[Porter Rockwell]

Hello,
for the doubting Thomas folks here you may disregard my links and find your own on your choice of search engines.
Major General Smedley Butler rocked the boat by speaking the truth of military use to advance corporate and banking interests in his career on three continents.
Everything he wrote then is obviously relative to current world affairs.
www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/smedley.html
And from a speech you may find an earthshaking indictment
www.anti-sheep.com/articles/smedley_butler.html
Anyone care to call a two time Congressional Medal Of Honor winner Marine General mistaken?
Best!

[fallingblock]

Anybody can be mistaken:D

Winning a medal just means someone was observed doing something 'above the call of duty'- not that they are necessarily qualified to pontificate upon macroeconomics and geopolitical strategy. This fellow sounds like he was a "wobbly"...is that true?

One thing's for sure-old Smedley got disillusioned from the unreasonably high expectations he had of a political system;
where did he get some of those ideals?:rolleyes:

[Porter Rockwell]

Howdo in Aussieland fallingblock,
actually in the Generals book there is mentioned the use of medals and awards instead of $$$ to provide incentive to the soldier.
I'm not familiar with the term "wobbly"? Is that a brit slang word?
I should be more familiar with that sort of thing tho, we are both subjects of the crown and keep fighting her battles eh?
The General mentions assisting the crown as far back as the opium wars/Boxer rebellion.
Is not opium a topic of current events related to the Afganistan adventure? Or is it a coincidence that the taliban banned the poppies and now the crops are florishing?
Best!

[fallingblock]

"I'm not familiar with the term "wobbly"? Is that a brit slang word?
I should be more familiar with that sort of thing tho, we are both subjects of the crown and keep fighting her battles eh?"
****************************************************
A 'Wobbly' was Yankee slang for a member of the "Industrial Workers of the World". Since Smedley Butler's book was published in 1933, in the depth of the Great Depression, I'm guessing that he was part of the movement. It was an association of unions and unemployed workers as well as veterans of 'The Great War' who were demanding social justice.
There were a lot of veterans who threw in with the I.W.W.; I suppose out of a sense of despair and perhaps betrayal.

I'm a 'double subject' of the crown:D , holding both N.Z. and Australian citizenship, as well as the original U.S.:eek:

Egads, yes. The way the Brits burned through Anzacs ( Aussie and Kiwi troops) in both World Wars, they must have thought they were politically less dangerous to lose:uhoh:
Every Australian town has its memorial to the dead; sometimes five or more from the same family in a small farming district.

No doubt about the medals...they are a cost-effective way to get performance out of soldiers...but at the same time they do serve to recognise bravery and sacrifice. It isn't the troops in the field who manipulate the system for political gain-they just catch the incoming:mad:

Smedley seems to have come late to the realisation that money runs the world and politics/war is the machine to keep it flowing; that's what I meant by asking where he got those 'other' ideals.

Opium was/is one of those commodities that makes the world go round in the middle east and China. Lots of demand from the nations with money keep the incentive high to produce it as a cash crop. Could you expand a bit on your theme about the opium?

[El Tejon]

Porter, since falling has you caught up with the IWW (thought that was still taught in goverment skuls?), Butler's tripe is written from that perspective. Always the "other" is responsible for my condition.:rolleyes: Of course, you may remember from skul (or maybe not) that there was a lot of that silliness going around then.:p

[Felonious Monk]

Porter-- Interesting that a 2nd Amendment supporter such as yourself would ascribe to the theories of the Smedley Butlers, Michael Parentis and Noam Chomskys of the world.

They're all right, you know-- America IS the Great Satan!

It's all about the profits of the military-industrial complex, and running this insidious plot is this "VAST Right-Wing Conspiracy" (branded copyright) of the Bilderbergers, the FreeMasons, the Skull and Bones, and behind the whole thing is a trumvirate of the Illuminati, the Learned Elders of Zion, and extra-terrestrials known as the "grays".

In fact, they're calling to you now, using telepathic transmogrification.
I'd suggest you send me $1,000 and I will overnight you the ONLY effective means of defense: a specially constructed Tinfoil Pyramid hat. :rolleyes: :scrutiny: :cool:

[Tamara]

Don't forget that the British royal family secretly controls the world due to having the Bush clan in their pockets from the profits of their vast drug-smuggling empire!

Whoopie! There's a LaRouchie in the woopile!

[Khornet]

how many thousand General officers in US military history, vs one Smedley.

[DaveB]

You guys are pretty funny.

Marine General against the war: He's a creep.

Charlie Daniels for the war: He's a patriot (and real smart, too).

Hackworth against the war: He's stupid.

Ted Nugent for the war: He's a patriot (and hunts good, too).

etc...

db

[ahadams]

LOL :D I love the way the wingdings always trot out old Smedley - it's a sign of the bankruptcy of their arguments that they can't find any military figure more credibly than that poor old loon to try to prop up their arguments... :rolleyes:

[CZ-75]

I seem to remember Butler was anti-Roosevelt and that he was involved in a plot, along with business leaders and states-rights democrats to stage a coup should Roosevelt push the country too far to the left. Butler later disavowed the conspiracy and sent letters to Roosevelt informing him of the conspiracy; Roosevelt promptly swept it all under the rug.

Butler was Quaker, but not opposed to "justified" wars. I think his service in Nicaragua, etc. made him see many of the wars in which he fought as corrupt and quasi-colonialist. I believe he was even the Commandant of the Corps (passed over, actually). He also drank heavily.

I did some double checking, and he does sound more like a "wobbly" than a reactionary.

[jmbg29]

Anyone care to call a two time Congressional Medal Of Honor winner Marine General mistaken?Why not? Are you suggesting that he can't be mistaken? :rolleyes:

[Bahadur]

Butler was Quaker, but not opposed to "justified" wars. I think his service in Nicaragua, etc. made him see many of the wars in which he fought as corrupt and quasi-colonialist. I believe he was even the Commandant of the Corps (passed over, actually). He also drank heavily.Butler was indeed a war hero early on. Then he had some political failures and suddenly started to see "a cabal of Wall Street imperialist warmongers."

He went on to claim that the Central American military actions he participated earlier were all plots of this cabal interested in their financial stake. One slight problem - US financial stakes in the countries where these operations took place were miniscule relative to the overall US foreign financial interests at the time. One would think that a "Wall Street cabal" would have had much more pressing concerns elsewhere in the world where much more US financial (Wall Street) interests were at stake.

So Butler, later in his life, bought into the Marxist theory of world affairs, in which financial/economic interests were the primary motivations for any action.

The fact is that most such operations were conducted for geo-political purposes, not economic. If anything missionary zeal in the US at the time (both Christian as well as the "white man's burden to spread civilization" variety) was much more responsible for US actions world-wide than any narrow economic interests.

[Khornet]

you're making it too complicated. When a wacko is against the war, he's still a wacko. A sane man against the war is...a sane man againt the war.

Smedley went off the rails somewhere, that's all.

[Porter Rockwell]

Hello again and thanks for all the PMs and responses!
My grandfather who was in Washington for the '32 Bonus March taught me that there's more than one side to all stories and never to believe the media, the politicos and to never trust the banks. Read all sides and decide for yourselves on all issues.
President Hoovers after the battle speech used many of the same words used today to spin/lie the facts. The Bonus Army was portrayed as mostly commie agitaters to justify MacArther-Patton & Ike leading the stereotypical teargas and fire assault on women and children.
Tamara, with world wide library at you fingertips it's easy to prove or disprove the Bush Families geneology to the British Crown. Prescott Bush (the grand daddy) had his assets seized for collaborating with Hitler.
How many of the current Bush clan are/were involved in the Silverado Savings robbery?
Michael Moores last movie is a steaming pile But an earlier an earlier Downsize This made good points, we used to have a blue collar job force in America.
I must run-
Best!

[CZ-75]

Downsize This made good points, we used to have a blue collar job force in America.

True, but how many of these folks could afford to buy their own products if everything we used had to be made by high wage Americans?

Farming the unskilled jobs out to foreign countries w/ cheaper labor makes sense while we keep the higher skilled jobs here.

Think also of all the European and Asian companies that are setting up shop in the US, please. BMW in SC, Honda in OH, Mazda in MI, Mercedes and Hyundai and Honda in AL, Nissan in MS and TN, Toyota in IN and KY and CA, etc.

[Bahadur]

Michael Moores last movie is a steaming pile But an earlier an earlier Downsize This made good points, we used to have a blue collar job force in America.Moore's "documentaries" have NEVER been completely factual. He uses "discomfort" experienced by the subject of his barrage interview as the "evidence" that the interviewee hides something or means to harm (steal, lie, cheat, etc.).

His latest anti-Second Amendment film is about as logical and factual as his earlier lefist-socialist garbage about the "struggling American workers."

[Porter Rockwell]

Hello!
Have you seen the movie "Downsize This"?
I was curious about what falsehoods were presented?
The factories presented are in fact gone.
Thanks for the post!

[Sir Galahad]

So what if "Downsize This" makes some good points??? Karl Marx makes some good points, too, in both "The Communist Manifesto" and "Das Kapital", but that doesn't mean Marxism is workable. In fact, Marx and Engels both made very true statements about the conditions of the working class in England in the 1840s. So does that mean we ought to roll out Karl Marx every time we need ammo to use against Big Business? Well, why not? The communists do all the time. And the failure of the Soviet Union should be the prime example of why Marxism is a failed experiment. The teachings of Marx have cost more lives in the 20th century than any other next to Nazism. This is why just because one man "sez so" does not a truth make.

[Justin Moore]

Farming the unskilled jobs out to foreign countries w/ cheaper labor makes sense

Yes it makes sense if you are a Chinese Communist, and need cash to build more nuclear warheads targeted against the United States. ;)

[Bahadur]

Hello!
Have you seen the movie "Downsize This"?
I was curious about what falsehoods were presented?
The factories presented are in fact gone.
Thanks for the post!I dispute, not the fact that the factories went offline, but the "facts" surrounding "why did they?".
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Farming the unskilled jobs out to foreign countries w/ cheaper labor makes sense
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes it makes sense if you are a Chinese Communist, and need cash to build more nuclear warheads targeted against the United States.Or if you are a consumer living in a market-driven free society where you get to have more than one choice.

The fact that just about every society engaged in protectionism eventually experienced serious failures to compete against those that have survied the free market "baptism of fire" says a lot about "protecting jobs."

It's not about "protecting jobs," it is to ensure a sound overall economy - about "protecting the economy." The harm the economy as a whole for EVERYONE for the sake of a smaller group of unionized, low-skilled workers is illogical in the extreme.

[beckrodgers]

Whew! Still reeling from the docs treatment this week , I hope we have some Butlers, Pullers, Macs in our current situation, that is a heavy topic And replies Thanks Bobby & Beck

[Griff]

Talk about biting the hand that fed him...

:rolleyes: