How it works

“War is a racket. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.” This sounds like a modern day comment from the US far left, but the source is hardly that. It’s from a man who was the most decorated Marine ever at the time of his death. He was an expert on the topic. He served in WW I as well as the Mexican Revolution.

Smedley Butler was doomed to be a largely forgotten voice in the rush to gloss over the true causes of war and regime change. He pointed out the techniques used to win public approval and the subsequent serving of the corporate needs by entering these ever-repeating violent conflicts. He described his military career as that of “a high class muscleman for Big Business, Wall Street, and the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

This man mapped it all out for us around a hundred years ago, yet the jingoism prevails. The latest bipolar foreign policy evidenced in Bolivia is just the latest chapter of the US pushing for and actively installing those who would further the interests of Big Business. Always at the cost of the poor. In this case, the cure for the bipolar policy is probably going to be lithium.

The moment that leaders begin to step out of a corporate-friendly lane, shit gets real. Fast. A treasured ally becomes the perpetrator of election fraud or the nexus of humanitarian affronts to their people. True, pretty much anyone who ascends to a leadership position has issues that can be dissected and critiqued, but even the most horrible actions can be quietly dismissed as quickly as a bone saw can dispatch a pudgy journalist to pieces – if you play the game. Amazing and graphic affronts to decency are ignored when the leaders keep the machinery oiled. Literally oiled.

Gaddafi was a bit of a back and forth US darling until he flirted too much with a gold-based dinar currency aimed at competing with the petrodollar. But things are much better now that he was murdered in the open-air and now Libya can be an open-air slave market. “We came, we saw, he died.” Hilarious. Now those that took over have some very easily refinable oil, if not refined manners.

Saddam Hussein was a similar friend to the US, even an ally – his behavior during the war with Iran was considered nifty. I don’t recall the US going in when he gassed the Kurds either.

Excerpted from: 'A Gangster for Capitalism: Next Up, Bolivia'.

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