Eight Bells Ringing
Today, the Marine Corps Commandant, General James Jones rang the opening bell at the NYSE, in honor of his two prestigious appointments as Commander, European Command and Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.
A lifetime ago, another Marine flag officer had some thoughts about the intersection of big business and the military. Major General Smedley Butler (1881-1940) wrote a famous tract in 1935 called “War is a Racket.” It kind of has a ring to it.
The full text of General Butler’s article is fascinating and relevant. Butler’s experience of war came mostly under the presidency of another great interventionist and, as the Washington Post says, democratic imperialist, Woodrow Wilson.
I’ve taken a humorous jab or two at the war designers in the Pentagon and White House. I might even be considered out of line, especially by some of the grumpier ones.
If I get in trouble, I’ll refer them to General Butler’s commentary on why we go to war, who benefits and who pays for it. He is 100 times tougher than I will ever be!
Butler talks about the business of war and big business interests in promoting it. He says, “Only a small inside group knows what it is all about.” He points out the nature and motives of government-favored business in lobbying for war and war-related contracts.
Not this time, of course.
Of the Great War, he says, “So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side...it is His will that the Germans be killed.”
Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, start listening to the Jerry, Jimmy, and Pat Show, and check the rabid rantings and urgent donation requests to “get the message out” from the Christian-Zionist lobby in this country.
Butler says war is “conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.”
Probably just what Mexican President Vicente Fox was thinking this weekend as he stood beside Dubya in Cabo San Lucas.
General Butler proposed that we take the profit out of war, permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war, and limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
It probably won’t work. Retired general (and President) Eisenhower worried about the military industrial complex in the 1950’s, to no avail.
Today, the 32nd Commandant of the Marine Corps rang the opening bell at the stock exchange. It’s a great honor, I understand, to ring that bell, even once.
Brings to mind the strong and comforting call of “Eight bells and all is well.” But that sound doesn’t mean it’s finished. It means bring on the next watch. Maybe it’s just me, but I hear eight bells ringing.