I really didn't want to ever make another post on this Blog as I'm not a Conspiracy Theorist at all anymore, hence my renaming this blog as Defunct. But something relevant to the topic has been bugging me that I need to get off my chest.
I find it fascinating how The Business Plot is the one Conspiracy that even the most Anti-Conspiracy Theory people on the Internet right now unironically consider to be unambiguously true, form Centrist History YouTubers to BreadTubers. Even Leftists critical of other seemingly Leftist in nature Conspiracy Theories.
Because to me it's so obviously BS. When you look at all the actual relevant History in context, Smedley Butler was clearly fabricating it.
First of all he was being quite a bit more specific in who he was accusing then the standard Popular retellings imply. His targets were The American Liberty League and The American Legion. And I am no apologist for those organizations, I absolutely do consider them capable of considering something like this.
But the idea that in 1933 they would turn a guy who was already publicly one of The American Legion's most vocal haters when they had a number of viable popular Strongman candidates of their own, Douglas MacArthur, Theodore Roosevelt Jr, George C Patton to name a few, is ridiculous.
You see Butler was a VFW member. Back then there was a huge Beef between those groups with the VFW being very left leaning while the American Legion was openly identifying itself with Mussolini. This whole thing was driven by that beef.
It clearly has a lot to do with people all over the political spectrum loving a lot of what he had to say in War Is A Racket, and so do I. But having good politics doesn't prevent one from being a scam artist.
The investigation into Butler's claims was done by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, if there was real solid evidence they would have acted.
I do still believe some things you can consider Conspiracy Theory adjacent, I still believe the CIA has done more shady stuff then what's officially declassified. And I'm a Leftist now. Yet The Business Plot still doesn't hold water.
