The book is a vivid history lesson, a corrective to national amnesia, and a somber warning that we can never feel secure our democracy is, let alone will remain, truly democratic. As just one example, remember in 1980 Ronald Reagan partially ran for president against Carter for “giving away” the Panama Canal Zone that he claimed was a “sovereign United States territory just the same as Alaska.” Reagan and all those who voted for him could have profited from reading Jonathan Katz’s eye-opening Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire. Perhaps we don’t really know of Butler despite his exploits in our name because we like to sweep our national ugliness under the rug of history. (That leaves out his time as commanding general at Marine Corps Base, Quantico, and a brief run as Philadelphia Director of Public Safety, helping kickstart our still problematic militarization of police.) From that point he ended up Zelig-like at the heart of every flashpoint of America’s global attentions-the Philippines, China for the Boxer Rebellion, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, France for World War I, and China again. ![]() Those medals were awarded thanks to his work helping create a century of empire-his first action was in Cuba, and of all places at Guantánamo, during the Spanish-American War. By that I refer to the now mostly forgotten-despite his distinctive name-Smedley Butler, who upon his death in 1940 was the most decorated Marine in our country’s history. foreign involvement should be called the Butler Effect. Rolling Stone, The Plot Against American Democracy That Isn’t Taught in Schools – In an excerpt from Gangsters of Capitalism, Jonathan M.Forget about the butterfly effect, it seems the last 130 years of U.S. inspired and financed by Americans who have wild cat investments down here and want to make them good by putting in a Government which will declare a monopoly in their favor.” mining interests, he wrote, “This is a d-d fool expedition. Smedley Butler: A Marine hero who saw himself as a ‘racketeer for capitalism’ – “Posted in Nicaragua to defend U.S. The New York Times, Why Would a Marine Call Himself a ‘Racketeer for Capitalism’? – “General Butler and his fellow Marines were deployed in much the same way drones are today - a tool for presidents to quietly kill and meddle in other countries without having to commit large contingents of ground forces. We’ll also talk including Butler’s time as head of the Philadelphia police force and about a forgotten episode in our history when business leaders tried to recruit him to lead a fascist coup to overthrow the U.S. He became an outspoken antiwar activist, explaining, “I was a racketeer for capitalism,” serving the interests bankers and big business during his military service.įoreign correspondent JONATHAN KATZ tells Smedley’s fascinating story and his evolution in his book, Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire. We’ll talk with Katz about this complicated man and America’s history of imperialism. ![]() ![]() Smedley, born into a prominent Main Line Quaker family outside Philadelphia, was a celebrated Marine General during the height of American expansion, but became disillusioned later in life with the use of America’s military might. A two-time Medal of Honor winner, General Smedley Butler went from spreading American imperialism in the early 20 th century to places like Cuba, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and the Philippines, to despising it.
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