
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 1: to do it. So French takes detailed notes after all

949
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 1: of these meetings, he would later tell Congress. Quote, during

950
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: the course of the conversation, he continually discussed the need

951
00:49:24,840 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: of a man on a white horse, as he called it,

952
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:29,759
Speaker 1: a dictator who would come galloping in on his white horse.

953
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 1: He said that was the only way, either through the

954
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 1: threat of armed force or the delegation of power and

955
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,320
Speaker 1: the use of a group of organized veterans to save

956
00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:43,480
Speaker 1: the capitalistic system. Speaking of capitalistic systems, Speaking of capitalism.

957
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 1: You know who won't inside a fascist revolution. I mean

958
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:55,200
Speaker 1: hopefully hopefully fingers crossed. I have something to tell you

959
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:57,440
Speaker 1: at this ad break that just broken the news, But

960
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 1: I guess I'll tell you now. Jeff I saw just

961
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:04,560
Speaker 1: stepped down at CEO of Amazon. What the funk is happening?

962
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:09,279
Speaker 1: He's transitioning to an executive chair role. Something's about to

963
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:13,759
Speaker 1: go down. Yes, I have some theories. That's big. Take

964
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:17,239
Speaker 1: this break. Take yeah, yeah, yeah, we're We're all what

965
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: are your theories? Something's fucking happening. So here's my theories.

966
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: I think there was two things going on here. I

967
00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 1: think uh one is He's like, I would like the

968
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: money without the headache, So let me just let somebody

969
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:34,920
Speaker 1: else had a headache, says All. Says this is from

970
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:39,359
Speaker 1: obviously the Washington Post because he hounds it. Baviss will

971
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:41,719
Speaker 1: step down from the role after founding the company more

972
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 1: than twenty years ago. I'll sharing a new era for

973
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 1: the e commerce merchant giant currently current Amazon Web Services

974
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: chief and Jassy will take on the mantel of CEO.

975
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,959
Speaker 1: I don't like our words mantel first of all. Yeah, yeah,

976
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: but I think the money from the like from the

977
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 1: from the web support platform services is now outpacing the products,

978
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:08,399
Speaker 1: so they like, we need to move that way. Number

979
00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 1: one and number two. I'm positive they're gonna break the

980
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 1: company up. They're gonna break this up because it's yeah,

981
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:19,919
Speaker 1: and he's like, I better get out now. They're gonna

982
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:24,400
Speaker 1: break this ship up. I really hear. Um, Yeah, it

983
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 1: should be broken up. It's too much of a business.

984
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: You can't be the grocery store and the groceries. Yeah.

985
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: I think he just wants to go off into the

986
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: moon and just spend the rest of this. You want

987
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:41,759
Speaker 1: to be no one. I want all the money without

988
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:45,400
Speaker 1: the headache. No reasonable person would be worth a hundred

989
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,399
Speaker 1: billion plus dollars and want to keep doing a job.

990
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 1: Why do you keep working? Yeah, go filling the island

991
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:55,800
Speaker 1: with I don't know, no more, no more guys with

992
00:51:55,880 --> 00:52:00,839
Speaker 1: the islands. I always do, yes, But what have to say? Yeah,

993
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:02,800
Speaker 1: it's like, you don't take a hundred million dollars to

994
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 1: keep working? He said, He'll he'll never spend this You

995
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 1: will never spend this money. It's the only billion who's

996
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 1: ever made sense to me. Is one of the Google

997
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:13,759
Speaker 1: founders who like spent hundreds of millions of dollars making

998
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 1: a house blimp and it's like, yeah, that's rad. Like, yeah,

999
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:21,839
Speaker 1: I'm gonna live in a blimp like I can never

1000
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 1: you can't even give it away. There's not enough there's

1001
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: not enough hours in the day. You know, you're not

1002
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 1: gonna live enough years to spend this. Yeah you couldn't. Yeah. Uh,

1003
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:43,360
Speaker 1: all right, we're back. Uh what a great what a

1004
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:48,279
Speaker 1: great time. So uh we're talking about Yeah, this guy

1005
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:51,239
Speaker 1: Butler brings in this journalist French who gets who gets

1006
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:53,880
Speaker 1: these guys to throw down some dirt right and admit

1007
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 1: what they're actually looking to do? Yeah? Um now in

1008
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 1: his right up on the business plot, Bradley Galka notes quote.

1009
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 1: McGuire also discussed this group's intended solution to the national

1010
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:08,800
Speaker 1: employment crisis. He said they were inspired by Adolf Hitler's

1011
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: policies in Europe that the solution would be the institution

1012
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:15,040
Speaker 1: of labor camps and barrys in America to mobilize the unemployed.

1013
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:18,840
Speaker 1: You said, you said it out loud. You're not say

1014
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:20,920
Speaker 1: that out loud. Bro, This hed the guy has some

1015
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,880
Speaker 1: good ideas. I'm just saying, like we could save you.

1016
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:29,840
Speaker 1: Hear me, hear me? Out. We could save capitalism. We

1017
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:31,719
Speaker 1: could save cap What if we put the par in

1018
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:35,399
Speaker 1: camps and make them work for us. They're not doing

1019
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 1: anything right. They're not doing anything right. Shouldn't be voting.

1020
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 1: They've just gotta vote to take our money. But I'm

1021
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 1: in camps. Uh. Such an initiative, McGuire insisted, would solve

1022
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:47,799
Speaker 1: the problem overnight. He also revealed that the Plotters would

1023
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 1: force all suspected radicals across the country to register their

1024
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:53,960
Speaker 1: movements with the government. That way, said McGuire, the new

1025
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:56,839
Speaker 1: regime could stop a lot of these communist agitators who

1026
00:53:56,880 --> 00:54:00,120
Speaker 1: were running around the country. McGuire ended by insisting at

1027
00:54:00,120 --> 00:54:02,800
Speaker 1: another economic crash was inevitable and would come when bonds

1028
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 1: reached five percent interest. When that time comes, he said,

1029
00:54:05,840 --> 00:54:09,920
Speaker 1: the soldiers must prepare to save the nation. Now. It's

1030
00:54:09,960 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: worth reiterating two important takeaways from McGuire's interactions with Butler

1031
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:16,759
Speaker 1: and French. First, during McGuire's meeting with Butler at the

1032
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: Bellevue Hotel in Philadelphia, McGuire claimed that he and the

1033
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:22,719
Speaker 1: Plotters have got the newspapers. He told Butler that whatever

1034
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 1: cover story his boss has decided to put in the papers,

1035
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:27,759
Speaker 1: would be accepted by the dumb American people who would

1036
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:31,040
Speaker 1: fall for it. In a second, damn it not wrong,

1037
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:33,960
Speaker 1: not wrong, not wrong, and is right up. This is

1038
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 1: very good, it's and it's free. So I really recommend

1039
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 1: it for folks. Now. At this point, Butler decided he

1040
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:43,279
Speaker 1: had enough information to go to Congress. November four, he

1041
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 1: appeared before the Special Committee on Unamerican Activities. Before the

1042
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:50,280
Speaker 1: Committee and its lawyers General, Butler laid out the details

1043
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:53,640
Speaker 1: of the whole sordid scheme, providing Congress with French is

1044
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:56,600
Speaker 1: corroboration and the detailed notes that he himself had taken

1045
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,400
Speaker 1: of every conversation. He swore under oath that this was

1046
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 1: all true and that a cabal of bankers and industrial

1047
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:05,839
Speaker 1: magnates were plotting to overthrow American democracy. So he goes

1048
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 1: to Congress and he puts it all out on the line,

1049
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:11,640
Speaker 1: and the story hits the news media. Soon after, The

1050
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,320
Speaker 1: New York Post, which at this time is a liberal newspaper,

1051
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:17,440
Speaker 1: publishes the first report, which is written by French himself.

1052
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:20,879
Speaker 1: It outlines the details of the plot accurately. The Post

1053
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:23,920
Speaker 1: also publishes a second, shorter piece which provides the accused

1054
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:27,000
Speaker 1: plotters with an opportunity to give their denials. Now. The

1055
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:30,320
Speaker 1: Post coverage here was both responsible and vital, but McGuire

1056
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 1: had not been lying when he said that his secret

1057
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:36,200
Speaker 1: backers controlled much of America's print media. A second wave

1058
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:40,720
Speaker 1: of coverage bursts from conservative Hearst owned newspapers. These papers

1059
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: tended to provide only the barest details of the actual

1060
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:45,920
Speaker 1: plot and spend most of their time publishing denials by

1061
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:49,959
Speaker 1: the accused magnates. One popular columnist, Arthur Brisbane, who worked

1062
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:53,800
Speaker 1: for the Hearst owned San Francisco Examiner, suggested that somebody

1063
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 1: may have been deceiving General Butler. He portrayed the business

1064
00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:59,439
Speaker 1: plot as more or less a practical joke, and wrote

1065
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:02,800
Speaker 1: mockingly that those wicked and bad and outrageous Wall Street

1066
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 1: men were the ones who actually had the most to

1067
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:11,919
Speaker 1: fear from a fascist dictatorship. Yeah. Flim flam boy, Yeah,

1068
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 1: flim flam Yeah. Look at this dumb General. He just

1069
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 1: he just he got took in by a practical joke.

1070
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 1: You know, listen, he doesn't understand, you know, Doug, and

1071
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:25,800
Speaker 1: I man, I imagine even like how you stand in

1072
00:56:25,840 --> 00:56:30,880
Speaker 1: front of Congress and like this, I don't know, like

1073
00:56:31,040 --> 00:56:33,520
Speaker 1: if you have this this like sinking feeling when you're

1074
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:35,640
Speaker 1: trying to say something that you know is true and

1075
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:38,040
Speaker 1: you're positive to people in front of you don't believe you,

1076
00:56:38,560 --> 00:56:42,839
Speaker 1: and you're like, uh, damn, this ain't gonna I'm stuck,

1077
00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:45,240
Speaker 1: ain't I You know what I'm saying? Like, I wonder

1078
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:47,719
Speaker 1: if I don't know why? As he was talking, that

1079
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 1: was like the moment I pictured when he's like he

1080
00:56:50,280 --> 00:56:52,360
Speaker 1: went to Congress to tell them that, like he's snitching,

1081
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 1: but it's like a good type of snitch to where

1082
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, I'm trying to tell you the truth.

1083
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:59,040
Speaker 1: This is what these people are doing. Yeah, I don't know,

1084
00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 1: because it's like even coming out of his mouth, he

1085
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:05,800
Speaker 1: was probably like, do I sound crazy? I might sound crazy,

1086
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to tell you just what they're doing. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

1087
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:14,760
Speaker 1: So Adam Ox, a writer for The New York Times,

1088
00:57:15,160 --> 00:57:17,440
Speaker 1: wrote an article about the business plot, and again it's

1089
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: not just herst papers. The New York Times gets in

1090
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:23,200
Speaker 1: on this ship. He writes an article titled Credulity Unlimited,

1091
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:25,720
Speaker 1: which also mocked Butler and painted him as a crank.

1092
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 1: What can we believe? Apparently anything to judge by the

1093
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 1: number of people who lend a credulous ear to the

1094
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 1: story of General Butler's five hundred fascists and Buckram marching

1095
00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:37,560
Speaker 1: on Washington to seize the government. Details are lacking to

1096
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:40,960
Speaker 1: lend versimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. The

1097
00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:45,959
Speaker 1: whole story sounds like a gigantic hoax. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1098
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:50,920
Speaker 1: this guy's crazy, talk to him. No, this silly old

1099
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:59,240
Speaker 1: manular rich dudes, we're just saying it's fine. And there is.

1100
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,120
Speaker 1: One of the things that really does corroborate that the

1101
00:58:02,200 --> 00:58:05,400
Speaker 1: story is true is there's a massive and very organized

1102
00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 1: media campaign to discredit Butler. And it's not just journalists.

1103
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:11,840
Speaker 1: Will Rogers, the former Cowboy actor who like half of

1104
00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:14,880
Speaker 1: l A is named after Yeah, I was like wait, wait, yeah,

1105
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:17,960
Speaker 1: yeah that Will Rogers, publishes an article in the New

1106
00:58:18,080 --> 00:58:20,240
Speaker 1: York Times. He gets to write a column for The Times,

1107
00:58:20,440 --> 00:58:23,920
Speaker 1: and this article both mocks uh Smedley Butler and in

1108
00:58:24,000 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 1: the article, after making fun of Butler for being an idiot,

1109
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 1: Will Rogers volunteers to lead a fascist army in his stead.

1110
00:58:30,840 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 1: If Smedley Butler don't take that job of marching down

1111
00:58:33,080 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania at the head of Wall Streets Fighting Brigade. I

1112
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:37,640
Speaker 1: would like to get my application in. I got the

1113
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:40,240
Speaker 1: Gray Horse. It won't be such a novelty as people think.

1114
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 1: This is clearly bullshit. But if it's not, I'd lead

1115
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:48,760
Speaker 1: a fascist army on behalf of Wall. Straight Man Katie

1116
00:58:48,760 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 1: Perry tried to buy his house out here. Oh yeah,

1117
00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 1: it's a nice house. It's a very nice house. Went

1118
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:59,600
Speaker 1: on a field trip once, anyway. Yeah. New York City

1119
00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:03,240
Speaker 1: Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia called the business plot a cocktail push,

1120
00:59:03,440 --> 00:59:05,760
Speaker 1: by which he means he thought Butler had heard the

1121
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:07,680
Speaker 1: plans at a part as a joke at a party

1122
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 1: and run away with the idea. Um, that's a great you.

1123
00:59:11,160 --> 00:59:13,439
Speaker 1: The more I hear their defense, that's a great cover story,

1124
00:59:13,480 --> 00:59:16,000
Speaker 1: it's a great cover step. They were just joking. Dude,

1125
00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 1: we're just drinking. It's like the guy got to this party.

1126
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: He don't really wrong with us. He don't know how,

1127
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:23,160
Speaker 1: we don't know how you work. We're just playing around. Yeah, yeah,

1128
00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:26,080
Speaker 1: it's not it's not dumb, right, These aren't idiots. Now.

1129
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:30,520
Speaker 1: The Committee, the Congressional Committee, the House an American Activities Committee,

1130
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: continues their investigation though, and they find additional evidence of

1131
00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:36,680
Speaker 1: the plot. Concerted digging revealed that a number of the

1132
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:39,560
Speaker 1: men implicated in the plot had recently formed a conservative

1133
00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:43,560
Speaker 1: lobbying group called the American Liberty League. Its members included

1134
00:59:43,640 --> 00:59:48,000
Speaker 1: JP Morgan Jr. Irene DuPont, the CEO of General Voters,

1135
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:51,680
Speaker 1: the CEO of General Foods, and other industrial leaders controlling

1136
00:59:51,800 --> 00:59:54,760
Speaker 1: roughly forty billion dollars in assets, which in modern terms

1137
00:59:54,880 --> 00:59:58,720
Speaker 1: is three quarters of a trillion dollars um. All of

1138
00:59:58,800 --> 01:00:01,800
Speaker 1: the richest guys and that like, these are the dudes

1139
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: behind it now. This digging also turns up the fact

1140
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 1: that Prescott Bush, who was heavily involved in with the

1141
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 1: Nazi government. Right he's working with them on the Hamburg

1142
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:14,080
Speaker 1: America allions and stuff. Um that Prescott Bush, under the

1143
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:17,240
Speaker 1: proposed American fascist government would have acted as a liaison

1144
01:00:17,360 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: between the American dictatorship and the Nazi government. So George W.

1145
01:00:21,400 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 1: Bush's grandpa volunteered for the job of liaison between a

1146
01:00:25,960 --> 01:00:28,840
Speaker 1: fascist American state and the Nazis. I was like, oh,

1147
01:00:28,920 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 1: I love the Nazis. I'd be perfect at this job. Yeah,

1148
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:39,160
Speaker 1: Prescott so and then gave birth to presidents two of

1149
01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:41,520
Speaker 1: them well, his wife gave birth to presidents. Let me

1150
01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:43,920
Speaker 1: clear that up. Sorry, ladies, he didn't give birth to

1151
01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: nobody yet. Okay, he donated genetic material that led to

1152
01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:53,120
Speaker 1: two presidents, both of whom were Trash. So the committee,

1153
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:56,200
Speaker 1: after its investigation, never releases an official report on the

1154
01:00:56,240 --> 01:00:58,760
Speaker 1: business plot, but they do give a report to Congress,

1155
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:02,520
Speaker 1: and in it they say that they quote trash. Oh,

1156
01:01:02,680 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 1: it's about to get trasher before it's trash. The committee

1157
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:10,360
Speaker 1: goes to Congress and they say everything we checked out

1158
01:01:10,440 --> 01:01:13,600
Speaker 1: that Butler said, we were able to verify. They say

1159
01:01:13,640 --> 01:01:16,480
Speaker 1: that they quote had received evidence that certain persons had

1160
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 1: made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country.

1161
01:01:20,040 --> 01:01:23,560
Speaker 1: There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned,

1162
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:26,280
Speaker 1: and might have been placed in execution win and if

1163
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 1: the financial backers deemed it expedient. The names of the

1164
01:01:29,720 --> 01:01:32,600
Speaker 1: individuals involved, they said, would have to be kept secret

1165
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:35,920
Speaker 1: until they could be investigated and their complicity verified. So

1166
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:38,600
Speaker 1: they're like, we we we looked this up, and we

1167
01:01:38,680 --> 01:01:40,800
Speaker 1: found a lot of evidence that it was true, but

1168
01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:44,240
Speaker 1: we can't confirm anything yet, and we're not going to

1169
01:01:44,320 --> 01:01:46,920
Speaker 1: give the names of the individuals. We found evidence about

1170
01:01:47,280 --> 01:01:51,120
Speaker 1: because we haven't finished the investigation, right, which sounds reasonable,

1171
01:01:51,160 --> 01:01:53,440
Speaker 1: that's how it's supposed to work. But they never finished

1172
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: the investigation, oh man, after saying hey, yeah this, Yeah,

1173
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:03,520
Speaker 1: we've collaborated everything you said, Okay, cool, And we don't

1174
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:07,400
Speaker 1: know why the investigation doesn't get finished. There are some theories,

1175
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:09,480
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna quote the Washington Post from one of them.

1176
01:02:10,040 --> 01:02:12,880
Speaker 1: According to journalist John Buchanan speaking to the BBC in

1177
01:02:12,920 --> 01:02:16,360
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, this was probably because Roosevelt struck a

1178
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:18,600
Speaker 1: deal with the backers of the plot. They could avoid

1179
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:21,720
Speaker 1: treason charges and possible execution if they backed off their

1180
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:24,800
Speaker 1: opposition to the new deal. Sally Denton, an author who

1181
01:02:24,840 --> 01:02:26,800
Speaker 1: wrote a book about the business plot, thinks the press

1182
01:02:26,840 --> 01:02:29,080
Speaker 1: may have ignored the report at the urging of the government,

1183
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:31,520
Speaker 1: which didn't want the public to know how precarious things

1184
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 1: might have been. So the government that like was threatened

1185
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:37,600
Speaker 1: by this may not have wanted it to be super

1186
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:41,040
Speaker 1: public knowledge, right, just like the I don't think it's

1187
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:43,240
Speaker 1: a good idea for people to know how quickly they

1188
01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:46,640
Speaker 1: came close they came to overthrowing us. Yeah, yeah, you

1189
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:49,560
Speaker 1: shouldn't notice. Yeah, And and FDR probably sits down with

1190
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:51,680
Speaker 1: these rich guys and it's like, look, we can hang

1191
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:54,560
Speaker 1: you and it'll be ugly for everybody, Like there will

1192
01:02:54,560 --> 01:02:57,800
Speaker 1: be consequence, it will suck for me, Like listen, or

1193
01:02:57,920 --> 01:02:59,640
Speaker 1: you shut the funk up and let me do the

1194
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:02,360
Speaker 1: new you know, I love it man, the brand. Listen,

1195
01:03:02,440 --> 01:03:05,320
Speaker 1: this is a bad this is bad for everybody. Everybody loses.

1196
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:09,920
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cut your head off. But like, let's just

1197
01:03:10,440 --> 01:03:12,360
Speaker 1: I love it. Good job. A yeah, I mean it

1198
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 1: was probably I don't know. I'm not gonna say it

1199
01:03:13,800 --> 01:03:15,040
Speaker 1: was the right thing. I think it would have been

1200
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:17,880
Speaker 1: better to prosecute these guys, but totally he's in a

1201
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:20,000
Speaker 1: rough position. He does what it seems like the best

1202
01:03:20,040 --> 01:03:23,040
Speaker 1: thing to do at the time. Now, based on her research,

1203
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:26,240
Speaker 1: Sally Denton believes that hadn't Smedley Butler gone along with

1204
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:28,840
Speaker 1: the plot, it would have succeeded, and he might have

1205
01:03:28,920 --> 01:03:31,680
Speaker 1: been the only person capable of leading that fascist coup

1206
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:34,040
Speaker 1: who also would have refused to do it. It is

1207
01:03:34,120 --> 01:03:36,680
Speaker 1: hard to overstate how lucky we are that he was

1208
01:03:36,760 --> 01:03:39,680
Speaker 1: the man they went to write, like the one guy

1209
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:43,840
Speaker 1: who had that kind of respect among veterans who had

1210
01:03:43,920 --> 01:03:46,960
Speaker 1: that kind of talent. And that kind of experience, and

1211
01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:50,920
Speaker 1: also doesn't give a funk about money, right, like the

1212
01:03:51,040 --> 01:03:55,400
Speaker 1: perfect yes, the perfect combo. Yeah yeah, because he could

1213
01:03:55,480 --> 01:03:58,280
Speaker 1: if he even wanted it and and cared about money,

1214
01:03:58,760 --> 01:04:01,160
Speaker 1: He could even extort these Yeah yeah he could. And

1215
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:03,440
Speaker 1: I'm saying, they're promisingly, we'll take care of your family,

1216
01:04:03,600 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: your kids are never damn right. You're gonna take care

1217
01:04:06,160 --> 01:04:08,800
Speaker 1: of my family, Joe, say, take care of my neighbor's family,

1218
01:04:08,960 --> 01:04:11,040
Speaker 1: and to take care of my children, eight children. You're

1219
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:14,760
Speaker 1: gonna take care of us until the twenties. But he

1220
01:04:14,920 --> 01:04:18,920
Speaker 1: instead decides, the thing that I swore an oath for

1221
01:04:19,200 --> 01:04:22,640
Speaker 1: was to defend democracy, and that's what I'm going to

1222
01:04:22,800 --> 01:04:26,840
Speaker 1: fucking do. Um And for his part, the business plot

1223
01:04:26,880 --> 01:04:29,600
Speaker 1: seems to have been the final straw in Butler's radicalization.

1224
01:04:29,920 --> 01:04:33,000
Speaker 1: He realizes, after having been these rich guys trying to

1225
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:34,640
Speaker 1: use him as a pond, that that's all he'd been

1226
01:04:34,680 --> 01:04:37,080
Speaker 1: doing his entire career as a soldier. He'd been upon

1227
01:04:37,160 --> 01:04:40,200
Speaker 1: a mambage uh. In nineteen thirty six, he votes for

1228
01:04:40,240 --> 01:04:44,320
Speaker 1: the socialist presidential candidate UM. In nineteen thirty five, he

1229
01:04:44,360 --> 01:04:46,720
Speaker 1: publishes a short book based on a series of speeches

1230
01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:50,440
Speaker 1: he delivered. He starts traveling around the country delivering speeches,

1231
01:04:50,600 --> 01:04:53,320
Speaker 1: a speech titled war is a racket, and I'm going

1232
01:04:53,360 --> 01:04:55,400
Speaker 1: to read you a summary. Butler wrote of his own

1233
01:04:55,480 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 1: book that kind of explains where this goes. War is

1234
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,040
Speaker 1: a racket, always has been. It is possibly the oldest,

1235
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:05,320
Speaker 1: easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is

1236
01:05:05,360 --> 01:05:08,400
Speaker 1: the only one international in scope. It is the only

1237
01:05:08,480 --> 01:05:10,600
Speaker 1: one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and

1238
01:05:10,680 --> 01:05:14,320
Speaker 1: the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe,

1239
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:16,800
Speaker 1: as something that is not what it seems to the

1240
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:20,040
Speaker 1: majority of the people. Only a small inside group knows

1241
01:05:20,120 --> 01:05:22,440
Speaker 1: what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit

1242
01:05:22,480 --> 01:05:25,160
Speaker 1: of the very few, at the expense of the very many.

1243
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:30,200
Speaker 1: Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes. And

1244
01:05:30,280 --> 01:05:33,440
Speaker 1: he's there's a lot of good quote from Butler in general.

1245
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:37,920
Speaker 1: That is good when he say the losses are in lives,

1246
01:05:38,000 --> 01:05:42,760
Speaker 1: but the profits are in dollars. Yeah, God, yeah, God,

1247
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:47,959
Speaker 1: that's a bar and he is truly unsparing. Another quote

1248
01:05:48,160 --> 01:05:50,800
Speaker 1: is that I love our boys were sent off to

1249
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:54,200
Speaker 1: die with beautiful ideals painted in front of them. No

1250
01:05:54,320 --> 01:05:56,800
Speaker 1: one told them that dollars and cents were the real

1251
01:05:56,960 --> 01:06:01,360
Speaker 1: reason they were marching off to kill and die. Got dog, Dude,

1252
01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:04,200
Speaker 1: I have a homeboy, the musician. He's a friend, but

1253
01:06:04,280 --> 01:06:08,120
Speaker 1: he's an incredible rappers Ames Bamboo, Yeah from Filipino. Dude.

1254
01:06:08,440 --> 01:06:10,240
Speaker 1: U uh, well, he's from l A. He lives in

1255
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:13,440
Speaker 1: the Bay. His wife, Rocky Rivera both amazing artists. Uh,

1256
01:06:13,840 --> 01:06:17,720
Speaker 1: their whole label beat Rock. There all these like left

1257
01:06:17,760 --> 01:06:22,880
Speaker 1: wing guerrilla warfare like super revolutionary dudes. But he was

1258
01:06:23,640 --> 01:06:25,120
Speaker 1: he was an l A dude, got in trouble with

1259
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:28,840
Speaker 1: the law and then, you know, like any other brown kid,

1260
01:06:29,080 --> 01:06:30,920
Speaker 1: you go to the military to try to like you know,

1261
01:06:31,360 --> 01:06:34,760
Speaker 1: get out of jail and kind of the same scenario.

1262
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:38,680
Speaker 1: He came out of that so radicalized, so ready to

1263
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:43,800
Speaker 1: be like this is all bull and I would never

1264
01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:45,440
Speaker 1: send another child. You know, I'm saying. He's not at

1265
01:06:45,480 --> 01:06:47,960
Speaker 1: all a pacifist, Don't get me wrong. Like the brother

1266
01:06:48,040 --> 01:06:51,800
Speaker 1: got a collection of like ancient island weapons, let alone guns,

1267
01:06:52,120 --> 01:06:53,960
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So he ain't no pacifists.

1268
01:06:54,240 --> 01:06:59,760
Speaker 1: But he's like, I'm not dying for someone else's pockets. Yeah,

1269
01:07:00,200 --> 01:07:04,000
Speaker 1: Like yeah, this is crazy. Yeah. And and Butler, Butler

1270
01:07:04,160 --> 01:07:06,360
Speaker 1: is that Butler's not a fashion or not a not

1271
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:09,880
Speaker 1: a pacifist, and he's not anti military. He loves the military,

1272
01:07:10,120 --> 01:07:12,760
Speaker 1: he hates what it's used for, and he when he's

1273
01:07:12,760 --> 01:07:15,360
Speaker 1: delivering these speeches, he's trying to get Americans on board

1274
01:07:15,400 --> 01:07:19,400
Speaker 1: with a complete reformation of the military. Um. He believes

1275
01:07:19,440 --> 01:07:21,360
Speaker 1: that it should only ever be defensive in nature, and

1276
01:07:21,400 --> 01:07:23,720
Speaker 1: in order to make it that, he thinks the Navy

1277
01:07:23,760 --> 01:07:26,200
Speaker 1: should be limited to operating within two hundred miles of

1278
01:07:26,240 --> 01:07:29,120
Speaker 1: the coastline and the Army restricted from ever leaving the

1279
01:07:29,200 --> 01:07:34,200
Speaker 1: confines of the continental United States. Um. Yeah. Now that

1280
01:07:34,400 --> 01:07:37,520
Speaker 1: same year, Yeah, Yeah, that he's he's trying to like,

1281
01:07:37,800 --> 01:07:40,640
Speaker 1: he thinks we need a military. It just we have

1282
01:07:40,760 --> 01:07:43,000
Speaker 1: to find a way to stop bankers from being able

1283
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:48,320
Speaker 1: to use it to fight wars for profit. That's the problem. Um.

1284
01:07:49,480 --> 01:07:51,880
Speaker 1: In that same year, nineteen thirty five, Butler gives an

1285
01:07:51,920 --> 01:07:56,160
Speaker 1: interview to common Sense magazine where he tells the nation quote,

1286
01:07:56,840 --> 01:07:59,720
Speaker 1: I spent thirty three years and four months in active

1287
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:02,560
Speaker 1: terry service, and during that period, I spent most of

1288
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 1: my time as a high class muscle man for big business,

1289
01:08:05,960 --> 01:08:08,360
Speaker 1: for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was

1290
01:08:08,400 --> 01:08:13,560
Speaker 1: a racketeer. A gangster for capitalism. I remember that quote.

1291
01:08:13,800 --> 01:08:16,560
Speaker 1: Remember that quote from the Police one. Yeah, he was

1292
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:18,960
Speaker 1: just like, man, I'm just a goon. I was just

1293
01:08:19,200 --> 01:08:22,720
Speaker 1: a goon. Yeah, just muscle, just a moon and man,

1294
01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:25,479
Speaker 1: this needs to be in dog I wish there's a

1295
01:08:25,560 --> 01:08:28,920
Speaker 1: reason it's not in your history textbooks, you know, every

1296
01:08:29,000 --> 01:08:32,639
Speaker 1: history book. You know what I'm saying, because yeah, because

1297
01:08:32,640 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 1: the reality is we don't have. Like I was as

1298
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:38,320
Speaker 1: you were talking, I was like, do is there any

1299
01:08:39,400 --> 01:08:43,960
Speaker 1: figure in America now that could do that? And I'm like,

1300
01:08:44,240 --> 01:08:48,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, only the imaginary one. Like who's the

1301
01:08:48,120 --> 01:08:51,639
Speaker 1: movie The American Sniper? Was that movie? Yeah? Yeah? That yeah, Yeah,

1302
01:08:52,040 --> 01:08:56,640
Speaker 1: that dude's imaginary. The real the real person that he

1303
01:08:56,800 --> 01:09:00,680
Speaker 1: was was like a lunatic, like dangerous, like er and

1304
01:09:00,840 --> 01:09:04,760
Speaker 1: a liar. Yeah yeah, and he couldn't lead a fascist insurrection. Yeah,

1305
01:09:04,840 --> 01:09:07,160
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But like if if, if

1306
01:09:07,360 --> 01:09:11,080
Speaker 1: the guy that that was portrayed was a real person,

1307
01:09:11,160 --> 01:09:13,240
Speaker 1: and maybe, but we ain't got one in real life,

1308
01:09:13,280 --> 01:09:14,960
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But the one that did

1309
01:09:15,040 --> 01:09:18,280
Speaker 1: exist came out of the other end, going Yo, these

1310
01:09:18,360 --> 01:09:22,639
Speaker 1: wars were crap and I was just out there getting

1311
01:09:22,720 --> 01:09:26,040
Speaker 1: y'all's bags, and this is ridiculous. I was a fucking gangster.

1312
01:09:27,000 --> 01:09:30,400
Speaker 1: Got He spent the rest of his life giving speeches

1313
01:09:30,479 --> 01:09:34,240
Speaker 1: and trying to radicalize veterans and mourning in public that

1314
01:09:34,439 --> 01:09:37,000
Speaker 1: he and his comrades had only ever fought for, in

1315
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:41,320
Speaker 1: his words, the benefit of millionaires and billionaires. He insisted

1316
01:09:41,439 --> 01:09:43,920
Speaker 1: that he had named names to the committee, that he had,

1317
01:09:44,080 --> 01:09:46,120
Speaker 1: that he had given the names of the people involved,

1318
01:09:46,360 --> 01:09:48,840
Speaker 1: but that those names had been removed from his testimony

1319
01:09:48,920 --> 01:09:51,599
Speaker 1: before it was made public. In a radio of an interview,

1320
01:09:51,640 --> 01:09:54,800
Speaker 1: he insisted, like most committees, it has slaughtered the little

1321
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:57,679
Speaker 1: and allowed the big to escape. The big shots weren't

1322
01:09:57,720 --> 01:10:03,639
Speaker 1: even called to testify. Yeah, if that ain't the Straights,

1323
01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:06,920
Speaker 1: broy it's very And it's not for nothing that he

1324
01:10:07,680 --> 01:10:10,760
Speaker 1: names himself as a gangster. You know, he recognizes, Like

1325
01:10:11,000 --> 01:10:12,880
Speaker 1: it's exactly why ye know what I'm saying, the little

1326
01:10:12,960 --> 01:10:16,920
Speaker 1: the little cornerboy doing fifteen years, you know what I'm saying,

1327
01:10:17,000 --> 01:10:18,800
Speaker 1: But nobody go to the You know what I'm saying,

1328
01:10:18,880 --> 01:10:22,600
Speaker 1: that the Russian oligarch that got him fifteen bricks, you

1329
01:10:22,640 --> 01:10:24,720
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like he's living nice in the

1330
01:10:24,760 --> 01:10:27,559
Speaker 1: Hollywood Hills. They don't even he's not even in the testimony.

1331
01:10:27,600 --> 01:10:30,880
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. That's crazy, And it's fucking

1332
01:10:31,280 --> 01:10:33,080
Speaker 1: one of the things that is because there's so much

1333
01:10:33,160 --> 01:10:35,000
Speaker 1: that's a bummer about this story, right that they just

1334
01:10:35,080 --> 01:10:37,519
Speaker 1: get away with it. But there is there's hope in

1335
01:10:37,600 --> 01:10:39,200
Speaker 1: it too, And and the hope, I think is in

1336
01:10:39,280 --> 01:10:41,840
Speaker 1: the story of Smedley Butler, this guy who could not

1337
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:47,080
Speaker 1: have been a more dedicated soldier of imperialism and realizes

1338
01:10:47,160 --> 01:10:50,320
Speaker 1: he was wrong and spends the rest of his life

1339
01:10:51,000 --> 01:10:53,960
Speaker 1: fighting against you. You can't, you can't. You know, there's

1340
01:10:53,960 --> 01:10:56,760
Speaker 1: no time machine. You can't go back and undo what

1341
01:10:56,960 --> 01:11:00,200
Speaker 1: you did to freaking Haiti and Costa Rica and banana walls.

1342
01:11:00,560 --> 01:11:04,320
Speaker 1: You can't go back and redo that. But I can

1343
01:11:04,400 --> 01:11:06,559
Speaker 1: do the best, my best to pay it forward. That's

1344
01:11:06,640 --> 01:11:09,240
Speaker 1: good man, Yeah, it's it is. It's a real story

1345
01:11:09,439 --> 01:11:13,040
Speaker 1: of redemption, of redemption and of a man who was had.

1346
01:11:13,360 --> 01:11:15,680
Speaker 1: You gotta respect the amount of self knowledge to be

1347
01:11:15,760 --> 01:11:18,320
Speaker 1: able to admit I spent thirty three fucking years as

1348
01:11:18,320 --> 01:11:23,080
Speaker 1: a gangster. My friends died in a gang wharf over money,

1349
01:11:23,240 --> 01:11:26,280
Speaker 1: you know, like overt even ours. But we don't even

1350
01:11:26,280 --> 01:11:29,880
Speaker 1: get to collect Big Sean on it. Last record was like, dude,

1351
01:11:29,920 --> 01:11:33,240
Speaker 1: John dying over street corners you don't even own, like

1352
01:11:33,479 --> 01:11:35,400
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah that like that where you just like,

1353
01:11:35,439 --> 01:11:37,600
Speaker 1: we don't even oh we don't even own these projects.

1354
01:11:38,439 --> 01:11:44,320
Speaker 1: We'll own these property. Dang, that's crazy. Yeah, anyway, that's

1355
01:11:44,360 --> 01:11:49,200
Speaker 1: the business plot. So it happened here. It happened here.

1356
01:11:49,760 --> 01:11:51,880
Speaker 1: Uh and the only reason it didn't happen all the

1357
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:54,320
Speaker 1: way is that there happened to be one really good

1358
01:11:54,400 --> 01:11:58,760
Speaker 1: man in the middle of it. Dang, that is crazy. Yeah,

1359
01:12:00,080 --> 01:12:10,040
Speaker 1: So thanks Smedley Butler, Right, we appreciate you one good dude. Yeah,

1360
01:12:10,040 --> 01:12:11,920
Speaker 1: And I will say I think that's maybe another one

1361
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:14,160
Speaker 1: of the optimistic things to take out of it is

1362
01:12:14,200 --> 01:12:18,160
Speaker 1: that it is a story of sometimes a single person

1363
01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:22,280
Speaker 1: with the right who is willing to make a moral

1364
01:12:22,400 --> 01:12:28,320
Speaker 1: stand can be the difference between calamity um and and

1365
01:12:28,840 --> 01:12:37,040
Speaker 1: and not calamity. You know. Yeah, wow, anyway, proper, you

1366
01:12:37,160 --> 01:12:38,840
Speaker 1: got some plug doubles to plug as we as we

1367
01:12:39,040 --> 01:12:43,920
Speaker 1: roll out of behind the insurrections. This has been You

1368
01:12:44,000 --> 01:12:51,160
Speaker 1: can't say a pleasure, can you, but it was. I

1369
01:12:51,880 --> 01:12:55,400
Speaker 1: enjoy every time I get to like work with you all,

1370
01:12:55,520 --> 01:12:57,479
Speaker 1: and here about the most horrible things in the world.

1371
01:12:57,560 --> 01:12:59,599
Speaker 1: They're always just They're a great time in my day,

1372
01:12:59,640 --> 01:13:01,760
Speaker 1: although it takes me like an hour to recoup after

1373
01:13:01,880 --> 01:13:05,559
Speaker 1: we do this. Um, but yeah, thank you so much

1374
01:13:05,600 --> 01:13:08,400
Speaker 1: again for having me prop hit pop dot com. Uh

1375
01:13:08,680 --> 01:13:13,200
Speaker 1: if this as of the day that you're hearing this, um,

1376
01:13:14,400 --> 01:13:18,240
Speaker 1: which is Thursday, right is Thursday one? Yeah, I will

1377
01:13:18,280 --> 01:13:21,759
Speaker 1: be dropping new music the next day Friday morning, new video,

1378
01:13:21,920 --> 01:13:25,280
Speaker 1: new music. So uh please go to proper pop dot com.

1379
01:13:25,640 --> 01:13:28,600
Speaker 1: You can subscribe to the YouTube, get on Spotify of

1380
01:13:28,720 --> 01:13:32,280
Speaker 1: a ton of new music. Um a new coffee drop

1381
01:13:32,360 --> 01:13:35,920
Speaker 1: into uh yeah, prop hitpop dot com. I gotta get

1382
01:13:35,960 --> 01:13:38,439
Speaker 1: you a bean man. Yeah you do. Yeah, you dotta

1383
01:13:38,479 --> 01:13:40,680
Speaker 1: get you on poor Gummi Fridays to man. You're not

1384
01:13:40,760 --> 01:13:43,960
Speaker 1: on Instagram? Well, yeah, I do have an Instagram. I

1385
01:13:44,040 --> 01:13:46,160
Speaker 1: only follow one guy so far, and he's the guy

1386
01:13:46,200 --> 01:13:48,840
Speaker 1: who's making knives for me. You have an Instagram. I

1387
01:13:49,000 --> 01:13:52,200
Speaker 1: feel betrayed. I wanted to look at knives. I mean,

1388
01:13:52,240 --> 01:13:55,519
Speaker 1: I forgive that part, but but I could I could

1389
01:13:55,560 --> 01:13:58,479
Speaker 1: add I could have coffee and knives be my Instagram things.

1390
01:13:58,520 --> 01:14:02,519
Speaker 1: What about Sophie and Anderson and I get I talked

1391
01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:05,960
Speaker 1: to you on signal. This is true, this is heartful.

1392
01:14:06,560 --> 01:14:08,960
Speaker 1: But I feel you. I feel you. Either way, We're

1393
01:14:08,960 --> 01:14:11,640
Speaker 1: going to figure it out. Yes, I do. You're a

1394
01:14:11,680 --> 01:14:14,559
Speaker 1: fun follow. Wait, maybe you could log into the Bastards

1395
01:14:14,600 --> 01:14:17,320
Speaker 1: pods Instagram and I've never posted or whatever it is

1396
01:14:17,360 --> 01:14:21,760
Speaker 1: you do on Instagram. Do you post? Yeah? You post? Yeah,

1397
01:14:23,960 --> 01:14:26,680
Speaker 1: I could ask you. All right, Well, don't find me

1398
01:14:26,760 --> 01:14:28,680
Speaker 1: on anyway Gram because I'm not going to tell any

1399
01:14:28,760 --> 01:14:31,439
Speaker 1: action there. You'll find me prop on Instagram, no one else.

1400
01:14:31,479 --> 01:14:36,599
Speaker 1: I will find it. Yes, um, and yeah we'll we'll

1401
01:14:36,760 --> 01:14:41,559
Speaker 1: be back next week for something different. Um, it'll be fun.

1402
01:14:42,080 --> 01:14:44,160
Speaker 1: Uh in a little bit of a break, and then

1403
01:14:44,200 --> 01:14:47,000
Speaker 1: we'll probably get back to talking about genocides pretty soon.

1404
01:14:47,160 --> 01:14:52,040
Speaker 1: Won't be long genocide every month. That's the behind the

1405
01:14:52,120 --> 01:14:56,719
Speaker 1: Bastards promise. That is our promise. I have a good one.

1406
01:14:57,000 --> 01:14:59,000
Speaker 1: Byewses