Smedley Butler and the Business Plot to Overthrow FDR

• 31:48Tim asks if the guest knows about Smedley Butler, a twice-decorated Medal of Honor winner and most highly decorated marine in history.
• 32:22Butler testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1933 that wealthy industrialists approached him to lead a coup, either replacing or keeping FDR as a figurehead while establishing a fascist government structure.
• 32:37The industrialists involved included Remington, the DuPonts, and Prescott Bush.
• 33:07The New York Times ridiculed Butler's account as a hoax despite his status as a decorated war hero.
• 33:19Butler wrote a book called War as a Racket outlining how the military industrial complex worked to install governments that would allow US corporations to exploit foreign countries.
• 33:58Butler stated: "I'd always suspected I was like a tool of the system—now I know it."
• 34:09Tim argues that while Alex Jones is an opportunist, treating the New York Times, ABC, CBS, and NBC as bold truth-tellers is insane.
• 34:31Mainstream newspapers have rubber-stamped countless genocides and atrocities, functioning as stenographers for power rather than independent press.
• 35:15The New York Times as 'the paper of record' sets editorial direction for TV news and other papers across the country.
• 35:54The House Un-American Activities Committee corroborated Butler's testimony, yet this remains absent from classroom curricula and mainstream discussion.

New York TimesSmedley Butlermilitary-industrial complexNoam ChomskyDuPontPrescott BushAlex JonesFranklin D. RooseveltBrown Brothers HarrimanWar as a RacketBretton Woods ConferenceRuss Baker