Replying to a message of TOM WALKER to BOB ACKLEY:

 BA>> I thought I'd share a couple of paragraphs from a book I recently
 BA>> acquired. The book was written quite some time ago.

 BA>> "War is a racket.  It always has been.  It is possibly the oldest,
 BA>> easily th most predictable, surely the most vicious.  It is the only
 BA>> one international in scope.  It is the only one in which the profits
 BA>> are reckoned in dollars a the losses in lives.

 BA>> "A racket is best described, I believe, as something that
is not what
 BA>> it see to the majority of people.  Only a small
"inside" group knows
 BA>> what it is about.  It is conducted for the benefit of the very few,
 BA>> at the expense of t very many.  Out of war a few people make their
 BA>> fortunes.

 BA>> "In the recent World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the
 BA>> conflict At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made
 BA>> in the United States during the World War.  That many admitted their
 BA>> huge blood gains in their income tax returns.  How many other war
 BA>> millionaires falsified their income tax returns no one knows."

 BA>> The book goes on to document specific industries and boondoggles. 
 BA>> It's not a huge volume and one can read the whole thing in probably
 BA>> an hour.

 TW> PURE BULL SHIT. Try and tell that who Lost Friends and reliatiaves in
 TW> WWI and WWII.

The book "War Is A Racket" was written in about 1935 by Smedley Darlington
Butler. USMC Major General Smedley D. Butler remains one of the most decorated
people to ever serve in the US military and AFAIK is the *only* recipient of *two*
Congressional Medals of Honor.  The Marines named one of their bases on Okinawa
after him.

 TW> IT was far foom a "Racket" but a matter of SURVIVAL
 TW> pure and Simple. And incidently WWII save the IDIOT FDR's ass as his
 TW> Depression recovery programs were a total disaster and basicly for
 TW> "Media Events for Him" did little to nothing to help the Country
 TW> recover.

Some of his ideas may have helped a bit, but most people knowledgeable about
such things seem to think that overall his actions prolonged and exacerbated the
Depression.

 TW> The Military Buildup for WWII, is what brought the Country
 TW> out of the Depression.

That is true.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+