Memorial Day

‘War is a Racket': Forbidden History on Memorial Day

• Forbidden History
  
• Forbidden Knowledge
  
• Politics of War
  
• Social Engineering
  
• World at War
  

by Elle - May 23, 2015
4 31







21st Century Wire says…
It’s Memorial Day weekend in the U.S.A. and there’s another important part of history, dare we say Forbidden, that will not be televised. Lest we forget…
Retired Major General Smedley Butler was onto something in 1933, when he was recruited to be a “gangster for capitalism” by a group of wealthy Americans calling themselves the “American Liberty League”. Damn interesting, indeed.



f you know your history, you know that in 1934 there was an attempted coup in the United States that was thwarted largely due to the efforts of U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler(ret.)
Look it up.
Among other things, Butler was only one of 19 people ever awarded the Medal of Honor twice and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.
After it dawned on him how his heroism and the heroism of the troops under his command had been misused, he wrote a book called “War is a Racket” which I can virtually guarantee you never heard about in school.
Butler concluded there are only two reasons to ever take up arms:
1. To defend the country against real – not manufactured – attacks 
2. To defend the Bill of Rights
Sounds good to us.
+++
ZenGardner.com


Thanks to: http://www.zengardner.com

Sunday, May 24, 2015

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO OUR SOLDIERS AND VETS!!!!

"DADDY!" SOLDIER SURPRISES HIS 9 YEAR OLD GIRL OUTSIDE HER SCHOOL AFTER A LONG TIME AWAY - AND THINGS QUICKLY GET EMOTIONAL!


May. 23, 2015 9:15pm Dave Urbanski


A solider in the U.S. Army for the last two decades, Trent Shoemaker has been deployed to Iraq and Bosnia and knows what it means to be away from family.
It’s no easier these days. A flight operations specialist based in Jacksonville, Florida, Shoemaker gets to see his 9-year-old daughter Zolei and girlfriend Jennie Mojica in Philadelphia every few months, WCAU-TV reported.
So when Shoemaker came north in time for Memorial Day weekend, he made sure it was a memorable reunion.
With Jennie videotaping on Friday, Shoemaker strolled toward his daughter’s school, Joseph H. Brown Elementary in Philadelphia —





Image source: WCAU-TV


— and a surprising sight caught Zolei’s eyes



Image source: WCAU-TV


“Daddy!” she yelled, rushing up to him and jumping into his arms as the pair began to weep.



Image source: WCAU-TV


“I was really excited because I miss him,” Zolei told WCAU. “I miss him when he’s away, but I’m proud of him.”



Image source: WCAU-TV


“It’s tough because obviously we want him here physically,” Jennie added. “But we understand that what he’s doing isn’t just for us but it’s for everyone.”


Shoemaker knows that all too well and encouraged Americans to keep in mind those on the front lines for Memorial Day.


“Keep the people who are still in harm’s way in mind,” he told the station. “There are still people out there across the world, still fighting.”


Jennie added, “We have to keep in mind that there are soldiers out there putting their life at risk to keep our country safe. I wish he was home more but we’re all safe because of it.” 


(IF ONLY THE SOLDIERS WERE RETURNED TO THEIR HOMELAND AND WAITING FAMILIES WHERE THEY BELONG, AND NOT GUARDING AND DEFENDING THE POPPY FIELDS, DRUG AND ARMS RUNNING, AND  HUMAN SLAVERY BUSINESS OF THE BUSHES/CLINTONS, ET AL. 


TO OUR MILITARY: YOU SWORE AN OATH TO THE LORD TO DEFEND YOUR NATION - NOT TO WORK FOR THE 'BUSINESS' INTERESTS OF THE BUSHES / CLINTONS, ET AL AND THE MAFIA THAT CAUSES ALL THE WARS AND DEATH WORLDWIDE.  PLEASE!  RECONSIDER YOUR OATH OF ALLEGIANCE AND COME HOME TO DEFEND YOUR NATION, FAMILIES AND FRIENDS!!!  AMERICA IS CURRENTLY UNDER ATTACK LIKE NEVER BEFORE!  WE NEED YOU AT HOME - NOW!)


BE SAFE!  WE HAVE YOUR BACK!!!!  PRAYERS GO UP DAILY FROM ALL ACROSS AMERICA AND AROUND THE WORLD FOR YOU AND YOURS.




Posted by Olive Oyl at 12:28 PM

Thanks to: http://nesaranews.blogspot.com

The First Memorial Day Was No Picnic

By Cindy Drukier, Epoch Times | May 24, 2015
Last Updated: May 24, 2015 8:20 pm
[url=https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=The First Memorial Day Was No picnic&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theepochtimes.com%2Fn3%2F1367544-the-first-memorial-day-was-no-picnic%2F&via=epochtimes]24[/url]



Decoration Day, 1917. Location unstated. (Library of Congress)

More in Slice of Life

Mississippi Momentum

Beloved New York Philanthropist Joan Davidson, a Champion of the Illustrated Book

We Project Our Goals Onto Other People
Even if most of us celebrate Memorial Day with cookouts and beach parties, the day honoring our fallen soldiers has a history worth knowing.
Today it’s a national holiday, but it wasn’t always a day that united Americans.
It came out of the ashes of a painful Civil War when the wounds of a divided nation were still raw.
In 1868, three years after the war’s end, Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, declared May 30 “Decoration Day”—a day to honor the war dead by decorating their graves with flowers.
Logan was head of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans. He declared the day to be “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

Daisies gathered for Decoration Day, May 1899.
(Library of Congress)
The date was specifically chosen because it didn’t mark any particular battle or war-related event.
Over time, Decoration Day started to be called Memorial Day until that name stuck.
The first Decoration Day ceremony back in 1868, was presided over by Union general, and future president, James Garfield at Arlington National Cemetery. It was a big event, attended by some 5,000 people who lay flowers on 15,000 graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers.
The observance caught on and by 1890, the holiday was formally recognized in all Northern states.
Many in the South saw it as a day specifically to honor Union soldiers.
But not so in the South. Many in the South saw it as a day specifically to honor Union soldiers.
What’s ironic is that the “decoration” tradition actually comes from the South.
Southern Baptists had long been honoring the dead in the late spring with a day that included church services, cleaning the community cemeteries, picnicking, and decorating graves with fresh flowers. It was called “decoration day”or simply “decoration.”
In fact, in 1866, a women’s memorial association in Mississippi had already placed flowers on the graves of soldiers from both sides of the war in a gesture of of reconciliation.
Despite the strong Southern connection, Decoration Day was not a uniting force.
But despite this strong Southern connection, Maj. Gen. Logan’s Decoration Day was not a uniting force.
Across the South, Confederate dead were honored on a variety of other dates heavily connected to Civil War events.
Georgia declared in 1874 that a “Confederate Memorial Day” would be observed on April 26, the date the Confederacy surrendered to Sherman. It remains a state holiday in Georgia to this day, and is also observed in Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama.
North and South Carolinas still celebrate Confederate Memorial Day on May 10, the day Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson died. Texas has Confederate Heroes Day on Jan. 19 (which also happens to be Martin Luther King Jr. Day). Louisiana and Tennessee observe June 3, for the birthday of Jefferson Davis, the South’s Civil War president. 
The South finally adopted the May 30 Memorial Day after the nation fought together in World War I.
There were various failed efforts over the years to observe one common national day for honoring soldiers. A 1907 volume of the “[url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iB5EAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA455&lpg=PA455&dq=south+rejecting+decoration+day&source=bl&ots=-sZX0WPBi4&sig=FQE8WTwJTebqDTlHY1NvwRNaqQ0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LtthVfKTPNfioATaoICwAQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=memorial day&f=false]Confederate Veteran[/url],” published in Nashville, Tennessee, commented on the arguments being made at the time for the South to conform to the North and adopt the same the May 30 Memorial Day (as it was called by this time):
“There seems to be but little, if any, prejudice against it at the South. We could afford liberal methods since the North so graciously gives the South credit for inaugurating such an event. But the South desires to honor the memory of Jefferson Davis by his birthday, June 3.”
It wasn’t until after the nation fought as one in World War I, and the definition of the holiday was broadened to honor Americans who died in any conflict, that the South finally adopted the same day.
In 1971, Memorial Day became an official national holiday by act of Congress, and was set not as May 30, but as the last Monday in May to ensure a long weekend—so enjoy.


Thanks to: http://www.theepochtimes.com

Homeless Veteran Commits Suicide in VA Parking Lot After Continuously Being Turned Away.

May 25, 2015 / renostonehill


A U.S. Army Veteran ended his own life this week outside the VA Phoenix Regional Benefits Officer. Micheal Murphy was discovered in his Toyota pickup along side him a note detailing how his arthritis was continuing to get worse and the VA was refusing to give him any help and assistance.
Micheal had been living in the 209 West Jackson Street complex, a building of 297 affordable single-occupancy apartments known for high crime and open-air drug deals. He wrote in his letter that he “can no longer afford to pay [his] rent” and had been in touch with New Times in the past about homelessness and affordable housing problems in Phoenix. Until he faced eviction Sunday.
Micheal’s neighbor and friend spoke the the New York times revealing he was evicted from his apartment Sunday, and she helped him load his belongings into his pick up truck.
“He looked like he had been crying. He didn’t look like himself,” she says. “It’s a really hopeless feeling living here. I can understand how you could get really depressed.”
In his note, he writes that “with the arthritis in my left hip, sleeping is often difficult, and I now cannot do most of the work I used to do. I cannot stand on my feet for more than an hour without massive doses of painkillers, and now I cannot put a camera on my shoulder and operate it successfully for any amount of time. In TV, it’s often 14 hours on your feet. Also, VA wants to take my painkillers away from me, because of what some hillbillies do with it illicitly. Thanks for that, too, VA. Not that I can afford them, anyway.”

Share this:

Thanks to: http://undergroundresistancenews.com/

Memorial Day. Yuck!

Posted on May 25, 2015 by Ann Kreilkamp
Predictably, the local paper carried a sentimental story about veterans the title of which included the phrase “remembering the fallen” and took up most of the front page. 
On the other hand, I’ve run across lots of folks who would rather, like myself —
My Memorial Day Blues
— see Memorial Day as one more perverse celebration of a waning Empire’s determination to continue warmongering.  

Actually, it’s all we do! Nothing else matters! Just about everything else in our so-called economy is at least tangentially connected to some facet or other of “our” Military Industrial Complex. It’s the “Muscle of the US Economy,” according to this special report on the MIC.
Excerpt:
The military industry is a dominant player in the US economy. Military orders drive America’s manufacturing sector. More than one-third of all engineers and scientists in the US are engaged in military-related jobs. Several sections of the country and a number of industrial sectors, particularly shipbuilding and aerospace, are greatly dependent upon military spending or foreign arms sales.
The Department of Defense (DoD), together with the top defense corporations – or what is known as the “military-industrial complex” – controls the largest coordinated bloc of industry in the US.
In 2001, after taking into account the emergency anti-terror funding and supplemental appropriations to finance the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon’s budget amounted to some $375 billion. In addition to the rising annual Defense budget, military spending also eats up much of the budgets of the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. At present, it consumes about 55% of the federal government’s discretionary expenditures. Roughly 75% of federal research and development expenditure is devoted to military projects.
The top aerospace and defense corporations, consisting of 11 companies, employ 901,258 people. (See Table)
These corporations mostly rely on DoD contracts. Most of these companies are also among the top defense corporations in the whole world.
Historically, the US economy shook off economic depression during World Wars I and II as establishments and factories vigorously worked to support the American war machine. For a superpower like the US, war is an avenue leading out of an economic slump since practically all economic sectors become engaged in the country’s war efforts. Aside from boosting the local economy and generating jobs, the US also earned from selling weapons to its wartime allies.It is not surprising, therefore, that many Americans and their elected representatives support continued Pentagon spending. The military industry has become a huge and untouchable jobs program employing directly and indirectly a large number of blue-collar workers and a rising number of technical professionals. Defense workers are kept in line by the fear of job loss and ensuing economic crisis. This threat is also used to frustrate efforts to scale back military production or to convert it to socially useful purposes.
_____
And why not? After all, America is “exceptional,” it enjoys “manifest destiny.” Oh?
Here’s an interesting essay that points out how, in the 21st century, we “witness the slipping away of the traditional advantage accruing to military power alone.”
America on Memorial Day: Heavily armed, dangerous, unstable
One poster says it all.

And here’s another McGovern, Ray McGovern, speaking truth about “the fallen.”
How to Honor Memorial Day


Thanks to: http://exopermaculture.com

The Memorial Day Sham: Our Soldiers Died for the Profits of the Banksters

On Memorial Day—today—I feel it is fitting to put the “holiday” into its true context. The sham of war has taken millions of lives under false pretenses; the pretense of Peace. There was no such intention; hence, the endless war we see today across the globe.
People need to pause and understand the truth of it all, lest it continue. When will they say “enough” and refuse to fight? War isn’t about glory—although “they” would like us to believe that, and nurture that cultural belief.
War is foolish. War is selfish. War is neanderthal. Conscious thought rejects war—but who among us are truly conscious? ~ BP

Paul Craig Roberts: “Our Soldiers Died For The Profits Of The Bankers”

May 24, 2015
Memorial Day commemorates soldiers killed in war.  We are told that the war dead died for us and our freedom. US Marine General Smedley Butler challenged this view.  He said that our soldiers died for the profits of the bankers, Wall Street, Standard Oil, and the United Fruit Company.  Here is an excerpt from a speech that he gave in 1933:

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of 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 masses.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this 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 most 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 part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, 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 benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
Most American soldiers died fighting foes who posed no threat to the United States. Our soldiers died for secret agendas of which they knew nothing. Capitalists hid their self-interests behind the flag, and our boys died for the One Percent’s bottom line.

Jade Helm, an exercise that pits the US military against the US public, is scheduled to run July 15 through September 15.  What is the secret agenda behind Jade Helm?
The Soviet Union was a partial check on capitalist looting in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.  However, with the Soviet collapse capitalist looting intensified during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes.
Neoliberal Globalization is now looting its own constituent parts and the planet itself. Americans, Greeks, Irish, British, Italians, Ukrainians, Iraqis, Libyans, Argentinians, the Spanish and Portuguese are being looted of their savings, pensions, social services, and job opportunities, and the planet is being turned into a wasteland by capitalists sucking the last penny out of the environment.
As Claudia von Werlhof writes, predatory capitalism is consuming the globe.
We need a memorial day to commemorate the victims of neoliberal globalization.  All of us are its victims, and in the end the capitalists also.
Source

Thanks to: http://www.starshipearththebigpicture.com