WAR IS A RACKET, Major General Smedley Butler

(Exerpt from a speech given in 1933; think about what he says and what's going on today with our economy and all. Also available in complete form as a book)
War is 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's about. It is conducted for the benefit of a very few at the expense of the masses.
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% over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100%. 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 2 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.
MAJOR GENERAL SMEDLEY BUTLER, PICTURED HERE
There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has "finger men"
to point out enemies, it's "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 33 years and 4 months in active military service as a member of the 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 a part of the 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 rapng of haof 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. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. (AND NOT FOR YOUR INTERESTS - THEY HAVE ALL BUT KILLED OUT SMALL AND MEDIUM LOCAL BUSINESS TO MAKE ROOM FOR CORPORATIONS LIKE WAL-GREENS, WAL-MART, SHELL, ETC, IN BOTH OUR NATION AND OTHERS. THEY TAKE MORE THAN THEIR FAIR SHARE AND SOCK IT AWAY IN BANKS BECAUSE TOO MUCH IS NEVER ENOUGH, WHEREAS WE WOULD SPEND THAT MONEY AND KEEP THE ECONOMY HEALTHY. LOOK UP OUR DEAL WITH HUSSEIN IN THE 80S AND 90S WHEN WE WANTED HIM TO DO OUR WORK IN IRAN, AND HOW THE OIL COMPANIES WANT IN IRAQ. LOOK UP AFTER THE WORLD WARS, AS FOR THE OIL INTERESTS, AND WHAT HAPPENED AFTER FORMING OF ISRAEL. ONE THING WILL LEAD TO ANOTHER, AND IF YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW ALL THIS, YOU'LL FIND OUT THINGS ARE MUCH WORSE THAN YOU EVER SUSPECTED AS FAR AS OUR GOVERNMENT AND WHO THEY TRULY WORK FOR, AND WALL STREET. WALL STREET IS MERELY A WAY FOR THE MEGA-FILTHY-RICH TO GET RICHER,AND TAKE MORE FROM EVERYONE ELSE. CHECK OUT HOW THE FUTURES MARKET WORKS, AND YOU'LL SEE WHY WE'RE SUFFERING HIGH INTERESTS AND LAY-OFFS ETC RIGHT NOW. SORRY, I RANT SOMETIMES)
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've given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate his racket in 3 districts. I operated on 3 continents.
(The article was published, when I read it, by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade - COAT)
In the early 1930s, some of America's wealthiest industrialists and bankers plotted to overthrow the government of President Franklin D Roosevelt and replace it with a facist dictatorship. Thanks to one of the greatest whistleblowers of all time, we know the names of trhe prominent Wall Street financiers (both Republican and Democrat) who organized and backed this plot. The whistleblower was a US military hero named Major General Smedley Darlington Butler. For 33 years Butler, a 2 time recipient of the prestigious US Medal of Honor, had fought with the Marines. He helped invade numerous countries, subdued native revolts, oversaw fraudulent elections, and forced regime changes on nations to bring them in line with US ecomonic interests. All this, he later said, was done in order to protect America's foreign investments.
In 1933, the year Hitler took control of Germany, some of Wall Street's top financiers sent representatrives to recruit the recently retired General Butler into a facist coup d' etat to overthrow FDR. Butler played along in order to find out who was behind the scheme, and then, in 1934, he testified under oath before the MacCormack - Cickstein House Commitee that was examining Nazi propaganda in the US.\
Butler named names and exposed the key facist plotters. He also identified a high- powered business organization, the American Liberty League, as the "super- organization" behind the plan for an American coup. Thanks to General Butler, this Wall Street lan to subvert democracy was thwarted. However, none of the multi- millionaires behind the plot were ever questioned by legal authorities, let alone charged or put on trial for treason.
In fact, they continued to work behind the scenes, throughthe American Liberty League, to sabotage FDR's "New Deal" administration.
-- COAT --
And you know these were not the only ones to try such things, to DO such. Over the decades, looking at our history, I think it's clear, they finally succeeded to some degree. Our laws come into our homes and butt into our personal business, yet when it comes to controlling Wal Street, politicians won't do anything to protect us, for fear of trampling on the rights of faceless corporations? Free enterprise? You cannot have free enterprise when the common person cannot stay in business because big corporations smush you or buy you up. Dem or Rep, Clinton or Obama or Palin or McCain or just about any of em, they work for Wall Street - NOT for you and me, not for the United States of America. And we CAN do something about it, if we just WOULD. First step, GET INFORMED. Take no pol's word, nor the media (corporate media). I don't care who won, nor who you voted for, if you checked the history of these people first. But most do not. They vote for the best looking, or smoothest speakers, or best liar, etc. The records are there, easy with the Internet. There is no excuse. We voted Bush in, TWICE. We did. It's been said, the people get the government they deserve, and that is exactly the reason.)

LIFESPAN OF A MOLE nope not kidding

A mole only lives about 3 years. its teeth wear out and it starves.



{I may have also gotten this info from Erma Bombeck's book. I can't recall the title of the book - I borrowed it from the library so I don't have it at home to check - but the book I'm quoting in my blog is one where Erma states animal facts, and compares them to humans, mostly to kids and husbands.}

EXHIBITIONISTS ARE BORN THAT WAY

EXHIBITIONISTS ARE BORN THAT WAY. He's the baby in his crib who cries like he has just swallowed a razor blade, and when you pick him up he immediately stops.





He's the child who, in every home video, sails across the screen in front of everybody like a blurred Frisbee out of control. At the dinner table he will hang a french fry from each nostril and bark like a seal. He pees in the wading pool, clearing it out in 10 seconds flat. He wears his clothes inside out to school and lets his underwear hang out of his tennis shorts. He takes your checkbook to show and tell. When he grows up he frequents karaoke bars and sings "Strangers in the Night" off key.







This was written by the Humorous Homemaker herself, Erma Bombeck. And boy, can you tell this woman truly raised her own kids. If you've never read her work, and you're a wife and/or mom, i highly recommend it - she's hilarious, and spot - on. She has passed away now, but wrote several humorous books,, and tons of magazine articles. Check her out. I've a few more samples of her stuff on this blog, and plan to add more later, as well.

PARROT (humor)

(Told by Erma Bombeck)

1. Erma had a parrot. He said 2 things, "Hello Barney" (his name WAS Barney) and "telephone". She bought a tape to help him learn more words. For 20 minutes, twice a day, he'd listen to 2 repetitive phrases, "Hey, I'm over here," and "I'm a bad bird". Then he was supposed to tra-la-la along to 20 minutes of the "Toreador" song. By the end of 3 weeks, she says she was considering making a necklace of Valium and licking it at intervals. The tape was driving her nuts. One evening at the dinner table her husband said, "I'm a bad bird." Then he added, "I have no idea why I said that."
   She gave the bird to her son.
   

ELEPHANTS ARE PEOPLE TOO

Elephants grieve and even cry at the death of one of their tribe.( Other than humans, elephants are the only species known to be able to produce tears.) They've even been known to stay with the body for hours, trying desperately to pick them up with their trunks and tusks to force them on their feet again. The entire herd will also celebrate the birth of a calf, and they'll all protect it.

Modern medicine has a way of complicating the simplest maladies- short rant by Erma Bombeck

Modern medicine has a way of complicating the simplest malady. No one has a common cold anymore. Its a virus and no one has a cure for it. They only know there's a lot of it going around. The 1st medicine prescribed said if I had heart disease, forget it. If I had diabetes, don't even think about taking it, and if I suffered from hypertension, get rid of it. In other words, I had to be healthy before I could take it.
The nose drops carried a warning saying I couldn't drive to work, which meant I could lose my job or let my nose run.
The pill to control my fever caused constipation, but the one to relieve my congestion might bring on diarrhea. I figured if I took them in tandem they'd cancel each other out.
The cough syrup said I couldn't operate heavy machinery (I interpreted that to mean the vacuum).
A liquid to help me sleep could make me nauseous and give me chills (I already had them).
The vitamin supplement carried this warning, "Could cause genital itching". I certainly want a refill on that one.
Hanging onto my cold seemed like my best shot.
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AN ALTERNATIVE TO MODERN-DAY MEDICINE
(Also known as the Robin Leach get-well-or-die-happy plan)
The next time you don't feel well, check into a great hotel costing about $150 (to $300 today - its still cheaper than a hospital) a day. The hospital room will run you $500 (that was a decade or more ago - I don't even know what they charge for a room today, but you're lucky to get out with a bill under $10,000 for a stay of more than a couple days).For $150 you get a suite with your own television and bathroom to yourself (probably wi-fi, maybe a jacuzzi, in-room coffee-maker, stocked fridge, etc). The room comes with a continental breakfast and a newspaper, plus a fluffy bathrobe that covers the ENTIRE body. There is valet parking for visitors.
There are deck chairs and a swimming pool, and when you don't eat everything on your plate, nobody cares.
You can read until you fall asleep and nobody wakes you up in the middle of the night out of a sound slumber to take your vital signs and give you a sleeping pill.
If you have a burning desire to see a doctor, there is a putting green nearby where you can meet and maybe have something cold to drink while you tell him what Reader's Digest (and/or the Internet) says about your condition. The biggest plus is that there are no forms to fill out for the rest of your life.
Not convinced? What if I told you that for the price of an ambulance ride, you could fly first-class to London?

JOKES AND QUOTES BY ERMA BOMBECK (ms erma actually had "I told you I was sick" engraved on her tombstone-a joker til the end, and past it)

(If you don't know Erma, moms and wives will get her humor best. Tho some of her stuff can be appreciated by men, she wrote of her life and experiences as a wife and mother. She has several books, guested on many day-time shows, did short articles for newspapers and magazines. What I have here really doesn't represent her that well. These are short exerpts from several stories and such. Her best work was in the form of short stories, which, as it turns out, are longer than they seem when you're actually copying them out. Best leave that to her books and just copy these paragraphs and one liners for my pitimous little blog.
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Women are giving birth much later in life nowadays. A 54 yr old woman in Great Britain was artificially inseminated and gave birth to twins. This trend can't go much further. Having a delivery covered by Medicare just isn't going to fly. It's too risky for a woman to put down a baby and not remember where she left it.
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Are people really smarter than animals? Which is worse, the opossum who produces up to 50 babies yet has only 13 teats, or the human female who gives birth to 3 offspring and has only 2 windows in the back seat of her car?
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The hippopotamus is a vegetarian and looks like a wall. Lions who eat only red meat are sleek and slim. Could human nutritionalists be on the wrong track?
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There is no species on the face of the earth that prides itself more on its ability to get around than men. Yet most of them are lost their entire lifetimes. They just won't admit it.
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At my age, patience is not a virtue - it's a luxury.
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(This one isn't a joke, but is a tale that was part of one of her stories. I thought it was terribly cute, tho I have no idea if she tells it as a fact or something she heard, or made up.)
In 1939, a Coast Guard vessel was cruising the Canadian Arctic when the men spotted a polar bear on an ice floe. What a novelty for the seamen, who threw it salami, peanut butter, and chocolate bars. Then they ran out of food. The bear had not run out of appetite, so he proceeded to board the vessel. The men were terrified so they opened the fire hoses on him. The polar bear loved it and raised his paws in the air to get the water under his armpits. Eventually, he was forced to return to his ice pad. (Note to anyone who thinks polar bears are cute and fuzzy - they're also gigantic and fierce. Not exactly the type of animal you want as a pet, or even wanna get anywhere close to.)
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There are certain things a woman cannot do with dirty hair. She cannot give birth, be married, drop off a child in public, stay at the scene of an accident, or answer the phone with her husband's old girlfriend on the other end of the line. One of the first appointments a new widow makes is with her hairdresser. (Back in the days when women went at least once a week to have hair styled and set, like a helmet, and spent the next week wrapped in scarves and such to prevent messing it up. I dunno how they slept.) She may look like roadkill at the funeral, but every hair is in place and sprayed to stay there until the end of the century.
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A FEW QUOTES I LIKE, and one corny joke

(I'll always credit quotes when I remember who said it - probably won't be often. Still, they aren't mine and I don't want to seem to be saying they are.)
+ HOUSEWORK: what a woman does that nobody notices until she hasn't done it.
+ Take your life into your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing - no one to blame.
+ Teenagers express a burning desire to be different by dressing exactly alike.
+The doctor came out to talk with a woman about her husband's illness. With a serious look on his face, he said," I don't like the look of him." She answered, "I don't, either, but he's good to the kids."
+

SUCCESS UNLIMITED-Bill Gates, advise to a group of high school students

Mr Gates tells the teens that this is advise they'll never learn at school. He talked about how feel-good, politically correct teachings have created a full generation of kids with NO CONCEPT OF REALITY, and how this sets them up for failure in the real world. (I read this a while back and don't recall the source.)
RULE 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it.
RULE 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3: You will not make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone (this was obviously a few years ago, but sub "company cell phone" n it still fits) until you EARN both.
RULE 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
RULE 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger-flipping - they called it "opportunity".
RULE6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about mistakes. Learn from them.
RULE 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So, before you save the rainforest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
RULE 8: Some schools may have done away with winners and losers but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
RULE 9: Life is not divided up into semesters. You dont get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10: Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shops and go to jobs.
RULE 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.