Reddit reviews War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier

Some people are genuinely bad, Castro is a politically charged figure but one should actually know some history before casting judgements. Knowledge regarding working conditions in the 1800's and things that lead to WW1 are required to understand the context of people like Castro. America was always a beligerant arrogant invading nation, western peoples basically invaded and killed / stole from the native inhabitants of america. Western peoples had a bad habit of just invading countries with cultures different from their own and imposing their own with impunity. If in doubt pickup "War is a racket" by smedly butler. Also go read some books by william blum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

https://williamblum.org/

Some history on US imperialism by us corporations.

https://kurukshetra1.wordpress.com/2015/09/27/a-brief-history-of-imperialism-and-state-violence-in-colombia/

A list of governments US gov and her corporations have attempted to overthrow

https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list

War is a racket

https://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated/dp/1503081575/

It's Russian trying desperately to keep Europe fixed on their natural gas, and the west trying to break up that monopoly IMO. The same thing happened just before ww1 between Britain and Germany and oil from Persia, though that time it would be moved by railway.

Here's a good read: https://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated/dp/1503081575/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480314507&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=smeadly+butler

Smedley Butler called it

https://www.amazon.ca/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated/dp/1503081575/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482957709&sr=8-1&keywords=war+is+a+racket

I think you mean this

> Capitalism has been consistently proven to raise the standards of living wherever it has been tried.

Google the word neoliberalism sometime, and spend a day researching it.

> Meanwhile, every single attempt at socialism - the USSR, the PRC, the DPRK, Venezuela, Cuba - has resulted in disaster, and has lowered the standards of living wherever it has been tried.

In what sense are these socialist, apart from what they call themselves in name? An anarcho-capitalist can have some actual, justified criticisms against socialism in practice (I've seen many), but when people like you plow forward with such an elementary misunderstanding, believe me when I say you look bad, even to your own camp.

The Zapatistas? The Paris Commune? The Ukrainian Free Territories? Revolutionary Catalonia? The Israeli Kibbutzim? That is your actual target.

> There is a reason why every single country that was once considered communist has transitioned towards capitalism...

Because they were bombed to hell in the interest of the capitalist class?

> ... and it should be no surprise to anyone that the standard of living has raised in these areas.

Like the four asian tigers did through State intervention? (And like the US did, also). Nothing even close to a free market prescription, albeit a quasi-capitalist one nevertheless.

K, then you've got a lot to learn about how bad military spending is for the economy. Here's a book to get you started