Major General Smedley Butler, USMC

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 gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

The Revolution is here.

The Center for Constitutional Rights and TheRealNews.com - Recommended (Highly recommended).

As did many others,I cheered the election of President O'Bama.  The end of the Bush Regime - which left this country demoralized, hated, and bankrupt (of both capital and moral bearing) - was most welcome.  The new administration brought a hope that we could now correct the wrongs of eight years of flagrant disregard for the Constitution and the ideals for which America has long stood.  Sadly, that hope is increasingly fading, and a sickening malaise seems to have descended on the country - hopefullness being replaced with a gut-wrenching (all too familiar) hopelessness.
  President O'Bama has determined to do nothing regarding the matter of torture.  'Moving on', as he phrased it, rather than looking backward into the past sounded pleasant enough.  But then, most b.s. and 'distractive speech' does.
  Torture.
  Those quilty of torture should be jailed.  Those who authorized such actions should be jailed.  That's the law.  <=== Note the 'period' at the end of that sentence.  It's not debatable.
  Accountability is required before we can even hope to 'move on'.

Selective Support - Selective Justice

The following is provided by: The Real News (therealnews.com)

Gore Vidal - Media

Which Way We Going?

(NASA Photo of our sun)

It is the center of our Solar system. And, not surprisingly, it looks nothing like you.

Priorities. Prioritizing. It's critical to the successful management of any undertaking. It assigns an order of importance to things. It requires decision, which operates on a perception of importance. It's not a difficult thing to do.

Fifteen years ago one in every fifteen hundred children born in America would suffer some form of Autism. 1 in 1,500. Today the statistic is one in every one hundred and ten. 1 in 110.

Let's prioritize. How important is this?

$300 Million Dollars. That's how important it is. That's the money our Government gave (in total) to deal with the matter of Autism. $300 Million.

$300 Million dollars is a lot of money, but then so is $100.00. Don't believe me? Next time you're broke imagine what you could do with a hundred bucks. $300 Million is a lot of money. It's also an insufficient amount of money. 1 in 110 children. In my view the increase in Autism is a national crisis. And by crisis I mean CRISIS. A plague. A national disaster.

Research and care and support are necessary. $300 Million . Inadequate. Superficial. Pathetic.

$300 Million. What was the amount our Government gave to Wall Street? Anyone remember? What was the amount spent - in real money and in borrowed funds - to wage war? Anyone remember? What was the amount spent on the last Presidential Campains? Anyone remember?

$300 Million. 1 out of every 110 new Americans.

I really don't need a calculater to figure out that $300 Million is woefully inadequate. Do you?

Priorities.

Hmm.