Profit

     “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit. We are no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”

—Woodrow Wilson 1919

     “The war wasn’t only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets. We could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without doing one shot, but we didn’t want to.”

—Winston Churchill to Truman (Fultun, USA March 1946) 

     “Germany’s unforgivable crime before WW2 was its attempt to loosen its economy out of the world trade system and to build up an independent exchange system from which the world-finance couldn’t profit anymore …. We butchered the wrong pig.”

            —Winston Churchill (The Second World War – Bern, 1960)

     “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of our country’s most agile military force—the Marine Corps.  I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent more of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers.  In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.  I suspected I was just a part of a racket at the time.  Now I am sure of it.  Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service.  My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups.  This is typical with everyone in the military service.  Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.  I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.  I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long.  I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12.  I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.  In China in 1927 I helped see to it that the Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket.  I was rewarded with honors, medals and promotions.  Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints.  The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts.  I operated on three continents.”

—General Smedley Butler, former US Marine Corps Commandant, 1935

     “Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the “war to end wars.” This was the “war to make the world safe for democracy.” No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United State patents. They were just told it was to be a “glorious adventure.”

     “Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month!

     “All that they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill … and be killed” 

―Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket