Smedley Butler Wasn’t Kidding, by David Swanson

by David Swanson

Writer, Dandelion Salad

Let’s Try Democracy

February 4, 2022

Smedley Butler is generally left out of U.S. history. If you bring up a guy who prevented a Wall Street coup against FDR, you do real damage to the tale of peaceful respect for government from the beginning of time up through January 6, 2021. If you mention the scandal that erupted when he recounted how Mussolini had run over a little girl with his car, it’s hard to leave out the U.S. government’s friendly relations with Mussolini.

Smedley Butler Wasn’t Kidding, by David Swanson

Previously:

Why Smedley Butler left the imperialist front despising ‘Gangsters of Capitalism’

The Retired General Who Stopped a Wall Street Coup

Smedley Butler on Interventionism

Is the China Threat Real?

Is the China Threat Real?

Imagine living in the world’s richest country but finding yourself in worse conditions than your “backyard”. Third world countries you’ve always considered underdeveloped, where historically poor, uneducated, cheap, undocumented workers and many refugees come from, are starting to look like a good place to return for a better life. A better life than the US can offer.

That is the real threat to US national security. The day citizens of the United States start to realise the truth that the current generation of Chinese citizens already have, and the next generation of Latin Americans, will have more opportunities and better prospects than they themselves do. It is the fear of this truth USA’s ruling elite would like to avoid because, at that moment in time, the people of the US will demand more of them, their country and their leadership.

Israel Freaks Out as Gabriel Boric’s Elections Signals New Direction for Chile

Israel Freaks Out as Gabriel Boric’s Elections Signals New Direction for Chile

Chile’s new president, however, is far from a radical and has gone out of his way to distance himself from other socialist governments currently under American attack. He has long been a critic of Venezuela and the administration of Nicolas Maduro. In November, he also wrote off the elections in Nicaragua (won by leftist President Daniel Ortega) as a “sham,” even going so far as to extend his “solidarity” to Cristina Chamorro Barrios, leader of an ultra-conservative party and a prominent member of Nicaragua’s most powerful family.

No wonder Biden approves!

Ex-UN Expert: Stop Lying, Pentagon’s War Budget Has Nothing to Do With US ‘Defence’

The Biden administration’s new Pentagon budget spells danger to the world’s peace, says retired UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, explaining how US interventions, subversive ops, and endemic corruption have resulted in Washington’s excessive military spending.

Sputnik News: Ex-UN Expert: Stop Lying, Pentagon’s War Budget Has Nothing to Do With US ‘Defence’

Resolution for 2022: Dare to Build Your Own Opinions and Then Defend Them!

BY: ALFRED DE ZAYAS

Anyone who has followed the political culture in the US, Canada, UK, EU over the past twenty years must have realized that a war on epistemology, on truth, on semantics is going on. We witness the hijacking of concepts like democracy, freedom, peace, patriotism, human rights — and their instrumentalization for domestic and geopolitical purposes. We observe a process of language destruction not unlike what Orwell foresaw in his sadly visionary book 1984. “Newspeak” is not the future, it is now, hic et nunc. We recognize it in the jargon of political correctness, the language and practice of the “cancel culture”.

COUNTERPUNCH: Resolution for 2022: Dare to Build Your Own Opinions and Then Defend Them!