#smedley butler

[thereyouarewhereveryougo]

"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."

Two time Medal of Honor recipient Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler

[victusinveritas]

—Amsterdam (2022)

Directed by David O. Russell

[funkfanger]

"[...] November 11, 1918.

All across the Western front, the clocks that were lucky enough to escape the four years of shelling chimed the eleventh hour. And with that the First World War came to an end.

From 10 o’clock to 11 — the hour for the cessation of hostilities — the opposed batteries simply raised hell. Not even the artillery prelude to our advance into the Argonne had anything on it. To attempt an advance was out of the question. It was not a barrage. It was a deluge. [. . .] Nothing quite so electrical in effect as the sudden stop that came at 11 A. M. has ever occurred to me. It was 10:60 precisely and — the roar stopped like a motor car hitting a wall. The resulting quiet was uncanny in comparison. From somewhere far below ground, Germans began to appear. They clambered to the parapets and began to shout wildly. They threw their rifles, hats, bandoleers, bayonets and trench knives toward us. They began to sing. —Lieutenant Walter A. Davenport, 101st Infantry Regiment, US Army

And just like that, it was over. Four years of the bloodiest carnage the world had ever seen came to a stop as sudden and bewildering as its start. And the world vowed “Never again.”

Each year, we lay the wreath. We hear “The Last Post.” We mouth the words “never again” like an incantation. But what does it mean? To answer this question, we have to understand what WWI was.

WWI was an explosion, a breaking point in history. In the smoldering shell hole of that great cataclysm lay the industrial-era optimism of never-ending progress. Old verities about the glory of war lay strewn around the battlefields of that “Great War” like a fallen soldier left to die in No Man’s Land, and along with it lay all the broken dreams of a world order that had been blown apart. Whether we know it or not, we here in the 21st century are still living in the crater of that explosion, the victims of a First World War that we are only now beginning to understand.

What was World War One about? How did it start? Who won? And what did they win? Now, 100 years after those final shots rang out, these questions still puzzle historians and laymen alike. But as we shall see, this confusion is not a happenstance of history but the wool that has been pulled over our eyes to stop us from seeing what WWI really was. [...]"

[valigarmander]

[marinesfromaroundtheworld]

General Smedley Butler.

[progressivegraffiti]

“AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST JONATHAN M. Katz’s new book, Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire, is an explosive deep dive into the forgotten history of American military imperialism in the early twentieth century. At its center is one of the United States’s most fascinating yet little-known characters — Gen. Smedley Butler, a Marine who fought in nearly every U.S. overseas war in the early twentieth century. In this exclusive excerpt, Katz documents how Butler played a pivotal role in an equally little-known episode, in which a cadre of powerful businessmen tried to overthrow the government of the United States, in an episode that anticipated the events of Jan. 6, 2021.” - Rolling Stone

[oswinstark]

The problem with todays generation is that there is no General Smedley Darlington Butler alive to utterly destroy the rich plot to take over the country and rule it themselves.

This is not a joke or an illusion to a book/movie/TV show. General Butler was a real person who really thwarted a plot by the countries richest men (including the father/grandfather of two Presidents named Bush) to overthrow the government because they thought FDR’s New Deal was “too socialist”. He was an absolute badass who fought in WWI and then spent the rest of his life angered by the fact that the rich were using the military to further their own interests.

We have to beat MAGA by a landslide

[colddeadfingerpeeler]

"I spent 33 years being a high class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. I am a racketeer for capitalism. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking boys of Brown Brothers in 1909 and 1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank to collect revenue in, I helped in the rape of a half dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went about its way unmolested, I had a swell racket, I have been rewarded with honors, medals, and promotions; I could give Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate a racket in three cities. The Marines operate on three continents."

Head of Marine Corps, General Smedley Butler, August 21, 1931

[as21-7]

likes to charge reblogs to cast

[liberty1776]

My younger brother recently went on a fishing trip with a group of guys, including a retired Navy Seal who told the group about his adventures abroad. My brother related these stories to me, and they reminded me of decorated Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler’s reflections in his book War is a Racket: War Crimes Against Sou... Cisco, Walter Brian Best Price: $24.99 Buy New $23.56 (as of 12:14 UTC - Details) 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 … Continue reading →

[itsusernotfound]

Oil deposits

Smedley Butler, as he turned sharply against war later in his life, would home in on one of those causes above the others. “A French phrase, ‘cherchez la femme,’ advises you to search for a woman whenever there is a shady deal put across,” Butler would tell a radio audience around 1935. “But I feel it more to the point, in these times, to look for the oil deposits when you are trying to get at the bottom of deep international intrigue.”

Jonathan M Katz,

Gangsters of Capitalism

[victusinveritas]

[benevolentfalcon]

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.

--Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler

[mikejryan]

If you actually think yourself a patriot, and if you actually love the US [or at least what it is supposed to represent]... read on.

For any US citizen who even slightly calls himself patriotic, if you care even the slightest for veterans of foreign wars, and if you dare to know history kept out of textbooks, out of classrooms, but that is 100% accurate and true, then read the story of Maj. General Smedley Butler, USMC.

The most decorated US Marine in history, and deservedly so, he foiled a plot by the powerful and monied interests to launch a coup to remove FDR from the White House and replace him with a person more in line with Mussolini. The industrialists and bankers, the oil men and their wealth, also controlled major media back then, so Butler was ridiculed and erased from history by the mainstream, even though the congressional hearings into the coup attempt said he was truthful and these events happened, but it was 1933, and money talks, like it does today.

After this fail, the monied interests played the long game to eliminate the New Deal and to impoverish the people of the US and make them more and more dependent upon them. The proceeded to purchase politicians and political parties, all so they could remove protections for the common folks [things like unemployment insurance, universal education, social security, medicare and health care... and to privatize everything and leave almost the entire government in the hands of their greedy tentacles]. Over the last 90 or so years, they have managed much success [look at Project 2025, the GOP platform, look at how we treat education and how the word "entitlement" is used for social security and medicare when working people have paid into it their entire lives, look at how they have managed to divide us into the most idiotic camps, how they've propped up a character who will do exactly what they want and do it for cash and judicial leniency...].

If it weren't for another journalist, mostly lost to history because he spoke the truth and called them out, George Seldes, I would never have known the amazing man Major General Smedley Butler. I would not have known his story, as initially told to me through Seldes, then through Butler's own writings... I would never have read "War is a Racket" and understood how vile Douglas McArthur and George Patton were, and how they smashed veterans.

If you actually care about this nation, its future, and the honor and integrity it should have, and if you care about your fellows and despise cruelty and ignorance, then read Butler. Do it for the sake of us all.

[kathleenkern]

Good and Bad Fruit; Excellent people

February 20, 2024 The new fruit of the morning was pitaya, a mild flavored fruit. Wikipedia says it’s the same as dragon fruit, but most of the dragon fruit I’ve eaten is almost tasteless. (I had a yellow version at the hotel in Medellin on Feb. 22, and it was more flavorful.) After breakfast we went to the Colombia National Museum. I didn’t see any signs forbidding photos, but I furtively took…

[sheilamurrey]

Kennedy24 campaign letter #1

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you happen to be in this big, wide, beautiful world that we live in. Take a breath on this one. I’m typically not here to be political. So that’s my intro and my caveat here. But Robert F Kennedy Jr. Checks so many of the presidential boxes for me if not all, and as you know, I don’t believe in perfection. So here’s the Kennedy 24 campaign…