*** Please be advised...I recently finished watching Oliver Stone's 12 part documentary The Untold History of the United States. It was very insightful and surprisingly not as conspiracy theory as I thought it would be (Mr. Stone seemed to want to go there during the Kennedy segments but stoped just short). After watching that, I decided to write this piece because of what is going on right now in America. My aim here is not to say that President Trump is a fascist . It just seems like the way things are going, fascism is now a much more realistic exit ramp. Only time will tell how things go but it doesn't too good right now. What is written here is my opinion and it deals mostly with the past because America has a chronic problem with repeating it's mistakes. Thank you for your time. ***
The picture is from the cover of a book by Charles Higham about wealthy American industrialists financing European fascism in the 1930's. You see, American industrialists and bankers have always had a bit of a soft spot for fascism (fascism and communism are ideologically opposed to one another and America hates communism so we tend to look the other way with fascism). I thought this subject seemed relevant because Donald Trump was just sworn in as the 45th President of the United States and the Trump rise is a little on the tyrannical side. Anyway, let's go back to the days of yesteryear, 1933 to be exact. America was in the grips of a crippling economic depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential election of 1932 with a platform based on the government providing jobs for the vast amounts of unemployed (this was the foundation of The New-Deal).
Suffice to say Roosevelt's New Deal was seen by bankers as a sign of communism (the scariest mother f*ckin thing for bankers, industrialists and capitalists!). These same people also weren't keen on legislation like the Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited commercial banks from engaging in the investment business (this is a very simplified definition). These things began to add up and something about this president that was unfriendly to business (this is a narrative that's been heard a lot lately, keep in mind that the country had a 25% unemployment rate and these "job creators" had an issue with the president putting people to work). Thus was hatched the "The Business Plot."
This banking cabal approached two time Medal of Honor recipient Major General Smedley Butler. A staunch republican that supported Roosevelt after President Hoover sent in Doug MacArthur to bust up the Bonus Army encampment in 1932. Butler was a Marine who served gallantly in America's turn of the century wars and military actions, some noble causes and some not so much. What the banking cabal didn't count on was General Butler's loyalty to America (not capitalism) and the president. He turned them in. After a congressional hearing, it was determined that there was a plot but in a trend that would hold true today, no one went to jail (bankers just don't go to prison). This was from the committee's final report to Congress...
"In the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country...There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient." Thanks McCormick-Dickstein Committee! Way to sit on the fence!
Special Committee on Un-American Activities or stock photo of 30's businessmen. Too close to call.
So what do you think happened to the decorated veteran and patriot General Butler? Was he embraced by Roosevelt or at least given a "thanks man?" Is he in the history books as a great American hero and patriot? Did he get a sweet book deal and a high paying gig on the lecture circuit? Wrong on all counts. If you guessed that Butler was discredited by the media and faded into obscurity then you'd be correct! The media at the time regarded this as nonsense or as the New York times called it, "a bold and unconvincing narrative," despite the findings of the HUAC. Who were the conspirators you ask? It was a group of wealthy businessmen that allegedly included the heads of Chase Bank, GM, Goodyear, Standard Oil, the DuPont family and Senator Prescott Bush. Prescott Bush being the father of President George H.W. Bush and grandfather to President George W. Bush. More on Prescott in a bit.
Over in Europe around this time, Hitler's Nazi Party and Mussolini's Black Shirts were solidifying their power in Germany and Italy. They got plenty of financial help from Wall Street, most notably Chase Bank. They helped the Nazis raise $20 million between 1936 and 1941 (netting them a cool $1 million in commissions) and of course seized assets of European Jews. Unfortunately, Chase wasn't the bank that cashed in on this practice. Even Prescott Bush had direct and indirect financial dealings with the Nazis up until 1942 (the US declared war on Germany right after Pear Harbor in 1941, let that sink in).
Speaking of profits by working with the Nazis, IBM has an awful history. IBM founder Thomas Watson began work with the Nazis in 1933. IBM and their German subsidiaries developed punch card technology that enabled them more efficiently catalog European Jews (they didn't stop at Jews either, gypsies an others fell victim as well) to essentially locate them, hunt them down and exterminate them. It should be noted that IBM's German division paid $3 million into a Holocaust survivor fund in order to sidestep a lawsuit in 2001. Of course, IBM wanted to make sure that the payment was not an admission of guilt.
Then there was the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. Several American companies backed the right wing nationalist, Francisco Franco. Franco's party lost in the 1936 election and attempted a coup that precipitated the war. A lot of the same culprits that helped Hitler were all too eager to help Franco. The most notable was Texaco.
Torkild Rieber, Texaco's chairman, was providing Franco with oil on a huge line of credit. Roosevelt went so far as to fine Texaco $22,000 but that didn't deter Rieber. By the end of the war, Texaco delivered 3.5 million tons of oil for a cool $20 million. All this despite a looming threat of an embargo from Roosevelt. Rieber also had financial dealings with the Nazis as well. He managed to ship the Nazis oil from Columbia despite a British embargo of Germany at the time. According to Maurice Erzan's 2010 book, Histoire du pétrole, Rieber and executives of IT&T, General Motors and Ford met in New York City with German agent Gerhardt Alois Westrick to celebrate the fall of France in 1940. Eventually Texaco got rid of the guy. After he made them a lot of money of course and only after bad press.
Roosevelt's Vice President Henry Wallace was quoted as saying, "a fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends." Sound like some people in public office that we know? By the way, Henry Wallace was disliked by a lot of the same bankers and industrialists mentioned earlier. Being Roosevelt's VP was a huge reason but when he said something along the lines of equal pay for all genders and creeds and that threw people into a tizzy. After serving three terms as Roosevelt's VP, it was comments like that which helped in him being kicked off the ballot and being replaced as the vice presidential nominee with Harry Truman and the 1944 Democratic National Convention.
This clip might not be that pertinent to the post but it brilliantly sums up the 2016 election in less than 60 seconds. It's also good for a few yucks as well.
I wanted to close with something poignant but I came up with this instead. America has a weird relationship with fascism. The average person most likely doesn't like fascism. However, the wealthy industrialists seem to have a morally casual attitude in regards to fascism so long as the money keeps rolling in. I focused on 1933-1940, it was going in the twenties and it hit its stride after World War II. America is in a weird place right now. It's really hard to predict what could happen but the downside could be potentially disastrous.
