War Corruption
One of the most highly decorated U.S. generals exposed
major war corruption after retiring from the military. Recipient of two
esteemed Medals of Honor (the highest military honor in the U.S.), General Smedley Butler was invited into a conspiracy to overthrow U.S.
President Franklin Roosevelt and install a fascist dictatorship.
He played along only to find out that some two dozen
senior businessmen, many of them top Wall Street financiers, were behind it
all. Yet his 1934 testimony to Congress on this was squelched. As reported in Harper's Magazine in 2007:
"A story in the New York
Times and several
other newspapers reported on [Butler's alleged coup], and a special
Congressional committee was created to conduct an investigation. The records of
this committee were scrubbed and sealed away in the National Archives, where
they have only recently been made available."
Why isn't this part of what we study in history books?
Could it be because Gen. Butler, once an ardent supporter of war, eventually
exposed major war corruption he personally experienced in his highly esteemed,
yet little-known book War is a Racket? Read a two-page summary of
this most excellent book below, or go directly to a 10-page summary at this link. And please spread the word so that we can help
people around the world to wake up and work together for a brighter future.
Note: To
watch a powerful History Channel documentary on this little-known coup plot, click here.
WAR IS A RACKET – by General Smedley Butler
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 in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
In the World War [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 huge gains in their income tax returns. How many other war
millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. [Please note
these are 1935 U.S. dollars. To adjust for inflation, multiply all figures X 15 or more]
WHO MAKES THE PROFITS?
The World War cost the United States some $52 billion.
That means $400 [over $6,000 in today's dollars] to every American
man, woman, and child.
The normal yearly profits of a business concern
in the U.S. are 6 to 12%. But war-time profits, that is another matter –
60, 100, 300, and even 1,800% – the sky is the limit.
Uncle Sam has
the money. Let's get it. Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It
is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must
all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump, leap, and
skyrocket – and are safely pocketed.
Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people. The
average pre-war earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6
million a year. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war
years, 1914 to 1918. $58 million a year profit we find! Nearly ten times
that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An
increase in profits of more than 950%.
Take one of our steel companies. Their 1910-1914
yearly earnings averaged $6 million. Then came the war. And, like loyal
citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their
profits jump? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49 million a year! Or, let's
take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year period prior
to the war were $105 million a year. Then along came the war and up went the
profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240 million.
Not bad.
They sold your Uncle Sam 20 million mosquito nets for
the use of the soldiers overseas. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got
to France!
There were pretty
good profits in mosquito netting, even if there were no mosquitoes in France. When
the war was over some 4 million sets of equipment – knapsacks and the things
that go to fill them – crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being
scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents. But the
manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them.
If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the
bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not
have to report to stockholders. Their profits were as secret as they were
immense.
How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do
not know, because those little secrets never become public – even before a Senate
investigatory body.
It
has been estimated that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52 billion [nearly $1
trillion with inflation]. Of this sum, $39 billion was expended in the
actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16 billion in profits. That is how
the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16 billion in
profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very
few.
WHO PAYS THE BILLS?
Who provides these nice little profits of 20, 100,
300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them – in taxation. But the
soldier pays the biggest part of the bill. 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. On a tour of the country, I visited
18 government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000
destroyed men – men who were the pick of the nation 18 years ago. Mortality
among veterans is three times as great as those who stayed at home.
Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the
offices, factories, and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were
remolded.
They were made to "about face," to regard murder as
the order of the day.
They were put through mass psychology and
entirely changed. We trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of
being killed. Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another
"about face!" This time they had to do their own readjustment. We
didn't need them any more. Many of these fine young boys are eventually
destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about
face" alone.
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 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 their ships might be
torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents.
They were just told
it was to be a "glorious adventure."
HOW TO SMASH THIS RACKET!
Well, it's a racket, all right. A few profit – and the
many pay.
But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament
conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning
but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. Steps must be taken to
smash the war racket.
We must take the profit out of war. And we
must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of
the past. I know the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we
cannot be pushed into another war.
Woodrow Wilson was re-elected
president in 1916 on a platform that he had "kept us out of war."
Yet, five months later he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
In
that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether they had changed
their minds. Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?
Money.
An allied commission came over shortly before the war
declaration and called on the President. The President summoned a group of
advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its diplomatic
language, this is what he told the President and his group:
"There is no
use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the allies is lost. We now owe
you (American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers,
American speculators, American exporters) five or six billion dollars. If we
lose (and without the help of the US we must lose) we, England, France and
Italy, cannot pay back this money. So..."
Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations,
and had the press been invited to be present at that conference, America never
would have entered the war. But
this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When
our boys were sent off, they were told it was a "war to make the world
safe for democracy" and a "war to end all wars." Very little has
been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all
wars. Disarmament conferences don't mean a thing. At all these conferences,
lurking in the background are the sinister agents of those who profit by war.
They see to it that these conferences do not seriously limit armaments. So ... I
say, TO HELL WITH WAR!
Building a Brighter Future
All the darkness of the world cannot put out the light
of a single candle.
The Current Situation
Together, we can and will build a brighter future. Yet
in order to give meaningful suggestions to further support this, we first need
to speak candidly about what's happening in the world at present. It appears
that there are factions within the world's power elite which still desire to exert as much control as
possible over the world.
Their primary means for establishing control are
through promoting fear, secrecy, and polarization, and through distracting
people from their deeper purpose in life.
When these factions gain greater power and
control, our freedoms and liberties are increasingly
taken away,
sometimes without our even realizing it.
Fear is used as a powerful tool of control by these
factions of the global elite. "The terrorists want to kill us all. Your
job, savings, and retirement are no longer secure. You are either for us or
against us. We might be attacked at any time." All of these messages push us towards fear. And by encouraging us to focus blame on others such
as terrorists and "evil" leaders, the global power brokers push us
away from feeling in control of our lives and towards the role of powerless
victims, so that we look to them for protection. The more we slip into fear and
being victims, the easier it is for us to be manipulated.
Secrecy leads to control through preventing the
exposure of hidden agendas, and through breeding distrust, suspicion, and
paranoia in the world. In the name of "national security," we have
been told ever more frequently that we should not know what is happening behind closed doors in government. Yet we are
encouraged to keep vigilant watch over our neighbors, over those who question
the government, and over those who look or act different from us, as they could
secretly be terrorists in sheep's clothing.
Rampant suspicion and
secrecy cause us to lose touch with the common humanity we share with all
around us.
Polarization leads to "us vs. them" ways of
thinking. Divide and conquer is a tactic that has been used successfully by the
power elite of the world for centuries. As long as people focus on blaming and
attacking "the enemy," they are not likely to look for the deeper
causes of their problems. Controlling factions of the power elite work to keep
public and media
attention focused
on issues which divide us into two polarized camps, so that their greatest
concerns of power and
control go
unnoticed. The power brokers then control both sides of the divided public by
assuring that corporate ownership of the media and key candidates from all political
parties support their deeper power and polarization agendas, which often
involve war
profiteering.
A final subtle, yet powerful method of gaining control
is to distract people from their purpose in life. Consider that television,
radio, and movies have been filled with ever more greed, violence, and empty
sex. Our educational system has increasingly prioritized passing tests over
developing intelligence and creativity. Excessive corporate control of the
media has limited
what news we receive, and
often shaped our decisions and the way we think.
Our attention has been
subtly diverted from our deeper purpose in life to the more superficial
attractions of sex, consumerism, and money.
When we succumb to fear, secrecy, and polarization,
and when we lose touch with our sense of purpose in life, elements of the
global elite are able to exert ever more control over our lives and world.
Towards a Brighter Future
What can we do about all this? Ultimately, it is the
collective fear, secrecy, polarization, and loss of purpose within all of us
that has allowed leaders to take power who would subvert democracy, and who
would take away our freedoms and liberties.
By each one of us making a
commitment to work on these issues both inside of ourselves and out in the
world – and to inspire others to do the same – we are changing our collective
direction and building a solid foundation for a brighter future. Several
actions can help us to take firm steps in that direction.
Develop purpose and intentions for your life. To
live rich, full lives in today's complex world, it's vitally important to give
your life clear direction by exploring what is deepest and most meaningful to
you, and bydeveloping
a life purpose and
life intentions based on this. Then choose to live your intentions and follow
your purpose to the best of your ability every day. By choosing to live with
clear direction and focus, life becomes deeper and more meaningful. This then
weakens the seduction of consumerism and media hype which distract us from our
purpose, and allows us to more effectively focus on building a brighter future.
Choose to transform fear into acceptance and love.
When
we notice ourselves feeling fear, we can trace the roots of that fear, so that
we are able to identify
our core challenges and
deal more consciously with them.
We can open to guidance from friends,
teachers, and spiritual sources in helping us to move from fear toacceptance
and understanding.
We can
also transform our fears through welcoming the ever-present love of our divine
creator, and the love that lies always deep within our own hearts, and in the
hearts of those around us. In doing this, we begin to recognize fear as an
invitation to growth.
Become aware of when you are playing the role of
victim, and choose instead to take personal responsibility for building
a brighter future.
In blaming others for our problems, we often avoid
taking responsibility for how much we are involved in creating these problems
through the choices we make. Whenever we catch ourselves playing the role of
victim by blaming others (including the power elite) for everything that's
wrong in our lives, we can choose to take a look
inside ourselves, and to
explore and take responsibility for our role in what's happening. By focusing
less on blaming others, and more on improving ourselves, every one of us can
make a difference both in our lives and in our world.
Avoid secrecy and encourage openness and transparency. An
important way we can do this is to work together to inform
friends and colleagues about
the major cover-ups being hidden from the public. Then in our personal lives,
when we notice ourselves keeping information from others, we can examine our
motives for this secrecy. Are we withholding information out of our own
self-interest, or because this is really what's
best for
all involved? And on a deeper level, where are we avoiding being honest with
ourselves?
Move beyond polarization and the focus on "good
vs. evil" and "us vs. them."
Every person in the world has a heart. And each
of us has a place in our
heart that wants only
to love and be loved. Consider the possibility that all of us are doing what we
believe to be right based upon our beliefs, circumstances, and upbringing. As
we focus less on blaming and judging "them" and more on supporting the highest motive in all people – including members of the power
elite – we increasingly come to see that we are all one human family, and that
we can choose to transform our world by working together for the good of all.
And finally, come together in groups and communities to support each other in making these positive
changes. In these groups and communities, we support each other in transforming fear into
acceptance and love.
We exchange information about all that is being hidden
from us and explore ways to move beyond polarization.
We also share our life purpose and intentions and
encourage each other to live these as fully as we can.
And we inspire each
other to take responsibility for our lives and to be the best that we can be.
When we gather in community to support each other in these intentions, we join
in building a growing network of inspiration and empowerment around the planet.
These suggestions emphasize changing the collective
consciousness of the world by transforming both our own personal lives and the
world around us. Let us do all that we can to stop destructive behaviors of the global power elite. Yet let us not overly
focus on changing the outside world without first having a solid internal foundation,
lest we fall into blaming others, and into the polarizing "us vs.
them" ways which only further divide us. By reminding ourselves that the
most powerful change starts inside each one of us, we can develop more balance
and strength to then work towards positive change out in the world.
As we change ourselves from the inside out, we send
ripples of inspiration and healing out into the world. By joining together in
groups and communities to support each other in this, those ripples become
waves which are powerfully helping to build a brighter future for all of us.
For other concrete ideas on what you can do, click here
For a guide to developing your life purpose and intentions, click here
For a powerful online course exploring all of this in greater depth, click here
For a guide to developing your life purpose and intentions, click here
For a powerful online course exploring all of this in greater depth, click here
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