The following excerpt is from a speech made by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC. Butler joined the Marine Corps when the Spanish American War broke out, earned the Brevette Medal during the Boxer Rebellion in China, saw action in Central America, and in France during World War I, he was promoted to Major General. Smedley Butler served his country for 34 years, yet after he retired after a long career of venerable service, he came to a point where he became publicly outspoken against American armed intervention into the affairs of sovereign nations.
Just about every point he makes in this speech is relevant today. Remember the key points that Butler makes the next time you turn on the boob tube or read in the papers quoting politicians, pundits and their sycophants and useful idiots who repeatedly tell us that our soldiers are in foreign lands to “keep us safe” and to preserve or promote the biggest lie of all: “Democracy!”
WAR IS A RACKET -
Speech delivered in 1933
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. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.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.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.
But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.
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.â€
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
If you don’t believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran’s hospitals in the United States.
Until 1898 we didn’t own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became “internationally minded.†We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington’s warning about “entangling alliances.†We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. 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.
I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men†to point out enemies, its “muscle men†to destroy enemies, its “brain men†to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss†Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. 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.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
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 in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). 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.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could 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.
Does anyone really believe that what our troops are doing — in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and where ever else our government is gearing up to send them to fight, kill and die — is doing anything different than what Butler described in 1933?
The US is not a “democracy.” We are a corporation, and the military division of this global corporation is simply carrying out hostile takeovers around the world to expand production capacity, acquire cheap labor, and seize capital for their own profit at the expense of our soldiers blood and our nations treasury.
I completely concur with Butler when he stated:
“There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.”
It’s time we brought our soldiers home, end this racket, and engage the real enemies of this country…those who continue to wage their subversive war on our homes and on the Bill of Rights.
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{ 111 comments… read them below or add one }
For every day that passes I loose a little more trust in government.
There is almost nothing left, except this little qoute;
. . . if we can ever have a government that will ensure this!
After two world wars during one century and more than a 150 different “small” wars since WWII, I think it´s about time we come up with different solutions. The price is too high, especially with just one gender paying the ultimate price, both on the battlefield and at home.
Hopefully I’m not ruining the mood if I note that the citizens of the United States could end all the war waging.
By voting.
The government is, after all, people.
He misses one of the biggest beneficiaries of today’s military-industrial complex, though it probably wasn’t true in his day because of conscription, that is the millions of men and women who work in the military who don’t get killed or wounded. The military is the best economic opportunity for a lot of people especially if they are from the middle of nowhere or some horrible ghetto and have half a brain. It is also (a lousy) way to pay for college/med school. Of course, there are lots of thrill seekers in the military and a lot of daddy’s boys/girls. But you would have to agree that these people are acting in self-interest in joining the military and not because they have been brain-washed by corporate America.
I’m not saying that’s a justification for a having a large military or a standing army or engaging in the many foreign adventures we engage in like clock-work every 5-10 years. I’m saying its a lot more than “a few” people who support the military-industrial complex and there would be a shitload of working class people who would need to find new jobs. The military effectively is a wealth transfer system from white-collar workers to working class people.
Also, America is a democracy, but one where no one agrees with anyone about anything. This situation may be exploited by big money people, but that’s not to same thing as say they are pulling all the strings. I love this country and wouldn’t live anywhere else, but the electorate is incoherent, hysterical, confused mess on every issue and its not because they are being brainwashed. They actually have different interests.
As a Marine, Smedley Butler is one of my personal heroes. I wrote a post on my own blog about Marine Corps ethics and touched briefly on Butler – who is one of only nineteen people to ever be awarded the Medal of Honor twice. He was also warning about the ‘military industrial complex’ long before Eisenhower would give his famous speech (though I don’t think he used the same terminology). Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise to see this post on the Spearhead today. Kudos!
As to Kevin K’s post above – I think you’re exaggerating a bit when you say there are a “shitload” of people who would need to find new jobs. Less than 1% of the total population of the United States currently serves in its armed forces. I won’t disagree that there’s a lot of waste in the military – which pisses me off, considering I pay taxes also -
I have absolute zero trust in the US Gov’t. And voting is meaningless. You just replace one bought and paid for racketeer with another. The events of just the last five years have convinced me that the President, and Congress, are taking orders from somebody else. They have completely ignored what the majority of the American people want, and have robbed our treasury. Stick a fork in US. We’re done.
Vote? Hahahahahahahahah. The delusian of voting. If I vote I consent, I don’t consent so I don’t vote. Now if only about 20% of us quitnpaying taxes. Starve the beast it is the only way it ever dies.
Mostly agreed. As much as I dislike his Leftism, I think Noam Chomsky’s books provide lots of great detail into such foreign interventions as those Butler mentions.
The biggest frame change for me was in realising that war is decidely anti-male and works to cull superfluous betas to leave the women with their alpha targets. I used to think war heroes were alpha. Now I think they are deluded higher-betas (although still very admirable).
With no Western power having engaged in a large war (i.e. with another major power in which there was real competitive suspense over the outcome) since the onslaught of feminism it is interesting to wonder if the modern beta male would in fact march off to a distant battlefield to protect his sexually liberated sisters.
Point taken, but its still more people (~1.5 million or so) than are roughly in the automobile industry (~800,000), so its an important employer especially for economically depressed areas in an economically depressed demographic (HS educated males).
I’m not sure I would consider the military particularly wasteful considering what we ask it to do and the high standards we expect it to be done.
Somehow the rest of my comment got hacked off. Oh well.
There’s a certain amount of redundancy and even waste inherent in the way our forces are organized. I can’t remember where I read it, but I remember hearing that the SecDef was considering getting rid of the entire Air Force, for instance (I’ve come to realize that a lot of civilians don’t understand that every branch has it’s own aviation component to handle tactical air needs; the only strategic air mission was the delivery of nuclear payloads, which could easily be handled by any of the other branches without having to maintain a separate Air Force – the SecDef was rumored to be considering absorbing the Air Force back into the Army where it originated…especially after some spectacular blunders the Air Force made a few years back).
Some voices argue there’s no need for the Marine Corps, for instance, since the Army is supposed to be our ground fighting force.
Point taken regarding the numbers of military versus the automotive industry, but the majority of the military also operates on a rotating door basis – only a small percentage of the military stays in and makes a career out of it, while most people tend to serve one tour and get out. (I am slightly ignorant of the situation with the automotive industry, but it was my understanding that most people were trying to make a career of the whole thing, which is why it was so painful for the economy. Requiring young men to find a different job is a slightly different beast than requiring middle aged men who have families to support and what not.) I know half the strength of the Marine Corps (approximately 100k), for instance, resides in the lowest three ranks – Privates, Private First Classes, and Lance Corporals. Most Marines get promoted to Corporal or Sergeant within their first tour, but to get beyond those pay grades generally requires a reenlistment, which generally reflects a decision to make a career out of the military. I’m fairly confident the other service branches work similarly, though I grant that I don’t know as much about them as I do my own branch.
Do people really believe that fighting Hitler in WWII wasn’t a worthy cause? I believe that most wars are bullshit, but every now and again a legitimate enemy does come along who is worth dying to stop.
Major General Smedley Butler is one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice.
I completely agree with this post.
War is especially important for men because it has always been men & boys who have been used as cannon fodder for the elite.
Our media & movies try to glorify war but ask people who have served in combat & most of them describe what a horror it was. I have had two uncles serve in Vietnam, one of them was killed there at age 21. The other one who survived still has nightmares to this day about what he saw over there & lost all trust in gov’t when it came out that the Gulf of Tonkin incident which LBJ used to sharply escalate the war NEVER happened. After 9/11 all he said was “watch the gov’t lie their way into more wars using this excuse” and he turned out to be absolutely right.
By the way the most pro war types very often are chickenhawks who dodged service when it was their time. To give an example John Bolton had this to say:
This is the same guy who today gets on Fox news saying that US needs to bomb Iran, invade Somalia etc. He was also a cheerleader for the Iraq war.
The armed forces does a good job of keeping idle hands occupied and giving a higher purpose to all the bullshit. What is more real a fake war or a fake life of the bullshit civilian? If I didn’t go in the army society would have paid the price for my having no purpose. Some people are not able to justify existence as just being alive and making money to buy a house and car and family and living until you die. Having the ability to travel the world and feel like you may have made some diference and the commradere in the armed force is a good thing. Plus of course it does save your ass since yea no army and we would be invaded. Plus no army and you wouldn’t have your cush job because we wouldn’t be robbing fuckers and would instead be getting bent over by someone else and made to give up our shit.
Oh yea and as a e1 you make less than minimum wage he he he
“Venerable.” You managed to commit to print exactly one (1) word on Major General Bulter as a man. Then you jumped back to the safety of your conspiracy theories, where you have world-shaking information power but are oppressed by the ignorant masses and spooky puppet masters. It doesn’t matter that in Major Butler’s case he was right. I am sick to the teeth of your womanly victim whining at The Spearhead. Demonstrate I am wrong by posting something about men. Not people in general, not abstractions and definitely not about weakness. Do that or please find somewhere else online to post.
Did anyone ever hear General Butler’s name in ‘history’. Why? Oh yes, there’s the matter of that uncomfortable book he wrote. Excellent, HL!
On the concept of voting, Icaros2010– you may not understand this, but politicians are selected, not elected, which is another way of stating that it, along with the left/right paradigm is a sham. Personally, IMO there’s waay more going on here than meets the eye so to write. We have the players who have been financing this carnage and always ‘win’–it is the fastest way to accumulate wealth, but I suspect it’s more than wealth of a geopolitical game of control. Money and technology are ‘perceived power’ not real power. I don’t know of anyone who wins a race with the reaper–and since I have no religious belief system this has nothing to do with that. I first wrote this years ago for an article, but it’s true. So many of us are focused on narrow parts of the picture that we will never understand. Every time you believe you’ve figured it out, step back and take another look (there are profound insights within simplicity).
My brother (the only one I claim as a sibling) died as a result of one of these (Nam). He was far more intelligent than I, and yet he had been exposed to control paradigms within society/embedded in films and television/taught in school. Just do a search on silent weapons technology patents over the years, research done by Dr. Jose Delgado and Dr. John Lilly (the ‘Lilly wave’ embedded in our transverse electricity), much more with the magneto electric discoveries of Tesla and others and pieces of the puzzle start to fit.
General Butler is a man I greatly admire for what he did with the larger picture knowledge he had (albeit still limited–but for his time he saw very much). He could have just sad on it and thought “oh well, I’m famous with plenty of money, I’ll keep my mouth shut and they’ll build statues of me”, but he didn’t. You know the perception of people who they build statues for I’m sure–and it isn’t positive.
BS.
The robbery of Iraqis & Americans only benefits a few of the elite like those who own KBR, Blackwater etc.
For ordinary Americans the wars are actually a net drain on our economy & make us more indebted to the Chinese.
The military’s job is not travelling the world & spreading “democracy” or whatever bullshit they are telling the sheeple now but to defend the US. That was what the founders wanted & envisioned. This country was intended to be a constitutional republic not an empire. Spraying napalm & agent orange on the Vietnamese people was not about defending America, hell this degenerate gov’t refused to even acknowledge the effects of Agent Orange on our own veterans for a long time.
Remember the domino theory crap, ya well we left & I didn’t see the whole of Asia become communist as predicted and today Vietnam is a trading partner of the US.
If it was only that simple.
The winners are all pre selected & the whole drama is a sham.
Whenever someone gets too dangerous for the establishment the media goes into overdrive trying to discredit them & block their views out from the general public.
Look what they did to Ron Paul in the media in the run up to the election, all the major networks did their best to block him out because they knew the danger he posed for the warfare welfare state.
Laws are created in such a way that third parties have a very hard time even getting on the ballot, the 50 states have 50 different sets of laws that need to be fulfilled before a third party can get on the ballot.
It’s even worse. Americans die for the new world order, whose headquarters are in Europe, under the leadership of int’l bankers and the old European nobility.
The US forces are a tool for a world goverment creation. After its arrival, bye bye US sovereignity.
See: infowars.com
”””””””’BS.
The robbery of Iraqis & Americans only benefits a few of the elite like those who own KBR, Blackwater etc.
””””””””
You probably also believe that people can’t become financially independant through their very own hard work and saving money. It benefited me and I don’t own kbr nor am I elite. Well ok I guess I am elite but you know probably not what you envision as like 2 people at the top and everyone else sucking a cock for money and being downtrodden. Shit chick I am living with used to think like you that you know she couldn’t become free always had to be a slave but then she met me. She now works two jobs and is on track to buy her first house with cash that she will save. Plus the free 10k she is gonna get will prob help with the gov programs for first time homebuyers. Then when she does that she will have no bills. She will rent out one side of a duplex and live in the other and it will have been paid off with cash. Then she can repeat that process and actually be able to quit working and really she could probably accomplish that in like the next 5 years. You can do it to it just takes some balls and not spending all the money you make and actually working enough to be able to have something to save. Doesn’t require college degree doesn’t require a giant brain.
David Brandt:
To be honest, I’m not all that familiar with the political system in the U.S. I do know the outline. But if 100% of the voting population wanted to end your foreign adventures for good, are you saying that wars would still go on?
The situation might partly be a systemic problem, true, but who is accountable in the end if you can’t place any responsibility on the voters? The U.S. is on autopilot?
If you take this article at heart, which I do, then you understand why I say tax the top 1% to pay off our national debt. It’s really not our debt. It’s their debt. They are the puppet masters who drove us down this road. I’m sorry for those in the top 1% who didn’t do anything wrong, but by their complacency or willful ignorance, they allow it to happen. Trickle down economics is true enough if you focus on the “trickle” part, but money “flows” to the top, and down right “gushes” there in times of prosperity. I hate handouts, welfare, etc., but real household income, inflation adjusted, has been stagnant since 1973, while productivity has soared a great deal more than 30%. It’s time the middle class stops paying for the elite’s wars, protective bureaucracies, and corporate welfare. NO more tax loopholes, off-shoring of assets, legal advantages, and false sense of earned entitlement by the rich. Plenty of rich people deserve to be rich. Just as many inherited it, got lucky, or knew the right people. But the top 1% pays 40% or our taxes, you say! Think about that you idiot. Thats because they control well over 40% of the wealth. Someone with 10′s of millions of dollars can do without the third home and second yacht, at least right now, when our country is about to go bankrupt. Time to pay your fair share. Instead of donating 10k to a politician to insure your 10k tax break, instead of donating 10k to a charity and then just write that off as a tax break, instead of paying an accountant 10k to save 10k in taxes, why don’t you just donate that 30k to help pay off our debt, thereby help everyone, not just people who will kiss your ass for doing so. Once the books are even, you can start to screw over the middle class again, but come on, we’re on the fucking edge of a financial cliff, and what do we do? Raise taxes on those who can afford it? No. We go into more debt to bail out rich bankers and corporate giants! Who watches the watchmen? It apparently isn’t the middle class. I’m telling you! I’m not nuts! Class warfare. It’s inherently capitalistic. Its just fighting for what you think you deserve. How do we know what we are worth, until we demand what we are worth? Is it wrong to ask your boss for a pay raise? Then why is it wrong to ask the rich to pay more taxes? Those taxes pay cops to protect the rich people’s gated communities first and foremost, and I’ve seen it first hand, while those same cops look to nickle and dime me through driving violations and busting me for weed. You think a burglary in the hood gets adequatly investigated. I’ve seen a burglary in a golf course neighborhood get a response that makes shows like CSI look like a bunch of light weight amateurs. Almost a dozen cops?! Really, almost a dozen cops because your plasma screen got stolen! I’m sure your buddy next to you who owns the local Best-Buy and will give you another discount. How many people around here know rich people and have seen the willing and dealing that goes on. It’s like celebrities getting free clothes, drinks and gadgets all the time. It makes me sick. I’ve even skimmed the cream off the milk of those cash cows a few times myself, and I have nothing to offer in return other than my sparkling personality, I can’t imagine the extent of what they do for each other behind closed doors. (I did give one of my well-to-do buddies a stock hint once, as the company I work for is booming, even in this economy. Maybe he’ll buy me a car with some of the profit I made him.)
(Yes I’m envious. Envy is not all bad. Like anger, it drives us to action. I’m not looking to do anything illegal or screw anyone over. Rich people use the system to their advantage all the time. I want to use that same system also, and I’ll use it to tax them more so the middle class is squeezed less. Fair play.)
@some of the above arguing-
Voting works. It might not work out for the best always, but our Democracy is still functioning, even if somewhat corrupt. You think Obama and Bush are part of the same team? I doubt it. We still decide who our leaders are, even if we make ill-informed choices.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/PlanYourEstate/rich-cling-to-life-to-beat-tax-man.aspx
CLASS WAAARFAAAARE!
If life were a video game with no war what would be the purpose of playing?
Life is pretty simple you save up some of them dollars and can chill. Really really simple shit.
Sure there are quit a few pitfalls for men like divorce child support false imprisonment but don’t forget that a man is still in a good position to take what he wants as well the majority of the time.
@Jabherwochie
That´s not envy, J, that´s just calling out for justice and fairness for everyone. Thumbs up!
Yea Jabherwochie class warfare every dumb person happy when a rich guy goes down instead of realizing that they too can be rich if they would have the balls.
How is taking a little more from them taking them down. I don’t want to take away their entire wealth, most of it, or even some of it. Just a little more until the books they unbalanced are in the black. Are you rich? How’d you do it? You might be one of the ones who deserves it. I don’t care if you pay a couple grand more a year in taxes, if my grandkids won’t be saddled with that debt instead. You think I should care more about you, or my country, or my progeny?
There are lots of ideas about this, but its difficult to change big institutions. I do think this talk by Thomas Barnett from a few years ago is worth watching if you are interested in the future directions of the US military since he actually has an audience at the pentagon :
http://www.youtube.com/user/tedtalksdirector?blend=1&ob=4#p/search/2/d3xlb6_0OEs
And Gun, not everyone can be rich. It doesn’t work that way. We do not live in a meritocracy like rich people would believe either. Capitalism, like evolution, can be quite random and undpredictable. Dumb ideas may make fortunes, brilliant ones may loose them. Hardworkers may work themselves into an early grave with pennies in the bank, lazy people may sue McDonalds for a spilled coffee and live like a king.
Exactly Gunslingergregi.
Class warfare is controlling bullshit.
If you can prove somebody not earned his wealth then you can sue him.
Going after anybody’s wealth just because you need it is theft.
Basicly you can only build a just society on respect for property rights, anything else is tyranny or chaos.
“If you can prove somebody not earned his wealth then you can sue him.
Going after anybody’s wealth just because you need it is theft.”
Calling for a fair tax system is theft?
Did I say anything about doing anything illegal, unfair, or corrupt?
Lets not put words into my mouth. I see the corruption of rich people, and how they have tilted the playing field to their advantage, and I would like to tilt it back? Why or how am I wrong for this?
Gunslingergregi your post is one big logical fallacy.
You are like the guy when told about how men shouldn’t marry because of the divorce stats & laws replies “ya but we are in love & that would never happen to me, divorce happens to abusive drunk losers not nice family guys like me”. The odd exception doesn’t mean that the statement is invalid.
You would benefit from war if you go join Blackwater & get paid 3 or 4 times more than what you get in the US military for doing the same jobs but the average US citizen is not benefitting from it, in fact he is financing your salary through taxes levied on him by the gov’t out of which the gov’t pays Blackwater for fulfilling the contracts. Just because YOU personally benefited from war does not mean society at large does.
All this is besides the point anyway, for most people war costs lives & bombing foreigners based on phony reasons is immoral & unethical to say the least. Those millions of Vietnamese dead & the 58k US military men died for a lie, they wouldn’t be dead today if the US gov’t decided not to start that war.
””””””””’Jabherwochie December 31, 2009 at 07:45
And Gun, not everyone can be rich. It doesn’t work that way. We do not live in a meritocracy like rich people would believe either. Capitalism, like evolution, can be quite random and undpredictable. Dumb ideas may make fortunes, brilliant ones may loose them. Hardworkers may work themselves into an early grave with pennies in the bank, lazy people may sue McDonalds for a spilled coffee and live like a king.
””””””””’
Yea everyone can be rich. Not everyone will be rich because of self defeating thinking or because they don’t want to. I am proving my hypothesis now on the chick I am with that anyone can be rich. She is doing it. She is doing the steps it takes to become finanically free. I am not talking about inventing something and maybe it catches on or hoping to win the lottery or hoping to be involved in a lawsuit that is the path for suckers or people who leave there future to some sort of fate. I am talking just working a job and spending less than you make which is possible for pretty close to everyone to do. I am talking about making your own luck which it is not luck it is concrete if you save 2k a month you will have 96k in 4 years. That is not wishfull thinking that is reality.
“If you can prove somebody not earned his wealth then you can sue him.”
That is sometimes easy to prove, but always impossible to sue for. I would only sue rich people for breaking the law. The problem is, they’ve had the laws written specifically to benefit them above everyone else’s interests. I want to change those laws through the democratic system. That is how I propose we go about “class warfare”. It is a metaphorical word, not literal.
You all are being naive if you think rich people haven’t used the government and cheated the government to unfairly protect their wealth.
To use other people’s thought memes, do you think the Illuminati is playing fair?
”””””’Just because YOU personally benefited from war does not mean society at large does.”””””
Well actually society benefits because I don’t go and shoot up a highly populated place because I see no point to existance. Now I can just go chill and relax and don’t have to be involved in society he he he
It is a win win for the both of us.
@Gunslinger
“If life were a videogame…”
As a soldier, like I myself were, (Marines), -riddle me this:
How many second tries does real life give, as opposed to videogames?
One, -right!-Would you seriously jeopardize your existence to fight a war, which sole purpose is to make (another?) rich man even more wealthy. Especially now, that you´ve found out that every reason for fighting in Iraq were based on lies??
@Krauser
“..if the modern beta male would in fact march off to a distant battlefield to free his sexually liberated sisters.”
Hell, NO! -let the “liberated and empowered” fight the bloody wars for once. Might change a few opinions about war, when the bodybags return with female soldiers in them…
“I am talking about making your own luck which it is not luck it is concrete if you save 2k a month you will have 96k in 4 years. That is not wishfull thinking that is reality.”
I mean really rich. A third of the kids at my upperclass Highschool probably have more money than that by now. My dad will retire with well over a million in the bank. My brother lost 25k in a bank investment, and his family didn’t even have to eat balony sandwiches or cut off their cable to compensate. You think upper middleclass is rich. You and me aren’t even on the same page. I’m talking about captains of industry, leaders of financial empires, not the doctor down the street who is good at investing money.
CLASS WAAARFAAAARE! . . . is communism, which in turn gave us feminism and set us up against our own institutions, destroyed ethic and morals and works to give the ‘Intelligentsia’ (communist concept) the power to exploit everyone else.
Read more on the internet, it’s everywhere.
I do not listen to anyone who advocates such, I clean my weapons!
@Gunslinger
That should have said;None-damnit!
Young men need a positive outlet for agression. It will be let out it just needs to be directed at the appropriate channels until they age out and mellow out a bit. Not everyone can be a fag nice guy.
“CLASS WAAARFAAAARE! . . . is communism”
Don’t be simplistic.
By your logic, capitalism with broken rules is facism then. So we are simply arguing about which is better, facism or communism then, by your simplistic world view. I don’t have time for sloganeering. Go regurgiatate the propaganda the elite has brainwashed with, so that you believe everything is fair and on the level, in some right wing echo chamber. I’m sure you think con-men deserve their spoils.
Kimski I was in iraq and kuwait working 12 hours 7 days a week for 4 years and ten months straight. Just got back to us on sep 2.
“Read more on the internet, it’s everywhere.”
I read more than just the internet. A lot of nutcases post BS and a lot of self serving entities post propaganda all over the internet because it is the wild-west of ideas. That can be good, but can also be bad. How about I think for myself.
”””””’I mean really rich. A third of the kids at my upperclass Highschool probably have more money than that by now. My dad will retire with well over a million in the bank. My brother lost 25k in a bank investment, and his family didn’t even have to eat balony sandwiches or cut off their cable to compensate. You think upper middleclass is rich. You and me aren’t even on the same page. I’m talking about captains of industry, leaders of financial empires, not the doctor down the street who is good at investing money.
””””””””””
I consider free men rich. By free I mean not having to get up to go to a job to make money to pay a mortgage and bills. I mean ability to already take care of your living expenses. No boss having the power over you and your families wellbeing. You know better off than 95 percent of the population.
@Jabherwochie
Next time choose the red pill, Jabher. This is what the raving leftist professor David Michael Green has to say about Obama: Now I’m Really Getting Pissed Off.
The day I became a naturalized US citizen was probably the proudest moment of my life. I gave back all that pride and more when Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld made torture official policy and the USA became Torture Nation.
When Obama was elected, my thoughts were “here comes Socialism, but at least the Dems will roll back some of the unconstitutional excesses of the criminal Bush regime.” Instead it turns out with Obama all we have is George Bush Plus Socialism.
””””””As a soldier, like I myself were, (Marines), -riddle me this:
How many second tries does real life give, as opposed to videogames?””””””’
Actually real life does seem to give muliple chances I have placed in myself in so many positions to die and yet I am still alive he he he
It is starting to become a comedy really.
I was an MRA in spirit long before the internet helped fill in the blanks. I didn’t need it to enlighten or awaken me. I’m a class-warfare advocate now, and when it becomes trendy on the internet, I’ll still let you join then. The Illuminati/NWO/etc. and the top 1% of people sees a lot of overlap. Maybe I should say top .01%, but 1% is easier for people to digest, and I know more stats for the top 1%.
“When Obama was elected, my thoughts were “here comes Socialism, but at least the Dems will roll back some of the unconstitutional excesses of the criminal Bush regime.†Instead it turns out with Obama all we have is George Bush Plus Socialism.”
It can be explained by bureucratic and cultural inertia. Presidents are not kings. Lets not split hairs.
And if they are on the same team, that team is made up of the top 1% I want to have class warfare against. How are we not all on the same page here? I feel like Globalman must feel somedays.
I don’t have a problem with rich people. I have a problem with rich people playing by a different set of rules. And not semi-rich people. I guess not the bulk of the top 1%. I shouldn’t throw that number around so much, but the ultra-rich who can buy politicians, change laws, and have people dissapear with the transfer of money from a swiss bank account.
Jesus didn’t like rich people either. I don’t think Buddha dug them all that much either. Mohammad, yeah, he was all about living it up however. Just sayin.
I gotta do some paper pushing for my 9 to 5, as I can’t get a loan to start up any of my buisness ideas, as I’m not already rich, but I’ll be back later.
Collectivism, in any form, is opposed to Freedom.
Those two are incompatible.
Fascism and Communism are both subsets of collectivism!
Fighting feminism is a fight for freedom!
@Jabherwochie
So, you’re now unmasked as a Democrat, Jabher.
You responded so quickly to my comment that you could not have read the article I linked to on David Michael Green’s blog. That’s a shame because that article is a fascinating insight into how a rabid leftie now views Obama. David Michael Green’s blog is titled “Smirking Chimp,” btw, which provides a clue as to how he viewed George Bush. Second chance: Now I’m Really Getting Pissed Off.
Obama has turned out to be what I always thought he was. A pretender, an empty suit, a man with plenty to hide and for good reason.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/corporate-americas-huge-piles-of-cash.aspx?page=1&ucpg=2
More are coming. Just let me know when you want me to stop.
“So, you’re now unmasked as a Democrat, Jabher. ”
I was left leaning at one time, I admit that. But I’m trying to move this argument beyond labels and slogans.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-judd/corporate-tax-loopholes-c_b_295261.html
”””””” Jabherwochie December 31, 2009 at 08:43
I gotta do some paper pushing for my 9 to 5, as I can’t get a loan to start up any of my buisness ideas, as I’m not already rich, but I’ll be back later.
””””””””’
And I will keep not doing shit but what I want and now you see the diference. he he he
Hey my dad made it and lost it three times. Like millionair bankrupt made it and lost it. All before he was 40. It is when I realized you don’t have to be a captain of industry or inventor to be free just need to follow a couple simple steps. I do have some of the gambler in me though I mean I did lose like 135k on the stock market. Then ya realize sometimes it is the simplest things that work the best and most assuredly.
@Gunslinger
“It is starting to become a comedy really”
That´s usually a good sign that one should stop playing “The Ultimate Videogame”. Glad you made it though, who else would I be discussing S.King books with??
And, hey, -thank you for doing so!!
@Jabherwochie
Don’t worry, we’re on the same team. I hate Democrats and Republicans more or less equally, but for different reasons.
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries”………..Winston Churchill
Yea I quit will be going to live my quiet life of watching rice grow and riding my motor scooter over bamboo bridges that would make indiana jones wince he he he
Harvesting tons of talapia living on a manmade island made of 50 gallon drums in the middle of a lake when I feel like it that sort of thing.
Although I do think I was put on this earth to help people realize that they don’t have to be a wage slave nor wish upon a star. You can make your own “luck”
Sorry, Jabher (if you are Jabher, the gravatar changed so you are using another e-mail adress. Suspicious) but Obama is just more of the same lived under Bush, with more people buying it just because he’s a Brown Democrat and Republicans didn’t even try.
http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2009/12/the-devil.html
His falling ratings show as much. People were tricked into buying more of the same.
To the point, a lot of military actions taken by the US goverment should have been quick punches with everything they got at an specific point, instead we got long, dragged on campaigns based on adquiring the resources of another country at gunpoint and with limited firepower due to leftists that cry and moan about it.
Is the worst of both sides.
Sorry for the spamming and all Welmer. Heat of debate and all that. Hope I’m not causing you a headache. No need to post this or any double post. I was confused as to why my post stopped going through at first.
I give up. My links aren’t going through. Some spammer defense is catching me in the web.
“Gx1080 December 31, 2009 at 09:22
Sorry, Jabher (if you are Jabher, the gravatar changed so you are using another e-mail adress. Suspicious)”
I’m an internet idiot. My hotmail account expired, but I still use it sometimes for logins. Trying to switch to my work email. Are you moderating here? Sorry for the mess if you are. Of course, maybe I’m a double agent for the Illuminati, using reverse psychology right now. Or not. Or maybe.
Abolishing the Air Force: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=abolish_the_air_force
@Gunslinger
Seems to me you´ve earned it, so enjoy!
Meanwhile I´ll be sittin in the cold of Scandinavia, freezing my balls off!
Happy New Year, bro.
The full text of “War Is A Racket” can be downloaded at several web sites. Here is one.
Every father should give this to his teenage son.
After I served in South Armagh I visited the hospital bed of a friend of mine who was, like me, a paratrooper and Platoon Commander. He had suffered 60% third degree burns. Almost enough to kill him, but not quite, but enough to burn off all his facial features including his ears, lips, nose and eyelids. This guy had been better than me in all respects. Better looking, a better athlete, better with women, a better person, a better soldier. War is pointless random violence.
May want to get some of those chemical heat packs so that the balls do not actually freeze off lol
Happy New year make some realistic resolutions he he he
Butler, to put it mildly, was an idiot.
First, the US has ALWAYS been entangled, whether it liked it or not, in foreign alliances and WAR. Even before it was the US: the Seven Years/French and Indian War, the War against the Dutch (that got us NY), and of course the War of 1812 where Washington DC and the Whitehouse were burned to shells. The Mexican-American War, the Seminole Wars (egged on by the Spanish), the Spanish-American War, and so on.
Why the hell was Smedley Butler in Central America anyway? Duh. Because Russia sought to turn Central and South America into an overseas empire.
I prefer Trotsky. YOU may not be interested in WAR, but WAR IS INTERESTED IN YOU.
Let’s review: human nature has not changed. Magic Unicorns and rainbows have not turned dangerous, ruthless men into pussycats watching Barney the Purple Dinosaur.
Moreover, the modern world which produces a lot of wealth … RUNS ON CHEAP ENERGY. Want to be able to get in your car and drive anywhere, paying “only” $4 a gallon for gasoline? Instead of say, $40? Then that means KILLING PEOPLE. LOTS OF THEM. Killing them in Nigeria. In Iraq when Saddam seized the oil-fields of Kuwait. Against Iran if they close the Straights of Hormuz. And a whole lot of other places. Until we figure out how to harness rainbows and unicorn farts.
Add to it, nuclear proliferation, with unstable, fractured, polygamous societies like Iran and Pakistan, the latter a set of feuding tribes with a flag and nukes, and ambitious men who seek to generate an exile Army like Mohammed in Medina, and damn straight we need an OVERWHELMINGLY LARGE MILITARY. Because we don’t JUST face great powers but non-state actors who can and will kill millions of Americans unless deterred by fear.
WWII happened because pacifists, driven mostly by women and utopian socialists, disarmed the nations of Britain, France, and the US. Letting Hitler run wild with aggression in Europe and Japan in Asia. Had we 24 Aircraft Carriers instead of only 8, in 1941, Japan would never have dared to attack us.
Anyone knows that the weak, small kid gets picked on in school, because he’s an easy target. Making the US weak and small is frankly stupid. Butler may have had moral qualms about his actions in Central America, but the fighting made the US Marine Corps the ONLY force prepared to take on the Japanese in the Pacific. Read E.B. Sledge’s “With the Old Breed” an account of the First Marine Division and its war against Japan in places like Tarawa, Saipan, and Okinawa.
War is EXTREMELY UGLY. But it cannot be avoided, and trying to avoid it through pacifism only makes it worse — a monumental struggle for survival ala Stalingrad instead of deterrence through strength.
Muslim men will continue to be frustrated by Muslim polygamy and social demands for rare virgins as “acceptable” brides for marriage. They are a society of would-be Klebolds, Harrises, Chos, and Soldinis. The danger is not Undie-bombers, with explosive underpants bringing down planes, but NYC nuked AND OTHER CITIES FOLLOWING. Which would require a “war of the peoples” ala the Pacific 1941-45, aimed at killing masses of the enemy populace in a war of people survival.
The way to stop this is with overwhelming military force, applied regularly, to deter action down to the tribal level.
I will go further … global integration and trade and supply chains requires MORE not less US military force and action. If the Atlantic Ocean was a giant highway where British and French naval forces could move with impunity around the US coastline in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and U-boats cruise the US Atlantic coast at will in the 1940′s, Jet and Container travel and shipping gives even places like Pakistan the equivalent of ICBMs aimed straight at our cities, with shaky control at best over their nukes.
This does not mean we need to be at war with everyone, but more than 30 years of pacifism and passivity in response to acts of War: assassination of US Diplomats, Embassy takeover in Iran, bombings of US barracks in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, the Cole, the First WTC bombing in 1993, handwringing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so on require action not words to deter attack.
[FWIW, US exit from the Depression did not come about by FDR's programs, which made things worse, but national mobilization. New Orleans went from about 70% unemployment to FULL EMPLOYMENT by the Higgins Boat factory alone making landing craft, 24/7, with three factories, Blacks working at the same wages and conditions as Whites. US postwar prosperity was assured by factories built and paid for by government contracts to produce war materials. More recently, Reagan's defense build up in the 1980's produced 4.8 million new jobs in 1984, assuring his re-election, as that was the greatest job creation record per year in the post-War era. Defense spending employs mainly nerdy White engineers and skilled White blue collar machinists and so on, at high wages and high skills. Like DARPA and the internet, it often produces invaluable civilian infrastructure. And thus, job growth.]
In summation, yes War is bad. It is also part of human nature. The US always has been involved in War and entangling alliances because the Atlantic is one giant highway for any naval power, and now with container shipping and jet travel, a terrorist group with influence and power over a nuclear government can use this to kill millions of Americans so that a would be dictator can assemble an exile army.
Butler may have styled himself a Gangster for Capitalism, but the alternative was Latin America ruled by Stalin. I’ll take the Gangster.
@Gunslinger
Was thinking along the lines of: “-Next year I´ll fuck, drink, smoke and travel more than I did last year!”
-Should be a realistic resolution for me!
“You responded so quickly to my comment that you could not have read the article I linked to on David Michael Green’s blog.”
Okay, I read it. I did like this quote from it;
“You know, elite Republicans may be sociopaths, and they may be lower on the moral totem pole than your basic cannibal, but they’re not stupid.”
I do hear what your saying. Its hard to be a leader who likes to make everyone happy when you don’t have autocratic powers. I maintain “hope” although. Sorry about the rationalization, but my Obama bet has already been placed, and to try to sneak my chips off the table would be cheating at this point. I have to wait until all the hands are shown before I can cash in, or sadly, as it looks like I’m holding a 7, 2 mixed suit, with an ugly flop, and as I don’t expect the turn to help much, I’ve got my fingers crossed for getting lucky at the river, so it looks like my all in will take me out of the game. But yeah, I don’t like either party either. I’ll just go with the one I like least until it looks like a third party canditate has a shot. I like to gamble to Gunslinger, even with ideas.
“Fascism and Communism are both subsets of collectivism!”
—————————————————————————–
fas·cism (fÄsh’Äz’É™m)
n.
often Fascism
a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
c. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
com·mu·nism (kÅm’yÉ™-nÄz’É™m)
n.
a. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
Communism
b. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
c. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution
—————————————————————
Allright. I see your point, as they both have centralized authoritarian rule, sorta like massive, world spanning, corporate conglomerates whose CEOs pick the board members who decide his salary and who have so much money, power and influence that said CEO can sway governments to bend to his will by changing laws and regulations that suit his and his companies needs.
You all know I bring up class warfare as a debate starter. This is all in good fun.
After all, I may just be imagining things.
http://www.whitehouse2.org/priorities/73-eliminate-corporate-tax-loopholes-all-pay-on-profits/endorsers
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/05/04/1921326.aspx
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Taxes/P97282.asp
http://www.silobreaker.com/banks-eye-tax-loophole-5_2262799845553078305
http://www.missouriprovote.org/Docs/CTL%20Geoffrey%20report1%20The%20Real%20Story.pdf
http://yourcreatecash.info/2009/12/30/congress-lets-50-tax-breaks-expire/
So what?
Personally I believe that all of this is true and that Butler was a fucking monster hero. Just read about how he earned his medals. Crazy. And his beliefs and observations are more applicable to the current situation than they’ve ever been.
But what now? Should I sacrifice time and effort to change a system that most people, judging by the lack of real change in DC or bodies hanging from lampposts on Wall Street, don’t want to change? Or that most people can be convinced to accept by waving a piece of colored cloth in front of their faces and having a few well-dressed mouthpieces (white, black, or otherwise) deliver platitudes to via TV or the Internet?
A wise man once said “fuck that shit, cause I ain’t the one” in a similar circumstance: one in which he was supposed to be a punk sucker bitch but decided to be something more. Today I echo his statement.
I’ve joined the smart guys (i.e. the real alphas) and I’ll burn in hell with my back broken before I lift a finger to help out some bullshit brought-out government with their bullshit corporate wars. I am going to take advantage of the inevitable but totally avoidable wars, depressions, recessions, natural disasters, etc. that are going to happen anyway because that’s the smart move.
My only goal is to make as much money as possible, so by all means be a man and join the military. Be a Real American. Enjoy, And rest assured that I am going to be profiting in some manner from your valiant sacrifice every time you lay your head down on the cold rocky ground for a few hours (hopefully) of sleep.
And regarding the wars, like the pimp said to his hoes – keep ‘em coming.
@Whiskey
It takes a towering arrogance to make that statement.
I have an open mind, however. Perhaps you have the experience to make a such a judgment. Do you?
In any case, Butler was not arguing for pacifism and nor am I. Butler’s point was that the political and business elite have an enormous profit motive for engaging in perpetual war.
You have swallowed the conventional version of US military history with the US always justified in responding to external aggression. The truth is more complicated. The sinking of the USS Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, 9/11 – all reasons for war and all deceptions or lies.
I disagree. You may be willing to kill lots of people for your gas but I am not. The fact that you support this does not make you a hard-nosed realist, imo, it makes you a sociopath.
…damn straight we need an OVERWHELMINGLY LARGE MILITARY. Because we don’t JUST face great powers but non-state actors who can and will kill millions of Americans unless deterred by fear.
The era of conventional warfare ended with WWII. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that since then, an overwhelmingly large military does not act as a deterrent to a motivated enemy.
This does not mean we need to be at war with everyone, but more than 30 years of pacifism and passivity in response to acts of War: assassination of US Diplomats, Embassy takeover in Iran, bombings of US barracks in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, the Cole, the First WTC bombing in 1993, handwringing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so on require action not words to deter attack.
While I agree with many points you make, it is not US pacifism that led to these “acts of war” but ironically, US involvement. You can point to every single one of these events and trace it back to US actions post-WWII in pursuit of its own ambitions.
@too late for romance
Amen. Rather die than be cannon fodder.
@DF
An overhelming military that proves that has no problem in killing all of you in a heartbeat if you step over the line doesact as a deterrent. Thugs are thugs after all.
Smedley was right.
They never told us in boot camp or OCS that one of our Marine demi-gods felt this way. When I found out years later, I was quite shocked.
They still won’t listen Smedley.
To All:
Simple point. We are not a Democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic. A democracy is two wolves and a sheep arguing over what’s for dinner. In the Constitutional Republic, the sheep gets a gun!
Robin Commented:
Do people really believe that fighting Hitler in WWII wasn’t a worthy cause? I believe that most wars are bullshit, but every now and again a legitimate enemy does come along who is worth dying to stop.
Robin, perhaps you need to look into how Prescott Bush was actually providing funding for Hitler and Germany from here in America. You’ll soon start to see that these types of despots don’t just rise up on their own. They always have help. Bankers operate without national limits for their own benefit. Just go look it up and see what I’m talking about.
I’m forced to agree with a lot of what Whiskey says about this. War is not a perfect solution, but this is an imperfect world. We have been stuck in a lot of wars whether we like it or not starting with the Barbary Pirates.
Me too. The “gangster for capitalism” will leave you alone if you don’t cause trouble. The communist and islamofacist wants to rule every second of your life and every thought you have so that you are their slave. The “capitalist gangster” is always the better choice.
I was going to make this point, but Whiskey got to it first. I would also add that defense spending since its spent of white (and asian) male engineers and male machinists and the like it effectively acts as a counter to feminist spending. Instead of even more government money being spent on anti-male causes, though defense spending it gets spent on technological development and by extension men.
Also, as people who are interested in sex bots, VR sex, and related technologies, defense spending has given a boost to the faster development of these technologies. For instance, the war on terror has accelerated the development of robotics. We’re still a far cry from sex bots, but we’re closer than we would have been without the war on terror.
You might as well curse the sun for being bright. War is tied to civilization, and has been lamented since we could articulate the hypocrisy of the venture. Look at the quotes on war through history/ “War is old men talking and young men dying”. War is about treasure.
It is an ugly reality that must be accepted, just as the impending collapse of any empire that sheds the roots of success. America has thrown away its libertarian Christian roots, and allowed the unworthy to vote. Women, people who pay no taxes: they all vote.
Now we fight wars of waste with new, wonderful technology – we have the technology to win any war, we just do not have the stomach. We shouldn’t be losing one more man in Afghanistan; Afghanistan should have been turned into a parking lot decades ago.
This is from christiansforpeace.com.
————————————————————————-
Below are Jesus’ words. Jesus never advocated any form of violence or dominance. Instead, He commanded us to love, show mercy, and to forgive others. It is inconceivable that Jesus would support war. (Sermon on the Mount Analysis)
Non Violence: Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Matt 26:52.
Meek, Merciful, and Peacemakers: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth… Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy… Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Matt 5:5-9.
Forgive Those Who Sin Against Us: Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven…” Matt 18:21-22
Love your Enemies: But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. Luke 6:27-32
—————————————————————————–
I’m not saying I agree. I’m no pacifist. But Jesus was a sligh cat, and he wasn’t going to give an inch to some sociopath so they could stretch it into a mile, and I can’t help but think of his words when I think of neo-con aggression, and the fact that Cheney put biblical quotes on the front of Bush’s daily intelligence briefings.
Pax-America? Not anymore. It’s time for Fortress-America. Isolation for now. I’m pro big-military as a deterent and last resort, but a deterent is pointless if its wielded about sloppily and inefectually. People stop taking us seriously if we reveal the cards in our hands and show our weaknesses. If it needs to happen? I’d follow the Powel doctrine, primed and finished off with Sun-Tzu like tactics and strategims.
With the obvious exception of the defense industry, the political and business elite don’t want perpetual war. In fact very few of the political and business elite want the war on terror (outside of the defense industry and even with the defense industry its more complicated than that). It’s something they got stuck with after 9/11.
None of the elite wanted a war in Afghanistan because it has no real value. (Before anyone brings up the the Afghani Unocal pipeline, Unocal decided on a different route in the late 90s that did not go through Afghanistan.) The only reason any of the political and business elite wanted a war in Iraq was because Saddam pissed them off by double crossing them. And that desire was not very strong because otherwise Saddam would have been taken out in 1991 not 2003. Oil companies would have been just as happy to but oil from Saddam as anyone else. In other words, the energy industry had no interest in creating the Iraq War because it would have been simpler and cheaper for them to buy oil from Saddam.
Even when war would have the maximum benefit for the elite such as a war with North Korea to remove Kim Jong-Il, they won’t do it.
Most of the political and business elite do have at least minimal feminist tendencies if they aren’t full on feminists, so they don’t want most wars since that diverts government money from feminist causes. This is the real reason why the idea that the political and business elite have no interest in perpetual war or even a long term war such as the war on terror.
@Pro-male/Anti-feminist Tech-
Interesting analysis. So what do you think drove us into the middle east wars then?
Why don’t our selfstyled internet warriors whiskey & Pro-male/Anti-feminist Tech sign up then instead of hiding behind their PC’s in the US?
At least Gunslinger actually went into Iraq.
Oh the elite didn’t war did they?
It’s just a coincidence that KBR, Blackwater & other private companies have been making bank in the war.
If a two time medal of honor man who actually served in the military is an “idiot” then I wonder what neocons like whiskey are?
Who is the idiot here whiskey?
You conveniently ommitting history to suit your neocon fantasies or Butler?
You mentioned the Embassy take over in Iran.
Yet you conveniently forgot the role that the CIA played in propping up the Shah as a dictator in Iran for years before the embassy take over.
Have you actually ever served in the armed forces & been to war?
This is the same leftist-liberal whining I can find on any random website. Just because it’s from 1933 doesn’t mean it’s any different.
I will repeat it again the biggest cheerleaders for war are the same cowards who never served when it was their time & that’s no coincidence. Examples include:
Ted “I shit my pants to avoid going to Vietnam” Nugent.
Dick “5 deferments” Cheney
John “I have no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy” Bolton
George “Daddy got me into Air National Guard to prevent me from being sent to Vietnam” Bush.
By contrast guys like Pat & Kevin Tillman who actually put their money where their mouth is quickly realise that they have been lied to by their gov’t.
Pat thought that the Iraq war was illegal & would be a disaster.
Here is Kevin’s tribute to his brother Pat who was betrayed even in death by the higher ups in the army:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday
@Jabherwochie
This is from Monty Python: Life Of Brian.
————————————————————————————————-
Blessed are the cheesemakers. -Oh, it´s not meant to be taken literary, but refers to any manufactors of dairy products.
-From the opening scenes of the mountain sermon.
Happy New Year and thanks for a LOT of funny comments and viewpoints!!
”””””””’Kimski December 31, 2009 at 10:09
@Gunslinger
Was thinking along the lines of: “-Next year I´ll fuck, drink, smoke and travel more than I did last year!â€
-Should be a realistic resolution for me!”””””””
Yea that is where I started. he he he
Although still always saved loot too.
Well, I have stopped all of the above – except for today I’ll smoke a good cigar!
Happy New Year guys
Two Things:
1. Saddam still being around in 2001
2. Lots of people getting caught with their pants down on 9/11
Before 9/11 the elite had no interest whatsoever in wars in the Middle East (except for dealing with Saddam and that wasn’t very strong or else Saddam would have been dealt with earlier). As long as the oil kept flowing they don’t care who they buy it from, and there isn’t anyone who is going to stop selling the rest of the world oil from the Middle East so there was no problem. If you look at the foreign policy issues the Bush admin was dealing with before 9/11 it was missles, North Korea (barely), China (because of that plane incident), and maybe Latin America. After 9/11 everyone who may have been in even a minimal position to do something to prevent it went to cover their asses, and something had to be done. Since OBL was in Afghanistan, that meant a war on Afghanistan. (Before anyone tells me that the Taliban would have given up OBL but didn’t due to “lack of evidence”, that isn’t what happened. The Taliban were only willing to give up OBL to an “Islamic court of justice” which by definition was unacceptable.)
Who wants to fight a war in Afghanistan as the Russians can tell you? Much of the political and business elite was stilled pissed off at Saddam. There was a general belief not just in the US but among foreign intel services that Saddam had or was working on some form of WMD. (For instance, Paul Martin, the finance minister of Canada during the beginning of the Iraq War, later the Prime Minister of Canada, said, “Saddam Hussein has WMD, and we should be in Iraq with the US right now.” A minister of the Canadian government does not depend on US intel. The Canadians have their own especially when the Iraq War was unpopular there.) 9/11 was a disaster for a lot of people because none of them were looking and got caught with their pants down. Imagine what would happen to these people if a city got nuked. Europe or America, it doesn’t matter where if its in the First World. The failure to prevent a city being nuked would be the end of the current business and political elite as we know it.
These and other factors (such as the desire to have a place easier than Afghanistan to fight terrorists) combined to make the War in Iraq possible. Even then there was massive opposition from business and political elites. The opposition in Europe, for example, was based on oil companies who had deals with Saddam for Iraqi oil. It’s a lot easier to just buy the oil from Saddam. It’s not even like Iraqi oil is going to America now after the Iraq War. If you look at the oil projects going on in Iraq now non-American oil companies are getting most of the oil including the CHINESE. If the Iraq War was about oil, why didn’t we actually take the oil in some form or another?
Now the political elite wants to be completely rid of the war on terror, but they can’t get rid of it due to practical problems. Obama would let everyone in Gitmo out tomorrow except that if any of these guys come back and do a terrorist attack anywhere, he gets blamed. If its as bad as a city getting nuked, that’s the end of the elite as we know them. It will be the end of feminism, multiculturalism, and every other leftist ism out there. (As a lot of the Republican elite are just right wing socialists, so that includes them as well.)
The war on terror and other wars get in the way of things like socialist takeovers of health care, driving up energy prices though cap and trade, making new laws for women to throw men in jail for disagreeing with them, etc. It’s not just war spending that gets in the way either. The elite also avoids spending money on infrastructure as much as possible despite the fact that it would make them lots of money.
For me a short way of summarizing this is this:
Am I going to lose my freedom because of the Patriot Act? No because any losses of freedom that were contained in the Patriot Act already happened due to the drug war.
Am I going to lose my freedom because of feminism? Hopefully not but its highly possible I could through false rape charges, false sexual harassment charges, etc.
In other words if jackbooted thugs from the government are going to break down my door and disappear me, it will be because of feminism not anti-terrorism.
I could, but they will tell me I’m better suited to building them UAVs and other robots to fight wars so that less and less American soldiers have to die than enlisting.
They would be making money regardless, and 99.5% of the elite are not involved in the defense industry.
“The US is not a democracy. We are a corporation.”
It comes across to me as a Mob territory – competing mobs exploit and loot the USA and the world. The people for some reason still think of it as a country. Part of this is due to propaganda. The significance of Abu Ghraib is that the elites no longer care what we think. They don’t care if we no longer think of the USA as the “good guys”. They have moved beyond that. We have become irrelevant to them. To the elites, we are furniture.
Chickenhawks always have an excuse lined up like Limbaugh’s anal cyst lol.
You could but you won’t, you just want to live out your tech fantasies on the net while guys like Tillman are getting killed in your wars.
Go get these much touted robots of yours lined up now or else join up the fight.
Apparently you missed the news on how much their stock went up after the Iraq war, they would be making a profit but nowhere near what they make now.
And those guys are just the tip of the iceberg.
According to Pro-male/Anti-feminist Tech the elite was so anti war that practically every major tv network was cheerleading the Iraq war. People like Phil Donahue who raised questions about the war had their shows cancelled. Ya that really reflects the purported anti war sentiment of the elites.
Whiskey is probably the guy whose biggest combat experience was going to some neocon march with a big American flag & shouting “support our troops”, then going home. This is the guy who has the audacity to call a man who received the medal of honor twice (one of only 19 people in US history) an “idiot”. Support the troops only applies as long as the trooper under question agrees to fight his wars, otherwise he becomes an “idiot”. After the vets get back home of course with mangled bodies and psychological scars they become out of sight, out of mind for the “support our troops” crowd. I should know because of what happened to my surviving uncle from Vietnam, he was told to piss off for years by the gov’t when he tried to get the gov’t to recognize the fact that the Agent Orange to which he had been exposed may have been the cause for his kids being born with birth defects, there was no “support the troops” flagwavers when that was happening.
Whiskey
“Butler, to put it mildly, was an idiot.”
I disagree completely. He had limited information, which was why he learned from observation and experience. The left/right paradigm is old, divide and conquer (especially if you own both sides of a rigged game). Just because the profits of war aren’t exclusive to the US does not mean he was wrong about war. There is an incredible amount of money involved in this–to the point that material profit is only important as a motivator for those lower in the game. War itself the supplying of arms and supplies to both sides (which does not always happen, only when necessary) has been a globalist banker’s game. How many of these are started and perpetuated on the flimsiest of lies? Just because Butler was unaware of a picture beyond which corporation were in bed with the government to the point that lobbyists were (and are) calling the shots doesn’t mean he was an idiot or was not onto the truth.
@Jabherwochie and Icaros 2010
Politicians are not calling the shots, their bosses are. They will cave on issues that are deemed to be unimportant, but always find ways to pass universally unpopular legislation. The recent bankster bailout was a good example. Try an experiment. Write to them about an important piece of legislation and use different names taking opposing sides. You will receive a canned response. If you were the controlling interest in any large banking/Pharmaceutical/military contractor would you receive a form letter, or an offer for lunch? It’s too bad WMG had YouTube remove George Carlin’s “Who Owns America” from access. It’s hilarious because it’s true. Jabher, I know you agree with me on one of the most criminal issues, one that makes my blood boil–drugging boys. While feminist teachers are part of the problem, they are empowered by politicians who are backed by those profiting from the sales of these drugs. They are even using atypical antipsychotics now (billions in class action suits which is just considered an operating expense, with each tablet costing $13.00 paid by the taxpayers–as with all of them (methyphenidate and adderall (speed kills-and destroys male children) SSRIs (really nasty stuff, highly neurotoxic, but–it JUST boys, so……lobbyists call the shots and these corporations write the bills that allow this.
How many politician’s, lobbyist’s and CEO’s children are taking those drugs or are fighting in those wars? My brother had an offer from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, but chose to go to Nam. He was one of those who made it back and then committed suicide, though he was only partly successful and did nine years comatose. There have been a lot like him, and will no doubt be more. What do they all have in common? They’re all men. I would really like to see politicians, lobbyists–and especially the criminal bankers who profit from this out there fighting side by side with the rest of these guys. How much credibility do you give women who don’t have to register for selective service when they discuss this. Me either. My son can’t even sign his name–but I had to register him.
Major General Smedley Butler, I salute you!
@Robin December 31, 2009 at 06:18
I have an issue with WW2. We fought it to stop Hitler from enslaving Europe and killing a ton of people. So we won and instead Stalin enslaved Europe and half of Asia and killed a ton of people. We then had to fight a 40 year cold war that came close to getting us wiped out(See Cuban missile crises). What exactly was the point of WW2?
Smedley was wrong. We fight wars because we became an empire on the mode of ancient Athens. We control of the entire world like Athens controlled it allies. We treat most people well but we ultimately call the shots and fighting small wars is part of that deal. If you want to stop fighting them America has to give up being progressive democratic empire.
Personally I would love to see return to Washington’s concept of letting other nations deal with their own problems and we defend out borders and trade.
@P-M/A-F T
How convenient.
It depends how you define the elite. Your paycheck depends on the USA’s warmaking. That paycheck looks solid though, as the war machine is teeing up Yemen as the next Afghanistan. Turns out the underwear bomber and the Fort Hood shooter both have ties to Yemen. Imagine that.
It’s strange how those countries where terrorists train are targeted for military campaigns, but the U.S. itself is way up on that same list. The 9/11 guys trained in Florida, and so have others. American nationals like Timothy McVeigh planned and carried out their missions wholly on U.S. soil. If U.S. authorities – who have complete freedom to act within their own borders – cannot prevent these guys from training and doing their deeds, what makes them think foreign governments can do better than them in looking after U.S. interests from abroad?
Unless, of course, they’re just using it all as an excuse to explain other motives. That would make General Butler’s comments all the more believable.
Aaaaaaand the Lew Rockwell quote is complete bullshit! I have read columnists praising the San Francisco Earthquake as one of the best precursors to its urban renewal(and eventual faggitude, but the place had a good run,) read far too many articles to list on how the Black Death was really one of the best things that happened to Europe, given how it presaged the Renaissance, and the benefits of war are almost too manifold for any man site to list.
Peace is bad for you. Peace enables the destructive and enervating fantasies of women to take easy hold in the body politic. Peace kills patriarchy, slowly but surely. Butler was an alpha who made that statement to look good for liberal women of the time, sure as certain. Butler should be so lucky that he didn’t live in the late 17 to early 1800s, when almost all of America’s wars were fought on American soil, with Indians, foreign invaders, and even good ol’ civil and religious clashes. All proper conflict sharpens the mind, brings that which is important into focus, makes light of all pretentious boasting, and gives betas an often alpha-tipping edge.
I don’t even hate the video gamers, having been to Iraq and been tided over by zillions of games-I just wish more of the gamers would get serious-Sirlin serious.
Some varied reactions, which is to be expected. The good thing about the U.S. army is that conscription is voluntary, not universal, and you get paid. It should be relatively clear from history that you just might get killed for dubious or even clearly manufactured reasons (see: the rundown to the current war in Iraq), as written by Medler. It’s a personal, calculated risk for serving an empire and advancing the interests of the elite. The chicken hawk argument is thus not quite as powerful as it seems, because serving in the military is an informed choice made by the individual — unless drafted.
The U.S. defense budget is huge, comparatively and absolutely, and I admit that it sort of makes sense to use a tool for its intended purpose.
The economic argument for fighting seems to resemble the broken window fallacy a little bit too much for comfort. Resources could be spent better and more effeciently elsewhere.
A large, competent standing army should also be separated from using the right amount of force effectively to accoplish clear objectives or getting bogged down in sad spectacles like Iraq or Vietnam. Nation building and democratizing Middle East that way doesn’t seem to work very well. Not to mention the many smaller corporate-serving military operations, especially in the Banana republics of Central America.
Whiskey’s paranoid militaristic rant on U.S. war history seems to forget that an isolationist foreign policy would actually prevent you from being a terrorist target in the first place. “They have us for our freedom”, yeah right. Personally I support a large U.S. military because Europe gets a free ride, though I suspect you can’t afford it indefinitely.
Politically I think that your biggest problem is the current (?) degenerate state of the Republican Party. The unholy alliance between “New American Century” neoconservatives and evangelical Christians is not pretty to watch. Traditional small government republicans can be respected, the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton-Carlyle Group crowd not so much. I think that the historically unique concept of starting a war while simultaneously lowering taxes tells pretty much all. Obama has quite a mess to sort out after the Bush administration.
As David Brandt says these matter are complicated. However, in the past when monarch fought monarch it is pretty clear that the motivation was wealth, power and territory. Why should things be different today?
Keys to the analysis of power: “who whom?” + “follow the money.”
HL,
great! Thanks for putting this here. Maybe it will wake a few more men up.
One comment. Butler believed that war creates massive profits, which it does, and that was the motivation. This is only part of it. It is about power, domination and control. A part of that is ‘money’ but much more it is about being able to shape society as they want it shaped.
The entire ‘guvment’ concept is a racket. ‘Government’ is, quite literally, translated as ‘Control the mind’. And that is exactly what guvment has always been about. To make men slaves via mind control
Gunslingergregi,
I appreciate what you are trying to say here. Even if you understand the pitfall of the feminist/marxist current society, you know that many opportunities are still available for a confident and risk-taking person. I am myself (only) in my twenties and devoting my work to Forex and Futures. But this is a rare thing… guys of my age all bought Civics with their money made working at Futureshop…
Ragnar,
Enjoying myself a Arturo Fuente Hemingway (short story). Whats your favorite?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, globalman. Government is about making slaves via mind control? There’s only one government I know of that does that consistently, and that’s the Combine.
Society is the primary mind-controller, and would be even under the most libertarian of governments. Matter of fact, when the power of government wanes, the power of societies-especially voluntary societies-grows much larger. Often to the point of, say, smashing one’s printing presses or murdering one’s self. As I said before, Butler didn’t live in the American era where the primary people you had to fear for exercising your free speech were your own neighbors. It was precisely because of these mobs, criminal and otherwise-rebelling over religion, abolition, free-silver and whatnot-that the government in America became the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. (Just watch any Western movie-Appaloosa is a good one. Or Open Range.)
I’m very against current female-dominated society, especially now that it’s paired up with government, but as a current Army dude myself, I’m not too excited about the prospect of having to do any nation-building on American soil. Which most definitely will happen with any actual government collapse.
Fix society and the women who run it and the government will follow suit. That is the focus of this site, and that should remain the focus.
Epo -
Just wanted to comment on your link to Sirlin. I’m a big fan of him and, before enlisting in the Marine Corps, was into competitive gaming (having won a couple thousand dollars over a few years at various tournaments for FPS games). I’ve found that certain skills I learned in competitive gaming (teamwork, commitment, leadership) actually transferred quite nicely to a military setting. Anyway.
whiskey,
“Smedley Butler served his country for 34 years, yet after he retired after a long career of venerable service, ”
Do you just -have- to call a man an “idiot” who served his country for 34 years in several wars? Can you not just say that you “respectfully disagree” with him instead? Armies are definitely the “muscle” of the elite by the way, just as the secret service is basically the neo-praetorean guard of our executive as well as all the CIA , FBI, and NSA spooks we have about. The elite have more than courts to impose their will upon others. I think just about anyone would agree with Butler on that point.
This text from General Butler is a classic that any Royalist National Conservative should read. Republicans, commies and other progressives has made the noble undertaking called war, into a corrupt racket – worldwide.
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