This book which is not even mentioned by out corporate masters (for obvious reasons) was written by the Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient, Major General Smedley D. Butler USMC, Retired. He wrote:
"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... 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?"
More below the fold...
Even more interesting and, once again, an episode that is not worth even a passing by mention in today's America, is that General Butler was asked to lead a financial/military Coup D'etat against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1934.
The background:
"It was nearly sundown before Washington was reached and Pennsylvania Avenue was filled from end to end with this citizen army. His spurs clinked loudly as General Butler strode into President Roosevelt's study. "Mr. President," barked the general, "I have 500,000 men outside who want peace but want something more. I wish you to remove Cordell Hull as Secretary of State."
The President promptly telephoned across the street for Mr. Hull's resignation.
"And now, Mr. President," continued General Butler, "I ask you to fill the vacancy which has just occurred in your Cabinet by appointing me Secretary of State." It took Mr. Roosevelt less than a minute to sign the commission. "Let it be understood," the new Secretary of State told the President, "that henceforth I will act as the nation's executive. You may continue to live here at the White House and draw your salary but you will do and say only what I tell you. If not, you and Vice President Garner will be dealt with as I think best. In that event, as Secretary of State, I shall succeed to the Presidency, as provided by law." The President nodded assent and the U. S. became a Fascist State. Such was the nightmarish page of future U. S. history pictured last week in Manhattan by General Butler himself to the special House Committee investigating Un-American Activities..."
More here:
http://www.time.com/...
Food for thought, there are many under-reported events in American History that really are an eye opener and help to put in context why the plutocrats in charge can get away with "murder" nowadays.