Smedley Butler

Many Americans would be shocked to learn that political coups are part of our country’s history. Consider the Wall Street Putsch of 1933.
Never heard of it? It was a corporate conspiracy to oust Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had just been elected president.
With the Great Depression raging and millions of families financially devastated, FDR had launched several economic recovery programs to help people get back on their feet. To pay for this crucial effort, he had the audacity to raise taxes on the wealthy, and this enraged a group of Wall Street multimillionaires.

It's well, well worth watching all of this exchange between Laura Ingraham and former CIA director James Woolsey. Woolsey acknowledges that the US has meddled in other countries' elections in the past and is doing so now, and both he and Ingraham find this laudable and funny. pic.twitter.com/TR3X7VM7Np— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) February 17, 2018

Here in the US, we have been led to believe that we are an exceptional people and the indispensable nation. During our lifetime we have been exposed to lots of myths about the US, particularly about how we are always on the side of good. Below are insider comments challenging this key myth.

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.
The post Smedley Butler and the Racket That Is War appeared first on BSNEWS.

As the Boston marathon gets underway, there is the unavoidable recall of the horrific bombing last year. It also leads to the inevitable question of why this country is plagued with violence.
Violence has been so much in the news lately that President Obama’s leading hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune ran an investigation on shootings in Chicago over a 36-hour period commencing on a Friday evening. The recorded incidents averaged a shocking one every hour. Over 36 people were shot leaving four dead and 33 wounded, some seriously.