May 21, 2015 | Original Here Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter
Memorial Day Is A Hoax
Paul Craig Roberts
Memorial Day commemorates soldiers killed in war. We are told that the war dead died for us and our freedom. US Marine General Smedley Butler challenged this view. He said that our soldiers died for the profits of the bankers, Wall Street, Standard Oil, and the United Fruit Company. Here is an excerpt from a speech that he gave 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.
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.
Most American soldiers died fighting foes who posed no threat to the
United States. Our soldiers died for secret agendas of which they knew
nothing. Capitalists hid their self-interests behind the flag, and our
boys died for the One Percent’s bottom line.
Jade Helm, an exercise that pits the US military against the US public, is scheduled to run July 15 through September 15. What is the secret agenda behind Jade Helm?
The Soviet Union was a partial check on capitalist looting in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. However, with the Soviet collapse capitalist looting intensified during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes.
Neoliberal Globalization is now looting its own constituent parts and
the planet itself. Americans, Greeks, Irish, British, Italians,
Ukrainians, Iraqis, Libyans, Argentinians, the Spanish and Portuguese
are being looted of their savings, pensions, social services, and job
opportunities, and the planet is being turned into a wasteland by
capitalists sucking the last penny out of the environment. As Claudia
von Werlhof writes, predatory capitalism is consuming the globe. http://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberal-globalization-is-there-an-alternative-to-plundering-the-earth/24403
We need a memorial day to commemorate the victims of neoliberal
globalization. All of us are its victims, and in the end the
capitalists also.
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