 Again, let's read our first story, let's read our first story from real war stories number two published in 1991, and this story is war is a racket written as a book by General Smetley Butler, until like a decade ago, the most decorated marine in US history, and he wrote the book in the 1920s, I believe, we did a reading of it, and I'll have the link in the description of this video once it's been uploaded to CensorTube, Bichoud, and Rumble, so if you're watching this reading, if you want to have a read through the book, we did an audio reading of it, and it is available on SoundCloud as well as an audiobook where I ended up reading the entire book, and you can find the book for free online, it is one of the most important books in history, it should be this book, war is a racket by General Smetley Butler, should be mandatory reading in every high school in the United States and Canada and the Western world really, and it should be mandatory reading every year in my opinion, okay, grade eight, grade nine, grade 10, grade 11, and grade 12, and I think every year kids should have to read this book and write an essay about what its implications are, okay, now this version, and as far as I know this is the only version of this comic book, of war is a racket in comic book format, was adapted by Joyce Bradner, and Joyce Bradner is the widow of the author of American Splendor, she was a activist, anti-war activist, peace activist, the art is by Wayne Van Sent, and he was a Vietnam war veteran and he wrote a lot of, he's done a few different comic books regarding war, and he was a peace activist as well, right, the letters is by Dianne Valentino and colors is by Sam Parsons, that's one of the longer intros regarding a comic book, because we're going to be snipping this out out of the live stream and uploading it as an individual story, let's have a read through this, let's have a read through this, and that's General Smetley Butler I believe, right, should be, looks like him, Newton Square, Pennsylvania, 1934, General Butler, the taxi couldn't get through, glad to see you, my wife's got donuts and hot coffee in the mess hall, for reporter John Spevac, it was a story of a lifetime, an interview with Major General Smetley Butler, USMC retired, the first US commander in this century to have done 12 separate tours of duty in Central America, and the first man to have been twice awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration his country could do bestow, there are things I've seen, things I've learned, that should not be left unsaid, General Smetley Butler states, I don't want to mislead you, some people will tell you, I write for a communist magazine, the reporter says, so who the hell cares, there wouldn't be a United States, if it wasn't for a bunch of radicals, he says, I once heard of a radical named George Washington, as a matter of fact, for what I read, from what I've read, he was an extremist, a goddamn revolutionary, revolutionist, Smetley Butler says, I was 16 when they sunk the main, back to join the Marines, he says, war is a racket, war is a racket, I spent 33 years and four months in active service, as a member of our country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps, I served in all commissioned, commissioned ranks, from a second lieutenant to major general, and during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers, in short I was a racket here for capitalism, I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time, now I am sure of it, like all members of the military profession, I never had an original thought until I left the service, my mental faculties remained in suspension, suspended animation, while I obeyed the orders of the higher ups, this is typical of everyone in the military service, I helped make Mexico, and especially Campico, safe for American oil interest in 1914, I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the national city bank boys to collect revenues in, we supervised elections in Haiti, and whenever we supervised them, our candidates always won, I helped in the raping of a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street, I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown brothers in 1909-1912, I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interest in 1916, I helped make Honduras, Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903, in China in 1927, I helped see to it that standard oil went its way unmolested, looking back, looking back I feel and might have given Al Capone a few tips, the best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts, we Marines operated on three continents, on guard, citizen soldier back in court for Agent Orange Vets, our boys were sent off to die with beautiful ideals painted in front of them, no one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason they were marching off to kill and die, the economy act passed by Congress in 1933, demanded that Spanish American war veterans furnish legal proof that their disabilities were incurred while in the service, 35,000 AO vets died treatment, denied treatment by VA hospital, not service connected, high tech training and myth, steady confirms 50% of all military jobs have no civilian counterparts, men were taken off the pension rolls, ousted from hospitals and told to shift for themselves, employment center, people have been led to believe that Congress is lavishing its paternal care upon every ex-serviceman, including the veterans, veteran who has acquired flat feet, pounding the pavement in search of a job, on guard, free to, 90s cutbacks close VA doors to low income vets, they will tell you that any veteran who breaks his leg in an automobile accident only suddenly needs his tonsils removed, simply has to go to a government hospital to get the necessary treatment at the expense of the taxpayer, as a result of disclosures of World War I intrigues men and women have been endeavoring to chart new paths towards peace, our neutrality measures prohibit the export of the rifles, ammunition and other products to nations of war, but there are ways and means of evading such embargoes, machine guns can, as they have been in the past, shipped as sewing machines, canons can be camouflaged as locomotive parts and with the necessary bribes placed aboard ships, for veterans fast to protest Central American policy, veterans for peace, as that General Smetney Butler, testifying in Congress, in the Senate. In July of 1932, over 20,000 veterans and their families marched on Washington and camped on the edge of the Capitol to protest the failure of Congress to honor America's pledge to his fighting men. We let Hoover know prosperity was not just around the corner. In 1933, the mortality rate among World War vets was three times as great as among those who had stayed at home. Boys with a normal viewpoint had been taken out of the fields and offices and factories and put into the ranks. There they were remolded, they were made made over, they were made to about face, to regard murder as the order of the day, they were put shoulder to shoulder and through mass psychology, they were made into machines for slaughter. We trained them to kill other men with nonchalance and dispatch. We used them a couple of years. Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another about face. Only this time, they had to do their own readjusting, without mass psychology, without officers aid and advice, without nationwide propaganda. We turned them loose without three minute speeches without parades. Too many of these fine young boys were eventually destroyed mentally because they could not take that final about face alone. The war racker can be stopped. You know the death and misery I've seen in my lifetime. Need not be repeated over and over again, from generation to generation. You veterans listening to me now, it's up to all of us to do the best we can to prevent yet another generation of war veterans from existing. We must put ourselves out of existence, my friends. Future generations will praise us if we do and damn us to hell if we fail. In 1985, General Smedley Butler was again honored by his country when a group of veterans working for peace organized themselves as the Smedley Butler Brigade. That's the next story. Citizen's Troll Soldier. War is a racket by General Smedley Butler.