War is a Racket and other relevant quotes on War, Terrorism and War Crimes!
Greg Krasovsky
October 30, 2023
FYI, Facebook removed the following post today supposedly because it violated their Community Standards, including, wait for it.... for asking readers questions that could be surreptitious PHISHING!
Really?
I call it veiled censorship of opposition authors on sensitive topics!
Do Noam Chomsky or General Smedley Butler really scare them so much?
Or is it The Masters of War that Bob Dylan sings about (see below)?
But what else is new?
P.S. Naturally, I asked for a review of the post's removal -- I hear a lot of Facebook's fact-checkers and standards reviewers come from the CIA, FBI and other three letter government agencies and bring a wealth of valuable government experience and knowledge to their crucial new jobs at META!
So let's see what these impartial & professional Facebook fact checkers have to say about this post in our land of the First Amendment!
***
Greg Krasovsky
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/greg.krasovsky
October 30, 2023
"War is a Racket!" - Do you agree with General Smedley Butler (see below)?
What's you favorite quote on War, Terrorism and War Crimes?
With which quotes do you agree? Disagree? Why?
Which quotes are relevant to the current
- Israeli-Palestinian-Lebanese-Syrian-Iranian conflict?
- The US/NATO "proxy war"[*] in Ukraine with Russia?
[*] Based on the definition of a proxy war as well as statements & admissions of US, NATO and EU politicians and military leaders.
Which of Noam Chomsky's quotes about the Vietnam War are relevant today in regard to US, NATO and Israeli policies & conflicts in the Middle East, the Balkans (Former Yugoslavia) and Ukraine?
***
Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.
- Noam Chomsky
Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.
- Noam Chomsky
Terrorists regard themselves as a vanguard.
They're trying to mobilize others to their cause.
I mean, every specialist on terrorism knows that.
- Noam Chomsky
The war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act by weak and miserable men, including all of us who have allowed it to go on and on with endless fury and destruction -- all of us who would have remained silent had stability and order been secured.
It is not pleasant to say such words, but candor permits no less.
- Noam Chomsky, introduction, American Power and the New Mandarins
There's a War Crimes Act in the United States passed by a Republican Congress in 1996, which says that grave breaches of the Geneva Convention are subject to the death penalty.
And that doesn't mean the soldier that committed them - that means the commanders.
- Noam Chomsky
If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.
- Noam Chomsky
Remember, weapons of mass destruction don't mean missiles.
- Noam Chomsky
The argument that resistance to the war should remain strictly nonviolent seems to me overwhelming.
- Noam Chomsky
Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop means of concealment and aggression.
It is common sense.
- Noam Chomsky
There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.
- Noam Chomsky
“It’s a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.”
- Noam Chomsky
***
When General Allenby conquered Jerusalem during World War I, he was hailed in the American press as Richard the Lion-Hearted, who had at last won the Crusades and driven the pagans out of the Holy Land.
- Noam Chomsky
As a Zionist youth leader in the 1940s, I was among those who called for a bi-national state in Mandatory Palestine.
When a Jewish state was declared, I felt that it should have the rights of other states - no more, no less.
-Noam Chomsky
Palestinians have no wealth or power.
- Noam Chomsky
The Oslo Accords in 1993 determined that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are a single territorial entity which cannot be divided.
Immediately, the United States and Israel set about separating the two and making sure that they would not be united.
- Noam Chomsky
From the U.S. point of view, negotiations are, in effect, a way for Israel to continue its policies of systematically taking over whatever it wants in the West Bank, maintaining the brutal siege on Gaza, separating Gaza from the West Bank and, of course, occupying the Syrian Golan heights, all with full U.S. support.
- Noam Chomsky
Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear.
- Noam Chomsky
Israel is following policies which maximise its security threats...
policies which choose expansion over security...
policies which lead to their moral degradation, their isolation, their delegitimation, as they call it now, and very likely ultimate destruction. That's not impossible.
- Noam Chomsky
The crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, particularly Lebanon, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions.
But that does not help the victims.
And, in fact, it's likely to harm them.
- Noam Chomsky
***
Violence can succeed, as Americans know well from the conquest of the national territory.
But at terrible cost.
It can also provoke violence in response, and often does.
- Noam Chomsky
"One of the questions asked in that study was, How many Vietnamese casualties would you estimate that there were during the Vietnam war?
The average response on the part of Americans today is about 100,000.
The official figure is about two million.
The actual figure is probably three to four million.
The people who conducted the study raised an appropriate question:
What would we think about German political culture if, when you asked people today how many Jews died in the Holocaust, they estimated about 300,000?
What would that tell us about German political culture?
- Noam Chomsky
By that time [1966], we did begin to get some protests [against Vietnam War].
But not from liberal intellectuals; they never opposed the war.
- Noam Chomsky
If you look back to the anti-intervention movements, what were they?
Let's take the Vietnam War - the biggest crime since the Second World War.
You couldn't be opposed to the war for years.
The mainstream liberal intellectuals were enthusiastically in support of the war.
In Boston, a liberal city where I was, we literally couldn't have a public demonstration without it being violently broken up, with the liberal press applauding, until late 1966.
- Noam Chomsky
Why did the people think [Vietnam war] was fundamentally wrong and immoral?
The guys who ran the polls, John E. Rielly, a professor at the University of Chicago, a liberal professor, he said what that means is that people thought too many Americans had being killed.
Another possibility is they didn't like the fact that we were carrying out the worst crime since the Second World War.
But that's so inconceivable that wasn't even offered as a possible reason.
- Noam Chomsky
Say the Pentagon Papers, - that material went much deeper. It went into internal government planning back for twenty - five years.
Those are things that the public should have known about.
In a democracy they should have known what leaders thinking and planning about major enterprises like the Vietnam war.
It was kept secret from them.
- Noam Chomsky
***
There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.
- Ernest Hemingway
In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.
- Herodotus
War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.
- Paul Valery
Only the dead have seen the end of the war.
- George Santayana
If we don't end war, war will end us.
- H. G. Wells
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
- Bertrand Russell
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
- Albert Einstein
It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.
- Robert E. Lee
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.
- William Tecumseh Sherman
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
- George S. Patton
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
- Winston Churchill
To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.
- George Washington
The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.
- Norman Schwarzkopf
***
Sources:
https://www.brainyquote.com
https://quotefancy.com
https://www.azquotes.com
http://www.notable-quotes.com/
***
P.S. Please don't forget the vast compilation of General Smedley Butler's quotes on War as a Racket in the following posts of The Ukrainian-Russian-American Observer:
1. Business as usual - The Business of War in Ukraine
Greg Krasovsky
June 7, 2023
https://ura-observer.blogspot.com/2023/06/business-as-usual-business-of-war-in.html
2. Respecting, thanking and protecting America's warriors on Veteran's Day.
Greg Krasovsky
November 11, 2022
https://ura-observer.blogspot.com/2022/11/respecting-thanking-and-protecting.html
3. How we should remember, honor and protect the legacy of America's fallen veterans on Memorial Day - and protect our soldiers in future conflicts.
Greg Krasovsky
May 30, 2022
https://ura-observer.blogspot.com/2022/05/how-we-should-remember-honor-and.html
***
1. Business as usual - The Business of War in Ukraine
Greg Krasovsky
June 7, 2023
https://ura-observer.blogspot.com/2023/06/business-as-usual-business-of-war-in.html
Excerpt:
General Smedley Butler:
War is a racket.
It is the only one international in scope.
It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
---
War is just a racket.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people.
Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
---
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.
---
My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups.
This is typical with everyone in the military.
---
I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps.
I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.
And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers.
In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.
---
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914.
I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912.
I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.
In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
---
War is a racket. It always has been...
A few profit - and the many pay.
But there is a way to stop it.
You can't end it by disarmament conferences.
You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva.
Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions.
It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
---
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent.
But war-time profits - ah! that is another matter - twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent - the sky is the limit.
---
The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent.
Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
---
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious.
They just take it.
This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few - the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war.
The general public shoulders the bill.
---
We must take the profit out of war.
We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.
---
War is just a racket...
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.
---
There are only two things we should fight for.
One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.
https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/smedley-butler-quotes
***
Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), nicknamed the Maverick Marine, was a senior United States Marine Corps officer.
During his 34-year career, he fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, and World War I.
At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.
By the end of his career, Butler had received sixteen medals, including five for heroism; he is the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal as well as two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to fascist regimes at that time.
The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot, and the media ridiculed the allegations, but a final report by a special House of Representatives Committee confirmed some of Butler's testimony.
Butler later became an outspoken critic of American wars and their consequences. In 1935, Butler wrote the book War Is a Racket, where he alleged imperialist motivations for U.S. foreign policy and wars (such as those in which he had been involved). After retiring from service, he became a popular advocate, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups in the 1930s.
Philadelphia Director of Public Safety
In 1924, newly elected Mayor of Philadelphia W. Freeland Kendrick asked President Calvin Coolidge to lend the city a military general to help him rid Philadelphia's municipal government of crime and corruption.
At the urging of Butler's father,[3] Coolidge authorized Butler to take the necessary leave from the Corps to serve as Philadelphia's director of public safety, in charge of running the city's police and fire departments from January 1924 until December 1925.
...
Since he had not been given authority to fire corrupt police officers, he switched entire units from one part of the city to another,[3] in order to undermine local protection rackets and profiteering.[36][37]
Within 48 hours of taking over, Butler organized raids on more than 900 speakeasies, ordering that they be padlocked and destroyed in many cases. In addition to raiding the speakeasies, he also attempted to eliminate other illegal activities, including bootlegging, prostitution, gambling, and police corruption.
More zealous than he was political, he ordered crackdowns on the social elite's favorite hangouts, such as the Ritz-Carlton and the Union League, as well as on drinking establishments that served the working class.[38]
Although he was effective in reducing crime and police corruption, he was a controversial leader.
In one instance, he made a statement that he would promote the first officer to kill a bandit and stated, "I don't believe there is a single bandit notch on a policeman's guns [sic] in this city; go out and get some."[36
Many felt that he was being too aggressive in his tactics and resented the reductions in their civil rights, such as the stopping of citizens at the city checkpoints.
Some even suggested that Butler was acting like a military dictator, even charging that he wrongfully used active-duty Marines in some of his raids.[40]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
***
2. Respecting, thanking and protecting America's warriors on Veteran's Day.
Greg Krasovsky
November 11, 2022
https://ura-observer.blogspot.com/2022/11/respecting-thanking-and-protecting.html
Excerpt:
If you have not read "War is a Racket" (1935) by U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley D. Butler, then please take the time to read some of the quotes from this extremely important work below, including this one:
“There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters.
One is defense of our homes.
The other is the defense of our Bill of Rights and particularly the right to worship God as we see fit.
Every other reason advanced for the murder of young men is a racket, pure and simple.”
P.S. On a side note, Major Butler had also served as the City of Philadelphia's Director of Public Safety, where he oversaw my American hometown's police and fire departments and tried to fight the endemic corruption and related crime (see below).
I wish we had a Police Commissioner like General Butler when I served during as police officer in Philadelphia (1989-1992) during the crack epidemic.
Heck, given today's crime wave in Philadelphia, including the daily shootings and carjackings, the citizens of Philadelphia could use a police commissioner like General Butler even today!
Major General Smedley Butler quotes:
Sources:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/115545.Smedley_D_Butler
https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/smedley-butler-quotes
"War is a Racket" by Butler, Smedley D. 1935
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
https://archive.org/details/warisracket00smed_0
...
“WAR is a racket.
It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
It is the only one international in scope.
It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
...
War is just a racket... I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.
...
“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people.
Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about.
It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.
Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
...
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.
...
My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups.
This is typical with everyone in the military.
...
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.
In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.
I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.
I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916.
I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.
In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.
The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts.
I operated on three continents.”
...
The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent.
Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
...
“The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent.
But war-time profits -- ah! that is another matter -- twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent -- the sky is the limit.
All that traffic will bear.
Uncle Sam has the money.
Let's get it. Of”
...
“Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die.
The was the "war to end wars."
This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy."
No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason.
No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits.
No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here.
No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United State patents.
They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure".
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too.
So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month!
All that they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed”
...
“Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences.
They don't mean a thing.
One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified.
We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences.
And what happens?
The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm.
No admiral wants to be without a ship.
No general wants to be without a command.
Both mean men without jobs.
They are not for disarmament.
They cannot be for limitations of arms.
And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war.
They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.”
...
“The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted.”
...
“Let the workers in these plants get the same wages
-- all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers -- yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders --
everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn't they?
They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered.
They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches.
They aren't hungry.
The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war.
That will smash the war racket -- that and nothing else.
Maybe”
...
“There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters.
One is defense of our homes.
The other is the defense of our Bill of Rights and particularly the right to worship God as we see fit.
Every other reason advanced for the murder of young men is a racket, pure and simple.”
...
“The active pacifists, however, are not of this class: they are not men without impulsive force but men in whom some impulse to which war is hostile is strong enough to overcome the impulses that lead to war.”
...
“To summarize:
Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
1. We must take the profit out of war.
2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.
3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.”
― Smedley D. Butler, "War is a Racket"
***
Major General Smedley Darlington Butler
Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), nicknamed "Maverick Marine",[1] was a senior United States Marine Corps officer who fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution and World War I. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, Central America, the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler was, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to receive the Medal of Honor twice, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (along with Wendell Neville and David Porter) and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.
In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to fascist regimes at that time. The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot, and the media ridiculed the allegations, but a final report by a special House of Representatives Committee confirmed some of Butler's testimony.
Butler later became an outspoken critic of American wars and their consequences.
In 1935, Butler wrote a book titled War Is a Racket, where he describes and criticizes the workings of the United States in its foreign actions and wars, such as those in which he had been involved, including large American corporations and other imperialist motivations behind U.S. wars (thus predating US President Dwight Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" speech by at least 25 years). After retiring from service, he became a popular advocate, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups in the 1930s.
...
Philadelphia Director of Public Safety
In 1924 newly elected Mayor of Philadelphia W. Freeland Kendrick asked President Calvin Coolidge to lend the City a military general to help him rid Philadelphia's municipal government of crime and corruption.
At the urging of Butler's father,[4] Coolidge authorized Butler to take the necessary leave from the Corps to serve as Philadelphia's director of public safety in charge of running the city's police and fire departments from January 1924 until December 1925.[5]
He began his new job by assembling all 4,000 of the city police into the Metropolitan Opera House in shifts to introduce himself and inform them that things would change while he was in charge.
Since he had not been given authority to fire corrupt police officers, he switched entire units from one part of the city to another,[4] to undermine local protection rackets and profiteering.[36][37]
Within 48 hours of taking over Butler organized raids on more than 900 speakeasies, ordering them padlocked and, in many cases, destroyed.
In addition to raiding the speakeasies, he also attempted to eliminate other illegal activities: bootlegging, prostitution, gambling and police corruption.
More zealous than he was political, he ordered crackdowns on the social elite's favorite hangouts, such as the Ritz-Carlton and the Union League, as well as on drinking establishments that served the working class.[38]
Although he was effective in reducing crime and police corruption, he was a controversial leader.
In one instance he made a statement that he would promote the first officer to kill a bandit and stated, "I don't believe there is a single bandit notch on a policeman's guns [sic] in this city; go out and get some."[36]
Although many of the local citizens and police felt that the raids were just a show, they continued for several weeks.[37]
He implemented programs to improve city safety and security. He established policies and guidelines of administration and developed a Philadelphia police uniform that resembled that of the Marine Corps.[39]
Other changes included military-style checkpoints into the city, bandit-chasing squads armed with sawed-off shotguns and armored police cars.[39]
The press began reporting on the good and the bad aspects of Butler's personal war on crime.
The reports praised the new uniforms, the new programs and the reductions in crime but they also reflected the public's negative opinion of their new Public Safety Director.
Many felt that he was being too aggressive in his tactics and resented the reductions in their civil rights, such as the stopping of citizens at the city checkpoints.
Butler frequently swore in his radio addresses, causing many citizens to suggest his behavior, particularly his language, was inappropriate for someone of his rank and stature.[40]
Some even suggested Butler acted like a military dictator, even charging that he wrongfully used active-duty Marines in some of his raids.[40]
Maj. R.A. Haynes, the federal Prohibition commissioner, visited the city in 1924, six months after Butler was appointed. He announced that "great progress"[41] had been made in the city and attributed that success to Butler.[41]
Eventually Butler's leadership style and the directness of actions undermined his support within the community.
His departure seemed imminent. Mayor Kendrick reported to the press, "I had the guts to bring General Butler to Philadelphia and I have the guts to fire him."[42]
Feeling that his duties in Philadelphia were coming to an end, Butler contacted Gen. Lejeune to prepare for his return to the Marine Corps.
Not all of the city felt he was doing a bad job, though, and when the news started to leak that he would be leaving, people began to gather at the Academy of Music.
A group of 4,000 supporters assembled and negotiated a truce between him and the mayor to keep him in Philadelphia for a while longer, and the president authorized a one-year extension.[43]
Butler devoted much of his second year to executing arrest warrants, cracking down on crooked police and enforcing prohibition.
On January 1, 1926, his leave from the Marine Corps ended and the president declined a request for a second extension.
Butler received orders to report to San Diego and prepared his family and his belongings for the new assignment.[44]
In light of his pending departure, he began to defy the mayor and other key city officials.
On the eve of his departure, he had an article printed in the paper stating his intention to stay and "finish the job".[45]
The mayor was surprised and furious when he read the press release the next morning and demanded his resignation.[45]
After almost two years in office, Butler resigned under pressure, stating later that "cleaning up Philadelphia was worse than any battle I was ever in."[38]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
***
War is a racket [electronic resource] : the antiwar classic by America's most decorated General, two other anti-interventionist tracts, and photographs from The Horror of it
by Butler, Smedley D. (Smedley Darlington), 1881-1940; ebrary, Inc
Publication date 2003
https://archive.org/details/warisracket00smed_0
***
War Is a Racket
War Is a Racket is a speech and a 1935 short book by Smedley D. Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient.
Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how business interests commercially benefit from warfare. He had been appointed commanding officer of the Gendarmerie during the 1915–1934 United States occupation of Haiti.
After Butler retired from the US Marine Corps in October 1931, he made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech "War Is a Racket".
The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a short book published in 1935.
His work was condensed in Reader's Digest as a book supplement, which helped popularize his message. In an introduction to the Reader's Digest version, Lowell Thomas praised Butler's "moral as well as physical courage".[2] Thomas had written Smedley Butler's oral autobiography.
According to the HathiTrust online library, the book published in 1935 is in the public domain.
A scanned copy of the original 1935 printing is available for download, in part or in whole, on the HathiTrust website, along with a detailed description of the copyrights.[3]
In War Is a Racket, Butler points to a variety of examples, mostly from World War I, where industrialists, whose operations were subsidized by public funding, were able to generate substantial profits, making money from mass human suffering.
The work is divided into five chapters:
War is a racket
Who makes the profits?
Who pays the bills?
How to smash this racket!
To hell with war!
It contains this summary:
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
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3. How we should remember, honor and protect the legacy of America's fallen veterans on Memorial Day - and protect our soldiers in future conflicts.
Greg Krasovsky
May 30, 2022
https://ura-observer.blogspot.com/2022/05/how-we-should-remember-honor-and.html
Excerpt:
War Is A Racket
By Major General Smedley Butler
https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
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Smedley D. Butler Quotes
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.
In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.
I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.
I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916.
I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.
In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.
The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts.
I operated on three continents.”
“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
“To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket. 1. We must take the profit out of war. 2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war. 3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.”
“Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. The was the "war to end wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United State patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure".
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month!
All that they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed”
“There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters. One is defense of our homes. The other is the defense of our Bill of Rights and particularly the right to worship God as we see fit. Every other reason advanced for the murder of young men is a racket, pure and simple.”
“In a 1931 speech, Butler recounted a story about Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, how he had run over a child with his car, and said, as he moved on, “It was only one life. What is one life in the affairs of the State.”
“Let the workers in these plants get the same wages -- all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers -- yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders -- everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches! Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds. Why shouldn't they? They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are! Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket -- that and nothing else. Maybe”
“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In”
“In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army.”
“Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the “war to end wars.” This was the “war to make the world safe for democracy.” No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a “glorious adventure.”
“Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war. There”
“The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted.”
“Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences.
They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified.
We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences.
And what happens?
The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship.
No general wants to be without a command.
Both mean men without jobs.
They are not for disarmament.
They cannot be for limitations of arms.
And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war.
They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.”
“I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men -- men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home. Boys”
“AL INFIERNO CON LA GUERRA”
“Victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists. If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of creating greater prosperity for all peoples.”
“The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits -- ah! that is another matter -- twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent -- the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it. Of”
“In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army. So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side . . . it is His will that the Germans be killed. And”
“Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure." Thus,”
“Then, the most crowning insolence of all -- he was virtually blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days. We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back -- when they came back from the war and couldn't find work -- at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds! Yes,”
“... I spent most of my [33 years in the Marine Corps] being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers.
In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for [crony] capitalism.”
“Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer.
He commandeth me to put it into words.
Listen!
“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them!
With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe.
O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead;
help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;
help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;
help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst,
sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter,
broken in spirit, worn with travail,
imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it
— For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord,
blast their hopes,
blight their lives,
protract their bitter pilgrimmage,
make heavy their steps,
water their way with their tears,
stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love,
of Him Who is the Source of Love,
and Who is the ever-faithful refuge
and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.
Amen.
(After a pause.)
“Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak!
The messenger of the Most High waits.” …”
“To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket. We must take the profit out of war. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes. ”
“Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So $1,000,000,000—count them if you live long enough—was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplanes and airplane engines that never left the ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion dollarsΚΌ worth ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100 or perhaps 300 per cent.”
“The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some to the ships were all right. But $635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldnΚΌt float! The seams opened up—and they sank. We paid for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.”
“It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war period. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.”
“If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building a greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can out of war—even the munition makers. So ... I say, “TO HELL WITH WAR!”
“And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying. Picture of a WW1 soldier whose jaw was shot”
“The active pacifists, however, are not of this class: they are not men without impulsive force but men in whom some impulse to which war is hostile is strong enough to overcome the impulses that lead to war.”
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/115545.Smedley_D_Butler
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Masters of War
Written by: Bob Dylan
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead
Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music
https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/masters-war-mono/
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Bob Dylan - Masters of War (Official Audio)
Bob Dylan
Mar 11, 2019
“Masters of War" by Bob Dylan
#BobDylan #SingerSongwriter #Folk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEmI_FT4YHU
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