The Pacifist Who Toppled a Democracy: A History of Smedley Butler
Season 13 premiered in February with a documentary-style video about the life of the so-called “fighting Quaker” Smedley Butler, featuring an interview with Jonathan M. Katz, the author of Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire.
Butler came from solid Quaker stock but dropped out of high school to enlist in the Marine Corps when the Spanish-American War broke out. “And from there,” Katz explains, “he served in every occupation, invasion, [and] war the United States participated in from 1898 to the eve of World War II.” But after retiring, Butler began to publicly acknowledge the consequences of his 33-year career. Katz goes deep into Butler’s reversal from “a high class muscle man for Big Business” to outspoken critic of the profit motive behind military-backed colonialism.
Transcript and Discussion Questions Available Here
Produced by Layla Cuthrell
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