Memorial Day 2026

It’s Memorial Day, traditionally a day to take stock, to honor the fallen, and to tell ourselves they have not fallen in vain. Solemn words will fill the air, ceremonies staged and “Taps” played to honor the dead. The vast majority of the fallen enlisted out of a sense of honor, duty and purpose. Many of us, encountering a serviceman or woman in uniform, will utter a sincere, “Thank you for your service.” We trust and believe in what we are told, and feel better about ourselves.

What we are unwilling to do is to examine the foreign policy of the increasingly-sclerotic empire that deploys these overwhelmingly working class heroes. We offer a moment of silence, then race to the grill, or out to the Memorial Day sales. Never do we consider the context of those wars– or the next.

Our warlike posture is a fundamental feature of our national character, not a bug, every bit as much as the slaver’s lash or the Indian-killer’s Winchester.. Just in the past quarter century, the US has proven unable to defeat the lightly armed Taliban, made a mockery of the situation in Iraq, and after declaring war on Iran via Operation Epstein Fury, we appear to be negotiating our Articles of Surrender to the Iranians.

Years ago in 1967, white Americans were outraged— OUTRAGED, I say— when H. Rap Brown said, “Violence is as American as cherry pie.” He was correct. The outrage is a tribute to the effectiveness of our indoctrination into the national liturgy.

An all-but-forgotten American hero, Smedley Darlington Butler (1881 – 1940) saw it from the inside. Butler was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, an outspoken critic of U.S. military adventurism, and at death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. Today’s a good day to remember a real hero like Butler.

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.… 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.

That last statement is as close as we are likely to come to an eternal truth.

After his retirement from the Marine Corps, Gen. Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s speaking on the theme, “War is a Racket.” The speech was so well received that he wrote a small book with the same title published in 1935. In it, he described the workings of the military-industrial complex and, after retiring from service, became a popular speaker at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists and church groups in the 1930s.

A little known and much obscured part of American history is the attempted Business Plot against Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the beginning of the New Deal. Conservatives were not only exercised at the notion of “creeping socialism” by the election of FDR, but also by the abandonment of the gold standard. Herbert Hoover, who had championed gold on behalf of his sponsors, wrote “that its abandonment was the first step toward “communism, fascism, socialism, statism, planned economy,” not to mention popery, bestiality, witchcraft and free love.

The forces of actual fascism, a group of wealthy industrialists, planned a military coup to overthrow Roosevelt, and approached Butler to play a role. The conspirators noted his popularity among World War I veterans. Apparently they wanted Butler to leading a mass of armed veterans on Washington to install a new government.

The plotters quickly learned they had the wrong man. Butler reported the controversy to Congress, who held a hearing. The individuals identified denied the existence of a plot, and the media ridiculed the allegations. The committee’s final report stated that there was evidence of such a plot, but no charges were ever filed. And it was all forgotten.

Remember that in 1934-35, American industrialists smiled at the good works of Hitler and Mussolini and their cost-saving efficiencies.

Not for nothing did Gore Vidal refer to this country as, “The United States of Amnesia.”

On this Memorial Day, when MAGA still holds the reins of our war policy (not a“foreign policy” any longer) and are willing to fight the next war to YOUR last son or daughter, I can think of no greater tribute to our men and women in uniform than to recall the memory of Smedley Butler, the only soldier to ever be awarded TWO Congressional Medals of Honor, and who told the truth about how capital deploys the military.

Now on to Victory in Cuba!