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An accidental find, the full text online of USMC Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler's 1935 book, War Is a Racket. Butler served in the Marine Corps from 1899 to 1931 and at the time of his retirement was the most-decorated Marine in history, for both valor and accomplishments. Following his retirement, he became a vehement anti-war activist and public speaker.  This book is easily his most-cited and most-quoted published work. You can capture the flavor from an article he published in a magazine that included the following lines: "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler#Lectures  I look forward to reading this book. The book was reprinted in 2003 and is available from the linked web site, together with two bonus titles. 

"WAR IS A RACKET" - free online book CHAPTER ONE WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? 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. For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds g

The Ukraine coup government just keeps getting more and more absurdly corrupt. 

Soon to be joined by the other two BRICS?

UKIP sets the wheels to rocking on apple carts in the UK and EU, winning 24 of UK's 73 seats in the European Parliament and hundreds of seats in UK community governments, all at the expense of the front-running three parties in the UK's 2009 election.   Wikipedia: The UK Independence Party (UKIP) is a [hard] Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1993. The party describes itself in its constitution as a "democratic, libertarian party." Now if we could just begin to see a NATO-sceptic party emerging across Europe ...  

Although this article has zero credibility and even less reference checking, everyone in America knows that Obama ordered the IRS hit on Tea Party Patriots, Conservatives and Jewish Homeland organizations.  That the IRS admits to violating the Constitutional civil rights of tens of millions of law abviding Americans, and did so in ways that only benefit the Obama re-election campaign is proof enough for anyone who loves liberty.

Pepe Escobar's take on the Obama Administration and Edward Snowden's leaked documents, and on the forthcoming Balkanization of the Internet. Will Obama be remembered most for destroying the Global Internet? 

With neocons angling again to have Iraq's Maliki replaced by Ahmed Chalibi, it's a good time to check in again on the neocon kingmaker for Southwest Asia, Zalmay Khalilzad.

Nixon's psychopathy was not unique. Indeed, it seems that psychopathy is a threshold requirement for elibility to assume the office of the U.S. Presidency. And it is a fundamental reason the U.S. government is so bellicose in its foreign policy. See discussion of definition at https://goo.gl/6w0Hj6

Fox published first and all subsequent reports thus far seem to be cribbing quotes from Fox. More critical analysis will probably follow once reporters get their hands on the book. It's scheduled for publication on November 10. Bush 41 or his biographer definitely knows how to sell books. On the phrase he used to describe Lynne Cheney, "eminence grise," see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminence_grise  (note that "grise" is the French feminine singular form of "gris", https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grise ), meaning "grey." The blaming of his son's principle handlers for his son's failings as a leader makes me wonder why Bush 41 did not tell Bush43 to cool his jets when the latter first got interested in running for public office. Bush 41 had to know that Bush 43 lacked the intelligence to make wise, independent decisions. 

Excellent analysis of the coming banking crisis anw how our politicians have put the citizens on the hook for risky bank derivative gambling.  Thanks Marbux! Ellen H. Brown (nsnbc) : While the mainstream media focus on ISIS extremists, a threat that has gone virtually unreported is that your life savings could be wiped out in a massive derivatives collapse. Bank bail-ins have begun in Europe, and the infrastructure is in place in the US.  Poverty also kills.