“War Is a Racket” is the title of a 1935 book written by a retired Major General in the US Marine Corps, Smedley Butler (1881 – 1940) when he was a Brigadier General. War was not a theory to Butler, but a reality in which he participated that earned him not one but two Congressional Metals of Honor! He came to see that he was a “racketeer” in what is probably the most profitable racket of all times – the mongering of war. It has long been clear to me that that racket is a highly profitable industry that costs unbelievable numbers of lives and unbelievable quantities of resources. The racket has gone on long enough and has gotten so sophisticated in its consumption of resources of the two that both of them must end if we humans are to survive as a species on Mother Earth.
I write this on the day of every “March for Our Lives” taking place in our country today that fundamentally bring peace into our lives… peace that puts an end to murderous violence of all kinds, including war. Those “marches” have been prompted by the incredible rate of mass homicide of children, all of which are the product of an equally incredible belief in violence as a natural and uncontrollable force in the human condition. Violence is our dark side, and we are not confronting it… yet.
I share with you what I have been able to do about this tragedy from my seat here in my studio. I learned to shoot a rifle at a bull’s-eye when I was about 10 years old, and I got great delight in being able to put a bullet through the middle of the bull’s-eye, shot after shot. I started with a .22 caliber rifle, and when I was in college I bought a .30 caliber hunting rifle. I learned how to reload the cartridges for that rifle, which was a precision skill to match the precision skill of putting holes in the center of a paper bull’s-eye. I even learned to cast lead alloy into the bullets that made those holes.
When I was in college, I joined the National Rifle Association, which was a sporting Association then, and into the 1970s when I started my practice in Norway, Maine. I then used that skill to kill one deer that I gave to another hunter who needed the meat, and never used it to kill again. I became a Life Member of the NRA back then. The NRA has since lost sight of its original sporting purpose and has a pathological fascination with the promotion of weapons of war. In 2015, I put a black “X” on my membership card and send it into the NRA with a letter resigning my life membership.
Though I do not walk well, I talk in full support of all of those who “March for Our Lives”. I am doing everything I can to say “No” to all forms of our addictions: fear, rage, shame, guilt, and violence. I say, “Yes” to all forms of compassion, kindness, creativity, and peace that heal those addictions.
Bravo Ken!! How I wish more NRA members would wake up to the fact that it is not the organization initially was. It is now a for-profit lobbying group who owns the Republican Party and many of the democrats. It is my hope that this new generation will help vote these congress members out of office and elect progressive unowned men and women who truly represent Americans’ desires, i. e. gun reform and common sense legislation.
Dear Ken:
You might have guessed I would be one of the first to respond to your post in the affirmative, that is, in 100% support of all you say here. War is a racket and will remain so as long as it makes millions of dollars in gun sales to war mongerers in public corporations and private homes. This is a dark hole in the human shadow, and one which far too many are reluctant-resistant to face.
Thank you for writing this, for resigning your NRA membership, and for standing with the millions of people who marched for our lives.
Many blessings to you,
Meredith
Many thanks for your Being, Meredith.
Thanks, Ken. I’m reminded of another retired general who gave us similar advice.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children….” Dwight D. Eisenhower
I have other friends who have left the NRA because of its dangerous shift to protection of gun rights over children’s right to be safe in their schools. Thank you Ken, for your support the March For Our Lives movement. It is way past the time to reign in the gun lobby, to reflect the right of all citizens to staunch gun violence and the ugly attitudes it engenders.
Thanks for your clear comments Scott. It is my sense that we had to create the NRA in order to bring our violent propensities out into the open where we could deal with them and turn that destructive energy into creative peace…
A significant number of Air Force Generals and Navy Admirals from multiple countries who retired after assignments in which they were responsible to deliver strategic nuclear weapons have spoken strongly for the requirement to go to zero nuclear weapons if civilization is to survive.
How do we prevail against war–mongering, Scott. I am doing what I can with what I have, and if there is more that this retired general surgeon can do, please don’t hesitate to tell me. Thank you, Ken
Dear Ken,
I not only applaud exactly what Meredith Jordan wrote here, but I want to point out that it’s likely because you two are Facebook friends that, when I saw her name on FB and inquired if was she who had written the book Embracing the Mystery, and also who had given a weekend retreat in Alfred ME, years ago, for our Pax Christi community – all of which, confirmed, gave me the opportunity to tell her how something in her book in 2004 or so, had led to my acting in a way that ushered in a major development in my life! The “story,” Ken, is on Meredith’s FB page. In any case, thank you for being the instrument of this big discovery!