Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The California Public School System is now ranked as one of the worst in the nation. A sad, sad thing considering it was one of the best just 30 years ago. Yet Gov. Brown continues gutting the funding for education (and Social Services). He said it was the only way to get the state out of debt. I might have more confidence in Mr. Brown if he (and the Legislature) actually knew what the debt was. They don't. The number changes every time the subject is raised. And, the figures given are only estimates. As a graduate of Berkeley and Yale, I would hope Mr. Brown understands the value of education - I would hope. As a recent California Graduate told me just today, "I'm no Economist, but I can count to potato". Huh? Oh the future looks bleak.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Major General Smedley Butler, USMC
WAR is a
racket. It always has been.
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?
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 gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
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 gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
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