If you guys want a better insight into the news outlets, go to the little kid section of the library and read the Dr. Seuss book about the Sneeches. This story also applies to political parties. Somewhere there is a guy selling a magic box and making tons of cash while the little people argue about whose side is better than the other. I think Dr. Seuss knew what he was talking about.
Getting back to Major General Smedley Butler, check out the wikipedia link I posted above. Have you ever wondered what the term "banana republic" means? Today people use the term when referring to any stupid little country that doesn't make a bit of difference in the world. It originally referred to tropical countries (mainly Honduras and Guatemala) that were taken over by corporations to export bananas to the USA and Europe.
It's instructive to look back at the story of the banana republics, because most of that history has been forgotten 100 years later. Now you just go to the store and buy bananas, but you don't think about the fact that United Fruit essentially bought and paid for entire countries so you could build up their fortune a nickel at a time. (and they got the CIA to overthrow democratically elected governments, to protect their business interests.)
Read the wikipedia article on banana republics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
Once you know how the story goes it makes sense, mostly because you're not caught up in the political and economic scene that was in place 100 years ago. You haven't chosen sides or filled yourself with righteous anger about some issue that the media keeps beating to death. The next step is to understand that this is the same process that happens over and over, and is still happening in various countries today, wherein our soldiers go around the world and secure resources, markets and labor pools for big companies. Don't kid yourself, the USA and Britain don't care if a country has an unjust government, or if people are suffering, or any other worthy cause. If they did, they would have invaded several dozen other rotten countries around the world already. The only ones that matter are the ones that have something valuable that can be taken away.
This process goes back a lot farther than the banana republic. The privileged few have always taken whatever they want from the masses. And they've always ordered soldiers to go to war for them. We think it's different today because feudalism is over, the African slave trade ended over 100 years ago, the Roman empire fell, the opium wars are in the past, etc. But history always repeats itself.
Check out a book called Western Civilization by Jackson Spielvogel. It was one of my college textbooks about 15 years ago, and I've been re-reading it lately. Or read any other history of Western civilization. Don't take a class, just read the book. (classes usually make you stupid, but books are enlightening.) It's really amazing how clear the big picture becomes when you see the same process being repeated over and over and over, and over, etc, etc.
Come to think of it, you don't need to read big books any more. You can read all of this stuff on wikipedia nowadays. For a greater understanding of any modern topic, history is far better than news or current opinions. The wikipedia article on banana republics really sounds familiar when you consider world politics in general.
sorry