found this on the web and wanted to share it with everyone.

From http://www.vfp50.com/:

I AM A VETERAN by Jim Ramelis
I am a veteran.
I am white, black, brown, and red.
I am from the country, I am from the city.
I am from up North, down South, back East, and out West.
I am usually from the working class, sometimes poor, but rarely rich
Sometimes I joined up because I want to fight. More often, I am a young person who wants to work, to get money for school, or to have an adventure.
I don't want pity, I just want what I earned and was promised.
If I am hurt in service, I deserve adequate health care, both in service and when I am released.
I want the benefits promised me by the recruiter and the armed forcers, not spin, not lies, not homelessness, not drug addiction, not alcoholism, and not years waiting for VA claims.
When on active duty service I don't want to be put in harm's way for greed or opportunity, or the profit margins of large corporations, or to control someone else's country, but to defend my country.
Freedom of speech is my right, too. I can disagree with a policy I don't like. I don't make policy; please don't confuse the war with the warrior.
You don't have to support every con man, liar, actor, and hustler that gets elected to public office to love the kids who are fighting, and demand all the best for troops, both in the field and when they come home.
Please also remember the Veterans who are homeless, who are traumatized both by what was done to them and by what they did, who are drug addicted, and who are alcoholic
Sometimes the way to support the troops is to bring them home. Do you want your child to be the last one to die for a war gone bad?
Stop the War in Iraq. No war in Iran,

I am a Veteran
Jim Ramelis

Viet Nam Veteran

well?? where are all the political accolades and "god bless our troops" crowd?? whats the matter this one not American enough for you neocons???

by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient


Major General Smedley D. Butler - USMC Retired
About the Author



CHAPTER ONE

WAR IS A RACKET

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

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

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

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."

Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.

Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.

Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.

Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.

But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?

What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?

Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

They're hiding these days.

They're hoping that McCain gets elected in November so that being a neocon will be fashionable again, and that they will no longer be considered low-life crooks.

The smart ones are hideing and the others are posting pro war nonsence on the internet

The Ballad of the Bleeding Heart Liberal
by
Douglas Robertson



My life has been a horror,
since I took up the liberal's art.
But now I don't feel so guilty
(It's great to be a "bleeding heart").

The secret of this art is easy:
just be nice to everyone.
Even to murderers and molesters
(It doesn't matter what they've done).

Every guilt was on my shoulders;
now listen to my tale:
I'm responsible for all evil
(I'm white, middle-class, and male).

Villains robbed my house once,
and my family they did assault.
But this was due to society's ills
(I knew it was not their fault).

My daughter tried to stop them;
they beat her with boot and fist.
I did not try to save her
(I'm a "born-again" pacifist).

Their actions I could not judge;
other people, I cannot condemn.
Even though my wife was "graped"
(there was a "bunch" of them).

It was the same some years before,
fighting Japs in jungle mud.
I never shot a-one of them
(couldn't stand to see yellow blood).

In the future, when the Asian hordes
follow their brothers' call:
They'll outnumber Aussies ten to one
("We're all human", after all).

My eldest son now condemns me,
and tells me I'm a "nong",
because I sold my country to the Japs
(now, how could that be wrong?).

My son thinks I'm an idiot,
and he says I've got no hope.
But I call myself a "liberal"
(perhaps it should be "dope"?).

Yes well the "JOHN KERRY's" of this world joined for the bennies...now they want to cry because they actually have to do their job.

I ain't buyin' it.

What's a neocon?

Just a reminder to those who have forgotten or chose to not know Iraq had no link to 911 or terrorism.

better a bleeding hearted liberal than a heartless neocon....

and they're too busy with real life stuff

and counteracting all the nasty slander

that some choose to try & dish their way

what's up Madison man...

did you find your heart ?

I never said anything bad about the troops ever but I think you should re-read the letter