Wall Street
July 25, 2007 8:37 AM   Subscribe

The Whitehouse Coup was an uncovered conspiracy involving several wealthy businessmen to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.

The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell House & Prescott Bush) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.
posted by four panels (9 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: It's the coup that time didn't precisely forget after all as it turns out. -- cortex



 
Overthrowing the President is old and busted. The new hotness is to become President (whether via election or not), then stage a de facto coup by refusing to acknowledge the other two branches of government.
posted by DU at 8:43 AM on July 25, 2007 [1 favorite]


The little censor bots must delete this thread since it may result in a discussion of the current president's nazi family ties, and people may say things that aren't nice.
posted by 2sheets at 8:48 AM on July 25, 2007 [2 favorites]


Double?
posted by NoMich at 8:53 AM on July 25, 2007


Previously.
posted by dsword at 8:54 AM on July 25, 2007


Amazing, jaw-dropping story. Thanks.

From your Wikipedia link "Clayton Cramer, in a 1995 History Today article, reminded readers that the devastation of the Great Depression had caused many Americans to question the foundations of liberal democracy. "Many traditionalists, here and in Europe, toyed with the ideas of Fascism and National Socialism; many liberals dallied with Socialism and Communism." This helps explain why some American business leaders viewed fascism as a viable system to both preserve their interests and end the economic woes of the Depression."

wow, So this idiot monster in power now had a grandfather siding with Hitler, profiting off that horror. Makes sense, grandson conspiring with oil companies to profit from war. "George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany." ugh.
posted by nickyskye at 8:55 AM on July 25, 2007


Imagine, for a moment, an America where a facist coup took place in 1932.

A world in which American troops were fighting alongside the Wermacht on the outskirts of Stalingrad in 1942, or Gen. Patton rounding up American Jews to be gassed in Alaskan death camps.

Imagine that, and then say, "Better luck next time, Corporate America!"
posted by Avenger at 8:56 AM on July 25, 2007


So treason goes way back in the Bush family history?
posted by caddis at 8:57 AM on July 25, 2007 [2 favorites]


The history of corporate America's open involvement with fascism at home and abroad is a topic that a lot of people would just as soon not talk about, and leave to be forgotten.

What must not be forgotten is that for the wealthy and for corporations, supporting fascism is simply the pursuit of self-interest. The elites didn't support fascism because they were mustache-twirling villains, but because it benefited them.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:06 AM on July 25, 2007 [3 favorites]


So treason goes way back in the Bush family history?

Not only treason. It puts George W. Bush's attempts to dismantle FDR-era social insurance policies like SS and Medicare in a wholly new and unsettling context of "finishing family business".
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:11 AM on July 25, 2007 [2 favorites]


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