(Public Domain/Marine Corps History Department) entry into another world war, Buter was as well known for his “ War Is a Racket” speech and writings as he was for his military career. By the end of his life in 1940, a year before U.S. He then risked a court-martial by repeatedly attacking the manipulation of American power by its plutocrats. Not only did he serve in Cuba, the Philippines, China, Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic but he also personally implemented horrific tactics to exploit those lands and their people, including the essential re-enslavement of Haitians.Īnd finally, Smedley Butler was an American hero again, testifying before Congress to stop “the Business Plot,” an alleged attempt by ultra-wealthy Americans to halt Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and install a fascist government in its place. Smedley Butler was also a symbol of America’s racist, imperialist and hyper-capitalist policies. Smedley Butler was an American hero of the early 20th century, a symbol of the country’s growing power as a Marine for more than three decades who received 16 medals, including two Medals of Honor and one Marine Corps Brevet Medal. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores. (Jan.Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire The result is an eye-opening portrait of American hubris. Butler’s evolution from the naive son of a prominent Quaker family who lied about his age to enlist in 1898 to a highly decorated major general whose 1935 book, War Is a Racket, condemned the antidemocratic actions he helped carry out provides the history’s intriguing through line.
All of these interventions were presented to the American people as heroic assistance for the development of people not ready to govern themselves, Katz notes. In the Caribbean and Central America, Marines helped to install puppet leaders and organized militarized police forces who oppressed the people and smoothed the way for U.S. soldiers, and notes that people still celebrate the uprising and mourn their forebears’ deaths in annual commemorations. He describes the terror campaign waged against residents of the Philippine island of Samar in retaliation for a 1901 insurgent attack that killed 48 U.S. business and financial institutions, often with dire effects on local people, Katz provides the geopolitical context behind interventions in China, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and elsewhere, and visits each location to document the legacy of U.S. Contending that American military actions served the interests of U.S. imperialism focused on the career of U.S. Journalist Katz ( The Big Truck That Went By) delivers a searing and well-documented portrait of early 20th-century U.S.
0 kommentar(er)
