I just found a historical novel featuring Smedley Butler.

[Jackpine Radical]

It's set in 1931 Nicaragua. Also in the novel are Sandino (think Sandinista), Somoza & the United Fruit Co. The novel: A Few Good Men by William Overgard.

I mentined this in another thread but thought maybe it deserves a thread of its own.

[henslee]

1. Cool, JP. Just googled "Smed", his book "WAR IS A RACKET is free online..

http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

on edit... Smed post is intriguing. Never heard of him.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

4. Smedley rocks!

Read what the average grunt or Marine does to earn a Medal of Honor -- usually it ain't pretty.

Then contemplate that Butler earned two.

If possible, track down info re: some folks wanted to recruit him to stage a coup of the US gov't, but he turned them in.

[henslee]

6. Smedley's solution to taking the profit out of war.....

(snip) (from above referenced WAR IS A RACKET)

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation – it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Let the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers –

yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!

Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.

Why shouldn't they?

They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!

Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket – that and nothing else.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. The man was a genius.

[shance]

12. I would also recommend that military kids in bulk boycott deployment.

If we don't fight their war, they ain't got no war.

[oneighty]

2. "War is a racket" declared Smedely.

Two time Medal of Honor Marine Smedely Butler.

I went to a U.S. Marine site online some time ago-Smedely Butler had been removed.

Some of the few good men are a lot better than the others.

180

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Ainnit the truth.

"Some of the few good men are a lot better than the others."

Amazing--they "cleansed" themselves of ol' Smedley.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. Amazon link for the Overgard novel

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312022085/103-0521067-2155828?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

(I like to do that for fellow authors when I have the chance.)

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Thanks. I should have done that.

[unhappycamper]

9. The Boston chapter of the Veterans for Peace:

(Picture taken at the end of the Patriot's Day Parade in Concord, MA)

General Butler was a most impressive man.

[henslee]

10. Wonder how he got the name "Ol' Gimlet Eye" Hee-hee.

:rofl:

[unhappycamper]

13. I suspect extended periods of sleeplessness had

something to do with it.

From Wikipedia:

In 1903, he fought to protect the U.S. Consulate in Honduras from rebels. An incident of that expedition allegedly earned him the first of several colorful nicknames, "Old Gimlet Eye," attributed to the feverish, bloodshot eyes which enhanced his habitually penetrating and bellicose stare.

[shance]

14. I love it!! Thank you for posting!

n/t

[shance]

11. Thank you for the info JR***

That's quite a novel to be 'cast' in.

:)

[slaveplanet]

15. The Coup Attempt of 1934

good stream that outlines Smedley's heroic actions in thwarting the earlier fascist takeover of America....
http://wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=10938


In observation of the 70th anniversary of the event, this program recounts the 1934 fascist coup attempt in the United States. Appalled at President Roosevelt’s New Deal, powerful industrialists and financiers grouped around the Morgan industrial and financial interests attempted to recruit World War I veterans into an army of insurrection. The goal of the conspirators was the  overthrow of American democracy and the  institution of  a fascist government. Because they selected Marine Corps general Smedley Buter to lead the coup, the attempt was foiled. Although a critic of Roosevelt, Butler (a two-time winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor) betrayed the coup plotters to the President. Following a badly attenuated Congressional investigation by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, the matter was laid to rest. It is worth noting that proof of the plot was concrete and well-documented, but none of the plotters was imprisoned, because the conspirators were among the most powerful and prestigious industrial and financial magnates in the country.

Program Highlights Include: The role of General Douglas MacArthur in the conspiratorial process leading up to the coup attempt; MacArthur’s relationship to the House of Morgan; the role of the Du Ponts in the coup preparations; Remington Arms’ agreement to provide weapons to the conspirators; the sympathy of key General Motors executives for the coup attempt; the profound sympathy on the part of the conspirators for Hitler and Mussolini; the critical aid given by the coup plotters’ associated business interests to the Third Reich; the domestic fascist organizations organized and financed by some of the conspirators and the businesses that they ran; the mainstream press’ cover-up of the story and its significance.