Everyone loves a good conspiracy

On separating the paranoid truth from paranoid fiction

Over the years I spent researching and writing Gangsters of Capitalism, my Twitter profile pics were often a photo of Smedley Butler. These were what you might call “rare Smedleys”—shots of him in his youth or at war. (My current avi is an outtake from a 1936 event at New York’s old St. Nicholas Palace that I found in an archive.)

This led to the funny s…