Friday
Jul272007
BBC radio documentary on US 1930s coup plot
Issandr El Amrani
Very interesting BBC Radio Four documentary on a coup by wealthy Americans to overthrow Roosevelt in the 1930s:
The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.There are some (occasionally forced) parallels with the current situation in American -- the role of the uber-wealthy and the New Gilded Age, Cheney's powerful and shadowy vice-presidency, etc.
Reader Comments (2)
A severe economic depression, regardless of its cause, will place a maximum strain upon a democratic system of governance. That strain will always include growing support for extremist alternatives. Hitler was not just popular among some prominent Americans during our 1930's Great Depression: Notably many people in England and France admired Hitker for his ability to pull Germany out of the world-wide recession by spending massively on military re-armament.
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