Quote of the day -- What War Really Is

From a General in the US Marine Corps--General Smedley Butler, born this day, 1881:



"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." 

-- Born Smedley Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), a highly decorated Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Links:  Smedley Butler - Wikipedia

War Is a Racket

On the border crisis just now (guest post)

I’ve been watching media coverage of angry Americans at our southern border waiving signs and yelling slogans, insisting that the children – most of whom are refugees of the drug war we’ve created -- “go home” to the violence and death that war has created, and I wonder who these angry Americans are. 

I also wonder where their parents or grandparents or other ancestors came from, and what they were fleeing from or hoped for when they landed in America. I’m not suggesting we allow in anyone who wants to come here, but these are desperate children. Whatever happened to the generosity, decency, and big-heartedness of this country? 

Emma Lazarus’s poem engraved in 1903 on the Statue of Liberty reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of our teeming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 

Why are we now allowing the hateful side of America to take center stage?

--Robert Reich

Slideshow from CBS of what the children's conditions are in Nogales, AZ:  http://fb.cbs5az.com/1phfGtS

I'm back!

After just getting back from a vacation and, as good fortune and hard work would have it, my first cruise on a cruise ship, it naturally gave a great deal of food for thought, so to speak.

Stopping, day after day, in different ports of call and cities, towns, countries and cultures, it helps give a little bit bigger viewpoint of the world. It may not be Europe or Africa or the former Soviet Union or anything more global--it was the Western Caribbean, after all and only 8 days--it was still a bit of a larger picture of the hemisphere, its current situation and some of its history.

The question I'm left with, after seeing these current civilizations and the remains of ancient ones like the Mayans, it seems clear, given our current world situations, that we just don't have the whole successful, supportive culture and civilization down yet.

What I mean is, after all these thousands of years of human kind's living and the lessons we can and should take from them, we still don't have sensible, intelligent, successful, working plan for a society down yet.

Think about it.

We don't.

Too much greed, surely.

You would think we could come up with some reasonable ways to educate, clothe, employ, feed and tend to the health care of all our citizens and society.

You would think.

I do.

It seems that with all the scientists, doctors, teachers, sociologists, historians and more--all the educated people, worldwide--we could set up a working,
simple and, again, intelligent society.

And in examples large and small, across the globe, it seems we're breaking down right now.

Things and places aren't working and aren't working well or right.

Russia fell apart and became the "Former Soviet Union".

South and Central America never have been coherent and working--or haven't been for years, since the Mayan or Aztec civilizations.

Africa is in pieces and has been for hundreds of years, I believe.

China is not a working, sustainable society as it exists today.

The examples go on.

It would seem Denmark and some other Scandinavian countries come closest to truly be successful, supportable and functioning for all, though who knows? I could be proven wrong there.

In the current world situation, it seems wealth, as always, rules.

And that's not supportable and able to work in the long run.

It doesn't make one very hopeful for us.

It brings up the same old, simple, possibly funny but also possibly poignant question from years ago:

Why can't we all just get along?


(The first thing we should all do is outlaw war).