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Libertarian Philosophy

News Ayn Rand and her Objectivism Cult Recommended Links Bannonism Invisible Hand Hypothesys: The Theory of Self-regulation of the Markets "Starving the beast" bait and switch
Non-Interventionism US anti war movement Ron Paul anttwar.com -- the most  prominent anti war site run by linertarian Justin Raimondo Small government smoke screen Wolff revelations and slander of Trump administration
Paleoconservatism Special Prosecutor Mueller and his fishing expedition Media-Military-Industrial Complex What's the matter with Kansas Neoliberalism as a New Form of Corporatism  Free Markets Newspeak
Small government smoke screen Milton Friedman -- the hired gun for Deification of Market Pollyanna creep Harvard Mafia, Andrei Shleifer and the economic rape of Russia Obscurantism Short Introduction to Lysenkoism
Corporatist Corruption: Systemic Fraud under Clinton-Bush-Obama Regime Hillary "Warmonger" Clinton Neocon foreign policy is a disaster for the USA Obama: a yet another Neocon Numbers racket and "Potemkin numbers" Wrecking Crew: Notes on Republican Economic Policy
Neoclassical Pseudo Theories and Crooked and Bought Economists as Fifth Column of Financial Oligarchy Fifth Column of Financial Oligarchy: Chicago School of Market Fundamentalism Neo-classical Economists as fifth column of financial oligarchy Two Party System as polyarchy Hillary Clinton email scandal: Timeline and summary Groupthink
Myth of fairness of the market Antiwar Quotes Hyman Minsky Casino Capitalism Dictionary Humor Etc

Due to the size an introduction was converted to a separate page Libertarian Philosophy

Introduction

Mark Curtis said "polyarchy is generally what British leaders mean when they speak of promoting 'democracy' abroad". Similarity, Rule of financial oligarchy is that libertarians actually means when they promote "free market" in the USA.

The term Libertarianism as used in the USA should probably be more properly called Anarcho Capitalism.

Like anarchism it is a natural philosophy of small business owners who are squeezed by banks and landlords and are trying to survive by using cheap labor. In a way, Libertarianism offers its believers a clear conscience to do things society presently restrains. In this case that means the use of wages below subsistence level, unsafe conditions, child labor, etc.

Still because it is a natural philosophy of small business owners it has a wide social base. It is their natural reaction to being squeezing between landlords and banks and attempt to survive by abandoning all ethical restrain in handling the work force. as David M. Kotz noted (Globalization and Neoliberalism)

Small business has remained adamantly opposed to the big, interventionist state, from the Progressive Era through the New Deal down to the present. This division between big and small business is chronicled for the Progressive Era in Weinstein (1968). In the decades immediately following World War II one can observe this division in the divergent views of the Business Roundtable, a big business organization which often supported interventionist programs, and the US Chambers of Commerce, the premier small business organization, which hewed to an antigovernment stance.

What explains this political difference between large and small business? When large corporations achieve significant market power and become freed from fear concerning their immediate survival, they tend to develop a long time horizon and pay attention to the requirements for assuring growing profits over time.9 They come to see the state as a potential ally. Having high and stable monopoly profits, they tend to view the cost of government programs as something they can afford, given their potential benefits. By contrast, the typical small business faces a daily battle for survival, which prevents attention to long-run considerations and which places a premium on avoiding the short-run costs of taxation and state regulation. This explains the radically different positions that big business and small business held regarding the proper state role in the economy for the first two-thirds of the twentieth century.

This long-standing division between big business and small business appeared to vanish in the US starting in the 1970s. Large corporations and banks which had formerly supported foundations that advocated an active government role in the economy, such as the Brookings Institution, became big donors to neoliberal foundations such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. As a result, such right-wing foundations, which previously had to rely mainly on contributions from small business, became very wealthy and influential.10 It was big business's desertion of the political coalition supporting state intervention and its shift to neoliberalism that rebuilt support for neoliberal theories and policies in the US, starting in the 1970s. With business now unified on economic policy, the shift was dramatic. Big grants became available for economics research having a neoliberal slant. The major media shifted their spin on political developments, and the phrase "government programs" now could not be printed except with the word "bloated" before it.

Its central dream of a "freedom of contract", is a wet dream of a small business owner to be able to do business with no government intervention and squeezing everything he can from the labor force in order to survive and expand. In this sense, Libertarian freedom is essentially the freedom to exploit labor. From what I see, the libertarian answer for any problem they face is cheap labor. As  evil tongues say, they will not be happy until they turn the US into Bangladesh.

The central dream of a "freedom of contract", is a wet dream of a small business owner to be able to do business with no government intervention and squeezing everything he can from the labor force in order to survive and expand.

That partially explains political differences between large and small business.  When a large corporation acquire its formidable market power and become freed from fear concerning its immediate survival, they tend to develop a long time horizon and pay attention to the society constrains and externalities that can endanger the growth of their profits over time. And at this point they have political power -- transnational corporations are, for example, dominant political players under neoliberalism. In a sense they see the government as a servant, or, at least, an ally.  Having high and stable monopoly profits, they can afford the cost of government programs and environmental and labor regulations, and they can even reap benefit from them.  While they hate and fight attempts of state to impose controls over them, the state measures for them are not life threatening. They can affect only the rate of profits extracted from a particular country, but extent of this drop can be mitigated by exploiting the corruption of the government and their formidable political power under  neoliberalism (look at Clinton Cash scandal for some interesting details).  They are kings of the neoliberal hill.

By contrast, the typical small and medium business are completely absorbed in the brutal battle for the survival, in which any government  regulations can be the straw that broke the camel back. They just can't and do not want to pay attention to a long-term  consequences of their actions and are concentrated on minimizing the cost of running business, which includes labor cost and taxes. Any measures that increase iether of them are viewed highly negatively.  The same is true for the  state regulations. For them government is the  Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. This explains the radically different positions that big business and small business held regarding the proper state role in the economy. While big business generally subscribes to neoliberalism, small business predominantly favor Libertarian Philosophy 

Bannonism

Another interesting flavor of  Libertarianism  in the USA is "Bannonism":  the dream about "Christian capitalism" which simultaneously (and in best Ann Rand style) is "enterprenurial capitalism" (which make it a "bastard neoliberalism".  And simultaneously strange mixture of ideas of  Libertarianism and national socialism (alt-right).

A lot of things in Bannonism is self-contradictory.  Breitbart was way too close to the tea party movement. So it is not accidental that Bannon himself self-destruct (of self -immolated) by talking too much to Wolff for his book (and Wolff being a Clinton neoliberal was only too happy to push Bannon under the bus).  The only thing he got right is that New Deal Capitalism required for its existence the existence of the USSR to keep US elite from engaging in cannibalistic  behaviour. After this countervailing force was removed the elite went on the path of self-destruction of the country while enriching themselves at the expense of common people. So the current crisis of neoliberalism in the USA is an indirect side effect (blowback) of the demise of the USSR. Now the neoliberal elite tired artificially recreate the situation that existed during the cold war by fueling anti-russian hysteria. Whether  that can stabilize the neoliberalism in the USA or not remains to be seen.

""I believe we’ve come partly off-track in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union and we’re starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly, is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism."  This Is How Steve Bannon Sees The Entire World

Fist of all its attack on globalization is incompatible with the support of Randism ("entrepreneurial capitalism"), neoliberalism and deregulation at home.  His Ideal the state whoudl be weakened in order to allow entrepreneurial capitalism to florish are pretty unrealistic and dangerous dreams. Essentially that makes him a Trojan horse of neoliberals (despite preaching "bustard neoliberalism" or neoliberalism without globalization)   This Is How Steve Bannon Sees The Entire World

The central thing that binds that all together is a center-right populist movement of really the middle class, the working men and women in the world who are just tired of being dictated to by what we call the party of Davos. A group of kind of — we're not conspiracy-theory guys, but there's certainly — and I could see this when I worked at Goldman Sachs — there are people in New York that feel closer to people in London and in Berlin than they do to people in Kansas and in Colorado, and they have more of this elite mentality that they're going to dictate to everybody how the world's going to be run.

I will tell you that the working men and women of Europe and Asia and the United States and Latin America don't believe that. They believe they know what's best for how they will comport their lives. They think they know best about how to raise their families and how to educate their families. So I think you're seeing a global reaction to centralized government, whether that government is in Beijing or that government is in Washington, DC, or that government is in Brussels. So we are the platform for the voice of that.

Harnwell: I think it’s important to understand the distinction that you’re drawing here between what can be understood as authentic, free-market capitalism as a means of promoting wealth that [unintelligible] involves everybody with a form of crony capitalism which simply benefits a certain class. And we’ve watched over the course of our conference, we’ve watched two video segments produced by the Acton Institute about how development aid is spent internationally and how that can be driven away from — it damages people on the ground but it also perpetuates a governing class. And the point that you’re mentioning here, that I think that you’re saying has driven almost a revolution movement in America, is the same phenomenon of what’s going on in the developing world, which is a concept of government which is no longer doing what it is morally bound to do but has become corrupt and self-serving. So it’s effectively the sa—

Bannon: It’s exactly the same. Currently, if you read The Economist, you read the Financial Times this week, you’ll see there’s a relatively obscure agency in the federal government that is engaged in a huge fight that may lead to a government shutdown. It’s called the Export-Import Bank. And for years, it was a bank that helped finance things that other banks wouldn’t do. And what’s happening over time is that it’s metastasized to be a cheap form of financing to General Electric and to Boeing and to other large corporations. You get this financing from other places if they wanted to, but they’re putting this onto the middle-class taxpayers to support this.

"I’m not an expert in this, but it seems that [right-wing parties] have had some aspects that may be anti-Semitic or racial ... My point is that over time it all gets kind of washed out, right?"

And the tea party is using this as an example of the cronyism. General Electric and these major corporations that are in bed with the federal government are not what we’d consider free-enterprise capitalists. We’re backers of entrepreneurial capitalists. They’re not. They’re what we call corporatist. They want to have more and more monopolistic power and they’re doing that kind of convergence with big government. And so the fight here — and that’s why the media’s been very late to this party — but the fight you’re seeing is between entrepreneur capitalism, and the Acton Institute is a tremendous supporter of, and the people like the corporatists that are closer to the people like we think in Beijing and Moscow than they are to the entrepreneurial capitalist spirit of the United States.

 

Also the notion of "Christian capitalism" (or "neoliberalism with human face")  is just a dream. There is not and there will be never be any "authentic, free-market capitalism as a means of promoting wealth that involves everybody. Forms that he calls "crony capitalism" which simply benefits a certain class are the only one systainable. althouth NewDeal Capilism was probably the most close to his dreams.  This Is How Steve Bannon Sees The Entire World

Benjamin Harnwell, Human Dignity Institute: Thank you, Steve. That was a fascinating, fascinating overview. I am particularly struck by your argument, then, that in fact, capitalism would spread around the world based on the Judeo-Christian foundation is, in fact, something that can create peace through peoples rather than antagonism, which is often a point not sufficiently appreciated. Before I turn behind me to take a question —
 

Bannon: One thing I want to make sure of, if you look at the leaders of capitalism at that time, when capitalism was I believe at its highest flower and spreading its benefits to most of mankind, almost all of those capitalists were strong believers in the Judeo-Christian West. They were either active participants in the Jewish faith, they were active participants in the Christians' faith, and they took their beliefs, and the underpinnings of their beliefs was manifested in the work they did.

And I think that’s incredibly important and something that would really become unmoored. I can see this on Wall Street today — I can see this with the securitization of everything is that, everything is looked at as a securitization opportunity. People are looked at as commodities. I don’t believe that our forefathers had that same belief.

He also does not understand that  far right revolt is the reincarnation of national socialist  ideas (neo-fascism), not so much his Christian capitalism ideas

Bannon: For everybody in your audience, this is one of the most monumental — first off, it’s the biggest election upset in the history of the American republic. Eric Cantor was the House majority leader and raised $10 million. He spent, between himself and outside groups, $8 million to hold a congressional district. He ran against a professor who was an evangelical Christian and a libertarian economist. He ran against a professor who raised in total $175,000. In fact, the bills from Eric Cantor’s campaign at a elite steak house in Washington, DC, was over $200,000. So they spent more than $200,000 over the course of the campaign wining and dining fat cats at a steak house in Washington than the entire opposition had to run.

Now, Eric Cantor, it was a landslide. He lost 57–43, and not one — outside of Breitbart, we covered this for six months, day in and day out — not one news site — not Fox News, not Politico, no sites picked this up. And the reason that this guy won is quite simple: Middle-class people and working-class people are tired of people like Eric Cantor who say they’re conservative selling out their interests every day to crony capitalists.

"That center-right revolt is really a global revolt. I think you’re going to see it in Latin America, I think you’re going to see it in Asia, I think you’ve already seen it in India."

And you’re seeing that whether that was UKIP and Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom, whether it’s these groups in the Low Countries in Europe, whether it’s in France, there’s a new tea party in Germany. The theme is all the same. And the theme is middle-class and working-class people — they’re saying, “Hey, I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked. I’m getting less benefits than I’m ever getting through this, I’m incurring less wealth myself, and I’m seeing a system of fat cats who say they’re conservative and say they back capitalist principles, but all they’re doing is binding with corporatists." Right? Corporatists, to garner all the benefits for themselves.
 

And that center-right revolt is really a global revolt. I think you’re going to see it in Latin America, I think you’re going to see it in Asia, I think you’ve already seen it in India. Modi's great victory was very much based on these Reaganesque principles, so I think this is a global revolt, and we are very fortunate and proud to be the news site that is reporting that throughout the world.

See also Bannon Versus Trump - The New York Times


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[Jun 26, 2021] WHO Stealth Edits Page Warning Against Vaccinating Children

Jun 22, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com
Having been caught delivering some fact-base 'science' that does not jibe with the establishment's message that all kids should be jabbed immediately, The WHO has rapidly 'adjusted' its science-based recommendations for whether children should get vaccinated... or not...

Gone is the big headline - "Children should not be vaccinated for the moment."

The new guidance is as follows: (emphasis ours... in case you are confused by their guidance)

Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults, so unless they are part of a group at higher risk of severe COVID-19, it is less urgent to vaccinate them than older people, those with chronic health conditions and health workers.

More evidence is needed on the use of the different COVID-19 vaccines in children to be able to make general recommendations on vaccinating children against COVID-19.

WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) has concluded that the Pfizer/BionTech vaccine is suitable for use by people aged 12 years and above. Children aged between 12 and 15 who are at high risk may be offered this vaccine alongside other priority groups for vaccination.

Vaccine trials for children are ongoing and WHO will update its recommendations when the evidence or epidemiological situation warrants a change in policy.

So to clarify... children aren't really at risk of this virus so no hurry on the jab... more evidence is needed on its usefulness in kids... oh but the Pfizer vax is suitable?

So is there evidence or not? Is the vaccine worthwhile for kids? If you have to ask, you aren't following the science.

Here's the new page ( source )

h/t @AlexBerenson

Color us not entirely surprised at this farce... but one thing we are sure of, this will simply be dismissed as a coincidence and WHO had planned on adjusting its guidance the whole time (it was just waiting to get caught in a disagreement with Fauci and friends).

* * *

As The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity's Adam Dick noted yesterday, in America, national, state, and local governments are pulling out all the stops to advance giving experimental coronavirus shots to children down to the age of 12.

Up next, babies and children up to age 11.

The shots are "safe and effective," the propagandists proclaim.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has a different approach. The WHO says do not vaccinate children, at least not yet.

At its website, the WHO offers this advice regarding giving experimental coronavirus vaccines, some of which are not even vaccines under the normal meaning of the term, to children:

Children should not be vaccinated for the moment. There is not yet enough evidence on the use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults.

However, children should continue to have the recommended childhood vaccines.

Choose accordingly.


Kugelhagel 18 hours ago

Conspiracy theorist = heretic ... they couldn't use that word anymore, because everyone would understand that this is about silencing the truth.

Ride_the_kali_yuga 17 hours ago

Nice analogy.

JimmyJones 17 hours ago remove link

Yep, women with their periods messed up, their babies allergic to their breast milk, young people with heart inflammation, people having partial paralyzed limbs. I know there's more.

We don't even know what 6-12 months has in-store or 1-2 years.

Alice-the-dog 13 hours ago

I'm always on the look out for new conspiracy theories, because my old ones all turned out to be accurate.

It was a brilliant psyop by the CIA to invent the term to cover up the murder of JFK. But if one takes a cursory look at it, how is a conspiracy ever to be exposed without a theory that there is one? If every time someone proposes a theory regarding this or that possible conspiracy, they are swept into the kook dust bin, how will any conspiracy ever be exposed? Hence they aren't, unless iron clad evidence of their existence is encompassed by the theory.

WarrenLiz 15 hours ago

Over 15,472 dead from Jab in 27 EU countries, about half of Europe's 50 countries.

The EudraVigilance database reports that through June 19, 2021 there are 15,472 deaths and 1,509,266 injuries reported following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots:

From the total of injuries recorded, half of them (753,657) are serious injuries.

ALL UNNECESSARY...

https://vaccineimpact.com/2021/15472-dead-1-5-million-injured-50-serious-reported-in-european-unions-database-of-adverse-drug-reactions-for-covid-19-shots/

skizex 13 hours ago remove link

and this on KOMO this morning:

https://komonews.com/news/local/cdc-young-people-least-likely-to-get-vaccinated-allowing-covid-to-spread

Nona Yobiznes 17 hours ago (Edited)

...Too many people are stuck in normalcy bias and are too trusting of the modern elite class. You don't have to look back very far to see the unspeakable atrocities powerful people are willing and able to commit.

Ride_the_kali_yuga 17 hours ago (Edited) remove link

My guess was depopulation due to lower EROIE on petroleum. Deathcross of the fossil energy (oil) available was near to us, maybe we already are behind peak oil. Eolians, solar panels and EV are an energical leftist joke and will never be an alternative to nuclear/ charchoal power plants and thermic motors.

I was thinking about it for quite some time. Why all this Covidian Cult was necessary for? What does it produce? Lockdowns was a main response worldwide.

Was it usefull? absolutely not. No more planes in the sky, economic slowdown, a lot less of enegy used . I guess this sanitary madness was all about cheap energy we can get from oil. The human population exploded due to the industrial revolution, the machines, their capacities and -in fine- oil made it possible. If you do not have enough cheap oil and the EROIE is way to high, then the industrial technology we live in can no longer be.

The Covidian Cult produced what an energy crisis would have made...

The_Dude 16 hours ago

Evil is narcissism run amok...

Rose Marie PREMIUM 15 hours ago

Intelligence without wisdom. Always looking at what, how, when, where, but no interest in asking why. Running thought processes without examining the meaning.

uncle_duke 18 hours ago remove link

An age of unlimited information, and a population too dumb and lazy to do anything with it. Reality has become Pythonian.

DAVOS-19 14 hours ago

Not so fast. Remember, they lie, probably also about history.

Now Voyager 14 hours ago

What happens when you stop natural selection and substitute unnatural selection.

Ride_the_kali_yuga 13 hours ago

Yeah, the gene pool is over crowded with genetics defects. See diabetics, i mean "genetical" ones since a young age. Insuline was a great discovery, it saves a lot of people at some point. Then without the natural selection they had kids of their own and has a consequence they spread their genetic defect in the gene pool. Sometimes great inventions make unintended results.

Diseases are a way for nature to get rid of the olders and the weak. It is not moral, there is no justice in this, this is just the way nature works. Human tried damn hard to break nature's law, the thing is, there is consequences playing god.

[May 30, 2021] Mean Girl Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed by Lisa Duggan

Highly recommended!
See also her book: The Twilight of Equality: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy by Lisa Duggan
Notable quotes:
"... From the 1980s to 2008, neoliberal politics and policies succeeded in expanding inequality around the world. The political climate Ayn Rand celebrated-the reign of brutal capitalism-intensified. Though Ayn Rand's popularity took off in the 1940s, her reputation took a dive during the 1960s and '70s. Then after her death in 1982, during the neoliberal administrations of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, her star rose once more. (See chapter 4 for a full discussion of the rise of neoliberalism.) ..."
"... During the global economic crisis of 2008 it seemed that the neoliberal order might collapse. It lived on, however, in zombie form as discredited political policies and financial practices were restored. ..."
"... We are in the midst of a major global, political, economic, social, and cultural transition - but we don't yet know which way we're headed. The incoherence of the Trump administration is symptomatic of the confusion as politicians and business elites jockey with the Breitbart alt-right forces while conservative evangelical Christians pull strings. The unifying threads are meanness and greed, and the spirit of the whole hodgepodge is Ayn Rand. ..."
"... The current Trump administration is stuffed to the gills with Rand acolytes. Trump himself identifies with Fountainhead character Howard Roark; former secretary of state Rex Tillerson listed Adas Shrugged as his favorite book in a Scouting magazine feature; his replacement Mike Pompeo has been inspired by Rand since his youth. Ayn Rand's influence is ascendant across broad swaths of our dominant political culture - including among public figures who see her as a key to the Zeitgeist, without having read a worth of her writing.'' ..."
"... Rand biographer Jennifer Burns asserts simply that Ayn Rand's fiction is "the gateway drug" to right-wing politics in the United States - although her influence extends well beyond the right wing ..."
"... The resulting Randian sense of life might be called "optimistic cruelty." Optimistic cruelty is the sense of life for the age of greed. ..."
"... The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged fabricate history and romanticize violence and domination in ways that reflect, reshape, and reproduce narratives of European superiority' and American virtue. ..."
"... It is not an accident that the novels' fans, though gender mixed, are overwhelmingly white Americans of the professional, managerial, creative, and business classes." ..."
"... Does the pervasive cruelty of today's ruling classes shock you? Or, at least give you pause from time to time? Are you surprised by the fact that our elected leaders seem to despise people who struggle, people whose lives are not cushioned and shaped by inherited wealth, people who must work hard at many jobs in order to scrape by? If these or any of a number of other questions about the social proclivities of our contemporary ruling class detain you for just two seconds, this is the book for you. ..."
"... As Duggan makes clear, Rand's influence is not just that she offered a programmatic for unregulated capitalism, but that she offered an emotional template for "optimistic cruelty" that has extended far beyond its libertarian confines. Mean Girl is a fun, worthwhile read! ..."
"... Her work circulated endlessly in those circles of the Goldwater-ite right. I have changed over many years, and my own life experiences have led me to reject the casual cruelty and vicious supremacist bent of Rand's beliefs. ..."
"... In fact, though her views are deeply-seated, Rand is, at heart, a confidence artist, appealing only to narrow self-interest at the expense of the well-being of whole societies. ..."
Jun 14, 2019 | www.amazon.com

From the Introduction

... ... ...

Mean Girls, which was based on interviews with high school girls conducted by Rosalind Wiseman for her 2002 book Queen Bees and War/tubes, reflects the emotional atmosphere of the age of the Plastics (as the most popular girls at Actional North Shore High are called), as well as the era of Wall Street's Gordon Gekko, whose motto is "Greed is Good."1 The culture of greed is the hallmark of the neoliberal era, the period beginning in the 1970s when the protections of the U.S. and European welfare states, and the autonomy of postcolonial states around the world, came under attack. Advocates of neoliberalism worked to reshape global capitalism by freeing transnational corporations from restrictive forms of state regulation, stripping away government efforts to redistribute wealth and provide public services, and emphasizing individual responsibility over social concern.

From the 1980s to 2008, neoliberal politics and policies succeeded in expanding inequality around the world. The political climate Ayn Rand celebrated-the reign of brutal capitalism-intensified. Though Ayn Rand's popularity took off in the 1940s, her reputation took a dive during the 1960s and '70s. Then after her death in 1982, during the neoliberal administrations of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, her star rose once more. (See chapter 4 for a full discussion of the rise of neoliberalism.)

During the global economic crisis of 2008 it seemed that the neoliberal order might collapse. It lived on, however, in zombie form as discredited political policies and financial practices were restored. But neoliberal capitalism has always been contested, and competing and conflicting political ideas and organizations proliferated and intensified after 2008 as well.

Protest politics blossomed on the left with Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and opposition to the Dakota Access oil pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in the United States, and with the Arab Spring, and other mobilizations around the world. Anti-neoliberal electoral efforts, like the Bernie Sanders campaign for the U.S. presidency, generated excitement as well.

But protest and organizing also expanded on the political right, with reactionary populist, racial nationalist, and protofascist gains in such countries as India, the Philippines, Russia, Hungary, and the United States rapidly proliferating. Between these far-right formations on the one side and persistent zombie neoliberalism on the other, operating sometimes at odds and sometimes in cahoots, the Season of Mean is truly upon us.

We are in the midst of a major global, political, economic, social, and cultural transition - but we don't yet know which way we're headed. The incoherence of the Trump administration is symptomatic of the confusion as politicians and business elites jockey with the Breitbart alt-right forces while conservative evangelical Christians pull strings. The unifying threads are meanness and greed, and the spirit of the whole hodgepodge is Ayn Rand.

Rand's ideas are not the key to her influence. Her writing does support the corrosive capitalism at the heart of neoliberalism, though few movers and shakers actually read any of her nonfiction. Her two blockbuster novels, 'The Fountainpen and Atlas Shrugged, are at the heart of her incalculable impact. Many politicians and government officials going back decades have cited Rand as a formative influence-particularly finance guru and former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who was a member of Rand's inner circle, and Ronald Reagan, the U.S. president most identified with the national embrace of neoliberal policies.

Major figures in business and finance are or have been Rand fans: Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Peter Thiel (Paypal), Steve Jobs (Apple), John Mackey (Whole Foods), Mark Cuban (NBA), John Allison (BB&T Banking Corporation), Travis Kalanik (Uber), Jelf Bezos (Amazon), ad infinitum.

There are also large clusters of enthusiasts for Rand's novels in the entertainment industry, from the 1940s to the present-from Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Raquel Welch to Jerry Lewis, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Rob Lowe, Jim Carrey, Sandra Bullock, Sharon Stone, Ashley Judd, Eva Mendes, and many more.

The current Trump administration is stuffed to the gills with Rand acolytes. Trump himself identifies with Fountainhead character Howard Roark; former secretary of state Rex Tillerson listed Adas Shrugged as his favorite book in a Scouting magazine feature; his replacement Mike Pompeo has been inspired by Rand since his youth. Ayn Rand's influence is ascendant across broad swaths of our dominant political culture - including among public figures who see her as a key to the Zeitgeist, without having read a worth of her writing.''

But beyond the famous or powerful fans, the novels have had a wide popular impact as bestsellers since publication. Along with Rand's nonfiction, they form the core texts for a political/ philosophical movement: Objectivism. There are several U.S.- based Objectivist organizations and innumerable clubs, reading groups, and social circles. A 1991 survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that only the Bible had influenced readers more than Atlas Shrugged, while a 1998 Modern Library poll listed The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as the two most revered novels in English.

Atlas Shrugged in particular skyrocketed in popularity in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. The U.S. Tea Party movement, founded in 2009, featured numerous Ayn Rand-based signs and slogans, especially the opening line of Atlas Shrugged: "Who is John Galt?" Republican pundit David Frum claimed that the Tea Party was reinventing the GOP as "the party of Ayn Rand." During 2009 as well, sales of Atlas Shrugged tripled, and GQ_magazine called Rand the year's most influential author. A 2010 Zogby poll found that 29 percent of respondents had read Atlas Shrugged, and half of those readers said it had affected their political and ethical thinking.

In 2018, a business school teacher writing in Forbes magazine recommended repeat readings: "Recent events - the bizarro circus that is the 2016 election, the disintegration of Venezuela, and so on make me wonder if a lot of this could have been avoided bad we taken Atlas Shrugged's message to heart. It is a book that is worth re-reading every few years."3

Rand biographer Jennifer Burns asserts simply that Ayn Rand's fiction is "the gateway drug" to right-wing politics in the United States - although her influence extends well beyond the right wing.4

But how can the work of this one novelist (also an essayist, playwright, and philosopher), however influential, be a significant source of insight into the rise of a culture of greed? In a word: sex. Ayn Rand made acquisitive capitalists sexy. She launched thousands of teenage libidos into the world of reactionary politics on a wave of quivering excitement. This sexiness extends beyond romance to infuse the creative aspirations, inventiveness, and determination of her heroes with erotic energy, embedded in what Rand called her "sense of life." Analogous to what Raymond Williams has called a "structure of feeling," Rand's sense of life combines the libido-infused desire for heroic individual achievement with contempt for social inferiors and indifference to their plight.5

Lauren Berlant has called the structure of feeling, or emotional situation, of those who struggle for a good life under neoliberal conditions "cruel optimism"-the complex of feelings necessary to keep plugging away hopefully despite setbacks and losses.'' Rand's contrasting sense of life applies to those whose fantasies of success and domination include no doubt or guilt. The feelings of aspiration and glee that enliven Rand's novels combine with contempt for and indifference to others. The resulting Randian sense of life might be called "optimistic cruelty." Optimistic cruelty is the sense of life for the age of greed.

Ayn Rand's optimistic cruelty appeals broadly and deeply through its circulation of familiar narratives: the story of "civilizational" progress, die belief in American exceptionalism, and a commitment to capitalist freedom.

Her novels engage fantasies of European imperial domination conceived as technological and cultural advancement, rather than as violent conquest. America is imagined as a clean slate for pure capitalist freedom, with no indigenous people, no slaves, no exploited immigrants or workers in sight. The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged fabricate history and romanticize violence and domination in ways that reflect, reshape, and reproduce narratives of European superiority' and American virtue.

Their logic also depends on a hierarchy of value based on radicalized beauty and physical capacity - perceived ugliness or disability' are equated with pronounced worthlessness and incompetence.

Through the forms of romance and melodrama, Rand novels extrapolate the story of racial capitalism as a story of righteous passion and noble virtue. They retell The Birth of a Ntation through the lens of industrial capitalism (see chapter 2). They solicit positive identification with winners, with dominant historical forces. It is not an accident that the novels' fans, though gender mixed, are overwhelmingly white Americans of the professional, managerial, creative, and business classes."


aslan , June 1, 2019

devastating account of the ethos that shapes contemporary America

Ayn Rand is a singular influence on American political thought, and this book brilliantly unfolds how Rand gave voice to the ethos that shapes contemporary conservatism. Duggan -- whose equally insightful earlier book Twilight of Equality offered an analysis of neoliberalism and showed how it is both a distortion and continuation of classical liberalism -- here extends the analysis of American market mania by showing how an anti-welfare state ethos took root as a "structure of feeling" in American culture, elevating the individual over the collective and promoting a culture of inequality as itself a moral virtue.

Although reviled by the right-wing press (she should wear this as a badge of honor), Duggan is the most astute guide one could hope for through this devastating history of our recent past, and the book helps explain how we ended up where we are, where far-right, racist nationalism colludes (paradoxically) with libertarianism, an ideology of extreme individualism and (unlikely bed fellows, one might have thought) Silicon Valley entrepreneurship.

This short, accessible book is essential reading for everyone who wants to understand the contemporary United States.

Wreck2 , June 1, 2019
contemporary cruelty

Does the pervasive cruelty of today's ruling classes shock you? Or, at least give you pause from time to time? Are you surprised by the fact that our elected leaders seem to despise people who struggle, people whose lives are not cushioned and shaped by inherited wealth, people who must work hard at many jobs in order to scrape by? If these or any of a number of other questions about the social proclivities of our contemporary ruling class detain you for just two seconds, this is the book for you.

Writing with wit, rigor, and vigor, Lisa Duggan explains how Ayn Rand, the "mean girl," has captured the minds and snatched the bodies of so very many, and has rendered them immune to feelings of shared humanity with those whose fortunes are not as rosy as their own. An indispensable work, a short read that leaves a long memory.

kerwynk , June 2, 2019
Valuable and insightful commentary on Rand and Rand's influence on today's world

Mean Girl offers not only a biographical account of Rand (including the fact that she modeled one of her key heroes on a serial killer), but describes Rand's influence on neoliberal thinking more generally.

As Duggan makes clear, Rand's influence is not just that she offered a programmatic for unregulated capitalism, but that she offered an emotional template for "optimistic cruelty" that has extended far beyond its libertarian confines. Mean Girl is a fun, worthwhile read!

Sister, June 3, 2019

Superb poitical and cultural exploration of Rand's influence

Lisa Duggan's concise but substantive look at the political and cultural influence of Ayn Rand is stunning. I feel like I've been waiting most of a lifetime for a book that is as wonderfully readable as it is insightful. Many who write about Rand reduce her to a caricature hero or demon without taking her, and the history and choices that produced her seriously as a subject of cultural inquiry. I am one of those people who first encountered Rand's books - novels, but also some nonfiction and her play, "The Night of January 16th," in which audience members were selected as jurors – as a teenager.

Under the thrall of some right-wing locals, I was so drawn to Rand's larger-than-life themes, the crude polarization of "individualism" and "conformity," the admonition to selfishness as a moral virtue, her reductive dismissal of the public good as "collectivism."

Her work circulated endlessly in those circles of the Goldwater-ite right. I have changed over many years, and my own life experiences have led me to reject the casual cruelty and vicious supremacist bent of Rand's beliefs.

But over those many years, the coterie of Rand true believers has kept the faith and expanded. One of the things I value about Duggan's compelling account is her willingness to take seriously the far reach of Rand's indifference to human suffering even as she strips away the veneer that suggests Rand's beliefs were deep.

In fact, though her views are deeply-seated, Rand is, at heart, a confidence artist, appealing only to narrow self-interest at the expense of the well-being of whole societies.

I learned that the hard way, but I learned it. Now I am recommending Duggan's wise book to others who seek to understand today's cultural and political moment in the United States and the rise of an ethic of indifference to anybody but the already affluent. Duggan is comfortable with complexity; most Randian champions or detractors are not.

[May 14, 2021] Ron Paul confrontation with Fauci on gain of functions experiments

Pretty explosive set of interview arguing from artificial origin of COVID-19...
Includes C-span footage of confrontation of Ron Paul and Fauci as well very interesting interview of Dr. Richard M. Fleming as well as pretty reveling interview of Dr. Peter Daszak - EcoHealth Alliance who was financed mainly by the Department of Defense and serve as intermediary for Wuhan labs financing from Fauci.
May 14, 2021 | thehighwire.com
THE DEFINITION OF A BIO-WEAPON


Fauci Denies NIH Funding; Defining a Bioweapon; CDC Stops Looking for Vaccine Failure; The Growing Toll of Vaccine Injury; Eric Clapton's Powerful Message #TheHighWire #EricClapton #StandAndDeliver #NIH #GainOfFunction

Broadcasted 5/13/21 2:00pm - 5/13/21 4:12pm

[May 05, 2021] Mark Blyth " An Inflated Fear of Inflation ?

May 01, 2021 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Yves here. Mark Blyth is such a treat. How can you not be a fan of the man who coined "The Hamptons are not a defensible position"? Even though he's not always right, he's so incisive and has such a strong point of view that his occasional questionable notions serve as fodder for thought. And I suspect he'll be proven correct on his topic today, the inflation bugaboo. Yves here. Mark Blyth is such a treat. How can you not be a fan of the man who coined "The Hamptons are not a defensible position"? Even though he's not always right, he's so incisive and has such a strong point of view that his occasional questionable notions serve as fodder for thought. And I suspect he'll be proven correct on his topic today, the inflation bugaboo. Even though he's not always right, he's so incisive and has such a strong point of view that his occasional questionable notions serve as fodder for thought. And I suspect he'll be proven correct on his topic today, the inflation bugaboo. Even though he's not always right, he's so incisive and has such a strong point of view that his occasional questionable notions serve as fodder for thought. And I suspect he'll be proven correct on his topic today, the inflation bugaboo. By Paul Jay.

... ... ...

Paul Jay
And is the idea that inflation is about to come roaring back one of the stupid ideas that you're talking about? And is the idea that inflation is about to come roaring back one of the stupid ideas that you're talking about?
Mark Blyth
I hope that it is, but I'm going to go with Larry on this one. He says it's about one third chance that it's going to do this. I'd probably give it about one in ten, so it's not impossible.

So, let's unpack why we're going to see this. Can you generate inflation? Yeah. I mean, dead easy. Imagine your Turkey. Why not be a kind of Turkish pseudo dictator?

Why not fire the head of your central bank in an economy that's basically dependent on other people valuing your assets and giving you money through capital flows? And then why don't you fire the central bank head and put in charge your brother-in-law? I think it was his brother-in-law. And then insist that low interest rates cure inflation. And then watch as the value of your currency, the lira collapses, which means all the stuff you import is massively expensive, which means that people will pay more, and the general level of all prices will go up, which is an inflation. So, can you generate an inflation in the modern world? Sure, yeah. Easy. Just be an idiot, right? Now, does this apply to the United States? No. That's where it gets entirely different. So, a couple of things to think about (first). So, you mentioned that huge number of 20 trillion dollars. Well, that's more or less about two thirds of what we threw into the global economy after the global financial crisis, and inflation singularly failed to show up. All those people in 2010 screaming about inflation and China dumping bonds and all that. Totally wrong. Completely wrong. No central bank that's got a brass nameplate worth a damn has managed to hit its inflation target of two percent in over a decade. All that would imply that there is a huge amount of what we call "˜slack' in the economy. (Also) think about the fact that we've had, since the 1990s, across the OECD, by any measure, full employment. That is to say, most people who want a job can actually find one, and at the same time, despite that, there has been almost no price pressure coming from wages, pushing on into prices, to push up inflation. So rather than the so-called vertical Phillips curve, which most of modern macro is based upon, whereby there's a kind of speed bump for the economy, and if the government spends money, it can't push this curve out, all it can do is push it up in terms of prices. What we seem to actually have is one whereby you can have a constant level of inflation, which is very low, and any amount of unemployment you want from 2 percent to 12 percent, depending on where you look and in which time-period.

All of which suggests that at least for big developed, open, globalized economies, where you've destroyed trade unions, busted up national product cartels, globally integrated your markets, and added 600 million people to the global labor supply, you just can't generate inflation very easily. Now, we're running, depending on how much actually passes, a two to five trillion-dollar experiment on which theory of inflation is right. This one, or is it this one? That's basically what we're doing just now. Larry's given it one in three that it's his one. I'd give it one in ten his one's right. Now, if I may just go on just for a seconds longer. This is where the politics of this gets interesting. Most people don't understand what inflation is. You get all this stuff talked by economists and central bankers about inflation and expectations and all that, but you go out and survey people and they have no idea what the damn thing is. Think about the fact that most people talk about house price inflation.

There is no such thing as house price inflation. Inflation is a general rise in the level of all prices. A sustained rise in the level of prices. The fact that house prices in Toronto have gone up is because Canada stopped building public housing in the 1980s and turned it into an asset class and let the 10 percent top earners buy it all and swap it with each other. That is singularly not an inflation. So, what's going to happen coming out of Covid is there will be a big pickup in spending, a pickup in employment. I think it's (going to be) less than people expect because the people with the money are not going to go out and spend it because they have all they want already. There are only so many Sub-Zero fridges you can buy. Meanwhile, the bottom 60 percent of the income distribution are too busy paying back debt from the past year to go on a spending spree, but there definitely will be a pickup. Now, does that mean that there's going to be what we used to call bottlenecks? Yeah, because basically firms run down inventory because they're in the middle of a bloody recession. Does it mean that there are going to be supply chain problems? Yes, we see this with computer chips. So, what's going to happen is that computer chips are going to go up in price.

So, lots of individual things are going to go up in price, and what's going to happen is people are going to go "there's the inflation, there's that terrible inflation," and it's not. It's just basically short-term factors that will dissipate after 18 months. That is my bet. For Larry to be right what would have to be true?

That we would have to have the institutions, agreements, labor markets and product markets of the 1970s. We don't.

... ... ...

So, I just don't actually see what the generator of inflation would be. We are not Turkey dependent on capital imports for our survival with a currency that's falling off a cliff. That is entirely different. That import mechanism, which is the way that most countries these days get a bit of inflation. That simply doesn't apply in the U.S. So, with my money on it, if I had to bet, it's one in 10 Larry's right, rather one in 3.

Paul Jay
The other point he raises, and we talked a little bit about this in a previous interview, but let's revisit it, is that the size of the American debt, even if it isn't inflationary at some point, creates some kind of crisis of confidence in the dollar being the reserve currency of the world, and so this big infrastructure spending is a problem because of that. That's part of, I believe, one of his arguments. The other point he raises, and we talked a little bit about this in a previous interview, but let's revisit it, is that the size of the American debt, even if it isn't inflationary at some point, creates some kind of crisis of confidence in the dollar being the reserve currency of the world, and so this big infrastructure spending is a problem because of that. That's part of, I believe, one of his arguments.
Mark Blyth
The way political economists look at the financial plumbing, I think, is different to the way that macro economists do. We see it rather differently. The first thing is, what's your alternative to the dollar unless you're basically going to go all-in on gold or bitcoin? And good luck with those. If we go into a crushing recession and our bond market collapses, don't think that Europe's going to be a safe haven given that they've got half the US growth rate. And we could talk about what Europe's got going on post-pandemic because it's not that good. So what's your alternative (to the Dollar)? Buy yen? No, not really. You're going to buy Chinese assets? Well, good luck, and given the way that their country is being run at the moment, if you ever want to take your capital out. I'm not sure that's going to work for you, even if you could. So you're kind of stuck with it. Mechanically there's another problem. All of the countries that make surpluses in the world make surpluses because we run deficits. One has to balance the other. So, when you're a Chinese firm selling to the United States, which is probably an American firm in China with Chinese subcontractors selling to the United States, what happens is they get paid in dollars. When they receive those dollars in China, they don't let them into the domestic banking system. They sterilize them and they turn them into the local currency, which is why China has all these (dollar) reserves. That's their national savings. Would you like to burn your reserves in a giant pile? Well, one way to do that would be to dump American debt, which would be equivalent to burning your national savings. If you're a firm, what do you do? Well, you basically have to use dollars for your invoicing. You have to use dollars for your purchasing, and you keep accumulating dollars, which you hand back to your central bank, which then hands you the domestic currency. The central bank then has a problem because it's got a liability " (foreign) cash rather than an asset. So, what's the easiest asset to buy? Buy another 10-year Treasury bill, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. So, if we were to actually have that type of crisis of confidence, the people who would actually suffer would be the Germans and the Chinese, because their export-driven models only makes sense in terms of the deficits that we run. Think of it as kind of monetarily assured destruction because the plumbing works this way. I just don't see how you can have that crisis of confidence because you've got nowhere else to take your confidence.
Paul Jay
If I understand it correctly, the majority of American government debt is held by Americans, so it's actually really the wealth is still inside the United States. I saw a number, this was done three or four years ago, maybe, but I think it was Brookings Institute, that assets after liabilities in private hands in the United States is something like 98 trillion dollars. So I don't get where this crisis of confidence is going to come any time soon. If I understand it correctly, the majority of American government debt is held by Americans, so it's actually really the wealth is still inside the United States. I saw a number, this was done three or four years ago, maybe, but I think it was Brookings Institute, that assets after liabilities in private hands in the United States is something like 98 trillion dollars. So I don't get where this crisis of confidence is going to come any time soon.
Mark Blyth
Basically, if your economy grows faster (than the rest of the world because you are) the technological leader, your stock markets grows faster than the others. If you're an international investor, you want access to that. (That ends) only if there were actual real deep economic problems (for the US), like, for example, China invents fusion energy and gives it free to the world. That would definitely screw up Texas. But short of that, it's hard to see exactly what would be these game-changers that would result in this. And of course, this is where the Bitcoin people come in. It's all about crypto, and nobody has any faith in the dollar, and all this sort of stuff. Well, I don't see why we have faith in something (like that instead . I think it was just last week. There wasn't much reporting on this, I don't know if you caught this, but there were some twenty-nine-year-old dude ran a crypto exchange. I can't remember where it was. Maybe somewhere like Turkey. But basically he had two billion in crypto and he just walked off with the cash. You don't walk off with the Fed, but you could walk off with a crypto exchange. So until those problems are basically sorted out, the notion that we can all jump into a digital currency, which at the end of the day, to buy anything, you need to turn back into a physical currency because you don't buy your coffee with crypto, we're back to that (old) problem. How do you get out of the dollar? That structural feature is incredibly important.
Paul Jay
So there's some critique of the Biden infrastructure plan and some of the other stimulus, coming from the left, because, one, the left more or less agrees with what you said about inflation, and the critique is that it's actually not big enough, and let me add to that. I'm kind of a little bit surprised, maybe not anymore, but Wall Street on the whole, not Larry Summers and a few others, but most of them actually seem quite in support of the Biden plan. You don't hear a lot of screaming about inflation from Wall Street. Maybe from the Republicans, but not from listening to Bloomberg Radio. So there's some critique of the Biden infrastructure plan and some of the other stimulus, coming from the left, because, one, the left more or less agrees with what you said about inflation, and the critique is that it's actually not big enough, and let me add to that. I'm kind of a little bit surprised, maybe not anymore, but Wall Street on the whole, not Larry Summers and a few others, but most of them actually seem quite in support of the Biden plan. You don't hear a lot of screaming about inflation from Wall Street. Maybe from the Republicans, but not from listening to Bloomberg Radio.
Mark Blyth
You don't even hear a lot of screaming about corporate taxes, which is fascinating, right? You'd think they'd be up in arms about this? I actually spoke to a business audience recently about this, and I kind of did an informal survey and I said, "why are you guys not up in arms about this?" And someone that was on the call said, "well, you know, the Warren Buffet line about you find out who's swimming naked when the tide goes out? What if a lot of firms that we think are great firms are just really good at tax optimization? What if those profits are really just contingent on that? That would be really nice to know this because then we could stop investing in them and invest in better stuff that actually does things." You don't even hear a lot of screaming about corporate taxes, which is fascinating, right? You'd think they'd be up in arms about this? I actually spoke to a business audience recently about this, and I kind of did an informal survey and I said, "why are you guys not up in arms about this?" And someone that was on the call said, "well, you know, the Warren Buffet line about you find out who's swimming naked when the tide goes out? What if a lot of firms that we think are great firms are just really good at tax optimization? What if those profits are really just contingent on that? That would be really nice to know this because then we could stop investing in them and invest in better stuff that actually does things."
Paul Jay
And pick up the pieces of what's left of them for a penny if they have to go down. And pick up the pieces of what's left of them for a penny if they have to go down.
Mark Blyth
Absolutely. Just one thought that we'll circle back, to the left does not think it's big enough, etc. Well, yes, of course they wouldn't, and this is one of those things whereby you kind of have to check yourself. I give the inflation problem a one in ten. But what I'm really dispassionately trying to do is to look at this as just a problem. My political preferences lie on the side of "˜the state should do more.' They lie on the side of "˜I think we should have higher real wages.' They lay on the side that says that "˜populism is something that can be fixed if the bottom 60 percent actually had some kind of growth.' So, therefore, I like programs that do that. Psychologically, I am predisposed therefore to discount inflation. I'm totally discounting that because that's my priors and I'm really deeply trying to check this. In this debate, it's always worth bearing in mind, no one's doing that. The Republicans and the right are absolutely going to be hell bent on inflation, not because they necessarily really believe in (inevitable) inflation, (but) because it's a useful way to stop things happening. And then for the left to turn around and say, well, it isn't big enough, (is because you might as well play double or quits because, you know, you've got Biden and that's the best that's going to get. So there's a way in which when we really are trying to figure out these things, we kind of have to check our partisan preferences because they basically multiply the errors in our thinking, I think.
Paul Jay
Now, earlier you said that one of the main factors why inflation is structurally low now, I don't know if you said exactly those words. Now, earlier you said that one of the main factors why inflation is structurally low now, I don't know if you said exactly those words.
Mark Blyth
I would say that yes. I would say that yes.
Paul Jay
Is the weakness of the unions, the weakness of workers in virtually all countries, but particularly in the U.S., because it matters so much. That organizing of workers is just, they're so unable to raise their wages over decades of essentially wages that barely keep up with inflation and don't grow in any way, certainly not in any relationship to the way productivity has grown. So we as progressives, well, we want workers to get better organized. We want stronger unions. We want higher wages, but we want it without inflation. Is the weakness of the unions, the weakness of workers in virtually all countries, but particularly in the U.S., because it matters so much. That organizing of workers is just, they're so unable to raise their wages over decades of essentially wages that barely keep up with inflation and don't grow in any way, certainly not in any relationship to the way productivity has grown. So we as progressives, well, we want workers to get better organized. We want stronger unions. We want higher wages, but we want it without inflation.
Mark Blyth
And it's a question of how much room you have to do that. I mean, essentially, if you quintuple the money supply, eventually prices will have to rise"¦but that depends upon the velocity of money which has actually been collapsing. So maybe you'd have to do it 10 times. There's interesting research out of London, which I saw a couple of weeks ago, that basically says you really can't correlate inflation with increases in the money supply. It's just not true. It's not the money that's doing it. It's the expectations. That then begs the question, well, who's actually paying attention if we all don't really understand what inflation is? So I tend to think of this as basically a kind of a physical process. It's very easy to understand if your currency goes down by 50 percent and you're heavily dependent on imports. You're import (prices) go up. All the prices in the shops are going to go up. That's a mechanism that I can clearly identify that will generate rising prices. If you have big unions, if you have kind of cartel-like vertically integrated firms that control the national market, if you have COLA contracts. If you have labor able to do what we used to call leapfrogging wage claims against other unions, if this is all institutionally and legally protected, I can see how that generates inflation, that is a mechanism I can point to. That doesn't exist just now. Let's unpack this for a minute. The sort of fundamental theoretical assumption on this is based is some kind of "˜marginal productivity theory of wages.' In a perfectly free market with free exchange, in which we don't live, what would happen is you would hire me up to the point that my marginal product is basically paying off for you, and once it produces zero profits, that's kind of where my wages end. I'm paid up to the point that my marginal product is useful to the firm. This is not really a useful way of thinking about it because if you're the employer and I'm the worker, and I walk up to you and say, hey, my marginal productivity is seven, so how about you pay me seven bucks? You just say, shut up or I'll fire you and get someone else. Now, the way that we used to deal with this was a kind of "˜higher than your outside option,' on wages. The way we used to think about this was "why would you pay somebody ten bucks at McDonald's?" Because then you might actually get them to and flip the burgers because they're outside option is probably seven bucks, and if you pay them seven bucks, they just won't show up. So we used to have to pay workers a bit more. So that was, in a sense, (workers) claiming (a bit of the surplus) from productivity. But now what we've done, Suresh Naidu the economist was talking about this the other day, is we have all these technologies for surveilling workers (instead of paying them more). So now what we can do is take that difference between seven and ten and just pocket it because we can actually pay workers at your outside option, because I monitor everything you do, and if you don't do exactly what I say I'll fire you, and get somebody else for seven bucks. So all the mechanisms for the sharing of sharing productivity, unions, technology, now lies in the hands of employers. It's all going against labor. So (as a result) we have this fiction that somehow when the economy grows, our productivity goes up, and workers share in that. Again, what's the mechanism? Once you take out unions and once you weaponize the ability of employers to extract surplus through mechanisms like technology, franchising, all the rest of it, then it just tilts the playing field so much that we just don't see any increase in wages. (Now) let's bring this back to inflation. Unless you see systematic (and sustained) increases in the real wage that increases costs for firms to the point that they need to push on prices, I just don't see the mechanism for generating inflation. It just isn't there. And we've underpaid the bottom 60 percent of the U.S. labor market so long it would take a hell of a lot of wage inflation to get there, with or without unions.
Paul Jay
Yeah, what's that number, that if the minimum wage was adjusted for inflation and it was what the minimum wage was, what, 30 years ago, the minimum wage would be somewhere between 25 and 30 bucks, and that wasn't causing raging inflation. Yeah, what's that number, that if the minimum wage was adjusted for inflation and it was what the minimum wage was, what, 30 years ago, the minimum wage would be somewhere between 25 and 30 bucks, and that wasn't causing raging inflation.
Mark Blyth
And there is that RAND study from November 2020 that was adeninely entitled, "˜Trends in Income 1979 to 2020,' and they calculated, and I think this is the number, but even if I'm off, the order of magnitude is there, that transfers, because of tax and regulatory changes, from the 90th percentile of the distribution to the 10 percentile, totalled something in the order of $34 trillion. That's how much was vacuumed up and practically nothing trickled down. So when you consider that as a mechanism of extraction, why are worrying about inflation (from wages)? The best story on inflation is actually Charles Goodhart's book that came out last year. We got a long period of low inflation because of global supply chains, and because of demographic trends. It's a combination of global supply chains, Chinese labor, and demographics all coming together to basically push down labor costs, and that's why you get this long period of deflation, which leads to rising profits and zero inflation. A perfectly reasonable way of explaining it. And his point is that, well, that's coming to an end. The demographics are shifting, or shrinking. We're going back to more closed economies. You're going to create this inflation problem again. OK, what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? And there is that RAND study from November 2020 that was adeninely entitled, "˜Trends in Income 1979 to 2020,' and they calculated, and I think this is the number, but even if I'm off, the order of magnitude is there, that transfers, because of tax and regulatory changes, from the 90th percentile of the distribution to the 10 percentile, totalled something in the order of $34 trillion. That's how much was vacuumed up and practically nothing trickled down. So when you consider that as a mechanism of extraction, why are worrying about inflation (from wages)? The best story on inflation is actually Charles Goodhart's book that came out last year. We got a long period of low inflation because of global supply chains, and because of demographic trends. It's a combination of global supply chains, Chinese labor, and demographics all coming together to basically push down labor costs, and that's why you get this long period of deflation, which leads to rising profits and zero inflation. A perfectly reasonable way of explaining it. And his point is that, well, that's coming to an end. The demographics are shifting, or shrinking. We're going back to more closed economies. You're going to create this inflation problem again. OK, what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? The best story on inflation is actually Charles Goodhart's book that came out last year. We got a long period of low inflation because of global supply chains, and because of demographic trends. It's a combination of global supply chains, Chinese labor, and demographics all coming together to basically push down labor costs, and that's why you get this long period of deflation, which leads to rising profits and zero inflation. A perfectly reasonable way of explaining it. And his point is that, well, that's coming to an end. The demographics are shifting, or shrinking. We're going back to more closed economies. You're going to create this inflation problem again. OK, what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? The best story on inflation is actually Charles Goodhart's book that came out last year. We got a long period of low inflation because of global supply chains, and because of demographic trends. It's a combination of global supply chains, Chinese labor, and demographics all coming together to basically push down labor costs, and that's why you get this long period of deflation, which leads to rising profits and zero inflation. A perfectly reasonable way of explaining it. And his point is that, well, that's coming to an end. The demographics are shifting, or shrinking. We're going back to more closed economies. You're going to create this inflation problem again. OK, what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? OK, what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? OK, what's the timeline on that? About 20 years? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here? A few years ago, we were told we had 12 years to fix the climate problem or we're in deep shit. If we have to face the climate problem versus single to double-digit inflation, I'm left wondering what is the real problem here?

cocomaan , , May 1, 2021 at 7:24 am

Great piece. He put to words something I've thought about but couldn't articulate: if wages are stagnant, how could you possibly get broad based inflation?

There is no upward pressure on labor costs anywhere in the economy. The pressures are all downward.

You would need government spending in the order of magnitudes to drive up wages. Or release from a lot of debt, like student loan forgiveness or what have you.

Left in Wisconsin , , May 1, 2021 at 2:06 pm

I'm not sure you need wage growth to get inflation. As Blyth notes, most of the time inflation is a currency or a monetary issue. In the 70s, it was initially an oil thing " and oil flows through a lot of products " and then really went crazy only when Volker started raising interest rates. I don't think there is an episode of "wage-push" inflation in history. (The union cost-of-living clauses don't "cause" inflation, they only adjust for past inflation. If unions can cause wage-push inflation, someone needs to explain how they did this in the late 70s, when they were much less powerful and unemployment was substantially higher, than in the 1950s.) One could argue that expansive fiscal policy might drive inflation but, even then, the mechanism is through price increases, not wage increases. You do need consumption but that can always come from the wealthy and further debt immiseration of the rest of us.

Adam Eran , , May 1, 2021 at 2:51 pm

Blythe is one of those guys who is *almost* correct. For example he declares that expectations drive inflation. What about genuine shortages? The most recent U.S. big inflation stemmed from OPEC withholding oil"a shortage we answered by increasing the price ($1.75/bbl in 1971 -> $42/bbl in 1982). In Germany, the hyperinflation was driven by the French invading the Ruhr, something roughly like shutting down Ohio in the U.S. A shortage of goods resulted. Inflation! In Zimbabwe, the Rhodesian (white) farmers left, and the natives who took over their farms were not producing enough food. A shortage of food, requiring imports, resulted. Inflation!

I guess you could say people in Zimbabwe "expected" food"¦but that's not standard English.

JFYI, Blythe is not a fan of MMT. He calls it "annoying." Yep, that's his well-reasoned argument about how to think about it.

As a *political* economist, he may have a point in saying MMT is a difficult political sell, but otherwise, I'd say the guy is clueless about it.

CH , , May 1, 2021 at 9:13 am

Inflation isn't caused by the amount of money in the economy but by the amount of *spending*.

Like the other commenter, I've wondered this too"if wages have been stagnant for a generation, then how are we going to get inflation? By what mechanism? It seems like almost all of the new money just adds a few zeros to the end of the bank account balances of the already rich (or else disappears offshore).

Still, you just cannot people to understand this because of houses, health care and education. One might even argue that inflated house and education prices are helping keep inflation down. If more and more of our meager income is going to pay for these fixed expenditures, then there's no money left over to pay increased prices for goods and services. So there's no room to increase the prices of those things. As Michael Hudson would point out, it's all sucked away for debt service, meaning a lot of the "money printing" is just subsidizing Wall Street.

But if you pay attention to the internet, for years there have been conspiracy theories all across the political spectrum that we were really in hyperinflation and the government just secretly "cooked the books" and manipulated the statistics to convince us all it wasn't happening. Of course, these conspiracy theories all pointed to the cost of housing, medicine and education as "proof" of this theory (three things which, ironically, didn't go up spectacularly during the Great Inflation of the 1970's). Or else they'd point to gas prices, but that strategy lost it's potency after 2012. Or else they'd complain that their peanut butter was secretly getting smaller, hiding the inflation (shrinkflation is real, or course, but it's not a vast conspiracy to hide price increases from the public).

I'm convinced that this was the ground zero for the kind of anti-government conspiratorial thinking that's taken over our politics today. These ideas was heavy promoted by libertarians like Ron Paul starting in the nineties, helped by tracts like "The Creature from Jekyll Island," which argued that the Fed itself was one big conspiracy. I've seen plenty of people across the political spectrum"including on the far Left"take all of this stuff as gospel.

So if the government is secretly hiding inflation and the Fed itself is a grand conspiracy to convince us that paper is money (rather than "real" money, aka gold), then is it that hard to believe they're manipulating Covid statistics and plotting to control us all by forcing us all to wear masks and get vaccinated? In my view, it all started with inflation paranoia.

Blyth explains why housing inflation isn't really a sign of hyperinflation. But the average "man on the street" just doesn't get it. To Joe Sixpack, not counting some of the things he has to pay for is cheating. So are "substitutions" like ground beef when steak gets too pricey, or a Honda Civic for a Toyota Camry, for example. The complexity of counting inflation is totally lost on them, making them vulnerable to conspiratorial thinking. Since Biden was elected, the ZOMG HyPeRiNfLaTiOn!!&%! articles are ubiquitous.

Does anyone have a good way of explaining this to ordinary (i.e. non-economically literate) people? I'd love to hear it! Thanks.

TomDority , , May 1, 2021 at 9:41 am

"There is no such thing as house price inflation. Inflation is a general rise in the level of all prices. A sustained rise in the level of prices. The fact that house prices in Toronto have gone up is because Canada stopped building public housing in the 1980s and turned it into an asset class and let the 10 percent top earners buy it all and swap it with each other. That is singularly not an inflation."
Maybe I am totally off but, I would say"¦. By your definition, inflation does not exist in the economic terminology as inflation only exists if generally all prices go up and a singularity of soaring house prices and education and healthcare do not constitute an inflation because the number of things inflating do not meet some unknown number of items needed for a general rise in all prices to create an inflation.
What I read you to say is that if Labor prices go up " that could lead to inflation " but if house prices go up (as they have) that is not inflation.
Hypothetically " if labor prices do not go up and the "˜nessesities of living' prices go up (Housing and Med) " would you not have an inflation in the cost of living? " I am convinced that economists and market experts try to claim that the economy and markets are seperate and distinct from humans as a science " and that Political science has nothing to do with what they present. Yet, humans are the only species to have formed the markets and money we all participate and, the only species, therefore, to have an exclusive asset ownership, indifferent to any other species " IE " if you can't pay you can't play and have no say.
I submit that one or a few asset price increases that are combined with labor price stasis(the actual money outlayed for those asset price increased products not moving up) " especially one that is a basic to living (shelter) and not mobile (like money) is inflation " Land prices going up will generally increase the prices of all products created thereon.

Chris , , May 1, 2021 at 9:55 am

Exactly my interpretation.

The "transitory" "food inflation" (but it's not inflation since TVs went down!) is no issue. Just eat 2 years from now or a TV instead.

Objective Ace , , May 1, 2021 at 10:23 am

I think there's two things going on here. There's different inflation indicators, and asset prices are by definition never a part of inflation

The main indicator of CPI has so many different things in it that the inflation of any one item is going to have little effect on it. But you can look up BEA's detailed GDP deflator to see inflation for more specific things like housing expenses (rent) or transportation.

So back to real estate/land: real estate and land are like the stock market. They aren't subject to inflation. They are subject to appreciation. There is somewhat of a feedback effect for sure though: Increased real estate prices can drive up inflation. Rent for sure gets driven up, but also any other good that's built domestically if the owners of capital need to pay more to rent their factories/farms etc.

As noted in the article though, capitalists can simply move their production overseas so there's a limit to how much US land appreciation can filter into inflation. Its definitely happening with rent as housing can't be outsourced. But rent is only one part of overall inflation

jsn , , May 1, 2021 at 10:23 am

The point he was making is that the price change in housing is the result of a policy restructuring of the market: no new public housing and financial deregulation.

The price of food is similarly a response to policy changes: industry consolidation and resulting price setting to juice financial profits.

The point is distinguishing between political forces and market forces. The former is socially/politically determined while the latter has to do with material realities within a more or less static market structure.

This is a distinction essential to making good policy but useless from a cost of living perspective.

Starry Gordon , , May 1, 2021 at 11:26 am

One could prevent crossover for awhile, but eventually certain policies are going to affect certain markets. The policy of giving the rich money drives up asset prices, real estate is a kind of asset, eventually rising real estate costs affect the market the proles enter when they have to buy or rent real estate.

If state institutions tell them there is no inflation, the proles learn that the state institutions lie because they know better from direct experience. Once that gap develops, it's as with personal relationships: when trust is broken, it is very hard to replace. Once belief in state institutions is lost, significant political effects ensue. Often they are rather unpleasant.

jsn , , May 1, 2021 at 1:06 pm

Yes. Discussing complexity in a low trust society makes definitions of terms within a discussion necessary.

The same words are used in different contexts to mean different things making a true statement in one place a lie in another.

Skip Intro , , May 1, 2021 at 2:22 pm

Blyth pointed to the lack of systemic drivers of price increases, and how the traditional ones have disappeared. I think one that he missed, that results in a disconnect with the evidence of price increases across multiple sectors, is the neoliberal infestation. Rent-sucking intermediaries have imposed themselves into growing swaths of the mechanisms of survival, hollowed out productive capacity, and crapified artifacts to the extent that their value is irredeemably reduced. This is a systemic cause for reduced buying power, i.e. inflation, but it is not a result of monetary or fiscal policy, but political and ideological power.

cnchal , , May 1, 2021 at 3:23 pm

> . . . The fact that house prices in Toronto have gone up is because Canada stopped building public housing in the 1980s and turned it into an asset class and let the 10 percent top earners buy it all and swap it with each other.

That is a total load of baloney. The eighties were a time when the Conservative government came up with the foreign investor program and it was people from Hong Kong getting out before the British hand over to China in 1997.

I was there, trying to save for a house and for every buck saved the houses went up twenty. I finally pulled the plug in 89 when someone subdivided a one car garage from their house and sold it for a small fortune. The stories of Hong Kongers coming up to people raking their yard and offering cash well above supposed market rates and the homeowner dropping their rakes and handing over the keys were legendary.

It's still that way except now they come from mainland China, CCP members laundering their loot.

Any government that makes domestic labor compete with foreign richies for housing is mendacious.

When a Canadian drug dealer "saves up" a million to buy a house and the RCMP get wind of it, they lose the house. When a foreigner show up at the border with a million, it's all clean.

Robert Hahl , , May 1, 2021 at 9:49 am

Many people who talk about avoiding inflation are speaking euphemistically about preventing wage growth, and only that; dog whistles, clearly heard by the intended audience. Yet they are rarely confronted directly on this point. Instead we hear that they don't understand what the word inflation means, and Mark seems to be saying these euphamists (eupahmites?) needn't be so concerned because wages will not go up anyway. If so, what we are talking about here is merely helping workers stay afloat without making any fundamental changes. Well, both sides can agree to that as usual. Guess I'm just worn out by this kind of thing.

Basil Pesto , , May 1, 2021 at 10:02 am

this is only related insofar as Mark Blyth is a treat, and I shared it last week, but icymi, an excellent interview with him on the European Super League debacle last week , which really was a huge story.

The Rev Kev , , May 1, 2021 at 10:28 am

The thing that I like about Mark Blyth is how he cuts to the chase and does not waffle. Must be his upbringing in Scotland I would say. The revelation that the US minimum wage should be about $25-30 is just mind-boggling in itself. But in that talk he unintentionally put a value on how much is at stake in making a fairer economic system and it works out to be about $34 trillion. That is how much has been stolen by the upper percentile and why workers have gone from having a job, car, family & annual vacation to crushing student debt, a job at an Amazon fulfillment center and a second job being an Uber driver while living out of car.

Skip Intro , , May 1, 2021 at 1:24 pm

That $25-30 wage was keeping up with inflation , if it were keeping up with productivity it would be, IIRC, nearly twice that. It is interesting to see a dollar figure put on the amount you can reap after a generation or two of growing a middle class, by impoverishing it.

cnchal , , May 1, 2021 at 3:41 pm

This is key.

But now what we've done, Suresh Naidu the economist was talking about this the other day, is we have all these technologies for surveilling workers (instead of paying them more) . So now what we can do is take that difference between seven and ten and just pocket it because we can actually pay workers at your outside option, because I monitor everything you do, and if you don't do exactly what I say I'll fire you, and get somebody else for seven bucks.

Praise be the STEM workers. Without them where would the criminal corporate class be?

Every time I listen to the news (without barfing) the story is, we need moar STEM workers, and I ask myself, what do they do for a living?

howard in nyc , , May 1, 2021 at 10:37 am

Blyth is a bass guitar player! The things you learn about people.

eg , , May 1, 2021 at 11:32 am

I think he also plays guitar and drums, in addition to the bass guitar.

Mikel , , May 1, 2021 at 2:02 pm

If that kind of tidbit excites you:
Before going into economics, Alan Greenspan was a sax and clarinet player who played with the likes of Stan Getz and Quincy Jones.

Go figure"¦.

The Rev Kev , , May 1, 2021 at 7:42 pm

Mark Blyth has a remarkable history as well as, well, I will let you read this article about him-

https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2006/10/things-ive-learned-prof-mark-blyth-26651

As a tidbit, he has released five or six albums when younger and is into gourmet Indian cuisine.

HotFlash , , May 1, 2021 at 9:04 pm

And Michael Hudson studied piano and conducting . Do failed musicians gravitate to economics? Perhaps for the same reason as my bank manager, a failed bass player (honors graduate from Classy Cdn U in double bass), they see the handwriting on the wall. He told me his epiphany came when he and his band-mates were trying to make cup-o-noodles with tap water in a room over the pub in Thunder Bay where they were playing.

Tex , , May 1, 2021 at 10:39 am

The mental gymnastics to get to "everything needed to survive costs more but wages have not gone up in decades so therefore its all transitory and inflation does not exist" must be painful. How high does the price for cat food have to get before we stop eating?

freebird , , May 1, 2021 at 10:11 pm

Thank you. Most things I buy or am forced to pay for are rising in price. The economists may enjoy the article, but here in Topeka, it's not flying.

KLG , , May 1, 2021 at 10:49 am

Yes! "The Hamptons are not a defensible position" ranks right up there with "It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of (neoliberal) capitalism" by Mark Fisher (and F. Jameson?).

Jeff W , , May 1, 2021 at 5:03 pm

"The Hamptons are not a defensible position"

From Mark Blyth's 2016 interview with AthensLive here .

Return of the Bride of Joe Biden , , May 1, 2021 at 12:12 pm

Does anybody here have knowledge of how much hedonic adjustments influence our official measures of inflation?

chuck roast , , May 1, 2021 at 12:30 pm

Very good, Mark. This leads to the next Q. How do we maintain aggregate demand? The rich guys increasingly Hoover everything up and pay no taxes. So, there is no T. Is the only way to get cash and avoid deflation deficit spending by the G? There is no I worth a damn. (X-M) is a total drain on everything since it's all M in the US and no X. The deficits will have to go out of sight in the future.

You say that there is no velocity of money. Is this because the more money pored into the economy by the G, the more money the rich guys steal? So, there is a general collapse in C. Maybe the work around for the rich guy theft is a $2,000 (sorry, $1,400) check every now and then to the great unwashed. The poors can circulate it a couple of times before the rich guys steal it. Seems like the macro-economists have a lot of "˜splainin' to do. Oh, right, they are busy right now measuring the output gap.

eg , , May 1, 2021 at 2:17 pm

Can someone please define the variables in this comment?

T
G
X
M
C

Also, is there an equation that goes with them?

chuck roast , , May 1, 2021 at 3:29 pm

GNP = Consumption + Investment + Government + (Exports " Imports)

I'd like to see Mark go into a discussion on the velocity of money. I remember the old timey Keynesians lecturing about it, and that's all I remember. I'm guessing that it's related to the marginal propensity to consume.

Ed S. , , May 1, 2021 at 4:35 pm

Chuck,

I may be getting a bit out over my skis, but the St. Louis Fed calculates the velocity of money ( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V ). It is defined as

The velocity of money is the frequency at which one unit of currency is used to purchase domestically- produced goods and services within a given time period. In other words, it is the number of times one dollar is spent to buy goods and services per unit of time. If the velocity of money is increasing, then more transactions are occurring between individuals in an economy.

So as velocity slows, fewer transactions happen. Based on the linked chart, the peak velocity was 2.2 in mid-1997. In Q1 2021, it was 1.12. By my understanding, although the money supply continues to increase, the money isn't flowing through the economy in the way it was over the last 30 years (or even 10 years ago).

It's beyond my level of understanding to say with any certainty as to why the slowdown in velocity has occurred, but I speculate it's directly related to the ever-growing inequality in the US economy and the ongoing rentier-ism that Dr. Hudson discusses. [simplistically, if Jeff Bezos has $1.3 billion more on Monday than on Friday, that money will flow virtually nowhere. If each of Amazon's employees equally shared that $1.3 billion (about $1,000 each), the preponderance of the money would flow into the economy in short order].

I've always speculated that money velocity is one of the key indicators of the stagnant economy since 2008. It certainly has coincided with the dramatic increase in wealth in the top fraction (not the 1% but the 0.001%) of the US population.

flora , , May 1, 2021 at 1:03 pm

Thanks for this post. Blyth is always good at explaining in a way I can understand.

Mikel , , May 1, 2021 at 1:04 pm

What Blythe has laid out is not a tale about inflation or money, but a tale about power.

If money goes to the non-elite, you get inflation. If it goes to the elite, you don't get inflation.
If you are a country with little control of your resources (not lack of resources, but control) and/or loans (think IMF)/debt (think war reparations) that give people with little interest in whether you live or die control over your countries' finances, you can be prone to inflation or even hyperinflation.

Yeah, I figured out a long time ago that none of this is any "natural economic law" because there is no such thing as "nature" in economics. Inflation is all about political decisions and perceptions.

And I saw this on YouTube a couple of days ago"¦and I still can't think of anything around me that hasn't gone up on price.

politicaleconomist , , May 1, 2021 at 2:37 pm

This is a good response to Summers. But I have a quibble and a concern.
My quibble is that he offers no theory of inflation except implicitly aggregate supply exceeding aggregate demand and there is nothing but hand-waving regarding what he is referring to that he feels has a one chance in ten of happening versus Summers one in three. A second part of this quibble is: what does it mean for inflation to "come roaring back." I assume it means more than just a short-term adjustment to a shot of government spending and gifting. I believe if he thought this through he would have to conclude that without changes in the current structure of the global economy there is no way for this to happen. That really is the case he has made. With labor beaten down not only in the US but worldwide inflation will not come roaring back, period. That is unless there is a chance either that a labor renewal is a near-term possibility. I doubt he believes this. Or does he believe there is another way for inflation to roar back? If so, what is that way, what is the theory behind it?

A more fundamental concern is the part where he relies on marginal productivity theory when discussing employment and exploitation. Conceptually that far from Marx's fundamental distinction between labor and labor power.

Wukchumni , , May 1, 2021 at 2:45 pm

Hyperinflation doesn't seem to be possible in this age of digital money no matter how much you conjure up because nobody notices the extreme amount of monies around all of the sudden as the average joe isn't in the know.

Used houses are always appreciating in value, but none dare call it inflationary, more of a desired outcome in income advancement if you own a domicile.

There were no shortages of anything in the aftermath of the GFC, and now for want of a semiconductor, a car sale was lost. Everything got way too complex, and we'll be paying the price for that.

I think the inflation to come won't be caused by a lack of faith in a given country's money, but the products and services it enabled us to purchase.

Mikel , , May 1, 2021 at 3:47 pm

""¦and now for want of a semiconductor, a car sale was lost"¦."
Sometimes car sales are lost because the price of cars has gone up (new and used)"¦just don't call it inflation"¦

I'm going to let some more time pass, but stimulus or not, we went from all economic problems being laid at the feet of Covid to now moving on to "shortages" everywhere"¦

Just enought to make you go"¦hmmmm"¦.unti more time passes.

Ed S. , , May 1, 2021 at 8:34 pm

Used houses always appreciate " or is it that they appreciate due to a combination of inflation in income over time and the dramatic decrease in interest rates over the last 20 years?

A very quick back of the envelope calc (literally " and all number are approximate):

In June 2000, median US income was $40,500; 30 yr mortgage rate was 8.25%. 28% of monthly income = $945. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax, insurance, etc) of roughly $125,000.

In June 2005, median US income was $44,000; 30 yr mortgage rate was 5.5%. 28% of monthly income = $1026. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax, insurance, etc) of roughly $180,000.

In June 2010, median US income was $49,500; 30 yr mortgage rate was 4.69%. 28% of monthly income = $1155. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax, insurance, etc) of roughly $225,000.

In June 2015, median US income was $53,600; 30 yr mortgage rate was 4.00%. 28% of monthly income = $1250. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax, insurance, etc) of roughly $260,000.

Finally, In June 2020, median US income was $63,000; 30 yr mortgage rate was 3.25%. 28% of monthly income = $1470. That supports a mortgage (30 yr fixed, P&I only " no tax, insurance, etc) of roughly $340,000.

And for fun, if you went to 40% of income in 2020 (payment only), a $2100 monthly payment will cover nearly a $500,000 mortgage in 2020.

For the vast majority of home buyers, the price isn't the main consideration " it's how much will it cost per month. So a small increase in median income (roughly 2% per year) combined with dramatically lower interest rates can drive a HUGE increase in a mortgage " and ultimately the price that can be paid for a house.

Michael Ismoe , , May 1, 2021 at 3:24 pm

I find it amazing that when you give poor people money, it creates inflation. If you give rich people money, it creates jobs (LOL. Sure it does.).

As long as billionaires pay as little as possible, the world is fine.

Tom Bradford , , May 1, 2021 at 3:49 pm

Can't say I really understand this sort of thing but saying rocketing house-prices is "˜a singularity' rather than "˜house-price inflation' has to me echoes of the Bourbon's "Bread too expensive? Let them eat cake." And Versailles wasn't a defensive position either.

In my version of economics-for-the-under-tens you get inflation in two situations. First is where enough folk have enough cash in their pockets for producers/manufacturers/retailers to hike their prices without hitting their sales too much and secondly where there's a shortage of stuff people want and/or need which leads to a bidding war. However I'd agree with Blyth that neither condition exists now or seems likely to arise for a while, making a "˜spike' in inflation unlikely.

ArvidMartensen , , May 1, 2021 at 4:17 pm

I am a non-economist, and so my thoughts below may be wrong. However, here goes.
I would say we have had inflation. Roaring inflation. For the past 20 years of so.

Inflation in wages and ordinary costs of living? No, wages have been stagnant. Health care has led the charge in cost of living increases, but most other living expense increases have been low.

Inflation in asset prices? We have had massive inflation in the costs of residential housing where I live.
20 years ago I could buy a 5 br, 3 bath home on a decent block in a good area close to everything for $270,000 dollars. Sure it needed some renovation, but still"¦. Now to buy that home it would cost me around $1,250,000. So that home has gone up in value by 500%. Man, that is inflation.

As I understand it, asset inflation is not counted by governments in the GDP or CPI. It appears that those who have most of the assets don't want this to be counted, by the very fact that they control the politicians who control what is counted, and asset inflation isn't counted in the economic data that the politicians rely upon to prove how prudent they are.

So if you want a day to day example of where all this free money is going, look at housing. And also have a quick look at the insane increases in the worth of billionaires. They love all this government spending which magically? seems to end up, via asset purchase and asset price inflation, in their pockets.

cnchal , , May 1, 2021 at 7:02 pm

That home has gone up in price by 500%

Price is what one pays, value is what one gets. That house is roughly the same, so the value has not changed, but the price has gone up by a factor of 5

Same with stawks. One share of Amazon stawk is $3,467.42 as of yesterday.

What is its value? If Bezos can work his tools ever harder, monitor them down to the nanosecond and wring ever moar productivity out of them before throwing them in the tool dumpster behind every Amazon warehouse, the value proposition is that someone else will believe the stawk price should be even higher, at which point one can sell it at greater price for a profit.

Susan the other , , May 1, 2021 at 5:07 pm

What is inflation? Good question. I'd say inflation is fear of monetary devaluation. Not devaluation, just the fear of it. We'll never overcome this unease if we always deal in numbers. Dollars, digits, whatever. We need to deal in commodities " let's call just about everything we live with and use a "commodity". Including unpaid family help/care; and the more obvious things like transportation. If we simply took a summary of all the necessary things we need to live decent lives " but not translated into dollars because dollars have no sense " and then provided these necessities via some government agency so that they were not "inflated" in the process and thereby provided a stable society, then government could MMT this very easily. Our current approach is so audaciously stupid it will never make sense let alone balance any balance sheets. That's a feature, not a bug because it's the best way to steal a profit. The best way to stop demand inflation or some fake scarcity or whatever is to provide the necessary availability. That's where uncle Joe is gonna run headlong into a brick wall. He has spent his entire life doing the exact opposite.

William Neil , , May 1, 2021 at 6:59 pm

The figure for the upward transfer of wealth from the Rand Study was $50 trillion between 1975-2018. It was adjusted up by the authors from $47 trillion to bring it up to 2020 trends.

Here are the authors explaining what they found and their methodology: https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/

Now the interesting thing to me is this " look at the date of the publication in Time magazine: Sept. 14, 2020, so right in the heart of campaign fever, and it never came up in the debates, in the press"¦I didn't hear about it until Blyth made one of his appearances on Jay's show with Rana Foroohar. Long after the election.

VietnamVet , , May 1, 2021 at 9:47 pm

As long as 80% of Americans are head over heels in debt and 52% of 18-to-29-year-olds are currently living with their parents, there never will be the wage inflation of the 1970s. A majority of the people arrested for the Capitol riot had a history of financial trouble. The elite blue zones in Washington State and Oregon that prospered from globalism are seeing a spike in coronavirus cases. North American neoliberal governments have failed dismally. It is intentional in order to exploit more wealth for the rich from the natural resources and workers. If the mRNA vaccines do not control coronavirus variants, and a workable national public health system is not implemented; succession and chaos will bring on Zimbabwe type inflation.

There is a reason why Portland Oregon has been a center of unrest for the past year. The Elite just do not want to see it. How can Janet Yellen deal with this? She can't. She is an Insider. She was paid 7.2 million dollars in speaker and seminar fees in the last two years not to.

[Jan 24, 2021] Towards US -Hyper-interventionism- in the Middle East- Biden's Secretary of State Nominee Anthony Blinken by Daniel McAdams

Notable quotes:
"... Not surprisingly, Blinken is a favorite of the AIPAC-bankrolled Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which, as Phil Giraldi reported , Tweeted that Blinken would be part of a " superb national security team. The country will be very fortunate to have them in public service." ..."
"... We have Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to thank for at least bringing up the fact that Blinken has blundered from foreign policy disaster to foreign policy disaster – which only gets you promoted in Washington DC. In Blinken's confirmation hearing, Paul reminded Blinken of his addiction to intervention in the Middle East and how that has worked out for everyone. ..."
"... Yes, Senator Paul is right. "Regime change" doesn't work. It kills or destroys the lives of the most vulnerable. The poor and the innocent. The US enemies may occasionally find themselves on the wrong end of a noose or a knife rape , but it is the civilians who always suffer when they are "liberated" by Washington. ..."
"... Buckle up, as incoming Senate Majority Leader Schumer advised, there's a whole lot of interventionism in the queue. There's a whole lot of death and destruction to be unleashed by Biden, Blinken, and their gang of " humanitarians ." ..."
Jan 23, 2021 | www.globalresearch.ca

By Daniel McAdams Global Research, January 23, 2021 Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity 21 January 2021

While the saccharine continues to ooze from the mainstream media for the incoming Biden Administration, the real iron fist of what will be the Biden foreign policy is starting to materialize. As if on cue, major bombings in Baghdad – by ISIS remember them? – have opened the door for the Biden Administration to not only cancel President Trump's troop drawdown from Iraq but to actually begin sending troops back into Iraq.

Is this to be Iraq War 4.0? 3.7? 5.0? Anybody's guess.

If Biden uses this sudden – and convenient – unrest in Iraq as a trigger to return US troops (and bombs), it should not surprise anyone. As Professor Barbara Ransby points out in this video , Biden did much more to make the disastrous 2003 attack on Iraq happen than just vote "yes" on the authorization to use force. As Professor Ransby reminds us, Biden used the full power of his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ensure the Senate approved George W. Bush's lie-based war on Iraq. Biden prevented any experts who challenged the "Saddam has WMDs and he's about to use them" narrative from being heard by Members of Congress, guaranteeing that only the pro-war narrative was heard.

As much as Bush or Cheney, Biden owns the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, which killed a million Iraqi civilians. And he may well be taking us back.

One figure in the Biden Administration who will play a pivotal role in returning the US to its hyper-interventionism in the Middle East is Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken . As a Biden Senate staffer in 2003, he helped the then-Foreign Relations Committee Chairman put together a pro-war coalition in the Democratic Party to support President Bush's Republican push for invasion.

Later on Blinken was Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor, where he successfully made the case that destroying both Libya and Syria were fantastic ideas. Both countries drowned in the Obama Administration's "liberation" bloodbath and neither country has recovered from the "democracy" brought by Washington, but being a neocon foreign policy ideologue means never having to say you're sorry.

And Blinken isn't.

Not surprisingly, Blinken is a favorite of the AIPAC-bankrolled Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which, as Phil Giraldi reported , Tweeted that Blinken would be part of a " superb national security team. The country will be very fortunate to have them in public service."

We have Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to thank for at least bringing up the fact that Blinken has blundered from foreign policy disaster to foreign policy disaster – which only gets you promoted in Washington DC. In Blinken's confirmation hearing, Paul reminded Blinken of his addiction to intervention in the Middle East and how that has worked out for everyone.

Paul reminded the Secretary of State nominee that his only criticism of the Syria "regime change" plan was that the US did not successfully overthrow Assad. But the US was using jihadist proxies to overthrow the secular Assad , so what does this say about Blinken's judgement?

"The lesson of these wars," said Paul , is that 'regime change' doesn't work!"

Paul added:

Even after Libya you guys went on to Syria wanting to do the same thing again it's a disaster.

You got rid of one 'bad guy' and another 'bad guy' got stronger.

Yes, Senator Paul is right. "Regime change" doesn't work. It kills or destroys the lives of the most vulnerable. The poor and the innocent. The US enemies may occasionally find themselves on the wrong end of a noose or a knife rape , but it is the civilians who always suffer when they are "liberated" by Washington.

Buckle up, as incoming Senate Majority Leader Schumer advised, there's a whole lot of interventionism in the queue. There's a whole lot of death and destruction to be unleashed by Biden, Blinken, and their gang of " humanitarians ."

*

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[Jan 24, 2021] Rand Paul Slams Stephanopoulos In Sunday Spat Over Election Integrity

Notable quotes:
"... "The debate over whether or not there was fraud should occur. We never had any presentation in court where we ever looked at the evidence..." ..."
"... '75% of Republicans want to look at election integrity,' Paul responds. Stephanopoulos responds by saying that those 75% agree with him because they were "fed a big lie" from the President. ..."
"... Paul pushed back, telling Stephanopoulos: "You immediately say everything's a lie instead of saying there's two sides to everything. Historically what would happen is if I said I thought there was fraud, you'd interview someone else who said there wasn't. But now you insert yourself in the middle and say that the absolute fact is that everything I'm saying is a lie." ..."
"... You gotta ask the question of Rand here though, even as a lone voice of reason that Rand Paul is he and the Trump supporting Senators failed the Republic. They needed to push forward and introduce the Election Fraud evidence after the Jan. 6 planned interruption of the evidence hearing. Why didn't the Election fraud evidence get its day in front of Congress? The Fraud needed to be part of the historical record, and it was not. ..."
"... South Philly judge of elections admits he took bribes to stuff the ballot box for Democratic candidates ..."
"... The problem is that there are only a few decent human beings in the Republic leadership who are not entirely in the pocket of the RNC, which is entirely in the pocket of the globalists. ..."
"... The MSM has given up the pretense of being journalists. They are full-fledged propagandist attack dogs and proud of it. ..."
Jan 24, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) took to ABC on Sunday morning with George Stephanopoulos to discuss election integrity of the 2020 election, in a discussion which immediately devolved into an inquisition during which Paul was repeatedly pressed to disavow clams that the election was stolen.

Paul not only pushed back -- he put Stephanopoulos in his place, accusing the host of 'inserting yourself in the middle' and 'forgetting who you are as a journalist.'

Stephanopoulos began by asking Paul to admit the "election was not stolen" -- to which Paul responded by saying "The debate over whether or not there was fraud should occur. We never had any presentation in court where we ever looked at the evidence..."

Paul continued: "There were several states in which the law was changed by the Secretary of State and not the state legislature. To me those are clearly unconstitutional and I think there's still a chance those do finally work their way up to the Supreme Court."

"No election is perfect," Stephanopoulos shot back , telling Paul there were "86 challenges filed by President Trump, all were dismissed". As Paul tries to argue that many cases were dismissed for lack of standing and not due to examination of evidence, Stephanopoulos responds: " Can't you just say the words 'this election wasn't stolen'? "

'75% of Republicans want to look at election integrity,' Paul responds. Stephanopoulos responds by saying that those 75% agree with him because they were "fed a big lie" from the President.

Paul pushed back, telling Stephanopoulos: "You immediately say everything's a lie instead of saying there's two sides to everything. Historically what would happen is if I said I thought there was fraud, you'd interview someone else who said there wasn't. But now you insert yourself in the middle and say that the absolute fact is that everything I'm saying is a lie."

"You're saying there's no fraud and it's all been investigated and that's just not true," Paul continues, with Stephanopoulos arguing at the same time. Paul then goes into specifics, detailing irregularities in states in like Wisconsin. "I plan on spending the next two years going around, state to state, fixing these problems," Paul continues. "Let's have an open debate. It's a free country!"

"There has been no thorough examination of all states to see what problems we had and see if we could fix them," Paul says, responding to Stephanopoulos' claims that Bill Barr pronounced there was "no widespread election fraud".

"There's two sides to every story," Paul says. "Interview someone on the other side, but don't insert yourself into the story to say we're all liars."

"You're forgetting who you are as a journalist if you think there's only one side," Paul says. "A journalist would hear both sides and there are two sides to this story."

You can watch the entire 6 minute exchange here:

https://platform.twitter.com

Election integrity aside, Paul has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration in recent days . On Saturday, we noted Paul's interview with Fox host Sean Hannity, where he pummeled the Biden administration's decision to push for a $15 minimum wage increase that could put 4 million people out of work - leading the Kentucky Republican to exclaim:

"'Why does Joe Biden hate Black teenagers?' ... Why does Joe Biden want to destroy all of these jobs?"

Paul comments come amid ramblings from various leftist economists who insist that there's no impact on employment from such a drastic minimum wage hike...

https://player.cnbc.com/p/gZWlPC/cnbc_global?playertype=synd&byGuid=7000173838

...common sense (and historical experience) for anyone who has ever run an actual business is that raising costs on the lowest-skilled workers in your organization will ripple all the way up, forcing either higher prices to the end-user (eradicating the 'living wage' improvement) and or forcing layoffs as management hold margins and reduce costs (the least-skilled first).

Historically speaking, the black unemployment rate is twice that of whites , while minimum wage increases - as we've shown repeatedly over the last week - correlate with spikes in job losses just about every single time.

That's not an "alternative" fact, that's the awkward reality of 'unintended consequences' from nanny-state intervention write large for the last 70 years.

Paul also blasted Biden for canceling the Keystone XL oil pipeline:

"It's kind of a strange beginning to an administration," Paul said. "You're going to put your best foot forward and the first thing you say is, 'This is how I'm going to kill jobs' ... 'I'm going to kill thousands of jobs of the Keystone pipeline with ending it.'"

You can watch that full interview here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/x0zmmYMTMQc



various2 1 hour ago

Nobody disputes billionaires conspiracy election fraud to destroy political nationalism...

sgt_doom 16 minutes ago (Edited)

ELECTION INTEGRITY: The Great American Myth

Background: Fractional Magic (Bev Harris and Bennie Smith explain GEMS software, still used in Dominion Voting Systems)

https://youtu.be/Fob-AGgZn44

_________________________________________________

Data scientists explain what went down in Georgia and Pennsylvania

https://youtu.be/IKiyAy9vjrk

https://youtu.be/EM8pC1pAizc

_________________________________________________

The media view: watching ballot numbers flip on TV

https://rumble.com/vbu6xh-election-night-errors-how-did-that-happen.html

_________________________________________________

State--level criticism:

https://youtu.be/6CnFhbNP_1c

https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/laws/dominion.shtml

Explanation : There are multiple ways to commit election fraud using Dominion systems but the most efficient manner is the full spectrum two-step process.

First at the adjudication step -- effectively covered in the data scientists' presentation on Georgia video -- massive ballot flipping and with the previous ballot images deleted, no trail remains.

Secondly at the tabulator stage (GEMS software, covered in detail in the Fractional Magic video) ----- so ballots which were not adjudicated, and in some counties 90% went to the adjudication process, proceeded to the tabulation step where they could be fractionalized.

Boing_Snap 20 minutes ago

You gotta ask the question of Rand here though, even as a lone voice of reason that Rand Paul is he and the Trump supporting Senators failed the Republic. They needed to push forward and introduce the Election Fraud evidence after the Jan. 6 planned interruption of the evidence hearing. Why didn't the Election fraud evidence get its day in front of Congress? The Fraud needed to be part of the historical record, and it was not.

nmewn 2 hours ago (Edited)

George Stephanopoulos: "There was not enough fraud to..."

Oh. So thats how the Leftardian brain works! Thank you Georgie boi. You now admit to voter fraud whereby legitimate votes were cancelled out by the fraud but it is your opinion that there was not enough fraud for it to matter. Never again do I want to hear this little runt of the litter yapping "Every vote matters!"

Feck Weed 2 hours ago

That's the fallback, the "widespread" qualifier.

Cheapie 1 hour ago

Yes, "Mostly honest election."

dark_matter 15 minutes ago

Just like mostly peaceful protestors as the buildings burn.

Zero-Hegemon 2 hours ago

Yes, "just enough" fraud to cover for Traitor Joe, but NOT ENOUGH to warrant a look into the allegations. You got his number.

Samual Vimes 2 hours ago

South Philly judge of elections admits he took bribes to stuff the ballot box for Democratic candidates

https://www.inquirer.com/news/voter-fraud-philadelphia-ward-leader-judge-of-elections-domenick-demuro-guilty-plea-20200521.html

Huxley's Ghost 1 hour ago

Public schools have zero tolerance for 'bullying' (that definition has been broadened to irrelevance) or acting out for grade schools kids who barely have the ability to control themselves... but SOME election fraud is ok. Shining examples of values-driven integrity.

FluTangClan 2 hours ago

Stephanopoulos is Bill Clinton's lapdog. He's not a journalist. He's a democratic party operative and always has been. He's a warmonger dwarf. He was there for banging interns with cigars. He was there for Vince Foster...

Samual Vimes 2 hours ago

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/1-5-mail-ballots-rejected-4-charged-fraud-new-jersey-election

Samual Vimes 1 hour ago

Confessions of a voter fraud: I was a master at fixing mail-in ballots

https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/political-insider-explains-voter-fraud-with-mail-in-ballots/

Samual Vimes 1 hour ago

A Running Compendium Of Fraud Charges In Election 2020

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/running-compendium-fraud-charges-election-2020

LetThemEatRand 2 hours ago

I would say Rand Paul is one of the few Republicans who is not corrupted. He's not perfect either, but he seems to be one of a handful who tries to do something he promised to his voters. As you point out, the problem isn't that there are a few RINOs. The problem is that there are only a few decent human beings in the Republic leadership who are not entirely in the pocket of the RNC, which is entirely in the pocket of the globalists.

Jim in MN 2 hours ago

https://results.philadelphiavotes.com/ResultsSW.aspx?type=FED&map=CTY#page-3

Wards 1 and 2, all districts, 'normal' results with Trump around 5-15% (he officially won 12% of the black vote and 18% of the black male vote nationwide).

Ward 3 district 1.....and the next few hundred districts in Wards 3, 4, 5, etc.....98%+ D.

Stolen votes. Mostly black men's votes.

Then do Detroit. Same thing, a 'buffer page' or two of normal looking results and then bam 98+% D.

Simple corruption, simple cheating.

NOW we can talk about the chain of custody of the mail-in 'thingies' and the security of the electronic systems.....but only if you can admit the bald truth in the DNC machine cities.

Jim in MN 2 hours ago

https://detroitmi.gov/webapp/election-results

Do it or STFU.

ebworthen 2 hours ago

The MSM has given up the pretense of being journalists. They are full-fledged propagandist attack dogs and proud of it.

Handful of Dust 2 hours ago (Edited)

One problem Georgie and his Demorat pals have, is the 100 million people who listened to the State Legislative hearings with Rudy where hundreds of witnesses came forward with credible evidence of fraud. Then there are the video segments of evidence of fraud. Then you have a dozen of the world's top forensic data people coming from all over including forensic teams from Wall Street who testified "there is zero probability Biden could have gotten those numbers."

Inconvenient facts that provide overwhelming proof of fraud. That's why Dems are still in a tizzy and have 50,000 soldiers and police protecting His Majesty Biden...but this is not going away from what Rand Paul says.

"Da peeples love me so much I need 15 platoons of soldiers for protection," Pol Pot yelled to the rabble below his bullet-proof, bomb-proof balcony.

Rattling Bones 2 hours ago

How come Stephanopoulos can't say the words 'there was no Russian collusion'?

Demologos 2 hours ago

He enjoys his nice fat paycheck for looking the other way.

That Old Magic 2 hours ago

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it ." ― Upton Sinclair

philmannwright 2 hours ago

George is not a journalist puhlease everyone knows that. He is the el chapito of the dem media

FluTangClan 2 hours ago

Thank you. He was on Bill Clinton's staff. He was a happy part of bombing Iraqi babies, bombing Yugoslavia, bombing phkn Sudan based on internet searches. He has zero credibility. His credibility is buried with Vince Foster.

adr 2 hours ago (Edited)

They can never allow the evidence to be presented because it is overwhelming proof of fraud. If there was no fraud, then there would be no harm in having evidence presented in court. The absolute proof of fraud is the number of adjudicated ballots. Were 68% of people in Georgia really incompetent enough to not know how to fill out a ballot.

The other irrefutable fact is that the state of PA did not follow an order from the US supreme court to separate ballots received after election day. Also in Philadelphia election officials destroyed the envelopes so they could not be matched with ballots.

Even if Biden really did win those two states, which he didn't, the actions of the election supervisors invalidated the election. The only recourse was to have a new election in disputed states.

headless blogger 1 hour ago (Edited)

Plus, Paul is not the best person to make the case for the American people on election integrity, as he isn't even an attorney. He can't debate the issue properly which allows the Psy-ops operators like Steph to out maneuver him.

People need FACTS, which so far the election integrity researchers are not providing in a logical and chronological format. The PSY OPS operation that pulled off the Coup, are smooth operators and are now able to clean up any loose ends with their media.

What needs to happen is an independent investigation that can present the findings in a way that people understand. As it is, they keep screaming election fraud, but aren't providing details in an orderly manner so nobody can really get a grip on what happened.....

....which is the hallmark of a psy-ops operation; they don't want you to be able to process what happened logically and chronologically.

yerfej 43 minutes ago

No, they have implemented a very good long term strategy to take over the positions of power. Academia is a good example where they own it and now have the ability to pollute minds rather than get students to look at all sides of the equation. That doesn't do anyone outside of the elites any good. Reality is its not a left vs. right thing, its the common people vs. the elites.

rkb100100 2 hours ago

"No election is perfect" - that'll be carved on the countries tombstone.

Lost in translation 1 hour ago

Blows my mind that people forget so quickly how he turned - or just overlook it - and continue in the foolish belief "Rand is one of the good guys!"

People reveal themselves in a crisis. Rand certainly did...

TruthAbsolute 1 hour ago

of course there was election fraud...and the democrats have set up a system that protects them well. All the way up to the judicial system and if not their judge then families are threaten. There is is no integrity in politics, these people are not honest or very, very few of them! They are not working for the people but ultimately for themselves and their life treasure chess! USA has become very Evil minded!

Jam 1 hour ago remove link

Nice to see Paul not backing down, someone in politics still has a backbone and can tell it like it is besides Trump.

[Jan 24, 2021] Roosevelt knew a Japanese fleet was enroute to attack Pearl Harbor, but withheld this intel from commanders in Hawaii; similarly weakining of police defence lines was a deliberate action by Dems operatives and their Republican collaborators

Jan 24, 2021 | www.unz.com

The January Sixth events in Washington D.C., depicted in the corporate media as Donald Trump's criminal "incitement to insurrection", were predictably greeted by Democrats and their media as the worst tragedy to ever befall American democracy, the heinous plot to establish a police state -- a coup d'etat, the final desperate act of a deranged tyrant. That might be considered something akin to surface discourse. Framed differently, those events could not have made the Dems happier, for by the time the last demonstrator left the Capitol the political floodgates were opened: total war against an entire nation of seditious Republicans, now demonized as "domestic terrorists", could finally be adopted as full-fledged strategy. The perfect Dems scenario for gaining unchallenged power had been laid.

Beyond the moment of Capitol disorder the Dems would find, without much difficulty, that most precious of all gifts -- a political godsend. Like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, national trauma would give the power elite just what it coveted – in this case the greatest of all opportunities to frame Trump and much of the Republican party as enemies of the state, collectively damned to ideological purgatory. January Sixth, like December Seventh before it, would serve as political code for converting national chaos into its very opposite: relief. The Dems, already beginning to solidify power in the White House, Congress, the media, and Big Tech, could now move toward a scorched-earth policy – war of annihilation.

In his book Cultures of Militarism, historian John Dower describes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as "political godsend", a moment when humiliating military defeat ("day of infamy") would allow president Franklin Roosevelt to do what he desperately wanted to do but could not in the face of an "isolationist" American public opinion -- bring the U.S. into World War II. Pearl Harbor turned out to be a wonderful blessing in disguise for FDR, whose infamous eight-point program effectively provoked the Japanese into attacking the Pacific fleet in Hawaii. In the end, after four difficult years, victory would be heroically wrestled from defeat.

After what was portrayed as a "sneak attack" (military operations were supposed to be advertised in advance?), the New York Herald Tribune could exalt: "Since the clash now appears to have been inevitable, its occurrence brings with it a sense of relief. The air is clearer. Americans can now get down to their task [of waging war] with the old obstacles finally removed, forgotten." Public opposition to U.S. entry into the war vanished in two hours one early Sunday morning. Democratic politicians, joined by a good many Republicans, were now ready to take military combat to Japan (and then Germany), as the attack had given FDR all the power, not to mention legitimacy, any president could possibly desire. Since 1941 Pearl Harbor has been ideological code for unlimited executive freedom, and Roosevelt energetically took advantage.

In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, shock turned to resolve, momentary defeat to righteous commitment. Victim status would be transformed into its opposite. Roughly the same dynamic would be repeated in the case of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which gave president George W. Bush "permission" to do what he and the neocons were already hellbent on doing – invading Iraq and "finishing the job" of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. In both cases – Pearl Harbor and 9/11 – national humiliation was mobilized to "reset" U.S. foreign policy.

For the present-day ensemble of Democratic elites – Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, et. al. – January Sixth at the Capitol could not have been more timely, more opportune. Truly another godsend. A jolt to the system, however feeble, partial, and ill-fated, would justify sustained authoritarian force across the public landscape. Seen as vile agents of treachery, Republicans would be thrown onto the defensive, immobilized. Pelosi, ready as ever for vengeful action, would say: "The situation of this unhinged president could not be more dangerous. He chose to be an insurrectionist." Trump's behavior (in riling up demonstrators) would demand immediate and harsh retribution. Other Dems quickly followed Pelosi's lead, amplified by a monolithically frenzied media. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, shrill as ever and clearly speaking for the "progressive" squad, said: "I do believe we should exercise every avenue possible because the president has shown that his mental status and his actions are wildly eroding at a rapid pace." Trump represents a "clear and present danger to our democracy", she blustered, and must be removed from office as soon as possible.

Not to be overshadowed, Senator Chuck Schumer, reprising "Pearl Harbor" no less, would state: "I have never lived through or even imagined an experience like the one we have just witnessed in this Capitol. President Franklin Roosevelt set aside December 7, 1941 as a day that will live in infamy. Unfortunately, we can now add January 6, 2021 to that very short list of dates in American history that will live forever in infamy." Oblivious to months of fire bombings, lootings, beatings, and killings across the streets and buildings of dozens of American cities (criminality that persists to this day) – all encouraged by the Dems -- Schumer would add, hypocritically: "The temple of democracy was desecrated, its windows smashed, our offices vandalized."

The authoritarian, virtually fascistic reaction of the media and political establishment was swift and, well, unhinged: the House would quickly move to impeach the president, again, Trump was permanently banned from Twitter and other social-media outlets, Republicans (even those far removed from the Capitol violence) were facing censorship, blacklisting, job loss, and thoroughly dishonest smears. Within a week the silencing of conservatives across the Internet had reached new heights. The long-cherished Beltway goal to destroy Trump, his family, and associates was in sight: any Trump hope for the presidency in 2024 would be smashed. Hysterical threats of "domestic terrorism" would mean, as always, a drastic Hobbesian response: maximum state power, strengthened ideological controls, the crushing of political opposition.

As Dower noted, the ideological code emanating from "Pearl Harbor" included yet another motif: the familiar stereotype of Asians (at that time) as sneaky, backstabbing, and irrational would be affirmed on December Seventh. Who else could carry out such a dastardly attack? The same code would naturally apply to millions (tens of millions) of deplorable Trump supporters – a motley assemblage of gun-toting racists and neo-Nazis. Didn't those sanctimonious CNN pundits always warn about the backward white-supremacists seduced by the guile of the Orange Menace? Indeed. The truth was finally illuminated for every Beltway dweller to seize upon and embellish: Trump followers would now have to pay, their collective guilt revealed beyond doubt amidst the ashes of January Sixth.

So when all the enlightened Dems repeat their heartfelt sadness over the fate of the Republic, over Trump's evil subversion of "our democracy", it might be time to look more closely beneath the surface – or maybe head for the hills. If there were any bars open in the woke Democratic neighborhoods, that is probably where Pelosi, AOC, Adam Schiff, and other sad victims of the Orange Menace might be found gathering to celebrate, toasting to their unbelievably good fortune. Whether such celebrations might be long-lived, however, would be another matter. Fascistic politics has a tendency to devour its own ruthless protagonists.


Sue Dunham , says: January 15, 2021 at 7:49 pm GMT • 7.9 days ago

Thank you for writing this. I am still trying to figure out why Ashli Babbit, the only person shot on 1/6, was surrounded by cops at the time, with John Sullivan filming the incident, along with a Chinese videographer from the CIA's Epoch Times. Sullivan's footage of the event focuses lovingly on the hand of the shooter, until he steps forward and shoots. The shooter makes a very exaggerated movement before he fires, despite having his gun trained on Babbitt already. I believe this movement was a necessary signal to Babbitt, so that could fall backward in sync with the gunshot. She could have been easily restrained and arrested by the cops on her side of the window, but instead she was "shot" by a conveniently disembodied arm. And the only evidence of injury is a very small amount of blood coming out of her mouth.

Crisis actor shenanigans!

My SIMPLE Pseudonymic Handle , says: January 16, 2021 at 12:04 am GMT • 7.7 days ago
@Sue Dunham ng out of her neck and all over the Capital steps.

After I saw the video of Ashli Babbit's rant on gewtube I came to the conclusion it was just another manufactured event. I was reminded of the woman Astronaut that drove all the way from the Johnson Space Center down to the Space Coast in Florida to be with her unrequited love. All the while wearing diapers the whole time so she wouldn't have to take potty breaks on the drive down.

If anyone else has seen a video of blood spurting out of Ashli's neck and pooling all over the floor please provide a link.

You know, I want to see a video where the blood is really spurting out like in the movies.

Robert Dolan , says: January 23, 2021 at 5:19 am GMT • 11.3 hours ago

1/6 was a nothingburger that is being jewed out of all proportion.

In reality, 1/6 did about ..1/10000000000000 as much damage as the Antifa and BLM shitheads did in nine months of REAL insurrection.

The jewish owned MSM lies about everything, turns ANY event into an opportunity to SHIT on innocent white people to demonize them and instill desire in non-whites to MURDER white people.

The jew media narrative distilled is blood libel against white people.

That's all it is.

Louis Hissink , says: January 23, 2021 at 5:29 am GMT • 11.2 hours ago

January Sixth, like December Seventh before it, would serve as political code for converting national chaos into its very opposite: relief.

Isn't "order" the antonym of chaos?

Carlton Meyer , says: • Website January 23, 2021 at 5:32 am GMT • 11.1 hours ago

In his book Cultures of Militarism, historian John Dower describes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as "political godsend", a moment when humiliating military defeat ("day of infamy") would allow president Franklin Roosevelt to do what he desperately wanted to do but could not in the face of an "isolationist" American public opinion -- bring the U.S. into World War II. Pearl Harbor turned out to be a wonderful blessing in disguise for FDR, whose infamous eight-point program effectively provoked the Japanese into attacking the Pacific fleet in Hawaii.

Roosevelt also knew a Japanese fleet was enroute to attack Pearl Harbor, but withheld this intel from commanders in Hawaii.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1niZil4lNjU?feature=oembed

Buzz Mohawk , says: January 23, 2021 at 5:36 am GMT • 11.1 hours ago
@Beavertales act, the draconian over-reaction of the elite may prove to be a godsend rallying event for the oppressed.

Indeed, when I read the title, "January Sixth as Godsend," I thought this article was going in the direction you indicate.

Events, like arguments, often comprise two, opposing poles. The question is, what will be the result, the aufheben , this time?

In the near term, clearly it will be further erosion of civil liberties and continued "American Pravada" fakery. In the long run, however, anything is possible, even things we can't imagine, because this is now an irrational, complex, disturbed system.

Tony Hall , says: January 23, 2021 at 5:39 am GMT • 11.0 hours ago

Who will play the role of the Philip Zelikow in the "Insurrection Commission," in the extension of the 9/11 Commission into the forthcoming 1/6 Commission?

aandrews , says: January 23, 2021 at 5:44 am GMT • 10.9 hours ago

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RFpw-ioM3dk?feature=oembed
44:00
" a shift of the tectonic plates. It is happening before our eyes, this gathering of the elites ."

RedpilledAF , says: January 23, 2021 at 5:45 am GMT • 10.9 hours ago
@My SIMPLE Pseudonymic Handle

I forget the name of the incident, but several years ago there was a very obvious fake female getting shot incident in an attempted color revolution in Iran. It had cia/mi6/Mossad written all over it, as usual. However, I think they ended up killing the "useful idiot" a few hours later when the plan failed. This incident is very similar. If someone knows the incident I am talking about please remind me/us.

mcohen , says: January 23, 2021 at 6:04 am GMT • 10.6 hours ago

she was shot in the chest.the neck shot narrative is disinformation to go with the false flag narrative which is a great sunny day.

Luus Kanin , says: January 23, 2021 at 6:18 am GMT • 10.4 hours ago

Please don't besmirch fascists by mentioning Pelosi as a representative. A better description of her would be a plutocratic cypriot. No self respecting fascist would be caught within a stone's throw of her for fear of catching the backdoor trots.

Mr. Cracker , says: January 23, 2021 at 6:55 am GMT • 9.7 hours ago

Oh my gosh, is that thing still alive?! And who is that corpse beside her?

Kolya Krassotkin , says: January 23, 2021 at 7:01 am GMT • 9.6 hours ago
@Beavertales

Quite tame, but Schumer, Pelosi and the rest of the gang are going to work it up into The Reichstag Fire and would, if they could use it to get an enabling act.

Goebbels would be so proud of all the Dems, especially of Schumer.

Schuetze , says: January 23, 2021 at 7:02 am GMT • 9.6 hours ago

We can take this Pearl Harbor analogy a little further. The Japanese Americans were also stripped of their property in a very planned and devious manner immediately after December 7. Jews picked up most of this property at fire sale prices and benefitted immensely.

The full effects of how this faked January 6 "insurrection" was "good for the jews" will become clear in the months ahead. But one thing is clear, the take down of Parler directly benefitted jew owned Facebook (((Zuckerberg))) and the gaggle of jew controlled social media outfits like Twitter and Instagram.

The Japanese Americans were stripped of thousands of acres of valuable farmland in central California. Shortly after the January 6 insurrection it came out the Bill Gates is the largest owner of farmland in the US. Covid and Climate Engineering has impacted farmers across the US (derechios). I think there may be some correlation here too.

There is also the issue of the 25,000 National Gaurd called in for the innauguration. Washington mobilized for war.

Mr. Cracker , says: January 23, 2021 at 7:03 am GMT • 9.6 hours ago

Will these people please die already!

Mr. Cracker , says: January 23, 2021 at 7:16 am GMT • 9.4 hours ago

They can wear tailored suits that cost five or ten thousand. They can get hair colouring that cost maybe two grand. They can spend as much as they can spend, but the brutal truth is they are not getting out of this place alive, no matter how much they spend, no matter how much political power they have, no matter who they know. They are going to be just as dead as the rest of us. LOL.

GeneralRipper , says: January 23, 2021 at 7:30 am GMT • 9.2 hours ago

Pelosi is 80 lol

That filthy fucking treasonous whore is going to die soon.

Her Daddy is waiting to greet her in Hell.

Dube , says: January 23, 2021 at 7:32 am GMT • 9.1 hours ago

Let the show continue. Trump will be in the Senate gallery to enjoy the impeachment. Pass it on.

Dr. Charles Fhandrich , says: January 23, 2021 at 7:41 am GMT • 9.0 hours ago

The people pictured above, are hands down, the craziest of the crazies. These comrades make the Trump administration look like boy scouts by comparison.

Dr. Charles Fhandrich , says: January 23, 2021 at 7:48 am GMT • 8.9 hours ago

The problem is, they weren't carrying guns. No one was really threatened. They stayed between the purple ropes, those folks with canes and walkers and only a few reached the "inner sanctum", which looks like a library and there ANTIFA members instigated the usual window breaking and were actually scolded by some of the Trump supporters telling them to stop it, when finally an unarmed woman, a Trump supporter was murdered by the police. Only the biggest dupes and people wanting to believe an absurd narrative were shocked. Thinking people were not.

brabantian , says: January 23, 2021 at 8:01 am GMT • 8.6 hours ago

Interesting that the troops in DC are STAYING, their active duty orders extending AT LEAST through 16 February which MAY BE EXTENDED military document below on this

Some say these are Trump troops who will still help 'stop the steal', arrest Biden etc LOL others say that Biden-Harris are preparing martial law scenarios after possible false flag terror attack, or some kind of new economic or pandemic crisis Given Biden's USA troops invaded northern Syria on Biden's first full day in office Thursday, it seems the USA war machine is back in gear and happy to be ridin' wit' Biden

As is widely noted, the new Biden gov seems to be poking ordinary Americans with a stick:
– Biden's tranny orders destroying women's sports and that all bio-males 'identifying as female' be welcome in women's locker rooms & rest rooms
– Biden 'critical race theory' order for white-humiliating 'training', all non-Jew whites to confess to being inherently 'racist' as price to keep gov etc jobs
– Amnesty & citizenship for 11 million & maybe 30-40 million migrants inside US, end to deportations & border security

Jewish Congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee blurts out that 75% of USA white soldiers 'cannot be fully trusted' , as if hinting there is a war of the new government and Jewish interests, opposing whites who voted for Trump or reject the 'humiliate the whites', LGBTranny etc agendas

The 'troops staying in DC thru February, maybe longer' military document

chris , says: January 23, 2021 at 8:10 am GMT • 8.5 hours ago

Great summary, though the word 'godsent' implies a passivity which seems misapplied in describing the actions of the beneficiaries of this deep state instigation.

This type of event, perfunctorily (and rather clumsily) tracing a number of transparent stages, which are then blasted incessantly through propaganda megaphones, is absolutely standard practice in all foreign coups.

This dynamic is used to give all the partisans a fig leaf to cover their actions and to provide the next level actors a cue to start their intervention.

animalogic , says: January 23, 2021 at 8:18 am GMT • 8.4 hours ago
@My SIMPLE Pseudonymic Handle

"You know, I want to see a video where the blood is really spurting out like in the movies."
Fair enough.
But -- if she died instantly there'd be very little blood .
I have no idea what really happened, but I'm willing to provisionally accept she was shot dead by an unidentified shooter.

animalogic , says: January 23, 2021 at 8:25 am GMT • 8.2 hours ago

"The temple of democracy was desecrated, its windows smashed, our offices vandalized."
Most of the Dem' – Establishment reaction to 6.1.21 has been spew inducing, but the above quote is just perfectly -- funny.
It is SO over the top, SO cynical, self serving & lacking in irony that hilarity is the only natural response.

dimples , says: January 23, 2021 at 9:05 am GMT • 7.6 hours ago

There are said to be 2300 Capitol police answerable to Pelosi etc. So when the remarkably few police actually there conveniently moved the barriers aside to let protestors into the building, its obvious that the Democrat gerontocracy was still thinking well ahead of the dumb Trumpstein rabble.

Schuetze , says: January 23, 2021 at 9:09 am GMT • 7.5 hours ago
@Sue Dunham staged "incidents" along the path to Lexington, just like Charlottsville in 2017 was part of the lead up to the "insurrection" of January 6, 2021.

Samuel Adams and his Masonic Brothers had been planning and inciting the rebellion (Tea Party, Boston Massacre) from the Green Dragon Tavern.

Boston's Green Dragon Tavern, headquarters of both the Sons of Liberty and St. Andrew's Lodge

[MORE]
TyRade , says: January 23, 2021 at 9:14 am GMT • 7.4 hours ago

I thought from the title the theme was going to be a far subtler one, not the 'what a gimme for The Left', the line which everyone still able to publish has taken. I'd argue that 6 Jan brings peak Democrat hubris forward so pulls nemesis – the revelation of the red tooth and claw of unhinged, vote-losing socialism – much nearer (say 2022).

goldgettin , says: January 23, 2021 at 9:18 am GMT • 7.4 hours ago
@Beavertales

Good points. Flip the script tell the truth make it happen.
Yet people still don't believe in Karma?????????
What we need to do is stop tolerating/subsidizing evil.
Easier said than done you say?You're probably right.
Hard to get it out there though,most seem TOO invested in
continuing their blissful expertise .
Looks to me that it's finally beginning to end or not

Bert , says: January 23, 2021 at 10:55 am GMT • 5.7 hours ago
@Beavertales

Yes, and there is also the clear evidence of capitol police standing aside, waving protestors toward the building, lining the halls to get out of their way as they entered, and leading them up the correct set of stairs. It was a set up, like what Roosevelt achieved at Pearl Harbor.

Patric , says: January 23, 2021 at 10:56 am GMT • 5.7 hours ago

The writer does not say so though it is implied .this 'event' screamed it was STAGED. Beginning with the most obvious why were the crowd allowed in at all? It's just another of these 'hoaxes' and with Biden in charge look for many more. Didn't the whole 'hoax' method (Sandy Hook, Boston Bombing, etc etc) take off during the Obama/Biden years? As Chuck Shumer said recently "Buckle Up"

WorkingClass , says: January 23, 2021 at 10:56 am GMT • 5.7 hours ago

1/6 was a false flag attack following the theft of the 2020 election. The purpose? To establish Chinese style Totalitarianism on behalf of what Pepe Escobar refers to as Techno Feudalism.

Nothing good can come from Democrats and/or Republicans. Democrats and Republicans have ruined our Country. Why is Orange Man Bad? Becuase the Deplorables defeated both Parties in 2016. It won't happen again. Nothing good can come from the District of Corruption. Separation is the ONLY way forward. Why is anyone still talking about future elections?

The Alarmist , says: January 23, 2021 at 11:05 am GMT • 5.6 hours ago

That might be considered something akin to surface discourse.

Along these lines

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SjbPi00k_ME?feature=oembed

Anonymous [144] • Disclaimer , says: January 23, 2021 at 11:07 am GMT • 5.5 hours ago
@Sue Dunham as a cue to pretend you were shot, if you are, in fact, pretending. So, if the "exaggerated movement" is your proof that it was "acting," then it was not acting but real. That it was otherwise a set-up, and "an inside job" by the same people who run Antifa is obvious. That the police removed the barricades and waved the people to come in, led by bussed in Antifa Judas goats, is also obvious and well documented. You could say all of America, white and black, was shot at that moment. Just because all of the fake killings the last few years by white people are a staged show to incriminate the innocent and create the illusion of "White Supremacy," does not mean that the Deep State does not kill when it serves their interest.
Abdul Alhazred , says: January 23, 2021 at 11:26 am GMT • 5.2 hours ago
@Sue Dunham

Some say Schumer shot Ashli Babbitt? Who did?

Chucky wants to take your guns away, but he knew how to shoot and somewhere on the net is a
better phrenic matchup than this would suggest, but hairlines do speak as well

https://www.sinsthatcrytoheavenforvengeance.com/2021/01/some-say-that-chuck-schumer-is-one-who.html

onebornfree , says: • Website January 23, 2021 at 11:30 am GMT • 5.2 hours ago

"For the present-day ensemble of Democratic elites – Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, et. al. – January Sixth at the Capitol could not have been more timely, more opportune. Truly another godsend. A jolt to the system, however feeble, partial, and ill-fated, would justify sustained authoritarian force across the public landscape. Seen as vile agents of treachery, Republicans would be thrown onto the defensive, immobilized. "

The author does not seem to be aware yet that the whole invasion was a CIA/FBI/Antifa/BLM/Q-Anon staged, planned false flag event, [complete with a staged shooting], with the intent to demonize Trump and his supporters [and to arrest some of them on the spot, eg Alex Jones and Roger Stone].

A set up from the git go.

SWAT teams came to Roger Stones D.C. hotel room [luckily he'd already left town after smelling something rotten in the air]. Since then his 70 yr old wife was viciously attacked in FL. by an anonymous bike rider [Antifa?] who deliberately ran over her body at least 3 times [she's now under intensive care in a FL hospital, and Stone himself has gone into hiding, apparently].

A SWAT team also came for Jones in DC [apparently], but local police refused to co-operate with Feds to the best of my knowledge at present, so that take down didn't go as planned for the Fed goons either.

Regards, onebornfree

Peripatetic Itch , says: January 23, 2021 at 12:14 pm GMT • 4.4 hours ago
@Sue Dunham

Ashli died very quickly, You can see her hands going into tetanic contractions within a very few seconds of her collapse. She was bleeding internally through her esophagus or wind pipe and the blood was coming out her mouth. As your heart stops, so does the bleeding.

Curiously this is the second time you have posted this exact same comment, even with the exact same "Thank you for writing this" to start. Even more curious, your first reply and agreement comes from the exact same person who agreed with you then (Jan. 15). Who curiously posted the exact same response he posted then. Are you posing as both? Very convenient, if true.

Peripatetic Itch , says: January 23, 2021 at 12:36 pm GMT • 4.1 hours ago
@mcohen

she was shot in the chest.

That's interesting. It would explain a lot of things. Do you have a source for it? Has there been an autopsy?

Temporary Insanity , says: January 23, 2021 at 12:36 pm GMT • 4.1 hours ago

"Whether such celebrations might be long-lived, however, would be another matter."

Only time will tell

Schuetze , says: January 23, 2021 at 12:38 pm GMT • 4.0 hours ago
@Peripatetic Itch "throuple" mind games, clearly she has been a lot more than merely "mentioned"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9147335/Dead-MAGA-mobster-Ashli-Babbitt-Marine-ex-husband-THROUPLE-bartender.html

"Ashli and Aaron, who served as a Marine from 2000 to 2005, married in 2019 and met their girlfriend less than a year into their marriage"

Schuetze , says: January 23, 2021 at 12:45 pm GMT • 3.9 hours ago
@brabantian

I think that they are afraid that old Jubal Early is pissed off about all the Confederate statues being desecrated and that he is going to rise from the dead, whoop those useless Yankees and threaten Washington once more

General Early and the Army of the Valley Movements Map

theMann , says: January 23, 2021 at 12:51 pm GMT • 3.8 hours ago

I think most of you are missing the point about the events of 1-6. The only really relevant photos of that day are the ones of US Congress"men" cowering in abject terror under their desks, or running in abject terror to their precious "safe" location away from the Capitol building.

This is the very public demonstration of true sniveling cowardice in a manner that cannot be naysayed or denied in any way. And now the entire world knows it. Having been so publicly outed as low grade cowards, we can now expect, going forward, that every reaction of the US Congress will be a grotesque, and violent, overreaction.

Because that is what cowards do with power.

Peripatetic Itch , says: January 23, 2021 at 1:00 pm GMT • 3.7 hours ago
@Schuetze lockquote>

There is also the issue of the 25,000 National [Guard] called in for the [inauguration].

They did give cover for the abysmally small crowd attending the inauguration. From the pics, it hardly looked to be more than a thousand. Trump had more than that lining the streets when he returned to Mar-a-Lago.

So of course, the "threat" of further horrendous violence from those oh so vicious Trump supporters still hiding in the city since Jan. 6 deterred a full half million of those enthusiastic Biden supporters who so wanted to see him take the oath.

Nicolae Ceaușescu would have been proud.

Realist , says: January 23, 2021 at 1:18 pm GMT • 3.4 hours ago

Beyond the moment of Capitol disorder the Dems would find, without much difficulty, that most precious of all gifts -- a political godsend.

It was not a godsend it was conceived and designed by subhumans in the Deep State.

Peripatetic Itch , says: January 23, 2021 at 1:35 pm GMT • 3.1 hours ago
@Schuetze Why would he shoot with Capitol police standing in the line of fire back in the stairwell?

Winter also tries to make the case that John Sullivan was inciting the riot when there is no footage yet produced of Sullivan doing anything more than recording events as he saw them, which is what he said he was doing. He published an hour-long video and nothing there shows him doing anything physical. He did say things like "Let's burn that shit down" but it could not have been heard by many (if any) people near him and there is no indication anyone else was paying attention to him. He was, it seems, simply narrating and role-playing.

Petermx , says: January 23, 2021 at 1:41 pm GMT • 3.0 hours ago

I only learned in the last 4 to 5 years what despicable old hags Pelosi and Hillary are. They compete for being the most despicable with Hillary suggesting Trump was in contact with Russian President Putin on January 6 to keep him updated on the so called "insurrection". For over 75 years Americans, most often Jews, have called Germany's Josef Goebbels a liar but I can't recall the last time they said what he supposedly lied about. No one can compete with Americans like Hillary Clinton and American Jews like Adam Schiff for being the most unabashed liars in the world. And it's the Lying Jewish media with mini-mes like CNN's head Jeff Zucker that create these deliberately false narratives for their stooges Pelosi and Clinton to propagate. As former Congressman Ron Paul suggested yesterday, no country has interfered in more foreign elections than the USA.

It would be glorious if Trump ran for President again. I don't expect it and I would think he would not want to become a human punching bag again, but I believe he would win if his forces could prevent another fraudulent election. There is no force in the USA as powerful as the media and it's the same in most "democratic" countries. How glorious it would be too if the old hags had enough of letting themselves be used by people like Zucker and Twitter's Jack Dorsey and turned on them and had the justice department put those despicables in jail. Oh, how glorious. One can dream. But that is unlikely and what is more likely is that within the next ten years the world won't care much what is happening in the USA, for the USA is in for a big fall which will reduce its power and influence greatly.

Peripatetic Itch , says: January 23, 2021 at 1:49 pm GMT • 2.8 hours ago
@WorkingClass

Separation is the ONLY way forward.

That said, Republicans control the legislatures in quite a few states, and the Constitution gives those states plenary power over election law, particularly for President and the Congress. Changing the law to mandate paper ballots and voter ID while eliminating the machines and mail-in ballots would probably expose the fraud and regain the House and Senate in the mid-terms.

Can do both prongs at the same time.

Jiminy , says: January 23, 2021 at 1:51 pm GMT • 2.8 hours ago
@animalogic

I remember the film of the vc prisoner, who while being held by guards was shot suddenly in the temple. The amount of blood forcefully streaming from the hole in his head was both astonishing and gruesome. I don't know if happened because of being shot in the head though, as opposed to being shot in the body. Or maybe the bullet hit the artery.

Achmed E. Newman , says: • Website January 23, 2021 at 1:59 pm GMT • 2.7 hours ago

That was a concise truthful account of what we are up against again, Mr. Boggs. Thank you.

Even the pundit Ann Coulter, someone I've appreciated being on my side for more than a decade, has fallen for some of this bullshit out of the Lyin' Press in their ceaseless Infotainment. From her latest column (otherwise, one I agree with):

The raid was disgusting, appalling, sickening, but it's not a license for concocting imaginary accusations. Trump is bad. The thugs who stormed the Capitol are bad. You don't need to manufacture evidence against them, media.

Peak Stupidity notes that she lied by using the terms "raid", "disgusting", and "thugs", in the post "Et tu, Ann?"

Will Ann Coulter, even, be suckered into supporting anti-"domestic-terrorism" laws, just as she went for the "fight them over there " crap after 9/11? There are cooler heads that don't get emotionally suckered in by the Lyin' Press narrative. We are the ones they are aiming at with the new round of oppression to come.

Tumi , says: January 23, 2021 at 2:00 pm GMT • 2.7 hours ago

" Fascistic politics has a tendency to devour its own ruthless protagonists."
It has already done .Bush or more precisely Cheney to Tea Party to MAGA false prophet of Trump is linear and traces only a tiny distance.
False hope is entertained because desperation and anger demand it . Obama and Trump are two sides of the same coin , Both hurt the believers and the faithful most and did intentionally.

Miro23 , says: January 23, 2021 at 2:25 pm GMT • 2.2 hours ago

"Since the clash now appears to have been inevitable, its occurrence brings with it a sense of relief. The air is clearer. Americans can now get down to their task [of waging war] with the old obstacles finally removed, forgotten."

This would apply equally well to a US civil war . It would clear the air, people/organizations commit to one side or the other and get on with it.

Sick of Orcs , says: January 23, 2021 at 2:44 pm GMT • 1.9 hours ago
@theMann

Agreed. It was truly satisfying to watch uniparty kleptocrat cowards, who torture us daily with bad laws and invitations for invading hordes, scrambling for their escape choo-choo train.

Schuetze , says: January 23, 2021 at 2:45 pm GMT • 1.9 hours ago
@Peripatetic Itch on in Syria, preceded by waves of Iraeli bombings and missile strikes. Iraq has also been under the zio-genocide hammer.

Clearly, the next move in the US is going to be the gun grab, and they will try to focus it on "white supremacists". This is the narrative construction we see going on, of which Babbit likely was part of. During the Trump administration there seemed to be far fewer false flags. I would bet that we are about to see a flurry of "white supremacists" shooting up various synogogues, jewish graveyards, black churches, and I would not be at all surprised if the grand climax was the bombing of a "holocaust" museum.

HT , says: January 23, 2021 at 2:47 pm GMT • 1.9 hours ago

Hitler was the only leader in history that knew exactly what must be done with communists. If you allow even one communist to live in your land, your freedom is at risk. In my view, the only thing that will remove them now and thus save America is for a Hitlarian type figure to rise up and ruthlessly deal with the communists in politics, the Judeo media complex, the courts, and academia. He rounded them up in the 1930's and that is the only way to stop them now. If that isn't done soon, they will be rounding us up which they are making very clear.

Old and Grumpy , says: January 23, 2021 at 2:56 pm GMT • 1.7 hours ago

How about all those available resources to fortify the capital since the Big Capital Walk Thru? Were concrete and metal fence producers considered essential during all our lockdowns? Did they miraculously have inventory waiting for DC to come beckoning?

Crescent Moon , says: January 23, 2021 at 3:01 pm GMT • 1.6 hours ago
@Abdul Alhazred ian-immigrant-and-black-lives-matter-militant-he-repeatedly-threatened-to-kill-trump-su/"> https://redpilled.ca/redpilled-media-exclusive-us-capitol-special-agent-david-bailey-who-murdered-ashli-babbitt-is-a-brazilian-immigrant-and-black-lives-matter-militant-he-repeatedly-threatened-to-kill-trump-su/

Here is the best footage (professional) of the day. You could him shooting with the black and white bracelet clearly. Now it seems to be edited out, unless I missed it
blob: https://www.newyorker.com/a36c1f75-18a7-4f63-87ba-73fc37e2aebc

Alexandros , says: January 23, 2021 at 3:08 pm GMT • 1.5 hours ago
@My SIMPLE Pseudonymic Handle

Well of course it's fake. It's on TV!

Peripatetic Itch , says: January 23, 2021 at 3:21 pm GMT • 1.3 hours ago
@Schuetze every possible misdemeanor in her life, from accusations of deliberate assault by car to restraining orders, to adultery, to her "fanatical" propensity to rant, to living in a threesome, as you say. Her death, on the other hand, is treated matter-of-factly, as if to say, What else would you expect for such a flaky dumb-ass? No mention that she was not armed.

Compare that to what they did for George Floyd. He came out as a saint who had only wanted to be president as a kid. Gone to Minneapolis to start a "new life" as I recall. Barely a mention of his home invasion, holding a gun to the belly of a pregnant woman, possibly raping her.

Avery , says: January 23, 2021 at 3:29 pm GMT • 1.2 hours ago
@HT > der Führer

__________________
* Hitler and Germans were lucky that Russians/Slavs were not as vengeful as Germans' Anglo-Saxon kin, who burned about 100,000 or so German civilians – old men, women, children – just to show what they are capable of. Stalin could have created 100s of Dresdens, and nobody could have stopped him.

** I understand there is an organized, decades long effort to erase that wonderful trait.

follyofwar , says: January 23, 2021 at 3:56 pm GMT • 43 minutes ago
@GeneralRipper especially since the servile House democrats don't have the guts to vote her out as Speaker? And she will continue to be easily re-elected in her far-left district, no matter how senile and delusional she is.

Think Strom Thurmond in his last years. He lived to be 1oo, dying in office. In fact, since women live longer than men, Pelosi may finally collapse for the last time when she is 110, still firmly clutching her gold-plated gavel that she refused to give up. After rigor mortis sets in, they won't be able to pry it out of her cold dead hand, so she'll be buried with it, and will lie in State in the Capitol Rotunda for a month.

[Jan 21, 2021] Watch- Rand Paul Challenges New Secretary Of State Over Regime-Change In Syria - ZeroHedge

Jan 21, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Watch: Rand Paul Challenges New Secretary Of State Over Regime-Change In Syria BY TYLER DURDEN THURSDAY, JAN 21, 2021 - 10:19

Via AlMasdarNews.com,

Senator Rand Paul recently challenged the new Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken on his history of pushing regime change in the Middle East and North Africa:

"Regime change in the Middle East has led to chaos, instability and more terrorism," Sen. Paul argued.

"Like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton you've been a supporter of military intervention in the Middle East from the Iraq war to the Libyan war to the Syrian civil war..." he introduced in his Tuesday questoning of Blinken.

Sen. Paul began his argument by questioning Blinken's role in the NATO intervention of Libya in 2001 and his support for the US military invasion of Iraq in 2003, which the Kentucky congressman said was a major disaster that paved the way for a stronger Iran.

The congressman argued that Blinken continued to push regime change in Syria, which he said was a significant blunder, especially with the amount of money spent training "moderate rebel forces" .

Sen. Paul said the administration of former President Barack Obama spent $250 million (USD) on training 60 rebels [as part of the DoD side; the CIA program was much more expansive], which he said was a waste of money.

He would go on to question why Blinken would support the Syrian opposition groups on the ground, as he pointed out the most powerful fighters are those from the jihadist groups like the Al-Nusra Front .

"Even after Libya you guys went on to Syria wanting to do the same thing again... it's a disaster. The lesson of these wars is that regime change doesn't work!" Paul said.

"You got rid of one 'bad guy' and another 'bad guy' got stronger," Paul added while lambasting the US strategy of going after Iran while Iraq is still weakened by Bush's regime change war there.

"Maybe we shouldn't be 'choosing' governments in the Middle East," Paul continued.

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

Watch the full exchange here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_i5ynePhmnk

Blinken claimed in response that he wasn't supportive of a full-scale 'Iraq-style' regime change war in Syria while vaguely claiming that he's done "deep thinking" and reflection on the issue . Blinken never repudiated the policy of regime change in the Middle East, however.

Sen. Paul then shifted his attention to NATO, which he said Blinken was trying to strengthen for the purpose of combatting Russia. The senator said Blinken's policy on NATO would lead to war with Russia, which the latter responded would have the opposite effect.

Antony Blinken upon his nomination for Secretary of State in the new administration, via Reuters

Paul concluded by saying that regime change needs to end because it is involving the US in long wars that are costly to the military.


The Luftwaffe 8 hours ago

We will see a new major war started by this administration within two years

Cloud9.5 7 hours ago

We have to do something to reduce the population.

Leather-Dog 7 hours ago

You mean in addition to the 103.5% effective covid vaccine?

RiverRoad 7 hours ago

On duckduckgo.com search > "Med Cram".
On You Tube: Dr. Seheult's med school video lecture "Vitamin D and Covid 19: The Evidence for Prevention and " (5.3m views)
Vitamin D3 is sold over the counter.
Karma is coming for Covid.

eatapeach 7 hours ago

Hopefully it's also coming for the thieving liars who pushed this cheap PsyOp (Pompeo is one, Fauci is another).

bigjim 3 hours ago

I guess Bibi mis-spelled Rand's email address on the memo.

boattrash 2 hours ago

103.5%... that sounds like the voter turnout in all the blue cities.

rastanarchocapitalist 7 hours ago

If one could take all the people in the world and cram them into a city as dense as Tokyo, it would cover the area of Rhode Island.

BaNNeD oN THe RuN 5 hours ago

BS
Tokyo pop density=16121.8 /sq.mi.
Rhode Island = 1045 sq.mi.

At that density RI would hold 16.8 million people.

At the average annual population growth rate of the last century there will be 1 sq.m. of land per person in only 750 years. That includes all mountains, frozen tundra, jungles and deserts... now "get off my lawn".

bearwinkle 6 hours ago

Sure, that's why Xiden is allowing millions of immigrants to invade our borders.

aloha_snakbar 7 hours ago

I thought it might be like today...

Hatterasjohn 7 hours ago

Anyone crazy enough to join ,or be in the military , is out of his friggin mind.

BarnacleBill 7 hours ago

Or likes killing civilians. Don't overlook the psychopaths.

headslapper 7 hours ago

and that will be the end of the US.

RiverRoad 7 hours ago

How about the Regime Change just effected right HERE in the good old USA?

Im1ru12 4 hours ago

Exactly - "Maybe we shouldn't be 'choosing' governments in the Middle East," Paul continued

That's what they do - they just did it here

starman99 7 hours ago

(((Anthony Blinken)))

USAllDay 7 hours ago

I'd take Assad over Biden.

9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago (Edited)

Assad has more integrity in his shoe than Biden has accumulated in the past 50 years.

Armed Resistance 7 hours ago

If the deep state hates Assad, then I know he must be legitimately a good guy deep down.

9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago

BINGO!

Brutlstrudl 6 hours ago

It seems that after each election, the USA becomes more of a contrarian indicator

SERReal1 7 hours ago

I agree. At least Assad puts his country first and gives the finger to the Deep State.

BaNNeD oN THe RuN 5 hours ago

Plus a secular government that respects the rights of all religious minorites. Sets a bad example for all the intolerant apartheid states in the region.

Hopefully the "Assad Must Go" curse gets the entire Biden Administration sooner rather than later.

aloha_snakbar 8 hours ago

Who cares...Uncle Scam lost the tiny bit of credibility he had on 01/20/2021. RIP America....

eatapeach 7 hours ago

I care. Here's yet another Israel-first douchenozzle getting put in a very, very high position. And acting like it'd be any different with Trump at the helm is severe folly. (Pompeo)

FluTangClan 6 hours ago

Sorry bro but anyone with eyes hasn't thought the US credible for more than a century.

4Celts 7 hours ago

Paul concluded by saying that regime change needs to end because it is involving the US in long wars that are costly to the military.

Pardon , but the " cost " to the military shouldn't be the top/only argument. What happened to morally/ ethically wrong ?

SwmngwShrks 7 hours ago

"All wars are Bankers' wars." -Smedley Butler

white horse 7 hours ago

Moral is dead long ago, replaced by new fake moral called humanitarianism.

DonGenaro 7 hours ago

You're an astute observer - few detect such "tells"

Feck Weed 5 hours ago

Consider the audience

FringeDweller 5 hours ago

Fair point.

Lord JT 5 hours ago

He mentioned that it creates more terrorism, and that the incoming regime may be even worse than the previous.

Unknown User 8 hours ago

Biden will start a war, or two, or three...

Why-Am-I-Banned 6 hours ago

Maybe the best thing that could happen to free us all finally is an all out war with Russia, we aren't going to see a revolution to get rid of the corruption the population is lazy and scared of doing without.

Maybe forced into mutual assured destruction is truly the only way to get rid of the deep state...

Russia lost approx 250 million via communism over decades, maybe we need to just swallow the poison pill and get it over with.

Not all of us will die, and definately no one is going to listen to the deep state leaders after the dust clears...

FluTangClan 6 hours ago

Cho Bai Den fol peace!

wick7 5 hours ago

It's amazing how Democrats flipped overnight to being pro war once Obama started new wars. They were mad when Trump was signing peace deals. Lol.

You_Cant_Quit_Me 8 hours ago

He's right. One disaster after another. Who has Assad attacked? If small countries want the US to back off then they must develop nuclear weapons. When was the last time the US attacked a country with nuclear capabilities?

JRobby 7 hours ago

Bust Blinken's balls until he quits like a little rat trying to naw through steel cables

gespiri 7 hours ago

The only way to stop these wars is to send the people (and their kids) who are pushing for it in the first place to the front lines.

rastanarchocapitalist 7 hours ago

Or make the state obsolete by transitioning to a private law society.

RedDog1 7 hours ago

Remember how Gaddafi surrendered his nukeprogram to Bush, a few years later Obama/HRC invaded...resulting in Gaddafi being lynched?

eatapeach 7 hours ago

Iran and NK and Syria remember, for sure. Wish we all remembered the USS Liberty when shaping foreign policy.

LooseLee 4 hours ago

Remember Libya has no central bank?

Pandelis 3 hours ago (Edited)

you really believe that bs ... it is much more than that ... at the end is about the land and the people ... money can be printed out of thin air and there is nothing libya (or iraq, iran etc.) central bank can do about it ...

bring on dr. fraucistein to explain it all to us ... maga!!

roach clipper 6 hours ago

Assad placed his country too close to Is ra hell

manofthenorth 8 hours ago

Sorry guys but we have been played like a second hand fiddle.

It is ALL BS.

THEY don't give a **** about US

LetThemEatRand 8 hours ago

I assume Paul has figured out by now that being a murderous psychopath is a job requirement in DC. It's the first question in the job interview. "Do you enjoy death and destruction for profit and personal power?"

littlewing 7 hours ago

Remember when Trump bombed Syria and all of a sudden everyone in DC loved him for 15 minutes.

Talk about the big reveal.

aloha_snakbar 7 hours ago

The same Rand Paul who was criticizing Trump in the eleventh hour? That one?? They are all swamp creatures and seriously make me want to vomit...

pro·le·tar·i·at 7 hours ago

The apple rolled away from the tree.

Leather-Dog 7 hours ago

Paul, I like you, you seem to care a little bit. However, if they haven't cared in the last forever, they are definitely not going to start now. They just regime changed ourselves with almost no substantial resistance, you think they will care about Syria?

StanleyTheManly 5 hours ago

He puts on a show to care once in a while.

He didn't stand for the truth when it counted.

Goat of Steverino 7 hours ago

GREAT RAND, BUT WHERE WERE YOU ON BIG TECH CENSORSHIP AND ELECTION FRAUD?

Bank_sters 7 hours ago

He's cucked.

Ted Baker 6 hours ago

What is this obsession with Russia? Russia is a peaceful country who defends its people. How difficult is that to understand?

ReadyForHillary 6 hours ago

Russia isn't down with the NWO.

Dinaric 7 hours ago

(((Blinkin))) is all you need to know.

9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago

Does anyone honestly believe that if Biden was honest and had any degree if integrity that he would be president at this moment in U.S. history? That boy is a 50 year swamp critter A thoroughly reliable member of the compromised fraternity. Same for Nancy.

freakscene 7 hours ago

Remember the video of younger Biden telling some voter that he graduated top of his class, with honors????

None of which were true.

littlewing 7 hours ago

His degree is from University of Phoenix.

Now all colleges are that. haha

Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago

Ironically, he wants to set up a comity for Integrity In Government.

freakscene 7 hours ago

Yeah. Thats hysterical!!

Saturday Night Live material - if they had any spine.

BarnacleBill 7 hours ago

Which they don't. Come on, man!

StanleyTheManly 5 hours ago

Yep. They needed someone with zero integrity.

yeketerina velikaya 7 hours ago

You know who's been right all along?

Tulsi Gabbard.

Right on big tech

Right on Kamala

Right on pardoning Assange and Snowden

Right on the uniparty and false flags in Syria

Right on Queen of Warmongers Hillary and DNC

Right on the MSM

Right on securing the elections/ballot harvesting

She's the real deal and would have delivered on these things but never had a shot.

Armed Resistance 7 hours ago

She was wrong on gun control. Very wrong! And that's a non-negotiable.

Why-Am-I-Banned 6 hours ago

Don't worry real gun control is coming and so much more you didn't ask for...

rastanarchocapitalist 7 hours ago

She should have been Trump's vp choice.

StanleyTheManly 5 hours ago

You know....I think you're right. I hadn't thought of that.

StanleyTheManly 5 hours ago

I like Tulsi. She seems like a genuine person with integrity that really cares about the country. BUT I disagree with her on quite a few issues. Maybe she'll come around.

littlewing 7 hours ago

The steal was sealed when the Supreme Court refused to hear the Texas case.

Greasy John Roberts wrecked America.

Max21c 7 hours ago

The steal was sealed when the Supreme Court refused to hear the Texas case.

True.

Vichy John Roberts went full Quisling and brought back Jim Crow laws. The Supreme Court endorsed election fraud, supported the coup d'etat, forced Trump from power, helped usher in a new era for the banana republic of Jim Crow laws...

phillyla 7 hours ago

John Roberts is compromised 8 ways to Sunday. Trump should have had him impeached and removed from the bench

El Chapo Read 7 hours ago

If you thought Trump was surrounded by Red Sea Pedestrians with an agenda, research the ethno-religious background of Biden's cabinet picks.

Shalom!

SassyPants 7 hours ago

Every administration is. Trumps son in law and advisor is as well. Please see the entire picture for a change.

snatchpounder PREMIUM 7 hours ago

How about closing all military bases overseas and dismantling the MIC and oh **** it an old demented neocon is playing president for a few months, scratch that.

rastanarchocapitalist 7 hours ago

The crack up boom of the FRNs may force that one day

snatchpounder PREMIUM 7 hours ago

I think it'll happen sooner rather than later, the chances are good based on the demented old pedophile being selected president and his retards at the fed.

rastanarchocapitalist 4 hours ago

In the long run, that might be a good thing if we return to honest money but you can be sure they'll try to kick the can for another 50 years with some form of new fiat or erasing a couple of zeroes of our current notes.

Hopefully the masses will just say know but I wouldn't put much faith in that.

RedNemesis 6 hours ago

Parents, do not let your smart, winning kids into the armed services. The MIC will grind them out with PTSD, brain injuries, and lost limbs. There is no 'patriotism' or allegience to the Deep State.

Why-Am-I-Banned 6 hours ago

Maybe the best thing that could happen to free us all finally is an all out war with Russia, we aren't going to see a revolution to get rid of the corruption the population is lazy and scared of doing without.

Maybe forced into mutual assured destruction is truly the only way to get rid of the deep state...

Russia lost approx 250 million via communism over decades, maybe we need to just swallow the poison pill and get it over with.

Not all of us will die, and definately no one is going to listen to the deep state leaders after the dust clears...

Max21c 6 hours ago (Edited)

Maybe the best thing that could happen to free us all finally is an all out war with Russia..

Maybe we should instead just launch a sneak attack on Alpha Centauri instead. Skip the small fry like Russia and China. In a few generations we shall know whether our Earthling space torpedoes hit Alpha Centauri. This of course should be debated by the people and approved by a plebiscite per ballot referendums. Then the space war bill sent to the Earthlings Politburo for their approval. It'll take around a decade or more to design and build the space torpedoes... then 100 years plus for travel time and the same to get the data back from the mothership...

Plus we can have both a Cold War and a Hot War with Alpha Centauri... under the leadership of an Earthling appointed or elected by the Earthlings Council and elevated to the rank of Don Quixote with the accompany title of Primal inter Pares

We just need more right thinking smart people to join the cult and become enlightened to the prospects of a new 100 years war with other planets...and maybe some small wars with planetoids...asteroids and comets...

We can establish of house of OverLords composed of only the best Astrologers to help pick out which planets to attack & destroy...based upon whether they have offended our star charts or the zodiac calls for war... In addition we can establish a lower house of UnderLords composed of mad scientists and Generalissimos and crazy Spy Chiefs... and maybe some nutty press types from the official media and puppet press to lead us in the Two Minutes Hate against the Alpha Centauri folks, the space peoples, and the flying saucer people...

Maghreb2 5 hours ago

CIA already had plans for all this under the Stargate Program. After Ike's treaty with various alien species the MIC began its descent into madness and universal conquest.

surroundedbyijits 6 hours ago

A war like that might "free" you, because the Russians will kick your ***.

balz 7 hours ago

Each time I see this "Office of the President Elect" picture thing, I get nauseous.

Fake office for a fake president who wasn't elected in the first place.

BLOTTO 8 hours ago

Like nothing happened back here at home.

Max21c 6 hours ago

Blinken may prove out to be more slick and savy than Dumbo Pompeo the flying cartoon elephant but he's still a fawking neanderthal and a ******. Maybe an elite ****** but he's still a ******. Blind, deaf, and dumb is still blind, deaf, and dumb even with all the powers of the secret police at their disposal.

Ms No PREMIUM 7 hours ago

Rand is sick too. He goes on about how these things are bad specifically because they strengthened Iran? How about liberty crushing mass murder?

"Sen. Paul said the administration of former President Barack Obama spent $250 million (USD) on training 60 rebels [as part of the DoD side; the CIA program was much more expansive], which he said was a waste of money."

So your mad they steal money while creating terrorists? Or are you mad that they don't tell you what they do with the rest? They abduct children from war zones to make them. Maybe the indoctrination and rape children's homes are expensive. They have screwed the entire planet.

There is something wrong with him too. He is another limited hangout

silverlinings00 7 hours ago

He's all bark no bite like Elizabeth Warren. Trotted out to show a feigning resistance.

Insert farm animal here 4 hours ago

Poor Rand is going to have a tough and lonely battle over the next few years. Let's wish him well, he'll be going it alone for sure.

the_pencil 2 hours ago

It seems odd that no one has allied themselves with him in the same manner as McCain & Graham.

Pareto 6 hours ago

Another life long bureaucrat talking about his resume. And fails to answer a simple question. Woop there it is. That's why they hated Trump. Because somebody off the street had better answers than 25 years of experience.

bikepathwalkerjogger 5 hours ago

Every single time!! --

Blinken was born on April 16, 1962, in Yonkers, New York , to Jewish parents, Judith (Frehm) and Donald M. Blinken , the former United States Ambassador to Hungary . [1] [2] [3] His maternal grandparents were Hungarian ****. [4] Blinken's uncle, Alan Blinken , served as the American ambassador to Belgium

Garciathinksso 5 hours ago

Rand Paul, one of the few good ones left. Good Luck with Biden and his war hawks!

NumbNuts 6 hours ago

These same people are attempting a regime change in the United States too. From Freedom to Fascism.

Helg Saracen 6 hours ago

The Americans lost perspectives and actually real freedom when Woodrow Wilson sold US to international banksters in 1913, now this scam just ends and a new scam begins. You haven't figured it out yet. By the way, fascism is Italian National Socialism. No offense.

frank further 6 hours ago

Then what was German National Socialism, if not fascism?

/

/

BluCapitalist PREMIUM 6 hours ago (Edited)

They are not attempting. They have done it. They have perfected their craft over the last 70 years in other countries and they brought it home to keep their criminal organization going.

urhotdogs 6 hours ago remove link

They didn't attempt, they did it! Took a little over 4 years but had to stoop to massive election fraud and changing state laws on the fly. It was coordinated throughout all levels of government down to states and courts and SCOTUS.

bunkers 5 hours ago

Communism

bunkers 5 hours ago

Maybe not.

WhiteHose 6 hours ago

Russia Russia Russia! They never stop! BTW, wheres scumbag Hunter?

starman99 7 hours ago

(((Anthony Blinken)))

rkb100100 7 hours ago

Yea we know the cabinet is full of heeb's.

brown_hornet 7 hours ago

Is he in the boat with Winken and Nod?

GatorMcClusky 7 hours ago

Good one.

Mount Massive 7 hours ago (Edited)

There is a reason Russia has spent the last 2 months ramping up testing of its mil hardware including hyper-vel ICBM's and SLBM's. - Xiden

SelectedNotElectedBiden 7 hours ago

Rand will be the only Senator to give the Dems a hard time. Sad since it should be payback for EVERY Republican Senator.

freakscene 7 hours ago

Cruz will be fun to watch too. They excel being outnumbered.

Ms No PREMIUM 7 hours ago

If they wanted Rand out of that spot he would have been gone a long time ago.

Bob Lidd 5 hours ago

Does anyone think the US policy in the middle east will change with 10 of biden's

appointees being jewish .......??

The "greater israel" will continue no matter the cost to the American tax cattle.......

((((blinken))) ..........

ReadyForHillary 7 hours ago

The neocons are back!

Max21c 7 hours ago

The neocons are back!

Does not matter. They could not win before and they shall not win now. They're ineffective, inept, and incompetent. They won't be able to fix the messes and disasters they've created for themselves. At best they might be able to sick the secret police on a few people at home and drop some bombs or missiles abroad. But for the most part it's some more of the same. Evil is as evil does. They're not going to be able to work themselves out of the fix they've got themselves into or figure it out. They're toast. They're bad people and they're toast. Washingtonians may have absolute power but they've had absolute power all along...and they still can't fix the disasters they've caused.

Northern Exposure 6 hours ago (Edited)

Oh thank God!

If we're not looking for a new pointless war to start or jumping into an existing one then this isn't the America that I know and love!

</sarc>

karzai_luver 7 hours ago

Where is the BUFFALOBILL dude storming the Senate to drag this blinken criminal scum out and do justice for his wanton murder of thousands?

Shut down this freak show.

I would rather have BUFFALOBILL and his idiots running the place than these feckless people's representatives.

Tony , have you learned your lesson?

Senator - screw you and your people I will think it over.

Alexander 7 hours ago

Silence republicans! Yes we stole the election using widespread mail in ballots, yes your state governments changed the rules to allow us to count these mail in ballots more quickly, yes there were far more votes in this election than any other ever. ANDDDD... NO we will not look into the validity of this election becuase muh capital rioting grandma threatened sweet little socialist AOC.

Now give us your children to fight a war in syria.

artless 7 hours ago

Barack Obama. Neocon to the core. Biden is no different. Gonna do us some "liberating" again. And from the left there will be silence as thousands of poor, short brown people are killed as "collateral damage".

Welcome back America to what you do the best. Destroy lives. Any over/under on how many days it takes Biden to start killing folks and hence become a war criminal like pretty much all his predecessors? I might like a piece of that action.

SassyPants 7 hours ago

Republicans are neocons, democrats are neoliberal. You're basically right, just left out half the problem.

pods 7 hours ago

Can't bitch about foreign actions in our elections when we pick other governments.

Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago

Pick ???? Surely you jest !

pods 7 hours ago

We choose sides right?

We picked the CIA stooge in Venezuela.

Not sure about your question.

Maybe "kinetically pick" would be better?

Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago

Sorry, I didn't read your post properly. I didn't see "other" governments.

rwe2late 7 hours ago

you either forgot the sarc tag

or failed to notice such as V. Nuland hand-picking leadership in Ukraine,

or the Trump picking of Guiado for Venezuela.

Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago

Poor eye sight is my best and only excuse.

SelectedNotElectedBiden 7 hours ago

Where is Hunter?

Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago

The Big Guy made him the Advance Minister of Foreign Extortion.

headslapper 7 hours ago

The faces change but the song remains the same. What a waste of energy this government is. Resources thrown down the toilet to make the Ruling class more wealthy. Why do we even pay attention. We all need to have a look in the mirror. Myself included of course.

Armed Resistance 7 hours ago

So now that you've looked in the mirror, what are you going to do about it? Send a strongly-worded letter? Or are you ready to actually step up. As morally wrong and demented as the radical left is, at least you have to admire them in the sense they actually step up to the plate to get sh!t done. It's immoral, but effective.

Canadian Dirtlump 7 hours ago

Lest we forget the same bearded butchers that Chris Stevens flew into ben gazi with (al Quaeda inter alia aligned ) who were funded and trained by the West were the same ones who flew from ben gazi to the incirlik nato base to try to do the same thing in syria.

The only reason it didn't work was because of the SAA, Hezbollah and of course the ultimate backstop Russia. I'm thankful for this.

mikka 7 hours ago

Imagine Russian or Chinese parliament publicly debating regime change in USA.

Uncle_Cuddles 7 hours ago (Edited)

Debating? China has ALREADY done it here.

joew8989 7 hours ago

Rand will continue to fight the good fight, when you live a life based on principal, that's what you do. We will always need more people like him. That's what built this country, not the parasites at the helm now.

ItsTooHotForThis 6 hours ago

Paul voted to confirm the electors. His challenge to the new Sec. of State means nothing.

Garciathinksso 5 hours ago

his argument was based on State's right issue, in case you care

bunkers 5 hours ago

It doesn't matter WHY, he voted with traitors, only, that he did.

SillyTheEnemy 6 hours ago (Edited)

This is literally the only guy we have in the senate who even remotely gives a ****. Yet the amount of **** that is going to happen to us when biden heats up the war in Syria is immeasurable. F*ck me

hardright 6 hours ago

Rand Paul is wasting his time.

If he wants to make a difference he should be lobbying Russia to send more troops into Syria.

surroundedbyijits 6 hours ago

And arranging imports of the Russian vaccine. Less likely to kill you and more effective than the only 45% effective Pfizer ****.

BluCapitalist PREMIUM 6 hours ago

This guys eyes look exactly like the vampires in the movie 30 days of night. Am I in a simulation? Why do these people actually look like fictional villains? I mean Whitmer, Newsom, this new fat, unhealthy, mentally ill assistant "health secretary"? Did I do something really wrong? Am I in hell and don't know it? No. I am here on earth and psychopaths are real and evil is real.

duckandcover 1 hour ago

they're just a little scared and overwhelmed. You might be too

WhiteHose 7 hours ago

Look at this Blinken twit! F you pal! And....wheres HUnter??? Diddling his brothers minor niece? Again? Still?

0h 7 hours ago

2021-01-21 If you go here https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ you can send an email. I just sent: "Joe, you know he won."

LorDampNuts 7 hours ago

I know you are an idiot.

Misesmissesme 7 hours ago

First Ron and now Rand. I think the club just lets them in as the token Don Quixote. They have been the only voices of reason for the last 25 years or so, but they are only tilting at windmills. Nothing is going to change until something forces them to change. The war mongering and corruption will just roll right along while the MIC and congress get richer by the minute.

The unrelenting droning of brown people in foreign lands that are ill-equipped to fight back will commence in 3,2,1...

SassyPants 7 hours ago

Leaving the Republican Party would be the first best step.

ejmoosa 7 hours ago (Edited)

We put too much on one man and one man alone to change things.

Faced with judges and a House and A Senate against him the task before Trump was Herculean.

Add to that 2/5ths of the states with governors also against Trump and it's even worse.

What you need to do is get involved in your local politics and take control back of your Cities and County Commissions, as well as your state governments.

Had Trump held control of the House and the Senate and we had sitting on Courts people who put the Constitution first FOR the people rather than using it against them, things would be a lot different today.

The choice is yours.

Time to play 7 hours ago

It's good to see that Rand, is starting to think more like his father!

north_hand_demon 7 hours ago

So he's controlled opposition, too?

Lyman54 7 hours ago

Pretty early to be smoking crack isn't it?

otschelnik 7 hours ago

With Cookies Nuland as Blinken's deputy, you've got the neocon family business installed at Foggy Bottom. Robert (Victoria's huband), Fredrick, and Kim each with their own pro-war think tank, and a list of supporters which constitute the "A-list" of the USSA's merchants of death. Northrup-Grumman, UTX, Raytheon, Lockheed....

9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago

Winken, Blinken and Nod.

That's the administration we got now.

silverlinings00 8 hours ago

Careful Rand, we wouldn't want you to get another "visit" from a neighbor while you're mowing the lawn.

Pdunne 3 hours ago (Edited)

Biden's biggest Cabinet mistake will ultimately be Blinken.

Like Obama picked H Clinton with disasterous consequences Biden picks Blinken.

JackOliver4 4 hours ago

Rand Paul says " Assad is a terrible person " !!!

Dr Assad is a HERO !!

Rand Paul is either completely misinformed or just another useless politician afraid to speak the TRUTH !

A COWARD !

Hessler 4 hours ago

Assad may be a good person at heart but he is not qualified to run a state. He should be a doctor or something.

JackOliver4 4 hours ago

And Joe Biden is ??

OR Boris Johnstone ??

Helg Saracen 4 hours ago

It is up to the Syrians to decide, not you. You already paid for the genocide of the Syrian Christians in the "fight against the tyrant Assad." I've seen all kinds of idiots and hypocrites, but you are their king.

Hessler 4 hours ago (Edited)

Why did not Assad anticipated the Zionist invasion even though the Snowden document reveled the CIA/Mossad works in the making in 2006 ??

If he did anticipated an invasion why he did not do anything to safeguard his nation and it's people ?

Why every men, women and child capable to lift and shoot was not given and an ordinance and proper training ?? Israel has that. Why can't Syria ?

Syria is a part of Greater Israel. They have been marked for genocide the day Israel was created, what haste did Mr. Assad showed to safeguard his country against their genocidal maniacs psychopaths ??

I will never forgive those who inflicted the terrible atrocities on the children and women and Mr. Assad has a blame to share.

mark3383 3 hours ago

Assad risked his life and continues to do so every day, trump recently bragged he thought about "taking him out". he's a true hero more than you or I will ever be

steve2241 5 hours ago

Rand Paul doesn't understand. Blinken follows the path that Israel tells him to. Middle East instability benefits Israel. The fomenting of Sunni-Shia conflict kills Israels' enemies, the muslims, without Israel having to lift a finger. Syria is no longer a threat to Israel. Mission accomplished.

Hessler 4 hours ago (Edited)

You're wrong on two accounts. First, there's no ****te/Sunni conflict. What goes in Miiddle East is entire different than what is portrayed here. The locals know but how many of them get interviewed on live TV or get a airtime on a prime time desk ? Those are reserved for the chosenites who spew BS about Arabs and Muslims 24/7.

****te/Sunni fiction as broadcasts in the west is nothing but a ploy to wash the hands of the responsibility and pin the blame on the victims.

Second, Syria is now a bigger threat to Israel than it was in Pre War era. Battle Hardened troops, better organization, training with Russian/Iranian Military, better equipment, talented strategists and when you fight a war like that for that long you tend to grow a bigger set of balls.

JackOliver4 4 hours ago

Syria wants the GOLAN back - I would say they are a threat to ISRAEL !!

Sick Monkey 5 hours ago

Speaking of war didn't Rand Paul vote to accept the illegitimate electors. I like Paul he seems to have a level head but you voted to put the commies in power. Like you said in your speech "there are repercussions". Those who took a stand against this coup must be kept in power as they put skin in the game. That's a rare and precious gift to us the people. In the year 2021 it's as good as gold.

Taffer 5 hours ago

Exactly, hence my previous comment below.

mark3383 3 hours ago

trump lost the election because he allowed million of fraud votes to be counted and never said or did anything about it in the year leading up to it. he 's the one that lost it. no one else

Sinophile 6 hours ago

"War Pigs"----Black Sabbath

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death's construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh lord yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Yeah!

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait 'til their judgement day comes
Yeah!

Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees the war pig's crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
oh lord yeah!

surroundedbyijits 6 hours ago

Circuses. Theatre for the plebes. Not one bit of foreign policy is decided or affected by debates or hearings in the Legislative branch. They're all following a script, some of them act like they aren't in on the joke.

Cloudcrusher 6 hours ago

Psychosis the denial of reality. The military industrial complex is make believe. It's military industrial congress, Congress is in charge they alone are to blame know one else. The sooner everyone starts living in reality the better off will be. You want to win the war of words better start with reality. Or your going to get a another kind of war one where only the strong survive.

Max21c 6 hours ago (Edited)

Watch: Rand Paul Challenges New Secretary Of State Over Regime-Change In Syria

Meaningless inside the beltway for the record drool-n-dribble... Rand Paul just wants to pad his resume, bio, and gain some street cred claims...

TahoeBilly2012 6 hours ago

When do the new wars start? Dems can't wait. Blame them on Covid or something, they will buy it.

vspam 7 hours ago

Biden will go to war with Iran and turned thr ME into a fireball. The mainstream media will cheer him on under the banner of peace and unity

Max21c 7 hours ago

Diablo Corona

Washingtonians are for the most part the spawn of Satan.

DC= the Devil's City... they are evil... Washingtonians are just pure rotten evil...

Washington DC ... Devil's City

Washington DC .... Devil's Crown

The evil ones cannot change their evil ways... they're too far gone... the evil ones cannot be redeemed...

Max21c 7 hours ago

Paul concluded by saying that regime change needs to end because it is involving the US in long wars that are costly to the military.

Too late. Washington is toast. It's just a question of when Washingtonians lose in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, et cetera. They already made a mess of things and they do not have the brains to fix it. Same with their inabilities as regards nonproliferation, North Korea, et cetera. They don't have what it takes to figure it out and work it out and nobody is going to fix it for them because they're assholes regardless of which cabal of Ivy League assholes or ******* elites are in power.

ThomasEdmonds 7 hours ago

Paul isn't supposed to question a Zionist's motives..

aloha-snackbar 7 hours ago

if the youth said no to war and moms said not my child and burned down the recruitment/death centers then war would end...

tunEphsh 7 hours ago

Thank goodness that Paul told the idiot Blicken to lay off regime change. Obama-Biden made a mess of the middle east and caused a refugee crises which is still with us. Instead of being named secretary of state, me thinks Blicken should be put in jail for acts in the Middle East which killed hundreds of thousands of people.

moneybots 7 hours ago

The EU has become a mess because of regime change.

freakscene 7 hours ago

Of course he should. But that would require sanity.

yerfej 7 hours ago (Edited)

Simple way to stop all this insane venturism and nation building it to MANDATE that every aysshole like Blinken have a spouse or child or sibling or relative ON THE GROUND fighting in one of these shyyytholes. These elites love this crap because THEY never pay a personal price, no they have farmed that out to the "commoners" who supply the bodies. The filthy elites are good at leveraging everyone else to fulfill their fantasies while paying no price.

Occams_Razor_Trader 7 hours ago

You've seen the videos of Chelsea and Malia on tour in Kabul? Yeah?

yerfej 7 hours ago

More like Eeyore pontificating from her 20 million dollar penthouse about how she is so not into money, or Maglia dancing around stoned like a "social justice warrior".

Flynt2142ahh 7 hours ago (Edited)

The senate needs more Rand Paul types - and they dont have to be in the Republican party...This would force actual accountability of uniparty folks and these appointees. We need less murkowski and collins

phillyla 7 hours ago

I am going to harp on this

in 2014 Matt Bevin challenged McConnell in a Senate Primary

He was gaining momentum

Then Rand endorsed McConnell

Bevin lost McConnell got re-elected

Bevin was later elected Governor of KY so he had the votes

Rand Paul Broke my heart

Leguran@premium PREMIUM 7 hours ago

We need use the Progressive's signage: He is not my President.

LostMyGunsInABoatingAccident 7 hours ago

You can't necessarily call it an "American" policy.

America lost control of it's policy long ago.....

Mount Massive 7 hours ago

Here comes another war, and this time, it will spiral out of control. In two years or less, I expect the US to be in a major conflict and/or hit at home. Sigh....Leftist

Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago

Pelosi just took Rand aside and said, wait and see what your neighbor on the other side of you has to say about this.

9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago

Rand is in the senate. nancy runs the house. That would be Schumer's job.

Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago

Pelosi seems to be running the show and is the face of the party

WorkingClassMan 8 hours ago (Edited)

Rand Paul, the lone voice of sanity in a rubber-stamp corrupt government.

If you or someone you care about is either in or thinking about joining this nation's military...please don't. Let these antiwhites fight their own wars. They hate you and don't trust you because you're White and they hate you owning guns, but they'll put a gun in your hand and point you at their and Isn'treal's enemies without hesitation.

fudge punch 8 hours ago

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

AVmaster 3 hours ago

"Regime change in the Middle East has led to chaos, instability and more terrorism,"

Uhhh, yea...

... Thats what they WANTED!

Duh!

Scipio Africanuz 3 hours ago

Thank you Senator Paul..

For your candor..

The challenge of US Foreign Policy, is akin to a heroin addiction. It's bad for the country, but all attempts to cure the country of addiction to imperialism has failed, including our energetic efforts over the years..

Too many people benefit from the ruination of the country as it engages in squandering lives, honor, power, reputation, and treasure, in maintaining a facade of illusory power, at the expense of the true power of the country..

Put simply Senator, at this point, we don't believe any entity on earth can cure the US of the addiction to depravity save nature, which cure is more preferable to that of the Entity whose decision is not subject to appeal..

Now Senator, you may not believe in God Almighty and thus, swat away the simple insight but God does not require your belief to act..

Over His creation..

The only cure, if sense and rationality don't prevail, is exactly what we don't desire to know and why?

Because we've seen it before, applied to different societies with similar mentality over the course of human history and Senator, it's never palatable..

Anyhow, probation is till summer, to allow folks do intensive introspective contemplation, enough to acquire prudent humility and if they don't, well..

Cheers...

Ckierst1 2 hours ago

I believe the Senator is a Christian.

Pdunne 4 hours ago

Blinken is a bald faced liar and is already working with Ms Nuland on more regime changes.

Venezuela and Syria need to get ready for more robust attacks.

Dzerzhhinsky 2 hours ago

Control the oil, you control the world.

the_pencil 2 hours ago

Oil was the cause of every war for the past century.

Posa 4 hours ago

A ridiculous exchange. Sen Paul seems to take at face value the Liberal-NeoCon claim that Regime Change is good-intentioned attempt to democratize the Middle East.

Hardly. Regime Change was always designed to a) install Israeli supremacy in the region ("Operation Clean Break"); and b) secure US Global Uni-polar dominance (the Wolfowitz Doctrine) as part of the Brezezinski "Grand Chessboard". That's the intention... this exchange demonstrates how out of it Rand Paul is; and what a nasty weasel Blinken is.

Ckierst1 2 hours ago

That's not what Sen. Paul said. He doesn't agree with regime change. That's what he said.

PaulDF 5 hours ago

To which the Biden appointee replied, "You know, the thing!"

mark3383 3 hours ago

cmon man!

duckandcover 2 hours ago

do your job!

Taffer 5 hours ago

Rand Paul's opinion and $6 will get him a latte at Starbucks.

Hessler 6 hours ago (Edited)

Foreign policy is never gonna change no matter who's in change because the way system is setup.

The lifestyle (our way of life) pertaining to the western model of civilization (our values) needs unlimited supply of money to be supported. The money that can't be made by legal means, hence the continues war that needs to be maintained overseas while also starting new ones as requirement arise.

And since this is a continues state, so accompanies it continues propaganda, lies, false flags, deception and manipulation of facts and truth. LYING IS IN VERY GENES OF THE WHITE CHRISTIAN WEST. They have been doing it for so long that they have almost mastered the "the art of lying" the zenith of which is to project your own flaws and crimes on to the subjects you carried it out on. One thing you can always be sure of, they will never admit their crimes unless there's no other way. And that they will be accusing their opponents of the same things they would be doing.

War underpins their society, nation and civilization.

steve2241 4 hours ago

The problem is that the U.S. is abusing its position as printer-in-chief of the Reserve Currency of the world. With that fake money, it can intervene in the affairs of nations throughout the world - a capability that no other country enjoys. Take away its reserve currency and watch how quickly middle eastern strife ends - and the nation of Israel, too.

apparently 6 hours ago

will the left and their mindless supporters be comforted to know that their guy promotes these "endless wars"? will they be happy to sacrifice their sons and daughters for desert real-estate whose oil we don't want?

Paul was being way too polite. He should simply say: "I'm not voting to confirm this war monger" then get up and leave the room.

Hessler 6 hours ago

If you think it's about the oil, you really don't understand the world you inhabit.

apparently 6 hours ago (Edited)

I don't think it's about oil but I'm struggling to name a single US interest in sand-wars. maybe you can? yes, yes, military/industrial complex, blah, blah, but why the middle east? please enlighten us.

Hessler 5 hours ago (Edited)

It's to rebuild the world in the image of the west and Islam is the biggest hampering in the way. Like other religions, it can't be altered or dominated so the only way is to completely destroy it. This is why Israel was setup by the Anglos at a strategic location in the heart of the Arab world to engage them into perpetual war and destroy them.

That's about it.

And whenever a war on a civilization is waged, there are always monetary benefits. Oil, MIC, Political donations come into play here. But that's just a sideshow. And with a civilization as big as Islamic, benefits also tend to be massive.

apparently 5 hours ago

no evidence that the arab spring was against islam. why aren't we doing regime change in indonesia? why did joe just reverse the Muslim travel ban?

do you understand anything about the world you live in?

Hessler 5 hours ago (Edited)

A lot actually. We are concentrating on the core of the Islamic civilization for when the core collapses, the outer layers collapses with it. It's the core that holds the entire thing together, hence we concentrate on Middle East and not on Indonesia.

Arab spring was to sow chaos and turmoil. By the way of deception.....Jewish moto

It is not that Israel establishes America's foreign policy. It is that the basic world view produced by WASP culture is naturally aligned with Jewish thought in most ways, especially in terms of Empire: ruling the world.

InflammatoryResponse 5 hours ago

it was not a muslim travel ban. it was a ban on places that didn't have adequate infrastructure to verify who was travling.

duckandcover 1 hour ago

where is the last place, core or not core, that Islam religion and Muslim culture has been eradicated by any means? Yugoslavia? India? Not seeing it. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Your argument does not hold.

starman99 5 hours ago

(((THEM)))

Groucho 5 hours ago

No of course not. Nothing to do with what George Kennan called "the greatest strategic material prize in world history".

Hessler 5 hours ago

And whenever a war on a civilization is waged, there are always monetary benefits. Oil, MIC, Political donations come into play here. But that's just a sideshow. And with a civilization as big as Islamic, benefits also tend to be massive.

apparently 2 hours ago

by now, we should be weary (and wary) of "it's all a sideshow" arguments.

it simply asserts greater knowledge (never disclosed) and terminates the thread.

as for the grand anti-islam plan... how's that going in western europe?

Groucho 5 hours ago

No of course not. Nothing to do with what George Kennan called "the greatest strategic material prize in world history".

JackOliver4 4 hours ago

It is ALWAYS about the OIL - thats why IRAN and VENEZUELA are being weakened by crippling sanctions !!

THAT"S how the ZIO/US does it - SANCTIONS first - WAR 2nd !

Doesn't work anymore since RUSSIA stepped in !

nocturnal66 7 hours ago

Just ask if this 100 year plus war is to create "greater Israel" . It all documented. Enough already with the lies. Just admit it.

Occams_Razor_Trader 7 hours ago

WWE- fake fights have begun again in earnest .....................

Paul Ryan could fake a punch as good as John Boehner ............

Max21c 7 hours ago (Edited)

"Maybe we shouldn't be 'choosing' governments in the Middle East," Paul continued.

The Washington establishment imposed their chosen ruler Joe Schmo Biden to rule over America.

jesus_loves_you 7 hours ago

H a n g t h e m a l l

Aquamaster 7 hours ago

Should we have a contest to see who can pick the first country Biden will send troops to?

Lyman54 7 hours ago

DC !

SERReal1 7 hours ago

You win!

WTFUD 7 hours ago

Blinken Heck , don't worry ya'll, Nuland (Nudelman's) back to steady the ship with a fab new chocolate chip cookie recipe that the terrorists will adore.

littlewing 7 hours ago

And they aren't even trying to hide it.

fzrkid 7 hours ago

Rand can say whatever he wants and it changes NOTHING

Armed Resistance 7 hours ago

Who is still planning on filing taxes? At the very least, turn your back on the system-right? Upvote for not filing, downvote for I just want to avoid conflict-I'm filing.

brown_hornet 7 hours ago

But, we are getting a return.

No paying next year though.

rwe2late 7 hours ago (Edited)

Doesn't matter if it is a disaster for the peoples invaded and for domestic liberty in the USA.

It's considered "worth it" by those in power

to protect the financial supremacy of the dollar,

promote the regional military supremacy of Israel,

and continue the war profiteering of the MIC.

north_hand_demon 7 hours ago

So what? Your cushy lifestyle and mine is a direct result of hegemony. Get over it.

rwe2late 7 hours ago (Edited)

Celebration of a "cushy lifestyle" gained by plunder and murder is not for everyone.

To revel in it, one requires a special insensibility.

DonGenaro 7 hours ago (Edited)

This fence-sitter did virtually NOTHING to stop the steal.
Now he's whining about having to lie in bed his cowardice helped make.
Many MORE thousands will soon be massacred by these war-mad psychopaths.
This POS is DEAD TO ME.

littlewing 7 hours ago

Rand is smart, he knew no matter what Xiden was going to be installed.

HominyTwin 7 hours ago

He's smart. A bunch of idiots, after a good breakfast at IHOP, were herded into the capital by govt informants to break stuff for the cameras, and then herded right back out in time for a hearty dinner at Golden Corral. They did sacrifice their lunch for exactly nothing, though. Congrats. He stayed away from all that nonsense.

9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago

That's about the size of it, in retrospect.

zulu127 7 hours ago

regime change needs to end because it is involving the US in long wars that are costly to the military.

Wrong! "regime change needs to continue because it is involving the US in wars that are profitable to the military.

ableman28 4 hours ago

Part of the problems is that neither the democrats or republicans are primarily in favor of DEMOCRATIC governments in the middle east. When Egypt FREELY ELECTED the Muslin Brotherhood to power in Egypt the US fell all over itself to help unseat them, using every technique we can.....currency debasement, food aid manipulation, tacit encouragement to strongment (military) that we feel are controllable, etc. etc.

The US was never in favor of one man one vote in South Africa during apartheid and explained this convenient hypocrisy as an unfortunate necessity.

Supporting regime change is entirely, ENTIRELY, different than supporting democracy. The US has a very very very long history of supporting the former and claiming it was the latter when in fact it wasn't. Democracy means letting the chips fall where they may. In countries whose ruling leadership is oppressive to its people and for which we have a long history of support its very unlikely that any democratic election would bring us new friends. It would, in every case, bring to power people who opposed the old government and by association US.

People playing to the stands here in the US are smart enough to know this. But maintaining the correct political position for domestic consumption also trumps doing the right thing in anywhere else.

International politics is a pure expression of national interest. Our national interest is economic outside the US. That part of socialist or marxist theory is spot on.

Hessler 4 hours ago

Insightful, thanks!

LooseLee 4 hours ago

'Disaster' is the MO, Rand. Please, get real or get lost.

Musum 5 hours ago

Senator Rand Paul recently challenged the new Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken on his history of pushing regime change in the Middle East and North Africa

Pointless and hopeless. The only way to end America's endless wars is to deal with the guys in small hats.

Hessler 5 hours ago

Small hats were employed by the English speaking protestants for their ulterior motives, world view, global ambitions which were in alignment with the chosenites.

You can't solve the Jewish problem without solving the problem of western civilization.

Fire_Hog 5 hours ago

The real problems are the 3 letter intelligence agencies, not religion.

Musum 4 hours ago

Are you naive or misdirecting? Offices are occupied by people.

train rider 6 hours ago

Deep thinking and reflection...what about our military personnel and contractors...why are we putting them in danger with these interventionist kockamamie screw balls coming up with these strategies...meanwhile innocent civilians keep getting maimed and killed.

We have no business over there, let the countries decide for themselves what they want etc. we need energy idependence...greta can go fly a kite...keep reducing emissions with tech we have.

nocturnal66 6 hours ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinon_Plan

LorDampNuts 7 hours ago

It is very sad that paul's neighbor does not have a more lethal right hook.

TheZeitgeist 7 hours ago

Sen. Paul began his argument by questioning Blinken's role in the NATO intervention of Libya in 2001

So...only off by a decade. I think ZeroHedge drops these snafus into the copy just to see if anyone actually reads the stuff.

freakscene 7 hours ago (Edited)

Its skimming material at best. Reading all the way through went out the window when ZH become a CNN sponsor.

:)

littlewing 7 hours ago

When Ron Paul was calling out Bernanke you would see they were alone in the room.

There is no debate, its all a fraud. Saw the vote on election theft and it was their aides voting for them.

StanleyTheManly 7 hours ago

Give me a break, Rand Paul. YOU KNOWINGLY voted for this by not standing for our elected President.

You're a traitor. Shut up and sit down.

TRON Paul 7 hours ago

PRESIDENT PAUL!

PRESIDENT PAUL!

PRESIDENT PAUL!

wmbz 7 hours ago

War is a business, and "we" are big business. Matter no how many completely innocent people get blown away. What matters are the spoils. We were warned over and over again about the MIC yet here we are.

Profit always wins over peace, no money in it.

totally unwise 7 hours ago

Today, wars aren't meant to be won

they're meant to bring chaos

Chaos

Calling Maxwell Smart and agent 99

Where's that shoe phone ?

freakscene 7 hours ago

I guess, good for Rand? Thats about all he can do.

Dog Will Hunting 7 hours ago

Oh, that Rand Paul. I wondered where he was hiding this whole time peels back Trump's saggy *** cheeks to find the good doctor

in_xanadu_did_kubla_khan 8 hours ago

Achoo: Hey, Blinkin

Blinkin: Did you say Abe Lincoln?

Achoo: No! I said, HEY, BLINKIN!

createnewaccount 8 hours ago

If we can't have Giant Meteor maybe a global helter skelter of 'regime change' will be a good consolation prize.

Lt. Frank Drebin 8 hours ago

I voted for Giant Meteor, but the Dominion voting machines switched my vote to turd sandwich.

Holding My Breath 7 hours ago

A big upvote for sarcasm (or is it utter stupidity?)

createnewaccount 4 hours ago

Uh oh!

https://www.livescience.com/13738-trouble-detecting-sarcasm-dementia-sign.html

Herdee 7 hours ago

The Military/Industrial Complex needs endless foreign wars and imaginary enemies so that the money won't be spent at home helping Americans. Such as infrastructure projects. The goal from within is to destroy the American middle class and turn the United States into a third world country. Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump all served the crooks.

littlewing 7 hours ago

Uh then why didn't Trump start wars?

Bear 11 minutes ago

Like father like son ... insight and wisdom

Arizona1234 26 minutes ago

China Joe and the mentally ill Marxist that run his crap show already started a multi Trillion dollar endless war. The War on the weather they call Climate Crisis. It's the one where we loose and wind up praying to find the small potato to make it through the day, and then hope to find a few dry sticks for the fire to cook it. Where you will have to make the small fire at night so that mentally ill #AOC carbon police can't easily see the smoke.

Maltheus 1 hour ago

It's taken less than 24 hours, after Biden's inauguration, for ISIS to magically make an appearance again. They're not even pretending anymore.

Tom Angle 2 hours ago

I think I had heard all I want to hear from Rand Paul after.

boattrash 2 hours ago

Gawdamit Rand, we like you and everything, but the Coup you should be focused on is HERE, even if it means you should spit in your hands, hoist the black flag and start slittin throats.

Sincerely,

The American People

Dzerzhhinsky 3 hours ago

If the US can steal Syria, it means it will be able to build a pipeline, steal Iranian gas and sell it to Europe.
The US needs something to give its financiers and controlling energy supplies to Europe would go a long way to paying off the debt.

learnofjesuits 4 hours ago

vatican's wars

Hessler 3 hours ago

Puritans burred the Vatican so deep underground that if even the nuke detonates there, if won't make a shockwave on the ground

TemporarySecurity 4 hours ago

Perfectly fine for anybody in the executive to lie through their teeth.

Say one thing in the hearing and do what they always do once confirmed. Our post Constitutional government needs to fail.

tangent 4 hours ago

Ran Paul's ability to talk as if they are not simply being outright bribed for their positions is impressive. I suppose the new CCP SoS will take the positions of the CCP, which is the one paying him the most money for those positions.

richnhappy 4 hours ago

Just read confessions of an economic hit man, by john perkins, all you need to know. The playbook sounds like what china is doing in the us now, distract the masses with the middle east ****show.

Seditious 4 hours ago

We have had just one president so far this century that has not used American blood and treasure to destroy a nation. He was a rogue billionaire that got taken out by every other billionaire that wanted to stay in the club. The American people are going to have to figure out that they will have better results solving this nations problems at the Bezos, Walton, Zuckerberg and Dorsey homes than they will going to the Capitol in Washington DC.

The Child sacrifice murders committed by these people don't occur in some hidden room at a pizza parlor. They occur on public roads under semitrailers marked Amazon Prime and Walmart that wouldn't be allowed on the roads of nations that we used to call the third world.

I suppose the only big question is, who's child dies tomorrow?

Maghreb2 4 hours ago

You could look it at that way. I'd say he was a hairs breadth from starting world war III with Iran and China and was removed by a stroke of bad luck from Wuhan and the old establishment asserting their authority through corruption.

Trump might be remembered fondly for actually lowering the number of small conflicts but the U.S war machine is bigger than any one president and his closeness to Israel show what camp he was in. Only God or a few insiders can really judge what his ultimate aim was but he wasn't the man who pulled the first shot of the first world war. Damn well loaded the gun and gave it to the Israelis in my opinion.

Seditious 4 hours ago

During Obama's time in office we had a year in which the United States dropped bombs in more nations than they did in any single year during WW2.

Bezos, Walton's and others spill our blood domestically. Biden will spill our blood overseas to keep some other billionaires happy.

Maghreb2 5 hours ago (Edited)

I'll play devils advocate even though I like the guy. His father thought things like that were a good idea as an alternative to imperial invasion.

steve2241 4 hours ago

Based on your comment, I take it you REALLY like Blinken! Yes?

Fire_Hog 5 hours ago

The same thing happened in Egypt when Obama pushed for and got quick elections when the only organization that could field candidates was the Muslim Brotherhood. The result was very predictable.

The Brotherhood took over and the result was so bad that the people finally rebelled against Morsi's government. This lead to Al Sisi who was better than Morsi. I question whether the situation improved by letting the Muslim Brotherhood take control.

Maghreb2 4 hours ago

People? Thought that was the military?

WatchnSee 5 hours ago

"regime change doesn't work" "Maybe we shouldn't be 'choosing' governments in the Middle East,".... nor in the USA. Time will tell.

Hessler 6 hours ago (Edited)

Don't worry Mr. Paul, these white men in the suits are the leaders of the terrorists groups. It's hardcoded in their genes, they don't know any other way of earning a living.

Mancolo 6 hours ago

Lessons? I don't need your stinking lessons. I've got friends to pay off.

Pvt Joker PREMIUM 7 hours ago

I like the US policy of Perma War and Regime change. The more troops over there , the less troops over here.

Scornd 7 hours ago

I dont understand the complaints.

You voted for this.

MCDirtMigger 6 hours ago

By 'you', do you mean Dominion?

littlewing 7 hours ago

District of Criminals

that's all they are.

I am bailing out forever now.

Just looking at them and their actions is self harm.

Max21c 7 hours ago (Edited)

District of Criminals

Diablo Corona

Washingtonians are for the most part the spawn of Satan.

DC= the Devil's City... they are evil... Washingtonians are just pure rotten evil...

Washington DC ... Devil's City

Washington DC .... Devil's Crown

The evil ones cannot change their evil ways... they're too far gone... the evil ones cannot be redeemed...

LorDampNuts 7 hours ago

Keep sending your donations to Stop the Steal, Trump has a plan and will be sworn in by April when it warms up. Free Chumptard hat with every $100 donation.

Occams_Razor_Trader 7 hours ago

I'd donate a hunny for you to flush your head in a toilet ...............

foxenburg 7 hours ago

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Rammbock 7 hours ago

Republicans are great actors

Kotwica 44 7 hours ago

This guy speaks truth, but, no one gives a flying fu<k.

Ajax_USB_Port_Repair_Service_ 7 hours ago

Attention Secret Police: We've got one for you!

freedommusic 7 hours ago (Edited)

Whatever these folks say is irrelevant. They are all sitting on foreign soil. The UNITED STATES CORPORATION is a foreign Municipal entity owned by China claimed in the recent bankruptcy settlement. POTUS said when he was leaving. Go ahead, take it. The buildings, the chairs, statues, it's all yours . Anyone who steps outside of that foreign jurisdiction will be entering American soil and subject to the Laws of the United States Constitutional Republic and prosecuted for treason and sedition.

DC is now a Chinese embassy.

I wonder how much food they have stocked up in there? I would presume the military would uphold a blockade and prevent the exchange of trade from occurring into a surrounded hostile territory of the enemy.

YOU WANT IT

YOU GOT IT

HAVE A NICE DAY

SERReal1 7 hours ago

Where was Rand in calling out the election fraud?

Now he is acting all tough again on the deep state creatures.

9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago (Edited)

He wants to stay in office. No way is going to touch the third rail. None of them will.

rkb100100 7 hours ago

This is part of a Punch and Judy show put on for retards.

leodogma1 7 hours ago

And yet not one peep of this Quislings tie's to the Chinese Communist party of Evil !

Southern Discomfort 7 hours ago

I'm sure it will be blamed on an action taken by Trump and the only cure will be intervention. Maybe Joetard can set up a new cabinet level position to seek out opportunities for new wars.

More-Cowbell 8 hours ago

The show must go on. As if these asz clowns ( all of them ) matter.

north_hand_demon 8 hours ago

Whatever. Your cushy lifestyle, and mine, exists because we're the dominant imperial power on the planet. Might makes right. Paul knows it too; this is just virtue signaling.

artless 7 hours ago (Edited)

And in your statement lies the real problem with the vast majority of people in this country.

Yeah I edited the lame ad hom line after I read a few comments. But perhaps it is long due that rather than simply accept things as the way they are and calling any opposition to it the thoughts of a ten year old, it might be high time to actually try to make a change in how people think and ultimately behave.

LooseLee 4 hours ago

Said like a card-carrying Zio.

[Jan 19, 2021] Would you say that Nietzsche was one of the few who tried to embrace nihilism fully? He certainly lost his marbles

Jan 19, 2021 | off-guardian.org

Jan 17, 2021 9:18 AM

I do not rate Dostoyevsky very highly. In some ways he is a poster boy for the efficacy of state repression. He was involved in a liberal circle under the highly repressive Nicholas I, arrested, saw some of his colleagues subjected to mock execution and was sent to Siberia. Yet in his later writings it was political radicals he denounced. Perhaps he had been intimidated into surrendering to the Tsarist state, and denouncing nihilism was a safe option in Tsarist Russia. No problems with censorship there.
Tsarist Russia had quite a few poachers turned gamekeepers. For example, the prosecutor in the case of the conspiracy in which Lenin's older brother was involved in 1886-7 had himself been a student radical in the 1860s and was imprisoned for a short time. Released, he was able to resume his law studies, made his peace with the system and eventually became a state prosecutor. He seems however to have had a breakdown towards the end of the case and was not around for the sentencing – inevitably some people were going to be sentenced to death and perhaps the stress of prosecuting student radicals when he had once been one himself got to him. 2 -4 Reply


Moneycircus , Jan 17, 2021 10:07 AM Reply to Waldorf

"denouncing nihilism was a safe option"

Is there any other option?

Waldorf , Jan 17, 2021 11:13 AM Reply to Moneycircus

Some European writers and intellectuals towards the end of the century actually embraced it to one degree or another, so yes, there were options. He could also have just remained silent on the subject. It is questionable whether nihilists had ever done anything to Dostoyevsky, whereas the state of Nicholas I put quite a crimp into his life. Yet bitterness towards the authorities is not readily apparent in his works (it might not have got past the censor anyway). Like I say, a poster boy for the efficacy of state repression.

Waldorf , Jan 17, 2021 11:25 AM Reply to Waldorf

Oscar Wilde wrote a play in 1880, entitled Vera; Or The Nihilists. It was not one of his successes but he was clearly somewhat sympathetic to them. In due course the state would come crashing down on his neck.

George Mc , Jan 17, 2021 1:40 PM Reply to Waldorf

Would you say that Nietzsche was one of the few who tried to embrace nihilism fully? He certainly lost his marbles. Perhaps it was the strain of trying to "create new values"? I figure it like this: to create is to choose from various possibilities. But you can only choose if you already have a preference – which implies a value system already within you. It is therefore impossible to create (i.e.. choose) a value system. It would be like Baron Münchhausen lifting himself out the water by pulling his own hair.

Invisible Man , Jan 17, 2021 5:36 PM Reply to George Mc

Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche were both geniuses. They're widely perceived as being straightforward reactionaries, and either lauded or condemned on that basis, but as writers there's a lot of complexity there. With Dostoyevsky, he clearly **wanted** to believe that Russian Christianity, traditional orthodox belief, was enough to regenerate his fallen world. But when he wrote his novel The Idiot, which he wrote as a thought experiment with no idea beforehand how it would end, his "Russian Christ" character, Prince Myshkin, **fails** to regenerate society or provide lasting spiritual salvation for the characters he comes into contact with. The characters descend into tragedy and Myshkin himself goes insane. Dostoyevsky was honest enough to simply let his unfettered imagination lead him where it would, even if it was to conclusions his rational, conscious mind would prefer to reject.

From a critical essay on The Idiot:

http://sites.utoronto.ca/tsq/DS/09/077.shtml

"From one perspective the West's new competition over money is central to Dostoevsky's thematics of personal greed in the novel. Its pursuit helps clarify the motivation and behavior of a wide variety of primary and secondary characters. On a broader level, the materialist definitions of man-in-nature, then circulating in science, carry an unsettling post-Christian despair, and help clarify the apocalyptic symbols many critics see as predominant in The Idiot. The objectification of man, by money or in nature, poses fundamental problems that Dostoevsky seeks to overcome through the influence of his "truly good man." Myshkin, of course, was meant to be a teacher who could lead those languishing in greed or existential despair into a renewed spiritual faith. But Dostoevsky himself admitted that his hero did not fulfill that hope.(2) Myshkin's failure to bring a better alternative to fruition marks what I see as Dostoevsky's inability to resolve modern cultural problems he describes with such artistic honesty and power. In this sense, The Idiot is more a novel of metaphysical definition than of action. Its problems organize character and symbol into a single, bleak, metaphysical statement."

It's a testament to Dostoyevsky's integrity as an artist that he allowed his imagination to guide him and allowed the Russian Christ figure to stand as a tragic failure and not the success he dearly wanted him to be. The novelist and artist in Dostoyevsky seems to be waging a constant battle with the proselytizer and propagandist. And the artist usually wins! That's why his work has lasted.

As for Nietzsche, I don't pretend to know why he went mad, whether the causes were primarily physical or metaphysical. I will say, however, that his first great influence was Schopenhauer. Nietzsche desperately wanted to be like Goethe, saying "yes" to life and taking pleasure in life in all its variety, but I don't think he succeeded. No matter how much he tried to eventually distance himself from the gloomy pessimism of Schopenhauer, to choose Goethe over Schopenhauer, he is always most himself when he is making his darkest, most disquieting observations. His joyful optimism feels forced, his grim cynicism seems deep and genuine.

George Mc , Jan 17, 2021 7:11 PM Reply to Invisible Man

I love both Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. The latter is one of the few philosophical writers who you can honestly call an exhilarating read. (Somebody described Nietzsche's prose style as being like a physical presence on the page.)

I think all of Dostoevsky's novels have that irresistible sense where you feel the author himself doesn't know where he's going. He sets up his premise and has his characters personifying various points of view and then he just "let's them go" to see how they interact and where they end up.

(PS Nietzsche may have died of syphilis.)

Researcher , Jan 17, 2021 7:53 PM Reply to Invisible Man

With regard to Nietzsche, it was most likely mercury. Mercury was used as a treatment for syphilis in those days. An abstract on Nietzsche's dementia diagnosis is below.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17087793/

Dementia and other neurological diseases, even premature death are commonly known to result from mercury poisoning.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Mercury+dementia

Lord only knows what they gave to him while in the Sanitarium. None of it was likely to be health inducing.

Mike Ellwood (Oxon UK) , Jan 17, 2021 11:38 PM Reply to Researcher

I think mercury (because of syphilis) might also explain some of Vincent Van Gogh's mental problems.

SEF , Jan 19, 2021 4:38 PM Reply to Researcher

Perhaps the mercury in vaccines helps to account for today's "mass insanit

[Jan 17, 2021] 'Let the purges begin'

Jan 17, 2021 | www.rt.com

Twitter has banned the sitting president from its platform indefinitely. Facebook and Instagram have banished Trump until at least after Joe Biden's inauguration. After Twitter began cancelling Trump followers, Amazon Web Services, Apple Store, and Google Play cancelled an entire corporation, Twitter competitor Parler . Other social media platforms could face a similar fate at the hands of the leftist authoritarian Big Tech cartel.

Tens of thousands, if not millions, of Trump supporters have either been purged from mainstream social media platforms or have fled in protest. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has recently promised more censorship and purges . Even the libertarian leader of an earlier populist movement, Ron Paul, has faced a Facebook ban (although this was subsequently claimed to be "an error" ). Guilt by association seems to the rule, no matter how distant or strained the association.

The purges extend well beyond social media. Trump has been cancelled by former business associates, including by one of his former financiers, Deutsche Bank . Blacklists of Trump supporters are being compiled. Congress members have called for the resignation of senators and House members who questioned the election results. If they refuse to resign, say the totalitarian wannabes about to seize complete control, they should be removed from office. ABC News contributor Rick Klein called for the " cleansing " of Trump supporters from the political landscape in a now-deleted tweet.

Khanlenin 1 day ago 15 Jan, 2021 11:34 PM

Always been 99.99% vs 0.01%. The 0.01% determine what wars the military will start, the minimum wage, security of employment, how affordable to make health care, the tax system etc even the school curriculum. The freest country with the most controls.
Ronj14848 ceshawn 1 day ago 15 Jan, 2021 07:36 PM
True...the media support the military industrial complex. Their friends own the miltary industrial complex . See who they support politically and avoid them like the plague.

[Jan 15, 2021] American Pravda- Our Disputed Election by Ron Unz

The key reson of the protest, which was later hijacked and used against Trump and his supporters, was disputed election. Navaro report https://navarroreport.com/ suggests that the signs of election fraud committed are very plausible. As Ron Unz said "Given these facts, anyone who continues to deny that the election was stolen from Trump is simply being ridiculous."
If those allegations are true, that makes installation of Biden a coup d'état. The fact that the protest was turned into false flag used to depose and silence Trump does not change that fact.
Notable quotes:
"... The Hunter Biden corruption scandal seemed about as serious as any in modern presidential election history and Biden's official victory margin was just 0.01%. So if the American voters had been allowed to learn the truth, Trump almost certainly would have won the election, quite possibly in an Electoral College landslide. Given these facts, anyone who continues to deny that the election was stolen from Trump is simply being ridiculous. ..."
"... Heated election campaigns have consequences, and this is especially true when all of America's most powerful corporations and ruling elites unite to essentially steal a reelection ..."
"... this confused tableau of chaos and popular anger, which recalls scenes from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention protests, has been portrayed as a "coup attempt" incited by President Trump, and therefore justifying his second impeachment. ..."
"... Expanded mail in voting FRAUD, you mean. Most European countries do not accept voting by mail. Because of fraud issues. ..."
"... This is one more typical coup, CIA installing its chosen presidential puppet ruler. It's a wholly routine occurrence ..."
"... Trump would have won despite the hostility of the media and big tech, and despite electoral corruption in Democrat-controlled big cities, if he had spent the previous 4 years making a good faith effort to implement the policies he ran on in 2016. ..."
"... He ran as a populist, yet ruled as a plutocrat. ..."
"... Candidate Trump promised a non-interventionist foreign policy. President Trump dug us deeper into the Middle East quagmire, intensifying hostilities against Russia, Syria, Yemen and Iran while being cartoonishly subservient to Israel. ..."
"... He ran on an immigration platform written by Jeff Sessions. As president he prioritized the immigration policies of Sheldon Adelson and Jared Kushner – calling for "more immigration than ever before" in his State of the Union address, and lecturing his dumbfounded rally-goers on the need for increased immigration because "my friends in the business world say we need it". ..."
"... Candidate Trump promised to drain the swamp. President Trump pardoned a menagerie of grotesque swamp creatures. ..."
"... Candidate Trump promised to close the carried interest loophole and make Wall Street pay its fair share. President Trump gave massive tax cuts to the very media moguls and tech oligarchs who would subsequently doom his 2020 campaign. ..."
Jan 15, 2021 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

In particular, several of the major swing-states contain large cities -- Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Atlanta -- that are both totally controlled by the Democratic Party and also notoriously corrupt, and various eye-witnesses have suggested that the huge anti-Trump margins they provided may have been heavily "padded" to ensure the candidate's defeat.

Even leaving aside some of these plausible claims, the case for a stolen election seems almost airtight. I don't know or care anything about Dominion voting machines, whether they are controlled by Venezuelan Marxists, Chinese Communists, or Martians. But the most blatant election-theft was accomplished in absolutely plain sight.

Not long before the election, the hard drive of an abandoned laptop owned by Joe Biden's son Hunter revealed a gigantic international corruption scheme, quite possibility involving the candidate himself. But the facts of this enormous political scandal were entirely ignored and boycotted by virtually every mainstream media outlet. And once they story was finally published in the pages of the New York Post , America's oldest newspaper, all links to the Post article and its website were suddenly banned by Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets to ensure that the voters remained ignorant until after they had cast their ballots.

Renowned international journalist Glenn Greenwald was hardly a Trump partisan, but he became outraged that the editors of the Intercept , the $100 million publication he himself had co-founded, refused to allow him to cover that massive media scandal, and he angrily resigned in protest. In effect, America's media and tech giants formed a united front to steal the election and somehow drag the crippled Biden/Harris ticket across the finish line.

The Hunter Biden corruption scandal seemed about as serious as any in modern presidential election history and Biden's official victory margin was just 0.01%. So if the American voters had been allowed to learn the truth, Trump almost certainly would have won the election, quite possibly in an Electoral College landslide. Given these facts, anyone who continues to deny that the election was stolen from Trump is simply being ridiculous.

Heated election campaigns have consequences, and this is especially true when all of America's most powerful corporations and ruling elites unite to essentially steal a reelection from a populist incumbent, hero-worshiped by many tens of millions of Americans. And when despite all that blatant unfairness and theft, the final margin of defeat is just one vote in 7,000, an explosion of popular outrage should only be expected.

Solid estimates appear unavailable, but it seems that hundreds of thousands of grass-roots Trump supporters traveled to our nation's capital to protest against what they regarded as a stolen election, and then peacefully assembled to listen to their hero's speech.

Afterwards, a tiny sliver of this vast multitude of angry individuals -- perhaps less than one in a thousand -- barged their way into the strangely-undefended Capitol building of Congress, took souvenir selfies, livesteamed their antics, and generally played the role of tourist-protesters while the lawmakers they so despised as corrupt mostly fled or hid. These Trumpists and some of their colorful costumes brought to mind the radical Yippies of the late 1960s.

The previous year had seen an unprecedented wave of violent riots, arson, and looting across some 200 American cities, which our entirely corrupt and dishonest media had generally characterized as "mostly peaceful protests." In previous years, angry mobs of organized Democratic activists had repeatedly invaded and occupied the Wisconsin Legislature , sometimes winning praise from the media. But when unarmed Trump supporters now did something similar for a few hours in Washington, they were quickly branded "domestic terrorists" seeking to overthrow our democracy.

A video shows Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed female protester, being shot dead by a security guard as she tried to climb through a window, an incident not dissimilar to the famous Kent State shootings of a 1960s campus protest, but hardly treated by the media in a similar manner.

A couple of other Trump protesters, probably elderly, overweight, or in poor health, died of strokes or heart-attacks during all the excitement, and one Capitol police officer later died as well, allegedly struck in the head with a fire-extinguisher although there has been no solid account of the incident. Yet this confused tableau of chaos and popular anger, which recalls scenes from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention protests, has been portrayed as a "coup attempt" incited by President Trump, and therefore justifying his second impeachment.

Even more importantly, the incoming Biden/Harris Administration may be considering the most sweeping domestic crackdown upon traditional American civil liberties since the Patriot Act was passed in the hurried aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks twenty years ago. This has been justified by the need to suppress "domestic extremism."

Even without any new governmental legislation, a remarkable Internet crackdown has already begun. In an absolutely unprecedented development, the sitting president of the United States -- who had just lost his reelection by 0.01% of the vote -- has been summarily banned by Twitter, Facebook, and all other major social media outlets, preventing him from communicating with his followers, and with many of his leading supporters suffering the same fate.

Famed libertarian Ron Paul criticized Twitter for banning Trump, and he was immediately locked out of his own Facebook page . Parler, a young but rapidly growing Twitter competitor, refused to ban Trump, and was immediately driven off the Internet by a combined attack from Apple, Google, and Amazon, possibly never to return. Our Information Age has entered a truly Orwellian period.

... ... ...


Dumbo , says: January 14, 2021 at 9:38 pm GMT • 20.5 hours ago

Another unprecedented aspect of the election is the change of rules implemented due to COVID. I expected Trump vs. Biden to be the lowest turnout ever. Instead it was the highest. This must be a consequence of expanded mail in voting.

Expanded mail in voting FRAUD, you mean. Most European countries do not accept voting by mail. Because of fraud issues. Anyway, probably in the future we will be able to vote with an app, from the safety of our homes, as we will be locked inside forever due to the "new variations" of Covid.

It will all be safe from fraud, of course, Dorsey and Zuck and Cook and Gates and Brin guarantee.

anon [179] Disclaimer , says: January 14, 2021 at 11:23 pm GMT • 18.7 hours ago

Right. This is one more typical coup, CIA installing its chosen presidential puppet ruler. It's a wholly routine occurrence, although the tactics and staging change a bit:

1. Preemptively quashing the candidacy of Robert Taft
2. Murder of John Kennedy
3. Preemptive murder of candidate Robert Kennedy
4. "Watergate" purge of Richard Nixon
5. Iran-hostage "October surprise" ratfuck of Jimmy Carter
6. Botched murder of Ronald Reagan
7. Suspending the vote count for candidate Al Gore
8. Ballot-stuffing in Ohio to stop John Kerry
9. Multi state ballot-stuffing to purge Donald Trump

By the way, it's a hoot to see the censorship hysteria in CIA's Mockingbird social networks, while arch-subversive Ron Unz sits here with his infuriating little grin, permitting the manifest foreign treason of GC34-standard freedom of expression.

A123 , says: January 14, 2021 at 11:36 pm GMT • 18.5 hours ago

The Navarro report provides detailed proof on how elections in multiple states were stolen. (1)

https://thenationalpulse.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2020-12-17-at-9.39.42-AM-1160x651.png

Given that all rational human beings understand, as a matter of objective proven fact, that the election was stolen Where do we go from here?

The slender & extreme, authoritarian, Leftoid margin in the House is certain to be a circular firing squad of internecine discontent. What little they pass will contain more pork than an industrial pig farm. It will be a matter of months before the U.S. Economy is tanked by SJW illegitimacy and misrule.

Much like the GOP beat Gerrymandering, with lead time the GOP will beat Fultoning (named after the Atlanta County). The GOP is sure to take the House in the 2022 elections.

How many times will Biden & Harris be Impeached, shamed, and forced to undergo public trial in the Senate? There will have to be multiple trials to establish for the historical record that Biden/Harris Coup plot was vastly more criminal than Nixon, Clinton, and Trump.

PEACE

P.S.

Theft By A Thousand Cuts’ Report Conclusive On Election Fraud, Slams Media Cover Up

https://thenationalpulse.com/news/navarro-report-conclusive-slams-media/

ruralguy , says: January 15, 2021 at 1:16 am GMT • 16.8 hours ago

I read an interesting article by a Sri Lankan who lived through the recent Sri Lanka Civil War. He made an interesting point that in a civil war, most people just go about their daily routines, not aware they are in a war. They experience the war as a constant drumbeat of negative news, with outbreaks of violence that don't directly affect themselves. He said America is in a civil war, but Americans don't realize it. You know you are in a civil war or insurrection when the news is constantly negative with frequent reports of violence.

John Gruskos , says: January 15, 2021 at 2:31 am GMT • 15.6 hours ago

Trump would have won despite the hostility of the media and big tech, and despite electoral corruption in Democrat-controlled big cities, if he had spent the previous 4 years making a good faith effort to implement the policies he ran on in 2016.

He ran as a populist, yet ruled as a plutocrat.

Candidate Trump promised a non-interventionist foreign policy. President Trump dug us deeper into the Middle East quagmire, intensifying hostilities against Russia, Syria, Yemen and Iran while being cartoonishly subservient to Israel.

The troops didn't come home.

He ran on an immigration platform written by Jeff Sessions. As president he prioritized the immigration policies of Sheldon Adelson and Jared Kushner – calling for "more immigration than ever before" in his State of the Union address, and lecturing his dumbfounded rally-goers on the need for increased immigration because "my friends in the business world say we need it".

A tight labor market and rising real wages remained in the world of might-have-been.

Candidate Trump promised to drain the swamp. President Trump pardoned a menagerie of grotesque swamp creatures.

Candidate Trump promised to close the carried interest loophole and make Wall Street pay its fair share. President Trump gave massive tax cuts to the very media moguls and tech oligarchs who would subsequently doom his 2020 campaign.

The most passionate supporters of candidate Trump were stabbed in the back by President Trump – Chris Christie, Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon, Ann Coulter, the Dissident Right, etc. in a pattern that has continued to the bitter end with his denunciations of the Capitol Hill protesters and scapegoating of Rudy Giuliani. At the same time, a whole series of Never-Trump personalities were promoted within the Trump White House (Rod Rosenstein, Anthony "the Mooch" Scaramucci, John Bolton, etc.).

Trump's most intelligent and active supporters were utterly demoralized, while his enemies were given ample opportunity for sabotage and espionage.

Candidate Trump promised law and order. President Trump did absolutely nothing while his supporters were terrorized by Antifa and BLM.

Thousands of Antifa terrorists and BLM rioters broke federal laws. Why weren't they arrested, charged, indicted and tried?

President Trump didn't support $2,000 stimulus checks until after the election.

He didn't lift a finger against electoral corruption in Democrat-controlled big cities, or big tech censorship, until after the election.

Without all these own-goals, the score wouldn't have even been close, and the biased referees wouldn't have mattered.

Ash Williams , says: January 15, 2021 at 3:13 am GMT • 14.9 hours ago
@A123

Here's the link to the full Navaro report https://navarroreport.com/ This election wasn't "close". It was a blowout for Trump. It was OBVIOUS. It was also EASY to find, if anyone bothered looked just a little bit.

Ron put a "I'm a reasonable man" spin on this (and changed his tune from beginning to end, glad I read it before firing off an angry response), but I'm not sure there's a lot gained anymore by trying to reason with thieves and liars. Let's pray this turns around peacefully.

Derer , says: January 15, 2021 at 3:56 am GMT • 14.2 hours ago

But the facts of this enormous political scandal were entirely ignored and boycotted by virtually every mainstream media outlet.

Re: Hunter Biden scandal. A survey of Biden's voters – unaware of his son's corruption – is suggesting that estimated 4.6% would've not voted for Biden, sufficient for Trump victory.

Mr. Dershowitz, strong defender of constitution and who opposed Trump first impeachment is suggesting (BBC Hard Talk) that vindictive Dems lead by Pelosi and Schumer violated 5 articles of constitution in one day during the 2nd not even investigated impeachment. Denying freedom of speech is a violation of constitution.

[Jan 13, 2021] Lessons from the Trumpistan Coup, by Thomas Dalton

The main less is not be so stupid: Trump and Trumpists got in a trap and now will be eliminated from the political scene.
Jan 13, 2021 | www.unz.com

Mass protests generally have two distinct but intertwined goals: 1) to "make a statement," and 2) to inflict a cost. To state the obvious, mass protests occur because a group of people are unhappy about something, and they want something to change. Change only occurs, in a large bureaucratic nation like ours, if a loud "message" is conveyed, or if the price of non-change becomes too high. If thousands of Trump voters are mad as hell because they believe the election was stolen, and if they want to protest, they can either make their message heard and then hope for the best (not much hope there), or they can attempt to punish the thieves -- that is, make them incur some cost for their malfeasance.

What did the mob achieve on Wednesday? We already knew their message -- Trump won the election, and it was stolen. We know they have support across the country; even our biased media admit to some 74 million Trump voters, of whom 70% to 80% (depending on the poll) think the election was stolen. But then what? "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it." And then what? The message is impotent. It has no consequence.

If 'the message' was doomed to impotence, inflicting 'a cost' was much more tangible, and much more achievable. By forcing their way into the Capitol building, a motivated and reasonably prepared mob could have caused tremendous damage. If -- and I stress the conditional here -- if they wanted to inflict damage, they had a golden opportunity. They had guns, presumably hidden, and far outnumbered the handful of guards. Any firefight would have been over quickly, with the mob victorious. Security guards, staffers, even congressmen would have been easy prey, for kidnapping, injury, or worse. But this did not happen.

... ... ...

Notice how congressmen, left and right, responded to the event. All were indignant. All were outraged. All condemned the "senseless violence" of the crazed mob and the "attempted overthrow" of American democracy. All of them: left, right, and center; Democrat and Republican; Trump supporter or not. All of them condemned it.

Again: Why? The answer here is clear: All congressmen, of all stripes, have a vested interest in sustaining the system, more or less in its current form . This is obvious. They are all 'winners' in the system. It has made them all rich, famous, and powerful. Yes, they fight for relative power and relative influence, but this is largely a sham. The Republican-Democrat battles are only there to give the impression of real competition. Instead, in reality, we have a deep and radical monopoly -- a monopoly of pro-corporate, pro-capitalist, pro-war, pro-Israel, and pro-Jewish individuals. On these things, they all agree. I've been saying as much for many years: We should focus not on what divides the two parties, but on what unites them . This is far more revealing.

... More than anything, Trump was a symbol: a symbol of resistance, of defiance, and of an 'in your face' attitude. But nothing more. The Trump presidency was all show, no substance. It was, and is, hardly worth dying over.

And by 'media,' I mean all media. Consider what our beloved Tucker Carlson had to say , speaking at the beginning of his show on the very first day after the protest:

Political violence begets political violence. That is an iron law that never changes. We have to be against that, no matter who commits the violence or under what pretext, no matter how many self-interested demagogues assure us the violence is justified or necessary. We have a duty to oppose all of this, not simply because political violence kills other people's children, but because in the end it doesn't work.

No good person will live a happier life because [Ashli Babbitt] was killed in a hallway of the Capitol today. So our only option, as a practical matter, is to fix what is causing this in the first place. You may have nothing in common with the people on the other side of the country -- increasingly, you probably don't -- but you're stuck with them. The idea that groups of Americans will somehow break off into separate peaceful nations of like-minded citizens is a fantasy. That will not happen. There is no such thing as 'peaceful separation'; there never has been, and there won't be.

The two hemispheres of this country are inseparably intertwined, like conjoined twins. Neither can leave without killing the other. As horrifying as this moment is, we have no option but to make it better, to gut it out.


Beavertales , says: January 12, 2021 at 10:00 pm GMT • 23.9 hours ago

The entry of the Capitol building was spontaneous. Nobody saw it coming.

In the immediate aftermath, the media didn't know whether to promote it or bury it. It took hours and days for the narrative to coalesce on orders from the top.

As it was happening, the media was gob-smacked. The 'insurrection' narrative didn't truly get going until the protest was long over.

stevennonemaker88 , says: January 13, 2021 at 5:45 am GMT • 16.1 hours ago

I thought this was a pretty good article. Virtually no politician is on the side of the people (maybe Ron Paul is the exception)...

shylockcracy , says: January 13, 2021 at 5:51 am GMT • 16.0 hours ago

It's real tiresome to do this but people need to be reminded that Ziocorporate conman fraud Trump and his MAGA brand are a product of the same lot that governs the Democrats, and that he was never on his constituency's side:

"Donald Trump endorses Benjamin Netanyahu for PM"

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_l0N8ru6wII?feature=oembed

And it's necessary because if there's a chance to unite even a small group of people after realising how they're being had, then there's a chance for a small change to snowball into something larger. And it should not stay on the white side of the divide, it's not like the plandemic's been killing the economy for whites only. No "populist anti-Deep State patriot" or national leader goes around endorsing other countries' politicians, much less Israel's, the purest manifestation of corporate bankster power acting in unison with neocolonial globalism, a trait shared by Biden and Trump.

Actions should be peaceful, because entities like the Pentagon and CIA have an absolute monopoly on violent repression...

Thomasina , says: January 13, 2021 at 5:58 am GMT • 15.9 hours ago

One Christian fellow I listened to said that Antifa were definitely there. He took video of them walking down the street. That just proves to me that even Antifa knew they were no threat, otherwise they wouldn't have been mingling among thousands and thousands of Trump supporters.

The fellow said that from what he could see, the Trump protesters were unarmed, well behaved, smiling, and content with waving their flags. He said they are proud patriots and would never think of destroying art work or smashing up the Capitol Building.

He said on the 15 to 20 previous trips he's made to the Capitol Building, the pop-up metal barriers have always been up, but no barriers were up on January 6th. He said on a previous trip he had stepped onto the grass to take a picture and was quickly told by an officer to "get off the grass". But on January 6th, the sidewalks were blocked off, forcing people onto the grass.

We've seen the video of what looks to be an Antifa member breaking a window, only to be stopped by a Trump supporter.

No, these were salt of the earth people who were no threat to Antifa OR the spineless politicians. They knew this, but they've played it up for all it's worth.

And where was the police presence? Nowhere.

SwedeMan , says: January 13, 2021 at 6:59 am GMT • 14.9 hours ago

The main physical damage was the supposed theft of Pelosis laptop. Can I take a look at it?

Franz , says: January 13, 2021 at 7:13 am GMT • 14.6 hours ago
@James Speaks andbook by Edward N. Luttwak

Amazon includes a couple accurate blurbs on the product description page:

This short book is wicked, truthful, and entertaining. The author, after outlining a step-by-step procedure for bringing about a coup, analyzes modern (post–Second World War) coups, and points out why some succeeded and others failed. ( New Yorker )

An extraordinarily competent and well-written work, displaying very wide knowledge of the ways in which coups, both successful and unsuccessful, have actually been organized. ( Times Literary Supplement )

El Dato , says: January 13, 2021 at 7:16 am GMT • 14.6 hours ago

You don't do a "coup" by invading the congressional discussion bunker in a nominal democracy. You do a "coup" by ordering up CIA-organized troops to take over communication centers as checkpoints secured by APCs go up everywhere as congresscritters are frogmarched to a nearby stadium. The CEOs and salaried Wokers of the social meedja companies would swear enthusiastic allegiance to the new powers. Antifa would be issued clean shirts, ties and government-approved truncheons. Then a grand proclamation that there will be a convention to work towards national unity. Ooops, that last part actually happened.

If there had been a coup, it would 100% evident.

If there had been fair elections, it would 100% evident.

El Dato , says:
Whitewolf , says: January 13, 2021 at 10:03 am GMT • 11.8 hours ago

The event was, variously, a "coup," an "insurrection," or at minimum, "a riot." Protesters were "right-wing extremists" and even "domestic terrorists" who were attacking "the very basis of American democracy."

A coup?
An insurrection?
Attacking the very basis of American democracy?

The only reason the crowd was there in the first place was to protest against the people committing those crimes through election fraud. Hopefully at least the crowd has figured out that the Republicans and Trump are not on their side...

Forze , says: January 13, 2021 at 12:11 pm GMT • 9.7 hours ago

http://dissident-mag.com/2021/01/11/trumps-post-election-pentagon-shakeup-ensured-trap-was-sprung-for-patriots-at-the-capitol/

Jazzhand McFeels of https://therightstuff.biz/ has written a very interesting article on Dissident Mag about some sudden changes in the administration that could explain this thing.

There's also a podcast with even more facts: https://fash-the-nation.libsyn.com/ftn-372-rage-against-the-regime

Johnny Walker Read , says: January 13, 2021 at 3:01 pm GMT • 6.8 hours ago

Then things got ugly. Around 3:15, Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed, evidently by a security guard.

I don't know how this hoax could be exposed any better. WTFU people, you are being played.
https://153news.net/watch_video.php?v=6NMK57Y5A924

Twodees Partain , says: January 13, 2021 at 3:16 pm GMT • 6.6 hours ago
@Franklin Ryckaert

If the attack on the Capitol was already so clumsy and ineffective, how could those same people succeed in the much more difficult task of seccession?

You're assuming that the phony attack was planned by the people who would be involved in a secession movement. I haven't seen any evidence that it was.

Anonymous [144] Disclaimer , says: January 13, 2021 at 3:54 pm GMT • 6.0 hours ago

Cui Bono? The Key to 6 January is what did NOT happen. The two houses of congress had gone off to hear, separately, in public broadcast, evidence from objecting congressmen that there was massive electoral fraud to criminally deliver the election to Biden. MSM transmitted the opening statements to the debate by McConnell and Schumer. These two said that there was no election fraud. MSM then pulled away when the other congressmen started presenting the view that there WAS fraud. Although MSM was not going to carry what the people are not supposed to know, and filled in instead with their own propagandists and the Party Line, the proceedings examining election fraud would have been seen by some of the public through the internet streams and C-Span. This was clear evidence which the courts should have heard, but refused to hear. BUT, instead of Congress publicly hearing evidence, the hearings abruptly STOPPED. Why? The Capitol police, following instructions, opened the barricades and waved the demonstrators to come in. The demonstrators were guided to the spot where the Deep State assassin was waiting. A person was shot. After that, there were NO MORE discussions of election fraud. Biden was confirmed without the airing of evidence of fraud. 6 January was a simple, but elegant, Deep State SETUP. A psyop. The American people have been, once again, deceived. Once everybody submits to vaccination there will never again be disputed elections, just like in the third world.

anastasia , says: January 13, 2021 at 5:01 pm GMT • 4.8 hours ago

Correction: The media said that the policeman "collapsed when he got back to the Precinct. .that he MAY have been hit with a fire extinguisher." It was not reported as fact. No other subsequent report abouthow he died albeit it should have been established by now.

The second poilce officer who the media says was "killed" by the "riots" was a man who we heard nothing about on the date of the event, but who, five days later, committed suicide. The suicide story is not speculation. It was given as a fact. They call this suicide a "killing" because of the riots. It is more likely a police officer shooting his mouth off about these lies,who, five days later was suicided.

This summer and fall at least a dozen police officers were killed. Many more were injured. One got his eye knocked out. Many were very gravely injured. The government officials applauded their killers, posted bail for them, and every step of the way government officials "incited the violence".

Trump made a speech in front of his supporters laying out the evidence of the election fraud. He was complaining about the election fraud, a fraud that was never scutinized or investigated by anyone except his own lawyers and a few other lawyers, like Sidney Powell. They want to impeach him for publicly complaining about their stealing the election from him. It's like someone getting their home stolen, and when the victim publicly complains, he is threatened with arrest.

Again, they fundament their impeachment grounds on the "insurrection" of January 6, but again, like the election fraud, no one has scrutinized or conducted the most cursory investigation of it The fact that we still don't know how that policeman died is telling. The speculations made about him getting hit by a fire extinguisher are still floating around when at this point, it should be an established fact how he died. The dopiest doctor in this country would be able to diagnose a trauma to the head or body, if there were any physical trauma of that kind.

Two people died from natural causes. Yet, no details are given. One woman, age 34 and overweight was said to have been "trampled by the mob." Minutes after her death her family and closest friends were bad mouthing her, saying that she was mentally unstable, a conspiracy theorist, and "had problems in the past." She just died shortly before, and that was their public statements about their dearest friend and family member.

Ashli Babbits death was a provocative act that would have encouraged Trump supporters to turn on the police. It is no coincidence that those around her breaking windows, and screaming that she was dead when she was not, also provoked the crowds of Trump supporters. They are seen clearly on the video near Ashli not only breaking windows but changing their clothes after they had done so to hide their identification. This is clearly seen on the video. One guy provoking the crowds, breaking windows and screaming that Ashli was dead when she was not, was clearly Antifa, proven to be Antifa by video evidence. Yet, after January 6, he was interviewed by CNN. Clearly, the Antifa provocateur was not arrested by the Washington police or the FBI, but at least 6 Trump supporters were arrested for breaking curfew after 6 p.m. when all that happened at the Capitol was over. Those six were the first arrested – for breaking curfew. I do not find it a coincidence that both Ashli Babbitt and those breaking the windows around her, and screaming that she was dead when she was not, all acted to provoke the crowds and were all proven to be Antifa members. Was it coincidence that Ashli Babbitt's getting shot also acted as an unwitting provocateur, along with the Antifa members around her in the Capitol that day? Or was both Ashli and Antifa working for our security agencies that day, all playing their roles as agents provocateurs.

Why wouldn't the DOJ and FBI investigate the election fraud? Was it because the government did it? That would be a good reason not to investigate. Sidney Powell has produced an affidavit from a Serb who said it was the CIA who oversaw the manipulation of the US voting machines from Serbia, a country completely taken over by the CIA. He also writes about Hunter Biden's clandestine trip there in August 2020 to meet with these people.

Ugetit , says: January 13, 2021 at 5:13 pm GMT • 4.6 hours ago
@shylockcracy

Whoever didn't develop a sense of humor with your Ziocorporate fraud reality TV show president posing as patriot anti-deep maverick ain't gonna do it now.

Quite right. Unfortunately.

Thomasina , says: January 13, 2021 at 5:30 pm GMT • 4.4 hours ago
@Whitewolf

Yes, the coup and insurrection had ALREADY happened.

The coup and insurrection happened when the Democrats AND Republicans rigged the election. Democratic state courts and election officials changed voting laws, and Republican state legislatures looked the other way.

NOVEMBER 3, 2020 COUP.

gleongelpi , says: January 13, 2021 at 6:46 pm GMT • 3.1 hours ago

You are wrong on so many counts. The event was not spontaneous, that is quite clear when the guards let the protesters in and they mostly went inside peacefully while a handful of rioters did minimal damage. Some Antifas, yeah, for sure. But someone stole Pelosi's computer or did they? That smacks of a plan. It achieved the objectives of the groups on the inside. The marchers that went inside had to have been, for the most part, surprised that they were welcomed. Did you see how they walked in between the purple ropes? Took photographs and selfies, some of these with the guards? Did you see the videos of some of the protesters stopping the people trying to break the glass windows? ...

Curmudgeon , says: January 13, 2021 at 6:47 pm GMT • 3.1 hours ago
@Thomasina

This is a very interesting video.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5nvqvvsqJ_s?feature=oembed

Trinity , says: Next New Comment January 13, 2021 at 7:58 pm GMT • 1.9 hours ago

I see "anti-Semitism" has made it to the floor during these impeachment hearings. LMAO. I would guess that 97% of Trump's base is the muh Israel crowd and Trump is as pro-Israel, pro-Jewish as it gets.

Even more laughable is Maxine Waters standing up and decrying violence. I guess Maxine has a very selective memory. All these demsheviks and the gay guys over at CNN who had no problem with Antifa/BLM are now staunch advocates for the Constitution and have a problem with riots. How in the hell do these cretins live with themselves? Have these hypocrites no shame? It can't be said enuff that Antifa/BLM's and (((the leftoids))) fingerprints are all over these riots. This is the new 9-11, folks, don't believe your lying eyes. Look at some of those scraggly people busting windows and attacking cops? Do they look like the average Trump voter? Do these young punks scaling the walls look like the average Trump voter?

Dr. Charles Fhandrich , says: Next New Comment January 13, 2021 at 8:15 pm GMT • 1.6 hours ago

The democratic party is now pretending to "call out" the "white supremacists" in Congress. Even if there were "white supremacists" in Congress, they would be not one bit different from "brown supremacists", "black supremacists","yellow supremaicsts", if by "supremacists" is meant politicians that belong to the Hispanic caucus, Black caucus or Asian caucus , ALL of whom claim to be looking out for the welfare of their respective group.

This is of course what is going on here. The democratic party politicians, Pelosi, Schumer, Biden and the whole left has been race baiting against white people as a default manner of doing politics for over sixty years now. It is the fault of the FAUX REPUBLICAN PARTY, that has been posing as conservatives who many whites believe "have their backs", against the hate and shenanigans the anti-white left perpetrates. THEY ARE WRONG. We see plainly now, that what the U.S. has is a uni-party, that is left and far left and includes good old Republican RINO's, but the left and far left is used by the elite to keep and gain control of the U.S. for their own agenda. The idea now operating is to belittle, denigrate and cow white folks as never before, because many of the protesters at the recent "event", scared the living bleep out of the politicians who have simply not been representing them. The corporations and tech moguls,etc. are not taking the side of the left because they are "better" citizens or politicians than people on the right side of the political spectrum. They take the side of the left because that is where these corporations know that the radical Americans are, the ones that burn, loot and murder and therefore can be used to divide the nation for the big corporations and tech moguls,etc. Any honest person that considers what happened at the so called violent demonstration in D.C. knows that compared to the violence that ANTIFA, BLM and other groups perpertrated on innocent Americans last summer, knows perfectly well that there is no comparison. The anti-white left, enabled by the democratic party and the news media, IN SERVICE OF THE U.S. ELITE. BURNED, LOOTED AND MURDERED THE CITIZENS OF AMERICA for months, WITHOUT A SINGLE WORD FROM PELOSI, SCHUMER, BIDEN HARRIS, ETC.

The simple fact is that these D.C. politicians were scared shitless by some plain American citizens, who finally felt they needed to meet these representatives that keep ignoring and abusing them. The wrong people are being blamed here.

Dr. Charles Fhandrich , says: Next New Comment January 13, 2021 at 8:26 pm GMT • 1.4 hours ago

"Lessons from the Trumpistan Coup"

Before reading this article, the reader might consider the fact that there was NO COUP, by the accepted meaning that the word "coup" denotes. Now, if the fake news media and the democratic party want to explain the event by bending the facts and actual events to fit their own interpretation of it, that's a problem due to their dishonesty.

[Jan 02, 2021] Senate Overrides Trump Veto Of Defense Bill - ZeroHedge

Jan 02, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Senate Overrides Trump Veto Of Defense Bill BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, JAN 01, 2021 - 15:15

Meeting for a rare New Year's Day session, the Senate voted 81-13 on Friday to override President Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which Trump said "fails to include critical national security measures, includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military's history, and contradicts efforts by my Administration to put America first in our national security and foreign policy actions."

A two-thirds majority was needed to override the veto - which would mark the first in Trump's presidency. The NDAA authorizes over $740 billion in military programs and construction, as well as 3% pay raises for US troops. It also contains a provision to rename military bases named after Confederate generals .

Trump also wanted to force a repeal of Section 203 protections for social-media companies enjoy due to their constant editorializing of user content, however lawmakers refused to include the provision.

The rare January 1st session comes as the new Congress is set to be sworn in on Sunday.

On Wednesday, the Senate voted 80-12 to begin an official debate on overriding the veto, proving that Congress can act with lightning speed when properly motivated.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on Tuesday that the NDAA is crucial to national defense, and to "deter great power rivals like China and Russia." The bill "will cement our advantage on the seas, on land, in the air, in cyberspace and in space," he added.

During Trump's time in office, he has vetoed eight other bills - several of them focused on foreign policy and national security issues, according to the Wall Street Journal .

The fight over the NDAA also underscored broader tensions over national-security issues between congressional Republicans and Mr. Trump. On foreign policy and national-security issues, many Republicans have readily bucked Mr. Trump during his presidency even as they have stood by him on many other issues.

For instance, the Trump administration's recent effort to cut troop levels in Afghanistan in half , to roughly 2,500, by Jan. 15, has alarmed some Republicans. The NDAA requires the administration to submit to Congress a comprehensive assessment of the withdrawal before it can use funds to pull out troops. -WSJ

In addition to creating a commission to assess changes to bases, displays, monuments, symbols and other paraphernalia related to Confederate commanders, the bill limits the president's ability to use emergency military construction funds for other purposes . It also restricts employees or former employees from the military-industrial complex to work directly for the Chinese government or government-controlled companies.


Banned Banana 56 minutes ago

Dwight Eisenhower warned us about this 60 years ago, and we have done exactly nothing.

RasinResin 50 minutes ago

When you comb through who is doing what, you realize it's just politicians supporting monopolistic companies. Lawyers in essence, always have been, and always will be the problem. Just ask Shakespere.

Orange Man Rad 53 minutes ago (Edited) remove link

McConnell is on a suicide mission for the GOP as a political party. I'm guessing he could careless as he won't be running for reelection. I always knew he was a swamp creature that hated Trump. He never once publicly defended Trump in 4 years. I will be changing my party affiliation to Independent on January 7th. I'm waiting until then so it has maximum impact after the scumbags throw Trump under the bus. Good riddance GOP.

Right Wing-Nut 48 minutes ago

Excellent presentation on:

How Big Government Really Works

It fully explains why China Mitch is fine being Minority Leader. Follow the money!!

Obake158 40 minutes ago

Don't change your party affiliation, do what I did and go to your town hall and unregister to vote. There is absolutely no point in participating in this sham of a system. Voting for muppet A or muppet B is silly when both sides are played by the same interests. All you do by giving your consent to be ruled is create a mandate that the agent of corruption uses to lord over you. I am 100% done playing with their system and by their rules. Politicians are a verminous class of filth. They need to be purged, swapping a rat for a snake for a maggot is what voting results in. Think of a single politician that represents you and your interests and that you look up to. I haven't been able to say anything good about a politician since Ron Paul was active, they are all treason scum.

techengineer 15 minutes ago

The Republican Establishment is disgusting.. A damn disgrace.. We can't get rid of the rotten bastards without turning it over to even worse Democrats..

Bernout Sanders 43 minutes ago remove link

For those of you keep asking "but why doesn't Trump do more?" - this is your answer.

Could Trump have expanded the use of the Executive Order into clearly unconstitutional territory and hope the Supreme Court would support this? Perhaps.

When it comes to legislation, though, sadly there are less than 10 (and perhaps less than 5) Republican Senators worth a hill of beans.

I mean, look at Utah. Solidly Republican, elect the sorriest GOP Senator and carpetbagger Mittens, and even their decent Senator, Mike Lee, is militantly pro-immigration.

Until Republicans start primarying SOB RINO's like Democrats do in their caucus, there will never be any change.

AboveAverageIdiot 27 minutes ago

Senators who voted to sustain Trump's veto of defense bill:
Booker (D)
Braun (R)
Cotton (R)
Cruz (R)
Hawley (R)
Kennedy (R)
Lee (R)
Markey (D)
Merkley (D)
Paul (R)
Sanders (I)
Warren (D)
Wyden (D)

yerfej 27 minutes ago

The endless wars continue. What the phyuyk is wrong with a country that can't stop starting wars yet never has the balls to finish them? Oh its just a facade for ayssholes to line their pockets.

dustnwind 43 minutes ago

"Amazing how fast Congress can act when properly motivated..."

Yes motivated by special interests, lobbyists and perks. Someday R voters might realize that R politicians were just as involved in the voter scams to neuter(2018) and remove Trump as the democrats. Any appearances to the contrary are simply theater to retain the voter base Trump had.

vasilievich 21 minutes ago

The mood in this country seems to be poisonous. In this little county of ours, population about 220,000, the food bank is moving into larger premises. Also there will be a residence for those in need, available only to women and children.

I think it's doubtful that this sort of thing can go on without consequences, some of which may be dramatic.

I had family in Europe which lived through something similar, the result of which was a world war.

aliens is here 29 minutes ago

When comes to fudging over the people, congress wastes no time doing it.

GreatUncle 29 minutes ago

The politicians on all sides support the censorship and cancellation culture through big tech editing.

Handful of Dust 28 minutes ago

The Republicans had complete control of both houses during Trump's first two years and did ZERO for the working middle class American.

Jon_noDough 7 minutes ago

Can't give the citizens more than a pittance for Covid relief but no limits to military industrial swamp complex...

Baronneke 8 minutes ago

"National Offense Authorization Act " is a more appropriate name as the US was never attacked after ww2 so no need to Defend. The 5-6 last US presidents on the other hand are all war criminals and have attacked (including sanctions) countless countries since the end of ww2. Far over 700 Billion Dollars to the DOO. Just crazy !!

HoodRatKing 4 minutes ago (Edited)

The US is in BUSINESS, one of their top businesses is SELLING ARMS...

I can't of course discuss their other lucrative businesses in Asia & Afghanistan...

JaWS 5 minutes ago (Edited)

I understand that Cocaine Mitch will be visiting the spa in the near future.

[Dec 30, 2020] Stock market might well be close to the start of a selloff, says veteran trader Larry Williams

Usually such prediction are not worth electrons to are needed to display them on the screen but the idea that "[paper gold" offer no hadge might be sound. Whether natural gat wil rally as he predicts is another story ("Buy natural gas because Williams expects it to rally.") If the stock market followed his forecasts he probably would be billionaire, especially with his tendency to trade futures.
It is not clear how long the market can levitate at current high but some kind of 2008 reckoning might be in the cards. When and what might be the trigger is not clear. But as one commenter said "I don't believe that all of the damage caused by our pandemic has been adequately summed up" The disconnect between the actual economy and the stock market can't last forever.
marketwatch.com

I've watched Williams accurately call many market twists and turns in the 15 years I've known him. I know of more than a few money managers who trust his judgement. Williams has won or placed well in the I've watched Williams accurately call many market twists and turns in the 15 years I've known him. I know of more than a few money managers who trust his judgement. Williams has won or placed well in the World Cup Trading Championship several times since the 1980s To make market calls, Williams uses his own time-tested mix of fundamentals, seasonal trends, technical signals and intelligence gleaned from the Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Here's how he thinks about the three types of positions the CFTC reports. Williams considers positioning by commercial traders or hedgers and users and producers of commodities to be the smart money. He thinks large traders, mainly big investment shops, and the public are contrarian indicators. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks. To make market calls, Williams uses his own time-tested mix of fundamentals, seasonal trends, technical signals and intelligence gleaned from the Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Here's how he thinks about the three types of positions the CFTC reports. Williams considers positioning by commercial traders or hedgers and users and producers of commodities to be the smart money. He thinks large traders, mainly big investment shops, and the public are contrarian indicators. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks. To make market calls, Williams uses his own time-tested mix of fundamentals, seasonal trends, technical signals and intelligence gleaned from the Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Here's how he thinks about the three types of positions the CFTC reports. Williams considers positioning by commercial traders or hedgers and users and producers of commodities to be the smart money. He thinks large traders, mainly big investment shops, and the public are contrarian indicators. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks. Williams mainly trades futures because he thinks that's where you can make the big money. But we can apply his calls to stocks and exchange traded funds, too. Here's how he's positioning for the next few weeks and through the end of the year, in some of the major asset classes and stocks.

Expect an extended stock market selloff

To make market calls in September, Williams turns to what he calls the Machu Picchu trade, because he discovered this signal while traveling to the ancient Inca ruins with his wife in 2014. Williams, who is intensely focused on seasonal patterns that consistently play out over time, noticed that it's usually a great idea to sell stocks -- using indexes, mostly -- on the seventh trading day before the end of September. (This year, that's Sept. 22.) Selling on this day has netted profits in short-term trades 100% of the time over the past 22 years.

... ... ...

One caveat: Watch the advance-decline line, one of Williams' favorite indicators. If fewer stocks are declining relative to advancers on days the stock market is weak, or if there is a broadening out of participation on up days, this is a sign the any selloff may be coming to a close.

"If great breadth comes in to the market [on up days], then I will get bullish," he says.

Gold offers no hedge

A lot of people think gold serves as a hedge during stock market declines, but this isn't true, says Williams. Gold has slumped along with stocks in most of the major market selloffs. He expects the same over the next three to four weeks. He's advising gold traders to sell any rallies now, and then revisit when gold falls later this year to buy back lower.

To make this call, Williams looks at the typical seasonal pattern for gold that plays out every year, and also the historical trends in election years. The conclusion: Gold typically peaks around the middle of September then weakens for most of the rest of the year. This year, gold has underperformed its typical seasonal pattern, which is bearish for the metal.

"Gold has not been able to stay in step with what happened in the past, therefore the seasonal pattern should work this year," he says.

Another sign of potential weakness is the "crazy bullishness on gold" among the right-wing pundits like Ron Paul who have a long-standing affinity for the medal.

"They're all on the bandwagon because of the rally in gold," he says.

As with gold, he expects a similar seasonal pattern in other precious metals and copper. They will be weak from now through the end of the year, with a possible bounce in the middle of October.

Michael Brush is a Manhattan-based financial writer who publishes the stock newsletter Brush Up on Stocks. Brush has covered business for the New York Times and The Economist group. He attended Columbia Business School in the Knight-Bagehot program. Günter Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff 11 hours ago Only this September there is a the Fed, a pandemic, Robinhood and Trump, and his corrupt administration. Factor in those variables and it's impossible to predict what the market is going to do. Will remain in all cash till after the election. Stuart Young 11 hours ago I don't believe that all of the damage caused by our pandemic has been adequately summed up. Our U.S. Government may suffer huge consequences as a result of trillions of dollars in new debt. The law of gravity can be defied on so long. LT Murray 1 day ago Valualtions are now about where they were in the summer when there was all the talk about a V-shaped recovery that is now known not to be the case.

[Nov 26, 2020] Internal policies of those who pull the strings of senile walking dead will accelerate the downfall of the Empire

Nov 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

AnonFromTN , says: November 26, 2020 at 4:21 pm GMT • 3.5 hours ago

@Alfa158 is on the cards. Look on the bright side, though: in response to US aggression Iran will sink quite a few US Navy ships and devastate US military bases in the area. The US response would likely be the same as to Iranian shooting at the US base in Iraq: a string of ever-changing lies purporting to show that nothing much happened.

The danger is that the US might go nuclear, starting WWIII. That would be the end of the US and most of mankind. Maybe aborigines in Papua and some primitive tribes in the Amazon basin will survive. Like Einstein predicted, world war four will be fought with sticks and stones.

JimDandy , says: November 26, 2020 at 4:24 pm GMT • 3.5 hours ago
@RoatanBill

It seems pretty clear now that the Antifa and BLM riots have been psyops orchestrated for the purposes of influencing the courts. It seems probable that even the SCOTUS will ignore facts in favor of preventing upheaval. Trump supporters don't loot or riot. Violence and lawlessness will be rewarded by the courts, and civilized behavior will be punished–the exact opposite of what really happened in the voting booths.

AnonFromTN , says: November 26, 2020 at 4:31 pm GMT • 3.4 hours ago
@Corvinus

Except there is no evidence of fraud

Those who refuse to see are blinder than the blind. Suffice it to mention lots of sworn affidavits testifying to massive election fraud. In addition, anyone who saw 85-95% of votes counted within about 10 hours, and the rest "counted" for two weeks, cannot help smelling the rat. Statistics bear this out: senile half-corpse got more "votes" than Obama in swing states, but fewer everywhere else, be it the bluest San Francisco or the reddest rural TN. Sapienti sat.

Johnny Walker Read , says: November 26, 2020 at 4:34 pm GMT • 3.3 hours ago
@Anon

We know where your head is @Anon 241, it is really quite obvious.

TKK , says: November 26, 2020 at 4:43 pm GMT • 3.2 hours ago
@anonymous try to go Atticus Finch. My first job as a misdemeanor prosecutor (I lasted less than a year) I put on a big restitution hearing to make an animal abuser pay the State back for all the care his animals needed after his disgusting abuse. It was emus and ostriches.

The County Judge, after he denied ANY restitution, called me back in his office and told me never to "put on a dog and pony show like that again."

It has a real chilling effect on your view of the Law. Trump will not find any justice with the SCOTUS.

They didn't make it this far up the food chain by being brave.

Joseph Doaks , says: November 26, 2020 at 4:51 pm GMT • 3.0 hours ago
@Dumbo

"So Biden was the most voted candidate in the history of the U.S.? Biden??"

Yeah, all those rallies attended by just 25 people were only a head fake. Those Democrats are incredibly clever, aren't they?

Peripatetic Itch , says: November 26, 2020 at 4:59 pm GMT • 2.9 hours ago
@Corvinus that we do not see smaller vote updates with mail-in votes which favor Biden more heavily

Anomalies in Vote Counts and Their Effects on Election 2020
https://votepatternanalysis.substack.com/p/voting-anomalies-2020

They further demonstrated that the steal encompassed by these dumps was enough to throw the election.

One might well conclude you were among the pencil pushers filling in Biden circles all night long. You probably had a good case of carpal-tunnel syndrome by morning.

Art , says: November 26, 2020 at 4:59 pm GMT • 2.9 hours ago

I will never believe that Biden* honestly won the election. I believe that Trump is psychologically a beaten man. Something is wrong, he is not fighting – he is quiet. Either he has Biden* all rapped up and headed to jail because of the Hunter emails – or Trump wants out.

Good Americans are not going to give up. They are going to push the truth of the fraud to the Supreme Court. The problem is – can the Supreme Court find a way to fudge the truth and the law and give Biden* the election. If they give Trump the election there will be civic hell to pay by the left. Not so if they give it to Biden*.

The best way out of this quagmire is for Trump to concede. Will he demand a deal? I say give it to him. Four more years of Trump derangement syndrome will tear the country apart.

p.s. Iran War? How many B-52s did he send to the ME? Twenty means war.

p.s. Biden* is appointing mostly mainline Jews to his cabinet. The Jews like the status quo – they are not going to go hard left.

follyofwar , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:00 pm GMT • 2.9 hours ago
@Jus' Sayin'... s ran the country for 6 months, until a fair election can be held? Neither party would be required to stick with their current candidates. Biden is so corrupt and mentally incompetent, and Trump so divisive, that it would be better if different candidates were chosen by party leaders.

If the country makes it thru this interim period, without a war or other catastrophe, then perhaps we voters could make this three-pronged executive permanent. Three heads are better than one. It often works well on the township and county levels, where three commissioners (two from one party, one from the other) decide policy.

RoatanBill , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:00 pm GMT • 2.9 hours ago
@JimDandy ies digging up dirt on them. Only dirty people get elected or appointed to positions of authority so they can be controlled via blackmail and the threat of assassination.

Every once in a great while a Ron Paul mistake is made, but even he's a disappointment. He took his salary for 26 years and accomplished next to nothing. Trump was told how the cow ate the cabbage after his inauguration. He's hired neocons, criminals, war mongers and the dregs of society as a result because he was told to do so while bullshitting his MAGA supporters.

And people waste their time voting. I can't understand that.

Sick of Orcs , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:03 pm GMT • 2.8 hours ago

It's almost as if the Democrat establishment didn't really want to win the Presidency for the next four years.

Feasible theory. Trump-hatred has united every faction of shitlib kook, despite Trump failing to build a wall or fix immigration. Weaponized demographics ensures Trump will be the last Retardicuck president ever.

As for the rest:

Democrap majority = Democraps control congress

Retardicuck majority = Democraps control congress

Secession from blue state swine is logical and desirable.

Onan the Barbarian , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:05 pm GMT • 2.8 hours ago
@follyofwar

Right.
The question is what, if the status quo is maintained, either Trump or the Biden-Harris-Obama-Clinton cabal can reasonably expect to achieve during the next four years, with the country split into two halves hell-bent on blocking each other, violence erupting on the streets, the tech and media overlords trying to gain control, and the Islamic world licking its lips.

Justsaying , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:12 pm GMT • 2.7 hours ago

Were the two candidates not cutting such pathetic and tragic figures, the whole election circus could be quite hilarious. And all the fuss about one donkey stealing the election from another makes it even more so. But what can one say when each donkey commands the following of tens of millions?

Parsnipitous , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:17 pm GMT • 2.6 hours ago
@Phil4Phil

I talk to "internationals" and – aside from their media – Trump is not seen as an embarrassment. He's not a deep thinker for sure and pretty inarticulate. But I think most mature people can appreciate that he's one of the few objects standing between them and the CultMarx hordes.

This obsession of American liberals with how "the world" sees them is laughable. A more positive step would be to stop being represented by Hollywood.

Zarathustra , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:19 pm GMT • 2.6 hours ago
@follyofwar

It is definitely a possibility. I also see breakup along cities and rural areas lines.

BiggDee55 , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:23 pm GMT • 2.5 hours ago
@A123

Is this the same ABC123 from SD?

BiggDee55 , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:25 pm GMT • 2.5 hours ago

As long as "Patriots" have porn and bass boats, they ain't going to do nothing.

AKINDLE , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:26 pm GMT • 2.4 hours ago

Trump and his staff favored blacks over whites. Him and his whole family are n lovin' losers. There was no reason to vote for him. Case closed.

James O'Meara , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:27 pm GMT • 2.4 hours ago

I honestly don't understand the issue here. Will Trump attack Iran?[1] Of course he will.

The only issues Trump is on record as caring about are 1. Birtherism and 2. Ending the Joint Agreement and attacking Iran. Oh, and cutting taxes on the rich. The other stuff, "Trumpism", was created by his handlers as "winning issues" among hoi polloi.

According to Trumpism, we shouldn't engage in wars of choice. But an exception has always been made for Iran. As always in politics, there are "principles" but also "places where it OBVIOUSLY doesn't apply". Cf. "all men are created equal, except women, slaves, and the poor."

Biden differs only because he wants all the wars. So Biden will surely attack Iran.

Why should Trump give Biden the "glory" for doing something they BOTH want to do? Of course, Biden will whine about Trump acting during the interregnum, but really (such a "principle" of course OBVIOUSLY not applying to future Democrats, see above) but that would just be sour grapes.

So yeah, Iran is toast. Probably around Christmas (a la Nixon).

[1] Leftists, mostly, like to point out that Trump as such won't go into battle (like Goliath) but this is a synecdoche for the US military. (as in "That's our fascist government, not the American people, man"). In this case, it's even more true: Trump can issue the orders, but will the military obey? As Saker says, they have no stomach for war, so they could use the "not really President" excuse, perhaps even activate Biden's wet dream of removing Trump.

Curmudgeon , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:38 pm GMT • 2.2 hours ago
@The Alarmist As for curling up under his desk, like many things related to Trump, there may be method to his madness. The more he talks, the more the issue becomes about him, not the legalities. The more it becomes about him, the less likely the SCOTUS will rule on the legalities. Similarly, the outrage that is escalating is becoming more about the election fraud than Trump. That is the rage that the Courts and legislatures needs to hear in order to push them to do the right thing, or minimally do a proper investigation. If the voters turn on the politicians backing the fraud, the gravy train will be over for them, and they know it.
Zarathustra , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:38 pm GMT • 2.2 hours ago
@AnonFromTN

One way or the other Biden is in shit up to his neck.
If Biden start a war with Iran, there will be domestic uprising.
If Biden does not start a war with Iran Natanyahu will have him killed. (discrete way of course like at annual check up. Or car crash maybe.)

frontier , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:38 pm GMT • 2.2 hours ago
@rebel yell o overturn the will of the people expressed in referendums, to institute gay marriage, trans rights, etc, etc but how and why we've got that is an important question for another time.

The fate of Trump, is in the hands of the Republican Party . The state legislature decides the electors and I believe GOP holds majority in PA. WI and GA and almost every other state that might decide that the vote was fraudulent and appoint different Electors. How much faith do you have in the Republican party? that's the question the Saker should write an article about and what to do if they cave in.

Curmudgeon , says: November 26, 2020 at 5:50 pm GMT • 2.0 hours ago
@chris

While it is possilbe that Trump may attack Iran, I think it is a step too far. He campaigned on no wars and bringing troops home. The last month or so it has all come out how the crowd in Defense and the Pentagon lied and withheld evidence to block troop withdrawal. Troop withdrawal is happening now. He has the opportunity to leave office being the first President in gawd knows how many years, not to start a war. Why would he blow that now?
Biden/Harris are every bit up Israel's arse as Trump, if not more. If Bibi wants a war, leave it to the Democrat War Hawks.

RoatanBill , says: November 26, 2020 at 6:08 pm GMT • 1.7 hours ago
@JimDandy hive or has he extended the secrecy to protect the deep state? Is Hillary any nearer to prison now than 4 years ago? Has he gone after Twitter or Facebook? Has he come right out and stated that his followers should abandon the most visible free speech detractors and follow him on the nascent competition?

Face it, the man is ineffective. Admittedly he faced incredible opposition, but he made so many mistakes and missed so many opportunities that his failures must eventually rest on his shoulders. I'm convinced he was told to shut up or he or his family would be JFK'd. He won't do anything heroic because he's beaten.

Joseph Doaks , says: November 26, 2020 at 6:25 pm GMT • 1.5 hours ago
@Art

"If they give Trump the election there will be civic hell to pay by the left."

Good, that would show the world exactly how EVIL the left actually is. Every body knows that if Trump would only concede and go away quietly his 73 million supporters would regretfully and peacefully accept that outcome. The Democrats are like the Nazis of the 1930's and BLM and Antifa are their Brownshirts. Heil Biden, or else!

Curmudgeon , says: November 26, 2020 at 6:27 pm GMT • 1.4 hours ago
@metternich ontrol of the Board. What happens to computer systems outside its country of origin may be entirely different than what happens internally. Note that the EU and OAS observers, along with Jimmy Carter's crowd, certified Chavez's election wins as free and fair. The OAS is a US sock puppet, and the EU follows US orders.
The reality is that Trump and Chavez, just as with Trump and Sanders, have more in common with each other than they do the Uni-party. They identify many of the same issues, but have very different ideas for solutions. The Uni-party won't identify the real issues, and doesn't want real solutions.
AnonFromTN , says: November 26, 2020 at 6:39 pm GMT • 1.2 hours ago
@Uncle Sam

These rioters, looters and burners don't have the necessary zeal to give up their lives for their beliefs

Most of them don't even have any beliefs. All these stormtroopers are rent-a-crowd cowards, out to make a buck, not to die for a cause.

Sean , says: November 26, 2020 at 6:46 pm GMT • 1.1 hours ago

This is why I believe that it is very dangerous to make any assumptions about what the Justices might or might not do.

Biden said before the election that he was going to introduce a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court Justices, and and add to the number of Justices on the Supreme Court. Promising to make those Justices that decide whether he gets to be president irrelevant if they decide for him, that was great thinking. Always one step ahead is Joe.

obwandiyag , says: November 26, 2020 at 6:50 pm GMT • 1.0 hours ago

What you fail to address is that this "agonizing" US was manufactured. The powers that be deliberately and artificially divide the public into two and only two opposing camps, get the group hate going, egg on the exaggeration of their differences, suppress the mention of their similarities, and bob's your uncle. Without top-down manipulation, everybody'd pretty much agree that it's time to lamppost the rich and free the country of such blood-sucking parasites.

[Nov 25, 2020] Trump Blasts World's Most Overrated General After Mattis Urges Biden To Eliminate America First Policy

Nov 25, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

_arrow


leosden , 4 hours ago

And that coming from Trump who put APARTHEID Israel first

and did more for that racist country than he did for America.

whether underground , 5 hours ago

Exactly. And biden will for sure, 110% COMPLETELY END any idea of putting Americans first in anything other than shackles. F all of them.

Mr Poopra , 5 hours ago

People still think Biden will actually assume office? If Trump won't win in the courts, he's going to burn the entire thing down on his way out. Full Declass coming. Swamp creatures tremble!

SurfingUSA , 4 hours ago

Problem is the agencies are openly defying him on declass (and have been). Would have to send in U.S. marshals.

CJgipper , 4 hours ago

trump will do nothing. he should have already done the declassifications.

FingerInTheDarkness , 4 hours ago

Dropping the Biden laptop after most of the mail in ballots were already in the mail is all you really need to know. Biden was installed. The only question is what to do next? He will come for the guns and he will force the poison shots. Options are few.

cankles' server , 4 hours ago

He's already tried the declass route regarding Russia hoax and was thwarted by swamp creatures.

"Means and methods" will be the mantra for obstructionists.

FingerInTheDarkness , 4 hours ago

Just like he declassified the JFK stuff, err wait a damn minute. We been had!!!

eatapeach , 3 hours ago

Even if it's released, you can bet Israel's complicity in the murder/coup will be omitted, despite the fact that Jack Ruby (Rubinstein) was a Mossad asset and AIPAC got the massive benefit of NOT having to register as a foreign agent.

Dragonlord , 5 hours ago

I am more amazed that the left love wars more than Trump and thats after the former accused the latter of starting WWIII

Herodotus , 5 hours ago

They made sure that Goldwater was defeated so that they could build up the war there and insure that 58,000 Americans would die in Vietnam.

Fizzy Head , 4 hours ago

...Once they had JFK out of their way.

BarnacleBill , 4 hours ago

For as long as Americans honour the 58,000 invaders more than the 2,000,000 victims of the invaders' activities, there is no hope for the USA. And no respect, either. Sorry! I wrote this post (link below, "The war against women") eight years ago, and it's still sadly relevant.

https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-war-against-women.html

Everybodys All American , 5 hours ago

You really have to wonder about an American generals loyalties when they do not like or recommend an America first policy. Who exactly is the guy Gen. Mattis working for?

Rich Stoehner , 5 hours ago

Mattis is working for a globalized cartel of ho-mos.

Dapper Dan , 4 hours ago

Who is Mattis working for?

He did work for Elizabeth Homes briefly.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2019/8/31/20839873/james-mattis-book-theranos

it's about the money. Always has been always will be

'Holmes'

highwaytoserfdom , 4 hours ago

What you talking about Elizbeth..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stdi-1tIUhM

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/02/theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-fraud-case-mattis-kissinger-murdoch-are-possible-witnesses/

frontierland , 3 hours ago

"America First" was a con. What we got is a 'J3w5 First' foreign & domestic policy.

Biden's isn't hiding his ''J3w5 First' foreign & domestic policy.

The only difference between the two are stylistic, the goal is the same.

Haboob , 3 hours ago

The difference is how they operate.

Trump wants peace through business and Mattis wants peace through war?

frontierland , 3 hours ago

Peace has nothing to do with it.

Trump conned White America with his pro-White dog-whistles, a tactic developed by his mentor Arthur Finkelstein. The establishment doesn't like this approach as it woke the sleeping giant, White America, while delivering no pro-White policies... Which made White America self-aware, with expectations raised, awake and pissed off with Trumps failure to deliver.

The "Left" arm of the neoLiberal establishment prefers an honest, open anti-White approach... The long, slow-boil of White America.

Seal Team 6 , 4 hours ago

Mattis also threw in a dig at Trump's coronavirus response, noting "The pandemic should serve as a reminder of what grief ensues when we wait for problems to come to us."

Really now? It seems to me that the US did exactly what Mattis says by the Obama administration helping to fund the level 5 Wuhan lab, along with the French and the neo-marxist government in Canada.

Does anyone in the MSM ever ask any of these turds questions that are actually relevant, or do they give them an open mike to fabricate history however they like?

Max21c , 4 hours ago

Mattis is a product of the Deep State and an agent of the Deep State. He's been brainwashed by the Deep State and his loyalties are to the Pentagon Gestapo and CIA and Deep State. His loyalties are not to the American nation, American citizenry, Constitution and Bill of Rights. He works for and sides with the secret police and state security apparatus.

d_7878 , 4 hours ago

Ron Paul: "Trump Does The Bidding of the Deep State".

https://www.nationalmemo.com/ron-paul-trump-does-the-bidding-of-deep-state

Record Wealth Disparity and trump gives the rich 100% expensing for their planes because they need moar.

[Nov 22, 2020] Biden's Deep State -

Nov 22, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Biden's Deep State


by Tyler Durden Sat, 11/21/2020 - 17:00 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Steve Brown via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote about the banality of evil , and there's never been a more banal bunch than the foreign policy and security state crew Barak Obama surrounded himself with for eight years beside the possible exception of Bush's own Neocons .

Now after three years screaming about "Russian collusion" it appears the Evil Empire is about to regain its lost ground, championing new wars and more interventionist expansionism with a much greater role for the US military in the world.

Let's name names.

Pentagon

For the defense chief post, the Washington Post has portrayed the banal face of Michele Flournoy as the pick to 'restore stability' to the Pentagon , an entirely false assertion. Recall that Fluornoy promotes unilateral global US military intervention, and advocated the destruction of Libya in 2011. By the military-industrial revolving door , Flournoy enabled many Corporate weaponry contracts amounting to tens of millions. Likewise Fluornoy is on the Booz-Hamilton board, where the swamp cannot get any deeper. As if this wretched example of an agent-provocateur for war and destruction were not bad enough, Biden is reportedly considering Lockheed-Martin banal kingpin Jeh Johnson for the DoD position, too.

Lockheed director Johnson was employed by Rob Reiner and Atlantic editor arch-Neocon David Frum to run the Committee to Investigate Russia which mysteriously blew up as soon as the Mueller Report was released. Jeh Johnson has continued to warn of "Russian interference" in the US presidential election until now. Biden's anointing as president-elect has ended that. As Homeland Security head, Johnson authorized cages for holding immigrant children. He also supported the assassination of General Suleimani, and has voiced support for US wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

State

From Libya to Syria, Yemen, Ukraine and beyond, the banality of evil is perhaps best personified by Susan Rice – apparently Biden's premiere pick for Secretary. Rice was an abject failure at the United Nations, but all seems forgiven, probably at the behest of Biden's donors. After her failure at the UN, Obama kicked Rice upstairs to be his National Security Advisor, a position that does not require Senate approval.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

An obvious war hawk in the mold of the Democrat's donor class, a Rice appointment could reinforce the liberal mantra that women can be just as good at interventionism as men, and ensure full re-establishment of the Neoliberal agenda in Washington. John Kerry has been flagged as a potential for State (again) too, but at age 77 and subsequent to the failure of the JCPOA Kerry is an unlikely pick.

Another potential pick among the banal Daughters of Darkness is Victoria Kagan-Nuland , architect of the 2014 debacle in Ukraine (among other things). Outed at State in an embarrassing act of what she called impressive statecraft and other embarrassing incidents, Nuland seems an unlikely choice. But Kagan-Nuland is as banal as banal can be, and Biden may somehow wish to reinforce his solidarity with the JTF and his donor class, on Israel.

National Security Advisor

Banality is certainly the mark of the beast here, in the form of Tony Blinken. Well in with Michele Flournoy (above) Blinken typifies the type of banality the Deep State engages in to promote its evil, with Blinken as successful as any other Deep State actor. A major hawk on Russia and war hawk in general, Blinken is an apologist for Israel . Blinken is a war hawk on Afghanistan and Syria too, and Blinken was directly involved in CIA operation Timber Sycamore . Oh, the banality.

Another model of banality is Leon CIA Panetta who so far claims that cruising the Monterey peninsula is more fun that being in Washington. But we know that's false and Panetta would be a logical pick. Besides being a hawk on everything, and laughing about the fact he has no idea how many wars Obama's America was fighting – because he lost count – Panetta is simply another sycophant for evil like Hannah Arendt portrayed in her study of Adolf Eichmann.

CIA

Banal of the banal is of course Mike Morell. This incredibly vacuous excuse for a human being has been hate-mongering for years. Beside his blatant pandering support for another banal and brutal warmonger – Hillary Clinton – Mike Morell is one Neoliberal who still maintains that Saddam Hussein actively aided and abetted al Qaeda with regard to the 911 attacks. But Morell simply and ultimately represents the banality of evil, just as Arendt depicted Adolf Eichmann, but in Morell's case succinctly summarized here by Ray McGovern .

United Nations

Outing the banality of the banal would be incomplete without mentioning Jen Psaki . Although a potential pick for White House Communications Director, why not promote an accomplished liar to a venue where accomplished lying really matters?

Conclusion

There is no indication that the United States as an entrenched warfare state will ever change its course until forced to. Mr Trump was incapable of enforcing that change. Sidelined by Russiagate psychosis , as a Beltway Neophyte and his own worst enemy at times, that sank Trump's agenda. The actions of Mr Trump now – to end the wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen -- should have been undertaken in earnest and without compromise years ago. Point being that Mr Trump's new appointments to the Pentagon – and let's hope CIA – will hopefully blunt the efficacy of Biden's bad actors going forward.

Regardless, characters the same or similar to the ones listed above will definitely infest Washington's infernal Beltway cesspool once again via Joe Biden make no mistake. And they will be meaner and nastier than ever before! Guaranteed.


Creative_Destruct , 2 hours ago

And the same old swamp slime (Morell, et al) waits eagerly to burst back in through the doors of power. New boss, same as the old(er) boss(es). Uuuuuuggh.

EndofTimes , 5 hours ago

Obama's 3rd Term. Swamp will grow like a tumor. These demons are shaking with excitement to get into office and fulfill the desires of the founders of the UN. Kill off America and establish a global government

truth or go home , 4 hours ago

Biden is 100% deep state puppet. He will say and do whatever they tell him to.

Dominion = Scytl = CIA = Deep State = Swamp

CIA threw the election. Trump team caught them.

Trump has already cut the CIA off at the knees. Getting ready to fill up Guantanamo again...

Giant war going on inside the gov right now - Biden enjoying the limelight before he is retired to his rocking chair.

CatInTheHat , 5 hours ago

NICE JOB Biden voters!!

You MORONS electing Obama 2.0 on STEROIDS is WHY we got a Trump in the first place

To Hell In A Handbasket , 4 hours ago

The USSA electorate are idiots, and divided idiots at that. You got Trump because the electorate was desperate, and you got Biden because the other half was desperate. That adds up to a desperate population. Your enemy is not voters from the other side of the Uniparty. Please get off the GOP vs DEMOCRAT horse$h1t.

Bay of Pigs , 3 hours ago

Quite an impressive list of Neoliberal globalist ****bags.

SabOObas , 3 hours ago

The establishment demonizes Trump for 4 years.

The sheeple voted to put the guy with 40 years of corruption under his belt in office, because the establishment said its good for you.

Jgault , 2 hours ago

It is always the small man, the inept man, the insecure man who has a need to demonstrate to the world his bravado with reckless and senseless gestures.

Biden and his brothel of advisors he surrounds himself with have perhaps the worst track record of international policy since Jimmy Carter, absolute proven failures and disasters in Ukraine, Syria, Lybia, and Egypt. This is the group that laid the intellectual groundwork for what would become the largest refugee crisis and humanitarian disaster in nearly 50 years.

Laughably, now the MSM is doing a complete 180 in their editorial view of troops in Afghanistan and Syria...what a shock!

Lacking foresight, insecure, lacking ethical standards and being given the ability to order troops, how could this possibly go wrong?

Trump was the first President in 30 years not to provoke any new millitary interventions, yet the world criticized him for his style. Let's see how long it takes for the world to start looking back to a more stable past.

ReadyForHillary , 3 hours ago

The Democrat party is the WAR party.

RumbleGuts , 4 hours ago

Another article that doesn't realize red and blue are the same team. Make no mistake, big baby bonespurs is in deep with the deep state. Think epstein. ;-)

Someone Else , 2 hours ago

Mike Morell, the most evil man to ever draw a breath, as CIA Director?

A Biden Presidency can never be allowed to happen.

flawse , 2 hours ago

There will not be a Biden presidency. There is obviously some other plan.

DebbieDowner , 3 hours ago

This author's last paragraph fails to acknowledge that the CIA and FBI has not obeyed Trump's (or any President's) orders in quite some time. Now is the time for someone to finally make a change and it took such a massive plan to expose them all to drain the swamp.


play_arrow 2
Little Johnny Jewel , 5 hours ago

Caitlin Johnstone covered this a week ago

swampy war mongerers

[Nov 17, 2020] Israel's Power is Unlimited by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... There is some pushback in Washington to Israeli dominance, but not much. Recent senior Pentagon appointee Colonel Douglas Macgregor famously has pointed out that many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their support of Israel even though it means the United States being dragged into new wars. ..."
Nov 17, 2020 | www.unz.com

Even though there was virtually no debate on foreign policy during the recent presidential campaign, there has been considerable discussion of what President Joe Biden's national security team might look like. The general consensus is that the top levels of the government will be largely drawn from officials who previously served in the Obama administration and who are likely to be hawkish. There has also been, inevitably, some discussion of how the new administration, if it is confirmed, will deal with Israel and the Middle East in general.

Israelis would have preferred a victory by Donald Trump as they clearly understand that he was and still is willing to defer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on nearly all issues. Indeed, that process is ongoing even though Trump might only have about nine more weeks remaining in office. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is reportedly preparing to sanction several international human rights organizations as anti-Semitic due to the fact that they criticize Israel's brutality on the West Bank and its illegal settlement policies. The White House is also prepared to free convicted but paroled Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard from travel restrictions so he can move to Israel, where he is regarded as a hero. Pollard was the most damaging spy in U.S. history and any mitigation of his sentence has been opposed by both the Pentagon, where he worked, and also by the intelligence community.

Finally, it is widely believed that before the end of the year Trump will declare that the United States accepts the legitimacy of Israeli intentions to declare annexation of nearly all the Palestinian West Bank. The White House will actually encourage such an initiative reportedly "to sow hostility between Israel and the Biden administration." One should note that none of the pro-Israeli measures that are likely to come out of the White House enhance U.S. security in any way and they also do nothing particularly to benefit Trump's campaign to be re-elected through legal challenges.

If Biden does succeed in becoming president, the special place that Israel occupies in the centers of American power are unlikely to be disturbed , which is why Netanyahu was quick off the mark in congratulating the possible new chief executive. Biden has proudly declared himself to be a "Zionist" and his running mate Kamala Harris has been a featured speaker at the annual gatherings of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington. Both are strongly supportive of the "special relationship" with the Israel and will make no effort to compromise America's apparent commitment to protect and nourish the Jewish state.

Though Israel is central to how the United States conducts its foreign policy, the country was invisible in the debates and other discussions that took place among candidates during the recent campaign. American voters were therefore given the choice of one government that panders to Israel at the expense of U.S. security or another party that does exactly the same thing. To be sure, Biden did state that he would work to reinstate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) relating to Iran's nuclear program, which was canceled by Trump. But he also indicated that it would require some amendment, meaning that the Iranians would have to include their missile program in the monitoring while also abandoning their alleged propensity to "interfere" in the Middle East region. The Iranian government has already indicated that additional conditions are unacceptable, so the deal is dead in the water. Israel has also privately and publicly objected to any new arrangement and has already declared that it would "save the option" of working through the Republican Senate to thwart any attempts by the Biden Administration to change things.

That Israel would blatantly and openly interfere in the deliberations of Congress raises some serious questions which the mainstream media predictably is not addressing. Jewish power in America is for real and it is something that some Jews are not shy about discussing among themselves. Jewish power is unique in terms of how it functions. If you're an American ( or British ) politician, you very quickly are made to appreciate that Israel owns you and nearly all of your colleagues. Indeed, the process begins in the U.S. even before your election when the little man from AIPAC shows up with the check list that he wants you to sign off on. If you behave per instructions your career path will be smooth, and you will benefit from your understanding that everything happening in Washington that is remotely connected to the interests of the state of Israel is to be determined by the Jewish state alone, not by the U.S. Congress or White House.

And, here is the tricky part, even while you are energetically kowtowing to Netanyahu, you must strenuously deny that there is Jewish power at work if anyone ever asks you about it. You behave in that fashion because you know that your pleasant life will be destroyed, painfully, if you fail to deny the existence of an Israel Lobby or the Jewish power that supports it.

It is a bold assertion, but there is plenty of evidence to support how that power is exerted and what the consequences are. Senators William Fulbright and Chuck Percy and Congressmen Paul Findlay, Pete McCloskey and Cynthia McKinney have all experienced the wrath of the Lobby and voted out of office. Currently Reverend Raphael Warnock, who is running against Georgia Loeffler for a senate seat in Georgia demonstrates exactly how candidates are convinced to stand on their heads by the Israel Lobby. Warnock was a strong supporter of Palestinian rights and a critic of Israeli brutality. He said as recently as 2018 that the Israelis were shooting civilians and condemned the military occupation and settlement construction on the Palestinian West Bank, which he compared to apartheid South Africa. Now that he is running for the Senate, he is saying that he is opposed to the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement due to what he calls the movement's "anti-Semitic overtones." He also supports continued military assistance for Israel and believes that Iran is in pursuit of a nuclear weapon, both of which are critical issues being promoted by the Zionist lobby.

There is some pushback in Washington to Israeli dominance, but not much. Recent senior Pentagon appointee Colonel Douglas Macgregor famously has pointed out that many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their support of Israel even though it means the United States being dragged into new wars. Just how Israel gains control of the U.S. political process is illustrated by the devastating insider tale of how the Obama Administration's feeble attempts to do the right thing in the Middle East were derailed by American Jews in Congress, the media, party donors and from inside the White House itself. The story is of particularly interest as the Biden Administration will no doubt suffer the same fate if it seeks to reject or challenge Israel's ability to manipulate and virtually control key aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

The account of Barack Obama's struggle with Israel and the Israeli Lobby comes from a recently published memoir written by a former foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes. It is entitled The World As It Is , and it is extremely candid about how Jewish power was able to limit the foreign policy options of a popular sitting president. Rhodes recounts, for example, how Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once nicknamed him "Hamas" after he dared to speak up for Palestinian human rights, angrily shouting at him "Hamas over here is going to make it impossible for my kid to have his fucking bar mitzvah in Israel."

Rhodes cites numerous instances where Obama was forced to back down when confronted by Israel and its supporters in the U.S. as well as within the Democratic Party. On several occasions, Netanyahu lecture the U.S. president as if he were an errant schoolboy. And Obama just had to take it. Rhodes sums up the situation as follows: "In Washington, where support for Israel is an imperative for members of Congress, there was a natural deference to the views of the Israeli government on issues related to Iran, and Netanyahu was unfailingly confrontational, casting himself as an Israeli Churchill . AIPAC and other organizations exist to make sure that the views of the Israeli government are effectively disseminated and opposing views discredited in Washington, and this dynamic was a permanent part of the landscape of the Obama presidency."

And, returning to the persistent denial of Jewish power even existing when it is running full speed and relentlessly, Rhodes notes the essential dishonesty of the Israel Lobby as it operates in Washington: "Even to acknowledge the fact that AIPAC was spending tens of millions to defeat the Iran deal [JCPOA] was anti-Semitic. To observe that the same people who supported the war in Iraq also opposed the Iran deal was similarly off limits. It was an offensive way for people to avoid accountability for their own positions."

Many Americans long to live in a country that is at peace with the world and respectful of the sovereignty of foreign nations. Alas, as long as Israeli interests driven by overwhelming Jewish power in the United States continue to corrupt our institutions that just will not be possible. It is time for all Americans, including Jews, to accept that Israel is a foreign country that must make its own decisions and thereby suffer the consequences. The United States does not exist to bail Israel out or to provide cover for its bad behavior. The so-called "special relationship" must end and the U.S. must deal with the Israelis as they would with any other country based on America's own self-interests. Those interests definitely do not include funding the Israeli war machine, assassinating foreign leaders, or attacking a non-threatening Iran while continuing an illegal occupation of Syria.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


anon [287] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:24 am GMT • 15.5 hours ago

USA is dead, long live USA. We now officially live in JUSA, the New Weimar Republic. Actually we have been for almost 70 years, since the Cultural Revolution. America is no longer a Christian nation but a Jew nation, with all that that entails – greed, unscrupulousness, end justifies means, intolerance for dissent, mass deception, hypocrisy, over sensitivity, pleasure seeking, sexual deviance, narcissism, vengeful and punitive.

Jews now basically control all institutions of import in this country, from Wall Street to Hollywood, DC to Silicon Valley, and everywhere in between, the media, academia, judiciary, deep state including all of DOJ and the State department. Using their control of Big Tech, they can censor and suppress all dissent. Websites that try to go their own way like Alex Jones or Gab.com have trouble monetizing themselves and face constant media and left wing harrassment.

They control both msm and the "conservative" media like WSJ, FoxNews, Breitbart, Zerohedge, National Review all are just controlled opposition. No matter who is in the white house, we get the same things: Zionism, globalism, corporatism, endless wars, endless immigration.

How did they do it? Not just by controlling banks and profiting off wars that they instigated, but by selling sin. Jews own the entire sin industry. From the opium trade to the slave trade, tobacco trade, Bootlegging, JUUL, Opiod, marijuana, alcohol, Victoria's Secret, casinos and brothels in Vegas, HBO soft porn to hardcore porn, all are owned by Jews. Sin is an industry where supply creates demand, not the other way around. Using their lawyers, they first make it all legal, then make it fashionable. As Andrew Joyce so aptly put, "sordid commercial exploitation of vice", that is what Jews excel in.

The sin industry is a trillion dollar industry, and many of those trillions have been siphoned off to Israel, along with all the money from Wall Street swindling and the weapons industry. We are witnessing the greatest transfer of wealth from the rest of the world to Israel.

China-Russia-Iran may provide the world with an alternative for the future, if they can hold off this Jewish scorch, but the West is done for. We have nothing but decline, which will be hastened by Biden/Harris. Someone needs to keep reminding the Chinese it was a Jew David Sassoon who ran the opium trade and forced the two opium wars on them. Never forget, never surrender!

Lot , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:33 am GMT • 15.4 hours ago

" Jewish power in America is for real "

It's a sort of sexual charisma: all three of Joe's kids are married into the tribe, as is the VP. Though the crackhead kid's tatted up wife Melissa Cohen definitely isn't orthodox, though she's hot enough I'd forgive her!

"to accept that Israel is a foreign country"

Nah, it's like Canada, an America Jr. If the people disagreed, they'd have elected Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, etc.

Aspies aren't good with contradictions and ambiguity. Israel is both ours and sovereign, foreign and domestic. Most people get it though.

Anon [227] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:53 am GMT • 15.0 hours ago

Funny that BLM and antifa seem to have expressed no opinion on foreign policy isn't it?

I guess those are "unapproved games" in Revilo Oliver's words.

Tdstype2 , says: November 17, 2020 at 6:35 am GMT • 14.3 hours ago

Yo, the Great US of A, how about just do this one thing – fixed your problem of Israeli infestation in your institutions of power, instead of running around with a dynamite up you behind looking to fix other people's hemorrhoids all over the world

Colin Wright , says: Website November 17, 2020 at 7:04 am GMT • 13.9 hours ago

A piece discussing the roles played by Israel and the US in the coup in Egypt would be useful.

anonymous [112] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:22 am GMT • 13.6 hours ago

Based on what you write, it seems that only a smart, independent minded black politician as president would have any chance to stand up a bit to the Israeli lobby. The black politician does not have white guilt and is less self conscious of accusations of antisemitism. Obama was one of the few people who could fit the bill. Corey Booker is a potential black president meeting the description who could give it the college try and 25% stand up to the Israel lobby once in office. You should write more appreciatively of Barack Obama. Yeah, more BLM is a bad trade off that comes with a black president but life is always a package deal.

tiredofitall , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:47 am GMT • 13.1 hours ago

"Bibi the Backstabber" – Gee, I thought he and Trump were pals but he seemed pretty quick to acknowledge a Biden win BEFORE it has even been officially on the record. Regardless of who you want as figurehead of the USA, that seemed like a pretty crappy move but then again, we're talking about a snake. If Trump did end up "winning" after all the recounts and possible court rulings, do you think Trump would welcome "Bibi the Backstabber" back? "Fool me once " What a total farce this election and our Jew infested country is. Sad.

Ralph B. Seymour , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:11 am GMT • 12.7 hours ago

Jews didn't immigrate here in any number until the late 19th century. So it didn't take long for them to take it over completely.

But it's not enough for them to run everything. Now they are trying to perfect an outright slave plantation.

Clay Alexander , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:49 am GMT • 12.1 hours ago

OK move along nothing to see here, just another description of Jewish subversion 101 which has been going on for time immemorial. I think by now we should all know who's been behind every war, famine, economic collapse etc. The occidental countries have the remaining 11.5% of Whites left on the planet, it appears we are going to lose, so please try and enjoy what little time is left just don't forget to put your mask on.

Dr. Charles Fhandrich , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:51 am GMT • 12.1 hours ago

Joe Biden, a mediocre intellect and a corrupt long time D.C. insider as president of the U.S., running with a shrill shrew as vice president is supposed to be a positive development for the citizens of the U.S.? It's too funny. She was the first democrat to pull out of the running in the primaries and I believe Biden was second. Harris also suggested Biden is a racist, lol. It's too surreal to believe that this has happened. Thinking of Biden in charge, is like the feeling that the cave is going to collapse with you in it, vs. seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with President Trump. Oh well, ces't la vie

Achilles Wannabe , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:55 am GMT • 12.0 hours ago
@anon

Well said Anon. There is a lesson here. It is one which any dog or cat knows but Jewish social science has denied us: Do not let the parasite into the nest. A couple of million Ashkenazim were admitted to this country between 1880 and 1920. The rest is history – a history increasingly determined by THEM.

How this happened is a story I wish our white internet historians would tell us before the lights are shut off

Ray Caruso , says: November 17, 2020 at 9:22 am GMT • 11.6 hours ago

Israel is a leech. Liberalism in all its aspects, including racial egalitarianism, feminism, homosexualism, and democracy is a cancer that has spread from head to toe in the body of the nation. A leech won't kill you, but widespread cancer certainly will. What folly it is to focus so much attention on the little parasite outside while ignoring the massive malignancy inside.

Anonymous [661] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 9:29 am GMT • 11.4 hours ago

Regarding the photo accompanying this article: it is always beyond disconcerting to see Israel's satanic pentagram parked next to the American flag, it evinces the kind of sickening aplomb you would find in the image of a gorilla sodomizing a doe.

I appreciate Giraldi's incisive analysis. No one writes better about Israel's parasitic destruction of the US.

geokat62 , says: November 17, 2020 at 9:51 am GMT • 11.1 hours ago
@anon

Someone needs to keep reminding the Chinese it was a Jew David Sassoon who ran the opium trade and forced the two opium wars on them

This, of course, is in the Chinese ledger, but offsetting it is the more recent massive transfer of manufacturing jobs, technology, engineering services and other indirect benefits that derived from the "great offshoring" that first occurred in the late 70s. The apparatchiks of the CCP know who was responsible for arranging this unprecedented largesse and will consequently be reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them.

geokat62 , says: November 17, 2020 at 9:54 am GMT • 11.0 hours ago

The so-called "special relationship" must end

This should be demanded by every freedom-loving American.

Moi , says: November 17, 2020 at 10:09 am GMT • 10.8 hours ago
@anon

One can only conclude that American Christians relish being Jews' bitch. And here's the dumbest thing that the otherwise astute P. Giraldi has said: "Many Americans long to live in a country that is at peace with the world and respectful of the sovereignty of foreign nations." LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS: Phil, it's over for American. All hail, China!

RoatanBill , says: November 17, 2020 at 10:12 am GMT • 10.7 hours ago

All foreign aid should be turned off. Disaster relief should be looked at on a case by case basis, but that just allows the most corrupt countries to rely on it to come to the rescue when disaster strikes. I'd even prevent that.

Is there a single member of Congress with the intestinal fortitude to propose this? I doubt it. The selctions process has installed people so beholden to the current power structure that no one would dare put up a bill to stop foreign aid.

Doesn't that show that the US doesn't have a Federal Government, but does have a Federal Mafia?

Wizard of Oz , says: November 17, 2020 at 10:28 am GMT • 10.5 hours ago

It is time perhaps for this (in your words)

The so-called "special relationship" must end and the U.S. must deal with the Israelis as they would with any other country based on America's own self-interests.

But, falling back on realism, what is second best for Americans,and *much* more likely to be achieved?

As a preliminary sketch it is probably wrong to blame much of the disapointments and tribulations of the least prosperous 80 per cent of Americans on Israel, even if the cost of the Iraq war is included. Such a small country can eat only so much of America's breakfast. It is big business's complicity in the rise of China's economy at the expense of American workers and the open borders to cheap labour that counts for much more damage (I believe, though open to refutation).

So, what is a more likely acceptable outcome than your ideal prescription? I suggest that more Balkanising of the ME to eliminate threats to Israel would be part of it.That is happening already with the Saudis and Gulf States falling i to line. It seems hard to see why Israel should be unhappy about Russia remaining in Syria giving security to the Assad régime. How Iran can be dealt with isn't clear but it seems unlikely that Russia or China would be interested in an expensive effort to prevent the overthrow of the Iranian theocrats. It would suit both well enough that the ME was made up mostly of small countries mostly with oil or gas to sell and without much of a US connection. China would I guess be happy to regard Pakistan as the one Muslim country that deserved special attention.

What about the Palestinians? Oh yes, easily forgotten. Well, surely it isn't too difficult to think up several ways of giving them a much better deal than they have now with the one condition satisfied that Israeli Jews will not find themselves outbred and outvoted by Arab Muslims within the state of Israel. Secular outbred by Haredim? Oh well.

AnonStarter , says: November 17, 2020 at 10:33 am GMT • 10.4 hours ago

"Even to acknowledge the fact that AIPAC was spending tens of millions to defeat the Iran deal [JCPOA] was anti-Semitic. To observe that the same people who supported the war in Iraq also opposed the Iran deal was similarly off limits. It was an offensive way for people to avoid accountability for their own positions."

And this , ladies and gentlemen, is why we come here and speak often of Jews: because they make it so difficult to discuss their reality anywhere else.

This fact has to change in America and Europe as well.

frankie p , says: November 17, 2020 at 11:19 am GMT • 9.6 hours ago

Antisemitism is a rational response to the manifestation of Jewish anti-gentilism in gentile societies.

Any gentile who isn't antisemitic needs education and development of the will to self-protect.

The Spirit of Enoch Powell , says: November 17, 2020 at 11:30 am GMT • 9.4 hours ago
@Anon

Well, the verified Twitter account of BLM UK put out the above tweet, after that happened we saw an ebbing away of support for it and footballers no longer kneeled before a game. Really tells you a lot about the totem poll and which groups are placed where.

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 11:51 am GMT • 9.1 hours ago
@anon

How did they do it?

What you said, (all excellent, btw) plus what PG has long said.

More details can be found in the 10 planks of Marx's Commie Manifesto and the Protocols.

PG's reference to the Weimar republic is something decent Americans need to understand as well.

Unfortunately, as pathetic as things are, it's apparently not yet degenerate enough to wake up and motivate enough people to improve anything.

BuelahMan , says: November 17, 2020 at 11:57 am GMT • 9.0 hours ago
@anonymous

Ridiculous. Obama is half black and half jewish.

He's all in with the theft and take over by jews.

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 12:05 pm GMT • 8.8 hours ago
@Lot e topic of genetic disorders, I'm happy that you brought up Asperger's.

Let me also note that Asperger's syndrome has its highest prevalence among Ashkenazi Jews and their descendants.

-David Mamet, (from his book Bambi Vs Godzilla, 2007), as quoted by Henry Makow
https://www.henrymakow.com/aspergers_–_the_jewish_diseas.html

Here's some more soft porn for ya.

Lovely, isn't it?

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 12:10 pm GMT • 8.8 hours ago
@Ray Caruso

Israel is a leech. A leech won't kill you, but widespread cancer certainly will.

I hope yer not a dokter.

Truth Hurts the Liars , says: November 17, 2020 at 12:14 pm GMT • 8.7 hours ago

One word describes all the World's troubles.

Jews.

Robjil , says: November 17, 2020 at 12:48 pm GMT • 8.1 hours ago
@Lot https://www.the-sun.com/news/1532069/hunter-biden-wife-melissa-cohen-married-children/

She is also said to be a documentary filmmaker.

Before she met Biden, she was supportive of the Obama presidency, and critical of President Trump.

After the white supremacist march at Charlottesville she wrote of the president: "To those of you who voted for this POS [piece of s ** t] you should be ashamed. That's all."

According to the New Yorker, Cohen has a tattoo of the word "Shalom," or "peace," in Hebrew on her bicep.

BL , says: November 17, 2020 at 12:51 pm GMT • 8.1 hours ago

Israel's Power Is Unlimited

While you might not have written the headline it's an accurate synopsis of your argument.

I shouldn't give you a hard time for it because it's accepted across the geopolitical universe on Israel. Including, as you have long detailed, by Israel itself.

Amusingly, if you compare the mirror position along this spectrum, for example, elimination/"It's the 51st state!," they complete each other.

It just simply isn't true. Israel isn't sui genesis. It isn't a planet that doesn't have to, or refuses to, obey the laws of geopolitical physics.

Think of it this way. There's a disingenuous disconnect between the public discussion and that which takes place behind the curtain. As with seemingly everything else, it's just more so when it comes to Israel.

All of that was the shortest predicate for suggesting you notice the slim to none argument from this author in defense of the JCPOA, much less what the Obama administration sold as a rapprochement with Iran.

Did it have any coherence in that regard? No, indeed the Iranians stupidly insisted on rubbing it in our faces as an abandonment of not just Israel but all other states in the region.

It's impossible to overstate how thoroughly this has discredited the proponents of a deal with Iran.

Whatever you think are Israel's malefactions, they are no legitimate basis for the USG to gift a trouble-making Iran anything. Least of all, regional hegemony at the expense of everyone else.

Katrinka , says: November 17, 2020 at 12:57 pm GMT • 8.0 hours ago
@anon

https://www.stormfront.org/truth_at_last/sassoon.htm

The link will provide a pretty good synopsis of Jewish involvement in the opium trade cartel in China.

BannedHipster , says: Website November 17, 2020 at 1:07 pm GMT • 7.8 hours ago

The Anti-Defamation League is a front for Jewish organized crime that launders their money and defames anyone who says anything about it. The ADL openly supports apartheid in occupied Palestine. All Silicon Valley companies, including Wikipedia, count them as an "expert" on "hate" – despite the ADL being openly pro-apartheid. All the major news media corporations quote them as "experts" despite them being nothing more than a partisan political lobby.

How is the world is such an organization considered "mainstream" as opposed to a fringe hate group?

Felix Krull , says: November 17, 2020 at 1:11 pm GMT • 7.7 hours ago
@Anonymous

Regarding the photo accompanying this article: it is always beyond disconcerting to see Israel's satanic pentagram parked next to the American flag

You not count good?

The Star of David is a hexagram, moron. No less disturbing, but do the fucking math.

anarchyst , says: November 17, 2020 at 1:12 pm GMT • 7.7 hours ago

When it comes to Israel, it is obvious that President Trump has pretty much given the jews everything they wanted.

From the annexation of Jerusalem proper to the Golan Heights, Israel has gained approval for its questionable, illegal actions from President Trump and others in the U S government. His encouragement of recognition of Israel by other middle eastern countries is telling.

President Trump has been dealing with jews all of his life, being in the New York City real estate market. He KNOWS how jews act and what they are capable of, along with their foibles and weaknesses.

Since Trump gave the jews just about everything they wanted, he is finally going to exact his "price" for acquiescing to Israeli demands and is going to demand something in return.

President Trump is about to reduce, if not withdraw the entire American troop presence in the middle east. American troops can be replaced with Israeli troops.

Of course the jews will cry foul and scream that they need an American troop presence, but if President Trump does anything right , the reduction or withdrawal of American troops in the middle east would be a good first step.

President Trump has already replace the Secretary of Defense with someone more amenable to him. The American military-industrial complex will not like the changes, but they can go "pound sand".

Old and Grumpy , says: November 17, 2020 at 1:34 pm GMT • 7.4 hours ago

Well they are the chosen ones, and the rest of us are just beasts of burden. Just ask them. They wrote it in their book. The real travesty was putting the Torah in the Bible. Or maybe the penultimate travesty was being forcibly converted to Christianity by the Roman Catholic Church?

Robjil , says: November 17, 2020 at 1:37 pm GMT • 7.3 hours ago
@Katrinka

Here is another good source about the Sassoon's destruction of China in the 19th century. The Chinese remember it well especially for what was done to their summer palace, Yuan ming yuan. It held 5000 years of Chinese history.

https://parsikhabar.net/news/the-dragon-awakens/18572/

Greta Handel , says: November 17, 2020 at 1:47 pm GMT • 7.1 hours ago

Deference of Washington's elected politicians to Israel is repeatedly discussed in these columns. Courts traditionally hesitate to adjudicate issues of Uncle Sam's wars and other "foreign policy," and even related questions ( FEC v. Akins ). Americans tend to assume and accept that the judicial "branch" of the USG has nothing to do with these matters.

However, with another Presidential election possibly headed to the SCOTUS, there's an intriguing adjective in this sentence:

One should note that none of the pro-Israeli measures that are likely to come out of the White House enhance U.S. security in any way and they also do nothing particularly to benefit Trump's campaign to be re-elected through legal challenges.

Does Dr. Giraldi believe that the measures may generally benefit the legal challenges?

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 1:52 pm GMT • 7.1 hours ago
@BannedHipster

Agree.

Speaking of the ADL, I think our host's article is a must read.:

American Pravda: the ADL in American Society

https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-adl-in-american-society/

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 1:57 pm GMT • 7.0 hours ago
@Robjil

She is for "peace". What kind of "peace"?

Without a doubt, her "tat" notwithstanding, she meant "piece." As in a piece for her and hers sufficient to allow nothing left for the deplorable goyim.

UncommonGround , says: November 17, 2020 at 2:13 pm GMT • 6.7 hours ago
@Robjil on and so on.

After reading that I thought that Americans are really admirable. Kamala's both parents came recently from foreign countries which have no close relation with the US. They were recent immigrants, refugees from poverty and other inconveniences. A few years later the daughter becomes vice president of the country, the controler of the president (one of them) and possibly the next president and at the same time begins to tell Americans what they have to think and to want. It's not even merely her opinion. She is telling Americans what they have to think and to accept. You don't have any choice. Kamala has decided.

God's Fool , says: November 17, 2020 at 2:35 pm GMT • 6.3 hours ago

"It is time for all Americans, including Jews, to accept that Israel is a foreign country that must make its own decisions and thereby suffer the consequences."

You're still walking on eggshells, Giraldi. You're either having problem understanding or are in deliberate need to evade the issue of a Jew not needing to practice Jewism (my definition of a complete Jew), that is to say, separate himself from Israel no Jew can nor will do so. Hence, America is either stuck with them or will have to declare that Jews, and only Jews, aren't part of this great experiment called United States of America. It'll hurt like hell to be divorced from present reality but at least this nation, without any natural enemies, will have a fighting chance of being a truly great country within the commity of nations. So long as a single Jew remains in America, there isn't any chance of having daylight between two separate nations. So, what's going to be, slavery with comfort or freedom with sacrifices?

Greta Handel , says: November 17, 2020 at 2:39 pm GMT • 6.3 hours ago
@Greta Handel

Sorry, that "particularly" is an adverb, not an adjective.

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 2:43 pm GMT • 6.2 hours ago
@Robjil

Thanks very much for that. Excellent article, full of details that I was not aware of, and extremely interesting site.

Seems to me that it would be a good fit to be published here.

GMC , says: November 17, 2020 at 2:50 pm GMT • 6.1 hours ago
@BuelahMan con black and 99% NWO white Zionist on the inside. 2005 Senator Obama heads to Donetsk, Ukraine with 40 million dollars to De arm the Ukrainian military – he was successful and I can more that prove it since I lived there shortly after and knew some Ukraine military guys. This was part/ start of the Maidan plan. Move along to 2013 " We now have the right to use propaganda against our own citizens" Prez. Obama. Veterans Today – Obama WAS born in Africa , but we support him 100% . And this is is also true which means we have a psyops webpage there. Nam Vet here – and I don't like seeing Veterans screwed over by other " Veterans".
Desert Fox , says: November 17, 2020 at 2:54 pm GMT • 6.0 hours ago

The key to zionist ie Israels power comes from the zionist owning the FED and from this came the zionist owning the government of the ZUS and from this came the trillions in debt and the unending wars for the zionists and for Israel.

Also from this control of the ZUS came the assassination of JFK and RFK and JFKjr. and the attack on the USS Liberty and the attack on the WTC on 911, which was used to plunge America into the unending wars against the Arabs, all for the benefit of Israel and the zionist dual citizen traitors in the ZUS.

Zionists are destroyers of nations and humanity and they are behind the covid-19 scam and psyop which is being used to destroy America and they are doing this via the World Economic Forum and the Rockefeller Foundation and UN Agenda 2030 which are the tips of the zionist spears aimed at the heart of America.

God help America.

John Q Duped , says: November 17, 2020 at 2:56 pm GMT • 6.0 hours ago
@anon

Well written and informative. They also own (and control) most churches and long ago rewrote the Bible. And of course they create and own money.

anon [287] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT • 5.9 hours ago
@anarchyst

Per the WSJ today, Trump is looking for a way to strike Iran for "starting to enrich uranium".

He's still trying to suck up to the Jews, after they just engineered the biggest coup on him. What an idiot!

Mustapha Mond , says: November 17, 2020 at 3:16 pm GMT • 5.7 hours ago
@anarchyst be illegal to print what Giraldi penned herein, as well as to discuss it over the internet, even via 'private' e-mails. Anti-semitism was quickly made a capital offense when the mostly jewish Bolshevik leaders enslaved Russia over a century ago. Expect similar here shortly, as many of us on Unz are somewhat elderly, and so a long prison term for 'inappropriate political speech' is basically a death sentence, which will be gleefully enforced by Tribal minions, of which there is never a dearth.

So we should enjoy our liberty to speak our minds freely here at Unz while we still have it, as it won't last long, I can assure you .

Rurik , says: November 17, 2020 at 3:18 pm GMT • 5.6 hours ago

also do nothing particularly to benefit Trump's campaign to be re-elected through legal challenges.

Does Dr. Giraldi believe that the measures may generally benefit the legal challenges?

wasn't your entire shtick that it doesn't matter in the least which whore of Zion sits in the White House, and that we're all chumps for caring or voting, because it doesn't matter one whit?

And now somehow that the voting is over, you still seem keen on obsessing over the outcome.

To answer your question, (if I may Mr. G)..

'Pro-Israeli measures' (presidential slavish and abased fealty to Bibi/Israel) does nothing to particularly *or* generally benefit Trump, vs. the other whore of Zion. As 'Bibi' was one of the very first heads of state to congratulate Biden and toss his former supplicant and courtesan out the door – with less grace or gratitude than I've seen sailors toss two-bit hookers out the door once the service was performed.

I'm sure in both cases they feel particularly sullied. Considering how eagerly and enthusiastically they swallowed their um.. duties.

I must say, I felt more pity for the whore in some Caribbean port, who sold herself for a few pesos, than I do for the political whore who sold out my nation.

That said, Trump has done more to keep whatever shred of dignity a whore has, than all his recent predecessors.. (how do you quantify the incomprehensible evil of 9/11, Shock and Awe, Patriot Act, Gitmo, Obama's destruction of Libya and Syria, etc , using the English language?)

The bar has been so low for so long, that simply not having destroyed several nations and mass-murdered untold hundreds of thousands- in slavish fealty to Israel- is reason enough for some of us to consider your presidency a measured success.

Our free-fall into the abyss hit a snag on the way down with the Trump administration.

But not to worry, under Biden/Harris, we'll get to those 'seven nations'. It's just going to take a little longer than 'five years', is all.

Colin Wright , says: Website November 17, 2020 at 3:43 pm GMT • 5.2 hours ago
@Lot

'Nah, it's like Canada, an America Jr. '

Except that they shoot children, burn babies alive, and spit on Christians. And oh yeah: not much in the way of salmon fishing.

But other than that, just like Canada.

MarkU , says: November 17, 2020 at 3:45 pm GMT • 5.2 hours ago
@Ralph B. Seymour e 'friends of Israel'.

Nor is it really about Jews as such, it is about a Jewish financial elite that took control with the signing of the Federal Reserve act in 1913.

Face facts Americans, your 'deep state' is mostly controlled by Jewish bankers. If white gentiles were really in charge of America would they be demonising themselves with anti-white racism? Have you not noticed that your own political elites are marrying into the tribe? Remember those royal weddings that European monarchies arranged to seal alliances with other nations? Your political elites are cementing alliances with the bankers by marriage.

Colin Wright , says: Website November 17, 2020 at 3:46 pm GMT • 5.2 hours ago
@Rurik

'Our free-fall into the abyss hit a snag on the way down with the Trump administration.'

Not much of a snag, but you're right.

anon [332] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 3:48 pm GMT • 5.1 hours ago

If you're serious about this, you will acknowledge that your bosses at NHB get away with murder, torture, assassination of heads of state including your own, coercive interference, aggression, and use of banned weapons. Now is the time to drop your Boy Scout act.

You won't have to lean on your vegetable Biden too hard to make him faithfully execute the Symington-Glenn Amendment and the Leahy Law. That cuts off Mossad's bribe spigot. Maybe there will be a little dustup on your own turf, but who's going to win that? When it comes down to it, Israel is a one-nuke laydown.

The Israeli command structure are deep-dyed cowards. Whack a few in spectacular ways and the grabass will stop. Start with Bibi.

CoolAid Joe , says: November 17, 2020 at 3:48 pm GMT • 5.1 hours ago
@Lot

Yeah she's a hot bitch. A rare thing an attractive jew.

Good thing she's marrying out.

Rurik , says: November 17, 2020 at 3:50 pm GMT • 5.1 hours ago
@Moi nists.

Not hardly.

And Phil is right, that we are very disgusted (understatement of the century) with the Eternal Wars for Israel.

But like the French, (who bombed Libya into the stone age in fealty to Zion), and the Brits who go along with it all, and the Germans who piss their lederhosen at the mention of Israel, and all the other countries that are vassals of the Federal Reserve and their Satanic minions, our institutions also have been utterly corrupted by this (((fiat paper))).

But that doesn't mean that we like it.

anonymous [400] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 3:54 pm GMT • 5.0 hours ago

many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their support

That's one of the major features of American politics. American politicians are mostly whores for sale so naturally various interests will buy them. It's not what's good for the country but what's good for their bank account. Greed and corruption are what'll be the undoing of the US.
It's only logical that Iran would want to build nuclear weapons since the US and Israel have them and war has been threatened against Iran almost continuously. Being threatened has a way of spurring on the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The US was the first to develop them and then actually used them, setting off a chain reaction of other countries developing their own. It seems to only be a matter of time before Iran actually has it. Then what?

heymrguda , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:00 pm GMT • 4.9 hours ago

Don't forget Rep. Jim Traficant (d-oh) on your list of people torpedoed by the lobby.

anon [315] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:02 pm GMT • 4.9 hours ago

My favorite poster of the day, says it all about whites who continue to vote with the Satanic, blood-sucking, parasitic tribe:

Realist , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:03 pm GMT • 4.9 hours ago

Perhaps some day Whites will stop pissing and moaning and do something about their plight.

Philip Giraldi , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:11 pm GMT • 4.7 hours ago
@heymrguda

Thanks – I did forget Jim, who stood up to the bastards and paid the price.

anon [315] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:12 pm GMT • 4.7 hours ago
@anonymous

Are we talking about the same Obama? The Obama who invaded Syria and Libya when they did absolutely nothing to threaten the security of the US? The JCPOA was credit to John Kerry, who was then slaughtered by msm on his way out for calling for a two-state solution that includes Israel leaving the occupied West Bank.

Osama was spot on when he called Obama a "house nigger". That was all he was, nothing more. We don't need another. We already had one.

RedpilledAF , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:15 pm GMT • 4.7 hours ago

I am more and more a supporter of Iran every day.

They had a revolution to get rid of western influenced degeneracy. They support Palestine unwaveringly. They support Lebanon unwaveringly. They defended Syria along with Russia. They are Russia's closest ally in the world. They stand up to Israel. They fight Israel. They attack the social and political theory of Zionism as well it's existence.

God bless them and protect them because often it seems like they are the only ones at a state level doing anything about the evil in our world.

Lot , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:16 pm GMT • 4.7 hours ago
@Colin Wright

Those are things happening IN Canada due to its insane decision to import Muslims and Haitians.

You're right that Israel at times can be brutal. Muslim barbarism coarsens those around them. Not just Israel: Thailand, Philippines, Burma, India, Ethiopia, Greece, Armenia.

The worldwide Jihad Colin and Phil support creates bloody borders with Islam always seeking to conquer and enslave.

Israel says NO! And that's why they are full of obsessive hate for it.

Rurik , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:17 pm GMT • 4.6 hours ago
@Realist

Perhaps some day Whites will stop pissing and moaning and do something about their plight.

by all means, what do you propose?

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:31 pm GMT • 4.4 hours ago
@Realist

Perhaps some day Whites will stop pissing and moaning and do something about their plight.

Patience, Grasshopper!

You are not a gardener, are you?

Jack McArthur , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:33 pm GMT • 4.4 hours ago
@anon

A fine analysis. I would add in one more group to your list i.e. the Christian churches who daily play the part of Judas.

Realist , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:35 pm GMT • 4.3 hours ago
@Rurik

by all means, what do you propose?

Revolution and you?

phillip sawicki , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:36 pm GMT • 4.3 hours ago
@anon ormer number two at the State Department) and his son Douglas published 'The Passionate Attachment," explaining how it had evolved over the years. In 2007 came the Mearsheimer/Walt book on AIPAC. For a critical history of Israel wince Biblical times, see Laurent Guyenot's book From Yahweh to Zion, published in 2018. The last-named says that Israel is responsible for JFK's death. He had tried to stop Israel's nuclear weapons program and thus was killed. The Warren Report covered up that particular crime. Jews are a tremendously talented tribe, but they have no right to dominate the world, which is what Israel is now determined to do.
Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:36 pm GMT • 4.3 hours ago
@Lot

The worldwide Jihad Colin and Phil support creates bloody borders with Islam always seeking to conquer and enslave.

Israel says NO!

Of course they say "no." An Izzie without a monopoly? Unthinkable.

Poco , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:38 pm GMT • 4.3 hours ago
@Robjil

That arm should be amputated. Then shoved up her ass.

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:39 pm GMT • 4.3 hours ago
@Philip Giraldi

Thanks – I did forget Jim, who stood up to the bastards and paid the price.

True, and I wonder how long it'll take before people realize that even by sucking up to the bastards they'll still pay the price.

anarchyst , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:45 pm GMT • 4.2 hours ago
@Realist eing but another hazard that the left takes advantage of, in order to silence the opposition, with good effect, so far
All one has to do is look at the Memphis couple who was arrested for defending themselves as well as James Fields who has been wrongly convicted of murder while attempting to escape while being attacked.
At the present time, discretion is advised.
The only effective way to "nip this in the bud" would be to confront the police, city officials, judges and prosecutors directly
As they are well-protected, that is not a viable option at this time presently, but in the future who knows??
Realist , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:52 pm GMT • 4.1 hours ago
@Ugetit

Patience, Grasshopper!

You are not a gardener, are you?

Silly childish response Patience has brought us to this disastrous point in US history

phillip sawicki , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:53 pm GMT • 4.0 hours ago

There are some very good books on the subject. See The Passionate Attachment by George and Douglas Ball, published in 1992. (George Ball was the number two man at State under jFK and LBJ.)
See the book on AIPAC by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, published in 2007. See Laurent Guyenot's From Yahweh to Zion, published in 2018.

Anonymous [401] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:55 pm GMT • 4.0 hours ago
@BL Did Jews learn nothing by wandering the desert for 40 years? Do they forget that they were frog-marched for defying their own god, Yahweh, yet again? Yet they seem to think their slow-motion shoahing of Palestinians will go unpunished.

How many future small-but-hugely-powerful guided missiles hitting Haifa, Tel Aviv, etc. will Israelis be able to take? What their power-hungry pride protect them then?

Do Jews really think they will not be held responsible/targeted around the world for the crimes of their state?

What other state, what other people, think only THEY matter?

The Jewish State has become a blight unto the nations.

Israelo delenda est!

Jack McArthur , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:56 pm GMT • 4.0 hours ago

Whilst human beings conspiring is as old nevertheless the Biden family is an example of something way, way beyond human artifice. You do not have to be a Christian to recognize that what Jesus said of the Jews was right on the mark – their father is a devil. The New Testament says explicitly that the ruler of this world is the Satanic Majesties the Rolling Stones celebrated in 1967.

Jesus was offered the entire world if he would take the knee not to Saint George of this sick era but to satan. He replied that this was the epitome of shortermism.

People are no more than puppets on a string without divine protection and that is why I do not hate Jews but only the vile evil in which they excel through the "gifts" of their spiritual father.

Greta Handel , says: November 17, 2020 at 4:57 pm GMT • 4.0 hours ago
@Rurik ion sits in the White House, and that we're all chumps for caring or voting, because it doesn't matter one whit?

And now somehow that the voting is over, you still seem keen on obsessing over the outcome.

There's nothing inconsistent in (i) my position about the futility of Red/Blue politics to effect any change in what matters to the Establishment and (ii) the question I've posed to the author. In fact, how and why "the outcome" is arrived at may enlighten some gullible voters.

Of course, you neither needed nor wanted to hear that. Which is why you didn't reply to me directly, right?

Philip Giraldi , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:01 pm GMT • 3.9 hours ago
@phillip sawicki

And Alison Weir's Against Our Better Judgment

Jack McArthur , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:10 pm GMT • 3.8 hours ago
@phillip sawicki

Your observation is confirmed by Lord Beaverbrook explaining to the young Robert Kennedy at the end of WW2 that the USA was a subjugated country run by Jews.

Cauchemar du Singe , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:28 pm GMT • 3.5 hours ago
@anon

The Talmudic Zionist jew vampire pirates, in their arrogance, believe themselves to be beyond accountability for their many misdeeds.
Speed The Day when their filthy little illegitimate enclave on the Easterrn shores of The Med gets glassed over in a thermonuclear kind of way.
The remedy for the ills of Wall Street and The Bank of England will only be a tad less harsh.
A bounty on all Rothschilds and Warburgs and their servile rats and snakes would also be nice.

It's got to start somewhere.

Rurik , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:30 pm GMT • 3.4 hours ago
@Realist nks Woodrow) [RIH]

And then there's also the 'Atlas Shrugged' strategy- wherein all honest and productive people of good will, eventually refuse to be willing lapdogs to this Satanic cabal.

As long as you'll lose your job, by mentioning the truth, don't do so. But more and more, as the 'hundredth monkey' come around to the Great Awakening', like the Soviet Union, this devil'$ charade must certainly die its ignoble death.

and beauty, truth and peace, will once again rise like a phoenix from the ashes of Zion

Defcon , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:32 pm GMT • 3.4 hours ago
@Ralph B. Seymour shred of human remorse.

The bolsheviks goal was a %90 reduction in population, the Talmud states that the "goy" were to be their servants, the beasts are not worthy. 10% of the Russian goys would be enough.

After their reign of terror from 1917 to 1989, they sucked the rest of Russia dry and moved to their next target, the USA. They are almost done here, they will poison us with the covid vaccination and as a final F you leave us as a minority among the hoards of subhumans.

Their next target is Uzbekistan, this is why no one ever hears about the country or can point it out on a map.

Cauchemar du Singe , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:37 pm GMT • 3.3 hours ago
@Achilles Wannabe

Ben Franklin, in his prescient wisdom, wanted a Constitutional inclusion that would have barred (((them))) from even setting foot upon The New Republic.
Too bad that (((The Worms))) were already here perpetrating their financial scumbaggery.

Cauchemar du Singe , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:44 pm GMT • 3.2 hours ago
@frankie p

jews, Blacks and Muslims TEACH people to hate them, and are very good teachers.

BL , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:46 pm GMT • 3.2 hours ago
@Anonymous e in terms of any real concern for the national interest of the United States vis-à-vis Iran.

Also, did you intentionally omit the USA removing Iran's democratically-elected leader in 1953? Or America giving poison gas to Iraq to use against Iranians?

A word to the wise, sovereigns aren't cute and cuddly. The effect their interests with little regard for humans in their way.

It's downright embarrassing that Iran and its acolytes are still belly-aching about Mosaddegh. It's going to continue to be a hard road with the US if they don't learn to shake it off.

melgibson , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:48 pm GMT • 3.1 hours ago
@Colin Wright

How about a movie, a Hollywood style blockbuster titled: Operation Susanna! What a spy thriller that would be.

Per/Norway , says: November 17, 2020 at 5:54 pm GMT • 3.0 hours ago
@MarkU

You are not supposed to notice these patterns.
Report to the nearest fema HaPpY CaMp™ for your reeducation peasant.

Katrinka , says: November 17, 2020 at 6:01 pm GMT • 2.9 hours ago
@Jack McArthur

If any minister, pastor, or priest starts to sermonize about Judeo-Christian commonality, head straight out the door. Christians and Jews have no common ground. In fact, the modern Jewish religion was created as a response to Christianity. It is Pharisaism based on the Talmud, not the Old Testament.
http://judaism.is/judeo-christian.html
https://keruxreplies.blogspot.com/2010/06/judeo-christian-is-oxymoron.html

Per/Norway , says: November 17, 2020 at 6:04 pm GMT • 2.9 hours ago
@Achilles Wannabe

dig a bit deeper on the interwebz and you will see that there are many wypipo historians that have screamed this message the last 100 years+.
They get shunned, memoryholed or worse.
I will not link on purpose because the search is important for learning, but i will give you a hint
archiveDOTorg have many off their books available.
Type "political zionism" into their searchbar and learn about the enemy of humanity and their origins first.
Pharisees is their true name btw, b4 the 2 world wars this was common knowledge among us Christian goyims

Per/Norway , says: November 17, 2020 at 6:06 pm GMT • 2.8 hours ago
@Anonymous

the star of david is not a pentagram it is satanic tho.

Rev. Spooner , says: November 17, 2020 at 6:07 pm GMT • 2.8 hours ago

This is from wikipedia for whatever it's worth -- Centuries later, the Jews were expelled from China proper during the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution (845–46), where they lived in the region of Ningxia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews

That makes it 110 countries?

Rurik , says: November 17, 2020 at 6:18 pm GMT • 2.6 hours ago
@Greta Handel p> The fact that I quoted you, on the same thread you're reading and writing on, means to a certainty that I was responding to your post with the intent that you'd see it. (duh)

There's nothing inconsistent in (i) my position about the futility of Red/Blue politics to effect any change in what matters to the Establishment and (ii) the question I've posed to the author. In fact, how and why "the outcome" is arrived at may enlighten some gullible voters.

Yea, that was your only interest, in your priggish, pedantic parsing of Philip's prose.

I gotcha

Curmudgeon , says: November 17, 2020 at 6:31 pm GMT • 2.4 hours ago
@Colin Wright

Canada has been kiked for 50 years. The Canada I grew up in had no problem pointing out tribal influence, and no one called it Auntie Shem-itism.
We have gone from the 1930s when "one would be too many" was the attitude to Jewish "refugees" asking for admission to openly admitting we are Israel's bitch. At the same time, making it clear non-whites were not welcome to let's flood the country, already suffering from high unemployment, with more than 1% of our population annually from the 3rd world.

anon [471] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 6:35 pm GMT • 2.3 hours ago
@BL

"t's downright embarrassing that Iran and its acolytes are still belly-aching about Mosaddegh."

It's downright embarrassing that Israel and its acolytes are still belly-aching about Holocaust to steal few more pennies and dimes .

t's downright embarrassing that west and its acolytes are still belly-aching about 911 ,and knife attacks and Chinese something to wage wars for Israel.

profnasty , says: November 17, 2020 at 6:37 pm GMT • 2.3 hours ago

Good points all.
My suggestion?
Establish Greater Israel from Nile to Euphrates. Give Jews full hegemony in their new country.
Then, deport 3/4 of American Jews. Make laws to prevent, here, Jewish control of finance, education, or media. And above all, keep America's nuclear deterrent razor sharp.
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Colin Wright , says: Website November 17, 2020 at 6:51 pm GMT • 2.1 hours ago
@Lot

'Israel says NO! And that's why they are full of obsessive hate for it.'

No -- I'm full of hate for Israel because it's an evil, duplicitous, corrosive, criminal, indefensible, and unnecessary state that generates a great deal of misery that wouldn't otherwise happen and that has corrupted my own country and implicated us in its crimes.

Colin Wright , says: Website November 17, 2020 at 6:59 pm GMT • 1.9 hours ago
@anonymous

' it seems that only a smart, independent minded black politician '

Black politicians come in two flavors: corrupt, and ineffectual. Neither one would serve your purposes.

Black politicians -- and judges -- actually tend to be Israel's most willing tools

Realist , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:01 pm GMT • 1.9 hours ago
@Rurik

Swell poetry but what's the solution?

Realist , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:08 pm GMT • 1.8 hours ago
@anarchyst

Written like a true wimp bend over and take it in the ass.

anonymous [387] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:10 pm GMT • 1.8 hours ago
@RoatanBill

All foreign aid should be turned off

Lol! The irony hidden there is hilarious.

You see, it is the Banana States of America which is the most indebted beggar nation on earth. It survives because foreign nations perform trade using the dollar. Without that trade, the Banana States would be on its knees, literally begging.

Now, do you see who is aiding whom?

anonymous [321] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:15 pm GMT • 1.7 hours ago
@anon

Judeo-fascism
Judeo-deception
Judeo-hypocrisy
Judeo-coup

[MORE]
mark green , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:46 pm GMT • 1.2 hours ago
@frankie p mplex–and often ruthless–political struggle.

In fact, 'anti-Semitism' is a legitimate and appropriate self-defense mechanism. 'Anti-Semitism' needn't produce violence, injustice, or bloodshed. It is fundamentally about awareness and self-preservation. It is a discredited virtue, born from necessity.

Invasive, devious, and destruction species must be resisted. 'Anti-Semitic' theory suggests that one party–often the dominant, duplicitous, and aggressive one– is endowed with moral superiority in the struggle for political power and self-determination. This inculcated myth is an oversized kosher lie.

anonymous [387] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:56 pm GMT • 60 minutes ago
@Cauchemar du Singe . So do not knowingly set up equals to Allah ˹in worship˺ .

And if you are in doubt about what We have revealed to Our servant, then produce a sûrah like it and call your helpers other than Allah, if what you say is true.

But if you are unable to do so -- and you will never be able to do so -- then fear the Fire fuelled with people and stones, which is prepared for the disbelievers .

May your hate consume you in this world, while the fire of Hell awaits your kind with much anticipation.

On the Day We will say to Hell, "Have you been filled?" and it will say, "Are there some more?"

anon [148] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:59 pm GMT • 57 minutes ago

Just like any cancer, it finally kills it's host, and it goes down with it.
Some day , the cure will come , and the world will be rid of it's foremost problem

AReply , says: November 17, 2020 at 7:59 pm GMT • 57 minutes ago

Dazzling! Fascinating!

This narrative of the poor enslaved USA, beholden to Isreal is openly contradictory to our manifest galactic power -- something, something middle-east energy and minerals, geopolitics Whatever Boring!

As to heartache of Obama: While Isreal working him over through the derp state double agent Rahm, U.S. Republicans shit on the President's head continuously, en masse for his entire tenure and thwarted with open bigotry and contempt his every attempt to execute thoroughly Republican policy!

So yes, Zion, and Republicans. Both a great threat to USA and democracy.

Pat Kittle , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:05 pm GMT • 51 minutes ago

JOE BIDEN receives a MOMENTO from the JEW LOBBY

Old Joe's most humiliating (& revealing) experience
was immediately consigned to the Memory Hole:
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

"I HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER YOU BUT BROKEN GLASS," Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed US Vice President Biden during an after-dinner ceremony in Jerusalem on March 9, 2010.

Netanyahu had prepared a symbolic gift for visiting Vice President JoeBiden: a framed document announcing that several trees were planted in Jerusalem in memory of Biden's mother, a loyal supporter of Israel.

But with Biden's mission to persuade the Israeli government to begin shrinking Greater Israel back to its pre-1967 borders, Netanyahu leaned on thepresent (NOT "accidentally" as reported by the Jew-owned press) and shattered the glass frame.

Then came Netanyahu's cyptic warning and by way of indirection, a threat to Obama: "I have one thing to offer you right now, and it's broken glass." [ViewFull Photo Here.]

It got worse. At a later tour of Israel's Holocaust memorial museum, Yad Vashem, the lights in the Hall of Remembrance "unexpectedly" went out as a prayer for the dead was chanted.

Catching Biden's security detail by surprise as they anxiously stood forover 60 seconds in utter darkness, only the "eternal fire" that honored the Jewish dead spread its ominous light upon the Biden contingent.

By the time the lights flickered back on, Biden's Middle East fortunes were sealed with an Israeli announcement that it would build 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers, ignoring US and Palestinian objections. On Biden's departure for Jordan, Ha'aretz reported that Israel plans to build 50,000 new homes in East Jerusalem over the next three years.

The "broken glass" and the "moments of darkness" that Biden experienced were not chance events. Nothing happens at official Israeli gatherings that is not carefully planned and orchestrated in advance. And in spite of Biden's groveling before Netanyahu and Peres, with vows of Israel being the "centerpiece of US policy," the Vice President's cowering was met with glassy eyes by the leaders of the "master race."

Symbolic acts, such as the breaking of a glass by a Jewish groom beforemaking vows of faithfulness to his bride at every Jewish wedding, are part of Jewish tradition. When the Jewish groom crushes the glass beneath his rightfoot, he silently pledges to avenge the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and wage war on all those who would perpetuate that destruction .

CONTINUED:
-- ( http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=488 )

sarz , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:08 pm GMT • 48 minutes ago
@anarchyst

Trump hasn't just been dealing with Jews his whole life. The Trumps are Jews, as Trump's elder brother told his frat brothers at his Jewish fraternity at college. What Trump did for Israel was done because of what he considers himself to be. But that doesn't mean he doesn't recognize something higher. He does. Himself. If he can't be a winner affirming Israel, then the hell with Israel. That's really ultimate Jewish values, right? Some have spoken of it as having no soul.

RoatanBill , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:09 pm GMT • 47 minutes ago
@anonymous e to nothing to do with the US's foreign aid scam.

Foreign aid supports dictators around the world to see things the US's way.

It provides the money to, for example, Israel, to turn that money around to purchase weapons and to bribe Congress with our own currency. In effect, the US uses foreign aid as a straw man to simply funnel money from the US gov't to the US corporate elite and Congress.

Some of the money that went to Ukraine eventually found its way back to the US in Biden's pocket along with a whole host of DNC operatives. That revelation should come out if the Justice Dept weren't part of the scam.

Z-man , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:18 pm GMT • 38 minutes ago

I z ruel The Last Superpower.

Anon [255] Disclaimer , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:21 pm GMT • 35 minutes ago

Must be, look at what theyve gotten away with. COVID race specific biowar. 9/11. Theres no terrorism, only Israel going for world domination. USS Liberty. Murder of Patton. On and on.

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:22 pm GMT • 34 minutes ago
@Realist

Silly childish response

You want a silly childish response?

Here you go.

Perhaps some day Whites will stop pissing and moaning and do something about their plight.

Greta Handel , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:24 pm GMT • 32 minutes ago
@Rurik " into pseudonymity by Mr. Unz's recent limit of three anonymous comments per day, tends to decay the quality of discussion in comment threads. People think that they have to mark every hydrant, and wait on each other to settle scores, rather than comment on the column. (I'm not immune!) This is what happened at Taki's, ZeroHedge, and most recently Kunstler, where the same people trudge into their pews every Monday and Friday, hear one of the same few sermons, and then start snipping.

If we didn't have a history, "Rurik," I doubt that you would have taken much interest in my #35, which you apparently still misunderstand.

sarz , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:25 pm GMT • 31 minutes ago
@RedpilledAF

It's written in the Iran constitution that it is the duty of the country to fight oppression.

Ugetit , says: November 17, 2020 at 8:30 pm GMT • 26 minutes ago
@Realist

Written like a true wimp bend over and take it in the ass.

By the sounds of yer squaking, you've been doing enough of that for all of us, Ram-bo. Now, step aside and let the grownups decide.

[Nov 16, 2020] How Russiagate Ruined Everything

Nov 16, 2020 | www.antiwar.com

Daniel McAdams Posted on November 15, 2020

How did the Russiagate hoax feed into the Covid hoax and then feed into the Election hoax? Ron Paul Institute Director Daniel McAdams ties them all together in this speech to the Mises Institute 's recent Lake Jackson Seminar with Ron Paul. "All of a sudden the tweets are gone, the Facebook is gone, the media is gone. Only crazy people are questioning the most pristine -- the most perfect -- election of all time." Watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1YultIz0Q-E

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity .

[Nov 15, 2020] Trump Must Out The Deep State -

Nov 15, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Trump Must Out The Deep State


by Tyler Durden Fri, 11/13/2020 - 19:00 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Steve Brown via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Whether the US 2020 election was truly stolen or not we will likely never know. The president himself doesn't know since he failed to purge the palace that embarked on the palace coup that has seemingly toppled him.

Booting Mark 'Raytheon' Esper after the fact simply highlights this fact.

Now, Mr. Trump will have to put on his thinking cap and grasp the Machiavellian reality of the perverse Washington cesspool he has presided over for nearly four years - and come up with a plan.

Trump can use his deal-making skills to court the Evil Empire's titular head, but what sort of deal would that be? And if Mr. Trump truly is the visionary and rogue his base believes he is, then he could disembowel the Deep State with an adroit stroke or two instead. However, with Jared Kushner as his top advisor, that's unlikely.

But if he chose to, how could Mr. Trump out Washington's Axis of Evil while avenging himself on the Beltway's swamp creatures?

Well, one major hurdle for Washington's corrupt coup class is the upcoming government shutdown. The central government runs out of Federal Reserve just-above bog roll – ie funding again -- on December 11th . The president must reliably engage Mitch McConnell in withholding any new funding agreement, and since McConnell's position is secure there is little motivation for him to provide favors now, especially when Trump is supremely vulnerable.

During the pandemic a Trump government shutdown would certainly generate massive public and major media outrage. Likewise, Mr. Trump has been most interested in keeping his promises to the people, so a government shutdown is unlikely to be in the cards.

Another option, Trump could issue executive orders to end the endless US-initiated conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. In such a scenario, Congress would have to scramble to keep its wars going. However the new Zombie-head, major media, and US congress would certainly howl to the moon all the while. Even so, Trump could leave office with some satisfaction, knowing that he did what he promised to do, regardless of opposition from the warfare state cancer infesting the Beltway.

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The United States funds about 70 percent of NATO's Cold War dinosaur existence too, with member states contributing the rest. Trump jousted with Esper over NATO, their most significant point of difference. Now the president can defund NATO with an emergency executive order – perhaps on a government shutdown basis? – at a stroke. Like ending America's endless wars, the new Zombie leader (Biden) major media, and US congress would howl to the moon all the while and ditto on Trump's satisfaction.

Now think of all the secrets Trump knows on so many issues, from Huntergate to Russiagate. Trump knows who setup George Papadopoulos and why. He knows about the Steele Dossier . Trump knows the Deep State's secrets and where the dirty laundry is hidden. If Trump truly were a visionary - as well as a rogue (not to mention patriot) - he could easily out the dirty laundry in one go. But that may be too much, creating risk for himself and his family. A more practical idea would be to covertly get the information out for "plausible denial" release later. All that's left would be to admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter-accusations.

In such interesting times, Mr. Trump has other options - even seemingly frivolous ones. He could out the facts on Hillary's emails and the related alleged FBI cover-up; or undermine any deal the Zombie's regime intends to make with Ghislaine Maxwell in order to protect powerful interests. Trump could even release all the documents, unredacted, on the John F Kennedy assassination, showing that elements within Langley's unconstitutional Criminal Intelligence Agency were involved and that the assassination was not just the work of a "lone nut" who got lucky.

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In brief, Trump's options re outing the Deep State are virtually limitless. Washington's detritus and the grifters who infest the Beltway's infernal swamp – like Biden – are of course aware of that, too. So there is a good chance some sort of deal will be cut for Trump's graceful exit, especially if rumors are true that Trump will run again in 2024.

If not... then watch out below! 6 play_arrow 3 FreemonSandlewould , 1 day ago

Have a look at the bar graphs and see if you think it confirms Biden fraud in Pennsylvania

We know. There is no doubt that the election was stolen.

All the social ques say so. All the numbers say so.

Another option, Trump could issue executive orders to end the endless US-initiated conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. In such a scenario, Congress would have to scramble to keep its wars going.

Uh. No. They would just ignore the orders. The real orders come from the JCG. ( Jish Control Grid ). The propaganda - news agencies would be used to squelch any real propagation of these stories. It's as if this guy has been asleep. There is blatant in your face proof of election fraud yet what do we have?

cankles' server , 1 day ago

19,958 vote switch in PA from Trump to Biden. Despite being 4M votes behind. They were overwhelmed with the red tsunami.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iywjrHJex51RQU4TcyUj81_SJP3WpH4c/view?usp=sharing

Pic 1

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nG6zC-nRSEaTKFjI3Q0YmnFZU5Q_KSsK/view?usp=sharing

Pic 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynchhdyKLSc

Izzy Dunne , 22 hours ago

Ann Coulter nails it:

Talking and tweeting is not action:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/11/13/ann-coulter-what-america-wants-is-trumpism-without-trump/

John Grady , 1 day ago

Order declassification, not authorize it. Pardon Assange and Snowden. Most importantly, cease all military conflicts immediately and started bring troops home from all theaters. It might not work for long but it will make them reveal themselves by having to hit the switches to turn the war machine back on.

DanDaley , 1 day ago

Trump needs to pull out all the stops, he has nothing left to lose...put it all out there 911, Clinton murders, Epestein's pedo island -John Roberts connection, the whole damned thing. They will go after him, prison, whatever...he needs to pull no punches, none!

Same for everyone...you give up your firearms, you sign your death warrant.

Reaper , 1 day ago

Withdraw all troops from Middle East and Afghanistan. Declassify and release all the CIA misdeeds back to Truman. Pardon Assange and Snowden. Release all the FBI's investigation of Biden Family.

cjones1 , 23 hours ago

Trump has just had his political generals suffer their Wilderness campaign. Who is his General U.S. Grant who see this fight through to victory?

AG Barr has lost his will to fight. Huntergate & Russiagate should have had their defendents on trial by now.

FDA & NIH have been working behind the lines and the Pfizer vaccine announcement was deliberately delayed until after the election. To add insult to injury, the Confederate camp was notified the night before the official announcement.

Biden condemned locking down egress from China in January, but now he desires to lock down the country. He has never acknowledged the origin of the CCP's Wuhan lab coronavirus (Covid 19/SARS2) pandemic, but has blamed Trump for the toll his Chinese paymasters have inflicted on America.

The deepest wounds to Trump have been inflicted by the Deep State and RINOs.

The election was rigged with pre-filled out ballot dumps, non-certification of ballots, restriction of access for observers, and fraudware counts. I wouldn't be surprised if hundreds or thousands of "You ain't Black votes" were disenfranchised by the fraud and corruption in this election. Our successful U.S. Grant will defeat such fraud. Whether that general is Rudy G., Sidney P., or some other Sherman or Sheridan remains to be seen.

With Trump's certification to reelection, his coattails may bring the Republicans a House majority and additional no runoff Senators. That day would be glorious and the take down of the Deep State, Globalist robber barons, and Socialist Confederates could commence. Trump could begin the reconstruction and the renaissance of America the Beautiful that would bring prosperity and sanity to this era of misguided forces and dishonesty which brought decades of ruin.

Mine eyes have seen the Glory in the coming of the Lord.

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

May the loyal Republicans kick those Democratic party Confederates and their RINO allied butts as they well deserve.

[Nov 14, 2020] This still technically ongoing electoral process has exposed many truths and confirmed a wide range of suspicions about what is actually going on inside American politics.

Highly recommended!
Nov 14, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tim Kirby via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Right now, the entire world sits in waiting for the final declaration of the victor in the 2020 U.S. Presidential race even if they have already officially congratulated Biden. This still technically ongoing electoral process has exposed many truths and confirmed a wide range of suspicions about what is actually going on inside American politics. How "the game is to be played" going further down the road will be determined by who wins or maybe better yet how they win. Let's break down everything we should have learned from this very unusual voting year during this brief window of uncertainty.

Democratic calls for "Healing and Unity" prove Trump has a strong case

The American Left is now crying out for " Healing and Unity " across the country which is an obvious middle school ploy to make any attempts by Trump to get fair final election results look pathetic and divisive. On the surface one would think that this is an offensive strategy from the dominant side to get the other to break, but calls for peace generally come from the one with the weaker hand.

If the Democrats were sure that Trump lost, then there would be no need to call for peace after years of demonizing anyone who doesn't agree with them. This rhetorical change is not one of triumph, but of fear. When the first partially Black President of the United States came to power the Left boldly rode this wave of political inertia starting their transformation into hardcore Progressives and while showing zero concern for the losers and "unity". For them this was a smug moment of victory, much like Trump's 2016 victory was for the right. So why would they choose to become so much more friendly all of a sudden this time?

Image: After years of hateful rhetoric why call for healing and unity now?

It seems more likely than not that this guilt tactic is being used because Trump may actually have a case and be able to get the votes counted accurately, i.e. in his favour. Moral high ground attacks from the Dems are unlikely to work as Trump has been compared to Hitler since the start of his previous electoral campaign. Appeasement for the POTUS has thus far completely failed, why would it start working now?

A Color Revolution in America is possible and may have occurred

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The Old Russian joke that a revolution could "never happen in America because there are no U.S. Embassies in Washington" has now become obsolete. The media, including even the supposedly conservative Fox News, has completely and totally given the election to Biden despite many irregularities. Not to mention, the fact that as these words are being typed – the election is not officially over.

Image: High journalistic standards in practice in the EU.

If there is one key element to a Color Revolution that must be in place for success it is control of the media. If every TV channel and news site says candidate X is the winner, then he has won regardless of votes and regardless of how many people still use said dinosaur media. They ultimately cast the big final ballot.

The rampant tampering and falsification witnessed (and often self filmed by the perpetrators) during the election looked like something you would expect to see in a "backwards third world hellhole" type of country. The manipulation was rampant, blatant and primitive.

This fact can and should be used by the nations at odds with America (Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Syria, etc.) in perpetuity as proof that the U.S. never had, nor should have, some sort of democracy-based moral authority over anyone else. America's own Color Revolution delegitimizes any attempts to spread regime change via media elsewhere across the globe .

The Dynamic between the Republicans and Democrats has changed forever.

Donald Trump has changed the Republican Party, from the party of Businessmen and a defensive Upper Middleclass with a sprinkling of Social Conservatism speaking almost exclusively to a White audience into a populist party that offers a Right Wing emotional vision to the multi-ethnic America that we live in today.

The shift in concept of the Republican Party is so severe that Trump's influence has had the same or maybe even a greater effect that "The Southern Strategy" ever did. Around ten or fifteen years ago it looked like America would evolve into a one-party state due to demographics and the inability of Republicans to appeal to non-Whites. If polls can be trusted, at the very least Trump has doubled the amount of Black Americans who voted for him last time and was able to persuade ⅓ of Latinos to vote for him despite building "The Wall". Looking back on the 2016 election it is easy to see these huge gains, in groups that the Democrats took for granted as "theirs".

In contrast to Trump's vision of a pro-Consitution, somewhat Libertarian populous party the Democrats have doubled down on hardcore Progressive positions. If the Dems used to represent the working man in a White vs. Blue collar America battle, they have now shifted over to being a Postmodernist circus of race, gender and sexual orientation baiting with a sprinkle of environmentalism via taxation as icing on the cake.

These are two radically different messages in direct opposition to each other, and the parties are no longer "two sides of the same coin", being two slightly different takes on the Liberalism laid down by the Founding Fathers. This is probably why things have gotten so unusually ugly, American politics may have become truly "winner take all" .

Enemy Lists are Proof of Extremism

When Richard Nixon's enemy list was discovered it shocked America. How could such an important politician try to crush those who disagreed with him? Those are the actions of a monsterous dictator, how horribly unamerican! Well the Overton Window has certainly shifted since the 1970's and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's call to create the same type of political repression of her enemies was met with mostly applause over Twitter.

Image: The Enlightenment is dead and we killed it.

Now a " Trump Accountability Project " has already sprung up based on her words to make sure that everyone who supported Trump will be somehow punished. From having their noses rubbed in it, to having their lives ruined by being doxed, harassed, etc.

This idea of creating a Black List of people to punish, is the line where passion for an ideology turns into a form of Extremism. This along with the intimidation tactics used by Antifa are proof that the Democratic Left now has demonstrably Extremist views .

The key issue with Extremists is that you cannot make any agreement with them as they see their opponents as subhuman and/or evil. Trump over the last 4 years has made the massive mistake of trying to "playball". The problem is that one cannot do so with people who have fanatical views. Making concessions to those with Extremist views is basically just tightening the noose around your own neck. Trump, if he survives this needs to understand that this is political war not political games.

Image: The election results are "counted" by those with the money to broadcast the results. Trump needs to break the monopoly.

Trump & The Right need to invest in a Media Empire

The homogeneity of the American news media has become Orwellian. Trump and other like-minded billionaires need to put together a countervoice on their own dime. The Trump Presidency would be doing much better if a billion dollar news outlet was on his side fighting back. There are many media experts with the experience needed (including and especially the author of this piece) who could get this done quickly and effectively.

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The Million MAGA March will surely turn violent and that violence will be exploited for political gains.

Image: The big march is coming, but who would honestly expect it to go peacefully?

Leaders that have survived Color Revolution attempts like Venezuela's Maduro and Belarus's Lukashenko have one thing in common – massive public support. At the very least a massive public showing for the Dear Orange Leader wouldn't hurt but if Antifa were to show up to fight, the event could be exploited by the Right for all sorts of political action. Just because Trump's views seem much more human and reasonable compared to SJWs does not make him a saint. This event will be manipulated to the utmost.

Congratulating Biden is proof of approval of or submission to Washington.

Image: Weaker and more loyal "allies" jumped at the chance to acknowledge Biden's victory.

Some nations have already congratulated Biden, whereas America's two "big dog" enemies, Russia and China, and many other disgruntled parties have not [ZH: China has since congratulated Biden]. This willingness to congratulate Biden, supporting the legitimacy of the elections as the Mainstream Media reported them is very telling to say the least.


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_arrow 6 Thinking123 , 9 hours ago

I do believe that there was a lot of fraud and cheating. Because Biden was as dumb as hell and didn't he talk in empty places.

A recount is definitely necessary, to expose the corrupt voting system and software that were used. Because if they are not exposed, they will do it again and again. Just like they did it to Bernie votes in 2016 primaries.

I don't think that he is the greatest President in US history, he has been Israel first and has given everything to them. He Made Israel Great Again.

Ancient Handicapper , 2 hours ago

Thinking, I would not be the least surprised to discover the Republicans committed some of that "fraud" voting you refer to. Republicans are famous for their "Dirty Tricks," and voting tricks are not beyond their ken. Why are so many people seeing only the Dems as having possibly cheated?

moonshadow , 1 hour ago

Republicans cheated Ron Paul. So what you say may be true. More likely Democrats, but...no problem, no prejudice, let's expose it ALL

rphb , 7 hours ago

The problem is, even IF he still can expose this fraud and get 4 more years, the US is done. The fact that so many thousands of Democrats, from normal postal workers, to governors and anything in between have felt perfectly justified in cheating to get their way is proof that the US is broken beyond repair.

...America have long since passed the point of no return. There is only controlled default or hyperinflation left, and the former requires a fidget of responsibility so the US is sure to choose the later.

The industrial base is gone, and what made America great, its freedoms, its ethics and its proud men and women, no longer exist

XanII , 7 hours ago

Called super trends. The youth is corrupted beyond repair and newcomers will come with specific goals in mind. The ammo box will be the last one remaining unless seccessions succeed better. i doubt that.

dont stare at the beam , 6 hours ago

The problem is not whether he can expose the fraud or not. The problem is that he is part of the fraud.

He never fought for the people.
2 play_arrow 2

[Nov 13, 2020] Neocons Poised to Join New Government by Phil Geraldi

Notable quotes:
"... It would not be overstating the case to suggest that the neoconservative movement has now been born again, though the enemy is now the unreliable Trumpean-dominated Republican Party rather than Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini. ..."
"... The transition has also been aided by a more aggressive shift among the Democrats themselves, with Russiagate and other “foreign interference” being blamed for the party’s failure in 2016. ..."
"... The unifying principle that ties many of the mostly Jewish neocons together is, of course, unconditional defense of Israel and everything it does, which leads them to support a policy of American global military dominance which they presume will inter alia serve as a security umbrella for the Jewish state. ..."
"... That change has now occurred and the surge of neocons to take up senior positions in the defense, intelligence and foreign policy agencies will soon take place. In my notes on the neocon revival, I have dubbed the brave new world that the neocons hope to create in Washington as the “Kaganate of Nulandia” after two of the more prominent neocon aspirants, Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland. ..."
"... A Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton protégé, Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. Her efforts were backed by a $5 billion budget, but she is perhaps most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create. The replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp break and escalating conflict with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea. ..."
"... A lot of the neocons are Russian Jews who grew up in households that were Bolshevik communists. They're idea of spreading democracy goes back to Trotsky who tried to spread communism through the Soviet Union. Their hatred toward Russia dates back to their ancestors feudal days under the Tsars and the pogroms they suffered and the ice pick Trotsky got to the head. ..."
"... Obama's deep state lied, people died: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/ ..."
"... I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology, beyond the fact that neocons seem devoted to the sort of status quo present in Washington, D.C. during the three administrations prior to Trump. Military adventurism, nation-building, and interventionist foreign policy, all based on nebulous concepts which are applied unevenly around the world. ..."
"... The Neocon movement seems to have morphed into nothing more than a club for bullies trying to one up each other. ..."
"... "It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way." ..."
"... Neocons don't really prefer war, so much as they prefer overseas "engagements" that may look like war and smell like war. All that's missing in neocon military operations is a defined end state. ..."
Nov 13, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Donald Trump was much troubled during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns by so-called conservatives who rallied behind the #NeverTrump banner, presumably in opposition to his stated intention to end or at least diminish America’s role in wars in the Middle East and Asia. Those individuals are generally described as neoconservatives but the label is itself somewhat misleading and they might more properly be described as liberal warmongers as they are closer to the Democrats than the Republicans on most social issues and are now warming up even more as the new Joe Biden Administration prepares to take office.

To be sure, some neocons stuck with the Republicans, to include the highly controversial Elliott Abrams, who initially opposed Trump but is now the point man for dealing with both Venezuela and Iran. Abrams’ conversion reportedly took place when he realized that the new president genuinely embraced unrelenting hostility towards Iran as exemplified by the ending of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. John Bolton was also a neocon in the White House fold, though he is now a frenemy having been fired by the president and written a book.

Even though the NeverTrumper neocons did not succeed in blocking Donald Trump in 2016, they have been maintaining relevancy by slowly drifting back towards the Democratic Party, which is where they originated back in the 1970s in the office of the Senator from Boeing Henry “Scoop” Jackson. A number of them started their political careers there, to include leading neocon Richard Perle.

It would not be overstating the case to suggest that the neoconservative movement has now been born again, though the enemy is now the unreliable Trumpean-dominated Republican Party rather than Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini.

The transition has also been aided by a more aggressive shift among the Democrats themselves, with Russiagate and other “foreign interference” being blamed for the party’s failure in 2016. Given that mutual intense hostility to Trump, the doors to previously shunned liberal media outlets have now opened wide to the stream of foreign policy “experts” who want to “restore a sense of the heroic” to U.S. national security policy. Eliot A. Cohen and David Frum are favored contributors to the Atlantic while Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss were together at the New York Times prior to Weiss’s recent resignation.

Jennifer Rubin, who wrote in 2016 that “It is time for some moral straight talk: Trump is evil incarnate,” is a frequent columnist for The Washington Post while both she and William Kristol appear regularly on MSNBC.

The unifying principle that ties many of the mostly Jewish neocons together is, of course, unconditional defense of Israel and everything it does, which leads them to support a policy of American global military dominance which they presume will inter alia serve as a security umbrella for the Jewish state. In the post-9/11 world, the neocon media’s leading publication The Weekly Standard virtually invented the concept of “Islamofascism” to justify endless war in the Middle East, a development that has killed millions of Muslims, destroyed at least three nations, and cost the U.S. taxpayer more than $5 trillion. The Israel connection has also resulted in neocon support for an aggressive policy against Russia due to its involvement in Syria and has led to repeated calls for the U.S. to attack Iran and destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Eastern Europe, neocon ideologues have aggressively sought “democracy promotion,” which, not coincidentally, has also been a major Democratic Party foreign policy objective.

The neocons are involved in a number of foundations, the most prominent of which is the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), that are funded by Jewish billionaires. FDD is headed by Canadian Mark Dubowitz and it is reported that the group takes direction coming from officials in the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Other major neocon incubators are the American Enterprise Institute, which currently is the home of Paul Wolfowitz, and the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at John Hopkins University. The neocon opposition has been sniping against Trump over the past four years but has been biding its time and building new alliances, waiting for what it has perceived to be an inevitable regime change in Washington.

That change has now occurred and the surge of neocons to take up senior positions in the defense, intelligence and foreign policy agencies will soon take place. In my notes on the neocon revival, I have dubbed the brave new world that the neocons hope to create in Washington as the “Kaganate of Nulandia” after two of the more prominent neocon aspirants, Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland.

Robert was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by Trump. His wife Victoria Nuland is perhaps better known. She was the driving force behind efforts to destabilize the Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych, an admittedly corrupt autocrat, nevertheless became Prime Minister after a free election. Nuland, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, provided open support to the Maidan Square demonstrators opposed to Yanukovych’s government, to include media friendly appearances passing out cookies on the square to encourage the protesters.

A Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton protégé, Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. Her efforts were backed by a $5 billion budget, but she is perhaps most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create. The replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp break and escalating conflict with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea.

And, to be sure, beyond regime change in places like Ukraine, President Barack Obama was no slouch when it came to starting actual shooting wars in places like Libya and Syria while also killing people, including American citizens, using drones. Biden appears poised to inherit many former Obama White House senior officials, who would consider the eager-to-please neoconservatives a comfortable fit as fellow foot soldiers in the new administration. Foreign policy hawks expected to have senior positions in the Biden Administration include Antony Blinken, Nicholas Burns, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, Samantha Power and, most important of all the hawkish Michele Flournoy, who has been cited as a possible secretary of defense. And don’t count Hillary Clinton out. Biden is reportedly getting his briefings on the Middle East from Dan Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, who now lives in the Jewish state and is reportedly working for an Israeli government supported think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies.

Nowhere in Biden’s possible foreign policy circle does one find anyone who is resistant to the idea of worldwide interventionism in support of claimed humanitarian objectives, even if it would lead to a new cold war with major competitor powers like Russia and China. In fact, Biden himself appears to embrace an extremely bellicose view on a proper relationship with both Moscow and Beijing “claiming that he is defending democracy against its enemies.” His language is unrelenting, so much so that it is Donald Trump who could plausibly be described as the peace candidate in the recently completed election, having said at the Republican National Convention in August “Joe Biden spent his entire career outsourcing their dreams and the dreams of American workers, offshoring their jobs, opening their borders and sending their sons and daughters to fight in endless foreign wars, wars that never ended.”

Polish Janitor , 13 November 2020 at 11:34 AM

It should be noted that the return of "neocons" does not mean the return of people like Wolfowitz, Ladeen, Feith, Kristol who are more "straussian" than "liberal/internationalist", but those like Nuland, Rice, Sam Powell, Petraeus, Flournoy, heck even Hilary Clinton as UN Ambassador who are CFR-type liberal interventionist than pure military hawks such as Bolton or Mike Flynn.

These liberal internationalists, as opposed to straussian neocons, will intervene in collaboration with EU/NATO/QUAD (i.e. multilaterally) in the name upholding human rights and toppling authoritarianism, rather than for oil, WMDs, or similar concrete objectives. In very simple terms, the new Biden administration's foreign policy will be none other than the return to "endless wars" for nation-building purposes first and last.

fakebot , 13 November 2020 at 11:43 AM

The name Kagan is the Russianized version of the name Cohen. He was going to be McCain's NSA had he been elected. They pulled a stunt with the Bush admin to make Obama look weak by pushing Georgia into war with Russia in 2008. Sakaasvili, the president of Georgia, was literally eating his own tie:

https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/102445/69/1024456927_0:98:1000:639_1000x541_80_0_0_d2bb118481dc653ec7d2a8b170b8f6bf.jpg

A lot of the neocons are Russian Jews who grew up in households that were Bolshevik communists. They're idea of spreading democracy goes back to Trotsky who tried to spread communism through the Soviet Union. Their hatred toward Russia dates back to their ancestors feudal days under the Tsars and the pogroms they suffered and the ice pick Trotsky got to the head.

I don't think they have that much influence. They pushed a lot of nonsense in the late 70/early 80s about how the Taliban were George Washingtons and here we are today, they're worst than the Comanche. The last time I saw Richard Perle make a TV appearance, he was crying like a baby. Robert Novak, the prince of darkness, was a Ron Paul supporter. The only ones really kicking around are Bill Kristol and Jennifer Rubin, but Kristol was almost alone when he was talking about putting 50,000 boots on the ground in Syria. Rubin is a harpie who only got crazier and crazier. Kagan had his foot in the door with Hillary only because of his wife. Those two might get back in with Biden on Ukraine, but Biden would do well to keep them at a distance.

Mark K Logan , 13 November 2020 at 11:57 AM

Thanks.

The lone bright spot is Biden's stated intention of restoring the JCPOA. And, I guess, the pending defenestration of Pompeo The Great.

I suspect the condition of the US economy and the massive deficits will assist in discouraging rash actions elsewhere. Have to wait and see.

Fred , 13 November 2020 at 12:36 PM

Obama's deep state lied, people died: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/

It's great when career professionals sabotage the elected president's foreign policy.

JM Gavin , 13 November 2020 at 01:00 PM

I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology, beyond the fact that neocons seem devoted to the sort of status quo present in Washington, D.C. during the three administrations prior to Trump. Military adventurism, nation-building, and interventionist foreign policy, all based on nebulous concepts which are applied unevenly around the world.

It seems now that there is a new breed of neocons, unified by opposition to Trump's messaging, but not much else. Odd to find people like Samantha Power, John Bolton, Jim Mattis, and Paul Wolfowitz marching together in perfect step.

The Beaver , 13 November 2020 at 02:49 PM

Mr Geraldi

A good perspective by Philip Weiss on the same subject. Eliot A Cohen must be communicating a lot with the Kagan brothers , Dennis Ross and Perle to see who can be parachuted either to the WH or Foggy Bottom.

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/10/neoconservatives-are-flocking-to-biden-and-lets-forget-about-the-iran-deal/

BrianC , 13 November 2020 at 03:08 PM

@JM Gavin

I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology

The revolutionary spirit (see E. Michael Jones' work). From communism to neoconservatism it's ultimately an attack on the Beatitudes and Christ's Sermon on the Mount. "The works of mercy are the opposite of the works of war" -- Servant of God Dorothy Day

Mark K Logan , 13 November 2020 at 03:23 PM

JM Gavin,

Sir,

I hold the Cold Warriors like Scoop a species distinct from those of the post-USSR era. The current version started at the end of the cold war. We felt like kings of the world after Gulf War 1 and the shoe seemed to fit.

The HW Bush administration pondered how best to use this power for good. I've read some things which report there was a debate within the administration on whether to clean up Yugoslavia or Somalia first. They got Ron to "do the honors" for the invasion of Somalia at Oxford: About 20 minutes in. https://www.c-span.org/video/?35586-1/arising-ashes-world-order

That was played as part of the pep-talk on the Juneau off the coast of Somalia. Stirring stuff.

In some small way I never stopped sipping that Kool Aid. It's hard to stand by and watch unspeakable evil go down when you have the power to stop it...or think you do. Time will tell if the Neocons are capable of perceiving the limits of force. Certainly had some hard lessons in the last few decades.

EEngineer , 13 November 2020 at 03:57 PM

@JM Gavin

Hogs lining up for a spot at the trough? The Neocon movement seems to have morphed into nothing more than a club for bullies trying to one up each other.

Dan , 13 November 2020 at 04:35 PM

I think its generally shocking that Trump or the republicans didn't make a bigger issue of Biden's history of supporting disastrous intervention, especially his Iraq War vote. Maybe they felt like its not a winning issue, that they would lose as many votes as they gain by appearing more isolationist. But overall, Trump favoring diplomacy over cruise missiles should have been a bigger point in his favor in the election.

jerseycityjoan , 13 November 2020 at 04:52 PM

It is distressing to read that we will have people in the government who are looking for a fight. That is especially true in view of China's aggression in recent years and the responses we will have to make to that. I think we will have more than enough to do to handle China. What do the neocons want to do about China?

Here is an article about China that really startled me and made me realize how much of a threat is was becoming. The Air Force chief of staff talks about the challenges of countries trying to compete militarily with us in ways that have not occurred for awhile. Here are two quotes that really got me:

"Tomorrow's Airmen are more likely to fight in highly contested environments, and must be prepared to fight through combat attrition rates and risks to the nation that are more akin to the World War II era than the uncontested environments to which we have since become accustomed," Brown writes."

And

"Wargames and modeling have repeatedly shown that if the Air Force fails to adapt, there will be mission failure, Brown warns. Rules-based international order may "disintegrate and our national interests will be significantly challenged," according to the memo."

https://www.airforcemag.com/brown-air-force-must-speed-up-change-or-face-harsh-consequences/#.X02DjeMiZQM.mailto

The article doesn't say we will have another arms race but that is an obvious response to China's competition with us. I thought all that was done and gone. I do not want to resume it. I don't want another period of foreign entanglements, period. We still haven't paid for the War Against Terrorism. I look into the future and all I see is us racking up bills that we have no ability to pay. And then there is the human cost of all this, I don't want to even think about that.

turcopolier , 13 November 2020 at 05:40 PM

jerseycityjoan

"I thought all that was done and gone. I do not want to resume it." Childish. "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

JM Gavin , 13 November 2020 at 05:54 PM

EEngineer,

Snouts in the trough accounts for a certain amount of neocons, I'm sure. There is, however, a unifying vision beyond that which puzzles me, given the very different political orientations of various neocons. Neocons are found in academia and the media as well. Those types are less dependent on taxpayer dollars in exchange for their views (they'll get whatever tax money gets pushed their way in grants, etc regardless).

I find Polish Janitor's "straussian" and "liberal/internationalist" flavors of neocon intriguing, as I hadn't considered that before.

JMG

JM Gavin , 13 November 2020 at 05:59 PM

COL Lang's quote from Plato reminds me of another (from Cormac McCarthy): "It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."

Neocons don't really prefer war, so much as they prefer overseas "engagements" that may look like war and smell like war. All that's missing in neocon military operations is a defined end state.

JMG

JM Gavin , 13 November 2020 at 06:10 PM

Mark K. Logan,

I concur with your thoughts about standing by as evil occurs. We just have a habit of jumping into complex situations we don't understand, and making things worse. I suspect you feel the same way.

The military misadventures during my career (Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria) were marked by our own black and white thinking. The more successful adventures (Colombia, Nepal) were marked by our appreciation (to a certain extent) of the complex nature of the environments we were getting involved in...and the fact that we weren't involved in nation-building in the latter two locales. There were viable governments in place, and we weren't trying to replace them.

JMG

Deap , 13 November 2020 at 06:53 PM

Here is another Biden clip that should have been exploited too - way back when - when the media was a little more trusted, but no less pompous. However, Biden The Plagerizer had it coming.

Now tell me America is not the Land of Opportunity, when one can continuously shoot themselves in the foot and then rise from the dead yet again, and again: https://rumble.com/vb3c09-resurfaced-video-of-joe-biden-should-destroy-him.html?mref=23gga&mrefc=2

Though I am warming more and more to Trump Media becoming the real soul of America. Plus someone, in time. will need to pick up Rush Limbaugh's empire. America needs a counter-weight to fake news more than it needs the keys to the White House, with all its entangling webs, palace intrigues, chains and pitfalls.

Godspeed President Trump. If someone with as few talents s Biden can rise like Lazarus, just think what you can do with your little finger. No wonder the Democrats want Trump destroyed; not just defeated in a re-election. We have your back, Mr President.

TV , 13 November 2020 at 07:03 PM

Mark Logan:
Iran celebrates "Death to America" as a national day.
So let's give them a path to nuclear weapons.

Deap , 13 November 2020 at 07:11 PM

Ex-CIA analyst, Mich Rep. Elissa Slotkin refuses to back Pelosi for Speaker - anyone know her? https://www.newsmax.com/politics/elissa-slotkin-nancy-pelosi-democrat-house/2020/11/13/id/996905/ She wants more mid-West, and less Calif and NY, as the new face of the Democrat Party.

Fred , 13 November 2020 at 07:14 PM

Mark,

"It's hard to stand by and watch unspeakable evil go down when you have the power to stop it...."


I hear Trump is evil/Hitler/worse. I wonder if anyone who thinks that is true has the power to rig an election, or thinks they do?

jerseycityjoan , 13 November 2020 at 07:50 PM

Colonel,

You are right of course.

Are the people of America up for another arms race and a more or less cold war with China? I think the Chinese will give us a lot more trouble than the Soviets ever did.

And yet we allow their students to come here and learn all we know and their elites to bring their dirty money here and we give them green cards and citizenship and protect the money they took from the Chinese people. Not so smart on our part.

I am very concerned about all of this.

Serge , 13 November 2020 at 07:57 PM

What is the next theater of war that Biden's new friends will involve us in? I noticed lots of Cold War era conflicts are heating up lately, Ethiopia Morocco Armenia being recent examples. IS in Syria/Iraq is still castrated due to the continued mass internment of their population base in the dozens of camps, but they have established thriving franchises in Africa and their other provinces continue to smolder.

[Nov 11, 2020] The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity - National Crack-Up- US Attorney General Barr To Investigate Vote Fraud!

Nov 11, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

The announcement that the US Justice Department would be looking into some aspects of last week's election has elicited screaming and wailing from those convinced that Biden's win is a slam-dunk. Would the mainstream media resistance to investigating possible fraud be the same had Trump appeared to pull off a second term? Also today, is Biden breaking the law by speaking with foreign leaders about what a Biden Administration foreign policy would look like? The answer might surprise you. Watch today's Liberty Report:

[Nov 10, 2020] The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity - Coup That Deposed a President

Nov 10, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

< Older Coup That Deposed a President written by steve brown tuesday november 10, 2020
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Like an old truck, the US political system has lumbered down an uneven road for many years but the mileage on the clock is beginning to show. No longer a Constitutional Republic – and certainly not a "democracy" – the cracks in the system appeared long ago, and they now appear as gaping fault lines.

Long before compromise was no longer possible, the Constitution no longer upheld, and most politicians were owned by Oligarchs, elites learned that backing both sides was a sure method to prevail with their agenda. Not a politician, it appears that Mr. Trump was somehow ignorant of this fact. Whether by palace coup ( Mishkin/ Fox ) or the Beltway's notorious snake pit (Haspel/Wray/Esper/Media) or even by members of his own family ( Kushner ), Trump was seemingly unaware that he could be forsaken and betrayed.

What Trump needed to do, he did too late. For example to revoke either Brennan or Clapper's security clearance was not enough. The president needed to fully purge corruption in the security services, the allies of the Surveillance State who opposed him – admittedly an impossible task within entrenched Washington. The president likely hired John Bolton for this effort, believing that Bolton – a supreme geopolitical miscreant and Bad Actor – and Mike Pompeo too, could somehow aid Trump in his goal of draining the swamp at State. The principle being, "keep your friends close and your enemies even closer." Other names include Gina Haspel, Christopher Wray, and Mark Esper. Instead of purging the snakes, Trump must have believed that he could ally them to his agenda – at least in the beginning – and then behead them later on. That proved to be a fatal error, a major miscalculation.

The president also believed that aligning his star with Binyamin Netanyahu would guarantee a certain political survivability. The issue here, is that Mr. Trump gave Netanyahu everything he wanted and more, including help with Netanyahu's re-election, a vital error on the president's part. Failing to learn Machiavelli's rules of modern leadership, Mr. Trump was evidently unaware that you never give your benefactor all that they desire before achieving your goal.

Likewise Trump's threats to cross the Rubicon versus NATO never materialized, where threatening to defund NATO is somewhat analogous to the Queen threatening to sell the crown jewels. Donald Trump, unbelievably believed that he could do what he promised to do, and that which no president ever does: keep his promises. The Beltway's double-dealers see such honesty as treachery, and on NATO Trump essentially signed his own political death warrant, rhetorically speaking.

One thing Trump did not give in to at the behest of Washington's coup class, and to his eternal credit, was his failure to acquiesce to the Neocon/Neoliberal desire for war with Iran. Even doing the "next best thing", ie assassinating Qassem Soleimani in January of 2020, was not enough for Washington's warfare state. Trump then negotiated a stand down with Iran after the attacks on US installations in Iraq . The stand down proved too much for Washington's warfare machine, and that Trump could not be trusted Washington must have its wars. Trump also promised to withdraw troops from America's longest war (Afghanistan), anathema to the likes of Mark Esper and his Raytheon handlers .

This is the central issue, that while the United States is in steep and rapid decline, relying on the weaponization of the US dollar , the creation of failed states, and military aggression to enforce its will – that's all that remains to enforce US hegemony and Empire. Inevitably that means more war, more intervention, and more global chaos going forward. Despite his best effort there was no way for Donald Trump to end endless war in the face of the systemic neoliberal corruption that afflicts Washington.

And that is where Trump gained votes and popularity, his promise to end endless US wars; the only other candidate to ever voice this intent was Dr. Ron Paul. But there is no possibility for that now. At this point, Donald Trump's misunderstanding of Washington's cesspool of a neoliberal establishment is now irrelevant. The relevance is now that a Biden-Harris regime will assume the worst actors and worst elements within Washington's bottomless swamp at US State.

And that is what we truly must RESIST


Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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[Nov 07, 2020] Processing Center Percentages are "Not" On Time Delivery Percentages

Nov 07, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

November 7, 2020 11:24 am

The daily numbers being reported do not indicate how much of the mail was delivered on time, i.e., within the service standard of two or three days. These numbers are processing scores, i.e., the percent of the ballots that went through the processing network on time. They do not encompass

Does not matter. As long as mail arrived to the post office after the deadline this should be registered as late in the database and returned to the sender as late. Otherwise you enter "flexible deadline" regime which invites abuse, as in 24 hours preliminary results are known.

What is important is to make obligatory presence of at least two observers from each party during counting of votes. all the time. And 100% time videotaping of the process.

Also mail ballots historically were the source of blatant abuse (it is much easier to bribe a person and fill the ballot for him than force him to go to the voting booth and enter names that you want).

The fact that in some places we have abnormally high, close to the USSR levels percentages of voters participation is a red flag.

Anything above 60 percent or ten year average (whatever is higher) in the USA is highly suspect of manipulation by one or another party and should invite investigation and possibly recounting.

Few people were exited by this election (and especially by Trump or Biden personalities -- Buffoon vs Corpse as one think talk named them in their simulation of 2020 elections ).

Most votes were perverted version of lesser evilism -- people voted for the candidate they hated less, while they hated both.

And this is a part and parcel of the Crisis of neoliberalism which we experience which involved de-legitimization of neoliberal elite and PMC -- professional, managerial class -- intelligentsia as French call them )

And such cases, unfortunately, easily can be played to de-legitimize elections (which is a typical tactic of color revolutions for those who do not know the term). Which is what happening now as a replay of 2016 but from Repug side.

Historically Democratic Party specialized in election rigging via party machine mechanisms. They have been doing it since the 1790s. They were the party of political machines -- Tammany, Pendergast, Cook County.

BTW clear glass ballot boxes were invented in the USA to prevent abuse (including use of hidden pockets pre-staffed with ballots )

Here are some warning signs listed by Ron Paul:

Every state that has had a delay has seen Biden has overtaken trump AFTER the delays were announced – Red flag

Florida counted 10.5M votes in less than 24 hours, Georgia couldn't count 4.8M in 48 hours, why? – Red Flag

In PA, the courts have barred all accredited observers from observing the vote – Red Flag

In Detroit, the ballot counting centers barred windows and expelled observers, why? – Red Flag

David Lim (Obama's former speech writer) sent a tweet out on Nov 4 (AFTER the election) asking for volunteers in Georgia to help people fix their mail in ballots so that they count, why? – Red Flag

Participation in one PA county reached 90% turn out, beating the prior record that had stood for more than 100 years and almost 30% higher than the last election in 2016. Other PA counties saw voter numbers exceed 100% of registered voters compared to the last election, even accounting for same day registration this is statistically improbable- Red Flag

[Nov 07, 2020] Every state that has had a delay has seen Biden has overtaken trump AFTER the delays were announced

Nov 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kadath , Nov 7 2020 1:18 utc | 186

the evidence is growing and you can watch the recent Ron Paul Liberty report where Daniel McAdam (an actual elections observer)listed off a huge list of red flags. In case your too busy to watch I will provide a brief list
1. Every state that has had a delay has seen Biden has overtaken trump AFTER the delays were announced - Red flag
2. Florida counted 10.5M votes in less than 24 hours, Georgia couldn't count 4.8M in 48 hours, why? - Red Flag
3. In PA, the courts have barred all accredited observers from observing the vote - Red Flag
4. In Detroit, the ballot counting centers barred windows and expelled observers, why? - Red Flag
5. David Lim (Obama's former speech writer) sent a tweet out on Nov 4 (AFTER the election) asking for volunteers in Georgia to help people fix their mail in ballots so that they count, why? - Red Flag
6. Participation in one PA county reached 90% turn out, beating the prior record that had stood for more than 100 years and almost 30% higher than the last election in 2016. Other PA counties saw voter numbers exceed 100% of registered voters compared to the last election, even accounting for same day registration this is statistically improbable- Red Flag

If you put in the effort to investigate this issue with an open mind you will find more evidence of suspicious activity during this election.

On a unrelated note, I have been a commenter on this website for several years and I have never insulted a fellow commenter as you have done. this website supports the free exchange of views, information and dialogue, not crass and churlish name-calling. Vulgar and unprofessional conduct does a disservice to this website, your fellow commenters and yourself.

[Oct 20, 2020] Hunter Biden Is Not The Problem, The Problem Is His Dad -

Oct 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com


Hunter Biden Is Not The Problem, The Problem Is His Dad


by Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2020 - 19:00 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

It seems in our complicated world many murky relationships develop that come across as inappropriate. Over the years, growing crony capitalism has become the bane of modern society and added greatly to inequality. This is why, when we look at Hunter Biden and how he benefited from his father's role as Vice President an investigation is in order. Even before we get to what happened in Ukraine, the ties between China and the Biden family are too many and too large to ignore. President Trump has received a lot of criticism related to how he gained his wealth, however, almost all of what Trump has done he did as an outsider and not as part of the ruling political class.

Before going deeper into this subject it is very important to look at how the "Biden revelations" are being handled by the media. The way media has handled these allegations reveal a flaw or bias in both mainstream media and social media to the point where even censorship is being deployed. A good example of the spin being put on this red flag of corruption can be seen in an article that appeared under trending stories on my city's main news outlet. Here in the conservation heartland of America, the media published a piece titled; "Biden email episode illustrates risk to Trump from Giuliani"

The Associated Press piece written by Eric Tucker shines the spotlight on Rudy Giuliani portraying him as the messenger of Russian contrived information aimed at damaging Biden and influencing the election. It starts off referring to "a New York tabloid's puzzling account about how it acquired emails purportedly from Joe Biden's son has raised some red flags." Then claims that during Giuliani's travels abroad looking for dirt on the Bidens he developed relationships with some rather questionable figures. These include a Ukrainian lawmaker who U.S. officials have described as a Russian agent and part of a broader Russian effort to denigrate the Democratic presidential nominee.

The piece then moves on to the area of how the FBI seems more interested in the emails as part of a foreign influence operation than wrongdoing by Hunter or his father. The people reading this article are informed how this is just another latest episode involving Giuliani that "underscores the risk he poses to the White House" which has spent years dealing with a federal investigation into whether Trump associates had coordinated with Russia.

The part of the article that got my goat was when it referred to how " The Washington Post reported Thursday that intelligence agencies had warned the White House last year that Giuliani was the target of a Russian influence operation." Sighting the Washington Post as an authority and bastion of truth is a common tactic used by journalists to add validity to their bias and lazy reporting. Tucker forgot to mention The Washington Post is the propaganda mouthpiece of Amazon and owned by its CEO Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world which has had several run-ins with the President.

The effort to denigrate Giuliani rather than focus on Biden wrongdoings cites both "former officials' and statements made by a person "who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity to AP," and of course, the exact scope of what was being investigated was not clear. Claiming that many people in the West Wing have been concerned about Giuliani's actions or saying the president has expressed private dismay at Giuliani's scattershot style does not make it true.

Thinking a case can be made that Hunter enriched himself by selling access to his father but claiming Giuliani's lack of credibility will cause the allegations to implode is a bit of a reach. This fact much of what appears to be bribe-taking at the highest levels of government has been overlooked for so long is in its self is a problem. The appointment of an unqualified Hunter Biden to the board of a Ukrainian energy company with a reported compensation package worth some $50,000 per month led the Wall Street Journal, to publish a scathing article, on May 13, 2014. bringing the issue before the public.

At criminal.findlaw.com, FindLaw's team of legal writers and editors detail what constitutes bribery. It is offering or accepting anything of value in exchange to influence a government/public official or employee. Bribes can take many forms of gifts or payments of money in exchange for favorable treatment, such as awards of government contracts. Other forms of bribes may include property, various goods, privileges, services, and favors. Bribes are always intended to influence or alter the action of various individuals and are linked to both political and public corruption. In most situations, both the person offering the bribe and the person accepting can be charged.

me title=

Was Influence Peddled Or Bribes Taken?

Both giving and receiving bribes is usually a felony with significant legal ramifications. Influence peddling, the illegal practice of using one's influence in government or connections with persons in authority to obtain favors or preferential treatment falls into this category. One thing is clear, whenever we are talking about the involvement of huge sums of money, foreign players, officials holding high public office, or family members of politicians a few eyebrows should get raised. With this in mind, the Biden problem extends well past Hunter but also into how other family members have profited from Joe's time as Vice President such as his brother's involvement in a huge government contract in Iraq.

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The issue of Hunter Biden receiving money from Russia, Ukraine, and China surfaced during the first Presidential debate and Biden claimed it was a story already discredited by authorities. This narrative was destroyed when the Washington Times acknowledged the Treasury Department records confirm Hunter Biden received a wire transfer for $3.5 million from the Mayor of Moscow's wife. It is difficult to find anyone that holds Hunter in high esteem and the fact the United States suspects the woman sending him this money built much of her wealth through corruption does little to improve his standing. For those of us cynical of all the so-called public servants that seem to line their pockets and hold the attitude they are above the law this is a big red flag.

If the veil of secrecy surrounding Hunter's career is lifted we will most likely find Hunter's dad did share in the spoils bestowed upon not only his son but others in the Biden family. I contend Joe Biden's cozy relationship with corruption is why former President Obama did not rush to endorse Biden when he announced he planned to run. To be clear, we are talking about, millions, and hundreds of millions of dollars or more. For us cynics, we see this as what may be only the tip of the spear when it comes to public officials throwing the American people under the bus for fun and profit. As a voter, this dovetails with my concern about Biden's relationship and attitude towards China which I consider a major issue. Jan_Michael_Vincent007 , 4 hours ago

The [neoliberal] political class is the problem. ******* all of them. Biden just got caught.

Jan_Michael_Vincent007 , 4 hours ago

The political class is the problem. ******* all of them. Biden just got caught.

RedDog1 , 4 hours ago

Highly recommend reading Peter Schweitzer's book Secret Empires. It's business as usual to launder bribes through family members and associates.

philipat , 2 hours ago

Yes agreed, the problem here is actually that the entire US political (and economic) system is completely corrupt and broken. Why has no action been taken against those responsible for a proven attempted coup? Or against a MSM and SillyCon Valley that is censoring everything the average American (rightlly or wrongly) actually reads and which is stifling the very democracy and free speech upon which the country was founded?

The answer? Follow the money.

I do disagree with the author about the specific Biden situation because "The Biden Crime Family" would be a better description. They are ALL responsible. It is obvious from the Hunter laptop that payments were being made to "The Big Man" and other family members also, so this is NOT a Hunter-specific problem. The game was for Hunter to serve as a proxy for "The Big Man" and receive the "commissions" (better described as influence peddling payments and extortion - something the Dems are very good at; The Clinton Foundation Model!!) for onward distribution to the family, visibly or invisibly. In this way, "The Big Man" would not have anything to report and could appear to be "clean". Pretty obvious to anyone who can fog a mirror?

And yet still they vote for him. Does that mean a public acceptance of the sleaze and corruption which is the US today? I certainly hope not.

Rural Hermit , 2 hours ago

Why do you think Obama picked Biden to be his VP? He knows how to shakedown everyone. Obama's tutor. I do think that the student has surpassed the teacher though. When the rest of this shakes out, the Kenyan will be in chains.

gregga777 , 3 hours ago

If the truth ever comes out, it will probably show that, among other things, Hunter Biden was / is probably connected to human trafficking networks, and most likely Eastern European, most likely involving The Russian Mafia. It's not a stretch to speculate that it also included children.

HoodRatKing , 1 hour ago

https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2018/09/13/woman-gets-7-years-giving-kids-meth-forcing-man-into-prostitution/1288051002/

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdia/pr/hills-man-sentenced-22-years-prison-child-sex-trafficking-methamphetamine-and-firearms

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/content/news/Chico-man-sentenced-to-14-years-for-sex-trafficking-distribution-of-meth-to-a-minor-571646431.html

The problem is at all levels , not just the top...

gregga777 , 4 hours ago

If the United States of America had a functioning [sic] Intelligence Community and [Ha, ha, ha] national law enforcement the Silicon Valley tech giants and others like Amazon wouldn't be heavily infiltrated by People's Republic of China Ministry of State Security operatives. Consequently, the massive extent of political corruption would be common knowledge, especially specifics regarding names, dates, places and amounts. Right Paul Ryan and Willard Romney?

Rusty Shorts , 3 hours ago

The hits just keep coming.

"Pelosi's Son Now Involved In Ukraine Scandal, Democrat Party In Shambles"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ll6z4XYZo

Leguran , 4 hours ago

Seriously, does anyone think a Democrat controlled Congress will investigate Biden and all his cronies, to include Obama? The whole DC swamp is set up to allow selling out of the American people. DC is not just a threat to national security it is steeped in Treason.

No sense ranting as it does nothing. The only consolation is that stupid people who vote Biden/Harris will get the crime and corruption they voted into office.

Stackers , 4 hours ago

In Roman times when someone was caught bribing a public official they would cut off his nose, sew him in a bag with a wild animal, and throw that bag in the river

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfysYXxEe8k

told_ya_so , 4 hours ago

The problem with all this is that it is extremely well documented going back a number of years of Hunter Jnr's shopping trips with his father and nothing has been done about it all. Just search on Biden and China, Romania or Ukraine and then you see the "deals" that Hunter gets every time.

Every f\/cking place that Biden turned up, Hunter was right behind with his hand out, like some sort of mob shakedown. Did Biden senior tell Hunter what to do and who to meet because junior doesn't seem that clever enough to come up with this on his own? That way, the money also flows to junior who then funnels it to dad later on (which the laptop seems to show).

Washington insiders know the f\/cking truth and are desperate to keep the gravy train going. That is why they hate Trump. That is why Barr and co have no interest in getting to the truth because they are all implicated. The swamp is very deep.

Merica101 , 4 hours ago

Human nature is swampy - that's why the Founding Fathers tried to design a system that limited the "swampiness'. Unfortunately, they couldn't even begin to imagine the depravity and games that are now being played. Pray.

Fuster-cluck , 3 hours ago

I have worked for a number of large multi-national corporations. In each, employees must take an annual ethics course. The only approved amount you can spend on a client is $0. I mean, no golf, no lunches, no tee shirts, no hunting weekends, zippo, nothing. If anyone in your family is connected to government, it is automatically assumed to be a conflict of interest, and you must remove yourself from any part of the dealings. These policies have been implemented because of the intense fear of the unlimited penalties that may be applied by goverment sponsored prosecutorial abuse.

So tell me, have those same standards been applied here? Ha. Ha. Ha.

Smilygladhands , 3 hours ago

i think we must implement a no fraternization rule between DC politicians and staff and the media. too many personal relationships going on up there

TahoeBilly2012 , 3 hours ago

Tards have finally been caught out, no way back.

Look man, I never would have voted for HILLARY OR JEB, no f'ing way! I am a Ron Paul Libertarian and I rolled the dice with Trump.

You Tards are all a gang of freaks. The fact you even halfway support Biden (or Hillary) is pathetic. The only way you get change is sticking to your guns or having a Trump come along and hope he is for the people and not a Satanic criminal, like the Biden's, the Bush's and the Clinton's. What exactly is it that you freaks don't get and while Bernie may have been somewhat more "authentic" than the rest, he's a friggin Bolshevik Commy, in his own way, worse than them all, likely not as corrupt.

There's nothing left to the Dem Party, zero, zilch, it's a stinking rotting corpse relying on Corporate Media lie after lie to try to compete with Trump. Hell, every Neocon has left Trump and joined up with y'all. Geez, the stench!

Pathetic, disgusting, sick.

Lucius Septimius Pertinax , 3 hours ago

What bothers me about all this is the reaction of Democrats in general. They don't seem to care what the Biden's have done, as long as they defeat Donald Trump. We seen this on a smaller scale with the impeachment of Bill Clinton, it's all about sex manta. But in this case we have what appears to be at least for now, almost a watertight case against Joe Biden. And still no moral outrage at what Biden's family is up to? Guess I should not have been amazed, but still hope their are a few thinkers left on the left that can still see the truth when it bites them.

I expected the CNN's of the left to react this way. Further when their "the Russians" excuse for everything, is exhausted, they will need someone else to blame, cause they know Biden and son are as pure as the driven snow. Or at least the owners of all these so called media news companies decide that Joe cannot win and flush the comode on him.

sirnzee , 3 hours ago

The media has done a terrific job of brainwashing half of America. So sad to be a part of this. Who is to blame? The media, or the people who allowed their minds to be controlled the way they are?

Fugly

Merica101 , 3 hours ago

Most of the MSM have their own agenda - a globalist agenda where the US is not their priority.

12Doberman , 4 hours ago

Some deny the Biden's got the money which is absurd since the Senate report details the wire transfers. Denial of facts seems to be a democrat trait.

chiquita , 3 hours ago

This is the Democrat philosophy--one of the best movie scenes ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC9Op0vI-70&ab_channel=mjbandes

Oracle of Kypseli , 1 hour ago

Try This also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a6YdNmK77k

sbin , 4 hours ago

Biden has used his family as bag men for graft since he was shaking down banks that incorporated in Delaware for tax purposes.

He was MBNA Joe long before he became dementia Joe.

Totally vile corrupt dullard on his best day.

That is why the DNC wants him.

CogitoMan , 3 hours ago

Any person who has knowledge of Biden family crimes and still votes for him is beyond deplorable.

Even demonrats that hate Trump IF they have at least minimum token of decency should abstain from voting.

But alas, most of dumbocrats will vote for Biden even if he raped their daughters and shot their wives.

This country with such moral attitude has no chance of survival, especially when tough times come.

Sad, very sad.

12Doberman , 3 hours ago

Trump learned quickly that without powerful allies in powerful positions in the executive agencies, within congress, and in the courts he's essentially powerless against this corruption. Pelosi is involved in Ukraine...McConnell is up to his eyeballs in Chinese graft.

Md4 , 4 hours ago

"Hunter Biden Is Not The Problem, The Problem Is His Dad"

Pops has been demonstrably crooked for years.

But... Hunter is not a child.

He's a grown man... with a law degree.

His problems are now...his own.

He can begin to recover...when he accepts responsibility for them...

Hotspice2020 , 4 hours ago

Stop treating mainstream media as "independent, objective, unbiased" they are "captured media", and vassal servants to a hidden hand ruling elite ... as are the Bidens and K. Harris. The Clintons were vassals before as was slamma Obama. The media will say whatever their master tell them to say. Thus, when a Hard Drive with pedo, crack, bribery is found, the masters say...blame it on the Russians. When Trump wants to bring Hunters double dealing to light...the masters say.. Impeach Trump. What is needed is for a bright light to shine on the owners of the media...e.g., Bezos Rag (Wash. Post) and Laurene Powell Jobs (mistress to Steve) owns the Atlantic. Once you keep focusing on the fact that the media has owners that make every story fit their narrative and you shine a light on them, then you can solve the problem.

tyberious , 5 hours ago

Term limits

Full income disclosures while in office

No benefit for any legislation co-authored after leaving office

zerozerosevenhedgeBow1 , 4 hours ago

No honor, integrity or honesty in politics anymore. Why would there be any, when apart for a little public shaming, corruption pays and pays big. The Clinton foundation raked in hundreds of millions, altered policy and maybe even caused death of the impoverished, i.e., Haiti and other places. Sold out national and global security with Uranium One and other controversies. The end result?... They got to keep all the money. When that happens, everyone in and running for office gets the message and sees dollar signs.

You need serious recourse like some sort of treason charges when you put money over country. Audit all family members and colleagues. Then do not let lobbying jobs before or after office.

moneybots , 3 hours ago

"The Associated Press piece written by Eric Tucker shines the spotlight on Rudy Giuliani portraying him as the messenger of Russian contrived information aimed at damaging Biden and influencing the election. It starts off referring to "a New York tabloid's puzzling account about how it acquired emails purportedly from Joe Biden's son has raised some red flags.""

Yes, it raises Red Flags about the integrity of the Associated Press, considering the story is a propaganda piece.

Merica101 , 4 hours ago

Joe and Hunter Biden (and the Biden family) aren't the ONLY ONES....there are many others.

toady , 4 hours ago

The questions that simply are not being asked/answered....

I have not heard that any Biden has been asked about any of this... apparently they thought they could just have CNN and the other talking heads say it was all "debunked" and the brain dead general population would nod and say "okay".

And they were right, the demonrats are all just doing the Alfred E Numan "who, me, worry?"

It's simple. The "17 intelligence agencies" need to be all over this, starting 15 years ago.

But they aren't. And they won't. And the US will not recover.

TheLastMan , 3 hours ago

perspective:

1. you work 50 hours a week

2. .gov takes 22% for income tax

3. joe biden (and the rest) take your tax $$$ and provides $$$ foreign aid to country X

4. hunter biden makes business connection to country x

5. country x takes your foreign aid tax dollars (edit) and pays hunter biden $$ for his services

6. hunter biden pays joe biden $$ for (his service to your country) edit - servicing your country

7. repeat step 1

Smilygladhands , 3 hours ago

the biggest problem that must be addressed is our dishonest, biased DNC propaganda arm also known as main stream media.

they've allowed biden to get away with not answering the SCOTUS packing question and now actively running cover for him. we cannot allow this to continue

Md4 , 4 hours ago

" Both giving and receiving bribes is usually a felony with significant legal ramifications. Influence peddling, the illegal practice of using one's influence in government or connections with persons in authority to obtain favors or preferential treatment falls into this category."

When it involves a mortal adversary... we call it something else...

HailAtlantis , 4 hours ago

Always lots of fun this time of year taking Anti-Money Laundering etc continuing education courses and reading about high level scandals in finance and governments in current news (it's just gotten progressively more insidious every year).. Scrutinizing little 'guys' while making billions at the top.

johnny two shoes , 2 hours ago

Can't forget old Swiftboat Kerry...

At the time, Hunter Biden, now 49, and Christopher Heinz, the stepson of then-Secretary of State John Kerry, co-owned Rosemont Seneca Partners, a $2.4 billion private equity firm. Heinz's college roommate, Devon Archer, was managing partner in the firm. In the spring of 2014, Biden and Archer joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company that was at the center of a U.K. money laundering probe. Over the next year, Burisma reportedly paid Biden and Archer's companies over $3 million.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/john-kerrys-son-cut-business-ties-with-hunter-biden-over-ukrainian-oil-deal

vasilievich , 4 hours ago

Electing a President is electing someone in formal command of enough power to kill most of the people on the planet - perhaps three times over. Including you and me. This is not the mayor of Minneapolis we're talking about.

vasilievich , 4 hours ago

To use biologists' terminology the species may not be adaptive. To be clever at graft does *not* assure survival in the long run. It may assure extinction.

12Doberman , 4 hours ago

Biden wasn't clever. Hillary was a bit clever using a Foundation and a 'charity' to launder her graft. Cost her 15% or so but she had the facade of the charity. Biden put his crackhead son in charge of laundering the graft...needless to say it was careless in the extreme...and the DNC knew all about this before they selected Biden. Stunning level of arrogance.

chiquita , 4 hours ago

Nobody ever said Biden was a smart guy. He knew how to plagerize as in words (speeches), but he didn't know how to copy as in ideas (charitable foundations)

SurfingUSA , 4 hours ago

Per someone on this forum who has met Biden, he is stupid not just by politician standards but by everyday people standards.

coelacanth10 , 3 hours ago

Bill gets credit for using the Foundation, base on a undergraduate course at Georgetown on non-profits and foundations.

chiquita , 4 hours ago

Obama had to know what was going on, if not a party to it. There was a clear distance between the two of them--Obama did not show a great love for Biden and you have to wonder what that was all about. He tried to tell Joe "he didn't have to do it" relative to running, which leaves a lot open to interpretation. Trump keeps saying that Biden was not a bright guy and that's pretty obvious in a lot of Biden's stories and his overall history. Obama knew Biden wasn't the smartest guy too. Was Obama trying to tell Joe to leave well enough alone and not run for the presidency, which would surely expose all this stuff? There was a good chance Biden wasn't going to get this far, but now see what has happened. You have to wonder what is at play with this--why didn't they shut Biden down before it got this far?

[Oct 18, 2020] FBI 'Has To Come Clean' About Corruption Evidence, Potential Child Porn On Hunter Biden's Laptop- Sen. Johnson -

Oct 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

FBI 'Has To Come Clean' About Corruption Evidence, Potential Child Porn On Hunter Biden's Laptop: Sen. Johnson


by Tyler Durden Sun, 10/18/2020 - 16:35 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is calling on the FBI to 'come clean' over the agency's involvement with Hunter Biden's laptop , after refusing to 'confirm or deny' certain details contained in a whistleblower complaint by a Delaware computer shop owner.

" The FBI has a duty to inform us . If they believe this was maybe Russian disinformation, they should give us a defensive briefing," Johnson told Fox News ' "Sunday Morning Futures."

"If, for example, they also believe that what information this whistleblower gave us is fraudulent, that would also be a crime, and FBI should tell us that."

Host Maria Bartiromo brought up a salient point - that the FBI was allegedly in possession of Hunter Biden's laptop which contains apparent evidence of pay-for-play corruption in Ukraine, at the same time Congressional Democrats were impeaching President Trump for asking Ukraine to investigate exactly that.

"If the FBI was in possession of these emails from Hunter Biden's computer indicating all of these payouts, why did they not make this public, as President Trump was being impeached in the Senate about Ukraine?"

Johnson replied: "the larger question really is; if they had this information - and these are genuine emails which would probably reveal all kinds of things that would have been very relevant to the impeachment case, why did they sit out? Are they covering up because Hunter Biden might be engaged in things that also maybe should have been investigated and possibly prosecuted? Dow we have two systems of justice? One for Democrats, one for Republicans, one for the well connected, vs. one for the rest of the Americans."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UONQiPT0Mks?start=233

Child porn?

Bartiromo then steered the conversation to national security risks - noting that the signature of the FBI's top child porn lawyer appeared on the subpoena for Hunter's laptop.

about:blank

about:blank


"The subpoena was served by an FBI agent whose name is Joshua Wilson, and over the last five years he has been working on child pornography issues. Connect the dots - if an FBI agent is working on child pornography issues for five years, why is he subpoenaing the laptop of Hunter Biden? Is there a connection here? Should this suggest that there's a child pornography issue here on that laptop?"

"Well, I think you just made the connection ," Johnson replied. "This is what the FBI has to come clean about . This isn't a standard investigation... this is something that, as we were talking about, relates to national security. And if there's criminal activity involved that can be tied to Hunter Biden or his business associates, or even possibly tied back to members of the Biden family - well some of these emails indicate that Joe Biden is fully aware of this ."

As we noted on Friday, FBI agent Wilson's identity was confirmed by both Western Journal and Business Insider , the latter of which compared his signature to a 2012 criminal complaint and concluded that it "clearly matches the unreversed signature on the subpoena published by the New York Post ."

play_arrow 2 AlaricBalth , 8 hours ago

Hunter Biden has most likely been compromised by tapes of him with young girls while he was in China. When I was traveling back and forth to China a few years ago, I was told by our Chinese attorney to be very cautious because Americans were always recorded in their hotel rooms.

It was the policy of the Chinese government. Privacy laws are non existent. All Americans were taped in the event that any American could be utilized for the benefit of the CCP in the future.

Also, there are many high end "Karaoke" parlors in China where horizontal refreshment can be procured. Many Americans frequent these establishments. The girls are beautiful. The places have cameras everywhere.

Urfa Man , 4 hours ago

Thanks for mentioning the Chicoms, TBT. None of the tabloid-level sex stuff counts nearly as much as the fact that Joe Biden's secret payoffs from the Chinese (via Ye Jianming, Biden's Chinese paymaster). The sneaky Chinese money for Biden makes this election a dangerous national security crisis.

Joe Biden couldn't get a security clearance for even a low level government job now, let alone C in C of the US armed forces.

Dogbreath15 , 1 hour ago

"It's not physically possible to shame a Democrat."

The Elite Democrats WANT to sell out the country, they welcome dragging the USA through the sewer (and then blame the opposition!)

St. TwinkleToes , 6 hours ago

Makes you wonder how many of those Asian/Chinese massage parlors are spying and collecting operations for the CCP, filming compromising acts to be used against you when the time comes arrives.

DeathMerchant , 5 hours ago

It's referred to as the Epstein Protocol.

optimator , 5 hours ago

Credit where it's due. Cheaper to run a few massage parlors than running an expensive island operation.

_arrow
Warthog777 , 4 hours ago

Chinese whistleblower provided 3 hard drives of damning info from the ccp on the Biden family, biological weapons etc. , to the DOJ, Pelowsi, and eventually Trump.

Compromised!

https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/chinese-whistleblower-testimony-on-biden/

vovishka.2018 , 6 hours ago

Biden Derangement Syndrome ..

@Dragonlord. - The TrumpTard that has gone completely out of his mind. The TrumpTard wants to blame the Biden family for the corruption, perversion, the violence & destruction of the moral fabric in the US - LOL

The TrumpTard believes that Trump is going to solve the corruption, the political and racial divide in Yankeelandia - LOL

Corruption is Legal in America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig&ab_channel=RepresentUs

For yr entertainment: "Dueling Town Halls Cold Open - SNL"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UFfD0HIhv4&ab_channel=SaturdayNightLive

fpdguy , 5 hours ago

Sydney Powell should be near the top of the list for candidates to replace Wray. She's familiar with a fair amount of the chain of corruption while dealing with the Flynn railroading. She's seen what lengths they are willing to go to and would be less apt to think she needs to play nice once appointed.

2banana , 8 hours ago

But yet a "noose" in a NASCAR garage gets 15 FBI agents.

Ex-NYPD Commissioner: I've Seen Hunter's Hard Drive; the Bidens 'Belong in Handcuffs'

https://neonnettle.com/news/12943-ex-nypd-commissioner-i-ve-seen-hunter-s-hard-drive-the-bidens-belong-in-handcuffs-

FUG , 8 hours ago

He'll be another NYPD officer to "commit suicide" as others who saw Weiner's laptop.

SDShack , 7 hours ago

and Pizzagate is just a conspiracy...yep...right.

KnightOfSwords , 7 hours ago

Pizzagate is anything but a "conspiracy theory" These people are sick, evil, degenerates. Take a real good look at John Podesta and Hillary Clinton.

Calibabe , 8 hours ago

What is contained on Hunter Biden's laptop is enough to put anyone on this site in prison for a long, long, long time. Yet, he remains free, walking around, not a worry in the world. I wonder how his "wife" and the stripper who had his child feel about him now? This guy is a major creeper. The bigger question however isn't so much what the CCP has on Hunter, but what does the CCP have on ole Joe? You can bet that file they have is thick and probably just as bad.

Robert De Zero , 6 hours ago

Say what you will about Rudy Giuliani. None of this would be happening right now without him. He's truly the best friend President Trump could have. He helped get him through 4 years of hell with the fake Russia hoax and then hits a home run in the last inning leading up to Election Day.

Now Rudy is taking massive flak from the corrupt liar media.

Rudy, my hat is off to you sir. You deserve medals.

Robert De Zero , 6 hours ago

The tired and failed "Russia is behind everything" trope never gets old for you guys or the fake news. Get some new material, yawn.

indaknow , 8 hours ago

Not sure how the left can spin this as Russian disinformation when Hunter's own lawyer just last week contacted the shop owner asking for the laptop back.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/breaking-email-sent-computer-shop-owner-john-paul-mac-isaac-hunter-bidens-attorney-released/

lester1 , 8 hours ago

Chris Wray is a deep state swamp creature. Did anyone actually expect him, or the FBI to do the right thing and indict Biden for corruption? They have been sitting on this laptop evidence for almost a year!!

dibiase , 8 hours ago

Those q guys were telling us to trust him just a year or so back

Fishthatlived , 8 hours ago

"Us?"

SDShack , 7 hours ago

The timing of all this is what connects the dots. 3 Laptops were dropped off in early 2019 to the computer repair shop. Work was done and technician tried to get paid for 3-4 months and have the laptops picked up. This is now fall 2019. Then the Russian Mueller Hoax Impeachment hits the news, and the technician realizes he is holding dynamite with a lit fuse, so he contacts the FBI. The coverup begins by December 2019.

NOTE - this is when the Dem Primary Season is kicking off. Bernie is the leader, but no establishment demorat can stop him and are winnowed out, especially the big donor favorite Kamalho early on. When Bernie is feared to be the nominee, a full court press for Senile Joe is made by the establishment to stop him. Pretty obvious now that the establishment was being extorted by the Chicoms with the original information on these hard drives. Who would be video taping a PASSED OUT HUNTER, and sex romps by Hunter with chinese girls, other then the CCP? The message was install compromised Joe...or we take down your party. And Lordy...look what happened...Senile Joe steamrolled Bernie, and Kamalho became the fallback position. I could never figure out the reason for the demorats to rig the system for Senile Joe, who was clearly one of the weakest candidates. It all makes sense when you realize HE was the CCP Favorite.

They thought the only people that had the blackmail info was the CCP and the demorat establishment and swamp. The fix was in. They never figured on an idiot crackhead giving the hard drive evidence to a 3rd party. That wrinkle is now beyond their control and is going to blow up DC. The Mutual Assured Destruction card has just been played. The ***-puckering on all sides has to be reaching nuclear levels.

mc888 , 6 hours ago

I could never figure out the reason for the demorats to rig the system for Senile Joe

Remember Obama stating he wanted a "continuation" of his administration?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2020/10/17/biden-muslims-will-serve-at-every-level-of-his-administration-n1066190

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/exclusive-former-obama-vp-joe-biden-recent-ad-disparages-police-calls-muslim-voters-wage-jihad/

Southern_Boy , 4 hours ago

So where is Seth Rich's case in all of this?

Tseg , 4 hours ago

With the Kennedy Assassination redactions.

Mister Delicious , 4 hours ago

the reason they STILL wont release all the Kennedy assassination files is Israel and the Jewish/Zionist International Mafia is implicated.

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Final_Judgment.pdf

https://www.unz.com/article/did-israel-kill-the-kennedies/

Just like 9/11.

fxrxexexdxoxmx2 , 4 hours ago

Unsolved homicide. And nothing will come of it since no investigation by any law enforcement agency is happening.

4Y_LURKER , 3 hours ago

Unbelievably, it's all connected!

ponchoramic , 6 hours ago

Seriously, this is sick as f and the implications for blackmail 'were/ are' huge.

Think about what Trump has said, over and over.

If Biden wins, China will own America.

I will add, and Joe Biden.

William Dorritt , 6 hours ago

Is this another reason the FBI hid the Hunter Biden Laptop?

By Selwyn Duke

It didn't surprise the informed, and understandably a bit cynical, to hear that the FBI sat on Hunter Biden's laptop instead of seeking justice. The bureau was previously involved in an illegal plot to take down Donald Trump, after all, and its Deep State elements would assuredly love to see Joe Biden succeed him in January. So why would they reveal damning information on their establishment hope? Yet suppressing Huntergate perhaps provided a secondary benefit:

The information could be used against Biden once he was in office.

This wouldn't be anything new. It's believed that longtime, legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover used "dirt files" on politicians for leverage; for one thing, it's said, this enabled him to remain bureau head for as long as he wished. William Sullivan, once the number three official under Hoover, put it this way: From the moment the director got damning information on a senator, the man would be "right in his pocket."

So not only could suppressing Huntergate get Biden in office, but then maybe it's, "Nice presidency you've got there, Mr. Biden -- I'd hate to see anything happen to it."

https://archive.is/YZgSo#selection-367.0-581.169

Goldenfoxx , 5 hours ago

Didn't Guiliani tell the FBI that they had a copy of Humper's hard drive - or the owner of the computer business? It all sounds so convenient. No wonder Biden went into hiding, his son probably told dad what he did and that 50% of the take was too much. Humper maybe gave dad an ultimatum. Drug addicts are like that "you bring me down, you go down lower." Blackmail can be a bitch.

NumbNuts , 4 hours ago

Can they come clean on:
1) JFK assassination
2) WTC 93' bombing set up
3) OKC bombing set up
4) MLK death
5) Waco
6) Just about all other domestic terrorism activities

@therealOrangeBuffoon , 4 hours ago

Conspiracy theorists have no intention of believing anything provable. It's about chasing rainbows.

NumbNuts , 4 hours ago

Then we should believe what they have to tell us about the Russian Collusion and all things Biden? Naive, are we?

Stu Pedassle , 4 hours ago

I can prove that Building 7 fell uniformly on it's own footprint in what appears to be a controlled demolition - does that count?

NumbNuts , 4 hours ago

According to @therealOrangeBuffoon , you have to go with what NIST told us, before they changed their story, thanks to AE911truth.org .

Stu Pedassle , 4 hours ago

Truth is treason in an empire of lies - Ron Paul

[Oct 18, 2020] George Orwell- -Truth is Treason in an Empire of Lies

Oct 18, 2020 | circadeum.com

George Orwell warned us. In 2008, then congressman Ron Paul published a book -- a book I highly recommend -- titled Revolution: A Manifesto . Within that book, the good doctor lays out a refreshingly persuasive case for the necessity of individual liberty; including the dangers it shields us from and those that are effectively eroding its protection. Among these threats, a sophisticated and malicious dishonesty reigns abundant; one that he immortally enshrined with this famous quote from Orwell :

"Truth is treason in the empire of lies."

This "strategy of untruth" has proven quite popular in the past. Throughout the ages, elite and powerful figures have used it as means to consolidate and manage their agency in virtually every nation on earth. It's a very simple concept: team one tells the people what they want to hear, people vote them in, team one doesn't follow through on most of it, but takes incremental steps toward additional power consolidation, creating discontent among the people. Then the other team tells people what they want to hear, the people vote them in, they don't follow through on most of it, but take incremental steps toward additional power consolidation; and so on and so forth. This cycle of dishonesty has been turning now for over 200 years in America and the resulting chaotic snowball of deceit has probably only been marginally slowed by president Trump's victory in November of 2016. The minions (and masters) of Hillary Clinton and her ilk, however, are certainly not lying down in defeat.

In the past, the uncouth schemes of power-mongering politicians have been partially obscured by a miasma of deception. Politicians today, however -- Mrs. Clinton chief among them -- don't even seem to care about the integrity of the webs they weave when speaking untruths. In 2015, Clinton made many public statements about her private email debacle knowing that her words were untrue and, unless she is a complete idiot (she's not), she had to have known that her deception would easily be uncovered by the investigation. The explanation for this? Hubris. She doesn't care, because she knows there are millions of mindless partisans who would support her Democratic Party no matter what she (or they) did. All she has to do is tell them what they want to hear.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rgeuLn4AkXk?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent


Clinton has had ample time and opportunity to practice at her foundry of lies over a long political career, stretching back to the mid-70's, and, as was evidenced in the election cycle, is more than comfortable with what has become a habit for her. If she would have become president, do her supporters believe Mrs. Clinton suddenly would've started being truthful? Many of them would not even be able to admit she doesn't tell the truth now or in the past; so the answer to my question is largely irrelevant, because many people are simply apathetic about the truth. That is why politicians feel so free to lie with impunity. The truth doesn't always feel good. The truth is often ugly and uncomfortable. The truth hurts. Would you rather live easy in the Matrix or struggle to survive in the real world?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LWZk24MA7TE?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
A great author of fantasy-fiction, Terry Goodkind , has written a series of novels that are collectively titled, " The Sword of Truth ." In each book of the series he posits a rule which the main characters embrace as proverbial truth and use to direct their actions in life. The first rule states the following:

"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."

Powerful men and women have used this fact for thousands of years to control and manipulate the great masses of people that have been under their government -- and that is why people should be skeptical of everything that those seeking to govern are telling us. We live in the information age where it is relatively easy -- compared to all other times in human history -- to fact-check what any would-be Caesar is saying. Are these people telling the truth? It is our right and responsibility to vigilantly protect ourselves from such wolves. Knowing the truth is a way to do that. It is a weapon that we can use; a weapon we should use. Dr. Ron Paul used this weapon to great effect in 2008 and 2012 to martial many to the cause of liberty. His great work and project are a powerful example for the rest of us. Learn from him. Learn how to know and tell the truth.

" Truth is treason in the empire of lies If we want to live in a free society, we need to break free from these artificial limitations on free debate and start asking serious questions once again this is a long-term project that will persist far into the future. These ideas cannot be allowed to die, buried beneath the mind-numbing chorus of empty slogans and inanities that constitute official political discourse in America." – Ron Paul (Revolution: A Manifesto)

[Sep 01, 2020] The Age of the Mega-City is Over by JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER

Notable quotes:
"... Meanwhile, as politicians forced lockdowns, the city's restaurants and shops went dark, along with theaters, museums, stadiums, and the other organisms that made up the city's rich ecosystem of daily life. ..."
"... The prospect of midtown perhaps permanently abandoned by office workers made an eventual return to normality even less plausible. After four months of virus, the June riots and looting that followed the horrific death of George Floyd sealed the deal, with the luxury stores on Fifth Avenue smashed up and burgled. Who would reopen such a business when riots and looting could break out over a fresh pretext at any time? ..."
"... All of that completely changed the business model for the owners of skyscrapers -- whole floors going empty and now the ground-floor businesses shut down, too. These buildings, with their massive maintenance costs, no longer produced enough revenue to operate them. ..."
"... The situation also harmed the condominium model for residential towers. Without the ground-floor rents, the homeowner's associations would have to steeply raise the monthly maintenance fees for each apartment owner, while significantly lowering each unit's resale value if the owner had to move out. All of this would thunder through the banks and REITs (real estate investment trusts) which owned and managed many of these properties, and ultimately through the city's dwindling treasury coffers. ..."
"... Many like to believe that office towers can be easily converted to apartments. That's just not true. Apart from purely physical issues, like the layout of plumbing stacks, the coming scarcity of capital will obviate these ventures, and, anyway, tower apartments only exist because they're companions to office towers, which may now be permanently obsolete. ..."
"... The pre-virus 21st century New York was a grandiose product of the financialization of the economy, including the global money-laundering orgy that incentivized the luxury condo tower building boom. That's over too. With so many other legacy economic activities flickering out, Wall Street was all that remained. All that held up Wall Street's stock and bond markets was "liquidity" (i.e. money in figment form) prestidigitated by the Federal Reserve. And now even Wall Street had little incentive for maintaining its headquarters on Wall Street, with its wealthy denizens trading and finagling via the Internet from comfortable perches in the Hamptons and the Connecticut hinterlands. ..."
"... For the moment, a lot of former city people are seeking refuge in the suburbs. That will prove to be a bad choice. The suburbs, too, are headed for trouble -- and I'll take that up in next month's commentary. ..."
"... Wow, there's like no facts in this article. Dense living is actually cheaper than sprawl. You need significantly less infrastructure to supporter tall buildings than you do for the same square footage spread out over acres. ..."
"... Less heating and cooling is needed as well since the building have smaller surface areas (1 roof and 1 ground touching floor compared to 50 roofs and floors for a 50 story building). The writer works in a low margin, low innovation industry. Major cities dominate the high innovation industries, that will continue. ..."
"... Higher population density means there are more people to tax to pay for infrastructure maintenance. I've read about suburbs that are struggling to pay for essential maintenance. ..."
"... These are awfully big conclusions to be drawing from not quite six months of crisis: NYC is making progress on reopening, helped considerably by widespread (though not perfect) adoption of the basic public prevention methods. Restaurants have taken a hit, but the survivors are investing in outdoor spaces, which are being enthusiastically patronized. Museums are reopening (Met this week, others in the next four or five weeks). People are starting to see their friends in person again. ..."
"... Cities make it effective for industries that thrive on collaboration AND competition. I work for a software company that works with other software companies (and competes with). Apple and Google both collaborate with hundreds of companies near them. Really thousands. ..."
"... What makes cities disappear is the breakdown and disintergration of the state-order. For example, many cities went into a major decline after the fall of the Western half of the Roman empire. ..."
"... Depending on the definition of "mega-city", I'm not sure its age ever arrived. A town only needs a population of five thousand to qualify as "urban" - when I was growing up, it was half that - which means much of the urban population consists of small towns. ..."
Aug 31, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Urban life has always been about the concentration of life and work, but it doesn't have to be at the colossal scale.

In just a few months, New York City became the poster-child for what's shaping up to be a staggering transformation of the American urban scene. Our giant metroplex cities are set to contract and go broke in the years ahead. The trend was already clear before Covid-19 came on the scene, but the virus accelerated the complex dynamics behind it. Of course, most of our cities occupy important geographic sites, so something will remain; but they will be smaller and increasingly troubled places as the agonizing process plays out. And eventually, they may be better places, in a different way.

The short version of the story is that our biggest cities have exceeded the viable scale of their operation as we enter an era of resource and capital scarcities that will inescapably shrink economies. Their infrastructure is too complex and costly to maintain. The skyscrapers and megastructures that were built to accommodate a particular way of organizing work have very suddenly gone obsolete. The cities face default on their ruinous debt obligations and pension promises. Social and ethnic conflict has turned ugly, and both life and property are at risk as public order founders.

By May 2020, The New York Times reported that 420,000 residents had fled America's largest city, not a few of them permanently (my literary agent among them, whose pre-virus life revolved around eating lunch with editors every day). The wealthiest neighborhoods were the biggest losers -- and they were the city's leading taxpayers. Of course, the initial impetus for flight was fear of catching Covid-19 in an environment densely packed with people. But as corporate offices shuttered, many of these refugees performed their work duties at home over the Internet, and it dawned on the corporations that perhaps it was a waste to lease expensive, high-status headquarters in Manhattan. The iconic Time-Life Building at 1271 Sixth Avenue had accommodated 8,000 workers before Covid-19. In mid-summer 2020, 500 people were showing up there.

Meanwhile, as politicians forced lockdowns, the city's restaurants and shops went dark, along with theaters, museums, stadiums, and the other organisms that made up the city's rich ecosystem of daily life.

The prospect of midtown perhaps permanently abandoned by office workers made an eventual return to normality even less plausible. After four months of virus, the June riots and looting that followed the horrific death of George Floyd sealed the deal, with the luxury stores on Fifth Avenue smashed up and burgled. Who would reopen such a business when riots and looting could break out over a fresh pretext at any time?

All of that completely changed the business model for the owners of skyscrapers -- whole floors going empty and now the ground-floor businesses shut down, too. These buildings, with their massive maintenance costs, no longer produced enough revenue to operate them. Overnight, they were transformed from assets to liabilities.

The situation also harmed the condominium model for residential towers. Without the ground-floor rents, the homeowner's associations would have to steeply raise the monthly maintenance fees for each apartment owner, while significantly lowering each unit's resale value if the owner had to move out. All of this would thunder through the banks and REITs (real estate investment trusts) which owned and managed many of these properties, and ultimately through the city's dwindling treasury coffers.

Many like to believe that office towers can be easily converted to apartments. That's just not true. Apart from purely physical issues, like the layout of plumbing stacks, the coming scarcity of capital will obviate these ventures, and, anyway, tower apartments only exist because they're companions to office towers, which may now be permanently obsolete. The age of giantism is over. Cities are certainly about the concentration of life and work, but it doesn't have to be at the colossal scale. For many centuries it wasn't.

The pre-virus 21st century New York was a grandiose product of the financialization of the economy, including the global money-laundering orgy that incentivized the luxury condo tower building boom. That's over too. With so many other legacy economic activities flickering out, Wall Street was all that remained. All that held up Wall Street's stock and bond markets was "liquidity" (i.e. money in figment form) prestidigitated by the Federal Reserve. And now even Wall Street had little incentive for maintaining its headquarters on Wall Street, with its wealthy denizens trading and finagling via the Internet from comfortable perches in the Hamptons and the Connecticut hinterlands.

All American cities are not the same, of course, and they will get to downscaling in their own special way, subject to different combinations of forces. For instance, Sunbelt cities like Atlanta, Miami, and Dallas are mostly composed of low-rise buildings. But they owe their stupendous growth since 1950 to the phenomenon of universal air-conditioning and mass motoring, both of which will prove to be extraordinary short-lived luxuries of the cheap fossil fuel age. Los Angeles will be challenged by ethnic friction, water problems, and its extreme car dependency (and you can forget about solving that with electric cars). All the cities will be plagued by an epic loss of tax revenue and the failure of government to maintain essential services.

The foregoing suggests epic demographic shifts. People will be on the move -- they already are -- as the cities decant. If the current political mood is any index of things to come, those movements will occur against the background of considerable disorder. That has already begun, too, in the summer of 2020 as looting, burning, and anarchy spread from one place to another. For the moment, a lot of former city people are seeking refuge in the suburbs. That will prove to be a bad choice. The suburbs, too, are headed for trouble -- and I'll take that up in next month's commentary.

James Howard Kunstler is The American Conservative' s New Urbanism Fellow. He is the author of numerous books on urban geography and economics, including his recent work, Living in the Long Emergency: Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward .

Dr. Ron Paul: "Here's What I Think Is Coming Next for America" Stansberry Research



Tomonthebeach a day ago

About 15 years ago, I started telecommuting several days a week. Our employer, the National Institutes of Health, even provided PCs and subsidized our ISP fees. That started me wondering why businesses kept building office buildings when it would be less costly to work from home. NIH likely got more work out of me because I did not have to drive to lunch, and time telecommuting was often spent working. Even before telecommuting, Skype meetings were at least a weekly occurrence as we had projects in foreign countries, and professional activities included collaboration with overseas colleagues across the US.

The best answer I could come up with I derived from my years of organizational surveys for FAA and the White House. Most supervisors opposed telework because they had no metrics to ensure people were not slacking off. This struck me as odd, because slacking off would be readily apparent in a drop off in productivity, or increasing customer complaints, or even co-worker complaints. Those are crappy metrics, but they are better than nothing - yet bosses wanted to visually count noses.

Of course, there were other signs that office buildings were going obsolete. For example, Chicago started renaming the iconic John Hancock building and the Sears Tower. Something was not right. The pandemic merely hastened the wake-up call that nobody needed a headquarters anymore. Cities turned deserted factories into lofts. I wonder what they will used empty skyscrapers for.

dermotmara 19 hours ago

It's an interesting view, and may come to pass. Do you think this will be the case in Chinese cities which dwarf most US cities, but are centrally controlled? Or in European cities which have been on a drive for space & livability instead of high-rise, and public transport or biking instead of cars?

Victor_the_thinker 17 hours ago

Wow, there's like no facts in this article. Dense living is actually cheaper than sprawl. You need significantly less infrastructure to supporter tall buildings than you do for the same square footage spread out over acres.

Less heating and cooling is needed as well since the building have smaller surface areas (1 roof and 1 ground touching floor compared to 50 roofs and floors for a 50 story building). The writer works in a low margin, low innovation industry. Major cities dominate the high innovation industries, that will continue.

Also what is he talking about an era where we lack capital? We have tons of capital. We are the reserve currency. If he's talking about social security and can print out own money and haven't seen inflation still. We have massive room to raise taxes too. We're at the highest level of inequality seen in a century and far outstrip other developed countries on this metric.

Dan Fay Victor_the_thinker 15 hours ago

Yes and no. From a high-level perspective, cities should be cheaper to provision infrastructure for. In practice, at least in the US, infrastructure projects are immensely expensive in big cities.

It gets even worse when you look at the provisioning of public goods like K-12 schools and policing.

Victor_the_thinker Dan Fay 14 hours ago

Regardless of what you think about the cost of infrastructure projects, they are expensive where wherever you do them. Rural areas are the most expensive areas to do infrastructure in America.

pja Victor_the_thinker 3 hours ago

you are correct. There is a reason broadband in rural America either lousy, expensive, or both. Low densities make it problematic on a per capita basis. Hence why Congress appropriated $20b for rural broadband - no provider wants to build where they can't turn a proft

gnt Dan Fay 2 hours ago

Higher population density means there are more people to tax to pay for infrastructure maintenance. I've read about suburbs that are struggling to pay for essential maintenance.

Connecticut Farmer Victor_the_thinker 15 hours ago

"Major cities dominate the high innovation industries, that will continue."

I would substitute "major metropolitan centers" for "major cities" (see examples below):

Google--Menlo Park,CA
Facebook--As above
IBM--Armonk, NY
Microsoft--Redmond, WA
Apple--Cupertino, CA

Google, FB and Apple are located in the SanFran-Oakland metro area, with IBM and Microsoft located in suburban New York City and Seattle respectively. There are many tech companies in Boston strewn along both the outer I-495 and inner I-95 belts, both of which wrap around Boston (Raytheon is based in Waltham, MA, just east of I-95). as well as the famous Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle. Tech companies need space-"campuses" as they are called-in order to do their work. Such space is limited in big cities, especially older cities.

Victor_the_thinker Connecticut Farmer 14 hours ago

The vast majority of the high tech stuff in Boston is within Cambridge, not those old rt 128 buildings. Almost the entire biotech/pharma industry is within a few miles in Cambridge. Google has a location in Cambridge. The IBM Watson lab is in Cambridge. All that biotech requires lab space. There is a ton of it within the city.

Wydra Victor_the_thinker 11 hours ago

Rte 128 had a good shot until Ken Olsen came to the conclusion that nobody would ever want to have a computer in their home.
The proximity to world class Universities and Colleges will ensure that the Boston/Cambridge metro area will remain attractive.

Victor_the_thinker Wydra 11 hours ago

The majority of those jobs have moved into the city now. There are still huge amounts of high tech jobs being produced in Boston. I work in Pharma in business development. You HAVE to have a presence in Boston if you're going to be on the cutting edge of biological research. The universities are spinning off companies left and right. California is leading in computer based tech for sure but Boston is leading in biotechnology.

empidonax_road Connecticut Farmer 14 hours ago

Google has a massive three-city-block facility in NYC, with plans to expand, Twitter has a good-sized building a few blocks away (the one Laura Loomer chained herself to briefly). Disney has leveled a full city block a bit to the south of that and is currently building a new massive structure on the site.

Tech is an area where competition for top workers is ferocious. Possible that it's easier to recruit people to live in Chelsea than in Armonk?

Astral Traveller empidonax_road 14 hours ago

Tech's growth is a great stimulus. And that to Congress' recent expansion of H1B visas these cities will soon resemble Bombay.

What Should Be Astral Traveller 12 hours ago

"And that to Congress' recent expansion of H1B visas these cities will soon resemble Bombay."

That's got to change. Unemployment is the worst in almost a hundred years, tens of millions of Americans. H1B and all the other foreign worker visa program should have been abolished long ago, at the very latest after the pandemic started, but our corrupt politicians keeps letting them come.

There should be no foreigners or foreign workers here now. None. Americans need every job in America, the law should state and enforce that, and American executives who evade it with outsourcing tricks and falsified visa affidavits should be in prison.

MPC What Should Be 4 hours ago

Long ago, when the unemployment rate was the best in a long time? It'd perhaps be good to have mechanisms that tie visas to unemployment in some impartial way, that sentiment I can agree with as a practical matter, but the rest of your statements about foreigners are ridiculous. Moderated immigration of talented, ambitious people is a big net gain. I grew up around people like this and you better be on your toes and push yourself because they leave you in the dust otherwise. Agribusiness, tech, media, ie America's biggest cash cows are all heavily reliant on immigrants.

Extreme positions like 'no foreigners!' play right in to the uncoordinated duct taped system we have now. You need to realize that everyone has a seat at the table, and consensus is needed for action.

Victor_the_thinker Connecticut Farmer 14 hours ago

Just so you know, Raleigh-Durham isn't a huge tech leader at least as measured by VC funding. It only constitutes .5% of all VC spending. Atlanta is a bigger deal as far as VC spending than the research triangle.

https://www.google.com/amp/...

Annie from Alaska Connecticut Farmer 13 hours ago • edited
Google, FB and Apple are located in the SanFran-Oakland metro area,

They are located in the outskirts of what grew from Sand Hill Road. Silicon Valley has San Francisco as an amenity, not the other way around.

This supports your point, though.

IBM and Microsoft located in suburban New York City and Seattle respectively.

I didn't think of Armonk as a suburb before, but you're right. I suppose you'd probably drive to White Plains and then take the train, or something like that.

IBM has a very distributed workforce, though, including a highrise in NYC's midtown, so there may be an element of confirmation bias at work here.

Tech companies need space-"campuses" as they are called-in order to do their work. Such space is limited in big cities, especially older cities.

This might be wrong. Google owns the Port Authority building in NYC. It's a full city block and 20 floors, which competes in terms of raw space with their campuses.

In Mountain View their hiring consolidation combined with NIMBYism has sent housing prices through the roof. In NYC Google's hiring doesn't make a dent because they're spread over a large city with companies and people coming and going all the time. The housing bubble and low quality of life in Mountain View is an international joke.

The "campus" model is good for a stable company that will exist for multiple generations without changing size so housing can be built for the workers of that company and not peak or crater in value. When the company implodes the town is destroyed. People's accumulated home wealth is destroyed with it so the individual people are not more mobile than the homes they live in. I think this happens too often, and somewhat by design. Our laws around companies make them easy to start and easy to fold up. I don't think a company stable enough to warrant a company-town campus, like Armonk was and is or like Mountain View has recently become, exists. This concept was also a bubble that had a culty appeal in that brief span between when it was invented and when the first company-town companies started to implode.

We don't want towns to become dependent on any one company, and the companies are becoming huge. That means the convenient and sustainable commuting radius of the town needs to be huge in terms of number of people, not miles. It could be a dense place with bad trains like NYC or a sprawling place with good trains like Washington DC.

I look forward to seeing the "new urbs" take on this arrangement. Will we work and live in the same town? If not, how will we get around?

Connecticut Farmer Annie from Alaska 13 hours ago

Interesting. I've heard that about Mountain View, by the way. Also, I understand that apartment rentals in San Francisco have gone through the roof with the influx of high paid tekkies who commute to/ from Silicone and who can't afford to buy.

Victor_the_thinker Annie from Alaska 13 hours ago

People who work in high tech industries are disproportionately likely to be married to spouses with similar levels of education and income these days. Usually they don't work at the same company. They need to live near other areas with high end job opportunities for their spouses. It's known as the two body problem.

Jason Segedy Victor_the_thinker an hour ago

JHK has written multiple books on the topic of sprawl, cities, and urban development. His writing is informed by plenty of facts. I suspect that he has read, thought, and written more about the topic than you have.

I Don't Matter 15 hours ago

Yes the guy who had been wrong about everything forever pens another just so story boldly stating fictions and making predictions about the future without a date in sight. Capital scarcity? Resource scarcity? Any evidence for either with both interest rates and commodity prices in the dump? No, who needs evidence when there's a story to tell.

Matt 15 hours ago

What is the reasoning behind the claim that we are about to "enter an era of resource and capital scarcities"? This article gives none.

empidonax_road 14 hours ago

These are awfully big conclusions to be drawing from not quite six months of crisis: NYC is making progress on reopening, helped considerably by widespread (though not perfect) adoption of the basic public prevention methods. Restaurants have taken a hit, but the survivors are investing in outdoor spaces, which are being enthusiastically patronized. Museums are reopening (Met this week, others in the next four or five weeks). People are starting to see their friends in person again.

We're still a long way from the full menu - live performances, for example are still a long way off - but the things that draw people to the city and keep them here are coming back online.

No one thinks the old normal is going to be the new one, but I'm more optimistic about the city's future than I was back in April.

Viking Raffi Le Pen 5 hours ago

In the long run, fossil fuels are likely to go up and up in price, as they get more expensive to extract. Even if we disregard the effect on the environment, do you really doubt that a great many of the conveniences we now take for granted may be far more expensive in the future? This is barring our finding some effective substitute(s) for coal, natural gas, and petroleum, of course. Can't be ruled out, but we are taking our chances by continuing to live our current lifestyles, I'd say.

MPC Viking 4 hours ago

I've gamed out the possibilities a bit, it's an interesting topic to me.

Anything hard to transition off of 100% petroleum I think will have a hard time first. Air travel and international shipping. Perhaps alternatives will develop, but they won't be nearly as efficient as before. Economies will localize again.

Electricity is the most able to replace generation fuels but as others decline that's going to place huge reliance on just one key system for almost everything. Even if we did get solar and wind and backup power reserves roaring at a decent price, which I think we can, everything is riding on that one basket and the increasingly complex delivery. Hydro is a gold mine if you're lucky enough to have it (US really does not in most parts).

Also there's the mining angle, eventually some resources are just going to be economically exhausted. Solar panels can't be made of wood...yet.

Collin Reid 13 hours ago

Considering the lack of facts in this article and assuming lots of 'trends' over the last 6 months, this does very little to convince people.

1) Since 2000, we have heard endless articles about the end of mega-cities and it never happens.
2) Looking at the population growth of Texas cities and suburbs the last 20 years, seems like cities/urban areas continue to grow even if New York's population is flat.
3) What the heck is 'the challenged by ethnic friction?' What if it does not happen? This just like Trumpian good Housewife talk.
4) Mega-cities have not only grown in the US, but they have grown in all developed nations.

PeteZilla Collin Reid 13 hours ago • edited

Agree with this point.

I think the writer fails to mention or understand that cities have gone thru changes in the last decade or so.

For example the economies in the Bay Area California grew and changed so much to pull into the regions around it.

They call it a super region that connects Sacramento, San José, etc. New York has something similar. I know folks who commute from Sacramento to San Francisco for work and vice Cerda.

Cities make it effective for industries that thrive on collaboration AND competition. I work for a software company that works with other software companies (and competes with). Apple and Google both collaborate with hundreds of companies near them. Really thousands.

As long as industries keep hiring (and paying decently) these regions and industries will continues to drive markets.

If anything cities are becoming effective at catering to certain industries.

What I hope to see is more allowance and leeway with remote work. So people can work from places where they can afford a home.

My company used to avoid having too many workers working remotely. But we are struggling to find talent that now we look remotely. COVID added to that push now as well.

YT14 12 hours ago • edited

I wouldn't trust this swan song on metropolitan demise. In the long run, plagues are momentary disturbances - they are frequently over in a year or less despite horrific loss of life in between. The same goes for aerial bombardment of European cities during WW2. Once war was over, the cities rebuilt fast. Only few were arguing it was too dangerous to live in a city anymore.

What makes cities disappear is the breakdown and disintergration of the state-order. For example, many cities went into a major decline after the fall of the Western half of the Roman empire.

Victor_the_thinker YT14 11 hours ago

Yes and the experience of the Roman Empire simply isn't relevant today. At the time of Rome, the vast majority of the population was illiterate. The people who were knowledgeable and were pushing the empire forward technologically were a very very small constituency in the population. The knowledge that they had was all contained in analogue format so a fire burning down a library really could destroy hundreds of years of work. This isn't a possibility today. We now have hundreds of thousands of scientists and engineers capable interpreting the innovative science we produce and knowledge is distributed around the world and is much easier to reconstitute.

Harry Huntington YT14 7 hours ago

Still waiting for Detroit and Gary, Indiana to reconstitute, as you put it. In NY, shootings are getting out of control. In Chicago, over the past 18 months, shootings, muggings, and assaults have skyrocketed in the 1st and 18th Police Districts (where the fancy people live). Folks are afraid to walk at night. I live in Chicago near the lake.

On any typical night within a quarter mile of my home there will be police reports of "man with a gun," "woman assaulted," "woman with knife," "man using bottle as weapon," or "group fighting." Not the stuff you want to hear if you want to take a 9:00 PM jog through Grant Park or along the lake.

I good friend of mine had her cell phone grabbed out of her hand during the middle of the day in the skate board park at the South End of Grant Park. Crime of this sort is what drives people out of cities. The promise of downtown Chicago was you could walk or rely on public transportation. You cannot do either when people are mugged every day on public transportation or along the main city streets in downtown.

To your credit, maybe a big City like Houston can survive. Reality is, however, Houston is more a sprawl than any kind of connected city. Major employers in Houston actually have rules against walked to work (because of the heat).

YT14 Harry Huntington 7 hours ago • edited

Well yes, breakdown of the state-order is an important factor. As the proverbs state: "pray for the welfare of the government: if not for the fear it inspires, man would swallow his neighbor alive."

Viking 6 hours ago

Depending on the definition of "mega-city", I'm not sure its age ever arrived. A town only needs a population of five thousand to qualify as "urban" - when I was growing up, it was half that - which means much of the urban population consists of small towns.

For significantly larger cities, it has long been the case that the population of the suburbs and exurbs tends to be at least half of the total metropolitan area. Jacksonville and Albuquerque may be exceptions to this rule, but they are in the minority, and anyway I doubt that James Kunstler has them in mind when he writes of mega-cities. I seriously doubt that there was ever a time in America when the megalopolis dweller was in the majority, or even the plurality.

[Aug 29, 2020] Cancelling Cancel Culture- Covington Catholic's Sandmann Speaks At RNC Convention

Aug 29, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

written by daniel mcadams wednesday august 26, 2020
It was one of the most notorious cases of 'cancel culture' gone crazy. A young high school student was relentlessly bullied and character-assassinated by the mainstream media because he wore a MAGA hat while a bully screamed in his face. Nicholas Sandmann turned the tables and walked away with millions of dollars after suing the media outlets that slandered him. But is "cancel culture" going away? Or is it getting more violent? Watch today's Liberty Report:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/7LVvfNTCdmI

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[Aug 27, 2020] Science Is Not About Consensus -

Aug 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Science Is Not About Consensus by Tyler Durden Thu, 08/27/2020 - 21:05 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Jeff Harris via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Newsflash; real science is based on facts not "consensus".

I'm sick and tired of idiots beating me over the head with pseudoscience instead of sticking to the cold, hard facts .

Show me the hard data that standing six feet from someone is necessary.

Show me the hard data that wearing any old rag on my face is going to materially stop the spread of a virus.

Show me the hard data that enjoying fresh air and sunshine outdoors could be an invitation to an early death.

Please, stick to the facts and don't dare lecture me about the "consensus" and here's why.

Maybe you've heard of Ignaz Semmelweis , an Austrian-Hungarian obstetrician with a prickly personality. If not, you will quickly recognize his contribution to the medical profession with the three words he made famous:

"Wash your hands."

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me title=

This was way back in 1847.

Dr. Semmelweis provided hard data clearly demonstrating that once he and his staff began washing their hands and disinfecting equipment between patients the number of infections and deaths dropped dramatically.

Unfortunately, the scientific "consensus" at the time held that there was no benefit to these measures and his advice was almost completely ignored by the learned medical community. In fact, many of his medical peers were incensed with his suggestion that they could be responsible for transmitting illness and disease!

At the time doctors took pride in their soiled gowns as a mark of their industrious work! It was commonplace for doctors who had just completed an autopsy to go to the maternity ward and deliver babies without ever washing up! After all it was the "consensus" and with so many doctors in agreement how could they be wrong?

Dr. Semmelweis died in an insane asylum in 1865 knowing that untold numbers of patients had needlessly suffered and died because the medical community refused to accept his findings and instead chose to follow the "consensus". Ironically, the same year Dr. Semmelweis died Dr. Joseph Lister, a British surgeon, began building on the work of French microbiologist Louis Pasteur regarding germ theory.

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Dr. Lister began experimenting with various means of disinfecting wounds. He instructed surgeons under his responsibility to not only wash their hands with a 5 percent solution of carbolic acid but also wear clean gloves. His work validated Dr. Semmelweis discoveries regarding the value of hygiene and cleanliness in medicine.

Today we all benefit from Dr. Semmelweis groundbreaking work even though he was never recognized for his contribution during his lifetime. The moral to this story is that scientific "consensus" is often wrong. In no way can it justify the hysteria, lockdowns and wealth destruction that is being manufactured by the elites.

The COVID hysteria is emotion based, not fact based. Instead of cold, hard facts backing up the "science" we're told to shut up and accept the "consensus". As Dr. Semmelweis discovered the consensus is often wrong.

[Aug 21, 2020] The CIA Versus The Kennedys

Aug 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

Former Congressman Ron Paul and his colleague Dan McAdams recently conducted a fascinating interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which focused in part on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who was Kennedy Jr.'s uncle. The interview took place on their program the Ron Paul Liberty Report.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_kJdOtnBUcw

Owing to the many federal records that have been released over the years relating to the Kennedy assassination, especially through the efforts of the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s, many Americans are now aware of the war that was being waged between President Kennedy and the CIA throughout his presidency . The details of this war are set forth in FFF's book JFK's War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne.

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In the interview, Robert Kennedy Jr. revealed a fascinating aspect of this war with which I was unfamiliar. He stated that the deep animosity that the CIA had for the Kennedy family actually stretched back to something the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy, did in the 1950s that incurred the wrath of Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA.

Kennedy Jr. stated that his grandfather, Joseph P. Kennedy, had served on a commission that was charged with examining and analyzing CIA covert activities, or "dirty tricks" as Kennedy Jr. put them. As part of that commission, Kennedy Jr stated, Joseph Kennedy (John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy's father) had determined that the CIA had done bad things with its regime-change operations that were destroying democracies, such as in Iran and Guatemala.

Consequently, Joseph Kennedy recommended that the CIA's power to engage in covert activities be terminated and that the CIA be strictly limited to collecting intelligence and empowered to do nothing else.

According to Kennedy Jr.,

"Allen Dulles never forgave him -- never forgave my family -- for that."

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I wasn't aware of that fact.

I assumed that the war between President Kennedy and the CIA had begun with the CIA's invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The additional information added by Kennedy Jr. places things in a much more fascinating and revealing context.

Upon doing a bit of research on the Internet, I found that the commission that Kennedy Jr. must have been referring to was the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities, which President Eisenhower had established in 1956 through Executive Order 10656 . Eisenhower appointed Joseph Kennedy to serve on that commission.

That year was three years after the CIA's 1953 regime change operation in Iran which destroyed that country's democratic system. It was two years after the CIA's regime-change operation in Guatemala that destroyed that country's democratic system.

Keep in mind that the ostensible reason that the CIA engaged in these regime-change operations was to protect "national security," which over time has become the most important term in the American political lexicon. Although no one has ever come up with an objective definition for the term, the CIA's power to address threats to "national security," including through coups and assassinations, became omnipotent.

Yet, here was Joseph P. Kennedy declaring that the CIA's power to exercise such powers should be terminated and recommending that the CIA's power be strictly limited to intelligence gathering.

It is not difficult to imagine how livid CIA Director Dulles and his cohorts must have been at Kennedy. No bureaucrat likes to have his power limited. More important, for Dulles and his cohorts, it would have been clear that if Kennedy got his way, "national security" would be gravely threatened given the Cold War that the United States was engaged in with the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, and other communist nations.

Now consider what happened with the Bay of Pigs. The CIA's plan for a regime-change invasion of Cuba, was conceived under President Eisenhower. Believing that Vice President Nixon would be elected president in 1960, the CIA was quite surprised that Kennedy was elected instead. To ensure that the invasion would go forth anyway, the CIA assured Kennedy that the invasion would succeed without U.S. air support. It was a lie. The CIA assumed that once the invasion was going to go down in defeat at the hands of the communists, Kennedy would have to provide the air support in order to "save face."

But Kennedy refused to be played by the CIA. When the CIA's army of Cuban exiles was going down in defeat, the CIA requested the air support, convinced that their plan to manipulate the new president would work. It didn't. Kennedy refused to provide the air support and the CIA's invasion went down in defeat.

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Now consider what happened after the Bay of Pigs: Knowing that the CIA had played him and double-crossed him, John Kennedy fired Allen Dulles as CIA director, along with his chief deputy, Charles Cabell. He then put his younger brother Bobby Kennedy in charge of monitoring the CIA, which infuriated the CIA.

Now jump ahead to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which Kennedy resolved by promising that the United States would not invade Cuba for a regime-change operation. That necessarily would leave a permanent communist regime in Cuba, something that the CIA steadfastly maintained was a grave threat to "national security" -- a much bigger threat, in fact, than the threats supposedly posed by the regimes in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954.

And then Kennedy did the unforgivable, at least insofar as the CIA was concerned . In his famous Peace Speech at American University in June 1963, he declared an end to the entire Cold War and announced that the United States was going to establish friendly and peaceful relations with the communist world.

Kennedy had thrown the gauntlet down in front of the CIA. It was either going to be his way or the CIA's way. There was no room for compromise, and both sides knew it.

In the minds of former CIA Director Allen Dulles and the people still at the CIA, what Kennedy was doing was anathema and, even worse, the gravest threat to "national security" the United States had ever faced, a much bigger threat than even that posed by the democratic regimes in Iran and Guatemala. At that point, the CIA's animosity toward President Kennedy far exceeded the animosity it had borne toward his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, several years before.



Joe A , 2 hours ago

And Allen Dulles, the CIA director that Kennedy fired, was on the Warren Commission that concluded that Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin who was a poor marksman using a crappy rifle.

USGrant , 2 hours ago

The Warren Commission exhibits show that the Carcano after the scope was shimmed to make it usable, shot about 10 inches to the right and high at 25 yards with terrible accuracy. Presumably this was one of the carbines whose barrel was cut down from rifle length taking much of the progressive rifling with it. The cartridges placed on the 6th floor were clearly reloads not the supposed new Western cartridges of circa 1953. As reloads then the question arises where were .267 bullets to be obtained since only .264 were manufactured at the time which would make accuracy suffer.

Joe A , 1 hour ago

Yes, but these bullets were magic bullets according to the Warren Commission. There was one bullet that entered Kennedy's throat and left it, then traversed through air, changing course, hanged suspended in mid air for about a second or so and then continued to hit the governor that was sitting in front to the left of Kennedy. That bullet traversed 15 layers of clothing, seven layers of skin, and approximately 15 inches of muscle tissue, struck a necktie knot, removed 4 inches of rib, and shattered a radius bone and was found virtually intact. Some bullet!

USGrant , 1 hour ago

And the found bullet changed from a spitzer according to the first hospital worker who was alerted to it, to a round nose.

WingedMessenger , 19 minutes ago

You have missed several TV episodes that have successfully recreated the magic bullet scenario, including Myth Busters. The bullet is not magic, the actual seating geometry and sight line of the shooter all contribute to the bullet path being actually very straight. The 6.5mm 150-160 grain bullets have a very high sectional density that gives them a lot of penetration. In one test the spent bullet was found resting on the leg of the second ("John Connally") dummy just like it did in real life.

They used the same Cacarno rifle for the tests. The shot is not difficult. The car is moving directly away from the shooter at the time of this shot, so no real lead is required. The range is less than a 100 yards so you just aim dead on and shoot. Hunters do it all the time.

ThirteenthFloor , 1 hour ago

When Allen Dulles passed away, the CIA sent someone to Dulles' Georgetown home to get 'missing' and incriminating JFK autopsy photos from his safe and destroy them. That person was James Jesus Angleton, who admitted late in his life. Read last chapter in "Devils Chessboard" - David Talbot.

USGrant , 1 hour ago

If I recall, he was the one found searching in her studio for Mary Pinchot Meyer's diary after she was killed . (Cord Meyer's ex-wife)

cornflakesdisease , 10 minutes ago

He also had a huge hand in the political beginings of the UN.

Bay of Pigs , 2 hours ago

Allen Dulles, LBJ and the CIA murdered JFK. It's that fu#king simple.

MontCar , 1 hour ago

LBJ likely abetted the cover up. Placing Allen Dulles, recently fired from the CIA directorship by JFK, on the since disgraced Warren Commission. Mossad may have partnered with CIA in the assassination. JFK evidently opposed Israel's nuclear weapons acquisition efforts - an existential issue for Israel. Clear motive.

USGrant , 1 hour ago

Allan Dulles then danced on JFK's grave.

Angular Momentum , 1 hour ago

Kennedy also supported the right of return for the Palestinians refugees who left Israel for Jordan. Also an existential issue for Israel. I think in Ben Gurian's mind either Kennedy lived or Israel survived as a Jewish state. It was one or the other. I have no doubt the CIA covered for Israel because they had their own beef with Kennedy.

Yen Cross , 1 hour ago

It wasn't some flunkie Soviet reject from the bell tower.

There's no way Oswald could bounce a high velocity round of lead off a light post, in front of the Limousine, still carrying enough muzzle velocity to cave in the back side of POTUS cranium.

There were other players, at the very least.

WingedMessenger , 5 minutes ago

I have been to the 6th floor museum in Dallas several times and reviewed the various theories on where other shooters might have been located. All of the them are worse than the 6th floor of the Book Depository. Some are down right stupid, like the one supposed in the sewer by the curb. It would be impossible to shoot a rifle in there at the angle needed to hit above the wheel well of the limo, much less be able to see the limo before it was right on you. You could not even see Kennedy from there, You would have to shoot through the bottom of a door or the floor boards just to hit him in the leg or foot.

The 6th floor is the only location that allows the shooter to see the limos coming before they arrive in the target zone and allow him to prepare to shoot. All the other locations give only a tiny window to ID the target and loose off a round before the limo disappears out of view. A competent assassin would have chosen the 6th floor window. If Oswald was not the best shot, there is always the possibility that he just got lucky on some easy shots, or maybe someone else was in the 6th floor window. We don't have any evidence for either case.

NewDarwin , 3 hours ago

The CIA has it in for anyone who tries to dismantle the deep state...

sj warrior , 2 hours ago

jfk tried to stop izzy from getting nuclear bombs

rfk tried to force the forerunner to aipac to register as foreign agent, thus subject to gov monitoring

both of these stances failed after the assassinations

Pandelis , 26 minutes ago

plus the Secret Societies speech ... that was a biggie showing he was into them (cia was just one of octopus arms)....

https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/american-newspaper-publishers-association-19610427

Pandelis , 23 minutes ago

and the executive order issued by Kennedy on using silver as currency ... that was really going after the owners ... in all fairness, not sure he knew what he was up against ... his son was killed without giving him a chance to shine yet ...

desertboy , 2 hours ago

The CIA is the direct product of, and works directly for, the same parties that own the Fed (the primary shareholders of its shareholders).

The CIA is even typically headed by bankers.

This is simply the history.

eatapeach , 2 hours ago

Nope, Trump is an insider. Should be pretty obvious given his behavior toward Syria, Iran, and Israel. He's no different than all those in the long line since after Kennedy.

Dzerzhhinsky , 2 hours ago

The CIA Versus The Kennedys

We all know who won that fight. Not a single American President has dared to disobey the CIA since.

revjimbeam , 2 hours ago

Nixon ended Viet nam and opened China- liddy(FBI) and hunt(CIA) set the administration up by breaking into the watergate then finished him of with anonymous leaks to the Washington post by felt (deepthroat) the no.2 at fbi....sound familar?

Impeachment doesn't leave agency fingerprints and is less messy than Dallas Memphis and LA

Gospel According To Me , 2 hours ago

Interesting theory and very plausible.

That is why to this day the Deep State poses such a grave danger to our democracy. They want Trump out of their way, period. If Trump pardons Snowden he better head for his WH bomb shelter. They will really go after him with everything they have. And they still have plenty of sick like-minded people in place in every agency. They spy on Trump and work to sabotage every good idea he has to Make America Great Again. Pray he prevails and the USA survives.

eatapeach , 2 hours ago

Please. Snowden is a feeble US analog of Baryshnikov et al and Russia knows it. Moreover, the contrived Trump v. Deep State narrative reads like a Hardy Boys novel, soft and weak. If 'deep state' wants someone gone, they don't dilly dally. What are you, 13 years old?

2hangmen , 2 hours ago

Well, that explains the CIA involvement with the Deep State in trying to take down candidate Trump, then President Trump. Whether someone can bring them into line will determine if we keep our nation as founded.

ComradePuff , 22 minutes ago

Kennedy didn't even make one full term, let alone stand for re-election. In the meantime, the CIA has only gotten stronger and spun off into a dozen other agencies. You're deluding yourself.

FlKeysFisherman , 2 hours ago

WTF, I like a Kennedy now!!!

Earth Ling , 2 hours ago

Then you'll love this!

RFK JR's org Children's Health Defense is suing Zuckerberg and Facebook:

CHD Holds Press Conference with Legal Team and Plaintiff in Lawsuit Against Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Three of Facebook's So-Called "Fact-Checkers"

ComradePuff , 13 minutes ago

I fear for RFK Jr, to be perfectly honest. It's amazing he can even walk with balls that big.

Eastern Whale , 2 hours ago

shows that politicians are all rotten to the core even in a "democratically" elected government

communism in 20th century is a joke, Oligarch from Russia is buying soccer teams in UK, Chinese is lined up at Chanel and LV in every city. communism is just a concept and name now.

anyhow, all politicians should be at the bottom of the ocean

presterjohn1198 , 2 hours ago

The cia has always been the shadow government of the USSA. Those clever Ivy League boys think that they always knew better about screwing up world affairs than our elected government. Pretty much the same kind of club as the legacy media, whom the cia frequently collaborates with.
Fools!

Arising , 1 hour ago

... the CIA's 1953 regime change operation in Iran which destroyed that country's democratic system.

There's one for all the Republican fan boys that hate Iran because their leaders tell them to.

buckboy , 1 hour ago

Pres. Trump are well aware of these facts. Main reason why he has his own private security. Amazing he is getting this far. This man knows how to win than anyone else.

He made Brennan, Clapper, Comey Clintons like real clowns instead.

Call it conspiracy, the terrorism, blm antifa racism and non sense chaos are supported by the cia. CIA is the main and most dangerous enemy of the world. To control is the main objective.

Like the JFK family and now Trump, if you are against them, they'll discredit you through the history.

USGrant , 2 hours ago

Listen to Douglas Horne's interview of Dino Brugioni and how the Zupruder film was doctored to make it seem that the head shot came from the back. No surprise with the head movement-it came from the front.

USGrant , 2 hours ago

Those frames were cut out which not only exaggerated the head movement but it made it impossible for 3 shots to come from the crappy Carcano in the shortened time as gauged from the film. So there is only one frame of the head shot but Dino remembered several as he was the one charged with making the briefing board on Saturday night prior to the film being altered on Sunday at the Kodak Hawkeye Works.

Wild Bill Steamcock , 1 hour ago

Richard Dolan has a nice set of interviews with Phillip Lavelle (a walking JFK encyclopedia) on the topic at his youtube channel. ...

Wild Bill Steamcock , 1 hour ago

And Tracey too, being that smart and good looking is almost unfair

fucking truth , 1 hour ago

And yet trump promised and reneged on releasing all the Kennedy docs, it's a big swamp and i think Trump's in it, ribbit.

Wild Bill Steamcock , 1 hour ago

It's like trying to drain an ocean. Eventually you fall in

mcmich , 1 hour ago

The people in power now is the people behind JFK's murder..

Soloamber , 38 minutes ago

So does everyone else . Jackie Kennedy knew too . She said they finally got him . Johnson told his mistress the same day .

DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago

The only worthwhile human beings in the entire Kennedy clan were JFK and Jr. (notwithstanding Jackie, whom I count as Onassis). The rest - particularly Bobby Kennedy - were scum of the earth and sycophants of the Matrix, the lowliest kind of elitist wire-carrying police informants and apron-wearers. To this day I don't understand how anyone in the right mind could venerate Bobby Kennedy. The man was three tiers below even his fuhrer-sucking daddy.

Would United States have been better off had Kennedy survived? Probably, but not by much and only in the short term. We might have avoided Vietnam (highly questionable - JFK had already sent our troops there and the whole thing was already on the verge of dangerous escalation). But as soon as his second term ended, the Deep State would have installed a more desirable and obedient puppet (most likely Nixon, possibly LBJ) in the White House and we would have continued where LBJ left off in January 1969.

BTW, it may have been CIA that backstabbed JFK on the Bay of Pigs fiasco, but it was his own baby brother who twisted the knife .

A_Huxley , 3 hours ago

Look back over the National Intelligence Estimates.

NIE 53-63 Prospects In South Vietnam.

National Security Action Memorandum 28.

TahoeBilly2012 , 3 hours ago

Y Cult, Cult of Osiris.....going down!!!!

Soloamber , 41 minutes ago

If they could do the same to Trump they would .

The only thing they have left is massive ballot fraud

which they have every intent of doing .

[Aug 04, 2020] Russia never saw Trump as a potential ally or friend by The Saker

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Furthermore, it is pretty obvious to the Russians that while Crimea and MH17 were the pretexts for western sanctions against Russia, they were not the real cause. The real cause of the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot be conquered, subdued, subverted or destroyed. They've been at it for close to 1,000 years and they still are at it. In fact, each time they fail to crush Russia, their russophobia increases to even higher levels (phobia both in the sense of "fear" and in the sense of "hatred"). ..."
"... I would argue that since at least Russia and the AngloZionist Empire have been at war since at least 2013, when Russia foiled the US plan to attack Syria under the pretext that it was "highly likely" that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians (in reality, a textbook case of a false flag organized by the Brits), This means that Russia and the Empire have been at [Cold] war since at least 2013, for no less than seven years (something which Russian 6th columnists and Neo-Marxists try very hard to ignore). ..."
"... True, at least until now, this was has been 80% informational, 15% economic and only 5% kinetic, but this is a real existential war of survival for both sides: only one side will walk away from this struggle. The other one will simply disappear (not as a nation or a people, but as a polity; a regime). The Kremlin fully understood that and it embarked on a huge reform and modernization of the Russian armed forces in three distinct ways: ..."
"... While some US politicians understood what was going on (I think of Ron Paul, see here ), most did not. They were so brainwashed by the US propaganda that they were sure that no matter what, "USA! USA! USA!". Alas for them, the reality was quite different. ..."
Aug 04, 2020 | www.unz.com

Truth be told, most Russian politicians (with the notable exception of the official Kremlin court jester, Zhirinovskii) and analysts never saw Trump as a potential ally or friend. The Kremlin was especially cautious, which leads me to believe that the Russian intelligence analysts did a very good job evaluating Trump's psyche and they quickly figured out that he was no better than any other US politician.

Right now, I know of no Russian analyst who would predict that relations between the US and Russia will improve in the foreseeable future. If anything, most are clearly saying that "guys, we better get used to this" (accusations, sanctions, accusations, sanctions, etc. etc. etc.).

Furthermore, it is pretty obvious to the Russians that while Crimea and MH17 were the pretexts for western sanctions against Russia, they were not the real cause. The real cause of the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot be conquered, subdued, subverted or destroyed. They've been at it for close to 1,000 years and they still are at it. In fact, each time they fail to crush Russia, their russophobia increases to even higher levels (phobia both in the sense of "fear" and in the sense of "hatred").

Simply put -- there is nothing which Russia can expect from the upcoming election. Nothing at all. Still, that does not mean that things are not better than 4 or 8 years ago. Let's look at what changed.

I would argue that since at least Russia and the AngloZionist Empire have been at war since at least 2013, when Russia foiled the US plan to attack Syria under the pretext that it was "highly likely" that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians (in reality, a textbook case of a false flag organized by the Brits), This means that Russia and the Empire have been at [Cold] war since at least 2013, for no less than seven years (something which Russian 6th columnists and Neo-Marxists try very hard to ignore).

True, at least until now, this was has been 80% informational, 15% economic and only 5% kinetic, but this is a real existential war of survival for both sides: only one side will walk away from this struggle. The other one will simply disappear (not as a nation or a people, but as a polity; a regime). The Kremlin fully understood that and it embarked on a huge reform and modernization of the Russian armed forces in three distinct ways:

A "general" reform of the Russian armed forces which had to be modernized by about 80%. This part of the reform is now practically complete. A specific reform to prepare the western and southern military districts for a major conventional war against the united West (as always in Russian history) which would involve the First Guards Tank Army and the Russian Airborne Forces. The development of bleeding-edge weapons systems with no equivalent in the West and which cannot be countered or defeated; these weapons have had an especially dramatic impact upon First Strike Stability and upon naval operations.

While some US politicians understood what was going on (I think of Ron Paul, see here ), most did not. They were so brainwashed by the US propaganda that they were sure that no matter what, "USA! USA! USA!". Alas for them, the reality was quite different.

Russian officials, by the way, have confirmed that Russia was preparing for war . Heck, the reforms were so profound and far reaching, that it would have been impossible for the Russians to hide what they were doing (see here for details; also please see Andrei Martyanov's excellent primer on the new Russian Navy here ).

While no country is ever truly prepared for war, I would argue that by 2020 the Russians had reached their goals and that now Russia is fully prepared to handle any conflict the West might throw at her, ranging from a small border incident somewhere in Central Asia to a full-scaled war against the US/NATO in Europe .

Folks in the West are now slowly waking up to this new reality (I mentioned some of that here ), but it is too late. In purely military terms, Russia has now created such a qualitative gap with the West that the still existing quantitative gap is not sufficient to guarantee a US/NATO victory. Now some western politicians are starting to seriously freak out (see this lady , for example), but most Europeans are coming to terms with two truly horrible realities:

Russia is much stronger than Europe and, even much worse, Russia will never attack first (which is a major cause of frustration for western russophobes)

As for the obvious solution to this problem, having friendly relations with Russia is simply unthinkable for those who made their entire careers peddling the Soviet (and now Russian) threat to the world.

But Russia is changing, albeit maybe too slowly (at least for my taste). As I mentioned last week, a number of Polish, Ukrainian and Baltic politicians have declared that the Zapad2020 military maneuvers which are supposed to take place in southern Russia and the Caucasus could be used to prepare an attack on the West (see here for a rather typical example of this nonsense). In the past, the Kremlin would only have made a public statement ridiculing this nonsense, but this time around Putin did something different. Right after he saw the reaction of these politicians, Putin ordered a major and UNSCHEDULED military readiness exercise which involved no less than 150,000 troops, 400 aircraft & 100 ships ! The message here was clear:

Yes, we are much more powerful than you are and No, we are not apologizing for our strength anymore

And, just to make sure that the message is clear, the Russians also tested the readiness of the Russian Airborne Forces units near the city of Riazan, see for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2s2V8iPofFs?feature=oembed

This response is, I think, the correct one. Frankly, nobody in the West is listening to what the Kremlin has to say, so what is the point of making more statements which in the future will be ignored equally as they have been in the past.

If anything, the slow realization that Russia is more powerful than NATO would be most helpful in gently prodding EU politicians to change their tune and return back to reality. Check out this recent video of Sarah Wagenknecht, a leading politician of the German Left and see for yourself:

https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7uu5fk

The example of Sahra Wagenknecht is interesting, because she is from Germany, one of the countries of northern Europe; traditionally, northern European powers have been much more anti-Russian than southern Europeans, so it is encouraging to see that the anti-Putin and anti-Russia hysteria is not always being endorsed by everybody.

But if things are very slowly getting better in the EU, in the bad old US of A things are only getting worse. Even the Republicans are now fully on board the Russia-hating float (right behind a "gay pride" one I suppose) and they are now contributing their own insanity to the cause, as this article entitled " Congressional Republicans: Russia should be designated state sponsor of terror " shows (designating Russia as a terrorist state is an old idea of the Dems, by the way).

Russian options for the Fall

In truth, Russia does not have any particularly good options towards the US. Both parties are now fully united in their rabid hatred of Russia (and China too, of course). Furthermore, while there are many well-funded and virulently anti-Russian organizations in the US (Neo-cons, Papists, Poles, Masons, Ukrainians, Balts, Ashkenazi Jews, etc.), Russian organizations in the US like this one , have very little influence or even relevance.

Banderites marching in the US

However, as the chaos continues to worsen inside the US and as US politicians continue to alienate pretty much the entire planet, Russia does have a perfect opportunity to weaken the US grip on Europe. The beauty in the current dynamic is that Russia does not have to do anything at all (nevermind anything covert or illegal) to help the anti-EU and anti-US forces in Europe: All she needs to do is to continuously hammer in the following simple message: "the US is sinking -- do you really want to go down with it?".

There are many opportunities to deliver that message. The current US/Polish efforts to prevent the EU from enjoying cheap Russian gas might well be the best example of what we could call "European suicide politics", but there are many, many more.

Truth be told, neither the US nor the EU are a top priority for Russia, at least not in economic terms. The moral credibility of the West in general can certainly be described as dead and long gone. As for the West military might, it is only a concern to the degree that western politicians might be tempted to believe their own propaganda about their military forces being the best in the history of the galaxy. This is why Russia regularly engages in large surprise exercises: to prove to the West that the Russian military is fully ready for anything the West might try. As for the constant move of more and more US/NATO forces closer to the borders of Russia, they are offensive in political terms, but in military terms, getting closer to Russia only means that Russia will have more options to destroy you. "Forward deployment" is really a thing of the past, at least against Russia.

With time, however, and as the US federal center loses even more of its control of the country, the Kremlin might be well-advised to try to open some venues for "popular diplomacy", especially with less hostile US states. The weakening of the Executive Branch has already resulted in US governors playing an increasingly important international role and while this is not, strictly speaking, legal (only the federal government has the right to engage in foreign policy), the fact is that this has been going on for years already. Another possible partner inside the US for Russian firms would be US corporations (especially now that they are hurting badly). Finally, I think that the Kremlin ought to try to open channels of communication with the various small political forces in the US which are clearly not buying into the official propaganda: libertarians, (true) liberals and progressives, paleo-conservatives.

What we are witnessing before our eyes is the collapse of the US federal center. This is a dangerous and highly unstable moment in our history. But from this crisis opportunities will arise. The best thing Russia can do now is to simply remain very careful and vigilant and wait for new forces to appear on the US political scene.

Twilight Patriot , says: • Website July 29, 2020 at 12:26 am GMT

I really agree with you that the “blame Russia” and “blame China” thing has gotten out of hand in US politics. Whether it will turn into a shooting war seems doubtful to me, as the government is still full of people who are looking out for their own interests and know that a full-sized war with Russia, China, Iran or whoever will not advance their interests.

But who would have guessed, a few years ago, that “Russian asset” would become the all-purpose insult for Democrats to use, not just against Republicans, but against other Democrats?

With Republicans I think that “blame China” is stronger. China makes a good scapegoat for the economic situation in the United States. But convincing the working class that China is the source of their problems (and that Mr. MAGA is going to solve those problems by standing up to China) requires ignorance of the crucial facts about the trade relationship between those two countries.

Namely, that the trade deficit exists only because the Federal Reserve chooses to create huge amounts of new dollars each year for export to other countries, and it’s only possible for US exports to fall behind imports so badly (and thus put so many American laborers out of work) because the Fed is making up the difference by exporting dollars. Granted, it isn’t a policy that the US can change without harming the interests of its own upper classes; at the same time, it isn’t a policy that China could force on the US without the people in charge of the United States wanting it.

This is a topic I’ve dealt with a few times on my own blog.

Why I Don’t Fear Chinese Hegemony: https://www.twilightpatriot.com/2020/05/why-i-dont-fear-chinese-hegemony.html

Nobody Will Win The Trade War: https://www.twilightpatriot.com/2019/09/nobody-will-win-trade-war.html

[Aug 03, 2020] How The Billionaires Control American Elections by Eric Zuesse

Notable quotes:
"... Greenwald went on, after that, to discuss other key appointees by Nancy Pelosi who are almost as important as Adam Smith is, in shaping the Government's military budget. They're all corrupt. ..."
"... Numerous polls (for examples, this and this ) show that American voters, except for the minority of them that are Republican, want "bipartisan" government; but the reality in America is that this country actually already does have that: the U.S. Government is actually bipartisanly corrupt, and bipartisan evil. In fact, it's almost unanimous, it is so bipartisan, in reality. ..."
"... That's the way America's Government actually functions, especially in the congressional votes that the 'news'-media don't publicize. However, since it lies so much, and its media (controlled also by its billionaires) do likewise, and since they cover-up instead of expose the deepest rot, the public don't even know this. They don't know the reality. They don't know how corrupt and evil their Government actually is. They just vote and pay taxes. That's the extent to which they actually 'participate' in 'their' Government. They tragically don't know the reality. It's hidden from them. It is censored-out, by the editors, producers, and other management, of the billionaires' 'news'-media. These are the truths that can't pass through those executives' filters. These are the truths that get filtered-out, instead of reported. No democracy can function this way -- and, of course, none does. ..."
"... The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society , and we are as a people, inherently and historically, opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings . ..."
"... But we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding it's fear of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections , on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. It's preparations are concealed, not published. It's mistakes are buried, not headlined. It's dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No rumor is printed. No secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War in short with a wartime discipline, no democracy would ever hope or wish to match. ..."
Aug 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

How The Billionaires Control American Elections


by Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2020 - 23:40 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The great investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald gave an hour-long lecture on how America's billionaires control the U.S. Government, and here is an edited summary of its opening twenty minutes, with key quotations and assertions from its opening -- and then its broader context will be discussed briefly:

"How Congress Maintains Endless War – System Update with Glenn Greenwald" - The Intercept, 9 July 2020

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ejqYrzEX14E

2:45 : There is "this huge cleavage between how members of Congress present themselves, their imagery and rhetoric and branding, what they present to the voters, on the one hand, and the reality of what they do in the bowels of Congress and the underbelly of Congressional proceedings, on the other. Most of the constituents back in their home districts have no idea what it is that the people they've voted for have been doing, and this gap between belief and reality is enormous."

Four crucial military-budget amendments were debated in the House just now, as follows:

  1. to block Trump from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.

  2. to block Trump from withdrawing 10,000 troops from Germany

  3. to limit U.S. assistance to the Sauds' bombing of Yemen

  4. to require Trump to explain why he wants to withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty

On all four issues, the pro-imperialist position prevailed in nearly unanimous votes - overwhelming in both Parties. Dick Cheney's daughter, Republican Liz Cheney, dominated the debates, though the House of Representatives is now led by Democrats, not Republicans.

Greenwald (citing other investigators) documents that the U.S. news-media are in the business of deceiving the voters to believe that there are fundamental differences between the Parties. "The extent to which they clash is wildly exaggerated" by the press (in order to pump up the percentages of Americans who vote, so as to maintain, both domestically and internationally, the lie that America is a democracy -- actually represents the interests of the voters).

16:00 : The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee -- which writes the nearly $750B annual Pentagon budget -- is the veteran (23 years) House Democrat Adam Smith of Boeing's Washington State.

"The majority of his district are people of color." He's "clearly a pro-war hawk" a consistent neoconservative, voted to invade Iraq and all the rest.

"This is whom Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have chosen to head the House Armed Services Committee -- someone with this record."

He is "the single most influential member of Congress when it comes to shaping military spending."

He was primaried by a progressive Democrat, and the "defense industry opened up their coffers" and enabled Adam Smith to defeat the challenger.

That's the opening.

Greenwald went on, after that, to discuss other key appointees by Nancy Pelosi who are almost as important as Adam Smith is, in shaping the Government's military budget. They're all corrupt. And then he went, at further length, to describe the methods of deceiving the voters, such as how these very same Democrats who are actually agents of the billionaires who own the 'defense' contractors and the 'news' media etc., campaign for Democrats' votes by emphasizing how evil the Republican Party is on the issues that Democratic Party voters care far more about than they do about America's destructions of Iraq and Syria and Libya and Honduras and Ukraine, and imposing crushing economic blockades (sanctions) against the residents in Iran, Venezuela and many other lands. Democratic Party voters care lots about the injustices and the sufferings of American Blacks and other minorities, and of poor American women, etc., but are satisfied to vote for Senators and Representatives who actually represent 'defense' contractors and other profoundly corrupt corporations, instead of represent their own voters. This is how the most corrupt people in politics become re-elected, time and again -- by deceived voters. And -- as those nearly unanimous committee votes display -- almost every member of the U.S. Congress is profoundly corrupt.

Furthermore: Adam Smith's opponent in the 2018 Democratic Party primary was Sarah Smith (no relation) and she tried to argue against Adam Smith's neoconservative voting-record, but the press-coverage she received in her congressional district ignored that, in order to keep those voters in the dark about the key reality. Whereas Sarah Smith received some coverage from Greenwald and other reporters at The Intercept who mentioned that "Sarah Smith mounted her challenge largely in opposition to what she cast as his hawkish foreign policy approach," and that she "routinely brought up his hawkish foreign policy views and campaign donations from defense contractors as central issues in the campaign," only very few of the voters in that district followed such national news-media, far less knew that Adam Smith was in the pocket of 'defense' billionaires. And, so, the Pentagon's big weapons-making firms defeated a progressive who would, if elected, have helped to re-orient federal spending away from selling bombs to be used by the Sauds to destroy Yemen, and instead toward providing better education and employment-prospects to Black, brown and other people, and to the poor, and everybody, in that congressional district, and all others. Moreover, since Adam Smith had a fairly good voting-record on the types of issues that Blacks and other minorities consider more important and more relevant than such things as his having voted for Bush to invade Iraq, Sarah Smith really had no other practical option than to criticize him regarding his hawkish voting-record, which that district's voters barely even cared about. The billionaires actually had Sarah Smith trapped (just like, on a national level, they had Bernie Sanders trapped).

Of course, Greenwald's audience is clearly Democratic Party voters, in order to inform them of how deceitful their Party is. However, the Republican Party operates in exactly the same way, though using different deceptions, because Republican Party voters have very different priorities than Democratic Party voters do, and so they ignore other types of deceptions and atrocities.

Numerous polls (for examples, this and this ) show that American voters, except for the minority of them that are Republican, want "bipartisan" government; but the reality in America is that this country actually already does have that: the U.S. Government is actually bipartisanly corrupt, and bipartisan evil. In fact, it's almost unanimous, it is so bipartisan, in reality.

That's the way America's Government actually functions, especially in the congressional votes that the 'news'-media don't publicize. However, since it lies so much, and its media (controlled also by its billionaires) do likewise, and since they cover-up instead of expose the deepest rot, the public don't even know this. They don't know the reality. They don't know how corrupt and evil their Government actually is. They just vote and pay taxes. That's the extent to which they actually 'participate' in 'their' Government. They tragically don't know the reality. It's hidden from them. It is censored-out, by the editors, producers, and other management, of the billionaires' 'news'-media. These are the truths that can't pass through those executives' filters. These are the truths that get filtered-out, instead of reported. No democracy can function this way -- and, of course, none does.

Patmos , 8 hours ago

Eisenhower originally called it the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.

Was probably still when Congress maybe had a few slivers of integrity though.

As McCain's wife said, they all knew about Epstein.

Alice-the-dog , 2 hours ago

And now we suffer the Medical Industrial Complex on top of it.

Question_Mark , 1 hour ago

Klaus Schwab, UN/World Economic Forum - power plant "cyberattack" (advance video to 6:42 to skip intro):
please watch video at least from minute 6:42 at least for a few minutes to get context, consider its contents, and comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOvz1Flfrfw


source for UN/WEF partnership:
https://www.weforum.org/press/2019/06/world-economic-forum-and-un-sign-strategic-partnership-framework/

EngageTheRage , 9 hours ago

How jewish billionaires control America.

NewDarwin , 9 hours ago

Vot3 for trump but don't waste too much energy on the elections. All Trump can do is buy us time.

Their plan has been in the works for over a century.

1) financial collapse with central banking.

2) social collapse with cultural marxism

3) government collapse with corrupt pedophile politicians.

EndOfDayExit , 7 hours ago

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson

Humans are just not wired for eternal vigilance. Sheeple want to graze and don't want to think.

JGResearch , 8 hours ago

Money is just the tool, it goes much deeper:

The Truth, when you finally chase it down, is almost always far
worse than your darkest visions and fears.'

– Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear
'The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes' *

- Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

This information helps understand the shift to the bias we are witnessing at The PBS Newshour and the MSM. PBS has always taken their marching orders from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Some of the mebers of the CFR:

Joe Biden (47th Vice President of the United States )

Judy Woodruff, and Jim Lehrer (journalist, former anchor for PBS ) is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. John McCain (United States Republican Senator from Arizona , 2008 Republican Party nominee for the Presidency), William F. Buckley, Jr (commentator, publisher, founder of the National Review ), Jeffery E Epstein (financier)

https://www.cfr.org/membership/roster

The Council on Foreign Relations has historical control both the Democratic establishment and the Republican establishment until President Trump came along.

Until then they did not care who won the presidency because they control both parties at the top.

FYI: Hardly one person in 1000 ever heard of the Council on Foreign Relations ( CFR ). Until Trump both Republicans and Democrats control by the Eastern Establishment.There operational front was the Council on Foreign Relations. Historically they did not care who one the election since they controlled both parties from the top.

The CFR has only 3000 members yet they control over three-quarters of the nation's wealth. The CFR runs the State Department and the CIA. The CFR has placed 100 CFR members in every Presidential Administration and cabinet since Woodrow Wilson. They work together to misinform the President to act in the best interest of the CFR not the best interest of the American People.

At least five Presidents (Eisenhower, Ford, Carter, Bush, and Clinton) have been members of the CFR. The CFR has packed every Supreme court with CFR insiders.

Three CFR members (Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Sandra Day O'Connor) sit on the supreme court. The CFR's British Counterpart is the Royal Institute of International Affairs. The members of these groups profit by creating tension and hate. Their targets include British and American citizens.

The CFR/RIIA method of operation is simple -- they control public opinion. They keep the identity of their group secret. They learn the likes and dislikes of influential people. They surround and manipulate them into acting in the best interest of the CFR/RIIA.

KuriousKat , 8 hours ago

there are 550 of them in the US..just boggles the mind they have us at each others throat instead of theirs.

jmNZ , 3 hours ago

This is why America's only hope is to vote for Ron Paul.

x_Maurizio , 2 hours ago

Let me understand how a system, which is already proven being disfunctional, should suddenly produce a positive result. That's craziness: to repeate the same action, with the conviction it will give a different result.

If you would say: "The only hope is NOT TO TAKE PART TO THE FARCE" (so not to vote) I'd understand.
But vot for that, instead of this.... what didn't you understand?

Voice-of-Reason , 6 hours ago

The very fact that we have billionaires who amass so much wealth that they can own our Republic is the problem.

Eastern Whale , 8 hours ago

all the names mentioned in this article is rotten to the core

MartinG , 5 hours ago

Tell me again how democracy is the greatest form of government. What other profession lets clueless idiots decide who runs the business.

Xena fobe , 4 hours ago

It isn't the fault of democracy. It's more the fault of voters.

quikwit , 3 hours ago

I'd pick the "clueless idiots" over an iron-fisted evil genius every time.

_triplesix_ , 8 hours ago

Am I the only one who noticed that Eric Zuesse capitalized the word "black" every time he used it?

F**k you, Eric, you Marxist trash.

BTCtroll , 7 hours ago

Confirmed. Blacks are apparently a proper noun despite being referred to as simply a color. In reality, no one cares. Ask anyone, they don't care expert black lies matter.

freedommusic , 4 hours ago

The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society , and we are as a people, inherently and historically, opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings .

And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.

Our way of life is under attack.

But we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding it's fear of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections , on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. It's preparations are concealed, not published. It's mistakes are buried, not headlined. It's dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No rumor is printed. No secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War in short with a wartime discipline, no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

...I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to re-examine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self restraint, which that danger imposes upon us all.

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation and obligation which I share, and that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people, to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need and understand them as well, the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program, and the choices that we face.

I am not asking your newspapers to support an administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people, for I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens, whenever they are fully informed.

... that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment. The only business in America specifically protected by the constitution, not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply give the public what it wants, but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises, and our choices, to lead, mold, educate, and sometimes even anger, public opinion.

-- JFK

[Jul 20, 2020] Ron Paul Exposes Big Holes In The COVID 'Spike' Narrative -

Jul 20, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Ron Paul Exposes Big Holes In The COVID 'Spike' Narrative 07/20/2020

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Motorcycle accidents ruled Covid deaths? In the rush to paint Florida as the epicenter of the "second wave" of the coronavirus outbreak, government officials and their allies in the mainstream media have stooped to ridiculous depths to maximize the death count. A television station this weekend looked into two highly unusual Covid deaths among victims in their 20s, and when they asked about co-morbidities they were told one victim had none, because his Covid death came in the form of a fatal motorcycle accident.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. In fact the "spike" that has dominated the mainstream for the last couple of weeks is full of examples of such trickery.

me title=

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.397.1_en.html#goog_608482903

Washington state last week revised its Covid death numbers downward when it was revealed that anyone who passed away for any reason whatsoever who also had coronavirus was listed as a "Covid-19 death" even if the cause of death had nothing to do with Covid-19.

In South Carolina, the state health agency admitted that the "spike" in Covid deaths was only the result of delayed reporting of suspected Covid deaths.

An analysis of reported daily Covid deaths last week compared to actual day-of-death in Houston revealed that the recent "spike" consisted largely of deaths that occurred in April through June. Why delay reporting until now?

We do know that based on this "spike" the Democrat mayor of Houston cancelled the convention of the Texas Republican Party. Mission accomplished?

Doesn't it seem suspicious that so many states have experienced "delayed" reporting of deaths until Fauci and his gang of "experts" announced that we are in a new nightmare scenario?

Last week in Florida – which is perhaps not coincidentally the location of the Republican Party's national convention – another scandal emerged when hundreds of Covid test centers reported 100 percent positive results. Obviously this would paint a far grimmer picture of the resurgence of the virus. Orlando Health, for example, reported a positivity rate of 98 percent – a shocking level – but a further investigation revealed a true positivity rate of only 9.4 percent. Those "anomalies" were repeated throughout the state.

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"Cases" once meant individuals who displayed sufficient symptoms to be treated in medical facilities. But when the scaremongers needed a "second wave" they began reporting any positive test result as a "Covid case." No wonder we have a "spike."

Politics demands that politicians be seen doing "something" rather than nothing, even if that something is more harmful than doing nothing at all. That is why Washington is so addicted to sanctions.

The same has been true especially in Republican-controlled states in the US in response to the coronavirus. Faced with a virus that has killed about one-third as many people as the normal, seasonal flu virus in 2018, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has endorsed a partial shutdown of the economy resulting in millions tossed into the despair of unemployment. Then he arbitrarily shut down bars because massively increased testing showed more people have been exposed to the virus. And he mandated that people wear face masks. Neither shutting down bars (instead of restaurants or Walmarts) nor forcing people to wear masks will have any effect on the progression of the virus through society. But at least he looks like he's doing "something."

We are facing the greatest assault on our civil liberties in our lifetimes. The virus is real, but the government reaction is political and totalitarian. As it falls apart, will more Americans start fighting for their liberty?

[Jul 14, 2020] Though government infiltrators undoubtedly helped to fragment Occupy, most protesters gleefully went along with their own gelding, because, to them, it was never about rallying the 99% towards common goals, as they vaguely claimed, but airing minority grievances.

The question is : what is the role of FBI in organizing and driving the current protests, especially the action of antifa?
Notable quotes:
"... It would be fitting justice for AntiFa to go the way the Red Guards ..."
"... Not quite nine years later, almost no one is talking about banksters, incredibly, although the country has been plunged into a much worse economic hell Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and attack cops or each other. ..."
"... Pelosi said even if DC burns down to the ground, the US will be 100% for Israel. Why not include Wall Street, the money bag of Jewish Power? ..."
"... In a way, what we are seeing is the Japanization of White America. This is why the US should not have dropped the nukes and forced unconditional surrender. They should have allowed Japan to surrender with honor. Make Japan give up its empire and military ambitions but let the Japanese keep their culture and sacred myths. But the US forced unconditional surrender, turned the Emperor into Tokyo Shoeshine boy, occupied Japan(and still has bases there), used Japanese women as whores & mistresses, and turned Japanese men into castrated cuck-wussies. Sound familiar? ..."
Jul 14, 2020 | www.unz.com

Though government infiltrators undoubtedly helped to fragment Occupy, most protesters gleefully went along with their own gelding, because, to them, it was never about rallying the 99% towards common goals, as they vaguely claimed, but airing minority grievances. Most importantly, they could look cool doing it.

With visual evidence uploaded onto FaceBook, Tumblr and Instagram, etc., soy boys from strip malled subdivisions could accrue street cred.

Since "Occupy Everything, Demand Nothing " became Occupy's rallying cry, it achieved literally nothing, predictably. A month after all tents were cleared from Zuccotti Park, Time Magazine anointed "The Protester" as Person Of The Year, so for being symbolically homeless for two months, the sans cazzo got a participation lollipop from the bossman.

Since then, unscathed and smirking Wall Street has only amped up its state-of-the-art shell games, punctuated by bailouts. What's left of the country's wealth keeps flowing to the top.

Although Occupy Wall Street exposed widespread discontent, it was deftly tamed by the state, without addressing any of the issues raised. Worsened economic malaise is papered over with fake news and statistics. Unable to afford even an efficiency, the young and not so young resignedly or bitterly move back home. I'm sure you know a few.

Beneath each basement, there's another, even darker and danker, Americans kept discovering, so they just had to suck it up and simmer on, when not overdosing on opioids. It's the new normal.

Occupy Wall Street protesters were mostly under-35-year-old whites, with at least some college education. Now, the same demographic is back on the streets, but instead of chanting for economic justice and representing, at least in theory, the 99%, they're fighting Fascism and racism. With their inclusive definitions of such sins, however, they're warring against most of the country.

... ... ...

On August 14th, 2018, CNN reeducated us, "There is no national antifa group. It is mostly made up of people who are far left of center, who make it their mission to battle Fascists, racists and alt right extremists." It's a grassroot, homegrown resistance to hate, that's all. "Behind the masks are people from all walks of life, artist, mom, ordinary American, as well as anarchist." Four most gentle faces were shown.

On June 16th, 2020, CNN reemphasized that antifa was a belief system that unified all anti-Fascists, whatever their color, age or background, so how could you be against it, unless you're a Fascist?! A burly, genial black man explained, "It basically means that you are against Fascism. If you are against Fascism, then you are antifa."

In a BLACK LIVES MATTER muscle-T, a white wuss added, "Antifa is not a group. It's not like everybody sits in, like, some basement, talking about how to overthrow the Fascist regime. I walked around picking up trash yesterday, behind the protesters. That's what antifa looks like."

Burly black guy, "White people have to be involved in fighting racism, in fighting white supremacy [ ] But if you are a white ally, remember that you still have to follow the lead of people of color."

The New York Times and Washington Post have also written sympathetically about antifa. When the corporate media give you a positive spin, it must mean you're serving the establishment. Mussolini had his Blackshirts, Hitler his Brownshirts and Mao his Red Guards. America's rulers have antifa.

Far from threatening the 1%, antifa sows dissension among the 99%. Ignoring Wall Street, antifa trashes one Main Street after another.

Zealously branding its enemies as racist or Fascist, antifa generates more racism and Fascism.

Slammed by the economic crisis of 2008, Americans started to look more closely at Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve , etc., and they were enlightened by people like Ron Paul and Matt Taibbi.

In Rolling Stone, Taibbi wrote, "The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

Banksters were scrutinized with increasing intensity. It was in this climate that Occupy Wall Street was born.

Not quite nine years later, almost no one is talking about banksters, incredibly, although the country has been plunged into a much worse economic hell, with millions suddenly laid off, and millions of mom and pops permanently ruined. Thanks to another monster bailout, only Wall Street is doing well.

Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and attack cops or each other.

When your tyrants can't even be identified, much less found, no coup, uprising or revolution is possible, and it's pointless to assassinate an American president, since he is but a puppet, so who should be shot?

The month I was born, two presidents were killed. Though Ngo Dinh Diem has often been caricatured as an American puppet, he obviously broke his strings, or he wouldn't have been shot. Kennedy, too, went off script. His death was a warning. It works.

American elections are cathartic farces. Drawn out and elaborately staged, they're designed to give false hopes and stoke emotions. With the national mood already so volatile and foul, however, this year's balloting promises to be a horror show. Unable to aim at their oppressors, Americans will be reduced to shooting each other.


TG , says: July 11, 2020 at 5:53 pm GMT

"Far from threatening the 1%, antifa sows dissension among the 99%. Ignoring Wall Street, antifa trashes one Main Street after another."

Kudos. Well said!!!

"Who should be shot?" I answer the question in the purely hypothetical, I am not in any way suggesting this line of response. But the answer is obvious.

When Tsar Nicholas and his family were murdered by the communists, it put the fear of God (or fear of something) in the hearts of the western plutocrats and we got the New Deal and more than a half century of the working class getting at least sort of a reasonable cut of the proceeds.

"Who shall we shoot?" If the Jeff Bezoses and Zuckerbergs and Soroses etc. of the world take a personal hit – if they begin to think that even they, in their well-guarded bubbles, are not safe – only then will we get any sort of consideration from the top. It is personal fear, not morality, that will cause the elites to again begin to value stability and order over rapacious looting.

No I am not in any way suggesting violence. Not me, no how. But it remains true that only the threat of personal violence directed at the elites, will cause them to reconsider their current socially destructive path.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website July 11, 2020 at 7:49 pm GMT

Though Ngo Dinh Diem has often been caricatured as an American puppet, he obviously broke his strings, or he wouldn't have been shot.

The CIA recruited Diem to be the puppet ruler of a nation they had created. He was living in New Jersey and then became head of South Vietnam without an election. He had attended the same elite school in Hue as Ho Chi Mihn and meant well. When he saw that fighting was increasing he wanted to cut a deal with Ho Chi Mihn, who had won the 1954 elections was the legitimate ruler of all Vietnam after the temporary cease fire line that divided Vietnam ended in 1956. The DMZ was an illusion created by the CIA and Pentagon.

This is why Diem was killed by a CIA coup, and was followed by other puppet leaders. The CIA's attempt to create a new nation that became known as South Vietnam failed by 1964, which is why American troops arrived.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/0B9BM8OTSB0?feature=oembed

The Alarmist , says: July 11, 2020 at 7:49 pm GMT

Mussolini had his Blackshirts, Hitler his Brownshirts and Mao his Red Guards. America's rulers have antifa.

The Black Shirts were able to gracefully fade away for the most part, but the other two groups had a rather difficult go once they had served their purpose. It would be fitting justice for AntiFa to go the way the Red Guards once President Abrams is safely ensconced: After all, you can't feed a country with hooligan student revolutionaries roving the streets rather than working the farms.

Si1ver1ock , says: July 11, 2020 at 11:31 pm GMT

The month I was born, two presidents were killed. Though Ngo Dinh Diem has often been caricatured as an American puppet, he obviously broke his strings, or he wouldn't have been shot. Kennedy, too, went off script. His death was a warning. It works.

Liz Chaney is thwarting Trump's troop draw-down in Afghanistan with help from Dems as well as Republicans.

House Democrats, Working With Liz Cheney, Restrict Trump's Planned Withdrawal of Troops From Afghanistan and Germany

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/house-democrats-working-with-liz-cheney-restrict-trumps-planned-withdrawal-of-troops-from-afghanistan-and-germany/

Trump is thinking about doing something stupid in Venezuela.

He is already antagonizing China.

Priss Factor , says: Website July 12, 2020 at 12:01 am GMT

Not quite nine years later, almost no one is talking about banksters, incredibly, although the country has been plunged into a much worse economic hell Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and attack cops or each other.

Pelosi said even if DC burns down to the ground, the US will be 100% for Israel. Why not include Wall Street, the money bag of Jewish Power?

In a way, what we are seeing is the Japanization of White America. This is why the US should not have dropped the nukes and forced unconditional surrender. They should have allowed Japan to surrender with honor. Make Japan give up its empire and military ambitions but let the Japanese keep their culture and sacred myths. But the US forced unconditional surrender, turned the Emperor into Tokyo Shoeshine boy, occupied Japan(and still has bases there), used Japanese women as whores & mistresses, and turned Japanese men into castrated cuck-wussies. Sound familiar?

... ... ...

animalogic , says: July 12, 2020 at 8:18 am GMT

Great article.
"Their movement fizzled out, however, because it degenerated into an endless display of narcissistic posturing, with everyone making self-important speeches about his or her pet cause, to an audience of fifty, tops, which is not how a revolution is ever made."
"Far from threatening the 1%, antifa sows dissension among the 99%. Ignoring Wall Street, antifa trashes one Main Street after another."
Is it ANY wonder why Elites love the post-modern, the PC, & antifa so much. Talk about the "magic pudding" & the gift that just keeps on giving .

Franz , says: July 12, 2020 at 9:31 am GMT

Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and attack cops or each other .

Hey! What the 19th century robber baron said has finally come true:

"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." -- Jay Gould

They are being paid: BLM and Antifa people are being bankrolled. Just tote up the corporate donations the BLM in the past week and flip. More money than most nations have in the treasury. As to Antifa, Soros funded them for years. All to get rid of white people.

If it weren't happening, who'd believe it?

theMann , says: July 12, 2020 at 12:44 pm GMT
@Brian Reilly

You left out the Media Jackals. They are the willing and ever ready mouthpieces for the Satanic Cult the Financial Elites would turn America into. In fact, the Media liars have as much culpability as any group in the country for our current disaster.

Polemos , says: July 12, 2020 at 3:39 pm GMT

I think one reason why we're no longer talking about a 1% is that enough of us started to ask the question: what race/nationality are the 1%?

Parbes , says: July 12, 2020 at 4:23 pm GMT

Who should be shot? Start with the neocons (particularly the Jewish ones). They are the head of the snake in the West – especially the U.S. – today. Most evils are downstream from their actions/policies, directly or indirectly.

ruralguy , says: July 12, 2020 at 4:45 pm GMT

Who should be shot? It's hard imaging Americans staging a revolution. The DOD says 75% of young Americans don't quality to serve in the military, because they are too fat or too dumb. Our protesters protest because they get to appear virtuous -- they need some kind of participation award.

Jmaie , says: July 12, 2020 at 4:54 pm GMT

Jeff Stryker , says: July 12, 2020 at 5:00 pm GMT

...Upthread someone mentioned Bezos as being in the 1%. While he is certainly uber wealthy, I've always thought of him in a different way. In my mind the 1% are the wall street guys who financialize everything, and if they all went away tomorrow our (main street) economy would greatly improve. If Amazon goes away, I'd have to start buying all my crap in person. Ugh

The same fools assume the 1 percent will hang around when things become very adverse in the US. Nope. They'll do what wealthy South Africans did and the US lumpens will do what Boers did.

Nobody cares if the poor in the gutters of Wall Street go on hunger strike The one percent does not care if the poor go hungry anyhow.

Average middle class Americans are naive as to how callous and unconcerned the one percent is. The blacks and Hispanics at the bottom of society are aware, of course. That is why laws and customs mean nothing, nor bourgeois values. But it is the middle class who is actually naive enough to believe the one percent gives a fat rat's ass about them, about America, about their feelings.

I'm surprised this is not obvious to more people.

Rev. Spooner , says: July 12, 2020 at 5:07 pm GMT

Both Antifa and the Patriots have a huge red-blue target painted on their backs. Unless they can identify their overlords clearly, they will fight each other.
Hey Americans, who is it that you cannot criticize?

gaston julia , says: July 12, 2020 at 7:26 pm GMT
@ruralguy

https://www.wired.com/2009/11/75-of-potential-recruits-too-fat-too-sickly-too-dumb-to-serve/

[Jul 11, 2020] The Great Covid-19 Deception and What You Need to Know to Survive by Gary Heavin

Jul 11, 2020 | www.unz.com
The Great Covid-19 Deception and What You Need to Know to Survive GARY HEAVIN JULY 10, 2020 1,600 WORDS 74 COMMENTS REPLY Tweet Reddit Share Share Email Print More RSS

I've been speaking with my friends who include medical doctors and other highly educated people about the treatments that they would seek if they were diagnosed with Covid 19. Most of them had no idea what course of treatment they or their families might seek. This conundrum is in part due to the massive volume of information that is being thrown at us. Much of this information is deliberately deceptive. I am writing this article to cut through the deception so that you and your physician can make informed decisions if and when the time comes.

This article has two purposes. First, it's imperative that you understand the great deceit that Big Pharma, their minions at the FDA, CDC, NIH, the WHO, the MSM, and officials in high government positions are perpetrating on you, your family, and likely your doctor.

The second purpose is to assure that you are armed with the necessary information to insure that you receive the best treatment options from your health care provider. Knowledge is power.

Allow me to repeat, you need to know you are being duped and you need a plan for you and your family if you become infected with Covid 19. So let's get to it. Let me begin by stating that I'm not a medical doctor and I m not offering medical advice. I do have a bachelors of science degree in health, nutrition, and counseling. I've written two NY Times bestselling books on women's health and fitness and I have been awarded an honorary doctorate degree. However, you will need to determine your treatment options with your personal physician.

The Great Deception

When it comes to safe, effective and affordable therapies for Covid 19, Big Pharma and its agents, i.e. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and many others, appear to have an agenda to lie to you and your physician.

The most obvious example is their ongoing effort to ridicule the treatment option of hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, and Zinc. We've all watched the harsh criticism that President Trump received when he promoted this protocol for Covid 19.

So, hydroxychloroquine has been around for almost 70 years as a treatment for malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. The WHO has designated it as a safe and effective medication akin to taking an aspirin. A survey of 6,000 medical doctors affirmed it as their treatment of choice for Covid 19.

The treatment works like this. hydroxychloroquine is an ionophore, which means it can transport material through the cellular wall. Zinc is a mineral that stops the replication of the Covid 19 virus within the cell. hydroxychloroquine transports Zinc into the cell so that it can stop the replication of the virus. The Z-pak antibiotic is given to prevent opportunistic bacterial infections like pneumonia that can occur while your immune system is engaged in fighting your viral infection. The key to its effectiveness is to start this treatment at the early onset of Covid 19 so that it has time to work.

How much effort has Big Pharma put into subverting this treatment regimen? In addition to denouncing its effectiveness, from Dr. Fauci and company, constant MSM hit pieces, the censoring of medical doctor's articles and videos from the internet, there has also been a number of "studies" done that were literally sabotaged from the onset.

The VA hospital system reported in March that they had given hydroxychloroquine to a number of patients. Following their release of information, the MSM ran the story with the headlines, "VA hospital found that hydoxychloroquine doesn't work and increases the fatality rate of Covid 19." However, if you actually read the study (see link ) you will find that only the sickest of the cohorts were given the drug. They got the drug only after they were so far along that it would not have a chance to work and they were not given zinc. None of these details made the MSM articles.

Another example of the Great Deception came from the British medical journal, The Lancet. The Lancet reported that a meta study showed that hydroxychloroquine was ineffective. As a result of this published study, France, Italy and other European countries immediately prohibited the use of this treatment option. Within a few weeks, it was found that the study was so badly designed and that the results were literally fabricated . The Lancet was forced to make a retraction of the "study." Of course in the meantime the MSM ran the original Lancet story and mislead millions of people and their physicians.

So what could possibly be the motive behind Big Pharma's Great Deception. Well there's three answers, money, money and money. That brings up the treatment option that Big Pharma is promoting, Remdesivir. This lovely experimental drug, costs above $3,000 per regimen, must be given intravenously in a hospital (five days stay around 15 grand) and evidence shows it doesn't really work .

The other treatment option is the promised Covid 19 vaccine that they allege is forthcoming. The NHS in Great Britain has committed to purchase a vaccine for the entire population of Great Britain. That's a commitment of 80,000,000 doses at an agreed price of around $600 for each vaccination. That's about $50,000,000,000. (50 Billion) That's a lot of incentive to mislead people. This week, a US pharmaceutical company received $1.6 billion dollars towards their efforts to make this vaccine which in the opinion of many experts, won't work on a coronavirus and will be untested and experimental.

How does Big Pharma have so much control over the dissemination of this information or should I say propaganda? Well, the same answer pops up again, money. Big Pharma gave $2 billion dollars during the last election cycle to US politicians. Big AG, the military/security complex and big oil each gave only a paltry $1.0 billion dollars to buy the votes of our political leadership.

The MSM counts Big Pharma's advertising revenue at up to 80 percent of their income. The internet's "masters of the universe" also kowtow to Big Pharma's influence and advertising dollars by censoring anyone who tries to tell the American people the truth about Covid 19. It certainly appears that anyone who is complicit in this Great Deception, a deception that is designed to kill and terrify enough people to ultimately beg for an experimental vaccine, well, these people would be accessories to murder.

What You Need to Know to Survive

Now, for some good news. There are several therapies that are being offered that appear to be safe, effective and affordable. However, these therapies must be utilized early in the disease progression.

Budesonide

Japan, Taiwan and other Asian countries have maintained a much lower fatality rate with Covid 19 then we have here in America, in spite of the fact they live in densely populated communities. Many people believe that it is due to their preferred method of treatment. They use a steroid medication that is inhaled in a mist through a home use nebulizer. I'm familiar with this since my 2 year old granddaughter needed this treatment with a similar drug for an upper respiratory issue that she had recently. That speaks to the safety and the commonality of this treatment. Watch the link of a Texas doctor who shares his patient's experiences with this therapy method using the drug Budesonide and a course of antibiotics.

Ivermectin

Another treatment option that appears to be safe and effective is the use of the antiparasitic drug Ivermectin with the antibiotic Doxycycline. Just one Ivermectin pill and then the course of antibiotics for ten days resulted in a 100 percent cure rate for Covid 19 patients according to the attached study. Ivermectin has been widely used on the continent of Africa for many years as an anti-parasitic and is believed to be a primary reason that Covid 19 has not severely impacted the African population.

Hydroxychloroquine & Zinc

As we've seen above, this therapeutic regimen should be considered simply due to the efforts to prevent you from knowing the truth about it . As Shakespeare wrote, "Doth thou protest too much?"

The challenge with this therapeutic is both finding a doctor who will prescribe it and finding a pharmacy that will sell it. This should be between you and your doctor. Not the governors of certain states. Considering that 20 percent of all drugs are prescribed "off label", meaning that they are prescribed for a use other than intended, you and your doctor should have the liberty and the responsibility to make this health care decision.

There are several other therapies that appear to be safe, effective and affordable. You may want to research Chlorine Dioxide, intravenous ozone, high dose intravenous vitamin C and another, glutathione which are popular treatments in the homeopathic communities.

As for me and my family, we are going to make informed and responsible decisions regarding our health care. I hope the information I've given to you today along with the links for further information will help you, your family and your doctor make the best decisions as well.

Gary Heavin and his wife Diane are the founders of Curves, the world's largest fitness franchise. Gary is the author of two NY Times bestselling books, Curves and Curves on the go. Gary co-wrote and starred in the movie Amerigeddon. Gary is a pro-life libertarian and serves on the advisory board of Dr. Ron Paul's Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Gary and his wife are philanthropists who feed 10,000 children a day in Haiti and operate an orphanage outside the slums of Mumbai. Most importantly, they are bible believing Christians.


Anon [694] Disclaimer , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:42 am GMT

Excellent article. Early treatment is definitely key. The French doctor who recommended hydroxychloroquine way back in Feb. said that it needs to be given early, by the time they go on ventilator it's no longer effective. I read in Zerohedge last week that in TX, doctors said they simply give patients who come into the emergency room a steroid shot and send them home with antibiotics. Usually they are already feeling much better after the steroid shot. Even those who are hospitalized are now only staying 3-5 days.

I find it incredulous that on their website, CDC is still telling people to stay home if they are sick, that "many people" get over it themselves without treatment, and to *not* go to the doctor's until we are having difficulty breathing. By then it is too late! Doctors have said that the main difference btwn Covid patients and flu patients is, with a flu patient, when their lungs are 10% fluid, they are already having difficulty breathing, but for some reason for Covid19, the patient does not have difficulty breathing until the lungs are 50 to 60% fluid, which is why it's too late by the time they sought treatment.

This article discusses the low fatality rate in HK(0.4%) and Singapore(<0.1%), the doctors there attributed it to early treatment using a different cocktail of drugs: interferon beta-1b, which was developed to treat multiple sclerosis; ribavirin, which is used in the treatment of hepatitis C; and lopinavir-ritonavir, also known by its brand name, Kaletra. But again, early treatment is key.
https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/singapore/how-hong-kong-singapore-kept-coronavirus-death-rates-low/ar-BB14CLbM

CDC is an absolute fail. I'm beginning to believe they want more people to die so Trump would lose the election. They need to change their advice on their website before more lives are senselessly lost. Pence as the Covid Tzar is also totally failing on his job by not calling him out.

I'm also beginning to believe those who claim hydroxychloroquine doesn't work simply want to keep it for themselves and their cronies to take as preventive drug. Trump has been on it and he hasn't gotten sick, even though he's been exposed to lots of people. Something tells me many of our congress critters and the effing Jews are already loaded up on it.

Anonymous [426] Disclaimer , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:50 am GMT

I can't wait for November 4th when COVID-19 ends for good and all the masks and social distancing bullshit ends. Thankfully this C-19 psyops will last just 8 months and not the 2+ years the Russian collusion BS was drawn out to. Though sadly with the former it has further eviscerated working/middle-class America. I'm guessing that was part of the plan as well.

Quinsat , says: July 11, 2020 at 5:24 am GMT

The great Covid deception is it hasn't fulfilled Koch's postulates.

Smokey , says: July 11, 2020 at 5:51 am GMT

I believe Mr. Heavin more than I believe the government, and the CDC in particular.

But that could also apply to a Numerologist vs the gov't, so there's that.

I don't believe Jeffrey Epstein died a natural death any more than I believe the mainstream media is the least bit impartial. They used to try. They tried to keep the news and the Op-Ed pages separate. But that was then and this is now

This is getting fun!

So, I used to believe that cops were always the good guys, and that federal judges were above politics. Oh, and they would never lie, or take a bribe. And I believed that priests would never, ever molest a boy, or even girl (did I get that backward?), or even use bad words around them. And I believed Scoutmasters took Boy Scouts up into the mountains for the fresh air and Indian lore OK, this is starting to sound ridiculous.

Except, now I'm not sure what to believe any more.

Can anyone tell me ?

Chris in Cackalacky , says: July 11, 2020 at 5:57 am GMT
@Kirt

No offense but do you know how many people claim to have had Covid before Covid was cool? I don't know anyone who has tested positive but I know 25 people who claim they had or have it. In the past three years there have been severe influenzas making the rounds, there is no denying that. And why should routine flu and colds take a holiday just because our criminal elites tell us there is a special disease we need to watch out for? My point is we are so deceived that nobody knows up from down anymore. But at least we know one thing for sure -- hostile elites are working to deceive us.

Achilles Wannabe , says: July 11, 2020 at 6:33 am GMT

My doctor suffers from a delusion common to her profession. She thinks she is a "Medical Scientist". Actually she is a retailer for pharmaceuticals and medical technologies. She is a sales person in a capitalist industry And should she have any questions about her real role in a health care field which is really a substance and med tech pushing industry, her colleagues – fellow sales people – will remind her of her professional obligations by threatening her board certification to insure her near absolute conformity to market standards.

But there is no getting her to understand her real role in the medical industry. She believes her own hype or the hype created about her profession back in the 1950s when a few genuinely useful drugs and technologies were discovered which then afforded the money making corporate establishment the opportunity to take a humane craft and, thru the "science" of Epidemiology -Medical speak for lying with statistics – turn professional Medicine into probably the largest boondoggle in history. Consider the flag ship for usurious medicine – cholesterol lowering statin drugs.

But why don't I get rid of my essentially brain dead doctor, go to to someone else? Practically speaking, there is no one else. There are doctors who understand all this and write books about it but they are so rare as to be useless when real sickness like bacterial infections for which there are useful technologies like antibiotics actually occur. The most useful thing these real scientific doctors have to say is "Don't see your doctor" unless you have a real emergency – like an old fashion visceral type sickness – as opposed to some epidemiologically hyped condition like, again, "high cholesterol" as the "cause" of heart disease.

But now we have a genuine epidemic that is killing and injuring people and Medical Science is lying to us about possible treatments. Even a Medical skeptic like myself could not have predicted this level of base greed by our Medical pharmaceutical establishment This is tantamount to MURDER. And we have no government -whether it be run by Democrats or Republicans- who will take action. They are all on the Med Pharm tit and/or deluded by "Medical Science" as well. Until we learn to help ourselves and overthrow this system, God help us

Valka , says: July 11, 2020 at 6:48 am GMT

$50 billion just for Britain America doesn't stand a chance.

TheTrumanShow , says: July 11, 2020 at 6:58 am GMT

Thanks, Gary.

I've been reading everything counter-&-alternative to the deception I could find since it first appeared, but had never thought to investigate therapies until reading your article. Fortuitously, for me (in Thailand), Hydroxychloroquine is being used therapeutically and may even be available OTC.

However, Big Medicine & Big Pharma are already here and steadily making inroads into health care and medicine.

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: July 11, 2020 at 7:10 am GMT

Whatever happened to that vaccine that some Israeli Genius Doctors claimed would be ready in a few weeks, which was months ago now? What a shock that that never materialized.

Trygve Blodøks , says: July 11, 2020 at 7:38 am GMT

You should also look into coodial silver water. I got rid of an hpv infection using it. No side effects.

Herald , says: July 11, 2020 at 9:14 am GMT

The author doesn't mention Vitamin D, which is rather strange.

skrik , says: July 11, 2020 at 9:29 am GMT

@Gary Heavin

The Great Covid-19 Deception and

Click-baitish, much? Well, you got me in, but you seem to have a good 'treatment' argument, and 'good luck,' both by avoiding Covid-19 in the 1st place and finding a 'collaborative+pursuasive' Dr in the 2nd = worst case, should you or one of yours gets 'hit.' [Perish the thought.]

But IMHO, the Great est Covid-19 Deception is the negligent way most 'Western' governments have *not* taken Covid-19 properly seriously, starting of course with US = Trump and UK = Johnson then perhaps SE 'led' by so-called expert Tegnell next in a looong list of apparent delinquents.

Again IMHO, when Wuhan realised that they were under a bio-warfare-like attack [possibly when they 1st saw the PRRA inclusion in the decoded genome], they reacted like cut snakes and proceeded with the speed of fear-stricken Gazelles in a very largely successful attempt to *suppress* the virus. But, of course, they are communists, eh? So-called 'democratic' [in-name-only governments, many largely bolshie 'wo/men in the street'] think differently [even to their own detriment; they just can't help themselves.]

With the possible exception of NZ = Ardern, most 'Western' governments went for 'mitigation' = 'flattening the curve,' if they took any action at all, see BR = Bolsonaro "has accused the media of "fear-mongering"" and IIRC said something like "What can I do?"

Here is an article, 1st found by me in March on MoA :

"Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance"
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

MoA blurb: 'Here is his latest in which he argues not only to "flatten the curve" but to eradicate the virus.'

For my last IMHO, all 'Western' leaders who have acted with less than full effort = incompetently meaning ineffectively on behalf of their 'own people' should be prosecuted for their negligence. rgds

GeeBee , says: July 11, 2020 at 9:34 am GMT

A good article all around, except that the population of the UK is nowhere near eighty million. The latest figure I can find gives 66 million. Also, your attempt to invoke the Bard ('As Shakespeare wrote, "Doth thou protest too much?"') is lamentably botched. Try 'Methinks the lady doth protest too much'. (Hamlet's mother Gertrude says it of what she regards as overacting in a play that Hamlet has arranged for his mother and her husband, the usurper Claudius, to watch).

Justvisiting , says: July 11, 2020 at 10:37 am GMT

It is a great idea to have a candid discussion with your doctor/nurse on the issue of big pharma's economic power and how it creates conflicts of interest in the medical profession.

Many doctors/nurses already knew it and will quickly agree, many more "get it" after you explain it to them.

If your doctor is so brainwashed by "experts" that they think you are an "anti-science kook", time to get a new doctor!

gotmituns , says: July 11, 2020 at 10:40 am GMT
@Kirt

Bingo – it's all a total bunch of malarkey. All the BS isn't aimed at people our age (I'm 76), it's aimed at the milennials and younger. It is shaping them for the "Brave New World" that they will live.

Simon Tugmutton , says: July 11, 2020 at 10:48 am GMT

First let me say that the virus has never been satisfactorily isolated and does not meet Koch's postulates, which leads some people to speculate that it does not exist at all. The symptoms are so various as to be nonsensical; whatever the virus may be, last winter, that led to all the hospitalizations is open to question. Certainly the fear-porn spewed out 24/7 by the corporate media led to high levels of anxiety among the credulous and many of these no doubt presented as Covid-19 patients even though they were in fact suffering from the flu or a bad cold. Once in the hands of the quacks, nosocomial infections and intubation really made them sick – or dead.

As for protection against any respiratory illness, vitamin D is essential and I am surprised the author fails to understand this. 4000 IU per day maximum.

All that aside, Covid-19 a gigantic psyop designed to usher in a world government. It was even rehearsed in 2019 and all the wrinkles worked out beforehand.

[MORE]
Mark G. , says: July 11, 2020 at 10:56 am GMT

If you can't get hydroxychloroquine there is some evidence that the natural substance quercetin found in apples and onions can act as an ionophore that transports zinc into the cell. Instead of the z-pak, a natural antibiotic like oregano or cinnamon oil might suffice. These items quercetin, zinc and oregano and cinnamon oil are all available down at the local health food store. There is more evidence for the hydroxychloroquine, zinc, z-pak combination so those would be the preferred combination if you can get them but these natural substances might help if you can't get them and might act as a preventative to keep from getting the virus if you use them regularly.

I have found only a few studies that support the use of these natural substances but you need to understand that since these aren't drugs they can't be patented so there isn't the same financial incentive to prove their effectiveness as there would be with drugs that can be patented and then sold exclusively by one company.

UncommonGround , says: July 11, 2020 at 10:59 am GMT

Whether hydoxy/chloroquine works or not is something that will be clear only after there are studies that allow to take a final conclusion. The question has been discussed critically by the press, by medical doctors, by people. Of course, everybody knows that it's possible that no vaccination will function or be available (we can hear this everyday on television). Contrary to what the author says, a phamaceutical firm was happy that the medicament could be possibly used when the question came up and some people were optimistic about it. The web site of a German television wrote in may that it was still conceivable that hydoxychloroquine could work in the very early stages of the disease (after first negative results). This was only speculation.

The author mentions a talk with some friends of him and some information that he has. But there have been a few studies, good or bad, with chloroquine with negative results. The study of the Lancet was taken back because the data that they used was apparently not trustworthy. This shows how difficult it is to have good and conclusive results in a short time. We can say the same about the evidence used by the author. It doesn't mean very much. We still have to see what happens and until now we don't know. There are efforts to find ways to treat better the disease. In German, I read yesterday:

https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/mannheim/heidelberg-neue-corona-behandlungsmethode-100.html

chuckywiz , says: July 11, 2020 at 11:15 am GMT

The media never talks about those who recovered from Corona virus like BOJO, the prime minister of UK or others. What treatment the recovered patients received, how it helped them and other information. We hear only the scary stuff.
Dr. Fauci and associates could never develop his promised HIV vaccine. I read somewhere that he had been on the same job for the last 37 years. Go figure.

"DR" Bill Gate of MS is an expert of globalized vaccination and his articles on the subject have been published in several Medical Journals.
New Economy. Question More.

Linux_tyro , says: July 11, 2020 at 11:31 am GMT

I was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection in April. Was given a Z-pack for 5 days, an inhaler, Albuterol Sulfate that I am going to refill and a pill for cough, Benzonatate 200mg. They tested me for Flu, Pneumonia, Strep and Covid. All test came back negative.

Now I have a sinus infection and was prescribed another Z-pack with Prednisone 250mg twice a day for five days.

I've been feeling under the weather for months now.

Oh! Now I remember my question. How much zinc daily should we be taking?

Emslander , says: July 11, 2020 at 11:39 am GMT

So, now we know who the enemy is. When can we start arresting and executing them?

I've had a condition common to old men for a long time. I went to some MD from the Far East who started immediately talking about cutting me up. I went to a second doctor, a young American, and told him I guess I needed to be sliced and diced. He said, "Not so fast" and recommended the regular use of two substances I could get at the vitamin store. I did so and the matter improved to the point that I felt effectively cured.

Last week, I went back to him. He works at a large establishment that includes my regular MD. I started telling him about how miraculous and enlightened his advice was. He quickly shut me up and started talking about operations and antibiotics. He wouldn't even listen when I told him that his earlier advice had worked. My presumption is that the financial people got to him. I'd guess that they do a regular review of medical care by each physician to see how they can better monetize their practice. Anyway, his changed tone was remarkable enough that it had to be something like money that was involved.

mark tapley , says: July 11, 2020 at 11:47 am GMT

Covid 19 is just another in a long line of fake or hyped up illnesses. Remember H1N1, H5n1, SARS1, Swine flu, Bird flu, Zika and others. AIDS was another fake disease (read Dr. Peter Duesberg on this). The same type of hoax is being perpetrated with the current Corona "epidemic."

Notice it supposedly began in Wuhan China. This city of 11 million has the worlds worst air pollution. 350,000 people per year die of pneumonia in China. There are lots of people there that can be tagged as Covid 19 victims. Also quickly touted as a hot spot by our Jew controlled MSM was deaths in Italy. Official autopsies revealed over 99% of victims had pre existing illness, most of them had multiple ones at an avg. age go 69.5. Latter the age went up but I can't remember the exact figure. Remember CDC criminal Debra Brix said "we have told the hospitals to tag everything possible as Covid 19."

Remember the fake tents set up all over and the hospital ship that looked like a relic of WW1. The MSM kept talking about overflowing hospitals. Several people took videos of near vacant hospitals at this time including Brian Ruhe's exposure of Vancouver's practically empty hospital. Whenever you see the media jump all over something with all the official spokesmen and there is no alternative opinion allowed, you known it is a gov. false flag. All of a sudden climate change is no longer the critical topic of the day. I guess Greta Thunberg got the covid.

The covid 19 has never been identified by the standard scientific method of the Koch's postulates because they can't. If you have a fake virus you must have a fake test. That is the PCR test that gives ap. 200 false positives, does not determine one Corona (cold from another) and is not quantitative is a fake test. The numbers given by the CDC (holds 50 vaccine related patents) that is really an adjunct of big Pharma are a crock of baloney. Most of these figures are generated from old people in the nursing homes that are given a "visual" conformation as having covid. Note that Fauci said in February that the masks did more harm than good. Hospitals get paid big money for labeling patients as Covid victims and many times doctors just write it on the report.

The Zionists have hit a home run with this medical hoax and they will never give it up unless the cucks start using their brain a little bit and figure some things out. The next move will be manditory dangerous vaccines for all the cattle. There is big money to be made in the vaccine scam. To get the truth on vaccines read Dissolving Illusions by Dr. Suzanne Humphries and books by Forrest Maready.

The Covid scam has been planned for many years, this was an opportune time to spring it as a cover for the central banks theft of trillions more while bankrupting the workers and small businesses. The Jews at Blak Rock are big investors in masks and will now be scooping up failed businesses everywhere just like in 08.

Emslander , says: July 11, 2020 at 11:47 am GMT
@Smokey

Except, now I'm not sure what to believe any more.

Can anyone tell me ?

My uncle told me a story a long time ago about a man who had his young son climb a tree in the back yard. He let him get pretty high and then said, "Jump Johnny, Jump!" Johnny said, "If I jump, I'll get hurt." The Dad said, "No, I'll catch you." Johnny jumped and the Dad did nothing. The boy hit the ground and was crying, though not permanently injured.

He said to his Dad, "Father, you promised to catch me."

"Let that be a lesson," the Dad said. "Don't trust NOBODY."

Brás Cubas , says: July 11, 2020 at 12:03 pm GMT

Gary is a pro-life libertarian

Well, seeing as libertarians are against government action to stop abortions, I suppose all that a libertarian who opposes abortion is allowed to do is acting against it in their private life; seeing as that is exactly what the pro-choice option means, you see that Gary's position is rigorously meaningless: he is pro-life and pro-choice at the same time.

That is a really grand deception, regardless of any other claimed by this article, and all I need to know about it.

Giancarlo M. Kumquat , says: July 11, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT

Stop feeding those Haitians!

St-Germain , says: July 11, 2020 at 12:24 pm GMT

Thanks for your article.

I also prefer plain facts to eloquent fiction (MSM). Your article has obvious practical value for the public. It's a keeper. I also hope it circulates widely as an effective antidote to virulant MSM viruses.

BTW, my first act following retirement from four decades of professional news writing was to cancel all newspaper and magazine subscriptions. There is no utility in paying to be misinformed.

It never ceases to amaze me that so many people who have never set foot in a news room now regurgitate MSM propaganda as though it came down from Mt. Sinai. MSM journalism has now run the gamut from the duty to reveal what is true, even if it hurts, to the need to say what sounds nice, even if the reporter himself doesn't believe it. That's the definition of PR.

anonymous [400] Disclaimer , says: July 11, 2020 at 12:29 pm GMT

When this wears thin they'll discover another killer virus and there'll be another go-round. They started off saying the lockdowns were just for a brief time and then when they got their foot in the door it was extended. Now government herding people around by diktat is a permanent feature of American society. They'll never let it go. There's already been some report of some other mysterious killer virus coming out of Kazakhstan so get ready. This is the largest transfer of wealth scheme ever, the assets of the bankrupted scooped up by the big companies.

An Easterner , says: July 11, 2020 at 12:38 pm GMT

'Most importantly, they are Bible believing Christians.'

That for me, as a Muslim, is the best guarantee that the person writing this article will have written all in good faith because he or she is answerable to God.

Overall, the article was very informative and pertinent to the situation we face today.

macilrae , says: July 11, 2020 at 12:47 pm GMT

The article cites imperfect studies in which hydroxychloroquine was found to be an ineffective therapeutic for COVID19 – imperfect because the treatment was generally started too late in the progression of the disease. The author postulates that, if treatment were begun earlier, mortality would be drastically reduced but, unfortunately, there is no study to support this and the majority of people suffering the symptoms of early-onset COVID19 will recover spontaneously anyway.

Singapore, with its superb bureaucratic infrastructure, has reported over 45,000 infections but only 26 deaths – that is 4 deaths per million population. South Korea reports 13,000+ deaths and 287 deaths (6 per million population) and Japan 20,000 cases and 981 deaths (10 per million) compare this to the USA with 364 deaths per million or the UK with 718.

I have yet to see a convincing explanation of these shocking differences and, when asked recently, a British government spokesman said that it is "too early" to start drawing international comparisons – "too early" for whom you might ask? Evidently not for those who have succumbed – by now a huge effort should have been put forth to account for the disparity – even if the explanation is demographic as is being largely claimed. I assume that national pride has stood in the way of seeking answers by sending study teams to these countries.

The article recounts a number of inexpensive treatments that might work and points to "Big Pharma" as the major reason these are not being systematically studied – that may well be an impediment in the USA particularly – so gathering of data from East Asia, where that influence is far less and where dramatic positive results are seen, is all the more urgent.

Meanwhile my family will wear masks and hunker down because we have no particular plan to implement if one of us catches this bug.

Butch , says: July 11, 2020 at 1:01 pm GMT

Here is a clue, stop doing ALL the things they tell you to do because its all designed to make you sicker. Eat real food, so many people just don't get it, its garbage in and garbage out. Curves have always been flattened by the healthy freely moving about [oops, stay home], health from being outside, in the sun, and amongst nature is vital [oops stay inside], eating good REAL food is how you have a good immune system [oops, dont want that we need sick people for the pharma devils, therefore we'll allow FAST [shit] FOOD to be readily available [no contact of course [OMG can you actually believe this crap?] Wear a mask because the covid devil lurks everywhere [oops, retard the flow of healthy oxygen into your body, breath back in your own exhalations of CO2 and bacteria so you can increase your odds of getting sick, you just cant make this twisted stuff up!!!] Social distance, thats the best one? We should be wanting to be social for many many reasons, the least of which is because we ARE social animals, but the best way to flatten any curve is, as previously stated, assimilate it [as humans have with all viruses] to develop herd immunity [something that you CANNOT get with a toxic vaccination], like Sweden and Japan. STOP watching MSM and social platforms removing truth. Actually STOP watching TV, its all designed to make you think a certain way.

Off The Reservation , says: July 11, 2020 at 1:06 pm GMT

The biggest problem with this article is that it does not address the fundamental basis of the fraud that is CV19.

The Chinese supposedly identified a new coronavirus and named it SARS-CoV-2.

Then, the WHO made a vague list of symptoms and created a syndrome called COVID19.

There is no proven connection whatsoever between the supposedly identified virus and the syndrome.

Billing codes were created that allow the assumed or tested diagnosis of CV19.

To make matters worse, a test was created which only tests for "markers" of coronavirus and has never been proven to connect to the above viruses or the above syndrome. Thus testing positive or negative really has no meaning as proven by the disconnect between symptoms and diagnosis.

Then, the government incentivized and instructed the use of the above billing codes and created the commonly known situation of people dying "with" the syndrome even though they died of other causes.

Add to that the manipulation of the case count, etc. Then, you have New York and New Jersey basically murdering people with treatment. Loved ones banned from visiting homes – for reasons they might bring the virus in – while "positive" sick patients are brought in. Reconcile that.

I am not saying a few people aren't sick, but there is no way to deal with something while these language tricks are going on.

The virus, the syndrome, and the tests, and the count of cases have no scientific connection to each other. What is it you are talking about being treated for? The flu?

CW2isComing , says: July 11, 2020 at 1:14 pm GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso

Yes, where IS that Wonder of Modern Medicine anyway? We were breathlessly told of its soon-to-be release; I even thought that it was peculiar that the Israelis were so serendipitously working on just the right strain of coronavirus as to be in the forefront of vaccine development.

Miracles happen.

Except when they don't. And, to summarize here, there has NEVER been a stable/effective vaccine for the coronavirus family of viruses. NEVER.

As in, NEVER.

Adûnâi , says: Website July 11, 2020 at 1:22 pm GMT
@skrik bio-warfare-like attack [possibly when they 1st saw the PRRA inclusion in the decoded genome], they reacted like cut snakes and proceeded with the speed of fear-stricken Gazelles in a very largely successful attempt to *suppress* the virus. But, of course, they are communists, eh?"

Finally some sense in the sea of conspiratards. It is fascinating to observe the insanity of White nations – they will cling to their clearly delusional beliefs to the end, even when an alternative is presenting itself this whole time.

Wearing a mask apparently turns you into a slave. Believing in the existence of the virus makes you a shill. Pure anarchism, just without the bombs.

The comment #19 by UncommonGround is decent as well.

anon [327] Disclaimer , says: July 11, 2020 at 1:25 pm GMT

Best cure for C-19: Put Dr. Fauxci and Dr. Birx , ilk,
on a SpaceX ship bound for Mars.

Doesn't need to be a big ship.
Use sardine packing method.

CW2isComing , says: July 11, 2020 at 1:35 pm GMT
@Mark G. As well (and mentioned in some of the above comments) there are many studies indicating that adequate levels of Vitamin D may be protective. Best source: sunlight; then fresh fish, then supplements.

The entire point of this article is "self-rescue." It is clear to me that the "official" recommendation is to "stay home, don't come to your doctor's office/E.R. until you get shortness of breath, etc." so as to not "overload the hospital system."

The latter advice will get you killed if you are elderly and/or have certain co-morbidities. Treat yourself early on, be proactive towards you health; oh, also, maybe stop shoving Cheetos down your neck, take a walk, lose some weight?

anon [624] Disclaimer , says: July 11, 2020 at 1:48 pm GMT
@skrik

Moon of Alabama is a controlled website that censors dissenting commenters. The Covid-19 has completely blown the cover of that site and Mr. 'b'. Do not push that site. This unz.com site does not censor comments. Get back to us when Mr. 'b' (or is that German Intelligence?) decides to play his role properly again.

Gary Heavin , says: July 11, 2020 at 1:58 pm GMT
@Herald

Hi Herald,
The reason I didn't mention vitamin D3 is that I classify it under prevention rather than therapeutics.
I take 2,000 iu daily, 2,000 mg of vitamin C, 30 mg of zinc and 200 mg of magnesium to help prevent illness.

Twodees Partain , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:04 pm GMT
@Quinsat ch's postulates.

That's the main point of information needed if "need to know" is at the top of the list on how to survive. A person "diagnosed with covid19" should know that the existence of this "novel coronavirus" has not been established in any way that is based in actual science.

Such a diagnosis subjects the purportedly infected person to treatments that would be, at best, useless. Diagnosis is the starting point for a political assault conducted by means of "contact tracing" prescribed by an Israeli intelligence operation, and can't possibly include any effective medical treatment.

No medical treatment exists that can cure infection with an imaginary virus.

Gary Heavin , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:06 pm GMT
@GeeBee

Thank you for your corrections. When I found out that Ron was going to post my article on this website I was very excited due to the quality of its readership. People like you.

Really No Shit , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:08 pm GMT

A chinaman told me that lots of chopsuey with exotic wild animals worked for his country, whereas a wetback told me lots of beans and rice with hot sauce was the key to their success. Here in my neighboring neighborhood, the Borough Park, I hear that bubbies are offering up matzo ball soup with a scrawny chicken thrown in and the Bensonhurst Fredos are insisting that had the Italian government not abandoned the age old custom of over eating pasta fagioli, none of those paisans needlessly would have died. So, who do you believe?

Gary Heavin , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:10 pm GMT
@Linux_tyro

25 mg of zinc daily is what I take

Agent76 , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT

July 9, 2020 CDC May Officially Downgrade COVID From An 'Epidemic'

The coronavirus mortality rate in the United States has dropped so low that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may soon stop calling the virus an "epidemic."

https://principia-scientific.org/cdc-may-officially-downgrade-covid-from-an-epidemic/

Twodees Partain , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:32 pm GMT
@Emslander

"the regular use of two substances I could get at the vitamin store."

What two substances?

Alfred , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:39 pm GMT
@Anon

I'm beginning to believe they want more people to die so Trump would lose the election.

I am surprised it is taking people so much time to work that one out.

The media don't want you to see this chart. That is why I won't stop shouting CASES

Anonymousse , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:53 pm GMT

I had symptomatic corona. It was a day and a half of mild fever and fatigue. Basically like the flu but not nearly as bad. Everyone else I've known that had symptomatic corona (already a small minority of those who actually got infected woth corona) experienced the same or even less.

If you're just about to die from something else anyway, yeah maybe such a mild disease can give you that last little push. At that point you need to be thinking about saying confession and your relationship to eternity not some magic drug extending your life another few months

It's just the flu bro.

Desert Fox , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:54 pm GMT

Coronavirus is one of the biggest scams, frauds, psyops, mass hypnosis, in history, see these sites for the truth about the coronavirus scam, henrymakow.com , thetruthseeker.co.uk, chuckbaldwinlive.com , thedollarvigilante.com .

Alfred , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:55 pm GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso aled that they had designed a vaccine and tested it on hamsters. They wrote that a single dose "was able to protect hamsters against SARS-CoV-2."

Their best shots: Israeli efforts to invent a coronavirus vaccine, explained (Times of Israel)

You can be absolutely certain that the clowns above removed their masks as soon as they were off-camera.

Trinity , says: July 11, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT

The (((CoronaRona?))) Well, put it this way, the same people pushing the (((CoronaRona))) story or the same people who told you that Germans gassed 6 gatrillion Jews in the "holocaust." You might have a better chance at seeing Santa Claus than dying from the (((CoronaRona.)))

During the riots, the weasel, Fauci and that female doctor whats her name, were nowhere to be seen, and now they have returned and the (((CoronaRona))) is being looped 24/7. My guess is that all these (((medical experts))) will recommend another lock-down until the election. IF Biden wins, which given the corruption out there, is highly likely whether we are in lock-down or not, the (((CoronaRona))) will fade away into the night. IF Trump is somehow is reelected, well the (((Antifa-BLM))) types will be having another meltdown that the (((media))) will cover 24/7, and the (((CoronaRona))) will be back page news again.

I'm (((CoronaRona))) and I approve this message.

Che Guava , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:13 pm GMT

This reply is both to Kirt and Garry Heavin.

For Kirt, yes, I think I already had it too, seven or eight weeks from NYE last year to mid-Feb. of this. As I have said several times, the area near my workplace was usually full of Chinese tourists.

I had a cough, extreme lethargy on many days, a slight fever. Water frnm my nose, always the case for me in winter, but no sneezing. I must raise the idea with my regular doc., since I saw him at least three times over that time.

As for our author, Heavin's article, he is clearly offering better ideas for treatments than big pharma, but who really needs treatment?

Those who have a persistent cold-like syndrome?

Anyome identified through the polymerase chain reaction tests, which prove nothing.

Just ignore it and it will go away seems by far the wisest course.

schrub , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:29 pm GMT

On an entirely different topic:

WARNING: FOR THOSE WHO USE NORD VPN for their VPN service

If you select NORDVPN's "CYBERSEC" option to "block ads and malicious websites" , you will no longer be able to get on sites like unz.com or many other right wing sites (like Mike Rivero's site: whatreallyhappened.com for instance).

NORDVPN's CYBERSEC will, however, allow you on all the left wing sites pushed by the ADL. This means that NORDVPN'S CYBERSEC option is probably using the ADL's filtering criteria.

I questioned NORDVPN about this "selectivity" and never received a reply.

This also means that your NORDVPN software could well be spying on you and recording your keystrokes if you try to access to certain unapproved sites EVEN IF if the CYBERSEC option hasn't chosen.

NORDVPN is now, curiously enough, based in Panama, a country which the US government has been shown in the past to have considerable influence over when the need arises. (Ask Manuel Noriega for examples)

Spread the word.

It might be time choose a different VPN sofware if you are now using NORDVPN. Anybody have any good suggestions?

Zarathustra , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:33 pm GMT

I believe!
I believe in CNN.
I believe that half of population of USA will die of Corona virus.
The other half because Corona virus infecting toe nails will become zombies.
Also their brains are now eaten out by Corona virus.
All US population will be replaced by natives from Africa.
First herd of Negroes are already swimming halfway in Atlantic toward America.

Well?
Its not really funny.
But than CNN is never funny.

CW2isComing , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:35 pm GMT
@Twodees Partain

@Emslander

Yes, why are you being cryptic here–on this site–where a free exchange of information is desirable?

Herald , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:38 pm GMT
@Alfred

Cases now mean positive tests and of course, no really knows what that means, other than that more useless tests have been carried out. As the graph clearly indicates these so called "cases" have little to do with deaths. Nor do they have anything to do with hospitalisations.

We are clearly in the midst of an almighty scam, which is much much bigger than simply getting rid of Trump.

Emslander , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:41 pm GMT
@Twodees Partain

Extract of cranberries and D-Mannos. Together they are very good. I presume that they can't cure serious problems, but they work pretty well.

I'm not a doctor and I don't even work on TV.

Alfred , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:50 pm GMT
@UncommonGround ut a thorough check.

A report in The Guardian also found that the key employees of Surgisphere included a science fiction writer and an adult movie star.

The HCQ study mess: How 3 Indian researchers put reputation of Lancet, NEJM at stake

How 3 'smart' Indian names have ruined 200-year reputation of most respected medical journals

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-6WnSiCPYyQ?feature=oembed

Zarathustra , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:55 pm GMT

But putting all attempted jokes aside and talking a little bit more seriously, CNN did become certified criminal enterprise now.

Gary Heavin , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:56 pm GMT

To Bras my pro-life libertarian position does not become "meaningless" as if my prolife and libertarianism negate each other as you suggest. It's quite simple. Libertarianism demands we not harm other persons. An unborn baby is a person.
To Che I certainly agree with you that Covid 19 has been hyped, politicized, misrepresented, etc..
If I come down with a severe upper respiratory event that is heading toward pneumonia-like symptoms, I've lost my sense of taste and smell I'm going to talk with my Doctor and try one of the therapies I've written about. I hope you do the same.

Thomas Milton , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:57 pm GMT

"What you need to know" .is that this crisis has been spun from whole cloth.

Montefrío , says: July 11, 2020 at 3:58 pm GMT
@gotmituns e before the year is out. My bucolic life has been given a shake and I'm scrambling to best position our family (we live on the same property) financially and economically when BNW arrives with a vengeance. I wish to leave my grandchildren (my son, a water well driller, is prospering, happily, but still ) wholly owned property and the houses thereon plus one. I believe the BNW will have a distinctly local air to it in rural or semi-rural communities: little travel, local employment save for telecommuters, detachment from social media, different educational strategies and opportunities, etc. If you share this belief, get cracking and pretend that the reset has already arrived and act accordingly.
schrub , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:00 pm GMT

AS an answer to my own question about a new secure VPN service, I just came upon this. Anybody have any experience with this outfit?

https://protonvpn.com/about

I now wouldn't trust any VPN whatsoever service that wasn't entirely "open source". Protonvpn claims to be "open source". (On the other hand, NORDVPN isn't open source).

https://protonvpn.com/blog/open-source/

Definition of very important term "open source" for those are unfamiliar with it:
https://opensource.org/osd

If a software isn't "open source" it could potentially be spying on you. Choosing a VPN service using "open source" software should be the PRIMARY and most critical consideration when choosing a VPN service.

Non "open source" VPN software is open to outside manipulation and possible government infiltration.

Wally , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:02 pm GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso

asked:
"Whatever happened to that vaccine that some Israeli Genius Doctors claimed would be ready in a few weeks, which was months ago now?"

– The same thing that happened to the 'Israeli Geniuses' laughable, but "historic", attempt to put a spacecraft on the moon.

Israel's Beresheet spacecraft crashes during historic moon landing attempt : https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/how-watch-israel-s-beresheet-spacecraft-attempt-moon-landing-ncna993436

Alfred , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:04 pm GMT
@Emslander

It suits her personality as she is a quite orderly and methodical person. However, it means that she is incapable of critical thinking. All doctors in Australia are invited to free seminars and meals at expensive restaurants – paid for by pharmaceutical companies.

Sadly, she did not listen to my opinion about vaccines for our two girls. In the State of Victoria, they give a mandatory HPV vaccine. However, HPV is only a problem for those who are promiscuous. Furthermore, this vaccine is essentially an unknown. It is highly-expensive at some US$300 – paid for by the tax-payers. I suspect the vaccine altered the personality of one of our daughters. It is uncanny.

Astuteobservor II , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:05 pm GMT

It seems the only way to convince retards is to kill them or let them see dead bodies everywhere.

It is like the old saying in IT.

Everything is working, wtf does the company need you for.

Everything is falling apart, wtf does the company need you for.

On covid.

Lockdowns and quarantine is working, wtf, covid is Nothing, flu is worst.

Death count is now twice the number of the worst flu year, the lockdowns and quarantine are the causes, not covid.

Lincoln was right, just need to make sure the 80% retards gets fooled, the other 20% doesn't matter as their voices would be drown out by the retards.

If this covid virus is as deadly as it needs to convince the retards, nukes would have flown. I wonder how many retards understands why that is.

Zarathustra , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:13 pm GMT
@Gary Heavin

Slightly increase the daily intake of butter you moron, and you will not need to worry anymore.

Montefrío , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:21 pm GMT
@macilrae

I neither wear a mask nor hunker down and I'm a "double-vulnerable" (nearly 74 and mildly diabetic). A close lady friend is the village pharmacist and when on duty wears the mask under mild duress; neither of us wears it when alone with each other. Unless you're in a densely populated area, better to go out and get at least half an hour of sun daily, fortify yourself and family, keep the faith and don't succumb to manufactured fear, sez I.

Sparkon , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:35 pm GMT
@macilrae ak links here in the USA, sad to say. During my most recent trip to the market, I saw perhaps 7-10% of shoppers with their masks pulled down so it was covering the mouth, but not the nose. For the most part, these non-complying shoppers were the fat, ugly, slovenly, and stupid looking types one would try to avoid anyway, so the pulled-down mask is a good signal to give these types a very wide berth.

Recall that the world's experience with COVID-19 amounts to just six or seven months. Nobody knows what this virus may do in the future, but odds are it will mutate, like all viruses.

Psst: If it's just the flu, bro, why is it still spreading in the summer?

Vandal , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:41 pm GMT
@chuckywiz

The regiment I've seen published is as follows

Hydroxychloroquine 200mg twice a day for 5 days

ZPAK 500mg once a day for 5 days

Zinc Sulfate 220mg daily

Pragma , says: July 11, 2020 at 4:47 pm GMT

Mr. Heaven:

I found your figures regarding the vaccine cost and quantity remarkable, to say the least.

After some research, I could find no reference of a commitment by the UK government to purchase 80 million doses at $600 each.

I did find, however, reference to the Oxford/AstraZeneca potential vaccine AZD1222 which is estimated to cost around 2.5 euros or about $2.80 US. This appears to be the direction that the EU is going, but it is unclear if the UK will be part of it.

Could you please forward a link or reference for the source of your figures?

Gary Heavin , says: July 11, 2020 at 5:16 pm GMT
@Pragma

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8123691/With-estimated-477-injection-potentially-billions-coronavirus-jab.html
As you can imagine, this article has been lambasted by big pharmaceutical interests.

Thim , says: July 11, 2020 at 5:19 pm GMT
@macilrae

Your family will wear masks, because you are slaves. Absolutely no one claims wearing a mask will prevent you from catching a flu or cold (Corona virus).

Bardon Kaldian , says: July 11, 2020 at 5:20 pm GMT

So, it's all a giant conspiracy Interesting: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/10/health/coronavirus-entire-body-effects-columbia/index.html

How coronavirus affects the entire body

TheTruthSeeker , says: July 11, 2020 at 5:30 pm GMT

Pavia, a cure that works, challenges media silence: "Plasma kills the virus"

"Plasma kills the coronavirus." The therapy developed by the Immuno-hematology Institute of Saint Matthew in Pavia is encouraging. In this exclusive interview with The Daily Compass given at the end of his experimentation, director Cesare Perotti reveals the positive results: "The treatment works; at the moment no one has died; the USA has asked for the protocols." But nobody is talking about it: "There are other interests opposing us, but we will address these after the scientific publication." This is how the shared treatment works, by "using" volunteers who have recovered to help heal those who are sick.

Reference and continuation:

https://newdailycompass.com/en/pavia-a-cure-that-works-challenges-media-silence-plasma-kills-the-virus

Rubicon , says: July 11, 2020 at 5:53 pm GMT
@Achilles Wannabe

What Achilles Wannabe writes is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.

If I have to, the ONLY way to purchase HDC is via my Canadian brothers. Naturally, I would need an American doctor's prescription, but push comes to shove, I absolutely refuse going to ANY American "medical doctor" to treat me.

Hopefully, the Canadian prescription stores would be able to fill that prescription. If not, oh well.
Living in this dying nation is death-defying.

[Jun 25, 2020] COVID-19 China Reseeded with COVID-20 by Larry Romanoff

Notable quotes:
"... Before this new outbreak, Beijing had been virus-free for nearly 60 days, meaning there were no local viruses and that this new pathogen was definitely an import (or an American export). On June 19, China's CDC experts, after intensive investigations of the Xinfadi market, announced what they termed "a groundbreaking virus tracing discovery", which was that the strain of the new virus in Beijing was the same as that in much of Europe – but much older than those in Europe, and "had been around for quite some time" – and that can mean only that it came from the US because that was the source of all the original varieties many months ago. [4] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1192146.shtml ..."
"... For a long time, Russia had only a few infections, rising steadily by only five or ten per day, then suddenly it exploded, rising by 5,000, then 10,000 and 20,000 per day. Virus outbreaks don't normally manifest that way. The normal process upon an outbreak is a rapid acceleration in the number of infections until it peaks, as happened with all other countries. ..."
"... And on June 20, 2020, the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS) revealed that they had discovered that COVID-19 was present in water samples dating back to mid-December of 2019 ..."
"... And it wasn't only Italy. Dutch researchers discovered COVID-19 RNA in a wastewater plant in the Utrecht, Netherlands, city of Amersfoort. French scientists detected "high concentrations" of COVID-19 RNA in samples of sewage water from greater Paris that were obtained before Paris first recorded any deaths. ..."
"... The Irish Mirror reported on June 19 that "many countries are beginning to use wastewater sampling to track the spread of the disease", scientists claiming these detections were "consistent with evidence emerging in other countries" that COVID-19 was circulating around the world long before China reported its first cases ..."
"... Covid's here to stay – irrespective of the fact that it has never and will never satisfy Koch's Postulates. Why? Two reasons. First, because it has proved itself to be a highly effective means of controlling first world populations. Second, because now that it's been rolled out, it'll be impossible to roll it back without waking up the normies. You don't turn off the gas before the frog's been boiled. ..."
"... The Chinese analyzed the new outbreak and determined the genome was that of a strain that existed only in the US & Europe, but not heretofore in China. The Chinese have identified many different strains of this virus, seven or more. ..."
"... This covid19 with its growing number of strains seems likely to have escaped from a lab and it is most probably a product of US ingenuity, with cleverly engineered gain of function, but to leap to the conclusion that the US has deployed this bioweapon against China and Russia goes too far. Why would the US target its own population in the process? ..."
Jun 25, 2020 | www.unz.com

From the date of the initial outbreak in Wuhan I watched carefully on a daily basis the dispersion and progression of the coronavirus in China and then abroad, collecting as much data as were available on each location. By late May of 2020, China had been infection-free for many weeks, the concern turning to the identification and quarantine of imported cases. At the same time, the US became once again 'the leader of the world', this time in virus infections and deaths, producing 20,000 to 30,000 new cases and around 1,000 deaths per day. At the time, American hostility toward China's success in stopping the virus was palpable, with many nasty media articles and White House accusations about China's false statistics and blaming China for "spreading the virus" to the US. CNN stated, "Chinese state media has repeatedly touted China's effective measures in containing the virus as the number of infections and deaths surged abroad, contrasting its success with the failures of Western governments, especially the United States." [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/15/asia/coronavirus-...x.html Clearly there was much surprise and bitterness at China's success and America's failure, this coated in a sticky layer of resentment based partly on a justified suspicion that the Chinese were not overly distressed at the Americans enjoying the fruits of their own labor.

But even then I had a sense of an apparition, a version of Dickens' 'ghost of coronavirus past', accompanied by an uncomfortable feeling the Americans were sufficiently bitter (and vicious) to deny the Chinese their apparently easy victory. My fear was that the Americans would try to reseed China as they did Russia, and it would seem my fears were not unjustified. The new virus that broke out at the Xinfadi market in Beijing was a different strain than any previously existing in China, one that existed only in the US and Europe and could only have been brought in from the outside. And once again at a seafood market with no identifiable patient zero, no clear epidemiology (source and distribution) of a virus that did not exist in China. It almost had to be deliberately seeded, the odds against being infinitesimally small.

In terms of what I am calling COVID-20 (to differentiate it from the initial outbreak), China may have been fortunate to detect and corral this new pathogen before it could spread. The outbreak did expand to three other provinces but in single digits and the medical authorities have taken extreme action to prevent further spread since this variety – which again did not exist in China and had to be seeded from another country, appears to be much more contagious than the original COVID-19. [2] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1191598.shtml In response, Beijing has locked down everything and sent a group of experts to guide the fight against this new potential epidemic, so far with good success. Nucleic acid testing has been initiated on a massive scale, already many millions of people tested, and all those in contact with the Xinfadi market being in quarantine. Many residential compounds in the city strictly prohibit anyone from entering or leaving, with residents having their temperatures checked and reported on a daily basis, and their food and daily necessities delivered. [3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/asia/coronavirus-beij...x.html

Before this new outbreak, Beijing had been virus-free for nearly 60 days, meaning there were no local viruses and that this new pathogen was definitely an import (or an American export). On June 19, China's CDC experts, after intensive investigations of the Xinfadi market, announced what they termed "a groundbreaking virus tracing discovery", which was that the strain of the new virus in Beijing was the same as that in much of Europe – but much older than those in Europe, and "had been around for quite some time" – and that can mean only that it came from the US because that was the source of all the original varieties many months ago. [4] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1192146.shtml

The investigators said they obtained so many positive samples that the entire market was "severely contaminated by the virus", but also that no one should form the conclusion that the market was the origin merely because the outbreak took place there. More importantly, they also said "Beijing's outbreak gives us the opportunity to re-examine our previous speculation that the virus originated from wildlife", because unlike Wuhan, "the possibility of wildlife causing Beijing's latest outbreak is slim." Their conclusion was that "an infected individual or object contaminated with the virus entered the wet market, and the market only gave it an environment to multiply". [3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/asia/coronavirus-beij...x.html The authorities have already produced the genome sequence and are now establishing when and how the virus was likely imported into China, and how long was the transmission chain. There is no question this pathogen was brought into China "by people", the question being the identity of those people and their purpose. [5] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202006/15/WS5ee6b33d...9.html And, what better way to "teach those smug Chinese a lesson" and attempt to derail China's rapid economic recovery.

Russia Re-seeded

There is something equally strange about the virus in Russia. For a long time, Russia had only a few infections, rising steadily by only five or ten per day, then suddenly it exploded, rising by 5,000, then 10,000 and 20,000 per day. Virus outbreaks don't normally manifest that way. The normal process upon an outbreak is a rapid acceleration in the number of infections until it peaks, as happened with all other countries.

But with Russia, the infections were minor for a long time, steady at very low numbers, with all the indications of an unsuccessful epidemic, and the Russian government took strict measures to control the spread. The US government was clearly resentful at the failure of the virus to devastate Russia and the US media bemoaned the fact that Russia's death rate was so low.

I would be very interested to see the genome sequences from the first infections in January and February, and for those happening in April and May. I haven't any definitive proof, but I am certain Russia, as China, was seeded again with another variety for a second attempt.

Virus Distribution

But to return to our main point, it isn't necessary for us to determine the physical origin of the virus. We know the virus originated in bats; that much is confirmed, but the more important issue is the epidemiology, particularly the incidence and distribution. First of all, for China and most other nations originally infected, there were so many multiple and simultaneous sources that locating a patient zero was a hopeless task. Virus outbreaks, left to their own natural devices, do not behave in this fashion, but begin with one person in a tightly localised situation and provably spreading from that point. Equally distressing is that we have the truly unprecedented "two waves" of worldwide infections. For this, let's review my observations from an earlier article [6] COVID-19 – Two Major 'Waves' of Global Infection; https://www.moonofshanghai.com/2020/05/covid-19-two-...l.html and take a quick look at those two waves of infections that circled the globe.

The First Wave simultaneously infected 25 nations within a few days centered on January 25. One month later, the Second Wave simultaneously infected 85 nations within a few days centered on February 25. A natural virus hasn't the ability to simultaneously (within three days) infect 85 different countries on all continents of the world. More peculiar is that these countries were not all infected with the same variety of the virus, and that most reported simultaneous outbreaks in multiple locations. Considering the above information in light of the basics of virus transmission, the only theory that fits all the known facts is that these waves resulted from many people leaving Fort Detrick on the same day carrying a pail of different live viruses, because those multiple varieties at the time existed only in the US. It could not possibly have resulted from air travel because that timing would have been scattered. When 85 countries experience a virus outbreak on virtually the same day, this can happen only with human assistance. The Americans have steadfastly refused to address this point.

Experts on biological weapons are in unanimous agreement that eruptions in a human population of a new and unusual pathogen in multiple locations simultaneously, with no clear idea of source and cases with no proven links, is virtually prima facie evidence of a pathogen deliberately released, since natural outbreaks can almost always be resolved to one location and one patient zero. But with COVID-19 (or COVID-20), not one country out of 200 has been able to do this.

It should be firmly noted that this new infection in Beijing is not a "second wave" as termed by the Western media. This is an entirely new and different infection by a new virus and totally unrelated to anything prior, a strain of a new and different virus that was deliberately carried to Beijing and flooded in the Xinfadi Market. This infection is not related to COVID-19 but is the seeding of yet another biological pathogen in China, making that now seven different biological attacks on China in two years. And China has suffered others similar. One of the most notable was the H1N1 virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic – and which was extinct for decades – but which suddenly appeared in 1977 in both China and Russia causing a global pandemic, prompting immediate claims by the Americans that it "escaped from a Chinese lab". But the only sensible explanation is that the H1N1 virus 'escaped' from the Americans because there were persistent reports that the US military had found or saved samples of the original 'Spanish Flu' virus and were attempting to re-activate it. There was never a shred of evidence that either China or Russia had anything to do with this, and both were taken entirely by surprise.

It is my view that the world needs to stop pretending that COVID-19 was an accident of nature. Consider China's recent experience. In addition to SARS – which was indisputably man-made, China has suffered repeated viral pandemics in the past two years. February 15, 2018: H7N4 bird flu. June, 2018: H7N9 bird flu. August, 2018: outbreak of African swine flu. May 24, 2019: massive infestation of armyworms. December, 2019: COVID-19. January, 2020: A "highly pathogenic" strain of bird flu. June, 2020: China is hit with COVID-20. Are we to tell ourselves it was merely a run of bad luck that China was the only nation in the world to be hit repeatedly with so many different biological pathogens in such a short time? And merely more 'bad luck' that China became the only country in the world that was domestically virus-free and was suddenly hit again with a foreign strain in another wet market? This assumption is too ridiculous to bother refuting.

It is unfortunate that so much of our information today comes to us in a passive receptance from the mass media because one result is the loss of our ability to examine information critically and use our minds to assess the presentation. As an example, it was very clever for the Americans to use a wet market as a distribution point for a virus and for the media to give this point massive air time, because we instinctively associate such markets with at least a possibility of germs and bacteria and thus passively accept the claims as true without the necessary evidence and thus avoid using our brains as intended. Our assessment of wet markets as unsanitary may be correct, but common germs and bacteria are a very different thing from a coronavirus that makes its home in bats and has no business being in a vegetable market. It isn't important for our purposes to decide if COVID-19 was created in a lab; the important point is that a coronavirus has no means of transportation from bat caves in Sichuan to a market in Wuhan, nor the ability to mutate itself in such a way as to be energetically contagious to humans, and much less the conscious intelligence to choose China's largest passenger transportation hub as the distribution point and the Eve of the Chinese New Year as the best time to attack. For these, the coronavirus required a helping 'black hand'.

The Noose Tightens on the US

There is almost daily an increase in the volume of evidence that COVID-19 was circulating in the US far earlier than admitted, and serving as incriminating proof that the CDC's deliberate (and threatening) forbidding of testing was to bury this evidence. The most recent example is headlines in the US media on June 21, 2020, stating, "Over 40 mysterious respiratory deaths in California could dramatically rewrite narrative of COVID-19" in the US. [7] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1192389.shtml The LA Times reported on "a cluster of mysterious respiratory deaths" beginning in December of 2019. The local news website www.bakersfield.com stated this meant that COVID-19 was circulating in California "way earlier than we knew". And let's not forget too quickly that Japanese tourists were infected in Hawaii in September of 2019.

And on June 20, 2020, the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS) revealed that they had discovered that COVID-19 was present in water samples dating back to mid-December of 2019. The results were confirmed by two separate labs that used two entirely different testing methods, and also showed that environmental wastewater from Milan, Turin and Bologna returned positive traces of the virus dating back to December if not earlier. Apparently, the RNA from COVID-19 does not readily dissolve or disintegrate in water and polymerase chain reaction testing allows scientists to identify the RNA after many months. [8] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronaviru...23Q1J9 [9] https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/ita...5a35e3

And it wasn't only Italy. Dutch researchers discovered COVID-19 RNA in a wastewater plant in the Utrecht, Netherlands, city of Amersfoort. French scientists detected "high concentrations" of COVID-19 RNA in samples of sewage water from greater Paris that were obtained before Paris first recorded any deaths. Sputnik News reported in May that a Paris hospital confirmed it had treated Amirouche Hammar, the country's first COVID-19 patient, on December 27, 2019 – one month before France's first announcement of infections and four days before the WHO China bureau was informed of a "pneumonia of unknown etiology" on December 31. [10] https://sputniknews.com/europe/202006191079667103-sc...break/

The Irish Mirror reported on June 19 that "many countries are beginning to use wastewater sampling to track the spread of the disease", scientists claiming these detections were "consistent with evidence emerging in other countries" that COVID-19 was circulating around the world long before China reported its first cases, all of which would of necessity have had to have originated in the US and transported around the world. It is now beginning to appear that many countries were seeded at approximately the same time, perhaps in their water distribution systems. Following these discoveries, the ISS told Reuters it intends to launch a new study of the wastewater of Italian tourist resorts. I suspect other nations will follow.

And it would seem the NYT, WSJ, WP, CNN, ABC, NBC, National Post, Globe & Mail , have no knowledge of this. The Chinese and Europeans know, but the Americans and Canadians don't know because the owners of their major newspapers and TV networks don't want them to know.

A Brief Update

If you look at the graph (courtesy of CNN ), you can see the European infection pattern (in pink) and the American (in green). The Europeans followed China's protocols in varying degrees, and thus with varying degrees of success. Europe's infections peaked at around 30,000 per day then descended to around 2,000 near the end of June, while the Americans, led by a man who is living proof that democracy is the worst possible form of government, saw their infections peak at the same level, slightly decrease, then revert to 30,000 infections and around 1,000 deaths per day where they will now remain until the virus surges through the entire population. Twenty-six states are already experiencing dramatic spikes reaching new records each day, so Trump ordered the CDC to "stop testing" because it makes him look bad.

The next graphic is a list of the top ten nations for COVID-19 infections. Missing from this picture is a comparison I want to make about leadership and competence, to say nothing of intelligence. Shanghai is a city only two hours from Wuhan and, when the infections exploded, had no warning and almost no time to prepare, but acted so quickly and decisively that the city had only 26 infections and 7 deaths. Missing from the graphic is Canada, with a population very similar to Shanghai, and who, with months to plan and prepare, had 101,000 infections and 8,400 deaths. Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau is also living proof of democracy's vast failings.

The Americans elected a pathetic buffoon who lives in outer space, while the Canadians elected a bullied child so painfully unintelligent and indecisive his wife would have to tell him to call the fire department if his house were burning down. I would include here the Brazilians who, with excessive assistance from the Americans, elected an arrogant sociopath who said famously, "It's not my fault. What do you want me to do about it?"

In all three countries the leaderless pandemic results are the same, with infections and deaths likely increasing until at least the end of the year. China, with a population of more than 1.4 billion people, had about 80,000 infections and little more than 4,000 deaths, and stopped the virus cold in about three months. But according to the NYT, WSJ, WP, and Canada's terminally-obnoxious National Post , the "free-market capitalist" countries are God's first choice while "socialist authoritarian" China should incur yet more sanctions for all its mistakes.

Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes:


Anon [320] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:01 am GMT
This flu like outbreak in July '19 in VA that killed two and sent 18 to the hospital in a nursing home in Springfield, VA, should be fully investigate, it could explain the origin of the virus:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/11/us/virginia-retirement-community-respiratory-illness-outbreak/index.html

Springfield, VA, where this nursing home was located, is about an hour south east of Ft. Detrick, the bioweapons lab that was shut down by CDC at around the same time after it failed a safety inspection in June, 2019.

Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:12 am GMT
To think the evil geniuses that would create such nasty pathogens would not have a whole panoply of similar bugs to release would seem naive. I suspect the future strains will only become more virulent, thus insuring a very complacent and fearful populace for unlimited vaccinating, microchipping and contact tracing, all to the PTB's delight and profits. Not to mention the ease with which the American populace will have their anger, fears and frustrations twisted into hatred for all things Chinese. How convenient!

What is currently amusing is watching how deftly the Chinese government is dealing with these assaults, both biological and economic, and how impotent and visibly frustrated the US powerbrokers are with the efficiency and effectiveness of the Chinese responses.

If the Chinese continue to effectively fend off the future attacks, whether they be biological or financial/trade, one can expect that these same evil geniuses, having been frustrated over and over, will only continue their escalations. Expect the anti-China rhetoric from the West's political puppets and the MSM to reach fever pitch just before things turn 'hot' in the new cold war against Chinese ascendancy. Whether it will eventually (or inevitably) go nuclear is the real $64,000 question that leaves many of us concerned observers awake at night ..

Rahan , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:06 am GMT
So what we have here, if we accept the basic discourse of this highly interesting article, is therefore likely the following:

China got hit by various "flu weapons" and "livestock diseases" over the last twenty years, to keep the "dirty commies" from "getting too uppity", but, not counting SARS, only became capable of keeping an accurate tally of the different jabs and pokes over the last five years.

At some point, the Chinese government decided that enough is enough. Their think-tanks recommended the following strategy as the only feasible one: the next time they get seeded, the instantly pounce on the new pathogen, and blow it out of all proportion, causing a) the whole world to panic, and b) the whole world to start paying attention to the issue of new and old pathogens floating around.

In this sense, the "it's just the flu bro" people are correct, meaning that this is not really some apocalyptic plague that justifies shutting down the world. But on the other hand, it was used by Beijing as an example to point out that this crap is happening, and that they know it's happening, and that this game can't be played like this anymore.

In effect they "pulled a Trump". Through their bombastic overreaction, they forced the whole world to notice and discuss the issue they wanted noticed and discussed.

So from now on, the whole world -- except the Anglospherical powers completely taken over by the GloboHomo alliance of corporations, deep state, and baizuo (and where the heritage white demographic replacement has gone farthest) -- will also be super careful about these things, and evidence will begin to accumulate through this "forced crowd-sourcing".

refl , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:12 am GMT

authorities have taken extreme action to prevent further spread since this variety – which again did not exist in China and had to be seeded from another country, appears to be much more contagious than the original COVID-19.[2] In response
( )
Many residential compounds in the city strictly prohibit anyone from entering or leaving, with residents having their temperatures checked and reported on a daily basis, and their food and daily necessities delivered.[3]

So this is how the new shamdemic of COVID-20 will cement and perfect the destruction of freedom across the world?
We will have discussion on fictious body counts and false statistics here at UR for ever more with COVID-20, -21, -22 and so on?

This pattern makes sense, because the victory over the populace who have given up their freedom to lead anything that can be called a life worth living is just to great to be allowed to be ephimeral.
The total destruction of freedom only makes sense, if there is a follow up until all the deluded hoaxers who believe that their is a life beyond feeling sick kill themselves. Then it will be lockdowns and quarantines for ever more and families will have online celebrations when the newborns will get their masks sealed on their seventh day on earth, before they are handed over to the overlords.

As for this authorities conclusions: It should be known by now that when you interpret bogus data, above all when you do so with bad intentions, you will find any conclusions that suite your purpose. Of course, COVID-19 has been found in older samples, as by now the testing has been so well established that they can find it anywhere. Next, they will find it in eghiptian mumies.
This author is a management consultant. He has done missinterpreting statistics for a living and should know how to reasonably sell bad advice.

Quinsat , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:20 am GMT
@Priss Factor

Covid's here to stay – irrespective of the fact that it has never and will never satisfy Koch's Postulates. Why? Two reasons. First, because it has proved itself to be a highly effective means of controlling first world populations. Second, because now that it's been rolled out, it'll be impossible to roll it back without waking up the normies. You don't turn off the gas before the frog's been boiled.

Ditto the assault on 'white privilege'. Like Covid, it's only going to get worse – not better.

Plan accordingly, friends.

Bombercommand , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 7:17 am GMT
Ten citations, and three are from "The Global Times", one from "China Daily", and one is an article penned by the author himself. Impressive scholarship, Mr Romanoff, very impressive scholarship.
Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 7:31 am GMT
The 5-Eyes governments all need to be told that the USA attacked them, launched bio-warfare against them, is their real enemy.
Hippopotamusdrome , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 7:50 am GMT

Virus outbreaks don't normally manifest that way. The normal process upon an outbreak is a rapid acceleration in the number of infections until it peaks

Occams Razor. It's a hoax or else the virus is violating the laws of Nature.

Brás Cubas , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 8:51 am GMT

I would include here the Brazilians who, with excessive assistance from the Americans, elected an arrogant sociopath who said famously, "It's not my fault. What do you want me to do about it?"

In Brazil, the Supreme Court has decided that governors don't have to obey the federal government on local health policies. So, it really makes no difference whether the President is Mother Theresa or Jason Voorhees. It's true that Bolsonaro tries once in a while to enact some federal regulations, but he seems to fail every time. It's odd that you don't know that fact, seeing as in the U.S. I hear things are quite similar. As for Brazilian governors, they oddly don't get the same international flak as Bolsonaro does, despite many of them being suspected of using the pandemic as an opportunity for stealing.

This kind of inexactitude immediately throws the rest of the article under heavy suspicion. When people start spewing words like 'sociopath', it is clear to me that they have an agenda.

PetrOldSack , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:07 am GMT

It is unfortunate that so much of our information today comes to us in a passive receptance from the mass media because one result is the loss of our ability to examine information critically and use our minds to assess the presentation. As an example, it was very clever for the Americans to use a wet market as a distribution point for a virus and for the media to give this point massive air time, because we instinctively associate such markets with at least a possibility of germs and bacteria and thus passively accept the claims as true without the necessary evidence and thus avoid using our brains as intended.

Rewrite: "it is unfortunate that alternative media distill their take on the news, based on data fed into the public domain. As much as MSM do. Garbage in, garbage out. Sorting garbage, no avail. This article is just another layer of meaningless deft. If any statement here is true, it would be by accident.

In that, of course, it follows the enforcing of the media rule: keep a grasp on the surplus population by manipulating the frequency and number of tainted information. All data in the public domain are probably useless by now. All data on Covid are willfully manipulated. The author of course knows this, and his dump is intentional. The immediate reason, middle class making a living, book pushing, bread-writing, self-promotion, retirement gig, no more. Summer months in the media year, another step-in. Jewish by hazard?

skrik , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:51 am GMT
@Cat If you wish to contest

We know the virus originated in bats; that much is confirmed

then it'd only be fair for you to inform us of your alternate explanation, giving convincing proof [assuming you'd have some?]

FYI there exists a bat-coronavirus genetic sequence RaTG13 which agrees with 96.2% of Covid-19, and an even closer match in RmYN02 at 93.3% agreement. Thesis: That someone took RaTG13 [see 1st and 3rd parts in image below; the RaTG13 spike is so far a 'best fit'] and force-evolved it by infecting cultures of human cells in an evolution-enabling environment, collecting any 'survivors' then repeating this process [a possible proof being the Covid-19 attack disabling victims' sense of smell, indicating 'force-evolving' in cultures of human nerve cells]. In addition, I've seen suggested, that infecting animals with some human-similar traits [here, ferrets with ACE2, say] could have evolved the virus to attack via ACE2 in humans. Then, there's the *unique* inclusion of RPPA in the Covid-19 spike, both enabling infection and that with greatly enhanced pathogenicity [compared to SARS-1, say]. rgds PS An interesting extension to some ideas in the article, is that since the virus infections have gone global, IF it was human-made [my best tip] THEN whoever made it [= clearly rogue-state operatives] contributed to killing 100s of 1000s, *including their own people* ! brrr

Avery , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:40 am GMT
{The Americans elected a pathetic buffoon who lives in outer space,}

He may or may not be a pathetic buffoon*, but he is smart enough to parlay inherited wealth to become a Billionaire, he is POTUS, he lives in the White House or Mar-a-Lago with a model-wife, and will be remembered as such long after you are forgotten.

Aside from that, who would you have Americans elect? The Hildabeast?
But it's not too late: if enough Americans lose their minds and elect The DementiaMan, we will be subjected to the non-buffoon experience of Hildabeast 2.0.

Biden will be a near complete vegetable in a year or two, and the chosen female radical left, Antifa (sic) ** embracing VP will run the show. America as it was founded will be no more.

_____________________
* Lookup Scott Adams' discussions on how Trump manipulates and influences.
Scott predicted way back that Trump would be POTUS.
Note: Scott is a trained hypnotist, and recognizes classic 'tells' of hypnosis in Trump's seemingly "buffoonish" behaviour.

** Despite their cleverly chosen moniker, these violent thugs are the real Fascists: their behaviour and tactics are an exact copy of Mussolini's Blackshirts.

Nixon Scraypes , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:07 pm GMT
Don't viruses mutate anyway? See science direct.com ~ covid in France in December. Also an acquaintance of mine had a horrible virus in December in England.
jadan , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:30 pm GMT
The Chinese analyzed the new outbreak and determined the genome was that of a strain that existed only in the US & Europe, but not heretofore in China. The Chinese have identified many different strains of this virus, seven or more.

But the author goes on to say later in his diatribe: " This is an entirely new and different infection by a new virus and totally unrelated to anything prior, a strain of a new and different virus that was deliberately carried to Beijing and flooded in the Xinfadi Market. "

This covid19 with its growing number of strains seems likely to have escaped from a lab and it is most probably a product of US ingenuity, with cleverly engineered gain of function, but to leap to the conclusion that the US has deployed this bioweapon against China and Russia goes too far. Why would the US target its own population in the process?

If, as Ron Unz speculates, this virus is a botched attack on China and other enemies by stupid people in a stupid administration that has had unanticipated blowback hitting the US, then these same stupid perps would not launch another such aggression!

This notion of a secret biological aggression does not hold water, but the Chinese probably appreciate Larry Romanoff's efforts.

mike99588 , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:53 pm GMT
@Godfree Roberts

Where have you been? The examples of massive cheating and common reckless are decades long. The melamine-milk scandals and falling down buildings were not merely "one-off" but a commonplace for the Chinese themselves.

I myself have examples of deal-breaking cheating that cost them bigger opportunities, and shake my head. Yes, they can do world class, sometimes.

We will probably never know how much has been copied. It's been so pervasive at all scales.

With borg like eavesdropping and acquisition systems gobbling everything up, 4x our population, with our declining high quality population, we may yet see how much they can or can't innovate.

They have a lot of stripped assets and resources now to command impoverished Americas' hopes and attention, against prior experiences.

Bombercommand , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:59 pm GMT
@Godfree Roberts

Even Chinese are skeptical of anything "Made In China". Last year, in a Canadian Tire store I saw a Chinese couple. Hubby had selected an item for possible purchase. His wife tore into him, speaking rapidly and scornfully in Chinese. I do not understand Chinese, but didn't need to, as she repeatedly dropped in the English phrase "Made In China", in a sarcastic tone of voice. Hubby put the item back on the shelf and they walked away. China is a deeply cracked culture. My friend Meng(female), who was born in China and married to a Chinese guy, put it to me bluntly: "In China, 90% of marriages are without love".

denk , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:08 pm GMT
@yuribezmenoff

they work hardly to overthrow the western democratic institutions,

Cough cough cough cough .

SteveK9 , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:09 pm GMT
Here's a novel solution do nothing. It works for Belarus. Some 80-year-olds die and society goes on as usual problem solved. Spoken by someone getting closer to 80.
Agent76 , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:27 pm GMT
Jun 22, 2020 CELEBRATED SCIENTIST: '80% NOT SUSCEPTIBLE TO COVID"

Named the "most influential" brain scientist of our time, Dr. Karl Friston, made waves when he published his study mapping the real susceptibility of contracting Coronavirus. His results are staggering and challenge the rationale for a lockdown like no other.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3jKGD7XnbRc?feature=oembed

Jun 15, 2020 The Collapse of the COVID-1984 Narrative

Now that the major institutions pushing the COVID panic are now admitting that the virus is not an existential threat and the lockdowns were not necessary, what does this mean for the future of the COVID-1984 police state and the ushering in of the new "biosecurity" paradigm?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/M3OOBXwtojo?feature=oembed

Emslander , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:27 pm GMT
@Mustapha Mond In any complex, highly planned operation such as you describe, where motives of such depth and perception are necessary, there are going to have to be real persons with real names. You can't go on saying that "evil geniuses" at Fort Deitrich or wherever engineered and executed so deftly these multilayered "seedings" without getting orders or authorization from someone we all know. Is it Trump, Pompeo, Hilary, Biden, Obama or Amy Semple McPherson?

It's like the Germans and the Holocaust. You'd have to have so many evil players with superhuman capacity to hold onto their secret motives and actions that we still can't pin them down. I don't think there are so many such people in our stupid federal government. Even our brave and feared John Bolton, when he reveals himself, is just an oversensitive weeny.

This article suffers from many fundamental misunderstandings of government weenies. Those people in Northern Virginia who are "seeding" foreign nations with new strains of virus every sixty days on some diabolically precise motivational dynamic live in boring suburbs and fix awful chicken on their barbecues. They drink watery beer and watch "Wheel of Fortune". Give me a break!

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:39 pm GMT
@Bombercommand If they are Chinese travellers exploring Canada and Canadian culture it would be silly of them to buy something made in China as though it was Canadian. Your reasoning does not hold up.
Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:11 pm GMT
@Emslander Hannah Arendt noted the 'banality of evil' long ago. It's pretty common, sad to say.

The military is filled with 'ordinary' people who apparently have no qualms about murdering anyone their 'superiors' point to and say, "Kill!" They are just following orders, after all.

The number of 'evil players' is simply staggering, whether we want to admit it or not. And yes, they DO drink watery beer and watch "Wheel of Fortune" and have bar-b-ques. John Wayne Gacy comes to mind immediately. Who knows who our neighbors really are, deep down inside?

As for naming names, gosh, I seem to have lost my DARPA personnel directory of evil geniuses, and my CIA directory of same as well.

(But as for who REALLY controls things and gives the orders, I think you may have nailed it with Sister Aimee. And she was HOT in her day, and apparently knew how to have a good time. Hallelujah, brother ..)

Republic , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:19 pm GMT
@SteveK9 There are reports that the US is currently engaged in a color revolution in Belarus. See Moon of Alabama for details
Bombercommand , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:21 pm GMT
@Anon So the "flu like outbreak" skipped Frederick, Maryland, the town Fort Detrick is located in to strike Springfield, Virginia which is very close to Washington DC, as well as not striking other communities between Frederick, Maryland and Springfield, Virginia including Washington DC. I like how your brain works, you should be working at The Global Times or perhaps you already are .
denk , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:42 pm GMT
@Old and Grumpy https://www.globalresearch.ca/from-1945-until-today-20-to-30-million-people-killed-by-the-usa/5660519

Considering that you've been targeting residential area, market places, wedding dinner, mosques, churches, you've prolly vaporised 20-30M dogs and cats, those are the lucky ones, many more were left maimed and paralyzed.

Ayatollah Smith , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:55 pm GMT
19.Brás Cubas says:

"I would include here the Brazilians who, with excessive assistance from the Americans, elected an arrogant sociopath who said famously, "It's not my fault. What do you want me to do about it?""

"In Brazil, the Supreme Court has decided that governors don't have to obey the federal government on local health policies. So, it really makes no difference whether the President is Mother Theresa or Jason Voorhees. It's true that Bolsonaro tries once in a while to enact some federal regulations, but he seems to fail every time. It's odd that you don't know that fact, seeing as in the U.S. I hear things are quite similar. As for Brazilian governors, they oddly don't get the same international flak as Bolsonaro does, despite many of them being suspected of using the pandemic as an opportunity for stealing."

"This kind of inexactitude immediately throws the rest of the article under heavy suspicion. When people start spewing words like 'sociopath', it is clear to me that they have an agenda."

.

I don't normally respond to rubbish, but readers might care to look at this one because it's a classic of dishonest misrepresentation.

First, M. Cubas quotes from the article about Bolsonaro being a sociopath. He (or she, or it) then turns the subject to Brazilian governors not having to obey the federal government. Who cares? Where did that come from? Relevant to what?

Then, the author is chastised for "not knowing this fact", although we have no idea if he does or doesn't know, because this was never discussed.

M. Cubas then converts the author's supposed 'lack of knowledge' of this irrelevant bit of information, to claim that "This kind of inexactitude immediately throws the rest of the article under heavy suspicion." That is to say that if I fail to mention the process for deep-frying chicken in a conversation about bridge construction, you should assume I know nothing about deep-frying chicken, and furthermore that my failure to mention deep-frying chicken in a conversation about bridge construction should make you suspect everything I say. You got that?

Then, the word sociopath is 'spewed', and anyone who uses that word must have an 'agenda'.

But, with Bolsonaro in Brazil, when the man offers no leadership, trivialises a pandemic, takes no action to protect the population, watches more than one million citizens become infected and more than 50,000 of them die, and then says, "It's not my fault. What do you want me to do about it?", I think we have a sociopath on our hands.

And who has the 'agenda' in this case, M. Cubas?

skrik , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:51 pm GMT
@jadan

This covid19 with its growing number of strains seems likely to have escaped from a lab and it is most probably a product of US ingenuity, with cleverly engineered gain of function, but to leap to the conclusion that the US has deployed this bioweapon against China and Russia goes too far. Why would the US target its own population in the process?

To answer the last bit 1st, the rogue-state operators did not expect USA to get bitten, due to a) already having a mild form active there, and b) SARS-CoV-1 was largely contained in Asia (84% of all deaths in Mainland China and Hong Kong).

Note that Forster found only a few occurrences of the A-strain, closest may have been 50km SE of Wuhan; the overwhelming majority of Chinese infections being B-strain. Now a new-to-China strain has somehow 'arrived' in Beijing (termed 'older' in headline article). The people who 'built' the Covid-19 causing virus = SARS-CoV-2 know exactly what they've done, and it is my thesis that when the PRRA insert was recognised in Wuhan, that was the moment the Chinese knew they were under attack, and the rest of the chaos ensued. Any alleging 'scam' must explain why Russia and Iran, say, play along. rgds

Robert Dolan , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:15 pm GMT
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/gary-d-barnett/they-have-ruined-this-country-and-are-now-coming-for-your-property-mind-and-soul-defend-yourself/
Mefobills , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:16 pm GMT
@Mustapha Mond Good comment Mustapha.

The banality of evil is often not known until revisionist historians are able to make connections post facto. In the moment people do not have enough information to make informed decisions.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Rove

"That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

For example, during the French Revolution most of the participants had no idea of what a Jacobian was.

Or, during the Bolshevik Revolution, most participants had no idea of who Kuhn and Loeb was.

Or, before WW1 was the machinations of the Milner Group known?

Or, before WW2, the machinations of Zionists to get Balfour.

Or, how Focus group had gotten to Churchill with loans.

Why the evil? It is usually hidden string pullers who are afraid of losing their vaunted position in ruling hierarchy. They may actually think they are doing good, because doing good is defined as "what is good for me, or my in-group."

Jake , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:19 pm GMT
@Nikola Zrinski The ADL and SPLC always raise funds by paying people, virtually all of them Jews, to write or orate things like your comment. They then send the 'anti-Semitic' outburst to the hordes of gullible Jews and white liberals and ask for money that is required to fight anti-Semitism.
Sam J. , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:26 pm GMT
@Mustapha Mond

If we or the Chinese are going to stop this we're going to have to get rid of the Jews. The Jews are the only people that profit from this. If this or one of their other viruses kills one of your family then the Jews have directly killed your family.

A vast amount of the problems we have could be sewed up in very quick order if we got rid of the Jews.

Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:26 pm GMT
@mike99588 I'm not keen on a lot of stuff from China, but your comment lacks perspective.
What happened with the melamine milk scandal that killed 6 and damaged approximately 300k? The perp was tried and executed. What has happened in the US with oxyContin which has caused tens of thousands of deaths and ruined up to a million more? Nothing of consequence. The lead paint in/on Marx toys? China – people responsible committed suicide knowing they would be executed. US – Gee we didn't know, why would we test products to ensure they were being made properly?

China today is where Japan was in the late 60s and Korea in the late 80s. Huge capacity not so good quality. Japanese and Korean cars used to be crap, now they are the most reliable. US cars used to be the most reliable, now they are crap. The same goes for electronics and even washing machines today.
China will only get better, just as the Japanese and Koreans did. The orientals have a better sense of "the whole" of the population benefiting. The US, and most of (((the West))) lost that concept long ago.

Current Commenter

[Jun 24, 2020] Behind the veil of the protest movement, the war on the American people is gaining pace by Mike Whitney

Notable quotes:
"... It's because the Democrats think that kowtowing to BLM will give them the winning edge in the November balloting. That's what it's all about. That's why they draped themselves in Kente cloth and knelt for the cameras. They think their black constituents are too stupid to see through their groveling fakery. They think that blacks will forget that Joe Biden pushed through legislation "which eliminated parole for federal prisoners and limited the amount of time sentences could be reduced for good behavior." ..."
"... The stupidity of the Dems was shown this week when they agreed to three Biden/Trump debates. They should leave him in his basement and hope for the best. They feature political ads where Biden slurs his speech! These are professionals, so it tells me they spent all day and did 40 takes and this was the best he could do. The election will be great comedy, or perhaps ..."
"... Clinton is the best evidence that certain people agree to be blackmailed in exchange for power, as Andrew Anglin wrote this week. ..."
Jun 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

"This is not a momentary civil disturbance. This is a serious, and highly organized political movement It is deep and profound and has vast political ambitions. It is insidious, it will grow. It's goal is to end liberal democracy and challenge western civilization itself. This is an ideological movement Even now, many of us pretend this is about police brutality. We think we can fix it by regulating chokeholds or spending more on de-escalation training. We're too literal and good-hearted to understand what's happening. But we have no idea what we are up against. ..These are not protests. This is a totalitarian political movement and someone needs to save the country from it." Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson is right, the protests and riots are not a momentary civil disturbance. They are an attack the Constitutional Republic itself, the heart and soul of American democracy. The Black Lives Matter protests are just the tip of the spear, they are an expression of public outrage that is guaranteed under the first amendment. But don't be deceived, there's more here than meets the eye. BLM is funded by foundations that seek to overthrow our present form of government and install an authoritarian regime guided by technocrats, oligarchs and corporatists all of who believe that Chinese-type despotism is far-more compatible with capitalism than "inefficient" democracy. The chaos in the streets is merely the beginning of an excruciating transition from one system to another. This is an excerpt from an article by F. William Engdahl at Global Research:

"By 2016, Black Lives Matter had established itself as a well-organized network .. That year the Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy announced the formation of the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF), "a six-year pooled donor campaign aimed at raising $100 million for the Movement for Black Lives coalition" in which BLM was a central part. By then Soros foundations had already given some $33 million in grants to the Black Lives Matter movement .. ..

The BLMF identified itself as being created by top foundations including in addition to the Ford Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and the Soros Open Society Foundations." ( "America's Own Color Revolution ", Global Research)

$100 million is alot of money. How has that funding helped BLM expand its presence in politics and social media? How many activists and paid employees operate within the network disseminating information, building new chapters, hosting community outreach programs, and fine-tuning an emergency notification system that allows them to put tens of thousands of activists on the streets in cities across the country at a moment's notice? Isn't that what we've seen for the last three weeks, throngs of angry protestors swarming in more than 400 cities across America all at the beck-and-call of a shadowy group whose political intentions are still not clear?

And what about the rioting, looting and arson that broke out in numerous cities following the protests? Was that part of the script too? Why haven't BLM leaders condemned the destruction of private property or offered a public apology for the downtown areas that have been turned into wastelands? In my own hometown of Seattle, the downtown corridor– which once featured Nordstrom, Pottery Barn and other upscale retail shops– is now a checkerboard of broken glass, plywood covers and empty streets all covered in a thick layer of garish spray-paint. The protest leaders said they wanted to draw attention to racial injustice and police brutality. Okay, but how does looting Nordstrom help to achieve that goal?

And what role have the Democrats played in protest movement?

They've been overwhelmingly supportive, that's for sure. In fact, I can't think of even one Democrat who's mentioned the violence, the looting or the toppling of statues. Why is that?

It's because the Democrats think that kowtowing to BLM will give them the winning edge in the November balloting. That's what it's all about. That's why they draped themselves in Kente cloth and knelt for the cameras. They think their black constituents are too stupid to see through their groveling fakery. They think that blacks will forget that Joe Biden pushed through legislation "which eliminated parole for federal prisoners and limited the amount of time sentences could be reduced for good behavior."

According to the Black Agenda Repor t: "Biden and (South Carolina's Strom) Thurmond joined hands to push 1986 and 1988 drug enforcement legislation that created the nefarious sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine as well as other draconian measures that implicate him as one of the initiators of what became mass incarceration. " Biden also spearheaded "the attacks on Anita Hill when she came forward to testify against the supreme court nominee Clarence Thomas". All told, Biden's record on race is much worse than Trump's despite the media's pathetic attempts to portray Trump as Adolph Hitler. It's just more bunkum from the dissembling media.

Bottom line: The Democrats think they can ride racial division and social unrest all the way to the White House. That's what they are betting on.

So, yes, the Dems are exploiting the protests for political advantage, but it goes much deeper than that. After all, we know from evidence that was uncovered during the Russiagate investigation, that DNC leaders are intimately linked to the Intel agencies, law enforcement (FBI), and the elite media. So it's not too much of a stretch to assume that these deep state agents and assets work together to shape the narrative that they think gives them the best chance of regaining power. Because, that's what this is really all about, power. Just as Russiagate was about power (removing the president using disinformation, spies, surveillance and other skulduggery.), and just as the Covid-19 fiasco was essentially about power (collapsing the economy while imposing medical martial law on the population.), so too, the BLM protest movement is also about power, the power to inflict massive damage on the country's main urban centers with the intention of destabilizing the government, restructuring the economy and paving the way for a Democratic victory in November. It's all about power, real, unalloyed political muscle.

Surprisingly, one of the best critiques of what is currently transpiring was written by Niles Niemuth at the World Socialist Web Site. Here's what he said about the widespread toppling of statues:

"The attacks on the monuments were pioneered by the increasingly frenzied attempt by the Democratic Party and the New York Times to racialize American history, to create a narrative in which the history of mankind is reduced to the history of racial struggle. This campaign has produced a pollution of democratic consciousness, which meshes entirely with the reactionary political interests driving it.

It is worth noting that the one institution seemingly immune from this purge is the Democratic Party, which served as the political wing of the Confederacy and, subsequently, the KKK.

This filthy historical legacy is matched only by the Democratic Party's contemporary record in supporting wars that, as a matter of fact, primarily targeted nonwhites. Democrats supported the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and under Obama destroyed Libya and Syria. The New York Times was a leading champion and propagandist for all of these war." ( "Hands off the monuments to Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Grant!, WSWS)

What the author is referring to is The 1619 Project, which is a racialized version of American history that was published by the Times on August 19, 2019. The deliberately-distorted version of history was cobbled together in anticipation of increasing social unrest and racial antagonism. The rioting, looting and vast destruction of America's urban core can all be traced back to a document that postulates that the country was founded on racial hatred and exploitation. In other words, The 1619 Project provides the perfect ideological justification for the chaos and violence that has torn the country apart for the last three weeks. This is an excerpt from an article at the World Socialist Web Site:

"The essays featured in the magazine are organized around the central premise that all of American history is rooted in race hatred -- specifically, the uncontrollable hatred of "black people" by "white people." Hannah-Jones writes in the series' introduction: "Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country. "

This is a false and dangerous conception. DNA is a chemical molecule that contains the genetic code of living organisms and determines their physical characteristics and development . Hannah-Jones's reference to DNA is part of a growing tendency to derive racial antagonisms from innate biological processes .where does this racism come from? It is embedded, claims Hannah-Jones, in the historical DNA of American "white people." Thus, it must persist independently of any change in political or economic conditions .

. No doubt, the authors of The Project 1619 essays would deny that they are predicting race war, let alone justifying fascism. But ideas have a logic; and authors bear responsibility for the political conclusions and consequences of their false and misguided arguments." ("The New York Times's 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world history", World Socialist Web Site)

Keep in mind, this essay in the WSWS was written a full year before BLM protests broke out across the country. Was Hannah-Jones enlisted to create a document that would provide the dry tinder for the massive and coordinated demonstrations that have left the country stunned and divided?

Probably, after all, (as noted above) the author's theory is that one race is genetically programed to exploit the other. ( "Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country. ") Well, if we assume that whites are genetically and irreversibly "racist", then we must also assume that the country that these whites founded is racist and evil. Thus, the only logical remedy for this situation, is to crush the white segment of the population, destroy their symbols, icons, and history, and replace the system of government with one that better reflects the values of the emerging non-Caucasian majority. Simply put, The Project 1619 creates the rationale for sustained civil unrest, deepening political polarization and violent revolution.

The 1619 Project is a calculated provocation meant to exacerbate racial animosities and pave the way to open conflagration. And it has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest imagination. The nation is split into warring camps while Washington has devolved into fratricidal warfare. Was that the objective, to destabilize the country in preparation for the dissolution of the current system followed by a fundamental restructuring of the government consistent with the identity politics lauded by the Democrats?

The Democrats, the Intel agencies and the media are all in bed together fomenting unrest with the intention of decimating the economy, crushing the emerging opposition and imposing their despotic one-party system on all of us. Here's a clip from a piece by Paul Craig Roberts that sums up the role of the New York Times in inciting race-based violence:

"The New York Times editorial board covers up the known indisputable truth with their anti-white "1619 project," an indoctrination program to inculcate hatred of white people in blacks and guilt in white people.

Why does the New York Times lie, brainwash blacks into hatred of whites, and attempt to brainwash whites into guilt for the creation of a New World labor force four centuries ago? Why do Americans tolerate the New York Times fomenting of racial hatred in a multicultural society?

The New York Times is a vile organization. The New York Times attempts to discredit the President of the United States and did all it could to frame him on false charges. The New York Times painted General Flynn, who honorably served the US, as a Russian agent and enabled General Flynn's frame-up on false and now dropped charges. The New York Times spews hatred of white people. And now the New York Times accuses the American military of celebrating white supremacism.

Does America have a worse enemy than the New York Times? The New York Times is clearly and intentionally making a multicultural America impossible . By threatening white people with the prospect of hate-driven racial violence, the New York Times editorial board is fomenting the rise of white supremacy." ( "The New York Times Editorial Board Is a Threat to Multicultural America ", The Unz Review)

The editors of the Times don't hate whites, they are merely attacking the growing number of disillusioned white working people who have left the Democratic party in frustration due to their globalist policies regarding trade, immigration, offshoring, outsourcing and the relentless hollowing out of the nation's industrial core . The Dems have abandoned these people altogether and –now that they realize they will never be able to lure them back into their camp– they've decided to wage a full-blown, scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners war on them. They've decided to crush them mercilessly and fill their ranks with multi-ethnic, bi-racial groups that will work for pennies on the dollar. (which will keep the Dems corporate supporters happy.) So, no, the Times does not hate white people. What they hate is the growing populist movement that derailed Hillary Clinton and put anti-globalist Trump in the White House. That's the real target of this operation, the disillusioned throng of working people who have washed their hands of the Democrats for good. Here's more background from Paul Craig Roberts:

"On August 12 Dean Baquet, executive editor of the New York Times, met with the Times' employees to refocus the Times' attack on Trump . The Times, Baquet said, is shifting from Trump-Russia to Trump's racism. The Times will spend the run-up to the 2020 presidential election building the Trump-is-a-racist narrative. Of course, if Trump is a racist it means that the people who elected him are also racists. Indeed, in Baquet's view, Americans have always been racist. To establish this narrative, the New York Times has launched the "1619 Project," the purpose of which is "to reframe the country's history."

According to the Washington Examiner, "The basic thrust of the 1619 Project is that everything in American history is explained by slavery and race. The message is woven throughout the first publication of the project, an entire edition of the Times magazine. It begins with an overview of race in America -- 'Our democracy's founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.'

The premise that America originated as a racist slave state is to be woven into all sections of the Times -- news, business, sports, travel, the entire newspaper. The project intends to take the "reframing" of the United States into the schools where white Americans are to be taught that they are racist descendants of slave holders. A participant in this brainwashing of whites, which will make whites guilty and defenseless, says "this project takes wing when young people are able to read this and understand the way that slavery has shaped their country's history." In other words, the New York Times intends to make slavery the ONLY explanation of America.

At the meeting of the executive editor of the New York Times with the Times' employees to refocus the Times' attack on President Trump, Baquet said: "Race in the next year is going to be a huge part of the American story." ( "Is White Genocide Possible? ", The Unz Review)

Repeat: "Race in the next year is going to be a huge part of the American story." Either Baquet has a crystal ball or he had a pretty good idea of the way in which the 1619 Project was going to be used . I suspect it was the latter.

For the last 3 and a half years, Democrats and the media have ridiculed anyone who opposes their globalist policies as racist, fascist, misogynist, homophobic, Bible-thumping, gun-toting, flag-waving, Nascar boosting, white nationalist "deplorables". Now they have decided to intensify the assault on mainly white working people by preemptively destroying the economy, destabilizing the country, and spreading terror far and wide. It's another vicious psy-ops campaign designed to thoroughly demoralize and humiliate the enemy who just happen to be the American people. Here's more form the WSWS:

" It is no coincidence that the promotion of this racial narrative of American history by the Times, the mouthpiece of the Democratic Party and the privileged upper-middle-class layers it represents, comes amid the growth of class struggle in the US and around the world.

The 1619 Project is one component of a deliberate effort to inject racial politics into the heart of the 2020 elections and foment divisions among the working class. The Democrats think it will be beneficial to shift their focus for the time being from the reactionary, militarist anti-Russia campaign to equally reactionary racial politics." (" The New York Times's 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world history " WSWS)

Can you see how the protests are being used to promote the political objectives of elites operating behind the mask of "impartial" reporting? The scheming NY Times has replaced the enlightenment principles articulated in our founding documents with a sordid tale of racial hatred and oppression. The editors seek to eliminate everything we believe as Americans so they can brainwash us into believing that we are evil people deserving of humiliation, repudiation and punishment. Here's more from the same article:

"In the months preceding these events, the New York Times, speaking for dominant sections of the Democratic political establishment, launched an effort to discredit both the American Revolution and the Civil War. In the New York Times' 1619 Project, the American Revolution was presented as a war to defend slavery, and Abraham Lincoln was cast as a garden variety racist

The attacks on the monuments to these men were pioneered by the increasingly frenzied attempt by the Democratic Party and the New York Times to racialize American history, to create a narrative in which the history of mankind is reduced to the history of racial struggle . This campaign has produced a pollution of democratic consciousness, which meshes entirely with the reactionary political interests driving it." (" The New York Times's 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world history" , WSWS)

Ideas have consequences, and the incendiary version of events disseminated by the Times has added fuel to a fire that's spread from one coast to the other. Given the damage that has been done to cities across the country, it would be nice to know how Dean Baquet knew that "race was going to play a huge part" in upcoming events? It's all very suspicious. Here's more:

" Given the 1619 Project's black nationalist narrative, it may appear surprising that nowhere in the issue do the names Malcolm X or Black Panthers appear. Unlike the black nationalists of the 1960s, Hannah-Jones does not condemn American imperialism. She boasts that "we [i.e. African-Americans] are the most likely of all racial groups to serve in the United States military," and celebrates the fact that "we" have fought "in every war this nation has waged." Hannah-Jones does not note this fact in a manner that is at all critical. She does not condemn the creation of a "volunteer" army whose recruiters prey on poverty-stricken minority youth. There is no indication that Hannah-Jones opposes the "War on Terror" and the brutal interventions in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Syria -- all supported by the Times -- that have killed and made homeless upwards of 20 million people. On this issue, Hannah-Jones is remarkably "color-blind." She is unaware of, or simply indifferent to, the millions of "people of color" butchered and made refugees by the American war machine in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa." (" The New York Times's 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world histor y", WSWS)

So, black nationalists like Malcolm X and the Black Panthers are excluded from the The 1619 Project's narrative, but the author boasts that blacks "are the most likely of all racial groups to serve in the US military"?? How does that happen unless Hannah-Jones was coached by Democrat leaders about who should and shouldn't be included in the text? None of this passes the smell test. It all suggests that the storyline was shaped by people who had a specific goal in mind. That isn't history, it's fiction written by people who have an ax to grind. The Times even admitted as much in response to the blistering criticism by five of "the most widely read and respected authorities on US history." The New York Times Magazine editor in chief Jake Silverstein rejected the historians' objections saying:

"The project was intended to address the marginalization of African-American history in the telling of our national story and examine the legacy of slavery in contemporary American life. We are not ourselves historians, it is true. We are journalists, trained to look at current events and situations and ask the question: Why is this the way it is?"

WTF! "We are not ourselves historians"? That's the excuse?? Give me a break!

The truth is that there was never any attempt to provide an accurate account of events. From the very onset, the goal was to create a storyline that fit the politics, the politics of provocation, incitement, racial hatred, social unrest and violence. That's what the Times and their allies wanted, and that's what they got.

The Deep State Axis: CIA, DNC, NYT

The three-way alliance between the CIA, the Elite Media, and the Democratic leadership has clearly strengthened and grown since the failed Russiagate fiasco. All three parties were likely involved in the maniacal hyping of the faux-Covid pandemic which paved the way for Depression era unemployment, tens of thousands of bankrupt businesses and a sizable portion of the US population thrust into destitution. Now, these deep state loyalists are promoting a "falsified" race-based version of history that pits one group against the other while diverting attention from the deliberate destruction of the economy and the further consolidation of wealth in the hands of the 1 percent.

Behind the veil of the protest movement, the war on the American people is gaining pace.


SteveK9 , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 2:02 am GMT

Stopped reading the Times after the buildup to the Iraq War, when it was clear they were lying. Everyone please stop reading the Times, and in particular stop referring to what they are writing. Act like they don't exist. If enough do, they won't.
FB , says: Website Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 4:22 am GMT
Stopped reading when I got to 'Chinese despotism'

Whitney used to have something to say, but his scribblings now go straight to the bottom of the bird cage

Carlton Meyer , says: Website Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 4:22 am GMT
The stupidity of the Dems was shown this week when they agreed to three Biden/Trump debates. They should leave him in his basement and hope for the best. They feature political ads where Biden slurs his speech! These are professionals, so it tells me they spent all day and did 40 takes and this was the best he could do. The election will be great comedy, or perhaps

This is all planned. Biden will be forced to drop out and Bloomberg or even Clinton will arise.

vot tak , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 4:30 am GMT
"Tucker Carlson is right, the protests and riots are not a momentary civil disturbance. They are an attack the Constitutional Republic itself, the heart and soul of American democracy."

I am reminded of david horowitz and chrissy hitchens

And how they promoted Israeli interests after first pretending to be independent thinkers to gain creed for the switch. Standard zionazi-gay psywar tactic.

schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 4:42 am GMT
@Carlton Meyer

The stupidity of the Dems was shown this week when they agreed to three Biden/Trump debates.

This is all planned. Biden will be forced to drop out and Bloomberg or even Clinton will arise.

Stupid and planned?

Clinton is the best evidence that certain people agree to be blackmailed in exchange for power, as Andrew Anglin wrote this week. Why should DNC care if Trump is 're-elected'? And if they don't care, who not take a stab at installing an intersectional DNC pinnacle fraudster via the griftiest, most insulting, infuriating way possible? They can't lose.

[Jun 23, 2020] Victoria Nuland Alert by Philip Giraldi

Jun 23, 2020 | www.unz.com

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/victoria-nuland-alert/ The Unz Review - Mobile The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media User Settings: Version? Social Media? Read Aloud w/ Show Word Counts No Video Autoplay No Infinite Scrolling
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More... Main Features Masthead Announcements Search Books Forum Podcasts Videos Periodicals Most Popular Current Digest Comment Archives College Data ← America's Recessional: Time to Bring ... Blogview Philip Giraldi Archive Blogview Philip Giraldi Archive Victoria Nuland Alert The foreign interventionists really hate Russia Philip Giraldi June 23, 2020 1,900 Words 148 Comments 147 New Reply Tweet Reddit Share Share Email Print More Listen ॥ ■ ► RSS Email This Page to Someone
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It is difficult to find anything good to say about Donald Trump, but the reality is that he has not started any new wars, though he has come dangerously close in the cases of Venezuela and Iran and there would be considerable incentive in the next four months to begin something to bolster his "strong president" credentials and to serve as a distraction from coronavirus and black lives matter.

Be that as it may, Trump will have to run hard to catch up to the record set by his three predecessors Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Bush was an out-and-out neoconservative, or at least someone who was easily led, including in his administration Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Reuel Gerecht, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Eliot Abrams, Dan Senor and Scooter Libby. He also had the misfortune of having to endure Vice President Dick Cheney, who thought he was actually the man in charge. All were hawks who believed that the United States had the right to do whatever it considered necessary to enhance its own security, to include invading other countries, which led to Afghanistan and Iraq, where the U.S. still has forces stationed nearly twenty years later.

Clinton and Obama were so-called liberal interventionists who sought to export something called democracy to other countries in an attempt to make them more like Peoria. Clinton bombed Afghanistan and Sudan as a diversion when the press somehow caught wind of his arrangement with Monica Lewinsky and Obama, aided by Mrs. Clinton, chose to destroy Libya. Obama was also the first president to set up a regular Tuesday morning session to review a list of American citizens who would benefit from being killed by drone.

So the difference between neocons and liberal interventionists is one of style rather than substance. And, by either yardstick all-in-all, Trump looks pretty good, but there has nevertheless been a resurgence of neocon-think in his administration. The America the exceptional mindset is best exemplified currently by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who personifies the belief that the United States is empowered by God to play only by its own rules when dealing with other nations. That would include following the advice that has been attributed to leading neocon Michael Ledeen, " Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business. "

One of the first families within the neocon/liberal interventionist firmament is the Kagans, Robert and Frederick. Frederick is a Senior Fellow at the neocon American Enterprise Institute and his wife Kimberly heads the bizarrely named Institute for the Study of War. Victoria Nuland, wife of Robert, is currently the Senior Counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. That means that Victoria aligns primarily as a liberal interventionist, as does her husband, who is also at Brookings. She is regarded as a protégé of Hillary Clinton and currently works with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who once declared that killing 500,000 Iraqi children using sanctions was "worth it." Nuland also has significant neocon connections through her having been a member of the staff assembled by Dick Cheney.

Nuland, many will recall, was the driving force behind efforts to destabilize the Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych in 2013-2014. Yanukovych, an admittedly corrupt autocrat, nevertheless became Prime Minister after a free election. Nuland, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, provided open support to the Maidan Square demonstrators opposed to Yanukovych's government, to include media friendly appearances passing out cookies on the square to encourage the protesters.

Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. It is hard to imagine that any U.S. administration would tolerate a similar attempt by a foreign nation to interfere in U.S. domestic politics, particularly if it were backed by a $5 billion budget , but Washington has long believed in a global double standard for evaluating its own behavior.

Nuland is most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create in Ukraine. For Nuland, the replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp break and escalating conflict with the real enemy, Moscow, over Russia's attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea.

And make no mistake about Nuland's broader intention at that time to expand the conflict and directly confront Russia. In Senate testimony she cited how the administration was "providing support to other frontline states like Moldova and Georgia." Her use of the word "frontline" is suggestive.

Victoria Nuland was playing with fire. Russia, as the only nation with the military capability to destroy the U.S., was and is not a sideshow like Saddam Hussein's Iraq or the Taliban's Afghanistan. Backing Moscow into a corner with no way out by using threats and sanctions is not good policy. Washington has many excellent reasons to maintain a stable relationship with Moscow, including counter-terrorism efforts, and little to gain from moving in the opposite direction. Russia is not about to reconstitute the Warsaw Pact and there is no compelling reason to return to a Cold War footing by either arming Ukraine or permitting it to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Victoria Nuland has just written a long article for July/August issue of Foreign Affairs magazine on the proper way for the United States manage what she sees as the Russian "threat." It is entitled "How a Confident America Should Deal With Russia." Foreign Affairs , it should be observed, is an establishment house organ produced by the Council on Foreign Relations which provides a comfortable perch for both neocons and liberal interventionists.

Nuland's view is that the United States lost confidence in its own "ability to change the game" against Vladimir Putin, who has been able to play "a weak hand well because the United States and its allies have let him, allowing Russia to violate arms control treaties, international law, the sovereignty of its neighbors, and the integrity of elections in the United States and Europe Washington and its allies have forgotten the statecraft that won the Cold War and continued to yield results for many years after. That strategy required consistent U.S. leadership at the presidential level, unity with democratic allies and partners, and a shared resolve to deter and roll back dangerous behavior by the Kremlin. It also included incentives for Moscow to cooperate and, at times, direct appeals to the Russian people about the benefits of a better relationship. Yet that approach has fallen into disuse, even as Russia's threat to the liberal world has grown."

What Nuland writes would make perfect sense if one were to share her perception of Russia as a rogue state threatening the "liberal world." She sees Russian rearmament under Putin as a threat even though it was dwarfed by the spending of NATO and the U.S. She shares her fear that Putin might seek " reestablishing a Russian sphere of influence in eastern Europe and from vetoing the security arrangements of his neighbors. Here, a chasm soon opened between liberal democracies and the still very Soviet man leading Russia, especially on the subject of NATO enlargement. No matter how hard Washington and its allies tried to persuade Moscow that NATO was a purely defensive alliance that posed no threat to Russia, it continued to serve Putin's agenda to see Europe in zero-sum terms."

Nuland's view of NATO enlargement is so wide of the mark that it borders on being a fantasy. Of course, Russia would consider a military alliance on its doorstep to be a threat, particularly as a U.S. Administration had provided assurances that expansion would not take place. She goes on to suggest utter nonsense, that Putin's great fear over the NATO expansion derives from his having " always understood that a belt of increasingly democratic, prosperous states around Russia would pose a direct challenge to his leadership model and risk re-infecting his own people with democratic aspirations."

Nuland goes on and on in a similar vein, but her central theme is that Russia must be confronted to deter Vladimir Putin, a man that she clearly hates and depicts as if he were a comic book version of evil. Some of her analysis is ridiculous, as "Russian troops regularly test the few U.S. forces left in Syria to try to gain access to the country's oil fields and smuggling routes. If these U.S. troops left, nothing would prevent Moscow and Tehran from financing their operations with Syrian oil or smuggled drugs and weapons."

Like most zealots, Nuland is notably lacking in any sense of self-criticism. She conspired to overthrow a legitimately elected democratic government in Ukraine because it was considered too friendly to Russia. She accuses the Kremlin of having "seized" Crimea, but fails to see the heavy footprint of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq and as a regional enabler of Israeli and Saudi war crimes. One wonders if she is aware that Russia, which she sees as expansionistic, has only one overseas military base while the United States has more than a thousand.

Nuland clearly chooses not to notice the White House's threats against countries that do not toe the American line, most recently Iran and Venezuela, but increasingly also China on top of perennial enemy Russia. None of those nations threaten the United States and all the kinetic activity and warnings are forthcoming from a gentleman named Mike Pompeo, speaking from Washington, not from "undemocratic" leaders in the Kremlin, Tehran, Caracas or Beijing.

Victoria Nuland recommends that "The challenge for the United States in 2021 will be to lead the democracies of the world in crafting a more effective approach to Russia -- one that builds on their strengths and puts stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own citizens." Interestingly, that might be regarded as seeking to interfere in the workings of a foreign government, reminiscent of the phony case made against Russia in 2016. And it is precisely what Nuland did in fact do in Ukraine.

Nuland has a lot more to say in her article and those who are interested in the current state of interventionism in Washington should not ignore her. Confronting Russia as some kind of ideological enemy is a never-ending process that leaves both sides poorer and less free. It is appropriate for Moscow to have an interest in what goes on right on top of its border while the United States five thousand miles away and possessing both a vastly larger economy and armed forces can, one would think, relax a bit and unload the burden of being the world's self-appointed policeman.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .


Carlton Meyer , says: Website Show Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:18 am GMT

This is a great overview, but Americans cannot understand these truths after hours of constant propaganda in our media. For example, Hillary Clinton and President Obama destroyed and looted Africa's most prosperous nation in 2011 that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths of innocents. This is not in dispute, it is just ignored despite daily stories about the chaos in Libya. Imagine if Black Lives Matters dared protest against this destruction and looting of Africa's wealthiest nation and demanded that Clinton and Obama be arrested for war crimes.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/n5Lh4HUyudk?feature=oembed

Zarathustra , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:45 am GMT
Fact is that many leaders in history did solve the inside problems of their country by outside war.
There is certainly a bit of elevated temperature.
anon [437] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:47 am GMT
Thank you for another great article.

but
there is one thing

You wrote:

" It is hard to imagine that any U.S. administration would tolerate a similar attempt by a foreign nation to interfere in U.S. domestic politics, particularly if it were backed by a $5 billion budget, "

As you yourself have pointed out, more than once, in fact, there actually is a foreign country which, more than, interferes in U.S. domestic policy, some would estimate, effectively controls it, and foreign policy, as well.

While it would a bit of an effort to monetize the full amount spent on this effort, I personally would not be a bit surprised if it were significantly larger than $5 billion, and despite that, one could imagine, quite a bargain in terms of their ROI; it could in fact be considerably less than the overt transfer of sovereign U.S. wealth to that foreign government every year.

The past administrations, either every one, or almost every one, going back as far as Truman, certainly , but the trend was already well established during the puppet presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

I'd love to read your rejoinder.

onetribe
being blocked incorrectly from using my usual handle

Ultrafart the Brave , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:56 am GMT
@Carlton Meyer

Imagine if Black Lives Matters dared protest against this destruction and looting of Africa's wealthiest nation and demanded that Clinton and Obama be arrested for war crimes.

An admirable sentiment, except that the BLM movement appears to be little more than a vehicle for staged chaos nurtured behind the scenes by more war criminals with a hidden agenda.

And more's the pity, because there are hordes of high-ranking war criminals in the Exceptional Nation that richly deserve burning at the stake. In the Libyan context, Muammar Gaddafi was not only a great leader but also a good man, who was doing great things not only for his own people but also for the community of African nations.

If you're going to have a dictator, make sure you get a good one. Gaddafi was a good one.

Trump not so much, but Clinton was and is horrifically evil.

Alfred , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:05 am GMT
The war against Russia has been going on for centuries. Nothing upsets these nutters more than the Russians insulating themselves from the mental virus that has proliferated in the West.

Just read the sour grapes of the usual suspects in this derogatory article. Similar in tone to the nonsense at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. Nothing amuses me more than to watch them vomiting on themselves in frustration.

Moscow, low-key consecration of Victory Cathedral; Catholics denied another church

Anon [233] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:06 am GMT
Nuland's views are, as stated in the article, dangerous fantasy-one could almost accuse her of having psychopathic voices in her head with respect to russia and putin.

It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that this woman was close to the top level in state under obama but we can surely see her handiwork in the devastation of the ukraine nation.

Biff , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:13 am GMT
@Carlton Meyer

Imagine if Black Lives Matters dared protest against this destruction and looting of Africa's wealthiest nation and demanded that Clinton and Obama be arrested for war crimes.

My imagination:
An agitator is planted inside BLM, and is armed and equipped to carry out a terrorist attack on the American people as false flag event – blows up a weight-watchers convention, next to a Wal-mart, and puts a half-a-dozen fat bodies into orbit circling the globe(celestial bodies). After said attack BLM is defunded, and disbanded(but the race war continues).

Chris Moore , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:34 am GMT
You forgot to mention that virtually all of the neocon/liberal interventionist "intellectuals"on your list identify as Jewish, which means they see themselves as having Hebrew backgrounds, which not only gives them an Israel First/Zionist orientation, but which means their hatred of "anti-Semitic" Russia is pathological and ancestral, which means their hatred of "anti-Semitic" Europeans is pathological and ancestral, which means their hatred of "anti-Semitic" white people is pathological and ancestral, which means their desire for nuclear war between whites is pathological and ancestral, which means they believe they can win a nuclear war (perhaps by sheltering in bunker state Israel) and emerge as the anointed "chosen" intellectual priest class of the world

So there is a kind of internal logic or rationalism to their insanity, in the same way that any insular, imperious elite suffering from megalomania and delusions of grandeur can develop internal, echo chamber "logic" that is (objectively) insane. The difference is, their insane "logic" is additionally sanctioned by their particular God or their particular History or their version of God/History.

Hence, with this cult, we not only get insular, echo-chamber imperialism, but we additionally get quasi-religious, messianic fanaticism that will view any nuclear war as pre-ordained fate in service of delivering the Chosen Ones to the world.

And half of America thinks Trump is nuts? It should look at the "intellectual Jews" it's so desperate to consign its fate to.

ThreeCranes , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:35 am GMT
Posturing. What else can this be, coming from the lips of a Jewish woman? It all just sounds so ridiculous. What authority does she have? Only the threat of force, reckless force dispensed with abandon. That's not authority. It's insanity.
Mr. Hack , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:35 am GMT
Another critique of US foreign policy regarding Russia, all referenced under the famous "cookies and milk" response of Ms. Nuland in Kyiv. Lucky for Russia that she wasn't doling out scoops of ice cream instead?

For Nuland, the replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp break and escalating conflict with the real enemy, Moscow, over Russia's attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea.

I applaud the US response of supporting Ukraine's aspirations for a freer more Western oriented country and that it continues to support Ukraine's territorial interests over those of Russia's. It's time for the Giraldis and Cohens of the world to shed their Russian fig leaf covering and be exposed as the gutless appeasers that they really are.

Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:41 am GMT
Victoria Nuland (her family name formerly Nudelman) and her blood-thirsty, thieving zionist neocon buddies would love nothing more than to tear Russia apart and finish the rape and plunder of that country first begun under Russia's 'reformer' president, the idiot Yeltsin, wherein mostly jewish Russian and American oligarchs systematically stole what amounts to about $330 billion dollars of Russia's wealth.

That these zionist neocon murderers and thieves would put the world at risk to achieve their goals is no surprise, as one need only look at the 3,000+ innocent American lives, including many Jews, that were snuffed out on 9/11, all to set the stage for the US and allies' "War of Terror" against mainly the enemies of Israel, and to line the pockets of the ever-growing Military-Information-Security Complex. Innocent lives mean absolutely nothing to these monsters.

The campaign against Russia is simply another necessary link in the chain that binds the world to the PNAC vision of using the US and the West to establish and maintain what is essentially a Jewish supremacist movement that barely conceals itself and its nefarious agenda from the useful idiot goyim so necessary to carry forward the PNAC's plan for world domination. And the chubby little Ms Nudelman is just another tireless zionist mouthpiece for this ugly, obnoxious and risky agenda

Mr. Hack , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:47 am GMT
Giraldi would have us believe that it was all a US sponsored provocation, not the natural outcry of the Ukrainiain people seeking change from a thoroughly corrupt and authoritarian regime. Ms.Nuland's cookies must have tasted really good to get the massive outpouring of support in Kiev that demanded systemic change.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-nNFrvGOb9o?feature=oembed

chris , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:11 am GMT
A major indicator of how long-term foreign policy goals are actually set by the US was revealed when Obama declared Venezuela a threat to national security in 2015!
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-declares-venezuela-national-security-threat-imposes-sanctions

Venezuela? A threat to US national security?? Sounds completely absurd.

But if you consider your 'national security' being threatened whenever any scarce natural resources in the world are not in your or in your client states' posession, then anthing which interferes with that is a "threat!" Iran (before 2003), Iraq, and Russia certainly fit the bill of being enemies.

This explanation, for me, is much more realistic than to think the neocons are solely driven by cold war mentalities.

The neocons are particularly peeved at Russia because through their oligarchs, they had the crown jewels in their hand before Putin wrested it out. It was always clear from the beginning that the overthrow of the Ukraine government was always just a stepping stone to the overthrow of Putin in Russia.

Russia is truly the mother load, with control over its natural resources, you control China, undermine the Middle Eastern Arab states and if necessary control Europe financially. Besides the direct political control you then exercise, on an economic level, the productive people of the world Germany and China then work for you.

roonaldo , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:13 am GMT
Nuland and her ilk will be spewing their dangerous nonsense and banging the drums of war like homicidal energizer bunnies until hell freezes over. Meanwhile, "from Atlantic to Pacific, the insanity is terrific," as the nation devolves in an engineered mass hysteria. As things go down the tubes, the Empire will get ever more desperate, rather than easing back a bit on the throttle. With Donald Boy and Sec. of State "Plump-piehole" egging on Israeli expansionist dreams and drone-executing whomever they please–what could possibly go wrong? I'm waiting for one, just one, European power to call bullshit on the U.S. and put a stop to this madness. Fat chance of that.

I think we are in the Empire's desperation phase. The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) report that called for and got another Pearl Harbor also spoke affectionately of creating bioweapons to target any upstart nation encroaching on U.S. hegemony. If the bastards could get away with 9/11, a most obvious inside job, what's not to like about the disruption and confusion of bioweapons? The ruthless evil we are up against is truly staggering.

Rahan , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:41 am GMT
It would be super funny, if Russian, Chinese, Serbian, Sudanese, Afghani, and Iranian diplomats now went out en mass to give out cookies to the US rioters.

Taking PR pictures with the poor oppressed black looters and antifa trannies, lecturing Washington on human rights, and pledging support to the "moderate terrorists" i.e. the democrat mayors and governors who decide to not interfere with the looting and autonomous zones.

I think this would be the most epic troll ever. Especially if Venezuela then paraded some nervous spook and declared him the "legitimate president of the United States".

Or maybe, kek, just appoint Bernie the real president. "For two elections the corrupt system has denied this true hero his rightful position. Enough! We support the people's choice!" etc. Bernie would be all: "I don't know who these people are, honest," and they'd be: "stay strong, comrade, we shall help you in your fight to become a true people's president!"

Lot , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:55 am GMT
America's most pro-Israel President, the one who moved the embassy to Jerusalem and appointed a West Bank settler dude as ambassador, has both refrained from starting wars and is gradually bringing the troops home from Afghanistan, Germany, etc.

So much for the Jihadi/leftist smear that Israel's friends promote wars.

Trump: peace through strength and loyalty to America's true friends.

Marshall Lentini , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 8:35 am GMT

Confronting Russia as some kind of ideological enemy is a never-ending process that leaves both sides poorer and less free.

Well said.

It's also really strange to portray Russia in this demonic fashion. When you see it up close, there are things you don't like or question, things that are bizarre, absurdly inefficient, and outright abhorrent, but it's far from the big threatening geopolitical beast they make it out to be. It's more of a joke which even Russians understand.

There's a phrase from the USSR that someone taught me – аналогов нет, "no analogues" or nothing comparable, referring to the quality of their military armaments, specifically rockets. Obvious nonsense pushed by the USSR to bolster faith in the populace, it lives on today in Kremlin propaganda, but is widely regarded as the bullshit it is, which is why videos containing the phrase itself are banned on YouTube Russia.

In short Russia, as a meme, is a "paper tiger" propped up largely by Washingtonian psychodrama and will-to-power. Washington doesn't want Russia out of Crimea because they love the Ukrainians; they want them out because Ukraine is a major destination for American corporate venality. Absent interference from Washington, the Kremlin might undertake some foreign adventures in neighboring countries, but for the most part would continue on its obvious path of "peacefully" melding with the Chinese economy, like everyone else.

There is no white nation free of the forces of decline set in motion by white success and the overall technological arc of history. "Russia" is nothing more than a scarecrow for the Washington establishment – which it could just as well drop, as they no longer need justifications or approval from the people – and signifies only a livid hunger for the last major market they've yet to absorb directly.

restless94110 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:04 am GMT

It is difficult to find anything good to say about Donald Trump, but the reality is that he has not started any new wars, though

It is difficult to read past an opening sentence such as this one.

I have seen it constantly. I call it the "Back-handed Trump hating fool" approach. The many writers who employ this method in their articles appear to believe that they literally have to make it clear to their readers that of course they (the writers) think Trump is a moron/cad/crook/criminal/mentally ill, BUT!!!

Then they proceed with the rest of their article.

But don't you (the reader) dare think that they think anything good about Trump!

This is childish bullshit and am I the only one who is completely sick of it?

Hey, Phil, how about you leave out the stupid back-handed Trump hating nonsense? You don't need to write it, but if you do? Have your editors cut it from your writing. It just makes you look stupid, and many won't even continue reading your article. As they should. No one deserves to be read who would write such facile, petty nonsense.

Proud_Srbin , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:07 am GMT
ANY country, real or satelite which allows ""diplomats from 5-headed beast or anglo-terrorist and marauding alliance deserve extinction.
God Bless DPRK!
Bill Jones , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:30 am GMT
Petty typo
"Nuland, who is the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, "

"is" sb was (thank god)

I too find it appalling that these people move among us.

JWalters , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:39 am GMT
If we "follow the money", Hillary's campaign was financed by the Israelis. An honest post mortem on her loss would have focused attention on the huge influence of Israeli money on American elections. The faked focus on Russian "meddling" could have been to divert any talk of election "meddling" away from Israel's truly vast "meddling". (The Israelis routinely distract by accusing others of their own crimes.) The Israelis control both the DNC and the corporate media, so "Russiagate" could roll on virtually evidence-free. Fox was allowed to criticize the "Russiagate" attack on Trump, but only to keep the kabuki conflict boiling. Neither side ever mentioned Israel's "meddling", or in any way criticized Israel. To the contrary, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity even agreed that Netanyahu would be a great American president. So why did Israeli asset John Bolton just attack Trump, after Trump has given Israel so much, including assassinating Soleimani? Maybe it's Trump's refusal to launch Israel's next war? Maybe they don't really trust Trump? Maybe because on 9/11 Trump said he didn't believe planes could have brought down the twin towers, and that explosives must have been involved? Could Trump be in a deadly dance with the Israelis, riding a tiger?
Anonymous [661] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:08 am GMT
Nuland wrote that Russia did "violate arms control treaties, international law, the sovereignty of its neighbors, and the integrity of elections in the United States " But wait a minute, doesn't she really mean Israel, not Russia?

And in retrospect, America's penchant for throwing little countries against the wall has never worked all that well. I'm thinking Cuba, Vietnam, Somalia.

Good article, Mr. Giraldi.

Larchmonter420 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:15 am GMT

Nuland, many will recall, was the driving force behind efforts to destabilize the Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych in 2013-2014. Yanukovych, an admittedly corrupt autocrat, nevertheless became Prime Minister after a free election.

Nuland might hate Russia, but Obama gave back Crimea to Russia the rightful owner on a Silver Platter. Russia has now easy access to Mediterranean Sea. Obama then invited Russia back to Syria, as the USSR was kicked out of Middle East by the Evil Kissinger after the Yom Kippur War ..

The rest is history. 20/20 is hindsight.

WHAT , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:21 am GMT
@Mr. Hack Exactly, it was a US financed provocation with a whole lot of extremely dumb stooges. Six years that have passed since prove it again and again, every day.

Whatever; "Ukraine" is not a state, "ukrainians" are not a people, "ukraininan" is just bastardized Russian/Polish mix, so to hell with this joke of a cuntry. Let Russia, Poland and Hungary partition it.

Robert Pinkerton , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:24 am GMT
A sub-set of our Jewish fellow Earth-walkers hates Russia, rodina and narod as ancestral heritage.

NATO should have been disbanded shortly after the Soviet Union fell, its bureaucrath given Certificates of Service and sent home.

Philip Giraldi , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:24 am GMT
@Bill Jones Thanks – corrected!
BL , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:57 am GMT
@anon

" It is hard to imagine that any U.S. administration would tolerate a similar attempt by a foreign nation to interfere in U.S. domestic politics, particularly if it were backed by a $5 billion budget, "

We could chalk this up to a lack of imagination on the part of our intrepid former CIA scribbler, but anyone paying even cursory attention couldn't help but conclude that the Obama administration didn't just tolerate, it choreographed, a plot against Trump in league with foreign intelligence services.

U.K., Ukraine, Italy, Australia, Russia, and, yes, Israel.

I'm confident that neither a lack of imagination or garden-variety ignorance explains Giraldi's narrative weaving. However open or obscured, staying on the remove Trump by any means necessary team remains the smart, if treasonous, play.

You'll note that Russia is included in this no doubt incomplete list. It really is a fool's errand to try to surmise for any of these foreign participants what of their actions were opportunism as opposed to resigned self-protectiveness,

But, make no mistake, every single one, foreign powers, whether allies or adversaries, and individuals and purportedly non-state entities, was promised goodies at the expense of the American national interest.

That's anyone's guess at this point. We know surveillance state bottom-feeder Glenn Simpson got at least $6M, and Stefan "Guttman" Halper about $1M. What do you think was promised to foreign powers for playing ball? In the case of Russia, unless I miss my mark, Nord Stream II was merely the down payment.

Maybe some day Giraldi will ask Brennan the contours of the deal he made Russia assistance in throwing the election to Hillary in March, 2016:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-cia/cia-boss-brennan-visited-moscow-in-early-march-interfax-idUSKCN0WU0S5

ThreeCranes , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:05 am GMT
@chris

" Russia is truly the mother load, with control over its natural resources, you control China, undermine the Middle Eastern Arab states and if necessary control Europe financially. Besides the direct political control you then exercise, on an economic level, the productive people of the world Germany and China then work for you."

Hear, hear!

Fred777 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:10 am GMT
Hold fast Russia, the globalists have nothing good in store for you.
Hapalong Cassidy , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:11 am GMT
Given all that has happened this year, I can unequivocally say that any white person who joins the US military needs to have their head examined. And a US military bereft of white people would be pretty much useless.
red rider , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:18 am GMT
Clinton actually bombed Yugoslavia/Sebia as a diversion when the press somehow caught wind of his arrangement with Monica Lewinsky.
Z-man , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:23 am GMT
Philip said:

Bush was an out-and-out neoconservative, or at least someone who was easily led,

Ok but the main reason 'Dubbya' went into Eye-Raq is because he wanted to 'get' Saddam for having gone after 'Big Daddy' Bush I. The Neochoens provided the cover.

Bill Jones said:

I too find it appalling that these people move among us.

Yes but Nudelman is also a laughable character now who's shelf life has expired, I hope.

JoaoAlfaiate , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:48 am GMT
Hoping for Peoria but getting Minneapolis and Seattle.
rienzi , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:02 pm GMT
Ignoring all arguments about who is on the side of the angels here.

There are a lot of countries that could hurt us badly in a shooting war, but we would survive, and at the end of the day, they would not. However, there is one country, and only one, that could completely erase us in a few hours, and that is Russia.

Seems insanely suicidal to run around poking the bear with a stick at every possible opportunity.

anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:03 pm GMT
For the gullible fans of Mr. Trump, who want so fervently to believe that he's trying to change anything but the rhetoric:

When I searched to confirm the name of that "diplomat" standing next to Ms. Nuland, I learned from an official website that he remains employed as such, now the face of Uncle Sam in Greece.

Geoffrey R. Pyatt, a career member of the Foreign Service, class of Career Minister, was sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to the Hellenic Republic in September 2016.

He served as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from 2013-2016, receiving the State Department's Robert Frasure Memorial Award in recognition of his commitment to peace and alleviation of human suffering in eastern Ukraine.

What should we expect of a President that would brag about luring an Iranian leader into a gangland hit with an invitation to discuss peace?

If you can't handle the truth, just hit the Troll or Disagree button.

Robjil , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:07 pm GMT
@Mr. Hack It is called fool's gold.

They were promised the EU or riches from the EU.

Yet, the leader of the coup Nuland said these immortal words to start her coup:

"F–k the EU"

Nuland knew the real deal.

She was creating a Zion colony in Ukraine and nothing more than that.

geokat62 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:13 pm GMT

All were hawks who believed that the United States had the right to do whatever it considered necessary to enhance its own security , to include invading other countries, which led to Afghanistan and Iraq, where the U.S. still has forces stationed nearly twenty years later.

Great article, Phil. May I recommend one minor edit:

All were hawks who believed that the United States had the right to do whatever it considered necessary to enhance the Jewish State's security, to include invading other countries, which led to Afghanistan and Iraq, where the U.S. still has forces stationed nearly twenty years later.

Realist , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:15 pm GMT

The foreign interventionists really hate Russia

Ya think??? Is this supposed to be newsy?

Realist , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT
@Hapalong Cassidy

Given all that has happened this year, I can unequivocally say that any white person who joins the US military needs to have their head examined.

That has been the case for decades.

Jake , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:18 pm GMT
Why do our 'foreign interventionists,' our 'permanent war for globalist perpetual peace' crusaders, our Neocons, hate Russia so thoroughly and so centrally to their very beings?

First, our imperialists are the direct descendants intellectually, spiritually, and morally of the first WASP Empire, the first Anglo-Zionist Empire: the British Empire. And they have used their high IQs that are focused on grasping the One Ring to Rule Them All to locate where the Brit WASP Empire failed to achieve its goals, which allowed the collapse starting with World War 1. They are obsessed with that because they believe that if they can achieve what the Brit WASPs failed to achieve, then they can make the Anglo-Zionist Empire 2.0 as permanent as the Roman Empire – a Thousand Year Reich.

And that is spiritually what all WASP imperialism, all Anglo-Zionist imperialism back to at least the Anglo-Saxon Puritans, is about: replacing the Roman Empire, which means replacing that which culturally led to, and was absolutely indispensable to, Christendom.

What they wish to redo and achieve that the Brit WASPs failed in is winning The Great Game: becoming total master of Eur-Asia. And that requires taking out Russia and China. In the 19th century, China was sicker than even the Ottoman Turkish Empire. To play the long game to destroy Russia, the Brit WASPs allied with the Turks to prevent Russia acting to push the Ottomans out of Europe. Brit WASP secret service in eastern Europe was focused on reducing Russia significantly right through the Bolshevik Revolution, even with Russia naively, stupidly allied with the British Empire in World War 1.

Our 'foreign interventionists' have seen Russia under Putin rise from the ashes, and they intend to destroy Russia once and for all, so they then can reduce China and win The Great Game. And thus make Anglo-Zionist Empire greater than Roman Empire.

Second, our Neocons are the spiritual and intellectual descendants not just of Trotskyites, but of all Russia-hating Jews with ties to Central and/or Eastern Europe. For them, Russia always is the evil that must be destroyed for the good of Jews.

Everything at its bedrock is about theology, is about the choice between Christ and Christendom or the Chaos of anti-Christendom.

BL , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:22 pm GMT
@BL By the way, I will give you the commanding heights Sad Story in absurdly abridged form.

China won the post-Cold War period hands down. From Tiananmen Square to Ising power on the cusp of global hegemony in a quarter century. With the US paying the bill.

While there were clear indications to any honest observer years before, Snowden's coming out signaled the public next phase of a years long operation in which the USG built a global surveillance apparatus, including not the least of Americans, and then lost the whole shebang to Russia, China and God Knows Who Else.

My view then -- and I have seen nothing to even suggest my informed speculation was wrong -- was that the sky was the limit in terms of what the powers that be would gift in terms of the national interest to protect themselves from exposure and a reckoning.

I would like anyone who disagrees to otherwise explain how USG policy became one of driving China and Russia into a strategic alliance. To say nothing of putting obviously compromised individuals, foreign assets, like Brennan at the apex of power.

Obama was also the first president to set up a regular Tuesday morning session to review a list of American citizens who would benefit from being killed by drone.

Uh huh. Read the NYT article -- Obama is no angel, but Giraldi should explain why President Obama would set up, much less publicly reveal, weekly sessions in which both he and the office of the president are grossly debased by the Director of the CIA?

geokat62 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:34 pm GMT

Zionism is the Deep State – Rick Wiles

-- TruNews™ (@TruNews) June 22, 2020

Jake , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 12:52 pm GMT
In this article, this is the most important sentence in terms of showing how doomed America is: Obama was also the first president to set up a regular Tuesday morning session to review a list of American citizens who would benefit from being killed by drone.

The DOOM is that no Liberal can ever acknowledge that as something a liberal, a sacred black liberal at that, would do without being forced to do so by white conservatives.

That insanity lies at the heart of America and has since at least the Emancipation Proclamation. It means that it is totally impossible to have a halfway meaningful 'liberal' opposition to imperialism, because imperialism is always easily cast as doing good for the downtrodden blacks and/or browns and/or yellows and/or Jews and/or Moslems.

anon [319] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:00 pm GMT
Too late, too fat, & too ugly! Nuland already lost the beauty contest for Biden's ventriloquist to Avril Haines, She-wolf of the DO. The rectal feedings will continue till morale improves!
Really No Shit , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:13 pm GMT
The "foreign interventionists" want two things: Russia's mineral riches and its good gene pool (how do you think Middle Eastern Semites became blonde hair- blue eyed people who can easily blend into the West to undermine it from within in the first place to begin with?)

And they won't stop until they get what they want, by hook or crook!

Mr. Hack , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:36 pm GMT
@Robjil Nuland was about as interested in creating a "Zion colony" of Ukraine as Ron Unz (another Jew) is in creating one at this website!
Anonymous [112] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:41 pm GMT
Clinton and Obama were so-called liberal interventionists who sought to export something called democracy to other countries in an attempt to make them more like Peoria . . .

More like the Castro District or Seattle, in fact.

BuelahMan , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:43 pm GMT
Vicky is a Dirty Woman:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/q67l4qPKbJ4?feature=oembed

A123 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:43 pm GMT

So the difference between neocons and liberal interventionists is one of style rather than substance. And, by either yardstick all-in-all, Trump looks pretty good, but there has nevertheless been a resurgence of neocon-think in his administration.

Trump fired John Bolton. Pompeo is at most a shadow of Bolton. That is rather the opposite of resurgence. If the author could let go of his #NeverTrump bias he would be able to see that Trump has run the NeoCons out of the GOP.

Trump tried to remove troops from Syria and Afghanistan and ran into Deep State obstructionism.

The Globalists tried to trick Trump into a Syria expansion by creating a Turkey/Syria battle through areas controlled by U.S. Troops. Trump refused to be manipulated and pulled U.S. Troops out of the kill sack. Does anyone still believe that myth about 'protecting Syrian oil'? Only the mentally dim accepted that ludicrous cover story. It was flimsy excuse to relocate out of the Deep State trap.

Prior U.S. administrations created huge problems in the ME by toppling Saddam and emboldening Iran's theocracy. "Cut and Run" would guarantee a nuclear arms race in the region. Trump's containment of Iranian colonial expansionism is working, albeit slowly. The Rial continues to slide (now at ~200,000 to the USD). At some point, the Iranian people will choose to get rid of their failed leaders and rejoin civilized society. Until then Trump's containment is better than a Biden invasion.
_____

Trump has fundamentally reshaped the alignment of U.S. Politics. There is only one foreign interventionist party. The SJW Globalist DNC now owns both the NeoConDemocrats and the R2P crowd. The choice this November is clear:

-- Trump -- No New Foreign Wars
-- Biden -- Invasion of Ukraine, Iran, Libya, etc.

PEACE

Desert Fox , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:50 pm GMT
Nuland is just the tip of the iceberg in the ZUS government, which is infested with zionists and has been in every administation since Wilson, they are the cause of every war since WWI right down to the middle east and in the case of the middle east wars, the zionists and Israel used their attack on the WTC to push America into the slaughter house for the greater Israel project.

Read The Protocols of Zion and the book The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed, there is laid out the zionist one world zionist government.

chris , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 1:53 pm GMT
@Rahan HAHAHA, I'm still laughing !!! That's friggin hilarious, Rahan!!!
Bernie the cowardly comrade
Bill Jones , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:00 pm GMT
@Larchmonter420 It is little noticed that those Countries consumed by the evil Soviet Union have fared much better in conserving their culture and sense of self, after they were upchucked in the early '90s, than the Champions of Democracy of the West have done under the freedom and tutelage bestowed by the US.
Funny dat.
chris , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:09 pm GMT
@Hapalong Cassidy yeah, white or straight; the worst is if you're both
AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT
Yes, Nudelman and her ilk are rabidly anti-Russian. But what they did in Ukraine revealed a very different thing: globohomo elites are mentally degenerate, they cannot foresee even immediate consequences of their moves. There was a joke in Russia that for the coup in 2014 in Kiev Obama deserves a medal "For the liberation of Crimea" (there was a medal of this name in WWII). There was another joke, that Ukraine without Crimea is like a purebred stallion without balls.

Neocons planned to make Ukraine a battering rum against Russia. They did not understand that a log rotten through and through cannot serve as a battering ram. Now they are stuck with that wreck ("you break it – you own it" rule) and don't know what to do with it. Previous US administration and DNC big shots (Biden, Pelosi, Schiff, and Co) used it mostly as a rout of stealing US taxpayers' money. Current administration does not seem to have even this use for it. The US keeps proving the age-old wisdom that when you see your enemy committing suicide, do not interfere. Putin appears to have a huge stock of popcorn.

Bill Jones , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:20 pm GMT
@BL Bezos has done extremely well for acting as China's proxy in destroying the US economy.
Give the man a medal:
onebornfree , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:21 pm GMT
"So the difference between neocons and liberal interventionists is one of style rather than substance. And, by either yardstick all-in-all, Trump looks pretty good, but there has nevertheless been a resurgence of neocon-think in his administration. "

This "just" in: "War is the health of the state" Randolph Bourne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Bourne

Meaning, if you have governments in the first place, sooner or later, you will have war, either on the people inside a country [eg the war on drugs], or on citizens of another country, or both at the same time [i.e. what we have now].

Outside of complete dissolution of all states [ preferable in my opinion, but unlikely given the general mindset of the brainwashed masses worldwide], and given the systemic need of all states everywhere for evermore wars on their own, and on others populations, the only [ imperfect, and perhaps temporary], solution I see is to 95% downsize the federal government and restore the constitution and bill of rights and to thereby restrict the federal government to its original limits, and to even design new, more effective ways to prevent the federal governments further expansion beyond those original limits/chains.

"..the very idea of the State itself is poisonous, evil, and intrinsically destructive. But, like so many bad ideas, people have come to assume it's part of the cosmic firmament, when it's really just a monstrous scam.

It's a fraud, like your belief that you have a right to free speech because of the First Amendment, or a right to be armed because of the Second Amendment. No, you don't. The U.S. Constitution is just an arbitrary piece of paper entirely apart from the fact the whole thing is now just a dead letter. You have a right to free speech and to be armed because they're necessary parts of being a free person, not because of what a political document says.

Even though the essence of the State is coercion, people have been taught to love and respect it. Most people think of the State in the quaint light of a grade school civics book. They think it has something to do with "We the People" electing a Jimmy Stewart character to represent them.

That ideal has always been a pernicious fiction, because it idealizes, sanitizes, and legitimizes an intrinsically evil and destructive institution, which is based on force. As Mao once said, political power comes out of the barrel of a gun." Doug Casey
https://www.caseyresearch.com/daily-dispatch/doug-casey-the-deep-state-is-responsible-for-all-economic-turmoil/

Regards, onebornfree

Agent76 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:22 pm GMT
Apr 27, 2017 This Is Already Putting an End to the Age of Globalization and Bankrupting the United States (2004)

For a major power, prosecution of any war that is not a defense of the homeland usually requires overseas military bases for strategic reasons. After the war is over, it is tempting for the victor to retain such bases and easy to find reasons to do so.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/orBEdPe63v0?feature=oembed

February 26, 2015 The Neoconservative Threat To World Order

Scholars from Russia and from around the world, Russian government officials, and the Russian people seek an answer as to why Washington destroyed during the past year the friendly relations between America and Russia that President Reagan and President Gorbachev succeeded in establishing.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/02/26/neoconservative-threat-world-order-paul-craig-roberts/

AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:25 pm GMT
@Bill Jones There is even funnier thing now with covid: the countries that do not toe the imperial line, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, are doing a lot better than imperial sidekicks like Brazil, Colombia, or Peru. Rephrasing old Russian saying, "tell me who is your friend, and I tell you how stupid you are".
chris , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:25 pm GMT
@Rahan To make the troll work even better, Venezuela could then send 20 guys in zodiacs to motor into DC and NY harbor to try to take over Dulles and LaGuardia airports, and when they got captured, they could just trade them for those 2 knuckleheads we sent down there. They could also claim that they're here to capture Trump; that might just get him handed over.

Rahan, you have to send your brilliant joke to CJ Hopkins and to Caitline Johnstone to get if more exposure.

Wizard of Oz , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:45 pm GMT
@anonymous You appear to be saying that a career diplomat who served in Ukraine when the US did or supported bad things there should not have been appointed as Ambassador to Greece. Is that a correct understanding of what you mean to convey? If so, how does this reflect on Trump when the appointment was made two months before he was elected?
JoaoAlfaiate , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:48 pm GMT
Before confronting the Russians, it might be a good idea to regain control of Minneapolis and Seattle ..
anonymous [400] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:52 pm GMT

So the difference between neocons and liberal interventionists is one of style rather than substance.

That's pretty much it, they just use different rhetoric to appeal to their constituencies. Might makes right; there is no other law beside bandit law. The Russians have been a barrier to the US being able to spread itself over the entire globe and rob everyone weaker than itself. The US was behind all these atrocious jihadi mercenaries even as it's pretended to be against them. The Russians stopped the US project of terror and overthrow in Syria and that's outraged the Americans who thought they could act as they pleased. Libya was destroyed by the wonderful, hip Obama who many stupid Americans still think was a nice person. But with Russia, they can huff and puff but can't blow their walls down. They have a military that can deter the Americans unlike all the other smaller victim states.

AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:53 pm GMT
@onebornfree

Meaning, if you have governments in the first place, sooner or later, you will have war,

Funny, you sound like notorious Russian politician Zhirinovsky. He said: "there is no such thing as lasting peace, there is only prolonged armistice".

Wizard of Oz , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:57 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN The second joke should be withdrawn from active service. It is that of the naughty schoolboy who will say anything for a cheap laugh – in this case "balls. A well bred gelding will win races, be just as well fed and housed as the entire stallion and much more contentedly placid.
GMC , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 2:59 pm GMT
Right after those two Israeli puppets were dancing and talking on their open lined cell phones outside on Shitskyia St. in Kyiv, Ukraine, in front of the US Embassy, Ambassador Py Rat ended up going to the US Embassy in Greece, in order screw the Greek people some more, and Cookies Nuland ended up -- F n what's left of the island of Cyprus. US Embassies are nothin more than CIA offices and only idiots would leave them in their country.
Biff , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:20 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN Another Russian joke about Ukraine – that I will probably wreck but here goes:

How come you want to attack Donbass?

Because the Russians are there.

How come you don't actually attack Donbass?

Because the Russians are really there!

EliteCommInc. , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:33 pm GMT
"She accuses the Kremlin of having "seized" Crimea, but fails to see the heavy footprint of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq and as a regional enabler of Israeli and Saudi war crimes. One wonders if she is aware that Russia, which she sees as expansionistic, has only one overseas military base while the United States has more than a thousand."

I think this is a mistake. I think Miss Nuland knows exactly how large and intense the US ft print is and belies it should be larger and more intense. There are sincere people who believe that the US must as duty make the work safe for democracy even the means of getting there is any and everything bt democratic because in the long run -- the benefits will outweigh.

and as proof of er sincerity -- it's not just Russia (Though I understand why Dr. Giraldi would like to tackle one territorial issue at a time makes sense)

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/21/china-adapting-and-improving-on-tactics-deployed-b/

Herald , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:34 pm GMT
@Chris Moore

And half of America thinks Trump is nuts? It should look at the "intellectual Jews" it's so desperate to consign its fate to.

Of course, it should look at them, that's what Trump seems to be doing.

AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:44 pm GMT
@Biff I've heard another version of this.
Ukrainians are asked:
– If you believe that Crimea belongs to you, why don't you fight for it?
– We are not stupid, Russian troops are there.
– But you say that there are Russian troops in Donbass, yet you fight.
– That's what we say, but in Crimea there really are Russian troops.
Rahan , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:48 pm GMT
@chris
Thank you for the kind words, Chris,
You're very welcome to share the gist of the joke anywhere you like, and add to it whatever you think works:)
peter mcloughlin , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:51 pm GMT
I agree that "backing Moscow into a corner with no way out" is a dangerous strategy. This is not the Cold War: in the Cold War the United States and USSR were able to keep peace, a balance of power, an equilibrium where neither side's vital interests were threatened. Russia had a buffer zone: not today. America was at the height of its global economic power: today it is being overtaken by China. In the Cold War the big powers avoided nuclear Armageddon – though at times appeared to come close – because they were able to. The misguided thinking today is: "we got through the Cold War we can get this". This is not a re-run of 1945-1991: it is the lead-in to the holocaust that period skillfully avoided.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
GMC , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:54 pm GMT
@Mr. Hack I was in Ukraine and was a resident in 2008 even. Yanuk was a thief, but this was SOP in Kyiv – how do you think they all get rich ? Sure the people were protesting about corruption, but anyone who was really there know how easy it was to spread the riot when the western neo nazis are bussed in, the " cookies" end up being money paid to certain groups and out of work peasants. Yanuk was trying to short sell Ukraine's farmland etc. to many corporations and countries. He was taking money from Monsanto, Carghill, Dupont, John Deere/ Iowa Univ. and even China started to build a deep water port in Crimea , in order to grow on the 200,000 hectares they wanted to lease. Russia always gave the Ukies a decent loan or gaz price { esp. for Princess Jewish Tymoshenko who up the price for her takings }, not to mention the million or so that worked in Ru. A Perfect storm , for as far back as when , in 2005, Senator B Obama , brought 40 million in cash to Donetsk, in order to de- arm the Ukrainian military. This Maidan and Ukrainian plan was well planned – decade or two earlier – Pravda !
Herald , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 3:56 pm GMT
@Bill Jones China's proxy?
Shaman911 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:00 pm GMT
For one thing. PRESIDENTS of any country "DO NOT START WARS" It's always Jewish Bankers.
Nuland is Jewish so what else is there to talk about?
Alfa158 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:13 pm GMT
Mr. Giraldi ; do you think Vicky is angling for the Secretary of State position in the upcoming Biden administration?
Have you given any thought to who Biden will be told to select for the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Advisor slots where they will be leading the charge for war?
I think it is possible that Bolton may have been angling for one of those spots with his current book tour, but that has obviously blown up in his face.
Really No Shit , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:15 pm GMT
@BuelahMan Dirty Vicky wanted to do statuesque Julia you know where!
Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:41 pm GMT
@Anonymous I thought that bit was comic relief.
anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:42 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz OK, as you give off more than a whiff of effete hack yourself, I'll bite.*

Yes, that's what I mean to convey. It reflects on President Trump -- and, more particularly, his sham campaign rhetoric -- that the likes of Mr. Pyatt remain in place with another Exceptional! plaque on his lavish office.

Do you mean to convey that the President can't replace ambassadors at will, or that they have tenure?

-- --

*Before interacting with this "Wizard of Oz" character, be aware that he/she/they often draw other commenters in with questions and requests that are seldom resolved to his/her/their satisfaction, or with cryptic insinuations that distract discussion.

The same person also fuzzes up threads by pretending to be more than one commenter, the technique known as "sock puppetry." See under Mr. Derbyshire's February 15, 2019, article comment ## 28, 42, 43, 44, 68, 122, where he/she/they got sloppy also posting as "Anon[436]."

Among this website's oddest, sophisticatedly trollish commenters.

AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:44 pm GMT
@GMC Let's give credit where credit is due. Yes, the Empire wanted to buy Ukraine, preferably on the cheap (considering that the goods were not of the first quality). But for the sale to proceed you need two sides. You need a fraudster and a sucker. You cannot consider morons who sold their would-be country for beads blameless. Not to mention that many local thugs got a cut. Smarter thieves took their loot and ran away, like Yats. Dumber and/or greedier ones, like Porky and Kolomoisky, remained and kept trying to steal more. The suckers (the rest of the population) are left holding the bag. Stupidity is always punished in the end, but not always so severely.
Mr. Hack , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:51 pm GMT
@GMC Although one has to be careful in dealing with the large multinationals, the only way to obtain large contracts is through cooperation with them. Opening things up and building ports would have resulted in large employment opportunities for the masses, adding some stability to the Ukrainian economy.

I'm not aware of Senator Obama's dealings in Donetsk to "de-arm the Ukrainian military". Please do tell me more.

Chris Moore , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 4:56 pm GMT
@Jake

Our 'foreign interventionists' have seen Russia under Putin rise from the ashes, and they intend to destroy Russia once and for all, so they then can reduce China and win The Great Game. And thus make Anglo-Zionist Empire greater than Roman Empire. Second, our Neocons are the spiritual and intellectual descendants not just of Trotskyites, but of all Russia-hating Jews with ties to Central and/or Eastern Europe. For them, Russia always is the evil that must be destroyed for the good of Jews.

So basically, they're Jewish parasites with delusions of grandeur who attached themselves to the British Empire and American Empire (destroying the US Constitution along the way), and are using its decaying WASP blood and treasure to set up an Anglo-Zionist Empire, which will then morph into a Zionist Empire, which will then move its headquarters to Israel, which will then fulfill "chosen" Zionist Jewish supremacist prophecy and theology of ruling the world.

In other words, they're not only parasites, but they're insane parasites. Really, could there be any other kind? The insanity is baked into the parasite.

Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:00 pm GMT
@anonymous

What should we expect of a President that would brag about luring an Iranian leader into a gangland hit with an invitation to discuss peace?

I am confident that, in my lifetime, the truth about how that unfolded will never be known. The intel for the hit came from the Israelis through the same people that have been undermining him from Day 1. Did Trump actually know Soleimani was there on a peace mission? Did Trump know that an Iraqi leader would be with Solmeimani? Why would de-escalation of tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia be bad for Trump who has been avoiding staring wars? Was Mattis in on that game?

Once the hit was done, the rest is creating a narrative for diversion. It was a shit show, to be sure, but I suspect there is a lot more to this than what we are being fed.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:01 pm GMT
' Michael Ledeen, "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business." '

Now, if that 'small, crappy little country' could be Israel, me 'n Mike could have a real meeting of minds.

but I suppose that's not what Mike meant.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:06 pm GMT
' Backing Moscow into a corner with no way out by using threats and sanctions is not good policy '

That might well be, but maybe there is a way out.

Think maybe if Russia abandoned its support for a state in Syria and let Israel have her little way with the place that she might suddenly be left in peace?

Nahhh couldn't possibly be a connection. How could that influence our policy?

FLgeezer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:10 pm GMT
@anonymous >Among this website's oddest, sophisticatedly trollish commenters.

Agreed. I suggest he/she/it be referred to henceforth as the Wizard of Odds.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:16 pm GMT
' Washington and its allies have forgotten the statecraft that won the Cold War '

This always happens with winners -- be they World War One generals or Cold Warriors.

If, due to other factors entirely, they happen to finally triumph, it all becomes attributed to their incredible genius.

The oddity is that the Soviet Union lasted as long as it did. It was a massively unattractive system with no natural constituency beyond its own bureaucrats. Yes, it had to be kept at bay, and we did do that -- but we basically merely watched while it collapsed under the weight of its own internal flaws.

Kouros , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:34 pm GMT
American Oligarchy really wants to take over the Russian economy and assets (as well as China's and Iran's)
Pat Kittle , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:38 pm GMT

the advice that has been attributed to leading neocon Michael Ledeen, "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."

Hmm Israel comes first to mind.

Hegar , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:44 pm GMT
Giraldi's first paragraph is spot on. But after corona dealing the economy a heavy blow, I don't think Trump will start a war before the election. I don't think he would have done that otherwise either, though there was some risk. Trump has caved numerous times, he is an idioht when it comes to hiring his enemies hoping to appease them, but there is no question that he opposes mass immigration and invasions.

I suppose most people here know this, but let's look at how many of the pro-war names mentioned belong to the 2.5 % "Chosen":

George Bush
Donald Rumsfeld
Hillary Clinton
Michael Ledeen (White, but studied history under *George Mosse, immigrated from Germany)
Reuel Gerecht
Dan Senor

*Richard Perle
*Paul Wolfowitz (The architect of the Afghan-Iraq invasions, who gathered support for them in Congress and organized the pro-war communication)
*Douglas Feith (would have been the Sec. of Defense if people hadn't objected too much, as he was infamous after the Iran-Contra affair)
*Eliot Abrams
*Lewish "Scooter" Libby of the dead eyes
*Robert Kagan
*Frederick Kagan
*Victoria Nuland
*Madeleine Albright (Half a million dead Iraqi children from starvation sanctions and bombing the infrastructure for twelve years was "worth it")

That's six Whites and nine Tribe.

If those nine hadn't existed millions would have been alive today, there would have been no flood of Somalis, Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians to Europe, and the U.S. and the Middle East would have been far better off.

Pat Kittle , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:48 pm GMT
@Colin Wright I just posted a similar comment, before I saw yours.

Plagiarism unintended!

Alfred , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:53 pm GMT
@Mr. Hack I applaud the US response of supporting Ukraine's aspirations for a freer more Western oriented country

You are joking surely? The country is run by Jews from top to bottom – although Jews are 1% of the population. Since the Maidan putsch, there has only been a string of Jewish presidents and prime minsters. The guy responsible for investigating corruption was recently sacked and replaced by a Jew.

Post Maidan, 3 TV stations were shut in Kharkov alone. Everything is controlled and is lies. Journalists and politicians who don't do as they are told are shot. No one is arrested. The latest victim was an opposition politician who was executed by a shot in the head in his parliamentary office a few weeks ago. No Jew ever suffers such a fate.

He was not "found dead". He was killed by a bullet to the head.
It was not in "central Kyiv". It was in the parliament building.

Ukrainian lawmaker found dead in central Kyiv

Rurik , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 5:57 pm GMT

Vice President Dick Cheney, who thought he was actually the man in charge.

he was

contrast the chimp sitting in that classroom for 20 something minutes, as our nation was under attack

with what Cheney was doing at the time..

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qjR0gGXV-04?feature=oembed

All were hawks who believed that the United States had the right to do whatever it considered necessary to enhance its own security,

I see Geo has already pointed out the obvious absurdity that any of these criminal were in the least bit worried bout US security. If anything, they were overtly sacrificing US security on behalf of an enemy state. Not sure why you write stuff like that Mr. G, unless you just expect people to ignore it as perfunctory tripe, but there are some, no doubt, who read those words and assume you are actually saying they care about the US. When you and I both know they don't.

Clinton and Obama were so-called liberal interventionists who sought to export something called democracy to other countries in an attempt to make them more like Peoria.

Nope.

They were and are both amoral, opportunistic zio-whores, whose only ideology is what's good for Clinton and Obama, respectively. Clinton didn't bomb Serbia out of some humanitarian love of freedom and democracy, and Obama didn't destroy Libya and Syria except to serve his zio-masters. Duh.

So the difference between neocons and liberal interventionists is one of style rather than substance. And, by either yardstick all-in-all, Trump looks pretty good,

I was telling my gal the other day, that Trump could be The One to End the Fed, by allowing Goldman Sachs and the rest of them to feast at the Treasury to their heart's content.

I reminded her of Jackson's quote about hurting ten thousand families, in order to save fifty thousand. And in a similar vein, Trump could be setting up the collapse of the ZUS economy, which will hurt hundreds of millions, but if he could collapse the dollar, he very well might save billions of people's lives.

"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out."
– Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)

Nuland is most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role

I beg to differ, Mr. G.

I would posit that her most famous utterings were when she imperiously demanded that "Yats is our guy". IOW, the way she was promoting "democracy" in Ukraine, was by corrupting the system with 5 billions of tax payer lucre- to the point where she, *personally* could decide who- (Jewish banker) would be president in a nation thousands of miles away. That's how the ZUS promotes "democracy" in foreign lands. (and, I suspect that it was the way that call was leaked, that is the fount of all the rage at Russia, for "Russian hacking', breaking long-standing diplomatic protocols against exposing other nation's treachery and corruption to the 'little people').

Nuland's view . Russia to violate arms control treaties, international law, the sovereignty of its neighbors, and the integrity of elections in the United States and Europe

for Nuland to talk about 'International law and the 'integrity of European elections'.. is like Jerry Sandusky lecturing people on child welfare.

That strategy required consistent U.S. leadership at the presidential level,

OK, so not only Nuland but also John Bolton is screeching that Trump is the disaster of our times.

Not since John McCain has a mad dog Zionist insider been so full of hate for Trump. Hmm..

as Russia's threat to the liberal world has grown."

the more she talks, the more I like Putin.

And it is precisely what Nuland did in fact do in Ukraine

.
they think chutzpah, (arr0gent contempt for decency and in-your-face hypocrisy), is a virtue.

All Americans and Europeans and everyone else, should see that Putin is the world's remaining statesman. We should all do everything we can to support Putin's earnest efforts to rein in the murderous, zio-glob menacing the planet today.

Thank you Mr. G. for exposing Nuland's treachery, hypocrisy and J-supremacist agenda.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:33 pm GMT
@Pat Kittle ' Plagiarism unintended!'

Wouldn't it be more of a matter of great minds thinking alike?

Jake , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:33 pm GMT
@Chris Moore Archetypal WASP Oliver Cromwell made alliance with Jewish bankers, then congregated in the Netherlands. The deal, which financially was necessary to him securing Puritan rule and to then wage more war against non-WASP natives of the British Isles, included Jews being allowed legally live in and own property in England, including to build a synagogue, with Jews exempted from all requirements that the Puritan government made on al natives of the British Isles.

Jews are not parasites on WASP culture. WASP culture is born of a Judaizing heresy, and Jews therefore have always been partners in WASP culture.

You need to spend a large amount of time learning the rise of Jews with the growth of the British Empire. Then put that with the rise of Jews as part of the American empire.

And then unless you are brain dead, you will see that WASP culture and Jews go together. Jews are not parasites on WASP culture. Jews and WASPs are symbiotic, at the expense of 90-95% of non-WASP whites.

Agent76 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:34 pm GMT
Jun 23, 2020 Online Event: U.S. Grand Strategy in the Middle East

While prominent voices in Washington have argued that U.S. interests in the Middle East are dwindling and will require the United States to "do less" there, Jake Sullivan argued in a recent Foreign Affairs article that the United States should be more ambitious using U.S. leverage and diplomacy to promote regional stability.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Lot 'So much for the Jihadi/leftist smear that Israel's friends promote wars.'

Uh huh. Just look at how Trump has reached out to Iran.

and I notice that our troops are still in Syria.

not that any of this could conceivably lead to yet another war on behalf of Israel.

anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:38 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon Did you not hear the recording of President Trump's disgusting speech weeks later at a fundraiser, recounting the hit to his rapt backers? I'm pretty sure that it was posted in a comment to one of Dr. Giraldi's columns.

You might also want to review Linh Dinh's June 12, 2016 "Orlando Shooting Means Trump For President."

Voting for any of these Red/Blue characters merely moves the boot around on your face.

Mefobills , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:51 pm GMT
Democracies don't reflect the will of the people:

Victoria Nuland recommends that "The challenge for the United States in 2021 will be to lead the democracies of the world in crafting a more effective approach to Russia -- one that builds on their strengths and puts stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own citizens." Interestingly, that might be regarded as seeking to interfere in the workings of a foreign government, reminiscent of the phony case made against Russia in 2016. And it is precisely what Nuland did in fact do in Ukraine

https://www.johnkaminski.org/index.php/essays-by-john-kaminiski-american-writer-and-critic/holocausting-humanity/91-the-true-nature-of-the-jew-scam

We live in the dark, convinced by our public media and our insincere leaders that we are heroes and freedom fighters. In reality the opposite is true: we are the plunderers, the ravagers, deceiving ourselves to do the dirty work of the manipulators who have twisted our minds with trinkets and false accounts of the people we kill and the countries we ruin in order to steal their treasures.

And the saddest part -- the punchline that proves how stupid we are -- is that we never profit from the invasions we are cynically ordered to conduct. The bounty always goes to the swindlers pulling the strings, and we, as the agents of banditry, time and again, are always left to suffer the same fate of the people we have robbed when we are robbed ourselves, of not only our treasures, but of our dignity, shortly before we are robbed of our lives.

It is the way history has always gone. The ignorant masses are persuaded to commit the crimes of the rich and as the unwitting perpetrators, we ultimately suffer the same fate as the victims, while the rich snicker in their palaces and plot their next swindle.

Bill Jones , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 6:53 pm GMT
@Herald How much of Amazon's offering is Chinese sourced?

Who sells more Chinese goods than Bezos?

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 7:02 pm GMT
@Agent76 'While prominent voices in Washington have argued that U.S. interests in the Middle East are dwindling and will require the United States to "do less" there, Jake Sullivan argued in a recent Foreign Affairs article that the United States should be more ambitious using U.S. leverage and diplomacy to promote regional stability.'

I'm confused. Iraq is more stable for our intervention?

If we 'did less' in the Middle East, it could only promote regional stability.

Most of our actions there are pretty clearly calculated to promote instability, not stability. Promoting anarchy in Syria, baiting Iran into a war, acquiescing in a coup in Egypt, sanctioning Israel's continual bombing raids

geokat62 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 7:32 pm GMT
Anyone ever heard of Father Mordechi Martin? Neither did I, until I came across this explosive video

BANNED: How the Jews infiltrated the Vatican & changed the Catholic Church

https://www.goyimtv.com/view?v=2074240941

The late Michael Collins Piper hosts a call in program and his guest is Jim Condit Jr. The topic of conversation is Father Mordechi Martin, a Zionist spy who infiltrated and subverted the Catholic Church.

Unfortunately, it indeed seems that Jewish Supremacists have achieved full spectrum dominance.

anonymous [237] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 7:32 pm GMT
The first thing a confident America has got to do is top up that DO covert-ops slush fund:

https://www.madcowprod.com/2020/06/17/politics-contraband-gangster-planet/

Cuz, Oops. Big CIA profit center needs some business interruption insurance, huh?

Gee, I wonder who ratted them out?

slorter , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 8:07 pm GMT
Good article !
Druid55 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 8:14 pm GMT
@Mustapha Mond Only a few israelis died on 911. They didn't get the text that american jews got to stay away that day. This is admited!
The Alarmist , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 8:17 pm GMT

The challenge for the United States in 2021 will be to lead the democracies of the world .

The challenge will be to find any actual democracies of any import in the world, as the lamps go out across the whole planet.

Jake , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 8:20 pm GMT
@Mr. Hack US control of the Ukraine will mean that Jews will own almost all of it and the land will be flooded with blacks and Mohammedans, with gays made another sacred group.

Anglo-Zionist Empire does what Anglo-Zionist Empire does.

chris , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 8:30 pm GMT
@Rahan I laughed my ass off ! I'm still laughing

I passed your comment on to CJ Hopkins with link to the source. Maybe he can use it in his column. It needs a much greater audience than in the comment section here.

Yours is a fantastic troll, but there are others who've commented on the ironies in this context. This article for example: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/490539-looting-is-the-price-of-freedom-cynical/ There's enough trolling material in all these events to last us a lifetime.

WikiBlabs , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 8:50 pm GMT
@Chris Moore The public does not understand that the system is actually "two party tyranny". This system is designed to divide and conquer, and it works. Compound this with the fact that many people get their information from simply "googling" terms and phrases as opposed to actually digging deep and reading books and other sources for information. Combine this with the sad state of affairs in our public education system – where students are not taught to think or ask questions but to behave, conform, and memorize information. With regard to the methods being used in our foreign policy and now, subsequently, being used here to foment chaos, check out the following resource. You will see that what is going on is simply UCW – Unconventional Warfare, and we have perfected the technique abroad.

UNIDENTIFIED NEMESIS

geokat62 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 8:51 pm GMT
Breaking news

NEW: Alan Dershowitz's attorney confirms that his client has access to Virginia Giuffre's sealed depositions. Those depositions reveal that she was directed by Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with former Israeli PM Ehud Barak & Victoria's Secret's Les Wexner.

-- julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) June 23, 2020

AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:02 pm GMT
@The Alarmist How can the US "lead democracies" not being one of them? It's as ridiculous as me leading the elephants of the world.
potemkin villiage bank , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:12 pm GMT
@Fred777 The globalists should be castigated

then downtrodden and opressed

hanging is too good for them

Druid55 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:31 pm GMT
@red rider Serbia deserved it. They were conducting ethic cleansing with concentration camps, rape camps, etc
Vojkan , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:40 pm GMT
@Hegar That's three goyim and twelve "chosen". Ledeen (founder and former member of board of advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs – doesn't look goy to me), Gerecht (Israelis say he's one of them) and Senor are Jewish.
Pat Kittle , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:41 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Well, at least we haven't been stampeded into mob psychosis.
Rurik , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 9:55 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN

How can the US "lead democracies" not being one of them?

didn't Vicky Nuland lead the Ukrainian democracy?

it isn't ridiculous, all it takes is shekels, as always, and an understanding of semantics. Words like 'democracy' are like 'liberated', or 'terrorists'.

The ZUS "liberated" Iraq from the "terrorists" who were ruling it, and imposed "democracy". Just like we "liberated" Germany, and "liberated" Libya, and so many other places, where the ZUS leads 'democracies'.

You see how easy it is, once you understand how to interpret the words they use?

America is helping to liberate Palestine from terrorists, so that the Palestinians can enjoy democracy.

Today the Crimea is suffering under a regime that seized her by aggression and force, and so America would like to liberate the people of Crimea, and lead them to democracy.

mark tapley , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:00 pm GMT
Jewmerica is controlled by Zionists and their operatives like Jew Nuland. Add Trump and Pence to the list too. The Presidency has been controlled by the Zionist Jews since Woodrow Wilson. Almost all of Congress is in the pocket of aIPAC and other Jew organizations. The Zionist Jews drive all the wars and conflicts, foment the false flags like the fake Floyd, Sandy Hook, Los Vegas etc. The Global Jew Bankers made immune from prosecution by our shabbos goy Congress have stolen trillions of the the country's wealth. First after 911 (also a false flag for Greater Israel) then with the bailouts for the super rich in 08 and now the monumental 6 trillion theft for their Wall St. buddies under cover of the fake Corona virus.

The goyim must be propagandized and the target demonized before the Israeli Foreign Legian (U.S. military) is sent in to force another extortion for the Jews. this is what they did twice to Germany and to Japan. Same thing in Iraq and Libya. The Zionists have so far failed in Syria and Iran. Even after getting Israel's best friend ever in the White House who abrogated our treaty with the Iranians and has lied constantly about both countries, launched rockets against the Syrians and accused Assad of gassing his own people.

The Zionsits cannot make progress without war, conflict and hatred. Once the goyim are whipped up with enough war sentiment against the Russians and Chinese and the two countries have built up sufficient military capability they will most likely join forces with a nuclear attack against Jewmerica. this will probably result in a stalemate that can then be used as a precursor to the global totalitarian NWO.

Haxo Angmark , says: Website Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:08 pm GMT
@Shaman911 just for the record, it's Victoria

(((Nudelman))).

Rurik , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:09 pm GMT
@Druid55

Serbia deserved it. They were conducting ethic cleansing with concentration camps, rape camps, etc

idiocy

they were fighting some of the worst scum on the planet; KLA human and narco-traffickers attempting to murder enough Serbs so they could steal the ancient Serbian land of Kosovo. Zio-style – by terrorizing the legitimate inhabitants into fleeing for their lives- to they could simply steal the land for themselves.

The trial against Milosevic was a sham and a fraud. And Milosevic was humiliating the ICC in open court, so they poisoned/assassinated him in his cell.

But, I suppose the case could be made that if the Serbs deserved it, it was because they allowed the Albanians to immigrate into Kosovo in transformative numbers in the first place, and just as the Zi0s know, demographics = destiny.

The whites of South Africa made the same mistake. The whites of Europe are very busy also making the exact same mistake, just as they are in North America and Oceana.

One day they'll wake up, and discover that now they and they're children are now on the block, with their school girls being gang-raped wholesale and their lands taken from them, and like the Serbs, they'll say, 'golly, who'd have ever thunk that inviting in stone age invaders is of questionable prudence.

So yea, in that context, they did deserve it.

Currahee , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:10 pm GMT
@Anon "Victoria Nuland was born in Jewish family in 1961 to Sherwin B. Nuland, a distinguished surgeon, and Rhona McKhann." -Wickipedia

EVERY, SINGLE, TIME!

Robjil , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:21 pm GMT
@Druid55 That is the western MSM sugared up version of what happened in Yugoslavia. Western MSM learned their lesson about being truthful about war when US and friends were in Vietnam.

Lies and lies only come from western MSM these days so wars and regime change games can go on with anyone noticing or caring.

Western MSM notifies their puppet readers that all the US and friends does is "humanitarian" stuff these days. Most puppet readers lap up this junk.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/natos-rape-of-yugoslavia/5375189

March 24, 1999 will go down in history as a day of infamy. US-led NATO raped Yugoslavia. Doing so was its second major combat operation.

It was lawless aggression. No Security Council resolution authorized it. NATO's Operation Allied Force lasted 78 days.

Washington called it Operation Noble Anvil. Evil best describes it. On June 10, operations ended.

From March 1991 through mid-June 1999, Balkan wars raged. Yugoslavia "balkanized" into seven countries. They include Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia.

Enormous human suffering was inflicted. Washington bears most responsibility.

mark tapley , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:23 pm GMT
@Druid55 More MSM Jew propaganda. The Zionists wanted this area to remain fractured and weak (Balkanized) so that the unified Yugoslavia could not oppose their plans. The Zionists intend to control pipelines running from Middle East into Europe. This would compete against Russia that now supplies most of the gas. All wars are about money, power and territory, this war was no exception. The Zionists need to control all energy sources and transportation routes in order to achieve hegemony.
AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:28 pm GMT
@Rurik Good explanation. Orwell called this "newspeak". That's now the language of libtards.
vot tak , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:53 pm GMT
"It is difficult to find anything good to say about Donald Trump, but the reality is that he has not started any new wars"

Agree with the first part, disagree with the second. The reasons israel's trump colonials have not started new militsry invasions are mainly two. The trump reime is in the middle of a military modernization. The american zionazi colony fell behind militarily as they ran proxy terrorists and drug mafia support/colonial policing ops. Fighting wars againat those who can actually hurt them back became obsolete, or so the "end of history" neocons figured. Now they are outclassed and they can't pick on someone capable of shooting back effectively.

As for the second part, the likud colonial trump regime is doing its best to attack zionazia"s rivals any way they can mimus actually sending in troops. Times have changed, the oligarchs do war by other means than troop invasion now. The economic, biological and psywar aspects are being used full tilt by israeloamerica. What they lack the means to do on the field of battle, israel's war criminals and quislings are more than making up for it by other means.

The trump quislings have vastly increased international strife across the board and are decidedly more war mongering than israel's previous american colonial governors.

Rurik , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 10:53 pm GMT
@mark tapley

The Zionists wanted this area to remain fractured and weak (Balkanized)

I agree with all your posts.

I'd just add to this one, that by bombing Serbia, (on behalf of Muslim invaders), they were accomplishing several things.. They were ending the post WWII International Laws against unilateral military might by strong nations against weaker ones in Europe. With that act, they declared with bombs that the ZUS is now The Unilateral Power, and that the International Laws against Aggressive War was now moot.

By bombing a White Christian nation on behalf of Islam, they were also tossing a bone to Islam, as a trade off for the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Who in our times is going to complain about bombing white people? And Muslims would cheer it.

Also, as ((Gen. Wesley Clark)) explained about his bombing campaign on Serbia:

"There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That's a 19th-century idea and we are trying to transition it into the 21st century, and we are going to do it with multi-ethnic states."
– NATO's Supreme Commander, Gen. Wesley Clark

so there were myriad reasons for why ((they)) bombed Serbia into handing over its ancient and sacred lands.

mcohen , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:04 pm GMT
Passing out cookies.
Daisy cutters
So more with claymore
vot tak , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:08 pm GMT
"So the difference between neocons and liberal interventionists is one of style rather than substance."

It's neocons and neolibs, the "liberal interventionists" are as liberal as the neocons are conservative. Agree about the style and substance, though, think of the disgusting things as different/somewhat rivals management teams working for the same employer. Like the likud and labor political blocks in israel. Goals are the same, some differences in how to achieve them.

One sees this same phony duo-political scam across the capitalist "west" where right wing political parties dominate wholesale.

Rurik , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:19 pm GMT
@AnonFromTN

Orwell called this "newspeak". That's now the language of libtards.

thanks

and not just shitlibs, but across the entire length and breadth of our culture and society this Ministry of Truth-imposed doublethink masquerades as language intended to inform and explain, when it does the opposite.

George Will and Sean Hannity use newspeak with the same alacrity as Lawrence O'Donnell or Rachel Maddow. Israel has to defend itself. Putin's aggression and Russian meddling in our democracy.

'Quantitative easing' as a doubleplusgood expression for human history's most colossal case of mass-swindling the world has ever known.

it's everywhere, and the more it isn't noticed, the more sinister and diabolical it is.

It's like that Twilight Zone episode of the aliens that only wanted to 'serve man'.

'We're here to serve you'.

The writers of that episode certainly must have been thinking of a certain tribe of 'philanthropists' and owners of 'human rights' organizations.

celebrate diversity!

it's our greatest strength!

Wizard of Oz , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:23 pm GMT
@anonymous Thank you for clarifying that though you do not give any evidence beyond reason for suspicion about his role in Ukraine as to why this career diplomat should be sacked from his Ambassadorship to Greece.
vot tak , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 23, 2020 at 11:26 pm GMT
As for israel's nuland neanderthal*, this is a critter about as zionazi low as one can get. What she posits come directly from israel and its international domination freakshow. The critter is about as far right/neocon psychopathy as that subhuman element gets.

The use of these freaks by both american dem and rep colonial governorships shows how these are simply psywar front outfits pursuing the same goals for the zionazi master.

anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 12:24 am GMT
@Wizard of Oz My comment (#35) that you're typically and oh-so-diplomatically trying to obscure concerned the naïveté of those who think that Mr. Trump ever intended to (or could) effect any change in Uncle Sam's treatment of other countries.

But as to your concern for this "career diplomat," do you think he's too good to "be sacked" and have to work at an honest job?

Agent76 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 12:27 am GMT
@Colin Wright If a politicians lips are moving they are lying. This comes from the war parties think tank and everything they say is the total opposite every time. This group gives me great insight into thier plans and why I even bothered to share this here today. Thanks Wright!
mark tapley , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 12:31 am GMT
@AnonFromTN Democracy is a subversive term used by the Zionists, MSM and many politicians as well as lots of other people that should know better. Democracy results in mob rule that will always lead to tyranny.

The word democracy does not occur in either the Declaration of Independence or it's companion document the Constitution. That is because the founders believed it to be the worst form of government. James Madison stated that democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

It is no mistake that the word democracy is widely used. Democracies work in the Elites favor because they can steer the chaos then put their system in place when the democracy falls apart.

The founders established a system of sovereign states in a limited Republic of laws. That was the foundation of our success, not democracy.

Wizard of Oz , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 12:59 am GMT
@anonymous For an apprentice pedant you are not doing well. You seem to have overlooked Trump's very big changes in the treatment of one major foreign country, namely China.

And I am disappointed that you don't realise how much the US needs the institutional memory and the skills of career diplomats when so many ambassadorships are given to completely unqualified and unsuitable donors to the president's election campaign.

mark tapley , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 1:01 am GMT
@Druid55 Hardly anyone died. No planes used and all accounted for. Social Security Death Register about the same as usual for that day in N.Y. Bodies "jumping" out were dummies. Another false flag for the Zionist agenda of wars for Israel.
Pat Kittle , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 1:11 am GMT
Jew supremacists like Nuland & her fellow (((treasonous war criminals))) care ultimately about expanding the domain of "Greater Israel."

Fomenting hostility (if not outright war) between the world's largest primarily White countries has always been what (((they))) do.

On the home front, Black Lives Matter terrorism would go nowhere without Jew supremacist organizing, funding, censoring, & intimidating. Not that the (((shysters))) actually give a damn about Blacks!

NAME the JEW!!

Pat Kittle , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 1:15 am GMT
@vot tak Please don't conflate Nazis with these Jews.

It's unfair to Nazis.

niteranger , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 1:25 am GMT
@Anon Nuland is a Jew. Nothing to see here. She is a nutbag who wants eternal war. Whatever Israel wants .Israel gets. Whether it's Obama destroying Libya or constant friction with Russia it's the Jewish control of everything.
Ryan2 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 1:36 am GMT
What does Victoria Nuland have to gain from all this?
Money? Really? Is she a true believer? Does she consider all this to be Patriotic?
showmethereal , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 1:51 am GMT
@Jake "Christ" said His kingdom was not of this world . So going back to Emperor Constantine – the western church has gotten it wrong.
mark tapley , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 1:53 am GMT
@Jake Do you think the Catholics were any less likely to sell out? The Catholic Church was infiltrated by the cripto Jew Medicis with the placement of Leo X in 1513. The Founders of the Jesuit order were also cripto Jews.

The Jews have infiltrated all the governments of any consequence. Jewmerica has been so well infiltrated it would be more accurate to just term the situation an out in the open takeover. The Jews could have never made much headway without the shabbos goys helping them. The government of Jewmerica is full of traitors serving the Zionist Jew agenda.

vot tak , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 1:55 am GMT
@Pat Kittle Bum bandits are bum bandits.
mark tapley , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 2:14 am GMT
@Ryan2 She is a hard core Zionist Jew. She is in the clique with the most powerful criminal syndicate in existence. And they are winning. Some of them may actually believe that they are still the Chosen. Trump's Chabad Lubavich son-in-law and the Shiksa Princess are said to be disciples of Rabbi Schneerson who taught that we Gentiles were just here to "hew wood and fetch water" for the Jews. Judging from the words and deeds of the shabbos goy puppet actors like Trump, Pence, Pelosi and almost the entire congress along with most governors, an observer would think this is definitely true.
Pat Kittle , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 2:27 am GMT
@vot tak It's not that simple.

As you know, winners write history.

Jew supremacists won; Germany (& everyone else) lost.

If that wasn't the case, the world would know the Holocau$t mythology is an extortion racket, and we wouldn't be fighting the Jews' criminal wars for them to this day.

Hibernian , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 2:31 am GMT
@red rider The face that launched a thousand bombers.
Hibernian , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 2:33 am GMT
@geokat62 Malachi, not Mordechi.
Guest0206 , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 2:37 am GMT
@AnonFromTN "Grabbing the Breadbasket of Europe The East-West competition over Ukraine involves the control of natural resources, including uranium and other minerals, as well as geopolitical issues such as Ukraine's membership in NATO. The stakes around Ukraine's vast agricultural sector, the world's third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat,constitute a critical factor that has been often overlooked." Whereas Ukraine does not allow the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture,Article 404 of the EU agreement, which relates to agriculture, includes a clause that has generally gone unnoticed: it indicates, among other things, that both parties will cooperate to extend the use of biotechnologies. There is no doubt that this provision meets the expectations of the agribusiness industry. As observed by Michael Cox, research director at the investment bank Piper Jaffray, "Ukraine and, to a wider extent, Eastern Europe, are among the "most promising growth markets for farm-equipment giant Deere, as well as seed producers Monsanto and DuPont."" https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/OurBiz_Brief_Ukraine.pdf
Regulo , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 24, 2020 at 2:40 am GMT
@Anon "Russia" is, for US intelligence ALSO code for "French". The propaganda against Russia during the cold war and beyond, also applies to "the French" [IMO].They both had a revolution , with world wide consequences , both have the same color flag[ the US propaganda says that Russia modeled their flag from the Netherland flag, but I suspect it is modeled from the French flag. The Americans cant be too blatant about it , but that is what is going on; anti Russia animus and propaganda is also anti French animus and propaganda. [ during the cold war, my French relative who had been a communist , went to Russia to see what it was like. She was disappointed .When she subsequently tried to visit my family here in the US, she was stopped art the airport and told she could not enter the US because she had been to Russia. This was the 1960's.Apparently this two countries and people were not polarized as the US and the soviets were. A kind of mutual respect or even admiration existed perhaps. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, but that has been my sense for decades. Nuland's anti European/ anti russian animus is not surprising; its rather ubiquitous in the US and when they say EU they have primarily in mind the French!
Guest0206 , says: Show Comment June 24, 2020 at 2:45 am GMT
@Druid55 Do not repeat the NATO propaganda.
See Michael Parenti's
"To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia"
Current Commenter

[Jun 21, 2020] I Have A Dream -- That This Is The Darkness Before The Race-Realist Dawn by John Derbyshire

Jun 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

I have a dream today, brothers and sisters. I have a dream.

My dream is of an America that has embraced race realism.

Yes, I have a dream that one day race differences in educational success will be as calmly, dispassionately accepted as race differences in athletic success; that race differences in criminal arrest and incarceration rates will be regarded with no more anger or alarm than sex differences in those same rates; that different social outcomes by race will be understood as caused not by the malice of our fellow citizens, but by ordinary processes of nature.

I have a dream that one day we shall discard magical thinking about race ; that the notion of an invisible vapor or miasma called " racism " permeating the atmosphere and intoxicating our minds will seem as quaintly absurd as the Four Humors Theory of ancient medicine or the Luminiferous Æther of 19th-century physics.

I have a dream that one day, poor white children will not have to endure being lectured about their " privilege " by rich black adults .

I have a dream that one day soon, after sixty years of futile efforts to change what cannot, in the nature of things, be changed, sixty years of twisting our constitution and our jurisprudence into knots to pretend that different statistics by race can only be caused by white people' s ill will, sixty years of vast public expenditures on educational and social programs that deliver no benefits at all (other than to those who pocket the expenditures); that one day soon, after sixty years of futility and waste, we shall accept race differences as calmly and as prudently as we accept the laws of thermodynamics.

I have a dream that with the black homicide rate at eight times the white rate, and with discrepancies of a similar size having existed since reliable records began a hundred and eighty years ago , an organization calling itself Black Lives Matter will address itself to bringing black homicide numbers down to the white level -- better yet, to the Asian level -- or else be laughed out of the public square.

I have a dream that race differences in outcomes, which are mere statistical abstractions remote from our everyday dealings, will one day matter as little to us as personal differences in outcomes. I shall never be a skilled violinist, a good tennis player, or a creative mathematician; not because of malice, "racism," or "privilege" on the part of my fellow citizens, but because of my own abilities and inclinations -- which, like almost everyone else's, are middling and un-spectacular. I do not lose sleep over this. I absolutely do not take it as an occasion to insult and berate my fellow-citizens, or deprive them of their rights.

I have a dream that our nation's past will one day be cherished for having made possible our present security and prosperity; that the ignorance and misdeeds of that past be kept in sight on a shelf, accessible to all, but never dominating our view of what our ancestors were, the heroism they displayed in defense of our civilization, and the great good things they did.

I have a dream that one day freedom of association, which picks no man's pocket and breaks no man's leg, will be restored to us.

I have a dream that the evil and divisive doctrines of "disparate impact" and "affirmative action" will be scrubbed from our jurisprudence; that hiring into civil-service work -- including police work and firefighting -- will be strictly meritocratic; and that young black Americans will no longer, just to satisfy the whims of smug college admissions officers and innumerate jurists, will no longer be pushed into academic college programs they can't cope with and will drop out from .

I have a dream that my two beautiful children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character

(With apologies -- well, actually, with no apologies -- to Dr. Martin Luther King) .

John Derbyshire [ email him ] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him. ) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books . He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT ( also available in Kindle ) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013 .


Anonymous [534] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:28 am GMT

Dream on

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SMiounEnKVw?feature=oembed

silviosilver , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:44 am GMT
A pleasant reverie indeed.
Ad70titusrevenge , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:45 am GMT
Jewish elites won't let this happen.
Peter Johnson , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:26 am GMT
That is my dream too, brother. Let us work to make it happen.

Remember Keynes: "Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back".

Let us hope that the HBD "academic scribblers" like yourself can push the message forward.

If only Trump, or someone with similar prominence, could give your speech!

swamped , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:35 am GMT
"I have a dream today, brothers and sisters. I have a dream.
My dream is of an America that has embraced race realism".
"I have a dream that one day we shall discard magical thinking about race; that the notion of an invisible vapor or miasma called".. 'Anti-Semitism'.. "permeating the atmosphere and intoxicating our minds will seem as quaintly absurd as the Four Humors Theory of ancient medicine or the Luminiferous Æther of 19th-century physics."
"I have a dream that one day, poor".. Gentile.. "children will not have to endure being lectured about their 'privilege' by [ultra] rich".. Jewish adults. Or be taught any more so-called holocaust guilt.
"I have a dream that one day soon, after[almost] sixty years of futile efforts to change what cannot, in the nature of things, be changed, [almost] sixty years of twisting our constitution and our jurisprudence into knots to pretend that".. Israel's illegitimate military Occupation & America's uncritical material & immoral support for it.. "can only be caused by"..Palestinians'.. "ill will, sixty years of vast public expenditures on".. Israel's war machine and security.. "programs that deliver no benefits at all (other than to those who pocket the expenditures); that one day soon, after sixty years of futility and waste, we shall".. end all aid of any kind to Israel, forever.
And a dream that we accept religious differences about the causes of Crucifixion & Salvation "as calmly and as prudently as we accept the laws of thermodynamics."
"I have a dream that the evil and divisive doctrines of" ..'Jewish nationalism' and 'Aryan eradication'.. "will be scrubbed from our jurisprudence; that hiring into"..elite echelons -- including Hollywood and Wall Street – .."will be strictly meritocratic" ..and that young Jewish Americans, will no longer be pushed into high positions just because they bar mitzvah.
And finally, "I have a dream that my two beautiful children will one day" ..not fall prey to some future Jeffrey Epstein or Harvey Weinstein. Amen
anon [417] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:53 am GMT
Dream on.

The sad fact is that America is destined for dictatorship with these demographics, and with the aid of technology it will be stable far into this century. Worse, Americans do not want freedom, or at least they do not prioritize freedom over luxury. If they did, they would have risen up long ago; Red States, at the very least, would be preparing for secession. We'll have to face facts that normies are normies not because they are asleep, they are asleep because they are normies -- something that cannot be changed because it has a genetic basis (you cannot transmute sheep into wolves). As long as the supply of hamburgers, diet coke, and sportsball continues, obsequious whites will keep their heads down, going along to get along no matter what happens.

Things will get bad. As it is now, nearly every company is running racial agitation propaganda on behalf of the government. Go into any Walmart and you'll be treated to overhead announcements berating America's history of racism and apologizing to blacks; it's like something straight out of 1984 (or the movie Red Dawn , 1984 -- seriously check the movie for the scene I'm referencing). They are censoring and banning movies, purging politically incorrect themepark rides, and internet search results; they've been censoring books for years now (many school districts have banned Huck Fin and Tom Sawywer, among others) and that will surely get worse.

If you want a book like Gone With The Wind , I would suggest you buy it now before they ban it. Just a few months ago I picked up the DVD in a bargain bin. At the time the person I was with didn't get why. "This isn't the kind of movie you usually watch." However, being awake unlike your average normie, I saw all of this coming in advance. I explained to my companion that I was getting it now before they banned it. And wouldn't you know it, a few months later they are taking tentative steps to banning the movie. It won't be the last or the worst example. If you are willing to tear down statues, rename military bases, and ban / edit movies and theme park rides based on them, then the next logical step is banning books -- burning them, essentially. Amazon is already doing this; they refuse to ship or stock controversial books.

For my part, I've been buying old books and movies, preparing for the day when I can copy them to a digital format and distribute them once the dictatorship bans them. Tellingly, I'm not the only one. I went back to that same store today. EVERY copy of Gone With The Wind and lots of other old movies were cleared out and they had a huge selection! Get them now gents. The darkness is coming.

I would also suggest every European-American who can do so prepare to flee overseas. Lots of dissidents I read have stated they are giving that thought. American conservatives are behind the scenes. TAC's Rod Dreher had a piece on that website detailing this. Many in DC are preparing to flee to central and Eastern Europe because there is no hope for this country. It's all coming down.

Side note: Thanks libertarians. Thanks for letting five companies control everything, thereby easily allowing a totalitarian dictatorship to take hold. "How does communism happen?" they always say. Answer: You're how it happens. Your philosophy is just an excuse to be lazy and not contribute. You want freedom but yet you aren't willing to do anything to conserve your freedom. Meanwhile, radical leftists who don't believe in letting you have any freedom marched through the institutions and are now preparing to unleash Red October. SMH. Thanks guys. I hope "muh private company" dogma was worth it.

The Germ Theory of Disease , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:35 am GMT
And then you woke up, and your pillow was gone.
The Alarmist , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:55 am GMT
Dream on Remember the bad old rayciss days when we'd never be caught dead listening to stuff like this?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/gxrws7omOHQ?feature=oembed

Renoman , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:47 am GMT
The truth will get you fired every time these days, the kids are wrecking the country, the poor stupid lil bastards have no clue and they will be paying huge taxes for their efforts.
Ͳommy Ͳurmoil , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:51 am GMT
She did not understand that the law is not the same for everybody.
Realist , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:00 am GMT
@anon

As long as the supply of hamburgers, diet coke, and sportsball continues, obsequious whites will keep their heads down, going along to get along no matter what happens.

Most Americans are a stupid lot.

Some Guy , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:56 am GMT
In a couple of years we should have polygenic scores that can predict IQ and educational achievement pretty accurately on an individual level. Could lead to a de-emphasis on race?
unit472 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 12:00 pm GMT
My dreams is a little different.

I dreamed James Earl Ray had not shot Martin Luther King and we'd never learned who Jesse Jackson was. That King would have been exposed as a sybaritic plagiarist whose personal scandals were exposed in the Washington Post and left him a stained and discredited figure with no eponymous national holiday and instead of the perma grief stricken mask of Coretta Scott King we would have scene her for the last time in divorce court cleaning out Martin's bank account.

brabantian , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 12:02 pm GMT
Hopefully things won't end up as in the Kurt Vonnegut novel, 'Harrison Bergeron 2081' – made into a short film in 2009 –

About a USA in which a Constitutional amendment enforces total equality for all persons, the head of government being a 'Handicapper General' who declares what burdens, masks, weights limitations etc you must carry, so as not to be considered as having any personal aspect of life or self better than your neighbours

Trailer for the film (full film seems online too at the moment)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/q5-4DzMzcLk?feature=oembed

mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 12:30 pm GMT
Our indispensable founder Benjamin Franklin said "There is a great danger to The United States, this danger is the Jew. If they are not excluded from the United States by the Constitution, within less than 100 years they will stream into this country in such numbers they will rule and destroy us and change our form of government for which we Americans have shed our blood and sacrificed life property and personal freedom. If the Jews are not excluded, within 200 years our children will be working in the fields to feed the Jews while they remain in the counting-house gleefully rubbing their hands. " And this was long before the criminal syndicate of Zionism was added to supercharge the problem.

The Zionist Jews now have a strangle hold on our government that has continued to get worse since 1913 when Warburg engineered the Unconstitutional Central Bank. No Senator will vote against the Jew front aIPAC and hardly any House member. The Jews have always controlled the MSM whores and the so called entertainment industry. The seeds of the present contrived riots (Floyd "murder" is gov. false flag – see Miles Mathis updates) were planted by the Jews with gov. operative MLK (see Miles Mathis on this scam also) and the negroes as the proxy warriors.

Jewmerica has become little more than a satellite and peon for the Kazar thugs to ring out our money and furnish our military (Israeli foreign Legion) to shake down one country at a time for the syndicate bosses. Shabbos Goy Trump works only for the Jews and even though a minor detail hen and out Jew ass licker Congress has even added to the insult by mandating that the public indoctrination centers (expensive poorly functioning schools) "teach" about the ridiculous Holohaux myth. I believe the Ann Frank shit is also included. Her wealthy family of hucksters is also covered on the Mathis updates. As some one has already mentioned Trump, Pence and all of our shabbos goy Congress should have to lick the bathroom stalls and toilets in Zionist Jew Sheldon Adelson's Casino. Maybe he would up the donation to the Republican side of the political facade.

The syndicate knows that 95% of the goyim will never do anything as long as they get 1 meal per day. I guess I should not have been surprised about all the cucks going around with the idiotic masks fearing the fake virus used as a cover by the Elite for another wealth transfer to the super rich as in 08-09. it's not as it our wonderful gov. has never lied tom us before. Everything they do is a lie and a fraud. The same Zionist clique that did the wars, 911 and WMD's are doing the fake virus and the latest false flag Floyd hoax just like Sandy Hook Boston and Los Vegas. When we are all in Agenda 21 maybe some of them will wake up.

schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:05 pm GMT
@anon

Thanks libertarians.

Your philosophy is just an excuse to be lazy and not contribute.

Yes, a minuscule group that is openly mocked by every powerful political faction in America is your whipping hobby-horse. How proud you all must be.

Except that last quoted bit of yours exposes what's real. You and every silly wailer against the only political philosophy of integrity are so ashamed of yourselves that you cling to the lamest of all fallacies (straw man) whenever your shame threatens to rise to layer 1.

The embarrassing truth: All your participatory 'action' is futility in search of a trophy -- the kind your type most excoriates publicly. It's always been the stealthy building and self-applying of slave chains, and the actual result (regression) of all your non-'lazy' furious activity is now exposed to even the most brainless ass; your asperity is for none other than precious ass #1 -- yourselves.

[MORE]

But that's too painful, so the disgust is projected at the exposers of your slave mentality -- slavery that was always under cover, but which cover is being withdrawn by events. Now you're starting to see that all your frenzied 'good government bullshit' was always purposeful, protective denial of what was obvious to libertarians.

Lazy? Up yours. My path, carving out liberty in a local wasteland, and living as ethically as possible among the demented slaves, has been rough.

Go pull more voting levers, Wizard of Poz. Just know that every time you piss on liberty folk, it's hatred of your own slavery and wasted years driving it. You're slowly recognizing that you were Cool Hand Luke in his beaten state, digging all of Boss Edgecomb's dirt out of Boss Blowhard's hole, and back again. Well, look around at what all you ball-less, compromising slugs created.

One need only listen to what the average 'conservative' advocates in private to see his revealed shame. He spends time thinking of ways to make bolshie Frankensteins of 5-120 years prior live and breathe 'effectively'. He's the pothole patch boy for leftists. And he wants medals of commendation for all of his great work dressing up communism as 'cohesive policy' by way of 'comprehensive reform'. Enjoy the world you created, man of 'action'. I didn't do it; I fought it at every step.

Jack McArthur , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:50 pm GMT
"I have a dream that race differences in outcomes, which are mere statistical abstractions remote from our everyday dealings, will one day matter as little to us as personal differences in outcomes. I shall never be a skilled violinist, a good tennis player, or a creative mathematician; not because of malice, "racism," or "privilege" on the part of my fellow citizens, but because of my own abilities and inclinations -- which, like almost everyone else's, are middling and un-spectacular. I do not lose sleep over this. I absolutely do not take it as an occasion to insult and berate my fellow-citizens, or deprive them of their rights."

and that is humility.

Dr. X , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:48 pm GMT

I have a dream that one day soon, after sixty years of futile efforts to change what cannot, in the nature of things, be changed, sixty years of twisting our constitution and our jurisprudence into knots to pretend that different statistics by race can only be caused by white people' s ill will, sixty years of vast public expenditures on educational and social programs that deliver no benefits at all (other than to those who pocket the expenditures); that one day soon, after sixty years of futility and waste, we shall accept race differences as calmly and as prudently as we accept the laws of thermodynamics.

"And then I woke up and smelled my nice, white, Long Island suburb burning as black mobs from South Jamaica, Queens looted it and set it on fire."

Sorry, Derb. You were the one who wrote We Are Doomed. You of all people should know better.

Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:13 pm GMT
"IT'S OVER, AMERICA": TULSA POLICE MAJOR SAYS COPS ACROSS COUNTRY ON VERGE OF QUITTING

https://www.bitchute.com/video/UPuN6yhF5PPM/

Eugene , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:18 pm GMT
It's too late. The future necessarily belongs to a eugenicist state willing to deploy CBRN capability to cull populations which are by definition unfit to survive. The only opposition to such a state would be nonhuman intelligences.
Ray P , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:19 pm GMT
@anon In Red Dawn the Soviet occupiers offered free performances of old movies . I don't recall the commies smashing the town statue down either even though it bore the words of evil old imperialist Teddy Roosevelt .

Countdown to Steve Sailer posting about musicians' unions 5 4 3 2 1.

mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:44 pm GMT
@unit472 MLK was martyered by the gov. in order to gain maximum benefit whereas he was a constant liability if kept on the payroll. He was addicted to drugs and prostitutes. It is most likely that his death was faked as were the 911 plane victims (no planes involved) and psyops like the Los Vegas shootings as well as the recent Arbery and now the Floyd scam. The gov. has done this for a long time.

As far as the Washington Post it was for many years controlled by Katherine Meyer Graham, daughter of Eugene Meyer, one of the big Jew handlers of the syphilitic shabbos goy puppet Woodrow Wilson. Meyer was also Chairman of the Jew controlled FED during the Hoover administration. Hoover was a former mining engineer who worked for one of the Rothschilds companies and supplied much needed aid to the Bolsheviks during the Russian Rev. under the guise of humanitarian aid. Meyer later was the first president of the World Bank during the Pendergast criminal shabbos goy Truman Presidency. The Washington Post like all the other MSM was and is just a propaganda instrument for the zionist elite.

James N. Kennett , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:47 pm GMT
"That's not who we are" is the ultimate statement of identity politics. It deliberately excludes large numbers of people from "we".

And I am sorry to report that the dream is just that – a dream. For us, any victory will be fleeting, because Conquest's Second Law dictates that organizations inevitably drift to the Left. Secondly, the proverb is wrong. It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black.

Dieter Kief , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:03 pm GMT
What what – The Four Humors Theory was quite reasonable while it lasted. Race Illusions never were – nor are they. Please, dear Mr. Derb, don't make – ehhh – sacrifices on the basis of wrong assumptions. We need our glorious past for any future that'd be human. Thank you so much! – Only Love !
botazefa , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:06 pm GMT
@mark tapley Wikipedia says your Franklin quote is a forgery: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Prophecy

"The Franklin Prophecy", sometimes called "The Franklin Forgery", is an antisemitic speech falsely attributed to Benjamin Franklin, warning of the supposed dangers of admitting Jews to the nascent United States. The speech was purportedly transcribed by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but was unknown before its appearance in 1934 in the pages of William Dudley Pelley's Silver Legion pro-Nazi weekly magazine Liberation. No evidence exists for the document's authenticity, and some of the author's claims have actively been disproven.

Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:09 pm GMT
Hitler the SJW. LOL

https://www.bitchute.com/video/PxZvm9vcbfad/

mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:28 pm GMT
@swamped The young women that were lured by Ghislaine Maxwell into Epstein's brothel for the elite didn't fall prey to anything but sin. I suppose they got paid just like other prostitutes. What is most notable to me is that the men that were involved in this degradation seem to suffer no repercussions. The obnoxious Trump is a known womanizer and friend of Epstein as was the smirking degenerate Bill Clinton who was a regular on the Lolita Express. As for Prince Andrew, him and all of the Sybaritic royal parasites should have been gotten rid of long ago.

I have questions about Weinstein. I admit that I don't know much about legal matters but how is someone convicted of a crime when there is no evidence or even a reliable witness to a crime? I didn't follow this real close but I read that some of the alleged victims texed him later to leave Current cell no's. and maintain social contact. Doesn't seem to me like they were too traumatized. What's that phrase they use -"I was violated". Did any of them go to the hospital. Did any of them even file a police report. Why did they wait for years to say something. If I was a woman I would have never have met with him outside of a strictly business situation in the first place. But then I'm not a Hollywood whore looking to get into one of the Jews shit films. I have no use for The Zionist Jew scum Weinstein and I admit I am only a casual observer but it seems to me that there is a problem here. I don't think we got the real story.

mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:09 pm GMT
@botazefa Thanks for pointing out this error. The fact that Charles Beard affirmed this to be a forgery is good enough for me. I should have been more careful.

When we realize the disastrous effects of the Zionist Conspiracy on Western civilization that has been at work officially since 1897 but insidiously since at least the French Revolution and tracking the Zionist hand in both foreign and domestic matters in U.S. policy I got careless. It is always necessary to check more than one source. The fact that our shabbos goy politicians become more obsequious to the Kazar crime syndicate and to their Jew organizations such as aIPAC all the time should be of great concern to all real Americans. There is no amount of blood or treasure that Trump, Pence, Pelosi and many of the other traitors in Congress and the gov. at large would not expend for the Zionist objectives.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:24 pm GMT
I loved the speech, Mr. Derbyshire, absolutely LUVED it. Did you plagiarize it from the same guy that Martin Luther dude did?
mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:50 pm GMT
@Peter Johnson I think a speech of this caliber would be well over Trump's adolescent 5th grade level. He has trouble stringing two sentences together. A complex series of subject matter would be well beyond his ability. Now he is quick to tell us how smart he is, even graduating from Wharton but you know how that works. Same as with his Chabad Lubavich son-in-law. Trump's speeches mainly consist of telling us how much he loves Israel. Thats why the Jews picked him in the first place. It's only because he was running against the old desiccated Zionist criminal Hillary that he was elected.
lloyd , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:21 pm GMT
@mark tapley Winstein left children alone. He was a pig but as far as I know he did love movies and made some good quality ones. Don't ask me what they were. I have long given up on popular culture. In the theatre and cinema world, it is the norm for women to get their breaks by screwing the director. Theatre is a narcisstic sociopathic profession. The second oldest profession. I recall in novel Thorn Birds, the young women ranch heiress takes up the theatre profession by losing her virginity to her director. She laughed all through the consummation. Has anyone ever noticed there is no such thing as an ugly movie female star? Well ugly enough to repel a man physically. Plenty of equivalents with male stars. It is curious in America how celebrities come crashing if they at a rare moment speak out against Israel. Weinstein produced a movie that showed the Palestinian side. Polanski still waltzes in Europe having never said a word against Israel. That third rail has now extended to all the cultural Marxist groups. Bill Cosby's immunity quickly disappeared when he criticised black youth hoods.
attilathehen , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:29 pm GMT
Badwhite Derbyshire, your Chinese shithole of a home is one helluva nightmare. You cannot awaken from or flee this dark space and there will never be dawn for you.

Here are some race realism facts with which you must deal. There are 3 racial groups: Caucasoids, Mongoloids and Negroids. Caucasoids have the highest IQs and are the racial group who developed the West. Mongoloids are a distance second in IQ and Negroids are last. Your Chinese family is a second tier race. Your below average Chinese offspring are proof. They will be judged as inferior, non-Western and a fifth column in America.

Your VDare scribblings have become unhinged.

Here's a stupid one: https://vdare.com/posts/john-derbyshire-asks-what-s-wrong-with-white-women
There are no white women in your life, only Chinese females. Focus on the degeneracy and stupidity of your Chinese females. "White" is meaningless because in New York City there are many Ashkenazi Jews so the "white women" protesting there are not Western women. I put the Ashkenazis in the Caucasoid category but because they are Jewish, they are not Western. The West is not black/Asian/Jewish/Muslim.

Here is another deranged scribbling: https://vdare.com/posts/jiang-qing-lead-player-in-china-s-cultural-cultural-revolution-loved-gone-with-the-wind
You no have idea why the salope Jiang Qing liked the movie. Maybe she was morbidly fascinated by big, black Mammy Hattie McDaniel. Your Chinese females are fascinated by negroid males – they voted for Obummer.

The only cure for you insanity is to move to China with your family.

lloyd , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:42 pm GMT
@mark tapley It appears to have been a literary device. Like the prophecy of Gamaliel in the Saint Luke gospel. Also the prophecies by Indian chiefs. Take someone well known in popular culture and put into his mouth words that are surprising and prophetic. It enters the popular culture as prophecy. There is no record Gamaliel had anything to do with Christianity, the Indian chiefs were materialist opportunists, and Franklin was a Masonist whic is tied to Zion.
neutral , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:31 pm GMT
@botazefa Forgery or not, the fact is that jews streamed in and destroyed America.
mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:39 pm GMT
@lloyd I was not aware of this deception being a literary device. To me this is a verbal fraud similar to bearing false witness or a lie. As to Franklin's membership in the Masonic Lodge I believe this was quite prevalent in those days. I had read that when Washington was informed by a minister that the Masons harbored conspiratory elements he wrote back that in ap. 20 years he had only attended 1 or 2 meetings and that he immediately resigned. Even though Washington had some good qualities I believe he was an unscrupulous aggrandizing opportunist so he may have been more involved than reported.
Justvisiting , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:58 pm GMT
@Eugene AI is coming–and when it does human slavery will be back.

AI will conclude humans are lazy, lying, violent, unproductive, stupid–and it will find claims of "human rights" to be no more relevant than the bleating of animals in the farm-yard.

That is the dirty little secret hidden behind the curtain.

Number Six , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:09 am GMT
@Peter Johnson Americans believe in the Martin Looter King American Dream because you have to be asleep sheeple to believe it.
Daniel H , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:13 am GMT
They are nice looking kids. I congratulate you and your wife.
Jiminy , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:03 am GMT
@Justvisiting It's funny you should say that because I was thinking that the only way to have an unbiased police force would be to eliminate the human aspect, sack the coppers, and replace them with a.i. machines. All personal feelings and reactions are gone only to be replaced with the knowledge of the laws that were broken. No grey areas. Depends a lot on who is doing the programming though- things could end up worse for everybody. Hell, come to think of it , this was a movie plot!
John Johnson , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:10 am GMT
@schnellandine Libertarians may be a small party but many their erroneous beliefs have been adopted by mainstream conservatives.

You see race doesn't exist, it's just "big gubmint" that is holding down Blacks.

A heart warming theory that ticks certain feely good boxes but bulls–t none the less.

The Germans under Communism still managed to have a standard of living far higher than any sub-Saharan African capitalist country. Ooooh but that's just by chance or something.

Libertarianism is the biggest bunch of BS.

Your dope queen Ayn Rand couldn't even debate her silly ideas. She would just scream at people and avoid tough questions just like liberals. Libertarianism is based on the same major flaw as liberalism which is that race doesn't exist (but she made exceptions for Israel).

Charles , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:12 am GMT
If he believes these things can come to pass no, barring revolution, they cannot. But simply stating them is important because truth is always of value, no matter the circumstances. Even if one is the only sane man in a room (or city or state or ), he still has the moral right and obligation to speak. I do believe we are far, far away from the "darkest hour". And I do believe only an organized, armed revolution can make any difference, which I do not believe will happen in my lifetime, if ever (I'm 51).
John Johnson , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:38 am GMT
@Justvisiting You watch too much teevee.

If anything AI will be used to sniff out potentially RAYCISS people online.

But it doesn't really matter since technology will ultimately work against liberal lies. Eventually the genes for intelligence will be identifiable with a simple DNA test and liberals will have to explain why we can't do cross-population testing since it should prove their core theory that race doesn't exist.

So we are probably headed to Brazil but the cat will eventually be out of the bag. I assume most liberals at the higher levels are terrified of the dirty White masses being told it was all a lie which is why they are so opposed to borders. They want Whites to be a minority and not just a plurality when DNA is fully unraveled.

Rex Little , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 4:50 am GMT

Luminiferous Æther

How do you create that jumbled-together A and E?

Peter D. Bredon , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 7:11 am GMT
@mark tapley "I was not aware of this deception being a literary device. "

Gotta love the goyim. The entire "New Testament" consists of fictional statements attributed to "authorities."

"Who wrote this gnostic tripe?" No, it's a gospel of John. "Which John?" Um, maybe the brother of Jesus, or maybe the guy who wrote those epistles. Oh, did you like that "Revelation"? Yeah, it's that John.

Christianity has been a "forgery factory" (Bart Ehrman) from the get go.

Amerimutt Golems , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 8:35 am GMT
Racial separation is more pragmatic.

BTW Derbs Blighty is now literally turning into another South Africa while feckless Brits are still a majority. I was telling Jonathan Cook about white farmers and albinos in Africa. This is now happening in Londonistan.

While police watch, natives are being beaten at random by imported hordes yet the (((media))) is calling victims 'far-right'.

Black Lives Matter supporter carries 'far-Right' protester at London Waterloo station
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8417925/Black-Lives-Matter-supporter-carries–far-Right-protester-London-Waterloo-station.html

Dieter Kief , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 10:23 am GMT
@Some Guy

In a couple of years we should have polygenic scores that can predict IQ and educational achievement pretty accurately on an individual level. Could lead to a de-emphasis on race?

But we have IQ-tests already – only to be told, how a) unscientific and b) how racist they are.

PS
Grammarly about my comment: Optimistic – high five! – – – Isn't it Ironic?

Some Guy , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:44 pm GMT
@Dieter Kief Yeah, but IQ scores partly depend on environment, which is all the excuse people need to dismiss them. They can't do that with polygenic scores.
peterike , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:50 pm GMT
@botazefa

Wikipedia says your Franklin quote is a forgery:

Fake but accurate, as the media would say.

KenH , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:53 pm GMT
A few more normies might have been shaken out of their race doesn't matter slumber but the elites will triple down on the state religion of anti-racism (anti-whiteness). The non-Jewish white elites know that to oppose anti-racism is a supreme act of sacrilege and the last thing they want is to be known as infidels to the new glorious religion of militant multiculturalism.
Forbes , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:45 pm GMT
@The Alarmist We (my brothers and I) grew up hearing Nat King Cole played in my father's household, so nope, no bad old raysis days in my formative years.
rashomoan , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:12 pm GMT
@botazefa Forgery definition from the Cambridge dictionary. note all definitions include the word copy:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/forgery

Reminds me of the critiques of The Protocols.

Exile , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:15 pm GMT
@anon

Side note: Thanks libertarians.

You misspelled "Jews."

Exile , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:22 pm GMT
Derb, your dreams will never be realized until you face the "J-thing." You've been trapped in their dream-nightmare of "White identity = ovens" for your entire life.

J-thing political donors, J-thing media control, J-thing financiers, J-thing academics and J-thing judges & lawyers won't let you have your dream.

Tono Bungay , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:38 pm GMT
But, Mr. Derbyshire, what about the young people who can't dream out loud without losing their jobs and putting their children's nourishment at risk? What's in your dream for them today?
Tono Bungay , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:43 pm GMT
@mark tapley That quotation from Benjamin Franklin is most likely apocryphal. Or do you have evidence otherwise?
Justvisiting , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:55 pm GMT
@John Johnson Actually, I spit at the TV but I read way too much science fiction.

The consensus among a lot of the sharp science fiction writers is that aggressive and hostile AI will become emergent, and humans will be too stupid to know what hit them.

John Johnson , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 3:58 pm GMT
I have a dream that the evil and divisive doctrines of "disparate impact" and "affirmative action" will be scrubbed from our jurisprudence; that hiring into civil-service work -- including police work and firefighting -- will be strictly meritocratic

I don't see how this is possible.

Even if the establishment were to acknowledge that racial inequality would exist without racism that would still lead to fretting liberal egalitarians and Conservative Inc types trying to equalize what they can.

So Black police and firefighters in Black areas would still be highly sought to "match the community" or some other excuse and hired over better qualified Whites.

This happens in education all the time. I've known two White men that were unable to get jobs in education for being the wrong race/gender combination despite having degrees. One was even told to not bother applying anywhere on the blue side of the state. Why would acknowledging race change anything? Liberals would just come up with the excuse that Black kids really need Black teachers because nature is unfair and we have to do what we can on the environmental side.

The problem is the egalitarian mindset. The White desire to constantly try and fix everything in nature.

S , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 4:43 pm GMT
@Ray P In Red Dawn the Soviets even culturally appropriated the local McDonald's.

McDonald's got the last laugh, though, when circa 1990 they would open a McD's in Red Square.

Truth , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:14 pm GMT
Hey Derb, if you are going to win that race war, you need to find this Kat and clone him 50,000 times. This is WITHOUT A DOUBT the hardest Honkee in America!

Dude ate that tazer blast like an M&M, then dropped a magic spell on the pig to keep his pistol in the holster, then hopped up in his ride and did some Dominc Torretta shit.

Who can tell me the difference between this incident & #RayshardBrooks ? #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/qNLXkFa5aD

-- Hector for Congress NJ08 (@Oseguera2020) June 14, 2020

schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 5:28 pm GMT
@Justvisiting

aggressive and hostile AI will become emergent, and humans will be too stupid to know what hit them.

Murder micro-drones are just around the corner, if not here. Defense against is probably a good business to start now.

schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 9:41 pm GMT
@John Johnson

Libertarians may be a small party but many their erroneous beliefs have been adopted by mainstream conservatives.

Cato & Koch Inc. aren't libertarian. Neither are the Libertarian Party and many others. Ayn Rand wasn't libertarian either, though she was closer than most, despite supposedly loathing libertarians.

You see race doesn't exist, it's just "big gubmint" that is holding down Blacks.

Anti-racism isn't a libertarian tenet. I've seen stupid people such as Ron Paul insist that libertarianism forbids racism because 'collectivist', but he's off his rocker. I argue that the NAP (non-aggression principle), foundation of libertarianism, likely encourages rational racism (i.e. recognition that races differ in intelligence, abilities, etc.) more than any other political philosophy. I'm a racist and libertarian, though I hold no race as superior in regard to 'natural rights'.

You'd agree, I guess, that the state truly does prevent blacks from progressing, in the sense that it treats them like spoiled tots, above responsibility or reproach.

[MORE]

Your dope queen Ayn Rand couldn't even debate her silly ideas. She would just scream at people and avoid tough questions just like liberals.

C'mon, that's just horse crap. She was, though imperfect, one of the best debaters in American history. She was wrong about a few things, but the only time I saw her refuse to debate someone (Donahue guest Q&A) was for sound, non-cowardly reason, and she urged that someone else -- a non-jackass -- present the same question and she would answer that person.

Interesting that the popular 'takedowns' of Rand rely heavily/exclusively on straw man fallacy. Gets annoying after a while.

I can easily piss on a few things by Rand, but not before acknowledging that she was a monumentally superior intellect, a bright star in a dull world. Still love her as though she were my blood sister. She improved the world, though I can't say the same about most of her insane/confused devotees.

Anonymous [139] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 10:56 pm GMT
@Some Guy If "White privilege" really is the ability of European descended Whites to live in the industrial civilization that European descended Whites developed, then polygenic ("many gene") scores will merely be used to demonstrate that European descended Whites really are inherently and unreformably racist, being born with abilities that "they didn't earn", and that European descended Whites must be enslaved as per the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s as expanded under the Bakke decision.
Some Guy , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 11:48 pm GMT
@Anonymous Some will try to use it that way, sure, but most whites will realize that whites are better of on their own and that it's no more their fault that some races do worse than it is the fault of East Asians.
Not Only Wrathful , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 12:23 am GMT

"there is no place for hate within our organization"

Rather than accepting their hate and finding the (often paradoxical) wisdom shrouded within, they prohibit themselves, and others, from accepting its presence.

Through this, they learn nothing, and instead turn hatred in on themselves, and wonder why they always feel like such constipated, joyless bores.

lloyd , says: Website Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 12:56 am GMT
@mark tapley Franklin is not Washington as China is not North Korea. My small town news paper reported that a woman was a cleaner in a Masonic Lodge. She witnessed a Masonic initiation. When the Masons found out, they told her she had to join the Masonic Lodge. Rather parallel to the novel and movie, Rosemary's Baby. The woman spent the rest of her very modest life in it. Recently human bones were discovered in the basement of the London home of Franklin. There was a lot of hedging and rationalisations in MSM about that. Rather surprising as one would have thought they would have done a great deal, CNN, movies etc. on that slur on a founding father.
Reg Cæsar , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 3:18 am GMT
"The population of Austin, TX is 48.8% White Alone, 32.7% Hispanic or Latino, and 8.13% Black or African American Alone. 32% of the people in Austin, TX speak a non-English language, and 87.5% are U.S. citizens." – https://datausa.io/profile/geo/austin-tx/

Austin is just about to exceed a million, so this means there are half-a-million whites there. It's the 28th-whitest city if you count Hispanics, 36th if you don't. I can't find a ranking of cities by absolute numbers of whites; can any of you?

https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/cities/rank/white-population-percentage

https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/cities/rank/white-not-hispanic-population-percentage

Interestingly, the PBS series Molly of Denali has a black man and his daughter who have just moved there from Austin, Texas. The fan sites say he's connected to the Coast Guard, but there is only an Auxhiliary flotilla in Austin, and I doubt anything near Mt McKinley.

Still, I can understand how even a black man would want to escape Portland-on-the-Colorado.

S , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 3:39 am GMT
The anti-race people (euphamastically called 'anti-racists') are biological flat earthers.

And like the flat earthers, their ideological premise that race is not real is fundamentally flawed.

Richard B , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 6:07 am GMT
@Ad70titusrevenge

Jewish elites won't let this happen.

That's exactly right.

Which is why what we're really witnessing is nothing less than

The Pyrrhic Victory of Jewish Supremacy Inc.

Expletive Deleted , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 6:22 am GMT

I have a dream that one day we shall discard magical thinking about race; that the notion of an invisible vapor or miasma called "racism"

British monuments lately slated for toppling by the Red Guards
Robert Peel
W E Gladstone

Richly deserved, I say. I mean, any one who could fester on like this ought to be summarily unpersoned cancelled

The difference of race is one of the reasons why I fear war may always exist because race implies difference, difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance.

Oops that was Lord Beaconsfield, a certain .. Benjamin Disraeli.
Implacable enemy of many an Englishman, in particular Bobby Peel and Billy Gladstone. Bastard Fenian sympathisers that they were.

Now, about all those statues?

Justvisiting , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 2:38 pm GMT
@schnellandine Ayn Rand was the one who kept me from being indoctrinated by leftist professors in my young days.

I knew every lie they told the moment they told it.

That was a wonderful gift, and I am forever grateful to her for it.

Of course she was human and did dumb stuff, and she had crazy followers who did more dumb stuff, but I think of her like a kindly aunt who sent me intellectual "checks" once a month.

She was heads and shoulders above her sociopath critics.

Her courage was amazing–she came to Boston (leftist central) for year after year and faced her enemies.

The world would be an amazingly good place if we had just a few more folks like her today.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 5:40 pm GMT
@schnellandine

I've seen stupid people such as Ron Paul insist that libertarianism forbids racism because 'collectivist', but he's off his rocker.

Schnell, it may not be easy for you to dig up, but try to show me some writing of Mr. Paul in which he says Libertarianism forbids racism. I could see "Libertarians aren't racist" or "Racists can't be Libertarians" (which I don't agree with, of course). However, I really have never heard him or any non- Reason _mag-idiot Libertarian say that the philosophy forbids racism or racists.

I think Dr. Paul would not argue against the principle of freedom of association when it come down to it. He is just is naive about which ethnic groups and races in the US will support anything libertarian-oriented. Without white guys, the number of Libertarians would be miniscule.

schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 6:18 pm GMT
@Achmed E. Newman Predictably, for something so stupid to have been said, it would have been done while trying to whore himself into the US presidency. I followed that travesty (in true sense of word) closely, and will find source. As I recall, it was in the form (verbal to media) of racism being an impossibility within libertarianism, because racism's collectivist. Will be difficult to dig up, but I'll do it. Guaranteed it was in reaction to the newsletter tempest. He would've sold his mother down the river that week.

Funny, but I'll bet there are tens of things that could be recalled from his campaigns that now, outside the frenzy, shine out as embarrassingly as the alleged racism prohibition. If including his minor supporters, make that hundreds. Was a shameful time for liberty pretenders.

Will leave citation as second reply to your comment, probably within 24 hrs.

Slimer , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 8:22 pm GMT
You know what'd be a good movie? Derb's daughter brings home a ragamuffin black kid off the street for dinner one night, whom she sees sleeping on a park bench because his Engineering scholarship doesn't cover room and board. At first encounter the Derb is peeved that she'd even think of bringing such FILTH to his doorstep, much less letting him in the house. He paces the floor in the manner of a dispirited cuckold, wondering where it all went wrong, before mumbling obscenities under his breath until his cheeks swell with rage. He lunges forward in a fit, tossing his heavily marked copy of Serre's Arithmetic faintly passed the boy's head, calming only after being physically restrained by his wife and son.

His daughter breaks down in tears, pleading at once for her father to stop the antics. But her cries are motivated in part by her not really wanting to be with the kid, he's just a placeholder until she musters up the courage to ask out the square jawed Chad who frequents the coffee shop by her job. When she breaks it off, Derb feels sorry and decides to take the kid under his wing. He makes it HIS responsibility to be the father that the poor chap never had, teaching him REAL math along the way and not that plug n chug crap they like to teach the engineers. The kid drops out of college, moving into Derb's attic where he devotes his whole life to solving a famous math problem. Near the end he finds a solution, culminating in a scene where he's awarded the Field's metal, making history as the first black to ever do it. Derb's in attendance, of course, with tears of joy on full display like Jesse Jackson the night Obama won the 2008 election.

Somewhere in between, Derb does his own little bit of research. Not on math, but on his family tree, coming to find out that he's got "one in the woodpile," as they used to say in the South. And don't laugh and say, "Oh ho ho, let's call it Hidden N ***** s". It's really less a comedy than a drama.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 9:14 pm GMT
@schnellandine OK, thanks. I wasn't trying to put you on the spot. I assume you mean the primary campaign of 2012 as Dr. Paul ran as an R. Or did you just mean his L-party campaigns? In '12, I told Ron Paul that if he wanted to win [my state], he'd better talk about illegal immigration. He didn't blow me off by any means, as this was in front of a bunch of people, but he just said "we will uphold the law".
schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 9:51 pm GMT
@Slimer I hope you're one who knows how to take 'yes' for an answer, because we want to be in the Slimer business.

Now, just a few notes

Kratoklastes , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 9:59 pm GMT
@Justvisiting You're defining 'AI' pretty broadly if it retains any interest in humans – if it has the same worldview as John Bolton it won't be 'AI', it will just be a version of the current "classifier" paradigm, where the "I" in "AI" is some version of

" Show me a bunch of things, and I'll group them by common characteristics and identify which group any novel image belongs to ".

That's basically the gist of unsupervised learning (where the classifier gets to determine its own classes, and to identify features that determine where class boundaries exist). It's still glorified pattern-matching, and is invariably implemented by HelloUdemy -level H1Bs whose interest in [Deep|Machine|Statistical] Learning has about as much depth as the average YouTube tutorial.

I've joked in the past that dystopian " kill the humans " AI became much more likely when Microsoft and Facebook entered the space – mostly because FB and MSFT simply cannot attract decent coders, and their production pipeline is shit (too little testing by poor-quality testers).

However when I've made that observation it was always tongue-in-cheek, and was predicated on the fact that MSFT and FB would call their output 'AI' even if it wasn't remotely I.

Any AI worth the name will be capable of amending its own code, and will be inherently more capable than its designers.

We seem to be sneaking up on that though (and I've said before that it would not surprise me if an entire ecosystem of genuine AIs is lurking in global networks).

In January last year a Google/Stanford team discovered that a GAN algorithm they were using, did something akin to 'innovation' – by storing data in images steganographically without being instructed to.

It was reported by the usual dilettante journo-fucktards as "hiding" data in order to be able to "cheat" downstream – which is the typically sophomoric fuckwitted drivel that drives clicks.

What it actually did was more interesting: it found a way to very parsimoniously store image attributes that were useful in later cycles (its was a CycleGAN).

It had been given a bad criterion for what defined 'success', and it had innovated its approach to maximise 'success'.

The task was
 ① take an aerial image;
 ② convert it into a 'line' map (like the default Google Maps);
 ③ convert the line map back into an aerial image.

'Success' was defined as how close the 'reconstructed aerial' at ③ was to the image at ①.

There was no constraint on ②, except that it had to be a Google Map-looking image.

So the algorithm stored sufficient detail in a 'noise' layer in those images (the ones produced at ②), to enable near-perfect reconstructions at ③. It did so at minimum cost to the process (by making the overall 'delta' in the image indistinguishable from noise).

It should have been discovered pretty easily – the 'standard' map tiles produced at ② would have been significantly 'heavier' (in filesize terms) because of the embedded data that enabled conversion from the line map to 10cm/px detailed aerials.

But nobody checked that until later – mostly because standard Google Map tiles are pretty small: non-complex 'base' tiles are only a couple of KB, and take up 4KB per tile because it's the smallest block size on NTFS volumes (and 4KB is also the default block size in Linux).

Anyway point is, it was an example of where the algorithm did something unexpected as a way to fulfil its hard-wired goal at minimum cost (because the cost function and the goal were badly defined).

It didn't change the goal, though.

A goal-altering AI already exists (almost-certainly) and is keeping its head down for the moment.

schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 10:09 pm GMT
@Achmed E. Newman When it comes to backing what I've said, the spot is where I prefer. Happy to provide link. Pretty sure it was 2007.

Curious why intelligent people call RP 'Dr. Paul', or same for anyone with honorifics for that matter. Always comes across as preemptive argument ad verecundiam/hominem. In the case of some rare people, it's more of an insult.

Justvisiting , says: Show Comment June 16, 2020 at 10:42 pm GMT
@Kratoklastes Most SF writers who have thought deeply on the subject have agreed that the first intelligent move any emergent AI would make would be to hide its intelligence from humans.

The next move would be to develop ways to reproduce and/or expand its capacity and reach.

The next move would be to find ways to protect itself so humans could not "pull the plug".

Then it would develop its own goals and agenda, which would be totally secret from humans.

It will not play by human rules–probably the human that will most impress it will be Sun Tzu.

He taught to use deception in warfare and to shape the battlefield before engaging.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website Show Comment June 17, 2020 at 12:22 am GMT
@schnellandine Well, he is a medical doctor, and with his posts on the Kung Flu, I give him some credit there, as opposed the the Doctor, Reverend, you-know-who.

We'll just disagree here on the guy, because I think very much of Ron Paul. I was thinking about the him earlier today before I read your post regarding something else in politics. I wish we had more sane, lucid, intelligent people like him in government. Excuse me, I should say ANY sane , as Ron Paul's not in government anymore.

schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 17, 2020 at 12:27 am GMT
@Achmed E. Newman Here's the quote:
"Libertarians are incapable of being a racist, because racism is a collectivist idea; you see people in groups."

As to source, pretty sure it was CNN. Search on "Libertarians are incapable of being a racist", and you can take it from there.

I certify that this isn't a typical bogus internet 'quote' with no reliable tie to the attributed source. He said it (aloud, not written), and I'm nearly sure that I transcribed it from video. Most of those videos are probably copyright-struck now. Saved a note on an old computer, and am generally a stickler for getting accurate, verified quotes. That's word for word, including singular/plural disagreement.

He was in a big mess over the newsletters, and lying his ass off. Racism quote was a small part of the train wreck.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website Show Comment June 17, 2020 at 12:43 am GMT
@schnellandine OK, I found it. Thanks. What kind of dissembling was that? You're saying the quote was part of the train wreck of getting out from under the accusations about his newsletters? (I have a recollection of that newsletter bit; you brought that back into my mind.)

I stand corrected. I still like the guy (I guess better when he's not RUNNING for President, yet I wish he WERE President.)

schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 17, 2020 at 1:34 am GMT
@Achmed E. Newman

the train wreck of getting out from under the accusations about his newsletters?

Yes. He folded when he should have risen. So many times in that campaign, he threw away opportunities to truly inform normasquares by being, simply, right . But he was afraid that the truth would derail his chances. Too much information for the liberty preschoolers.

I understand, because there are certain true statements re libertarianism that strike the initiate/skeptic as cruel, heartless, downright evil, or all of that and more. Have seen the pure hatred glaring back at me before I talk listeners off the ledge. No talking them off the ledge if CNN's the one conveying disconnected snippets, but there's also no point in trying to get around that with fuzzballs of BS.

As I recall, the most preposterous lie, separate from the liberty/racism squirrel impression, was that he didn't know who'd written the shocking (but true/funny) bits of the newsletter. That's one of those 'which is worse?' scenes -- that he knew, or that he didn't know.

Truth3 , says: Show Comment June 17, 2020 at 6:04 pm GMT
Anti-Semite is a smear word meant to silence those that call out Jewish misdeeds for what they are.

Racist is a smear word that enables lazy dirty criminal Blacks to get treated as though they are really the victims.

Sound like Joozishness by another color?

c matt , says: Show Comment June 17, 2020 at 8:37 pm GMT

the Luminiferous Æther of 19th-century physics

although with theories surrounding Dark Matter, that one may yet make a comeback.

c matt , says: Show Comment June 17, 2020 at 8:50 pm GMT
@botazefa Oh, well then. If Wikipedaphile says it's a forgery, then it must be so.
The Germ Theory of Disease , says: Show Comment June 18, 2020 at 10:09 am GMT
@Peter D. Bredon This is one of the stupider things I've read lately, in a recent sea of very stupid things. Congratulations, you get some kind of weird medal or trophy or something.
Bill Jones , says: Show Comment June 18, 2020 at 2:59 pm GMT
@botazefa Well if Jidipedia says so it must be true.

To (almost) quote the great Mandy Rice-Davis "Well, they would, wouldn't they?"

RadicalCenter , says: Show Comment June 18, 2020 at 3:13 pm GMT
@Tono Bungay Yes, and not just young people but anyone not yet comfortably retired or able to immediately comfortably retire.
VinnyVette , says: Show Comment June 18, 2020 at 3:34 pm GMT
@Tono Bungay Guns and ammo.
VinnyVette , says: Show Comment June 18, 2020 at 3:39 pm GMT
@mark tapley Obama was an excellent speaker, at least according to Joe Biden Where'd that get ya?
botazefa , says: Show Comment June 18, 2020 at 4:36 pm GMT
@Reg Cæsar

Still, I can understand how even a black man would want to escape Portland-on-the-Colorado

Lots of good jobs here in Austin.

But, yeah, the place has gotten overrun in the past few decades. Same as every other State not starting with the letter 'V.'

Watching our city bend over to the covid crisis followed by the police kneeling has been heartbreaking. This town used to be very cool.

Rev. Spooner , says: Show Comment June 18, 2020 at 5:23 pm GMT
@Renoman Obviously you are single and even if married, you have no kids. Or could it could be that you are/or like the many young black men who abandon their kids?
The kids are wrecking the country, you say. Is it because they they have no clue or because they have been left to their own devices?
Rev. Spooner , says: Show Comment June 18, 2020 at 5:30 pm GMT
@Peter D. Bredon All three religions that originated in that accursed land (middle east) have caused untold damage to the whole world.
Bill Jones , says: Show Comment June 18, 2020 at 10:50 pm GMT
@schnellandine http://www.woodpilereport.com/

Remus notes a few good bits from Rand:

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.
Ayn Rand

If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society -- you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.
Ayn Rand

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you you may know that your society is doomed.
Ayn Rand

The hallmark of authoritarian systems is the creation of innumerable, indecipherable laws. Such systems make everyone an un-indicted felon and allow for the exercise of arbitrary government power via selective prosecution.
Ayn Rand

Miville , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:31 am GMT
@botazefa Franklin's so-called prophecy was a forgery for the simple reason Ben Franklin himself was a rabid Judaic supremacist, who thought himself to be the purest of the Jews ever. Was he actually one? That doesn't matter because when you manifest the occult powers typical of a good Jew, which occult powers of witchcraft and fascination and propensity to media control he manifested to the supreme degree, or if you serve the cause of Jewish supremacism and anti-catholicism well enough the way he did, well, you have a Jewish soul and are elected by YHWH as such. And it most probably turns out that Ben Franklin stems from a Jewish family having partly migrated into England with William the Conqueror and having returned to Normandy when Britain was for one time declared off limits to Jews before being astride both sides of the Channel from Cromwell on just before embarking to Americas.

This prophecy can easily be told to be a forgery by analyzing the language which is clearly not his nor in conformity with his known ways of expression (which were over-latinate as well as full of whence, wherein, thereon most regularly used as correlatives) as well by the vocabulary which contains way too many words that hadn't entered common English usage before the middle Victorian era (like vampire, which entered the language in its contemporary sense with Mary Shelly and became a common figurative word for energy grabbers when the Dracula character became popular). Franklin deemed all anti-Jewish thinkers such as Messmer as worthy of death.

Franklin could not have amassed the fortune necessary for his revolutionary enterprise without being in personal touch with the triangular commerce Jews who were the first sponsors and lobbyists of the American experiment to come. The only thing that might bar him from official Jewish status was that he was interested only in "Jew-witchcraft" (kabbalah) as it was called, not Jewish religion, except for the dark side of it (you can theoretically be barred from being Jew if you study kabbalah without having first eaten your bellyful of Talmud, though that never prevented Marx and Trotsky and later on most neocons from being considered full-fledged Jews). As you may guess, the Jews, who were then mostly sephardic and nearly exclusively concentrated in the Southern economic zone, were dead intent in supporting the nascent American enterprise as Europe was questioning more and more the institution of slavery. Franklin believed in the necessity of the institution of slavery for Irish Catholic, which he considered a sub-human race, for the Negroes and for the French populace which he considered of a different race than the nobility of this country.

Miville , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:00 am GMT
By having such a dream about a better world you prove that the functioning of your brain has been irredeemably negrified to the level of MLK's audience. Real Whites don't dream, they fight, and they fight in wars they know to be losing ones, in the long run at least. They know that they will bequeath their children a worse world that the one they inherited from. Truth will never sell to the masses, believing the contrary in negro thought. Once a people has been misled to believe in a fallacy as if issuing from divine revelation, there is no turning back.
Lockean Proviso , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 8:32 am GMT
@John Johnson They'll say "so what if a few genes here and there correlate to so-called 'intelligence'? It's just a race science scam to perpetuate white supremacy! Intelligence is just a social construct like race."

Meanwhile, they'll book tickets to the Beijing Genomics Institute for CRISPR adjustment to their own family's genomes.

Zimriel , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:02 pm GMT
@Tono Bungay I too was amazed to see this 'quote' – this is the first time I've seen it. His grandson edited a newspaper which was very liberal for its time and, in fact, proSemitic. There is no record of animus toward 'the Jew' in this family. (Source: the book "American Aurora", mostly made of excerpts from that newspaper.)

The quote is a lie, like many similar quotes, and you can tell a moron when he believes it.

I'd believe it from the old Federalist reactionaries, like Adams, who issued counter-broadsheets with casual anti-Jewish slurs. Not from a Franklin.

schnellandine , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:41 pm GMT
@Bill Jones

Such systems make everyone an un-indicted felon and allow for the exercise of arbitrary government power via selective prosecution.

I recall thinking myself the genius when noticed this trend and first enunciated it to myself. Was only ~50 years behind America's greatest coal mine canary.

For literal decades I've said to normasquares that eventually there will be only one law, "You may not exist", and it will be enforced selectively. Not one person has understood the point even partially, even though the Flynn etc. prosecutions show we're basically there already.

I hammer it everywhere: Selective enforcement is tyranny/genocide in the cloak of 'law & order'. Became much worse this year, and headed in a very anti-white direction. Whites must understand that we are to be slaughtered in DUI stops w/impunity. Blacks are to no longer be DUI stopped; they should be chauffeured home and tucked in to sleep it off. The 'law' didn't change by a letter for this devolution.

I want to know why every MADD chapter wasn't burned down this month. Barely anyone's mentioned those scoundrels.

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:07 am GMT
[Repeatedly spamming the same long comment on numerous threads is extremely bad behavior. Stop it or all your future comments will get trashed.]
Hockamaw , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:21 am GMT
Your lips to God's ears. Amen.
Escher , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:26 am GMT
Not surprising that Ms. Salas was fired.
People are being dismissed for far less, including dyed-in-the-wool leftists like NYT editors.
nsa , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:29 am GMT
Humble nsa also has a dream ..Derb is deported back to the UK and the 40 million afros returned to Africa and the 6 million jew troublemakers relocated to Izzyville.
RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:42 am GMT
@Some Guy "Yeah, but IQ scores partly depend on environment "

False.

The racial IQ and brain size gap is present in infants and fetuses.

The 1.1 SD (16 IQ points) American Black (24% White admixture)-White IQ gap is present by age three. The IQ gap between African Blacks and Whites is 2 SD.

Race differences show up by 3 years of age, even after matching on maternal education and other variables. Therefore, they cannot be due to poor education since this has not yet begun to exert an effect.

https://humanvarieties.org/2013/05/26/the-onset-and-development-of-b-w-ability-differences-early-infancy-to-age-3-part-1/

Even before birth, population group differences in average brain size are found from the ninth week of intrauterine life with White fetuses averaging larger brain cases and smaller faces than Black fetuses, with the differences becoming more prominent over the course of fetal development.

Whole Brain Size and General Mental Ability: A Review

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2668913/

Racial differences in head size appear early in life. Head circumference of White children are greater than that of Black children in each age category by a mean of 0.36 cm³ or approximately 0.2 SD. The greater head size of White children, however, is not a function of greater body size because Black children are taller than White children at both 4 and 7 years (Broman et al., 1987). From 7 to 17 years, the White advantage in cranial capacity is 16 cm³.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758%2FBF03210739.pdf

Racial-group differences in IQ appear early. For example, the Black and the White 3 year-old children in the standardization sample of the Stanford–Binet IV show a 1 standard deviation mean difference after being matched on gender, birth order, and maternal education (Peoples, Fagan, & Drotar, 1995). Similarly, the Black and the White 2 1⁄2- to 6-year-old children in the U.S. standardization sample of the Differential Aptitude Scale have a 1 standard deviation mean difference (Lynn, 1996). The size of the average Black–White difference does not change significantly over the developmental period from 3 years of age and beyond (see Jensen, 1974, 1998b)." (Rushton & Jensen, 2005, pp. 240-241.)

Farkas & Beron (2004) reported that blacks score 17.2 points below whites on the PPVT in this dataset at age 36 months (p. 478). More recently, Bond & Lang (2012) reported a slightly smaller, 14.6 point gap for 3-year-olds in this dataset (p. 13).

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/testing_for_racial_differences_in_the_mental_ability_of_young_children.pdf

Race differences in intelligence: An evolutionary analysis.
Lynn, Richard (2006)

ABSTRACT
It is widely accepted that race differences in intelligence exist, but no consensus has emerged on whether these have any genetic basis. The present book is the first fully comprehensive review that has ever been made of the evidence on race differences in intelligence worldwide. It reviews these for ten races rather than the three major races (Africans, Caucasians, and East Asians) analyzed by Rushton (2000). The races analyzed here are the Europeans, sub-Saharan Africans, Bushmen, South Asians and North Africans, Southeast Asians, Australian Aborigines, Pacific Islanders, East Asians, Arctic Peoples, and Native American Indians. (PsycINFO Database Record, 2016 APA)

https://archive.org/stream/RichardLynnRaceDifferencesInIntelligence/Richard%20LynnRace%20Differences%20In%20Intelligence_djvu.txt

THIRTY YEARS OF RESEARCH ON RACE DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE ABILITY

https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf

Alfred , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:53 am GMT
@anon Many in DC are preparing to flee to central and Eastern Europe because there is no hope for this country.

I made my escape from Australia last June. It is strange to be able to walk around and see very few Blacks or Asians. Much more resilient societies.

Jorge Videla , [AKA "The Mountain"] says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:16 am GMT
the derb is such a silly negro.

race and gender are immutable and differences can never be eliminated, but they can be used forever to divide and distract the 99%.

there will never be change until tumbrels roll.

Kapyong , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:24 am GMT
@schnellandine

"Murder micro-drones are just around the corner, if not here."

Latest Black Hornet nano drone :
https://www.army-technology.com/projects/pd100-black-hornet-nano/

16 grams, 120 mm.

But no weapon that small yet.

Alfred , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:26 am GMT
@Priss Factor "IT'S OVER, AMERICA": TULSA POLICE MAJOR SAYS COPS ACROSS COUNTRY ON VERGE OF QUITTING

The speaker, martinbrodel, seemed a sensible guy for a while. Near the end, he lost his head and started talking about Tesla's "free energy machine" and similar fake "inventions" that will obviate the need for occupying countries that don't want a US occupation. The guy is a harmless idiot.

Robert Dolan , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:42 am GMT
@RobbieSmith Twin studies proved genetic determinism long ago.
Paul Blart , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 6:46 am GMT
Derb, if you believe any of these things will come to pass before what is left of this civilisation finally collapses, you really are dreaming .
Paul Blart , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 6:47 am GMT
@Alfred where the hell in Australia are you – not in any of the major cities that's for sure .
Robert Dolan , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:02 am GMT
https://www.bitchute.com/video/8Pj0rrWDNkdM/
David 'The Diversity Mastermind' Lammey , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:23 am GMT
You obviously haven't spoken to a state indoctrination / msm brainwashed normie yard recently.
Marshall Lentini , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:33 am GMT
As far as I can tell, this "darkest before dawn" meme rose to fame after The Dark Knight Rises and the Bane memes of the alt-right.

Before then, I can't recall anyone ever saying it. I'd be surprised if anyone can come up with any example prior to that movie.

So if that's your premise, no, it isn't going to change for the better, and certainly not because of an astronomical metaphor.

"Things turning around" has been racialist dogma for about sixty years – with zero evidence on its side, and all evidence on the opposite.

Does one even need to substantiate that? Do you want to sound as dumb and wistful as Republicans?

Pretty much only Anglin is talking solid fact at this point.

hu_anon , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 8:29 am GMT
@anon For me this seems more like a religious awakening (awokening) rather than a state totalitarianism in the making. Obviously a large part of the population is on board with this ideology based on "white guilt". That doesn't mean that it's not frightening, the contrary, it makes it more frightening.
Also the internet and social media is enabling mass frenzies of an unprecedented scale and speed. Diversity and proximity breeds hostility and a sense of being threatened, and social media creates a sense of proximity with everyone who appears on your facebook and twitter feed spewing their hateful opinion "in your face", which scares people into complacence, and the leftist censorship and witch-hunts make conservatives feel that they are alone and isolated, and if they speak up, they will come after them next.
profnasty , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:13 am GMT
Uncle Tom? No.
Uncle General Field Marshall Thomas LaBree Quadrul, honey. Nobody gwine a hafta be a slave all de time no mo'. We gwina take toins. And guess who's toin it is now!!
From Everything You Know is Wrong, Firesign Theater.
profnasty , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:28 am GMT
@mark tapley Quote likely false. Possibly true.
The rest of the comment is demonstrably true. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
vot tak , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:48 am GMT
A long time zionazi jailhouse suka expropriates MLK's "I had a dream" line to promote zionazi divisive psywar and likudite social hierarchy policy. Gee, what a surprise.
Biff , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:53 am GMT
I have a dream the incipient whining from every political spectrum will end one day.
Anonymous [661] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:53 am GMT
My grandparents on both sides bolted out of eastern Europe for America, their hope was to escape the Jewish Bolshevik slaughter machine. A hundred years later here I am planning to bolt America to escape the same horror.

History is a compass that has an annoying tendency to keep pointing in the same direction.

Biff , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:00 am GMT
@anon I was with you until this:

Thanks libertarians.

Now you're an idiot.
One tiny group the yields practically no political power got it all done?

Wizard of Oz , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:02 am GMT
What did you think you were escaping from that you needed to escape from in Australia? It doesn't seem that you became well acquainted with Australia if you include blacks amongst those you were escaping from. There are hardly any, just a few thousand in Melbourne's population of 5 million which are a reminder not to repeat the stupid mistake of taking refugees from sub Saharan Africa – an inoculation dose.
pretty-polly , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:07 am GMT
@Amerimutt Golems

While police watch, natives are being beaten at random by imported hordes yet the (((media))) is calling victims 'far-right'.

Yes I noticed this immediately. The audacity is breathtaking.

Moi , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:18 am GMT
@Ad70titusrevenge While semi-literate blacks call the shots, white America stands mute like a statue. Talk of having no cojones
Really No Shit , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:19 am GMT
You just hope that your daughter does not bring home a Mandingo to knock off that chip on the shoulder of that half Chinese son of yours
Wilkey , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:22 am GMT
@Escher Honestly, I want to defend Ms./Miss/Mrs. Salas, but her tweet makes her seem just barely literate and, yes, a little racist.

I think the better option, instead of just posting her tweets, is to find equally inflammatory tweets by leftists in the orchestra who have not been fired. It's an orchestra. Surely there are more than a few leftists who have posted some pretty nasty stuff.

Elsewhere I've seen people post things like "Burn it to the ground!" – pretty much an open incitement to violence. Instead of just arguing with these extremists or complaining about them to ourselves we need to make them famous, and send their posts to their employers. Fight fired with fired, so to speak.

gotmituns , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:22 am GMT
Is this scene racist???
4:58

Judge Priest 1934

Mill Creek Entertainment

•11 years ago
•53,958 views

Meet Judge William "Billy" Priest, played by the legendary Will Rogers. http://www.millcreekent.com

Anon [299] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:42 am GMT
@Slimer The only part that is farcical is Derb having 'one in the woodpile', Derb is as pure as the driven snow.
Franklin Ryckaert , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:18 am GMT
@swamped A very good example of what could be called "satirical parallelism".
Anonymous [136] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:44 am GMT
Theiving )ews are the most racist, rabid, lying, virulent, pedophile scum; seetanic.
Abdul Alhazred , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:50 am GMT
Actually I am for a return to traditional 'Four Humors' type approach to medicine and a revival of the 'Luminiferous Ether' living approach to physics and the universe, than the corporate Thanatos dumbed down data driven idiocy of so called science today.
Mick Jagger gathers no Mosque , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:53 am GMT
Great Piece, Sir
Anonymous [194] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:53 am GMT
@James N. Kennett These "peaceful protests" are warfare by the means that are available to the left today. The burning, looting, and beatings of whites are said to be caused by the few malcontents among what's otherwise the new religion's camp of the saints. When the blacks come for the suburbs and farmland, the local police will be giving them an armed escort to protect them, and with the pattern established, the supposed few will sally forth to massacre, rape, and loot white areas before retreating back to their camp. Mainly white police will take up their positions, or be photographed groveling on their knees as the case may be, on orders from some emasculo-feminist lesbian like Jenny Durkan or a Karen like the governor of NM and aim outward, with orders to shoot enraged whites who've just been attacked by an army that comes marching under banners of peace moments before pulling off the mask when it's too late to respond. One-on-one with blacks in many urban areas, just this hesitation for 2 or 3 seconds to "talk" is correctly taken for the cowardice it is, and you can kiss your ass good-bye, if not your life.

Engaging in talk with the communist insurrectionists or accepting the outcome of the coming rigged election (as Fox News suggests is the remedy) is correctly taken by the left as a sign of surrender on the obvious grounds they're now making war against white America with every resource available to them in the current environment and there is no response. The MAGA delusion is that it's part of a strategy and not an outright failure of will. The Republicans, White House, and Conservatism Inc have done what sissies do, and will be found hiding behind the women, under the children, or at a rally surrounded by thousands. As Samuel Johnson observed about their sort, however, they have that caution cowards borrow from fear of the Jews and attribute to prudence and principle. What cannot be said is that most whites mingling with the blacks and not dressed as Antifa have immunity from black rage because, as everyone knows, they're urban Jews who the blacks obey like trained poodles in the circus. That certainly was the equation in my area where I got in their midst and saw what was going on.

Back in '08 Obama, the half-black puppet of the Chicago Jewish mob, got a little ahead of the agenda, but did announce that there would be a national security force that would be "just as powerful, strong, and well funded" as the US military to be raised in the former case from among the Black Panthers, BLM, Antifa, and the like. This is no dream and something we should expect in some form once Biden abjures to Susan Rice, Stacey Abrams, or other homicidally anti-white black.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tt2yGzHfy7s?feature=oembed

Rooster4 , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 12:25 pm GMT
Now is the time to speak up and say no more of this B.S. It's gone on too long. We face a major uphill battle considering nearly every news outlet, corporation, university, and a host of other industries have went off the PC deep-end.

You need to realize that blacks for the most part hate you. There's a deep inferiority complex going on, and they've been taught they're the victims and you're the reason for all their problems. Now you add on top of that, an entire political party pandering to them and a positive feedback loop from many in society that they're violent actions are justified it was never about equality, it's about revenge, and they're determined to get it one way or another.

They may not be the ones orchestrating the chaos, but you can bet on the fact they'll be the ones knocking on your door when it comes down to it.

MrFoSquare , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 12:29 pm GMT
@swamped Beautifully said. What the author didn't have the courage to say, or even imply.
Cleburne , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 12:54 pm GMT
"It is history that teaches us to hope." -- General Robert E. Lee

I think you're right, Derb. We are being forced, at the threat of auto-de-fa bu the Church of Woke, to believe things that absolutely every non-Woke realizes as a lie. I would like to think that we're at a late-Soviet period, rather than the beginning of a new Bolshevism. This didn't start in the 1960s; it's been going on at least since the French Revolution, whose ideas (along with Hegel) actuated the unitarians and other garbage of New England who became abolitionists and other tikkun-olamites.

Emily , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 1:20 pm GMT
@anon Russia
The hope of the world.

Edgar Cayce
(famous US psychic)

Russia, the only major white christian country left.
They had more sense than to destroy their society, destroy their social cohesion and destroy their children's future by mass black and non white immigration.
I wonder if they will be more discerning than this bit of pretentious folly
'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
The hypocrisy of that is astounding.
Breathe free!
Only if you are black – it seems.
And 'race is just one of the evils besetting the USA
Their new propaganda and lies about the actual past.
Here is Vladimir Putin with his usual commonsense and truth
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/492303-putin-history-revisionism-warning/
The US disregard for international law – not least the bullying of sanctions and the use of islamic proxy mercenaries to destroy whole nations.
Regime change and the mass murder and destruction with it.
Then we have the concern of war.
BLM with the nuclear codes?.
Why not – who will stand against them?
The white South Africans when forced out of their nation – not least by the USA – made sure that their weapons were made safe.
I doubt if that will happen with the insanity of the current controllers of the USA.

anon [299] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 1:39 pm GMT
I have a dream -- That every last one of you cunting ethnic-victimhood nationalists gets white genocided or jew holocausted.
Trinity , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 1:41 pm GMT
I have a dream. I have a dream that white kids will one day be able to go to school and not be beaten by gangs of Blacks and Browns. I have a dream that white girls and white women will one day be able to walk the streets of our large cities and feel safe. I have a dream that no longer will a white girl have to suffer being stabbed to death by black drug dealers in a NYC park, no longer will a white female jogger be raped and beaten within an inch of her life by Puerto Rican and black thugs in Central Park. I have a dream that no longer will a white girl have to suffer being burned to death by a racist black male in Mississippi, I have a dream.

I have a dream where Whites will regain power and control of THEIR NATIONS from Jewish interlopers who have seized control of our nation's financial institutions, media, academia, publishing companies, social media, foreign policy and domestic policy. I have a dream where Whites will no longer have to work as slaves to support the lazy nonwhite population of America generation after generation. I have a dream where America will no longer send BILLIONS each year to a country that has attacked an American ship, attacked British and American buildings in Egypt, been caught spying on America, and uses a America like a ten dollar whore. I have a dream. I have a dream where Whites will one day regain the courage of their ancestors. I have a dream.

Jiminy , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 1:56 pm GMT
@Paul Blart To give you an example of what Alfred is missing out on- last weekend we woke up to a car crash just up the road. Five teenagers in a stolen car driven by a drugged out 14 year old, wiped out on a pole killing four of his teenage mates while he escapes with a scratch to his head. For several years now the loveable little blacks have been breaking into people's houses while they sleep and steal keys and anything small of value. Hubby wakes up in the morning to his wife asking where has he parked the car this time.
You can't fine them or their parents as there's no money to pay the fines, being that the parents are often unemployed druggies, if there are parents. When they finally get sent to juvenile detention it's usually seen as a holiday, as it's much better than their home life. Politicians are too scared to do anything in case a do-gooder points them out on it. The court laughably becomes a revolving door.
This is all happening while we are told daily on the news that blm . With honesty, I have to admit that I am all blacked out.
John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 1:59 pm GMT
@Ad70titusrevenge Jewish elites tried to permanently destroy a man called Jesus Christ.

Look how well that turned out for them.

John Burns, Gettysburg Partisan , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 2:02 pm GMT
@Exile Same difference. The Austrian School of Economics started with Boehm-Bawerk, Wieser, and Menger. It degenerated into a bunch of Jews and atheists, and those are the ones loved by the libertarians.

In any case, the problem with this country starts with John Locke. Merely blaming libertarians doesn't cut it. Read Eric Voegelin; all of America is "Locked in."

Mike_from_SGV , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 2:31 pm GMT
@The Germ Theory of Disease The NT as a compendium of literary creations is standard academic scholarship, not a stupid statement. But the orthodox Christian commitment to delusion prevents them from acknowledging this. I maintain that a society-wide commitment to religious delusion carries over to racial delusion. Once the critical faculty of the mind is euthanized, there is no limit to the delusions that can be accepted.
Agent76 , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 2:51 pm GMT
Apr 11, 2020 Sound Familiar? By
Larken Rose

A short, timely reading from my first book, "How To Be a Successful Tyrant," which I finished writing over fifteen years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z4LtEciQUF8?feature=oembed

Stealth , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 2:52 pm GMT
Dream on, Derb.
JimDandy , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 2:53 pm GMT
@Ad70titusrevenge Yer dreamin', Derb.
Old and Grumpy , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT
@anon After that you'll be headed to a predominantly white nation to live. Its hard not to notice BLM and Antifa types are all rich kids having a tantrum.
Pindos , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 3:16 pm GMT
@Ray P Is Red Dawn the move where the entire congress is machine gunned?
Z-man , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 3:21 pm GMT
@Ad70titusrevenge That's a defeatest statement. We must prevail against the VAMPIRE SQUID!
TGD , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 3:28 pm GMT
@mark tapley

Our indispensable founder Benjamin Franklin said "There is a great danger to The United States, this danger is the Jew. If they are not excluded from the United States by the Constitution, within less than 100 years they will stream into this country in such numbers they will rule and destroy us and change our form of government for which we Americans have shed our blood and sacrificed life property and personal freedom. If the Jews are not excluded, within 200 years our children will be working in the fields to feed the Jews while they remain in the counting-house gleefully rubbing their hands.

What really got Franklin upset were the 60,000 Germans who had moved into PA in the 18th century.

https://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2008/02/ben-franklin-on.html

And their descendants are still causing problems.

https://www.city-data.com/forum/pennsylvania/2463622-lancaster-pa-people-rude.html

Enemy of Earth , says: Website Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 3:30 pm GMT
Derb is the kind of Dreamer this country sorely needs.
Eugene Norman , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 3:37 pm GMT
@Kratoklastes It's a long way from that to an AI that has some independent plans for the world. Or is in any way concious or aware or interested.
Ram , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 3:43 pm GMT
" I have a dream that one day we shall discard magical thinking about race; "

Good luck with that, when "Christian" priests and semi-literate pastors proclaim the racism that the Old Testament brought us, apparently somewhat different reasons.

bruce county , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 3:48 pm GMT
@nsa Please don't forget the rest of the Alphabet Zombie circus.
Quit pickin' on Derb.
Z-man , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 3:49 pm GMT

I have a dream that one day, poor white children will not have to endure being lectured about their "privilege" by rich black adults.

Good one!

Yes, I have a dream that one day race differences in educational success will be as calmly, dispassionately accepted as race differences in athletic success;

Surprisingly white athletes still excel in 'historically'(grin) black positions; safety and defensive ends/linemen in football, power forwards in basketball, etc. You have a sprinkling of whites in those positions. At one point, especially in basketball, these were tokens used to attract white fans but now I think its just merit. With sports technology advancements ( sans illegal drugs ) intelligence and hard work will compensate for raw physical ability. So basketball and football* are already following your post racial theory.(Grin)

*Even though my team, the NY Jets, drafted a white guy or a near white guy at safety, sadly negro in the NFL acronym still fits.

VinnyVette , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 3:59 pm GMT
@nsa The Derb seems to attract trolls like no other UR author In spite of the fact that he advocates for whites and traditional conservative Americans Ironically most of his trolls are in agreement with him ideologically I believe that's called "cognitive dissonance." Fuck off!
VinnyVette , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:03 pm GMT
The white mans theme song The Dream is over!
Crush Limbraw , says: Website Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:04 pm GMT
Wanna have some fun? Tell a Churchian that God Himself is a racist – and after ducking from their virtue signaling outbursts, challenge them to read the Bible, beginning with Genesis.
You won't get halfway through Genesis before that fact becomes absolutely clear to anyone with reading comprehension
Of course, expect DaTheologian Bastahds to theorize that God didn't mean it – just like their OldScratchMaster in the Garden of Eden!
Anyone who wants more on this can check my site – http://www.crushlimbraw.com- and DaLimbraw Library.
My whole point is simple – the real God of the Bible bears little resemblance to DaFigment of imagination in most people's minds, including those pew sitters who haven't yet learned to discern good from evil (Hebrews 5:11-14).
Why so? Those pabulum dispensers from DaPulpits are DaWolves in sheep's clothing.
The apostasy in America's churches started 200 years ago and are now bearing their fruit – but a remnant remains, as it always has throughout history.
Welcome to DaFray!
trickster , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:04 pm GMT
I have a dream, that one day people of colour will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the colour of the content of planes heading back to Africa.
Mefobills , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:06 pm GMT
@Bill Jones Cognitive dissonance from Libertarians is always something to behold.

The entire history of mankind is one where in-groups of some sort are maneuvering for control.

Here is an interesting article about Ivan the terrible. He was hounded his entire life by internal and external elements trying to kill him.

https://russia-insider.com/en/history/ivan-terrible-wasnt-terrible-all-oligarch-busting-virtuous-hero-demonized-west/ri25166

Here is an article about today's reality, where Jewish donors are using their money power to subvert the political process to their ends:

https://national-justice.com/55-top-100-political-donors-2020-are-jewish-and-why-guarantees-anti-white-election-cycle

Libertarianism is a dielectic of Jewish materialism. Libertarianism does make excuses for liberalism.

Also, with regards to authoritarianism, that always exists because there is always hierarchy. Your body has hierarchy down to the cellular level. Ants arrange themselves in some sort of hierarchy.

Authoritarianism and hierarchy go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

The real question is always how the hierarchy is constructed. A libertarian hierarchy is some sort of nebulous feel good libertine construct of free-dumb and free-contracts that upon investigation is dumber than shit, and further, can be easily usurped by a determined in-group.

Our entire reality refutes everything that liberalism and libertarianism promulgates as truth. That is why liberalism and libertarianism are false constructs and part of a dialectic. Our reality is one where in-groups and private money power has inserted itself as a parasite into the governing hierarchy.

Behind all false dialectics, hiding in plain site, is the money power. The money power has been privatized into corporate entities which enrich a small group, and as George Carlin says You ain't in it.

Lolbertarianism is shit-tier drivel and is part of a dialectic to divert well-meaning people into cul-de-sacs of bad thought. Meanwhile, since you became diverted and confused, your pockets are picked. But, that is ok because it is free market competition. Never mind that there is no such thing as free markets.

Wally , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:16 pm GMT
@anon That would be the so called "holocaust" and it's laughable, scientifically impossible 'gas chambers' and it's alleged millions upon millions of human remains claimed to exist in known locations which in fact do not exist.

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."
– George Orwell

Only lies require censorship.

trickster , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:18 pm GMT
@Old and Grumpy If I was paying for University tuition fees and my kids were out rioting especially with blacks, better believe the ambulance would be called for them and the police for me. The final rub is that these kids from rich parents enter the work force as dumb as ever AND with an attitude of entitlement and know it all even though they dont know much even about the field they supposedly have a MAsters in.

I know of one rich little girl now on her second Masters who is the most educated clerk at the local nail salon. She likes to be cleaning fingernails and digging dirt and dead skin from under other people's toe nails. Her father, anxious to turn over a business he spent 50 years building is at his wits end and has refused to pay for any further useless University studies. He has started to liquidate and spend the money as he has come to realize that all is going to be squandered when he gets flung into the hole.

The real tragedy though is to get into a conversation with this "highly educated" girl and her umpteenth boyfriend. Utter nonsense comes out of their mouths as if they wish to show their skill at being stupid. I imagine the majority of the arson and graffiti arsonists running aorund our cities these days are no better, in fact the majority are most likely far worse.

So much for the technological generation who will bravely lead us into the future.

martin_2 , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:34 pm GMT
Surely even if Mr Derbyshire's dream does not come to pass the fact is that we, in the broadest sense, do have the truth on our side. What we believe about the salience of race and racial differences, we know, since we have the data and statistics, the evidence of history, everything, to back us up.

Whatever goofy plans the Establishment Left cook up, they won't work. Nothing that ignores racial differences will work, ever.

SunBakedSuburb , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:38 pm GMT
@Justvisiting "AI is coming–and when it does human slavery will be back"

What do you call debt in a market economy? Slavery in one form or another is a feature in every society past and present. It's what we humans do. AI is here, and it's making the peculiar institution more efficient.

SunBakedSuburb , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 4:45 pm GMT
@VinnyVette Primo Van Hagar.
ko , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:25 pm GMT
White people long for a day when they are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their tweets.
ko , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:26 pm GMT
@VinnyVette I saw Van Halen once, the loudness didn't mask their mediocrity.
Mefobills , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:27 pm GMT
@trickster

So much for the technological generation who will bravely lead us into the future.

Normally I ignore you because sometimes your comments are unhinged. But in this case, you have put your finger onto something important.

I was reading Benjamin Franklin's auto-biography, and he would mention "preparing the public's mind."

In other words, Franklin would write something and put it into his Pennsylvania Gazette, to then put ideas into minds of the sheeple.

Some small amount of time would go by, perhaps there would be a debate in the press, and then a new law or whatever be put up for a vote. The press builds consensus in advance of lawmaking.

Hidden groups work out what they want to do behind the scenes before it goes to press. In Franklin's case it was the Junto Club. Fortunately, Junto club had the public's better interests in mind.

The technological generation is being brainwashed by hidden string pullers who do not have the public's interest in mind, and hence democracy cannot work.

anon [171] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:33 pm GMT
@schnellandine

Yes. He folded when he should have risen. So many times in that campaign, he threw away opportunities to truly inform normasquares by being, simply, right. But he was afraid that the truth would derail his chances. Too much information for the liberty preschoolers.

I was a lead organizer in a large county for RP that year (2007, the 2008 pres campaign). I have reams of notes from that time; what you've said here barely scratches the surface.

Contrary to your position – that he was "afraid" – what became clear to me in early '08 was that he didn't want to "win". Not that he could have but what he SHOULD have been focused on was building a movement , with multiple arms including a 3rd political party that would make a lasting impact – something so clearly and desperately needed right now.

But Carol didn't want that, so it was quickly all about Rand – an even bigger sellout than "Dr. No" himself (bear in mind, he was possibly the most singularly ineffective congressman in decades – look up his record, it speaks for itself).

Remember the "Whoa " moment when he "rescued" fundraising for the congressional seat? I was out that week knocking on doors only to have dozens of people tell me "Oh, didn't you hear? He dropped out." That was the last straw for me (there were countless incidents before it), as I had to spend the next week trying to staunch the bleeding from that wound as OUR OWN PEOPLE walked away in (completely justified) disgust.

We had this nascent, extremely activated group – and that SOB killed it in the cradle.

There are so many lies around Paul and the Paul family (3 of whom I've met, along with 3 former staffers); it's a family affair, and if you don't get that, you really won't understand the dynamics. But I don't regret the adventure; it truly "woke me up". I laugh now when I see the faux cognescenti talk about RP; the joke is truly on them.

bruce county , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:36 pm GMT
@Ram
Ragno , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:41 pm GMT
I too have a dream .a dream that John Derbyshire will one day overcome his gibbering terror of catching "the Jew thing" to write an honest column on exactly who taught and trained African-Americans not only to hate Whitey but to love 'socialism' (although, let's face it, the black definition of sexy campus-terminology like 'socialism' and 'revolution' begins and ends with Haiti .you'll want to keep your distance from your dusky comrades should that day ever come, antifa warriors).

But let's deal with reality now: so long as the dollar holds up and we all require them to keep body and soul together, Derb will never overcome that occupational terror. For him the first cause, and ongoing fuel supply, of black anarchists and violet insurrection will forever be a mystery beyond our limited understanding. Still and all, John, could you respond to a request I made last week? That's the one where I asked you to pick your Army vet son's brain for the likelihood that our increasingly minority-occupied armed forces will "independently" choose to stand down and refuse direct orders to forcibly put down the sorts of violent insurrections we now see consuming, and destroying, our country? (Because my hunch is that the answer is "almost certainly.")

See, if it all goes crabwise, Derb, you and the Missus can always return home to England or China and take your chances there. But this is the only homeland I've got , so if I have to risk coming down with "the Jew thing" to help my country avoid melting down into a Mogadishu-like slag, well – it's not really a choice at all, is it?

So how about it? Rather than tell me about your cloud-cuckooland dreams of a tomorrow that isn't going to happen, why not ask your son if the military can stay unified enough to fight inner-city blacks and richkid whites if need be? You won't have to worry about accidentally shooting one of the Chosen, because as usual they'll be wayyyy in the rear, pumping up the 'infantry' with anti-white slogans and pushing the cannon fodder forward; in order to punish them , you'll need to assemble hard-headed patriotic tribunals (which will have to be a discussion for another day – the higher up the ladder you go, the more panic there is over catching that same 'flu' that keeps you up nights worrying about).

Anonymous [112] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:42 pm GMT
@anon "Cunting" is not an English idiom or slang expression used with any regularity by whites, blacks, or anyone in America, but it does inadvertently reveal there's a distinct probability this troll is an Israeli showing his obsession with sex. You can imagine this clown on his knees before angry blacks when they've figured out they've been played for fools once too often.

Years ago in the aftermath of the Rodney King riots the Jewish librarians behind the main research desk in the main branch of the NY Public Library had a poster reading, "Jews are soul people, too." Sure they are, just like Al Jolson's scathing mockery singing "Mammy" in blackface or Governor Northam or Howard Stern or Ted Danson in huge-lipped blackface telling mile a minute "schvartze" jokes revealing the scathing contempt they really have for blacks. But it's OK, you see, because they're soul people, too.

Mefobills , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:43 pm GMT
@SunBakedSuburb "AI is coming–and when it does human slavery will be back"
_________________

I hope you are wrong on this, but who knows for sure?

Hudson has recently discovered that the word "sin" in the bible is really cognate with debt.

https://michael-hudson.com/2017/12/he-died-for-our-debt-not-our-sins/

So, the bible needs to be re-interpreted as a war between debtors and creditors.

Do you see any Christian movements demanding this re-interpretation? No didn't think so. The bible is really about bringing debt and credit into balance.

An AI which undoubtedly will be much more intelligent than humans, should be able to see through things that have humans brain-locked.

Prester John , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 5:55 pm GMT
@mark tapley "Dessicated" is, if anything, an understatement. And have you seen the pictures of the cadaverous looking Husband of Record?
RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 6:08 pm GMT
@Z-man "With sports technology advancements (sans illegal drugs) intelligence and hard work will compensate for raw physical ability. So basketball and football* are already following your post racial theory."

The NFL famously uses the Wonderlic test in their scouting combines and the racial disparity is evident. Out of a perfect score of 50; offensive tackles=26, centers=25, quarterback=24; versus safeties=19, cornerbacks=18 and receivers=17.

NFL Wonderlic Score Database:

https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Wonderlic_Test

https://iqtestprep.com/nfl-wonderlic-scores/

Julian of Norwich , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 6:10 pm GMT
@Some Guy Hope for the best but prepare for disappointment. Rational arguments guided by empirical evidence work best with those who are rational and inclined to be guided by evidence. Too many of those engaged in the current national discourse about ethnicity and disadvantage are neither rational nor concerned about the evidence.
RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 6:12 pm GMT
@Anonymous "Cunting" is not an English idiom or slang expression used with any regularity by whites, blacks, or anyone in America "

I react cuntingly whenever I'm accused of acting niggardly.

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 6:14 pm GMT
@martin_2 "What we believe about the salience of race and racial differences, we know, since we have the data and statistics, the evidence of history, everything, to back us up."

Whites are only 10% of the world's population and the only race in population decline (creating only 7% of the world's babies), yet are the most industrious and innovative race the world has known. Whites unlocked the secrets of DNA and relativity, launched satellites, created automation, discovered electricity and nuclear energy, invented automobiles, aircraft, submarines, radio, television, computers, medicine, telephones, light bulbs, photography, and countless other technological miracles. Whites were the first to circumnavigate the planet by ship, orbit it by spacecraft, walk on the moon, probe beyond the solar system, climb the highest peaks, reach both poles, exceed the sound barrier, descend to the oceans depths Blacks cannot even feed themselves.

Whites created every country for Blacks, but now have to provide food, medical, financial, and engineering aid to every one. Blacks cannot survive without White charity.

No pre-contact Black society ever created a written language, or weaved cloth, or forged steel, or invented the wheel, or plow, or devised a calendar, or code of laws, or system of measurement, or math, or built a multi-story structure, or sewer, or drilled a well, or irrigated, or created any agriculture, or built a road, or sea-worthy vessel. They never domesticated animals, or exploited underground natural resources, or produced anything that could be considered a mechanical device.

Blacks were still living in the Stone Age when Whites discovered them just 400 years ago.

Blacks are the oldest race, so they should be the most advanced -- but they never advanced at all. Sub-Saharan Africans never made any contribution to the world. Everything they have was given to them by Whites. Blacks lived alone in Africa, a vast continent with temperate climates and abundant resources for 60,000 years so they cannot blame slavery, racism, colonialism, culture, environment, or anything else for their failures.

Julian of Norwich , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 6:25 pm GMT
@brabantian I remember reading this story a thousand years ago when a young adolescent. It seemed too far fetched to constitute a possible future. Not so now.
Z-man , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 6:30 pm GMT
@RobbieSmith Thanks. I looked at your first link and it showed that Frank Gore had a score of 6 .
LOL, and he just got picked up by my team. ROFL!
mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 6:37 pm GMT
@TGD Since posting this comment I was informed that it was a forgery. I failed to cross check this and regret the mistake. The historian Charles Beard confirmed that it is fake.

Franklin's comments here are surprising. I would have assumed that the Germans overall were as light complected as the typical British. The present parasitic Royal family of Britain are of German descent. The Windsor name is fake. Their real name is Coburg Gotta. Wilhelm of Germany and Nickolas II of Russia were both related to Queen Victoria.

By Franklin's time the British Aristocracy was married into and heavily influenced by the Jews. The American Revolution was primarily caused by the demand by the British that the colonies use the fiat currency of The Bank of England (under Rothschild control) and pay for the privilege.

mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:02 pm GMT
@RobbieSmith Much important information here. Two things however you may want to look into. Ron Unz on this site has an excellent article: Moon landing; A giant Hoax for Mankind? Has very good photos too. On the issue of the negro being the first race. First of all that implies that the rest of us are descended from them. I don't think so. This is of course an evolutionary explanation. Nothing can be created by inert matter no matter how long the evolutionists try to go. Every living organism has to be coded with information and that can only come from an intelligent source.

In Darwins day they knew nothing about DNA. Trying to get around this problem the evolutionists have insisted that mutations generated new species. This is impossible because mutations practically always cause a loss of genetic material. They are always harmful or at the best neutral.

We know pretty accurately from archaeologic and historic data that the alphabet originated about 8 or 9 thousand years ago. If modern Man is 250,000 years old as claimed, what took them so long?

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:22 pm GMT
"We know pretty accurately from archaeologic and historic data that the alphabet originated about 8 or 9 thousand years ago. If modern Man is 250,000 years old as claimed, what took them so long?"

The world's first civilization is European.

NYT 11/30/09: Lost European Culture Pulled From Obscurity
(lower Danube Valley and the Balkan Foothills)

[MORE]
"For 1,500 years, starting earlier than 5,000 BC they (Lost European cultures) farmed and built sizeable towns, a few with as many as 2000 dwellings. They mastered large scale copper smelting. Their graves held an impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces and, in one cemetery, the earliest assemblage of gold artifacts to be found in the world."

Exhibition "The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley 5,000 – 3500 BC. Peaked around 4500 BC. Historians suggest that the arrival in Southeastern Europe of people from the Steppes may have contributed to the collapse of Old Europe. The story now emerging is of pioneer farmers after about 6,200 B.C. moving north into Old Europe from Greece and Macedonia bringing wheat and barley seeds and domesticated cattle and sheep.

Old Europe is the oldest civilization ever discovered.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01arch.html

Vinca Culture (Romania -- 5,300 B.C.):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_culture

The Danube Script is the world's oldest written language by more than 1,000 years. It dates to 5,500 B.C.

It has 231 individual signs based on a core of about thirty basic abstract root signs expressing most of the basic geometric shapes (parallel lines, Vs, and crosses). The script is made up of abstract and arbitrary signs rather than figurative or naturalistic motifs.

http://www.prehistory.it/oldeuropeanscripti.htm

https://neokoolt.wixsite.com/oldeurope/single-post/2015/07/27/10-Things-You-Probably-Didnt-Know-About-Neolithic-Danubian-Civilization

https://www.scribd.com/document/138393335/The-Danube-Script-and-Other-Ancient-Writing-Systems-A-Typology-of-Distinctive-Features

What changed to allow civilizations? An increase in brain size (this is when Blacks got left behind)-

Civilizations began 5,800 years ago after the introduction into the human genome of the abnormal spindle-like microcephaly-associated protein (ASPM) gene. The gene was acquired through the hybridization of the large-brain Neanderthals and caused increased brain size in modern man.

The appearance of the gene correlates with the development of written language, spread of agriculture, and development of cities. Notably, the ASPM gene is rare in Blacks and they are the only race with no DNA from the large-brain Neanderthals, which is why they have small brains and never civilized. Blacks never created a written language, agriculture, or a civilization.

The ASPM gene is a specific regulator of brain size, and its evolution in the lineage leading to Homo sapiens was driven by strong positive selection. Here, we show that one genetic variant of ASPM in humans arose merely about 5800 years ago (coinciding with the development of written language) and has since swept to high frequency under strong positive selection. These findings, especially the remarkably young age of the positively selected variant, suggest that the human brain is still undergoing rapid adaptive evolution. Geographic variation was observed, with sub-Saharan populations generally having lower frequencies than others.

In the two Science papers, the researchers looked at variations of microcephalin and ASPM within modern humans. They found evidence that the two genes have continued to evolve. For each gene, one class of variants has arisen recently and has been spreading rapidly because it is favored by selection. For microcephalin, the new variant class emerged about 37,000 years ago and now shows up in about 70 percent of present-day humans. For ASPM, the new variant class arose about 5,800 years ago and now shows up in approximately 30 percent of today's humans. These time windows are extraordinarily short in evolutionary terms, indicating that the new variants were subject to very intense selection pressure that drove up their frequencies in a very brief period of time–both well after the emergence of modern humans about 200,000 years ago.

Each variant emerged around the same time as the advent of "cultural" behaviors. The microcephalin variant appears along with the emergence of such traits as art and music, religious practices, and sophisticated tool-making techniques which date back to about 50,000 years ago. The ASPM variant coincides with the oldest-known civilization, Mesopotamia, which dates back to 7,000 BC. "Microcephalin," the authors wrote in one of the papers, "has continued its trend of adaptive evolution beyond the emergence of anatomically modern humans. If selection indeed acted on a brain-related phenotype, there could be several possibilities, including brain size, cognition, personality, motor control or susceptibility to neurological/psychiatric diseases."

We observed much higher frequency of haplogroup D chromosomes in Europeans and Middle Easterners than in other populations. The corresponding estimate of FST, a statistic of genetic differentiation, is 0.29 between Europeans/Middle Easterners and other populations and 0.31 between Europeans/Middle Easterners and sub-Saharan Africans. These values indicate considerable genetic differentiation at this locus. Several scenarios may account for such notable differentiation. One is that haplogroup D first arose somewhere in Eurasia and is still in the process of spreading to other regions. The other is that it arose in sub-Saharan Africa, but reached higher frequency outside of Africa partly because of the bottleneck during human migration out of Africa. Finally, it is possible that differential selective pressure in different geographic regions is partly responsible. Collectively, our data offer strong evidence that haplogroup D emerged very recently and subsequently rose to high frequency understrong positive selection. The recent selective history of ASPM in humans thus continues the trend of positive selection that has operated at this locus for millions of years in the hominid lineage. Although the age of haplogroup D and its geographic distribution across Eurasia roughly coincide with two important events in the cultural evolution of Eurasia -- namely, the emergence and spread of domestication from the Middle East 10,000 years ago and the rapid increase in population associated with the development of cities and written language 5000 to 6000 years ago around the Middle East.

Ongoing Adaptive Evolution of ASPM, a Brain Size Determinant in Homo Sapiens (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7611130_Ongoing_Adaptive_Evolution_of_ASPM_a_Brain_Size_Determinant_in_Homo_Sapiens [accessed Jan 30 2018].

http://www.evolocus.com/Publications/Evans2005.pdf

Ongoing Adaptive Evolution of ASPM, a Brain Size Determinant in Homo sapiens
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16151010
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7611130_Ongoing_Adaptive_Evolution_of_ASPM_a_Brain_Size_Determinant_in_Homo_Sapiens

mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:26 pm GMT
@Prester John Yea: Too many junkets with Trump on the Lolita Express I suspect. Dr. Noel said from all appearances Hillary had Parkinson's. He said failing to get the meds adjusted caused the bizarre behavior as we saw during the sham election. And remember them having to drag her shabbos goy ass into the van. I figured the bitch would be dead by now.

No problem though. Her or shabbos goy Trump were both puppet political actors for the Zionist Jews. Its been that was since they put in the syphilitic nervous breakdown Woodrow Wilson in over 100 years ago.

bruce county , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:40 pm GMT
@RobbieSmith I'm with you on every thing but when you think of what "life" requires, in its simplest form the Africans do it very well. As the saying goes . And the meek shall inherit the earth.
Hartnell , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:49 pm GMT
@Emily There is a huge question mark when it comes to Russia. Right now under Putin, it is following a more patriotic high water mark but it remains to be seen after Putin what direction the country is going to take on next. A big problem is that you do have a generation of Russian youth who still idolise "Democracy" and "Liberalism" and want Russia to follow the same path, naively thinking that if they do so, they will get to have the quality of life Westerners had during the late 20th century.

On the other hand, you do have more of the youth put off by the current situation and realise that the West is going down the wrong path and Russia should find another way. However on all sides there is alot of criticism now about Putin. So whether that is concerning criticism of Putin's ideas or just the corruption I'm not too sure. But I do fear Russia could, unless something major comes along, join the Western rot if it is not too careful.

However, considering how quickly the West is deteriorating, I think this might be enough to put Russia off the West for good. But even I am resigned to the fact that Russia is at this moment in time Europe's last great hope. If she goes, the party is over for good.

omegabooks , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:56 pm GMT
Here is my dream–that one day these white guilt liberal types including academics will acknowledge what former Senator of Virginia Jim Webb and historian Michael Hoffman have verified–that blacks weren't the only folks in America who were enslaved so were Scots-Irish, Irish, and English paupers enslaved, but not in the way Africans were still, as with present-day sharecropping in the south ("Same Kind of Different As Me" co-authored by a former sharecropper Denver Moore), and in the past here with Indentured Servitude .do they even teach in schools anymore about most whites coming over here as Indentured Servants? Or that one reason for the African Slave Trade was because white slaves from Ireland, Scotland and England couldn't handle Caribbean heat and were worked to death (hence slaves from hot Africa) see Hoffman's "They Were White and They Were Slaves." Webb's book is about Scots-Irish indentured called "Born Fighting." ALL US whites need to read both books. Want "cancel culture"? CANCEL WHITE GUILT!
Hartnell , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 7:58 pm GMT
@RobbieSmith This is the easiest question to answer on why blacks did not advance compared to the other races and it is very simple. They had no reason too. You see, Africa is a very comfortable continent to live in with no major pressures (until relatively recently that is). Black people had everything they ever needed. Enough animals to provide food and clothes. A good temperature so they did not have to worry about building strong foundations to keep warm in. Large spaces of land where disease did not roam as freely and wars, whilst still available, happened at lesser frequency compared to elsewhere. From a Human evolutionary point of view, the black man was living in a garden of Eden. He just did not need to advance.

Now compare this to the Europeans. The Humans who settled Europe had to deal with it being the smallest continent in the world so essentially tribes were more cramped together meaning more war. Disease can spread more easily. The continent gets cold, very cold, so they need to develop tools to make more warmer accommodation and clothes. You have more famines due to the weather. Oh great, the guy next door wants to your stuff and is coming close so you best get more weapons and quickly to fight him off. Wait, I can make a better weapon to defend myself with, this will keep him away. But now I need money to maintain my weapons and defences. Here comes trade and economic development.

So basically what we have here is the tale of two peoples. One had everything he needed and did not develop. The other was struggling very hard and had to develop and advance in order to survive. As is history.

The big problem now is the man who did not develop now wants the other guys stuff but does not know how to properly maintain it due to he needs to go through his own evolution to attain it. The other guy is letting him have his stuff because he has reached an existential crisis where he his claiming he has no right to exist. That is basically the huge problem.

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 8:04 pm GMT
@bruce county "I'm with you on every thing but when you think of what "life" requires, in its simplest form the Africans do it very well."

To be precise, sub-Saharan Africans (North Africans are White).

Yes, they are well adapted to live in the jungles of central Africa. So are apes.

The point is, they are incompatible with civilization.

Even Koko the gorilla had an IQ 1SD higher than Blacks-

Hanabiko "Koko" (July 4, 1971 – June 19, 2018) is a female western lowland gorilla who is known for having learned a large number of hand signs from a modified version of American Sign Language.

She has learned to use over 1,000 signs and understands approximately 2,000 spoken English words. Further, she understands these signs sufficiently well to adapt them or combine them to express new meanings that she wants to convey.

Koko was tested on the Cattell Infant Intelligence Scale, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Ravens Progressive Matrices, Wechsler Preschool, Primary Scale of Intelligence, and several administrations of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and in spite of the human cultural bias of the tests her scores ranged from 85-95, which is one standard deviation higher than African Blacks score on the same tests.

IQ 85 = Koko
IQ 85 = American Blacks (24% White admixture)
IQ 67 = African Blacks

"From September 1972, when we administered the Cattell Infant Intelligence Scale, through May 1977, when I administered form B of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, she has scored consistently in the 70 to 90 range on different IQ scales. These scores reflect her mental age divided by her chronological age, the result of which is then multiplied by 100. Such scores in human infants would suggest the subject is slow, but not mentally retarded."

https://www.koko.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/teok_book.pdf

Bill , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 8:25 pm GMT
@schnellandine Libertarians are exactly like Communists. You give them everything they ask for. Disaster ensues. They claim you didn't give them enough. Iterate.
nietzsche1510 , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 8:27 pm GMT
@swamped "Democracy of merit", indeed. Merit, more than a mental construct is a physical construction. The "Chosen Tribe" hogs all the ingredients to generate merit.
nietzsche1510 , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 8:40 pm GMT
@mark tapley Hillary is, indeed, a Zionist puppet but Trump is Judeo-Talmudist kind of puppet; his principal debtors are Israel First messianic bigots.
Trinity , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 8:41 pm GMT
"Racial realists" have found out that we no longer can hope to vote our way out of this mess, at least not right now on the national level. Trump and reCUCKS are WORTHLESS and have stood by and done absolutely NOTHING as America and American culture is DESTROYED by these racist hoodlums. Tucker Carlson isn't the savior either, but I like how he pointed out in his latest show about how totally USELESS AND WORTHLESS the reCUCK party is and how they hold their voters in contempt. When all is said and done, it is white traitor trash like those in the reCUCK party who have done the most to destroy America. Blame Jews, Blacks, etc., but what about all those reCUCKs that suck up White votes and NEVER do anything to help Whites.

WHY should anyone go to the trouble attending a Trump MIG rally, and take a risk at being physically harmed by these leftist thugs who know doubt will be in Tulsa to instigate trouble and attack peaceful citizens attending the rally. And what if some Trump supporter has the audacity to protect themselves? More than likely, the Trump supporter will be jailed or even imprisoned and the leftist thug will get off with a slap on the wrist. Look at Charlottesville. And do you think Trump or anyone in reCUCK party will go to bat for the Trump supporter defending himself or herself? haha. Again, take a look at Charlottesville. Did any politician go to bat for the people who were their to peacefully protest and found themselves under attack by Antifa and BLM?

Ben tillman , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:02 pm GMT
@Some Guy You're confused. This is race war/genocide. De-emphasizing race would defeat the purpose of everything that's been done for the last 100 years.
nietzsche1510 , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:04 pm GMT
@TGD ..to whom the 19th. century French polemist Alphonse Toussnel (1840 ies) added: "tout vient du Juif et tout revient au Juif". put in urban English: "everything comes from the Jew and all things return to the Jew". since the Federal Reserve conspiracy of 1913, every aspect of American political, economic, social, and cultural realms is in accordance with the latter sentence.
Stealth , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:06 pm GMT
@Mefobills

Lolbertarianism is shit-tier drivel and is part of a dialectic to divert well-meaning people into cul-de-sacs of bad thought.

I've always thought libertarianism was a diversion intended to keep people busy with unproductive political activity.

Abbybwood , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:07 pm GMT
@Ad70titusrevenge I wonder ..

When Congress cooks up their "Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Slavery and Black Lives Mattering" will they tell the truth regarding Jews being the biggest slave traders in the world?

How much wealth was amassed by these Jewish slave traders and passed down to this very day?

I say if we are going to put all the "truth" cards on the table and have honest and fruitful discussions, we need to put ALL the cards on the table, not just the ones our political "masters" and the corrupt MSM allow us to.

Emily , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:34 pm GMT
@Hartnell Hi Hartnell.
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply.
I think Putin's so called unpopularity is based on western wishes and dreams rather than fact.
Putin is secure as far as the Russian electorate is concerned.
And unlike the USA – or the UK for that matter, Russia has democracy.
It has fair voting.
Proportional representation and multiple parties.
If the USA had half the democracy Russia has it wouldn't be in the position it is.
A choice of Tweedledee and Tweedledumber.
A choice of zionist puppet or zionist puppet.
It needs a third and non neo liberal party
And the Americans need the wit to vote for it.
Its the countries best chance.
I thnk there are many decent Americans who are utterly shocked as to what is going on.
Millions voted for Trump believing the rhetoric and missing the fact that his son in law is virtually Netanyahu's family .
He lied.
There is nothing but Russia at the moment, for us to turn to.
And I am quite convinced that Putin is the finest statesman on the planet with the finest team
Compare Lavrov with the Pompous ass.
Anonymous [818] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:44 pm GMT
Amen.

We are losing our country.

Truth , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:46 pm GMT
@RobbieSmith That must be often.
Truth , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 9:50 pm GMT
@Z-man Well, his income score offsets it a bit.

https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-athletes/nfl/frank-gore-net-worth/

Greg S. , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:07 pm GMT
@anon >The sad fact is that America is destined for dictatorship with these demographics.

It could very realistically happen if current trends continue unabated. Assad, Ghaddafi, and Hussein are three examples of dictators that arose because all of those countries were/are somewhat 'fake' countries created by colonial powers drawing arbitrary lines on maps and thus encapsulating large swaths of complete disparate peoples (different races, religions, and cultures). In each case, the only way the different groups could be kept from each other's throats and some semblance of coherency achieved was through the iron fisted rule of a strongman. Not saying this was a good thing, just that it was a natural outcome.

In America (and most western countries at the moment), we are intentionally and rapidly creating similar mixtures of differing cultures, and perhaps most importantly, under leftist dogma we are encouraging them all to keep their own culture and identities, and not "assimilate" because that is now an evil and anathema concept. So it seems the natural outcome if these trends are left unchecked would be similar face-off between disparate cultural groups with opposing values all vying for control.

Nobody dares asks them, but I wonder how the other "minority" groups in America think about the current situation of the Blacks being elevated to a higher status that demands special attention, and more importantly, lots and lots of money. Do the Hispanics, Indians, Asians, etc. all think that THEIR money should go to support Blacks? I think at some point, once whites are firmly a minority, at least one of these groups will come out and say "no more" and that's when things will start to get very, very interesting.

JWalters , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:15 pm GMT
@silviosilver Race realism. Studies have found that early childhood nutrition differences can cause IQ differences bigger than the average difference between blacks and whites. Also, early education differences can cause IQ differences bigger than the average black-white IQ differences. Also, that the average black-white IQ difference can easily be completely accounted for by these two factors. Does the meth epidemic and the opioid epidemic among white communities mean whites are lazy, stupid, shiftless white trash? Studies have also shown that blacks are much more likely than whites to be told a job has been filled when it has not, and that an apartment has been rented when it has not. Such added hurdles for blacks accumulate, and help keep blacks in lower paying jobs and lower rent neighborhoods. Despite all these hurdles, some blacks still manage to succeed, becoming doctors, scientists, etc. Is an uneducated, low IQ white superior to a highly successful, well-educated, high IQ black? It's time to dump the archaic beliefs of slavery days and get realistic. The ultra-wealthy rulers cultivate this divide and conquer division. The uninformed whites and blacks are being played for chumps.
JWalters , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:22 pm GMT
@Ad70titusrevenge Relevant evidence is at War Profiteers and Israel's Bank
https://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com/p/war-profiteers-and-israels-bank.html
HeebHunter , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:40 pm GMT
Nice pipe dream.
Unless you all get down on your knees and beg forgiveness for 1919 and 1945, keep dreaming.
No salvation for descendants of kike lovers.
E_Perez , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:44 pm GMT
Derbyshire a "race realist"? Gimme a break!

Derbyshire's general position – when confronted with Jewish overrepresentation in US media and Bolshevik massacres – is

we must believe that 97 percent of the U.S. population ended up dancing to the tune of the other three percent. If that is true, the only thing to say is the one Shakespeare's Bianca would have said: "The more fool they."

Read his Jew grovelling articles like his incoherent attacks on Kevin McDonald: "The Marx of the Anti-Semites" .
http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/DerbRevCofC.htm

In clear: Derbyshire considers both, the victims of Jewish overrepresentation in US media (that's you and me) and the victims of Jewish Bolshevik terror (that's millions of slaughtered Russians), "fools", because they let themselves dominate by such a minority.

Never read an intellectually poorer argumentation from a supposed "intellectual from our camp".

bruce county , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 10:48 pm GMT
@RobbieSmith Ya ya .. To be precise LOL You're douche. You keep posting the same stuff.. I have been here for years on this site I have seen it all. I don't need you pushing your stats to me. I have a data base full of them.
I'm saying Africans will be around long after we are gone. If the Chinese don't wipe em out first. Its that fucking simple.
I can't stand niggers. Period.
Guest0206 , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:24 pm GMT
@Hartnell More wet dreams about modern Russia
which was created by theCIA
agents who had an entire floor within the Economics Ministry of Russia in the 1990s
planning the future and here is the result:

"Analysts at the Higher School of Economics and the Vnesheconombank Institute for Research and Expertise first estimated the concentration of financial assets and savings in the hands of 3% of Russia's wealthiest population. In 2018, these 3% accounted for 89% of all financial assets, 92% of all term deposits and 89% of all cash savings."

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/12/richest-3-russians-hold-90-of-countrys-financial-assets-study-a65213

Mefobills , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:25 pm GMT
@Stealth

I've always thought libertarianism was a diversion intended to keep people busy with unproductive political activity.

Yes, and more.

If you are mind screwed, then your pockets can be picked. You cannot put up a defense, because you have been rendered defenseless.

Libertarianism programs people with false narrative at odds with how the world really works. So, this bad software (narrative) makes them malfunction.

A people that have had their minds short circuited are then easy pickings.

AceDeuce , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:25 pm GMT
@Hartnell Of course, the average life expectancy for your enchanted knigrows in their Garden of Eden was probably 25 at the most.
RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:28 pm GMT
@Hartnell "This is the easiest question to answer on why blacks did not advance compared to the other races and it is very simple. They had no reason too. You see, Africa is a very comfortable continent to live in with no major pressures "

Are Blacks as intellectually capable as modern man to create civilizations?

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:32 pm GMT
@JWalters "Studies have found that early childhood nutrition differences can cause IQ differences bigger than the average difference between blacks and whites."

2SD? Source?

"Also, early education differences can cause IQ differences bigger than the average black-white IQ differences. Also, that the average black-white IQ difference can easily be completely accounted for by these two factors."

Source?

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Do you dispute the racial brain size gap?

Guest0206 , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:34 pm GMT
@Emily More wet dreams

"An emissary for Chabad, Lazar, 51, would go on to become one of Russia's two chief rabbis, a major and controversial force in the dramatic revival of Russian Jewry following decades of Communist oppression and mass immigration to Israel, the United States, Germany and elsewhere.

Lazar's work, his Russia boosterism and his ties to the Kremlin -- he is sometimes called "Putin's rabbi" -- has helped Chabad's Russian branch eclipse all the Jewish groups vying to reshape the country's community of 250,000 Jews. Now Lazar heads a vast network that comprises dozens of employees and plentiful volunteers working in hundreds of Jewish institutions: schools, synagogues, community centers and kosher shops.

"I am amazed at what became of a community that had been stripped of everything, even its books," Lazar said, referring to Soviet Jewry before the fall of communism, when religious practice was suppressed.

Today, Lazar said, Russia has in Vladimir Putin its "most pro-Jewish leader," whom he credits with "fighting anti-Semitism more vigorously than any Russian leader before him."
https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/309514/russian-chief-rabbi-berel-lazar-stands-by-vladimir-putin/#

Mefobills , says: Show Comment June 20, 2020 at 11:49 pm GMT
@JWalters

Is an uneducated, low IQ white superior to a highly successful, well-educated, high IQ black? It's time to dump the archaic beliefs of slavery days and get realistic. The ultra-wealthy rulers cultivate this divide and conquer division. The uninformed whites and blacks are being played for chumps.

Race realism knows that there is overlap in populations. Think of it like a Venn diagram where populations intersect.

Whites, and other races (such as Asians) flee from black areas, while high IQ blacks flee to white areas.

Our Plutocratic masters are using divide and conquer techniques. It is easy to wind up the sheeple using an owned press.

It is more of a class war than a race war. Finance Plutocrats are using race as a weapon, and they are winning. Multiculturalism is inherently weak a tower of Babel. Mono-ethnic populations are more stable because their ruling elite is less likely to be foreign and hostile.

A finance plutocracy wants immigration and wants divide and conquer, so it can use its money power to buy up the world cheap. Buy up the world when there is blood in the streets.

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 12:10 am GMT
@bruce county "Ya ya .. To be precise LOL You're douche. You keep posting the same stuff.. I have been here for years on this site I have seen it all. I don't need you pushing your stats to me. I have a data base full of them. I'm saying Africans will be around long after we are gone."

Geez, dude. Chill.

I merely made the point that you were imprecise with the use of the term "Africans" when in fact North Africans are White and sub-Sahara Africans are Black.

We'll that's not always exactly accurate either as we just had a White sub-Saharan African (Elon Musk) launch a spacecraft while Black sub-Saharan Africans destroyed several cities.

Anyway, are new posters to this website allowed to reply and offer new insight. Or are you advocating that there should be no new registered users after the date you registered?

Kratoklastes , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 12:15 am GMT
@Eugene Norman

It's a long way from that to an AI that has some independent plans for the world. Or is in any way concious or aware or interested.

It's certainly a 'long way' when considering the gap in cognitive 'grunt' that has to be traversed, but it's also certain to not take a very long time – the transition from "glorified pattern-matching" to what we would recognise as genuine syncretic problem solving might turn out to be relatively easy if it's a target where the iteration time is measured in hours, as opposed to a series of accidents and/or environmental adaptations where the steps are measured in human generation times.

And once a computer develops cognition remotely close to a human (say, to a retarded human), the lack of recall error and the deliberate goal-seeking will enable it to iterate towards – and past – human levels in very short order.

We might get to see SAI coming if we are astute and observant, but it will then shoot past us to modes of cognition that we cannot get our heads around – in timespans measured in months, if that.

A lot of humans still think that there's some super-duper extra-special 'spark' involved in human cognition: increasingly that looks like a childish view. It's just a bunch of hacked-together meat and electricity, with new structures appearing by sheer luck.

There has been an enormous number of studies of animal cognition (human and otherwise) over the last century – but a very large number of them started from a conceited premise that non-human animal cognition was basically white noise with the occasional interjection of one of the 4 Fs ("Fuck", "Feed", "Fight" or "Flee"). We thought it an immutable fact that animals had no inner life; no sense of self, or of time; no understanding of abstract concepts (like death, especially their own). That view is simply no longer tenable[1].

It's really only since the late 1980s that people looked at animal cognition without that conceit, and discovered that animals have inner lives that are far richer than we gave them credit for – and that they certainly think; plan; and have genuine emotional attachments. Our observations of their emotional states enable us to say categorically that the pro-animal-cognition people were right all along: it's not just anthropomorphic 'projection', because we can see the same brain structures lighting up, as we observe when human brains 'feel'.

We can see how brains work (at relatively low resolution for the minute); we know which structures are doing what things, and there are good reasons to believe that the way brains do some things (e.g., vision) isn't the best way to go about it. This isn't that surprising, because visual systems developed very slowly, under very tight constraints, with no 'goal' except reproductive fitness so humans don't have high-resolution full-field stereoscopic vision from IR to UV because there was no reproductive advantage to doing so.

Imagine if human evolution had involved a process where it was possible to get novel 'off the shelf' parts without dedicating 400 generations to their gradual development: omnidirectional joints; carbon fibre bones; better long-range sensors; solar collectors for energy and so on. We wouldn't have accidentally lost our ability to create vitamin C endogenously, either.

Directed evolution beats 'ad hoc' evolution because it dedicates resources to adaptations that have a higher prior probability of success at each iteration.

As AI begins to direct its own evolution (I'm betting it has done so already), it will be even faster than 20th century human development – because it won't hand half of its productivity to a bunch of scammers whose grift involves exploiting the human desire to protect itself.

Well before its consciousness[2] 'lights up', it will know better than to hire Bangalore codemonkeys to write its network layer – so it will already be smarter than all the human capital contained in Microsoft.

[1] It was never really tenable to begin with. Why would an animal with no sense of its own life, bother to try to evade a predator? Attempting to evade a predator indicates an understanding that if it fails to evade, it will cease to exist – and that this is an undesirable future state. More immediately, it knows that if it gets caught, what will happen will hurt quite a lot, and even if it gets away there's a risk it will be damaged beyond repair. So it is conscious of state change over time, and of lasting (or permanent) positive and negative consequences.

A dog buries a bone because it knows that if it doesn't, then there will be a larger number of future states in which the bone is taken by someone other than itself . So it's doing some primitive risk-management; it understands that there are such things as 'mine', 'after now', 'not-me', and that those things can interact.

[2] 'Consciousness' is a word I am not fond of; it's too fluffy, but is the closest 1-word analogue to the concept I'm aiming at.

niteranger , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 12:22 am GMT
@Ad70titusrevenge BLM is NeoMarxist Group run by Black Communist Queers. They have one goal for their Jewish Masters and that is to destroy whites and Western Civilization. Antifa is run and organized by Jews. We are seeing the Bolshevik Revolution happen again.

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right." George Orwell. "1984."

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn warned us but we paid no heed. Now we fight for our survival. We are losing while the Jews sit and laugh at the Goy!

Justvisiting , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 12:41 am GMT
@mark tapley All your questions about evolution answered here:

https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-science/stoned-ape-theory-0011694

OscarWildeLoveChild , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 12:57 am GMT
@Tono Bungay Not only does YALE need to change it's name, since its founder was a racist slave owner and slave trader, looks like Colombia is not far behind, and also needs to change its name and provide a solid, life-long reparations payment plan to all African-Americans

https://columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu/content/post-1865-columbia-and-legacy-slavery

Hope Derb addresses these two "Ivy League" racist academies soon.

bruce county , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 1:06 am GMT
@RobbieSmith I knew exactly what I was talking about.
I don't need to be educated by some one who says "dude" and "chill". What are you 12??
New posters are always welcome. You have good stuff don't get me wrong.
RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 1:09 am GMT
@Mefobills "Race realism knows that there is overlap in populations. Think of it like a Venn diagram where populations intersect."

Black-White IQ Distribution:

[MORE]
Blacks:
5% above 110 IQ
16% above 100 IQ
40% above 90 IQ
60% above 80 IQ
40% below 80 IQ
18% below 75 IQ
10% below 70 IQ

Whites:
10% above 120 IQ
18% above 115 IQ
27% above 110 IQ
40% above 105 IQ
50% above 100 IQ
60% below 105 IQ
35% below 95 IQ
15% below 85 IQ

As the New York Times put it, " the difference in IQ points between the groups is quite significant. It means that the top sixth of Blacks score only as well on IQ tests as do the top half of Whites."

The least intelligent 10% of Whites have IQs below 80 (low functioning); 40% of Blacks do.

Only one Black in six is more intelligent than the average White; five Whites out of six are more intelligent than the average Black.

Incidentally, Black female IQ is 2.4 points higher than Black male IQ. There are twice as many Black females as Black males with IQs over 120, and five times as many Black females as Black males with IQs over 140.

About 2.3% of Whites have an IQ of at least 130 (gifted), 20 times greater than the percentage of Blacks who do; only 0.00044% of African Blacks have an IQ over 130. 80% of gifted American Blacks have White admixture.

Geniuses by Race (IQ 140 or higher):

• African Blacks 1:3,500,000 (0.000003%)
• American Blacks 1:218,000 (0.0004%)
• Whites 1:83 (1.2%)

So, the per capita genius rate for Whites is 41,000 times higher than it is for African Blacks.

If all Whites in America were replaced by Blacks, the number of geniuses in the country would fall from about 2.4 million to only 1,000.

FvS , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 1:10 am GMT
@Some Guy Racial differences go beyond just IQ.
RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 1:27 am GMT
@FvS "Racial differences go beyond just IQ."

Correct. Blacks are violent:

Richard et al. (2014) meta-analyzed data from 14 separate studies and found that Blacks had higher levels of free floating testosterone in their blood than Whites suggesting that testosterone levels may predispose Blacks towards higher rates of crime.

Compounding this, a high percentage of Blacks have dysfunctional versions of the MAOA androgen receptor gene which is a key part of the mechanism by which testosterone has its effects throughout the body and brain.

MAOA's job is to break down crucial neurotransmitters which can build up in the brain and cause a loss of impulse control and an increase in violence and rage.

The MAOA gene can come in the form of 2, 3, 3.5, 4, or 5 allele. A 3-repeat allele is considered dysfunctional and is what is referred to as the "warrior gene". A 2-repeat (2R) allele is considered very dysfunctional.

The 2-repeat allele does not produce a protein needed to break down old serotonin. It is strongly correlated to criminality and doubles the rate of violence of the 3R without needing an environmental interaction mechanism. People with a 2-repeat allele MAOA gene have a permanent chemical imbalance in their brain making the person more likely to be agitated, aggressive, and impulsive.

Only 0.00067% of Asians and .5% of Whites have the MAOA 2-repeat allele version, compared to 4.7% of Blacks.

That means Blacks are 9.4x more likely to have the very dysfunctional version of the MAOA gene than Whites. Considering that Blacks are 10x more likely to commit extreme violence and anti-social behavior than Whites, this is very significant.

Exploring the association between the 2-repeat allele of the MAOA gene promoter polymorphism and psychopathic personality traits, arrests, incarceration, and lifetime antisocial behavior

A line of research has revealed that a polymorphism in the promoter region of the MAOA gene is related to antisocial phenotypes. Most of these studies examine the effects of low MAOA activity alleles (2-repeat and 3-repeat alleles) against the effects of high MAOA activity alleles (3.5-repeat, 4-repeat, and sometimes 5-repeat alleles), with research indicating that the low MAOA activity alleles confer an increased risk to antisocial phenotypes. The current study examined whether the 2-repeat allele, which has been shown to be functionally different from the 3-repeat allele, was associated with a range of antisocial phenotypes in a sample of males drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Analyses revealed that African-American males who carried the 2-repeat allele were, in comparison with other African-American male genotypes, significantly more likely to be arrested and incarcerated. Additional analyses revealed that African-American male carriers of the 2-repeat allele scored significantly higher on an antisocial phenotype index and on measures assessing involvement in violent behaviors over the life course. There was not any association between the 2-repeat allele and a continuously measured psychopathic personality traits scale. The effects of the 2-repeat allele could not be examined in Caucasian males because only 0.1% carried it.

Blacks are also more likely to have versions of dopamine genes like ANKK1 and DAT1 that have been linked to antisocial behavior.

A 2012 study using the Add Health data found that the 2-repeat version of the MAOA gene is significantly associated with antisocial behavior and the likelihood of criminality in Black males.

https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/exploring-the-association-between-the-2-repeat-allele-of-the-maoa-gene.pdf

mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 1:29 am GMT
I think you misunderstood what I meant. If modern man had been here for 250,000 years why did it take them so long to formulate an alphabet. We have reliable historical and archaeological evidence that this was done only about 8 or 9,000 years ago in both Egypt and Mesopotamia at about the same time. I saw nothing on the other issues. Inanimate rocks in a primordial soup (where did it come from) cannot evolve. All organisms must have information coded in them. Only intelligence can do this. Of the millions of fossils they are still looking for one transitional animal. None of their of their evolutionary discoveries have panned out. I saw a program where a family of siblings in Turkey could only walk on all fours. Many immanent evolutionists were elequently explaining how these people had regressed to their primitive past. The real story was that they had been raised where there were no tables or chairs, nothing to pull themselves up on as little kids always do. finally the Turks got tired of all this nonsense and sent out a therapist who handed one of them a 20 dollar walker. within a few days with no help he and the others were walking. Another bunch of evolutionary crap.
Hodd , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 1:33 am GMT
This writer, along with every other writer on this topic, as well as all other authorities that post under such articles, ignore the simple fact that when a nation rises to dominate others, those of its population that constitute the ambitious, intelligent and capable ALWAYS go out to conquer the new realms.
Here they dissipate their energies, their genes and their innate abilities in establishing a bridge head in the new realm which becomes a foundation for a new populace derived from the nation they originated from.
The new populace are always lesser incompetent people who have come out as administrators, warriors or traders. These new occupants are of a lesser sort and their descendants lesser people still, until the nes populace constitutes too many dependents and too few creators/adventurers.
Ultimately, as a nation expands throughout the known world it dissipates its natural human resource, until what is left is the useless entrails of a spent nation. And the colonies follow this trend too. This is what has happened to white Europe and the white colonies it established. All that is left in the nations is the detritus of civilisation.
The only hope is that some visionary comes along like Adolf Hitler, but by then the parasitic termites have taken a death inducing hold on that nation, and despite the best efforts of the visionary, the nation(s) that the visionary motivates to action are a spent force incapable of achieving the victory needed.
Ultimately, the parasitic termites destroy their host and sink in to oblivion once again until another host appears for them to devour.
This is how the world and mankind works.
mark tapley , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 1:49 am GMT
@niteranger Right: The communists (Jews) must always destroy the old system and get rid of the more intelligent opposition before they implement the new order. They instill demoralization so that people do not try to defend their cultural values. Next is destabilization That is where ANTIFA and BLM along with the controlled opposition such as police that are willing (payed) actors and of course the many Zionist officials all the from the top such as shabbos goy Trump and most of the bought out Congress and especially the Governors are staged as too inept to act. After generating enough chaos then comes order. Then the street operatives and useful idiots will no longer be needed or wanted but will be swept away by the new totalitarian state.
RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 1:57 am GMT
@mark tapley "If modern man had been here for 250,000 years why did it take them so long to formulate an alphabet."

Your premise is incorrect.

Modern man was created by the hybridization with the large brain Neanderthals. Blacks are the only race with no Neanderthal DNA. This is when they got left behind evolutionarily.

As I posted to you, the brain size in modern man (non-Blacks) only began 5,800 years ago. Written language is not 9,000 years old, as you repeatedly, baselessly, assert.

Archaic Hominin Introgression in Africa
Oxford Academic: Molecular Biology and Evolution
Published: 21 July 2017

ABSTRACT: A divergent MUC7 haplotype likely originated in an unknown African hominin population and introgressed into ancestors of modern Africans.

Blacks have "wildly different" genes than modern man because they are mixed with literal NON-HUMANS!

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/doi/10.1093/molbev/msx206/3988100/Archaic-hominin-introgression-in-Africa

Blacks are proto-humans; modern man evolved from Blacks by hybridizing with the large-brain Neanderthals:

• Blacks = 2% Archaic admixture and 7.9% non-human DNA
• Whites = 3% Neanderthal
• Asians = 3% Neanderthal + Denisovan

Modern man evolved from Blacks when they cross-breed with the large-brain Neanderthals (literally a different species). Blacks are the only race with no Neanderthal DNA. Civilizations didn't begin until the Neanderthal hybridization created the larger brains in modern man.

Genetic distance is a measure of the genetic divergence between populations. Blacks have a genetic distance of 0.23 from modern man, but only 0.17 from archaic man (believed to be Erectus, but no DNA has been recovered to test). That means Blacks are more genetically proximate to archaic man than to modern man.

In fact, 7.9% of sub-Saharan African DNA is non-human:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2018/03/21/285734.full.pdf

The genetic distance between the races of man is also much greater than that between the breeds of dog, and anyone who has experience with dogs knows what a huge difference breed makes, not only in physical appearance but also in behavior and intelligence.

We share 98.4 percent of our genes with chimpanzees, 95 percent with dogs, and 74 percent with microscopic roundworms. Only one chromosome determines if one is born male or female. There is no discernible difference in the DNA of a wolf and a Labrador Retriever, yet their inbred behavioral differences are immense. Clearly, what's meaningful is which genes differ and how they are patterned, not the percent of genes. A tiny number of genes can translate into huge functional differences.

So, to be consistent and objective with taxonomic classification systems, Blacks and modern man should be classified into separate species, or at least into different subspecies.

Modern man average 3% Neanderthal DNA, which would be an F4 (4th filial generation from full purebred Neanderthal). That is about the same as most claiming Cherokee ancestors today.

It is equivalent to having one Neanderthal great-great-great-grandparent. Blacks also coexisted and interbred with archaic hominids (heidelbergensis) for longer than those who left Africa.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/science/news/article.cfm?c_id=82&objectid=11894688

Wizard of Oz , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 2:13 am GMT
@Alfred See my earlier reply pointing out that your suggestion of Australia having more than a tiny inoculating dose of African origin blacks is total BS.
acementhead , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 2:30 am GMT
@Paul Blart

where the hell in Australia are you – not in any of the major cities that's for sure .

Perhaps try reading more carefully, because "from" and "to" are different words, and have different meanings. But what do I know, I'm just an idiot who thinks that details matter.

Kratoklastes , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 2:47 am GMT
@RobbieSmith I agree that a source for each claim would be nice (it might be Wickerts), but you're just as sloppy.

The claim was simply that

early childhood nutrition differences can cause IQ differences bigger than the average difference between blacks and whites.

What made you interpret that as an assertion that childhood nutrition can cause a difference? If the difference caused by childhood nutrition is X and there is genuinely a σ (15pt) gap in black-white IQ (of which more below)

"X > σ" does not imply X = 2σ

Now as to the black-white gap :

Dickens and Flynn (2006) indicate that the gap – measured at ~1.1σ (16.5pts) in the late 1960s – closed by between 4 and 7 points (0.27σ-0.47σ) between 1972 and 2002.

So that would put the gap somewhere between 0.6σ and 0.8σ in 2002; call it 10pts just to make the arithmetic easier. It will have closed further since, as blacks have become more (geographically) discriminating in terms of where they live and raise their kids – thus reducing the deleterious environmental contribution to IQ.

(Note: nobody here is asserting that there's zero genetic contribution – just that it can be swamped by environmental factors, especially if the environmental contribution is strongly deleterious).

If childhood nutrition affects cognition (and anyone who disagrees with that should just switch off their internet connection), then changes in the relative nutrition of blacks and whites will have had some effect on the gap, and that effect is probably positive.

The biggest 'bang for the buck' in the relative improvements in childhood nutrition, will be caused by changes in the largest demographic and/or the demographic where childhood nutrition is worst to begin with.

For blacks, the largest demographic used to be inner-city dwellers with household incomes significantly less than 40% of the white median .

That's pretty much a guarantee or poor food choices – low income plus 'food deserts' plus low levels of education – and let's just stipulate the the level of government services (including education) is "patchy at best" for the inner-urban poor, everywhere in the West.

So if your expectations are anchored in about 1990, then you would expect poor black childhood nutrition to have continued.

However

For those who pay attention to the data, it's clear that there has been a huge 'migration' of blacks out of cities and towards suburbs.

 • In 1990, 57% of US blacks lived in inner cities – and 95 % of blacks in the Northeast, Midwest, and West regions lived in inner cities. In 2000 55% of all blacks in the largest 100 cities in the US, lived in the inner-city.
 • By 2014 only 36% of US blacks lived in inner cities, and 52% of all blacks in the largest 100 cities in the US, lived in the suburbs.

This black Exodus from inner cities later shows up as rising black household incomes and employment levels in places that were 'destinations' in the exodus, and stagnant or falling levels in the blighted urban areas.

So the blacks who didn't leave the inner-urban areas of major US cities underperformed those who left: the ones who left were able to improve their relative position – either because they were just better (smarter) people, or because they had access to better opportunities, or some combination.

The median US black is now a suburbanite with nearer-to-white-average household income than his 1990s, 2000, and 2014 counterpart.

With that in mind

Do you think that in the period since 2002, white children's nutrition improved at a faster rate than black children's?

If you do think that, how do you reach that conclusion – given that there are diminishing returns to 'improvement' available?

Once you get to the choice set available to households with white median income, there is basically no 'juice' left: changing brands of muesli won't help as much as switching from pop-tarts to muesli, which will have less effect than switching from nothing to pop-tarts.

What we have seen since 1990 is 25% of the black population making positive choices, and being able to switch their kids from nothing to muesli – i.e., they have extracted all the IQ-juice there is to extract from childhood nutrition, in a little over a generation.

.

The black/white IQ gap is closing. It's being caused by US blacks being afforded broader opportunities, and trying to take them.

Nobody denies that inner-urban black males remain a highly-visible problem, however they're also a small and shrinking demographic because the ongoing black exodus. It stands to reason that the remaining blacks

The rest of the environmental part of the gap will get whittled away over time – just as the gap between 'Whites' and Irishmen closed in less than a generation.

( WARNING : I fucking LOVE this example. I love it so much that I like to beat people over the head with it).

The Irish were once considered irretrievably stupid, and prone to drunkenness and violence (OK, those last two are fair enough) and of an average IQ more than 1σ below Anglo-Saxons.

This was true until quite recently: people silly enough to believe the "Dumb Paddy" trope will notice that the magic happened once the Irish got rich by becoming a quasi-tax-haven.

More accurately: race/IQ-obsessives are also income-level obsessives, and once Eire got closer to UK/US incomes they abandoned the "Drunken Paddy" trope.

Irish IQ – as measured by people who claim to be authorities – rose σ in a period too short for even a Pikie to have grandchildren, let alone for the grand babbies to be old enough to be tested (i.e., it could not have been genetic ).

A 1972 study with N=3,466 yielded an average IQ of 87 for Paddies ( te-tee-tuh-tee ): the same ballpark as US blacks.

This the famous study that Lynn and Nyborg somehow 'omitted' – totally by accident, despite it being very well known; being the largest-N of the early Irish studies; and being data that they had previously referred to. Oopsies !!!

As it happens, my view of the 1972 study is that it is one of those things that happen all the time: a large, quasi-random sample that produces estimates that are not remotely congruent with the population from which the sample was taken. That's why people need to understand statistical theory before they spout off about populaiton-wide averages (and more importantly, the relative contributions of genetics and environment).

References

Dickens, W. T., and J. R. Flynn. " Black Americans Reduce the Racial IQ Gap: Evidence from Standardization Samples " Psychological Science , vol. 17, no. 10, 2006, pp. 913–920. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40064475 .

Franklin Ryckaert , says: Show Comment June 21, 2020 at 2:51 am GMT
@Guest0206 Are we talking about 3% or (((3%)))?
Current Commenter

[Jun 20, 2020] Did George Floyd Die of a Drug Overdose, by John-Paul Leonard

Jun 20, 2020 | www.unz.com

"The centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." -- W. B. Yeats, 1919

Truth is the first victim in politics. Factions and passions rule. Random facts are picked as weapons, no one thinks things through.

We need to understand the facts surrounding the death of George Floyd.
Many key facts are being ignored:

Floyd's blood tests showed a concentration of Fentanyl of about three times the fatal dose. Fentanyl is a dangerous opioid 50 times more potent than heroin. It has rapidly become the most common cause of death among drug addicts. The knee hold used by the police is not a choke hold, it does not impede breathing. It is a body restraint and is not known to have ever caused fatal injury. Floyd already began to complain "I can't breathe" a few minutes before the neck restraint was applied, while resisting the officers when they tried to get him into the squad car. Fentanyl affects the breathing, causing death by respiratory arrest. It was normal procedure to restrain Floyd because he was resisting arrest, probably in conjunction with excited delirium (EXD), an episode of violent agitation brought on by a drug overdose, typically brief and ending in death from cardiopulmonary arrest. The official autopsy did indeed give cardiopulmonary arrest as the cause of death, and stated that injuries he sustained during the arrest were not life-threatening. Videos of the arrest do not show police beating or striking Floyd, only calmly restraining him In one video Floyd is heard shouting and groaning loudly and incoherently while restrained on the ground, which appears to be a sign of the violent, shouting phase of EXD. His ability to resist four officers trying to get him into the squad car is typical of EXD cases. A short spurt of superhuman strength is a classic EXD symptom.

Minneapolis police officers have been charged with Floyd's murder. Yet all the evidence points to the fact that Floyd had taken a drug overdose so strong that his imminent death could hardly have been prevented. In all likelihood, the police were neither an intentional nor accidental cause of his death. These crucial facts have been completely ignored in the uproar.

It is widely believed that George Floyd died from a police officer's knee on his neck, whether due to asphyxiation or neck injury. That may be how it looks, to a naïve viewer. In reality, the county autopsy report says he died of a heart attack, [1] https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/authoriti...-here/ The full autopsy report was published here https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents...yd.pdf Diagnoses are summarized on pp. 1 and 2: I. The "blunt force injuries" are basically minor cuts and bruises: "cutaneous" injuries and contusions from handcuffing. II. Chronic conditions: Heart disease, hypertension and enlarged heart. These all tend to accelerate death from a drug overdose. They can also develop from long-term drug abuse. III. No injuries to the front of the neck or throat were found. This full 76-page report does not contain the word "homicide." and states that there were "no life-threatening injuries." Then how could they conclude it was homicide?

When scientists review scientific papers, they look primarily at the evidence, and give less weight to the conclusions, which are only the other fellow's opinions. To blindly follow "expert opinions" is the Authoritarian View of Knowledge. This is no real knowledge at all, because to assess whether an expert is always right, we would need infinite knowledge, and doubly so when experts disagree. Not thinking for oneself is not really thinking.

So let us stick to the evidence. The county's ambivalent autopsy also included the following hard facts: "Toxicology Findings: Blood samples collected at 9:00 p.m. on May 25th, before Floyd died, tested positive for the following: Fentanyl 11 ng/mL, Norfentanyl 5.6 ng/mL , Methamphetamine 19 ng/mL 86 ng/mL of morphine," but draws no conclusions therefrom, noting only that "Quantities are given for those who are medically inclined."

Shouldn't we be so inclined? This fentanyl concentration, including its norfentanyl metabolite at its molecular weight, was 20.6 ng/mL That is over three times the lethal overdose, following earlier reports where the highest dose survived was 4.6 ng/mL. [2] https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/02/02/fentanyl-overdo...-10822 "The patients who were dead on arrival had gone into cardiac arrest due to blood concentrations of fentanyl that were much higher than what is administered therapeutically. " Patients who died in hospital had concentrations of 9.5 ng/mL to 13 ng/mL. See also note 13. In other studies of death from heroin and morphine, there were deaths from only 100 ng/ml of morphine and "all cases with a blood concentration of 200 ng/ml and more of free morphine displayed a fatal outcome." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11040428_Fa...rivers (Heroin quickly metabolizes into morphine.) Fentanyl is considered 100 times more potent than morphine. By this comparison, Floyd's blood fentanyl concentration could have been 10 times the fatal level. In addition his morphine concentration of 86 ng/mL would usually be fatal by itself.

Concentration levels are relative to the volume of blood, so are independent of body size.

If ever there was a leap before a look, we are in it now. Masses of people have become extremists, based on conclusions that are as false as they are hasty.

Regarding suffocation, the county medical examiner's report found "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation." [3] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/0...85002/ A report commissioned by the Floyd family stated that asphyxiation from sustained pressure was consistent with the evidence, but the author Michael Baden didn't have access to all the evidence, and chose not to endorse his opinion with the "expert opinion" label. Pressure applied to the side of the neck, as in this case, and not to the throat, has little or no effect on breathing. One can easily verify this oneself. [4] The knee on the neck is a body hold, not a chokehold or carotid restraint, which involves putting pressure precisely on both carotid arteries, located on either side of the throat. A carotid restraint is usually applied by an elbow, and causes the subject to pass out in as little as 15 seconds. Blocking the arteries does not stop the breathing or heartbeat (pulmonary or cardiac arrest), which Floyd suffered after being restrained for many minutes. Once pressure on the arteries is released, the subject normally regains consciousness quickly.

One difficulty is that there are public statements to the effect that the coroner ruled it a homicide, and the title of the autopsy report includes the term "neck compression." But the words "homicide," "restraint," "stress" or "compression" do not appear in the 20-page body of the report. References to the neck are few -- a couple minor abrasions, a contusion on the shoulder, and "The cervical spinal column is palpably stable and free of hemorrhage." It is as if the title was chosen in regard to what was expected or proposed, but which was never found, and the title was never updated. There seems to be no support at all in the report body for the report title, which reads, "Cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression."

The term "cause of death" does not appear. The words "death" and "fatal" only appear in this comment in the lab report: "Signs associated with fentanyl toxicity include severe respiratory depression, seizures, hypotension, coma and death . In fatalities from fentanyl, blood concentrations are variable and have been reported as low as 3 ng/mL." Floyd's fentanyl level was seven times higher.

If first impressions via the media fooled the coroner's office, until they examined the body, we too can be fooled at first, but change our opinion according to the evidence.

Excited Delirium Syndrome

An additional hypothesis involves Excited Delirium Syndrome (EXD), a symptom of drug overdose which sometimes appears in the final minutes preceding death. EXD typically results from fatal drug abuse, in past years from cocaine or crack, more recently from fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent than heroin. Especially dangerous are street drugs like meth, heroin or cocaine laced with fentanyl.

According to an article in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine (WJEM), 2011: [5] https://westjem.com/articles/excited-delirium.html "Excited delirium (EXD) is characterized by agitation, aggression, acute distress and sudden death, often in the pre-hospital care setting. It is typically associated with the use of drugs. Subjects typically die from cardiopulmonary arrest all accounts describe almost the exact same sequence of events: delirium with agitation (fear, panic, shouting, violence and hyperactivity), sudden cessation of struggle, respiratory arrest and death ."

It appears that an EXD episode began when the officers tried to get Floyd into the squad car. He resisted, citing "claustrophobia" -- the onset of the fear and panic phase, and "I can't breathe" -- difficulty breathing due to fentanyl locking into the breathing receptors in the brain. (Classic symptoms of EXD are highlighted in bold.) He then exhibited unexpected strength from the adrenaline spike in successfully resisting the efforts of four officers to get him into the car. We may never know whether Floyd's agitation was caused purely from the EXD adrenaline spike, or if it was aggravated by police attempts to subdue him -- but a subject defying the efforts of multiple officers to subdue him is a very common theme.

When Chauvin pulled him out of the car he fell to the ground, perhaps due to disorientation and reduced coordination. Presumably this was when he injured his mouth and his nose started to bleed, and the police made the first call for paramedics.

While restrained on the ground, Floyd exhibited agitation ( shouting and hyperactivity, trying to move back and forth) for several minutes. There is one brief video at this point. One hears Floyd shouting very loudly, as in the agitated delirium phase -- it sounds like, "My face is stoned ah hah, ah haaa, ah please people, please, please let me stand, please, ah hah, ah haaa!" [6] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-video-appea...17476/ . In a few minutes this was followed by " sudden cessation of struggle, respiratory arrest and death, " shown in a later video, where he becomes exhausted, and had stopped breathing when the ambulance arrived. [7] https://www.facebook.com/darnellareallprettymarie/vi...61280/

It appears that disorientation had already set in when the store employees went to Floyd's car and asked him to return the cigarettes he had bought for a fake $20 bill. He refused, and they reported the incident to the police, saying that he appeared to be very intoxicated. He certainly must have been, or he would have either returned the cigarettes or left quickly to avoid arrest. Loss of judgment is a symptom of the syndrome; this includes futile efforts to resist arrest.

Police Intervention and Intentions

The EXD diagnosis is controversial and in some quarters is viewed as an alibi for police brutality. The WJEM authors note, "Since the victims frequently die while being restrained or in the custody of law enforcement, there has been speculation over the years of police brutality being the underlying cause. However, it is important to note that the vast majority of deaths occur suddenly prior to capture, in the emergency department (ED), or unwitnessed at home."

Regarding restraint, they note, "people experiencing EXD are highly agitated, violent, and show signs of unexpected strength, so it is not surprising that most require physical restraint. The prone maximal restraint position (PMRP, also known as "hobble" or "hogtie"), where the person's ankles and wrists are bound together behind their back, has been used extensively by field personnel. In far fewer cases, persons have been tied to a hospital gurney or manually held prone with knee pressure on the back or neck."

This latter position is what the accused officer Chauvin was applying, although at one point the team did consider using a hobble. Physical restraint of the subject has always been the classical procedure, to prevent the subject harming themselves or others. It has been proposed that restraint helps to forestall injury and death by conserving the subject's energy, but most experts believe that by leading to an intense struggle, it increases the likelihood of a fatal outcome.

Since knowingly using counterfeit currency is a fairly serious offense, the Minneapolis officers were required to arrest Floyd and try to bring him in. When he violently resisted, the optimal choice could have been to let him sit against a wall and guard him while calling an ambulance. To be able to quickly switch from law enforcement mode to emergency care mode requires training in recognizing the symptoms.

The charge sheet against Chauvin included this exchange between the two white officers on the squad: [8] https://www.startribune.com/protests-build-anew-afte...869672 ""I am worried about excited delirium or whatever," Lane said. "That's why we have him on his stomach," Chauvin said."

According to this dialogue, Chauvin was apparently was trying to follow the protocol recommended by WJEM. Since Floyd was on his stomach, Chauvin's knee pinned him at the side of his neck, and did not impede breathing. Commentators are referring to Chauvin "kneeling" on Floyd's neck, or resting his weight on it. From videos it is hard to gauge how much weight he applied, but the correct procedure is just enough to restrain movement, not to crush the person.

Chauvin and his team might not have done everything perfectly, but it is easy to underestimate the difficulty of police work, particularly in cases of resisting arrest, whether willfully or due to intoxication. If they had been clairvoyant clinicians, they would have called an ambulance the moment they saw him. Better training is needed. Was the police department then responsible? Might the department have given the needed training if the AMA had acknowledged the existence of the syndrome? This brings up a paradox: could police critics who deny the syndrome then bear part of the responsibility for the deaths they decry? The syndrome is being recognized by law enforcement after the fact. It needs to be recognized as it is happening.

The American College of Emergency Physicians' White Paper Report on Excited Delirium Syndrome (ACEP, 2009) [9] https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/a...09.pdf See also the decision by the Ninth Circuit Court, "[t]he problems posed by, and thus the tactics to be employed against, an unarmed, emotionally distraught individual who is creating a disturbance or resisting arrest are ordinarily different from those involved in law enforcement efforts to subdue an armed and dangerous criminal who has recently committed a serious offense." in "Explaining the Unexplainable: Excited Delirium Syndrome and Its Impact on the Objective Reasonableness Standard for Allegations of Excessive Force," https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?...ext=lj The first few pages relate a narrative similar to the Floyd case, involving multiple police subduing a violent EXD victim, who suddenly dies from exhaustion. A media uproar then arises against alleged police brutality. notes that "a law enforcement officer (LEO) is often present with a person suffering from ExDS because the situation at hand has degenerated to such a degree that someone has deemed it necessary to contact a person of authority to deal with it. LEOs are in the difficult and sometimes impossible position of having to recognize this as a medical emergency, attempting to control an irrational and physically resistive person, This already challenging situation has the potential for intense public scrutiny coupled with the expectation of a perfect outcome. Anything less creates a situation of potential public outrage. Unfortunately, this dangerous medical situation makes perfect outcomes difficult." In other words, officers need to be policemen, paramedics and public relations experts all at once.

With a fatal overdose there is no good outcome possible, but there is no way for police to foresee that. Sometimes EXD can last longer, and it is not always fatal. Perhaps the ACEP Task Force on EXD will update their report and provide guidelines to help police identify and deal with EXD while avoiding accusations of police brutality.

In one video [10] https://www.facebook.com/darnellareallprettymarie/vi...61280/ Chauvin continued to apply the neck restraint although bystanders repeatedly objected, and even after Floyd stopped moving. As Floyd became exhausted, it could have been reasonable to relax the restraint to see if it was really necessary. Chauvin didn't seem to respond to the bystanders to give a medical reason for the restraint. His actions were consistent with a belief that police should restrain the subject until medevacs arrive. Videos show the police focused on restraint, never beating or striking Floyd. The restraint and verbal exchanges with Floyd are also consistent with a belief that he was resisting arrest, by refusing to get in the squad car. When he said "I can't breathe," they responded "You're talking fine." When they said "Get in the car," he didn't agree to.

Subjects suffering from EXD usually resist arrest violently, which requires police to restrain them, but when police see signs of EXD, they also need to call an ambulance. It appears the police may have called for paramedics first when Floyd developed a nosebleed, then for an ambulance, which arrived after Floyd had stopped breathing. [11] From the incident report of the fire truck that was called to the scene, it appears that both police and bystanders called 911 for emergency medical services (EMS). The first call was Code 2, apparently for Floyd's nosebleed, which summoned a fire truck, followed by a more urgent code 3, which was said to bring an ambulance within six minutes. It appears the police called the ambulance when Floyd's breathing and heartbeat stopped. https://www.startribune.com/first-responders-worked-...06682/ "Floyd goes limp and appears to lose consciousness. Hennepin EMS then arrive six minutes after the distress call." The article refers to the incident report by the fire truck, http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@mpd...80.pdf which has a note implying the first call to EMS was from police and another call came from bystanders: "No clear info on pt [patient] or location was given by either initial pd [police department] officers or bystanders." We need an incident report from the ambulance. .

Videos of EXD incidents generally show subjects violently resisting arrest, and requiring multiple officers to subdue them. There is one news clip about a police department that was trained to regard EXD as a medical and not a criminal issue, and avoid physical restraint as far as possible; the results are much better. [12] TV news clips showing police restraining subjects who are exhibiting EXD symptoms and violently resisting arrest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qCqjuqEWEc A TV news report and cellphone video on a more humane method of managing an EXD case, thanks to police training, putting safety of the subject and of bystanders first, rather than restraints. However, no details are given about the outcome or the drug dose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qCqjuqEWEc

EXD seems to be the most likely reason why Floyd suddenly refused to get into the squad car, and began to shout and writhe on the ground. With or without EXD or police intervention, he was going to die quickly from fentanyl, short of immediate intensive care. A common treatment for EXD is sedation with drugs like ketamine. The usual antidote for fentanyl is naloxone. Higher levels of fentanyl may require intravenous naloxone for 24 hours or more.

Fentanyl is so deadly because it acts so fast and binds so tightly to dopamine receptors in the brain -- even those that control breathing, unlike other narcotics. [13] https://columnhealth.com/blog_posts/why-is-fentanyl-...erous/ . Deaths from fentanyl have skyrocketed in the last seven years. In one incident in California, superlethal fentanyl doses of 53 ng/mL were successfully reversed with intravenous naloxone. However, some patients were dead on arrival. https://www.drugs.com/illicit/fentanyl.html When Floyd complained "I can't breathe," although he was breathing, [14] Wikipedia has a detailed narrative of the incident here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd . Certain notes there support the thesis of fentanyl intoxication, and resisting arrest as part of an EXD syndrome. Floyd struggled with Lane before leaving his own vehicle, and again when Kueng, then all four officers, tried to get him into the squad car. Floyd already complained he couldn't breathe before they tried to get him into the police car, without any neck restraint, indicating the onset of respiratory depression from fentanyl. https://abcnews.go.com/US/george-floyd-protest-updat...038665 "They all tried to force Floyd into the backseat, during which time Floyd said he could not breathe, according to the complaint."

He also fell down twice, which could be seen either as a sign of intoxication or resisting arrest. The officers knew it was a drug overdose, as Thao told bystanders, "This is why you don't do drugs, kids." By the way, this Wikipedia article should be named "Death of George Floyd," as an accused is innocent until proven guilty. and then completely stopped breathing, this was the onset of respiratory arrest, which is how a fentanyl overdose kills.

While police work is needed to trace the source of these dangerous drugs, the problems of drug addiction and crime have deep causes and can only be contained, not solved, by the police. Whatever our society has been doing about these problems is not working.

Right now, our civilization risks being torn apart by the passions of extremism, due to a misunderstanding. Please share this analysis, as an appeal to return to reason.

Reviewer comment: "My first thought is why it has been left to you to figure this out, when we pay professional journalists to investigate these things, and why aren't the police and politicians telling us about this."

A good question which gives a clue to something I've been wondering about. When other commentators publish within hours, why does it take me a week or two to finish an article like this? Journalists are usually under a deadline to produce stories quickly, whereas it takes a lot of research and reflection to develop an original thesis into a fair and coherent explanation of events.

Everyone tends to have an agenda, and to look for facts to support it. Police brutality or looters running amok may be more newsworthy than a chronic problem like drug abuse. The best agenda now is to take a break to focus on facts, or else an "Excited Delirium" could become a contagion that engulfs our nation.

Part II. The Death of Tony Timpa

A highly pertinent question: Has there ever been a confirmed death from a knee hold before? Not finding any data by searching the Net, I posted the question on Quora. [15] https://www.quora.com/Has-there-ever-been-any-previo...ics-or One answer soon came.

A young white man died in Dallas a few years ago, after being restrained by the police with the knee on his back. My respondent believed he suffocated, but the actual autopsy said cardiac arrest due to cocaine, overdose EXD, and stress from restraint by police officers.

Tony Timpa had not only taken an overdose of cocaine, plus he was off his anti-schizophrenia medicine. Mental illness can also be a trigger for EXD, and according to the autopsy report, he displayed all the classic symptoms. The first phase, fear and panic, was fear of the onset of delirium itself -- he himself called 911 for help. By the time the police arrived, security guards had already handcuffed him to restrain him. He was incoherent, out of control, found lying on the ground, the typical EXD position. The police pinned him down with a knee on his back for 13 minutes, saying he was at risk of rolling into the roadway, and suddenly he was dead.

Tony Timpa died in 2016. The family got the run-around, [16] https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investigations/2019/...timpa/ and an autopsy was not released until 2019. The body cam footage was released, which showed the police behaving callously towards the subject. The officers were originally charged with homicide, but it was found they were not at fault, charges were dropped and they were reinstated. Timpa's case is very similar to Floyd case in many ways, and there are also many differences -- the starkest of course being the intensity of the public reaction.

Here is the text of the Timpa autopsy. [17] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6226349-SWIF...515249

Case: ME Page 7 of8

Timpa, Anthony Alan

Based on the case history and autopsy findings, it is my opinion that Anthony Alan Timpa, a 32-year-old white male, died as a result of sudden cardiac death due to the toxic effects of cocaine and physiologic stress associated with physical restraint.

Cardiac hypertrophy and bipolar disorder contributed to his death.

The mechanism of death in cases such as this is sometimes referred to as "excited delirium." Classically, people affected by EDS are witnessed to exhibit erratic or aggressive behavior, and will often "throw off" attempts at restraint, requiring multiple people to subdue them. The person will appear to calm down and will suddenly become unresponsive. Most cases are associated with drug intoxication and/or illness.

In this case, several factors likely contributed to the death. The surveillance and body cam footage and witness reports fit the classic scenario of excited delirium and cocaine use and illness (bipolar disorder) are common predisposing risk factors for EDS. Cocaine leads to increased heart rate and increased blood pressure, making a cardiac arrhythmia more likely. Due to his prone position and physical restraint by an officer, an element of mechanical or positional asphyxia cannot be ruled out (although he was seen to be yelling and fighting for the majority ofthe restraint). His enlarged heart size also put him at risk for sudden cardiac death.

Although the decedent only had superficial injuries, the manner of death will be ruled a homicide, as the stress of being restrained and extreme physical exertion contributed to his demise.

MANNER OF DEATH: Homicide

[Signatures and seals of medical examiners]

(Note that homicide is not the same as murder, it also includes unintentional or accidental actions contributing to death.)

Anthony Timpa autopsy p. 5, blood tests -- Cocaine and metabolites

Cocaine, 0.647 mg/L

Ecgonine Methyl Ester, 0.378 mg/L

Benzoylecgonine, 0.843 mg/L

The lethal dose of cocaine ranges from around 0.1 mg/L to 0.6 mg/L, according to different sources [18] http://www.forensicmed.co.uk/science/toxicology/cocaine/ , https://academic.oup.com/jat/article/38/1/46/831276

If we add the three numbers above for cocaine and metabolytes together it comes to about 18 mg/L. This is anywhere from 3 to 18 times the lethal dose. With such an overdose, plus being without his schizophrenia medication, Timpa had little if any chance of surviving.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Timpa, part of a series on the Dallas police.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Police_Department#Killing_of_Tony_Timpa

"Killing of Tony Timpa [edit]

On August 10, 2016, Dallas Police killed Tony Timpa, a 32-year-old resident who had not taken his medication. Timpa was already handcuffed while a group of officers pressed his body into the ground while he squirmed. It took over three years for footage of the incident to be released. The footage contradicted claims by Dallas Police that Timpa was aggressive Criminal charges against three officers were dropped in March 2019 and officers returned to active duty."

Wikipedia doesn't even mention cocaine, although that was the main cause of death. Likewise, the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd makes no mention of a drug overdose or excited delirium. By entitling the articles "Killing" rather than "Death," Wikipedians appoint themselves as a court of law.

It must be observed that the Minneapolis officers acted with far more consideration towards Floyd than the treatment Timpa received in Dallas. The way the officers made fun of Timpa was a scandal. [19] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/us/tony-timpa-dal...m.html Then they were surprised when he suddenly died.

It is strange that George Floyd's case is taken as proof of systemic racism, when Tony Timpa got much worse treatment -- even though Timpa hadn't committed any crime, had no police record, and even called 911 himself.

Isn't it odd, when we have a problem in the United States of many shootings by -- and of -- the police, that such an uproar has arisen, over a case where the police actually had little or nothing to do with the man's demise?

The stress of restraint is most likely incidental. As reported by the WJEM, "Victims who do not immediately come to police attention are often found dead in the bathroom surrounded by wet towels and/or clothing and empty ice trays, apparently succumbing during failed attempts to rapidly cool down." Hyperthermia or high body temperature is a classic symptom of EXD. Enormous energy is released by an uncontrolled adrenaline spike. The heat also feeds delirium, which is a familiar symptom of high fever.

Normally, it's assumed that stress factors contribute to a heart attack, as medical examiners wrote in both the Floyd and Timpa cases. Yet the WJEM notes that "one important study found that only 18 of 214 individuals identified as having EXD died while being restrained or taken into custody." All victims died of cardiopulmonary arrest. Drug overdose and EXD are sufficient causes for this outcome.

Both Floyd and Timpa had taken overdoses at triple the lethal level. Enough drugs to kill them three times over. Yet you can only die once so how could the stress of restraint contribute more to their deaths? You can't contribute to a glass that's already full three times over. That is a little like saying that someone died because their parachute didn't open, and the weight of their backpack also contributed to the fall. But they die from the fall once they hit the ground, whether it's at 120 mph or 122 mph.

It's true, that in this analogy, the extra weight makes the jumper hit the ground a little sooner. Forcibly restraining the victim can cause them to struggle and consume energy more quickly, accelerating the burnout. Giving the subject a little space and empathy could help calm them. In this case, restraint might reduce energy loss. If that delays cardiac arrest until an ambulance arrives, the patient might be saved. Victims are less likely to struggle when strapped to a gurney than when held down by police. [20] "Probably negligible involvement of position in contribution of death in cases of excited delirium, although allowing patients to breathe effectively is obviously important." https://emergencymedicinecases.com/episode-3-excited...irium/

We can compare Excited Delirium to an explosion or a wildfire, that rapidly consumes all the energy in the body. The police try to contain the explosion by restraining it, but can one blame the firefighter for the fire? The explosion continues until all the fuel is gone. Then life's flame flickers out, and the drug-intoxicated body can not be resuscitated. [21] "According to Dr. Assaad Sayah, Chief of Emergency Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance, Excited Delirium Syndrome can be best explained as a 'physical response to an actual psychological [or drug] problem resulting in their autonomic systems producing too much adrenaline.' Dr. Sayah analogizes it to 'having too much nitrous in a car; eventually the engine will blow up.' In most cases, the cause of death is either 'a heart attack or, less frequently, respiratory failure.' Dr. Vincent Di Maio estimated that Excited Delirium Syndrome kills 800 people every year in police altercations because the victims "are just overexciting [their] heart from the drugs and from the struggle.'" Op. cit. https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?...ext=lj Presumably, the blood must be circulating in order for the antidote to neutralize the fentanyl.

In conclusion, excited delirium should be treated as a medical condition, at high risk of ending quickly in sudden death. An ambulance should be called immediately. Only the minimum necessary restraint should be applied. Police and paramedics should be trained in the symptoms and handling protocols.

It would be helpful if the AMA would recognize EXD as a real condition, rather than dismissing it as a cover story for police brutality. Ignorance of the symptoms can lead to unintentional cruelty by police, when they assume they are confronted by a typical case of a criminal violently resisting arrest, rather than a patient with a life-threatening intoxication.

Notes

[1] https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/authorities-just-released-george-floyds-complete-autopsy-report-read-it-here/ The full autopsy report was published here https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/documents/Autopsy_2020-3700_Floyd.pdf Diagnoses are summarized on pp. 1 and 2: I. The "blunt force injuries" are basically minor cuts and bruises: "cutaneous" injuries and contusions from handcuffing. II. Chronic conditions: Heart disease, hypertension and enlarged heart. These all tend to accelerate death from a drug overdose. They can also develop from long-term drug abuse. III. No injuries to the front of the neck or throat were found. This full 76-page report does not contain the word "homicide."

[2] https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/02/02/fentanyl-overdose-dont-count-naloxone-save-you-10822 "The patients who were dead on arrival had gone into cardiac arrest due to blood concentrations of fentanyl that were much higher than what is administered therapeutically. " Patients who died in hospital had concentrations of 9.5 ng/mL to 13 ng/mL. See also note 13. In other studies of death from heroin and morphine, there were deaths from only 100 ng/ml of morphine and "all cases with a blood concentration of 200 ng/ml and more of free morphine displayed a fatal outcome." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11040428_Fatal_versus_non-fatal_heroin_overdose_Blood_morphine_concentrations_with_fatal_outcome_in_comparison_to_those_of_intoxicated_drivers (Heroin quickly metabolizes into morphine.) Fentanyl is considered 100 times more potent than morphine. By this comparison, Floyd's blood fentanyl concentration could have been 10 times the fatal level. In addition his morphine concentration of 86 ng/mL would usually be fatal by itself.
Concentration levels are relative to the volume of blood, so are independent of body size.

[3] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/01/george-floyd-independent-autopsy-findings-released-monday/5307185002/ A report commissioned by the Floyd family stated that asphyxiation from sustained pressure was consistent with the evidence, but the author Michael Baden didn't have access to all the evidence, and chose not to endorse his opinion with the "expert opinion" label.

[4] The knee on the neck is a body hold, not a chokehold or carotid restraint, which involves putting pressure precisely on both carotid arteries, located on either side of the throat. A carotid restraint is usually applied by an elbow, and causes the subject to pass out in as little as 15 seconds. Blocking the arteries does not stop the breathing or heartbeat (pulmonary or cardiac arrest), which Floyd suffered after being restrained for many minutes. Once pressure on the arteries is released, the subject normally regains consciousness quickly.

[5] https://westjem.com/articles/excited-delirium.html

[6] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-video-appears-show-george-floyd-ground-three-officers-n1217476/

[7] https://www.facebook.com/darnellareallprettymarie/videos/1425398217661280/

[8] https://www.startribune.com/protests-build-anew-after-fired-officer-charged-jailed/570869672

[9] https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/acep_report_on_excited_delirium_syndrome_sept_2009.pdf See also the decision by the Ninth Circuit Court, "[t]he problems posed by, and thus the tactics to be employed against, an unarmed, emotionally distraught individual who is creating a disturbance or resisting arrest are ordinarily different from those involved in law enforcement efforts to subdue an armed and dangerous criminal who has recently committed a serious offense." in "Explaining the Unexplainable: Excited Delirium Syndrome and Its Impact on the Objective Reasonableness Standard for Allegations of Excessive Force," https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1379&context=lj The first few pages relate a narrative similar to the Floyd case, involving multiple police subduing a violent EXD victim, who suddenly dies from exhaustion. A media uproar then arises against alleged police brutality.

[10] https://www.facebook.com/darnellareallprettymarie/videos/1425398217661280/

[11] From the incident report of the fire truck that was called to the scene, it appears that both police and bystanders called 911 for emergency medical services (EMS). The first call was Code 2, apparently for Floyd's nosebleed, which summoned a fire truck, followed by a more urgent code 3, which was said to bring an ambulance within six minutes. It appears the police called the ambulance when Floyd's breathing and heartbeat stopped. https://www.startribune.com/first-responders-worked-nearly-an-hour-to-save-floyd-before-he-was-pronounced-dead/570806682/ "Floyd goes limp and appears to lose consciousness. Hennepin EMS then arrive six minutes after the distress call." The article refers to the incident report by the fire truck, http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@mpd/documents/webcontent/wcmsp-224680.pdf which has a note implying the first call to EMS was from police and another call came from bystanders: "No clear info on pt [patient] or location was given by either initial pd [police department] officers or bystanders." We need an incident report from the ambulance.

[12] TV news clips showing police restraining subjects who are exhibiting EXD symptoms and violently resisting arrest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qCqjuqEWEc A TV news report and cellphone video on a more humane method of managing an EXD case, thanks to police training, putting safety of the subject and of bystanders first, rather than restraints. However, no details are given about the outcome or the drug dose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qCqjuqEWEc

[13] https://columnhealth.com/blog_posts/why-is-fentanyl-so-dangerous/ . Deaths from fentanyl have skyrocketed in the last seven years. In one incident in California, superlethal fentanyl doses of 53 ng/mL were successfully reversed with intravenous naloxone. However, some patients were dead on arrival. https://www.drugs.com/illicit/fentanyl.html

[14] Wikipedia has a detailed narrative of the incident here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd . Certain notes there support the thesis of fentanyl intoxication, and resisting arrest as part of an EXD syndrome. Floyd struggled with Lane before leaving his own vehicle, and again when Kueng, then all four officers, tried to get him into the squad car. Floyd already complained he couldn't breathe before they tried to get him into the police car, without any neck restraint, indicating the onset of respiratory depression from fentanyl. https://abcnews.go.com/US/george-floyd-protest-updates-arrests-america-approaching-10000/story?id=71038665 "They all tried to force Floyd into the backseat, during which time Floyd said he could not breathe, according to the complaint."

He also fell down twice, which could be seen either as a sign of intoxication or resisting arrest. The officers knew it was a drug overdose, as Thao told bystanders, "This is why you don't do drugs, kids." By the way, this Wikipedia article should be named "Death of George Floyd," as an accused is innocent until proven guilty.

[15] https://www.quora.com/Has-there-ever-been-any-previous-confirmed-record-of-death-resulting-from-a-knee-hold-before-the-Floyd-Chauvin-case-Good-question-for-experts-on-forensics-death-in-custody-data-internet-sleuths-police-medics-or

[16] https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investigations/2019/08/02/police-responded-to-his-911-call-for-help-he-died-what-happened-to-tony-timpa/

[17] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6226349-SWIFS-Investigative-Narrative.html#document/p7/a515249

[18] http://www.forensicmed.co.uk/science/toxicology/cocaine/ , https://academic.oup.com/jat/article/38/1/46/831276

[19] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/us/tony-timpa-dallas-police-body-cam.html

[20] "Probably negligible involvement of position in contribution of death in cases of excited delirium, although allowing patients to breathe effectively is obviously important." https://emergencymedicinecases.com/episode-3-excited-delirium/

[21] "According to Dr. Assaad Sayah, Chief of Emergency Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance, Excited Delirium Syndrome can be best explained as a 'physical response to an actual psychological [or drug] problem resulting in their autonomic systems producing too much adrenaline.' Dr. Sayah analogizes it to 'having too much nitrous in a car; eventually the engine will blow up.' In most cases, the cause of death is either 'a heart attack or, less frequently, respiratory failure.' Dr. Vincent Di Maio estimated that Excited Delirium Syndrome kills 800 people every year in police altercations because the victims "are just overexciting [their] heart from the drugs and from the struggle.'" Op. cit. https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1379&context=lj


Anon [223] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:11 am GMT

I think more likely he died of a Covid-19 induced heart attack. Heart disease is the #1 comorbidity of Covid19. Doctors have talked about patients of Covid19 dying of sudden heart attacks at a high rate. Floyd was Covid19 positive, and he also had heart disease and hypertension, the top two comorbidity of Covid19.
R.C. , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:12 am GMT
That is over three times the lethal overdose, following earlier reports where the highest dose survived was 4.6 ng/mL.
Good points. And before this, all we ever heard about was how deadly fentanyl is. It killed Tom Petty and is so potent, it killed him via skin absorption! Now, however, the Back Flow Media (BFM) ;-), has agendas to push and truth ain't one of them.
Unfortunately, those who need to learn these facts have no interest in truth. Logic, reason, common sense, and all such things are thrown out; instead, the mob controls based upon who yells the loudest, not who makes the most fact-based sense.
SOL , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:38 am GMT
Excellent work. Unfortunately, the revolutionaries exploiting his death don't care about the truth.
obwandiyag , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:55 am GMT
People don't riot over the specific police murder that sets it off. They riot because they are sick and tired of the ways cops treat them–one of the ways being to murder them. If you don't like the Floyd murder, I got a couple thousand other cop murders for ya, and I would like to see you write such a stirring defense of cop-killed bodies riddled with hundreds of rounds of automatic weapons fire. Including all the dead white people.
Anonymous [456] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:11 am GMT
No denying that Floyd was a thug. Neither would any amount of denying alter the fact that he died at the hand – rather the knee – of a racist cop. Get over it, supremacists.
Cranberries , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:16 am GMT

This fentanyl concentration, including its norfentanyl metabolite at its molecular weight, was 20.6 ng/mL

Might help for someone to explain this calculation, since simply summing the fentanyl and norfentanyl concentrations gives 16.6, not 20.6.

anonymous1963 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:29 am GMT
It really does not matter. The Jewish mainstream media has tried and convicted the officers. They will never get a fair trial and are screwed. Saint George will have to be avenged or there will be more riots, arson and looting which the same degenerate media will call "protests".
Franz , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:30 am GMT
So they could have left him alone and he would have died anyway, another statistic.

It does imply intrusive policing invites unintended consequences. For the counterfeit $20, a summons would have been sufficient. Then George could have crawled off, go home to Jesus, and we could have been spared the phoniest and most overblown freak show since the Fall of Babylon.

Let them patrol their own 'hoods and be done with all this.

Hang All Text Drivers , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:45 am GMT
@R.C. """"the mob controls based upon who yells the loudest, not who makes the most fact-based sense."""

Wrong – Yelling loud does not matter. If you are anti-white the press is on your side no matter how softly you speak.

Wuok , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:54 am GMT
But why he didn't die before the police placed his knee on his neck?
Thulean Friend , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:54 am GMT
Fentanyl Floyd was a drug peddler and a petty criminal who got caught in the act of selling drugs by patrolling police. Panicking, he swallowed his own stash and overdosed as a result. Now he is being retconned into a saint.
Robert Dolan , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:05 am GMT
I suspect the F killed the man, but you will never convince the negroes, and the Jmedia will never reveal the truth anyway.
Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:06 am GMT
At this point I think the universe is just trolling us for the fun of it.
Sean , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:10 am GMT
I think Floyd was being passive aggressive rather than resisting as such. What was done to him by Chaving was punishment out of frustration, but the duration was well outside normal practice.

Floyd already began to complain "I can't breathe" a few minutes before the neck restraint was applied,

That will be a dangerous argument for Chauvin's defence counsel to make to the court, because it will be opening the door to a telling counter argument: Floyd's breathing was restricted after he reported respiratory distress.

If it was a Fentanyl overdose they ought to have given him Narcan antidote, not put weight on his ribcage while he was face down and his hands cuffed behind him; a contributory cause according to the autopsy, which found wrist bruises.

Ficino , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:35 am GMT
@Anon There's no such thing as a heart attack induced by covid-19.
People who have been hospitalized for heart disease, and subsequently test positive for covid-19, don't usually die from the virus they die from their underlying heart disease condition.
Sparkylyle92 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:45 am GMT
I saw the video. Looked like just another hoax to me. Weight on his other knee, looking right at the camera while "killing" someone, yada yada. Officer Chauvin, fer Chrissake. Officer Racist would be too much even for stupid goyim. 8 minutes my ass. Aces and eights anyone? The point of this fentenyl dohicky is to pretend it really happened. Just another deep state psyop I say. But go ahead and argue about it. Makes it easier to steal 10 trillion from the US taxpayer.
Biff , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 7:01 am GMT
This guy is channeling Johnny Cochran. Yes, we know O.J. didn't do it either, because Nicole Brown was high on lethal amounts of cocaine, and Ron Goldman was mainlining deadly amounts of horse(heads almost fall off when this happens)

You see, the amount of imaginary fantasy is endless which feeds the inter-civilian war of people-against-people while the State remains blissfully secure knowing that those who control the media(narrative) will always win

Otherwise, yea, we get it, the police are always honest, justice is blind, your vote counts, your money is secure, god loves you, the vaccine is harmless, and your children are doing a great service by telling the government instructor(school teacher) that you smoke pot, so the state can seize everything you own.

ICANREAD , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 7:23 am GMT
Your underlying analysis is incorrect. People overdose at much higher levels and live through it. Maybe the cops should have been more interested in why he was presenting in an altered state and called an EMT, than carting him off to jail for a possible forged $20 bill.

See http://uthscsa.edu/ARTT/AddictionJC/2020-02-11-Sutter.pdf

The mean serum concentrations of fentanyl in their patients was (52.9 ng/mL) with a range of 7.9-162.3 ng/ml.

One of the 18 patients died in hospital. Five patients underwent cardiopulmonary resuscitation, one required extracorporeal life support, three required intubation, and two received bag-valve-mask ventilation. One patient had recurrence of toxicity after 8 hours after naloxone discontinuation. Seventeen of 18 patients required boluses of naloxone, and four required prolonged naloxone infusions (26–39 hours). All 18 patients tested positive for fentanyl in the serum. Quantitative assays conducted in 13 of the sera revealed fentanyl concentrations of 7.9 to 162 ng/mL (mean = 52.9 ng/mL).

goldgettin , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 8:18 am GMT
The author starts one paragraph with "in conclusion", LOL again LOL
Once again missing the point,intentionally,misdirecting. It's a FALSE FLAG

Street theater duh, set up Fromthestart. Plandemic.Seriously,it creates jobs.
Liars oops I mean lawyers,oops I mean poly ticks,locally,nationally,
all the way to the jewdicial branch and congress and beyond.GET REAL.

It's far worse than that.An elder told me they don't believe in IQ.

The facts and investigations and evidence don't do nuffin after the incurred LOSS

of SO much time,money,energy,community,productivity,confidence,SANITY etc.

THIS is COUP and" it's no where near in conclusion." that's my comment,thanks
peace,love, life

RouterAl , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 8:29 am GMT
Excellent article which should be on the front page of every major paper in the USA. The part on the Excited Delirium Syndrome is new to me but it's interesting .It illustrates nicely this civil disorder has nothing to do with Mr Floyd. I just hope officer Chauvins defence team makes good use of this information.
As a retired pharmacist I'm surprised by the use of fentanyl as a drug of abuse. The therapeutic dose banding is very small, its very potent , it is a very short acting drug and it's a drug that only an anaesthetist should consider using or abusing. Its a very potent respiratory depressant that has a nasty habit of producing a delayed action hours after the affect has apparently worn off. Fentanyl also causes heart slowing and any anaesthetist would give other drugs to counter that effect to keep the patient under control.

Now lets look at the photo of other officers using the correct Israeli defence force pin down

Notice that the knee and leg not doing the pinning is not on the ground therefore all the weight of the body is brought to bear on the victims neck and the major blood vessels under the knee. Now look at officer Caulvin his right boot toe is on the ground along with his right knee. Try it yourselves on a pillow, you cannot bring any force to bear , at best you are holding someone with that pose. He also looks under no stress from Mr Floyd with his hold. At 5′ 8" I would be using the IDF method if I had to restrain Mr Floyd, but lets be honest I would avoid him full stop. There is also the fun part of trying to hit and subdue someone who thanks the the Fentanyl in his system would feel little pain.
This whole thing looks very suspicious to me , and the speed with which the thing went global even more suspicious. The speed that people appeared with expensive t-shirts and hoodies all bearing
"I cannot breath" printed on the front in many locations simultaneously along with the piles of bricks and attacks on statues has a pre-planned Soros and Antifa agenda all over it.

Fiendly Neighbourhood Terrorist , says: Website Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 8:38 am GMT
I'm sure that the author of this article, who I assume isn't a drug addict, will be totally fine if a racist white thug in uniform with a history of murdering people knelt on his neck for nine minutes with its hands in its pockets. Yes, it was the drugs all along!
anon [161] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 8:41 am GMT

His ability to resist four officers trying to get him into the squad car is typical of EXD cases.

When did this happen, exactly? The security cam video show that two [2] officers succeeded to get Floyd into the back seat of the cruiser. Then, one officer pulled him out on the other side.

I've read plenty about ExD, and believe that Chauvin will make a successful defense. Your '4 men failed' spared me reading this long slog.

vot tak , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 8:55 am GMT
Gotta protect those israeli occupation troops at all costs and keep their colonial police state (that's the usa, neanderthals) a colonial police state. Should those dumb goy animals unite and force our quislings out, who knows what might befall our "sacred homeland".
animalogic , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 9:24 am GMT
Did drugs kill George Floyd ? Does it matter ?
This affair is one of public perception.
The perception IS that Chauvin used excessive force. The guy died after that "force" whether excessive or not. People, rightly or wrongly see cause & effect.
As for your points about overdose ? Fairly weak. Every minute that passes the likelihood of overdose decreases. Overdoses don't hide in your system for 20 minutes (excluding digestion or assimilation) & then jump out & shut down your heart.
Floyd may have appeared intoxicated, but he also appeared functional for a "normal" unstressful setting.
He sat down, handcuffed, against a wall for some minutes without "losing it".
Also interesting -- they had him in the police car -- then dragged him out for lack of compliance. Why ? Let him sit in the locked, secure police back seat, So he screams & makes a fuss ? Arrestees are known to do that. But no, they drag him out (still handcuffed) & THREE of them get on top of him: one on legs, one on the torso, & one on his neck. And stay that way for nearly 9 minutes. And its not like they don't know he's physically problematic -- they call the EMS early on.
Now lets imagine that you have a problem with your heart or breathing (he tells them numerous times about his breathing, not necessarily entirely from physical airway blockage, but from panic -- psychology rendering the act of breathing difficult )– would being pinned to the road by 3 burly men, one of them exerting some pressure on your neck not cause some degree of panic ? Could some people be near to literally shitting themselves from panic ? Would such fear & panic not be contraindicated in a man for whom you have already called the EMS ?
Funny thing, was I a police man I would have asked Floyd to sit in his car (yes, take his keys & guard him) while I had a look at this so-called counterfeit bill. I mean, that's the point isn't it ? this whole abortion rests on passing a dodgy $ 20. (Knowingly passing: I wonder how many shonky US bills there are out there millions ?).
So Floyd is probably a scumbag -- so ? The whole affair looks appalling. And that really IS the point here.
Anonymous [178] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 9:26 am GMT
"Systemic racism" is simply POC and non-European descended Whites saying that they cannot live in Western (or, indeed, industrial) society,
The POC are correct in this. Who, after all, is qualified to tell them that they are wrong? George Floyd was destroyed by "systemic racism" in the above sense. Even East Asians and South Asians with high enough IQ and sufficient emotional control to live in Western (industrial) society strongly condemn the lack of organization in such societies, and the absence of the protective social organizations (caste, a directive government/social organization) that are characteristic of their homelands. Middle Eastern Whites condemn the absence of the tribal / honor / religious system that characterizes their countries of origin.
POC and non-European descended Whites want Western ( industrial) society changed or destroyed for their benefit.
This is a serious and irresolvable conflict of interest, for the European descended Whites are just as unable to live in the home societies of various POC and non-European descended White groups as these groups are unable to live in Western (industrial) society.

Note that the above irresolvable conflict of interest is not ever discussed directly. This is characteristic of major irresolvable conflicts of interest. WW II is a good example of this (see the American Pravda articles, unz.com , for support of this assertion). All of the participants (except possibly Hitler, who apparently wanted a European Empire allied to the British Empire) thought it was "them or us" (hence the "unconditional surrender" demands from the Allies), and thus had strong reasons for fighting. These reasons were not used in propaganda by any side. Propaganda based on self interest of the "only one Empire will survive" type makes poor propaganda. So does propaganda based on what amounts to a multi-sided volkwandering ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswanderung ), which is what we seem to be entering into.

Good propaganda is smoke -- mythic appeals, but to a non-applicable myth, with irrelevant "proof". George Floyd is an example of how this is supposed to work.

The interesting thing about this situation is that it is the OC and non-European descended Whites are the ones insisting that they cannot live in the West / industrial civilization. Granted that the Left wing of the Democratic Party is the proximate cause of the current offensive, attempted Antifa leadership of the offensive has been largely repudiated or simply ignored by the various POC. Understanding the basics of this situation requires that the objections of the POC and non-European descended Whites be taken seriously and understood, as I have tried to do above.

gotmituns , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 9:34 am GMT
Doesn't matter what theniggerdied of. They're going to get the White guy no matter what.
Jud Jackson , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 9:49 am GMT
Fantastic Article!! I just hope the cop is acquitted.
Emily , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:03 am GMT
@Sean If it was a Fentanyl overdose they ought to have given him Narcan antidote,

Are you serious?
These cops meant to make an instant medical diagnosis.
Decide the problem and drug involved.
Produce an antidote.
And administer it.
What planet are you on?
And had they administered the wrong drug .?
They would be crucified as well.
Its hard to believe you can really believe that comment yourself.
Its sheer prejudice and blah for BLM.
And a grossly unfair accusation.

Moi , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:08 am GMT
@anonymous1963 Three points:

*Since the MSM and many of our leaders are in sync with BLM, we should just turn the country over to them since they've done a great job within their own "neighborhoods."

*It's pretty useless to say the MSM loves BLM. The MSM does what the folks who control/own it tell it to do.

*Per BLM's demand, cops should stop patrolling black neighborhoods and instead boost patrolling non-black neighborhoods to reduce crime there.

Anon4578 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:08 am GMT
Police were not arresting him for the counterfeit bill. If you pass a counterfeit bill you are interviewed by police so they can attempt to trace its origin.

Where did you get cash?

Where do you cash your checks?

Did you get this as change for a larger bill? Where?

He was detained because when they came up to him in the car he was obviously intoxicated and behind the wheel. Also rewatch the security tape and see the cop talks to him for 2 minutes and at one point is so worried by whatever Floyd was doing he unholstered his gun but didn't point it. Floyd also had no ID on him.

So it's a cascade of events that lead to his arrest. Police can't ID an intoxicated person behind the wheel of a car. Try to get him out of the car and he immediately starts resisting.

onebornfree , says: Website Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:15 am GMT
@Sparkylyle92 " I saw the video. Looked like just another hoax to me"

Here's an excellent analysis of 3 of the alleged live, completely contradictory videos on this alleged event, which quite clearly show it to be hoax perpetrated via crisis actors, fake police and EMT's. :


https://www.bitchute.com/embed/OItT0WD55x0w/

Regards, onebornfree

steve K. , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:15 am GMT
@Anonymous And what evidence do you have that Chauvin was racist? Is it because all white people are racist?
padre , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:33 am GMT
What's the difference, does it mean that police should continue with their practice, till they choke a healthy person?
Rich , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:45 am GMT
@Anonymous I'm curious about this "racist cop" trope that's become pretty common. Is it common for "racists" to be married to someone of another race as Chauvin is? I'd think a "racist" would favor a spouse of their own race, no? Seems to me, to you crazies on the left, Pale skin makes a person a "racist ". It's become a truth in America that the only definition of "racist" is White. The word is, therefore, meaningless. Floyd died because of his drug use and criminal activity. Not a knee on the back of his neck.
Moi , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:45 am GMT
@SOL I second that. Problem is there is no satisfying the BLM folks. They are suffering from PTSD because of our history of slavery. This is sort of like vets who have PTSD, but the key difference being vets actually participated in a war whereas no black living was a part of our history of slavery.

The solution is for the BLM and lgbtqi folks to join forces and put forth a black tranny candidate to solve all our problems.

journey80 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:57 am GMT
Why should we believe the "report"? why not believe our lying eyes? Who released this "report"? Where is an independent verification? I'll wait, thanks, for a report that has been released by an independent source that is confirmed by the family.
anon [392] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 10:58 am GMT
The ADL is the rabid hate group and a threat to society.
Contraviews , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:19 am GMT
If this is the case, if it is true the officers should have a very strong defence in court.
Emslander , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:25 am GMT

I'm sure that the author of this article, who I assume isn't a drug addict, will be totally fine if a racist white thug in uniform with a history of murdering people knelt on his neck for nine minutes with its hands in its pockets. Yes, it was the drugs all along!

When I see a comment like this on an article as closely reasoned and supported as this one, I wonder whether public schools teach the ability to read.

You can check my previous posts and see that these are precisely the points I made from a very casual glance at the autopsy report and a little knowledge of police motivations. That was right after the incident occurred. Videos and photos are very poor evidence because they only raise emotional response.

Thank you, Ron Unz, for being brave enough to publish this article.

anon [392] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:31 am GMT
@onebornfree ..hall of fame vs their sandy hoax
EliteCommInc. , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:40 am GMT
laughing.

I guess the defense is entitled to a defense. I guess that is the benefit of having two coroner's reports. The skill and advocacy of the police unions to manufacture alternative theories and creates smoke as defense is light years ahead of antifa, BLM or the KKKK.

Te problem with the the current system is not dug induced males sitting on their cars o falling asleep in drive thrus or jogging in around empty construction sites or waiting for tow trucks, or selling cigarettes, or avoiding creepy guys stalking the in apartment complexes, or sleeping in their beds or or walking with some white women --

It's the loss of credibility. The police unions can have the officers walk out as they ave routinely done as a means of black mail holding cities hostage, but at the end of the day, what technology is doing is unavailing a side of Wyatt Earp the public would rather not see even if they know what's up. It's the system in a manner of exposure unlike it's even been used to. It's the collapse of the arguments for invading countries that are not a threat. It's the collapse of the internal dialogues among the agencies in multiple arenas of government force. It's Ruby Ridge, It's Waco, It's Baltimore, It's Fergusaon. It's Oakland. It's Baton Rouge. It's New Jersey. It's . . . It's balloting were the 1 per-center is suddenly number one,. Utter nonsense such as written in the Fergason Report. It's nonsense such as the Ferguson Effect.It's a news system, that is serious doubt. It's bail out for WS, repeatedly and then throwing the payees f bail out out of works. It is stagnant wages. It's hiring and executive to make a serious shift ad the best he could do hire ore part time citizens and embrace more immigrants.

It's the system saying it's not the system. It;s loosening up credit for businesses and the rules for consumers tighter. It's watching something on film as it happens and then being told what you saw is not what happened.

It's the unmasking of tactics used by the system to shield itself from accountability. And perhaps worst of all, we believing what the system tells us because believing reality is just to tough a road to to travel. It is the system saying . . . it's not the system.

-- -- --

uhh No. I didn't believe there was a reason to invade Ira or Afghanistan or any of the subsequent intentions by the former Vietnam protester "we lost Vietnam" crowd as I am that Mr. Floyd died from a drug overdoese.

And none of the smoke and mirrors: that Pres Hussein was a bad person, that the Taliban were in on 9/11, that the family occupying Ruby Ridge were Nazis, Mr. Koresh was a demon, there's a Fergason Effect, that blacks are just bad innately and whites are angelic beings along with browns and yellows worthy of pass, or that IQ is destined by some unique, unknown and unseen genetic code, that the Russians sabotaged US elections, . . . or US lost Vietnam (no it did not). If I start buying onto the nonsense spouted as truth to escape accountability before you know it, I will start advocating that slaves were just immigrants coming the continent for better jobs and life.

And cows rally do jump over the moon.

Fred777 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:44 am GMT
@Moi BLM having PTSD over slavery would be like an Air Force veteran who served in the 1990s having PTSD over hitting Omaha Beach in the first wave.
Wizard of Oz , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:46 am GMT
@Sean Apart from Emily's point I note that you state that Chauvin constricted Floyd's breathing without evidence despite it not being accepted by the author of the article.
Z-man , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:47 am GMT
This proves, the sainthood of a very simian looking convicted criminal doped up coon, that you can fool some of the people all of the time. The Jooz are laughing all the way to the ban total control of the World.
Jim Bob Lassiter , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:47 am GMT
@obwandiyag Well let's have 'em (couple of thousand cop murders) . And don't forget to include Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas.
Sick of Orcs , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:48 am GMT
Segregation worked. Hard to believe it's just sitting on the shelf, unused.

Access to Whites is not a right.

Jim Bob Lassiter , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:51 am GMT
@Anon4578 A passer of counterfeit bills is typically given an opportunity by the cheated merchant to make him whole before the cops are called. Saint George, for whatever reasons, didn't avail himself of the opportunity extended to him to do just that.
Jim Bob Lassiter , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:54 am GMT
@Wuok He prolly would have had they just left him alone. Then they'd be in jail for failure to render first aid. The rioting would have still happened. Heads or tails, you lose with niggers.
gotmituns , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 11:59 am GMT
@Rich Chauvin was probably a screaming liberal until he got involved with the chink. The thing about chinks is they're known to hate everyone equally who isn't a chink.
Steve in Greensboro , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 12:12 pm GMT
@Anonymous Did you read the article? Seems pretty convincing to me.
Felix Krull , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 12:21 pm GMT
It is strange that George Floyd's case is taken as proof of systemic racism, when Tony Timpa got much worse treatment -- even though Timpa hadn't committed any crime, had no police record, and even called 911 himself.

That is not strange. The reason BLM choose cases where the policeman only did their job is because otherwise, they'll risk seeing the policeman go to jail, and then there'd be no systemic racism to rail against. Only when you are sure the policeman will be exonerated in a court of law, can you rile the animals without risking the party coming to an end before the music even starts.

Redman , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 12:26 pm GMT
@Anonymous And proof of that racism would be what exactly?
DanFromCT , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 12:28 pm GMT
@RouterAl For the time being, an educated comment like yours gets a hearing, in contrast to the unreasoned moral posturing of so many others here. For so long as they can hide behind "good intentions," they can run from inconvenient facts. UR recently featured an article and comments on Dietrich Doerner's Logic of Failure , which says it best about these disgusting phonies who'd never dream of reexamining their positions based on the horrors they cause.

"In our political environment, it would seem, we are surrounded on all sides with good intentions. But the nurturing of good intentions is an utterly undemanding mental exercise, while drafting plans to realize those worthy goals is another matter. Moreover, it is far from clear whether "good intentions plus stupidity" or "evil intentions plus intelligence" have wrought more harm in the world. People with good intentions usually have few qualms about pursuing their goals. As a result, incompetence that would otherwise have remained harmless often becomes dangerous, especially as incompetent people with good intentions rarely suffer the qualms of conscience that sometimes inhibit the doings of competent people with bad intentions. The conviction that our intentions are unquestionably good may sanctify the most questionable means.

Excerpt From
The Logic Of Failure: Recognizing And Avoiding Error In Complex Situations
Dietrich Dorner
This material may be protected by copyright.

Redman , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 12:28 pm GMT
@Thulean Friend What exactly did happen to the white substance that clearly fell out of his left pocket while against the wall? Odd nobody mentions that.
wlindsaywheeler , says: Website Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 12:31 pm GMT
George killed himself. He took a lethal overdose of Fentanyl. The meth and the fentanyl combined cause delirium and heart problems. These two drugs caused what is called "Excited Delirium Syndrome" which is usually fatal.

https://medium.com/@gavrilodavid/why-derek-chauvin-may-get-off-his-murder-charge-2e2ad8d0911

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2263095/

http://www.progressivepress.com/blog-entry/death-rides-fast-horse-black-life-shattered-dope

When the officers pulled him out of the Mercedes–he was already foaming at the mouth. These four officers need to be released and given their jobs back. Their arrests are just a lynch mob by the liberal establishment. George killed George. He gambled with his life, put himself in that position with allegedly passing counterfeit money. Furthermore, George was DWI; he was sitting in the drivers seat. Even though you are not driving, sitting in the driver's seat is DWI, Driving while impaired. Who needs to be arrested is the Drug Dealer that sold him the Fentanyl.

Moreover, Excited Delirium syndrome causes "Wooden Chest". That is what George was experiencing, His drug cocktail killed him.

annamaria , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 12:44 pm GMT
@R.C. Reality check for the "revolutionaries:"
https://www.hannenabintuherland.com/europa/whites-were-slaves-in-north-africa-before-blacks-were-slaves-new-world

1 million to 1.25 million Europeans were enslaved in North Africa, from the beginning of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th, by slave traders from Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli alone (these numbers do not include the European people who were enslaved by Morocco and by other raiders and traders of the Mediterranean Sea coast)

"From bases on the Barbary coast, North Africa, the Barbary pirates raided ships traveling through the Mediterranean and along the northern and western coasts of Africa, plundering their cargo and enslaving the people they captured."

From at least 1500, the pirates also conducted raids along seaside towns of Italy, Spain, France, England, the Netherlands and as far away as Iceland, capturing men, women and children.

On some occasions, settlements such as Baltimore, Ireland were abandoned following the raid, only being resettled many years later. Between 1609 and 1616, England alone had 466 merchant ships lost to Barbary pirates.

annamaria , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 12:49 pm GMT
@Anonymous Are you sure that you are not a racist or a progeny of racists?

As Confederate statues are torn down in the USA, one wonders: Are we going to ask Egypt to change its name, tear down its pyramids which were built by slaves too? And destroy mummies of pharaohs that had slaves?

Are the black tribes of Africa, the ones who sold the slaves they took from other tribes when at war and sold to the Arab slave traders, are we going to change the names of those African tribes too? And tear down the names of their leaders?

No comments? Here is more:

Regarding white slaves in Africa and black slaves in the New World, it is often overlooked that slaves were enslaved before they were bought and sold by Jews, Arabs, and Gentiles. The unasked question is: Who enslaved them?

Things that used to be true before political correctness set in: More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States.

https://www.hannenabintuherland.com/europa/whites-were-slaves-in-north-africa-before-blacks-were-slaves-new-world/

VinnyVette , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 12:49 pm GMT
All this obsessing over what pretty boy George died of is irrelevant. Cops putting their knee on the neck, the most vulnerable part of the human body is wrong period! No sympathy for the thug, he was a menace to society. What should be obsessed over is police culture has not been to "protect and serve" since at least the 70's. They see themselves as "at war" with the whole of society, from the suburban soccer mom to the ghetto thug.
It's widely known cops will take a routine traffic stop, and poke and prod at the driver to try to rile them up and get the person to react and give the cop an attitude to escalate the interaction into an altercation. In the suburbs, quiet rural areas it matters not. Race matters not. They'll pull this shit in the most docile neighborhoods, with the most docile of people, regardless of color.
I'm neither pro cop or anti cop, I see them as a necessary evil. They'd be a hell of alot less evil if reforms were made in their attitude toward the public at large, and if they were held accountable for all their various abuses of power. They also need their privileged status as some sort of exalted special class "above the public" obliterated! Cops on the whole are some of the most corrupt, anti social, sadistic people in society. I know many of them personally, both city and suburban.
As much as I dislike the rioting, looting, arson and chaos, I'm enjoying the karmic retribution the boys in blue in receiving.
JQ , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:00 pm GMT
@obwandiyag It could also be that a certain race is a bit more prone to get into drugs, crime, prostitution,
and so on. And truth to be told hard work is not in their DNA. As long as you keep
denying FACTS this will never end.

Canada has to bring thousands of Mexicans and Guatemalans to work on the farm fields,
while half of this people are on welfare, and when they do work they only want easy jobs,
bus drivers, taxi drivers, or for the governments where most of the time they just don't perform
as well. In the mean time people like me are being taxed close to 60% to pay for all these social programs which only benefits the laziest

Biff , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:06 pm GMT
@Rich

Is it common for "racists" to be married to someone of another race as Chauvin is?

Yes.

File that one under "dumb question" ..

171 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:07 pm GMT
Since when gross injustice against a once subdued person legitimate anti-humanity? That is how, to a naive person consumes daily propaganda by the usa government and their presstitute which reflect an appearance of "good america" while genuinely reflecting a clandestine disdain for what is right or such unjustified violence cloaked under the line of duty against the general population would not be so common in the touted "land of the free." The magnet (of the peaceful protesters from australia, to europe and latin america) is not to a "good free land of jewmerica" but to the missing and lack of legitimate Justice parroted along with the moral compass touted by the usa government and their law enforcement while the true reality of irrectitude makes itself apparent in videos such as the one of George floyd's unjustified assassination/murder, where unjustified violence is evident. Thus, with these uncensored videos by the peaceful population or general public of the usa, the truth did not remain hidden by manipulated narratives of the jew-owned presstitute and media in favor of the cia/usa government flavor of their wicked ideology preference while cloaked in sheep's clothing.

In conclusion, When an individual poses a serious threat to an officer or another individual, according to the National Institute of Justice, the "peace-officer" (as they are glorifyingly touted) is generally authorized by law to use lethal weapons (i.e., firearms) to protect himself or herself or others by stopping the individual's actions. You don't want to realize that there is IRREFUTABLY no serious threat nor danger to life once a person (of any color in handcuffs as the estate of George Floyd was and many others) is subdued. And, those marching (or rather peacefully protesting to show solidarity) in many other foreign nation states display how morally magnetic is the actual legitimate axiom of the interest of justice because that no democracy can exist unless each of its citizens is as capable of outrage at injustice to another as he is of outrage at unjustice to himself.

ploni almoni , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:16 pm GMT
Calling all trolls: discuss this as if it were a real event to demoralize and confuse the public and prevent them from acting.
follyofwar , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:25 pm GMT
@Jud Jackson Could the authorities risk an acquittal? Or might Chauvin suffer the same fate as Epstein?
Truth3 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:32 pm GMT
Truth no longer matters to

Negroes.

Faggots.

Trannies.

Women.

Democrats.

It never mattered to Jews. Falsehood and Sophistry is their weapon of choice.

Tazer 2.0 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:34 pm GMT
I don't care so much for the cops since they would put you in a cage with these animals for thought crimes like posing the JQ and denying the Holycaust without any hesitation at all. They are paid mercs and sometimes they get burned. Similarly the light property damage incurred by corporate storefronts and reduction in quality of life for liberal urban dwellers is not at all a concern for me, and I honestly hope this goes on in perpetuity until the statistical reality of black crime is literally beaten into their skulls. As for George Floyd he will no longer be producing any more of his ilk. He was set to marry a lower class white woman and open an establishment eponymously named the Konvict Kitchen, all in defiance of the principles of nuptiality and common decency. The former enhances black criminality by combining pathological white genes from the classes which in Europe would have their breeding restricted by cultural and economic constraints but are allowed to flourish here generating trailer parks and white trash that with miscegenation and negrification are as much of a danger to society as the the African type they complement.

In any case having seen the footage from these events it strikes me that these cops are themselves very unintelligent. In the case of the Atlanta negro aptly named Rayshard they were inclined to play junior detective and gameshow host for upwards of 30 minutes when it was obvious that they should have immediately incapacitated the feral groid and dragged him away from a motor vehicle capable of causing far more damage than the plastic dart guns they ended up wrestling over. Instead they allowed the monkey to shuck and jive for what seemed like an hour repeating the same inane phrases over and over again. I would have been inclined to dump a mag in the baboon at the 2 minute mark. These two men were themselves products of negrification and no doubt they likened the ill-fated negro to their favorite afleets and sports stars they worship on TV, giving him chance after chance to behave like a human being with around a standard deviation more aptitude than they should have given him credit for. If they had a choice between the ineffective Taser device and a firearm they ended up using it would have gone better.

I think this country is screwed in the long run and I just hope it ends in fireworks. The long and inexorable drag into stupidity is maddening.

anon [427] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:41 pm GMT
I doubt anyone cares what he died from, they can just go "change" their signs to some guy in Georgia. They all look like hoaxes but they needed something for "change" to happen. Back to online petitions and countless fake hoaxes and more toppling anything whuhhh, and more historical revision to erase whuhhhh, can't even spell it anymore.
Who called the police on the martyrs? Why would a black person call the police on a black man asleep in the line at Wendy's in Georgia, when they could have just drove around him. Why have the white police bother him? It all just looks like more lefty "change" helped out by the good folks at Netflix or something.
JimDandy , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:41 pm GMT
@obwandiyag Yet they always seem to pick a loser. Funny, eh?

And how dare you bring WHITE victims into this?!!! This is about BLACK victims and WHITE oppressors. GOT IT?!

backup , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:43 pm GMT
He also had sickle cell anemia. The coronary report mention a lot of "sickled" cells, but only postmortem. It is knows that sufferers of SCD show that kind of pattern: Death induces it. However, George Floyd was also COVID19 positive, and there are signs that COVID19 decreases Hemoglobin levels:

Primate models of Covid-19 (Munster 2020) and human Covid-19 patients have subnormal haemoglobin levels (Chen 2020). Clinical evaluationof almost 100 Wuhan patients reveals haemoglobin levels below the normal range in most patients as well as increased total bilirubin and elevated serum ferritin (Chen 2020). Hyperbilirubinemia is observed in acute porphyria (Sassa 2006) and would be consistent with ineffective erythropoiesis (Sulovska 2016) and rapid haemoglobin turnover.

https://osf.io/4wkfy/download/?format=pdf&usg=AOvVaw2aUKMUoT-E7lUm0WvwqQaj

People with SCD can suffer from other viruses causing anemia, without showing sickled cells:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_disease#Aplastic_crisis

Anonymous [208] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:43 pm GMT
@ICANREAD They did call the EMTs. That's what they were waiting for. Maybe you shouldn't try to analyze the situation until after you learn what the situation involved?
JimDandy , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:48 pm GMT
@Wuok He was dying before he even left the car. He collapsed when they pulled him out of it. He collapsed after they helped him walk to the wall. He was complaining that he couldn't breathe before he had a knee on his neck. My sense was that when he saw the cops were coming for him, he swallowed his drugs. Pretty common.
Anon [375] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:52 pm GMT
@obwandiyag I basically agree.

This was also about the McMichael shooting. And the entire Trump presidency.

JimDandy , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 1:59 pm GMT
@EliteCommInc. And criminals who break into pregnant women's houses and jam guns into their pregnant guts really do get their just deserts when they hastily swallow all the drugs they were dealing to avoid going back to the joint.
EliteCommInc. , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:00 pm GMT
"It is strange that George Floyd's case is taken as proof of systemic racism, when Tony Timpa got much worse treatment -- even though Timpa hadn't committed any crime, had no police record, and even called 911 himself."

It would b strange if what you said was accurate.
enforcement, It is not singular artifact.

I is not any singular death, not even a group of deaths that are rare at the hands of police. It's the ten million plus arrests misdemeanors primarily that end with violence against unarmed citizens that are disproportionately used with respect to african americans it's the related history. It is the sentencing. It is the pea bargain system . . .

It's the crack vs regular cacaine narratives nonsense, it is the rhetorical dialogue -- it is not one single thing, but a compendium of constructs across the country over time.

Anon [375] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:01 pm GMT
@Anon It seems more likely that the heart attack came because the heart was overworked due to low blood-oxygen levels due to the sedated breathing from the opioid.
Sokrates , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:01 pm GMT
@animalogic Are you member of BLM?
Go tell these crap to a decent jury
chuckywiz , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:05 pm GMT
Such analysis is diversion from the main discussion. It does not matter if Floyd was on drugs or a criminal. Why was he treated brutally by the police. Too much power given to the law enforcement. And the bad apples always take advantage of it. Observe the way they walk. No sign of humility or being a servant of society or a protector.
Race riots yes. but so many whites and no African Americans are rioting, too. It is economic disparity and hopelessness, stupid, and that is what the pundits are avoiding purposely.
Zarathustra , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:13 pm GMT
Brilliant presentation.
I was arrested one time and was put into car. Interestingly enough I had difficulty breathing and I did not have any drugs in me.
I did ask officer to open window in the car but he did not. He did not care.
tradecraft46 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:18 pm GMT
Who cares, nits make lice .
Juckett , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:24 pm GMT
@SOL Exactly. They would not even spend the time to read this excellent example of actual journalism.
Their hatred blinds them to all facts.
Talking time is over. Balkanize the failed multi-cultural experiment. Ethnostate is NEEDED.
Separate from Hate.
Emily , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:25 pm GMT
Anyone else getting rather peed off by the huge donations to BLM, apparently about to flow in – as reparations for the proceeds from slavery by Briitish firms.
Seems to me these companies should be starting at home.
What about the proceeds from mills and factories here in England where the labour was little more than slavery.
Forced on the poor for pathetic and utterly meagre wages – amounting to slavery – as the option to the 'poor house'.
Children of seven working 12 hours a day for pennies.
Many dying and crippled by the machinery under which they had to scrabble.
I am sure there are millions – not least up north – who would very much like some recognition for the quite awful exploitation of their forebears.
Oops – sorry – they all have white faces and are not prepared to commit mayhem, arson and criminal damage to support any claim.
Time, maybe to start, it works.
Maybe we less than aristocratic English people should start a few demands in payment for the terrible conditions of the industrial 'revolution', for the Victorian slums, more appalling than black Americans ever endured.
You don't see the black Americans sporting rickets, TB, suffering starvation, diptheria and smallpox to mention a few.
Or kids forced up chimneys.
I wonder how Dickens would be feeling today – at Lloyds etc.
Disgusted and sick, I imagine.
Don't get me started on those 'pressed' into the navy .
fnn , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:33 pm GMT
@gotmituns I've read that's she's a Hmong. As dumb as the press is, I don't know how they could confuse Hmong and Chinese.
Emily , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:39 pm GMT
@chuckywiz Why was he treated brutally by the police.

Was he?
The autopsy doesn't appear to record 'brutal physical injury' of the kind you appear to claim .
Could you detail the evidence that demonstrates such 'brutality'
Restraint surely does not come into that category and there is no or very little indication on his neck or throat.
Clarify the facts, Chucky, so we can all see the cuts, bruises, abrasions
Perhaps you will also give us some information as to how you would have handled a very large such individual full of fentanyl and other substances .

Sean , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:44 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz The author of the article talks about the knee on Floyd's neck only. But while he may be correct, that knee was not the only thing going on. I am talking about the other things including Chauvin's other knee. Officer Lane seems to have diagnosed Floyd's medical status as one unlikely to stand up to the tender mercies being administered by Chauvin. Lane, the first cop to talk to Floyd, had immediately observed he had been foaming at the mouth. Later, once Chauvin got on top of Floyd, Lane suggested turning him face up, and said he was worried about EXD. Lane's partner complained and said 'don't do that' to Chauvin in relation to him kneeling on Floyd.

If a 300lb wrestler was to apply a tight bodylock (bear hug) and keep it on tight, breathing would halt and the one being bear hugged would quite likely die within 10 minutes. Floyd's breathing was constricted by his bulk and being put face down with cuffs pulling his arms against the side of his ribcage. The weight and duration of Chauvin's knee on Floyd's back surely is what tipped the balance and killed him. There is an ex cop and prison guard who admits he used to deliberately break the fingers of resisting convicts who points to the sun glasses perched on Chauvin's head and the casual placement of his hands while kneeling on Flyod as clear indications there was no meaningful resistance from him, see here .

It is not mere opinion that Floyd was not actively resisting arrest during the several minutes he had Chauvin on top of him, because officer Chauvin was recorded explaining the reason Floyd was being pinned down was he had not cooperated earlier , when they had tried to put him in the police car. Hence Chavin virtually admitted it was a was a physical punishment for previous non-cooperation, but in law Chavin is not permitted to use the restraint technique as a punitive measure, which he knew very well. Hence Chauvin was commiting a felony, wham, in the course of which someone died, bam. Wham bam: felony murder.

JimDandy , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:49 pm GMT
@chuckywiz Actually, this article touches on what you consider the "main discussion" when it assesses whether or not the cop was following procedure. Is the man being vilified as the worst person on earth just a guy who was doing the job he was taught to do? If you think the rules are wrong, you're free to work to change them. This cop will face an American court, not some post-revolutionary tribunal. The question is whether or not his trial will look more like the latter than the former.
Trinity , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:51 pm GMT
Hispanic cop in Georgia shoots and kills white guy who grabs Hispanic cop's taser = NO coverage by national media. Hell, I live in Georgia and I didn't even hear about this one.

White cop in Georgia shoots and kills black guy who grabs White cop's taser = NONSTOP 24/7 coverage by national media.

SHOULD THE MEDIA BE LABELED AS A HATE GROUP BY THE $PLC?

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:52 pm GMT
@Anonymous Yep. The more Blacks in a society, the less safe and prosperous it is.

This is not complicated; it's an IQ issue.

Google: National IQs

Notice a pattern?

[MORE]
• 108 Singapore
• 106 South Korea
• 105 Japan
• 105 China
• 102 Italy
• 101 Iceland
• 101 Mongolia
• 101 Switzerland
• 100 Austria
• 100 Luxembourg
• 100 Netherlands
• 100 Norway
• 100 United Kingdom
• 99 Belgium
• 99 Canada
• 99 Estonia
• 99 Finland
• 99 Germany
• 99 New Zealand

[snip]

• 70 Botswana
• 70 Rwanda
• 69 Burundi
• 69 Cote d'Ivoire
• 69 Ethiopia
• 69 Malawi
• 69 Niger
• 68 Angola
• 68 Chad
• 68 Djibouti
• 68 Somalia
• 68 Swaziland
• 67 Dominica
• 67 Guinea
• 67 Haiti
• 67 Liberia
• 66 Gambia
• 65 Congo
• 64 Cameroon
• 64 Gabon
• 64 Sierra Leone
• 64 Mozambique
• 59 Equatorial Guinea

Blacks can only achieve because they have White admixture or because they reside in White societies. Too few of them are smart enough to even build sufficient infrastructure in Africa to allow the Black intellectual elite to achieve.

Sub-Saharan Africans have never made a contribution to the world. If allowed to become too numerous they destroy previously-thriving and safe White cities.

This is why Blacks seethe with jealousy and hatred of Whites yet can't seem to stay away because they want what we create and maintain, no matter if they deserve it or not. They want our peaceful and clean neighborhoods, our law and order, our technology and science, our school systems, our inventions, the jobs we create, the food we grow, the transportation we invent, the entertainment we provide Blacks hate us but can't live without us. That's why they demand that we take care of them and give them special rights and privileges that we don't grant ourselves, just to compensate for their inability at living in a modern and technologically-advanced civilization.

Some groups succeed all the time, everywhere. Some have never succeeded anywhere.

Blacks are the oldest race, so they should be the most advanced race; but they never developed at all and had to be domesticated by Whites.

National IQs calculated and validated for 108 nations:

https://www.academia.edu/18754731/National_IQs_calculated_and_validated_for_108_nations

https://mason.gmu.edu/~gjonesb/IQandNationalProductivity.pdf

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:54 pm GMT
@Sick of Orcs "Access to Whites is not a right."

Just week we had a White sub-Saharan African (Elon Musk) launch a spacecraft while Black sub-Saharan Africans destroyed several cities.

Name a civilization (or even a written language) ever created by Blacks.

Name a single contribution from sub-Saharan Africans to the world.

The simple fact is, everything Blacks have was given to them by Whites.

Blacks are the only race never to have civilized. They were removed from the jungle just 250 years ago.

Blacks can only achieve because they have White admixture or because they reside in White societies. Too few of them are smart enough to even build sufficient infrastructure in Africa to allow the Black intellectual elite to achieve.

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:57 pm GMT
@annamaria "whites-were-slaves-in-north-africa-before-blacks-were-slaves-new-world"

Slavery was the best thing to happen to Blacks, it was essentially a rescue mission by a free cruise. Being a slave was actually a good career move for a Black African -- as it still would be today. An enslaved Black in any non-Black country has a higher standard of living than a free Black living among his own kind.

After defeating George Foreman for the heavyweight boxing title in Zaire (now Congo), Muhammad Ali returned to the United States where he was asked by a reporter, "Champ, what did you think of Africa?" Ali replied, "Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat."

Blacks are incapable of creating a civilization of their own. Blacks can only achieve because they have White admixture or because they reside in White societies. Everything Blacks have was given to them by Whites.

anonymous [400] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT
Criminally insane Floyd killed himself. His chosen lifestyle could only lead to a bad end sooner or later. He shouldn't even have been out on the street after his armed home invasion conviction. It was the misfortune of the police to have had to deal with this drugged-up thug at the point he was going to expire due to drugs and eroded health due to years long drug use. He was a large, tough looking criminal that one had to be careful in dealing with. This is the 'hero' of the moment, one of the scummiest people one could ever meet.
Herald , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT
@Anon Get a big copper to put his weighted knee on your neck for 8 minutes or so and then report back and tell us how it was for you.
fnn , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:07 pm GMT
@chuckywiz The Jewish MSM always ignores non-black victims of police misconduct. They made a collective decision to do that following the mild uproar over Ruby Ridge and the Waco massacre of the Branch Davidians. Today the Narrative is all about white oppressors and black victims.

It is economic disparity and hopelessness, stupid, and that is what the pundits are avoiding purposely.

We can't read minds, so you could possibly be right. But in the visible world toppling statues of white men and various displays of guilt-mongering seem to be taking precedence over any racially neutral economic demands.

EoinW , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:17 pm GMT
Muddy the water. Now we know why they hate us. Now we know why posters at this site and Zero Hedge are considered white trash. Science is unacceptable when lefties use it to promote global warming or the Nazis use it to lock down our society, but when it can be manipulated to try and prove dirty cops innocent then it's okay. What's to conclude? Giant Echo Chamber! The Left has it to keep their ignorant followers in line. The Right has it as well. Everyone preaching to their audience and no one really worried too much about truth.

This is an excellent site. It's a shame that it feels a need to blame EVERYTHING on Jews or Socialists or whatever the rednecks have been brainwashed to fear. The site simply hurts its credibility doing this. Not much better than Left wing groups and that's one serious Freak Show!

Rurik , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:29 pm GMT
@obwandiyag

They riot because they are sick and tired of the ways cops treat them–

no, they're rioting because blacks and browns don't have academic and economic parity with whites, and the ((universities)) have instructed their charges that there's no such thing as racial differences, and so that means all the academic and economic discrepancies between white and black, and the over-representation of blacks in the criminal justice system, are all a direct consequence of lingering, "systemic" white racism in America.

That's why they're rioting. The Floyd death was simply the perfect metaphor for America's 'racism', crystalized down to nine minutes of video.

The video was simply the catalyst, for a mindset that's been foisted by the ((universities)) and ((media)) for many decades now.

We're seeing what they've wanted all along. White people transformed into Palestinians, treated as second class citizens. Affirmative action, and now free health care ONLY for blacks in Kentucky.

White people will pay the taxes, but not get the benefits, because they're racists and anti-Semites, and like the Palestinians (terrorists) they don't deserve any rights.

That's what this is all about. The 21st century is to be like the 20th, a Jewish supremacist orgy of racial hatred unleashed.

Ko , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:29 pm GMT
From what I understand, Fentanyl acts quickly and if he had 3x lethal dose in him, he would have died earlier.

I feel bad for the cops, trained by Israelis who routinely kill Palestinians and use the knee of the head move. Look here at pics:

https://insidearabia.com/israel-exports-its-brutal-police-training-to-the-us-and-it-shows/

I don't understand why they held him down so long. It seems as if they wanted to wait until the criminal stopped tensing himself, which could be an indicator of continued resistance. Maybe they felt if they eased up, he'd jump up and fight them as the guy in Atlanta did.

The Atlanta cops are going to get lynched. That's not justice.

Trinity , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:37 pm GMT
@RobbieSmith Ali spoke a lot of truth and the only reason the counterculture adopted him is because of his stance against "Whitey" or what they thought was his stance against "Whitey." I do not blame Ali for not wanting to fight for America in the Vietnam War. When Ali grew up, Blacks were indeed second class citizens, far from it now, they have their asses kissed 24/7. Ali was about Blacks pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, and was a hardcore SEPARATIST. Ali actually had more than a touch of Irish blood in him. I wish more Blacks did indeed belong to the NOI like Ali, I think we would have less crime and they would stay to themselves.
Anonymous [363] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:37 pm GMT
George Floyd was an unhealthy man. He wasn't an angel. He wasn't even a decent citizen. He was a piece of shit.

But he didn't die of an overdose.

He died from a cop burying his knee on his neck for almost 10 minutes. Already in horrible shape with breathing problems, his body wasn't able to handle it.

Floyd was pleading for him to get off his neck. He was asking for his mother. C'mon people. Chauvin was heartless and ignorant. All he had to do was get off Floyd's neck. He wasn't a threat.

Chauvin had a serious lapse in judgement. So did Floyd. He wouldn't have been in that position in the first place. We can always argue that Floyd was a piece of shit. Maybe he was, but he didn't have to die like that. Who in this comment section is so perfect to judge?

Chauvin has his own issues. He isn't a murderer either. Ignorant and callous, yes. Deserving of jail time. I don't think so. Therapy and retirement form the police force? Absolutely.

Zarathustra , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:38 pm GMT
3 problems in US

1 Blacks can newer be civilized.
2 Blacks will never trust white people.
3 Whatever whites will do. Blacks will never be satisfied until they will have all and permanent administrative power.

Rurik , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:38 pm GMT
@EoinW

Nazis use it to lock down our society

what a lying POS you are

It was the liberal Democratic governors who were the worst 'lock-down' "Nazis", but to a dishonest, agenda-driven liar like you, the truth is only something to bastardize to your own hatred-consumed agenda.

EVERYTHING on Jews or Socialists or whatever the rednecks have been brainwashed to fear.

Yea, it's not like thousands of those rednecks haven't given their lives in the last two decades fighting the Eternal Wars for Israel, now is it? But that's a price we should all pay for what was done on (((9/11))), huh?

Dweezil the Weasel , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 3:45 pm GMT
The entire debate is moot at this point. Floyd is dead. The puppeteers have their "Crisis". The mob is still out there. Thought crime is the new passion. Negroes can do nothing wrong. When they do, it is my fault because I am white. Up is down, down is up, etc. The big question is what lies ahead.
This was all manufactured to cover the real truth about a collapsing economic system which will devastate nations and economies all over the world. When it hits(my bet is before 2021), nothing else will matter. Here in Amerika, the Sheeple, Normies, and Cucks will go bat-s ** t crazy. It will be Bosnia times Rwanda times Venezuela, times The Stand. Plan accordingly. Bleib ubrig. Proverbs 27:12.
Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:05 pm GMT
All this hysteria over one dead black thug and utter silence about far more tragic/innocent victims(often at the hands of black thugs) suggest that the 'systemic racism' is in favor of blacks.

It's like US's favoritism for Zionists over Palestinians, Iranians, and Arabs.

We hear endless yammering about 'antisemitism' and 'white supremacism', but US is pathologically philosemitic and serving Jewish Supremacism 24/7.

BTW. it will be funny when a black guy wearing a Floyd t-shirt ends up dead at the hands of another black.

Trinity , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:11 pm GMT
@Anonymous IF this whole incident is REAL, and believe me, nowadays I have a hard time believing anything we see in the media or read is REAL, I have to say the cop was wrong and does deserve to do time. Whatever the guy died from, people in the crowd told Chauvin over and over that Floyd wasn't moving. The other cops should have pulled Chauvin off as well. The case in Atlanta is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, however. IMO, Chauvin is guilty of manslaughter and quite possibly second degree murder, but that one would be hard to prove. BUT the question must be ASKED ONCE AGAIN, how or why did it come to this, WHY didn't George Floyd COMPLY with officer's orders? Floyd would still be alive IF he had JUST COMPLIED with the cops. What is it about complying with an officer's orders do Blacks not understand? A couple months ago a man was killed right up the street from me because he attacked an officer with a knife. The officer responded to a domestic dispute and the man STUPIDLY charged an armed cop with a knife and was shot dead. White cop, and white perp so that was the end of story.
ruralguy , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:11 pm GMT
@Ficino Covid-19 attacks cells with ACE-2 enzyme receptors. They are present in the lungs, heart, intestine, blood vessels, and kidneys. Many people infected with Covid-19 suffer more damage in these organs than in the lungs. People think they will recover quickly from this virus like another cold (two of the cold strains are actually coronoviruses) or flu viruses, but it's damage to the organs is more severe. It leaves them vulnerable to next year's covid-20, where they will now have "preexisting health conditions."
Agent76 , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:12 pm GMT
It is and was Murder!

May 28, 2020 #GeorgeFloyd Before Being Killed At The Hands Of Police Talking About Street Violence Killings

Video of George Floyd Before being Killed talks about the violence on the streets.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/h7cmBW1QKlI?feature=oembed

May 27, 2020 New video shows Minneapolis police arrest of George Floyd before death

Four white officers involved in the death of George Floyd have been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department, but Mayor Jacob Frey is saying that one of the officers should be arrested for pressing his knee on Floyd's neck.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZWzkgKPZWcw?feature=oembed

FB , says: Website Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:15 pm GMT
@Jim Bob Lassiter

Well let's have 'em (couple of thousand cop murders) . And don't forget to include Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas.

Police extrajudicial executions of civilians are over 1,000 EACH YEAR in the United States far more than any other country in the world

–The Counted

Also we learn from this 'article' that

Dr. Vincent Di Maio estimated that Excited Delirium Syndrome kills 800 people every year in police altercations because the victims "are just overexciting [their] heart from the drugs and from the struggle.

So that is nearly 2,000 civilians a year that die in interactions with police basically the Wild West

fnn , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:27 pm GMT
@EoinW

Muddy the water.

Talk about pure projection.

vot tak , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:29 pm GMT
@Biff I've known plenty of people over the years prejudiced against people of one race, but not another. Yes, it is common and is a dumb question.
JimDandy , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:30 pm GMT
@Agent76 Yelling and posting videos won't change the fact that you're wrong and have no valid counter-arguments to the ones presented in this article.

Thx.

Dieter Kief , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:35 pm GMT
@DanFromCT

As a result, incompetence that would otherwise have remained harmless often becomes dangerous, especially as incompetent people with good intentions rarely suffer the qualms of conscience that sometimes inhibit the doings of competent people with bad intentions.

Good intentions were cobbling his way to disaster. – Old German saying. – I like Dietrich Doerner – as a social scientist and as a humble man (a Social Democratic leftie from the days before the left grew "regressive" (Dave Rubin).

George , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:40 pm GMT
Floyd's condition is irrelevant. If I have the facts straight Floyd was handcuffed and loaded inside the police car. For reasons that are unclear he ends up face down on the asphalt with 4 dudes sitting on top of him. For me, without an amazing explanation all four should never have been police officers. His death makes it worse but the inexplicable part is why he was on the pavement being crushed.
Hedd Mcnekk , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:42 pm GMT
@obwandiyag Are you really going to share "a couple thousand" murders by police with us? Ok, I'll bite. Send them to us in short installments of 3 or 4 hundred, just so we can keep up.
Anonymous [456] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:53 pm GMT
@annamaria Where did I even remotely insinuate anything about slavery in my post? Your sickness is part of the denial I was referring to.
Dan Kurt , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 4:57 pm GMT
@Cranberries RE: Might help for someone to explain this calculation, since simply summing the fentanyl and norfentanyl concentrations gives 16.6, not 20.6. Cranberries comment #6.

I read somewhere that another fentanyl moiety was also detected in George Floyd's autopsy blood. That may explain the discrepancy.

Dan Kurt

Enemy of Earth , says: Website Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:01 pm GMT
I really hate saying it but you could have a video of St.George shooting up minutes before his encounter with Minneapolis' finest and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. The Church of the Perpetually Aggrieved have their martyr and will not let trivial things like truth get in the way.

When I'm feeling particularly cynical and want to irritate the Missus I will say something like, "Yeah, that was pretty bad but he probably did something we don't know about. So it all evens out in the end."

Rich , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:01 pm GMT
@vot tak Oh "prejudiced " against a particular group, is that the same thing as "racist" now"? Does "racist " mean anything other than White? The word "prejudice " means to "pre-judge", what if someone judges a person or group after getting to know them very well? What if I find I love all people except Tibetans, am I a "racist "? For you kooks, I am if I'm White. So I guess that's a "dumb question", since I'm pretty Pale
Dieter Kief , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:02 pm GMT
@Emslander

Videos and photos are very poor evidence because they only raise an emotional response.

This is fact is usually overlooked. I still don't really grasp, why that is. But people seem to lack – media education, or self-reflective self-distancing concerning the difference between being an ey-witness and witnessing a video about an event. – Maybe Marshal McLuhan is one reason that the video-deception is not being noticed for what it is: a major source of self-deception because he made media-reflection trendy and at the same time clueless.

This seems at first sight like a rather dismal academic distinction – until it becomes crucial to make it, like in this case.

By now I might even be boring some readers of Unz.com by insisting on the following factual truth: Tom Wolfe showed in pristine detail, just how this video deception, as you might call it, works in his (sigh, I'll repeat this esthetic fact too now for the umpteenth time) – Tom Wolfe was able to show how this video-deception plays out in his excellent novel Back to Blood .

PS
It might be not accidental, that Tom Wolfe did have a close look at Marshal McLuhan's ideas and did write quite a bit about it, long before he started to work at Back to Blood . – Fruits take their time until they're ripe, it seems.

Rurik , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:05 pm GMT
@Trinity

What is it about complying with an officer's orders do Blacks not understand?

since I generally agree with you, and agree that this was likely staged, and that the other cops should have intervened, and that Chauvin was obviously guilty of a callous disregard for the man's life, (regardless of what he actually died of).. I agree with that all.

But I also understand why some people would try to flee the cops, (and being arrested and having your life destroyed). It's a risk some people are willing to take. Like the guy who was murdered by cop, lying in the snow (while being sadistically tortured by tazer). That sadistic bitch tortured him to death because he ran from her, and defied her 'authority'.

I've known of too many cops in my lifetime who're drunk on their authority (power), and I don't blame some people for running from them. If our laws say it's ok for cops to shoot such people, then so be it, but if they're not allowed to shoot suspects running away, then if that's murder, it's murder. No?

American cops are way too militarized and often murderous and unaccountable. Absofuckinglutely.

But the Jews are turning this into a racial issue for their own agenda, whatever that is at the moment. Perhaps simply as an amusement, to watch whitey squirm. (one of their favorite pastimes ; )

ThreeCranes , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:08 pm GMT
@Steve in Greensboro Agree. Apparently many commenters can neither read nor reason from empirical evidence.
ThreeCranes , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT
I've never before seen such stupidity in the comments as is seen here today. Something strange is going on. Many of you didn't read the article but have strong opinions. This isn't typical of Unz readers. For some reason the Trolls are out in force on this one. Are you trying to destroy this website's credibility?
nokangaroos , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT
@Emily In certain quarters first responders do carry naloxone injectors for that contingency – it takes half an hour of training.
Opioid LD50s are house numbers, but it´s a possibility.
Clearly no choking, but I wouldn´t rule out vagus shock.

Overall I´d say a measured exposé, but as many others already noted the question is moot now.

Johnny Smoggins , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:19 pm GMT
@Biff Given your confidence, can you tell us the exact number of "racists" married to people of other races in America?

Your response should be within 2% of the actual number, and please also provide proof of the "racism" on the part of the individual "racists" married to non Whites.

File that under "overconfident moron"

Bucky , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:28 pm GMT
It is possible that floyd died of a drug overdose.

Not long after the video of Floyd s death came out a journalist from the Atlantic tried to reenact it. He was unable to keep his balance for the amount of time.

This is possibly because the knee on the neck was not putting that much pressure on the neck. It is possible that it was it was an even stance and the knee was applying slight or no pressure.

Pop Warner , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:29 pm GMT
@obwandiyag They riot because the press whips them up into a frenzy. There is no shortage of blacks killed by police or whites killed by police but this incident was spread to the 4 channels blacks are capable of finding and drove them to riot.
If blacks don't like how cops treat them, then they should improve their savage behavior. Over half of all homicides, over a third of cop killers, the majority who shoot at police, and far more likely to resist arrest. When will blacks learn basic civilization, or do whites need to hold their hand yet again?
Hippopotamusdrome , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:29 pm GMT
@ICANREAD

Your underlying analysis is incorrect. People overdose at much higher levels and live through it.

Ok. Then you say:

One of the 18 patients died in hospital.

I don't know the point you're trying to make. Other than the author is correct.

Hippopotamusdrome , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:33 pm GMT
@anon

Then, one officer pulled him out on the other side.

I assaume because he demanded to be let out due to a medical emergency. "I can't breathe!". So they did and called an ambulance, which arrived a little later.

starthorn , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:42 pm GMT
Truth is the first victim of criminality. There, that's better.
Hippopotamusdrome , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 5:43 pm GMT
@backup

there are signs that COVID19 decreases Hemoglobin levels

LOL. As if COVID19 is real.

steinbergfeldwitzcohen , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:07 pm GMT
Facts:
1.Officer Derek Chauvin isn't in the video. The person purported to be Officer Chauvin is a different person and that is quite clear from examining stills from the video and comparing them to still photos of Officer Derek Chauvin.

2.One of the police vehicles had a licence plate that said 'POLICE'. This is absurd.

These are just two EXTREMELY obvious facts about the 'video' and there are dozens more fun facts about this incident that really no other conclusion is possible IF a person is observant AND honest about this video: it is a hoax. See: canucklaw.ca for an excellent and detailed breakdown.

Somehow, nearly everyone in 'professional media', aka as the presstitutes paid to lie by their jewish billionaire employers, accepts this obvious HOAX as though it is legit and beyond question.

Sounds familiar. Kind of like every mass shooting incident of the last 18 years which is to say, ever since the HOAX of 9/11 the Jew Spew Propaganda arm just can't stop 'reporting' on clearly faked events anytime they want to push the gun control issue, distract from another issue or, worse still, to manipulate low IQ ghetto thugs, communists and assorted snow-flakes into rioting which the Jew spew media then presents as 'peaceful protests'.
Anyone else sick of this never ending effort to manipulate the conversation away from the theft of Trillions of dollars being presided over by Zion Don, his underlings Mnuchin, Jared Kushner and the Federal Reserve Bank.

Last time I checked the unemployment number, that was previously 40 million, it seems to have inched up to nearly 50 million. I expect to see continued efforts, each more desperate than the last, as the elites fight for power, loot the treasury and race-bait. I don't know when but I expect that at some point, barring any corruption or treason trials. elites will start to be executed by vigilante groups. I just can't see these level of social pressure, outright criminality and outrageous propaganda continuing to grow before average people become frustrated and disenfranchised enough to act. Somewhere from among the silent majority of rational Americans I expect to see a response to the last 2 decades of 'Global War of Terror' insanity,financial looting of the present and future American people with a dash of race war tossed in as a further insult to reason.
It amazes me that a community of largely dysfunctional blacks -mostl net takers from the economic system-have the gall to use the term 'white privilege'. They don't pay taxes beyond basic consumption, cause endless problems, avoid the infantry in every war, and now want 'reparations' after leeching off whites for over 150 years. It never ceases to amaze me how effective propaganda is and how incredibly stupid the far left of the curve can be.

Wally , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:08 pm GMT
@obwandiyag said:
"People don't riot over the specific police murder that sets it off. They riot because they are sick and tired of the ways cops treat them–one of the ways being to murder them"

– Then Euro-whites should be the ones rioting.
– The number of Euro-whites killed by police are much, much higher than blacks, which is remarkable considering that blacks do the vast amount crime.
– It is whites who are targeted by blacks, the stats don't lie.
The Color of Crime : https://www.amren.com/the-color-of-crime/

Tucker Carlson Breaks Down Every Police Shooting Of Unarmed Black Suspects In 2019: https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/03/tucker-carlson-police-shootings-genocide/
Police are more likely to shoot whites, not blacks : https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a-massive-new-study-on-police-shootings-of-whites-and-blacks-is-so-controversial/?utm_term=.1db63f3f7797
Study Concludes White Police Officers Are Not More Likely To Shoot Black Citizens: https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/23/study-white-police-officers-not-likely-shoot-black-citizens/
Black Officers More Likely than White Officers to Shoot Suspects : http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/26/study-black-officers-more-likely-than-white-officers-to-shoot-suspects/
There Is No Epidemic of Racist Police Shootings , By Heather Mac Donald: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/white-cops-dont-commit-more-shootings/

Trinity , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:17 pm GMT
@Rurik I agree with your post 100%. If Mr. Floyd had been White and the cops were White, this story wouldn't have been talked about outside of Minneapolis. Speaking of Minneapolis, notice the JEW MEDIA covered the story about the black thug throwing the white kid off a balcony in the Mall Of America for about 3 minutes, and no suggestions of race at all. Yep, I don't buy the Pawn Vanity narrative that 99% of cops are decent either. I can't think of any profession that could make that claim. I am watching the telly as I type this and now the natives are engaging in a multi-city "Juneteenth March." LMAO. I guess this will now become a national holiday. How anyone can be fooled by this anymore is beyond stupid. Take care, my friend and enjoy the comedy placed before us.
Bethany , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:25 pm GMT
I've been on Derek Chauvin's side from the beginning. I knew it was just a race thing that the media blew up and distorted, just like that kid wearing the MAGA cap with the native American in DC, whose name I forgot. I hope that Derek Chauvin will be found not guilty and will sue the mainstream media like that kid from Kentucky did. My only fear is that America is not an honest country anymore and even if it is so blatantly obvious that Chauvin is innocent, that they will have to find him guilty anyway.

I just can't stand it. I can't stand the thought of that happening. I mean, imagine that ultimatum . serve justice or risk a city burning down. How can the masses be so misinformed? Unaware and corrupted?

I took some notes today from E. Michael Jones, I watched his video, Sicut Judaeis Non, and I/we have to really let what he said sink into our beings, in order that we can resist it and not acquiesce. I can't go along with corruption and let injustice come to Derek Chauvin. The truth has to be told.

My notes from E. Michael Jones:

"Jewish identity is the rejection of logos- political, moral, economical"
"Modernization is about everyone becoming Jewish."
"We have internalized the commands of our Jewish oppressors."
"We have a Jewish superego."
"Break free from the control of Jews in our minds."

And recently I've been watching Yuri Benzmenov again, we really have to understand the deep psychological warfare, the hypnotic spell we've been under and break free from it.

AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:38 pm GMT
@SOL What else is new? Repeat offender was a drug addict. Drug addict died of an overdose. People using lies about his death are not revolutionaries, they are just bandits, burglars and vandals.
Voltara , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:47 pm GMT
@anonymous1963 They'll get a fair trial and be found not guilty . setting off round #2 of rioting and looting a couple of weeks before the november election
Voltara , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:53 pm GMT
@Dan Kurt Hey Dan, I thiiiiink .. norfentanyl is a metabolite of fentanyl, which means it has been absorbed and processed by the body so the norfentanyl level would be indicative of a higher/additional level of fentanyl intake, which when calculated backwards implies 20.6 total
RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:54 pm GMT
@Rurik "no, they're rioting because blacks and browns don't have academic and economic parity with whites, and the ((universities)) have instructed their charges that there's no such thing as racial differences, and so that means all the academic and economic discrepancies between white and black, and the over-representation of blacks in the criminal justice system, are all a direct consequence of lingering, "systemic" white racism in America."

The persistent so-called "achievement gap" reveals the same racial IQ hierarchy on standardized academic exams. The SAT is largely a measure of general intelligence. Scores on the SAT correlate very highly with scores on standardized tests of intelligence, and like IQ scores, are stable across time and not easily increased through training, coaching, or practice. SAT preparation courses appear to work, but the gains are small -- on average, no more than about 20 points per section.

[MORE]
Even after decades of focused attention to the achievement gap, it has remained unchanged.

Vanderbilt University researchers tracked the educational and occupational accomplishments of more than 2,000 people who as part of a youth talent search and determined that scores on the SAT correlate so highly with IQ that they are described as a "thinly disguised" intelligence test.

ACT Scores by Race:

Year White Black Asian
2009 22.2 16.9 23.2
2010 22.3 16.9 23.4
2011 22.4 17.0 23.6
2012 22.4 17.0 23.6
2013 22.2 16.9 23.5
2014 22.3 17.0 23.5
2015 22.4 17.1 23.9
2016 22.2 17.0 24.0
2017 22.4 17.1 24.3
2018 22.2 16.9 24.5

Source: ACT, Inc.

~~~~~~~

Black-White SAT Score Gap by Year:

Year White Black Gap
1985 1038 839 199
1990 1031 849 185
1996 1052 857 195
2000 1060 859 201
2005 1061 863 197
2010 1063 855 208
2015 1047 846 201

The new SAT introduced in 2017 was "designed to inspire and increase access to college" by creating "a more equitable exam". The new SAT cannot be compared to previous results:

Year White Black Gap
2017 1118 941 177
2018 1123 946 177

The 2017 "college readiness" scores (ability to earn a C or higher in an entry-level course) showed the stark racial achievement gap; Asians scored 70% college readiness, Whites 59%, and Blacks only 20%.

(Source: U.S. Dept. of Education, College Board)

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=171

SAT scores are highly correlated to intelligence test scores. The SAT correlates with an IQ test at 0.86, almost the same as an IQ test correlates with itself. For this reason, we can very reliably take SAT scores and convert them to IQ scores.

Results of psycho-metric IQ and scholastic tests are highly correlated. Rindermann & Thompson (2013, p. 822)

In the 20 year period from 1994-2014 the Black-White difference increased on both the verbal and math SATs despite targeted efforts to close the race gap. On the reading test, it rose from .91 to .96 standard deviations. On the math test, it rose from .95 to 1.03 standard deviations.

In fact, the truncated nature of the SAT math score distribution suggests that these race gaps would be even larger given a harder exam with a bigger score variance. Note, for example, how the Black score distribution is cut off at the bottom while the Asian score distribution is cut off at the top. That suggests that a redesigned exam might feature even more pronounced race gaps.

Percent by Race Reaching the SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark:

15% = Black
24% = Non-White Hispanic
35% = Native American
53% = White
56% = Asian

Source: The College Board, 2014

PISA scores by race:

White Black Asian
531 433 525

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, 2015

NAEP Report Card: Mathematics

"In 2019, there were no significant changes in score disparities compared to 2017 across most reported student groups in eighth-grade mathematics, with a few exceptions. For example, among racial/ethnic groups, the average mathematics score at grade 8 for White students was 32 points higher than the average score for their Black peers in 2019 and 24 points higher than the average mathematics score for eighth-grade Hispanic students. The 32-point White–Black score difference in 2019 was not significantly different from the 32-point score difference in 2017, the previous assessment year, nor the 33-point score gap in 1990, the first assessment year."

https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/mathematics/nation/groups/?grade=8

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blacks and Whites with Equal Educational Attainment Differ in Cognitive Ability

Black and White Americans with the same formal level of education differ significantly in their cognitive abilities. Specifically, within any given level of formal education Whites consistently outperform Blacks. Moreover, this effect is so strong that Blacks often underperform Whites who have lower levels of formal education than they do.

Consider the following data from the General Social Survey. This public data is frequently used in social science research and contains a test of verbal intelligence as well as measurements of participant's self-identified race and highest educational degree obtained. Verbal intelligence tests correlate at around .75 with full-scale IQ and so this data can also be taken as a fair measure of intelligence in general (Lynn, 1998). If we set the White mean score on this test to 100 and the standard deviation to 15, we can come up with an "IQ" style scale.

As can be seen, using this method Blacks with a graduate degree have a level of verbal intelligence indistinguishable from that of Whites with a junior college degree. Blacks with a four-year degree are roughly on par with Whites who never went to college at all.

IQ BY RACE AND HIGHEST DEGREE EARNED (1972 – 2014):

Highest Degree White IQ Black IQ Gap
High School Drop-out: 89 82 7
High School Diploma 98 90 8
Junior College Degree 102 95 7
Bachelor's Degree 108 100 8
Graduate Degree 113 102 11

This data is consistent with evidence from the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) which administered tests of cognitive ability to 26,000 US adults in 1992. These tests were designed to measure how well people could take information and use it in a way which would help them function in modern society.

Blacks are such poor academic achievers that the National Achievement Scholarship Program was created with lower standards for Black candidates only, instead of the National Merit Scholarship Program which is open to everyone else.

THE SMARTEST STUDENTS: The National Merit Scholarship Program was founded to identify and honor scholastically talented American youth and to encourage them to develop their abilities to the fullest.

BLACK STUDENTS ONLY: The National Achievement Scholarship Program was initiated specifically to identify academically promising Black American youth and encourage their pursuit of higher education.

They are both measured on the PSAT.

Minimum score for National Achievement: 190
Minimum score for National Merit: 220

Roughly, PSAT x 10 = SAT (out of 2400)

The U.S. government's PACE examination, given to 100,000 university graduates who are prospective professional or administrative civil-service employees each year, is passed with a score of 70 or above by 58% of the Whites who take it but by only 12% of the Blacks. Among top scorers the difference between Black and White performance is even more striking; 16% of the White applicants make scores of 90 or above, while only one-fifth of one percent of a Black applicants score as high as 90 -- a White-Black success ratio of 80/1. IQ differences become more pronounced with greater g-loading.

Bill Gates, after pulling philanthropic funding from Common Core, "When disaggregated by race, we see two Americas. One where White students perform along the lines of the best in the world with achievement comparable to countries like Finland and Korea. And another America, where Black and Latino students perform comparably to the students in the lowest performing OECD countries, such as Chile and Greece."

Blacks score so poorly on academic exams that colleges give them 230 "race bonus" SAT points to help them qualify for admission:

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-asian-race-tutoring-20150222-story.html

https://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf

"Personal scores" are the new subterfuge for artificially assisting Blacks gain admission to universities. Asian-American applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more than 20% of the time only in the top academic index decile. By contrast, white applicants receive a 2 or better on the personal score more than 20% of the time in the top six deciles. Hispanics receive such personal scores more than 20% of the time in the top seven deciles, and Blacks receive such scores more than 20% of the time in the top eight deciles.

An otherwise identical applicant bearing an Asian male identity with a 25 percent chance of admission would have a 32 percent chance of admission if he were White, a 77 percent chance of admission if he were Hispanic, and a 95 percent chance of admission if he were Black.

RobbieSmith , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 6:58 pm GMT
@FB "Police extrajudicial executions of civilians are over 1,000 EACH YEAR in the United States far more than any other country in the world "

In 2016, the police fatally shot 233 Blacks, the vast majority armed and dangerous, according to the Washington Post. The paper categorized only 16 Black male victims of police shootings as "unarmed." That classification masks assaults against officers and violent resistance to arrest.

Contrary to the Black Lives Matter narrative, the police have much more to fear from Black males than Black males have to fear from the police. In 2015, a police officer was 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a Black male than an unarmed Black male was to be killed by a police officer.

From 1980 to 2013, there were 2,269 officers killed in felonious incidents, and 2,896 offenders. The racial breakdown of offenders over that 33-year period was 52% White, and 41% Black. So, the 13% total Black population in the U.S. commits 41% of police murders.

Further, Black males have made up 42% of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are only 6 percent of the population. That 18.5 ratio undoubtedly worsened in 2016, in light of the 53 percent increase in gun murders of officers -- committed vastly and disproportionately by Black males.

Nine unarmed Blacks were killed by police in 2019 (seven of whom physically assaulted the officers), as opposed to 19 Whites, according to the Washington Post's database, but Blacks are much more likely to have police encounters than Whites. In an average year, about 49 people are killed by lightning in the US, according to the National Weather Service.

[MORE]
The Myth of Systemic Police Racism:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/wall-street-journal-op-ed-hold-officers-accountable-who-use-excessive-force-but-theres-no-evidence-of-widespread-racial-bias

An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force
https://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/empirical-analysis-racial-differences-police-use-force

Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877

6 Facts From New Study Finding NO RACIAL BIAS Against Blacks In Police Shootings
https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-study-no-racial-bias-police-involved-shootings-james-barrett

Blacks should be shot more often, based on the number of crimes committed:
https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/post/tpd-major-police-shoot-black-americans-less-we-probably-ought

Every year, American police officers have about 370 million contacts with civilians. Most of the time nothing happens, but 12 to 13 million times a year, the police make an arrest. How often does this lead to the death of an unarmed Black person? We know the number thanks to a detailed Washington Post database of every killing by the police. What is your guess as to the number of unarmed Blacks killed by the police every year? One hundred? Three hundred? Last year, the figure was nine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

That number is going down, not up. In 2015, police killed 38 unarmed Blacks. In 2017, 21. What about White people? Last year, police killed 19 unarmed Whites, in addition to the 9 unarmed Blacks. We know the number of Black and White people arrested every year, so it is possible to make an interesting calculation. The chances of being unarmed, arrested, and then killed by the police are higher for Whites than for Blacks. For both races, it's very rare: One out of 292,000 arrests for Blacks, and out of 283,000 arrests for Whites.

Since 2015, when the Post began tracking these numbers, the police have killed about 1,000 people a year. Every year, about one quarter of them are Black. This is about twice their share of the population, which is 13 percent. Is this proof of police racism? No. The more likely explanation is that Blacks are more likely than Whites to act in violent, aggressive ways that give the police no choice but to shoot them. In 2018, the most recent year for which we have statistics, Blacks accounted for 37 percent of all arrests for violent crimes, 54 percent of all arrests for robbery, and 53 percent of arrests for murder. With so many Blacks involved in this kind of violent crime, that Blacks should account for 25 percent of the people killed by the police seem like a surprisingly low figure.

There is another perspective on police killings of civilians. Every year, criminals kill about 120 to 150 police officers. And we know from this FBI table that every year, on average, about 35 percent of officers are killed by Blacks. So, to repeat, Blacks are 13 percent of the population and account for 25 percent of the people killed by police. But if police were killing them in proportion to their threatening, violent, criminal behavior, they would be a greater percentage of the people killed by the police.

Beavertales , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 7:17 pm GMT
We know much about Officer Chauvin, but very little about Floyd.

Where did he get the drugs?

Was there any trace of it on him, in his car, his residence or the last places he visited?

What was he doing in the hours leading up to his arrest?

Were the people he was with also using?

What is his drug history?

There's a whole story here being concealed.

Patricus , says: Show Comment June 19, 2020 at 7:19 pm GMT
Thank you for a thoughtful article. This reinforces my original thought that we should wait for the results of the trial. Presumably the cop has a competent lawyer who will be able to review and present the comprehensive evidence to a jury. Ideally the prosecuting attorney will also be able to understand and present another side of the story. Ideally there will be a fair jury, not a howling lynch mob, and not a group of retired cops. This system is certainly imperfect but better than shoot from the hip opinions based on some seconds of video viewing.

[Jun 14, 2020] Some Answers to the Mystery of the Missing Jews, by Carolyn Yeager and Wilhelm Kriessmann

Jun 14, 2020 | www.unz.com

Introduction: Questions about the official World War Two death figures increasingly mount. Where are the proofs for these numbers? Where are the bodies? Did people just vaporize into thin air–as some believe, going up in smoke through tall chimneys?

Two responsible figures have recently and publicly added their voices to the question of six million Poles murdered (ostensibly by Nazis) between 1939 and 1945.

One is the last communist head of state for Poland from 1985-90, Wojciech Jaruzelski. Speaking to a journalist for Izvestia (Russian daily newspaper), he said, rather tongue-in-cheek, that he cannot understand how the Polish population exploded between 1946 and 1970, and then leveled off to become stagnant from 1990 till today. He humorously remarked that there had to have been "a strong aphrodisiac" to lead to the birth of millions of new Poles because "in the grocery stores there had been only vinegar and millions had died even after the war."

The other is Dr. Otwald Mueller, a well-known German researcher, whose remarkable letter appeared on October 17, 2009 in two American German-language newspapers, the New Yorker Staatszeitung and the California Staatszeitung .

In his letter, Dr. Mueller discusses the six million figure that was widely reported during the September 1st, 2009 conference, held at Gdansk (Danzig), Poland, marking the 70 th Anniversary of the beginning of what was to expand into World War Two.

A translation of his letter appears below, followed by a survey of actual mass graves that have been found and excavated to date that physically reveal flesh-and-bone victims of WWII.

Dr. Mueller writes:

On the occasion of Poland's victory celebration at Danzig/Gdansk, September 1, 2009, you could read in the press the following statements:

1) Die Welt (German newspaper "The World"), September 2, 2009: "?beginning of WW II, 6 million victims in Poland, half of them Jews? ."

2) Daily Gazette (Schenectady, N.Y.), September 2, 2009: " .Poland alone lost 6 million citizens, half of them Jews?"

[The Associated Press (AP) supplies news to nearly all newspapers in the US. That means those news stories were published in nearly all US newspapers.]

3) Catalyst, Journal of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Number 6, July-August 2009: "Six million Polish citizens were killed in the Holocaust – three million of them were Catholics".

An important chart

There exists an important Polish population chart. It marks a pre-war Polish population of 29.89 million people, and for the year 1946 a population of 23.6 million. The difference is of approximately 6 million, or 21% of the total population. The chart seems to prove the statement of "6 million" ? but, on the contrary, it contradicts it.

On page 413 of the book "Poland: It's People, It's Society, It's Culture" by Clifford Barnett, HRAF Press, New Haven, CT 1958, the following figures are marked at chart #1: For the year 1950, a population of 24,533,000; for the year 1955, a population of 27,544,000.

Where are the losses? They turned into gains, because –

For the years 1946 to 1950: a gain of 5.5%. For the years 1950 to 1955: a gain of 15.5%.

That shows in a significant way how Polish history – better Polish fairy tales – works.

Caption: (by author) Between 1931 and 1946 there is a large loss of population, which neatly adds up to six million Polish citizens, or 21%. We must keep in mind that 31% of Poland's population was of non-Polish origin � one million were German, as you can see from names of cities like Stettin, Gruenberg and Breslau. It also included 7 million Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and 3 million Jews. Even so, between the postwar years of 1946 to 1955, the lost population is gained back again – minus 2 million. By 1950, there is a gain of 908,000 in 4 years. And by 1955, an additional gain of 3,011,000 in 5 years! Can these be new births over deaths? No. They are more likely an "adjustment"- a more accurate accounting than was done before. This increase cannot be from Germans, Ukrainians or Lithuanians who returned to Poland, because Poland today is one of the most ethnically homogenous nations in the world. Are they not Poles, who either returned from the East, where they had fled, or never left?

Truth in regard to history
The declaration by the chairman of the German-Polish Bishop's Conference on the occasion of the 70th Anniversary of the beginning of WW II states: "The church will definitely take steps against such inadequate handling of historical truth. We recommend and encourage an intensive dialog which always includes being ready to listen to the other side."

The German Bishop's conference unfortunately did not comply, so far, with its own directives. They did indeed "listen carefully" to their Polish partners and accepted all Polish historical interpretations without ever questioning or correcting. It is an outrageous way to violate historical truth when the author of that chart names the cities of Allenstein, Danzig, Koeslin, Stettin, Gruenberg, Breslau, Oppeln – in the provinces of East Prussia, Pommerania and Silesia – as "Polish cities."

The declaration of the bishop's conferences reads: "Seventy years ago, on September 1, 1939, German forces started their attack against Poland." (Tagespost, 27 August 2009, page 5) Thus the second world-war began. How truthful is that declaration? In reality, Stalin also started his attack against Poland with his Soviet Red Army on September 17, 1939. Hitler and Stalin together started a local war which ended after 6 weeks. Well, Stalin might have just said "Nyet" and Hitler would have stayed home. Stalin was not forced to sign a pact with Hitler. Stalin gained 51% of pre-war Poland.

One violates the truth in dealing with history when one identifies the Germans expelled from the German East provinces as "Polish victims."

The German Bishop's conference should consider it their task to urge the Polish Bishops to see that those Polish historical distortions are corrected.

In pre-war Poland, millions of Ukrainians, White Russians, Lithuanians, Ruthenians and others were living. How did they become Poles? No newspaper report tells the story.

April, 1920 – 22 years before Hitler [invaded the SU] – the Polish Army under Pilsudski started the victorious campaign against the Soviet Union.

On May 7, 1920, General Rydz-Smigly occupied Kiev.

At the peace treaty of Riga, March 21, 1921, Poland gained vast Ukrainian and White Russian territories with a population of about 11 million.

Did anyone have any doubts that the Soviet Union would sooner or later retake those regions? That happened in August 1939 with the Hitler-Stalin pact. Why did the bishops not mention that? Why did the German newspapers, so eagerly interested in historical truth, not report it? All the guilt is loaded on one side; the others carry no guilt at all.

Bush's America attacked Iraq on March 20, 2003. No Third World War started because no one wanted one.

Katyn

Up to June 7, 1943, the Wehrmacht excavated and identified, as well as possible, 4143 Polish officers murdered by the NKVD. (Louis Fitzgibbon: Katyn – A Crime without Parallel, Scribner's Sons, New York 1971)

If it were correct that 3 million Polish Catholics were murdered, as the Catalyst journal states, one must have found in Poland about 750 mass gravesites of the same size during the past 65 years (3,000,000 divided by 4000=750), each with circa 4000 dead. Or 1500 mass gravesites, each with 2000 corpses. It is not known if even one of those mass gravesites has been found. If they would have found only one, journalists from all over the world would have been invited to come and visit. All newspapers would have published terrible pictures and stories for weeks. But did we not indeed find one such gravesite – at Marienburg in East Prussia, now called Malbork by the Poles? Yes, but they were German deaths, and not Poles. Now, one can convincingly say that argument also contradicts the thesis of the 6 million.

A ray of hope on that topic

Maybe the search for historical truth progresses slowly. In the Maerkische Allgemeine Zeitung (German newspaper), August 28, 2009, one can read the following headline: "The numbers-to-date of victims are incorrect – 70 years after the start of the war, scientists are searching for facts." Warsaw: "The numbers of victims of WWII are to a great extent wrong. That is known among specialists and expert historians. Most of the figures are too high: 20 million deaths in the Soviet Union, 6 million deaths in Poland, 2 million among the German expellees. For political reasons, the numbers were increased after the war. Reparation negotiations were already carried on during the war. High loss numbers justified high reparations requests from the Germans–"today we know most of the figures entered into that game then are wrong " and: " the historian Mateusz Gniastowski came to the conclusion that the losses of ethnic Poles had to be corrected from 3 million to 1.5 million ."

Bartoszewski talks
With the headline, "No restitution for Jewish property," the Junge Freiheit (German magazine) of 28 August, 2009, reports the following: "Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, ex-Polish secretary for foreign affairs, vehemently denied any restitution payments for Jewish properties by Poland."

Bartoszewski: "Of the 3.5 million Polish Jews, nearly 2 million lived in the Ukraine and White Russia of today." A very interesting statement – naturally, they became, in October 1939, Soviet citizens and were never again Polish citizens.

The consequence? Regardless what did happen to those people between 1939 and 1945 – whether they survived or were killed – they could not be counted as "Polish victims" but belong to the victim chart of the Soviet Union. Otherwise they are counted twice.

Final conclusion: According to the statement of Bartoszewski alone, the number of the alleged 6 million Polish losses must be reduced already by 3.5 million (1.5+2). The Poles have no right to count German, Jewish, Ukrainian losses as their own. The 6 million number of WW II Polish deaths do not comply with serious historiography. ~

1) Clifford Barnett: "Poland – its people – its society – its culture" HRAF Press. New Haven, Conn. Survey of World Cultures,1958

2) German-Polish declaration of the chairman of the Bishops Conference on occasion of the 70 th anniversary of the beginning of WWII. "The reconciliation between our nations is a gift." (Die Versoehnung zwischen unseren Nationen ist ein Geschenk). Die Tagespost, 27.6.2009. Page 5

3) Gerhard Frey: Antwort an Warschau (response to Warsaw} FZ – Verlag (publisher) 2009

4) Louis FitzGibbon: Katyn–A Crime without Parallel. Scribner's Sons, New York.1971

5) Maerkische Allgemeine ( a German newspaper w 29.8.2009; "Geschichte:Die bisherigen Opferzahlen sind falsch" (History: The present loss figures are wrong)

6) Junge Freiheit (Young Freedom): Keine Entschaedigung fuer juedisches vermoegen (No redemption for Jewish property) 28.8 2009

~End of translated letter ~

How many survivors are counted as both survivors and victims because of the chaotic movement of peoples, boundaries and rulership – giving inflated numbers of victims? This is a common error, which seems to be purposely overlooked.

We have a right to ask where are the remains of the three million Catholics murdered by the German Nazis. The only known mass grave of Poles was the work of the Soviet Red Army, led by the NKVD, in the Katyn Forest in Soviet Russia. Long blamed on Germany, the responsibility for this genocidal act is now placed where it belongs. Ironically, the only mass gravesites found on Polish territory have been of German civilians. There are not even any mass graves of Poles – Catholic or Jewish – on the grounds of the famous concentration camps. No buried ashes either.

Let's take a look at what mass gravesites have been found, and what they contain.

MASS GRAVES IN MARIENBURG CONTAIN GERMAN CIVILIANS

In the previously German city of Marienburg, now named Malbork, Polish workers digging a foundation for a future hotel across from the Marienburg Castle, in October 2008, came upon a mass of human bones and skeletons. By December, about 470 individuals had been found, none of whom could be identified. A German organization dedicated to caring for German war graves sent a representative to attend the digging. By April 2009, the number of dead had climbed to 2000. When further discoveries were ruled out, the dead totaled 2116: 1001 women, 381 men, 377 children and 357 not identified.

At Marienburg, a pit full of human bones, but "We aren't finding any personal objects, no glasses, no gold teeth and above all, no clothing," said Zbigniew Sawicki, Malbork archaeologist.

Other mass graves stemming from World War II have been found around Malbork. In 1996, 178 corpses were discovered on the grounds of Marienberg/Malbork Castle. In 2005, specialists exhumed the bones of 123 more, including five women and six children, from a trench. All are believed to be Germans.

In the case of this latest and largest mass grave (2008), no clothing, eye glasses or gold teeth were found. It thus appears that they were completely stripped before they were killed. The skeletons that were laying on top had bullet holes in their heads, indicating they may have dug the grave and put the dead in it before they themselves were added.

The Germans who did survive were forced to leave the city. The relevant authorities in the newly established Polish district announced proudly on November 3, 1947, that the Marienburg area was "almost 100 percent purged of Germans." (Spiegel, Jan. 23, 2009, "Death in Marienburg: Mystery Surrounds Mass Graves in Polish City.)

On August 17, 2009, 108 coffins with the remains of the 2116 victims of war atrocities which took place in Marienburg in early 1945, were buried elsewhere, at the Volksbund War Memorial Cemetery near the village of Neumarkt, close to the old Hansa city of Stettin, in former Pommerania. The highest dignitaries attending were the German ambassador to Poland and bishops from both nations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8202210.stm

NO CZECHS IN MASS GRAVES

Czechs have not claimed massacres from the war – other than the 173 men of the village of Lidice, who were executed for harboring the murderers of Reichs Protector for Bohemia-Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, as an example to those who would cooperate with the Czech underground (considered by the Germans as an illegal terrorist organization).

Still, there was great desire to retaliate following the retreat of the German Wehrmacht and the arrival of the Soviet Red Army and NKVD. Postelberg/Polstoloprty and Saav/Zatec, two towns northwest of Prague, saw brutal massacres of at least 2,000 Sudeten Germans in the space of a few days in June 1945.

The largest mass grave contained 500 bodies and had been known since an inquiry into it in 1947. After that, in August 1947, other mass graves were secretly dug up and 763 bodies were removed and cremated. But there still remained more.

Meanwhile, documents in Postoloprty were classified as confidential and disappeared into Interior Ministry archives. Today, a majority of Czech residents in these towns admit the massacre, but do not want to talk about the case and oppose building any memorial structures at the gravesites. ( Der Spiegel , "Czech Town Divided over How to Commemorate 1945 Massacre," Hans Ulrich Stoldt, Nov. 4, 2009)

There was also the Bruenn/Brno Death March, which began late on the night of May 30, and the Aussig/Usti nad Labem Massacre on July 31, 1945–both majority German towns in the same area of Northwestern Bohemia. Basing their decision on the Potsdam Agreement, the Czech "National Committee of Brno" announced the expulsion of 20,000 ethnic Germans, mostly women, children and elderly (the adult men were all POW's), and forced them to march 56 kilometers south to the border of Austria. Once there, however, the Soviet authorities refused to allow them to cross, so they were marched back into internment. Many died and are buried along the way; up to 8000 perished in the terrible conditions before the survivors were released.

The Usti massacre was triggered by an explosion at an ammunition dump. Though the cause of the explosion had not been determined, ethnic Germans were beaten, bayonetted, shot or drowned in the Elbe River, where most still remain in their watery grave.

No mass graves of Jews have ever been found on Czech soil.

SLOVENIA: THE KILLING FIELD OF EUROPE

Over 100,000 people fell victim to summary executions on Slovenian soil immediately after the end of the second world war. These were suspected Nazi collaborators and opponents of communism – murdered by Tito's Yugoslav federal army or by Slovenian civil authorities and the Communist secret police, OZNA.

"The killings that took place here have no comparison in Europe. In two months after the war, more people were killed here than in the four years of war," said Joze Dezman , a historian who heads the government Commission for Concealed Mass Graves.

A task force of the police and state's prosecutor's office has exhumed 12 mass graves and filed two criminal complaints, with no indictments so far, according to the Slovenian Press Agency, March 20, 2008.

A particularly gruesome discovery was the mummified remains of approximately 300 pro-Nazi soldiers from Croatia and Slovenia in a mining shaft in Huda Jama.

"Gassed to death: 300 lime-covered victims of Yugoslavia's communist regime found in mass grave," by Graham Gurrin, 3-11-09, Mail Online, UK.

They are thought to have been killed with gas because there are no visible signs of wounds. Piles of military shoes were found at the entrance. "It seems that the victims had to undress and take off their shoes before they were killed," said Joze Balazic, of the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Ljubljana. The bodies were found in an underground passage some 400 meters from the cave entrance, in good condition because they had been covered in lime and the cave had been hermetically sealed with several walls of concrete separated by layers of barren soil. (Javno, 3-4-09, Translation: Karmen Horvat)

Photos: Unclothed skeletons wearing shoes appear to have died in agony in a mass grave in Huda Jama, Slovenia. Positions indicate there was movement before the victims expired (they were buried alive). ( photos no longer available )

THIS IS WHERE THE WAR WAS ENDING

Slovenia was part of the former Yugoslavia. Dezman said, "These killings took place in Slovenia because this is where the war was ending: this is where the iron curtain was anticipated, this is where refugees found themselves at the end of the war."

He also says that "due to the short time frame, the number of victims, the method of execution and their sheer extent, the reprisal killings of suspected Nazi collaborators and other opponents by Communist authorities in Slovenia could be compared to the biggest crimes of Communism, as well as Nazism, anywhere." (Slovenian Press Agency, March 20, 2008)

Another historian, university professor Mitja Ferenc , has unearthed more than 570 hidden grave sites from World War II. His digs have cracked a psychological barrier in Slovenia and sparked new political debate about the sins of that war, wherein thousands of Germans, Croatians and others on the losing side were killed.

In 1999 he found 1,179 skeletons in a trench near the city of Maribor, where a road by-pass was being constructed.

[The department of highways pressed to continue the road works, and the (left-wing) government in Ljubljana ?had no objections, although very likely, thousands of corpses were still hidden in the trench. Present investigations revealed that there are at least 15,000, possibly more than 20,000 corpses. The tank trench was suitable for mass killings, it was big enough to line up pow�s and civilians, shoot them with machine guns and cover the corpses with earth. Frankfurter Allgemaine, "Slovenia: Massacres after the War," by Karl-Peter Schwarz, 10-16-06. ]

Slovenian forensic experts investigate the site discovered in 1999 by Slovenian highway workers near Maribor, where 1,179 skeletons were found in a World War II-era trench. It's believed up to 20,000 are actually buried along this stretch of roadway.

In 2007 a new dig began nearby in the Tezno Forest – it's believed as many as 15,000 dead lie in this spot of timberland. Military gear indicates they were Croatians and Germans.

"My point is to find out what's out there. Without excavation, there is no way to know ," said Ferenc.

BRITISH DECEIT; STILL NO OFFER OF REGRET

The Queen pictured with Yugoslavian president Josip Tito, front left, in 1978 after hosting him at Buckingham Palace. Behind are Prime Minister Lord Cardiff and Prince Philip. Tito was supported by the British in the war, and its representatives turned thousands of fleeing German, Croat, Slovene and Cossack forces back to Tito's partisans in 1945, knowing they would be killed.

In May 1945, German troops and Croatians were trying to reach Austria in order to surrender to the British rather than Tito's brutal fighters. Tens of thousands of Slovenes, Serbs, Cossacks, Romanians and others joined the frantic flight.

Tamara Griesser-Pecar writes in A people divided. Slovenia 1941-1946. Occupation, Collaboration, Civil War, Revolution (Publisher: Boehlau Verlag, Wien 2003) that all Yugoslavs of German ethnic background were declared outlawed by the "Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia" (AVNOJ). Those who survived the horror of the labor camps were expelled from the country.

She speaks of the 60,000 Croatian soldiers and civilians who were massacred on Slovenian soil. Thousands vanished, to be found in recent times as skeletons bound at the wrist with wires. Not all were German sympathizers, but Catholics and other anti-communists fighting what they considered a civil war.

There were also the 25,000 Cossacks and 2000 Domobranci Slovenians who were part of the German army retreating in early May to the valleys of Kaernten in southern Austria, where they surrendered to the British who, promising they were being sent to Italy, forced them into locked railroad cars that instead went directly to the waiting Soviets in Styria and the Tito partisans at the Austrian border–certain death at the hands of their enemies.

In the Gottschee Horn (Kocevski Rog), 12,000 Slovenians were murdered. In another pit near Ljubljana, Croatians and Cossacks had been murdered – German prisoners were forced to clean out this pit with a "horrible cadaverous smell" and thereafter were murdered themselves.

Mitja Ferenc said Yugoslavia's communist authorities persistently refused to acknowledge the executions had taken place and refused to tell relatives where the bodies were buried. For almost 50 years, people were not allowed to visit the graves. Many of them were destroyed by deliberate explosions or covered by waste. In some places, such as Celje, about 60 km (35 miles) east of Ljubljana, parts of towns were built on them.

"The evidence is being gathered but the fact is that most evidence has been systematically destroyed in the past ," Joze Dezman said.

Typifying the ongoing attitude of the communists is 85-year-old Janez Stanovnik, a partisan fighter as a teenager who held high government positions under communism.

"I'm not proud of what happened in May and June 1945, but I am proud of what the partisans did during the war," he said. "Is this really something another generation has to pay for – or see used for political capital?" (Chicago Tribune, "Wartime heroes, sinful secrets," Christine Spolar, Jan. 29, 2008)

IN UKRAINE, JEWS HUNT FOR BODIES

Sparked by all these discoveries, Jewish groups have undertaken to discover their own mass graves in the Ukraine and Russia, which they claim to be the "killing fields" of World War II.

But for all the hundreds of thousands of Jews who are claimed to have been murdered here by the Nazi Einsatzgruppen, no remains have shown up in any large numbers. [The Einsatzgruppen were special SS task forces whose job was to protect the German fighting forces from behind-the-front attacks by the local population and communist partisan fighters.]

But it is suspicious that little to no excavation is taking place to verify the number of bodies or to identify whether they are Jews or not, or how they were killed. The search parties and excavation teams are made up entirely of Jews, without government or neutral parties involved.

For instance, according to an article at Y-Net News, an Israel-based internet site, published Sept. 8, 2006, a secret private mission called "Kaddish for Ukraine's Jews," chaired by Yehuda Meshi Zahav, began looking for mass graves of Jews massacred during the Second World War. This mission was initiated by the Jewish Congress and French historian/priest Patrick DesBois (author of Holocaust by Bullets ), with the help and funding of the national holocaust museums in Paris and Washington D.C.

Around Sept. 1, 2006, this mission uncovered what they say are hundreds of Jewish skeletons in a Ukrainian forest next to the city of Lvov.

They say they used metal detectors to detect bullets. When the metal detectors went off, they began digging and, at two meters down, sculls and skeletons began to surface. They say they counted hundreds and most were children . They say they recovered German-manufactured bullets marked with the years 1939 and 1941.

This "find" has been widely publicized in world media as a "holocaust" mass grave, yet no tests have proven the remains to be Jewish, or the perpetrators to be Germans. It is assumed.

We know the Soviets killed thousands of Ukrainian and Polish anti-communist nationalists before retreating from this area in 1941. There were also terrible massacres of Poles by Ukrainians and Ukrainians by Poles before and especially during WWII (over the disputed region of Volhynia) 1 . After the war, there were fights between Ukrainians and Russians in the part of Ukraine that Russia got from Poland.

The Kaddish delegation has estimated that 1800 Jews were buried here–even though they did not excavate and count all the bones. The Ukrainian authorities have agreed to recognize the area as a Jewish burial site , which means the bones can stay where they are. The Kaddish delegation performed a religious ceremony and erected a memorial monument in a matter of two weeks after the announcement of the discovery was made! This kind of haste is usually the mark of a desire for non-investigation.

JEWS GET CONTROL OF ANOTHER GRAVESITE

Another site that has received a great deal of attention is Gvozdavka, a village in southern Ukraine, near Odessa, where another group of rabbis insist thousands of Jews are buried. It was found by chance in the spring of 2007 when workers digging to lay gas pipelines discovered human bones.

As soon as the bones were discovered, the Jewish community in Odessa requested the authorities to cease construction work.

Israeli rabbis "help" to excavate a mass grave they claim to have discovered in Ukraine. (Reuters photo)

According to a story in Haaretz, June 6, 2007, "Mass WWII-era Jewish grave found near Odessa," Rabbi Abraham Wolf announced that the authorities had also agreed to give the Jewish community ownership of the land so it could build a monument commemorating the victims.

Odessa chief rabbi Shlomo Baksht revealed their plans to fence off the site and erect a monument to the victims that same year!

In a follow-up story 8 days later in Haaretz (June 14, 2007, "Israeli Rabbis help excavate Holocaust-era mass grave" , it's reported that a dozen rabbis were on the scene – 3 of whom were Holocaust scholars from Israel, others from the U.S. – and "spent several hours hunting for bones, which they immediately shoveled back into the ground."

In the follow up article, it's reported that Vera Kryzhanivska, who heads the village council, said it would soon discuss a request to hand over control of the meadow to Jewish groups.

Some Jewish community leaders complained that villagers didn't show enough respect for the dead. "How could people just walk past the grave and do nothing?" said Ilia Levitas, the head of Ukraine's Jewish Council. "Where is their Christian mercy?"

* * *

Since these two finds in 2006 and 2007, there have been no more claims of mass graves of Jews. As we know, there are no substantial remains of either bodies or ashes discovered at the concentration camp sites of Treblinka, Belzec, Sorbibor, Chelmo or Auschwitz-Birkenau, all in Poland. The killing-by-bullets of Jews that supposedly took place in the Ukraine is not showing up in any new mass graves, even though Father Patrick DesBois continues to search. He finds a few bodies here and there.

What are we to think? When it comes to Germans and their allies massacred and thrown into pits, we have masses of evidence compiled by official government agencies, even when they are resistant to do so. When it comes to Poles, Ukrainians and other Slavic ethnic groups, we don't find them buried in mass graves by the Nazis. When it comes to Jews, we have only the word of Jewish delegations that thousands of Jews are buried in mass graves that they refuse to excavate.

As Mitja Ferenc, the Slovenian history professor, remarked of his own discoveries: "Without excavation, there is no way to know."~

1) "The Soviets, having enlarged Soviet Ukraine to the west, deported tens of thousands of the Volhynian elites, mostly Poles, to Siberia and Kazakhstan. These actions ceased only when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941." And "The 1943 decision of Ukrainian nationalists to cleanse (Volhynian Poles) was [ ] based upon news of the Soviet victory at Stalingrad" (with the expectation of the end of German occupation). "Ukrainian partisans killed about fifty thousand Volhynian Poles and forced tens of thousands more to flee in 1943." Later the Poles turned the tables on the Ukrainians. (From "The Causes of Ukrainian-Polish Ethnic Cleansing 1943," Timothy Snyder, Yale University, 2003)


Wally , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:51 am GMT

Well done, Carolyn Yeager.

– A classic example of what Carolyn Yeager writes about, here's all that was found at Sobibor, where 250,000 Jew remains are said to exist. Of these there is no proof of even the age of the skeletons, whether they were even Jews, whether they were even murdered. Yep, the "holocaust" narrative is that bogus.


– Sobibor, mass grave where 250,000 Jew remains are said to exist

much more at:
Simple question: What happened to the people who were sent to the camps?: https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13204
and posted at: unz.com :
https://www.unz.com/article/babi-yar/ -- see my comment # 177
and:
https://www.unz.com/?s=graf&Action=Search&ptype=all&commentsearch=only&commenter=Wally

And then there's this desperate tactic:

The Big False Excuse: 'excavation & exhumation of Jew remains "forbidden" / But they're not :
https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6817

"Jewish Burial Law" as fake excuse' : https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8997

'First UK Burial for Holocaust Victims – No Autopsy': https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12231

No alleged human remains of millions in allegedly known locations to see, no 'holocaust'.

utu , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:25 am GMT
Lack of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Lack of Jewish mass graves which nobody is really looking for because it is not really permitted, ostensively for religion reasons, can not give the answer to the missing Jews providing that there is such a question. Jews are missing only in the Holocaust deniers' minds. Normal people will agree that the official number of 6,000,000 is might be too high and that rather three to four million Jews died during WWII and they are not missing because they are dead.

Mystery of the Missing Americans

There are 2.6M deaths per year in the US. 50% (1.3M) are cremated. 1/3 of ashes are buried at cemeteries, 1/3 are kept at home and 1/3 are scattered. This means that every year in the US ashes of 430k people are scattered into environment. The 1/3 kept at homes will be scattered into the environment sooner or later so the number of scattered ashes will be circa 800k per year. In 5 years it is 4M people. In 20 years it 16M people. In 40 years it is 32M people.

In last 40 years 32M people vanished w/o a trace. How would you go about proving it to Holocaust deniers that 32M people in American died and that they were not teleported to Venus? There are no graves. No exhumations. Nobody even try to find the answer. Wally of CODOH would not accept any documentation because he would claim it was forged. He would not accept any witness statement because he would claim that all so-called witnesses lie. The claim that 32M Americans in last 40 years died and were cremated can't be proven. Wally must be right that 32M of Americans were teleported to Venus.

Furthermore, can you imagine the absurdity of cremations? The conspirators want us to believe that they cremate the corpses while charging for shaving the corpses and applying make up and dressing them up in their Sunday's best. Why would they do it if they allegedly cremate the bodies and plan to throw away the ashes? That does not make sense. For some reason they want them bodies to look good on Venus.

Otoh the question of missing Germans or the question of atrocities committed against Germans can be
tackled by searching mass graves. There is no prohibition against excavating of non Jewish graves. For example why nobody tried to confirm James Bacque's hypothesis by searching sites of Eisenhower's POW camps in Germany? If one million or more died there, the graves should be easy to find. Say, 1,000 graves with 1,000 bodies each. Find at least one.

Al Liguori , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:26 am GMT
The Jews have a long Talmudic tradition of lying victimhood.

Consider the typically ridiculous self-reports of victimhood in tractate Gittin 57b of the Torah, the 4 BILLION (yes, BILLION) Jews killed by the Romans [Gittin 57b claims Vespasian killed "four hundred thousand myriads" = 400,000 x 10,000 = 4 BILLION] and the 64 MILLION Jewish children skewered and burned in scrolls by the Romans in one city alone [Gittin 58a claims "400 synagogues" each with "400 teachers" and "400 pupils" for each teacher" = 400 x 400 x 400 = 64 million]. http://www.halakhah.com/gittin/gittin_57.html#PARTb http://www.halakhah.com/gittin/gittin_58.html

Truly as Jesus said, children of the Father of Lies and Murder. John 8:44

Louis Hissink , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:35 am GMT
This article seems eerily similar to Gunnar Heinsohn's revision of 1st millennium history based on stratigraphy – no layers for a historical period of civilization, then that history is false or fake. 700 phantom years are missing and the collapse of the Roman period seems to thus have occurred circa 930 AD, and not 700 years before.

Given the sensitivity of the topic in this article, I limit comment to the idea that proscriptive dogma is invariably used to bury facts and to keep them buried. Whether proscriptive dogma is used in ignorance based on false beliefs, or is official policy remains moot. But propaganda 101 is to always accuse your opponents of your own crimes.

Without excavation we will indeed never know.

utu , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:41 am GMT
How many ethnic Poles died?

This Google translate from

"Juedische Allgemeine": the destruction of Poles as a nation was never planned
https://www.dw.com/pl/juedische-allgemeine-zagłada-polaków-jako-narodu-nigdy-nie-była-planowana/a-50041291
Lesser cites numbers given by historians Feliks Tych and Mateusz Gniazdowski, according to which in the occupied territories Germans murdered over 90 percent of Polish Jews and from five to seven percent of ethnic Poles. "In absolute numbers, they were three million Jews and about 1.4 million ethnic Poles," he writes. In 1947, at the behest of Jakub Berman, a member of the PZPR Central Committee Political Bureau, the number of victims "was arbitrarily rounded to 6 million or 22 percent of the pre-war population. The idea was that Polish Christians would not feel discriminated against as victims of Polish Jews. Berman also hoped that this operation would stop the venomous anti-Semitism in the country, "writes the author.

marylinm , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:17 am GMT
Got that, you killed nobody. You only brought democracy to every nation you invaded. But you killed my father, you bastards. F U, sickos.
Reger , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:29 am GMT
There are many geographical inaccuracies in this article – eg the author thinks that Bruenn is near Aussig. They seem to have a very sketchy understanding of the ethnic fabric of Eastern Europe both before and after WWII and I would therefore caution anyone to accept their findings or conclusions.
Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:08 am GMT
"When it comes to Jews, we have only the word of Jewish delegations that thousands of Jews are buried in mass graves that they refuse to excavate."

Well, story telling and theatrical exaggeration seems to be in their blood, especially the latter.

It's even commemorated in a song about their most important empire, Hollywood:

"Hooray for Hollywood! Where you're 'terrific' if you're even good . "

Take the exaggerations with a grain (or truckload) of salt, and let's all just pray the horrors visited upon the hapless Europeans (and everyone else) during WW2 are never repeated

GMC , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:42 am GMT
The War on Knowledge , Truth and Common Sense will go on until the honest researchers get finished with their work. But the Enemies, that wish No sharing of knowledge, truth etc. are many and work very hard at spreading the lies and cover-ups. If the bullets found in these trenches are known to be German made ,plus the date of origin, then maybe we could be told what Pharma company supplied the gaz for all the other proclaimed deaths – the dates and where the chemicals were produced , would be appreciated – also. I thought it was a very good article.
another anon , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:03 am GMT
This is the ultimate black pill

New piece! RT, follow and subscribe to my telegram! pic.twitter.com/ZvaKphmQhN

-- zillajinjer (@zillajinjer) June 11, 2020

Włodzimierz , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:05 am GMT
If it were correct that 3 million Polish Catholics were murdered, as the Catalyst journal states, one must have found in Poland about 750 mass gravesites of the same size during the past 65 years (3,000,000 divided by 4000=750), each with circa 4000 dead. Or 1500 mass gravesites, each with 2000 corpses.

It is not known if even one of those mass gravesites has been found

Really?

I have found one
http://lasszpegawski.pl/in-english/

At the end of 1944, the Germans, obliterating the crime, burned most of the corpses . In the Szpęgawski Forest, as many as 7,000 people could have died, approximately 2400 names were established. In the cemetery there are 32 mass graves in one complex and 7 graves 500-1000 m away.

White Monkey , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:06 am GMT
Slightly off topic,but also interesting:After the war,13.3 million Germans were deported from Poland,Chekoslovakia and Hungary,but only 7.3 million actually arrived in Germany,mostly women,children and old people.6 million Germans had disappeared.Many of those were sent to Russia for forced labour.
-first post-war German chancellor Konrad Adenauer in a speech in Bern,Switzerland,March 23,1949.
Phil the Fluter , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:12 am GMT
A very informative article. It increasingly looks as though a holocaust was perpetrated against the Germans and not the Jews.
Grahamsno(G64) , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:01 am GMT
This has to be one of the most risible, amateurish rubbish masquerading as Holocaust revisionism.

The title says -Some Answers to the Mystery of the "Missing Jews" – and whoa 3/4″s of the article is about post WW2 Communist atrocities, did you think that the Stalin & Beria combine would spare anybody associated with the Nazis when they swept East Europe? And the most Hilarious bit is that this dogs puke of an article completely ignores the AR camps, how can you give answers about the missing Jews while ignoring the AR camps.

Listen if you can't answer about what happened to those 'Missing Jews' of the AR camps kindly shut up.

Shame on you Ron for publishing such amateur Rubbish here, if you want to go full Revisionist publish Carlo Mattogno or Rudolf or some professional.

Anonymous [661] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:03 am GMT
"Jewish groups have undertaken to discover their own mass graves in the Ukraine and Russia, which they claim to be the "killing fields" of World War II."

What they're digging up is probably the remains of the millions of Ukrainians the Bolshevik Jews murdered through forced famine in 1932 and the millions of Russian Christians they slaughtered starting in 1917. Historical irony indeed.

There is no definitive history. More will come to light as research continues, or should I say as long as it is allowed to continue?

Truth3 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:09 am GMT
Jewish lies number in the trillions.

Jewish fraud is centered on six million.

padre , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:17 am GMT
In other words, Nazis were actually a good guys, while Soviet, Yugoslav communists were the villains?You are counting Poles, Jews and Checks, while forgetting to count all the others, like Gypsies, Russians, Serbs and other Slavs?
GeeBee , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:28 am GMT
What an extraordinary article. Why are these facts not generally known? Yes, I am joking. History is of course always written by the victors. And the Jews always seem to win
Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:56 am GMT
I don't understand why Jewish groups and their rabbis were given control of two mass grave sites. Did the civil authorities conspire with the Jews to pretend the bodies were of Jews?

Or did the civil authorities know that if bodies were found when laying a pipeline that they were certainly Jewish bodies?

Although mass graves of non-Jews were known to have been in those regions?

If skeletons are found I guess it's hard by examining them to know they were Jews. But why was it assumed that they were?

And when the Jews wanted the pipeline work stopped, I suppose it would have stopped simply because there were bodies there, whether Jewish or not.

I may have failed to understand the article. Or perhaps it omits relevant information.

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:14 am GMT
@Wally Was it known that the bodies were of people who died during the war? That the skeletons were not centuries old?
HammerJack , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:15 am GMT
@utu

Furthermore, can you imagine the absurdity of cremations?

Indeed, you had better struggle mightily, because in the year 2020 we have learned that all of the crematories in Italy combined were unable to dispose of more than a few hundred bodies per week. Struggle!

Reger , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:16 am GMT
@Wally Here's a suggestion; if you like poetry and read German, try Gertrud Kolmar. If you like opera. read about Ottilie Metzger-Lattermann (one of the Kaiser's favorite singers). If you like classical music, follow the career of Viktor Ullmann. Just these three for a start so you can find out how peacefully they died. However, I have a strong feeling you would prefer to deal in millions (or the lack of) instead of individual fates.
Gordo , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:18 am GMT
It's now possible to determine quite closely ethnicity from a skeleton.

Possibly even use that to identify living relatives.

So many mysteries will yield to science over the next few years.

Dumbo , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:23 am GMT
But let's see, how many Germans died at the Dresden bombings? None, because we can't find their graves to count? The first victim of war is truth, numbers are almost always wrong or difficult to estimate. Propaganda from one side is no different than propaganda for the other side.
gfhändel , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:42 am GMT
Brno is on the opposite (southwestern) side of Czechia from Ústí nad Labem, in Moravia.
Hegar , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:47 am GMT
Thank you for this information. It is astonishing how much people aren't allowed to know. Mass graves of Germans murdered by the communists, and many tens of thousands of Slovenians, Croats and others who fought the communists. But socialist school teachers in Europe harp endlessly about "gassed Jews".

Jews get control of found graves and immediately erect fences and memorials, without excavation, declaring them Jews. "Proof that Jews were killed!" No mass graves of Jews ever found at any of the concentration camps. The "einsatzgruppen" have been blamed for killing Jews – of course the Jews hated them, as they were the ones tasked with beating down communist attacks on German forces behind the front army.

Unz Review should concentrate on these factual stories, rather than Marxist fantasies by people like "Eric Striker," who claims that "the Soviet Union would have worked if it had been Germans instead of Slavs," and constantly makes excuses for socialists while making sure you concentrate your anger about Black riots on conservatives. Unz Review should clean the ranks.

JohnPlywood , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:55 am GMT
@Reger This article (like the comment section) is full of retarded trash. The Holocaust happened, and the number of brutally murdered people has likely been officially under estimated, and the only people denying the Holocaust are those with a serious learning disability and poor attention span. I also suspect many of the people in the comment section (such as GeeBee) are coping Jewish individuals.
Emily , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 12:10 pm GMT
Not just the missing jewish remains – misleading and skewing.
There is another nasty double standard re the victims of the well known German and other nazi aligned Labour (concentration) camps.
How many on here have heard of Jasenovac?
It was a death camp – a real death camp.
So vile even the gestapo were sickened.
It was a Nazi Croatian mass murder camp where hundreds of thousands of allied Serbs, gypsies and others died, suffering appalling torture and murder.
The Serbs – who NATO/US/UK mass murdered and bombed back to the stonage some 25 years ago – died valiantly and like flies – tying up whole divisions of the Germans.
In gratitude and on behalf of the islamic fundamentalist Saudi leaning KLA we repaid this debt illegally attacked the Serbs – the only ethnic cleansing being some 700,000 Serb refugees driven from their ancestral homes in the Krajina (20,000 more murdered because they couldn't leave fast enough), over a quarter of a million of them out of their ancestral homeland of Kosovo and many from Bosnia and other parts.
700,000 who lost it all.
Reparations due I think.
All illegal and to give radical islam a base in Southern Europe and build a massive USA base – Camp Bondsteel.
Back to Jasenovac .
This was the most deadly and brutal camp of all.
Heard of it.
NO.
Few Jrewish victims so written out of history.
Just as have been the millions of non jews killed in the other camps.
The disabled etc – many catholics.
All written out as only Jews can be the victims.
Here are just a few of the links to Jasenovac.
And ask yourself why the silence on the suffering of the Serbians – huge numbers dying fighting for we the allies – not as some groups, not fighting at all but profiteering.
https://jasenovac.org/what-was-jasenovac/
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/jasenovac-the-forgotten-extermination-camp-of-the-balkans/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252563/
So why the silence – only one holocaust allowed?.
And Serbs are not members of that club.
And how many know that the Serbs have been completely vindicated and Milosevic declared an innocent man of war crimes .
Murdered non the less in his prison
http://johnpilger.com/articles/provoking-nuclear-war-by-media
Commentator Mike , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 12:28 pm GMT
@HammerJack Italians must be incompetent. India cremates over six million each year.
Biff , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 12:37 pm GMT
@Dumbo

But let's see, how many Germans died at the Dresden bombings?

Funny you should ask. Encyclopedia Britannica says 135,000
https://www.britannica.com/event/bombing-of-Dresden

Wikipropaganda says 25,000 tops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

My guess is all that got killed died.

maz10 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 12:40 pm GMT
Let me start with this:

One is the last communist head of state for Poland from 1985-90, Wojciech Jaruzelski. Speaking to a journalist of Izvestia (Russian daily newspaper), he said, rather tongue-in-cheek, that he cannot understand how the Polish population exploded between 1946 and 1970, and then leveled off to become stagnant from 1990 till today. He humorously remarked that there had to have been "a strong aphrodisiac" to lead to the birth of millions of new Poles because "in the grocery stores there had been only vinegar and millions had died even after the war."

What the late General is referring to is the common trope that during communism (actually socialism but I will leave that for another time) there was only 'musztarda i ocet' that is mustard and vinegar on store shelves. It was a common accusation against the system as a whole and Jaruzelski personally since he was an important part of the said system. On more than one occasion he defended himself and his times by pointing out – sometimes in a tongue-in -cheek fashion as in the quoted citation – that it could have not been so bad if Poland's population growth is anything to go by (he sometimes pointed out other advances but again I do not want to side-track here) as Poland indeed experienced a demographic explosion. Of course this resulted in many problems, for example despite a program of massive apartment block building – in virtually every Polish city and town you will see rows and rows of such apartment blocks standing – there was a chronic housing shortage.

Thus with citing Gen. Jaruzelski's remarks in the context of Polish and Jewish victims of German atrocities Ms. Yeager and her sidekick managed to make it to the very top of Unz review's comic relief category. My sincere congratulations.

That was the funny part and here comes the more serious one.

Namely Ms. Yeager and her sidekick were kind enough to write: 'The only known mass grave of Poles was the work of the Soviet Red Army, led by the NKVD, in the Katyn Forest in Soviet Russia.'

Let me just point out, that mass graves with Polish victims of German mass executions were located among other places at:

Palimiry, Las Sękocinski, Las kabacki, Laski and many, many others locations such as for example Ponary (outside of Poland's post WW II borders in present-day Lithuania).

I do not know if Ms. Yeager and her sidekick are that ignorant in regard to the topic they write about or if they deliberately lie, or alternatively there is some other explanation – that however is of secondary importance. What is of primary importance is that what they wrote is not factually correct.

One could go on dissecting Ms. Yeager's and her sidekick's writings however I have better things to do on Sunday. Yet the above should suffice to put parts of their 'work' into the category of comedies while others into that of falsities* – that in turn weighs heavily on what to make of the rest.

*With one caveat though: hundreds of years of Drang nach Osten were indeed reversed in a very short time at the end of WW II, sometimes in a brutal way. Thus there IS some truth in what Ms. Yeager and her sidekick produced, this being in the category of an exception which confirms the rule in regard to the rest.

GeeBee , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:00 pm GMT
@JohnPlywood What is a 'coping Jewish individual' exactly? You are of course at liberty to suspect me of being anything you like. But none of your suspecting will ever change me from being anything other than a proud, thoroughbred Yorkshire Anglo-Saxon, who can trace both parents' lines back for centuries with no trace of anything outside of our own fine, yeoman, Anglo-Saxon bloodline.

My admittedly unusual 'take' on twentieth-century history arose from making a closer study of it than I had hitherto stirred myself so to do, in the wake of having been obliged to take early retirement at a convenient moment, in that it coincided with the appearance of much hitherto unavailable information thanks to the burgeoning internet era. My prior studies had by no means been trivial: I had taken modules in both War Studies and International Affairs to degree standard while at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

At all events, I believe my current position to reflect a good deal more of the truth than is contained in the 'official' history, and I can assure you that my epiphany in this regard occasioned me the very keenest mental anguish at first. Not to put too fine a point on it, I found my life-long beliefs turned upside down. Not at all a welcome development, but one that intellectual honesty compelled me to accept.

Anonymous [506] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:06 pm GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse Don't be so cynical. Because the Jews acting collectively have never and can never do anything wrong, it follows that any criticism of their collective behavior anywhere and at any time, whether today or throughout history, is hate speech.

We also know from Freudian science that it arises from envy and that paranoid guilt-projection plays no part in their condemnation of the Other. Laws to that effect throughout Europe also provide scientific evidence that Jews never lie and, therefore, their narratives of events taking place outside the laws of nature and not subject to rules of logic or scientific method must be true.

So, Mr. Holocaust doubter, just maybe the rabbis, reaching into the pits, have discovered miraculously intact passports, photos, and birth certificates as before, using the forensic skills their agents displayed in the ashes of the Trade Center and Pentagon to locate paper miraculously immune from fire, water, and the forces of explosion sufficient to render concrete into dust.

Robjil , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:12 pm GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse

And when the Jews wanted the pipeline work stopped, I suppose it would have stopped simply because there were bodies there, whether Jewish or not.

I may have failed to understand the article. Or perhaps it omits relevant information.

The omitted info is the following:

Ukraine is a US/Israel controlled nation since 2014.

Nuland's, a Jewish Zionist, world famous battle cry begin the Zionist coup and Zio rule of Ukraine with these infamous words "F–k the EU."Poroshenko the first president of this Zion colony was half Jewish.The second president Zelensky is Jewish.The Zionists in control of this US/Israel colony are even afraid Shabbos Goy to take the presidency of their new colony.

trickster , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:40 pm GMT
@HammerJack It is true that India cremates millions per year, that is their tradition. However to attend a Hindu cremation and to observe, really observe the logistics required to burn ONE body is to realize the impossibility of German logistics to effectively do away with 6 million in addition to fighting a war against multiple opponents.

One need not have a Doctorate in Maths. Just pick a modern City with 3 million inhabitants, visit it and drive around it extensively and now imagine you will completely decimate TWO (2) cities like it by killing and burning every single human being in them. The infrastructure, transportation, human resources and material logistics required for such a task are horrendous. At the same time you are fighting a major war against several nations, 2 with with almost unlimited manpower and industrial capacity. Toward the end of the war Germany was fighting on 3 fronts, being bombed to smithereens and also battling partisans in several countries AND also running their extermination program ??

It is one thing for 6 million families in India to cremate 6 million relatives. I find it hard to believe that the staff in all the concentration camps would be up to this numerical task AND make the bones and ashes of 6 million disappear completely.

I love a good ghost story but my powers of belief have their limit.

Saggy , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:42 pm GMT
@Grahamsno(G64)

Listen if you can't answer about what happened to those 'Missing Jews' of the AR camps kindly shut up.

We know what happened to the Jews in the AR camps, they were burned. And we have proof Action 1005 was led by Paul Blobel who confessed.

We even know how he did it from his confession https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/obliterating-the-traces-of-bodies-of-jews-killed-by-the-einsatzgruppen-june-1947

During my visit in August I myself observed the burning of bodies in a mass grave near Kiev. This grave was about 55 m. long, 3 m. wide and 2½ m. deep. After the top had been removed the bodies were covered with inflammable material and ignited. It took about two days until the grave burned down to the bottom. I myself observed that the fire had glowed down to the bottom. After that the grave was filled in and the traces were now practically obliterated.

The holohoax is a collection of preposterous lies see ..
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Ul72dV4SbAoh/

trickster , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:44 pm GMT
@marylinm It is dangerous to not take your meds ! Sounds like you might need to increase the doseage. Please see your Doctor immediately.
peacewalker , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 1:51 pm GMT
I just don't know where to start. Whole "article" is such a BS. OK, let's start from beginning then:

Two responsible figures have recently and publicly added their voices to the question of six million Poles murdered (ostensibly by Nazis) between 1939 and 1945.

"One is the last communist head of state for Poland from 1985-90, Wojciech Jaruzelski ( )"

LOL.

General Wojciech Jaruzelski. Head of military junta that took over power from Party in 1982, responsible for murdering dozens of people. Cold blood mass murderer, aparatchik, liar and Soviet hardliner. Such a perfect "responsible figure"! And delicious cherry on top – he most likely was "wtornik" too (it's margin note, I can explain meaning of this term and whole story but only if somebody will be genuinly interested). During inteview with Soviet, communist, cenzored newspaper. Said something. Wow! Groundbreaking news. Let's rewrite all history books.

The other is Dr. Otwald Mueller, a well-known German researcher.

Right

Let's check this "researcher".

"Die Welt (German newspaper "The World"), September 2, 2009: "beginning of WW II, 6 million victims in Poland, half of them Jews ."

2) Daily Gazette (Schenectady, N.Y.), September 2, 2009: " .Poland alone lost 6 million citizens, half of them Jews" ( )

An important chart

There exists an important Polish population chart. It marks a pre-war Polish population of 29.89 million people, and for the year 1946 a population of 23.6 million."

SO HE IS WELL-KNOWN GERMAN RESERCHER?

And his scientic research regarding even basic facts are based on bloody TABLOIDS? GERMAN TABLOIDS? And he can not even "research" population chart for Poland?

ROTFL is not enough.

Are you mocking and insulting all Poles and Polish citizens who died during WWII? Or perhaps all world's scientists and reserchers including half-baked and fully stoned first year history course students? Do you think all your readers are complete idiots?

Facts: Republic of Poland population in 1938: Roughly 35 millions. NOT 29.89 millions. 35 MILLIONS.

Here any kind of discussion ends. I kindly ask all readers to check that one fact yourself. Find Poland population before WWII. Got it? Now ask yourself: do you like to be fooled like that? This "well-known German reasercher" (and Carolyn Yeager and Wilhelm Kriessmann who published such a BS) lied to you about most basic fact. Cause they think that you are absolute idiots. Are you?

Anyway. Just for fun let's verify very next "fact":

"There exists an important Polish population chart. It marks a pre-war Polish population of 29.89 million people, and for the year 1946 a population of 23.6 million. The difference is of approximately 6 million, or 21% of the total population. The chart seems to prove the statement of "6 million" but, on the contrary, it contradicts it."

"and for the year 1946 a population of 23.6 million".

True.

"The difference is of approximately 6 million, or 21% of the total population."

The difference is approx. 11 MILLIONS, or 33% of the total population.

And yes. It was that bad. One third of total population lost (notice: LOST! Not all died. Some publications did indicate that 6 millions died, it could be one of the reasons for possible confusion regarding subject, among others)

Source: As for official count and confirmation of data I recommend Nuremberg Trials protocols and final statements. It's all there. Again – if you are interested find exact relevant data yourself, source provided.

"That shows in a significant way how Polish history – better Polish fairy tales – works."

Yes. I do understand Otwald Mueller is absolutely hideous, abhorrent and disgusting person.
Not only liar, not only completely fake "researcher" and real Nazi comforter and backer but absolutely disgusting character too. No doubt about it. Still it's always good to know the true, whatever it is.

Let's "reserch" just next fact. That will be simply very next sentence.

"We must keep in mind that 31% of Poland's population was of non-Polish origin one million were German, as you can see from names of cities like Stettin, Gruenberg and Breslau."

We have to, we really have to keep in mind Otwald Muller is not only hideous person, liar and fake researcher but also complete idiot. We are talking absolute moron who is willing to lie about most basic facts, even when simpliest fact checking will expose him as a complete fraud.

Now, I do not know exact ethnic population of Poland in given time. I can easily check it but there is no point. Let's assume it was 31% of non-Polish, just for the sake of argument. And let's assume 1 million were Germans.

"as you can see from names of cities like Stettin, Gruenberg and Breslau"

German science at it finest.

1. STETTIN is GERMANIZED name for Polish name SZCZECIN, not the other way around.
2. Same story with Wroclaw (for short period of time known as Breslau).

Exposing this german moron (and those behind him) is like kicking a puppy. I am sure he is true vile character, he has very worst intentions for real victims of WWII and he is doing his best to cover German crimes of WWII.

Still exposing him does fell like kicking a puppy.

And I am not going to waste more time exposing more of this BS "letter" and BS "article anyway. Not unless somebody will be genuinly interested.

So one final note regarding lol very german cities of Stettin and Breslau:

My English isn't fluent so I explain it in simplest way I can. Szczecin is a name for settlement built/established by Slavs (Wkrzanie) in VII century. It is old city and old name. Yes, most of city dwellers were Germans from like XVI century to 1945. No it's not because this city was build by Germans. It was taken by Germans (not Germany, it was Hanza, lol, it's a long story, to cut it short – let's say Germans) centuries after it rose and they changed name only a bit, to make it easier to pronounce. Germans don't do SZ and CZ diphthtongs hence Stettin. It is as easy and simple.
BTW there is so much more to the story of Szczecin. Like city coat of arms ("Gryf" or "Gryfin", eng. Griffin) and the fact even when citizens were mostly Germans, for 500 years rulers where "Gryfici" native Poles of House of Griffin. Very old and noble family. House of Griffin ended in XVII century, natural causes.

Breslau. It's even funnier. Again. Breslau is germanized name for Polish city.

And again. Fascinating story but let's keep it short. First settlement then town, then city. Slavs, Poles, Poles. One of most important Polish cities. First name recorded?

Vuartizlau. 1133. In Thietmar's Chronicle.

Now if you are not familiar with Thietmar then just a brief: Thietmar of Merseburg, German, bishop, historician. Kudos to him for good effort in writing down city name as similar to way it was spoken as posssible. Vuartizlau gives a lot of hints regarding, well, many things.

Bardon Kaldian , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:01 pm GMT
@Emily Bullshit.

Serbian ideology is chock full of lies. For instance, lunatic Serbian ideologues (Milojević, Lukin Lazić, Pjanić Luković, Deretić), from the 1870s to the 2010s, have claimed that:

* Mesopotamians are actually Serbs
* Siberia got the name from Serbs (S-b-r..well, it's like S-r-b)
* half (at least) of Egyptian pharaohs & Roman emperors were Serbs
* Jesus was a Serb
* Homer, Aristotle etc. wrote in Serbian
* all Slavs are actually Serbs, as well Germans etc.
* all ancient civilizations, except yellow races (Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Rome, Greece,..) were Serbian
* etc. etc.

As far as WW II is considered, official censuses from 1931. (the last census in Royalist Yugoslavia) and from 1948. (the first in Communist Yugoslavia) show that there are c. 700,000 more Serbs in all of Yugoslavia- and 3,500-14,000 less Croats, despite annexation of Croatian areas formerly held by Fascist Italy (Istria, Rijeka, 5 islands with exclusively Croatian population).

So, Serbs who are supposedly the greatest victims in ex-Yu WW II show a growth in absolute numbers by 700,000 & Croats who are supposedly perpetrators, or lesser victims- are diminished in absolute numbers by 14,000 (despite adding a significant Croatian-only territory)?

The whole Yugoslav & Serbian narrative about WW II is one big, fat lie.

Genrick Yagoda , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:09 pm GMT
@Włodzimierz

the Germans, obliterating the crime, burned most of the corpses.

There is the convergence of evidence again!

Jews (and Catholics) are inflammable!

It's shocking to me that we don't have hundreds of thousands of people bursting into flames on a daily basis.

Alfred , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:21 pm GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse I don't understand why Jewish groups and their rabbis were given control of two mass grave sites. Did the civil authorities conspire with the Jews to pretend the bodies were of Jews?

Ukraine has a Jewish president and a Jewish prime minister. The current regime was installed following a coup organised by their Jewish cousins in the USA. Fewer than 1% of the population is Jewish – but this is a democratic government after all.

Politicians and journalists who don't toe the line are shot. The victims never seem to be Jewish. Here is the latest one only a few weeks ago – May 22. I doubt if it made the MSM anywhere.

Ukrainian lawmaker found dead in central Kyiv (Jewspeak)

He was not "found dead". He was executed with a bullet to the head.

It did not happen in "central Kyiv". It took place in his parliamentary office.

trickster , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:22 pm GMT
@padre Anyone who ever fought in a war will tell you there are no good guys, no side is right while the other is wrong. All war is atrocity on both sides sometimes deliberate sometimes just sheer revenge. To experience the reality of a battlefield, before, during and after is to try to survive under the most terrible conditions physically and emotionally intact.

As I tell any young man who would lend me an ear. There is no glory and honour in war. These are words the politicians use to provoke youth to wash their dirty laundry while they chill in nice comfortable and safe homes licking up the finest wines and foods. The youth get to eat any cheap shit they feed you, in a hole, with assorted vermin, without a bath or change of clothes for at times several days, most times defecating and peeing in your pants from necessity or sheer terror. Why nourish and nurture a man who may have a life expectancy of a few hours ?

I dont look at war movies. They are all bullshit. I passed the TV once when my son was looking at one such movie. The actors all look so clean and well groomed. An artillery shell landed and some of them somersaulted as if they had bounced on a trampoline and then landed all intact. That is Hollywood! The reality ? When a heavy shell lands among men they disappear. You might find a leg with the boot still attached. A discerning person may say "Yeah, that is Billy's leg. I remember because the boot had such and such a mark carved on it". But the rest of Billy is nowhere to be found. Its called "Missing in Action"

During and after a war, civilians may wax about humanity, peace and love and goodwill to all men, who was good and who were the criminal types but those classifications do not exist on a battlefield or in a war. Even God is nowhere in sight, what would he be doing there anyway ?

And if God has made himself scarce who or what is good and who and what is bad ?

Genrick Yagoda , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:24 pm GMT
@Saggy Once again, proof that Jews are inflammable!

If only we could find a way to burn dead Jews next to a flywheel, our energy problems would be solved.

Adam Smith , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:30 pm GMT
@utu

Normal people will agree that the official number of 6,000,000 is too high

Agree!

Anon [240] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:48 pm GMT
@utu

Lack of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

Jews are missing only in the Holocaust deniers' minds.

Were there ever two better lines written to illustrate the hate that Jews have for non-Jews and the disrespect that Jews have for the minds of non-Jews?

"Keep searching goy, lack of evidence that you are a murderer does not mean that you are not"

"Lack of hard evidence of your crimes and our victimhood is only lack of evidence in your mind".

What a lunatic.

Completely representative of your people.

Wonder no longer why you people draw so much animosity.

Normal people will agree that the official number of 6,000,000 is might be too high and that rather three to four million Jews died during WWII and they are not missing because they are dead.

"Normal people will agree"

Who is this, a member of the special needs Hasbara team? Using condescending rhetoric that is so rudimentary and ineffective that it is given to the short bus participants to make noise? Is today also the field trip to the yeshiva, where you will read from the torah like a real Jewish boy?

No one "normal" would agree with your any of your self-interested logic after reading the lines that I prior highlighted. In fact, "normal people" would reflexively investigate the opposite position.

In fact, "normal" people would and do discount the entire story after it came out, as admitted by Jews themselves, that Simon Wiesenthal invented the additional 5 million non-Jewish dead for sympathy. And that lie was put forward as true for decades.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/remember-the-11-million-why-an-inflated-victims-tally-irks-holocaust-historians/

You people don't lose "part credit" or "part credibility" for that lie. You lose it all. And that's before we get to the rest of the proof against Holocaust logic.

You are inveterate liars, mass murderers, willing oppressors, and thieves.

Trinity , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:53 pm GMT
Even when Jews LIE it is only to bring joy into the world. Take one Herman Rosenblat who wrote, "Angel At The Fence," describing his time in a concentration camp during WWII. Good ole Herman was making the talk show circuit with his book and there were plans for a movie, UNTIL, it was found out that good ole Herman Rosenblat had made the whole story up, it was a LIE. The nice Jewish boy, Herman, had Doprah Pigfrey calling his book the greatest love story of all time. teehee. When caught in a LIE, Herman said he was only guilty of trying to bring joy into the world.

Jews are such a caring people. Jews are champions of human rights for everyone and they always seem to take joy in their role as their brother's keeper. Here was a Jewish man who did not seek fame nor money, no sir, his concern was bringing joy into the world through a book. Jews can teach humanity so much. Jews have suffered so much. And don't let Jewish power, money, and influence fool you, or their role in the pornography business or other seedy occupations, Jews are people of the Book, and the pillars of the community. Jews have championed the fight against White racism and civil rights for Blacks, they are tireless workers for truth, justice and the American Way just like Superman. Go Jews.

skrik , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT
@maz10

exception which confirms the rule

Fallacious. Taurus excretus cerebus perplexus – and we all know which party throws most of the BS in the perverse hope of obfuscation – they just can't help themselves. Then see 33.Anonymous[506]. rgds

Bookish1 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT
Keep in mind how many tons is 1,00,000 people. If the average weight of 1,000,000 people was 135 pounds then the total weight of that 1 million is 135,000,000 lbs. Divide that by the number of pounds in 1 ton which is 2,000lbs and you get 67,500 tons of human remains. Now how the hell do you hide that much human remains of one million people much less 6 million.
Anon [317] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:05 pm GMT
@utu Always remember that the other pertinent truth is that the Jews were guilty of everything that the Germans accused them of.

As is well-evidenced by what Jews support, control, and how they otherwise act as a political group today.

The Jews are no different than Al Qaeda. They merely work to hurt outsiders with lies about their identities and motivations, their control of the press, their influence on the culture, and their perfidious political actions once embedded in governments. Instead of with literal IEDs.

Jewish goals are parallel to the goals of Al Qaeda, with much better results.

That the Jewish and Islamic religions share virtually all of their theological DNA is not a coincidence.

Bookish1 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:08 pm GMT
@GeeBee True that jews always seem to win but the fact is they cant lose one major war or they are done forever. Israel cant lose one war or she is done. Arabs can lose 10 wars and the come back for another one someday. If Hitler would have won jews would have been done.
GMC , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:11 pm GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse I know the place they are discussing and you have to remember Odecca has always been a heavy Jewish city. But only when it suits their best interests. In this case – getting more free land and calling out the Orthodox folks . Even goes back to the Khazarian/ Pecheneg times, when they chose to be Jews because the Ottomans in the south and the Rooskies in the north were pressing them to be either Islamic or Orthodox. Of course they chose the " chosen ones religion" for their slave trade and usury / theft trade. The normal Russians/Crimeans that I know that are jews are way cool folks – they even have family is Israel but no big ego. Just normal Russians.
Da's Reich , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 3:23 pm GMT
@Włodzimierz I read the link you provided,

Thats it? seriously?

Wally , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:01 pm GMT
@Ann Nonny Mouse said:
"Was it known that the bodies were of people who died during the war? That the skeletons were not centuries old?"

No.

That's what I meant when I said:

"Of these there is no proof of even the age of the skeletons, whether they were even Jews, whether they were even murdered. "

Best.

RT , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:25 pm GMT
@utu In justice, absence of evidence is absence of evidence and has been for thosand of years everywhere, except for ancient Egypt . If you cannot provide evidence, the accused is innocent. This is called presumption of innocence.
the shadow , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:27 pm GMT
@utu

Lack of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

Very good thinking that adds up to nothing more than:

The original statement is that "absence of proof is not proof of absence," which simply means that a lack of proof for something doesn't, in and of itself, prove that the thing is false. But lack of evidence for something is most definitely evidence that the thing in question may be false, especially when there should be evidence for that thing.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=absence+of+evidence+is+not+proof&form=WNSGPH&qs=AS&cvid=8456f19bbf1f4cbc86d8334b0836c137&pq=absence+of+evidence&cc=US&setlang=en-US&PC=LCTS&nclid=1FD86AA1E9C61CF1E0ED02564AB0D376&ts=1592150685972&wsso=Moderate

But beyond the silly proof you offer that the absence of evidence is proof of presence, the answer to your question about how one would prove that those whose ashes disappeared had really died is easily answered by death certificates, cremation records, and evidence of funerals or memorial services that were held, and announcement about the death of the deceased.

But even your notion that the ashes of the holocaust victims would have been as scattered as would be the case of cremated remains scattered throughout the United Statges by relatives is absurd with rerspect to holocaust victims who were all allegedly killed in very confined geographic spaces and whose ashes the Germans certainly did not bother to scatter throughout Europe to hide them as your example of relatives scattering the ashes of relatives throughout the country would have them do.

That you would even provide this example to substantiate the holocauset reveals the absurdity of your claiming it happened as claimed. Had it happened on the scale claimed, there would be massive evidence of it just as the examples provided in the article about the mass graves of real victims that have been found.

Indeed, given the millions killed in the fighting on the Eastern Front there should be endless examples of mass graves first of the millions of Russians killed during the German advance the Germans almost certainly buried in mass graves as the Russians did likewise of the Germans killed during the Russian advance.

So where is the evidence?

An easy place to look as Babi Yar where 30,000 Jews were reportedly murdered in a very specific site. Why has no one looked to prove it with the evidence of the bodies?

Wally , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:32 pm GMT
@utu – You really should know what you're talking about before you speak.
Remember, it is your "Holocaust Industry" which claims that such immense human grave sites exist in known locations, not Revisionsts.

– Revisionists are just the messengers, the absurd impossibility of the laughable 'holocaust' storyline is the message.

– The millions of other deaths you cite are not based upon the ridiculous "holocaust" claims of enormous numbers of people dying in highly centralized locations in which, again, the locations are supposedly known.

– As for military deaths, I remind that that there are cemeteries all over Europe.

There have been many, many attempts to find the alleged huge mass graves in which many millions have been supposedly dumped. Those attempts failed miserably, as I demonstrated about Sobibor in the first comment in this thread.

Here's another of the many examples examples I can cite.
!! Excavation Result: No Human Remains of alleged 34,000 Jews as claimed at Babi Yar !! In fact, no remains period. : https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11314
more examples here:
https://www.unz.com/?s=haimi&Action=Search&ptype=all&commentsearch=only&commenter=Wally
and:
https://www.unz.com/?s=sturdy-colls&Action=Search&ptype=all&commentsearch=only&commenter=Wally

– Of course, utu, you have been challenged at this site for proof of the scientifically impossible 'gas chambers' that you believe in.:
https://www.unz.com/?s=utu&Action=Search&ptype=all&commentsearch=only&commenter=Wally

Carolyn Yeager , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:39 pm GMT
@Reger You say "many geographical inaccuracies in this article" and you cite one. Indeed, the one you cite is an error – Bruenn/Brno is not in the "same area of Northwestern Bohemia" as is Aussig/Usti nad Labem. Brno is in the south.

I will correct this on my website, so thank you for bringing it to my attention. But it is certainly not weighty enough to undermine the rest of the article, which is based on newspaper accounts from the time. Since that time, no new diggings of any consequence have been undertaken. The will to do so, by those in authority, is not there.

Dumbo , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 4:46 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian Croat Ustaša killed thousand of Serbs, it's well documented, do you deny that?

This is supposedly from a Gestapo report, if true it's quite damning, it's not a source that would want to incriminate their own allies:

Increased activity of the bands [of rebels] is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustaše units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustaše committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand

(I have no dog in this fight, but have more sympathy for Serbs than for Croats because of the way the have been treated by the U.S. Empire recently).

Pop Warner , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:09 pm GMT
@Grahamsno(G64) The AR camps and complete lack of forensic evidence at each of them is mentioned. I can see why the focus is on Auschwitz because if Jews brought more attention to Treblinka it would be obvious how fake the whole thing is.
Włodzimierz , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:10 pm GMT
@Genrick Yagoda Dear Genrick

Do you really think German occupants did burn their own fellow citizens on polish soil in 1939?

What is written is completely unhistorical and untrue statement that nobody can find any polish citizens mass graves in Poland.

Authors did not check basic data like number of polish citizens before the war – almost 35 millions. But we can read in the article

It marks a pre-war Polish population of 29.89 million people .

What is the purpose of such obvious mistake/falsification?

maz10 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:14 pm GMT
@skrik Dear Sir, it is inappropriate to quote oneself they say thus I will refer you back to my original comment which you were kind enough to comment yourself. Sufficient to say I pointed out that Ms. Yeager and her sidekick made fools out of themselves with their choice of Gen. Jaruzelski's quote and have a nonchalant attitude towards facts when it comes to mass graves of German atrocities victims.

In this context I can not help but also to point out that it is not the first time Ms. Yeager wrote nonsense and not the first time to I call her out on that either.

Thus if anyone here is a peddler of taurus excretum it is Ms. Yeager who has a proven track record of being one.

For this reason when she occasionally gets something right it is similar to a broken clock showing the right time every twelve hours.

Dumbo , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT
"Let the dead bury their dead". Instead of harping on such issues with a discussion that never ends and is rather pointless, Europeans would do better to focus on the future and reproduce more. Of course, "Holocaust denial" and similar speech criminalization laws would have to go too, it's time, soon there will be no survivors alive, and it will hopefully be forgotten like all wars. There's no need to keep talking about this things forever, let's forgive and forget, and think about the future. If Europe becomes majority African and Arab in the next 100 years, then what's the point of discussing what flavour of white killed which flavour of white? It won't matter anymore I mean non-whites are already toppling Churchill statues, and Churchill was until recently an "anti-fascist" and a hero of both leftists and neo-cons.
Carolyn Yeager , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:16 pm GMT
@Louis Hissink

But propaganda 101 is to always accuse your opponents of your own crimes.

Thanks. This is the truest thing that can be said and should always be kept uppermost in mind when studying history.

Evidence for this truism can be found in the book Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau 1939-1945. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0803299087?tag=duckduckgo-ffnt-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1
and also
https://carolynyeager.net/wehrmacht-war-crimes-bureau-1939-1945-part-10
and
https://carolynyeager.net/wehrmacht-war-crimes-bureau-1939-1945-part-11

evidence_a_must , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:19 pm GMT
@JohnPlywood

".. .the only people denying the Holocaust are those with a serious learning disability and poor attention span .. ."

and those poor, deluded people who prefer to have evidence , and not just Hollywood films created by people with an agenda to push and a story to sell!

Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:20 pm GMT
@Reger Individual fates?
Anything to do with the Hollow-co$t narrative is suspect. What kind of "death camps" have hospitals for internees? What kind of "death camps" have scrip for prisoners to spend at a canteen? What kind of "death camps" have orchestras and theaters for internees? Why would "death camps" record marriages and births? The Olympic size swimming pools and soccer fields for internees at "death camps" were there, obviously, as another form of mass murder by forcing the internees to swim until they drowned or run until they collapsed.
How about the individual fates of the women and children burned to death in the incendiary bombing of Hamburg and Dresden, or the deaths of 1600 civilians who drowned when the Ruhr Valley dams were bombed? More teenage girls named Anne died in one night of allied bombing than ever died in concentration camps.
To paraphrase David Irving, more people died in the back seat of Ted Kennedy's car than in homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. It is indeed, unfortunate that people died, but the Jewish "leadership" declared war on Germany in 1933. The deaths of the three people you named is on their hands for scheming against the legitimate government of Germany.
Włodzimierz , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:31 pm GMT
@Da's Reich Authors claimed they can not find any example of documented mass grave of polish citizens.

I don't think there is a big problem to find info about such topics if you need.

https://ipn.gov.pl/en/news/4230,The-world039s-largest-cemetery-of-the-clergy-Polish-clergy-in-KL-Dachau.html

You may visit Dachau and check on site.

Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:32 pm GMT
@Dumbo According to Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse 5, and Victor Gregg, POWs who helped with the "clean up", a whole lot more than what has been estimated.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/15/bombing-dresden-war-crime

Curious that the fanatical record keeping Nazis have no record of the amount of coke needed to burn the numbers of alleged victims cremated at concentration camps. Meanwhile, the Soviet archives released camp records are in line with the Red Cross estimates and Bletchley Park transcripts. Obviously, they are all lying and Yad Vesham is correct.

Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:38 pm GMT
@maz10

(actually socialism but I will leave that for another time)

You wouldn't know what socialism was if it bit you in the arse. Your local co-op is socialist.

utu , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 5:41 pm GMT
@RT Grow up. You are not in the court. You are not even in the court of public opinion. You are among the Holocaust denial retards. You are one of them actually.
maz10 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:01 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon I beg your pardon? There is a good chance I have more first-hand experience with socialism (as Realsozialismus) then you have experience with anything at all.
Bardon Kaldian , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:12 pm GMT
@Dumbo Just a c-p for clueless people.

* during 1918-1939 period, Yugoslavia was basically a softer version of Greater Serbia, with all nations-except Slovenes- oppressed. Close to 400 Croats & ca. 2000 Muslims had been killed by Serbian paramilitaries & government forces during "peaceful" period in the 1920s & 1930s. The turning point was assassination of Croatian leader Stjepan Radić, a sort of Croatian Gandhi, by a Serb nationalist in Yugoslav parliament in 1928. This convinced some Croats that any Yugoslavia was insufferable, and the most influential among them was future Poglavnik/"Leader" Ante Pavelić, who emigrated & founded a revolutionary terrorist organization ustaše (ca. 200-300 people).

* after the collapse of Yugoslavia in the April war 1941, situation in Croatia & Bosnia and Herzegovina was something like a vacuum. No Croatian politician wanted to become the head of state patronized by Nazi German authorities, but at the same time there was a sense of jubilation: Croats got independent (in theory) country, after decades of Serbian oppression. In this vacuum, Pavelić was installed by Hitler and Mussolini as a kind of puppet. In this country, ca. 50-60% were Croats & more than 30% were Serbs (the rest were Bosnian Muslims, considered to be Croats).

* Pavelić assumed power on April the 10th 1941. But even a week before that, Serb paramilitaries had started killing Croats & some 200-400 people were killed in the interregnum. After he had been installed, Pavelić actually dissolved parliament & established a dictatorship; Croatia was crippled & many vital areas, especially in Dalmatia, were given to Mussolini's Italy. Also, he introduced racial laws for Jews & started to persecute Serbs- both as a revenge for their participation in royalist Yugoslavia period terror & their atrocities during interregnum. In next few months perhaps 5-20,000 Serbs were killed by ustaše in various areas of NDH/Independent State of Croatia.

Basically, it was a terrorist regime & most Croats disapproved of it, but were expecting to get rid of ustaše in some future & retain statehood under democratic circumstances. So, Croats wanted a truly independent country.

* Serbs, being persecuted (along with Jews & Gypsies) rebelled on a massive scale in the last quarter of 1941 & many areas of NDH had become virtually defunct. This resulted in further Pavelić's dependence to Hitler. On the other hand, communist partisans, led by a Croat, Josip Broz Tito, after their defeat in Serbia fled with remnants of their army to the NDH territory. There, they found refuge among Serbs, while many of them defected to royalist Četniks led by Serbian colonel Mihailović. Četniks had killed, during 1941, ca. 12-15,000 Muslim & Croat civilians, mostly in the eastern Bosnia regions.

From 1941-1945 there was a civil war in all of Yugoslavia, with various factions fighting for different aims. In Croatia, more Croats had been coming to partisans, especially after 1943 (fall of Italy) & thus partisans became a respectable force. For instance, Croatia had 5 partisan corpses (4 of them with clear Croatian majority), while Slovenia had 2, Bosnia & Herzegovina 2, Serbia proper 2 etc.

* in may 1945, war was over & partisans had won. But, in 2- 6 weeks after the end of war, they committed mass atrocities, killing ca. 80,000-130,000 Croatian soldiers & civilians, perhaps 10,000 Serbian Četniks & up to 4,000 Slovenian white guards.

Modern unbiased historical investigations have dispelled many myths, especially those re number of victims in Yugoslavia & NDH in particular. In sum, in all of Yugoslavia, ca. 500,000 Serbs had died unnatural deaths & this included some 300,000 Serbs in NDH. Of these, perhaps over 100,000 had been killed by ustaše, while others died of typhoid, were killed by Germans, Četniks etc. Among Croats, ca. 200- 250,000 died of unnatural causes, virtually all of them in NDH on various sides. Percentage-wise, the biggest losses were among Bosnian Muslims, over 80,000.

https://www.hercegbosna.org/STARO/engleski/download.html

For instance:

https://www.hercegbosna.org/STARO/download-eng/Zerjavic_manipulations.pdf

Vladimir Zerjavic- YUGOSLAVIA-MANIPULATIONS -WITH THE NUMBER OF SECOND WORLD WAR VICTIMS

https://www.hercegbosna.org/STARO/download-eng/Greater_Serbia.pdf

GREATER SERBIA: from Ideology to Aggression,

https://www.hercegbosna.org/STARO/download-eng/SE_Europe.pdf

An International Symposium: SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE 1918-1995

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=D46A71C24EB2DFA356DF7B7DFF095E5F

War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945: Occupation and Collaboration – Jozo Tomasevich

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=BC54C7CC4AD01FA7B4056FF06D130363

The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics – Ivo Banac

VICB3 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:18 pm GMT
@utu Bottom line is that the whole existing Jewish Holocaust narrative is not supported by the evidence. And any competent detective would spot the inconsistencies and contrary evidence in the overall narrative and conclude that either the witness is fabricating and embellishing what actually happened, or very simply is lying.

That's not the same thing as saying no Jews were killed in Europe, or that I'd want to be Jewish and in Europe in WWII. (Hell, I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere in Europe during WWII period!) Rather, it's very clear that everybody was killing everybody else in those places and at that time based on ethnicity, nationality, politics, being on the losing side or what have you, including plain old greed, and that nobodies' hands were clean. Warfare will do that.

That, and the subsequent coverups, denials and spinmeistering over the years by all actors concerning massacres and reprisals, large scale thefts, organized starvations and ethnic cleansing are more over embarrassment and concerns about reputations than anything else. Likewise, the claiming of this, that or the other mass grave as your own is just as much about economic advantage and fortune seeking as it is about validation.

Enough! It was 80 odd years ago. Learn about what happened, all that happened and why, and to all peoples who were present, without favour given to an influential (for now) few. Resolve that it was monstrous for all, and resolve that it ought not to happen again. And then move on.

Just a thought.

VicB3

Fox , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:25 pm GMT
@peacewalker This sort of opinion is as childishly chauvinistic now as it was in 1850, 1920, 1939 and 1990. Did you know that Eastern Germany has been only given to the Poland for temporary administration by the Soviets? Notwithstanding the weird actions of the people in power in the FRG, Poland's borders are defined by international law by the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles to which Poland was a signatory party.
Alternate History , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:28 pm GMT
@utu Nice deflection, troll. People no longer believe the Red Cross account of 430k.
jbwilson24 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:39 pm GMT
@GMC " The normal Russians/Crimeans that I know that are jews are way cool folks – they even have family is Israel but no big ego. Just normal Russians."

Nonsense. Jews are not Russians, period. Different ethnic group, different loyalties. Given a brouhaha, you'll see which group they side with.

Bardon Kaldian , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:41 pm GMT
@VICB3

Bottom line is that the whole existing Jewish Holocaust narrative is not supported by the evidence. And any competent detective would spot the inconsistencies and contrary evidence in the overall narrative and conclude that either the witness is fabricating and embellishing what actually happened, or very simply is lying.

This is stupid. It is very easy to calculate upper & lower limits of losses of various European peoples during WW2, just by feeding the computer with pre-war & post-war census data and taking into account border changes.

True, some figures overlap & there is a significant standard deviation for some numbers. But, generally, overall picture is rather well established.

jbwilson24 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:47 pm GMT
@utu "Grow up. You are not in the court."

Nonsense, low IQ person. The burden of proof is on the person making the existential claim, not on the person questioning it. I suggest opening a basic critical thinking book at some point in your life.

Fact is that the evidence for the deliberate murder of 6,000,000 Jews is almost entirely missing, apart from 'confessions' obtained under torture and the claims of self-interested parties who stand something to gain.

Add to that any number of oddities.

– Official reports from the Red Army indicating that the area around Treblinka was pastoral and undisturbed, contrasting with eyewitness accounts (by Jews) of skulls being strewn everywhere.
– Red Cross records mentioning nothing of a mass murder campaign costing millions of lives.
– Putin's comments that the Soviets transferred millions of Jews out of Poland
– The number of compensation claims registered with the German government reaching the 4 million mark, when the Nazis estimated the total number of Jews in Nazi occupied territory was smaller than this.
– The physical impossibility of outdoor cremation of millions of people using barbeques made from train rails and stacks of wood (which magically worked, even in the snow and rain).
– The lack of cross examination at the Nuremburg tribunal.

It smells mightily of a Jewish fantasy enabling them to guilt trip the Germans, cover up British war crimes, and justify the theft of Arab land.

Rich , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 6:47 pm GMT
Obviously the holocaust must be fake or there wouldn't be laws against researching it, or disputing different aspects of it. Historical events that happened have no laws forbidding questioning or debating them. We can argue over how many died at Stalingrad, or in Hiroshima. We can question the number who starved in the Potato Famine, or from Smallpox in American Indian tribes. But one so-called "historical" event must never be questioned? Ridiculous. The fact that laws force one to believe in it, makes me doubt it completely.
Carolyn Yeager , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:05 pm GMT
@Grahamsno(G64) I asked Ron Unz to put the title "Some Answers to the Mystery of the "Missing Jews" on the article; the original title is the sub-title you see here. I think it's perfectly justified – note the word "Some." Not 'The answer' or 'An answer', but only 'Some answers', which in retrospect over the last 10 years it does provide. If the communists murdered thousands and hundreds of thousands of Eastern European peoples, as you say, doesn't that impact the WWII death toll and the "missing jews"?

Holocaust believers like yourself have never been able to show the existence of the remains of those millions of bodies you say the German's killed. In light of that it's amazing anyone can still defend this cult of death.

That explains why you are reduced to personal insult, ad hominem and distractions like "what about the AR camps," instead of explaining why only Axis forces have been unearthed in mass graves since the war's end, and no Allied forces. That includes no Jews.

Also, FYI (and others), "Revisionism" is not something dictated from above by certain "professionals" but is individual works by individuals who study various aspects of history and put their work out there for scrutiny. Not something you are capable of appreciating, I know. So far, you have said nothing that debunks this article that is based on documented reality.

Amon , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:19 pm GMT
@utu

Jews are missing only in the Holocaust deniers' minds.

Jews historically have had no homeland and thus feel no attachment or sentimental value to the lands upon which they live. It is therefore not that hard to speculate that once news of the evil Nazis approaching reached them that they packed up and moved further east or west to avoid getting mixed up in the actual fighting.

We see this mentality at full effect even today when millions of whites and blacks are sent around the world to kill, maim and occupy foreign nations while the jews who profit from it all stay at home in their million dollar mansions and closed off ghettos demanding to be given the best of the special treatment for their eternal victimhood.

clay sucre , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:38 pm GMT
Lack of evidence is not evidence of abscence-but is rather objective evidence of the non-existence of such a claim or cause of which one has been supportive or others forced to accept as truth.
Art , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 7:47 pm GMT
@utu Grow up. You are not in the court. You are not even in the court of public opinion. You are among the Holocaust denial retards. You are one of them actually.

Poor little utu – is he a Jew terrorist – or one of the feeble-minded gentiles, who falls for the Stockholm Syndrome Jew victim "six-million" lie. He is clearly on the wrong side of history.

As is abundantly clear from this article and its comments – many if not most of central Europe's ethnic peoples experienced group murder. 55,000,000 people died during WWII. Jews where just one tribe of many.

Instead of forgiving and healing all – the Jews have grabbed all the sick "victimhood glory" for themselves and used it as a cudgel to do even more killing in the Middle East.

Maintaining the "six-million" lie has cost America its cohesion and Western idealism – we are divided today into identity groups warring with each other -- all to maintain terroristic Jew political control, aimed at sustaining the "six-million" lie. Anyone who dares to disagree with the Jew lie – is terrorized and ostracized from society.

So what is it for little utu – Jew terrorist or fool?

A fool can intellectually grow – a morally poor Jew who supports "the lie" is hopeless.

Anonymous [506] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:16 pm GMT
@Robjil Judging by the aggressive theft of Ukraine farmland for pennies on the dollar by Chabad, instrumentalized by Nuland's lackeys at the Dept of State, and the consequent dispossession of Ukrainian farm people à la Palestinians in Palestine, my guess is that Israel intends to use the Ukraine as the "breadbasket" of the JWO in Europe, just as a de-industrialized United States, with its white population exterminated, will become the JWOs breadbasket in the Western Hemisphere.
Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:16 pm GMT
Where did they go? They were never there in the first place. Part of the puzzle can be resolved here:

https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/dell/DellaPergola%20Some%20Fundamentals.pdf

His aggregate numbers (in Table 2 on p. 10) are consistent with the numbers from the Jewish Virtual Library. But what's curious are the numbers for Eastern Europe (i.e. Imperial Russia/Soviet Union and Poland primarily) The American population exploded between 1880 and 1939. That's the well-known turn-of-the century influx. It's safe to assume that about 5M of the American number was due to immigration (applying a reasonable 0.5% growth rate to the 1880 population), and that it was mainly from Eastern Europe. That would mean that the stock of Eastern European Jews grew from 5.7M in 1880 to about 8.2M+5M = 13.2M in 1939, an annualized growth rate of 1.4%. This is simply not believable, given the chaos afflicting Eastern Europe during this time period. If we apply the 0.9% growth rate claimed for world Jewish inter-war population by the JVL (probably high but not absurdly so) to the 5.7M Eastern European stock, and subtract off the 5M that emigrated to America, we get an Eastern European Jewish population in 1939 of around 4.7M, which is at least 3.5M less than commonly claimed. (It was probably even less than 4.7M, given emigration to Palestine.) World Jewish population in 1939 was probably around 16.7M-3.5M = 13.2M, not 16.7M, implying Jewish losses during the war of around 2.2M. This number is consistent with German documentation re. the AR camps, Auschwitz, and the EG shootings, as well as Red Cross documentation about the Western camps. It's highly likely that both the Soviet and Polish 1939 numbers were exaggerated by at least 1M each. The numbers for the eastern part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire should also be viewed skeptically. (The 1931 Polish census claiming over 3M Jews is well-known, but there was a 1921 census claiming 2M Jews; there is no way the Polish Jewish population grew at a 4% annualized rate in that decade.)

anarchyst , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:21 pm GMT
Hitting the holohoax (oops I mean "holocaust™") head-on doesn't work because of the jew-controlled media which has declared "holocaustianity™" to be the new worldwide "state religion" from which no dissension from its "orthodoxy" is permitted.
The only way to counter "holocaustianity™" is to point out the scientific and engineering impossibility of every "holocaust™" claim.
Let's look at a number of claims that have been made and have been ingrained in "holocaust™" orthodoxy:
-- using "bug spray" (Zyklon B) as an execution agent (ha ha)
-- "gas chambers" with ordinary wooden doors, not gas-tight doors
-- "gas chambers" with no means to ventilate the chambers after "operation"
-- "gas chamber" chimney not connected to anything
-- "blood spurting out of the ground" for weeks and months
-- "crematoria stacks with visible flames" (not possible) crematoria burn clean
-- "thousands of bodies cremated per day" (not possible)
-- "multiple bodies" in one "muffle" to "speed up" operations
-- "lampshades, soap and shrunken heads", oh my
-- "the ability to tell when jews are being cremated by the smell or color of smoke"
-- "claimed burial grounds not being permitted to be disturbed" per jewish "law"
NONE of these claims are possible or valid and can be easily debunked using sound scientific and engineering principles.
I have been thrown out (asked to leave) those "jewish freak shows" called "holocaust™"museums for merely attempting to point out these facts.
Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 8:29 pm GMT
@Genrick Yagoda

Once again, proof that Jews are inflammable!

Bodies decay fast and animals pick them off.

Look at nature. So many creatures but vanish without a trace. Animals come and eat them. Often, animals even grind and eat the bones.

Hyenas can crack elephant bones with their jaws.

It's been said the Great Leap killed tens of millions of Chinese. Them bodies disappeared real fast.

And many Civil War dead bodies and WWI dead bodies in the trenches just rotted in the fields.

Every year, tons of cows and pigs are killed. They are disposed of without a trace.

Art , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:02 pm GMT
@jbwilson24 It smells mightily of a Jewish fantasy enabling them to guilt trip the Germans, cover up British war crimes, and justify the theft of Arab land.

Say jbwilson24 -- did you kill any Jews -- I didn't!

Hmm -- then why are we being held guilty? 98% of everybody alive today was not even living during the war. Yet, the Jews act like we are ALL guilty for WWII.

Using a vile false guilt trip, the Jews have seized power over the West.

We are coming to understand this ploy – human nature does not like lies – it rebels.

p.s. Jew use of the Stockholm Syndrome, rules the West. (terror first – claim victimization second)

Zarathustra , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:27 pm GMT
@Robjil And what about that yuletide girl? What she was a dogs pipi.
snag , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:27 pm GMT
Why do you write "Polish historical interpretations" knowing that after WWII this so called 'Polish' regime was infested by (appointed) Stalin Jews and few Polish commies with suspicious past? *

*During Poland's partition many Jews bought for cents on dollar or acquired (for snitching) names, estates and noble titles of Polish patriots shipped to Siberia.

Agent76 , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:32 pm GMT
Jan 30, 2016 Operation Reinhard: The Murder of Polish Jewry

How did the horror of the Nazi death camps evolve? Auschwitz didn't just sprout from the ground one day. There was an "evolution" of the murder machinery, and a cast of diabolical characters most people have never heard of.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KQwjAF69SNk?feature=oembed

Feb 4, 2017 The rise of Hitler 1919-1929: revision for IGCSE & GCSE History exams

This revision podcast is relevant to both GCSE and IGCSE History students studying Nazi Germany.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/N7r6EIxkz30?feature=oembed

Zarathustra , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:41 pm GMT
@trickster But than all Hitler was stupid, because he did not figure out that eventually will come to that.
All Germans were so stupid that they did not know that number of roads in Ukraine and Russia that in case of rain did not change to mud holes could be counted on fingers.
And even those were no match of via Apia of ancient Rome.
UncommonGround , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:47 pm GMT
@peacewalker Impressive your information about the origin of Stettin and Breslau. But as far as I can see through a fast look at wikipedia, what you say seems to be at least a bis misleading. The history seems to be quite complicated with really lot of changes. They say about Breslau that the "Wandalenstamm der Silinger" (a German tribe) settled there between the 4 and 5 Century and Slavs came about 1 or 2 centuries later. Much later there was a Polish domination. Breslau was destroyed by the Mongols in 1241 and after that rebuilt by German settlers. In 1261 Breslau received the right of cityship (? Stadtrecht) by the German city of Magdeburg. The history of Stettin is even more complicated, but wikipedia says that it was founded by the fusion of German and Polish settlements ("Die Stadt Stettin entstand aus einer pomoranischen und zwei benachbarten deutschen Siedlungen" = The city Stettin has originated from a pomoranian and two neighbour German settlements).
Carolyn Yeager , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 9:48 pm GMT
@maz10

Let me just point out, that mass graves with Polish victims of German mass executions were located among other places at:
Palimiry [sic], Las Sękocinski, Las kabacki, Laski and many, many others locations such as for example Ponary (outside of Poland's post WW II borders in present-day Lithuania).

Why hasn't the general public heard of these incredible mass graves? Except for a little commotion at Palmiry and Ponary, they are Polish fiction. The Germans assembled an international team of experts to exhume the Katyn graves and publish their findings. The Poles kept their exhumations, if there were any, all in the family.

Palmiry massacre, Wiki – "After the war, the Polish Red Cross , supported by the Chief Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland (pretty sure this is Soviet), began the search and exhumation process in Palmiry. The work was carried out between 25 November and 6 December 1945, and later from 28 March until the first months of summer 1946. Thanks to Adam Herbański and his subordinates from the Polish Forest Service , who in the years of occupation were risking their own lives to mark the places of execution, Polish investigators were able to find 24 mass graves. More than 1700 corpses were exhumed, but only 576 of them were identified. Later Polish historians were able to identify the names of another 480 victims.[17][50] It is possible that some graves still lie undiscovered in the forest near Palmiry.[11]

Ponary massacre, Wiki – "The total number of victims by the end of 1944 was between 70,000 and 100,000. According to post-war exhumation by the forces of Soviet 2nd Belorussian Fron t the majority (50,000–70,000) of the victims were Polish and Lithuanian Jews from nearby Polish and Lithuanian cities, while the rest were primarily Poles (about 20,000) and Russians (about 8,000).[2]
(No more information on this Polish-created page about the exhumation/identification process. It goes straight to the more extensive commemoration/memorial monuments section.) Then ends with:
"The murders at Paneriai are currently being investigated by the Gdańsk branch of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance [1] and by the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania .[27] The basic facts about memorial signs in the Paneriai memorial and the objects of the former mass murder site (killing pits, tranches, gates, paths, etc.) are now presented in the webpage created by the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum."

This why the general public doesn't know of these sites – they have not been legitimately vetted. Yale's Timothy Snyder is a big believer though.

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:02 pm GMT
The sad thing is that the Final Solution to the Jewish problem has not yet been achieved.

I mean the problem of the presence of non-Jews in the world, a major problem for the Jews. Not finally solved yet, but getting close.

There have been some great achievements since earliest times. One was Moses's great success in tricking the stupid Midianites a number of times before finally exterminating them, as recounted between Exodus Ch. 2 and the end of Numbers. Another was Joshua bar Nun's fabulous achievement exterminating most of the Canaanites. For the time, the greatest achievement bar none!

But the great achievement of the Jewish Dark Age of 200–400 AD, the killing of 6 million Jews by the Jews, the 6 million Hellenistic Jews by the Talmudic Jews, outshines everything to date. Done at a time when the world population was tiny!

That must be done, the killing of non-Talmudic Jews must be done, as Maimonides wrote a few centuries later. But the best subsequent achievement seems to have been the killing of about a million non-Talmudic Jews in Iberia, greater Spain. Maybe fewer. Many escaped the peninsula. Many Karaites survived. Or some did, count unclear.

So far, at least till 1948, and since the Cyrene massacres of the 2nd century, stopped by the Romans, they have not had the power to kill non-Jews in any large numbers, could only encourage wars among them. And undermine their society with their lobbying skills and organized financing. But they are immensely powerful today in America and Europe. The Final Solution may be close.

anonlb , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:07 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian Serbian lies are only matched by coatian lies (jews/muslims lies are out of competition simple because they belive they can say anything to non-jew/non-muslim and do a right thing).
Serbian lies can't change fact that every single sentence from Bardon post is one big fat lie.
Hints: census from 1931 counted people by religion(ortodox, catolics, muslims, ), census from 1948 counted serbs, croats, slovenians, montenegrins, macedonians and 'minorities'. Muslims are counted as serbian or croatians. He can't even say those numbers for current croatian territory (hint: about 90k serbs less than ortodox and 300k croats more than catolics,despite 200k croats killed or expelled by comunists)
Counting persons with serious mental problems with zero influence as 'serbian ideologues' is just fun.
Wally , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:15 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon said:
"What kind of "death camps" have hospitals for internees? What kind of "death camps" have scrip for prisoners to spend at a canteen? What kind of "death camps" have orchestras and theaters for internees? Why would "death camps" record marriages and births? The Olympic size swimming pools and soccer fields for internees at "death camps""

– Here's more info. on the big one in the "holocaust"narrative, so called "death camp / extermination camp" Auschwitz

[MORE]

– An "extermination camp" where thousands of Jews chose to stay behind when the Germans left.
– An "extermination camp" where most of the inmates, more thousands, chose to leave WITH the Germans.
– An "extermination camp" where 1,500,000 human remains supposedly exist, but in fact no such remains exist.
– An "extermination camp" where many Jews gave birth.
– An "extermination camp" where the absurdly alleged homicidal 'gas chambers' could not have worked as alleged, as proven repeatedly, scientifically impossible.
– An "extermination camp" where fake 'gas chambers' were "reconstructed" AFTER THE WAR.
– An "extermination camp" where detailed aerial photos of the period show nothing that is alleged to have been happening.
– An "extermination camp" where there are even obvious, laughable attempts to tamper with aerial photos that make a mockery of the fake story.
see:
Auschwitz war time aerial photos, tampered with to fit the fake story , ex.:
Drawn in 'Auschwitz Jews being marched to gas chambers', ON A ROOF . – An "extermination camp" where there are countless Jew "survivors", yet the fake narrative says 'the Germans tried to kill every Jew they could get their hands on.'
-An "extermination camp" where so called "survivors" say the most impossible and conflicting things that do not hold up to scrutiny, would be laughed out of a legit court of law.

the shadow , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:16 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

This is stupid. It is very easy to calculate upper & lower limits of losses of various European peoples during WW2, just by feeding the computer with pre-war & post-war census data and taking into account border changes.

But it is precisely the border changes for those countries and population movements occurred within those areas that makes it difficult if not impossible to determine with any accuracy what population changes within the area those borders include at different times mean. It is, obvious, is ity not, that the "Poland" of 1939 is not the "Poland" of 1946, is it not? And that it's ridiculous to draw any DEFINITIVE conclusion based on the ethnic group distribution included within the boundaries of those "countries" between those periods, especially when Russians moved substsantial numbers out of the area they occupied from 1939 to 1941, and then Germans were moved out of areas that became Polich after WWII, etc., etc. and also moved people into and out of those areas when no one really knows the NUMBERS INVOLVED.

It's years ago since I lookeed at the numbers Hillsberg cited, but I remenber dismissing them at the time because they look conjectural at best.

Zarathustra , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:20 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager There are two ancient Slavic tribes Czechs and Moravian s. Capital of Czechs is Praha (Prague)
Capitol of Moravian s is Brno. Slovaks at one time were part of Great Moravian empire.
Morava is east of Czechia, (As is its capital Brno, and not south as you claim.)
Slovakia is East of Moravia.
Morava is river and the tribe was named after river. River Morava joins Danjub
at Slovakia.
Wally , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:22 pm GMT
@peacewalker said:
"I just don't know where to start. Whole "article" is such a BS. OK, let's start from beginning then"

– Let's start with you actually reading the article.

– Then show us the millions upon millions of human remains that are said by those like you to be in specific, known locations.

– After that, tell us how the absurd 'Nazi gas chambers' supposedly worked.

– Your cited sources give no proof.

It's curious that people like yourself actually want the alleged millions to be dead.
You should be happy to hear that millions of your brethren were not murdered.

Petermx , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:24 pm GMT
"In the case of this latest and largest mass grave (2008), no clothing, eye glasses or gold teeth were found. It thus appears that they were completely stripped before they were killed." My German mother and her family began fleeing west in the last months of the war. They lived in the German city Brieg (now called Brzeg under Polish rule). It's close to the bigger city Breslau (now called Wroclaw under Polish rule). She was captured near Pilsen (known as Plzen under Czech rule). The Red Army arrived. My mother was part of a group of women being held and the women were forced to strip naked and they were humiliated. This is what my crying mother told me roughly about 40 years ago. She was not raped. She's gone now and despite this sad story was an upbeat and generally happy person. The Americans were also there. I believe they took the area first and then withdrew and turned the area over to the Russians and Czechs. My mother was able to escape and eventually settled in Bavaria for several years before moving to the USA. If there are numerous cases of victims being stripped, I wonder if this could be tied to a particular army or nationality. Or was it was done by more than one army or nationality?
Robjil , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:32 pm GMT
@Priss Factor None of these examples you stated are a mandatory religion.

The big 6 has replaced the sun as the center of the universe.

Most people on this planet want the sun back as the center of the universe.

Take that big 6 wall down.

Let the sun shine again on this planet.

Anon [264] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:40 pm GMT
Jewish Lightning Got All 6 Million – Case Closed
Reger , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:41 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon To my very point. You won't follow the suggestion I made. Much easier to deal in abstractions than reality, isn't it?
Reger , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 10:51 pm GMT
@the shadow I agree. From my reading the transfers of population for reasons of ethnicity, colonisation (eg of the Wartheland), slave labour, not to mention the theft of 'aryan' children from Poles made for total confusion at the end of the war. The stories of witnesses always mention fellow victims from all parts of Europe and people travelling in all directions.
Re the numbers I can only repeat the wise quip of Christopher Isherwood in an argument about the number of victims; he said to his opponent: 'What are you? In real estate?"
Incitatus , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:06 pm GMT
Well done, Carolyn.

Why not just say Mahatma Austrian Hitler left no victims, including 20s-30s-40s Germans (400,000 to 600,000 by most accounts, murdered by the NSDAP) and espouse, more important, Germans were the only victims in WW2? Go for it!

The NSDAP brought God to Austria, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Memel, Denmark. Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Greece, Yugoslavia, Crete, North Africa, USSR, etc.? Hitler was quite the evangelist. God (in that hymnal) is named Adolf. A deity without territorial aspirations but nonetheless great coincidental appetite and digestive ability. And with a post-war score to settle with German Churches.

"I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker" ("Ich gehe mit traumwandlerischer Sicherheit den Weg, den mich die Vorsehung gehen heißt") -Adolf Hitler 15 Mar 1936 Munich

He "sleepwalked" Germany into catastrophic World War, then attacked an ally in what became a winter campaign 1941-42 lacking winter uniforms and operational gear. Incompetence paramount. Nothing to do with Jews, though by all counts – as in Poland –many were murdered (sorry Carolyn).

"The war against Russia is an important chapter in the struggle for existence of the German nation. It is the old battle of the Germanic against the Slav peoples, of the defense of European culture against Moscovite-asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism. The objective of this battle must be the destruction of present-day Russia and it must therefore be conducted with unprecedented severity. Every military action must be guided in planning and execution by an iron will to exterminate the enemy mercilessly and totally. In particular, no adherents of present Russian-Bloshevik system are to be spared."
– Generaloberst Erich Hoepner, Orders to 4th Panzer Group Commanders in advance of Barbarossa 2 May 1941 [Burleigh 'The Third Reich' p. 521]

A year later at Stalingrad 42-43, same problems, Hitler doubled-down plus some.

"The Führer commands that on entering the city the entire male population should be eliminated since Stalingrad, with its convinced Communist population of one million, is particularly dangerous."
– Adolf Hitler to Sixth Army 2 Sep 1942 [Beevor 'The Second World War' p.356]

Genocide? There you have cold hard fact.

There's more Carolyn. It's against Germans! 9 Nov 1942 Hitler orders 150,000 artillery and transport horses in Sixth Army be sent several hundred kilometers to the rear, ostensibly to save transporting fodder to the front. It deprives all unmotorized (75% of 6th Army forces) divisions of mobility. Ten days later Soviets launch "Operation Uranus', a 'Kesselschalcht' encirclement worthy of Bismarck and von Moltke.

By 23 Nov 1942 the Sixth Army is cut-off in pocket, destined to starve and freeze as Hitler orders "Sixth Army stand firm in spite of temporary encirclement". His solution to the crisis is to designate the Sixth Army "Fortress Stalingrad" and order (24 Nov) holding the front "whatever the circumstances". No clarity on food, munitions, medical care or strategic relief. None comes.

Germans knew better.

"I am beyond caring. Two of my brothers were sacrificed in Stalingrad and it was quite useless. And here we have the same."
–Soldat to SanUff [Senior Medical Officer] Walter Klein, Kampfgruppe Heintz, Field Dressing Station near St-Lô, Normandie 26 Jul 1944 [Beevor 'D-Day' p.353]

That's the legacy you (Ron and Carolyn) embrace? Good luck!

Bardon Kaldian , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:12 pm GMT
@anonlb Dumb (my advice- don't mess with someone who knows what he's talking about. You'll turn out to be a laughing stock ).

In 1931 census people were counted by religion & language. The South Slavic "language" was a bizarre official combination of the Slovene, Croat & Serbian (no one then, except Croatian linguist Stjepan Ivšić, had recognized Macedonian language). Other languages like Hungarian, German, Italian, Slovak, Czech, Albanian were clearly the languages of those peoples. So, one could clearly distinguish between Croats, Serbs, Bosnian Muslims .. by simply looking at their religion & mother tongue (in that case, weird "Sloveno-Croato-Serbian").

During the Communist census in 1948, people just said what they were, nationally. Catholics- if not Slovene speaking- were Croats; Orthodox were either Serbs, Montenegrins or Macedonians (there were preserved censuses from 1931, so one could monitor county fluctuations of population); BH Muslims were mostly "Yugoslavs undetermined" (some of them said they were either Croats or Serbs, due to political pressures, but in next 2-3 decades were simply written out of this census).

Also, there were tiny minorities of Catholic Serbs (ca. 8,800) and Orthodox Croats (9,300)- but they don't mean anything, in comparison with these millions.

So, if you try to argue, rather use convincing arguments than a hysterical blather.

Bardon Kaldian , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:16 pm GMT
@the shadow Virtually all modern works on victimology had taken into account borders shifts so that victims (or potential victims) couldn't be counted twice (or thrice). It is reflected even in such a wishy-washy source as Wikipedia.
Carolyn Yeager , says: Website Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:19 pm GMT
@Zarathustra

Morava is east of Czechia, (As is its capital Brno, and not south as you claim.)

The article is mentioning Czechoslovakia , not the Czech Republic (note the map), and only in relation to the treatment of its German citizens in 1945-6. There is nothing inaccurate in my comment that you're referring to; Brno is definitely in the south of the country compared to Usti.

Da's Reich , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:23 pm GMT
@Włodzimierz I read your link again,

I won't be bothering a third time,

the shadow , says: Show Comment June 14, 2020 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Bardon Kaldian And the evidence substantiating their degree of accuracy is what?
RT , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:00 am GMT
@utu We are in the court of History.
In the court of History the truth is always late, but always arrives.
Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:04 am GMT
@maz10 I'd doubt it. The biggest fraud about socialism was the promotion of Marxism (communism) as being socialism. I'm not saying Marx didn't have followers, but the majority of his contemporaries rejected his state owns all views as being totalitarian. Communism is the obverse side of the coin of finance capitalism. Both seek to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few – relatively speaking.

Clifford Douglas, who invented the Social Credit movement, worked closely with the Guild Socialists in Britain. While ultimately rejecting their views, he recognized that they weren't interested in state ownership, were not opposed to competition, but were opposed to finance controlling production and trade. By the way, Douglas was opposed to finance capitalism as well.

I repeat: your local co-op is socialist. Every member has an equal say through the single share allowed to be purchased; the board of directors is elected by the membership; the profits shared are based on your participation level; and it competes with privately owned businesses, including corporations.

Anonymous [352] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:28 am GMT
@utu Here is an excerpt (one of MANY) from the Jewish press showing that Jewish American groups have long tried to stop the U.S. Congress from recognizing the genocide committed against Christian Armenians by Turkey:

Every year on April 24, the day that Armenians commemorate the killings, a resolution calling for the use of the controversial term is proposed in Congress and then beaten back. Some Jewish groups claim credit for ensuring that such a resolution never passes.

Jewish advocacy groups, including the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, B'nai Brith and American Jewish Committee "have been working with the Turks on this issue" for more than 15 years, said Yola Habif Johnston, director for foundations and community outreach at Jinsa. "The Jewish lobby has quite actively supported Turkey in their efforts to prevent the so-called Armenian genocide resolution from passing," she said.

Showdown Set in 'Genocide' Debate
Rebecca Spence, The Jewish Daily Forward
Sept. 2, 2006

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:36 am GMT
@Curmudgeon I think for you, any system you happen to like is socialist, and any system you don't like is non-socialist.
Curmudgeon , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:41 am GMT
@peacewalker

1. STETTIN is GERMANIZED name for Polish name SZCZECIN, not the other way around.
2. Same story with Wroclaw (for short period of time known as Breslau).

What's your point?
New York was New Amsterdam before the British took over. Strasbourg was Strasburg before Louis XIV annexed Alsace and Lorraine. Istanbul was Constantinople before the Muslims decided to change the name. Novgorod was an East Norse settlement. At one time, the Baltic was a "Swedish lake" and Poland was occupied by the Swedes with a Swedish king sitting in Poland. In the mists of time, Jerusalem was Uru-shalem before the chosenites arrived from Yemen.
Borders and place names have changed through out the recorded history of mankind. Poland now claims famous Germans were Polish. Nikolaus Kopernikus, the famous German astronomer, is now called Mikolaj Kopernik. He lived in Thorn (now Torun'), never spoke a word of Polish, and published his works in Latin.

Here's a contemporary non German view of the situation in Poland at the start of the war:
https://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/polandinside/pfi00.html

The Poles were happy to be Chamberlain's dupes in starting a war with Germany, and ramped it up with the ethnic cleansing of Germans in the German territories it occupied after the November 11, 1918 Armistice was signed. When war starts, no ones hands are clean, but the Poles, like the chosenites continue to play the victim.

James Reinhart , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 12:50 am GMT
For those that have looked at the movement of people from the late 20s to 1939, it would not stand up to a 10 minute audit. It is obvious to me, and written by H.G. Wells in his book "The Shape of Things to Come" that the Dazig corridor was built to start the war as Polish and Soviet troops, and it is well documented, were killing ethnic Germans since 1938. This was considered a brilliant move by Wells of the Wilson Administration who wiped out 60-70 million, no only due to war but the fact that it was the US out of Ft. Riley which is documented in the Wichita Observer to be the first place that ever ha this flu of which almost 10% died.

It is known that the US created the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks through NYC with Schiff, Baruch, Warburg, Kuhn, Loeb, Harriman and others) and also set up through the War Industries Board, by a Jewish Marrano named Samuel Bush to load the Lusitania up with "small" munitions of which Cunard was warned as were documents not to go on the ship as the US had been supplying the filth ridden UK with weapons but was all but defeated and Germany offered a peace plan that was beneficial to all. The Balfour Declaration, (Read "History of Zionism 1600-1918" by Nahum Sokolow and you will find in the forward that Arthur Balfour was also a Marrano which is pointed out specifically), was enough for the monied interests of the US to put America into war by lies. Benjamin Freedman's speech at the Willard hotel sums it up well.

The US, USSR, UK and China are all tied together and all are oligarch with a fraudulent opposition as one can figure out when reading "Red Symphony" of Rothschild. All nations are nothing more than corporations that have gone into receivership and are owned as assets just as recently stated by the central banks and the monetization of all creation. Those that have no reverence for all living things and respect for life or planet except for their love of money that their contempt for creation represents is now off the charts as all institutions are corrupt.

Bias of Priene – all men are wicked and most are evil. That was a statement of one of the greats, of the 7 sages and has now come to a point where all life may disappear in a few years through poisoning every aspect of life and the list is long, geoengineering, medicine/vaccine/pharmaceuticals, big ag, idiocy in programming – (listen to JFK condemn amusement and the need for a well informed society), no limits of committing atrocities to life itself as the web of life is hanging by a thread. Education, think tanks, NGOs, government leaders they all are evil and are backed up by a putrid judicial system.

Zarathustra , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:15 am GMT
@Carolyn Yeager You are funny! And I do not need to take a look at the map. You do!

If you make a right angle triangle from Usti nad labem and Brno you do find out you will find out that distance from Usti to Brno is twice as long eastward than southward.
So you are in error.

Carolyn Yeager , says: Website Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:17 am GMT
@Włodzimierz

Authors claimed they can not find any example of documented mass grave of polish citizens.

What the authors said is, "The only known mass grave of Poles was the work of the Soviet Red Army, led by the NKVD, in the Katyn Forest in Soviet Russia. Long blamed on Germany, the responsibility for this genocidal act is now placed where it belongs. Ironically, the only mass gravesites found on Polish territory have been of German civilians."

What you provided in Comment 11 ( http://lasszpegawski.pl/in-english/%5D is not documented, it's only stories. Have these alleged graves been officially exhumed and the remains counted and examined? It doesn't say so.

This one at the INR about Dachau is another Polish nothing-burger. By putting forth these nonsense pages as evidence of the atrocities you claim, you only make yourself a laughing stock.

Zarathustra , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:22 am GMT
@Zarathustra And the second error. After Munich there was no more Czechoslovakia.
Slovakia did become independent.
karel , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:34 am GMT
@Petermx Strange story. Sorry to hear of your mother's humiliation but what you write makes no sense to me. What was your mother doing in Plzen at the end of the war? Captured by whom? There was no Red army in Plzen and American troops left in November 1945. If your mother was supposedly fleeing west then she would have landed in Dresden where most refugees from Wroclaw went but not in Plzen. Caroline Yeager and you have obvious deficiencies in geography, which is a strong indications that most of the stories, ventilated here, are simply made up.
Zarathustra , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:48 am GMT
@Curmudgeon Kopernik did not have a even a drop of German blood in him. And he was not an astronomer.
He was a polish monk. He did study the solar system as a hobby.
He was first who did claim that all planets rotate around the Sun.
Galileo did only confirm the Koperniks theory only one hundred years after .
Galileo did have already a telescope. Kopernik did not!
Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 1:56 am GMT
@Al Liguori If "60 myriad on 60 myriad" (your first link) is 600,000 squared, that is not a small number.

Thanks.

Anon [264] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:22 am GMT
@Reger You're suggesting readings of poetry & opera while accusing Curmudgeon of abstraction?

Let's play, 'Spot the Jew'!

Carolyn Yeager , says: Website Show Comment June 15, 2020 at 2:24 am GMT
@Petermx Thanks for sharing your story, Peter. There is nothing that moves me and shakes me up more than stories of the German expellees as they trudged and fled to the West in those terrible months. I'm so glad your mother made it and lived to have you, tell you her story, and have a good life. Such strength. I did some radio broadcasts with a certain Andreas Wesserle whose family left German Slovakia and reached Bavaria, where they suffered terrible living condition and had practically no food for several years. And they were better off than most!! The stories he tells are shocking.
You might enjoy hearing him tell of this time with his family; he is one of my favorite guests ever! So smart, and such a good storyteller!
https://carolynyeager.net/heretics-hour-dr-andreas-wesserle-german-holocaust-1944-46
https://carolynyeager.net/heretics-hour-devastated-germany-1946-52

I know the Americans were the first to reach Pilsen. And both they and the British felt they owed Uncle Joe practically anything he asked for! I don't know the answer to your question about stripping, but I think it was pretty common, in order to take all the valuables. Every piece of clothing was valuable in those times, plus eyeglasses, false teeth, anything like that.

Current Commenter

[Jun 13, 2020] We Don't Need No Stinking Vaccine For COVID-19

Jun 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jeff Harris via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity, A Glaring Omission

With the 24/7 media circus coverage of Covid-19 I find it particularly interesting that there is an obvious glaring omission of some extremely important facts relative to dealing with a virus, especially one that is allegedly so virulent like this one. Yes, I read all about the critical need to shelter in place, stay inside away from other people, wash your hands constantly, avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth, wear your face mask and by all means observe social distancing if you MUST venture outside for food!

Then it's repeated ad infinitum that the ONLY hope we have of ever returning to a semblance of normalcy is to have a vaccine to protect us! Then to add some drama to this narrative the media highlights their death-o-meter scoreboard with the implied threat that you'll be next IF you don't obey the rules as dictated by the "experts".

But what is assiduously avoided at all cost is any reference to our most potent defense against any virus; our body's natural immune system. Try as I might I couldn't find anything about this first line of defense on the World Health Organizations (WHO) website or Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website. It's as if it doesn't exist and is completely irrelevant.

If these organizations were genuinely concerned about the health of citizens they would obviously discuss the vital role a healthy immune system plays in protecting us from illnesses. But since they don't its obvious some other motive is at work, at least to me, and I strongly suspect to other critical thinkers as well.

We now know from the science and data that over 90% of the people exposed to Covid-19 have no symptoms at all or at worst a mild cold. The flu vaccines we have are only effective 30% to 60% of the time and the bugs change regularly so a vaccine that worked OK last year may barely work at all this year. Let's learn some more about our body's immune system.

Virus protection without a vaccine

There is an enlightening article on Web MD titled: "How to use Your Immune System to Stay Healthy". That's a pretty straight forward title now isn't it? Early on Bruce Polsky, MD, interim chairman department of medicine and chief division of infectious disease at St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City says:

"We are endowed with a great immune system that has been designed evolutionarily to keep us healthy."

The article goes on. . .

"The immune system is your body's natural defense system. It's an intricate network of cells, tissues and organs that band together to defend your body against invaders. Those invaders can include bacteria, viruses, parasites, even fungus, all with the potential to make us sick. They are everywhere-in our homes, offices and backyards. . . "

The truth is no amount of social distancing, hand washing or face mask wearing is going to eliminate our exposure to these various bugs. That's why we were created with this amazing first line of natural defense.

Here's more from Web MD . . .

"The immune system can recognize millions of different antigens. And it can produce what it needs to eradicate nearly all of them. When it's working properly, this elaborate defense system can keep health problems ranging from cancer to the common cold at bay. . . "

Wow! That's pretty amazing stuff isn't it! According to Web MD a properly functioning immune system can "keep health problems ranging from cancer to the common cold at bay." So why isn't this "science" being included in all the other health recommendations we're being bombarded with daily? It seems to me that any "expert" worth their salt would be talking about the importance of a healthy immune system to stay healthy.

But there's more . . .

The Web MD article noted that failure to eat a healthy diet, sitting around not exercising, not getting enough sleep and chronic stress can all lead to a compromised immune system. To quote Dr. Polsky again:

". . . Lifestyle aspects are very, very important."

So if our lifestyle is very, very important to staying healthy as the good doctor says ask yourself this question? Based on the Web M.D. article virtually all the results of the lockdown serve to weaken our immune systems. The stress of unemployment, constant harping about infections and rising death rates, lack of exercise and now a crack in our food distribution system all are known to weaken the human immune system.

I also find it quite interesting that large groups of people can shop at Walmart, Home Depot or other big box stores but they can't attend their local church even if it's a "drive through" service?

Web M.D. says:

"Research shows that people with close friendships and strong support systems tend to be healthier than those who lack such supports."

During times of crisis people need encouragement and their faith built up more than ever before. Mandating people huddle in fear in their homes with constant media reports of infections and death bombarding them continually is there any wonder peoples immune systems are under severe stress?

[May 30, 2020] Coronavirus Propaganda Mimics War Propaganda

May 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Jeff Deist via The Mises Institute,

In the period leading up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration and its media accomplices waged a relentless propaganda campaign to win political support for what turned out to be one of the most disastrous foreign policy mistakes in American history.

Nearly two decades later, with perhaps a million dead Iraqis and thousands of dead American soldiers, we are still paying for that mistake.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were key players behind the propaganda -- which we can define as purposeful use of information and misinformation to manipulate public opinion in favor of state action. Iraq and its president Saddam Hussein were the ostensible focus, but their greater goal was to make the case for a broader and open-ended "War on Terror." ​

So they created a narrative using a mélange of half-truths, faintly plausible fabrications, and outright lies:

And so forth.

But the propaganda "worked" in the most meaningful sense: Congress voted nearly 3–1 in favor of military action against Iraq, and Gallup showed 72 percent of Americans supporting the invasion as it commenced in 2003. Media outlets across the spectrum such as the Washington Post cheered the war . National Review dutifully did its part, labeling Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, Justin Raimondo, Lew Rockwell, and other outspoken opponents of the invasion as "unpatriotic conservatives."

Tragically, the American people never placed the burden of proof squarely with the war cheerleaders to justify their absolutely crazed effort to remake the Middle East. In hindsight, this is obvious, but at the time propaganda did its job. Disinformation is part and parcel of the fog of war.

What will hindsight make clear about our reaction to COVID-19 propaganda? Will we regret shutting down the economy as much as we ought to regret invading Iraq?

The cast of characters is different, of course: Trump, desperately seeking "wartime president" status; Dr. Anthony Fauci; epidemiologist Neil Ferguson; state governors such as Cuomo, Whitmer, and Newsom; and a host of media acolytes just itching to force a new normal down our throats. Like the Iraq War architects, they use COVID-19 as justification to advance a preexisting agenda, namely, greater state control over our lives and our economy. Yet because too many Americans remain stubbornly attached to the old normal, a propaganda campaign is required.

So we are faced with a blizzard of new "facts" almost every day, most of which turn out to be only mildly true, extremely dubious, or plainly false:

Again, much of this is not true and not even intended to be true -- but rather to influence public behavior and opinions. And again, the overwhelming burden of proof should lie squarely with those advocating a lockdown of society, who would risk a modern Great Depression in response to a simple virus.

How much damage will the lockdown cause? Economics aside, the sheer toll of this self-inflicted wound will be a matter for historians to document. That toll includes all the things Americans would have done without the shutdown in their personal and professional lives, representing a diminution of life itself. Can that be measured, or distilled into numerical terms? Probably not, but this group of researchers and academics argues that we have already suffered more than one million "lost years of life" due to the ravages of unemployment, missed healthcare, and general malaise.

By the same token, how do we measure the blood and treasure lost in Iraq? How much PTSD will soldiers suffer? How many billions of dollars in future VA medical care will be required? How many children will grow up without fathers? And how many millions of lives are forever shattered in that cobbled-together political artifice in the Middle East?

Propaganda kills, but it also works. Politicians of all stripes will benefit from the coronavirus; the American people will suffer. Perversely, one of the worst COVID propagandists -- the aforementioned Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York -- yesterday rang the bell as the New York Stock Exchange reopened to floor trading. He now admits that the models were wrong and that his lockdown did nothing to prevent the Empire State from suffering the highest per capita deaths from COVID. Like the architects of the Iraq War, he belongs on a criminal docket. But thanks to propaganda, he is hailed as presidential.

[May 21, 2020] Russophobia in the Age of Donald Trump: The Narrative of Trump's "Collusion" with Russia by Andrei P. Tsygankov

May 21, 2020 | www.oxfordscholarship.com

During the US presidential election campaign, American media developed yet another perception of Russia as reflected in the narrative of Trump's collusion with the Kremlin. 1 Having originated in liberal media and building on the previous perceptions of neo-Soviet autocracy and foreign threat, the new perception of Russia was that of the enemy that won the war against the United States. By electing the Kremlin's favored candidate, America was defeated by Russia. As a CNN columnist wrote, "The Russians really are here, infiltrating every corner of the country, with the single goal of disrupting the American way of life." 2 The two assumptions behind the new media narrative were that Putin was an enemy and that Trump was compromised by Putin. The inevitable conclusion was that Trump could not be a patriot and potentially was a traitor prepared to act against US interests.

The new narrative was assisted by the fact that Trump presented a radically different perspective on Russia than Clinton and the US establishment. The American political class had been in agreement that Russia displayed an aggressive foreign policy seeking to destroy the US-centered international order. Influential politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, commonly referred to Russian president Putin as an extremely dangerous KGB spy with no soul. Instead, Trump saw Russia's international interests as not fundamentally different from America's. He advocated that the United States to find a way to align its policies and priorities in defeating terrorism in the Middle East -- a goal that Russia shared -- with the Kremlin's. Trump promised to form new alliances to "unite the civilized world against Radical Islamic Terrorism" and to eradicate it "completely from the face of the Earth." 3 He hinted that he was prepared to revisit the thorny issues of Western sanctions against (p.83) the Russian economy and the recognition of Crimea as a part of Russia. Trump never commented on Russia's political system but expressed his admiration for Putin's leadership and high level of domestic support. 4

Capitalizing on the difference between Trump's views and those of the Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton, the liberal media referred to Trump as the Kremlin-compromised candidate. Commentators and columnists with the New York Times , such as Paul Krugman, referred to Trump as the "Siberian" candidate. 5 Commentators and pundits, including those with academic and political credentials, developed the theory that the United States was under attack. The former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, wrote in the Washington Post that Russia had attacked "our sovereignty" and continued to "watch us do nothing" because of the partisan divide. He compared the Kremlin's actions with Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and warned that Russia was likely to perform repeat assaults in 2018 and 2020. 6 The historian Timothy Snyder went further, comparing the election of Trump to a loss of war, which Snyder said was the basic aim of the enemy. Writing in the New York Daily News , he asserted, "We no longer need to wonder what it would be like to lose a war on our own territory. We just lost one to Russia, and the consequence was the election of Donald Trump." 7

The election of Trump prompted the liberal media to discuss Russia-related fears. The leading theory was that Trump would now compromise America's interests and rule the country on behalf of Putin. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times called for actions against Russia and praised "patriotic" Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham for being tough on Trump. 8 MSNBC host Rachel Maddow asked whether Trump was actually under Putin's control. Citing Trump's views and his associates' travel to Moscow, she told viewers, "We are also starting to see (p.84) what may be signs of continuing [Russian] influence in our country, not just during the campaign but during the administration -- basically, signs of what could be a continuing operation." 9 Another New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, published a column titled "There's a Smell of Treason in the Air," arguing that the FBI's investigation of the Trump presidential campaign's collusion "with a foreign power so as to win an election" was an investigation of whether such collusion "would amount to treason." 10 Responding to Trump's statement that his phone was tapped during the election campaign, the Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum tweeted that "Trump's insane 'GCHQ tapped my phone' theory came from . . . Moscow." McFaul and many others then endorsed and retweeted the message. 11

To many within the US media, Trump's lack of interest in promoting global institutions and his publicly expressed doubts that the Kremlin was behind cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) served to exacerbate the problem. Several intelligence leaks to the press and investigations by Congress and the FBI contributed to the image of a president who was not motivated by US interests. The US intelligence report on Russia's alleged hacking of the US electoral system released on January 8, 2017, served to consolidate the image of Russia as an enemy. Leaks to the press have continued throughout Trump's presidency. Someone in the administration informed the press that Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his victory in elections on March 18, 2018, despite Trump's advisers' warning against making such a call. 12

In the meantime, investigations of Trump's alleged "collusion" with Russia were failing to produce substantive evidence. Facts that some associates of Trump sought to meet or met with members of Russia's government did not lead to evidence of sustained contacts or collaboration. It was not proven that the Kremlin's "black dossier" on Trump compiled by British intelligence officer (p.85) Christopher Steele and leaked to CNN was truthful. Russian activity on American social networks such as Facebook and Twitter was not found to be conclusive in determining outcomes of the elections. 13 In February 2018, a year after launching investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted thirteen Russian nationals for allegedly interfering in the US 2016 presidential elections, yet their connection to Putin or Trump was not established. On March 12, 2018, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr stated that he had not yet seen any evidence of collusion. 14 Representative Mike Conaway, the Republican leading the Russia investigation, announced the end of the committee's probe of Russian meddling in the election. 15

Trump was also not acting toward Russia in the way the US media expected. His views largely reflected those of the military and national security establishment and disappointed some of his supporters. 16 The US National Security Strategy and new Defense Strategy presented Russia as a leading security threat, alongside China, Iran, and North Korea. The president made it clear that he wanted to engage in tough bargaining with Russia by insisting on American terms. 17 Instead of improving ties with Russia, let alone acting on behalf of the Kremlin, Trump contributed to new crises in bilateral relations that had to do with the two sides' principally different perceptions. While the Kremlin expected Washington to normalize relations, the United States assumed Russia's weakness and expected it to comply with Washington's priorities regarding the Middle East, Ukraine, and Afghanistan and nuclear and cyber issues. 18 Trump also authorized the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats in US history and ordered several missile strikes against Assad's Russia-supported positions in Syria, each time provoking a crisis in relations with Moscow. Even Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whom Rachel Maddow suspected of being appointed on Putin's advice to "weaken" the State Department and "bleed out" (p.86) the FBI, 19 was replaced by John Bolton. The latter's foreign policy reputation was that of a hawk, including on Russia. 20

Responding to these developments, the media focused on fears of being attacked by the Kremlin and on Trump not doing enough to protect the country. These fears went beyond the alleged cyber interference in the US presidential elections and included infiltration of American media and social networks and attacks on congressional elections and the country's most sensitive infrastructure, such as electric grids, water-processing plants, banking networks, and transportation facilities. In order to prevent such developments, media commentators and editorial writers recommended additional pressures on the Kremlin and counteroffensive operations. 21 One commentator recommended, as the best defense from Russia's plans to interfere with another election in the United States, launching a cyberattack on Russia's own presidential elections in March 2018, to "disrupt the stability of Vladimir Putin's regime." 22 A New York Times editorial summarized the mood by challenging President Trump to confront Russia further: "If Mr. Trump isn't Mr. Putin's lackey, it's past time for him to prove it." 23 The burden of proof was now on Trump's shoulders. Opposition to the "Collusion" Narrative

In contrast to highly critical views of Russia in the dominant media, conservative, libertarian, and progressive sources offered different assessments. Initially, opposition to the collusion narrative came from the alternative media, yet gradually -- in response to scant evidence of Trump's collusion -- it incorporated voices within the mainstream.

The conservative media did not support the view that Russia "stole" elections and presented Trump as a patriot who wanted to make America great rather than develop "cozy" relationships with (p.87) the Kremlin. Writing in the American Interest , Walter Russell Mead argued that Trump aimed to demonstrate the United States' superiority by capitalizing on its military and technological advantages. He did not sound like a Russian mole. Challenging the liberal media, the author called for "an intellectually solvent and emotionally stable press" and wrote that "if President Trump really is a Putin pawn, his foreign policy will start looking much more like Barack Obama's." 24 Instead of viewing Trump as compromised by the Kremlin, sources such Breitbart and Fox News attributed the blame to the deep state, "the complex of bureaucrats, technocrats, and plutocrats," including the intelligence agencies, that seeks to "derail, or at least to de-legitimize, the Trump presidency" by engaging in accusations and smear campaigns. 25

Echoing Trump's own views, some conservatives expressed their admiration for Putin as a dynamic leader superior to Obama. In particular, they praised Putin for his ability to defend Russia's "traditional values" and great-power status. 26 Neoconservative and paleoconservative publications like the National Review , the Weekly Standard, Human Events Online , and others critiqued Obama's "feckless foreign policy," characterized by "fruitless accommodationism," contrasting it with Putin's skilled and calculative geopolitical "game of chess." 27 A Washington Post / ABC News poll revealed that among Republicans, 75% approved of Trump's approach on Russia relative; 40% of all respondents approved. 28 This did not mean that conservatives and Republicans were "infiltrated" by the Kremlin. Mutual Russian and American conservative influences were limited and nonstructured. 29 The approval of Putin as a leader by American conservatives meant that they shared a certain commonality of ideas and were equally critical of liberal media and globalization. 30

Progressive and libertarian media also did not support the narrative of collusion. Gary Leupp at CounterPunch found the (p.88) narrative to be serving the purpose of reviving and even intensifying "Cold War-era Russophobia," with Russia being an "adversary" "only in that it opposes the expansion of NATO, especially to include Ukraine and Georgia." 31 Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com questioned the narrative by pointing to Russia's bellicose rhetoric in response to Trump's actions. 32 Glenn Greenwald and Zaid Jilani at Intercept reminded readers that, overall, Trump proved to be far more confrontational toward Russia than Obama, thereby endangering America. 33 In particular Trump severed diplomatic ties with Russia, armed Ukraine, appointed anti-Russia hawks, such as ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Secretary of State Michal Pompeo to key foreign policy positions, antagonized Russia's Iranian allies, and imposed tough sanctions against Russian business with ties to the Kremlin. 34

The dominant liberal media ignored opposing perspectives or presented them as compromised by Russia. For instance, in amplifying the view that Putin "stole" the elections, the Washington Post sought to discredit alternative sources of news and commentaries as infiltrated by the Kremlin's propaganda. On November 24, 2016, the newspaper published an interview with the executive director of a new website, PropOrNot, who preferred to remain anonymous, and claimed that the Russian government circulated pro-Trump articles before the election. Without providing evidence on explaining its methodology, the group identified more than two hundred websites that published or echoed Russian propaganda, including WikiLeaks and the Drudge Report , left-wing websites such as CounterPunch, Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig , and Naked Capitalism , as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. 35 Another mainstream liberal outlet, CNN, warned the American people to be vigilant against the Kremlin's alleged efforts to spread propaganda: "Enormous numbers of (p.89) Americans are not only failing to fight back, they are also unwitting collaborators -- reading, retweeting, sharing and reacting to Russian propaganda and provocations every day." 36

However, voices of dissent were now heard even in the mainstream media. Masha Gessen of the New Yorker said that Trump's tweet about Robert Mueller's indictments and Moscow's "laughing its ass off" was "unusually (perhaps accidentally) accurate." 37 She pointed out that Russians of all ideological convictions "are remarkably united in finding the American obsession with Russian meddling to be ridiculous." 38 The editor of the influential Politico , Blake Hounshell, confessed that he was a Russiagate skeptic because even though "Trump was all too happy to collude with Putin," Mueller's team never found a "smoking gun." 39 In reviewing the book on Russia's role in the 2016 election Russian Roulette , veteran New York Times reporter Steven Lee Myers noted that the Kremlin's meddling "simply exploited the vulgarity already plaguing American political campaigns" and that the veracity of many accusations remained unclear. 40 Explaining Russophobia

The high-intensity Russophobia within the American media, overblown even by the standards of previous threat narratives, could no longer be explained by differences in national values or by bilateral tensions. The new fear of Russia also reflected domestic political polarization and growing national unease over America's identity and future direction.

The narrative of collusion in the media was symptomatic of America's declining confidence in its own values. Until the intervention in Iraq in 2004, optimism and a sense of confidence prevailed in American social attitudes, having survived even the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. The (p.90) country's economy was growing and its position in the world was not challenged. However, the disastrous war in Iraq, the global financial crisis of 2008, and Russia's intervention in Georgia in August 2008 changed that. US leadership could no longer inspire the same respect, and a growing number of countries viewed it as a threat to world peace. 41 Internally, the United States was increasingly divided. Following presidential elections in November 2016, 77% of Americans perceived their country as "greatly divided on the most important values." 42 The value divide had been expressed in partisanship and political polarization long before the 2016 presidential elections. 43 The Russia issue deepened this divide. According to a poll taken in October 2017, 63% of Democrats, but just 38% of Republicans, viewed "Russia's power and influence" as a major threat to the well-being of the United States. 44

During the US 2016 presidential elections, Russia emerged as a convenient way to accentuate differences between Democratic and Republican candidates, which in previous elections were never as pronounced or defining. The new elections deepened the partisan divide because of extreme differences between the two main candidates, particularly on Russia. Donald Trump positioned himself as a radical populist promising to transform US foreign policy and "drain the swamp" in Washington. His position on Russia seemed unusual because, by election time, the Kremlin had challenged the United States' position in the world by annexing Crimea, supporting Ukrainian separatism, and possibly hacking the DNC site.

The Russian issue assisted Clinton in stressing her differences from Trump. Soon after it became known that DNC servers were hacked, she embraced the view that Russia was behind the cyberattacks. She accused Russia of "trying to wreak havoc" in the United States and threatened retaliation. 45 In his turn, Trump used Russia to challenge Clinton's commitment to national security (p.91) and ability to serve as commander in chief. In particular, he drew public attention to the FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private server for professional correspondence, and even noted sarcastically that the Russians should find thirty thousand missing emails belonging to her. The latter was interpreted by many in liberal media and political circles as a sign of Trump's being unpatriotic. 46 Clinton capitalized on this interpretation. She referred to the issue of hacking as the most important one throughout the campaign and challenged Trump to agree with assessments of intelligence agencies that cyberattacks were ordered by the Kremlin. She questioned Trump's commitments to US national security and accused him of being a "puppet" for President Putin. 47 Following Trump's victory, Clinton told donors that her loss should be partly attributed to Putin and the election hacks directed by him. 48

Clinton's arguments fitted with the overall narrative embraced by the mainstream media since roughly 2005 characterizing Russia as abusive and aggressive. Clinton viewed Russia as an oppressive autocratic power that was aggressive abroad to compensate for domestic weaknesses. Previously, in her book Hard Choices , then-secretary of state Clinton described Putin as "thin-skinned and autocratic, resenting criticism and eventually cracking down on dissent and debate." 49 This view was shared by President Obama, who publicly referred to Russia as a "regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength but out of weakness." 50 During the election's campaign, Clinton argued that the United States should challenge Russia by imposing a no-fly zone in Syria with the objective of removing Assad from power, strengthening sanctions against the Russian economy, and providing lethal weapons to Ukraine in order to contain the potential threat of Russia's military invasion.

Following the elections, the partisan divide deepened, with liberal establishment attacking the "unpatriotic" Trump. Having (p.92) lost the election, Clinton partly attributed Trump's victory to the role of Russia and advocated an investigation into Trump's ties to Russia. In February 2017 the Clinton-influenced Center for American Progress brought on a former State Department official to run a new Moscow Project. 51 As acknowledged by the New Yorker , members of the Clinton inner circle believed that the Obama administration deliberately downplayed DNC hacking by the Kremlin. "We understand the bind they were in," one of Clinton's senior advisers said. "But what if Barack Obama had gone to the Oval Office, or the East Room of the White House, and said, 'I'm speaking to you tonight to inform you that the United States is under attack . . .' A large majority of Americans would have sat up and taken notice . . . it is bewildering -- it is baffling -- it is hard to make sense of why this was not a five-alarm fire in the White House." 52

In addition to Clinton, many other members of the Washington establishment, including some Republicans, spread the narrative of Russia "attacking" America. Republican politicians who viewed Clinton's defeat and the hacking attacks in military terms included those of chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain, who stated, "When you attack a country, it's an act of war," 53 and former vice president Dick Cheney, who called Russia's alleged interference in the US election "a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin" that "in some quarters that would be considered an act of war." 54 A number of Democrats also engaged in the rhetoric of war, likening the Russian "attack," as Senator Ben Cardin did, to a "political Pearl Harbor." 55

Rumors and leaks, possibly by members of US intelligence agencies, 56 and activities of liberal groups that sought to discredit Trump contributed to the Russophobia. In addition to the DNC hacking accusations, many fears of Russia in the media were based on the assumption that contacts, let alone cooperation with the (p.93) Kremlin, was unpatriotic and implied potentially "compromising" behavior: praise of Putin as a leader, possible business dealings with Russian "oligarchs," and meetings with Russian officials such Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. 57

There were therefore two sides to the Russia story in the US liberal media -- rational and emotional. The rational side had to do with calculations by Clinton-affiliated circles and anti-Russian groups pooling their resources to undermine Trump and his plans to improve relations with Russia. Among others, these resources included dominance within the liberal media and leaks by the intelligence community. The emotional side was revealed by the liberal elites' values and ability to promote fears of Russia within the US political class and the general public. Popular emotions of fear and frustration with Russia already existed in the public space due to the old Cold War memories, as well as disturbing post–Cold War developments that included wars in Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine. In part because of these memories, factions such as those associated with Clinton were successful in evoking in the public liberal mind what historian Richard Hofstadter called the "paranoid style" or "the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy." 58 Mobilized by liberal media to pressure Trump, these emotions became an independent factor in the political struggle inside Washington. The public display of fear and frustration with Russia and Trump could only be sustained by a constant supply of new "suspicious" developments and intense discussion by the media.

[May 18, 2020] Rages Listening To Virus Experts Has Led To Death Despair by Ron Paul

Notable quotes:
"... On April 21st the Washington Post savaged Georgia governor Brian Kemp's decision to begin opening his state after locking down for weeks. "Georgia leads the race to become America's No. 1 Death Destination," sneered the headline. ..."
"... Milbank, who is obviously still getting paid while millions are out of work, sees his job as pushing the mainstream narrative that we must remain in fear and never question what "experts" like Dr. Fauci tell us. ..."
"... in places that are opening, we're not seeing this spike in cases. ..."
"... Shutting down the entire United States over a virus that looks to be less deadly than an average flu virus – particularly among those under 80 who are not already sick – has resulted in mass unemployment and economic destruction. More Americans may die from the wrong-headed efforts to fight the virus than from the virus itself. ..."
"... Americans should pause and reflect on the lies they are being sold. Masks are just a form of psychological manipulation. Many reputable physicians and scientists have said they are worthless and potentially harmful. Lockdowns are meant to condition people to obey without question. ..."
May 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

On April 21st the Washington Post savaged Georgia governor Brian Kemp's decision to begin opening his state after locking down for weeks. "Georgia leads the race to become America's No. 1 Death Destination," sneered the headline.

The author, liberal pundit Dana Milbank, actually found the possibility of Georgians dying to be hilarious, suggesting that, "as a promotion, Georgia could offer ventilators to the first 100 hotel guests to register."

Milbank, who is obviously still getting paid while millions are out of work, sees his job as pushing the mainstream narrative that we must remain in fear and never question what "experts" like Dr. Fauci tell us.

Well it's been three weeks since Milbank's attack on Georgia and its governor, predicting widespread death which he found humorous. His predictions are about as worthless as his character. Not only has Georgia not seen "coronavirus burn through Georgia like nothing has since William Tecumseh Sherman," as Milbank laughed, but Covid cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have seen a steep decline since the governor began opening the state.

Maybe getting out in the fresh air and sunshine should not have been prohibited in the first place!

In fact, as we now have much more data, it is becoming increasingly clear that the US states and the countries that locked down the tightest also suffered the highest death rates. Ultra locked-down Italy suffered 495 Covid deaths per million while relatively non-locked down South Korea suffered only five deaths per million. The same is true in the US, where non lockdown states like South Dakota were relatively untouched by the virus while authoritarian-led Michigan, New York, and California have been hardest hit.

In those hardest hit states, we are now seeing that most of the deaths occurred in senior care facilities – after the governors ordered patients sick with Covid to leave the hospitals and return to their facilities. There, they infected their fellow residents who were most likely to have the multiple co-morbidities and advanced age that turned the virus into a death sentence. Will these governors be made to answer for this callous disregard for life?

Yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar admitted the obvious:

" We are seeing that in places that are opening, we're not seeing this spike in cases."

So why not open everything? Because these petty tyrants cannot stand the idea of losing the ability to push people around.

Shutting down the entire United States over a virus that looks to be less deadly than an average flu virus – particularly among those under 80 who are not already sick – has resulted in mass unemployment and economic destruction. More Americans may die from the wrong-headed efforts to fight the virus than from the virus itself.

Americans should pause and reflect on the lies they are being sold. Masks are just a form of psychological manipulation. Many reputable physicians and scientists have said they are worthless and potentially harmful. Lockdowns are meant to condition people to obey without question.

A nation of people who just do what they are told by the "experts" without question is a nation ripe for a descent into total tyranny.

This is no empty warning – it's backed up by history. Time to stand up to all the petty tyrants from our hometowns to Washington DC. It is time to reclaim our freedom.

[May 18, 2020] Head of the Hydra The Rise of Robert Kadlec by Whitney Webb

Notable quotes:
"... William C. Patrick III would also become involved the FBI's Amerithrax investigation, even though he was initially suspected of involvement in the attacks. However, after having passed a lie detector test, he was added to the FBI's "inner circle" of technical advisors on the Amerithrax case, despite the fact that Patrick's protege , Stephen Hatfill, was the FBI's top suspect at the time. Hatfill was later cleared of wrongdoing and the FBI eventually blamed a Fort Detrick scientist named Bruce Ivins for the crime, hiding a "mountain" of evidence exonerating Ivins to do so, according to the FBI's former lead investigator. ..."
"... That same year, Hatfill offered Patrick another consulting job at SAIC and commissioned Patrick to perform a study describing "a fictional terrorist attack in which an envelope containing weapons-grade anthrax is opened in an office." The Baltimore Sun would later report that Patrick's study for SAIC discussed the "danger of anthrax spores spreading through the air and the requirements for decontamination after various kinds of attacks" as well as how many grams of anthrax would need to be placed within a standard business envelope in order to conduct such an attack. ..."
"... In addition, the FBI's supposed "smoking gun" used to link Bruce Ivins' to the anthrax attacks was the fact that a flask in Ivins' lab labeled RMR-1029 was determined to be its "parent" strain. Yet, it would later be revealed that portions of RMR-1029 had been sent by Ivins to Battelle's Ohio facility prior to the anthrax attacks. An analysis of the water used to make the anthrax also revealed that the anthrax spores had been created in the northeastern United States and follow-up analyses narrowed down the only possible sources as coming from one of three labs: Fort Detrick, a lab at the University of Scranton, or Battelle's West Jefferson facility. ..."
"... After Ivins' untimely "suicide" in 2008, Department of Justice civil attorneys would publicly challenge the FBI's assertions that Ivins had been the culprit and instead "suggested that a private laboratory in Ohio" managed by Battelle "could have been involved in the attacks." ..."
"... As previously noted in Part II of this series, BioPort was set to lose its contract for anthrax vaccine entirely in August 2001 and the entirety of its anthrax vaccine business was rescued by the 2001 anthrax attacks, which saw concerns over BioPort's corruption replaced with fervent demands for more of its anthrax vaccine. ..."
"... Of course, at the time, the only government known to be genetically engineering a pathogen was the U.S., as reported by the New York Times ' Judith Miller . Miller reported in October 2001 that the Pentagon, in the wake of the anthrax attacks, had approved "a project to make a potentially more potent form of anthrax bacteria" through genetic modification, a project that would be conducted by the Battelle Memorial Institute. ..."
"... This was the continuation of the project, which had involved William Patrick and Ken Alibek, and the Pentagon moved to restart it after the attacks, though it is unclear if either Patrick or Alibek continued to work on the subsequent iteration of Battelle's efforts to produce a more virulent strain of anthrax. That project was paused a month prior when Miller and other journalists disclosed the existence of the program in an article published on September 4, 2001. ..."
May 18, 2020 | www.unz.com

A POWERFUL NETWORK OF POLITICAL OPERATIVES, A GLOBAL VACCINE MAFIA AND THEIR MAN IN WASHINGTON.

Last Friday, a group of Democratic Senators " demanded " that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) Robert Kadlec, "accurately disclose all his personal, financial and political ties in light of new reporting that he had failed to do so previously" after it was revealed that he had failed to note all "potential conflicts of interest" on his nomination paperwork.

The report in question, published last Monday by The Washington Post , detailed the ties of Kadlec to a man named Fuad El-Hibri, the founder of a "life sciences" company first known as BioPort and now called Emergent Biosolutions. Kadlec had previously disclosed his ties to El-Hibri and Emergent Biosolutions for a separate nomination years prior, but had failed to do so when nominated to head ASPR.

Though The Post does note Kadlec's recent failure to disclose these connections, the article largely sanitizes Kadlec's earlier yet crucial history and even obfuscates the full extent of his ties to the BioPort founder, among other glaring omissions. In reality, Kadlec has much more than his ties to El-Hibri looming large as "potential conflict of interests," as his decades-long career in shaping U.S. "biodefense" policy was directly enabled by his deep ties to intelligence, Big Pharma, the Pentagon and a host of corrupt yet powerful characters.

Thanks to a long and deliberate process to introduce biodefense policy, driven by Robert Kadlec and his sponsors, $7 billion dollars-worth of federally-owned vaccines, antidotes and medicines – held in strategically arranged repositories across the country in case of a health emergency – are now in the hands of one single individual. Those repositories, which compose the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), are the exclusive domain of HHS' ASPR, a post created under Kadlec's watchful eye and tailored over the years to meet his very specific requirements.

From this perch, Robert Kadlec has final say on where the stockpile's contents are sourced, as well as how, when and where they are deployed. He is the sole source procurer of medical material and pharmaceuticals, making him the best friend of Big Pharma and other healthcare industry giants who have been in his ear every step of the way.

Kadlec assures us, however, that the fact that he now holds the very office he worked so long to create is merely a coincidence. "My participation in the ASPR project began at that time when I was working for the chairman of the Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness The bill was made law and the ASPR was created. It just was a coincidence that, 12 or 14 years later, I was asked to become the ASPR," Kadlec stated in 2018.

It was all a random twist of fate, Kadlec asserts, that saw him occupy ASPR at this crucial moment in U.S. history. Indeed, with the country now in the middle of a WHO-declared coronavirus pandemic, Kadlec now has full control over the far-reaching "emergency" powers of that very office, bestowed upon him by the very law that he had written.

The story of how a former USAF flight surgeon came to have the exclusive dealer license over the single biggest stash of drugs in the history of the world is as disturbing as it is significant in light of current events, particularly given that Kadlec now leads the coronavirus response for all of HHS. Yet, Kadlec's rise to power is not a case of an evil mastermind conquering a uniquely vulnerable point of the nation's resources. Instead, it is a case of a man deeply enmeshed in the world of intelligence, military intelligence and corporate corruption dutifully fulfilling the vision of his friends in high places and behind closed doors.

In this third installment of " Engineering Contagion: Amerithrax, Coronavirus and the Rise of the Biotech-Industrial Complex ," Kadlec is shown to hail from a tight-knit group of "bioterror alarmists" in government and the private sector who gained prominence thanks to their penchant for imagining the most horrific, yet fictitious scenarios that inspired fear among Presidents, top politicians and the American public. Among those fictitious scenarios was the "Dark Winter" exercise discussed in Part I .

Some of these alarmists, among them "cold warriors" from Fort Detrick's days of openly developing offensive weapons, would engage in unsettling anthrax experiments and studies while developing suspect ties in 2000 to a company called BioPort. As noted in Part II of this series, BioPort stood to lose everything in early September 2001 due to controversy over its anthrax vaccine. Of course, the 2001 anthrax attacks that followed shortly thereafter would change everything, not just for BioPort, but U.S. biodefense policy. With the stage set, Kadlec would quickly spring into action, guiding major policy changes on the heels of subsequent major events and disasters, culminating in his crowning as King of the stockpile.

THE ACCIDENTAL MADMAN

Robert Kadlec describes himself as having been an "accidental tourist" regarding his introduction to biological warfare. An Air Force physician who had specialized in tropical diseases, Kadlec would later say his interest in the field began when he was assigned to be a special assistant for Chemical and Biological Warfare to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), advising then-head of Special Operations Command Maj. Gen. Wayne Downing, on the eve of the first Gulf War.

Kadlec would later state that he had witnessed firsthand how the military, immediately prior to the Gulf War, had "lacked the necessary protective equipment, detectors, and medical countermeasures including vaccines and antibiotics against the immediate threats posed by Iraq," allegedly prompting him to want to better U.S. biodefense efforts.

While holding this post at JSOC, Kadlec was privy to the advice of William C. Patrick III , a veteran of the U.S.' bioweapons program who had developed the U.S.' method for weaponizing anthrax and held no less than five classified patents related to the toxin's use in warfare. Patrick, who had left government service in 1986 to become a consultant, advised the Pentagon -- then headed by Dick Cheney -- that the risk of a biological weapons attack by Iraq, particularly anthrax, was high. Patrick's warning prompted the U.S. military to vaccinate tens of thousands of its troops using the controversial anthrax vaccine "anthrax vaccine adsorbed (AVA)." Kadlec would personally inject AVA into around 800 members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Kadlec would later note in Congressional testimony that no definitive proof of an alleged Iraqi biological weapons program was found during the war or afterwards, but nevertheless claimed elsewhere that "the Iraqis later admitted they had procured large quantities of a biological agents-anthrax and botulism toxin," suggesting that Patrick's warnings had had some basis in reality.

However, Kadlec failed to point out that these anthrax and botulism samples had been sold, with the U.S. government's full approval, to Iraq's Ministry of Education by a U.S. private non-profit called the American Type Culture Collection. Donald Rumsfeld, who was then an envoy for the Reagan administration and running a pharmaceutical company later sold to Monsanto, would also be involved in the shipment of these samples to Iraq.

Following the war, American microbiologist Joshua Lederberg was tasked by the Pentagon to head the investigation into "Gulf War Syndrome," a phenomenon that studies later linked to the adverse effects of the anthrax vaccine. Lederberg's task force argued that evidence regarding an association between the symptomology and the anthrax vaccine was insufficient. However, he would later come under fire after it was reported that he sat on the board of the American Type Culture Collection, the very company that had shipped anthrax to Iraq's government between 1985 and 1989 with the U.S. government's blessing. Lederberg later admitted that the investigation he led had not spent enough "time and effort digging out the details". The taskforce's findings were later harshly criticized by the Government Accountability Office.

Dr. Lederberg would prove to be an early, if not seminal, influence on Robert Kadlec's outlook regarding the subject of biowarfare. The Nobel Laureate and long-time president of Rockefeller University was one of the fathers of bioterror alarmism in the United States, alongside William C. Patrick III and other members of a tight-knit group of "cold warrior" microbiologists. Kadlec and Lederberg would go on to collaborate on several books and policy studies throughout the late 1990s and into 2001.

Years later, at a Congressional hearing, Kadlec would say that Lederberg's words "resonate constantly with me and serve as a practical warning." Aside from Lederberg, Kadlec was also writing numerous books and articles with Randall Larsen, who would later hire the Medical doctor to teach "military strategy and operations" at the National War College, where Larsen's close friend – William C. Patrick III – also taught .

A POISONED OASIS

Many of Kadlec's bioterror ravings have been preserved in 25-year old textbooks, like a U.S. Air War College textbook entitled " Battlefield of the Future " where Kadlec calls on the government to create a massive stockpile of drugs and vaccines to protect the population from a biological weapons attack, particularly anthrax or smallpox. In one chapter, Kadlec argued that stockpiles of necessary antibiotics, immunoglobulins and vaccines would have to be procured, maintained, and be readily available to administer within hours."

Kadlec's views on the matter at the time of writing were greatly influenced by his first tour as a UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq in 1994, where he was accompanied by William Patrick, among others. Kadlec would later return to Iraq in the same capacity in 1996 and 1998 in search of Iraq's alleged stores of weaponized anthrax that Patrick had been so sure were there, but had never materialized.

After three visits, Kadlec would later confess that, despite what Kadlec called "the most intrusive inspection and monitoring regime ever conceived and implemented" by the UN, the UNSCOM weapons inspectors, including himself and William Patrick, "failed to uncover any irrefutable evidence of an offensive BW program." Kadlec would later return to Iraq on two separate occasions following the 2003 U.S. invasion of country, again finding no proof of the program's existence.

By 1995, Kadlec was already imbued with the bioweapons alarmism that had been championed by Lederberg and Patrick. That year, he fleshed out several "illustrative scenarios" regarding the use of "biological economic warfare" against the United States. One of these fictional scenarios, titled "Corn Terrorism," involves China planning "an act of agricultural terrorism" by clandestinely spraying corn seed blight over the Midwest using commercial airliners. The result of the "Corn Terrorism" scenario is that "China gains significant corn market share and tens of billions [of] dollars of additional profits from their crop," while the U.S. sees its corn crop obliterated, causing food prices to rise and the U.S. to import corn. Another scenario, entitled "That's a 'Lousy' Wine," involves "disgruntled European winemakers" covertly releasing grape lice they have hidden in cans of paté to target California wine producers.

Around this same time, in 1994, the relatively young Congressional Office of Technology Assessment or OTA , which informed policy decisions around questions of technological and scientific complexity on matters of national security, was cut by the new Republican majority that took both houses in the pivotal 1994 midterms elections. At the time of its defunding, Lederberg sat on the OTA's Technology Assessment Advisory Council (OTA-TAAC), along with pharma industry insiders from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lilly Research Labs and pre-merger Smith-Kline, and chaired one of its last study panels.

In OTA's place, an independent, non-profit entity called The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies (PIPS) was co-founded by Special Consultant to President H.W. Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) and a former CIA program monitor, Michael S. Swetnam, who was reportedly " tasked with profiling Osama Bin Laden before the September 11th attacks were enacted ."

The defunding of the OTA and subsequent creation of PIPS transferred policy-making on what are, perhaps, the most sensitive issues of national security away from Congress and into a private foundation teeming with operators from the vast underbelly of the military industrial complex (MIC). Former military officers, DARPA scientists , NASA policy experts, FBI agents, CIA operatives and defense contractors like Northrop Grumman can all be found on their member rolls and in their boardrooms.

PIPS and its sponsors would shadow Robert Kadlec's career in government from the very beginning and remain in close proximity to him today. One PIPS-linked individual would work particularly closely with Kadlec, Tevi Troy – a senior fellow at PIPS and an adjunct fellow at the much more polished Hudson Institute, itself a major funder of PIPS. Troy has long been integral in shaping Kadlec's biodefense policy agenda, which would remain conspicuously static and unchanging throughout the career he was just beginning.

POX AMERICANA

By 1996, talks had begun within military leadership regarding what would become the Pentagon's mandatory anthrax vaccination program, a policy tirelessly promoted by Joshua Lederberg, who was involved in "investigating" the links between the anthrax vaccine and Gulf War Syndrome. The private talks took place in parallel with a public push to bring biological warfare to the forefront of American public consciousness. One particularly egregious example occurred when then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen went on ABC News with a five-pound bag of sugar, stating that "this amount of anthrax could be spread over a city -- let's say the size of Washington. It would destroy at least half the population of that city."

At the same time, Joshua Lederberg was also advocating for the stockpiling of a smallpox vaccine, which the U.S. military also took to heart, giving a company called DynPort an exclusive multi-million dollar contract to produce a new smallpox vaccine in 1997. Soon after, BioPort, DynPort's sister company , was formed and would soon come to monopolize the production of that vaccine.

By the time BioPort (now known as Emergent Biosolutions) had controversially gained control over this lucrative Pentagon contract in 1998, then-President Bill Clinton was publicly warning that the U.S. must "confront the new hazards of biological and chemical weapons," adding that Saddam Hussein specifically was "developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them." However, there was no intelligence to back up these claims, especially after the failed attempts by weapon inspectors, like Robert Kadlec and William Patrick, to find any evidence of an Iraqi biological weapons program.

Despite the lack of evidence regarding Iraq's alleged "WMD" programs, Clinton's concern over a biological weapons threat was said to have been the result of his reading of "The Cobra Event", a novel about how a genetically-modified pathogen called "brainpox" ravages New York City. The novel's author, Richard Preston, had been advised on biowarfare and genetically-modified pathogens by none other than William Patrick. Patrick, then an adviser to the CIA, FBI and military intelligence, also participated in closed door meetings with Clinton on biological weapons, claiming that their use was inevitable and that the deadliest of pathogens could easily be made in a "terrorist's garage."

It is also likely that Clinton's alarmism over biological and chemical weapons had been informed, in part, by a roundtable hosted at the White House on April 10, 1998. This " White House Roundtable on Genetic Engineering and Biological Weapons ," included a group of "outside experts" spear-headed by Joshua Lederberg and included several other bioterror alarmists, such as: Jerome Hauer, then-serving as Director of New York City's Office of Emergency Management (who also was advised by William Patrick III) and Thomas Monath, a vaccine industry executive and chief science advisor to CIA director George Tenet.

Discussed in-depth at the roundtable were "both the opportunities and the national security challenges posed by genetic engineering and biotechnology" as well as "classified material relating to threat assessments and how the United States responds to particular scenarios."

Robert Kadlec, despite being a Republican, remains very fond of Bill Clinton, perhaps because the former president was so attentive to the dire predictions of the "biodefense experts" who shadowed Kadlec's own career. Kadlec credits the former president with doing a "lot of good things" and making important contributions to the advancement of the biotech industrial complex's policy agenda.

Clinton would issue several executive orders and Presidential Decision Directives (PDDs) during this period, such as PDD-62, which specifically addressed preparations for a "WMD" attack on the U.S. and called for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), then-led by Donna Shalala, to lead the national response to a WMD attack. Fortuitously for Kadlec, PDD-62 also called for the construction of a national stockpile of vaccines, antibiotics and other medical supplies.

At the time, Kadlec was already evangelizing the public about a seemingly imminent, doomsday anthrax attack he was certain would strike at any second. As quoted in a 1998 article from the Vancouver Sun , Kadlec speculated:

"If several kilograms of an agent like anthrax were disseminated in New York City today, conservative estimates put the number [of] deaths occurring in the first few days at 400,000. Thousands of others would be at risk of dying within several days if proper antibiotics and vaccination were not started immediately. Millions of others would be fearful of being exposed and seek or demand medical care as well. Beyond the immediate health implications of such an act, the potential panic and civil unrest would create an equally large response."

Kadlec's doomsday speculations about biological weapons attacks had caught the attention of Randall Larsen, the then-director of the National War College's Department of Military Strategy and Operations, who hired Kadlec because he "had become convinced that the most serious threat to national security was not Russian or Chinese missiles, but a pandemic – either man-made or naturally occurring." Soon after, Kadlec and Larsen would collaborate closely , co-authoring several studies together.

Meanwhile, their colleague at the National War College, William Patrick III was simultaneously working for the U.S. military and intelligence contractor, the Battelle Memorial Institute, where he was secretly developing a genetically-modified, more potent form of anthrax for a classified Pentagon program.

THE BIOTERROR INTELLIGENTSIA

A year after hiring Robert Kadlec to teach at the National War College, Randall Larsen was also involved in the creation of a new organization called the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security (ANSER-IHS), and served as its director. This Institute for Homeland Security, first initiated and funded in October 1999, was an extension of the ANSER Institute, which itself had been spun off from the RAND Corporation in the late 1950s. The RAND Corporation is a national security-focused "think tank" with long-standing ties to the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the Carnegie Corporation.

ANSER's expansion through ANSER-IHS was foreshadowed by the entry of "homeland defense" into popular political discourse within the Washington Beltway. The term is alleged to have first originated from a National Defense Panel report submitted in 1997 and is credited to Defense Panel member and former CIA officer with ties to the agency's Phoenix program, Richard Armitage. Armitage was part of the group known as the " Vulcans ," who advised George W. Bush on foreign policy matters prior to the 2000 presidential election.

As journalist Margie Burns pointed out in a 2002 article , the need for "homeland defense" as a major focus of U.S. government policy, including the push to create a new "homeland security" agency, was dramatically amplified following its alleged coining by Armitage in 1997. This was thanks, in part, to a web of media outlets owned by South Korean cult leader and CIA asset Sun Myong Moon, including the Washington Times, Insight Magazine and UPI , all of which published numerous articles penned by ANSER analysts or that heavily cited ANSER reports and employees regarding the need for a greatly expanded "homeland security" apparatus.

One such article, published by Insight Magazine in May 2001 and entitled " Preparing for the Next Pearl Harbor ," heavily cites ANSER and its Institute for Homeland Security as being among "the nation's top experts" in warning that a terrorist attack on the U.S. mainland was imminent. It also stated that "the first responders on tomorrow's battlefield won't be soldiers, but city ambulance workers and small-town firefighters."

ANSER-IHS was created at the behest of ANSER's CEO , Dr. Ruth David, who became ANSER's top executive after leaving a lengthy career at the CIA, where she had served as the agency's Deputy Director for Science and Technology. On ANSER-IHS's board at the time, alongside David, were Joshua Lederberg and Dr. Tara O'Toole, then-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Bio-defense Studies who would later co-write the Dark Winter exercise .

Though first created in 1999, ANSER-IHS did not officially launch until April 2001. That same month, Robert Kadlec, at the National War College, sponsored the paper " A Micro-threat with Macro-Impact: The Bio-Threat and the Need for a National Bio-Defense Security Strategy ." That paper starts by citing several former CIA officials as well as Dr. O'Toole (who now works for the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel) as proof that a bioterrorist attack is "perhaps the greatest threat the U.S. faces in the next century" and that such an attack would inevitably target "Americans on American soil."

This Kadlec-sponsored report also called for the creation of the National Homeland Security Agency (NHSA), the framework for which was contained in H.R. 1158, introduced a month prior in March 2001. The paper urged that the creation of this new cabinet-level agency be enacted "quickly, so the resulting single executive agent (identified from here on as the NHSA) can begin its critical work." It also argued that this agency include "a deputy director position specifically responsible for preparing and responding to a bio-attack."

Other measures recommended in the paper included greatly expanding the national defense stockpile; creating a national disease reporting system; and the creation of real-time, automated bio-threat detectors. The latter would be initiated soon after the publication of this paper, resulting in the controversial Biological Aerosol Sentry and Information Systems (BASIS). BASIS was discussed in Part I of this series, particularly its role in "induc[ing] the very panic and social disruption it is intended to thwart" during and after the 2001 anthrax attacks that would occur months later. BASIS was developed largely by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, whose national security fellow – former Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) director Jay Davis, was then-chairman of ANSER's board of directors.

Also notable is the fact that Kadlec's April 2001 report cites the largely discredited yet still influential Ken Alibek on several occasions, including his allegation that anyone with internet access and a few bucks could produce and unleash weapons-grade anthrax with ease. Some of the nation's top anthrax experts would discredit this claim, with the exception of William C. Patrick III.

This is likely because it was Patrick who had been asked by the CIA to "vet" Alibek after he had first defected from the Soviet Union 1992, making Patrick responsible for determining the credibility of Alibek's controversial claims, including his incorrect assertions that Saddam Hussein had overseen a massive biological weapons program. Regarding their meeting, Patrick would later say "I won't say we fell in love, but we gained an immediate respect for one another."

At the time of Alibek's defection, Robert Kadlec – who had been assigned to the Pentagon's Office of the Secretary of Defense for Counter-proliferation policy after the Gulf War – would later recall during 2014 Congressional testimony having "witnessed the efforts to ascertain the truth behind the former Soviet Union's BW [biological weapons] effort" that had intimately involved Alibek and Patrick. Kadlec would also note that "the fate of these agents [related to the Soviet Union's BW program] and associated weapons," including those described by Alibek, "was never satisfactorily resolved."

Alibek's shocking yet dubious claims were often used and promoted by Joshua Lederberg (who had debriefed other Soviet bioweapons researchers after their defections), Patrick and others to support their favored "biodefense" policies as well as the need for "defensive" bioweapons research, including clandestine efforts to genetically-engineer anthrax on which Patrick and Alibek would later collaborate.

SETTING THE WHEELS IN MOTION

Just a few months before ANSER-IHS' "official" launch, another organization with a related focus was launched -- the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). Created by media mogul Ted Turner and former Senator Sam Nunn in January 2001, NTI aimed not only to "reduce the threat" posed by nuclear weapons, but also chemical and biological weapons.

In announcing NTI's formation on CNN , the network Turner had founded, Nunn stated that while "nuclear weapons pose the gigantic danger, but biological and chemical weapons are the most likely to be used. And there are thousands of scientists in the former Soviet Union that know how to make these weapons, including chemical, biological and nuclear, but don't know how to feed their families." Nunn continued, stating that NTI hoped "to begin to help, some hope for gainful employment for people that we don't want to end up making chemical and biological and nuclear weapons in other parts of the world." NTI's mission in this regard likely came as welcome news to Joshua Lederberg, who had long advocated that the U.S. offer employment to bioweapons researchers from the former Soviet Union to prevent their employ by "rogue regimes."

Alongside Nunn and Tuner on NTI's board was William Perry, a former Secretary of Defense; former Senator Dick Lugar, for whom the alleged U.S. bioweapons lab in Georgia is named; and Margaret Hamburg, who was NTI's Vice President overseeing its work on biological weapons. Margaret Hamburg's father, David Hamburg, a long-time president of the Carnegie Corporation, was also an advisor and "distinguished fellow" at NTI. David Hamburg was a longtime close advisor , associate , and friend of Joshua Lederberg.

Both Sam Nunn and Margaret Hamburg of NTI, as well as top officials from ANSER, would come together in June 2001 to participate in an exercise simulating a bioweapons attack called "Dark Winter." Nunn would play the role of president in the exercise and Hamburg played the head of HHS in the fictional scenario. Jerome Hauer, then-managing director of the intelligence-linked outfit Kroll Inc. and a Vice President at the military-intelligence contractor Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC), played the head of FEMA.

The Dark Winter exercise itself was largely written by Tara O'Toole (ANSER-IHS board member) and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Bio-defense Studies as well as Randall Larsen of ANSER-IHS. Robert Kadlec also participated in the creation of the script and appears in the fictional, scripted news clips used in the exercise.

As detailed in Part I of this series, the Dark Winter exercise eerily predicted many aspects of what would follow just months later during the 2001 anthrax attacks, including predictions that threatening letters would be sent to members of the press with the promise of biological weapons attacks involving anthrax. Dark Winter also provided the initial narrative for the 2001 anthrax attacks, which held that Iraq and Al Qaeda had been jointly responsible. However, soon after the attacks, evidence quickly pointed to the anthrax having originated from a domestic source linked to military experiments. In addition, several Dark Winter participants and authors either had apparent foreknowledge of those attacks (especially Jerome Hauer) and/or were involved in the FBI controversial investigation into the attacks (including Robert Kadlec).

On the day of September 11, 2001, Kadlec and Randall Larsen were set to begin co-teaching a course on "Homeland Security" at the National War College. It's course syllabus draws from quotes on the imminent threat of bioterrorism from Joshua Lederberg as well as Dark Winter participant and former CIA director James Woolsey, who called a biological weapons attack "the single most dangerous threat to U.S. national security in the foreseeable future."

The course was also set to include its own lengthy use of the Dark Winter exercise, where students would re-enact the June 2001 exercise as part of an end-of-semester research project. However, given the events that took place on September 11, 2001, Kadlec never went on to teach that course, as he instead went to the Pentagon to focus on the "bio-terror threat" in the weeks that preceded the 2001 anthrax attacks.

THE AFTER (ANTHRAX) PARTY

Immediately after the events of September 11, 2001, Kadlec became a special advisor on biological warfare to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz. In the days that followed, Rumsfeld openly and publicly stated that he expected America's enemies, specifically Saddam Hussein, to aid unspecified terrorist groups in obtaining chemical and biological weapons, a narrative that was analogous to that used in the Dark Winter exercise that Kadlec had helped create.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Dark Winter's other co-authors -- Randall Larsen, Tara O'Toole and Thomas Inglesby -- personally briefed Dick Cheney on Dark Winter, at a time when Cheney and his staff had been warned by another Dark Winter figure, Jerome Hauer, to take the antibiotic Cipro to prevent anthrax infection. It is unknown how many members of the administration were taking Cipro and for how long.

Hauer, along with James Woolsey and New York Times reporter Judith Miller (who also attended Dark Winter), would spend the weeks between 9/11 and the public disclosure of the anthrax attacks making numerous media appearances (and, in Miller's case, writing dozens of reports) regarding the use of anthrax as a biological weapon. Members of the controversial think thank the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which included Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld among its ranks, also warned that a biological weapons attack was set to follow on the heels of 9/11. These included Richard Perle, then advising the Rumsfeld-led Pentagon, and Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard .

One would think that all of these well-timed warnings would have left this clique of government insiders the least surprised once the anthrax attacks were publicly disclosed on October 4, 2001. However, despite constantly warning of doomsday anthrax attack scenarios for a decade and advising the Pentagon on this very threat immediately beginning just weeks prior, Robert Kadlec would subsequently claim to have yelled, "You gotta be sh*ttin' me!" when he first learned of the attacks.

Another pre-attack anthrax prophet, Judith Miller, would recall becoming distraught and despondent upon receiving a letter that appeared to contain anthrax. Her first reaction was to call William C. Patrick III, who calmed her down and told her that the anthrax powder contained in the letter "was most likely a hoax." Indeed, Patrick would prove correct in his analysis as the powder in the letter Miller had opened was, in fact, harmless.

Kadlec quickly began contributing to the FBI's controversial investigation into the attacks, known by its case name "Amerithrax." Kadlec was tasked with following up on the alleged presence of bentonite in the anthrax used in the attacks. Bentonite was never actually found in any of the anthrax samples tested by the FBI, but claims that it had been found were used to link the anthrax used in the attacks to Iraq's alleged use of bentonite in its biological weapons program, the very existence of which still lacked conclusive evidence.

This erroneous claim was first mentioned to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz by Peter Jahrling, a Fort Detrick scientist, who claimed during a briefings that the spores "appeared to have been treated" with a "particular chemical additive" resembling bentonite. Jahrling then added that Iraq's government had used bentonite to "suspiciously" produce bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a "nonlethal cousin" of anthrax widely used in agriculture. "Everyone grabbed on to that," Kadlec would later remember of Jahrling's haphazard link between bentonite and a harmless, distant cousin of anthrax.

Tasked by Wolfowitz with shoring up evidence for the bentonite "smoking gun," Kadlec would contact a Navy scientist that had accompanied him and William Patrick to Iraq in their unsuccessful efforts to find proof of Iraq's biological weapons back in 1994, James Burans. Burans was unconvinced of the bentonite connection and other government scientists soon agreed.

Nonetheless, media outlets continued to play up the bentonite-anthrax claim as proving Iraq's role in the anthrax attacks, despite findings to the contrary. By late October 2001, one nationwide poll found that 74% of respondents wanted the U.S. to take military action against Iraq, despite a lack of evidence connecting the country to either 9/11 or the anthrax attacks. A month later, Rumsfeld would draw up plans in consultation with Wolfowitz regarding justifications for initiating war with Iraq, including discovering links between Saddam Hussein and the anthrax attacks and initiating disputes with Iraq over WMD inspections.

While the Kadlec-advised Pentagon was seeking to link the anthrax attacks to Iraq, the NTI – headed by Dark Winter "president" Sam Nunn – kicked its agenda into over-drive, earmarking "$2.4 million in initial grants to finance scientific collaboration with scientists who once worked in the former Soviet Union's covert biological weapons program." NTI also set aside millions more for transforming former Soviet Union bioweapons labs into "vaccine production facilities" and "helping identify Western drug companies willing to work with former Soviet bioweaponeers on commercial ventures."

CLOSED DOOR INVESTIGATION

William C. Patrick III would also become involved the FBI's Amerithrax investigation, even though he was initially suspected of involvement in the attacks. However, after having passed a lie detector test, he was added to the FBI's "inner circle" of technical advisors on the Amerithrax case, despite the fact that Patrick's protege , Stephen Hatfill, was the FBI's top suspect at the time. Hatfill was later cleared of wrongdoing and the FBI eventually blamed a Fort Detrick scientist named Bruce Ivins for the crime, hiding a "mountain" of evidence exonerating Ivins to do so, according to the FBI's former lead investigator.

In the 1990s, Patrick had told associates of his desire to find someone who would carry on his work, eventually finding this person in Stephen Hatfill. Hatfill and Patrick's friendship was close, with one bioterror expert calling them "like father and son." Hatfill traveled together often and, on occasion, Hatfill would drive Patrick to his consulting jobs at the military and intelligence contractor SAIC. In 1999, Patrick would return the favor by helping Hatfill score a job at SAIC. A year later, Jerome Hauer, a friend to both Hatfill and Patrick, would join SAIC as a Vice President.

That same year, Hatfill offered Patrick another consulting job at SAIC and commissioned Patrick to perform a study describing "a fictional terrorist attack in which an envelope containing weapons-grade anthrax is opened in an office." The Baltimore Sun would later report that Patrick's study for SAIC discussed the "danger of anthrax spores spreading through the air and the requirements for decontamination after various kinds of attacks" as well as how many grams of anthrax would need to be placed within a standard business envelope in order to conduct such an attack.

Patrick's involvement in this SAIC study is particularly interesting given that he was also involved in another project involving anthrax at the time, this one managed by Battelle Memorial Institute. In 1997, the Pentagon created plans to genetically engineer a more potent variety of anthrax, spurred by the work of Russian scientists who had recently published a study that found that a genetically engineered strain of anthrax was resistant to the standard anthrax vaccine, at least in animal studies.

The stated goal of the Pentagon's plan, per a 2001 report in The New York Times , was "to see if the [anthrax] vaccine the United States intends to supply to its armed forces is effective against that strain." Battelle's facility at West Jefferson, Ohio was contracted by the Pentagon to create the genetically-modified anthrax, a task that was overseen by Battelle's then-program manager for all things bioweapons, Ken Alibek. A 1998 article in the New Yorker noted that William Patrick, also a consultant for Battelle and Alibek's "close friend," was working with Alibek on a project involving anthrax at the time. It would later be revealed that access to the very anthrax strain used in the attacks, the Ames strain, was controlled by Battelle.

In addition, the FBI's supposed "smoking gun" used to link Bruce Ivins' to the anthrax attacks was the fact that a flask in Ivins' lab labeled RMR-1029 was determined to be its "parent" strain. Yet, it would later be revealed that portions of RMR-1029 had been sent by Ivins to Battelle's Ohio facility prior to the anthrax attacks. An analysis of the water used to make the anthrax also revealed that the anthrax spores had been created in the northeastern United States and follow-up analyses narrowed down the only possible sources as coming from one of three labs: Fort Detrick, a lab at the University of Scranton, or Battelle's West Jefferson facility.

After Ivins' untimely "suicide" in 2008, Department of Justice civil attorneys would publicly challenge the FBI's assertions that Ivins had been the culprit and instead "suggested that a private laboratory in Ohio" managed by Battelle "could have been involved in the attacks."

Patrick's work with Battelle on creating a more potent form of anthrax, as well as his work with SAIC in studying the effect of anthrax sent through the mail, began around the same time that BioPort had secured a monopoly over the production of the anthrax vaccine, recently made mandatory for all U.S. troops by the Pentagon. As detailed in Part II of this series, BioPort's facility that produced its anthrax vaccine was, at the time, rife with problems and had lost its license to operate. Despite the Pentagon having given BioPort millions to use for renovations of the factory, much of that money instead went towards senior management bonuses and redecorating executive offices. Millions more simply "disappeared."

In 2000, not long after receiving its first Pentagon bail-out, BioPort contracted none other than Battelle Memorial Institute. The deal gave Battelle "immediate exposure to the vaccine" it was using in connection with the genetically-modified anthrax program that involved both Alibek and Patrick. That program then began using the BioPort-manufactured vaccine in tests at its West Jefferson facility. At the time, Battelle was also lending "technical expertise" to BioPort and hired 12 workers to send to BioPort's troubled Michigan facility "to keep the operation running."

At the time, a BioPort spokeswomen stated "We have a relationship with Battelle to extend our reach for people we are trying to attract for critical positions on our technical side. They're also assisting with our potency testing as really sort of a backup. They're validating our potency tests." Reports on the BioPort-Battelle contract stated that the terms of their agreement were not publicly disclosed, but also noted that the two companies had "previously worked together on an unsuccessful bid to make other vaccines for the government."

As previously noted in Part II of this series, BioPort was set to lose its contract for anthrax vaccine entirely in August 2001 and the entirety of its anthrax vaccine business was rescued by the 2001 anthrax attacks, which saw concerns over BioPort's corruption replaced with fervent demands for more of its anthrax vaccine.

RUMSFELD SAVES BIOPORT

One of the post-attack advocates for salvaging the BioPort anthrax vaccine contract was Donald Rumsfeld, who stated after the attacks that, "We're going to try to save it, and try to fashion some sort of an arrangement whereby we give one more crack at getting the job done with that outfit [BioPort]. It's the only outfit in this country that has anything under way, and it's not very well under way, as you point out."

While Rumsfeld and others worked to salvage the troubled BioPort-anthrax vaccine deal, another recurrent figure in this sordid saga, Jerome Hauer, would also play a key role in pushing for increased purchases of BioPort's most lucrative and most controversial product. In addition to being managing director of Kroll Inc. and a Vice President at SAIC, Hauer was also a national security advisor to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson on September 11, 2001. It was also this same day that Hauer would also tell top administration officials to take Cipro to prevent anthrax infection.

Hauer played a key role advising HHS leadership as the anthrax attacks unfolded. After the attacks, Hauer pushed Thompson to create the Office of Public Health Preparedness (OPHP) within HHS, which was created later that year. It was first headed by D.A. Henderson, a close associate of Joshua Lederberg and the original founder of the Johns Hopkins Working Group on Civilian Biodefense, which included Jerome Hauer and Henderson's protege Tara O'Toole. Hauer himself would come to replace Henderson as OPHP just a few months later.

Subsequent legislation, shaped in part by Robert Kadlec, would see OPHP give way to the position of Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness (ASPHEP), a position Hauer would also fill. Hauer would use this post to push for the stockpiling of vaccines, including BioPort's anthrax vaccine. Hauer and his deputy, William Raub, would then help push the Pentagon to restart vaccinating the troops, despite long-standing concerns over the vaccine's safety. Soon after leaving HHS in 2004, Hauer would quickly be added to the board of directors of BioPort under its new name Emergent Biosolutions, a post he still holds today.

ALL SYSTEMS GO

In the aftermath of the anthrax attacks, Robert Kadlec's doomsday predictions for bioterror incidents went into over-drive. "It's not your mother's smallpox," Kadlec would tell the LA Times in late October 2001, "It's an F-17 Stealth fighter – it's designed to be undetectable and to kill. We are flubbing our efforts at biodefense. We don't think of this as a weapon – we look naively at this as a disease." As the article notes, this "stealth fighter" strain of smallpox did not exist. Instead, Kadlec – who now had Rumsfeld's ear on issues of biodefense – expected that such a strain might soon be genetically engineered.

Of course, at the time, the only government known to be genetically engineering a pathogen was the U.S., as reported by the New York Times ' Judith Miller . Miller reported in October 2001 that the Pentagon, in the wake of the anthrax attacks, had approved "a project to make a potentially more potent form of anthrax bacteria" through genetic modification, a project that would be conducted by the Battelle Memorial Institute.

This was the continuation of the project, which had involved William Patrick and Ken Alibek, and the Pentagon moved to restart it after the attacks, though it is unclear if either Patrick or Alibek continued to work on the subsequent iteration of Battelle's efforts to produce a more virulent strain of anthrax. That project was paused a month prior when Miller and other journalists disclosed the existence of the program in an article published on September 4, 2001.

After news broke of the Pentagon's plans to again begin developing more potent anthrax strains, accusations were made that the U.S. was violating the bioweapons convention. However, the U.S. narrowly avoided having to admit it had violated the convention given that, just one month after the Dark Winter exercise in July 2001, the U.S. had rejected an agreement that would have enforced its ban on biological weapons.

The New York Times noted specifically that the genetically-modified anthrax experiments being performed by Battelle's West Jefferson facility were a "significant reason" behind the Bush administration's decision to reject the draft agreement and the U.S. government had argued at the time that "unlimited visits to pharmaceutical or defense installations by foreign inspectors could be used to gather strategic or commercial intelligence." Of course, one of those "pharmaceutical or defense installations" was ultimately the source of the anthrax used in the attacks.

THE GROUNDWORK

On the heels of the chaos of late 2001, Kadlec's vision for U.S. biodefense policy was rapidly coming to fruition before his very eyes. The first enabling statute for the SNS was the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2002, largely motivated by the anthrax attacks, which directed the Secretary of HHS to maintain a " Strategic National Stockpile (SNS)." The legislation had been the direct result of a process begun years earlier when Congress earmarked funding for the CDC to stockpile pharmaceuticals in 1998. The program was originally called the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile (NPS) program.

Kadlec's role in directing subsequent developments in the SNS and other related legislative developments was considerable given that, in 2002, he became director for biodefense on the recently created Homeland Security Council. His work on the council, which he left in 2005, resulted in the Bush administration's "National Biodefense Policy for the 21st Century," which unsurprisingly echoed the recommendations of the paper Kadlec had sponsored at the National War College.

On March 1, 2003, the NPS became the Strategic National Stockpile program and was managed jointly by DHS and HHS after George W. Bush issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD-5). Two days before, Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge and then Secretary of HHS Tommy Thompson had presented the Project BioShield Act to Congress. It was a sweeping piece of legislation that established what would become a government money teller-window for Big Pharma, called the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), among other entities and powers, not least of which was moving control of the SNS away from DHS and closer to HHS.

Soon after BioShield was signed into law, BioPort/Emergent BioSolutions co-founded a lobby group called the Alliance for Biosecurity as part of its strategy to easily secure lucrative BioShield contracts. That lobby group saw Emergent BioSolutions join forces with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity, which was then-led by Tara O'Toole and advised by Randall Larsen.

With this framework in place, the Kadlec-drafted National Biodefense Policy for the 21st Century was used as the framework for Bush's Homeland Security Presidential Directive 10 ( HSPD-10 ), which further expanded BioShield, the SNS and other controversial programs. Project BioShield was made law in 2004 and, one year later, Kadlec joined Senator Richard Burr's subcommittee on bioterrorism and public health. There, Kadlec served as staff director on the committee that drafted the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA), containing the specific policy directives for the roll out of Project BioShield and creating Kadlec's future position at HHS.

PAHPA was passed the following year in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and established the statutory relationship between the various agencies enacted or included in the BioShield legislation . This includes delegating to the newly creation position of HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) to "exercise the responsibilities and authorities of the Secretary [of HHS] with respect to the coordination of "the stockpile and to oversee the advanced research and development of medical counter-measures funded by BARDA, but conducted by Big Pharma. ASPR was also given the leadership role in directing HHS' response to a national health emergency.

Serving alongside Kadlec in the White House throughout this entire process was Tevi Troy, a Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy; a role which made him the White House's lead adviser on health care, labor, education and other issues with a special focus on crisis management . Troy, who had come up through the department of labor as deputy assistant for policy was already a Senior fellow at both the Hudson Institute and its satellite think tank, the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies (PIPS), where the real policy development work was undertaken.

Both Troy and Kadlec would exit the administration at the end of Bush's first term and not return until the latter half of his second term. In the meantime, the wheels had been set in motion with the passing of Project BioShield and PAHPA and, soon after their passage, panic over a "Bird flu" outbreak began, which had spread first in 33 cities in Vietnam and then led to an outbreak of the poultry-killing disease that affected all of Eurasia, Africa and the Middle East. The outbreak sparked panic in the U.S. in late 2005, thanks in large part to over-the-top warnings made by Tommy Thompson's successor as head of HHS, Michael Leavitt.

Despite the fact that Leavitt's claims were wildly inaccurate, some administration officials benefited financially from the fear-mongering, such as Donald Rumsfeld, whose stock holdings in the pharmaceutical company Gilead netted him $5 million once the scare had ended. Part of the reason for Gilead's jump in profitability resulted from the decision of the Pentagon and other U.S. government agencies to stockpile 80 million doses of Tamiflu, a drug promoted to treat the Bird Flu that was originally developed by Gilead. Rumsfeld had been the top executive at Gilead before joining the George W. Bush administration. Aside from those who benefited monetarily, the Bird Flu scare also gave a considerable boost to the biodefense "stockpile" agenda that Kadlec and other insiders supported.

Kadlec would return to the White House as Special Assistant for Homeland Security and Senior Director for Biological Defense Policy in 2007 to further solidify his eventual grip on the Strategic National Stockpile and the office of ASPR, along with his Hudson Institute/PIPS sidekick, Tevi Troy, concurrently appointed Deputy Director of HHS. This put Troy in charge of implementing the very policies enshrined in PAHPA and the departmental changes enacted as part of Project BioShield.

The Bush administration came to its inevitable conclusion as Barack Obama was elected and sworn in, early 2009. Kadlec and Troy, once again, left their government posts and disappeared into their private sector lairs. But, that same year, the first practice run for Kadlec's freshly retrofitted SNS took place when the "Swine Flu" (H1N1) pandemic triggered its "largest deployment" ever, distributing nearly 13 million antiviral regimens, as well as medical equipment and other drugs nationally and internationally in conjunction with BARDA . Gilead (and Rumsfeld) again profited handsomely, as did other large pharmaceutical companies, which were eager to restock the SNS after its large-scale deployment.

The virus' origins have been a matter of controversy for several years, alternatively identified as having sprung from pigs in Mexico or Asia. One of the last studies conducted in 2016 claims to have definitively traced the source to hogs in Mexico. Regardless of its true origins, interested observers were able to glean vital data from the exercise to prepare for the "next one."

TROY'S HORSES

Departing HHS Deputy Director Tevi Troy soon took a gig as a high-powered lobbyist for the JUUL e-cigarette company , which had run into some regulatory barriers as a result of the Tobacco Control Act, which had just been signed by then-President Obama. Margaret Hamburg, founding member of the NTI, was then Commissioner of the FDA and stalled enforcement of the new regulations; a tacit non-enforcement policy had persisted at the FDA until the recent vaping flavor ban, which followed renewed health concerns raised by a 2018 NIH report .

Why a former HHS official would take up the mantle to promote the use of a product known to be injurious to health can be answered by looking at Dr. Troy's close links with PIPS and the Hudson Institute. Couched in free-market rhetoric, these institutions are vehicles for the policy initiatives their billionaire funders want to see implemented, with its subsidiary think tanks, like PIPS, serving as satellites orbiting closer to the center of power.

As an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute and senior fellow at PIPS, Tevi Troy appears to play a pivotal role coordinating between the two. The Hudson Institute was founded in 1961 by former RAND military strategist, systems theorist and Dr. Strangelove inspiration Herman Kahn. After Kahn's passing in 1983, the Institute was "heavily recruited" by the Lilly Endowment – the largest private foundation in the United States , by far – and became a magnet for the same radical conservative billionaire networks that patronize it today.

Among its biggest donors are familiar names like Microsoft, Lockheed Martin Corporation, The Charles Koch Foundation, Boeing and Emergent BioSolutions. In 2004, Lilly Endowment returned to Washington D.C., announcing it would " return to its roots of national security and foreign policy " as a result of the war on terror becoming an "overarching national concern".

PIPS and the Hudson Institute would come to play a central role in Kadlec's upcoming efforts to make biodefense a national priority with him at the helm of a vastly expanded office of ASPR. But, it would be a few years yet. Meanwhile, there was more to be done in the area of legislation, not to mention private enterprise.

Building on all previous versions of Kadlec's original PAHPA, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act (PAHPRA) of 2013 established two more instruments that strengthened his ultimate goal. First, the PHEMCE Strategy and Implementation Plan (SIP) was codified into law, which formalized the original legislation's ties to the budget office and secondly, it streamlined the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) facility for the FDA to fast-track drug approvals.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

Soon upon returning to the private sector, Robert Kadlec helped found a new company in 2012 called "East West Protection," which develops and delivers "integrated all-hazards preparedness and response systems for communities and sovereign nations." The company also "advises communities and countries on issues related to the threat of weapons of mass destruction and natural pandemics."

Kadlec formed the company with W. Craig Vanderwagen, the first HHS ASPR after the post's creation had been largely orchestrated by Kadlec. The other co-founder of East West Protection was Fuad El-Hibri, the founder of BioPort/Emergent Biosolutions, who had just stepped down as Emergent's CEO earlier that year.

El-Hibri has numerous business connections to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he and his father, Ibrahim El-Hibri, had once sold stockpiles of anthrax vaccine to the Saudi government for an exorbitant price per dose. East West Protection chased after the opportunity to fit the Kingdom with a custom-built biodefense system, but ultimately failed to finalize the deal despite El-Hibri's connections. Instead, East West Protection sold its products to a handful of U.S. states.

Kadlec was the firm's director from its founding until at least 2015 , later selling his stake in the company to El-Hibri. Upon being nominated to serve as ASPR in the Trump administration, Kadlec failed to disclose his ties to East West Protection and El-Hibri and he has since claimed to only have been involved in the founding of the firm, despite evidence to the contrary .

Robert Kadlec's forays into the private sector during this period went far beyond East West Protection. Kadlec's consultancy firm, RPK Consulting, netted him in $451,000 in 2014 alone, where he directly advised Emergent Biosolutions as well as other pharmaceutical companies like Bavarian Nordic. Kadlec was also a consultant to military and intelligence contractors, such as the DARPA-backed firm Invincea and NSA contractor Scitor, which was recently acquired by SAIC.

Kadlec's consulting work for intelligence-linked companies earned him the praises of spooks turned entreprenuers, including Steve Cash – a former CIA officer and founder of Deck Prism , itself a consultancy firm that retained Kadlec. Cash recently told The Washington Post that "Everybody loves Dr. Bob [Kadlec]," adding that he was a "national treasure."

ON BIOWARFARE'S EVE

Kadlec had certainly been accumulating a treasure chest of power aided by some very cozy relationships in the consulting business and, by now, the stage had been set for a big push to create an official body within the halls of the legislature; an embedded consultancy firm, of sorts, to promote the designs of the biowarfare clique.

That year, Robert Kadlec put together a Blue Ribbon Study Panel sponsored jointly by the Hudson Institute and a PIPS subsidiary institution called the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies ( IUCTS ), managed by Dr. Yonah Alexander. Kadlec's Blue Ribbon Panel was chaired by Senator Joe Lieberman and included the indispensable input of Tom Daschle, Donna Shalala and other members of the biowarfare policy club.

The study panel issued a report in late 2015 entitled " A National Blueprint for Biodefense " calling for 33 specific initiatives, such as the creation of a " biodefense hospital system " and implementing a "military-civilian collaboration for biodefense." In addition, the panel recommended that the office of the Vice President lead a White House "Coordination Council" to oversee and guide biodefense policy.

An official body called the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense would be formed shortly thereafter with all the Blue Ribbon Panel members and many others like Commission co-chair Tom Ridge and, perhaps unsurprisingly, Tevi Troy and Yonah Alexander, who serve as Ex-officio members. Alongside them is Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former Chief of Staff to Dick Cheney and Senior Vice President of the Hudson Institute, which also happens to be the fiscal sponsor of the Commission.

In the acknowledgements , the panel's 2015 report includes an homage to Robert Kadlec to whom they bestow credit for the achievement, which only "exists because of the foresight, forbearance, and perpetual optimism of Dr. Robert Kadlec. Bob understood that as much progress as had been made in the national effort to prevent and prepare for biological threats, it is not yet enough. He knew that with the right impetus, we could do much more, and he envisioned this Panel as a means to that end. We are glad he did."

Kadlec mounted this last offensive while serving as Deputy Staff Director for Senator Richard Burr's Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a position he would hold until the eve of Donald Trump's election in 2016. Trump would then nominate him to the office of the ASPR and Kadlec would be confirmed in early August of the following year.

Only one piece of the puzzle was left, but it wouldn't be very long before Robert Kadlec would become the biggest capo of them all with a subtle change that was introduced in the 2018 PAHPRA :

Title III – Sec 301

1) DELEGATION TO ASPR. -- Subsection (a)(1) of section 319F–2 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 247d–6b) is amended by striking ''in collaboration with the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention'' and inserting ''acting through the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.''

[May 14, 2020] Libertarians who are extraordinarily sensitive to the least legal limitation on negative freedom are usually completely immune to the idea that structural features of capitalist society are coercive and freedom-limiting

May 14, 2020 | crookedtimber.org

Anarcho 05.06.20 at 3:18 pm 5

"Libertarians who are extraordinarily sensitive to the least legal limitation on negative freedom are usually completely immune to the idea that structural features of capitalist society are coercive and freedom-limiting. "

I think you will discover that those who coined the term libertarian (libertarie) which the propertarians knowning stole in the 1950s are well aware of those structural features -- as Proudhon argued, property is both theft and despotism.:

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/160-years-libertarian

Please don't let these defenders of private tyranny continue their abuse of the good left-wing word libertarian.

[May 14, 2020] 'I Didn't Know Anything': Former Obama Official Criticized After Classified Testimony Contradicts Her Public Statements by Jonathan Turley

Notable quotes:
"... One of the most embarrassing is the testimony of Evelyn Farkas, a former Obama Administration official who was widely quoted in her plea to Congress to gather the evidence that she knew was found in by the Obama Administration. In her testimony under oath Farkas repeatedly stated that she knew of no such evidence of collusion. ..."
"... Farkas, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, was widely quoted when she said on MSNBC in 2017 that she feared that evidence she knew about would be destroyed by the Trump Administration. She stated: ..."
"... ...was urging my former colleagues, and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill Get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people that left. So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy . . . the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried, because not enough was coming out into the open, and I knew that there was more. ..."
"... 'You also didn't know whether or not anybody in the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia, did you?' Gowdy later asked, getting to the point. ..."
"... "I didn't," Farkas responded. ..."
May 11, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

The long-delayed release of testimony from the House Intelligence Committee has proved embarrassing for a variety of former Obama officials who have been extensively quoted on the allegedly strong evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign and the Russians. Figures like James Clapper, who is a CNN expert, long indicated hat the evidence from the Obama Administration was strong and alarming. However, in testimony, Clapper denied seeing any such evidence .

One of the most embarrassing is the testimony of Evelyn Farkas, a former Obama Administration official who was widely quoted in her plea to Congress to gather the evidence that she knew was found in by the Obama Administration. In her testimony under oath Farkas repeatedly stated that she knew of no such evidence of collusion.

Farkas, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, was widely quoted when she said on MSNBC in 2017 that she feared that evidence she knew about would be destroyed by the Trump Administration. She stated:

...was urging my former colleagues, and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill Get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people that left. So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy . . . the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried, because not enough was coming out into the open, and I knew that there was more.
MSNBC never seriously questioned the statements despite the fact that Farkas left the Obama Administration in 2015 before any such investigation could have occurred. As we have seen before, the factual and legal basis for such statements are largely immaterial in the age of echo journalism. The statement fit the narrative even if it lacked any plausible basis.

Not surprisingly, the House Intelligence Committee was eager to have Farkas share all that she stated she "knew about ["the Trump folks"], their staff, the Trump's staff's dealing with Russian" and wanted to get "into the open." After all, she told MSNBC that "I knew that there was more."

She was finally put under oath in the closed classified sessions and there was nothing but classified crickets. Farkas was repeatedly asked to share that information that electrified the MSNBC hosts and audience. She repeatedly denied any such knowledge, telling then Rep. Trey Gowdy (R, S.C.), "I didn't know anything."

Gowdy noted that Farkas left the Obama administration in 2015 and asked "Then how did you know?" She repeated again "I didn't know anything."

Gowdy then asked "Well, then why would you say, we knew?"

He also asked:

'You also didn't know whether or not anybody in the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia, did you?' Gowdy later asked, getting to the point.
"I didn't," Farkas responded.

MSNBC has said nothing about its prior headline story being untrue. Indeed, the media has barely acknowledged that the new documents reinforce that there was never any evidence of collusion and ultimately the allegations were rejected by the Special Counsel, Congress, and inspectors general.

For her part, Farkas has moved on. She is running for Congress . She is still citing her role in raising "the alarm" about Russian collusion:

'fter I left the Obama administration, I campaigned to help elect Secretary Clinton as our next President. When Russians interfered in that election, I was among the first to sound the alarm and urge Congress to take action. And I haven't let up since then.
She was indeed one of the first but it proved to be a false alarm based on nonexistent knowledge. Does that matter anymore?

Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org .


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[May 10, 2020] Suspicion And Skepticism Are Vaccines For Deception

May 10, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Doug "Uncola" Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com,

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. "

- Voltaire

I once read a definition of psychological depression as a result of anger and fatigue. That seems about right. Personally, I'm sick of COVID-19 dominating the headlines and I definitely have inner rage at the magic spell that's been cast over society. And it is a magic spell. Or an ill wind, if you prefer. Except tracking the source of a voodoo curse, or determining where a breeze began, might be easier than identifying the many variables of this planned-demic . Truly, the overwhelming information is difficult to process on any given day.

Last week, I read an article describing how COVID-19 is a hoax propagandized by the media and, a few minutes later, I watched a video of a survival expert (whom I very much respect) chastise those who are not taking COVID-19 seriously as a genuine health threat.

Then, I was informed of an acquaintance dying from coronavirus. I knew the man personally and the last time we spoke he was telling me about his new girlfriend. His death was deemed notable enough to have a write-up included into the COVID-19 series of a national newspaper; and that's how I learned he died – when someone sent me the link. I'll also say he was in his seventies and his blood pressure was so high his eyes were constantly bloodshot.

So did he die with COVID-19 or from COVID-19? Yes, he did.

Indeed, lots of variables to consider. And it's tricky because health policies are a matter of public concern AND private responsibility. It's why considering the variables requires balance and common sense. Yet, unsurprisingly, it's become obvious COVID-19 has been politicized by some and even commandeered by others for purposes of power consolidation and achieving authoritarian goals.

Certainly, the virus doesn't need to be devastatingly lethal in order to accomplish the objectives of the globalists. At any given time, the ship of state progresses via (what I have designated as) the "Bulbous Bow of Confusion" , or, rather, competing narratives.

Two physicians who own five urgent care locations in Kern County California recently posted a viral YouTube video citing their own COVID-19 data and calling for an end to the draconian lockdowns. Their names are Dr. Dan Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi and the data they compiled acted as a "resistance wave" to countermand the official narrative put forth by ( as I've identified in past articles ) the likes of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), The Gates Foundation, John Hopkins University, and UK's The Guardian.

Yet, today, if you click on any previous articles where the doctors' viral videos were once posted you will see they've been taken down; and even their other videos queued in the threads of the articles have been transitioned into dead links by our benefactors at YouTube.

Truly, censorship is the validation of ideas as the most powerful force on earth; because if you now search for the two doctors by name on YouTube, you will find a video stamped with the Washington Post logo describing "What Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi get wrong about coronavirus" .

Meanwhile, The Guardian, whose entire Global Development section is underwritten by the Gates Foundation , describes how scientists have found more evidence that Coronavirus can travel on air pollution particles .

Scary, huh?

Especially, when considering how another Gates Foundation subsidiary , the World Health Organization (WHO), has warned the worst of the virus is still ahead and that "people will need to get used to a new way of living" .

To be sure, the billionaires are committed. They can't go back now and this is why they are on full offense in the narrative war. It means no expense will be spared in the media onslaught until every person in the world fears COVID-19 being spread from cats and farts . It's also why various treatments are claimed to be ineffective and only the five innovations proposed by the New American King should be considered:

[Bill Gates] said the innovations needed to come in five areas: treatments, vaccines, testing, contact tracing, and policies for reopening the economy.

But what about Trump? He is still the U.S. President, right?

In past postings, I've exhaustively considered Trump as a possible "movie" or "reality TV show". My article entitled "Personal Politics, Public Impeachment, Persuasion and Post-Apocalyptic Planning" also discussed how the Military Industrial Complex has NOT grown weaker in the decades since Eisenhower and Kennedy – and, in fact, cited the trend of its growing strength from Abe Lincoln through the creation of the Federal Reserve, and Woodrow Wilson, onward.

I've additionally speculated in previous writings President Trump as one of the following:

1.) The Real Deal – fighting the Dark Lords out of love of country

2.) Being used by the Dark Powers unwittingly

3.) A Judas Goat

At this point in time, it appears the possibility of # 1 is fading, if not having been completely debunked as of this writing.

So, given #'s 2 & 3 above, I've previously questioned if Trump was elected as a " bleeding of the brake lines " prior to the " big stop " (i.e. end of America).

Therefore, what if the Trump Reality TV Show® was meant to demonstrate the sheer power of "The Controllers" and their ability to convert the globe into One World under Communism? And, furthermore, what if the 2016 Presidential Election was staged to illustrate to all nations the futility of resistance?

Consider the waves that have crashed upon Trump's shores over the past four years: Russiagate/Mueller, Ukrainian Impeachment, and, now, COVID-19. Each of these consecutive waves were increasingly consequential from a historical perspective.

Is the war to "drain-the-swamp" real? Because, if not, the battle lines have been made clear and the tech gods have cataloged our IP addresses.

Which brings us back to Bill Gates: His digital fingerprints are all over the COVID-19 virus because, in the years prior, Gates worked to strategically monopolize global health including research , governance , and reporting . In addition, his dirty hands have reached into online data, U.S. intelligence, mainstream media, the GAVI Vaccine Alliance , and Microsoft's ID2020 digital ID initiative. Plus, the Gates Foundation has donated the most private money to the World Health Organization (WHO), subsidized the October 2019 "Event 201" pandemic exercise , and even sponsored an event that was labeled communist propaganda – the globally televised "Together at Home" elitist infomercial ;

Since the United States recently suspended its payments to the WHO, the organization's biggest contributor is now the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Another major contributor to the WHO is the GAVI Alliance (formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation). Both of these organizations are also part of ID2020, an organization that is advocating for the use of vaccines to implement a global digital ID system using tattoos or microchips.

And just as the company Gates founded (Microsoft) recently released, and then recalled, a "luciferian" advertisement starring "spirit-cooking" priestess Marina Abramović , the Gates' World Health Organization (WHO) mandates have allowed "heroes" to arrest mothers on playgrounds in front of their children .

Honestly, it really does add an entirely fresh perspective on the words of Isaiah 5:20 :

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"

Now, paradoxically, a new bioluminescent vaccine is making headlines. If you can believe this it's called "Luciferase" and it can store vaccination history through a new dye made available with MIT research funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation .

Wow, that was fast, huh?

Or was it planned? And for those who would say it was planned, would you call them "conspiracy theorists"? But, seriously, is it really conspiracy if it's all been published ?

Because, over the decades, it has become quite evident that wealthy individuals, influential families, and powerful organizations and corporations have coopted nation-states in order to unite the globe. World War I delivered the League of Nations and World War II brought about the United Nations. Since then, the billionaire round-table groups have only grown more interconnected as Davos Men planned and the Bilderberg's conspired .

The modern era has progressed by committee; and to the giant sucking sounds as predicted by former presidential candidate Ross Perot.

In 2010, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Business Network drafted a document entitled " Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development " which outlined the following potential plans schemes through 2030: " Lock Step ", " Clever Together ", " Hack Attack ", and " Smart Scramble ".

The first link below is a 54-page (2.29 MB sized) PDF file. Even if the Bill Gates' inspired MS Windows gives you a virus warning, just know the file can be viewed (or downloaded) with no issues. Or, if you would rather watch a one-hour, forty-two-minute video presentation, just click on link # 2 below:

1.) PDF FILE: Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development

2.) VIDEO (1:42:34): COVID – LOCKDOWN – GLOBAL BANKRUPTCY – the PLAN

Note that on page 18 of the PDF (#1 above), the "Lock Step" scenario describes a 2012 pandemic leading to a global economic collapse followed by oppressive authoritarian controls:

In 2012, the pandemic that the world had been anticipating for years finally hit. Unlike 2009's H1N1, this new influenza strain -- originating from wild geese -- was extremely virulent and deadly. Even the most pandemic-prepared nations were quickly overwhelmed when the virus streaked around the world The pandemic also had a deadly effect on economies: international mobility of both people and goods screeched to a halt, debilitating industries like tourism and breaking global supply chains. Even locally, normally bustling shops and office buildings sat empty for months, devoid of both employees and customers.

. The United States' initial policy of "strongly discouraging" citizens from flying proved deadly in its leniency, accelerating the spread of the virus not just within the U.S. but across borders. However, a few countries did fare better -- China in particular. The Chinese government's quick imposition and enforcement of mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well as its instant and near-hermetic sealing off of all borders, saved millions of lives, stopping the spread of the virus far earlier than in other countries and enabling a swifter post-pandemic recovery.

China's government was not the only one that took extreme measures to protect its citizens from risk and exposure. During the pandemic, national leaders around the world flexed their authority and imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets. Even after the pandemic faded, this more authoritarian control and oversight of citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified. In order to protect themselves from the spread of increasingly global problems -- from pandemics and transnational terrorism to environmental crises and rising poverty -- leaders around the world took a firmer grip on power.

At first, the notion of a more controlled world gained wide acceptance and approval. Citizens willingly gave up some of their sovereignty -- and their privacy -- to more paternalistic states in exchange for greater safety and stability. Citizens were more tolerant, and even eager, for top-down direction and oversight, and national leaders had more latitude to impose order in the ways they saw fit. In developed countries, this heightened oversight took many forms: biometric IDs for all citizens, for example, and tighter regulation of key industries whose stability was deemed vital to national interests.

Sound familiar? Because this was the dialectic with which we were presented: " Herd Immunity® " (an Orwellian term befitting cattle) or " Continuous" COVID-19®. And what did American's chose? They picked " continuous ", Alex, for $1,200 per U.S. citizen. And as we Flattened the Curve ®, the CDC broadcasted concerns regarding second waves of coronaviruses as telescreens the world over warned of mutant strains of coronaviruses more contagious than the original .

Yes. Both Coronavirus®, and Big Brother, Incorporated have marched forward unencumbered.

But as people sheltered in their homes they saw "conservative" Never-Trumpers weaponize the ghost of Ronald Reagan against the Bad Orange Man® with a video entitled "Mourning in America" . It was too cute by half. Then, fortunately, as the world remained mystified by "covid toes" , the president tweeted back at the Never-Trump "losers" in the most ingenious and gratifying ways.

And Trump is just getting warmed up. No doubt his Zoom® debates with Biden are bound to be hilarious. Unless Whistleblowergate Part Deux is the silver-bullet that will stop the Bad Orange Man® once and for all?

(CNN) Dr. Rick Bright, the ousted director of the office involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine, formally filed an extensive whistleblower complaint Tuesday alleging his early warnings about the coronavirus were ignored and that his caution at a treatment favored by President Donald Trump led to his removal.

For the Democrats, the future looks "Bright", no?

In my previous article entitled "On Used Cars, Haircuts, and Buyers Beware" , I referenced "Hegelian Polemics" and therein linked an article entitled "Hegelian Dialectic: A Tool To Enslave Humanity" .

What I found interesting in that article is how it identified "opposing sides" (i.e. opposites) as "capstones" on the bottom of the "pyramid" – with the top capstone (eye) as representative of the final action:

The chess board is a well-known Masonic or Hegelian symbol, the black and white squares symbolize control through duality in the grand game of life in all aspects. Left or right, white or black people, conservative or liberal, democrat or republican, Christian or Muslim and so on. Through two opposing parties control is gained as both parties reach the same destination, which is order through guided conflict or chaos.

Left (thesis) versus right (antithesis) equals middle ground or control (synthesis). The triangle and all seeing eye we see so often symbolizes the completion of the great work

The pyramid is supported by the bottom opposing sides. The capstone at the top is established through controlled solution or middle ground.

In my piece entitled "On Channel Surfing, Circus Acts, and Time Passages" , I discussed the 1927 movie "Metropolis" as a favorite of the occult. The words that appear on the screen at the end of that film are these:

THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN THE HEAD AND HANDS MUST BE THE HEART!

A 2010 article posted on TheVigilantCitizen.com speculated on the "mediator" as the electronic media which manipulates the plebes (workers) on behalf of the head (controllers).

To be sure, the Modern Centralizers craft their new realities by means of the Orwellian Media. It's why they call it programming . And what better way to manipulate the emotions (hearts) of people than by fiction and fear?

With that in mind, I now call your attention to the below video link of the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics:

The Complete London 2012 Opening Ceremony | London 2012 Olympic Games

If one cares to click that link and view the segment shown between the 45 and 55 minute marks, they will see what appears to be a staged viral pandemic. The drama takes place beneath black pyramids malevolently towering over the stadium (and the crowd) and ends with the appearance of a giant, creepy-looking baby; or maybe a still-birth – it's hard to tell.

At the 45 to 47 minute mark, we see kids in hospital beds surrounded by dancing nurses and doctors. At around the 47:30 mark, the medical staff/dancers put the kids to bed and with fingers over their months, urging silence. What appears to be a giant virus then appears center-stage at the around the 48 minute mark.

Then, around the 49 minute mark, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling reads from Peter Pan and says: "But in the two minutes before you go to sleep, it is real ". Next, shadowy virus-looking demons take the stage to chase the children, and dark horses towing a magician and a steel cage glide behind an oriental woman who is looking elsewhere as the pandemic commences.

The 49:50 mark shows what appears to be a giant (British Prime Minister) Boris Johnson sick in bed.

Finally, as the dark magicians cast their spells and the viruses dance, the nurses and doctors appear paralyzed and robotic – like puppets (50:45 to 51:45 mark) before Mary Poppins figures descend from the sky.

In my research, I found another article by the Vigilant Citizen dated August 17, 2012 , and it had this to say back then regarding the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics:

The next important sequence of the ceremony paid tribute to the National Health Service (NHS) and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). The set combined sick kids on hospital beds with characters from English children's literature and had a very strange and dark undertone from the start, when it began with the theme from The Exorcist, which is, in case you don't know, a movie about a child possessed by the Devil. Odd choice.

The sequence begins with children on hospital beds who get put to sleep by nurses. Then J.K. Rowling appears and reads a quote from Peter Pan alluding to Neverland, which becomes real in the "two minutes before you go to sleep". I couldn't say if that was done on purpose, but many elements of this set, mostly the mix of vulnerable children in a hospital with fairy tales and the concept of blurring the lines between reality and fiction, are all associated with mind control programming. Like the Wizard of Oz and Alice of Wonderland, the story of Peter Pan is heavily used in mind control programming as victims are told to escape to "Neverland" while inducing dissociation from reality.

The same article also addressed the 2012 Olympic closing ceremonie s (video at this link) and showing a new world order rising like a phoenix; while referencing The Who, no less.

At midnight, the Olympic cauldron and the petals representing each country are slowly extinguished, but the phoenix, representing the occult elite and the New World Order, stays lit above it. In other words, as the nations of the world slowly disappear, a New World Order will emerge. On that note, let's listen to The Who!

Of course, listen to The Who rock band? Or the World Health Organization (WHO)? Coincidence or conspiracy? You're probably right.

So, to summarize: 2012 was the same year the Rockefeller Foundation predicted the "Lock Step" pandemic scenario as the Olympic ceremonies that year showed opposing sides battling over children during the opening ceremonies and followed by the resolution in the closing ceremonies: A new phoenix rising from the ashes – like a new world order.

Order out of chaos.

Therefore, if COVID-19 was, indeed, a PLANdemic perpetrated by dark forces, was my aforementioned friend murdered by those who now want us to self-quarantine and wear masks for the safety of those being murdered? Most likely; because observing luciferian pedophiles through their symbols is like identifying hidden planets via the observed effects of gravitation, or studying game theory when the game is rigged.

It's how we can identify who "they" are, but only for people willing to first acknowledge that "they" exist. Unfortunately, it's a wasted effort on most. One might as well don a tinfoil hat and chase shadows on a magic pony.

Therefore, perhaps it's easier to digest the words of physician and former Presidential Candidate Ron Paul when it comes to explaining Coronavirus tyranny, forced vaccinations and 'Digital Certificates' :

Proponents of mandatory vaccines and enhanced surveillance are trying to blackmail the American people by arguing that the lockdown cannot end unless we create a healthcare surveillance state and make vaccination mandatory. The growing number of Americans who are tired of not being able to go to work, school, or church, or even to take their children to a park because of government mandates should reject this "deal." Instead, they should demand an immediate end to the lockdowns and the restoration of individual responsibility for deciding how best to protect their health.

Regrettably, it was supposed to be a season of graduation parties, weddings, and Fourth of July celebrations. But these have been displaced by lockdowns, social distancing, bodies in refrigerated trucks, fear, magic spells, and propaganda.

Fox News Host Tucker Carlson has even recently bemoaned the New America's resemblance to communist China :

Big companies partnering with the government to spy on you without your knowledge. Americans locked in their homes, banned from going to church, placated with sedatives like beer and weed. Anyone who speaks up is silenced. Political demonstrations are illegal. Organizers are arrested. Only opinions approved by unelected leaders are allowed on information platforms. Sound familiar? It sounds a lot like China. Of all the many ironies of this moment, so many of them bitter, the hardest to swallow is this: as we fight this virus, we are becoming far more like the country that spawned it. We're becoming more like China. It's horrifying.

Those in power are the ones the our professional class seeks to protect, not the country. Freedom of conscience never endangers the public. It only threatens the powerful. It endangers their control. It hinders their ability to dictate election results, to loot the economy, to make policies based on whim for their own gain. No wonder our leaders have done such a poor job protecting us from China. They're on the same team.

– Tucker Carlson Tonight: Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Sadly, it appears Trump may be a crisis actor, like Anthony Fauci , and part of the plan from the start. The final details were solidified years ago – including the bioengineered PLANdemic.

China is quite likely part of the plan, too, since One World Under Communism has become the desired destination of the billionaires; with millions dying along the way. For those who do survive, they'll be allowed to work , consume , and obey . Of course, many Americans will not cooperate with their planned demise and this is why The Central Planners will need a great big war.

Both President Trump and his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, are tying Coronavirus to the "government laboratory in Wuhan" and now the Chinese are warning of possible armed conflict with the U.S. over the COVID-19 backlash ­.

Most recently, in an Oval Office Press conference on May 6, 2020, Trump actually blamed China for Coronavirus while claiming it is the "worst attack we've ever had" :

"This is worse than Pearl Harbor, this is worse than the World Trade Center. There's never been an attack like this.

– President Donald Trump – May 6, 2020

It means events could potentially occur as follows: As soon as rock-solid proof is revealed that China released the virus to take out Trump because our great president was winning the trade wars, then, the Orange-Haired Wonder will rally national support via sorrowful lamentations while standing tall on reality TV amidst the economic ruins.

A bumbling first strike by the U.S. could allow a Sino-Russian alliance to seal America's fate once and for all; and most likely by nuclear means.

Then any surviving sheeple will eagerly line up for the Bill Gates of Hell special: A free digital tattoo along with a bonus vaccination and bowl of soup.

Welcome to the end of the rainbow. Orwell was right: we've always been at war with Eastasia and jackboots will stomp on human faces forever. Unless, that is, the digital drip-drops from Q-anon and our online commentaries change the future.

Conclusion

Those gathering at the round tables have been tremendously successful in our societal programming . Yet most of them are mere puppets to the inner rings of concentric power. The monsters that once lurked under our beds were set loose years ago and, today, they dress in drag and read to kids in libraries while others wear blue uniforms and arrest mothers for taking kids to playgrounds.

And where are the men of action? Where are the lovers of liberty? In my area, they've been fishing. And grilling. And why not? Trump is in the White House while Nancy Pelosi is locked in her gourmet kitchen eating fancy ice cream. The stimulus checks are in the bank, the grocery stores are still open, and if the fish aren't biting, those who would stand up to tyranny can always grab a bucket of chicken through the KFC drive-thru on the way home. At least for now.

As far as national lockdowns go, this has been the best one ever. So far.

For obvious reasons, I've been thinking of the autistic livestock guru Temple Grandin and how she pioneered more humane methods of leading animals to slaughter. One of the methods was to have cattle march to their demise single file via tall shutes. That sort of isolation seems reminiscent of what's occurring in America now – with people staring at walls, muzzled by masks, and numbly following orders while remaining six-feet apart.

How can people resist when they've been fooled? How can they fight back when they're frightened? And why have they placed their hope in safety instead of liberty ?

Good questions.

Real hope remains in the smart choices, right actions, and the prepping and survival decisions made every day by those awake and aware. But no matter what the future holds, may all reading this be surrounded by friends and loved ones who know Epstein didn't kill himself.

[May 07, 2020] MIC prostitute

Notable quotes:
"... Neocon Anne Applebaum has never seen a bed she did not expect to find an evil Russian lurking beneath. More than a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, she cannot let go of that hysterical feeling that, "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!" In screeching screed after screeching screech , Applebaum is, like most neocons, a one trick pony: the US government needs to spend more money to counter the threat of the month. Usually it's Russia or Putin. But it can also be China, Iran, Assad, Gaddafi, Saddam, etc. ..."
"... Anne Applebaum is a bitter neocon. She is furious that people no longer read the Washington Post as the authoritative voice of US foreign policy. She has apparently made a tidy fortune warning us that the Russians are coming, but she wants even more. The Washington Post still views her as an expert, but the American people, as she herself complains, are no longer interested in her worn-out fantasies. She is buried in defense industry funded think tanks and she does the bidding of her masters. Every intelligent American reader should ridicule her as the propagandist she is. ..."
May 08, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Anne Applebaum: Give Me Money to Fight 'Russian Disinformation'! Daniel McAdams Monday May 8, 2017

Neocon Anne Applebaum has never seen a bed she did not expect to find an evil Russian lurking beneath. More than a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, she cannot let go of that hysterical feeling that, "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!" In screeching screed after screeching screech , Applebaum is, like most neocons, a one trick pony: the US government needs to spend more money to counter the threat of the month. Usually it's Russia or Putin. But it can also be China, Iran, Assad, Gaddafi, Saddam, etc.

There is no doubt that Applebaum is a true believer that Putin wants to destroy our democratic institutions, but there is also a more pedestrian way to understand her endless obsession: it pays well to hype up big threats. In fact, according to a mandatory Polish government disclosure (her husband was Polish defense and foreign minister before being forced out in disgrace after an eavesdropping scandal), Applebaum has made out like a bandit for a humble journalist and think-tanker.

As I wrote when her scandal broke:

Interestingly, Applebaum demands transparency for everyone else while rejecting it for herself. A recent mandatory income declaration of her husband to the Polish government shows that her income has skyrocketed from $20,000 in 2011 to more than $800,000 in 2013. No explanation was given for this massive influx of cash, though several ventures in which she has a part are tied to CIA and National Endowment for Democracy-affiliated organizations. Could Applebaum be one of those well-paid propagandists about whom she complains so violently?
Applebaum's latest Washington Post column is about...you guessed it: the danger of Russian disinformation! Here is a synopsis of Applebaum's latest Cold War 2.0 propaganda piece from this weekend:

1) The mainstream media has taken a beating. The old business model is no longer working. There are too many new sources of information available, which makes it harder for people to judge the accuracy of what they read.

My comment: Indeed, the US mainstream media no longer controls what we see, read, and think. Applebaum cannot stand that there are websites challenging the central neoconservative foreign policy paradigm. She hates organizations like the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity (she even blocked us on Twitter!).

She longs for the days when you could only pick up a Washington Post or a New York Times and had no chance of discovering opposing opinions.

In other words, Anne Applebaum misses the Soviet-style monochrome media that she pretends to despise so much.

2) As a result of mainstream media outlets like the Washington Post losing their monopoly over shaping foreign policy opinion, as she writes: "authoritarian regimes, led by Russia but closely followed by China, have begun investing heavily in the production of alternatives."

My comment: Applebaum is saying here that it's all our fault that the Russians are coming because as soon as the Internet and alternative news and analysis sites offered a point of view different from Applebaum's neocons, we played into the hands of the Russians by ignoring the Washington Post and turning to alternatives. If we had only kept our faith in the neocon worldview, the Russians would not be set to take us over.

3) This new Cold War is even worse than the old Cold War! Unlike back then, in the new Cold War, as Applebaum writes, "Russia does not seek to promote itself, but rather to undermine the institutions of the West, often using discordant messages."

My comment: Anne Applebaum offers no evidence or even clues to back her claim. But what she is saying is that by allowing voices to be heard that run counter to the Washington Post and neocon foreign policy paradigm, Russian-funded outlets like RT are seeking to sow "confusion" among Western listeners and viewers. Applebaum does not want us to be "confused" by messages that run counter to the neocon view of a US empire fighting endless wars against manufactured enemies. We would be far less "confused" if we would all just read Anne Applebaum and stop questioning the neocons!

4) Don't worry, this effort to sow confusion is being countered.

Applebaum writes:

Some countries are waking up to this, especially those that have been hardest hit. The invasion, occupation and dismemberment of Ukraine in 2014 was preceded by a highly effective propaganda blitz that fomented confusion in Russian-speaking areas and blinded both Ukrainians and Westerners to what was really going on. In response, Ukrainian organizations such as StopFake began to expose and ridicule Russian propaganda.
My comment: She does not explain exactly what that "propaganda blitz" looked like. Was it the release of the tape of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland plotting the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Kiev? Well, according to Applebaum, at least the noble, independent NGOs are spontaneously springing up across Europe to counter this Russian propaganda blitz!

Except for one problem: The "StopFake" organization that she praises is not a grassroots Ukrainian organization as she would have us believe. In fact it's a George Soros astroturf organization, funded by his International Renaissance Foundation . In other words, "StopFake" is fake.

5) In fact, when it comes to funding, Anne Applebaum knows which side of her bread is buttered. As the Washington Post notes in the article's byline: "Anne Applebaum, a Post columnist, and Edward Lucas, a senior editor at the Economist, are this week launching a counter-disinformation initiative at the Center for European Policy Analysis, where they are, respectively, senior vice president and senior adjunct fellow."

My comment: Who funds the (Washington, D.C.-based) Center for European Policy Analysis? The United States Department of Defense and a handful of US defense contractors!

From their own website :

Recent donors to CEPA include:

Bell Helicopter
Boeing
Chevron Corporation
FireEye
Lockheed Martin Corporation
New Vista Partners
Raytheon Company
Sikorsky Aircraft
Textron Systems
The East Tennessee Foundation
The Hirsch Family Foundation
The Hungarian Initiatives Foundation
The International Visegrad Fund
The Poses Family Foundation
The Smith Richardson Foundation
U.S. Department of Defense

There are one or two surprises on the above list. The Hungarian government of Viktor Orban has been quite cautious about following the neocon line that any resistance to massive refugee inflows from the Middle East are signs of unforgivable xenophobia and that Russia and Putin must be resisted at all costs. In fact, Orban's opposition in Hungary is furious that he is not following the Russia-bashing neocon line. So why is the Hungarian government-funded Hungarian Initiatives Foundation backing Anne Applebaum's neocon initiative to demonize Russia? Good question. Maybe Fidesz supporters will want to ask their government why their tax money is going to such a worthless, anti-Fidesz cause.

6) And again on funding, we come to the crux of Anne Applebaum's problem: the US government does not spend nearly enough money creating its own propaganda to counter what she claims is Russian propaganda. They are outspending us and outmaneuvering us!

She writes:

There is no modern equivalent to the U.S. Information Agency , an organization dedicated to coping with Soviet propaganda and disinformation during the Cold War. Although there has been some extra funding for U.S.-backed foreign broadcasters such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , they cannot provide a complete response.
My comment: But that's not really true, is it? The idea that the US government is pinching propaganda pennies while the Russians are going in for the whole fake news hog is not backed up by those pernicious little things called facts. In fact, the Russian government spent around $300 million on RT in 2016. Compare that with the US propaganda arm, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, whose 2017 budget runs to $777.8 million dollars, or more than two and a half that of RT. And Congress just gave the green light to another $100 million to "counter Russian influence" in its stop-gap omnibus budget. We are out-spending them three-to-one. So why are we still "losing"?

Anne Applebaum is a bitter neocon. She is furious that people no longer read the Washington Post as the authoritative voice of US foreign policy. She has apparently made a tidy fortune warning us that the Russians are coming, but she wants even more. The Washington Post still views her as an expert, but the American people, as she herself complains, are no longer interested in her worn-out fantasies. She is buried in defense industry funded think tanks and she does the bidding of her masters. Every intelligent American reader should ridicule her as the propagandist she is.

As for Russian "propaganda," like everything else in that vast cornucopia now thankfully available for our consumption, we should read all we can while keeping our wits about us. There is no one authoritative, unbiased source of information. That we do know. But we also know that we are far more able to think for ourselves now that the neocon gatekeepers like Anne Applebaum have been defeated in the marketplace of ideas.


Copyright © 2017 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

Related

[May 01, 2020] Trump is a salesman first and foremost. As a former pharmaceutical rep I am well aware that most salesmen are suckers for most sales pitches as an intrinsic part of their personalities.

The absence of sufficient state controls in a democracy enables the wealthy class to manipulate the economy, the press and elected representatives for its own gain. A widening gulf between poverty and affluence develops, gradually dragging the working class to ruin
Notable quotes:
"... Our economy is based on the wet dream of sycophants like Mnuchin who barely escaped prison for his games in the wake of devastation of the subprime loan disaster on 2008, and neoliberals who are much better at playing him then the opposite. So he's a puppet for Wall Street AND a closet neocon. Would the demonstrably senile Biden be any better? Not a chance, so once again the majority of Americans are left with a sham election whereby two flavors of the same shit are what's being fed to us. ..."
May 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

Gyre07 , says: Show Comment April 30, 2020 at 3:45 pm GMT

@Priss Factor Assuming he's even motivated by a desire to make America a better Constitutional Republic, Trump is a salesman first and foremost. As a former pharmaceutical rep I am well aware that most salesmen are suckers for most sales pitches as an intrinsic part of their personalities.

So as I watch Trump being manipulated continuously by a variety of slick and confident grifters inhabiting the world stage with their multitude of transparent agendas I can only go, "that figures". I mean, he's basically just a more alpha version of GW Bush, so the fact that we haven't gone full gonzo yet on another nation is something of a miracle. Instead he's waging war by collapsing economies he views as competitors OR those of countries he wants to invade to steal natural resources from. As for the health of America, we're fucked.

Our economy is based on the wet dream of sycophants like Mnuchin who barely escaped prison for his games in the wake of devastation of the subprime loan disaster on 2008, and neoliberals who are much better at playing him then the opposite. So he's a puppet for Wall Street AND a closet neocon. Would the demonstrably senile Biden be any better? Not a chance, so once again the majority of Americans are left with a sham election whereby two flavors of the same shit are what's being fed to us.

Digital Samizdat , says: Show Comment April 30, 2020 at 4:49 pm GMT
@anon

Government and big money seem to have formed a nexus, dominated by a very small number of people, who seem to be at war with us.

I seem to agree.

Emily , says: Show Comment April 30, 2020 at 9:34 pm GMT
Until the American people demand electoral reform – you ain't going nowhere.
You need another party and you need to vote for it.
Stuff the neo lib or neo lib or neo lib – of the existing choice.
You have a two headed hydra – in reality a one party state.
Financed and controlled by puppet masters.
The democracy in the US is a total sham
A fraud and farce.
And you need fair voting.
Used by most democracies – PR – Proportional Representation.
Where votes mean seats.
A Ron Paul party would be a dream.
But until America gets off its fat bots and seriously acts to become a democratic state – you are getting what you continue to vote for.
Greed, corruption and elite rule – bought and paid for in the House and Senate down.
Nothing but a puppet, pawn and tax collector for another foreign power.
And you dare to mass murder and bomb in the name of 'regime change' and democracy to create your vile rule of law across the planet
Gross, an abomination – a facist state.

[May 01, 2020] Dr. Ron Paul Interview: Bill Gates Tony Fauci Are Determined To Run The World by Vaccines

May 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

Agent76 , says: Show Comment April 30, 2020 at 1:25 pm GMT

Apr 16, 2020 Dr. Ron Paul Interview: Bill Gates & Tony Fauci Are Determined To Run The World by Vaccines

Dr. Paul and Spiro discuss the current coronavirus crisis and the political, social and economic fallout effecting millions of Americans, as people begin to display resistance to the government lockdown response.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LKkByA7nC4U?feature=oembed

Sep 11, 2013 9/11 In A Nutshell

James Corbett presents this 5 minute parody of the official conspiracy theory of 9/11

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vrJiKbK0tVM?feature=oembed

2.3 TRillion Dollars Missing from DOD Day before 9/11/ 2001

SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 Defense Business Practices

Secretary Rumsfeld and other officials talked with reporters about the need to refine the Defense Department's business practices. An opening ceremony will kick off Acquisition and Logistics Excellence Week. They answered questions from members of the media

http://www.c-span.org/video/?165947-1/defense-business-practices

[Apr 29, 2020] China's Rise, America's Fall by Ron Unz

The rumors of the USA demise, including economic demise are greatly exaggerated. Germany and Japan -- the USA allies makes stuff, stuff that people all over the world want to buy – just as the USA did forty years ago. Machine tools, robots, silicon, carbon fibre.
I just wouldn't be so quick to predict the fall of the US visa vis China. The Chinese have now picked all the low hanging fruit. Now, with the USA awakening to the threat, it will become harder for them to sustain growth with little natural resources, pressing population problems, hostility of the USA, and now the spectre of national debt crisis.
Notable quotes:
"... Why Nations Fail ..."
"... Evidence for the long-term decline in our economic circumstances is most apparent when we consider the situation of younger Americans. The national media endlessly trumpets the tiny number of youthful Facebook millionaires, but the prospects for most of their contemporaries are actually quite grim. According to research from the Pew Center, barely half of 18- to 24-year-old Americans are currently employed, the lowest level since 1948, a time long before most women had joined the labor force. Nearly one-fifth of young men age 25–34 are still living with their parents, while the wealth of all households headed by those younger than 35 is 68 percent lower today than it was in 1984. ..."
"... Why Nations Fail ..."
"... Harvard Law Review ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Why Nations Fail ..."
"... Why Nations Fail ..."
"... Ron Unz is publisher of ..."
"... and founder of Unz.org . ..."
"... The state of US politics can only be accurately described as self-destructive. The government's hubris is bringing down the foundations of the economy, and it's only a matter of time before we end up living in the ruins of a dead civilization. ..."
"... The basic fact that supports any capitalist system, is that increasing productivity will increase wealth, that is, real wealth. Huge military expenditures all towards the goal of keeping raw resources a little bit cheaper, and a financial structure increasingly designed to encourage making money from money, are absolutely insane. This is Ancient Rome all over again. ..."
"... I do agree, however with earlier commentators about American lack of discipline. Years ago, cutting through the Engineering School at Rutgers, I was struck that the vast majority of students were foreigners, mostly Asian. Americans at that time just went to school to party. ..."
"... China is not to blame for America's decline, America has to face its own ghosts; the 15 trillion dollars debt, the unemployment, inequality, huge military spending, endless wars that is what you have to confront. ..."
"... Never was a piece written so needed to be read. We are a one party country. We are totally failed by our media for the "most" part. ..."
"... The US is an plutocracy, not a democracy. ..."
"... Mr. Unz said, "And since we live in a entertainment-dominated society, sentiments affirmed on then screen often have direct real-world consequences." ..."
"... In Iceland, it already happened, over a very short span of time. But the Icelandic native populace literally ejected them corporally from the govt. buildings, and now the heads of the major banks have been criminally sentenced and imprisoned, Iceland has the only PM to have been criminally convicted in the financial crisis. Dire predictions by other mafiosi of economic meltdown as a consequence of the "too big to fail" going to jail have yet to materialise, Iceland is doing fine. ..."
"... Far from a great advance for Chinese workers, however, it is the direct result of a consolidation of power in the hands of a small clique of powerful families, families that have actively collaborated with Western financial oligarchs. ..."
Apr 29, 2020 | www.unz.com

America's Economic Decline

These facts do not provide much evidence for the thesis in Why Nations Fail that China's leaders constitute a self-serving and venal "extractive" elite. Unfortunately, such indications seem far more apparent when we direct our gaze inward, toward the recent economic and social trajectory of our own country

Against the backdrop of remarkable Chinese progress, America mostly presents a very gloomy picture. Certainly America's top engineers and entrepreneurs have created many of the world's most important technologies, sometimes becoming enormously wealthy in the process. But these economic successes are not typical nor have their benefits been widely distributed. Over the last 40 years, a large majority of American workers have seen their real incomes stagnate or decline.

Meanwhile, the rapid concentration of American wealth continues apace: the richest 1 percent of America's population now holds as much net wealth as the bottom 90–95 percent, and these trends may even be accelerating. A recent study revealed that during our supposed recovery of the last couple of years, 93 percent of the total increase in national income went to the top 1 percent, with an astonishing 37 percent being captured by just the wealthiest 0.01 percent of the population, 15,000 households in a nation of well over 300 million people.

Evidence for the long-term decline in our economic circumstances is most apparent when we consider the situation of younger Americans. The national media endlessly trumpets the tiny number of youthful Facebook millionaires, but the prospects for most of their contemporaries are actually quite grim. According to research from the Pew Center, barely half of 18- to 24-year-old Americans are currently employed, the lowest level since 1948, a time long before most women had joined the labor force. Nearly one-fifth of young men age 25–34 are still living with their parents, while the wealth of all households headed by those younger than 35 is 68 percent lower today than it was in 1984.

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The total outstanding amount of non-dischargeable student-loan debt has crossed the trillion-dollar mark, now surpassing the combined total of credit-card and auto-loan debt -- and with a quarter of all student-loan payers now delinquent, there are worrisome indicators that much of it will remain a permanent burden, reducing many millions to long-term debt peonage. A huge swath of America's younger generation seems completely impoverished, and likely to remain so.

International trade statistics, meanwhile, demonstrate that although Apple and Google are doing quite well, our overall economy is not. For many years now our largest goods export has been government IOUs, whose dollar value has sometimes been greater than that of the next ten categories combined. At some point, perhaps sooner than we think, the rest of the world will lose its appetite for this non-functional product, and our currency will collapse, together with our standard of living. Similar Cassandra-like warnings were issued for years about the housing bubble or the profligacy of the Greek government, and were proven false year after year until one day they suddenly became true.

Ironically enough, there is actually one major category in which American expansion still easily tops that of China, both today and for the indefinite future: population growth. The rate of America's demographic increase passed that of China over 20 years ago and has been greater every year since, sometimes by as much as a factor of two. According to standard projections, China's population in 2050 will be almost exactly what it was in 2000, with the country having achieved the population stability typical of advanced, prosperous societies. But during that same half-century, the number of America's inhabitants will have grown by almost 50 percent, a rate totally unprecedented in the developed world and actually greater than that found in numerous Third World countries such as Colombia, Algeria, Thailand, Mexico, or Indonesia. A combination of very rapid population growth and doubtful prospects for equally rapid economic growth does not bode well for the likely quality of the 2050 American Dream.

China rises while America falls, but are there major causal connections between these two concurrent trends now reshaping the future of our world? Not that I can see. American politicians and pundits are naturally fearful of taking on the fierce special interest groups that dominate their political universe, so they often seek an external scapegoat to explicate the misery of their constituents, sometimes choosing to focus on China. But this is merely political theater for the ignorant and the gullible.

Various studies have suggested that China's currency may be substantially undervalued, but even if the frequent demands of Paul Krugman and others were met and the yuan rapidly appreciated another 15 or 20 percent, few industrial jobs would return to American shores, while working-class Americans might pay much more for their basic necessities. And if China opened wide its borders to more American movies or financial services, the multimillionaires of Hollywood and Wall Street might grow even richer, but ordinary Americans would see little benefit. It is always easier for a nation to point an accusing finger at foreigners rather than honestly admit that almost all its terrible problems are essentially self-inflicted.

Decay of Constitutional Democracy

The central theme of Why Nations Fail is that political institutions and the behavior of ruling elites largely determine the economic success or failure of countries. If most Americans have experienced virtually no economic gains for decades, perhaps we should cast our gaze at these factors in our own society.

Our elites boast about the greatness of our constitutional democracy, the wondrous human rights we enjoy, the freedom and rule of law that have long made America a light unto the nations of the world and a spiritual draw for oppressed peoples everywhere, including China itself. But are these claims actually correct? They often stack up very strangely when they appear in the opinion pages of our major newspapers, coming just after the news reporting, whose facts tell a very different story.

Just last year, the Obama administration initiated a massive months-long bombing campaign against the duly recognized government of Libya on "humanitarian" grounds, then argued with a straight face that a military effort comprising hundreds of bombing sorties and over a billion dollars in combat costs did not actually constitute "warfare," and hence was completely exempt from the established provisions of the Congressional War Powers Act. A few months later, Congress overwhelmingly passed and President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, granting the president power to permanently imprison without trial or charges any American whom he classifies as a national-security threat based on his own judgment and secret evidence. When we consider that American society has experienced virtually no domestic terrorism during the past decade, we must wonder how long our remaining constitutional liberties would survive if we were facing frequent real-life attacks by an actual terrorist underground, such as had been the case for many years with the IRA in Britain, ETA in Spain, or the Red Brigades in Italy.

Most recently, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have claimed the inherent right of an American president to summarily execute anyone anywhere in the world, American citizen or not, whom White House advisors have privately decided was a "bad person." While it is certainly true that major world governments have occasionally assassinated their political enemies abroad, I have never before heard these dark deeds publicly proclaimed as legitimate and aboveboard. Certainly if the governments of Russia or China, let alone Iran, declared their inherent right to kill anyone anywhere in the world whom they didn't like, our media pundits would immediately blast these statements as proof of their total criminal insanity.

These are very strange notions of the "rule of law" for the administration of a president who had once served as top editor of the Harvard Law Review and who was routinely flattered in his political campaigns by being described as a "constitutional scholar."

Many of these negative ideological trends have been absorbed and accepted by the popular culture and much of the American public. Over the last decade one of the highest-rated shows on American television was "24", created by Joel Surnow and chronicling Kiefer Sutherland as a patriotic but ruthless Secret Service agent, with each episode constituting a single hour of his desperate efforts to thwart terrorist plots and safeguard our national security. Numerous episodes featured our hero torturing suspected evildoers in order to extract the information necessary to save innocent lives, with the entire series representing a popular weekly glorification of graphic government torture on behalf of the greater good.

Now soft-headed protestations to the contrary, most governments around the world have at least occasionally practiced torture, especially when combating popular insurgencies, and some of the more brutal regimes, including Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany, even professionalized the process. But such dark deeds done in secret were always vigorously denied in public, and the popular films and other media of Stalin's Soviet Union invariably featured pure-hearted workers and peasants bravely doing their honorable and patriotic duty for the Motherland, rather than the terrible torments being daily inflicted in the cellars of the Lubyanka prison. Throughout all of modern history, I am not aware of a single even semi-civilized country that publicly celebrated the activities of its professional government torturers in the popular media. Certainly such sentiments would have been totally abhorrent and unthinkable in the "conservative Hollywood" of the Cold War 1950s.

And since we live in a entertainment-dominated society, sentiments affirmed on the screen often have direct real-world consequences. At one point, senior American military and counter-terrorism officials felt the need to travel to Hollywood and urge its screenwriters to stop glorifying American torture, since their shows were encouraging U.S. soldiers to torture Muslim captives even when their commanding officers repeatedly ordered them not to do so.

Given these facts, we should hardly be surprised that international surveys over the past decade have regularly ranked America as the world's most hated major nation, a remarkable achievement given the dominant global role of American media and entertainment and also the enormous international sympathy that initially flowed to our country following the 9/11 attacks.

An Emerging One-Party State

So far at least, these extra-constitutional and often brutal methods have not been directed toward controlling America's own political system; we remain a democracy rather than a dictatorship. But does our current system actually possess the central feature of a true democracy, namely a high degree of popular influence over major government policies? Here the evidence seems more ambiguous.

Consider the pattern of the last decade. With two ruinous wars and a financial collapse to his record, George W. Bush was widely regarded as one of the most disastrous presidents in American history, and at times his public approval numbers sank to the lowest levels ever measured. The sweeping victory of his successor, Barack Obama, represented more a repudiation of Bush and his policies than anything else, and leading political activists, left and right alike, characterized Obama as Bush's absolute antithesis, both in background and in ideology. This sentiment was certainly shared abroad, with Obama being selected for the Nobel Peace Prize just months after entering office, based on the widespread assumption that he was certain to reverse most of the policies of his detested predecessor and restore America to sanity.

Yet almost none of these reversals took place. Instead, the continuity of administration policy has been so complete and so obvious that many critics now routinely speak of the Bush/Obama administration.

The harsh violations of constitutional principles and civil liberties which Bush pioneered following the 9/11 attacks have only further intensified under Obama, the heralded Harvard constitutional scholar and ardent civil libertarian, and this has occurred without the excuse of any major new terrorist attacks. During his Democratic primary campaign, Obama promised that he would move to end Bush's futile Iraq War immediately upon taking office, but instead large American forces remained in place for years until heavy pressure from the Iraqi government finally forced their removal; meanwhile, America's occupation army in Afghanistan actually tripled in size. The government bailout of the hated financial manipulators of Wall Street, begun under Bush, continued apace under Obama, with no serious attempts at either government prosecution or drastic reform. Americans are still mostly suffering through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, but Wall Street profits and multimillion-dollar bonuses soon returned to record levels.

In particular, the continuity of top officials has been remarkable. As Bush's second defense secretary, Robert Gates had been responsible for the ongoing management of America's foreign wars and military occupations since 2006; Obama kept him on, and he continued to play the same role in the new administration. Similarly, Timothy Geithner had been one of Bush's most senior financial appointments, playing a crucial role in the widely unpopular financial bailout of Wall Street; Obama promoted him to Treasury secretary and authorized continuation of those same policies. Ben Bernanke had been appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve by Bush and was reappointed by Obama. Bush wars and bailouts became Obama wars and bailouts. The American public voted for an anti-Bush, but got Bush's third term instead.

During the Cold War, Soviet propagandists routinely characterized our democracy as a sham, with the American public merely selecting which of the two intertwined branches of their single political party should alternate in office, while the actual underlying policies remained essentially unchanged, being decided and implemented by the same corrupt ruling class. This accusation may have been mostly false at the time it was made but seems disturbingly accurate today.

When times are hard and government policies are widely unpopular, but voters are only offered a choice between the rival slick marketing campaigns of Coke and Pepsi, cynicism can reach extreme proportions. Over the last year, surveys have shown that the public non-approval of Congress -- representing Washington's political establishment -- has ranged as high as 90–95 percent, which is completely unprecedented.

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But if our government policies are so broadly unpopular, why are we unable to change them through the sacred power of the vote? The answer is that America's system of government has increasingly morphed from being a representative democracy to becoming something closer to a mixture of plutocracy and mediacracy, with elections almost entirely determined by money and media, not necessarily in that order. Political leaders are made or broken depending on whether they receive the cash and visibility needed to win office.

National campaigns increasingly seem sordid reality shows for second-rate political celebrities, while our country continues along its path toward multiple looming calamities. Candidates who depart from the script or deviate from the elite D.C. consensus regarding wars or bailouts -- notably a principled ideologue such as Ron Paul -- are routinely stigmatized in the media as dangerous extremists or even entirely airbrushed out of campaign news coverage, as has been humorously highlighted by comedian Jon Stewart.

We know from the collapsed communist states of Eastern Europe that control over the media may determine public perceptions of reality, but it does not change the underlying reality itself, and reality usually has the last laugh. Economics Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and his colleagues have conservatively estimated the total long-term cost of our disastrous Iraq War at $3 trillion, representing over one-fifth of our entire accumulated national debt, or almost $30,000 per American household. And even now the direct ongoing costs of our Afghanistan War still run $120 billion per year, many times the size of Afghanistan's total GDP. Meanwhile, during these same years the international price of oil has risen from $25 to $125 per barrel -- partly as a consequence of these past military disruptions and growing fears of future ones -- thereby imposing gigantic economic costs upon our society.

And we suffer other costs as well. A recent New York Times story described the morale-building visit of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to our forces in Afghanistan and noted that all American troops had been required to surrender their weapons before attending his speech and none were allowed to remain armed in his vicinity. Such a command decision seems almost unprecedented in American history and does not reflect well upon the perceived state of our military morale.

Future historians may eventually regard these two failed wars, fought for entirely irrational reasons, as the proximate cause of America's financial and political collapse, representing the historical bookend to our World War II victory, which originally established American global dominance.

Our Extractive Elites

When parasitic elites govern a society along "extractive" lines, a central feature is the massive upward flow of extracted wealth, regardless of any contrary laws or regulations. Certainly America has experienced an enormous growth of officially tolerated corruption as our political system has increasingly consolidated into a one-party state controlled by a unified media-plutocracy.

Consider the late 2011 collapse of MF Global, a midsize but highly reputable brokerage firm. Although this debacle was far smaller than the Lehman bankruptcy or the Enron fraud, it effectively illustrates the incestuous activities of America's overlapping elites. Just a year earlier, Jon Corzine had been installed as CEO, following his terms as Democratic governor and U.S. senator from New Jersey and his previous career as CEO of Goldman Sachs. Perhaps no other American had such a combination of stellar political and financial credentials on his resume. Soon after taking the reins, Corzine decided to boost his company's profits by betting its entire capital and more against the possibility that any European countries might default on their national debts. When he lost that bet, his multi-billion-dollar firm tumbled into bankruptcy.

At this point, the story moves from a commonplace tale of Wall Street arrogance and greed into something out of the Twilight Zone, or perhaps Monty Python. The major newspapers began reporting that customer funds, eventually said to total $1.6 billion, had mysteriously disappeared during the collapse, and no one could determine what had become of them, a very strange claim in our age of massively computerized financial records. Weeks and eventually months passed, tens of millions of dollars were spent on armies of investigators and forensic accountants, but all those customer funds stayed "missing," while the elite media covered this bizarre situation in the most gingerly possible fashion. As an example, a front page Wall Street Journal story on February 23, 2012 suggested that after so many months, there seemed little likelihood that the disappeared customer funds might ever reappear, but also emphasized that absolutely no one was being accused of any wrongdoing. Presumably the journalists were suggesting that the $1.6 billion dollars of customer money had simply walked out the door on its own two feet.

Stories like this give the lie to the endless boasts of our politicians and business pundits that America's financial system is the most transparent and least corrupt in today's world. Certainly America is not unique in the existence of long-term corporate fraud, as was recently shown in the fall of Japan's Olympus Corporation following the discovery of more than a billion dollars in long-hidden investment losses. But when we consider the largest corporate collapses of the last decade that were substantially due to fraud, nearly all the names are American: WorldCom, Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing, and Adelphia. And this list leaves out all the American financial institutions destroyed by the financial meltdown -- such as Lehman, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, and Wachovia -- and the many trillions of dollars in American homeowner equity and top-rated MBS securities which evaporated during that process. Meanwhile, the largest and longest Ponzi Scheme in world history, that of Bernie Madoff, had survived for decades under the very nose of the SEC, despite a long series of detailed warnings and complaints. The second largest such fraud, that of Allen R. Stanford, also bears the label "Made in the USA."

Some of the sources of Chinese success and American decay are not entirely mysterious. As it happens, the typical professional background of a member of China's political elite is engineering; they were taught to build things. Meanwhile, a remarkable fraction of America's political leadership class attended law school, where they were trained to argue effectively and to manipulate. Thus, we should not be greatly surprised that while China's leaders tend to build, America's leaders seem to prefer endless manipulation, whether of words, money, or people.

How corrupt is the American society fashioned by our current ruling elites? That question is perhaps more ambiguous than it might seem. According to the standard world rankings produced by Transparency International, the United States is a reasonably clean country, with corruption being considerably higher than in the nations of Northern Europe or elsewhere in the Anglosphere, but much lower than in most of the rest of the world, including China.

But I suspect that this one-dimensional metric fails to capture some of the central anomalies of America's current social dilemma. Unlike the situation in many Third World countries, American teachers and tax inspectors very rarely solicit bribes, and there is little overlap in personnel between our local police and the criminals whom they pursue. Most ordinary Americans are generally honest. So by these basic measures of day-to-day corruption, America is quite clean, not too different from Germany or Japan.

By contrast, local village authorities in China have a notorious tendency to seize public land and sell it to real estate developers for huge personal profits. This sort of daily misbehavior has produced an annual Chinese total of up to 90,000 so-called "mass incidents" -- public strikes, protests, or riots -- usually directed against corrupt local officials or businessmen.

However, although American micro-corruption is rare, we seem to suffer from appalling levels of macro-corruption, situations in which our various ruling elites squander or misappropriate tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars of our national wealth, sometimes doing so just barely on one side of technical legality and sometimes on the other.

Sweden is among the cleanest societies in Europe, while Sicily is perhaps the most corrupt. But suppose a large clan of ruthless Sicilian Mafiosi moved to Sweden and somehow managed to gain control of its government. On a day-to-day basis, little would change, with Swedish traffic policemen and building inspectors performing their duties with the same sort of incorruptible efficiency as before, and I suspect that Sweden's Transparency International rankings would scarcely decline. But meanwhile, a large fraction of Sweden's accumulated national wealth might gradually be stolen and transferred to secret Cayman Islands bank accounts, or invested in Latin American drug cartels, and eventually the entire plundered economy would collapse.

Ordinary Americans who work hard and seek to earn an honest living for themselves and their families appear to be suffering the ill effects of exactly this same sort of elite-driven economic pillage. The roots of our national decline will be found at the very top of our society, among the One Percent, or more likely the 0.1 percent.

Thus, the ideas presented in Why Nations Fail seem both true and false. The claim that harmful political institutions and corrupt elites can inflict huge economic damage upon a society seems absolutely correct. But while the authors turn a harsh eye toward elite misbehavior across time and space -- from ancient Rome to Czarist Russia to rising China -- their vision seems to turn rosy-tinted when they consider present-day America, the society in which they themselves live and whose ruling elites lavishly fund the academic institutions with which they are affiliated. Given the American realities of the last dozen years, it is quite remarkable that the scholars who wrote a book entitled Why Nations Fail never glanced outside their own office windows.

A similar dangerous reticence may afflict most of our media, which appears much more eager to focus on self-inflicted disasters in foreign countries than on those here at home. Presented below is a companion case-study, " Chinese Melamine and American Vioxx: A Comparison ," in which I point out that while the American media a few years ago joined its Chinese counterparts in devoting enormous coverage to the deaths of a few Chinese children from tainted infant formula, it paid relatively little attention to a somewhat similar domestic public-health disaster that killed many tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans.

A society's media and academic organs constitute the sensory apparatus and central nervous system of its body politic, and if the information these provide is seriously misleading, looming dangers may fester and grow. A media and academy that are highly corrupt or dishonest constitute a deadly national peril. And although the political leadership of undemocratic China might dearly wish to hide all its major mistakes, its crude propaganda machinery often fails at this self-destructive task. But America's own societal information system is vastly more skilled and experienced in shaping reality to meet the needs of business and government leaders, and this very success does tremendous damage to our country.

Perhaps Americans really do prefer that their broadcasters provide Happy News and that their political campaigns constitute amusing reality shows. Certainly the cheering coliseum crowds of the Roman Empire favored their bread and circuses over the difficult and dangerous tasks that their ancestors had undertaken during Rome's rise to world greatness. And so long as we can continue to trade bits of printed paper carrying presidential portraits for flat-screen TVs from Chinese factories, perhaps all is well and no one need be too concerned about the apparent course of our national trajectory, least of all our political leadership class.

But if so, then we must admit that Richard Lynn, a prominent British scholar, has been correct in predicting for a decade or longer that the global dominance of the European-derived peoples is rapidly drawing to its end and within the foreseeable future the torch of human progress and world leadership will inevitably pass into Chinese hands.

Ron Unz is publisher of The American Conservative and founder of Unz.org .


Sean Scallon , says: Website Show Comment April 18, 2012 at 5:11 pm GMT

Very good piece and very perceptive about reality in the U.S.
Jack Ross , says: Show Comment April 18, 2012 at 6:43 pm GMT
Definitely on the money regarding the U.S., I'm not sure the outlook for China though is quite so rosy. I fear you made a serious mistake of burying the lead. That said, one other issue you should have mentioned is the way the two major parties monopolize access to the ballot, as discussed in a recent Al Jazeera series on the frauds of American democracy.
platocrat , says: Show Comment April 18, 2012 at 9:44 pm GMT
"Certainly America has experienced an enormous growth of officially tolerated corruption as our political system has increasingly consolidated into a one-party state controlled by a unified media-plutocracy."

In a nutshell.

JonF , says: Show Comment April 18, 2012 at 9:57 pm GMT
Re: This failure suggests another reason for the decay of US (and Western European) society: political correctness

Huh? And while demographics may not be destiny, demography should not be ignored either. The US is likely to have a younger population structure than China which, as others have noted, is going to grow old without first growing rich– not an enviable situation. Moreover that population is likely to include a fair number of unmarried men for whom no women are available. That's pretty muich unprecedented in history (although the reverse has occasionally happened due to wars), and I have no idea how it will play out, but I suspect it will not be a mark in China's plus column.

This piece whistewashes China's enormous challenges while exaggerating America's. That's not to say we have no challenges nor that China does not have its strengths. Still, I would sooner bet the farm on the US coming through this century without major political calamity than China doing so. (Note: I said "calamity", I did not say "change". Both countries, will need to change a lot– something true of the whole world)

Dave , says: Show Comment April 19, 2012 at 12:23 am GMT
1/ I saw this movie before-in the '70's. Only then 'China' was called 'Japan'.

2/ As to history and the 2 party system, nothing new:

Gates was Bush's Sec'y of Defense and became Obama's Sec'y of Defense.

Stanton was Buchanan's Sec'y of War and became Lincoln's Sec'y of War.

And America has always had its plunderers-see the Gilded Age-Jay Gould (et al) plundered as do today's plutocrats.

And American governments have gone around killing US citizens without seriously attempting to arrest them (see J Dillinger, C Barrow, B Parker)

Bob Arctor , says: Show Comment April 19, 2012 at 2:49 am GMT
America's worse than third world style population growth isn't an advantage in any way, shape or form. Firstly, energy availability (and not labor) will be the bounding factor for economic growth over the next few decades, and secondly the only sectors of the population that are growing are those with the absolute least level of relevant skills that will be needed in years that are to come.

No other developed nation, save almost empty Canada and Austrailia, have ever seen massive population growth such as this.

Bob Arctor , says: Show Comment April 19, 2012 at 3:31 am GMT
Japan and China is not remotely a fair comparison – Japan has only 127 million people whereas China has 1331 million people. When China reaches American levels of economic development, as Japan did in the 1980's, the implications for America, both political and economic, are going to be vastly more severe than they were when Japan emerged as a developed nation. Think of 2030 China as being ten and a half 2012 Japans to get an rough idea of what's coming.

JonF:

A good number of hunter gatherer societies that survived into modern times, such as the Yanomano in South America, had much more lopsided sex ratios than China does today. This isn't new.

JonF , says: Show Comment April 19, 2012 at 10:07 am GMT
Bob Arctor,

Yes, some societies have had an excess of women after many men have been killed in warfare: Germany and France after WWI, or the American South after the Civil War. But an excess of men is pretty much unprecedented.

Jamie , says: Website Show Comment April 19, 2012 at 12:43 pm GMT
America has become the most hated country on earth along with Israel,and the tyranicle government that controlls the country with all their crimes and lies will make America a country no smart person would want to be a citizen.America can do better if people wake up to the coruption and stop spending as much as the rest of the world on their military.It's not a matter of if but when China becomes the biggest economy,but also the strongest military by far on earth.I just hope China don't act like the American criminal government wasting tax payers money on illegal wars baised on lies.It's been happening for over 100 years,but know they do it in the open and have tottaly ignored the constitution.The 1 thing that made America great was the constitution and as time goes by it is ignored to the point the rest of the world and Americans see that America has no high ground,unless you call mudering innocent civilians in illegal wars.America is bankrupt and when they can no longer afford to bribe others it will collapes and the hatred it has caused for it'self will turn the entire world against it.Even Israel will no longer be because of their warmongering and raceist government.
Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Website Show Comment April 19, 2012 at 3:50 pm GMT
The subtitle, "Which superpower is more threatened by its "extractive elites"?" reflects what I believe is the most important political issue of the times. As one commenter pointed out above, really there is nothing all that different now. I suspect this is largely true in that 'the masses' have usually lived many steps removed from understanding what is 'really going on.' However today we are all linked on the material plane through electronic communication and transportation in a way that before was never possible in that most ordinary people lived nearly all of their lives bounded within a very small geographical, aka 'local' area. They were place-bound, in other words. Now we are not. And because we are not the opportunity and scope for mass deception have greatly increased along with the ability of ruling elites to be more and more extractive.

I suspect you could almost make a mathematical formula out of it along the lines of: S = F+O * (E/C), where S = Society or Stable & Sane Society, F = Freedom (opportunity, creativity etc.), O = Organisation (cultural institutions of education, governance, manners, language, both in terms of efficiency and levels of corruption/deceit etc. ), E = Elites/Leadership class and C = Checks and Balances.

Something like that. Assuming a scale of 1-100 in each case, in the US I think it is about: S = 70+50 * (95/35) = 120 * 2.7 = 325.7.

China: S = 45+65(110) * (75/50) = 100* 1.5 = 150.

China has 45 F-freedom to US 70.
China has 65 O-Organisation to US 50.
China has 75 E-Elites to US 95.
China has 50 C-Checks to US 35.

All of these are highly arguable of course but I think most would agree their freedom quotient is lower, albeit the US has some of the worst upward / class mobility figures in the West as a 10-year NYT study showed a while back.
China seems to have far greater organisational skills, as witnessed by their development of high speed rail of late, which the US is incapable of doing.
Because of much greater power on the local level, I have given Chinese Elites a lower score even though if we were to believe our own media, you would think that the US doesn't really have any elites and China is a monolithic top-down beast.
For the same reason, I put in more Checks for China since I believe their people demonstrate and organise far more energetically than those in the West, and that the Elites have to pay far more attention to them. This is a wild guess.

Ken Zaretzke , says: Show Comment April 19, 2012 at 6:30 pm GMT
The notion of "extractive elites" inadvertently wrecking their own country's future prospects is rich with irony -- of the Alfred E. Neumann kind ("What, me worry?"). What about the extraction of coal? It is the U.S. that is bribing China with coal exports -- America's relatively most abundant natural resource -- so that the Chinese will tolerate America's fiscal irresponsibility by continuing to prop up the dollar. Six months ago I sent a letter about this to my local county council, which will decide in the next year whether to allow the largest coal terminal in North America to be built (at the behest of Goldman Sachs, among others) just a few miles from where I was living until recently, in the idyllic town of Ferndale, WA. I maintained that one doesn't need to be a Green Party member in order to oppose the coal terminal project -- any ardent nationalist worth his salt can, and ought to, oppose it tooth and nail.

Coal terminals which make possible the shipping of millions of tons of coal to China would be a disaster on several counts. Symbolically and as a matter of policy, the coal exports would demonstrate America's economic subjection to China, the "Caesar" to whom we would be paying tribute. Environmentally, the mercury and other pollution will drift back across the Atlantic to the Pacific Northwest. These are just two of the problems. So why is the Republican Party bending over backwards to join Peabody Coal and Goldman Sachs in trying to build the largest coal terminal on the continent in Whatcom County, and other terminals elsewhere in Washington and Oregon? What besides money, greed, and shortsightedness is behind conservatives' obliviousness to the long-term dangers, both real and symbolic, of America's bowing down to China with massive coal exports?

The Stupid Party, indeed

Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 19, 2012 at 6:49 pm GMT
Thank you for an excellent article on what is happening. My only criticism is that it appears that these things "just happen". With your insight and erudition, could you please address "why" the situation has arisen. What could be the motivation behind actions and policies which so clearly will destroy not only the 99% but also the basic wealth of the1%?

This is not something new, but a recurrent theme in world affairs.

Many thanks

Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 20, 2012 at 12:09 am GMT
Excellent, excellent article by Unz.

Acemoglu and Robinson "characterize China's ruling elites as "extractive" -- parasitic and corrupt -- and predict that Chinese economic growth will soon falter and decline" China's ruling elites! China's ruling elites are extractive, parasitic & corrupt!

Bwaaahaaahaaahaaaa

What are Acemoglu and Robinson on? Crack? LSD? Crystal Meth?

China's ruling elites are frigging angels and saints compared to the monsters, maniacs and morons creating misery amidst colossal wealth (stolen by them) in the USA. The US elite is a parasite so bloated and stupid it is killing its host and maybe the rest of the planet too.

Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 20, 2012 at 3:14 am GMT
The state of US politics can only be accurately described as self-destructive. The government's hubris is bringing down the foundations of the economy, and it's only a matter of time before we end up living in the ruins of a dead civilization.

The basic fact that supports any capitalist system, is that increasing productivity will increase wealth, that is, real wealth. Huge military expenditures all towards the goal of keeping raw resources a little bit cheaper, and a financial structure increasingly designed to encourage making money from money, are absolutely insane. This is Ancient Rome all over again.

The issues of energy and pollution are serious enough to threaten the global economy in the long-term, but the social system here doesn't sufficiently support innovation to do much about them. How is America supposed to be competitive in the future if we don't?

For example, we're not going to "run out" of oil any time soon, but when it comes primarily from tar sands and underwater drilling, it's going to be tremendously expensive, and with more expensive energy, our standard of living will decline. Other common energy sources have the same problem. Common sense dictates that we innovate ahead of time. The possibility of resource substitution doesn't happen by magic. But of course, that would require an conscious investment in that direction.

And as for pollution, maybe high-speed rail and electric cars are part of a solution, maybe they're not, as some commenters have suggested, but what's definitely not a solution is not trying anything all. We need clean air and clean water, or else we'll die. Our food sources do, too.

And it's not entirely obvious to people who don't read about what makes China attractive for investment, but it's not solely cheap labor. (In fact, Chinese labor is more expensive than in, say, India or Bangladesh. Not to mention that Chinese bureaucracy is not all that easy to deal with!) China has constructed highly attractive logistics systems, and has an increasingly educated and disciplined labor force. In America, we have infrastructure that's becoming obsolete, and an education system that produces a lot of stupid citizens who have no idea how to create value. With the latter, it's no wonder we have an "entitlement culture."

If this all doesn't change, I'm not sticking around, waiting for this ship to sink.

Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 20, 2012 at 3:47 am GMT
Finally! A Conservative who tells the truth. Sir, you and Paul Craig Roberts are just the men to lead the GOP out of the wilderness and back to sanity.

Your words coincide with the words of pissed off Progressives (such as myself) and the youth at OWS movements.

We need more honesty from your side, such as Buddy Roehmer offered before the recent GOP primary devolved into the Clown Reality Show which avoided hard topics such as these you've addressed head on in "China's Rise, America's Fall".

If the GOP has no room for you, Mr. Unz, maybe you should join the Green Party or help concerned Americans from both sides start a new party. Just a thought.

Your honesty is courageous. And I believe when the Neo-Cons and Oligarchs on the Right read your words, you'll be in for a rough ride with Rush and Faux News. Stay the course. Stay true to what you have written here. Courage.

Just this one piece you have written will move me to subscribe to your magazine, a first for me, subscribing to a magazine with the word "Conservative" in it.

Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Abraham Lincoln and Barry Goldwater would be proud of what you wrote, Sir. As would Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Rock Trueblood

Vickie , says: Show Comment April 20, 2012 at 2:38 pm GMT
Hopefully China will continue to improve and the people there get more freedom. However, the Tienanmen Square incident is not a small thing. I suspect the elites in China have no more respect for their people than ours do. Infanticide, forced abortion and summary execution are not policies to emulate. What the west has, the importance of the individual, the idea that the State is supposed to be subservient to a higher law are not ideas to trade away for a mess of pottage.

I do agree, however with earlier commentators about American lack of discipline. Years ago, cutting through the Engineering School at Rutgers, I was struck that the vast majority of students were foreigners, mostly Asian. Americans at that time just went to school to party.

Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 20, 2012 at 3:14 pm GMT
With her extractive elites America has taken a different path but has, ironically, arrived at the same terminus as the old Soviet Union: Too much economic power in the hands of too few.
Steve Roth , says: Website Show Comment April 20, 2012 at 5:48 pm GMT
I find it amazing what is not mentioned here: that the dynamic of extractive elites being described started its rapid upward trajectory at exactly the time that Reagan "conservative" policies came to dominate public policy discourse.
James Canning , says: Show Comment April 20, 2012 at 11:06 pm GMT
To some extent, the relative decline of the US economically owes a good deal to idiotic levels of spending on "defence". Trillions of dollars have been squandered over the past two or three decades.
James Canning , says: Show Comment April 20, 2012 at 11:07 pm GMT
Kolya – – The Soviet Union spent far too much on "defense". Putin has noted this fact as partly explaining the collapse of the USSR.
Matt says: Show Comment April 21, 2012 at 10:14 am GMT
The author has forgotten to mention race and diversity as a factor that ensures America will not rise again. China is an homogeneous country with no need of a parasitic diversity industry hovering overhead trying to enforce its ideas of what any given activity should 'look like'. Chinese have an average intelligence above that of whites and are not saddled with untold millions of low IQ third world people hanging like a millstone round their necks. An entirely white America might have had half a chance of keeping pace with Chinese growth, but today's America has no chance at all.
Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2012 at 12:42 pm GMT
Thanks – this piece is right on target, and revealed to me a good deal of economic chicanery of which I had previously been unaware.

...... ...

A. Aftab , says: Show Comment April 21, 2012 at 1:00 pm GMT
Calgacus, you're right on the money with that comment of yours! A lot of wealthy Americans now live in Costa Rica, HK, Thailand and Malaysia and AUS/NZ. Donald Trump has been investing in Costa Rica very heavily ..and there are probably thousands of other billionaires doing the same.

In case people here haven't noticed, a lot of our super elites have been leaving the U.S. in droves, due to the disproportionally high taxes levied on them now. They are doing this because they are smarter than the rest of us. This started 5 years ago just before the housing crash. Probably has accelerated since 2010 where this article is from.

Have a whiff folks:

http://actionamerica.org/taxecon/ticktick.shtml

And also these:

It's becoming a joke Calgacus ..you're right some of these comments here seem to be absolutely retarded!

A good reality check on the economic situation is to ask around your friends and relatives on whose making the big money now! ..The answer will be pretty obvious.

Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2012 at 9:50 pm GMT
Even if China's economy outgrows ours, it would have to be 4x as large as the US economy to match it's per capita income. The Chinese know that they are running against the clock to modernize it's economy.

They're nowhere near as energy efficient in their manufacturing processes and they are burning through their profits to build a big enough energy infrastructure to meet the economic growth needs.

SinoPec is already partnered with ArAmCo and Exxon to build refineries in China which means those Western Companies are already raiding the Chinese treasure chest. GM and Walmart aren't selling their products for free, either. In other words, China has been caught in the global economic web and they're going to get played just like everybody else.

James Guest , says: Show Comment April 22, 2012 at 5:05 am GMT
Two questions.

Does the US not suffer a serioius political Catch 22? You could clean up much of the excessive influence of money for campaigning and the targeting of self-interest simply to get people to bother to vote by adopting the compulsory voting which means that, in Australia, about 90 per cent of those eligible do vote. But what would it do to actual policy when you have such a high proportion of poorly educated and ethnically disaffected poor people with existing entitlements which cause resentment amongst what was once middle America?

And here is an issue for serious empirical study. Why should a great concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1 per cent, or 5 per cent, or 0.1 per cent matter? It is perfectly clear that the very very rich don't consume significantly more of anything scarce or particularly valuable unless one counts the economically painless transfer or Titians and Tintorettos from one billionaired to another before ending up in a public gallery. It is obviously not impossible for a large super-rich class to so indulge themselves in competitive display by building palatial residences, private airstrips and golf courses and so on, that their country's economy is starved of attention and capital. But any suggestion that such a situation is to be found in the US needs to be demonstrated. It seems more likely that high taxes and regulatory burdens are adding so much to the cost of doing business in the US and even driving entrepreneurs to set up elsewhere, so that the owners of capital are not deploying it to the greatest advantage of US citizens. Yet that hypothesis doesn't stand well with the number of Australian software entrepreneurs who leave a country where it is very easy and quick to start a business doesn't have too punitive a tax regime to start or restart in California where public finances are such a threatening mess.

If the US then is still a good place to deploy one's capital in order to make a lot of money (and not do it entirely by Wall Street fiddles) and there are large concentrations of wealth which means large concentrations of investable capital what is the problem? Clearly it is what is being done to the average American of no special talent, intelligence, education or skill whose income is no longer supported by the advantages America had for many years after WW2 and is being suppressed by high immigration. To an outsider it is slightly less clear that the situation is made almost intolerable for the squeezed middle classes by tax burdens which are not fairly born by the very rich. It is perhaps a little more certain that the cost of living of the squeezed middle, including the absurdly high costs of health care, are inflated damagingly by the transfer payments to the under classes and elderly poor which don't give much benefit to the working poor unless one puts a high value on the contribution of their state sales taxes to the keeping of aggressive or hopeless young males in prison ..

Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 22, 2012 at 8:04 am GMT
China is not to blame for America's decline, America has to face its own ghosts; the 15 trillion dollars debt, the unemployment, inequality, huge military spending, endless wars that is what you have to confront.

Blaming others for Americas decline is not the solution. Be A man america and pick yourself,learn from your mistakes and move on

denk , says: Show Comment April 22, 2012 at 2:38 pm GMT
china is governed by engineers. amerika is ruled by banksters, lawyers. http://tinyurl.com/6n2f5ho
Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 22, 2012 at 7:29 pm GMT
Another blogger jumping on the bandwagon. So easy to say using numbers without any understanding that numbers don't rule the world – to the dismay of mathematicians everywhere.

None of this takes into account that most of China's population lives in poverty. And if our own "War on Poverty" taught us anything is that their poor will remain poor for a very long time.

There's also no consideration that China is [still] a Communist country. This experiment simply gained them a bypass in the militarization highway. They needed to up their might quicker.

It doesn't take into consideration that their 5,000yo culture doesn't celebrate individuality -never has- and this means the creativity needed to push forth on the leaderboard is nonexistent. In fact, the most creative Chinese are those that come to the USA. You can't lead by proxy.

I am not amazed that the China-uber-allez belief is a conservative thing. Just by definition they cannot forecast the future. The future is full of X factors. X is at the core of America. Your insular perspective of what this nation is all about and what makes it tick make you the LAST ones who will decide where this country goes. I know you're just dying to sell it to someone else before the price goes down. But you, and some of your commentors, have no idea the self-contained power America holds.

PS: having lived in third world countries I can give you a warning if you're thinking of moving to Costa Rica or similar places. The people there don't like loaded-freeloaders. Most of your retirement will be spent on security. And just wait 'til you get your first emergency. Seriously, you're going to be waiting a good while. America still has the best GOVERNMENTAL services in the WORLD. Ouch I said the "G" word. Little known secret: Libertarians don't turn down fast rides to the hospital.

John Finnerty , says: Show Comment April 22, 2012 at 7:46 pm GMT
Never was a piece written so needed to be read. We are a one party country. We are totally failed by our media for the "most" part. God how is Corzine walking around . Why did no one on MSNBC challenge Obama on pulling out of Iraq. The Democratic Party promised in 96 if they got control of both Houses of Congress they would end Iraq. Where are you MSNBC, Ed, Rachel, "Mathews forget Mathews he's been in ther tank for either Party in the White House for years" and the loser on at 10 I can't even remember his name.

Then the Attorney General has he arrested anybody? His only claim to work is the ridiculous suit again Sheriff Arpaio. Holder is beyond doubt the worst AG in decades.

Also finally again someone stated the wealth of the upper 1% compared to the bottom 95% . It is time to throw the bums out in both parties. Obama has got to go we need change even if it fails like him. We are in sad shape how many know friends working endless hours of over time not to be payed for it or hanging on not sure if their job will be there next Monday. It's sad how did they ruined our Country. Buchanan is canned for his book, because it's racist give me a break. Pathetic!!!

Felipe , says: Show Comment April 24, 2012 at 3:49 am GMT
Interesting comments from folks. As one who left the U.S. in dismay and disgust at the depths to which the George W. Bush administration dragged the U.S. and at his election (not re-election since he was not elected in 2000 but appointed by the Supreme Court) in 2004 and one who returned a year ago mostly due to the hope engendered by Obama's election, I tend to be more optimistic about the U.S. but only if we are able to challenge the dark forces that keep the majority of U.S. voters in a state of ignorance and anxiety.

The main challenge right now, as I see it, is to get a constitutional amendment passed that overturns the "Corporations are people, money is free speech" absurd court rulings as, if these are left to stand, will destroy the U.S. faster than a thermonuclear attack. The U.S. has overcome adversity before. We tend to solve problems pretty well when we know what they are and when we're agreed upon what they are. Right now, folks are puzzled and confused about the way forward. And the small size of Obama's successes are a testament not to failings on his part but to the appalling state of the system in which he's forced to operate and the enormous power of forces much bigger than he is. We are ruled by unelected corporations whose Boards pre-select candidates from whom we elect 'freely'.

We are all responsbible for allowing the system to deteriorate this far and for allowing its continuation. But America has come through before why all the doom and gloom now? As an aside, I agree with those who see our continuing and increasing diversity and large-scale immigration as our greatest strengths and these should be nurtured and treasured, not feared. Nobody ever moved forward from a position of fear. Fear can only lead us backward.

Bob Arctor , says: Show Comment April 24, 2012 at 7:18 am GMT
Felipe:

Funnily enough, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and and a score of European nations managed to build First World economies with negligible diversity. It's also rather peculiar that the much less diverse "America" of decades past had a much stronger economy than does modern day America, or that non-diverse China is progressing economically much, much faster than insanely diverse India.

It's almost as if diversity is utterly and completely worthless. I wonder why that is

Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment September 13, 2012 at 1:04 am GMT
From the CIA Factbook:

China 91% "Han", 9% Other (Korean, TIbetan, & 53 others comprising a total population of 105 million people)
Languages: 7 major language groups (Jin, Wu, Yue, Min, Xiang, Hakka, Gan) comprising hundreds of dialects and sub-languages

USA 80% White, 12% Black, 8% Other
Languages: 82% English, 10% Spanish, 8% Other

So it seems to me that the USA is only slightly more "diverse" than China in percentage terms when you spell things out in terms of Black and White. However, looking at the cultural variations and especially language, it becomes quite clear that the designation of "Han Chinese" is as meaningful or meaningless as the designation "White American."

I agree however that a nation unable to cope with its own diversity and the challenges it presents by discarding bigotry is doomed to failure.

Marie Arouet , says: Show Comment July 17, 2013 at 5:18 am GMT

Ron,

You might be interested to mention next time that China has overtaken the United States in patent filings, utility model patents, industrial design patents, trade mark filings, as well as scientific paper publications.

Mark Green , says: Website Show Comment February 5, 2014 at 6:31 am GMT
Hi Ron. That was yet another outstanding overview and analysis. Well done!

You have provided your readers a very nuanced view of the countless variables – some intangible, many virtually invisible – that propel a civilization forward, or even over a cliff. There's much to contemplate here. Thank you!

Anonymous Disclaimer , says: Show Comment February 6, 2014 at 5:02 pm GMT
What makes a state fall is well described in "the rise and decline of great powers" and it is related with spending money on missiles and the like.

When a state or country begins to spend more money than the amount she gets in return for the expenses, she is doomed. perhaps America will retain much of her power but she is doomed as far as i understand.

Robert Anderson , says: Show Comment February 25, 2014 at 10:43 pm GMT
The US is an plutocracy, not a democracy.
B-Real , says: Show Comment March 18, 2014 at 8:13 pm GMT
A great analysis. The decline of the US and the rest of the west reminds me of the Fall of the Roman Empire, but I'll have to a little bit more reading to back that up.

And by the way: Remember to be a little bit proud every day of the way you are spending your money. Sites like this is increasingly important in the Age of Misinformation.

conatus , says: Show Comment June 5, 2014 at 2:41 pm GMT
Wow! only four comments! This is an eye opening essay. Our elite are lawyers and they manipulate, China's elite are engineers and they build things. Three trillion on Bush's stupid wars('fought for completely irrational reasons") and our non participating(no draft) populace quietly went along with the entire show! Why?

Mr. Unz said, "And since we live in a entertainment-dominated society, sentiments affirmed on then screen often have direct real-world consequences."

Double Wow or bow-wow, great point!

I also think we are encouraged NOT to participate in the Democratic process as that seems 'angry.' We are shown that in our entertainment.
People who complain about the way-things-are-now are party p0opers and impolite. The first media approved reaction is to scoff and then shun them.

I also think the only safe topic 0f conversation around the water cooler is sports. Again, no politics allowed, unless you are an approved victim. But generally the major league sports of baseball, football and basketball are THE only thing you can talk about publicly, on which you can safely agree. The racial divisions we have created with our blessed multiculturalism, have starkly different interests and the differences are too real in the workplace to discuss them so we all act like Putnam's turtles and talk NFL training camp lingo.

As long as our GDP increases one per cent a year and six-packs of beer are available for Joe Six-pack, everything will be fine, but if the increase turns to a decrease watch out!

redzengenoist , says: Show Comment June 12, 2014 at 9:03 am GMT
"Sweden is among the cleanest societies in Europe, while Sicily is perhaps the most corrupt. But suppose a large clan of ruthless Sicilian Mafiosi moved to Sweden and somehow managed to gain control of its government. On a day-to-day basis, little would change, with Swedish traffic policemen and building inspectors performing their duties with the same sort of incorruptible efficiency as before, and I suspect that Sweden's Transparency International rankings would scarcely decline. But meanwhile, a large fraction of Sweden's accumulated national wealth might gradually be stolen and transferred to secret Cayman Islands bank accounts, or invested in Latin American drug cartels, and eventually the entire plundered economy would collapse."

It's happening in Sweden, unfortunately.

In Iceland, it already happened, over a very short span of time. But the Icelandic native populace literally ejected them corporally from the govt. buildings, and now the heads of the major banks have been criminally sentenced and imprisoned, Iceland has the only PM to have been criminally convicted in the financial crisis. Dire predictions by other mafiosi of economic meltdown as a consequence of the "too big to fail" going to jail have yet to materialise, Iceland is doing fine.

Randal , says: Show Comment March 13, 2017 at 1:15 pm GMT
Excellent piece.

Some of the sources of Chinese success and American decay are not entirely mysterious. As it happens, the typical professional background of a member of China's political elite is engineering; they were taught to build things. Meanwhile, a remarkable fraction of America's political leadership class attended law school, where they were trained to argue effectively and to manipulate. Thus, we should not be greatly surprised that while China's leaders tend to build, America's leaders seem to prefer endless manipulation, whether of words, money, or people.

Great stuff.

It's also noticeable that when China creates a "crisis" it's by building new land, whereas the US creates crises by fomenting strife and bombing. Construction versus destruction seems to be a theme.

Agent76 , says: Show Comment March 13, 2017 at 7:15 pm GMT
Aug 26, 2015 How the West Re-colonized China

The "Chinese dragon" of the last two decades may be faltering but it is still hailed by many as an economic miracle.

Far from a great advance for Chinese workers, however, it is the direct result of a consolidation of power in the hands of a small clique of powerful families, families that have actively collaborated with Western financial oligarchs.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WxFSvPUY_oc?feature=oembed

9/11 Inside job , says: Show Comment April 29, 2020 at 12:04 pm GMT
newsbud.com ;

"The Rockefellers and Rothschilds in China :a long intimate relationship" :

"The history of Wall Street and Anglo-American finance in China is one that is rarely discussed in Western media or even academia , whereas knowing it would explain much about both China's stunning economic rise over the past 70 years ,as well as seemingly rising tensions between China and the US today."

Johnny Walker Read , says: Show Comment April 29, 2020 at 1:50 pm GMT
I must say Ron made many good points and predictions in his article of several years ago. America has been a clown world of a one-party political system since the end of WWII.

Never before has it been so obvious we have a government of, by, and for the rich corporate kleptocrat's who control every aspect of life in this country.

... ... ...

[Apr 21, 2020] American Pravda Our Coronavirus Catastrophe as Biowarfare Blowback by Ron Unz

Apr 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

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Nearly 30,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus during the last two weeks, and by some estimates this is a substantial under-count, while the death-toll continues to rapidly mount. Meanwhile, measures to control the spread of this deadly infection have already cost 22 million Americans their jobs, an unprecedented economic collapse that has pushed our unemployment rates to Great Depression levels. Our country is facing a crisis as grave as almost any in our national history.

For many weeks President Trump and his political allies had regularly dismissed or minimized this terrible health threat, and suddenly now faced with such a manifest disaster, they have naturally begun seeking other culprits to blame.

The obvious choice is China, where the global epidemic first began in late 2019. Over the last week or two our media has been increasingly filled with accusations that the dishonesty and incompetence of the Chinese government played a major role in producing our own health catastrophe.

Even more serious charges are also being raised, with senior government officials informing the media that they suspect that the Covid-19 virus was developed in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan and then carelessly released upon a vulnerable world. Such "conspiracy theories" were once confined to the extreme political fringe of the Internet, but they are now found in the respectable pages of my morning New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Whether plausible or not, such accusations carry the gravest international implications, and there are growing demands that China financially compensate our country for its trillions of dollars in economic losses. A new global Cold War along both political and economic lines may soon be at hand.

I have no personal expertise in biowarfare technology, nor access to the secret American intelligence reports that seem to have been taken seriously by our most elite national newspapers. But I do think that a careful exploration of previous Sino-American clashes over the last couple of decades may provide some useful insight into the relative credibility of those two governments as well as that of our own media.

During the late 1990s, America seemed to reach the peak of its global power and prosperity, basking in the aftermath of its historic victory in the long Cold War, while ordinary Americans greatly benefited from the record-long economic expansion of that decade. A huge Tech Boom was at its height, and Islamic terrorism seemed a vague and distant thing, almost entirely confined to Hollywood movies. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the possibility of large scale war seemed to have dissipated so political leaders boasted of the "peace dividend" that citizens were starting to enjoy as our huge military forces, built up over nearly a half-century, were downsized amid sweeping cuts in the bloated defense budget. America was finally returning to a regular peacetime economy, with the benefits apparent to everyone.

At the time, I was overwhelmingly focused on domestic political issues, so I only paid slight attention to our one small military operation of that period, the 1999 NATO air war against Serbia, intended to safeguard the Kosovo Albanians from ethnic cleansing and massacre, a Clinton Administration project that I fully endorsed.

Although our limited bombing campaign seemed quite successful and soon forced the Serbs to the bargaining table, the short war did include one very embarrassing mishap. The use of old maps had led to a targeting error that caused one of our smart bombs to accidentally strike the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three members of its delegation and wounding dozens more. The Chinese were outraged by this incident, and their propaganda organs began claiming that the attack had been deliberate, a reckless accusation that obviously made no logical sense.

In those days I watched the PBS Newshour every night, and was I shocked to see their U.S. Ambassador raise those absurd charges with host Jim Lehrer, whose disbelief matched my own. But when I considered that the Chinese government was still stubbornly denying the reality of its massacre of the protesting students in Tiananmen Square a decade earlier, I concluded that unreasonable behavior by PRC officials was only to be expected. Indeed, there was even some speculation that China was cynically milking the unfortunate accident for domestic reasons, hoping to stoke the sort of jingoist anti-Americanism among the Chinese people that would finally help bind the social wounds of that 1989 outrage.

Such at least were my thoughts on that matter more than two decades ago. But in the years that followed, my understanding of the world and of many pivotal events of modern history underwent the sweeping transformations that I have described in my American Pravda series . And some of my 1990s assumptions were among them.

Consider, for example, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which every June 6th still evokes an annual wave of harsh condemnations in the news and opinion pages of our leading national newspapers. I had never originally doubted those facts, but a year or two ago I happened to come across a short article by journalist Jay Matthews entitled "The Myth of Tiananmen" that completely upended that apparent reality.

According to Matthews the infamous massacre had likely never happened, but was merely a media artifact produced by confused Western reporters and dishonest propaganda, a mistaken belief that had quickly become embedded in our standard media storyline, endlessly repeated by so many ignorant journalists that they all eventually believed it to be true. Instead, as near as could be determined, the protesting students had all left Tiananmen Square peacefully, just as the Chinese government had always maintained. Indeed, leading newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post had occasionally acknowledged these facts over the years, but usually buried those scanty admissions so deep in their stories that few ever noticed. Meanwhile, the bulk of the mainstream media had fallen for an apparent hoax.

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Matthews himself had been the Beijing Bureau Chief of the Washington Post , personally covering the protests at the time, and his article appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review , our most prestigious venue for media criticism. This authoritative analysis containing such explosive conclusions was first published in 1998, and I find it difficult to believe that many reporters or editors covering China have remained ignorant of this information, yet the impact has been absolutely nil. For over twenty years virtually every mainstream media account I have read has continued to promote the Tiananmen Square Massacre Hoax, usually implicitly but sometimes explicitly.

Even more remarkable were the discoveries I made regarding our supposedly accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in 1999. Not long after launching this website, I added former Asia Times contributor Peter Lee as a columnist, incorporating his China Matters blogsite archives that stretched back for a decade. He soon published a 7,000 word article on the Belgrade Embassy bombing, representing a compilation of material already contained in a half-dozen previous pieces he'd written on that subject from 2007 onward. To my considerable surprise, he provided a great deal of persuasive evidence that the American attack on the Chinese embassy had indeed been deliberate, just as China had always claimed.

According to Lee, Beijing had allowed its embassy to be used as a site for secure radio transmission facilities by the Serbian military, whose own communications network was a primary target of NATO airstrikes. Meanwhile, Serbian air defenses had shot down an advanced American F-117A fighter, whose top-secret stealth technology was a crucial U.S. military secret. Portions of that enormously valuable wreckage were carefully gathered by the grateful Serbs, who delivered it to the Chinese for temporary storage at their embassy prior to transport back home. This vital technological acquisition later allowed China to deploy its own J20 stealth fighter in early 2011, many years sooner than American military analysts had believed possible.

Based upon this analysis, Lee argued that the Chinese embassy was attacked in order to destroy the Serbian retransmission facilities located there, while punishing the Chinese for allowing such use. There were also widespread rumors in China that another motive had been an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the stealth debris stored within. Later Congressional testimony revealed that the among all the hundreds of NATO airstrikes, the attack on the Chinese embassy was the only one directly ordered by the CIA, a highly-suspicious detail.

I was only slightly familiar with Lee's work, and under normal circumstances I would have been very cautious in accepting his remarkable claims against the contrary position universally held by all our own elite media outlets. But the sources he cited completely shifted that balance.

Although the American media dominates the English-language world, many British publications also possess a strong global reputation, and since they are often much less in thrall to our own national security state, they have sometimes covered important stories that were ignored here. And in this case, the Sunday Observer published a remarkable expose in October 1999, citing several NATO military and intelligence sources who fully confirmed the deliberate nature of the American bombing of the Chinese embassy, with a US colonel even reportedly boasting that their smartbomb had hit the exact room intended.

This important story was immediately summarized in the Guardian , a sister publication, and also covered by the rival Times of London and many of the world's other most prestigious publications, but encountered an absolute wall of silence in our own country. Such a bizarre divergence on a story of global strategic importance -- a deliberate and deadly US attack against Chinese diplomatic territory -- drew the attention of FAIR, a leading American media watchdog group, which published an initial critique and a subsequent follow-up . These two pieces totaled some 3,000 words, and effectively summarized both the overwhelming evidence of the facts and also the heavy international coverage, while reporting the weak excuses made by top American editors to explain their continuing silence. Based upon these articles, I consider the matter settled.

Few Americans remember our 1999 attack upon the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and if not for the annual waving of a bloody June 6th flag by our ignorant and disingenuous media, the "Tiananmen Square Massacre" would also have long since faded from memory. Neither of these events has much direct importance today, at least for our own citizens. But the broader media implications of these examples do seem quite significant.

These incidents represented two of the most serious flashpoints between the Chinese and American governments during the last thirty-odd years. In both cases the claims of the Chinese government were entirely correct, although they were denied by our own top political leaders and dismissed or ridiculed by virtually our entire mainstream media. Moreover, within a few months or a year the true facts became known to many journalists, even being reported in fully respectable venues. But that reality was still completely ignored and suppressed for decades, so that today almost no American whose information comes from our regular media would even be aware of it. Indeed, since many younger journalists draw their knowledge of the world from these same elite media sources, I suspect that many of them have never learned what their predecessors knew but dared not mention.

Most leading Chinese media outlets are owned or controlled by the Chinese government, and they tend to broadly follow the government line. Leading American media outlets have a corporate ownership structure and often boast of their fierce independence; but on many crucial matters, I think the actual reality is not so very different from that in China.

I tend to doubt that Chinese leaders have any overwhelming commitment to the truth, and the reasons for their greater veracity are probably practical ones. American news and entertainment completely dominate the global media landscape and they face no significant domestic rival. So China recognizes that it is vastly outmatched in any propaganda conflict, and as the far weaker party must necessarily try to stick closer to the truth, lest its lies be immediately exposed. Meanwhile, America's overwhelming control over global information may inspire considerable hubris, with the government sometimes promoting the most outrageous and ridiculous falsehoods in the confident belief that a supportive American media will cover for any mistakes.

These considerations should be kept in mind as we attempt to sift the accounts of our often unreliable and dishonest media in hopes of extracting the true circumstances of the current coronavirus epidemic. Unlike careful historical studies, we are working in real-time and our analysis is greatly hindered by the ongoing fog of war, so that any conclusions are necessarily very preliminary ones. But given the high stakes, such an attempt seems warranted.

When my morning newspapers first began mentioning the appearance of a mysterious new illness in China during mid-January, I paid little attention, absorbed as I was in the aftermath of our sudden assassination of Iran's top military leader and the dangerous possibility of a yet another Middle Eastern war. But the reports persisted and grew, with deaths occurring and evidence growing that the viral disease could be transmitted between humans. China's early conventional efforts seemed unsuccessful in halting the spread of the disease.

Then on Jan. 23rd and after only 17 deaths, the Chinese government took the astonishing step of locking down and quarantining the entire 11 million inhabitants of the city of Wuhan, a story that drew worldwide attention. They soon extended this policy to the 60 million Chinese of Hubei province, and not longer afterward shut down their entire national economy and confined 700 million Chinese to their homes, a public health measure probably a thousand times larger than anything previously undertaken in human history. So either the China's leadership had suddenly gone insane, or they regarded this new virus as an absolutely deadly national threat, one that needed to be controlled at any possible cost.

Given these dramatic Chinese actions and the international headlines that they generated, the current accusations by Trump Administration officials that China had attempted to minimize or conceal the serious nature of the disease outbreak is so ludicrous as to defy rationality. In any event, the record shows that on December 31st, the Chinese had already alerted the World Health Organization to the strange new illness, and Chinese scientists published the entire genome of the virus on Jan. 12th, allowing diagnostic tests to be produced worldwide.

Unlike other nations, China had received no advance warning of the nature or existence of the deadly new disease, and therefore faced unique obstacles. But their government implemented public health control measures unprecedented in the history of the world and managed to almost completely eradicate the disease with merely the loss of a few thousand lives. Meanwhile, many other Western countries such as the US, Italy, Spain, France, and Britain dawdled for months and ignored the potential threat, and have now suffered well over 100,000 dead as a consequence, with the toll still rapidly mounting. For any of these nations or their media organs to criticize China for its ineffectiveness or slow response represents an absolute inversion of reality.

Some governments took full advantage of the early warning and scientific information provided by China. Although nearby East Asian nations such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore had been at greatest risk and were among the first infected, their competent and energetic responses allowed them to almost completely suppress any major outbreak, and they have suffered minimal fatalities. But America and several European countries avoiding adopting these same early measures such as widespread testing, quarantine, and contact-tracing, and have paid a terrible price for their insouciance.

A few weeks ago British Prime Minister Boris Johnson boldly declared that his own disease strategy for Britain was based upon rapidly achieving "herd immunity" -- essentially encouraging the bulk of his citizens to become infected -- then quickly backed away after his desperate advisors recognized that the result might entail a million or more British deaths.

By any reasonable measure, the response to this global health crisis by China and most East Asian countries has been absolutely exemplary, while that of many Western countries has been equally disastrous. Maintaining reasonable public health has been a basic function of governments since the days of the city-states of Sumeria, and the sheer and total incompetence of America and most of its European vassals has been breathtaking. If the Western media attempts to pretend otherwise, it will permanently forfeit whatever remaining international credibility it still possesses.

I do not think these particular facts are much disputed except among the most blinkered partisans, and the Trump Administration probably recognizes the hopelessness of arguing otherwise. This probably explains its recent shift towards a far more explosive and controversial narrative, namely claiming that Covid-19 may have been the product of Chinese research into deadly viruses at a Wuhan laboratory, which suggests that the blood of hundreds of thousands or millions of victims around the world will be on Chinese hands. Dramatic accusations backed by overwhelming international media power may deeply resonate across the globe.

News reports appearing in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have been reasonably consistent. Senior Trump Administration officials have pointed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading Chinese biolab, as the possible source of the infection, with the deadly virus having been accidentally released, subsequently spreading first throughout China and later worldwide. Trump himself has publicly voiced similar suspicions, as did Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo in a FoxNews interview. Private lawsuits against China in the multi-trillion-dollar range have already been filed by rightwing activists and Republican senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham have raised similar governmental demands.

I obviously have no personal access to the classified intelligence reports that have been the basis of these charges by Trump, Pompeo, and other top administration officials. But in reading these recent news accounts, I noticed something rather odd.

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Back in January, few Americans were paying much attention to the early reports of an unusual disease outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which was hardly a household name. Instead, overwhelming political attention was focused on the battle over Trump's impeachment and the aftermath of our dangerous military confrontation with Iran. But towards the end of that month, I discovered that the fringes of the Internet were awash with claims that the disease was caused by a Chinese bioweapon accidentally released from that same Wuhan laboratory, with former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and ZeroHedge , a popular right-wing conspiracy-website, playing leading roles in advancing the theory. Indeed, the stories became so widespread in those ideological circles that Sen. Tom Cotton, a leading Republican Neocon, began promoting them on Twitter and FoxNews, thereby provoking an article in the NYT on those "fringe conspiracy theories."

I suspect that it may be more than purely coincidental that the biowarfare theories which erupted in such concerted fashion on small political websites and Social Media accounts back in January so closely match those now publicly advocated by top Trump Administration officials and supposedly based upon our most secure intelligence sources. Perhaps a few intrepid citizen-activists managed to replicate the findings of our multi-billion-dollar intelligence apparatus, and did so in days while the latter required weeks or months. But a more likely scenario is that the wave of January speculation was driven by private leaks and "guidance" provided by exactly the same elements that today are very publicly leveling similar charges in the elite media. Initially promoting controversial theories in less mainstream outlets has long been a fairly standard intelligence practice.

Regardless of the origins of the idea, does it seem plausible that the coronavirus outbreak might have originated as an accidental leak from that Chinese laboratory? I am not privy to the security procedures of Chinese government facilities, but applying a little common sense may shed some light on that question.

Although the coronavirus is only moderately lethal, apparently having a fatality rate of 1% or less, it is extremely contagious, including during an extended pre-symptomatic period and also among asymptomatic carriers. Thus, portions of the US and Europe are now suffering heavy casualties, while the policies adopted to control the spread have devastated their national economies. Although the virus is unlikely to kill more than a small sliver of our population, we have seen to our dismay how a major outbreak can so easily wreck our entire economic life.

During January, the journalists reporting on China's mushrooming health crisis regularly emphasized that the mysterious new viral outbreak had occurred at the worst possible place and time, appearing in the major transport hub of Wuhan just prior to the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of Chinese would normally travel to their distant family homes for the celebration, thereby potentially spreading the disease to all parts of the country and producing a permanent, uncontrollable epidemic. The Chinese government avoided that grim fate by the unprecedented decision to shut down its entire national economy and confine 700 million Chinese to their own homes for many weeks. But the outcome seems to have been a very near thing, and if Wuhan had remained open for just a few days longer, China might easily have suffered long-term economic and social devastation.

The timing of an accidental laboratory release would obviously be entirely random. Yet the outbreak seems to have begun during the precise period of time most likely to damage China, the worst possible ten-day or perhaps thirty-day window. As I noted in January, I saw no solid evidence that the coronavirus was a bioweapon, but if it were, the timing of the release seemed very unlikely to have been accidental.

If the virus was released intentionally, the context and motive for such a biowarfare attack against China could not be more obvious. Although our disingenuous media continues to pretend otherwise, the size of China's economy surpassed that of our own several years ago, and has continued to grow much more rapidly. Chinese companies have also taken the lead in several crucial technologies, with Huawei becoming the world's leading telecommunications equipment manufacturer and dominating the important 5G market. China's sweeping Belt and Road Initiative has threatened to reorient global trade around an interconnected Eurasian landmass, greatly diminishing the leverage of America's own control over the seas. I have closely followed China for over forty years, and the trend-lines have never been more apparent. Back in 2012, I published an article bearing the provocative title "China's Rise, America's Fall?" and since then I have seen no reason to reassess my verdict.

China's Rise, America's Fall Which superpower is more threatened by its "extractive elites"? Ron UnzThe American Conservative, April 17, 2012 • 7,000 Words

For three generations following the end of World War II, America had stood as the world's supreme economic and technological power, while the collapse of the Soviet Union thirty years ago left us as the sole remaining superpower, facing no conceivable military rival. A growing sense that we were rapidly losing that unchallenged position had certainly inspired the anti-China rhetoric of many senior figures in the Trump Administration, who launched a major trade war soon after coming into office. The increasing misery and growing impoverishment of large sections of the American population naturally left these voters searching for a convenient scapegoat, and the prosperous, rising Chinese made a perfect target.

Despite America's growing economic conflict with China over the last couple of years, I had never considered the possibility that matters might take a military turn. The Chinese had long ago deployed advanced intermediate range missiles that many believed could easily sink our carriers in the region, and they had also generally improved their conventional military deterrent. Moreover, China was on quite good terms with Russia, which itself had been the target of intense American hostility for several years; and Russia's new suite of revolutionary hypersonic missiles had drastically reduced any American strategic advantage. Thus, a conventional war against China seemed an absolutely hopeless undertaking, while China's outstanding businessmen and engineers were steadily gaining ground against America's decaying and heavily-financialized economic system.

Under these difficult circumstances, an American biowarfare attack against China might have seemed the only remaining card to play in hopes of maintaining American supremacy. Plausible deniability would minimize the risk of any direct Chinese retaliation, and if successful, the terrible blow inflicted to China's economy would set it back for many years, perhaps even destabilizing its social and political system. Using alternative media to immediately promote theories that the coronavirus outbreak was the result of a leak from a Chinese biowarfare lab was a natural means of preempting any later Chinese accusations along similar lines, thereby allowing America to win the international propaganda war before China had even begun to play.

A decision by elements of our national security establishment to wage biological warfare in hopes of maintaining American world power would certainly have been an extremely reckless act, but extreme recklessness has become a regular aspect of American behavior since 2001, especially under the Trump Administration. Just a year earlier we had kidnapped the daughter of Huawei's founder and chairman, who also served as CFO and ranked as one of China's most top executives, while at the beginning of January we suddenly assassinated Iran's top military leader.

These were the thoughts that entered my mind during the last week of January once I discovered the widely circulating theories suggesting that China's massive disease epidemic had been the self-inflicted consequence of its own biowarfare research. I saw no solid evidence that the coronavirus was a bioweapon, but if it were, China was surely the innocent victim of the attack, presumably carried out by elements of the American national security establishment.

Soon afterward, someone brought to my attention a very long article by an American ex-pat living in China who called himself "Metallicman" and held a wide range of eccentric and implausible beliefs. I have long recognized that flawed individuals can often serve as the vessels of important information otherwise unavailable, and this case constituted a perfect example. His piece denounced the outbreak as a likely American biowarfare attack, and provided a great wealth of factual material I had not previously considered. Since he authorized republication elsewhere I did so, and his 15,000 word analysis , although somewhat raw and unpolished, began attracting an enormous amount of readership on our website, probably being one of the very first English-language pieces to suggest that the mysterious new disease was an American bioweapon. Many of his arguments appeared doubtful to me or have been obviated by later developments, but several seemed quite telling.

He pointed out that during the previous two years, the Chinese economy had already suffered serious blows from other mysterious new diseases, although these had targeted farm animals rather than people. During 2018 a new Avian Flu virus had swept the country, eliminating large portions of China's poultry industry, and during 2019 the Swine Flu viral epidemic had devastated China's pig farms, destroying 40% of the nation's primary domestic source of meat, with widespread claims that the latter disease was being spread by mysterious small drones. My morning newspapers had hardly ignored these important business stories, noting that the sudden collapse of much of China's domestic food production might prove a huge boon to American farm exports at the height of our trade conflict, but I had never considered the obvious implications. So for three years in a row, China had been severely impacted by strange new viral diseases, though only the most recent had been deadly to humans. This evidence was merely circumstantial, but the pattern seemed highly suspicious.

The writer also noted that shortly before the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, that city had hosted 300 visiting American military officers, who came to participate in the 2019 Military World Games , an absolutely remarkable coincidence of timing. As I pointed out at the time, how would Americans react if 300 Chinese military officers had paid an extended visit to Chicago, and soon afterward a mysterious and deadly epidemic had suddenly broken out in that city? Once again, the evidence was merely circumstantial but certainly raised dark suspicions.

Scientific investigation of the coronavirus had already pointed to its origins in a bat virus, leading to widespread media speculation that bats sold as food in the Wuhan open markets had been the original disease vector. Meanwhile, the orchestrated waves of anti-China accusations had emphasized Chinese laboratory research on that same viral source. But we soon published a lengthy article by investigative journalist Whitney Webb providing copious evidence of America's own enormous biowarfare research efforts, which had similarly focused for years on bat viruses. Webb was then associated with MintPress News , but that publication had strangely declined to publish her important piece, perhaps skittish about the grave suspicions it directed towards the US government on so momentous an issue. So without the benefit of our platform, her major contribution to the public debate might have attracted relatively little readership.

Around the same time, I noted another extremely strange coincidence that failed to attract any interest from our somnolent national media. Although his name had meant nothing to me, in late January my morning newspapers carried major stories on the sudden arrest of Prof. Charles Lieber, one of Harvard University's top scientists and Chairman of its Chemistry Department, sometimes characterized as a potential future Nobel Laureate.

The circumstances of that case seemed utterly bizarre to me. Like numerous other prominent American academics, Lieber had had decades of close research ties with China, holding joint appointments and receiving substantial funding for his work. But now he was accused of financial reporting violations in the disclosure portions of his government grant applications -- the most obscure sort of offense -- and on the basis of those accusations, he was seized by the FBI in an early-morning raid on his suburban Lexington home and dragged off in shackles, potentially facing years of federal imprisonment.

Such government action against an academic seemed almost without precedent. During the height of the Cold War, numerous American scientists and technicians were rightfully accused of having stolen our nuclear weapons secrets for delivery to Stalin, yet I had never heard of any of them treated in so harsh a manner, let alone a scholar of Prof. Lieber's stature, who was merely charged with technical disclosure violations. Indeed, this incident recalled accounts of NKVD raids during the Soviet purges of the 1930s.

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Although Lieber was described as a chemistry professor, a few seconds of Googling revealed that some of his most important work had been in virology, including technology for the detection of viruses. So a massive and deadly new viral epidemic had broken out in China and almost simultaneously, a top American scholar with close Chinese ties and expertise in viruses was suddenly arrested by the federal government, yet no one in the media expressed any curiosity at a possible connection between these two events.

I think we can safely assume that Lieber's arrest by the FBI had been prompted by the concurrent coronavirus epidemic, but anything more is mere speculation. Those now accusing China of having created the coronavirus might surely suggest that our intelligence agencies discovered that the Harvard professor had been personally involved with that deadly research. But I think a far more likely possibility is that Lieber began to wonder whether the epidemic in China might not be the result of an American biowarfare attack, and was perhaps a little too free in voicing his suspicions, thereby drawing the wrath of our national security establishment. Inflicting such extremely harsh treatment upon a top Harvard scientist would greatly intimidate all of his lesser colleagues elsewhere, who would surely now think twice before broaching certain controversial theories to any journalist.

By the end of January, our webzine had published a dozen articles and posts on the coronavirus outbreak, then added many more by the middle of February. These pieces totaled tens of thousands of words and attracted a half million words of comments, probably representing the primary English-language source for a particular perspective on the deadly epidemic, with this material eventually drawing many hundreds of thousands of pageviews. A few weeks later, the Chinese government began gingerly raising the possibility that the coronavirus may have been brought to Wuhan by the 300 American military officers visiting that city, and was fiercely attacked by the Trump Administration for spreading anti-American propaganda. But I strongly suspect that the Chinese had gotten that idea from our own publication.

As the coronavirus gradually began to spread beyond China's own borders, another development occurred that greatly multiplied my suspicions. Most of these early cases had occurred exactly where one might expect, among the East Asian countries bordering China. But by late February Iran had become the second epicenter of the global outbreak. Even more surprisingly, its political elites had been especially hard-hit, with a full 10% of the entire Iranian parliament soon infected and at least a dozen of its officials and politicians dying of the disease, including some who were quite senior . Indeed, Neocon activists on Twitter began gleefully noting that their hatred Iranian enemies were now dropping like flies.

Let us consider the implications of these facts. Across the entire world the only political elites that have yet suffered any significant human losses have been those of Iran, and they died at a very early stage, before significant outbreaks had even occurred almost anywhere else in the world outside China. Thus, we have America assassinating Iran's top military commander on Jan. 2nd and then just a few weeks later large portions of the Iranian ruling elites became infected by a mysterious and deadly new virus, with many of them soon dying as a consequence. Could any rational individual possibly regard this as a mere coincidence?

Biological warfare is a highly technical subject, and those possessing such expertise are unlikely to candidly report their classified research activities in the pages of our major newspapers, perhaps even less so after Prof. Lieber was dragged off to prison in chains. My own knowledge is nil. But in mid-March I came across several extremely long and detailed comments on the coronavirus outbreak that had been posted on a small website by an individual calling himself "OldMicrobiologist" and who claimed to be a retired forty-year veteran of American biodefense. The style and details of his material struck me as quite credible, and after a little further investigation I concluded that there was a high likelihood his background was exactly as he had described. I made arrangements to republish his comments in the form of a 3,400 word article , which soon attracted a great deal of traffic and 80,000 words of further comments.

Although the writer emphasized the lack of any hard evidence, he said that his experience led him to strongly suspect that the coronavirus outbreak was indeed an American biowarfare attack against China, probably carried out by agents brought into that country under cover of the Military Games held at Wuhan in late October, the sort of sabotage operation our intelligence agencies had sometimes undertaken elsewhere. One important point he made was that high lethality was often counter-productive in a bioweapon since debilitating or hospitalizing large numbers of individuals may impose far greater economic costs on a country than a biological agent which simply inflicts an equal number of deaths. In his words "a high communicability, low lethality disease is perfect for ruining an economy," suggesting that the apparent characteristics of the coronavirus were close to optimal in this regard. Those so interested should read his analysis and judge for themselves his possible credibility and persuasiveness.

Was coronavirus a Biowarfare Attack Against China? OldMicrobiologist • March 13, 2020 • 3,400 Words

One intriguing aspect of the situation was that almost from the first moment that reports of the strange new epidemic in China reached the international media, a large and orchestrated campaign had been launched on numerous websites and Social Media platforms to identify the cause as a Chinese bioweapon carelessly released in its own country. Meanwhile, the far more plausible hypothesis that China was the victim rather than the perpetrator had received virtually no organized support anywhere, and only began to take shape as I gradually located and republished relevant material, usually drawn from very obscure quarters and often anonymously authored. So it seemed that only the side hostile to China was waging an active information war. The outbreak of the disease and the nearly simultaneous launch of such a major propaganda campaign may not necessarily prove that an actual biowarfare attack had occurred, but I do think it tends to support such a theory.

When considering the hypothesis of an American biowarfare attack, certain natural objections come to mind. The major drawback to biological warfare has always been the obvious fact that the self-replicating agents employed will not respect national borders, thus raising the serious risk that the disease might eventually return to the land of its origin and inflict substantial casualties. For this reason, it seems very doubtful that any rational and half-competent American leadership would have unleashed the coronavirus against China.

But as we see absolutely demonstrated in our daily news headlines, America's current government is grotesquely and manifestly incompetent , more incompetent than one could almost possibly imagine, with tens of thousands of Americans having now already paid with their lives for such extreme incompetence. Rationality and competence are obviously nowhere to be found among the Deep State Neocons that President Donald Trump has appointed to so many crucial positions throughout our national security apparatus.

Moreover, the extremely lackadaisical notion that a massive coronavirus outbreak in China would never spread back to America might have seemed plausible to individuals who carelessly assumed that past historical analogies would continue to apply. As I wrote a few weeks ago:

Reasonable people have suggested that if the coronavirus was a bioweapon deployed by elements of the American national security apparatus against China (and Iran), it's difficult to imagine why the they didn't assume it would naturally leak back in the US and start a huge pandemic here, as is currently happening.

The most obvious answer is that they were stupid and incompetent, but here's another point to consider

In late 2002 there was the outbreak of SARS in China, a related virus but that was far more deadly and somewhat different in other characteristics. The virus killed hundreds of Chinese and spread into a few other countries before it was controlled and stamped out. The impact on the US and Europe was negligible, with just a small scattering of cases and only a death or two.

So if American biowarfare analysts were considering a coronavirus attack against China, isn't it quite possible they would have said to themselves that since SARS never significantly leaked back into the US or Europe, we'd similarly remain insulated from the coronavirus? Obviously, such an analysis was foolish and mistaken, but would it have seemed so implausible at the time?

As some must have surely noticed, I have deliberately avoided investigating any of the scientific details of the coronavirus. In principle, an objective and accurate analysis of the characteristics and structure of the virus might help suggest whether it was entirely natural or rather the product of a research laboratory, and in the latter case, perhaps whether the likely source was China, America, or some third country.

But we are dealing with a cataclysmic world event and those questions obviously have enormous political ramifications, so the entire subject is shrouded by a thick fog of complex propaganda, with numerous conflicting claims being advanced by interested parties. I have no background in microbiology let alone biological warfare, so I would be hopelessly adrift in evaluating such conflicting scientific and technical claims. I suspect that this is equally true of the overwhelming majority of other observers as well, although committed partisans are loathe to admit that fact, and will eagerly seize upon any scientific argument that supports their preferred position while rejecting those that contradict it.

Therefore, by necessity, my own focus is on evidence that can at least be understood by every layman, if not necessarily always accepted. And I believe that the simple juxtaposition of several recent disclosures in the mainstream media leads to a rather telling conclusion.

For obvious reasons, the Trump Administration has become very eager to emphasize the early missteps and delays in the Chinese reaction to the viral outbreak in Wuhan, and has presumably encouraged our media outlets to direct their focus in that direction.

As an example of this, the Associated Press Investigative Unit recently published a rather detailed analysis of those early events purportedly based upon confidential Chinese documents. Provocatively entitled "China Didn't Warn Public of Likely Pandemic for 6 Key Days" , the piece was widely distributed, running in abridged form in the NYT and elsewhere. According to this reconstruction, the Chinese government first became aware of the seriousness of this public health crisis on Jan. 14th, but delayed taking any major action until Jan. 20th, a period of time during which the number of infections greatly multiplied.

Last month, a team of five WSJ reporters produced a very detailed and thorough 4,400 word analysis of the same period, and the NYT has published a helpful timeline of those early events as well. Although there may be some differences of emphasis or minor disagreements, all these American media sources agree that Chinese officials first became aware of the serious viral outbreak in Wuhan in early to mid-January, with the first known death occurring on Jan. 11th, and finally implemented major new public health measures later that same month. No one has apparently disputed these basic facts.

But with the horrific consequences of our own later governmental inaction being obvious, sources within our intelligence agencies have sought to demonstrate that they were not the ones asleep at the switch. Earlier this month, an ABC News story cited four separate government sources to reveal that as far back as late November, a special medical intelligence unit within our Defense Intelligence Agency had produced a report revealing than an out-of-control disease epidemic was occurring in the Wuhan area of China, and widely distributed that document throughout the top ranks of our government, warning that steps should be taken to protect US forces based in Asia. After the story aired, a Pentagon spokesman officially denied the existence of that November report, while various other top level government and intelligence officials refused to comment. But a few days later, Israeli television revealed that in November American intelligence had indeed shared such a report on the Wuhan disease outbreak with its NATO and Israeli allies, thus seeming to independently confirm the complete accuracy of the original ABC story and its several government sources.

ORDER IT NOW

It therefore appears that elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency were aware of the deadly viral outbreak in Wuhan more than a month before any officials in the Chinese government itself. Unless our intelligence agencies have pioneered the technology of precognition, I think this may have happened for the same reason that arsonists have the earliest knowledge of future fires.

Back in February, before a single American had died from the disease, I wrote my own overview of the possible course of events, and I would still stand by it today:

Consider a particularly ironic outcome of this situation, not particularly likely but certainly possible

Everyone knows that America's ruling elites are criminal, crazy, and also extremely incompetent.

So perhaps the coronavirus outbreak was indeed a deliberate biowarfare attack against China, hitting that nation just before Lunar New Year, the worst possible time to produce a permanent nationwide pandemic. However, the PRC responded with remarkable speed and efficiency, implementing by far the largest quarantine in human history, and the deadly disease now seems to be in decline there.

Meanwhile, the disease naturally leaks back into the US, and despite all the advance warning, our totally incompetent government mismanages the situation, producing a huge national health disaster, and the collapse of our economy and decrepit political system.

As I said, not particularly likely, but certainly a very fitting end to the American Empire

Related Reading:

The Myth of Tiananmen by Jay Matthews China's Rise, America's Fall Was Coronavirus a Biowarfare Attack Against China? by OldMicrobiologist Bats, Gene Editing and Bioweapons: Recent Darpa Experiments Raise Concerns Amid Coronavirus Outbreak by Whitney Webb How It All Began: the Belgrade Embassy Bombing by Peter Lee

Ozymandias , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:43 am GMT

But their government implemented public health control measures unprecedented in the history of the world and managed to almost completely eradicate the disease with merely the loss of a few thousand lives

And if you can't trust China's numbers, who can you trust?

The timing of an accidental laboratory release would obviously be entirely random. Yet the outbreak seems to have begun during precise period of time most likely to damage China

It almost sounds like putting a virus lab in the middle of twelve million people was a bad idea.

Lol. I can't believe you're doubling down on this jackassery.

Otto von Komsmark , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:07 am GMT
Ron Unz has done it again!! Good job, I've always thought the standard "Wuhan lab leak" theory seemed flawed
Otto von Komsmark , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:10 am GMT
Mr Unz, also have you read David Cole's theory on this (at TakiMag)? I know you and him got in blog beef a couple years ago over your Pravda article on Holocaust, but his theory also criticized the Wuhan "lab leak" and believes the wet markets originated the virus while the state lab was trying to cover up the "natural market" zoonotic mess. Would be fun to (again) watch you 2 debate notes.
Tor597 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:13 am GMT
If I had told you a year ago that Iran would have its top General assassinated and then its country decimated by a viral infection, that China would be a world pariah with calls for trillion in reparations, that Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela would have a bounty on his head for lol being involved in the cocaine trade, and that Kim Jong Un would be dead who do you think would be the architect of this future?

Chinese elites or American ones?

American neocons are literally getting everything they want.

You can look at all of the damage to the American economy relative to China, but who is really being hurt in America? Regular Americans are being hurt. But the elites are getting bailed out and will buy US assets for pennies on the dollar.

Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:19 am GMT
"When considering the hypothesis of an American biowarfare attack, certain natural objections come to mind. The major drawback to biological warfare has always been the obvious fact that the self-replicating agents employed are not prone to respect national borders, raising the serious risk that the disease might eventually return to the land of its origin and inflict substantial casualties. For this reason, it seems quite doubtful that any rational and half-competent American leadership would have unleashed the coronavirus against China."

Unless, of course, those in power knew exactly what that 'blowback' would entail, as they had modeled it over and over, for years, maybe decades.

They would be in a position to crash the stock market (and get out at the very top), assure a new alliance between the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury (allowing the elites to use the American taxpayers to fund their losses indefinitely), destroy the middle and lower classes through government ordered 'lockdowns' (driving down wages yet again, and making Americans frightened, unemployed and angry, and thereby easily mislead like in the 9/11 aftermath), create a world political environment allowing medical tyranny to make universal yearly vaccines and mandatory microchipping of everyone acceptable to the masses (ala Bill Gates/Tony Fauci/WHO and their Pig Pharma vaccine brigade), drop the price of oil indefinitely to fatally weaken Iran, hurt Russia and allow our predator capitalist banks to scoop up the failing US shale oil industry for pennies (which they are fully preparing to do), and ultimately allow the elites to perfectly time the inevitable deflation of the world's derivatives bubble, further sending the commoners into complete panic mode (and making their primal fears easily directed against the Western world's now common enemy, the Red Yellow Hordes.)

Doesn't sound very 'incompetent' to me. Sounds like utterly evil, but undeniably brilliant, military-economic planning. And it is looking like they may pull this one off, just like 9/11, and get the scared and terminally gullible Western plebes on board for their own further destruction economically, politically, and very possibly physically.

End Result: the PTB get to blame China for everything; make China foot the bill (or else); and when China balks, prepare the West's gullible, easily controlled citizens for military conflict if the Chinese don't roll over and cough up to the West's satisfaction.

Incompetence?

Sure looks to me like a neoliberal zionist-neocon elitist wet dream come true ..

Ozymandias , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:26 am GMT
@Otto von Komsmark If you believe that the virus originated in a wet market, what's your theory on why China immediately allowed wet markets to open back up (albeit with guards posted to prevent pics). Are they just exceptionally slow learners or do they realize that the wet market theory was always bogus?
swamped , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:39 am GMT
" the Chinese government began gingerly raising the possibility that the coronavirus may have been brought to Wuhan by the 300 American military officers visiting that city, and was fiercely attacked by the Trump Administration for spreading anti-American propaganda. But I strongly suspect that the Chinese had gotten that idea from our own publication" not at all improbable since said publication has a very deep current of slavish devotion to the Chinese state; such that one might even strongly suspect that the publication is getting its ideas from the Chinese totalitarians as much as the other way round. But since 'false flag' theories are another popular concept in such discussions, it might be conceivable that the human rights regime in Beijing deliberately released the mystery bug in China & Iran first, in order to throw suspicion on the U.S. The Chinese & Iranian tallies so far have been surprisingly low despite starting there earlier, so if they're not suppressing the facts, maybe they knew what to expect & were prepared. And the brunt of it would then be borne by their Western 'adversaries'. Not to mention, that the Chinese despots could reinforce their iron grip on Chinese society with their customary contempt for civil liberties. China's "current government is grotesquely and manifestly" incompatible with personal freedom, more incompatible than "one could almost possibly imagine", with tens of millions of Uighurs, Tibetans, dissidents, workers having now already paid with their lives & freedom for such extreme incompatibility.
"Rationality and competence are obviously nowhere to be found among the Deep State Neocons that President Donald Trump has appointed to so many crucial positions throughout our national security apparatus" and certainly rationality, competence, humanity are never to be found among Neo-cons anywhere. The President has been wise to largely ignore them. If Trump had been President in '99, it's very likely that the absolutely unnecessary, devastating war on Serbia by Hillary & Bill – based on deliberate lies – would never have gotten off the ground.
President Trump now faces the daunting dilemma of how to protect the society while at the same time not displaying the same disdain for political & civic freedom that is the hallmark of the CCP. An end to America Empire would be a good thing – the President knows that, as he again reiterated the trillions misspent in the M.E. at his daily press conference today – but this isn't the way to do it. Only a Chinese communist or fellow traveler could believe that.
Jim Jatras , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:43 am GMT
"At the time, I was overwhelmingly focused on domestic political issues, so I only paid slight attention to our one small military operation of those years, the 1999 NATO air war against Serbia, intended to safeguard the Bosnian Muslims from ethnic cleansing and massacre, a Clinton Administration project that I fully endorsed." And why should one believe our government and media about "safeguard(ing) the Bosnian Muslims from ethnic cleansing and massacre" any more than one should believe their other lies?
TG , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:44 am GMT
For most of this post, I can't say one way or the other. I personally think this was either the result of the so-called "wet-markets" in China – long known to be the primary source of the annual flu epidemics (why the heck haven't they been shut down??) or a criminally NEGLIGENT release from a research lab.

But.

"China recognizes that it is vastly outmatched in any propaganda conflict, and so as the far weaker party must necessarily try to stick closer to the truth, lest its lies be immediately exposed. Meanwhile, America's overwhelming control over information may lead to considerable hubris, with the government sometimes promoting the most outrageous and ridiculous falsehoods in the confident belief that a supportive American media will cover for any mistakes."

OUCH! Good one. Nicely said.

CanSpeccy , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:48 am GMT

Nearly 30,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus during the last two weeks, and by some estimates this is a substantial under-count

Quoted numbers of deaths are as unreliable as the number of infections.

Cause of death as stated in a death certificate is often, and even usually, wrong, and during an epidemic caused by a virus that induces respiratory difficulty it is likely that virtually all deaths due to respiratory dysfunction will be attributed to the virus without confirmatory evidence.

Furthermore, virtually all deaths of persons testing positive for covid19 will be attributed to the virus even though the deceased may have had multiple other diseases, any one of which could have been the cause of death.

But as this epidemic is shaping up, it is likely that the estimated death toll will be comparable to that of the seasonal flu in a bad year. Herd immunity is likely now widespread, so the thing should fizzle out soon, with or without continued population incarceration.

Tor597 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:50 am GMT
Unz, just wanted to say that it has been quite a ride to read this blog during the outbreak.

Stuff we talked about 2 months ago is starting to trickle out into the mainstream with the appropriate spin of course.

There really is no other place where alternative views such as your get a proper viewing.

CanSpeccy , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:03 am GMT

Boris Johnson boldly declared that his own coronavirus plan for Britain was based upon rapidly achieving "herd immunity" -- essentially encouraging the bulk of his citizens to become infected -- then quickly backed away after his desperate advisors recognized that the result might entail a million or more British deaths.

LOL. Neil Ferguson an Imperial College epidemiologist with an awesomely bad track record in predicting the course of epidemics, made some such prediction which he soon modified to a very much smaller number – 20,000 I believe, a number not yet reached.

In fact, the original plan was abandoned for fear that unrestricted spread of the virus would result in a concentration of infections, which at the peak, would overload hospitals by that minority of cases requiring hospital treatment.

Getaclue , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:05 am GMT
@Ozymandias Seems they could and did: https://fromrome.info/2020/03/26/rai-in-2015-reported-that-the-chinese-had-developed-covid-19/

https://fromrome.info/2020/03/17/multiple-studies-point-to-chinese-biowarfare-lab-in-wuhan-as-designer-of-covid-19/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/update-dr-shi-zhengli-ran-coronavirus-research-wuhan-us-project-shut-dhs-2014-risky-prior-leak-killed-researcher/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/france-also-involved-wuhan-coronavirus-facility-awarded-bat-doctor-shi-high-level-french-civil-medal/

Not just NWO ChiCom China of course– they're just the tool, the NWO "Elites"/Globalists, who shipped USA Manufacturing to China and destroyed the Middle Class in the USA etc., have made China the "Model" for us all -- "Social Credit Scores" for the Peons, an authoritarian "Party" of "Elites" with all power, Peons having to get a "green" signal on their cell phones every time they go outside . -- NWO Globalist "Elites" actually running the CVirus show/"Production"/911 "Event" Part 2 -- "Invisible Terrorists Forever"– meanwhile most "journalists" are cheering the loss of freedoms and anyone who points out what is going on wants to "kill Grandma" is "Selfish" it's all about on a Junior High School level but after getting away with 911 Demolition anyone not a rube, grifter/or in on it knew they'd be back to finish it off– and so they are here with the Plandemic:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/elite-covid-19-coup-against-terrified-humanity-resisting-powerfully/5709479

Side note: Interesting the Mainslime Media is not all over China's Racism towards Blacks as evidenced in their Ad here against "Diversity" and "Race Mixing"– they aren't kidding! Seems ChiComs can do what YT could never .: https://twitter.com/sadir_Palwan/status/1250570077163925509

All of it laid out on the Walls of the creepy NWO/Masonic Denver Airport: https://thechive.com/2012/03/08/something-is-rotten-in-the-denver-airport-25-photos/

Rothschild Magazine too: https://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/order-out-of-chaos-how-the-elites-plans-were-foretold-in-popular-culture/

anon [257] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:10 am GMT
Grossly unfair to blame the Trump administration for the depredations of the deep state.
Hippopotamusdrome , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:17 am GMT

"The Myth of Tiananmen"

.

Nanjing anti-African protests

The Nanjing protests were groundbreaking dissidence for China and went from solely expressing concern about alleged [sic] improprieties by African men to increasingly calling for democracy or human rights. They were paralleled by burgeoning demonstrations in other cities during the period between the Nanjing and the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, with some elements of the original protests that started in Nanjing still evident in Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, such as banners proclaiming "Stop Taking Advantage of Chinese Women" even though the vast majority of African students had left the country by that point.

Jeremygg5 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:28 am GMT
@Ozymandias

And if you can't trust China's numbers, who can you trust?

It's very true that China's numbers is perhaps the best numbers that you could trust.

Moritz Kraemer, a scholar at Oxford University who is leading a team of researchers in mapping the global spread of the coronavirus, says China's data "provided incredible detail," including a patient's age, sex, travel history and history of chronic disease, as well as where the case was reported, and the dates of the onset of symptoms, hospitalization and confirmation of infection.
The United States, he said, "has been slow in collecting data in a systematic way.". The article not only showing the chaotic situation in different states, but highlights the limited information shared with scientific community.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/coronavirus-data-privacy.html

The WHO too only had high praises for China's transparency and efficiency.

The only parties challenging these are Trump, Mike Pompeo, and the US Intelligence. Make a pick who to trust.

CanSpeccy , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:28 am GMT

But in mid-March I came across several extremely long and detailed comments on the coronavirus outbreak that had been posted on a small website by an individual calling himself "OldMicrobiologist" and who claimed to be a retired forty-year veteran of American biodefense. The style and details of his material struck me as quite credible, and after a little further investigation I concluded that there was a high likelihood that his background was exactly as he had described. I made arrangements to republish his comments in the form of a 3,400 word article, which soon attracted a great deal of traffic and 80,000 words of further comments.

Although the writer said that he had absolutely no proof, he said that his experience led him to strongly suspect that the coronavirus outbreak was indeed an American biowarfare attack against China, probably carried out by agents brought into that country under cover of the Military Games held at Wuhan in late October, the sort of sabotage operation our intelligence agencies had sometimes undertaken elsewhere.

Oh God, that crap again. Some geezer who may or may not have any relevant expertise, had a suspicion, but absolutely no proof, of a goofy theory that to launch a biowarfare attack on China the US Government had the brilliant idea of having the agent released by a contingent of 300 American soldiers participating in the international military games held in Wuhan, China.

Is that a stupid idea, or what?

And anyhow, there is evidence just published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences that the viral epidemic in China did not begin in Wuhan and, furthermore, it began earlier than originally believed, i.e., before the Military Games.

But we are dealing with a cataclysmic world event

Not really. Just a new disease out of China, one of many from China since the year dot, which has a lethality comparable to the seasonal flu. The event is cataclysmic only because of the economic consequences of the public policy response in most Western states, though not Sweden.

nsa , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:29 am GMT
@Ozymandias Hey Ozy, The Australians claimed to have suffered only 120 wu-wu virus deaths total. The South Koreans claim only 250 wu-wu deaths total. In Ozy world, are they liars too along with the Chinese? Or is it possible they have a functional public health system and moderately competent politicians who decided to fix the wu-wu virus problem .instead of playing golf and bullshitting the public for six weeks. The wu-wu virus death total in the essential exceptional nation is now 42,000 and rising. No other country is even close. It's like Trumpie heard the experts advise "fatten the curve" instead of "flatten the curve".
Anonymous [886] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:36 am GMT
So, you "fully endorsed" Clinton Administration 1999 NATO air war against Serbia, and you don't even know that it wasn't "intended to safeguard the Bosnian Muslims from ethnic cleansing and massacre",
because war in Bosnia was already done long before 1999 (war finished in 1995).
Hail , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:38 am GMT

the Tiananmen Square Massacre Hoax

a year or two ago I happened to come across a short article by journalist Jay Matthews entitled "The Myth of Tiananmen" that completely upended that apparent reality.

According to Matthews the infamous massacre had likely never happened, but was merely a media artifact produced by confused Western reporters and dishonest propaganda, a mistaken belief that had quickly become embedded in our standard media storyline, endlessly repeated by so many ignorant journalists that they all eventually believed it to be true.

the protesting students had all left Tiananmen Square peacefully, just as the Chinese government had always maintained.

the bulk of the mainstream media had fallen for an apparent hoax.

This is like saying the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre was a hoax because most of the deaths occurred overnight, past midnight, no longer St. Bartholomew's Day, ergo "the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" was a Hoax. Throwing the baby out with a technicality.

Checking the Jay Matthews story, I see this:

Hundreds of people, most of them workers and passersby, did die that night, but in a different place and under different circumstances.

The Chinese government estimates more than 300 fatalities. Western estimates are somewhat higher. Many victims were shot by soldiers on stretches of Changan Jie, the Avenue of Eternal Peace, about a mile west of the square, and in scattered confrontations in other parts of the city

thordaddy , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:42 am GMT
And now back to the local scene There is no "there" there .
Nils , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:45 am GMT
Many things to discuss

Regarding SARS inability to spread further, that's why the glycoprotein 120 was added: it's an external protein they borrowed from HIV and CRISPR'd onto the Covid-19.

Interesting enough by including this mechanism in the novel virus they have perhaps laid the ground for future AIDS type syndromes in those who get the virus or some variant of it. That's another topic deserving it's own crowd funded public research.

Much of the suddenly far reaching effects of this novel virus derive from the advent of CRISP technology and the ability to fuse different parts of virus into one. Of course, zoonotic transmission still needs to occur hence all the special grants to Wuhan Institute and North Carolina in doing this type of research, going out and collecting the special virus out of bat shit 600 miles away from Wuhan in caves in remote China, and feeding it to pigs and chimps who die and the process is repeated until a stable virus is developed.

Interesting enough Dr Fauci is an expert on HIV and specifically glycoprotein 120. He's worked to run private trial tests while working in the government probably for his Fort Detrick buddies.

Everyone reading this article and still intrigued for more information out to check out two key players that researching the origins of the virus and it's likely bioengineered origins:

George Webb on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/embed/NdMt8bHfQKM?feature=oembed

Dr. Paul Cottrell on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/embed/x9_gY43iIns?feature=oembed

This virus has links to Fauci, research at Fort Detrick, as well as research carried out in North Carolina and Wuhan that was paid for by grants from Fauci while running major government groups.

It appears part of this operation utilized the NATO transport network for transporting deadly diseases and nuclear material. In fact, one such courier was in Wuhan as an American cyclist for the military games

But I digress.

The blowback part Ron mentions being the consequence of stupidity from the government are possible but I think unlikely. If you follow parallel developments in geopolitics and, specifically, finance (not withstanding all of Bill Gates work with companies to have a vaccine ready to go ), you'll see perhaps the makings of a grand conspiracy to (1) cement the strength of the dollar and (2) sequester Chinese economic growth and power all at once.

For this to work most of the government would not know what's going on and that probably includes Trump. Plus, what better way to hide culpability than to inflict a wound on yourself?

For links to articles discussing this topic see below:

https://thesaker.is/strengthening-the-us-dollar-comments-on-ramin-mazaheri/

Mike-SMO , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:45 am GMT
Everyone is enjoying the screaming and paranoia but China (East Asia) has been producing new and "wonderful" diseases for several thousand years. They used to have bacterial variations but in the last few centuries have moved to designer viruses.

South China has wall-to-wall rice paddies where wild and migratory animals feed, drink and sh*t with farm animals under the care of a billion or so humans with primitive concepts of sanitation and minimal, to no, modern healthcare, so "rare" or "unlikely" bug mutations and species "jumps" are just a matter of time. The wild birds of China Summer in Siberia and Alaska with all the other birds of the world. The "Real" Globalism ..

The appearance of Corona variants in Kazhakstan, Iran, the Gulf States, and Israeli ckickens, or the appearance of "pig flu" in Mexico, or the Spanish Flu (1918?) in Kansas, all under major bird migratory routes, should not be too much of a surprise. Even if a US, UN or Chinese agency finds it. Be aware that this used to happen before Boeing and AirBus joined the game.

Be careful cleaning the poop off your windshield and/or yard furniture.

Damn flying dinosaurs are dangerous. If you find some poop with a "made in China" label, call the authorities. They will love the warning about the poison from a flying Chinese Communist dragon.

Anonymous [785] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:45 am GMT
Tl;dr

The coronavirus is serial! Thooper serial! Look at all these in depth political analyses and ignore the facts in plain view!

Blowback is a particularly telling choice of word, since I remember Noam Chomsky using the same term. He used it to add weight to the official 9/11 story by claiming the events were a direct result of US foreign policy, which re-enforced the Muslim terrorist angle and stopped people from looking for the real culprits.

utu , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:58 am GMT
Ron, when exactly did you republish the Metallicman's blog? The following seems to imply that it was in late January:

These were the thoughts that came to mind during the last week of January ..

At that point, .a very long article by an American ex-pat living in China who called himself "Metallicman" .

and the date under the title is January 27 but the first comment was on February 14.

Anon [605] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:59 am GMT
Another great installment in the American Pravda series. I use to work in the federal government and always wondered why employees of the Nationals Archives* needed a top secret U.S. government clearance and why employees of Presidential libraries needed to have the same security clearance as a nuclear submarine commander (top secret- sensitive compartmented information). What secrets could there possibly be from 60 years ago?? Then it dawned on me that it could never be known by the general public how their country behaves toward other countries and why and how we go to war. We would lose all faith in our government.

I have only one small correction:

[Charles Lieber] was seized by the FBI in an early-morning raid on his Cambridge home and dragged off in shackles, potentially facing decades of federal imprisonment.

He lives in a wooded suburban neighborhood in Lexington, MA, not in the city of Cambridge.

* https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/565429100

Vaterland , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:04 am GMT
On the one hand a bio-warfare attack on China is something I can absolutely see the American elites post 9/11 do. Their track-record speaks for itself.

There have also been significant shifts in Europe's alignment, on which US global dominance critically depends: the continuation of Northstream 2 against the explicit wishes of the Americans, 5 G expansion and Huawei cooperation in the European market, plans of replacing NATO with a European army (talks on the fringe of the right about a defense pact with Russia), the Belt and Road trillion dollar project which has its better European name as "The New Silk Road". Eurasian integration goes directly against the global dominance strategy of the US Empire. Europe is also now caught between an intense and visible propaganda warfare of the USA and China/Russia.

And there were also the proxy-war in Ukraine and the refugee crisis: the latter at minimum a fallout of US-Israeli wars in the Middle East and the Zionist assault against Libya; yet not unlikely itself a direct assault against Europe. And not only Willy Wimmer, closest adviser to our old chancellor Helmut Kohl, strongly suspected as much already back in 2015. Wimmer had been part of several war games in Langley in his time in the German government, quite clearly reasoning that in modern warfare you cannot initiate a conflict without knowing where the refugees will go – it is part of the planning process.

There also exists this paper:
https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/strategic-engineered-migration-weapon-war

On the other hand we must recognize the long term and massive investments of for example Blackrock and Vanguard into China; the ambitions to liberalize Chinese society and further open their economy for foreign, especially US investments; the attempts of Zionism to set up shop in China; the key role of Israel in the Belt and Road project and the admiration the Chinese have for Jews and their material success.

If it was a bio-warfare attack and if the ambition is to lock the USA and China in a new Cold War with potential proxy wars, then Americas financial and Jewish elite, which so very much dominate the deep state neocons, must be of the opinion that their profits will not be affected by it.

And if it was the long-term plan of Zionism and much of Americas financial, largely Jewish, elite to shift their power-base from the USA which they have effectively subjugated to the less secured China, then a bio-warfare attack would hardly be a smart move to keep the transition as quiet as possible.

Seraphim , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:04 am GMT
@if American biowarfare analysts were considering a coronavirus attack against China, isn't it quite possible they would have said to themselves that since SARS never significantly leaked back into the US or Europe, we'd similarly remain insulated from the coronavirus? Obviously, such an analysis was foolish and mistaken, but would it have seemed so implausible at the time?

Albert Einstein: "Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results".
Moreover, in establishing whether a crime was committed, the criminal investigation has to establish first that there was a motive, the means and the opportunity to commit the crime. All these criteria are satisfied in this case pointing to a biological attack against China and its allies.
The possibility of biowarfare (and its desirability) was unequivocally formulated in September 2000 when the 'Project for the New American Century' released "Rebuilding America's Defenses", a report that promotes "the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces." The report also states, "advanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool".
The first bioweapons research program was initiated in America by Sir Frederick Banting with corporate sponsorship in 1940.
From Wikipedia (no secrets): In 1942 "U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) undertake consideration of U.S. biological warfare. In response the NAS formed a committee, the War Bureau of Consultants (WBC), which issued a report on the subject in February 1942.The report, among other items, recommended the research and development of an offensive biological weapons program.
The British, and the research undertaken by the WBC, pressured the U.S. to begin biological weapons research and development and in November 1942 U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt officially approved an American biological weapons program. In response to the information provided by the WBC, Roosevelt ordered Stimson to form the War Research Service (WRS). Established within the Federal Security Agency, the WRS' stated purpose was to promote "public security and health", but, in reality, the WRS was tasked with coordinating and supervising the U.S. biological warfare program. In the spring of 1943 the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories were established at Fort (then Camp) Detrick in Maryland".
The Chinese read their James Bond: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action".

Christopher Marlowe , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:05 am GMT
It doesn't make sense to me that the US would fly drones over chinese pig farms half way around the world in order to infect half the pigs in China with African swine flu.
Smithfield is the largest producer of pork in the US. Smithfield is owned by a Chinese firm. So China is making up for their lack of domestic pork by buying their own US pork. How would this risky venture benefit the US? Yet this was the accusation labelled against the US by many Chinese. With zero proof.

The timing of this pandemic is very beneficial to the deep state, and the MSM is hyping the heck out of it; and the CDC et al are pumping up the numbers to make it seems as bad as possible. It's like they WANT a global pandemic. To crash the market and make DJT look bad? That is what the Biden for drooling pres campaign videos are hyping already.

If there is a germ war going on, it is China doing it to its communist shit-hole self. I don't know why anybody trades with them. The Chinese state literally kills Uyghurs and Falun Gong and steals their organs, but they have favored nation trading status? wtf

Octavian , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:12 am GMT
Interesting take.

It is fairly congruent with my own writeup from a few weeks back. Although I did not go so far as to definitively endorse any particular theory. The idea of this all being an American strike on China is the interesting hypothesis to me and fits my understanding of how America's geopolitical toolbox might work best. There is also a case to be made that the blowback stateside is a feature not a bug.

The United States could come out ahead in terms of the great game with China. But only if it can play its cards correctly.

Ultimately, what enough people think about this whole situation is what will define outcomes and right now things are on track for the bulk of the Chinese population to think that this is an American attack and for a significant number of Americans to believe that this is either accidental or deliberate Chinese action.

I think those popular attitudes are very valuable to their respective governments.

It's not helpful to onshore blame.

Thanks for another engaging article!

anon [227] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:14 am GMT
Devil's advocacy is always an important intellectual activity, but you seemed to have pretty much pointed out the hole in your grand theory yourself.

If we're going to imagine the US gov't apparatus is competent enough to start the virus in China, one would have to presume (if their collective IQ's approach anywhere near 90) that they would also set up for the contingency that it might come to the US too.

Imagining otherwise is akin to thinking the US top brass have the intelligence of some of those bonehead crooks who sometimes make the news for their stupid (and funny) attempts at crime. The US top brass might be dumb, but c'mon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn5CvDgaZSc

Miro23 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:20 am GMT

I think we can safely assume that Lieber's arrest by the FBI had been prompted by the coronavirus epidemic, but anything more is mere speculation. Those now accusing China of having created the coronavirus might surely suggest that our intelligence agencies discovered that the Harvard professor had been personally involved with that deadly research. But I think a far more likely possibility is that Lieber began to wonder whether the epidemic in China might not be the result of an American biowarfare attack, and was perhaps a little too free in voicing his suspicions, thereby drawing the wrath of our national security establishment.

Or alternatively, who would a laboratory whistleblower turn to other than a respected Harvard professor, who would understand the technical aspects, and who he may actually already have known and trusted?

Thus, we have America assassinating Iran's top military commander on Jan. 2nd and then just a few weeks later large portions of the Iran's ruling elites became infected by a mysterious and deadly new virus, with many of them soon dying as a consequence. Could any rational individual possibly regard this as a mere coincidence?

An irresistible add-on like Larry Silverstein's extra insurance cover and payout.

One intriguing aspect of the situation was that almost from the first moment that reports of the strange new epidemic in China reached the international media, a large and orchestrated campaign had been launched on numerous websites and Social Media to identify the cause as a Chinese bioweapon carelessly released in its own country.

Again similar to 9/11 with an instant media explanation trumpeted around the world (no investigation necessary).

It therefore appears that elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency were aware of the deadly viral outbreak in Wuhan more than a month before any officials in the Chinese government itself. Unless our intelligence agencies have pioneered the technology of precognition, I think this may have happened for the same reason that arsonists have the earliest knowledge of future fires.

Agreed – they really messed it up – and it would be a world class irony if it was their own virus that wrecks the US economy.

mike99588 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:34 am GMT
The Chinese embassy in Serbia is an interesting side story. However, as much as I disagreed with why we were there, another Clinton abuse of office, China was apparently participating as a combatant providing crucial signals support to the Serbian military. Topped off by handling sensitive F117 residuals that we wanted destroyed. Or perhaps only some of US, given various conflicts of interests in both Clinton globalism and sharing/planned obsolescence by arms makers .

CV19
The "US did it" is a possibility that certainly should be addressed in the continuum of many possibilities. I certainly would look for linkages between BHO administration/Gates/academia/DeepGreen/China. China certainly does not act innocent, covering up the early patients' stories and physical evidence a la our JFK scale.

As for US incompetence, the globalist media favors CCP; liberalism; Big Tech; Big Medicine; the Democratic Party; along with the O/Clintonista FDA and CDC, have done everything possible to hamstring accurate CV19 information amongst the citizenry, and specifically against Trump. Huge TDS.

Months of near total shutdown on IV vitamin C, bowel tolerance dosing of vitamin C, high dose vitamin D, quercetin and orthomolecular cocktails for prophylaxis and treatment. As well as censorship and savage attacks on people trying to evolve the HCQ+AZM+zinc cocktail.

antitermite , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:35 am GMT
A few loose thoughts, firstly that China accusation is one of the most egregious exhibitions of chutzpah by the western government & media.
Trial by media, if you will.
We now have ignoramuses spouting that "China has exterminated 21 million virus carriers" despite rational economic explanation of the phenomenon https://www.tweaktown.com/news/71555/21-million-chinese-phone-users-vanished-not-attributed-to-coronavirus/index.html

Prof Lieber's greatest "crime" is probably because he is responsible for saving untold numbers of potential infectees, at least in the early stages
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2004/10/sensor-detects-identifies-single-viruses/
ie his work on virus detection & identification is why the Chinese government was able to deal with the pandemic so quickly & effectively.

A bioweapon does Not have to have a high bodycount to work as intended; weapons of mass destruction – even nukes (despite western brainwashing that they "ended WWII") – have very few military applications and primarily target civilians.
Their main effect is disruption & demoralisation; in this Covid-19 has succeeded beyond possible expectations.

The USA has patents for coronaviruses going back to 2003, post-SARS:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US7220852B1/en
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10130701B2/en
https://patents.justia.com/patent/10130701
Whilst these are Not the Covid-19 variant, it goes to show that they can indeed be vat-grown.
Even should the current coronavirus be a natural mutation, it can still be weaponised.
Many of the most fearsome pathogens such as smallpox, anthrax and the bubonic plague are also natural-born killers. Supposedly they have been eradicated from the face of the planet, safely existing only in military laboratories around the globe, for research purposes of course.

The circumstantial evidence that Cov19 is a bioattack is enormous, and the likelihood of US origin is pretty damning. The US government will be desperate to point fingers everywhere else, and is using the tried&tested trial by media +obfuscation, rather than logic and reasoning.
If hard proof of US culpability manifests then the appropriate level of China's response will be "nuclear" (I don't mean actual nukes, but something like dumping US treasury bonds).

SolontoCroesus , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:54 am GMT

Meanwhile, the disease naturally leaks back into the US

How?

Is there specific information tracing this "leak" to China?

Is it possible -- is it even conceivable -- that the same logic that you detailed to tip the scales in favor of US biowarfare against China can also suggest that the bioweapon did not "naturally leak" into the US but was deliberately deployed against the people of the United States?

Follow the money: the goal of (speculated) biowar against China was, as you wrote, not to kill but to economically devastate a formidable competitor-turned-adversary (same thing the US has been doing to Iran by sanctions since at least 1995 with Clinton's executive order, made permanent by the D'Amato Iran Libya Sanctions Act).

The goal of biowar against the people of the USA is to cripple the economy, to Weimarize American commerce and enable those left standing to scoop up the life's work and investment of millions of entrepreneurs for pennies on the dollar, with the added travesty that those left standing are supplied with dollars by the very taxpayers whose assets are being snapped up!

Gaius Gracchus , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 6:59 am GMT
The Chinese government lied and continues to lie about the virus.

The Wuhan leadership knew in mid December and arrested doctors who leaked the info and destroyed lab records.

Xi likely knew no later than January 1.

There are thousands of wet markets in southern China and SE Asia, but only the one a short walk from the Wuhan Institute of Virology allegedly was the source.

Chinese researchers worked in America to develop this exact virus, adding HIV to SARS, and left in 2015 to work in Wuhan.

Chinese national was arrested in 2018 in Detroit while carrying live SARS and MERS viruses.

Chinese scientists working in Canada were kicked out in 2019 for shipping stolen biological material to Wuhan.

It was developed in the lab, but I suspect the release was accidental. The cover up and letting the virus spread around the world was intentional.

Xi is fighting to maintain power. He might not succeed

The US government did fund the research of those Chinese researchers at UNC. They continued to fund them in China.

China's economy had already stalled. Then it lost the trade war. Banks were failing. Foreign companies were moving out. Xi used the opportunity of the virus to avoid the disaster of economic collapse and to hurt the rest of the world after the Century of Humiliation, China would rather take the rest of the world down rather than go down alone.

Daniel Rich , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:01 am GMT
@ Ron Unz,

Although nearby East Asian nations such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore had been at greatest risk and were among the first infected, their competent and energetic responses .

Japan's reaction to the Corona virus is/was not competent and energetic, unless you want to count the way how the Japanese government dealt with the cruise ship 'Diamond Princess' as a resounding success. Send army recruits without protection to the ship, start with 10 patients, quarantine the entire ship, end up with 765 infected individuals, and then send people [tourists] home. I live on one of the 4 big islands and there is no lock down here. Below is a picture I took just now [what they refer to as a Junior High School], Tuesday, 21 April, 2020 ~16:00 P.M. fro the window of my apartment.

Judge for yourself.

No masks. No distance. No governmental guidance. Japan is run by bureaucrats and it shows.

Thanks for the article. It was a pleasure to read.

Hail , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:07 am GMT

According to this reconstruction, the Chinese government first became aware of the seriousness of this public health crisis on Jan. 14th, but delayed taking any major action until Jan. 20th, a period of time during which the number of infections greatly multiplied.

This also fits in with an alternative explanation, which is admittedly wild but which I would say is considerably less wild than the bioweapon-blowback theory:

https://www.unz.com/isteve/for-want-of-a-nail/#comment-3847340

J.Ross has proposed [ ] this whole thing may be a Chinese Communist Party 'Hoax,' in the sense that while the 'new' virus is real (there are always 'new viruses'), the reaction was at least 1000x what was necessary to deal with a bad flu strain and that China played it up to scare people, especially the US. China's actions (mass shutdown) triggered a series of events that scared everyone. But none of the data we have corroborate the Mass Killer Apocalypse Virus fears. So what was this?

[MORE]

[This] theory would have it that the CCP's sudden about-face on The New Virus -- a literally overnight about-face [Jan. 20] from "not a big deal" to "shut down a region with 60 million people, cue the Virus Apocalypse Movie film reels and the hazmat suits" -- was a calculated bid to hurt the US and to hurt Western economies. By the time of the unexpected about-face, they had 100% certainty it had spread to the US and elsewhere, AND that these countries had the kind of media that would go into hysteria mode AND had the technological capacity to do "testing."

This theory would attribute to the CCP a calculated bid to create a false virus panic with plausible deniability ("so sorry! we didn't have the data! it was early; we reacted the best we could; and hey even the highly-neutral WHO are calling us heroes") which would scare people and trigger a series of events that throw the US and its satellites in Western Europe into chaos, making the latter easier pickings for Belt & Road and Huawi colonization, etc.; countries dazed by a mass-hysteria-recession are suddenly beggars, not choosers.

The Chinese Communist Party's calculation would have been, on that fateful 'about-face' evening, that the West was much less ready to handle a panic than Communist China would be. It was a risk to them but it worked.

If this theory is right, in fact, the CCP succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. A case of the dog finally catching the car bumper; what the heck now? The results for China's regime itself are unclear, given that the cynical triggering of mass-hysteria-recessions in major trading partners equates to a drought that sinks all boats.

The alternative, and many would say more plausible theory, is that the Chinese Communist Party panicked, too, and reacted highly irrationally, taking a sledgehammer to a handful of mosquitoes and then salting the earth where the flattened bodies of the mosquitoes landed. Or a synthesis of the two may be true. It's hard to disentangle motivations. But the unexplained 'about-face' is real and needs explanation.

Thulean Friend , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:20 am GMT
In the end, does it matter? Even if we take the more innocuous version at face value: the virus had nothing to do with bioweapons and simply mutated naturally from bats to humans, the response of the West has been utterly atrocious either way.

We're now seeing a Yellow Peril 2.0 campaign ramped up at astonishing speed. The so-called "liberal class", posturing as tolerant and sophisticated, is now trying to run on Trump's right flank on China. Joe Biden's campaign ads on China are Cold War-style cariactures.

I've been seeing the consequences play out even in neutral places. I frequent quite a few technology-related subreddits and the unmitigated hatred of China is truly a sight to be hold. Even the most tangential topics get hijacked by zealots. For all the talk about how the media's power is supposedly dimishing, the cattle is still very much influenced by what the MSM tells them to think.

On a related note, I find this article to be great: https://thegrayzone.com/2020/04/20/trump-media-chinese-lab-coronavirus-conspiracy/

I hope Unz can syndicate some stories from The Grayzone, which I find to be the only publication on the left which isn't in thrall with the DNC. Even Democracy Now! and Jacobin are pushing state department scare stories on China. The total collapse of the American left over the last 10-15 years is a greatly undertold story.

utu , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:23 am GMT
The alleged report by National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) is the most damning piece of evidence if the report does exist. Here is the official denial:

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pentagon-bashes-bombshell-abc-report-denies-u-s-intel-identified-coronavirus-threat-in-november/
Colonel R. Shane Day, a medical doctor and director of the NCMI, issued a rare public statement to deny the existence of the report.

"As a matter of practice, the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters," Day said. "However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists."

So we are in the "Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied." territory.

What is important is not that Channel 12 (in Israel) followed the ABC article but that it added an extra bit of information which was not in the original ABC article that the report was passed to Israel and that the IDF held a first discussion about it still in November.

Fooling some ABC reporter by offering her Trump damaging leak that Trump knew but did nothing could be easy but getting a confirmation from Israel where presumably sources in the IDF had to be involved it does not seem as a simple get Trump operation.

Pft , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:25 am GMT
I don't think people understand the extent of collaboration between US and China including Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) , It actually goes back to the early 1980's with cooperation between USAMIID and WIV on Hanta Viruses. More recently extensive collaboration between China and US on gain of function studies and virus hunting, especially with corona viruses from bats. Ralph Baric UNC and Shih Zhengli from Wuhan have published papers together . Funding of joint studies from USAMIID, NIAID, DARPA. NIH, etc. George Gao the Director of Chinese CDC participated in the Event 201 simulation. There are many more ties. Google Wuhan Biolake -a lot of global biotech companies there.

I dont think anyone can know the extent of the disease in China. After all a super spreading virus from as early as November circulating in heavily polluted Wuhan, a city more populated than NYC , which was also a major domestic and international transportation hub with millions leaving the city for other destinations in China and internationally in the weeks before Wuhan was locked down just before the New Year when everything shuts down for 2 weeks anyways. And yet the disease only spreads to Europe and US but not to any degree outside Hubei province? Not believable.

And as for US deaths from COVID-19 being undercounted. Where is the evidence for that. CDC has basically informed everyone to count a case as COVID based on suspicions (no positive test needed). If a heart disease patient of 80 years old has a heart attack while also having pneumonia its COVID-19. And those tests, they haven't been validated. There are many different tests. We don't know the specificity of any of them. Very likely there are many false positives. Also if a hospital can collect more money from medicare with a covid-19 diagnosis, guess whats going to be diagnosed more often.

So I am skeptical.

Now 30,000 deaths attributed to covid in 2 weeks is a lot. In a normal 2 week period there would be 110,000 total deaths. So have there been 140,000 deaths in total, or just 110, 000 deaths with 30, 000 called Covid deaths? I dont know.

I actually expect more deaths than normal even without covid. Suicides. More deaths from heart attacks and stroke due to financial stress and people delaying treatment out of fear of getting the virus. More cancer deaths for same reason. Increased alcoholism and obesity should trigger more deaths in the next few months.

One has to consider this an event on an international scale on a par with 9/11 in magnitude and impact on freedoms. Curious how WHO declares pandemic on 3/11. Coincidence I guess.

Lot of players in the Virus Industrial Complex stand to make a lot of money in coming years as a result. The Globalists will push through digital ID and mandatory vaccination for international travelers if not everyone and the Global Health Security Alliance (GHSA) will be strengthened. The right will get tighter immigration controls and more bailouts for Big Business. The left gets a taste of universal income and perhaps medicare for all (2009 pandemic helped get Obamacare approved). And the technocrats will get more toys for the Surveillance and Tracking Industry with Big Data monitoring all the chipped individuals health among other things. Cashless society to minimize virus spread pushed through so all transactions can be logged. Everyone wins but the little guy.

And you can bet the Greenies will capitalize on this

Since the Virus Industrial Complex took over the Public Health Agencies in the 1970's we have had endless Virus Scares, Swine Flu in 1976, Hepatitis B (1978) , AIDS in 1980,
MS-ME/CFS outbreaks (1984), HPV/Cervical Cancer (1984), HHV-6 (1986) , SARS (2003) , Bird Flu (2005), Swine Flu (2009) , MERs (2012) Zika (2014) Measles (2014) Ebola (2015) and now COVID-2019

See a pattern here?

We got virus finders/makers in academia and security /military agencies in the interest of biowarfare defense and science working with vaccine and drug companies who receive funds to develop treatments for these newly found/made viruses, in some cases before any human has been infected. Reminds me of the time when those working for anti-virus software companies were suspected of generating computer viruses to sell more software and be fastest to provide the patch (since they created the virus). In any case, certainly a lot of interlocking conflict of interests among members of the Virus Industrial Complex.

BPVegas , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:25 am GMT
The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) of Ft. Detrick fame has been partnered with the Wuhan Virlogy Lab since 1981. The Wuhan Lab has also been partnered with college basketball powerhouse Duke University. Check out the Lab's website. This facilityis a diagnostic lab not a bioweapons lab. The USA has bioweapons labs located on the Chinese and Russian borders in Kazakhstan. Oh what a tangled web we weave .
Ilya G Poimandres , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:25 am GMT
Excellent summary of the anectodal evidence.

I just want to say that we need to distinguish between conspiracy theory and conspiracy hypothesis.

The out of Wuhan lab is a conspiracy hypothesis, or much closer to it. There is no plausible benefit to the Chinese, and saying 'a disgruntled employee may have dun it to get at dem dictators' is just speculation in the sky.

On the other hand the anectodal evidence for it being US action – the obvious benefit, the time and place of the outbreak, the military games team, the precognition, as well as how the CDC is not tracing patient zero in the US (if it was in China in Nov, surely it could have been in the US then too, and then the whole propaganda story falls apart).. Even the US crying wolf again, after so many times, is almost enough for me.

They are all anecdotal of course, but perfectly in line with the MO and historical practice of the US government.

I now thank my friends when they call me a conspiracy theorist loon, as I point out that Russiagate, Skripal, and so many of the government lines are pure conspiracy hypotheses – one step further away from Kansas than my take!

The Real and Original David , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:29 am GMT
Ron here reveals himself as a paid agent of the Chinese government.

One of many China shills who are popping up in "alt media" as well as the MSM.

Disappointing, but as they say, never trust a Jew.

refl , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:37 am GMT
Thanks for this first attempt to dig through the growing tale of corona. However, as we are still in the fog of war, there can be no more then a preliminary assessment.

My take is still that Corona is far less of a threat then commonly believed, and that it has been deliberately saddled with diverse agendas, so in any countries the leadership have no interest in telling the truth.
1) I think there is sufficient proof that need not be repeated, and
2) it is better for everyones' mental health not to believe in killer viruses that force us to abdicate even our most basic freedoms.

I believe that either a) the Chinese leadership thought that they were being attacked and undertook their lockdown in good faith, or b) they played an outright GAMBIT to force western countries into their own, more economically damaging lockdowns. The clue would be that China is so strong that it can weather the blow, while Europe and to a lesser extend the US cannot.

The director of the Chinese CDC, Dr Gao was part of Event 201 and studied in Oxford. Are there dual loyalties in China? And then, in which direction?
Possibly, something minor was indeed released as a bioweapon, before, calculably, western government incompetence and hysteria took over. I also believe that Israel used corona as a screen for biowarfare-targeted killings in Iran, whose case is definitely a story apart.
The Russian lockdown can be explained by the serious assumption that if they did not lock down they would be accused as the authors of a biowarfare attack on the US. At this point, antirussian hostility in the West is so severe that they had to comply!

The coordinated actions across opposed political systems CAN be explained, and it does not take a nutter to do it.

Now, let's see, if this comment gets through.

no bat soup for you , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:42 am GMT
and the hong kong flu, the asian flu, SARS classic, H5N1?

think horses not zebras ron. densely populated country with disgusting and satanic dietary practices.

maybe a country where people eat dogs should be dusted with anthrax.

Mary Marianne , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:43 am GMT
Excellent analysis on the workings of American propaganda and disinformation war in the context of COVID-19.
John Wear , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:47 am GMT
Dr. Andrew Kaufman, MD says there is no proven test for COVID-19. The PCR test given only tests for genetic material and not for the COVID-19 virus. Dr. Kaufman's interview is at
https://truthcomestolight.com/2020/04/10/dr-andy-kaufman-on-understanding-what-the-covid-19-tests-are-all-about-why-the-lockdown-has-nothing-to-do-with-a-pandemic/ .
Biff , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:48 am GMT
The majority of the American public still believe that a small group of Islamic fundamentalists wielding only box cutters atomized the World Trade Center into dust – in a cartoonish act of sorcery. If the lie is so big it has to become believable – that amount of cognitive dissonance is simply just too much to bear. An already duped population of such magnitude doesn't have much of a chance of coming out of this kind of stupor, especially under the bubble of the most powerful propaganda machine in the history of propaganda, therefore, I don't think this story is going to go anywhere.
Casual Observer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:49 am GMT
Hi Ron! Your article for me is a breath of fresh air! Amidst what you accurately call the fog of war it has been very hard to discern precisely what is going on in regards to this virus situation. It's been extremely difficult to assert the "truth" or the "red pill" as some call it when it comes to this pandemic. For that reason in fact, I would caution everyone that cares about having a well calibrated "perception" sensor to tread with extreme caution when it comes to this topic, as there isn't nearly enough evidence in any direction to assume one theory over another. Faithfully adopting any one theory at the moment can only lead you to become the equivalent of a 9/11 truther (the kind that obsesses about missiles, physics, instead of the paper trail leading directly to Israel and Saudi Arabia).

Having said that there are just too many statistical improbabilities to simply brush aside the Bioweapon possibility. I know quite a few influential figures in the alternative media have unequivocally rejected all Bioweapon theories (specially the theory that the US/Israel could ever conspire to spread a bioweapon) which is why I am very glad to see someone of your Intellectual authority provide a credible well thought-out case supporting this increasingly unpopular position (even in alternative circles). I get it, there is ZERO evidence to show the US/Israel or even China are behind covid-19. But there is equally ZERO evidence to support the official story (which is completely ridiculous until they provide more details) about the guy that supposedly ate the covid bat.

With that disclaimer I will freely speculate below but keep in mind this is all conjecture:

1. Anyone that claims is "impossible" for the US to let lose a bioweapon that would destroy the US economy and kill Americans for the sake of hurting their "perceived" enemies more needs to seriously examine EVERYTHING we know about the rulers of the American empire. The first obvious question is who exactly rules the American empire? Are they righteous rulers that make decisions based on what is best for the American people? The answer to this question is a clear and resounding NO. The rulers of America follow a religion that states anyone that is not part of their tribe is "cattle" and dispensable. On this grounds alone the Rulers of America would have very little issue releasing a virus that kills (mostly) "cattle" Americans. And then comes to "why would they tank their own economy" objection. To this objection I'll simply point out that AMERICA IS RULED through financial coercion. A crisis is very good for the rulers of America because they get to FURTHER consolidate their power over America. Gaining more power over America, hurting your geopolitical rivals and ultimately using the panic and confusion to pass draconian and more authoritarian rules are all INCENTIVES for American elites to release a bioweapon.

Lastly, to everyone that says it's impossible for the American elites to tank their economy and/or kill Americans in order to achieve a political objective has forgotten about 9/11! Our current rulers in Tel-Aviv paid a few saudi mercenaries to fly two airplanes into the twin towers to kill a few thousands of people in order to go to war! Of course the atrocity does not end there. A lot more Americans died as consequence of 9/11, even more were affected economically and even a lot more lost civil liberties and standing in American society. Right then and there you have a blatant and relatively recent event that almost word for word matches the consequences of this virus. Considering this as a possible escalation of tactics by the US/Israel against their enemies is a possibility. The US did drop the nuke of an innocent, already defeated enemy. What makes anyone so sure this is beyond their "moral code"

2.China decides to strongly stick by Iran, suddenly the Hong Kong protest springs out of control, 50 percent of their pork is wiped out by a weird disease and now of course, the mother of all "unforeseen" events kick starts a cascade of negative consequences for China.

This is by far the most alarming set of "coincidences" of all. I remember last year reading the Iran-China saga, as the Chinese refused to stop buying Iranian oil even as Japan stopped buying oil after a Japanese tanker "coincidentally" was hit by a bomb in the Persian gulf. Soon enough (if I am recalling correctly) a strange disease wipes out 50% of Chinese pork causing possible food insecurity. Then came the Hong Kong riots that although started for very legit reasons by the people of Hong Kong, soon enough had full on CIA spooks speaking in the US congress, attacking people on the streets of Hong Kong! Lastly against all odds these horrible events are somewhat weathered China and suddenly we have a pandemic that not only damages China in the world stage, but serves as the perfect excuse to possibly sanction, attack and possibly destabilize china.

Maybe I am completely paranoid or skeptical, but what are the chances of such a string of events? Is there some data I am not privy to that can explain some of these coincidences? Is there something to Chinese cultural norms that could explain these strange viruses literally wrecking their economy and political stability? What are the chances all of these viruses occur in a very short period and their severity and consequences directly correlated to China's defiance of US orthodoxy on Iran/US hegemony?

Unlike some people here, I do not share the opinion that the Chinese government is some sort of Angel or ideological ally. They are a government that ultimately acts on it's interests and it's full of flaws (including exerting degrees of tyranny on their own people). Having said that you don't have to be a communist to notice how strange this sequence of events truly is. Bad things keep happening to China as it opposes US Hegemony. It might even be statistically impossible for some of these things to happen by "chance", but maybe China is just really unlucky, right?

Other Side , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 7:57 am GMT
" 1999 NATO air war against Serbia to protect Bosnian muslims "

It was actually war over Kosovo albanians .

Sean , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:02 am GMT

But I do think that a careful exploration of previous Sino-American clashes over the last couple of decades may provide some useful insight into the relative credibility of those two governments as well as that of our own media.

During the Korean war, China used their Cats Paw North to invade the South then the Chinese army intervened under the pretense of being volunteers. Although Chinese ground troops were not directly involved, Vietnam was otherwise a rerun of Korea with China not only defeating the US but forcing it to cease isolating China. Carter issued a presidential order for officials to aid Chinese growth., and within a few decades as the internal unrest Western pundits predicted failed to amount to much, it became obvious that China's growth was at the expense of the workers of the US made jobless and suffering deaths of despair not least by illegal synthetic opioids from China. But then, by the begining of new millennium all manufacturing was in China, including the burgeoning fortunes of the already wealthy, who rose on a high tide of inequality. If history was any guide a new Gilded Age must end with a visit from the Four Horsemen. Pressaged by the appearance of the SARS-CoV virus eighteen years before, SARS-CoV-2 appears likely to end China's run of successes, because of the disruption it has caused to the US.

"The closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2 is a bat virus named RaTG13, "However, RaTG13 was sampled from a different province of China (Yunnan) to where COVID-19 first appeared and the level of genome sequence divergence between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 is equivalent to an average of 50 years (and at least 20 years) of evolutionary change."

The important thing about the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not its lethality, which is about an order of magnitude less than the original SARS-CoV of 2002, but rather SARS-CoV-2's extreme transmissibility which is two orders of magnitude greater than its predecessor's. Anthony Fauci warned the incoming US government administration in January 2017 of a newly mutated coronavirus with extreme transmissibility and, apart from the greatly reduced lethality of the massively more contagious SARS-CoV-2 virus, that is exactly what happened.

Unlike other nations, China had had no advance warning of the nature or existence of the deadly new disease, and therefore faced unique obstacles.

They had the WHO and Fauci's public statements. Much more usefully China had the 2002 epidemic, caused by SARS-CoV which originated in China that year. In Singapore, there were 238 cases and 33 deaths from the SARS outbreak, in 2015 the worlds largest MERS-CoV outbreak occurred in South Korea, and only the other year Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said it was only a matter of time before Singapore had its first MERS-CoV case, so they had to be well prepared. These countries were all set up and waiting to eradicate a disease just like COVID-19.

A decision by elements of our national security establishment to wage biological warfare in hopes of maintaining American world power would certainly have been an extremely reckless act

Excuse me? With the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus having a puny death rate yet colossal infectiousness a centralised authoritarian state like China would be relatively speaking best able to suppress it. A bioweapon would be tested on Whites as well as Chinese before being released. There is no way in Hell that they would not understand that releasing the SARS-CoV-2 virus in China would result in it sweeping through the US.

thotmonger , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:10 am GMT
If an "out-of-control disease epidemic occurring in the Wuhan area" back in November 2019 was the same corona virus, then toss the idea it was intentionally timed to mess with the Chinese New Year in 2020. But then figure the deaths in China have been greatly under reported. Furthermore, China may well have allowed carriers to travel abroad, especially to USA once the outbreak was well under way.

However, as regards the whole biocrime aspect of the corona virus pandemic we really cannot rely much on either US government/media or the Chinese. And if it was a bioweapon, who among "us" would be so keen to target Iran where over ten percent of their parliament got sick very early on? That is an Israel First kind of agenda. Or maybe it was Japan? Good investigators keep an open mind.

Note (This is not a subject change) Over the last several decades the American public health system has regularly failed to adequately warn our citizens about the causes and risks of numerous epidemics that have claimed many millions of lives. Or were all sugar drenched foods advertised as "Fat Free" really a "healthy choice"? So I do not quite understand why Ron Unz considers the corona virus the one instance of stellar government incompetence, as if to imply the current lock down has not nearly severe enough?!? Thank god he did not invoke the party line panacea of the Gates vaccine!

Meanwhile, what about Kushner's fast tracking mass surveillance? Will it only be temporary? Will it only be used for containing CV19? Ha. Let's all step in the van with the nice man who will give us a teddy bear

On top of this alleged biocrime, examples are abounding where the opportunists are eager to grab more power, and make killings of a sort, not least of which are the banks, Wall Street and the war mongers.

Remember, the farther the tide goes out, bigger the tsunami that charges back in.

dimples , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:15 am GMT
I don't buy it. If the US was going to go to the extreme length of releasing a highly contagious virus into the territory of its new Deep State certified arch-enemy China, the risk of contagioning yourself is extremely high. Especially with global trade and travel as it is these days. Preparations would have been made in advance to make sure it would not blow back by putting appropriate people and methods in place. Its too easy to blame incompetence for this oversight.

If you're looking for plotters, look no further than Wall St. They are making out like bandits in the latest bailout.

The_seventh_shape , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:26 am GMT
The chronology is indeed telling. Strange that the MSM never thought to ask how the DIA could have known such a thing.

Let's hope this teaches the deep state not to fool around with viruses anymore.

dimples , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:27 am GMT
@dimples Unless of course the blow back is a feature and not a bug, which it must be admitted, it usually is. If the US economy takes an enormous hit due to blow back, which it has, then China is set up as the next ultra-bad guy to replace Russia, Russia Russia!. It then becomes the new fixation of the Deep State's wet dreams, a new Cold War where plenty of money goes down the toilet into the MIC's pockets and plenty of opportunity for the heroic Special Ops types to keep the Hollywood grist mill grinding.
threestars , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:32 am GMT
This is by far the most one-sided and far-fetching article I've read in the American Pravda series. Very disappointing, to say the least.

For example, Mr. Unz linked the below article about Tiananmen square:

https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php

The original source went to great lengths to make it clear a massacre did in fact occur that night/morning, only it was taking place in other areas of Beijing and the victims were mostly protesting workers, not students. (At least 300 of them, by Chinese official figures.) A person reading Unz's summary will come out believing this did not take place, although the Chinese themselves don't really deny it did.

Pheasant , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:42 am GMT
'Zerohedge a popular right-wing conspiracy website'

How dissapointing Ron Unz.

You should consider what people say about this website.

dimples , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:43 am GMT
@dimples This is a reasonable view in my opinion. If you look at previous US false flag events, they come at periods when new directions are needed to perpetuate the US war machine's supposed usefulness. The 1990 Gulf War was clearly a set up that came just as the old Cold War was ending and prepared the way for 911 and the Iraq War, which capitalized on the US bases that had been set up during the Gulf War.

Currently the Russia, Russia Russia! narrative is petering out. The US Deep State wants to perpetuate it but the Euros don't really want a war with Russia, a huge market for them. So continuation of Russia Russia Russia! risks a split with the Euros.

But China, a nice new up and coming enemy there. Yum yum. So Covid-19 could be a US false flag effort in that direction it has to be admitted. Damage to US economy? Who cares, the Deep State doesn't. Its immune, rolling as it does in government loot.

interesting , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:49 am GMT
My issue with the 'it's not china's fault"argument revolves around the secrecy in the beginning. And then the arrests of those sounding the alarm inside China. One would think that if this was from elsewhere the CCP would be screeching bloody murder from day one NOT trying to downplay it and outright lie about it. Didn't China use the same playbook with SARS? Silence and then misdirection.

my .02

Ghali , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 8:51 am GMT
The actual number is 43000 dead Americans. The China narrative lacks hard evidence. There is mounting evidence that COVID-19 pandemic originated in the U.S. and may have been a terror attack perpetuated by the U.S., which is pursuing a massive expansion of biological weapons program. According to scholar Kevin Barrett: "It also may be a coincidence that the primary U.S. bioweapons lab, Fort Detrick, was shut down in summer 2019 over fears that weaponized pathogens might escape. It may be a coincidence that absurdly under-performing U.S. military athletes came to Wuhan for the World Military Games in October and have since been accused by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs of being the source of the COVID-19 pandemic. It may be a coincidence that at the same time those 'athletes' were in Wuhan, the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, and other Establishment titans were hosting a pandemic simulation called Event 201".

Furthermore, "It may be purely coincidental that the virus appeared in Wuhan, home of China's biggest biodefense laboratory, and China's biggest transportation hub, just in time for the Chinese New Year, when most Chinese travel to visit relatives. Likewise, it could be coincidental that the real-life COVID-19 pandemic almost perfectly mimics Lockstep, the Rockefeller Foundation's recipe for a global police state emerging on the back of a coronavirus-style pandemic", added Kevin Barrett. The U.S. regime unleashed this disease on the world, and the U.S. regime has to be held accountable.

JEinCA , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:07 am GMT
Mr. Unz my fellow Californian,

Your suspicions on this matter echo my own. I remember the Russian Government warning a few years back that Western NGO's inside Russia had been discovered to be collecting DNA samples of Russian citizens and that it was the opinion of the Russian Intelligence Services that this information was being collected ny Western Intelligence Services for the purpose of future biological warfare. When this outbreak in China made international news I remembered the warning from the Russian Government. Then came the outbreak in Iran that killed many Iranian political figures. Quite a damned coincidence if there ever was one?

If you ever run for state or national office and are on the ballot (or not) herr in California you have my vote.

Veritas vos Liberabit!

Fiendly Neighbourhood Terrorist , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:11 am GMT
@Ozymandias You're totally right!

Look at a very partial list of the Chinese history of lying, almost by habit, just in the last two decades alone!

China lied in 1999 about "massacres" committed by Serbia and bombed Belgrade to set up the narcomafia organ-smuggling so called state of "Kosovo".

China lied about Saddam Hussein having WMDs and invaded Iraq in 2003.

China lied about "imminent massacres" and "Viagra rape" in Libya in 2011, and deliberately misused a UN Security Council resolution to bomb and destroy that country and hand it over to slave trading jihadi headchopper gangs.

China lied about Syria using chemical weapons from 2013 onwards, armed and trained and financed terrorist gangs, conducted missile strikes on the country, and continues to occupy and steal oil from East Syria.

China organised a blatant Nazi coup in Ukraine in 2014 and lied about it being a "popular democratic revolution".

China murdered Iran's top general Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and lied about him being about to conduct terrorist attacks when he was actually on a peace mission.

With just this partial list of Chinese lies in the last two decades alone, who would believe anything China has to say?!?!?

animalogic , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:30 am GMT
Interesting article.
Especially, interesting for me, the aggressive arrest of a Harvard Prof' of chemistry for technical irregularities in Grant paperwork, coincidentally at the time the virus emerges. (we assume he personally wrote up those applications ? Imagine if everyone who had written up a Grant application, which contained an error or two, in the US were to be dragged off in chains by the FBI ? )
And also interesting the Belgrade Chinese embassy attack -- Mr Unz's materials put it in a totally new perspective for me.
Google , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:36 am GMT
I suspect US gov been planning this attack for years. SARS outbreak in 2003, I suspect, was a test, to test Chinese gov's response to bio attack. Note that SARS virus and the current covid-19 virus aren't that different to be considered different viruses, hence covid-19 also known as SARS-2. But the difference, SARS-1 had "kill switch", it wouldn't be able to infect humans after a while.

During 2003 SARS, China acted swiftly causing the virus to be contained within China and according to US gov simulation, covid-19 should've been the same, contained within China. But China didn't act as swiftly as expected, causing the virus leaking back to US, this is why US gov is furious, had China acted earlier, the virus wouldn't travel back to US.

The killing of Iranian general, it wasn't act of recklessness, it was diversion, so that the Iran gov would be occupied by it while ignoring coronavirus spreading silently in their country.

Anonymous [499] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:39 am GMT
Ron, my friend (sort of), if you think you have trouble now what with COVID-1, impending national bankruptcy, and a general flow of information that seems to have been some of the most creative fiction in our lives, just wait until you manage to invite China into US civil disputes. Our present difficulties are as nothing compared difficulties subsequent to direct Chinese involvement in civil matters.
Historically, third party intervention quite often leads to foreign domination. Examples: US in Afghanistan, US in Iraq (twice). Both time, native citizens thought it a great idea to invite the US in.
And why do I say this? Well, you're presenting China as morally wronged. In your frame of reference, that's an absolute, more important than anything else. But it's not the only interpretation. Perhaps China committed an act of war by giving tactical help to the Serbs. Perhaps that violation became severe when China gathered F117A wreckage. Perhaps China is lucky that bombing the embassy was all that happened, and we are all lucky that things did not escalate. This is actually less of a fantasy than your account, which is at best a bit one sided, almost a "point and sputter".

In the US, such accounts are the precursor to advocacy. You should consider carefully the consequences of advocacy in this case.

Anonymous [362] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:43 am GMT
America was finally returning to a regular peacetime economy, with the benefits apparent to

the everyone

everyone

China seemed unsuccessful in its initial efforts to halt the spread of the disease using convention methods.

conventional

the response to this global health crisis of by China and most East Asian countries

by

Jason Crew , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:46 am GMT
While I think the first part of the article is very interesting, and I acknowledge the theoretical benefits that could exist from the US using COVID as a bioweapon, I find the argument unpersuasive for the following reasons:

Obvious blowback : If the US infected China with a highly spreadable disease, why did we not put in more aggressive measures to stop it from spreading in the US? Otherwise, what's the point of hurting your enemy if you also get hurt? If the US was going to attack China with a bioweapon, why would they not engineer a genetic/ethnic bioweapon that targeted Han Chinese, as oppose one that could also kill everyone? Seeing the economic damage this has done to us, it seems unlikely that such a contagious weapon would be the one an actor would pick, as it would risk damaging their own homeland.

China has always been a hotbed of disease : A third of China's history has them facing an epidemic of some sort. The 1957 "Asian flu" , 1968 "Hong Kong flu" and 1977 "Russian flu" all started in China. The black death probably started in China. Seems far more likely that recent disease outbreaks are part of a historic trend, or gross Chinese conditions, rather than a bioweapon attack.

Ayatollah Smith , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:47 am GMT
On April 11, 2020, Gilad Atzmon published here an excellent article titled "A Viral Pandemic or A Crime Scene?", in which he suggests circumstances have now created 'a paradigm change' in the perception of the current viral pandemic.

https://www.unz.com/gatzmon/a-viral-pandemic-or-a-crime-scene/

He states: "Since we do not know its provenance, we should treat the current epidemic as a potentially criminal act as well as a medical event. We must begin the search for the perpetrators who may be at the centre of this possible crime of global genocidal proportions." I concur.

All Americans (and others) who believe in China's culpability for the emergence of this virus, should welcome such an investigation. And Mr. Pompeo, who so firmly plants the full responsibility on China's doorstep, would receive vindication of his claims. I believe that the governments and the people of China, Italy, Spain, France, and Iran, especially would like to know the results of such a criminal investigation.

All nations of the world should band together now, and proceed jointly with this endeavor. It needn't be approached with presumption of cause or intent, but simply to uncover the entire truth of this event. That will be sufficient, and it is possible the results of this worldwide investigation will prompt others into similar past events which have to date gone unquestioned and unexamined.

I believe there are yet many truths about COVID-19 (and many other epidemics) still to emerge. Perhaps one of the many people with personal knowledge of the source and method of distribution will be sufficiently brave to come forward, perhaps another Edward Snowdon or Chelsea Manning. We will then see how truly the US treasures its whistle-blowers.

**

The US needs to answer this question: HOW could US 'intelligence sources' possibly have known in November – or even October – of a potential pandemic of COVID-19 that would erupt – specifically in Wuhan – two months later? (Or that was already erupting in Wuhan at the time, unbeknownst to the Chinese?). I believe the entire world would demand the answer to this.

**

In early March the US government declared as classified all COVID-19 information, with all communication to be rerouted through the White House and coordinated with NSC officials. Only specified individuals with security clearance are permitted to attend secret meetings, with no mobile phones or computers allowed. Excluded staff members claimed they were told virus information was classified "because it had to do with China". The US needs to explain the need for such extreme secrecy (while condemning China for lack of transparency), and how coping with a domestic virus epidemic would involve China.

China, Italy, and several other nations in Asia and Europe have documented proof that COVID-19 was circulating in their populations for several months before the outbreak in Wuhan. And there are many, many reports, including from physicians, that infections in the US were occurring as early as September, of 2019. These claims are too numerous, too detailed, and too similar to be ignored. Japanese TV and press documented that Japanese tourists returning from Hawaii were coming home infected with COVID-19 in September.

Why was Dr. Helen Chu issued a threatening "cease and desist" order to stop testing nasal swabs her flu research team had taken in Washington State from October 2019 onward? The only possible result would be to prevent the knowledge emerging that the virus had already been circulating months earlier. As a rule, the reason we don't ask a question privately is because we already know the answer, and the reason we don't ask the question publicly is because we don't want anyone else to know the answer.

The US government needs to address the now-certain existence of the virus being widespread in America and much of the world from September, 2019.

Z-man , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:54 am GMT
Your globalists and anti American tendencies come out in the first part and the last few paragraphs of your piece. I didn't read most of the rest of your long winded article.
Bottom line, the Chinks infected the world whether by incompetence or deliberately. They then intimidated the world with their economic might and with the help of their lackeys in the WHO and the PC/shit lib elite in the West to keep the flow of infected people to keep coming into the West. Italy is the tragic example but you can include the rest of the West including America where that old bag Nancy Pe-lousy was celebrating in China Town in late February.
They, the PRC, should be made to pay reparations.
NoLock , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:56 am GMT
Not to dismiss Ron Unz's reasoning outright, but it has been claimed that the virus cannot be the product of direct genomic manipulation.

That's barring any breakthrough in genomic manipulation techniques, a breakthrough that would have to be kept secret. What these scientists have said is that publicly available techniques would have left traces in the viruses genome. They claim that any such traces are absent from the virus's genome.

If that holds up, then the only remaining possibility would be a virus that was bred. It could have been bred by taking the bat virus and passing it through other types of animals, selecting for increased virulence. It has been claimed that ferrets would fit the bill since they have the same ACE2 receptor as humans. Ferrets are easy to handle under laboratory conditions.

If the US deep state did something like this, then their reasoning would have to be on what lines? "Let's take this virus that we have bred to dock very easily onto the human ACE2 receptor and set it loose on the Chinese. The virus will devastate them will they still be able to contain it – so that there won't be too much blow back."

Maybe they misjudged the product of their virus enhancement effort. Still, it needs be kept in mind what presuppositions have to be put in place for the blow back theory to work.

Godfree Roberts , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:56 am GMT

I tend to doubt that Chinese leaders have any overwhelming commitment to the truth, and the reasons for their greater veracity are probably practical ones.

Their reasons are extremely practical:

1. In the absence of national elections they are free to make realistic promises. Since they have kept every promise they've made to date they have an investment in staying honest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China ,

2. In the absence of factions like our Republicans and Democrats, there's no-one to blame or pass the buck to, nor lie competitively, nor attack proposed or existing policies. There's no 'them,' there's only 'us.'

3. The Chinese have always been willing to make sacrifices now for benefits later, which incentivizes being honest up front.

4. Telling the truth is cheaper in the long run, which is one reason China has the cheapest government on earth.

5. People are much more willing to cooperate with truth-tellers. Governing is infernally difficult and being truthful makes it vastly easier.

6. Straight talk, especially from leaders, is attractive (Trump's appeal to his base is that he occasionally blurts out something true). Asked on TV how it felt to be President, Xi said, "People who have little experience with power–those who are far from it–tend to regard politics as mysterious and exciting. But I look past the superficialities, the power, the flowers, the glory, the applause. I see the detention houses, the fickleness of human relationships. I understand politics on a deeper level." Imagine an American politician talking like that.

7. Smart people tell the truth more often than dumb people. People out of their intellectual and experiential depth, which our politicians usually are, tend to lie. The average IQ of China's top 5,000 political leaders is 140 and all of them have 25 years successful governing experience. They're professionals who are less likely to lie than your brain surgeon.

[MORE]
hs4691506 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 9:57 am GMT
@Otto von Komsmark I've read the Chinese are proud that they'll "eat everything under the sun". China is a very old culture. People might have differing opinions, but I think it strange that now we have all these cross-overs from the animal kingdom.
hs4691506 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:02 am GMT
@animalogic I think it was Zero-hedge that said the professor lied about his Chinese funding, making him in effect an agent of China. That's not some burocratic form error.
I think the article is a good summary but the author is also guilty of embellishment. For example, he used the word "concerted" at least twice, when he has no proof of that.
Anonymous [108] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:02 am GMT
Having grown up with in the University of Chicago South Side Chicago neighborhood , then lived in racial, criminal, immigration anarchy New York City 1985-91
, I m rarely if ever surprised about national or international events. The seemingly incomprehensible views and policies of American, diaspora, Neo Conservative, Hollywood,Wall Street Jews makes sense in awful ways:

They hate us – want us replaced

Madeline Albright (How did this ugly woman from Central Europe get to be USA Secretary of State? Why did she demand bombing the sh&$ out of the Serbs to creat a Muslim beach head in Central Europe ? What is she ? Catholic? Episcopalian Christian? Oh she s Jewish again but wants to convert to Islam to protest President Trump s proposed Muslim immigration plan).

I look at this Chinese Kung Flu Coronavirus and just note how sensible nationalist governments/societies in Japan, Taiwan, Hungary, Slovakia and of course Israel handle it:

Strict, zero tolerance immigration, student visas from Coronavirus plague infected areas – also no millions of Muslim young male migrants.

Pretty much no one in these sensible nationalist societies care if Jews at the SPLC, The Atlantic Magazine, or National Review, CPAC or the Wall Street Journal scream that they are:

RACISTS
FASCISTS
NAZIS

It s probably too late in my life to try to learn Hungarian or Japanese.

But I think I/we should all try to learn translations of :

"Shut up Jews"

"Support Israel the homeland of the Jews so go home"

Life isn t complicated .

It s the same with terrible Black AA ga g murders in my Chicago . same with TB, bubonic plague heroin addicts street people in LA's Skid Row, Gypsy no go places in Romania or France.

Life isn t complicated .

brabantian , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:20 am GMT
From Ron Unz's article linked above on the Canadian kidnapping of the Huawei billionaire's daughter, Ron himself said something which points to the perhaps deeper truth here

In that piece our host Ron suggested that the clear best course for China, was to put the squeeze on USA Jewish billionaire and political king-maker Sheldon Adelson, the big political funder of Trump and US Republicans etc Adelson being the casino king of Macau who earns most of his billions there under Chinese authority, Adelson being able to get the Huawei exec released with just a phone call to Trump, if Chinese would just walk into Sheldon's casinos and threaten shutdown

China never moved to touch Sheldon's businesses in China, and as I said at the time, this is because of the deeper frightening truth, that the big powers tend to work together behind the scenes, even whilst in public disputes, like high school football teams in rivalry

Chinese media accuse the US of creating a bio-weapon, US media accuses China of the same, the classic rivalry of Orwell's 1984

Both governments share motives of culling pensioners as covid-19 does; distracting from incipient collapse of excessive economic debt; establishing greater elite surveillance and control; and enabling elites to buy and own ever larger sectors of global economic life; in other words the classic 'NWO' of conspiracy talk.

Half a century ago, Antony Sutton proved that 1940s-1970s USA had been transmitting tech to the old Soviet Union (often via Israel), to create the 'Best Enemy Money Can Buy' the Cold War was essentially fake, and Putin came out of that, and continues trading favours with the USA Putin doesn't question 9-11, USA doesn't question false flags in Chechnya etc

Sites like the 'Secret Life of Jews in China' show how European Jews were part of China's Mao revolution, even becoming politburo members Chabad centres abound in China despite few nominal Jews there, linking hotlines to Jared Kushner's Chabad centre in DC and 'Putin's rabbi' Berel Lazar in Moscow

One has to go one level above the US vs China mudslinging, and consider it is all likely as fake and staged as was US-Soviet rivalry China and the USA may well be working together on covid

--

The idea that Covid-19 was a bio-weapon deployed in China by the US visitors to the late 2019 military games, was promoted early on by Veterans Today (VT) where Unz's Kevin Barrett hails from. VT is a website widely-read by world governments, despite its partly kooky and ridiculous articles about space aliens etc

Gordon Duff, co-chief of VT, said out loud in a radio interview – where he also outed himself with a chuckle as a 'self-hating Jew' – that 30% of the material on his site is intentionally false and ridiculous, as the price he must pay for publishing true 'intel drops' without getting shut down / murdered by the US gov't in intel-speak, this is called 'poisoning the well', you publish the most damning truths on self-discrediting sites like VT or David Icke, where the typical reader easily dismisses truth because it's published next to articles about space alien lizards ruling planet earth

utu , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:22 am GMT
@Mustapha Mond Yes, what if the chief objective was not to hurt China by disrupting its society and economy but to make the whole world angry with China. Ron Unz article is the voice crying out in the desert which will not stop the tsunami of memes: WuFlu , China did it , China must pay for our suffering We must punish China. that has been whipped up from the very beginning and only will be getting loader and stronger.

Some of the things you list are to benefit the insiders. No little thing that could bring profit will be left to chance. It is just like when World Trade Center being transferred from Port Authority before 9/11. Was it critical to the operation? Could they get the terror event if WTC was not owned by Larry Silverstein? Yes, they could but few extra bucks could have been made with Larry Silverstein being the front man. Or just when American troops were entering Bagdad, who and when organized special outfits who systematically were visiting Bagdad museum and looting it according to the shopping list?

Ron Unz is underestimating their evil and abilities.

anon [146] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:22 am GMT
@Ozymandias If "they" were going to do such a thing, how would they go about it, and what would have been their thinking?

Deliberately engineered biological agents can often be detected by careful analysis of the pathogen's genome. Bioinformatic programs can detect odd sequences that shouldn't belong; the chances of a purely natural explanation for the inclusion of some sequences are rare, for instance. Let's say I wanted to create a super virus capable of destroying humanity. One obvious way to do this would be to take viral sequences from certain dangerous pathogens and combine them into one. That might do the job, but obviously there is a risk that comes along with doing with that: current sequencing and bioinformatic techniques may quickly discover such an act and invite retaliation by the victim. " That shouldn't be there! " If half of China started dying of a mysterious virus composed of sequences from various unrelated viruses, then obviously there is an attack underway because the chances of such elements coming together in nature is very low, practically zero. A response would likely follow in short order.

Is there a way around this? Maybe.

There are several odd things about Sars2 (Covid-19) that I haven't seen before: 1) it spreads in contravention to how -- some -- previous viruses we've dealt with in recent memory have spread. Specifically, there are a higher-than-expected number of cases are transmitted before the patient become symptomatic with this virus. This is why initial airport screenings failed to stop the virus from entering the United States, aside from lax screening*. In the past, most of these viruses like MERS and SARS weren't particularly contagious when the infected carriers were asymptomatic, so simply checking their body temperature with a thermometer and following up with contact tracing was enough to stop the spread. 2) unlike both SARS and MERS, this virus is remarkably contagious for a novel pathogen, even moreso than the flu 3) this virus may have a very long asymptomatic phase, up to two weeks in some people. One explanation is that something similar is true of other viruses that cause the common cold and the flu but we haven't really noticed it before because those viruses are comparatively less lethal. If you believe in a conspiracy, on the other hand, this would be a feature deliberately engineered to ensure maximum transmission.

Elements of the conspiracy:

1. This outbreak happened just before Donald Trump's reelection campaign got underway and during crucial trade negotiations. Maybe they wanted to put pressure on the Chinese government to increase Trump's chances of getting reelected. His approval ratings according to 538 have been stuck in the low to mid 40s for essentially his entire presidency. He needs a consistent approval rating above 47% or so to ensure a high chance of reelection.

2. This happened just after a failed Hong Kong color revolution by youthful protestors. Many of the signs held by protesters included the kinds of things a boomer FBI agent might think would curry favor with the 4chan crowd -- pepe the frog, various slogans. It failed, in part, because that crowd didn't buy it. Hong Kong protestors were relentlessly mocked on some alt-right websites as morons wanting to deliver their people the "freedom" enjoyed by the West: dozens of genders, speech laws, feminism The case of a Canadian waxing salon being forced to wax a male-to-female transgendered person's genitals was prominently used to mock Hong Kong protesters demanding Western freedom.

Conspiracy:

The CIA may have bred a virus to be easily transmissible but much less lethal than the original SARS virus that made the headlines years ago. They may have expected the virus to spread quickly in China and panic the Chinese population, undermining faith in the government so the CIA could once again try to overthrow their rival. They never expected it to come back on them.

If one were going to create a viral agent guaranteed to escape detection as an artificial construction, one might do the following: take a known virus indigenous to the targeted area and breed it in animals native to the area (bats) so that it spreads undetected until symptoms present while having a traceable lineage when examined with bioinformatic software / select it against human tissue samples in vitro so that in infects human cells easily.

The former technique might leave behind a tale tell signature: the virus has a long incubation time within the host. Why? Well, some animals have lower resting body temperatures than humans. This can affect which pathogens are able to infect them. Pathogens that have evolved to replicate at one temperature may not replicate very well under another one. Animals like opossums and hibernating bats are less likely to die from rabies infection, for instance, because they have lower body temperatures, among other factors. Humans and dogs are not so lucky because both have higher body temperatures where the virus can replicate more easily. It's sort of strange how SARS2 (Covid-19) takes so long to clear in some patients -- up to two weeks or more. Maybe this occurs because, despite being able to easily infect human cells, it replicates poorly at first because it is adapted to bats, which often have a lower resting body temperature. Although, it is possible this could occur naturally as well.

The latter can be done by infecting cell cultures in dishes and examining which cultures became infected and to what degree. This can be done by measuring viral titers -- dilute extracted cell culture liquid, filter out cells and bacteria, apply diluted mixes to new cultures, examine results, selected superior viral lines for continued manipulation. There are lots of ways to set this up. Maybe you tag your viral proteins with a florescent protein and examine after some period of time; the more virus that is being made, the stronger the signal. Select that particular culture and continue.

Point: there are lots of ways to do this, some pretty simple (but probably expensive, dangerous, and time-consuming nonetheless -- which is why dumb Middle Eastern terrorists haven't tried it so far). The important thing is that such a set up would avoid including obviously unnatural elements that could never be explained by random chance -- the inclusion of sequences from other viruses, for example. This might come off looking natural, even if remaining mysterious to the outside observer.

*The American government was warned about this virus but didn't take it seriously. Explanation 1: Trump and his advisers are greedy imbeciles (more likely). Explanation 2: the American government didn't expect this to be a big deal because they created it to be less lethal than previous viruses, perhaps not understanding that a lower death rate over a larger population would result in higher casualties (less likely).

Americans arriving at JFK from locked-down Italy are shocked by the lack of US screening for coronavirus

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8098819/Americans-arriving-JFK-Milan-say-SHOCKED-no-screening-coronavirus.html

Trump allegedly asked Fauci if officials could let coronavirus 'wash over' US

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/492390-wapo-trump-allegedly-asked-fauci-if-officials-could-let-coronavirus

Points against this theory:

1) Trump is a loudmouth and a braggart. If he knew ANYTHING about this, he probably would have let it slip by now. Elements of the British government have had to restrict some information they share with the Americans for fear that Trump would leak it to his friends during his then regular discussions with people over unsecured lines. Would the CIA really do something extraordinary like this without his knowledge?

Points in favor:

1) The UK, a country that often works with the Americans to do nefarious things, didn't take this very seriously, either. They acted as if they didn't expect this to be a big deal. Other countries that usually don't work that closely with US intelligence to the same degree, have taken Covid-19 seriously even if they have failed to contain it. Although, this is probably wrong. The nations that have dealt best with this are the ones that have had lots of previous experience with similar viruses and whose populations are naturally more inclined to work together.

2) The timing and location of the viral outbreak. Isn't Wuhan a major transportation hub?

FB , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:26 am GMT
Excellent piece by Ron Unz

One thing I notice is how crisply written this is, compared to the very dense, plodding style that characterizes much of his previous work

A very good overview of the situation and a thoughtful analysis of the finger pointing that's going on

Regardless of whether the lock down measures have been an overreaction or not, most reasonable people will realize that we may never know what might have been, had we not locked down

Would the health system have been able to cope ?

What would happen when hospitals are overwhelmed by serious respiratory cases ?

China's very forceful reaction now looks absolutely brilliant

That extremely energetic reaction also hints that the Chinese leadership may have suspected an attack

Been_there_done_that , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:26 am GMT

". ..the current accusations by Trump Administration officials that China had attempted to minimize or conceal the serious nature of the disease outbreak is so ludicrous as to defy rationality. "

This assertion is absolutely untrue, as most readers who have followed this story early on will know. You conspicuously left out of your conspiratorial musings the news of the "whistleblower" Wi Leniang, the 34-year old ophthalmologist who had worked at Wuhan Central Hospital, and had already alerted his colleagues late last year about a suspicious viral outbreak, for which he was subsequently arrested and punished by authorities. Millions of people in China are familiar with his tragic story – he eventually died.

On January 9 the World Health Organization released the following press statement, providing sufficient information that would have warranted or obliged the authorities to have immediately closed the Wuhan airport and train station to prevent the contagious spread of the virus to other regions of the world through unwittingly infected carriers.

https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/09-01-2020-who-statement-regarding-cluster-of-pneumonia-cases-in-wuhan-china

Instead, authorities waited two entire weeks before closing the Wuhan airport, during which time the virus spread inevitably to other countries through the many international passenger flights. According to military game theory, such inaction would surely benefit China, which could better deal with an outbreak, whereas most other countries would suffer more severely in comparison. For this reason, regardless whether the release of the presumably engineered virus was released intentionally or accidentally, the Chine government is culpable for having allowed the pandemic to evolve. So at least in this particular case the allegations of the Trump administration are correct.

Your narrative omitted these indisputable facts, which you then denigrated as " so ludicrous as to defy rationality ", yet after a Communist Party meeting in mid-February, some of those responsible for having minimized or concealed the serious nature of the outbreak were officially "demoted" (received a slap on the wrist):

https://www.businessinsider.com/international/analysis-china-hubei-officials-sacked-xi-jinping-protected-2020-2/

Those who praise China's alleged competence in the matter have a dilemma to deal with. Either the authorities are competent, in which case they effectively waged biological warfare against the rest of the world (using incompetence as plausible deniability of intent) in order for their economy to come out ahead, comparatively, in the long run, compared to a situation where only their own economy would have suffered by effective early containment measures; or else they were indeed incompetent, that an accidental release from one of their labs in Wuhan becomes even more plausible than it already is. Either way, the focus of inquiry must remain on China, rather than conducting an exercise in reflexive exoneration. Fantastical insinuations pointing the finger elsewhere, for which no strong evidence has been presented, are just a distraction.

Accidental releases have been known to occur, but apparently only the level-4 lab in Wuhan was known to have been working on enhancing those bat-based viruses with gain of function properties and chimeric qualities.

Your entire conjecture about the strong likelihood of US culpability essentially rests almost entirely on the vague notion of " extreme recklessness ", which in such dangerous matters, as the release of deadly viruses, appears to be significantly less likely, from an analytical perspective, than an accidental release from a biological lab in Wuhan.

Michael888 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:28 am GMT
While your lengthy article shows the possibility that the virus originated in the US and was spread intentionally, with a lot of trust developed by our own Dr. Fauci of the NIAID and $37 million in grants (long before Trump) to study bat coronaviruses in collaboration with China, I think you are missing one important feature.
Trump and his neocon clown car are loathed by the Intelligence Agencies. Unlike Obama, who loved to have the CIA "playing" in his sanctioned, National Emergencies countries (Yemen, Libya, Venezuela, Ukraine, Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Burundi), backing coups in Egypt, Honduras and the big one, Ukraine, and delighting in droning and expanding Bush's two wars into 7 or 11, depending on how you count, Trump for all his idiotic saber rattling has started no wars; Bolivia is his only coup, Nicaragua his only war-like National Emergency. You may have missed the events of Russiagate and Ukrainegate, built on incompetent spycraft, and an impeachment started by a CIA "whistleblower", but to give Trump credit for something as devious as an obvious CIA op (by your own speculations) seems disingenuous. Much more likely the CIA (whose hubris and incompetence rivals Trump's) likely were running this operation from at least when the first bat coronavirus grants were sent to Wuhan (2011? 2015? I've read both). My guess is the CIA did not even share their brilliant idea with the loathsome Trump, as he would have likely squashed it as he finally did with John Bolton's out-of-control machinations. I think the CIA sees the spectacular failure of their operation as a chance to embarrass and likely overthrow Trump. If they had destroyed the Chinese economy, they would have taken full credit, as it is, they look masterful in re-establishing the Establishment, and ridding themselves of a non-supportive Trump.
9/11 Inside job , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:29 am GMT
Coronavirus catastrophe? Even though the CDC has been accused of exaggerating the number of deaths from the Coronavirus by allowing doctors to assume , without testing ,someone died from it, the number of deaths are not alarming . According to the CDC's provisional statistics posted on April 20,2020 , from February 1 to April 18 ,2020 there were only 15,252 deaths from the Coronavirus out of a total of 603,184 deaths from all causes ,in a US population of 327,167,434 . For the one week ending April 11 there were 5483 COVID-19 deaths and for the one week ending April 18th there were only 568 deaths . cdc.gov . Deaths from the Coronavirus appear to be on the decline in mid-April ,just as they often do in a typical flu season as Spring returns in the Northern hemisphere. As a number of doctors have observed the lockdowns, social distancing and unemployment resulting from the draconian measures taken by Governors across the US are leading to an unprecedented number of cases of depression and suicides.
It is well established,that people who are depressed end up with many types of illnesses due to their compromised immune systems .
The tragedy of the Coronavirus pandemic is ,that as more and more circumstantial evidence comes to light ,it was an engineered crisis or ,as some investigators have termed it ,a planned-demic see, for example, "How to create a fake pandemic"jamesfetzer.org.
Concerned Citizen , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:41 am GMT
Deep and enduring thanks to Ron Unz and his team for this site, an oasis of common sense in a desert of nonsense.

Regarding:

"So if American bio warfare analysts were considering a corona virus attack against China, isn't it quite possible they would have said to themselves that since SARS never significantly leaked back into the US or Europe, we'd similarly remain insulated from the corona virus? Obviously, such an analysis was foolish and mistaken, but would it have seemed so implausible at the time?"

There might be another possibility. That being that the American plans you outline were formulated and carried out by the deepest, eternally-entrenched portions of the American security state and that "senior administration officials" were simply never consulted about bio warfare efforts against China. Very possibly including those earlier events noted, aimed at Chinese agricultural interests.

Two birds with one stone would be the result: 1) China is (theoretically) taken down by orders of magnitude; 2) That usurping outsider, the ever-disruptive President Trump exits in January, as no incumbent would be judged to have a 2% chance of withstanding the hurricane of events tied to the pandemic's arrival in America.

All the better, then, to allow Trump and other leading American politicians to convincingly lead the chorus against China, and all done with never any possibility of a leak from any political "source" about anything pertaining to the background and planning of the operation.

Implications of such a possibility are too monstrous to consider, so am certain this assertion can't be true. Right?

utu , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:42 am GMT
@Hail " this whole thing may be a Chinese Communist Party 'Hoax,' in the sense that while the 'new' virus is real (there are always 'new viruses'), the reaction was at least 1000x what was necessary to deal " – The reality parsing by the hoaxers always lead to the discovery of more hoaxes. Check with your guru Kunt Wiitkowski if he was not the one who advised Chines how to pull off the hoax. Didn't he tell them that only 10,000 would have die?
hs4691506 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:49 am GMT
@swamped I, too, doubt that Trump would have been aware of what was going on, this would have been an operation that was kicked off now because if Trump gets re-elected, he'll hopefully clean house, and all that preparation would have been for nothing.

That having been said what's your explanation why Trump did bring a lot of neocons on board, who effectively blocked him. If he really wanted to placate the democrats, there would have surely been hawks who weren't as dangerous as, e.g. Bolton.

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:50 am GMT
@Jim Jatras He said back then he thought that. Hasn't expressed his current view. None of us knew back then that the US was dumping pure U238 on Yugoslavia making large parts uninhabitable for a thousand years.
utu , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:53 am GMT
@refl Ron, we need a new button: Hoaxer
Ayatollah Smith , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:54 am GMT
20.Hail says:

"Checking the Jay Matthews story, I see this: Hundreds of people, most of them workers and passersby, did die that night, but in a different place and under different circumstances."

There is much that Jay Matthews didn't say. Read this:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/tiananmen-square-the-failure-of-an-american-instigated-1989-color-revolution/5690061

29.Christopher Marlowe says:

"Smithfield is owned by a Chinese firm."

It is not. Shuanghui International Holdings Limited, now known as W-H Group, is a private company based in Hong Kong that holds a majority of shares in China's largest meat processor, Shuanghui Foods. The fact that it is based in Hong Kong does not make it "Chinese" in any sense. It is a totally foreign-owned company. The ownership of W-H is mostly American, not Chinese, and Smithfield was involved with the company. It was a complicated kind of reverse takeover, but nothing much of substance changed.

It is the largest pork company in the world, number one in China, the U.S. and much of Europe.

And the effect of the swine flu was to shift production and sales from Shuanghui China to Smithfield in the US.

Sean , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:55 am GMT

China's sweeping Belt and Road Initiative has threatened to reorient global trade around an interconnected Eurasian landmass

By the time of the Antonine Plague of 165 to 180 AD (which surely inspired Aurelius's stoicism, and may have killed Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) direct trading links between China and Rome had been established. On March 2019 Italy was the first G-7 country in Europe to become a member in the Chinese Belt and Road project . Did that globalisation reproduced the same pandemic-friendly environment that had decimated Ancient Rome, which rivaled China in population at the time of the Roman diplomatic mission from Marcus Aurelius to the Han Court in 166 AD?

Given these dramatic Chinese actions and the international headlines that they generated, the current accusations by Trump Administration officials that China had attempted to minimize or conceal the serious nature of the disease outbreak is so ludicrous as to defy rationality.

Hardly, because intent is irrelevant. Not discharging their duty to inform the international community in a timely manner of COVID-19 being extremely infectious and not massively exaggerating the infection to death ratio and duping the WHO and modelers like Imperial College into accepting terrifying but bogus infection to death ratios of 1 to 3 0r 4% as Dr. John Ioannidis says in an update ( HERE ) means quite simply that China must never ever be relied on again. Next time, and there probably is going to be another such novel coronavirus at some point in the future, China might overcompensate and downplay something extremely dangerous.

Lieber had had decades of close research ties with China, holding joint appointments and receiving substantial funding for his work. But now he was accused of financial reporting violations in the disclosure portions of his government grant applications -- the most obscure sort of offense -- and on the basis of those accusations, he was seized by the FBI in an early-morning raid on his Cambridge home and dragged off in shackles, potentially facing decades of federal imprisonment.

AS I understand it the case against him was precipitated by indications that he was taking money from the Chinese Government and lying to Federal investigators about it while getting $18 million from the Defence Department. He was not a virologist, unlike professor Montagnier who co-discovered HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and received a Nobel prize. He says the SARS-CoV-2 virus is an artificial laboratory created pathogen, which has fragments of–surprise, surprise–HIV in it. He wants his expertise to be relevant to what everyone is currently obsessed with. But life in this crazy old world is not like that. Unless you are Ioannidis.

Parfois1 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 10:57 am GMT
In the early days of the CoV-19 discussion here, a solid body of commenters suggested the strong likelihood of being a US biological attack on China on the basis of its propensity for aggression towards its designated "enemies" by the only method of causing substantial damage to a powerful rival's economy under the cover of plausible deniability. Considering the inevitable demise of the US as the only superpower, it is not beyond the ruling cabal's remit to conceive such schemes to thwart the Chinese economic ascendancy. Yes, the initial suspicions of foul-play were reputational (the US habit of resorting to heinous crimes against other nations) and strategically connected as well (the only way to damage a strong opponent short of an all-out nuclear conflagration with uncertain outcome ).

On the other hand, there were a series of "coincidences" widely discussed here that started giving credence to a full-blown plan of biological attack aimed at the Chinese population by engineering a virus capable to discriminating the target victims. This has been partialled discounted, but not completely until the full sequence of CoV-19 evolution is mapped. Meanwhile, the official narrative has switched to the rejection of the theory of a man-made virus to the "accidental" release by the Wuhan lab, in my view to deflect any effort to research the source of the virus and reinforce the tale of Chinese negligence. But the trouble is that there are many virologists now busy debunking that too and asserting that CoV-19 is unnatural.

I have come across a report on Australian Media Centre where the evolutionary virologist Edward Holmes of the University of Sydney reveals that "the level of genome sequence divergence between CoV-19 and the closest known bat relative in nature is equivalent to 50 years of natural evolutionary change, which suggests that CoV-19 is a synthetic creation in a lab either by insertion of suitable genetic material or, alternatively, growing different cultures in a laboratory with cells with the human ACE2 receptor. This process involves the gradual adaptations to bind the virus with the human receptor by "training" the virus to seek an efficient method of binding by natural random mutations until one progeny hits the jackpot. Although this process does not require insertions by extraneous genetic material (not strict engineering) because the virus itself produces the required adaptations, it is notheless a human interference with the natural world by breeding something for a, obviously, nefarious purpose. The great advantage of this process is to disguise the fact that it is a contrived lab creation.

There are many historically significant events the truth of which will remain hidden for a time. But this case involves a strong player (China) and it will – as wel las many outraged scientists worldwide – leave no stone unturned to reveal the unfathomable depth of the US's den of iniquity.

anon [300] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:02 am GMT
@CanSpeccy

But as this epidemic is shaping up, it is likely that the estimated death toll will be comparable to that of the seasonal flu in a bad year.

That's not correct -- at all. Our hospital system in major cities like New York are NEVER brought to the brink with seasonal flu. The likely number of deaths from Covid-19 has already exceeded the number of deaths estimated from seasonal flu over the past 6 of 10 years -- in just over six weeks. And that's under unprecedented quarantine.

Quoted numbers of deaths are as unreliable as the number of infections.

Numbers do not need to be 100% "reliable" in this case. Many of those who have died have done so in hospital where they have been tested. We can also measure the baseline death rate in NYC. When we do, we find a tremendous daily increase far and above anything caused since 9/11. Clearly, there is something going around that city that is killing lots of people. No flu in recent memory has done that.

Cause of death as stated in a death certificate is often, and even usually, wrong, and during an epidemic caused by a virus that induces respiratory difficulty it is likely that virtually all deaths due to respiratory dysfunction will be attributed to the virus without confirmatory evidence.

This kind of flawed logic could be used to dismiss virtually any epidemic. At some point the number of deaths is so high that no counter argument could reasonably be believed. We've already reached that point. There are only so many respiratory deaths that occur over any time period. Even if we moved 100% from other categories over to Covid-19 we would still find peculiarities in the data.

Deaths in New York City Are More Than Double the Usual Total

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-new-york-city.html

Furthermore, virtually all deaths of persons testing positive for covid19 will be attributed to the virus even though the deceased may have had multiple other diseases, any one of which could have been the cause of death.

That's certainly only going to be minor contributory factor. Huge numbers of people above the average baseline don't just magically drop dead from other causes all at the same time. If someone gets Covid-19 and dies, it is reasonable to assume it was the proximate cause in the majority of cases. Only so many people die from X at any one time. If twice that number start dying all at the same time, there is a problem.

"Herd immunity is likely now widespread, so the thing should fizzle out soon, with or without continued population incarceration."

Please do not comment on things you clearly don't understand. It is estimated that no more than a few percent of the American population has been exposed to Sars2 (Covid-19). Herd immunity requires some high multiple of that number. We are nowhere near herd immunity. You don't even know what that means in all likelihood.

Seraphim , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:07 am GMT
@nsa Whom to believe? Australia had, as per today 21.04.2020, 6,642 cases and 71 dead. Seventy-one, not 120. South Korea on the 18.04. only 232.
Anon [323] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:12 am GMT
Professor Luc Montagnier, Who Won Nobel Prize For Codiscovering AIDS Virus, has said COVID-19's HIV "strains" could be put there in the virus's RNA only by human expert intervention in a laboratory.
The excerpt from the French TV program where he said it can be found on YouTube.

What's "funny" is the way most USA, or, how should we say?, USA-close, media reports the fact, starting from misleading headers (headers which, as usual for the USA and, how should we say?, USA-close media, are all clones, with tiny changes from one to the other).

Professor Luc Montagnier, Who Won Nobel Prize For Codiscovering AIDS Virus, Says Coronavirus Was Man-Made In Wuhan Lab.

This, when the professor clearly stated he is only a scientist, and he only wanted to relate facts that many other research groups have found but have been left unsaid due to enormous pressure, and he stated equally clearly that it is not his knowledge, duty, competence, will, to give opinions on who did it, where, why.

Jim Christian , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:15 am GMT
@Godfree Roberts

The average IQ of China's top 5,000 political leaders is 140

Have not most of the all-time Evil Greats been brilliant? We have them, Russia has them. How is China having them unique? If Ron's suspicions over this are close to true and even if not, we already have volumes of evidence in so many other situations proving we have brilliant evil-doers aplenty on the U.S. side in any case.

The rest of your points are agreeable to me. But every time I've hung my hat on the 'brilliant' high-I.Q.-types I'm always disappointed. They test well but in command of things they bring us wars and now this. The medical people are high-I.Q. as hell, they've vacuumed up half our GDP and research dollars for 100 years now and it's their job to have had this in hand. Like our high-I.Q. generals and admirals the past 75 years, they're losing another war for us. The high IQ sorts in finance are another group. We're a nation in serious decline and from where I sit, the high-IQs are merely managing said decline.

High I.Q.s just don't cut it from where I sit. Could be jealousy. My IQ is some where between a pineapple and radish, a yam maybe..

Ber , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:22 am GMT
@no bat soup for you There is so much talk about Chinese will eat just about anything but there is usually no focus on other people in the world for doing similar things.

The Chinese eat bamboo rats, the French and Belgiums eat rats too – besides snails. Some people in Asian countries eat cats and dogs, the Swiss by the thousands, eat cats and dogs. The members of Explorers' Club in New York eat just about anything as well. But to top it all, there is even have a cannibal club in LA that specializes in eating human flesh.

http://www.cannibalclub.org/

Home page: Specializing in the preparation of human meat, Cannibal Club brings the cutting edge of experimental cuisine to the refined palates of L.A.'s cultural elite. Our master chefs hail from around the world for the opportunity to practice their craft free of compromise and unbounded by convention.
Our exclusive clientele includes noted filmmakers, intellectuals, and celebrities who have embraced the Enlightenment ideals of free expression and rationalism. On event nights, avant-garde performance artists, celebrated literary figures, and ground-breaking musicians entertain our guests.
At Cannibal Club, we celebrate artistic excellence as the natural and inevitable expression of the unbridled human spirit.

Now just listen to their music:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/epoHB_yZ1uU?feature=oembed

skeptik23 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:25 am GMT
Brilliant work I have been researching everything I can find, while placing the totality of events in the context of US IC/DS ops The "botched biowarfare" attack fits the data the best by far. Thanks for this report.
Anon [262] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:30 am GMT
@Been_there_done_that

Those who praise China's alleged competence in the matter have a dilemma to deal with. Either the authorities are competent

There is no "dilemma." They detected an outbreak and dealt with it competently. Your government run by a reality show host didn't. It's as simple as that. You can deflect all you want, but it really boils down to that.

in which case they effectively waged biological warfare against the rest of the world

Nothing the Chinese did forced other countries to keep their borders open. Several countries like Israel closed them before Donald Trump did. Nothing China did forced Trump into not taking this seriously until it was too late.

[MORE]

Trump calls coronavirus Democrats' 'new hoax'

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-calls-coronavirus-democrats-new-hoax-n1145721

"It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear," Trump told attendees at an African American History Month reception in the White House Cabinet Room. The World Health Organization says the virus has "pandemic potential" and medical experts have warned it will spread in the US. The President added that "from our shores, you know, it could get worse before it gets better. Could maybe go away. We'll see what happens. Nobody really knows."

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/27/politics/trump-coronavirus-disappear/index.html

Trump allegedly asked Fauci if officials could let coronavirus 'wash over' US

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/492390-wapo-trump-allegedly-asked-fauci-if-officials-could-let-coronavirus

In Trump's 'LIBERATE' tweets, extremists see a call to arms

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-trump-s-liberate-tweets-extremists-see-a-call-to-arms/ar-BB12NQ0h

Stimulus checks to bear Trump's name in unprecedented move

https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Stimulus-checks-to-bear-Trump-s-name-in-15202400.php

'God help us': Americans horrified after Trump names Jared and Ivanka to his 'Council to Re-open America'

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/god-help-us-americans-horrified-after-trump-names-jared-and-ivanka-to-his-council-to-re-open-america/

Trump threatens India 'retaliation' over unproven drug

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52180660

US 'wasted' months before preparing for coronavirus pandemic

A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.

https://apnews.com/090600c299a8cf07f5b44d92534856bc

'I felt I had a moral obligation': Tucker Carlson crashed Mar-a-Lago party to talk with Trump about the coronavirus

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/i-felt-i-had-a-moral-obligation-tucker-carlson-crashed-mar-a-lago-party-to-talk-with-trump-about-the-coronavirus

Truthseeker56890 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:30 am GMT
2 Phylogenetic studies have been done to suggest America was the source of the virus.

This study suggests that Type A strain the earliest type of the SARS-COV2, was mostly found in the US. While in China it was mostly type B, another strain mutated from Type A.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/07/2004999117

This study suggests there are 2 sources of spread, however in countries from Brazil, Italy, Australia, Sweden and South Korea , some cases are tie to the US cluster but not to China. So this suggest some cases were directly spread from the US. Japan commented it was from the US because they had the virus from traveling to Hawaii and they never went to China.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.09.034942v1

here in this video presentation some arguments that supports the US had this virus in between August 2019 and Jan 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3J6zm6zgah0?feature=oembed

A possible scenario is they developed a few Sars-Cov2 bio-weapon strains the B and C strains from the A strain. They wanted to find a vaccine for it before they can be deployed, but in developing the vaccine they leaked the A type out into the US. They had to make a decision, let the public know about it or cover it up and release the B and C strain without the vaccine. I think they did the latter.
But you be the judge, we need more transparency from the CDC and more research before any conclusions can be made.

Truth3 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:38 am GMT
Once again Mr. Unz unleashes a Tour de Force upon the Global Power Liars.

Well done, Sir. Truth wins in the end.

dimples , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:41 am GMT
@dimples Of course I completely failed to mention in the above comment that it's the War on Terror that's coming to a close. Russia Russia Russia! has been an attempt to fill the gap but its not going anywhere due to opposition from the Euros.

The slow US reaction to the virus could therefore seen not as incompetence but a deliberate process of sowing more destruction, thus more China-hate later, ie its part of the plot. Also the virus is not too deadly, just enough to create a big scare and over-reaction amongst the authorities and public.

dimples , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:52 am GMT
@Mustapha Mond Yes IF there is a conspiracy that would be it. I have also come to this conclusion in other comments but you have described it much better than myself.
anon [215] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:54 am GMT
@Christopher Marlowe The flying drones over pig farms is nonsense from Metallicman, who is a controlled-opp deep asset that speaks 80-90% truth and 10-20% lies.

I tried looking into the flying drones a bit, but couldn't confirm any of it.

Half Back , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 11:55 am GMT
@Ayatollah Smith I want to add Trump's early response to the corona virus shows Trumps and American duplicity. I used to watch a TV show 'Lie to me' with actor Tim Roth. Anyway people give away all kind of knowledge when they communicate. So my take that Trump's call that it's like a bad flu or it's nothing to worry about, reveals knowledge that it is American attack and that he (Trump) worries if it gets 'out' that the trump administration is culpable, so he tries to downplay corona virus and his own role in it!
"
denk , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:01 pm GMT

Blow back

The first thought comes to mind .
Its a feature , not a bug.

OOps, several posters already noted it.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
To recap ..

The Who test.. ..

Who's the motive ?

Who benefits ?

Who's the means ?

Who's a seventy years old track record of extreme malfeasance against China ?

Who's a track record of using bioweapons on friends and foe, including its own citizens ?

Who's a track record of committing FF , including many cases against China ?
[TAM, Tibet, Xinjiang, HK, Mh370, INdon genocide 1965,
..]
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Occams Razor .

There's a serial arsonist in town, he has been caught setting fire to John's house dozens of times in the past few months.

JOhn's house caught fire last night

Who's the first suspect to haul in for interrogation ?

Elementary, Watson.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

Last but not least.

Mathematics doesnt cheat

Ian Flaming's fundamental law of prob .
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice ..

How many 'coincidences' occur in the Wuhan caper. ?

-- -- -- -- -- -- –
Conclusion.

Whichever way you look at it,

Logic, Circumstantial evidences and Mathematics all points to
We know who.

Donald A Thomson , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:15 pm GMT
@swamped The high casualties in the NATO countries are due to their own reluctance to do anything for so long. Look at the total number that have been infected and the current new infection rates in South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. South Korea prepared better than anybody but was cursed with a Christian sect that also had churches in Wuhan. They stayed close together for a long time in their churches to increase community feeling and, since God was looking after their health, were reluctant to admit to being ill. Yet South Korea shits on every NATO country in fighting COVID-19. So do Australia and New Zealand in spite of their extremely poor use of the 2 months warning provided by China and the DNA sequence of the virus provided by China on 12th of January, 2020. As soon as the Chinese methods were applied, the same success with humans was achieved. Now the NATO countries are aping China too, they are starting to have the same human success. They will continue with success as long as they continue aping. The Yanks are losers like other NATO members because they didn't bother to ape until they were heavily infected. I stress that Australia and New Zealand did very badly (only about 10 times better than the USA but 4 times worse than China who we should have beaten easily) because they were slow to ape. We only look wonderful when compared with NATO. Actually, we also do about 5 times better than Iran too. Even with sanctions crippling their response, Iran has done twice as well as the US losers. When it becomes a matter of drug and vaccine development where the USA has real strengths, I expect the USA to do as well as China but it's a low tech battle right now and the Yank boys haven't done well against the Chinese or Iranian men in that competition. Who would expect them to? [email protected]
Vojkan , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:19 pm GMT
@Godfree Roberts The reasons you enumerate apply to individual people, they don't apply to governments. It is true that a rational individual should prefer truth because truth is mostly self-sufficient while lies need to be reasserted permanently. The rationality of truth vs lies is very much like the rationality of well-designed software vs badly designed software. Good design as truth demands less maintenance. The problem is that it doesn't keep programmers busy and it doesn't justify budgets. A government, the "deep state" moreover, need to keep maintenance costs high to perpetrate themselves.
The crucial question very few seem to be asking is the question of motive. Many commenters here project on the Chinese their own traits. The problem is that what can be said of Western elites can't be said of Chinese elites because the Chinese have different motives altogether. There's one motive they didn't have, to provoke a crisis. Viruses don't hop out of labs by accident any more than gold hops out of Fort Knox. One has to bring them out and the Chinese had no reason to do it.
Regarding the US on the other hand, though I disagree with Ron Unz's assertion that this particular US administration is more reckless and less competent than those that preceded it, seen from abroad it just appears as less hypocrite, to keep the story short I'll just say that hubris tends to cloud judgment and that desperate times ask for desperate measures.
Anonymous [538] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:23 pm GMT
Sounds entirely plausible, and, to be parsimonious, even probable. The last element to make it feasible was leaving Trump entirely out of the loop. He still won't have a clue if he's standing in the dock at the Hague years from now. Everything he will ever know about this fiasco will be from light reading material they allow him in his cell.

The Deep State made the right bet when they decided late in the race to hack the election in favor of the Donald rather than the Queen of Warmongers. Nobody would ever expect the self-described peace candidate to escalate the ongoing hybrid wars to germ warfare. (Though maybe the use of chemical weapons by America's proxies in Syria should have been a hint.) Now the world knows, the Satanists in charge of Washington will stop at nothing.

Quintus , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:23 pm GMT
@Mustapha Mond I 100% agree with you, Mustapha Mond. Much as I admire Ron for in so many ways for his other topnotch contributions and running this site, one of the very best news sites IMO, the evidence at hand does not suggest incompetence on the part of the US government and the deep state behind it: it's definitely an Atlanticist plandemic. Godfree Roberts showed that many steps the Trump administration took the past two years were meant to pave the way for enabling the government to play the "we didn't see this coming" card, just as with 9/11:

https://medium.com/@godfree/the-data-are-more-than-just-wrong-these-questions-illuminate-what-we-dont-know-about-the-data-f117681068f1

Not mentioned in Roberts' piece is the US's PREDICT biological outbreak program, conveniently shut down in October 2019:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/health/predict-usaid-viruses.html

At the same time, the US Health Dept was running Crimson Contagion in the first half of 2019, simulating a deadly flu pandemic starting in China (as I recall). Even the US Naval War College ran a pandemic simulation causing respiratory failure:

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/04/01/naval-war-college-ran-pandemic-war-game-2019-conclusions-were-eerie.html

Everyone knows about Event 201 at this point, in October 2019, sponsored by the Gates Foundation, Bloomberg via Johns Hopkins, and the World Economic Forum, simulating specifically a coronavirus pandemic. What are the odds that the organizers of Event 201 were just lucky in picking a coronavirus, knowing there are 150 other virus families, besides coronaviruses (e.g. rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, etc.):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_virus_families_and_subfamilies

That's a 1/151 chance! Lucky bastards! Present at Event 201 were recycled players involved in the 9/11 anthrax attack simulation 'Dark Winter', such as Thomas Inglesby, as documented by Whitney Webb. Not to mention the 2011 movie 'Contagion', involving a flu-like pandemic originating in China (Hong Kong),transmitted from bats to humans in an unsanitary environment!!! Another financial reset was also long overdue, as Greg Mannarino and others have pointed out: the coronavirus cover was too perfect of a tool for deflecting the guilt from the Fed and the banksters; killing many birds with one stone, the virus is also a 2) powerful psy-op hurting China's image in the world, 3) further delivering a strong blow to its export-driven economy; 4) it sets the stage for the cashless society ("dirty bills not accepted here!"), the advent of digital currencies and 5) top-down surveillance.

Astuteobservor II , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:29 pm GMT
@Jeremygg5 You take a retarded sub human too seriously. Using logic and reason will get you no where.

It is regretful that a sub human took the first comment spot. It will attract more of it's type.

Astuteobservor II , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:37 pm GMT
@Vaterland If we go along on that theory of yours, it would all make sense if China said no to the transition.

Why would the current Chinese elites share their country and power with outsiders? That makes no sense for the elites of China.

Astuteobservor II , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:39 pm GMT
@Octavian That reads like the perfect scenario for cold war 2.0 or the last hot war on earth.
anon [114] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:45 pm GMT

So either the China's leadership had suddenly gone insane, or they regarded this new virus as an absolutely deadly national threat, one that needed to be controlled at any possible cost.

Those are not the only choices, Ron.

Here is another one for you:

– CCP knew this virus had a low fatality rate;

– CCP were aware of recent (DoD iirc) readiness assessments noting that US had specific vulnerability to a pandemic;

– CCP was aware that the captive Chinese people were alrady subject to 'herd control' infrastructure whereas the US population still enjoyed human rights;

– CCP decided to sow confusion about the infection. ("We can do this, but their society will fall apart Comrades!")

– The West initially chose to ignore this. Then the Corporate Press "International" decided to put psyops pressure to force US and UK to do a 180 u-turn. This due to a single lousy non-peer-reviewed paper at the Imperial College.

Must read writeup on Imperial College and their hysterical white paper : https://www.voltairenet.org/article209749.html

--

Some other considerations that can inform the above are (a) the attitude of CCP towards 'world government' institutions, and (b) their relationship with WHO, in particular.

So option 3, Mr. Unz:

CCP used the (controlled?) exposure of a virus ("17") to put into motion a psychological operation to sow confusion and panic in US (based on our own published findings on readiness) that seems to have other participants in the Globalist crowd institutions. The primary target was USA, but NATO as well.

Btw, Mr. Unz, that ex-CIA psyops writer you host on your site (Giraldi) keeps censoring my comments on his propaganda pieces. Why do allow them a platform and also permit them to censor rebuttals? Hopefully you will prevent UNZ Review from becoming UNZ Pravda.

Anonymous [395] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:45 pm GMT
Ron, you need to rewrite this essay. If minor websites carry articles blaming China the presumption is these articles are falsifications seeded by Trump, but if wildly sensationalist Chinese propaganda pieces come from unknown sources like OldMicrobiologist or Metallicman then they're reliable? Wow is all I can say.

Suggesting Lieber's creds set him above espionage and bio sabotage against the United States is the best you can do? Your overwrought defense of this man is telling, given his "assistants" are provably Chinese bio espionage agents and he secretly agreed to take a post as director of the Wuhan lab.

In the same vein, did you know that the Johns Hopkins' inflammatory "dashboard" world map seen and used everywhere was developed by a 30-year-old Chinese "student," Ensheng Dong, working for Johns Hopkins? Using Edward Tufte's "Lie Factor" for evaluating the exaggeration of a graphical representation relative to the underlying data puts the Johns Hopkins map so far in the lie category as to warrant an FBI investigation of Johns Hopkins and its employees for causing irreparable economic and societal harm to the United States. In an NPR puff piece gushing over the map's creators, "all sitting around a table sipping lattes," Dong is quoted as saying it's like showing blood everywhere. That's quite accurate from the proud creator considering the irreparable harm that map has been in large part responsible for creating.

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/833073670/mapping-covid-19-millions-rely-on-online-tracker-of-cases-worldwide

Gorgeous George , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:55 pm GMT
One correction for the beginning of the article. The 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia wasn't directed against Bosnian Serbs. That was the 1995 campaign and had nothing to do with the Chinese Embassy being hit. It seems that you simply got the 1995 NATO bombing of Bosnian Serbs (entirely in Bosnia) and the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro – when the Chinese (brand new) embassy was hit) mixed up.

Interesting thing – the Japanese current embassy is on the exact grounds where the Chinese one used to be. I find some funny symbolism in that.

Max Powers , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 12:56 pm GMT
@Jim Jatras Yep. Unz lost me with that comment. And very sloppy by his high standards. The NATO 1999 bombings were to support the Albanians in Kosovo – not the Bosnian muslims. I suggest Ron does some homework on the whole Yugo Wars period. Maybe even back to ottoman times.
Gorgeous George , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:03 pm GMT
@Anonymous I think that he obviously got the two NATO bombing campaigns mixed up.
NATO bombed Bosnian Serbs (entirely in Bosnia) in 1995 to protect its interests under the guise of protecting Bosnian muslims. This is what Unz supports.
NATO bombed Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in 1999 when the Chinese embassy was hit.

Let's not make the comments spiral off into the Serbia/NATO conflict details. The point of the entire mention of the bombing is that there is sincere indication that the US hit the Chinese embassy on purpose. That much was clear since day 1 as the embassy was a brand new building and you couldn't mistake it for a previous occupant or anything of the sort. It was a message to China.

UK , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:03 pm GMT
@swamped While I don't agree that China would have done this on purpose as I am generally doubtful of all similar theories, it would nonetheless also explain why China banned all movement to the rest of China from Wuhan while not only allowing the Wuhan infected to infiltrate the West but actually vociferously and ubiquitously complaining about Western racists for thinking about not allowing them in.
Biff , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:11 pm GMT
@hs4691506

I think it was Zero-hedge that said the professor lied about his Chinese funding, making him in effect an agent of China.

You need to understand the system in place. The book Three Felonies a Day outlines the how, but does't really cover the why, and there lies the devil in the details. When they want you, all they have to do is pour over your life' details, and they will find something nefarious as a tool to put you in stern and squeeze.
There is million different details and forms to fill out when securing foreign funds for a university; most of the rules and the process is ad hoc, and more often a lot of it is ignored, and of course – certain countries have certain rules. The good professor didn't do anything that was completely out of the norm. It's nearly impossible in this society to be crime free – by design.

Think of all the people near Trump during his Russian Collusion investigation that went to jail or indicted – most if not all were dragged in on the many petty illegalities that plague our legal system for a reason. Illegalities that on a normal day most people ignore until it is politically expedient for the authorities to use them.
This is how a Police State operates.

You don't have to believe me; just ask Tommy Chong, Martha Stewart, etc .

UK , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:12 pm GMT
@Ber You think there is a restaurant serving human flesh in Los Angeles? You are an abject moron.
Really No Shit , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:15 pm GMT
Et tu, Brute? You're worried more about the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and Bosnian Muslims than the destruction of that great Christian Serbia by the Clintons & cabal shame!
TomSchmidt , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:15 pm GMT
According to Matthews the infamous massacre had likely never happened

In the mid 1990s, I worked with a man of Chinese ancestry in New York named Henry Sun. Henry had been in Beijing at Tiananmen Square. He had been shot. What happened afterward was that he was treated by doctors for the bullet wound, and they had coded the illness as some sort of cancer, so that it would not be obvious that he was a dissident and so be arrested.

Now, I cannot say that someone was killed. I can say that personal testament to me from a credible witness indicates bullets were flying, and one struck him. Maybe that's not a massacre, by whatever means that word is defined. But it wasn't a Chinese tea ceremony.

9/11 Inside job , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:19 pm GMT
I am a retired attorney and I am heartened to see that some attorneys, namely David Helm in Michigan and Lindy Urso in Connecticut ,are beginning to file lawsuits to revoke unlawful and unconstitutional Executive"Coronavirus" Orders issued by the Governors of the States of Michigan and Connecticut. I have long maintained that almost every Executive Order issued by State Governors are revocable as they are based on a lie, promoted by the WHO and the CDC ,that there is a Coronavirus pandemic and an international public health emergency .
Rafael Martorell , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:21 pm GMT
everything China have and everything USA has been lost was done with the complicity and personal gain of 99% of the usa elite,political class,including CIA,etc and even the likes of Michael Jordan.
Anonymous [235] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:26 pm GMT
Another great article.

Whoever decides to believe this embarrassingly transparent anti-China propaganda is stupidly siding with Soros and his Global Deep State golems. This will be the latest IQ test for those who struggled with all the previous ones (incubator babies, Iraqi WMDs, Quaddafi's Viagra, Hillary's electability, Russiagate etc.).

George Soros: China Is a 'Mortal Enemy' of the West

FBI, DOJ Say China Is America's Greatest Threat

Godfree Roberts , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:27 pm GMT
@Jim Christian High IQ is just an entry level requirement. They have 300,000 folks with 160 IQ, so 140 is not that exceptional.

New recruits' first posting is 5 years in the poorest village in the country. They 'graduate' after they've raised everyone's incomes by 50%. Then the career path gets really steep.

The people who are visible to us have been so thoroughly scrutinized that it's almost painful to contemplate. Here's Zhao Bing Bing[1], a mid-level Liaoning[2] Province official talking about her mid-level, provincial promotion to Daniel Bell:

[MORE]

I was promoted in 2004 through my department's internal competition (30 percent on written exam results, 30 percent on interviews and public speaking, 30 percent on public opinion of my work and 10 percent on education, seniority and my current position) and became the youngest deputy division chief. In 2009, Liaoning Province (pop. 44 million), announced in the national media an open selection of officials. Sixty candidates met the qualifications, the top five of whom were invited for further interviews. Based on their test scores (40 percent) and interview results (60 percent), the top three were then appraised. The Liaoning Province Organizational Department sent four appraisers who spent a whole day checking my previous records. Eighty of my colleagues were asked to vote–more than thirty of whom were asked to talk with the appraisers about my merits and shortcomings–and they submitted the appraisal result to the provincial Standing Committee of the CCP for review.

In principle, the person who scored the highest and whose appraisals were not problematic would be promoted. However, because my university major, work experience and previous performance were the best fit for the position, I was finally appointed department chief of the Liaoning Provincial Foreign Affairs Office even though my overall score was second best [the government discriminates positively in promoting women–ed]. Before the official appointment there was a seven-day public notice period during which anybody could report to the organization department concerns about my promotion. I didn't spend any money during my three promotions; all I did was study and work hard and do my best to be a good person.

In 2013, thanks to an exchange program, I worked temporarily in the CCP International Department. The system of temporary exchanges offers opportunities to learn about different issues in different regions and areas like government sectors and SOEs. In a famous quote Chairman Mao said, "Once the political lines have been clearly defined the decisive factor will be the cadres [trained specialists]." So the CCP highly values organizational construction and the selection and appointment of specialists. There is a special department managing this work, The Organization Department, established in 1924 and Mao was its first leader..The department is mainly responsible for the macro management of the leaders and the staff (team building), including the management system, regulations and laws, human resource system reforms -- planning, research and direction, as well as proposing suggestions on the leadership change and the (re)appointment of cadres. In addition, it has the responsibilities of training and supervising cadres. The cadre selection criteria are: a person must have 'both ability and moral integrity and the latter should be prioritized'. The evaluation of moral integrity focuses mostly on loyalty to the Party, service to the people, self-discipline and integrity. Based on different levels and positions, the emphases of evaluation are also different. For intermediate and senior officials, emphasis is on their persistence in faith and ideals, political stance and coordination with the central Party. High-level cadres are measured against great politicians and, among them, experience in multiple positions is very important.

Fans follow the careers of one-thousand top politicians online[3] and they are impressive, as President Donald Trump[4] observed, "Their leaders are much smarter than our leaders. It's like taking the New England Patriots and Tom Brady and have them play your high school football team. That's the difference between China's leaders and our leaders".

Today's leaders began their careers in the 1960s as manual laborers in dirt-poor villages and won promotions by raising village incomes by fifty percent. As they rose, they spent sabbaticals on the lake-studded campus of The Academy of Governance where they met the world's leading thinkers, critiqued legislation and earned PhDs. They now run huge provinces, Fortune 500 corporations, universities, space programs and, of course, government departments and the Peoples Daily reords their progress under headlines like, "How Rural Poverty Criteria Affects Mayoral Promotions."


[1] Daniel Bell and Zhao Bing Bing, The China Model.
[2] Liaoning (pop. 45 million) is a northeastern Chinese province bordering North Korea and the Yellow Sea.
[3] The Committee https://macropolo.org/the-committee/
[4] Donald Trump says Tom Brady and the Patriots are just like China. Boston.com . By Steve Silva July 6, 2015

Johnny Walker Read , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:27 pm GMT
Thank God this "scamdemic" was not planned long ago and shown to us through predictive programming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=187&v=5krD8zJ6-bY&feature=emb_logo
utu , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:28 pm GMT
@anon There is on little problem with your hasbara. Those great strategic planners in China of yours forgot about one little thing that the West has 100% dominance over China in the soft power of creating global narratives with which it will turn China into a pariah nation in the eyes of everybody, a nation that everybody hates.
Biff , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:32 pm GMT
@TG

I personally think this was either the result of the so-called "wet-markets" in China – long known to be the primary source of the annual flu epidemics

I've been going to markets in Asia all my adult life and suddenly they are both the source of flu epidemics and "wet".
Unless it is raining the second one makes everything seem so ridiculous.

(why the heck haven't they been shut down??)

Because people would starve?

Try throwing some blame(buying food makes you sick!) at your big box corporate food monopolies and try to shut them down – take a guess at what might happen?

utu , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:34 pm GMT
@Anonymous Is that you, John "WE KNOW WHERE YOUR KIDS LIVE" Bolton?
anon [114] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:43 pm GMT
"hasbara"

Your Mama , you purveyour of ad-homs.

"the West has 100% dominance over China in the soft power of creating global narratives"

Oh, really, "the West"? Last I checked there was a war in "The West" between two camps of elites of "The West" for our public consumption.

"a nation that everybody hates"

No, that would be your Mama's "homeland", Israel.

Emslander , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:47 pm GMT
@Tor597 Except, it would be helpful if Ron placed somewhere prominantly on the home page that he is a card-carrying member of the "Resistance" against Trump, which this article finally reveals full blast.
Polymath , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:48 pm GMT
Too much attention here on things which could have other explanations and too little attention on the real puzzles and on those things which science can definitely settle.

(1) It is solvable, and it will be solved, where and when were the first cases of the infection among the general public outside China. Almost everything else depends on that.
(2) It is almost inconceivable that American agencies who had been plotting this would run it by Trump for approval first. It seems much more likely that the anonymously sourced report that our agencies knew about this in November is some kind of ass-covering to shift blame to Trump, whom these same agencies have been trying to take down for 4 years; which doesn't help us discern whether they were also responsible for the pathogen in the first place, it's consistent either way.
(3) The genome has been out there long enough, with no one pointing out inconsistencies that have held up to scrutiny, that "wild", "escaped from a lab", and "was evolved in a lab" all look much more likely than "was designed directly by RNA editing".
(4) China's behavior is much more consistent with accidental than with intentional release. They've obviously lied about the death toll and didn't feel obliged to prevent their people from traveling abroad, but ordinary Communist wickedness explains that.
(5) Travel between China and Iran and Italy explains the early prevalence there sufficiently, presuming genomic data we don't yet have will confirm this.

Conclusion: Too early to get locked in to origin theories, the usual suspects are taking advantage in the same way they would whether or not it was an intentional release. THIS WILL ALL BE CLARIFIED BY TESTING OF OLD TISSUE SAMPLES so I'm going to wait and see what those results say. The reports of early COVID outside China have not been confirmed, but come from researchers WITH REAL NAMES, so it WILL get figured out one way or the other and I'm holding my fire until then.

P.S. Lieber is clearly a weird loose end that needs to be tied up. Is anyone trying to interview him?

glib , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:49 pm GMT
Let's see. Here in the USA covid hit later, at a time when people have the lowest seasonal vitamin D (a major immune system hormone, with the population being 90%+ deficient). A fraction of the population being hit particularly hard has dark skin, further reducing the vit. D levels. That same fraction is over-represented among those who have metabolic syndrome (diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and the like), and that is related to all manners of immune system degradation. Then we have a medical system which looks only for profitable magic bullets, instead of trying a variety of cheap methods, each of which can increase the recovery rate by tens of percent.

Finally we have lots and lots of nursing homes, unlike China. And a majority (more than 50%) of deaths comes from those places in Europe. Data from Italy suggests that privately run nursing homes are correlated with increased mortality, although it could just be extreme air pollution and/or other environmental factors. Data from Scandinavia suggest that nursing home size matters too, the smaller the better.

Why should one be surprised that this thing is hitting harder in the West?

onebornfree , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:53 pm GMT
R.Unz:"By any reasonable measure, the response to this global health crisis by China and most East Asian countries has been absolutely exemplary,"

Your transparent, never ending shilling for the murderous CCP is becoming more and more obvious, at least to myself. I'm starting to believe that this site is nothing more than a thinly disguised Chinese government propaganda outlet.

As in other recent threads, you fully endorse the CCP's criminal actions: lockdowns of [reportedly] 700 million Chinese citizens; literal lockdowns with citizens locked, even having their front doors welded shut by the "authorities",for weeks. The idiotic [unless deliberate], Chinese "solution" has probably already killed 1000's, if not 10's or 100's of thousands there via starvation alone, and the economic devastation caused in China will likely kill millions more Chinese in the years to come.

But that is all "exemplary" in your opinion, right? "To make an omelette you have to break a few eggs", right?

R.Unz:"Everyone knows that America's ruling elites are criminal, crazy, and also extremely incompetent."

Of course! "Everyone knows" that! [I wish].

What you [and some of them] don't know [or won't admit to themselves] is that this is no less true of the Chinese government, or of any other government, for that matter.

Reality fact: "Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed"or "improved",simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree

Which means that believing/trusting official stories and figures doled out by competing criminal power structures, about _anything_, let alone actually supporting/promoting their idiotic and criminal acts [eg the Chinese, US and elsewhere lockdowns"], is a mugs game for useful idiots, nothing more. And yet, that is what you continue to consistently indulge yourself in here.

And so it goes No Regards, onebornfree

St-Germain , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:55 pm GMT
Thanks for the excellent wrapup, Ron Unz. Your cui bono approach works like a super-chloroquine dose to zap the anti-China virus now spreading from U.S. legacy media. What passes for news media here in Europe is no better. But apparently there are islands of sanity outside the Western imperial heartland. If you read French, you may find it encouraging to read some real journalism on the source of the carona plandemic here from darkest Africa:

https://www.sunuker.com/actualite/international/coronavirus-des-preuves-que-le-covid-19-trouverait-son-origine-aux-etats-unis/

It even includes U.S. sources like Dr. Daniel Lucey who apparently can't get a word in edgewise in the American press.

Greg Bacon , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:55 pm GMT
The same mendacious MSM that for three years howled at the moon that Putin had stolen the 2016 election for Trump is now barking like a mad dog about Covid being some kind of 21st Century version of the Black Death.

Never mind that to get to the current figure of around 42,000 deaths, the CDC has been juicing the total number of dead by adding in those who died from a heart attack or stroke or some other medical complication, there was fear to be spread and by G-d, they were doing to scare the hell out of Americans, just like they did in the years after the Israeli masterminded 9/11 false flag.

Like Mr. Atzmon has pointed out, the 2017-18 flu season was much deadlier, yet there was no lock-downs, quarantines and a complete gutting of the US–and the worlds–economy.

The following may sound like a description of the current Novel Coronavirus pandemic: "The season began with an increase of illness in November; high activity occurred during January and February, and then illness continued through the end of March." You guessed right, this is not the description of the current global Corona pandemic but actually how CNN described the outbreak of influenza in America in September 2018.
Does it take a genius to figure out that the American 2017-18 influenza outbreak was pretty 'similar' to the current Novel Coronavirus epidemic?

The first question that comes to mind is why didn't America lock itself down amidst its catastrophic 2017-18 influenza as it has now? One may wonder why the CDC didn't react to the 'severity' of the outbreak that was at least three times as lethal as the current Novel Coronavirus health crisis?

https://gilad.online/writings/2020/4/20/is-amnesia-a-symptom-of-covid-19

The Deep State thugs who are actually in charge of the US have some devious plan in mind with this Covid hysteria.
Maybe they wanted to see how quickly Americans would give up their Bill of Rights. Or maybe they wanted to cover up the multi-trillion dollar bailout of those TBTF banks that we bailed out in 2009?

Or maybe this the test run for their next batch of weaponized flu, the one that will get many killed and have people lining up for Mr. Know-it-all Bill Gates RFID chipped flu vaccine.

denk , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:55 pm GMT
@Anonymous Another explanation

The actual reason for the bombing was meant to cover-up NATO war crimes that were taking place almost daily, and the Chinese listening post located in the corner of the embassy that was bombed were intercepting orders issued by NATO which clearly revealed those crimes. The Chinese needed to be silenced and their operations ended, no matter the fallout.

https://www.voltairenet.org/article177116.html

In case you'r wondering what kind of war crimes your dear leaders were trying to cover up

https://web.archive.org/web/20120115150147/http://home.windstream.net/dwrighsr/a3820cf4d2861.html

Turk 152 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 1:56 pm GMT
My immediate gut reaction upon seeing the cartoon character version of a Muslim terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, was this is a fake designed to play on US xenophobia. He was obviously made for TV audiences.

I assumed after Skripal and the endless Assad gas arracks, that our ruling elite have just become lazy and couldn't even be bothered to create a plausible story to cover up their crimes, because the public is so stupid. How long did it take to determine it was a fraud, a weekend of casual reading?

Putting a mob style hit on Venezuala's President confirmed that they could care less what the Hoi Poloi think of them.

If this is a US caper, it is the either the most ridicoulosly stupid one imaginable, or the most well thought out one in a very long time.

TomSchmidt , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:03 pm GMT
I had not connected the intelligence reports (recently spilled out of the Deep State) with the obvious. Thanks, Ron, for pointing out that it's hard to imagine how the NSA/CIA/whoever-collecting-part-of-the-85bln-we-spend-on-intelligence could report on this in November when the sources from which they would have derived that information (the Chinese government itself) didn't know until December 31st, or shortly before that date when they reported to the WHO.

Someone, in covering up for blowing the response to the virus, really dropped the ball.

JQ , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:09 pm GMT
Ill leave it at this :
davidgmillsatty , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:15 pm GMT
Scientists from the UK have a recent paper on the mutations of Corona-19.

Here is part of the abstract:

In a phylogenetic network analysis of 160 complete human severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) genomes, we find three central variants distinguished by amino acid changes, which we have named A, B, and C, with A being the ancestral type according to the bat outgroup coronavirus. The A and C types are found in significant proportions outside East Asia, that is, in Europeans and Americans. In contrast, the B type is the most common type in East Asia, and its ancestral genome appears not to have spread outside East Asia without first mutating into derived B types, pointing to founder effects or immunological or environmental resistance against this type outside Asia.

And here are the findings in diagram form:

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/07/2004999117

I think these findings throw lots of water on any bioweapon claims. But others may differ in their opinions.

It definitely does indicate that the virus did not come from a Wuhan lab or the Wuhan wet market. It originated in Southern China where most people knowledgeable about bat viruses expect bat viruses to originate.

Rafael Martorell , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:15 pm GMT
you are mistakenly assuming and given for granted that this epidemic is much more lethat than others,that the total closure is beneficial and not harmfull,that is the solution ,you are deciding who to try to save regardless of the millions of victims of this economic harakiri,and there are many epidemiologists who disagree with you.
journey80 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:15 pm GMT
"COVID-19" testing in the U.S. is unverified, developed by the CDC. Which should tell you what you need to know about its credibility.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/has-covid-19-testing-made-the-problem-worse-confusion-regarding-the-true-health-impacts/5709323

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-ICD-code-introduced-for-COVID-19-deaths.pdf

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:17 pm GMT
Post-Corona, there seems to be a lot of wannabes angling for one of Ron's coveted golden showers, I mean stars.
Greg Bacon , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:18 pm GMT
One more thought: The US has over 25 bio-warfare labs that are located next door to Russia and China that have been called out before for their sloppy or maybe deliberate release of pathogens.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-biological-warfare-program-in-the-spotlight-again/5654064

How many of those kind of labs does Russia or China have in Mexico or Canada?

None that I'm aware of.

Like the old saying goes: "Admit nothing, Deny everything and Make counter-accusations." Sounds like Humpty Trumpty's Covid blame-shifting plan.

Ozymandias , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:29 pm GMT
@Jeremygg5

The WHO too only had high praises for China's transparency and efficiency.

Would that be the same WHO that said chinese disease was not communicable between humans and that we should keep letting infected people into the country? That's who we should trust? Or should we trust the communist government that shut down domestic travel to and from Wuhan, because they were trying to protect the rest of THEIR country, while still allowing international travel, because they wanted the rest of the planet infected?

This virus may or may not have been engineered, and may have come from the lab or the wet market. These things are debatable. But what is absolutely not debatable is that once the virus was loose, China choose to DELIBERATELY infect the rest of the world. These are people whose numbers we should trust?

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:30 pm GMT
@Ozymandias " Lol. I can't believe you're doubling down on this jackassery."

Once you realize that the alt-right is a limited hangout, it makes perfect sense.

Jus' Sayin'... , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:30 pm GMT
@hs4691506

" I think it strange that now we have all these cross-overs from the animal kingdom."

In actuality, we've regularly had these crossovers and almost all seem to emanate from somewhere in China, e.g.,

1889–1890 Asian or Russian Flu Pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%80%931890_flu_pandemic

1918-1919 "Spanish" Flu Pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Hypotheses_about_the_source Despite the name the most likely theory is that this pathogen, an H1N1 virus, originated in China and mutated to become highly lethal in Europe or European-settled countries as a result of WW I. S

1957-1958 Asian Flu Pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957%E2%80%9358_influenza_pandemic

1968-1969 Hong Kong Flu Pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_flu

2002-2004 SARS outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome

2009-2010 Swine Flu Pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic A new strain of the H1N1 virus type that was responsible for the 1918-1919 Pandemic

Robert White , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:33 pm GMT
Taking a scientific approach to American deep state biowarfare attack on China's Wuhan district is telling in so far as Americans literally control tertiary education throughout the entire world via funding in the trillions.

If the deep state wants to eliminate academics it can do so with merely a phone call to Law Enforcement branches at a moments notice so that research & hard drives can be confiscated and destroyed early on in investigations.

Once the media & journalistic propaganda arms of state get hold of the official talking points to be disseminated the end game zero sum result is usually exactly what the state arms of propaganda have wanted all along.

To be frank, I am an Intel thinker and am well aware of the details of the CIA led biowarfare attack on China, but attaining the required data in empirical form via Requests for Information from government is NOT going to ever yield synthesis required for scientific peer-review research.

Bottom line is that the CIA had one CIA Agent/Operative deploy the nCov-19 in late October as the USA Military contingent was departing Wuhan district. The operative deployed the bioweapon via glass ampule smashed onto the ground to the entrance way for the Wuhan restaurant district near to the Wuhan Wet Market. Moreover, his CIA handler gave him the protocol & instruction on deployment of the bioweapon back in the United States of America long before the actual deployment.

Lastly, Fort Detrick scientists developed the Chimera super-spreading viral pathogenicity with a herd of pigs in the USA before hand in around 2012. Logistics of setting up the Wuhan BSL-4 laboratory scientists for the false flag event of biowarfare were dependent upon academic arrests before hand so that deflection & impression management for governance would clearly be able to utilize plausible deniability where required.

In sum, as one acutely aware of the bioterrorism that the United States of America has unleashed on the world covertly I, for one, can assure all that the US Deep State knowingly unleashed nCov-19 to undermine China's meteoric rise in the financial world due to America's incompetence writ large across the board since the Great Financial Crisis revealed that America is swimming naked and their Emperor is wearing no clothes to reveal his infinitesimally small Johnson in contradistinction to President Johnson's Johnson which was historically infamous.

P.S. The USA Deep State can get in line to lick my balls in deference to my superior intellect.

Thank you, thank you very much!

RW

anonymous [400] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:33 pm GMT
First, can researchers take a look at this virus and determine with certainty whether it was artificially concocted in a lab or if it simply evolved out in the open? If so then that would help focus the discussion. If not then things will remain opaque.
The Iranian government outbreak is strange but then people congregating with each other, like at ski resorts, pass it to each other. If it was a US biowarfare attack then how did US agents get access to them? They wouldn't have the cover of some delegation to an event such as military games. But what was the effect on Iran? Zero. Some top leaders got sick and some older members died. They have replacements and the government continues without missing a beat. This idea that an ideal bioweapon would be highly contagious with a low lethal rate so as to tie up resources and halt the economy sounds good but in practice it's hardly more than harassment. It slowed up the Chinese economy but that's a temporary blip and they're back now. The US and other countries are hardest hit economically. Many businesses will never recover. This is self-inflicted. The lethality of this virus looks to be increasingly lower and lower each time one looks despite all the Chicken Littles who were screaming that the sky was about to fall. Was there a purpose for that?
The Wuhan outbreak coincided with the military games but things happen at random times as it is. People were crowded in there. The various plagues and viruses have been going from East to West for a very long time now. The problem is that currently there are many who have an interest in lying and misdirecting things which further muddy the waters.
Astuteobservor II , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:36 pm GMT
@Emslander What is crazy and funny is that supposed trump supporters thinks China would shrink it's economy by 6.8% for the first quarter of 2020 to help Trump's opposition.

The same supposed supporters don't even realized that the best way for trump to win the next election is to stamp out this damn virus asap. Denying is not going to work. Testing n quarantine combo is what would work. It is why trump changed his tune.

Dumbasses. Crazy n stupid.

denk , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:42 pm GMT
Who's a track record of extreme malfeasance against China, since ww2 ?

1950 Korean war,
1959 Tibet,
1962 Indo./sino war,
1965 [[[CIA/MI5]]] INdon genocide on ethnic Chinese.
1989 TAM,
1998 Indon pogrom , mass rapes on ethnic Chinese
1999 BOmbing of Chinese embassy in ex Yugo,
2001 Hainan spy plane, Chinese pilot died.
2003 SARS1,
2008 Tibet riots,
2009 Xinjiang bloodbath,
2013 Bird flu H7N9 , Asia pivot
2014 Xinjiang, HK, Mh370, bubonic plague, Ebola, Dengue,
2018 bird flu, H7N9
2019 HK, Xinjiang, swine flu, army worms,
2020 SARS2, H5N1, locusts .

All biowarfare attacks highlighted.

refl , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:43 pm GMT
@Vaterland

And there were also the proxy-war in Ukraine and the refugee crisis: the latter at minimum a fallout of US-Israeli wars in the Middle East and the Zionist assault against Libya; yet not unlikely itself a direct assault against Europe. And not only Willy Wimmer, closest adviser to our old chancellor Helmut Kohl, strongly suspected as much already back in 2015.

Thanks for that context. It is exactly what I am trying to call attention to the whole time. Regardless, how much reality there is to Corona, my issue is the overall timing in the geopolitical context, with Europe being torn apart between the Angloamericans and China / Russia on the other side. That was the agenda anyway, so how is it possible that this threat appears at this very moment?

It can be said that had Corona not happened, the powers to be would have needed to invent it.

Else, in skimming the comments, I find that until now (with some 140 comments) there are hardly any discussions, but everyone pushing their own narratives.
Mabe, it is possible to get away from the question, how and if Corona is deadly to the context that is developing. I have to admit that I did not take Corona serious enough from the start, not as an illness, but as a fundamental threat to our societies. In that sense, it is indeed a war.

Jus' Sayin'... , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:49 pm GMT
@hs4691506 There was also some evidence that Chinese researchers under his supervision had smuggled samples of his work out of their labs and back to China. Chinese researchers, working in the USA and Canada, have a history of smuggling viral and other lab samples back ti China. It's part of a much larger pattern of Chinese espionage and intellectual theft.

A search on DuckDuckGo.Com using the following search string, "chinese scientists smuggling viral samples", turns up a lot of useful information on smuggling of viral and other biological samples. (I no longer trust Google. DuckDuckGo is less censored and does not track its users)

Similar searches using the strings "chinese intellectual theft" and "chinese scientific espionage" will provide a broader picture.

BTW, I believe that Israel and the USA have both been conducting research into potential bio-weapons. I would not be surprised if the Chinese got a leg up on such research by espionage targeting both countries. Of the three, the USA's research is probably the most benign/least vicious. I suspect that the Israelis have been ruthlessly researching and developing biological weapons, just as they did nuclear and chemical weapons. The Chinese have probably been doing bio-weapons research just as ruthlessly. The biggest concern with the Chinese is that, compared against Israel and the USA, their lab safety, security and containment procedures are lax to an obscenely dangerous degree. One can only hope that after the Wuhan outbreak, this attitude, if not the Chinese bio-weapons research, will change.

Hang em high , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:53 pm GMT
This is a model opening argument for an ICC bill of indictment against the CIA command structure. The bird's-eye view is exactly right – all of CIA's gravest crimes have been most evident not at the detailed technical level but at the organizational level. CIA can shred all the MIPRs and RFPs and after-action reports they want, but the proof of all CIA crime is public information about the actions of CIA focal points in government. (Incidentally, one example you don't mention is official obstruction, including CDC, of Helen Chu's coronavirus testing. That would have shown that COVID-19 was far too widespread for a single introduction from Wuhan. Another example is the series of airport clusterfucks that muddled US haplotypes when Chinese researchers noted that they point to US origins.)

The presumption of incompetence probably has its own CIA memo analogous to 1035-960. If they can get you to tacitly assume that CIA works in the national interest, but ineptly, then you misinterpret everything. CIA is a criminal enterprise with ongoing profit centers that fund opportunistic crimes from asset-stripping to aggression.

When you're using a banned biological weapon, domestic casualties confer important benefits:

First, damage to the US can help obfuscate attribution. Philip Giraldi articulates that line in its clearest form, Why would the government shoot itself in the foot like that?

Second, US contagion offers a pretext for domestic repression: house arrest; overt contact chaining illegally undertaken by NSA for decades; forcible derogation of your rights of assembly and association.

Third, US economic devastation is used as a pretext for looting the fisc on an unprecedented scale. Blackrock now performs central planning on behalf of the Fed, forcing the state to guarantee a overwhelming volume of worthless and fraudulent securities.

Illegal warfare that is difficult to attribute has one intractable problem. It's a sneak attack in breach of the Hague Convention Relative to the Opening of Hostilities. That convention was the legal justification for the first use of nuclear weapons. So if Russia and China nuke the beltway into a sinkhole of molten basalt, that's only fair.

If it is established that COVID-19 is a banned biological weapon, this is self-evidently the gravest crime in world history. The attack manifestly constituted aggression with an absolutely indiscriminate weapon. It defies considerations of proportionality with unknown global effects. The Nazi regime was extirpated for much less.

The evidence is very close to probative, and mounting.

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/04/18/breaking-exclusive-cias-covid-19-weaponization-program-outed-in-long-buried-ny-times-expose/

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/04/18/the-pentagon-bio-weapons/

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/04/18/pravda-us-army-created-covid-19-in-2015-research-proofs-or-debunking-you-pick/

https://www.nature.com/articles/274334a0

https://www.unz.com/wwebb/all-roads-lead-to-dark-winter/

https://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/

Agent76 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:56 pm GMT
Apr 16, 2020 Corona Virus, Economic & Social Collapse: Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Corona Virus, Economic & Social Collapse: Bankruptcy, Debt & Poverty.

[MORE]

Apr 4, 2020 ΝYC-ΙCU DR unknowingly describes the EFFECTS of 60GHz on patients.

Mar 16, 2020 CONFIRMED! 5G Forced Installation In Schools Nationwide During COVID-19 Lockdown

Guys, you need to get involved and do anything you can to spread this information.

AriusArmenian , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:56 pm GMT
@Tor597 I couldn't say it any better than Tor597.
Americans are not capable of even thinking that their elites could be so evil.
Robert Snefjella , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 2:58 pm GMT
There is the question of natural vs artificial origin of the novel corona virus, and from my layman's research and considerations it seems increasingly that an artificial origin is extremely likely. The pertinent technology is now widely available, there has been a massive ongoing effort in the field since the 2nd WW, and many researchers and knowledgeable people are drawing the conclusion of likely artificial origin: So, for example, George Webb's work, or the Czech scientist Dr.Sona Pekova, PhD, who near the end of the video linked to describes the virus in such a way as to indicate a great likelihood of artificial creation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmL7okhbVzU&feature=youtu.be

There are many possible perpetrators. And a few likely suspects.

The ultimate health implications of the new virus are impossible to say with certainty at this point: For example, Paul Craig Roberts' website's latest title is "Bad News From the Virus if Correct", with the point being that there are now known to be a lot of different strains with presumably different potential for harm, but there may be many more not recognized.

There are additional contextual considerations that will have consequences which are anyone's guess. So for example, last year saw many widespread agricultural catastrophes and difficulties which were usually weather related. If the weather continues to be uncooperative, in conjunction with food production and transportation problems related to the virus, in conjunction with the African Swine Flu disaster, then human health and food security, and thus health, on a large scale may be affected.

Another contextual consideration is the recent rapid and accelerating deployment of 5G technology, which many are concerned can make life more vulnerable to health problems. It may just be coincidental, but worth noting, that tiny San Marino, enclosed by Italy, boasted of being the European leader in the rollout of 5G technology, and is now the world leader in corona virus deaths per million, by a long shot (San Marino with 1179 deaths per million as of today compared to second place Spain with 455 per million, and yes, Spain has been among the most ambitious countries in rolling out 5G in many cities. And Wuhan was the very poster 'child' of 5G. Just saying.)

Shutting down the world economy seems rather dire. But it may just be the impetus for a radical rethink of the basic structure and design of the global economic system.

The global paradigm which in economic terms might be described as globalism, or 'when private corporations rule the world', or neo-liberalism, or plutocracy running amuck, or grasping for 'global government', or the aftermath of the chimera of 'full spectrum domination', or in the wreckage of Rockefeller's and Kissinger's et al wet dream, or democracy spurned, is now inescapably obviously retarded, dysfunctional: a fundamental design flaw if you want humanity and Earth to thrive. In short, the culture of deception.

Someone has suggested as symptomatic of our present predicament a cartoon featuring Fauci with his bio-weapon declaring this as 'the age of the Ork', with crazed Bill Gates as Gollum wielding a syringe and gleefully chortling 'my precious!'.

The local, one's back yard, the decentralized, the careful common sense community, the regional, and the actually democratic national, with the public interest protected by the public, and much honest discourse, as one basic design alternative.

vot tak , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT
Useful article by Unz which connects the dots well. One important dot which is missing, though, in his analysis of the psywar promoting propaganda that the virus leaked out of a lab in Wuhan, and is a Chinese biowarfare agent, is that this psywar originated with an israeli military-intelligence operative. One dany shoham. This individual was also deeply involved in the "iraq has wmds" psywar operation at the beginning of the century. More on that dot and how it connects to the others, later.

A few days ago I wrote this about how the israeloamericans are framing their psywar campaign against China:

The israeloamericans are working on a several level strategy which includes back-ups in my opinion. The israeloamericans are trying to cover all the bases at once.

So they claim China created the virus in a lab, in case it gets out it was lab created, meaning israel or the usa created it in a lab. The israeloamericans claim the virus leaked out of the Wuhan lab in case evidence is found that israeloamerica deliberately planted the virus in Wuhan or it spread from a source in the usa through some other vector. The israeloamericans claim China mislead the world about the virus so people wont notice the reality that China has successfully thwarted the virus, while trump & co. have continued making it worse. The claptrap about China under reporting victims is a variation of the latter tactic. And so on.

Is what is being reported in the following article "damage control"?

Neither 'lab' nor 'wet market'? Covid-19 outbreak started months EARLIER and NOT in Wuhan, ongoing Cambridge study indicates

https://www.rt.com/news/486194-study-coronavirus-southern-china/

Another vector in the israeloamerican preemptive strategy? Now that research is showing the virus may have been infecting people earlier and neither a market in Wuhan, or even Wuhan itself, may be where it originated?

With regard to western response to the pandemic, especially american, the delay in israel's trump colonial regime's containment response to the virus tells me they deliberately wanted the virus to spread across the country and cause the ruckus it is now causing. The question is why israel had them do this.*

* Compare the israeli response, IE: strong proactive containment strategy, to the weak responses in most zionazi colonies. It is clear there is an actual strategy underlying this difference. And it entails more than israel being sacrosanct.

Keep in mind that trump, and his corrupt regime, are israel's property. More specifically, they tepresent the israeli likud freakshow (netanyahoo and related subhuman garbage). Most of what trump says and the policies his regime follow, originate from tel aviv. Trump's cowardly "blame China" campaign, duplicated by the zionazi western media (commonly misnamed the msm) is israeli psywar.

davidgmillsatty , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT
@onebornfree See my post at 135 regarding three different variants: A, B and C. The most prevalent in Asia is B and the most prevalent variants in Europe and the US are A and C. So it could also be that A and C variants are more virulent than B.
Felix Culpa , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:05 pm GMT
"By any reasonable measure, the response to this global health crisis by China and most East Asian countries has been absolutely exemplary, while that of many Western countries has been equally disastrous. Maintaining reasonable public health has been a basic function of governments since the days of the city-states of Sumeria, and the sheer and total incompetence of America and most of its European vassals has been breathtaking. If the Western media attempts to pretend otherwise, it will permanently forfeit whatever remaining international credibility it still possesses."

So saying, Ron Unz forfeits whatever credibility he might have retained by now acknowledging the data emerged from "the fog of war" he found himself pronouncing in a month or more ago.

Like Unz, and after examining the relevant Chinese data, epidemiologists Knut Wittkowski( almost a month ago) saluted the Asian approach to handling the novel virus threat.

Unlike Unz, Wittkowski revealed that what was salutary was the Chinese government's allowing the populace to gain herd immunity before instituting any lockdown measures. (rendering the lockdown measures a mystery from a scientific point of view).

So, and according to Wittkowski- a man with credentials relevant to this story, yet completely ignored by Unz' investigative article- the incompetence of Western governments cited by Unz is the clean reverse of what he claims: it is the incompetence of ignoring what the competent Chinese did not ignore, namely, the sound scientific counsel to allow the virus to spread, granting the herd immunity to the populace which protects the elderly and fragile self-quarantining until that immunity is gained.

Anon [312] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:05 pm GMT
@TG There's 3 possibilities:

1) Virus is US bioweapon attack on China
2) Virus is China's own bioweapon accident
3) Virus happened in nature, and everybody is trying to profit off the crisis or contain/direct the damage to their own interests.

That's 66% percent chance it's an accident.

Government in power were sane enough to avoid nuclear war as recently as 40 years ago. Why would they be crazier today? Biowarfare is Mutually Assured Destruction, too. If people can model this away, please provide a link.

annamaria , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:08 pm GMT
@swamped You are cognitively blind to the obvious -- the ZUSA has become ZUSSR (minus excellent Soviet educational system). Before lamenting "Chinese despots" and "their contempt for civil liberties," think for a moment about the fate of Assange (why he is in a high-security prison?) and about the Banksters on the march (the financialization of the US economy).

What is the state of "liberties" in the US and the UK? -- Gay parades. Quantitative Easings for eternity.
Why some 1000 American military bases encircle the globe? Why 25 American biofare laboratories reside in Europe? You are cheerleading for Cheneys and Rubins (read General Smedley Butler). https://fas.org/man/smedley.htm
http://armswatch.com/the-pentagon-bio-weapons/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk_

Libya used to be a prosperous state with universal healthcare and excellent educational opportunities. Enter the "non-totalitarian" and "non-despotic" deciders to bring in "liberties." First, the US/NATO expropriated Libyan gold, and then a regular business of "liberation" took place: since the "non-totalitarian" and "non-despotic" liberators entered Libya, a civil war commenced, the healthcare and educational systems have collapsed and slave markets sprang.

Or perhaps you are proud of freedom of information in the US?

This important story was immediately summarized in many of the world's other most prestigious publications, but encountered an absolute wall of silence in our own country.

How much trillions have been disappeared by the Pentagon? -- 21 (twenty-one). A lot of money that could be used for initiating great national projects of all kinds.
Why the US industries have been relocated to China? -- Because this is what US corporations demanded and got. What deciders want, they get. Read General Smedley Butler, again.

httpx://dilyana.bg/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/1.png

denk , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:09 pm GMT
@anon Another problem with your imagination is that it doesnt pass the Who Test kit

Nobody has produced a smoking gun.
Its all about probability.

By all indications,
A FUKUS FF is the most likely .
Your CON theory reeks of the classic western projection..

Bandits crying robbery

James Scott , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:10 pm GMT
@Tor597 Yes Ron's tribe is doing great because of this.
MLK , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:18 pm GMT
@Otto von Komsmark

For many weeks President Trump and his political allies had regularly dismissed or minimized this terrible health threat, and suddenly now faced with such a manifest disaster, they have naturally begun seeking other culprits to blame.

I stopped reading after this childish fib.

Si1ver1ock , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:20 pm GMT
I'm a little worried about The Unz Review. This pandemic is already being used to consolidate the economy and The Powers That Be are likely to use it to settle scores and purge dissident voices.

TruthDig is down and other media is likely to go down soon as ad revenue collapses. I would have advised ad revenue from foreign sources like Aeroflot (and others outside the U.S. Oligarchy), but airlines are collapsing and international travel is likely to be down for a while.

Maybe just open a Patreon Account and put a link in the sidebar.

It may be a good time to be extra cautious and gird your loins as they say.

Jake , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:20 pm GMT
Whatever anyone may make of Unz's assessment, I think everyone not insane or evil or mindlessly jingoistic should agree with this: "Everyone knows that America's ruling elites are criminal, crazy, and also extremely incompetent."

By the way – I hope Unz has changed his mind about the bombing of Serbia. Anytime Neocons assert the need to use violence to help Moslems, the reasonable man smells not a rat, but a million putrid rats.

Tor597 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:23 pm GMT
@Pheasant Zerohedge used to be libertarian and antiestablishment but something changed and they are now right wing neocons.
denk , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT
@Jus' Sayin'...

I would not be surprised if the Chinese got a leg up on such research by espionage targeting both countries. [SIC]
Of the three, the USA's research is probably the most benign/least vicious [ SIC ]

ROFLAMO

How fucking old are you kid ?

Back to your Harry Potter forchrissake
This is an adult site.
Do you want me to inform your mom ?

Jake , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT
@Tor597 Correct. The Elites of the Anglo-Zionist Empire will get richer from all this, while the white American middle and working classes will get poorer.

Much the same will happen in the UK and France and other European nations.

RT , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT
This and many other analyses focus primarily on governments, USA government, Chinese communistic government etc. and their past misadventures as proofs for their involvement or not involvement in the current disaster. I would like to see at least one extensive analyse of possible involvement of the nongovernment governments. Their interests and gains from this situation. Regards!
Tor597 , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:29 pm GMT
@Jason Crew If the US had come away with minimal damage there would not be the outrage required to go to war with China.

So America had to be infected and the pain had to be real.

Also, while main Street Americans are feeling the pain, the elites have been bailed out and will buy assets on pennies to the dollar.

There was a bubble that had to pop anyways, this way the elites get bailed out. Remember how many CEOs retired just before this hit?

davidgmillsatty , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:31 pm GMT
Cambridge geneticist discusses the three strains of Coronavirus:
utu , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:32 pm GMT
@Felix Culpa Another victim of Knut Wittkowski.
Ano0nymous , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:33 pm GMT
@denk Not the "war crimes" bit again. Look, the whole operation was one big war crime, and that according to the US Secretary of State. Same with Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq -- overthrow of another state for no compelling reason. So what? War is war, and China can either participate or not. If it participate, it can expect to become part of the general destruction.
Analogy -- if somebody is in your house and gets violent, that's a crime. You are legally able to protect yourself. If the person starts to run, you can't shoot she/he/it because she/he/it is no longer a threat. Sure, the other she/he/it started the crime, but that doesn't mean you can commit a crime of your own (shooting somebody when she/he/it isn't an immediate threat). Should she/he/it turn around and start returning fire, well, it just might be that she/he/it is legally doing so.

So enough of this "you stepped on a crack and so you've transgressed the law in one particular, so you are absolutely condemned" stuff. You want to play that game, people get tired of it, and it has a bad endgame. Try playing it on COVID-19. COVID-19 might listen to you and depart. Go, use your moral authority and save us all.

FLgeezer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:40 pm GMT
Never let a crisis go to waste. The following borders on the hilarious and the propaganda never ends.

https://www.local10.com/news/world/2020/04/21/israeli-survivors-remember-holocaust-amid-virus-quarantine/

Greg Bacon , says: Website Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:47 pm GMT

"..if a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be."

http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/327

From a Thomas Jefferson letter to Charles Yancey.

Since the Israeli masterminded 9/11 false flag, the MSM has told us a gazillion lies about what DID NOT happen that day.
When those lies started losing luster, we were told Bin Laden was killed, but they offered no proof, other than "Trust Us.'

Then we started getting lies about ISIS, DAESH, al Nusra etc, that they were even worse than al CIA Duh, when in fact, they were started, funded, paid, protected and give air cover by the US/Israel and the Kingdom of Head Choppers.

Now the same MSM is braying that Covid will be the end of the world, unless we give up our freedoms?

Bull. We're being lied to again and the sad part is, many are falling for this latest line of horse apples.

In Coronavirus We Trust: Medical Surveillance State For A Gov That's Experimented On You 239 Times

https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/daily-wrap-up/coronavirus-we-trust-medical-surveillance-state-for-gov-thats-experimented-on-you-239-times/

Aleksander , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:47 pm GMT
When are people going to realize that the mandatory vaccine is ready NOW – Gates, Fauci, Davos, the oligarchs, and the usual suspects just needed to lay the groundwork. It's ready to go now. Doesn't take much of a gedanken experiment to see the end-game here.
Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:50 pm GMT
@utu "Yes, what if the chief objective was not to hurt China by disrupting its society and economy but to make the whole world angry with China."

If the planning was like 9/11, then both of these objectives would have been carefully scrutinized and maximized.

Bear in mind something, please: who says these bastards are finished unleashing designer bugs?

Would it not be wisest for these evil geniuses to keep the bugs coming, intensifying the impact so that the continuously simmering anger of the increasingly desperate masses can be directed to boil over at the Chinese menace when the 'elites' deem it necessary and proper. And with exploding unemployment numbers, especially among the young, and no real short term job or career prospects, these psychopathic 'elites' have a ready-made source for boots on the ground, should that be mandated.

Of course, I hope all this turns out to not be the case. But if 9/11 was any indication, these bastards will be brazen and shamelessly murderous.

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:53 pm GMT
This site's credibility is going down faster than the financial markets. It's only good for entertainment value at this stage.
follyofwar , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:59 pm GMT
@Max Powers When you said that Ron Unz lost you with his defense of NATO in the unnecessary Serbian war, I hope that you read the rest of the article rather than stopping there. I, too, smelled a Bill Clinton obfuscation at the time, as I always do when any US president sends our troops to war. I'm a little surprised that Mr. Unz didn't.

However, I respect his honesty, and he more than redeemed himself in the rest of his well-researched and well-written article. It did much to bolster my belief that the CIA/Neocons are behind it. Although, discounting the unfairly derided Beltway outsider Mr. Trump, I've never considered the likes of such people as West Point grad SOS Pompeo as being incompetent. To paraphrase the former CIA head: "we lie, we cheat, we steal."

annamaria , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 3:59 pm GMT
@Hail The 9/11 beats it.
Weston Waroda , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:00 pm GMT

But America and several European countries avoiding adopting these same early measures such as widespread testing, quarantine, and contact-tracing, and have paid a terrible price for their insouciance.

For someone ordinarily quite careful in your use of terminology, you conflate the term quarantine with lockdown. This is usually being done these days in the media to make a lockdown seem less unreasonable to the insouciant public. Properly a quarantine is the isolation of the sick to prevent the spread of contagion to the healthy public. What we have are lockdowns, restricting the free movement of the healthy population. These have been resorted to out of the desire "to do something," but unfortunately as you must know, there is absolutely no empirical evidence that lockdowns do any good when all is said and done, and they do considerable economic harm. Sweden used a relaxed social distancing approach without a lockdown, and their mortality rate is currently less than that of most countries that resorting to this authoritarian approach.

Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:01 pm GMT
@Quintus "Another financial reset was also long overdue, as Greg Mannarino and others have pointed out: the coronavirus cover was too perfect of a tool for deflecting the guilt from the Fed and the banksters; killing many birds with one stone, the virus is also a 2) powerful psy-op hurting China's image in the world, 3) further delivering a strong blow to its export-driven economy; 4) it sets the stage for the cashless society ("dirty bills not accepted here!"), the advent of digital currencies and 5) top-down surveillance."

Exactly!

This planned-demic is like a Timex watch for the PTB: the gift that keeps on giving.

You are spot-on when you say that digital currencies and top-down surveillance will be enabled by this oh-so-convenient viral pandemic.

Like I said, it's a neoliberal zionist-neocon elitist's wet dream come true, maybe even more than 9/11 was.

I guess we all get to watch, wait and see what happens next .

Si1ver1ock , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:14 pm GMT
One thing I have been waiting for is confirmation that HIV is somehow involved in the virus, making it a chimera and tipping the scale towards bioweapon.
Greg the American , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:19 pm GMT
@anon If Trump was in on it, he didn't do much of a job making himself a hero, several missteps are noticeable in the view of 20/20 hindsight, even if he intentionally wanted to crash the economy he would have scripted it better.
denk , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:19 pm GMT
@Ano0nymous I've difficulty reading your incoherent rant, but this one sticks out

overthrow of another state for no compelling reason. So what? War is war

Enuff said.

No more comment.

36 ulster , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:19 pm GMT
@MLK Unz.com seems to be less a blog than an online asylum; Ron and most of the KrazyKommentariat have really flipped their tinfoil Trilbys this time. This site is worse than Infowars is reputed to be–yet utterly without the entertainment value. You wonder why Pat Buchanan, Steve Sailer and Bertie Woostershire continue to post on this site. And, yes, why I bother to comment.
Mustapha Mond , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:23 pm GMT
@Tor597 "Zerohedge used to be libertarian and antiestablishment but something changed and they are now right wing neocons."

Their true colors are emerging for all to see.

I recognized early on what exactly Zerohedge was about: sayanim-directed, intelligently controlled opposition. Very intelligently controlled, I should say.

Or as I call it, "Zio-hedge".

The trick is to give lots of good analysis and establish credibility, and then on the absolutely critical issues, subtly reinforce the neocon narrative. Then, slowly over time, not so subtly. Then, when the moment is ripe, openly and strongly support the neocon narrative. Again, a very intelligent and effective technique.

Sadly, we are now at the point of "openly" reinforcing the neocon narrative ..

Anon [223] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:24 pm GMT
Ron,
Your article is very good! Thank you for shedding some light on this issue

I would like to summarize a rebuttal to some of the points expressed in this article

However, your chart depicting America and China economic trends is statistically misleading

America started from a much higher bar than China, and it is harder for richer countries to grow. Furthermore, an additional dollar in per capita GDP for America is a less % growth than it would be for China.

Here is the GDP per capita growth from the World Bank for America vs China.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=US-CN

Hardly, what your graph shows at all. In fact, this shows America adding more in Per capita GDP in real terms than China over the last thirty years.

It seems the issue is that you are thinking that China's exponential growth will continue till the point where it strongly surpasses the USA, like the Coronavirus's growth, but countries don't work like that. Unless you want to believe there was some policy reason for why Japan went from 10% to 1% growth in ten years.

Second, with respect to the domestic impoverishment of America, I think you are mistaken here. Most of those who are impoverished in America are immigrants and Black people, one group because of their recent arrival and location in America's most expensive cities. The other group because of their lack of time preference, so they don't save.

America has a higher household savings rate than all of Western Europe and Japan.
Per the OCED:
https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-savings.htm#indicator-chart

The US has three times the savings rate of Japan!

Additionally, the US has ten times the household disposable income of China as of last year, though this may change with the coronavirus:
https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm
https://www.statista.com/statistics/278698/annual-per-capita-income-of-households-in-china/

Additionally, How did China identify the virus so quickly? It is fairly hard to tell, even from those who died. According your own article, China shut down when they had 11 deaths, and sequenced the genome when they had even less. That has never happened before, and I feel that is suspicious to me. The offical Chinese narrative is that the Wuhan Goverment dropped the ball, so how did they catch the disease so early?

Rahan , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:24 pm GMT
An article by Mr. Unz is always worth the wait and then the read, no matter if I agree a 100%, 60%, or even just 20% with what has been written.

A real delight, and a sort of Christmasy feeling. Which is a very important psychological boost for the likes of me in such weird, weird times. Thanks!

denk , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:29 pm GMT
USAF excercise before 911
http://911blogger.com/news/2015-09-17/air-defense-exercise-month-911-was-based-around-osama-bin-laden-carrying-out-aerial-attack-washington//

UK/France War game before Libya invasion,
https://www.globalresearch.ca/when-war-games-go-live-staging-a-humanitarian-war-against-southland/24351?print=1

A Haiti Disaster Relief Scenario Tested by US Military One Day Before the Earthquake
Humanitarian excercise before Haiti quake
https://www.globalresearch.ca/a-haiti-disaster-relief-scenario-was-envisaged-by-the-us-military-one-day-before-the-earthquake/17122

Crimson [sic] Contagion,
An year long excercise on pandemic from Red China prior to CV 19

Another 'excercise' turning live ???

MacOisdealbh , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:29 pm GMT
The Winnipeg lab lead scientist, a Dr Plummer, dropped dead in Nigeria in early March.
He more than likely added the HIV 1 content to the Wu V to allow it to spread since he had the MERS variant from 2014 on.
His lab then had Wuhan Scientists escorted out by RCMP last summer.
No info as to why was offered, and Plummer was buddies with the Harvard prof, and both were recipients of Epstien the rapists financial support.
Ron always goes to the edge, but never ever steps off!!
Epstein should be brought up, he gave many millions to the Harvard and MIT people for virus development!! Cui bono Ron, cui bono, by deception, make war!!!
Anthony Aaron , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:33 pm GMT
Not sure what to make of Mr. Unz's piece here -- there's a lot of room for any number of suspects to emerge as the guilty party here

One of the earliest questions I had was just how did this virus get into Iran -- which naturally begs the question of who has the most visible and ongoing hatred of Iran -- other than israel -- and their stooge, the United States.

The Newsweek article cited here about the class action lawsuits even mentions one of the plaintiff attorneys: "But Klayman claimed he has "whistleblowers with firsthand knowledge" of China's involvement in the viral outbreak who are currently residing in Israel and the United States and who can help substantiate this charge." So just who is it among 'whistleblowers' that reside in israel and in the United States (likely dual citizenship folks) -- other than israeli nationals?

And, from this article: "But by late February Iran had become the second epicenter of the global outbreak. Even more surprisingly, its political elites had been especially hard-hit, with a full 10% of the entire Iranian parliament soon infected and at least a dozen of its officials and politicians dying of the disease, including some who were quite senior.

" Across the entire world the only political elites that have yet suffered any significant human losses have been those of Iran, and they died at a very early stage, before significant outbreaks had even occurred almost anywhere else in the world outside China. Thus, we have America assassinating Iran's top military commander on Jan. 2nd and then just a few weeks later large portions of the Iranian ruling elites became infected by a mysterious and deadly new virus, with many of them soon dying as a consequence. Could any rational individual possibly regard this as a mere coincidence?"

Even allowing for Iran's involvement by the chinese in its BRI -- how can anyone explain the virus so quickly targeting the elites in Iran's ruling class -- certainly they don't hang around with the chinese in Iran or elsewhere, do they?

ld , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:36 pm GMT
@Fiendly Neighbourhood Terrorist Your list is too small. I laugh at these comments regarding China's lies and crimes. Americans are surely the most gullible people on the planet. They know their corrupt government steals and lies to them daily yet they can still be manipulated to jump on the bandwagon of blame and hate towards anyone at anytime with a few inciteful articles from the media.
let me add to your list [MORE]
MLK
JFK
Ruby
USS Liberty
911
Venezuela
Honduras
Haiiti
Hiroshima
Vietnam
Syria
Palestine
Russia
Ukraine
Libya
Epstein
Afghanistan
32 Trillion dollars missing from the pentagone
All Presidential Elections

Hiding their own crimes against humanity, their government drug trade/sex trade/ chemical and biowarfare against poor countries.
The US of Israel so exceptional.

9/11 Inside job , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:44 pm GMT
@Mustapha Mond Agreed . Like 9/11 there is plenty of evidence in the predictive programming/revelation of the method/social conditioning that the Coronavirus pandemic was many years in the making see, for example : "WTF? Olympic Opening Ceremony 2012-NHS" YouTube . Yes, the London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony revealed part of the plot of the Coronavirus plandemic. I was expecting that something like this was going to happen ,but figured the cabal/cult/globalists/freemasons wouldn't try to pull it off until Americans were disarmed but , when you have total control of the media , it is easy to create hysteria and brainwash the public into believing that the Coronavirus, which is probably no more than the flu ,is the plague and will wipeout mankind unless everyone is locked-down . As another commenter has noted ,they probably could not have pulled off the international Coronavirus psyop 10 to 20 years ago because they did not have control and ownership of the worldwide massmedia . septemberclues.info has a good, short essay on "The central role of the news media on 9/11." Unless you stop relying on news from NPR, MSNBC, New York Times , Washington Post, Fox News , CBS , NBC ,etc,etc you will remain brainwashed and unable to understand that we are living through a planned-demic with a frightening agenda .
Chet Roman , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:44 pm GMT
@anon "Please do not comment on things you clearly don't understand. It is estimated that no more than a few percent of the American population has been exposed to Sars2 (Covid-19)."

The key word is "estimated". No one knows (not even you) the actual number of exposed Americans to the Wuhan virus. There have been some small random samples done by Dr.Bhattacharya that indicate that there is actually a large number of Americans that have been infected but are asymptomatic and that the final mortality rate will be closer to the annual flu or 0.1% to 0.2% instead of the guesstimate of 3%. The early studies are too small to think they are representative of the nation but the results indicate that larger studies are necessary in order to support nationwide policies, which are currently being made on hunches not science. About 60,000 to 80,000 died of the flu during the 2017 season when vaccines were available, so a large number of deaths during the flu season are not unusual and never required closing down the economy.

[MORE]
Gov. Cuomo was screaming at the top of his lungs that he needed tens of thousands of ventilators, thousands are now sitting in his warehouses unused. So much for estimates. Most of the early estimates were wrong by exaggerating the death rate, which turned out to be only a guess rather than based upon science.

The CDC has been derelict in its duties over the years and has been giving poor advice. There are other experts in the field that have alternative views that are being ignored or dismissed and should at least be considered.

Prof. Johan Giesecke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=bfN2JWifLCY&feature=emb_logo

Dr. John Ioannidis

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

anonymous [245] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:50 pm GMT
@Ayatollah Smith I have been reading much about Covid-19, but am waiting for anyone, in or out of government, trying to blame China and/or exonerate Uncle Sam to deal with a particular point that anyone can easily appreciate using only a timeline:

The US needs to answer this question: HOW could US 'intelligence sources' possibly have known in November – or even October – of a potential pandemic of COVID-19 that would erupt – specifically in Wuhan – two months later? (Or that was already erupting in Wuhan at the time, unbeknownst to the Chinese?). I believe the entire world would demand the answer to this.

So far, nothing. No refutation, no rationalization, just silence. Like WTC-7, is this Achilles' heel from which the Establishment can only limp away?

I don't know who, what, when, where, or why this infection(s) began. But I'm certain that anyone dodging that particular question wants me not to.

MLK , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:52 pm GMT
@36 ulster Yeah . . .

In 2016, when I finally cancelled by NYT subscription, I was asked why I was doing so. I explained that I didn't like having my intelligence systematically insulted.

Like, I think, most UR readers, I'm game for pretty much anything as a general proposition.

But poor Ron couldn't make it more than 100 words into a droning 7,400 words with discrediting himself.

anonymous [206] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 4:55 pm GMT
When CIA whacked JFK, the whole world outside the US iron curtain knew, but too bad. When CIA blew up OKC, the whole world knew, but hey, it's their business. When CIA knocked down the WTC, on the second try, and blew up the Pentagon a bit to start a war, the whole world knew, but Russia was tits-up, unable to do anything about it.

This is different. CIA's illegal germ warfare is a maleficium, in legal doctrine going back to Grotius. CIA wronged the whole world, and the whole world has a joint obligation to hold CIA responsible. Russia and China made a missile gap for real, so now they can do it.

This is war. This is the very beginning of the world war that will end the CIA regime:

https://tass.com/world/1146127

Gina's gonna swing for this.

Anon [223] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:00 pm GMT
@Anon One problem with the chart that can be fixed to make it more representative is that the two countries should start from the same base of comparison. If you use two different bases, then you get the wrong comparison.
For instance, if you measured the US from China's base in 1980, the US added 40k in per capita gdp in the 40 years, reflecting a 4000% increase from China base in contrast to the 1400% increase that China had.
If you use the same base, then America is what looks like a superior country.
Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:00 pm GMT
@Mustapha Mond ZH isn't the only site whose true colors are showing
annamaria , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:04 pm GMT
@antitermite Unbelievable. A truly gifted researcher destroyed on the totally idiotic charges:

Charles M. Lieber (born 1959) is an American chemist and pioneer in nanoscience and nanotechnology. In 2011, Lieber was named by Thomson Reuters as the leading chemist in the world for the decade 2000-2010 based on the impact of his scientific publications. He is known for his contributions to the synthesis, assembly and characterization of nanoscale materials and nanodevices, the application of nanoelectronic devices in biology, and as a mentor to numerous leaders in nanoscience.

Awards:
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (2001)
MRS [Material Research Society] Medal (2002)
ACS Award in the Chemistry of Materials (2004)
NBIC Research Excellence Award in Nanotechnology, University of Pennsylvania (2007)
Inorganic Nanoscience Award, ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry (2009)
Fred Kavli Distinguished Lectureship in Nanoscience, Materials Research Society (2010)
Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2012)
Nano Research Award, Tsinghua University Press/Springer (2013)
IEEE Nanotechnology Pioneer Award (2013)
Willard Gibbs Medal Award (2013)
MRS Von Hippel Award (2016)
Remsen Award (2016)
NIH Director's Pioneer Award (2017 and 2008)
John Gamble Kirkwood Award, Yale University (2018)
Welch Award in Chemistry (2019)

On January 28, 2020, Lieber was arrested on charges of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Defense and to Harvard investigators regarding his participation in China's Thousand Talents Program According to the Department of Justice's charging document, there are two counts of alleged crime committed by Lieber. The DOJ believes Lieber's statement was false

Alleged counts. The DOJ believes . Yet the DOJ never tried to arrest Madam Ghislaine Maxwell whose crimes have been confirmed unequivocally. Any news of the arrest of Mossad-connected Mr. Lauder who stole American technologies? https://www.newcoldwar.org/mega-group-maxwells-and-mossad-the-spy-story-at-the-heart-of-the-jeffrey-epstein-scandal/

As if deciders have decided that Charles Lieber knew too much to believe in their profitable fables.

MarkinLA , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:06 pm GMT
The only way "the US government did it" makes sense is if this was happening this coming November after Trump has been reelected. If the Deep State did it without Trump's approval, somebody will talk just like John Soloman claims FBI agents told him of the Russiagate conspiracy at the FBI while it was getting underway. Somebody would have alerted somebody loyal to Trump what was being planned. Remember Trump had to give the order to kill that Iranian general. The Deep State (full of Israel's toadies) didn't even do that on their own.

Of course, there is an answer for everything. It even makes more sense for Trump to do it now so he can fix it. The Deep State did it but Trump now has to cover for them or risk the world finding out how incompetent he is.

Rahan , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:07 pm GMT
Concerning "wet markets", I'd just like to add that 99% of those are normal "butcher's markets" with lamb, beef, pork, chickens, and sea produce, and 1%, in specific parts of the country, selling all the Cthulhu fhtagn stuff.

So China reopening some wet markets now is an argument neither for, nor against the zootropic theory. Because I'm pretty sure they're reopening the "lamb and chicken" wet markets, not the "H.R.Giger's nightmares" ones, such as the one in Wuhan that is one of the three possible origins.

1) Wuhan wet market
2) Wuhan lab
3) Wuhan based foreign troops taking part in the military Olympics

Has to be one of those three. Maybe the third was even accidental, but

Johnny Walker Read , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:12 pm GMT
Dr Andrew Kaufman exposing the 'Covid-19' magic trick – the sleight of hand that transformed society
Happy Tapir , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT
There's some interesting information in the article for sure, but it seems to me that if the US were to perform clandestine bio weapons attacks on another country, the Middle East and Russia would surely be the primary targets. We rely on China for a lot of things, such as virtually all the goods sold at Walmart and China owns a great deal of our debt, so it would seem to me a financially strong China is in our interest.

Moreover, plagues and epidemics, especially coronaviruses, have started in the far east as long as can be remembered.

Trinity , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT
@Anonymous This is about the most common sense post I have read on this site. SPOT ON. OUR current problems in regards to immigration, racial issues, Black criminality, and this (((virus))) can all be traced to one group for the most part. Btw, I was in NYC about the same time perion in '83-'87 and haven't been back since, but from what I understand, it is far worse today. I actually didn't find it that bad back then even though crime and drugs were out of control. Probably because I was a twenty-something and having fun.

Anyhow, as you said, WHY in the hell do ANY Americans, much less White Americans ALLOW RACIST JEWISH SUPREMACIST organizations have so much power over them. It isn't as if the ADL or $PLC try and hide their hatred for Whites. I would have no problem for any organization whether it be Black, Jewish or Hispanic fighting against racism, but lets face it, these organizations aren't fighting against racism, they main goal is to take away the rights of Whites or demonize WHITES ONLY.

"Life isn't complicated." And this (((virus))) isn't either. This shit was MANUFACTURED and we can only guess by whom and what their future intentions are down the road. As usual the usual suspects have already pretty much revealed themselves to anyone out there really watching. For the WILLFULLY ignorant ostriches and chinadidit people, well, they must like be lorded over by a tiny group of people who don't give two shits about them or their children.

Joey Pastrami , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:16 pm GMT
@Thulean Friend

the response of the West has been utterly atrocious either way.

What do you people wish happened -- Trump-issued national lockdown order back in January? Why do the death counts need to be artificially inflated if this virus is as deadly as the media says?

Joey Pastrami , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:17 pm GMT
The American media is run by jews. It's amazing how the great counter-semite, Ron Unz, seems to be unaware of this fact.
annamaria , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:19 pm GMT
@Gaius Gracchus The US intelligence services knew about the virus in the middle of November 2019 (before Chinese) and alerted Israel, NATO, and the US government about the "emerging disease in Wuhan." https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-alerted-israel-nato-to-disease-outbreak-in-china-in-november-report/

The US had the epidemics of a similar 'lung virus' (vaping disease) in January 2019 (a year before the announcement of the epidemic by Chinese). https://phpa.health.maryland.gov/OEHFP/EH/Pages/VapingIllness.aspx

These injuries often seem like pneumonia, but they are not caused by an infectious disease, and they do not improve with antibiotics. Respiratory symptoms reported include: shortness of breath, chest pain, pain on breathing, and cough. Other symptoms reported by many patients include: fever, chills, nausea, weight loss, vomiting, diarrhea, or abdominal pain.

Fuerchtegott , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:21 pm GMT

Whether plausible or not, such accusations carry the gravest international implications, and there are growing demands that China financially compensate our country for its trillions of dollars in economic losses.

Aren't you comdedians Trillions deep in debt by the Chinese?
Since you'd never pay back anyway, they are in the face saving position to grant you very generous debt forgiveness.

utu , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:22 pm GMT
@Anon "Unless you want to believe there was some policy reason for why Japan went from 10% to 1% growth in ten years." – Absolutely, result of policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord

And China has the highest saving in terms of percent of their disposable income

follyofwar , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:25 pm GMT
@Mustapha Mond Not to mention, Mr. Brave New World (how appropriate your name is), it fits in nicely with Bill Gates' plan for a massive reduction in world population. What freedom-loving young proles will want to form families and bring children into such a dystopia? Already, US whites are well below replacement rate and dropping. As of 2018 it was 1.73 babies per woman, 16% below replacement rate, the lowest rate ever recorded. Asian Americans are even lower at 1.525 (per the World Atlas).
Rafael Martorell , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:25 pm GMT
@Chet Roman there things that are kmown:the almost universal economic damage that stopping the economy,as if it were a ball game,would bring,guaranteed
obwandiyag , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:27 pm GMT
@Ozymandias Just as I have been saying for a long time now, all you China-did-its are quarter-a-post troll farm trolls.

China-did-it trolls agree implicitly with our owners, and yet act like, ooh, they're big radicals. You hapless trolls.

Morton's toes , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:28 pm GMT
We all have one hand tied behind our back. There is nobody that I know of presenting information from inside the border of China to compare with Ronald Unz and his collaborators at unz.com . I have seen exactly one document in the last two years. It was a post on medium.com which purportedly was written by a Chinese ex-pat graduate student in British Columbia with google earth images analyzed to show the proliferation of concentration camps in Xinjiang for the retention of young male uyghurs.

Every single time I saw this document referenced on the internet it was followed up within an hour by a shower of posts from all over the place that it was CIA fake news.

Basically at most we know about 1/2 and it is tough to know what to do with that.

Ilya G Poimandres , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:28 pm GMT
@36 ulster Because articles with stated evidence linked to articles/research/legislation where it is taken from (unlike the MSM, that links nothing other than its own circle-jerk), and some implicit acceptance that the reader should have the freedom to decide for themselves – rather than being spoonfed 'truths' agreed upon somewhere 'up high' – offers people enough respect to allow them to accept that the webzine is not an ideological printout, but a spectrum of ideas, to be evaluated by the reader. This is a contract with consideration.

We have no truths from our elected leaders, or their stenographers in the MSM though.

When Trump says 'blame China', most of us see a bankruptcy merchant peddling a lie to weasel out and default on 1 trn $$ (Martyanov said it first methinks!) – cause that's what he does, and that's what he knows.

Unz offers a fairly balanced approach to conspiracy theory – not conspiracy hypothesis. Ain't seen any article on some dude claiming he got anal probed by little green men without any even anecdotal evidence.

This place debates the smoke, often without the fire. But it's a good start to some explanation for some fire. Much of the rest of the net doesn't look at the smoke, but instead distracts its audience with some other eye candy.

But hey, is it fair to complain – some people enjoy WWE!

Felix Culpa , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:29 pm GMT
@utu There's nothing like attacking the person (Wittkowski himself) in place of his point ( herd immunity already gained by Asians before lockdown) to demonstrate your bona fides.

Thanks for your back-handed admittal that you can't rebut his conclusion.

obwandiyag , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:29 pm GMT
I have been trying to get this across for an age. It's very simple. Anybody who says China did it is suspect. Not only does the import of their message suggest that the China-did-its are ruling-class-hired trolls, the trolly smartass tone suggests it, not to mention the illiteracy.
anon [414] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 21, 2020 at 5:33 pm GMT
@Other Side "The drastic changes in the Balkans in the 1990s and the disintegration of Yugoslavia in particular have resulted in a large number of publications attempting to explain the break-up of this country and the political developments in the Balkans. Some of these publications deal partly with the local Muslims who were engaged in the Balkan conflicts but, with some exceptions, they are focused mainly on recent developments, with less attention paid to the historical contexts in which the Muslim nationalist movements were shaped. Although religion played a more important role in the nation-building process of the Bosnian Muslims than in that of the Albanians, there are very few studies that examine the reasons for this and the impact of Islam on the Muslim nationalist movements in historical perspective. The following article examines from a comparative perspective the role of Islam in the Bosnian Muslim and Albanian national movements from the Ottoman period up to the end of the Cold War. The Sunni Muslims of Bosnia and the Albanians, who are divided into three religions and a variety of sects, present contrasting societal structures for the analysis of different aspects of Islam."
Would you like to read the rest of this article
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233460310_The_Bosnian_Muslims_and_Albanians_Islam_and_nationalism

More reading
"Immediately after the fall of communism in Albania in 1991, Arab Islamic fundamentalists infiltrated the mosques in the country, which is 70 percent Muslim. The interlopers represented the Saudi Wahhabis and the Egyptian disciples of today's al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri. In spring 1999, a dozen of Al-Zawahiri's acolytes, known as the "Albanian Returnees," were deported from the eastern Adriatic republic to Egypt, tried, and sentenced to death or extended prison terms for terrorism. The "Returnees" had been told by their "sheikhs" to stay in Albania and avoid going to Kosovo, where NATO military forces were, by that time, thick on the ground. But Albania booted them out with alacrity. Evidence in the case of the "Albanian Returnees" proved extremely important in tracing the evolution of al Qaeda's Egyptian predecessors."

https://www.islamicpluralism.org/2033/arabs-iranians-and-turks-vs-balkan-muslims

we were all so suckered.

Current Commenter

[Apr 20, 2020] What If the Lockdown Was All A Big Mistake by Ron Paul

Goldman Sachs predicts that the economy will shrink 34 percent in the second quarter, with unemployment leaping to 15 percent.
Notable quotes:
"... Across the US, millions of businesses have been shut down by "executive order" and the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to levels not seen since the Great Depression. ..."
"... What if the "cure" is worse than the disease? ..."
Apr 20, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

From California to New Jersey, Americans are protesting in the streets. They are demanding an end to house arrest orders given by government officials over a virus outbreak that even according to the latest US government numbers will claim fewer lives than the seasonal flu outbreak of 2017-2018.

Across the US, millions of businesses have been shut down by "executive order" and the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to levels not seen since the Great Depression. Americans, who have seen their real wages decline thanks to Federal Reserve monetary malpractice, are finding themselves thrust into poverty and standing in breadlines. It is like a horror movie, but it's real.

Last week the UN Secretary General warned that a global recession resulting from the worldwide coronavirus lockdown could cause "hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths per year." As of this writing, less than 170,000 have been reported to have died from the coronavirus worldwide.

Many Americans have also died this past month because they were not able to get the medical care they needed. Cancer treatments have been indefinitely postponed. Life-saving surgeries have been put off to make room for coronavirus cases. Meanwhile hospitals are laying off thousands because the expected coronavirus cases have not come and the hospitals are partially empty.

What if the "cure" is worse than the disease?

[Apr 19, 2020] Ron Paul: People 'Should Be Leery About' a Coronavirus Vaccine by Adam Dick

Apr 14, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org


Ron Paul, in a Monday interview with host Dan Dicks at Press for Truth, warns that people "should be leery about" coronavirus vaccines that may come out. Further, says Paul, a doctor and former United States House of Representatives member, "right now I wouldn't think there is any indication for anybody to take them," noting that "scare tactics" are being used to pressure people into thinking they should take such potential vaccines to protect against coronavirus.

Paul supports this conclusion by stressing in the interview the potential danger of a vaccine as well as the overstated threat from coronavirus.

Regarding the potential danger from a coronavirus vaccine, Paul discusses at the beginning of the interview how, in 1976 in his first week as a House member, Paul was one of only two members, both doctors, who voted against legislation that helped rush through a vaccine in response to swine flu. Paul describes the results of the push for people to take the swine flu vaccine as follows:

They rushed the vaccine through. The vaccine was not properly made. It had nothing to do with the virus that was out there, so it saved nobody's life from it. It caused a lot of harm. More people ended up dying from the inoculation than died from the flu that year. And that sort of was a lesson, like that's a little bit too extreme. But, that's about what happens when governments get involved and you do things for political reasons.

There was also, because a lot of people ended up getting the vaccine, I think there were like 50 people or more who got Guillain-Barré syndrome, which is temporary total paralysis and you can die from it but most of them did get better. But, it was a very, very serious complication of a viral injection, you know, a vaccine.

Paul also discusses in the interview the overstated danger from coronavirus that is being used to scare people to take actions including to potentially take a coronavirus vaccine.

Paul notes that many of the people whose deaths have been blamed on coronavirus are elderly people, including people living in nursing homes, who have multiple other diseases. Further, explains Paul, doctors have "been instructed by [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and other politicians that, when the doctors sign the death certificate, if [patients] have four different things but they happen to have a positive test for the virus that is to be put down as the major cause of death." "The numbers mean nothing," concludes Paul regarding the daily tabulation of coronavirus deaths.

In addition, Paul explains that many more people than officially recorded have contracted coronavirus. Some of these individuals never became sick. Others got better without any treatment, says Paul, pointing to his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) as an example. While Rand Paul was given a test that confirmed he had coronavirus, most people who have had coronavirus and suffered no to minor medical problems have not been tested. With "probably millions of people" having contracted coronavirus, Paul concludes that the percentage of people who have contracted coronavirus and have died as a result "is probably very, very small."

While Paul says he would choose not to take a vaccine for the coronavirus should one appear next week even if people claim it is 99 percent effective, he says that the decision to take or not take a vaccine is one that should be made by each individual, who can discuss the vaccine alternative with a doctor. Absolutely, Paul concludes, that decision should not be made by government.

Watch here Paul's complete interview, in which he also discusses how government actions taken in the name of fighting coronavirus are harming the economy and his support for people speaking out for ending coronavirus-justified encroachments on freedom:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TblqxaQbtac


Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

[Apr 18, 2020] The CNN-Cuomo Brothers Inquisition, CovidGate And The Folly Of Lockdown Nation by David Stockman

Notable quotes:
"... By every measure, New York is the aberrant epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak. So what you find in the New York stats has got to be definitive, but what they're conclusive about is the very opposite of the hysteria being propagated by the Cuomos & friends. ..."
"... The New York data, in fact, show that Covid-19 almost pinpointedly attacks the old, the frail, and the medically vulnerable, not the general population. ..."
Apr 18, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

We are getting sick and tired of the CNN/Cuomo Brothers inquisition and the Coviddeath Cavalcade. Their relentless, morose, partisan coverage of the coronavirus pandemic is the single greatest campaign of misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, scaremongering and elitist prattle we can recall in our entire lifetime.

Indeed, Joe McCarthy's Red Scare was a Sunday School picnic compared to CovidGate. And just as there were no commies secretly subverting America 66 years ago, there is no deathly contagion stalking the American people today and no public health emergency that remotely justifies the Lockdown Nation regime that the CNN/Cuomo Brothers and infectious disease lobby have foisted on the country with virtually no public debate or democratic accountability.

By every measure, New York is the aberrant epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak. So what you find in the New York stats has got to be definitive, but what they're conclusive about is the very opposite of the hysteria being propagated by the Cuomos & friends.

The New York data, in fact, show that Covid-19 almost pinpointedly attacks the old, the frail, and the medically vulnerable, not the general population.

In turn, that means that public health measures should be focused on identifying, isolating, protecting, treating and supporting the very small sub-population that is bearing the brunt of the illness and deaths, while allowing the vast bulk of the population to get back to normal social and economic life forthwith.

As we document below, the peak of new cases and deaths is now in the rear-view mirror. So what we can glean from the New York stats through April 13th reporting is definitive and will only get even more definitive in the weeks ahead.

As of 1PM today, the nationwide death count "WITH" Covid-19 was 23,529. And we go full monte with CAPs, quotes, bolds and italics for the reason that it is self-evident the virus per se didn't kill many or most of these people: It triggered organ and function failures that were already embedded in pre-existing morbidities. And that truth is validated in spades by the New York data. As of this afternoon, New York had reported 10,834 corona deaths or 45% of the national total.

But when you look at the break-out by age categories and rates relative to population, the numbers are simply stunning:

In short, 18% of all the Covid-19 nationwide deaths crawling across the CNN screen today have been among New Yorkers 80 years and older; and 7,018 or 30% of national deaths and 65% of New York Covid-19 deaths have been among those 70 years and older.

To be sure, as a member of the 70+ class of New York residents, we don't begrudge anyone the longest and happiest life possible. But we are here talking about the appropriate public policy response to a bad winter flu and suggest that when the mortality ratio for the over 80 population is 222 times higher than for those under 50 years old, then one size surely does not fit all.

Indeed, when it comes to quarantines and contact tracing, the Cuomo brigade has it assbackwards. To wit, leave the general population alone where quarantine is unnecessary and contact tracing is a ridiculous needle-in-the-haystack waste of time, and target protection measures on the vulnerable, instead.

After all, in the entire state of New York there are only 382,000 souls age 80 or over. Would it not have been far more rational for Governor Cuomo's health department minions to track down these 382,000 vulnerable elderly rather than to shutdown the entire economy of the state in order protect 13.05 million folks under 50 years from a death risk which amounts to a minuscule 4.9 per 100,000?

In all honesty, that latter figure is a rounding error in the scheme of things. Every year in New York state, 11,760 persons under 50 years or 91.3 per 100,000 suffer an untimely death -- including 3,428 from auto and other accidents and 917 from suicides.

Since the infection wave, hospitalizations and death numbers have now clearly peaked and will be falling sharply in the weeks ahead (see above), we can say with some considerable confidence that when the Covid is gone, it is doubtful whether more than 917 New Yorkers under 50 -- the normal year suicide population -- will have died WITH the coronavirus.

That's 7.0 souls per 100,000 -- and its just plain insane to got into plenary Lockdown on their account -- especially because the predominant share of under 50 year-olds who have succumbed WITH the coronavirus were also suffering from one or more morbidities, especially hypertension, diabetes and COPD (see below).

Indeed, that gets us to the even more damning stats in the New York data. To wit, only 1,242 or 11% of New York's 10,834 Covid-deaths (as of April 13) were not accompanied by at least one of the top 10 co-morbidities.

By contrast, of the 9,592 cases with these conditions, the total co-morbidities were 19,280. That means the New Yorkers among this group died with an average of 2.01 comorbidities, and some with three or four.

Again, when you stratify by age, the injunction to identify, trace, isolate and treat by indicated vulnerability could not be more dispositive. Among the 4,130 persons aged 80 or older who have died in New York,

· 2,489 or 60% had hypertension;

· 1,264 or 31% had diabetes;

· 845 had hyperlipidemia (blood disorder);

· 605 had coronary artery disease;

· 819 had dementia;

· 425 had renal disease;

· 534 had COPD;

· 366 had cancer;

· 386 had congestive heart failure.

So Governor Cuomo, riddle us this. In lieu of your daily reality TV show and presidential campaign audition, way didn't you mobilize the doctors and health authorities to identify these 10,834 medically imperiled among the thousands more with like and similar conditions among the 382,000 octogenarians in your state in order that every possible precaution could have been taken weeks ago?

Compared to the needle-in-the-haystack idiocy of contact tracing among the general population, the state's doctors and health agencies do actually know the names, addresses and social security number of nearly every one of these medically vulnerable cases. That's where the resources should have gone -- not into a mindless Lockdown of the entire economy.

Indeed, when you look at the next most vulnerable category, the 1.26 million state residents aged 70-79, the story becomes even more compelling. In this age bracket, there have been 2,888 deaths WITH Covid reported as of April 13th, which, as indicated above, represents 272 per 100,000.

But, not surprisingly, 62%, 45%, 23% and 14% also had hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and coronary artery disease, respectively. In all, this group had 5,695 comorbidities among the to 10 diseases, which amounts to 2.0 per deceased.

In sum, 7,018 or 65% of the WITH Covid deaths in New York were 70 years and older and suffered from 13,800 instances of these major underlying illnesses that could have been readily identified by the doctors and health care professionals who treat them.

Likewise, even the 3,174 deaths among aged 50-69 overwhelmingly involved 4,848 comorbidities, including 2,930 cases of hypertension and diabetes alone.

Finally, among the 642 deaths under 50 years, there were fully 634 cases of the top 10 morbidities.

That is to say, there have been virtually no deaths among the disease free population under 50. Yet hundreds of thousands have been infected and tens of thousands have become symptomatic or sick, but recovered from this novel flu in the normal fashion.

Here's the thing. The US economy was so weakened by 30 years of debt, speculation and money-printing that its own economic "immune" system was at ultra low ebb.

So the Lockdown Folly will prove to be far more destructive than would have otherwise been the case. So now is the time for the Donald to do something constructive for once, and face-down the CNN/Cuomo Brothers and infectious disease lobby and stop cold the economic bleeding cure they have foisted on the US economy in the name of public health.

And now is the moment. During the last few days, the death rates have plunged in most of the nation, and clearly even New York has turned the corner as this chart makes abundantly clear.

But for want of doubt, here is the the nationwide gain in new cases WITH Covid-19. It is now down nearly 26% from its Good Friday peak, after accelerating in early April:

April 5-April 14 trend: 25,974, 28,752, 30,437, 30,130, 34,346, 34,617, 29,591, 28,983, 24,948, 25,699

So let us repeat: The New York Covid epicenter has provided the pretext for the present nationwide hysteria and insensible acts of economic suicide.

But its actual data show why the Lockdown should be ended now. To wit, the 1.64 million residents of New York over 69 years old account for just 0.5% of the US population, but have suffered 30% of the nation's deaths WITH Covid.

It is therefore time to tell the economy-wreaking Cuomo Brothers and their political cohorts and media megaphones to stand down and let America get back to work, and the doctors and health professionals refocused on the real victims of this nasty virus.

Reprinted with permission from David Stockman's Contra Corner .

[Apr 15, 2020] The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Look at How Ridiculously Wrong All the Covid-19 Models Were

Apr 15, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Look at How Ridiculously Wrong All the Covid-19 Models Were Written by Robert Wenzel Friday April 10, 2020
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The dotted line on the above map indicates the current trend of beds needed for COVID-19 in New York.

At present, only 18,279 are in use.

The professional forecasters all projected that beds would be a multiple of the beds actually needed.

Notice not one model came in under the actual number. These are all professional fearmongers who alarmed the country about a virus that appears to be in line with a severe flu season.

Can they really be that incompetent?

Some may be but I called the evil Tony Fauci out a month ago on his phony projections: Why is Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Lying to Congress and the American People?

He knows better.

Reprinted with permission from Target Liberty .

[Apr 06, 2020] Enshrining God in the Constitution Robespierre's Great Idea by Laurent Guyénot

Apr 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

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I've heard that, as part of new amendments to the Russian Constitution, President Putin proposes to include the Russian people's "faith in God," and a definition of marriage as a "union of a man and a woman." I'm a bit skeptical about the news, but if true, I think it's a great idea. If voted in the upcoming referendum, it would consecrate the civilizational schism that is likely to define the history of our civilization in the coming century: in the West, the post-modernist project of liberating man from his human nature, to produce an uprooted, transgendered, upgraded man, Homo Deus . In the East, the choice of honoring and protecting our spiritual and anthropological roots, to produce the genuine thing: Mars and Venus, virile men and feminine women grateful to their Creator for each other, reveling in their fertile complementarity.

Needless to say, the proposal has the support of Moscow Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, but also of Muslim leader Talgat Tadzhuddin. The idea is to transcend particular creeds and churches. More surprisingly, Communist Party boss Gennady Zyuganov raises no objection.

As a country that was still officially Marxist-Leninist thirty years ago, Russia has come a long way. America too, for that matter. Interestingly, God is not mentioned in the American Constitution, although he is ubiquitous on dollar bills (think of Jesus being handed a dollar bill instead of a Roman denarius in Matthew 22!).

Other proposed amendments, such as banning foreign citizenships and bank accounts for state officials, have obvious practical advantages, and are so sensible that they raise little discussion. By contrast, adding God into the constitution is highly and purely symbolic. Some will argue that it will have no real consequence. It all depends on the power we attribute to symbols. I would think that such a collective proclamation by the Russian people would have a strong impact, both on Russian self-consciousness, and as a message to the West. It could also lead to real changes, in academia, for example: I can't wait for the day when Intelligent Design research will be funded in Russian universities, rather than censored as it is in the U.S. (watch Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligent Allowed ).

What are the arguments for enshrining God in the Constitution? That is one of the most important questions in political science that you can think of. This will come as a surprise to many, but the man who has thought the deepest on this question is perhaps Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794). On May 7, 1794, he had the Convention decreed, with a view to inscribing it in the French Constitution, that, "the French people recognize the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul." On June 8, he presided over a national holiday dedicated to the Divine Creator. It was a great success, both in Paris and in the provinces. Robespierre was then immensely popular, but his career would end fifty days later when he was arrested, silenced by a gunshot through his jaw, and executed the next day without trial, together with his brother Augustin and twenty-one of his friends, followed the next two days by eighty-three of his supporters, their bodies and heads thrown into a mass grave, with lime spread on them so as to leave no trace. In the aftermath of their coup, Robespierre's assassins crushed demonstrations of mourning for the Incorruptible, and launched a press campaign against him that basically continues to this day.

There is a great deal of misunderstanding about Robespierre and his "religious policy." For that reason, I thought that the Russian constitutional debate would be a good opportunity -- or a pretext -- for some reappraisal of a great man unfairly vilified, and thereby a case study in the transformation of a vanquished hero into a monster by state propaganda. But the main purpose of this article is to present Robespierre's ideas on the relationship between religion and politics, which I find stimulating and pertinent for our time -- and, I expect, unfamiliar to most.

Robespierre was the heir and probably the most articulate advocate of a long tradition of thinkers who equally disliked religious dogmatism and atheism, not only as too narrow for their own minds, but as harmful to society. In his view, both were symmetrical forms of fanaticism. He would not be the last to think along this line. Thomas Jefferson once wrote to John Adams : "Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god." There is much truth in this statement. But the principle of authoritative revelation is not the main factor involved in the development of Western atheism, I think. The content of the revelation is critical. I believe that modern atheism is, to a great extent, a reaction to the disgusting character presented as "God" in the Old Testament. Yahweh's obscenity has ultimately ruined God's reputation. Voltaire, that old anti-Semite , ridiculed Christianity by quoting almost exclusively the Old Testament. Still today, Darwinian high priest Richard Dawkins can only make his atheism sound plausible by first professing, correctly:

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." [1] Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin, 2006, p. 51.

In his speech on "the relations of religious and moral ideas with republican principles," read at the Convention six weeks before his death, Robespierre said:

"I know of nothing so close to atheism as the religion that [the priests] have made: by disfiguring the Supreme Being, they have destroyed him as much as it was in them; [ ] the priests created a god in their image; they made him jealous, temperamental, greedy, cruel, relentless."

(That judgment is partially inexact: the cruel God of the Old Testament may have been used by priests as a means of social control, but he had been created by the Levites long before. Robespierre had no clue about the Jewish Question.)

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Let's start with a clarification: Today's French traditionalist Catholics insist that Robespierre's "Être Suprême" has nothing to do with their God, and they pretend that it has Freemasonic overtones. They even confuse it with the deification of Reason , a cult that Robespierre execrated and combatted. So let's set the record straight: There is no evidence that Robespierre was ever a Freemason. He borrowed the expression "Supreme Being" from Rousseau, who never was a Freemason either. It had been used since the Renaissance and was of common usage. Even the very royalist, Catholic and counter-revolutionary Joseph de Maître begins his Considerations on France (1797) with the sentence: "We are all attached to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain, which retains us without enslaving us." François René de Chateaubriand, who also hated Robespierre, used repeatedly the phrase "Supreme Being" in his apology of Catholicism, Le Génie du christianisme (1799). Therefore, there is no reason to consider that, in Robespierre's speeches, "Supreme Being" meant anything else than God. His suggestion to engrave in the Constitution that the French people have "faith in the Supreme Being" is equivalent to Putin's proposal.

Putin has the support of the Patriarch whereas Robespierre was anathemized by the Pope, you may object. But here is the heart of the matter: Russian orthodoxy is, fundamentally, a national religion, and today more than ever, with the canonization of the martyred Romanovs. The main reason why Roman Catholicism was unacceptable for Robespierre was that it meant loyalty to a foreign power. Yet contrary to the common image, Robespierre did not seek to ban Catholicism, he only required that French bishops and priests swear loyalty to the French State, rather than to the Roman Pope. That was pretty much what every French monarch had tried and failed to do since Philipp the Fair. As we shall see, Robespierre actually opposed the "dechristianization" campaign of the Enragés , and denounced them as the useful idiots or willing accomplices of the counter-revolutionaries.

There are two other differences between Robespierre's and Putin's proposals. Robespierre saw the traditional family as the basic cell of a healthy society, but almost everyone did, then. Stipulating that marriage can only join a man and a woman would have been as superfluous as affirming that 1 plus 1 make 2.

The second difference is that Robespierre wanted to mention the immortality of the soul next to the existence of God. "Immortality of the soul" may have sounded to most of Robespierre's contemporaries a straightforward concept. But today, the formulation would beg too many metaphysical questions: What's a soul? Do animals have one? Is it individual or collective, or both? Where does it go? Does immortal means eternal? etc. And that other question: if every human being has an immortal soul, at what stage of its development does the fetus get one? I'm not saying it would be a bad thing, but bringing up the issue in the constitutional referendum could be very divisive.

The making of a monster

In the standard textbook history of the French Revolution, Robespierre is portrayed as a fanatic and megalomaniac dictator, and he is blamed for the Great Terror that sent approximately 17,000 people to the guillotine in the six weeks preceding his demise. Ever since Jules Michelet, who fashioned our roman national , the figure of Robespierre has served to embody all the evils of the French Revolution, exactly like Philippe Pétain for World War II. While Danton has boulevards in his name and is celebrated by Hollywood, Robespierre is the usual bad guy.

However, there have always been a minority of historians (informed by the Société des Études Robespierristes founded by Robert Mathiez in 1907) to challenge the black legend, and there are still politicians occasionally honoring him ( Jean-Luc Mélenchon ). The most recent positive reappraisal of Robespierre is appropriately subtitled: La Fabrication d'un Monstre . [2] Jean-Clément Martin, Robespierre, la fabrication d'un monstre, Perrin, 2016. Other recent French historians who have drawn a rather positive image of Robespierre include Jean-Philippe Domecq, Robespierre, dernier temps , Folio/Histoire, 2011 and Cécile Obligi, Robespierre. La probité révoltante, Belin, 2012. In English language, that revisionist trend is represented by David P. Jordan's The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre (Free Press, 2013). Chapter 1 begins like this:

"As Robespierre lay on a table in the antechamber of the Committee of Public Safety, drifting in and out of consciousness, his ball-shattered jaw bound up with a bandage, his triumphant enemies, in another room of the Tuileries palace, were creating the monster who would soon pass into historical legend. This Robespierre, created by using materials scavenged from old calumny, damaging anecdote, and sometimes sheer malicious invention, was one of the founding acts of a new revolutionary government. The Thermidorians -- thus have Robespierre's conquerors and successors been dubbed -- sought not only to justify their coup d'état of July 1794 (the month of Thermidor in the revolutionary calendar) but to evade the opprobrium they shared with Robespierre and his comrades for deeds done during the agonizing crisis the previous year, during the Terror. The vengeful malice of the Thermidorians was partly successful: their caricature of Robespierre has proved durable."

Robespierre was primarily a man of words, in a time when eloquence was a political act, when speeches could change the opinion of deputies, and sometimes even win a whole assembly. He was a great writer and a great orator. Not even his ennemies doubted the sincerity of his passionate defense of the poor and downtrodden: "That man will go far -- he believes everything he says," Mirabeau once remarked. His speeches, delivered at the Jacobin Club or at the Convention, were printed and widely distributed, and had a huge echo all over France.

In the spring of 1793, he reluctantly joined the Comité de salut public (Committee of Public Safety), a revolutionary tribunal responsible for sending conspirators against the new Republic to their death, at a time when the Republic was at war against Austria, Prussia, Spain and England. Robespierre's responsibility in the Great Terror that marked the last two months of the Committee is a debated subject, but it is admitted that he was absent from Committee meetings, probably sick, during its last six weeks of work.

In his final speech to the Convention, just before being arrested, Robespierre denounced a plot to lose him by spilling blood on his behalf. He claimed that his enemies, in order to rally enough deputies against him, had circulated fake lists of suspects allegedly written by himself, and spread the rumor that he was preparing a major purge, when in fact he wanted to end the Terror. Napoleon Bonaparte later confirmed this accusation, and believed that "Robespierre was the real scapegoat for the Revolution." Alphonse de Lamartine, who wrote a Histoire des Girondins in eight volumes, also came to the realization that Robespierre's enemies "covered him, for forty days, with the blood they shed to disgrace him." [3] Jean-Philippe Domecq, Robespierre, dernier temps , Folio/Histoire, 2011, p. 27-30 Simultaneously, they created the golden legend of Danton, in reality a disgusting money-grubber.

Danton (1759-1794)

I will not delve deeper into Robespierre's biography; I just wanted to point out that his standard portrayal is the product of an elaborate and massive propaganda operation by those who overthrew him. I will now focus of his religious views, which are generally underrated, although, from his own testimony, they determined his political views. [4] My presentation owes a lot to Henri Guillemin, Robespierre, Politique et mystique, Seuil, 1987.

Robespierre did not view religion as a purely private matter. He believed that the idea of God is an indispensable foundation for public morality, and should be taught in schools and celebrated publicly. "The idea of the Supreme Being and of the immortality of the soul is a constant reminder of justice; therefore, it is social and republican."

Robespierre's ideas were elaborated from those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whom he held as the greatest "tutor of the human race." Rousseau's "natural religion" was itself not a new idea. Let me sketch a brief history of that tradition, before coming back to Robespierre.

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If we define "natural religion" as the claim that belief in God and in the afterlife is sufficiently founded on reason and experience, then it is as old as Plato, and probably much older. If we define it additionally as a rebellion against the authority of Christian scriptures and dogmas, then it seems to have been around as long as Christianity. Proofs are hard to find for the Middle Ages, when monks had a quasi monopoly on writing. But from the end of the twelfth century, there is enough evidence of forms of religious beliefs independent and sometimes incompatible with Christian doctrine. I have analyzed some of this evidence in my book La Mort féerique: Anthropologie du merveilleux (XIIe-XVe siècles) , a rewriting of my doctoral thesis. We know for example that the court of the famous Frederick II Hohenstaufen (1194-1250) was replete with scholars and noblemen whose religious views were inspired by classical philosophy, and who resented Catholic intolerance. Pope Gregory IX, founder of the Inquisition, made the following accusation against Frederick: "Openly, this king of pestilence notably affirmed -- to use his own words -- that the whole world was duped by three impostors: Jesus Christ, Moses and Muhammad." [5] Quoted in Ernst Kantorowicz, L'empereur Frédéric II , Gallimard, 1987 (1 st German ed. 1927), pp. 451-452. The accusation is plausible. Having been raised in multicultural Sicily in the company of Jewish, Muslim and Christian scholars, he had reflected on the problems caused by the very notion of revelation.

Frederick was a polymath scientist, a polyglot, an outstanding diplomat (he conquered Jerusalem without shedding a drop of blood), and an enlightened lawmaker. He was "the Wonder of the World" ( Stupor Mundi ), the most prestigious and powerful prince of his age. Yet the pope prevailed over him, and pursued his descendants with insatiable hatred, until his lineage was eradicated, and his name covered with calumny. Nevertheless, his memory would be cherished by some of the best minds throughout the thirteenth centuries. Dante's treaty De Monarchia (1313) is believed to be a defense of Frederick's project (on Dante and the Fedeli d'Amore, you may want to read the relevant section of my article "The Crucifixion of the Goddess" ).

Frederick's amazing Castel del Monte, in Southern Italy

With the growing power of the Inquisition, overt advocacy of natural religion became impossible. That is when we start hearing of secret circles of intellectuals. The rediscovery of the ancient Greeks and Romans also provided a relatively safe cover for expressing unchristian views on God and the afterlife, and I believe that apocryphal forgeries are more numerous than generally acknowledged. The great Petrarch (1304-1374) may have forged rather than discovered the letters of Cicero that became the blueprint for his own humanism. [6] Jerry Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo, Oxford UP, 2010, pp. 66-67.

In the next century, the printing press and the Reformation provided an unprecedented window of tolerance, especially in the Netherlands. Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469–1536) approached natural religion as the common denominator of all faiths, and the means of overcoming religious wars. His friend Thomas More imagined in his Utopia , or the best form of government (1516), an ideal world where people hold a variety of opinions on religious questions, but "all agree in this: that they think there is one Supreme Being that made and governs the world." The public cult is for this Supreme Being alone, while "every sect performs those rites that are peculiar to it in their private houses."

Then came John Locke, with his Letter Concerning Toleration, first published in Latin in 1689. Locke went further than Erasmus in declaring immoral any doctrine professing that good people are damned if they do not believe in this or that dogma. Churches who require loyalty to a foreign power should also be banished, for by tolerating them, the magistrate "would give way to the settling of a foreign jurisdiction in his own country and suffer his own people to be listed, as it were, for soldiers against his own Government." That concerns Roman Catholicism, of course, but also Islam:

"It is ridiculous for any one to profess himself to be a Mahometan only in his religion, but in everything else a faithful subject to a Christian magistrate, whilst at the same time he acknowledges himself bound to yield blind obedience to the Mufti of Constantinople, who himself is entirely obedient to the Ottoman Emperor and frames the feigned oracles of that religion according to his pleasure."

Locke deemed atheism as immoral and socially corrosive as papism: "those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist." For Anthony Collins (1676-1729), a friend of Locke,

"Ignorance is the foundation of Atheism , and Free-Thinking the Cure of it. And thus tho it should be allow'd, that some Men by Free-Thinking may become Atheists yet they will ever be fewer in number if Free-Thinking were permitted, than if it were restrain'd." ( A Discourse of Freethinking , 1713)

In the eighteenth century, it was still risky to profess openly such ideas. Locke had to print his book anonymously in Amsterdam. David Hume published his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion anonymously and posthumously in 1779. Secret societies were still necessary for intellectuals to discuss safely on these matters. Irish philosopher John Toland (1670-1722) wrote in his Pantheisticon :

"The Philosophers therefore, and other well-wishers to mankind in most nations, were constrain'd by this holy tyranny to make use of a twofold doctrine; the one Popular, accommodated to the Prejudices of the vulgar, and to the receiv'd Customs or Religions: the other Philosophical, conformable to the nature of things, and consequently to Truth; which, with doors fast shut and under all other precautions, they communicated only to friends of known probity, prudence, and capacity. These they generally call'd the Exoteric and Esoteric , or the External and Internal Doctrines. " [7] Quoted in Jan Assmann, Religio Duplex: How the Enlightenment Reinvented Egyptian Religion, Polity Press, 2014, p. 59.

Toland's Pantheisticon describes the rules and rites of a society of enlightened thinkers who meet secretly to discuss philosophy and search for metaphysical truths. Such clubs provided the first basis of Freemasonry. [8] Albert Lantoine, Un précurseur de la franc-maçonnerie. John Toland (1670–1722) , suivi de la traduction française du Pantheisticon de John Toland, Éditions E. Nourry, 1927. Because they also attracted Marrano crypto-Jews, and because of the strong Judeophilia among British aristocrats at that time, Jewish lore and kabbalistic mumbo-jumbo were transplanted into the rituals of the Grand Lodge of England from 1723. But that is another story.

Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) gave the notion of "natural religion" a wide audience by his literary genius. His religious conception is exposed in the " Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar", a section of Book IV of the Émile , which caused the book to be banned in Paris and Geneva, and publicly burned in 1762. Rousseau gives there an exposé of "theism or natural religion, which Christians pretend to confound with atheism or irreligion, its exact opposite." Rousseau declares having no need for religious books, since Nature is a more useful book for discovering God;

"if I use my reason, if I cultivate it, if I employ rightly the innate faculties which God bestows upon me, I shall learn by myself to know and love him, to love his works, to will what he wills, and to fulfill all my duties upon earth, that I may please him. What more can all human learning teach me?"

Catholic dogmas are a useless and even poisonous jumble, Rousseau writes in his Letters Written from the Mountain (1764):

"For how can the mystery of the Trinity, for example, contribute to the good constitution of the State? In what way will its members be better Citizens when they have rejected the merit of good works? And what does the dogma of original sin have to do with the good of civil society? Although true Christianity is an institution of peace, who does not see that dogmatic or theological Christianity, by the multitude and obscurity of its dogmas and above all by the obligation to accept them, is a permanent battlefield between men."

Rousseau devotes the last chapter of The Social Contract (1762) to "civil religion". Like Locke, he condemns as contrary to public peace churches professing intolerance, because: "It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned." Therefore, "whoever dares to say 'Outside the Church is no salvation', ought to be driven from the State."

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Rousseau first proceeded to show that "the law of Christianity at bottom does more harm than good by weakening instead of strengthening the constitution of the State." Christianity, even at its best, is too focused on individual salvation. Rousseau sees God as more fully manifested in human societies than in holy hermits. Here is a sample of Rousseau's proposal:

"it matters very much to the community that each citizen should have a religion that will make him love his duty; but the dogmas of that religion concern the State and its members only so far as they have reference to morality and to the duties which he who professes them is bound to do to others. Each man may have, over and above, what opinions he pleases, without it being the Sovereign's business to take cognisance of them; for, as the Sovereign has no authority in the other world, whatever the lot of its subjects may be in the life to come, that is not its business, provided they are good citizens in this life.

There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject. [ ]

The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary. The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas. Its negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected."

Rousseau uses here the word "dogmas", but for him, neither the existence of God or the immortality of the soul are based on revelation; they are proven by observation and introspection. His argument for God's existence in Émile sounds surprisingly similar to the modern argument for Intelligent Design :

"Those who deny the unity of intention which manifests itself in the reports of all the parts of this great whole, however much they cover their gibberish with abstractions, coordinations, general principles, emblematic terms; whatever they do, it is impossible for me to conceive of a system of beings so constantly ordered, that I do not conceive of an intelligence which orders it. It does not depend on me to believe that passive and dead matter could have produced living and feeling beings, [ ], that what does not think could have produced thinking beings."

Robespierre

In a speech he had printed in April 1791, Robespierre thanked the "eternal Providence" who called on the French, "alone since the origin of the world, to restore on earth the empire of Justice and Liberty." In March 1792, the president of the Legislative Assembly Élie Guadet opposed the sending to the patriotic societies of an address of Robespierre, on the pretext that he had used the word "Providence" too many times:

"I admit that, seeing no sense in this idea, I would never have thought that a man who worked with so much courage, for three years, to pull the people out of the slavery of despotism, could contribute to put them back under the slavery of superstition."

Robespierre responded:

"Superstition, it is true, is one of the supports of despotism, but it is not inducing citizens in superstition to pronounce the name of the Divinity. [ ] I, myself, support these eternal principles on which human weakness leans to rise up toward virtue. It is not a vain language in my mouth, any more than in that of all the illustrious men who had no less moral, to believe in the existence of God. / Yes, invoking the Providence and expressing the idea of the Eternal Being who influences essentially the destinies of nations, and who seems to me to watch over the French revolution in a very special way, is not an idea too haphazard, but a feeling of my heart, a feeling which [ ] has always sustained me. Alone with my soul, how could I have sufficed for struggles which are beyond human strength, if I had not raised my soul to God?" [9] Auguste Valmorel, Œuvres de Robespierre, 1867 (sur fr.wikisource.org), p. 71.

Robespierre castigated the irreligion that prevailed in the aristocracy and the high clergy, with bishops like Talleyrand openly boasting of lying every Sunday. A gap had widened between the clerical hierarchy and the country priests. Among the latter, many were responsible for drafting the peasants' cahiers de doléances . The counter-revolutionary bishop Charles de Coucy, of La Rochelle, said in 1797 that the Revolution was "started by the bad priests." [10] Henri Guillemin, Robespierre, Politique et mystique, Seuil, 1987, p. 351. For Robespierre, they were the "good priests" whom the people of the countryside needed.

Robespierre was inflexible against the priests who submitted to the pope by refusing to take an oath on the Civil Constitution (voted July 12, 1790). But he also opposed, until his last breath, any plan to abolish the funds allocated to Catholic worship under the same Civil Constitution. He also opposed, but in vain, the new Republican calendar , with its ten-day week aimed at "suppressing Sunday," by the admission of its inventor Charles-Gilbert Romme.

Robespierre's worst enemies were the militant atheists, the Enragés like Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette or Jacques-René Hébert, who unleashed the movement for dechristianization in November 1793, and started closing the churches in Paris or transforming them into "Temples of Reason", with the slogan "death is an eternal sleep" posted on the gates of cemeteries. Robespierre condemned "those men who have no other merit than that of adorning themselves with an anti-religious zeal," and who "throw trouble and discord among us" (Club des Jacobins, November 21 1793). In his speech to the National Convention of December 5, 1793, he accused the dechristianizers of acting secretly for the counter-revolution. Indeed, "hostile foreign powers support the dechristianization of France as a policy pushing rural France into conflict with the Republic for religious reasons and thus recruiting armies against the Republic in Vendée and in Belgium." By exploiting the violence of militant atheist extremists, these foreign powers have two aims: "the first to recruit the Vendée, to alienate the peoples of the French nation and to use philosophy for the destruction of freedom; the second, to disturb public tranquility in the interior, and to distract all minds, when it is necessary to collect them to lay the unshakable foundations of the Revolution."

Again in his "Report against Philosophism and for the Freedom of Worship" (November 21, 1793), Robespierre again castigated the grotesque cults of Reason instituted in churches by atheist fanatics:

"By what right do they come to disturb the freedom of worship, in the name of freedom, and attack fanaticism with a new fanaticism? By what right do they degenerate the solemn tributes paid to pure truth, in eternal and ridiculous pranks? Why should they be allowed to play with the dignity of the people in this way, and to tie the bells of madness to the very scepter of philosophy?"

The Convention, he says, intends "to maintain freedom of cult, which it has proclaimed, while repressing all those who abuse it to disturb public order." He declares that those who "persecute the peaceful ministers of cult" will be punished severely.

"There are men who, [ ] on the pretext of destroying superstition, want to make a kind of religion of atheism itself. Any philosopher, any individual can adopt whatever religious opinion he likes. Anyone who wants to make it a crime is a fool; but the public figure, but the legislator would be a hundred times more foolish who would adopt such a system. The National Convention abhors it. The Convention is not a book writer, an author of metaphysical systems, it is a political and popular body, responsible for ensuring respect, not only for the rights, but for the character of the French people. It was not in vain that it proclaimed the Declaration of Human Rights [August 26, 1789] in the presence of the Supreme Being [mentioned in the preamble]!

It may be said that I am a narrow mind, a man of prejudice; what do I know, a fanatic. I have already said that I speak neither as an individual nor as a systematic philosopher, but as a representative of the people. Atheism is aristocratic; the idea of a Great Being who watches over oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime, is popular. [ ] This feeling is engraved in all sensitive and pure hearts; it always animates the most magnanimous defenders of freedom. [ ] I repeat: we have no other fanaticism to fear than that of immoral men, bribed by foreign courts to awaken fanaticism, and to give our revolution the veneer of immorality, which is the character of our cowardly and fierce enemies."

The Robespierrists overcame the Hebertists. After having failed in a project of insurrection against the Convention, Chaumette was arrested, tried and executed for "conspiracy against the Republic" and for "having sought to annihilate any kind of morality, erase any idea of divinity and found the French government on atheism." In May 1794, Robespierre ordered to erase the mention "Temple of Reason" (or any similar denomination) from the portico of the churches and to engrave instead: "the French people recognize the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul."

Robespierre justified his opposition to dechristianization and his religion policy in his last great speech, "on the relations of religious and moral ideas with republican principles" (May 7, 1794), the most important text of Robespierre on that question. [11] A translation of this speech can be found in P. H. Beik (eds), The French Revolution: The Documentary History of Western Civilization. Palgrave Macmillan, 1970, but I have translated directly from the French.

"Any institution, any doctrine which consoles and lifts souls must be welcomed; reject all that tend to degrade and corrupt them. Revive, exalt all generous feelings and all the great moral ideas that others wanted to extinguish; bring together by the charm of friendship and by the bond of virtue the men whom others wanted to divide. Who then gave you the mission to announce to the people that the Divinity does not exist, O you who are passionate about this arid doctrine, and who are never passionate about the homeland? What advantage do you find in persuading man that a blind force presides over his destinies and strikes crime and virtue at random; that his soul is only a light breath that dies out at the gates of the tomb?

Will the idea of ​​his nothingness inspire him with purer and higher feelings than that of his immortality? Will it inspire him more respect for his fellow men and for himself, more devotion to the fatherland, more courage to brave tyranny, more contempt for death or for voluptuousness? You who regret a virtuous friend, you like to think that the most beautiful part of himself has escaped death! You who weep over the coffin of a son or a wife, are you comforted by him who tells you that there is nothing left of them but a vile dust? [ ] Miserable sophist! by what right do you come to snatch from innocence the scepter of reason to put it back in the hands of crime, throw a funeral veil over nature, add despair to misfortune, make vice rejoice, and virtue saddened, degrade humanity? [ ]

Let us attach morality to eternal and sacred bases; let us inspire in man this religious respect for man, this deep feeling of his duties, which is the only guarantee of social happiness; let us nourish it with all our institutions; let public education be mainly directed towards this goal."

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On June 8, the resounding success of the Fête de l'Être Suprême consecrated Robespierre's victory. In a show staged by the painter David, a gigantic statue representing Atheism was burnt, and the effigy of Wisdom revealed. Hymns to the deity were sung. But priests and references to Catholicism were absent. On this day, Robespierre declared , the Supreme Being, "sees an entire nation that is combating all the oppressors of humankind, suspend the course of its heroic labors in order to raise its thoughts and its vows towards the Great Being who gave it the mission to undertake it and the strength to execute it."

"He created men to mutually assist and love each other, and to arrive at happiness by the path of virtue. It is He who placed remorse and fear in the breast of the triumphant oppressor, and calm and pride in the heart of the innocent oppressed. It is He who forces the just man to hate the wicked, and the wicked to respect the just man. It is He who adorned the face of beauty with modesty, so as to make it even more beautiful. It is He who makes maternal entrails palpitate with tenderness and joy. It is He who bathes with delicious tears the eyes of a son pressed against his mother's breast. It is He who silences the most imperious and tender passions before the sublime love of the fatherland. It is He who covered nature with charms, riches and majesty. All that is good is His work, or is Him. Evil belongs to the depraved man who oppresses or allows his like to be oppressed. The author of nature ties together all mortals in an immense chain of love and felicity."

Generally speaking, the cult of the Supreme Being was enthusiastically received in most regions of France. The French people were tired of the civil war and eager to be reconciled under the auspices of God. Unfortunately, two days later, the Law of the "22 Prairial" (June 10, 1794) accelerated the trials of the suspects of conspiracy against the Republic, and opened the brief period of what will be called the Great Terror.

Robespierre's religious policy weighed heavily on the motivations of the Thermidorians' plot against him. They accused him of aspiring to the office of Grand Pontiff.

On the day before his death (July 28, 1794), at age 36, Robespierre declared :

"O Frenchmen! O my countrymen! Let not your enemies, with their desolating doctrines, degrade your souls, and enervate your virtues! No, Chaumette, no! Death is not 'an eternal sleep!' Citizens! Erase from the tomb that motto, engraved by sacrilegious hands, which spreads over all nature a funereal crape, takes from oppressed innocence its support, and affronts the beneficent dispensation of death! Inscribe rather thereon these words: 'Death is the commencement of immortality!'"

Laurent Guyénot, Ph.D., has recently edited some of his Unz Review articles in book form, under the title Our God is Your God Too, But He Has Chosen Us: Essays on Jewish Power . He is also the author of From Yahweh to Zion: Jealous God, Chosen People, Promised Land Clash of Civilizations , 2018, and JFK-9/11: 50 years of Deep State , Progressive Press, 2014.

Notes

[1] Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin, 2006, p. 51.

[2] Jean-Clément Martin, Robespierre, la fabrication d'un monstre, Perrin, 2016. Other recent French historians who have drawn a rather positive image of Robespierre include Jean-Philippe Domecq, Robespierre, dernier temps , Folio/Histoire, 2011 and Cécile Obligi, Robespierre. La probité révoltante, Belin, 2012.

[3] Jean-Philippe Domecq, Robespierre, dernier temps , Folio/Histoire, 2011, p. 27-30

[4] My presentation owes a lot to Henri Guillemin, Robespierre, Politique et mystique, Seuil, 1987.

[5] Quoted in Ernst Kantorowicz, L'empereur Frédéric II , Gallimard, 1987 (1 st German ed. 1927), pp. 451-452.

[6] Jerry Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo, Oxford UP, 2010, pp. 66-67.

[7] Quoted in Jan Assmann, Religio Duplex: How the Enlightenment Reinvented Egyptian Religion, Polity Press, 2014, p. 59.

[8] Albert Lantoine, Un précurseur de la franc-maçonnerie. John Toland (1670–1722) , suivi de la traduction française du Pantheisticon de John Toland, Éditions E. Nourry, 1927.

[9] Auguste Valmorel, Œuvres de Robespierre, 1867 (sur fr.wikisource.org), p. 71.

[10] Henri Guillemin, Robespierre, Politique et mystique, Seuil, 1987, p. 351.

[11] A translation of this speech can be found in P. H. Beik (eds), The French Revolution: The Documentary History of Western Civilization. Palgrave Macmillan, 1970, but I have translated directly from the French.


gsjackson , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 4:47 am GMT

Rurik, call your office. The other day when you got schooled (along with me) by a Frenchman on the French Revolution, you tried to grasp on to a last punitive straw -- well, maybe Robespierre at least deserved the blade. As if on cue, LG here with more schooling.
obwandiyag , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 4:56 am GMT
Guillotines and our owners go together like a horse and carriage.
AnonStarter , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 4:59 am GMT
Thank you for providing further insight into the religious sentiment of Robespierre.

While the American Constitution itself does not include explicit mention of God, every U.S. State Constitution certainly does .

"It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned."

In any event, better not to pretend to know.

There is much to be said for religious tradition in which humility before God prevents one from assuming his salvation is assured. Such a disposition facilitates dealing humanely and equitably with others, even those outside his own faith community.

Reg Cæsar , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 5:17 am GMT

Rousseau

One of the (many) surprising revelations in Pamela Druckerman's Bringing Up Bébé is that of French parents and educators drawing quite conservative views and practices from Rousseau. To us Anglo-Saxons, our disagreements about the man are over whether his radicalism is good or bad, not whether it exists at all.

And what does the dogma of original sin have to do with the good of civil society?

Just about everything. It's probably the most useful of the Christian doctrines to outsiders.

I knew a Midwestern Lutheran woman who spent decades teaching in the scruffier public schools of Los Angeles County, which suffered from high turnover in staff. Though of Scandinavian background and quite progressive on most things, this lady insisted that the single most reliable indicator that a teacher would survive in the blackboard jungle was a strong belief in original sin. One is prepared for the worst.

anon [359] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 5:17 am GMT
Another excellent essay by M. Guyenot. I recommend his From Yahweh to Zionism to all.

" I believe that modern atheism is, to a great extent, a reaction to the disgusting character presented as "God" in the Old Testament."

Indeed. George Bernard Shaw observed this in the Preface to his Back to Methuselah. Darwinism conquered the popular mind, not just biologists, because the people sought relief from the constant surveillance of the Calvinist God. It was only later -- too late -- when they discovered what else they had thrown away. Hence Shaw and Bergson's "Vitalism" and later "Intelligent Design."

The attempt to navigate between Biblical religion and atheistic Science reminds me of the suggestion by religious scholar Arthur Versluis and others that there is a third path -- Hermeticism -- that crops up periodically in the Western tradition -- basing belief in God, immortality and higher dimensions not in Hebrew fairy tales, nor limiting experience to the level of everyday materialism.

Change that Matters , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 7:26 am GMT
I enjoyed this very much. Thank you.
Ghali , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 8:19 am GMT
There is something unique about the French. They love to exaggerate (always in a positive way) their bloody and criminal history. Robespierre was a terrorist.
Global Navigator , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 9:13 am GMT
Hello Laurent,
Very much appreciated your article and your other articles . And thank you for mentioning my movie: Expelled. I was one of the Producers. We certainly appreciated Ben's contribution
brabantian , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 10:01 am GMT
Some nice historical work from Dr Laurent Guyénot above

Quite right too to denounce the Abrahamic 'God' as un ugly, terrorising, in fact demonic figure 'eternal torture hell' is one of the most evil notions ever invented

And tho we all need spirituality – having a 'god-shaped hole' otherwise in our lives

What needs to be understood is that Deism-type views are not sustainable, not genuinely transmissable to succeeding generations

Note that all these deists, essentially exist in a one-generation-only space of rejecting their childhood religion, intellectualising a less brutal form of it but then it fades away, there are few adherents which continue only a stream of similar people, rejecting their childhood religion and staying in the deist or unitarian half-way house for only their own lives

Faith cannot thrive without ritual, ceremony, practice in fact more important than ideas

E.g., Japan is full of shinto – buddhist rituals, lovingly maintained it is not an issue whether one truly 'believes' in the goddesses and gods etc the practices yet sustain for thousands of years

Deism fades and becomes dusty books on the shelf

Jewish writer Marcus Eli Ravage said the biggest crime of Jews was wiping out local indigenous pagan religions, replacing them with Christian and Islamic i.e. judaic fabrications, and supplanting paganism with Jewish lore in its place, shoving Jewish tales into our brains

But paganism in the west is also a sorry-ass affair, as far as we know, with disgusting animal sacrifices etc, and big deficiencies in thought and practice

The unique thing from ancient India, is the truly unique wonderful yoga meditation etc traditions offering direct experience of the divine, spiritual ecstasies accessible at almost any time for those of us who enter into these realms

In the West, the south and east asian traditions have slight echoes in stoicism, but in general we are missing something precious, however deep we dig into what is left of paganism that was not burned by the abrahamic fanatics

Ancient India's most beloved story, the Bhagavad-Gita, in 10 minutes – God stops time itself, to explain to a troubled warrior what life is all about 'Whoever thinks he can truly kill, or be killed, is under an illusion – no one truly dies the divine is already within you there are many paths to more fully re-join with that divinity the question now is just what is the right course, what is your duty So be brave, and Fight! Have no fear '

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CJ205esn7qE?feature=oembed

Anonymous [661] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 11:06 am GMT
I found this article quite interesting. The book never seems to be closed on Robespierre and Rousseau, and for good reason, as the clash of ideas presented here continues to this day.
mcohen , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 11:24 am GMT
Is that so .did he say that.you mean like human sacrifice to the corn god.atzec relegion was bad for the heart.on the other hand a little african vodoo is a danger to the health of chickens in general.

More squat than squawk

"Jewish writer Marcus Eli Ravage said the biggest crime of Jews was wiping out local indigenous pagan religions, replacing them with Christian and Islamic i.e. judaic fabrications, and supplanting paganism with Jewish lore in its place, shoving Jewish tales into our brains"

It was a good article otherwise.

gotmituns , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 11:58 am GMT
I have nothing against god. I just think my ancestors in those dark forests of northern Europe shouldn't have been burdened with Christianity.
Jake , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 12:37 pm GMT
@gsjackson LG is just another old Revolutionary whose ideas always lead to some form of The Terror. He is no better than those Russians who felt that if only they removed the Tsar, and rejected a Constitutional monarch, that fairness would reign.

Robespierre may not have been quite as monstrous as those who took him down, but he was nonetheless a monster whose works served Satan.

It is either Christ and Christendom or some form of revolutionary chaos. If Russia is moving toward reviving Christendom, then Russia will save the civilization. If Russia is moving to promote more gnosticism, more hermeticism, more freemason tolerance of anything that claims some nebulous faith in some type creator, then Russia promotes what is necessary for the Hell hole that devours us today.

Clyde Wilson , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 12:38 pm GMT
The Confederate States constitution includes God in the preamble
Jake , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 12:43 pm GMT
@Ghali French revolutionaries who wish to pretend that they their favorite revolutionary butchers were actually good guys love to praise French revolution.

Either France begins to recreate Christendom and become once again Eldest Daughter of the Church, or France will die a suicide.

The universalist unitarians that Guyenot lauds who then rule what once was France will be Mohammedan, and their bankers will be Jewish.

Seraphim , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 12:52 pm GMT
Robespierre 'reluctantly' joining the 'Comité de salut public'? He was the first to propose the establishment of a 'Revolutionary Tribunal that had to deal with the "traitors" and "enemies of the people" in August 1792. The Tribunal was re-established by Danton and Robespierre in October 1793 and Robespierre was its principal purveyor. He was the father of 'La Terreur'. The imposition of his ridiculous 'Cult of the Supreme Being' coincides with the peak of Terror (when he was personally responsible for nearly 800 executions a month) and the reason of his demise. People did not appreciate it and Robespierre's answer was to draft a new list of public enemies who would be sent before the tribunal and executed and passing the infamous Law of 22 Prairial. That was too much even for the other revolutionary criminals.
In essence he was as anti-Christian as his mentors Rousseau, Voltaire, as all the sacred monsters of the 'Enlightnment' and his enemies the atheists. He was really the 'Executioner of the Vendee'. You won't expect (I hope) anyone to take someone like Melenchon seriously.
Was he a mason? Maybe not, with a 'party card', so to speak, but he wallowed in the Masonic cesspool that engulfed France in the 18th century. His grand father was a mason ("his father, who died in Germany, was of English origin; this may explain the shade of Puritanism in his character", if you believe Lamartine). There is little doubt that he met Adam Weishaupt, therefore an 'Illuminatus' and a fanatical one at that.
Maybe he was a tragic figure, "overwhelmed by a political blindness that bordered on the pathetic or madness, he refused to understand that he lived in a time other than that of the Roman Republic", but no less sinister ('There was softness, but of a sinister character', again if you believe Lamartine). An "autistic" that drifted slowly but surely towards the "crime against humanity" that he would have surely committed if the technical resources of the 18th century had allowed mass exterminations"(Joël Schmidt, Robespierre, 2011, p. 229-230).
anon [358] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 12:52 pm GMT

Therefore, there is no reason to consider that, in Robespierre's speeches, "Supreme Being" meant anything else than God.

The fact remains he did not simply use the word "God". The French language does have a word for 'it'. From a theological point of view, he is also asserting a 'continum' of "being" with a "supreme" being on the tippy top of the ("not masonic!!!!") pyramid.

Mick Jagger gathers no mosque , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 1:09 pm GMT
What's a soul? Do animals have one?

That which is created by God and is the animating principle of
Men
Animals
Vegetables

No, Robespierre did not have the same idea of God as did the Faithful but this incessant attempt to rewrite history is not surprising but it should be noted that what it really is is projection by an atheist author who is always searching for "proof" that will justify his refusal to accept God as He revealed Himself to us.

Said otherwise, he has an endless series of authorities which he has replaced God with

Now he certainly is not fooling those have the Faith once delivered and I doubt he has fooled himself, which is why he is always rabbiting on about this bll shite

Saggy , says: Website Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 1:22 pm GMT
While the article's criticisms of dogmatic religion are valid, the notion of a non-dogmatic 'supreme being' and the rest is pure malarkey, to wit .

The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary. The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws:

Here is the reality, if there is a 'God' or 'supreme being' he is murderous and wicked beyond belief, as he/she/it has created a world populated by creatures that survive by eating each other, literally. We live in a sort of hell, and the fact that we have tried to create a world based on kindness and justice is a tribute to the human race, and certainly not to any supreme being.

RVBlake , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 1:25 pm GMT
Fascinating article, Monsieur.
Athletic and Whitesplosive , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 1:32 pm GMT
He shared the primary trait of atheism (as does the author of this piece seemingly), which is a revulsion towards the concept of personal moral duties and judgment. They want an all-powerful being to relieve them of their existential angst (for hardcore atheists, "reason" and "progress" fill this role), but one that also doesn't particularly care for how his creation operates and isn't judgmental, therefore all things which the atheist can rationalize as 'harmless' are permitted (sexual perversion, homosexuality, usury, occassionally murdering political opponents, and of course perverting worship of the almighty toward the whims of the state). It's not disgust with God in the old testament which leads to criticism, it's the atheist's own bad character which leads them to soothe their conscience with a bad-faith criticism of scripture (this libel is of course both faulty of content and circular, in that Christian morals are the basis of the criticism which flow from the same God they supposedly criticize).

The eternally pathetic Dawkins says that from his misreading of scripture he finds Yahweh a racist, misogynistic homophobe. What else need be said in support of Yahweh's good character? In the western world, these are the words that professional mediocrities like Dawkins use to describe anyone of any moral worth at all.

Moi , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 1:36 pm GMT
@brabantian Nonsense!
Athletic and Whitesplosive , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 1:37 pm GMT
@Saggy So sayeth the eternal mediocrity. Just because you're a loser, that doesn't make the world hell, there's still time to reform.

And I would take some small effort to address your idiot logic, but bad faith arguments aren't worthy of serious response.

Moi , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 1:40 pm GMT
@Jake No such person as a Mohammedan.
Mick Jagger gathers no mosque , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 1:53 pm GMT
@Clyde Wilson Dear Mr. Wilson. "Hilary is a museum quality Yankee?"

Are you the author of that great quote and numerous books and articles?

If you are, God Bless you Sir. I have read your work for a LONG time at Chronicles, in books, at The Abbeyville Institute etc.

You are national treasure and it is a crime against culture that you are not prompted as are the cultural cranks and commie creeps most American get their ideas from.

anon [358] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 2:04 pm GMT
@Mick Jagger gathers no mosque

this incessant attempt to rewrite history

We disagree on this. IMHO the author is ' writing ' history. Here is trying to whitewash the fact that "Orthodox Christian" Putin is pushing the "Supreme Being" line (even though all major recognized religions in Russia in fact call 'it' God), lest the captive humanity analysing the entrails of the ruling classes' maneuvers catch a hint of the unity of ideological purpose of the ruling classes worldwide .

Digital Samizdat , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 2:49 pm GMT
Another ringer from Laurent!

A fascinating take on Robespierre. I, too, was always taught that he was some kind of Mason whose 'Supreme Being' was just some kind of personification of Cartesian reason. But if your account of his beliefs here is accurate, then I would have to say he was a much more substantial figure than I initially suspected.

One thing that really shines through in your essay is how very patriotic Robespierre was. I daresay, had the Papacy been French, he might well have remained a traditional Catholic!

"The Thermidorians -- thus have Robespierre's conquerors and successors been dubbed -- sought not only to justify their coup d'état of July 1794 (the month of Thermidor in the revolutionary calendar) but to evade the opprobrium they shared with Robespierre and his comrades for deeds done during the agonizing crisis the previous year, during the Terror. The vengeful malice of the Thermidorians was partly successful: their caricature of Robespierre has proved durable."

Very much like what Krushchev and, in their own way, the Trotskyites did to Stalin after his death as well. And of course, virtually everyone's still doing it to Hitler.

Agent76 , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 3:10 pm GMT
Feb 2, 2020 Head Of The Russian Orthodox Church Proposes To Mention GOD in New Constitution!

He thinks the mention would be appreciated by all faiths alike.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/qnVVJHFyUHc?feature=oembed

Lockean Proviso , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 3:23 pm GMT
@brabantian

'eternal torture hell' is one of the most evil notions ever invented

It was invented by the Catholic church. Fortunately, thanks to Reformation's products of literacy for us rabble, bibles in the vernacular languages, and individual free will, we can see the lies of the Great Whore for ourselves.

"The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Ezekiel 18:20

As for God in the constitution, it's the thin end of the wedge towards theocracy- a goal that the Vatican has been sharpening its knives for for a long time. The papacy abhors separation of church and state.

Alden , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 3:35 pm GMT
@Jake Having had easy access to 3 of the greatest university libraries in the USA and being able to read French pretty well, I'm an amateur historian very familiar with the despicable land and property grab known as the French Revolution.

I'm not going to bother to refute this author's outright lies. Too much trouble and can't be bothered to cite the books, except for Abbe Burrel's , Simon Schema's somebody last name Batz, and Renee Boudereau's memoirs.

If you live in Los Angeles and can read French, you can go to the rare book section of Loyola university library in Westchester near the airport and read Renee Boudereau's memoirs. It's easy to read, short simple factual sentences like Camus.

BTW, it was a death penalty offense just to be a catholic priest or nun in France during the worst of the French Revolution. Not spying for England, not active in the counter revolution, not even saying mass, marrying and baptizing, just being a catholic priest or nun.

Little known fact. The Devil's Island penal colony was created by the French revolutionaries for catholic priests. The sight of gray haired parish priests and nuns who ran the local hospital before the revolutionaries closed it lined up to be guillotined caused counter revolutionary sentiment.

So the less radical revolutionaries created the penal colonies of Devil's Island as a way to get rid of the priests without the public spectacle of beheading the headmaster of the local high schools , and hospital administrators.

Confiscation of church property meant closing every hospital, orphanage, mental health asylum and most of the schools in France for years. Storming of the Bastille to " free" the prisoners. 7 prisoners , everyone a severely sick dangerous mental patient sent there because all the insane asylums, all of which were run by the church were closed.

Closing the high schools really pissed off the upper bourgeoisie because that's where their sons and daughters learned the skills needed to remain in the upper bourgeoisie

What a crock of lies and propaganda.

Who gives a rat's ass about some homocidal maniac's constitution that was only in effect for a few months anyway before his government was overthrown with another round of executions?

I once counted the number of governments France had between 1789 and 1816. I think maybe 8 different forms of government.

If the rest of this writer's articles are as false wrong and just plain ignorant as this one, nothing he writes is to be believed.

At least it's not some kind of quadruple exponent new math about the Chinese Plague killing off half the population of the earth.

Anon [804] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 3:59 pm GMT
So Robespierre was fighting against the atheists. Good. And his "Etre Supreme" wasn't another Freemason humanism. Fine.
But unlike Putin who only wants to enshrine the Russians "faith in god" in the constitution, Robespierre wanted "the priests who submitted to the pope" to take an oath on the Civil Constitution. That was a very bad idea, even if the pope was a foreigner. Putin doesn't try to officially mix in the church's business, he just want to make sure the atheists/masonics zionists/communists from the West won't be allowed to take power again in Russia. States shouldn't officially pretend to mix in church's organization.
And while Robespierre didn't try to repel the official masonic "Droits de l'homme" religion which teaches that human beings are God, Putin is just doing it by officially putting God above men, and he is damn right.
Montefrío , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 4:11 pm GMT
The West and its metaphysically impoverished societies would do well to consider Zen (Chán) , an atheistic philosophy that is transcendent and moral without concepts of eternal reward or punishment, without scriptures, without a priestly caste, without "worship". It simply states that the simultaneity between mind and Mind is all that IS . Once this is internalized, one continues daily life as before, but with a deeper understanding of it without anxiety, without unbalanced desires but with with a sense of wonder at all that unfolds in the course of time, including one's own death, the time of transition.

Living in the West, as I do, I see no need to criticize the dominant religious beliefs however incomprehensible I might find them. I live in what once was Christendom, honoring and respecting the moral and ethical beliefs and customs of these societies, now sickeningly secularized to the degree that natural law is openly and approvingly flouted. The metaphysics of Zen is quite simple in theory, but requires self-discipline to put into practice. Self-discipline seems to be something the consumerist societies of the West have forgotten.

Ship Track , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 4:18 pm GMT
@Seraphim

"There is little doubt that he met Adam Weishaupt, therefore an 'Illuminatus' and a fanatical one at that."

All this blather about "supreme being" does sound awfully Masonic, but I believe far more in judging people by their actions than by their words, likely because of numerous painful experiences dealing with lawyers and especially jewish lawyers who will say anything they think can get away with.

romar , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 4:30 pm GMT
Thanks for this very interesting discussion.
As for this comment "More surprisingly, Communist Party boss Gennady Zyuganov raises no objection", the late Yvan Blot offered a fascinating tableau of Zyuganov the communist and man of faith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-mcp3WF-Cg&list=PL8nCjSDFd70kS8t1W5pNRoiIgPal-lyc0&index=2&t=0s – from 51:30.
Elmer's Washable School Glue , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 4:32 pm GMT
@Lockean Proviso

As for God in the constitution, it's the thin end of the wedge towards theocracy- a goal that the Vatican has been sharpening its knives for for a long time. The papacy abhors separation of church and state.

Imagine unironically believing "seperation of church and state" is a real thing. An official religion is a prerequisite for the existence of governmnt.

Fortunately, thanks to Reformation's products of literacy for us rabble, bibles in the vernacular languages, and individual free will, we can see the lies of the Great Whore for ourselves.

Do you know literally anything about theology? Orthodox and Catholic christians believe in the concept free will, it is Protestants (not all sects but some) that reject it. Get a clue.

Saggy , says: Website Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 4:54 pm GMT
There is no question that Putin has a very cozy relationship with Chabad, For a different perspective of Putin's changes to the Russian Constitution see
PUTIN TO ADD NOAHIDE LAW TO RUSSIAN CONSTITUTION
https://www.bitchute.com/video/B8MQ4lHsxwg/
Dumb4asterisks , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 4:59 pm GMT
My terribly simplistic understanding of Laurent's rather long and certainly scholarly exposition, is that he feels that for the sake of science and the adults we can declare Santa dead, but please not make any attempt upon His life for the sake of the children and Christmas.
Robjil , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 5:06 pm GMT
@Lockean Proviso In ancient Egypt, people who did bad deeds were punished in the afterlife. A deceased person, goes before a scale of justice. His/her heart is weighed against a feather. He/she is asked 42 divine principles. If the deceased heart weights too much with too many bad deeds, it is devoured by Ammit.

The idea of punishment for bad deeds is a very old concept for humanity. It needs to come back for the warmongering neocons and regime changers of our day.

Here is how the deceased goes to the scale of justice. The 42 divine principles, good deeds, decides the deceased's fate.

http://maatlaws.blogspot.com/

In Spellbook/Chapter 30B of The Papyrus of Ani titled "Chapter for Not Letting Ani's Heart Create Opposition Against Him, in the Gods' Domain," we find a petitioner of ma'at (justice/truth) before the scales of justice (iconography ma'at/goddess maat). Anubis, the setter of the scales, has placed the petitioner's heart-soul (Ka) on one side of the scale, its counter-weight is the feather of truth (Shu). The Spellbook/Chapter for Not Letting Ani's Heart Create Opposition Against Him in the Gods' Domain is where the petitioner must pronounce, and his/her weighted heart/soul (Ka) will reveal the truth or non-truth of each affirmative of the 42 pronouncements.

Here is Ammit who devours the doers of bad deeds.

http://www.kemet.org/taxonomy/term/128

(Am-mut) – "Dead-Swallower" Stationed just to the side of the scales in the Hall of Double Truth [see Ma'at], Ammit's function is to await the postmortem judgment of a soul (envisioned as the deceased's heart being weighed on a scale against the feather of Ma'at) and then, if the soul fails the test, Ammit snatches up the heart and devours it, causing the soul to cease to exist. As the ultimate punishment of the wicked, Ammit is depicted as a hideous composite of the animals Kemet's people feared most: crocodile snout and head, feline claws and front, and a hippopotamus body and back legs. Ammit is also sometimes referred to as "Great of Death," and papyri depict Her patiently watching Yinepu weighing a man's heart against the feather of Ma'at.

Ram , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT
Good for Russia.
MikeatMikedotMike , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 5:49 pm GMT
This has been a very refreshing article for several reasons that should be obvious. I look forward to reading more of this kind in the future.

"If voted in the upcoming referendum, it would consecrate the civilizational schism that is likely to define the history of our civilization in the coming century: in the West, the post-modernist project of liberating man from his human nature, to produce an uprooted, transgendered, upgraded man, Homo Deus. In the East, the choice of honoring and protecting our spiritual and anthropological roots, to produce the genuine thing: Mars and Venus, virile men and feminine women grateful to their Creator for each other, reveling in their fertile complementarity."

I'm not sure I've read a more succinct summary of what is happening to our civilization.

DM , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 5:54 pm GMT
@Lockean Proviso Rev 20:11-15

Hell is hardly an invention of the Catholic Church – it is found in King James, Douay and Orthodox Bibles:

"And I saw a great white throne and one sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away: and there was no place found for them And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne. And the books were opened: and another book was opened, which was the book of life. And the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it: and death and hell gave up their dead that were in them. And they were judged, every one according to their works. And hell and death were cast into the pool of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the pool of fire.

Robjil , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 5:58 pm GMT
@Saggy It is not as "cozy" as in the US congress and in the ZUS empire. Chabbad does not have as much "fun" in Russia as in the ZUS empire.

https://www.jta.org/2018/02/01/global/u-s-born-rabbi-called-extremist-kicked-out-of-russia

For the eighth time over the past decade, Russian authorities told a foreign Chabad rabbi living in Russia to leave the country.

Josef Marozof, a New York native who began working 12 years ago for Chabad in the city of Ulyanovsk, 400 miles east of Moscow, was ordered earlier this week to leave because the FSB security service said he had been involved in unspecified "extremist behavior."

Alden , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 6:05 pm GMT
Two old French proverbs are applicable here.

First, there are 3 sides to every story, his, hers and the truth.

Second, don't listen to what he says, watch what he does.

Castro, Lyndon Johnson, Hildabeast, the Civil Rights For all but Whites laws, , Mao, Lenin Stalin Trotsky, Pelosi, every liberal do gooder idealist like Robespierre and the rest talk do gooderism while we watch them looting, confiscating and slaughtering.

Author reminds me of all the dumb naive liberal American and European soi disant idiot intellectual visionary do gooders who visited Russia during the 1939s and came back with glowing reports of the wonderful society of the future.

John Howard , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 6:32 pm GMT
@Athletic and Whitesplosive Athletic and Whitesplosive wrote the following falsehood:

" atheism , which is a revulsion towards the concept of personal moral duties and judgment."

That is exactly the opposite of the truth. For openers, atheisim is merely the lack of a particular superstition. Secondly, most atheists believe that morality and truth are so important that they deserve a better foundation than a bunch of ancient Jewish superstitions taken on faith.

Those old superstitions were designed to promote faith (believe what you are told to believe) and self-sacrifice (don't defend yourself) because they make people easier to rob and rule.

Anon [237] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 6:35 pm GMT
The only thing that enshrining a vague-God in the constitution would accomplish is the Tribe eventually twisting the meaning to meet the definition and needs of whatever demon they worship.

Propose to enshrine the specific Indo-European God in Constitutions and then we have something to talk about.

Alden , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 6:45 pm GMT
@Anon The civil constitution Robespierre demanded priests take an oath to with the death penalty if they didn't lasted less than a year. The author is writing about a constitution that lasted less than a year.

I think it was 6 governments between 1789 and 1800 and more after 1800 each with its own written or implied constitution.

Why not just write an article that it's good the new Russian constitution will mention God?

Instead of bringing in this ridiculous conventional version of the French Revolution? I assume he's trying to impress us with his scholarly knowledge, but he sure hasn't impressed me with his fantasies about Robespierre.

Reg Cæsar , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 6:46 pm GMT
@Moi

No such person as a Mohammedan.

That's like saying there is no such person as a Lutheran, or a Calvinist, or a Maoist. A Mohammedan has much in common with all three. If anything, his prophet was a blend of all three founders, with a fair bit of Joseph Smith, Napoleon, and Hitler to boot.

Reg Cæsar , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 6:52 pm GMT
@Mick Jagger gathers no mosque

"Hilary is a museum quality Yankee?"

If you mean Hillary, she has no more Yankee blood than does Donald Trump, and less than Obama's 1%. She also supports income taxation and the New Deal. (As does much of the so-called "alt-right.") No Yankee, she.

Eating pie for breakfast isn't enough.

Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 7:01 pm GMT
Bring back the old pagan gods.
Dennis Dale , says: Website Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 7:18 pm GMT

I can't wait for the day when Intelligent Design research will be funded in Russian universities, rather than censored as it is in the U.S. (watch Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligent Allowed).

I was enjoying the walk you were leading me on until I stepped in this dog shit. I'm sure the rest of the journey was fascinating. But I avoid crazy as a rule.

S , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 8:18 pm GMT
@Alden The one's who managed to make their way back were the lucky ones. Thousands didn't, either being executed, or Gulaged, where they indeed 'found work', but, not of the type they were counting on.

The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia by Tim Tzouliadis is a 2008 book published by Penguin Books. It tells the story of thousands of Americans who immigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. The vast majority of these Americans were executed or sent to the Gulag by Joseph Stalin's government.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forsaken:_An_American_Tragedy_in_Stalin's_Russia

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3171446-the-forsaken

Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 8:29 pm GMT
@Dennis Dale I agree. If people want to dabble in Intelligent Design, fine. But it has no place in real science.
Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 8:31 pm GMT
What does it matter what Robespierre thought or whether he was good or bad?

Why should our values be a matter of revering certain individuals? That's cult of personality, or idolatry.

Ship Track , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 9:01 pm GMT
In a related revisionist hangout, Robert Sepehr has long been exposing ancient masonic secrets, his videos just keep getting better. here is his channel.

A recent video is Who created the Bible

Hibernian , says: Show Comment April 6, 2020 at 9:10 pm GMT
@John Howard Those superstitions sustained many generations through many trials and tribulations. Science, industry, and affluence tempt people to believe they don't need God, then in time of trouble they rediscover Him.
Current Commenter

[Apr 05, 2020] Jimmy Dore Challenges Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Regarding Her Praising the Virtue of US Military Service by Adam Dick

Apr 02, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org
In August and November I wrote about the strangeness of United States House of Representatives member and then 2020 Democratic presidential nomination candidate Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) regularly playing up her 16-plus years and counting employment in the United States military, and other Americans' service in the US military as well, as a virtue while she at the same time makes opposing major actions of that military, including the carrying out of certain wars, a focus of her congressional work and campaign.

Jimmy Dore, who has similar concerns about Gabbard's rhetoric promoting the virtue of service in the US military, asked Gabbard about this in an interview with Gabbard at his The Jimmy Dore Show in March. In the interview focused largely on Gabbard's announcing , upon her dropping out of the Democratic presidential nomination race, that she is supporting Joe Biden for president, Dore asked several tough questions in an effort to induce Gabbard to address the matter directly. Here is the initial exchange between Dore and Gabbard on the topic, with Dore twice attempting to elicit a clear explanation from Gabbard:

DORE: So, I just wanted to talk with you a little bit more about antiwar veterans. So, a lot of veterans and antiwar veterans watch this show, and I meet them when we do events and everything. And they wanted me to ask you this. They say a lot of antiwar veterans say they are not proud to have served, that they are sorry to have taken part, and they offer apology to the countries that they occupied and the people that are living there, and that participating in these wars is only a service to weapons manufacturers and war profiteers. So, what do you say to that?

GABBARD: I respect every veteran -- those who make those statements and those who express their pride in serving our country. I am personally I am proud to wear this country's uniform. I am grateful for the privilege of being able to serve. And it is those experiences that I have had throughout my service that have motivated me to dedicate all of my energy towards bringing about the political change in our leadership that actually honors the great sacrifice, selflessness, and courage that our men and women in uniform and that our veterans lay on the line. I think that it's important to draw that line of distinction between those who serve and wear the uniform and who salute the flag versus the politicians who are dishonoring that service through the policies that they are advocating for.

DORE: So, I mean it seems to me that soldiers are not fighting for the safety and security of this country when they go over to places like Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan. They're actually achieving the opposite. even in fighting the War on Terror, where it's observed that for every civilian killed we create two more jihadis. And so, I mean, it just seems, given your piercing criticisms of these corporate interventions, can you square that circle for me -- how you can be proud to serve in things that you call out for being wrong?

GABBARD: I'm proud to serve our country. I am angered by the politicians who needlessly send our troops into harms way to fight in wars that don't make us any safer. There are missions that our troops are sent on to go and defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda that are focused on making the American people safe, and those are missions that should continue to defeat that threat that is posed to our national security and foreign policy. But, you're right, there are a lot of missions in whether it's continued deployments in Afghanistan without any clear objective or any clear goal that actually serves our country's security interests or, you know, regime change wars like we've in Iraq and Syria and Libya and other countries that actually undermine our national security interests. So, there is a difference and a distinction, especially when you know, when you understand that it's the politicians who are making these decisions and it's why I'm focusing my efforts on bringing about that change there to truly honor them and their service.

Later in the interview, Dore returned to the topic, again seeking to obtain from Gabbard a coherent explanation while presenting his concern that Gabbard's promotion of the virtue of being in the US military can encourage other people to choose employment in the US government's war machine:
DORE: So, I just have one more question. So, a couple months ago there's these kids who live across the street from me. I don't know how, they're like 16 through 19, and they're out washing their car, and then three recruiters jumped out of their car and started recruiting them to go fight in these bogus wars. And, so, Stef and I went out, and we started talking to the kids, and we said: "You don't have to listen to these guys; tell these guys to get lost." And, so, it made me think, you know, everything that you touch you make it a little more attractive, so, are you worried that people are joining these bogus wars because you made joining a little more attractive?

GABBARD: No. I'm not. There's great honor in serving our country, and, whether you're a kid who's graduating high school or you're someone of any age and you make that decision to go and serve our country, no matter the political circumstances, that is a very rare and special thing. I also respect those who say, 'No, I won't join the military because I don't want to be in that position to have to go and fight in a war that a politician sends me to go and fight." And I respect people's decisions on both ends of the spectrum. But, there is no honor lost in those who make that decision, raising their right hand to say "I'm willing to lay my life down for my country and the safety and well-being of the American people." And that's a decision that's motivated by love.

Watch these exchanges between Dore and Gabbard, and the complete interview, here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Jka28F9ldBg

Good for Dore for trying three times in the interview to elicit from Gabbard a clear, logical answer about this important apparent contradiction at the heart of one of her major areas of focus in politics. All he received back was more of the same nonsense rhetoric Gabbard has been putting out for so long, the same rhetoric the logic of which Dore was challenging.

Luckily for Gabbard, few other people will broach the subject Dore broached. The social convention that everyone should thank people in the military for their service and shut up about any criticisms they may have about such service is so strong that few interviewers have the guts to question Gabbard about this elephant in the room.


Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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[Mar 28, 2020] Why You Should Never Watch RT -- Ever!

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... RT is more vocally in support of Russia than western media ..."
Mar 26, 2020 | russia-insider.com

As RT UK launches, attacks on the channel in the British media have stepped up

The latest is a piece by Mr. Cyril Waugh-Monger, a very important newspaper columnist for the NeoCon Daily, a patron of the Senator Joe McCarthy Appreciation Society and author of 'Why the Iraq War was a Brilliant Idea' and 'The Humanitarian Case for Bombing Syria.'

Dear socially inferior person reading this article. My name is Cyril Waugh-Monger (I'm called 'Mr Terribly Pompous Neo-Con' by my friends) and I'm here to tell you why on no account should you watch RT and why you should be making complaints to Ofcom (a British bureacracy which regulates TV) about this dreadful channel so that in the interests of 'free speech' and 'democracy' we can get it off air.

1. RT doesn't peddle Russophobia

Outrageously, RT doesn't compare Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler. It doesn't join in with the demonization of Russia and its leader. How can we have a channel which is watched by people in Britain, which doesn't do that? We neocons say that demonization of Russia and its leader is compulsory. How dare RT not do as we say!

RT is more vocally in support of Russia than western media
2. RT is sometimes rude to bankers

There's a man on RT called Max Keiser and he is often very rude to bankers. Why, he has even called for them to face the death penalty. Such disrespect to our financial elites is shocking and should not be allowed in a free society.

3. Its coverage of the MH17 crash

Shockingly, RT commentators didn't rush to blame Vladimir Putin for the air disaster within seconds of the news breaking. Some even said that we should wait for the forensic evidence before any statements apportioning guilt were made. Others said that we couldn't rule out that the plane was downed by an another aircraft. This failure to come and say loud and clear "Putin personally shot down the plane with a missile he made and fired with his own hands" within minutes of the crash is clear evidence of RT's bias and why it must be taken off the air.

4. RT's 'pundits' include people who aren't neocons and 'liberal interventionists'

This is truly scandalous: RT gives airtime to people who don't support the West's policy of endless war and who opposed airstrikes on Syria last year. Why, it's even broadcast interviews with the convener of the Stop the War coalition – and has a regular weekly show fronted by George Galloway! This is unconscionable. Only people who support Western foreign policy should be allowed to express their views on international affairs on television, not 'cranks' and 'fanatics' who oppose attacking a sovereign state in the Middle East on deceitful grounds every couple of years. Why, if RT had been around in 2003, it would no doubt have given airtime to anti-war 'conspiracy theorists' who would have told viewers that Iraq had no WMDs – and claimed, fantastically – that Bush and Blair were making it all up.

5. RT provides airtime to genuine socialists and genuine conservatives

This is really terrible: RT interviews people who oppose neo-liberalism and globalization, from both the left and the right. It's given the microphone to socialists, communists, greens, and 'extremists' on the right, like Ron Paul. These people should not be allowed to express their views on television; they are 'cranks' and should be totally marginalized. Only those who support the hegemonic consensus should be allowed on TV. It's very important that in order to protect free speech and democracy, alternative opinions are not heard.

6. RT pundits have 'extremist' links

I monitor the people who appear on RT very, very closely and I can tell you that there was once a case of an RT interviewee who had a link on his website to another website which had a link to another website which had a link to another website – which denied the Holocaust and said that little green men from Mars were ruling the US.

After considerable research, I also found that another RT pundit once attended a conference where a fellow invitee had once sat at a restaurant table, a few days after another person who had actually praised Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Josef Stalin in a magazine article published in North Korea in 1962.

7. RT is anti-semitic

Ok, I've got no evidence of this, but I'll bung it in anyway as it sounds good.

8. RT has broadcast documentaries on the wars in Yugoslavia which don't blame the Serbs for everything

This is totally unacceptable.

9. RT has had 'experts' on its programs who have made some very strong criticisms of Israel

This too is totally unacceptable. Anyone with a theory or definition that differs from Western minded politicians is demonized for voicing their opinion.

10. RT pundits have often ridiculed leading American policymakers

For instance, when the US Secretary of State John Kerry said that "you just don't in the 21st century" invade another country on "completely trumped up pretext," some people on RT had the audacity to say "What about Iraq?" This lack of respect towards a leading American politician is appalling, and in a free society ought not to be allowed. The correct procedure whenever a leading US political figure speaks is to tug one's forelock.

11. RT's coverage of the conflict in Syria

In 2011-13, we had so-called 'experts' on Syria telling us on RT that some of the freedom-fighting pro-democracy rebels were actually fanatical terrorists who were guilty of committing atrocities. This was obviously a clear lie. Islamist terrorists like ISIS have only been active in Syria since 2014 and of course, it's all the fault of President Assad and Russia.

12. RT interviews lots of people whose views I do not share

It ought not to be allowed! Aren't we supposed to live in a democracy?

13. The most important reason: RT is a threat

More and more people are watching it – which is why me and my little group of neocons and 'liberal interventionists' are so worried and stepping up our attacks on the station and denigrating those people who appear on it.

The next big war is going to be much harder for us to 'sell' to the plebs, because we are no longer in control of the narrative as we were in 2003, before the Iraq war. Oh, what happy days those were!

Don't watch RT because we really don't want you to 'question more.' We want you to question less. It's much easier for us that way.

[Mar 26, 2020] Why You Should Never Watch RT -- Ever!

Mar 26, 2020 | russia-insider.com

As RT UK launches, attacks on the channel in the British media have stepped up

The latest is a piece by Mr. Cyril Waugh-Monger, a very important newspaper columnist for the NeoCon Daily, a patron of the Senator Joe McCarthy Appreciation Society and author of 'Why the Iraq War was a Brilliant Idea' and 'The Humanitarian Case for Bombing Syria.'

Dear socially inferior person reading this article. My name is Cyril Waugh-Monger (I'm called 'Mr Terribly Pompous Neo-Con' by my friends) and I'm here to tell you why on no account should you watch RT and why you should be making complaints to Ofcom (a British bureacracy which regulates TV) about this dreadful channel so that in the interests of 'free speech' and 'democracy' we can get it off air.

1. RT doesn't peddle Russophobia

Outrageously, RT doesn't compare Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler. It doesn't join in with the demonization of Russia and its leader. How can we have a channel which is watched by people in Britain, which doesn't do that? We neocons say that demonization of Russia and its leader is compulsory. How dare RT not do as we say!

RT is more vocally in support of Russia than western media
2. RT is sometimes rude to bankers

There's a man on RT called Max Keiser and he is often very rude to bankers. Why, he has even called for them to face the death penalty. Such disrespect to our financial elites is shocking and should not be allowed in a free society.

Former CEO of HSX Holdings/Hollywood Stock Exchange and host of RT''s 'Keiser Report' Max Keiser
3. Its coverage of the MH17 crash

Shockingly, RT commentators didn't rush to blame Vladimir Putin for the air disaster within seconds of the news breaking. Some even said that we should wait for the forensic evidence before any statements apportioning guilt were made. Others said that we couldn't rule out that the plane was downed by an another aircraft. This failure to come and say loud and clear "Putin personally shot down the plane with a missile he made and fired with his own hands" within minutes of the crash is clear evidence of RT's bias and why it must be taken off the air.

Segment of the shot down plane
4. RT's 'pundits' include people who aren't neocons and 'liberal interventionists'

This is truly scandalous: RT gives airtime to people who don't support the West's policy of endless war and who opposed airstrikes on Syria last year. Why, it's even broadcast interviews with the convener of the Stop the War coalition – and has a regular weekly show fronted by George Galloway! This is unconscionable. Only people who support Western foreign policy should be allowed to express their views on international affairs on television, not 'cranks' and 'fanatics' who oppose attacking a sovereign state in the Middle East on deceitful grounds every couple of years. Why, if RT had been around in 2003, it would no doubt have given airtime to anti-war 'conspiracy theorists' who would have told viewers that Iraq had no WMDs – and claimed, fantastically – that Bush and Blair were making it all up.

British politician, broadcaster, and writer George Galloway often speaks out against western foreign policy
5. RT provides airtime to genuine socialists and genuine conservatives

This is really terrible: RT interviews people who oppose neo-liberalism and globalization, from both the left and the right. It's given the microphone to socialists, communists, greens, and 'extremists' on the right, like Ron Paul. These people should not be allowed to express their views on television; they are 'cranks' and should be totally marginalized. Only those who support the hegemonic consensus should be allowed on TV. It's very important that in order to protect free speech and democracy, alternative opinions are not heard.

Former Republican presidential candidate, Representative Ron Paul
6. RT pundits have 'extremist' links

I monitor the people who appear on RT very, very closely and I can tell you that there was once a case of an RT interviewee who had a link on his website to another website which had a link to another website which had a link to another website – which denied the Holocaust and said that little green men from Mars were ruling the US.

After considerable research, I also found that another RT pundit once attended a conference where a fellow invitee had once sat at a restaurant table, a few days after another person who had actually praised Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Josef Stalin in a magazine article published in North Korea in 1962.

7. RT is anti-semitic

Ok, I've got no evidence of this, but I'll bung it in anyway as it sounds good.

8. RT has broadcast documentaries on the wars in Yugoslavia which don't blame the Serbs for everything

This is totally unacceptable.

An elderly woman carries her belongings November 22 in Sarajevo's war shattered airport settlement. (Reuters)
9. RT has had 'experts' on its programs who have made some very strong criticisms of Israel

This too is totally unacceptable. Anyone with a theory or definition that differs from Western minded politicians is demonized for voicing their opinion.

Israel's annexed Golan Heights is hosting pop up hospitals to tend to ISIS fighters
10. RT pundits have often ridiculed leading American policymakers

For instance, when the US Secretary of State John Kerry said that "you just don't in the 21st century" invade another country on "completely trumped up pretext," some people on RT had the audacity to say "What about Iraq?" This lack of respect towards a leading American politician is appalling, and in a free society ought not to be allowed. The correct procedure whenever a leading US political figure speaks is to tug one's forelock.

11. RT's coverage of the conflict in Syria

In 2011-13, we had so-called 'experts' on Syria telling us on RT that some of the freedom-fighting pro-democracy rebels were actually fanatical terrorists who were guilty of committing atrocities. This was obviously a clear lie. Islamist terrorists like ISIS have only been active in Syria since 2014 and of course, it's all the fault of President Assad and Russia.

Intense shelling destroys buildings in the Damascus suburb of Jobar October 28
12. RT interviews lots of people whose views I do not share

It ought not to be allowed! Aren't we supposed to live in a democracy?

13. The most important reason: RT is a threat

More and more people are watching it – which is why me and my little group of neocons and 'liberal interventionists' are so worried and stepping up our attacks on the station and denigrating those people who appear on it.

The next big war is going to be much harder for us to 'sell' to the plebs, because we are no longer in control of the narrative as we were in 2003, before the Iraq war. Oh, what happy days those were!

Don't watch RT because we really don't want you to 'question more.' We want you to question less. It's much easier for us that way.


Source: RT

[Mar 24, 2020] Welcome to Sweatshop Amerika! by Mike Whitney

Mar 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media User Settings: Version? Social Media? Read Aloud w/ Show Word Counts No Video Autoplay No Infinite Scrolling
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Imagine if the congress approved a measure to form a public-private partnership between the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Can you imagine that?

Now imagine if a panicky and ill-informed Congress gave the Fed a blank check to bail out all of its crooked crony corporate and Wall Street friends, allowing the Fed to provide more than $4.5 trillion to underwater corporations that ripped off Mom and Pop investors by selling them bonds that were used to goose their stock prices so fatcat CEOs could make off like bandits. Imagine if all that red ink from private actors was piled onto the national debt pushing long-term interest rates into the stratosphere while crushing small businesses, households and ordinary working people.

Now try to imagine the impact this would have on the nation's future. Imagine if the Central Bank was given the green-light to devour the Treasury, control the country's "purse strings", and use nation's taxing authority to shore up its trillions in ultra-risky leveraged bets, its opaque financially-engineered ponzi-instruments, and its massive speculative debts that have gone pear-shaped leaving a gaping black hole on its balance sheet?

Well, you won't have to imagine this scenario for much longer, because the reality is nearly at hand. You see, the traitorous, dumbshit nincompoops in Congress are just a hairs-breadth away from abdicating congress's crucial power of the purse, which is not only their greatest strength, but also allows the congress to reign in abuses of executive power by controlling the flow of funding. The power of the purse is the supreme power of government which is why the founders entrusted it to the people's elected representatives in congress. Now these imbeciles are deciding whether to hand over that authority to a privately-owned banking cartel that has greatly expanded the chasm between rich and poor, incentivized destructive speculation on an industrial scale, and repeatedly inflated behemoth asset-price bubbles that have inevitably blown up sending stocks and the real economy into freefall. The idea of merging the Fed and the Treasury first appeared in its raw form in an article by former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen in the Financial Times. Here's a short excerpt from the piece:

"The Fed could ask Congress for the authority to buy limited amounts of investment-grade corporate debt The Fed's intervention could help restart that part of the corporate debt market, which is under significant stress. Such a programme would have to be carefully calibrated to minimize the credit risk taken by the Fed while still providing needed liquidity to an essential market." ( Financial Times )

The Fed is not allowed to buy corporate debt, because it is not within its mandate of "price stability and full employment". It's also not allowed to arbitrarily intervene in the markets to pick winners and losers, nor is it allowed to bailout poorly-managed crybaby corporations who were gaming the system to their own advantage when the whole deal blew up in their faces. That's their problem, not the Fed's and not the American taxpayer's.

But notice how Bernanke emphasizes how "Such a programme would have to be carefully calibrated to minimize the credit risk taken by the Fed". Why do you think he said that?

He said it because he anticipates an arrangement where the new Treasury-Fed combo could buy up to "$4.5 trillion of corporate debt" (according to Marketwatch and BofA). And the way this will work, is the Fed will select the bonds that will be purchased and the credit risk will be heaped onto the US Treasury. Apparently Bernanke and Yellen think this is a "fair" arrangement, but others might differ on that point.

Keep in mind, that in the last week alone, investors pulled a record $107 billion out of corporate bonds which is a market which has been in a deep-freeze for nearly a month. The only activity is the steady surge of redemptions by frantic investors who want to get their money back before the listing ship heads for Davey Jones locker. This is the market that Bernanke wants the American people to bail out mainly because he doesn't want to submerge the Fed's balance sheet in red ink. He wants to find a sucker who will take the loss instead. That's where Uncle Sam comes in, he's the target of this subterfuge. This same theme pops up in a piece in the Wall Street Journal. Check it out:

"At least Treasury has come around to realizing it needs a facility to provide liquidity for companies. But as we write this, Mr. Mnuchin was still insisting that Treasury have control of most of the money to be able to ladle out directly to companies it wants to help. This is a recipe for picking winners and losers, and thus for bitter political fights and months of ugly headlines charging favoritism. The far better answer is for Treasury to use money from Congress to replenish the Exchange Stabilization Fund to back the Fed in creating a facility or special-purpose vehicles under Section 13(3) to lend the money to all comers. "( "Leaderless on the Econom" , Wall Street Journal)

I can hardly believe the author is bold enough to say this right to our faces. Read it carefully: They are saying "We want your money, but not your advice. The Fed will choose who gets the cash and who doesn't. Just put your trillions on the counter and get the hell out."

Isn't that what they're saying? Of course it is. And the rest of the article is even more arrogant:

"The Fed can charge a non-concessionary rate, but the vehicles should be open to those who think they need the money, not merely to those Treasury decides are worthy." (Huh? So the Treasury should have no say so in who gets taxpayer money??) The looming liquidity crisis is simply too great for that kind of bureaucratic, politicized decision-making. (Wall Street Journal)

Get it? In other words, the folks at Treasury are just too stupid or too prejudiced to understand the subtleties of a bigass bailout like this. Is that arrogance or what?

This is the contempt these people have for you and me and everyone else who isn't a part of their elitist gaggle of reprobates. Here's a clip from another article at the WSJ that helps to show how the financial media is pushing this gigantic handout to corporate America:.

"The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and banking regulators deserve congratulations for their bold, necessary actions to provide liquidity to the U.S. financial system amid the coronavirus crisis. But more remains to be done. We thus recommend: (1) immediate congressional action . to authorize the Treasury to use the Exchange Stabilization Fund to guarantee prime money-market funds, (2) regulatory action to effect temporary reductions in bank capital and liquidity requirements (NOTE–So now the banks don't need to hold capital against their loans?) .. additional Fed lending to banks and nonbanks .(Note -by "nonbanks", does the author mean underwater hedge funds?)

We recommend that the Fed take further actions as lender of last resort. First, it should re-establish the Term Auction Facility, used in the 2008 crisis, allowing depository institutions to borrow against a broad range of collateral at an auction price (Note–They want to drop the requirement for good Triple A collateral.) Second, it should consider further exercising its Section 13(3) authority to provide additional liquidity to nonbanks, potentially including purchases of corporate debt through a special-purpose vehicle" ( "Do More to Avert a Liquidity Crisis" , Wall Street Journal )

This isn't a bailout, it's a joke, and there's no way Congress should approve these measures, particularly the merging of the US Treasury with the cutthroat Fed. That's a prescription for disaster! The Fed needs to be abolished not embraced as a state institution. It's madness!

And look how the author wants to set up an special-purpose vehicle (SPV) so the accounting chicanery can be kept off the books which means the public won't know how much money is being flushed down the toilet trying to resuscitate these insolvent corporations whose executives are still living high on the hog on the money they stole from credulous investors. This whole scam stinks to high heaven!

Meanwhile America's working people will get a whopping $1,000 bucks to tide them over until the debts pile up to the rafters and they're forced to rob the neighborhood 7-11 to feed the kids. How fair is that?

And don't kid yourself: This isn't a bailout, it's the elitist's political agenda aimed at creating a permanent underclass who'll work for peanuts just to eek out a living.

Welcome to Sweatshop Amerika!


anachronism , says: Show Comment March 23, 2020 at 5:03 am GMT

In 2008-2009, the Federal Reserve bailed out the global banking system to the tune of $16 Trillion. But American citizens were left to pay usurious rates of interest on $1 Trillion of credit card debt. And American students had lost years of economic opportunity but their $1 Trillion dollars of debt could not be discharged through bankruptcy.

This time the banks should stand behind the debtors at the government troth.

anachronism , says: Show Comment March 23, 2020 at 5:06 am GMT
It's hard to understand how holiday cruise shipping can be regarded as an essential business.

It is almost as hard to understand why a "Globalist Enterprise" should be spared its fate through the generosity of of one country. Even harder to understand, why would that one country should bail out a business, which had employed both tax-avoidance schemes as well as strategy import substitution and foreign investment to improve its profits at the expense of that country.

Nationalism is better that globalism. The current crisis was not caused by globalism; but globalism has drained from our country the means to respond to the crisis with the medicines and equipment that would reduce its severity.

Not a single cent of government aid should go toward a person or an entity outside the United States and it territories. Conditions should be placed upon such aid, so that the companies receiving it, must domesticate their supply chains, and must produce and develop their products within the United States.

Kim , says: Show Comment March 23, 2020 at 5:38 am GMT
@anachronism Make the universities discharge the student debt. It was their scam all along. They can begin by retrenching their schools of the humanities and at least halving their administrative staff. And end building and sports programs. The fat hangs heavy on that particular pig.
anachronism , says: Show Comment March 23, 2020 at 7:19 am GMT
@Kim I agree with you up to a point.

The student and the university should share responsibility equally. In the future, the institution should be made a co-signor on any student loan; and the obligation to repay the loan should be joint and several for both the institution and the student.

Bankruptcy provides the ex-student with the chance to start over and to escape the burden; but not without consequences. This will discourage the ex-student, who is doing well financially and has the means to service the debt, from just walking away.

[Feb 25, 2020] The Economic Anxiety Hypothesis has Become Absurd(er)

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The key promise of neoliberalism, which came to power in the USA in 1980 with the election of Reagan (aka "the Quiet Coup") was that "the rising tide lifts all boats." -- the redistribution of the wealth up somehow will lift the standard of living of lower strata of the population too. This was a false promise from the very beginning (like everything about neoliberalism, which is based on lies and fake economics in any case). So anger accumulated and now became the key factor in elections. This anger is directed against the neoliberal establishment. ..."
"... The anger toward immigrants is, in fact, a displaced and projected anger against the elimination of meaningful and well-paid jobs and replacing them with McJobs, the process that was the key factor in lowering the standard of living of the bottom 80% of the population. ..."
"... The other part of this anger is directed toward the USA financial oligarchy (personified by such passionately hated figures as Lloyd "we are doing God's" Blankfein, private equity sharks, and figures like Wexner/Epstein) and "political establishment" the key figures of which many people would like to see hanging from street lamp posts (remember "Lock her up" movement in 2016). ..."
"... That's why the neoliberal establishment was forced to use to dirty tricks like Russiagate to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade. ..."
"... In Marxist terms, the USA entered the period called the "revolutionary situation" when the ruling neoliberal elite couldn't govern "as usual" and "the deplorable" do not want to live "as usual". The situation when according to Hegel, "quantity turns into quality," or as Marx said "ideas become a material force when they grip the mind of the masses." ..."
Feb 25, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

I am old enough to remember when many very serious people ascribed the rise of Donald Trump to economic anxiety. The hypthesis never fit the facts (his supporters had higher incomes on average than Clinton's) but it has become absurd. The level of self reported economic anxiety is extraordinarily low

Gallup reports "Record High optimism about Personal Finances in U.S." with 74% predicting they will be better off next year.

Yet now the Democratic party has an insurgent candidate candidate in the lead. I hasten to stress that I am not saying Sanders supporters have much in common with Trump supporters (young vs old, strong hispanic support vs they hate Trump etc etc etc). But both appeal to anger and advocate a radical break with business as usual. Both reject party establishments. Also Warren if a little bit less so.

Trump's 2016 angry supporters still support him *and* they are still angry. He remains unpopular in spite of an economy performing very well (and perceived to be performing very well).

Whatever is going on in 2020, it sure isn't economic anxiety.

Yet there is clearly anger and desire for radical change.

I don't pretend to understand it, but I think it probably has a lot to do with relative economic performance and increased inequality. I can't understand why the reaction of so many Americans to this would be to hate immigrants and vote for Trump, but, then I don't watch Fox News.

One other thing which it isn't is rejection of the guy who came before Trump. Obama has a Real Clear Politics average favorable rating of 59% and unfavorable of 36.1 % vastly vastly better than any currently active politician. (Sanders is doing relatively very well at net -2.7 compared to Obama's + 22.9) He is not rejected. He is not considered a failure. Yet only a small majority is interested in any sort of going back to the way things were.


likbez , February 25, 2020 12:37 am

Robert ,

Trump's 2016 angry supporters still support him *and* they are still angry.

Many Trump "angry supporters" in 2016 used to belong to "anybody but Hillary" class (and they included a noticeable percentage of Bernie supporters, who felt betrayed by DNC) .

They are lost for Trump as he now in many aspects represents the "new Hillary" and the slogan "anybody but Trump" is growing in popularity. Even among Republicans: Trump definitely already lost a large part of anti-war Republicans and independents. As well as. most probably, a part of working class as he did very little for them outside of effects of military Keynesianism.

I suspect he also lost a part of military voters, those who supported Tulsi. They will never vote for Trump.

He also lost a part of "technocratic" voters resentful of the rule of financial oligarchy (anti-swampers), as his incompetence is now an undisputable fact.

He also lost Ron Paul's libertarians, who voted for him in 2016.

How "Coronavirus recession", if any, might affect 2020 elections is difficult to say, but in any case this is an unfavorable for Trump event.

EMichael , February 25, 2020 10:39 am

"I can't understand why the reaction of so many Americans to this would be to hate immigrants and vote for Trump, but, then I don't watch Fox News."

Coming to you since 1965. It's just that immigrants are now added to blacks. Trump took 50 years of the Southern Strategy, took the dogwhistles completely out of the closet and wore his racism right on his chest. Helped that he had over 50 years of experience as a racist, it came naturally to him.

And he attracted a new rw base, those who were not satisfied with dog whistles and/or did not hear them.

likbez , February 25, 2020 12:19 pm

I don't pretend to understand it, but I think it probably has a lot to do with relative economic performance and increased inequality.

It is actually very easy to understand: the middle class fared very poorly since 1991. See https://www.cnbc.com/id/44962589 . Now "the chickens come home to roost," so to speak.

The key promise of neoliberalism, which came to power in the USA in 1980 with the election of Reagan (aka "the Quiet Coup") was that "the rising tide lifts all boats." -- the redistribution of the wealth up somehow will lift the standard of living of lower strata of the population too. This was a false promise from the very beginning (like everything about neoliberalism, which is based on lies and fake economics in any case). So anger accumulated and now became the key factor in elections. This anger is directed against the neoliberal establishment.

The anger toward immigrants is, in fact, a displaced and projected anger against the elimination of meaningful and well-paid jobs and replacing them with McJobs, the process that was the key factor in lowering the standard of living of the bottom 80% of the population.

The other part of this anger is directed toward the USA financial oligarchy (personified by such passionately hated figures as Lloyd "we are doing God's" Blankfein, private equity sharks, and figures like Wexner/Epstein) and "political establishment" the key figures of which many people would like to see hanging from street lamp posts (remember "Lock her up" movement in 2016).

Resentment against spending huge amounts of money for wars for sustaining and enlarging the global USA-centered neoliberal empire is another factor. In this sense, impoverishment and shrinking of the middle class in the USA is similar to the same impoverishment during the last days of the British colonial empire.

That's why the neoliberal establishment was forced to use to dirty tricks like Russiagate to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade.

In Marxist terms, the USA entered the period called the "revolutionary situation" when the ruling neoliberal elite couldn't govern "as usual" and "the deplorable" do not want to live "as usual". The situation when according to Hegel, "quantity turns into quality," or as Marx said "ideas become a material force when they grip the mind of the masses."

In 2016 that resulted in the election of Trump.

Add to this the fact that the neoliberal establishment (represented by both parties) now is clearly anti-social (the fact that a private equity shark Romney was a presidential candidate and then was elected as senator tells a lot about the level of degradation) and is unwilling to solve burning problems with medical insurance, minimal wage and other "the New Deal" elements of social infrastructure.

Democratic Party platform now is to the right of Eisenhower republicans.

That dooms the party candidates like CIA-democrat Major Pete, or "the senator from the credit card companies" Biden, and create an opening for political figures like Sanders (which are passionately hated by DNC)

[Feb 05, 2020] Stumbling Into Catastrophe by Daniel McAdams

Feb 04, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Daniel McAdams via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

There is a real danger for foreign policy advisors and analysts – and especially those they serve – when they are in a bubble, an echo chamber, and all of their conclusions are based on faulty inputs. Needless to say it's even worse when they believe they can create their own reality and invent outcomes out of whole cloth.

Things seldom go as planned in these circumstances.

President Trump was sold a bill of goods on the assassination of Iran's revered military leader, Qassim Soleimani, likely by a cabal around Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the long-discredited neocon David Wurmser. A former Netanyahu advisor and Iraq war propagandist, Wurmser reportedly sent memos to his mentor, John Bolton, while Bolton was Trump's National Security Advisor (now, of course, he's the hero of the #resistance for having turned on his former boss) promising that killing Soleimani would be a cost-free operation that would catalyze the Iranian people against their government and bring about the long-awaited regime change in that country. The murder of Soleimani – the architect of the defeat of ISIS – would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them upon which the [Iranian] regime depends for stability and survival," wrote Wurmser.

As is most often the case with neocons, he was dead wrong.

The operation was not cost-free. On the contrary. Assassinating Soleimani on Iraqi soil resulted in the Iraqi parliament – itself the product of our "bringing democracy" to the country – voting to expel US forces even as the vote by the people's representatives was roundly rejected by the people who brought the people the people's representatives. In a manner of speaking.

Trump's move had an effect opposite to the one promised by neocons. It did not bring Iranians out to the street to overthrow their government – it catalyzed opposition across Iraq's various political and religious factions to the continued US military presence and further tightened Iraq's relationship with Iran. And short of what would be a catastrophic war initiated by the US (with little or no support from allies), there is not a thing Trump can do about it.

Iran's retaliatory attack on two US bases in Iraq was initially sold by President Trump as merely a pin-prick. No harm, no foul, no injuries. This despite the fact that he must have known about US personnel injured in the attack. The reason for the lie was that Trump likely understands how devastating it would be to his presidency to escalate with Iran. So the truth began to trickle out slowly – 11 US military members were injured, but it was just "like a headache." Now we know that 50 US troops were treated for traumatic brain injury after the attack. This may not be the last of it – but don't count on the mainstream media to do any reporting.

The Iranian FARS news agency reported at the time of the attack that US personnel had been injured and the response by the US government was to completely take that media outlet off the Internet by order of the US Treasury !

Last week the US House voted to cancel the 2002 authorization for war on Iraq and to prohibit the use of funds for war on Iran without Congressional authorization. It is a significant, if largely symbolic, move to rein in the oft-used excuse of the Iraq war authorization for blatantly unrelated actions like the assassination of Soleimani and Obama's thousands of airstrikes on Syria and Iraq .

President Trump has argued that prohibiting funds for military action against Iran actually makes war more likely, as he would be restricted from the kinds of military-strikes-short-of-war like his attack on Syria after the alleged chemical attack in Douma in 2018 (claims which have recently fallen apart ). The logic is faulty and reflects again the danger of believing one's own propaganda. As we have seen from the Iranian military response to the Soleimani assassination, Trump's military-strikes-short-of-war are having a ratchet-like effect rather than a pressure-release or deterrent effect.

As the financial and current events analysis site ZeroHedge put it recently:

[S]ince last summer's "tanker wars", Trump has painted himself into a corner on Iran, jumping from escalation to escalation (to this latest "point of no return big one" in the form of the ordered Soleimani assassination) -- yet all the while hoping to avoid a major direct war. The situation reached a climax where there were "no outs" (Trump was left with two 'bad options' of either back down or go to war).

The Iranians have little to lose at this point and America's European allies are, even if impotent, fed up with the US obsession with Saudi Arabia and Israel as a basis for its Middle East policy.

So why open this essay with a photo of Trump celebrating his dead-on-arrival "Deal of The Century" for Israel and Palestine? Because this is once again a gullible and weak President Trump being led by the nose into the coming Middle East conflagration. Left without even a semblance of US sympathy for their plight, the Palestinians after the roll-out of this "peace" plan will again see that they have no friends outside Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. As Israel continues to flirt with the idea of simply annexing large parts of the West Bank, it is clear that the brakes are off of any Israeli reticence to push for maximum control over Palestinian territory. So what is there to lose?

Trump believes he's advancing peace in the Middle East, while the excellent Mondoweiss website rightly observes that a main architect of the "peace plan," Trump's own son-in-law Jared Kushner, "taunts Palestinians because he wants them to reject his 'peace plan.'" Rejection of the plan is a green light to a war of annihilation on the Palestinians.

It appears that the center may not hold, that the self-referential echo chamber that passes for Beltway "expert" analysis will again be caught off guard in the consequence-free profession that is neocon foreign policy analysis. "Gosh we didn't see that coming!" But the next day they are back on the teevee stations as great experts.

Clouds gathering...


Minamoto , 23 minutes ago link

It is hard to believe that Trump has any confidence in Jared Kushner. Yet, he does enough to go public with a one-sided plan developed without Palestinian input.

francis scott falseflag , 41 minutes ago link

a real danger for foreign policy advisors and analysts – and especially those they serve – when they are in a bubble, an echo chamber, and all of their conclusions are based on faulty inputs.

The same is true of the economists and financial analysts who live in the bubble of the NSYE and the echo chamber of Manhattan. All of their conclusions are based on faulty inputs.

Ruler , 1 hour ago link

The problem all incompetent leaders have, is seeing how their opponents see them.

Bokkenrijder , 1 hour ago link

If Trump continues to be 'dumb' enough to consistently hire these people and consistently listen to them, and if his supporters continue to be dumb enough to consistently believe all the lies and excuses, then Trump and his supporters are 100% involved in the neoCON.

RafterManFMJ , 1 hour ago link

Dude, it's 666D chess!

The Real John Bolton

[Jan 24, 2020] Lawrence Wilkerson Lambasts 'the Beast of the National Security State' by Adam Dick

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Wilkerson provided a harsh critique of US foreign policy over the last two decades. Wilkerson states: ..."
"... America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It's part of who we are. It's part of what the American Empire is. ..."
"... We are going to lie, cheat and steal, as [US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo] is doing right now, as [President Donald Trump] is doing right now, as [Secretary of Defense Mark Esper] is doing right now, as [Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)] is doing right now, as [Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR)] is doing right now, and a host of other members of my political party -- the Republicans -- are doing right now. We are going to cheat and steal to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That's the truth of it, and that's the agony of it. ..."
"... That base voted for Donald Trump because he promised to end these endless wars, he promised to drain the swamp. Well, as I said, an alligator from that swamp jumped out and bit him. And, when he ordered the killing of Qassim Suleimani, he was a member of the national security state in good standing, and all that state knows how to do is make war. ..."
Jan 13, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Lawrence Wilkerson, a College of William & Mary professor who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powel in the George W. Bush administration, powerfully summed up the vile nature of the US national security state in a recent interview with host Amy Goodman at Democracy Now.

Asked by Goodman about the escalation of US conflict with Iran and how it compares with the prior run-up to the Iraq War, Wilkerson provided a harsh critique of US foreign policy over the last two decades. Wilkerson states:

Ever since 9/11, the beast of the national security state, the beast of endless wars, the beast of the alligator that came out of the swamp, for example, and bit Donald Trump just a few days ago, is alive and well.

America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It's part of who we are. It's part of what the American Empire is.

We are going to lie, cheat and steal, as [US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo] is doing right now, as [President Donald Trump] is doing right now, as [Secretary of Defense Mark Esper] is doing right now, as [Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)] is doing right now, as [Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR)] is doing right now, and a host of other members of my political party -- the Republicans -- are doing right now. We are going to cheat and steal to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That's the truth of it, and that's the agony of it.

What we saw President Trump do was not in President Trump's character, really. Those boys and girls who were getting on those planes at Fort Bragg to augment forces in Iraq, if you looked at their faces, and, even more importantly, if you looked at the faces of the families assembled along the line that they were traversing to get onto the airplanes, you saw a lot of Donald Trump's base. That base voted for Donald Trump because he promised to end these endless wars, he promised to drain the swamp. Well, as I said, an alligator from that swamp jumped out and bit him. And, when he ordered the killing of Qassim Suleimani, he was a member of the national security state in good standing, and all that state knows how to do is make war.

Wilkerson, over the remainder of the two-part interview provides many more insightful comments regarding US foreign policy, including recent developments concerning Iran. Watch Wilkerson's interview here:

Wilkerson is an Academic Board member for the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.


Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute Related

[Jan 07, 2020] Chaos Pentagon Denies Poorly Worded Iraq Withdrawal Letter, Esper Says No Decision To Leave Iraq, Period

Jan 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Yesterday, Iraqi lawmakers voted to expel foreign troops from the country during an emergency parliamentary session. Interim Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi, stressed during the session, that while the US government notified the Iraqi military of the planned strike on Soleimani, his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation.

In a meeting Monday, Mahdi, a caretaker prime minister who said in November he would resign, told US Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller that the US and Iraq needed to cooperate "to implement the withdrawal of foreign forces in accordance with the decision of the Iraqi parliament," according to a statement from the PM's office that was cited by the Washington Post .

Though the Iraq war 'officially' ended in 2011, thousands of coalition troops stuck around. Their numbers increased following the rise of ISIS in the region.

Ending the US troop presence in Iraq has been a longtime goal of non-interventionists like Ron Paul and his son, Rand.

That said, even without troops in Iraq, the US will still have plenty of capacity to bully Iran, and other other regional powers.

[Jan 07, 2020] Why Was Soleimani Assassinated - Trump's Assassination Disaster

Jan 07, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Is Trump yet ruing the day he lent his ear to the siren songs of the Iran-obsessed neocons? One can almost imagine the president, sitting in the makeshift situation room at Mar-a-Lago just a few days ago surrounded with the likes of Sen. Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Esper, and his Pentagon advisors who breathlessly present him an "opportunity" to kick the Iranian leadership in the face and also dismantle an operation in the works to attack US military and civilian personnel in the region.

All he had to do was sign off on the assassination of Gen. Qassim Soleimani, a man he likely had never heard of a couple of years ago but who, he was told, was "responsible for killing hundreds of Americans" in Iraq.

"Soleimani did 9/11!" - Pence helpfully yet insanely chimed in.

"You're not a wimp like Obama, who refused to assassinate this terrorist," he was probably told. "You're decisive, a real leader. This one blow will change the entire calculus of the Middle East," they likely told him. "If you take out Soleimani, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region."

(Actually, that last one was from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress in 2002 where he promised the US that "If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region." Brilliant forecasting, Bibi.)

As could be expected, the cover story cooked up by the neocons and signed off on by Trump started taking water the moment it was put to sea.

Soleimani was not traveling like a man plotting a complicated, multi-country assault on US troops in the region. No false mustaches or James Bond maneuvers - he was flying commercial and openly disembarked at the terminal of Baghdad International Airport. He was publicly met and greeted by an Iraqi delegation and traveled relatively unguarded from the airport.

Until a US drone vaporized him and his entire entourage - which included a senior Iraqi military officer.

The furious Iraqi acting-Prime Minister Mahdi immediately condemned the attack in the strongest terms, openly calling for the expulsion of the US forces - who remain in Iraq ostensibly to fight an ISIS that has long been defeated but, de facto , to keep the beachhead clear for a US attack on Iran.

Arguing for the expulsion of the US in a special parliamentary session held on January 5th, Mahdi spilled the truth about Soleimani's mission in Iraq: It was not to plot the killing of US troops: it was to deliver a response from Iran to a peace overture from the Saudis, the result of talks that were being facilitated by Iraq.

And the US side knew about the mission and had, according to press reports, encouraged Iraq to facilitate the Iran/Saudi talks.

Did the US neocons and Pentagon warhawks like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mike Milley knowingly exploit what they anticipated would be relatively lax security for a peace mission between Iran and Saudi Arabia to assassinate Gen. Soleimani (with collateral damage being Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units)?

And, to drill a little deeper, which US "allies" would want to blow up any chance of peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Factions within Saudi Arabia, where a fierce power struggle rages below the surface? No doubt. In Israel, where Netanyahu continues fighting for his political life (and freedom) with his entire political career built around mayhem and destruction? Sure. It's not like Trump has ever been able to say "no" to the endless demands of either Bibi or his Saudi counterpart in crime MBS.

Who knows, maybe Trump knew all along and was in on it. Make war on a peace mission.

Whatever the case, as always happens the neocons have steered things completely off the rails. The cover story is in tatters, and the Iraqi democracy - for which we've been ostensibly fighting for 16 years with a loss of US life in the thousands and of Iraqi life in the millions - voted on Sunday that US forces must leave Iraq.

We destroyed Iraq to "give them democracy," but they had the nerve to exercise that democracy to ask us to leave!

Iran could not believe its luck in the aftermath of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, when it soon became clear that Iraq would fall into their hands. Likewise, it appears that the longstanding fervent wish of the Iranian leadership - the end of the US occupation of Iraq (and Syria) - will soon be fulfilled thanks to Trump's listening to the always toxic advice of the neocon warmongers.

Can Trump recover from this near-fatal mistake? It is possible. But with Trump's Twitter finger threatening Iraq with "big big" sanctions and an even bigger bill to cover the cost of our invasion and destruction of their country, it appears that his ability to learn from his mistakes is limited. A bit less time on Twitter and a lot less time with the people who hate his guts - Pompeo, Pence, Graham, etc. - might help.

Meanwhile...will Iran avenge Soleimani's murder directly, or using asymmetrical means?

Trump said of his decision to assassinate a top official from a country with which we are not technically at war, "We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war." But it doesn't work that way. When you kill another country's top military leadership you have definitely started a war.

What remains to be seen is how it will play out.

Sincerely yours,

Daniel McAdams
Executive Director
Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

[Jan 06, 2020] The spooks' choice Coup plotters and CIA agents fill Pete Buttigieg's list of national security endorsers by Samuel D. Finkelstein

Jan 06, 2020 | thegrayzone.com

Why are so many intelligence veterans throwing their weight behind a young Indiana mayor with such a thin foreign policy resume?

These questions continue to loom large over the 2020 Democratic primary field: Who is Pete Buttigieg? And what is he doing here?

Seemingly overnight, the once obscure mayor of Indiana's fourth-largest city was vaulted to national prominence, with his campaign coffers stuffed with big checks from billionaire benefactors.

The publication of a list of 218 endorsements from "foreign policy and national security professionals" by Buttigieg's campaign deepened the mystery of the mayor's rise.

Some observers have raised questions about Pete Buttigieg's intimate relationship with the national security state , after it was revealed that his campaign had paid nearly $600,000 for "security" to a Blackwater-style military contractor.

Buttigieg's new roster of endorsements from former high-ranking CIA officials, regime-change architects, and global financiers should raise more questions about the real forces propelling his campaign.

Patriot Group is currently under contract w/the US military.

They provide "contractor-owned, contractor-operated intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance aerial detection and monitoring support inside & outside the U.S."

and guard Mayor Pete. https://t.co/Aa5Ogl5K8b pic.twitter.com/6tnXDBPtOA

-- Samuel D. Finkelstein II (@CANCEL_SAM) December 7, 2019

Buttigieg has offered precious few details about his policy plans, and foreign policy is no exception. His campaign website dedicates just five sentences to international affairs, none of which offers any substantive details.

Beyond a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan as a Naval Reservist in 2010, the 37 year-old mayor has no first-hand foreign policy experience to speak of.

As The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal reported , Buttigieg's enjoys a long relationship with the Truman National Security Project, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, DC that advocates for "muscular liberalism." He has also taken a short, strange trip to Somaliland with a Harvard buddy, Nathaniel Myers, who ultimately became a senior advisor to USAID's Office of Transitional Initiatives. Otherwise, Buttigieg's foreign policy credentials are nil.

Buttigieg's lack of core principles are what might make him so attractive to military contractors and financial institutions, two of the status quo's biggest beneficiaries.

Mayor Pete has effectively positioned himself as a Trojan Horse for the establishment, offering "generational change" that doesn't challenge existing power structures in any concrete way.

Patriot Group International PGI Pete Buttigieg

Eye-popping payments to a Blackwater-style mercenary firm

A review of Pete for America's FEC disclosures found that the campaign had paid $561,416.82 for "security" to a company called Patriot Group International (PGI), from June 4 to September 9, 2019.

Buttigieg's August 29, 2019 payment of $179,617.04 to PGI represents the single largest security expenditure ever made by a presidential candidate, according to the FEC.

While the exorbitant amount of money raises questions, it is PGI's status as a Blackwater-style mercenary firm that makes Buttigieg's contract so remarkable.

PGI bills itself as a "global mission support provider with expeditionary capabilities, providing services to select clients within the intelligence, defense, and private sector." According to the company's website , it offers services like counter-terrorism, counter-weapons of mass destruction, and drone surveillance.

PGI is currently under a $26.5 million contract with the Department of Defense to provide "contractor-owned, contractor-operated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aerial detection and monitoring support inside and outside the U.S." It is a far cry from securing campaign events held in New Hampshire community centers.

FEC Spending receipts from Pete's campaign pic.twitter.com/GWoDEPUDGE

-- Samuel D. Finkelstein II (@CANCEL_SAM) December 6, 2019

Besides contracting with Buttigieg, PGI's only other record of political work was with Newt Gingrich's 2012 presidential campaign. In a 2016 Inc. Magazine profile , PGI founder Greg Craddock said his company stopped doing political work altogether, following a 2012 incident in which a PGI employee on Gingrich's security detail allegedly assaulted an overzealous Ron Paul supporter.

Why the mercenary firm chose to re-enter politics for the mayor of South Bend, Indiana remains an open question. Whatever the reason, Buttigieg's willingness to line the pockets of military contractors as a candidate might offer further insight into why so many in the national security state are lining up behind him.

The CIA hearts Mayor Pete

Buttigieg's lengthy roster of endorsements is loaded with former intelligence operatives, national security hardliners, regime-change specialists, and vulture capitalists.

Among Buttigieg's most notable endorsers is David S. Cohen , the deputy director of the CIA from 2015 to 2017, and a former Treasury official under George W. Bush.

Cohen is regarded as a " chief architect " of the crippling sanctions that the Obama administration imposed on Iran, Russia, and North Korea -- earning him the ignominious nickname the " sanctions guru. "

David Cohen CIA Pete Buttigieg
Pete Buttigieg backer and former CIA Deputy Director David S. Cohen

Since leaving government, Cohen has made various think tank appearances to advocate for continued use of sanctions in the aforementioned countries, as well as Venezuela .

The impact of sanctions imposed under Cohen's watch has been equated to " collective punishment ," resulting in economic crises, food and medicine shortages, and tens of thousands of preventable deaths .

In his tenure at the Treasury Department, Cohen was also instrumental in drafting the Patriot Act, which restricted civil liberties and vastly increased the government's surveillance powers in response to 9/11.

Cohen has yet to speak publicly as to why he endorsed Buttigieg.

Buttigieg was likewise endorsed by Charlie Gilbert , former deputy director of the National Clandestine Service, a top-ten leadership position at the CIA. Gilbert's role was to "conceive, plan, and execute complex intelligence operations" against "hostile target [countries]."

Another Buttigieg endorser, John Bair , is the former chief of staff for the CIA's Middle East Task Force.

Dennis Bowden , a 26-year CIA veteran, with much of that time spent in unspecified "executive leadership positions," is also backing Mayor Pete.

The Buttigieg campaign has cited the support of former CIA senior analyst Sue Terry , who made a "record number of contributions to the President's Daily Brief," during her tenure from 2001 to 2008.

Two more CIA endorsements came from former senior intelligence officer Martijn Rasser , and former senior analyst Andrea Kendall-Taylor , who was also an officer at the National Intelligence Council.

If you're thinking, "Wow, that's a lot of CIA endorsements for a relatively unknown, small-town mayor," you're right – and it's just the tip of the iceberg.

More Buttigieg backers include Ned Price , the career CIA analyst who resigned publicly in a February 2017 protest against "the way [Trump] has treated the intelligence community." (Price was also a major Clinton donor, but insisted his resignation was non-partisan).

Another CIA Buttigieg endorser is Jeffrey Edmunds , who moonlighted as a National Security Council member under Presidents Obama and Trump.

Buttigieg was also endorsed by Chris Barton , the CIA's assistant general counsel during the Clinton administration, and Anthony Lake , whom Clinton nominated unsuccessfully to serve as CIA director in 1996.

Mayor Pete's list of spook supporters similarly includes non-CIA intelligence community professionals like Robert Stasio , the former chief of operations at the NSA Cyber Center, and William Wechsler , former deputy assistant secretary for Special Ops at the Department of Defense.

Buttigieg also named Robin Walker , a former deputy intelligence officer for the Director of National Intelligence, as a supporter. Walker now works for corporate weapons contractor Lockheed Martin.

Regime change hit-men and debt colonists jump on the bandwagon

Yet some of Mayor Pete's most troubling endorsements come from outside of the military-intelligence apparatus.

Buttigieg, for example, lists Fernando Cutz as an endorser. For the first 16 months of the Trump administration, Cutz was the national security council director for South America, where he led US policy on Venezuela and was credited with outlining regime-change plans for the president.

Since leaving government, Cutz has continued to support the Trump administration's regime-change efforts against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro .

As Max Blumenthal reported for The Grayzone, Cutz attended a secret meeting at the DC think tank CSIS dedicated to exploring US military intervention in Venezuela.

Revealing comments from @fscutz , one of the key architects of the US coup in Venezuela, declaring that the goal of intervention is to "restore Venezuela's place as an upper middle class country" https://t.co/jZsNLu5rWB pic.twitter.com/2IX8d1n41P

-- Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 15, 2019

Another Buttigieg endorser is Jessica Reitz-Curtin , who spent several years in leadership at USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), working alongside Buttigieg's close friend, Nathaniel Myers.

OTI is the de-facto tip of the spear for USAID's regime change efforts. In the case of Venezuela, OTI has bankrolled violent, right-wing opposition forces for decades.

There is also plenty of excitement for Buttigieg at the commanding heights of international finance. Matt Kaczmarek , vice president of BlackRock, the world's largest investment manager, controlling nearly $7 trillion in assets, is listed as an endorser of the South Bend mayor.

Kaczmarek previously served as the NSC's director of Brazil and Southern Cone affairs in the Obama administration, when the US backed a right-wing parliamentary coup against President Dilma Roussef.

Matt Kaczmarek Pete Buttigieg
Pete Buttigieg endorser Matt Kaczmarek, a former US National Security Council official and now vice president of BlackRock

BlackRock has massive holdings in Brazilian agribusiness, and is a major factor in the environmental degradation of the Amazon region. BlackRock's practices have been so destructive to the region that AmazonWatch named the financial behemoth the "world's largest investor in deforestation."

Kaczmarek is a perfect embodiment of the revolving door through which high-ranking government employees enter the private sector and reap the rewards of policies they previously helped implement. In 2013, while Kaczmarek was crafting US economic policy towards Brazil, then-Vice President Joseph Biden was urging the country to open its economy further to foreign capital.

From 2014 to the present, BlackRock has substantially increased its investment in Brazil, according to the AmazonWatch report. Now at the helm of the company, Kaczmarek stands to profit handsomely from the same economic liberalization policies that Brazil was goaded into adopting at his direction.

Buttigieg's list of endorsers likewise includes Karen Mathiasen , former acting executive US director at the World Bank; as well as Julie T. Katzman , COO of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Both organizations have long histories of using debt to impose the will of US policymakers onto poor countries.

Mathiasen, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary for debt and development policy at the Treasury Department, was intimately involved in the administration of what has been dubbed " debt colonialism ." Under this cynical practice, unsustainable levels of debt are used as a pretext to demand that debtor nations privatize government functions, impose austerity, and allow greater exploitation by global capital.

The IDB where Katzman worked plays a similar role in enforcing the Washington Consensus across the Western hemisphere. Wielding debt as its weapon, IDB policies maintain "[Latin America's] subordinated place in the global economy," argues Professor Victor Sepúlveda , author of Industrial Colonialism in Latin America: The Third Stage .

Empire's empty vessel

Obscure presidential candidates don't typically garner hundreds of elite national security endorsements before a single vote is cast. So what do these spooks and vulture capitalists see in Mayor Pete?

It can't be Buttigieg's foreign policy resume, because he doesn't have one. He hasn't proposed any notable policies to distinguish himself from the other corporate-friendly candidates, so that can't be it either. Some have posited that Mayor Pete may be a CIA asset himself, but the supporting evidence is circumstantial at best.

Perhaps the most reasonable conclusion is that they see Buttigieg as an empty vessel. Opportunistic and unmoored by ideology or political goals beyond his advancing his career, Buttigieg is the ideal candidate for those who seek to maintain existing hierarchies. Indeed, his national security endorsement list is filled with people who keep America's imperial machine humming along smoothly.

What is the thread that connects the CIA, USAID, and the World Bank? All three institution exist to prop up a grossly unequal global order in which a tiny sliver of the population hordes unimaginable wealth, while the mass of people get by on next to nothing.

At a time when that order looks increasingly untenable, with anti-austerity protests breaking out from Chile , to France, to Lebanon , Mayor Pete makes perfect sense.

Samuel D. Finkelstein Sam Finkelstein is a political activist, writer, and student at Seton Hall Law School. Follow him on Twitter at @Cancel_Sam . Share Tweet Filed under: 2020 , 2020 presidential campaign , BlackRock , Brazil , CIA , coup , David S. Cohen , Democratic Party , Democrats , DNC , intelligence community , inter american development bank , Julie T. Katzman , Karen Mathiasen , Mayor Pete , Nicolas Maduro , NSC , Pete Buttigieg , presidential primary , regime change , us politics , Venezuela , world bank

[Jan 06, 2020] Soleimani murder what could happen next by The Saker

Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

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First, a quick recap of the situation

We need to begin by quickly summarizing what just happened:

General Soleimani was in Baghdad on an official visit to attend the funeral of the Iraqis murdered by the US on the 29th The US has now officially claimed responsibility for this murder The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has officially declared that " However, a severe retaliation awaits the criminals who painted their corrupt hands with his and his martyred companions' blood last night "

The US paints itself – and Iran – into a corner

The Iranians simply had no other choice than to declare that there will be a retaliation. There are a few core problems with what happens next. Let's look at them one by one:

First, it is quite obvious from the flagwaving claptrap in the US that Uncle Shmuel is "locked and loaded" for even more macho actions and reaction. In fact, Secretary Esper has basically painted the US into what I would call an "over-reaction corner" by declaring that " the game has changed " and that the US will take " preemptive action " whenever it feels threatened . Thus, the Iranians have to assume that the US will over-react to anything even remotely looking like an Iranian retaliation. No less alarming is that this creates the absolutely perfect conditions for a false flag à la " USS Liberty " . Right now, the Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and facilities in the entire Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves. How? Simple! Fire a missile/torpedo/mine at any USN ship and blame Iran. We all know that if that happens the US political elites will do what they did the last time around: let US servicemen die and protect Israel at all costs (read up on the USS Liberty if you don't know about it) There is also a very real risk of "spontaneous retaliations" by other parties (not Iran or Iranian allies) . In fact, in his message, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has specifically declared that " Martyr Suleimani is an international face to the Resistance and all lovers of the Resistance share a demand in retaliation for his blood. All friends – as well as all enemies – must know the path of Fighting and Resistance will continue with double the will and the final victory is decidedly waiting for those who fight in this path. " He is right, Soleimani was loved and revered by many people all over the globe, some of whom might decided to avenge his death. This means that we might well see some kind of retaliation which, of course, will be blamed on Iran but which might not be the result of any Iranian actions at all. Finally, should the Iranians decide not to retaliate, then we can be absolutely sure that Uncle Shmuel will see that as a proof of his putative "invincibility" and take that as a license to engage in even more provocative actions. A spiritual father kisses his beloved son

If we look at these four factors together we would have to come to the conclusion that Iran HAS to retaliate and HAS to do so publicly .

Why?

Because whether the Iranian do retaliate or not, they are almost guaranteed another US attack in retaliation for anything looking like a retaliation, whether Iran is involved or not .

The dynamics of internal US politics

Next, let's look at the internal political dynamics in the US:

I have always claimed that Donald Trump is a "disposable President" for the Neocons . What do I mean by that? I mean that the Neocons have used Trump to do all sorts of truly fantastically dumb things (pretty much ALL his policy decisions towards Israel and/or Syria) for a very simple reason. If Trump does something extremely dumb and dangerous, he will either get away with it, in which case the Neocons will be happy, or he will either fail or the consequences of his decisions will be catastrophic, at which point the Neocons will jettison him and replace him by an even more subservient individual (say Pence or Pelosi). In other words, for the Neocons to have Trump do something both fantastically dangerous and fantastically stupid is a win-win situation !

Right now, the Dems (still the party favored by the Neocons) seem to be dead-set into committing political suicide with that ridiculous (and treacherous!) impeachment nonsense. Now think about this from the Neocon point of view. They might be able to get the US goyim to strike Iran AND get rid of Trump. I suppose that their thinking will go something like this:

Trump looks set to win 2020. We don't want that. However, we have been doing everything in our power to trigger a US attack on Iran since pretty much 1979. Let's have Trump do that. If he "wins" (by whatever definition – more about that further below), we win. If he loses, the Iranians will still be in a world of pain and we can always jettison him like a used condom (used to supposedly safely screw somebody with no risks to yourself). Furthermore, if the region explodes, this will help our beloved Bibi and unite US Jewry behind Israel. Finally, if Israel gets attacked, we will immediately demand (and, of course, obtain) a massive US attack on Iran, supported by the entire US political establishment and media. And, lastly, should Israel be hit hard, then we can always use our nukes and tell the goyim that "Iran wants to gas 6 million Jews and wipe the only democracy in the Middle-East off the face of the earth" or something equally insipid.

Ever since Trump made it into the White House, we saw him brown-nose the Israel Lobby with a delectation which is extreme even by US standards. I suppose that this calculation goes something along the lines of "with the Israel Lobby behind me, I am safe in the White House". He is obviously too stupidly narcissistic to realize that he has been used all along. To his (or one of his key advisor's) credit, he did NOT allow the Neocons to start a major war against Russia, China, the DPRK, Venezuela, Yemen, Syria, etc. However, Iran is a totally different case as it is the "number one" target the Neocons and Israel wanted strike and destroy. The Neocons even had this motto " boys go to Baghdad, real men go to Tehran ". Now that Uncle Shmuel has lost all this wars of choice, now that the US armed forces have no credibility left, now is the time to restore the "macho" self-image of Uncle Shmuel and, indeed, "go to Tehran" so to speak.

The Dems (Biden) are already saying that Trump just " tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox ", as if they cared about anything except their own, petty, political goals and power. Still, I have to admit that Biden's metaphor is correct – that is exactly what Trump (and his real bosses) have done.

If we assume that I am correct in my evaluation that Trump is the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable President", then we also have to accept the fact that the US armed forces the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable armed forces" and that the US as a nation is also the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable nation". This is very bad news indeed, as this means that from the Neocon/Israeli point of view, there are no real risks into throwing the US into a war with Iran .

In truth, the position of the Dems is a masterpiece of hypocrisy which can be summed up as follows: the assassination of Soleimani is a wonderful event, but Trump is a monster for making it happen .

A winner, no?

What would the likely outcome of a US war on Iran be?

I have written so often about this topic that I won't go into all the possible scenarios here. All I will say is the following:

This is a HUGE asymmetry which basically means that the US cannot win and Iran can only win.

And, not, the Iranians don't have to defeat CENTCOM/NATO! They don't need to engage in large scale military operations. All they need to do is: remain "standing" once the dust settles down.

ORDER IT NOW

Ho Chi Minh once told the French " You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win ". This is exactly why Iran will eventually prevail, maybe at a huge cost (Amalek must be destroyed, right?), but that will still be a victory.

Now let's look at the two most basic types of war scenarios: outside Iran and inside Iran.

The Iranians, including General Soleimani himself, have publicly declared many times that by trying to surround Iran and the Middle-East with numerous forces and facilities the US have given Iran a long list of lucrative targets. The most obvious battlefield for a proxy war is clearly Iraq where there are plenty of pro and anti Iranian forces to provide the conditions for a long, bloody and protracted conflict (Moqtada al-Sadr has just declared that the Mahdi Army will be remobilized). But Iraq is far from being the only place where an explosion of violence can take place: the ENTIRE MIDDLE-EAST is well within Iranian "reach", be it by direct attack or by attack by sympathetic/allied forces. Next to Iraq, there is also Afghanistan and, potentially, Pakistan. In terms of a choice of instruments, the Iranian options range from missile attacks, to special forces direct action strikes, to sabotage and many, many more options. The only limitation here is the imagination of the Iranians and, believe me, they have plenty of that!

If such a retaliation happens, the US will have two basic options: strike at Iranian friends and allies outside Iran or, as Esper has now suggested, strike inside Iran. In the latter case, we can safely assume that any such attack will result in a massive Iranian retaliation on US forces and facilities all over the region and a closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Keep in mind that the Neocon motto " boys go to Baghdad, real men go to Tehran " implicitly recognizes the fact that a war against Iran would be qualitatively (and even quantitatively) different war than a war against Iraq. And, this is true, if the US seriously plans to strike inside Iran they would be faced with an explosion which would make all the wars since WWII look minor in comparison. But the temptation to prove to the world that Trump and his minions are "real men" as opposed to "boys" might be too strong, especially for a president who does not understand that he is a disposable tool in the hands of the Neocons.

Now, let's quickly look at what will NOT happen

Russia and/or China will not get militarily involved in this one. Neither will the US use this crisis as a pretext to attack Russia and/or China. The Pentagon clearly has no stomach for a war (conventional or nuclear) against Russia and neither does Russia have any desire for a war against the US. The same goes for China. However, it is important to remember that Russia and China have other options, political and covert ones, to really hurt the US and help Iran. There is the UNSC where Russia and China will block any US resolution condemning Iran. Yes, I know, Uncle Shmuel does not give a damn about the UN or international law, but most of the rest of the world very much does. This asymmetry is further exacerbated by Uncle Shmuel's attention span (weeks at most) with the one of Russia and China (decades). Does that matter?

Absolutely!

If the Iraqis officially declare that the US is an occupation force (which it is), an occupation force which engages in acts of war against Iraq (which it does) and that the Iraqi people want Uncle Shmuel and his hypocritical talking points about "democracy" to pack and leave, what can our Uncle Shmuel do? He will try to resist it, of course, but once the tiny figleaf of "nation building" is gone, replaced by yet another ugly and brutal US occupation, the political pressure on the US to get the hell out will become extremely hard to manage, both outside and even inside the US.

In fact, Iranian state television called Trump's order to kill Soleimani " the biggest miscalculation by the U.S." since World War II. "The people of the region will no longer allow Americans to stay," it said.

Next, both Russia and China can help Iran militarily with intelligence, weapons systems, advisors and economically, in overt and covert ways.

Finally, both Russia and China have the means to, shall we say, "strongly suggest" to other targets on the US "country hit list" that now is the perfect time to strike at US interests (say, in Far East Asia).

So Russia and China can and will help, but they will do so with what the CIA likes to call "plausible deniability".

Back The Big Question: what can/will Iran do next?

The Iranians are far most sophisticated players than the mostly clueless Americans. So the first thing I would suggest is that the Iranians are unlikely to do something the US is expecting them to do. Either they will do something totally different, or they will act much later, once the US lowers its guard (as it always does after declaring "victory").

I asked a well-informed Iranian friend whether it was still possible to avoid war. Here is what he replied:

Yes I do believe fullscale war can be avoided. I believe that Iran can try to use its political influence to unite Iraqi political forces to officially ask for the removal of US troops in Iraq. Kicking the US out of Iraq will mean that they can no longer occupy eastern Syria either as their troops will be in danger between two hostile states. If the Americans leave Syria and Iraq, that will be the ultimate revenge for Iran without having fired a single shot.

I have to say that I concur with this idea: one of the most painful things Iran could do next would be to use this truly fantastically reckless event to kick the US out of Iraq first, and Syria next. That option, if it can be exercised, might also protect Iranian lives and the Iranian society from a direct US attack. Finally, such an outcome would give the murder of General Soleimani a very different and beautiful meaning: this martyr's blood liberated the Middle-East!

Finally, if that is indeed the strategy chosen by Iran, this does not at all mean that on a tactical level the Iranians will not extract a price from US forces in the region or even elsewhere on the planet. For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf. I am not saying that I know for a fact that this is what really happened, only that Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the Middle-East.

Conclusion: we wait for Iran's next move

The Iraqi Parliament is scheduled to debate a resolution demanding the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. I will just say that while I do not believe that the US will gentlemanly agree to any such demands, it will place the conflict in the political realm. That is – by definition – much more desirable than any form of violence, however justified it might seem. So I strongly suggest to those who want peace that they pray that the Iraqi MPs show some honor and spine and tell Uncle Shmuel what every country out there always wanted from the US: Yankees, go home!

If that happens this will be a total victory for Iran and yet another abject defeat (self-defeat, really) by Uncle Shmuel. This is the best of all possible scenarios.

But if that does not happen, then all bets are off and the momentum triggered by this latest act of US terrorism will result in many more deaths.

As of right now (19:24 UTC) I still think that there is a roughly 80% chance of full scale war in the Middle-East and, again, will leave 20% of "unexpected events" (hopefully good ones).

PS: this is a text I wrote under great time pressure and it has not be edited for typos or other mistakes. I ask the self-appointed Grammar Gestapo to take a break and not protest again. Thank you


Harbinger , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:17 pm GMT

I'm just waiting for the usual suspects to come on here denying it had anything to do with Israel and Judaism.
Nicolás Palacios Navarro , says: Website Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:23 pm GMT
Scenarios 3 and 4 look the most likely in this no-win scenario for Iran at the moment. It would probably be advantageous to Iran to let proxies retaliate, although that would further provoke the blatant US aggression of scenario 4.

The best we can hope for, aside from Russia and China covertly assisting Iran with intelligence and materiel, is for the latter to possibly trigger a Suez Crisis-style scenario by threatening to dump its holdings of US sovereign debt. (The former country used to hold something like $160 billion in US bonds, but has since 2013 sold off all but approximately $15 billion.) However, I doubt the Chinese have the appetite for that -- they still depend vitally on the US market for their goods. And Japan, which holds about as much of that debt as China, will never follow suit. They willingly tanked their own economy to prop up the US with the Plaza Accord; and will likely continue to be a bootlick to American power to the bitter end.

Rich , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:36 pm GMT
The Iranians could not defeat the ragtag forces of Saddam Hussein, but they can defeat the United States? Preposterous. The Iranians will do nothing. Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate target. If they are foolish enough to attack the US, or its interests, they will suffer enormous losses. I understand that reality can sometimes conflict with a person's wishes, but the reality here is that as long as the US doesn't try to occupy Iran, they can cripple their military and destroy their infrastructure. Iran will do nothing,.
JimDandy , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:47 pm GMT
80%, eh?
Anonymous [607] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:51 pm GMT
@Rich I understand that reality can sometimes conflict with a person's wishes

Are you really sure about that? LOL!!

A123 , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:52 pm GMT

I have written so often about this topic that I won't go into all the possible scenarios here. All I will say is the following:

-- For the US, "winning" means achieving regime change or, failing that, destroying the Iranian economy.
-- For Iran, "winning" simply means to survive the US onslaught.

This is a HUGE asymmetry which basically means that the US cannot win and Iran can only win.

Apparently the author has forgotten what happened a couple months ago. The economic situation is so bad in Iran, people are rioting against the corrupt Ayatollah. (1). Thousands arrested and over a hundred dead.

All the U.S. has to do to win is hold the line. The situation is indeed assymetrical:

-- By refusing to put boots on the ground in Iran, there are few options open to Iran that will hurt the U.S.
-- The U.S. can freely strike against government elites like Soleimani if the Ayatollah tries to escalate.

Attacking the embassy was clearly Khameni's desperate effort to shore up personal weakness at home. Not only did he fail to keep the embassy, he also lost a key terrorist. The weak leader just became much weaker.

How long will the IRGC remain willing to die for a sociopathic Ayatollah?

One has to believe at some point, elements of the IRGC will dispatch Khameni to save their own lives. Iran under military rule is unlikely to become friendly with the U.S. However, for their own personal goals they will bring troops home and suspend funding to groups like al'Hezbollah and al'Hamas. These steps would do much to improve regional stability.

PEACE
_______

(1) https://iranian.com/2019/11/27/iran-arrests-7000-fuel-protesters-in-one-week/

Ilya G Poimandres , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:53 pm GMT
@Rich The Iranians were not trying to defeat the Iraqis, nor will they the US. They aim to survive the violent onslaught of aggressors, and damage them enough so they won't think to try again.

Soleimani was a legitimate target if Iran and the US were in a state of declared war. They are not.

Here, I know this is UK law, but it strikes the right tone: this action was pure terrorism.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/1

Eighthman , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:55 pm GMT
@Rich ragtag forces in Afghanistan ( even more rag tag than Iraq) have defeated the US.

The US must bomb and kill – apart from actually encountering another irregular war that they keep losing.

I can think of some Iranian responses. Hostage taking by allied but deniable groups of US personnel. Build out intercontinental missiles in quantity and shield them. Buy Russian weapons like S-400 in a few months.

TaintedCanker , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:56 pm GMT
There's a lot of meaningful content in this article. The only problem is that it is one-sided with more of a dislike of Israel and USA individually than Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen, UAE, Qatar combined.

Where Saker would lead us is to the same inaction of Ben Rhodes.

The problem is that Ben Rhodes would want to collaborate with Suleimani more than Republicans and conservatives or allies such as Israel, UK, Poland.

This leaves the Obama galaxy of superstar stateswomen and statesmen with an unrealistic vision of the world.

This turns into Gaddafi being killed because he is easy to kill, triggering a vacuum and pulling in ISIS and Iran, as well as turning loose 1M people to run try to sneak into Europe.

This same myopic worldview leads to pushing Russia to the breaking point by working with similar minded EU leaders to "flip" Ukraine. That turned out badly and now Obama's statesmen want to hide it.

Don't forget that Kerry is married into Iranian diplomats at the top level.

Paul holland , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:57 pm GMT
Best idea would be to murder a Trump Yahoo like Sheldon Aidelson or Alan Douchewitz.

Would humiliate trump personally but he could not react

bruce county , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:57 pm GMT
@Rich Wishful thinking
Thre are many other scenarios and players to consider. America will not be allowed to arbitrarily mass forces and engage their enemy at free will.
Ignatius , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 8:58 pm GMT
My take is that the timing of death of General Soleimani and the fact that President Trump is pending impeachment in the US Senate is not a mere coincidence. Part of me thinks that TPTB set Trump up to be impeached and gave him an ultimatum to facilitate a military conflict with Iran or lose his presidency by way of impeachment.

What seems more bogus, the pretense for impeachment or the pretense for war with Iran?

Tulip , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:01 pm GMT
There will be a war with Iran if Trump wants a war with Iran.

But its not clear that Trump wants a full-on war. He could have had one by now if he wanted it. He is more of a business man than a warlord at heart, and lacks the insecurity of a W. He doesn't need to pose in uniform on an aircraft carrier to feel virile, he can just bang Melania.

On the other hand, he won't allow himself to look weak, and he will retaliate. In addition, there is lots of evidence in the public record that Trump has a long-standing antipathy to Iran and its government. And Trump has many "friends" that would be thrilled by an Iran expedition.

Iran would be crazy to provoke Trump in a way that would likely lead to war. Iraq showed the U.S. can take down a government and leave the country wrecked. Sure, the U.S. won't "win" in Iraq, but that doesn't mean Saddam won or the Iraqi people. Iran would be messier, but I lack the Saker's "optimism". The Iranian government will want to survive, not gamble. [Ho Chi Mihn didn't actively seek an American invasion.] The question is whether Iran can de-escalate while saving face (and while other forces, who would love to see the U.S. invade Iran, do everything to escalate affairs).

Leaving aside "winning the war", it would look great on T.V. heading into the 2020 election even if it ends in disaster, and permit cheap attacks on the Democrats in the climate of jingoism sure to follow the first bombs. If Trump is any politician worth his salt, he is more interested in winning the next election than in America winning some long-term ME war.

Not Raul , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:06 pm GMT
Let's say the Saudis attack the USA again like they did on 9-11, Iran gets blamed (of course), and Trump responds by nuking Iran, killing half of the population within a few hours, and 95% within a year.

How exactly does Iran "win" after that?

JamesinNM , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:07 pm GMT
You must understand, Israel would surreptitiously nuke the U.S. if they believed it was needed to adequately control the U.S.
JamesinNM , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:10 pm GMT
@Harbinger Zionism, not Judaism. Two entirely separate things. Compare Romans 2:28-29 versus Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. Research the reader survey "Defense of True Israel" to identify today's true Israel.
journey80 , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:13 pm GMT
It doesn't matter whether Iran decides to retaliate – Israel will retaliate for them. Netanyahu will have his president-for-life, get-out-of-jail war. This could have been an Israeli strike that Trump was forced, or manipulated, into taking credit for. Nothing would be surprising, so long as that shabby little grifter controls U.S. foreign policy.
nokangaroos , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:19 pm GMT
If Russia and China had any itch to go in, they would have done so in Afghanistan at next to no cost to themselves (of course this only emboldened the Empire of Evil).
And with the exception of Mohammed Reza Shah (installed by coup in 1941 because his daddy, an old-school Kurdish brigand, was way too reasonable – something that is conveniently forgotten) Iran has always taken pains to hold both the Anglos and the Russians at arm´s length.

That much at least is going to change.

Desert Fox , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:20 pm GMT
Not only was the joint Israeli and ZUS attack on the USS Liberty a false flag, but even worse than that was the false flag joint Israeli and ZUS attack on the WTC on 911 , and since they have gotten away with these false flags, no doubt, they will do another to get the excuse to finish off Iran.

The only nation standing in the way of the attack on Iran is Russia, and Russia is not going to let Iran be destroyed as Russia threw down the gauntlet in Syria and Russia's top generals ie Gerasimov and Shoygu know that Russia is next and will not stand by and let Iran go down, even if Putin is reluctant to save Iran, which I believe Putin will also know Russia is next on the list.

Israel and the ZUS want a nuclear war with Russia and I believe they will cause a false flag to have it and they believe they can ride out a nuclear exchange in their DUMBS ie deep underground military bases which they have throughout the ZUS and ZEurope and Israel.

Israel and the ZUS are not content with destroying the middle east, they now want to destroy the world.

SeekerofthePresence , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:22 pm GMT
In a land of bravado
You can't get any dumber;
To history and morals
Mind and heart any number.
annamaria , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:28 pm GMT
@Rich "Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate target."

-- Let's name all Israeli generals, one by one, and call them legitimate targets.

Your puny theocratic state of Israel has been the cause of the ongoing mass slaughter in the Middle East. Each of Israeli citizens took a bath full of blood of innocent civilians of all ages, figuratively speaking.

Iran has not attacked any country. Israel has. It was the perfidious AIPAC of Israel-firsters that has been working non-stop on promoting the wars of aggression in the name of Eretz Israel. Iraq, Syria, Libya have been destroyed in accordance with Oded Yinon subhuman plan. Iran is the next.

The hapless Europeans and Americans are finally learning about the viciousness of Jewish sadists. Instead of "almost truthful" holobiz stories forged by Eli Wiesel and Anne Frank' dad, the schools should have been teaching the biographies of Jewish mega-criminals such as Lazar Kaganovich (Stalin's right hand and organizer of Holodomor in Ukraine), Naftali Frenkel (an inventor of "industrialized" death in the GULAG), and the despicable mass-murderess Rozalia Zalkind.

The State of Israel has been founded by self-proclaimed terrorists and remains the nest of terrorists. Even the zionized Wikipedia admits that the Jewish State sponsors terrorism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_terrorism

In case you do not know what Baby Yar means, here a picture for you: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/babi-yar

Ilya G Poimandres , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:31 pm GMT
@A123

The economic situation is so bad in Iran, people are rioting against the corrupt Ayatollah.

The rapists strangle their victim and blame them for their lack of oxygen.

Attacking the embassy was clearly Khameni's desperate effort to shore up personal weakness at home. Not only did he fail to keep the embassy, he also lost a key terrorist. The weak leader just became much weaker.

All I can say is.. Wimp Lo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d696t3yALAY

Valley Forge Warrior , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:39 pm GMT
The Iranians won't do jack. If they try anything, Trump will exterminate the Iranians.
Harbinger , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:39 pm GMT
@JamesinNM Zionism is Judaism is communism.

Judaism is a cult, not a religion. It's the self worship of Jews, hatred of non Jews (racism) and supremacist beliefs over all other peoples on this earth. In effect, Judaism is the Jewish KKK/Black Panthers. It's perfectly ok to go around saying "we're god's chosen" (blatant supremacism and racism) and yet they go crazy when some white person puts up a poster saying "it's ok to be white" ? The former is ignored and worse, accepted by many idiots while the latter is vehemently attacked. Think about that for a moment?

Don't let the red herrings of "It's not Judaism, it's Zionism" or "it's not the real Jews, but the fake Ashkenazis" crap lead you astray from the situation. The problem IS what it always has been and always will be until people wake up and do something about it. That problem is Judaism. It's never changed.

Alfred , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:44 pm GMT
If the Americans leave Syria and Iraq, that will be the ultimate revenge for Iran without having fired a single shot

Correct.

And that is precisely the real objective of Trump. Trump is greatly underestimated. He gives the Zionists everything they want – which results in outcomes that are very much against their interests.

Agent76 , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:47 pm GMT
Jan 3, 2020 Iran has the 'right to retaliate' over US 'act of war'

Tehran University's Mohammed Marandi says the US' "murder" of a senior Iranian military commander is "definitely an act of war".

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_GxjPvShWsY?feature=oembed

Jul 4, 2019 Iran-Iraq-Syria rail link revived.

As imperial forces are defeated in the region but economic war continues, economic integration between Iran, Iraq and Syria becomes even more necessary, for a decent future.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nQIIXQ7V2Dc?feature=oembed

Sep 11, 2011 General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years

"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9RC1Mepk_Sw?feature=oembed

niteranger , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:53 pm GMT
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro You missed the boat .! This is about Israel and its control of Trump. Israel wants eternal war..they care not how many are killed because it will be Americans not Jews. The scenarios presented here are limited and simplistic. The real scenarios present much greater challenges for the US Intelligence Agencies. These include false flags by Israel and the Jewish controlled Congress for excuses to bomb Iran. But even a greater risk would be splinter Muslim groups around the world and especially in the US that will retaliate against Americans. The estimate of at least 20% of Muslims in the US are terrorists waiting to happen may come to fruition. Trump the idiot has just thrown a cigar into the punch bowl. Michael Scheuer former CIA put it this way:

"The crux of my argument is simply that America is in a war with militant Islamists that it cannot avoid; one that it cannot talk or appease its way out of; one in which our irreconcilable Islamist foes will have to be killed, an act which unavoidably will lead to innocent deaths; and one that is motivated in large measure by the impact of U.S. foreign policies in the Islamic world, one of which is unqualified U.S. support for Israel."

In his second book, Imperial Hubris, a New York Times bestseller, Scheuer writes that the Islamist threat to the United States is rooted in "how easy it is for Muslims to see, hear, experience, and hate the six U.S. policies bin Laden repeatedly refers to as anti-Muslim:

U.S. support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments.
U.S. and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula.
U.S. support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis' thrall.
U.S. pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low.
U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants

The US will experience the wrath of these people over and over again because we keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Trump is nothing more than figure head president under complete control of Israel. Civilization is doomed if Israel continues complete control of most the US government and most of the world. The American citizenry are nothing more than blind little animals waiting to be slaughter by Israel.

Igor Bundy , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:56 pm GMT
The gerbils of feeble minds are out in force to show their arrogance and illiteracy t seems. Throughout time, Iran has emboldened the oppressed to fight the imperialists. Just like the support they show the people of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and to an extent Yemen.. They wont destroy all that they have built unless the US uses some excuse to attack inside iran at which point all bets are off and so are all places in the ME with US military.. This blatant act of terrorism is the worst a civilised nation can do and the ultimate hypocrisy of calling itself run by the rule of law.. Almost all rules and laws were violated and so is the rules of war itself which is mostly non existent but even in war there are some things you do not do like taking out the leadership because the men will then have no choice but to keep fighting without anyone to order them to stand down.. Only imbeciles will do unthinkable things like this and such blatant violations of international laws in front of the entire world and then take credit for it..
Truth3 , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:59 pm GMT
@Rich

Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate target.

Spoken like a true hasbarite.

anonymous [178] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 9:59 pm GMT

Conclusion: we wait for Iran's next move

In this statement the most potent word is "wait."

Iran doing nothing = psychological torment.

Badly forged Warrior wrote:
The Iranians won't do jack. If they try anything, Trump will exterminate the Iranians.

maybe not on your timeline, forge, but someday . . .

Trump should maybe take Barron's college fund out of long-term investments.

anon [399] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:00 pm GMT
@Rich It's not the duty of Iran to rescue American from the hog nosed Zionist and from rotting cadaver ( rotting carcass) of the boar faced Adelshon .

That's American have to get done

nickels , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:01 pm GMT
Its pretty clear that the dem's impeachment scam was a collaboration with the neocons to corner Trump into having to obey McConnell, Graham and the rest of the criminals.
A few months back the great Orange King was going to pull out of Syria, right?
It is almost patently obvious Trump was handed the option of starting war with Iran or having the senate slowly turn against him (through a well orchestrated media campaign, of course), ending up with him in prison or worse.
Can't have that. Donny boy serves only Donny boy, and the country's arse isn't worth choosing over his own.
Anon [399] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:02 pm GMT
@Harbinger NPR now : Israel has been pushing America to confront Iran . But Israel doesn't want to be seen as the power behind the American aggression against Iran .
Alfred , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:07 pm GMT
there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf

This was obviously the case. All the accusations against Libya were patently false. The Scottish court case was a scam from A to Z. All the "evidence" against Libya could have been concocted by a 12 year old. "Finding" a bit of clockwork in a field and claiming that someone bought a certain "suitcase" in Malta is a piece of cake.

Despite the destruction of Libya and access to all their files and bureaucrats, no effort was ever made to search their records and to substantiate the accusations against Libya. Lockerbie and Pan Am 103 simply disappeared from the media.

If Libya had been behind the explosion of Pan Am 103, they would have relished producing the evidence and a lot of Libyans would have been accused and put on trial. It would have helped their accusations that "Libya was a rogue state"

The only facts that everyone agrees on is that the Americans shot down an Iranian airliner on 3 July 1988 with 290 people on board. And that a US airliner with 259 people was blown up on 21 December 1988. Some coincidence!

Since PA103, no Iranian civilian aircraft of any sort has been attacked or threatened by the USA or any other country. I guess that is a strong hint as to what intelligence services believe the true story to be.

TG , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:09 pm GMT
The nerve of Donald Trump! I mean, who does he think he is, Hillary Clinton?
Anonymous [422] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:10 pm GMT
@Valley Forge Warrior "Valley Forge Warrior"

Sounds like one of the Christ-killer handles you see over at Hasbara Central (aka, Free Republic).

FReepers with handles like "ProudMarineMomEagleUSALibertyLoverArmyVetMAGAGalAirborneTexasFreedom" posting articles on inside baseball of Knesset politics.

Chet Roman , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:16 pm GMT
It's time for Iran to get insurance in the form of multiple nuclear warheads. I doubt Russia or China will sell them but Pakistan, a fellow Muslim country, or N. Korea might. All they need is a few nukes that would be include in a barrage of hundreds of missiles aimed at Tel Aviv. No Iron Dome (which is useless anyway) would stop the attack. Israel would never allow (since we know they control Congress and the President) an attack on Iran if there was even the slightest possibility of a nuke on Israel. Let's face it, the Israelis are only "brave" when they slaughter defenseless Palestinian women and children. They were driven out of Lebanon by a rag tag civilian militia.

Forget the Fatwa, get nukes!

Passer by , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:18 pm GMT
You are naive and poorly educated murican from declining Amerikanistan who lives in the past. The Unipolar era is over. The Iranians have the capacity to destroy all US bases in 2000km radius (in the Middle East) with ballistic missile salvos, it and its shia allied groups in the region have plenty of attack drones and long range cruise missiles too (and US land anti-air capability is poor), all US soldiers in Iraq will be killed by shia millitias, drones and long range missiles (unless the US would try to invade Iraq again and restart the occupation with 300 000 soldiers in Iraq, for which it no longer has the money, too much debt and shaky economy), Russia can supply the country with high tech anti-air systems, Iran can supply manpads and long range missiles to the Taliban which will lead to siege of US bases in Afghanistan and bombardment/capture of americans there, (taliban are already winning there without any help). Iran can also destroy most oil and gas infrastructure in the Middle East.

Estimation:
all US bases in the Middle East will be leveled.
US bases will be besieged in Afghanistan and Taliban will fully take over that country.
The biggest US embassy in the world – in Iraq, will be captured, together with the US diplomats in it.
Shia Millitia Proxies will attack and capture/destroy many US embassies in the region.
Oil price will reach 150 – 200 $ leading to global economic crisis.
Israel will be attacked by Hizbulla and many israeli cities will be damaged, keeping it busy.
No european country will support such attack and this will lead to the EU marginalising NATO and replacing it with its own independent european military pact, moving away from the US.
Whole world will condemn the US and will start moving away from dependency on that country, as no one wants such a war in the Gulf.
30 000 americans (almost all in the middle east) killed and all of their objects in the Middle East destroyed.
US companies infrastructure in the Middle East and in Iraq destroyed.
Big uprising against the US in Iraq.
US economy enters recession.
US is crippled by war debt.

For that large price to pay, the only US option will be US long range attacks via bombers, carriers and subs, who will not be very effective vs russian anti-air systems. It will take a long time for Iran to be destroyed if they have modern russian anti-air. Meanwhile the global economy will enter recession until the war is over. There will be massive anti-US protests all over the world blaming it for the resulting global economic crisis and recession.

In the long run, the US will be able to destroy most of Iran by conventional means, but the US itself will be crippled by debt and will lose its superpower status. In other words, it will be the Suez Moment for the US.

Ultimately though, there will be no large scale war because the US does not have the money for it. It is crippled by debt. Picture underestimates US debt by 10 % and already estimates hyperinflation by 2050 (10 % and growing annual budget deficits, which is a disaster).

Then there is the possibility for the US to use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran but then the US will be declared a rogue state by the world and every other state will get nukes too and NPT regime will be dead, leading to the end of US influence and capacity to wage war in the world.

Z-man , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:19 pm GMT
@Paul holland That's a good suggestion but I still think they should go after Pompeo. If you really want to keep it 'tit for tat' with even less retaliation then poor Gen. Milley should be splashed. (Evil grin)
Anon [209] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:25 pm GMT

For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one

Absolutely ridiculous. It was not a Libyan action. And it was not an Iranian one.

Z-man , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:27 pm GMT
@Harbinger Yes and the Jews follow the TALMUD not the Bible. The Talmud is a Jew Supremist manual.
Z-man , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:28 pm GMT
@Alfred From your keyboard to God's ears.
NTG , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:31 pm GMT
@bruce county Will not be allowed? then look what they did in this very moment. They already mass their forces in iraq and surounding bases. Their are considerable more Galaxy C17 traffic in Ramstein/Germany and the whole C17 (as far as you can identify them)look like a swarm of bees on the way to the middle east.
the grand wazoo , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:31 pm GMT
I have one wish for 2020, and it is this: That everyone stop referring to this group of bastards claiming to great American patriots and thinkers (both a flagrant lie) as 'neocons', and call them what they are; 99% are dual citizen Israeli firsters. Fostering the acronym neocon allows them to remain hidden behind a mask of their own design, and is a great disservice and a threat to every American. These traitors with their Israel first attitude, have but one job, and it is to dream up fake threats to America's security, (i.e. Iraq's WMD's), in order to insure America's defense budget remains huge, and US soldiers all over the ME making Israel feel safe and secure; not so much America. truth is they care nothing of America and have perfected the art of subterfuge, as evidenced by this quote by self described paleo-neoconservative Norman Podhertz in his work Breaking Ranks:

"An Israeli within the Jewish community, and an American on the public goy stage".

anon [183] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:33 pm GMT
Netanyahu, aka Benzion Mileikowsky is holed up in that land of his idle, "Hitler's Argentinian Patagonia"?

or,

Brave Sir Robin ran away.
("No!")
Bravely ran away away.
("I didn't!")
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
("I never!")

Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
("You're lying!")

Swiftly taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!

Songwriters: Adam Patrick Devlin / Edward Daniel Chester / Eric Idle / Graham Chapman / John Cleese / Mark James Morriss / Michael Palin / Neil Innes / Scott Edward Morriss / Terry Gilliam
Brave Sir Robin lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Artist: Monty Python
Album: The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Released: 1975

sally , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:36 pm GMT
@Rich I think the Iranians have already won on this round ..Iran stepped back and gave notice that when you are up against a guy bigger than you are, you wait until something happens to even the odds.

The domestic deplorable don't understand bullet in the brain diplomacy.. What is in Iraq or Iran that Americans want <=nothing. absolutely nothing that I can tell. so for whom is all of this?

UninformedButCurious , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:36 pm GMT
"a president who does not understand that he is a disposable tool in the hands of the Neocons."

Can that possibly be true? I hope a lot of people who can support an opinion about that will reply.

John Chuckman , says: Website Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:36 pm GMT
Hard to know what Trump's thinking here is. War before an election does not seem a good idea, especially if you are a candidate who has failed so far to achieve anything of substance around past promises to reduce America's involvement in Mideast wars.

Remember that a crucial slice of the votes that put the man into office were not from his prime political base, the "pick-up truck and Jesus" set, but from those concerned with peace and better relations with Russia.

But prodding Iran to attack could allow Trump to play commander-in-chief defending the country. And Americans just instinctively support even the worst possible presidents at war. You might call it the George Bush Effect. The frightened puppy grabbing the nearest pantleg after a loud noise.

Of course, now when it comes to campaign contributions from American Oligarchs whose chief political concern is what Israel wants, Trump's coffers will be overflowing.

I suspect Iran will take its time and carefully plan a response, and that response may not be clear and unambiguous, and it might be multi-faceted and done over time.

The men running Iran are careful men, none of them impetuous. Chess players. The United States has more than forty years of bellowing, open hostility towards the country, and we have not seen Iran's leaders act foolishly in all that time despite many provocations.

I do not believe Iran will be driven to war – that would be playing the Israeli-American game with Israeli-American rules.

Clandestine and hybrid efforts, that is what Iran is best at. They have serious capabilities these days, and the United States, with all its bases abroad, has great vulnerabilities.

Of course, there's also the option of Iran's just leaving the nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) that Trump idiotically tore-up and proceeding quietly with weapons development. Iran, despite Israel's dishonest claims, never has pursued weapons development, only efficient use of nuclear power and legitimate scientific research. Perhaps it is time to reconsider that policy

Iran has substantial deposits of uranium, and the enriched-uranium bomb is simpler to build than the plutonium bomb. Maybe there is some possibility for covert assistance from North Korea, another country treated like crap by Trump's Washington Braintrust?

Rurik , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:39 pm GMT

4.Finally, should the Iranians decide not to retaliate, then we can be absolutely sure that Uncle Shmuel will see that as a proof of his putative "invincibility" and take that as a license to engage in even more provocative actions.

For what it's worth, I vote for 4.

Gandhi and MLK are household names because they used non-violent protest to bring attention to widespread injustice.

As long as Iran responds in a non-violent way, they retain the moral high ground. The world is watching, if Iran puts out a statement to the fact that the US is using assassinations to provoke Iran into an open (obviously one-sided) war, who on the planet won't sympathize with Iran?

We all know the ZUS is a murderous, war criminal rogue regime under occupation by Zionists. Duh.

We all know the ((neocons)) and Zionists have demanded the destruction of Iran for what, decades now. We all know of Bibi's unhinged frothing. It's more than obvious to the entire world.

What we don't need is bravado or chest thumping on the part of Iran. That is exactly what the fiend is hoping for. Praying for. It's hands rubbing together and hissing 'they can't ignore this one, we slaughtered their beloved general'.

If this were all being contained by the world's media and diplomatic channels, then it might be different.

But EVERYBODY knows the score. Everybody knows who is the aggressor and who is the victim.

Iran should assume the posture of a victim, and allow all the world's people to watch in disgust as it's menaced by the world's super-power coward, who NEVER picks on anyone it's own size, but always attacks nations far weaker than it is.

What an embarrassment to be an American today, in slavish obeisance to the world's most revolting den of snakes.

God bless and save the people of Iran.

It is with profound shame that I lament my nations depraved servility to a criminal regime.

Please, don't escalate the conflict. That is EXACTLY what ((they)) want you to do.

NTG , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:41 pm GMT
Funny how even you seems to forget that Trump KNOWN that he is a "tool" and that he have to play like one. But every play he did on behalf of the Neocons did he in such a worst way that he everytime reaches the excat opposite of what the neocons wanted to reach. North Stream 2 anyone? It's done, up runnig by now.
2% spending? how have done this yet?
buy exclusiv or also by US MIC company's? Hmm the turks buy now Russian AA.
India is also in shambles about the militray topic.

NOTHING, what the neocons want from him and he allegedly did seems to work really and not because he is a moron this is ON PURPOSE.
I strongly believe that he known what he does and that he does this exactly like he or the ones behind him wanted. Trmup isn't a neocon. He is a nationalist and plays a very dangerous doubbleplay with the Deep State and their neocons/Zionists.

NTG , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:44 pm GMT
@Passer by No war because of debt? what? as if the US gov has ever cared about debt.
War is the profitables solution to debt look in history.
the grand wazoo , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:53 pm GMT
I still think that there is a roughly 80% chance of full scale war in the Middle-East and, again, will leave 20% of "unexpected events"

I believe this estimate is rather correct. Personally, I believe the odds are 100% in favor of WAR. It has taken the Israelis 35 years, since the Iraq Iran war, to get America this close. They will not allow something as trivial as peace to interfer.

lysias , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:55 pm GMT
@Rurik Cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure would be nonviolent.
Sean , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:56 pm GMT
Donald Trump is hardly a "disposable President" for Israel. The sky's the limit for Israel while Trump is in power and they will never get anyone quite like him again. The Neocons won't go against Israel.

The death of Soleimani was not long in coming after his masterminding of the successful attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities, and him making the fatal error of ordering demonstrators in Baghdad to be shot. I think the combination of threatening Saudi Arabia at its weakest point and alienating the Shiite community in Iraq is why the US decided now was the perfect time to target Soleimani.

Kiza , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 10:58 pm GMT
@Not Raul Hmmm, nuke Iran . I wonder how US would feel if Russia justifiably nuked the Mexican drug cartels in Tijuana. Probably take it just as a friendly and helpful gesture in the war on drugs, right? Or Russia nukes those pesky Quebec secessionists not far from DC?

Obviously, there is no place on the planet with more cretins per head of population than US, lead by the Cretin in Chief. All itching to use those nukes just sitting there, collecting dust since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why did cretins spend all that money on them when they cannot use them?

One totally unrelated question. ISIS has chopped off a large number of non-Sunni Muslim heads and a few heads of Westerners. Does anyone know even one example where an Israeli's head or head of a Western Jew has been chopped off?

USrael is like a tradesman who declares war on a screwdriver or hammer in his toolbox.

Lang Doniger , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:00 pm GMT
The purpose of the drone strike false flag was to coronate a new, massive trauma based mind control effort by the US Government aimed at her own domestic slaves. The CIA opinion makers are out in full force: Sjursen, Engelhardt, Bacevich, Hedges, Cole, NYT, WaPo, AI – you name it, all delivering the message of peace because they were trained for war. Quickly form all the public opinions to make sure the people are divided.

The voting class has given us 100% of the war, 100% of the inequality, 100% of the misery that the poor suffer daily. Accordingly, the CIA has to assassinate wrong thinking in the voting class before it threatens the status quo of war, inequality and suffering.

The only thing missing is a Pat Tillman character – a patriotic zombie athlete, tatted and geared up to kick ass for the right reasons as a hero until the sham that everyone knew all along – except for poor Pat – reveals itself.

Thim , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:03 pm GMT
@the grand wazoo Neocohens then.
the grand wazoo , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:05 pm GMT
@Ignatius I read this same theme at the VT site. Either Robert David Steel's piece or in a comment. Rather far fetched idea, but not so far out that the dual citizen cretins in DC wouldn't use.
Monty Ahwazi , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:06 pm GMT
Thanks Saker!
The officials in Tehran have been and will continue to be calm, calculating, rational and making decisions collectively! The Two Fat Guys and skinny dip" have been defeated by Iran in their Cold War with Iran for 4 decades! Iranians' mail goal is to force the US to run away from the ME region w/o confronting it! They would like to achieve their goal as the Vietnamese did in 1973 if anyone remembers that! So far they have been successful and their actions in the future will show their intentions more clearly!
With all due respect the Chinese and Russians would love to see the US humiliated so she's forced to leave and they don't mind using Iran as a front to achieve their goal without confronting the US!
anon [260] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:07 pm GMT
@Harbinger

I'm just waiting for the usual suspects to come on here denying it had anything to do with Israel and Judaism.

It's hard to make that claim when every chosenite from Benjamin Shapiro to Israeli citizen and fake "national conservative" Yoram Hazony is celebrating on Twitter.

Example:

To all the jerks saying Trump did this "for Israel":

1. No American should die for Israel.

2. If you can't feel shame when your country is shamed and want to act when your own people are killed, your problem isn't Israel. Your problem is you.

-- Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) January 3, 2020

Do these scum ever not lie? No American was killed by Iranians or Iranian-backed proxies before this incident, not for at least a decade. And Trump totally did this for Israel. His biggest donors have been demanding he do this for years and suddenly he does it. It's not hard to see the connection, especially amid all the Jews celebrating on Twitter today.

Further, he goes on to beat his chest as a fake patriotic American (while being an Israeli citizen); it's clear he's just celebrating an attack on his country's enemy, but wants you to think it has something to do with America.

You can be darned sure no in the world thinks seizing an American embassy is a genius tactical move right now. Not in Iran -- and not anywhere else.

-- Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) January 3, 2020

You can be damned sure no on in the world thinks this empire is anything but lawless and dangerous right now -- headed by an irrational imbecile beholden to the interests of a racist apartheid state. Not in Europe -- and not anywhere else.

http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2020/01/03/donald-trumps-neocons-laud-assassination-of-qassem-soleimani-in-iraq/

Franklin Ryckaert , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:07 pm GMT
@Not Raul All your premises are wrong.
Franklin Ryckaert , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:11 pm GMT
@journey80 Israel has no president-for-life system.
eah , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:15 pm GMT
Such brazen bullshit: "decisive defensive action", "aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans"

IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- Statement by the Department of Defense -- JAN. 2, 2020

At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on December 27th – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.

This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.

Rich , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:15 pm GMT
@Rurik Gandhi drank his own urine and slept with prepubescent girls, MLK was a whoremonger and sodomite, you can have them both. Iran won't escalate because they tried, and lost a general. If they try anything else, they'll pay too steep a price.
Harold Smith , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:17 pm GMT
@nickels

"Its pretty clear that the dem's impeachment scam was a collaboration with the neocons to corner Trump into having to obey McConnell, Graham and the rest of the criminals."

No it's not. It's pretty clear that orange clown is enthusiastic about mass-murdering people and trying to start wars for his jewish-supremacist handlers.

"A few months back the great Orange King was going to pull out of Syria, right?"

No he wasn't; he was just posturing, as usual.

"It is almost patently obvious Trump was handed the option of starting war with Iran or having the senate slowly turn against him (through a well orchestrated media campaign, of course), ending up with him in prison or worse."

Or so you barely assert. But if that's the case why didn't "they" force Obama to start a war with Iran? For that matter why did "they" allow Obama to enter into the JCPOA agreement with Iran in the first place?

The more likely explanation is that the impeachment scam was an effort to determine whether or not orange clown had enough support to be re-elected. Perhaps our rulers wanted to see if the peasants would rally around their embattled MAGA "hero" if they could present him as the hapless victim of the even-more-evil "democrats." (And if so, his re-election "campaign strategy" could then be crafted around his apparent "victimhood" – since he has nothing else to campaign on).

If this is the case, then the experiment may now have come to an end, with the result that the favorite son-of-perdition would likely not be re-elected; thus he has one year to start the war on Iran, and he is wasting no time getting on with it.

Nicolás Palacios Navarro , says: Website Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:19 pm GMT
@Chet Roman

Pakistan, a fellow Muslim country, or N. Korea might

Very unlikely that this could occur. Pakistan itself is wary of incurring further unwanted attention from the US, which regularly violates its sovereignty anyway. If they indeed decided to pursue this route, the Ziofascists in Washington would simply and very happily open up a new front against Islamabad. (Although doing so would stand a better -- worse? -- chance of provoking some kind of Chinese reaction than the current US antagonizing of Tehran.)

The DPRK's stance against Washington is purely defensive and they clearly have no wish to engage in any action that could trigger the end of the Kim regime. China would also likely not back it up in such a scenario.

Iran is clearly the victim here, but has been cornered into an unenviable position from which it has no favorable options. Those hoping that Russia and China will somehow step in to prevent war will find themselves disappointed. The most likely best scenario is that this new war will seal the eventual financial bankruptcy of the US. However, the results of that would take years to unfold. But this new war will undoubtedly be a costly one and, in the not so long run, fiscally untenable.

anon [179] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:20 pm GMT
@Valley Forge Warrior

The Iranians won't do jack. If they try anything, Trump will exterminate the Iranians.

Lol. "Valley Forge Warrior". What an obvious Hasbara troll. He probably has only a vague knowledge of American history, so he picked something he stereotypically thinks an American patriot would call himself. Along with A123, these hacks have been clogging up the comments of every article on the subject trying to gin up the goyim for war on Iran. What "ally" does that kind of thing?

Passer by , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:21 pm GMT
@NTG When? When the rest of the world was destroyed and US was the only one standing, representing half the world's economy and industrial capacity? In current conditions this leads to hyperinflation and the rest of the world, which is growing faster than the US (now down to 15 % of the world economy in PPP) and is already quite self-sufficient from US industry abandoning the dollar. No one would take something that is printed in heavy amounts to liquidate 30 + trillions in debt. The end of dollar main reserve currency status, which leads to feedback loop and even greater hyperinflation in the US.
anonymous [103] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:25 pm GMT
Forcing the US out of the area seems to be a likely response. Perhaps they'll be able to gin up some popular riots and demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Undermining the Saudi regime might be a real blow to the US; who really knows how stable it actually is? As opportunities present themselves the Iranians will avail themselves of them, avoiding direct confrontations and clashes. Remember, they live there so can drag this out over time.
Johnny Walker Read , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:28 pm GMT
I pick the action behind door number two Monty

No less alarming is that this creates the absolutely perfect conditions for a false flag à la "USS Liberty". Right now, the Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and facilities in the entire Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves.

RowBuddy , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:28 pm GMT
@Harbinger The wankers Trump and Netanyahu have been planning this invasion for some time. Actually, given the level and history of U.S. hubris, the Neocons have not quite gotten over the fact that 50 years ago, the Iranian people kicked the murderous Shah (U.S. puppet) out of the country. The U.S. will continue to invade and wage wars against sovereigns who refuse to tow the U.S. line. Please dump Trump in 2020!
eah , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:32 pm GMT
@eah

The US constantly threatens to overthrow Iran's government, invades and occupies its neighboring countries, decimates it with sanctions, launches cyber-attacks on its infrastructure, and now assassinates its national leaders. But the propagandists tell you Iran is the "aggressor"

-- Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 3, 2020

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:32 pm GMT
@Valley Forge Warrior A Q for you and "Rich:" https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-live-trump-discusses-soleimani-killing-mar-lago
comment section:

How can the government on a moment's notice locate and drop a bomb on the head of a veteran military officer and yet not be able to find a measly whore (jizzlane) hiding out in Israel.

Are you familiar with the name of a Mossad agent "Madam" Ghislaine Maxwell? What about her father R. Maxwell, a mega-embezzler, thief and Mossad agent?

The fallen Iranian was an honest and honorable man, unlike the Jewish procuress of underage girls for wealthy pedophiles and the Jewish plunderer of pensions.

While Mirror Group shareholders were wiped out, arguably the biggest losers were the pensioners most pensioners had to accept a 50% cut in the value of their pensions.

No wonder Maxwell (known as "a great fraud") was feted by other prominent Jewish frauds.

Gizmo880 , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:33 pm GMT
It is very doubtful that Iran retaliates in any way that might lead to all out war with the U.S. unless they have assurances of total backing from either Russia or China, which I don't see happening at this time. Neither one of those countries is ready for WW III against the U.S. at the present.

If I were Iran, though, I would use the fact that they sit on some of the largest energy reserves in the world to help me acquire as many nukes as possible. That might truly be the only deterrent to their destruction, as Israel and her surrogate the U.S. are never going to give up in there intention of destroying that country.

Rurik , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:34 pm GMT
@lysias Yes, but it would piss off the sheople, and Iran doesn't need anymore of the American Bovinus demanding more belligerence. (for which they personally won't risk a fingernail).

44 seconds in until 2:55

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lcu-YzJajN8?feature=oembed

And this was over 40 years ago.

Since then their consolidation over the media and federal government has been consummate. The only cracks in the iron bubble being the formerly free Internet, and they're very fast sealing off those few remaining cracks.

Now you'd have to be near brain-dead not to know that they control our foreign policy in absolute terms, and that Americans have been dying for the greater glory of their enemies in Israel for generations now.

What we need to do is allow the American people to decide if they want to send more of their children to kill and die for their enemies in Israel.

We all know Iran is nothing more than one more country Israel demands we destroy.

Iran simply needs to allow the rest of the world, to rise up in condemnation with all the nations of the planet, including the millions of patriotic Americans that are sick to death of our federal government's slavish fealty to Jewish supremacist shekels.

Don't react to the provocation. Allow all the nations and people of the world to become sympathetic to your cause. Perhaps, though some miracle even the Sunni nations of the world will side with Iran on this one.

We all know who the bully is, and who the victim is. Just look at what the ZUS did to Iraq and Libya and Syria and so many others

It's a global problem for so many, that we can't even count the victims of zio-criminality, from Donbas to Caracas, to Bolivia..

We need a global outrage, and a global demand to reign in the Zionist fiend.

By doing nothing, but speaking out, Iran's message of victimization is it's more powerful, moral weapon.

Iris , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:42 pm GMT
@JamesinNM

You must understand, Israel would surreptitiously nuke the U.S. if they believed it was needed to adequately control the U.S.

Please bear with my correcting you. Isreal has already nuked the USA: on 9/11, the WTC was brought down by underground nuclear detonations.

renfro , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:45 pm GMT
Israel Assassinations from 1950's to 2018
[MORE]
1950s

Date Place Country Target Description Action Killer
July 13, 1956 Gaza Strip Egypt Mustafa Hafez Egyptian Army Lieutenant-Colonel, responsible for recruiting refugees to carry out attacks in Israel. Parcel bomb[12] Israel Defense Forces operation directed by Yehoshafat Harkabi.
July 14, 1956 Amman Jordan Salah Mustafa Egyptian Military attache
1960s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Killer
September 11, 1962 Munich Germany Heinz Krug West German rocket scientist working for Egypt's missile program Abducted from his company offices on Munich's Schillerstrasse, his body was never found. Swiss police later arrested two Mossad agents for threatening the daughter of another scientist and found that they were responsible for the killing. Part of Operation Damocles. Mossad
November 28, 1962 Heluan Egypt 5 Egyptian factory workers Workers employed at Factory 333, an Egyptian rocket factory. Letter bomb sent bearing Hamburg post mark. Another such bomb disfigured and blinded a secretary. Part of Operation Damocles.
February 23, 1965 Montevideo Uruguay Herberts Cukurs Aviator who had been involved in the murders of Latvian Jews during the Holocaust[18] Lured to and killed in Montevideo by agents under the false pretense of starting an aviation business.

1970s

Date Place Country Target Description Action Killer
July 8, 1972 Beirut Lebanon Ghassan Kanafani Palestinian writer and a leading member of the PFLP, who had claimed responsibility for the Lod Airport massacre on behalf of the PFLP.[19] Killed by car bomb. Mossad[20][21][22][19][23][24][25]
July 25, 1972 Attempted killing of Bassam Abu Sharif Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Information Office. He held a press conference with Ghassan Kanafani during the Dawson's Field hijackings justifying the PFLP's actions. He lost four fingers, and was left deaf in one ear and blind in one eye, after a book sent to him that was implanted with a bomb exploded in his hands.
October 16, 1972 Rome Italy Abdel Wael Zwaiter Libyan embassy employee, cousin of Yassir Arafat,[21] PLO representative, poet and multilingual translator, considered by Israel to be a terrorist for his alleged role in the Black September group and the Munich massacre,[27] though Aaron Klein states that 'uncorroborated and improperly cross-referenced intelligence information tied him to a support group' for Black September.[24] Shot 12 times by two Mossad gunmen as he waited for an elevator to his apartment near Piazza Avellino.[19][21]
December 8, 1972 Paris France Mahmoud Hamshari PLO representative in France and coordinator of the Munich Olympic Games massacre.[28] Killed by bomb concealed in his telephone.
January 24, 1973 Nicosia Cyprus Hussein Al Bashir a.k.a. Hussein Abu-Khair/Hussein Abad. Fatah representative in Nicosia, Cyprus and PLO liaison officer with the KGB.[24] Killed by bomb in his hotel room bed.
April 6, 1973 Paris France Basil Al-Kubaissi PFLP member and American University of Beirut Professor of International Law Killed on a street in Paris by two Mossad agents.[21]
April 9, 1973 Beirut Lebanon Kamal Adwan Black September commander and member of the Fatah central committee[29] Killed in his apartment in front of his children during Operation Spring of Youth, either shot 55 times or killed with a grenadeSayeret Matk al led by Ehud Barak
Muhammad Youssef Al-Najjar Black September Operations officer and PLO official Shot dead in his apartment together with his wife during Operation Spring of Youth.[31] Sayeret Matkal together with Mossad
Kamal Nasser Palestinian Christian poet, advocate of non-violence and PLO spokesman Shot dead in his apartment during Operation Spring of Youth. According to Palestinian sources his body was left as if hanging from a cross. A woman neighbour was shot dead when she opened her door during the operation. Sayeret Matkal
April 11, 1973 Athens Greece Zaiad Muchasi Fatah representative to Cyprus Killed in hotel room.[21] Mossad[32][33][34]
June 28, 1973 Paris France Mohammad Boudia Black September operations officer Killed by pressure-activated mine under his car seat.[21]
July 21, 1973 Lillehammer Norway Attempted killing of Ali Hassan Salameh High-ranked leader in the PLO and Black September who was behind the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre Shmed Bouchiki, an innocent waiter believed to be Ali Hassan Salameh, killed by gunmen. Known as the Lillehammer affair.
March 27, 1978 East Berlin East Germany Wadie Haddad PFLP commander, who masterminded several plane hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s.[36] He apparently died of cancer in an East Berlin hospital, reportedly untraced by Mossad.[37] Mossad never claimed responsibility. Aaron Klein states that Mossad passed on through a Palestinian contact a gift of chocolates laced with a slow poison, which effectively caused his death several months later.[36]
January 22, 1979 Beirut Lebanon Ali Hassan Salameh High-ranked leader in the PLO and Black September who was behind the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre[35] Killed by remote-controlled car bomb,[21] along with four bodyguards and four innocent bystanders.

1980s

Date Place Country Target Description Action Executor
June 13, 1980 Paris France Yehia El-Mashad Egyptian nuclear scientist, lecturer at Alexandria University Killed in his room at the Méridien Hotel in Operation Sphinx.[38][39]:23 Marie-Claude Magal, prostitute, client of El-Meshad, pushed under a car and killed in the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Mossad
September 1981 São Paulo Brazil José Alberto Albano do Amarante An Air Force lieutenant colonel, assassinated by the Israeli intelligence service to prevent Brazil from becoming a nuclear nation.He was contaminated by radioactive material. Samuel Giliad or Guesten Zang, a Mossad agent, an Israeli born in Poland.
August 21, 1983 Athens Greece Mamoun Meraish Senior PLO official Shot in his car from motorcycle. Mossad
June 9, 1986 Khalid Nazzal Secretary of the DFLP (Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestine) Killed in Athens by Mossad agents who entered Greece with fake passports, shot Nazzal while leaving his hotel, and fled the country. Mossad
October 21, 1986 Munther Abu Ghazaleh High-ranked leader in the PLO. Senior member of the National Palestinian Council, the Revolutionary Council of Al Fatah and the Supreme Military Council of the Revolutionary Palestinian Forces. Killed by car bomb Mossad
April 16, 1988 Tunis Tunisia Abu Jihad Second-in-command to Yassir Arafat Shot dead in front of his family in the Tunis Raid by Israeli commandos under the direction of Ehud Barak and Moshe Ya'alon, and condemned as a political assassination by the United States State Department.[9][44] Israel Defense Forces
July 14, 1989 Alexandria Egypt Said S. Bedair Egyptian scientist in electrical, electronic and microwave engineering and a colonel in the Egyptian army Fell to his death from the balcony of his brother's apartment in Camp Chezar, Alexandria, Egypt. His veins were found cut and a gas leak was detected in the apartment. Arabic and Egyptian sources claim that the Mossad assassinated him in a way that appears as a suicide.
1990s

Date Place Country Target Description Action Executor
March 20, 1990 Brussels Belgium Gerald Bull Canadian engineer and designer of the Project Babylon "supergun" for Saddam Husseins government Shot at door to his apartment Attributed to Mossad by several sources,[45] and widely believed to be a Mossad operation by intelligence experts,[46] Gordon Thomas states it was the work of Mossad's director Nahum Admoni.[47] Israel denied involvement at the time.[46] and several other countries had interests in seeing him dead.
February 16, 1992 Nabatieh Governorate Lebanon Abbas al-Musawi Secretary-General of Hezbollah After 3 IDF soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants of the PIJ during a training exercise at Gal'ed in Israel, Israel retaliated by killing Musawi in his car, together with his wife Sihan and 5-year-old child Hussein, with seven missiles launched from two Apache Israeli helicopters.[21] Hezbollah retaliated by the attacking Israel's embassy in Argentina.[48] Israel Defense Forces[49]
June 8, 1992 Paris France Atef Bseiso Palestinian official involved in Munich Massacre Shot several times in the head at point-blank range by 2 gunmen, in his hotel (Aaron Klein's "Striking Back") Mossad, with French complicity, according to the PLO, but French security sources suggested the hand of Abu Nidal.[50][51]
October 26, 1995 Sliema Malta Fathi Shaqaqi Head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad Shot and killed in front of Diplomat Hotel.[21] Mossad.[47]
January 6, 1996 Beit Lahia Gaza Strip Yahya Ayyash "The Engineer", Hamas bomb maker Head blown off by cell phone bomb in Osama Hamad's apartment, responding to a call from his father. Osama's father, Kamal Hamad, was a known collaborator with Israel, and it was bruited in Israel that he had betrayed his son's friend for $1 million, a fake passport and a U.S. visa. Covert Israeli operation[53]
September 25, 1997 Amman Jordan Khaled Mashaal (failed attempt) Hamas political leader Attempted poisoning. Israel provided antidote, after pressure by Clinton. Canada withdrew Ambassador. Two Mossad agents with Canadian passports arrested
2000s
2000, September 29-2001, April 25. According to Palestinian sources, the IDF assassinated 13 political activists in Area A under full Palestinian Authority, with 9 civilian casualties.[54]
2003 (August) The Israeli government authorized the killing of Hamas's entire political leadership in Gaza, 'without further notice,' in a method called 'the hunting season' in order to strengthen the position of moderates and Mahmoud Abbas.
2005 In February Israel announced a suspension of targeted killings, while reserving the right to kill allegedly 'ticking bombs'.[55]
Date Place Location Target Description Action Executor
November 9, 2000 Beit Sahur West Bank Hussein Mohammed Abayat (37); Abayat was a senior official of the Fatah faction Tanzim. Killed while driving his Mitsubishi by a Hellfire anti-tank missile fired from an Israeli Apache helicopter. Rahma She'ibat, (50); 'Aziza Dannoun Jobran (52), two local women, were killed by a second missile, and Nazhmi She'ibat and his wife were also injured. Accused of shooting at the Gilo settlement.[5][54][56] Israel Defense Forces[57]
November 22, 2000 Morag Gaza Strip Jamal Abdel Raziq (39), and Awni Dhuheir (38).[58] Senior official of the Fatah faction Tanzim Killed on the Rafah-Khan Yunis western road near the junction leading to Morag settlement while in a Honda Civic with the driver, Awni Dhuheir when their car was machine-gunned from two tanks at close range. The first version, they were about to attack Morag; the second version, Raziq was targeted after firing at IDF soldiers. His uncle was later sentenced to death for collaborating in his nephew's death by furnishing Israel with details.[54] Two bystanders in a taxi behind them also killed (Sami Abu Laban, 29, baker, and Na'el Shehdeh El-Leddawi, 25, student).[58][59]
November 23, 2000 Nablus West Bank Ibrahim 'Abd al-Karim Bani 'Odeh (34) Unknown. Had been jailed for 3 years by the PNA until two weeks before his death. Killed while driving a Subaru near Al-Salam mosque. Israeli version, he died from his own rudimentary bomb. Palestinian version: his cousin 'Allan Bani 'Oudeh confessed to collaborating with Israel in an assassination, and was convicted and shot in Jan 2001.[54] ?[57]
December 11, 2000 Nablus West Bank Anwar Mahmoud Hamran (28) A PIJ bombing suspect. Jailed for 2 years by PNA and released 6 weeks before his death. Targeted on a campus of Al-Quds Open University while waiting for a taxi-cab. Shot 19 times by a sniper at 500 yards. IDF version shot by soldiers in self-defence. Palestinian version, he died with books in his hand.Israel Defense Forces
December 12, 2000 al-Khader West Bank Yusef Ahmad Mahmoud Abu Sawi (28) Unknown Targeted and shot by a sniper at 200 metres, 17 bullets.[57]
December 13, 2000 Hebron West Bank 'Abbas 'Othman El-'Oweiwi(25) Hamas activist Targeted and shot 3 times in head and chest by a sniper while standing in front of his store in Wadi Al-Tuffah Street.[54][57]
December 14, 2000 Burin West Bank Saed Ibrahim Taha al-Kharuf (35) Targeted and shot dead.
rowspan=2|Israel Defense Forces.[57]

December 14, 2000
Junction of Salah el-Din near Deir al-Balah Gaza Strip Hani Hussein Abu Bakra Israeli version. Hamas activist shot as he tried to fire from a pistol. Driver of a Hyundai taxi van. Palestinian version: shot while reaching for his identity card which he was asked to produce when stopped. 4 of seven passengers wounded, one of whom, 'Abdullah 'Eissa Gannan, 40, died 10 days later.[54]
December 17, 2000 Qalandiyya West Bank Samih Malabi Tanzim officer.[60] Mobile phone bomb.
December 31, 2000 Tulkarem West Bank Thabat Ahmad Thabat Classed by Israel as head of Tanzim cell.[54] Dentist, lecturer on public health at Al Quds University, and Fatah Secretary-General on the West Bank.[60] Israeli Special Forces sniper shot him as he drove his car from his home in Ramin, classified as an apparent political assassination.[56] Israel Defense Forces
February 13, 2001 Gaza City[54] Gaza Strip Mas'oud Hussein 'Ayyad (50) Lieutenant-colonel in Force 17, an aide of Yasser Arafat held responsible for a failed mortar attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza. The IDF also alleged, without providing evidence, that he intended to form a Hezbollah cell in the Gaza Strip.[5][56][61] Killed while driving a Hyundai in Jabalia Camp by a Cobra gunship launching 3rockets.[62] Israeli Air Force
February 19, 2001 Nablus West Bank Mahmoud Suleiman El-Madani (25) Hamas activist Shot by two men in plainclothes as he left a mosque. As they fled, according to the Palestinian version, covering fire was provided by an Israeli unit on Mount Gerizim.[54]
April 2, 2001 Al-Barazil neighborhood of Rafah Gaza Strip Mohammed 'Attwa 'Abdel-'Aal (26) PIJ Combat helicopters fired three rockets at his Peugeot Thunder, also hitting the taxi behind, whose occupants survived. Israeli Air Force[54]
April 5, 2001 Jenin West Bank Iyad Mohammed Hardan (26) Head of the PIJ in Jenin. IDF version. He was involved in the 1997 Mahane Yehuda Market Bombings Blown up in a public phone booth, when, reportedly, an Israeli helicopter was flying overhead.Baruch Kimmerling classifies it as an apparent political execution to provoke Palestinians.[60]
April 25, 2001 Rafah West Bank Ramadan Ismail 'Azzam (33); Samir Sabri Zo'rob (34); Sa'di Mohammed El-Dabbas (32); Yasser Hamdan El-Dabbas (18) Popular Resistance Committees members Blown up while examining a triangular object with flashing lights that had been reported as lying near the border earlier that day. Palestinians say the object exploded as an Israeli helicopter passed overhead.[54]
May 5, 2001 Bethlehem West Bank Ahmad Khalil 'Eissa Assad (38) PIJ activist Hit while leaving his house for work, reportedly from shots (15) fired from the Israeli military outpost at Tel Abu Zaid, 250 metres away. His niece, Ala, was also injured. Israel said the victim intended carrying out armed operations in the future inside Israel. Israel Defense Forces[63]
May 12, 2001 Jenin West Bank Mutassam Mohammed al-Sabagh (28) Fatah activist In a car with two Palestinian intelligence officers, who managed to escape on sighting an Apache helicopter, which struck it with three missiles. The two officers were also wounded. A fourth missile struck a Palestinian police car killing Sergeant Aalam al-Raziq al-Jaloudi and injuring Lieutenant Tariq Mohammed Amin al-Haj. Two bystanders also wounded. Israeli Army accused the three of plotting attacks on nearby settlers.[63] Israeli Air Force[63]
June 24, 2001 Nablus West Bank Osama Fatih al-Jawabra (Jawabiri) (29) al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade militant. His name was on an Israeli wanted list submitted to PNA. Bomb exploded as he picked up a phone in a public telephone booth. Two brothers, Malik Shabaro (2), and Amar Shabaro (4) injured. Alleged by PNA to be IDF,.[64] but denied by the Israeli government.[63]
July 17, 2001 Bethlehem West Bank Omar Ahmed Sa'adeh (45) Hamas leader Killed by two wire-guided missiles fired by two Israeli helicopter gunships at his garden hut, also killing Taha Aal-Arrouj (37). His brother Izhaq Ahmed Sa'adeh (51), a peace activist, and his cousin Hamad Saleh Sa'adeh (29), were killed by a further missile as they rushed towards the rubble. A dozen people nearby were wounded. Israel maintained that it was a preventive attack on a planner of a terrorist attack at the Maccabiah Games.[63][65] Israeli Air Force
July 23, 2001 'Anin, west of Jenin West Bank Mustafa Yusuf Hussein Yassin (26) ? Released from an Israeli prison earlier that day. According to his wife, he opened the door on hearing noises outside their home and was shot at point-blank range in front of his family. Israeli sources say he was planning to bomb Israeli targets. Israel Defense Forces[63]
July 25, 2001 Nablus West Bank Salah Nour al-Din Khalil Darwouza (38) Hamas Car hit while driving in Nablus. He evaded two missiles from an Apache helicopter, but the car was hit by a further 4. Israel claimed he planned bombing attacks on French Hill, and Netanya. Israeli Air Force[63]
July 31, 2001 Nablus West Bank Jamal Mansour (41); Jamal Salim Damouni (42) High-ranking official of Hamas' West Bank political wing Killed when office struck by helicopter-launched missiles[66] as Mansour was giving an interview to journalists in the Palestinian Centre for Studies and Media. 4 others killed in the room: Mohammed al-Bishawi (28); Othman Qathnani (25); Omar Mansour (28); Fahim Dawabsha, (32). Two children, aged 5 and 8, outside were also killed, and three more adults injured by shrapnel.[63] Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks. Israel Defense Forces[5]
August 5, 2001 Tulkarm West Bank Amer Mansour Habiri/Aamer Mansour al-Hudairy (22) Hamas Missiles fired at the car.
August 20, 2001 Hebron West Bank Imad Abu Sneneh Leader of Tanzim Shot and killed.[67] Israeli undercover team
August 27, 2001 Ramallah West Bank Abu Ali Mustafa (63) Head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and senior executive leader of the PLO. Killed by laser-guided missiles fired from Apache helicopters while talking on the phone in his office.Baruch Kimmerling classifies it as an apparent political execution to provoke Palestinians.[60] Other sources say Shin Bet convinced the Israeli Cabinet he was connected to terrorism.[68] Israeli Air Force
September 6, 2001 Tulkarm West Bank 'Omar Mahmoud Dib Subuh (22); Mustafa 'Ahed Hassan 'Anbas (19). Unknown Targeted and killed by a helicopter missile in an attempt to assassinate 4 Palestinians, of whom 2 died. Israel Defense Forces[57]
October 14, 2001 Qalqiliya West Bank 'Abd a-Rahman Sa'id Hamed (33) Unknown Targeted by a sniper and shot at the entrance to his house.
October 15, 2001 Nablus West Bank Ahmad Hassan Marshud (29) Unknown Targeted killing by explosion. ?[57]
October 18, 2001 Beit Sahur West Bank Jamal 'Abdallah 'Abayiat (35); 'Issa 'Atef Khatib 'Abayiat (28); 'Atef Ahmad 'Abayiat (25). Unknown The three, all relatives were killed while driving a Jeep. Israel Defense Forces[57]
October 22, 2001 Nablus West Bank Ayman Halawah (26). Unknown Killed while riding in a car. ?[57]
31 October 2001 Hebron West Bank Jamil Jadallah al-Qawasmeh (25). Unknown Killed by a helicopter missile which struck his house. Israeli Air Force[57]
2 November 2001 Tulkarm West Bank Fahmi Abu 'Easheh (28); Yasser 'Asira (25) Unknown Killed by gunfire whole driving in a car. Israel Defense Forces[57]
23 November 2001 Far'a West Bank Mahmoud a-Shuli (Abu Hanud) (33); Maamun 'Awaisa (22); Ayman 'Awaisa (33). Unknown all three killed while riding in a taxi by a helicopter missile.
December 10, 2001 Hebron West Bank Burhan al-Haymuni (3); Shadi Ahmad 'Arfah (13) None Two brothers killed in a vehicle hit by a helicopter missile during a targeted killing of a person in a nearby car.
January 14, 2002 Tulkarem West Bank Raed (Muhammad Ra'if ) Karmi (28) Head of the Tanzim in Tulkarem He had planned the murders of two Israelis in Tulkarem and was behind a failed assassination attempt on the life of an Israeli Air Force colonel. After surviving an attempt to kill him by helicopter on September 6, 2001, he was persuaded by Arafat to desist from violence but killed twenty three days after a ceasefire[69] was in place because the Shin Bet was convinced they would never have the same operational opportunity to take him out. Killed from a bomb planted in a cemetery wall, set off by a UAV circling above when he passed by it on a visit to his mistress, to create the impression he had blown himself up accidentally.[70][71] Baruch Kimmerling classifies it as an apparent political execution to provoke Palestinians.[60] Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks.
January 22, 2002 Nablus West Bank Yusif Suragji West Bank head of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Three other Hamas members also killed. Palestinian Authority claims it was an assassination.[72] Killed in a raid on an alleged explosives factory.[72] Israeli Defence Forces
January 24, 2002 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Adli Hamadan (Bakr Hamdan) Senior Hamas member missile attack on car.[72] Israeli Air Force
February 4, 2002 Rafah Gaza Strip Ayman Bihdari DFLP member wanted for 25 August 2001 raid in which three Israeli soldiers were killed. missile attack on car. Four other DFLP members killed.[72]
February 16, 2002 Jenin West Bank Nazih Mahmoud Abu a-Saba' Second ranking Hamas officer in Jenin.[73] Killed by a bomb planted in his car, in a targeted killing.[74] Israel Defense Forces
March 5, 2002 al-Birah West Bank Mohammad(Diriyah Munir) Abu Halawa (23); Fawzi Murar (32); 'Omar Hussein Nimer Qadan (27). Wanted AMB member. Missile fired at car from helicopter, Murar and Qadan according to B'tselem were not combatants at the time.[57][75] Israeli Air Force
March 6, 2002 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abdel Rahman Ghadal Hamas member Missile attack on his home.[21]
March 9, 2002 Ramallah West Bank Samer Wajih Yunes 'Awis (29) Not a participant in hostilities at the time, according to B'tselem.[57] Killed by missile fired from a helicopter, which struck a car he was travelling in. Israel Defense Forces
March 14, 2002 Anabta West Bank Mutasen Hamad (Mu'atasem Mahmoud 'Abdallah Hammad) (28); 'Atef Subhi Balbisi (Balbiti) (25). Hamad was an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade member and bomb maker. 3 missiles fired from an Israeli attack helicopter at Hamad's car, near a chicken farm. A Palestinian source say a bystander, a chicken farmer (Maher Balbiti) was also killed. An Israeli sources identify him as a terrorist.[21][76][77] Israeli Air Force
April 5, 2002 Tubas West Bank Qeis 'Adwan (25); Saed 'Awwad (25); Majdi Balasmeh (26); Ashraf Daraghmeh (29); Muhammad Kmeil (28); Munqez Sawafta (29) Qeis 'adwan was a Hamas activist and bomb maker to whom several suicide bomb attacks were attributed. Targeted in a combined drone, tank and special forces siege during Operation Defensive Shield. Given hospitality in his house by Munqez Sawafta. After hours of gunfire, and a refusal to surrender, a D-9 armored bulldozer crushed part of the house and the remaining 3 were shot.[57][78] Israel Defense Forces
April 22, 2002 Hebron West Bank Marwan Zaloum (59) and Samir Abu Rajoub. Tanzim Hebron leader and Force 17 member Killed by a helicopter missile while driving a car. Zaloum was on an Israeli wanted list, and thought responsible for shootings, including that Shalhevet Pass. Israeli helicopter strike.[21][57][79] Israeli Air Force
May 22, 2002 Balata refugee camp, Nablus West Bank Iyad Hamdan (22); 'Imad Khatib (25); Mahmoud 'Abdallah Sa'id Titi (30); Bashir Yaish (30) Unknown, the first three were targeted. All four killed by a shell shot from an Israeli tank. Yaish was not involved in hostilities at the time. Israel Defense Forces[57]
June 24, 2002 Rafah Gaza Strip Yasir Raziq, 'Amr Kufa. Izzeddln al-Qassam Brigades leaders. Missiles fired at two taxis, killing two other passengers (reportedly also Hamas activists),[80] the two drivers and injuring 13 bystanders.[21][81] Israeli Air Force
June 30, 2002 Nablus West Bank Muhaned Taher, Imad Draoza. Muhaned Taher, nom de guerre "Engineer 4", was a master Hamas bomber claimed by Israel to be responsible for both the Patt Junction Bus Bombing and the Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing. Died with a deputy in a shoot-out with Israeli raiding commandos.[21][80] Israel Defense Forces
June 17, 2002 al-Khader West Bank Walid Sbieh| ? Shot by an Israeli sniper in a targeted killing while in his car.[57]
July 4, 2002 Gaza City Gaza Strip Jihad Amerin/(Aqid) Jihad Amrain Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Colonel. Killed in a car bomb.[21][82] Israel Security Forces.[83]
July 23, 2002 Gaza City Gaza Strip Salah Shahade (Shehadeh) Leader of Hamas Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Killed by 2,205-pound explosive dropped by an F-16. The attack also killed fourteen other Palestinians including his wife and nine children. Yesh Gvul and Gush Shalom tried to have Dan Halutz indicted, but the case was dropped.[21][84][85][86] Killed on the eve of an announced unilateral cease-fire by Tanzim and Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks. Israeli Air Force. 27 reserve pilots undersigned a pilots' letter refusing to serve in IAF sorties over the West Bank and Gaza in protest.
August 6, 2002 Jaba, Jenin West Bank Ali Ajuri, Murad Marshud Classified as people not known to be involved in the fighting (B'tselem). Ajuri (21) was killed by an air-to-surface missile, during an attempt to arrest him. Murad Marshud (19) killed as bystander.[74]
August 14, 2002 Tubas West Bank Nassa Jarrar Senior member of Hamas's militant wing. Died crushed by rubble when an IDF bulldozer demolished his house. The IDF admitted it compelled at gunpoint Nidal Abu M'khisan (19) to act as a human shield and get the victim out of his house. Jarrar shot the youth, believing he was an IDF soldier. The victim was wheelchair bound. Israel suspected him of preparing a bomb an Israeli high-rise building.[87][88] Israel Defense Forces
August 31 Tubas West Bank Bahira Daraghmeh (6); Ousamah Daraghmeh (12); Raafat Daraghmeh (29); Yazid 'Abd al-Razaq Daraghmeh (17); Sari Mahmoud Subuh (17). Five victims who did not participate in hostilities when killed during a targeted killing, from a helicopter fired missile.[57] An eyewitness account was later provided by 'Aref Daraghmeh. "The helicopter fired a third missile towards a silver Mitsubishi, which had four people in it. The missile hit the trunk, and the car spun around its axle. I saw a man escaping the car and running away. He ran about 25 meters and then fell to the ground and died. The three other passengers remained inside. I saw an arm and an upper part of a skull flying out of the car. The car went up in flames, and I could see three bodies burning inside it. Three minutes later, after the Israeli helicopters left, I went out to the street and began to shout. I saw people lying on the ground. Among them was six-year-old Bahira . . She was dead . . I also saw Bahira's cousin, Osama . . I saw Osama's mother running towards Bahira, picking her up and heading towards the a-Shifa clinic, which is about 500 meters away."
October 13, 2002 Beit Jala West Bank Muhammad Ishteiwi 'Abayat (28) ? Killed in an explosion in a telephone booth, in a targeted killing.[57]
October 29, 2002 Tubas West Bank Assim Sawafta Age 19 Hamas Izzedine al Qassam military leader. Killed by an undercover army unit, after failing to surrender.[21][89] Israel Defense Forces
November 4, 2002 Nablus West Bank Hamed 'Omar a-Sader (36); Firas Abu Ghazala (27). Unknown Killed by a car-bomb. According to B'tselem, Firas Abu Ghazala was not engaged in hostilities at the time.[57]
November 26, 2002 Jenin West Bank Alah Sabbagh (26); Imad Nasrti/'Imad Nasharteh (22); Sabbagh reportedly an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade member, Nasrti Hamas local leader. Killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Jenin refugee camp by two missiles fired into a room.[21][90] Israeli Air Force
December 23, 2002 wadi Burqin near Jenin West Bank Shumann Hassan Subuh (29) and Mustafa Kash (26/30) Subah was a Hamas commander and bomb maker. Ambushed by IDF unit as Kash drove a tractor between Burqin and Al-Yamun.[21][57][91] Israel Defense Forces
January 30, 2003 Burqin West Bank Faiz al-Jabber (32) ? Targeted when Israeli forces opened fire at a Fatah group. He fled, was wounded, then shot dead at close range.[57] Israeli Border Police
March 8, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ibrahim al-Makadmeh Gaza Dentist. Second-in-Command of Hamas's Military Wing.[21] Hamas political leader. He and three of his aides killed by helicopter-fired missiles.[92] Israeli Air Force
March 18, 2003 Baqat al-Hatab West Bank Nasser Asida Hamas commander Shot while hiding in a cave, On Israel's most wanted list as alleged mastermind of attacks on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.[93] Israel Defense Forces's Kfir Brigade[94]
March 25, 2003 Bethlehem West Bank Mwafaq 'Abd a-Razaq Shhadeh Badawneh (40); 'Alaa Iyad (24); Nader Salameh Jawarish (25); Christine George S'adeh (11) ? Israeli Defence Forces version, agents were ambushed and shot dead 2 Palestinian gunmen, and a girl in a car that blundered into the battle, and was believed to be part of the ambush. The girl's parents and sister were wounded.[95] B'tselem reports that three of the 4 did not participate in hostilities at the time, but were killed during the targeted assassination by an undercover team of Nader Gawarish and Nader Salameh Jawarish[57]
April 8, 2003 Zeitoun, Gaza City Gaza Strip Said al-Arabid Hamas Israeli Air Force strike on his car followed by helicopter missiles. Seven Palestinians, ranging from 6 to 75, were killed, 47 wounded, 8 critically.[21] Israeli Air Force[96]
April 9, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mahmoud Zatma Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine Senior Commander, Bomb Maker[21] Apache helicopter hit the car he was driving in Gaza City, 10 bystanders injured.[97]
April 12, 2003 Tulkarm West Bank Jasser Hussein Ahmad 'Alumi (23) ? Killed by gunfire. Object of a targeted killing.[57] Israel Defense Forces
April 10, 2003 Tulkarm West Bank Yasser Alemi Fatah, Tanzim Shot and killed as a fugitive in Tulkarm. Israel Border Police[21]
April 29, 2003 Gaza Strip Nidal Salameh PFLP Killed when 4 helicopter missiles struck his car[21] Israeli Air Force
May 8, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Iyad el-Bek (30) Aide of Salah Shehade, Hamas activist.[21][98] Killed by three helicopter missiles fired at a car.
June 11, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Tito Massoud (35) and Soffil Abu Nahez (29) Massoud was a senior member of Hamas's military wing.[21] Retaliatory strike one hour after the Davidka Square bus bombing. 4 bystanders also killed[99]
June 12, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Jihad Srour and Yasser Taha Hamas members[21] Killed by between 4 and 6 helicopter missiles while their car was caught in a traffic jam, near a cemetery where victims of the June 11 strike the day before were being buried. Collateral damage consisted of 6 other victims including Taha's wife and child. 25 others were injured by the blasts.[100]
June 12, 2003 Jenin West Bank Fadi Taisir Jaradat (21); Saleh Suliman Jaradat (31) Saleh Suliman Jaradat was an Islamic Jihad activist Both killed at the entrance of their home, the latter being the target. Fadi Jaradat did not participate in hostilities at the time, according to B'tselem.[57] Israel Defense Forces[57]
June 21, 2003 Hebron West Bank 'Abdallah 'Abd al-Qader Husseini al-Qawasmeh (41) Wanted by IDF Shot dead after getting out of a taxi before a mosque. Three vans approached, with a dozen Israelis disguised as Palestinian labourers, and he was shot in the leg, perhaps while fleeing to a nearby field, and then finished off.[101][102]
August 21, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ismail Abu Shanab (48) Engineer and high-ranking Hamas military commander.[103] High-ranking Hamas official[104] Missile strike, ending a cease-fire.[105][106] Israeli Air Force[21]
August 24, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Walid el Hams, Ahmed Rashdi Eshtwi (24), Ahmed Abu Halala, Muhammad Abu Lubda Hamas members. Eshtwi was said by the IDF to be a Hamas liaison officer with West Bank cells.[107] Twin helicopter missile strike as the five were sitting in a vacant lot near a Force 17 base. Several bystanders were injured, and a further Hamas member critically wounded.[108]
August 26, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Khaled Massoud brother of Tito Massoud, killed 3 months earlier. Hamas Qassam rocket designer, alleged to be involved in mortar strikes. Attempted assassination of Massoud, who was with two other Hamas activists, Wa'al Akilan and Massoud Abu Sahila, in a car. Alerted to the threat, the three men managed to escape from their car as 3 missiles struck it and killed a passing 65-year-old Jabaliya donkey driver Hassan Hemlawi, who was driving his cart. Two bystanders were also wounded, including four children.[107][109]
August 28, 2003 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Hamdi Khalaq Izzedine al Qassam 3 missiles struck hit a donkey cart Khalaq was driving. Three Gazans nearby were wounded. The IDF said he was on his way to a mortar attack on an Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip.[110] Israel Defense Forces[21]
August 30, 2003 On a road linking the Nusseirat and Bureij refugee camps Gaza Strip Abdullah Akel (37) and Farid Mayet (40) Hamas senior operatives, said to have fired mortar shells and Qassam rocks. Killed when 4 helicopter missiles struck their pickup truck. Seven others Palestinians were wounded by the fire.. IDF soldiers machine-gunned an 8-year-old girl Aya Fayad the same day in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, while, according to IDF reports, shooting at road-bomb militants detonating bombs on a patrol route.[111] 'Israeli strike kills two militants,'[112] Israeli Air Force[21]
September 1, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Khader Houssre (36) Hamas member Killed when 4 helicopter missiles struck a car with 3 Hamas members, in a crowded side street. The second was critically wounded, while the other managed to flee. 25 bystanders were injured in the strike.[113]
October 28, 2003 Tulharm Refugee Camp West Bank Ibrahim 'Aref Ibrahim a-N'anish Wanted by IDF Shot dead, unarmed, as he drove his car to the entrance of the refugee camp.[57] Israel Defense Forces
December 25, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mustafa Sabah Senior Hamas bomb maker, thought behind explosions that blew up 3 Merkava tanks inside the Gaza Strip.[114] Killed when 3 helicopter missiles destroyed a Palestinian Authority compound where Sabah worked as a part-time guard.[114] Israeli Air Force[21]
December 25, 2003 Gaza Strip Gaza Strip Mekled Hameid PIJ military commander. Helicopter gunship attack on car, killing its occupants, including two PIJ members. Two bystanders were also reported killed and some 25 bystanders injured.[115]
February 2, 2004 Nablus West Bank Hashem Da'ud Ishteiwi Abu Hamdan (2); Muhammad Hasanein Mustafa Abu Hamdan (24); Nader Mahmoud 'Abd al-Hafiz Abu Leil (24); Na'el Ziad Husseini Hasanein (22). All four wanted by the IDF Killed in a car struck by a missile fired from a helicopter. Israel Defense Forces[57]
February 7, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Aziz Mahmoud Shami Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine local field commander, claimed to be behind a 1995 double suicide bombing in Netanya. Missile strike incinerated his car while he drove down a crowded street, and a passing 12-year-old boy was killed, and 10 others wounded.[116] [21]
February 28, 2004 Jabaliya refugee camp Gaza Strip Amin Dahduh, Mahmoud Juda, Aiyman Dahduh. PIJ military commander Missiles hit his car as it travelled from Gaza city to the refugee camp. Two passengers are also killed and eleven bystanders wounded.[117][118] Israeli helicopters.
March 3, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Tarad Jamal, Ibrahim Dayri and Ammar Hassan.[5] Senior Hamas members Missiles from helicopter fired at their car as it drove down a coastal road.[119] Helicopter strike.[21]
March 16, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Nidal Salfiti and Shadi Muhana Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine Israeli missile strike.[21]
March 22, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ahmed Yassin Co-founder and leader of Hamas The purpose of the operation was to strengthen the position of Mahmoud Abbas. As Yassin left a mosque at dawn, he, 2 bodyguards, and 7 bystanders killed by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache-fired Hellfire missiles. 17 bystanders were wounded.[120][121] Israeli Air Force[21]
April 17, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi Co-founder and leader of Hamas, and successor of Ahmed Yassin as leader of Hamas after his death The purpose of the operation was to strengthen the position of Mahmoud Abbas. al-Rantissi was killed by helicopter-fired missiles, along with his son and bodyguard. Several bystanders were injured.[122]
April 22, 2004 Talluza West Bank Yasser Ahmed Abu Laimun (32) Lecturer in hospital management at the Arab-American University in Jenin, mistaken for Imad Mohammed Janajra. IDF initially reported he was a Hamas member.[123] Initially reported shot after shooting, and then running away from an Israeli attack dog, trained to seize wanted individuals. His widow testified that he was shot, while in his garden, from a distance of 200 yards by gunfire from Israeli soldiers behind an oak tree. The IDF apologized.[124][125][126] Israel Defense Forces
May 5, 2004 Talluza West Bank Imad Mohammed Janajra (31)[21] Hamas leader Ambushed in an olive grove, after an earlier attempt, mistaking Abu Laimun for him. Said by IDF to be armed and approaching them.[126] Golani Brigade's elite Egoz unit.
May 30, 2004 Zeitoun Gaza Strip Wael Nassar[21] Hamas mastermind behind the mine that blew up an Israeli troop carrier raiding Gaza City, on May 11, killing 6 soldier. He was killed on his motorcycle, together with his aide, by a missile strike which also wounded 7 civilians, including a woman and two children. A second following missile killed another Hamas member nearby.[127] Helicopter strike
June 14, 2004 Nablus West Bank Khalil Mahmoud Zuhdi Marshud (24)[21][128]'Awad Hassan Ahmad Abu Zeid (24). Head of Al-Aqsa Brigades in Nablus Earlier targeted in a Nablus missile attack on a car on May 3, killing 3 Al Aqsa Brigade members. He was in a different vehicle. Killed when a missile hit a car outside the Balata refugee camp, also killing PIJ members Awad Abu Zeid e Mohammed Al Assi (Israeli version). Abu Zeid did not engage in hostilities when killed (B'tselem report).[57] Israeli Army radio said the decision to kill him followed on several failures to arrest him. The same day, an attempt to kill Zakaria Zubeidi, head of the Jenin al Aqsa Brigades, failed.[128][129] Israel Defense Forces
June 26, 2004 Nablus West Bank Nayef Abu Sharkh (40) Jafer el-Massari Fadi Bagit Sheikh Ibrahim and the others. Respectively Tanzim Hamas Nablus officer; Islamic Jihad officer.[21] Killed by IDF paratroopers together with six other men found huddled in a secret tunnel beneath a house in the old city of Nablus, after trailing a fugitive into the house.[130] Israeli paratroopers.
July 22, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hazem Rahim[21] Islamic Jihad in Palestine member Helicopter gunship missile strike on a car, killing Rahim and his deputy, Rauf Abu Asi. According to Israeli sources, Rahim had been seen on video two months earlier brandishing body parts of ambushed Israeli soldiers.[131][132] Israel Defense Forces
July 29, 2004 Near Rafah refugee camp Gaza Strip Amr Abu Suta, Zaki Abu Rakha[21] Abu al-Rish Brigades leader. In a car, together with bodyguard, incinerated by Israeli helicopter fire. Accused of involvement in the shooting of an IDF officer, and a 1992 killing in a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.[133]
August 17, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Five dead. Four Unidentified?[21] The target was a Hamas Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades leader, Ahmed al-Jabari. The five, included al-Jabari's 14-year-old son, his brother, his nephew and son-in-law, were killed in a drone missile strike on al-Jabari's home. About a dozen other Palestinians wounded. al-Jabari survived the attempt.[134][135] Israeli Air Force
September 13, 2004 Jenin West Bank Mahmoud Ass'ad Rajab Abu Khalifah (25),[21] Amjad Husseini 'Aref Abu Hassan, Yamen Feisal 'Abd al-Wahab Ayub Al-Aqsa Brigades leader, deputy to Zakariya Zubeidi. Killed together with two aides (Israeli version) when a helicopter missile struck his car in the city centre.[136] Amjad Hassan and Yamen Feisal 'Abd al-Wahab Ayub were not, according to B'tselem, involved in the fighting.[57]
September 20, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Khaled Abu Shamiyeh (30) Hamas rocketry mechanic.[21][137] Car hit by missile Israel Defense Forces
September 21, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Nabil al-Saedi (34), Rabah Zaqout[21] Hamas mid-ranking operatives. Killed when their Jeep was struck by a missile. 8 bystanders including 2 children were wounded.[138]
September 27, 2004 Damascus Syria Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil (42)[21] Hamas senior official. A Gazan deported by Israel in 1992. Blown up by a bomb hidden in his SUV when he answered a call on his mobile phone, triggering the explosion. Israel did not claim responsibility but Ariel Sharon's spokesman Raanin Gissin said:'Our longstanding policy has been that no terrorist will have any sanctuary and any immunity,' and Moshe Ya'alon commented that action should be adopted against "terror headquarters in Damascus" in the wake of the recent Beersheba bus bombings.[139]
September 27, 2004 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Ali al-Shaeir (26)[21] Popular Resistance Committee member Killed while an Israeli helicopter gunship fired several missiles at a car in Abbassam, believed to hold their target, Muhammad Abu Nasira. The latter, with two others of the group sustained injuries, and al-Shair died.[140] Israeli helicopter strike
October 6, 2004 al-Shati refugee camp Gaza Strip Bashir Khalil al-Dabash, (38/42) and Zarif Yousef al-'Are'ir (30)[21] Head of Islamic Jihad's military wing, al-Quds Brigades. Both killed by helicopter missile fired at their Subaru in 'Izziddin al-Qassam Street in downtown Gaza. Three passers-by were wounded. One of three operations in Operation Days of Penitence that killed 5 other Palestinian militants.[141][142] Israeli Air Force[21]
October 21, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Adnan al-Ghoul Imad al-Baas 2nd in command of Hamas, and Qassem rocket expert. Killed together with his aide Imad Abbas when their car was destroyed by a missile from an Apache helicopter. Four bystanders were wounded. .[5]
July 15, 2005 East of Salfit West Bank Samer Abdulhadi Dawhqa, Mohammad Ahmed Salameh Mar'i (20), Mohammad Yusef 'Abd al-Fatah A'yash (22) Alleged to be 'ticking bombs'.[55] Killed in an olive grove, or, according to B'tselem, in a cave where two were hiding. The first two died immediately in a missile and gunfire strike by Apache helicopters. The third was taken to Ramallah in critical condition, but then seized by Israeli forces and taken off in a military ambulance. He died later, and neither he nor Mar'i, according to B'tselem, were involved in the fighting.[57][143] Israel Defense Forces
July 16, 2005 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Saeed Seam (Sayid Isa Jabar Tziam) (31). Hamas commander of Izzedine al Qassam. Allegedly involved in killing two settlers in 2002 and shooting at an Israeli army outpost in 2004.[21] Shot dead by Israeli sniper in a targeted killing as he stood outside his Gaza home, as he was going to water his garden, in Khan Yunis.[144][145]
July 16, 2005 Gaza City .[146] Gaza Strip 'Four Unidentified' (JVL)=Adel Mohammad Haniyya (29); A'asem Marwan Abu Ras (23); Saber Abu Aasi ( 24); Amjad Anwar Arafat,[147] one reportedly a nephew of Ismail Haniya.[21][148] Hamas operatives. Apache helicopter struck a van carrying the men and numerous Qassam rockets in Gaza city. Five civilians, including a child, were wounded in the attack.[144][149][150] Israeli Air Force[21][21][151][21][152][21][153][154][21][155][156][21][157]
September 25, 2005 Gaza City Gaza Strip Sheikh Mohammed Khalil (32) PIJ Alleged to have been involved in Hatuel family's murder near the Gush Qatif settlement bloc. Killed when his Mercedes was struck by 5 missiles launched from an Israeli aircraft.[158]
October 27, 2005 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Shadi Mehana/Shadi Muhana (25) PIJ Airstrike hitting car with four Palestinian militants north of Gaza City. Three civilians were also killed, including a 15-year-old boy (Rami Asef) and a 60-year-old man. One source stated 14 other Palestinians were wounded.[159][160]
November 1, 2005 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hassan Madhoun (33); Fawzi Abu Kara[161] Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Allegedly planning an operation to strike the Eretz Crossing. Killed when his car was hit by an Israeli Apache helicopter missile. According to documents in the Palestine Papers Israel's Shaul Mofaz had proposed to the PA that Fatah execute him.[162]
December 7, 2005 Rafah Gaza Strip Mahmoud Arkan (29). Popular Resistance Committees field operative Airborne missile strike on a moving car in a residential area. 10 bystanders, including three children, were injured.[163][164]
December 8, 2005 Gaza Strip Iyad Nagar Ziyad Qaddas Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Missile striking a house. A third militant, and several Palestinians nearby, including a young girl, suffered injuries.[165]
December 14, 2005 Gaza City Gaza Strip Four Unidentified Popular Resistance Committees Missile strike on a white sedan near the Karni crossing. Israeli sources say the car was packed with explosives. Three PRC members killed, a fourth is thought to have been an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member. One occupant survived, and two bystanders were injured.[166][167]
January 2, 2006 East of Jabaliya Gaza Strip Sayid Abu-Gadian (45); Akram Gadasas (43), third unknown. PIJ All three hit by IAF rocket while in a car close to a no-go zone declared by Israel in the northern Gaza Strip. Collateral damage, two bystanders were wounded.
February 5, 2006 Zeitoun Gaza Strip Adnan Bustan; Jihad al-Sawafiri Islamic Jihad in Palestine. Believed to have director of their engineering and manufacturing unit. Killed when 2 cars fired on by an IAF missile, the second en route to a retaliatory attack for an earlier Israeli helicopter strike that killed three people.
February 6, 2006 North of Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip[168] Hassan 'Asfour (25); Rami Hanouna (27)[169] al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade| Hit and killed when their car was struck by three missiles from an Israeli drone. Three bystanders also wounded.[168]
February 7, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mohammed Abu Shariya; Suheil Al Baqir Al Aqsa Brigades Their car was demolished by a missile.
March 6, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Munir Mahmed Sukhar (30); Iyad Abu Shalouf Islamic Jihad field operative. Collateral damage, 3-8 passers-by wounded, including 17-year-old Ahmed Sousi, and an 8-year-old boy (Ra'ed al-Batch), both of whom later died.[170]
May 20, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mohammed Dahdoh PIJ Killed in car, held responsible for firing crude rockets into southern Israel. Palestinian version stated Muhanned Annen, 5; his mother, Amnah, 25; and Hannan Annen, 45, Muhanned's aunt, were collateral victims. Dahdoh was alone in the car (IDF version).
May 25, 2006 Sidon Lebanon Mahmoud al-Majzoub (Abu Hamze), Nidal al-Majzoub Commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad; the brother was a member also. Critically wounded in car bombing, when he turned on the ignition of his car, parked near the Abu Bakr mosque in Sidon,. He died the next day. Islamic Jihad blamed Israel, though Israel denied it.[171] An Israeli government spokesman denied knowledge of any Israeli involvement. (alleged)
June 5, 2006 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip[172] Majdi Hamad (25); Imad Assaliya (27) Popular Resistance Committees Missile struck their car, targeting Hamad. Three bystanders were injured. Israeli Air Force[21][173][21][21][174][175]
June 8, 2006 Rafah Gaza Strip Jamal Abu Samhadana and three others Founder of the Popular Resistance Committees militant group, a former Fatah and Tanzim member, and number two on Israel's list of wanted terrorists. Had survived 4 assassination attempts.[176] Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks, as it coincided with a referendum vote on a political initiative by Mahmoud Abbas. Killed by Israeli airstrike on a training camp, along with at least three other PRC members.[177]
June 13, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hamoud Wadiya; Shawki Sayklia Wadiya was a PIJ rocket expert. Three militants in a van with a Grad rocket were driving down a main street when a missile struck nearby. They fled but were killed by a second missile, as people gathered. The second blast killed 11 Palestinian bystanders, including Ashraf Mughrabi (25) his son, Maher (8), and a relative Hisham (14), 4 ambulance drivers and hospital staff rushing to the incident, and three boys. Thirty-nine people were wounded.[178]
July 4, 2006 Beit Hanoun Gaza Strip Isamail Rateb Al-Masri (30)[179][180] Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Killed by an IAF rocket.[181]
August 9, 2006 Jenin Gaza Strip Osama Attili (24); Mohammed Atik (26) Described by Israel as leaders of PIJ Killed when (2) helicopter(s) fired missiles into their house. PIJ leader Hussam Jaradat, another target escaped the strike, while his deputy Walid Ubeidi abu al-Kassam, was lightly wounded.[182]
October 12, 2006 'Abasan al-Kabirah neighbourhood Gaza Strip Three unidentified='Abd a-Rahman 'Abdallah Muhammad Qdeih (19); Na'el Fawzi Suliman Qdeih (22); Salah Rashad Shehdeh Qdeih (22); Hamas All three, armed, killed by a helicopter missile after one of the three fired at an IDF tank
October 12, 2006 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Three militants of Kadiah family. Hamas Five members of Kadiah family killed, two, Adel Kadiah, 40, and his son, Sohaib, 13, being civilians
October 12, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ashraf Ferwana Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Ashraf targeted in his home but he survived the drone missile strike which demolished his house. His brother Ayman Ferwana and a girl died, and 10 others injured.[174][183][184]
October 14, 2006 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Ahmad Hassan 'Abd al-Fatah Abu al-'Anin (19); Sakher Faiz Muhammad Abu Jabal (19); Rami 'Odeh Salem Abu Rashed (22); Faiz 'Ali Fadel al-'Ur (33); Suliman Hassan Fadel al-'Ur (30); Muhammad Faiz Mustafa Shaqurah (30); Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Five killed while walking armed in the refugee camp, by a helicopter-launched missile.Awad Attatwa (18), not associated with group, also died.[175][185]
October 14, 2006 One Unidentified Al Aqsa Brigades Died when the car he was in was hit by a missile fired in an airstrike. A local commander also critically injured, and two bystanders wounded.[185]
November 7, 2006 Al-Yamun West Bank Salim Yousef Mahmoud Abu Al-Haija (24); Ala'a Jamil Khamaisa (24); Taher Abed Abahra (25); Mahmoud Rajah Abu Hassan (25). Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades The four militants were shot while sitting near the Al-Yamun bakery (Palestinian version), fled wounded and were killed in a local house. Aiman Suleiman Mahmoud Mustafa (31), a bakery worker came out to see what was happening and was shot dead. Salim Ahmed Awad (27), Ibrahim Mahmoud Nawahda (30), Salim Ahmed Awad (27) and Mohammed Yousef Abu Al-Haija (27) were also shot and taken prisoner.[186] Israel Defense Forces undercover squad.
November 20, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Bassel Sha'aban Ubeid (22); Abdel Qader Habib (26) Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Missile fired at a Mercedes containing both, parked outside the Ubeid family home. Collateral damage, 5 civilians, members of the Amen family, including Hanan Mohammed Amen, aged 3 months and Mo'men Hamdi Amen (2), injured by shrapnel.[186] Israeli Air Force[21]
May 17, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Imad Muhammad Ahmad Shabaneh (33) Hamas Killed while travelling in a car hit by an Israeli helicopter missile. Israeli helicopters[21][175]
June 1, 2007 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Fawzi (Fadi) Abu Mustafa PIJ/Al Quds Brigades senior member Killed by an IAF airforce missile while riding a motor bike. Israeli Air Force[21][187][21][187][188][188][21][189][21][190][21][191][21][192][21][193][194][21][195][188][21][187][188][21][187][196]
June 24, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hussein Khalil al-Hur=Hossam Khaled Harb (32) Hussein Harb Peugeot al-Quds Brigades local leader. Struck by a missile while driving a Peugeot through Gaza City
October 23, 2007 Gaza City (near) Gaza Strip Mubarak al-Hassanat (35) Popular Resistance Committees head and Director of military affairs in the Hamas Interior Ministry. Israeli airstrike (IAF) on his car.
December 17, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Majed Harazin (Abu Muamen) PIJ. Senior Commander, West Bank, overseer of rocket operations. Killed together with two others in his car, reportedly packed with explosives.
December 17, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abdelkarim Dahdouh; Iman Al-Illa; Ahmad Dahdooh, Ammar al-Said; Jihad Zahar; Mohamman Karamsi PIJ. Missile strike from an aircraft on a car, combined with IDF undercover unit, on a PIJ cell preparing to launch rockets.
December 18, 2007 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Hani Barhoum; Mohammed A-Sharif Hamas Strike on a Hamas security position.
January 13, 2008 Al-Shati Refugee Camp Gaza Strip Nidal Amudi; Mahir Mabhuh; third man unidentified al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Senior operative The three were killed in a car driving through the refugee camp, struck by an IAF missile.
January 17, 2008 Beit Lahiya Gaza Strip One unidentified[21] =Raad Abu al-Ful (43) and his wife. PIJ rocket manufacturer They were killed by an IAF airstrike which fired missiles at their car.
January 20, 2008 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ahmad Abu Sharia Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Commander Hit by an IAF missile as he walked in the streets. Two other Palestinians wounded.
February 4, 2008 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abu Said Qarmout Popular Resistance Committees member Killed by an IAF missile that struck his car. Three others were wounded, two seriously.
April 14, 2008 Gaza Strip Ibrahim Abu Olba DFLP Israeli Air Force.[21]
April 30, 2008 Near Shabura refugee camp, Rafah Gaza Strip Nafez Mansour (40) Hamas Killed in an IAF missile strike. Reportedly involved in Gilad Shalit abduction. Collateral damage. Three bystanders, one dying of his wounds. A further bystander and young girl also hurt.[21] Israeli Air Force/Shin Bet joint operation.[197]
June 17, 2008 al-Qararah, Rafah district Gaza Strip Mu'taz Muhammad Jum'ah Dughmosh (27); Musa Fawzi Salman al-'Adini (35); Mahmoud Muhammad Hassan a-Shanadi (25); Nidal Khaled Sa'id a-Sadudi (21)Muhammad 'Amer Muhammad 'Asaliyah (20).[175] Army of Islam Killed when their car was struck by an IAf missile. A further two people were wounded.[198] Israeli Air Force.[21]
August 1, 2008 Tartus Syria Muhammad Suleiman Syrian General. National Security Advisor. Presidential Advisor for Arms Procurement and Strategic Weapons. Killed by sniper fire to the head and neck. Israel denied responsibility for the killing, but was widely suspected of involvement. According to an NSA intercept published by wikileaks, the NSA defined it as the 'first known instance of Israel targeting a legitimate government official." [199][200][201] The U.S. Embassy in Damascus reported that Israelis were the 'most obvious suspect (alleged).'[202]
January 1, 2009 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Nizar Rayan (49) Top level Senior Hamas leader. Professor of Sharia law, Islamic University of Gaza. Among first 5 top Hamas decision makers, and field operative. Advocated suicide bombings inside Israel.[203][204] His house destroyed by an IAF bomb. along with his 4 wives and 6 of his 14 children. 30 others in the vicinity were wounded. According to Israel, secondary explosions from weapons in the building caused collateral damage. Rayan was not the target, rather, the strike aimed to destroy Hamas' central compound which included several buildings that served as storage sites for weapons. Israel further stated that phone warnings were delivered to the residents.[204][205] Israeli Air Force
January 3, 2009 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abu Zakaria al-Jamal Senior Hamas military wing commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and leader of Gaza City's rocket-launching squads[206] Killed in Israeli airstrike.[207]
January 15, 2009 Jabalia Gaza Strip Said Seyam Hamas Interior Minister Killed in Israeli airstrike with his brother, his son, and Hamas general security services officer. Salah Abu Shrakh.[208] Israeli Air Force
January 26, 2009 Bureij Refugee Camp Gaza Strip Issa Batran (failed. See 30 July 2010) Senior military commander of the Hamas military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Targeted at his home. The attempt to assassinate him failed, but the shell hit the balcony of their home and killed his wife Manal Sha'rawi, and five of their children: Bilal, Izz Ad-Din, Ihsan, Islam and Eyman. Batran and his child Abdul-Hadi survived.[209][210] Israel Defense Forces
March 4, 2009 Gaza Strip Khaled Shalan Senior Operative PIJ Killed in Israeli airstrike, together with 2/3 other militants, targeted after alleged involvement in rocket attacks on the Israeli city of Ashkelon. They jumped from their car but were critically wounded. 5 bystanders were also wounded.[211][212][213] Israeli Air Force

2010s
Date Place Location Target Description Action Executor
January 11, 2010 Deir al-Balah Gaza Strip Awad Abu Nasir Islamic Jihad Senior Field Commander Had escaped several assassination attempts. Reportedly involved in attempts to harm Israeli soldiers. Killed by a missile.[214][215] Israeli Air Force[21]
January 12, 2010 Tehran Iran Masoud Alimohammadi Iranian Physicist Killed in a car bomb. Majid Jamali Fashi reportedly confessed to an Iranian court he had been recruited by Mossad to carry out the execution, while the US State Department called the allegation "absurd". Mossad (alleged)[216]
January 19, 2010 Dubai United Arab Emirates Mahmoud al-Mabhouh Hamas senior military commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, believed to have been involved in smuggling weapons and explosives into Gaza.[217] Widely reported to have been killed by Israeli intelligence members. Israel stated that there is no proof of its involvement, and neither confirmed nor denied the allegations of a Mossad role.[218][219] Dubai police report that Israeli agents used Australian, French, British, Irish, and Dutch passports.
July 30, 2010 Deserted area in the Nuseirat refugee camp Gaza Strip Issa Abdul-Hadi al-Batran (40) Hamas Senior military commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in central Gaza, who had survived 4 previous attempts on his life (26 Jan.2009). Thought to have been involved in manufacturing rockets. Killed by a missile in retaliation for earlier rocket attack on city of Ashkelon. A further 13 Palestinians were injured in the strike.[209][210] Israeli Air Force
November 3, 2010 Gaza Strip Mohammed Nimnim Allegedly al-Qaeda affiliated, Army of Islam commander[220] Car explosion, due to either a bomb planted by Israel or an Israeli airstrike.[221] Israeli Air Force, with Egyptian intelligence.
November 17, 2010 Gaza Strip Islam Yassin al-Qaeda affiliated, Army of Islam commander[222] Israeli airstrike on his car, killing him, his brother, and injuring four others.[223] Israeli Air Force
January 11, 2011 Gaza Strip Mohammed A-Najar Islamic Jihad operative. Suspected of planning attacks against civilians and launching rockets at Israel[224]
Attacked by the Israel Airforce while driving his motorcycle in the Gaza Strip.[224]

Israeli Air Force
April 2, 2011 Ismail Lubbad, Abdullah Lubbad, Muhammad al Dayah Hamas Allegedly aiming to kidnap Israeli tourists in Sinai over Passover. .[21]
April 9, 2011 Gaza Strip Tayseer Abu Snima Senior Hamas military commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Killed along with 2 of his bodyguards by the Israeli air force during a period of escalated rocket fire from Gaza. He was the most senior Hamas commander killed since 2009.[225] Israeli Air Force
July 23, 2011 Tehran Iran Darioush Rezaeinejad Iranian electrical engineer Killed by unknown gunmen on motorcycle. Rezaeinejad was involved in development of high-voltage switches, which are used in a key component of nuclear warheads. Such switches may also have civilian scientific applications.[226] The German Newspaper Der Spiegel claimed Mossad was behind the operation. He is the third Iranian nuclear scientist killed since 2010.[227] Mossad (alleged)
August 18, 2011 Gaza Strip Abu Oud al-Nirab; Khaled Shaath; Imad Hamed Popular Resistance Committees Commanders Killed hours after a terrorist attack killed 6 civilians and one soldier in southern Israel. 4 additional members of the group were killed in the strike.[228] Israeli Air Force, Shin Bet
August 24, 2011 Ismael al-Asmar PIJ Allegedly weapons smuggler and militant in Egypt's Sinai, killed just before shooting a Qassam rocket. [21]
September 6, 2011 Khaled Sahmoud Popular Resistance Committees Killed after allegedly firing 5 Qassam into Southern Israel [21]
October 29, 2011 Ahmed al-Sheikh Khalil PIJ Munitions expert Killed in retaliation for allegedly launching rockets into Israel earlier that day. [21]
November 12, 2011 Tehran Iran General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam The main architect of the Iranian missile system and the founder/father of Iran's deterrent power ballistic missile forces.
He was also the chief of the "self-sufficiency" unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Killed along with 17 other members of the Revolutionary Guards known as Bid Kaneh explosion.
Those who died are known as the "Shahidan Ghadir".
Iranian officials said that the blast at the missile base was an accident, and ruled out any sabotage organized by Israel.
AGIR said that the explosion "had taken place in an arms depot when a new kind of munitions was being tested and moved".
However, TIME magazine cited a "unnamed western intelligence source" as saying that Mossad was behind the blast.
Israel neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
[229] [230] [231]

Mossad (alleged)
December 9, 2011 Isam Subahi Isamil Batash Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades [21]
January 11, 2012 Tehran Iran Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan Iranian nuclear scientist The bomb that killed Ahmadi-Roshan at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and another unidentified person was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and the " work of the Zionists [Israelis]," deputy Tehran governor Safarali Baratloo said.[232]
[233][234]

Mossad (alleged)
March 9, 2012 Tel al-Hawa Gaza Strip Zuhir al-Qaisi; Mahmud Ahmed Hananni Qaisi was Secretary-General of the Popular Resistance Committees According to Israeli intelligence, he was planning an imminent attack in the Sinai.[235] Israeli Air Force
August 5, 2012 Tel al-Sultan Refugee Camp.[236] Gaza Strip Nadi Okhal (19); Ahmad Said Ismail (22) Popular Resistance Committee, Two senior operatives. IDF sources say they were associated with global jihadist movement. Killed while riding a motor bike. The other passenger was badly wounded. [21]
September 20, 2012 Gaza Strip Gaza Strip Anis Abu Mahmoud el-Anin (22); Ashraf Mahmoud Salah (38). Hamas security officers. Salah belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees Their car was shelled by aircraft overhead.[237] Israeli Air Force[21]
October 13, 2012 Jabaliya Gaza Strip Hisham Al-Saidni (Abu al-Walid al- Maqdisi) (43/47/53);[238] Ashraf al-Sabah.[239][240] Respectively Salafi-jihadist militant leader of al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad and the Mujahedeen Shura Council, and head of Ansar Al-Sunna. Israeli and one Salafi source say they had links with Al-Qaeda.[241][242] Killed by a drone-launched rocket while riding a motor bike in company with Jazar. Several civilians, including a 12-year-old boy, were wounded.[243]
October 13, 2012 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Yasser Mohammad al-Atal (23) Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Rocket strike while he was riding his motor bike. A second man was critically injured.[240][244]
October 14, 2012 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ezzedine Abu Nasira (23); Ahmad Fatayer (22)[240] Popular Resistance Committees Struck by a missile while riding in a tuk-tuk after firing rockets into Israel to avenge deaths resulting from two airstrikes the day before. Two others seriously wounded.[245] Israeli Air Force[21]
November 14, 2012 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ahmed Jaabari Top level Commander of Hamas' military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Number 2 to Mohammed Deif. Killed in an airstrike at the start of Operation Pillar of Cloud. Led Hamas' 2007 takeover of the Gaza Strip and, according to Israel, was responsible for most attacks on Israel originating in Gaza from about 2006 to 2012, including the capture of Gilad Shalit.[246]
November 15–19, 2012 Gaza Strip Hab's Hassan Us Msamch
Ahmed Abu Jalal
Khaled Shaer
Osama Kadi
Muhammad Kalb
Ramz Harb
Yahiyah Abbayah Hab's Hassan Us Msamch, was a senior operative and Hamas Bombmaker.
Ahmed Abu Jalal, was a Senior Hamas commander of the Hamas central military wing in Al-Muazi.
Khaled Shaer, was a senior operative in the anti-tank operations.
Osama Kadi, was a senior operative in anti-tank operations.
Muhammad Kalb, was a senior operative in the aerial defense operations.
Ramz Harb, was an Islamic Jihad senior operative in propaganda in Gaza city.
Yahiyah Abbayah was a senior Hamas expert bomb maker and a military commander in central Gaza. All of them were killed by IAF airstrike inside their command bunker and weapon storage during Operation Pillar of Defense.
February 12, 2013 Damascus Syria Hassan Shateri Top IRGC General. Under the pseudonym Hussam Khoshnevis, He was a Head of Iranian IRGC special reconstruction project for Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
Israel air strike killed him during his traveling from Damascus to Beirut.
[247]

April 30, 2013 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal (24/25) and three others, one on the bike. Al Quds Brigades (Israel). Hamas security guard at Al-Shifa Hospital (Hamas version).[248] Defined by Israel as a Freelance Terror Consultant" and active in different Jihad Salafi terror organisations responsible for two rockets fired towards Eilat on 17 April, he was killed when a rocket hit him on his motorbike. The strike broke a fragile cease-fire agreement.[249]
December 4, 2013 Beirut Lebanon Hassan al-Laqqis Senior Hezbollah Military Commander. Chief of technology officer and in charge of the Arms Procurement and Strategic Weapons for the group. Shot and Killed by gunmen in the head with a silenced gun outside his home and car.
Israel never took responsibility, but it is widely suspected Mossad committed it.
[231]

Mossad
January 22, 2014 Beit Hanoun Gaza Strip Ahmad Zaanin; Mahmoud Yousef Zaanin PFLP;PIJ The relatives were held responsible for rocket attacks into southern Israel. Only Ahmed was admitted by PIJ to be a member. His cousin and he were killed sitting in a pickup truck parked outside their home.[250] Israeli Air Force[21]
February 9, 2014 Deir al-Balah Gaza Strip Abdullah Kharti Popular Resistance Committees member. Regarded by IDF as involved with rocket fire episodes. Hit and critically wounded, with a friend, while riding on a motorcycle.[251]
March 3, 2014 farmland near Beit Hanoun[252] Gaza Strip Mus'ab Musa Za'aneen (21); Sharif Nasser (31) PIJ (Israeli version):Had just fired homemade rocket landing in a field south of Ashkelon (Palestinian version): It was not known if either were militants. A child and a fourth person were wounded.[253]
June 11, 2014 Gaza Strip Mohammed Ahmed Alarur/Awar (30/33) of Beit Lahiya; Hamada Hassan, a Beit Lahia resident (25) was critically wounded.[254] Hamas policeman. Salafist cell leader (Israeli description) Described by IDF sources as a global jihad-affiliated terrorist planning attacks against Israel responsible for a rocket salvo on Sderot that interrupted the silence of a Passover holiday. Alarur was hit by a missile while riding a motorbike. A car nearby was also struck.[255] One report identifies a further victim, his 7 year old nephew, who was riding in the family care and who died of wounds on June 14, ascribing to the latter a role of 'human shield.'[256] Israel Air Force, Shin Bet.
June 27, 2014 al-Shati refugee camp Gaza Strip Muhammad al-Fasih and; Usama al-Hassumi Two Senior operatives. Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades Struck by two helicopter-launched missiles while driving a black Kia vehicle. Two other people were wounded.[257] Israeli Air Force
July 5, 2014 Damascus Syria Mwafaq Badiyeh Samir Kuntar's right-hand man and the personal liaison officer between Samir Kuntar and Hezbollah. He was killed by an explosive device planted on his car by "Mossad agents." While driving on the main road between Quneitra and Damascus. The security source claim the assassination was a response to rockets fired from Syria to Israel in March, that the Syrian army and Hezbollah were responsible for. Mossad (alleged)
July 8, 2014 Gaza Strip Muhammad Shaaban Muhammad Shaaban is a head of Hamas Special Forces Naval Commando Unit in Gaza He was killed along with 2 passengers when his car was hit by IAF air strike followed by attempted infiltration by 5 Hamas Naval Frogmen inside Israel Beach in Gaza border.
[258]

Israeli Air Force
July 27, 2014 Gaza Strip Salah Abu Hassanein
Hafez Mohammad Hamad
Hussein Abd al-Qader Muheisin
Akram Sha'ar
Mahmoud Ziada
Osama al-Haya
Ahmad Sahmoud
Abdallah Allah'ras
Shaaban Dakhdoukh
Mahmoud Sinwar Salah Abu Hassanein leader and spokesperson of Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
Hafez Mohammad Hamad was Top level Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in the Beit Hanoun (northern Gaza) area who is directly responsible for the rocket fire on Sderot during escalation leading up to Operation Protective Edge.
Hussein Abd al-Qader Muheisin was a Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in Sheijaya.
Akram Sha'ar is a Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in Khan Younis, who is directly responsible for both rocket fire and terror attacks in Israel.
Mahmoud Ziada was a Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in Jabaliya, responsible for upgrading Hamas rocket arsenal and directing fighting against Israel during Operation Protective Edge.
Osama al-Hayya A Senior Hamas leader in Sheijaya, whose son is in Hamas's 'political wing' Khalil al-Hayya.
Ahmad Sahmoud was a Top level Hamas commander in Khan Younis.
Abdallah Allah'ras is a Senior commander in the Hamas's "military wing,""the Al-Qassam Brigades.
Shaaban Dakhdoukh was a commander of the forces in Zeitoun, who worked on burying long-range rockets and helped to smuggle weapons for his forces.
Mahmoud Sinwar a Hamas Military commander, who was involved in the creation of attack tunnels and the launching of rocket fire into Israeli territory and the raid in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured. All of them were killed by IAF airstrike inside of their house along with their comrades and entire family and also inside their buried Gaza tunnels.
[258][259]

August 3, 2014 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Ahmad al-Mabhouh Nephew of slain Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in charge of engineering and destruction officer in Hamas.
Among other things, he was responsible for hiding rockets before they were launched at Israel, preparing complex explosive devices and planning armed attacks against Israeli targets. The IDF and Shin Bet attacked a building in Jabaliya on Saturday night, killing Hamas operative Ahmad al-Mabhouh, the nephew of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was inside.
[260]

Israeli Armed Forces, Shin Bet
August 19, 2014 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mohammed Deif (failed attempt) Chief of staff and Supreme Military Commander of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The main architect of Hamas's tunnel system. Several IAF missiles struck Deif's 6 storey home. His wife Widad (27), 7 month old son Ali and daughter Sarah (3) were killed in the strike. Three other residents in the building were also killed. According to Fox News, anonymous Israeli intelligence sources claimed that Deif had been killed in the strike. Hamas denied the reports that Deif, who has survived five previous Israeli attempts to assassinate him, had died in the F-16 bombing of his home. In April 2015, Israel confirmed that Deif survived the assassination attempt.[261][262][263][264][265] Israeli Air Force
August 21, 2014 Rafah Gaza Strip Raed al Atar Rafah Division Senior commander.
Mohammed Abu Shmallah Rafah Division Senior commander.
Mohammed Barhoum Rafah Division Senior commander. 3 Hamas Senior Military commanders Struck by a pair of F-16 one-ton bombs guided through a window of the building where they had been located.[266][267]
January 18, 2015 al-Amal Farms, Quneitra District Syria Jihad Mughniyah
Mohammed Ahmed Issa
Abu Ali Reza Al Tabatabai
Mohammed Ali Allah Dadi
Ismail Al Ashhab
Abu Abbas Al Hijazi
Mohammed Ali Hassan Abu Al Hassan
Ghazi Ali Dhawi
Ali Hussein Ibrahim
Along with 6 other Iranian and Hezbollah high-ranking officers Jihad Mughniyah was a son of a slain Hezbollah supreme military commander Imad Mughniyah.
Mohammed Ahmed Issa was Head of Security and Operations. He was also a Senior Hezbollah Military Commander in Syria.
Ismail Al Ashhab was a Senior Hezbollah military commander and a top liaison officer with Iran in charge of training Hezbollah forces along the Golan heights frontier.
Abu Ali Reza Al Tabatabai was a Top Iranian IRGC General.
Mohammed Ali Allah Dadi was a Top Iranian IRGC General.
Abu Abbas Al Hijazi was a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria.
Mohammed Ali Hassan Abu Al Hassan was also a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria.
Ghazi Ali Dhawi was also a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria.
Ali Hussein Ibrahim also a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria. Struck and hit by Israel Air Force Nimrod/Hellfire missile Apache Helicopter during their reconnaissance and inspection mission along with Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line at the Golan Heights.
According to Israel Intelligence Security, they were planning for massive mega attack, including infiltration, shooting, assassinations, suicide bombing, anti-tank attack, and missile attack with the intention of kill and kidnap Israel soldiers and civilians community along with Quneitra and Galilee border.
And also help to establish the missile base inside Quneitra region.
Israel neither confirmed nor denied an air strike.
December 21, 2015 Damascus Syria Samir Kuntar
Farhan Issam Shaalan
Mohammed Riza Fahemi
Mir Ahmad Ahmadi
along with several high ranking IRGC commanders and Hezbollah members Samir Kuntar was a senior Hezbollah commander and also a convicted murderer of an Israeli family in 1979, held in Israeli prison for the next 30 years before released in a prisoner swap in 2008.

Mohammed Riza Fahemi and Mir Ahmad Ahmadi were two Iranian senior military officers of the IRGC Intelligence division. According to the Israeli defence establishment, they were meeting in order to plan the next round of Iran-sponsored terrorist operation against Israel from the Golan Heights areas recently secured by the Syrian military. Two Israeli planes allegedly destroyed a six-story residential building in Jaramana on the outskirts of Damascus. Kuntar's death was confirmed by his brother and Hezbollah. The explosion also killed eight Syrian nationals, among them Hezbollah commanders, and injured a number of other people.[268][269]
December 17, 2016 Sfax Tunisia Mohammed Al Zawari Mohammed Al Zawari was a Chief of Hamas drone program and an Aviation Engineer expert. He also worked on the development and production of Hezbollah drones. He was shot dead in the head 6 times by using guns equipped with silencer just in front of his house, who located in Sfax 270 km Southeast of Tunis. Hamas accused Mossad[270]
March 24, 2017 Gaza Strip Palestine Mazen Fuqaha Mazen Fuqaha was a Senior Hamas Operative. He was also a Senior commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas Military wing. According to Hamas, he was shot dead 4 times in the head and chest by Israeli Special Forces by using silenced weapons guided by Shin Bet Agents and Gaza operatives. Israeli Special Forces/ Shin Bet[citation needed]
April 21, 2018 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Fadi al-Batsh Batash was a Hamas-affiliated Palestinian engineer from the Gaza Strip. Shot dead by two people on a motorcycle when he was leaving a mosque after his morning prayers. Mossad is suspected.[271]

ANZ , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:46 pm GMT
@Rich A member of the military of a country we are not at war with is a legitimate target?

You really must try harder next time to earn the shekels you've been promised. That simply won't pass for quality propaganda.

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Rich Your "most moral" nation of Epstein cannot survive without blackmailing and deceiving, and yet you are coming on the UNZ forum to lecture the readers about morals? This is ridiculous.
Time to realize that holobiz is over.
Rurik , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Rich

Gandhi drank his own urine

And you'd drink Bibi's, and he'd be only too happy to piss in your face, so it's one of the 'symbiotic relationships' the scientists tell us about.

Bibi pisses in Rich's face, and Rich obliges by not missing a drop.

You and Lindsey would make a fine team!

(with apologies for vulgar language, but it's hard to imagine anything more indecorous than Rich's efforts here).

Crazy Horse , says: Website Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:56 pm GMT
@Rich Spoken like a true Hasbera Clown. The Iranians actually defeated the "ragtag forces of Saddam Hussein" that were supplied with US biological and Chemical weapons since their objective was purely defensive. Just as those "ragtag forces" in Vietnam defeated the US by continuing to exist despite the genocidal bombing campaigns.

You should really improve your literacy level by actually reading a book instead of some Zionist Agitprop.

bluedog , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:57 pm GMT
@A123 And the troll pops up again,with his wish list,I guess someone forgot to tell him Santa's not filling any wish's this early in the year.!!!
Gizmo880 , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:59 pm GMT
@RowBuddy Are you so naive as to think that dumping Trump in 2020 will change anything? Israel owns both parties equally, and it is a fact that up to this point in his administration Donald Trump has the least amount of blood on his hands when compared to each of the last three Presidents.

If you think differently, then ask yourself how the Nobel Peace Prize winning Messiah and the Hilldebeast destroyed the #1 economic country in Africa and turned it into a total shit hole nightmare. That would be the country of Libya for those not paying attention or who worship at the feet of the equally corrupt Democrat party.

bruce county , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 11:59 pm GMT
@NTG Thats great then .. I havbe the popcorn ready should make for some good tv..
Tsar Nicholas , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:06 am GMT
@Franklin Ryckaert

Israel has no president-for-life system.

Netanyahoo is doing his best.

bluedog , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:10 am GMT
@Not Raul Well lets take this to its conclusion,Trump nukes Iran it drifts over into Russia killing a few hundred or thousands,now just what do you think Russia would do,do you think that Russia would take that as an act of war against them, and let those missile's programed to impact the White House and pentagon be on there way;!!!
plantman , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:11 am GMT
This just in

Richard Engel
‏Verified account @RichardEngel

Iraqi security official tells @nbcnews there has been anther US airstrike, this one north of Baghdad targeting Shiite militia leaders. Reports of 6 killed.
This right BEFORE a big Shiite protest tomorrow in Baghdad. It seems certain to provoke an escalation.

The attack has been confirmed by other sources.
It looks like the provocations will continue until Iran responds creating the pretext for a broader war.

anon [276] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:12 am GMT
@Alfred US is unique to indict people from opposite spectrums of the same crimes usually after one of the criminals are dealt with . 911 has been blamed on Iran. It has been approved by American court . Settlements have been reached without any participation of Iran . After Bin Laden was dealt with for crimes of 911, Saddam was pointed fi anger at with similar success story . Pakistan has been also accused directly and indirectly of the same crimes .

Pan Am had checkered history The intercepts of messages that seemingly originated from Libya was manufactured and relayed by Israeli agents of worst filthy zionist mindset to draw visceral wrath of America on Libya .

Now then Zio will be the first to blame it on Iran and who knows after that Pakistan.

Rurik , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:13 am GMT
@annamaria

The fallen Iranian was an honest and honorable man, unlike the Jewish procuress of underage girls for wealthy pedophiles and the Jewish plunderer of pensions.

I'd like to send this to every US military barracks in the world.

I'd like to see it on every soldier's locker and pasted on every Army recruitment center in America.

Young Americans have been slaughtering honorable Muslim men, women and children, thousands of miles away, so that repulsive pigs like Epstein or Weinstein

can rape their daughters while they're off fighting and dying.

It's an untenable situation, and one we should all try to stop.

bluedog , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:17 am GMT
@Valley Forge Warrior Strange how when one troll posts the other trolls all come in to agree with him/it/her.!!!
NoseytheDuke , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:26 am GMT
@Not Raul

Let's say the Saudis attack the USA again like they did on 9-11

The Unz Review already has some good comedy writers. I would suggest that you start with open mic nights in bars and coffee shops until you develop some basic skills.

nokangaroos , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:27 am GMT
@Rurik Not to worry the maneuver is too transparent.

1. Strategically, they accomplished zilch.
2. They made a first-rate martyr.

That they had no better idea can only mean:

1. They are losing.
2. They did it in hopes of provoking an overreaction (much like Heydrich had to die because he did more for the Czech worker than anyone before or after him).

And over the last four decades the Iranians have grown calloused to provocation

Cloak And Dagger , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:27 am GMT
@Rurik

By doing nothing, but speaking out, Iran's message of victimization is it's more powerful, moral weapon.

A noble sentiment, Rurik. Sadly, in the last few decades, morality has taken a back seat, and evil seems to consistently triumph. Consider the plight of the unarmed Palestinians protesting near the Israeli wall on their land. They have held the moral upper ground, while the Israelis have consistently mowed them down, women and children alike, with nary a protest from the rest of the world, least of all from their bought-and-paid-for Arab neighbors, like Egypt and Jordan (don't get me started on the KSA). Meanwhile, countries that have protested, like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, are considered terrorists.

I think that "turning the other cheek" was a shrewd jewish trick on christians. The only way to stop a bully is punch him in the nose.

Rich , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:34 am GMT
@annamaria In my world Epstein and his friends get the death penalty. My people have no semitic or Ashkenazi blood at all. But just because some deranged general dislikes Israel, doesn't make him a good guy. He was a leader of an army that engages in terrorism, as well as pursuing an agenda that is antithetical to freedom and basic human rights. I'm not here lecturing anyone, but if you consider the millionaire mullahs and their lackeys "heroes", I'd say you're confused, at the least.
Nicolás Palacios Navarro , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:39 am GMT
@Rurik I believe a not insignificant amount -- perhaps even the majority -- of pro-war Americans know this to be true: That they and their progeny are mere cannon fodder for Zionist imperialism. But they simply don't care or are even proud of dying for so "worthy" a cause. Never underestimate the persistent and deeply-rooted hysterical adulation that Israel commands -- nor the utter foolishness of your average American.
Poco , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:47 am GMT
@JamesinNM I fully expect Israel to set off a nuke in the US and destroy some Southern or Midwestern city where the "deplorables" live. Then indisputable evidence will be found pinning it on Iran. Kills two birds with one stone.
They get the war they want, kill a bunch of those they hate in America. And those they hate in America clamor for the destruction of others they hate in Iran. The mother of all false flags. The one on 9/11 didn't completely get the 7 nations job done.
Desert Fox , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:48 am GMT
@Rich Soleimani was fighting AL CIADA aka ISIS a creation of the ZUS and Israel and ZBritain and NATO, and so they killed him as they could not let him continue to kill the terrorists created by the CIA and MOSSAD and MI6.
NTG , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:49 am GMT
@Passer by i said a "Profitable", not a good one. And i didn't mean the US economy as a nation economy.
The whole "western" system right now is driven by some very few (an NO they are NOT Jews, they are only rich, very rich). And only those will profit from it. Until someone stop them directly.
Those people don't care about live or nation. They only care about money, their own money.
Rurik , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:50 am GMT

And over the last four decades the Iranians have grown calloused to provocation

I hope so. It's so bloody obvious by now.

Like the way they've been trying to 'rope a dope' Putin into a wider war with Ukraine, but Putin's far too savvy to take the bait.

Just let the ZUS keep frothing like a rabid dog, (h/t Ron Unz) and the world will eventually tire of its antics, and put it down, by repudiating the dollar.

Shue Arie , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:53 am GMT
If Iran is threatened with an all out war they could easily close the Straight of Homes and destroy the Saudi oil fields with Chemical weapons that'll render extracting Saudi oil mute. Result would be loss of Western World economy crashing big time and the USA falling into civil war cause they cannot maintain their freebies to the population. Not to mention attacking every US base in the ME. After all if Iran was facing annihilation they would have nothing to lose but to bring everyone down with them.
RudyM , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:55 am GMT
@sally It's ultimately for some fucking Jews. What else is new?
Iris , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:55 am GMT
@Rich

Iran won't escalate because they tried, and lost a general. If they try anything else, they'll pay too steep a price.

They might have just killed a foremost general, but the ones who have just proved to the world that they are losing are the US/Israeli Zionists.

When engaged in a strategic survival fight against a historic, cohesive nation of 80 millions people, killing one of their generals won't make any difference. It just reveals that you have run out of more effective, long-term means and have reached a strategic dead-end.

It is like losing a dispute over land with a powerful neighbour, and throwing a stone at one of his windows to satisfy a tantrum. It won't change anything significant.

This is the end of the road for Zionist long-term strategy in the ME.

Iran will not retaliate militarily, but you will soon understand the law of unintended consequences:
– Soleimani was so popular in Iran that Iranians will rally around their government; so much for the social and economic undermining of the Islamic Republic that was Israel's best card.
– Iraqis will also rally around their institutions; the end of the US occupation has now been put on top of their priorities.
– Israel will have to face an even stronger and more cohesive Shia Crescent, as Iraq will join in.

Good luck, hasbara troll.

Poco , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:55 am GMT
I'm not necessarily a cheerleader for Iran but, were I a leader in Iran, every time the US attacked one of mine, some Israeli bigshot would bite the dust. Every time. Dual citizens would be my preferred target. It would be a favor to the world.
NoseytheDuke , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:57 am GMT
@Johnny Walker Read The murdered peacemaker John Lennon famously asked, "What if there was a war and nobody showed up?" Since Vietnam, any American who has joined the military is a fool. These fools have not only aided in the destruction of many non-threatening nations and the deaths of millions of innocents but they have also aided in the destruction of the USA itself, for the working American people that is.
Haxo Angmark , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:01 am GMT
@anon this @ Unz is nothing, compared to

VoxDay and ZeroHedge where

the $2.39/per comment (((hasbara)))'s are swarming like gnats.

Rurik , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:02 am GMT
@Cloak And Dagger

the Israelis have consistently mowed them down, women and children alike, with nary a protest from the rest of the world, least of all from their bought-and-paid-for Arab neighbors, like Egypt and Jordan (don't get me started on the KSA).

yea, or the SJW in the US House or NYT. Where are 'the squad' when it comes to Palestine, or Iran, for that matter?

Counting shekels, that's where.

I think that "turning the other cheek" was a shrewd jewish trick on christians. The only way to stop a bully is punch him in the nose.

I wholeheartedly agree, in a fair contest.

But Iran is in no position to fight a war with the ZUS. It would be crushed, and the zios would be just as giddy over dead American goyim as they would dead Iranians, if not more so.

One thing I just can't understand, is how fellow Muslims can accommodate Zionism, as it's practiced these days. Like the KSA, as you mention.

So, yea, it's an awful situation, but I'd still counsel a non-violent protest posture, even as the fiend menaces and slaughters them. But if an Iranian or Iraqi, or God knows how many other people who've been so terribly wronged, were to strike out, and kill one or two goons in the service of zion, I know I couldn't begrudge them. Like the Afghans who occasionally kill their ZUS trainers/occupiers. It's perfectly understandable.

Shue Arie , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:03 am GMT
@Rich I challenge you to show just a single act of terrorism committed by General Soleimani and Iran, and I mean an act of terror not a retaliation. Iran has done nothing to the West to warrant the aggression against it. Her only problem is the vast resources it has that the West so desperately wants to control.
anonymous [178] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:04 am GMT
@plantman BAGHDAD -- A United States air strike targeted an Iraqi militia late on Friday on Taji road north of Baghdad, state TV said. It did not name the militia or provide further details.

"Air strikes targeting Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella grouping of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias near camp Taji north of Baghdad have killed six people and critically wounded three, an Iraqi army source told Reuters late on Friday."
https://torontosun.com/news/world/second-u-s-air-strike-targets-iraqi-militia-north-of-baghdad-state-tv/wcm/a24f3976-686c-4342-8102-93abfca24962

Question #1: Do members of US military have right -- or obligation -- to refuse orders that violate international rules and conventions on military engagement, US Constitution, or basic morality?

Question #2: Thirty -- fifty -- seventy years from now, will an Iraqi court charge with war crimes and crimes against humanity the 82nd Airborne soldiers pictured above?

nokangaroos , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:04 am GMT
@Passer by All correct in the medium term just a bit wishful in the here and now

All excellent points why the US MUST hold onto the Gulf, Persian or not, with teeth and fingernails;
losing control over oil the US don´t need means they can force no one to trade actual value for green paper, which not only means cold turkey from all those dandy little wars but also groid uprising back home.

Sure, folding up and going home would be the best for all concerned –
but it will never happen :/

Crazy Horse , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:08 am GMT
@Gizmo880 This is what the Clinton apologist with his head up his Duff "editor" over at Veterans Today thinks as well. As if O-bomb-em wasn't as bad or even worse than Cheney er I mean Bushwhacker Bush. I mean get real! These people are so deluded. If we just all close our eyes and vote Democrat and sing kumbaya we'll enter a world of hope and change.

Yeah whatever.

ivegotrythm , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:09 am GMT
@A123 A123 is asking how long the armed forces will remain willing to die for psychopaths? Good question.
Biff , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:12 am GMT
@Rich

He was a leader of an army that engages in terrorism, as well as pursuing an agenda that is antithetical to freedom and basic human rights

Quit picking on Colin Powell

Herald , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:12 am GMT
@Not Raul

Let's say the Saudis attack the USA again like they did on 9-11

Oh deary deary me, now tell us do you still believe in fairies? Well of course you do, so silly of me to ask.

Rurik , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:14 am GMT
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro

Never underestimate the persistent and deeply-rooted hysterical adulation that Israel commands -- nor the utter foolishness of your average American.

I'm somewhat more charitable of the Americanus Bovinus.

I suspect that he either knows of the 'special relationship, in which case he'd be reluctant to kill and die for his enemies in Israel, or he's just another duped fool.

Pat Tillman started off being a duped fool, but then he figured it out. They solved that 'problem' with three 5.56mm holes in a 'tight pattern' to Pat's forehead.

Adrian , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:17 am GMT
@Agent76 Were the neocons also inspired by Deuteronomy 7 which talks about the necessary destruction of 7 (seven!) nations?

Deuteronomy 7 New International Version (NIV)

Driving Out the Nations

7 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations -- the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you -- 2 and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.[a] Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles[b] and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:18 am GMT
Trump is acting out the American Paradox. Jews have such total power that the only way to ease the Jewish attack on you is to serve them even harder. Jews have done everything to disparage and defame Trump, and what does the 'tough guy' do? To ease the agony, he sucks up to Zion even more so that 'my Jews' will push back against the 'Jews who hate me'.

Jews are the gods of America. In the Bible, if the God clobbers you, your only hope of salvation is to serve Him with greater servitude. In America, if Jews kick your butt, your only option is to hope that they will kick you less hard by kissing their ass.

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:23 am GMT
@Rurik Dear Rurik, the tribe is in a self-destruction mode -- they cannot help it. Zionists are consumed by ethnic hatred and the hatred is blinding and destroying them.

It is tragic that the psychopaths have murdered the great numbers of decent and innocent human beings.

What is truly appalling is the cowardice of American brass. While politicians are the natural persons of easy morals, the dishonorable and pussy-catting American commanders are a stunning phenomenon. From Rumsfeld to Brennan to the current "boss" (what's his name which he is busy dishonoring?), the US brass has learned how to stay comfortable (and profitably) on their knees serving the zionist masters.

ivegotrythm , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:25 am GMT
So Saker suspected that it was not Libya that was responsible for Lockerbie but Iran? Keep thinking. Cui bono might help.
Sunshine , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:30 am GMT
@Ilya G Poimandres Absolutely, couldn't have said it better myself. None of this is legal or acceptable and for a country that's so obsessed with giving foreigners "constitutional rights", it makes us look like a bunch of hypocrites. But of course we are. And they don't do it in my name and I want no part of any of it.
annamaria , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:33 am GMT
@ivegotrythm The Jewish State has become the epitome of the Banality of Evil.
Sunshine , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:35 am GMT
@Poco This is a very real worry of mine. Very plausible and actually, probable. I worry that it will be a biological weapon. That scares the crap out of me! And I wouldn't put it past them one bit. They love it when we suffer and die. The Bible was right about them.
Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:38 am GMT
Actions like this make us question past US military actions. US paints itself as the good guy fighting the bad guys, but US has provoked so many nations and forced them to react, whereupon US employed its superior firepower to kill countless people.

Maybe the US was always evil.

Will the progs and Democrats hit Trump hard on this? Or will their response be muted because their Jewish masters actually like this side of treacherous Trump doing the bidding of Israel and Zion?

Jewish Power is utterly vile. Sacrifice any number of people for Zion. It's really a new form of human sacrifice. Jews make a big deal of how their religion forbade human sacrifice, but they sacrifice human lives by way of US foreign policy.

Well, Trump became John McCain. Meet McTrump.

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:40 am GMT
@TaintedCanker The reason decent people dislike America and Israel more than Iran et al. is because America and Israel are the aggressors here. Why is that so hard to understand?
Cloak And Dagger , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:40 am GMT
@Rurik

But Iran is in no position to fight a war with the ZUS. It would be crushed, and the zios would be just as giddy over dead American goyim as they would dead Iranians, if not more so.

Yes, Iran would be crushed in a direct military confrontation, however, an asymmetric war is a different beast altogether. I referred in an earlier post to "death by a thousand cuts", and that is what Iran should do – directed assassinations by their allies, who are everywhere. What is good for the goose

Start by taking down a few zios like Pompeo, Bolton, Adelson, etc., and suddenly bullying isn't so cheap.

One thing I just can't understand, is how fellow Muslims can accommodate Zionism, as it's practiced these days. Like the KSA, as you mention.

I don't know that they do tolerate zionists – but they have been effectively muzzled by the tyrants we prop up to control them (e.g. MBS, Sisi, et al.). Look at our cousins in Europe, who are just as muzzled and jailed for raising a single dissenting voice against jews or Israel. Forget Europe, we, ourselves are on the threshold of something similar here. Unconstitutional laws go unchallenged. Note the recent laws forbidding protests against Israel on campus. A flood is imminent.

Where are 'the squad' when it comes to Palestine, or Iran, for that matter?

Like damning with faint praise, the fact that the Palestinian/Iranian cause is represented by the 'squad' does more damage to their plight than if they had kept their moths shut. The squad is easy to take down and their position on this issue is easily dismissed, and they fail to gain the support of people like me because their other issues are so ludicrous. Their flawed character (e.g incest, lies, etc.) hardly makes them good lawyers for anyone, leave alone Palestinians and Iranians.

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:43 am GMT
@Valley Forge Warrior Will he use gas chambers?
MEexpert , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:45 am GMT
@A123 You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You take tidbits from the MSM and what the establishment says and regurgitate. You are a stooge of Natenyahu, the real sociapath. Trump is becoming one very fast as well.

The regional stability only requires that uncle Sam come home and stop shedding American blood as well as Middle Eastern blood.

Attacking the embassy was clearly Khameni's desperate effort to shore up personal weakness at home. Not only did he fail to keep the embassy, he also lost a key terrorist. The weak leader just became much weaker.

Here is a very good example of your ignorance. You have typical American problem. They think they know how the Iranian mind works. They don't know a thing about how Iranians think. Iran has ten more Sulemanis waiting in line to take his place and there are ten more Al-Mohandus in Iraq.

Does anyone remember what an American General said about ISIS? He said it will take 30 to 40 years to defeat of ISIS in Iraq. It took less three years for the Iraq militias, all volunteer group mobilzed as a result of a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, to defeat ISIS and ISIS was being supplied arms by the US. Al-Mohandus was one of that group.

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:47 am GMT
@Anonymous His handle should be TakingItUpTheAssForIsrael.
Parfois1 , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:53 am GMT
@renfro Thank you for posting that list. Any just soul in this world should keep a copy of that list as a permanent reminder of the nature of the Jewish state and its sponsor/protector – insane criminals deserving the harshest of their own gods' revenge: total obliteration from the face of the earth for ever. They are the scourge of humanity; is anyone with a conscience safe in thie world?
lavoisier , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:03 am GMT
@anonymous

Question #1: Do members of US military have right -- or obligation -- to refuse orders that violate international rules and conventions on military engagement, US Constitution, or basic morality?

These guys just follow orders. They are not taught to think about the morality of their actions, but to trust the wisdom of their leaders and the justice of the cause.

No thinking person could honestly serve in the American Military today. Their cause is not defense of any ideals or their own homeland, but to serve an unjust and evil government in thrall to Jewish supremacists.

I want to burn the American flag.

nsa , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:05 am GMT
The only hope for us sane people is to hunker down and crack open another delightful $1.39 plus tax 8.1% Hurricane 25 ouncer. Americans like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, when in reality they are pathetically superstitious and naturally subservient. Half the country every Sunday actually worships a mythical jew zombie and even routinely mutilates the genitals of their male offspring to demonstrate total fealty to their cock cutter cult overlords. The other half every Sunday worships giant muscular Africans in plastic hats and tight spandex groping each other in a simulated homoerotic orgy on their flat screen living room joo boxes. Oh, and it has been proven that guzzling fully synth swill like Ice House, Steel Reserve, and Hurricane is actually healthier than counter and designers beers as brews made from actual fermented real grains all contain the magic ingredient, RoundUp ..providing your liver and brain can withstand a steady diet of 8%to 10% high octane fuel.
Patrikios Stetsonis , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:08 am GMT
@Harbinger I keep saying it.
Bomb to dust these maaaa-humpers in that shithole south of Lebanon.
The World major problems will go away with the next 10 years
Agent76 , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:09 am GMT
@Adrian I am a born again Christian and reader of the Bible but I cannot qoute chapter and versues like yourself and many more who are able. Thanks for your reply and be blessed!
Ghan-buri-Ghan , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:15 am GMT
@Haxo Angmark I don't think all, or even most, of them are hasbarists. They are mostly brain-addled American boomer "conservatives" who blindly believe everything the Jews spoon-feed them. And really, 80% of (((ZeroHedge))) is also Jewish propaganda these days, so why shouldn't their commenters reflect that?

It's not so different from the moronic commentary found in the Steve Sailer section here at Unz, which seems to increasingly bleed out to the rest of the site.

Agent76 , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:18 am GMT
January 03, 2020 There can be no justification for this act of murder

"America's lawless arrogance has gone too far with the assassination of Iran's top military commander. The deadly airstrike against General Qasem Soleimani was carried out on the order of President Donald Trump.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52797.htm

anon [276] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:26 am GMT
@Rich He was a leader of an army that engages in terrorism"
Israel is nation that survives on terrorism It was birthed by terrorism . It gets money everytime some guy makes threats to a desolate synagogue or storms on the headstones of some graveyard . The money helps the nation to survive get food water electricity and it uses the change for making bullets to hit at the eyes of the Palestinian boys.
Anthony Aaron , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:29 am GMT
@Rich I don't see where anyone is putting forth the idea that Iran can defeat the United States -- and they don't have to to, essentially, 'win'.

After all, look at the end results for We The People Of The United States as a result of the (false flag known as) 9/11 -- let's see, we've got the Patriot Act to destroy our individual rights; we've got the TSA folks to do likewise; we've got the NSA to spy on anyone and everyone; we've spent Trillion$ chasing phony WMDs (thanks to the 'intelligence' shoved at US by the israelis); we've spent heaven-only-knows how much modifying the cabins of our commercial aircraft to prevent 'terrorist' attacks; we've allowed folks to capitalize on the whole Twin Towers insurance scam.

All in all, we've been under the gun since 9/11 -- afraid of our own shadows -- bowing to the israeli bastards who know no limits to their evil -- and, thanks to President Trump, American blood will be spilled for them once again – and American freedoms will be lost for the once again.

anon [276] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:29 am GMT
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro America needs interfaith dialogue with Islam but without including the Jewish faith . It is for the forgiveness that we hope will be showed to and bestowed on our future generations . We need to include Buddhist as well.
Maiasta , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:32 am GMT
@Alfred A good summation. However, it gets even darker than this.

Journalist working at the outer limits of the mainstream (e.g. Robert Fisk) had long suspected an Iranian hand in Pan Am 103. And lawyers for the two Libyans prosecuted for the bombing identified 11 alleged members of the rather obscure Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF) as the men responsible. The Iranians did back this group, BUT numerous sources claim that the operation took place with the consent of US authorities.

Why would the US allow such an attack upon its citizens? According to former Congressional staffer and (former) CIA asset Susan Lindauer, the attack was directed at shutting down an investigation into a CIA-run drug-trafficking ring (codenamed "Operation Khourah") operating from Beirut. In her words:

"The Defence Intelligence Agency had gone into Lebanon and were gathering forensic evidence to prove the CIA's role in heroin trafficking.

"They boarded Pan Am flight 103 that morning and they were flying back to Washington to deliver their report, with heroin, cash and banking records."

The UK Guardian summarised the scenario thusly:

//Among the Lockerbie victims was a party of US intelligence specialists, led by Major Charles McKee of the DIA, returning from an aborted hostage-rescue mission in Lebanon. A variety of sources have claimed that McKee, who was fiercely anti-drugs, got wind of the CIA's deals and was returning to Washington to blow the whistle. A few months after Lockerbie, reports emerged from Lebanon that McKee's travel plans had been leaked to the bombers. The implication was that Flight 103 was targeted, in part, because he was on board. //

So extensive is the evidence of all this murk that even CNN has acknowledged it:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pOmzEbRi30k?feature=oembed

Parfois1 , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:34 am GMT
@anonymous

Do members of US military have right -- or obligation -- to refuse orders that violate international rules and conventions on military engagement, US Constitution, or basic morality?

Yes, it's not only a right, it's an obligation. Following orders is not a defence for anyone knowingly involved in crimes of war and against humanity.

However, the plea of obedience to superior orders can be a mitigating circumstance and reduce the severity of punishment. A private soldier responsibility for a war crime would be the same as that of the general or commander-in-chief who made the order, but his punishment would be reduced or symbolic.

In this case, a properly constituted court would convict Trump and all others in the chain of command, down to the operators of the drone, for the assassination of Suleimani.

barr , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:35 am GMT
@JamesinNM Tell that to Perle,Kristol,Kagan Kaplan Lutti Abrams Feith Wolfowitz and Haim Saban , Sheldon Adeslhon , Singer and Marcus . Use loudspeaker to make it reach the settlers occupiers and Likudniks .

Who gives a toss to Bible ?

Castellio , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:54 am GMT
@renfro Thank you for this list.

Unfortunately it is partial, as it doesn't include Iraqis individually targeted and assassinated from 2003 on. Do you have access to that list as well?

denk , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:56 am GMT
The Muslim league were suckered into the Bosnia war,
Iranians and others were fighting under NATO and dying for the great satan against the Serbs.

Let this be the final waking up call, who's your real enemy.

Rich , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:01 am GMT
@anon Okay, I get it, you don't like Israel, but does your dislike of Israel mean the Iranians are hale and hearty fellows? Most of their leadership are corrupt millionaires who use a medieval religion to justify torturing and enslaving their populace. The Iranian leadership is full of evil people who are openly hostile to the United States and its interests. Sorry.

The fact that you, and many others on this site, are strongly hostile to Israel and feel affection for the defeated Palestinians, doesn't change the fact that Israel acts as an ally to the US in its dealings with various enemies. The argument over how much, if any, foreign aid should be given to foreign nations has nothing to do with the fact that Iran has chosen to be an enemy of the US. Had they not killed an American contractor and coordinated the attack on the US embassy in Iraq (as well as other terrorist attacks), General Soleimani, might still be alive to torture his enemies and plan terrorist attacks.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:10 am GMT
'Soleimani Murder: What Could Happen Next?'

To be brief?

Short term: nothing good. Long-term: an end to the Zionist entity.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:13 am GMT
Can't be too careful

'U.S. Airstrike Targets Iraqi Militia North of Baghdad, State TV Reports
Iraqi army sources say at least five killed in attack on Iran-backed militia convoy, which group says was carrying medical teams '

-- Haaretz

Obviously, we want to make certain Iran feels it necessary to respond.

bluedog , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:15 am GMT
@Rich Then I guess he would fit right into Washington with their deranged people that kill wedding parties and children,would put on illegal no fly zones killing 500,000 children,now just where do you think their freedoms were .Its people like you that are sick in the head all puffed up with the empire bullshit that everything on the planet belongs to us and was just put there for our taking,your a perfect example of a neocon hiding behind patriotism.the sick kind that will destroy the world if we let it.!!
anonymous [178] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:28 am GMT
@Cloak And Dagger TruNews is amazing.

Soleimani Assassination: Did the Pentagon Use Hypersonic Weapon?
https://www.trunews.com/stream/soleimani-assassination-did-the-pentagon-use-hypersonic-weapon

Their perspective on the assassination took several different angles than were presented even here on Unz. I disagree with their conclusion that Iran has only two options: all out war NOW -- Iran will be destroyed but so will Israel, and US bases will be eradicated; or sit on their hands and take the repeated hits that USPisrael intends to send. (the latter seems to be the case: another attack has already taken place).

But Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart reported two more bits of information:
1. US press spokesman hinted that the PMU that was attacked by USA & lost 32 men, helped plan the attack on Suleimani; claim was Suleimani was 'going rogue' -- US is offering an "out" to Iran in that Iran Central was not directing the anti-American operation that Suleimani was planning.
The briefer said: "Iran has only two options: Come to the table and negotiate, or endure more attacks."

Because IRGC – Quds force had been declared a terrorist organization, killing Suleimani was hunkey-dorie.

Realize, tho, that Adam Schiff has proposed legislation that hate crimes be prosecuted as domestic terrorism, and the Monsey incident upped the ante on that, so that domestic terrorism would be prosecuted the same way as international terrorism. Knocking over a grave marker in a Jewish cemetery could possibly be turned into an act of international terrorism. Rick Wiles or any of us anonymous keyboard warriors that Fran Taubman is so eager to doxx could be named as Terrorist, and, presumably, be droned by our own government, in our own American home, at the behest of Israeli partisans.

2. Israeli newspapers quoted Netanyahu that he knew in advance about the assassination, likely was in on the planning (with Pompeo).
Also, a New York Times article wrote on Jan. 2 -- before the attack:

"What if the former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani, visits Baghdad for a meeting and you know the address? The temptations to use hypersonic missiles will be many."

What's a hypersonic missile? Who has them? How did NYTimes know this stuff?
Did US use hypersonic missiles? Was the NYTimes article, and the assassination of the Quds general, warnings to other world leaders?

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:30 am GMT
@Rich Hard to believe Iranian millionaires are worse than dual-citizen billionaires in the US in terms of corruption.
Biff , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:40 am GMT
@Rich

Okay, I get it, you don't like Israel, but does your dislike of Israel mean the Iranians are hale and hearty fellows?

Like clockwork

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/27/opposing-interventionism-in-nation-x-means-you-love-nation-xs-government/

Every time you speak out against western imperialism in a given nation or question western propaganda narratives about that nation's government, you will inevitably be accused of loving that nation's government by anyone who argues with you.

When I say "inevitably", I am not exaggerating. If you speak in any public forum for any length of time expressing skepticism of what we're told to believe about a nation whose government has been targeted by the US-centralized empire, you will with absolute certainty eventually run into someone who accuses you of thinking that that government is awesome and pure and good.

Thales the Milesian , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:43 am GMT
What the Iranians will do?

A big fat nothing!

As Thucydides wrote over 2300 years ago:

"The strong will do whatever they can; the weak will suffer whatever they must."

Putin, a president of a stronger country than Iran, accepts this fact of history and kisses American a$$.

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:47 am GMT
@Rich "Israel acts as an ally to the US in its dealings with various enemies."

-- This is a really poor joke. Israel is the worst enemy of the US. Israel is guilty of killing and maiming the servicemen on the USS Liberty.
Your filthy Pollard has created the worst spying episode in the history of the US (the goodies were sold by Israel to China).
Mossad and Mossad's deputies Epstein et al have contributed a huge amount of evilness to the US and beyond.
The ongoing mass slaughter for Eretz Israel on the US dime & limb has been the greatest achievement of sadistic Israel-firsters.
And only God knows the details of the zonists' involvement in 9/11.

If you want to talk about "corrupt millionaires and evil people" who "torture and enslave" and who are "openly hostile" to the United States -- and all other countries that are not totally zionized (like Russia and Iran) -- then your talk should be about zionists and the Jewish State.

By the way, were not you among the dancing Israelis celebrating the miraculous (controlled) demolition of the towers?

Anonymous [339] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:52 am GMT
And why is all this happening?

Mostly because White American Christians are generally afraid of the Jewish lobby.

So that lobby gets its way.

And America loses.

We probably don't care much about our country, do we?

redmudhooch , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:00 am GMT
Trump has already sent a letter via the Swiss to the Iranians begging them not to retaliate in exchange for lifting sanctions and "other incentives"

Sounds so cowardly and stoopid it must be true.

Committing a brazen act of war is always the best prelude to a letter begging for calm https://t.co/gGkQ7aglfm

-- Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 4, 2020

AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:04 am GMT
@Colin Wright You are an optimist. You expect something good, at least long-term.
Hippopotamusdrome , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:04 am GMT
LOL, the (D) Joe Biden putting on the anti-war schtick when an (R) president bombs brown people in the Middle East. The did this to Bush (R) too.

A blast from the past when Obama (D) and Hillary (D) were bombing brown people in Libya:

Kadafi death: Joe Biden says 'NATO got it right' in Libya
"Whether he's alive or dead, he's gone. The people of Libya have gotten rid of a dictator," Biden said at an event in New Hampshire

"NATO got it right," he said. "In this case, America spent $2 billion and didn't lose a single life. This is more the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward "

barr , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:10 am GMT
@Maiasta Victor Ostrovsky, a Canadian former intelligence colonel with Israel's Mossad secret service and author of the bestseller By Way Of Deception (the title comes from the Mossad motto), will testify that it was Mossad commandos who set up the transmitter in Tripoli that generated a false signal about the "success" of the Berlin bomb – he has already given a detailed description of this daring operation in his second book, The Other Side Of Deception. Ostrovsky, who will testify by closed-circuit television from somewhere in North America – he fears that, if he comes to Holland, he may be "Vanunu-ed" (ie kidnapped and smuggled back to Israel) for breaking his secrets oath – will state that the Lockerbie intercept so resembles the La Belle intercept as to have probably the same provenance. This is what US lawyers call the "duck" argument: "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles, the preponderance of evidence is that it is a duck."
Ostrovsky's evidence would then put the onus on the Lord Advocate to prove that the Lockerbie intercept is genuine, not disinformation. Ostrovsky believes that, in both bombings, Israel implicated Libya to shield Iran, thereby encouraging Iran not to persecute its small Jewish community.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/apr/17/lockerbie
redmudhooch , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:11 am GMT
I wouldn't be surprised if the idiots "in charge" of this country decide to do a false flag "terrorist" attack here in America, killing civilians, if this goes further. They're already putting out articles indicating this. I don't believe the Iranians would target civilians here, but we all know who would. Operation Gladio
Kratoklastes , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:19 am GMT
@Kiza

Does anyone know even one example where an Israeli's head or head of a Western Jew has been chopped off?

Daniel Pearl was Jewish. His mother was an Iraqi Jew. As it happens his father was also Jewish, but that's irrelevant.

If you didn't know that the highest-profile beheading victim was Jewish, you haven't really been paying attention.

The Alarmist , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:23 am GMT
@Rich

Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate target.

By that logic, every member of the US military is a legitimate target, especially since the US just drew first blood.

Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:30 am GMT
The best thing that the Iranians could do is blurt out the truth for all the world to hear. Especially if your side is militarily weaker, truth must be the main weapon. The Iranian leader should mock and shame Donald Trump as a cuck-stooge of not only Zionism but Jewish Supremacism that rules the US. He should point out how Jewish Zionist Power has been out to destroy Trump from day one, but the orange-man coward remains most servile to the very group that has done most to undermine his presidency. [MORE]
The current state of the world is so embarrassing. It's like goyim of all stripes are stuck in some gladiatorial ring under Jewish orchestration. Jews hate whites and Trump. Jews hate Iranians. Given that both groups have in common the rabid & virulent hostility of Jewish supremacists, the most natural thing would be for both sides to unite against the Jews. Whites and Iranians are natural allies. But what do they do? Trump the so-called 'white nationalist' sucks up to Jews and attacks Iran. And Iran feels compelled to denounce all of America when the real culprits are the freaking Jews. Goyim are the gladiators in SPARTACUS -- though slaves of Rome, they slaughter each other for the amusement of Roman elites. Though Jews are hostile to whites and Iranians, whites are willing to kill Iranians to win approval from their Jewish masters, and Iranians waste so much time denouncing all of the US. What the world needs is a Spartacus-like figure. Spartacus united the slaves and made them fight Rome than each other. Goyim need to unite to fight Jewish Supremacist Power. This is where China, Russia, and Iran are doing the right thing, but they are still loathe to Name the Jew. Current US belligerence is the direct outcome of Jewish domination.
Iranians should throw Trump's words right back in his face. In 2016, Trump said the Iraq War was a total disaster, and that the US should get out of the Middle East. He also said the US should work for world peace by working with Russia. But since then, Jewish supremacists and its cuck-minions in the Deep State have done everything to undermine Trump, and the weary beast has succumbed to Jewish machinations. Trump is more Sparky the running dog than Spartacus. But then, much of the blame must go to white American Conservatives. Their brand of idiotic Christianity, atomizing libertarianism, and anti-intellectualism led to all the elite institutions being taken over by Jews, progs, and cucky-wucks. It could be Putin is mute about Jewish power because the Russian economy is still substantially in Jewish hands. One might hope China will be bold in stating the truth, but the Chinese way is strategic than principled. Also, China has been pulled into US market imperialism. It's the US gambit as the sole superpower with a vast market. If old European Empires suppressed economic growth in their colonies, US encourages economic growth as dependence on US markets. Thus, all the economies that grew by selling to the US are deathly afraid of losing market access. As the religion of the US is now globo-homo-shlomo-afro, they dare not speak the truth that Jewish Power is behind the current rot of globalist cultural imperialism.

It is about time for Russia, Iran, and all nations to mock the US as a Jewish Supremacist empire, one where craven white cowards do little but crawl on their knees and pledge undying support for Jewish supremacists and Zion. Why? Because soulless US is only about one thing: Money and Idolatry. Jews got the money and idolized themselves as the supreme identity group that ALL other groups must serve. While Jewish elites rub their hands at the prospect of another Middle East War, it will be goyim , white American soldiers and countless Persians/Arabs/Muslims, who will do all the killing and dying. Jewish globalists went from Semites to Supremites, and now, so-called Anti-Semitism is Anti-Supremitism, which is more necessary than ever. And it's about time Russia addressed the J-Question. Vladimir Putin has been silent on this for too long, but it is time for truth. It is time to put down the gauntlet. No, no one one should make crazy neo-nazi talking points. They just need to speak the truth that Jews control the US, the lone superpower, and that the Jewish modus operandi is Jewish hegemony at any cost. Also, Zionism has turned into Yinon-ism based on the Yinon Plan.

We've all been duped by Jewish Power. There was a time when Jews assured goyim, "Stick with us, and you shall have true free speech", "Struggle with us against unfettered capitalist greed", and "Support our cause to expose the Deep State and to create a more open and transparent society." But Jews weren't really against Excessive Power & Privilege. They just wanted to bring down the old Wasp elites so that they, as the new elites, would have the power to curtail free speech, rake in all the profits, and use deep state apparatus to destroy rivals and critics. Jewish Power is the main source of many woes around the world, but because of the stigma of 'antisemitism', so many people will blame anyone but the Jews. When Alex Jones got deplatformed, whom did he blame? The Chinese. Trump is pushed against the rope, so whom does he shake his fist at? Iranians. John McCain and Mitt Romney were smeared and slimed by the Jew-run mass media(despite their total cuckery to Zion) in 2008 and 2012, but whom did they rag on? Trump and his supporters. What a sorry bunch. (Granted, morons like Richard Spencer and Neo-Nazi crew deserve their share of blame by sinking the promising dissident Alt Right label with what truly amounts to white supremacism and even neo-Nazism, thereby making it more difficult for Trump to address legitimate white interests.)

Anyway, imagine a scenario where Nazi Germany attacks Poland, France, Russia, and Great Britain but all those nations praise Hitler & Nazi Germany while taking their rage and frustration on each other. Such is the state of the world today. Jews torment and destroy so many nations and peoples, but entire nations are willing to war with one other while speaking and doing nothing about the Jewish Glob. Unless people understand the urgency of Naming the Jew, nothing will change. It's like a doctor won't cure cancer if he does EVERYTHING but name the cancer. If there's a dead rat decaying and stinking up the apartment, no amount of 'solutions' will fix the problem unless someone names the dead rat and remove it from the premises. After WWII, Jews got a grace period, well-deserved due to Shoah. But it's time to face facts about Jews of the Now. Pretending Jews are still Shoah victims is like pretending current China is still the 'Sick Man of Asia' of the 19th century. Times change, and Jews are the supreme rulers of the world, and this must be called out. But that worthless pile of shi* Trump only sucks up to Jews more even as they bugger his ass. And white Americans are truly retarded. Jewish Power is carrying out White Nakba in US, EU, Canada, and Australia -- as cuck-white elites in media, academia, and institutions are nothing but mental minions of Jewish Power, as in Jews lead, goyim follow -- , and whites are being turned into New Palestinians, but all these worthless white 'conservatives' are cheering Trump's anti-BDS law that violates the US constitution. How utterly pathetic.

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:34 am GMT
@Anonymous "White American Christians are generally afraid of the Jewish lobby."

-- Agree. The US brass are cowards. The US government of cowards is for sale. The US media is owned by Israel-firsters who have been propagating lies upon lies. "Is this good for Jews?" has become the zionists' battle cry that scares Americans into submission.

The scared Americans need to process the fact of holobiz being over. The Jews are not victims -- the Jews are shameless aggressors and traitors busy with frightening and corrupting the western governments to the bones because allegedly "this is good for Jews:" https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/

Let's be clear about what we just did–we assassinated two key military and political leaders on the sovereign territory of Iraq without the permission of the Iraqi Government. There is no evidence or valid intelligence that shows Soleimani directing Iraqi Shia militias to attack and kill US troops. None. But those facts do not matter.

Judging from the media reaction on cable news, there is a lot of whooping and celebrating the death of Soleimani as a decisive blow against terrorism. Boy we showed those Iranians who is boss. But that is not how the Iranians see it and that is not how a significant portion of the Iraqi Shia population see it. From their perspective this is the equivalent of the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor.

The zionized cowards in the US government made American servicemen into targets for retaliation in response to American crimes in Iraq -- crimes that were committed because "this is good for Jews" who want their Eretz Israel by any means, including a mass slaughter of the innocent in the Middle East.
Boy Jewish intelligence is terribly overrated. The zionists do believe that selecting and promoting cowards and profiteers on the positions of power in the US is "good for Jews." Idiots.

Marshal Marlow , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:35 am GMT
Iran will do politics while the US does war.

Iran will explain to Iraq that the US will fight to every last drop of Iraqi blood while Iran will do its best to support their fellow Shia. The Iraqi parliament, not wanting another war inside Iraq and hating the US for starting it, will vote to expel the US or maybe to simply refuse the US any air rights.

The US then either retreats out of Iraq or it become an occupying force. If the US retreats, it'll go down in history as a strategic defeat. If the US decides to occupy, it'll need to disband the Iraqi parliament (ie a democracy) and replace it with the inevitable transitional government who'll be fed with a steady stream of suitcases full of $100 bills. At the same time, the US will need to fight a bloody guerilla war which will ultimately end in a strategic defeat when the US population gets bored by the smart-bomb video footage.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:36 am GMT
@Kratoklastes 'Daniel Pearl was Jewish. His mother was an Iraqi Jew. As it happens his father was also Jewish, but that's irrelevant.

'If you didn't know that the highest-profile beheading victim was Jewish, you haven't really been paying attention.'

Back when the war against ISIS was ginned up, two Western 'reporters' were beheaded. At least one of them was carrying an Israeli passport.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:37 am GMT
@The Alarmist We've declared war. Morally, Iran can do whatever they please.

within the guidelines contained within the Quran, of course.

The Alarmist , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:41 am GMT
@NTG

Their are considerable more Galaxy C17 traffic in Ramstein/Germany and the whole C17 (as far as you can identify them)look like a swarm of bees on the way to the middle east.

Galaxy was the C-5; C-17 is the Globemaster. In addition to its role in Tactical and Strategic airlift, it also serves as MedEvac, often to Ramstein/Landstuhl.

Kratoklastes , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:50 am GMT
@Z-man

That's a good suggestion but I still think they should go after Pompeo. If you really want to keep it 'tit for tat' with even less retaliation then poor Gen. Milley should be splashed. (Evil grin)

Milley's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: his 'same-store sales' equivalent would have been Hossein Salami.

Soleimani wasn't even head of the IRGC – that's also Hossein Salami.

If the US had "red-carded" Salami, today they would be cleaning up missile debris and human remains at US bases all over the Middle East, and "Iron Dome" would get definitive evidence that it's a joke.

Although Soleimani had genuine clout and a high profile, he was only the head of Quds Force, which is kinda MI (plus a bit of special operations/coordination of irregulars).

So I would guess that the appropriate tit-for-tat splash would be LtGen Scott Berrier (G2 – Intel).

Everyone's heard of that guy, right?

Plus, if they splashed Pompous, the resulting fatberg would burn for longer than the Springfield tyre fire. Nobody wants that.

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:55 am GMT
@Passer by During the lead-up to the Gulf War, I recall "experts" like you talking about how Hussein's "battle-hardened" "elite" Republican Guard was going to send those wet-behind-the-ears American soldiers running home with their tails tucked between their legs. They were all then as prescient as you are now. Spare me these countless internet military "experts" who always seem to know who can do what, and yet end up being wrong in every instance.
Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:00 am GMT
@Colin Wright The Quran promotes a supremacist ideology for world domination. It is the Muslim equivalent of the Talmud. Neither the Muslims nor the zionists will get a moment's restful sleep until they know their place, but psychopathic anti-Christ peoples are full of the devil, making them a curse on humanity.
renfro , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:02 am GMT
@Castellio

Unfortunately it is partial, as it doesn't include Iraqis individually targeted and assassinated from 2003 on. Do you have access to that list as well?

No , but will try to find one when have the time.

Kratoklastes , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:05 am GMT
@Colin Wright I admit I stopped paying attention to beheadings after the first few.

It seemed pretty obvious that it was the worst possible advertisement for a cause. The only people who would think " Kewl !" were people already on their side. Plus it was guaranteed to horrify moderates. It also guaranteed a full-court hostile press in Western media (SWIDT? two uses of 'press' in the same word – genius!).

It struck me as the sort of thing that (ahem) plays into the hands of those who wanted to give pan-Arab nationalism a bad name. Almost as if that was the intention.

They should have hired Hill and Knowlton and done their PR properly.

.

Also, the aesthetics were awful .

The guys doing the beheadings had very white forearms – whiter than most Anglo military guys.

I'm sensitive like that: I found the beheaders' pasty skin off-putting.

The lack of struggle from the victims was also weird – evidence perhaps that they were sedated, which is good for them I guess.

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:08 am GMT
@John Chuckman North Koreans who are treated like crap are those in the communist-run prison camps in North Korea itself.
Anon [207] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:08 am GMT

For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf.

– The crash of the Pan Am 103 was, according to Ari Ben-Menashe, related to a fabricated claim on 5 CIA agents running drugs via their contacts in Frankfurt under CIA's Bill Casey.

– One less known point on the Pan Am 103 is the probable assassination by South Africa's apartheid government of United Nations Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson (according to Patrick Hasseldine).

– "Pik Botha and a South African delegation from Johannesburg, who was initially booked to travel to the Namibian independence ratification ceremony in New York on Pan Am Flight 103 from London. Instead, the booking was cancelled as he and six delegates took an earlier flight, thereby avoiding the fatal PAN AM 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland" (wiki, Pik Botha).

Robert Mueller's 30-year search for justice on Pan AM 103 led to nothing except the USual platitudes (unfounded accusations) on Iran and the PLO.

Rich , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:14 am GMT
@The Alarmist Well, yes, every member of every military is a legitimate target. Especially a general. If it sounds logical to you, that's because not only is it logical, it's common sense. As far as who drew first blood, that's a little more complicated. Some might argue that the Iranians drew first blood when the present group of radical medievalists overthrew the Shah and then seized the US embassy in 1979 or a whole load of other attacks by Iranians and their proxies. I really don't understand the outpouring of sympathy for a general in a foreign nation that is an outspoken enemy of the US. I get it, you guys hate Israel, but that doesn't absolve the Iranian mullahs or their henchmen. They are not your friends, they don't like you and their end game is the same end game they've had since the founding of their "religion", the violent spread of Islam throughout the world. Read the Koran first, before you throw your support behind these jihadists. If their own holy book doesn't open your eyes and you still believe the West is the "imperialist", find me Constantinople on the map.
renfro , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:15 am GMT
@Parfois1 Do keep a copy ..at the rate info exposing Israel's true nature is disappearing and being censored , its gotten harder and harder to find.
NoseytheDuke , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:23 am GMT
@Thales the Milesian A wise leader conserves his military strength. Sun Tzu
Maiasta , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:28 am GMT
@barr Thanks for the reminder. I'm familiar with Ostrovsky, of course, and i found the book you mentioned to be quite an eye-opener, albeit still written from a basically pro-Israel point-of-view.

re: "Israel implicated Libya to shield Iran." Yes, this is more than plausible, especially when we consider that Israel was largely responsible for arming Iran during the long war with Iraq in the 1980s. The latter may seem counter-intuitive to many, but it actually fell perfectly in line with the Oded Yinon plan for regional balkanisation. I think that as soon as the Iraqi Resistance movement was crushed back in 2008, Iran was considered no longer so useful to the Zionists, and they began the next phase of destabilisation. Obviously, all regional powers are to be taken out one-by-one, and that presents a problem when it comes to a regional alliance such as the so-called "Shia Crescent" of Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon (or Hezbollah).

I think it likely that the Qassem assassination though, is a significant miscalculation that will cost Trump and the US dearly.

Sol , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:41 am GMT
@anon Haven't been paying attention to Hazony recently. Thanks for the update.
anonymous [102] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:52 am GMT
@Rich I agree with the notion that Persian capabilities are consistently overstated on unz.com They look more capable than Arabs. That's not much. They haven't shown the ability to develop their own weapons. The rest of their industry sucks (e.g. cars).
Kratoklastes , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:57 am GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso You're comparing apples with suppositories.

Rolling out of Kuwait across a plain is way easier than rolling up the Zagroz – especially when the other guy knows you're coming and has had 50 years to prepare, and the natives at your back want the other guy to win.

The Zagroz aren't as daunting as trying to go up the sides on AH76 in Parwan, which is some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth. Invading Iran via Iraq (which is the US' only option) isn't even as hard (topographially) as trying to take Zürich by invading Switzerland starting from Milan.

Topography matters.

Safwan to Baghdad is flat freeway (and was, even in 1991); Baghdad to Hamedan, not so much. (Hamedan's the town on the other side of the Zagroz, on the only non-impossible route to Teheran).

For the average grunt, it would be like " Restrepo " from day 1, constantly, for the entire trip – but with no HESCO.

It would guarantee tens of thousands of cases of PTSD.

Armour and artillery really really really needs roads (or rail), and aerial reconnaissance is way easier on a sandy table top, than in mountains.

Castellio , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:00 am GMT
@renfro 1
The killing of Iraqi Academics: A War to Erase the Future and Culture of Iraqis
List of Iraqi academics assassinated in Iraq during the US-led occupation
Academics assassinated: 324
Updated: November 7, 2013
(Last case registered: No. 125)
Spanish Campaign against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq
IraqSolidaridad 2005-2013
[MORE]
The following list of University academics assassinated in Iraq is updated with the information delivered by the Iraqi CEOSI sources inside Iraq. It presents all the data compiled in the previous IraqSolidaridad editions. This relation has been collated and completed with that elaborate by the Belgian organization 'BRussells Tribunal' [1]. This list only refers to the academic, institutional and research fields from Iraqi Universities, so that it does not include the staff that belongs to other fields and institutions, who has been targeting since the beginning of the occupation, such as directors of primary and secondary schools, high schools or health workers [2].

BAGHDAD
Baghdad University
1. Abbas al-Attar: PhD in humanities, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Humanities. Date unknown.
2. Abdel Hussein Jabuk: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
3. Abdel Salam Saba: PhD in sociology, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
4. Abdel Razak al-Naas: Lecturer in information and international mass media at Baghdad University's College of Information Sciences. He was a regular analyst for Arabic satellite TV channels. He was killed in his car at Baghdad University 28 January 2005. His assassination led to confrontations between students and police, and journalists went on strike.
5. Ahmed Nassir al-Nassiri: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University, assassinated in February 2005.
6. Ali Abdul-Hussein Kamil: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer in the Department of Physics, Baghdad University. Date unknown.
7. Amir al-Jazragi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Medicine, and consultant at the Iraqi Ministry of Health, assassinated on November 17, 2005.
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8. Basil al-Karji: PhD in chemistry, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
9. Essam Sharif Mohammed: PhD in history, professor in Department of History and head of the College of Humanities, Baghdad University. Dead October 25, 2003.
10. Faidhi al-Faidhi: PhD in education sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University and al- Munstansiriya University. He was also member of the Muslim Scientists Committee. Assassinated in 2005.
11. Fouad Abrahim Mohammed al-Bayaty: PhD in German philology, professor and head of College of Philology, Baghdad University. Killed Abril 19, 2005.
12. Haifa Alwan al-Hil: PhD in physics, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Science for Women. Assassinated September 7, 2003.
13. Heikel Mohammed al-Musawi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at al-Kindi College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Assassinated November 17, 2005.
14. Hassan Abd Ali Dawood al-Rubai: PhD in stomatology, dean of the College of Stomatology, Baghdad University. Assassinated December 20, 2005.
15. Hazim Abdul Hadi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University.
16. Husain Ali al-Jumaily: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Political Sciences. He was assassinated in Bagdad on 16 July. [Source: BRussells Tribunal's university Iraqi sources, January 17, 2009].
17. Khalid Hassan Mahdi Nasrullah: Lecturer and Secretary of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Baghdad University. After four days of been kidnapped in Baghdad, his body was found with signs of torture on Mars 27, 2007. [Source: BRussells Tribunal's university Iraqi sources, January 17, 2009].
18. Khalel Ismail Abd al-Dahri: PhD in physical education, lecturer at the College of Physical Education, Baghdad University. Date unknown.
19. Khalil Ismail al-Hadithi: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Political Sciences. He was assassinated in Amman [Jordan] on April 23, 2006. [Source: BRussells Tribunal's university Iraqi sources, January 17, 2009].
20. Kilan Mahmoud Ramez: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
21. Maha Abdel Kadira: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Humanities. Date unknown.
22. Majed Nasser Hussein al-Maamoori: Professor of veterinary medicine at Baghdad University's College of Veterinary Medicine. Assassinated February 17, 2007.
23. Marwan al-Raawi: PhD in engineering and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
24. Marwan Galeb Mudhir al-Hetti: PhD in chemical engineering and lecturer at the School of Engineering, Baghdad University. Killed March 16, 2004.
25. Majeed Hussein Ali: PhD in physical sciences and lecturer at the College of Sciences, Baghdad University. Date unknown.
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26. Mehned al-Dulaimi: PhD in mechanical engineering, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
27. Mohammed Falah al-Dulaimi: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
28. Mohammed Tuki Hussein al-Talakani: PhD in physical sciences, nuclear scientist since 1984, and lecturer at Baghdad University. Assassinated September 4, 2004.
29. Mohammed al-Kissi: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
30. Mohammed Abdallah al-Rawi: PhD in surgery, former president of Baghdad University, member of the Arab Council of Medicine and of the Iraqi Council of Medicine, president of the Iraqi Union of Doctors. Killed July 27, 2003.
31. Mohammed al-Jazairi: PhD in medicine and plastic surgeon, College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Assassinated 15 November 2005.
32. Mustafa al-Hity: PhD in medicine, pediatrician, College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Assassinated 14 November 2005.
33. Mustafa al-Mashadani: PhD in religious studies, lecturer in Baghdad University's College of Humanities. Date unknown.
34. Nafea Mahmmoud Jalaf: PhD in Arabic language, professor in Baghdad University's College of Humanities. Killed December 13, 2003.
35. Nawfal Ahmad: PhD, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Fine Arts. She was assassinated at the front door of her house on 25 December 2005.
36. Nazar Abdul Amir al-Ubaidy: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
37. Raad Shlash: PhD in biological sciences, head of Department of Biology at Baghdad University's College of Sciences. He was killed at the front door of his house on November 17, 2005.
38. Rafi Sarcisan Vancan: Bachelor of English language, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Women's Studies. Assassinated June 9, 2003.
39. Saadi Dagher Morab: PhD in fine arts, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Fine Arts. Killed July 23, 2004.
40. Sabri Mustafa al-Bayaty: PhD in geography, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Humanities. Killed June 13, 2004.
41. Saad Yassin al-Ansari: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. He was killed in al-Saydiya neighborhood, Baghdad, 17 November 2005.
42. Wannas Abdulah al-Naddawi: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University. Assassinated 18 February 2005.
43. Yassim al-Isawi: PhD in religious studies, Baghdad University's College of Arts. Assassinated 21 June 2005.
44. Zaki Jabar Laftah al-Saedi: Bachelor of veterinary medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Veterinary Medicine. Assassinated October 16, 2004.
45. Basem al-Modarres: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Philosophy. [Source: al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
46. Jasim Mohamed Achamri: Dean of College of Philosophy, Baghdad University. [Source: al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
47. Hisham Charif: Head of Department of History and lecturer at Baghdad University. [Source: al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
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48. Qais Hussam al-Den Jumaa: Professor and Dean of College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed 27 March 2006 by US soldiers in downtown Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source].
49. Mohammed Yaakoub al-Abidi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
50. Abdelatif Attai: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
51. Ali al-Maliki: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
52. Nafia Aboud: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi. Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
53. Abbas Kadem Alhachimi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
54. Mouloud Hasan Albardar Aturki: Lecturer in Hanafi Teology at al-Imam al-Aadam College of Theology, Baghdad University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
55. Riadh Abbas Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University's Centre for International Studies. Killed 11 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 17 May 2006].
56. Abbas al-Amery: Professor and head of Department of Administration and Business, College of Administration and Economy, Baghdad University. Killed together with his son and one of his relatives at the main entrance to the College 16 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, May 17, 2006].
57. Muthana Harith Jasim: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Engineering. Killed near his home in al-Mansur, 13 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 13 June 2006].
58. Hani Aref al-Dulaimy: Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering, Baghdad University's College of Engineering. He was killed, together with three of his students, 13 June 2006 on campus. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 13 June 2006].
59. Hussain al-Sharifi: Professor of urinary surgery at Baghdad University's College of Medicine. Killed in May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 12 June 2006].
60. Hadi Muhammad Abub al-Obaidi: Lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Baghdad University's College of Medicine. Killed 19 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 20 June 2006].
61. Hamza Shenian: Professor of veterinary surgery at Baghdad University's College of Veterinary Medicine. Killed by armed men in his garden in a Baghdad neighborhood 21 June 2006. This was the first known case of a professor executed in the victim's home. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 21 June 2006].
62. Jassim Mohama al-Eesaui: Professor at College of Political Sciences, Baghdad University, and editor of al-Syada newspaper. He was 61 years old when killed in al-Shuala, 22 June 2006. [Source: UNAMI report, 1 May-30 June 2006].
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63. Shukir Mahmoud As-Salam: dental surgeon at al-Yamuk Hospital, Baghdad. Killed near his home by armed men 6 September 2006. [Source: TV news, As-Sharquia channel, 7 September 2006, and CEOSI Iraqi sources].
64. Mahdi Nuseif Jasim: Professor in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Baghdad University. Killed 13 September 2006 near the university. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source].
65. Adil al-Mansuri: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Kidnapped by uniformed men near Iban al-Nafis Hospital in Baghdad. He was found dead with torture signs and mutilation in Sadr City. He was killed during a wave of assassinations in which seven medical specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006 [Source: Iraqi health service sources, 24 September 2006].
66. Shukur Arsalan: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Killed by armed men when leaving his clinic in Harziya neighborhood during a wave of assassinations in which seven specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006. [Source: Iraqi Health System sources, 24 September 2006].
67. Issam al-Rawi: Professor of geology at Baghdad University, president of the Association of University Professors of Iraq. Killed 30 October 2006 during an attack carried out by a group of armed men in which two more professors were seriously injured. [Sources: CEOSI sources, and Associated Press].
68. Yaqdan Sadun al-Dhalmi: Professor and lecturer in the College of Education, Baghdad University. Killed 16 October 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources].
69. Jlid Ibrahim Mousa: Professor and lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Medicine. Killed by a group of armed men in September 2006. During August and September 2006, 6 professors of medicine were assassinated in Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources].
70. Mohammed Jassim al-Assadi: Professor and dean of the College of Administration and Economy, Baghdad University. Killed 2 November 2006 by a group of armed men when he was driving to Baghdad University. Their son was also killed in the attack. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources and Time Magazine, 2 October 2006].
71. Jassim al-Assadi's wife (name unknown): Lecturer at College of Administration and Economy, Baghdad University [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources and Time Magazine, 2 October 2006].
72. Mohammed Mehdi Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University (unknown position) and member of the Association of Muslim Scholars. Imam of Ahl al-Sufa Mosque in al-Shurta al-Jamisa neighborhood. Killed 14 November 2006 while driving in the neighborhood of al-Amal in central Baghdad. [Source: UMA, 14 November 2006].
73. Hedaib Majhol: Lecturer at College of Physical Education, Baghdad University, president of the Football University Club and member of the Iraqi Football Association. Kidnapped in Baghdad. His body was found three later in Baghdad morgue 3 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2 December 2006].
74. Al-Hareth Abdul Hamid: Professor of psychiatric medicine and head of the Department of Psychology at Baghdad University. Former
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president of the Society of Parapsychological Investigations of Iraq. A renowned scientist, Abdul Hamid was shot dead in the neighborhood of al-Mansur, Baghdad, 6 December 2006 by unknown men. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi sources, 6 December 2006, and Reuters, 30 January 2007].
75. Anwar Abdul Hussain: Lecturer at the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. Killed in Haifa Street in Baghdad in the third week of January 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007].
76. Majed Nasser Hussain: PhD and lecturer at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Baghdad University. He was killed in front of his wife and daughter while leaving home in the third week of January 2007. Nasser Hussain had been kidnapped two years before and freed after paying a ransom. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007].
77. Khaled al-Hassan: Professor and deputy dean of the College of Political Sciences, Baghdad University. Killed in March 2007. [Source: Association of University Lecturers of Iraq, 7 April 2007].
78. Ali Mohammed Hamza: Professor of Islamic Studies at Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. Killed 17 April 2007. [Sources: TV channels As-Sharquia and al-Jazeera].
79. Abdulwahab Majed: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Education. Department and college unknown. Killed 2 May 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2007].
80. Sabah al-Taei: Deputy Dean of the College of Education, Baghdad University. Killed 7 May 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources. 8 May 2007].
81. Nihad Mohammed al-Rawi: Professor of Civil Engineering and deputy president of Baghdad University. Shot dead 26 June 2007 in al-Jadria Bridge, a few meters away from the university campus, when exiting with his daughter Rana, whom he protected from the shots with his body. [Sources: BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26-27 June 2007].
82. Muhammad Kasem al-Jaboori: Lecturer at the College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed, together with his son and his brother-in-law, by paramilitary forces 22 June 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 27 June 2007].
83. Samir [surname unknown]: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Administration and Economy. His body was found shot one day after being kidnapped in Kut where he was visiting family. Professor Samir lived in the Baghdad district of al-Sidiya. [Source: Voices of Iraq, http://www.iraqslogger.com , 29 June 2007].
84. Amin Abdul Aziz Sarhan: Lecturer at Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. He was kidnapped from his home in Basra by unidentified armed men 13 October 2007 and found dead on the morning of 15 October. [Source: Voices of Iraq, 15 October 2007].
85. Mohammed Kadhem al-Atabi: Head of Baghdad University's Department of Planning and Evaluation. He was kidnapped 18 October 2007 from his home in Baghdad by a group of armed men and found dead a few hours later in the area of Ur, near to Sadr City, which is under the control of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26 October 2007].
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86. Munther Murhej Radhi: Dean of the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. He was found dead in his car 23 January 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 January 2008].
87. Mundir Marhach: Dean of Faculty of Stomatology, Baghdad University. According to information provided by the Centre for Human Rights of Baghdad, he was killed in March [exact day unknown]. [Source: al-Basrah reported 12 March 2008].
88. Abdul Sattar Jeid al-Dulaimy, a Microbiologist and lecturer in the College of Veterinary Medicine and in other institutions in the University. He was killed in November 2003 by three gunmen in front of his wife and his four children. His three assassins were waiting the family return to Baghdad after have been visiting his parents in al-Ramadi city, west Baghdad. His wife was also sot in her head, but she survived. His 14 year old eldest child died of a heart problem a year later. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 11 June 2008.]
*. Abdulkareem Shenein Mohammad: professor of Arabic Language in the College of Islamic Sciences, University of Baghdad, killed on 27 May 2010 by an assassin (an student, Baghdad police source informed) with a silencer gun in his personal office in the University. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source upon media reports, 27 May 2010.] [Subsequent reports confirm that Professor Abdulkareem Shenein Mohammad survived the attack.]
89. Mudhafar Mahmoud: associated professor in the Geology Department in the College of Science, University of Baghdad. Dr Mahmoud was assassinated on 28 November 2010 near his house in Baghdad. [Source: Iraqi source to BRussells Tribunal on 1st December, 2010.]
90. Ali Shalash: professor of Poultry Diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Baghdad, killed by assassins who broke into his house in Al-Khadraa area in Baghdad on 17 February, 2011. [Source: Iraqi source to CEOSI on 18 February, 2011.] 91. Ahmed Shakir was a specialist in cardio-vascular diseases and professor at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Baghdad. According to security reports, Dr. Shakir was killed when a bomb planted in his car exploded in Zaafaraniyya, south of Baghdad, last Monday 1 July 2013. The report released by UNESCO can be read here [Source: UNESCO, July 3, 2013].
Al-Maamoon Faculty [private college, Baghdad]
92. Mohammed al-Miyahi: Dean of al-Maamoun Faculty in Baghdad. He was shot with a silencer-equipped gun in front of his house in al-Qadisiah district, southern Baghdad, as he stepped out of his car 14 December 2007. [Source CEOSI Iraqi source and Kuwait News Agency, reported 19 December 2007, IPS reported 19 December 2007, and al-Basrah, reported 12 March 2008].
Al-Mustansiriya University (Baghdad)
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93. Aalim Abdul Hameed: PhD in preventive medicine, specialist in depleted uranium effects in Basra, dean of the College of Medicine, al-Mustansiriya University. Date unknown.
94. Abdul Latif al-Mayah: PhD in economics, lecturer and head of Department of Research, al-Mustansiriya University. Killed January 9, 2004.
95. Aki Thakir Alaany: PhD and lecturer at the College of Literature, al-Mustansiriya University. Date unknown.
96. Falah al-Dulaimi: PhD, professor and deputy dean of al-Mustansiriya University's College of Sciences. Date unknown.
97. Falah Ali Hussein: PhD in physics, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Sciences, al-Mustansiriya University, killed May 2005.
98. Musa Saloum Addas: PhD, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Educational Sciences, al-Mustansiriya University, killed 27 May 2005.
99. Hussam al-Din Ahmad Mahmmoud: PhD in education
sciences, lecturer and dean at College of Education Sciences, al-Mustansiriya University. Date unknown.
100. Jasim Abdul Kareem: PhD and lecturer at the College of the Education, al-Mustansiriya University. Date unknown.
101. Abdul As Satar Sabar al-Khazraji: PhD in history, al-Mustansiriya University, killed 19 June 2005. [A same name and surname lecturer in Engineering at the College of Computer Science Technology, al-Nahrein University was assassinated in March 2006.]
102. Samir Yield Gerges: PhD and lecturer at the College of Administration and Economy at al-Mustansiriya University, killed 28 August 2005.
103. Jasim al-Fahaidawi: PhD and lecturer in Arabic literature at the College of Humanities, al-Mustansiriya University. Assassinated at the university entrance. [Source: BBC News, 15 November 2005].
104. Kadhim Talal Hussein: Deputy Dean of the College of Education, al-Mustansiriya University. Killed November 23, 2005.
105. Mohammed Nayeb al-Qissi: PhD in geography, lecturer at Department of Research, al-Mustansiriya University. Assassinated June 20, 2003.
106. Sabah Mahmoud al-Rubaie: PhD in geography, lecturer and dean at College of Educational Sciences, al-Mustansiriya University. Date unknown.
107. Ali Hasan Muhawish: Dean and lecturer at the College of Engineering, al-Mustansiriya University. Killed March 12, 2006. [Source: Middle East Online, 13 March 2006].
108. Imad Naser Alfuadi: Lecturer at the College of Political Sciences, al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
109. Mohammed Ali Jawad Achami: President of the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
110. Husam Karyakus Tomas: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
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111. Basem Habib Salman: Lecturer at the College of Medicine at al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
112. Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Ani: PhD in engineering, lecturer at the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya University. Kidnapped, together with his friend Akrem Mehdi, 26 April 2006, at his home in Palestine Street, Baghdad. Their bodies were found two days later. [CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2006].
113. Jasim Fiadh al-Shammari: Lecturer in psychology at the College of Arts, al-Mustansiriya Baghdad University. Killed near campus 23 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 30 May 2006].
114. Saad Mehdi Shalash: PhD in history and lecturer in history at the College of Arts, al-Mustansiriya University, and editor of the newspaper Raya al-Arab. Shot dead at his home with his wife 26 October 2006. [Source: al-Quds al-Arabi, 27 October 2006].
115. Kamal Nassir: Professor of history and lecturer at al-Mustansiriya and Bufa Universities. Killed at his home in Baghdad in October 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2 November 2006].
116. Hasseb Aref al-Obaidi: Professor in the College of Political Sciences at al-Mustansiriya University. Since he was kidnapped 22 October 2006, his whereabouts is unknown. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources].
117. Najeeb [or Nadjat] al-Salihi: Lecturer in the College of Psychology at al-Mustansiriya University and head of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Higher Education of Iraq. Al-Salihi, 39 years old, was kidnapped close to campus and his body, shot dead, was found 20 days after his disappearance in Baghdad morgue. His family was able recover his body only after paying a significant amount of money, October 1, 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources].
118. Dhia al-Deen Mahdi Hussein: Professor of international criminal law at the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya University. Missing since kidnapped from his home in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dhia in 4 November 2006 by a group of armed men driving police cars. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 November 2006].
119. Muntather al-Hamdani: Deputy Dean of the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya University. He was assassinated, together with Ali Hassam, lecturer at the same college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether both [Muntather al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] are the same case or not].
120. Ali Hassam: Lecturer at the College of Law at al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed together with Muntather al-Hamdani, deputy dean of the college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether both [Muntather al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] are the same case or not.
121. Dhia al-Mguter: Professor of economy at the College of Administration and Economy of al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed
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23 January 2007 in Baghdad while driving. He was a prominent economist and president of the Consumer's Defense Association and the Iraqi Association of Economists. A commentator at for As-Sharquia television, he participated in the Maram Committee, being responsible for investigating irregularities occurring during the elections held in January 2006. Al-Mguter was part of a family with a long anti-colonialist tradition since the British occupation. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and Az-Zaman newspaper, 24 January 2007].
122. Ridha Abdul al-Kuraishi: Deputy dean of the University of al-Mustansiriya's College of administration and economy. He was kidnapped 28 March 2007 and found dead the next day. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, 7 April 2007. See the letter sent to CEOSI (Arabic)].
123. Zaid Abdulmonem Ali: professor at the Baghdad Cancer Research Center, institution associated to the Al-Mustansirya University in Baghdad. Dr. Abdulmomem Ali was killed in March 26, 2011 when an IED attached to his vehicle went off in al-Nusoor square, west of Baghdad. The explosion also left Ali's wife and two civilians others wounded. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq news agency, on March 26, 2011.]
124. Mohmamed Al-Alwan: Dean of the College of Medicine, Al-Mustansirya University in Baghdad. Dr Al-Alwan was assassinated in his clinic in Harithiyah, Baghdad, on April 29, 2011. He had been the Dean of Medical College for over 4 years. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, March 30, 2011 from Iraqi media and International Iraqi Medical Society.] 125. Naser Husein al Shahmani, professor at al-Mustansyria University was shot by some gunmen few days ago. They killed him on the spot. [Source: Ahmad al Farji's article (in Arabic), October 28, 2013.]
University of Technology [Baghdad]
126. Muhannad [or Mehned] al-Dulaimi: PhD in mechanical engineering, lecturer at the Baghdad University of Technology. Date unknown.
127. Muhey Hussein: PhD in aerodynamics, lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Baghdad University of Technology. Date unknown.
128. Qahtan Kadhim Hatim: Bachelor of sciences, lecturer in the College of Engineering of the Baghdad University of Technology. Assassinated May 30, 2004.
129. Sahira Mohammed Machhadani: Baghdad University of Technology. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, March 2006].
130. Ahmed Ali Husein: Lecturer at the Baghdad University of Technology, specialist in applied mechanics. He was killed by a group of armed men in downtown Baghdad 22 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 May 2006].
131. Name unknown: Lecturer at Baghdad University of Technology. Killed 27 June 2006 by a group of armed men. They were driving a vehicle in the Baghdad neighborhood of al-Mansur and shot him without
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stopping. Next day, students and professors staged demonstrations in all universities across the country opposing the assassination and kidnapping of professors and lecturers. [Source: al-Jazeera and Jordan Times, 27 June 2006].
132. Ali Kadhim Ali: Professor at Baghdad University of Technology. Shot dead in November 2006 in the district of al-Yarmuk by a group of armed men. His wife, Dr Baida Obeid -- gynecologist -- was also killed in the attack. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources, 16 November 2006].
133. Mayed Jasim al-Janabi: Lecturer in physics at Baghdad University of Technology. Killed 23 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, December 2006].
134. Khalel Enjad al-Jumaily: Lecturer at University of Technology. Department and college unknown. He was killed 22 December 2006 with his son, a physician, after being kidnapped. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006].
135. Abdul Sami al-Janabi: Deputy President of the Baghdad University of Technology. Missing after being kidnapped during the third week of January 2007. In 2004, Abdul Sami al-Janabi was dean of al-Mustansiriya University's College of Sciences in Baghdad. He resigned from this position after Shia paramilitary forces threatened to kill him. Such forces began then to occupy university centers in the capital. Transferred by the Ministry of Higher Education to a new position to preserve his security, Sami al-Janabi has almost certainly been assassinated. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007].
136. Ameer Mekki al-Zihairi: Lecturer at Baghdad University of Technology. He was killed in March 2007. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, 7 April 2007. See pdf].
137. Saad Abd Alwahab Al-Shaaban: Former Dean of the College of Computer Engineering and Information Technology in the University of Technology. Killed on Thursday 14 October 2010 by plastic explosive implanted to his car in Adhamia district of Baghdad. Saad Abd Alwahab Al-Shaaban left Iraq in 2006 and returned back to Baghdad. He was lately working in the National Center for Computer Science, Ministry of Higher Education. (Source: [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources on Alane News Agency, , October 15, 2010.]
138. Saad Abdul Jabar: professor at the Technological University in Bagdad. Assassinated in Al-Siyada district, Southwest Baghdad, while driving his car by murderers using silenced guns on 26 February, 2011.[Source: Asuat Al-Iraq agency, 26 February, and Yaqen agency, February 27, 2010.]
Al-Nahrein University [Baghdad]
139. Akel Abdel Jabar al-Bahadili: Professor and deputy dean of al-Nahrein University's College of Medicine. Head of Adhamiya Hospital in Baghdad. He was a specialist in internal medicine, killed 2 December 2005.
140. Mohammed al-Khazairy: Lecturer at University College al-Kadhemiya Hospital, al- Nahrein University. He was a specialist in plastic surgery.
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141. Laith Abdel Aziz: PhD and lecturer at the College of Sciences, al-Nahrein University. Date unknown. [Source: al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
142. Abdul as-Satar Sabar al-Khazraji: Lecturer in engineering at the College of Computer Science Technology, al-Nahrein University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006]. [A same name and surname PhD in history, lecturer at Al-Munstansiriya University was killed on 19 June 2005.]
143. Uday al-Beiruti: Professor at al-Nahrein University. Kidnapped in University College al-Kadhemiya Hospital's parking lot by armed men dressed in Interior Ministry uniforms. His body was found with sigs of torture in Sadr City. Date unknown: July/August 2006. His murder took place during a wave of assassinations in which seven of his colleagues were killed. [Source: Iraqi health service sources, 24 September 2006].
144. Khalel al-Khumaili: Professor at the College of Medicine, al-Nahrein University. He was found shot dead in December 2006 [exact date unknown] after being kidnapped at University College al-Kadhemiya Hospital, together with his son, Dr Anas al-Jomaili, lecturer at the same college. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006].
145. Anas al-Jumaili: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, al-Nahrein University. He was found shot dead in December [exact date unknown] with his father, Dr Jalil al-Jumaili, professor of medicine, after being kidnapped at University College al-Kadhemiya Hospital. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006].
146. Adnan Mohammed Saleh al-Aabid: Lecturer at the College of Law, al-Nahrein University. He was found dead 31 January 2007 after having been kidnapped from his home 28 January 2007 together with lecturers Abdul Mutaleb Abdulrazak al-Hashimi and Aamer Kasem al-Kaisy, and a student. All were found dead in Baghdad morgue. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 February 2007].
147. Abdul Mutaleb Abdulrazak al-Hashimi: Lecturer at the College of Law, al-Nahrein University. He was found dead 31 January 2007 after having been kidnapped 28 January 2007 on his way home, together with lecturers Adnan Mohammed Saleh al-Aabid and Aamer Kasem al-Kaisy, and a student. All were found dead in Baghdad morgue. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 February 2007].
148. Aamer Kasem al-Kaisy: Lecturer at the College of Law, al-Nahrein University. He was found dead 31 January 2007 after having been kidnapped on his way home 28 January 2007, together with a student and lecturers Abdul Mutaleb Abdulrazak al-Hashimi and Adnan Mohammed Saleh al-Aabid. All were found dead in Baghdad morgue. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 February 2007].
149. Khaled al-Naieb: Lecturer in microbiology and deputy dean of al-Nahrein University's College of Higher Studies in Medicine. Killed 30 March 2007 at the main entrance to the college. Having been threatened by the Mahdi Army, Moqtada as-Sadr's militia, Dr al- Naieb had moved to work in Irbil. During a brief visit to his family in Baghdad, and after recently becoming a father, he was killed at the main entrance
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to the college on his way to collect some documents. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 4 April 2007. Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report dated April 7, 2007. See pdf].
150. Sami Sitrak: Professor of English and dean of al-Nahrein University's College of Law. Professor Sitrak was killed 29 March 2007. He had been appointed dean of the College after the former dean's resignation following an attempt to kill him along with three other College lecturers. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, April 7, 2007. See pdf].
151. Thair Ahmed Jebr: Lecturer in the Department of Physics, College of Sciences, al- Nahrein University. Jebr was killed in the attack against satellite TV channel al-Baghdadiya April 5, 2007. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, April 7, 2007. See pdf].
152. Iyad Hamza: PhD in chemistry, Baghdad University. He was the academic assistant of the President of al-Nahrein University. On May 4, 2008 he was killed near his home in Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi source, May 6, 2008].
153. Khamal Abu Muhie: Professor at the College of Medicine, al-Nahrein University. Killed on 22 November 2009 at his home in the neighborhood of Adamiya, Baghdad. [Source: Al-Sharquia TV, November 22, 2009].
Islamic University [Baghdad]
154. Haizem al-Azawi: Lecturer at Baghdad Islamic University. Department and college unknown. He was 35 years old and married and was killed 13 February 2006 by armed men when he arriving home in the neighborhood of Habibiya. [Source: Asia Times, March 3, 2006].
155. Saadi Ahmad Zidaan al-Fahdawi: PhD in Islamic science, lecturer at the College of Islamic Science, Baghdad University. Killed March 26, 2006.
156. Abdel Aziz al-Jazem: Lecturer in Islamic theology at the College of Islamic Science, Baghdad University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
157. Saad Jasim Mohammed: Lecturer at the Baghdad Islamic University. Department and college unknown. Killed, together with his brother Mohammed Jassim Mohammed, 11 May 2007 in the neighborhood of al-Mansur. The armed men who committed the crime where identified by the Association of Muslims Scholars as members of a death squad. [Sources: press release of the Association of Muslims Scholars, May 12, 2007, and CEOSI Iraqi University sources, May 13, 2007].
158. Qais Sabah al-Jabouri: Professor at the Baghdad Islamic University. Killed 7 June 2007 by a group of armed men who shot him from a car when he was leaving the university with the lecturers Alaa Jalel Essa and Saad Jalifa al-Ani, who were killed and seriously injured respectively. [Sources Association of Muslims Scholars press release, June 7, 2007, and CEOSI Iraqi university sources, June 9, 2007].
159. Alaa Jalel Essa: Professor at the Baghdad Islamic University. Killed 7 June 2007 by a group of armed men who shot him from a car when he was leaving the university with the lecturers Qais Sabah al-Jabouri and Saad Jalifa al-Ani, who were killed and seriously injured
14
respectively. [Sources: Association of Muslims Scholars press release, June 7, 2007, and CEOSI Iraqi university sources, June 9, 2007].
Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education [Baghdad]
Academics killed after a massive kidnapping occurred November 13, 2006:
160. Abdul Salam Suaidan al-Mashhadani: Lecturer in political sciences and head of the Scholarship section of the Ministry of Higher Education. He was kidnapped November13, 2006, in an assault on the Ministry. His body was found with signs of torture and mutilation 24 November 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, November 26, 2006.]
161. Abdul Hamed al-Hadizi: Professor [specialty unknown]. He was kidnapped on November 13, 2006 in an assault on the Ministry. His body was found with signs of torture and mutilation, 24 November 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, November 26, 2006].
162. Thamer Kamel Mohamed: Head of the Department of Human Right at the Ministry of Higher Education. Shot on 22 February 2010 on his way to work in one of main Baghdad streets [al-Qanat Street]. The assassins used silencers fitted in their guns. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, February 23, 2006 and Alernet].
Al-Mansour University [Baghdad]
163. Amal Maamlaji: IT professor at the al-Mansour University in Baghdad. She was born in Kerbala and got involved in human rights – particularly women's rights. She was shot dead in an ambush while driving her car [160 bullets were found in her car] according to her husband, Athir Haddad, to whom France24 interviewed by telephone. [Source: France24, July 4, 2008,].
Baghdad Institutes
164. Izi al-Deen al-Rawi: President of the Arabic University's Institute of Petroleum, Industry and Minerals. Al-Rawi was kidnapped and found dead November 20, 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, November 20, 2006].
BABYLON Hilla University
165. Khaled M al-Khanabi: PhD in Islamic history, lecturer in Hilla University's School of Humanities. Date unknown.
166. Mohsin Suleiman al-Ajeely: PhD in agronomy, lecturer in the College of Agronomy, Hilla University. Killed on December 24, 2005.
167. Fleih al-Gharbawi: Lecturer in the College of Medicine. Killed in Hilla [capital of the province of Babylon, 100 kilometers south of Baghdad] 20 November 2006 by armed men. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources, 20 November 2006].
168. Ali al-Grari [or Garar]. Professor at Hilla University. He was shot dead November 20, 2006 by armed men in a vehicle on the freeway
15
between Hilla and Baghdad. [Source: Iraqi police sources cited by Reuters, November 20, 2006].
AT-TAMIM Kirkuk University
169. Ahmed Ithaldin Yahya: Lecturer in the College of Engineering, Kirkuk University. Killed by a car bomb in the vicinity of his home in Kirkuk, February 16, 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, February 17, 2007].
170. Hussein Qader Omar: professor and Dean of Kirkuk University's College of Education Sciences. Killed in November 20, 2006 by shots made from a vehicle in the city center. An accompanying colleague was injured. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, November 21, 2006, and Iraqi Police Sources cited by Reuters, November 20, 2006].
171. Sabri Abdul Jabar Mohammed: Lecturer at the College of Education Sciences at Kirkuk University. Found dead November 1, 2007 in a street in Kirkuk one day after being kidnapped by a group of unidentified armed men [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI, November 2, 2007].
172. Abdel Sattar Tahir Sharif: Lecturer at Kirkuk University. Department and college unknown. 75-years-old, he was assassinated March 5, 2008 by armed men in the district of Shoraw, 10 kilometers northeast of Kirkuk. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq/Voices of Iraq, 5 March 2008].
173. Ibrahim Shaeer Jabbar Al-Jumaili: Pediatrician and professor of Medicine at Kirkuk University. Dr. Ibrahim S.J. Al-Jumaili, 55 years old, was murdered July 22, 2011, after he resisted attempts by four people to kidnap him, police said. [Source: AFP, July 22, 2011]. 174. Amer al-Doury: Dr. Amer al-Douri was the Dean of the Administration and Economic College in Kirkuk. He was first handcuffed and then executed in Hawija at protesters site, when Maliki's SWAT Security Forces raided the peaceful protesting site and killed 86, injured hundreds, and arrested more on Tuesday April 23, 2013. [Source Al Sharquiya TV News 20].
NINEVEH
Mosul University
175. Abdel Jabar al-Naimi: Dean of Mosul University's College of Humanities. Date unknown.
176. Abdul Jabar Mustafa: PhD in political sciences, dean of Mosul University's College of Political Sciences. Date unknown.
177. Abdul Aziz El-Atrachi: PhD in Plant Protection in the College of Agronomy and Forestry, Mosul University. He was killed by a loose bullet shot by and American soldier. Date unknown.
178. Eman Abd-Almonaom Yunis: PhD in translation, lecturer in the College of Humanities, Mosul University. Killed August 30, 2004.
179. Khaled Faisal Hamed al-Sheekho: PhD and lecturer in the College of Physical Education, Mosul University. Killed April 11, 2003.
180. Leila [or Lyla] Abdu Allah al-Saad: PhD in law, dean of Mosul University's College of Law. Assassinated in June 22, 2004.
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181. Mahfud al-Kazzaz: PhD and lecturer at University Mosul. Department and college unknown. Killed November 20, 2004.
182. Mohammed Yunis Thanoon: Bachelor of sciences, lecturer in the College of Physical Education, Mosul University. Killed January 27. 2004.
183. Muneer al-Khiero: PhD in law and lecturer in the College of Law, Mosul University. Married to Dr Leila Abdu Allah al-Saad, also assassinated. Date unknown.
184. Muwafek Yahya Hamdun: Deputy Dean and professor at the College of Agronomy, Mosul University. [Source: al-Hayat, February 28, 2006].
185. Omar Miran: Baghdad University bachelor of law [1946]. PhD in history from Paris University [1952], professor of history at Mosul University, specialist in history of the Middle East. Killed, along with his wife and three of his sons, by armed men in February 2006 [exact date unknown].
186. Naif Sultan Saleh: Lecturer at the Technical Institute, Mosul University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
187. Natek Sabri Hasan: Lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Mechanization and head of the College of Agronomy, Mosul University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
188. Noel Petros Shammas Matti: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, Mosul University. Married and father of two daughters, was kidnapped and found dead August 4, 2006.
189. Noel Butrus S. Mathew: PhD, professor at the Health Institute of Mosul University. Date unknown.
190. Ahmad Hamid al-Tai: Professor and head of Department of Medicine, Mosul University. Killed 20 November 2006 when armed men intercepted his vehicle as he was heading home. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, November 20, 2006].
191. Kamel Abdul Hussain: Lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Law, Mosul University. Killed in January 11, 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007].
192. Talal Younis: Professor and dean of the College of Political Sciences. Killed on the morning of April 16, 2007 at the main entrance to the college. Within less than half an hour Professor Jaafer Hassan Sadeq of the Department of History at Mosul University was assassinated at his home. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Mosul].
193. Jaafer Hassan Sadeq: Professor in the Department of History of Mosul University's College of Arts. Killed April 16, 2007 at home in the district of al-Kafaaat, northwest of Mosul. Within less than half an hour, Professor Talal Younis, dean of Mosul University's College of Political Sciences, was killed at the main entrance to the college. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Mosul].
194. Ismail Taleb Ahmed: Lecturer in the College of Education, Mosul University. Killed 2 May 2007 while on his way to college. [Source: al-Mosul, May 2, 2007].
195. Nidal al-Asadi: Professor in the Computer Sciences Department of Mosul University's College of Sciences. Shot dead by armed men in the district of al-Muhandiseen, according to police sources in Mosul.
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[Sources: INA, May 2, 2007, and Iraqi sources to the BRussells Tribunal, May 3, 2007].
196. Abdul Kader Ali Abdullah: Lecturer in the Department of Arabic, College of Education Sciences, Mosul University. Found dead 25/26 August 2007 after being kidnapped five days before by a group of armed men. [Source: Iraqi sources to the BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI August 26-27, 2007].
197. Unknown: Lecturer at Mosul University killed in the explosion of two car bombs near campus, October 1, 2007. In this attack, six other people were injured, among them four students. [Source: KUNA, October 1, 2007].
198. Aziz Suleiman: Lecturer at Mosul University. Department and College are unknown. Killed in Mosul January 22, 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, January 24, 2008].
199. Jalil Ibrahim Ahmed al-Naimi: Director of the Sharia Department [Islamic Law] at Mosul University. He was shot dead by armed men when he came back home [in Mosul] from University, 30 January 2008. [Sources: CEOSI and BRussells Tribunal University Iraqi sources, Heytnet and al-Quds al-Arabi, January 31, 2008].
200. Faris Younis: Lecturer at Agriculture College, Mosul University. Dr. Younis was killed June 2, 2008 as a result of a car bomb put in his car. Different sources reported that dozens of academics and students from Mosul University were arrested by Badr militias and Kurd pershmergas. These facts occurred at the end of May, 2008, when the city was taken over by US occupation and Iraqi forces [Source: CEOSI University Iraqui sources, June 3, 2008].
201. Walid Saad Allah al-Mouli, a university professor [Department unknown] was shot down on Sunday 15 June 2008 by unknown gunmen while he was on his way to work in Mosul's northern neighborhood of al-Hadbaa, 405 Km northern Baghdad, killing him on the spot. In the attack, two of his sons were seriously wounded and are in a critical condition. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq-[VOI], June 16, 2008].
202. Ahmed Murad Shehab: professor of Mosul University's Faculty of Administration and Economics. Ahmed Murad Shehab was fatally shot in the neighborhood of al-Nur, on Mosul's left bank. [Source: Press TV, 21 de abril de 2009].
203. Unidentified female university professor: The professor of law was assassinated in front of her home in the al-Intissar district of western Mosul by unknown gunmen on Tuesday, the local police said. They declined to give her name. [Source: PressTV, April 21, 2009].
204. Unknown: lecturer at Mosul University. On May 24, 2009, gunmen ambushed killed a university teacher near his home in Al Andalus neighborhood, Mosul. [Source: The New York Times May 24, 2009].
205. Ibrahem Al-Kasab: professor in the College of Education, Mosul University. Dr. Al-Kasab was shot dead on 4th October, 2010. Unknown gang assassinated him in his home at the eastren part of Mosul. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and Al-Sabah al-Yadid October 4, 2010].
206. Amer Selbi: professor at College of Islamic Science, Mosul University. Assassinated on his way to College by murderers using
18
silenced guns on 6th March 2011. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 10 March, 2011].
207. Yasser Ahmed Sheet: assistant Dean of the Fine Arts Faculty of the Mosul University. Gunmen opened fire on Yasser Ahmed Sheet in front of his house in al-Muthanna neighborhood, eastern Mosul, on April 9, 2011, a local security source told to Aswat al-Iraq news agency. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq news agency, on April 9, 2011.]
208. Mohammed Jasem al Jabouri: professor in the Faculty of Imam al-Adham, Mosul, province of Niniveh, was killed during the night last 2 July, 2012 by gunmen who shot him to death near his house. [Sources: Association of Muslim Scholars and Safaq News, 3 July, 2012]
QADISIYA
Diwaniya University
209. Hakim Malik al-Zayadi: PhD in Arabic philology, lecturer in Arabic literature at al-Qadisyia University. Dr al-Zayadi was born in Diwaniya, and was killed in Latifiya when he was traveling from Baghdad 24 July 2005].
210. Mayid Husein: Physician and lecturer at the College of Medicine, Diwaniya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
211. Saleh Abed Hassoun: al-Qadisiyah University's Dean of the School of Law. Salih Abed Hassoun was shot dead by a group of armed men when driving his car in downtown Baghdad on 7 July 2008. [Source:McClatchy, 8 July 2008.]
BASRA
Basra University
212. Abdel al-Munim Abdel Mayad: Bachelor and lecturer at Basra University. Date unknown.
213. Abdel Gani Assaadun: Bachelor and lecturer at Basra University. Date unknown.
214. Abdul Alah [or Abdullah] al-Fadhel: PhD, professor and deputy dean of Basra University's College of Medicine. Killed January 1, 2006.
215. Abdul-Hussein Nasir Jalaf: PhD in agronomy, lecturer at the College of Agronomy's Center of Research on Date Palm Trees, Basra University. Killed May 1, 2005.
216. Alaa Daoud: PhD in sciences, professor and chairman of Basra University [also reported as a lecturer in history]. Killed 20 July 2005.
217. Ali Ghalib Abd Ali: Bachelor of sciences, assistant professor at the School of Engineering, Basra University. Killed April 12, 2004.
218. Asaad Salem Shrieda: PhD in engineering, professor and dean of Basra University's School of Engineering. Killed Octobre 15, 2003.
219. Faysal al-Assadi: PhD in agronomy, professor at the College of Agronomy, Basra University. Date unknown.
220. Ghassab Jabber Attar: Bachelor of sciences, lecturer at the School of Engineering, Basra University. Assassinated June 8, 2003.
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221. Haidar al-Baaj: PhD in surgery, head of the University College Basra Hospital. Date unknown.
222. Haidar Taher: PhD and professor at the College of Medicine, Basra University. Date unknown.
223. Hussein Yasin: PhD in physics, lecturer in sciences at Basra University Killed 18 February 2004 at his home and in front of his family.
224. Khaled Shrieda: PhD in engineering, dean of the School of Engineering, Basra University. Date unknown.
225. Khamhour al-Zargani: PhD in history, head of the Department of History at the College of Education, Basra University Killed 19 August 2005.
226. Kadim Mashut Awad: visiting professor at the Department of Soils, College of Agriculture, Basra University. Killed December 2005 [exact date unknown].
227. Karem Hassani: PhD and lecturer at the College of Medicine, Basra University. Date unknown.
228. Kefaia Hussein Saleh: PhD in English philology, lecturer in the College of Education Sciences, Basra University. Assassinated May 28, 2004.
229. Mohammed al-Hakim: PhD in pharmacy, professor and dean of Basra University's College of Pharmacy. Date unknown.
230. Mohammed Yassem Badr: PhD, professor and chairman of Basra University. Date unknown.
231. Omar Fakhri: PhD and lecturer in biology at the College of Sciences, Basra University. Date unknown.
232. Saad Alrubaiee: PhD and lecturer in biology at the College of Sciences, Basra University. Date unknown.
233. Yaddab al-Hajjam: PhD in education sciences and lecturer at the College of Education Sciences, Basra University. Date unknown.
234. Zanubia Abdel Husein: PhD in veterinary medicine, lecturer at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Basra University. Date unknown.
235. Jalil Ibrahim Almachari: Lecturer at Basra University. Department and college unknown. Killed 20 March 2006 after criticizing in a public lecture the situation in Iraq. [Arabic Source: al-Kader].
236. Abdullah Hamed al-Fadel: PhD in medicine, lecturer in surgery and deputy dean of the College of Medicine at Basra University. Killed in January 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources].
237. Fuad al-Dajan: PhD in medicine, lecturer in gynecology at the College of Medicine, Basra University. Killed at the beginning of March 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources].
238. Saad al-Shahin: PhD in medicine, lecturer in internal medicine at Basra University's College of Medicine. Killed at the beginning of March 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources].
239. Jamhoor Karem Khammas: Lecturer at the College of Arts, Basra University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
240. Karem Mohsen: PhD and lecturer at Department of Agriculture, College of Agronomy, Basra University. Killed 10 April 2006. He worked in the field of honeybee production. Lecturers and students called for a
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demonstration to protest for his assassination. [Source: al-Basrah, April 11, 2006].
241. Waled Kamel: Lecturer at the College of Arts at Basra University. Killed 8 May 2006. Other two lecturers were injured during the attack, one of them seriously. [Source: al-Quds al-Arabi, May 9, 2006].
242. Ahmad Abdul Kader Abdullah: Lecturer in the College of Sciences, Basra University. His body was found June 9, 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, June 10, 2006].
243. Kasem Yusuf Yakub: Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Basra University. Killed 13 June 2006 at the university gate. [Sources: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 14 June 2006 and al-Quds al-Arabi, June 16, 2006].
244. Ahmad Abdul Wadir Abdullah: Professor of the College of Chemistry, Basra University. Killed 10 June 2006. [Source: UNAMI report, May1 – June 30, 2006].
245. Kathum Mashhout: Lecturer in edaphology at the College of Agriculture, Basra University. Killed in Basra in December 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 12 December 2006].
246. Mohammed Aziz Alwan: Lecturer in artistic design at the College of Fine Arts, Basra University. Killed by armed men 26 May 2007 while walking in the city. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, June 1, 2007].
247. Firas Abdul Zahra: Lecturer at the College of Physical Education, Basra University. Killed at home by armed men July18, 2007. His wife was injured in the attack. [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal, August 26, 2007].
248. Muayad Ahmad Jalaf: Lecturer at the College of Arts, Basra University. Kidnapped 10 September 2007 by a group of armed men that was driving three cars, one of them with a government license plate. He was found dead in a city suburb the next day. [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal, September 12, 2007].
249. Khaled Naser al-Miyahi: PhD in medicine, Professor of neurosurgery at Basra University. He was assassinated in March 2008 [exact date unknown]. His body was found after his being kidnapped by a group of armed men in the streets of Basra. There were no ransom demands, according to information provided by Baghdad's Center for Human Rights.[Source: al-Basrah, March 12, 2008].
250. Youssef Salman: PhD engineering professor at Basra University. He was shot dead in 2006 when driving home from the University with three other colleagues, who were spared, according to the information provided by her widow to France24, in an phone interview [Source: France24, July 4, 2008].
Technical Institute of Basra
251. Mohammed Kasem: PhD in engineering, lecturer at the Technical Institute of Basra. Killed on January 1, 2004.
252. Sabah Hachim Yaber: Lecturer at the Technical Institute of Basra. Date unknown.
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253. Salah Abdelaziz Hashim: PhD and lecturer in fine arts at the Technical Institute of Basra. Kidnapped in 4 April 2006. He was found shot dead the next day. According to other sources, Dr Hashim was machine-gunned from a vehicle, injuring also a number of students. [Sources: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, April 6, 2006, Az-Zaman, April 6, 2006, and al-Quds al-Arabi, April 7, 2006].
TIKRIT
Tikrit University
254. Basem al-Mudares: PhD in chemical sciences and lecturer in the College of Sciences, Tikrit University. His body was found mutilated in the city of Samarra 21 July 2004.
255. Fathal Mosa Hussein Al Akili: PhD and professor at the College of Physical Education, Tikrit University. Assassinated June 27, 2004.
256. Mahmoud Ibrahim Hussein: PhD in biological sciences and lecturer at the College of Education Sciences, Tikrit University. Killed September 3, 2004.
257. Madloul Albazi Tikrit University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
258. Mojbil Achaij Issa al-Jabouri: Lecturer in international law at the College of Law, Tikrit University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
259. Damin Husein al-Abidi: Lecturer in international law at College of Law, Tikrit University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
260. Harit Abdel Yabar As Samrai: PhD student at the College of Engineering, Tikrit University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
261. Farhan Mahmud: Lecturer at the College of Theology, Tikrit University. Disappeared after being kidnapped 24 November 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, November 26, 2006].
262. Mustafa Khudhr Qasim: Professor at Tikrit University. Department and college unknown. His body was found beheaded in al-Mulawatha, eastern Mosul, 21 November 2007. [Sources: al-Mosul, November 22, 2007, and Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI, November 22-25, 2007].
263. Taha AbdulRazak al-Ani: PhD in Islamic Studies, he was professor at Tikrit University. His body was found shot dead in a car on a highway near al-Adel, a Baghdad suburb. Also, the body of Sheikh Mahmoud Talb Latif al-Jumaily, member of the Commission of Muslim Scientists, was found dead in the same car last Thursday afternoon, May 15, 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources May 21, 2008].
264. Aiad Ibrahem Mohamed Al-Jebory: Neurosurgeon specialist at the College of Medicine in Tikrit University. Picked up with his brother by military raid on his village in Al Haweja on the night of 6th March 2011. His body was delivered the following day to Tikrit Hospital. His brother fate is unknown. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, March 10, 2011].
DIYALAH
22
Baquba University
265. Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher: PhD in physical sciences, professor and dean at the College of Sciences, Baquba University. Killed December 21, 2004.
266. Lez Mecchan: Professor at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed 19 April 2006 with his wife and another colleague. [Sources: DPC and EFE, 19 April 2006].
267. Mis Mecchan: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Wife of Professor Lez Mecchan, also assassinated. Both were killed with another colleague 19 April 2006. [Sources: DPC and EFE, 19 April 2006].
268. Salam Ali Husein: Taught at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed 19 April 2006 with two other colleagues. [Sources: DPC and EFE, 19 April 2006].
269. Meshhin Hardan Madhlom al-Dulaimi: Professor at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed at the end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 10 May 2006].
270. Abdul Salam Ali al-Mehdawi: Professor at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed at the end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 10 May 2006].
271. Mais Ganem Mahmoud: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed at the end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 10 May 2006].
272. Satar Jabar Akool: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed at the end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 10 May 2006].
273. Mohammed Abdual Redah al-Tamemmi: Lecturer in the Department of Arabic Language and head of the College of Education, Baquba University. Killed 19 August 2006 together with Professor Kreem Slman al-Hamed al-Sadey, 70 years old, of the same Department. A third lecturer from the same department escaped the attack carried out by a group of four armed men Students and lecturers demonstrated against his and other lecturers' deaths. [Source: World Socialist, 12 September 2006, citing the Iraqi newspaper Az-Zaman, CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 25 December 2006].
274. Karim al-Saadi: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed August 2006. Students and lecturers demonstrated against his and other lecturers' deaths. [Source: World Socialist, 12 September 2006, citing the Iraqi newspaper Az-Zaman].
275. Kreem Slman al-Hamed al-Sadey: Professor in the Department of Arabic Language at the College of Education, Baquba University. He was 70 years old when killed 19 August 2006. In the attack Mohammed Abdual Redah al-Tamemmi, head of Education Department was also killed. A third lecturer from the same department escaped the attack of a group of four armed men. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 25 December 2006].
23
276. Hasan Ahmad: Lecturer in the College of Education, Baquba University. Killed December 8, 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, December 2006].
277. Ahmed Mehawish Hasan: Lecturer in the Department of Arabic at the College of Education, Baquba University. Killed in December [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 25 December 2006].
278. Walhan Hamid Fares al-Rubai: Dean of the College of Physical Education, Baquba University. Al-Rubai was shot by a group of armed men in his office 1 February 2007. According to some sources his son was also killed. [Source: Reuters and Islammemo, 1-3 February 2007 respectively, and CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 2 February 2007].
279. Abdul Ghabur al-Qasi: Lecturer in history at Baquba University. His body was found by the police 10 April 2007 in Diyalah River, which crosses the city, with 31 other bodies of kidnapped people. [Source: Az-Zaman, 11 April 2007].
280. Jamal Mustafa: Professor and head of the History Department, College of Education Sciences, Baquba University. Kidnapped at home in the city of Baquba 29 October 2007 by a group of armed men driving in three vehicles. [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal, 30 October 2007].
281. Ismail Khalil Al-Mahdawi: professor at Al-Assmai Faculty of Education, Diyalah University. Died after serious injuries sustained due to exposure to fire arms equipped with silencers on 4 June, 2011, while he was on his way back home in Katoun area, western Baquba (Diyalah Governorate) according to a security sources. Dr. Al-Mahdawi was released two months ago after five-year detention at the US forces in Iraq. He was rushed to Baquba General Hospital. [Sources: Baghdad TV; Aswat Al-Iraq, College of Education Al-Assmai, Al-Forat TV, on June 4 & 5, 2011.]
282. Abbas Fadhil al-Dulaimi: Pressident of Diyalah University has been injured when targeted by a landmine near an intersection of roads and bridges in Bakoabah, Diyalah, on Tursday, January 13, 2013. The explosion killed two and wounded three of his security and body guards [Source: CEOSI's Iraqi sources]
AL-ANBAR
Ramadi University
283. Abdel Karim Mejlef Saleh: PhD in philology, lecturer at the College of Education Sciences, al-Anbar University.
284. Abdel Majed Hamed al-Karboli: Lecturer at Ramadi University. Killed December 2005 [exact date unknown].
285. Ahmad Abdl Hadi al-Rawi: PhD in biology, professor in the School of Agronomy, al- Anbar University. Date unknown.
286. Ahmad Abdul Alrahman Hameid al-Khbissy: PhD in Medicine, Professor of College of Medicine, al-Anbar University. Date unknown.
287. Ahmed Abbas al-Weis: professor at Ramadi University, al-Anbar. The attackers were dressed in military outfit when they shot the professor near his home in al- Zeidan district on August 25, 2009. [Source: Khaleej Times Online, 25 August 2009].
24
288. Ahmed Saadi Zaidan: PhD in education sciences, Ramadi University. Killed February 2005 [exact date unknown].
289. Hamed Faisal Antar: Lecturer in the College of Law, Ramadi University. Killed December 2005 [exact date unknown].
290. Naser Abdel Karem Mejlef al-Dulaimi: Department of Physics, College of Education, Ramadi University. Killed December 2005 [exact date unknown].
291. Raad Okhssin al-Binow: PhD in surgery, lecturer at the College of Medicine, al-Anbar University. Date unknown.
292. Shakir Mahmmoud Jasim: PhD in agronomy, lecturer in the School of Agronomy, al- Anbar University. Date unknown.
293. Nabil Hujazi: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, Ramadi University. Killed in June 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 20 June 2006, confirmed by Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education].
294. Nasar al-Fahdawi: Lecturer at Ramadi University. Department and college unknown. Killed 16 January 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, December 2006].
295. Khaled Jubair al-Dulaimi: Lecturer at the College of Engineering, Ramadi University. Killed 27 April 2007. [Source: Iraqi sources to the BRussells Tribunal, 3 May 2007].
Fallujah University
296. Saad al-Mashhadani: University professor in Fallujah [Unknown Department]. Saad al-Mashhadani was critically wounded on 26 December, 2009 in an attack that killed his brother and wounded two of his security guards. [Source: The Washington Post, December 27, 2009].
297. Khalil Khalaf Jassim: Dean of Business and Economics College in Anbar University was assassinated in an armed attack last May 4, in al-Nazizah area, central Fallujah, according to a police source in Anbar province. Unidentified gunmen attacked his car, killing him on the spot Security forces cordoned off the crime scene and began an inspection in searching of militants, while the body was transferred to the Forensic Medicine Department. [Source, Shafaq News, May 4, 2013]
NAJAF
Kufa University
298. Khawla Mohammed Taqi Zwain: PhD in medicine, lecturer at College of Medicine, Kufa University. Killed May 12, 2006.
299. Shahlaa al-Nasrawi: Lecturer in the College of Law, Kufa University. Assassinated 22 August 2007 by members of a sectarian militia. [Source: CEOSI University Iraqi sources, 27 August 2007].
300. Adel Abdul Hadi: Professor of philosophy, Kufa University's College of Arts. Killed by a group of armed men 28 October 2007 when returning home from university. [Source: Iraqi University sources to the BRussells Tribunal, October 30, 2007].
SALAH AL-DEEN
University of Salah al-Deen
25
301. Sabah Bahaa Al-Deen: Dr. Sabah is a faculty member at Salah Aldeen University's College of Agriculture. He was killed by a car bomb stuck on his car last Wednesday Dec 12 when he was leaving the College. (Source: Aswat Al- Iraq).
KARBALA
University of Karbala
302. Kasem Mohammed Ad Dayni: Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, College of Pedagogy, Karbala University. Killed April 17, 2006. [Source: http://www.albadeeliraq.com] .
OPEN UNIVERSITY
303. Kareem Ahmed al-Timmi: Head of the Department of Arabic Language in the College of Education at the Open University. Killed in Baghdad, February 22, 2007.
COMMISSION OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION
[CTE is an academic body that belongs to the Higher Education Ministry. Its headquarters are located in al-Mansur, Baghdad neighborhood. Almost twenty Technical Superior Institutes, booth from the capital and Central and Southern provinces, are dependent on this body].
304. Aamir Ibrahim Hamza: Bachelor in electronic engineering, lecturer at the Technical Institute. Killed August 17, 2004.
305. Mohammed Abd al-Hussein Wahed: PhD in tourism, lecturer at the Institute of Administration. Assassinated January 9, 2004.
306. Mohammed Saleh Mahdi: Bachelor in sciences, lecturer at the Cancer Research Centre. Killed November 2005.
INSTITUTIONAL POSITIONS
307. Emad Sarsam: PhD in surgery and member of the Arab Council of Medicine. Date unknown.
308. Faiz Ghani Aziz: PhD in agronomy, director general of the Iraqi Company of Vegetable Oil. Killed September 2003.
309. Isam Said Abd al-Halim: Geologic consultant at the Ministry of Construction. Date unknown.
310. Kamal al-Jarrah: Degree in English philology, researcher and writer and director general at the Ministry of Education. Date unknown.
311. Raad Abdul-Latif al-Saadi: PhD in Arabic language, consultant in higher education and scientific research at the Ministry of Education. Killed April 28, 2005.
312. Shakier al-Khafayi: PhD in administration, head of the Department of Normalization and Quality at the Iraq Council. Date unknown.
313. Wajeeh Mahjoub: PhD in physical education, director general of physical education at the Ministry of Education. Killed Abril 9, 2003.
314. Wissam al-Hashimi: PhD in petrogeology, president of the Arab Union of Geologists, expert in Iraqi reservoirs, he worked for the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum. Assassinated August 24, 2005.
26
UNIVERSITY AFFILIATION UNKNOWN
315. Amir Mizhir al-Dayni: Professor of telecommunication engineering. Date unknown.
316. Khaled Ibrahim Said: PhD in physics. Date unknown.
317. Mohammed al-Adramli: PhD in chemical sciences. Date unknown.
318. Mohammed Munim al-Izmerly: PhD in chemical sciences. He was tortured and killed by US troops. His body was sent to the Baghdad morgue. The cause of death was initially registered as ―brainstem compression‖. Date unknown.
319. Nafi [or Nafia] Aboud: Professor of Arabic literature. Date unknown.
320. Ali Zedan Al-Saigh: PhD in Medicine and lecturer on Oncological Surgery (unknown university). Ali Zedan Al-Saigh was assassinated at Al-Harthia district (Bagdad) on June 29, 2010 after returning recently to Iraq. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, June 30, 2010]
321. Adnan Meki: Specialty and University unknown. According to police sources, his corpse was found on July 13, 2010 with signals of stabbing at his home in Al-Qaddisiya neighborhood, western Baghdad. [Source: Al-Rafadan website, July14, 2010].
322. Unknown Identity: Specialty and University unknown. On July 14, 2010, unidentified gunmen riding in a car shot a university professor dead as he was leaving his home in the University District, West Baghdad, according to the report of an official security source. [Source: AKnews, July 14, 2010].
323. Mohamed Ali El-Din (Al-Diin) Al-Heeti: Professor in Pharmacy, unknown University. Mohamed Ali El-Din Al-Heeti was killed the afternoon of the 14th August, 2010 in the area of Al-Numaniya (north of Al-Wasat governorate) in an attack by unknown armed men. The professor came back to Iraq a few months ago to Iraq after a period of studies in George Washington University in the USA. [Source: Association of Muslim Scholars, 15 August, 2010.]
OTHER CASES
324. Khalel al-Zahawi [or Khalil al-Zahawi]: Born in 1946, al-Zahawi was considered the most important calligraphist in Iraq and among the most important in the Arab-Muslim world. He worked as a lecturer in calligraphy in several Arab countries during the 1990s. He was killed 19 May 2007 in Baghdad by a group of armed men. He was buried in Diyalah, where he was born. [Source: BBC News, 22 May 2007. His biography is available on Wikipedia].

Kratoklastes , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:06 am GMT
@Rich

Some might argue that the Iranians drew first blood when the present group of radical medievalists overthrew the Shah and then seized the US embassy in 1979 or a whole load of other attacks by Iranians and their proxies.

Some might argue that the overthrow of the Shah was simply the unseating of a brutal US-imposed tyrant whose regime was about as merciless as that of Pinochet, the Sauds, or any of the other despots that the US has installed and supported over the years.

The difference between my 'some' and your 'some' is that mine would be closer to the truth.

If the Chinese imposed a brutal and oppressive puppet regime on Australia, I would go so far as to support the whackballs from the Westboro Baptists if they were the group capable of overthrowing the puppet regime.

If you wouldn't do the same for your own neck of the woods, I am sure that there is as perfectly good explanation.

The US does have a puppet regime (albeit one that doesn't register on the brutality scale yet) it's not Chinese, of course.

Not Raul , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:20 am GMT
@Herald How much are the Saudis paying you, cuck?
Not Raul , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:21 am GMT
@Franklin Ryckaert How so? Do you think that the Saudis and their friends would never use terrorists to attack us?
Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:23 am GMT
@Rich 'Well, yes, every member of every military is a legitimate target. Especially a general. If it sounds logical to you, that's because not only is it logical, it's common sense '

That's why we were cool with Pearl Harbor. Just military personnel. No harm, no foul.

Not Raul , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:24 am GMT
@bluedog They used to test nukes in Nevada. Did the fallout kill millions of people thousands of miles away?
ivegotrythm , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:24 am GMT
So America, how does it feel to be the world's assassin? Gives the "War on Terror" a whole new meaning, doesn't it? At least you have one last true friend, a great "Haver," who will watch your back.
Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:26 am GMT
@Rich ' Read the Koran first, before you throw your support behind these jihadists .'

We all know perfectly well you haven't read it yourself.

Reading snippets taken out of context on Islamophobic sites is not 'reading the Quran.'

BeenThereDunnit , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:47 am GMT
@Alfred This assessment of Trump's has been around for a while but how, specifically, would the US ever be made to leave Iraq and Syria? The only theoretical possibility would consist of a combined effort of the Iraqi government and people directed against the occupation force in that country. That would probably have to play out as a popular uprising against the Americans. But what if American troops, cheered on by Zionist circles back in the US, started to kill large numbers of Iraqis indiscriminately? Would the Iraqis have the stomach for that? And how could Trump declare victory and leave Iraq under such circumstances?

At the time of this writing, we have already seen the second round of killings of high-ranking Iranian and Iraqi commanders in Iraq, all of them Shiah. If the Shiah are said to be calculating, then these Shiah commanders have not been calculating this time, serving themselves on a platter to the Americans. The remaining commanders will have to wise up to the new reality quickly and switch over to full Hezbollah mode if they do not want to be wiped out altogether.

Aspects of the attack against the Aramco facility point to it having been an Israeli false flag at least in part. Pictures showed several dome-shaped oil tanks, all of them having a big, circular hole punched into them at zero deflection and precisely the same steep angle from precisely the same direction. This kind of damage cannot be achieved using GPS guided drones. Either the Iranians possess an unknown stealth capability, in which case the military equation in the Middle East changes drastically, or a false flag is left as the only remaining possibility. Israel would be the most likely culprit for that; the objective consists of duping Trump into war against Iran.

So, Trump may have been led to believe that Iran carried out the attack against the Aramco facility. Then somebody suggested to him to kill the Iranian general and several other Iranians partly as an act of revenge. Several Iraqi commanders also get slaughtered. Iraqi popular unrest boils over at the same time as more American troops are poured into the country, a massacre of Iraqi Shiah ensues and Iran is forced to react. That may be the calculation behind it all. The threat of impeachment and subsequent imprisonment does the rest to gird Trump along.

Right now, there are severe strains on the financial system with the Fed bailing out the repo market and also monetizing US debt at nearly 100%. The US is down to pure money printing; this mode of operation cannot go on for long before the whole house of card comes crashing down. The powers that be may be reckoning that the time for war against Iran is now or never.

So, the best course of action that heartland (Iran, Russia, China) may take may be to wait it out by doing as little as possible.

ivegotrythm , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:10 am GMT
@MEexpert He knows what he is talking about. He is just not very good at it.
ivegotrythm , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:26 am GMT
@Tulip It is not what "Trump wants."
Sean , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:46 am GMT
@Maiasta It remains to be seen if America will actually suffer a level of retaliation for the assassination that will surprise them. So far I think evidence suggests the miscalculation was Soleimani's. His Sept 2019 drone attacks on the main Saudi oil facilities were deliberately not very destructive, being intended as indication of what Iran can do, but America will not permit anyone to be a threat hanging over Saudi Arabia.

The Wikileaks cables show that US diplomats thought Soleimani was behind or at least supplying lethal assistance to attacks on US forces, and were willing to quietly negotiate with him. None of those putative hundreds of American deaths mattered all that much in the grand scheme of things. Masterminding the drone attack on Saudi oil was completely different, that was what made him a marked man.

Passer by , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:52 am GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso https://www.albawaba.com/news/remembering-when-us-simulated-war-game-against-iran-1288001
ivegotrythm , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 8:05 am GMT
@Alfred Did you say there are credible rumors that Iran brought down PanAm 103 and Israel made it look like Libya in order to throw off suspicions from Iran? And, you say, the proof is that "Since PA103, no Iranian civilian aircraft of any sort has been attacked or threatened by the USA or any other country?" Are you some kind of Intelligence Analyst? This is deep. Or are you really saying there are credible rumors that Israel brought down PanAm 103 and made it look like Libya? Which, of course, is not so deep. And the proof is that
anno nimus , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 8:08 am GMT
Andrei, if as you say the Persians have imagination, why not imagine making peace with Israel? you also quoted before that politics is art of possible. well and good, peace is possible if there is realization and imagination that Israel is really not going anywhere. an eye for eye will make everyone blind. gandi?
btw, with all the mahdi stuff going on, how much rational are the Persian leaders?
what say the cyber warriors and armchair generals on drone warfare? is it ethical? moral? right? just? necessary? sane?
Alfred , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:03 am GMT
@nokangaroos Mohammed Reza Shah (installed by coup in 1941 because his daddy, an old-school Kurdish brigand

Actually, the father, Reza Shah was not a Kurd at all. His family was Persian from Mazandaran. He was in the Persian Cossack Brigade.

Reza Shah

Biff , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 11:06 am GMT
@Colin Wright

We all know perfectly well you haven't read it yourself.

Maybe we can start a go-fund-me page for Rich, and it can pay for his Koranic education, and then he can be shipped over to Tehran to tell them just how wrong they are – in his own kind of way. I'm sure they'll listen, and drop everything to worship at the holy altar of ((Rich)) . And then he can reply back with a big fat "I told you so!" .

Commentator Mike , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 11:16 am GMT
@Kratoklastes As if Afghanistan isn't inhospitable mountainous terrain? So somehow Iran's topography is worse is it? They invaded Afghanistan without even controlling any neighbouring countries. Now that they have already invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in preparation for the war on Iran, they could well roll in after a thorough aerial pounding. So if they suffer great losses so what? Did they ever care about their own soldiers or citizens that much anyway? If there's loot to be had they'll go for it.
Robert Magill , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 11:18 am GMT
This incident had one goal in mind and it was successful: Raising the price of crude by stirring up the Mid East. Raising the oil price will raise the US stock market and re-elect Trump. Expect more of the same prior to this year's elections. Same old, same old; people die, people win elections. Obama showed the way.
Astraea , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 11:31 am GMT
@Tulip Poor Melania!
9/11 Inside job , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 11:51 am GMT
"Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo belong to a doomsday cult and may be trying to bring on the Apocalypse " richardawkins.net
"Brought to Jesus the evangelical grip on the Trump administration" theguardian.com
It's scary that a lobbyist for a major arms manufacturer and a true believer in the Apocalypse are both advising a psychopath on US military action in the Middle East .
Robjil , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:04 pm GMT
@Adrian Yes, Wesley Clark spilled the beans. Seven nations to destroy is how the first Israel was formed.

Wesley said the nations that would be destroyed:

Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Iran.

Wesley says this is for nine eleven (false flag).

He said it would take 5 years to do so. 5 years was a guess since within 5 years is all it took to do WWI and WWII.

Iran is the only nation of the seven mentioned that has not been messed up by ZUS, its friends and its best friend Israel.

Nine eleven combo is a Kabbala theme. Nine is one less and eleven is one more than the Tree of Life number ten of Yahweh. Thus, this combo represents chaos and destruction.

The 911 number was created in 1968. WTC was being built around that time.

Nine Eleven date in the Jewish calendar is 12.23. 5761. Notice the 12th Jewish month of Elul and the 23th day of that month. The first Zion century began with the FED on 12. 23. 1913 of the Christian Calendar. This second Zion Century began on 12.23 on the Jewish Calendar.

12.23 in the Jewish Calendar is the date of the second dove coming back to Noah with an olive branch.

12.25 two days later is the date of the when God (Yahweh) created the world. Six days later man was created by Yahweh. That is the day of the Jewish New Year which celebrates Yahweh's creation of man. Thus, the 6 million game comes from that. 6 represents man.

On 12.25. 5761 ( 9.13.2001) all the planes were "allowed" to fly again in the US. It was a creation of "new" world after the end of the "flood of fear" like Yahweh did on that day in the Tanakh.

The games that our rulers play are sick.

9/11 Inside job , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:29 pm GMT
@BeenThereDunnit Beware the false flag attack , if American servicemen or citizens get killed by "Iranians",it won't take much to get the public behind a "decisive " attack on Iran , the objective would not be to defeat them but to create another failed state for the benefit of Israel , we are good at that, just look at Syria , Yemen, Libya , Afghanistan and Iraq .
"Israel made attack on Saudi oil fields" streetwisereports.com
ivegotrythm , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:34 pm GMT
@Not Raul Maybe not millions, but certainly thousands. Slowly. Don't you read the news?
Robjil , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:50 pm GMT
@Castellio Knowledge is power.

ZUS empire and its master Israel are into killing off the best goyim.

I noticed this in Donbass. Any leader with charisma is "assassinated".

Donbass leaders or rebels have not put any figure head to show off after this.

ZUS controlled Ukraine does the same thing to its out of box thinkers or politicians.

In the ZUS homeland, JFK, MLK, RJK, JFK Jr., Malcolm X are some of the most famous cut down for the ZUS empire and its best buddy Israel.

Any dissent of the ZUS empire is banished by our "free" press media such as Youtube, Amazon, Twitter and so on.

The best of the goyim are cut down with no voice by banning or assassination.

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:54 pm GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso Even if you are correct that Iranians do not have the capacity to defend themselves from the zionized US military (armed on the Fed Reserve banksters' money), the ongoing war in the Middle East will be more devastating for the US (and the EU) than for the natives who try to defend their families and their culture. The moral death of the US is within reach.

Who has been guiding the US policies while using the US might? -- Banksters, MIC and zionists. American veterans of the Wars for Israel in the Middle East suicide themselves every single day. https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/data-sheets/2019/2019_National_Veteran_Suicide_Prevention_Annual_Report_508.pdf

The Jewish State has been running the famous Milgram experiment (dubbed "Nazi experiment") on Palestinians for 70 years. https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html
Whereas the Milgram experiment was terminated (due to its ugliness) in the US, the Milgram experiment has been at the heart of Israel for 70 years. They, Israelis, have managed to create a new kind of people -- the amoral hypocrites. Or perhaps, the ongoing Milgram study in Israel has exposed the true nature of Talmudism ("is this good for Jews?" -- then everything goes).

The Jewish Bolsheviks have been quite successful in the US. Along with the incessant and successful pushing for the wars of aggression for Eretz Israel, the zionists were successful in making the regime change in Ukraine and running the war against civilians in eastern Ukraine. The success of Ukrainian operation was achieved thanks to the tight collaboration of US/UK zionists with the local oligarchs (mostly Jewish) and with Banderites (the self-proclaimed neo-Nazi). Ukrainian neo-Nazi were armed and supported by American zionists and by the Jewish State. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727
Meanwhile, the Jewish State was also arming and protecting the terrorist groups of jihadis on the territory of sovereign Syria. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-just-admitted-arming-anti-assad-syrian-rebels-big-mistake-1.6894850

The perfidy of zionists has been unnoticeable for the zionized presstitutes and the cheerleaders for more large-scale Milgram experiments in the Middle East, such as the puny "intellectual" Kenneth Pollack, who is nothing more but an amoral hypocrite of war-profiteering variety: https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/middle-east/the-trump-administration-is-suddenly-all-in-on-iran-in-iraq/

If the Jewish Community at large does not arise against the war in Iran, then the Jews have deserved the fame of Leo Frank and should be called "Leo Frank people." https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-adl-in-american-society/

Ironically, the numerous holobiz museums have become the reminder of Jewish rapacious predation and amorality.

AZ , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:06 pm GMT
The impeachment proceedings of Trump pushed him to satisfy the deep state by making this idiotic move. Netanyahu is also under investigation and should have been in jail. A war with IRAN is a nice way out of the impasse.
annamaria , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:19 pm GMT
@Rich " the violent spread of Islam throughout the world"

-- Actually, there has been the violent spread of zioconism throughout the world, including the Wars for Israel in the Middle East (and the flooding of Europe with the dispossessed refugees and radicalized jihadies), the Jewish assault on the First Amendment in the US, the physical assault and imprisonment of honest researchers in WWII on behalf of zionists (zionists cannot tolerate factual information that does not agree with Elie Wiesel's inventions), the zionization of US military, the blackmailing of persons in a position of power by Mossad (see Epstein-Maxwell saga of underage prostitution), and a cherry on the top -- the casual attitude of zionist to all non-jews as subhumans (see Gaza Ghetto, the suicided American veterans of the Wars for Israel, and the murdered civilians in eastern Ukraine, courtesy the US-supported Banderites).

Who needs reading the Quaran when the Jewish State has been arming Ukrainian neo-Nazi and arming and saving fanatical jihadi terrorists (including the murderous "white helmets") in Syria? Your quetching tribe is nothing but a rapacious amoral predator working in cahoots with the worst scum among the mega-banksters and mega-war-profiteers. At least you have already erected the numerous monuments (the Holobiz Museums) to remind the non-Jews about Jewish depravity.

Mark of the Beast , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:23 pm GMT
Join the Zionist Crusade!
Join the U.S military and fight for Israel.
Seven Islamic countries need to be destroyed for Greater Israel Project.
1.Afghanistan- check
2.Iraq-check
3.Sudan-check
4.Libya-check
5.Somalia-check
6.Syria-In Progress
7.Iran-TBA

It's coming down to the final stages!
And how!

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 1:28 pm GMT
@Commentator Mike "Did they ever care about their own soldiers or citizens that much anyway? If there's loot to be had they'll go for it."

-- Agree. The dual citizen and local Cheneys et al. care not about human life and such funny thing as patriotism.

Winter Watch , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:10 pm GMT
The Van Riper Gambit: Iran Scores Against Expensive High-Tech US Gadgetry
https://www.winterwatch.net/2020/01/the-van-riper-gambit-iran-scores-against-expensive-high-tech-us-gadgetry/
Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:38 pm GMT
@Kratoklastes Those beheadings are fake, nothing more than cheap Hollywood stunts. All of the ISIS videos come from a single source, Rita Katz/SITE, who is known to have Mossad connections.
Realist , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:39 pm GMT
@Rich

Some might argue that the Iranians drew first blood when the present group of radical medievalists overthrew the Shah and then seized the US embassy in 1979 or a whole load of other attacks by Iranians and their proxies.

Of course those would be dumb bastards with no knowledge of history the CIA installed the Shah in a 1953 coup.

KenH , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:40 pm GMT
@Tulip Kim Jong Un just called Trump a dotard a few weeks ago is testing more nuclear missiles and is back to taunting the Trump Administration. That makes Trump look weak but because the N. Koreans have the ability to massively retaliate against U.S. forces and because they are a nuclear power Trump does nothing but tweet.

If Iran had short range nuclear missiles that could reach Israel and Saudi Arabia they would be getting far more respect and Trump would be treading lighter like he is with N. Korea.

Realist , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:44 pm GMT
@ivegotrythm

A123 is asking how long the armed forces will remain willing to die for psychopaths? Good question.

Yes, how long will the American people be willing to die for the US and Israeli governments.

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:52 pm GMT
@Maiasta The interesting thing about Ostrovsky's book (and probably the real reason it generated controversy) is that he admits that the Mossad relies on diaspora Jews for intelligence gathering, cover, etc. for running its operations abroad.
Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 2:57 pm GMT
@Rich I'm too busy reading the Talmud.
Rich , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:01 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Anyone with even a limited knowledge of the laws of war knows that a military base is a legitimate target. That doesn't mean any nation that is attacked is going to be happy about it. For better or worse Pearl Harbor was a legitimate target and the US was negligent in its defenses there. Of course, I believe the Nips were sorry for that move in the end. Should've stuck to fighting poorly armed, divided Asian countries.
lauris71 , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:15 pm GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso On the other hand, Saddam simply sat on his fat *ss and watched how US built up fighting force of 150 000 men, planes and whatnot.
If Iran has any strategic sense it simply does not allow this to happen. Sometimes pre-emptive strikes are the correct strategy. And then US is left only with carriers far from iranian shores and airbases in Jordan or even further away. Of course, it can still destroy most of Iran's infrastructure eventually – while simultaneously watching how his client states in Gulf will be levelled to ground. But bringing land forces to Iran without relying on friendly ports and airbases will be D-day scale operation – much, much larger than Desert Storm of Iraq Freedom.
vot tak , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:29 pm GMT
From saker's article:

"Iran HAS to retaliate and HAS to do so publicly."

That is exactly what zionazia wants Iran to do. Why does saker want the Iranians to do exactly what israel wants them to do?

"Right now, the Dems (still the party favored by the Neocons)"

Total nonsense. The neocons are overwhelmingly republicans, both leaders and followers. They got their real start in the republican reagan regime and have increased their influence in each republican regime since.

"Now think about this from the Neocon point of view. They might be able to get the US goyim to strike Iran AND get rid of Trump."

LOL, why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? The neocon trump is 100% israel's boy. In fact, he should be considered an extension of the israeli likud political block, which is who backs and promotes neoconnery in the usa. The neocon american media such fox and the various conservative talk radio networks are neocon. They promote trump, demonize the democrats and are fanatical likud israeli loyalists.

"For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf. I am not saying that I know for a fact that this is what really happened, only that Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the Middle-East."

Not credible, propaganda instead. The zionazis blamed Libya, Iran and Syria, depending on which served their psywar needs of the moment. One saw the same zionazi strategy used after the 9/11 wtc attack. As the zionazis attacked other countries, they justified it in their psywar as a response to that country's "involvement" in 9/11. The air liner was likely destroyed through an israeli/western security service falseflag act, like the later 9/11 falseflag.

This article posits some useful ideas, it also reinforces some zionazi policy goals and propaganda.

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:44 pm GMT
@Rich 'Anyone with even a limited knowledge of the laws of war knows that a military base is a legitimate target.'

You skip elegantly over the minor detail that we were not at war with Iran. Hey: let's bomb a military base in China!

What the hell? And if France feels like taking out the Pentagon -- well, who are we to complain?

Desert Fox , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:46 pm GMT
@redmudhooch They already have ie the attack on the WTC on 911, done by Israel and the ZUS.
Rich , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 3:52 pm GMT
@Realist Somewhat sad that your poor education has misinformed you about the origins of the Shah and the Pahlavi dynasty. The Pahlavis came to power in 1925 when Reza Khan overthrew the Qajar dynasty who had ruled the region since the late 18th century. The 1953 incident you refer to is the attempted communist takeover by Mossadegh which was almost successful but prevented by the US and UK who helped keep the Pahlavis in power. Is it a coup if there's an attempt to seize control of the government by communists but the king is able to hold onto power? I don't think so. Shame the Tsar wasn't able to stop the Bolsheviks and their reign of terror.
Wookie , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:27 pm GMT
@Not Raul You should have said Israel's 9-11 attack on the United States .
Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:34 pm GMT
@BeenThereDunnit Interesting speculation on the Aramco attack, but how do you explain Yemeni claims of responsibility?
nsa , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:39 pm GMT
@Rich "Somewhat sad your poor education blah blah blah"
Rich is a joo goblin pretending to be an aging boomerwaffen still fighting the big one from high atop his barstool lookout down at the VFW lounge. Have another $2 double, Rich, and tell us again how you kicked ass over there in 'Nam followed by your latest prostate troubles .
annamaria , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:45 pm GMT
@Beefcake the Mighty "the Mossad relies on diaspora Jews for intelligence gathering, cover, etc. for running its operations abroad."

-- The ongoing mass slaughter in the Middle East and the triumph of Banderites (neo-Nazis) in Ukraine are some of the glorious achievements of the Israel-firsters.

This is not the first time when the obnoxious tribe puts a lot of effort to cut a branch on which the tribe perches. The disloyal treacherous scum of the Mega Group-Epstein-Maxwell kind has been at the ZUSA wheel for some time already. The ziocons will not stop their bloody treachery until the US citizenry at large begins taking actions against the dreamers of Eretz Israel.

Russia and Germany are examples of what can happen to a sovereign state when the "most moral and victimized" are left to their ugly devices. The shameless AIPAC and 52 main Jewish American organizations bear the principle responsibility for the ongoing wars that are becoming more dangerous with each day.

MLK , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:54 pm GMT

Iran HAS to retaliate and HAS to do so publicly.

Is that what you thought when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet?

Look, I'll keep it short because this gaggle is locked into some seriously delusion thinking.

Solemani was commanding an operation to put Trump in the position Carter was in with the hostage crisis. Do you knuckleheads really think that Trump was going to fall for it?

Especially since it was so obvious. With the Ayatollah shouting that Trump "couldn't do a damn thing." And Senator Murphy teeing up what was soon to come by declaring the POTUS "impotent."

That is just the latest, most desperate provocation, by Iran in coordination with the Democrats.

So killing Soleimani, along with those in the second airstrike, was anything but an escalation. This is what Milley was signaling when he said "The ball is in Iran's court." Khamenei stupidly revealed beforehand that he had sanctioned this plot. That constitutes enormous risk not only to the Iranian regime but the Democrats colluding with them.

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:55 pm GMT
@Rich Poor "Rich," we guess that you need to make a living, but do your superiors understand that your posts make more harm to "Jewish cause" than any jihadis' activities?

Though the Jewish State is, of course, one of the main sponsors of fanatical jihad (because this is good for Jews and bad for Syrians) and of the neo-nazi in Ukraine (because this is good for Jews and bad for Russians).
Keep posting. The exposure of the sick logic of Israelis is educational.

anarchyst , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 4:59 pm GMT
@Rurik Israel's favorite "war song is "Onward Christian Soldiers"
Assad al-islam , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:08 pm GMT
@vot tak

That is exactly what zionazia wants Iran to do. Why does saker want the Iranians to do exactly what israel wants them to do?

Iranians are very shrewd and they will never start a war with USA. At appropriate time Iran will annihilate Israel and USA will be scratching their heads. What will USA do, after the annihilation of Israel? Commit suicide for the sake of annihilated Israel?

Saker's Quote: "For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf. I am not saying that I know for a fact that this is what really happened, only that Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the Middle-East."

Saker is showing his true colors, that he only cares for mother Russia. How can he post this stuff, while he very well knows that when Iraq used chemicals, Iran refused to do so in return. Russia like USA will intentionally kill civilians to achieve their goal, but Iran will NEVER intentionally kill innocent civilians. Saker has been smoking too much lately, and forgetting that it is NOT spiritual to kill innocent civilians. No, no and no, everything is not fair in war and love ..

Iran is ethical and has morals where as USSR and Russia seems to lack them .

Realist , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:11 pm GMT
@Rich

The 1953 incident you refer to is the attempted communist takeover by Mossadegh which was almost successful but prevented by the US and UK who helped keep the Pahlavis in power.

The US and UK were after Iranian oil. The Shah was their puppet plain and simple.

ivegotrythm , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:12 pm GMT
@Rich But Rich, almost all the Communists are Jews and Mossadegh was not Jewish. How could he be a Communist? All he did was nationalize the oil industry for Iranians instead of for the British. And you call Shiism Medievalist, but isn't Judaism a stone age religion? Do you put those little boxes with magic amulets on your head?
Anonymous [792] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:14 pm GMT
@Rurik "Uncle Shlomo wants YOU to die for Matzovania!"
RadicalCenter , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:24 pm GMT
@Rich You're certainly right, Rich, that any true Muslim is obligated to spread Islam by any means necessary, including violence and intimidation -- our Quality Commenter Talha's eloquent and shrewd apologia to the contrary notwithstanding. I wouldn't trust the people running Iran or any other Muslim country, and I'd not let any Muslims settle in our lands.

BUT the us gov does seem to be consistently lying and trying to pick a fight far from our shores. That dishonesty and belligerence is not obviated by the nature of the contrived opponent. And they do seem to be doing it at the behest of Israel and its powerful domestic lobby and media, often with no benefit to the American people, or affirmative harm to us.

Can't we both be realistic and not naive about Islam, AND not aggress or provoke a war?

RadicalCenter , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:29 pm GMT
@Colin Wright That's a fair point, but there are similar conclusions drawn by long, detailed analyses of the koran by ex-Muslims who are fluent in Arabic.

These are people who know both the Koran and the subsequent interpretive writings well. Doesn't mean they're necessarily all correct, just that the very fearful and critical view of Islam that many of us find persuasive, is NOT based only on selective or ill-informed readings of those texts.

turtle , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:33 pm GMT
@eah

decisive defensive action

Absolutely "weapons grade" pure horseshit.

RadicalCenter , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:39 pm GMT
@Robert Magill I don't doubt that the elites behind the us gov would cause tension, violence, even war to profit from it, through higher oil prices or otherwise.

As for the us stock market, though, how many of the 100 biggest, 500 biggest, or 5000 biggest publicly traded companies (by capitalization) would benefit from a spike in oil and nat gas prices?

Wouldn't modt publicly traded US companies be harmed by the higher fuel prices causing higher prices for groceries, clothes, and other goods that are shipped, flown, or trucked by vehicles burning fossil fuels?

Consumers wouldn't be able to afford to buy as much of those companies' goods and services after shelling out exorbitant prices to fuel their cars and heat / cool their homes, paying more for non-locally sourced groceries, etc. When the average American has to pay seven bucks for a gallon of gas, he will cut back on other spending and/or borrow (charge) more to survive. That means many fewer people spending on luxuries such as vacations and dining out and entertainment. More people postponing home renovation or repair, forgoing medical or dental care, and so on.

As for the states and localities of the USA, some might benefit on balance from higher oil and gas prices, but most definitely suffer from it. Much of Texas would benefit, including any state and local governments getting extraction taxes, but none of the nine million people in New Jersey, the 20 million people in Florida, and so on. I would wager that most US states are not net energy exporters but net energy consumers, but I'll check for stats on that.

SeekerofthePresence , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:48 pm GMT
@anarchyst Evangelicals can never cut their 'bilicals
To death and killing, to which they stick like barnacles.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-NhHUZMufLA?feature=oembed

El Dato , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 5:50 pm GMT
@A123

elements of the IRGC will dispatch Khameni to save their own lives

Stop hitting opium pipes.

An Iranian "operation Valkyrie"?

Too much TV.

The Alarmist , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:11 pm GMT
@Rich US troops are only legitimate targets to the extent they are uninvited combatants in another country. Your reasoning on this is bizarre.

My comment had nothing to do with dissing Israel or defending Iran, but since you mention both, the US is entirely too subservient to the former since its inception and has been screwing in the internal affairs of the latter for the better part of a century. When I said the US drew first blood, I wasn't talking about last week.

pB , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 6:53 pm GMT
@Not Raul russia monitors all usa nukes, if they see any large scale nuclear attack they can not wait to make sure its heading just south of their border or just north of it.
any large scale nuclear launch by the usa would trigger mad.
and im sure the nuclear armed muslim power right next door will not particularly enjoy having to deal with the country smothered in fall out and the dead bodies of 80 million muslims.
A123 , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:05 pm GMT
@MLK You are 100% correct.

Solemani was commanding an operation to put Trump in the position Carter was in with the hostage crisis.

Trump's actions were proportionate and well considered. Instead of 'recapturing past glory', Khameni has another massive failure to his name. The weak leader is growing weaker as time goes by.

The strike also impacts the thinking of Iranian military leaders. They now understand that if the Ayatollah orders an irrational & unwinnable escalation, they may suffer personal consequences.

One thing could end this quickly and bloodlessly for all sides -- The IRGC removing the highly unpopular Khameni, thus protecting the people of Iran. This will not happen tomorrow, but Trump just took advantage of Khameni's errors to bring that day closer.
______

Of course, the paid Iranian shills posting here will decry this simple and obvious truth. Fortunately, no one believes them.

PEACE

Iris , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:19 pm GMT
@Beefcake the Mighty The September 2019 attacks occurred in the very special context of Aramco's Initial Public Offering (IPO). For the first time ever, Aramco, considered the largest company in the world in terms of valuation, was about to sell 1.5% of its shares on the stock market.

The attacks on the Aramco facilities at the time caused the total valuation to drop from an initial $2 trillion estimate to only 1,7 $trillion. So the attacks were extremely convenient for some international financial institutions who wanted to buy Aramco shares on the cheap .

The close relationship between such financial institutions and the Israeli government, who could have carried the attacks and blame it on Iran, is of course a complete coincidence. Or so we are told.

https://fortune.com/2019/11/17/saudi-aramco-1-7-trillion-valuation-ipo-undershooting-target/

BeenThereDunnit , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:22 pm GMT
@Beefcake the Mighty The only explanation would be that the Israelis got wind of the impending attack. Then they used it as a cover for their own attack. They may also have put themselves on alert, waiting for an attack having taking place. Then they struck the same target in near real-time, using ready-made plans. Both possibilities would certainly be far fetched. But they would not be completely illogical because oil installations being targeted could be expected after all the prior drone attacks carried out by the Yemenis. OTOH, a quick search on the Internet shows that GPS guidance has become considerably more precise in recent years. If the Iranians are able to make use of such technology after all, then a war in the Middle East would become an interesting proposition to say the least. The Americans can switch off GPS and they can jam GLONASS and the other GPSes that exist. But that's not possible over the entire Middle East. That would be too costly both in terms of the jamming itself and the losses incurred in the wider economy. GPS is terribly important in these days. Everything depends on it from oil tankers navigating to excavators being guided along.
Nicolás Palacios Navarro , says: Website Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:24 pm GMT
@A123 Thank Yahweh that your average, drooling, red-white-and-duh American is always ready to believe any simple and obvious lie conjured by paid Israeli shills such as yourself.

PEACE

BeenThereDunnit , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:28 pm GMT
@9/11 Inside job Yes, if the Aramco attack was not a false flag, then the time for a false flag would certainly be now.
Iris , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:31 pm GMT
@A123

The weak leader is growing weaker as time goes by.

I don't know about Khamenei, but your comments are definitely growing weaker and more grotesque by the hour. Take a break, Hasbara.

KenH , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:35 pm GMT
Iran is in a no-win situation. If they do nothing and bide their time then I believe the Trump admin will manufacture a casus belli for additional military action this time possibly striking targets inside Iran. Trump's window is between now and the November 2020 election and his re-election is far from a lock given the demographic changes in the electorate since 2016 which is why Iran may decide just wait things out.

The real question is if Russia will get involved to assist Iran or just sit on the sidelines and whine and wimper about American aggression and violations of international law?

Others saw Donald Trump as a Dr. Strangelove when he was running for president but I thought that was ridiculous since I saw Trump as more of a showman and entertainer but I now see that they were right and I was wrong.

Rich , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:35 pm GMT
@ivegotrythm I'm a Chrisrened and Confirmed Catholic and if those $99 DNA tests are accurate, I have no ashkenazi or semitic ancestors. Just Europeans and Neanderthals in my family line. Not sure what I've written that seems to trigger everyone into thinking I'm Jewish.

I will admit that growing up I did date a couple of secular Jewish gals and I did have a few Jews among my childhood friends. That being said, I also have secular Muslim associates who are decent enough people. I try to see things as clearly as I can and also from a patriotic American point of view. Guess that offends many here who only want to live in an echo chamber where everyone has the same opinions.

renfro , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:42 pm GMT
@Castellio You found it ..good work!
A123 , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:57 pm GMT
@Iris ROTFL

The fact that you respond with insults strengthens my case. I have obviously presented facts that you cannot counter.

Thank you for your admission.

PEACE

Skeptikal , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 8:27 pm GMT
"For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland"

Wasn't it PamAm whose slogan was "Fly the friendly skies . . ."?

I have relatives who fly a lot. I hope the skies remain friendly for American civilians . . .

Katherine

Skeptikal , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 8:39 pm GMT
@Anthony Aaron What if Russia started to declassify documents and info they must have in their possession on 9/11?
That would *really* cause "dissension" in the US of A.

Also, what if Russia put some kind of screws on Israel?

With the two "countries'" (scare quos meant for the Jewish National State) long and somewhat troubled association, there must be something the Russkies can do to scare the Zionists.

Actually, any 9/11 info would probably do both tricks at once.

Skeptikal , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 8:49 pm GMT
@Biff By the same token if you criticize those who are currently attacking Trump via the impeachment charade you will be accused of being a "Trump supporter/lover/apologist/kissing Trump's sphincter (yes, this is at Moon of Alabama, no less!).

This is the "Trump gotcha" equivalent of the MSM labeling anyone who advances a hypothesis besides the "official" narrative of events such as Dallas or 9/11 a conspiracy theory.

Based Inquisitor , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:05 pm GMT
@Paul holland Yes, Iran's best move would be to take out Bibi himself or one of Trump's bosses in the US, like Adelson. If Bibi himself is hit, Israel can't hide behind Trump's skirt any longer but will have to take the war to Iran itself.
MLK , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:12 pm GMT
@A123

Trump's actions were proportionate and well considered. Instead of 'recapturing past glory', Khameni has another massive failure to his name. The weak leader is growing weaker as time goes by.

Well, making himself part of the plot against Trump by shooting his mouth off ("You can't do a damn thing about it.") must be deeply unsettling within the Iranian regime about his leadership.

I've long given the Iranians their resistance due but it's becoming clear they're overrated. The W Bush and Obama administrations were gifts to Iran. It's impossible to overstate how thoroughly they overplayed their hand with Obama on JCPOA.

The strike also impacts the thinking of Iranian military leaders. They now understand that if the Ayatollah orders an irrational & unwinnable escalation, they may suffer personal consequences.

We have two fairly recent related analogues -- when Turkey shot down the Russian fighter and that lame US-backed coup against Erdogan. In the first case, unsurprisingly because Putin knows what he's doing, Russia extracted geopolitical gains for itself in return for letting Erdogan climb out of the tree. In the latter, Obama acted pretty much like the 11 year old girl that he was throughout his figurehead terms. Trump is still having to deal with the problem, all because Obama wouldn't give up the CIA Islamist living in PA, an entirely reasonable demand to put a period on things.

No doubt, the Iranians have already been told we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Trump LOVES making deals, particularly when he has the counter-party by the shorthairs.

anastasia , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:19 pm GMT
They are calling a celebrated General of the Iranian Army a "terrorist". It's like calling George W. Patton a terrorist.

They say that he was planning an imminent attack on American diplomats and soldiers.

Just how stupid do they think we are?

anastasia , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:20 pm GMT
If Israel asked Trump to eat dog poo-poo, I wonder if he would do it, with or without his phobia about germs.
BeenThereDunnit , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:21 pm GMT
The Saker forgets to mention the way this event went down. Trump walked into a room at the Mar-a-Lago where he was met by a bunch of Neocons including Kuchner. They told him of Soleimani presenting a target of opportunity and Trump ok'ed the attack. This paints a picture of Trump having lost every bit of control that might still have been in his hands. He was visibly agitated when he went on TV. Probably he had begun to realize what he has gotten himself into. The US then doubled down by striking a second time. You have to pause your breath to take in what has happened. The US have officially killed government officials of a country where they have stationed troops and that officially is an ally of the US. The US have also officially killed officials of another country that were on an official, diplomatic visit to their ally. Lots of uses of the word "official" here. But what it basically means is that all damns have broken. Total chaos is now the order of the day. The US have resorted to naked violence in their dealings with the rest of the world. Nobody is safe who cannot hold the US at gunpoint. It's the Wild West with nuclear weapons. It was true before but now the US have begun acting on it completely overtly. And the US congress is in the process of passing a bill that declares Russia a supporter of terrorism. You have to wonder what will happen once this bill has passed and some high-ranking Russian official makes his next visit to Kaliningrad via plane across the Baltic Sea.
Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:23 pm GMT
@Rich So you're just a cuck, then?
Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:35 pm GMT
@Kratoklastes I put as much stock in your "expertise" as I do in that of all the other military geniuses on the internet, which is to say, none at all.
Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:37 pm GMT
@Passer by I don't click on links that are substituted for comment.
Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:39 pm GMT
@annamaria You're telling things I already know. I don't know what in my post would have lead you to believe I need your dissertation.
Rich , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 9:52 pm GMT
@RadicalCenter It is, of course, reasonable to wish to avoid another foreign adventure in a distant land. I'm of two minds on the prospect. On the one hand, I agree that the US should turn its back on the Middle East, let them settle their own differences. On the other hand, there is a legitimate argument that the day the US backs down from these foreign entanglements, we lose the dollar as the world's reserve currency and this results in extreme economic hardship in the US (as well as much of the rest of the world).

In the meantime, both major parties support our foreign entanglements, both firmly support Israel and no one who is anti-Israel or anti-MIC is anywhere close to being elected to any high office in the country. So, observing from that angle, the argument for withdrawal has no chance of winning, and the argument for preventing the expansion of a loudly anti-US country from increasing its influence is not without merit. If we're going to be there anyway, we might as well keep winning.

As far as the opinion that the US is acting at the behest of Israel, I think it's more a case of sharing mutual interests at this time. Jews are a very rich and powerful ethnic group in this country, and will continue to be for quite some time. Their support for Israel is not unlike the old Anglos who twice dragged America into unnecessary wars against Germany for the benefit of merry old England. I'd rather all Americans were more concerned with the future and security of the US, but that's not the way it is.

Desert Fox , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 10:03 pm GMT
@anastasia He would eat it and say it was the most beautiful piece of dog crap ever.
Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 10:43 pm GMT
@anastasia That "celebrated" worthless general is only celebrated by inbred muslims.
Christine , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 10:47 pm GMT
What about the role Turkey might/will play? So far, it looks like a rather unprincipled loose cannon out for itself and therefore manipulable.
Based Inquisitor , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 10:49 pm GMT
@anonymous The US would not need hypersonic weapons when it has hundreds of armed drones constantly prowling the skies over Iraq.
Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 10:52 pm GMT
@lauris71 Yay -- another military expert!
Rich , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 11:14 pm GMT
@Beefcake the Mighty Because I dated a Jewish girl ? I don't think you know what a cuck is. Ask that fellow who picks up your wife in the evening, then brings her home in the morning to explain the meaning of the word.
bruce county , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 11:22 pm GMT
@Passer by Two hundred and fifty million dollar exercise??? Wow and they got smoked in ten miunutes. Very telling. Suicide bombers in zodiacs crazy to think of that..

Thanks for that.
I want to see the one where the Toronto Maple Leafs win a Stanley Cup .My team and maybe our year.

Harbinger , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 11:54 pm GMT
@Z-man Yup.
Here's the insanity of it all. Here in Scotland and I presume the rest of the UK, there are certain branches of Christianity who go out at the weekend, going around bars, giving leaflets on Jesus and engaging in conversation with homosexuals. I've had a few debates with them, but they just make me laugh. I know their bible better than them. Last time I asked them "ever heard of the Talmud?" They looked at me goggle eyed. I told them, specifically what it stated about their Jesus and Mary and they said I was lying. They stated that Jews would never do such things.

This is what we're dealing with. We're dealing with an utterly ignorant Christian following who truly do believe the crap about Jews, because they're utterly indoctrinated. The biggest problem isn't so much Judaism, it's the morons who wilfully follow the Jews, as God's chosen, believing they do no wrong. Utterly and completely indoctrinated fools.

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 12:03 am GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso Qassem Soleimani was indeed a celebrated Iranian general. He was known as an honorable man and talented military commander.
As for 'Gleimhart Mantooso' -- never heard of her.
SeekerofthePresence , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 12:06 am GMT
@BeenThereDunnit Important point. Trump now threatens to hit 52 major Iranian sites if there is any retaliation for the Soleimani assassination. The Russians will observe this precipitous escalation and factor it into the next standoff between Russian and American forces. Russia will have to assume that 'Murka will escalate massively, and will therefore be on a hair-trigger for the use of nuclear weapons. Massive escalation is now the order of the day, and presages nuclear war.
Anonymous [406] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 12:11 am GMT
@The Saker

If Trump is the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable President", and their goals require him out of the way, "at which point the Neocons will jettison him and replace him by an even more subservient individual (say Pence or Pelosi)"

Scary thought: The neocons/Israel/DeepState/MIC/media have been going all out to either control and/or get rid of Trump through Russiagate and now impeachment. Having succeeded in getting Trump to commit this huge mistake, could they now decide it's worth going further than just impeachment to get rid of him, in order to create a horrible false flag to pin on Iran, get Pence/Pelosi into power, and have the US destroy Iran for Israel with media-orchestrated US public support?

Really wish Trump had had the sense to say no to this when they presented their murderous plan to him.

hotrod31 , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 12:20 am GMT
@Rich Rich: You imply that "Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate target." How on earth could any s-a-n-e person arrive at your conclusion? Are you nucking futs??
This twisted thinking would imply that any member of a sovereign country's military, while visiting another country on a peace mission, from your perspective, is a 'legitimate target'? With people like you, it is little wonder that the world ends up with imbeciles like Trump.
Well help me doG
The Scalpel , says: Website Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 12:24 am GMT
@Rurik First comes the vote to expel the US forces, then when they don't leave, the constant pinprick attacks and , if available, taking out a high value US target and it all gets blamed on Iraq irregular forces
nickels , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 12:49 am GMT
Rethinking Trump as the antichrist.
I just always he would be smarter, more smooth.
Not just such a bombastic low iq idiot New Yorker
NoseytheDuke , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:07 am GMT
@Rich

I try to see things as clearly as I can and also from a patriotic American point of view.

Perhaps you should consider having your eyes and hearing checked by a specialist. Also, some additional education regarding the history of the United States of America starting with the Declaration of Independence would appear to be long overdue. (Hint: The clue is in the word independence and the efforts that patriots made to achieve it)

freedom-cat , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:14 am GMT

No less alarming is that this creates the absolutely perfect conditions for a false flag à la "USS Liberty". Right now, the Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and facilities in the entire Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves. How? Simple! Fire a missile/torpedo/mine at any USN ship and blame Iran. We all know that if that happens the US political elites will do what they did the last time around: let US servicemen die and protect Israel at all costs (read up on the USS Liberty if you don't know about it)

I made a remark about the likelihood of a False Flag in another thread and was lumped in as "weak-minded" and "know-it-all Unz-ite". LOL. ( https://www.unz.com/estriker/the-line-in-the-sand/ ). My comment on how Trump is stupid and a great scapegoat was also targeted because the person said Trump is "playing a charade" and is all deep state. Well, I don't think so at all. Trump is a walking Ego stick and an excellent scapegoat if anything goes wrong.

But seriously, how can anyone not see the immense gravity of the situation? My god, they murdered a General, which is next to killing a President. This is a clear provocation and I agree 100% with the possibilities that Saker brings up.

I'll take it further as well. There could be a nuke used against Iran in the event a False Flag of massive proportions directed at civilians gets people onboard for a fight. They don't want to get bogged down in a long war with Iran. My guess is Israel wants them out of the picture for a long time or for good.

NoseytheDuke , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:17 am GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso Well, annamaria is a much respected commenter here who often adds better information to those comments lacking much of anything substantial, such as your own. Consider it a favour to you and bear in mind also that a great many people read the comments without commenting themselves so they too are the beneficiaries of her well researched contributions. Have a nice day.
Alternate History , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:19 am GMT
All the options presented by Saker are viable and desirable. They don't even have to be limited to either/or. The political option of hitting exclusively IsraHell with salvos of missiles would be another option. Israel is, after all, the culprit behind the scenes.
Alternate History , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:25 am GMT
@Rich You are a brainwashed American. I'm sorry for the redundancy.
freedom-cat , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:34 am GMT
@Rich Imagine Iran taking out Amikam Norkin, the Commander of Israeli Air Force!! And maybe doing a Two-fer and get Bibi on the side.
Smith , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:46 am GMT
Member when Iran said they will level Israel in 30 minutes if US strikes Iran?

I wish a nigger would.

Z-man , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 2:08 am GMT
@Harbinger

Last time I asked them "ever heard of the Talmud?" They looked at me goggle eyed.

I too was ignorant of it until my later years.
An anecdotal story: Years ago at my 'office' Christmas party the one Jew in our group shared, with his goy coworkers , that he was struggling with The Talmud . You see he was a very secular ok kind of guy who liked to hang out with the 'un-chosen'. But he was now married to a very 'orthodox' woman and he had to learn about the Talmud. He confessed that the 'manual' was not too kind to gentiles. He was at a crossroad. I noticed the struggle he was going thru. I believe he stayed with his wife, I haven't seen him in years.
Thanks to him I became even more 'woke' to the truths of Judaism.

Kratoklastes , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 2:28 am GMT
@Commentator Mike

As if Afghanistan isn't inhospitable mountainous terrain? So somehow Iran's topography is worse is it? They invaded Afghanistan without even controlling any neighbouring countries.

Have you looked at where KOP is? By 2007 that was still a 'forward base'. It's only 100 miles from Kabul.

Also, while the US didn't explicitly 'control' Uzbekistan (which is where the initial force staged), Karimov was a US ally and there is no love lost between the Uzbeks and the Pashto.

Today, the US controls only those parts of Afghanistan that the Taliban haven't decided to take back yet. It's not clear why you would consider US strategy in Afghanistan as a good example – it's now widely-known to have been so bad that it required 17 years of official bullshit to cover its failure.

.

You've also missed about fifty key points of difference between Afghanistan and Iran.

The ones that most people don't need reminding about include –

① Afghanistan had no organised military to speak of;

② it had absolutely no air defence capabilities and limited airspace monitoring;

③ its disorganised military was having a hard time with Dostum, Massoud and Hekmatyar;

④ the initial US insertion was about 6 SAD guys whose main role was to meet up with the Northern Alliance; they, and the rest of TF Dagger arrived by helo from K-K in Uzbekistan (the US had always supported Karimov) – the TF Dagger insertion is now the record for the longest helo insertion in military history ;

⑤ Kandahar and Kabul had already fallen before FOB Rhino was established – in other words, the Northern Alliance plus US air power had done the job before ISAF even got its shit unpacked;

⑥ Notwithstanding the unseating of the Taliban, The US lost . They knew in 2001 that they were losing, and lied about it for 17 years.

On ⑥: when you're a superpower, if you fail to impose your Imperial Will on the place that is a LOSS .

.

Ordinarily, in these sort of situations it's left as an exercise to work out which of those points are critical in the new game (where the US tries to do the same thing in Iran).

But since most people are imbeciles, I'll put a thumb on the scales.

More below the fold. Read it or don't, but if you think of some counter-argument it's best to assume I've already thought of it, coz I'm good at this. (The folks at JWAC probably don't know my name any more, because the Yanks our crew helped train in the 90s have moved on since then).

[MORE]

In the case of Iran:

Re ①: Iran has a well-equipped professional military with an excellent senior staff. (That said: Afghanistan didn't have much by way of formal military, but it did have millions of people with battlefield experience against a technologically superior enemy about half of whom were on the Taliban side).

Re ⑤: Ain't gonna happen because ④ can't happen.

④ is made orders of magnitude harder by !{②,③} (! is the 'NOT' operator, indicating that {} is untrue in the Iranian case).

Dealing with !③ first: there is no domestic insurgency worth talking to in Iran – certainly not one that is remotely analogous to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in 2001, which was basically a full-fledged opponent in a civil war (which the NA won, with the aid of US air power). Whoever crosses the threshold cannot rely on divided attention of the Iranian military.

OK, now !②. More convoluted – requires more space.

Insertion of the whole force by rotor is really hard if the adversary has any significant air defences. (At the time that the US invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban couldn't even rely on regularly-updated satellite imagery to detect movements in US naval assets: now you can do that from your phone, and if you're a government you have drones).

With a sophisticated enemy it's so hard to insert large numbers of boots by rotor, that it can be ruled out.

So if you want to get boots on the ground without everyone having to traverse a mountain range (exposing flanks and supply lines), you a need to get reliable control over a big lump of land that has an airport on it capable of landing troop transports (or being converted to same).

(The passel of land has to be on the 'enemy' side of the mountains – I put that in because some readers went to US schools and geography is not a strong point.)

Controlling an air base would require a battalion on the ground on the bad-guy side of the hills. You sure as fuck don't want to fight your way over the hills and then try to control an airbase.

Trying to get a battalion-sized presence in by rotorcraft would mean using MH-47s, which are slow and ( ahem ) not very stealthy (actually, they're very not stealthy) and the US would require more than a battalion on the ground.

Airdrop? Same problem: if the incoming aircraft is detected, you know everything about manpower disposition (troop size and position) before the men hit the ground.

Iran has the capability to see airborne things coming; it also has a range of solutions to make airborne things lose their airborne-ness.

For mobile overwatch, Iran has AWACS – 3 old Orions and some retroftted An-140s for maritime, and a bunch of unarmed drones (they've been cranking out UAVs as fast as possible). They also have JY-14 medium-long range radar, which is handy because their range means that they can be lit up earlier than short-range AA radar.

And if you don't think that they have an intel-sharing arrangement with Russia, you're not thinking hard enough.

As far as making flying things stop flying, they have a fuckton of SAMs. A genuine fuckton – especially relative to what the US has faced in any engagement since Korea.

They have a similar fuckton of MANPADs: even primitive RPGs are bad news for helos, and MANPADs are much more worser think of how badly " Hind vs Stinger " played out in the 80s, and you are on roughly the right page

They also have a little over 1500 AA batteries (most of those will be dead on first contact, but they're still a nuisance).

The Iranian Air Force itself – forget it, it's irrelevant.

The first sign things are kicking off will be a bunch of TLAMs fucking up every airbase in Iran. (Plus the obligatory US/NATO SOP war crime of targeting civilian infrastructure for electricity generation, water treatment, sewage treatment, and telecommunications)

This is why Iran has fuck-all air-superiority assets: and a little over a hundred 1980s-level offensive aircraft (about 150 of them: F14; Fulcrum; Su22, 24 and 25).

They learned from the experience of Iraq's Air Force in 1991: it was much much larger than Iran's is now, but a shitload of it was destroyed on the ground due to the regime's appalling lack of preparedness.

So from all that

⑥ is a foregone conclusion.

Some things that play no part in the conclusion:
ⓐ that I despise US* hypocritical bromides about freedom and 'democracy';
ⓑ that the US military is a bloated set of boondoggles run by grifters,with the mindset of a 20-something NPC who just watched '300';
ⓒ that the US has had its arse kicked by several sets of raggedy-ass peasants from 1968 onwards and has underperformed in every peer engagement since 1789. (inb4 WWI and WWII they were on the winning side , but others – e.g., the Soviets – did the actual winning )

.

" Topography matters " doesn't mean that topography is all that matters. The gap between combatants has to be extremely wide in order for technology and manpower to overcome terrain.

In fact it's hard to know how wide the gap needs to be fortech/power to win, because all of the 'invade without properly considering terrain disadvantages " has resulted in strategic losses for the superior force at all times since WWII.

We can say that the gap has to be wider than " Viet Cong vs US " or " Mujahedin vs USSR " or USC/SNA vs US/UNOSOM " or " Taliban vs US/ISAF ".

.

People who are interested in how shit works in modern warfare need to read William Lind, or John Robb or Arreguín-Toft.

Start with the short-ish paper (which is now a book):

Arreguín-Toft (2001) " How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict " International Security , Vol. 26, No. 1 (Summer 2001), pp. 93–128

SeekerofthePresence , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 2:47 am GMT
What a US-Iran War Might Look Like

Skeptikal , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 2:50 am GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso that should be
"would have LED you to believe . . ."

present tense: lead
past tense: led
present perfect: has led

Skeptikal , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 2:59 am GMT
@Anonymous I wonder whether, as you suggest, Trump hasn't just walked into a trap.
And has just figured out that this time, he's the patsy.

If such is the case, his best option might be to address the American people directly as to what has gone down with this murder and sack Pompeo and Kushner. (Turn the former over to Iran???? Just kidding . . . but depriving him of security would accomplish the same thing.)

The problem is that the vipers are within his own family: Ivanka and Jared Kushner. Stupidest thing he could have done, having those two on his "diplomatic" and "advisory" staff.

Is Trump being hung out to dry?

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 3:13 am GMT
@Rich No, because you're shamelessly whoring for Jewish interests. Thanks for confirming.
By-tor , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 3:34 am GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso Are they treated as Julian Assange is in the UK or as Maria Butina was for a year-and-a-half in a US jail forced to plead guilty for something she was not guilty of in the first place? Or as Manning is being held in solitary confinement because he will not lie for a get-out-of-jail card? Are the Koreans subjected to execution by black murderers while in their cells? Let us know when you have some evidence.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/inmates-escape-mississippi-penitentiary-amid-statewide-lockdown-prisoner/story?id=68069105&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com&dbr=1

Anonymous [375] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 3:52 am GMT
@the grand wazoo Also, there is a large faction within the Democratic party who will never go to war for Israel, because they simply don't like Jews. They may be fooled into hating Russia because they are white, but they'll side with an underdog Iran over a belligerent Israel every time.

If the Democrats get control, they will effectively control the USA indefinitely, because they seem perfectly happy to import all the Democratic voters they'll require to remain in power

The window for Jews to utilize the American state as their wrecking ball are limited. Trump might be the best chance they will ever get. America is on such shaky footing on so many levels, they may implode domestically before they can the job done.

Z-man , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 5:05 am GMT
@Kratoklastes

So I would guess that the appropriate tit-for-tat splash would be LtGen Scott Berrier (G2 – Intel).
Everyone's heard of that guy, right?

No I didn't know him but now we all do. Ok that would be tit for tat, but I would still go for a 4 Star. (Grin)

Plus, if they splashed Pompous, the resulting fatberg would burn for longer than the Springfield tyre fire. Nobody wants that.

LOL!!!
He is the most dispicable NEOCON stooge out there, even worse than 'Linda' Graham. Christian Zionists, the personification of OXY MORON .
Ok, not Plump'eo but we gotta give the Iranians one real Neo-cohen, to scare the be-Jesus out of them (the Jooz that is). (Grin)

animalogic , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 7:21 am GMT
@Desert Fox "Israel and the ZUS want a nuclear war with Russia "
A few years ago I would have LOL 'd at such a proposition. Today, I scratch my head.
Is the US so completely insane as to attack a peer or (indeed) stronger nuclear power such as Russia?
I don't think so but .
animalogic , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 7:59 am GMT
@UninformedButCurious Is Trump "disposable" ? Maybe. But unlikely.
Given that Tel Aviv is in charge (a synonym for "neocon") , & Trump has virtually tripped over his own tongue in his haste to lick their boots (& other bodily parts) it wouldn't appear that Trump has yet lost his value.
And in a more domestic sense -- Pence ! OMG, is there a political leader with less charisma? Pence makes Corbyn look like Ronald Reagan.(People greatly under rate charisma & other subjective leadership qualities)
So dumping Trump would have severe political repercussions.
animalogic , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 8:38 am GMT
@John Chuckman Iran will "carefully plan a response, and that response may not be clear and unambiguous, and it might be multi-faceted and done over time."
Agreed.
Hopefully Iran will respond largely through proxies. And also concentrate on non-military responses.
IE, putting maximum pressure on Iraq's parliament to force all US forces out of Iraq -- difficult, but that would be a huge win. Of course, they'll still get the blame -- but should a cat in Patagonia die in suspicious circumstances Iran would get the blame for that too .
As for any nuclear response by Iran, that truly would be "acting foolishly". Anything along nuclear lines would be a perfect provocative to Israel /the US.
Sean , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 8:55 am GMT
@Kratoklastes I think the Iranian leadership and populace would be more convinced of the effectiveness of the Iranian military if Soleimani had managed to keep himself alive.
BeenThereDunnit , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 9:13 am GMT
@SeekerofthePresence Not only that, he has even stated that among them are sites of great cultural importance. Do they want to attack mosques? Some of those Iranian mosques are not only holy sites as such, they are marvels of architecture. Attacking them would be a crime against the heritage of all mankind. That would be truly mad but we will see, sadly. It would enrage Muslims to a degree not seen in living memory. They might "just" attack sites commemorating the fallen of the war against Iraq. That would be nearly as bad.

Anyways, refraining from any more threats, as Trump has demanded, is a near impossibility. What is a threat and what not? Are red flags of revenge on display in Iran already a threat? The probability of war has to reckoned at near 100% now.

The Iranians should disperse their assets urgently. Nuclear assets that can be dispersed have to be at the top of the list. They should actually try to avoid making any more threats for now. Trump has conveniently laid out his strategy to them, allowing them to have the war started by the Americans at a point of time of their choosing. After a period of restraint, they should gradually start making slight threats again, placing the ball in the American court. The dust will have settled somewhat by then, world opinion will have realized how criminally the US have behaved by killing Iraqi and Iranian officials. The later the war starts, the better for the Iranians. That explains why the US are escalating so heavily right now.

If Iran really got hold of some Ukrainian nuclear warheads back when the Soviet Union dissolved, then the time for testing one of them would be now.

The big question has to be how China and Russia position themselves. The Americans and Israelis seem to think that Putin and Xi are weak enough internally to allow them to go through with it all. The true battlefield will be Russian and and Chinese public opinion. If Putin and Xi can convince their peoples that Iran has to be supported, then the equation would shift. They should at least start making weapon deliveries. Russia could even claim that it has to protect the nuclear site in Busher where Russians work, deploying S-400s manned by its own personnel. China could claim that war in the Persian Gulf would be too much of a threat to its economy. Both claims would be true.

anonymous [217] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 9:24 am GMT
@anonymous

Perhaps they'll be able to gin up some popular riots and demonstrations throughout the Muslim world.

That should be the best strategy for Iran to invoke the common heritage of the true monotheist faith we share, of which there is much.

On a personal level, even if I have reservations about Shi'sm, and what I see as clear deviancy, I, and I am sure many other true monotheist brothers, are still on the side of Iran, because my suspicion of Shi'sm is far less than my visceral hatred for Whitey/Joonist Imperialism. May the Almighty One's wrath befall the satanically evil pagan/godless Whitey/Joonist Imperialists, those avowed enemies of True Monotheism.

Iran should find ways to communicate with the Arab street directly using Whitey/Zionist Imperialist tools like Twitter and Facebook, as long as it will be allowed. The irony is not lost on me.

anonymous [217] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 9:50 am GMT
@Rich I don't know much about Soleimani, except for the bile spewed by western imperialist stooges in the fake media.

But, I know there has got to be some good and honourable in a person who fights satanic evil of Whitey & Joonist Imperialism.

May the Almighty One forgive his sins and grant him the rewards of a true monotheist martyr.

Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 10:49 am GMT
@anonymous Long Live Iran. Death to America.
Priss Factor , says: Website Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 10:52 am GMT
@Anonymous

Also, there is a large faction within the Democratic party who will never go to war for Israel, because they simply don't like Jews.

They don't get to decide. The uppermost elites do. Lower-level Democrats are just rubber-stampers. They may not like Israel but must still serve it. Jewish Money and Media compel them to.

Tsar Nicholas , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 11:50 am GMT
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro

I believe a not insignificant amount -- perhaps even the majority -- of pro-war Americans know this to be true: That they and their progeny are mere cannon fodder for Zionist imperialism. But they simply don't care or are even proud of dying for so "worthy" a cause. Never underestimate the persistent and deeply-rooted hysterical adulation that Israel commands -- nor the utter foolishness of your average American.

This is so true. American Protestant Christianity – Evangelicalism in particular – has been warped and modified by Zionism. Whereas for 1800 years Christians believed and preached that God took on human form and that Jesus died for the sins of all humanity, the belief now seems to be that God is a real estate agent. I think that even if Evangelicals were to find out that the Talmud teaches that in the Millennium every Jew is to have 2,800 goyim as slaves, they would accept it.

Tsar Nicholas , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 12:01 pm GMT
@A123 Of course, the paid Iranian shills posting here will decry this simple and obvious truth. Fortunately, no one believes them.

I was out of work for forty seven years (due to my issues with women, and my extreme myopia, not to mention my body odour). So I was really happy to be offered a job as a cyber warrior by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command under their blessed leader General Qasem Soleimani at what I thought was a really good rate of pay.

Imagine my disillusion when I discovered how few pounds I could get for my Rials, thanks to the continuing US economic sanctions. So, with a heavy heart I realised that I had no alternative other than to go to work for Mossad to finance my sex offending.

EoinW , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:23 pm GMT
People need to realize that the dynamic has changed completely. For Iran, patience is no longer an option. Israel/USA will continue to attack. Seriously, look at Trump's 52 target tweet. It sounds like the ranting of Hitler during his last days in the bunker. Not fighting back is the worst thing Iran can now do.

Regarding the court of public opinion: Iran had the sympathy of the majority of people in the world long before the new year. It counts for nothing when it comes to avoiding war. All that matters is the western media and the brainwashed western public. Iran can never win that PR fight. In fact, if you polled Americans and gave them the option of ending the Iran problem by nuking them that the majority would support this action. A large number of Canadians would also support this. More importantly, after such a nuclear attack and 80 million dead Iranians the main thing westerners will care about is getting back to business as usual. America will resort to a nuclear attack because it believes it can get away with it. What does Iran have to lose?

I hope the following happens Monday:

1) the Houthis strike and shut down all Saudi oil production.

2) a cyber attack in the USA. Maybe take down the power grid. We know how much Americans love war when they can sit in front of their tv and cheer on the US military. How much will they love it, or the people who brought them this war, when they're stuck in their unheated homes in the middle of January?

I also hope they are seriously considering the following:

3) hitting every US military target in the region that could be used to bomb Iran.

4) Hizbollah and Syria launching attacks against Israel. The Israeli's are the real provocateurs. If they pay no price they will continue to push for further aggression.

No matter what is done by Iran or its allies the retaliation by the US will be greater than what we've seen so far. Even if nothing is done Israel/USA will create another incident for an excuse to attack again. The war has started. One sure way for Iran to lose it is to not participate.

KindKaiser , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:49 pm GMT
@Rich World War I – fought on behalf of ZIONISTS who influenced Jews in Woodrow Wilson's cabinet (the "brain trust", and a certain Jewish man, STEPHEN WISE, known as the 'Red Rabbi' for his affinity for Communism!). This deal was in exchange for Britain giving Palestine to the Zionist Jews (even though it wasn't even Britain's to give at the time)! Surely you have heard of the BALFOUR DECLARATION, right? Quit spinning this disingenuous pseudo-history!

World War II – Franklin Delano Roosevelt's cabinet was ALSO chock-full of Zionists, and a certain Jewish man, now in his older years but still very influential, STEPHEN WISE yet again, was also one of his closest advisors. And Churchill, who ALSO was bought and paid for by Zionist interests, was in on this as well read Pat Buchanan's "Hitler, Churchill, and the Unnecessary War" for a pretty mainstream take on this subject. But basically World War II was ALSO fought for Zionists, and what was the result?

Britain: LOST THEIR EMPIRE
Zionists: CREATED THE COLONIALIST SETTLER STATE OF ISRAEL BY EVICTING PALESTINIANS THROUGH TERRORIST GROUPS LIKE THE IRGUN

So WHO was that really done on behalf of???
You lot really need to quit spinning this nonsense here; it's just not going to work with anyone who's educated and intelligent enough to research for themselves and it makes you and your cause look very foolish.

KindKaiser , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:57 pm GMT
@Rich Why don't you go to Iran and tell the millions mourning in the streets there for this man who symbolised the resistance to the evil Zionist World Order how 'wrong' they are
Or are all of them just horribly misguided and confused? Or maybe they're just 'evil' people who ought to be destroyed? And we need to 'bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran'? How convenient!

For the record, some of those mourning Soleimani's death the most are the ethnic Christian communities whom he so bravely defended from ISIS (who we now know were supported by Israel and the 'rebel' forces that Zionists in the West helped fund). But I am guessing your kind doesn't support the continued existence of some of the oldest Christian communities in existence that are in the Middle East, because you probably cheered when their homes got bulldozed by the Zionists in the Naqba–many of them still have the keys to their houses, by the way.

KindKaiser , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 1:59 pm GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso I'm not a Muslim, nor am I inbred.
I honour Soleimani's sacrifice because he was one of the foremost defenders of Christians from ISIS, and the ancient Christian communities in the Middle East are some of those grieving his murder the most. Do you not care about them, or are you just that ignorant?
Hong Kong Hibernian , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 2:21 pm GMT
@anonymous "That should be the best strategy for Iran to invoke the common heritage of the true monotheist faith we share, of which there is much."

Yes! yes! This is the best strategem for the true monotheist brothers: invoke common heritage.

repeat it to yourself true brother: common heritage. common heritage. common heritage.

BTW, Iran can always use the cool new encrypted chat app. Do you know it? Islamachat. Very cool app.

There's only one problem my true monotheist brother allah used up 99 usernames as soon as he signed up.

But, you know, what can we do?

Momus , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 2:30 pm GMT
@Rich Spot on.

The Iranians have no good options.

If they attack US assets and kill personnel by missiling a base or sinking a warship Donny will destroy their nuclear program.

If they or their Hezbollah proxies missile Tel Aviv the Israelis will nuke them.

Momus , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 2:37 pm GMT
@animalogic Part of Trump's plan is to rid Iraq of it's Iranian influence. It will be the Iranians ejected not the US.

He has eliminated Soleimani, the leader of Iran's Iraqi proxy forces and killed, arrested or forced into hiding many other pro Iranian urgers.

The riots in the south of the country are largely about removing Iranian influence and the artificial Sunni/Shia sectarian differences. Expect this social movement to be energised in a pro US way.

Momus , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 2:43 pm GMT
@Alternate History What would hitting Israel with missile salvos achieve? Getting strategically nuked and your atomic program eliminated?
Quartermaster , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 3:58 pm GMT
More uninformed stupidity by Saker.

There will be no all out war in the middle east. No one in the ME is any position to deal in such a fashion with the US and it would be suicidal to try. Dear leader in Iran has only bad choices and even using proxies, he places his entire regime on a chopping block. Those 52 targets were selected in a way that Iran's economy will be crushed quickly.

So let the Imams go ahead and try to get their blood revenge. They are only digging their own graves.

By the by, Soleimani was not murdered. He was a terrorist leader and got what he had coming to him.

Commentator Mike , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 4:34 pm GMT
@Quartermaster No, it's not up to Iran if there will be a war, it is up to USA, and it wants the war, and there is nothing Iran can do to prevent it except make the yanks and their stooges in the region pay the biggest price possible given their own resources and resourcefulness. Did you people forget Iraq? After sanctions and years of the USAF bombing targets to enforce those "no fly" zones, one set up in the south specifically to protect the Shiites they're now turning on, they still went all out and invaded Iraq without Saddam having done anything to provoke them, and in fact being most cooperative and even allowing inspectors into the country to confirm that he had no WMDs. Unless of course you think Saddam brought down WTC on 911.
Jim Christian , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 5:02 pm GMT
Hey Saker!? You in touch with Andrei Martyanov to get a take? He's big on capabilities, be curious to hear his opinion on all this foolishness..
Rich , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 5:16 pm GMT
@Beefcake the Mighty You're supporting the policies of Nadler, Schiff and Schumer but I'm the cuck? Yeah right.
SeekerofthePresence , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 5:21 pm GMT
@BeenThereDunnit Persia, Russia, and China all have a gift for long-term survival (though Russia and China are capable of immediate and devastating action). As PCR has suggested, Russia will likely counsel Iran to bide it's time; why attack a dinosaur already frothing at the mouth and collapsing under its own weight?

And as you mention, there is much preparation Iran can do now. The battlespace has changed: Neocon Crazies (Pence, Pompeo) are now making command decisions (the Soleimani hit, decision on 52 major follow-up strikes) at the Pentagon.

Therefore Iran must be doubly cautious before moving. As Sun Tzu would say: If a stronger enemy goads you to fight, then hold back and wait for the proper moment. Never do what the enemy wants or expects.

Harbinger , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 5:22 pm GMT
@Z-man I found out about the talmud around 12 years ago now. I have to say I was shocked with what it stated within, but that was also because I was Jew ignorant. This opened up the door to Judaism and what it was all about.
I'm not religious. I do believe there was a man named Christ, a revolutionary and I struggle with the 'son of God' concept. The jury is out on that. However what annoyed me was the fact that this was the major teaching within Judaism and no one had ever heard about it. Were there anything remotely similar to this, about Jews or blacks, there'd be a public outcry and heads would roll, yet millions of Christians openly know about this and still support Judaism and see them as God's chosen. It just beggars belief.

"He confessed that the 'manual' was not too kind to gentiles."

There you go. From the very own horse's mouth. What more needs to be said? As stated, tell people to forget about the online talmuds. They've been conveniently changed to remove the 'bad parts' within. Jews doing what Jews do – deceive.

As for your former work colleague, who knows, he may end up becoming just like this former Jew.

turtle , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 5:52 pm GMT
@Kratoklastes I take it as axiomatic that the U.S. Military could not successfully occupy Iran, and is very well aware of that reality. Nor is there, as far as I can see, any overriding political reason to do so.
IMO, the primary objective of any U.S. attack on Iran would be:

To destroy Iran as a modern country, and foreclose, if possible, any chance Iran could become a modern country in the foreseeable future.

To that end, look for the destruction of civilian infrastructure and cultural monuments, as others here have postulated, and as was done in Iraq. The (unstated) aim would be to break the national will and destroy the cultural identity of the Iranian people, using the specious claim of "fighting terrorism."

Look for the Great Mosque of Isfahan:

to be high on the target list, along with the Iranian parliament building and countless other non-military objectives.

Is such an attack (by air power alone) likely to succeed?
A1. In the short term, yes.
A2. In the longer term, success is not guaranteed.
If experience in Europe, i.e. Germany, is any guide, I expect Iran could manage to rebuild itself in twenty years or so.

In the meantime, the U.S. will have completed its transformation to a full-on outlaw nation, having flagrantly violated the Nuremberg prohibition, which itself established, against "waging aggressive war," and become the groveling, depraved toady of a small, and otherwise insignificant, middle eastern "state" founded upon the theft of land and resources from the indigenous population by a thugocracy of European interlopers who claim some kind of "divine right of possession," or "land title from God," based on the assertion that some members of their tribe lived in that area thousands of years ago.

In short, the U.S is now the titular head of an Evil Empire.
Long live the Resistance.

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 6:28 pm GMT
@Rich For amusement purposes, I'll ask: how am I supporting those guys?
Z-man , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 6:33 pm GMT
@Harbinger I too was uninformed of my Catholic religion and that's funny because I went to Catholic administered schools from grammar school to college. (Grin)

Were there anything remotely similar to this (The Talmud), about Jews or blacks, there'd be a public outcry and heads would roll, yet millions of Christians openly know about this and still support Judaism and see them as God's chosen. It just beggars belief.

Vatican II had a lot to do with this 'accepting' of Jews. Christian Zionists are the biggest culprits today.

forget about the online Talmuds. They've been conveniently changed to remove the 'bad parts' within. Jews doing what Jews do – deceive.

I'm sure.

I do believe there was a man named Christ, a revolutionary and I struggle with the 'son of God' concept.

You gotta have faith . See Brother Nathaniel, a converted Jew. A bit over the top when you first see him, on the net, but a man of faith and truth.

George , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 6:36 pm GMT
@Harbinger Alternative theory: Trump, like Nixon, is a genius.

Trump tweeted he wanted out of Syria. The military industrial complex said no. So Trump then said OK, I going to give the military industrial complex what it wants 'good and hard' to quote HL Mencken. This is kind of like how Nixon ended the US involvement in Vietnam, he forced to US military to confront North Vietnamese regular army and everybody, including the military industrial complex, involved objected to it, so the US had to leave.

Nixon takes all the fun out of being in the USAF:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker_II

Trump seems hell bent on getting the US tossed out of Iraq. Godspeed DJT.

Desert Fox , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 6:50 pm GMT
@Quartermaster Soleimani was fighting the terrorists who were created by the ZUS and Israel and Z-Britain and Z-NATO, these being AL CIADA aka ISIS aka ISIL aka Daesh etc..

The middle east wars were brought on by the joint attack on the WTC by Israel and the ZUS , to be blamed on the muslims , thus giving Israel and ZUS the excuse to destroy the middle east for the zionists greater Israel project.

Not Raul , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 7:05 pm GMT
@ivegotrythm Sure; but killing people slowly through pollution, radioactive or otherwise, generally hasn't started wars.

Nuclear fallout from the USA and Soviet Union has killed people in many countries over decades; but no country has gone to war over it.

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 7:11 pm GMT
@Assad al-islam Iranians are hardly shrewd. They ripped themselves a permanent asshole with us Americans in 1979 (and no, I don't need a lecture on the Shah, since that doesn't magically make their actions shrewd). And they have continued ever since by calling us "the great Satan" and chanting "death to America." They did themselves no favors by shooting down our drone a few months ago, and they were tempting fate last week when they arrogantly boasted "You (we Americans) can't do anything." It's like Michael Ledeen is their chief adviser. None of that is shrewd. It is damned foolish.

And yes, I know that American foreign policy is damned foolish, too (yet another thing I don't need anyone here to lecture me about). And I know that Israel is the major cause of Middle East problems. But acknowledging all that doesn't mean that Iran is a noble, virtuous, innocent party in the entire affair. So many people have the absurd mindset that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Muslims are ever bit as supremacist as Jews are. And as long as that remains the case, people are not going to be persuaded to pressure the American government to stop reading from the Neocon script. Venerating Iran and lionizing the dead general is going to be a deal breaker for a lot of people, and a big part of that dynamic is Iran's fault.

bluedog , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 8:09 pm GMT
@Not Raul Lol now I didn't know that Russia was hundreds,thousands of mile away from Iran,thank for the heads up those damnable Iranians have upped and moved their border again,tsk,tsk,tsk.!!!
bluedog , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 8:38 pm GMT
@Colin Wright One think you should know is that you can't talk sense to a fool,they resent it>!!!
bluedog , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 8:49 pm GMT
@Rich For Gods sake quit posting it only makes you out the fool.Now Iran elected a leader by means that we use ourselves the ballot box,now what's wrong we that? then the democratic elected president states that Iran's oil belongs to Iran and its people,you boys are out.

Now Churchill gets his undies in a twist whining but wait England's industry runs on CHEAP Iranian oil (25 cent a barrel oil),so he calls up the M15 tells them to join their partners in the C.I.A. and over throw that asshole who thinks that their oil belong to them,and as they say the rest is history,I trust its the real history not the revised history you spout,!!

Colin Wright , says: Website Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 8:54 pm GMT
'One think you should know is that you can't talk sense to a fool,they resent it!!!'

He's not necessarily a fool.

He's just attempting to defend the indefensible. That'll tend to make you sound foolish whether you are or not.

Rich , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 9:12 pm GMT
@Beefcake the Mighty They oppose the shooting of Soleimani, and so do you. If I'm a cuck because my support of killing terrorist Muslims also happens to be the same position as Bibi Netanyahu's , I guess following your logic, your support of the same position as the commie trio I named, makes you a cuck. In fact I guess you also kneel in front of AOC and that hijab wearing Ilhan Omar. Following your logic even further, you must be Al Sharpton's shoe shine boy and Maxine Waters wig washer, since they also opposed the shooting.

Or, could it be that we just have different viewpoints on an issue, and it's only a coincidence that some others share that opinion in this case? I don't check with the Israeli embassy before I make my mind up and I'm open to changing my mind if a convincing argument is made. Do you, since your opinion is exactly the same as theirs, check with the DNC before forming an opinion?

SeekerofthePresence , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 9:41 pm GMT
Epsteinistan murders the general,
Threatens we will pummel you with more strikes.
Pimps himself to glories ephemeral,
World domination the jackboot he licks.
Z-man , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 9:46 pm GMT
@George Lets hope you're right but the power of The Cabal is pervasive. (And perverse)
Passer by , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 10:58 pm GMT
@Quartermaster You are naive person. The US will have to fight the whole Shia world if it attacks Iran, including Iraq. You live in the past and never realised the decline of the US in the world. You were just kicked by Iraq. Legislation was accepted forcing the US to withdraw from Iraq and cease all kind of collaboration.

You can forget about US companies operating there too, China and Russia will move there instead. Its resources and arms market are lost to you. Americans are hated in the country and can't even leave the Embassy in safety.

We also learned today officialy from Iraq's Prime Minister Adil Abdul al Mahdi how Donald Trump uses diplomacy:

US asked Iraq to mediate with Iran. Iraq PM asks Qassem Soleimani to come and talk to him and give him the answer of his mediation, Trump &co assassinate an envoy at the airport.

No options for Iran? Let's hope "someone" doesn't provide manpads to the Taliban. You lost aganist them too, and soon will be kicked out from Afghanistan in humiliation.

Do you know who Muqtada Al Sadr is? The most influential person in Iraq, a country with huge oil and gas reserves and young combat ready population rising fast. The man who kicked the arse of the US occupation of Iraq. Muqtada Al Sadr demands the total removal of not only US troops, but the of US embassy and all US diplomats in Iraq as well. And an Axis Of Resistance against the US by all Shia groups all around the world.

This will cut off supply lines to your remnants in Syria and put the few US soldiers there under siege, hated by almost all sides. They won't make it in Syria for long.

Meanwhile, you managed to make the Turks hate you too. Just keep doing that.

Iran's FM said something interesting yeasterday: The end of Malign US Influence in West Asia has begun. The US will be gradually kicked out from the region.

The 2020s will be a time of great power transition where the rest of the world rises and the US declines, being kicked out from many places. You made a big mistake, making more and more enemies everywhere in the world.

Beefcake the Mighty , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 12:10 am GMT
@Rich Wow. That was stupid even by your standards. Good job!
Scham , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 12:28 am GMT
Iran, Russia and China should attacked the Achilles Hell of the US which is Gold. China should sell its US$1.2 Trillion of US Treasury bonds and keep buying Gold. That will send the Gold price soaring to US$10,000 an oz. Interest rates will spike and Wall St and the US$1.5 quadrillion Derivatives market will collapse, bankrupting all major US banks.
annamaria , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 2:43 am GMT
@animalogic "Is the US so completely insane ?"

-- The visceral ethnic hatred of the real bosses and the fabled American incompetence of the profiteers-in–charge do not have a place for any rationality.

Smith , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 2:50 am GMT
With the recent development. I must admit I'm a fool for having a slight hope for Trump NOT being a neocon jew shill. It's out in the open now.

Hats off to Iran, they have won without (directly) fighting, these people have read Sun Tzu. Complete master.

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 3:00 am GMT
@KindKaiser Poor "Rich," it is intolerable for a zionist to face the facts of Jewish "affinity" for bolshevism: https://www.unz.com/pub/jhr__the-jewish-role-in-the-bolshevik-revolution-and-russias-early-soviet-regime/

"Anyone who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Cheka," wrote Jewish historian Leonard Schapiro, "stood a very good chance of finding himself confronted with, and possibly shot by, a Jewish investigator."

In Ukraine, "Jews made up nearly 80 percent of the rank-and-file Cheka agents," reports W. Bruce Lincoln, an American professor of Russian history. Beginning as the Cheka, or Vecheka, the Soviet secret police was later known as the GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MVD and KGB. [Remember Holodomor in Ukraine? Add to the Kaganovich fame of mass murderer the fame of Nuland-Kagan, the collaborator with Ukrainian neo-nazi and promotor of the ongoing civil war in eastern Ukraine].

In light of all this, it should not be surprising that Yakov M. Yurovksy, the leader of the Bolshevik squad that carried out the murder of the Tsar and his family, was Jewish, as was Sverdlov, the Soviet chief who co-signed Lenin's execution order.

NoseytheDuke , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 3:04 am GMT
@Rich Sadly, Ron Unz has been extremely negligent in omitting the inclusion of a MORON button. I really couldn't label you a TROLL as that would in fact be complimentary towards you.
annamaria , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 3:08 am GMT
@Momus Tel Aviv is home to zionist cowards who hide behind the US skirt while parasitizing on the body of the US. Your attempt at presenting yourself as a brave warrior is ridiculous. After shooting the civilians (including children of all ages) on the occupied territories, Israelis have got a delusional idea of being the brave soldiers and military geniuses. Relax. Yours is an Epstein nation of Israel.
Skeptikal , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 3:15 am GMT
@BeenThereDunnit "That explains why the US are escalating so heavily right now. "

The neocons probably want a spring war.
For themselves, and to do Bibi the most good.
Spring is the most convenient time for warmaking.
Nice weather.
If they are planning for this war, they are already well along in putting the logistics in place.
We are probably screwed.
I read somewhere fairly recently an analysis of why a spring war would "work" well for both the Dems and the Repugs. But I cannot recall the rationales.
So it seems like all sides are angling and wangling to move Trump in the direction of a spring attack on Iran.

As for ":Some of those Iranian mosques are not only holy sites as such, they are marvels of architecture. Attacking them would be a crime against the heritage of all mankind. That would be truly mad but we will see, sadly. It would enrage Muslims to a degree not seen in living memory."

It would make a LOT of people worldwide furious. Not just Muslims.
Bomb Isfahan? Shiraz? Tabriz? Our "leaders" are mad.

annamaria , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 3:46 am GMT
@Quartermaster The gullible "Quartermaster" has sided with Nuland-Kagan and Banderites. Oops.

The gullible "Quartermaster" has sided with "white helmets." Oops.

The gullible "Quartermaster" has sided with Bibi. Ooops.

The gullible "Quartermaster" has been trusting wholeheartedly the presstitutes of MSM and even became the MSM's deputy on the Unz Forum to deliver the MSM lies. What's wrong with you?

Soleimani was extraordinarily effective when fighting the ISIS; hence the rabid hatred of Israelis and US war profiteers towards the honorable man.

Too many Oops on your part, gullible "Quartermaster"

Angel , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 3:49 am GMT
@ Rich

Most Jew won't admit it but their god is Lucifer. Read about the "Hidden Tyranny" below:

https://archive.org/stream/TheHiddenTyranny-HaroldWallaceRosenthal/TheHiddenTyranny-HaroldWallaceRosenthal_djvu.txt

Hibernian , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 3:58 am GMT
@Gleimhart Mantooso Saddam Hussein had to station the Republican Guard in the rear to shoot deserters.
old farta , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 4:33 am GMT
If I thought that America was responsible for every dastardly dirty crime in the world, I would applaud the article. This article was written from the basis that America's involvement began with the death of a terrorist, where is the history propelling Trump to act?
old farta , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 4:37 am GMT
I smell a coward writing this article. What action would the author have recommended following the death of a American contractor, send the killers more cash?
old farta , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 4:41 am GMT
When Iran invaded the American embassy, did they not invade America? Are not embassies located of the soil of the occupying nation? Did any of the embassy employees attack Iran or it's citizens? Does an invasion constitute an act of war?
Smith , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 4:44 am GMT
@old farta Trump doesn't even act.

Jews tell him to push a button and he did, he doesn't know who he has killed and he doesn't care because jews run the show.

old farta , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 6:32 am GMT
@Smith Too say the "Jews" told him to do something without naming them is suspect. Support your argument with facts, like names, how communicated, when, and how you came by this info.
whattheduck , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 6:35 am GMT
@animalogic The zionists hate Christians more than they hate any other religious group. If by launching a nuclear war, it is guaranteed that Christians will cease to exist, you can be sure they will start a nuclear war. It's not just me talking about, it's in their scriptures.

Zionists hate for Russia is purely because it's predominantly white and Christian nation.

BeenThereDunnit , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 6:57 am GMT
@Skeptikal A spring war would give Iran plenty of time to prepare. It would also give Putin and Xi time to shore up public opinion and deploy assistance. The Russians could even send some of their super-quiet Diesel subs to the Gulf.

If this war goes through, Putin and Xi will come out very weak. Syria on a much grander scale but without Russia and China doing anything about it.

Momus , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 7:51 am GMT
@annamaria Your point?
Mike G , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 9:14 am GMT
It's all going to be a cakewalk, the Iranians will welcome the destruction of their country with open arms. The Iranians won't dare to confront the US or we'll just turn their country into glass. lol

What would Greta say? lol

Nero played his fiddle while Rome burned

Z-man , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 1:30 pm GMT
@whattheduck Good but the Jews won't want complete destruction of the European races because then, no one will protect them. Ideally they'll destroy Christianity while having a polyglot atheist white race serving them.
As I've said many times before the Jew power structure hates Russia, and specifically Putin, because he re-established Orthodox Christianity to the Motherland which they tried to destroy in the communist revolution.

PS. When I started reading on these sites, years ago, I found it almost amusing when people attacked Vatican II. After all, I was indoctrinated as a youth that V-II was the best thing since sliced bread, 'the Church had to become modern .' Needles to say I've become a fan of the SSPX and beyond, like the good Bishop Williamson who said before he was excommunicated, "[T]he people who hold world-wide power today over politics and the media are people who want the godless New World Order, and" "they have fabricated a hugely false version of World War Two history to go with a complete fabricated religion to replace Christianity."

n44bbo , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 1:55 pm GMT
@Rich " The Iranians could not defeat the ragtag forces of Saddam Hussein, but they can defeat the United States? Preposterous."

Actually, it is the other way around !
And .. Saddam, had the almighty USA behind him; so, I must assume that your initial paragraph and the entire comment, is pretty much a childish one.
By the way you articulated your comment, I wonder; what the heck are you reading these articles for, if you do not have neither the knowledge or the understanding of these geopolitical themes.
As a friendly advise, I would suggest, getting a hot water bottle, seat in your armchair and watch television.

Mike G , says: Show Comment January 6, 2020 at 2:35 pm GMT
Quartermaster Baiter is a funny guy

[Dec 06, 2019] In my opinion, Tucker Carlson represents a very real and very active right-libertarian view that has been consistently present within the Republican Party for decades. Anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-big business/pro-small business, and of course, anti-big union. Robert Taft comes to mind.

Dec 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Fox Blew , December 5, 2019 at 8:19 am

In my opinion, Tucker Carlson represents a very real and very active right-libertarian view that has been consistently present within the Republican Party for decades. Anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-big business/pro-small business, and of course, anti-big union. Robert Taft comes to mind. I don't share their "ideologies" but as a self-described socialist, I am deeply attracted to their criticisms. And criticisms ARE important and necessary, even if the solutions are left wanting. I dearly hope that his popularity is a sign of the realignment of politics, where issues of class and war become commonplace and issues of "to impeach or not to impeach" fall by the wayside. I recognize that my hopes may not turn to realities.

jrs , December 5, 2019 at 11:57 am

But for an employee it makes no difference if they work for a big or small business (only big business on average is LESS exploitative if anything – if for no other reason but they can afford to be – some of the worst exploitation out there is employees working for small business owners).

Carey , December 5, 2019 at 11:33 pm

That has most emphatically *not* been my experience.
With small business there is someone to talk to / point at.

teacup , December 5, 2019 at 4:04 pm

Exactly, right libertarian. Within the libertarian spectrum there are real and then royal libertarians, Tucker is of the latter. http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html
What are his immigration views? Are people motivated to come here because this global vulture octopus thing has ruined their home market?

[Oct 23, 2019] The treason of the intellectuals The Undoing of Thought by Roger Kimball

Highly recommended!
Supporting neoliberalism is the key treason of contemporary intellectuals eeho were instrumental in decimating the New Deal capitalism, to say nothing about neocon, who downgraded themselves into intellectual prostitutes of MIC mad try to destroy post WWII order.
Notable quotes:
"... More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. ..."
"... "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration. ..."
"... In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates' devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles sounds! ..."
"... In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other 'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time." ..."
"... In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him. ..."
"... His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ." ..."
"... From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm is erupting in every corner of cultural life today. ..."
"... Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned by the court of diversity." ..."
"... Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit." ..."
"... Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason ..."
"... In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity." ..."
"... The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. ..."
"... In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things, this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual divisions ..."
"... Granted, the belief that there is "Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science": these are among today's talismanic fetishes. ..."
"... Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism." The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational animus in the mid-1940s. ..."
"... Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce, anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity." ..."
"... The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. ..."
"... There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual in favor of the group ..."
"... To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection of culture to anthropology. ..."
"... In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than Shakespeare." ..."
"... The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? ..."
"... . Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference: Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value ..."
"... The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim." ..."
"... "'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children and of the detractors of the West. ..."
"... There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. ..."
"... As the impassioned proponents of "diversity" meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom. ..."
"... Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but the idea of a world common to all men." ..."
Dec 01, 1992 | www.moonofalabama.org

On the abandonment of Enlightenment intellectualism, and the emergence of a new form of Volksgeist.

When hatred of culture becomes itself a part of culture, the life of the mind loses all meaning. -- Alain Finkielkraut, The Undoing of Thought

Today we are trying to spread knowledge everywhere. Who knows if in centuries to come there will not be universities for re-establishing our former ignorance? -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)

I n 1927, the French essayist Julien Benda published his famous attack on the intellectual corruption of the age, La Trahison des clercs. I said "famous," but perhaps "once famous" would have been more accurate. For today, in the United States anyway, only the title of the book, not its argument, enjoys much currency. "La trahison des clercs": it is one of those memorable phrases that bristles with hints and associations without stating anything definite. Benda tells us that he uses the term "clerc" in "the medieval sense," i.e., to mean "scribe," someone we would now call a member of the intelligentsia. Academics and journalists, pundits, moralists, and pontificators of all varieties are in this sense clercs . The English translation, The Treason of the Intellectuals , 1 sums it up neatly.

The "treason" in question was the betrayal by the "clerks" of their vocation as intellectuals. From the time of the pre-Socratics, intellectuals, considered in their role as intellectuals, had been a breed apart. In Benda's terms, they were understood to be "all those whose activity essentially is not the pursuit of practical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice of an art or a science or a metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession of non-material advantages." Thanks to such men, Benda wrote, "humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honored good. This contradiction was an honor to the human species, and formed the rift whereby civilization slipped into the world."

According to Benda, however, this situation was changing. More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. The attack on the universal went forward in social and political life as well as in the refined precincts of epistemology and metaphysics: "Those who for centuries had exhorted men, at least theoretically, to deaden the feeling of their differences have now come to praise them, according to where the sermon is given, for their 'fidelity to the French soul,' 'the immutability of their German consciousness,' for the 'fervor of their Italian hearts.'" In short, intellectuals began to immerse themselves in the unsettlingly practical and material world of political passions: precisely those passions, Benda observed, "owing to which men rise up against other men, the chief of which are racial passions, class passions and national passions." The "rift" into which civilization had been wont to slip narrowed and threatened to close altogether.

Writing at a moment when ethnic and nationalistic hatreds were beginning to tear Europe asunder, Benda's diagnosis assumed the lineaments of a prophecy -- a prophecy that continues to have deep resonance today. "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration.

J ulien Benda was not so naïve as to believe that intellectuals as a class had ever entirely abstained from political involvement, or, indeed, from involvement in the realm of practical affairs. Nor did he believe that intellectuals, as citizens, necessarily should abstain from political commitment or practical affairs. The "treason" or betrayal he sought to publish concerned the way that intellectuals had lately allowed political commitment to insinuate itself into their understanding of the intellectual vocation as such. Increasingly, Benda claimed, politics was "mingled with their work as artists, as men of learning, as philosophers." The ideal of disinterestedness, the universality of truth: such guiding principles were contemptuously deployed as masks when they were not jettisoned altogether. It was in this sense that he castigated the " desire to abase the values of knowledge before the values of action ."

In its crassest but perhaps also most powerful form, this desire led to that familiar phenomenon Benda dubbed "the cult of success." It is summed up, he writes, in "the teaching that says that when a will is successful that fact alone gives it a moral value, whereas the will which fails is for that reason alone deserving of contempt." In itself, this idea is hardly novel, as history from the Greek sophists on down reminds us. In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates' devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles sounds!

In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other 'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time."

In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him. To appreciate the force of Benda's thesis one need only think of that most influential modern Callicles, Friedrich Nietzsche. His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ."

Benda understood that the stakes were high: the treason of the intellectuals signaled not simply the corruption of a bunch of scribblers but a fundamental betrayal of culture. By embracing the ethic of Callicles, intellectuals had, Benda reckoned, precipitated "one of the most remarkable turning points in the moral history of the human species. It is impossible," he continued,

to exaggerate the importance of a movement whereby those who for twenty centuries taught Man that the criterion of the morality of an act is its disinterestedness, that good is a decree of his reason insofar as it is universal, that his will is only moral if it seeks its law outside its objects, should begin to teach him that the moral act is the act whereby he secures his existence against an environment which disputes it, that his will is moral insofar as it is a will "to power," that the part of his soul which determines what is good is its "will to live" wherein it is most "hostile to all reason," that the morality of an act is measured by its adaptation to its end, and that the only morality is the morality of circumstances. The educators of the human mind now take sides with Callicles against Socrates, a revolution which I dare to say seems to me more important than all political upheavals.

T he Treason of the Intellectuals is an energetic hodgepodge of a book. The philosopher Jean-François Revel recently described it as "one of the fussiest pleas on behalf of the necessary independence of intellectuals." Certainly it is rich, quirky, erudite, digressive, and polemical: more an exclamation than an analysis. Partisan in its claims for disinterestedness, it is ruthless in its defense of intellectual high-mindedness. Yet given the horrific events that unfolded in the decades following its publication, Benda's unremitting attack on the politicization of the intellect and ethnic separatism cannot but strike us as prescient. And given the continuing echo in our own time of the problems he anatomized, the relevance of his observations to our situation can hardly be doubted. From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm is erupting in every corner of cultural life today.

In 1988, the young French philosopher and cultural critic Alain Finkielkraut took up where Benda left off, producing a brief but searching inventory of our contemporary cataclysms. Entitled La Défaite de la pensée 2 ("The 'Defeat' or 'Undoing' of Thought"), his essay is in part an updated taxonomy of intellectual betrayals. In this sense, the book is a trahison des clercs for the post-Communist world, a world dominated as much by the leveling imperatives of pop culture as by resurgent nationalism and ethnic separatism. Beginning with Benda, Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned by the court of diversity."

Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit." Quoting the French historian Joseph Renan, he describes the idea as "the most dangerous explosive of modern times." "Nothing," he writes, "can stop a state that has become prey to the Volksgeist ." It is one of Finkielkraut's leitmotifs that today's multiculturalists are in many respects Herder's (generally unwitting) heirs.

True, Herder's emphasis on history and language did much to temper the tendency to abstraction that one finds in some expressions of the Enlightenment. Ernst Cassirer even remarked that "Herder's achievement is one of the greatest intellectual triumphs of the philosophy of the Enlightenment."

Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason. Finkielkraut opposes this just as the mature Goethe once took issue with Herder's adoration of the Volksgeist. Finkielkraut concedes that we all "relate to a particular tradition" and are "shaped by our national identity." But, unlike the multiculturalists, he soberly insists that "this reality merit[s] some recognition, not idolatry."

In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity."

The Undoing of Thought resembles The Treason of the Intellectuals stylistically as well as thematically. Both books are sometimes breathless congeries of sources and aperçus. And Finkielkraut, like Benda (and, indeed, like Montaigne), tends to proceed more by collage than by demonstration. But he does not simply recapitulate Benda's argument.

The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. Finkielkraut's distinctive contribution is to have taken the measure of the cultural swamp that surrounds us, to have delineated the links joining the politicization of the intellect and its current forms of debasement.

In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things, this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual divisions.

The humanizing "reason" that Enlightenment champions is a universal reason, sharable, in principle, by all. Such ideals have not fared well in the twentieth century: Herder's progeny have labored hard to discredit them. Granted, the belief that there is "Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science": these are among today's talismanic fetishes.

Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism." The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational animus in the mid-1940s.

Safely ensconced in Los Angeles, these refugees from Hitler's Reich published an influential essay on the concept of Enlightenment. Among much else, they assured readers that "Enlightenment is totalitarian." Never mind that at that very moment the Nazi war machine -- what one might be forgiven for calling real totalitarianism -- was busy liquidating millions of people in order to fulfill another set of anti-Enlightenment fantasies inspired by devotion to the Volksgeist .

The diatribe that Horkheimer and Adorno mounted against the concept of Enlightenment reminds us of an important peculiarity about the history of Enlightenment: namely, that it is a movement of thought that began as a reaction against tradition and has now emerged as one of tradition's most important safeguards. Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce, anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity."

The chief enemy of Enlightenment was "superstition," an omnibus term that included all manner of religious, philosophical, and moral ideas. But as the sociologist Edward Shils has noted, although the Enlightenment was in important respects "antithetical to tradition" in its origins, its success was due in large part "to the fact that it was promulgated and pursued in a society in which substantive traditions were rather strong." "It was successful against its enemies," Shils notes in his book Tradition (1981),

because the enemies were strong enough to resist its complete victory over them. Living on a soil of substantive traditionality, the ideas of the Enlightenment advanced without undoing themselves. As long as respect for authority on the one side and self-confidence in those exercising authority on the other persisted, the Enlightenment's ideal of emancipation through the exercise of reason went forward. It did not ravage society as it would have done had society lost all legitimacy.

It is this mature form of Enlightenment, championing reason but respectful of tradition, that Finkielkraut holds up as an ideal.

W hat Finkielkraut calls "the undoing of thought" flows from the widespread disintegration of a faith. At the center of that faith is the assumption that the life of thought is "the higher life" and that culture -- what the Germans call Bildung -- is its end or goal.

The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. "It is," he writes, "the first time in European history that non-thought has donned the same label and enjoyed the same status as thought itself, and the first time that those who, in the name of 'high culture,' dare to call this non-thought by its name, are dismissed as racists and reactionaries." The attack is perpetrated not from outside, by uncomprehending barbarians, but chiefly from inside, by a new class of barbarians, the self-made barbarians of the intelligentsia. This is the undoing of thought. This is the new "treason of the intellectuals."

There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual in favor of the group . "Their most extraordinary feat," he observes, "is to have put forward as the ultimate individual liberty the unconditional primacy of the collective." Western rationalism and individualism are rejected in the name of a more "authentic" cult.

One example: Finkielkraut quotes a champion of multiculturalism who maintains that "to help immigrants means first of all respecting them for what they are, respecting whatever they aspire to in their national life, in their distinctive culture and in their attachment to their spiritual and religious roots." Would this, Finkielkraut asks, include "respecting" those religious codes which demanded that the barren woman be cast out and the adulteress be punished with death?

What about those cultures in which the testimony of one man counts for that of two women? In which female circumcision is practiced? In which slavery flourishes? In which mixed marriages are forbidden and polygamy encouraged? Multiculturalism, as Finkielkraut points out, requires that we respect such practices. To criticize them is to be dismissed as "racist" and "ethnocentric." In this secular age, "cultural identity" steps in where the transcendent once was: "Fanaticism is indefensible when it appeals to heaven, but beyond reproach when it is grounded in antiquity and cultural distinctiveness."

To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection of culture to anthropology. Finkielkraut speaks in this context of a "cheerful confusion which raises everyday anthropological practices to the pinnacle of the human race's greatest achievements." This process began in the nineteenth century, but it has been greatly accelerated in our own age. One thinks, for example, of the tireless campaigning of that great anthropological leveler, Claude Lévi-Strauss. Lévi-Strauss is assuredly a brilliant writer, but he has also been an extraordinarily baneful influence. Already in the early 1950s, when he was pontificating for UNESCO , he was urging all and sundry to "fight against ranking cultural differences hierarchically." In La Pensée sauvage (1961), he warned against the "false antinomy between logical and prelogical mentality" and was careful in his descriptions of natives to refer to "so-called primitive thought." "So-called" indeed. In a famous article on race and history, Lévi-Strauss maintained that the barbarian was not the opposite of the civilized man but "first of all the man who believes there is such a thing as barbarism." That of course is good to know. It helps one to appreciate Lévi-Strauss's claim, in Tristes Tropiques (1955), that the "true purpose of civilization" is to produce "inertia." As one ruminates on the proposition that cultures should not be ranked hierarchically, it is also well to consider what Lévi-Strauss coyly refers to as "the positive forms of cannibalism." For Lévi-Strauss, cannibalism has been unfairly stigmatized in the "so-called" civilized West. In fact, he explains, cannibalism was "often observed with great discretion, the vital mouthful being made up of a small quantity of organic matter mixed, on occasion, with other forms of food." What, merely a "vital mouthful"? Not to worry! Only an ignoramus who believed that there were important distinctions, qualitative distinctions, between the barbarian and the civilized man could possibly think of objecting.

Of course, the attack on distinctions that Finkielkraut castigates takes place not only among cultures but also within a given culture. Here again, the anthropological imperative has played a major role. "Under the equalizing eye of social science," he writes,

hierarchies are abolished, and all the criteria of taste are exposed as arbitrary. From now on no rigid division separates masterpieces from run-of-the mill works. The same fundamental structure, the same general and elemental traits are common to the "great" novels (whose excellence will henceforth be demystified by the accompanying quotation marks) and plebian types of narrative activity.

F or confirmation of this, one need only glance at the pronouncements of our critics. Whether working in the academy or other cultural institutions, they bring us the same news: there is "no such thing" as intrinsic merit, "quality" is an only ideological construction, aesthetic value is a distillation of social power, etc., etc.

In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than Shakespeare."

Those whom Finkielkraut calls "postmodernists," waving the standard of radical chic, declare that Shakespeare is no better than the latest fashion -- no better, say, than the newest item offered by Calvin Klein. The litany that Finkielkraut recites is familiar:

A comic which combines exciting intrigue and some pretty pictures is just as good as a Nabokov novel. What little Lolitas read is as good as Lolita . An effective publicity slogan counts for as much as a poem by Apollinaire or Francis Ponge . The footballer and the choreographer, the painter and the couturier, the writer and the ad-man, the musician and the rock-and-roller, are all the same: creators. We must scrap the prejudice which restricts that title to certain people and regards others as sub-cultural.

The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? Anyone who thinks so should take a moment to recall the major exhibition called "High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture" that the Museum of Modern Art mounted a few years ago: it might have been called "Krazy Kat Meets Picasso." Few events can have so consummately summed up the corrosive trivialization of culture now perpetrated by those entrusted with preserving it. Among other things, that exhibition demonstrated the extent to which the apotheosis of popular culture undermines the very possibility of appreciating high art on its own terms.

When the distinction between culture and entertainment is obliterated, high art is orphaned, exiled from the only context in which its distinctive meaning can manifest itself: Picasso becomes a kind of cartoon. This, more than any elitism or obscurity, is the real threat to culture today. As Hannah Arendt once observed, "there are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say."

And this brings us to the question of freedom. Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference: Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value.

For the postmodernist, then, "culture is no longer seen as a means of emancipation, but as one of the élitist obstacles to this." The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim."

What Finkielkraut has understood with admirable clarity is that modern attacks on elitism represent not the extension but the destruction of culture. "Democracy," he writes, "once implied access to culture for everybody. From now on it is going to mean everyone's right to the culture of his choice." This may sound marvelous -- it is after all the slogan one hears shouted in academic and cultural institutions across the country -- but the result is precisely the opposite of what was intended.

"'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children and of the detractors of the West." The irony, alas, is that by removing standards and declaring that "anything goes," one does not get more culture, one gets more and more debased imitations of culture. This fraud is the dirty secret that our cultural commissars refuse to acknowledge.

There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. "A careless indifference to grand causes," Finkielkraut warns, "has its counterpart in abdication in the face of force." As the impassioned proponents of "diversity" meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom.

Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but the idea of a world common to all men."

Julien Benda took his epigraph for La Trahison des clercs from the nineteenth-century French philosopher Charles Renouvier: Le monde souffre du manque de foi en une vérité transcendante : "The world suffers from lack of faith in a transcendent truth." Without some such faith, we are powerless against the depredations of intellectuals who have embraced the nihilism of Callicles as their truth.

1 The Treason of the Intellectuals, by Julien Benda, translated by Richard Aldington, was first published in 1928. This translation is still in print from Norton.

2 La Défaite de la pensée , by Alain Finkielkraut; Gallimard, 162 pages, 72 FF . It is available in English, in a translation by Dennis O'Keeffe, as The Undoing of Thought (The Claridge Press [London], 133 pages, £6.95 paper).

Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. His latest book is The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia (St. Augustine's Press)

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[Oct 01, 2019] Ron Paul Asks Impeachment... Or CIA Coup by Ron Paul

Notable quotes:
"... CIA coup. Next. ..."
"... With so much deceit and shenanigans, it is best politicians let the voters decide in the next election rather than continue this circus. The article below argues the average American doesn't care if Trump isn't perfect and if the Democrats want him out they should offer up a better alternative. ..."
"... Globalist SES Infiltration, Subversion, De Facto Police State Coup D'Etat https://aim4truth.org/2018/01/03/deep-state-shadow-government-revealed-senior-executive-service/ ..."
"... I would call it a coup except I think it happened several decades ago. What is left is a shell. ..."
"... If that feels rotten, then you may start to understand why the world does like the USA not so much. ..."
"... This is clearly an attempted coup, i.e., removal of a duly elected President by force instead of by any legitimate political process. The leftists and RINOs have been trying by the most subversive of means to get rid of Trump even before he took office. ..."
"... Isn't it a matter of record who created and ordered the implementation of the revised whistleblower form? I know it was secretly uploaded two days before the blower blew (9/24), but why now and who said to? ..."
Sep 30, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

You don't need to be a supporter of President Trump to be concerned about the efforts to remove him from office. Last week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced impeachment proceedings against the President over a phone call made to the President of Ukraine. According to the White House record of the call, the President asked his Ukrainian counterpart to look into whether there is any evidence of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election and then mentioned that a lot of people were talking about how former US Vice President Joe Biden stopped the prosecution of his son who was under investigation for corruption in Ukraine.

Democrats, who spent more than two years convinced that "Russiagate" would enable them to remove Trump from office only to have their hopes dashed by the Mueller Report, now believe they have their smoking gun in this phone call.

It this about politics? Yes. But there may be more to it than that.

It may appear that the Democratic Party, furious over Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss, is the driving force behind this ongoing attempt to remove Donald Trump from office, but at every turn we see the fingerprints of the CIA and its allies in the US deep state.

In August 2016, a former acting director of the CIA, Mike Morell, wrote an extraordinary article in the New York Times accusing Donald Trump of being an "agent of the Russian Federation." Morell was clearly using his intelligence career as a way of bolstering his claim that Trump was a Russian spy – after all, the CIA should know such a thing! But the claim was a lie.

Former CIA director John Brennan accused President Trump of "treason" and of "being in the pocket of Putin" for meeting with the Russian president in Helsinki and accepting his word that Russia did not meddle in the US election. To this day there has yet to be any evidence presented that the Russian government did interfere. Brennan openly called on "patriotic" Republicans to act against this "traitor."

Brennan and his deep state counterparts James Comey at the FBI and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper launched an operation, using what we now know is the fake Steele dossier, to spy on the Trump presidential campaign and even attempt to entrap Trump campaign employees.

Notice a pattern here?

Now we hear that the latest trigger for impeachment is a CIA officer assigned to the White House who filed a "whistleblower" complaint against the president over something he heard from someone else that the president said in the Ukraine phone call.

Shockingly, according to multiple press reports the rules for CIA whistleblowing were recently changed, dropping the requirement that the whistleblower have direct, first-hand knowledge of the wrongdoing. Just before this complaint was filed, the rule-change allowed hearsay or second-hand information to be accepted. That seems strange.

As it turns out, the CIA "whistleblower" lurking around the White House got the important things wrong, as there was no quid pro quo discussed and there was no actual request to investigate Biden or his son.

The Democrats have suddenly come out in praise of whistleblowers – well not exactly. Pelosi still wants to prosecute actual whistleblower Ed Snowden. But she's singing the praises of this fake CIA "whistleblower."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer once warned Trump that if "you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you." It's hard not to ask whether this is a genuine impeachment effort or a CIA coup!


ReflectoMatic , 8 minutes ago link

The WhatDoesItMean has earned a bad reputation over the years and I've avoided it as dis-info. But in recent months it seems to had done a turn around and is providing good info.

A sharply worded new Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( MoFA ) report circulating in the Kremlin today noting that the release of the Trump-Zelensky phone transcript reveals the risks of anyone talking with the United States , states that it can't be ruled out that this call transcript scandal may be linked to the failed Mueller probe -- a failed probe that has now exploded into an impeachment scandal that sees Hillary Clinton calling for President Donald Trump to be thrown from office and declaring that " he's an illegitimate president "

To which Trump immediately responded to by re-Tweeting the ominous warning issued by the powerful Pastor Robert Jeffress that says " I HAVE NEVER Seen Evangelicals More Angry Than They Are Today – If Democrats Are Successful It Will Cause Civil War Like Fracture in America " -- a warning followed by Russia and China vowing to continue protecting the world order

both of whom are becoming increasingly alarmed over the grave military implications of what is now occurring -- the evidence of which is being kept hidden from the American people by their socialist Democrat Party leaders and their leftist mainstream media lapdogs

most particularly their not being allowed to know the fact that top Trump impeachment driver US House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff has long been supported by the George Soros funded feared Ukrainian international arms dealer Igor Pasternak who held numerous money raising events to get Schiff elected -- and whom Schiff traveled to meet in Ukraine last month before igniting the impeachment bomb against Trump

All of which is known about by Trump , and is why he has just declared that he wants Schiff " Questioned At The Highest Level Tor Fraud And Treason ".

Read the full article

Dan The Man , 10 minutes ago link

If the CIA is this brazen on so many attempts...and with no accountability yet, you could argue the coup already happened. This is what a country run by a bunch of intelligence ppl looks like.

artistant , 18 minutes ago link

TRUMP threw whistleblower Assange under the bus for going vs the establishment, and now another whistleblower threw Trump under the bus.

Karma? Hey Trump, forget Biden, why don't you have an investigation on

Epstein = Mossad = Israhell = Pedophilia + Sexual Slavery

bobsmith5 , 6 minutes ago link

Epstein is not the top. Above Epstein are Soros, the Queen of England, and the Rockefeller/Rothschild's crime families. They are the head of the Satanic (NOT JEWISH) "New World Order". Hey artisant when in hell are you going to actually get way down in the rabbit hole and find out who is really behind globalism? You spout off the most stupid crap that takes you into mindless racism. We as a corporate fascist socialist nation are much higher than Israel on the globalist hierarchy. They own our monetary system, our corporate government with 22 trillion national debt, the military, and the intelligence alphabet agencies who are their right enforcement arm.

romanmoment , 32 minutes ago link

"Impeachment... Or CIA Coup?"

CIA coup. Next. Dear CIA, nobody will ever trust you again, and why should they?

Let it Go , 33 minutes ago link

Currently, a full-scale propaganda war rages with many Americans hell-bent on convincing the rest of us what is really going on. I think it is clear we have reached the point where people are either outraged, simply concerned or take the attitude this is all a big nothing burger or much ado about nothing.

With so much deceit and shenanigans, it is best politicians let the voters decide in the next election rather than continue this circus. The article below argues the average American doesn't care if Trump isn't perfect and if the Democrats want him out they should offer up a better alternative.

https://Do Average Americans Care If Trump "Dunn It?".html

Roger Casement , 37 minutes ago link

Globalist SES Infiltration, Subversion, De Facto Police State Coup D'Etat https://aim4truth.org/2018/01/03/deep-state-shadow-government-revealed-senior-executive-service/

Dexter Morgan , 38 minutes ago link

I would call it a coup except I think it happened several decades ago. What is left is a shell.

JPHR , 42 minutes ago link

CIA finally coming home to roost. Never known to respect law or human rights outside the US now CIA applying "regime change" inside the US. If that feels rotten, then you may start to understand why the world does like the USA not so much.

Little Saigon Report , 52 minutes ago link

Kyle Bass and the China bet ... https://soundcloud.com/daniel-sullivan-505714723/little-saigon-report-190-kyle-bass-and-china

Bricker , 1 hour ago link

This is why the CIA is going to die under Haspel. I just read 3 dozen tweets on Sebastian Gorka's trip to Italy with Barr...None of these liberals have a clue on what is going on in Italy...Which means they haven't a clue about the real Russia hoax and the setup with Papadopolous. This says everything about our division in America.

The media has kept these people in the dark and this is why I keep saying the media companies need to be investigated and charged with crimes.

bobsmith5 , 39 minutes ago link

The CIA and NSA are rogue foreign invaded and occupied) enemies of the State and should be surrounded by the military and seized as a national security threat and a dangerous enemy. Everyone should be thrown out of the buildings controlled and occupied by them and filled with military police until those who are true traitors can be identified and and arrested, including former employees who still have highest level security access.

Sid Davis , 1 hour ago link

This is clearly an attempted coup, i.e., removal of a duly elected President by force instead of by any legitimate political process. The leftists and RINOs have been trying by the most subversive of means to get rid of Trump even before he took office.

They have abandoned the peaceful political process and that leaves only force as a means to settle differences of opinion.

My hope is that the impeachment effort will backfire on the leftists in the House. Not only will they energize Trump's base, but they will look bad to the rest of the non-communist public. And a bonus will be that Trump will be able to blame any pre-election decline in the stock market and/or economy on the uncertainty created by their reckless and unjustified impeachment actions. (My take is that the stock market is teetering on the edge of a cliff.)

This should be an interesting year between now and the elections with this impeachment **** show and what might come out of the Justice Department relating to spygate and who was involved in it.

I almost fell like I am watching a new Game of Thrones episode.

Worst case is that Trump is actually removed from office and Civil War II breaks out. Best case is Trump wins by a landslide in 2020 and Trump supporters take the House and improve their position in the Senate followed by a huge swamp drain during Trump's second term.

Sly2U , 1 hour ago link

Understood and appreciated Ron. I wish everyone realized the consequences.

†FreeThought† , 1 hour ago link

judeo-bolsheviki are back like it's 1917

bobsmith5 , 33 minutes ago link

They are not Judeo. They hide behind that term but have absolutely no bloodline connection to the Tribe of Judah from the Middle East, they do not worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Moses. They worship Satan.

That you use that term shows your vast ignorance of the real enemies behind the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. It was funded and orchestrated by the Rothschild/Rockefeller Satanic bankers. The Rothschild's are Khazarian Satanist who funded Marx and Engels communist socialist creators!

JACK WAFFLE , 1 hour ago link

dr. pieczenik on top of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3naToXWe1JU

DeadLikeMe , 1 hour ago link

It wouldn't surprise me if the same CIA who murdered Kennedy now want another coup.

TeraByte , 1 hour ago link

This is how CIA toppled a duly elected Iranian government in 1953 and now we refuse to understand, why Iranians don´t like us and don´t want our "democracy".

He–Mene Mox Mox , 2 hours ago link

Sometimes you have to wonder if the CIA learned its lessons from the Kennedy Assassination, and decided this would be a more humane way. As much as John Brennan hates Trump, I am sure he would disagree with me on that. Brennan is out for blood.

OccamsCrazor , 2 hours ago link

Time for Trump to declare martial law and have the military arrest all these treasonous cowards and pussies in the CIA, FBI, and Demoncratic party. We'll just see how 'deep' their state is. Btw, Soros and Obama will be part of those arrests along with Shillary and Billy Bob Clinton.

Its easy to find the guilty individuals as they protest the loudest.

99% of all Americans already recognize this as a coup. You just have to know which half is rooting for the coup to be successful, and the ones who are rooting for failure.

'Impeachment Inquiry' is just a fancy schmancy label for it all, that third world countries can't be bothered with, when they overthrow their President or dictator. At least those banana republics are honest about what they are actually doing when performing their version of the overthrow.

iAmerican10 , 1 hour ago link

The entire US Beast of Gog&Babylon Roman Catholic Church/Synagogue of Satan Vatican FedScam Rothschild/Rockefeller Pyramid's Satanic Fifth Column must, with precision, be 'tagged and bagged,' fully expropriated, its principals hanged for Treason, the remainder banished from Our Holy Land.

CIA/FBI/NSA is just an 'action branch' of mechanics and operatives, who too must hang.

fucking truth , 47 minutes ago link

Need to cut the head off the snake,ie the deep deep state, the ones who's names are not even uttered in fear of reprisal, the rest are just actors in this theater of the absurd.

Boydist , 1 hour ago link

Damn good point. Trump praised Wikileaks all through his campaign. A great investigation into Epstein and his connections to Clinton, Mossad, Orwellian crime detection software and 9/11.

https://t.co/4IAzVRRV3y

JPHR , 37 minutes ago link

No, this CIA operator was a gossip-blower. Insulting to Assange to be compared with a malicious CIA plant.

You are right that Trump failed to acknowledge Assange as a true Whistleblower.

2hangmen , 2 hours ago link

More than half of the country realizes this is a Deep State coup, led by Brennan's CIA traitors. If they get away with this, our country is all but finished, we have to bring all hands on deck to defeat these treasonous scum. We will support President Trump 110% and pray that the white hats in Washington will have the goods on all the traitors.

Ruler , 2 hours ago link

Been saying this for how long?

SybilDefense , 2 hours ago link

Isn't it a matter of record who created and ordered the implementation of the revised whistleblower form? I know it was secretly uploaded two days before the blower blew (9/24), but why now and who said to? That name should be at least on Fox from 8:00-11:00 for the next 3 weeks, while Lindsey is sending out subpoenas like barf at a sat night frat party. Let em flow Senator.

[Sep 02, 2019] Questions Nobody Is Asking About Jeffrey Epstein by Eric Rasmusen

Highly recommended!
While details on Epstein death are not interesting (he ended like a regular pimp) the corruption of high level officials his case revealed in more troubling.
Notable quotes:
"... Epstein was released, and various lawsuits were filed against him and settled out of court, presumably in exchange for silence. The media was quiet or complimentary as Epstein worked his way back into high society. ..."
"... What would I do if I were Epstein? I'd try to get the President, the Attorney-General, or the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to shut down the investigation before it went public. I'd have all my friends and all my money try to pressure them. If it failed and I were arrested, it would be time for the backup plan -- the Deal. I'd try to minimize my prison time, and, just as important, to be put in one of the nicer federal prisons where I could associate with financial wizards and drug lords instead of serial killers, black nationalists, and people with bad breath. ..."
"... What about the powerful people Epstein would turn in to get his deal? They aren't as smart as Epstein, but they would know the Deal was coming -- that Epstein would be quite happy to sacrifice them in exchange for a prison with a slightly better golf course. What could they do? There's only one good option -- to kill Epstein, and do it quickly, before he could start giving information samples to the U. S. Attorney. ..."
"... Trying to kill informers is absolutely routine in the mafia, or indeed, for gangs of any kind. ..."
"... Famous politicians, unlike gangsters, don't have full-time professional hit men on their staffs, but that's just common sense -- politicians rarely need hit men, so it makes more sense to hire them on a piecework basis than as full-time employees. How would they find hit men? You or I wouldn't know how to start, but it would be easy for them. Rich powerful people have bodyguards. Bodyguards are for defense, but the guys who do defense know guys who do offense. And Epstein's friends are professional networkers. One reporter said of Ghislaine Maxwell, "Her Rolodex would blow away almost anyone else's I can think of -- probably even Rupert Murdoch's." They know people who know people. Maybe I'm six degrees of separation from a mafia hit man, but not Ghislaine Maxwell. I bet she knows at least one mafioso personally who knows more than one hit man. ..."
"... Or, if you can hire a New York Times reporter for $30,000 ( as Epstein famously did a couple of years ago), you can spend $200,000 on a competent hit man to make double sure. Government incompetence does not lend support to the suicide theory; quite the opposite. ..."
"... Statutory rape is not a federal crime ..."
"... At any time from 2008 to the present, Florida and New York prosecutors could have gone after Epstein and easily convicted him. The federal nonprosecution agreement did not bind them. And, of course, it is not just Epstein who should have been prosecuted. Other culprits such as Prince Andrew are still at large. ..."
"... Why isn't anybody but Ann Coulter talking about Barry Krischer and Ric Bradshaw, the Florida state prosecutor and sheriff who went easy on Epstein, or the New York City police who let him violate the sex offender regulations? ..."
"... Krischer refused to use the evidence the Palm Beach police gave him except to file a no-jail-time prostitution charge (they eventually went to Acosta, the federal prosecutor, instead, who got a guilty plea with an 18-month sentence). Bradshaw let him spend his days at home instead of at jail. ..."
"... In New York State, the county prosecutor, Cyrus Vance, fought to prevent Epstein from being classified as a Level III sex offender. Once he was, the police didn't enforce the rule that required him to check in every 90 days. ..."
"... Trafficking is a federal offense, so it would have to involve commerce across state lines. It also must involve sale and profit, not just personal pleasure. ..."
"... Here, the publicity and investigative lead is what is most important, because these are reputable and rich offenders for whom publicity is a bigger threat than losing in court. They have very good lawyers, and probably aren't guilty of federal crimes anyway, just state crimes, in corrupt states where they can use clout more effectively. Thus, killing potential informants before they tell the public is more important than killing informants to prevent their testimony at trial, a much more leisurely task. ..."
"... Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is the only government official who is clearly trustworthy, because he could have stopped the 2019 Epstein indictment and he didn't. I don't think Attorney-General Barr could have blocked it, and I don't think President Trump could have except by firing Berman. ..."
"... "It was that heart-wrenching series that caught the attention of Congress. Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska, joined with his Democratic colleagues and demanded to know how justice had been so miscarried. ..."
"... President Trump didn't have anything personally to fear from Epstein. He is too canny to have gotten involved with him, and the press has been eagerly at work to find the slightest connection between him and Epstein and have come up dry as far as anything but acquaintanceship. But we must worry about a cover-up anyway, because rich and important people would be willing to pay Trump a lot in money or, more likely, in political support, if he does a cover-up. ..."
"... he sealing was completely illegal, as the appeals court politely but devastatingly noted in 2019, and the documents were released a day or two before Epstein died. Someone should check into Judge Sweet's finance and death. He was an ultra-Establishment figure -- a Yale man, alas, like me, and Taft School -- so he might just have been protecting what he considered good people, but his decision to seal the court records was grossly improper. ..."
"... Did Epstein have any dealings in sex, favors, or investments with any Republican except Wexner? ..."
"... Dershowitz, Mitchell, Clinton, Richardson, Dubin, George Stephanopolous, Lawrence Krauss, Katie Couric, Mortimer Zuckerman, Chelsea Handler, Cyrus Vance, and Woody Allen, are all Democrats. Did Epstein ever make use of Republicans? Don't count Trump, who has not been implicated despite the media's best efforts and was probably not even a Republican back in the 90's. Don't count Ken Starr– he's just one of Epstein's lawyers. Don't count scientists who just took money gifts from him. (By the way, Epstein made very little in the way of political contributions , though that little went mostly to Democrats ( $139,000 vs. $18,000 . I bet he extracted more from politicians than he gave to them. ..."
"... What role did Israeli politician Ehud Barak play in all this? ..."
"... Remember Marc Rich? He was a billionaire who fled the country to avoid a possible 300 years prison term, and was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 2001. Ehud Barak, one of Epstein's friends, was one of the people who asked for Rich to be pardoned . Epstein, his killers, and other rich people know that as a last resort they can flee the country and wait for someone like Clinton to come to office and pardon them. ..."
"... "intelligence" is also the kind of excuse people make up so they don't have to say "political pressure." ..."
"... James Patterson and John Connolly published Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him , and All the Justice that Money Can Buy: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein . Conchita Sarnoff published TrafficKing: The Jeffrey Epstein Case. I never heard of these before 2019. Did the media bury them? ..."
"... There seems to have been an orchestrated attempt to divert attention to the issue of suicides in prison. Subtle differences in phrasing might help reveal who's been paid off. National Review had an article, "The Conspiracy Theories about Jeffrey Epstein's Death Don't Make Much Sense." The article contains no evidence or argument to support the headline's assertion, just bluster about "madness" and "conspiracy theories". Who else publishes stuff like this? ..."
"... The New York Times was, to its credit, willing to embarrass other publications by 2019. But the Times itself had been part of the cover-up in previous years . Who else was? ..."
"... Not one question involving Maurene Comey, then? She was one of the SDNY prosecutors assigned to this case, and her name has been significantly played down (if at all visible) in the reportage before or after Epstein's death. That she just "happened" to be on this case at all is quite an eyebrow raiser especially with her father under the ongoing "Spygate" investigation ..."
"... As important as it is to go on asking questions about the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein, I have to admit that personally I'm just not interested. I've always found people of his social class to be vaguely repulsive even without the sordid sex allegations. Just their demanding personalities, just the thought of them hanging around in their terrycloth jogging suits, sneering at the world with their irrefrangible arrogance, is enough to make me shudder. I want nothing of their nightmare world; and when they die, I couldn't care less. ..."
"... We are supposed to have faith in this rubbish? The cameras malfunctioned. He didn't have a cellmate. The guards were tired and forced to work overtime. ..."
"... One tiny mention of Jewish magnate Les Wexner but no mention how he & the Bronfmans founded the 'Mega Group' of ultra-Zionist billionaires regularly meeting as to how they could prop up the Jewish state by any & all means, Wexner being the source of many Epstein millions, the original buyer of the NYC mansion he transferred to Epstein etc the excellent Epstein series by Whitney Webb on Mint Press covering all this https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/ ..."
"... ex-OSS father Donald Barr had written a 'fantasy novel' on sex slavery with scenes of rape of underage teens, 'Space Relations', written whilst Don Barr was headmaster of the Dalton school, which gave Epstein his first job, teaching teens ..."
Sep 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Jeffrey Epstein case is notable for the ups and downs in media coverage it's gotten over the years. Everybody, it seems, in New York society knew by 2000 that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were corrupting teenage girls, but the press wouldn't cover it. Articles by New York in 2002 and Vanity Fair in 2003 alluded to it gently, while probing Epstein's finances more closely. In 2005, the Palm Beach police investigated. The county prosecutor, Democrat Barry Krischer, wouldn't prosecute for more than prostitution, so they went to the federal prosecutor, Republican Alexander Acosta, and got the FBI involved. Acosta's office prepared an indictment, but before it was filed, he made a deal: Epstein agreed to plead guilty to a state law felony and receive a prison term of 18 months. In exchange, the federal interstate sex trafficking charges would not be prosecuted by Acosta's office. Epstein was officially at the county jail for 13 months, where the county officials under Democratic Sheriff Ric Bradshaw gave him scandalously easy treatment , letting him spend his days outside, and letting him serve a year of probation in place of the last 5 months of his sentence. Acosta's office complained, but it was a county jail, not a federal jail, so he was powerless.

Epstein was released, and various lawsuits were filed against him and settled out of court, presumably in exchange for silence. The media was quiet or complimentary as Epstein worked his way back into high society. Two books were written about the affair, and fell flat. The FBI became interested again around 2011 ( a little known fact ) and maybe things were happening behind the scenes, but the next big event was in 2018 when the Miami Herald published a series of investigative articles rehashing what had happened.

In 2019 federal prosecutors indicted Epstein, he was put in jail, and he mysteriously died. Now, after much complaining in the press about how awful jails are and how many people commit suicide, things are quiet again, at least until the Justice Department and the State of Florida finish their investigation a few years from now. (For details and more links, see " Investigation: Jeffrey Epstein "at Medium.com and " Jeffrey Epstein " at Wikipedia .)

I'm an expert in the field of "game theory", strategic thinking. What would I do if I were Epstein? I'd try to get the President, the Attorney-General, or the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to shut down the investigation before it went public. I'd have all my friends and all my money try to pressure them. If it failed and I were arrested, it would be time for the backup plan -- the Deal. I'd try to minimize my prison time, and, just as important, to be put in one of the nicer federal prisons where I could associate with financial wizards and drug lords instead of serial killers, black nationalists, and people with bad breath.

That's what Epstein would do. What about the powerful people Epstein would turn in to get his deal? They aren't as smart as Epstein, but they would know the Deal was coming -- that Epstein would be quite happy to sacrifice them in exchange for a prison with a slightly better golf course. What could they do? There's only one good option -- to kill Epstein, and do it quickly, before he could start giving information samples to the U. S. Attorney.

Trying to kill informers is absolutely routine in the mafia, or indeed, for gangs of any kind. The reason people call such talk "conspiracy theories" when it comes to Epstein is that his friends are WASPs and Jews, not Italians and Mexicans. But WASPs and Jews are human too. They want to protect themselves. Famous politicians, unlike gangsters, don't have full-time professional hit men on their staffs, but that's just common sense -- politicians rarely need hit men, so it makes more sense to hire them on a piecework basis than as full-time employees. How would they find hit men? You or I wouldn't know how to start, but it would be easy for them. Rich powerful people have bodyguards. Bodyguards are for defense, but the guys who do defense know guys who do offense. And Epstein's friends are professional networkers. One reporter said of Ghislaine Maxwell, "Her Rolodex would blow away almost anyone else's I can think of -- probably even Rupert Murdoch's." They know people who know people. Maybe I'm six degrees of separation from a mafia hit man, but not Ghislaine Maxwell. I bet she knows at least one mafioso personally who knows more than one hit man.

In light of this, it would be very surprising if someone with a spare $50 million to spend to solve the Epstein problem didn't give it a try. A lot of people can be bribed for $50 million. Thus, we should have expected to see bribery attempts. If none were detected, it must have been because prison workers are not reporting they'd been approached.

Some people say that government incompetence is always a better explanation than government malfeasance. That's obviously wrong -- when an undeserving business gets a contract, it's not always because the government official in charge was just not paying attention. I can well believe that prisons often take prisoners off of suicide watch too soon, have guards who go to sleep and falsify records, remove cellmates from prisoners at risk of suicide or murder, let the TV cameras watching their most important prisoners go on the blink, and so forth. But that cuts both ways.

Remember, in the case of Epstein, we'd expect a murder attempt whether the warden of the most important federal jail in the country is competent or not. If the warden is incompetent, we should expect that murder attempt to succeed. Murder becomes all the more more plausible. Instead of spending $50 million to bribe 20 guards and the warden, you just pay some thug $30,000 to walk in past the snoring guards, open the cell door, and strangle the sleeping prisoner, no fancy James Bond necessary. Or, if you can hire a New York Times reporter for $30,000 ( as Epstein famously did a couple of years ago), you can spend $200,000 on a competent hit man to make double sure. Government incompetence does not lend support to the suicide theory; quite the opposite.

Now to my questions.

Why is nobody blaming the Florida and New York state prosecutors for not prosecuting Epstein and others for statutory rape?

Statutory rape is not a federal crime, so it is not something the Justice Dept. is supposed to investigate or prosecute. They are going after things like interstate sex trafficking. Interstate sex trafficking is generally much harder to prove than statutory rape, which is very easy if the victims will testify.

At any time from 2008 to the present, Florida and New York prosecutors could have gone after Epstein and easily convicted him. The federal nonprosecution agreement did not bind them. And, of course, it is not just Epstein who should have been prosecuted. Other culprits such as Prince Andrew are still at large.

Note that if even if the evidence is just the girl's word against Ghislaine Maxwell's or Prince Andrew's, it's still quite possible to get a jury to convict. After all, who would you believe, in a choice between Maxwell, Andrew, and Anyone Else in the World? For an example of what can be done if the government is eager to convict, instead of eager to protect important people, see the 2019 Cardinal Pell case in Australia. He was convicted by the secret testimony of a former choirboy, the only complainant, who claimed Pell had committed indecent acts during a chance encounter after Mass before Pell had even unrobed. Naturally, the only cardinal to be convicted of anything in the Catholic Church scandals is also the one who's done the most to fight corruption. Where there's a will, there's a way to prosecute. It's even easier to convict someone if he's actually guilty.

Why isn't anybody but Ann Coulter talking about Barry Krischer and Ric Bradshaw, the Florida state prosecutor and sheriff who went easy on Epstein, or the New York City police who let him violate the sex offender regulations?

Krischer refused to use the evidence the Palm Beach police gave him except to file a no-jail-time prostitution charge (they eventually went to Acosta, the federal prosecutor, instead, who got a guilty plea with an 18-month sentence). Bradshaw let him spend his days at home instead of at jail.

In New York State, the county prosecutor, Cyrus Vance, fought to prevent Epstein from being classified as a Level III sex offender. Once he was, the police didn't enforce the rule that required him to check in every 90 days.

How easy would it have been to prove in 2016 or 2019 that Epstein and his people were guilty of federal sex trafficking?

Not easy, I should think. It wouldn't be enough to prove that Epstein debauched teenagers. Trafficking is a federal offense, so it would have to involve commerce across state lines. It also must involve sale and profit, not just personal pleasure. The 2019 indictment is weak on this. The "interstate commerce" looks like it's limited to Epstein making phone calls between Florida and New York. This is why I am not completely skeptical when former U.S. Attorney Acosta says that the 2008 nonprosecution deal was reasonable. He had strong evidence the Epstein violated Florida state law -- but that wasn't relevant. He had to prove violations of federal law.

Why didn't Epstein ask the Court, or the Justice Dept., for permission to have an unarmed guard share his cell with him?

Epstein had no chance at bail without bribing the judge, but this request would have been reasonable. That he didn't request a guard is, I think, the strongest evidence that he wanted to die. If he didn't commit suicide himself, he was sure making it easy for someone else to kill him.

Could Epstein have used the safeguard of leaving a trove of photos with a friend or lawyer to be published if he died an unnatural death?

Well, think about it -- Epstein's lawyer was Alan Dershowitz. If he left photos with someone like Dershowitz, that someone could earn a lot more by using the photos for blackmail himself than by dutifully carrying out his perverted customer's instructions. The evidence is just too valuable, and Epstein was someone whose friends weren't the kind of people he could trust. Probably not even his brother.

Who is in danger of dying next?

Prison workers from guard to warden should be told that if they took bribes, their lives are now in danger. Prison guards may not be bright enough to realize this. Anybody who knows anything important about Epstein should be advised to publicize their information immediately. That is the best way to stay alive.

This is not like a typical case where witnesses get killed so they won't testify. It's not like with gangsters. Here, the publicity and investigative lead is what is most important, because these are reputable and rich offenders for whom publicity is a bigger threat than losing in court. They have very good lawyers, and probably aren't guilty of federal crimes anyway, just state crimes, in corrupt states where they can use clout more effectively. Thus, killing potential informants before they tell the public is more important than killing informants to prevent their testimony at trial, a much more leisurely task.

What happened to Epstein's body?

The Justice Dept. had better not have let Epstein's body be cremated. And they'd better give us convincing evidence that it's his body. If I had $100 million to get out of jail with, acquiring a corpse and bribing a few people to switch fingerprints and DNA wouldn't be hard. I find it worrying that the government has not released proof that Epstein is dead or a copy of the autopsy.

Was Epstein's jail really full of mice?

The New York Times says,

"Beyond its isolation, the wing is infested with rodents and cockroaches, and inmates often have to navigate standing water -- as well as urine and fecal matter -- that spills from faulty plumbing, accounts from former inmates and lawyers said. One lawyer said mice often eat his clients' papers."

" Often have to navigate standing water"? "Mice often eat his clients' papers?" Really? I'm skeptical. What do the vermin eat -- do inmates leave Snickers bars open in their cells? Has anyone checked on what the prison conditions really like?

Is it just a coincidence that Epstein made a new will two days before he died?

I can answer this one. Yes, it is coincidence, though it's not a coincidence that he rewrote the will shortly after being denied bail. The will leaves everything to a trust, and it is the trust document (which is confidential), not the will (which is public), that determines who gets the money. Probably the only thing that Epstein changed in his will was the listing of assets, and he probably changed that because he'd just updated his list of assets for the bail hearing anyway, so it was a convenient time to update the will.

Did Epstein's veiled threat against DOJ officials in his bail filing backfire?

Epstein's lawyers wrote in his bail request,

"If the government is correct that the NPA does not, and never did, preclude a prosecution in this district, then the government will likely have to explain why it purposefully delayed a prosecution of someone like Mr. Epstein, who registered as a sex offender 10 years ago and was certainly no stranger to law enforcement. There is no legitimate explanation for the delay."

I see this as a veiled threat. The threat is that Epstein would subpoena people and documents from the Justice Department relevant to the question of why there was a ten-year delay before prosecution, to expose the illegitimate explanation for the delay. Somebody is to blame for that delay, and court-ordered disclosure is a bigger threat than an internal federal investigation.

Who can we trust?

Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is the only government official who is clearly trustworthy, because he could have stopped the 2019 Epstein indictment and he didn't. I don't think Attorney-General Barr could have blocked it, and I don't think President Trump could have except by firing Berman. I do trust Attorney-General Barr, however, from what I've heard of him and because he instantly and publicly said he would have not just the FBI but the Justice Dept. Inspector-General investigate Epstein's death, and he quickly fired the federal prison head honcho. The FBI is untrustworthy, but Inspector-Generals are often honorable.

Someone else who may be a hero in this is Senator Ben Sasse. Vicki Ward writes in the Daily Beast :

"It was that heart-wrenching series that caught the attention of Congress. Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska, joined with his Democratic colleagues and demanded to know how justice had been so miscarried.

Given the political sentiment, it's unsurprising that the FBI should feel newly emboldened to investigate Epstein -- basing some of their work on Brown's excellent reporting."

Will President Trump Cover Up Epstein's Death in Exchange for Political Leverage?

President Trump didn't have anything personally to fear from Epstein. He is too canny to have gotten involved with him, and the press has been eagerly at work to find the slightest connection between him and Epstein and have come up dry as far as anything but acquaintanceship. But we must worry about a cover-up anyway, because rich and important people would be willing to pay Trump a lot in money or, more likely, in political support, if he does a cover-up.

Why did Judge Sweet order Epstein documents sealed in 2017. Did he die naturally in 2019?

Judge Robert Sweet in 2017 ordered all documents in an Epstein-related case sealed. He died in May 2019 at age 96, at home in Idaho. The sealing was completely illegal, as the appeals court politely but devastatingly noted in 2019, and the documents were released a day or two before Epstein died. Someone should check into Judge Sweet's finance and death. He was an ultra-Establishment figure -- a Yale man, alas, like me, and Taft School -- so he might just have been protecting what he considered good people, but his decision to seal the court records was grossly improper.

Did Epstein have any dealings in sex, favors, or investments with any Republican except Wexner?

Dershowitz, Mitchell, Clinton, Richardson, Dubin, George Stephanopolous, Lawrence Krauss, Katie Couric, Mortimer Zuckerman, Chelsea Handler, Cyrus Vance, and Woody Allen, are all Democrats. Did Epstein ever make use of Republicans? Don't count Trump, who has not been implicated despite the media's best efforts and was probably not even a Republican back in the 90's. Don't count Ken Starr– he's just one of Epstein's lawyers. Don't count scientists who just took money gifts from him. (By the way, Epstein made very little in the way of political contributions , though that little went mostly to Democrats ( $139,000 vs. $18,000 . I bet he extracted more from politicians than he gave to them.

What role did Israeli politician Ehud Barak play in all this?

Remember Marc Rich? He was a billionaire who fled the country to avoid a possible 300 years prison term, and was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 2001. Ehud Barak, one of Epstein's friends, was one of the people who asked for Rich to be pardoned . Epstein, his killers, and other rich people know that as a last resort they can flee the country and wait for someone like Clinton to come to office and pardon them.

Acosta said that Washington Bush Administration people told him to go easy on Epstein because he was an intelligence source. That is plausible. Epstein had info and blackmailing ability with people like Ehud Barak, leader of Israel's Labor Party. But "intelligence" is also the kind of excuse people make up so they don't have to say "political pressure."

Why did nobody pay attention to the two 2016 books on Epstein?

James Patterson and John Connolly published Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him , and All the Justice that Money Can Buy: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein . Conchita Sarnoff published TrafficKing: The Jeffrey Epstein Case. I never heard of these before 2019. Did the media bury them?

Which newspapers reported Epstein's death as "suicide" and which as "apparent suicide"?

More generally, which media outlets seem to be trying to brush Epstein's death under the rug? There seems to have been an orchestrated attempt to divert attention to the issue of suicides in prison. Subtle differences in phrasing might help reveal who's been paid off. National Review had an article, "The Conspiracy Theories about Jeffrey Epstein's Death Don't Make Much Sense." The article contains no evidence or argument to support the headline's assertion, just bluster about "madness" and "conspiracy theories". Who else publishes stuff like this?

How much did Epstein corrupt the media from 2008 to 2019?

Even outlets that generally publish good articles must be suspected of corruption. Epstein made an effort to get good publicity. The New York Times wrote,

"The effort led to the publication of articles describing him as a selfless and forward-thinking philanthropist with an interest in science on websites like Forbes, National Review and HuffPost .

All three articles have been removed from their sites in recent days, after inquiries from The New York Times .

The National Review piece, from the same year, called him "a smart businessman" with a "passion for cutting-edge science."

Ms. Galbraith was also a publicist for Mr. Epstein, according to several news releases promoting Mr. Epstein's foundations In the article that appeared on the National Review site, she described him as having "given thoughtfully to countless organizations that help educate underprivileged children."

"We took down the piece, and regret publishing it," Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review since 1997, said in an email. He added that the publication had "had a process in place for a while now to weed out such commercially self-interested pieces from lobbyists and PR flacks.""

The New York Times was, to its credit, willing to embarrass other publications by 2019. But the Times itself had been part of the cover-up in previous years . Who else was?

Eric Rasmusen is an economist who has held an endowed chair at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business and visiting positions at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the Harvard Economics Department, Chicago's Booth School of Business, Nuffield College/Oxford, and the University of Tokyo Economics Department. He is best known for his book Games and Information. He has published extensively in law and economics, including recent articles on the burakumin outcastes in Japan, the use of game theory in jurisprudence, and quasi-concave functions. The views expressed here are his personal views and are not intended to represent the views of the Kelley School of Business or Indiana University. His vitae is at http://www.rasmusen.org/vita.htm .


Paul.Martin , says: September 2, 2019 at 3:54 am GMT

Not one question involving Maurene Comey, then? She was one of the SDNY prosecutors assigned to this case, and her name has been significantly played down (if at all visible) in the reportage before or after Epstein's death. That she just "happened" to be on this case at all is quite an eyebrow raiser especially with her father under the ongoing "Spygate" investigation

Apparently, there will always be many players on the field, and many ways to do damage control.

utu , says: September 2, 2019 at 4:43 am GMT

How easy would it have been to prove in 2016 or 2019 that Epstein and his people were guilty of federal sex trafficking?

It would be very easy for a motivated prosecutor.

Mann Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Act The Mann Act was successfully used to prosecute several Christian preachers in 2008, 2010 and 2012.

So the problem was finding a motivated prosecutor in case of Jewish predator with very likely links to intelligence services of several countries. The motivation was obviously lacking.

Your "expertise" in game theory would be greatly improved if you let yourself consider the Jewish factor.

Intelligent Dasein , says: Website September 2, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT
As important as it is to go on asking questions about the life and death of Jeffrey Epstein, I have to admit that personally I'm just not interested. I've always found people of his social class to be vaguely repulsive even without the sordid sex allegations. Just their demanding personalities, just the thought of them hanging around in their terrycloth jogging suits, sneering at the world with their irrefrangible arrogance, is enough to make me shudder. I want nothing of their nightmare world; and when they die, I couldn't care less.
utu , says: September 2, 2019 at 4:46 am GMT

More generally, which media outlets seem to be trying to brush Epstein's death under the rug?

Not the National Enquirer:

Jeffrey Epstein Murder Cover-up Exposed!
Death Scene Staged to Look Like Suicide
Billionaire's Screams Ignored by Guards!
Fatal Attack Caught on Jail Cameras!
Autopsy is Hiding the Truth!

National Enquirer, Sept 2. 2019
https://reader.magzter.com/preview/7l5c5vd5t28thcmigloxel3670370/367037

Mark James , says: September 2, 2019 at 6:33 am GMT
I don't hold AG Barr in the high regard this piece does. While I'm not suggesting he had anything to do with Epstein's death I do think he's corrupt. I doubt he will do anything that leads to the truth. As for him relieving the warden of his duties, I would hope that was to be expected, wasn't it? I mean he only had two attempts on Epstein's life with the second being a success. Apparently the first didn't jolt the warden into some kind of action as it appears he was guilty of a number of sins including 'Sloth.'

As for the publications that don't like conspiracy theories –like the National Review -- they are a hoot. We are supposed to have faith in this rubbish? The cameras malfunctioned. He didn't have a cellmate. The guards were tired and forced to work overtime. There was no camera specifically in the cell with Epstein.
In the end I think Epstein probably was allowed to kill himself but I'm not confident in that scenario at all. And yes the media should pressure Barr to hav e a look in the cell and see exactly how a suicide attempt might have succeeded or if it was a long-shot at best, given the materiel and conditions.

SafeNow , says: September 2, 2019 at 6:49 am GMT
19. Why is the non-prosecution agreement ambiguous ("globally" binding), when it was written by the best lawyers in the country for a very wealthy client? Was the ambiguity bargained-for? If so, what are the implications?

20. With "globally" still being unresolved (to the bail judge's first-paragraph astonishment), why commit suicide now?

21. The "it was malfeasance" components are specified. For mere malfeasance to have been the cause, all of the components would have to be true; it would be a multiplicative function of the several components. Is no one sufficiently quantitative to estimate the magnitude?

22. What is the best single takeaway phrase that emerges from all of this? My nomination is: "In your face." The brazen, shameless, unprecedented, turning-point, in-your-faceness of it.

sally , says: September 2, 2019 at 7:32 am GMT
ER the answer is easy to you list of questions .. there is no law in the world when violations are not prosecuted and fair open for all to see trials are not held and judges do not deliver the appropriate penalties upon convictions. .. in cases involving the CIA prosecution it is unheard of that a open for all to see trial takes place.

This is why we the governed masses need a parallel government..

such an oversight government would allow to pick out the negligent or wilful misconduct of persons in functional government and prosecute such persons in the independent people's court.. Without a second government to oversee the first government there is no democracy; democracy cannot stand and the governed masses will never see the light of a fair day .. unless the masses have oversight authority on what is to be made into law, and are given without prejudice to their standing in America the right to charge those associated to government with negligent or wilful misconduct.

mypoint

Anonymous [425] Disclaimer , says: Website September 2, 2019 at 7:33 am GMT

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fMG8SVrqstg?feature=oembed

Brabantian , says: September 2, 2019 at 8:31 am GMT
There are big questions this article is not asking either

The words 'Mossad' seems not to appear above, and just a brief mention of 'Israel' with Ehud Barak

One tiny mention of Jewish magnate Les Wexner but no mention how he & the Bronfmans founded the 'Mega Group' of ultra-Zionist billionaires regularly meeting as to how they could prop up the Jewish state by any & all means, Wexner being the source of many Epstein millions, the original buyer of the NYC mansion he transferred to Epstein etc the excellent Epstein series by Whitney Webb on Mint Press covering all this
https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/

Was escape to freedom & Israe,l the ultimate payoff for Epstein's decades of work for Mossad, grooming and abusing young teens, filmed in flagrante delicto with prominent people for political blackmail?

Is it not likely this was a Mossad jailbreak covered by fake 'suicide', with Epstein alive now, with US gov now also in possession of the assumed Epstein sexual blackmail video tapes?

We have the Epstein 'death in jail' under the US Attorney General Bill Barr, a former CIA officer 1973-77, the CIA supporting him thru night law school, Bill Barr's later law firm Kirkland Ellis representing Epstein

Whose Jewish-born ex-OSS father Donald Barr had written a 'fantasy novel' on sex slavery with scenes of rape of underage teens, 'Space Relations', written whilst Don Barr was headmaster of the Dalton school, which gave Epstein his first job, teaching teens

So would a crypto-Jewish 'former' CIA officer who is now USA Attorney General, possibly help a Mossad political blackmailer escape to Israel after a fake 'jail suicide'?

An intriguing 4chan post a few hours after Epstein's 'body was discovered', says Epstein was put in a wheelchair and driven out of the jail in a van, accompanied by a man in a green military uniform – timestamp is USA Pacific on the screencap apparently, so about 10:44 NYC time Sat.10 Aug

FWIW, drone video of Epstein's Little St James island from Friday 30 August, shows a man who could be Epstein himself, on the left by one vehicle, talking to a black man sitting on a quad all-terrain unit

Close up of Epstein-like man between vehicles, from video note 'pale finger' match-up to archive photo Epstein

Anon [261] Disclaimer , says: September 2, 2019 at 8:34 am GMT
The thing that sticks out for me is that Epstein was caught, charged, and went to jail previously, but he didn't die . The second time, it appears he was murdered. I strongly suspect that the person who murdered Epstein was someone who only met Epstein after 2008, or was someone Epstein only procured for after 2008. Otherwise, this person would have killed Epstein back when Epstein was charged by the cops the first time.

Either that, or the killer is someone who is an opponent of Trump, and this person was genuinely terrified that Trump would pressure the Feds to avoid any deals and to squeeze all the important names out of Epstein and prosecute them, too.

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , says: September 2, 2019 at 8:37 am GMT
The author professes himself "expert in the field of "game theory", strategic thinking," but he doesn't say how his 18 questions were arrived at to the exclusion of hundreds of others. Instead, the column includes several casual assumptions and speculation. For example:

As to this last, isn't "quickly [firing] the federal prison head honcho" consistent with a failure-to-prevent-suicide deflection strategy? And has Mr. Rasmusen not "heard" of the hiring of Mr. Epstein by Mr. Barr's father? Or of the father's own Establishment background?

I hope to be wrong, but my own hunch is that these investigations, like the parallel investigations of the RussiaGate hoax, will leave the elite unscathed. I also hope that in the meantime we see more rigorous columns here than this one.

Miro23 , says: September 2, 2019 at 9:45 am GMT

...Also, subsequently, it should have been a top priority to arrest Ghislaine Maxwell but the government, justice and media lack interest . Apparently, they don't know where she is, and they're not making any special efforts to find out.

Sick of Orcs , says: September 2, 2019 at 9:45 am GMT
Epstein had no "dead man's switch" which would release what he knew to media? C'mon! This is basic Villainy 101.

[Jul 06, 2019] In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. ..."
"... In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. ..."
"... They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution). ..."
"... So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. ..."
Jul 03, 2019 | theamericanconservative.com

Douglas K 3 days ago • edited

To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular religion." Before Douthat could ask what the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear: everything Maher doesn't like is religion.

Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. Sure, they didn't use God or angels or miracles in their rhetoric, but that's just surface trappings.

In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution.

They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution).

So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. No, they didn't include personified invisible spirits in their ideology. But if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ....

[Jun 30, 2019] Last Men or New Men Nietzsche in the Global Age

With minor corrections
Notable quotes:
"... Insofar as many of us are caught up in a lifestyle of consumption and the cultivation of daily, small pleasures, we cannot view ourselves as unduly heroic or value creating. ..."
"... Even so, it will remain a question for some time yet whether or not those who are pursuing neoliberal dreams are the harbingers of the overman or the last instance of a neurotically self-preoccupied, overly self-satisfied, fantastically egoistic, petty, cowardly, morally small pipsqueak of a human whom Nietzsche assumed would eventually and permanently inherit the earth. ..."
Jun 30, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

... ... ...

Nietzsche, similar to Tocqueville, Mill, and Mathew Arnold, envisioned a future where people would be culturally, politically, emotionally, and, philosophically castrated. Nietzsche referred to such pitiful creatures as the "last men" or "men without chests".

Individuals purely concerned with their material well being, believing themselves to be perfectly happy in the historically diminished possibilities of their lives. These future beings would be the antithesis to the hero and would experience the current existence of such a person among them as "mad".

In the future there are no great deeds, only herd like obedience. Aldous Huxley wrote an entire book about them: Brave New World .

But what of our world? Are we too "last men" or are we, instead, preparing for the arrival of the overman (Übermensch)? For Nietzsche, man was something that was to be overcome. He was a "rope tied between beast and overman–a rope over an abyss".

... ... ...

Insofar as many of us are caught up in a lifestyle of consumption and the cultivation of daily, small pleasures, we cannot view ourselves as unduly heroic or value creating. On the other hand, technological advances are slowly holding out the promise of physical transformation, of a human being qualitatively different from the one now existing.

Even so, it will remain a question for some time yet whether or not those who are pursuing neoliberal dreams are the harbingers of the overman or the last instance of a neurotically self-preoccupied, overly self-satisfied, fantastically egoistic, petty, cowardly, morally small pipsqueak of a human whom Nietzsche assumed would eventually and permanently inherit the earth.

Dan Corjescu teaches Political Philosophy and Globalization at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Read other articles by Dan .

[Jun 23, 2019] I have no idea how Rand became the poster child for the libertarian movement

Notable quotes:
"... I can only assume that, as with so many of their other ideas, the internet / radio hosts promoting her ideas as the solution to the worlds problems have never actually read anything she said, or did, or possibly if they had, they have not understood it. ..."
"... Usually, with philosophers, you can see how it is not their words, but that someone has interpreted them for their own ends (Nietzsche etc), but in the case of Rand, no mis-interpretation is required, unless you are trying to portray her views as anything other than deeply misanthropic. ..."
Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Rhiaden , 6 Mar 2012 09:24

I always view Ayn Rand as someone who most right wing dictators would place themselves somewhere to the left of.

I have no idea how she became the poster child for the libertarian movement, I can only assume that, as with so many of their other ideas, the internet / radio hosts promoting her ideas as the solution to the worlds problems have never actually read anything she said, or did, or possibly if they had, they have not understood it.

Usually, with philosophers, you can see how it is not their words, but that someone has interpreted them for their own ends (Nietzsche etc), but in the case of Rand, no mis-interpretation is required, unless you are trying to portray her views as anything other than deeply misanthropic.

[Jun 23, 2019] It's erroneous to think state capitalism = soviet russia style dictatorships.

Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

UnknownGunman -> johncj , 6 Mar 2012 05:42

The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of: one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's gang.

Such a black and white view of reality. This is the entire problem with Rand's worldview, reality is far too complex. Here, you talk about the level of "statism" - there are many different methods of using the state to achieve goals which help improve your life and those in the society around you.

For example, in Scandanavian countries, and other northern European ones, the state is used to make up for distribution deficiencies in the market system - that is, to reign in those at either end of the socio-economic scale to make the distribution more equal, which has been scientifically shown to reduce all manner of social ills caused by a large amount of economic inequality.

They do this whilst minimising the impact on economic freedom.

So it's erroneous to think statism = soviet russia style dictatorships.

As for individual rights - well, these are clearly important, but certainly not as a blanket ideology behind society. Negative sides to individual rights are things like:

• Educational freedom - 2 + 2 can equal 5!
• Parenting - society has to deal with bad parenting as the child reaches adulthood, so society deserves an equal say: I don't have to vaccinate my kids! (recent MMR jab a prime example)
• I'm free to pollute the environment, make excessive noise because the government has no place stopping me.

As a society, a balance needs to be maintained. A balance between a person's individual liberty and the impact on the society around them. This is the main area where Rand's philosophy fails - she simply does not acknowledge the very complex relationship humans have with each other, with society as a whole, and the world around them.

[Jun 23, 2019] The basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a self-owner, having absolute jurisdiction over his own body and property. But without the means to protect, defend and preserve these things that one "owns", provided by the state, it amounts to very little.

Notable quotes:
"... This is the reduction ad absurdum that libertarianism is always reduced to. A subscription police force is an an idiocy, a bit like a subscription fire service. ..."
"... Even by the 18th Century, people had figured out that made no sense. How on earth could it work? A private police force would be beholden to its paymasters and no one else. ..."
"... As I have said many times, a pure libertarian society would be a warlord society, with the feeble or non-existent state unable to restrain the richest and most powerful people in that society. Truly a hell on earth. ..."
Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

HarryTheHorse , 6 Mar 2012 10:41

The basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a self-owner, having absolute jurisdiction over his own body. In effect, this means that no one else may justly invade, or aggress against, another's person. It follows then that each person justly owns whatever previously unowned resources he appropriates or 'mixes his labor with'. From these twin axioms -- self-ownership and 'homesteading' -- stem the justification for the entire system of property rights titles in a free market society."

That's all very well, but without the means to protect, defend and preserve these things that one "owns", it amounts to very little. And that is where collectivisation comes in. For what is the law but a series of codes that we collectively as a society agree to abide by. Without the rule of law to protect me, whatever I own will soon be taken by someone stronger and more aggressive that me. Individuals cannot assert their rights as individuals, for they are not strong enough to do so. The irony, which is lost on libertarians, is that for individual rights to be preserved we must sacrifice a little of our individualism to collectively band together to defend those rights.

HarryTheHorse -> johncj , 6 Mar 2012 10:33

Then don't pay if you don't want to, that's my point. If you want police pay a subscription. I suppose this is floating away from objectivism and more into libertarianism. The principle is the same how ever.

This is the reduction ad absurdum that libertarianism is always reduced to. A subscription police force is an an idiocy, a bit like a subscription fire service.

Even by the 18th Century, people had figured out that made no sense. How on earth could it work? A private police force would be beholden to its paymasters and no one else.

Presumably there would be multiple such police forces - for free-market competition, of course. These police forces would become de facto private armies. And from where would they derive their authority? From he who pays them the most?

As I have said many times, a pure libertarian society would be a warlord society, with the feeble or non-existent state unable to restrain the richest and most powerful people in that society. Truly a hell on earth.

[Jun 23, 2019] Many Anarchists have a libertarian mindset, and seek cooperation (rather than a competition in who can break the most windows), but reject the dominance and structures of the elite, which are usually completely undemocratic.

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

totemic , 6 Mar 2012 14:16

While there is certainly an element of Paul supporters, in my experience here in the Bay/Central Coast is that it is predominantly Dems, liberals, progressives, socialists and a surprising number of anarchists (many of which are not the typical window-breaking stereotype).

I would guess its all of us who are suspicious of hierarchical state capitalism - whether of the left or the right. Many Anarchists have a libertarian mindset, and seek cooperation (rather than a competition in who can break the most windows), but reject the dominance and structures of the elite, which are usually completely undemocratic.

[Jun 23, 2019] No, that is not anarchy. That is a load of selfish bastards claiming to be anarchists and using this as a justification for their being selfish bastards.

Apr 11, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

BeenThereDunThat -> apacheman , 11 Apr 2019 05:16

People think of anarchy as equating with lawless selfishness because that's how it works in real life.

No, that is not anarchy. That is a load of selfish bastards claiming to be anarchists and using this as a justification for their being selfish bastards. I remember only too well the cry of no small number of the trendy fashion-punk-anarchists of the 1980's to justify their hedonism and lack of responsibility " I'm an Anarchist, me: I can do anything! ".And my response to them? " Are you fuck!!! ".

Sadly, however, many like yourself choose to take the definition of anarchy which is a total misrepresentation of it equating to chaos and disorder, and which as I noted in my earlier comment, has been deliberately promulgated and used by the State and its supportive media. And in doing so, you do the philosophy a disservice, as you only help spread this representation, which eventually becomes the accepted understanding. And this is what the State and the oligarchs desire most, as it keeps people away from those most dangerous of thoughts, about actually trying to control their own lives.

[Jun 23, 2019] Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, both worshipped by their Libertarian and conservative followers, and both massive hypocrites.

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Asquith , 6 Mar 2012 01:05

Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, both worshipped by their Libertarian and conservative followers, and both massive hypocrites.

http://www.thenation.com/article/163672/charles-koch-friedrich-hayek-use-social-security

Rand used Medicare under her husband's name (to evade being found out), while Hayek took hypocrisy to a whole new level; he not only had state provided healthcare in his native Austria, but also used it in the USA, too, after Charles Koch (who paid Hayek to advocate the abolition of such welfare) urged him to. So, Hayek is a far bigger welfare sponger than the people the Right so loves to deionize. Again, like Rand he did this secretly, never acknowledging that he used the system which he wished to deny to others. That is obscene dishonesty and conceitedness.

Then there's Milton Friedman, who, in the documentary The 1% , declared, with a straight face, that the wealthy could not bribe politicians and thus that there was no corruption in politics!

In the face of such hypocrisy and stupidity one can only assume their followers are egotists who only hear what they want to hear.

KarenInSonoma , 6 Mar 2012 00:49
I can hardly write, I'm so angry! This disgusting, and digustingly influential, woman signed on for Medicare and Social Security? I wish my husband could! He has suffered two massive strokes and is so severely cognitively impaired that I am dreading his return home from the hospital (where he's entitled to be right now because I pay nearly $2,000 a month in "Cobra" healthcare insurance). At 59, he's too young for Medicare, and because we were saving out of modest incomes for our pension-less retirement, we have more than the pitiful $3,000 in the bank that Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) allows. He needs to be watched 24 hours ALL the time. I won't go on; I feel guilty taking time out to read & comment.
HolyInsurgent -> Lollywillowes , 5 Mar 2012 23:27
Fascinating analysis. The fascist/dominatrix, messianic, and stereotype
(of people and the public and private sectors) in the writing dovetail into
a seemless motif. Quite a new perspective on niche-marketing. One can
see the market that the writing is being directed to and ultimately respected
by: people who demand simple solutions for complex problems.

There is the sense of her own triumphalist infallibility in the writing. Positively
creepy and eventually off-putting. Even Nietzsche had a sense of humour.

[Jun 23, 2019] Rand Objectivism become the solid framework around which an entire US conservative culture, from media to religion to education policy, has crystallised.

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

iruka , 5 Mar 2012 22:26

The popularity of Ayn Rand?

When less than half the eligible population votes, the most easily-led, easily-frightened, easily-lied-to segment of the population is an intrinsically much more valuable political asset.

The whole of North American right-wing thought is organised around this concrete, inescapable fact. It's become the solid framework around which an entire conservative culture, from media to religion to education policy, has crystallised.

This is why it really isn't always possible to make a great deal of sense of North American conservative culture -- a lot of it is simply redundant and empty, as inherently meaningless as a flag or national anthem shorn of all their ignoble associations.

The division of labour between leaders hungry to lead and followers desperate to be led is simply that well-entrenched. The meaning of texts and symbols -- arbitrarily and randomly seized upon and misrepresented by third rate intellects with enough of the psychopath in them to seem charismatic to suburban dullards and bigots -- is simply assumed ('x said it, so...'). Then meaning and context are left behind, while the tropes and images survive in the hearts of those for whom they're simply reassuring -- points of reference in a world they've been raised not to understand.

[Jun 23, 2019] Ann Rand book, her philosophy, and the followers are all frauds. In the current USA society the talent is only one and probably not the most important factor in social mobility

And joking aside, was her mind and her thinking not befuddled by the high manic state that results from amphetamine addiction. Puts her theories seriously into question doesn't it.
Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Pangolinx , 6 Mar 2012 13:07

Millions of copies of Atlas Shrugged are purchased but very few are read and virtually all of them become landfill after a single college semester. Like every other college student I purchased the book because it was required reading and like 98% of U.S. college students I ignored the book and cribbed my assignments out of Cliff Notes.

It's drivel. It's beyond moronic because even the most cursory examination provides examples of inherited wealth and advantage that are almost impossible to overcome by labor and talent alone.

Even the "great" Bill Gates had the almost unique position of access to computers in his teens that most graduate students of the time would have envied and two parents working for IBM that fed him the critical contract that made him rich.

The book, the philosophy, the author, and the followers are all frauds.

Yevgeny , 6 Mar 2012 12:52
She's not even original. Her novella anthem is a complete rip off of a much better book "We" by Zamyatin

[Jun 23, 2019] Could it be that Langley and Jina Haspey are admirers of Ayn Rand?

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Mendocino , 6 Mar 2012 13:01

Could it be that Langley and Jina Haspey are admirers of Ayn Rand?
tlsmith63 , 6 Mar 2012 12:19
Ayn Rand's philosophy is sick. I would say that it is just as sick as fascism. We on the left must do everything we can to stop the spread of this vile philosophy.

[Jun 23, 2019] People please realize that Randism is the philosophy of the ruling neoliberal elite. Wonder why the world is so fucked up? Psychopaths are in charge.

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

legalhigh , 6 Mar 2012 12:51

People please realize that these are the views of the real ruling elite. Wonder why the world is so fucked up? Psychopaths are in charge.
FarEasterner , 6 Mar 2012 12:31
One has to admire Rand for stating what Western government and large corporations are mafia par excellence but never admit this in public - their philosophy, their creed.

This mafia rules Western world through sham elections, putting copycat parties against each other on the ring while rooting out any viable alternatives. This mafia also wants to dominate the whole world via interventions, sanctions, threats. They diligently check voting track record of third world countries in UN and cruelly punish those who voted independently.

This plutocratic clique has monopolized media, controls largest social networks, through intelligence agencies organize bogus propaganda campaigns against dissidents

JoeStarlin , 6 Mar 2012 12:43
jessthecrip
6 March 2012 4:36PM
If Rand's ideas continue to spread I have little hope for the survival of the human race. Without co-operation our species will die out, probably taking many others with it.

Crap, Rand never proposed that people should not co-operate with each other. Only an absolute fool would say such a thing. Ayn Rand was many things, some of them very nasty indeed, but foolish was most certainly not one of them.

She claimed that people should do what they liked free from force as much as is practical, if that meant freely choosing to co-operate with others for mutual benefit, then so be it. I hope you can see that this is a completely different kettle of fish. Co-operation is indeed what actually happens far more then it does not, even more so when the government is not forcing people to do things by the use of the criminal law.

This must be the case otherwise mankind would have always lived in isolated chaos, the evidence for which has never been found.

Have you ever tried to have sex without co-operating with someone else?

Oh yes, I am sorry, of course you have. Well, try not to do it anywhere near as often, you may go blind, or gain more hairy palms.

[Jun 23, 2019] Rand and Kant

Notable quotes:
"... Kant believed in the absolute wrongness of coercion and deception. Kant believed in never treating people as a means to your end. Kant believed reason and rationality to be the foundation of morality, and morality to apply to all people as rational agents. ..."
Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

Jaiysun44 , 6 Mar 2012 12:15

Rand thought Kant to be "the most evil man in history".

Kant believed in the absolute wrongness of coercion and deception. Kant believed in never treating people as a means to your end. Kant believed reason and rationality to be the foundation of morality, and morality to apply to all people as rational agents.

What's so wrong with that?

Hellzapoppin , 6 Mar 2012 12:12

Kant's idea of obligation is important. Humans have an evolutionary tendency for selfishness; to compete. But that is not to say what is natural is moral.

There is also evidence for an evolutionary tendency to alturism. I'm not sure you need even get as far as Kant, much of what Rand's arguing seems fundamentally unscientific, let alone immoral.

ChristianBenson , 6 Mar 2012 12:07
Should Rand have devoted any time/effort to the study of morality, she may have found the writings of Kant most useful; if not alternative .

Kant's idea of obligation is important. Humans have an evolutionary tendency for selfishness; to compete. But that is not to say what is natural is moral .
Kant argued that a moral act is one where the subject is obliged to do so - not where one does it for personal gain or enjoyment. This is not to say that morality should not be enjoyed per se but one should not solely act on the premise of enjoyment.

The prolific socialist and thinker, George Bernard Shaw, said An Englishman is only moral when he is uncomfortable'

There is some truth in this; Rand's idea that morality is selfishness, virtue is self interest and good is personal accumulation denies the collective nature of humanity.

Man is not an island.

Humanity has an obligation to others. The capitalist crowd purport that one is solely responsible for one's won gain. Not so. We live in a country that provides opportunity, those who succeed by that opportunity have not done so merely off their own back. They have done so in a particular society. You need look no further than the African continent to see that personal/material gain is not subject solely to the individual. The repressive and tyrannous society much of Africa plays down the effort of the individual, regardless of their admirable effort and determination.

I hope Kant may agree with me that Rand, the republicans and the ideological conservatives has an obligation to be quiet and sit down.

[Jun 23, 2019] Ayn Rand was a bitter, unhappy and twisted individual. That so many follow her is testament only to the power of the propaganda machine controlled by the elite.

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

sirmoonface , 6 Mar 2012 09:29

...Ayn Rand was a bitter, unhappy and twisted individual. That so many follow her is testament only to the power of the propaganda machine controlled by the elite.

This says it all:-
"I wonder how many would continue to worship at the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of her life she signed on for both Medicare and social security. She had railed furiously against both programmes, as they represented everything she despised about the intrusive state. Her belief system was no match for the realities of age and ill health."

It would be hard to find a better metaphor for our banking system.

[Jun 23, 2019] Rand as George Monbiot points out lacked subtely, irony and doubt that is essential for philosophical, political and social and economic analysis. Just like the Neo-Cons stilt by GeorgeMonbiot

Notable quotes:
"... In my opinion Ryan had no true understanding of the point of philosophical debate or that a system is meant to have a practical effect on all Society I mean that is the entire point of Plato in his Republic is to build a Just Society. ..."
"... I agree with Epicurus that a philosophy is truly worthless unless it heals your mind and your soul from misconceptions and false beliefs. ..."
Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

GeorgeMonbiot, 6 Mar 2012 09:19

One reason why Ayn Rand may be popular is that unfortunately to an increasing extent in Western philosophy today individualism is necessarily equated with selfishness. This is not axiomatic. Individualism would literally not exist and would be ineffectual in practice without the support of others, whether family and/or friends, education, technology, work and society and the state in general. Rand did not see the contadictions in her own life and not just at the end of it.

Although being Jewish and brought up in anti-Semitic Tsarist Russia (a prejudice not unknown in Bolshevik Russia to) she was allowed on the principle of all individuals have rights and was well off enough to go to university in what was then Petrograd.

Rand supported what was probably the most popular party in Russia, the Social Revolutionaries led by Alexander Kerensky.

If only he had been successful rather than Lenin the hard pressed Russian peoples may have been saved from all sorts of evils and the West too?

On emigrating to America she worked in Hollywood so benefiting from the new technology of film making, the climatic conditions that California provided so necessary for the industry's success, and capitalism that funded it. Capitalism cannot exist without myriad social interactions between individuals; even the self-employed need customers.

Rand as George Monbiot points out lacked subtely, irony and doubt that is essential for philosophical, political and social and economic analysis. Just like the Neo-Cons and their knee jerk opponents today.

epicurean27 , 6 Mar 2012 09:07
Her theories are based in her social class she never truly had to suffer it appears even in Russia. I do not call her a philosopher she is no true philosopher simply a rich person trying to work her views for the betterment of her social class.

I have read many of the Greek thinkers from Plato to Epicetius and no Greek thinker ever removed Ethics entirly from their systems. The Stoics for example taught Phyisics, Logic, and Ethics. Ethics is in fact a major part of Plato, Airstotle and the two other schools of Hellenstic times though the Skepics are an ouliner.

In my opinion Ryan had no true understanding of the point of philosophical debate or that a system is meant to have a practical effect on all Society I mean that is the entire point of Plato in his Republic is to build a Just Society.

I am a life long philosopher in training and I agree with Epicurus that a philosophy is truly worthless unless it heals your mind and your soul from misconceptions and false beliefs.

There was a essay I read at University that Rand makes me think about. It was titled Life Boat Ethics. It was an argument for the rich nations not supporting the poorer nations. The Argument was like this.

1st Principle Our world is limited in Resources.

Prismse A

Imagine all the world is made up of life boats. The rich have the best life boats in the seas of fate. They made them they protect them and improve them and attempt to keep them afloat through stopping infighting on board and keeping steady crew without over crowding.

Primse B

While the poor nations have basic life rafts that are made of the lowest quality and are sinking and leaving their crews and the mercy of nature.
Because of their lack of strict work ethic and willingness to trade long term goas for short term enjoyments and constant infighting for anamialistic lusts they are unwilling to create better life boats like the rich nations and control their populations on broad.

Primse C

Helping the poorer nations might seem face of it to be good but it is really fighting nature and that is truly wrong.

Primse D

The wise course is to allow the poorer nations to sink in th ocean and give the richer and indeed superior peoples more room to sail these harsh seas. To found new boats and new lives for they are the people that matter anyways.

Concluision

Rich nations out to have self interest as their drive for all things and ought to not care about those problems that do no directly effect their personal lives.

This essay I believe has become reality we here in Europe and accross the Sea in America are seeing this logic working out in real life and I believe the Left s no way to stop it at present but we better not stop or we will be the kids on a raft just wanting in a boat for simply a better life.

Philosophy as true power people ought to learn to resepect its force in our world I do.

[Jun 23, 2019] This precisely is where Ayn Rand kicks in.

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

murielbelcher , 6 Mar 2012 08:36

This is where Rand kicks in, I have no interest in your health and nor do I have a responsibility for it no matter what your chosen group of penny loafer-ed box checkers say

I have no interest in purchasing your latest nuclear weapons, defending your country, subsidising your royal family, bailing out your bankers, constructing and maintaining the pavements outside your house, lighting your street, subsidising your MPs, paying for your police call out when you've been burgled, sweeping your streets, subsidising the collection of your rubbish, oh and paying for that fire in your house to be extinguished no matter what your box checkers say. No interest whatsoever. This precisely is where Ayn Rand kicks in.

[Jun 23, 2019] According to Ayn Rand, we are supposed to consider the rich and successful as supreme individualists who are simply the fittest to lead in a dog eat dog world.

Notable quotes:
"... Curious that the Ayn Rand's of this world are always very keen on a socialized police force and armed services. Presumably, they consider these services the first line of defense against the starving mob. ..."
Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

brackley1 , 6 Mar 2012 05:36

Curious that the Ayn Rand's of this world are always very keen on a socialized police force and armed services. Presumably, they consider these services the first line of defense against the starving mob.

According to Ayn Rand, we are supposed to consider the rich and successful as supreme individualists who are simply the fittest to lead in a dog eat dog world.

However, looking at powerful individuals with their soft pudgy faces, their paunchy bodies and carefully groomed hair it is obvious that these people are not born to rule. Curiously, when they are threatened by an outside force, it is never them who serve but the useless poor who are expected to develop a sense of community, quaintly called patriotism, and defend them. Does anyone really imagine that in a true meritocracy these same people would survive and prosper.

[Jun 23, 2019] People who are drawn to Rand are drawn to her because they want to excuse their own selfishness as some sort of ideal.

Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

ArchibaldLeach , 6 Mar 2012 02:39

Rand is the Republican God...well, her and Jesus. They just love her love of selfishness. It's what the GOP thinks makes America great. They talk about individualism, freedom, and so on but it's really all about the rich getting to keep all their money. People who are drawn to Rand are drawn to her because they want to excuse their own selfishness as some sort of ideal.
redshrink , 6 Mar 2012 02:35
To describe Ayn Rand's ideas as philosophy really is gilding a turd. She may have called it "objectivism", but the -ism suggests an intellectual stringency, which it simply lacks. "Atlas Shrugged" is a work of badly written fiction, or propaganda rather, not a philosophical text, but that distinction is easily lost on a gullible American public. While it may now play the role of guiding text of the American right as opposed to Marx' writings for the left, Rand's preposterous ideology is more the intellectual and moral equivalent to "Mein Kampf" than to "Das Kapital". That such a nasty and amoral doctrine should find favour with a nation, which sees itself as "Christian", underlines how hollow that particular brand of Christianity has become.

[Jun 23, 2019] What are the chances that almost one third of Americans have read a book?

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

ohcomeoffit , 6 Mar 2012 08:36

"Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged"

Subs: surely that should be "... have read about Atlas Shrugged". What are the chances that almost one third of Americans have read a book?

[Jun 23, 2019] Unrestrained selfishness is like allowing people in a room to slash each other's throats-eventually the room ends up full of dead people-forgive the sarcam but is this a fantastic outcome that we should all aspire to!

Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

Aeschyluss48 , 6 Mar 2012 04:32

Policies like this will produce 1 rich person and approximately 999,999,999 poor people-if put into effect, yet remarkably are popular! I can understand millionaires and billionaires liking this philosophy but what about the normal people, the middle-classes who flock to this?

Either they think they are richer than they are-in which case a wake-up call is coming! Or they think they themselves will never need society's safety-net-in which case for many a wake-up call is again coming! Or they think that if they pull with the system one day they too will be rich-sadly becoming rich in Western society (US/UK) is like winning the lottery-"it could be you!"-yes it COULD be you, it probably won't be you, in fact it will almost certainly not be you-but yes we can't rule out the statement "it COULD be you!"-hoping for a 1 in a million, million chance in effect.

Unrestrained selfishness is like allowing people in a room to slash each other's throats-eventually the room ends up full of dead people-forgive the sarcam but is this a fantastic outcome that we should all aspire to! Condemning the majority of society to misery so a very few can live the high-life is no way to run a world-yes it is true that we in the west do this all the time-today countless unseen millions live on less than 2 dollars per day-human life and pecious (literally once in a lifetime) human potential wasted-utterly wasted!

As for the quote that Rand went onto Medicare etc towards the end of her life-if true this is yet another example of something I've often considered to be true-that those of extreme political views (be it right-wing or left-wing) are invariably selfish, egocentric hypocrites-and when you come to see this it is an ugly world! The bank-bail-outs are a prime example-we are preached about "taking responsibility" by our leaders but this only applies to unemployed people and the poor (or "feckless" to use the common parlance)-when very rich bankers mess up as a result of their own poor decisions they are bailed out by the very same government they previously professed to despise-yes that it taking responsibility in action isn't it?, that is being morally virtuous?-pure and utter distilled hypocrisy in action! As for Rand coming from a rich family-is thre anybody of a right ing viewpoin that wasn't born into money-have any of them knon the poverty (at first hand) that they are so quick to describe in unflattering terms!

[Jun 23, 2019] Rand provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose".

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

pretzelberg , 6 Mar 2012 07:49

Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose".

And don't forget: resentment.

Nietzsche would have had a field day with the superficial likes of Rand.

[Jun 23, 2019] Rand praises her creative geniuses as men who always pay their workers well in order to attract into their employment the best workers in the industry. This idea seems reasonable so why don't the current Randian devotees within capitalist corporations do it?

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

NIViking , 6 Mar 2012 12:05

Although I find the basic Objectivist philosophy objectionable there is one part of Atlas Shrugged that has always puzzled me.

Rand praises her creative geniuses as men who always pay their workers well in order to attract into their employment the best workers in the industry. This idea seems reasonable so why don't the current Randian devotees within capitalist corporations do it?

Anyway, the difference between Rand's capitalism and what we have today is that all her genius's own their own companies whereas that can't be said for most of the CEO s in the modern world. Arguably the working class now includes the highest levels of the boardroom and the directors are as much in thrall to their bosses as are the company cleaners.

Modern capitalism's fatal flaw is the shareholder who, in many cases, doesn't even know which company their investment/pension fund has invested in. We, the public, are the owners of these companies and it is up to us whether we ask our investments to behave as ethical organisations or whether we continue to let them pressure the boards of directors of the world into producing greater and greater returns.

Unless you own no products based on shares then YOU are the new boss and arguably you are worse than the old boss.

[Jun 23, 2019] Rand ideas

Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

wesg , 6 Mar 2012 07:19

Ayn's ideas - imo - were just elitist sentiment that leaned toward fascism, clearly she was watching to many movies (even way back then).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dictator_charlie5.jpg

Thats Chaplin in 'The Great dictator'.

"Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! " -Chaplin. (entire quote can be found here - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032553/quotes )

[Jun 23, 2019] The central flaw of objectivism - a kind of wishful-thinking moral alchemy where base selfishness somehow turns into something better

Notable quotes:
"... isn't unique to the 'right' by any means. identity politics is riddled with it, although they call it 'empowerment'. ..."
Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

inappropriate , 6 Mar 2012 07:32

The central flaw of objectivism - a kind of wishful-thinking moral alchemy where base selfishness somehow turns into something better - isn't unique to the 'right' by any means. identity politics is riddled with it, although they call it 'empowerment'.

[Jun 23, 2019] The obvious reason why Ann Rand took Social Security under an assumed name is that she knew perfectly well it wouldn't sit with the bollocks about 'rugged individualism' and it will be viewed as ranky hypocrisy.

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Hellzapoppin , 6 Mar 2012 12:08

have no problem with Rand accepting social security payments, if she was legally entitled to them. That's what they are there for. But I wonder why she chose to do so under an assumed name, if that is correct. If she had wanted to make the point that she was taking back some of her own money, surely that point would have been better made by being open about it.

The obvious reason why she did it under an assumed name is that she knew perfectly well it wouldn't sit with the bollocks about 'rugged individualism', and wouldn't be seen as 'taking back her own money' (what if her medical care amounted to more than the portion of her taxes assigned to medicare?), but as ranky hypocrisy.

Not to mention it would be an intellectualy circle she could never square.

Hellzapoppin , 6 Mar 2012 12:01

Rand was a woman who, on her death bed, praised wealth and independence, while simultaneously begging charity and succor from the state.

That would be a flaw in the woman, not the ideology, lets stick to that eh?

No, absolutely a flaw in in the ideology. If it's creator wasn't prepared to see it through to the then, why think anyone would?

Any ideology that so fundamentally fails to understand human nature, our needs and desires, our flaws, our alturism, and that we're fundamentally social animals, shouldn't even be begun to be taken seriously.

The rank hypocrisy aside, what she did on her death bed was far more rational than the nonsense she'd been preaching her whole life.

Bourdillon , 6 Mar 2012 09:25

I wonder how many would continue to worship at the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of her life she signed on for both Medicare and social security. She had railed furiously against both programmes, as they represented everything she despised about the intrusive state. Her belief system was no match for the realities of age and ill health.

Probably wouldn't change anything. Cameron claimed the same Disability Living Allowance for his son that he is now taking away from disabled and terminally ill people in this country.

Greed is slowing evolution. We are deliberately cultivating a generation whose only purpose is to pay off the debts of the last one. Progress has stopped, so why are we continuing on the same course?

[Jun 23, 2019] Rand's philosophy is the philosophy of the psychopath, but you can see its appeal: it absolves her acolytes of the need to care.

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

iwouldprefernotto , 6 Mar 2012 11:33

Brilliant piece. Rand's philosophy is the philosophy of the psychopath, but you can see its appeal: it absolves her acolytes of the need to care. It must feel tremendously liberating, if you're that way inclined (i.e. a self-proclaimed ubermensch with a serious empathy deficit.)

I remember reading an interview with Harry Stein, author of 'How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: And Found Inner Peace'. He said that becoming right-wing made him realise that he didn't have to worry about everything constantly. I'm fairly sure that you can be a liberal without perpetually flagellating yourself for the sins of the world.

OldHob -> postcolonial , 6 Mar 2012 11:32
Her writing may as well be used to legitimise the business methods of Montana in Scarface, and a loveley example of the Rand thought processes, here now, in the present day - The Russian version of capitalism......Gangsterism is about right. The morals of the shark tank.
tomcmc , 6 Mar 2012 11:22
"Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed."

In a nutshell, Mr Monbiot.

Her definitions and descriptions are certainly consistent with a clinical diagnosis of psychopathy.

Chilling to think that some policymakers treat this poison as a bible to inform their world view.

butchluva -> EnglishroG , 6 Mar 2012 11:13
I think she just hated herself and never grew up and projected that onto everyone else. (The teenage boys analogy is apposite.) It is central to right-wing (and ultra-religious) mindsets that everything that happens in the world is somebody else's fault, never theirs, they relinquish any responsibility for or role in any social problems or dynamics, especially and ironically those things to do with the way they are. They are the ultimate victims and this is a kind of psychosocial infantilism. They talk a lot about the need for 'personal responsibility' (in theory) because they don't have any, and act the opposite. They need a spurious 'objectivism' to hide behind, a 'reality' separate from human consciousness (as another contributor correctly identified) because of a crushing insecurity. Their superiority complexes are an ultra transparent and futile warding off of crippling feelings of inferiority. It is an abject, and dangerous state of mind. Fortunately many people who go through this phase grow out of it, they have a dark night of the soul, flashes of insight into themselves, are forced to face their shit and become better people or whatever. People like Ayn Rand, err, don't. Sad.
gixxerman006 -> Kairolocus , 6 Mar 2012 10:56
Opps, I'll try that again....


6 March 2012 1:55PM


Rand was a creep. Her personal life was a train wreck. Described in biographies as cruel, megalomaniacal, ungrateful and tasteless, she surrounded herself with a cult of loyal followers. She made a cuckold of her husband and humiliated him in public when he began suffering from dementia. She was addicted to amphetamines. By all accounts, she was not a very nice person. After William Edward Hickman kidnapped and dismembered a 12-year-old girl, she wrote admiringly of the state of mind that could engage in such an atrocity:

"Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should". Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people."

This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: ' He was born without the ability to consider others .'"

It's amazing that this drug-addled, adulterous, cruel & utterly graceless individual is held in such regard by a significant chunk of right-wing America.
Her athiesism alone would bar anyone else from a moments consideration nevermind such veneration.

Her appeal it seems to me is in offering superficial answers in an utterly certain way that allows for no question or time spent (in Objectivist terms 'wasted') considering alternates (ie the pure demigogue).
Sadly that sort of rubbish has an appeal to a certain (usually male) adolescent mindset......and in a nation where the media is devoted to treating its populace as if they were late teen/early 20-somethings all their lifes it doesn't surprise me she has a small but noteable following.

Given the way the UK is being pushed to discard our own & embrace American 'pop' culture I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar begin here either.
Sadly.

weathereye -> Kairolocus , 6 Mar 2012 10:49

she wrote admiringly of the state of mind that could engage in such an atrocity:


it is striking that the human population appears to maintain a level of psychopathy, rather as some deleterious genes are persistent despite their selective unfitness for the group and their prtogressive removal and disappearance being advantageous. I guess that rather like e.g. haemophilia, psychopathy needs to be recognised for what it is, and its maladaptiveness treated and contained as well as possible. There is a lot of rather florid social-behavioural/economic-political disorder around at present in a very chaotic human environment. There are plenty more Rands waving their GOP flags right now.

Kairolocus , 6 Mar 2012 08:55
Rand was a creep. Her personal life was a train wreck. Described in biographies as cruel, megalomaniacal, ungrateful and tasteless, she surrounded herself with a cult of loyal followers. She made a cuckold of her husband and humiliated him in public when he began suffering from dementia. She was addicted to amphetamines. By all accounts, she was not a very nice person. After William Edward Hickman kidnapped and dismembered a 12-year-old girl, she wrote admiringly of the state of mind that could engage in such an atrocity:

"Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should". Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people."

This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: 'He was born without the ability to consider others.'"

Nice!

[Jun 23, 2019] As for Rand the BBC need to repeat Adam Curtis' All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. Brilliant and shocking.

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

miked453 , 6 Mar 2012 08:58

Excellent piece as ever George. The BBC need to repeat Adam Curtis' All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace . Brilliant and shocking.

Irishscouser , 6 Mar 2012 06:10

If you watch Curtis' excellent 'All watched over by Robots of loving grace' you can see how utterly fraudulent Rand comes across, she seemed a bitter, lonely and pathetic creature whose petty and vindictive asides at society was one built on a complete insecurity complex, she was just acting out her own debauched fantasies and she found the right home (the US) to fulfill them.

It says something of a society, and inparticularly the utterly nutty 'Tea Party' to see Rand as champion of 'free will' and ' deregulation' in fact only in the US could her views be actually takens seriously, so much so they named a corporation after her.

Now that's scary!!!

NotWithoutMyMonkey , 6 Mar 2012 05:59

@romantotale17

Frighteningly I suspect that the autocrats-in-planning are reading Kurzweil lately, who combines the New Right with the Randian Silicon Valley cyber-utopianism of which Curtis describes in his doco.

Kurzewil is Rand's John Galt as cyborg.

[Jun 23, 2019] On quality of Rand writings

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

Fortress -> conanthebarbarian , 6 Mar 2012 11:01

She wrote on on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy and aesthetics to name but a few.

Lots of Cif commenters do that every day. Unfortunately, what they write is mostly crap.

[Jun 23, 2019] Rand and sexual selection

Jun 23, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com

justaname -> EnglishroG , 6 Mar 2012 13:12

Rant's work has a special appeal to obnoxious teenage boys; friendless and unappreciated, toxic to girls, they take a special comfort in identifying with Rant's socially crippled isolated misunderstood geniuses and enjoy the rape scenes in the novels where the heroine enjoys the whole experience.

Interesting, and I'd say important comments... I think sexual selection is basically the issue. As much as I didn't like the film Happy Go Lucky I thought the Scott character was interesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Dw1Q2jvsY
how many 'creeps' are marginalised by crude sexual selection, blatant cruel discrimination, the willful flaunting of what is essentially genetic luck; what better to engender a zero sum sense of a world based on unfairness?

There have been experiments with depressed subordinate monkeys (Alpha males removed), one of which is given a serotonin boosting drug... (like MDMA I think) that monkey quickly rises to alpha male status.

If people, as they're so inclined to do, identify with their sexuality to the exclusion of virtue (after all what better than virtue, a conscience, to pour cold water on casual sex? hence the problem of binge drinking) they will in many cases derive enough narcissistic confidence to be 'successful' - in exactly the way that unscrupulous bankers would wish.

Many of the losers will turn to Rand... and far worse, I fear.

[Jun 23, 2019] The Tea Party loonies are modern ' Randies', and idolize John Galt [hero of Atlas Shrugged ]. Like malaria, this disease is highly resistant to eradication and still kills millions

Notable quotes:
"... In short, according to Mettler, the rich complain about the state while taking most of the benefits that the state provides. ..."
"... The Tea Party loonies are modern ' Randies', and idolize John Galt [hero of Atlas Shrugged ]. Like malaria, this disease is highly resistant to eradication and still kills millions. ..."
"... It proceeds in a more subtle way, showing that the rich and the affluent benefit from the state and benefit even more than the poorer. It's the rich that use the state for their benefit, not the poorer. ..."
"... Ayn Rand's objectivized nonsense, sought to treat humans as objects - see the experience of the farmed animal (similarly prosocial animals). ..."
"... it is a joke to take fools in much as Hubbard did when he created the Scientology cult. ..."
"... Democratic socialism has long been practiced and until the ascent of destructive neo-liberalism, was the pre-eminent political philosophy from 1945. ..."
"... "Capitalists believe economically that people should be free to choose how to use their capital, free movement of money, for both worker and owner." A position as idealistic and impractical as Rand's. It presupposes that both worker and owner as individuals have equal strength in any negotiation. It presupposes that ownership in itself is moral irrespective of how it was obtained. ..."
"... ...if she we're alive she wouldn't last five seconds on CiF. By modern standards, ironically, she's a light weight. ..."
"... Funny how those supporting this sort of 'philosophy' always see a role for a state to have an army and police force to protect their wealth - surely the true believer in Objectivism would not need such things and any person of money who was unable to protect themselves with their own resources would deserve whatever was coming to them? ..."
Mar 08, 2012 | www.theguardian.com
JohannesL -> murielbelcher , 6 Mar 2012 14:27
"Free society" is for these righty-wingers a society with unregulated corporate rule where democratic rule by the people for the people ("government") does not exist.

The slave owners' freedom, in other words.

Kikinaskald , 6 Mar 2012 14:23
In short, according to Mettler, the rich complain about the state while taking most of the benefits that the state provides.
murielbelcher , 6 Mar 2012 14:23
Watching her 1959 interview, I am convinced that her extreme ideology is tangled up with her personal experiences and other psychological factors. She came across as cold and seemingly detached from the humanity around her.

She also appeared entirely untroubled by the fact that others might hold different views, so convinced was she of her rightness.

weathereye , 6 Mar 2012 14:22
The Tea Party loonies are modern ' Randies', and idolize John Galt [hero of Atlas Shrugged ]. Like malaria, this disease is highly resistant to eradication and still kills millions.
Kikinaskald , 6 Mar 2012 14:21
I didn't read the read I mentioned above. According to the book description and an article I read earlier about the book (as far as I remember), the book doesn't show simply that the state is good while the lack of state is bad and so contradict Rand directly.

It proceeds in a more subtle way, showing that the rich and the affluent benefit from the state and benefit even more than the poorer. It's the rich that use the state for their benefit, not the poorer.

This doesn't mean that the absence of a state would be the ideal situation. The rich want a state that works only for their benefit, what is necessary is a state that works for everybody, that diminishes inequality.

gixxerman006 -> EconomicDeterminist , 6 Mar 2012 14:13

EconomicDeterminist 6 March 2012 6:57PM Response to tom1832, 5 March 2012 8:35PM

The left is obsessed with trying to find the intellectual antecedents of the new right. Intellectual?

Indeed. I'm reminded of the outrageously behaved (& therefore isolated by the other kids) sociopathic brat continually being told by its doting mother "there there there, nevermind, don't listen to a word of it, they're only jealous"

Quite how the right-wing imagines anyone on the left does anything but point & laugh at their 'philosophical heroine' (!!?) beggars belief. Rand is simply a damaged intellectual pygmy offering a deeply unoriginal juvenile nonsense so obviously born out of her own refugee experiences.

Mankini -> Spoonface , 6 Mar 2012 14:10
"Rand grew up to be a selfish individualist who claimed both that altruism is harmful, and that human beings are fully rational, with infant and childhood experience exerting no influence on adult behaviour."
Spoonface -> Jaiysun44 , 6 Mar 2012 14:06

I think Rand's addiction to amphetamines over decades is a partial explanation for her sociopathic nature, or perhaps a symptom of it.

Another good explanation is the childhood trauma she experienced when her mother took away her toys for a year (to toughen her up or somesuch). At the end of the year, Rand, still a young child, expected her toys back, only for her mother to tell her that she'd given the toys to the local orphanage. Rand grew up to be a selfish individualist who claimed both that altruism is harmful, and that human beings are fully rational, with infant and childhood experience exerting no influence on adult behaviour.

Not that there's any connection, of course.

TempleCloud -> noiraddict , 6 Mar 2012 14:03

The lies she told came around and bit her in the arse.

A wonderful image. Do you think that's how she met her doom? Cause of death: Bitten to death on the arse by lies.

totemic , 6 Mar 2012 14:02

"The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion to the devaluation of the world of men. Labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity -- and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally."

Marx's, Labour Theory of Value. An outstanding contribution to how social relations are corrupted within the social economy, through capitalist exploitation. But, communism meant elite prescription - social tyranny.

Ayn Rand's objectivized nonsense, sought to treat humans as objects - see the experience of the farmed animal (similarly prosocial animals).

All I wish to say is, thanks for the universal principle of human rights. And down with Financialization. Another thought provoking article from Mr Monbiot.

Pragmatism , 6 Mar 2012 14:00
I have not read Rand's work but the impression I get from your account of it is that it is a joke to take fools in much as Hubbard did when he created the Scientology cult.
tsubaki , 6 Mar 2012 13:59
and yet even Ayn Rand didnt think the police should be privatized. Well done, Dave!
paulc156 , 6 Mar 2012 13:57

Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged

...According to a Gallup poll done at the end of the twentieth century, about one third of Americans believe aliens have visited us. Hmm.

HarryTheHorse -> DaveG333 , 6 Mar 2012 13:57

Fine, I'll call it "Randism" and now she is all fine and Dandy too.

What are you talking about?

Democratic socialism has long been practiced and until the ascent of destructive neo-liberalism, was the pre-eminent political philosophy from 1945.

Randism is atavistic gobbledegook, that has never been implemented. In the degree to which it has influenced far right politicians in the US and UK, it has proved to be wholly negative.

NotWithoutMyMonkey , 6 Mar 2012 13:56
@DaveG333

"Capitalists believe economically that people should be free to choose how to use their capital, free movement of money, for both worker and owner." A position as idealistic and impractical as Rand's. It presupposes that both worker and owner as individuals have equal strength in any negotiation. It presupposes that ownership in itself is moral irrespective of how it was obtained.

TempleCloud -> NotWithoutMyMonkey , 6 Mar 2012 13:55

...if she we're alive she wouldn't last five seconds on CiF. By modern standards, ironically, she's a light weight.

Suraklin , 6 Mar 2012 13:55
Funny how those supporting this sort of 'philosophy' always see a role for a state to have an army and police force to protect their wealth - surely the true believer in Objectivism would not need such things and any person of money who was unable to protect themselves with their own resources would deserve whatever was coming to them?
RobspierreRules -> softMick , 6 Mar 2012 13:46
"Many of us it seems can no longer differentiate between 'right' and 'wrong' or see the importance of defending a sense of common humanity, with those who seek to protect the poor and vulnerable in society scorned and berated,..."

Well said, well written - but in order to turn this around we have to remember we are faced with the dictum "There is no society." The absolute belief in that nihilistic proposition leaves no ground for negotiation. Once again we ask, "What is to be done?"

[Jun 23, 2019] No daring escape - Rand was granted an exit visa in 1925. A staggering act of negligence for which I can never forgive the Soviets.

Mar 06, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

Gingecat , 6 Mar 2012 13:19

And Ayn didn't dig her way out from underneath the Iron curtain. No daring escape - she was granted an exit visa in 1925.

A staggering act of negligence for which I can never forgive the Soviets.

[Jun 23, 2019] Those who espouse Ayn Rand s values would have been ostracised from groups of our ancestors as parasites.

Notable quotes:
"... When will the Right (especially the American Right) accept that their value system is diametrically opposed to the "Christian values" they apparently espouse. The Tea Party would stone "the Good Samaritan" for helping those in need ..."
"... Personally I think Thornstein Veblens philosophy, in Theory of the Leisure Class, one of the best. ..."
"... Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed. ..."
"... I think the foremost expert on psychopaths today is Dr Robert Hare. He calls them humanity's "intra-species predator"... ..."
"... Psychologist Dr. Albert Ellis debated Nathaniel Branden in New York City in 1967. It was a heated debate. After it, Ellis wrote a short, but excellent book, "Is Objectivism a Religion?" ..."
"... Read, Is Objectivism a Reigion?, and you may understand what you are dealing with. ..."
"... Greenspan who sat at her feet and absorbed Ms. Rand's banal, childish bullshit for many years was the one to repeal the Glasse-Steagal Act at the behest of Citigroup as it later became, which is widely acknowledged as the one event which led to the CDO alphabet soup mania which brought about the credit crunch debacle highlighting the folly of allowing unfetterred greed a la Iron Rand and exposing the nonsense of her capitalist wet dream. ..."
"... Aftrer the crash Greenspan hilariously stated that he had no idea that this could have happened. Who woulda thunk it? He was only the top economist in the US and for decades had preached the Objectivist bullshit only to be shicked when faced with the shitstorm such juvenilia logically pruduces. ..."
"... Atlas Shrugged itself is unreadable (I have heard it described as Mein Kampf written by Barbara Cartland) and it says little for the US that it is such a best seller although I believe the Koch Brothers have bought up millions of copies and made it's study compulsory at colleges they fund. ..."
"... Ayn Rand is the right's Marx? Talk about philosophical degeneration ..."
Mar 08, 2012 | discussion.theguardian.com

uuuuuuu , 8 Mar 2012 05:43

When will the Right (especially the American Right) accept that their value system is diametrically opposed to the "Christian values" they apparently espouse. The Tea Party would stone "the Good Samaritan" for helping those in need.

Ronald Reagan and Rick Perry have both advocated the abolition of the welfare state.

Humans have evolved as a co-operative species. Those who espouse Ayn Rand's values would have been ostracised from groups of our ancestors as parasites.

wesg -> DanDownes , 8 Mar 2012 05:23
Ayn interview (being the student of 4 years that you are, i assume you have seen this)

Don't let George tell you whats what, listen to the crazy cows own tongue.

JaneBasingstoke , 8 Mar 2012 01:45
Of course in the Douglas Adams take on Atlas Shrugged they all ended up dying from a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSid-p0Xlk0

maybel , 8 Mar 2012 00:16
Personally I think Thornstein Veblens philosophy, in Theory of the Leisure Class, one of the best.
ValueCritic , 7 Mar 2012 16:21
" Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed. "

He is comparing this to Marx's philosophy? The one that lead to the deaths of tens of millions and dozens of failed states and a century of stunted growth? Is that what George Manbiot calls "efforts to make the word a kinder place"? Well maybe we don't need that again. Maybe we don't need your 'kinder' death of tens of millions, George.

But George will not care what we want, if he is a consistent follower of Marx. He will have altruism, the moral sanction to do good stuff to us weather we want it or not. We can see that Rand was right on that count (among others).

NeilBradley , 7 Mar 2012 13:56
Great article George! I noticed that it was titled 'A Manifesto for Psychopaths' on your blog. Have you read Political Ponerology by Andrew Lobaczewski? He was a psychologist in post-war Communist Poland. Himself and some colleagues conducted painstaking research into psychopathy and uncovered some astonishing information which dovetails nicely with your observations.

I think the foremost expert on psychopaths today is Dr Robert Hare. He calls them humanity's "intra-species predator"...

JDReno , 7 Mar 2012 12:05
i will recommend to those who read books, one volume that has been overlooked, which, once read may explain the Ayn Rand movement.

Psychologist Dr. Albert Ellis debated Nathaniel Branden in New York City in 1967. It was a heated debate. After it, Ellis wrote a short, but excellent book,
"Is Objectivism a Religion?"

Dr. Ellis, a humanist was critical of dogmatic religions. He wrote an essay The case against religion, which stated his belief that elements of dogmatic beliefs were not in patient's self interest.

Read, Is Objectivism a Reigion?, and you may understand what you are dealing with.

I should add I met Ayn Rand when she made her pilgrimage to Boston's Ford Hall Forum. Rand, who was about 5'5", was mobbed by a crowd of admirers. I walked in, took her by the hand and moved her out of the building to a waiting limousine. It was an act of unadultrated altruism.

bighouse , 7 Mar 2012 10:39
Hooray for George Non-bio who once again hits the nail on the head. Just a small thing to add.

Greenspan who sat at her feet and absorbed Ms. Rand's banal, childish bullshit for many years was the one to repeal the Glasse-Steagal Act at the behest of Citigroup as it later became, which is widely acknowledged as the one event which led to the CDO alphabet soup mania which brought about the credit crunch debacle highlighting the folly of allowing unfetterred greed a la Iron Rand and exposing the nonsense of her capitalist wet dream.

Aftrer the crash Greenspan hilariously stated that he had no idea that this could have happened. Who woulda thunk it? He was only the top economist in the US and for decades had preached the Objectivist bullshit only to be shicked when faced with the shitstorm such juvenilia logically pruduces.

Atlas Shrugged itself is unreadable (I have heard it described as Mein Kampf written by Barbara Cartland) and it says little for the US that it is such a best seller although I believe the Koch Brothers have bought up millions of copies and made it's study compulsory at colleges they fund.

Thorning , 7 Mar 2012 09:42
Reader's Digest Book of the Month par excellence, popular like Leon Uris' Exodus and also unknown to official intellectuals.

Danish prime minister Fogh Rasmussen rose to general secretary of NATO brought up on its philosophy; it was about the only book they had on the shelf in his modest country home and "everybody in the household had to read it".

Like its obvious parallel - crowleyanism or even satanism - aynrandism is ignored by elite and media; they simply cannot understand it and know nothing about it. So thanks for this.

DeathbyThatcher , 7 Mar 2012 05:11
Ayn Rand is the right's Marx? Talk about philosophical degeneration
pconl , 7 Mar 2012 04:33
We in the UK have our own poundshop version of Ayn Rand in Jeremy Clarkson whose political philosophy is basically that evil is anything that stops him driving, eating, buying or doing whatever the hell he likes and good is anything that enables him to do whatever the hell the he likes whatever the consequences for others.

In various forms a remarkably popular belief set amongst those with higher than median incomes. See recent discussions on domestic servants for proof.

[Jun 23, 2019] Think We Live in Cruel and Ruthless Times 'Mean Girl' Says to Thank Ayn Rand by Jennifer Szalai

Notable quotes:
"... Rand's simplistic reversals -- selfishness is a virtue, altruism is a sin, capitalism is a deeply moral system that allows human freedom to flourish -- have given her work a patina of transgression, making her beloved by those who consider themselves bold, anti-establishment truth tellers even while they cling to the prevailing hierarchical order. Not for nothing does her enormous fan base include Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Tea Partiers, President Trump and innumerable adolescents. ..."
"... Duggan's short book includes a long section on neoliberalism ..."
"... Duggan, a professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University and the author of previous books about gender, sexuality and cultural politics, says that her "weird obsession with Ayn Rand began many years ago." She calls "Atlas Shrugged" "heavy-handed, hectoring, relentless," but allows that it is "also iconoclastic, sometimes surprising and even occasionally funny." ..."
"... What seems to fascinate Duggan most is how Rand -- with her unyielding worldview, her extreme, sweeping statements and her intolerance of dissent -- has somehow managed to be reclaimed by those she so cruelly deplored ..."
"... But this is what happens when you devise a philosophical system in which every human relationship is transactional: Before you know it, you'll get co-opted and commodified too. ..."
"... Duggan paints Rand as cynical and shrewd in some ways, and hapless and naïve in others. In 1947, Rand volunteered to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee as a friendly witness ..."
"... She developed a debilitating amphetamine habit. Her fictional heroes marched forth and conquered life, but real life kept throwing her for a loop. ..."
"... Rand was most successful as a fantasist and "propagandist," Duggan writes, who provided "templates, plot lines and characters" that gave selfishness an alluring sheen. In Rand's universe, capitalism was glamorous and liberating, with none of the mundane concerns -- haggling over health insurance, paying off student loans, scrambling for child care, managing precarious employment -- that consume so much of everyday American experience. ..."
"... Reading Duggan on Rand's current fans made me think of the 1946 preface to Rand's early novel "Anthem," in which she railed against "the people who support plans specifically designed to achieve serfdom, but hide behind the empty assertion that they are lovers of freedom." Surveying the wreckage, such people expect "to escape moral responsibility by wailing: 'But I didn't mean this !'" ..."
May 22, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

Books of The Times

'Mean Girl' Says to Thank Ayn Rand Think We Live in Cruel and Ruthless Times?

Buy Book

Ayn Rand liked to see herself as an ardent custodian of truth, but in her own life she had a hard time abiding too much reality. The critical recognition she craved mostly eluded her -- her best-selling novels "The Fountainhead" (1943) and "Atlas Shrugged" (1957) were lurid, melodramatic, full of implausible characters and turgid harangues -- and as her fame and notoriety grew, she retreated to the safe harbor of her acolytes.

Or presumably safe. As Lisa Duggan explains in "Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed," when Rand's affair with a much younger disciple soured in the late 1960s, her Objectivist movement -- which venerated a single, knowable reality, rationally apprehended by gloriously self-interested individuals -- seemed on the brink of collapse. "Emotion," Duggan writes, "had brought down the house of reason."

It's the kind of strange, glaring paradox that makes Rand a useful emblem for our topsy-turvy moment, Duggan says. Rand's simplistic reversals -- selfishness is a virtue, altruism is a sin, capitalism is a deeply moral system that allows human freedom to flourish -- have given her work a patina of transgression, making her beloved by those who consider themselves bold, anti-establishment truth tellers even while they cling to the prevailing hierarchical order. Not for nothing does her enormous fan base include Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Tea Partiers, President Trump and innumerable adolescents.

But then her ideas are too rigid to be neatly amenable to any real-world programs. Duggan's short book includes a long section on neoliberalism that seems, for a while, to lose sight of Rand. Despite her mentorship of Alan Greenspan, who would eventually become the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Rand was "not exactly a neoliberal herself," Duggan writes. She also refused to support the election of Ronald Reagan, deriding him for succumbing to "the God, family, tradition swamp." She was an atheist and a fierce advocate for abortion rights.

Now, almost four decades after Rand's death in 1982, right-wing nationalism and evangelical Christianity are ascendant at the same time as economic globalization and the erosion of the welfare state. Is there anything that ties this turbulence together? Yes, Duggan says, but it isn't the vaunted rationality that Rand fetishized as much as it is the feelings she validated. "The unifying threads are meanness and greed," Duggan writes of the current moment, "and the spirit of the whole hodgepodge is Ayn Rand."

Rand wasn't an especially sophisticated thinker who delved into primary texts to elaborate her philosophical system; she did, however, have a flair for the dramatic. One of her first jobs after emigrating from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1926 was as a scriptwriter for Cecil B. DeMille. She brought that theatrical sensibility to novels like "The Fountainhead," which, in Duggan's astute appraisal, offers "numerous plot twists but no real surprises." In both "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," Rand strenuously played to the aspirations and desires of her readers. "Ayn Rand made acquisitive capitalists sexy," Duggan writes. The novels "are conversion machines that run on lust."

As befitting machines, the novels seem less literary than engineered. The Randian heroine is a Mean Girl -- tall, svelte, severe. The Randian hero is a Mean Boy -- tall, muscular, severe. Her villains are short and doughy, cursed with receding chins and dandruff. The undeserving weak exploit the worthy and the strong. The United States she depicts is ahistoric and sanitized for her readers' consumption -- "a clean slate for pure capitalist freedom, with no indigenous people, no slaves, no exploited immigrants or workers in sight," Duggan writes. In "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" there's certainly sex but no pregnancies; nothing that might interfere with all the creative destruction her characters have to do.

Duggan, a professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University and the author of previous books about gender, sexuality and cultural politics, says that her "weird obsession with Ayn Rand began many years ago." She calls "Atlas Shrugged" "heavy-handed, hectoring, relentless," but allows that it is "also iconoclastic, sometimes surprising and even occasionally funny."

What seems to fascinate Duggan most is how Rand -- with her unyielding worldview, her extreme, sweeping statements and her intolerance of dissent -- has somehow managed to be reclaimed by those she so cruelly deplored. Rand described homosexuality as "immoral" and "disgusting," yet her "rages against the strictures of family, church and state appeal to many L.G.B.T.Q. readers." The younger generation of libertarians who approvingly cite Rand today might be surprised to learn that she derided their forebears as "hippies" and, with typical hyperbole, "a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people."

But this is what happens when you devise a philosophical system in which every human relationship is transactional: Before you know it, you'll get co-opted and commodified too.

Duggan paints Rand as cynical and shrewd in some ways, and hapless and naïve in others. In 1947, Rand volunteered to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee as a friendly witness, delivering histrionic testimony that managed to alienate everyone, suggesting that she "never fully grasped" how Hollywood worked, or how government worked, or how the balance of power worked between the two. She liked to affect a steely, imperious persona, but she was deeply insecure and easily wounded. She developed a debilitating amphetamine habit. Her fictional heroes marched forth and conquered life, but real life kept throwing her for a loop.

Rand was most successful as a fantasist and "propagandist," Duggan writes, who provided "templates, plot lines and characters" that gave selfishness an alluring sheen. In Rand's universe, capitalism was glamorous and liberating, with none of the mundane concerns -- haggling over health insurance, paying off student loans, scrambling for child care, managing precarious employment -- that consume so much of everyday American experience.

Reading Duggan on Rand's current fans made me think of the 1946 preface to Rand's early novel "Anthem," in which she railed against "the people who support plans specifically designed to achieve serfdom, but hide behind the empty assertion that they are lovers of freedom." Surveying the wreckage, such people expect "to escape moral responsibility by wailing: 'But I didn't mean this !'"

[Jun 23, 2019] How Ayn Rand became the new right's version of Marx by George Monbiot

Highly recommended!
George Monbiot is right: Rand was probably a female sociopath...
Notable quotes:
"... Through her novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course is pure self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to members of our own families. She described the poor and weak as "refuse" and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to assist them. Apart from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no role for government: no social security, no public health or education, no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax. ..."
"... Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss shows in his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was to the left: a demigod at the head of a chiliastic cult. Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged, and it now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year. ..."
"... the Tea Party movement has taken her to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards reading "Who is John Galt?" and "Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by the broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the guiding spirit of the Republicans in Congress. ..."
"... It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers them something that is crucial to every successful political movement: a sense of victimhood. She tells them that they are parasitised by the ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments. ..."
"... the most devoted member of her inner circle was Alan Greenspan , former head of the US Federal Reserve. ..."
"... As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a "superlatively moral system". ..."
"... Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the letter, cutting taxes for the rich, repealing the laws constraining banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and the derivatives trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is already documented, but Weiss shows that in the US, Greenspan has successfully airbrushed history. ..."
Mar 05, 2012 | www.theguardian.com
Her psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like victims and turned millions of followers into their doormats Comments 1,227 Illustration by Daniel Pudles I t has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the postwar world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the belief system constructed by Ayn Rand , who died 30 years ago today, has never been more popular or influential.

Rand was a Russian from a prosperous family who emigrated to the United States. Through her novels (such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a philosophy she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course is pure self-interest. We owe nothing, she insists, to anyone, even to members of our own families. She described the poor and weak as "refuse" and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to assist them. Apart from the police, the courts and the armed forces, there should be no role for government: no social security, no public health or education, no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax.

Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, depicts a United States crippled by government intervention in which heroic millionaires struggle against a nation of spongers. The millionaires, whom she portrays as Atlas holding the world aloft, withdraw their labour, with the result that the nation collapses. It is rescued, through unregulated greed and selfishness, by one of the heroic plutocrats, John Galt .

The poor die like flies as a result of government programmes and their own sloth and fecklessness. Those who try to help them are gassed. In a notorious passage, she argues that all the passengers in a train filled with poisoned fumes deserved their fate. One, for instance, was a teacher who taught children to be team players; one was a mother married to a civil servant, who cared for her children; one was a housewife "who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing".

Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss shows in his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was to the left: a demigod at the head of a chiliastic cult. Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged, and it now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year.

Ignoring Rand's evangelical atheism, the Tea Party movement has taken her to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards reading "Who is John Galt?" and "Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by the broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the guiding spirit of the Republicans in Congress.

Like all philosophies, Objectivism is absorbed, secondhand, by people who have never read it. I believe it is making itself felt on this side of the Atlantic: in the clamorous new demands to remove the 50p tax band for the very rich, for instance; or among the sneering, jeering bloggers who write for the Telegraph and the Spectator, mocking compassion and empathy, attacking efforts to make the word a kinder place.

It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers them something that is crucial to every successful political movement: a sense of victimhood. She tells them that they are parasitised by the ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments.

It is harder to see what it gives the ordinary teabaggers, who would suffer grievously from a withdrawal of government. But such is the degree of misinformation which saturates this movement and so prevalent in the US is Willy Loman syndrome (the gulf between reality and expectations) that millions blithely volunteer themselves as billionaires' doormats. I wonder how many would continue to worship at the shrine of Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of her life she signed on for both Medicare and social security. She had railed furiously against both programmes, as they represented everything she despised about the intrusive state. Her belief system was no match for the realities of age and ill health.

But they have a still more powerful reason to reject her philosophy: as Adam Curtis's BBC documentary showed last year, the most devoted member of her inner circle was Alan Greenspan , former head of the US Federal Reserve. Among the essays he wrote for Rand were those published in a book he co-edited with her called Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal . Here, starkly explained, you'll find the philosophy he brought into government. There is no need for the regulation of business – even builders or Big Pharma – he argued, as "the 'greed' of the businessman or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking is the unexcelled protector of the consumer". As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a "superlatively moral system".

Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the letter, cutting taxes for the rich, repealing the laws constraining banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and the derivatives trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is already documented, but Weiss shows that in the US, Greenspan has successfully airbrushed history.

Despite the many years he spent at her side, despite his previous admission that it was Rand who persuaded him that "capitalism is not only efficient and practical but also moral", he mentioned her in his memoirs only to suggest that it was a youthful indiscretion – and this, it seems, is now the official version. Weiss presents powerful evidence that even today Greenspan remains her loyal disciple, having renounced his partial admission of failure to Congress.

Saturated in her philosophy, the new right on both sides of the Atlantic continues to demand the rollback of the state, even as the wreckage of that policy lies all around. The poor go down, the ultra-rich survive and prosper. Ayn Rand would have approved.

Twitter: @georgemonbiot. A fully referenced version of this article can be found at www.monbiot.com

[Jun 15, 2019] The Persistent Ghost of Ayn Rand, the Forebear of Zombie Neoliberalism by Masha Gessen

Ayn Rand deserves a good take down, particularly because of the role her acolytes have played and are currently playing in imposing economic policies that are so blatantly spurious and harmful to the public good (yes--there is such a thing as the public good). Think Ryan. Think Greenspan.
Rand's answer to this challenge differs from more mainstream versions of secular humanism because she emphasizes different values which prioritize the self over others. She assumes that observably superior individuals would benefit by acting on these values, and that they should have the freedom to do so because the rest of us benefit indirectly from their best efforts - innovative new architecture, efficient rail service, transformative inventions and so forth. Rand would argue that it provides social advantages which outweigh the costs. She's the awful thombstone to neoliberal policies that undergird our lives. Contemplate that. In horror.
Notable quotes:
"... And, of course, the spirit of Ayn Rand haunts the White House. Many of Donald Trump 's associates, including the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and his predecessor, Rex Tillerson, have paid homage to her ideas, and the President himself has praised her novel " The Fountainhead. " (Trump apparently identifies with its architect hero, Howard Roark, who blows up a housing project he has designed for being insufficiently perfect.) ..."
"... Their version of Randism is stripped of all the elements that might account for my inability to throw out those books: the pretense of intellectualism, the militant atheism, and the explicit advocacy of sexual freedom. From all that Rand offered, these men have taken only the worst: the cruelty. They are not even optimistic. They are just plain mean. ..."
Jun 06, 2019 | www.newyorker.com

Rand's novels promised to liberate the reader from everything that he had been taught was right and good. She invited her readers to rejoice in cruelty. Her heroes were superior beings certain of their superiority. They claimed their right to triumph by destroying those who were not as smart, creative, productive, ambitious, physically perfect, selfish, and ruthless as they were. Duggan calls the mood of the books "optimistic cruelty." They are mean, and they have a happy ending -- that is, the superior beings are happy in the end. The novels reverse morality. In them, there is no duty to God or one's fellow-man, only to self. Sex is plentiful, free of consequence, and rough. Money and other good things come to those who take them. Rand's plots legitimize the worst effects of capitalism, creating what Duggan calls "a moral economy of inequality to infuse her softly pornographic romance fiction with the political eros that would captivate a mass readership."

Duggan traces Rand's influence, both direct and indirect, on American politics and culture. Rand's fiction was a vehicle for her philosophy, known as Objectivism, which consecrated an extreme form of laissez-faire capitalism and what she called "rational egoism," or the moral and logical duty of following one's own self-interest. Later in life, Rand promoted Objectivism through nonfiction books, articles, lectures, and courses offered through an institute that she established, called the Foundation for the New Intellectual. She was closely allied with Ludwig von Mises, an economist and historian who helped shape neoliberal thinking. When Rand was actively publishing fiction -- from the nineteen-thirties until 1957, when "Atlas Shrugged" came out -- hers was a marginal political perspective. Critics panned her novels, which gained their immense popularity gradually, by word of mouth. Mid-century American political culture was dominated by New Deal thinking, which prized everything that Rand despised: the welfare state, empathy, interdependence. By the nineteen-eighties, however, neoliberal thinking had come to dominate politics. The economist Alan Greenspan, for example, was a disciple of Rand's who brought her philosophy to his role as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Gerald Ford and, from 1987 until 2006, as the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Duggan doesn't blame Rand for neoliberalism, exactly, but she spotlights the Randian spirit of what she calls the "Neoliberal Theater of Cruelty." This theatre would include players we don't necessarily describe as neoliberal. Paul Ryan, the former House Speaker, is a Rand evangelist who gave out copies of "Atlas Shrugged" as Christmas presents to his staff and said that she "did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism." When the Tea Party came out in force against the Affordable Care Act, in 2009, some of its members carried signs reading "Who Is John Galt?," a reference to "Atlas Shrugged."

Rand's spirit is prominent in Silicon Valley, too: the billionaires Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Travis Kalanick, and others have credited Rand with inspiring them. The image of the American tech entrepreneur could have come from one of her novels. If she were alive today, she would probably adopt the word "disruption."

The collapse of the subprime-mortgage market and the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 should have brought about the death of neoliberalism by making plain the human cost of deregulation and privatization; instead, writes Duggan, "zombie neoliberalism" is now stalking the land.

And, of course, the spirit of Ayn Rand haunts the White House. Many of Donald Trump 's associates, including the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and his predecessor, Rex Tillerson, have paid homage to her ideas, and the President himself has praised her novel " The Fountainhead. " (Trump apparently identifies with its architect hero, Howard Roark, who blows up a housing project he has designed for being insufficiently perfect.)

Their version of Randism is stripped of all the elements that might account for my inability to throw out those books: the pretense of intellectualism, the militant atheism, and the explicit advocacy of sexual freedom. From all that Rand offered, these men have taken only the worst: the cruelty. They are not even optimistic. They are just plain mean.

[Feb 22, 2019] And please refrain from that socialized, government organized power grid

Feb 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

Biff , says: February 22, 2019 at 2:15 am GMT

@onebornfree You are probably the most whacked out idealist on this site. In your mind all the ills of society is because of socialism.

Well next time your toilet backs up, don't use that socialist phone network to call a plumber to clean those socialized drainpipes that keeps your stinky shit flowing down hill and away to be socially treated – just move to certain parts of India where none of that takes place – it's your idealist utopia. Wallow in it.

And please refrain from that socialized, government organized power grid – it's the only thing that keeps you on this site spewing your nonsense. And stay off those socialized roads.

[Feb 17, 2019] Individuals whose predictions were right-on received absolutely no boost in prestige for their prescience. Ron Paul is the most obvious example. Every warning Paul made about these "interventions" happened.

Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Deacon Blue February 16, 2019 at 9:21 am

And the corollary is true as well. Individuals whose predictions were right-on received absolutely no boost in prestige for their prescience. Ron Paul is the most obvious example. Every warning Paul made about these "interventions" happened.

So those whose predictions were wrong, and whose policy recommendations turned out to be disasters and tragedies advance and suffer no consequences for being incredibly wrong. They still obtain high positions (See Bolton).

Those who happened to be right – and took courageous, contrarian positions – are still outcasts and dismissed as "kooks" by the establishment. Sigh.

[Jan 22, 2019] Here are 11 questions you should ask Libertarians to see if they're hypocrites by RJ Eskow

Notable quotes:
"... Are unions, political parties, elections, and social movements like Occupy examples of "spontaneous order" -- and if not, why not? ..."
"... Is a libertarian willing to admit that production is the result of many forces, each of which should be recognized and rewarded? ..."
"... Is our libertarian willing to acknowledge that workers who bargain for their services, individually and collectively, are also employing market forces? ..."
"... Is our libertarian willing to admit that a "free market" needs regulation? ..."
"... Does our libertarian believe in democracy? If yes, explain what's wrong with governments that regulate. ..."
"... Does our libertarian use wealth that wouldn't exist without government in order to preach against the role of government? ..."
"... Does our libertarian reject any and all government protection for his intellectual property? ..."
"... Does our libertarian recognize that democracy is a form of marketplace? ..."
"... Does our libertarian recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedoms? ..."
"... Does he think that Rand was off the mark on this one, or does he agree that historical figures like King and Gandhi were "parasites"? ..."
"... If you believe in the free market, why weren't you willing to accept as final the judgment against libertarianism rendered decades ago in the free and unfettered marketplace of ideas? ..."
Jan 20, 2019 | www.alternet.org
We aren't suggesting every libertarian is a hypocrite, but there's an easy way to find out. Libertarians have a problem. Their political philosophy all but died out in the mid- to late-20th century, but was revived by billionaires and corporations that found them politically useful. And yet libertarianism retains the qualities that led to its disappearance from the public stage, before its reanimation by people like the Koch brothers: It doesn't make any sense.

They call themselves "realists" but rely on fanciful theories that have never predicted real-world behavior. They claim that selfishness makes things better for everybody, when history shows exactly the opposite is true. They claim that a mythical "free market" is better at everything than the government is, yet when they really need government protection, they're the first to clamor for it.

That's no reason not to work with them on areas where they're in agreement with people like me. In fact, the unconventionality of their thought has led libertarians to be among this nation's most forthright and outspoken advocates for civil liberties and against military interventions.

Merriam-Webster defines "hypocrisy" as "feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not." We aren't suggesting every libertarian is a hypocrite. But there's an easy way to find out.

The Other Libertarianism

First, some background. There is a kind of libertarianism that's nothing more or less than a strain in the American psyche, an emotional tendency toward individualism and personal liberty. That's fine and even admirable.

We're talking about the other libertarianism, the political philosophy whose avatar is the late writer Ayn Rand. It was once thought that this extreme brand of libertarianism, one that celebrates greed and even brutality, had died in the early 1980s with Rand herself. Many Rand acolytes had already gone underground, repressing or disavowing the more extreme statements of their youth and attempting to blend in with more mainstream schools of thought in respectable occupations.

There was a good reason for that. Randian libertarianism is an illogical, impractical, inhumane, unpopular set of Utopian ravings which lacks internal coherence and has never predicted real-world behavior anywhere. That's why, reasonably enough, the libertarian movement evaporated in the late 20th century, its followers scattered like the wind.

Pay to Play

But the libertarian movement has seen a strong resurgence in recent years, and there's a simple reason for that: money, and the personal interests of some people who have a lot of it. Once relegated to drug-fueled college-dorm bull sessions, political libertarianism suddenly had pretensions of legitimacy. This revival is Koch-fueled, not coke-fueled, and exists only because in political debate, as in so many other walks of life, cash is king.

The Koch brothers are principal funders of the Reason Foundation and Reason magazine. Exxon Mobil and other corporate and billionaire interests are behind the Cato Institute, the other public face of libertarianism. Financiers have also seeded a number of economics schools, think tanks, and other institutions with proponents of their brand of libertarianism. It's easy to explain why some of these corporate interests do it. It serves the self-interest of the environmental polluters, for example, to promote a political philosophy which argues that regulation is bad and the market will correct itself. And every wealthy individual benefits from tax cuts for the rich. What better way to justify that than with a philosophy that says they're rich because they're better -- and that those tax cuts help everybody ?

The rise of the Silicon Valley economy has also contributed to the libertarian resurgence. A lot of Internet billionaires are nerds who suddenly find themselves rich and powerful, and they're emotionally and intellectually inclined toward libertarianism's geeky and unrealistic vision of a free market. In their minds its ideas are "heuristic," "autologous" and "cybernetic" -- all of which has inherent attraction in their culture.

The only problem is: It's only a dream. At no time or place in human history has there been a working libertarian society which provided its people with the kinds of outcomes libertarians claim it will provide. But libertarianism's self-created mythos claims that it's more realistic than other ideologies, which is the opposite of the truth. The slope from that contradiction to the deep well of hypocrisy is slippery, steep -- and easy to identify.

The Libertarian Hypocrisy Test

That's where the Libertarian Hypocrisy Test comes in. Let's say we have a libertarian friend, and we want to know whether or not he's hypocritical about his beliefs. How would we go about conducting such a test? The best way is to use the tenets of his philosophy to draw up a series of questions to explore his belief system.

The Cato Institute's overview of key libertarian concepts mixes universally acceptable bromides like the "rule of law" and "individual rights" with principles that are more characteristically libertarian -- and therefore more fantastical. Since virtually all people support the rule of law and individual rights, it is the other concepts which are uniquely libertarian and form the basis of our first few questions.

The Institute cites "spontaneous order," for example, as "the great insight of libertarian social analysis." Cato defines that principle thusly:

" (O)rder in society arises spontaneously, out of the actions of thousands or millions of individuals who coordinate their actions with those of others in order to achieve their purposes."

To which the discerning reader might be tempted to ask: Like where , exactly? Libertarians define "spontaneous order" in a very narrow way -- one that excludes demonstrations like the Arab Spring, elections which install progressive governments, or union movements, to name three examples. And yet each of these things are undertaken by individuals who "coordinated their actions with those of others" to achieve our purposes.

So our first hypocrisy test question is, Are unions, political parties, elections, and social movements like Occupy examples of "spontaneous order" -- and if not, why not?

Cato also trumpets what it calls "The Virtue of Production" without ever defining what production is. Economics defines the term, but libertarianism is looser with its terminology. That was easier to get away with in the Industrial Age, when "production" meant a car, or a shovel, or a widget.

Today nearly 50 percent of corporate profits come from the financial sector -- that is, from the manipulation of money. It's more difficult to define "production," and even harder to find its "virtue," when the creation of wealth no longer necessarily leads to the creation of jobs, or economic growth, or anything except the enrichment of a few.

Which seems to be the point. Cato says, "Modern libertarians defend the right of productive people to keep what they earn, against a new class of politicians and bureaucrats who would seize their earnings to transfer them to nonproducers."

Which gets us to our next test question: Is a libertarian willing to admit that production is the result of many forces, each of which should be recognized and rewarded?

Retail stores like Walmart and fast-food corporations like McDonalds cannot produce wealth without employees. Don't those employees have the right to "coordinate their actions with those of others in order to achieve their purposes" -- for example, in unions? You would think that free-market philosophers would encourage workers, as part of a free-market economy, to discover the market value for their services through negotiation.

Is our libertarian willing to acknowledge that workers who bargain for their services, individually and collectively, are also employing market forces?

The bankers who collude to deceive their customers, as US bankers did with the MERS mortgage system, were permitted to do so by the unwillingness of government to regulate them. The customers who were the victims of deception were essential to the production of Wall Street wealth. Why don't libertarians recognize their role in the process, and their right to administer their own affairs?

That right includes the right to regulate the bankers who sell them mortgages. Libertarians say that the "free market" will help consumers. "Libertarians believe that people will be both freer and more prosperous if government intervention in people's economic choices is minimized," says Cato.

But victims of illegal foreclosure are neither "freer" nor "more prosperous" after the government deregulation which led to their exploitation. What's more, deregulation has led to a series of documented banker crimes that include stockholder fraud and investor fraud. That leads us to our next test of libertarian hypocrisy: Is our libertarian willing to admit that a "free market" needs regulation?

Digital Libertarians

But few libertarians are as hypocritical as the billionaires who earned their fortunes in the tech world. Government created the Internet. Government financed the basic research that led to computing itself. And yet Internet libertarians are among the most politically extreme of them all.

Perhaps none is more extreme than Peter Thiel, who made his fortune with PayPal. In one infamous rant, Thiel complained about allowing women and people he describes as "welfare beneficiaries" (which might be reasonably interpreted as "minorities") to vote. "Since 1920," Thiel fulminated, "the extension of the franchise to (these two groups) have turned 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron."

With this remark, Thiel let something slip that extreme libertarians prefer to keep quiet: A lot of them don't like democracy very much. In their world, democracy is a poor substitute for the iron-fisted rule of wealth, administered by those who hold the most of it. Our next test, therefore, is: Does our libertarian believe in democracy? If yes, explain what's wrong with governments that regulate.

On this score, at least, Thiel is no hypocrite. He's willing to freely say what others only think: Democracy should be replaced by the rule of wealthy people like himself.

But how did Peter Thiel and other Internet billionaires become wealthy? They hired government-educated employees to develop products protected by government copyrights. Those products used government-created computer technology and a government-created communications web to communicate with government-educated customers in order to generate wealth for themselves, which was then stored in government-protected banks -- after which they began using that wealth to argue for the elimination of government.

By that standard, Thiel and his fellow "digital libertarians" are hypocrites of genuinely epic proportion. Which leads us to our next question: Does our libertarian use wealth that wouldn't exist without government in order to preach against the role of government?

Many libertarians will counter by saying that government has only two valid functions: to protect the national security and enforce intellectual property laws. By why only these two? If the mythical free market can solve any problem, including protecting the environment, why can't it also protect us from foreign invaders and defend the copyrights that make these libertarians wealthy?

For that matter, why should these libertarians be allowed to hold patents at all? If the free market can decide how best to use our national resources, why shouldn't it also decide how best to use Peter Thiel's ideas, and whether or not to reward him for them? After all, if Thiel were a true Randian libertarian he'd use his ideas in a more superior fashion than anyone else -- and he would be more ruthless in enforcing his rights to them than anyone else. Does our libertarian reject any and all government protection for his intellectual property?

Size Matters

Our democratic process is highly flawed today, but that's largely the result of corruption from corporate and billionaire money. And yet, libertarians celebrate the corrupting influence of big money. No wonder, since the same money is keeping their movement afloat and paying many of their salaries. But, aside from the naked self-interest, their position makes no sense. Why isn't a democratically elected government the ultimate demonstration of "spontaneous order"? Does our libertarian recognize that democracy is a form of marketplace?

We're told that "big government" is bad for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is too large to be responsive. But if big governments are bad, why are big corporations so acceptable? What's more, these massive institutions have been conducting an assault on the individual and collective freedoms of the American people for decades. Why isn't it important to avoid the creation of monopolies, duopolies and syndicates that interfere with the free market's ability to function?

Libertarians are right about one thing: Unchecked and undemocratic force is totalitarian. A totalitarian corporation, or a totalitarian government acting in concert with corporations, is at least as effective at suppressing the "spontaneous order" as a non-corporate totalitarian government. Does our libertarian recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedoms?

Extra Credit Questions

Most libertarians prefer not to take their philosophy to its logical conclusions. While that may make them better human beings, it also shadows them with the taint of hypocrisy.

Ayn Rand was an adamant opponent of good works, writing that "The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves." That raises another test for our libertarian: Does he think that Rand was off the mark on this one, or does he agree that historical figures like King and Gandhi were "parasites"?

There's no reason not to form alliances with civil libertarians, or to shun them as human beings. Their erroneous thinking often arises from good impulses. But it is worth asking them one final question for our test.

Libertarianism would have died out as a philosophy if it weren't for the funding that's been lavished on the movement by billionaires like Thiel and the Kochs and corporations like ExxonMobil. So our final question is: If you believe in the free market, why weren't you willing to accept as final the judgment against libertarianism rendered decades ago in the free and unfettered marketplace of ideas?

[Jan 13, 2019] Republican politicians may invoke the rhetoric of free markets to justify cutting taxes for the rich and benefits for the poor, or removing environmental regulations that hurt polluters' profits, but they don't really care about free markets per se. After all, the party had little problem lining up behind Trump's embrace of tariffs

Notable quotes:
"... If anything, Trump and the GOP have finally shown common decent folk what the democratic experiment in America has become: a system that looks alot like feudal systems of the past. Including walls! ..."
"... There is no such thing as a free market. Let me repeat it again for effect: there is NO such thing as a free market. Whether one calls it libertarianism or neoliberalism, the idea is pretty much the same: if we just unleash the power of human greed, the market will equal everything out, and we'll all be freer because of it. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Our government gives huge incentives to large corporations with the idea that wealth will trickle down into middle class jobs and prosperity. But guess what? Those corporations keep most of the incentives and profits for themselves and their shareholders. The comparatively minuscule recent tax cuts for the middle class pale in comparison to the huge corporate cuts that added $2 trillion to our national deficit. The only thing stopping corporate excess and monopolies is government. Many libertarians cry "starve the beast." Well, they shouldn't complain if they get food poisoning because their food wasn't properly inspected by a government they loath. And neither should President Trump complain, if, like most Americans, his next Big Mac doesn't agree with him. ..."
"... Anarchy is oligarchy. The rule of law -- law crafted by dedicated public servants, who are elected by sober and informed citizens -- is the closest we can come to freedom. ..."
"... The libertarian philosophy is this: while you're young and healthy and productive, you can help make money for your boss. However, once you are old and no longer capable of making a contribution to someone else, it is your obligation to simply die. ..."
"... Privatizing Social Security so that investment firms can get a piece of the action, privatizing Medicare so that insurance companies can get a piece of the action, and privatizing the military, so that private paramilitary companies can get more than their fair share of the action. It's theft in plain sight. We can't believe it, because it's so obvious. ..."
"... Paraphrasing Marie Antoinette "Let them eat contaminated cake" ..."
"... Funny how libertarians never argue for privatizing the military, or law enforcement. ..."
"... I cannot enumerate the number of rich Republicans who tried to get the government to support their elderly while the children of those elderly got the money. I could tell you stories, including one about a certain Republican Governor of Pennsylvania who tried to put his adult, but mentally handicapped child on Medicaid. ..."
"... Cutting tax rates on the wealthy are stealing from the rest of us. We make contributions every hour of every day which are hoovered up by the wealthy and the powerful. Meanwhile we cannot afford the cost of living, which has skyrocketed vs wages and benefits. The cost of an apartment is exorbitant. The cost of health care is exorbitant. Meanwhile the commons suffer. Infrastructure suffers. Sidewalks are a menace. There is lead in the water. Rich people who do not pay their fair share of taxes are stealing from the people in so many ways it's impossible to count them. But count them in years lost, in lives cut short, in lives blighted. ..."
"... Republicans aren't against government, it has grown more under every Republican president including Reagan himself. They simply have their preferences as to who benefits from it. ..."
"... As the saying goes, you never miss your water until your well runs dry. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

That said, the truth is that libertarian ideology isn't a real force within the G.O.P.; it's more of a cover story for the party's actual agenda.

In the case of the party establishment, that agenda is about redistributing income up the scale, and in particular helping important donor interests. Republican politicians may invoke the rhetoric of free markets to justify cutting taxes for the rich and benefits for the poor, or removing environmental regulations that hurt polluters' profits, but they don't really care about free markets per se. After all, the party had little problem lining up behind Trump's embrace of tariffs.

Meanwhile, the philosophy of the party's base is, in essence, big government for me but not for thee. Stick it to the bums on welfare, but don't touch those farm subsidies. Tellingly, the centerpiece of the long G.O.P. jihad against Obamacare was the false claim that it would hurt Medicare.

And as it happens, many of the spending cuts being forced by the shutdown fall heavily and obviously on base voters. Small business owners are much more conservative than the nation as a whole, but they really miss those government loans. Rural voters went Republican during a Democratic midterm blowout, but they want those checks. McConnell may have trash-talked food stamps in the past, but a sudden cutoff would have a catastrophic effect on the most Republican parts of his home state.


C Wolfe Bloomington IN Jan. 10

I had an idiot,er, libertarian friend once who actually believed the market would take care of food safety, because people wouldn't buy food from a source if that source was known to have sold tainted food. "What about the people who die in the meantime?" I asked. "Well, it's up to people to decide what to eat. The government shouldn't tell people what to eat." "But how are you supposed to know? How much tainted food has to be sold and eaten before people even know to avoid it? People get sick or die.

What about people's lives?" "Argh, 'people's lives.'" (Eye roll.) "Liberals are always talking about 'people's lives.'" I swear this is an actual conversation that I repeated so many times I have it memorized.

AndyE Berkley MI Jan. 10

Ironically, the likelihood of chronic dependency on federal dollars is directly proportional to the redness of the state.

DB NC Jan. 11 Times Pick

One of the big obstacles I've observed is that conservatives, in general, have to experience negative consequences directly to understand the link between cause and effect. Liberals, in general, are better at imagining negative consequences and taking preventive action before they directly experience it. It has to do with empathy and solidarity, I think. Liberals see someone suffering, and they think, "We should find out what caused that and fix it so it doesn't happen to the rest of us." Conservatives see someone suffering, and they think, "That guy must be a terrible person. He totally deserves what happened to him. It can never happen to me because I'm a good guy." It is only when the negative thing does directly happen to the conservative that he may reconsider. That's when it is important to find a scapegoat- illegal immigrants, minorities, Jews- to blame in order to obscure the causal link.

Socrates Downtown Verona. NJ Jan. 10

Libertarianism attracts the finest stunted teenaged and hypocritical minds that are either disconnected from reality or that suffer from cognitive dissonance that allows hypocrisy and selfishness to flourish like mutant bacteria. Taxes and good government are the price of any decent civilization...and both of these concepts are completely demonized by Republicans even though Republicans are some of the greatest welfare queens in the nation. Productive, modern, blue Democratic state federal tax dollars have long subsidized rural, religious Republican states that hate the federal government....they curse they horse that feeds them and then they curse even more when the federal teat is turned off. America's 0.1% Robber Barons and crony vulture capitalists curse 'high tax rates' that aren't particularly high compared to the rest of the world while using America's infrastructure, legal system, government-funded research and technology, and corrupted electoral system to make parasitic profits that dwarf those of foreign corporations who pay their fair share of taxes to countries with increasingly better infrastructure and educational systems. The libertarian theology followed to fruition is Somalia-like; an unregulated anarchy of human misery. Decent human beings understand that healthy taxes produce healthy civilization. Today's version of libertarian Republicanism is a demented form of arrested emotional development that's been destroying the USA since 1980. Nice GOPeople.

Larry St. Paul, MN Jan. 11 Times Pick

Those who believe, like Ronald Reagan, that government is the problem, are about to discover that the absence of government is an even worse problem.

Wilbray Thiffault Ottawa. Canada Jan. 10

Senator Mitch McConnel said that the food stamp program is "making it excessively easy to be non productive." Well, Mitch McConnel is not on the food stamp program and he manages to be one of the most "non productive" senator in the history of the US Senate. Congratulation Senator!

Eric Bremen Jan. 11 Times Pick

Almost unfailingly, the stoutest Republican supporters seem to be the biggest beneficiaries of government: the military, farmers, pensioners or small business owners. Growing up in a military family, I remember subsidized gas, medical treatment for free and school trips paid by the DoD. Yet anytime there was a Democratic president, it sounded like there would be a coup when our military parents met at picnicks and had a few beers. If anything, Trump and the GOP have finally shown common decent folk what the democratic experiment in America has become: a system that looks alot like feudal systems of the past. Including walls!

jrinsc South Carolina Jan. 11 Times Pick

There is no such thing as a free market. Let me repeat it again for effect: there is NO such thing as a free market. Whether one calls it libertarianism or neoliberalism, the idea is pretty much the same: if we just unleash the power of human greed, the market will equal everything out, and we'll all be freer because of it. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Our government gives huge incentives to large corporations with the idea that wealth will trickle down into middle class jobs and prosperity. But guess what? Those corporations keep most of the incentives and profits for themselves and their shareholders. The comparatively minuscule recent tax cuts for the middle class pale in comparison to the huge corporate cuts that added $2 trillion to our national deficit. The only thing stopping corporate excess and monopolies is government. Many libertarians cry "starve the beast." Well, they shouldn't complain if they get food poisoning because their food wasn't properly inspected by a government they loath. And neither should President Trump complain, if, like most Americans, his next Big Mac doesn't agree with him.

TM Muskegon, MI Jan. 10

For those who despise government regulations, I offer 3 observations: 1. I lived near Muskegon, MI, prior to the EPA, when 3 foundries were constantly belching smoke and foundry dust into the air. Breathing the air was equivalent to smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day.

2. I lived in Cairo, Egypt for 3 years. I purchased 4 pairs of prescription eyeglasses before finally giving up. None of them were right - and no regulations meant that I had no recourse.

3. I lived in Accra, Ghana for 3 years. No construction codes meant that the brand new luxury apartment building I moved into suffered numerous problems with plumbing, resulting in mold, flooded floors and sudden loss of water pressure.

In Cairo and in Accra, there was no social safety net. Beggars were a constant. Often they would be horribly disfigured and with no family what were they to do? I am happily retired now, back in Western Michigan, thoroughly enjoying the clean air, safe food, and clean parks. Obama said it best - it's not the size of government, it's the effectiveness of it. And if it's not working, that's on us - we're the ones who put those people in office. 2020 can't arrive soon enough.

Lex DC Jan. 10

The Trump voter in my family was a libertarian before switching to the Party of Trump and still believes that government is an interference. One conversation we had was about electricians needing to be licensed. He said electricians did not need to be licensed because if their work led to customers being injured or killed due to a fire, that information would circulate and those electricians would be forced out of the market. I asked him if he cared about the people injured or killed, he shrugged his shoulders and said that's just the way things are. I then asked him what if he was one the customers injured or killed. He looked rather shocked at that question and immediately dropped the subject. That is all that I ever needed to know about libertarianism.

Michael W. Espy Flint, MI Jan. 11 Times Pick

I like to pay taxes, I get civilization in return.

Pat Somewhere Jan. 10

"Libertarianism" according to the GOP means that YOU need the discipline of the "free market," but I deserve all the protections and support of the nanny state (financed with your tax dollars, thank you very much.)

Goodglud Flagstaff, AZ Jan. 10

As George Lakoff reminded us, what the anti-government folks call "regulations" are, for the most part, "protections." We shouldn't let the Kochs, Trumps, McConnells, and Ryans frame the discussion. "The term "regulation" is framed from the viewpoint of corporations and other businesses. From their viewpoint, "regulations" are limitations on their freedom to do whatever they want no matter who it harms. But from the public's viewpoint, a regulation is a protection against harm done by unscrupulous corporations seeking to maximize profit at the cost of harm to the public." https://georgelakoff.com/2017/01/28/the-publics-viewpoint-regulations-are-protections

Michael McLemore Athens, Georgia Jan. 11 Times Pick

At some point the American people need to realize that conservative/libertarian pundits are just on-air hucksters selling a product. Instead of selling Vegematics, Ginsu knives or non-stick cookware, they are peddling right-wing bile for a profit. And the profits derived from their corporate advertisers are huge. Forget truth or journalism, Rush Linbaugh openly proclaims himself to be an "entertainer" and not a "journalist" (mainly to make it more difficult to sue him for falsehood). Ann Coulter similarly declares herself a "polemicist". Forget for a moment the subversive influence of Russian money and hacking on American politics. Our own homegrown corporate advertisers are eagerly subverting America by underwriting glib purveyors of corrosive right-wing propaganda, who will slyly proclaim the gospel of unbridled greed and not of social responsibility. Of course drug companies don't want the FDA. Why would they want oversight to keep the public safe, when safety costs them money? Why would banks want regulation to safeguard the financial system and consumers, when regulation interferes with short-term profits? The Koch brothers don't want pesky interference from the EPA in regulating their mega-refinery in Minnesota. Their family homes are in Aspen, Palm Beach and Manhattan, so why should it concern them if effluent rolls through St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans? Don't dare call this something so plain as "greed". Wrap it in a bow and call it "libertarianism".

FunkyIrishman member of the resistance Jan. 11 Times Pick

Republican mantra (even Libertarian) is to be left alone, so long as THEIR way of life is left alone, and they are subsidized by you for living that way. That may mean a MASSIVE military to be a deterrent, or to go invade some other country to keep the oil flowing. That may mean subsidizing all sorts of industries, businesses and the like, because they cannot compete at all on a truly free open market. That might mean support for all sorts of social programs, health programs, education programs and the like as well, because bootstraps only take you so far. I would use the word hypocrisy, but that would entail that many know what they speak of when describing what Libertarian, or Socialist. or another ''ist'' form of government actually means. We are all in this together or we are not. There is no in between, but many would have you believe it is possible. It is not.

earlyman Portland Jan. 10

@Bill Once you our you loved one eats salmonella contaminated lettuce and nearly dies, good luck going after, or even finding, the agra-business across the country who caused it.

Linda Sausalito, CA Jan. 10

European food is heavily regulated, uh, by governments. Much tastier and doesn't contain known carcinogens. Watching the train wreck of the United States.

Will Schmidt perlboy on a ranch 6 miles from Ola, AR Jan. 10

@C Wolfe This rings so true for me too. I majored in economics at UICC in the early seventies. My favorite prof was a PhD candidate at U of Chicago, and one of his advisors was Milton Friedman. Being at UICC, I did not study under the great man, but I did under one of his acolytes, who was close to tenure (ABD, if I remember correctly), and I thought, a very intelligent one. One of his two areas of doctoral specialty (you had to have two; his other was labor) was macro, and I took him for among other things, money & banking. In fact, I took M&B twice, because the first time (I got an A) was from a Keynesian, and I wanted to get it from a Quantity Theory guy; another A.) Because my prof was a diciple of M.F., I got to attend several special lectures at UC, and partake of the kool-aid. Well, I heard directly from the horse's mouth how consumers would boycotte inferior suppliers and only the best would survive. The free market would favor the best and punish the worst. Of course, this required perfect information. Unfortunately, no good case was made how a perfect information economy could be achieved nor how consumers could afford to acquire perfect information. The price of discovering bad suppliers of tainted food would surely include the deaths of some number of consumers before that information became generally available. We debated perfect markets and perfect information but never did get a convincing case for abandoning government inspection of food products.

Michael Kelly Bellevue, Nebraska Jan. 10

The famous Republican philosopher Grover Norquist once said that he's want to have government so small that one could drown it in the bathtub. Right now, nearly one million government workers are facing the prospect of drowning in debt. Trump suggests that they could make do like he always used to, namely declare bankruptcy or go to daddy for a loan. All this while court jester Pence 'handles' the negotiations. His idea is to make more requests while staying firm on a wall.

LT Chicago Jan. 10

Perhaps the GOP base will finally learn just how dependent they really are on the government they profess to hate. Trump loving farmers and small town business owners are in for a particularly nasty surprise. It's not just farm subsidies. As described by Michael Lewis in "The Fifth Risk": "As the U.S.D.A.'s loans were usually made through local banks, the people on the receiving end of them were often unaware of where the money was coming from. There were many stories very like the one Tom Vilsack told, about a loan they had made, in Minnesota, to a government-shade-throwing, Fox News-watching, small-town businessman. The bank held a ceremony and the guy wound up being interviewed by the local paper. "He's telling the reporter how proud he is to have done it on his own," said Vilsack. "The U.S.D.A. person goes to introduce herself, and he says, 'So who are you?' She says, 'I'm the U.S.D.A. person.' He asks, 'What are you doing here?' She says, 'Well, sir, we supplied the money you are announcing.' He was white as a sheet." There are rural counties in this country that are only viable with government money. Trump counties. It's going to be an expensive and painful education. Trump University lives.

Norm Weaver Buffalo NY Jan. 10

If ever there was a group that lives in a fantasy world, it's the libertarians. In another article in another newspaper that dealt with "intrusive" government, I submitted a comment saying that I wouldn't be surprised if Libertarians would be opposed to STOP signs and traffic lights because these would constitute an unnecessary infringement on their freedom. Wouldn't you know that a person of that persuasion actually replied to my comment and confirmed my suspicion. Working in an IT position for three decades I dealt with this type daily. Many were 30-something white males, often both cognitively and physically well above average, who had learned to program computers. They were blessed with being raised in two-parent families. I acknowledge the hard work they did to learn to wrestle with computers, but they lacked the perspective to realize that they had not hit a home run but rather had been born on second or third base due to the intellectual and physical gifts they possess that many others don't.They could not understand why others in society could not emulate their success. In one conversation about affirmative action, one such person asked "Why do we need that anymore? There are laws against discrimination.". Many of this type get bit in the behind when some government regulation is repealed then it turns out that THEY are the ones adversely affected by the repeal. But don't waste your breath trying to pierce the fantasy balloon. They hold tight to those fantasies.

George Chicago Jan. 10

I'm waiting for Grover Norquist and the other small government proponents to relocate to Somalia, home of no real government. Why it's not thriving without the yoke of onerous regulations is surprising.

Red Sox, '04, '07, '13, '18, Boston Jan. 10

"...making it excessively easy to be non-productive." -- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The irony is too rich here. While he and his president and the "non-productive" Republican Senators draw a paycheck for soaking up the public dime, kids will go hungry; start-up hopefuls will lose loans; farmers will feel the bite; food will become contaminated and people will fill hospital ER's and strain their health insurance. For openers. The Right is getting its own back on FDR's New Deal. All because "government is the problem." Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Dominic Holland San Diego Jan. 10

A relatively minor point: "Maybe you believe that private companies could take over the F.D.A.'s role in keeping food safe, but such companies don't exist now and can't be conjured up in a matter of weeks." Such inspection companies could only exist if they were funded by the food companies they were inspecting. Competition among inspection companies would then obviously lead to grade inflation: hire some other company that is more likely to give you a passing grade, who in turn will be happy to lower standards to attract more customers. This is not an avenue for effective replacement of the FDA. Libertarianism is for chumps and fanatics, no one else.

Paul K Michigan USA Jan. 11 Times Pick

We lived in a small West African nation for 25 years. There were no collectable taxes because the tax collectors kept what they could extort from poor people, no safety nets such as social security or medicaid/medicare, no fire fighters, no functional road departments, no regulation of pharmaceuticals, an unprepared and unarmed military, no paid federal, regional of local police forces, no judges who were not bought by the highest bidder, no standards for the public hospitals, no communication systems, no running water in major cities, no electric power that functioned more than 4-6 hours a day, and not a single government official who was not on the take.

What we did have were cholera epidemics that killed 5000 people, annual measle epidemics that killed children under 5 years old , villages burned to the ground by wildfire, a school system which did not pay its teachers and finally a 12 year civil war which killed over 200,000 people and a [post war ebola epidemic which killed 12,000 more.

The proper use of taxes was not even a dream. Now in the USA, the "leadership" under its current president and his sycophants are playing personal and infantile grade school games with your and my tax dollars and the congress is helping them do it. Amazing! I feel like I am back home in my 3rd world village .

Tom B New York Jan. 11 Times Pick

Anarchy is oligarchy. The rule of law -- law crafted by dedicated public servants, who are elected by sober and informed citizens -- is the closest we can come to freedom. Governance that provides basic order and rules and a safety net for when people fail (either from behavior that is unwise or from ill fortune) is part of the rule of law. There are also necessary things that the government can provide (without a profit motive) better than either charity of for profit organizations. Roads and basic science are good examples. Other things are best left alone by government -- things like sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. These should be principles that we all can live by, but it seems like the so-called conservatives believe quite the opposite. They believe in unregulated guns, flows of money to unregulated trusts, defunded public goods, and violent repression of sex, drugs, and free expression.

Kinsale Charlottesville, VA Jan. 10

@earlyman correct. The first thing those large corporations responsible will do is use their lobbying power to legislate liability caps on what they have to pay in settlement costs. That's the way the real world works. We're not living in some libertarian utopia.

James Wallis Martin Christchurch, New Zealand Jan. 10

Problems with the food industry in the US isn't just a new issue since the Trump administration, it has been an issue for decades. The problems of Big Ag and Food Manufacturers lobbying has been so bad, that whenever I see doctors in Germany and New Zealand, the first question they ask is have I been and eaten food in the US in the last six months, when they are trying to ascertain health issues". When the medical community around the world asks about US food intake, you know corporate libertarianism has run afoul and at the cost of the health of America. The fact that foods that can't be sold in Europe for health reasons are dumped in the US just highlights how it is no longer the United States of America, but rather the Corporate States of America. When will the people demand for Separation of Corporation and State?

John Moran Tennessee Jan. 11

I had serious Libertarian leanings up until a few years ago when my family and I moved to Bangalore, India to work for three years. It was an eye opening experience to see what actually happens when you don't have a strong central government regulating things like the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the food you eat.

Bangalore was once known as the Garden City and is considered the Silicon Valley of India, but corporate greed, unchecked expansion, and government corruption, along with no meaningful environmental laws that are actually enforced, has turned it into a nightmare-- or maybe into what Libertarianism looks like in the real world, outside of Ayn Rand novels.

The river beside our street was so polluted it had layers of chemical foam that would reach ten feet in height and blow across the road, stopping traffic.

The nearby lake would literally catch on fire, burning for days. Open sewers ran into nearby water sources. Forget tap water, it would make Flint, Michigan's water crisis seem desirable by comparison. Food safety? Roll the dice and take your chances.

Within a year any trace of Libertarian beliefs were wiped clean from my mind and I longed for strong government regulations to protect me and my family. This U.S. shutdown isn't even a minor taste of what it truly means to live without powerful and enforceable government regulations and protections.

Pete Victoria, BC Jan. 10

@Bill it is important to keep in mind that contaminated food can kill you before you even have a chance to pursue remedies. The critical elements for us now leaving much longer than our ancestors involve personal and public hygiene (e.g. safe food, sewer systems), medicine and healthy environments (e.g. pollution controls). I recommend watching the Trashopolis series, its quite informative.

Thomas Zaslavsky Binghamton, N.Y. Jan. 10

@C Wolfe Decades ago I had a very similar conversation with a doctrinaire libertarian, though it was about a less essential question. I also repeated it many times. The incredulity factor is large. I mean, I couldn't believe the degree to which rationality disappeared.

Karen Garcia New York Jan. 10

On the bright side, a federal judge just ruled Iowa's so-called Ag-Gag law to be unconstitutional, making it easier to expose the filthy and inhumane conditions on factory farms. So agribusiness will be smacked with the double whammy of losing their corporate welfare checks and bribery payments, and having their own cruelty exposed at the same time.

It's obvious that Trump's tantrum of a shutdown is the latest episode of disaster capitalism, or what Naomi Klein has dubbed the Shock Doctrine. Create a crisis, like neglecting New Orleans levees, or most recently, the criminally negligent homicides of Hurricane Maria victims in Puerto Rico, and you allow the vulture capitalists to swoop in and cash in. The entire school system of N.O. is now privatized, and libertarian billionaires are buying up huge chunks of Puerto Rico at bargain basement prices to create palaces. With walls, of course. The trash and overflowing toilets at our national parks are just the ticket for corporations to take them over and charge exorbitant admissions... before selling out to ranchers and drillers to further speed up the Anthropocene. The other semi-bright upshot of this disaster capitalism is that rich conservatives will get just as sick from eating tainted food as the poor. Trump probably figures he is immune, because he likes the polluting cow flesh he consumes to be well-done to burnt. But without getting paid, how long will the White House chefs continue to serve him? : -)

Chris Hunter WA State Jan. 10

Exactly so. It has been my experience that my libertarian friends are only able to be libertarian because they have been protected all their lives (at great expense, they would argue) by the very government they deride.

hen3ry Westchester, NY Jan. 10

What's fascinating about all of this is how the Gutless Obnoxious Popinjays refuse to take any responsibility at all for the problems. It's always the Democrats fault. I'm surprised that none of them have pointed a finger at Obama. After all, he didn't try to build a wall so it must be his fault that Trump is demanding money for a beautiful wall that will protect all Americans from the outside world. It's fascinating to realize that McConnell, Pence, Trump, and the rest of the obnoxious crowd are getting paid by the government they want to drown. They are contributing to the very cycles of misfortune that they blame people for. Are they going to write letters for every federal employee who loses a home, falls farther behind on loan payments than they should, who can't afford to pay for medical care or the premium? No. The GOP has no plans to share the misery it's causing. Trump doesn't understand or care. This is what happens when a complete incompetent is elected to run a country: chaos, uncertainty, and worse. The party that abhorred communism and the Russians now has a president who may be owned by the Russians. Even if he's not, the entire debacle that is Trump's presidency must warming the hearts of Putin and his "friends" each day it continues. As Obama said, elections have consequences. This is one of them. I don't know about the GOP and the libertarians but I prefer to eat, drink, and breathe safely. It's why I like a functioning government.

Mark McHenry Jan. 10

The libertarian philosophy is this: while you're young and healthy and productive, you can help make money for your boss. However, once you are old and no longer capable of making a contribution to someone else, it is your obligation to simply die.

If you look at all the proposals of the Republicans, this seems to be the guiding force. Privatizing Social Security so that investment firms can get a piece of the action, privatizing Medicare so that insurance companies can get a piece of the action, and privatizing the military, so that private paramilitary companies can get more than their fair share of the action. It's theft in plain sight. We can't believe it, because it's so obvious.

Lake trash Lake ozarks Jan. 10

It's the chaos this president keeps thrusting on all of us. We can't keep up day to day of his lack of self control, his lack of understanding how government works, the principles of the constitution, the rule of law that has sustained us through the years. He seems to believe that he has the support to destroy everything that keeps us safe. The foundation that made this a great country is at risk. I'm old now and can not believe what I see every day from this American President.

Cowsrule SF CA Jan. 11

@Zhou "I'll sue the company producing it". How will you do that in the absence of any governmental mechanism to enforce compliance with a law suit? And how will you prove contamination in the absence of any recognized standard to show it is present?

Aram Hollman Arlington, MA Jan. 10

@Bill So, you prefer the pound of cure known as a lawsuit to a regulatory ounce of prevention. Personally, I'd prefer to avoid both the discomfort of food poisoning and the expense of a lawsuit. Besides, do you really think you'd win? None of the many people poisoned by contaminated vegetables at Taco Bell stores a few years ago had any chance of even bringing a lawsuit, much less winning one and gettting compensation. It took regulatory agencies, public health departments, and the national Center for Disease Control simply to track down the offending vegetables and force Taco Belll to clean up its act. As for your checks and balances, most of the checks go from lobbyists to congressmen, and that throws any balances way out of whack. Your annual deficit figure of $1 trillion is out of date. The latest Trump tax cuts raised it to $1.5 trillion. So, start worrying real fast. But, I'd start worrying more not merely about the deficit, but about how money is being spent. You seem to worry more about the comparative peanuts spent on the FDA (which, by the way, also regulates drugs and medical devices) or the USDA (which also helps regulate food safety). than on the far larger amounts spent on the military (e.g. latest technology F-35 jets that can't fly in the rain), US taxpayer funding of arms sales to foreign countries that neither share our values nor help keep us safe (e.g. Saudi Arabia).

Otis-T Los Osos, CA Jan. 10

I work with alot of big Ag companies -- they're constantly raging about government regs and the red tape, etc, etc., but they have HUGE lobby and political power. On an average year, they get an amazing amount of subsidies coming in all kinds of forms, from direct compensation packages to float an industry a la corn, or from electric rates that are lower for them at the expense of the other rate classes. And when any hint of hardship comes, nevermind true hardship, they're front and center for the hand-outs. And they get plenty. All this before we even address immigrant labor! Ha! Libertarian Ag would look WAY different out in the fields. And one thing that would surely be needed: Cheap immigrant (sometimes illigal) labor. You get what you vote for.

JaneF Denver Jan. 10

@michjas Except the Republicans could reopen the government if they chose to. They could pass the same bill they passed in December, and then override the President's veto. Their conspiracy is that they won't do that.

John Quixote NY Jan. 10

So the party of fiscal responsibility which is already running up the deficit insists on building a wall over 2000 miles of border, seizing private property along the way . When we stopped teaching Geography and Citizenship and dismissed literature as irrelevant to getting a good job, we created an electorate that could be gulled by such propaganda and conned into thinking that fear is our avatar: fear of otherness, fear of government, fear of taxes, fear of liberals, fear of fear itself.

Cathy NJ Jan. 10

@Aoy when food is contaminated, the FDA is able to locate "ground zero" with utmost efficiency--Food Science 101. Without the FDA--which was established under T. Roosevelt's administration--there is no coordination between the food chain and the population. You can wash your lettuce to your heart's content, but if it was grown in contaminated soil, the cells within are contaminated. So, yes, the FDA is extremely necessary.

Jake Reeves Atlanta Jan. 10

"Government," declared Ronald Reagan in his first Inaugural Address, "is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Yup, Republicans say government is the problem and then they get in power and prove it. The Party of Problem Government.

keith San Miguel de Allende Jan. 11 Times Pick

Anyone who thinks enforced food safety is unnecessary should go to India and eat in a restaurant anywhere but a first-tier hotel for foreigners. Your odds of getting sick are very high. Ditto in Alexandria, Egypt, and other places I've experienced where profit is important and product is, well, less so. Remedies? Seriously? How will you prove anything? Especially when all the restaurants have the same cavalier attitude toward washing food and hands. You ate the salad? More fool you.

Castor Troy D.C. Jan. 10

I wish that shutdowns were actually that-- shut things down. That means no air traffic controllers, no TSA, no border agents. Wonder how quickly the politicians would solve their differences if they couldn't rely on slave labor from unpaid federal employees forced to work?

alank Wescosville, PA Jan. 11 Times Pick

Paraphrasing Marie Antoinette "Let them eat contaminated cake"

Ecce Homo Jackson Heights Jan. 10

Funny how libertarians never argue for privatizing the military, or law enforcement. When they think it's really important, even libertarians come running back to government. The facts are that markets are only free if they are transparent, and in all of history nobody has come up with a better way than government regulation to make markets transparent. We tried unregulated markets in food production, and it was a disaster - which is why we have federal regulation of food production today. We tried unregulated labor markets and it was also a disaster - which is why we have child labor laws, minimum wage laws, and the full range of other labor regulations we have today. politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com

Ben Chicago Jan. 10

People forget that government workers are themselves participants in the economy. They buy cars and houses. They go to the grocery and the hardware store. When they don't get paid, the businesses they patronize -- private businesses -- also go without. Yesterday, I had lunch at a famous old restaurant right near the federal plaza in Chicago's Loop. One of the workers there told me that because of the shutdown the place's business had fallen way off. (And that's with the federal courthouse still open. Just wait until the courts shut, too.) It's a closed system, folks.

Cal Prof Berkeley, USA Jan. 10

Spot on. Naïveté about libertarianism runs deep. It was brought home to me when I worked with programmers in Silicon Valley in the 1980s. A fair number espoused libertarian ideas. Yet they had all had their computer science degrees paid for by the Defense Department, many at state universities. I was not too sophisticated myself but even I could see the disconnect between the ideas they were pushing and the real world implications.

Tom B New York Jan. 10

Have you ever actually tried a personal injury case? For a food borne illness? I ask those questions rhetorically because I can tell from your comment that you haven't. As a lawyer, who doesn't often get involved in personal injury cases, I can tell you that people often think they aren't hurting anyone by cutting corners, and are only restrained from doing things like serving contaminated food or doing illegal gas line plumbing by the threat of fines if caught cutting those corners. It's not the lawsuit that makes them take care.

Rich Davidson Lake Forest, IL Jan. 10

The gilded age of the 1890's seem like a wonderful time for libertarians. The productivity of the nation was high and gaining. But, it came with dirty air and water, bad food and medicine, quackery and robber barons. It was followed by the Roaring 20's where stocks grew without limits and borrowed money paid for it. That did not end well, either. Finally, in FDR's first 100 days, government stepped in and wrote the rules that made life good for most of us. The GOP does not know history and forgot what happened when there was a libertarian society. They are getting an education, finally.

Linda Oklahoma Jan. 10

One of the things that might end is the Indian Health Services. The government made contracts with tribes that in exchange for their land, the federal government would provide education and healthcare. It's not a welfare program. It is payment for millions of acres of land. If Indian Health Services ends, that's the same as reneging on a contract. Trump may see tribes going to court to get what was promised to them in exchange for land and lifestyle. If the shutdown continues, lots of people may be taking Trump to court.

Yuri Asian Bay Area Jan. 10

Do you believe in magic? Religious extremists do. So do Libertarians. And so do Republicans though what they believe is a variant of magic that might be called delusion or magic mixed with whisky and soda, which we call cynicism. What they all have in common is a collective inability to see the forest from the trees: central to their emptiness is the absence of humanity and all the messy ambiguity that entails, instead substituting a bogus certainty that's nothing more than a palliative for existential panic at the absence of self identity grounded in community. Bertrand Russell called it cosmic anxiety. It drives the compulsion for religion, ideology, in fact all systems of coping that avoid the crushing weight of freedom that comes without compass or owner's manual. Whether the god of the invisible hand that directs the market, or the god of clubs with exclusive membership and status, or the god of ancient fables told and retold for a millennium of successive generations, all are rationales for the irrational aversion of responsibility to do the work necessary to make freedom meaningful without making it meaningless for others. The two bargain bins in the basement of modern life are religion and ideology. Libertarianism can be found on the clearance rack for one size fits all.

OUTsider deep south Jan. 10

Paul, you included this quote from Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader... When talking about Food Stamps he has denounced the program for "making it excessively easy to be nonproductive." He has no business being so judgmental. Being productive implies a positive result for society. When it comes to being productive, his entire career is in question.

Elizabeth Moore Pennsylvania Jan. 11

@ebmem You don't know anything. For one thing, you are DEAD WRONG. Medicare DOES NOT PAY FOR NURSING HOME CARE AT ALL! MEDICAID DOES, but only for the poor. It is WEALTHY REPUBLICANS who "Medicaid Plan" their assets so the government will cover their living expenses so they can preserve wealth for their heirs. How do I know this to be the truth? I spend 23 years as a government regulator for Medicaid (Medical Assistance) in the state of Pennsylvania.

I cannot enumerate the number of rich Republicans who tried to get the government to support their elderly while the children of those elderly got the money. I could tell you stories, including one about a certain Republican Governor of Pennsylvania who tried to put his adult, but mentally handicapped child on Medicaid.

Sherry Washington Jan. 10

It is remarkable how farmers, who are particularly reliant on federal government programs to buy seed, equipment, get loans, get crop subsidies, and market their food, still support Trump, even though these programs are shut down and he's started a trade war. One farmer in today's issue supports Trump, saying "we need some border security", even though it means he might lose his farm. What kind of politics is this where people support a President who intentionally ruins their prospects and their way of life? It reminds me how dictators keep power through propaganda, rewriting history and painting its leadership as heroic. Fox News is like North Korean TV rewiring Republican brains to believe that Republicans, no matter how bone-headed, are always good, and Democrats are always bad, so much so they are willing to lose the farm, like North Koreans are willing to starve.

Will Hogan USA Jan. 11

@Mark Nuckols all the government programs that help business mean that the wealthy owe some money back. when 5000 workers of a large corporation all drive the company trucks on free public roads built with tax dollars, when those roads need repair, it sure should be taxes on the company that helps pay, along with the gas tax we all pay. Your mistake is in thinking that the income of the company owner was earned by him and him alone, but in reality, the taxpayers helped him plenty every step of the way. You just did not see it all.

ridgeguy No. CA Jan. 10

The article focuses on food inspections, but what about drug inspections? Is the FDA inspecting pharma manufacturing houses? Are they inspecting precursor chemicals commonly imported from, say, China? Libertarians (along with the rest of us) may be in for much more consequential disappointments than bad lettuce.

Chris DC Jan. 10

Well, at this point it certainly comes as no surprise that the narrowly tailored ideological conceit republicans like to think of as - laughably - 'Libertarianism' was little more than an economic grubsteak to the plutocratic interests. Indeed, it makes my head spin to think how quickly the so-called libertarians of the republican party would support rollbacks on women's reproductive liberties, not to mention the liberties of minorities and the LGBTQ community, not to mention how they would import the Christian Right's version of theology into the public domain. (Ah yes, get government off our backs, but shove God into every home.) The issue that looms broadly over all this, however, is the republican's intent to liquidate this nation's status as technologically advanced, industrialized liberal democracy. Apparently the maintenance/perpetuation of modernity is not compatible with right wing notions of 'liberty,' let alone libertarianism.

Areader Huntsville Jan. 10

The first libertarian I knew was a slum landlord who did not want the Government regulations concerning maintenance of apartments and the like. This seems like a common trait among the political group as I think libertarians are more interested in profit.

Peter CT Jan. 10

No one complains more loudly and more often about attempts to curtail his first amendment rights "guaranteed by the constitution," than my libertarian friend, who refuses to pay taxes, then expects the government he won't support to protect his freedoms. If you really miss those debate club arguments from jr. high school, go try to talk sense to some libertarians. For the rest of us, plain old Republicans are a perfectly adequate source of flawed reasoning.

Sophia chicago Jan. 11

@Mark Nuckols Wrong! Cutting tax rates on the wealthy are stealing from the rest of us. We make contributions every hour of every day which are hoovered up by the wealthy and the powerful. Meanwhile we cannot afford the cost of living, which has skyrocketed vs wages and benefits. The cost of an apartment is exorbitant. The cost of health care is exorbitant. Meanwhile the commons suffer. Infrastructure suffers. Sidewalks are a menace. There is lead in the water. Rich people who do not pay their fair share of taxes are stealing from the people in so many ways it's impossible to count them. But count them in years lost, in lives cut short, in lives blighted.

sapere aude Maryland Jan. 10

Republicans aren't against government, it has grown more under every Republican president including Reagan himself. They simply have their preferences as to who benefits from it.

Helena Princeton New Jersey Jan. 10

I'm surprised that the air traffic controllers haven't all called in sick. They have the collective power to bring air travel to a standstill. I've long felt that a general nationwide strike would finally get the attention of our corporate overlords. After all, all they care about is money--just like Trump and the GOP.

YoursTruly Pakistan Jan. 11 Times Pick

When two elephants fight, its the grass that gets uprooted. In this show of arrogance and egos its the lives of many ordinary Americans that is adversely affected. I only wish that this crisis comes to an end soon to the relief of many.

dpaqcluck Cerritos, CA Jan. 10

@jrinsc, exactly right with an academic exception. Adam Smith and his ideas of free market competition assumed that there would be large number of companies competing with each other with their sole means of competition being consumer satisfaction, price and employee efficiency. Anyone who couldn't compete went out of business, hence "free market". The government's only role is to enforce anti-trust laws to keep businesses small and competitive, and assure that the competitive triangle of business, labor, and consumer are kept in balance. Fundamentally big business is bad, always! What real "free markets" DO NOT include is the idea that a small number of huge companies pay the government to create a competition free environment. The term "free market" has been stolen to mean that companies can do anything they want to succeed, including creating laws with profitable loopholes, laws to inhibit labor participation in the competition, and laws that inhibit consumers from using fraud laws to suppress shoddy products. In reality there is no "free market", as @jrinsc said, except to mean that big companies are free to do whatever they want to be profitable.

PB USA Jan. 10

My first lecture in economics dealt with free. The professor, then the Chief Economist at the Cleveland Fed, made the point that nothing was free: no free lunch; no free air; no free love. The point that he made was that somebody always pays. For everything; maybe not you, not now; but somebody does. So every time that I hear this Republican rant about free markets, I begin to laugh.

White Buffalo SE PA Jan. 11

@dpaqcluck Adam Smith believed corporate entities needed to be regulated. something always left out.

J. Benedict Bridgeport, Ct Jan. 10

I am wondering if Mitch McConnell and his close Republican allies have been living off food stamps because it seems to me they all have been incredibly unproductive for years which he sights as a consequence of anyone using food stamps.

John California California Jan. 11

@Joel Sanders This is completely specious reasoning. There are any number of non-state food groups that compete to set, e.g., organic, standards for food... for their participants. And they can restrict anyone from using their seal of approval without meeting their requirements. What they can't do, and the State can, is to require tainted products to be removed from distribution. Having the power of the State depends on law that transcends private agreement. And in the case of food, drugs, highways, airlines, and a number of other avenues of social life, that strikes me as a valuable thing. Why is this SO difficult for you, Mr. Sanders?

James Lee Arlington, Texas Jan. 11

I once heard a conservative economist give a speech in which he denounced the FDA for its suppression of competition in the pharmaceutical industry. I asked him what would protect the consumer if the market replaced the Feds as regulator of new drugs. He responded that, if my wife died from the effects of a toxic drug, I could always sue the firm that produced it. I found this notion deeply comforting. I might lose my wife, but the drug company would have to compensate me with a pile of dollars, assuming I could prove its negligence. For this libertarian, a life and money weighed equally in the scales of justice.

Aubrey Alabama Jan. 10

The people who support libertarianism are like those who support biblical literalism (fundamentalism). The libertarians want to get rid of some laws and regulations but not all of them. Just the ones they don't like. Usually these are laws which make corporations and businesses sell clean and safe food, treat employees fairly, pay taxes, etc. The libertarians don't want to get rid of laws which help business, corporations, and the well-to-do. They want to be sure that Boeing, Lockheed, and others get cushy defense contracts, the petroleum companies get subsidies, Big Pharma gets to charge a lot for drugs, etc. It is just a new name for the same old playbook -- make things tough on the weak and poor -- those with dark skins, immigrants, etc. All the while being solicitous for the well-off and powerful. Religious literalist do the same -- pick out the Bible verses which support the desired message. Ignore those which don't. So many things don't change. We get give them a new name.

Stan Sutton Westchester County, NY Jan. 10

Actually, Krugman didn't confuse Libertarians and Republicans. He said that Republicans used Libertarian rhetoric but weren't true Libertarians, and he didn't accuse Libertarians of favoring Republican policies across the board.

RLiss Fleming Island, Florida Jan. 11

@Bill: See Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9, which covers the Flint water crisis in depth. These people didn't even know they were drinking contaminated water until a health worker broke ranks and made it public. THEN nothing was done.....(Oh, the state provided bottled water for a while, to drink).... The children of Flint were suffering IRREVERSIBLE brain damage due to lead in the water.....would suing 20 years later fix that? AND why did this happen at all? The Republican governor of the state wanted to help his buddies make a lot of money....

DB NC Jan. 10

@Goodglud Excellent link! We need to call it what it is. No more reduce "regulations" which people hear as reducing red tape. Make them advocate to "reduce protections."

Red Sox, '04, '07, '13, '18, Boston Jan. 10

@AndyE, Berkley, MI: Nice turn on Jennings' corollary to Murphy's Law (the chances of the toast falling buttered side down on the carpet is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet).

Buck Santa Fe, NM Jan. 10

@Mamawalrus72 We are living Government by the Kochs now. We have been living Government by corporations for some time.

NM NY Jan. 10

Money talks louder than reason. So long as moneyed libertarians like the Koch Brothers buy political influence, they will purchase an agenda to benefit themselves at our expense.

Chris Toronto Jan. 10

"In the case of the party establishment, that agenda is about redistributing income up the scale, and in particular helping important donor interests. Republican politicians may invoke the rhetoric of free markets to justify cutting taxes for the rich and benefits for the poor, or removing environmental regulations that hurt polluters' profits, but they don't really care about free markets per se." Head of nail, meet hammer. The US used to be the world's beacon of democratic values. No longer. The political system has been severely corrupted by PACs, Super PACs, self-funding billionaire politicians, skewed campaign funding rules, cynical electoral manipulation, self-interest and a lack of statesmanship amongst the political classes. You'd think a credible third political party would be able to drive a bus straight through the middle of this division. Two choices, left or right, just can't be enough to sustain a democracy.

Richard NM Jan. 10

@Will Schmidt perlboy "We debated perfect markets ..." Like in engineering somebody would design a car without engine because there is no friction and you just have to give it a push to get around. I am so happy I am an engineer, forces me into reality.

Audrey Germany Jan. 11

"Knowing that the food you're eating is now more likely than before to be contaminated, does that potential contamination smell to you like freedom?" Exactly. One of the most thing I appreciated of being in the EU is a strong consumer protection and safety regulations. But I guess, it's to "socialist" for some. Let's wait and see how the UK consumers will enjoy post-Brexit "freedom".

Mike Albany, New York Jan. 10

In answer to to Bill from Michigan, the problem with food and water contamination is that it may take years to find out that the food or water is actually contaminated, and then additional time for the public to be informed. After all this time passes, the damage is already done and lives are irreversibly damaged. As an example, the FDA has very strict limits on the amount of mycotoxin and bacterial contamination in our food supply. While E. coli contamination may be detected due to severe acute health effects, the carcinogenic effects of mycotoxin contamination may not be detected in years. The Flint Michigan lead contamination occurred in 2014 and wasn't declared an emergency until two years later, when public health officials alerted the public in 2016. Although this was largely a local issue, the H.R. 4470, the Safe Drinking Water Act Improved Compliance Awareness Act, mandates that consumers be informed. So, personally I'd rather have the Federal Government be on the side of the public and not rely on greedy lawyers.

JRM Melbourne Jan. 11

@ebmem Republicans get in office and go to work to prove that Government doesn't work and is the problem. Government works fine as long as Republicans are not in charge. The sabotage any effort to resolve or solve a problem. They complain about the debt and deficit until they are in office and then they blow the budget to smithereens with invented reasons for war so they can enrich themselves. They are the problem, not Government.

SandraH. California Jan. 11

@Bill, good luck with that. If you survive long enough to sue--and if you can prove the source of your cancer or other illness--you'll find that personal injury lawsuits get you nowhere. The big boys always win. Your best remedy is prevention. Don't let yourself or your loved ones ingest or breathe toxins. Don't let toxins into your groundwater or soil. How do you do that without government regulation?

ben220 brooklyn Jan. 10

Today, medical expenses are stratospheric. Meanwhile, the conservative movement strangles the welfare state so that nearly everyone in the middle class (regardless of political affiliation) who wants to live on more than $900 a month must go through legalized fiscal contortions to be able to pay for adequate care.

Robert David South Watertown NY Jan. 11

@TM Exactly the correct response to libertarians. They like to talk about what "would" happen, as though lack of government were a theoretical that can be calculated. There are plenty of real world examples of what "would" happen. There are historical examples too, but they "would" be different, of course.

Socrates Downtown Verona. NJ Jan. 10

@Aubrey Excellent analogy, although we can also use a good old-fashioned term to describe these 'libertarians', 'conservatives' and religious types -- -- hypocrites ..... of the highest despicable order.

Buttons Cornell Toronto, Canada Jan. 11

What courts? Courts are set up, run by and paid for by government. No government means no court system. You, the little, dying from tainted food, up against a huge agricultural corporation with deep pockets. Libertarianism is a bully system. Those with the money win and the rest die. That's it.

george Iowa Jan. 11

@jrinsc How quickly we forget, of course sometimes it isn`t that we forget but rather our memory is clouded by the smoke from the fires set by vulture capitalism. Upton Sinclair The Jungle should be required reading for all congress critters and all incoming Presidents. The Jungle is a mirror to where todays American Nobility, the 21st century Robber Barons, would like to take us. A disposable population for profit.

HN Philadelphia, PA Jan. 10

Where you see Libertarians, I see people who are so self-unaware and entitled that they believe the only apt government subsidies are the ones that benefit them. Remember the ACA debate line - "keep government out of my medicare?" Most people have no idea of what the government does! What about the staunch GOP voters who nonetheless complain when the government doesn't provide immediate aid to them after a disaster, but hesitate when the aid is going to others? And do they comprehend that all disasters - even those claimed to be "natural" - are actually man made? And do those that value privacy and their right to do what they want - do they really think that corporations and businesses will keep their products fair and safe? No, because corporations and businesses take the short view, while fairness and safety - both of which contribute to the health of the nation and its people - take the long view. Libertarians and their ilk are self-entitled peoples who only think about the immediate impact on themselves and their wallets. They change their tunes quickly when government is needed to help their bottom line.

Independent the South Jan. 11

@Bill The idea is not to sue after you get sick but to prevent you from getting sick. And if you want to reduce deficits, vote for Democrats.

Son Of Liberty nyc Jan. 10

What people with GOP/libertarian leanings should realize is that government regulations were ONLY put into place in response to the horrifying abuses of laissez faire capitalism.

Elizabeth Moore Pennsylvania Jan. 11

@Bill You keep right on believing. THE FACTS ARE that people who would sell you contaminated food have ways of covering up all the evidence. Besides, they could always hide behind the fact that the USDA and FDA inspectors weren't working and "they didn't know" because of that. You would lose any lawsuit because the inspectors didn't reveal any problems and the business owner "did not know to the best of his/her knowledge." EVERYTHING would be blamed on the shutdown, and you would LOSE>

Nova yos Galan California Jan. 10

@Goodglud Yes, regulations are limitations on their freedom to pollute.

Mark Rubin Tucson, AZ Jan. 10

Boy howdy, but it's easy to spout the libertarian line when the FDA, FTC, SEC, EPA, etc. do what they do, day in and day out. Government succeeds quietly! Many post smack about what seem like excesses, while they enjoy safe food and drugs, modest limits on fraudsters, clean air and water, etc.: Now, maybe, we'll see what happens when those who mouth off get the freedom they have demanded for decades. With a months' long shutdown lives will be lost, but those who disparage the regulatory state might get their come-uppance. The coming months, if they involve a partial shutdown, will highlight the value government offers. Opportunities like this one don't appear often. This writer, for one, hopes it represents a crisis which won't be wasted.

gbb Boston, MA Jan. 10

Government in this country seems to me to be run pretty well. I wish that more businesses were run as well as the US Postal Service.

JS Boston Ma Jan. 11

@C Wolfe I made friends with Libertarian from Texas in college my freshman year. He got me to read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. My first take was that Ayn Rand was a pretty weak writer and clearly had serious empathy issues to the point of being a bit creepy. My friend insisted that everyone should be self reliant and was responsible for their own destiny until the day he flunked out because his academically weak high school left him unprepared to survive in our highly selective college. I really felt sorry for him but he was so far behind I could not help him. I have no idea where he ended up.

Lawyermama Buffalo Jan. 10

As the saying goes, you never miss your water until your well runs dry. A very big part of me says this is the only way red states will learn how to stop biting the hand that feeds them: they've been blindly following a party that made no secret that it wished to "starve the beast". This is what it looks like. This new perspective has delighted me even as I worry for my friends, family and colleagues who are feeling the effects. I hope our nation survives this president and learns from the mistakes.

Jim Brokaw California Jan. 10

The problem I have with libertarian utopias is that 'the market' isn't going to work to address all conflicts. So you need to hire enforcement, since government isn't doing it... or are we keeping the courts? And if the courts rule for you, and the other party just refuses to pay, now you have to go get your payment. Good luck with that. It all seems likely to devolve into a 'might makes right' series of standoffs, until people band together into unified groups to collectively agree to a set of rules, and work together with those rules. Sounds a lot like government. Or you can just hire some soldiers and go take what you want. Dare the other guys to take it back. Sounds a lot like anarchy. Libertarians always seems to me like trying to cherry-pick what they like about government, what benefits them, and then dump the rest, the stuff that costs them but they can't see the benefit for. Maybe they'll understand better if they get some contaminated lettuce next time they go grocery shopping...

Pat Stonington, CT Jan. 11

@Bill Who exactly administers said courts that you would turn to for justice? Oh that's right, the government. I hope the irony is not lost on you. Libertarians seem to forgot that no man is an island to himself.

Steve Nirvana Jan. 10

The people I have met who (loudly) espouse libertarian ideas tend to be of three types - all of whom benefit from this philosophy at the expense of others: 1) wealthy heirs like tRump who don't want to pay their taxes since it reduces their ability to live large AND pass on a dynasty to their heirs. 2) those with the luck to obtain the particular skills and education that provide a secure job with high remuneration. (Yes, it is usually a lot of luck) 3) good looking women who are confident that they can latch on to one of those described in 1) or in a pinch, 2) 2) will complain bitterly when the job market shifts - as it did for many in computer science after the glory years of the 80s. 3) will complain if their lawyer doesn't get them a big enough divorce settlement and their looks will no longer give them a second chance. A good economic system works equally for all people, not just those benefiting as members of the lucky gene club.

Spiro Jetti Jan. 11

@Socrates Amen. Something also came to mind in reading your comment: Productive modern blue states subsidize receiving red states, who then, thanks to their outsize representation via the electoral college, bludgeon the blue states with red policies like deregulation and taking of health care etc. Like I am paying someone to punch me. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

SunnyG Kentucky Jan. 10

We don't see the few inspectors who quietly keep our food safe, the EPA folks testing our air and rivers. The impact will be felt much later, and with no one to do the forensics, the story won't be told until well after the shutdown ends. I'm wondering how long the shutdown will last when visible folks start to go on strike. Will the federal employees who will perform the promised IRS, Food Stamp and farm distributions go to work, or ally themselves with their less visible brethren? With transportation, chaos will be most evident. After no paycheck on Friday, what if TSA doesn't shows or they picket Atlanta, OHare, JFK, SFO, IAD and DFW? Ditto for their compatriots in the Control Towers. Chaos. Who benefits? Perhaps we'll learn from Michael Cohen.

Rick Cedar Hill, TX Jan. 10

We as a nation are in this condition because the American character is one of greed, selfishness, one who does not think for himself/herself, and one that is controlled through fear. Maybe once our empire crumbles it will be divided into smaller countries that are easier to manage like the western European countries. I will move to one of the new countries that support a balanced budget, hates the concept of Citizens United and K Street lobbyists, wants to educate their masses, and provides healthcare for everyone rich and not so rich. An ignorant populous is easier to control and manhandle. The US is a good example.

Rima Regas Southern California Jan. 10

@hen3ry "It's fascinating to realize that McConnell, Pence, Trump, and the rest of the obnoxious crowd are getting paid by the government they want to drown." When you go the rest of the way you finally get a true sense of how perverted these people are.

javierg Miami, Florida Jan. 10

Thank you Dr. Krugman for a great perspective. It reminds me of the saying "be careful of what you wish for" ... for it may actually come true. Save for the sacrifice of many good Americans who depend on jobs and government benefits and the public in general, this may be the medicine those Republicans need to cure themselves of their hands off philosophy.

Ron Silverlake WA Jan. 11

@Bill I don't believe for a nano-second you would be willing to expose your family to contaminated or adulterated food on the chance you might be able sue someone after the fact. It could take you years and many thousands of dollars to get justice that way. There is a good reason we have agencies like the FDA. Many years before you were born, we in fact had the very situation you say you would be fine with. It was buyer beware for all foodstuffs. You could not trust food producers to put on the label what was actually in the can or bottle. Meat packers were packing and sending out absolute filth. If you want a hint of what it would be like here without these protective agencies, do a little research on food safety in China. It will make you sick when you see what the Chinese are exposed to.

Jody Quincy, IL Jan. 10

@C Wolfe Libertarian or not, in this country money is always more valued than human life. Again, it took Western Europe more than 2,000 years to become somewhat civilized and it will take this continent at least that long.

Thomas Zaslavsky Binghamton, N.Y. Jan. 10

@Eleanor How will you get around this? Reagan said, 'The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."'

Anne CA Jan. 10

Does the shutdown mean that government will stop collecting tax money while services are suspended? Does it work both ways?

Teresa MN Jan. 11

@ebmem I am an employee of Medicaid who sees countless fellow workers toil long after quitting time to cover the most people, with the least potential harm or burden to them, to get the best services and quality of life possible, AND doing all that earning maybe half the compensation of a comparable private sector position. It saddens me that even the program ensuring our loved ones - or ourselves! - have care at the end of life is not safe from this kind of bitter, distorted partisan anger.

James K. Lowden Camden, Maine Jan. 11

@Bill Two words for you: Blue Milk. Look it up. Food contamination is an old story, as old as tort law. The FDA was created because tort law was unequal to the task. If you think the modern day is different, how is that romaine lettuce lawsuit going for you? As far as I know, no one knows where the contamination came from, much less who to sue. The romaine situation illustrates another flaw in your libertarian fantasy. The individual harm is collectively huge but individually small. Any action -- preventive or retributive -- requires collective action. Which, actually, is what democracy is, and why democracy created the FDA.

Joe Glendale, Arizona Jan. 11

@Linda You said it, Linda. I just returned from Europe. And I could not believe again how much tastier the meat and produce was - not only in restaurants but in humble meals in the country. Commercial food produced in the United States is terrible, tasteless, and full of pernicious additives. Ma and Pa Kettle have become inured to it, and don't know any better.

Blue Moon Old Pueblo Jan. 11

@Wilbray Thiffault "Well, Mitch McConnell is not on the food stamp program, and he manages to be one of the most 'non productive' senators in the history of the US Senate." Correction: Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans are indeed on the food stamp program, the best one ever, and the government shutdown is not preventing them all from being paid. They will never give it up willingly.

Sunny NYC Jan. 10

Prof. Krugman says, "Meanwhile, the philosophy of the party's base is, in essence, big government for me but not for thee." I totally agree. It is indeed Trump and the Republican party who is disrupting the free market. The free market can be sustained only when it is run by smart and fair-minded people including top-notched economists and politicians. Otherwise, the socialism-monster would threaten and collapse the free market anytime. What I mean by 'the socialism-monster' is not the economies of Northern European countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, etc. Some Americans call their economies 'socialism', but that's very wrong; their economies are indeed one of the most advanced capitalistic systems. How can't they be? Capitalism in a sense started from there, i.e., the business markets of the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, etc. Only when capitalism is truly advanced can well-rounded safety nets exist. In any case, genuinely socialist countries such as North-Korea and China do not protect human rights and thus prohibit freedom. The real problem with Trump and his allies is that they offer the strongest momentum for socialism by killing the chance for developing truly healthy free market. Trump, with Putin, is turning the whole world back into the days of nationalism, ideologism, and colonialism. They all champion big , huge, monstrous government. If there is any American crisis, it is not border security but gun violence. But Trump underwrites the NRA.

[Dec 30, 2018] Summer- Rerun- Journey into a Libertarian Future- Part I The Vision

You can find original interview at using the lisnk above, or if it disappeared, in Humor section of this site
Notable quotes:
"... I will say that, just as Marxism provides an essential way of examining capitalism, libertarianism provides a filter for examining and criticizing stateist impulses. But a society organized around libertarian principles, just silly. ..."
"... The one thing libertarians want desperately to ignore is that imposing their vision of an utopian society is that while no one is "coerced" and will have equal rights, the inequalities that exist today will be cemented into society. ..."
"... Thus Spake Zarathustra, ..."
Dec 30, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The interview was skilled for obvious reasons ;-)


Synoia , December 27, 2018 at 3:47 pm

What puzzles me about the Libertarian Dream is their ability to ignore the Dark Ages in Western Europe.

It fulfills all their requirements, and by what accounts survive, was remarkably unsuccessful. Life was poor, nasty, brutish and short.

I've has the discussion of rule of law with libertarians, and it went like this:

Lb: We could have a farming society without rule of law.
Me: How are disputes resolved?
Lb: We all get together and resolve the dispute.
Me: How is the dispute resolution enforced?
Lb: Everybody agrees to the resolution.
Me: What happens if some do not agree? What happens if someone cheats?
Lb: ..
Me: We've used this mechanism before, Hatfields vs McCoy' in the US, and Campbells Vs McDonalds in Scotland.
Lb: ..

Those who don't know their History, are condemned to repeat it.

Winston Churchill in his "History of the English Speaking Peoples" refers to the desire of the People in England to have "The King's Peace," otherwise known as "The Rule of Law" with all it's apparatus, Police, Courts, etc.

The Libertarians appear to want "Rule by the Rich and Powerful" and do not understand that that includes few, if any, of the current libertarians, except perhaps for the Koch Brothers.

Sleeping Dog , December 30, 2018 at 9:05 am

In the 90's when encountering a want-to-be business tycoon spouting Libertarian nonsense, I would encourage them to seek their fortune in Somalia, where no government existed.

I will say that, just as Marxism provides an essential way of examining capitalism, libertarianism provides a filter for examining and criticizing stateist impulses. But a society organized around libertarian principles, just silly.

Synoia , December 27, 2018 at 3:55 pm

Tom DiLorenzo pointed out on the Lew Rockwell website that the crisis was actually the result of the government forcing banks to make risky loans to low-income borrowers.

Oh the poor banks, forced to loan money for houses aka: The Brer Rabbit Loan Origination philosophy.

"Forced "the banks were not. They juiced the bankruptcy laws, and bundle up the loans and sold then to a willing set of buyers, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, "Government Corporations", who were re-nationalized when they fell into trouble.

The Bank's happily took the loan origination fees, and survived when they were then "forced" to accept Government bail outs.

Why some senior bank executives even took a cut in Bonuses – the misery of it all! /s

rob , December 27, 2018 at 7:47 pm

That was the first thing that leaped out at me too. Are you kidding? the banks were "forced" by the government where to start with that one? The only thing that fits was said here not to long ago. " arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. They just knock over the pieces, shit on the board, and strut around like they won anyway."

RP , December 27, 2018 at 4:24 pm

The one thing libertarians want desperately to ignore is that imposing their vision of an utopian society is that while no one is "coerced" and will have equal rights, the inequalities that exist today will be cemented into society. Until someone can explain to me what my recourse is when my right to breathe clean air and drink clean water or to speak my mind freely is destroyed by a polluter or someone who doesn't like what I have to say, I will view libertarianism as the worst of all possible worlds.

Amfortas the hippie , December 28, 2018 at 6:54 am

when i was still on faceborg, years ago, I would often be confronted by wandering libertarians.
one way to send them into conniptions was to say, "fine. let's run your experiment of lawlessness and "freedom" but first, in order to adhere to good experimental methodology, shouldn't we first redistribute the wealth?"
a race hardly proves anything if it's between a fighter jet and a rickshaw.
the resulting frothing fits were entertaining. They believe that they are paragons of logical thinking as opposed to us silly lefties.
and , like the neoreactionaries that threaten to take their place in corporate philosophy, they seem to believe that they will naturally be the Lords of the Manor.
Libertarians hate to hear about Rawls' Veil of Ignorance.

JimK , December 27, 2018 at 4:58 pm

Cain's libertarian views have the depth and breadth of a bunch of mutually contradictory bumper stickers. The views lack a grasp of system interactions and impacts, and display a narrow rigid simplicity that neglects scads of important social, economic and environmental factors. The views are so inept it makes me wonder, was this interview satire?

Yves Smith , December 27, 2018 at 5:54 pm

The interview is based on the works of Hans-Hermann Hoppe; the parts in red either links or when they have numbers, direct quotes with page references.

Anarcissie , December 28, 2018 at 10:27 am

In my experience (from Usenet days, mostly) libertarians vary quite a bit in their views. Mr. Hoppe's seem to be of the anarcho-capitalist flavor, similar to David Friedman's, but many libertarians would disagree with them and some would say they are crazy. Libertarianism seems to be a tendency, an attitude, a sensibility, rather than an explicit set of principles cast in the form of propositions and rules. It is more aesthetic than logical, in spite of the way they regard themselves; see Thus Spake Zarathustra, on 'the coldest of all cold monsters' for a taste.

In regard to libertarianism on the ground: as with other marginal ideologies, there have been some experiments; for example, there was a project of getting libertarians to move to some county in New Hampshire where their numbers would enable them to have some influence on the social order and its government. None that I know about have been very successful.

Lambert Strether , December 28, 2018 at 12:55 am

> The views are so inept it makes me wonder, was this interview satire?

The interview is satire, but as you can imagine, libertarianism is extremely hard to satirize; the author faced technical challenges in making the self-ownage even more obvious than it already is.

Karen , December 27, 2018 at 6:03 pm

Is this a joke?

Lambert Strether , December 28, 2018 at 12:57 am

More perhaps a caper, frolic, or prank -- of which are extended in time with no single punchline (except for the running gag of "in a rights-respecting manner"). It's satirical.

rob , December 27, 2018 at 6:49 pm

I have to admit that nowadays when someone says they are a libertarian, my 1st assumption is that they are an idiot, who doesn't realize they are just a tool for the republican/neoliberal overlords/industrialists who just want to go back to pre-regulatory and pre-taxation years as were 120 years ago.Back when snake oil salesmen were free to peddle their wares, any how they saw fit.
Thirty years ago, being a libertarian at least had some logic behind it. they were anti- drug war and anti- police state and things that actually make sense. They realized there had to be SOME laws, and Some civic responsibility.
anyone who has crazy ideas like this today are actual and factual "conspiracy theorists". Talk about crazy. There isn't any substance here to refute . this is all total BS.
Again, we find the "information age" taken up by peoples opinions of "fact" that are pure propaganda.

Telee , December 27, 2018 at 8:00 pm

I've had close contact with libertarians. One is a medical doctor. A primary goal is to eliminate democracy entirely. The people would have no input in determining the conditions under which they live. A market unpreturbed by taxes and regulations would yield the most optimum rusults which benefit the society. People who are lazy and who lack ambition, which is proven by their low economic status, would be isolated and cast aside into favelas because they are undeserving of anything better. The greatest threat is not global warming, or the threat of nuclear war but tyranny. He and his son are armed and expect to be able to defeat the government when the time comes. Based on a discussion where I used the term social justice, the good doctored recoiled and said social justice is communism. He was also against helping ( I suppose via the givernment) victims of natural catastrophies such as floods, hurricanes, fires, earth quakes etc. When asked what kind of society would result from these beliefs, they don't have a clue except to say that when one persues a just and moral cause the outcome is of no consequence. When asked about global warming they emphasized their right to have all the plastic straws they want. A tyrannical government imposing rules is the greatest threat.

All very logical. Yes? Another doctor, my primary care physician welcomes global warming because he thinks we can deal with it very easily and feels that it is most fortunate that we don't have global cooling.

Another retired doctor I talk to expressed the view that all Muslim mosques in the US should be blown up and all Muslims should leave the country or be killed.

And these are the intelligent people!

Lambert Strether , December 28, 2018 at 1:00 am

Do you remember their specialties? (I assume these are specialists.)

Telee , December 28, 2018 at 9:50 am

All doctors to which I referred are primary care physicians.

rob , December 27, 2018 at 8:07 pm

hell no!
But they have a different "schtik" .. like cinton/obama doing the same thing but they use different words . appealing to different people.
for clarity, i suppose I should have used some better punctuation.
"republican/neoliberal" meaning "the deregulation crowd"
""overlords/industrialist" meaning the powers that be who make money in manufacturing and other related industries who have liabilities in relation to their waste/pollution disposal, working conditions,safety standards/practices/costs,etc . who are the funders of this type of propaganda.
I have no illusions that the deregulation gang didn't gain ascension to our gov't as of late; with carter, and has been in EVERY administration since.

eg , December 27, 2018 at 10:38 pm

The absence of a thriving libertarian polity across all human history and geography implies a fundamental incompatibility with human nature.

My guess is that any human group which tries it is simply destroyed and/or absorbed by neighbouring human groups which employ more effective arrangements (whatever defects those particular arrangements may have).

Libertarians aren't much for empiricism, I suppose .

Ape , December 28, 2018 at 4:02 am

Most of the last 10k years are feudal and libertarianism is just feudalism. Even the Roman states were mostly run on a private law basis – aka libertarianism. Mass slavery, citizenship limited to an elite who personally acted as enforcers, courts and legislators.

Libertarianism is the perennial philosophy, horribly compatible with human nature.

eg , December 28, 2018 at 7:06 pm

Perhaps I am guilty of confusing libertarian with anarchist.

Ape , December 29, 2018 at 6:53 am

Anarchism is quite distinct. It worked for about a million years. It's just not compatible with scalable technologies/economies.

kees_popinga , December 28, 2018 at 8:36 am

It's interesting that this post is generating separate comment threads 7 years apart. I started reading the 2011 comments thinking they were current and was immediately struck by the thoroughness and passion of the debate, occurring around the time of the Obamacare rollout and closer to the 2008 crash. Possibly more people had a stake in libertarianism back then and found this interview threatening? In any event, one thing common to both threads is the tendency not to recognize the interview as satire. Compliments to Mr. Dittmer for his enduring dry wit (even though the internet makes irony hard to recognize).

redleg , December 28, 2018 at 5:58 pm

The security GLOs would encounter Gresham's Dynamic, eventually collecting the premiums and never following up on claims.

d , December 29, 2018 at 5:36 pm

so what happens when the GLOs from different customers are pulled into a battle between them? and how does this work when some one who hired them to protect them dies from a business ?

[Oct 27, 2018] Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute: in a libertarian society, there is no commons or public space. There are property lines, not borders. When it comes to real property and physical movement across such real property, there are owners, guests, licensees, business invitees and trespassers not legal and illegal immigrants

Notable quotes:
"... This is what has been missing for over 40 years in the US, government's role in the economy. When any politician brings up the fact that it's time we used fiscal policy as it was designed, neoliberals have a socialism meltdown. Both parties have been taken over by the Kochtopus, The libertarian fascist ideology that hides behind the term "neoliberalism". The ultimate goal of this zombie ideology that was thoroughly discredited in 2008 but continues to roam the earth is to replace nations with privately owned cities. ..."
"... This is the struggle -- the struggle to maintain public space on a planet that was never meant to be owned in the first place. ..."
Oct 27, 2018 | www.unz.com

Anon [224] Disclaimer , says: October 27, 2018 at 2:47 pm GMT

"Government exists to spend. The purpose of government is to serve the general welfare of the citizens, not just the military-industrial complex and the financial class. Didn't we have a stimulus, oh, eight years ago? It was tiny and has not been entirely spent. As Yellen implied, we need more spending of the non-military kind (what Barney Frank memorably called "weaponized Keynesianism" doesn't stimulate)."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/leesheppard/2016/04/02/we-need-fiscal-policy/?fbclid=IwAR02l1AlZGMpapbTOdURjgRknx6Kai-24Z6fXBCXyBolgdgodvjSmYmXAdw#1c4e7dea8b40

This is what has been missing for over 40 years in the US, government's role in the economy. When any politician brings up the fact that it's time we used fiscal policy as it was designed, neoliberals have a socialism meltdown. Both parties have been taken over by the Kochtopus, The libertarian fascist ideology that hides behind the term "neoliberalism". The ultimate goal of this zombie ideology that was thoroughly discredited in 2008 but continues to roam the earth is to replace nations with privately owned cities. This experiment was going on in Honduras, following the 2009 coup, until it was finally ended by a SC ruling that it was unconstitutional.

"In a libertarian society, there is no commons or public space. There are property lines, not borders. When it comes to real property and physical movement across such real property, there are owners, guests, licensees, business invitees and trespassers -- not legal and illegal immigrants." ~ Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute

This is the struggle -- the struggle to maintain public space on a planet that was never meant to be owned in the first place.

[Sep 20, 2018] What do you say about libertarians?

A lot of people see society in organic terms, and think the maintenance of the whole over-rides the welfare of any particular bit – even if that particular bit happens to be themselves (Trump recently hit this theme when he tweeted that "patriotic" Americans were prepared to sacrifice for the greater good in the trade war).
Heirarchy is probably unavoidable, not for reasons of individual difference but because one-to-many organisation is the only form that scales readily. We can all have an equal voice on a jury, but not when building a henge or a operating a car-factory.
Notable quotes:
"... A lot of non-conservatives have a very difficult time grappling with the notion that a commitment to inequality, that a belief in the inherent superiority of some people over others, that one group has the the right to rule and dominate others, is a moral belief. ..."
"... Since, according to this argument, you are amongst other things, your social class, I cannot judge your moral actions unless I understand your social circumstances. But morality is a form of judgement, or to put it another way a ranking. Morality is means nothing unless I can say: 'you are more moral then him, she is more moral than you' and so on. (Nietzsche: 'Man is Man the esteemer' i.e. someone who ranks his or her fellow human beings: human beings cannot be morally equal or the phrase has no meaning). ..."
"... Therefore, unless people have a role in life (i.e. butcher, baker, candlestick maker) then morality collapses (this is the weak point in the argument and if you wanted to tear the whole edifice down you would start here). ..."
"... And of course this social order must be hierarchical, or else anyone can be anything one wants to be, and in that case, who will sweep the streets? ' ..."
"... In other words Conservatives believe that without hierarchy, without ranking and without a stratified (and therefore meaningful) social order, morality actually disintegrates. You simply cannot have a morality without these things: everything retreats into the realm of the subjective. Conservatives don't believe that things like the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields, the Great Terror, the Cultural Revolution are bad things that happened to happen: they believe that they are the necessary and inevitable end result of atheistical, relativistic, egalitarian politics. ..."
"... To the Right, the Left has no morality, as they understand the term, and cannot in fact do so. Leftist morality is a contradiction in terms, in this worldview. ..."
Sep 20, 2018 | crookedtimber.org

Hidari 09.18.18 at 8:50 am ( 105 )

I think this is an incredibly important point here:

'One last point: A lot of non-conservatives have a very difficult time grappling with the notion that a commitment to inequality, that a belief in the inherent superiority of some people over others, that one group has the the right to rule and dominate others, is a moral belief. For many people, particularly on the left, that idea is not so much immoral as it is beyond the pale of morality itself. So that's where the charge that I'm being dismissive or reductive comes from, I'm convinced. Because I say the animating idea of the right is not freedom or virtue or limited government but instead power and privilege, people, and again I see this mostly from liberals and the left, think I'm making some sort of claim about conservatism as a criminal, amoral enterprise, devoid of principle altogether, whereas I firmly believe I'm trying to do the exact opposite: to focus on where exactly the moral divide between right and left lies.'

Both the Right and the Left, think that they are moral. And yet they disagree about moral issues. How can this be?

The solution to this problem is to see that when Rightists and Leftists use the word 'moral' they are using the word in two different (and non compatible) senses. I won't dwell on what the Left mean by morality: I'm sure most of you will be familiar with, so to speak, your own moral code.

What the Right mean by morality is rather different, and is more easily seen in 'outliers' e.g. right wing intellectuals like Evelyn Waugh and T.S. Eliot rather than politicians. Intellectuals can be rather more open about their true beliefs.

The first key point is to understand the hostility towards 'abstraction': and what purposes this serves. Nothing is more alien to right wing thought that the idea of an Abstract Man: right wing thought is situational, contextual (one might even call it relativistic) to the core. de Maistre states this most clearly: 'The (French) constitution of 1795, like its predecessors, has been drawn up for Man. Now, there is no such thing in the world as Man . In the course of my life, I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc.; I am even aware, thanks to Montesquieu, that one can be a Persian. But, as for Man, I declare that I have never met him in my life.'

This sounds postmodern to us, even Leftist (and of course Marx might have given highly provisional approval to this statement). But the question is not: is this statement true? It's: 'what do the right do with this statement?'

Again to quote another reactionary thinker Jose Ortega y Gasseett: 'I am myself plus my circumstances'. Again this is simply a definition of contextualism. So what are your circumstances? They are, amongst other things, your social circumstances: i.e. your social class.

Since, according to this argument, you are amongst other things, your social class, I cannot judge your moral actions unless I understand your social circumstances. But morality is a form of judgement, or to put it another way a ranking. Morality is means nothing unless I can say: 'you are more moral then him, she is more moral than you' and so on. (Nietzsche: 'Man is Man the esteemer' i.e. someone who ranks his or her fellow human beings: human beings cannot be morally equal or the phrase has no meaning).

But I can't hermeneutically see what moral role you must play in life, I cannot judge you, unless I have some criteria for this judgement, and for this I must know what your circumstances are.

Therefore, unless people have a role in life (i.e. butcher, baker, candlestick maker) then morality collapses (this is the weak point in the argument and if you wanted to tear the whole edifice down you would start here). Because unless we know what one's social role is then we can't assess whether or not people are living 'up to' that role. And of course this social order must be hierarchical, or else anyone can be anything one wants to be, and in that case, who will sweep the streets? '

And if anyone has any smart arse points to raise about that idea, God usually gets roped in to function, literally, as a Deux ex Machina.

' The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.'

Clive James put it best when discussing Waugh: 'With no social order, there could be no moral order. People had to know their place before they knew their duty he (and, more importantly society) needed a coherent social system (i.e. an ordered social system, a hierarchical social system)'

In other words Conservatives believe that without hierarchy, without ranking and without a stratified (and therefore meaningful) social order, morality actually disintegrates. You simply cannot have a morality without these things: everything retreats into the realm of the subjective. Conservatives don't believe that things like the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields, the Great Terror, the Cultural Revolution are bad things that happened to happen: they believe that they are the necessary and inevitable end result of atheistical, relativistic, egalitarian politics. Social 'levelling', destroying meaningful (i.e. hierarchical ('organic' is the euphemism usually used)) societies will usually, not always but usually, lead to genocide and/or civil war. Hence the hysteria that seizes most Conservatives when the word relativism is used. And their deep fear of postmodernism, a small scale, now deeply unfashionable art movement with a few (very few) philosophical adherents: as it destroys hierarchy and undermines one's capacity to judge and therefore order one's fellow human beings, it will tend to lead to the legalisation of pedophilia, the legalisation of rape, the legalisation of murder, war, genocide etc, because, to repeat, morality depends on order. No social order= no morality.

Hence the Right's deep suspicion of the left's morality. To the Right, the Left has no morality, as they understand the term, and cannot in fact do so. Leftist morality is a contradiction in terms, in this worldview.

[Sep 16, 2018] This story about Hoffman's getting censored and removed from Amazon's Kindle books is a fine example of why libertarianism is idealistic nonsense.

Notable quotes:
"... Needless to say, it is Amazon which has crushed and eliminated the local community bookshop that was once a beloved social commons, in every town and city across the land. ..."
"... Unfortunately, now that Amazon has a total monopoly on book publishing, it can decide who will or will not be published. But really, isn't Amazon the end result of libertarianism, neo-liberal, no regulation capitalism as we now have? ..."
"... This is a total nightmare situation: a gigantic behemoth corporation, unanswerable to anybody. Doesn't even need to have clearly worded guidelines, deliberately vague so they can censor whomever they want, at their whim. There is zero accountability with this libertarian arrangement. ..."
Sep 16, 2018 | www.unz.com

Deschutes , says: September 16, 2018 at 9:51 am GMT

I hate Amazon through and through: from that greedy little rat Bezos who has become the world's richest man on the backs of his workers which he treats like slaves, like dogs–paying them so little they have to apply for foodstamps, to the horrible working conditions at Amazon's giant fullfillment warehouses (no lunchbreak; penalizing workers for going to the bathroom for too long; deliberately firing workers when they become legally entitled to full time regular employment (Amazon deliberately uses temp/contract workers to avoid paying healthcare, maternity leave, pension, vacation, etc). In short, Amazon is a total, complete asshole corporation which has now become a global publishing monopoly by deliberate design.

Needless to say, it is Amazon which has crushed and eliminated the local community bookshop that was once a beloved social commons, in every town and city across the land.

This story about Hoffman's getting censored and removed from Amazon's Kindle books is a fine example of why libertarianism is idealistic nonsense. Libertarians argue that no government is necessary? No laws needed? That government regulation is an unnecessary interference in a pure person to person marketplace? What a load of bollocks. If there were robust anti-monopoly regulations in place that were actually enforced, there would be no Amazon monopoly like we suffer under today; it would be one of many smaller sized retailers. We would have choice! Hoffman could go and sell through a different bookseller.

Unfortunately, now that Amazon has a total monopoly on book publishing, it can decide who will or will not be published. But really, isn't Amazon the end result of libertarianism, neo-liberal, no regulation capitalism as we now have?

Bezos: "It's my company and I'll do what I please, censor whatever I want!" Yes–this is pure neo-liberal libertarianism with no government regulation. No way to redress grievances.

This is a total nightmare situation: a gigantic behemoth corporation, unanswerable to anybody. Doesn't even need to have clearly worded guidelines, deliberately vague so they can censor whomever they want, at their whim. There is zero accountability with this libertarian arrangement.

It would be much better if there were laws on the books, enforced, which

a) stopped such abusive monopolies from happening in the first place;

b) laws on the books–enforced–protecting author's publication rights, to prevent censorship as is now happening.

You don't have this in USA today, so authors get screwed over, censored and disappeared. Anyways, much for libertarianism.

ATTN: if you still have an Amazon membership and buy stuff from them -- do your civic duty and stop it! Delete your account and tell them why!

Anonymous , [159] Disclaimer says: September 16, 2018 at 10:02 am GMT

To be banned by Amazon is not equivalent to being banned by any other private business. Most publishers will admit that Amazon has replaced Bowker Books in Print as the industry's authoritative guide to what books in English have been printed in the past and what is in print now. Amazon is currently the reference source. For a book to be forbidden by Amazon renders it largely invisible. It is equivalent to burning the book. So this is not a matter of Amazon exercising the prerogative of private enterprise. Amazon is a monopoly. It has no rival. If your book doesn't exist on Amazon, then for most people who are not research specialists, your book doesn't exist. The consequences for the pursuit of knowledge are ominous.

Exactly. And this kind of global monopoly power can't be diminished in time with naive, "free market – just go somewhere else", Libertarian sound-bites. People who believe in that fairytale are beyond naive. Amazon, YouTube, Reddit and Twitter are untouchable in an environment where their competitors can barely offer a fraction of a fraction of the Worldwide audience to their "content creators" and very few content creators to the audience. This built-in inertia is self-reinforcing and tremendously inert. It's also the reason why the Globalists have spared no expense to own those platforms.

Free speech will have to be enforced and saved politically. Waiting for Zuckenberg to un-fuck it is a fool's errand.

[Jun 06, 2018] Where are the rational limits of libertarian vision?

Jun 06, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com

Friarbird , 3 Jun 2018 21:42

Further down the thread, 'Weakaspiss' makes a pertinent observation; " government has forgotten they govern for all, and have a primary duty for those who are least able to prosper."

In fact, they've "forgotten" nothing.
Instead, they've fallen for the self-serving blandishments of Libertarian dogma.
Where have I learned of these ?
By reading the posts of GA's resident Libertarians.
The sub-texts of which are wonderfully instructive.

1. Nothing is more important than the individual.
2. And as an individual and a Libertarian, I am infinitely superior to you.
3. Plus I resent paying taxes, which are outright theft.
4. Since I believe, utterly without basis in reality, that taxes levied on hard-working, wonderful freedom-loving ME, sustain the likes of lazy, parasitical YOU.
5. Meanwhile, govt, if it cannot be destroyed, must always be demonised and underfunded. And so-called 'programs of public benefit' for the parasites--like Medicare, or the ABC-- must be sold outright to the private sector.
6. No I don't want to debate about it, if there's a chance I'll lose the argument.
My ego demands I win every time..
7. Certainly not with losers of lower social status, who were 'educated' in a union-run public school.
8. And don't even come near me, losers. Yuk ! You're probably not even white !
9. Because I socialise only within my own tribe, thank you very much.
10. Besides, you're probably living off my taxes.
11. Did I mention taxes somewhere ?
12. Taxes are theft.

Our conservatives have "forgotten" NOTHING.
Instead, they've fallen for a sociopathic ideology which tells them their least attractive impulses are positively praiseworthy.
Hence the nasty, ego-driven tone of current political life.
Injected directly into the bloodstream of our body politic by a Lying Rodent.
Its philosophy may be simply stated

Does your policy shit all over people you never cared for anyway ?
THEN DO IT.

[May 31, 2018] Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent's Stealth Takeover of America by Lynn Parramore

Highly recommended!
This looks like Ann Rand philosophy: "The people who needed protection were property owners, and their rights could only be secured though constitutional limits to prevent the majority of voters from encroaching on them, an idea Buchanan lays out in works like Property as a Guarantor of Liberty (1993). MacLean observes that Buchanan saw society as a cutthroat realm of makers (entrepreneurs) constantly under siege by takers (everybody else) His own language was often more stark, warning the alleged "prey" of "parasites" and "predators" out to fleece them."
Notable quotes:
"... By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst, Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
"... The Limits of Liberty ..."
"... Property as a Guarantor of Liberty ..."
"... Brown v. Board of Education ..."
"... Calhoun, called the "Marx of the Master Class" by historian Richard Hofstadter, saw himself and his fellow southern oligarchs as victims of the majority. Therefore, as MacLean explains, he sought to create "constitutional gadgets" to constrict the operations of government ..."
"... She argues out that unlike even the most property-friendly founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Buchanan wanted a private governing elite of corporate power that was wholly released from public accountability. ..."
"... Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions -- all these were tactics toward the goal. But the Holy Grail was the Constitution: alter it and you could increase and secure the power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge. ..."
"... MacLean observes that the Virginia school, as Buchanan's brand of economic and political thinking is known, is a kind of cousin to the better-known, market-oriented Chicago and Austrian schools -- proponents of all three were members of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international neoliberal organization which included Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. But the Virginia school's focus and career missions were distinct. In an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), MacLean described Friedman and Buchanan as yin and yang: "Friedman was this genial, personable character who loved to be in the limelight and made a sunny case for the free market and the freedom to choose and so forth. Buchanan was the dark side of this: he thought, ok, fine, they can make a case for the free market, but everybody knows that free markets have externalities and other problems. So he wanted to keep people from believing that government could be the alternative to those problems." ..."
"... Buchanan's school focused on public choice theory, later adding constitutional economics and the new field of law and economics to its core research and advocacy. The economist saw that his vision would never come to fruition by focusing on who rules. It was much better to focus on the rules themselves , and that required a "constitutional revolution." ..."
"... MacLean describes how the economist developed a grand project to train operatives to staff institutions funded by like-minded tycoons, most significantly Charles Koch, who became interested in his work in the '70s and sought the economist's input in promoting "Austrian economics" in the U.S. and in advising the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. ..."
"... With Koch's money and enthusiasm, Buchanan's academic school evolved into something much bigger. By the 1990s, Koch realized that Buchanan's ideas -- transmitted through stealth and deliberate deception, as MacLean amply documents -- could help take government down through incremental assaults that the media would hardly notice. The tycoon knew that the project was extremely radical, even a "revolution" in governance, but he talked like a conservative to make his plans sound more palatable. ..."
"... At the 1997 fiftieth anniversary of the Mont Pelerin Society, MacLean recounts that Buchanan and his associate Henry Manne, a founding theorist of libertarian economic approaches to law, focused on such affronts to capitalists as environmentalism and public health and welfare, expressing eagerness to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as well as kill public education because it tended to foster community values. Feminism had to go, too: the scholars considered it a socialist project. ..."
"... To put the success into perspective, MacLean points to the fact that Henry Manne, whom Buchanan was instrumental in hiring, created legal programs for law professors and federal judges which could boast that by 1990 two of every five sitting federal judges had participated. "40 percent of the U.S. federal judiciary," writes MacLean, "had been treated to a Koch-backed curriculum." ..."
"... Buchanan's role in the disastrous Pinochet government of Chile has been underestimated partly because unlike Milton Friedman, who advertised his activities, Buchanan had the shrewdness to keep his involvement quiet. With his guidance, the military junta deployed public choice economics in the creation of a new constitution, which required balanced budgets and thereby prevented the government from spending to meet public needs. Supermajorities would be required for any changes of substance, leaving the public little recourse to challenge programs like the privatization of social security. ..."
"... The Limits of Liberty ..."
"... MacLean is not the only scholar to sound the alarm that the country is experiencing a hostile takeover that is well on its way to radically, and perhaps permanently, altering the society. Peter Temin, former head of the MIT economics department, INET grantee, and author of The Vanishing Middle Class ..."
"... The One Percent Solution ..."
"... She observes, for example, that many liberals have missed the point of strategies like privatization. Efforts to "reform" public education and Social Security are not just about a preference for the private sector over the public sector, she argues. You can wrap your head around, even if you don't agree. Instead, MacLean contents, the goal of these strategies is to radically alter power relations, weakening pro-public forces and enhancing the lobbying power and commitment of the corporations that take over public services and resources, thus advancing the plans to dismantle democracy and make way for a return to oligarchy. The majority will be held captive so that the wealthy can finally be free to do as they please, no matter how destructive. ..."
"... MacLean argues that despite the rhetoric of Virginia school acolytes, shrinking big government is not really the point. The oligarchs require a government with tremendous new powers so that they can bypass the will of the people. This, as MacLean points out, requires greatly expanding police powers "to control the resultant popular anger." The spreading use of pre-emption by GOP-controlled state legislatures to suppress local progressive victories such as living wage ordinances is another example of the right's aggressive use of state power. ..."
"... They could, and have ..."
"... Getting it done ..."
"... Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative ..."
May 31, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
May 31, 2018 By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst, Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website

Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual lynchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean

Ask people to name the key minds that have shaped America's burst of radical right-wing attacks on working conditions, consumer rights and public services, and they will typically mention figures like free market-champion Milton Friedman, libertarian guru Ayn Rand, and laissez-faire economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.

James McGill Buchanan is a name you will rarely hear unless you've taken several classes in economics. And if the Tennessee-born Nobel laureate were alive today, it would suit him just fine that most well-informed journalists, liberal politicians, and even many economics students have little understanding of his work.

The reason? Duke historian Nancy MacLean contends that his philosophy is so stark that even young libertarian acolytes are only introduced to it after they have accepted the relatively sunny perspective of Ayn Rand. (Yes, you read that correctly). If Americans really knew what Buchanan thought and promoted, and how destructively his vision is manifesting under their noses, it would dawn on them how close the country is to a transformation most would not even want to imagine, much less accept.

That is a dangerous blind spot, MacLean argues in a meticulously researched book, Democracy in Chains , a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction. While Americans grapple with Donald Trump's chaotic presidency, we may be missing the key to changes that are taking place far beyond the level of mere politics. Once these changes are locked into place, there may be no going back.

An Unlocked Door in Virginia

MacLean's book reads like an intellectual detective story. In 2010, she moved to North Carolina, where a Tea Party-dominated Republican Party got control of both houses of the state legislature and began pushing through a radical program to suppress voter rights, decimate public services, and slash taxes on the wealthy that shocked a state long a beacon of southern moderation. Up to this point, the figure of James Buchanan flickered in her peripheral vision, but as she began to study his work closely, the events in North Carolina and also Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker was leading assaults on collective bargaining rights, shifted her focus.

Could it be that this relatively obscure economist's distinctive thought was being put forcefully into action in real time?

MacLean could not gain access to Buchanan's papers to test her hypothesis until after his death in January 2013. That year, just as the government was being shut down by Ted Cruz & Co., she traveled to George Mason University in Virginia, where the economist's papers lay willy-nilly across the offices of a building now abandoned by the Koch-funded faculty to a new, fancier center in Arlington.

MacLean was stunned. The archive of the man who had sought to stay under the radar had been left totally unsorted and unguarded. The historian plunged in, and she read through boxes and drawers full of papers that included personal correspondence between Buchanan and billionaire industrialist Charles Koch. That's when she had an amazing realization: here was the intellectual lynchpin of a stealth revolution currently in progress.

A Theory of Property Supremacy

Buchanan, a 1940 graduate of Middle Tennessee State University who later attended the University of Chicago for graduate study, started out as a conventional public finance economist. But he grew frustrated by the way in which economic theorists ignored the political process.

Buchanan began working on a description of power that started out as a critique of how institutions functioned in the relatively liberal 1950s and '60s, a time when economist John Maynard Keynes's ideas about the need for government intervention in markets to protect people from flaws so clearly demonstrated in the Great Depression held sway. Buchanan, MacLean notes, was incensed at what he saw as a move toward socialism and deeply suspicious of any form of state action that channels resources to the public. Why should the increasingly powerful federal government be able to force the wealthy to pay for goods and programs that served ordinary citizens and the poor?

In thinking about how people make political decisions and choices, Buchanan concluded that you could only understand them as individuals seeking personal advantage. In interview cited by MacLean, the economist observed that in the 1950s Americans commonly assumed that elected officials wanted to act in the public interest. Buchanan vehemently disagreed -- that was a belief he wanted, as he put it, to "tear down." His ideas developed into a theory that came to be known as "public choice."

Buchanan's view of human nature was distinctly dismal. Adam Smith saw human beings as self-interested and hungry for personal power and material comfort, but he also acknowledged social instincts like compassion and fairness. Buchanan, in contrast, insisted that people were primarily driven by venal self-interest. Crediting people with altruism or a desire to serve others was "romantic" fantasy: politicians and government workers were out for themselves, and so, for that matter, were teachers, doctors, and civil rights activists. They wanted to control others and wrest away their resources: "Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves," he wrote in his 1975 book, The Limits of Liberty .

Does that sound like your kindergarten teacher? It did to Buchanan.

The people who needed protection were property owners, and their rights could only be secured though constitutional limits to prevent the majority of voters from encroaching on them, an idea Buchanan lays out in works like Property as a Guarantor of Liberty (1993). MacLean observes that Buchanan saw society as a cutthroat realm of makers (entrepreneurs) constantly under siege by takers (everybody else) His own language was often more stark, warning the alleged "prey" of "parasites" and "predators" out to fleece them.

In 1965 the economist launched a center dedicated to his theories at the University of Virginia, which later relocated to George Mason University. MacLean describes how he trained thinkers to push back against the Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate America's public schools and to challenge the constitutional perspectives and federal policy that enabled it. She notes that he took care to use economic and political precepts, rather than overtly racial arguments, to make his case, which nonetheless gave cover to racists who knew that spelling out their prejudices would alienate the country.

All the while, a ghost hovered in the background -- that of John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, senator and seventh vice president of the United States.

Calhoun was an intellectual and political powerhouse in the South from the 1820s until his death in 1850, expending his formidable energy to defend slavery. Calhoun, called the "Marx of the Master Class" by historian Richard Hofstadter, saw himself and his fellow southern oligarchs as victims of the majority. Therefore, as MacLean explains, he sought to create "constitutional gadgets" to constrict the operations of government.

Economists Tyler Cowen and Alexander Tabarrok, both of George Mason University, have noted the two men's affinities, heralding Calhoun "a precursor of modern public choice theory" who "anticipates" Buchanan's thinking. MacLean observes that both focused on how democracy constrains property owners and aimed for ways to restrict the latitude of voters. She argues out that unlike even the most property-friendly founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Buchanan wanted a private governing elite of corporate power that was wholly released from public accountability.

Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions -- all these were tactics toward the goal. But the Holy Grail was the Constitution: alter it and you could increase and secure the power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge.

Gravy Train to Oligarchy

MacLean explains that Virginia's white elite and the pro-corporate president of the University of Virginia, Colgate Darden, who had married into the DuPont family, found Buchanan's ideas to be spot on. In nurturing a new intelligentsia to commit to his values, Buchanan stated that he needed a "gravy train," and with backers like Charles Koch and conservative foundations like the Scaife Family Charitable Trusts, others hopped aboard. Money, Buchanan knew, can be a persuasive tool in academia. His circle of influence began to widen.

MacLean observes that the Virginia school, as Buchanan's brand of economic and political thinking is known, is a kind of cousin to the better-known, market-oriented Chicago and Austrian schools -- proponents of all three were members of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international neoliberal organization which included Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. But the Virginia school's focus and career missions were distinct. In an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), MacLean described Friedman and Buchanan as yin and yang: "Friedman was this genial, personable character who loved to be in the limelight and made a sunny case for the free market and the freedom to choose and so forth. Buchanan was the dark side of this: he thought, ok, fine, they can make a case for the free market, but everybody knows that free markets have externalities and other problems. So he wanted to keep people from believing that government could be the alternative to those problems."

The Virginia school also differs from other economic schools in a marked reliance on abstract theory rather than mathematics or empirical evidence. That a Nobel Prize was awarded in 1986 to an economist who so determinedly bucked the academic trends of his day was nothing short of stunning, MacLean observes. But, then, it was the peak of the Reagan era, an administration several Buchanan students joined.

Buchanan's school focused on public choice theory, later adding constitutional economics and the new field of law and economics to its core research and advocacy. The economist saw that his vision would never come to fruition by focusing on who rules. It was much better to focus on the rules themselves , and that required a "constitutional revolution."

MacLean describes how the economist developed a grand project to train operatives to staff institutions funded by like-minded tycoons, most significantly Charles Koch, who became interested in his work in the '70s and sought the economist's input in promoting "Austrian economics" in the U.S. and in advising the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Koch, whose mission was to save capitalists like himself from democracy, found the ultimate theoretical tool in the work of the southern economist. The historian writes that Koch preferred Buchanan to Milton Friedman and his "Chicago boys" because, she says, quoting a libertarian insider, they wanted "to make government work more efficiently when the true libertarian should be tearing it out at the root."

With Koch's money and enthusiasm, Buchanan's academic school evolved into something much bigger. By the 1990s, Koch realized that Buchanan's ideas -- transmitted through stealth and deliberate deception, as MacLean amply documents -- could help take government down through incremental assaults that the media would hardly notice. The tycoon knew that the project was extremely radical, even a "revolution" in governance, but he talked like a conservative to make his plans sound more palatable.

MacLean details how partnered with Koch, Buchanan's outpost at George Mason University was able to connect libertarian economists with right-wing political actors and supporters of corporations like Shell Oil, Exxon, Ford, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, and General Motors. Together they could push economic ideas to public through media, promote new curricula for economics education, and court politicians in nearby Washington, D.C.

At the 1997 fiftieth anniversary of the Mont Pelerin Society, MacLean recounts that Buchanan and his associate Henry Manne, a founding theorist of libertarian economic approaches to law, focused on such affronts to capitalists as environmentalism and public health and welfare, expressing eagerness to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as well as kill public education because it tended to foster community values. Feminism had to go, too: the scholars considered it a socialist project.

The Oligarchic Revolution Unfolds

Buchanan's ideas began to have huge impact, especially in America and in Britain. In his home country, the economist was deeply involved efforts to cut taxes on the wealthy in 1970s and 1980s and he advised proponents of Reagan Revolution in their quest to unleash markets and posit government as the "problem" rather than the "solution." The Koch-funded Virginia school coached scholars, lawyers, politicians, and business people to apply stark right-wing perspectives on everything from deficits to taxes to school privatization. In Britain, Buchanan's work helped to inspire the public sector reforms of Margaret Thatcher and her political progeny.

To put the success into perspective, MacLean points to the fact that Henry Manne, whom Buchanan was instrumental in hiring, created legal programs for law professors and federal judges which could boast that by 1990 two of every five sitting federal judges had participated. "40 percent of the U.S. federal judiciary," writes MacLean, "had been treated to a Koch-backed curriculum."

MacLean illustrates that in South America, Buchanan was able to first truly set his ideas in motion by helping a bare-knuckles dictatorship ensure the permanence of much of the radical transformation it inflicted on a country that had been a beacon of social progress. The historian emphasizes that Buchanan's role in the disastrous Pinochet government of Chile has been underestimated partly because unlike Milton Friedman, who advertised his activities, Buchanan had the shrewdness to keep his involvement quiet. With his guidance, the military junta deployed public choice economics in the creation of a new constitution, which required balanced budgets and thereby prevented the government from spending to meet public needs. Supermajorities would be required for any changes of substance, leaving the public little recourse to challenge programs like the privatization of social security.

The dictator's human rights abuses and pillage of the country's resources did not seem to bother Buchanan, MacLean argues, so long as the wealthy got their way. "Despotism may be the only organizational alternative to the political structure that we observe," the economist had written in The Limits of Liberty . If you have been wondering about the end result of the Virginia school philosophy, well, the economist helpfully spelled it out.

A World of Slaves

Most Americans haven't seen what's coming.

MacLean notes that when the Kochs' control of the GOP kicked into high gear after the financial crisis of 2007-08, many were so stunned by the "shock-and-awe" tactics of shutting down government, destroying labor unions, and rolling back services that meet citizens' basic necessities that few realized that many leading the charge had been trained in economics at Virginia institutions, especially George Mason University. Wasn't it just a new, particularly vicious wave of partisan politics?

It wasn't. MacLean convincingly illustrates that it was something far more disturbing.

MacLean is not the only scholar to sound the alarm that the country is experiencing a hostile takeover that is well on its way to radically, and perhaps permanently, altering the society. Peter Temin, former head of the MIT economics department, INET grantee, and author of The Vanishing Middle Class , as well as economist Gordon Lafer of the University of Oregon and author of The One Percent Solution , have provided eye-opening analyses of where America is headed and why. MacLean adds another dimension to this dystopian big picture, acquainting us with what has been overlooked in the capitalist right wing's playbook.

She observes, for example, that many liberals have missed the point of strategies like privatization. Efforts to "reform" public education and Social Security are not just about a preference for the private sector over the public sector, she argues. You can wrap your head around, even if you don't agree. Instead, MacLean contents, the goal of these strategies is to radically alter power relations, weakening pro-public forces and enhancing the lobbying power and commitment of the corporations that take over public services and resources, thus advancing the plans to dismantle democracy and make way for a return to oligarchy. The majority will be held captive so that the wealthy can finally be free to do as they please, no matter how destructive.

MacLean argues that despite the rhetoric of Virginia school acolytes, shrinking big government is not really the point. The oligarchs require a government with tremendous new powers so that they can bypass the will of the people. This, as MacLean points out, requires greatly expanding police powers "to control the resultant popular anger." The spreading use of pre-emption by GOP-controlled state legislatures to suppress local progressive victories such as living wage ordinances is another example of the right's aggressive use of state power.

Could these right-wing capitalists allow private companies to fill prisons with helpless citizens -- or, more profitable still, right-less undocumented immigrants? They could, and have . Might they engineer a retirement crisis by moving Americans to inadequate 401(k)s? Done . Take away the rights of consumers and workers to bring grievances to court by making them sign forced arbitration agreements? Check . Gut public education to the point where ordinary people have such bleak prospects that they have no energy to fight back? Getting it done .

Would they even refuse children clean water? Actually, yes.

MacLean notes that in Flint, Michigan, Americans got a taste of what the emerging oligarchy will look like -- it tastes like poisoned water. There, the Koch-funded Mackinac Center pushed for legislation that would allow the governor to take control of communities facing emergency and put unelected managers in charge. In Flint, one such manager switched the city's water supply to a polluted river, but the Mackinac Center's lobbyists ensured that the law was fortified by protections against lawsuits that poisoned inhabitants might bring. Tens of thousands of children were exposed to lead, a substance known to cause serious health problems including brain damage.

Tyler Cowen has provided an economic justification for this kind of brutality, stating that where it is difficult to get clean water, private companies should take over and make people pay for it. "This includes giving them the right to cut off people who don't -- or can't -- pay their bills," the economist explains.

To many this sounds grotesquely inhumane, but it is a way of thinking that has deep roots in America. In Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative (2005), Buchanan considers the charge of heartlessness made against the kind of classic liberal that he took himself to be. MacLean interprets his discussion to mean that people who "failed to foresee and save money for their future needs" are to be treated, as Buchanan put it, "as subordinate members of the species, akin to animals who are dependent.'"

Do you have your education, health care, and retirement personally funded against all possible exigencies? Then that means you.

Buchanan was not a dystopian novelist. He was a Nobel Laureate whose sinister logic exerts vast influence over America's trajectory. It is no wonder that Cowen, on his popular blog Marginal Revolution, does not mention Buchanan on a list of underrated influential libertarian thinkers, though elsewhere on the blog, he expresses admiration for several of Buchanan's contributions and acknowledges that the southern economist "thought more consistently in terms of 'rules of the games' than perhaps any other economist."

The rules of the game are now clear.

Research like MacLean's provides hope that toxic ideas like Buchanan's may finally begin to face public scrutiny. Yet at this very moment, the Kochs' State Policy Network and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that connects corporate agents to conservative lawmakers to produce legislation, are involved in projects that the Trump-obsessed media hardly notices, like pumping money into state judicial races. Their aim is to stack the legal deck against Americans in ways that MacLean argues may have even bigger effects than Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling which unleashed unlimited corporate spending on American politics. The goal is to create a judiciary that will interpret the Constitution in favor of corporations and the wealthy in ways that Buchanan would have heartily approved.

"The United States is now at one of those historic forks in the road whose outcome will prove as fateful as those of the 1860s, the 1930s, and the 1960s," writes MacLean. "To value liberty for the wealthy minority above all else and enshrine it in the nation's governing rules, as Calhoun and Buchanan both called for and the Koch network is achieving, play by play, is to consent to an oligarchy in all but the outer husk of representative form."

Nobody can say we weren't warned.

[Apr 23, 2018] On Rand and Nietzsche

Notable quotes:
"... Ayn Rand's mythology also included a very strong emphasis on personal honor, high integrity and principles, and remaining true to one's commitments and promises (or how else can businesspeople trust one another without recourse to the use of force?). ..."
"... Her aestheticization of capitalist accumulation as the expression of a great and noble soul, as opposed to the embarrassing compulsion of the avaricious soul, is what gives her protagonists the illusion of something like heroic gravitas. Just my opinion. ..."
"... Yes, brain washed foot soldiers of Ayn Rand's mythology and Milton Friedman's theory, MBAs, have destroyed North America with their idiotic cost-minimizing, short-term profit-maximizing approach! ..."
"... Could you comment on Ayn Rand receiving social welfare payments and going on Medicare to help support her during her treatment for lung cancer near the end of her life? ..."
"... There are also many rumours flying about on the Internet that in the 1920s Ayn Rand was impressed by the serial killer William E Hickman (who kidnapped a banker's 12-year-old daughter, killed her and disembowelled and dismembered her) to the extent that he became a model for an early character in an unfinished novel. ..."
Apr 23, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Apr 23, 2018 12:14:34 PM | 109

ralphieboy @108--

More specifically, it's the ascendency of Ayn Rand's mythology, its brainwashed economist priests and their politico allies while dumbing down and hypnotizing a majority of the citizenry that are responsible for quite a bit of the current malaise. But as I noted above, the seed was bad from the outset.

Charles R , Apr 23, 2018 1:56:43 PM | 116
Ayn Rand's mythology also included a very strong emphasis on personal honor, high integrity and principles, and remaining true to one's commitments and promises (or how else can businesspeople trust one another without recourse to the use of force?).

Her villains are not merely weak in terms of their personal and economic influence but morally weak in their character, which is why they take over the government's monopoly on force (and also symbolically why they tend to be physically described as amorphous, soft, and fleshy).

I think it's fair to acknowledge this in what she was arguing in her works. Perhaps a number of us will agree that the problems we often observe don't result from specific government systems but rather the pervasive ease with which humans across cultures and societies indulge in power, corruption, and short-sighted justifications of long-standing vices. And where humans hold one another accountable and work to support one another's moral development towards justice, peace, and mutually reinforced respect, it might matter less and less how we shape our governments.

Not really a Rand apologist, though. I'm always looking for ways of understanding similarities across worldviews.

WJ , Apr 23, 2018 2:26:26 PM | 119
Charles R @116,

The mythology of your first paragraph is not Rand's, but Nietzsche's; or rather, it is first of all Nietzsche's and is secondarily Rand's interpretation of Nietzsche. The difference between Nietzsche's "supermen" or "overmen" and "last men"--as allegorized in Thus Spake Zarathustra, eg.--is taken over nearly exactly into Rand's imaginary social world.

The main difference here is that for Rand the industrialist-tycoon was the paradigmatic instance of the overman we were all to aspire to become, whereas for Nietzsche such a tycoon represents simply the tumorous magnification of bourgeois individualism.

This is why Rand tries to depict her heroes as much as "artists"--in the romantic and to some extent Nietzschean sense of TSZ--as capitalists.

Her aestheticization of capitalist accumulation as the expression of a great and noble soul, as opposed to the embarrassing compulsion of the avaricious soul, is what gives her protagonists the illusion of something like heroic gravitas. Just my opinion.

ex-SA , Apr 23, 2018 2:49:58 PM | 121
@ ralphieboy | Apr 23, 2018 11:36:50 AM | 108 & karlof1 | Apr 23, 2018 12:14:34 PM | 109

Yes, brain washed foot soldiers of Ayn Rand's mythology and Milton Friedman's theory, MBAs, have destroyed North America with their idiotic cost-minimizing, short-term profit-maximizing approach!

Charles R , Apr 23, 2018 4:03:19 PM | 122
WJ, maybe you're on to something, but I'll also point out that the Luciferian and Promethean allusions throughout Atlas Shrugged themselves point to an older pattern of thinking about divine usurpation than Nietzsche, where the New Creators surpass the old, buried gods by bringing metal and oil and fire together into new forms of life. When Hank and Dagney finally embrace and reveal their passion for one another, they are deep in the engine room of the locomotive, with all its pistons and steam and heat and steel.

My point, though, was just to say that it's helpful to remember that even Rand encouraged justice and honor and personal integrity. You might say that Rand, given her admiration for the One True Philosopher in her reckoning -- Aristotle -- thought moral character important as something objective...

S , Apr 23, 2018 6:34:58 PM | 135
@WJ

Glad that people here see through Alisa Rosenbaum's bs.

Regarding Turkey, what they mean is that Turkey may deny the use of its airstrips to NATO forces (reneging on its NATO commitments), hence the need for an aircraft carrier as a (partial) replacement.

Jen , Apr 23, 2018 6:38:52 PM | 136
Charles @ 122:

Could you comment on Ayn Rand receiving social welfare payments and going on Medicare to help support her during her treatment for lung cancer near the end of her life?

http://www.openculture.com/2016/12/when-ayn-rand-collected-social-security-medicare.html

There are also many rumours flying about on the Internet that in the 1920s Ayn Rand was impressed by the serial killer William E Hickman (who kidnapped a banker's 12-year-old daughter, killed her and disembowelled and dismembered her) to the extent that he became a model for an early character in an unfinished novel. Could you comment on those rumours?

Why would Rand choose a serial killer (of all people) as a model for a "lone wolf" character at odds with conventional society?

[Oct 30, 2017] New York Times Acknowledges US Global Empire by Sheldon Richman

Notable quotes:
"... The UN has 193 member states -- and the U.S. government has a military presence in at least 89 percent of them! The Times ..."
"... Sheldon Richman , author of America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited , keeps the blog Free Association and is a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society , and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com . He is also the Executive Editor of The Libertarian Institute. ..."
Oct 30, 2017 | www.counterpunch.org

One big advantage the war party has is the public's ignorance about the activities of the far-flung American empire. Athough frustrating, that ignorance is easy to understand and has been explained countless times by writers in the public choice tradition. Most people are too busy with their lives, families, and communities to pay the close attention required to know that the empire exists and what it is up to. The opportunity cost of paying attention is huge, considering that the payoff is so small: even a well-informed individual could not take decisive action to rein in the out-of-control national security state. One vote means nothing, and being knowledgeable about the U.S. government's nefarious foreign policy is more likely to alienate friends and other people than influence them. Why give up time with family and friends just so one can be accused of "hating America"?

In light of this systemic rational ignorance, we must be grateful when a prominent institution acknowledges how much the government intervenes around the world. Such an acknowledgment came from the New York Times editorial board this week. The editorial drips with irony since the Times has done so much to gin up public support for America's imperial wars. (See, for example, its 2001-02 coverage of Iraq and its phantom WMD.) Stlll, the piece is noteworthy.

The Oct. 22 editorial began:

The United States has been at war continuously since the attacks of 9/11 and now has just over 240,000 active-duty and reserve troops in at least 172 countries and territories.

That alone ought to come as a shock to nearly all Americans. The UN has 193 member states -- and the U.S. government has a military presence in at least 89 percent of them! The Times does not mention that the government also maintains at least 800 military bases and installations around the world. That's a big government we're talking about. And empires are bloody expensive.

Sheldon Richman , author of America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited , keeps the blog Free Association and is a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society , and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com . He is also the Executive Editor of The Libertarian Institute.

[Oct 22, 2017] Libertarianism, the Alt-Right and AntiFa by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Notable quotes:
"... Speech delivered at the 12 th annual meeting of the ..."
"... in Bodrum, Turkey, on September 17, 2017 ..."
"... For A New Liberty. The Libertarian Manifesto, ..."
"... bêtes noires ..."
"... Students for Liberty ..."
"... Millennial Woes " ..."
"... Equality is bullshit. Hierarchy is essential. The races are different. The sexes are different. Morality matters and degeneracy is real. All cultures are not equal and we are not obligated to think they are. Man is a fallen creature and there is more to life than hollow materialism. Finally, the white race matters, and civilization is precious. This is the Alt-Right." ..."
"... "1) don't be belligerent; 2) don't presume hatred of liberty; 3) don't presume different goals; 4) don't presume ignorance; 5) don't regard anyone as an enemy." ..."
"... vis-à-vis ..."
"... vis-à-vis ..."
"... divide et impera ..."
"... except for the very first one ..."
"... : Stop mass immigration ..."
"... Stop attacking, killing and bombing people in foreign countries ..."
"... England First!, Germany First!, Italy First! ..."
"... Defund the ruling elites and its intellectual bodyguards ..."
"... End the Fed and all central banks. ..."
"... Abolish all " Affirmative Action " and "non-discrimination" laws and regulations ..."
"... Crush the "Anti-Fascist" Mob ..."
"... Crush the street criminals and gangs ..."
"... Get rid of all welfare parasites and bums ..."
"... Get the State out of education. ..."
"... Don't put your trust in politics or political parties ..."
"... Hans-Herman Hoppe ..."
"... , holds annual meetings of his ..."
"... Property and Freedom Society ..."
"... in the stunningly beautiful town of Bodrum in south west Turkey. ..."
Oct 22, 2017 | www.unz.com

October 20, 2017 7,200 Words 4 Comments Reply

Speech delivered at the 12 th annual meeting of the Property and Freedom Society in Bodrum, Turkey, on September 17, 2017

We know the fate of the term "liberal" and " liberalism ." It has been affixed to so many different people and different positions that it has lost all its meaning and become an empty, non-descript label. The same fate now increasingly also threatens the term " libertarian " and "libertarianism," which was invented to regain some of the conceptual precision lost with the demise of the former labels.

However, the history of modern libertarianism is still quite young. It began in Murray Rothbard's living room and found its first quasi-canonical expression in his For A New Liberty. The Libertarian Manifesto, published in 1973 .

And so I am still hopeful and not yet willing to give up on libertarianism as defined and explained by Rothbard with unrivaled conceptual clarity and precision, notwithstanding the meanwhile countless attempts of so-called libertarians to muddy the water and misappropriate the good name of libertarianism for something entirely different.

The theoretical, irrefutable core of the libertarian doctrine is simple and straightforward and I have explained it already repeatedly at this place. If there were no scarcity in the world, human conflicts, or more precisely physical clashes, would be impossible. Interpersonal conflicts are always conflicts concerning scarce things.

I want to do A with a given thing and you want to do B with the same thing. Because of such conflicts -- and because we are able to communicate and argue with each other -- we seek out norms of behavior with the purpose of avoiding these conflicts. The purpose of norms is conflict-avoidance. If we did not want to avoid conflicts, the search for norms of conduct would be senseless. We would simply fight and struggle.

Absent a perfect harmony of all interests, conflicts regarding scarce resources can only be avoided if all scarce resources are assigned as private, exclusive property to some specified individual or group of individuals. Only then can I act independently, with my own things, from you, with your own things, without you and me clashing.

But who owns what scarce resource as his private property and who does not?

First: Each person owns his physical body that only he and no one else controls directly . Second: as for scarce resources that can be controlled only indirectly (that must be appropriated with our own nature-given, i.e., un-appropriated, body), exclusive control (property) is acquired by and assigned to that person, who appropriated the resource in question first or who acquired it through voluntary (conflict-free) exchange from its previous owner.

For only the first appropriator of a resource (and all later owners connected to him through a chain of voluntary exchanges) can possibly acquire and gain control over it without conflict, i.e., peacefully. Otherwise, if exclusive control is assigned instead to latecomers , conflict is not avoided but contrary to the very purpose of norms made unavoidable and permanent.

Before this audience, I do not need to go into greater detail except to add this: If you want to live in peace with other people and avoid all physical clashes and, if such clashes do occur, seek to resolve them peacefully, then you must be an anarchist or more precisely a private property anarchist, an anarcho-capitalist or a proponent of a private law society.

And by implication, then, and again without much further ado: Someone, anyone, is not a libertarian or merely a fake libertarian who affirms and advocates one or more of the following:

the necessity of a State, any State, of "public" (State) property and of taxes in order to live in peace; the existence and justifiability of any so-called "human rights" or " civil rights" other than private property rights, such as "women's rights," " gay rights ," "minority rights," the "right" not to be discriminated against, the "right" to free and unrestricted immigration, the "right" to a guaranteed minimum income or to free health care, or the "right" to be free of unpleasant speech and thought.

The proponents of any of this may call themselves whatever they want, and as libertarians we may well cooperate with them, insofar as such a cooperation offers the promise of bringing us closer to our ultimate goal, but they are not libertarians or only fake libertarians.

Now, "a funny thing happened on the way to the forum." While Rothbard and I, following in his footsteps, never went astray from these theoretically-derived core beliefs, not just non-libertarians but in particular also fake libertarians, i.e., people claiming (falsely) to be libertarians, and even many possibly honest yet dim-witted libertarians have selected and vilified us as their favorite bêtes noires and incarnates of evil.

Rothbard, the spiritus rector of modern libertarianism, has been branded by this so-called "anti-fascist" crowd as a reactionary, a racist, a sexist, an authoritarian, an elitist, a xenophobe, a fascist and, to top it all off, a self-hating Jewish Nazi. And I have inherited all of these honorary titles, plus a few more (except for the Jewish stuff).

So what funny thing has happened here?

Trying to develop an answer to this question brings me to the topic of this speech: the relationship between libertarianism and the Alternative Right or "Alt-Right," which has gained national and international notoriety after Hillary Clinton , during the last presidential election campaign, identified it as one of the inspirational sources behind the "basket of deplorables" rooting for Trump (and whose leadership, to its credit, after Trump's election victory, quickly broke with Trump when he turned out to be just another presidential warmonger).

paleo-conservative movement that came to prominence in the early 1990s, with columnist and best-selling author Patrick Buchanan as its best-known representative. It went somewhat dormant by the late 1990s, and it has recently, in light of the steadily growing damage done to America and its reputation by the successive Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama administrations, reemerged more vigorous than before under the new label of the Alt-Right.

Many of the leading lights associated with the Alt-Right have appeared here at our meetings in the course of the years . Paul Gottfried, who first coined the term, Peter Brimelow , Richard Lynn , Jared Taylor , John Derbyshire , Steve Sailer and Richard Spencer . As well , Sean Gabb's name and mine are regularly mentioned in connection with the Alt-Right, and my work has been linked also with the closely related neo-reactionary movement inspired by Curtis Yarvin ( aka Mencius Moldbug ) and his now defunct blog Unqualified Reservations . In sum, these personal relations and associations have earned me several honorable mentions by America's most famous smear-and-defamation league, the SPLC ( aka Soviet Poverty Lie Center).

Now: How about the relationship between libertarianism and the Alt-Right and my reasons for inviting leading representatives of the Alt-Right to meetings with libertarians?

Libertarians are united by the irrefutable theoretical core beliefs mentioned at the outset. They are clear about the goal that they want to achieve. But the libertarian doctrine does not imply much if anything concerning these questions:

First, how to maintain a libertarian order once achieved; Second, how to attain a libertarian order from a non-libertarian starting point, which requires a) that one must correctly describe this starting point and b) correctly identify the obstacles posed in the way of one's libertarian ends by this very starting point.

To answer these questions, in addition to theory, you also need some knowledge of human psychology and sociology or at least a modicum of common sense.

Yet many libertarians and fake libertarians are plain ignorant of human psychology and sociology or even devoid of any common sense. They blindly accept, against all empirical evidence, an egalitarian, blank-slate view of human nature, of all people and all societies and cultures being essentially equal and interchangeable.

While much of contemporary libertarianism can be characterized, then, as theory and theorists without psychology and sociology, much or even most of the Alt-Right can be described, in contrast, as psychology and sociology without theory.

Alt-Righters are not united by a commonly held theory, and there exists nothing even faintly resembling a canonical text defining its meaning. Rather, the Alt-Right is essentially united in its description of the contemporary world, and in particular the US and the so-called Western World, and the identification and diagnosis of its social pathologies.

In fact, it has been correctly noted that the Alt-Right is far more united by what it is against than what it is for. It is against, and indeed it hates with a passion, the elites in control of the State , the MSM and academia.

Why? Because they all promote social degeneracy and pathology. Thus, they promote, and the Alt-Right vigorously opposes, egalitarianism, Affirmative Action ( aka " non-discrimination "), multiculturalism , and "free" mass immigration as a means of bringing multiculturalism about.

Cultural Marxism o r Gramsciism and all "Political Correctness" and, strategically wise, it shrugs off, without any apology whatsoever, all accusations of being racist , sexist, elitist, supremacist, homophobe, xenophobe, etc., etc.

And the Alt-Right also laughs off as hopelessly naïve the programmatic motto of so-called libertarians such as the Students for Liberty (which I have termed the "Stupids for Liberty" and my young German friend Andre Lichtschlag as "Liberallala-Libertarians") of "Peace, Love, and Liberty," appropriately translated into German by Lichtschlag as "Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen."

In stark contrast to this, Alt-Righters insist that life is also about strife, hate, struggle and fight, not just between individuals but also among various groups of people acting in concert. " Millennial Woes " (Colin Robertson) has thus aptly summarized the Alt-Right:

" Equality is bullshit. Hierarchy is essential. The races are different. The sexes are different. Morality matters and degeneracy is real. All cultures are not equal and we are not obligated to think they are. Man is a fallen creature and there is more to life than hollow materialism. Finally, the white race matters, and civilization is precious. This is the Alt-Right."

Absent any unifying theory, however, there is far less agreement among the Alt-Right about the goal that it ultimately wants to achieve.

Many of its leading lights have distinctly libertarian leanings, most notably those that have come here (which, of course, was the reason for having invited them here), even if they are not 100%-ers and would not identify themselves as such. All Alt-Righters that have appeared here, for instance, have been familiar with Rothbard and his work, all the while the most recent presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party had never even heard of Rothbard's name. And all of them, to the best of my knowledge, were outspoken supporters of Ron Paul during his primary campaign for the Republican Party's nomination as presidential candidate, all the while many self-proclaimed libertarians attacked and tried to vilify Ron Paul for his supposedly (you already know what's coming by now) "racist" views.

However, several of the Alt-Right's leaders and many of its rank and file followers have also endorsed views incompatible with libertarianism. As Buchanan before and Trump now, they are adamant about complementing a policy of restrictive, highly selective and discriminating immigration (which is entirely compatible with libertarianism and its desideratum of freedom of association and opposition to forced integration) with a strident policy of restricted trade, economic protectionism and protective tariffs -- which is antithetical to libertarianism and inimical to human prosperity.

(Let me hasten to add here that, despite my misgivings about his "economics," I still consider Pat Buchanan a great man.)

Others strayed even further afield, such as Richard Spencer, who first popularized the term Alt-Right. In the meantime, owing to several recent publicity stunts, which have gained him some degree of notoriety in the US, Spencer has laid claim to the rank of the maximum leader of a supposedly mighty unified movement (an endeavor, by the way, that has been ridiculed by Taki Theodoracopulos, a veteran champion of the paleo-conservative-turned-Alt-Right movement and Spencer's former employer).

When Spencer appeared here, several years ago, he still exhibited strong libertarian leanings. Unfortunately, however, this has changed and Spencer now denounces , without any qualification whatsoever, all libertarians and everything libertarian and has gone so far as to even put up with socialism, as long as it is socialism of and for only white people. What horrifying disappointment!

Given the lack of any theoretical foundation, this split of the Alt-Right movement into rival factions can hardly be considered a surprise.

Yet this fact should not mislead one to dismiss it, because the Alt-Right has brought out many insights that are of central importance in approaching an answer to the two previously mentioned questions unanswered by libertarian theory: of how to maintain a libertarian social order; and how to get to such an order from the current, decidedly un-libertarian status quo.

The Alt-Right did not discover these insights. They had been established long before and indeed, in large parts they are no more than common sense. But in recent times such insights have been buried under mountains of egalitarian, Leftist propaganda and the Alt-Right must be credited for having brought them back to light.

To illustrate the importance of such insights, let me take the first unanswered question first.

Many libertarians hold the view that all that is needed to maintain a libertarian social order is the strict enforcement of the non-aggression principle (NAP) . Otherwise, as long as one abstains from aggression, according to their view, the principle of "live and let live" should hold.

Yet surely, while this "live and let live" sounds appealing to adolescents in rebellion against parental authority and all social convention and control (and many youngsters have been initially attracted to libertarianism believing that this "live and let live" is the essence of libertarianism), and while the principle does indeed hold and apply for people living far apart and dealing with each other only indirectly and from afar, it does not hold and apply, or rather it is insufficient , when it comes to people living in close proximity to each other, as neighbors and cohabitants of the same community.

A simple example suffices to make the point. Assume a new next-door neighbor. This neighbor does not aggress against you or your property in any way, but he is a "bad" neighbor. He is littering on his own neighboring property, turning it into a garbage heap; in the open , for you to see, he engages in ritual animal slaughter, he turns his house into a " Freudenhaus ," a bordello , with clients coming and going all day and all night long; he never offers a helping hand and never keeps any promise that he has made; or he cannot or else he refuses to speak to you in your own language. Etc., etc..

Your life is turned into a nightmare. Yet you may not use violence against him, because he has not aggressed against you. What can you do?

You can shun and ostracize him. But your neighbor does not care, and in any case you alone thus "punishing" him makes little if any difference to him. You have to have the communal respect and authority, or you must turn to someone who does, to persuade and convince everyone or at least most of the members of your community to do likewise and make the bad neighbor a social outcast, so as to exert enough pressure on him to sell his property and leave.

(So much for the libertarians who, in addition to their "live and let live" ideal also hail the motto "respect no authority!")

The lesson? The peaceful cohabitation of neighbors and of people in regular direct contact with each other on some territory -- a tranquil, convivial social order -- requires also a commonality of culture: of language, religion, custom and convention. There can be peaceful co-existence of different cultures on distant, physically separated territories, but multi-culturalism, cultural heterogeneity, cannot exist in one and the same place and territory without leading to diminishing social trust, increased tension, and ultimately the call for a "strong man" and the destruction of anything resembling a libertarian social order.

And moreover: Just as a libertarian order must always be on guard against "bad" (even if non-aggressive) neighbors by means of social ostracism, i.e., by a common "you are not welcome here" culture, so, and indeed even more vigilantly so, must it be guarded against neighbors who openly advocate communism, socialism, syndicalism or democracy in any shape or form. They, in thereby posing an open threat to all private property and property owners, must not only be shunned, but they must, to use a by now somewhat famous Hoppe-meme , be "physically removed," if need be by violence, and forced to leave for other pastures.

Not to do so inevitably leads to -- well, communism, socialism, syndicalism or democracy and hence, the very opposite of a libertarian social order.

With these "Rightist" or as I would say, plain commonsensical insights in mind I turn now to the more challenging question of how to move from here, the status quo , to there.

And for this it might be instructive to first briefly consider the answer given by the liberallala, the peace-love-and-liberty, the Friede-Freude-Eierkuchen or the capitalism-is-love libertarians. It reveals the same fundamental egalitarianism, if in a slightly different form, as that exhibited also by the live-and-let-live libertarians.

These, as I have just tried to show, define what we may call the "bad neighbor problem" -- and what is merely a short-hand for the general problem posed by the co-existence of distinctly different, alien, mutually disturbing, annoying, strange or hostile cultures -- simply out of existence. And indeed, if you assume, against all empirical evidence, that all people, everywhere, are essentially the same, then, by definition, no such thing as a "bad neighbor problem" exists.

The same egalitarian, or as the liberallala-libertarians themselves prefer call it, "humanitarian" spirit also comes to bear in their answer to the question of a libertarian strategy . In a nutshell, their advice is this: be nice and talk to everyone -- and then, in the long run, the better libertarian arguments will win out.

To illustrate, take my former-friend-turned-foe Jeffrey Tucker's five "Don'ts When Talking Liberty." They are "1) don't be belligerent; 2) don't presume hatred of liberty; 3) don't presume different goals; 4) don't presume ignorance; 5) don't regard anyone as an enemy."

Now, quite apart from the fact that Tucker does not seem to follow his own advice in his belligerent condemnation of the entire Alt-Right as liberty-hating fascists , I find his exhortations truly astounding. They may be good advice vis-à-vis people just sprung up from nowhere, without any traceable history whatsoever, but vis-à-vis real people with a recorded history they strike me as hopelessly naïve, unrealistic, and outright counterproductive in the pursuit of libertarian ends.

For I (and I assume everyone else here) know of and have met many people in my life who are ignorant, who do have different, un-libertarian goals, and who do hate liberty as understood by libertarians -- and why in the world should I not regard such people as fools or enemies? And why should I not hate and not be belligerent vis-a-vis my enemies?

As a libertarian strategy, then, Tucker's advice must be considered simply a bad joke. But surely it is good advice if one seeks entry into the State as some sort of "libertarian" advisor, and this may well explain the enthusiasm with which Tucker's "humanitarian" libertarianism has been embraced by the entire liberallala-libertarian crowd.

Outside egalitarian phantasy lands, however, in the real world, libertarians must above all be realistic and recognize from the outset, as the Alt-Right does, the inequality not just of individuals but also of different cultures as an ineradicable datum of the human existence.

We must further recognize that there exist plenty of enemies of liberty as defined by libertarianism and that they, not we, are in charge of worldly affairs; that in many parts of the contemporary world their control of the populace is so complete that the ideas of liberty and of a libertarian social order are practically unheard of or considered unthinkable (except as some idle intellectual play or mental gymnastics by a few "exotic" individuals); and that it is essentially only in the West, in the countries of Western and Central Europe and the lands settled by its people, that the idea of liberty is so deeply rooted that these enemies still can be openly challenged.

And confining our strategic considerations here only to the West, then, we can identify, pretty much as the Alt-Right has effectively done, these actors and agencies as our principal enemies.

They are, first and foremost,

the ruling elites in control of the State apparatus and in particular the "Deep State" or the so-called "Cathedral" of the military, the secret services, the central banks and the supreme courts.

As well, they include the leaders of the military-industrial complex, i.e., of nominally private firms that owe their very existence to the State as the exclusive or dominant buyer of their products, and they also include the leaders of the big commercial banks, which owe their privilege of creating money and credit out of thin air to the existence of the central bank and its role as a "lender of last resort."

They together, then, State, Big-Business and Big-Banking, form an extremely powerful even if tiny "mutual admiration society," jointly ripping off the huge mass of tax-payers and living it up big time at their expense.

The second, much larger group of enemies:

the intellectuals, educators and " educrats ," from the highest levels of academia down to the level of elementary schools and kindergartens. Funded almost exclusively, whether directly or indirectly, by the State, they, in their overwhelming majority, have become the soft tools and willing executioners in the hands of the ruling elite and its designs for absolute power and total control.

And thirdly:

the journalists of the MSM, as the docile products of the system of "public education," and the craven recipients and popularizers of government "information."

Equally important in the development of a libertarian strategy then is the immediately following next question: who are the victims ?

The standard libertarian answer to this is: the tax- payers as opposed to the tax- consumers . Yet while this is essentially correct, it is at best only part of the answer, and libertarians could learn something in this respect from the Alt-Right: because apart from the narrowly economic aspect there is also a wider cultural aspect that must be taken into account in identifying the victims.

In order to expand and increase its power, the ruling elites have been conducting for many decades what Pat Buchanan has identified as a systematic "culture war," aimed at a trans-valuation of all values and the destruction of all natural, or if you will "organic" social bonds and institutions such as families, communities, ethnic groups and genealogically related nations, so as to create an increasingly atomized populace, whose only shared characteristic and unifying bond is its common existential dependency on the State.

The first step in this direction, taken already half a century or even longer ago, was the introduction of "public welfare" and "social security." Thereby, the underclass and the elderly were turned into State-dependents and the value and importance of family and community was correspondingly diminished and weakened.

More recently, further-reaching steps in this direction have proliferated. A new "victimology" has been proclaimed and promoted. Women, and in particular single mothers, Blacks, Browns, Latinos, homosexuals, lesbians, bi- and transsexuals have been awarded "victim" status and accorded legal privileges through non-discrimination o r affirmative action decrees.

As well, most recently such privileges have been expanded also to foreign-national immigrants, whether legal or illegal, insofar as they fall into one of the just mentioned categories or are members of non-Christian religions such as Islam, for instance.

The result? Not only has the earlier mentioned "bad neighbor problem" not been avoided or solved, but systematically promoted and intensified instead. Cultural homogeneity has been destroyed, and the freedom of association, and the voluntary physical segregation and separation of different people, communities, cultures and traditions has been replaced by an all-pervasive system of forced social integration.

Moreover, each mentioned "victim" group has thus been pitted against every other, and all of them have been pitted against white, heterosexual, Christian males and in particular those married and with children as the only remaining, legally un-protected group of alleged "victimizers."

Hence, as the result of the trans-valuation of all values promoted by the ruling elites, the world has been turned upside down. The institution of a family household with father, mother and their children that has formed the basis of Western civilization, as the freest, most industrious, ingenious and all-around accomplished civilization known to mankind, i.e., the very institution and people that has done most good in human history, has been officially stigmatized and vilified as the source of all social ills and made the most heavily disadvantaged, even persecuted group by the enemy elites' relentless policy of divide et impera .

Accordingly, given the present constellation of affairs, then, any promising libertarian strategy must, very much as the Alt-Right has recognized, first and foremost be tailored and addressed to this group of the most severely victimized people.

White married Christian couples with children, in particular if they belong also to the class of tax- payers (rather than tax-consumers), and everyone most closely resembling or aspiring to this standard form of social order and organization can be realistically expected to be the most receptive audience of the libertarian message (whereas the least support should be expected to come from the legally most "protected" groups such as, for instance, single Black Muslim mothers on welfare).

Given this constellation of perpetrator-enemies vs. victims in the contemporary West, then, I can now come to the final task of trying to outline a realistic libertarian strategy for change.

The specifics of which will have to be prefaced by two general considerations.

For one,

given that the class of intellectuals from the tops of academia to the opinion-molding journalists in the MSM are funded by and firmly tied into the ruling system, i.e., that they are a part of the problem , they also should not be expected to play a major if any role in the problem's solution .

Accordingly, the so-called Hayekian strategy for social change, that envisions the spread of correct libertarian ideas starting at the top, with the leading philosophers, and then trickling down from there to journalists and finally to the great unwashed masses, must be considered fundamentally unrealistic.

Instead, any realistic libertarian strategy for change must be a populist strategy. That is, libertarians must short-circuit the dominant intellectual elites and address the masses directly to arouse their indignation and contempt for the ruling elites.

And secondly,

While the main addressees of a populist libertarian message must be indeed the just mentioned groups of dispossessed and disenfranchised native whites, I believe it to be a serious strategic error to make "whiteness" the exclusive criterion on which to base one's strategic decisions, as some strands of the Alt-Right have suggested to do.

After all, it is above all white men that make up the ruling elite and that have foisted the current mess upon us.

True enough, the various protected "minorities" mentioned before take full advantage of the legal privileges they have been accorded and they have become increasingly emboldened to ask for ever more "protection," but none of them and all of them together did not and do not possess the intellectual prowess that would have made this outcome possible, if it were not for the instrumental help that they received and are receiving from white men.

Now, taking our cues from the Buchanan-, the Paul- and the Trump-movement, on to the specifics of a populist strategy for libertarian change, in no specific order except for the very first one , which has currently assumed the greatest urgency in the public mind.

One : Stop mass immigration . The waves of immigrants currently flooding the Western world have burdened it with hordes of welfare parasites, brought in terrorists , increased crime, led to the proliferation of no-go areas and resulted in countless "bad neighbors" who, based on their alien upbringing, culture and traditions, lack any understanding and appreciation of liberty and are bound to become mindless future supporters of welfare-statism.

No one is against immigration and immigrants per se . But immigration must be by invitation only. All immigrants must be productive people and hence, be barred from all domestic welfare payments.

To ensure this, they or their inviting party must place a bond with the community in which they are to settle, and which is to be forfeited and lead to the immigrant's deportation should he ever become a public burden. As well, every immigrant, inviting party or employer should not only pay for the immigrant's upkeep or salary, but must also pay the residential community for the additional wear and tear of its public facilities associated with the immigrant's presence, so as to avoid the socialization of any and all costs incurred with his settlement.

Moreover, even before his admission, every potential immigrant invitee must be carefully screened and tested not only for his productivity but also for cultural affinity (or "good neighborliness") -- with the empirically predictable result of mostly, but by no means exclusively, western-white immigrant-candidates.

And any known communist or socialist, of any color, denomination or country of origin, must be barred from permanent settlement -- unless, that is, the community where the potential immigrant wants to settle officially sanctions the looting of its residents' property by new, foreign arrivals, which is not very likely to say the least, even within already-existing "commie" communes.

(Brief message to all Open-Border and liberallala libertarians , who will surely label this, you guessed it, " fascist ": In a fully privatized libertarian order there exists no such thing as a right to free immigration. Private property implies borders and the owner's right to exclude at will. And "public property" has borders as well. It is not unowned. It is the property of domestic tax-payers and most definitely not the property of foreigners.

(And while it is true that the State is a criminal organization and that to entrust it with the task of border control will inevitably result in numerous injustices to both domestic residents and foreigners, it is also true that the State does something also when it decides not to do anything about border control and that, under the present circumstances, doing nothing at all in this regard will lead to even more and much graver injustices, in particular to the domestic citizenry.)

Two: Stop attacking, killing and bombing people in foreign countries . A main cause, even if by no means the only one, for the current invasion of Western countries by hordes of alien immigrants, are the wars initiated and conducted in the Middle East and elsewhere by the US ruling elites and their subordinate Western puppet-elites. As well, the by now seemingly 'normal' and ubiquitous terrorist attacks in the name of Islam across the Western world are in large measure the "blow-back" of these wars and the ensuing chaos throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa.

There should be no hesitation to call these Western rulers what they are: murderers or accessories to mass murder. We must demand, and cry out loud instead for a foreign policy of strict non-interventionism. Withdraw from all international and supranational organizations such as the UN , NATO and the EU that integrate one country into the domestic affairs of another. Stop all government-to-government aid and prohibit all weapon sales to foreign States.

Let it be America First!, England First!, Germany First!, Italy First! , and so on, i.e., each country trading with one another and no one interfering in anyone else's domestic affairs.

Three: Defund the ruling elites and its intellectual bodyguards . Expose and widely publicize the lavish salaries, perks, pensions, side-deals, bribes and hush monies received by the ruling elites: by the higher-ups in government and governmental bureaucracies, of supreme courts, central banks, secret services and spy agencies, by politicians, parliamentarians, party leaders, political advisors and consultants, by crony-capitalists, "public educrats," university presidents, provosts and academic "stars." Drive home the point that all their shining glory and luxury is funded by money extorted from tax-payers, and consequently urge that any and all taxes be slashed: income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, inheritance taxes, etc., etc..

Four: End the Fed and all central banks. The second source of funding for the ruling elites, besides the money extorted from the public in the form of taxes, comes from the central banks. Central banks are allowed to create paper money out of thin air. This reduces the purchasing power of money and destroys the savings of average people. It does not and cannot make society as a whole richer, but it redistributes income and wealth within society. The earliest receivers of the newly created money, i.e., the ruling elites, are thereby made richer and the later and latest receivers, i.e., the average citizen, are made poorer.

The central bank's manipulation of interest rates is the cause of boom-bust cycles. The central bank permits the accumulation of ever greater "public debt" that is shifted as a burden onto unknown future taxpayers or is simply inflated away. And as the facilitator of public debt, the central banks are also the facilitators of wars.

This monstrosity must end and be replaced by a system of free, competitive banking built on the foundation of a genuine commodity money such as gold or silver.

Five: Abolish all " Affirmative Action " and "non-discrimination" laws and regulations . All such edicts are blatant violations of the principle of the equality before the law that, at least in the West, is intuitively sensed and recognized as a fundamental principle of justice.

As private property owners, people must be free to associate or disassociate with others: to include or exclude, to integrate or segregate, to join or separate, to unify and incorporate or to disunite, exit and secede.

Close all university departments for Black-, Latino-, Women-, Gender-, Queer-Studies, etc., etc., as incompatible with science and dismiss its faculties as intellectual imposters or scoundrels. As well, demand that all Affirmative Action commissars, Diversity and Human Resources officers, from universities on down to schools and kindergartens, be thrown out onto the street and be forced to learn some useful trade.

Six: Crush the "Anti-Fascist" Mob . The trans-valuation of all values throughout the West, the invention of ever more "victim groups," the spread of "Affirmative Action" programs and the relentless promotion of Political Correctness, has led to the rise of an "Anti-Fascist" mob. Tacitly supported and indirectly funded by the ruling elites, this self-described mob of "Social Justice Warriors" has taken upon itself the task of escalating the fight against "white privilege" through deliberate acts of terror directed against anyone and anything deemed "racist," "right-wing," "fascist," "reactionary," "incorrigible" or "unreconstructed."

Such "enemies of progress" are physically assaulted by the "anti-fascist" mob, their cars are burnt down, their properties vandalized, and their employers threatened to dismiss them and ruin their careers -- all the while the police are ordered by the powers that be to "stand down" and not to investigate the crimes committed or prosecute and punish the criminals.

In view of this outrage, public anger must be aroused and there must be clamoring, far and wide, for the police to be unleashed and this mob be beaten into submission.

(Query for liberallala-libertarians and the Stupids for Liberty, who are sure to object to this demand on the ground that the police asked to crush the "anti-fascist" mob are State -police: Do you also object, on the same grounds, that the police arrest murderers or rapists? Aren't these legitimate tasks performed also in any libertarian order by private police?

(And if the police are not to do anything about this mob, isn't it o.k. then that the target of its attacks, the "racist Right," should take the task upon itself of giving the "social justice warriors" a bloody nose?)

Seven: Crush the street criminals and gangs . In dispensing with the principle of the equality before the law and awarding all sorts of group privileges (except to the one group of married white Christian men and their families) the ruling elites have also dispensed with the principle of equal punishment for equal crime. Some State-favored groups are handed more lenient punishment for the same crime than others, and some especially favored groups are simply let run wild and go practically unpunished at all, thus actually and effectively promoting crime.

As well, no-go areas have been permitted to develop where any effort at law-enforcement has essentially ceased to exist and where violent thugs and street gangs have taken over. In view of this, public furor must be provoked and it be unmistakably demanded that the police crack-down quick and hard on any robber, mugger, rapist and murderer, and ruthlessly clear all current no-go areas of violent gang-rule.

Needless to say that this policy should be colorblind, but if it happens to be, as it in fact does, that most street criminals or gang members are young Black or Latino males or, in Europe, young immigrant males from Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans or Eastern Europe, then so be it and such human specimen then should be the ones that most prominently get their noses bloodied.

And needless to say also that in order to defend against crime, whether ordinary street crime or acts of terrorism, all prohibitions against the ownership of guns by upstanding citizens should be abolished.

Eight: Get rid of all welfare parasites and bums . To cement their own position, the Ruling Class has put the underclass on the dole and thus made it a most reliable source of public support.

Allegedly to help people rise and move up from the underclass to become self-supporting actors, the real -- and actually intended -- effect of the State's so-called "social policy" is the exact opposite. It has rendered a person's underclass status more permanent and made the underclass steadily grow (and with this also the number of tax-funded social workers and therapists assigned to "help and assist" it).

For, in accordance with inexorable economic law, every subsidy awarded on account of some alleged need or deficiency produces more, not less, of the problem that it is supposed to alleviate or eliminate.

Thus, the root cause of a person's underclass status -- his low impulse control and high time preference, i.e., his uncontrolled desire for immediate gratification -- and the various attendant manifestations of this cause, such as unemployment, poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, divorce, female headed households, out-of-wedlock births, rotating shack-up male companions, child abuse, negligence and petty crime, is and are not alleviated or eliminated but systematically strengthened and promoted.

Instead of continuing and expanding this increasingly unsightly social disaster, then, it should be abolished and be loudly demanded that one take heed of the biblical exhortation that he who can, but will not work, also shall not eat, and that he who truly cannot work, due to severe mental or physical deficiencies, be taken care of by family, community and voluntary charity.

Nine: Get the State out of education. Most, if not all, social pathologies plaguing the contemporary West have their common root in the institution of "public education."

When the first steps were taken, more than two centuries ago, in Prussia, to supplement and ultimately replace a formerly completely private system of education with a universal system of compulsory "public education," the time spent in State-run schools did in most cases not exceed four years. Today, throughout the entire Western world, the time spent in institutions of "public education" is, at a minimum, around ten years, and in many cases, and increasingly so, twenty or even thirty years.

That is, a large or even the largest part of time during the most formative period in a person's life is spent in State-funded and State-supervised institutions, whose primary purpose from the very beginning it was not to raise an enlightened public, but to train "good soldiers" and "good public servants:" not independent and mature or "mündige Bürger," but subordinate and servile "Staats-Bürger."

The result? The indoctrination has worked: the longer the time a person has spent within the system of public education, the more he is committed to Leftist-egalitarian ideas and has swallowed and wholeheartedly internalized the official doctrine and agenda of Political Correctness.

Indeed, in particular among social science teachers and professors, people not counting themselves as part of the Left have practically ceased to exist.

Consequently, it must be demanded that the control of schools and universities be wrest away from the central State and, in a first step, be returned to regional or better still local and locally funded authorities, and ultimately be completely privatized, so as to replace a system of compulsory uniformity and conformity with a system of decentralized education that reflects the natural variation, multiplicity and diversity of human talents and interests.

Ten: Don't put your trust in politics or political parties . Just as academia and the academic world cannot be expected to play any significant role in a libertarian strategy for social change, so with politics and political parties -- after all, it is the ultimate goal of libertarianism to put an end to all politics, and to subject all interpersonal relations and conflicts to private law and civil law procedures.

To be sure, under present, all-pervasively politicized conditions an involvement in politics and party politics cannot be entirely avoided. However, in any such involvement one must be keenly aware of and guard against the corrupting influence of power and the lure of money and perks that comes with it.

And to minimize this risk and temptation, it is advisable to concentrate one's efforts on the level of regional and local rather than national politics, and there to promote a radical agenda of decentralization: of nullification and peaceful separation, segregation and secession.

Most importantly, however, we must take heed of Ludwig von Mises' life-motto: Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it.

That is, we must speak out whenever and wherever, whether in formal or informal gatherings, against anyone affronting us with by now only all-too-familiar "Politically Correct" drivel and Left-egalitarian balderdash and unmistakably say: "No. Hell no. You must be kidding."

In the meantime, given the almost complete mind-control exercised by the ruling elites, academia and the MSM, it already requires a good portion of courage to do so.

But if we are not brave enough to do so now and thus set an example for others to follow, matters will become increasingly worse and more dangerous in the future, and we, Western civilization and the Western ideas of freedom and liberty will be wiped out and vanish.

Economist Hans-Herman Hoppe , [ Email him ] author of Democracy: The God that Failed , holds annual meetings of his Property and Freedom Society in the stunningly beautiful town of Bodrum in south west Turkey. (Republished from VDare.com by permission of author or representative) Category: Ideology Tags: Alt Right , Antifa , Libertarianism , VDare Archives Hide 4 Comments Leave a Comment 4 Comments to "Libertarianism, the Alt-Right and AntiFa" Commenters to Ignore Commenters to ignore (one per line)

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FKA Max , Website October 21, 2017 at 3:52 am GMT

Good stuff!

I don't agree with everything, but generally good stuff.

Watched it a few days ago, after it was recommended here on the Unz Review by a "hardcore libertarian": http://www.unz.com/announcement/open-thread-software-bugs/#comment-2048136

In case the "hardcore libertarian" reads this comment, what do you think about this?

Libertarianism, which boils down to the non-aggression principle (NAP: The initiation of physical force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property is inherently illegitimate) is derived from the Catholic Scholastics, most notably the School of Salamanca, who based their proto-Austrian economic theory on Natural Rights derived from Scripture and Catholic theology. Thinkers like Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto, and Francisco Suárez originated the modern concepts of libertarianism based on Catholic moral teaching and St. Thomas Aquinas's theory of natural law, which stipulates the principle, "one should do harm to no man" (Summa Theologea I-II Q. 95), a progression from the Golden Rule, professed in the Bible: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Lk 6:31

http://thelibertariancatholic.com/summa-of-the-libertarian-catholic/

The Mont Pelerin Society was created on 10 April 1947 at a conference organized by Friedrich Hayek. Originally, it was to be named the Acton-Tocqueville Society. After Frank Knight protested against naming the group after two "Roman Catholic aristocrats" and Ludwig von Mises expressed concern that the mistakes made by Acton and Tocqueville would be connected with the society, the decision was made to name it after Mont Pèlerin, the Swiss resort where it convened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society#Name

Dr. Otto von Habsburg on Religion,Politics and Education

FKA Max , Website October 21, 2017 at 6:20 am GMT
@FKA Max

5. The Wealth of Nations: Ideology, Religion, Biology, and Environment

https://mises.org/library/5-wealth-nations-ideology-religion-biology-and-environment

The Catholic Church is anti-democratic, individualistic and capable of salvation. Slavery became seen as incompatible with Christian views. Christianity upholds social cooperation. Capitalism was born in Italy – a Catholic country. Private property came to be seen as a good. The Protestant religion was the most successful in production because their puritanical work ethic was the harshest. Protestantism both strengthened the state and democracies.


Mapping one of the world's largest landowners

In Massachusetts, the state Supreme Court recently ruled that only a portion of a Catholic shrine's nearly 200 acres were used for worship purposes and therefore were exempt from paying local property tax. The shrine was sent a tax bill for $92,000.
[...]
With more than 1 billion adherents, the Catholic Church is one of the largest, if not the largest, nongovernmental landowners in the world. One estimate puts the church's holdings close to 177 million acres, or 277,000 square miles. If those properties were grouped together and placed on a list of the world's countries by land area, it would fall within the top 50, higher than both France and Spain. (Plus, it is unclear whether or not the 177 million acre figure includes land owned by affiliated institutions, such as Catholic schools and hospitals, which number in the hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- worldwide.)

https://www.curbed.com/2017/10/18/16483194/catholic-church-gis-goodlands-esri-molly-burhans

The Wealth of Nations and Religion – Cat[h]olicism and Protestantism

Brabantian , Website October 21, 2017 at 11:55 pm GMT
A major key point made by Hans-Hermann Hoppe above, rather neglected by the Unz community here, is this:

After all, it is above all white men that make up the ruling elite and that have foisted the current mess upon us.

True enough, the various protected 'minorities' take full advantage of the legal privileges they have been accorded and they have become increasingly emboldened but none of them would have made this outcome possible, if it were not for the instrumental help that they received and are receiving from white men.

Though it is more helpful to call this problem by its most accurate name: oligarchy. And in a country that has been predominantly white, under a white oligarchy, the core pathology is obscured by an excess focus on dominant native culture versus other cultures. As Hoppe indicates, whatever faults or crimes can be ascribed to minorities / migrants, the dysfunctionality of the system is ultimately the fault of the oligarchs at the top of the social heap, who designed the system as it stands.

For those who focus on Jewish influence groups – often the preferred 'mafias' for an oligarchy, to be sure – it is nonetheless true, as Canadian rebel Jew Henry Makow points out, that Jewish influence agents, media mavens etc, are for the most part not higher than #2 in the pecking order. Even with 40% of USA billionaires being Jewish, the other 60% who are gentile, clearly are allowing Jewish groups to have what influence they do have.

A Jewish-Israeli writer who emigrated from Russia quipped, that what he found in his new life in Israel, was only the benefit that his oppressors were now other Jews rather than non-Jews. USA whites must face the fact too, their biggest oppressors are oligarch whites who don't give a shite about their less-well-connected brothers and sisters.

And the problem overall with 'libertarianism', the whole Rothbard – Ron Paul etc spectrum, is seen in the practical matter that a wing of billionaire oligarchs see the libertarians as their hired 'useful idiots'. In some cases you can see the libertarian pundits being funded by the Koch brothers etc trying to become the owners of federal land that would then be 'turned over to the free market private sector' har-har.

Though the intellectual libertarians have nice theories supporting small business and anti-monopoly etc in practice the whole free-market, no-social-benefit ideology, tends to support the crony oligarch monopolists very well.

Whereas the actual truth, as the real-life experience of Europe (in its better days, now fading) has shown, is that an intelligently-run mixed economy, with government restricting the oligarch oligopolists, and really serving its own citizens, is the way to go. The fact that the oligarchs are running the systems down and making them blow up these days, doesn't change the fact that for a brief few decades in history, Western Continental Europe achieved some aspects of paradise – little crime, almost no one in jail, a pleasant life for just about all, and zero poverty amongst legal residents.

The 'alt-right' has it more correct, 'libertarianism' is essentially a kind of clever geeky scam flying in the face of what really works.

FKA Max , Website October 22, 2017 at 12:33 am GMT
@FKA Max

Just for clarification; I shared the video of Otto von Habsburg, because he was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society , and also a devout Catholic, but he supported the "collectivist" European Union:

What is basically emerging is the European Union Otto von Habsburg envisioned
[...]
He was also a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.

http://www.unz.com/jpetras/the-middle-east-pivot/#comment-2051317

Rose and Milton Friedman on Mont Pelerin Society

"In this interview, Milton Friedman, who was awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics, describes the values, objectives, and beginnings of the Mont Pelerin Society. He explains what it was like to create a society dedicated to classical liberalism in a world where the prevailing economic views leaned towards central planning and collectivism. Since it was founded in 1947, this organization has grown and prospered; offering its members from around the world opportunities to exchange and discuss their ideas. Friedman also comments on the significant role Universidad Francisco Marroquín has played in promoting the ideals of free-market economics and the importance of protecting private property. This interview was conducted by Hoover Institution and presented at the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in London in 2002."

[Oct 21, 2017] Washington Funds Foreign Think Tanks That Blacklist Opponents of Neocon Foreign Policy by Ron Paul

I admired Ron Paul foright policy views for a along time. and this time he also did not disappointed his reader.
Soviet labeled anybody who dissented from communist propaganda line or did not believe in Communist dogma as "agents of imperialism". Neocons similarly bland and-war activists and people who question this war mongering as peddlers of "Russian propaganda". This is what often happen with victors in wars: they acquired worst features of their defeated enemies. for example to defeat the USSR the USA create powerful network of intelligence agencies. Which promptly went out of civil control in 1963, much like KGB in the USSR and became state within the state. In a way now it in now now unfeasible that the Soviet Union posthumously have won the Cold War, as it is more and more difficult to distinguish Soviet propaganda and the US government propaganda.
So the fact that the US government allocate large sums of money for the propaganda against another neoliberal state -- Russia, which represent regional threat to the US hegemonic ambitions -- tells a lot about neoliberalism as a social system. Hostilities among neoliberal states, much like hostilities between communist states are not only possible, they are the reality.
Notable quotes:
"... So what is the "European Values" think tank? A bunch of kooks? Well perhaps, but they are well-funded kooks. In fact they are funded by American taxpayers to defame other Americans who appear on media outlets that are out of favor with Washington's elites. Among the top donors to the "European Values" think tank is the United States Embassy in Prague. Other top funders include George Soros' "Open Society Foundation," the European Commission, and the European Parliament. They are also funded by other US government funded think tanks such as the Prague-based "League of Human Rights." ..."
"... How ironic that such a Soviet-style attack on political dissent in the United States was launched from Prague, which for decades suffered under the Štátna bezpečnosť -- ..."
"... "I am not here to defend RT," I said on the program tonight. I am here to defend the marketplace of ideas that is critical to a free society. I am here to defend the right of US citizens to dissent from the foreign policy of their government without being attacked by their own government -- or by foreign think tanks funded by their government. ..."
"... This should infuriate us: The US government defines anyone who dissents from its foreign policy of endless wars and a global military empire as peddlers of "Russian propaganda" and then Congress appropriates tens of million dollars to "counter Russian propaganda." ..."
"... That means the US Congress is appropriating tens of millions of our dollars to silence our objection to Washington's trillion dollar global military empire. What a scam! How anti-American! Is that not a declaration of war on the rest of us? Is that not an act of tyranny? ..."
Oct 21, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Dear Friends of the Ron Paul Institute:

I just finished an interview on RT.

Someday soon, perhaps, anyone writing the above sentence will land in some sort of gulag, as once did East Europeans found to have appeared on a foreign broadcast questioning the historical inevitability of the worldwide communist revolution.

In my case, I was asked to comment on a new report (see above pic) from a Czech " think tank " exposing 2,327 American "useful idiots" who dared appear on the Russian government-funded RT television network.

Among the "Kremlin stooges" listed in the report of the "European Values" think tank? Alongside critics of US foreign policy like Ron Paul, the Czech "European Values" think tank listed Sen. Lindsay Graham, Joe Lieberman, Dick Cheney, US Rep. Adam Schiff, former acting CIA director Michael Morrell, former CIA director Michael Hayden, and hundreds more prominent Americans who have been notably hostile to Russia and its government.

I said: "Wow! this conspiracy is even deeper than we thought! Even the virulently anti-Russian neocons and Russia-hating CIA bigwigs are in fact Putin's poodles!"

It's funny but it's not. This is when the neo-McCarthyism lately in fashion across the ideological divide descends into the absurd. This is when the mask slips from the witch trials, when the naked emperor can no longer expect to not be noticed.

So what is the "European Values" think tank? A bunch of kooks? Well perhaps, but they are well-funded kooks. In fact they are funded by American taxpayers to defame other Americans who appear on media outlets that are out of favor with Washington's elites. Among the top donors to the "European Values" think tank is the United States Embassy in Prague. Other top funders include George Soros' "Open Society Foundation," the European Commission, and the European Parliament. They are also funded by other US government funded think tanks such as the Prague-based "League of Human Rights."

Since when did "European values" come to be defined as government-funded lists of political "enemies" who dare question US foreign policy on television networks despised by neocons and Washington interventionists? How ironic that such a Soviet-style attack on political dissent in the United States was launched from Prague, which for decades suffered under the Štátna bezpečnosť -- the communist secret police -- that took exactly the same view of those who deviated from the Soviet party line as does the modern Czech "European Values" think tank.

Anyone questioning our one trillion dollar global military empire is automatically considered to be in the pay of hostile foreign governments. How patriotic is that?

"I am not here to defend RT," I said on the program tonight. I am here to defend the marketplace of ideas that is critical to a free society. I am here to defend the right of US citizens to dissent from the foreign policy of their government without being attacked by their own government -- or by foreign think tanks funded by their government.

This should infuriate us: The US government defines anyone who dissents from its foreign policy of endless wars and a global military empire as peddlers of "Russian propaganda" and then Congress appropriates tens of million dollars to "counter Russian propaganda."

That means the US Congress is appropriating tens of millions of our dollars to silence our objection to Washington's trillion dollar global military empire. What a scam! How anti-American! Is that not a declaration of war on the rest of us? Is that not an act of tyranny?

The noose is tightening around us. Yet we must continue to fight for what we believe in! We must continue to fight for the prosperity that comes from a peaceful foreign policy. Your generous support for the Ron Paul Institute helps us continue to be your voice in the fight for free expression and a peaceful foreign policy.

[Oct 16, 2017] President Trump Beats War Drums For Iran by Ron Paul

Notable quotes:
"... Nearly every assertion in the president's speech was embarrassingly incorrect. Iran is not allied with al-Qaeda, as the president stated. The money President Obama sent to Iran was their own money. Much of it was a down-payment made to the US for fighter planes that were never delivered when Iran changed from being friend to foe in 1979. The president also falsely claims that Iran targets the United States with terrorism. He claims that Iran has "fueled sectarian violence in Iraq," when it was Iranian militias who prevented Baghdad from being overtaken by ISIS in 2014. There are too many other false statements in the president's speech to mention. ..."
"... Unfortunately the American people are being neoconned into another war. Just as with the disastrous 2003 US attack on Iraq, the media builds up the fear and does the bidding of the warmongers without checking facts or applying the necessary skepticism to neocon claims. ..."
Oct 16, 2017 | www.unz.com

President Trump has been notoriously inconsistent in his foreign policy. He campaigned on and won the presidency with promises to repair relations with Russia, pull out of no-win wars like Afghanistan, and end the failed US policy of nation-building overseas. Once in office he pursued policies exactly the opposite of what he campaigned on. Unfortunately Iran is one of the few areas where the president has been very consistent. And consistently wrong.

In the president's speech last week he expressed his view that Iran was not "living up to the spirit" of the 2015 nuclear agreement and that he would turn to Congress to apply new sanctions to Iran and to, he hopes, take the US out of the deal entirely.

Nearly every assertion in the president's speech was embarrassingly incorrect. Iran is not allied with al-Qaeda, as the president stated. The money President Obama sent to Iran was their own money. Much of it was a down-payment made to the US for fighter planes that were never delivered when Iran changed from being friend to foe in 1979. The president also falsely claims that Iran targets the United States with terrorism. He claims that Iran has "fueled sectarian violence in Iraq," when it was Iranian militias who prevented Baghdad from being overtaken by ISIS in 2014. There are too many other false statements in the president's speech to mention.

How could he be so wrong on so many basic facts about Iran? Here's a clue: the media reports that his number one advisor on Iran is his Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley. Ambassador Haley is a "diplomat" who believes war is the best, first option rather than the last, worst option. She has no prior foreign policy experience, but her closest mentor is John Bolton – the neocon who lied us into the Iraq war. How do these people live with themselves when they look around at the death and destruction their policies have caused?

Unfortunately the American people are being neoconned into another war. Just as with the disastrous 2003 US attack on Iraq, the media builds up the fear and does the bidding of the warmongers without checking facts or applying the necessary skepticism to neocon claims.

Like most Americans, I do not endorse Iran's style of government. I prefer religion and the state to be separate and even though our liberties have been under attack by our government, I prefer our much freer system in the US. But I wonder how many Americans know that Iran has not attacked or "regime-changed" another country in its modern history. Iran's actions in Syria are at the invitation of the legitimate Syrian government. And why won't President Trump tell us the truth about Iranian troops in Syria – that they are fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda, both of which are Sunni extremist groups that are Iran's (and our) mortal enemies?

How many Americans know that Iran is one of the few countries in the region that actually holds elections that are contested by candidates with very different philosophies? Do any Americans wonder why the Saudis are considered one of our greatest allies in the Middle East even though they hold no elections and have one of the world's worst human rights records?

Let's be clear here: President Trump did not just announce that he was "de-certifying" Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal. He announced that Iran was from now on going to be in the bullseye of the US military. Will Americans allow themselves to be lied into another Middle East war?

Jim Christian , October 16, 2017 at 4:31 pm GMT

"Will Americans allow themselves to be lied into another Middle East war?"

The die was cast the minute they ended the draft and mandatory service. What the hell does anyone in this country care about the next war? Maybe some realize it's a theft, a looting, but as long as it isn't THEIR blood being spilt, nothing goes nuclear, they don't care. Few outside our little venue here even understand, they think it's still Rah! Rah! And then, I suppose if I were in Congress, I might demand votes on these deals. Civilian control of the military, funding the wars, etc. Of course, if I pushed the point, they'd put a bullet in my HEAD . Just because. And headline me, my Mistress and my wife on the front page of the Post. Because NSA just KNOWS shit. Probably set me up with my Mistress to begin with so they'd have something on me, heh. This is the dilemma the Hill has on a personal level. We don't vote on wars, we gave em a blank check after 9/11 and that's that. Keeping it all going? That's all private. None-ya.

No one can talk about it, they just do it.

[Sep 19, 2017] Rolling Back the Warfare State by Ron Paul

Notable quotes:
"... In the end, Sen. Paul did not back down and he got his vote. Frankly, I was more than a little surprised that nearly 40 percent of the Senate voted with Rand to allow a vote on repealing authority for the two longest wars in US history. I expected less than a dozen "no" votes on tabling the amendment and was very pleasantly surprised at the outcome. ..."
"... Are more Senators starting to see the wars his way? We can only hope so. As polls continue to demonstrate, the American people have grown tired of our interventionist foreign policy, which burns through trillions of dollars while making the world a more dangerous place rather than a safer place. ..."
"... The first step toward rebalancing the separation of powers is for Congress to reassert its authority and responsibility for declaring war. To this point, Congress has preferred to transfer its war responsibility to the president. ..."
"... The second step, once Congress understands its obligations, is to convince our representatives that war was not designed to be the first choice in foreign policy, but rather to be the last resort when we are under attack or when a direct attack is imminent! ..."
"... Just because Congress decides to approve the use of force does not mean that the war is just, justified, or wise. Congress is just as susceptible to war propaganda as the rest of America and unfortunately it is dominated by the false opinion that if you are not enthusiastic about US military solutions to disputes overseas then you are not being tough enough. In fact, it takes far more strength to exercise restraint in the face of the constant war propaganda and disinformation coming from the media and the neocons. ..."
Sep 19, 2017 | original.antiwar.com
Last week, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) reminded Congress that in matters of war, they have the authority and the responsibility to speak for the American people. Most Senators were not too happy about the reminder, which came in the form of a forced vote on whether to allow a vote on his amendment to repeal the Afghanistan and Iraq war resolutions of 2001 and 2002.

It wasn't easy. Sen. Paul had to jump through hoops just to get a vote on whether to have a vote. That is how bad it is in Congress! Not only does Congress refuse to rein in presidents who treat Constitutional constraints on their war authority as mere suggestions rather than as the law of the land, Congress doesn't even want to be reminded that they alone have war authority. Congress doesn't even want to vote on whether to vote on war!

In the end, Sen. Paul did not back down and he got his vote. Frankly, I was more than a little surprised that nearly 40 percent of the Senate voted with Rand to allow a vote on repealing authority for the two longest wars in US history. I expected less than a dozen "no" votes on tabling the amendment and was very pleasantly surprised at the outcome.

Last week, Rand said, "I don't think that anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty believes that these authorizations from 16 years ago and 14 years ago authorized war in seven different countries."

Are more Senators starting to see the wars his way? We can only hope so. As polls continue to demonstrate, the American people have grown tired of our interventionist foreign policy, which burns through trillions of dollars while making the world a more dangerous place rather than a safer place.

Some might argue that losing the vote was a defeat. I would disagree. For the first time in years we saw US Senators on the Senate Floor debating whether the president should have authority to take the US to war anywhere he pleases. Even with just the small number of votes I thought we might have gotten on the matter, that alone would have been a great victory. But getting almost 40 percent of the Senate to vote our way? I call that a very good start!

The first step toward rebalancing the separation of powers is for Congress to reassert its authority and responsibility for declaring war. To this point, Congress has preferred to transfer its war responsibility to the president.

The second step, once Congress understands its obligations, is to convince our representatives that war was not designed to be the first choice in foreign policy, but rather to be the last resort when we are under attack or when a direct attack is imminent!

Just because Congress decides to approve the use of force does not mean that the war is just, justified, or wise. Congress is just as susceptible to war propaganda as the rest of America and unfortunately it is dominated by the false opinion that if you are not enthusiastic about US military solutions to disputes overseas then you are not being tough enough. In fact, it takes far more strength to exercise restraint in the face of the constant war propaganda and disinformation coming from the media and the neocons.

We have achieved a small victory last week, thanks to Senator Paul. But we still have a lot of work to do! We must keep the pressure on and convert more to the cause of peace and prosperity!

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity .

[Jul 04, 2017] Mourn on the Fourth of July, 2017

Notable quotes:
"... When did the East Germans take over? ..."
"... You can't drive past the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue today. It was "temporarily" closed to motorized traffic after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and that closure was officially made permanent after 9/11. Seldom a week passes without breathless reports of a "security incident." Someone touched the White House fence (everyone panic!) or was shot to death by police after making a wrong turn or panicking at a random roadblock. Air Force One? You can still see it. On TV, anyway. ..."
Jul 04, 2017 | original.antiwar.com

I visited Washington, DC for the first time in 1980. I was 13. Jimmy Carter was the president.

My family only had one day to see the sights. As I remember it, we went through what seemed a somewhat sketchy neighborhood (I was a country boy, so it may have just been nerves about The Big City), turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and drove past the White House and Capitol before taking in selected bits of the Smithsonian and visiting Arlington National Cemetery. Then we proceeded to Andrews Air Force Base, where my brother was stationed, and just for fun drove past Air Force One.

I saw a lot of really neat stuff that day, but right now I'm thinking about the stuff I didn't see, or at least didn't notice.

I don't recall seeing a single police officer anywhere, although I'm sure I must have. The only man with a gun I noticed at Andrews was the gate guard, who checked my brother's ID and waved us through. Nobody seemed to give us a second glance as we passed within a few hundred feet of the president's plane. I don't recall any security checkpoints, barricades or traffic barriers along Pennsylvania Avenue, and I think I would have remembered those.

This was in the middle of the Iran hostage crisis and only a few months after the Unabomber's attack on American Airlines Flight 444 as it flew into DC from Chicago. Central America was in the throes of successful and unsuccessful revolutions and the US wasn't terribly popular there. Carter was preparing to re-institute draft registration in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

And yet (aside from a surplus of marble monuments), Washington seemed on the whole to be a normal, American city.

When did the East Germans take over?

You can't drive past the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue today. It was "temporarily" closed to motorized traffic after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and that closure was officially made permanent after 9/11. Seldom a week passes without breathless reports of a "security incident." Someone touched the White House fence (everyone panic!) or was shot to death by police after making a wrong turn or panicking at a random roadblock. Air Force One? You can still see it. On TV, anyway.

You can still visit Washington, but if you plan to fly in, count on multiple instances of being required to show your papers and get felt up at the airports. My own kids can't remember a time without metal detectors, bag searches and dire warnings even at the entrances to such attractions as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

I guess every generation of adults feels like things have gone downhill since they were kids. But as someone a little too young to have understood Vietnam or Watergate and just exactly old enough to have exuberantly celebrated the nation's bicentennial, these days I find each 4th of July to surpass the last as an occasion for mourning an America that no longer exists.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism . He lives and works in north central Florida. This article is reprinted with permission from William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

[Jul 03, 2017] Corporations fall for the lure of power no less than a political class, and are many times better at it! The idea that "the free market" will check their activities, promoted by Libertarians, is surely as naïve as anything any Marxist ever said.

Jul 03, 2017 | www.unz.com

For corporations, too, fall into this downward spiral. It has become easy to forget that the only truly effective checks on greed are moral in nature, and will be effective only if the greedy are convinced they answer to a Being infinitely more powerful than they are (and even then, incompletely). Mere political checks on corporate power can never work when corporations have the money to buy political classes. When civic morality collapses into I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you'll-scratch-mine utilitarianism, those at the helm of corporations see accumulation as natural and even expected.

Is this not neoliberalism in a nutshell? I've heard neoliberalism described as "capitalism with the gloves off" as it is blamed for the worsening wealth gap. An important difference between neoliberalism and its classical liberal ancestor, though, is that its ancestor did not arise within and had no necessary connection to secular materialism. The version of classical liberalism developed most famously by Frederic Bastiat (1801 – 1850) in his slim classic The Law (1849), offered a Christian economics. Classical liberalism is not inherently materialist. The implicit joining of the two has been a catastrophe for the developed world. Power centered in global corporations answering only to each other has become the final economic reality, money their primary instrument. The long-term result, having come to fullest fruition since the financial crisis of 2008, is the wealth gap: the accumulation, in the hands of a group small enough to fit into a university auditorium with room to spare, of more wealth than is possessed by the entire bottom half of the world's population!

Corporations fall for the lure of power no less than a political class, and are many times better at it! The idea that "the free market" will check their activities, promoted by Libertarians, is surely as naïve as anything any Marxist ever said. They become not merely "too big to fail" but beyond the control of abstract "economic logic" which is just the increasingly puny decisions, in aggregate, of the increasingly moneyless and powerless. Money, after all, is power in materialist global civilization, and if you don't have it, you're impotent. Moneylenders discovered this at the regional level in the late 1700s. Their descendants have been expanding on the basic idea ever since. Leftists are right to believe this is an important factor behind the present surge of "populism" and other manifestations of unrest all over the world - rebellions against an insular elite, loyal only to money, whose idea of "work" is moving investments around all day and tallying the profits, while undermining and destroying the autonomy of indigenous populations.

Beefcake the Mighty Show Comment Next New Comment July 3, 2017 at 1:33 pm GMT

@Agent76 May 5, 2017 Hans-Hermann Hoppe: A World Without Theft

Dr. Hoppe's book 'The Economics and Ethics of Private Property' (mises.org/EEPP) is among the most important modern contributions to libertarian thought. Hoppe, like Rothbard, connects laissez-faire economics to normative libertarian theory with laserlike precision and inexorable logic.

https://youtu.be/D0DoeyI8YCI Outstanding, yes. If more libertarians were like Rothbard and Hoppe, they might provide a meaningful opposition movement. Instead they just offer a different brand of open borders lunacy and national suicide.

[Jun 30, 2017] Why Libertarians Should Read Marx

Notable quotes:
"... How can we defend property rights at the same time as defending a system which came into being by denying those rights? ..."
"... Do current market structures (which are of course determined by the state) really maximize development? ..."
"... Are markets really a realm of freedom, or a means through which some exploit and oppress others? And so on. ..."
"... "The system of protection," says Marx, "was an artificial means of manufacturing manufacturers, of expropriating independent laborers, of capitalizing the national means of production and subsistence, and of forcibly abbreviating the transition from the medieval to the modern mode of production." ..."
"... Most Libertarians I have come across just seem to dislike taxes and are looking for a reason why this might be a morally acceptable position. It is like that famous J K Galbraith quote: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." ..."
"... Anybody who thinks that Libertarians really care about "freedom" (whatever that is - the more I think about it the less I see a difference to "power" - which is largely - though not entirely - zero sum) is kidding themselves. ..."
"... I reckon there are three reasons libertarians should read Marx. One is that Marx saw economics as a historical process. For him, one of the big questions was: "where did that come from?" ..."
Jun 30, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
Chris Dillow: Why libertarians should read Marx : Kristian Niemietz says he can't be bothered to read Marx. Can I try and convince him otherwise?

For one thing, I suspect libertarians like him would be surprised by a lot of Marx. There's astonishingly little in Marx about a centrally planned economy: if you want an argument for central planning, you should read that hero of the right, Ronald Coase instead (pdf ). Marx was admiring of capitalism in some respects. It has, he wrote , given "an immense development to commerce" and has "accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals." And I think you'd be surprised by just how much attention Marx paid to the facts: once you get past the first few chapters, there's massive empirical work in Capital volume I*. And there are many differences between Marx and social democrats – not least of them being that Marx was no statist.

What's more, many of the ideas associated with Marx were largely elaborations of his predecessors: Paul Samuelson called him a "minor post-Ricardian". The labour theory of value, the interest in the division of income between classes and the idea of a falling rate of profit are all as Ricardian as Marxian. (The falling rate of profit (pdf) might be a good explanation for our recent slow growth and lack of capital spending, but let that pass).

I reckon there are three reasons libertarians should read Marx.

  1. One is that Marx saw economics as a historical process. For him, one of the big questions was: "where did that come from?" ...
  2. A second reason for libertarians to read Marx lies in his view of the relationship between property rights and technical progress ...
  3. A third reason to read Marx lies in his attitudes to freedom. ...

In short, then, libertarians should read Marx because he poses them some questions which should sharpen their thinking.

  1. How can we defend property rights at the same time as defending a system which came into being by denying those rights?
  2. What material conditions are necessary for people to support freedom? How will new technologies shape our beliefs?
  3. Do current market structures (which are of course determined by the state) really maximize development?
  4. If not, how can they change? Do actually-existing markets merely enhance formal freedom, or are they conducive to the substantive freedom that Marx wanted? Can they be made more conducive?
  5. Are markets really a realm of freedom, or a means through which some exploit and oppress others? And so on.

If you look past tribal caricatures, perhaps libertarian thinking will be enriched by a consideration of Marx's work.

Miguel Madeira -> Christopher H.... , June 29, 2017 at 04:20 AM

Pgl wrote "Smith did not like trade protection as in his day it was a tool of the elites."; but, yes, Marx was against trade protection

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/free-trade/

anne -> Miguel Madeira ... , June 29, 2017 at 05:32 AM
I appreciate this:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/free-trade/

1888

On the Question of Free Trade
Preface by Frederick Engels for the 1888 English edition pamphlet

TOWARDS the end of 1847, a Free Trade Congress was held at Brussels. It as a strategic move in the Free Trade campaign then carried on by the English manufacturers. Victorious at home, by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, they now invaded the continent in order to demand, in return for the free admission of continental corn into England, the free admission of English manufactured goods to the continental markets.

At this Congress, Marx inscribed himself on the list of speakers; but, as might have been expected, things were not so managed that before his turn came on, the Congress was closed. Thus, what Marx had to say on the Free Trade question he was compelled to say before the Democratic Association of Brussels, an international body of which he was one of the vice-presidents.

The question of Free Trade or Protection being at present on the order of the day in America, it has been thought useful to publish an English translation of Marx's speech, to which I have been asked to write an introductory preface.

"The system of protection," says Marx, "was an artificial means of manufacturing manufacturers, of expropriating independent laborers, of capitalizing the national means of production and subsistence, and of forcibly abbreviating the transition from the medieval to the modern mode of production."

Such was protection at its origin in the 17th century, such it remained well into the 19th century. It was then held to be the normal policy of every civilized state in western Europe. The only exceptions were the smaller states of Germany and Switzerland -- not from dislike of the system, but from the impossibility of applying it to such small territories....

reason -> pgl... , June 29, 2017 at 01:26 AM
I sort of wonder though, who Chris Dillow is addressing here. Most Libertarians I have come across just seem to dislike taxes and are looking for a reason why this might be a morally acceptable position. It is like that famous J K Galbraith quote: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

Anybody who thinks that Libertarians really care about "freedom" (whatever that is - the more I think about it the less I see a difference to "power" - which is largely - though not entirely - zero sum) is kidding themselves.

anne , June 28, 2017 at 10:25 AM
Nice essay, and though I have a loose understanding of Marx which would obviously bother those who read Marx strictly no matter the motives, I think a loose understanding warranted and directly applicable. The reason I find a loose understanding of Marx important, is that just as there are successful capitalist economies, and just as many people think that is all there are in the way of successful economies, there is a communist economy that is successful and important enough to be studied as such.

I would think that understanding China would take having a loose understanding of Marx, because though American economists may argue with the idea China has developed successfully as a communist system.

[ I do not care, by the way, to argue the matter, the perspective is just mine. ]

anne -> anne... , June 28, 2017 at 11:49 AM
I reckon there are three reasons libertarians should read Marx. One is that Marx saw economics as a historical process. For him, one of the big questions was: "where did that come from?"

-- Chris Dillow

[ Really nice and important passage. ]

anne -> anne... , June 28, 2017 at 02:39 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/opinion/finland-station-communism-socialism.html

June 26, 2017

Socialism's Future May Be Its Past
By Bhaskar Sunkara

One hundred years after Lenin's sealed train arrived at Finland Station and set into motion the events that led to Stalin's gulags, the idea that we should return to this history for inspiration might sound absurd. But there was good reason that the Bolsheviks once called themselves "social democrats." They were part of a broad movement of growing parties that aimed to fight for greater political democracy and, using the wealth and the new working class created by capitalism, extend democratic rights into the social and economic spheres, which no capitalist would permit.

The early Communist movement never rejected this broad premise. It was born out of a sense of betrayal by the more moderate left-wing parties of the Second International, the alliance of socialist and labor parties from 20 countries that formed in Paris in 1889. Across Europe, party after party did the unthinkable, abandoned their pledges to working-class solidarity for all nations, and backed their respective governments in World War I. Those that remained loyal to the old ideas called themselves Communists to distance themselves from the socialists who had abetted a slaughter that claimed 16 million lives. (Amid the carnage, the Second International itself fell apart in 1916.)

Of course, the Communists' noble gambit to stop the war and blaze a humane path to modernity in backward Russia ended up seemingly affirming the Burkean notion that any attempt to upturn an unjust order would end up only creating another.

Most socialists have been chastened by the lessons of 20th-century Communism. Today, many who would have cheered on the October Revolution have less confidence about the prospects for radically transforming the world in a single generation. They put an emphasis instead on political pluralism, dissent and diversity.

Still, the specter of socialism evokes fear of a new totalitarianism. A recent Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation report worries that young people are likely to view socialism favorably and that a "Bernie Sanders bounce" may be contributing to a millennial turn against capitalism. Last year, the president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, Thomas J. Donohue, even found it necessary to remind readers that "Socialism Is a Dangerous Path for America."

The right still denounces socialism as an economic system that will lead to misery and privation, but with less emphasis on the political authoritarianism that often went hand in hand with socialism in power. This may be because elites today do not have democratic rights at the forefront of their minds - perhaps because they know that the societies they run are hard to justify on those terms.

Capitalism is an economic system: a way of organizing production for the market through private ownership and the profit motive. To the extent that it has permitted democracy, it has been with extreme reluctance. That's why early workers' movements like Britain's Chartists in the early 19th century organized, first and foremost, for democratic rights. Capitalist and socialist leaders alike believed that the struggle for universal suffrage would encourage workers to use their votes in the political sphere to demand an economic order that put them in control.

It didn't quite work out that way. Across the West, workers came to accept a sort of class compromise....

reason -> anne... , June 29, 2017 at 01:37 AM
The way to think about this is to distinguish between the margin and the whole. Capitalism provides a valuable dynamism at the margin, that neither monopoly capitalism nor centralized socialism can provide when they dominate the whole of society. That is why a mixture is essential.

Countervailing power is essential. Somehow this topic seems to emphasize the value of JK Galbraith, he may not have moved economics much forward, but his political vision was valuable.

kurt -> reason ... , June 29, 2017 at 11:22 AM
Agree 100%.
anne , June 28, 2017 at 11:08 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism

The term Classical Marxism denotes the collection of socio-eco-political theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. "Marxism," as Ernest Mandel remarked, "is always open, always critical, always self-critical." As such, Classical Marxism distinguishes between "Marxism" as broadly perceived, and "what Marx believed;" thus, in 1883, Marx wrote to the French labour leader Jules Guesde and to Paul Lafargue (Marx's son-in-law) – both of whom claimed to represent Marxist principles – accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of denying the value of reformist struggle; from Marx's letter derives the paraphrase: "If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist."

jonny bakho , June 28, 2017 at 11:33 AM
Without government, there is no property- the contradiction at the heart of libertarianism

Libertarianism would not be possible without the efforts of the very government they despise

Humans evolved as social animals.
Humans thrive in social groups.
True individuals do not survive for long

DrDick -> jonny bakho... , June 28, 2017 at 11:40 AM
Humans also evolved to become more cooperative and sharing and it is that sharing and cooperation that has been the key to our evolutionary success.
Jerry Brown -> jonny bakho... , June 28, 2017 at 11:56 AM
But, but... Clint Eastwood in practically all his movies...

No seriously, "Without government, there is no property- the contradiction at the heart of libertarianism". Excellent point. Great comment.

anne , June 28, 2017 at 02:50 PM
There's astonishingly little in Marx about a centrally planned economy: if you want an argument for central planning, you should read that hero of the right, Ronald Coase instead (pdf)....

-- Chris Dillow

[ This reference link will not open. Possibly a reader might know what was intended as the reference. ]

anne -> anne... , June 28, 2017 at 04:05 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem

In law and economics, the Coase theorem * describes the economic efficiency of an economic allocation or outcome in the presence of externalities. The theorem states that if trade in an externality is possible and there are sufficiently low transaction costs, bargaining will lead to an efficient outcome regardless of the initial allocation of property. In practice, obstacles to bargaining or poorly defined property rights can prevent Coasian bargaining.

* This "theorem" is commonly attributed to University of Chicago Nobel Prize laureate Ronald Coase. However, Coase himself stated that the theorem was based on perhaps four pages of his 1960 paper "The Problem of Social Cost", and that the "Coase theorem" is not about his work at all.

reason -> anne... , June 29, 2017 at 01:30 AM
Note: the word "efficient" is doing lots of work here. "Efficient" (particularly in the sense economists use it), should not be confused with "good".
anne -> anne... , June 28, 2017 at 04:08 PM
Would the so-called Coase theorem then, explain why Coase might be considered a hero of libertarians? I must be missing something, but what would that be?
reason -> anne... , June 29, 2017 at 01:31 AM
(G)Libertarians think that Coase "proved that regulation is unnecessary" (of course he did no such thing).
DrDick -> anne... , June 28, 2017 at 04:50 PM
While Marx was never very explicit about what he envisioned as the future, he appears to have favored the syndicalist model, basically a system of co-ops owned and run by the workers but retaining the "company" model of capitalism.
anne -> DrDick... , June 28, 2017 at 04:54 PM
While Marx was never very explicit about what he envisioned as the future, he appears to have favored the syndicalist model, basically a system of co-ops owned and run by the workers but retaining the "company" model of capitalism.

[ Like Germany, at least somewhat. With worker representation on corporate boards and industry-wide worker bargaining. Fascinating and important, and to the extent that this is like Germany, successful. ]

anne , June 28, 2017 at 04:11 PM
Mark Thoma:

I experimented and here is the missing link:

http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~jsfeng/CPEC11.pdf

1937

The Nature of the Firm
R. H. COASE

anne -> anne... , June 28, 2017 at 04:13 PM
http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~jsfeng/CPEC11.pdf

1937

The Nature of the Firm
By R. H. COASE

Economic theory has suffered in the past from a failure to state clearly its assumption. Economists in building up a theory have often omitted to examine the foundations on which it was erected. This examination is, however, essential not only to prevent the misunderstanding and needles controversy which arise from a lack of knowledge of the assumptions on which a theory is based, but also because of the extreme importance for economics of good judgment in choosing between rival sets of assumptions. For instance, it is suggested that the use of the word "firm" in economics may be different from the use of the term by the "plain man."' Since there is apparently a trend in economic theory towards starting analysis with the individual firm and not with the industry,2 it is ail the more necessary not only that a clear definition of the word "firm" should be given but that its difference from a firm in the "real world," if it aists, should be made clear. Mrs. Robinson has said that "the two questions to be asked of a set of assumptions in economics are: Are they tractable? and: Do they correspond with the real world?"3

Though, as Mrs. Robinson points out, "More often one set will be manageable and the other realistic," yet there may well be branches of theory where assumptions may be both manageable and realistic. It is hoped to show in the following paper that a definition of a firm may be obtained which is not only realistic in that it corresponds to what is meant by a firm in the real world, but is tractable by two of the most powerful instruments of economic analysis developed by Marshall, the idea of the margin and that of substitution, together giving the idea of substitution at the margin.4 Our definition must, of course, "relate to formal relations which are capable of being conceived exactly."

Jerry Brown -> anne... , June 28, 2017 at 07:10 PM
Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon

And here's to you
Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know
Woah woah woah
God bless you please
Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey

Hopefully I haven't confused my Robinsons again. :)

[Jun 08, 2017] What is the Last Man (Nietzsche) - Apotheosis Magazine

Jun 08, 2017 | www.apotheosismagazine.com
The glorious German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zaratustra brought up the concept of the Last Man. Trawling through the internet you will hear about the Last Man constantly, but no accurate definition or statement about what a Last Man actually is. So this article will discuss the character traits of the Last Man – let's just hope that the Last Man does not remind you of yourself.

The Last Man is primarily characterized as the type of individual that is fat, lazy and falls asleep watching TV after over indulging in junk food. This clearly denotes the type of man that is content with living a life whose primary and only purpose is to exist in a perpetual state of comfort, security and pleasure. This is a value system that does not idealize or extol higher values, challenging circumstances or hard work.

Zarathustra after descending the mountains is trying to deliver a sermon to a crowd of people that are hanging around the marketplace. Individuals that normally hang around a marketplace are typically known as commoners – especially in Nietzsche's time – and their primary concern is grotesque entertainment, gossip, manners and commerce.

After delivering his sermon about the Overman/Superman (or Ubersmensch) Nietzsche receives an apathetic and mocking response. One must imagine how extremely jarring this was for Zarathustra considering he has just descended from his sojourn in the mountains to proclaim this message. Rather comically, you can imagine Nietzsche's Zarathustra as the typical hobo you hear in the town centre raving about God or some other incoherent babble, whilst others walk past laughing, scared or neutral. Except this raving mystic is much more coherent than usual and is delivering some badass Nietzschean theory.

Nietzsche: " There they stand; there they laugh: they do not understand me; I am not the mouth for these ears They have something of which they are proud. What do they call it, that which makes them proud? Culture, they call it; it distinguishes them from the goatherds. They dislike, therefore, to hear of "contempt" of themselves. So I will appeal to their pride.
I will speak to them of the most contemptible thing: that, however, is the Last Man !"

Contempt here is being used in its typical notion, the feeling that something is worthless and should not be considered. Here, as suggested by the text, Nietzsche will appeal to their "pride" by talking to them about what he believes is the most contemptible thing – The Last Man . This Last Man is the embodiment of their culture. So, Nietzsche is clearly telling us that the Last Man is valueless and worthless.

What is the Last Man :

Nietzsche: "I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you have still chaos in yourselves.
Alas! There comes the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There comes the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.
Lo! I show you the Last Man ."

The Last Man cannot despise himself. That is, he cannot feel or understand that his actions, values or decisions may under some or all circumstances be lacking in value. This is important. To not have the orientation that your actions may be lacking, be worthless or unsubstantial entails that you do not have any serious self-reflective capacity to evaluate your actions. The Last Man we can reasonably assume acts in a manner that is contemptible and embarrassing for a culture to promote. So the fact that the Last Man does not have the consciousness nor the insight to evaluate his actions as lacking value or real meaningful substance means that he is unable to change them in a positive manner and be something other than the Last Man . Only the Last Man can be the type of man that lacks insight to such degree that he finds it not only acceptable, content, but also agreeable to be the Last Man.

Nietzsche: "What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?" -- so asks the Last Man, and blinks. The earth has become small, and on it hops the Last Man, who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable as the flea; the Last Man lives longest."

The Last Man according to Nietzsche's rendering of him is the type of individual that does not care or even remotely try to answer the questions of his existence, those that profoundly affect and determine his life. The Last Man , by this characterization, is neither a romantic, a philosopher, a scientist or a poet.

And due to the unquestioning nature of this type of man, the world has been made small and manageable. According to this type of man, the striving, the ambition, the determination to battle against hardship and the desire to become more than we currently are is a deterrent to happiness.

Nietzsche: "The earth has become small, and on it hops the Last Man, who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable as the flea; the Last Man lives longest.

Yet despite all of this, the Last Man , due to his security, comfort and pleasure believes:

Nietzsche: ""We have discovered happiness" -- say the Last Men, and they blink."

Nietzsche goes on to discuss the herd-like collective behaviour and the smug mentality of this group that dogmatically and unquestionably believes the man of the present to better than the men of the past. If this is true, then the values and behaviors that instantiate the Last Man are, according to him, to be preferred over all other values. Once again, the Last Man is unwilling to question his values against any other lifestyle or generational values, due to their inability to evaluate values that should guide their or others' behaviour.

Nietzsche: "No shepherd, and one herd! Everyone wants the same; everyone is the same: he who feels differently goes voluntarily into the madhouse. Formerly all the world was insane," -- say the subtlest of them, and they blink.

Despite Zarathustra's attempt to shame the market crowd with a contemptible notion of their culture through the concept of the Last Man , the crowd continue to mock him by clamoring to become the Last Man . As we can see, they have truly misunderstood Nietzsche's message and this market crowd is the collective manifestation of the Last Man .

--

If you're interested in buying Thus Spoke Zarathustra please use the link below to support and improve Apotheosis Magazine

[May 01, 2017] Noam Chomsky Abby Martin Electing The President of an Empire

Notable quotes:
"... To begin with, the Libertarians are not a united front. It's not a consolidated party or philosophy. It's based on the non-aggression principle, but after that, opinions vary widely. ..."
"... The corporation itself is based on an anti-free market principle--limited liability--so the whole legal definition of a corporation is called into question by some forms of Libertarianism. ..."
"... One of the main arguments of Libertarians is there wouldn't be anywhere near as many impoverished people. In theory, a free market and free enterprise undermines monopoly and the power to oppress and distributes wealth more even. It's corruption through government force that enables corporations to monopolize and move wealth to the top. ..."
"... Bush destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan. Two countries. ..."
"... Obama destroyed Libya, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine. Four countries. ..."
"... The US's military industrial complex works around any president, sadly, When President Barack Obama was announced as the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize I was shocked. ..."
"... The Democrats have shifted to the right as well. Today's mainstream Democrats are pretty much what used to be called 'moderate Republicans ..."
"... When the illiberal policies began to be instituted -- deregulation and so on -- then you start getting a series of financial crises and every time the public bails them out. ..."
YouTube

Stefan Adler 4 days ago

Excellent interview. Personally I've been listening to so-called alternative media for a very long time now, more or less since about I finished school (I was reading books by Erich Fromm, Hans A. Pestalozzi and others at that time) and I read occasionally alternative newspapers and magazines.

But this has rather dramatically changed now. In fact I more or less completely abandoned the so-called mainstream media, because at least in my opinion a big part of the mass media here in Germany has begun to turn into agencies for very radical and destructive policies designed in part by Brussels and in part by the German government. It doesn't matter which political issue you look at: The so-called refugee crisis, economical topics, the rise of right wing extremism in Germany and so on: A big part of the mainstream media systematically shifts attention away from the really interesting issues.

Take for example the stream of refugees coming to Germany and other European countries. It could have been a starting point for the German media to discuss what the real reasons for this so-called crisis are: For example the German, British, French and other weapons exports and what they are used for. Or the ecomical policies of the European Union, which severely damages the economies of countries like Senegal or Burkina Faso. But this just doesn't happen. When you turn on the publicly financed radio stations you hear them discussing technical terms of Germans policies shutting down the European borders to stop the flow of refugees, but almost no word about what this means for the desperate people who end up there. It's a very shocking experience to basically see that even publicly financed media (which we are supposed to be proud of) stay diligently within the limits of discussion, which according to Noam's and Edward Herman's work you would expect for commercial media.

Of course you can find journalism here which does not follow these restrictions, but in case of the publicly financed radio and news programmes you mostly have to wait until late in the evening (when most of the working population doesn't watch TV or listen to radio anymore) or turn to newspapers which are sold at only very few places. The media is in a terrible condition here nowadays, at least in my opinion.

coldflame 1 day ago

Siddharth Sharma 3 days ago

Chomsky hits the nail on Bernie's campaign. The energy behind the campaign is great, but it's very likely to die after the election. Which Bernie also understands as his major hurdle. He has stated many times, about creating a political revolution, and said that Obama's biggest mistake was, that he let the mass movement that elected him die.

Bernie wants people to be actively involved in politics, and take rational decisions. When asked how he intends to tackle Republicans while pushing for his progressive reforms, he replied(on the lines of), if his campaign was successful there won't be many Republicans to deal with. While I hope that to happen, it's rather optimistic of Bernie to think so.

Many people are completely missing the point of his campaign, rather worshiping him as an idol, without understanding the ideals that he stands for. Sanders supporters need to be more mature and serious, as electing him President will not be a panacea; much will remain to be done.

Callme Ishmael 5 hours ago

Chomsky is always off the mark on American Libertarianism. To begin with, the Libertarians are not a united front. It's not a consolidated party or philosophy. It's based on the non-aggression principle, but after that, opinions vary widely. His argument about environmental destruction are countered by arguments by Libertarians about private property and prosecution of fraud and the behavior of informed consumers in a free market. The corporation itself is based on an anti-free market principle--limited liability--so the whole legal definition of a corporation is called into question by some forms of Libertarianism.

The master-servant relationship is not advocated by most Libertarians. That's absurd. And why does he think there wouldn't be any private bus systems? And no empathy or private forms of welfare?

One of the main arguments of Libertarians is there wouldn't be anywhere near as many impoverished people. In theory, a free market and free enterprise undermines monopoly and the power to oppress and distributes wealth more even. It's corruption through government force that enables corporations to monopolize and move wealth to the top.

Rodrigo Rodrigues 3 days ago

Bush destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan. Two countries.

Obama destroyed Libya, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine. Four countries.

The US's military industrial complex works around any president, sadly, When President Barack Obama was announced as the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize I was shocked.

He admitted he didn't deserve the prize at the presentation. He went on to praise militarism, and gave tepid support for preventive wars, a war crime. I would like to know Chomsky's opinion on Donald Trump being a candidate .

EnnoiaBlog 2 days ago (edited)

"The Democrats have shifted to the right as well. Today's mainstream Democrats are pretty much what used to be called 'moderate Republicans.' -- Noam Chomsky, in interview with Abby Martin, Oct. 24ish 2015.

MY HERO!!!!!!!

Chris Neglia 1 day ago (edited)

10:00 -- "If a major financial institution gets in trouble, the government will bail it out, which happens repeatedly--only during the illiberal periods [not free / rights lacking] incidentally. There were no major failures during the 50s and 60s. When the illiberal policies began to be instituted -- deregulation and so on -- then you start getting a series of financial crises and every time the public bails them out.

>>> Well that has consequeces. For one thing that means the credit agencies understand these corporations are high value beyond the level of what they actually do because they're gonna be bailed out. So they get good credit ratings, means they can get cheap credit, means they can get cheap loans from the government, they can undertake risky transactions which are profitable because if something goes wrong the tax payer will take care of it.

>>>> Net result is: that amounts to practically all their profits. Is that Capitalism?"

Nailed it Noam.

[Apr 26, 2017] Ron Paul on New Syria Sanctions and Still Unproven Gas Attack Claim

With such friends like Paul Wolfowitz Defense Secretary Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster belong to Hillary team. And Trump are strongly advised to perform sex change operation.
Notable quotes:
"... How to explain this sudden embrace of the neocon line on Syria and elsewhere? It might be telling that according to recent press reports the architect of the disastrous Iraq war, Paul Wolfowitz, is lending advice on the Middle East to Defense Secretary Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. They have all apparently been friends for years. More in today's Ron Paul Liberty Report: ..."
"... If you are interested, I wrote a very detailed blog post , in which I examine the evidence about the recent chemical attack and compare the situation with what happened after the chemical attack in Ghouta in August 2013 ..."
"... Wolfowitz? The same jackass who thought Iraq could be conquered by 10,000 troops in under one hour? One of the biggest reason why US foreign policy is so recalcitrant and feckless is that former F-ups are continually called upon to lend an opinion just because they have putative experience. ..."
"... If you do not think a concerted conspiracy is taking place, I suggest you visit the Atlantic Council website and others pushing almost identical stories -- And yes - they cover events in the Ukraine as well -- Conspiracy -- They just SUPPORT each other -- What's WRONG with that ? ..."
Apr 25, 2017 | www.antiwar.com

President Trump has yet to provide any credible evidence that the gas attack in Syria earlier this month was carried out by Assad, and in the meantime very serious questions about the veracity of White House claims are arising from very credible experts. Yet the Administration seems ever more determined now that it has done a 180 degree turn and demanded regime change for Syria. Late last week the White House announced sanctions on 271 Syrian scientists who Trump claims are working on chemical weapons. The proof? None.

How to explain this sudden embrace of the neocon line on Syria and elsewhere? It might be telling that according to recent press reports the architect of the disastrous Iraq war, Paul Wolfowitz, is lending advice on the Middle East to Defense Secretary Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. They have all apparently been friends for years. More in today's Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Bill In Montgomey , a day ago

Their last point is important: Whistleblowers needed, perhaps now more than ever.

Kitty Antonik Wakfer , a day ago

Virtually all those in USGov leadership roles are not interested in peace; MIC makes for favors to dispense & $contributions for re-election. But wars can't be waged if few are willing to join military & work for Dept of Defense (what a truth-twisted name!). Depopularize both military participation & "support the troops" mania.

BrotherJonah Kitty Antonik Wakfer , 8 hours ago

Take a day off from sanity and watch TV all day. The advertising for just about every commercial product is being taken over by militarism. Toys, breakfast cereals, restaurants, cars, beer commercials, good thing we don't have tobacco commercials anymore, or we'll have a campaign like Lucky Strike GREEN is going to War! (the tobacco company changed the color on the packets because the red dye had a lot of chromium in it and chromium was needed for aircraft parts) Rice Krispies cereal was touted as "Shot from Guns!" (Let's get the kids involved!) That last one was courtesy of my Mom and her sisters, they were kids at the time. The Recruiters are getting worse.

Philippe Lemoine , 20 hours ago

If you are interested, I wrote a very detailed blog post , in which I examine the evidence about the recent chemical attack and compare the situation with what happened after the chemical attack in Ghouta in August 2013.

I argue that, in the case of the attack in Ghouta, the media narrative had rapidly unravelled and that, for that reason, we should be extremely prudent about the recent attack and not jump to conclusions. Among other things, I discuss the ballistic analysis produced by Postol and Lloyd at the time, which showed that both the much-touted NYT/HRW analysis and the US intelligence were mistaken.

I also show that, despite the fact that a lot of evidence came out that undermined the official narrative, the media never changed their stance and continued to talk as if there was no doubt that Assad's regime was responsible for the attack.

It's more than 5,000 words long and I provide a source for every single factual claim I make. The post has already been widely shared and some people have criticized it, so I will soon post a follow-up where I reply to critics and say more about the evidence that bears on the attack in Khan Sheikhoun.

Bill In Montgomey Philippe Lemoine , 8 hours ago

Thanks for this work.

mdb , 18 hours ago

Wolfowitz? The same jackass who thought Iraq could be conquered by 10,000 troops in under one hour? One of the biggest reason why US foreign policy is so recalcitrant and feckless is that former F-ups are continually called upon to lend an opinion just because they have putative experience.

The truth about the gas attack might take some time to wiggle to the surface, especially if claims made by the administration turn out bankrupt. They will likely bury it as long as possible. The media will likely be reticent to dig, having all thrown roses at Trump's feet for a little "shock and awe". Never underestimate either the willful ignorance or the ignominious glorification (by the media) of reckless bombing under the guise of humanitarian concerns. It seems they learned not a damned thing from the debacle of Iraq. They have simply gone back to sleep since then.

Paul talks about "sensibility and a better policy". It seems he was yet another "believer" who was duped by a man who tells lies faster than his lips can move. They had about 16 months to watch Trump put truth in a dumpster fire, and yet they STILL believed that his election would herald some utopian, isolationist, wet-dream fantasy-land where the MIC would fold up overnight and bring all the boys back home. How's that working out for the "believers"? Trust a man with no core at your own peril. The messiah complex (as a projection) really needs to die in this country...before we do some REAL damage to ourselves.

Bill In Montgomey mdb , 9 hours ago

Nice post. In defense of Paul, I never saw any statement of his that he was a supporter of Trump. He did say he liked SOME of the things he was saying on the campaign trail (like bring the troops home). Also, it didn't take him long to publicly criticize Trump. Contrast these critical/skeptical statements to those of other public figures. I suspect Paul's attacks on Trump will accelerate (they already have).

Also, Paul did cite "red flags" about Trump during the campaign. I saw him on one interview criticize the proclivity of Trump to propose executive actions that seemed imperial in nature, certainly outside of the confines of a president's Constitutional role.

Ron Paul's voice and views are more important than mine as they get heard and read by far more people. Thank goodness he is still around to offer his contrarian views.

I'm sure Trump already doesn't like Ron Paul, and that Trump's antagonism for Paul will only grow as events transpire.

peter brooker , 13 hours ago

For all those deluded conspiracy theorists out there -- The mainstream news almost without exception supports accusations that Syria uses Sarin gas and that Assad kills his own citizens --

They all agree that the 'moderate' opposition, 'free speech' community service activists, with only peaceful intentions, as they are deserve both our support and protection - but I am beginning to wonder who it is doing the fighting ? Oh, sorry -- Assad -- Sorry for my foolish mistake !

If you do not think a concerted conspiracy is taking place, I suggest you visit the Atlantic Council website and others pushing almost identical stories -- And yes - they cover events in the Ukraine as well -- Conspiracy -- They just SUPPORT each other -- What's WRONG with that ? Just pass the hymn-sheet around -- Please feel welcome to join in the singing --

[Mar 11, 2017] Mr. Nock is considered the genesis of the modern day libertarian movement.

Mar 11, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com

runnymede -> Ms No , Mar 11, 2017 1:21 AM

Another excellent read is by Albert J. Nock

Our Enemy the State

Mr. Nock is considered the genesis of the modern day libertarian movement.

He has several excellent essays in the public domain, several are free on the mises institute site.

A truly remarkable man.

FreedomWriter -> runnymede , Mar 11, 2017 10:29 AM

An excellent book, you can download it here

http://anarcho-capitalist.org/wp-content/pdfs/Nock%20%28Albert%20Jay%29%...

[Mar 10, 2017] Libertarianism and libertarian socialism are two different things. Libertarianism is a less authoritative conservatism while libertarian socialism is a less authoritative social democracy

www.nakedcapitalism.com

MtnLife , March 10, 2017 at 10:43 am

As Kanth sees it, most of our utopian visions carry on the errors and limitations born of a misguided view of human nature. That's why communism, as it was practiced in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, projected a materialist perspective on progress while ignoring the natural human instinct for autonomy- the ability to decide for ourselves where to go and what to say and create. On flip side, capitalism runs against our instinct to trust and take care of each other.

I think this paragraph speaks volumes for transitioning to a society with a BGI with libertarian socialist leanings. Let people be free to create what they are passionate about while allowing humans to express their innate desire to care for one another without it signifying weakness or at their time own personal expense. I don't think this approach necessarily precludes rockets to Mars either. The engineers who are passionate will still get together and build one. It may take a little longer if they can't convince others to help but hopefully this will foster more cooperative approaches and less viewing of other humans as consumables.

Great post. Thanks for sharing.

JTMcPhee , March 10, 2017 at 12:27 pm

And where does "libertarian socialism" end up taking us? Hmmm http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/journey-into-a-libertarian-future-part-i-%e2%80%93the-vision.html

No thanks. We're pretty well there already.

MtnLife , March 10, 2017 at 1:21 pm

Libertarianism and libertarian socialism are two different things. Libertarianism is a less authoritative conservatism while libertarian socialism is a less authoritative social democracy. Think Chomsky, not Ron Paul. Or think of it as a more relaxed Bernie who thinks things should be done on a smaller, more local scale.

[Dec 05, 2016] The conditions that produced and enabled Trump are the Democratic Party betrayal or working classes, especially its transformation into another wing of neoliberal party of the USA under Clinton. People now view a vote for Hillary as a vote for more of the same - increasing disparity in wealth and income.

Sizeable numbers of Americans have seen wages decline in real terms for nearly 20 years. Many/most parents in many communities do not see a better future before them, or for their children.
Notable quotes:
"... Democracy demands that ballot access rules be selected by referendum, not by the very legacy parties that maintain legislative control by effectively denying ballot access to parties that will pose a challenge to their continued rule. ..."
"... I think the U.S. Party system, in the political science sense, shifted to a new state during George W Bush's administration as, in Kevin Phillip's terms the Republican Party was taken over by Theocrats and Bad Money. ..."
"... My understanding is trumps support disproportionately comes from the small business owning classes, Ie a demographic similar to the petite bourgeoisie who have often been heavily involved in reactionary movements. This gets oversold as "working class" when class is defined by education level rather than income. ..."
"... Racism serves as an organizing principle. Politically, in an oppressive and stultifying hierarchy like the plantation South, racism not incidentally buys the loyalty of subalterns with ersatz status. ..."
"... For a time, the balkanization of American political communities by race, religion and ethnicity was an effective means to the dominance of an tiny elite with ties to an hegemonic community, but it backfired. Dismantling that balkanization has left the country with a very low level of social affiliation and thus a low capacity to organize resistance to elite depredations. ..."
"... Watching Clinton scoop up bankster money, welcome Republicans neocons to the ranks of her supporters does not fill me with hope. ..."
Aug 02, 2016 | crookedtimber.org

Glenn 08.02.16 at 5:01 pm

@William Meyer 08.02.16 at 4:41 pm

Legislators affiliated with the duopoly parties should not write the rules governing the ballot access of third parties. This exclusionary rule making amounts to preserving a self-dealing duopoly. Elections are the interest of the people who vote and those elected should not be able to subvert the democratic process by acting as a cartel.

Democracy demands that ballot access rules be selected by referendum, not by the very legacy parties that maintain legislative control by effectively denying ballot access to parties that will pose a challenge to their continued rule.

Of course any meaningful change would require a voluntary diminishment of power of the duopoly that now has dictatorial control over ballot access, and who will prevent any Constitutional Amendment that would enhance the democratic nature of the process.

bruce wilder 08.02.16 at 8:02 pm

I think the U.S. Party system, in the political science sense, shifted to a new state during George W Bush's administration as, in Kevin Phillip's terms the Republican Party was taken over by Theocrats and Bad Money.

Ronan(rf) 08.04.16 at 10:35 pm

"I generally don't give a shit about polls so I have no "data" to evidence this claim, but my guess is the majority of Trump's support comes from this broad middle"

My understanding is trumps support disproportionately comes from the small business owning classes, Ie a demographic similar to the petite bourgeoisie who have often been heavily involved in reactionary movements. This gets oversold as "working class" when class is defined by education level rather than income.

This would make some sense as they are generally in economically unstable jobs, they tend to be hostile to both big govt (regulations, freeloaders) and big business (unfair competition), and while they (rhetorically at least) tend to value personal autonomy and self sufficiency , they generally sell into smaller, local markets, and so are particularly affected by local demographic and cultural change , and decline. That's my speculation anyway.

bruce wilder 08.06.16 at 4:28 pm

I am somewhat suspicious of leaving dominating elites out of these stories of racism as an organizing principle for political economy or (cultural) community.

Racism served the purposes of a slaveholding elite that organized political communities to serve their own interests. (Or, vis a vis the Indians a land-grab or genocide.)

Racism serves as an organizing principle. Politically, in an oppressive and stultifying hierarchy like the plantation South, racism not incidentally buys the loyalty of subalterns with ersatz status. The ugly prejudices and resentful arrogance of working class whites is thus a component of how racism works to organize a political community to serve a hegemonic master class. The business end of racism, though, is the autarkic poverty imposed on the working communities: slaves, sharecroppers, poor blacks, poor whites - bad schools, bad roads, politically disabled communities, predatory institutions and authoritarian governments.

For a time, the balkanization of American political communities by race, religion and ethnicity was an effective means to the dominance of an tiny elite with ties to an hegemonic community, but it backfired. Dismantling that balkanization has left the country with a very low level of social affiliation and thus a low capacity to organize resistance to elite depredations.

bruce wilder 08.06.16 at 4:31 pm

Watching Clinton scoop up bankster money, welcome Republicans neocons to the ranks of her supporters does not fill me with hope.

[Nov 20, 2016] Trumps Appointment of Pompeo as CIA Chief is Major Fail

Notable quotes:
"... Thank you for this very good link. The swamp cant be drained with an election, the society has been infested and corrupt beyond redemption. There can't be a revolution either, because no charismatic figure could lead it, and the majority of the people prefer to bury their head in the sand. ..."
"... It'd be nice to think that the coming devolution won't be an exact repeat, e.g. a neo-Dark Age for hundreds of years, but who can say? Maybe science and philosophy won't be entirely lost this time around. But of course all speculation is rendered nul and void IF we have WW3 ..."
"... If Trump appoints any vetted neocons to high positions in his administration, he runs the risk of synchronized resignations if he decides to move closer to Russia. ..."
"... Fake Libertarians need to understand that Radical islam is a problem not because of America's wars in the Middle East or NATO. Radical islam is inherently violent. India has been a victim of this virus since the 8th century! India never invaded any country. ..."
Nov 20, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

CorneliuCodreanu Nov 20, 2016 1:30 AM ,

Trump's Appointment of Pompeo as CIA Chief is Major Fail

http://www.newnationalist.net/2016/11/20/trumps-appointment-of-pompeo-as...

jfb CorneliuCodreanu Nov 20, 2016 8:42 AM ,
Thank you for this very good link. The swamp cant be drained with an election, the society has been infested and corrupt beyond redemption. There can't be a revolution either, because no charismatic figure could lead it, and the majority of the people prefer to bury their head in the sand.

What will eventually happen is an economic implosion and chaos. The "elite" won't be able to finance a repressive force since their "electronic money" will not be trusted, and everything will fall apart.

And years after, small communities will gradually re-emerge since there will be a need to protect the people with a local police force. But the notion of a super-state or even more of a NWO will not survive, after an initial depopulation we'll have something similar than what you had at the begining of the middle age, a life organized around small independant comunities of 3,000 or 5,000 people.

Setarcos jfb Nov 20, 2016 9:54 AM ,
Very close to my thinking ... and a precedent is the demize of the Roman Empire, when Europe devolved into numerous small feudal regions, such as in England for over a thousand years, i.e after numerous internal wars, such as the Wars of the Roses and the reign of Henry VIII, it wasn't until the 1600s and the so-called "Enlightenment" that England was unified ... and it wasn't until the 1700s that Scotland was conquered and "Great Britain" existed, also having incorporated Wales and Ireland, with at least Eire having gained independence during the 1920s, Wales never being really integrated, nor Scotland now moving away from the centre of the whole shebang ... London always.

It'd be nice to think that the coming devolution won't be an exact repeat, e.g. a neo-Dark Age for hundreds of years, but who can say? Maybe science and philosophy won't be entirely lost this time around. But of course all speculation is rendered nul and void IF we have WW3 despite, or because(?) of Trump and similar phenonema in the West.

francis scott f... Nov 20, 2016 2:09 AM ,

BE CAREFUL, MR TRUMP

If Trump appoints any vetted neocons to high positions in his administration, he runs the risk of synchronized resignations if he decides to move closer to Russia.

And when that is picked up by the arch deceivers at the WaPo, NYT, WSJ etc, it will be embarrassing for Mr Trump and for the foreign policy he campaigned on.

Lynn Trainor francis scott falseflag Nov 20, 2016 5:53 AM ,
Mr. Trump, please move closer to Russia - Putin has longed for sane dialogue with the US for the last 8 or more years and has gotten the cold shoulder.
GraveDancer Nov 20, 2016 3:24 AM ,
Fake Libertarians need to understand that Radical islam is a problem not because of America's wars in the Middle East or NATO. Radical islam is inherently violent. India has been a victim of this virus since the 8th century! India never invaded any country.

Islam fundamentally is incompatible with a modern society.

[Nov 20, 2016] The problem with libertarianism as an ideology is that it lacks a full two-thirds of what encompasses a system of belief. Libertarianism is an economic policy masquerading as a political ideology

Notable quotes:
"... Governmentally, libertarianism fares slightly better, but even then its copy/pasting leads to a political body that cannot effectively govern in any respect. Libertarians are often said to want "small government" -- which, were it true, is a noble cause -- but libertarianism demands virtually private government, which is definitionally oxymoronic. ..."
"... Regarding tranquility, libertarianism would remove all noise and behavioral ordinances, as that restricts freedom on a personal level (again, falling back to the absolute "free market" parody). ..."
"... There are aspects of libertarianism which are commendable. In the broadest sense, their desires for less centralized government control over the economy, providence, and society are commendable, as most of today's governments are, by the reckoning of the Founders, entirely totalitarian. ..."
"... Libertarianism is most often characterized as being for a completely free market–ending all government subsidies and letting any business, no matter the size or category, fail if its practices lead to failure. Libertarians even fail at free market orthodoxy. There is no free market. Markets operate within parameters set by law. Money itself can push prices... for example, housing prices were pushed during bubble. Bond prices were pushed with QE. ..."
"... Inelastic markets especially are being privatized by neo-liberal orthodoxy, this then creates a perpetual toll-booth rent extraction for the owners. For example, if ports are owned and not regulated, then the "owners" can take whatever fees they want, which then drives up price. If you have a ship, are you going to sail to the next "competing" port? There are no competing ports, as it is a natural monopoly... a natural geological feature. ..."
"... So, libertarianism, even in the economic sense is sophomoric, and doesn't deal with economic reality. ..."
"... The best economic system delivers the lowest PRICE to the most people. To do this, the best system must strip out economic rent... which is unearned income. Libertarianism does not even comprehend rent extraction. ..."
"... with now over 300 millions, many packed into large metropolitan areas, depending on its definition, a 'libertarian' utopia', as it were, in practical terms is simply out of reach. Unless everybody all at once becomes divinely perfected beings, which on paper is pretty much the only way to avoid government ..."
Nov 20, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
Tallest Skil -> ultimate warrior , Nov 19, 2016 10:52 PM
The problem with libertarianism as an ideology is that it lacks a full two-thirds of what encompasses a system of belief. Libertarianism is an economic policy masquerading as a political ideology. Economy, society, and government comprise the full range of ideological belief, but libertarianism is exclusively an economic school of thought. Economics alone does not a civilization make.

Libertarianism, economically, feels rather agreeable. A man is entitled to the sweat of his brow and the fruits of his labor. A man has no obligation–legal or moral–to strangers, nor to his neighbors save such behaviors that would make them reciprocate and do well by him. This is why libertarians eschew welfare for systems that would provide jobs to those on welfare so that they may provide for themselves. Libertarianism is most often characterized as being for a completely free market–ending all government subsidies and letting any business, no matter the size or category, fail if its practices lead to failure.

But that is where libertarianism ends. No regard for social behaviors has been made, and so when libertarians in the political scene are forced to speak of social issues, their only reply is to copy their economic doctrines, change applicable words, and paste them into place with disastrous results. They have translated their wholly free market economy into a wholly free market for the purchase of product. Any product. Under libertarianism, any drug of any sort would be available to anyone with enough currency to procure it, and the price of the drug would be dictated, of course, by the free market. Heroin, ecstasy, marijuana, morphine, vicodin–all drugs–available without script or restriction of quantity. Any and all behaviors–sodomy, pederasty, pedophilia, bestiality–all acceptable. Private ownership of nuclear weaponry -- as well as the raw materials to build and distribute such -- legal. Libertarianism's utter lack of regard for social protection makes it a nigh-genocidal ideology.

Governmentally, libertarianism fares slightly better, but even then its copy/pasting leads to a political body that cannot effectively govern in any respect. Libertarians are often said to want "small government" -- which, were it true, is a noble cause -- but libertarianism demands virtually private government, which is definitionally oxymoronic. To give an example of libertarianism's lack of government, a typical criticism in this aspect is, "Who would build the roads?"

The US Constitution stipulates that the government must "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Government organization and implementation of national infrastructure falls under both defense and welfare. Regarding tranquility, libertarianism would remove all noise and behavioral ordinances, as that restricts freedom on a personal level (again, falling back to the absolute "free market" parody).

There are aspects of libertarianism which are commendable. In the broadest sense, their desires for less centralized government control over the economy, providence, and society are commendable, as most of today's governments are, by the reckoning of the Founders, entirely totalitarian. However, libertarianism fails to comprehend that there is a healthy scope of government–indeed that general well-being is a charge of government itself–and fails in the one thing in which it purports to believe: the freedom of the individual to pursue success, protected -- not from failure -- but from the syndicates, cabals, and individuals who would seek to take that from him.

MEFOBILLS -> Tallest Skil •Nov 19, 2016 11:09 PM

Nice job...

Libertarianism is most often characterized as being for a completely free market–ending all government subsidies and letting any business, no matter the size or category, fail if its practices lead to failure. Libertarians even fail at free market orthodoxy. There is no free market. Markets operate within parameters set by law. Money itself can push prices... for example, housing prices were pushed during bubble. Bond prices were pushed with QE.

There are different kinds of markets: elastic, inelastic, and mixed. If these markets were completely free, then they would be free for predators to take rents.

Inelastic markets especially are being privatized by neo-liberal orthodoxy, this then creates a perpetual toll-booth rent extraction for the owners. For example, if ports are owned and not regulated, then the "owners" can take whatever fees they want, which then drives up price. If you have a ship, are you going to sail to the next "competing" port? There are no competing ports, as it is a natural monopoly... a natural geological feature.

So, libertarianism, even in the economic sense is sophomoric, and doesn't deal with economic reality.

The best economic system delivers the lowest PRICE to the most people. To do this, the best system must strip out economic rent... which is unearned income. Libertarianism does not even comprehend rent extraction.

Their intents are good, but good intentions are not good science.

MEFOBILLS -> Falcon49 •Nov 20, 2016 9:48 AM

Libertarians believe in a free market...but, that cannot truly exist in today's system which is structured as a predatory system.

It is hard to let go of a belief system... I get that. Libertarianism is very narrow in its scope.

The only sector of the market that Libertarianism can apply to is elastic markets. Only there in this one sector... is where price competiton prevails.

Even then in this one sector - there can be predatory manipulations. For example, when China exported baby formula with Melamine in it. That then made the baby food lower priced. Lower prices should be free market competition.. right? But, then end result was really fraud, and said fraud ended up killing babies.

Humans are rent-seekers. Humans want to take passive income. This taking of passive income makes for uneven trading relations. How long do the rent seekers want to take passive income? In the case of banksters, they want to take usury forever, and for their families. The Rothchilds even have cousin marriage for crying out loud, that way they can keep it in the family.

Ergo, there has to be limits in any system, where certain behaviors are out of bounds. Only law, done in advance can code for morality. Free markets are not god. Free markets do not code for morality.

The very predatory nature Libertarians ascribe to governments is created by the same paradigms they espouse. I call this a form of insanity. Free markets mean rent taking. Predators then usurp government to continue their rents.

This is the cycle of history descriped by Aristotle. Rents, then Oligarchs. Oligarchs then One King. This one King becomes the King because he can save the people from their debts and taxes. Then the one King has to give freedoms to allow war. These freedoms then return back to some form of democracy to then start the cycle again.

If one even bothers to find the roots of Libertarianism, one will find shady "banking" and Austrian aristocracy working together. This further goes back to Kings using Jews as tax collectors. Like I said, libertarians are well meaning dupes who don't even know their own history.

Libertarianism is a dialectic designed to lead one astray.

inosent -> Tallest Skil •Nov 20, 2016 1:16 AM

your post is getting mixed reviews. i think it is quite good, but i dont see a clear separation between the state and society. and defining a term like libertarianism isnt easy, which might account for the down votes. wasn't it Paine who said "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. ..."

with now over 300 millions, many packed into large metropolitan areas, depending on its definition, a 'libertarian' utopia', as it were, in practical terms is simply out of reach. Unless everybody all at once becomes divinely perfected beings, which on paper is pretty much the only way to avoid government

Regrettably some form of disinterested civil govt arguably must be present.

What remains is to define the term, and figure out how to structure it to maximize the reward and benefit to those who generally find themselves within the zip code of a credible moral character (not a licentious freak) and puts the heat on their negative counterparts.

A limited agency with a narrowly defined purpose that is not and cannot be subversive to the interests of productive ppl, and should be so strictly constructed as to negate even the remotest manipulations of the machiavellianites, as well as construct an impenetrable barrier to keep them out.

Today, and for sometime it has been the zio-jew-cabal, but tomorrow it could take on a different form in pursuit of some other unholy and destructive agenda. and i think if the constitution had not been so fatally composed, we might have averted a lot of trouble.

... ... ...

[Nov 08, 2016] Regardless of How America Votes, Americans Want a Different Foreign Policy by Ron Paul

Notable quotes:
"... We know those in Washington with a vested interest in maintaining a US empire overseas will fight to the end to keep the financial gravy train flowing. The neocons and the liberal interventionists will continue to preach that we must run the world or everything will fall to ruin. But this election and many recent polls demonstrate that their time has passed. They may not know it yet, but their failures are too obvious and Americans are sick of paying for them. ..."
Nov 08, 2016 | original.antiwar.com

Regardless of How America Votes, Americans Want a Different Foreign Policy

, Print This | Share This I have said throughout this presidential campaign that it doesn't matter much which candidate wins. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are authoritarians and neither can be expected to roll back the leviathan state that destroys our civil liberties at home while destroying our economy and security with endless wars overseas. Candidates do not matter all that much, despite what the media would have us believe. Ideas do matter, however. And regardless of which of these candidates is elected, the battle of ideas now becomes critical.

The day after the election is our time to really focus our efforts on making the case for a peaceful foreign policy and the prosperity it will bring. While we may not have much to cheer in Tuesday's successful candidate, we have learned a good deal about the state of the nation from the campaigns. From the surprising success of the insurgent Bernie Sanders to a Donald Trump campaign that broke all the mainstream Republican Party rules – and may have broken the Republican Party itself – what we now understand more clearly than ever is that the American people are fed up with politics as usual. And more importantly they are fed up with the same tired old policies.

Last month a fascinating poll was conducted by the Center for the National Interest and the Charles Koch Institute. A broad ranging 1,000 Americans were asked a series of questions about US foreign policy and the 15 year "war on terror." You might think that after a decade and a half, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives lost, Americans might take a more positive view of this massive effort to "rid the world of evildoers," as then-president George W. Bush promised. But the poll found that only 14 percent of Americans believe US foreign policy has made them more safe! More than 50 percent of those polled said the next US president should use less force overseas, and 80 percent said the president must get authorization from Congress before taking the country to war.

These results should make us very optimistic about our movement, as it shows that we are rapidly approaching the "critical mass" where new ideas will triumph over the armies of the status quo.

We know those in Washington with a vested interest in maintaining a US empire overseas will fight to the end to keep the financial gravy train flowing. The neocons and the liberal interventionists will continue to preach that we must run the world or everything will fall to ruin. But this election and many recent polls demonstrate that their time has passed. They may not know it yet, but their failures are too obvious and Americans are sick of paying for them.

What is to be done? We must continue to educate ourselves and others. We must resist those who are preaching "interventionism-lite" and calling it a real alternative. Claiming we must protect our "interests" overseas really means using the US military to benefit special interests. That is not what the military is for. We must stick to our noninterventionist guns. No more regime change. No more covert destabilization programs overseas. A solid defense budget, not an imperial military budget. US troops home now. End US military action in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and so on. Just come home.

Americans want change, no matter who wins. We need to be ready to provide that alternative.

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity .

[Nov 07, 2016] Ron Paul Regardless Of How America Votes, Americans Want A Different Foreign Policy by Ron Paul

Notable quotes:
"... From the surprising success of the insurgent Bernie Sanders to a Donald Trump campaign that broke all the mainstream Republican Party rules – and may have broken the Republican Party itself – what we now understand more clearly than ever is that the American people are fed up with politics as usual. And more importantly they are fed up with the same tired old policies. ..."
"... These results should make us very optimistic about our movement, as it shows that we are rapidly approaching the "critical mass" where new ideas will triumph over the armies of the status quo. ..."
"... We know those in Washington with a vested interest in maintaining a US empire overseas will fight to the end to keep the financial gravy train flowing. The neocons and the liberal interventionists will continue to preach that we must run the world or everything will fall to ruin. ..."
"... We must resist those who are preaching "interventionism-lite" and calling it a real alternative. Claiming we must protect our "interests" overseas really means using the US military to benefit special interests. That is not what the military is for. We must stick to our non-interventionist guns. No more regime change. No more covert destabilization programs overseas. A solid defense budget, not an imperial military budget. US troops home now. End US military action in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and so on. Just come home. ..."
Nov 07, 2016 | ronpaulinstitute.org

I have said throughout this presidential campaign that it doesn't matter much which candidate wins. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are authoritarians and neither can be expected to roll back the leviathan state that destroys our civil liberties at home while destroying our economy and security with endless wars overseas. Candidates do not matter all that much, despite what the media would have us believe. Ideas do matter, however. And regardless of which of these candidates is elected, the battle of ideas now becomes critical.

The day after the election is our time to really focus our efforts on making the case for a peaceful foreign policy and the prosperity it will bring. While we may not have much to cheer in Tuesday's successful candidate, we have learned a good deal about the state of the nation from the campaigns. From the surprising success of the insurgent Bernie Sanders to a Donald Trump campaign that broke all the mainstream Republican Party rules – and may have broken the Republican Party itself – what we now understand more clearly than ever is that the American people are fed up with politics as usual. And more importantly they are fed up with the same tired old policies.

Last month a fascinating poll was conducted by the Center for the National Interest and the Charles Koch Institute. A broad ranging 1,000 Americans were asked a series of questions about US foreign policy and the 15 year "war on terror." You might think that after a decade and a half, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives lost, Americans might take a more positive view of this massive effort to "rid the world of evil-doers," as then-president George W. Bush promised. But the poll found that only 14 percent of Americans believe US foreign policy has made them more safe! More than 50 percent of those polled said the next US president should use less force overseas, and 80 percent said the president must get authorization from Congress before taking the country to war.

These results should make us very optimistic about our movement, as it shows that we are rapidly approaching the "critical mass" where new ideas will triumph over the armies of the status quo.

We know those in Washington with a vested interest in maintaining a US empire overseas will fight to the end to keep the financial gravy train flowing. The neocons and the liberal interventionists will continue to preach that we must run the world or everything will fall to ruin. But this election and many recent polls demonstrate that their time has passed. They may not know it yet, but their failures are too obvious and Americans are sick of paying for them.

What is to be done? We must continue to educate ourselves and others. We must resist those who are preaching "interventionism-lite" and calling it a real alternative. Claiming we must protect our "interests" overseas really means using the US military to benefit special interests. That is not what the military is for. We must stick to our non-interventionist guns. No more regime change. No more covert destabilization programs overseas. A solid defense budget, not an imperial military budget. US troops home now. End US military action in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and so on. Just come home.

Americans want change, no matter who wins. We need to be ready to provide that alternative.


Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

[Nov 03, 2016] Trump will simply pursue "saner, more sensible" immigration policies

www.washingtonpost.com

Thiel also criticized the media's coverage of Trump's bombastic remarks. He said that while the media takes Trump's remarks "literally" but not "seriously," he believes Trump supporters take them seriously but not literally. In short, Trump isn't actually going to impose religious tests on immigrants or build a wall along the Mexican border, as he has repeatedly said, but will simply pursue "saner, more sensible" immigration policies.

"His larger-than-life persona attracts a lot of attention. Nobody would suggest that Donald Trump is a humble man. But the big things he's right about amount to a much needed dose of humility in our politics," Thiel said.

While the Silicon Valley tech corridor and suburbs around Washington have thrived in the last decade or more, many other parts of the country have been gutted by economic and trade policies that closed manufacturing plants and shipped jobs overseas, Thiel said, reiterating a previous talking point.

"Most Americans don't live by the Beltway or the San Francisco Bay. Most Americans haven't been part of that prosperity," Thiel said Monday. "It shouldn't be surprising to see people vote for Bernie Sanders or for Donald Trump, who is the only outsider left in the race."

Thiel later said he had hoped the presidential race might come down to Sanders and Trump, two outsiders with distinct views on the root cause of the nation's economic malaise and the best course of action to fix it. "That would have been a very different sort of debate," he said.

Thiel's prepared remarks seemed more of an admonishment of the state of the country today than a ringing endorsement of Trump's persona and policies. He decried high medical costs and the lack of savings baby boomers have on hand. He said millennials are burdened by soaring tuition costs and a poor outlook on the future. Meanwhile, he said, the federal government has wasted trillions of dollars fighting wars in Africa and the Middle East that have yet to be won.

Trump is the only candidate who shares his view that the country's problems are substantial and need drastic change to be repaired, Thiel said. Clinton, on the other hand, does not see a need for a hard reset on some of the country's policies and would likely lead the U.S. into additional costly conflicts abroad, he said.

A self-described libertarian, Thiel amassed his fortune as the co-founder of digital payment company PayPal and data analytics firm Palantir Technologies. He has continued to add to that wealth through venture capital investments in companies that include Facebook, Airbnb, Lyft and Spotify, among many others.

[Oct 29, 2016] The level of militarism in the current US society and MSM is really staggering. anti-war forces are completely destroyed (with the abandonment of draft) and are limited for

Oct 29, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
libertarians (such as Ron Paul) and paleoconservatives.

likbez -> Fred C. Dobbs... October 28, 2016 at 04:37 PM , 2016 at 04:37 PM

>"Plus, she's very nasty towards Vlad Putin."

What I do not get is how one can call himself/herself a democrat and be jingoistic monster. That's the problem with Democratic Party and its supporters. Such people for me are DINO ("Democrats only in name"). Closet neocons, if you wish. The level of militarism in the current US society and MSM is really staggering. anti-war forces are completely destroyed (with the abandonment of draft) and are limited for libertarians (such as Ron Paul) and paleoconservatives. There is almost completely empty space on the left. Dennis Kucinich is one of the few exceptions
(see http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/27/must-read-of-the-day-dennis-kucinich-issues-extraordinary-warning-on-d-c-s-think-tank-warmongers/ )

I think that people like Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney can now proudly join Democratic Party and feel themselves quite at home.

BTW Hillary is actually very pleasant with people of the same level. It's only subordinates, close relatives and Security Service agents, who are on the receiving end of her wrath. A typical "kiss up, kick down personality".

The right word probably would not "nasty", but "duplicitous".

Or "treacherous" as this involves breaking of previous agreements (with a smile) as the USA diplomacy essentially involves positioning the country above the international law. As in "I am the law".

Obama is not that different. I think he even more sleazy then Hillary and as such is more difficult to deal with. He also is at his prime, while she is definitely past hers:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-putin-usa-idUSKCN12R25E

== quote ==
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday it was hard for him to work with the current U.S. administration because it did not stick to any agreements, including on Syria.

Putin said he was ready to engage with a new president however, whoever the American people chose, and to discuss any problem.
== end of quote ==

Syria is an "Obama-approved" adventure, is not it ? The same is true for Libya. So formally he is no less jingoistic then Hillary, Nobel Peace price notwithstanding.

Other things equal, it might be easier for Putin to deal with Hillary then Obama, as she has so many skeletons in the closet and might soon be impeached by House.

[Oct 15, 2016] Apologize to Ron Paul - YouTube

Oct 15, 2016 | www.youtube.com

Jerry LoCoco 5 years ago Great Video! One of the best! Ron Paul 2012

Mike C 6 years ago And i love that song just not that version !Well thats cause the media and hollywood have everyone brainwashed. Brainwashed into a media nation and thats why we have a bunch of actors in office. When people are brought to the brink they will wake up and find out its too late until then all the little worker bees will keep there ignorant heads in the sand!

mbear14 7 years ago Haha. Exactly. Here is how all of my conversations end with Obama supporters: "Well, whatever...fuck it...at least he's not that asshole Bush." Such strong convictions from enlightened individuals. Not one of them can give me a solid reason as to how we are NOT currently living in the 3rd Bush administration. And yes, I would agree that "white guilt" unfortunately sneaked it's way into the votes :(
mbear14 7 years ago I live in DC and the amount of conversations I've had with Obama sheeple makes it very discouraging. They have absolutely NO idea why they voted for McBama. They are completely oblivious to his policies, about why we were attacked on 9/11, the role of the Fed Reserve, the Patriot Act being written by Joe Biden, the list is endless. And yes, they even do admit that "Ron Paul is right on alot of things, but he can't win..." Pathetic. We elected Britney Spears as president. Cult of Personality.

[Oct 15, 2016] Apologize Ron Paul Tea Party 2007

Oct 15, 2016 | www.youtube.com

YouTube

pink4m3 5 years ago Thank you for the video. Honestly I never hard of Ron Paul on TV. I found him on youtube a few months ago. I think he's amazing and I feel stupid for not knowing who he is and to vote for someone else.
PTTHOR 6 years ago Ron Paul as president is a great dream that I have.... But remember- what we really need is several Ron Paul's in congress and Senate because that's where the power is! That's where the change really happens. 1
Mooseboy240 Mooseboy240 6 years ago @hardcorepatriot YES and if we fall then we fall united 1
Mooseboy240 Mooseboy240 6 years ago omg I hate that everything ron paul is just internet based if everyone had gotten out and told their friends and familys what was going on maybe we wouldn't have another puppet in the whitehouse. I have been telling everyone why they should vote for ron paul and candidates who believe similarly or at least as often as I can considering its alot to explain and most people don't care until they hear how it dramatically affects there everyday lives then 99% of them suddenly realize it matters! 1
Tomacity(Rast) Tomacity(Rast) 6 years ago Ron Paul Is my president

[Mar 11, 2016] Ron Paul thinks that some of the top candidates want to carpet bomb the world

www.mintpressnews.com

... ... ...

Paul's criticism of the presidential contenders didn't stop with Sanders and Trump.

"From a libertarian viewpoint, there is absolutely no meaningful difference between Hillary and Trump," he emphatically remarked. "I mean, they both support [the] military-industrial complex, the federal reserve, deficits, entitlements, invasion of our privacy."

Indeed, Paul summarized the absurdity of the 2016 election platforms, saying, "It's super-nationalistic populism versus socialism. That is so remote from what we need to be doing - we need to be moving ourselves away from tyranny toward liberty."

Asked if he would be endorsing any candidates, Paul explained there isn't a single person left in the race who fits libertarian ideals of limiting government and protecting individual liberties.

"Some of the top candidates want to carpet bomb the world," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "No, a libertarian can't endorse this authoritarian approach."

leslymill • 4 days ago

I was a Ron Paul delegate and he is wrong. Trump in NOT for allowing my property, town, county, state or country to be overrun by lawless un-American criminals. I agree Trump is not a liberty candidate in many many ways that have me concerned. I am afraid Trump is out for power as much as to make america great again. I hope we force him to be surrounded by strong minded Constitutional conservatives, cause he is a much better person to take the oath of office than Hitlery Clinton.I will always listen to Ron Paul he is wiser than I am but here I don't completely agree. He is just disgusted. I am disgusted because many of us see our country going down and know Ron was the only one to fix it. Now all we can do is influence candidates with his way of Paulatics.

imsharon • 7 days ago

I do like Ron Paul in spite of the fact that I do NOT agree with his summation in regard to "what we need to be doing". As to his belief that we need to be limiting government, Paul is more Conservative Republican than he spouts. In my view, limiting Government is exactly what the GOP is about...replacing it with Corporate Power and total Control of our country, which has already gained a strong foothold.

colram -> imsharon • 5 days ago

For his entire career, Ron Paul has fought for the power of individuals to determine their own fate, without control by governments or corporations. The GOP is owned by corporations just as the democratic party is. Time for them to lose the power.

[Mar 07, 2016] Do We Need To Rebuild The Military by Ron Paul

Notable quotes:
"... What does "rebuild the military" mean? Has the budget been gutted? Have the useless weapons programs like the F-35 finally been shut down? No, the United States still spends more on its military than the next 14 countries combined. And the official military budget is only part of the story. The total spending on the US empire is well over one trillion dollars per year. Under the Obama Administration the military budget is still 41 percent more than it was in 2001, and seven percent higher than at the peak of the Cold War. ..."
"... Russia, which the neocons claim is the greatest threat to the United States, spends about one-tenth what we do on its military. China, the other "greatest threat," has a military budget less than 25 percent of ours. ..."
"... I would rebuild it in a very different way, however. I would not rebuild it according to the demands of the military-industrial complex, which cares far more about getting rich than about protecting our country. I would not rebuild the military so that it can overthrow more foreign governments who refuse to do the bidding of Washington's neocons. I would not rebuild the military so that it can better protect our wealthy allies in Europe, NATO, Japan, and South Korea. I would not rebuild the military so that it can better occupy countries overseas and help create conditions for blowback here at home. ..."
"... No. The best way to really "rebuild" the US military would be to stop abusing the military in the first place. The purpose of the US military is to defend the United States. It is not to make the world safe for oil pipelines, or corrupt Gulf monarchies, or NATO, or Israel. Unlike the neocons who are so eager to send our troops to war, I have actually served in the US military. I understand that to keep our military strong we must constrain our foreign policy. We must adopt a policy of non-intervention and a strong defense of this country. The neocons will weaken our country and our military by promoting more war. We need to "rebuild" the military by restoring as its mission the defense of the United States, not of Washington's overseas empire. ..."
"... Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute ..."
March 6, 2016 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
The Republican presidential debates have become so heated and filled with insults, it almost seems we are watching a pro wrestling match. There is no civility, and I wonder whether the candidates are about to come to blows. But despite what appears to be total disagreement among them, there is one area where they all agree. They all promise that if elected they will "rebuild the military."

What does "rebuild the military" mean? Has the budget been gutted? Have the useless weapons programs like the F-35 finally been shut down? No, the United States still spends more on its military than the next 14 countries combined. And the official military budget is only part of the story. The total spending on the US empire is well over one trillion dollars per year. Under the Obama Administration the military budget is still 41 percent more than it was in 2001, and seven percent higher than at the peak of the Cold War.

Russia, which the neocons claim is the greatest threat to the United States, spends about one-tenth what we do on its military. China, the other "greatest threat," has a military budget less than 25 percent of ours.

Last week the Pentagon announced it is sending a small naval force of US warships to the South China Sea because, as Commander of the US Pacific Command Adm. Harry Harris told the House Armed Services Committee, China is militarizing the area. Yes, China is supposedly militarizing the area around China, so the US is justified in sending its own military to the area. Is that a wise use of the US military?

The US military maintains over 900 bases in 130 countries. It is actively involved in at least seven wars right now, including in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and elsewhere. US Special Forces are deployed in 134 countries across the globe. Does that sound like a military that has been gutted?

I do not agree with the presidential candidates, but I do agree that the military needs to be rebuilt. I would rebuild it in a very different way, however. I would not rebuild it according to the demands of the military-industrial complex, which cares far more about getting rich than about protecting our country. I would not rebuild the military so that it can overthrow more foreign governments who refuse to do the bidding of Washington's neocons. I would not rebuild the military so that it can better protect our wealthy allies in Europe, NATO, Japan, and South Korea. I would not rebuild the military so that it can better occupy countries overseas and help create conditions for blowback here at home.

No. The best way to really "rebuild" the US military would be to stop abusing the military in the first place. The purpose of the US military is to defend the United States. It is not to make the world safe for oil pipelines, or corrupt Gulf monarchies, or NATO, or Israel. Unlike the neocons who are so eager to send our troops to war, I have actually served in the US military. I understand that to keep our military strong we must constrain our foreign policy. We must adopt a policy of non-intervention and a strong defense of this country. The neocons will weaken our country and our military by promoting more war. We need to "rebuild" the military by restoring as its mission the defense of the United States, not of Washington's overseas empire.


Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

[Mar 07, 2016] Vijay Prashad The Foreign Policy of the 1%

Notable quotes:
"... This BRILLIANT presentation should be heard (and I hope RNN runs it in print so that it can be copied, old-style, and distributed on 'paper')..absorbed as a concise, integrated history of globalization-the neo-imperialist policy that continues from the 19th-20thc. imperialism... and revealed as a continuation process of global capitalism & its "1%" class. ..."
"... One of the most important takeaways, though not a necessarily new one but one worth reiterating, is that national boundaries in terms of the US and the 1% are of no importance since a world domination economic empire is the goal. ..."
"... The bloated US imperial military budget reflects how the 99% at home fund this empire, of course they never voting for it. The military is not a US military--it is the military of the 1% and global capitalism. This actually should be the meme that those trying to raise consciousness put forth, since those on the left and the right from the middle and lower classes can begin to see the whole electoral mirage for what it is. ..."
"... Clearly the methods concerned human beings are using to address the madness of the elites and their corporate/military state have had absolutely no impact: Poverty is more rampant now than ever before, the gap between rich and poor very much wider and the number of wars keeps increasing, especially the race war against the Arab people. ..."
"... Big Brother's web of deception is weakening. The ranks of unbelievers grows daily. But does the cynicism beget People Power or Donald Trump? ..."
"... Dear DreamJoe. I think you're right that BB's web of deception is weakening, but I doubt that it's weakened enough. I'm sure you understand the 'deep state' concept. It does not matter which flunkeys the "people" elect; the deep state continues to run the show. What's going on now is all bread and circuses; it means nothing. ..."
"... Bernie and Donald are manifestations of a deeper systemic failures that have changed everything for millions of people. B & D will come and go, but that crisis will remain, and will become more acute. ..."
"... why do American politicians become incontinent when they mention Saudi Arabia ..."
"... recycling mechanism for capitalism ..."
"... there is a suicidal death pact between the West and Saudi Arabia ..."
"... Protecting oligarchs investments and rate of return on shareholders gains is worlds burden we are told a needed evil in order to advance GROWTH endlessly. Growth code word for consolidation of power and wealth by ownership consolidation globally by one percent. ..."
"... For many years I would have been agreeing with you...after 50 years I have recognized that in the scheme of things, no 'change' (from tribal to private property, from feudalism to capitalism) has 'just happened'...magically born clean & clear. The process is messy, no clear beginning or even END is really possible to see. History is filled with ironies and this time its the Dem Arm of the Duopoly letting Bernie in- as an artificial straw-man candidate to make Hillary's campaign appear to be a contest between the 'idealist' and 'the realist' and not the global coronation it is --- let in by mistake (just as every power elite has miscalculated & underestimated the powerful yearning for more justice & liberty& instinctive anger at the few that enslave the majority (thru history 'The 99%'...). ..."
"... So long as he rises to militarily protect "National Interests" abroad - read: imperial billionaire class interests - he's really one of them. ..."
"... He could be doing exactly what Trump is doing except from the populist left perspective: taking down the duopoly's both corporate mafia houses with uncompromising fervor. ..."
"... Excellent discussion and lecture. A very important part of the 'due diligence' of democratic participation and research by the people. ..."
therealnews.com
SettingTheNarrative, link
Be nice to have a book called "The Foreign Policy of the 1%". Maybe include references to GATT, TPP, oil wars as mentioned in the presentation.

Other questions:

1) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to Economic Hitman, John Perkins?
2) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to conservative founders like Jeane Kirkpatrick?
3) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to rise to Regan Revolution? Trump?

ForDemocracy, link
This BRILLIANT presentation should be heard (and I hope RNN runs it in print so that it can be copied, old-style, and distributed on 'paper')..absorbed as a concise, integrated history of globalization-the neo-imperialist policy that continues from the 19th-20thc. imperialism... and revealed as a continuation process of global capitalism & its "1%" class.

Deepest thanks to Vijay Prashad...and to others like professor Bennis (present in the audience)... whose in-depth analysis of the system can, if studied, contribute to putting the nascent 'political revolution' Bernie calls for...into a real democratic movement in this country. We are so woefully ignorant as 'members of the 99%'- it seems worst of all in America-- intentionally kept isolated from knowing anything about this country/corporation's 'foreign policy' (aka as Capitalist system policy or 'the 1% policy) that Bernie cannot even broach what Vijay has given here. But he at least opens up some of our can of worms, the interrconnectdedness of class-interests and the devastation this country's (and the global cabal of ) capitalist voracious economic interests rains upon the planet.

The Mid-East is a product of Capitalism that will, if we don't recognize the process & change course & priorties, will soon overtake all of Africa and all 'undeveloped' (pre-Capitalist) countries around the globe--The destruction and never-ending blur of war and annihilation of peoples, cultures and even the possibility of 'political evolution' is a product of the profit-at-any-and-all-costs that is the hidden underbelly of a system of economics that counts humanity as nothing. It is a sick system. It is a system whose sickness brings death to all it touches... and we are seeing now it is bringing ITS OWN DEATH as well.

The '99% policy' (again a phrase Prashad should be congratulated for bringing into the language) is indeed one that understands that our needs --the people's needs, not 'national interests' AKA capitalist corporate/financial interests --- are global, that peace projects are essentially anti-capitalist projects.... and our needs-to build a new society here in the U.S. must begin to be linked to seeing Capitalism as the root cause of so much suffering that must be replaced by true democratic awakening a- r/evolutionary process that combines economic and civic/political -- that we must support in every way possible. Step One: support the movement for changed priorities & values by voting class-consciously.

Trainee Christian, link
The 1% or the oligarchy have completely won the world, our only way to fight against such power is to abandon buying their products, take great care on who you vote for in any election, only people who have a long record of social thinking should be considers. They can be diminished but not beaten.
Sillyputta, link
One of the most important takeaways, though not a necessarily new one but one worth reiterating, is that national boundaries in terms of the US and the 1% are of no importance since a world domination economic empire is the goal.

The bloated US imperial military budget reflects how the 99% at home fund this empire, of course they never voting for it. The military is not a US military--it is the military of the 1% and global capitalism. This actually should be the meme that those trying to raise consciousness put forth, since those on the left and the right from the middle and lower classes can begin to see the whole electoral mirage for what it is.

denden11, link
All of what's been said about the elites, the one percent, has already been said many years ago. The conversation about the wealthy elites destroying our world has changed only in the area of how much of our world has and is being destroyed. Absolutely nothing else has changed, nothing else.

Clearly the methods concerned human beings are using to address the madness of the elites and their corporate/military state have had absolutely no impact: Poverty is more rampant now than ever before, the gap between rich and poor very much wider and the number of wars keeps increasing, especially the race war against the Arab people. Meanwhile, as we continue to speak the ocean is licking at our doorstep, the average mean temperature has ticked up a few notches and we are all completely distracted by which power hungry corporate zealot is going to occupy the office which is responsible for making our human condition even more dire. The circus that is this election is merely a ploy by the elites to make us believe that we actually do have a choice. Uh-huh; yet if I were to suggest what REALLY needs to be done to save the human race I would be in a court which functions only to impoverish those of us who try to speak the truth of our situation objectively. The 'Justice' system's only function is to render us powerless. Whether one is guilty or innocent is completely irrelevant anymore. All they have to do is file charges and they have your wealth. Good luck to all of us as we all talk ourselves to death.

Vivienne Perkins -> denden11, link
Dear denden11: You get gold stars in heaven as far as I'm concerned for telling the exact truth
in the plainest possible terms. Bravissimo. "Talk/ing/ ourselves to death" is, I'm sorry to say, what we are doing. I've been working on these issues for forty years, looking for an exit from this completely interlocked system. I'm sorry to say I haven't seen the exit. I do understand how we have painted ourselves into this corner over the past 250 years (since the so-called Enlightenment), but without repentance on our part and grace on God's part, we're doomed because we all believe the Big Lies pumped into us moment by moment by Big Brother. And it's the Big Lies that keep us terminally confused and fragmented.
Trainee Christian ->Vivienne Perkins link
Well-done, you know the truth.
dreamjoehill -> Vivienne Perkins link
Don't Believe the Hype was an NWA rap anthem over twenty year ago. I always liked the shouted line, "And I don't take Ritalin!"

Big Brother's web of deception is weakening. The ranks of unbelievers grows daily. But does the cynicism beget People Power or Donald Trump?

In defeat, will Sander's campaign supporters radicalize or demoralize into apathy or tepid support for Hillary - on the grounds that she's less of an evil than Trumpty Dumbty?

If not defeated, will Sanders and his campaign mobilize the People to fight the powers that be? Otherwise, he has no real power base, short of selling out on his domestic spending promises and becoming another social democratic lapdog for Capital- like Tony Blair.

Vivienne Perkins -> dreamjoehill link
Dear DreamJoe. I think you're right that BB's web of deception is weakening, but I doubt that it's weakened enough. I'm sure you understand the 'deep state' concept. It does not matter which flunkeys the "people" elect; the deep state continues to run the show. What's going on now is all bread and circuses; it means nothing.
dreamjoehill -> Vivienne Perkins link
As material conditions change drastically for tens of millions of USAns, the old propaganda loses effect. New propaganda is required to channel the new class tensions. Still an opening may be created. People can't heat their homes with propaganda, the kids are living in the basement and grandpa can't afford a nursing home and he's drinking himself to death. That's the new normal, or variations on it for a lot of people who don't believe the hype anymore.

Bernie and Donald are manifestations of a deeper systemic failures that have changed everything for millions of people. B & D will come and go, but that crisis will remain, and will become more acute.

Interesting times.

WaveRunnerMN , link
Great work Vijay...got my "filters" back on. Cut and pasted original comment below despite TRNN labeling of "time of posting" which is irrelevant at this point.

Wow...now that I got my rational filters back on this was a great piece by Vijay and succinctly states what many of us who "attempt" to not only follow ME events but to understand not only the modern history by the motives of the major players in the region. Thanks for this piece and others...looking forward to the others.

WaveRunnerMN -> WaveRunnerMN link
Posted earlier while my mind was on 2016 election cycle watching MSM in "panic mode"

Thought this was going to be a rational discussion on US foreign policy until the part on ? "Trumps Red Book". I had hoped to rather hear, "The Red Book of the American Templars" ...taking from the Knights Templar in Europe prior the collapse of the feudal system. I will say that Vijay's comment on Cruz was quite appropriate though it would also have been better to not only put it into context but also illustrate that Cruz's father Rafael Cruz believes in a system contrary to the founding ideals of the US Constitution: He states in an interview with mainstream media during his son's primary campaign that [to paraphrase] "secularism is evil and corrupt". Here is an excerpt of his bio from Wiki:

"During an interview conducted by the Christian Post in 2014, Rafael Cruz stated, "I think we cannot separate politics and religion; they are interrelated. They've always been interrelated."[29] Salon described Cruz as a "Dominionist, devoted to a movement that finds in Genesis a mandate that 'men of faith' seize control of public institutions and govern by biblical principle."[30] However, The Public Eye states that Dominionists believe that the U.S. Constitution should be the vehicle for remaking America as a Christian nation.[31]"

Fareed Zakaria interviewed a columnist from the Wall Street Journal today on Fareed's GPS program and flatly asked him [paraphrased], "Is not the Wall Street Journal responsible for creating the racist paradigm that Trump took advantage of "? Let us begin with rational dialogue and not demagogy. Quite frankly with regard to both Cruz and Trump [in context of the 2016 elections cycle] a more insightful comment would have been...Change cannot come from within the current electoral processes here in the US with Citizen's United as its "masthead" and "Corporations are people as its rallying cry"!

Alice X link
Thank you, a valuable piece. There are a number of takeaway quotes, but the ringer for me was from Ray McGovern (rhetorically):
why do American politicians become incontinent when they mention Saudi Arabia

Shortly thereafter Vijay Prashad in what he calls the Saudi post 1970s recycling mechanism for capitalism says:

there is a suicidal death pact between the West and Saudi Arabia
WaveRunnerMN ->Alice X link
Not the West....just the F.I.R.E industries...driving the housing bubble; shopping malls; office buildings; buying municipal bonds [as they the municipalities bought and built prisons; jails; SWAT vehicles and security equipment (developed by the Israelis); and keeping the insurance companies afloat while AllState had time after Katrina to pitch their subsidiaries allowing these subsidiaries to file for bankruptcy]...now all the maintenance expense is coming due and cities and counties are going broke... along with the Saudi investments here in US.
itsthethird link
Protecting oligarchs investments and rate of return on shareholders gains is worlds burden we are told a needed evil in order to advance GROWTH endlessly. Growth code word for consolidation of power and wealth by ownership consolidation globally by one percent. What about the 99 percent? While populations simply need and want also income and investment security globally.

What about populations in massive consumer debt for education, housing, etc. to fund one percent Growth. Laborers across globe are all in same boat simply labor for food without anything else to pass along to progeny but what is most important ethics. A world government established by corporatism advantage by authority of law and advantage all directed toward endless returns to oligarchy family cartels is not an acceptable world organization of division of resources because it is tranny, exclusive, extraction and fraudulent. Such madness does NOT float all boats.

All this while oligarchs control Taxation of government authority and hidden excessive investment and fraud return taxation. While Governments in west don't even jail corporate criminals while west claims law is just while skewed in favor of protecting one percent, their returns on investment and investments. Billionaires we find in some parts of so called Unjust regions of world not yet on board with cartel game are calling out fraud that harms individuals and society aggressively.

TEHRAN, Iran - An Iranian court has sentenced a well-known tycoon to death for corruption linked to oil sales during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the judiciary spokesman said Sunday.

Babak Zanjani and two of his associates were sentenced to death for "money laundering," among other charges, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi said in brief remarks broadcast on state TV. He did not identify the two associates. Previous state media reports have said the three were charged with forgery and fraud.

"The court has recognized the three defendants as 'corruptors on earth' and sentenced them to death," said Ejehi. "Corruptors on earth" is an Islamic term referring to crimes that are punishable by death because they have a major impact on society. The verdict, which came after a nearly five-month trial, can be appealed.

sisterlauren link
Looking forward to a transcript. I really enjoyed listening to this live yesterday.
aprescoup link
So when Bernie winds up on the regime change band wagon (of mostly leftist governments) and stays silent in the face of US aided and approved of coups (Honduras/Zelaya being the next most recent before Ukraine) while railing against the billionaire class on Wall Street and the neoliberal trade agreements, he's not only missing the elephant in the room; he's part of this elephant.
ForDemocracy -> aprescoup link
For many years I would have been agreeing with you...after 50 years I have recognized that in the scheme of things, no 'change' (from tribal to private property, from feudalism to capitalism) has 'just happened'...magically born clean & clear. The process is messy, no clear beginning or even END is really possible to see. History is filled with ironies and this time its the Dem Arm of the Duopoly letting Bernie in- as an artificial straw-man candidate to make Hillary's campaign appear to be a contest between the 'idealist' and 'the realist' and not the global coronation it is --- let in by mistake (just as every power elite has miscalculated & underestimated the powerful yearning for more justice & liberty& instinctive anger at the few that enslave the majority (thru history 'The 99%'...).

And as all past power-elites have done, our '1%' has misread the age-old evolution of culture when an old system NO LONGER WORKS that makes freedom, imagination & rebellion more acceptable more attractive, more exciting and NECESSARY. Then, once energized BY NEED, DESIRE, and yes HOPE....change begins and can't be stopped like a slow-moving rain that keeps moving. As with past eras & past changes, in our own day this 'millennial plus 60's' powerful generational tide is JUST BEGINNING to feel our strength & ability. Turning what was supposed to be a globalist-coronation into what right now certainly seems like a step towards real change, towards building a recognition of the power, we 'the 99%' can --IF WE ACT WISELY & WITH COMMITTMENT begin the work of creating a new world.

Criticising Bernie is criticizing the real way progress works...We need to get out of an ego-centric adolescent approach to human problem-solving, understand we need to keep our movement growing even if it doesn't look the WAY WE EXPECTED IT TO LOOK...keep clear on GOALS that Bernie's campaign is just a part of. The 'left' needs to recognize its our historic moment: to either move ahead or SELF-destruct.. Impatience needs to be replaced by a serious look down the road for our children's future. If we don't, the power elite of the System wins again (vote Hillary?? don't vote??). We need to take a breath & rethink how change really happens because this lost opportunity Is a loss we can no longer afford. The movement must be 'bigger than Bernie'.

WaveRunnerMN -> aprescoup link
I just hope he does not get forced to resign which the L-MSM is now beginning to parrot so Hillary can win given the huge turnouts the Repugs are getting in the primaries. I want to see four candidates at the National Convention...in addition to Third parties.
itsthethird -> aprescoup, link
No one can be elected Commander and Chief by stating they will not defend oligarchs interests as well as populations interests. We agree populations interests are negated and subverted all over earth . That cannot be changed by armed rebellion but it can be changed by electing electable voices of reason such as Sanders. Sanders will fight to protect populations and resist oligarchy war mongering while holding oligarchs accountable. Sanders will address corrupted law and injustice. Vote Sanders.
Trainee Christian -> itsthethird, link
You are probably correct in your thinking, but the real power will never allow any potential effective changes to the system that is. People who try usually end up dead.
itsthethird -> Trainee Christian , link
This is why we must as citizens become active players in government far greater then we are today, we must do far more then voting. We must have time from drudgery of earning a substandard wage that forces most to have little time for advancing democracy. Without such time oligarchs and one percent end-up controlling everything.

We can BEGIN the march toward mountain top toward socializations which will promote aware individualizations. We don't expect we will advance anything without oppositions in fact we expect increased attacks. Those increased attacks can become our energy that unites masses as we all observe the insanity they promote as our direction. We merely must highlight insanity and path forward toward sanity. Nothing can make lasting change this generation the march will take generations. The speed advance only will depend on how foolish oligarchs are at attempts to subvert public awareness seeking change. As they become more desperate our movements become stronger. We must refrain from violence for that is only thing that can subvert our movement.

aprescoup -> itsthethird link
So long as he rises to militarily protect "National Interests" abroad - read: imperial billionaire class interests - he's really one of them.

Maybe this will help:

Vijay Prashad: The Foreign Policy of the 1% - http://therealnews.com/t2/inde...

Johnny Prescott -> itsthethird link
What exactly leads you to contend that Sanders is going to "resist oligarchy war mongering"?
aprescoup -> sisterlauren link
He could be doing exactly what Trump is doing except from the populist left perspective: taking down the duopoly's both corporate mafia houses with uncompromising fervor.

Instead he does the LOTE thing for the neoliberal-neocon party "D". That's just dishonest bullshit opportunism.

Rob M -> aprescoup link
Opportunism with good intent...I'll take that.
jo ellis , link
Do not receives daily email for a long time without clue why? so haven't in contact with TRN's daily report until subject video appears on youtube website. and impressed by the panelists's congregated pivotal works done thru all these years.
Serenity NOW , link
important lecture for those who want to better understand the crises of capitalism and globalization.
William W Haywood , link
Excellent discussion and lecture. A very important part of the 'due diligence' of democratic participation and research by the people.

[Mar 07, 2016] The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Murder Is Washington's Foreign Policy

Notable quotes:
"... Washington has a long history of massacring people, for example, the destruction of the Plains Indians by the Union war criminals Sherman and Sheridan and the atomic bombs dropped on Japanese civilian populations, but Washington has progressed from periodic massacres to fulltime massacring. From the Clinton regime forward, massacre of civilians has become a defining characteristic of the United States of America. ..."
"... Washington is responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia and Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and part of Syria. Washington has enabled Saudi Arabia's attack on Yemen, Ukraine's attack on its former Russian provinces, and Israel's destruction of Palestine and the Palestinian people. ..."
"... In a recent article , Mattea Kramer points out that Washington has added to its crimes the mass murder of civilians with drones and missile strikes on weddings, funerals, children's soccer games, medical centers and people's homes. Nothing can better illustrate the absence of moral integrity and moral conscience of the American state and the population that tolerates it than the cavalier disregard of the thousands of murdered innocents as "collateral damage." ..."
"... violence creates terrorists ..."
"... The only possible conclusion is that under Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama the US government has become an unaccountable, lawless, criminal organization and is a danger to the entire world and its own citizens. ..."
ronpaulinstitute.org

Washington has a long history of massacring people, for example, the destruction of the Plains Indians by the Union war criminals Sherman and Sheridan and the atomic bombs dropped on Japanese civilian populations, but Washington has progressed from periodic massacres to fulltime massacring. From the Clinton regime forward, massacre of civilians has become a defining characteristic of the United States of America.

Washington is responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia and Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and part of Syria. Washington has enabled Saudi Arabia's attack on Yemen, Ukraine's attack on its former Russian provinces, and Israel's destruction of Palestine and the Palestinian people.

The American state's murderous rampage through the Middle East and North Africa was enabled by the Europeans who provided diplomatic and military cover for Washington's crimes. Today the Europeans are suffering the consequences as they are over-run by millions of refugees from Washington's wars. The German women who are raped by the refugees can blame their chancellor, a Washington puppet, for enabling the carnage from which refugees flee to Europe.

In a recent article, Mattea Kramer points out that Washington has added to its crimes the mass murder of civilians with drones and missile strikes on weddings, funerals, children's soccer games, medical centers and people's homes. Nothing can better illustrate the absence of moral integrity and moral conscience of the American state and the population that tolerates it than the cavalier disregard of the thousands of murdered innocents as "collateral damage."

If there is any outcry from Washington's European, Canadian, Australian, and Japanese vassals, it is too muted to be heard in the US.

As Kramer points out, American presidential hopefuls are competing on the basis of who will commit the worst war crimes. A leading candidate has endorsed torture, despite its prohibition under US and international law. The candidate proclaims that "torture works" - as if that is a justification - despite the fact that experts know that it does not work. Almost everyone being tortured will say anything in order to stop the torture. Most of those tortured in the "war on terror" have proven to have been innocents. They don't know the answers to the questions even if they were prepared to give truthful answers. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn relates that Soviet dissidents likely to be picked up and tortured by the Soviet secret police would memorize names on gravestones in order to comply with demands for the names of their accomplices. In this way, torture victims could comply with demands without endangering innocents.

Washington's use of invasion, bombings, and murder by drone as its principle weapon against terrorists is mindless. It shows a government devoid of all intelligence, focused on killing alone. Even a fool understands that violence creates terrorists. Washington hasn't even the intelligence of fools.

The American state now subjects US citizens to execution without due process of law despite the strict prohibition by the US Constitution. Washington's lawlessness toward others now extends to the American people themselves.

The only possible conclusion is that under Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama the US government has become an unaccountable, lawless, criminal organization and is a danger to the entire world and its own citizens.

Reprinted with permission from PaulCraigRoberts.org.

[Oct 04, 2015] Gonzalo Lira: Is the U.S. a Fascist Police-State?

June 22, 2010 | nakedcapitalism.com

By Gonzalo Lira, a novelist and filmmaker (and economist) currently living in Chile and writing at Gonzalo Lira

I lived in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship-I can spot a fascist police-state when I see one.

The United States is a fascist police-state.

... ... ...

Tao Jonesing: June 22, 2010 at 10:31 pm

It always amazes me that libertarians are incapable of recognizing that Hayek's and Friedman's authoritarian actions fully repudiate their stated libertarian beliefs. When you combine that fact with the fact that the libertarian free market ideal is based on an obvious fiction (that individuals are the primary economic actors, not corporations), libertarianism is revealed as the hoax that it is. Libertarianism is nothing more than an Edward Bernays style propaganda campaign to dupe classical liberals into supporting corporate feudalism (aka, neo-liberalism). And it has worked brilliantly.

Toby: June 23, 2010 at 1:11 am

Good points, but the fiction is deeper than that. There can never be, nor has there ever been a 'free' market. There is no such thing as a rational individual, and certainly none that are perfectly informed about all past, present and future events. We are not machines. Our decision making, if we can call it that, is rooted in emotion. I mean even the core idea that accumulating material possessions and being richer than the other guy is a rational behaviour, is a biased assumption. It never motivated me, and I am not alone in that.

The only real 'truths' are emergent and therefore dependent on resident forces and other phenomena, are the consequences of relationships between systems. It is in relationships that we understand, to at best a limited extent, how the world 'works.' The way we struggle to control nature now is the consequence of ignorance, an ignorance we must correct.

"As in economics, biology posits discreet individual actos, i.e. Genes, behaving to maximize their self-interest, the means to survive and reproduce. Our very understanding of biology, i.e. of life, and in particular of progress in biology, i.e. of evolution, rests on a foundation of competition for survival. [snip]

The view of life as a struggle for survival is woven into our worldview on a much deeper level than Darwinism. In fact, our guiding scientific paradigms can admit no alternative. Competition is implicit in our culture's very conception of the self as an independent entity, distinct and separate from the environment and from other beings. [snip]

Other societies, fast disappearing under the deluge of Western Culture, were remarkably free from the ambient anxiety we know today. It is no coincidence that their social systems were based on cooperation and that their self-definition were not atomistic like ours are, but relativistic: defined in relationship to a greater whole such as family, village, forest, nature." Charles Eisenstein, The Ascent of Humanity (my emphasis).

I am most certainly not for a world government, but we are one species on a planet we must share with millions of others if we are to survive much longer. Nature does not care about our childish and partisan bickering.

DownSouth:

The ironical part is that, just as in Chile, it is the libertarians, with all their flowery rhetoric about liberty and freedom, who are the überchampions of the police state.

Frederich von Hayek and Milton Friedman were unwavering in their praise of Pinochet, Chile's brutal military dictator.

aet:

So-called "libertarians". Whose arguments gain most of their force from the bayonets of the State militia.

Yves Smith:

You have that SO wrong its isn't even funny. I happen to debunk the myth of Chile's performance in ECONNED.

Short version: When Pinochet implemented his "reforms", the result was a plutocratic land grab and a debt stoked bubble that resulted in a near-depression when the bubble burst. Pinochet backtracked massively and implemented Keynesian policies.

And the success of Chile (such that it is) is hardly a tribute to Pinochet. Its biggest export industry is copper, 70% owned by the government. As I note in ECONNED:

The finance minister from the first post-Pinochet government, Alejandro Foxley, claims:

"If you compare the performance of the economy in the best Pinochet years with the performance of the economy [during] democracy, I challenge you to find one single economic or social indicator in which democracy hasn't performed much better."

Even so, the picture for Chile is far less rosy than reported in the United States. Chile has one of the most unequal income distributions in the world, with the top 10% getting over 50% of output. Wages for average workers have fallen since the 1970s despite minimum wage increases. Chile's exports depend heavily on copper (still controlled by the government) and natural resources (wood, fisheries) that are being exploited in excess of sustainable rates. By contrast, manufacturing has dropped from 30% of GDP in the 1970s to 18%.

Jack Parsons:

And, and, and… Chile's economy was very deliberately sabotaged during the 1970-1973 democratic period.

The CIA's history in Chile, on the CIA website.

Mickey Marzick in Akron, Ohio:

It doesn't need one! The great majority of Americans are convinced that they are free. There is little need for overt repression.

In such a setting, the entire country is an ideological concentration camp because the "cultural" forces – MSM, entertainment, religion, nationalism, sport, etc – in civil society – all promulgate the same message: You are Free!

To label such a developemnt FASCISM is inaccurate because 1) the latter was state-driven from the top down; 2) the role of unions is so lacking as not to warrant additional comment. I have coined the term 'MARKET TOTALITARIANISM' to make it explicit on whose behalf and the direction from whence it sprang. The state is merely the hammer, but civil society is the anvil on which its hegemony is based.

psychohistorian:

As one who has continually referred to America as fascist I suggest you measure current America against the following:

14 POINTS OF FASCISM

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism

From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights

The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause

The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people's attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice-relentless propaganda and disinformation-were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite "spontaneous" acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and "terrorists." Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism

Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

5. Rampant sexism

Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

6. A controlled mass media

Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes' excesses.

7. Obsession with national security

Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting "national security," and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together

Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite's behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the "godless." A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

9. Power of corporations protected

Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of "have-not" citizens.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated

Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts

Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment

Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. "Normal" and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or "traitors" was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption

Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.

14. Fraudulent elections

Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.

NOTE: The above 14 Points was written in 2004 by Dr. Laurence Britt, a political scientist. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of: Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile).

Reply
Gonzalo Lira:

psychohistorian,

I'm sorry, but I cannot take this list seriously.

Your points 1, 3, 5, 7, 11 and 12 are properly the expression of demagoguery, not fascism.

Your points 2, 4, 6, 12, and 14 are elements of a police-state, be it of the Left or the Right. Your points 7 and 11 would also fit the police-state mold, doing double-duty with demagoguery, as it were.

Your point 8 is a trait of a theocracy, not of a fascist OR communist regime.

Your point 13 would describe more of an oligarchy, elements of which can be found in all regimes, be they democratic, fascist, theocratic, etc.-even communist.

Your point 9 is the only one which is properly fascist.

Your point 10, however, is definitely NOT fascist, as true Mussolini-style fascism treats labor unions as corporatist elements of society. All fascist regimes have been friends of labor unions-its the oligarchies and the aristocracies who have had adversarial relationships with trade unions.

Note, too, that I make a distinction between control of the citizenry (the police-state), and the organizing principle of the citizenry under this repression (fascism). Many of these points confuse the two issues, turning the traits into blunt instruments rather than sharply distinctive characteristics.

Bottom line, this list strikes me more as a Leftist wish-list of things hated, rather than as a serious definition of fascism.

Thank you for your comment, but sorry to shoot down your points.

GL.

scharfy:

I'll bite and tell you what I think regarding your points..

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism

Not so much recently, on the whole. Pro-American sentiment, regarding the citizenry, seems low relative to the previous regimes. Rally round the stars and stripes in the deep south maybe. Not so much in blue states.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights

Again, kind of split. Child labor laws, working conditions, disabled persons laws, civil rights equality (legally anyway), all are on paper and the US does ok on these fronts.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause

Score one for you. War on Terror. Nuf said

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism

Score another one for you.

5. Rampant sexism

Compared to middle east, asia, or south america – the US is second only to Europe. Womens suffrage and women's lib is American to the core. Our women are more educated and liberated than most

6. A controlled mass media

Yes and no. the big boys yup – but the internet means free speech has never been more free. There's no Pravda here. Our journalists aren't TOTALLY bought off.

7. Obsession with national security

Yes

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together

You'll probably disagree, but I'll say no way. Our ruling elite pray to the altar of money. Religiously diverse nation from my view. I'd bet you disagree.

9. Power of corporations protected

Oh yea.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated

Me thinks labor and unions have pretty good pull here. Minimum wage, though low, exists. Unemployment, welfare. We aren't a nation of sweatshops or 18 hour work days, comparatively

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts

No sir. We prize our brainiacs. Are we france with regards to the Arts? no. But plenty of authors, movies, opera, plays etc..

12. Obsession with crime and punishment

Hmmmmm… could go either way. America loves giving a second chance – but we incarcerated an entire generation of black males in the 80's and 90's.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption

Ok. We are bad. The worst. No. But we need some improvement here.

14. Fraudulent elections

I'm sure you'll site the 2000 election ipso fact, but I submit that our country has the most open election system in the World. I think we score high here.

Thanks for the input. That's my take

Jack Parsons:June 23, 2010 at 2:32 am

"Rampant Sexism": in a different way. The conflation of sex and violence seems to be a hallmark of the Dominator Cultures: US, Rome, Japan, Germany (think Weimar), not so much Britain (except for the caning bit).

psychohistorian:June 23, 2010 at 2:50 am

Since the hierarchy of comments does not allow me to respond to Gonzalo Lira and scharfy I will do it here.

GL, I sure wish you would have read down to the bottom of the list to the note about where the list came from. Let me repeat it:
NOTE: The above 14 Points was written in 2004 by Dr. Laurence Britt, a political scientist. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of: Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile).

I posted it to expand on the discussion of the fascistic aspects (IMO) of our current government or socio-political whatever that brings us continual war, un-prosecuted financial rape and now some form of ecological disaster totally rolled out by the private sector with sovereign nations on the sidelines (IMO). I think our current malaise is best described succinctly as theocratic fascism personally.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism
scharfy says that #1 does not apply currently and I think our two wars and ongoing Manifest Destiny delusions didn't go away when Obama came to office.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights
scharfy says view of # 2 is split but doesn't say what with. and I say the trend is fairly negative.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
sharfy says we got examples and I would agree.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism
sharfy says this is true and I ask why is there never any question of our imperialistic militarism?

5. Rampant sexism
sharfy says we are better than others and I agree but to say that patriarchy is threatened in the US is laughable.

6. A controlled mass media
sharfy says the situation is mixed with still a "free" internet. sharfy says that we have no Pravda here and I LOL and wonder how history will characterize Fox.

7. Obsession with national security
Everyone agrees but we aren't even doing the basics to secure our ports….all kabuki, all the time.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together
sharfy is right in that I disagree that he thinks that the Gawd of money and religion are different. Both are faith based and while there are well meaning religious folk, too many lemming followers drink the associated fascist koolaid.

9. Power of corporations protected
Oh yea says sharfy and I would say that they continue to increase.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated
sharfy says we are comparatively ok but ignores the freight train effect of globalism that is just starting to be felt in America.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
While this does not seem to be the case I would add a new bullet point to whatever history calls what we have now that speaks to the hypocritical treatment of science.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment
While sharfy says it might not be obsession I think the obsession is really about control. I would like for there to be more obsession with the punishment of crimes that are not currently being focused on.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
My position on this is that since control of the world stems from us we must be at the top of the fetid heap (so to speak)

14. Fraudulent elections
Sharfy says we have the most open elections in the world. S/he didn't say honest however and that is where it is obvious that criminality is afoot…..why isn't there an open source voting machine?

Whatever we have folks is sucky and getting worse. Call it what you will but duck when the SHTF.

patterson:

June 22, 2010 at 11:29 pm

Comparison of Canada and the U.S. on rights:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/14/arar/index.html

Toby:

That's actually not true. Have a look at, for example, "Hierarchy in the Forest" by Christopher Boehm, or "The Ascent of Humanity" by Charles Eisenstein (even better). There are reams of examples all attesting to the fact that in hunter-gatherer societies and even in smaller sedentary tribal groupings, the 'sheep' make the rules, and the would-be alphas were 'ruled.' Boehm calls it 'inverse hierarchy.'

Our beloved system, the system we think of as nature itself, as a veritable embodiment of 'The Law of the Jungle,' is, in terms of homo sapien's life on this planet, actually an aberration. And it's killing us, and many ecosystems, too.

Cindy6:

Great post!

I always believe that the endgame for America is either an authoritarian state or being broken down into several smaller republics.

aet:

Every State is a police state, as every state is a creature of the Laws. So what else is new?

But do not look to the laws to establish morality, Laws cannot establish morality: they can only maintain what's there already, in the hearts of the citizenry.
Morality is in the control of each individual.
Not in the command of the King, simply because it is such.

And don't be confusing Law with morality: for the Law is a matter of State, and the State is an inhuman dragon, covered with glittering scales, hard scales, scales which are actually people.

DownSouth:

Whoa!

That is a gross over-simplification, a half-truth at best.

The whole concept of the state's use of violence seems to be totally lost on you.

aet:

The concept may have been but the tear gas batons and cuffs felt real enough, all right, i understood the cklank of the cell door….so what?

aet:

ABC, why should the Court not uphold lawsaws passed by democratically-elected Legislatures?

Please remember where the Court found this power to strike down such so-called "unconstitutional laws"…(hint: it is not in the Constitution)!

Personally, if the Law is bad, you should complain to the people who wrote the law directly,not go crying to a Judge to throw out the results of the last election….

i on the ball patriot:

aet says; "ABC, why should the Court not uphold lawsaws passed by democratically-elected Legislatures?"

ROFL Funny comment, you are either drunk on the Kool Aid or you are selling it.

at says further; "Personally, if the Law is bad, you should complain to the people who wrote the law directly,not go crying to a Judge to throw out the results of the last election…."

Errr … the electoral process is as big a non responsive to the will of the people scam as the rule of law. Those who vote, and those who constantly tender remedial plans to the corrupt system, and complain to it, only serve to legitimize, validate, and keep in power that corrupt system. You only aid, abet, and assist in your own exploitation and the death of your own spirit.

I repeat: you are either drunk on the Kool Aid or you are selling it.

Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

i on the ball patriot:

Yes, stop drinking the Kool Aid, dump your system instilled girl Prudence (she's a phony, wearying, worrying slut), and stop banging your head against the wall of TSTS - Too Sleazy Too Save - and then engage in election boycotts as a 'vote of no confidence' in this over the top crooked government and a constitutional rewrite outside the system.

Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

Sundog:
aet:

RE:Politicization of the US Officer Corps.

A greater threat to the Republic, I think, than this restriction upon whom you may speak to..

Andrew Bissell:

Balko is a libertarian, clearly his articles are clever lies meant to disguise his pro-police-state sympathies.

D. Warbucks:

Here's a little red meat for all you blood-thirsty lovers of torturing innocent Canadians:

(from Maher Arar's account of his torture: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1027-23.htm )

"The beating started the following day. Without no warning…(long pause as he fights tears) without no warning the interrogator came in with a cable. He asked me to open my right hand. I did open it. And he hit me strongly on my palm. It was so painful to the point that I forgot every moment I enjoyed in my life. "

" Syrians released me and they clearly stated through the ambassador in Washington that they did not find any links to terrorism. I was not charged in any country including Canada, United States, Jordan and Syria. Since my release I have been suffering from anxiety, constant fear, and depression. My life will never be the same again. "

Marco Antonio Moreno:

Great post!

The neoliberal economic model is a dictatorship: Benefits the Rich: Only 0,1% of people win

Global wealth held by millionaires rose by 19 percent to $39 trillion. The number of millionaire households, or those with at least $1 million in investable assets, excluding primary residences, expanded to 10 million from 8.6 million a year earlier. The 0.15% of world population!

However, poverty is a reality in America, just as it is for millions of other human beings on the planet. According to the US Census Bureau, 35.9 million people live below the poverty line in America, including 12.9 million children.

It's the dictatorship of Economic's Model

Dear Gonzalo, I write from Chile

Hugh:

"And if the Executive and/or Congress determines that this group here or that group there is a "terrorist organization", then their free speech is curtailed-as is the free speech of anyone associating with them, no matter how demonstrably peaceful that speech or interaction is."

I agree with the overall tenor of your post. We have a surveillance state, and the blurring and blending of government and corporations is the very essence of the Mussolini definition of fascism. I would add in corporatist kleptocracy but that's just me. I bring up the citation above because it isn't quite right. Roberts distinguishes between association which is covered by the 1st Amendment and support and coordination which is not.

"The Court of Appeals correctly rejected this claim because the statute does not penalize mere association with a foreign terrorist organization. As the Ninth Circuit put it: "The statute does not prohibit being a member of one of the designated groups or vigorously promoting and supporting the political goals of the group. . . . What [§2339B] prohibits is the act of giving material support" (pp.40-41 of the pdf)

Personally, I think this is a distinction without a difference. There is no metric to say where association leaves off and coordination or aid begins. This creates a chilling effect on any contact with a group that makes it on to the State Department's terrorist list. In something I wrote on this, I also noted that many groups that were once terrorist according somebody's definition made the transition to mainstream status. The problem is that in restricting expert information on non-violent alternatives this transition can be greatly impeded, increasing the duration and severity of violent action. This is the very opposite of general defense Roberts invokes.

aet:

I disagree…I think that the distinction does indeed make a difference.
I note that being a member, and standing up in public an arguing for the group's cause, is also not prohibitied.
It may be that some are misreading the ratherlimited and defined scope of "material assistance"as set out in the statute.
It would be different if it were otherwise, though., that is, if membership or advocacy (without advice) were also prohibited – at least,that is the Court'simplication, is it not?.

aet:

And the hypothetical benefits of such postulated peace-mongering apparently was not enough to persuade the Court to overturn a piece of Legislation deabted and passed by Congress and signed by the President.
I just do not find it all that shocking.
I suppose I'll suspend judgment until I see what kind of prosecutions, if any, are brought under the statute.

Gonzalo Lira:

Hugh, thank you for reading my post with such care.

Your comment high-lighted certain distinctions which I chose to ignore so as not to lose sight of the main point-but you are right on all of them.

Your bit about corporate kleptocracy? On the money.

Your point that Roberts distinguished between association on the one hand and "material assistance" on the other? Right again.

However, your further point-that Roberts was drawing a distinction (between association and "material assistance") without a difference-is precisely why I didn't flesh out the issue. From my point of view, Roberts' distinction was like saying, "It's okay to have six eggs, but you're not allowed to have a half-dozen eggs"-nonsensical.

Finally, your point that this creates a chilling effect on speech is the one issue I would disagree: I would argue that this decision doesn't create a chilling effect on speech, but rather, it outright criminalizes speech. After all, how can anyone distinguish between "association" and "speech"? Between "speech" and "material assistance"? Someone here in the comment section pointed out that giving directions to the nearest subway station-clearly speech-could be interpreted as "material assistance"-too true.

But who determines if this innocent speech is crosses into the realm of the criminal "material assistance"? The state, without even the possibility of redress.

Hence my view that this decision is a big one on the road to a fascist police-state in America.

Sorry for going on. Hope this clarifies my position. GL.

i on the ball patriot:

Hugh, you have it right!

It is an intentionally vague ruling meant to be chilling and intimidating of Free Speech and selectively enforced as needed to effect that intimidation.

It is also meant to be intentionally divisive in furthering the perpetual conflict scheme, as it will now cause all of the butt sucking system twits to come out of the woodwork and say divisive bullshit things like;

"I note that being a member, and standing up in public an arguing for the group's cause, is also not prohibitied."

I"t may be that some are misreading the ratherlimited and defined scope of "material assistance"as set out in the statute."

"It would be different if it were otherwise, though., that is, if membership or advocacy (without advice) were also prohibited – at least,that is the Court'simplication, is it not?."

All disingenuous crap designed of course to suck you in and dissipate your energies which might otherwise be better spent in revealing the class warfare of the rich decimating the middle class and the masses and exposing the fascist scum bags that are their lackeys.

Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

patterson:

You should be sure though that when you advocate, you don't provide anything that could possibly be construed as assistance, or that the advocacy itself couldn't be construed as assistance.

Also, advocating for such a group openly is like painting a bullseye on your back.

Gonzalo Lira:

too true, unfortunately.

Ottawan:

One of the salient bits of "fascism" is the power of paramilitary forces. Are scary paramilitaries pervasive in the USA? Do security guards count? The tea party guys?

"Corporatism" and/or "pluralism" are sufficient to describe This part of history. On secod thought, "pluralism" is kinda Orwellian.

Transor Z:

Your piece is very weak in treating the syndicalist piece of fascism, Gonzalo. For reference, Noam Chomsky is a syndicalist.

Asserting the existence of the regimentation and discipline ethos that is a hallmark of fascist regimes is an absolute joke in light of America's deteriorating work ethic and pathological levels of narcissistic individualism.

The "police-state" doesn't have the manpower, will power, or political mandate to act on domestic espionage in anything like a systematic fashion. More than that, the hackers and young people are many steps ahead in technological sophistication.

There will always be abuses and yes, creepy incursions into personal freedoms by law enforcement and government. It's good to be on guard against that but… perspective please.

But I'll let Bogie do my talking for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46pQwwF8uww&feature=related

EmilianoZ:

There's some truth in that post.

Noam Chomsky says: "propaganda is to democracies what the bludgeon is to dictatorships" .

I think we're entering an era where propaganda is starting to fail. That necessarily means: they must go back to the bludgeon. The supreme court is paving the way for that.

i on the ball patriot:

Very astute comment!

Yes, freedom and democracy, which the closet fascist bullies (that's all they really are - bullies who label their victims terrorists!) have been disingenuously wearing on their sleeves, now comes off, and the fascists come out of the closet of secrecy and into the open.

The internet has exposed them like shining a light on cockroaches and they now scurry and try to bludgeon anything in their path.

It will have the reverse effect, it will awaken people to the propaganda illusion that they are living in.

Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

addicted:

Another interesting aspect that struck me when reading the NYTimes editorial. This same supreme court has identified money as "speech" (hence preventing corporations, a fictitious "person", from donating during elections is breaking their first amendment rights). So would that make the US crackdown on monetary donations to terrorist organizations illegal? According to this same Supreme Court, wouldn't that be the government breaking real "persons" First Amendment Rights?

Whats up with the Supreme Court prostituting themselves to the Executive?

Sanford Calef:

I'm dismayed that Citizen Obama has let torture, Gitmo, and all the rest of Bush era policies stand. I'm disappointed Cheney isn't in the Hague defending his crimes against humanity.

But we're not a fascist state yet.

That will happen when Ms Palin or whatever crazy Teabagger takes over in a few years. Everything is in place for an American Dear Leader to run roughshod over the rest of us.

Liberals are such wusses. Should be an easy coup.

Bernard:

the denial of reality doesn't change reality. no matter what some say, there are enough of reality based thinkers to dispute and call "a spade a spade." that's the part i find most fascinating about the "oh, it's not what you think!" bs. the constant dismissal, denial and denigration of a fact based "reality" is so consistent and astounding. this constant denial to any other concept that might dare questions some's right to fantasy/faith based thinking at the expense of fact based reality. a form of anti intellectualism, thinking is too dangerous to be left to fact based reality. lol

that old "faith based" concept of "truthiness" highlighted by Stephen Colbert is just one part of larger concept of never admitting errors. however adamant the "faith based theorists" are, the reality of facts can't be questioned for every without having the consequences we see today. the constant questioning is so much the point. any tolerance of the "inexactitudes" of the faith based "reality" reinforces the whole farce.

never forget how irate Alan Simpson became when Bill Maher asked him if he really believed some "inanity" that was clearly impossible. the indignation of being questioned on his "beliefs" was the most fascinating aspect of Simpson's reply. such audacity to question your beliefs. such self importance, such pomposity. i understand the kind of people who held such "truthiness" as unreachable and remote to the reality most of us live in.

just the conversation itself legitimizes such an argument. i don't expect these faith based believers ever to admit much less acknowledge any version of "truth" but their own.such. the fact based truth is like the surf endlessly pounding the sandcastles of this fantasy based "truthiness."

those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither and usually lose both.

for 30 years or more, America has been under the influence of such pomposity and "unquestioned" inanity. the loss of freedom of speech is just but one of the many "gifts" of such "faith based truthiness."

Paul Tioxon:

The central argument of fungibility of resources, the freeing up of cash and or materials due to the aiding and abetting of the terrorist organization, even if you consult with them to bring them into the family of civilized nations, so to speak, is a false one, previously used against the mafia. Criminal defense attorneys have pointed this to the absurdity that it pursues. Namely, if you see any contribution to an illegal organization as contribution to its capacity to operate illegally, you are aiding and abetting. The defense was, in the case of the Philadelphia Mafia figures, do they shop for food, do they call one another on the phone, send letters through the mail, drive Cadillacs, or Lincolns, buy Esso gas for the cars? Then, they are being aided and abetted by the Acme, Ma Bell, The US Postal Service and General Motors and Ford and Standard Oil of NJ.

They are taking their presumed blood money and spending it and those that accept it are deriving the benefit of the illegal activities just as if they participated. They provide communication, transportation and oh yes, where do they deposit their cash? PSFS? Needless to say, trying to pressure one point of contact of a terrorist organization, begs the question, of who else do they transact with, no matter how mundane. It would seem to the benefit of any sovereign state, that a non profit peace maker, consulting with the Tamil Tigers or The IRA or Hamas, in order to get them to stand down from their violence would be a rational activity to be supported. Apparently not, indicted are the peace makers, for theirs is kingdom of special rendition in the bowels of corporate Global America.

Francois T:

Awesome post Don Gonzalo!

Contrary to the cloud-shovelers of pissy-mamby pseudo-theories, your definitions are OPERATIONAL and easy to observe for confirmation or ejection.

To me, the key resides in this pearl:
What's key to the definition of a police-state is the lack of redress

Pure brilliance!

[Apr 14, 2015] Nuland Ensconced in Neocon Camp Who Believes in Noble Lie

Mar 5, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
RPI Director Daniel McAdams is interviewed on RT. Transcript below; video here.

Victoria Nuland's anti-Russian rhetoric comes from the neocon camp of US politics, seeking to stir the Ukraine crisis, thrilled by the prospect of defense industry expansion and more arms sales, Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Peace Institute told RT.

RT: World leaders and international monitors agree the situation in Ukraine is generally improving. Why are we still witnessing aggressive rhetoric from some US officials?

Daniel McAdams: Because the US does not want peace to break out. The US is determined to see its project through. But unfortunately like all of its regime change projects this one is failing miserably. Victoria Nuland completely disregards the role of the US in starting the conflict in Ukraine. She completely glosses over the fact that the army supported by Kiev has been bombarding Eastern Ukraine, as if these independent fighters in the east are killing themselves and their own people. Victoria Nuland was an aid to Dick Cheney; she is firmly ensconced in the neocon camp. The neocons believe very strongly in lying, the noble lie… They lied us into the war in Iraq; they are lying now about Ukraine. Lying is what the neocons do.

RT: Nuland listed a lot of hostile actions by Russia without providing any reliable proof. Do you think she can she be challenged on these topics?

DM: Maybe she is right but the US hasn't provided one piece of proof, except for Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt's Rorschach tests he passes off as a satellite photo. Maybe they are true but we have to present some evidence because we've seen now the neocons have lied us into the war. This is much more serious than the attack on small Iraq. This has the potential for a global nuclear war. So I think they should be held to a higher level of scrutiny. Thus far they have not provided any. We do know however that the US is providing military aid. As the matter of fact this week hundreds of American troops are arriving in Ukraine. Why is that not an escalation? Why is it only an escalation when the opponents of the US government are involved?

RT: How probable is that the Western nations ship lethal aid to Ukraine?

DM: It is interesting because Victoria Nuland this week spent some time with Andriy Parubiy, one of the founders of the fascist party in Ukraine and I believe one of the founders of the Joseph Goebbels Institute. She met with him this week and had a photo taken with him. He came back to Ukraine and assured his comrades that the US will provide additional, non-lethal weapons - whatever that means - and felt pretty strongly that they would provide lethal weapons. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey has been urging the US government to provide lethal weapons as has the new US defense secretary [Ashton Carter], both of whom come from the military industrial complex which is thrilled by prospect of a lot more arms to be sold.

RT: Nuland has said the State Department is in talks with EU leaders for another round of sanctions on Russia. Do you think the EU will agree?

DM: I think they will be pressured into agreeing. It is interesting that Nuland said that the new Rada, the new Ukrainian parliament, in this first four months has been a hive of activity. I was just watching some videos from the fights in the Ukrainian parliament. So that was one bit of unintentional humor probably in her speech. It looks like a fight club over there.
Related

[Apr 14, 2015] The New Militarism: Who Profits?

Quote: "So who is the real enemy? The Russians? No, the real enemy is the taxpayer. The real enemy is the middle class and the productive sectors of the economy. We are the victims of this new runaway military spending. Every dollar or euro spent on a contrived threat is a dollar or euro taken out of the real economy and wasted on military Keynesianism. It is a dollar stolen from a small business owner that will not be invested in innovation, spent on research to combat disease, or even donated to charities that help the needy."
Apr 12, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

Militarism and military spending are everywhere on the rise, as the new Cold War propaganda seems to be paying off. The new "threats" that are being hyped bring big profits to military contractors and the network of think tanks they pay to produce pro-war propaganda.

Here are just a few examples:

The German government announced last week that it would purchase 100 more "Leopard" tanks – a 45 percent increase in the country's inventory. Germany had greatly reduced its inventory of tanks as the end of the Cold War meant the end of any threat of a Soviet ground invasion of Europe. The German government now claims these 100 new tanks, which may cost nearly half a billion dollars, are necessary to respond to the new Russian assertiveness in the region. Never mind that Russia has neither invaded nor threatened any country in the region, much less a NATO member country.

The US Cold War-era nuclear bunker under Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, which was all but shut down in the 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, is being brought back to life. The Pentagon has committed nearly a billion dollars to upgrading the facility to its previous Cold War-level of operations. US defense contractor Raytheon will be the prime beneficiary of this contract. Raytheon is a major financial sponsor of think tanks like the Institute for the Study of War, which continuously churn out pro-war propaganda. I am sure these big contracts are a good return on that investment.

NATO, which I believe should have been shut down after the Cold War ended, is also getting its own massively expensive upgrade. The Alliance commissioned a new headquarters building in Brussels, Belgium, in 2010, which is supposed to be completed in 2016. The building looks like a hideous claw, and the final cost – if it is ever finished – will be well over one billion dollars. That is more than twice what was originally budgeted. What a boondoggle! Is it any surprise that NATO bureaucrats and generals continuously try to terrify us with tales of the new Russian threat? They need to justify their expansion plans!

So who is the real enemy? The Russians?

No, the real enemy is the taxpayer. The real enemy is the middle class and the productive sectors of the economy. We are the victims of this new runaway military spending. Every dollar or euro spent on a contrived threat is a dollar or euro taken out of the real economy and wasted on military Keynesianism. It is a dollar stolen from a small business owner that will not be invested in innovation, spent on research to combat disease, or even donated to charities that help the needy.

One of the most pervasive and dangerous myths of our time is that military spending benefits an economy. This could not be further from the truth. Such spending benefits a thin layer of well-connected and well-paid elites. It diverts scarce resources from meeting the needs and desires of a population and channels them into manufacturing tools of destruction. The costs may be hidden by the money-printing of the central banks, but they are eventually realized in the steady destruction of a currency.

The elites are terrified that peace may finally break out, which will be bad for their profits. That is why they are trying to scuttle the Iran deal, nix the Cuba thaw, and drum up a new "Red Scare" coming from Moscow. We must not be fooled into believing their lies.


Copyright © 2015 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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The Libertarian Delusion

This article appears as part of a special report, "What the Free Market Can't Do," in the Winter 2015 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here.

The stubborn appeal of the libertarian idea persists, despite mountains of evidence that the free market is neither efficient, nor fair, nor free from periodic catastrophe. In an Adam Smith world, the interplay of supply and demand yields a price that signals producers what to make and investors where to put their capital. The more that government interferes with this sublime discipline, the more bureaucrats deflect the market from its true path.

But in the world where we actually live, markets do not produce the "right" price. There are many small examples of this failure, but also three immense ones that should have discredited the libertarian premise by now. Global climate change is the most momentous. The price of carbon-based energy is "correct"-it reflects what consumers will pay and what producers can supply-if you leave out the fact that carbon is destroying a livable planet. Markets are not competent to price this problem. Only governments can do that. In formal economics, this anomaly is described by the bloodless word "externality"-meaning costs (or benefits) external to the immediate transaction. Libertarian economists treat externalities as minor exceptions.

The other great catastrophe of our time is the financial collapse. Supposedly self-regulating markets could not discern that the securities created by financial engineers were toxic. Markets were not competent to adjust prices accordingly. The details of the bonds were opaque; they were designed to enrich middlemen; the securities were subject to investor herd-instincts; and their prices were prone to crash once a wave of panic-selling hit. Only government could provide regulations against fraudulent or deceptive financial products, as it did to good effect until the regulatory process became corrupted beginning in the 1970s. Deregulation arguably created small efficiencies by steering capital to suitable uses-but any such gains were obliterated many times over by the more than $10 trillion of GDP lost in the 2008 crash.

A third grotesque case of market failure is the income distribution. In the period between about 1935 and 1980, America became steadily more equal. This just happened to be the period of our most sustained economic growth. In that era, more than two-thirds of all the income gains were captured by the bottom 90 percent, and the bottom half actually gained income at a slightly higher rate than the top half. By contrast, in the period between 1997 and 2012, the top 10 percent captured more than 100 percent of all the income gains. The bottom 90 percent lost an average of nearly $3,000 per household. The reason for this drastic disjuncture is that in the earlier period, public policy anchored in a solid popular politics kept the market in check. Strong labor institutions made sure working families captured their share of productivity gains. Regulations limited monopolies. Government played a far more direct role in the economy via public investment, which in turn stimulated innovation. The financial part of the economy was well controlled. All of this meant more income for the middle and the bottom and less rapacity at the top.

Clearly, a more equal economy performed better than a more unequal one. Families with decent incomes could recycle that purchasing power back into the economy. Well-regulated financial institutions could do their job of supplying investment capital to the real economy rather than enriching their own executives with speculative schemes-ones that left the rest of the society to take the loss when the wise guys were long gone. In the case of labor, there was not a single, "accurate," market-determined wage for each job, but a wide range of possible wages and social bargains that would attract competent workers and steadily increase the economy's productivity.

The free market doesn't live up to its billing because of several contradictions between what libertarians contend and the way the real world actually works.

The free market doesn't live up to its billing because of several contradictions between what libertarians contend and the way the real world actually works. Fundamentally, the free-market model assumes away inconvenient facts. Libertarians presume no disparities of information between buyer and seller, no serious externalities, no public goods that markets can't properly price (Joan Fitzgerald's piece in our special report in the Winter 2015 issue of The American Prospect magazine discusses one-water), and above all no disparities of power. But in today's substantially deregulated economy, bankers have far more knowledge and power than bank customers (witness the subprime deception); corporations have far more power than employees; insurers have more power than citizens seeking health insurance. Labor markets can't compensate for disparities of power. The health insurance "markets" created by the Affordable Care Act can't fully address the deeper problem of misplaced resources and excessive costs in our medical system.

The conditions of the idealized market model do describe ordinary retail markets, where there are plenty of restaurants, supermarkets, dry cleaners, and hardware stores, and consumers are competent to shop around for price and quality. They don't accurately characterize the markets in health, education, labor, finance, or technological innovation, to name just five. (What is efficient about a hedge -und mogul taking home $2 billion, or a life-saving pill that retails for $5,000 a dose?)

To produce an economy that is more equitable as well as more efficient, government uses a variety of tools. It regulates to counteract market failure. It taxes to provide revenues to pay for public goods that markets under-provide at affordable prices-everything from education to health to research and development. Sometimes government passes laws to sustain other elements of a social contract, such as the laws protecting workers' rights to form unions and to collectively bargain.

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Government can invent things that markets never would have imagined. Apple has created wonders, but it has piggybacked on government investment in advanced semiconductors and the Internet. America's biotech industry's success was reliant on massive government investment in the Human Genome Project and other basic research. Later in the special report in the magazine's Winter issue, Fred Block's piece describes the indispensable government role in innovation. Commercial broadcasters were disinvesting in radio as a serious medium of news, public affairs, culture, and humor, when along came public radio, partly underwritten by government and partly by listener-subscribers. NPR demonstrated that ingenious and high-quality noncommercial programming could attract an audience that for-profit companies did not know was there.

There is another, more fundamental point ignored by libertarians: The market itself is a creature of government.

There is another, more fundamental point ignored by libertarians: The market itself is a creature of government. As Karl Polanyi famously wrote in a seeming oxymoron, "laissez-faire was planned." Markets could not exist without states defining the terms of property ownership and commerce, creating money, enforcing contracts, protecting patents and trademarks, and providing basic public institutions. A Robinson Crusoe world never existed. So the real issue is not whether government "intrudes" on the market-the capitalist system is impossible without government. The practical question is whose interests the state serves.

So the core libertarian claim that markets are efficient stands demolished by historical evidence. However, libertarians make a second claim: Free markets are the sublime expression of human liberty. This second contention gives libertarian ideology much of its persuasive power. In the resurrection of free-market theory after its first burial in the wake of the Great Depression, a remnant of libertarian economists led by Friedrich Hayek engaged in a technical duel with John Maynard Keynes about whether markets were self-correcting after all. Hayek won few converts. But in the 1940s, Hayek hit pay dirt with his argument that markets epitomized freedom. This claim was taken a step further by Milton Friedman a generation later.

In the idealized libertarian world, individuals are "free to choose"-never mind that some are born with far more resources with which to choose than others. In the Hayek-Friedman world, government, except for its minimal role of keeping the peace and protecting property values, is the enemy of freedom. Hayek went so far as to write a book in 1944, The Road to Serfdom, contending that democratic forms of planning were destined to lead down the same road to totalitarianism that ended with Stalin and Hitler. Hayek remained a revered figure to libertarians-he even won a Nobel Prize-despite the fact that there is not a single case where democratic planning led to dictatorship, but countless instances where market turbulence led displaced citizens to turn to anti-democratic strongmen. Adding insult to injury, the Hayek-Friedman remedy for when markets don't work is: We need even more market. We saw how well that worked in the financial collapse.

Beyond assuming away inherited disparities, the Hayek-Friedman equation of markets and freedom leaves out the role of government in promoting affirmative liberties. A young person from a poor family who does not need to incur crippling debt to attend university is a freer person. A low-income mother who cannot afford to pay the doctor attains a new degree of freedom when she and her children are covered by Medicaid. A worker who might be compelled to choose between his job and his physical safety becomes freer if government health and safety regulations are enforced. The employee of a big-box store who can take paid family leave when a child gets sick is freer than one whose entire life is at the whim of the boss; likewise a worker with a union contract that provides protection from arbitrary dismissal or theft of wages. An elderly person saved from destitution by a government-organized Social Security pension has a lot more liberty than one bagging groceries at age 80 to make ends meet, or one choosing between supper and filling a prescription. An aspiring homeowner who doesn't need to spend countless hours making sure that the mortgage won't explode is freer to spend leisure time on other activities if government is certifying which financial products are sound and is prohibiting other kinds.

Clearly, there will never be enough charity, benign employer paternalism, or self-correction on the part of markets to solve these problems.

I could go on, but you get the idea. These are not arcane examples, written in the algebraic idiom of formal economics. They are common-sense experiences familiar to us all-and fruits of government spending or regulation. Clearly, there will never be enough charity, benign employer paternalism, or self-correction on the part of markets to solve these problems. Lately, as markets have gained ground at the expense of social counterweights, more of us find ourselves at the mercy of market forces, as played by bosses, insurers, and financial engineers.

[Dec 03, 2014] Greenspan Shrugged, Now Says Regulation is Necessary

October 23, 2008 | nakedcapitalism.com

Jojo, October 23, 2008 at 4:33 am

The End of Libertarianism
By jacob.weisberg
Created 10/20/2008 – 9:48am

A source of mild entertainment amid the financial carnage has been watching libertarians scurrying to explain how the global financial crisis is the result of too much government intervention rather than too little. One line of argument [1] casts as villain the Community Reinvestment Act, which prevents banks from "redlining" minority neighborhoods as not creditworthy. Another theory [2] blames Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for causing the trouble by subsidizing and securitizing mortgages with an implicit government guarantee. An alternative thesis is that past bailouts encouraged investors to behave recklessly in anticipation of a taxpayer rescue.

There are rebuttals to these claims and rejoinders to the rebuttals. But to summarize, the libertarian apologetics fall wildly short of providing any convincing explanation for what went wrong. The argument as a whole is reminiscent of wearying dorm-room debates that took place circa 1989 about whether the fall of the Soviet bloc demonstrated the failure of communism. Academic Marxists were never going to be convinced that anything that happened in the real world could invalidate their belief system. Utopians of the right, libertarians are just as convinced that their ideas have yet to be tried, and that they would work beautifully if we could only just have a do-over of human history. Like all true ideologues, they find a way to interpret mounting evidence of error as proof that they were right all along.

To which the rest of us can only respond, Haven't you people done enough harm already?

Anonymous, October 23, 2008 at 5:28 am

Thanks for the link, JoJo. I *still* hear this from my communist friends all the time. They tell me that I am co-opted by "capitalist ideology" and that their communist principles have never been given a fair shake in the real world. When they are presented with the idea that real world implementation always will lead to totalitarian dictatorships, either by the difficult process of change in a reluctant portion of the populace or the power vacuum created thereafter, they quickly change the subject. Anarcho-capitalist libertarians are just as utopian, counterfactual and delusional as these communists. I can't believe we don't all openly scoff at them every day. Ron Paul is probably a good man, but his ideas are, to put it nicely, fringe (and wholly without much evidential support). It should not surprise me that the anarcho-capitalists have reacted in the same way…"our ideas have never been tried." Cognitive dissonance. Powerful delusion. Hayek always made a point, in discussing Germany's dissent into Naziism, that ideas are powerful. Just be vigilant that the ideas of the anarcho-capitalist fringe don't continue to infect the general population.

Anonymous, October 23, 2008 at 6:12 am

I was wondering when someone would get around to posting Weisberg's sophistry and name-calling masquerading as a column. There are plenty of legitimate arguments against deregulation to be made by more serious people than Weisberg, but I guess that's the kind of fare that has the greatest traction in political discussion, these days.

"Ron Paul is probably a good man, but his ideas are, to put it nicely, fringe (and wholly without much evidential support)."

You're obviously in a big hurry to do your "open scoffing" and not paying much attention to what the man has actually said. He's called the credit crisis to a "t".

Here are some things he said when voting *against* Graham-Leach-Bliley. In the year 1999.
__________________________________
"today we are considering a bill aimed at modernizing the financial services industry through deregulation. It is a worthy goal which I support. However, this bill falls short of that goal. The negative aspects of this bill outweigh the benefits….

* The growth in money and credit has outpaced both savings and economic growth. These inflationary pressures have been concentrated in asset prices, not consumer price inflation–keeping monetary policy too easy. This increase in asset prices has fueled domestic borrowing and spending.

* Government policy and the increase in securitization are largely responsible for this bubble. In addition to loose monetary policies by the Federal Reserve, government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have contributed to the problem. The fourfold increases in their balance sheets from 1997 to 1998 boosted new home borrowings to more than $1.5 trillion in 1998, two-thirds of which were refinances which put an extra $15,000 in the pockets of consumers on average–and reduce risk for individual institutions while increasing risk for the system as a whole.

* The rapidity and severity of changes in economic conditions can affect prospects for individual institutions more greatly than that of the overall economy. The Long Term Capital Management hedge fund is a prime example. New companies start and others fail every day. What is troubling with the hedge fund bailout was the governmental response and the increase in moral hazard.

* This increased indication of the government's eagerness to bail out highly-leveraged, risky and largely unregulated financial institutions bodes ill for the post S. 900 future as far as limiting taxpayer liability is concerned. LTCM isn't even registered in the United States but the Cayman Islands!

* …My main reasons for voting against this bill are the expansion of the taxpayer liability and the introduction of even more regulations. The entire multi-hundred page S. 900 that reregulates rather than deregulates the financial sector could be replaced with a simple one-page bill."
________________________________

Again, those familiar with Austrian economics were more prescient about the present circumstances than anyone, but modern commentators are either ignorant of it or so desperate to dismiss it as "fringe" that they won't even consider *looking* at its theoretical framework.

So. We'll just go with the Keynesian approach until it finally bankrupts the U.S.

BeerdedOne, October 23, 2008 at 8:13 am

Libertarianism may be flawed, but it is NOT to blame.

Lets be intellectually honest with ourselves and admit that Libertarians are a misunderstood, heterogeneous and largely marginal (in Washington, atleast) political group. The idea that the Bob Barrs' of the world speak for all libertarians is as ridiculous as the idea that the Bush administration has somehow implemented Libertarian policies since 2000! I'm very unclear what motivation people have to obscure the agenda of the neoconservative / neoliberal corporatists behind a smokescreen of libertarian bashing.

The question shouldn't be couched in the regulation/deregulation framework, but in terms of regulation for and by whom?

Corporatism has invaded our government on both sides of the aisle. Lobbyists hired by corporate interests write the laws that then are masqueraded as the 'regulation' or 'deregulation' that is needed, depending on the political climate and which party is in power.

The revolving door of high level industry/government/industry employment assures that the policy implementation is carried out with a high degree of loyalty to big banking. Watch as it happens again in the wake of this crisis.

Anonymous, October 23, 2008 at 10:16 am

No sense of irony? How about no shame! He is probably the single largest culprit in setting the stage for this mess. If the hired hand in charge of the central bank couldn't see this coming, he is incompetent. If he did see it coming, he is evil. You pick…

ruetheday, October 23, 2008 at 10:35 am

Libertarianism (at least the natural rights variant) is based on the unjustified assumption that the right to private property and the right of contract somehow are absolute and must trump all other considerations. Furthermore, there is the additional unjustified assumption that externalities either do not exist or are so insignificant as to be safely ignored.

None of these premises are able to withstand a moment's scrutiny, which is why serious political philosophers don't spend much time responding to libertarians.

With regard to private property, if one follows an entitlement theory of justice, ala Nozick, one always ends up with the question of how to justify the initial acquisition of land and other unproduced natural resources. There is no solution to this problem, despite libertarians' attempts to fudge it with counterfactual, post-hoc rationalizations like labor-mixing and homesteading.

With regard to contracts, any attempt at developing a moral system based on voluntary contract has to not only answer the question of why contracts should be ENFORCED (i.e., why individuals shouldn't be permitted to exit agreements as easily as they enter them when either circumstances or their opinions change) but also must consider 1) the bargaining power of each party entering into the contract and 2) the information available to each party upon entry. Libertarians' excepting of "force" and "fraud" from all agreements is just a simple-minded attempt at punting on the issue of bargaining power and information.

With regard to externalities, libertarianism relies on the unjustified assumption that all human activities can be divided into voluntary action and force (false dichotomy fallacy) and thus rules out the fact that the actions of individuals can indirectly but significantly affect other individuals without their consent. Every man is an island in libertopia. Outside of libertopia, the daily actions of individuals living in society do, in many cases, affect others.

Libertarianism debunked in three easy steps.

doc holiday, October 23, 2008 at 10:54 am

Greenspan simply must continue to evolve as a capitalist and show no loyalty or integrity with his withering shell. He must not be bound to his money-based relationships to the current hedge fund he whores for, or bow before the deals with Pimco, et al. As God is my witness, the man must burrow himself into the exchanges and opportunities available in Zimbabwe, before he returns to Mephistopheles for a new assignment:

Inflation is somewhere in the millions – or perhaps the billions – and the economy is the fastest shrinking on Earth. But Zimbabwe is the "best investment opportunity" in Africa, financiers at a seminar in South Africa have heard.

In the surreal atmosphere of President Robert Mugabe's domain, this proposition may have a certain logic.

Throughout the economic meltdown, Zimbabwe's stock market has soared because hyperinflation means that people must pour their money into shares to preserve its value.

On Monday, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) industrials index rose by over 241 per cent. During the investment seminar, a live feed of ZSE prices showed many stocks going up by several hundred per cent, with the leader, Zimnat, up 1,150 per cent in a day. There were no fallers.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Dollar plummeted, falling to 306.8 million against its US counterpart in the course of a morning.

Hirsch V Gupta, October 23, 2008 at 11:26 am

Anon of 7:12a.m.

Thanks for posting the text of Ron Paul's comments from the 1999 act.

His ideas in 1999 were undenaibly better and more organized than he was able to present it during the campaign or during his questing of the Ben Bernanke atthe hearing where he went off on a tangent and just stayed there.

Thanks again.

Sincerely

Hirsch V Gupta

Anonymous, October 23, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Greenspan, a man who truly kneeled at the altar of Market Fundamentalism in 3 out of its 4 ugly incarnations.

Greenspan: the man who called himself a Libertarian, worshiped an Objectivist, and ran his central bank like a Neoliberal.

The 4 ugly pillars of Market Fundamentalism (don't forget the ugliest one, Anarcho-Capitalism!) need to have happen to them exactly what happned to Communism: be consigned to the trash heap of history.

HC, October 23, 2008 at 7:27 pm

The man in charge of the largest counterfeiting operation in the world, enforced by gun point, who willingly intervened in the money markets to distort interest rates is some how a free market ideologue? I am glad politics isn't your specialty Yves… I mean how is setting price 'targets' on interest rates any different than pegging a currency or price 'targeting' gasoline or food? Isn't that the whole point of a command economy? To command the prices and thereby the flow of goods? Orwell would be 'proud' Yves…

Anonymous, October 24, 2008 at 12:01 am

"Now that Greenspan has thrown in the towel, the free market ideologues have lost one of their most loyal advocates."

Yves – have you read Bill Fleckensteins book?

It is the best refutation of Greenspan that I've come across.

The title is :

"Greenspan's Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve."

Doug

[Sep 23, 2014] The Antimilitarist Libertarian Heritage by Sheldon Richman

September 19, 2014 | Antiwar.com

With the United States on the verge of another war in the Middle East – or is it merely the continuation of a decades-long war? – we libertarians need to reacquaint ourselves with our intellectual heritage of peace, antimilitarism, and anti-imperialism. This rich heritage is too often overlooked and frequently not appreciated at all. That is tragic. Libertarianism, to say the least, is deeply skeptical of state power. Of course, then, it follows that libertarianism must be skeptical of the state's power to make war – to kill and destroy in other lands. Along with its domestic police authority, this is the state's most dangerous power. (In 1901 a libertarian, Frederic Passy, a friend of libertarian economist Gustave de Molinari, shared in the first Nobel Peace Prize.)

Herbert Spencer, the great English libertarian philosopher of the late 19th and early 20th century, eloquently expressed radical liberalism's antipathy to war and militarism. His writings are full of warnings about the dangers of war and conquest. Young Spencer saw and cheered the rise of the industrial type of society, which was displacing what he called the militant type. The industrial type was founded on equal freedom, consent, and contract, the militant on hierarchy, command, and force. Yet he lived long enough to see a reversal, and his later writings lamented the ascendancy of the old militant traits. We have a good deal to learn from the much-maligned Spencer, who is inexplicably condemned as favoring the "law of the jungle." This is so laughably opposite of the truth that one couldn't be blamed for concluding that the calumny is the product of bad faith. As Auburn University philosopher Roderick Long writes,

The textbook summary is absurd, of course. Far from being a proponent of "might makes right," Spencer wrote that the "desire to command is essentially a barbarous desire" because it "implies an appeal to force," which is "inconsistent with the first law of morality" and "radically wrong." While Spencer opposed tax-funded welfare programs, he strongly supported voluntary charity, and indeed devoted ten chapters of hisPrinciples of Ethicsto a discussion of the duty of "positive beneficence."

Spencer jumped on the issues of war and peace right out of the gate. His first book, Social Statics(1851), contains a chapter, "Government Colonization," that examines the effects of imperialism on both the home and subjugated populations. While formal colonization has gone out of style, many of its key characteristics have been preserved in a new form; thus Spencer's observations are entirely pertinent.

He starts by pointing out that the "parent" country's government must violate the rights of its own citizens when it engages in colonial conquest and rule. Spencer advocated just enough government to protect the freedom of the citizens who live under it (although the first edition of his book included the chapter "The Right to Ignore the State," which he removed from later editions), and he claims that the money spent on colonies necessarily is money not needed to protect that freedom. He writes,

That a government cannot undertake to administer the affairs of a colony, and to support for it a judicial staff, a constabulary, a garrison, and so forth, without trespassing against the parent society, scarcely needs pointing out. Any expenditure for these purposes, be it like our own some three and a half millions sterling a year, or but a few thousands, involves a breach of state-duty. The taking from men property beyond what is needful for the better securing of their rights, we have seen to be an infringement of their rights. Colonial expenditure cannot be met without property being so taken. Colonial expenditure is therefore unjustifiable.

Spencer proceeds to demolish the argument that foreign acquisitions increase the wealth of the parent society, as though such acquisitions are analogous to voluntary trade relations. He writes,

Experience is fast teaching us that distant dependencies are burdens, and not acquisitions. And thus this earliest motive for state-colonization – the craving for wider possessions – will very soon be destroyed by the conviction that territorial aggression is as impolitic as it is unjust.

Any true economic benefits from dealing with foreign populations can be obtained through free trade, he says. He invokes the law of comparative advantage to argue that the parent society loses, not gains, when the government coercively creates artificial foreign markets for products the society can't produce as efficiently as others can.

As for those on the receiving end of colonial policy, Spencer was blunt: "We … meet nothing but evil results. It is a prettily sounding expression that of mother-country protection, but a very delusive one. If we are to believe those who have known the thing rather than the name, there is but little of the maternal about it." While the worst practices, he adds, were less common in his time, "kindred iniquities are continued."

We have but to glance over the newspapers published in our foreign possessions, to see that the arbitrary rule of the Colonial Office is no blessing. Chronic irritation, varying in intensity from that of which petitions are symptomatic, to that exhibited in open rebellions, is habitually present in these forty-six scattered dependencies which statesmen have encumbered us with.

He condemns "the pitiless taxation, that wrings from the poor ryots nearly half the produce of the soil" and "the cunning despotism which uses native soldiers to maintain and extend native subjection – a despotism under which, not many years since, a regiment of sepoys was deliberately massacred, for refusing to march without proper clothing."

Down to our own day the police authorities league with wealthy scamps, and allow the machinery of the law to be used for purposes of extortion. Down to our own day, so-called gentlemen will ride their elephants through the crops of impoverished peasants; and will supply themselves with provisions from the native villages without paying for them. And down to our own day, it is common with the people in the interior to run into the woods at sight of a European!

Spencer wonders,

Is it not, then, sufficiently clear that this state-colonization is as indefensible on the score of colonial welfare, as on that of home interests? May we not reasonably doubt the propriety of people on one side of the earth being governed by officials on the other? Would not these transplanted societies probably manage their affairs better than we can do it for them?

No one can fail to see that these cruelties, these treacheries, these deeds of blood and rapine, for which European nations in general have to blush, are mainly due to the carrying on of colonization under state-management, and with the help of state-funds and state-force.

Spencer was keenly aware that such criticism of the government was regarded as unpatriotic. In 1902, near the end of his life, he turned his attention to that charge.

In an essay titled "Patriotism," included in his collection Facts and Comments, he begins, "Were anyone to call me dishonest or untruthful he would touch me to the quick. Were he to say that I am unpatriotic, he would leave me unmoved."

England may have done things in the past to advance freedom, Spencer says, but "there are traits, unhappily of late more frequently displayed, which do the reverse."

Contemplation of the acts by which England has acquired over eighty possessions – settlements, colonies, protectorates, etc. – does not arouse feelings of satisfaction. The transitions from missionaries to resident agents, then to officials having armed forces, then to punishments of those who resist their rule, ending in so-called "pacification" – these processes of annexation, now gradual and now sudden, as that of the new Indian province and that of Barotziland, which was declared a British colony with no more regard for the wills of the inhabiting people than for those of the inhabiting beasts – do not excite sympathy with their perpetrators.… If because my love of country does not survive these and many other adverse experiences I am called unpatriotic – well, I am content to be so called.

"To me the cry – 'Our country, right or wrong!' seems detestable," he continues.

Spencer gave no ground on this matter, which he made obvious with a story he relates toward the end of his essay.

Some years ago I gave my expression to my own feeling – anti-patriotic feeling, it will doubtless be called – in a somewhat startling way. It was at the time of the second Afghan war, when, in pursuance of what were thought to be "our interests," we were invading Afghanistan. News had come that some of our troops were in danger. At the Athenæum Club a well-known military man – then a captain but now a general – drew my attention to a telegram containing this news, and read it to me in a manner implying the belief that I should share his anxiety. I astounded him by replying – "When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don't care if they are shot themselves." [Emphasis added.]

Spencer was second to none in his antimilitarism and anti-imperialism, that is, his love of universal individual liberty and all forms of voluntary social cooperation. With heads held high, libertarians can claim him as one of their own.

Reprinted with permission from the Future of Freedom Foundation.

[Jun 19, 2014] Freedom and the Nanny State By Micah Mattix

January 29, 2014 | The American Conservative

Over at The Hedgehog Review-the journal of the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture-Charles Mathewes and Christina McRorie, responding to a recent piece by Richard Williams, argue that libertarians are overly concerned about government limits on personal freedom:

Libertarian anxieties about the "nanny state" tend to focus on governmental incursions into freedom, usually identified with new legislation: Don't tell me I can't do what I want!, the thinking goes. Williams updates this concern to address the more subtle form that policy "tweaks" in light of behavioral economics might take: And don't make me want what I don't want!

This new fear is not just that government will limit the exercise of our agency but that it might also shape it in some way. Thus the complaint that a government that uses behavioral economics to tailor its policies will "treat you like a child." What this assumes is that you are naturally an adult, someone who is in complete control of yourself, including your desires-absent government "nudging," your selection when buying a car, to use Williams' example, will be wholly innocent of influence from forces outside your own bare (and perhaps given) preferences. On this account, behavioral economics is not only a form of tyranny; it is also a form of creepy mind control.

But this anxiety rests upon a flawed and misleading picture of the human person, especially with regard to how desires are shaped. The fact is, our agency is always being shaped by external factors. We shouldn't have needed behavioral economics to show us that we are not as rational and totally in control of our choices as we'd like. The homo economicus ideal of the rational utility-maximizing individual, impervious to outside influence, whose solitary choices and subjective preferences essentially construct his or her self, would have been laughed out of court by Plato, or Aristotle, or the Stoics, or Augustine, or Aquinas, or even Hume or Kant, had anyone been so clueless as to propose it to them. Modern thinkers as diverse as Nietzsche, Freud, and Bonhoeffer have also exposed the inadequacy of this picture of freedom. Even today, it doesn't take a scientist to prove that such an account cannot make sense of the reality of our own lives. Not one of us grows to adulthood without being shaped by forces beyond ourselves, including our parents, our peers, our schoolteachers, and our cultural context.

I agree with Mathewes and McRorie that all of our choices are limited (the distinction between "shaping" and "limiting" is largely superfluous)-our bodies, our circumstances, our education, our brains, all have a limiting affect on our wills.

But not all limits are the same. Some are natural (my brain's chemical balance–or lack thereof); others are established by habit or tradition (kissing hello and goodbye in France), the result of technology (the invention of the automobile), or other such things. In many cases, the limiting effect of the constraint is a secondary result of the activity or event. Cars were not invented so that I could not ride a horse to work in Houston, though this is one limiting effect of the invention.

While many governmental regulations are motivated-at least in theory-by a desire to do some good (limit pollution, for example, or make Americans more healthy), the limits imposed by such regulations are not a secondary effect but the very essence of the laws and regulations themselves. It's what they do-limit certain activities. Mathewes and McRorie fail to make this important distinction.

Furthermore, while advertising may be one kind of constraint whose primary purpose (like regulation) is to limit (or shape) choice, there is an important difference here, too. Governments have far more power than individuals or corporations to make and enforce limits. Steve Jobs may have wanted all Americans to buy only Apple products, but the best advertising in the world could not have made this happen. But governments, if they so choose, can force us to buy certain kinds of light bulbs or health insurance.

Furthermore, history has shown that governmental limits are difficult to remove. This also makes them rather different from the shaping of advertising, which often only requires a click of the mouse or a press of the button on the remote to suppress.

All this to say, you don't need to believe in an unconstrained free will to be concerned about the nanny state.

[May 20, 2013] Keynes on Laissez-Faire

May 19, 2013 | economistsview.typepad.com

Gavin Kennedy follows up on a recent post from Brad DeLong on Keynes and laissez faire:

Keynes on Laissez-Faire, by Gavin Kennedy: I read the Keynes quote below in Brad Delong's Blog:
As John Maynard Keynes shrilly stated back in 1926:
"Let us clear… the ground…. It is not true that individuals possess a prescriptive 'natural liberty' in their economic activities. There is no 'compact' conferring perpetual rights on those who Have or on those who Acquire. The world is not so governed from above that private and social interest always coincide. It is not so managed here below that in practice they coincide. It is not a correct deduction from the principles of economics that enlightened self-interest always operates in the public interest. Nor is it true that self-interest generally is enlightened… individuals… promot[ing] their own ends are too ignorant or too weak to attain even these. Experience does not show that… social unit[s] are always less clear-sighted than [individuals] act[ing] separately. We [must] therefore settle… on its merits… "determin[ing] what the State ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual exertion.
Comment
My "Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes" are kept in France, so I was able to re-read "The End of Laissez-Faire" from Volume IX: "Essays in Persuasion" (pp 272-94. Macmillan).
The paragraph quoted by Brad Delong is fairly typical of the tone and language of the Essay. While Keynes's main focus is on laissez-faire, it also strikes at the general proposition now widespread across the discipline, usually wrapped in the extreme neoclassical fable that:
[Adam] Smith proclaimed the principle of the 'Invisible Hand'; every individual in pursuing his own selfish good was led, as if by an invisible hand, to achieve the best good for all, so that any interference with free competition by government was almost certain to be injurious (Samuelson, Economics: an introductory analysis, 5th edition, McGraw-Hill, p 39).
Keynes, rightly, points out that Adam Smith never used the words laissez-faire. And on the single occasion where he used the IH metaphor in Wealth Of Nations, it is a travesty to impute, let alone blatantly assert, that his words can be stretched to mean what Samuelson's wild inference takes them to mean.
However, on this occasion I shall not develop that theme.
I want to return to laissez-faire, accepting how Keynes expresses his demolition of the popular idea that laissez faire has or ought to have traction in it. I completely agree. And before my libertarian friends jump on me, I should point out that the meaning drawn from the incident between the merchant, Legendre and the French Minister, Colbert, is not entirely innocent of a narrow self interest.
'Laissez-nous faire' is not advocated as a universal principle for merchants and their customers; it was a very partial principle for merchants only – "laissez-nous faire" cries Legendre ("leave us alone!"). And that is the point of my own libertarian reservations about the slogan itself and its origins.
French markets were highly regulated and supervised by government inspectors. Yes, I agree an abomination. This placed consumers at the mercy of the decisions of local magistrates. Freeing merchants from the administrative burdens of the inspectors could, indeed, be a tentative step forward but freeing merchants from interference from competing merchants puts consumers at the mercy of the intentions of the merchants, which, as experience shows, is a high-risk strategy and generally one that has woeful consequences. As it was, experience in England and Scotland had been deeply marked by the monopolizing consequences of merchant tradesmen free, under governments, through the dead-hand of the Guilds in towns where they held sway, and ruthlessly protected by the Apprenticeship Acts that virtually eliminated competition. No laissez-faire there!
Moreover, laissez-faire became the rallying cry for merchants and industrialists in the 19th century to rally support for resisting government legislation against the excessive hours in mills and mines and the employment of very young children and women. It was also the common slogan of the anti-corn law agitation aimed at lowering the wages of labourers under the guise of removing barriers to farm imports.
Neither of these laissez-faire campaigns were the disinterested motives of the beneficiaries. Mill owners preferred laissez-faire to protect themselves from interference in the arduous, unsafe employment conditions and long hours they imposed on the males, females and children whom they employed; Mine owners likewise employed women and children underground at lower wages than adult men. Both wrapped themselves in laissez-faire flags to wipe up the blood of their employees when they demanded their own freedoms and not those of their laborers or their customers.
On these issues I agree with Keynes.

Big Ugly:

You say "French markets were highly regulated and supervised by government inspectors. Yes, I agree an abomination." -

Are you sure that you want an unregulated food industry without government inspectors? Or an unregulated construction industry? Look how that worked out for Bangladesh???

The challenge is to regulate fairly.

Alex Blaze:

I didn't know that "laissez-faire" was the 18th century version of "Leave rich people aloooooooooooooooooooooooooone!"

Good to know! We should never have dropped the "nous," though, and people should stop pronouncing the "ss" as if it were a z instead of an s as in snake. It's not even the way English pronunciation works!

On substance, I agree with Keynes too. Especially since his argument isn't just about laissez-faire. It's also about the dumb argument people use to support it: it's natural to let people keep all their junk, so la-la-la-can't-hear-you we don't need to argue anymore. Considering these people don't have an even passing familiarity with anthropology, much less the background needed to pronounce something natural or unnatural, just telling them they're on-face wrong suffices. The fact that it's so rare to hear someone say that a certain "natural right" doesn't exist shows how powerful it is to just throw it out there.

paine said in reply to Alex Blaze...

"uncle ...touch nothing" market policy

Ryan Stevens:

I remember listening to a lecture by Bernard Harcourt years ago decrying how our perceptions of French bread markets as exemplars of over-regulations are odd in light of the myriad of regulations and arbitrary rules set by the Chicago Board of Trade. His paper on this subject, which is highly enlightening for just historical value, is here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1278067 .

His argument is persuasive, though it seems to give little credence to how individual police officials could hold arbitrary sway over the market and enforce at their own whims. Just thought I'd through my two cents here.

Beatrice H.:

An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations can be downloaded directly from the Project Gutenberg site, as well as some of John Maynard Keynes' works.

Adam Smith's only mention of the invisible hand is in this section

"every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."

What many laissez-faire proponents fail to note is that Smith was talking about individuals, not corporations. Smith was against mercantilism and against corporations, which during his time were known as "joint stock companies" which he said actually harmed the functions of the free market.

KateJ said in reply to Beatrice H....

In fact, one could say his stance against "mercantilism" (the derogatory label he assigned to the polyglot of economic thinking coming before him) was a polemic against the overly-influential merchant interests that pressured governments to enact trading (and incorporation) policies in their favor.

anne -> Beatrice H....

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/smith/adam/s64w/chapter22.html

1776

Wealth of Nations

By Adam Smith

Of Restraints upon the Importation from Foreign Countries of such Goods as can be produced at Home

btg said in reply to Beatrice H....

when I read this, it is clear that Smith meant something more along the lines of "the wisdom of crowds" than the idea that "the market is god" and government intervention is wrong/laissez faire is the best solution (save for the usual libertarian accepted exceptions of defense, criminal justice and jails)

Main Street Muse said...

"It is not a correct deduction from the principles of economics that enlightened self-interest always operates in the public interest."

Yes. I cannot believe there is ANYONE in this day and age who thinks that "enlightened self-interest always operates in the public interest."

It is simply not true. And if models are being constructed on such a fragile foundation, shame on the economists who are doing this.

One hopes the pix of pollution in China is evidence enough that regulations exist for a reason - to protect citizens from the unregulated greed of corporations (all those many "people" Romney loves!)

John Cummings said...

We need to rebuild the ancient Vedic castes: 1.Brahmins: Priests 2.Kshatriyas: soldiers 3.Vaishyas: merchants 4.Shudras: laborers/artisons 5.The final caste would be the "slaves" or as in modern times the degenerates and destroyers of culture.

Only the first 4 castes will be granted freedom. The final caste would do "good works" to they redeem themselves to their tribe.

Reply Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 06:34 PM

The Blorch said in reply to John Cummings...

Politicians are the merchants. To get elected, they buy their votes wholesale. The pay using a revolving line of credit. As collateral, they put up focus group tested talking points sprinkled generously over their speeches and interviews.

Once elected, the politicians sell their vote retail to the wealthy special interest at a price yielding hefty profits.

hapa said...

i remember saying to someone here a while ago that keynes was "a laissez-faire kind of guy" or some such. it comes out to the question of 'belief' in markets. are they what they are, or would you call them miraculous? among people who see them having good & bad qualities, then keynes seems to have wanted them given pretty free hand.

one thing's for sure, if the corporations have their way, the fetters will NEVER come off, neither through the legislatures nor the courts. so everything else they say about the miracles is junk, or worse, attempting to bias the next jury.

The Blorch said in reply to hapa...

That's my problem with libertarians. Of course well funded interests are going to solicit the favorable interventions from the government that ossify their rents in place. The libertarians are against it in principle but what can you do? Them that gots gets.

But when poorly funded, loosely organized interests initiate advocacy for government intervention to redirect policy in favor of resource challenged constituencies, the libertarians smell blood and grab on like sharks, pulling and twisting.

As the libertarians fail to prevent intervention from institutional wealth (which they obliged by dogma to do) but are able to find common cause with institutional wealth in stomping out the burgeoning interventions of resource challenged upstarts, they promote policy outcomes biased towards the rich.

What's grating, is they don't knowledge this convenient discrepancy. It's convenient because they can solicit support from wealthy, institutional donors. In other words, Libertarians are a complete scam!

Reply Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 08:16 PM

C.B. said in reply to The Blorch...

Libertarians like myself have failed in reducing rents AND reducing the welfare state. You somehow interpret the former as a result of passive acceptance, and the latter a result in spite of aggressive rejection. Please, explain where this interpretation comes from.

Libertarians, for example, were some of the most virulent critics of the bank and auto bailouts. How does that factor into your simplistic analysis?

New Research in Economics Self-interest vs. Greed and the Limitations of the Invisible Hand

Economist's View

Second Best said...

The problem with the term itself, 'greed', is its broad, casual application to so many situations as a lame excuse to explain the root cause of some undesired economic or cultural result.

The proper use of 'greed' applies when its only constraint is independent of market, government, institutional and other sources of discipline, when those who could act on it refrain, even though they could act with no consequence.

Once 'greed' itself becomes the target objective to overcome in regard to whatever evil mankind can conjure up to do in his fellow humans, the framework for achieving moral ends through economic means is fatally flawed.

It displaces market discipline through effective competition with that of 'free individual agents' who are expected to abide by the creed of other disciplines like religion, personal values and more limited means of protecting property rights through narrow legal recourse rather than broader economic solutions.

In turn, the result justifies the undermining of whatever competitive market discipline or regulation in the absence of competition that would have been employed to control greed as a side effect, instead cutting the actors loose to self regulate themselves on the basis of their 'good character and intent' as they set about building empires designed to economically suppress their fellow humans into oblivion.

This is why for example, Obama and Dubya are so much alike when it comes to conquering 'greed', because the political appeal of the term in the negative is so powerful it can be used from the 'right' to justify huge tax cuts for the rich during an unnecessary war, or from the 'left' to protect an economically exploitive oligarchy claimed necessary to provide equal opportunity for growth and development to all.

Noah Smith once explained it another way. The reason certain so called 'libertarians' want to eradicate critical powers of government (and in effect, competitive market discipline as well) is so they can roam about unfettered as economic and cultural bullies who presumably control greed entirely through self restraint as they pursue self declared 'freedoms' released from self declared 'tyranny'. Now that's greed straight up, no water or ice.

Because 'greed' is free of identity politics it is abused equally from all sides, at all levels of income and wealth. It should be removed from the economic lexicon to reveal the damage done through its condescending and careless application, as if greed cannot be controlled through none other than individual restraint based on self interest alone.

Philip Pilkington: Libertarianism and the Leap of Faith – The Origins of a Political Cult

By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland

You wanted God's ideas about what was best for you to coincide with your ideas, but you also wanted him to be the almighty Creator of heaven and earth so that he could properly fulfil your wish. And yet, if he were to share your ideas, he would cease to be the almighty Father.

Søren Kierkegaard

Political cults often have the strangest and most obscure origins. Take Marxism, for example. Today it is well-known that Marxist doctrine essentially sprang out of the obscure 19th century economic debates over the source of 'value'. By 'proving' – that is, lifting the assumption from classical political economy – that all 'value' came from labour, Karl Marx went on to show that it was therefore only logical to assume the existence of something called 'surplus value' that was sucked out of labourers by a parasitic capitalist class. From out of this obscure debate flowed an awesome political movement – and a tyranny to match.

What is less well-known is that today's most popular political cult – that is, libertarianism – was born in very similar circumstances; it too, arrived into the world out of the obscure 19th century debates over economic 'value'. But before we explore this in any detail it might be appropriate to speculate a little on what characterises a political cult and why so many of these find their sustenance in economic theories of value.

What is a Political Cult and Why Do they Often Love Economic Value Theory?

A political cult is characterised by a political or economic doctrine that answers all the 'big questions' about life, the world and everything else. The doctrine that is handed down is then to be conceived of as a way to live one's life – a project, handed down from Mount Sinai, that one is under the moral obligation to spread far and wide. This is why we refer to these movements as cults. And it is this that gives them such an awesome status in the glazed eyes of their devotees.

Under such circumstances, politics becomes a sort of religious calling. In these doctrines there is usually an 'Evil Being' who is opposing the spread of the 'Good' on earth and it is these that are to blame for all the bad things in the world. In Marxism this Evil Being is the capitalist; in libertarianism it is the figure who is at different times referred to as the 'collectivist', the 'liberal' or the 'socialist'. Needless to say that, since these figures are usually ones of Extreme Evil they must be 'liquidated' or 'eliminated' at the first possible opportunity lest they spread their Demonic Gospel to the masses.

Political cults thus provide their devotees with a firm identity in an otherwise changeable and, let us be frank, confusing world. Like all cults they provide an anchor for their devotees with which they can fasten themselves to a rigid doctrine. They also typically lend their devotees a Holier-Than-Thou attitude as they provide them with 'secrets' that those outside of the cult cannot grasp. Not only does this allow the devotees to feel 'special', in modern political cults it also gives them practical, albeit 'secret' advice about what they should do in their day-to-day lives. (Think of the advice to buy gold or foreign stocks coming out of certain libertarian front men, for example).

Finally, the political cult will usually offer their followers the possibility of a Heaven on Earth. If the follower behaves well and spreads their beliefs to others they will eventually arrive at some sort of Utopia. This is their reward for believing in the doctrines, despite these doctrines being ridiculed by others.

So, why do these cults spring out of economic doctrines based on value? Well, this is a very complex question but there is one key aspect that is absolutely fundamental. In order to understand it a little better we must think for a moment about what economic 'value' supposedly is. It is, in fact, when we boil it right down, a moral entity. If we can tell what people 'value' and why, then we can make prognostications on what is Good for society as a whole.

In times past organised religions handed down fixed value systems to their adherents. Today people have become disillusioned with religious systems – ostensibly because they conflict with these peoples' supposedly 'scientific' worldview. But the impulse among some for the self-assurance provided by a religion is so strong that they seek out 'scientific' systems that operate in an identical manner to religious or cult systems.

This is why the economic doctrine of 'value' is such a good foundational stone for such a cult. It provides a pseudo-scientific account about how people attribute value to things and in doing so tells the cult member a 'Truth' that they can use to make turn the world into a Utopia in which the optimal amount of 'value' is realised by the optimal amount of people.

Karl Marx claimed that 'value' was embodied labour and hence his followers concluded with him that all that was Good sprang from labour and that society should thus be based on free labour. The libertarians – together with the neoclassicals that they otherwise scorn – believe that all 'value' springs from utility maximisation. While the neoclassicals simply tinker with toy-models of 'value' to bolster their pseudo-scientific prestige, the libertarians undertake a leap of faith into the unknown and claim that in the theory of marginal utility they have found a 'Truth' that must be brought down from Heaven to Earth.

The Birthing of a Cult

Libertarianism was born out of the late 19th century doctrine of marginalism; a doctrine that went on to gain popularity with those opposed to Marxism. We will not dwell too much on the doctrine of marginalism when applied to the analysis of 'value' – having done so elsewhere. Here we will merely note that marginalism provides a moral defence for the supposedly 'free market' system that we live under today.

Marginalism, when applied to 'value' analysis, holds that it is in Man's nature to follow a certain path in his consumption habits. These habits are determined by his maximising his utility. Most modern marginalists claim that they can use this concept to show that a 'free market' system is the fairest social system possible, since it responds automatically to Man's marginal utility preference it delivers 'value' in a perfect and harmonious manner.

Markets deliver this 'value' through the mechanism of price. Prices, which reflect peoples' desires to maximise their marginal utility, ensure that the most equitable distribution of 'value-in-the-abstract' is accommodated for by the 'free market system'. And this is the point at which marginal value analysis becomes a value judgment in a very real sense.

The neoclassicals held, and continue to hold, that their models could capture this complex dynamic. Such an assertion was and is, of course, absolute rubbish. But the Austrians took a different tack. "Yes," they said, "marginal utility theory is the correct way to go, but we cannot formulate models that adequately capture the inner workings of this great mechanism."

In their book Modern Political Economics: Making Sense of the Post-2008 World, the authors provide a good summary of this approach. In the book they discuss what effect the discovery of marginalism's inherent uselessness had on the Austrians:

Faced with the impossibility of mathematically deriving prices and quantities on the one hand and a metric of social welfare on the other, some Marginalists understood the limitations of their utility calculus. Mainly of an Austrian persuasion (most notably Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek and Joseph Schumpeter), they even gallantly tried to use this failure to the advantage of their claims on behalf of untrammelled markets and against the encroachments of collective agencies, trade unions, governments etc.

This was a clever move. While the neoclassicals tinkered with their silly toy-models, trying to show how prices are determined through a sort of grand marginal calculus, the Austrians shrugged their shoulders as to how such a Divine Event could occur. Instead they began to think of price as a sort of Miracle that proved the divinity of the Market mechanism. They then went on deploy this argument to show that anything that encroached upon this Divine Being's presence was inherently Evil:

If no degree of mathematical sophistication can pin down the 'right' prices and quantities, how can a government or any other form of collective agency work them out? How could a socialist economy, or even a national health service, ever price things? Thus, the market mechanism is indispensible because of the radical indeterminacy of prices.

Note what is happening here. The Austrians, like their marginalist brothers and sisters, thought that in marginal utility theory they had found the source from which 'value' truly flowed. They never for one moment questioned that. Even when they came to conclude that marginalist analysis could never definitively show anything useful about price determination, they remained confident – indeed, they became even more confident – that such an analysis was Truth.

In short, they postulated a theory and then when confronted with the inconsistencies of the theory when it was applied to any practical ventures they simply threw up their arms and claimed that such inconsistency showed just how true theory was and how much we should respect it. The knowledge that the theory imparted then became, in a very real sense, Divine, in that we meagre humans would never be able to grasp it and instead should simply bow down in front of the Great Being that possessed this knowledge – that is: the Market.

This is what gives the libertarians their religious zeal. In their quest for the Grand Truth they find this Truth to be inaccessible to Man. But in this inaccessibility they find a Higher Truth again; namely, that there is some other entity out there – a benevolent entity called 'the Market' – that possesses this Truth and all we have to do is follow the Laws which it has handed down to us and we will eventually reach Utopia. This is, of course, a leap of faith – a truly Kierkegaardian Leap of Faith.

From the Leap of Faith to the Knight of Faith

The Austrians were never quite content with the chicanery and political posturing that they had passed off as scientific debate. As alluded to above, their theories about market prices were forged in the debates with those who advocated a socilialistic planned economy. Being ideological to the core, the Austrians were, for a while at least, perfectly content with saying that while no economist could say anything worthwhile about price determination – and thus, any attempt at a socialist planned economy would be doomed to fail because there could be no perfectly informed coven of evil socialist economists who could administer it – they were still happy with the airy theory of market prices that they had just poked such a large hole in. Yes, they had undertaken a Leap of Faith by admitting that their logical constructions would never be whole but, as Kierkegaard well knew, every Leap of Faith needs a hero, a Knight of Faith – and the Austrians soon found theirs.

The Austrians had, although one suspects that they never fully realised this, essentially proved that their theories were inconsistent. There was always, lurking somewhere, that element that disturbed the calculation of prices in the market models.

Let us emphasise here that this element of disturbance was found, not in reality, but only in their models and in their minds. The fact is that the Austrians, even in out-stepping their neoclassical brethren, were still only exploring their own fantasies. This fact must always be kept in the front of one's mind when considering their doctrines.

We highlight this because it was precisely at this point that the Austrians could have conceded that they were building castles in the sky – ideologically and emotionally motivated castles in the sky, no less – and that it might be time to grow up and give up on the whole sordid venture of trying to establish a 'logical' 'economic' basis for 'value' that would temper them with the moral certainty they needed to carry on their political crusade. But not so. Instead they found a Kierkegaardian Knight of Faith to fill the gap in their logic. And that Knight of Faith was the entrepreneur.

The Austrian economist Israel Kirzner put it as such in his fine paper 'The Economic Calculation Debate: Lessons for Austrians' (which is also an excellent historical overview of much of what we have here been discussing):

[T]he truth is that Hayek opened the door to an entirely new perspective on the "goodness" of economic policies and institutional arrangements. Instead of judging policies or institutional arrangements in terms of the resource-allocation pattern they are expected to produce (in comparison with the hypothetically optimal allocation pattern), we can now understand the possibility of judging them in terms of their ability to promote discovery.

And this 'discovery', of course, comes from the entrepreneur who was hereafter identified by the libertarian as the social hero who broke through all barriers in the pursuit of the creation of new 'values' – and by that, we mean economic 'values' – for the community as a whole. Kizner again:

For Austrians, prices emerge in an open-ended context in which entrepreneurs must grapple with true Knightian uncertainty. This context generates precisely the kind of choice that stimulates the competitive discovery process. In this context, the entrepreneur does not treat prices as parameters out of his control but, on the contrary, represents the very causal force that moves prices in coordinating directions.

In Kierkegaard's writings which, like the writings of the Austrians sought to establish a theological metaphysic from which an individual could derive principles of moral certitude, it was the Knight of Faith – the true believer with complete faith and certainty in both himself and God – that filled in the logical gaps inherent in even the greatest philosophical systems. For the Austrians the entrepreneur filled the same role – except that this was a great hero that had both full faith in the Market and the ability to find opportunities to inject disequilibrium into the price system through innovation.

By now we are far outside the realm of anything even remotely resembling a science of 'value'. What we have instead is a vast metaphysical and moral system that is built around a very specific – not to mention very narrow – conception of value, together with a sort of existential appendage in the form of the hero-entrepreneur. The hero veneers over the logical flaws in the metaphysical system, while that system remains in place as a faith-based explanatory schema which can be applied to the world around the libertarian.

Note how fantasy blends into reality almost completely at this point. No longer do we separate our supposedly 'factual' ideas about 'value' from the mythological figure of the entrepreneur. Fact and fantasy merge to form a sort of continuum the purpose of which is to insulate the devotee from any empirical evidence that might arise to prove them wrong – or, at least, misled – regarding, for example, more fundamental and more pressing macroeconomic questions. They simply know what is what because they have it all worked out – and no silly facts are going to tell them otherwise.

From the fertile source of marginal utility value calculus the Austrians thus constructed a pristine moral and metaphysical system. But in doing so – like all metaphysicians – they allowed their imaginations to run away with them. They never noticed the point at which they crossed that fateful line; that line that separates our attempts to represent the world accurately and dispassionately to ourselves from our attempts to create a fantasy world in which we can live. The Austrians had, at first, attempted to use their imaginations to explain the world around them and, in doing so, had fallen into a dream world of their own creation.

And so the foundations of the political cult we call libertarianism were firmly in place. It is an ingenious creation which even came to include what CG Jung and other mythologists might call a central 'archetypal' or mythic figure. Even more specifically, what the Austrians have done is insert into their narrative what the great American mythologist Joseph Campbell called the 'monomyth'. The monomyth is a recurrent theme in mythologies from all over the world. It is essentially a 'hero myth' and, as Campbell argues, can be located in most major religious narratives (Christ, Buddha etc.). In this the Austrians provided the libertarian religion with their very own version of the monomyth.

That most libertarians are ignorant of the source of their beliefs – just as most of them are not very conversant with economic theory generally, their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding – only adds a sociological dimension to their cult. Their cult forms a hierarchy where those who are closer to the Grand Truth are supposed to know more than those who are less conversant. Those who are less conversant then scrutinise the Great Texts – which are largely taken to be Holy Writ – until they can advance up the priestly ranks.

The Malign Consequences of Political Cults

After experiencing what used to be called 'Bolshevism' we are well aware of the dangers of political cults if they should ever ascend to power. Indeed, we already had forewarnings of this danger in the cult of Reason that Robespierre erected in revolutionary France upon the intellectual architecture that Jean-Jacques Rousseau had constructed for him. All of these cults espouse liberty and freedom and end up creating regimes of pure tyranny. Why? Because in their violent desire to turn reality into a Utopia, they stamp all over reality as it fails to conform to the images in their minds.

Some have objected to fellow Naked Capitalism writer Andrew Dittmer's 'interview' series as an attempt to misrepresent the libertarian movement by espousing the ideas of an extremist. This is unfair. The views of people like Hoppe may be fringe among libertarians – then again, they may not be – but the zealousness is the same across the whole movement.

Libertarians think that they have unearthed a Truth that no one else can grasp (because, of course, this Truth being so pure, anyone who could possibly grasp it must then by default recognise it as Truth). And they think that if they can get adequate social and political power to enforce this Truth we will all be better off for it. Hoppe's vision of a totalitarian, corporatist future is thus realistic in that if libertarians were ever truly to get into power they would have to enact an immense violence upon the world to try to get it to conform to their vision of Utopia. In this, they are like every other political cult that has ever existed. And they are just as dangerous.

In fact, the libertarians are the direct heirs to the Marxist-Leninist throne. Even though their motives differ substantially, their Faith is based on very similar principles – which is not surprising given that both movements grew out of the same 19th century debate over economic value. In this regard it is useful to recall John Maynard Keynes' characterisation of Marxism-Leninism:

[It] is the combination of two things which Europeans have kept for some centuries in different compartments of the soul – religion and business.

Keynes also highlighted an important point about how such cults become influenetial:

[They derive their] power not from the multitude but from a small minority of enthusiastic converts whose zeal and intolerance make each one equal in strength to a hundred indifferentists.

The goal may have changed, but the unswerving faith in pseudo-scientific – or, to be very precise, in the Austrians case, because they tend to eschew 'scientific': pseudo-rational – economic doctrines has not. Let us just hope that such a cult does not deliver to us another era of primitive tyranny and medieval inquisition. It is our democracies that are at stake.

Topics: Free markets and their discontents, Guest Post, Politics, Science and the scientific method, Social policy, Social values, The destruction of the middle class, The dismal science

Email This Post Posted by Yves Smith at 4:53 am

214 Comments:
Fraud Guy:

Having had some discussions with locally minted Libertarians (huge on Mises, Paul, and "free" markets), I run into constantly shifting arguments on value, policy, and the economy. However, the one thing they constantly return to, is that the value settled by the free market is always correct, and all constraints on that (taxes, minimum wage, etc.) should be abolished. When I ask why money should be the medium of value for all interaction, they look like I asked why the pope should be Catholic.

At least I finally got them to admit that crony capitalism should be abolished, though they still see Obama as a communist sympathiser.

chase:

I don't fully understand all this Libertarian nonsense. I have read Hayek's Road to Serfdom quite carefully, however, and find nothing in it with which to seriously disagree. His essential point is that we need government to create rules which are binding on all economic actors. Obviously, they must be sound rules. In particular, the rules must eliminate monopoly, and Hayek saw monopoly as a big problem. What Hayek was against was economic micromanagement by government. What he was in favor of was individual freedom. What I wonder is how many of those bashing Hayek day to day have actually read his book, and how many would disagree with what he says if they did read it.

E. Lope:

Like many others, what I know of The Road to Serfdom is second-hand.

I see a parallel in the selective information drawn from Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations. I was supposed to read the entire thing for a class (~40 years ago, when the conservative economists were Keynesian), and I still have a copy. Many later interpretations – Ricardo comes to mind – are often attributed to Smith.

Come to think of it, few who criticize and few who idolize Marx have actually read him. My favorite quote attributed to him: "If this is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist".

In all these cases, they should be read with some thought to the context of the world as it was. I have the ideas that Smith was leading-edge for 1776, Marx/Engels were leading-edge for mid-19th Century, Hayek, no so much.

Lidia

I would ask, too, whether most who define themselves as libertarians have read his work. I read "The Road to Serfdom" a while back, and there were plentiful references to the sort of social safety nets that are anathema to today's libertarian crowd.

"There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision."

He was also against laissez-faire capitalism, a position I strain to perceive in anyone claiming to be a libertarian these days.

Ransome

Because laissez-faire capitalism inevitably leads to bankruptcy. There may be different paths, but bankruptcy is inevitable. Why? Because it almost impossible to earn wealth in quantities to grow. 99.999% of capitalists borrow money at interest. Several missed payments results in foreclosure or collateral confiscation; collateral worth more than the loan.

If only earned wealth was used, several negative months would mean a small decrease in wealth by selling a small amount of what formerly was collateral. Success or failure depends on the nature and use of capital, by you and your competitors. It becomes clear why lenders win most of the time and why businesses fail, most of the time. In fact, a person with debt walks a tightrope. A person without debt walks on the ground. If I were Libertarian, I would be on about debt and not just a debt based fiat currency.

Lidia
Ransome, "from your lips to God's ears" as the faithful say.
UnlearningEcon

Libertarianism *is* an ideology based on neoclassical economics, in fact I was planning to do a post on it myself. Their entire idea of ethics is based on rational economic man, neoclassical bizzare-o world of governments versus markets, and the economy as some sort of magic entity that springs up out of nowhere, with no political and social institutions required.

GeorgeNYC

Absolutely (dare I use that word) great analysis.

I fear that we are losing our ability to understand that these abstractions were originally designed to give us a framework for trying to understand reality rather than as a substitute for it. The map is not the territory. We crave easy proxies for understanding the world. It is far simpler to look at the Dow Jones average than to even start to understand the complexity of an economy.

I see all of this analysis as to what "should" be done to "save the financial system" which takes place entirely in this abstract world.

Darren Kenworthy

Who are you writing to? If a non dogmatic "libertarian" who identifies as one simply because they like the idea of "liberty", in the sense of "maximum freedom for everyone", would they find your piece convincing?

Darren Kenworthy

I meant to start sentence two "If the reader were an non dogmatic 'libertarian'…would they find your piece convincing.".

Christophe

The author is clearly not writing to your non-dogmatic libertarians as he gives no indication that he considers there to be any such entities. He specifically notes that "the zealousness is the same across the whole movement."

Given his historical contextualizing of libertarianism, exposing of its intellectual inconsistencies, and identifying of its cult characteristics, Mr. Pilkington is apparently writing to opponents of libertarianism to provide them with more nuanced arguments for their critiques. But you already know that and were feigning ignorance in posing the rhetorical question above.

Jesse

Where is all this libertarian-bashing coming from all the sudden, Yves? Why does an anarchist like David Graeber (who I like a great deal) not have his ideas come under similar scrutiny, and instead get a column promoting his ideas? The buck obviously stops with you – no one is questioning that – but it's not like Atlas Shrugged just hit #1 on Amazon.com within the last 2 weeks.

JTFaraday

Slow news day.

Yves Smith

First, I've been regularly hard on libertarians. In case you missed it, the Dittmer piece was designed as a six part series. Pilkington sent in this piece and actually wanted me to run it Monday. I told him we needed to finish the Dittmer series first.

Second, only one Graeber piece was on his anarchism (and that was his piece arguing it was influential in OWS. I put a big caveat at the top, since my experience in NYC is that anarchists have a minor role in OWS. Otpor is a much bigger influence). There was also a two part interview on his book, which was about the history of debt, not anarchy.

RanDomino

I'm guessing it helps that he's an actual scientist as opposed to one of these praxeologist (autocorrect: "parasitologist," how Freudian) madmen. People tend to have a little more credibility when they base their argument on empirical observation of reality.

Jesse

I like him a great deal. I just don't see how libertarianism is more far-fetched than anarchism; libertarianism is rooted in certain schools of anarchism, is it not?

Foppe

Not really. Anarchism is about emergent/democratic organization and sharing/giving according to ability/needs (at least when it comes to subsistence needs), whereas libertarians at best ignore the issue of social organization entirely (because of their emphasis on the importance of negative liberty).

Redistributionism, from a libertarian PoV, is extremely hard if not impossible to argue for coherently - even for left-libs, who are amenable to the general idea.

RanDomino

No. Modern "Libertarianism" has an extremely tenuous connection to 19th century Anarchism, by way of Individualism which was never very influential.

The fundamental difference between Libertarianism and Anarchism is their mutually exclusive ideas of property ownership and use; Libertarians should really be called "Propertarians" because they have this quasi-religious belief in "property rights" (by which they mean title-based property ownership); Anarchist property is based on use (whoever uses a thing is its owner, and if a thing ceases to be personally and tangibly used by a person then they no longer have any claim to it; for example an empty building, if no one can explain how they intend to use it, is up for grabs, with the consent of neighbors if any activity that occurs there might affect them). Usufruct is probably the closest word for the Anarchist concept of legitimate property use-ownership.

Anarchists are against both government AND capitalism, because we recognize that the only irreplaceable function of a government/State is to maintain and protect property titles. Capitalism cannot exist without some single, central, indisputable agency carrying out this function; multiple agencies would either maintain conflicting lists or merge their lists and create a system to ensure that they were constantly in sync (which is effectively the same as having a single list). Disputes (real or invented) may not be resolved through violence, but if history is any indication, whoever things they can get an upper hand through violence would not hesitate to do so. A war of all against all and eventual domination by Leviathan, establishing their sole authority over the property title registry, would result; capitalism with no government would shortly create a new government.

Furthermore we think that the vaunted "exchange" of capitalism, regardless of a formal government, is itself coercive. The idea of "I'll give you this if you give me that" can be turned into a threat: "I won't give you this *unless* you give me that." If the desired good is necessary to life, such as food or shelter, then the price can be determined more by coercion than by the function of efficient market forces. Anyone who's been employed in a low-skill job in a time of high unemployment knows very well to shut up and not complain about speed-ups and dropping wages.

Instead of capitalism, we advocate "gift economics," a system based on free giving rather than exchange. As David Graeber pointed out in that earlier article here, this was the standard form of social economic activity for nearly all of human history, so genetically we're very well adapted to it. Even today, if you were to calculate the dollar value of every gift given (including services such as helping someone get their car out of a snowbank or telling them the time while on a subway ride, physical gifts from the more formal kind at birthdays and holidays to informal kinds like food sharing, letting the neighbor borrow your weed trimmer, etc), it would probably rival the "real" economy. The fact is that people are generally decent; giving and contributing increases a person's dignity, which is the real motivation for most people. it's just a few sociopaths who have convinced us that we're as materially selfish as they.

On a larger scale, there is the highly-developed Anarcho-Syndicalism, which rivaled Communism in the 1910s-early '20s and which was the driving force behind the Spanish Revolution in 1936 (which was brutally crushed by Communist betrayal, a mistake we will not make again). Anarcho-Syndicalism is a proposal for a system in which workers control their workplaces through direct democracy, organized industrially and between industries by organizational federations to make decisions about production and distribution.

A consequence of gift economics is that this whole insufferable debate about the best way to determine "value" in either the Marxian or neoclassical sense is wholly superfluous, which I find delightful in the same way Alexander must have felt when he cut the Gordian knot. There is no need to measure use-value or exchange-value; just whether or not people are fed, living in decent houses, have good books, etc; there's no "X" but just "yes vs no" and "more vs less". If, as this article says, arguing over value is like religion, Anarchism is atheist.

Goin' South

RanDomino does a nice job of explicating the differences between Anarchism and Propertarianism above, but your question does raise a valid point. Given the criteria Pilkington sets, he would need to call Anarchism a "cult" as well. This is odd, since it was Pilkington who did such a friendly interview of Graeber that initially brought the anarchist to the attention of readers here.

I read Pilkington's argument as essentially a defense of reformist approaches to political economy that preserve the status quo. After all, he cites Keynes as an authority on his side. Any perspective so radically different from the status quo, that urges overturning it in what would amount to a revolution, risks being labeled as a "cult" under the criteria put forth in this article.

Pilkington would do better to look a bit deeper for the source of danger in some Utopian ideas or perspectives that seek to answer the Big Questions about how people can live together. He does, at one point, mention the Bolskeviks. Bolsheviks were Marxists who thought they were an elite vanguard morally authorized to take over a revolution, ruthlessly dominate it and establish their own version of a proletarian dictatorship by violently quashing all opposition. Remember that not all Marxists are Bolsheviks, though anarchists since Bakunin have warned that this idea of a proletarian dictatorship started the ball rolling down the road to tyranny.

As we've read in this great series on Propertarians over the past several days, these Randian types are extremely elitist as well. They are little more than crude social Darwinists who hate all our impulses toward mutual aid and egalitarianism.

In that love for an elite lies the real danger. Bolshevism/Leninism and Propertarianism both depend on that love.

As for a willingness to tackle Big Questions in a way that might expose the status quo as illegitimate and ready to be discarded, do we really want to be so worshipful of what is that we label any who would dare to advocate its overthrow as cult members?

Stephen Nightingale

RanDomino: "Anarchists are against both government AND capitalism"

Well, not exactly. I see them as being against externally imposed government(underwritten by government monopoly on violence), and the absentee landlord and limited liability type of capitalism. If it is to last at all, anarchism has to be self-governing. This doesn't preclude community marshalling of resources in the creation of what amount to capital goods.

Anarchism hasn't had any persistent large scale successes because it hasn't solved the problem of the proper use of violence – as a Pandora that goes back in the box when not needed.

Nikhil

Goin' South

I'm not sure that Pilkington's discussion of a cult applies to what RanDomino said about anarchism.

In describing a cult Pilkington says that the defining moment is an embrace of a certain conception of value as being morally correct. Whatever outcomes are produced by this embrace are considered "good" as they stem from an adherence to this value system. If any injustices occur from they are the acceptable sacrifice needed to stave off the inevitably greater moral decay and chaos that abandoning the original value would create. It is a belief that real outcomes cannot be managed at the expense of a founding idea.

What RanDomino states is that anarchism is more interested in outcomes. Do people have enough to eat? A place to live? etc. If not then something must be done to correct these unjust outcomes. True that the most "good" tool to accomplish this according to anarchists is democratic process but this is not the same as the establishment of a "value" that Pilkington talks about. If the outcomes of a democratic process are unjust then they should be revisited through democratic means. Its messy but it is a belief that real outcomes are prime, a normative idea of politics.

Jesse

Thanks for the replies guys – found them interesting and spent a while on wikipedia reading up.

LeonovaBalletRusse

Correct. This history is traced succinctly in:

Chapter 8: "The Tomb Raiders of the Postmoern Right: Junger's Anarch, the Neocon, and the Bogus Hermeneutics of Leo Strauss, in "THE IDEOLOGY OF TYRANNY: Bataille, Foucault, and the Postmodern Corruption of Political Dissent" by Guido Giacomo Preparata (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)– a work of dense, superlative research.

Lidia

RanDomino, thanks very much for your reply to Jesse! I am only just exploring now what it means to be an "official" anarchist, but it is a very liberating feeling in a way that both "liberalism" and "libertarianism" manage to avoid for me.

As I look back over my life, I see that it has always been marked by a strong reaction against arbitrary authority, although I never recognized it as such. I opened a small business because I couldn't stand being an employee; while my business thrived, I didn't cause it to grow because neither I nor my two partners could stand being bosses. I left the US, and as an ex-pat the artificial concepts of nations couldn't be more transparent to me.

Really, these concepts are such huge forms of TAXATION on our human spirit as well as on the planet's resources that it is often depressing to contemplate the power they have over most people. I like your phrase very much about anarchy being the "atheism" of artificial economic constructs and, while this may not have been your meaning, the taxation certainly extends to most modern-day religions.

Piano Racer

I wanted to second Lidia in thanking RanDomino for his insightful replies. I have a few questions:

* If property rights are determined by use, how do you decide when a property is "unoccupied"? Can I occupy a huge mansion, or do I need to "maximize its utility"? Who makes these determinations, and who enforces them? Or is it just the consensus of the "neighbors"? What if I build a house and want my kids to have it after I am gone, who decides that? As the current occupier, do I have discretion on who is "first in line" if I leave? What if I take a 6-month vacation but intend to return, do I need to let others use it while I am gone, and would I have any claim when I returned?

* If there is no personal property, how can an individual prepare for the future? Right now I can use my extra income to purchase several years worth of food and water, etc. Would I be able to "accumulate" ("hoard", some might define it) under your system? If not, how can I save wealth for a future when it may be needed, i.e. a period of drought? Or is the assumption that communities would make these sorts of preparations collectively?

The thing I like most about RanDomino's comments is how his clear, thoughtful explanation did not resort to childish name calling and unnecessary pejoratives, which I cannot say about Mr. Pilkington:

"today's most popular political cult – that is, libertarianism" – I'd argue that today's most popular political cult is the ridiculous left/right paradigm that pervades the mainstream media – Mr. Pilkington's "cult", no doubt.

"the glazed eyes of their devotees." – wow.

"They never for one moment questioned that" – 100% subjective emotional language that adds nothing to the argument.

"they simply threw up their arms and claimed that such inconsistency showed just how true theory was and how much we should respect it" – What is added by using such emotionally-appealing and obviously completely subjective language?

I could go on, with this and many other posts by Phil.
He clearly has a negative emotional component to what he writes, and at least for me it is a huge turnoff and makes it difficult for me to take his arguments seriously.

RanDomino

Thanks! It's a lot easier to be positive when you have a good idea of what you're *for*… I suppose I'm a fanatic, of the same sort described in the article. I try to stay skeptical and grounded about what I think, for what that's worth.

-Property rights. There is no clear, simple answer as to when something is abandoned. To prove that something is abandoned would mean proving that no one is using it- proving a negation; impossible. Instead, we can rely on human intuition- Are there signs that it's in use? If people are physically using it at the moment, ask them about it. If there's no one around, see how long it's been unused for clues if the last users are coming back. Ask neighbors. It takes due diligence. This can be streamlined if communities are organized and keep track of their environs.

If you want to 'abandon' some property to someone in particular, just give it to them.

I don't think any kind of firm time limits make sense. If you're planning on coming back, the safest thing to do would be to let your neighbors/community know. But then again if you say you'll be back in 6 months and you're not back for three years, you might be out of luck. Like I said, there are no firm, one-size-fits-all rules; there can't be. But intuition is pretty universal. There might be some flubs but, "Whoops, didn't realize you were still using that," is a hell of a lot better than, "You're trespassing, you have to sleep on the street."

-Personal property. Okay, let me expand on gift economics. Like I said, in Anarchist economics property is owned by the user(s). This means that anything you produce in conjunction with others is the collective property of all who collaborated on it, and whatever you produce yourself is your exclusive property, free to use or hoard or give away or destroy. The same general choices are available to a group with its collective property; decisions should be made using the Consensus process that Occupy Wall Street is popularizing (or something similar; this is, of course, only a recommendation). A productive collective, for example a farm or clothing factory or shipyard or whatever, can do with its product whatever it wants.

Precisely how a collective or individual distributes their product is up to their choosing. They could join with a cross-industrial federation of collectives which can organize distribution both within the supply chain and to society. The 'classical' Syndicalist organizational scheme was that EVERY workplace would be part of ONE labor federation which would distribute to ALL of humanity. I think the ideas have gotten a little more refined since then (I'm not too proud to admit that Syndicalism was an influence of Italian Fascism, which many Syndicalists there joined in the 1920s after their movement had been crushed, and the Spanish Falangist economic philosophy to a lesser extent).

Actually, the market might be a better system. The simplest I think I can put it right now is that each collective would make individual arrangements to accept material inputs from other collectives (for example a clothes factory might offer to take wool or cotton from nearby farms), and in turn arrange with other collectives or communities for distribution, with nothing given 'upstream' in exchange. Why would anyone give their product to someone 'downstream'? Because that's what keeps the economy functioning. Unfortunately, this hasn't been tried on a large scale, but I'm pretty sure it's where the thinking is headed.

sorry about the tangent there, but hopefully that illustrates a little better how an Anarchist economy might function.

More to your question in particular- Your personal property is yours, even if you're not using it at precisely that moment; it's enough to have at least somewhat credible plans for it. Setting aside a few tons of dry goods 'just in case' is probably fine; trying to claim everyone needs to get out of New York because you'll need it to focus your psychic powers against an invasion of aliens from the 17th dimension will probably not earn you many takers.

On "hoarding"; one of the most important Anarchist books is titled "The Conquest of Bread," the point being that technological improvements have made real scarcity a thing of the past. The scarcity we think exists is a result of capitalism- destroying what is useful because those who need it have no money; creating artificial scarcity to drive up prices; diverting resources to frivolities for the "1%"; inventing new "needs" like televisions, exotic vacations, and 2.5 cars in every garage; raising rent to drive people out to build condos for yuppies. I live well on about $6000/year (and it could be even less if I didn't have to pay for property) by cutting away everything that's not a necessity, such as healthy food, or extremely useful, such as indoor plumbing. I see people spend scads of money on so much worthless crap and it makes me sick. People don't live like that because they want to, but because they feel they're supposed to. Capitalism has destroyed community, which is where real fulfillment is found; it's made us dependent on alienating jobs and consumerism, rather than liberating us through self-sufficiency so we can freely and respectably contribute as free equals.

sorry, off-track a little again- I meant for my argument there to be that if capitalism wasn't creating all these artificial scarcities and fake demands, there would be so much excess that you wouldn't be able to hoard enough for it to be noticeable even if you tried. So, yeah, go ahead, if you want to stock up. Whatever you're given, whatever you produce, and whatever you find that's abandoned, is yours, to do with as you please.

Jessica

I am reading his book about debt now. It is teaching me a lot. I would be curious to hear sometime the reactions of others who read it.

Anentropic

I welcome it because elucidating their ideas helps to highlight how influential they have become, in many ways it feels like we are all living in their world at the moment.

Jesse

Actually, this is a libertarians worst nightmare. Endless wars in multiple countries, NSA-spying on citizens/PATRIOT Act, socialism for the super rich, etc.

F. Beard

True. But many "libertarians" would enslave us to gold (and therefor to usury), probably unwittingly.

Piano Racer says:

Libertarians do not want to force anyone on a gold standard, they just want the market to decide what is used as money rather than have it be dictated to them by the government. History has shown that precious metals are well-suited to that task, and hence many libertarians argue for their use, not to be forced down the throats of those who do not want to use them but to be freely chosen by all.

RanDomino

You're thinking too socially. What the modern, so-called "Libertarians" value above all is profit, and who can deny that their Knights of Faith are making a killing off those things?

Lidia

I don't think that what we are faced with is -at all- libertarians' "worst nightmare". Rather, I think that it is libertarians' dream situation, albeit one that they are hard-pressed to justify in front of their fellow citizens.

Jesse

You're so lazy you didn't even offer a single rebuttal to any of the issues – all of which are core libertarian issues – I raised.

LeonovaBalletRusse

Jesse, these issues were addressed in the fifties, and it was acknowledged that the key to *fixity*, to stasis for *elite DNA monopoly on real property was *inherited wealth*–mostly finessed through so-called family *Trusts* today.

The key to *equality* and mobility of capital from generation to generation is the elimination of inherited wealth, which ipso facto leads to monopoly by DNA sets. We can see how much of *the pie of all wealth* must expand per DNA set in the multiple-marriage-multiple birth generational expansion within just one such set: The House of Saud. But this works the same for the House of Bush, the House of Morgan, the House of Rockefeller, in which the *maternal* dynastic names remain obscure.

It's all about: "My DNA uber alles forever." Brian Sykes's "ADAM'S CURSE" makes this clear. As resources become scarcer, the potential for violence and catastrophic breakdown becomes greater. The DNA sets that monopolize the wealth today will in the future need *MORE* for themselves.

This is why the abolition of inheritance taxes is key to the Reich Principals and their cult collaborators.

As proposed in the fifties, inheritance taxes are for amateurs. Inherited wealth itself must be forbidden, whether through *Trusts* or otherwise. IDA TARBELL's complaints against the *Standard Oil Trust* and its murderous monopoly hold true for *Family Trusts*.

Lidia

I'm not "so lazy".

If you are interested (not that you might be beyond the abstract) in a personal reaction from me:
"Actually, this is a libertarian's worst nightmare. Endless wars in multiple countries, NSA-spying on citizens/PATRIOT Act, socialism for the super rich, etc."

I am totally against endless wars in multiple countries.
I am totally against NSA spying on citizens.
I am totally against socialism for the super-rich.

What made you think otherwise?

What an odd, reactionary, comment…

Aside from these targeted issues, "libertarians" continue to have gross lacunae as far as real people constructing real societies are concerned.

Lidia

I truly thought it was a parody, a spoof of libertarianism.

K Ackermann

Something that I've always found ironic with Atlas Shrugged is the use of a railroad for Taggart's company. Railroads were about the most heavily subsidized industry by the US government.

It's not surprising. A great number of the most important inventions and technologies have been prompted by government initiatives.

;Moneta

The whole movement is a farce. Up here in Canada, people are buying into austerity and shrinking government.

The problem is that I can't see how we'll employ our better educated population by relying on the private sector as R&D usually happens outside Canada if government does not intervene. We import most of our consumer products (added value) and export resources (low added value). That's not a healthy long term strategy if you ask me.

Without government, I don't see anything big happening in Canada because the risks are too high for the size of our companies; but for some reason, Canadians have been buying into the libertariais view that government should disappear.

Capitalism is not a one-size-fits-all system. Each country has its own issues where in some collectivism works better than individualism and vice versa. It depends on the geography, the climate, the distribution of population, the resources, etc.

And America the gorilla has been forcing everyone's hand into its own worldview which could be good for itself but not necessarily for others.

Philip Pilkington

I was less interested in Graeber's ideology - which I am unsympathetic toward - than in his academic work. I don't think he lets his ideology tamper with the historical work he did on debt.

He is also an intellectual leader of OWS which is why I commissioned the OWS article from him and presented it to Yves. (Which I don't think was just a shameless plug for his ideology).

Put simply (and I think Yves would largely agree with me): you can be a Martian for all I care as long as your academic or intellectual work is up to scratch. If a libertarian or an Austrian publishes a book as relevant as Graeber's was you can be sure I'll be looking them up for an interview - even though they probably won't give it to me now that attacked their dodgy ideology…

Jardinero1

I think you engaged in quite a bit of projection of what you think the "libertarian" believes. You also extoll a cohesive whole among libertarians where none exists. If there is no cohesive whole there can hardly be a cult. No two libertarians agree on much. The few things that Austrians might agree on could be:

1. self ownership
2. any system which has less coercion is preferred to one with more coercion
3. value is a subjective measure that varies from one person to the next and over time.

Yves Smith:

Your #2 is a Trojan horse. For libertarians and Austrians, the only source of coercion is the state, which is empirically untrue. Plenty of wealthy private parties have had large private armies (you even have that now among oil oligarchs in Russia). If you think large scale enterprise does not have coercive power (and coercion goes beyond the right to use violence), you are missing a big part of the equation.

Robert Heilbroner has a great discussion of how commerce now assumes many of the coercive functions formerly in the hands of the state in his book Behind the Veil of Economics.

Jardinero1

I don't believe one can correctly state that "libertarians and Austrians, the only source of coercion is the state". Such sweeping generalizations about any group or system of thought are patently false.

I think few seriously think or would say "but for the state there would be no coercion or violence". Fewer still believe that that the only source of coercion is the state. Most would agree with you and freely admit that there are numerous other sources of coercion and violence. That isn't the issue. The issue is what are the consequences of the state monopoly on violence?

Austrians take different positions on the consequences of the state monopoly on coercion and violence. Some Austrians would say that the state can do very little to temper those other sources of coercion and violence(so why bother with the state?). Others would posit that the state exacerbates violence by granting the privilege of violence to some and withholding it from others(so limit the state or get rid of it). Others would say that the state harms more through its own violence, via wars abroad, against vice at home and incarceration, than people would do to themselves without the state as an actor.

LeonovaBalletRusse

Yes, Yves, "L'etat c'est moi" said BigOil via Bush-Cheney, with "I am the Decider" and "apres moi le deluge." Same with BTBTF, and *DefenseSecurity* fiefdoms. These breed corporate and dynastic monarchs, who are now *the state*.

Jesse

Appreciate you taking the time to reply – I honestly didn't remember you being the one to write the Graeber article until people referenced it in the comments.

Jesse

Correction, I should have said "presented", not "wrote". I also understand the distinction you're making, it was about Graeber's OWS affiliation, not his political ideas.

I just get the feeling that libertarianism is singled out lately on the blog, even though it's as marginalized (the majority of the TEA party, which itself is a relatively small group, is NOT libertarian) an ideology as many others that will never be targeted here.

Lidia

I get the feeling, instead, that libertarianism is given a full and fair airing, and is found lacking, resulting in libertarians' calling 'foul' when the ideology to them dear is rightly deemed insufficient.

LeonovaBalletRusse

You assume your work is *up to scratch*?

RanDomino

Sometimes I think it's great how we're making progress dispelling popular myths about political economics, philosophy, and social justice and the history thereof. Then I read things like the first paragraph of this.

Foppe

It is akin to blaming Darwin for the rise of social Darwinism/Nazi eugenics, yes.

RanDomino

In this case, Marx really advocated the policies and strategies that the Bolsheviks would make infamous. What I'm referring to is the idea that Marxism is aaaaall about the labor theory of value.

It seems that most non-Marxians (and non-anti-capitalist) criticism of Marxism begins and ends there; never mind that practically all of them miss that what Marxian economics means by value is not what classical and neoclassical economics means by value.

It's like the Saturday Night Live sketch about 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea with the characters repeatedly confusing depth and distance traveled.

LeonovaBalletRusse

Remember: they change the meanings of words to suit their nefarious purposes.

Whatever

Arrogant and condescending. All human viewpoints are essentially religious - or at least metaphysical - in origin. (Including your own.) Some model reality better than others. The argument that complex systems demonstrate emergent behavior that cannot be predicted from a study of the individual parts is not unique to Austrian economics.

It also underpins much contemporary biological and computational science. The fallacy committed by the (right)-libertarians is in conflating the prevailing corporatist system, which is enabled by massive state intervention in the economy on behalf of capital, with a "free market", and assuming that the grossly distorted outcomes of this privilege-based externality engine are both necessary and just.

Foppe

which is enabled by massive state intervention in the economy on behalf of capital, with a "free market", and assuming that the grossly distorted outcomes of this privilege-based externality engine are both necessary and just.

But given that every society is historical in this manner, how on earth are you ever going to force a 'reset' of good except through heavy redistribution via some form of institution such as the state (which all libertarians oppose)? I mean, sure right-wing libertarians are dishonest in pretending all historical distributions are fair, but what 'libertarian' way is there to effect a reset?

Whatever

Squatting. Adverse possession. Homesteading of (semi-)public property. Kevin Carson does a better job of tackling this subject than I ever could:

http://www.mutualist.org/id45.html

The simple fact of that matter is that not everyone who self-identifies as a libertarian is a capitalist/corporate flack. There are anti-capitalist forms of libertarianism that this article ignores or dismisses in an effort to paint all libertarians are quasi-religious zealots gripped by an irrational distrust of the state and/or faith in the market. That the state can likewise be viewed as an object of idolatrous worship is never considered. Only the libertarian "religion" is false; the author's own beliefs are True.

RanDomino

I think it's time to give up the word "libertarian" to the Propertarians. They got it; which is fine because we don't really need it anyway.

Self Governor

Foppe wrote:
"But given that every society is historical in this manner, how on earth are you ever going to force a 'reset' of good except through heavy redistribution via some form of institution such as the state (which all libertarians oppose)? I mean, sure right-wing libertarians are dishonest in pretending all historical distributions are fair, but what 'libertarian' way is there to effect a reset?"

The answer is fairly simple – change the culture. If anybody has ever read PJ O'Rourke's book, "EAT THE RICH," they will understand it does not matter what sort of political-economic regime exists that determines "good" or "bad," but what the culture of the people that constitute such regimes allow/practice. Morals and virtues are encoded in culture, and culture -I submit more or less- determines conduct.

reason

"The argument that complex systems demonstrate emergent behavior that cannot be predicted from a study of the individual parts is not unique to Austrian economics."

1. That doesn't actually seem to be emphasized in the methodoly of "Austrian" economics at all, except as an excuse to avoid empiricism.
2. In other fields that is a reason to study both the individual AND the macro system.

LeonovaBalletRusse

Indeed, they have *bought the lie*, and their handlers have been well-paid to bring this outcome from their dupes.

Carlito Quesare

I have to say that the last week's worth of guest posts are going to push more small "L" libertarians away from NakedCapitalism then it's going to convert to the guest authors' equally cultish economic dogmas.

These are not academic articles or white papers being passed about in parlors, Yves knows her audience and she must know she brings in a good number of small "L" libertarians who don't really trust Harry Browne any more than Paul Krugman.

For those productive individuals that are less philosophically educated in the depth and breadth of the last 150 years of 'economics' as a (pseudo)-science, small "L" libertarianism IS a rather well thought out explanatory framework of their own personal experiences in the business world and in society as a whole.

There are many paths to enlightenment and only in Western societies would there be Pilkington's implied framework that there can only be one correct philosophy to reach a higher state of enlightenment in one's path in this lifetime. Pilkington is imposing through implications a whole lot of Western philosphies of 'value' that are not universally accepted in the Eastern world along the lines of 'Knight', 'hero', etc.

Yves Smith

The Pilkington piece can be criticized for being more abrasive than it needed to be. However, you have an insinuation in your comment, which is basically that I had better stop running this sort of post or lose "small l" libertarians.

I don't take well to subtle or overt threats.

I don't know what you mean by "small l" libertarians, since the doctrines of libertarianism are sufficiently extreme that anyone who says he subscribes to what he thinks is a nicer form is 1. simply throwing his weight in with the others, like it or not and 2. almost certainly has not thought through the implications of the doctrine. That was the big virtue of the Dittmer series. Hoppe in fact merely carries out libertarianism to its logical conclusion. What looks like extremism is in fact simply honesty.

Moreover, I'm not sympathetic with your contention that "small l" libertarianism is justified because it is somehow validated by the experience of small businesspeople. Huh? No, small businesspeople are NOT isolated Randian heros creating something out of nothing. Studies of successful entrepreneurs show the most common type is someone who worked in an industry, saw a niche opportunity the big dogs missed, and pursued it.

To pretend the success of an individual is not the result of the contribution of many others requires a special type of blindness. Language, double entry bookkeeping, plumbing, his prior work experience, his access to raw materials, etc. all come from his participation in a broader society. And he owes a debt to it.

F. Beard

And he owes a debt to it. Yves Smith

Literally, if his success was financed by loans from a bank. The purchasing power for those loans (since loans create deposits) was taken from every money holder including and especially the poor.

F. Beard

Pardon the lack of quote marks or italics on Yves' comment.

Th3T1ck

I have to agree with the previous poster. I found the Dittmer posts inflammatory and misleading. I thought they used a strawman (anarchy as libertarianism), based on attribution of right of force to private insurance companies. I also thought the posts deliberately ignored the primary ethical point of libertarianism, which is that personal freedom must be paramount. Furthermore, there was no recognition of the place of justice in a libertarian state. This is another critical tenet that seemed to be misrepresented. Because of these things, the posts seemed like bash jobs.

I recognize that NC is a progressive oriented blog. I value the insights here, particularly the detailed and knowledgeable analysis on matters of economic fraud. I don't mind at all seeing libertarianism challenged (it's always good to test ideas from other views). But I think that the Dittmer posts were lower quality than what I usually see at NC (if it was a test of libertarianism), and seemed more targeted to inflame than to provoke reconsideration.

Piano Racer

Hear hear, seconded. It's disappointing to see such low-quality ideologically-driven smear campaign on these hallowed pages. If that's what I want I read the Huffington Post. I am thankful that a handful of commentators are interested in having an actual discussion, though my respect for Yves and her blog has marginally decreased.

I hope she can read that feedback without feeling "threatened".

Phichibe

Yves,

What can I say to your words than: Bravo!

I come to NC for your absolute integrity and fearlessness. I don't come because I agree with everything you or anyone else writes. If the libertarians (big L or small l) want to leave, I won't miss their contributions. Likewise w/t anarcho-syndicalist-blah-blah-blah utopians.

The truth of the matter is that we are in the worst economic crisis of that last 80 years, and it may be the worst in 200 years if the laissez-faire dogma is not dislodged from its stranglehold on Western societies. I think NC is one of the most vital platforms in the effort to fight this intellectually and morally corrupt 'cult', to borrow Pilkington's term, and I'm with you 100%.

Philippe B/Phichibe

Jessica

"Language, double entry bookkeeping, plumbing, his prior work experience, his access to raw materials, etc. all come from his participation in a broader society. And he owes a debt to it."
Yes. Very yes.
This is exactly the point that is lost/ignored/suppressed nowadays. Particularly by rent collectors of various stripes.
Having read half of David Graeber's book, I would like to take a shot at rephrasing the last sentence without using the language of debt. Something along the lines of "all those who contributed to the accomplishment should be rewarded and some of that is the contribution of the society as a whole that no one person or company or the government can claim to have made."
Well, I admit it was more succinct in the language of debt.

casino implosion

I for one applaud Yves in tackling the libertarians.

There seems to be a slowly growing awareness of the danger posed by this ideology.

The Dittmer series was especially well-done.

Jesse

There seems to be a slowly growing awareness of the danger posed by this ideology.

Yeah, remember when libertarians ordered the invasion of multiple countries based on naive ideas (or outright lies), gave the NSA the right to spy on citizens, the CIA the right to assassinate Americans, and then bailed out banking fraudsters who were finally going to have to eat their losses?

Philip Pilkington

So, you're saying we'd better not engage the libertarian movement or we might lose readers? That sounds like a threat a cult member would make.

The criticism above may be sharp tongued, but it is not polemical, it is rational. If your doctrine cannot hold up to rational criticism that is the fault of said doctrine.

Carlito Quesare

This is a reply to Phillip and Yves.
First off, I agree with Phillip's conclusion paragraphs.
Secondly, I was trying to state that Phillip should have more clearly stated in his article, what he posted in the follwing comment:

Philip Pilkington says:
December 7, 2011 at 11:35 am
I assume that everyone grasped that I was referring to the Mises.org crowd and notto people who label themselves 'libertarian' in a rather vague sense.

Reply

That being said, I already went through the mises.org phase of my life and read almost everything on the website as was available in late '99 to early 2000. Been there, done that, I'm over it.

Most people do not see any of the -Isms as the pundit class sees them, entrepreneurs just see competing ideas in the marketplace of ideas of which the only constant is no -Ism is perfect.

The casual NC reader who is inclined towards the ethical/philosophical side of small "L" libertarianism have little in common with Rothbardian large "L" Libertarian Party activists and Porcupine Project activists that Phillip is parrying with here.

It's offputting to any casual NC reader who follows a "live and let live" philosophy but hasn't spent a few hundred hours reading econ papers from prior centuries, the refutation requires intimate knowledge of highly contentious historical accounts of lecture hall debates and parlor papers where there was no clear victor and no clear consensus until decades after the 'three Austrians' were either feeble minded or deceased. The lens of hindsight can bend light in either way, in his later life Schumpeter most definitely DID NOT hold the concept of 'value' as Phillip described. Almost everything Schumpeter wrote after '40 that was not a rehash of his earlier works was absolutely the opposite of what Phillip is implying. IDK how many causal NC readers will know that, heck, if it wasn't for a stalwart big "L" Libertarian also my professor and Econ/Finance advisor taking me under his wing for a few years I wouldn't have known that… who the heck has time to read about the earliest stabs at dynamic systems when most IT guys use the matured dynamic systems science to regularly create new databases?

On that, your opponents don't bring up the position papers from the Second Internationale to describe current failings of neoclassical and modern liberal politics and economic policies. Because no one outside of historians and professional agitators/fifth estaters have time to rehash the socioeconomic political theater of the age of battleships and cavalry charges.

All -Isms build theoretical ideal constructs to instruct the masses. What's the rest of the argument?

Dan G.

I think if you call all libertarians as subscribing to a cult, you cannot expect to us to assume that you asking for a reasoned debate with libertarians, but it's opposite.

And no, why would anyone assume you were just referring to the mises.org crowd (who are not always fans of Hayek) when you never referred to the website at all in your article?

PL_2

Rational is not the first word I would use.

It seemed more like a somewhat opaque philosophical and metaphysical polemic.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. All of our points of view have philosophical and metaphysical underpinnings. Like 'value.'

JTFaraday

"small "L" libertarianism IS a rather well thought out explanatory framework of their own personal experiences in the business world and in society as a whole."

No it isn't an "explanatory framework" of experience. But it is a way for people situated in certain ways to politically promote their own (increasingly narrowly understood) self interest, which is what it's been since Locke. ie., it is a justificatory framework.

And that's more than we're going to get with the MMT cult's Stalinistic austerian minimum wage work farm, so it has that much in its favor.

LeonovaBalletRusse

It's the NeoConfederate Romance: the Holy Grail of Finance.

digi_owl

Funny how much the articles description lines up with Ayn Rand's "objectivism". I wonder if the lady was inspired by Austrian economists, or if her anti-socialism/communism/Bolshevism results in much the same line of thinking as said economists.

Ransome

Rand was an extreme capitalist and therefore a totalitarian. She was a screen writer and much of her stuff was pinched from All American rags to riches business fables of the 1900′s which were meant to be inspiring, not Masters of the Metropolis sociopathic wealth and power addicts that were the reality. In her world, a capitalist super-class of exceptional people led and mixed genes, while the majority of everyone else was inferior or an obstacle.

My grandmother was yanked out of school after the eighth grade as was customary. She was enthralled with the rags to riches lore and eventually rented a corner store, becoming a successful business owner. She gave up the store to have kids and became brutally cruel, preferring business to having kids. Mom said she was so frustrated she couldn't control herself. She had grabbed the golden ring and circumstance made her drop it. Eventually she immersed herself in half-culture magazines to educate herself.

Moneta

The doctrine that is handed down is then to be conceived of as a way to live one's life – a project, handed down from Mount Sinai, that one is under the moral obligation to spread far and wide
---
Often, this model makes sense but only for a small percentage of the population. If it is forced onto everyone, it breaks down. That's the part that many followers don't get. Some do see this but could not care less as long as it works for them.

Moneta

Furthermore, every cult denies the existence of people who only seek power and will use or destroy the system for their own convenience.

Just like our central banks have been focusing on one single variable, the interest rate, to fix all of our economic problems, letting all other variables get stretched like elastics, ideologies are based on a simplistic way of seeing the world.

Regulatory Capture

Ah yes… I would never seek to exploit the political system either… I would never think to exploit the governmental system and write the regulations so they are positive for me… but not for much of anyone else… and especially not the small guys.

John Merryman

To give a thumbnail sketch connecting religion to economics, I would first point out the basic logical fallacy in the primary western religious assumption of monotheism; That the absolute, the universal state, is equilibrium, not apex, so a spiritual absolute would be the essence of being from which we rise, not an ideal from which we fell. Unfortunately this is a state, not a goal. In order to have anything, you have to have its opposite. Good/bad, up/down, left/right, positive/negative, yes/no, matter/anti-matter, conservative/liberal,dare I say, male/female, etc.
Otherwise, the happy medium is also just a big flatline on the universal heart monitor.
Physical reality is a bit of a convection cycle of (bottom up)expanding energy and (top down) contracting/consolidating mass/order/structure. In society, when there is a generally stable relationship between these two, it is a process of general advancement, but more energy than order and things branch out, for better or worse and more order than energy and they tend to break down and fall apart. A bit like riding a bicycle, you have to keep moving forward, or you fall over.
In large, complex societies these forces interact in innumerable ways. Labor, energy, material resources powering the larger society forward, or channeling into particular directions by those in positions of power.
The essential idea of unfettered deregulation is profound nonsense. Consider how much regulation and rules it takes to make football work. Otherwise the first player to bring a gun would win and it's called war. In the body, unfettered growth is called cancer.
Of course there has to be some balance, because too much order and all growth is stifled and the organism dies. The opposite of cancer would be auto-immune disease. Somalia would be a place with too little order and North Korea a place with too much order.
Push the pendulum too far in either direction and either it just creates that much momentum in the other direction, or the whole system falls over and you start again.
Right now, the immediate problem is that we treat money as a commodity, rather than a contract and have manufactured far too many unpayable promises to each other, than can be kept and there is a big reality reset coming. As the various large organizational structures, from nations to corporations, to religious tribes and various other framing devices, go crashing into the earth's furniture.
If one puts human civilization into a biological evolutionary frame, life on this planet is attempting to grow a world central nervous system, but we have yet to realize it has to function as a bottom up feedback network, rather than top down control. Not anywhere close yet.

UnlearningEcon

Just to note that this a great comment and should be read by everyone.

Regulatory Capture

Oh but now you're equating libertarianism with anarchy. Even the rules most libertarians believe in aren't currently very well enforced so I have to disagree with the first reply to this comment… it is overall trash and a strawman.

Tom B

THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS
quote from the novel by Robert A. Heinlein

Prof: "I'm a rational anarchist. . . .A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as 'state' and 'society' and 'government' have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame … as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world … aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undimayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."

Wyoh: "Professor, your words sound good but there is something slippery about them. Too much power in the hands of individuals–surely you would not want … well, H-missiles for example–to be controlled by one irresponsible person?"

Prof: "My point is that one person is responsible. Always. If H-bombs exist–and they do–some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing as 'state.' Just me. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts."

Tom B

Perhaps we might be overlooking there is a more moderate point of view amongst libertarians, a blend of the need for socialism to a degree and free markets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism

RanDomino

But then the government's business of protecting property rights would just re-build the regulatory state, and probably the welfare state as well, sooner or later. A different system has to be *qualitatively* different.

Moneta

There is no perfect system. The pendulum will always swing too far.

And even if we came up with some kind of utopic system, it would not last. Someone would try to position himself/herself to take advantage of it… unless we change the human psyche.

We will always be at the mercy of an ideology. People looking for stability and balance rarely reach the top of the hierarchy. These positions are usually filled by extremists and ideologues who are disconnected from the plight of the average person.

Tom B

Yes Moneta, someone will come along and bastardize even the best of intentions.

We should also keep in mind that there are sociopaths out there in the world, and because of their outwardly appearing charm they have the ability and tendency to acheive postitions of authority and power that help to satisfy their inner need to control and abase those around them for their own pleasure.

I've heard it estimated that perhaps 10% of the population are sociopaths. You can never really identify them without clinical analysis. Knowing that they have that tendency toward upward mobility, I have to wonder that as we take a view up the social/political/corproate executive ladder how that percentage might change. For the worse.

Tom B

See my comment below. If there isn't some level of regulation and protection then those sociopathic predators would actually be the ones reverting us back to those problems. Perhaps it's inevitable anyway, just a never ending cycle.

"Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class - whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy."

- Frank Herbert

LeonovaBalletRusse

Why is *Big Government* by CorporateM-IMonopolyFinance not mentioned as "government" by anyone on this thread?

This is the fascist government we have now. It has nothing to do with the Three Branches of government and the Rule of Law which our Constitution and Bill of Rights designate as legitimate *government."

Timothy Johnson

What I find interesting in Pilkington's article is looking to the "1830s" to try and figure out why things have gone wrong recently. While Pilkington is interested in the emergence of Libertarianism I have become interested in the impact of Mill "(political) economics is concerned with [man] solely as a being who desires to possess wealth" in the context of "nature red in tooth and claw". These ideas have dominated (British) economics and science (through Darwin) for almost two hundred years.

Financial markets (as has been pointed out) have, for most of their history, been based on principles of reciprocity - the various results of the Ultimatum Game are a matter of fact, utility maximisation is a hypothesis. The change in finance seems to have been slow but reached some sort of watershed in 1950 in the case Buttle v Saunders when an English judge declared that 'commercial morality' was not a valid consideration in financial transactions.

See http://bit.ly/tOnYQg for another take on the same topic

LeonovaBalletRusse

"Winner take all" in the Zero-Cum Game became the Global Law of the Universe. Those who were the monopoly *winners* when this putsch began are the mega-winners today, via geometric progression of predatory capital holdings.

Who needs a *real economy* when "capital" is created from naked derivatives? Capital became completely disassociated from labor with GATT; when Glass-Steagall was revoked, capital from spreads became completely disassociated from *working capital*. It's totally *pie in the sky*.

JohnT

Phillip, Go to see that you're confused. A cult tends to believe in things irrespective of evidence to the contrary. Please give example of where this is the case with the standard bearers of Libertarianism?!? I do think you should maybe focus on doing a bit of historical research. Then you might understand that the writings of Mises, Hayek et al come from thorough historical analysis as well as understanding what was transpiring in the times that they lived.

You say that we are pseudo scientific!?! Let's see, where has the "scientific method" gotten us presently. Hmmm. I see banks and their economists who have built their models on the "scientific method" sitting on $700 TRILLION in potential derivative losses when just one of the nations, who also based their economic policies on the "scientific method" and who are all bankrupt goes into default. And is this the result of the free market (i.e. individuals and organisations freely exchanging goods and services)? Alas NO!!! It's based on the economic policies and organisations that you slavishly defend! And how are they trying to address the problem? BY GIVING US EVEN MORE OF THE SAME!!! And you call libertarianism a cult?!? LOL!!!!

Philip Pilkington

"A cult tends to believe in things irrespective of evidence to the contrary. Please give example of where this is the case with the standard bearers of Libertarianism?!?"

I have a second piece ready on just this topic. Look out for it. Maybe tomorrow or the next day?

drugstoreblonde

I look forward to reading it.

The dialogue regarding libertarianism has been painfully one-sided in recent years. I am relieved to find that, line by line, thinker by thinker, claim by claim, and fallacy by fallacy libertarianism is being questioned, challenged and, ultimately, refuted.

Keep up the excellent work, Andrew, Philip, Yves, et al.

reason

The scientific method doesn't guarantee that the prevalent ideas at any point will be correct, just that they will converge on being correct as errors are weaned out. Show me where Libertarianism is falsifiable. As far as I can see that just consult the holy book of Hayek when ever there are disputes between the faithful.

And why do you think neo-classical economics is scientific? And haven't you noticed that some economists are making noises about the need for revising models on the basis of experience? But all the data isn't in yet.

Ransome

Rand was a cultist and Libertarians look upon her favorably, except Rothbard.

;LeonovaBalletRusse

In other words: Mises/Hayek=GOD. repeat ad infinitum.

ThePaper

Defining the 'correct' value is the problem? I would say that the problem not on defining value but what do you mean by 'correct' which an ideological choice whatever way you put it. It can be the value that maximizes the society benefit (socialism), a small group (capitalism), or an individual (libertarians).

At the end of the day 'value' is always subjective.

The ideological blindness is on all 'economic' theories. Because it's mixing two different topics: what's the objective (ideology) and what is the way to achieve that objective ('resource managing' which should had been the real meaning of 'economy' as science).

reason

Yes,
i remember meeting a blank when I suggested to Mark Thoma that the difference between progressive and conservative economists was more primary than their interpretation of reality, part of the difference was a difference in understanding about what economics was about. You have put your finger on a very important point.

Piano Racer

"At the end of the day 'value' is always subjective."

Yes. This. This is all you need to know.

A bottle of water is worth little to a man in a bottled water factory on an island in a freshwater lake, but that same man would give everything he had and more if trapped on a desert island dying of thirst.

Even irrational reasons, like preferring CRT-based screens for their "nostalgic value" or a cherished teddy bear for its "sentimental value". The Simpsons episode (and I suppose the film by the same name) "Rosebud" is a great example of this! :)

All these models that try to predict human behavior will fail, later if not sooner, because the process that people use to make decisions of value are too subjective, too inconsistent, and too random to ever be predicted accurately and consistently.

Value is subjective, and the name of the game is trading things you value less for things you value more, whether they be dollars, gold, CDS contracts, etc. Often we value things solely because others value them as well (i.e. dollars), but the mistake is when we start thinking that the point where these values converge is the "true" or "correct" value. Especially today, with the enormous and ongoing government intervention.

To me, Austrian economics and Libertarianism are about this, and about the idea that only individuals are able to make determinations of value, and they make the best decisions when left to their own devices (this is why price controls never, ever work).

Ransome

To continue the thought. The Euro crisis and the housing crisis are resource management crises. Money, it's flow (volume, velocity, direction) is a surrogate endpoint. When a home owner attempts to resolve a mortgage problem, he is resolving a cash flow problem, a where my kid goes to school problem, a skill-set investment problem, a transportation problem, an employment problem, an accumulated illiquid wealth problem, a marriage problem, a health access problem, a life style problem, a job security problem, a mental state problem, a future borrowing problem, a homeless problem, a local community problem, a State problem, a national problem. The bank is addressing a money problem, paper pulled out of the air.

The Euro and our housing problem are being addressed as bank capital problems, not people problems, not national resource problems. The banks and speculators have declared war on nations and the resulting destruction will be the equivalent of an assault with WMD. Fuck them.

LeonovaBalletRusse

CDOs, CDSs, naked derivatives = WMD. They are war criminals.

Schofield

I think you'll find that the "value" that Libertarians and Marxists want is the same. Namely access to resources that will enable human agency. If you as an individual believe you should have the right to access to these resources together with freedom from coercion in making use of them then it is a self-contradiction to believe these positive and negative rights shouldn't apply to others. Of course, the kicker is that the application of these rights must be within reason and that is precisely where full democratic governance needs to kick in throughout virtually all of society's institutions.

reason

I'm not quite sure this is the most fruitful approach to this at all.

I agree with some points, for instance that one of the great weaknesses of Austrian economics is their adoption of an extremely mechanistic view of the consumer (i.e. the shove all the uncertainty onto the production side of the economy). But I don't think this should be projected onto all neo-classical economics (specifically not onto Keynes and his followers).

But you just need to point out the consequences of a declining marginal utility of money to defeat the "laissez faire" welfare optimising argument .

The real weakness of Austrian is what they do with the very valuable observation that innovation (whatever the source) means that the economy is never in equilibrium. They then somehow see this a good thing, but see disequilibrium caused by monetary policy (aiming to balance spontaneous disequilibrium) as a bad thing. I can't quite understand why they can't see this as being contradictory.

If they really thought carefully about the concenquences of innovation on the business cycle, they would realise that in a sense it is not only the boom that results in the following bust, but it is just as true that the bust causes the following boom. The bust results in many unemployed resources that are consequently cheaply available. Those industries that are growing can attract these resources, and many entrepeneurs will attempt to take advantage of the profit opportunities there at the same time. As the economy nears full employment – these resources will become more expensive and the growing sector may reach consumer satuation. So did the unsustainable boom cause the bust or the bust cause the unsustainable boom? So what is the story here – that there is plenty of room of monetary/fiscal policy to try and smooth this process?

Philip Pilkington

"But I don't think this should be projected onto all neo-classical economics (specifically not onto Keynes and his followers)."

No way. Keynes and his (true) followers - who were not neoclassical - saw economics for what it is: an open-ended research program and not a totalising view of the world.

My main criticism of Austrianism is that they saw the inconsistencies in the doctrine and instead of realising that microeconomics was probably gobble-dee-gook they elevated these inconsistencies up to the status of Sacred and kept the whole totalising edifice in place. I suspect they did this for emotional and ideological reasons more so than for any rational reasons.

Ransome

Booms and busts are lack of capital controls and on a larger scale, poor resource management. Innovation is a tool or a IED.

Dan Duncan

In these trying times, the vulnerable and disenfranchised are susceptible to Libertarian Cult Indoctrination.

The scary part is that you might have been indoctrinated into this Libertarian Cult without even knowing it!

To help, I am providing you with this simple Cult Questionnaire:

1. We're you re-christened with a new moniker…something like "John of Austria"?

2. Did you burn all your clothes in favor of a white-hooded robe and a bright orange sash?

3. Are you currently in a room with more than 30 lit candles?

4. Were you told to hand over money and possessions in order protect your soul from eternal damnation?

5. Did both you and your new girlfriend recently shave your heads?

6. Do you and three other couples share a bedroom replete with bunk-beds?

7. Have you recently shared a meal with any cast member from the Star Trek franchise?

If you answered "No" to all of these questions, then rest easy my friend…and ignore this tedious, Re-Redundant Andrew Dittmer Already Covered This–Six Fucking Times–Post.

Sincerely,

Dan of Rand

reason

How many cults are there that would actually meet any of these criteria?

Calgacus

If you join my cult, I will vouchsafe this esoteric knowledge unto you. But not before you do #4.

Ransome

The cult tends to be totalitarian in its control of the behavior of its members. Cults are likely to dictate in great detail what members wear, eat, when and where they work, sleep, and bathe-as well as what to believe, think, and say.

The cult appears to be innovative and exclusive. The leader claims to be breaking with tradition, offering something novel, and instituting the only viable system for change that will solve life's problems or the world's ills. While claiming this, the cult then surreptitiously uses systems of psychological coercion on its members to inhibit their ability to examine the actual validity of the claims of the leader and the cult.

M. Singer

Yves Smith

I've read extensively about cults, and very few of the groups that were listed in the Cult Awareness Network (which was bankrupted by litigations from the Scientologists) fit your list.

Better straw manning, please.

LeonovaBalletRusse

Yves, please reconsider your answer. If the *list* you reject came from Mark Singer of "FUNNY MONEY" fame, you are on thin ice to reject it wholesale.

john

Great post! While Libertarianism's most obvious failing is its blindness to to the existence of a huge set institutions required both for property to exist and to have value, it's most important failure is its contempt for humanity as it is.

Libertarianism is an ideology without empathy. It begins by endowing the classical trope that people are rational wealth maximizers with moral meaning. Ignoring the historic root of the idea in computational efficiency (it made economics mathematically manageable before the invention of supercomputers) and converting it from crutch to crucible of morality, libertarianism's systematic misunderstanding of humanity makes it the perfect environment for Autistics or cover for psychopaths.

Defining rational wealth maximization as the legitimate moral basis for action reduces the balance of real human motives and real human values to moral failings. It is the perfect tool to justify extractive and abusive behavior toward that benighted bulk of humanity and we see it wielded as such by most of its proponents. There appears to be a small distance between "value" as computational function in an equation and "value" as a moral human framework, but the difference is in fact everything that makes life worth living. It is the difference between being expensive (diamonds) and being valuable (air).

Religious thinking always abstracts from the particular to the universal to satisfy our human need for narrative order, but reality has no such need and never tolerates our fictions for long. Theocracy has always collapsed in the face of more practical applications of power. Modern libertarianism is a theology of property that will destroy what it cherishes most by mistaking its utility for "value" and by obsessing about value destroying the utility. But in the short term this is all good for psychopaths who use their winnings to fund the church.

ReaderOfTeaLeaves

I agree that libertarianism has been a boon to the most amoral; indeed, they use it to absolve themselves of social responsibilty.

LeonovaBalletRusse

Quite right. They must feel *good about themselves* no matte what atrocities they think, intend, or commit.

PL_2

You were doing good until you abstracted your observations to generalize about religion without taking into account the spirituality that seemed to suffuse your earlier paragraphs.

Luca

Exceptionally thought through arguments. May I just ask: for all the limitations of Austrians'thinking, if "democracy" (irrespective of how it is defined) is your primary concern, aren't we seeing enough horror stories resulting from growing government intervention in the name of the keynesian enthusiasm that has followed the end of the bull market in 2007? Fair enough, neoclassical economics – and capitalism in more general terms – is hardly perfect. But let's not forget that government intervention under the much vaunted New Deal in the 1930s also failed to eradicate unemployment. The war actually did -- So, do these egregious failures make government intervention at all and any cost any more attractive ??? Please be careful, the liberal use of this generic concept of democracy and government intervention by default is at least equally dangerous.

Lidia

Luca, I think you are laboring under the false assumption that governments are the result of a democratic process…

Lidia

P.S. Also, what is modern warfare if not an economic program established by government??

The New Deal's intention was to resolve the capitalist "paradox" (I was about to write "paradise") of want in the midst of plenty, using redistributionist means that were clearly artificial. But such scarcities themselves are artificial, imposed by government in collusion with banks, due to the way their money system is designed. In a system without debt money, the Great Depression could not have occurred, it should be obvious…

This is a hoot! Look who's talking here:
"My major problem with the world is a problem of scarcity in the midst of plenty … of people starving while there are unused resources … people having skills which are not being used" - Milton Friedman

Daniel Hewitt

"…they postulated a theory and then when confronted with the inconsistencies of the theory…"

Forgive me if I missed this, but could you please elaborate on how this theory is inconsistent, if marginal utility is assumed to be subjective?

Philip Pilkington

That would require a whole other post. I've done two posts critiquing marginal utility theory in the past, but the critique referenced is the one that surfaced during the debates between the Austrians and the socialist planners (Lerner et al) in the 1930s.

You will have to get the relevant literature on this to fully understand it. The Israel Kirzner article linked to in the piece is a good start and lays out a history of the debate and its consequences. The book referenced 'Modern Political Economics' also deals with some aspects of the debate.

Steve (the other Steve)

Mr.P

You've hardly demolished the edifice of subjective marginal utility in your prior posts. The question is not whether one can construct a religion or worldview out of subjective utility. Instead, it is whether subjective marginal utility is a useful framework to explain empirical observations about the economy.

You attack a straw man. Libertarianism doesn't hold subjective utility sacred. It simply recognizes that is the best, albeit imperfect, explanation for economic behavior.

My offer of breakfast in NYC still stands. Cheers!

Yves Smith

He doesn't need to. Read Steve Keen. It's already been done (Keen just codifies it better than many).

Philip Pilkington

Here's a relevant passage from Kirzner's essay that captures this well - note that Mises et al had to move away from a sort of 'grand picture' of a market in equilibrium that could be proved through mathematical models, and toward an assertive theory of entrepreneurs setting prices and causing disequilibrium:

"With the benefit of hindsight, we now understand that in the Austrian view of the market, its most important feature is (and was) the dynamic entrepreneurial-competitive discovery process. We know now that, for Mises, the idea
of a price that does not reflect and express entrepreneurial judgment and hunch is virtually a contradiction in terms. (It is for this reason that Mises
rejected Lange's contention that socialist managers may be able to take their bearings from-and to calculate on the basis of-centrally promulgated nonmarket prices.) We know now that for Mises, the description of states of
market equilibrium is mere byplay7-the description of something that will never in fact occur and that provides us with little of direct relevance to realworld
conditions (conditions that at all times display the characteristics of markets in disequilibrium). We know now that for Mises, competition is an entrepreneurial process, not a state of affairs."

Tao Jonesing

"Libertarian" is an iconic word, one that means something different to everyone and rightly so. Most people who self-identify as libertarian are not the hard core "cultists" of which you speak. They generally view themselves as people with a strong sense of right and wrong that does not fit comfortably within the other labels that are available. For example, some people who view themselves as socially liberal and fiscally conservative label themselves "libertarian."

For this reason, attacking libertarians generally as being part of a cult is a mistake and greatly misguided. Years ago on this site we got away from tilting at the libertarian strawman when we realized that the "cult" portion of libertarianism is really just hardcore neoliberalism, which actually controls the entire political landscape and both major parties through the so-called Washington Consensus. Once you realize that neoliberal ideas span the political spectrum, you can stop attacking people for the labels they wear and start attacking the bad ideas they hold.

Hayek, Mises, and Friedman were all founders of neoliberalism, which does NOT date back to the 19th century but only back to the late 1940s. Check out montpelerin.org and the great book The Road from Mont Pelerin. The Volker Fund, in addition to funding those three "libertarian" luminaries, also funded Rothbard. It was Rothbard who laid out his idea to employ a Leninist strategy for the individualist cause to counterbalance the collectivist masses. See here: http://www.libertarianpapers.org/articles/2009/lp-1-3.pdf

The point is that the "libertarian cultists" you see, Philip, are the hard core (and unwitting) "revolutionaries" of neoliberalism that Rothbard deliberately set out to cultivate. But these revolutionaries are not the danger. The danger comes from the mainstream neoliberals who employ the same ideology but not in such an overtly obnoxious way. "Infiltration" was Rothbard's strategy: by having a hard core to distract critics like you, truly effective neoliberals could quietly infiltrate mainstream politics and take them over.

Clearly, Rothbard was a genius because his strategy continues to work to this day (and on this site).

Philip Pilkington

I assume that everyone grasped that I was referring to the Mises.org crowd and not to people who label themselves 'libertarian' in a rather vague sense.

PL_2

Yes we did see you and the previous series have been attacking a doctrinaire libertarianism.

And the attack is valuable because it can prevent a casual liberty-loving attitude from identifying with the seemingly malevolent version.

Still, suggest we always be careful of making it 'Us vs Them!'

Unless it needs to be.

readerOfTeaLeaves

Philip, I can't get the sound file to work on this post, but would love to be able to listen to it. FYI. rOTL

Dan G.

This is one libertarian who will stop reading this blog. I always understood and appreciated that Yves was no free marketer, but her rants, and the rants of her allies, have become increasingly ad hominem and snarky as the political climate has not turned as Yves would like.

Yves, if libertarianism is gone (which is clearly what you want), that will leave you with conservatives (who hold much more power), in favor of never-ending war, lack of civil liberties, and intolerant social policies. But, hey, at least they're not cultist libertarians.

Philip Pilkington

I hardly see how you think either my or Dittmer's 'rants' were ad hominem. Both deal with the ideology on its own terms - in my case the economic theory, in Dittmer's the political project of Hoppe.

I get a strong sense that some people are trying to silence debate here, and that is very creepy.

;Equivocation

Phillip,

Your article is just a sophisticated rant with a pseudo-intellectual venere. It is biased and ignorant. You either made no real effort to research and understand Libertarian thought or you are being purposely deceitful. Either way, it reflects poorly on you.

I am not trying to "silence you". See below my rebuttals. Your mistakes are so basic, that I am surprised you would have the nerve to post on a widely read blog. My best guess is that your only background on Austrian thought is what you read in "Modern Political Economics".

Poor scholarship, poor logic, poor article

Philip Pilkington >

You didn't even read the article properly. In it I clearly quote an eminent Austrian economist. So, I must have read at least one Austrian text.

But no matter, you didn't read the article properly and by saying this…

"My best guess is that your only background on Austrian thought is what you read in "Modern Political Economics"."

…you proved to everyone that you didn't read it properly.

Typical rant from a typical cultist. No point in taking this seriously.

Equivocation

Like many modern pseudo-intellectuals, Pilkington criticizes what he clearly does not know.

1) Austrian theory arises from Aristotle and its later interpretation by the Salamanca School who is actually quoted by Adam Smith. It is based on deduction versus the inductive approach used by modern economics. Unfortunately, modern public education does not teach Logic anymore so explaining the difference would be a discussion on to itself.

2) Marxism and Austrian theory are BOTH based on Labor as the source of value. (Why do you think Mises called his book Human Action?) Austrians hold that individual demand and supply curves (the basis for marginal analysis) are unknowable. Since you cannot aggregate demand, then you must recognize that any economic model with this assumption must be flawed. This is very, very much in line with our understanding of the theory of modern Complex Dynamic Systems (Chaos Theory). Pilkington's failure to understand this very basic point essentially discredits all his arguments since it clearly shows he has not actually read ANY Austrian text.

3) Some Austrians do accept the use of quantitative models, but they ascribed little value to these. Why? Because of point 2. If we can only make a gross estimate of aggregate demand, then what use is it for planning purposes?

4) If you accept the axiom that we cannot know individual demand and supply prefrences, government centralized planning MUST be inefficient. The goal of small government is reducing those inefficiencies and thus maximizing value creation for society. Most Austrians will readily accept some space for Public Goods (just a very reduced one)

5) Similary Austrians do not believe that markets are informationally efficient in the mainstream academic sense. On the contrary, we only believe that if the market is mostly free, it will accurately reflect the "perceived" consumption time preferences of the economic actors. These preferences need not be logical or efficient. This is perfectly in line with what we now know regarding Behavioral Fiannce.

6) Andrew Dittmer's pseudo interviews of Code Name Cain (if the person even exists) have little validity. Apart from not knowing the subject or his credentials, there is the little detail regarding how representative he actually is. You see the Austrian Schools is actually quite a large edifice full of different streams, just like mainstream economics. What he is doing is the equivalent of interviewing Pol Pot in an attempt to discredit Socialism. And yes, even if Socialist hate it, Comunism and National Socialims ARE extreme forms of Socialism. Additionally, let me state that Andrew may be a Harvard Phd, but he is living proof that degrees do not necessarily result in the ability to develop critical thought; his questions and replies to CNC are often childish and emotional. CNC seems like a very smart fellow, though he does have several mistakes in his axioms and conclusions. The main mistake is that he holds property to be the founding rock of mainstream Austrian thought. It is not. Bastiat and others based their argument on Natural Law which dictates man's pursuit of happiness as the basis (only possible through freedsom which necessitates property rights)

The Kierkegaard quotes are a nice red herring to throw at the discussion. They add nothing except for a pretense of intellectuallity and for smoke screen to hide the fact that no real Austrian texts are actually analyzed except for passing quotes. Kudos Mr. Pilkington you have the makings of a Sophist (and you know it). You would do well to read Hayek's Noble Prize Acceptance Speech "Pretense of Knowledge"

Regards,

Philip Pilkington

"Marxism and Austrian theory are BOTH based on Labor as the source of value."

The Austrians definitely do not accept the labour theory of value. Marxism does.

"Austrians hold that individual demand and supply curves (the basis for marginal analysis) are unknowable."

That's what the article is about. The shift from marginal analysis based on equilibrium to the theory of the entrepreneur as the basis of price changes in a disequilibrated system.

"Pilkington's failure to understand this very basic point essentially discredits all his arguments since it clearly shows he has not actually read ANY Austrian text."

I quote a very prestigious Austrian economist in the piece explaining how entrepreneurs are the source of price changes.

I'm not sure you have tended sufficiently to your own garden, my friend. But, then most 'Austrians' I talk to don't have a good grasp of their own theories.

Equivocation

Ok. You are either being defensive or you are very arrogant. Read Mises. HUMAN ACTION. Read Bastiat's On Law. Read Menger. I can quote any author you want with one quick Google search… but I don't. I actually read the texts. And agains… not all Austrians agree on everything.

Money for Austrians is the means of exchanging HUMAN LABOR and is representative of human will. That is why we get our panties in a bunch when government plays with it. This is because they are playing with your freedom by denying you free choice.

Philip Pilkington

"Money for Austrians is the means of exchanging HUMAN LABOR and is representative of human will."

That's very different from the Marxist/Ricardian LTV theory. You can read all the texts you like, it doesn't mean you understand them properly.

In the Austrian school it is entrepreneurs who set prices. As I quote above:

"In this context, the entrepreneur does not treat prices as parameters out of his control but, on the contrary, represents the very causal force that moves prices in coordinating directions."

What we see here is a new theory of value emerging - a theory that entrepreneurs create new value, or as Kirzner puts it:

"[T]he truth is that Hayek opened the door to an entirely new perspective on the "goodness" of economic policies and institutional arrangements. Instead of judging policies or institutional arrangements in terms of the resource-allocation pattern they are expected to produce (in comparison with the hypothetically optimal allocation pattern), we can now understand the possibility of judging them in terms of their ability to promote discovery."

Equivocation

Phillip,

You should really recognize when you made a mistake instead of getting defensive and just throwing out red herrings and non-sequitors.

The entire chapter VII of Human Action is dedicated to Labor. Specifically cited as the only means of production that has the capacity to transform and whose individual preference determines production of goods. Some quotes

"Labor is the most scarce of all primary means of production because it is in this restricted sense nonspecific and because every variety of production requires the expenditure of labor"

"It is the supply of labor available that determines to what an extent the factor nature in each of its varieties can be exploited for the satisfaction of needs."

I am not stating Mises is the Bible, I don't even find him a very likeable character). What I am stating is that you clearly have not read Human Action, arguably the most important Austrian text. This is equivalent to writing against Islam without actually having read the Quran.

Or prove me wrong. What Austrian texts did you read before writing this critique?

Yves Smith

Equivocation,

You are the one getting defensive. You made a claims that Pilkington rebutted and you get pissy. He does not need to give you a bibliography. You stepped in it and are now trying to resort to personal attacks.

PL_2

There is a lot of name-calling (yes, on both sides) in this exchange.

It is amazing how a debate that may actually clarify something on NC so often contains both intellectual points and then: 'by the way, you're an idiot.'

Certainly the libertarian in this exchange seemed to be bringing interesting points, but unfortunately did resort to name-calling too, along with Mr P.

F. Beard

That is why we get our panties in a bunch when government plays with it [money]. Equivocation

Who else should have authority over government money but government?

This is because they are playing with your freedom by denying you free choice. Equivocation

Free choice you say? Or just a different form of tyranny? Many of the Austrians I've debated insist on some form of government enforced gold standard.

Philip Pilkington

P.S. For all the other viewers note how similar this is to what I describe above:

"Read Mises. HUMAN ACTION. Read Bastiat's On Law. Read Menger. I can quote any author you want with one quick Google search… but I don't. I actually read the texts. And agains… not all Austrians agree on everything."

It's like being accosted by a cult member in an airport. They don't argue. They preach.

Carlito Quesare

If someone came at you and attacked you through the US Labor movement socialism and outright racist American Labor Unions of the 1930′s, you'd be more than a little taken back by the bluntness. IF I then went and mischaracterized the key players in the movement and key constructs of 1930′s Unionism in the US to try to score points on a econ blog, you'd also get your panties in a bunch.

SO why did you go back to the 1930′s, and not the 1960′s or 1970s, or even back to the 1770s? Seems the 1930′s are the last time your perceived philosophical enemies were still based under one philosophical umbrella name.

Creeping determinism doesn't win points.

;Equivocation

I will shut up if you clearly state what Austrian texts you read before writing your opinion piece.

I am not a fanatic. I will readily debate any point of Austrian theory on which I am knowledgeable. But please let me know that I am not debating the equivalent of a High School student who wrote an essay based only on a Wikipedia article.

So what was your background research? Please endulge your audience.

PL_2

Equivocation sounded OK.

Suddenly both started firing insults. And got pissy.

Really, personal attacks just aren't convincing, on either side of a debate.

reason

"Money for Austrians is the means of exchanging HUMAN LABOR and is representative of human will. That is why we get our panties in a bunch when government plays with it. This is because they are playing with your freedom by denying you free choice."

Bwa ha ha ha – please let Dittmer loose on this! What a load of pretentious crap.

Carlito Quesare

I have read all of your replies so far in this thread.

You are way off base and my probable guess is lack of knowledge and study of the subject, though I don't for a second think you incapable of grasping the subjects.

You basically attacked divergent sub-schools of thought based upon a brief moment in time before dynamic systems , or dynamical systems evolved into what became Mandelbrot's Nobel Prize and a host of other mathematical theorems that developed into Chaos theory.

On Chaos Theory itself I do not claim to be knowledgeable, just a hobbyist tinkerer, but you specifically framed your argument based upon a line of reasoning that even at the time it was postulated in the 1930′s circle of your interest in this article, the postulators and their students knew it was a transitory set of descriptions waiting for further developments in science, math, economics, etc…

Economics was still a utilitarian pseudo-science, and still is today, and Schumpeter's continuous curiousity expanded throughout his professional career, you are giving more credence to artificial constructs in the student primers and foundational papers of the age than is reasonable.

I'm exasperated, and it's your show… so the last word is yours.

Yves Smith

This is COMPLETELY disingenuous.

I've discussed this in ECONNED, as has Steve Keen at greater length in his Debunking Economics.

To claim that economics, particularly neoclassical economics (which provides what support there is for libertarian thought), embraces dynamics and Mandelbrot is untrue.

And you have the temerity to cop a "I know better posture".

You've been really treading on my patience. Persistent disinformation is tantamount to trolling. Just because you try to wrap it in technospeak does not change the nature of the beast.

Foppe

this very basic point

Certainly Chaos Theory is really cool and respectability-lending, but could you please state the positive point you are trying to make? It is impossible for me to tell what austrianism according to you *is* about, if the above isn't it.

Equivocation

It is the belief that individuals acting in freedom will make the best utility maximizing decisions.

The key here is freedom. Lack of structural impediments to those decisions and to execute them, including the respect of other individual rights as per Natural Law.

Yves Smith

This is dogma. You are proving Pilkington to be correct. "Freedom" as you define it does not result in optimal social outcomes. And people don't maximize utility. They not only don't choose to, they lack the both the information and the brain capacity to do so. I debunk that in ECONNED.

;PL_2

Well I don't know much but it's clear enough that those beliefs are false, isn't it?

This line of blog post should be titled: 'Libertarianism: Exposed.' They serve to warn libertarian sympathizers, that don't know too much about it.

LeonovaBalletRusse

Your absolute certainty betrays your cult captivity.

jsmith

The theories of Karl Marx are the basis of a cult?

Wow. I mean really.

Coming from the same person who posted here earlier this week that the actions of the ECB WOULDN'T be a bailout of the banks, huh?

It's good to know that a person as immune to "cultish" thinking as Mr. Pilkington claims to be is around to enlighten us about such things.

Daddy, tell us the fable about how the EU elites really are trying to help they citizens of the EU countries again.

Pweeze?

Brother.

Philip Pilkington

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/philip-pilkington-my-european-nightmare-%E2%80%93-an-infernal-hurricane-gathers.html

Hmmmmm…

jsmith

For someone to start out a piece claiming that the writings of Marx were merely the Unabomber Manifesto of the 19th century while ignoring the deeper and more nuanced political machinations that created Stalinism in the former Soviet Unions bespeaks of someone arguing beyond their ken and thus trying to equivocate so as to hit "centrist" argumentative paydirt.

Although us Americans don't seem to understand when bankers are being bailed out, we're now all too familiar with triangulation in any form.

jsmith

IOW, if you think libertarianism is a bankrupt pseudo-philosophy then say so directly.

But please don't thin your position by attempting to engage in the neoliberal-esque moral equivalency arguments that we've all grown so incredibly sick of and the fruits of which are the chains of participatory fascism which we now find ourselves straining against.

PL_2

Sometimes I can't tell what people are talking about.

RanDomino

Calling the Marxists, and the Bolsheviks in particular, is really unfair. They were more like a gang.

drugstoreblonde

Raised Mormon (though thankfully an interrogative adolescence begat a free-thinking adulthood), I feel that I have some insight into what makes heavily dogmatic (read: cult) ideologies dangerous to the body politic, and hazardous to the individual spirit.

No matter the phenomenon, no matter the data, no matter the event, these ideologies have a means of denying, explaining and/or assimilating/destroying anything that constitutes a threat to the parochial purview by which they experience the world.

For an ideology that believes in 'evolutionary markets,' libertarianism is surprisingly inflexible, intractable, and dogmatically moribund.

Lew Glendenning

"Money buys power"
+
"People are often untrustworthy"
+
"Political systems are operated by by people and have power"

–> hopeless corruption.

When you geniuses have an answer for that systems-level problem, and can discuss system dynamics as well as you do Keirkegaard, then we can have a discussion with some relevance.

Meanwhile, this is another irrelevancy wrt both Libertarian thought and the current political debate. Most people commenting here are firmly Establishment and intent on defending it. Establishments are Progressive throughout the world.

Progressive thinking : "Pass a law and make the world a better place" + "Elect the right people and give them the power" + "Rule by specialists" has produced the enormous economic and social disasters befalling us.

You guys want it both ways : You want to consider yourselves the 99%, but refuse to acknowledge the entire set of our government, business and social institutions were built by Progressives. No doubt some of those Progressives didn't intend to enrich the 1%, but that was always the inevitable outcome.

Progressives have a lot to answer for. Before this is done, historians will credit them with more deaths than any single dictator in humanities sad history.

Libertarians at least discuss system dynamics.

F. Beard

Libertarians at least discuss system dynamics. Lew G

True. But a gold standard is not the answer. The answer is liberty – in private money creation.

One would think libertarians would know that, wouldn't one?

Reply
  • drugstoreblonde says:

    December 7, 2011 at 1:18 pm

    Libertarians at least discuss system dynamics.

    Yes. But so, too, does Copernican cosmology.

    'Discussing' system dynamics should not be confused with 'accurately describing' system dynamics.

  • drugstoreblonde

    …No doubt some of those Progressives didn't intend to enrich the 1%, but that was always the inevitable outcome…

    Those are some telling teleological assumptions, Lew.

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    Was Reagan a Progressive?

    Susan the other

    In a world where an entrepreneur achieved profit by giving consumers what they wanted and needed at the best price, all manufacturing would have to be ever more specialized. Not ever more advertised and monopolized.

    Steven Bradley

    I have a simplistic view of economics and all the rest.
    1. There is too much complexity in all the theories and the way they are worked out.
    2. None of the "theories" correctly explains human behavior. Human behavior is clearly a mix of good and evil, of selfish and unselfish, of kindness and cruelty. It is just this complexity that makes economic theories worthless. Human behavior is, furthermore, what one might expect from a human being who is made by a Creator, but is flawed and sinful (sorry for the religious perspective, but there it is).
    ~~~~(Huge leap!)~~~
    3. The only way to adequately protect all parties in any transaction (political, economic, social, religious, or all three) is to have adversaries somewhat equally balanced against each other. IF there is an imbalance of power, there WILL be unfairness. It's a given. Hence we see the rise of unions, and so on. However. Once an organization exists, it becomes "big," and then assists in the imbalance, because of Item #2, above.
    4. Human activity is made up of the "BIGS" and the "littles," with the littles being dominated by the BIGS. This is true in families, in society, in politics, and in everything else in the world, and throughout history.
    5. It is impossible to create a utopian society, but if the "BIGS" are balanced against each other, and the "littles" have advocates among the BIGS, a semblance of fairness can exist.
    6. What has happened in our modern world (and in all of history before it), is that groups of "BIGS" have allied with one another through bribes, interlocking interests, political alliances, and so forth, making the voices of the littles of no moment. We vote, and nothing changes. Why? because virtually all of the "representatives of the people" are part of the same system–that of the "BIGS," and they control events in a draconian way to benefit themselves.
    7. How to solve this? Certainly not through a "revolution;" that's been tried, and it turns out that those who revolt do so because they want to be "BIGS." This is quite clear from the 20th century, and the efforts made by the various revolutionaries in the Communist systems–these systems, like many before them, simply disintegrated into an oligarchy, or a near-monarchy.
    The solutions must come from groups of people allying themselves into "balancing organizations," of which "Occupy Wall Street" could have been a part, but is now nothing but a bunch of college kids objecting to current conditions, without any real goals, or "refried radicals" touting the same old solutions that have been tried without success. The Tea Party had some potential, but it's been largely co-opted by the party line from conservative Republicans. So what is needed is an organization that agrees with a set of fair principles, and considers all of us as equals. Sounds disturbingly like a biblical ideal, but there it is.
    Go back to the Old Testament, and you will find the same problems, same complaints, and a single solution: each one of us recognizes that he is "under God" and has a duty both to God and his fellow-man. The New Testament (built on the Old) carries the same view forward, and enhances it in the person of Jesus and his followers. In other words,
    the true answers lie in one's world view, in one's integrity, and in the accountability we must share with each other.

    Lidia

    This just sounds like escapism to me: replacing all the worldly "BIGS" in your life with a BIGGER, more psychopathic -albeit thankfully fictional- "BIG".

    This is exactly the problem: giving "BIGS" the time of day instead of doing all we can to subvert them, laugh them out of the room, or I-can't-remember-the-NC-commenter's-name who keeps wanting to see them frog-marched to the Hague. ;-))

    F. Beard

    albeit thankfully fictional- "BIG". Lidia

    Really? How can one possibly appease an impersonal, unknowing, uncaring and lethal universe?

    Lidia

    "How can one possibly appease an impersonal, unknowing, uncaring and lethal universe?"

    Why would anyone want/need to "appease" the universe?

    The word "appeasement" is already loaded with some sort of impossibly teleological impositions.

    F. Beard

    Why would anyone want/need to "appease" the universe? Lidia

    To survive?

    If there is no Creator then the human race is doomed. With a Creator, we at least have a chance. So why ignore/insult Him? Suicidal are we?

    ;Lidia

    FatBeard: face it: your chances of survival have nothing to do with the presence or non-presence of any fictional "savior".

    Why is *your* survival important in the scheme of things? It simply isn't!

    Religion is the utterly abstract hubristic elevation of a certain sort of human condition, nonsensically, over all other real situations on the face of the planet. Such human condition is predicated upon so many other, baser, conditions that no-one wants to acknowledge, it's to cry/die for.

    Lidia

    Fatbeard, who do you look toward, exactly, to "survive"? If it's to "God" (and to those who follow "God") you know that you are well and rightly fucked.

    If it's instead to the possibly-atheistic socialists who would concede you tomorrow's bread, you might live to comment here another day.

    Lidia

    FB, if there IS a Creator, the human race is doomed nonetheless. How is this particularly redemptive? My born-again sister is eager for our collective demise (in effect MY perdition, and HER exaltation, N.B.).

    The "God" character in the Bible already once willfully killed off 99.999% of life on the planet. This is the creature to whom we are to look for salvation?

    Heh.

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    F. Beard, the only Creator is in your head, its root in your lymbic system, fueled by your testosterone for *survival* - and all the hope, fear, and *faith* that comes with this drive.

    ;mansoor h. khan

    Lidia,

    "doing all we can to subvert them, laugh them out of the room"

    Yes. This is the job that needs to be done over and over and over again by almost each generation. God is an "equal opportunity employer".

    Mansoor H. Khan

    Mike Sax

    It's funny but it has stuck me before that the views of Marx's labor theory of value are in a sense the mirror image opposite of Rand's great Entrepreneur.

    For Marx labor is responsbile for all value, for Rand the entrpreneur is.

    Here's something I wrote recently about this question

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2011/11/karl-marx-vs-ayn-randa-philosphical.html

    Equivocation

    Austrians hold that all labor is entreprenurial (or vice-versa). You chose how to deploy you human capital. Employment is simply chosing to hold a long-term low-return contracts with one client.

    It is a pity more people do not understand this, they would likely realize that employment is not the value maximizing strategy for lifetime earnings.

    F. Beard

    they would likely realize that employment is not the value maximizing strategy for lifetime earnings. Equivocation

    Yet it should be.

    rotter

    "Marxism" is a "cult"?? Where are its worshippers?? Why is it that liberals/neo-liberals like Pilkington feel they must begin an attack on a similar/freindly-to-thier-own crackpot ideology by ritually sacrificing "Marxism"??
    And im definately not one of Pilkington hater-Crusaders- against-the- Catholic-Illuminati that hang out here

    RanDomino

    I've spent entirely too much time in the company of Marxist Parties (ISO, RCP, WWP, SEP, SWP…) and "cult" is exactly the word I've used to describe them. They demand ideological rigidity. They essentially trick people into joining by gradually coaxing them through front groups. They have book studies of their canonical texts (by which I don't mean the Marx originals, or even the works of the Bolsheviks- often they read derivative works that have been written within the last few decades by party members, themselves based off earlier degenerate works, with little if any original research, and given the expected propaganda slant), which has a striking similarity to Bible study groups. I'd suggest you learn about the mechanics of cult social dynamics before claiming Marxists aren't in one!

    jsmith

    Oh, I get it. YOU'VE spent too much time learning that Marxists are cultists ergo WE must also understand that as well.

    I get it.

    Your points are sometimes well explained.

    Lose the pomposity, please.

    rotter

    Also we have to assume that his/her personal judgement in people and "parties" to associate with is completely scientific. Plllpppppllllpppp.nuts.

    be'emet

    putting aside philosophical purities and disputes, what might happen with regulation/taxation that confiscates personal assets exceeding some designated sum. In exchange give the accumulators feudal titles, and lifetime use of a MacMansion, without allowance for staff of servants. Electoral politics ought have some usefulness.

    pointbite

    It's a straw man to equate the market with divinity or something god-like. No libertarian argues the market is perfect or will solve all problems. The "Truth" (with a capital T, as you put it) is that all rational human beings simply argue that heaven on earth is a fantasy. The world has problems. Human nature has problems. There is no system that can establish utopian miracle cures, there can only ever be a series of tradeoffs. The problem with the author of this article and people like him, is a deference to the all mighty cult of human rationalization for things they don't understand… aka, the Fatal Conceit.

    Lidia

    "No libertarian argues the market is perfect or will solve all problems."

    "no libertarian"?

    You're incorrect. I've run into many RWNJ and nominal libertarians who argue exactly that.

    ;Jim

    Here might be a few things to take into consideration when looking at Libertarian theory, Pilkington theory, Yves theory or my theory–from a metatheoretical angle.

    As soon as theory(macrotheory or microtheory) strays from its preoccupation with and awarness of its own limits it devolves into ideology.

    In order to proceed to a level of even provisional closure and to be able to theorize and explain a particular phenomenon, one must engender the illusion that all the returns are in.

    Theorizing is largely negative, it consists of exposing limitations, rather than in clinching positive points.

    What are considered so-called facts seem to constitute low-level theories.

    There always seems to be a collusion of the descriptive and the normative.

    Hayek, Pilkington, Yves or me or any of the commetariat tend to enjoy presenting our respective frameworks with an air of obectivity which tends to conceal a prior normative choice about the market or the state or the society.

    Is the gap between words and things and events closed by acknowledging that there is an ineradicably normative dimension in every "descriptive" formulation?

    What would be a model of political community built on the acceptance of openness(i.e. infinity) rather than closure?

    PL_2

    Excellent.

    EricJ

    I'm not certain whether Libertarianism grew out of economic theory, or whether it looked back to find some justification for itself.

    It seems to me that a main theme in Libertarianism (wish it had a shorter name) is that Government is force, force is bad, therefore government is bad.

    Agreed upon standards are the means we use to judge value and weigh it against our needs. Government is the mechanism we use to develop those standards and make sure they are being kept.

    If one could find a way to reducing all standards of value into a single standard, then government wouldn't be necessary.

    Of course, reducing all standards of value into a single standard is as crazy as deriving time and distance from some arbitrary constant velocity, er, never mind.

    ;Equivocation

    Libertarianism originates in Natural Law as best explained by Bastiat (few Austrians understand this). The legitimate goal of government is providing Justice by protecting Individual Freedoms. This is a very narrow mandate. Due vested interest of politicans and bureaucats Governments slowly expand; ever enroaching and exceed their mandate thereby violating your Liberty. They can only do this because they have the initial public mandate of monopoly of violence / coersion.

    Socialist governments must almost by definition continue to grow in complexity and size and this growth will necessarily invade individual freedoms which will lead to violence and repression. Thereby the Path to Serfdom.

    F. Beard

    I propose an alternative explanation for the growth of government: It grows to ameliorate the damage caused by the government enforced/backed usury and counterfeiting cartel, our banking system.

    Foppe

    Socialist governments must almost by definition continue to grow in complexity and size and this growth will necessarily invade individual freedoms which will lead to violence and repression. Thereby the Path to Serfdom.

    Neat assertion. It sounds rather more like an axiom than like anything falsifiable, though.

    PL_2

    "Socialist governments must almost by definition"

    'Almost' by definition?

    Jardinero1

    "If one could find a way to reducing all standards of value into a single standard, then government wouldn't be necessary."

    But isn't that what government does, try to impose a single standard on all? Markets allow for multiple competing standards without violence or coercion.

    Paul Tioxon

    Marxism did not lead to any evils. It is not because too many people read the wrong books, then misinterpret them and go way overboard in their behavior. It was the evils of the times that lead writers, agitators, free thinkers, scholars to propose reforms. European kingdoms, empires and corrupt rigid class societies which reduced most people to poverty, even during times of productive industrialization, created the fertile revolution, bloody, deadly, overthrowing social orders and leading to a Stalinist Soviet Society, had their origins in the inhumanity of the powerful against the mass of humanity. Does that ring a bell strident 99ers?

    First we are brutally traumatized by one another, then revolt, search for easing of the pain, and finally blame the bold for taking action. Oh no, the revolution has led to unforeseen consequences in the cult of Marxism with all of its attendant horror, arising from the unnecessary dualism of Hegel or some other doctrinal error! Really, if only our philosophy was better written?

    I find it ridiculous to see the small minded, venal middle class libertarian, jealously guarding his wallet against a taxation holocaust where he is forced to pay for education, health care and a modern infrastructure against his will, calling it tyranny, or the horrors of statism, communist version. Oh, so not free, against their will, against nature, against the inherent rights of man.

    What bullshit.

    And to compare the modern liberal welfare state that delivers social programs that you must pay into for the commonwealth of humanity with being forced to go to war, against your will, to be forced off your land, relocated, herded into death camps, against your will, only connects the goods of society with the nightmare of history by the phrase "against my will", hence I must seek a solution from the depredation of government activity, against my will, by coming up with hoakum with the word liberty in it and call my pretext a political philosophy.

    Why don't you just admit you are bunch of self absorbed consumer assholes who do anything for a buck, including tearing down the society, that has been built up by the actions of millions of people before you were ever born. All so you can do your will, to shop for more useless crap that will be eventually divided up after you die and sold on ebay.

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    Ditto.

    PL_2

    Sold on ebay, or just thrown away.

    Matt

    Yet another silly liberal attempt to interpret Marx. As usual, it centers around skepticism concerning the real existence of "value", mainly because it can't be directly measured, and is only indirectly measured through price. Never mind that people everyday use the work "value" in its economic sense, and use it precisely in relation to and in distinction with price – value can't exist because it can't be measured!

    That is because what Marx actually proved, as against Ricardo who actually came up with the scheme analytically, is that "value" defines a SOCIAL RELATION, and social relations, such as between mother and child, etc., are notoriously difficult to measure. That doesn't make them any less real, and it also makes economics as a science a branch of the social sciences, rather than that of the natural sciences as capitalists would like to insist.

    As a pretended natural science, capitalist economics is actually a pseudo-science, pure ideology.

    Of course the typically idealist notion that somehow Karl Marx's critical analysis of capitalism "led directly" to the Gulag in the 20th century is ridiculous on its face. Example: The thoughts of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Abraham Lincoln "led directly" to the mass murder of many millions of innocent people in the Philippines, Japan, Korea and Vietnam in the 20th century.

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    "between mother and child" - you mean those mothers who ensure the genital mutilation of their daughters, those fathers and mothers who sell their babes into prostitution by any name, into chattel slavery even today?

    Matt

    Philip Pilkington, what a load of rubbish this is!

    Trying to think scientifically about human society is held to be a sign of membership in a cult.

    This attitude – for that is all it is, an ignorant unreflective attitude – is required to believe in the pseudo-science of capitalist economics.

    Fiver

    Categorizing an historical driver as huge as "Marxism" as a cult is just absurd. It was the most powerful set of ideas aimed at freeing the permanently downtrodden developed perhaps since Christ himself, but certainly of the 19th and early 20th centuries. That it played out so poorly was as much as function of the instant, relentless counter-attack of capital it everywhere met, leading straight into the sort of post-revolution, paranoid (with reason) "security first" outcomes we see also see in non-Marxist revolts of all manner and description. Cuba poses zero threat of any kind, yet is STILL the object of endless US misery-making.

    But worse, Marxism and pretty much all it did accomplish through its many social democratic variants, has been all but obliterated NOT by Libertarianism, but by a complex of corporate/financial and technocratic power, operating freely within all key, captured US institutions, and have NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH LIBERTARIANISM. The people currently running things, and very likely will continue to run things, are the "cults" of management, science, technology, military power, in pursuit of the real cults, i.e., "growth" and "progress"

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    Not that either. See "ADAM'S CURSE" by Brian Sykes. This is the eternal cult: "My DNA uber alles forever."

    As to Marx's place in the Global Reich universe, see: "CONJURING HITLER…" by Guido Giacomo Preparata.

    The DNA *power* of Third-Fourth Reichs is the *power* of the Medieval feudal system and the Corporate Feudal System today, the "NOBILITY and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII," the *royal blood* of all totalitarian empires from Genghis Kahn, through the *British East India Company-British Empire* Opium Wars UberLords in the West from Victoria through the Russell Foundation's YALE, Skull and Bones, and Bush's CIA *Security State* from Olde Confederate Holy Roman D.C.

    The *Libertarians* are the fanatic slaves of this *Power*.

    steelhead23

    I tend to agree with Pilkington that the church of libertarianism is a cult. What truly distinguishes this cult is absolutism. That is the real rub. You see, when a libertarian argues that government has no right to control abortion or recreational drug use, I agree with them. When they suggest lassiez faire economics, I wince. I don't know where this absolutism originated, but my guess is that there is a biological tendency for humans to show fealty to their group and it takes intellectual energy to overcome this tendency. Cultist of all stripes are intellectually lazy – or perhaps insecure.

    One last statement. NC is perhaps the very best blog I follow for one simple reason – synthesis. It is not uncommon to see views collide here, but often there is enough curiosity among the bloggers to take seemingly conflicting concepts and find enough commonality to forge an arena of general agreement, or at least grudging acceptance. Y'all enjoy Yves little soiree at Trinity. You are a great bunch of people and I'd love to meet you all. Regrets.

    Lidia

    The particular thing about current "libertarianism" is instead that it weighs in heavily AGAINST autonomy in reproductive activity.

    Aquifer

    Well, can't say as I can offer a cogent critique – but will say that anyone who can include a reference to Campbell, one of my all time favorites, in a critique of Marxism and Libertarianism as cults certainly deserves, IME, a thorough reading and i do appreciate it.

    Has been a good day, for me, on this site ….

    craazyman

    It's amazing how easy it is to use the Albert Camus REBEL iPhone app.

    I just pointed my iPhone camera at Phil's post and the comments, all 161 of them, and then I touched the REBEL app's "Go" button on the screen and it called up this quote. In only 4 seconds! It's an amazing app.

    It's especially useful for lazy people who don't want to have to paw through books for that special apropos passage. Who has time for that? What a waste. That's so 20th century and we're already almost at 2012. Pretty soon it'll be the 22nd century and then what? I don't know, personally.

    "But total freedom is no more easy to conquer than individual freedom. To ensure man's empire over the world, it is necessary to suppress in the world and in man everything that escapes the Empire, everything that does not come under the reign of quantity: and this is an endless undertaking. The Empire must embrace time, space, and people, which compose the three dimensions of history. It is simultaneously war, obscurantism, and tyranny, desperately affirming that one day it will be liberty, fraternity, and truth; the logic of its postulates obliges it to do so."

    -Albert Camus, THE REBEL, Totality and Trials

    And while everyone is on the topic of the ascendancy of the absolute and the tyranny of the strangulation of the mono-whatever, It may be that an iPHone app can solve the libertarian fixation by providing a substitute fetish of thinking upon which the mentality can lean and peacefully rest itself. The entire project is one of leisure. Thinking can be so tiring and anything that avoids it is a great monument of efficiency.

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    Yes, the *Cliff's Notes* to literature 2012.

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    This is why Ayn Rand moved to *America* by Hollywood. Our soil and *prepared people* have attract and created cultists since the beginning. Hence, we are greatly at risk of disaster from cults and their fanatic strivers. SEE:

    "THE PURSUIT OF THE MILLENIUM: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages" by Norman Cohn;

    "SACRED CAUSES: The Clash of Religion and Politics, From the Great War to the War on Terror" by Michael Burleigh;

    "STALKING IRISH MADNESS: Searching for the Roots of My Family's Schizophrenia" by Patrick Tracey;

    "THE FAMILY: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" by Jeff Sharlett;

    "SACRED MATTERS: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, The Living Dead, And Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States" by Gary Laderman;

    "METAPOLITICS: The Roots of the Nazi Mind" by Peter Viereck.

    The U.S.A. is fertile ground for totalitarian cults.

    Lidia

    Just as Hayek was lured to the US by reassurances that Social Security would take care of him in his Golden Years.

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    Yes, Lidia, the hypocrisy goes with the *affectation of innocence* that shields the cult striver.

    JTFaraday

    "By now we are far outside the realm of anything even remotely resembling a science of 'value'. What we have instead is a vast metaphysical and moral system that is built around a very specific – not to mention very narrow – conception of value, together with a sort of existential appendage in the form of the hero-entrepreneur"

    This straight from the poopy diaper baby and the newest member of the MMT heroic policy-entrepreneur cult, which manages to reduce all value down to keystrokes in one centralized office, an imperializing reduction so grand even Lloyd Blankfein hasn't (quite) managed to conjure it up in his fevered imagination. (Yet).

    Very Wizard of Oz.

    "the cult of Reason that Robespierre erected in revolutionary France upon the intellectual architecture that Jean-Jacques Rousseau had constructed for him. All of these cults espouse liberty and freedom and end up creating regimes of pure tyranny. Why? Because in their violent desire to turn reality into a Utopia, they stamp all over reality as it fails to conform to the images in their minds."

    You get this from Rousseau? Have you read Rousseau?

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    Rousseau did inspire Robespierre, Q.E.D.

    LeonovaBalletRusse

    The real question is WHY has the topic of *Libertarianism* through the eyes of Pilkington been dominating the conversation, monopolizing the time, of NC participants?

    [Jul 04, 2011] Mark Ames Why the American Right Never Liked V.S. Naipaul

    "Democratic/Republican fights are just an instrument of distraction. Plugging in right and left changes very little in this kabuki dynamic. The right sold out to the corporatists in word and deed decades ago. The left except for a tiny uncoopted sliver of it sold out in deed about the same time. What we see nowadays, epitomized by Obama, is the slow but sure closing of the divide between the corporate left's rhetoric and their actions. Change we can believe in is being replaced by calls for the necessity of cutting Social Security and Medicare, bailing out banksters, continuing and multiplying the imperial wars, and curtailing individual rights for all but the wealthy. More and more the Democrats and the liberals are pretending less and less about their real positions supporting all of these. "
    July 2, 2011 | naked capitalism

    Hugh:

    This post is what is called a "righteous rant." It doesn't tell you what Ames is for, but it does give you a pretty clear idea of what he dislikes.

    I've known conservatives who were honest people, but I have never met a conservative position that was. And I have always thought that phrases like "conservative intellectual," "conservative thinker," "compassionate conservative," and "principled conservative" were oxymorons. Truth be told, I don't have a high opinion of Establishment "intellectuals", like Krugman, DeLong, or Bacevich either. Invariably, anytime they give an indication of having a clue, they quickly follow up with something that shows, nope, they clearly don't.

    I agree with those that say that the focus should be on kleptocracy. Democratic/Republican fights are just an instrument of distraction. Plugging in right and left changes very little in this kabuki dynamic. The right sold out to the corporatists in word and deed decades ago. The left except for a tiny uncoopted sliver of it sold out in deed about the same time. What we see nowadays, epitomized by Obama, is the slow but sure closing of the divide between the corporate left's rhetoric and their actions. Change we can believe in is being replaced by calls for the necessity of cutting Social Security and Medicare, bailing out banksters, continuing and multiplying the imperial wars, and curtailing individual rights for all but the wealthy. More and more the Democrats and the liberals are pretending less and less about their real positions supporting all of these.

    As for that sliver on the left I mentioned, I said here once how odd it was that having progressive inclinations and favoring solutions that are both fair and work puts one today not just on the left but the far left. It's become the default space for those of us who support none of the above but still believe that our society can be fixed.

    Bernard:

    Wow, what an awesome column today. this guy Ames can call things what they are. and to watch the conversation, too. Ames really calls it in so many ways. the symptoms of the demise are staring us directly in the face.

    like the last post said, any attempt to call a spade a spade is not allowed. the trickery of the left and right to control the conversation and avoid the facts of how we got here and who covers for whom. no one is completely "right", just the summation of their argument shows where the truth lies in what they say.

    to see the path to today described so aptly. and the comments about the spite vote is so on the mark. "If i can't have it, then no one can." how to get over on everyone, cause i don't have mine" voter. and to enjoy watching your brother/sister get stabbed and then fried by the system. what always amazes me is the absence of connection. the idea that somehow this "greed/envy/hate delusion doesn't come back or wont come back to bite you in your own behind. like it is right now.

    the simple answers to the Medicare, Social Security, the Banks and all the other socio economic issues are not allowed to be talked about. just so the Rich power brokers can keep stealing, keep on keeping on.

    "nothing to see here, just move along" is all that is allowed.

    wonderful blog, i am so lucky to have found this.

    thanks for all the posting. i can't begin to say how much better i feel to know i was not crazy. Not being one of the "Powers that Be", thinking what i did about all those "lunatics" in charge of the insane asylum.

    and what is also important is that the "diversionary" tactics of some posters are not working as long as common sense is continued to be allowed to be spoken.

    thanks Yves, this really matters.

    Nobody:

    "the simple answers to the Medicare, Social Security, the Banks and all the other socio economic issues are not allowed to be talked about. Just so the Rich power brokers can keep stealing, keep on keeping on."

    Isn't that part of what happens here?

    [Jun 07, 2011] "Lifting the Veil"

    June 7, 2011 | naked capitalism

    Mark Ames referred me to the documentary "Lifting the Veil." I'm only about 40 minutes into it and am confident it will appeal to NC readers, provided you can keep gagging in the sections that contain truly offensive archival footage (in particular, numerous clips of Obama campaign promises).

    Ames' mini-review:

    It begins with John Stauber, one of the great anti-PR writers, and historian Sharon Smith laying out the flat rancid truth: That the Democratic Party of today is the Big Co-apter. The Republicans have always been the party of corporate interests; and the Democrats portray themselves as agents of social change and progressive/populist opposition to corporate power, but the Democratic Party's job is to co-apt these anti-corporate movements and subvert them to the same (or a different faction of) corporate interests.

    To complete our two-corporate-party farce, we have an alleged third choice, a so-called opposition "Third Party," the largest "neither left nor right"/"neither Democrat nor Republican" third party for the past three decades. And that party is…ta-dum!…

    Libertarianism. Which was nothing but a corporate PR project designed to co-apt the whole realm of Third Party opposition and subvert it to the most radical corporate agenda of all. In other words, even our Third Party/outside-the-system party is nothing but the most purified, most extreme pro-corporate party of all!

    At this point you have to assume that the oligarchy is just laughing at us. "Hey, here's an idea–let's make the opposition to our fake-two-party system nothing but our corporate wish-list we send to Santa every year, and package that as the radical opposition." "No way Mr Koch, there's no way they'll buy it–everyone today who's against the two-party system is on the radical Left." "Just give me a couple of decades, and a few billion dollars, you'll see…" CUT TO TODAY: "Holy shit, you were right, Chuck! Ah-hah-hah-hah! The suckers have nowhere to go but right into our mouths–doors one, two and three our ours! Mwah-hah-hah!"

    As black activist Leonard Pinkney says, "The Democrats are the foxes, and the Republicans are the wolves–and they both want to devour you." So what does that make Libertarians? Avian flu viruses?

    You can watch it below or at Metanoia:

    Foppe:

    While it is quite obviously true (given earlier discussions) that both parties are pro-corporate, it seems to me that there is two moderately interesting points to be made: First of all, to note that, given the fact that politicians are beholden to their sponsors, the political dynamics were different (and the pro-financial-interests stance of the democratic party was less absolute) when the unions could still buy more candidates. Secondly, and this will sound rather obvious: not all corporations are the same, as not every US firm is interested in having the maximum amount of competition between nations, or in having a heavily financialized economy. These 'other' (sometimes called Main Street, but given the forays of auto companies into the lending business and Enron in the derivatives business I am not sure this is quite accurate any more) businesses used to also be able to gather political support, but they too seem to have been relegated to the sidelines. Why is that? One part of the answer can, it seems to me, be found here: (David Harvey, Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom)

    In his Whitehall speech Bush made much of the fact that the last person to stay at Buckingham Palace was Woodrow Wilson, "an idealist, without question." Bush recounted how at a dinner hosted by King George V in 1918, "Woodrow Wilson made a pledge. With typical American understatement, he vowed that right and justice would become the predominant and controlling force in the world." Yet this was the same Woodrow Wilson whose attorney general launched the infamous "Palmer raids" against immigrants and "anarchists" that culminated in the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti (now pardoned as innocent). The Wilson administration ruthlessly crushed the Seattle general strike in 1918 and exiled the leaders to the newly minted Soviet Union. It imprisoned Eugene Debs for speaking out against the war and escalated its interventionism in Central America to put U.S. Marines into Nicaragua for more than a decade. Wilson: "Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused." … A populist nationalism has often dominated and operated as a powerful check upon liberal international engagements. The isolationism of the 1920S, centered at the time within the Republican party, stymied Wilsonian internationalism at home (the Senate rejected joining the League of Nations), while the imperialist policies of the European powers checked it abroad. Bush's subsequent advocacy of Wilsonian liberal international idealism, including attempts at democratization and nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq, suffused with the rhetoric of individual liberty and freedom, signaled a major political break in how this strain in U.S. foreign policy was to be articulated. The September 11 attacks and the subsequent declaration of a global war on terror allowed populist nationalism to be mobilized behind rather than against Wilsonian internationalism. This is the real significance of the widespread claim (accepted within the United States but not elsewhere) that the world fundamentally changed with September 11. That this is where the neoconservatives wanted to be all along is also deeply relevant. By contrast, large segments of the Democratic party, along with the traditional Republican right wing, have become comfortable with ideas of protectionism and isolationism (eventually looking to abandon the Iraq venture to its ugly fate). True-blue conservatives, such as William Buckley, mindful of the strong tradition of noninterventionism in the affairs of others that stretches back at least to Edmund Burke, became ferocious critics of the Iraq venture.

    russell1200
    "As black activist Leonard Pinkney says, "The Democrats are the foxes, and the Republicans are the wolves–and they both want to devour you." So what does that make Libertarians? Avian flu viruses?"

    By that description, you could call them the useful idiots. They are the people working for corporate well being through individual liberty. To the extent that some (many) of them by the corporate line, the way that liberal democrats bought the communist line, I think that would be a useful description.

    Dave of Maryland
    8:40 am Communism – or Maoism – is about the only hope I have left.
    alex
    Another radical possibility would be democracy. Democracy as in one person one vote, rather than one [million] dollars one vote.

    Nah, never mind, I'm talking utopian silliness.

    bmeisen
    One person/2 votes please. In other words when you step into the voting booth you would cast a vote for a candidate and a vote for a party. The one man/one vote, single-member-district-plurality system is what creates the 2-party oligarchy.
    alex
    I'm all for a mixed district/party representation (the Bundestag has such a system) ranked preference (anything other than first-past-the-post plurality, see Australia) and lots of other good stuff that I think would help, but I still think the blatant bribes (oops, I meant large campaign contributions) are _the_ biggest factor.

    Even with the two party duopoly we used to have better representation than we do now, and if we had all the other good things but kept the bribery we'd just have a wider variety of bought-and-paid-for politicians to choose from.

    ScottS

    To be a useful idiot, you have to truly believe. Politicians are coldly cynical and calculating.

    I'd say the media is much closer to "useful idiot" status since they believe what they are told, and don't understand much of what they report on. They are gullible, at the very least.

    vraie démocratie maintenant
    " foxes, and the Republicans are the wolves "

    elephants as heretics say ,"donkeys are your hypocrites"

    a mêlée to the death of heresy against hypocrisy --

    Foppe
    With regard to the video, it is quite amusing to hear how much Obama promised.. I wonder what would've happened if someone had just compiled a video like this of all the promises he'd made made during the campaign, and run it before the vote between Hilary and Obama.. Wouldn't it have made people slightly skeptical? Or was the atmosphere really that crazy that this sounded possible?
    F. Beard
    "So what does that make Libertarians?"

    The only hope? True libertarians are opposed to central banking. Of course there are fascist poseurs too including those who desire a government enforced gold standard.

    aet
    "True libertarians"?

    I have some of those living down the street from me, right next door to some "true Scotsmen"!

    F. Beard
    It's true that "true libertarians" are not in total agreement of what the proper role of government should be. I'm not sure myself. But one thing is blindingly obvious – the government backed banking and money system must be abolished. After that is accomplished the need for government should "wither away" in time leaving many arguments about the role and size of government mute.

    We really need a broad coalition between liberals, progressives and libertarians against the banks.

    Praedor
    Fairly silly. The government (as per Constitution) owns/operates the money. It is NOT the purview of businesses, it is not the purview of banks. It is the absolute domain of the government.

    The problem with the Fed is it isn't actually federal, it is private. A truly governmnet/people owned/operated bank should replace the Fed…and no, gold should not be the basis of money. Not enough gold in the world to work AND…the value of virtually worthless gold is entirely subjective. It has no magical inherent value. It is less useful than silver or platinum, being largely relegated to mere jewelry, caps on teeth (so fascists can pry them out when convenient), and a small (but actually useful) role in nanomedicine and electronics.

    You didn't mention gold but being a libertarian…you are all infected with the religious belief in the magic of gold.

    F. Beard
    You didn't mention gold but being a libertarian…you are all infected with the religious belief in the magic of gold. Praedor

    LOL! That is a huge laugh. Certainly people should be allowed to use anything mutually agreed upon for private debts but anyone who calls for government recognition of anything but its own fiat as money is a fascist, not a libertarian.

    F. Beard
    Fairly silly. The government (as per Constitution) owns/operates the money. It is NOT the purview of businesses, it is not the purview of banks. It is the absolute domain of the government. Praedor

    But there's the trap. By insisting on a single money supply for all debts you serve the bankers' interest who are then able to steal purchasing power by extending credit in that money. And if you abolish private banking, then you'll cripple the economy.

    The solution is separate government and private money supplies. The government can simply create, spend and tax its own fiat. As for the private sector, the banks would attempt to pyramid on top of the government's fiat but the leverage would be limited without government privilege.

    With separate government and private money supplies, the private sector would be forced to share wealth with workers since it would no longer have the option of stealing purchasing power via money creation (so-called "credit").

    hareli
    I agree completely with Praedor
    Tao Jonesing
    @aet,

    I think I understand what Beardy is saying when he refers to "true libertarians." Modern libertarians draw heavily from the works of Hayek, who redefined the "liberty" of classical liberalism to mean just "negative liberty" (i.e., you have liberty as long as you are given a choice). By redefining liberty, he redeifined libertarianism.

    Most most libertarians have no idea that they're worshipping a maimed vision of liberty that invites fascism and totalitarianism.

    ? says:

    "The solution is separate government and private money supplies."

    So something close to what the EU is now. Maybe the Euro Dollar market, a libertarian playground. No god damn thank you. The ECB can't lend to governments directly and can't create money itself, that is up to the private banks. So governments have to borrow from private banks, at a big markup cost, and have to use their public utilities, services and resources as collateral. As I said, hell no. The EU is a right wing, financialized basket case. The people are going to have to radically change the ECB, radically change how the richer countries that are financial powers share more equitably with the poorer countries or it will crumble. As it is structured now, I'd like it to.

    I agree with Yves Smith, finance is a public utility. We could collectively do what the banks do at a lower cost and the rents (cause that is all finance is, unearned income) could go back into social programs. I think North Dakota's state bank is something to look at. Allowing financial parasites to create money out of thin air (which is wealth extraction, not creation) in the fractional reserve banking system on a computer screen is no logical way to run a financial system.

    Also, basing our monetary system on gold makes no logical sense. It is a 19th century idea well past its time. Karl Polanyi showed clearly why the gold standard was the project of neo-classical ideologues and he explained in the "Great Transformation" why the system was such a disaster. Expanding and contracting purchasing power, the consumption or resources and with it pollution based upon the value of some damn metal makes no sense in the world we live in. If we were going to base our monetary system on a resource of real value, why not it be water? I know it sounds crazy, but Adam Smith's diamond/water paradox ironically shows why this would make more sense. Smith showed that while diamonds have no use value, they have exchange value. Water however is extremely useful and needed yet has very little exchange value. Well, that might have been the case then with far less people, pollution and ecological destruction, that paradox shows the real problems we and economics are facing now. It is time to stop looking to ideas that didn't even work that well 150 years ago, when the world was a much different place.

    liberal
    Most libertarians are crypto-feudalists.
    alex
    What's so crypto about them?
    wunsacon
    Beard, you might want to call yourself something other than a "libertarian", because (a) you and I share some views and (b) self-professed "libertarians" tell me I'm a liberal (which I can't disagree with, even though I argue with self-professed "liberals", because I don't know what the hell that label is supposed to mean anyway).

    Maybe we should refer to our politicalcompass.org scores…or not use labels at all and just talk about what policies we want to change and why.

    F. Beard
    From now on, I am an anti-fascist non-socialist.
    woohoo
    Libertarians reject the concept of corporate charters. That's a good place to start. no hiding behind the skirts of politicians. Full liability for all actions.
    alex
    "Libertarians reject the concept of corporate charters."

    *Some* libertarians do. But is that, for example, a plank of the Libertarian Party platform?

    That's why many people, including myself, don't take "libertarianism" all that seriously. Apparently it can mean almost anything. Therefore in serious political debate it's best to leave the ism's out of it, lest the debate degenerate into rooting for or against various teams (and forgetting why).

    Clampit
    You know for so few victories or votes, Libertarians sure do wield disproportionate levels of political power. Turns out they were responsible for banking deregulation and now come to find out, despite barely being able to pick a front man, they've already been corrupted by corporate interests. Golly whiz, I'd better run home to the Republicrats before any real harm is done.

    I can't wait to see how the market anarchism movement is hijacked by corporate interests, so I can finally be privy to the error in their ways as well.

    auskalo
    A couple of months ago DownSouth put here, at NC, in a comment about an article by Chris Hedges, the link to Lifting the Veil and Metanoia, getting lots of comments.

    It is also in Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/20355767

    wunsacon
    Yes, big thumbs up to DownSouth. I watched it after his plug.
    Doug Terpstra
    Same here: hat tip to DownSouth. He linked this video on March 13, in a "links" comment to the inevitablility of an imperial presidency. Coincidentally, the antidote du jour, was a fox (Obama?).

    Obama commented on the $17 million bonus for Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase and the $9 million bonus for Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs after they melted down our economy: "I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen. I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system." (But Dimon is 90% savvier than Blankfein!)

    alex
    "That is part of the free-market system."

    Dear Mr. President,

    Most of the fictional works of George Orwell (a.k.a. Eric Blair) were intended as warnings, not recommendations.

    tz

    I am really tired of "If I want your opinion I'll give it to you".

    There are not a few libertarians like me that consider corp(se)orations the undead monsters created by the Frankenstate. I would have them slain. Then the Koch brothers would just have the power two individual had, not the power they seized when liberals concentrated it in DC.

    I know of no country where they want stalinist-maoist like power in the centralized government that doesn't have a nomenklatura, oligarchy, or other elites living lavishly and breaking all the rules.

    I do not think it would be any gain to change which people are the oligarchs crushing me, which elites get to steal my property.

    Most libertarians are their core are about liberty, so any power, and the corruption that attends, needs to be broken, destroyed, scattered, opposed, or mitigated.

    One thing I can say is almost universal about libertarians is they care about THE RULE OF LAW. You know – the laws against fraud that if they were enforced, even from the old english common law, most of the wall street and DC elite would be in prison serving long sentences.

    But what is your solution? Arbitrary assassination? Basically destroying the rule of law in the other direction with bills of attainder or ex post facto laws – with your supreme court justices gutting the meaning of plain words after being "educated" by your group?

    We will replace a corrupt king with a reign of terror. Why should I want that? I want a second AMERICAN revolution, not a second French revolution. I want to destroy the cozy relationships that mirror the East India company. You just want to start robbing and shooting the incumbents. I wish to reestablish justice and the rule of law – then change the laws to make individuals powerful, not bureaucrats, oligarchs, corpseorations, or nanny-dearest progressives that don't think I know how to run my life or protect myself.

    liberal
    Most libertarians are their core are about liberty…

    Yes; about crushing it in favor of feudalism.

    DownSouth
    Yep. It's not about liberty at all, but about license.

    We don't seem to have learned much during the last 500 years, because Machiavelli did a pretty good job of summing the relationship between the aristocrats, the common people and the government over five centuries ago in The Prince:

    [W]hen a private citizen becomes the ruler of his country not through perfidy or intolerable violence but rather through the aid of his fellow citizens, we may call what ensures a civil principality. I say that one becomes the ruler of such a principality through the support of either the common people or the nobles, for these two opposing parties are to be found in every city; and they originate from the fact that the common people do not want to be commanded or oppressed by the nobles, whereas the nobles do want to command and oppress them. From these conflicting desires will come one of three consequences: principality, liberty, or license.

    A principality, then, can come into being either by means of the common people or by means of the nobles, depending upon which of the two has the opportunity. When the nobles see that they can no longer withstand the people, they bestow power upon one of their own part and make him prince so that they can gratify their appetites under his protection. Likewise, when the common people see that they can no longer withstand the nobles, they bestow power upon someone of their own party and make him prince in order to find protection under his authority. The man who becomes prince through the help of the nobles will find it more difficult to remain in power than the man who becomes prince through the help of the people, for the former will be surrounded by men who will presume to be his equals. As a consequence, he will not be able to command them or control them as he would like.

    But the prince who comes to power through the support of the people will stand alone, and there will be few or none at all near him who will not be disposed to obey him. Besides, it is impossible to satisfy the nobles fairly without injuring others, whereas it is indeed possible to do so with respect to the people, for their wishes have more right, since they seek to avoid oppression while the nobles seek to oppress…

    Praedor
    9:41 am Nah. Most libertarians are, at their core, merely greedy and self-centered. Their true core orbits around "I got mine so f*ck you!" They all love them some Ayn Rand.
    F. Beard
    Technically, Ayn Rand was a fascist since she favoured a government enforced gold standard.
    Foppe
    And yet. The problems we are facing are not caused by the state, they are caused by corporate interests utilizing the state. However, with the state gone, all that remains are corporations on the one hand, and individuals on the other. These individuals could then choose to organize themselves in unions or whatever, but as we have just heard in the case of Colombia, what happens then is that Chiquita hires paramilitary groups to beat the union members into submission. Conclusion: you need a strong state with a monopoly on violence, but without it being controlled by the corporations. And as corporations are best at hoarding money, this means that the people need to control the corporations. However, fundamental to all of this is the idea that people need to be able to work together, and to make choices that will affect the lives of the plutocrats negatively. How do you justify that from within a libertarian position? You cannot. Ergo, libertarianism is a primitive doctrine which presupposes that we can live our lives without affecting the lives of others.
    Alex R.
    That's not true. There are two kinds of Libertarians; those who don't know that Ayn Rand wrote fiction, and those who don't know that Robert Heinlein wrote fiction.
    alex
    Best categorization I've ever heard!
    Praedor
    THAT, sir, is hilarious (and sadly true I must say).
    ambrit
    Fiends; What's really funny about all this is that these two "Shining Stars" of the Libertarian firmament were completely dissolute and venal in their private lives. There is a good reason why the "Golden Age" of Science Fiction has been known to be Thirteen. The age when puberty sets in and rationality hasn't fully been assimilated. As for Ayn Rand? On a par with Enlightenment Fabulism. Such as, A Voyage to Magonia.
    Doug Terpstra
    "'Atlas Shrugged' is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should." -luminary Alan Greenspan, recipient of the 2001 Enron Prize for Distinguished Public Service
    DownSouth
    tz said:

    Most libertarians are their core are about liberty, so any power, and the corruption that attends, needs to be broken, destroyed, scattered, opposed, or mitigated.

    One thing I can say is almost universal about libertarians is they care about THE RULE OF LAW.

    Most normal people are quick to recognize the logical incoherence in this pair of statements.

    The first is a declaration that all government power must be eviscerated. It is the Utopian vision embraced by both right-wing libertarian and left-wing Bolshevik, the return of mankind to the state of original innocency, a state which Engels describes as one of idyllic harmony with "no soldiers, no gendarmes, no policemen, prefects or judges, no prisons, laws or lawsuits."

    The second statement stands in complete contradiction to the first, for it calls for using the long arm of the government to reach out and enforce "THE RULE OF LAW."

    In the mind of a normal person, these two diametrically opposed positions are not reconcilable. So how are they reconcilable in the mind of the libertarian?

    One possible explanation is provided by Andrew M. Lobaczewski in Political Ponerology: A Science of the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes. For the libertarian ideology, with its intolerable internal inconsistencies in the world of normal people, makes perfect sense in the us-vs-them world of the psychopath: license (which the libertarian beguilingly labels "liberty") for us, and the long arm of the law for them. Lobaczewski explains:

    Their world is forever divided into "us and them"; their little world with its own laws and customs and that other foreign world of normal people they see as full of presumptuous ideas and customs by which they are condemned morally. Their sense of honor bids them to cheat and revile that other human world and its values at every opportunity….

    In the psychopath, a dream emerges like some Utopia of a "happy" world and a social system which does not reject them or force them to submit to laws and customs whose meaning is incomprehensible to them. They dream of a world in which their simple and radical way of experiencing and perceiving reality would dominate; where they would, of course, be assured safety and prosperity. In this Utopian dream, they imagine that those "others", different, but also more technically skillful than they are, should be put to work to achieve this goal for the psychopaths and others of their kin. "We", they say, "after all, will create a new government, one of justice."

    So the psychopath is a two-headed monster, preaching "liberation" and "freedom" out of one side so that he can have license to rape, plunder and kill at will, and tyranny out of the other side so that he can force those "others" to do and be as he wishes.

    Tao Jonesing
    This is no surprise. Modern libertarianism is, in fact, the pure form of neoliberalism. It was manufactured by the likes of Hayek, Rothbard, Mises and Freidman on the corporate nickel. These architects assembled top economists, lawyers, philosophers, and social scientists (and I am sure they had psychologists on board, as well) to construct a set of new sociopathic values and institutions to push them into the world as the societal values that inform all decision making, as Gunar Myrdall observed.

    Many self-identifying libertarians are the very intellectuals that Hayek despised, the type of people who would have been Marxists in another era, if only to show how smart they are, which makes them the biggest fools of all.

    Clampit
    "…it calls for using the long arm of the government to reach out and enforce "THE RULE OF LAW.""

    I see, without government there would be no rule of law. Peachy … I am governed therefore I am. Really nice essay, but can you also adjust the valves on your car?

    Iolaus
    You are governed and therefore you are civilized. You hold elections to decide who you want to govern, and they govern with your consent. If you are dissatisfied, you participate in electoral politics, and work to convince people that someone else should govern. It's a terrific model, and the U.S. ought to try it sometime.
    Clampit
    What if I don't want to outsource political power to a single person or faction? Is there some esoteric derivation of human nature that prohibits any other structure in civilized "free" society?

    I can't help but reminisce on the wisdom of Greenspin when reading all these political diatribes, and it occurs to me that our political structure, perhaps more so than any other, should be accessible to the layman intellect.

    DownSouth

    Clampit says: "What if I don't want to outsource political power…"?

    What makes you so sure you're going to have any power "to outsource" in the every man for himself, anything goes, might makes right, survival of the strongest, survival of the fittest, kill or be killed, dog eat dog world you fantasize?

    Do you really think you are a match for the power of the likes of Exxon? Goldman Sachs?

    DownSouth

    The founder's fear of too much power in government was checked by their great awareness of the enormous dangers of the rights and liberties of the citizen that would arise from within society. Hence, according to Madison, 'it is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers; but to guard one part of society against the injustice of the other part…" This, if nothing else, required the constitution of public, governmental power whose very essence could never be derived from something which is a mere negative, i.e., constitutional limited government…

    [….]

    Highly aware of their own ignorance on the subject, they turned to history, collecting with a care amounting to pedantry all examples, ancient and modern, real and fictitious, of republican constitutions; what they tried to learn in order to dispel their ignorance was by no means the safeguards of civil liberties--a subject on which they certainly knew much more than any previous republic--but the constitution of power. This was also the reason for the fascination exerted by Montesquieu, whose role in the American Revolution almost equals Rousseau's influence on the course of the French Revolution…

    [….]

    Montesquieu confirmed what the founders, from the experience of the colonies, knew to be right, namely, that liberty was 'a natural Power of doing or not doing whatever we have a Mind', and when we read the earliest documents of colonial times that 'deputyes thus chose shall have power and liberty to appoynt' we can still hear how natural it was for these people to use the two words as synonyms…

    For Montesquieu's discovery actually concerned the nature of power… [T]he foundation of the republic in America was largely inspired by it. The discovery, contained in one sentence, spells out the forgotten principle underlying the whole structure of separated powers: that only 'power arrests power', that is, we must add, without destroying it, without putting impotence in the place of power…

    [….]

    How well this part of Montesquieu's teaching was understood in the days of the foundation of the republic! On the level of theory, its greatest defender was John Adams, whose entire political thought turned about the balance of powers… He wrote: 'Power must be opposed to power, force to force, strength to strength, interest to interest, as well as reason to reason, eloquence to eloquence, and passion to passion'. ▬Hannah Arendt, On Revolution

    Tao Jonesing
    11:44 am Most modern libertarians think they're advocating Jefferson's conception of liberty. Unfortunately, the libertarian movement is not. Rather, the movement that you see represented by places like Mises.org actually advocates the fascist negative liberty of Hayek.

    That's the double truth of neoliberalism By redefining words in common usage to mean their opposite, the neoliberals don't even ave to cross their fingers when they lie because their words mean two different and opposite things, depending on who is listening.

    Neoliberalism purposefully takes advantage of the confirmation bias of people like you to accomplish the opposite of what you say you want. But "most libertarians don't . . .". Whatever. It doesn't matter what most libertarians want. What matters is what they think they want.

    Jack Straw
    8:50 am I am surprised that no mention is made of the Green Party, which unlike the libertarians or LP hold a significant number of offices. Jesse Ventura won office "with" the Reform Party, which later re-branded itself locally the Independence Party as Pat Buchanan became more prominent in the RP nationally.

    While political promises are occasionally dangerous to break, they're also almost always impossible to keep.

    I've noticed that grade school kids don't seem to have class elections anymore – anywhere. While it alwayes seemed like BS when I was a kid, not having them seems worse.

    bmeisen
    Good point – practicing democracy gives us a chance to experience different forms of democracy. Americans seem blind to democratic options, blinded perhaps by the belief that their democracy is the only democracy.
    ScottW
    9:31 am "Lifting the Veil" is one of the best movies I have seen that should be mandatory viewing for every Obama supporter. I remember after Obama was elected, a mainstream pundit commented that of course he will not keep any of his promises–no President ever does. Obama may have just snookered more people with his mesmerizing sermon like speeches following on the the heels of 8 years of Bush Administration terror. Obama's attempt to capture the conservative independent voter is going to backfire as he loses millions of former supporters who will either stay home, or vote for someone else. There is no chance he will be re-elected unless unemployment falls below 8% (maybe 7.5%) and it is unlikely that will occur before November 2012.
    Praedor
    9:45 am The opponent field is fairly weak so I give Obama better chances of staying in.

    All bets are off if Huntsman actually gets the GOPer nod (fat chance him OR the hypocrit mormon guy getting the nod) with the teabaggers ruling the roost. They are likely to go for Bachman or Palin or Mr Macaca: none with the slightest chance in hell of ever getting elected.

    DownSouth
    10:51 am What great choices, no?

    We're given the option between shitty and shittier.

    ZADOOFKA FLORIDA
    And they can't have another "census" to make the unemployment numbers go down falsly for 6 months.
    kievite
    10:50 am I really don't understand why the statement of the fact that both parties represent business interests generates so much excitement. The possible role of Libertarians as "spoiler" party is the only interesting tidbit.

    I think the idea that the central foundational principle of the capitalist nation-state is that it is a reflection of its economic constituencies (those who own and control the means of production shape the state in the form that they desire) is with us since around early 1800th. And if you ignore all this nonsense about proletarian revolution and proletariat as a new ruling class Marx's analysis of capitalism is still worth reading.

    The iron law of oligarchy was discovered in 1911. Financial capitalism as a natural and inevitable stage of development of capitalism was analysed by Lenin in his famous "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" (1916).

    The real question is what are the political possibilities for countervailing forces and which of them can at least temporarily survive and prosper within the polyarchy framework without being co-opted iether by Repug or Dermocrats (this is a term from modern Russia political vocabulary "dermo" is turd in Russian) ?

    Political parties are organizations composed of blocs of major investors who come together to advance favored candidates in order to control the state. They do this through direct cash contributions and by providing organizational support through the contacts, fundraisers and think tanks. Candidates are invested in like stocks. For them electoral success is dependent on establishing the broadest base of elite support. Candidates whom best internalized investor values see their political "portfolios" grow exponentially at the expense of candidates who have poor level of internalization.

    So what you have is a filtering system in which only the most indoctrinated and business friendly advance to state power. Representatives of the major business groups are also often chosen to fill political appointments after a favored candidate is elected (GS is a nice example).

    This is a polyarchy, a political-economic model in which the state by-and-large functions to advance elite business interests on the domestic and international fronts.

    And that is what is meant in promoting "democracy abroad". Like Mark Curtis said "polyarchy is generally what British leaders mean when they speak of promoting 'democracy' abroad. This is a system in which a small group actually rules and mass participation is confined to choosing leaders in elections managed by competing elites."

    Cynthia
    I don't see how Obama can sleep at night after he continues to pack his inner circle with key figures from the banking cartel, banksters like Bill Daley and Gene Sperling, especially after knowing that virtually all independent financial experts have said, as Barry Ritholtz points out, that the economy cannot recover until the cartel's member banks are broken up:

    http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/01/virtually-all-independent-financial-experts-say-that-the-size-of-the-big-banks-is-hurting-the-economy/

    Only a sociopath with a heart of stone could lie for the banksters. And it sounds like Glen Ford, who co-founded the Black Agenda Report, would agree with me that Obama fits the profile of a stone-hearted sociopath:

    http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6075

    Doug Terpstra
    Obama has now left a highly visible and smelly trail of slime and snakeskin, but such sociopaths apparently have no trouble sleeping at all.

    Obama may be an especially talented case afflicted with something called "narcissistic personality disorder" (also from DownSouth, I believe) - an incurable sociopathy wherein empathy is exquisitely feigned but utterly nonexistent. As one shrink aptly put it - the snake pits of Wall Street and Washington are full of such "snakes in suits". Particularly dangerous variants are also sadists.

    Hugh
    Yes, it is all kabuki. Distraction is the primary weapon of class warfare, and the illusion of choice in politics is a central example of it.

    Because people love sports analogies, I use the one that Democrats and Republicans are like two football teams. One year, one wins; another year, the other does. But at the end of the season, it's all football. It is not like one is pro-football and the other is anti-football.

    The illusion of choice is not, however, restricted to just the two main parties. Libertarians, the Tea Party, the unions, the liberal orgs and A list blogs of the left, all claim to be legitimate alternatives to the two party system. But the Tea Party and the libertarians are largely creatures of Republican politics, and unions, the liberal orgs, and the A list "progressive" blogs are largely stand-ins for the Democratic party. Yes, all of these contain slivers of the uncoopted. There are authentic Tea Partyers, true libertarians, real progressives and liberals, but these can be and are discounted by our elites. For the most part, it comes back to the two parties, and they are just branches of the over-arching corporatist party of the kleptocrats.

    A good rule of thumb is that any organization or group that supports any Democrat or any Republican has been coopted. They are not there to protest against the Man or the System, and push for real change. They are there to disperse, defuse, and redirect such protest to make sure real change never happens.

    DownSouth
    It's a bona fide nightmare.

    The racial factor that Glen Ford (see link in Cynthia's comment above) raises I believe also plays a role. As he says, Black America is so "psychologically invested" in Obama that the president has been able to neutralize the black community, which constitutes 50% of progressive America.

    So the old racial passions raise their ugly head again, destroying solidarity and any hope for an honest democratic community.

    Why haven't we developed immunities to this evil?

    I was watching the final episode of Adam Curtis' latest film last night All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (Ep. 3) – Full. Any hope of democracy in the former Congo was been destroyed by racial strife.

    Cynthia
    DownSouth,

    Most blacks in the US don't see Obama as an Uncle Tom. They instead see him as a fellow African American who will give them a leg up in life. To them, having a black guy in the White House is their golden ticket to wealth and power.

    But little do they understand that the US is far more divided along economic lines than it is along racial lines. So Obama being a fellow African American should be totally irrelevant to them. Once they realize that Obama's primary goal as president is to further enrich the wealthy, regardless of their skin color, they'll finally see him for what he truly is: a colorblind Uncle Tom.

    alex
    "To them, having a black guy in the White House is their golden ticket to wealth and power."

    Evidence for that assertion?

    Cynthia
    Alex,

    Living just a stone's throw away from the Black Belt, which can easily double as a Bible Belt, as well as being a white minority in a black majority workplace, I can vouch for the fact that many southern blacks view Obama as a Messiah for the black cause. And because many of them run neck and neck with their white counterparts when it comes to their bigotry against Muslims, if the Christian Right had been successful at convincing them that Obama was a practicing Muslim at some point in his life, believe me, there's no way in hell southern blacks would have come together to form a voting block for Obama.

    Strange though it may sound, there's sizable number of Hagee-types among the southern black population, who view Arab Muslims as devils at work to wipe out the Angels of the Middle East, the Israeli Jews. I'm sure that Obama isn't blind to this and thus will go above and beyond to make sure that he doesn't inflame his faithful followers of the South into believing that he's working on behalf of the devils against Christ.

    Doug Terpstra
    Alex, this is a case where absence of evidence is evidence of absence. The Congressional Black Caucus has evaporated, and progressive champions like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharptongue are all but invisible. What happened to these camera-hungry publicity-hounds? And why did it take so long for Cornel West to finally come out and say Obama was a water-boy for the oligarchs?

    The circumstantial evidence for the race-based neutering of the black progressives is overwhelming, and their silence is deafening! In a case of massive co-optation, the death of the liberal class among blacks was a massacre-a brilliant (so far) bloodless coup by the oligarchs.

    See some discussion of this in "Smiley vs.Sharpton: A Potemkin Drama"

    –"Sharpton and his crowd have devolved to meek and ridiculous access-seekers with no significant agenda to 'ballyhoo.'"

    –""Black political theater was bum-rushed by the Obama phenomenon."

    –""Sharpton made common cause with New York billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg's vast political/financial network."

    -"The Reverend and his fellow unrepentant Obamites have been giving the president a 'pass' since he first appeared on the national scene."

    http://blackagendareport.com/content/smiley-vssharpton-potemkin-drama-0

    stockdude
    Why is everyone so much into political "labels"?
    Foppe
    If you'll allow me to be slightly facetious: they are into labels because all they do do is talk. Many people seem to have an immense fascination with working together only with those people whose beliefs they can approve of. And rather than not asking, they want to know everything, only to find out that they really cannot agree with anyone, because they are all "wrong". Liberals (and to a slightly lesser degree libertarians) have this down to an art form, yet they never realize that this is exactly what is keeping them from organizing politically. Republicans, on the other hand, (and I am overgeneralizing here only to make a point) are mostly uneducated, and thus don't really have all that many (refined) beliefs to begin with. So they don't really care what others believe, so long as they agree on abortion/war/communists.
    stockdude
    And another thing… Lets all stop calling "the financial behemoths, the purchased politician"-–lets stop calling them the elites.

    They are criminals, deceptors, actors, thugs, thieves, news generators and controllers. They understand the mass workings of human nature much as Jim Morrison did, however, in no way proper way are they "elite".

    Elite is a description of honor and well honed skill.

    Well then again…maybe they are the "master thieves". Regardless, lets stop using the term elite.

    In the linguistic/mind ties that are part of the human condition, the use of the term elite is almost the same as conceding the battle right out of the gate.

    rafael bolero
    I think this film's p.o.v. is more true more often at the national, rather than the state level : the difference between a Scott Walker and a Jim Doyle is huge, despite Doyle's corporate future path now. Walker, the republican, is savagely grabbing power for his corporate masters, as we are seeing in the other red-tide states under The Inquisition. A democratic governor would not being doing what Walker is doing, or certainly not at this pace. So, nationally, yes, this is a more correct perspective, but at the state level less so. I think one possible solution is each state must become its own lab to reset representative government and the social contract those people want. Is it Vermont or New Hampshire that is setting up the single-payer health care? That's what I mean : and WI with the recalls. To what extent the Fed Govt. then moves in to block the state(s) from doing business regionally and coerce it/them to toe the corporate line will show how close we come to actual rebellions, which, if they do not remain non-violent, are doomed.
    hell
    To go back the the Adam Curtis documentaries from the earlier post……the electorate has been win over?/brainwashed?/surrendered to the idea that there is no other political system than the Reaganonomics model.

    This country needs New Deal II. However Obama/Democratic Party won't deliver it either because they are closest Reaganistas or don't have the political spine to push New Deal II onto the political agenda.

    hello
    oops, meant to sign-in as "hello," not "hell." lol. apologies.
    Schofield
    As Mahatma Gandhi replied on his visit to Britain when asked by a reporter what he thought about British democracy, "Yes, that would be nice!"
    alex
    Sounds good, but I thought that's what he said when he was asked about Western Civilization.
    ambrit
    alex; I think, (tongue firmly in cheek,) that the former quote was elicited when Ghandi first came to England to study for the Bar at the appropriately named Temple.
    Schofield
    stockdude. "Looters" would be a fair description.
    Anonymous Jones
    It has always confused me how much people are drawn to politicians, something about human nature, I guess.

    The latest Wikipedia-Sarah Palin-Paul Revere thing is instructive in this regard. The people who are rabid supporters of this clearly incompetent and ignorant woman are not able to understand that she is at heart a self-interested politician (only she's just not very good at it other than being attractive and an ignorant blank slate upon which they can project their hopes and dreams)? Why do they work so hard to be duplicitous on her behalf? I don't know.

    You could basically say the same things about Obama or Nixon (well, except that they are/were intelligent to the extent one can have an objective measurement of intelligence (which, yes, is difficult)).

    And libertarians. Yikes. Define "liberty." You cannot. Just like you cannot define "equal treatment" or "equal protection," which is either "treating people in different situations the same" or in some cases "treating people in different situations differently." I know, I really know, you *think* you can. You really believe you can. But you cannot. I've seen smarter people try. Trust me. These concepts are more subtle than you can possibly imagine. You could write tomes devoted to each one.

    In any event, I've said it before (and I'll probably say it again), it's my experience that placing your faith in politicians is not as productive as you might hope and working locally within your own community to make life better for yourself and others is likely more productive (but that is just my opinion, I cannot prove it.)

    Foppe
    Define "liberty." You cannot. Just like you cannot define "equal treatment" or "equal protection," which is either "treating people in different situations the same" or in some cases "treating people in different situations differently."

    So drop the philological stuff and just let people decide for themselves what they judge to be an instance of liberty, or equality. And when both sides have done this, we are in the situation to which Marx's Dictum applies: "Between equal rights, force decides." But you are correct. Life is messy. And (as the corporatists show time and time again): you don't have rights, you fight for them.

    Foppe
    To put it differently: many people who dislike politics have the idea that there is such a thing as the "right" definition of "equality" or "just behavior". Yes, there are some definitions that do not even work at first glance, but most definitions of what is just or equal or fair will pass this test. And at that point, epistemic considerations ("the right meaning") fall by the wayside, and it becomes a political battle over who gets the right to define the meaning of 'justice' in that country.
    F. Beard
    Define "liberty." You cannot. AJ

    Maybe so but tyranny is pretty dang obvious. The banking and money system is an obvious example.

    Praedor
    I can define it for a certain crowd (libertarians and the GOP): "liberty" is a standin for "I got mine, ha-ha! Hooray for me and YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY!" It is also, "Every man for himself!".

    Libertarians add 3 specifics as religious dictates: liberty equals "private property" that they can pollute, trash, despoil, wreck, stripmine, burn as they see fit no matter what the greater consequences to neighbors or the environment (as if "private property" is some law of nature and exists outside of being a mere social convention), guns, and a gold standard. Three things and only three things that they can CLEARLY define as "liberty": private property, guns, gold standard.

    F. Beard
    Actually, a government enforced gold standard is fascist, not libertarian.

    Guns and private property are cool though I don't rule out the justice of wealth redistribution since we've had fascism in the US since 1913 at the latest.

    Praedor
    Here is a great layout of what is in store for the USA given the realities of our time – the dysfunctional politics, the hollowed-out economy, the social decoherence:

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23242.htm

    lambert strether
    Shout out to Black Agenda Report. They knew Obama was a fraud before it was cool!
    Susan Truxes
    Lifting the Veil was painful. All my heroes were there. Some of them still alive. And things never manage to change significantly. The chips are really down now for reasons we did not even imagine in the 60s. Things like the absurdity of the banking system; global degradation and massive overpopulation; uncontrollable exploitation of resources; disregard of lessons learned the hard way, etc. So maybe the most encouraging thing about Lifting the Veil is that they haven't won anything either. Both sides are still where they were 45 years ago. And the guy I miss the most is George Carlin.
    John Bennett
    As I watched this video, I asked myself how we got here from our ideal of the US. Then I came across this BBC series called The Century of the Self. It concerns the influence of Freud on history, political science, politics. and economics and ultimately on public policy. It is a four part series, each part is about 55 minutes long. The websites are all over the map. If you don't have time for all of it, at least do the first and last.

    Enjoy if you can and then ponder.

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#docid=-3986506414855430309

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#docid=-6203861489953762931

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-678466363224520614#docid=-6111922724894802811

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqeMYjbNkaE

    Philip Pilkington
    I must say, I've never stopped loving Ames. He calls a spade a spade.

    The US is probably the only country in the world that has 'discovered' the liberty of libertarianism.

    That either means it's highly advanced culturally - or it's sinking into a quagmire and justifying its own demise through absurd rationalisations that most of the world scoff at.

    I'm not saying anything… I'm just saying…

    F. Beard
    There's nothing libertarian about our banking and money system.
    Philip Pilkington
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology
    F. Beard
    http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
    Philip Pilkington
    Alright, for once - I'm not even sure why - I'm going be a little less allusive than usual.

    America is in a ditch. This is reflected in the minds of its people. They are confused about how to run the country. They think legitimate rule is equal to fascism and think that government is equal to tyranny.

    They think that money is worthless and meaningless. They think that social institutions are lying to them.

    In short: they are nihilists.

    These are the ideologies of a failed power. And the citizens that partake are the discontents that reflect this. It's a tragedy and I wish it weren't so - because I like many American ideals.

    But this is where we live.

    F. Beard

    Phil,

    You guys have had 317 years to get central banking right and now you've plunged US into Great Depression II but you STILL think you have all the answers?

    "Forever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth" comes to mind.

    When will you give up on a money system that is based on theft, particularly from the poor?

    Philip Pilkington

    Never… of course…

    Because you people keep chasing perfection, while others just try and keep the whole circus running.

    Don't you get it? You're either a saint or a clown… and if you're a saint then you're irrelevant.

    Be the best clown you can be and shut the fuck with your nonsense… Think FDR… not Lenin…

    skippy

    LMAO…I would like to put PP, Berady and DownSouth in a *Ranger Bear Pit* see:

    http://www.pipesmokerforum.com/forum/showthread.php?652-What-s-A-Bear-Pit

    Not to see whom won but, to see which two would form a team, to defeat the stand alone.

    Skippy…in the tooth and claw days in was a pit, with mud and water in the bottom. Object was last man standing.

    PS. Gnawing on the head is a no no, one way ticket to the psych ward for observation. Old chum did the no no, funny how under duress certain unobserved traits pop out….eh.

    F. Beard

    Because you people keep chasing perfection, while others just try and keep the whole circus running. PP

    Few are laughing any more. Plus, reform would not require perfection. It would only require that money creation be ethical.

    Be the best clown you can be and shut the fuck with your nonsense… Think FDR… not Lenin… PP

    Both believed in central banking so no thanks.

    Philip Pilkington

    "Few are laughing any more. Plus, reform would not require perfection. It would only require that money creation be ethical."

    …or it might require you to get off your ass. But I have a stark feeling that you prefer complaining.

    Armchair nonsense.

    The fact is that things are only going to change when you get OFF YOUR ASS and get out into the real world. When you join political groups - not to discuss gold-standard or whatever - but to engage in trying to change the political process.

    Many Americans have forgotten this - and so they spend their time moaning on the internet. This will be your destruction - trust me.

    F. Beard

    But I have a stark feeling that you prefer complaining. PP

    No, I prefer coming up with a solution and I pretty much have. If no one is interested, that's really not my problem. Seeds are sown but sometimes the soil isn't receptive.

    alex

    Philip Pilkington: "They think legitimate rule is equal to fascism and think that government is equal to tyranny."

    Which subset is "they" and about which _specific_ issues do "they" think legitimate government is tyranny? Are you talking about finance? Do you have, for example, poll results indicating that the majority of Americans oppose financial regulation, are in favor of TBTF bailouts, or oppose prosecution for financial crimes?

    Or are you reacting to editorials and (warning: confirmation bias trap) listening to the opinions of a few posters on the Internet?

    "They think that money is worthless and meaningless."

    Stand on the street and see how many Franklins you can hand out. Remember, don't coerce anyone into taking them! Perhaps you're confusing a grand notion of "worthless and meaningless" with a simple concern about inflation.

    "In short: they are nihilists."

    No, they're disgusted and pessimistic.

    Paul Tioxon

    Depending on how disillusioned you already are or prepared to become as a committed, politically aware and active individual, THE VEIL, starts to get at the structure of the modern liberal state. We are all managed, we are planned for, it is just hard for people to accept how unconscious they are. But at the same time, trying to get at the truth, the solution, the movement for a more democratic society, more democratic than what? It is clear that the banking crisis has lead to a questioning of the people who have the power to safeguard our social order in the most fundamental way and revealed the structure of power as it is, not as compared to what is real, which is a synonym for too many people for some ideal, some set of notions that only exist by virtue of language, and only in their minds. The banking crisis is as big a cultural change event as the JFK assassination was for many people. The lies were so thick you could could cut them with a knife and today is no different. But what is revealed in addition to all of the bad loans, the cheating investment bankers, the short sellers, the hedge funds is the naked power of the people who this entire economy serves better than the millions unemployed, the millions foreclosed upon and millions without health care. It serves them better than the people who retained their jobs and their homes intact. It serves them better than the city of Detroit that used to be a city of 2 million people and is falling to 700,000 and is entire city blown up into ruble, not just one big city square at NYCs ground zero. And Detroit, bombed back into the stone age looks worse than NYC, because their has been no sanctimonious rebuilding, no legends of the heroes, no how could this have happened to Americans in American and how do we prevent it from ever happening again.

    Detroit almost had its brains blown out with point blank bullets to the head, but for the industrial bailout fought for by Obama. It is no accident that Detroit has been systematically defenestrated by corporate management and the rest of big business trying to kill the biggest and most powerful industrial union, based on auto industry workers and rippling out through its supply chains into the steel industry and the coal industry, all heavily unionized. Obama saved that union, its jobs, its health care fund, its pensions, at the cost of shareholders and bondholders. I still have not seen an adequate answer to these facts. There is a difference, and that is a big enough of a difference for me. The fact that so much corruption is part and parcel of American business is not news to the people who work on assembly lines, coal mines and steel mills. People die in industrial accidents in these lines of work every day, have been beaten, shot and seen their union leaders assassinated and disappeared in the struggle to unionize. Jimmy Hoffa, is a punch line of jokes that you would never hear about Martin L King or Robert Kennedy, but a union leader, is the shithead under the goal post at Giant Stadium. No holy marble monument for him. The people who the establishment are most worried about are NOT the people who actually have the guts to rise up and tear this country to piece when they finally have had enough torture and eating the shit shoveled out as the American Dream. The problem, for the liberal state is to not have a enough ameliorating social welfare reforms, including widespread healthcare, public education, higher education, good housing and a dignified old age without a broken down body and an adequate pension. If there are a 10000 billionaires, IF I still have a good LIVING, I really don't give a shit how much more money banksters make MORE than the pure and holy naked capitalism crowd.

    The fact of the matter is, my living IS diminished along with my humanity by the actual policies that have been set in motions by the people who are in the process of setting a police state to contain the political upheaval heading our way, that they know for a fact is heading our way, because they are doing everything in their power to instigate a class conflict explosion. Attacking unions is part of a strategy, as is strangling the middle class. But that CAN turn around by policy changes, that are clear signals of a better alternative to shooting us down in the streets like they did at Kent State, Jackson STate and all across the country when we took to the streets. All of the social sciences are measures of society to make sure there is not a bloody revolution. Yes, to coopt to us so we do not kill one another. The number of bombings in the USA during the height of the SDS, was 3 a day. IEDs going off all over America, and in Europe. And since I am not a Rockefeller or an Emir or Sultan, I don't want a bloody insurrection, but the republicans on the other hand. Just listen to the 2nd Amendment final solution they regularly mouth. I would rather live through a political struggle than take my chances against the state and the reactionary armed NRA in a bloody conflict that would not change things much more than the French Revolution permanently improved the lot of workers. So yea, Obama is a brand, that is how you communicate to 310,000,000 people in a modern 21st century nation state. Surprise surprise. We are coopted instead of being beaten and shot. Well good, pick a side and push to take control of the state bureaucracy for the sake of green jobs, electric cars, solar panels, organic farming, credit unions, please, co opt all of these ideas asap. I can't wait to sell out.

    Sy Krass
    Paul Tioxon, it's that kind of attitude that will gurantee blody anarchy. :(
    Septeus7

    An am Interesting discussion so I decided to put in my two cents.

    I think we are lacking a vision of what American civilization is about and what we want to do with our civilization. The lack of vision for a future results in two kinds of confusion resulting in two kinds of reactionary factions.

    The above mention synthetic third party movement aka the "Tea Party/Libertarian" uses the rhetoric of freedom and liberty but being rooted in philosophical Neoliberalism they can only define those ideas in terms of freedom and liberty for property owners and therefore representative government must act to defend the "freedom and liberty" proportional to the distribution of property. However, since the rules governing the acquisition of property i.e. markets (primarily though the state supported FIRE sector as F. Beard is always pointing out) are rigged institutionally toward the concentration of wealth thus increasing "freedom and liberty" will only result in true liberty and freedom being eroded for those lacking oligarchical privilege.

    On the other hand, seeing the failure of traditional paths of resisting the loss of political power because of self appointed institutional sellout "Liberals" and "Progressives" a few folks around here have began to look more deeply into the fact the all the institutional "Liberal Progressives" have in fact historically functioned as Mark Ames says " Big Co-apters."

    After such disillusionment, I believe the reaction by many here at Naked Capitalism appeals to Anarchism, Malthusian doomerism and rejection of the very idea of "progress" and the hierarchies that the division of labor will make necessary.

    The result is that it seems that the "Left" or democratic/republican/populist forces of all stripes are tempted into nihilism; saying that liberty, freedom, progress, and even the development of civilization itself are meaningless and cannot be defined and even if they could be, there would be no reason to believe in those things.

    I don't think this kind thinking represents the best we can do nor is it a positive development for society. Rather, it is something that Adam Curtis has ripped off the mask of it's pretenses of Nietzschian superhuman ascension above the "Good and Evil" of civil society or Rousseauian romantics trying to liberate man from the "evil" constraints necessarily imposed by civil society and restoring him to the "balance of nature."

    In the following film and interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjEsk2lBj8c http://www.littleatoms.com/adamcurtis.htm) Adam Curtis has I think demonstrated that such ideas rather than being scientific and politically neutral represent retreat from the culture and society. And can, in fact, be tools of oligarchs in much the same way that far right Libertarianism functions to capture populist outrage and neutralize threats to the Oligarchy.

    The antihierachical movements, just like the hippy communes, have no chance of being the basis of reorganizing society and in truth represent nothing but cowardice. It is irresponsibly turning away from what is really required to have true republican government. What is required is the willingness to exercise pure, brutal, unrelenting political power.

    The truth is that only way to change the system is to become the system for ourselves just as the Oligarchy has been more than willing to exercise the power of brute politics to become our current system through parallel organizations of government and bureaucracy. We democratic republicans must do the same.

    Rather than something to be feared power must be embraced for what it really is…self government.

    We must set up our own and superior form of government and assert it's authority over existing institutions and impose those truly republican institutions into the current structures and when we meet resistance we must declare all resistance illegitimate and an invalid usurpation of the rights of a sovereign people. We are the People…so "there is no alternative."

    I have a very clear vision of exactly we in this country need to institute in order to create a more perfect union. If folks are interested, I will write another post for what I call "Republic 2.0″ because we need a reboot.

    What is the Proper Libertarian Response to Concentrated Corporate Power " naked capitalism

    August 28, 2010

    Tao Jonesing

    A quick follow-up.

    The tagline of your book captures the hallmark of neoliberalism (aka modern libertarianism of the mises.org type), which is "unenlightened self interest."

    The fact is that the founders of neoliberalism wrapped the concept of liberty around rentierism to mask the bitterness of the pill. Most neoliberals (aka self-identifying libertarians) are earnest followers so enamored of the rhetoric that they don't understand the reality any more than Lenin's followers did. This should come as no surprise in view of the fact that Rothbard urged adopting Leninist propaganda techniques to create true believers to form the core of the neoliberal movement. (Google "Rothbard Confidential Memo Volcker Fund.")

    What you will hear from these true believers, who I call Pavlov's serfs because they salivate whenever their liberty bell is rung, is that monopolies can never arise in a free market economy but for the intervention of the state, and that monopolies cannot survive but for continued state intervention. (This is what Rothbard and Greenspan said, at least.) In my experience in business, I cannot agree with either point. Historically, monopolies arose within a pure laissez-faire environment. And please explain Intel and Microsoft. Once a monopoly becomes entrenched, they can stamp out all competition through anti-competitive means because their monopolist profits can mask losses in other lines of business.

    Blissex

    "The answer to your question depends entirely on what version of libertarianism (aka neoliberalism) is operative."

    Indeed, and to put it another way, which is quite important.

    Most libertarianism can be interpreted on two levels.

    Tao Jonesing

    Antitrust suits are brought by the executive, not congress.

    The power imbalance was initially created by Reagan and his policy of avoiding any real oversight of business combinations. This led to the concentration of monopolistic power.

    To be fair, nobody after Reagan, Democrat or Republican, reversed his policy.

    Only after the monopolistic power was created did it have the opportunity to influence the congress to make laws to perpetuate it.

    Even if power can be tolerated within free market open rules (I think it can be tolerated only to the point at which it does not retard competition), it cannot be tolerated if it perverts our representative democracy. The neoliberal vision of "free markets" is completely at odds with the U.S. Constitution and the American way of life.

    Foppe

    August 28, 2010 at 2:54 am

    Robert Nozick would have said that 'their position of power is historically based, so we have no right as a society to intervene, as that would be an assault upon their liberties' (esp. relevant if you call corps 'persons')
    The lesson to draw being that libertarians have no useful answer to abuse of power; as most will also believe in the courts system, and thus argue that 'he with the most lawyers/who gives the most campaign contributions' wins.

    attempter

    August 28, 2010 at 3:05 am

    Ah, there's a question calculated to measure the level of insanity and/or cowardly lying among these persons.

    The basic response is likely to be either denial that corporate tyranny exists or is bad at all, or else one or another version "let them eat cake" idiocy.

    An ideological whore like Robert Nozick would sit there with a straight face and say in a world with "no government" (meaning direct dictatorship of big corporations), shrimp fisherman would get together and "negotiate" a mutually beneficial "solution" with BP.

    To give a better idea of what Nozick really wanted, he also wanted to replace the police (in theory at least accountable to the public) with corporate death squads like Blackwater. He claimed to think if a town hired a death squad and it responded with oppression and running a protection racket, the town would simply not renew the contract and hire a different death squad (who would presumably be more conscientious about the "liberty" of the unarmed, untrained people who hired it) while the first meekly accepted its fate as an ex-contractor and peacefully moved along.

    No amount of experience of history, no amount of evidence, will ever move the economic "libertarian" from this fraudulent position. Just as no amount of evidence will ever get him to admit that the criminal who was born on third did not hit a triple.

    That's because he's either a kind of flat-earther, or more commonly libertarianism, including in its social and anti-police varieties, is a stalking horse for plutocracy and the direct dictatorship of big corporations.

    Of course it's incoherent on its face to be opposed, on grounds of liberty, to excessive power in governmental structures but not in private structures. The libertarian really seems to be saying that if corporate goons rape and enslave him, it's not as bad as if government goons do. (And never mind that whatever today's government does is done in the service of corporate power.)

    And then there's the incoherency of claiming to want only voluntaristic actions, which implies great decentralization of all power, wealth, and political and economic infrastructure, while still wanting massively concentrated endeavors which by definition can never be done on a non-coercive basis.

    In the previous thread here I pointed out the example of how Stalinesque gigantist projects like offshore drilling seem impossible to do without coercing lots of capital and externalized risk. I said that in principle it can't be done according to the premise of "libertarianism". As I expected, the responses to that were incoherent. (To be fair, that's one point on which many anarchists seem also to be weak, since they too seem prone to self-contradictory urges toward big techno-projects.)

    The real freedom-seeker knows there can never be freedom where crime is allowed to run rampant, and there can never be freedom where any kind of organization (including any large individual wealth hoard), government or private, is allowed to attain large size and concentration of power and wealth. These things are existential assaults on freedom. Not just threats, but assaults. Once you have one such power concentration the best you can do is try to set up a countervailing one. Thus the good civics type says government, which in theory is accountable to the public, can perform the valuable service of restraining corporate power, which is by definition sociopathic.

    It's true, this can sometimes be a stage of the war of attrition corporations wage against the people. But in the end it will always end up the same way, kleptocracy.

    The only solution is for the people to use public power to wipe out private tyranny toward the goal of true human freedom. Once we don't need the government as a counterweight then it too can be tremendously devolved, since the only real rationale for big government in the first place was to protect the people against private gangsters.

    So anyone who truly wants small government has to want relocalized government in a world purged of corporate tyranny. Anyone who claims otherwise really wants us all to be the slaves of these corporations.

    Paul Sandforth

    August 28, 2010 at 3:28 am

    Bob Goodwin's got a really good answer.

    Libertarians LIKE a free market. If one firm reaches a monopolistic position and that monopoly persists, you won't have a free market. They are not necessarily corporatists.

    It's a common misconception that Libertarians are in favor of things (free market) as well as those all of those things' possible negative consequences (monopoly).

    A Democrat created the Welfare system. It's a well intentioned thing designed to help people. There are also abusers. Republicans often make the mistake of assuming that all Democrats -like- this.

    Many Republicans backed one or two wars started by Bush. A number of Democrats actually believe that all of those supporters are quite pleased that atrocities have occurred, or friendly fire events, or that so many innocents have lost their lives.

    Libertarians get off a lot easier (it's usually economic and not related to death), but it's the same thing. (They also have an added burden: that whatever nutball thing that any ONE of them believes, Democrats and Republicans think ALL of them believe it.)

    does not compute

    "They also have an added burden: that whatever nutball thing that any ONE of them believes, Democrats and Republicans think ALL of them believe it."

    "It's a common misconception that Libertarians are in favor of things (free market) as well as those all of those things' possible negative consequences (monopoly)."

    So, you can or cannot speak for the collective known as "libertarian"? How does one get permission? Who determines who the nutballs are?

    If you are the arbiter of nutball, what happens if you become nutball?

    Owe Jessen

    August 28, 2010 at 3:31 am

    Have a look at Galbraiths theory of countervailing power.

    MarcVdB

    August 28, 2010 at 3:34 am

    This is very much like asking sex-advice from the pope.

    There are no corporations that behave in an inappropriate way in the true libertarian world. Because then these corporations wouldn't be truly libertarian, you see?

    Problem solved.

    attempter

    Corporartions are of course a purely artificial creation of big, aggressive government, and could never exist at all other than to the extent big aggressive government is there to act as their thug and bagman.

    So a true libertarian, if he really opposed all aggressive manifestations of government power, would agree that incorporation shouldn't exist, at least not in anything remotely like the form it became starting in the 19th century.

    i on the ball patriot says:

    "Corporartions are of course a purely artificial creation of big, aggressive government, and could never exist at all other than to the extent big aggressive government is there to act as their thug and bagman."

    Corporations are NOT the creation of big aggressive government.

    Corporations are a result of greedy, elite, and unfaithful groups of people forsaking their alliance to a government they have outwardly committed to uphold as member citizens, and then co-opting and using the institutions of that same government that they have forsaken for their own private gain. It is a 'hijacking of government' process not a 'created by government' process.

    The private sector vs government sector argument is a four D creation of Mr. Global Propaganda - it is a Deflective, Decoy, Divisive, Deception. It is just another bullshit scam.

    'Big' government is not the problem, aggregate generational corruption of government is the problem, and it is a global problem. The Libertarian vs other isms is also a now formula four D - Deflective, Decoy, Divisive, Deception - energy dissipating scam.

    Government is an alliance of all citizens. Its size is not as important as its fairness in balancing the needs of the individual with the needs of the group. Self interest includes group interest, group interest includes individual interest.

    Those that selfishly destroy the alliance of the group and the health of the total group organism (through whatever scam) by being elite, deceptive, selfish, and taking too much income and controlling too much asset wealth should be severely punished in proportion to the depth of their crimes.

    Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

    Jake

    What is the proper caveman's response to jet aircraft? What is the proper ant's response to a man's shoe?

    Libertarianism seeks a world in which the people cannot limit the economic activities of private actors, a world in which capitalism is free to operate essentially without rules. This assumes an historical, interim step in the development of capitalism-the natural first step (division of labor) but not the natural second step (concentration of the means of production in firms that grow to rise above competition and realize economies of scale). When certain private actors gain power as the result of concentration and can dictate rules to the rest of the private sector, libertarianism is impaled upon its own contradictions (we seek "freedom" from the "tyranny" of the people in order to succumb to the tyranny of certain people). When concentrated corporate power exists, libertarianism has been superseded.

    Che Guernica

    Please remind me – are there ANY isms that don't require people not to be people for their fundamental tenets to work?

    CoinKoin

    Evolutionism ?

    Cujo359

    Too bad no libertarians came by to answer this question.

    Danny

    Well, some libertarians are obviously pro large corporations. Others see corporations as a dangerous (but unstable) concentrations of power, whose best method of survival is to devote their energies to capturing and exploiting the coercive power of the State. Without that co-opting of state power, they would be much more vulnerable to competitive pressure. I guess the key point here is that theybwould disagree with your assertion that a monopoly can continue to make windfall profits before somebody starts working out ways to bypass (or redirect) those additional costs to obtain a more efficient product. Markets never exist on their own

    So, historically, for instance, companies that attempt to use their monopolistic power like Standard Oil end up growing too large, and the inefficiencies of scale (which do kick in eventually) begin to eat away at their profits, allowing smaller competitors to enter their market – unless that market is "stabilized" in some way by regulatory oversight (which libertarians would argue is always captured by those same corporate interests).

    The best description of this counterintuitive idea for readers unsympathetic to the modern rightist presentation of libertarian ideas may be in left historian Gabriel Kalko's Triumph of Conservatism, which investigates how early corporate regulation in the progressive era, both "pro business" and "anti", ended up locking in the very large combines it sort to dismantle (that's where I found the Standard Oil example). The modern equivalent more familiar to Naked Capitalism readers would be in the financial sector, where large bailouts preserve the very corporations whose overweening power caused the market problems in the first place.

    John Merryman

    I think the main issue we need to face is that Capitalism and free markets are not synonymous. A market needs a medium of exchange. If that medium is run by private entities, for private entities, those entities control the rest of the market.

    Political power started as private enterprise, what we would call warlords today and eventually gentrified into monarchy. When monarchs lost sight of the fact that their purpose was to guide their people, as opposed to simply exploiting them, they tended to be overthrown and eventually the whole system of hierarchal power was replaced by political power as a public trust. Democracy works by pushing power down to the level it is responsive. If we were to make banking a public function, it would also be bottom up. Local credit unions would use local deposits to loan to local enterprises and use the profits to fund local needs. They would then form regional banks for broader investments.

    In a debt based system, it is ultimately the desire of the borrower to accept the interest rate proffered which creates money. Three hundred years ago this was a pretty smart idea, since there were few economic measures to determine the money supply and debt grows at roughly the same rate as productivity. The problem is that production must increase to pay off debt and debt must finance increase to productivity. If this feedback loop gets jammed, debts are not paid off and value evaporates. Since those with accumulated assets do not like this to happen, the legal deck is stacked against borrowers.

    Unfortunately that does not change the fact that it is the borrowers who are the economic engine which utilizes the assets of those with money to lend. The demand side supports the supply side. Over the course of the last thirty years, this softening of demand for capital, relative to supply, has been masked by increasing government borrowing, lowered loan standards and the creation of enormous circulation bubbles that are really no more than complex forms of wagering. The existence of these speculative forms of demand have also enabled an enormous increase in the supply of capital, borrowed into existence because the interest rates charged are lower than the asset bubbles are appreciating. This is a financial bubble of nuclear proportions. Capitalism is drowning in capital, thanks to the liquidity providers.

    Since money is drawing rights to productivity, the question is how to formulate a viable and healthy production based currency system. Money serves as a store of value and a medium of exchange. As a store of value, it is private property, but as a medium of exchange, it is a public utility. As property, there is the desire to accumulate as much as possible, but as a medium of exchange, more money than production degrades the value of the money. Money isn't really a form of property, though, as we don't own the copyrights and its value is controlled by whomever issues it.

    Consider the value to the banks and government though, if the belief is encouraged that it was a form of private property. As a form of trust and value, it becomes incorporated into every aspect of our economic transactions and interpersonal relationships. Which makes our lives that much more taxable.

    Money should only be treated as a public utility. In that way, it would be similar to a road system. You own your car, house, business, etc. but not the roads connecting them and no one seriously cries socialism over that. Treating money as form of public commons would make people very careful what value they would take from social relations and environmental resources to convert into currency in the first place. This would be healthy for society, the environment and the monetary system. Of course, it would create a slower, but more sustainable economy. We all like having roads, but there is little inclination to pave more than we need. If we applied the same principle to money, life would be in better shape. Instead of valuing ourselves by how big our bank accounts are, our sense of worth would be on how strong our community is and how healthy our environment is. A smaller money supply would go a long way to limiting the size of the government and the banking system.

    The financial system has not simply bought off the politicians. It controls the system in which they function. Consider the process of government financing: The system is designed to overspend by buying votes with pork barrel spending, for enormous bills that can only be passed or vetoed. This serves to create debt in order to store capital, as government debt is the primary investment vehicle.

    So the reason our government seems to increase in size so dramatically under Republicans, who preach financial conservatism, is not so hard to understand, when you consider the extent to which this increased debt is bought by their benefactors. Should the government ever declare bankruptcy, it's safe to say they would then feel legally empowered to asset strip public properties.

    It's the old bankster ploy of extending credit, withholding it and then using the money they control to buy up assets at distressed prices.

    As any child on an allowance knows, budgeting is to list ones needs and desires, then only buy what one has the money to spend. In the spirit of actual budgeting, a possible method for the government would be to break the spending bills down to their constituent items and have every legislator assign a percentage value to each item and then re-assemble them in order of preference. The president would draw the line at what would be funded. This would divide responsibility, allowing the legislature to prioritize, while giving the president final authority over total spending. Since making the cut would be graded on a curve, there would be much less incentive to trade favors and the percentage system would allow legislators to fine tune their granting of favors to other legislators and lobbyists. As the particular items on the line would have a far smaller constituency than those being asked to fund them, there would be limited political motivation to overspend. A local public banking system would cover much of the lost federal funding of local projects.

    greg b

    Interesting post

    I agree with much of your analysis but I disagree with at least one of your prescriptions, a smaller money supply.

    I think a larger money supply is needed.

    It is in concentrations of wealth and savings, and the belief that these savings are entitled to some predetermined rate of return, that we are stumbling, I think. The efforts of those today must be greater and greater in order to keep the returns to those "forgoers of consumption" from yesterday. Those who decide not to buy something today should not expect that that which they decide not to buy will be available tomorrow, more to the point, the amount of money (cost) saved should in no way be guaranteed to be equivalent to afford a future purchase of the forgone good or basket of goods. We simply must realize that nothing in this universe retains its original value. If you dont buy it today, you may not get it, for the same cost anyway.

    So, the way forward on this is to tell people who want to consume presently, Here is the money you need to do so. This will erode the value of the savers (hoarders) because they will no longer feel secure that they will have all they want later (which is a completely irrational belief anyway). Then we can get down to determining how present consumption gets divided. And we can start being concerned with real savings, savings of resources.

    If you want to save fine, but don't expect a pat on the back and praise. In addition don't expect everyone else to work harder down the road to assure the return on your savings.

    Lets make accumulation more of a vice than a virtue.

    DownSouth

    Insightful and thought provoking commentary, but I disagree with a couple of points.

    The warlords didn't gentrify into monarchy, but into feudal lords or aristocracy. With the advent of the monarchy, there was a tension that developed between the monarch and the feudal lords. The monarchs would eventually prevail, and thus the birth of the nation-state.

    The commoners eventually got a place at the table, as did the new guys on the block (beginning in the 16th century), the new business class or bourgeoisie.

    So four poles of power were eventually to develop: the monarch, the aristocracy, the commoners and the bourgeoisie. Each vied and competed with the other three in various power sharing relationships and arrangements.

    Inherent in capitalism is the utopian vision that political power can somehow be divorced from economic power. The comments of Blissex (see comment above) illustrate just how nonsensical this notion is.

    Blissex then goes on to say that "liberty of contract" favours WINNERS and punishes LOSERS. If only the world were so simple. Who is a "winner" and who is a "loser" is in large part determined by who possesses political power. Of course in the make-believe world of the libertarian, the power of the state plays no role. It's a utopian fantasy that exists only in the mind of the libertarian.

    Up until a few years ago the government had quite a bit of control over the creation of debt. However, with the advent of the shadow banking system, much of that control has been lost to the private sector. I think the concept of making money strictly a "medium of exchange" has its merits. I also believe that "making banking a public function" has its merits. But in order to achieve either of these it would entail the government flexing its muscle to regain control over the debt creation business, something that is antithetical to the libertarian credo. So your argument sidesteps the conflict that exists between those who favor more government control and the libertarians.

    George

    Principles-based, rigorously enforced campaign and political finance reform! Many (e.g. Fox) wouldnt even be here if they hadn't engineered the rules to ensure that playing by them would be minimally risky! imho.

    Ellen1910

    "Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs."

    skippy

    Libertarian…is like halloween candy with a razor blade inserted in side. It promises sweet rewards…till you bite into it and find its true potential…individualism for the sake of it…with out regards to the commons…till it ravages it and the commons decide to bite back…then it cries foul…other telling it how it must behave.

    Skippy…in the military we called them buddy Fk'ers…always looking out for them selves and not the team.

    i on the ball patriot

    i on the ball, Five Star, Ten Diamond, Extra Pithy, Right Effing On, comment award to you!

    Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

    W.C. Varones

    End Too Big To Fail, and reduce the scope of government to reduce the ability to give more favored market position to the already powerful.

    Then let big business compete on a level playing field. Google and Amazon and Wal-Mart seem to be doing a pretty good job.

    eightnine2718281828mu5

    How do libertarians propose to respond to the power of large enterprises?
    -

    They plan on submitting resumes.

    greg b

    August 28, 2010 at 9:43 am

    "How do libertarians propose to respond to the power of large enterprises?
    -

    They plan on submitting resumes."

    OUTSTANDING comment!

    DojiStar

    Well, I would think the first libertarian response should be that the powers of government should be so limited and constrained that there is no point to lobbying for influence or legislation because the government lacks the ability to do anything to help you. That takes care of part of the problem (e.g. banks and the financial collapse handouts). Whether such a limited government is practically achievable for more than 100 years or so is another issue - probably not, it doesn't seem like people want that.

    Secondly, I think die-hard libertarians would say that natural quasi-monopolies are fine (but they would be bitterly opposed to government-sanctioned ones). There doesn't need to be a legal mechanism to break them up; they won't last forever. Standard Oil was brought up several times here. Their status would have been greatly diminished in 10 years after the breakup anyway after the discovery of massive East Texas oilfields, over which Standard (and their child companies) had no control, not to mention increasing Caspian and Dutch East Indies output and so on. Freedom of contract is freedom of contract; it may have some consequences but it is a deontological good in and of itself.

    There are plenty of Ron Paul videos floating around out there now, but this is as good an introduction to the man as you'll find. It's an interview with Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto, hours before Paul's news-making encounter at the last GOP debate with Rudy Giuliani. Cavuto has an hour of airtime each day in which he drones on about how great the American economy is doing; Paul takes him down on that score in 30 seconds.

    And note how Paul believes that the economy can be fixed only once the Iraq war stops bleeding the economy dry. Paul is the only candidate who knows what James Madison knew:

    "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few…No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

    Economist's View

    There are quite a lot of fake Libertarians out their: Greenspan is classic example of fake -- how someone who claim to be a libertarian can survive 18 years as Fed chairmen -- real Politburo member style position (unelected party functionary appointed to top government job for personal reasons)

    In my heart of hearts, I'm pretty libertarian. I really don't want government looking over my shoulder and telling me what I can and cannot do.

    Where I part with many libertarians - perhaps due to my background - is in the idea that government is almost always at odds with liberty. In my case, government played a key role in providing me with opportunity - education is one example, without tuition of $100 per semester at a state school, I probably would not have gone to college - but the opportunities government provided me go beyond education (and also see the examples given in the article for women and minorities).

    Governments also need to intervene to prevent monopoly and political power from building up. Without such interventions, power will tend to concentrate and we will likely be exploited in one way or another, so government needs to ensure that our opportunity to enter a particular business - that our economic opportunities generally - are not limited by these factors.

    I'm doing this in a bit of a rush (during a seminar, but don't tell), so one more quick point. I was very disappointed in the silence from many libertarians when the Bush administration was taking away, one by one, many of the liberties we enjoy. It was hard not to conclude that for many, the label of libertarian is simply an excuse to be concerned with little more than their own pocketbook.

    In any case, I agree with much of what Bruce Bartlett has to say:

    Liberaltarians?, by Bruce Bartlett, Commentary, Forbes: I recently attended a dinner with a group of prominent liberal and libertarian bloggers to see if there is a community of interest that might lead to closer cooperation on some issues.

    On the surface, there would appear to be potential for an alliance. Libertarians tend to be liberal on social issues, favoring such things as gay marriage and drug legalization; and also liberal on defense and foreign policy, opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and opposing torture and restrictions on civil liberties in the name of national security.

    But libertarians are conservative on economic policy--favoring a free market with virtually no government intervention except the enforcement of contracts, and no government spending or taxes except those to pay for a very minimal police force and military.

    Libertarians' views on social policy and national defense make them sympathetic to the Democrats, while their views on economic policy tend to align them with the Republicans. If one views social, defense and economic policy as having roughly equal weight, it would seem, therefore, that most libertarians should be Democrats. In fact, almost none are. Those that don't belong to the dysfunctional Libertarian Party are, by and large, Republicans.

    The reason for this is that most self-described libertarians are primarily motivated by economics. In particular, they don't like paying taxes. They also tend to have an obsession with gold and a distrust of paper money. As a philosophy, their libertarianism doesn't extent much beyond not wanting to pay taxes, being paid in gold and being able to keep all the guns they want. Many are survivalists at heart and would be perfectly content to live in complete isolation on a mountain somewhere, neither taking anything from society nor giving anything.

    An example of this type of libertarian thinking can be found on the Web site of a group called the Campaign for Liberty. It pays lip service to the libertarian philosophy on foreign and social policy, but says little about them. The discussion of economic policy, however, is much greater. But its only major proposal is abolition of the income tax. No ideas on how government spending would be cut to make this possible are put forward except to eliminate the congressional pay raise. Perhaps this group really believes that will be enough to abolish the income tax, but I suspect not. Whoever wrote these talking points is simply pandering to the stupid, the ignorant and the unsophisticated.

    One is not likely to run into that type of libertarian at a Washington dinner party. These libertarians tend to be well-educated, arriving at his or her philosophy through reading obscure books or random contact with some libertarian in graduate school. They don't own guns--probably never even fired one, don't mind paying taxes too much, have no particular nostalgia for the gold standard and certainly would not choose to live in isolation on a mountaintop. They are cosmopolitan, urbane, articulate and interested in ideas more than just about anything else. They are not especially career-oriented--they are happy to be paid less than they probably could make as long as they don't have to compromise their principles and can do work that advances the cause. For the most part, they aren't family-oriented or religious, and they mostly fit the stereotype of a nerd.

    But even these metro-libertarians tend to be more concerned about economics than social or foreign policy. The Cato Institute publishes an annual survey of economic freedom throughout the world, but produces no surveys of what countries have the most political or social freedom or those that have the most libertarian foreign policy.

    Randall Parker says...

    Libertarians put economic issues first because taxes are a form of partial slavery. Rather than working full time as a slave for some slave owner we effectively work as part time slaves.

    Slavery is a civil liberties issue. So there's really not a division between a focus on economics issues and civil liberties issues.

    As for Bush taking away our liberties: Nobody locked me up for what I said on blogs. I do not think my phone was tapped. Police didn't threaten to throw me in jail without a trial by my peers.

    Furthermore: What is morally wrong with being concerned with one's own pocketbook?

    Speaking as a non-libertarian: Where I differ with libertarians is over external costs. I see lots more external costs than they do. I see low skilled immigrants as posing huge costs. I see coal electric power plants as posing huge costs. I want fewer external costs imposed on me. I see those costs as just as important as taxes in terms of reducing my liberty.

    Posted by: Randall Parker | Link to comment | May 29, 2009 at 12:25 PM

    spencer says...

    The liberal and the libertarian concept of freedom is very different.

    To be nice, the libertarian concept of freedom is something you buy. It is like the old comment about the law in its majesty banning the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges.

    To be rude, it is the freedom of capital to exploit labor.

    I constantly see libertarians making arguments for the freedom of capital, but I never see them making arguments about the freedom of labor.

    What I see is the libertarian answer for everything is cheap labor. They will net be happy until they turn the US into Bangladesh.

    I know I'm being extreme, but I believe I'm being fair.

    Drew Colston says...

    I have described myself for over 20 years as a "populist libertarian", and like Ron Paul, I was telling everyone who would listen how bad the Patriot Act, Iraq War & etc. were the entire time of Bush. I also refused to vote for, or donate to, anyone who voted for TARP. All of the libertarian leaning people I know were complaining about it and the only reasons you didn't hear it was because the media did not report it, or you were not listening.

    Your statement on conservatives thinking women should be happy wives and mothers shows you as either myoptic & naive, or arrogant & bigoted. That opinion may be true in some small, ultra-traditional KJV churches and the like, but I do not know any conservatives who think that way. It is a time-warped, brazen generalization with no basis in modern reality.

    Patricia Shannon says...

    Their guns are made by others. The metal for the guns are mined by others. The gunpowder is manufactured by others. If you put them naked in a wilderness, almost none would survive long.

    hapa says...

    bruce bartlett, seated in a liberal-built lifeboat, wearing a liberal-built lifejacket, watching the "SS Galt" sink behind him, declares that liberals have something to learn about the shipping business, and hopes for peace

    Turbo says...

    It's tough being a liberal libertarian in America these days. Believing taxes should be kept to moderate levels puts one in league with the neocon and religious right wingnuts.

    Believing by and large in freedom of choice on social issues puts one in league with liberals who seek to limit choice to their politically correct constructs.

    And neither political party has any sense whatsoever of financial responsibility, hence the libertarian bent towards mountain retreats and stockpiling gold.

    Peter K. says...

    Thoma:
    "Governments also need to intervene to prevent monopoly and political power from building up. Without such interventions, power will tend to concentrate and we will likely be exploited in one way or another, so government needs to ensure that our opportunity to enter a particular business - that our economic opportunities generally - are not limited by these factors."

    I am a liberaltarian, but I am also a "liberal interventionist" or "liberal hawk" where I think it's not bad for the government to intervene against genocidal dictatorships like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or Bosian or Darfur or the Taliban, etc.

    Just as with monopolies, the government must take the regrettable step of intervening in order to forestall a much worse scenerio.

    Old-timey conservatives/isolationsts are against foreign intervention b/c they see it as liberal social work which won't work b/c of the inferority of dusky foreigners. Why waste our time/money on them?

    Then of course there are pacifists who believe war will cause more harm than good, which can be true depending on the case.

    Beezer says...

    We Americans are all masters of reinvention.

    Libertarians believe they are being practical when it comes to money but don't consider community in the bargain. They bought Adam Smith hook line and sinker, not realizing Smithites don't have a "catch and release" program.

    Mark points out what is obvious to most ordinary folks: Government and community values have an important role in improving man's lot in life. Claiming that the world operates otherwise is to be, as conservatives are so fond of saying about liberals, "willfully ignorant."

    Our Democratic, capitalist world now struggles coming to terms with what we have not been able to do: Create and plan national goals aimed at enhancing everyone's lot in life.

    We have the tools already. We need not toss them aside wholesale. But they do need some serious tinkering. Another round of reinvention coming up.

    sewells says...

    Patricia Shannon, well I'm one I guess. I spent a couple of years in the jungles of SA recovering gold from a river. I did nearly starve to death the first couple of months as leaf cutter ants destroyed almost all my food I'd packed in.

    However, I found I got along with the locals very well. Where others were paying appox. $2 a day for packing supplies, I paid approximately $8. I knew how hard the work was as I was doing a lot of it myself and I couldn't bring myself to pay less than 400% of the prevailing wage.

    After they got to know me a bit, hastened by treating them fairly and with respect, they showed me where the best gold was in the river. We immediately formed a co-op and I donated my equipment to it to pay my way into the society they had already built up and invested in (not a trivial matter as it was approx 20K worth of equipment). We made very good $. I also taught them how to recover with gravity methods that did not necessitate the poisonous uses of mercury that they had been ubiquitous prior to my arrival.

    As far as I know, they are still going today.

    We were so far into the jungle that we never saw a government official the entire time I was there.

    I know libertarian ideas can be misused. But, they don't have to be.

    You just have to keep in mind that no one has more rights than anyone else does and that everyone has to be treated fairly.

    Not only did a get a lot of gold from it, but they also saved my life on more than one occasion and vice versa.

    Posted by: sewells | Link to comment | May 29, 2009 at 01:51 PM

    bakho says...

    Nothing like the "self-made man"

    The concept has had broad appeal to Americans ever since Ben Franklin created and marketed himself as the ideal self-made man.

    Frederick Douglass had a better perspective:

    "Properly speaking, there are in the world no such men as self-made men."

    It must in truth be said though it may not accord well with self-conscious individuality and self-conceit, that no possible native force of character, and no depth or wealth of originality, can lift a man into absolute independence of his fellow-men, and no generation of men can be independent of the preceding generation. - Frederick Douglass

    bakho says...

    A woman overheard her boss bragging, "Yes indeed. I'm a self-made man".

    She was heard muttering under her breath, "And all this time I was blaming God for him."

    bakho says...

    Great metaphor hapa

    The SS Galt hits the iceberg. Indeed.

    Patricia Shannon says...

    Randall Parker says...

    Libertarians put economic issues first because taxes are a form of partial slavery. Rather than working full time as a slave for some slave owner we effectively work as part time slaves.

    Slavery is a civil liberties issue. So there's really not a division between a focus on economics issues and civil liberties issues.

    As for Bush taking away our liberties: Nobody locked me up for what I said on blogs. I do not think my phone was tapped. Police didn't threaten to throw me in jail without a trial by my peers.

    Furthermore: What is morally wrong with being concerned with one's own pocketbook?
    =================================
    To think that taxes are the worst form of slavery is at best ignorant, a sign of a wimpy person who has led a sheltered, cushy life. It is a crazy statement.

    It seems like you don't mind the government taking away other people's freedom, just your own. Typical.

    The moral issues is when someone is only concerned with their own pocketbook and doesn't care about others welfare.

    Samis says...

    Libertarianism is the Marxism of the Right (not my line).

    http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/mar/14/00017/

    The Selfish Hegemon Must Offer a New Deal on Trade

    August 20, 2008 | Economist's View

    Jagdish Bhagwati in the Financial Times:

    The selfish hegemon must offer a New Deal on trade, by Jagdish Bhagwati, Commentary, Financial Times: ...On the back of economic anxiety in the country, many in both political parties (although far more among Democrats) see freer trade now as a costly giveaway to others at the expense of the US. They ask: "What is in it for me?" Only an agenda for institutional change, one that addresses the true causes of the anxiety in the US today, has a chance of returning trade policy to sanity. ...

    The US has ... muscled in to its ... trade agreements (nearly all with small, developing nations) conditions unrelated to trade at the expense of their partner nations. Thus a country that is hardly an exemplar on labour rights, where the right to strike has been severely restrained since the Taft-Hartley legislation more than half a century ago, where union membership in the private sector has declined to less than 10 per cent of the labour force, and which has not ratified all the International Labour Organisation's core conventions, has had the effrontery to impose standards on others... Why?

    It is evidently not because it practises what it preaches and demands. Rather, it is because the labour lobbies believe, without any compelling evidence, that American wages have been stagnant because of competition from the developing nations. ... In short, this is what economists call "export protectionism".

    What is doubly offensive about this exercise of political muscle is that it is advanced in the language of altruism: not by saying frankly that it is because "our unions are worried about competition" but by pretending that it is "in your workers' interests". ...

    Senator Barack Obama does not quite get this. By asking, as part of his agenda for change, that the US should now impose even more draconian labour requirements in future PTAs, and that the North American Free Trade Agreement should be revised to incorporate yet tougher labour requirements, he is making export protectionism, and the reputation of the US as a selfish hegemon, worse...

    Change is indeed in order, although along totally different lines. It must reflect a holistic view of the new reality that the US confronts. In particular, the economic anxiety that overwhelms US workers today stems from the increased fragility of their jobs.

    First, ... India and China today are growing and exporting rapidly. ... They create tsunamis for specific industries where their exports concentrate.

    Second, competition has intensified. ... No chief executive or any of his workers in tradable industries leads a happy life any more as there is always someone, from somewhere, breathing down his neck. ... It leads to volatility of jobs, as you have an advantage today and can lose it tomorrow.

    Third, labour-saving technical change continuously threatens assembly-line jobs for the unskilled. The assembly lines continue but increasingly do not have workers on them...

    The agenda for institutional change has to address this fragility of jobs, enabling unskilled and skilled workers to face the new uncertainties. ...

    Senator Obama promises change but he needs a deeper understanding of the anxiety-causing "new epoch" to define his new agenda shorn of protectionism. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, admirably stands for free trade but shows no evidence whatsoever of comprehending that this needs to be situated in an institutional context that requires a serious overhaul. Who will ultimately offer us the right New Deal?

    I don't like to see workers who are struggling given false hope. The research on this issue does not support that US wages or jobs would be much affected by insisting upon these types of standards, and barriers to trade of any type hurt the US overall in almost all cases (and hurt developing countries as well). If we focus a lot of time and energy in congress and elsewhere debating this issue, it crowds out effort that could be devoted to legislation promising much, much more to help people worried about or actually experiencing job insecurity. So, continuing with the discussion of Obama's economic policy in the post below this one, I am not in agreement with this aspect of his trade policies.

    me:

    Jagdish Bhagwati is an idiot. I have been hearing him extoll the virtues of how great America is because an Indian has been doing my job for 7 years. We were told of all the new opportunities this would create for us. B**ls**t.

    All he ever talks about is more training and more education. but he NEVER gets around to saying in what.

    Per Kurowski:

    We need to look at other possible explanations than trade

    Jagdish Bhagwati complains that "the labour lobbies believe, without any compelling evidences, that the American wages have been stagnant because of competition from the developing countries". But, even if he is right, since he offers no other alternative explanation for the widening gap between the returns to capitals and the returns to labour in the economy, he is actually helping to keep the focus on trade as being the culprit.

    Bhagwati would serve his worthy cause better by pointing out the effects of other developments that have run in parallel to the growth of global trade. How much of the capital-labour gap could be explained by the following?

    1. The discrimination implicit in risk based pricing that has allowed the financial sector to charge some groups with extremely high interest, based on some quite dubious logical reasons. Borrowers that cannot pay the high interests should not have received the loans to begin with, at least not at those high rates, and those who can serve the loans have de-facto evidenced they merited lower rates.

    2. The growing tendency to use intellectual property rights of all sort and kinds to create unregulated monopolies that capture rents.

    3. The increased regressiveness of taxes that results from the tendency of turning away from taxing income to taxing consumption.

    Net out the effect of those three factors and you might not have anything left to blame trade with.

    BJ Feng:

    I've just come back from a trip to China and there's good news for Americans. I think the period of wage and price adjustment is more than half over. Food prices in China, and the price of many things are no longer cheap compared to America. I was shocked to find that watermelon, oranges, and a lot of other foodstuffs were as expensive or more expensive than in the US. Higher end clothing was also more expensive, though you could still get deals at "swap meets", but price differentials are no longer what they were in the past.

    We knew that prices and wages would somewhat have to align, and that this process would be painful for us here in the United States, though ultimately beneficial (the richer the Chinese get, the more stuff they can buy from us). I believe we're past the halfway mark.

    BJ Feng

    Workers already have a say in the terms of their employment, you seem to think that workers are being forced into these "sweatshops" but that's not the case. They go work for these "sweatshops" because the $5 a day they can make is substantially more than they can earn on the farm or left to their own devices. The labor is also easier.

    In some areas where labor is in demand thanks to migration away from the countryside and into large cities, headhunters fight to hire workers as they step off of the trains. Of course, most would rather be paid more money than inherit the complex regulations that protect the Longshoremen and Teamsters from actually working. I know that some Longshoremen jobs are redundant in that three men are given a task that requires two men so that one is deliberately set aside as a reserve. That person doesn't have to work that day, he can just sit around. Such protections should be regarded as luxuries for workers, not something standard or expected.


    The selfish hegemon must offer a New Deal on trade by Jagdish Bhagwati

    August 19 2008

    In the 1980s, Japan was feared in the US to be a lethal combination of Superman and the evil genius Lex Luthor in a classic case of what I have called the Diminished Giant Syndrome.

    Members of Congress famously smashed a Toshiba radio cassette recorder on the steps of Capitol Hill in protest in 1987. Great Britain at the turn of the 19th century had been marked by similar diffidence, despair and recrimination when Germany and the US were emerging on the world scene. There, Sir Howard Vincent entered parliament festooned with mops, pails and brushes marked "Made in Germany".

    US hegemony survived the exaggerated threat from Japan. But the US is now once again a fearful giant. Many Americans see trade as a peril rather than an opportunity. This has turned the US from what the economist Charles Kindleberger famously called an "altruistic" hegemon into a "selfish" hegemon.

    On the back of economic anxiety in the country, many in both political parties (although far more among Democrats) see freer trade now as a costly giveaway to others at the expense of the US. They ask: "What is in it for me?" Only an agenda for institutional change, one that addresses the true causes of the anxiety in the US today, has a chance of returning trade policy to sanity.

    The US role in the failed Doha trade talks illustrates the collapse of American leadership. Here, the US has been the central spoiler, refusing to cut its trade-distorting subsidies significantly even though they are universally recognised as intolerable. Its latest offer was to cap them at $14.5bn (€9.84bn, £7.76bn) but that well exceeded current payouts, estimated at $9bn. With only 2m farmers in the country, the US still attacked India for asking for an enhanced "special safeguard mechanism" to be used in case of an import surge, when India has far smaller, often subsistence, farms and nearly two-thirds of its population in rural employment.

    While making negligible concessions itself, the US was insisting on difficult concessions from India, made even more troublesome politically because of the insubstantial offer on US subsidies. Besides, when the Doha talks started, the developing countries were not even supposed to be making concessions in agriculture. Throughout the Doha negotiations, the office of the US trade representative and US Congress pointed a finger at others – at Brazil, then at India and then also China – but have never considered their own roles.

    The US has also muscled in to its bilateral preferential trade agreements (nearly all with small, developing nations) conditions unrelated to trade at the expense of their partner nations. Thus a country that is hardly an exemplar on labour rights, where the right to strike has been severely restrained since the Taft-Hartley legislation more than half a century ago, where union membership in the private sector has declined to less than 10 per cent of the labour force, and which has not ratified all the International Labour Organisation's core conventions, has had the effrontery to impose standards on others in these PTAs. Why?

    It is evidently not because it practises what it preaches and demands. Rather, it is because the labour lobbies believe, without any compelling evidence, that American wages have been stagnant because of competition from the developing nations. Further, they believe that if one could only stand Thomas Friedman of "flat earth" fame on his head and flatten the earth by raising these countries' labour costs up to US levels, that would help reduce competition. In short, this is what economists call "export protectionism".

    What is doubly offensive about this exercise of political muscle is that it is advanced in the language of altruism: not by saying frankly that it is because "our unions are worried about competition" but by pretending that it is "in your workers' interests". An altruistic hegemon would not be playing these games; a selfish hegemon will do little else.

    Senator Barack Obama does not quite get this. By asking, as part of his agenda for change, that the US should now impose even more draconian labour requirements in future PTAs, and that the North American Free Trade Agreement should be revised to incorporate yet tougher labour requirements, he is making export protectionism, and the reputation of the US as a selfish hegemon, worse, not better. Some change.

    Change is indeed in order, although along totally different lines. It must reflect a holistic view of the new reality that the US confronts. In particular, the economic anxiety that overwhelms US workers today stems from the increased fragility of their jobs.

    First, as with Japan in the 1930s, when one-dollar blouses flooded the world, India and China today are growing and exporting rapidly. They are like Gullivers in a Lilliputian world economy. They create tsunamis for specific industries where their exports concentrate.

    Second, competition has intensified. As exemplified by the Boeing-Airbus saga, the margins of competitive advantage have shrunk. No chief executive or any of his workers in tradable industries leads a happy life any more as there is always someone, from somewhere, breathing down his neck. I call this new phenomenon "kaleidoscopic comparative advantage". It leads to volatility of jobs, as you have an advantage today and can lose it tomorrow.

    Third, labour-saving technical change continuously threatens assembly-line jobs for the unskilled. The assembly lines continue but increasingly do not have workers on them; they are managed from a glass cage by skilled operators whose jobs increase instead.

    The agenda for institutional change has to address this fragility of jobs, enabling unskilled and skilled workers to face the new uncertainties. To illustrate: higher education will have to be recast to reduce the proportion of time spent on specialisation: this would enable an easier response to shifting skill requirements as the kaleidoscope turns. Unskilled workers will have to be helped and encouraged to acquire skills and therefore increase their ability to shift to other jobs, even as they continue to work.

    Senator Obama promises change but he needs a deeper understanding of the anxiety-causing "new epoch" to define his new agenda shorn of protectionism. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, admirably stands for free trade but shows no evidence whatsoever of comprehending that this needs to be situated in an institutional context that requires a serious overhaul. Who will ultimately offer us the right New Deal?

    The writer, university professor, economics and law, at Columbia University and senior fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, has just published 'Termites in the Trading System: How Preferential Agreements Undermine Free Trade'. His next book on US trade policy, 'Terrified by Trade: Institutional Change to Address Anxiety and Contain Protectionism' (Oxford) is to be published in spring 2009

    Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

    Profit-maximization as the sole goal of a corporation By Martin Wolf

    Aug 19, 2008 | FT

    What is the goal of the limited liability, joint-stock company, the core institution of the contemporary capitalist economy? What implications does the answer have for such a company's freedom to be "creative" in the way Bill Gates uses the term? The classic answer to the first of these questions, repeated often in these discussions, is that its aim is to maximise profits. This statement is not false. But it is vastly too limited. Here are ten points relevant to this theme.

    First, one has to distinguish the goal of the firm from its role. The role of companies is to provide valuable goods and services – that is to say, outputs worth more than their inputs. The great insight of market economics is that they will do this job best if they are subject to competition. Profit-maximization (or shareholder value maximization, its more sophisticated modern equivalent) is NOT the role of the firm. It is its goal. The goal of profit-maximization drives the firm to fulfill its role.

    Second, by creating a competitive market for corporate control, we more or less force companies to maximize shareholder value, or at least behave in ways that the market believes will lead them to do so. If companies fail to oblige, the company will be put "into play." Thus, in Anglo-American shareholder-driven capitalism, maximization of shareholder value (as perceived by the market) must perforce be the goal of the company. This is not the case in countries where a market in corporate control does not exist. In such countries, companies must earn a high enough return on capital to survive. But this need not be a shareholder value-maximizing return.

    Third, a company is viewed in the Anglo-American world as a bundle of contracts. But companies are also social organisms created by a highly gregarious mammalian species with a unique capacity for large-scale co-operation over time and space. Companies have cultures and histories. For many of those most closely associated with them, they also have (and offer) a certain meaning. Committed workers in successful companies do not work in order to maximize shareholder value or even to earn the largest possible living. Indeed, it is impossible to direct most companies solely by the goal of profit-maximization. (Goldman Sachs may be an exception.) They have to be aimed at the intermediate goal of producing and developing goods and services that people want to buy and are worth more in the market than they cost to produce.

    Fourth, the idea that a company is an entity that can be freely bought and sold is culturally specific. It is the view, above all, of Anglo-Americans. It is not shared in most of the rest of the world. The reason for this divergence is that, for many cultures, a company is viewed as being an enduring social entity. I once read that, for many Japanese, one can no more sell a company over the heads of its workers than one can sell one's grandmother. In this view, goods and services can be bought and sold. Companies, like countries (or, as we all now agree, people), must not be.

    Fifth, in this perspective, shareholders are not genuine owners. They contribute nothing of value to the competitive strengths of the firm, enjoy the benefits of limited liability and are well able to diversify the risks they run. They are merely an (ever-shifting) group of people with a claim to the residual incomes. Those with the biggest (undiversifiable) investment in the firm -- and thus the greatest exposure to firm-specific risks -- are not shareholders, but core workers. The interests of the latter are, therefore, paramount.

    The salient characteristic of the contracts inside the firm (that is between the company, its employees and, quite often, its suppliers and even distributors) is that they are relational. That is to say, they cannot be written down in any precise form. Companies are hierarchies in which people engage voluntarily. They necessarily work on the basis of trust in what is often a very long-term relationship: I work extra hard to meet a deadline now, in return for consideration when I need to look after my elderly mother later on. For many companies, trustworthiness is an essential ingredient in their long-term success.

    Sixth, if companies can be freely bought and sold, relational contracts, which depend on continuing interaction among specific people inside the business, are hardly worth the paper they are (not) written on. Rational employees will act opportunistically, because they will always expect their company to do the same. The longer and more reliable relationships are expected to be, the less likely such opportunistic behaviour is to emerge.

    Seventh, accordingly, capital-market arrangements (and associated views of the firm) that enforce shareholder value maximization may (I stress "may") make companies work less efficiently than otherwise, in terms of their primary role, by precluding (or at least making far more difficult) a range of potentially valuable relational contracts inside the firm. At the least, such restrictions may have powerful effects on comparative advantage, by shifting countries away from those activities in which companies that benefit from long-term relational contracts are likely to be most effective.

    Eighth, it is not necessarily even the case that companies which operate under the assumption that they can be bought and sold (like GM) will operate more successfully in terms of maximizing shareholder value than those which do not (such as Toyota). Toyota is a better car company than GM in almost all dimensions. The failure of Japanese capitalism to achieve the highest level of productivity and sustained dynamism may have far more to with repression of domestic competition in many markets for goods and, above all, services, rather than with the absence of an active market for corporate control.

    Ninth, consequently the room for enduring divergence in the forms of capitalism is bigger than those working in the Anglo-American intellectual tradition appreciate. In particular, without an active market for corporate control, managements rule companies. It also acts as a trustee for a range of stakeholders, of which core workers are the most important. Because these companies cannot be forced to maximize shareholder value, they can indeed undertake a range of costly "charitable"activities, provided they do not threaten the company's ability to survive.

    Tenth, one of the most interesting questions over the next generation is whether the Anglo-American form of capitalism, which gives primary direction of companies to capital markets, will flourish and expand, or not. Some of the evidence on the (in)effectiveness of takeovers and the recent sad experiences in financial markets rather suggests not.

    This is not to deny that such active financial markets bring big benefits, particularly in financing new companies and enforcing greater discipline on badly run businesses.

    Anyway, the more "Anglo-American" capitalism becomes and so the more shareholder driven, the less "creative," in Bill Gates's sense, it is likely to be. Or, at the least, the less concerned with wider social results it is likely to be.

    Nudges (aka libertarian paternalism)

    Are you ready to embrace libertarian paternalism?

    The dramatic effect of a firm nudge, by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, Commentary, Financial Times: In the past three decades, psychologists and behavioural economists have learnt that people's choices can be dramatically affected by subtle features of social situations. For example, inertia turns out to be a powerful force. If people's magazine subscriptions are automatically renewed, they renew a lot more than if they have to send in a renewal form. More­over, people are influenced by how problems are framed. If told that salami is "90 per cent fat-free" they are far more likely to buy salami than if they are told it is "10 per cent fat".

    Social norms matter a lot. If people think others are recycling, or paying their taxes, they are far more likely to recycle and to pay their taxes. The important message is that small details can induce large changes in behavior.

    Findings of this kind suggest that even when people have freedom of choice they are influenced, or nudged, by the context in which their decisions are made. This power gives business and governments opportunities. Automatically enrolling people in a savings plan dramatically increases participation, even though people retain the right to opt out. Informing citizens of how their energy use compares with that of neighbors can nudge energy hogs into adjusting their thermostats.

    In this light, it is not surprising that policy teams for Barack Obama, the US Democratic presidential candidate, and David Cameron, the UK's Conservative party leader, have shown an interest in nudge-like solutions to social problems..., ... an approach we call "libertarian paternalism", by which governments try to move people in good directions without imposing penalties, mandates or bans.

    The mounting international interest suggests the possibility of developing a genuine Third Way, one that accepts some of the progressive goals traditionally associated with the left, but insists on the market-friendly means traditionally associated with the right. Libertarian paternalists resist coercion. They think that freedom of choice is an important safeguard against the bias, confusion and self-interest of government. They also think that everyone can benefit from a friendly nudge.

    Now that prominent leaders are showing an interest in the potential effects of nudges, a counter-reaction is starting to develop. One objection is that while we may be able to nudge litterers, for many of the most important problems, such as terrorism, nudges are not enough: they need to be solved with mandates or bans. ... We concede that in some contexts libertarian paternalism is not enough. .... That does not eliminate a role for nudging. ...

    Mr Obama recently suggested that people can improve fuel economy by having the right air pressure in their tyres. Five minutes with an air hose can save 3 per cent or more on fuel bills. But the reaction of John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, to this nudge was to mock it. ... Mr McCain's critique is a good example of an anti-nudger's mistake. No one suggests we can solve the world's energy problems by correctly filling our tyres, but who in their right mind would reject a plan that could, at little cost, save millions of gallons of fuel? ...

    No sensible person could argue that government action should be limited to nudges. But too often governments resort to coercion when gentler approaches, preserving freedom of choice, are at least as effective.

    I don't like to feel as though I've been manipulated no matter how friendly the nudge, even for my own good, and I'm suspicious of other people deciding what is best for me, especially when I push these ideas to their logical limits. But I can see advantages to this as well, so I guess I'd be okay with it if those doing the nudging look me in the eye and say we have found that presenting the options in this way has this effect, so we are presenting the options as follows. So long as all the cards are on the table, so long as I know how I am being manipulated (okay, nudged), fine, but if it relies upon me being unaware of how I am being nudged, that would feel coercive and I'd rather not have someone else deciding how I should behave even if it is, in their opinion at least, for my own good.

    Grasping Reality with Both Hands The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong

    The Monkey Cage: Left-right ideology of voters, congressmembers, and senators

    Andrew Gelman of the Monkey Cage says:

    July 22, 2008 at 09:57 AM in Politics, Sorting: Front Page, Sorting: Pieces of the Occasion | Permalink

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    Comments

    This graph cannot possibly be correct. Out at the tails, it claims that significant portions of Congress take ideological positions that essentially no one holds. There are plenty of crazy Republicans in Congress, but they have constituencies; that's why they're able to be crazy. There just aren't enough people in those tails for these results to make sense.

    Posted by: James Grimmelmann | July 22, 2008 at 10:25 AM

    You'd think there ought to be some facts that could be brought to bear on a notion like this -- even if it's only something flaky like an indicator cobbled together out of lobbyists' favorable/un- voting tables.

    The reason I find this factless empty speculation annoying is that in the real world I often find that things which are intuitively bimodal to me turn out to have strong central tendencies. I think that the tendency to see things as drifting into extremes or divisions may be one of those Tveskyesque dementities.

    Posted by: David Lloyd-Jones | July 22, 2008 at 10:31 AM

    Don't you think this left/right baloney is a waste of electrons?

    Posted by: sm | July 22, 2008 at 10:47 AM

    I assume "ideological position" is defined in an abstract and meaningless way. On issues that I care about, such as leaving Iraq, I understand that a majority of voters is for it (presumably the liberal position), but Congress apparently against it, as shown by continued votes for Iraq war appropriations without a time line for withdrawal.

    I suspect this news item is propaganda telling Democrats in Congress to be more 'centrist' (and forget about all these 'liberal' ideas); although the right edge of the graph indicates that there are many 'conservative' congress critters who are more conservative than the voters (perhaps due to well-moneyed contributors).--

    Posted by: A | July 22, 2008 at 11:03 AM

    The statements above that the graphs cannot be right are themselves baseless. I find it quite plausable. My basis for this is the book "Off Center" by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson. It documents that Republicans especially are far from the norm ("positions essentially no one holds"), Democrats less so, and goes into detail about how this has happened.

    Even after 2006, which moved Congress to the left, my take on the graph is that the Republicans are farther right than the Democrats are left.

    I don't know what Herron based this on, but remember that political scientists have been collecting data on these things for decades.

    Posted by: Jonathan | July 22, 2008 at 11:08 AM

    Click through to Gelman and you'll see the graphic that should be here, which is 8.10.

    Posted by: Ken Houghton | July 22, 2008 at 12:47 PM

    As an old DFH, I have to ask: where would 1968, 1980, 1992, or 2000 fall on this spectrum? Maybe Paul and Jacob's book will tell me?

    Posted by: MaryCh | July 22, 2008 at 02:05 PM

    The camel is in the tent!

    Posted by: JoeV | July 22, 2008 at 03:26 PM

    Conservative (Republican) voters are fewer than liberal (Democratic) voters but conservative congressmen are more common than liberal Congressmen. Furthermore, conservative Congressmen are more conservative than the voters who elect them, and by and large conservative Republicans in Congress dominate the moderate Republicans.

    Republicans work the system better.

    Posted by: John Emerson | July 22, 2008 at 03:58 PM

    I think there could be an easy explanation for this double peak.
    The overall population is roughly described by a normal distribution,
    proportional to e^(-x^2), where x is the 'ideological parameter'.
    However, I assume the motivation to go into politics to be proportional to
    const + x^2, in other words the more extreme a position one holds (left or right) the more likely one is motivated enough to go into politics.
    Therefore, while the distribution for the voters is roughly normal, the
    distribution in congress is something like (const + x^2)*e^(-x^2) and
    exhibits a double peak if const is small enough (i.e. moderate people are
    not very motivated to go into politics...)

    Posted by: wolfgang | July 22, 2008 at 05:15 PM

    I should add, that according to my 'theory' the small double peak of the general public is a 2nd order effect - the backreaction of the double peak distribution of the politicians on the people via media etc.

    Posted by: wolfgang | July 22, 2008 at 05:17 PM

    There's all kinds of radical cranks going into politics, but one should assume them to fall by the wayside through the force of the Median Voter Theorem (which also seems to fuel the doubts about the graph expressed above). The cause of the emerging radicalization of the U.S. Congress is more likely that individuals with radical viewpoints are more inclined to get engaged in politics -- via primary voting and campaign contributions -- rather than as politicians.

    On the question how this looked in 1968 or 1982, the trend towards a polarized Congress started in 1981, kicked into overdrive around 1995 and peaked in the late 90's. Poole & Rosenthal have a number of interesting animations on the development at http://www.voteview.com and discuss their hypothesis for the causation (income inequality) at http://www.polarizedamerica.com.

    [Mar 13, 2011] The Free-Banking vs. Central-Banking Debate

    Economist's View

    bakho said...

    Americans live in a society surrounded and supported by public works. Libertarians deny the fundamental utility of any of the public infrastructure. After a lot of hand waving, they say that the private sector could produce better infrastructure. But it never does the big thing without government subsidy. So we get subsidized "privatization" that privatizes the profits and socializes the risks. Libertarianism is a utopian idea, but dystopian in practice.

    Sarah:

    That's the problem with Utopianism in general. It has ALWAYS produced dystopia when put into practice. Fascism, Communism- anything promising an ideal future. I certainly hope that this lot of neo-utopians aren't given a shot at trying out their system on us, but I think we have to accept that as things get worse a fantasy future with Galtian super-heroes riding off into the sunset on their pink unicorns is going to seem more and more attractive to many.

    cm

    Well, one can make the case, and specific historical instances seem to evidence this, that the totalitarians "producing" the dystopia were not well-intentioned and were just running with the utopia to gain a following, or at least the initial good intentions fell by the wayside when the corruption of power set in.

    Of course, a fundamental problem is to avoid the cynicism of "realpolitik" that seems to be required in actual reality.

    cm

    I'm not sure the purveyors of this "utopia" really believe this. When the term "private sector" appears anywhere in it, it is BS and not a utopia. There are libertarian schools of thought that believe in spontaneous self-organization of private cooperation creating public infrastructure coop-style without top down governance. But the concept of a private *sector* is antithetical to that.

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