The Business Plot

Few of us know or could care less about the Business Plot.

After all, it happened (or nearly happened) back in the early 1930s... and to the American collective memory, this is roughly equivalent to the late cretaceous period. But we should remember the words of George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The Business Plot came to light in 1934 when retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler testified to Congress that he'd been approached by a group seeking to enlist his support in a plot to overthrow FDR. The Business Plot would have been a fascist coup d’état that would have done away with American democracy to allow corporate interests unfettered control (i.e., Fascism). Yet this scary event in American history has been largely forgotten - along with the alignment of events and circumstances that enabled it.

It's not a huge stretch to worry that the Teabaggers and various right wing wackjobs currently hijacking the discourse are damaging the fabric of our democracy. And if their corrosive shenanigans are allowed to carry on interrupted by restraint or reason, we could run the risk of triggering a latter-day Business Plot. Whether or not the average 9-12 marcher knows it, 2009 has eerie parallels with 1934:

We have a popular Democrat preident whose efforts to reconcile the opposing forces of democracy and corporatism have revitalized anti governmentalism.

We have dangerous nuts on the news medis whipping up the ill-informed into a froth like new Father Coughlins.

We have Wall Streeters and corporatists seeking to capitalize on an economy they've tanked and fighting every government effort to rein them in.

We have undercover corporate lobbyists, sympathetic congressmen and media interests (e.g., Roger Ailes as William Randolph Hearst) staging 'grassroots' events and tweaking public opinion into line with corporate interests.

I'm not sure if four points is enough for a respectable bullet list - or even a persuasive argument - but, hey, you get my drift.

Related:
Parallels could be drawn of 1930 German Propagandists and 2009 American Radio and Cable Hosts
Is Fox’s Glenn Beck Today’s Version of Father Charles Coughlin?
The Business Plot of 1933