Twisted words

Inreaction to my quoting Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, Robert McGregor wrote that I “mentioned a war hero ... [w]ho, because of war profiteering, became an anti-war proponent.” Nonsense.

General Butler became opposed to war because, in his words, “I spent most of my time [in the military] as a high-class muscleman for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

Although the capitalist system does spawn war profiteers (those who accumulate “unreasonable profits from warfare by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war”), Butler’s statement had nothing to do with war profiteering per se. It concerned the impetus (for) war, the protection of US-based corporate interests, which is the very essence of American imperialism.

Given the simplicity of General Butler’s statement, I have to think that McGregor employed the phrase “war profiteering” in place of “gangster for capitalism” because he couldn’t grapple with the fact that a Marine Corps general saw his actions as those which promoted imperialism and colonialism.

Robert McGregor’s confusion also came to light when he quoted me as writing, “international protection racket,” when, in reality, I wrote, “international corporate protection racket.” By omitting the term “corporate,” McGregor reconciled his internal conflict while artificially fortifying Bill Deaver’s unschooled and diversionary assertion that America is the “Arsenal of democracy.”

To answer McGregor’s question, “[Is the US military] an arsenal of democracy, or a multinational corporate protection racket?” it is the latter. As elucidated by Butler and others, such as former USMC Commandant General David Shoup, the US military is little more than a tool of corporate dominion and US hegemony in general, capitalist culture’s ideological obfuscation notwithstanding.

“It is the interest of wage-earners to oppose imperialism, root, and branch.” — Daniel De Leon.

Guy Marsh

Lancaster