And you still think your vote matters?
by Bob Livingston
The Republican rank and file love to pounce on conservatives who vote for principle over party by voting for a third party candidate, or those who don’t vote at all. “Don’t vote for the Republican, you might as well vote for the Democrat,” they’ll tell you. Just “elect a Republican—any Republican—and things will get better,” they say.
Like a battered spouse who continues to return home, Republican voters believe tomorrow will be different. “He loves me, after all,” they tell themselves.
Last week the Republican establishment battered their voters again, this time in confirming a virulent racist – Eric Holder in a skirt – as attorney general.
Loretta Lynch supports a ban on semi-automatic weapons. She supports universal background checks. And under oath, she claimed not to know anything about Operation Chokepoint, a Justice Department backdoor gun control initiative that puts the squeeze on banks to force them into refusing to do business with gun and ammunition manufacturers and sellers, particularly online vendors. She also said she would continue to support President Barack Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty.
It’s obvious the Constitution means nothing to her, and in claiming she doesn’t know what Operation Chokepoint is she’s either lying or too ignorant to be the nation’s top “law enforcer.”
Yet when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican-led Senate had an opportunity to kill her nomination, they wilted like a picked flower in the Texas summer sun.
As Gun Owners of America points out:
First, McConnell brought up her nomination — even though he, alone, could have stopped Lynch’s confirmation by refusing to move to proceed to her. Then, McConnell filed what’s known as a “cloture petition” to shut down the pro-gun filibuster. Finally, the effects of leadership strong-arming were evidenced by the fact that several Republicans flipped their votes (a.k.a., lied) and voted to shut down the pro-gun filibuster — in a move called “cloture.”
Many of the fifteen senators on this Liars’ List had openly committed to gun owners that they would oppose Lynch. And they did oppose her on the 56-43 final passage vote — when their votes didn’t matter.
But, on the vote where we could have won with only 41 votes, many on this Liars’ List flipped their votes and voted for Lynch.
Consider, there were 43 Senators who voted against Lynch on the final nomination vote. If they had ALSO VOTED against Lynch on the “cloture” vote — where only 41 opposition votes were needed — the Lynch nomination would have easily failed.
Lynch is said to be being groomed for nomination to the Supreme Court. Doubtless she would rule against any pro-gun cases that came to the court.
Yet this was an acceptable nominee to McConnell and eight other Republicans. Of course, those Republicans along with McConnell who supported her nomination are the usual suspects: Ayotte, Cochran, Collins, Flake, Graham, Hatch, Johnson and Portman.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/and-you-still-think-your-vote-matters/
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Another liberal success story...
“Liberal Paradise” Up in Flames
Thomas DiLorenzo
Baltimore Sun columnist Thomas Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, cheerfully heralded the state of Maryland as a “liberal paradise”in 2013. Maryland is indeed by far the most left-wing state in America, a veritable showcase of the “liberal” welfare state. It has huge populations of both government employees and welfare parasites; one of the most generous welfare systems of any state; its “public” schools have long been destroyed by belligerent teachers’ unions; is a very high-tax state; routinely wages political war on whatever is left of real capitalism — its politicians proudly boast that the regulation of business is more onerous than any other state, and usually exceeds even federal regulatory dictates; and coddles criminals, endlessly repeating the “liberal” mantra that criminals are not responsible for the crimes they commit, “society” is. And of course the “war on drugs” rages in inner-city Baltimore as much as anywhere, complete with ever-increasing police brutality with an increasingly militarized and federalized police force.
As in many other cities, in Baltimore the black family has been all-but-destroyed by the welfare state (See Losing Ground by Charles Murray for an explanation of how welfare eliminated the stigma that was once attached to abandoning one’s children). The Baltimore Sun reports that, for decades, at least 80% of all black children are born without a father being a part of their life, with white families catching up rapidly. This has created several Lord-of-the-Flies generations. The rotten “public” schools in Baltimore city have destroyed the employment opportunities of tens of thousands of these children, while the war on drugs, which has caused skyrocketing drug prices and profits, lures them into lives of crime (and death by crime). All of this is a recipe for the mindless destruction of small businesses that was on display in yesterday’s riots and looting. With Al Sharpton reportedly headed to Baltimore, things are bound to get worse before they get better. No sane business person would ever invest in these neighborhoods. Once this is realized in a few years, the absence of drug stores, grocery stores, etc. will of course be blamed on the racism of white capitalists. “Paradise” will at last have been realized.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/liberal-paradise-up-in-flames/
Thomas DiLorenzo
Baltimore Sun columnist Thomas Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, cheerfully heralded the state of Maryland as a “liberal paradise”in 2013. Maryland is indeed by far the most left-wing state in America, a veritable showcase of the “liberal” welfare state. It has huge populations of both government employees and welfare parasites; one of the most generous welfare systems of any state; its “public” schools have long been destroyed by belligerent teachers’ unions; is a very high-tax state; routinely wages political war on whatever is left of real capitalism — its politicians proudly boast that the regulation of business is more onerous than any other state, and usually exceeds even federal regulatory dictates; and coddles criminals, endlessly repeating the “liberal” mantra that criminals are not responsible for the crimes they commit, “society” is. And of course the “war on drugs” rages in inner-city Baltimore as much as anywhere, complete with ever-increasing police brutality with an increasingly militarized and federalized police force.
As in many other cities, in Baltimore the black family has been all-but-destroyed by the welfare state (See Losing Ground by Charles Murray for an explanation of how welfare eliminated the stigma that was once attached to abandoning one’s children). The Baltimore Sun reports that, for decades, at least 80% of all black children are born without a father being a part of their life, with white families catching up rapidly. This has created several Lord-of-the-Flies generations. The rotten “public” schools in Baltimore city have destroyed the employment opportunities of tens of thousands of these children, while the war on drugs, which has caused skyrocketing drug prices and profits, lures them into lives of crime (and death by crime). All of this is a recipe for the mindless destruction of small businesses that was on display in yesterday’s riots and looting. With Al Sharpton reportedly headed to Baltimore, things are bound to get worse before they get better. No sane business person would ever invest in these neighborhoods. Once this is realized in a few years, the absence of drug stores, grocery stores, etc. will of course be blamed on the racism of white capitalists. “Paradise” will at last have been realized.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/liberal-paradise-up-in-flames/
Some truth about the Baltimore riots...
The Baltimore Riots: The Stunning Comments By Orioles Owner's Son
By Tyler Durden
The day after violent protests left Baltimore burning in the wake of a funeral held for Freddie Gray who died after sustaining a spinal injury while being taken into policy custody, Americans are struggling to explain how the events that transpired on Monday evening are possible in modern day America. While most are united in their condemnation of indiscriminant violence, many still feel a palpable sense of injustice after witnessing multiple instances of alleged police misconduct over the past year.
In this context we present the following culled from Twitter messages posted by Orioles Executive Vice President John Angelos, son of majority owner Peter Angelos:
“Brett, speaking only for myself, I agree with your point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela, and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.
That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.
The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, an ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ball game irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.”
Not exactly what the US Department of Truth wanted to hear.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/tyler-durden/needless-suffering-inflicted-on-ordinary-americans/
By Tyler Durden
The day after violent protests left Baltimore burning in the wake of a funeral held for Freddie Gray who died after sustaining a spinal injury while being taken into policy custody, Americans are struggling to explain how the events that transpired on Monday evening are possible in modern day America. While most are united in their condemnation of indiscriminant violence, many still feel a palpable sense of injustice after witnessing multiple instances of alleged police misconduct over the past year.
In this context we present the following culled from Twitter messages posted by Orioles Executive Vice President John Angelos, son of majority owner Peter Angelos:
“Brett, speaking only for myself, I agree with your point that the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela, and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.
That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.
The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, an ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ball game irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.”
Not exactly what the US Department of Truth wanted to hear.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/tyler-durden/needless-suffering-inflicted-on-ordinary-americans/
Never ending war...
Unending War on Terror
Millions dead costing trillions of dollars
By Philip Giraldi
The admission by the White House that two western hostages were killed by an errant drone strike in Pakistan serves as only an ugly little footnote to what has been nearly fifteen years of undeclared war waged by Washington against a large part of the world. The New York Times notes that “…most individuals killed [by drones] are not on a kill list, and the government does not know their names,” adding that “the proliferating mistakes have given drones a sinister reputation in Pakistan and Yemen and have provoked a powerful anti-American backlash in the Muslim world.”
The most recent ex-judicial killings come on the heels of a report by the highly respected Nobel prize winning Physicians for Social Responsibility that reveals that more than 1.3 million people were killed during the first ten years post 9/11 as part of the so-called “global war on terror” (GWOT) in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone. The GWOT has been euphemized by the current Administration as “overseas contingency operations,” which has a nicer sound and does not appear to be so preemptive or premeditated. The relabeling also suggests that the process is both responsive and occasional, which it is not as it has been the driving component of American foreign policy since 2001 until the present day.
The report by the physicians received only limited coverage in the U.S. media. As one might reasonably add Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen to the carnage and update the numbers on Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan for all areas where the U.S. in engaged militarily the current total might easily exceed two million or more. The report stresses that the estimate of the dead is “conservative” based on the most reliable sources, suggesting that there are large numbers of deaths that have been reported but could not be confirmed.
To be sure not all of those millions of potential war on terror victims were killed by American bullets or bombs but their deaths are the consequence of ill-advised military interventions and operations to destabilize and replace existing governments, starting with the Taliban and continuing in the present with operations directed against Syria. Iran is the next intended target, one should reasonably presume.
American deaths represent only a tiny percentage of the overall toll, even if one includes the victims of 9/11, less than 10,000 total, which in no way should suggest that it diminishes the impact of those losses on individual families and communities. And the cost in dollars has also been devastating. Economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University has estimated that Iraq alone will cost over five trillion dollars before all the debts and legacy expenses relating to it are paid and that does not include the current re-engagement in that country by the U.S. military.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the killing of more than a million people and the spending of trillions of dollars has not made terrorism go away. On the contrary, it now threatens to take over the Arab heartland and metastasize into Europe and the United States after some of ISIS’s own volunteer “wounded warriors” return home. That is because the policies driving the American interventions have been effectively and consistently based on a number of misconceptions, most notably that it is possible to use force to remake in one’s own image ancient cultures that possess their own values and ways of doing things.
The unrelenting expansion of Washington’s military role is consequently little more than a simplistic response to many diverse overseas developments that are poorly understood, most of which are not actually genuine threats to the United States. This is demonstrated by the White House decision to extend the U.S. terrorism fight to the entire continent of Africa and also by the militarization of the ill-conceived campaign against Ebola, which was described as a “national security threat.”
Ironically, terrorism was clearly a dying profession, both literally and metaphorically before Washington stepped in recently to revive it. In 2011 terrorist attacks were down 12% from 2010 and 29% from 2007. Most attacks, and most victims, roughly 65%, came from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Somalia, all war zones where security is poor. Engaged in conflicts that are frequently better describable as civil wars, the terrorist-designated groups bomb and execute their opponents and are on the receiving end of a corresponding government response as a consequence. Each shooting or bombing is therefore counted as a terrorist attack. Al-Qaeda, the gold-standard terrorist group, has long been in sharp decline, being upstaged by more radical groups like ISIS.
For me, the physicians’ report’s statistics revealing a pattern of worldwide carnage invites both horror and a cost/benefit analysis. Collateral damage that is killing civilians in the hundreds of thousands is hard to justify by any metric, but if a country is actually threatened with extinction there is at least an argument to be made. So the question must be asked, “Even given the current revival of terrorism in the Middle East, is the United States actually under siege by terrorism as reflected from the number of Americans who were actually victimized in 2013 (the most recent year when the the State Department has compiled the numbers)?” And “What is Washington spending and doing to deal with the threat? And why?”
Even when one includes all U.S. passport holders or permanent residents in the tally of those directly affected, the numbers are disappointing for those who have imagined a world awash with militants all of whom are seeking Americans to kill while simultaneously planning to travel to the United States so they can blow themselves up in Times Square. In 2013, only four Americans were killed by terrorists inside the United States, all by the Tsarnaev brothers as part of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath. Only twelve American citizens were kidnapped by overseas terrorists in that year (11 in Libya, Syria and Nigeria, all of which were war zones), and only 16 were killed in foreign lands (12 in Afghanistan). Not to minimize in any way the horror of becoming a terrorist victim, the numbers are only 0.3% of all terror-related kidnappings and only 0.1% of terror-related killings. Most, possibly 97%, of people killed or kidnapped worldwide are Muslims targeted by indigenous groups that are fighting to change or take control of their own governments. Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations has determined that the number of Americans killed in terrorist attacks is comparable to the number crushed to death by falling television sets or furniture each year.
The insight that only a minuscule number of Americans actually become terrorism victims raises a question: “What does Washington do to counter the terrorist threat and how much does it cost?” The “what” part is easily answered as the national government has grown dramatically since 9/11 due to fear of terrorism, meaning that the response is to hire more people. There are currently 4.2 million full time federal employees, both military and civilian, supplemented by nearly 500,000 national guardsmen and 400,000 reservists. Defenders of the hiring argue that the number is roughly the same as in 2001, but they fail to account for the massive hiring of contractors, who are not included, Most of those new hires were directly related to the War on Terror for manning the 200 new military and CIA bases that have sprung up around the world and to serve as Fortress America’s defenders. More than half of the employees in key sectors within the intelligence community and at the Defense Department are reported to be contractors, who cost roughly three times as much as staff employees.
As for the costs, the numbers are not precise as overall budgets tend to roll many items in together, but a useful way of addressing the problem is to subtract the federal budget in 2001 from the budget today in the key areas relating to defense, intelligence, and homeland security to determine what the war on terror costs.
The Federal Government is currently operating under a continuing resolution but the budget proposed by the White House is $3.9 trillion for 2015 compared with $1.863 trillion in 2001, $564 billion of which will be debt, reversing 2001’s budget surplus of $127 billion and raising the U.S. total debt to above 100% of Gross Domestic Product. The Department of Homeland Security’s share is $38 billion for 180,000 employees, the intelligence agencies get an estimated $100 billion and employ 100,000, the FBI with 35,000 permanent employees has over $8 billion, and the Department of Defense receives $555 billion, which does not include special appropriations for the war in Afghanistan. In 2001, the Pentagon budget was $277 billion. When all the increases are added up and compared to the baseline of 2001, the war on terror currently costs the American taxpayer more than $500 billion per year directly without including legacy costs like health care for disabled veterans, of which there are tens of thousands. As there may be only 100 or so terrorists capable and willing to stage an attack on the United States directly, that works out to something like $5 billion per year per terrorist.
And that is only at the federal level. Most states now have their own departments of homeland security, and nearly all have dramatically increased both the numbers and firepower of their police forces. There is full-time security manning the entrances of nearly all federal and state and even some local and municipal office buildings. The total costs of state and local expenditures to counter the essentially overstated terrorist threat might well exceed the federal expenditures, and then there is the spending on security, often mandated by the government, in the key areas of the private sector.
So we Americans have killed directly or indirectly maybe a million people, destabilized or overthrown at least four governments, and trashed our own economy while spending something like $1 trillion per year to protect ourselves against a threat that would have been easily containable before we started engineering global solutions. And let’s not forget that we created al-Qaeda and also enabled ISIS by destroying Iraq and supporting the resistance in Syria. Doesn’t make much sense. And more and better is on the horizon. Republican candidates for presidents across the board want to increase defense (sic) spending, Senator Tom Cotton calling for a more than 50% increase to $900 billion per year. And they are itching to start another war with Iran. Cotton says that strategic air strikes will do the trick in a few days. If Paul Wolfowitz were still around he would be telling us that the enterprise would pay for itself. Some people might even believe them.
Link:
http://www.unz.com/article/unending-war-on-terror/
Millions dead costing trillions of dollars
By Philip Giraldi
The admission by the White House that two western hostages were killed by an errant drone strike in Pakistan serves as only an ugly little footnote to what has been nearly fifteen years of undeclared war waged by Washington against a large part of the world. The New York Times notes that “…most individuals killed [by drones] are not on a kill list, and the government does not know their names,” adding that “the proliferating mistakes have given drones a sinister reputation in Pakistan and Yemen and have provoked a powerful anti-American backlash in the Muslim world.”
The most recent ex-judicial killings come on the heels of a report by the highly respected Nobel prize winning Physicians for Social Responsibility that reveals that more than 1.3 million people were killed during the first ten years post 9/11 as part of the so-called “global war on terror” (GWOT) in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone. The GWOT has been euphemized by the current Administration as “overseas contingency operations,” which has a nicer sound and does not appear to be so preemptive or premeditated. The relabeling also suggests that the process is both responsive and occasional, which it is not as it has been the driving component of American foreign policy since 2001 until the present day.
The report by the physicians received only limited coverage in the U.S. media. As one might reasonably add Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen to the carnage and update the numbers on Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan for all areas where the U.S. in engaged militarily the current total might easily exceed two million or more. The report stresses that the estimate of the dead is “conservative” based on the most reliable sources, suggesting that there are large numbers of deaths that have been reported but could not be confirmed.
To be sure not all of those millions of potential war on terror victims were killed by American bullets or bombs but their deaths are the consequence of ill-advised military interventions and operations to destabilize and replace existing governments, starting with the Taliban and continuing in the present with operations directed against Syria. Iran is the next intended target, one should reasonably presume.
American deaths represent only a tiny percentage of the overall toll, even if one includes the victims of 9/11, less than 10,000 total, which in no way should suggest that it diminishes the impact of those losses on individual families and communities. And the cost in dollars has also been devastating. Economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University has estimated that Iraq alone will cost over five trillion dollars before all the debts and legacy expenses relating to it are paid and that does not include the current re-engagement in that country by the U.S. military.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the killing of more than a million people and the spending of trillions of dollars has not made terrorism go away. On the contrary, it now threatens to take over the Arab heartland and metastasize into Europe and the United States after some of ISIS’s own volunteer “wounded warriors” return home. That is because the policies driving the American interventions have been effectively and consistently based on a number of misconceptions, most notably that it is possible to use force to remake in one’s own image ancient cultures that possess their own values and ways of doing things.
The unrelenting expansion of Washington’s military role is consequently little more than a simplistic response to many diverse overseas developments that are poorly understood, most of which are not actually genuine threats to the United States. This is demonstrated by the White House decision to extend the U.S. terrorism fight to the entire continent of Africa and also by the militarization of the ill-conceived campaign against Ebola, which was described as a “national security threat.”
Ironically, terrorism was clearly a dying profession, both literally and metaphorically before Washington stepped in recently to revive it. In 2011 terrorist attacks were down 12% from 2010 and 29% from 2007. Most attacks, and most victims, roughly 65%, came from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Somalia, all war zones where security is poor. Engaged in conflicts that are frequently better describable as civil wars, the terrorist-designated groups bomb and execute their opponents and are on the receiving end of a corresponding government response as a consequence. Each shooting or bombing is therefore counted as a terrorist attack. Al-Qaeda, the gold-standard terrorist group, has long been in sharp decline, being upstaged by more radical groups like ISIS.
For me, the physicians’ report’s statistics revealing a pattern of worldwide carnage invites both horror and a cost/benefit analysis. Collateral damage that is killing civilians in the hundreds of thousands is hard to justify by any metric, but if a country is actually threatened with extinction there is at least an argument to be made. So the question must be asked, “Even given the current revival of terrorism in the Middle East, is the United States actually under siege by terrorism as reflected from the number of Americans who were actually victimized in 2013 (the most recent year when the the State Department has compiled the numbers)?” And “What is Washington spending and doing to deal with the threat? And why?”
Even when one includes all U.S. passport holders or permanent residents in the tally of those directly affected, the numbers are disappointing for those who have imagined a world awash with militants all of whom are seeking Americans to kill while simultaneously planning to travel to the United States so they can blow themselves up in Times Square. In 2013, only four Americans were killed by terrorists inside the United States, all by the Tsarnaev brothers as part of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath. Only twelve American citizens were kidnapped by overseas terrorists in that year (11 in Libya, Syria and Nigeria, all of which were war zones), and only 16 were killed in foreign lands (12 in Afghanistan). Not to minimize in any way the horror of becoming a terrorist victim, the numbers are only 0.3% of all terror-related kidnappings and only 0.1% of terror-related killings. Most, possibly 97%, of people killed or kidnapped worldwide are Muslims targeted by indigenous groups that are fighting to change or take control of their own governments. Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations has determined that the number of Americans killed in terrorist attacks is comparable to the number crushed to death by falling television sets or furniture each year.
The insight that only a minuscule number of Americans actually become terrorism victims raises a question: “What does Washington do to counter the terrorist threat and how much does it cost?” The “what” part is easily answered as the national government has grown dramatically since 9/11 due to fear of terrorism, meaning that the response is to hire more people. There are currently 4.2 million full time federal employees, both military and civilian, supplemented by nearly 500,000 national guardsmen and 400,000 reservists. Defenders of the hiring argue that the number is roughly the same as in 2001, but they fail to account for the massive hiring of contractors, who are not included, Most of those new hires were directly related to the War on Terror for manning the 200 new military and CIA bases that have sprung up around the world and to serve as Fortress America’s defenders. More than half of the employees in key sectors within the intelligence community and at the Defense Department are reported to be contractors, who cost roughly three times as much as staff employees.
As for the costs, the numbers are not precise as overall budgets tend to roll many items in together, but a useful way of addressing the problem is to subtract the federal budget in 2001 from the budget today in the key areas relating to defense, intelligence, and homeland security to determine what the war on terror costs.
The Federal Government is currently operating under a continuing resolution but the budget proposed by the White House is $3.9 trillion for 2015 compared with $1.863 trillion in 2001, $564 billion of which will be debt, reversing 2001’s budget surplus of $127 billion and raising the U.S. total debt to above 100% of Gross Domestic Product. The Department of Homeland Security’s share is $38 billion for 180,000 employees, the intelligence agencies get an estimated $100 billion and employ 100,000, the FBI with 35,000 permanent employees has over $8 billion, and the Department of Defense receives $555 billion, which does not include special appropriations for the war in Afghanistan. In 2001, the Pentagon budget was $277 billion. When all the increases are added up and compared to the baseline of 2001, the war on terror currently costs the American taxpayer more than $500 billion per year directly without including legacy costs like health care for disabled veterans, of which there are tens of thousands. As there may be only 100 or so terrorists capable and willing to stage an attack on the United States directly, that works out to something like $5 billion per year per terrorist.
And that is only at the federal level. Most states now have their own departments of homeland security, and nearly all have dramatically increased both the numbers and firepower of their police forces. There is full-time security manning the entrances of nearly all federal and state and even some local and municipal office buildings. The total costs of state and local expenditures to counter the essentially overstated terrorist threat might well exceed the federal expenditures, and then there is the spending on security, often mandated by the government, in the key areas of the private sector.
So we Americans have killed directly or indirectly maybe a million people, destabilized or overthrown at least four governments, and trashed our own economy while spending something like $1 trillion per year to protect ourselves against a threat that would have been easily containable before we started engineering global solutions. And let’s not forget that we created al-Qaeda and also enabled ISIS by destroying Iraq and supporting the resistance in Syria. Doesn’t make much sense. And more and better is on the horizon. Republican candidates for presidents across the board want to increase defense (sic) spending, Senator Tom Cotton calling for a more than 50% increase to $900 billion per year. And they are itching to start another war with Iran. Cotton says that strategic air strikes will do the trick in a few days. If Paul Wolfowitz were still around he would be telling us that the enterprise would pay for itself. Some people might even believe them.
Link:
http://www.unz.com/article/unending-war-on-terror/
"Is it realistic to think that Russia will allow herself to become a concubine of Washington?"
Insanity Grips The Western World
By Paul Craig Roberts
Just as Karl Marx claimed that History had chosen the proletariat, neoconservatives claim that History has chosen America. Just as the Nazis proclaimed “Deutschland uber alles,” neoconservatives proclaim “America uber alles.” In September 2013 President Obama actually stood before the United Nations and declared, “I believe America is exceptional.”
Germany’s political leaders and those in Great Britain, France, and throughout Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan also believe that America is exceptional, which means better than they are. That’s why these countries are Washington’s vassals. They accept their inferiority to the Exceptional Country — the USA — and follow its leadership.
It is unlikely that the Chinese think that a handful of White People are exceptional in anything except their diminutive numbers. The populations of Asia, Africa, and South America dwarf those that comprise Washington’s Empire.
Neither do the Russians believe that the US is exceptional. Putin’s response to Obama’s claim of American superiority was: “God created us equal.” Putin added: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”
If all countries are exceptional, the word loses its meaning. If America is exceptional, it means others are inferior for lacking this designation. Inferiors have less rights and can be bullied into submission or bombed into oblivion.
The Exceptional Country is above all the others and, therefore, doesn’t have to be concerned about how it treats them. Obviously, Americans and their vassals think America is exceptional as the millions of people murdered, maimed, and dislocated by Washington’s wars in eight countries in the 21st century has not resulted in condemnation of Washington. Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and the puppets in Canada, Australia, and Japan still suck up, holding tight to Washington.
Instead, Russia and Iran, countries that, unlike the US, are not militarily aggressive, are portrayed in the White People’s Media as threats and are condemned.
The White Media claims, and has claimed since February 2014, that there are Russian tanks and troops in Ukraine. Putin has pointed out that if this indeed was the case, Kiev and Western Ukraine would have fallen to the Russian invasion early last year. Kiev has been unable to defeat the small breakaway republics in eastern and southern Ukraine and would stand no chance against the Russian military.
Recently a brave news organization made fun of the White Media’s claim that Russian tanks have been pouring into Ukraine for 14 months. The parody pictured Ukraine at a standstill. All traffic on all roads and residential streets is blocked by Russian tanks. All parking places, including sidewalks and people’s front and rear gardens have tanks piled upon tanks. The entire country is immobilized in gridlock.
Although a few have fun making fun of the gullible people who believe the White Media, the situation is nevertheless serious as it concerns life on planet Earth.
There is little sign that Washington and its vassals care about life on Earth. Recently, the largest political group in the European Parliament–the European People’s Party–expressed a cavalier opinion about life on Earth. We know this, because, if we can trust Euractive, an online EU news source, the majority EU party believes that declaring the EU’s readiness for nuclear war is one of the best steps to deter Russia from further aggression. The aggression to be stopped by Europe’s declaration of its readiness for armageddon is the alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the “further aggression” is Putin’s alleged intention of reestablishing the Soviet Empire.
It must be disappointing to the Russian government to see that leaders of the European Union prefer to endorse nuclear war than to challenge Washington’s propaganda.
When I read that the governing party in the European Parliament thought non-existent aggression had to be stopped by a declaration of readiness for nuclear war, I realized that money could buy any and every thing, even the life of the planet. The European People’s Party was speaking in behalf of Washington’s propaganda, not in behalf of Europe. Europe’s nuclear war with Russia would end instantly with the destruction of every European capital.
The crazed vice-president of the European People’s Party, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski revealed who the real aggressor is when he declared: “Time of talk and persuasion with Russia is over. Now it’s time for a tough policy.”
Clearly, the European Parliament is a great danger to life on the planet. Is it realistic to think that Russia will allow herself to become a concubine of Washington?
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/paul-craig-roberts/bonkers/
By Paul Craig Roberts
Just as Karl Marx claimed that History had chosen the proletariat, neoconservatives claim that History has chosen America. Just as the Nazis proclaimed “Deutschland uber alles,” neoconservatives proclaim “America uber alles.” In September 2013 President Obama actually stood before the United Nations and declared, “I believe America is exceptional.”
Germany’s political leaders and those in Great Britain, France, and throughout Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan also believe that America is exceptional, which means better than they are. That’s why these countries are Washington’s vassals. They accept their inferiority to the Exceptional Country — the USA — and follow its leadership.
It is unlikely that the Chinese think that a handful of White People are exceptional in anything except their diminutive numbers. The populations of Asia, Africa, and South America dwarf those that comprise Washington’s Empire.
Neither do the Russians believe that the US is exceptional. Putin’s response to Obama’s claim of American superiority was: “God created us equal.” Putin added: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”
If all countries are exceptional, the word loses its meaning. If America is exceptional, it means others are inferior for lacking this designation. Inferiors have less rights and can be bullied into submission or bombed into oblivion.
The Exceptional Country is above all the others and, therefore, doesn’t have to be concerned about how it treats them. Obviously, Americans and their vassals think America is exceptional as the millions of people murdered, maimed, and dislocated by Washington’s wars in eight countries in the 21st century has not resulted in condemnation of Washington. Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and the puppets in Canada, Australia, and Japan still suck up, holding tight to Washington.
Instead, Russia and Iran, countries that, unlike the US, are not militarily aggressive, are portrayed in the White People’s Media as threats and are condemned.
The White Media claims, and has claimed since February 2014, that there are Russian tanks and troops in Ukraine. Putin has pointed out that if this indeed was the case, Kiev and Western Ukraine would have fallen to the Russian invasion early last year. Kiev has been unable to defeat the small breakaway republics in eastern and southern Ukraine and would stand no chance against the Russian military.
Recently a brave news organization made fun of the White Media’s claim that Russian tanks have been pouring into Ukraine for 14 months. The parody pictured Ukraine at a standstill. All traffic on all roads and residential streets is blocked by Russian tanks. All parking places, including sidewalks and people’s front and rear gardens have tanks piled upon tanks. The entire country is immobilized in gridlock.
Although a few have fun making fun of the gullible people who believe the White Media, the situation is nevertheless serious as it concerns life on planet Earth.
There is little sign that Washington and its vassals care about life on Earth. Recently, the largest political group in the European Parliament–the European People’s Party–expressed a cavalier opinion about life on Earth. We know this, because, if we can trust Euractive, an online EU news source, the majority EU party believes that declaring the EU’s readiness for nuclear war is one of the best steps to deter Russia from further aggression. The aggression to be stopped by Europe’s declaration of its readiness for armageddon is the alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the “further aggression” is Putin’s alleged intention of reestablishing the Soviet Empire.
It must be disappointing to the Russian government to see that leaders of the European Union prefer to endorse nuclear war than to challenge Washington’s propaganda.
When I read that the governing party in the European Parliament thought non-existent aggression had to be stopped by a declaration of readiness for nuclear war, I realized that money could buy any and every thing, even the life of the planet. The European People’s Party was speaking in behalf of Washington’s propaganda, not in behalf of Europe. Europe’s nuclear war with Russia would end instantly with the destruction of every European capital.
The crazed vice-president of the European People’s Party, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski revealed who the real aggressor is when he declared: “Time of talk and persuasion with Russia is over. Now it’s time for a tough policy.”
Clearly, the European Parliament is a great danger to life on the planet. Is it realistic to think that Russia will allow herself to become a concubine of Washington?
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/paul-craig-roberts/bonkers/
The war on cash...
The “War on Cash” Migrates to Switzerland
Banks Increasingly Refuse Cash Withdrawals – Switzerland Joins the Fun
By Pater Tenebrarum
The war on cash is proliferating globally. It appears that the private members of the world’s banking cartels are increasingly joining the fun, even if it means trampling on the rights of their customers.
Yesterday we came across an article at Zerohedge, in which Dr. Salerno of the Mises Institute notes that JP Morgan Chase has apparently joined the “war on cash”, by “restricting the use of cash in selected markets, restricting borrowers from making cash payments on credit cards, mortgages, equity lines and auto loans, as well as prohibiting storage of cash in safe deposit boxes”.
This reminded us immediately that we have just come across another small article in the local European press (courtesy of Dan Popescu), in which a Swiss pension fund manager discusses his plight with the SNB’s bizarre negative interest rate policy. In Switzerland this policy has long ago led to negative deposit rates at the commercial banks as well. The difference to other jurisdictions is however that negative interest rates have become so pronounced, that it is by now worth it to simply withdraw one’s cash and put it into an insured vault.
Having realized this, said pension fund manager, after calculating that he would save at least 25,000 CHF per year on every CHF 10 m. deposit by putting the cash into a vault, told his bank that he was about to make a rather big withdrawal very soon. After all, as a pension fund manager he has a fiduciary duty to his clients, and if he can save money based on a technicality, he has to do it.
A Legally Murky Situation – but Collectivism Wins Out
What happened next is truly stunning. Surely everybody is aware that Switzerland regularly makes it to the top three on the list of countries with the highest degree of economic freedom. At the same time, it has a central bank whose board members are wedded to Keynesian nostrums similar to those of other central banks. This is no wonder, as nowadays, economists are trained in an academic environment that is dripping with the most vicious statism imaginable. As a result, withdrawing one’s cash is evidently regarded as “interference with the SNB’s monetary policy goals”. Thus SRF reports:
“Since the national bank has introduced negative interest rates, pension funds in the country are in trouble. Banks are passing the negative rates on to them. This results in the saved pension money shrinking, instead of producing a return. A number of pension funds are therefore thinking about keeping their money in an external vault instead of leaving it in bank accounts.
One fund manager showed that for every CHF 10 m. in pension money, his fund would save CHF 25,000 – in spite of the costs involved in vault rent, cash transportation and other expenses.
However, as our research team has found out, there is one bank that refuses to pay out money in such large amounts. The editorial team has gotten hold of a letter from a large Swiss bank in which it tells its customer, a pension fund:
“We are sorry, that within the time period specified, no solution corresponding to your expectations could be found.”
Bank expert Hans Geiger says that this “is most definitely not legal”. The pension fund has a sight account, and has the contractual right to dispose of its money on demand.
(emphasis added)
Indeed, although we all know that fractionally reserved banks literally don’t have the money their customers hold in demand deposits, the contract states clearly that customers may withdraw their funds at any time on demand. The maturity of sight deposits is precisely zero.
So how come the unnamed “large bank” (they should have named it, just to see what happens…) is so bold as to break the law by refusing to pay out funds in a demand deposit? Note here that it is indeed breaking the law, as there is nothing in Swiss legislation that states that banks are allowed to refuse or delay servicing withdrawals from demand deposits upon request.
The answer is that it has probably received a “directive” from the Swiss National Bank. Note here that these directives are not legally binding. SFR further:
“The president of the pension funds association ASIP, Hanspeter Konrad, has been irritated for weeks that pension funds are suffering from negative interest rates. He says: “We simply cannot understand that the banks are butting in here”. Konrad suspects that the National Bank is exerting its influence.
Indeed, the SNB confirms that it doesn’t like to see the hoarding of cash to circumvent its negative interest rate policy. “The National Bank has therefore recommended to the banks to approach withdrawal demands in a restrictive manner.”
Hans Giger, professor eremitus at the University of Zurich, says to this that the question how far the SNB can go is legally complicated. While the SNB is not allowed to influence the contract between a bank and a pension fund, it can however “issue directives to the banks in the collective interest of the Swiss economy”. What banks do with the SNB’s directives is however up to them.
(emphasis added)
In other words, large depositors in Swiss banks have now become victims of collectivism. Collectivism is of course precisely what informs all central planning endeavors. Obviously, property rights count for nothing if the central planners can revoke them at the drop of a hat.
Conclusion
It is undoubtedly a huge red flag when in one of the countries considered to be a member of the “highest economic freedom in the world” club, commercial banks are suddenly refusing their customers access to their cash. This money doesn’t belong to the banks, and it doesn’t belong to the central bank either.
If this can happen in prosperous Switzerland, based on some nebulous notion of the “collective good”, which its unelected central planners can arbitrarily determine and base decisions upon, it can probably happen anywhere. Consider yourself warned. As the modern day fiat money system inevitably cruises toward its final denouement, individual rights will come increasingly under attack as the world’s ruling elites and centrally directed banking cartels begin to batten down the hatches.
Better continue stacking, and keep a pile of this within grabbing distance – after all, it can be purchased at a generous discount these days.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/no_author/consider-yourself-warned/
Banks Increasingly Refuse Cash Withdrawals – Switzerland Joins the Fun
By Pater Tenebrarum
The war on cash is proliferating globally. It appears that the private members of the world’s banking cartels are increasingly joining the fun, even if it means trampling on the rights of their customers.
Yesterday we came across an article at Zerohedge, in which Dr. Salerno of the Mises Institute notes that JP Morgan Chase has apparently joined the “war on cash”, by “restricting the use of cash in selected markets, restricting borrowers from making cash payments on credit cards, mortgages, equity lines and auto loans, as well as prohibiting storage of cash in safe deposit boxes”.
This reminded us immediately that we have just come across another small article in the local European press (courtesy of Dan Popescu), in which a Swiss pension fund manager discusses his plight with the SNB’s bizarre negative interest rate policy. In Switzerland this policy has long ago led to negative deposit rates at the commercial banks as well. The difference to other jurisdictions is however that negative interest rates have become so pronounced, that it is by now worth it to simply withdraw one’s cash and put it into an insured vault.
Having realized this, said pension fund manager, after calculating that he would save at least 25,000 CHF per year on every CHF 10 m. deposit by putting the cash into a vault, told his bank that he was about to make a rather big withdrawal very soon. After all, as a pension fund manager he has a fiduciary duty to his clients, and if he can save money based on a technicality, he has to do it.
A Legally Murky Situation – but Collectivism Wins Out
What happened next is truly stunning. Surely everybody is aware that Switzerland regularly makes it to the top three on the list of countries with the highest degree of economic freedom. At the same time, it has a central bank whose board members are wedded to Keynesian nostrums similar to those of other central banks. This is no wonder, as nowadays, economists are trained in an academic environment that is dripping with the most vicious statism imaginable. As a result, withdrawing one’s cash is evidently regarded as “interference with the SNB’s monetary policy goals”. Thus SRF reports:
“Since the national bank has introduced negative interest rates, pension funds in the country are in trouble. Banks are passing the negative rates on to them. This results in the saved pension money shrinking, instead of producing a return. A number of pension funds are therefore thinking about keeping their money in an external vault instead of leaving it in bank accounts.
One fund manager showed that for every CHF 10 m. in pension money, his fund would save CHF 25,000 – in spite of the costs involved in vault rent, cash transportation and other expenses.
However, as our research team has found out, there is one bank that refuses to pay out money in such large amounts. The editorial team has gotten hold of a letter from a large Swiss bank in which it tells its customer, a pension fund:
“We are sorry, that within the time period specified, no solution corresponding to your expectations could be found.”
Bank expert Hans Geiger says that this “is most definitely not legal”. The pension fund has a sight account, and has the contractual right to dispose of its money on demand.
(emphasis added)
Indeed, although we all know that fractionally reserved banks literally don’t have the money their customers hold in demand deposits, the contract states clearly that customers may withdraw their funds at any time on demand. The maturity of sight deposits is precisely zero.
So how come the unnamed “large bank” (they should have named it, just to see what happens…) is so bold as to break the law by refusing to pay out funds in a demand deposit? Note here that it is indeed breaking the law, as there is nothing in Swiss legislation that states that banks are allowed to refuse or delay servicing withdrawals from demand deposits upon request.
The answer is that it has probably received a “directive” from the Swiss National Bank. Note here that these directives are not legally binding. SFR further:
“The president of the pension funds association ASIP, Hanspeter Konrad, has been irritated for weeks that pension funds are suffering from negative interest rates. He says: “We simply cannot understand that the banks are butting in here”. Konrad suspects that the National Bank is exerting its influence.
Indeed, the SNB confirms that it doesn’t like to see the hoarding of cash to circumvent its negative interest rate policy. “The National Bank has therefore recommended to the banks to approach withdrawal demands in a restrictive manner.”
Hans Giger, professor eremitus at the University of Zurich, says to this that the question how far the SNB can go is legally complicated. While the SNB is not allowed to influence the contract between a bank and a pension fund, it can however “issue directives to the banks in the collective interest of the Swiss economy”. What banks do with the SNB’s directives is however up to them.
(emphasis added)
In other words, large depositors in Swiss banks have now become victims of collectivism. Collectivism is of course precisely what informs all central planning endeavors. Obviously, property rights count for nothing if the central planners can revoke them at the drop of a hat.
Conclusion
It is undoubtedly a huge red flag when in one of the countries considered to be a member of the “highest economic freedom in the world” club, commercial banks are suddenly refusing their customers access to their cash. This money doesn’t belong to the banks, and it doesn’t belong to the central bank either.
If this can happen in prosperous Switzerland, based on some nebulous notion of the “collective good”, which its unelected central planners can arbitrarily determine and base decisions upon, it can probably happen anywhere. Consider yourself warned. As the modern day fiat money system inevitably cruises toward its final denouement, individual rights will come increasingly under attack as the world’s ruling elites and centrally directed banking cartels begin to batten down the hatches.
Better continue stacking, and keep a pile of this within grabbing distance – after all, it can be purchased at a generous discount these days.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/no_author/consider-yourself-warned/
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
"It’s not a coincidence that societies that have followed the welfare-state/equality/egalitarian principle to their logical conclusion — nationalizing everything that belongs to the rich — like Cuba and North Korea did — are societies in which people are desperately (and equally) poor."
Equalizing Wealth with Traffic Fines
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Since raising taxes oftentimes isn’t very popular, public officials are always on the lookout for less direct ways to plunder and loot people. Among the most favorite ways in recent times has been what are called asset-forfeiture laws as part of the “war on drugs,” which empower cops to stop highway travelers and steal large amounts of cash they find inside the cars.
Of course, the longtime favorite way to increase the amount of money taken out of the pockets of the citizenry and put into the coffers of local governments is the traffic fine. Every day, cops find nice hiding places to catch people speeding, in order to keep the money flowing into the coffers of the city or county.
But, hey, things can always be worse. Suppose, for example, the fines for speeding were based not on how fast a driver was going but on how rich he was. The richer the person, the higher the fine. The poorer the person, the lower the fine.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Jacob, that is the most ridiculous notion you have ever come up with. That just could never happen.”
Well, try telling that to Reima Kuisla. According to an article in the New York Times, he was recently ticketed for going 64 miles an hour in a 50 m.p.h. zone. I’ll guarantee that you will never be able to guess the amount of his traffic fine.
54,024 Euros, which comes out to $58,000.
Maybe Kuisla should count himself lucky. In 2013, he got fined 64,448 Euros ($83,769) for going 76 in a 50 m.p.h. zone.
Kuisla lives in Finland, a European welfare-state country that has taken the leftist notion of economic equality and egalitarianism to its logical (and extreme) conclusion. It’s just not fair that some have more when others have less, the Finnish statists say. So, what better way to equalize wealth than by imposing traffic fines that are commensurate with how rich a person is?
Traffic fines in Finland are based on how much income a person earns. Kuisla, a gambler who converted his winnings into a real-estate empire, is a wealthy man with a high income. That’s why he was looted to such a large extent for driving too fast. The fine for the same offense for someone earning, say, 50,000 Euros ($54,000) a year would have been around $370.
I wonder why Finland’s welfare-statists don’t just send government agents out to just seize money from rich people rather than going through the charade of traffic violations. Wouldn’t that be more honest, direct, and efficient?
After all, that’s how American welfare-statists do it. Isn’t that what the progressive income tax, capital gains tax, and inheritance tax are all about? Sure, it’s true that federal agents are not sweeping across the land and directly taking people’s money but that’s only because people are sending their taxes to the government before the IRS comes to get it. Everyone knows that if someone refuses to send his money to the government, the IRS will then come and seize it directly with levies, garnishments, liens, and attachments — all without any judicial process whatsoever.
The entire welfare-state/equality/egalitarian mindset is based on envy and covetousness. Statists cannot stand the fact that some people have more than they do. They think that by taking from those who have more in order to give the money to those who have less that their feelings of envy and covetousness will go away. But such feelings never go away, even as everyone in society ends up being equally poor.
That’s what statists just don’t get — that a rising standards of living for the poor necessarily depend on leaving the rich alone. Wealth produces savings, which is converted into capital, which means better tools and equipment, which makes workers more productive, which brings higher revenues, which result in higher wage rates, which means higher standards of living for everyone, especially the poor.
Conversely, when the state confiscates money from the rich and gives it to the poor, savings and capital are destroyed, which means lower productivity, lower wage rates, and lower standards of living.
The fact is that God has created a consistent universe — one in which envy, covetousness, and stealing produce very bad results, with economic poverty being among them.
It’s not a coincidence that societies that have followed the welfare-state/equality/egalitarian principle to their logical conclusion — nationalizing everything that belongs to the rich — like Cuba and North Korea did — are societies in which people are desperately (and equally) poor.
Our American ancestors had it right: No income tax, Social Security, Medicare, welfare, asset-forfeiture laws, or other legalized plunder schemes to equalize wealth. The result was the most prosperous (and the most charitable) nation in history. Too bad America abandoned those principles in favor of the statist principles found in Finland and other European countries.
Link:
http://fff.org/2015/04/28/equalizing-wealth-traffic-fines/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Since raising taxes oftentimes isn’t very popular, public officials are always on the lookout for less direct ways to plunder and loot people. Among the most favorite ways in recent times has been what are called asset-forfeiture laws as part of the “war on drugs,” which empower cops to stop highway travelers and steal large amounts of cash they find inside the cars.
Of course, the longtime favorite way to increase the amount of money taken out of the pockets of the citizenry and put into the coffers of local governments is the traffic fine. Every day, cops find nice hiding places to catch people speeding, in order to keep the money flowing into the coffers of the city or county.
But, hey, things can always be worse. Suppose, for example, the fines for speeding were based not on how fast a driver was going but on how rich he was. The richer the person, the higher the fine. The poorer the person, the lower the fine.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Jacob, that is the most ridiculous notion you have ever come up with. That just could never happen.”
Well, try telling that to Reima Kuisla. According to an article in the New York Times, he was recently ticketed for going 64 miles an hour in a 50 m.p.h. zone. I’ll guarantee that you will never be able to guess the amount of his traffic fine.
54,024 Euros, which comes out to $58,000.
Maybe Kuisla should count himself lucky. In 2013, he got fined 64,448 Euros ($83,769) for going 76 in a 50 m.p.h. zone.
Kuisla lives in Finland, a European welfare-state country that has taken the leftist notion of economic equality and egalitarianism to its logical (and extreme) conclusion. It’s just not fair that some have more when others have less, the Finnish statists say. So, what better way to equalize wealth than by imposing traffic fines that are commensurate with how rich a person is?
Traffic fines in Finland are based on how much income a person earns. Kuisla, a gambler who converted his winnings into a real-estate empire, is a wealthy man with a high income. That’s why he was looted to such a large extent for driving too fast. The fine for the same offense for someone earning, say, 50,000 Euros ($54,000) a year would have been around $370.
I wonder why Finland’s welfare-statists don’t just send government agents out to just seize money from rich people rather than going through the charade of traffic violations. Wouldn’t that be more honest, direct, and efficient?
After all, that’s how American welfare-statists do it. Isn’t that what the progressive income tax, capital gains tax, and inheritance tax are all about? Sure, it’s true that federal agents are not sweeping across the land and directly taking people’s money but that’s only because people are sending their taxes to the government before the IRS comes to get it. Everyone knows that if someone refuses to send his money to the government, the IRS will then come and seize it directly with levies, garnishments, liens, and attachments — all without any judicial process whatsoever.
The entire welfare-state/equality/egalitarian mindset is based on envy and covetousness. Statists cannot stand the fact that some people have more than they do. They think that by taking from those who have more in order to give the money to those who have less that their feelings of envy and covetousness will go away. But such feelings never go away, even as everyone in society ends up being equally poor.
That’s what statists just don’t get — that a rising standards of living for the poor necessarily depend on leaving the rich alone. Wealth produces savings, which is converted into capital, which means better tools and equipment, which makes workers more productive, which brings higher revenues, which result in higher wage rates, which means higher standards of living for everyone, especially the poor.
Conversely, when the state confiscates money from the rich and gives it to the poor, savings and capital are destroyed, which means lower productivity, lower wage rates, and lower standards of living.
The fact is that God has created a consistent universe — one in which envy, covetousness, and stealing produce very bad results, with economic poverty being among them.
It’s not a coincidence that societies that have followed the welfare-state/equality/egalitarian principle to their logical conclusion — nationalizing everything that belongs to the rich — like Cuba and North Korea did — are societies in which people are desperately (and equally) poor.
Our American ancestors had it right: No income tax, Social Security, Medicare, welfare, asset-forfeiture laws, or other legalized plunder schemes to equalize wealth. The result was the most prosperous (and the most charitable) nation in history. Too bad America abandoned those principles in favor of the statist principles found in Finland and other European countries.
Link:
http://fff.org/2015/04/28/equalizing-wealth-traffic-fines/
Coming to a town near you...
Baltimore today, America tomorrow: Why "utter chaos" will soon erupt across more U.S. cities
by Mike Adams
Baltimore is in a state of "utter chaos" and Gov. Larry Hogan has now declared a state of emergency and called for troops on the streets to halt the spiraling looting and violence.
The pro baseball game has been postponed, rioters are attacking police cars, and protesters managed to loot a CVS pharmacy then burn it to the ground. When firefighters arrived on scene to extinguish the fire, more gang bangers punctured the fire hose to cause a loss of water pressure.
Threats have been made against local police departments, and gang bangers circulated a flier that called for a "purge" of law enforcement -- seemingly a call for the mass murder of police officers. The city is being "destroyed by thugs," according to its Mayor.
"Three of the city's most violent and dangerous gangs - Black Guerrilla Family, Crips and Blood - have announced an unprecedented alliance to 'take out' law enforcement officers, in a move that has prompted fears for police safety across the country," reports the Daily Mail. (An international news publisher that almost always tells more truth than the U.S. mainstream media.)
In response to all this, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake literally told the police department to "...give those who wished to destroy [the] space to do that."
As new of her statement spread -- and the condemnations kicked in -- she quickly issued a clarification statement which said:
The mayor is not saying that she asked police to give space to people who sought to create violence. Any suggestion otherwise would be a misinterpretation of her statement.
The Baltimore riots are not merely a Baltimore problem; they're a nationwide policy brutality problem
But the real story here is that this riot is not merely a Baltimore problem. It's a nationwide problem. It just so happens that the black people of Baltimore are sick and tired of a militarized police force -- an apparent goon squad of chemically-altered 'roid heads -- beating the life out of their young adults (and severing their spines and killing them in police custody).
Can you blame them for the outrage? No matter what your race, it's now obvious that police brutality is an endemic problem in America. This is not just another "isolated event." It's clearly a reflection of a culture of police brutality that for some reason seems to be disproportionately focused on young African-American males.
As the following image depicts, police in America have gone from being polite public servants to rogue villains donning black masks and military gear swiped from the era of Nazi storm troopers...
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/049512_Baltimore_total_chaos_rioting.html#ixzz3YbaoH5l
by Mike Adams
Baltimore is in a state of "utter chaos" and Gov. Larry Hogan has now declared a state of emergency and called for troops on the streets to halt the spiraling looting and violence.
The pro baseball game has been postponed, rioters are attacking police cars, and protesters managed to loot a CVS pharmacy then burn it to the ground. When firefighters arrived on scene to extinguish the fire, more gang bangers punctured the fire hose to cause a loss of water pressure.
Threats have been made against local police departments, and gang bangers circulated a flier that called for a "purge" of law enforcement -- seemingly a call for the mass murder of police officers. The city is being "destroyed by thugs," according to its Mayor.
"Three of the city's most violent and dangerous gangs - Black Guerrilla Family, Crips and Blood - have announced an unprecedented alliance to 'take out' law enforcement officers, in a move that has prompted fears for police safety across the country," reports the Daily Mail. (An international news publisher that almost always tells more truth than the U.S. mainstream media.)
In response to all this, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake literally told the police department to "...give those who wished to destroy [the] space to do that."
As new of her statement spread -- and the condemnations kicked in -- she quickly issued a clarification statement which said:
The mayor is not saying that she asked police to give space to people who sought to create violence. Any suggestion otherwise would be a misinterpretation of her statement.
The Baltimore riots are not merely a Baltimore problem; they're a nationwide policy brutality problem
But the real story here is that this riot is not merely a Baltimore problem. It's a nationwide problem. It just so happens that the black people of Baltimore are sick and tired of a militarized police force -- an apparent goon squad of chemically-altered 'roid heads -- beating the life out of their young adults (and severing their spines and killing them in police custody).
Can you blame them for the outrage? No matter what your race, it's now obvious that police brutality is an endemic problem in America. This is not just another "isolated event." It's clearly a reflection of a culture of police brutality that for some reason seems to be disproportionately focused on young African-American males.
As the following image depicts, police in America have gone from being polite public servants to rogue villains donning black masks and military gear swiped from the era of Nazi storm troopers...
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/049512_Baltimore_total_chaos_rioting.html#ixzz3YbaoH5l
"Crime drops when the NRA convention comes to town.. and the police know it."
Armed Citizens Make Us Safer
By Rob Morse
I mentioned that gun owners are now considered mainstream in most of America. Yes, gun owners have finally archived.. ordinary. Yawn. Measured across the nation, about one in eight adults have a concealed carry permit. More than a third of American families admit they have guns at home. This is significant because criminals act differently when citizens are armed. My neighbor who carries is obviously able to protect herself, but she makes the rest of us safer as well. This is more than theory. We have experience to prove it.
This is how the theory works. Fewer criminals will be on the street once criminals encounter someone who shoots back. Thugs don’t like guns.. once their victims have guns too. In practice, a waiting taxi driver grabbed his gun and stopped a massacre on a public street. No, this wasn’t in Baghdad or Kabul. This was in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago and it happened just last week.
A cab driver dropped off his passenger and was waiting for a group of people to walk across the street before he drove away. That is when Everardo Custodio began firing into the crowd. The cab driver pulled out a handgun and fired six shots at the attacker. Custodio stopped his attack after being hit several times. No other injuries were reported. The driver remained at the scene and was released by police without being charged. The driver had an Illinois concealed carry license. That scene is repeated over and over across the United States every day. You can see examples near your home by looking here.
Concealed carry is new to Chicago. A few years ago, Chicago Police Chief Gary McCarthy said concealed carry holders were a danger to the public. McCarthy said “You put more guns on the street (then) expect more shootings. I don’t care if they’re licensed legal firearms, people who are not highly trained… putting guns in their hands is a recipe for disaster.”
Chief McCarthy was wrong. This cab driver was a better shot than the average police officer. The Chief owes an apology to every Illinois concealed carry holders. It may be a long wait.
Other law enforcement officers get it. The Nashville police were edgy at the NRA convention.. because they wanted to walk the 9 acres of exhibits and see the sights. In contrast, the police officers who had to guard the convention center kept dozing off because there was nothing for them to do. 80 thousand gun owners had their back. Crime drops when the NRA convention comes to town.. and the police know it.
Now you know too.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/no_author/thanks-armed-civilians/
By Rob Morse
I mentioned that gun owners are now considered mainstream in most of America. Yes, gun owners have finally archived.. ordinary. Yawn. Measured across the nation, about one in eight adults have a concealed carry permit. More than a third of American families admit they have guns at home. This is significant because criminals act differently when citizens are armed. My neighbor who carries is obviously able to protect herself, but she makes the rest of us safer as well. This is more than theory. We have experience to prove it.
This is how the theory works. Fewer criminals will be on the street once criminals encounter someone who shoots back. Thugs don’t like guns.. once their victims have guns too. In practice, a waiting taxi driver grabbed his gun and stopped a massacre on a public street. No, this wasn’t in Baghdad or Kabul. This was in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago and it happened just last week.
A cab driver dropped off his passenger and was waiting for a group of people to walk across the street before he drove away. That is when Everardo Custodio began firing into the crowd. The cab driver pulled out a handgun and fired six shots at the attacker. Custodio stopped his attack after being hit several times. No other injuries were reported. The driver remained at the scene and was released by police without being charged. The driver had an Illinois concealed carry license. That scene is repeated over and over across the United States every day. You can see examples near your home by looking here.
Concealed carry is new to Chicago. A few years ago, Chicago Police Chief Gary McCarthy said concealed carry holders were a danger to the public. McCarthy said “You put more guns on the street (then) expect more shootings. I don’t care if they’re licensed legal firearms, people who are not highly trained… putting guns in their hands is a recipe for disaster.”
Chief McCarthy was wrong. This cab driver was a better shot than the average police officer. The Chief owes an apology to every Illinois concealed carry holders. It may be a long wait.
Other law enforcement officers get it. The Nashville police were edgy at the NRA convention.. because they wanted to walk the 9 acres of exhibits and see the sights. In contrast, the police officers who had to guard the convention center kept dozing off because there was nothing for them to do. 80 thousand gun owners had their back. Crime drops when the NRA convention comes to town.. and the police know it.
Now you know too.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/no_author/thanks-armed-civilians/
Are Americans over medicated???
Americans Take Too Many Drugs
By Dr. David Brownstein
Americans take too many prescription medications. In 2014, Americans filled 4.3 billion prescriptions while spending a record amount of $374 billion for their medications. 2014 spending on prescription drugs hit the highest level since 2001 according to data from the IMS Institute of Healthcare Informatics.
I would not have a problem with Americans taking so many prescription medications if the drugs were improving our health. But, that is not what is happening. In every category of the World Health Organization’s ranking of health indicators, we finish last or near last when we are compared to all the major Western countries. We finish last in infant mortality and U.S. men and women die at an earlier age when they are compared to their counterparts in other western countries. It is clear that our medical system spends too much money without getting positive results.
You would think that these numbers would be a wake-up call for the American Medical Association, the FDA and the CDC to investigate why we take so many drugs that are not improving our health. However, that is not how things work.
You see, The Big Pharma Cartel has hijacked the American medical system. They have convinced far too many of us—including most physicians–that a prescription drug is the only treatment necessary for what ails someone.
Prescription medications may be indicated in many acute situations—such as antibiotics for treating pneumonia or cardiac medications for treating an acute heart attack. However, in chronic care cases, many drug therapies fail to treat the underlying cause of an illness.
As I wrote in Drugs That Don’t Work and Natural Therapies That Do, most (over 95%) drugs work by either blocking receptors or poisoning enzymes. After practicing medicine for over 20 years, I can state with certainty that our bodies were not designed to have their receptors blocked or the enzymes poisoned for the long-term.
Nearly all doctors are skilled with prescribing toxic medications. Sadly, the vast majority of these same physicians have no knowledge or interest in using natural therapies. A natural therapy will often support and nourish the body’s biochemistry while a prescription medication will disrupt the biochemical milieu. Why isn’t that simple idea taught in any medical school in the U.S.?
In medical school, young doctors spend an inordinate and ridiculous amount of time learning about drugs. Their training centers on the diagnosis of pathology and how to prescribe a drug to treat that illness. Sadly, western-trained physicians learn nothing about health or what it is and how to maintain or optimize it. Unless our medical schools change the way they educate their students, nothing will change. We will continue to waste more money on toxic drug therapies that do not treat the underlying cause of a patient’s problems.
How will it change? It will change when the public demands a change. It will take the public to reject the use of expensive and toxic medications that do not treat the underlying cause of an illness. We need patients to rise up and say that they have had enough of taking expensive, suboptimal medications that have too many adverse effects...
Read the rest:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/dr-david-brownstein/big-pharma-hijacked-the-medical-system/
By Dr. David Brownstein
Americans take too many prescription medications. In 2014, Americans filled 4.3 billion prescriptions while spending a record amount of $374 billion for their medications. 2014 spending on prescription drugs hit the highest level since 2001 according to data from the IMS Institute of Healthcare Informatics.
I would not have a problem with Americans taking so many prescription medications if the drugs were improving our health. But, that is not what is happening. In every category of the World Health Organization’s ranking of health indicators, we finish last or near last when we are compared to all the major Western countries. We finish last in infant mortality and U.S. men and women die at an earlier age when they are compared to their counterparts in other western countries. It is clear that our medical system spends too much money without getting positive results.
You would think that these numbers would be a wake-up call for the American Medical Association, the FDA and the CDC to investigate why we take so many drugs that are not improving our health. However, that is not how things work.
You see, The Big Pharma Cartel has hijacked the American medical system. They have convinced far too many of us—including most physicians–that a prescription drug is the only treatment necessary for what ails someone.
Prescription medications may be indicated in many acute situations—such as antibiotics for treating pneumonia or cardiac medications for treating an acute heart attack. However, in chronic care cases, many drug therapies fail to treat the underlying cause of an illness.
As I wrote in Drugs That Don’t Work and Natural Therapies That Do, most (over 95%) drugs work by either blocking receptors or poisoning enzymes. After practicing medicine for over 20 years, I can state with certainty that our bodies were not designed to have their receptors blocked or the enzymes poisoned for the long-term.
Nearly all doctors are skilled with prescribing toxic medications. Sadly, the vast majority of these same physicians have no knowledge or interest in using natural therapies. A natural therapy will often support and nourish the body’s biochemistry while a prescription medication will disrupt the biochemical milieu. Why isn’t that simple idea taught in any medical school in the U.S.?
In medical school, young doctors spend an inordinate and ridiculous amount of time learning about drugs. Their training centers on the diagnosis of pathology and how to prescribe a drug to treat that illness. Sadly, western-trained physicians learn nothing about health or what it is and how to maintain or optimize it. Unless our medical schools change the way they educate their students, nothing will change. We will continue to waste more money on toxic drug therapies that do not treat the underlying cause of a patient’s problems.
How will it change? It will change when the public demands a change. It will take the public to reject the use of expensive and toxic medications that do not treat the underlying cause of an illness. We need patients to rise up and say that they have had enough of taking expensive, suboptimal medications that have too many adverse effects...
Read the rest:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/dr-david-brownstein/big-pharma-hijacked-the-medical-system/
OOPS!!!
Top Scientists Start to Examine Fiddled Global Warming Figures
The Global Warming Policy Foundation has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry
By Christopher Booker
Last month, we are told, the world enjoyed “its hottest March since records began in 1880”. This year, according to “US government scientists”, already bids to outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”. The figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were based, like all the other three official surface temperature records on which the world’s scientists and politicians rely, on data compiled from a network of weather stations by NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN).
But here there is a puzzle. These temperature records are not the only ones with official status. The other two, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama (UAH), are based on a quite different method of measuring temperature data, by satellites. And these, as they have increasingly done in recent years, give a strikingly different picture. Neither shows last month as anything like the hottest March on record, any more than they showed 2014 as “the hottest year ever”...
Read the rest here:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/no_author/fiddled-global-warming-figures/
The Global Warming Policy Foundation has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry
By Christopher Booker
Last month, we are told, the world enjoyed “its hottest March since records began in 1880”. This year, according to “US government scientists”, already bids to outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”. The figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were based, like all the other three official surface temperature records on which the world’s scientists and politicians rely, on data compiled from a network of weather stations by NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN).
But here there is a puzzle. These temperature records are not the only ones with official status. The other two, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama (UAH), are based on a quite different method of measuring temperature data, by satellites. And these, as they have increasingly done in recent years, give a strikingly different picture. Neither shows last month as anything like the hottest March on record, any more than they showed 2014 as “the hottest year ever”...
Read the rest here:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/no_author/fiddled-global-warming-figures/
Police State USA...
Turning America into a Battlefield: A Blueprint for Locking Down the Nation
By John W. Whitehead
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.—President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
A standing army—something that propelled the early colonists into revolution—strips the American people of any vestige of freedom. How can there be any semblance of freedom when there are tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones patrolling overhead?
It was for this reason that those who established America vested control of the military in a civilian government, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They did not want a military government, ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution.
Unfortunately, with the Constitution under constant attack, the military’s power, influence and authority have grown dramatically. Even the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which makes it a crime for the government to use the military to carry out arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other activities normally handled by a civilian police force, has been weakened by both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who ushered in exemptions allowing troops to deploy domestically and arrest civilians in the wake of alleged terrorist acts.
Now we find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military and have just as little regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.
Making matters worse, we find out that the military plans to use southwestern states as staging grounds for guerilla warfare drills in which highly-trained military troops equipped with all manner of weapons turn American towns and cities in quasi-battlefields. Why? As they tell us, it’s so that special operations forces can get “realistic military training” in “hostile” territory.
They’ve even got a name for the exercise: Jade Helm 15.
Whether or not Americans have anything to fear from Jade Helm 15, a covert, multi-agency, multi-state, eight-week military training exercise set to take place this summer from July 15 through Sept. 15, remains to be seen.
Insisting that there’s nothing to be alarmed about, the Washington Post took great pains to point out that these military exercises on American soil are nothing new. For instance, there was Operation Bold Alligator, in which in which thousands of Marines and sailors carried out amphibious exercises against “insurgent” forces in Georgia and Florida.Operation Robin Sage had Green Beret soldiers engaging in guerrilla warfare in North Carolina. And Operation Derna Bridge sends Marine special forces into parts of South Carolina and the National Forest.
Yet if Americans are uneasy about this summer’s planned Jade Helm 15 military exercises, they have every right to be.
After all, haven’t we been urged time and time again to just “trust” the government to respect our rights and abide by the rule of law only to find that, in fact, our rights were being plundered and the Constitution disregarded at every turn?
Let’s assume, for the moment, that Jade Helm 15 is not a thinly veiled military plot to take over the country lifted straight out of director John Frankenheimer’s 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May, as some fear, but is merely a “routine” exercise for troops, albeit a blatantly intimidating flexing of the military’s muscles.
The problem arises when you start to add Jade Helm onto the list of other troubling developments that have taken place over the past 30 years or more: the expansion of the military industrial complex and its influence in Washington DC, the rampant surveillance, the corporate-funded elections and revolving door between lobbyists and elected officials, the militarized police, the loss of our freedoms, the injustice of the courts, the privatized prisons, the school lockdowns, the roadside strip searches, the military drills on domestic soil, the fusion centers and the simultaneous fusing of every branch of law enforcement (federal, state and local), the stockpiling of ammunition by various government agencies, the active shooter drills that are indistinguishable from actual crises, the economy flirting with near collapse, etc.
Suddenly, the overall picture seems that much more sinister. Clearly, as I point out in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, there’s a larger agenda at work here.
Seven years ago, the U.S. Army War College issued a report calling on the military to be prepared should they need to put down civil unrest within the country. Summarizing the report, investigative journalist Chris Hedges declared, “The military must be prepared, the document warned, for a ‘violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,’ which could be provoked by ‘unforeseen economic collapse,’ ‘purposeful domestic resistance,’ ‘pervasive public health emergencies’ or ‘loss of functioning political and legal order.’ The ‘widespread civil violence,’ the document said, ‘would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.’”
At what point will all of the government’s carefully drawn plans for dealing with civil unrest, “homegrown” terrorism and targeting pre-crime become a unified blueprint for locking down the nation?
For instance, what’s the rationale behind turning government agencies into military outposts? There has been a notable buildup in recent years of SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies such as Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Education Department. As of 2008, “73 federal law enforcement agencies… [employ] approximately 120,000 armed full-time on-duty officers with arrest authority.” Four-fifths of those officers are under the command of either the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the Department of Justice.
What’s with all of the government agencies stockpiling hollow point bullets? For example, why does the Department of Agriculture need .40 caliber semiautomatic submachine guns and 320,000 rounds of hollow point bullets? For that matter, why do its agents need ballistic vests and body armor?
Why does the Postal Service need “assorted small arms ammunition”? Why did the DHS purchase “1.6 billion rounds of hollow-point ammunition, along with 7,000 fully-automatic 5.56x45mm NATO ‘personal defense weapons’ plus a huge stash of 30-round high-capacity magazines”? That’s in addition to the FBI’s request for 100 million hollow-point rounds. The Department of Education, IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the National Weather Service, are also among the federal agencies which have taken to purchasing ammunition and weaponry in bulk.
Why is the federal government distributing obscene amounts of military equipment, weapons and ammunition to police departments around the country? And why is DHS acquiring more than 2,500 Mine-Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles, only to pass them around to local police departments across the country? According to the New York Times:
[A]s President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s “long season of war,” the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice. During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft. The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units.
Why is the military partnering with local police to conduct training drills around the country? And what exactly are they training for? In Richland, South Carolina, for instance, U.S. army special forces participated in joint and secretive exercises and training with local deputies. The public was disallowed from obtaining any information about the purpose of the drills, other than being told that they might be loud and to not be alarmed. The Army and DHS also carried out similar drills and maneuvers involving Black Hawk helicopters in Texas, Florida, and other locations throughout the U.S., ostensibly in order to provide local police with “realistic” urban training.
What is being done to protect the American populace from the threat of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, being used against them? Policy analysts point to Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities” (issued on Dec. 29, 2010), as justification for the government’s use of military force to put down civil unrest within the United States.
Why is FEMA stockpiling massive quantities of emergency supplies? On January 10, 2014, FEMA made a statement enlisting the service of contractors who could “supply medical biohazard disposal capabilities and 40 yard dumpsters to 1,000 tent hospitals across the United States; all required on 24-48 hour notice.” This coincides with other medical requests seeking massive amounts of supplies, such as “31,000,000 flu vaccinations,” “100,000 each of winter shirts and pants and the same for summer” and other goods and services requests as well like tarps, manufactured housing units, and beverages. And why does the TSA need $21,000 worth of potassium chlorate, a chemical compound often used in explosives?
Why is the Pentagon continuing to purchase mass amounts of ammunition while at the same time preparing to destroy more than $1 billion worth of bullets and missiles that are still viable?
Moreover, what is really being done to hold the Pentagon accountable for its doctored ledgers, fraud, waste and mismanagement, which has cost the taxpayer trillions of dollars? According to Reuters, “The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output.”
Given the similarities between the government’s Live Active Shooter Drill training exercises, carried out at schools, in shopping malls, and on public transit, which can and do fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers and bystanders into thinking it’s a real crisis, how much of what is being passed off as real is, in fact, being staged by DHS for the “benefit” of training law enforcement, leaving us none the wiser? These training exercises come complete with their own set of professionally trained Crisis Actors playing the parts of shooters, bystanders and victims in order to help schools and first responders create realistic drills, full-scale exercises, high-fidelity simulations, and interactive 3D films.
Given that Americans are 110 times more likely to die of foodborne illness than in a terrorist attack, why is the government spending trillions of dollars on “national security”? How exactly is the $75 billion given to various intelligence agencies annually to keep us “safe” being spent? And why is the DHS giving away millions of dollars’ worth of federal security grants to states that federal intelligence agencies ruled have “no specific foreign or domestic terrorism threat”?
Why is the government amassing names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation, and what criteria is the government using for this database? Keep in mind that this personal information is being acquired and kept without warrant or court order. It’s been suggested that in the event of nuclear war, the destruction of the U.S. Government, and the declaration of martial law, this Main Core database, which as of 2008 contained some 8 million names of Americans, would be used by military officials to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security, a program to be carried about by the Army and FEMA.
Taken individually, these questions are alarming enough. But put them together and they add up to the kind of trouble that the American founding fathers not only warned against but from which they fought to free themselves.
Indeed, when viewed collectively, they leave one wondering what exactly the U.S. government is preparing for and whether American citizens shouldn’t be preparing, as well, for that eventuality when our so-called “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is no longer answerable to “we the people.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/john-w-whitehead/the-blueprint-for-locking-down-america/
By John W. Whitehead
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.—President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
A standing army—something that propelled the early colonists into revolution—strips the American people of any vestige of freedom. How can there be any semblance of freedom when there are tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones patrolling overhead?
It was for this reason that those who established America vested control of the military in a civilian government, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They did not want a military government, ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution.
Unfortunately, with the Constitution under constant attack, the military’s power, influence and authority have grown dramatically. Even the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which makes it a crime for the government to use the military to carry out arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other activities normally handled by a civilian police force, has been weakened by both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who ushered in exemptions allowing troops to deploy domestically and arrest civilians in the wake of alleged terrorist acts.
Now we find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military and have just as little regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.
Making matters worse, we find out that the military plans to use southwestern states as staging grounds for guerilla warfare drills in which highly-trained military troops equipped with all manner of weapons turn American towns and cities in quasi-battlefields. Why? As they tell us, it’s so that special operations forces can get “realistic military training” in “hostile” territory.
They’ve even got a name for the exercise: Jade Helm 15.
Whether or not Americans have anything to fear from Jade Helm 15, a covert, multi-agency, multi-state, eight-week military training exercise set to take place this summer from July 15 through Sept. 15, remains to be seen.
Insisting that there’s nothing to be alarmed about, the Washington Post took great pains to point out that these military exercises on American soil are nothing new. For instance, there was Operation Bold Alligator, in which in which thousands of Marines and sailors carried out amphibious exercises against “insurgent” forces in Georgia and Florida.Operation Robin Sage had Green Beret soldiers engaging in guerrilla warfare in North Carolina. And Operation Derna Bridge sends Marine special forces into parts of South Carolina and the National Forest.
Yet if Americans are uneasy about this summer’s planned Jade Helm 15 military exercises, they have every right to be.
After all, haven’t we been urged time and time again to just “trust” the government to respect our rights and abide by the rule of law only to find that, in fact, our rights were being plundered and the Constitution disregarded at every turn?
Let’s assume, for the moment, that Jade Helm 15 is not a thinly veiled military plot to take over the country lifted straight out of director John Frankenheimer’s 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May, as some fear, but is merely a “routine” exercise for troops, albeit a blatantly intimidating flexing of the military’s muscles.
The problem arises when you start to add Jade Helm onto the list of other troubling developments that have taken place over the past 30 years or more: the expansion of the military industrial complex and its influence in Washington DC, the rampant surveillance, the corporate-funded elections and revolving door between lobbyists and elected officials, the militarized police, the loss of our freedoms, the injustice of the courts, the privatized prisons, the school lockdowns, the roadside strip searches, the military drills on domestic soil, the fusion centers and the simultaneous fusing of every branch of law enforcement (federal, state and local), the stockpiling of ammunition by various government agencies, the active shooter drills that are indistinguishable from actual crises, the economy flirting with near collapse, etc.
Suddenly, the overall picture seems that much more sinister. Clearly, as I point out in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, there’s a larger agenda at work here.
Seven years ago, the U.S. Army War College issued a report calling on the military to be prepared should they need to put down civil unrest within the country. Summarizing the report, investigative journalist Chris Hedges declared, “The military must be prepared, the document warned, for a ‘violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,’ which could be provoked by ‘unforeseen economic collapse,’ ‘purposeful domestic resistance,’ ‘pervasive public health emergencies’ or ‘loss of functioning political and legal order.’ The ‘widespread civil violence,’ the document said, ‘would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.’”
At what point will all of the government’s carefully drawn plans for dealing with civil unrest, “homegrown” terrorism and targeting pre-crime become a unified blueprint for locking down the nation?
For instance, what’s the rationale behind turning government agencies into military outposts? There has been a notable buildup in recent years of SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies such as Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Education Department. As of 2008, “73 federal law enforcement agencies… [employ] approximately 120,000 armed full-time on-duty officers with arrest authority.” Four-fifths of those officers are under the command of either the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the Department of Justice.
What’s with all of the government agencies stockpiling hollow point bullets? For example, why does the Department of Agriculture need .40 caliber semiautomatic submachine guns and 320,000 rounds of hollow point bullets? For that matter, why do its agents need ballistic vests and body armor?
Why does the Postal Service need “assorted small arms ammunition”? Why did the DHS purchase “1.6 billion rounds of hollow-point ammunition, along with 7,000 fully-automatic 5.56x45mm NATO ‘personal defense weapons’ plus a huge stash of 30-round high-capacity magazines”? That’s in addition to the FBI’s request for 100 million hollow-point rounds. The Department of Education, IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the National Weather Service, are also among the federal agencies which have taken to purchasing ammunition and weaponry in bulk.
Why is the federal government distributing obscene amounts of military equipment, weapons and ammunition to police departments around the country? And why is DHS acquiring more than 2,500 Mine-Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles, only to pass them around to local police departments across the country? According to the New York Times:
[A]s President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s “long season of war,” the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice. During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft. The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units.
Why is the military partnering with local police to conduct training drills around the country? And what exactly are they training for? In Richland, South Carolina, for instance, U.S. army special forces participated in joint and secretive exercises and training with local deputies. The public was disallowed from obtaining any information about the purpose of the drills, other than being told that they might be loud and to not be alarmed. The Army and DHS also carried out similar drills and maneuvers involving Black Hawk helicopters in Texas, Florida, and other locations throughout the U.S., ostensibly in order to provide local police with “realistic” urban training.
What is being done to protect the American populace from the threat of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, being used against them? Policy analysts point to Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities” (issued on Dec. 29, 2010), as justification for the government’s use of military force to put down civil unrest within the United States.
Why is FEMA stockpiling massive quantities of emergency supplies? On January 10, 2014, FEMA made a statement enlisting the service of contractors who could “supply medical biohazard disposal capabilities and 40 yard dumpsters to 1,000 tent hospitals across the United States; all required on 24-48 hour notice.” This coincides with other medical requests seeking massive amounts of supplies, such as “31,000,000 flu vaccinations,” “100,000 each of winter shirts and pants and the same for summer” and other goods and services requests as well like tarps, manufactured housing units, and beverages. And why does the TSA need $21,000 worth of potassium chlorate, a chemical compound often used in explosives?
Why is the Pentagon continuing to purchase mass amounts of ammunition while at the same time preparing to destroy more than $1 billion worth of bullets and missiles that are still viable?
Moreover, what is really being done to hold the Pentagon accountable for its doctored ledgers, fraud, waste and mismanagement, which has cost the taxpayer trillions of dollars? According to Reuters, “The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output.”
Given the similarities between the government’s Live Active Shooter Drill training exercises, carried out at schools, in shopping malls, and on public transit, which can and do fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers and bystanders into thinking it’s a real crisis, how much of what is being passed off as real is, in fact, being staged by DHS for the “benefit” of training law enforcement, leaving us none the wiser? These training exercises come complete with their own set of professionally trained Crisis Actors playing the parts of shooters, bystanders and victims in order to help schools and first responders create realistic drills, full-scale exercises, high-fidelity simulations, and interactive 3D films.
Given that Americans are 110 times more likely to die of foodborne illness than in a terrorist attack, why is the government spending trillions of dollars on “national security”? How exactly is the $75 billion given to various intelligence agencies annually to keep us “safe” being spent? And why is the DHS giving away millions of dollars’ worth of federal security grants to states that federal intelligence agencies ruled have “no specific foreign or domestic terrorism threat”?
Why is the government amassing names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation, and what criteria is the government using for this database? Keep in mind that this personal information is being acquired and kept without warrant or court order. It’s been suggested that in the event of nuclear war, the destruction of the U.S. Government, and the declaration of martial law, this Main Core database, which as of 2008 contained some 8 million names of Americans, would be used by military officials to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security, a program to be carried about by the Army and FEMA.
Taken individually, these questions are alarming enough. But put them together and they add up to the kind of trouble that the American founding fathers not only warned against but from which they fought to free themselves.
Indeed, when viewed collectively, they leave one wondering what exactly the U.S. government is preparing for and whether American citizens shouldn’t be preparing, as well, for that eventuality when our so-called “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is no longer answerable to “we the people.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/john-w-whitehead/the-blueprint-for-locking-down-america/
The Wild West???
Order Without Law: Anarchy In the Old West
By Max McNabb
The western is the great drama of man in nature. The frontier reveals man’s true character, stripped of state and civilization, for better or worse.
Over the decades, Hollywood screenwriters have influenced our view of the old West. Current perceptions owe more to 1950s westerns than actual history. Watching those old movies, it seems there was a lynch mob in every town, murderous gangs constantly preying on helpless pioneers. Only the cavalry or lawman could impose order on frontier chaos.
As Ryan McMaken notes in his excellent Commie Cowboys, “Although John Locke may have been able to imagine a functioning society that existed before government, the Western film clearly cannot.”
Was the true old West a Hobbesian nightmare of violence? Did the strong oppress the weak on the prairie until the intervention of government? Or did Hollywood craft a statist myth?
According to U.S. Marshal Dee Harkey, the reality of the old West was order without law, society without state. It was anarchy in action.
Dee Harkey was ninety-two years-old in 1958. At his home in New Mexico, the former lawman gave an interview to Monk Lofton just two weeks before he passed away. Harkey set the record straight about the old West. He also expressed the unease he felt for his own role in transferring the responsibility of law from the individual to the state.
Born in Richland Springs, Texas, in 1866, Dee Harkey was orphaned by age three. Raised by an older brother, Dee worked as farmhand and cowboy. At sixteen, he was a deputy under his brother, Joe Harkey, sheriff of San Saba County. The first man Dee ever arrested was Deacon Jim Miller, the most prolific, psychopathic hitman of the old West. Four years later, Dee was married and farming in Bee County when a dispute with a neighbor, George Young, turned into a knife fight. Though never a big man (at the time of his death, he weighed less than a hundred pounds), Harkey apparently had no difficulty winning the fight to the death. In 1890, Harkey moved his family to Carlsbad, New Mexico and soon became a Deputy U. S. Marshal. His memoir, Mean As Hell, was published in 1948. At seventy-two, Harkey fathered a child with a young woman. The boy was given up for adoption and didn’t discover the identity of his birth parents until he was over forty-five.
“I have never contended that any of the good men of the old West were all good,” Harkey told Monk Lofton. “Nor that any of the bad ones were all bad. There were mean, vicious outlaws then, just as there are mean, vicious outlaws today… Mean as the worst of them were in that day and time, many of them made good friends—loyal, accommodating, and, to a certain extent, trustworthy. Most of them had no quarrel with me personally. It was just that law and order interfered with their way of doing things.”
On the subject of his duties, Harkey said, “Like most of the men of that day and time, I neither approved nor disapproved of law and order as it is interpreted today. I was more interested in taking care of Dee Harkey, of course, than in imposing my opinion as to what I thought good or bad for other people. I took the job of Deputy United Sates Marshal, not because I felt qualified to judge other people, but because the job paid a good salary. Naturally, I realized the reason it paid a good salary was because it was hard and dangerous. In that day and time, the job of an officer of the law was not to establish either the innocence or guilt of the men for whom the warrants were issued, but to deliver those men safely to the court for a fair and unbiased trial. My only agreement was to serve the warrants…”
Harkey then explained what in those bygone days were commonly termed the Laws of the West. On the frontier, beyond the reach of the state, Westerners lived by unwritten laws in their dealings with each other.
Lofton said, “In complete disregard for the laws of the nation, each man more or less made his own laws; or should we say, his own code of behavior?”
“If he wanted to live to be a very old man, he did,” Harkey told him. “In those days, a man was used to his very life depending on his code of behavior. Before law and order came to the old West, justice among men was something that each individual tried to live by within himself lest he become a hunted man—not protected by the law—but most likely to be killed by it. The penalty for wronging a man in those days was usually having to face him with his pistol at his side, and regardless of how fast a man might be with his gun, or how good a shot he might be, it could easily be assumed that the other was just as fast and just as good as the offender. If anything, the man who wronged another in those days was taking a bigger chance in being punished for his crime. A man in his right mind then didn’t dare wrong another purposely; and if he figured he might have wronged him, accidently, he was quick to make amends.”
Harkey continued, “Each person pretty much enforced the laws as he understood them. If the strong imposed his gun on the weak, or became ruthless in his dealings with his fellow man, there was always the posse.”
Were the majority of the posses which lynched accused men justified in their actions?
“Regardless of how men are tried, except by God alone, there are possibilities of mistakes. Those people who had to dish out punishment themselves instead of having someone dish it out for them, as is done today after sentence is pronounced, were usually pretty sure of the guilt before the punishment. Naturally, the formed posses were never considered a means to an end. They were just about as unpopular with the law as the lawless.”
Contrast Harkey’s remarks with the Henry Fonda film The Ox-Box Incident from 1943. Gary North refers to the didactic movie as a “liberal propaganda film” disguised as a western.
Lofton asked Harkey if he preferred the law of the gun to the law of the court.
“It was just that in one case,” Harkey explained, “the state or federal government, as the case might be, enforces the laws, and in the case of the West, each man felt responsible to see that no law was broken against him. In the event of damage caused a man by the breaking of a law by another, each man felt he must take it upon himself to either punish or kill the man who wronged him. In those days, the wrong was considered first the reasonability of the man to whom it was directed; and when I took the job as Deputy United States Marshal, it became my job to assist in the transference of the law from the individual to the Territory, and later to the state, of New Mexico. I wasn’t sure which was the better method then, and I’m not sure now.”
Harkey wore a badge, but his sense of justice was still of the frontier variety. A number of times he served warrants on men who’d killed for what Harkey believed were justifiable reasons, men whose only mistake was enforcing the old Laws of the West. Harkey admitted he himself would’ve drawn a gun for far less cause than most of these men.
“In many cases where I felt justice had already been properly executed, because the law had been broken in its execution, it became my job to bring dangerous men in for trial. Whereas many of the crimes had been founded on justifiable circumstances, I knew, just as many of the lawbreakers knew at that time, that the courts were usually founded on the hard facts set forth in a law book. But, as I said, my job was to serve the warrant, not to try the culprit.”
Harkey’s arrest methods show how far America has fallen. Instead of kicking in doors at midnight on no-knock warrants, Harkey “always told a man honestly that there was nothing personal about my serving a warrant. Before making an arrest I told him the simple requirements of my job, often on a friendly and impersonal basis. Many of them, even though I knew all about the crimes they committed, I considered my best friends; and often the mere fact that I had a warrant for their arrest made very little difference in our friendly relations. Because I had a warrant for their arrest, however, I never doubted that many of my best friends would kill me if they got the chance. It was not a personal thing with most of them. It was just that they knew me too well, or they knew me not well enough.
Harkey explained, “It was not that they wanted to kill me out of malice or anything like that; it was just that they identified me with the laws of the United States government at a time when they were still trying to live by the laws of the six-shooters. It was the law, not the man whose job it was to bring them to it, that they were fighting.”
As Lofton spoke with Harkey that day in November 1958, the writer got the impression the marshal’s heart still sided with the old ways. So he asked him, “Which do you regard with the most respect, the laws of the old West, or the laws of the written documents?”
“I knew that was coming,” Harkey said and smiled. “Usually, people of strong, friendly bonds are more or less of the same will and opinion. Most of us who are living today were not U.S. Marshals seventy years ago in the New Mexico Territory. The majority at that time who are still living did everything they could to keep the Territory free of laws and regulations. Naturally, they wanted as little inference as possible with their early way of life. As for myself, however, I feel that I am one who did a great deal to establish the laws of the written document, as you put it, in Southern New Mexico. I just couldn’t let myself think now that all the chances I took to bring law and order to Eddy County might have been wasted.”
The men of the old West had the courage to forge their own code. They remained Harkey’s kind of people. Lofton asked the marshal if he ever felt like a traitor. “Do you still admire them,” Lofton asked, “for trying to maintain a way of American frontier life? Or do you feel that you justified them as the last opposition to civilization and a gentler way of peaceful living?”
Harkey sat thinking in silence. Then he said, “I’m not sure. Old Mrs. George Larimore was ninety-eight years-old when she lay dying a few years ago, at which time she sent for me to come to see her just before she died. Perhaps no stronger bond of friendship was there in the old West than that shared by the Larimores and the Harkeys. Both families consisted of the law and the lawless.”
Harkey spoke of the conversation at the woman’s deathbed. “Dee, she said to me, I’ve lived a long time. I’m ninety-eight years-old, and now I have to die. I swear to you, she said, I believe laws were better when they were made by each man by the use of his own gun than they are today; and I believe when I was a young girl, people were more law-abidin’ than they are today.”
Dee paused, then continued, “Knowing as well she did Dee Harkey, the young man of the old West, together with Dee Harkey, the United States Deputy Marshal, I have often wondered which one of those two characters she wanted to see when she knew she was dying. Was it the serious, hard-working Dee Harkey who helped bring preset-day law and order to Carlsbad? Or was it that young, hellish Dee Harkey of the old West? You were always an honest-to-goodness, hell-roarin’ Westerner, she said to me kindly. And I couldn’t tell if she actually meant to criticize or to acknowledge my sincerity in trying to do a hard, dangerous job to the best of my ability, for which she felt there was little reward due me.”
Lofton suggested the old woman had meant to compliment him for making her town a better place.
“Oh, no,” he said and smiled again. “You didn’t know Mrs. George Larimore. For her there was never a better place to live, nor more of it, than in the New Mexico Territory. She wanted law and order, I am sure of that, but she thought its only existence was in the way parents teach their children to maintain it.
“Give ‘em a gun, she used to say. Teach ‘em young how to use it, and the good in the most of ‘em will take care of the bad in the few. Then another time, she said to me, when the Law starts givin’ out guns, the lawless are goin’ to come a lot nearer gettin’ ‘em than the law abidin’.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/no_author/order-without-law-2/
By Max McNabb
The western is the great drama of man in nature. The frontier reveals man’s true character, stripped of state and civilization, for better or worse.
Over the decades, Hollywood screenwriters have influenced our view of the old West. Current perceptions owe more to 1950s westerns than actual history. Watching those old movies, it seems there was a lynch mob in every town, murderous gangs constantly preying on helpless pioneers. Only the cavalry or lawman could impose order on frontier chaos.
As Ryan McMaken notes in his excellent Commie Cowboys, “Although John Locke may have been able to imagine a functioning society that existed before government, the Western film clearly cannot.”
Was the true old West a Hobbesian nightmare of violence? Did the strong oppress the weak on the prairie until the intervention of government? Or did Hollywood craft a statist myth?
According to U.S. Marshal Dee Harkey, the reality of the old West was order without law, society without state. It was anarchy in action.
Dee Harkey was ninety-two years-old in 1958. At his home in New Mexico, the former lawman gave an interview to Monk Lofton just two weeks before he passed away. Harkey set the record straight about the old West. He also expressed the unease he felt for his own role in transferring the responsibility of law from the individual to the state.
Born in Richland Springs, Texas, in 1866, Dee Harkey was orphaned by age three. Raised by an older brother, Dee worked as farmhand and cowboy. At sixteen, he was a deputy under his brother, Joe Harkey, sheriff of San Saba County. The first man Dee ever arrested was Deacon Jim Miller, the most prolific, psychopathic hitman of the old West. Four years later, Dee was married and farming in Bee County when a dispute with a neighbor, George Young, turned into a knife fight. Though never a big man (at the time of his death, he weighed less than a hundred pounds), Harkey apparently had no difficulty winning the fight to the death. In 1890, Harkey moved his family to Carlsbad, New Mexico and soon became a Deputy U. S. Marshal. His memoir, Mean As Hell, was published in 1948. At seventy-two, Harkey fathered a child with a young woman. The boy was given up for adoption and didn’t discover the identity of his birth parents until he was over forty-five.
“I have never contended that any of the good men of the old West were all good,” Harkey told Monk Lofton. “Nor that any of the bad ones were all bad. There were mean, vicious outlaws then, just as there are mean, vicious outlaws today… Mean as the worst of them were in that day and time, many of them made good friends—loyal, accommodating, and, to a certain extent, trustworthy. Most of them had no quarrel with me personally. It was just that law and order interfered with their way of doing things.”
On the subject of his duties, Harkey said, “Like most of the men of that day and time, I neither approved nor disapproved of law and order as it is interpreted today. I was more interested in taking care of Dee Harkey, of course, than in imposing my opinion as to what I thought good or bad for other people. I took the job of Deputy United Sates Marshal, not because I felt qualified to judge other people, but because the job paid a good salary. Naturally, I realized the reason it paid a good salary was because it was hard and dangerous. In that day and time, the job of an officer of the law was not to establish either the innocence or guilt of the men for whom the warrants were issued, but to deliver those men safely to the court for a fair and unbiased trial. My only agreement was to serve the warrants…”
Harkey then explained what in those bygone days were commonly termed the Laws of the West. On the frontier, beyond the reach of the state, Westerners lived by unwritten laws in their dealings with each other.
Lofton said, “In complete disregard for the laws of the nation, each man more or less made his own laws; or should we say, his own code of behavior?”
“If he wanted to live to be a very old man, he did,” Harkey told him. “In those days, a man was used to his very life depending on his code of behavior. Before law and order came to the old West, justice among men was something that each individual tried to live by within himself lest he become a hunted man—not protected by the law—but most likely to be killed by it. The penalty for wronging a man in those days was usually having to face him with his pistol at his side, and regardless of how fast a man might be with his gun, or how good a shot he might be, it could easily be assumed that the other was just as fast and just as good as the offender. If anything, the man who wronged another in those days was taking a bigger chance in being punished for his crime. A man in his right mind then didn’t dare wrong another purposely; and if he figured he might have wronged him, accidently, he was quick to make amends.”
Harkey continued, “Each person pretty much enforced the laws as he understood them. If the strong imposed his gun on the weak, or became ruthless in his dealings with his fellow man, there was always the posse.”
Were the majority of the posses which lynched accused men justified in their actions?
“Regardless of how men are tried, except by God alone, there are possibilities of mistakes. Those people who had to dish out punishment themselves instead of having someone dish it out for them, as is done today after sentence is pronounced, were usually pretty sure of the guilt before the punishment. Naturally, the formed posses were never considered a means to an end. They were just about as unpopular with the law as the lawless.”
Contrast Harkey’s remarks with the Henry Fonda film The Ox-Box Incident from 1943. Gary North refers to the didactic movie as a “liberal propaganda film” disguised as a western.
Lofton asked Harkey if he preferred the law of the gun to the law of the court.
“It was just that in one case,” Harkey explained, “the state or federal government, as the case might be, enforces the laws, and in the case of the West, each man felt responsible to see that no law was broken against him. In the event of damage caused a man by the breaking of a law by another, each man felt he must take it upon himself to either punish or kill the man who wronged him. In those days, the wrong was considered first the reasonability of the man to whom it was directed; and when I took the job as Deputy United States Marshal, it became my job to assist in the transference of the law from the individual to the Territory, and later to the state, of New Mexico. I wasn’t sure which was the better method then, and I’m not sure now.”
Harkey wore a badge, but his sense of justice was still of the frontier variety. A number of times he served warrants on men who’d killed for what Harkey believed were justifiable reasons, men whose only mistake was enforcing the old Laws of the West. Harkey admitted he himself would’ve drawn a gun for far less cause than most of these men.
“In many cases where I felt justice had already been properly executed, because the law had been broken in its execution, it became my job to bring dangerous men in for trial. Whereas many of the crimes had been founded on justifiable circumstances, I knew, just as many of the lawbreakers knew at that time, that the courts were usually founded on the hard facts set forth in a law book. But, as I said, my job was to serve the warrant, not to try the culprit.”
Harkey’s arrest methods show how far America has fallen. Instead of kicking in doors at midnight on no-knock warrants, Harkey “always told a man honestly that there was nothing personal about my serving a warrant. Before making an arrest I told him the simple requirements of my job, often on a friendly and impersonal basis. Many of them, even though I knew all about the crimes they committed, I considered my best friends; and often the mere fact that I had a warrant for their arrest made very little difference in our friendly relations. Because I had a warrant for their arrest, however, I never doubted that many of my best friends would kill me if they got the chance. It was not a personal thing with most of them. It was just that they knew me too well, or they knew me not well enough.
Harkey explained, “It was not that they wanted to kill me out of malice or anything like that; it was just that they identified me with the laws of the United States government at a time when they were still trying to live by the laws of the six-shooters. It was the law, not the man whose job it was to bring them to it, that they were fighting.”
As Lofton spoke with Harkey that day in November 1958, the writer got the impression the marshal’s heart still sided with the old ways. So he asked him, “Which do you regard with the most respect, the laws of the old West, or the laws of the written documents?”
“I knew that was coming,” Harkey said and smiled. “Usually, people of strong, friendly bonds are more or less of the same will and opinion. Most of us who are living today were not U.S. Marshals seventy years ago in the New Mexico Territory. The majority at that time who are still living did everything they could to keep the Territory free of laws and regulations. Naturally, they wanted as little inference as possible with their early way of life. As for myself, however, I feel that I am one who did a great deal to establish the laws of the written document, as you put it, in Southern New Mexico. I just couldn’t let myself think now that all the chances I took to bring law and order to Eddy County might have been wasted.”
The men of the old West had the courage to forge their own code. They remained Harkey’s kind of people. Lofton asked the marshal if he ever felt like a traitor. “Do you still admire them,” Lofton asked, “for trying to maintain a way of American frontier life? Or do you feel that you justified them as the last opposition to civilization and a gentler way of peaceful living?”
Harkey sat thinking in silence. Then he said, “I’m not sure. Old Mrs. George Larimore was ninety-eight years-old when she lay dying a few years ago, at which time she sent for me to come to see her just before she died. Perhaps no stronger bond of friendship was there in the old West than that shared by the Larimores and the Harkeys. Both families consisted of the law and the lawless.”
Harkey spoke of the conversation at the woman’s deathbed. “Dee, she said to me, I’ve lived a long time. I’m ninety-eight years-old, and now I have to die. I swear to you, she said, I believe laws were better when they were made by each man by the use of his own gun than they are today; and I believe when I was a young girl, people were more law-abidin’ than they are today.”
Dee paused, then continued, “Knowing as well she did Dee Harkey, the young man of the old West, together with Dee Harkey, the United States Deputy Marshal, I have often wondered which one of those two characters she wanted to see when she knew she was dying. Was it the serious, hard-working Dee Harkey who helped bring preset-day law and order to Carlsbad? Or was it that young, hellish Dee Harkey of the old West? You were always an honest-to-goodness, hell-roarin’ Westerner, she said to me kindly. And I couldn’t tell if she actually meant to criticize or to acknowledge my sincerity in trying to do a hard, dangerous job to the best of my ability, for which she felt there was little reward due me.”
Lofton suggested the old woman had meant to compliment him for making her town a better place.
“Oh, no,” he said and smiled again. “You didn’t know Mrs. George Larimore. For her there was never a better place to live, nor more of it, than in the New Mexico Territory. She wanted law and order, I am sure of that, but she thought its only existence was in the way parents teach their children to maintain it.
“Give ‘em a gun, she used to say. Teach ‘em young how to use it, and the good in the most of ‘em will take care of the bad in the few. Then another time, she said to me, when the Law starts givin’ out guns, the lawless are goin’ to come a lot nearer gettin’ ‘em than the law abidin’.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/no_author/order-without-law-2/
Get your money out now while you still can...
Swiss Bank Refuses Request for Cash Withdrawal!
By Joseph T. Salerno
The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks. (Lord Acton)
As reported on Zero Hedge over the weekend, a Swiss pension fund manager calculated that he could save his clients a substantial amount of money by withdrawing cash from his fund’s bank account, which was yielding a negative interest return, and depositing the cash in an insured vault. Exercising his fiduciary responsibility, he notified his bank of an impending large withdrawal of CHF. The bank rebuffed the fund manager’s request, informing him:
We are sorry, that within the time period specified, no solution corresponding to your expectations could be found.
One banking expert argues that the bank’s action “is most definitely not legal” because the pension fund holds a “sight account,” which gives the holder the right to withdraw cash on demand. The president of the pension funds association (ASIP), Hanspeter Konrad sees in this incident the hand of the Swiss National Bank, which wants to discourage the hoarding of cash as a means of circumventing negative interest rates. Accordingly, “The National Bank has therefore recommended to the banks to approach withdrawal demands in a restrictive manner.”
As Hans Giger, professor emeritus at the University of Zurich, points out, however, while the SNB may “issue directives to the banks in the collective interest of the Swiss economy,” it is not allowed to influence the contract between a bank and a pension fund. The banks themselves are responsible for how they act on the directives.
That even a Swiss bank should, on its own hook, refuse cash payment to a holder of a demand deposit should not be surprising. As Murray Rothbard has shown, fractional-reserve banks since their inception have continually connived to restrict cash payments to their depositors either by lobbying government for legal suspension of payment or by adopting quasi- or extra-legal methods of discouraging withdrawals. Indeed, this was the case for both Scottish and U.S. banks during their respective eras of so-called “free banking.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/joseph-salerno/swiss-bank-bans-cash-withdrawal/
By Joseph T. Salerno
The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks. (Lord Acton)
As reported on Zero Hedge over the weekend, a Swiss pension fund manager calculated that he could save his clients a substantial amount of money by withdrawing cash from his fund’s bank account, which was yielding a negative interest return, and depositing the cash in an insured vault. Exercising his fiduciary responsibility, he notified his bank of an impending large withdrawal of CHF. The bank rebuffed the fund manager’s request, informing him:
We are sorry, that within the time period specified, no solution corresponding to your expectations could be found.
One banking expert argues that the bank’s action “is most definitely not legal” because the pension fund holds a “sight account,” which gives the holder the right to withdraw cash on demand. The president of the pension funds association (ASIP), Hanspeter Konrad sees in this incident the hand of the Swiss National Bank, which wants to discourage the hoarding of cash as a means of circumventing negative interest rates. Accordingly, “The National Bank has therefore recommended to the banks to approach withdrawal demands in a restrictive manner.”
As Hans Giger, professor emeritus at the University of Zurich, points out, however, while the SNB may “issue directives to the banks in the collective interest of the Swiss economy,” it is not allowed to influence the contract between a bank and a pension fund. The banks themselves are responsible for how they act on the directives.
That even a Swiss bank should, on its own hook, refuse cash payment to a holder of a demand deposit should not be surprising. As Murray Rothbard has shown, fractional-reserve banks since their inception have continually connived to restrict cash payments to their depositors either by lobbying government for legal suspension of payment or by adopting quasi- or extra-legal methods of discouraging withdrawals. Indeed, this was the case for both Scottish and U.S. banks during their respective eras of so-called “free banking.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/joseph-salerno/swiss-bank-bans-cash-withdrawal/
Monday, April 27, 2015
"Since the beginning of his administration, President Obama has followed a policy of targeting vets, taking away their guns, imprisoning them, and labeling them as “right wing extremists” and potential threats to national security."
Why Is President Obama Prohibiting Veterans From Owning Guns?
Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is digging for information on why nearly all of the names on the U.S. Justice Department’s gun ban list in the “mental defective” category belong to veterans or their dependents.
In a letter to outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Grassley questions the Obama administration’s attack on the right of all Americans, including veterans and their families, to keep and bear arms.
“It’s disturbing to think that the men and women who dedicated themselves to defending our freedom and values face undue threats to their fundamental Second Amendment rights from the very agency established to serve them. A veteran or dependent shouldn’t lose their Constitutional rights because they need help with bookkeeping,” Grassley said.
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Despite the Second Amendment’s clear prohibition on all federal abrogations of the right to own and use weapons (“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”), Congress has passed “laws” mandating that all federal agencies report names of individuals to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System’s (NICS) “mental defective” category.
Inclusion on the list prohibits the person from ever owning or possessing a gun. The legal standard guiding when a name is supposed to be reported to the “mental defective” category is whether the individuals are a danger to themselves or others. However, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) process does not support such findings. Instead VA reports individuals to the gun ban list if an individual merely needs financial assistance managing VA benefits.
Ostensibly, the VA process was never meant to affect a veteran’s right to own, use, or possess a firearm. In practice, however, the process often results in veterans and their loved ones being barred from exercising their fundamental, constitutionally guaranteed Second Amendment rights.
Data published by Congressional Research reveals that in 2012 the VA was responsible for 99.3 percent of all “mental defective” referrals to NICS. Grassley sees gross irony in that figure, given, he says, that these are the very people who were charged with protecting the very freedom they and their families are now being denied.
Grassley is no Johnny-come-lately to the fight to restore the fundamental right to keep and bear arms to veterans and their families. In 2014, he introduced legislation that included a provision requiring a judicial authority to find individuals to be a danger to themselves or others in order to be added to the mental defective category within NICS. This legislation would have effectively overturned administrative actions by the VA to add individuals to the NICS simply because they were unable to manage their financial affairs.
Since the beginning of his administration, President Obama has followed a policy of targeting vets, taking away their guns, imprisoning them, and labeling them as “right wing extremists” and potential threats to national security.
Consider this quote from a Department of Homeland Security report entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”:
The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.
Veterans are being asked to serve tour after tour in unconstitutional foreign conflicts with no identified enemy, then returning home and having their most basic right denied by the very government that asked them to sacrifice their lives.
There was a story last year about a police raid on the house of an Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient in Ohio. The county sheriff executed a search warrant and seized the man’s guns for the “safety of the defendant and the general public.”
Although unnamed, the government ruled the man was mentally incompetent to handle his own affairs or to own a weapon.
Apart from the government’s reprehensible quest to disarm veterans, brand them as mentally ill, and treat them as terrorists, there is the fact that all this is being done in violation of the veterans’ right to due process protected by the Fifth Amendment.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution provides that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Grassley considers the current process to not only potentially deny veterans and their families of their right to keep and bear arms, but of their right to due process, as well. He explains his concern in his letter to Holder:
In addition, the procedural protections the VA affords to veterans are weak. First, the standard of review is particularly low for a fundamental constitutional right: clear and convincing. Hearsay is allowed. And, there are no significant checks and balances in place to ensure that there is any evidence to conclude that a veteran is a risk to the public or themselves. Of particular concern, although VA employees can personally meet with veterans and non-veteran dependents who are receiving VA benefits, only when VA personnel meet with veterans are they directed to consider whether competency is at issue. Thus, it appears that veterans are immediately targeted by VA personnel upon initial contact.
Furthermore, when a veteran receives a letter stating that the VA believes he is unable to manage his finances, that veteran now has the burden of proving that he is in fact competent to manage his benefit payments and does not need a fiduciary. However, underlying the hearing is a real possibility that the right to firearms will be infringed. Therefore, in light of the liberty and property interests involved, placing the burden of proof on the veteran is highly suspect. Under similar circumstances, the burden is generally on the government. Further, the hearing that takes place is inside the VA administrative system and composed of VA employees rather than a neutral decision maker.
Under the current practice, a VA finding that concludes that a veteran requires a fiduciary to administer benefit payments effectively voids his Second Amendment rights — a consequence which is wholly unrelated to and unsupported by the record developed in the VA process. Accordingly, Congress needs to understand what justifies taking such action without more due process protections for the veteran.
As in the case of so many other constitutional impediments to its statist goals, the president and his subordinates are ignoring the Fifth Amendment and arresting, disarming, and imprisoning veterans without due process.
Of course, the VA assures veterans subject to disarmament that if they file a timely objection to the decision, a VA board will consider their appeal. This is hardly the rigorous legal process required before the government can constitutionally deprive citizens — or any person — of their most basic constitutional rights.
Why is the president targeting veterans? Michael Connelly proposes the following possible explanation:
The reality is that Obama will not get all of the gun control measures he wants through Congress, and they wouldn’t be enough for him anyway. He wants a totally disarmed America so there will be no resistance to his plans to rob us of our nation. That means we have to ask who will be next. If you are receiving a Social Security check will you get one of these letters? Will the government declare that you are incompetent because of your age and therefore banned from firearm ownership. It certainly fits in with the philosophy and plans of the Obama administration. It is also certain that our military veterans don’t deserve this and neither do any other Americans.
Or, as Michael Snyder wrote at the American Dream, “The federal government wants lots of warm bodies to throw into battle, but when those bodies get broken the government is not there to pick up the pieces.”
As of April 25, the Justice Department has not responded to Senator Grassley’s inquiry.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/20737-why-is-president-obama-prohibiting-veterans-from-owning-guns
Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is digging for information on why nearly all of the names on the U.S. Justice Department’s gun ban list in the “mental defective” category belong to veterans or their dependents.
In a letter to outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Grassley questions the Obama administration’s attack on the right of all Americans, including veterans and their families, to keep and bear arms.
“It’s disturbing to think that the men and women who dedicated themselves to defending our freedom and values face undue threats to their fundamental Second Amendment rights from the very agency established to serve them. A veteran or dependent shouldn’t lose their Constitutional rights because they need help with bookkeeping,” Grassley said.
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Despite the Second Amendment’s clear prohibition on all federal abrogations of the right to own and use weapons (“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”), Congress has passed “laws” mandating that all federal agencies report names of individuals to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System’s (NICS) “mental defective” category.
Inclusion on the list prohibits the person from ever owning or possessing a gun. The legal standard guiding when a name is supposed to be reported to the “mental defective” category is whether the individuals are a danger to themselves or others. However, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) process does not support such findings. Instead VA reports individuals to the gun ban list if an individual merely needs financial assistance managing VA benefits.
Ostensibly, the VA process was never meant to affect a veteran’s right to own, use, or possess a firearm. In practice, however, the process often results in veterans and their loved ones being barred from exercising their fundamental, constitutionally guaranteed Second Amendment rights.
Data published by Congressional Research reveals that in 2012 the VA was responsible for 99.3 percent of all “mental defective” referrals to NICS. Grassley sees gross irony in that figure, given, he says, that these are the very people who were charged with protecting the very freedom they and their families are now being denied.
Grassley is no Johnny-come-lately to the fight to restore the fundamental right to keep and bear arms to veterans and their families. In 2014, he introduced legislation that included a provision requiring a judicial authority to find individuals to be a danger to themselves or others in order to be added to the mental defective category within NICS. This legislation would have effectively overturned administrative actions by the VA to add individuals to the NICS simply because they were unable to manage their financial affairs.
Since the beginning of his administration, President Obama has followed a policy of targeting vets, taking away their guns, imprisoning them, and labeling them as “right wing extremists” and potential threats to national security.
Consider this quote from a Department of Homeland Security report entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”:
The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.
Veterans are being asked to serve tour after tour in unconstitutional foreign conflicts with no identified enemy, then returning home and having their most basic right denied by the very government that asked them to sacrifice their lives.
There was a story last year about a police raid on the house of an Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient in Ohio. The county sheriff executed a search warrant and seized the man’s guns for the “safety of the defendant and the general public.”
Although unnamed, the government ruled the man was mentally incompetent to handle his own affairs or to own a weapon.
Apart from the government’s reprehensible quest to disarm veterans, brand them as mentally ill, and treat them as terrorists, there is the fact that all this is being done in violation of the veterans’ right to due process protected by the Fifth Amendment.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution provides that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Grassley considers the current process to not only potentially deny veterans and their families of their right to keep and bear arms, but of their right to due process, as well. He explains his concern in his letter to Holder:
In addition, the procedural protections the VA affords to veterans are weak. First, the standard of review is particularly low for a fundamental constitutional right: clear and convincing. Hearsay is allowed. And, there are no significant checks and balances in place to ensure that there is any evidence to conclude that a veteran is a risk to the public or themselves. Of particular concern, although VA employees can personally meet with veterans and non-veteran dependents who are receiving VA benefits, only when VA personnel meet with veterans are they directed to consider whether competency is at issue. Thus, it appears that veterans are immediately targeted by VA personnel upon initial contact.
Furthermore, when a veteran receives a letter stating that the VA believes he is unable to manage his finances, that veteran now has the burden of proving that he is in fact competent to manage his benefit payments and does not need a fiduciary. However, underlying the hearing is a real possibility that the right to firearms will be infringed. Therefore, in light of the liberty and property interests involved, placing the burden of proof on the veteran is highly suspect. Under similar circumstances, the burden is generally on the government. Further, the hearing that takes place is inside the VA administrative system and composed of VA employees rather than a neutral decision maker.
Under the current practice, a VA finding that concludes that a veteran requires a fiduciary to administer benefit payments effectively voids his Second Amendment rights — a consequence which is wholly unrelated to and unsupported by the record developed in the VA process. Accordingly, Congress needs to understand what justifies taking such action without more due process protections for the veteran.
As in the case of so many other constitutional impediments to its statist goals, the president and his subordinates are ignoring the Fifth Amendment and arresting, disarming, and imprisoning veterans without due process.
Of course, the VA assures veterans subject to disarmament that if they file a timely objection to the decision, a VA board will consider their appeal. This is hardly the rigorous legal process required before the government can constitutionally deprive citizens — or any person — of their most basic constitutional rights.
Why is the president targeting veterans? Michael Connelly proposes the following possible explanation:
The reality is that Obama will not get all of the gun control measures he wants through Congress, and they wouldn’t be enough for him anyway. He wants a totally disarmed America so there will be no resistance to his plans to rob us of our nation. That means we have to ask who will be next. If you are receiving a Social Security check will you get one of these letters? Will the government declare that you are incompetent because of your age and therefore banned from firearm ownership. It certainly fits in with the philosophy and plans of the Obama administration. It is also certain that our military veterans don’t deserve this and neither do any other Americans.
Or, as Michael Snyder wrote at the American Dream, “The federal government wants lots of warm bodies to throw into battle, but when those bodies get broken the government is not there to pick up the pieces.”
As of April 25, the Justice Department has not responded to Senator Grassley’s inquiry.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/20737-why-is-president-obama-prohibiting-veterans-from-owning-guns
" Crucial to the Gramscians' success is the disappearance of all memory of the old civilization and way of life. The older America of unregulated lives, honest government, clean cities, crime-free streets, morally edifying entertainment, and a family-oriented way of life is no longer vivid in the minds of many Americans. Once it is gone completely, nothing will stand in the way of the new Marxist civilization, which demonstrates as nothing else that through the Gramscian method it is indeed possible to "Marxize the inner man," as Malachi Martin wrote in The Keys of This Blood."
Gramsci's Grand Plan
Written by Fr. James Thornton
One of the most interesting aspects of the study of history is that very often men born in the most humble of circumstances nevertheless rise up to affect the course of human history dramatically. They may be men of action or men of thought, yet in either case their activities can father tremendous changes across the years. Antonio Gramsci was both a man of action and thought and, whatever the outcome of the events of the next several decades, he will almost certainly be reckoned by future historians to have been a remarkable figure.
Born in obscurity on the island of Sardinia in 1891, Gramsci would not have been considered a prime candidate to impact significantly the 20th century. Gramsci studied philosophy and history at the University of Turin, and soon became a dedicated Marxist, joining the Italian Socialist Party. Immediately after the First World War, he established his own radical newspaper, The New Order, and shortly afterwards helped in the founding of the Italian Communist Party.
Disillusioned Marxist
The fascist "March on Rome" and the appointment of Benito Mussolini to the prime ministry impelled the young Marxist theorist to depart Italy. Casting about for a new home, he chose the most logical place for a Communist, Lenin's newly fashioned USSR. However, Soviet Russia was not what he had expected. His powers of observation wakened immediately to the distance that so often separates theory from reality. A fanatical Marxist insofar as political, economic, and historical theories were concerned, Gramsci was profoundly disturbed that life in Communist Russia exhibited little evidence of any deeply felt love on the part of the workers for the "paradise" that Lenin had constructed for them. Even less was there any deep attachment to such concepts as the "proletarian revolution" or "dictatorship of the proletariat," apart from the obligatory rhetoric.
On the contrary, it was obvious to Gramsci that the "paradise" of the working class maintained its hold over workers and peasants only by sheer terror, by mass murder on a gargantuan scale, and by the ubiquitous, gnawing fear of midnight knocks on the door and of forced-labor camps in the Siberian wilderness. Also crucial to Lenin's state was a continuous drumbeat of propaganda, slogans, and outright lies. It was all very disillusioning for Gramsci. While other men might have reassessed their entire ideological outlook after such experiences, Gramsci's subtle, analytical mind worked on the seeming paradox differently.
The death of Lenin and the seizure of power by Stalin caused Gramsci immediately to reconsider his choice of residence. Building upon Lenin's achievements in terror and tyranny, Stalin began to transform agrarian Russia into an industrial giant that would then turn all of its energies to military conquest. It was Stalin's design to build the greatest military machine in history, crush the "forces of reaction," and impose Communism on Europe and Asia — and later on the whole world — by brute force.
In the meantime, however, to consolidate and assure his power, Stalin systematically commenced the extermination of potential foes within his own camp. That, as it turned out, became an ongoing process, one that lasted until his own demise. In particular, men suspected of even the slightest ideological heresy in relation to Stalin's own interpretation of Marxism-Leninism were sent straight to torture chambers or death camps, or were hurried before firing squads.
Prison "Prophet"
His days obviously numbered in Stalinist Russia, Gramsci decided to return home and take up the struggle against Mussolini. Seen as both a serious threat to the safety of the fascist regime and a likely agent of a hostile foreign power, after a relatively short time Gramsci was arrested and sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment, and there, in his prison cell, he devoted the nine years that were left to him to writing. Before his death from tuberculosis in 1937, Gramsci produced nine volumes of observations on history, sociology, Marxist theory, and, most importantly, Marxist strategy. Those volumes, known as the Prison Notebooks, have since been published in many languages and distributed throughout the world. Their significance comes from the fact that they form the foundation for a dramatic new Marxist strategy, one that makes the "spontaneous revolution" of Lenin as obsolete as hoop skirts and high button shoes, one that promises to win the world voluntarily to Marxism, and one based on a realistic appraisal of historical fact and human psychology, rather than on empty wishes and illusions.
As we shall see, Gramsci's shrewd assessment of the true essence of Marxism and of mankind makes his writings among the most powerful in this century. While Gramsci himself would die an ignominious and lonely death in a fascist prison, his thoughts would attain a life of their own and rise up to menace the world. What are these ideas?
Essence of the Red Revolution
Gramsci's signal contribution was to liberate the Marxist project from the prison of economic dogma, thereby dramatically enhancing its ability to subvert Christian society.
If we were to take the ideological pronouncements of Marx and Lenin at face value, we would believe — as have millions of their deluded disciples — that the uprising of the workers was inevitable, and that all that was to be done was to mobilize the underclass through propaganda, thereby sparking universal revolution. Of course, this premise is invalid, yet it remained inflexible doctrine among Communists — at least, for public consumption.
However, the hard core of the Communist movement consisted of ruthless criminals, clear-eyed in their understanding of the intellectual errors of Marxism, who were willing to employ any necessary means to obtain the power they sought. For such hardened, hate-intoxicated conspirators, ideology is a tactic, a means of mobilizing supporters and rationalizing criminal actions.
Those who accept uncritically the idea that "Communism is dead" fail to understand the true nature of the enemy. Communism is not an ideology in which one believes. Rather, it is a criminal conspiracy in which one enlists. Although Lenin professed to revere Marx's scribblings as sacred writ, once his Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia, Lenin freely modified Marxism to suit his needs. The same was true of Stalin. The Bolsheviks did not come to power in Russia by any uprising of the workers and peasants, but by a coup d'etat, orchestrated by a tightly disciplined Marxist cadre and ultimately consolidated by civil war. They also received — lest it be forgotten — critical help from Western political and banking elites.
In similar fashion, Communism did not come to power in Eastern Europe by revolution, but rather through the imposition of that system by a conquering Red Army — and, once again, through the corrupt connivance of conspirators in the West. In China, Communism came to power through civil war, aided by the Soviets and by traitorous elements in the West.
In no single instance has Communism ever achieved power by means of any popular revolutionary upheaval, but always by force or subterfuge. The only popular revolutionary upheavals recorded in the 20th century have been anti-Marxist "counter-revolutions," such as the revolt in Berlin in 1954 and the Hungarian uprising of 1956.
Looking back on the 20th century, it is clear that Marx was wrong in his assumption that most workers and peasants were dissatisfied with their places in, and alienated from, their societies, that they were seething with resentment against the middle and upper classes, or that they in any way were predisposed to revolution. Moreover, wherever Communism achieved power, its use of unprecedented levels of violence, coercion, and repression have generated underground opposition at home and militant opposition abroad, making endless killing and repression endemic to Marxism and essential for Communist survival. All of these undeniable facts, when examined honestly, posed insurmountable difficulties insofar as further extensions of Communist power were concerned, and assured some kind of ultimate crisis for Marxism.
While the foregoing is obvious to perceptive observers now, looking back from the vantage point of our time and after more than eight decades of experience with the reality of Communism in power, we begin to understand something of the insightfulness of Antonio Gramsci when we realize that what is evident now, at the close of the millennium, was evident to him when the Soviet regime was in its infancy and Communism still largely untried conjecture.
Gramsci was a brilliant student of philosophy, history, and languages. This education imparted to him an excellent grasp of the character of his fellow men and of the character of the societies that made up the civilized community of nations in the early decades of this century. As we have already seen, one of the foundational insights given him by this education was that Communist hopes for a spontaneous revolution, brought about by some process of historical inevitability, were illusory. Marxist ideologues were, he asserted, beguiling themselves. In the Gramscian view workers and peasants were not, by and large, revolutionary-minded and they harbored no desire for the destruction of the existing order. Most had loyalties beyond, and far more powerful than, class considerations, even in those instances where their lives were less than ideal. More meaningful to ordinary people than class solidarity and class warfare were such things as faith in God and love of family and country. These were foremost among their overriding allegiances.
Such attractiveness as Communist promises might possess among the working classes was, moreover, diminished by Communist brutalities and by heavy-handed totalitarian methods. Stirring the aristocratic and bourgeois classes to action, these negative attributes were so terrifying and sobering that militant anti-Marxist organizations and movements sprang up everywhere, effectively putting a halt to plans for Communist expansion. With all of this easily apparent to him, and, blessed in a way with the seemingly endless leisure afforded by prison life, Gramsci turned his excellent mind to saving Marxism by analyzing and solving these questions.
Subverting Christian Faith
The civilized world, Gramsci deduced, had been thoroughly saturated with Christianity for 2,000 years and Christianity remains the dominant philosophical and moral system in Europe and North America. Practically speaking, civilization and Christianity were inextricably bound together. Christianity had become so thoroughly integrated into the daily lives of nearly everyone, including non-Christians living in Christian lands, it was so pervasive, that it formed an almost impenetrable barrier to the new, revolutionary civilization Marxists wish to create. Attempting to batter down that barrier proved unproductive, since it only generated powerful counter-revolutionary forces, consolidating them and making them potentially deadly. Therefore, in place of the frontal attack, how much more advantageous and less hazardous it would be to attack the enemy's society subtly, with the aim of transforming the society's collective mind gradually, over a period of a few generations, from its former Christian worldview into one more harmonious to Marxism. And there was more.
Whereas conventional Marxist-Leninists were hostile towards the non-Communist Left, Gramsci argued that alliances with a broad spectrum of leftist groups would prove essential to Communist victory. In Gramsci's time these included, among others, various "anti-fascist" organizations, trade unions, and socialist political groups. In our time, alliances with the Left would include radical feminists, extremist environmentalists, "civil rights" movements, anti-police associations, internationalists, ultra-liberal church groups, and so forth. These organizations, along with open Communists, together create a united front working for the transformation of the old Christian culture.
What Gramsci proposed, in short, was a renovation of Communist methodology and a streamlining and updating of Marx's antiquated strategies. Let there be no doubt that Gramsci's vision of the future was entirely Marxist and that he accepted the validity of Marxism's overall worldview. Where he differed was in the process for achieving the victory of that worldview. Gramsci wrote that "there can and must be a 'political hegemony' even before assuming government power, and in order to exercise political leadership or hegemony one must not count solely on the power and material force that are given by government." What he meant is that it is incumbent upon Marxists to win the hearts and minds of the people, and not to rest hopes for the future solely on force or power.
Furthermore, Communists were enjoined to put aside some of their class prejudice in the struggle for power, seeking to win even elements within the bourgeois classes, a process which Gramsci described as "the absorption of the elites of the enemy classes." Not only would this strengthen Marxism with new blood, but it would deprive the enemy of this lost talent. Winning the bright young sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie to the red banner, wrote Gramsci, "results in [the anti-Marxist forces'] decapitation and renders them impotent." In short, violence and force will not by themselves genuinely transform the world. Rather it is through winning hegemony over the minds of the people and in robbing enemy classes of their most gifted men that Marxism will triumph over all.
Free-will Slaves
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a classic study of modern totalitarianism, contains a line that epitomizes the concept that Gramsci tried to convey to his party comrades: "A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude." While it is improbable that Huxley was familiar with Gramsci's theories, the idea he conveys of free persons marching willingly into bondage is nevertheless precisely what Gramsci had in mind.
Gramsci believed that if Communism achieved "mastery of human consciousness," then labor camps and mass murder would be unnecessary. How does an ideology gain such mastery over patterns of thought inculcated by cultures for hundreds of years? Mastery over the consciousness of the great mass of people would be attained, Gramsci contended, if Communists or their sympathizers gained control of the organs of culture — churches, education, newspapers, magazines, the electronic media, serious literature, music, the visual arts, and so on. By winning "cultural hegemony," to use Gramsci's own term, Communism would control the deepest wellsprings of human thought and imagination. One need not even control all of the information itself if one can gain control over the minds that assimilate that information. Under such conditions, serious opposition disappears since men are no longer capable of grasping the arguments of Marxism's opponents. Men will indeed "love their servitude," and will not even realize that it is servitude.
Steps in the Process
The first phase in achieving "cultural hegemony" over a nation is the undermining of all elements of traditional culture. Churches are thus transformed into ideology-driven political clubs, with the stress on "social justice" and egalitarianism, with worship reduced to trivialized entertainment, and with age-old doctrinal and moral teachings "modernized" or diminished to the point of irrelevancy. Genuine education is replaced by "dumbed-down" and "politically correct" curricula, and standards are reduced dramatically. The mass media are fashioned into instruments for mass manipulation and for harassing and discrediting traditional institutions and their spokesmen. Morality, decency, and old virtues are ridiculed without respite. Tradition-minded clergymen are portrayed as hypocrites and virtuous men and women as prudish, stuffy, and unenlightened.
Culture is no longer a buttress supporting the integrity of the national heritage and a vehicle for imparting that heritage to future generations, but becomes a means for "destroying ideals and ... presenting the young not with heroic examples but with deliberately and aggressively degenerate ones," as theologian Harold O.J. Brown writes. We see this in contemporary American life, in which the great historical symbols of our nation's past, including great presidents, soldiers, explorers, and thinkers, are shown to have been unforgivably flawed with "racism" and "sexism" and therefore basically evil. Their place has been taken by pro-Marxist charlatans, pseudo-intellectuals, rock stars, leftist movie celebrities, and the like. At another level, traditional Christian culture is condemned as repressive, "Eurocentric," and "racist" and, thus, unworthy of our continued devotion. In its place, unalloyed primitivism in the guise of "multiculturalism" is held as the new model.
Marriage and family, the very building blocks of our society, are perpetually attacked and subverted. Marriage is portrayed as a plot by men to perpetuate an evil system of domination over women and children. The family is depicted as a dangerous institution epitomized by violence and exploitation. Patriarchally oriented families are, according to the Gramscians, the precursors of fascism, Nazism, and every organized form of racial persecution.
The Frankfurt School
With respect to the subject of the undermining of the American family, and to many other aspects of the Gramscian technique, let us explore briefly the story of the Frankfurt School. This organization of leftist intellectuals, also known as the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, was founded in the 1920s in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. There it flourished amidst the decadence of the Weimar period, both compounding and feeding off the decadence, and extending its influence throughout the country.
With Hitler's acquisition of the chancellorship in 1933, the leftist stalwarts of the Frankfurt School fled Germany for the United States, where they soon established a new institute at Columbia University. As is characteristic of such men, they repaid their debt to the United States for sheltering them from Nazi brutality by turning their attention to what they regarded as the injustices and social deficiencies inherent to our system and society. Immediately they set about devising a program of revolutionary reform for America.
Max Horkheimer, one of the notables of the Frankfurt School, determined that America's profound allegiance to the traditional family was a mark of our national inclination towards the same fascist system from which he had fled. Explaining this connection between fascism and the American family, he declared: "When the child respects in his father's strength a moral relationship and thus learns to love what his reason recognizes to be a fact, he is experiencing his first training for the bourgeois authority relationship."
Commenting critically on Horkheimer's theory, Arthur Herman writes in The Idea of Decline in Western History: "The typical modern family, then, involves 'sado-masochistic resolution of the Oedipus complex,' producing a psychological cripple, the 'authoritarian personality.' The individual's hatred of the father is suspended and remains unresolved, becoming instead an attraction for strong authority figures whom he obeys unquestioningly." The traditional patriarchal family is thus a breeding ground for fascism, according to Horkheimer, and charismatic authority figures — men like Hitler and Mussolini — are the ultimate beneficiaries of the "authoritarian personality" instilled by the traditional family and culture.
Theodor W. Adorno, another notable of the Frankfurt School, underscored Horkheimer's theory with his own study, published in book form as The Authoritarian Personality, which he authored together with Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford. Upon closer examination, it became apparent to critics that the research on which The Authoritarian Personality was based was pseudo-sociological, flawed in its methodology, and skewed in its conclusions. But, the critics were ignored.
America, Adorno and his research team pronounced, was ripe for its own, home-grown fascist takeover. Not only was the American population hopelessly racist and anti-Semitic, but it had far too acquiescent an attitude towards authority figures such as fathers, policemen, clergy, military leaders, and so forth. It was also far too obsessed with such "fascist" notions as efficiency, cleanliness, and success, for these qualities revealed an inward "pessimistic and contemptuous view of humanity," a view that leads, Adorno held, to fascism.
Through such unmitigated balderdash as one finds in the writings of Horkheimer, Adorno, and the other luminaries of the Frankfurt School, the structures of the traditional family and traditional virtue have been called seriously into question and confidence in them blunted. Elected government officials and bureaucrats have contributed to this problem through government taxation policies, which mulct the traditional family while subsidizing anti-traditional modes of life.
Additionally, these officials are inclined more and more towards the elevation of abominations such as homosexual and illicit heterosexual unions to the same level as marriage. Already, in many localities throughout the country and in numerous private corporations, benefits previously reserved to married couples are now granted to unmarried sexual "partners." Even the word "family" is slowly being superseded by the vague euphemism "household."
A Lawless Land
Americans have long boasted that their nation is a government of law, not of men. American law is derived directly from English common law and from the biblical and Christian principles that are at the root of English common law. One would therefore expect law to constitute one of the chief barriers against the subversion of our society. Instead, in the field of law, revolutionary change has become the order of the day, change so astounding that it could not have been imagined by Americans of 50 years ago. None would have dreamed of the outlawing of prayer and any expression of religious conviction on public property, the legalization of abortion as a constitutionally guaranteed "right," and the legalization of pornography, to mention but three.
Clearly expressed principles embraced by the Founding Fathers and set forth in our Constitution are now routinely reinterpreted and distorted. Those that cannot be reinterpreted and distorted, such as the Tenth Amendment, are simply ignored. Worse yet, the ideological agenda underpinning the radicalization of American law is blithely accepted by millions of Americans, who have themselves been radicalized without ever realizing it.
Crucial to the Gramscians' success is the disappearance of all memory of the old civilization and way of life. The older America of unregulated lives, honest government, clean cities, crime-free streets, morally edifying entertainment, and a family-oriented way of life is no longer vivid in the minds of many Americans. Once it is gone completely, nothing will stand in the way of the new Marxist civilization, which demonstrates as nothing else that through the Gramscian method it is indeed possible to "Marxize the inner man," as Malachi Martin wrote in The Keys of This Blood. Then and only then, writes Fr. Martin, "could you successfully dangle the utopia of the 'Workers' Paradise' before his eyes, to be accepted in a peaceful and humanely agreeable manner, without revolution or violence or bloodshed."
It must be evident to all but the most simple souls that after the passage of a generation or two, such ceaseless social conditioning is bound to alter the consciousness and inner-substance of a society, and it is bound to produce significant structural crises within that society, crises that manifest themselves in numberless ways in virtually every community throughout the country.
The Good Fight
It may seem to some that the situation in our nation is hopeless and that no force or agency can possibly put a halt to the insidious strategies working to destroy us. Despite the grim chronicle of the past 60 or 70 years, however, there is still much that may be done and much reason for hope. Families and individual men and women still possess, to a large extent, the freedom to avoid and escape the mind-altering social conditioning of the Gramscians. They have the power to shield themselves from these influences and especially to shield their young. There are alternatives to public schools, television, trashy movies, and strident "rock" music, and those alternatives must be embraced. The propaganda and cultural strychnine must be excluded from our lives.
Those in charge of young people have an especially weighty responsibility. Despite all of the efforts of the radical left and of their sympathizers in the schools and media to transmute young Americans into savages, they must not be allowed to succeed, because disorganized minds — mental vortices of anarchism and nihilism — have no powers of resistance. Savages soon become slaves. Children and youths should be introduced to such bedrock concepts as honesty, decency, virtue, duty, and love of God and country through the lives of authentic national heroes — men like George Washington, Nathan Hale, John Paul Jones, and Robert E. Lee.
Similarly, they will better be able to retain civilized values and maintain healthy minds if they are encouraged to learn to love their cultural inheritance through great literature, poetry, music, and art. Parents must demand from their children the upholding of the morals, manners, and standards of their ancestors.
In school, the young must be required to adhere to high standards of scholarship. Most importantly, traditional religion must be an integral part of daily living.
We as citizens must also exercise our persuasive powers over our elected representatives. In doing this our mindset must be one of demanding absolute non-compromise from politicians. Likewise, in choosing elected representatives at every level, we must look to men and women who refuse to compromise.
Just as importantly, the honorable, uncompromising men and women we elect to represent us must be made aware of the Gramscian strategy of cultural subversion; they must be able to recognize the tactics and strategies being used to undermine the institutions upon which our liberties depend. Building that understanding will, in turn, require the creation of an educated and principled electorate that will impart this wisdom to our representatives — and hold them accountable once they have been entrusted with elective office.
We should never allow ourselves to be stampeded, herd like, into forming opinions and judgments stimulated and orchestrated by the sensationalism of the press and the other media masters. Instead, we must calmly resist their mind-control techniques. We must strive to be independent thinkers. Realizing that we are not alone, we should turn to tradition-minded churches, schools, and political and educational organizations, and there lend our voices and support to the creation of bastions of resistance to the Gramscian onslaught.
Finally, we must never give up our faith in the future and our hope for a better America and world. God, with His infinite power and boundless love for us, will never forsake us but will answer our prayers and reward our efforts, as long as we do not lose our faith. Marxism — and whatever other flags the total state parades under these days — are not inevitable and are not the wave of the future. As long as we think and act in the indomitable spirit of our forefathers, we cannot fail.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/15545-gramscis-grand-plan
Written by Fr. James Thornton
One of the most interesting aspects of the study of history is that very often men born in the most humble of circumstances nevertheless rise up to affect the course of human history dramatically. They may be men of action or men of thought, yet in either case their activities can father tremendous changes across the years. Antonio Gramsci was both a man of action and thought and, whatever the outcome of the events of the next several decades, he will almost certainly be reckoned by future historians to have been a remarkable figure.
Born in obscurity on the island of Sardinia in 1891, Gramsci would not have been considered a prime candidate to impact significantly the 20th century. Gramsci studied philosophy and history at the University of Turin, and soon became a dedicated Marxist, joining the Italian Socialist Party. Immediately after the First World War, he established his own radical newspaper, The New Order, and shortly afterwards helped in the founding of the Italian Communist Party.
Disillusioned Marxist
The fascist "March on Rome" and the appointment of Benito Mussolini to the prime ministry impelled the young Marxist theorist to depart Italy. Casting about for a new home, he chose the most logical place for a Communist, Lenin's newly fashioned USSR. However, Soviet Russia was not what he had expected. His powers of observation wakened immediately to the distance that so often separates theory from reality. A fanatical Marxist insofar as political, economic, and historical theories were concerned, Gramsci was profoundly disturbed that life in Communist Russia exhibited little evidence of any deeply felt love on the part of the workers for the "paradise" that Lenin had constructed for them. Even less was there any deep attachment to such concepts as the "proletarian revolution" or "dictatorship of the proletariat," apart from the obligatory rhetoric.
On the contrary, it was obvious to Gramsci that the "paradise" of the working class maintained its hold over workers and peasants only by sheer terror, by mass murder on a gargantuan scale, and by the ubiquitous, gnawing fear of midnight knocks on the door and of forced-labor camps in the Siberian wilderness. Also crucial to Lenin's state was a continuous drumbeat of propaganda, slogans, and outright lies. It was all very disillusioning for Gramsci. While other men might have reassessed their entire ideological outlook after such experiences, Gramsci's subtle, analytical mind worked on the seeming paradox differently.
The death of Lenin and the seizure of power by Stalin caused Gramsci immediately to reconsider his choice of residence. Building upon Lenin's achievements in terror and tyranny, Stalin began to transform agrarian Russia into an industrial giant that would then turn all of its energies to military conquest. It was Stalin's design to build the greatest military machine in history, crush the "forces of reaction," and impose Communism on Europe and Asia — and later on the whole world — by brute force.
In the meantime, however, to consolidate and assure his power, Stalin systematically commenced the extermination of potential foes within his own camp. That, as it turned out, became an ongoing process, one that lasted until his own demise. In particular, men suspected of even the slightest ideological heresy in relation to Stalin's own interpretation of Marxism-Leninism were sent straight to torture chambers or death camps, or were hurried before firing squads.
Prison "Prophet"
His days obviously numbered in Stalinist Russia, Gramsci decided to return home and take up the struggle against Mussolini. Seen as both a serious threat to the safety of the fascist regime and a likely agent of a hostile foreign power, after a relatively short time Gramsci was arrested and sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment, and there, in his prison cell, he devoted the nine years that were left to him to writing. Before his death from tuberculosis in 1937, Gramsci produced nine volumes of observations on history, sociology, Marxist theory, and, most importantly, Marxist strategy. Those volumes, known as the Prison Notebooks, have since been published in many languages and distributed throughout the world. Their significance comes from the fact that they form the foundation for a dramatic new Marxist strategy, one that makes the "spontaneous revolution" of Lenin as obsolete as hoop skirts and high button shoes, one that promises to win the world voluntarily to Marxism, and one based on a realistic appraisal of historical fact and human psychology, rather than on empty wishes and illusions.
As we shall see, Gramsci's shrewd assessment of the true essence of Marxism and of mankind makes his writings among the most powerful in this century. While Gramsci himself would die an ignominious and lonely death in a fascist prison, his thoughts would attain a life of their own and rise up to menace the world. What are these ideas?
Essence of the Red Revolution
Gramsci's signal contribution was to liberate the Marxist project from the prison of economic dogma, thereby dramatically enhancing its ability to subvert Christian society.
If we were to take the ideological pronouncements of Marx and Lenin at face value, we would believe — as have millions of their deluded disciples — that the uprising of the workers was inevitable, and that all that was to be done was to mobilize the underclass through propaganda, thereby sparking universal revolution. Of course, this premise is invalid, yet it remained inflexible doctrine among Communists — at least, for public consumption.
However, the hard core of the Communist movement consisted of ruthless criminals, clear-eyed in their understanding of the intellectual errors of Marxism, who were willing to employ any necessary means to obtain the power they sought. For such hardened, hate-intoxicated conspirators, ideology is a tactic, a means of mobilizing supporters and rationalizing criminal actions.
Those who accept uncritically the idea that "Communism is dead" fail to understand the true nature of the enemy. Communism is not an ideology in which one believes. Rather, it is a criminal conspiracy in which one enlists. Although Lenin professed to revere Marx's scribblings as sacred writ, once his Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia, Lenin freely modified Marxism to suit his needs. The same was true of Stalin. The Bolsheviks did not come to power in Russia by any uprising of the workers and peasants, but by a coup d'etat, orchestrated by a tightly disciplined Marxist cadre and ultimately consolidated by civil war. They also received — lest it be forgotten — critical help from Western political and banking elites.
In similar fashion, Communism did not come to power in Eastern Europe by revolution, but rather through the imposition of that system by a conquering Red Army — and, once again, through the corrupt connivance of conspirators in the West. In China, Communism came to power through civil war, aided by the Soviets and by traitorous elements in the West.
In no single instance has Communism ever achieved power by means of any popular revolutionary upheaval, but always by force or subterfuge. The only popular revolutionary upheavals recorded in the 20th century have been anti-Marxist "counter-revolutions," such as the revolt in Berlin in 1954 and the Hungarian uprising of 1956.
Looking back on the 20th century, it is clear that Marx was wrong in his assumption that most workers and peasants were dissatisfied with their places in, and alienated from, their societies, that they were seething with resentment against the middle and upper classes, or that they in any way were predisposed to revolution. Moreover, wherever Communism achieved power, its use of unprecedented levels of violence, coercion, and repression have generated underground opposition at home and militant opposition abroad, making endless killing and repression endemic to Marxism and essential for Communist survival. All of these undeniable facts, when examined honestly, posed insurmountable difficulties insofar as further extensions of Communist power were concerned, and assured some kind of ultimate crisis for Marxism.
While the foregoing is obvious to perceptive observers now, looking back from the vantage point of our time and after more than eight decades of experience with the reality of Communism in power, we begin to understand something of the insightfulness of Antonio Gramsci when we realize that what is evident now, at the close of the millennium, was evident to him when the Soviet regime was in its infancy and Communism still largely untried conjecture.
Gramsci was a brilliant student of philosophy, history, and languages. This education imparted to him an excellent grasp of the character of his fellow men and of the character of the societies that made up the civilized community of nations in the early decades of this century. As we have already seen, one of the foundational insights given him by this education was that Communist hopes for a spontaneous revolution, brought about by some process of historical inevitability, were illusory. Marxist ideologues were, he asserted, beguiling themselves. In the Gramscian view workers and peasants were not, by and large, revolutionary-minded and they harbored no desire for the destruction of the existing order. Most had loyalties beyond, and far more powerful than, class considerations, even in those instances where their lives were less than ideal. More meaningful to ordinary people than class solidarity and class warfare were such things as faith in God and love of family and country. These were foremost among their overriding allegiances.
Such attractiveness as Communist promises might possess among the working classes was, moreover, diminished by Communist brutalities and by heavy-handed totalitarian methods. Stirring the aristocratic and bourgeois classes to action, these negative attributes were so terrifying and sobering that militant anti-Marxist organizations and movements sprang up everywhere, effectively putting a halt to plans for Communist expansion. With all of this easily apparent to him, and, blessed in a way with the seemingly endless leisure afforded by prison life, Gramsci turned his excellent mind to saving Marxism by analyzing and solving these questions.
Subverting Christian Faith
The civilized world, Gramsci deduced, had been thoroughly saturated with Christianity for 2,000 years and Christianity remains the dominant philosophical and moral system in Europe and North America. Practically speaking, civilization and Christianity were inextricably bound together. Christianity had become so thoroughly integrated into the daily lives of nearly everyone, including non-Christians living in Christian lands, it was so pervasive, that it formed an almost impenetrable barrier to the new, revolutionary civilization Marxists wish to create. Attempting to batter down that barrier proved unproductive, since it only generated powerful counter-revolutionary forces, consolidating them and making them potentially deadly. Therefore, in place of the frontal attack, how much more advantageous and less hazardous it would be to attack the enemy's society subtly, with the aim of transforming the society's collective mind gradually, over a period of a few generations, from its former Christian worldview into one more harmonious to Marxism. And there was more.
Whereas conventional Marxist-Leninists were hostile towards the non-Communist Left, Gramsci argued that alliances with a broad spectrum of leftist groups would prove essential to Communist victory. In Gramsci's time these included, among others, various "anti-fascist" organizations, trade unions, and socialist political groups. In our time, alliances with the Left would include radical feminists, extremist environmentalists, "civil rights" movements, anti-police associations, internationalists, ultra-liberal church groups, and so forth. These organizations, along with open Communists, together create a united front working for the transformation of the old Christian culture.
What Gramsci proposed, in short, was a renovation of Communist methodology and a streamlining and updating of Marx's antiquated strategies. Let there be no doubt that Gramsci's vision of the future was entirely Marxist and that he accepted the validity of Marxism's overall worldview. Where he differed was in the process for achieving the victory of that worldview. Gramsci wrote that "there can and must be a 'political hegemony' even before assuming government power, and in order to exercise political leadership or hegemony one must not count solely on the power and material force that are given by government." What he meant is that it is incumbent upon Marxists to win the hearts and minds of the people, and not to rest hopes for the future solely on force or power.
Furthermore, Communists were enjoined to put aside some of their class prejudice in the struggle for power, seeking to win even elements within the bourgeois classes, a process which Gramsci described as "the absorption of the elites of the enemy classes." Not only would this strengthen Marxism with new blood, but it would deprive the enemy of this lost talent. Winning the bright young sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie to the red banner, wrote Gramsci, "results in [the anti-Marxist forces'] decapitation and renders them impotent." In short, violence and force will not by themselves genuinely transform the world. Rather it is through winning hegemony over the minds of the people and in robbing enemy classes of their most gifted men that Marxism will triumph over all.
Free-will Slaves
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a classic study of modern totalitarianism, contains a line that epitomizes the concept that Gramsci tried to convey to his party comrades: "A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude." While it is improbable that Huxley was familiar with Gramsci's theories, the idea he conveys of free persons marching willingly into bondage is nevertheless precisely what Gramsci had in mind.
Gramsci believed that if Communism achieved "mastery of human consciousness," then labor camps and mass murder would be unnecessary. How does an ideology gain such mastery over patterns of thought inculcated by cultures for hundreds of years? Mastery over the consciousness of the great mass of people would be attained, Gramsci contended, if Communists or their sympathizers gained control of the organs of culture — churches, education, newspapers, magazines, the electronic media, serious literature, music, the visual arts, and so on. By winning "cultural hegemony," to use Gramsci's own term, Communism would control the deepest wellsprings of human thought and imagination. One need not even control all of the information itself if one can gain control over the minds that assimilate that information. Under such conditions, serious opposition disappears since men are no longer capable of grasping the arguments of Marxism's opponents. Men will indeed "love their servitude," and will not even realize that it is servitude.
Steps in the Process
The first phase in achieving "cultural hegemony" over a nation is the undermining of all elements of traditional culture. Churches are thus transformed into ideology-driven political clubs, with the stress on "social justice" and egalitarianism, with worship reduced to trivialized entertainment, and with age-old doctrinal and moral teachings "modernized" or diminished to the point of irrelevancy. Genuine education is replaced by "dumbed-down" and "politically correct" curricula, and standards are reduced dramatically. The mass media are fashioned into instruments for mass manipulation and for harassing and discrediting traditional institutions and their spokesmen. Morality, decency, and old virtues are ridiculed without respite. Tradition-minded clergymen are portrayed as hypocrites and virtuous men and women as prudish, stuffy, and unenlightened.
Culture is no longer a buttress supporting the integrity of the national heritage and a vehicle for imparting that heritage to future generations, but becomes a means for "destroying ideals and ... presenting the young not with heroic examples but with deliberately and aggressively degenerate ones," as theologian Harold O.J. Brown writes. We see this in contemporary American life, in which the great historical symbols of our nation's past, including great presidents, soldiers, explorers, and thinkers, are shown to have been unforgivably flawed with "racism" and "sexism" and therefore basically evil. Their place has been taken by pro-Marxist charlatans, pseudo-intellectuals, rock stars, leftist movie celebrities, and the like. At another level, traditional Christian culture is condemned as repressive, "Eurocentric," and "racist" and, thus, unworthy of our continued devotion. In its place, unalloyed primitivism in the guise of "multiculturalism" is held as the new model.
Marriage and family, the very building blocks of our society, are perpetually attacked and subverted. Marriage is portrayed as a plot by men to perpetuate an evil system of domination over women and children. The family is depicted as a dangerous institution epitomized by violence and exploitation. Patriarchally oriented families are, according to the Gramscians, the precursors of fascism, Nazism, and every organized form of racial persecution.
The Frankfurt School
With respect to the subject of the undermining of the American family, and to many other aspects of the Gramscian technique, let us explore briefly the story of the Frankfurt School. This organization of leftist intellectuals, also known as the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, was founded in the 1920s in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. There it flourished amidst the decadence of the Weimar period, both compounding and feeding off the decadence, and extending its influence throughout the country.
With Hitler's acquisition of the chancellorship in 1933, the leftist stalwarts of the Frankfurt School fled Germany for the United States, where they soon established a new institute at Columbia University. As is characteristic of such men, they repaid their debt to the United States for sheltering them from Nazi brutality by turning their attention to what they regarded as the injustices and social deficiencies inherent to our system and society. Immediately they set about devising a program of revolutionary reform for America.
Max Horkheimer, one of the notables of the Frankfurt School, determined that America's profound allegiance to the traditional family was a mark of our national inclination towards the same fascist system from which he had fled. Explaining this connection between fascism and the American family, he declared: "When the child respects in his father's strength a moral relationship and thus learns to love what his reason recognizes to be a fact, he is experiencing his first training for the bourgeois authority relationship."
Commenting critically on Horkheimer's theory, Arthur Herman writes in The Idea of Decline in Western History: "The typical modern family, then, involves 'sado-masochistic resolution of the Oedipus complex,' producing a psychological cripple, the 'authoritarian personality.' The individual's hatred of the father is suspended and remains unresolved, becoming instead an attraction for strong authority figures whom he obeys unquestioningly." The traditional patriarchal family is thus a breeding ground for fascism, according to Horkheimer, and charismatic authority figures — men like Hitler and Mussolini — are the ultimate beneficiaries of the "authoritarian personality" instilled by the traditional family and culture.
Theodor W. Adorno, another notable of the Frankfurt School, underscored Horkheimer's theory with his own study, published in book form as The Authoritarian Personality, which he authored together with Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford. Upon closer examination, it became apparent to critics that the research on which The Authoritarian Personality was based was pseudo-sociological, flawed in its methodology, and skewed in its conclusions. But, the critics were ignored.
America, Adorno and his research team pronounced, was ripe for its own, home-grown fascist takeover. Not only was the American population hopelessly racist and anti-Semitic, but it had far too acquiescent an attitude towards authority figures such as fathers, policemen, clergy, military leaders, and so forth. It was also far too obsessed with such "fascist" notions as efficiency, cleanliness, and success, for these qualities revealed an inward "pessimistic and contemptuous view of humanity," a view that leads, Adorno held, to fascism.
Through such unmitigated balderdash as one finds in the writings of Horkheimer, Adorno, and the other luminaries of the Frankfurt School, the structures of the traditional family and traditional virtue have been called seriously into question and confidence in them blunted. Elected government officials and bureaucrats have contributed to this problem through government taxation policies, which mulct the traditional family while subsidizing anti-traditional modes of life.
Additionally, these officials are inclined more and more towards the elevation of abominations such as homosexual and illicit heterosexual unions to the same level as marriage. Already, in many localities throughout the country and in numerous private corporations, benefits previously reserved to married couples are now granted to unmarried sexual "partners." Even the word "family" is slowly being superseded by the vague euphemism "household."
A Lawless Land
Americans have long boasted that their nation is a government of law, not of men. American law is derived directly from English common law and from the biblical and Christian principles that are at the root of English common law. One would therefore expect law to constitute one of the chief barriers against the subversion of our society. Instead, in the field of law, revolutionary change has become the order of the day, change so astounding that it could not have been imagined by Americans of 50 years ago. None would have dreamed of the outlawing of prayer and any expression of religious conviction on public property, the legalization of abortion as a constitutionally guaranteed "right," and the legalization of pornography, to mention but three.
Clearly expressed principles embraced by the Founding Fathers and set forth in our Constitution are now routinely reinterpreted and distorted. Those that cannot be reinterpreted and distorted, such as the Tenth Amendment, are simply ignored. Worse yet, the ideological agenda underpinning the radicalization of American law is blithely accepted by millions of Americans, who have themselves been radicalized without ever realizing it.
Crucial to the Gramscians' success is the disappearance of all memory of the old civilization and way of life. The older America of unregulated lives, honest government, clean cities, crime-free streets, morally edifying entertainment, and a family-oriented way of life is no longer vivid in the minds of many Americans. Once it is gone completely, nothing will stand in the way of the new Marxist civilization, which demonstrates as nothing else that through the Gramscian method it is indeed possible to "Marxize the inner man," as Malachi Martin wrote in The Keys of This Blood. Then and only then, writes Fr. Martin, "could you successfully dangle the utopia of the 'Workers' Paradise' before his eyes, to be accepted in a peaceful and humanely agreeable manner, without revolution or violence or bloodshed."
It must be evident to all but the most simple souls that after the passage of a generation or two, such ceaseless social conditioning is bound to alter the consciousness and inner-substance of a society, and it is bound to produce significant structural crises within that society, crises that manifest themselves in numberless ways in virtually every community throughout the country.
The Good Fight
It may seem to some that the situation in our nation is hopeless and that no force or agency can possibly put a halt to the insidious strategies working to destroy us. Despite the grim chronicle of the past 60 or 70 years, however, there is still much that may be done and much reason for hope. Families and individual men and women still possess, to a large extent, the freedom to avoid and escape the mind-altering social conditioning of the Gramscians. They have the power to shield themselves from these influences and especially to shield their young. There are alternatives to public schools, television, trashy movies, and strident "rock" music, and those alternatives must be embraced. The propaganda and cultural strychnine must be excluded from our lives.
Those in charge of young people have an especially weighty responsibility. Despite all of the efforts of the radical left and of their sympathizers in the schools and media to transmute young Americans into savages, they must not be allowed to succeed, because disorganized minds — mental vortices of anarchism and nihilism — have no powers of resistance. Savages soon become slaves. Children and youths should be introduced to such bedrock concepts as honesty, decency, virtue, duty, and love of God and country through the lives of authentic national heroes — men like George Washington, Nathan Hale, John Paul Jones, and Robert E. Lee.
Similarly, they will better be able to retain civilized values and maintain healthy minds if they are encouraged to learn to love their cultural inheritance through great literature, poetry, music, and art. Parents must demand from their children the upholding of the morals, manners, and standards of their ancestors.
In school, the young must be required to adhere to high standards of scholarship. Most importantly, traditional religion must be an integral part of daily living.
We as citizens must also exercise our persuasive powers over our elected representatives. In doing this our mindset must be one of demanding absolute non-compromise from politicians. Likewise, in choosing elected representatives at every level, we must look to men and women who refuse to compromise.
Just as importantly, the honorable, uncompromising men and women we elect to represent us must be made aware of the Gramscian strategy of cultural subversion; they must be able to recognize the tactics and strategies being used to undermine the institutions upon which our liberties depend. Building that understanding will, in turn, require the creation of an educated and principled electorate that will impart this wisdom to our representatives — and hold them accountable once they have been entrusted with elective office.
We should never allow ourselves to be stampeded, herd like, into forming opinions and judgments stimulated and orchestrated by the sensationalism of the press and the other media masters. Instead, we must calmly resist their mind-control techniques. We must strive to be independent thinkers. Realizing that we are not alone, we should turn to tradition-minded churches, schools, and political and educational organizations, and there lend our voices and support to the creation of bastions of resistance to the Gramscian onslaught.
Finally, we must never give up our faith in the future and our hope for a better America and world. God, with His infinite power and boundless love for us, will never forsake us but will answer our prayers and reward our efforts, as long as we do not lose our faith. Marxism — and whatever other flags the total state parades under these days — are not inevitable and are not the wave of the future. As long as we think and act in the indomitable spirit of our forefathers, we cannot fail.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/15545-gramscis-grand-plan
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