Clinton: If gun ownership is a constitutional right, it’s one that we’ve taken away before
by Sam Rolley
Hillary Clinton is looking to gain support for her flaccid Democratic presidential campaign by wooing anti-2nd Amendment fanatics. And she’s not leaving the promise of an end to American gun ownership off the table.
That, at least, is the sense one might have gotten from a recent interview between the former first lady and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
Referencing GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s accusation that Clinton would abolish the 2nd Amendment if elected, Stephanopoulos asked Clinton point blank: “Do you believe that an individual’s right to bear arms is a constitutional right, that it’s not linked to service in a militia?”
Clinton danced around the issue, claiming that the un-infringed right of the individual to bear arms was created by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
“I think that for most of our history, there was a nuanced reading of the Second Amendment until the decision by the late Justice Scalia, and there was no argument until then that localities and states and the federal government had a right, as we do with every amendment, to impose reasonable regulations,” she said. “So I believe we can have common-sense gun safety measures consistent with the Second Amendment.”
Notice she didn’t answer the question.
But what Clinton did do is suggest that gun control laws have a rich history in the United States.
When Stephanopoulos pointed out that Clinton had ignored his original question, she replied: “If it is a constitutional right, then it, like every other constitutional right, is subject to reasonable regulations, and what people have done with that decision is to take it as far as they possibly can and reject what has been our history from the very beginning of the republic, where some of the earliest laws that were passed were about firearms.”
I happen to agree that gun control has a rich history in the U.S. But Clinton is leaving out some very important details when she says we’ve always had “common sense” gun laws.
Many of the historical gun control laws Clinton is painting as perfect evidence that tough gun control has and can work in the U.S. were aimed at disarming black Americans and maintaining slavery and, later, racial discrimination.
I wrote about this back in 2013:
Throughout the Nation’s history, the gun-control laws that have been the harshest are those that were levied against blacks, who, as any compassionate, serious and well-informed student of history would be remiss to deny, have endured tyrannical force at many times since the Nation’s founding.
In the years leading up to the Civil War, States all over the Nation grew increasingly fearful of the prospect of a black uprising that they felt could be carried out by slaves or freed blacks. Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831 kicked off a number of gun-control laws aimed at blacks in America’s States.
Virginia responded to the rebellion by prohibiting free blacks the right “to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead…” Later, in 1834, the Tennessee Constitution was changed from “That the freemen of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence” to “That the free white men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence.” The antebellum South was rife with racist calls for gun control.
These abuses did not stop following the Civil War with the onset of black freedom and, in fact, continued through the Jim Crow-era South right up until the civil rights era.
Martin Luther King Jr., upon whose Bible Obama swore to uphold the Constitution…, reportedly kept an arsenal of firearms in his home to ease his mind about the near-constant death threats he received. The peace-promoting civil rights leader even applied for an Alabama concealed carry permit, but was denied due to racism on the part of the police that had the authority to issue the permit.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/clinton-if-gun-ownership-is-a-constitutional-right-its-one-that-weve-taken-away-before/
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
"Muhammad Ali stood his ground and said No the all-powerful national-security establishment and its illegal, immoral, and destructive war on Vietnam. He didn’t permit them to warp his mind, conscience, and spirit with their Cold War anti-communist crusade. He was a real profile in courage, a genuine patriot, and a true hero. Too bad there aren’t many like him today."
Muhammad Ali versus the National Security State
by Jacob G. Hornberger
While everyone today is celebrating the life of Muhammad Ali, who passed away last Friday, such was clearly not the case back in the 1960s, when Ali took on the vast and powerful U.S. national-security establishment with his steadfast refusal to be conscripted to “serve” in the U.S. Army, which would have sent him to Vietnam to fight and die for “freedom.”
As Ali put it so succinctly, “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.” That was 1966, three years after the assassination of President Kennedy, when his successor Lyndon Johnson was ramping up U.S. involvement in Vietnam’s civil war.
Ali didn’t let it go at that. He also stated:
Why should me and other so-called “negroes” go 10,000 miles away from home, here in America, to drop bombs and bullets on other innocent brown people who’s never bothered us and I will say directly: No, I will not go.
Here was the clincher:
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No, I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again: The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people, they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.
Needless to say, Ali’s words were heresy to the U.S. national-security establishment, which was telling Americans how necessary it was to invade Vietnam to save America from the Vietcong and North Vietnamese communists. If Americans weren’t force to kill and die in Vietnam, they said, the dominoes would start falling to the communists, with the big, final domino being the United States.
The attack against Ali leveled by sports broadcaster David Susskind reflected the predominant view of the pro-draft, pro-war establishment at that time:
I find nothing amusing or interesting or tolerable about this man. He’s a disgrace to his country, his race, and what he laughingly describes as his profession. He is a convicted felon in the United States. He has been found guilty. He is out on bail. He will inevitably go to prison, as well he should. He is a simplistic fool and a pawn.
Yes, if only Ali had behaved like Elvis and loyally and dutifully complied with the state’s decision to conscript him into serving the national-security state. If only he had supported the troops, who were fighting and dying for “freedom” and “defending our rights and liberties” in a faraway land thousands of miles away from American shores.
Of course, never mind that North Vietnam and the Vietcong never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so.
Unfortunately, the professional sports world back then was as intertwined with the national-security establishment as it is today. Upon his conviction for draft resistance (which the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned), they stripped him of his boxing title and refused to let him fight during three of what would have been his most productive years.
But Ali’s words were, indeed, dangerous and constituted a grave threat to “national security.” After all, if millions of American blacks took them to heart, who would have been left to draft and serve as their cannon fodder in Vietnam except poor white guys?
Obviously, they had to make Ali an example. They had to send a message to all other blacks (and whites as well): “Don’t even think about it!” And so they went after him with a vengeance for daring to stand up to the national-security state and its gigantic anti-communist crusade. They prosecuted him, convicted him, and sentenced him to serve 5 years in their federal jails.
All for refusing to go along with their immoral and illegal undeclared war against the Vietnamese people.
“But Jacob, what about the communists? Weren’t they coming to get us! If Americans didn’t permit themselves to be drafted, every state in the union would have become Red.”
Ali saw through all it all — he recognized it as a crock, much as President Kennedy did in the months before his assassination (as Martin Luther King, who was also considered a threat to national security, did too). (See Regime Change: The JFK Assassination by Jacob Hornberger and JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne.) That’s what made Ali a grave threat to the national-security racket, just like Kennedy and King. All three of them were questioning a war racket that was set to enrich lots of people during succeeding decades in what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.”
Muhammad Ali stood his ground and said No the all-powerful national-security establishment and its illegal, immoral, and destructive war on Vietnam. He didn’t permit them to warp his mind, conscience, and spirit with their Cold War anti-communist crusade. He was a real profile in courage, a genuine patriot, and a true hero. Too bad there aren’t many like him today.
Link:
http://fff.org/2016/06/06/muhammad-ali-versus-national-security-state/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
While everyone today is celebrating the life of Muhammad Ali, who passed away last Friday, such was clearly not the case back in the 1960s, when Ali took on the vast and powerful U.S. national-security establishment with his steadfast refusal to be conscripted to “serve” in the U.S. Army, which would have sent him to Vietnam to fight and die for “freedom.”
As Ali put it so succinctly, “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.” That was 1966, three years after the assassination of President Kennedy, when his successor Lyndon Johnson was ramping up U.S. involvement in Vietnam’s civil war.
Ali didn’t let it go at that. He also stated:
Why should me and other so-called “negroes” go 10,000 miles away from home, here in America, to drop bombs and bullets on other innocent brown people who’s never bothered us and I will say directly: No, I will not go.
Here was the clincher:
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No, I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again: The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people, they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.
Needless to say, Ali’s words were heresy to the U.S. national-security establishment, which was telling Americans how necessary it was to invade Vietnam to save America from the Vietcong and North Vietnamese communists. If Americans weren’t force to kill and die in Vietnam, they said, the dominoes would start falling to the communists, with the big, final domino being the United States.
The attack against Ali leveled by sports broadcaster David Susskind reflected the predominant view of the pro-draft, pro-war establishment at that time:
I find nothing amusing or interesting or tolerable about this man. He’s a disgrace to his country, his race, and what he laughingly describes as his profession. He is a convicted felon in the United States. He has been found guilty. He is out on bail. He will inevitably go to prison, as well he should. He is a simplistic fool and a pawn.
Yes, if only Ali had behaved like Elvis and loyally and dutifully complied with the state’s decision to conscript him into serving the national-security state. If only he had supported the troops, who were fighting and dying for “freedom” and “defending our rights and liberties” in a faraway land thousands of miles away from American shores.
Of course, never mind that North Vietnam and the Vietcong never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so.
Unfortunately, the professional sports world back then was as intertwined with the national-security establishment as it is today. Upon his conviction for draft resistance (which the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned), they stripped him of his boxing title and refused to let him fight during three of what would have been his most productive years.
But Ali’s words were, indeed, dangerous and constituted a grave threat to “national security.” After all, if millions of American blacks took them to heart, who would have been left to draft and serve as their cannon fodder in Vietnam except poor white guys?
Obviously, they had to make Ali an example. They had to send a message to all other blacks (and whites as well): “Don’t even think about it!” And so they went after him with a vengeance for daring to stand up to the national-security state and its gigantic anti-communist crusade. They prosecuted him, convicted him, and sentenced him to serve 5 years in their federal jails.
All for refusing to go along with their immoral and illegal undeclared war against the Vietnamese people.
“But Jacob, what about the communists? Weren’t they coming to get us! If Americans didn’t permit themselves to be drafted, every state in the union would have become Red.”
Ali saw through all it all — he recognized it as a crock, much as President Kennedy did in the months before his assassination (as Martin Luther King, who was also considered a threat to national security, did too). (See Regime Change: The JFK Assassination by Jacob Hornberger and JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne.) That’s what made Ali a grave threat to the national-security racket, just like Kennedy and King. All three of them were questioning a war racket that was set to enrich lots of people during succeeding decades in what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.”
Muhammad Ali stood his ground and said No the all-powerful national-security establishment and its illegal, immoral, and destructive war on Vietnam. He didn’t permit them to warp his mind, conscience, and spirit with their Cold War anti-communist crusade. He was a real profile in courage, a genuine patriot, and a true hero. Too bad there aren’t many like him today.
Link:
http://fff.org/2016/06/06/muhammad-ali-versus-national-security-state/
Scanners...
Scanners
by Eric Peters
The criteria for defining an illegal search has never been whether you’re aware of the search having been performed. If, for instance, investigators sneak into your house, go through your things – but leave everything so it appears nothing was touched, so you never suspect they were there – it’s still illegal, if it was done without a warrant.
Even to this very day – at least, kinda sorta.
So how about these license plate scanners that cops are using to – yes – search us without our knowledge, much less a warrant?
Maybe you haven’t heard about the scanners – more correctly, these Automated License Plate Readers (APLRs). They are a device that integrates a Panopticon-style camera system with a computer database.
The ALPR – usually there are several, mounted on all four corners of a cop car – scans the plates of all the cars that pass by the cop (if he’s parked) or the cars the cop passes (if he’s moving). The numbers scanned are then automatically filtered through various databases (we’re not allowed to know exactly what data these databases contain) and if there is a “hit” – such as for a stolen car or a car tied to a crime – the cop is aroused from his sugary slumbers to go after the evildoer.
But the point is, we’ve all just been examined, identified and catalogued; that is, searched.
What else is it when we are scanned like a herd of beef cattle with tags in our ears – a “computer cop” checking us each out before we’re allowed to proceed through the chute? The fact that you’re not aware you’ve just been through the chute isn’t the point. The point is, you just got examined, identified and catalogued – they “checked you out” – without your having done a thing to warrant the once-over (much less an actual warrant being involved).
This is creepy, especially the general indifference of the population to this sort of thing – which is arguably even more creepy than the thing itself. One expects government – our “farmers” – to wax tyrannical.
It is, after all, what government does.
But why do the cattle – whoops, the people – accept it so passively?
Probably because they are cattle.
I got really depressed way back in the early 2000s, after the government announced that the Fight For Freedom would include a “Homeland” Security Department (Heimatsicherheitsamt) and that people/cattle would be searched in just about the most degrading way imaginable short of actually having to spread their cheeks, bend over and cough (which is probably coming) just to queue up for an airplane ride.
But it was to be expected; the logical next step (one of them) resulting from the general acceptance, years prior, of this business of randomly stopping and (at least cursorily) searching (and interrogating) drivers for no particular reason other than that they happened to be driving down the road where the “safety” checkpoint was erected.
Obviously – if you’re not an illiterate – a random search is the very definition of an unreasonable search – prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.
Well, used to be.
If it’s not unreasonable to stop and search people at random, people who’ve done nothing whatsoever to suggest they may have committed some crime or other, then what would be “unreasonable”? Racking them until they confess they had one too many?
It will probably come to that, in time.
So, that’s the first objection – but of course, it’s already been rendered irrelevant as a matter of law by the Volksgerichthoff (Well, why not? The government seems increasingly infatuated with things… German.)
“Reasonable” is now whatever they say it is, no matter how textbook definition (if words have precise meaning, which of course they no longer do) unreasonable it actually happens to be.
Which brings us to the next item.
We are told – soothingly – that only bad guys (the evildoers) need fear. The authorities are Keeping us Safe.
They are always Keeping us Safe.
They are also keeping track of us. In real time and very possibly forever.
Just like the farmer does his livestock.
Remember that your plate number is tied to you – the registered (with the farmer) owner of the car. And while the ranch hand/cop running ALPR won’t be coming after you (for now) unless you’ve got warrants out on you – the computer cop has just noted and stored the data about your presence at that particular spot at that particular moment. This may not ruffle your feathers much (unless you’re a guy sweating an angry ex’s divorce lawyer, who may be very interested in data about where you’ve been today) but it should.
The very idea of such a thing – paraphrasing JFK – ought to be repugnant in a free society. The notion that you are being watched – and recorded.
For no particular reason.
Just because they can.
It has been said – rightly, I think – that privacy is what defines freedom. Your right to not be monitored, scrutinized, categorized, catalogued and (ultimately) controlled.
To be left alone.
These Clovers (see here for the etymology) pushing ALPRs, the “checkpoints,” the “Homeland” stuff and all the rest of it are the mortal enemies of privacy. They realize, instinctively, that to respect our space is to respect our freedom. And that cannot be permitted.
They will never say it openly, of course. Like the rancher, they are are smart enough to not alarm the herd needlessly.
But they know it in their bones.
And so should we.
Link:
http://ericpetersautos.com/2016/06/07/scanners/
by Eric Peters
The criteria for defining an illegal search has never been whether you’re aware of the search having been performed. If, for instance, investigators sneak into your house, go through your things – but leave everything so it appears nothing was touched, so you never suspect they were there – it’s still illegal, if it was done without a warrant.
Even to this very day – at least, kinda sorta.
So how about these license plate scanners that cops are using to – yes – search us without our knowledge, much less a warrant?
Maybe you haven’t heard about the scanners – more correctly, these Automated License Plate Readers (APLRs). They are a device that integrates a Panopticon-style camera system with a computer database.
The ALPR – usually there are several, mounted on all four corners of a cop car – scans the plates of all the cars that pass by the cop (if he’s parked) or the cars the cop passes (if he’s moving). The numbers scanned are then automatically filtered through various databases (we’re not allowed to know exactly what data these databases contain) and if there is a “hit” – such as for a stolen car or a car tied to a crime – the cop is aroused from his sugary slumbers to go after the evildoer.
But the point is, we’ve all just been examined, identified and catalogued; that is, searched.
What else is it when we are scanned like a herd of beef cattle with tags in our ears – a “computer cop” checking us each out before we’re allowed to proceed through the chute? The fact that you’re not aware you’ve just been through the chute isn’t the point. The point is, you just got examined, identified and catalogued – they “checked you out” – without your having done a thing to warrant the once-over (much less an actual warrant being involved).
This is creepy, especially the general indifference of the population to this sort of thing – which is arguably even more creepy than the thing itself. One expects government – our “farmers” – to wax tyrannical.
It is, after all, what government does.
But why do the cattle – whoops, the people – accept it so passively?
Probably because they are cattle.
I got really depressed way back in the early 2000s, after the government announced that the Fight For Freedom would include a “Homeland” Security Department (Heimatsicherheitsamt) and that people/cattle would be searched in just about the most degrading way imaginable short of actually having to spread their cheeks, bend over and cough (which is probably coming) just to queue up for an airplane ride.
But it was to be expected; the logical next step (one of them) resulting from the general acceptance, years prior, of this business of randomly stopping and (at least cursorily) searching (and interrogating) drivers for no particular reason other than that they happened to be driving down the road where the “safety” checkpoint was erected.
Obviously – if you’re not an illiterate – a random search is the very definition of an unreasonable search – prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.
Well, used to be.
If it’s not unreasonable to stop and search people at random, people who’ve done nothing whatsoever to suggest they may have committed some crime or other, then what would be “unreasonable”? Racking them until they confess they had one too many?
It will probably come to that, in time.
So, that’s the first objection – but of course, it’s already been rendered irrelevant as a matter of law by the Volksgerichthoff (Well, why not? The government seems increasingly infatuated with things… German.)
“Reasonable” is now whatever they say it is, no matter how textbook definition (if words have precise meaning, which of course they no longer do) unreasonable it actually happens to be.
Which brings us to the next item.
We are told – soothingly – that only bad guys (the evildoers) need fear. The authorities are Keeping us Safe.
They are always Keeping us Safe.
They are also keeping track of us. In real time and very possibly forever.
Just like the farmer does his livestock.
Remember that your plate number is tied to you – the registered (with the farmer) owner of the car. And while the ranch hand/cop running ALPR won’t be coming after you (for now) unless you’ve got warrants out on you – the computer cop has just noted and stored the data about your presence at that particular spot at that particular moment. This may not ruffle your feathers much (unless you’re a guy sweating an angry ex’s divorce lawyer, who may be very interested in data about where you’ve been today) but it should.
The very idea of such a thing – paraphrasing JFK – ought to be repugnant in a free society. The notion that you are being watched – and recorded.
For no particular reason.
Just because they can.
It has been said – rightly, I think – that privacy is what defines freedom. Your right to not be monitored, scrutinized, categorized, catalogued and (ultimately) controlled.
To be left alone.
These Clovers (see here for the etymology) pushing ALPRs, the “checkpoints,” the “Homeland” stuff and all the rest of it are the mortal enemies of privacy. They realize, instinctively, that to respect our space is to respect our freedom. And that cannot be permitted.
They will never say it openly, of course. Like the rancher, they are are smart enough to not alarm the herd needlessly.
But they know it in their bones.
And so should we.
Link:
http://ericpetersautos.com/2016/06/07/scanners/
"Maybe the elite believe that welfare, unemployment compensation and possibly engaging in illegal activities are a superior alternative to earning an honest and respectable living on a cashier’s salary. That is a despicable vision."
The Arrogant Elite
By Walter E. Williams
A basic economic premise holds that when the price of something rises, people seek to economize on its use. They seek substitutes for that which has risen in price. Recent years have seen proposals for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Some states and localities, such as Seattle, have already legislated a minimum wage of $15 an hour.
Nobody should be surprised that fast-food companies such as Wendy’s, Panera Bread, McDonald’s and others are seeking substitutes for employees who are becoming costlier. One substitute that has emerged for cashiers is automated kiosks where, instead of having a person take your order, you select your meal and pay for it using a machine. Robots are also seen as an alternative to a $15-an-hour minimum wage. In fact, employee costs are much higher than an hourly wage suggests. For every employee paid $15 an hour, a company spends an additional $10 an hour on non-wage benefits, such as medical insurance, Social Security, workers’ compensation and other taxes. That means the minimum hourly cost of hiring such an employee is close to $25.
The vision that higher mandated wages (that exceed productivity) produce no employment effects is what economists call a zero-elasticity view of the world — one in which there is no response to price changes. It assumes that customers are insensitive to higher product prices and investors are insensitive to a company’s profits. There is little evidence that people are insensitive to price changes, whether they be changes in taxes, gas prices, food prices, labor prices or any other price. The issue is not whether people change their behavior when relative prices rise or fall; it is always how soon and how great the change will be. Thus, with minimum wage increases, it is not an issue of whether firms will economize on labor but an issue of how much they will economize and who will bear the burden of that economizing.
Fast-food restaurants must respond to higher prices because they have two sets of ruthless people to deal with. We can see that with a hypothetical example. Imagine that faced with higher employee costs, Burger King automates and, as a result of finding cheaper ways to do things, it can sell its hamburgers for $3. Its competitor McDonald’s does not automate and keeps the same number of employees in the face of higher wages, maybe to be nice and caring. McDonald’s might try to forestall declining profits by attempting to recover higher labor costs by raising product prices — say, charging $5 for a hamburger. However, consumers are not insensitive to higher prices. They would seek cheaper substitutes, thereby patronizing Burger King. The bottom line is that in the wake of higher minimum wages, surviving companies will be those that find ways to economize on labor usage.
There is another ruthless set of people. They are investors. If customers were to flock to Burger King, McDonald’s profits would fall. What is your guess as to what investors would do? My guess is they would sell shares in McDonald’s. An even more dismal picture for McDonald’s would be the specter of corporate takeover attempts. Somebody would see that money could be made by bringing McDonald’s to its senses.
The saddest aspect of the minimum wage story is the damage it does to human beings. The current hourly wage for a fast-food restaurant cashier is $7.25 to $9 per hour. That produces a yearly salary of $15,000 to $20,000, plus fringes. That’s no great shakes, but it is honest work and a start in life. It might be the very best some people could do. Enter the arrogance and callousness of the elite. Their vision of what a person should earn, expressed by higher minimum wages, destroys people’s best alternative without offering a superior one in its place. Maybe the elite believe that welfare, unemployment compensation and possibly engaging in illegal activities are a superior alternative to earning an honest and respectable living on a cashier’s salary. That is a despicable vision.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/walter-e-williams/arrogant-elite/
By Walter E. Williams
A basic economic premise holds that when the price of something rises, people seek to economize on its use. They seek substitutes for that which has risen in price. Recent years have seen proposals for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Some states and localities, such as Seattle, have already legislated a minimum wage of $15 an hour.
Nobody should be surprised that fast-food companies such as Wendy’s, Panera Bread, McDonald’s and others are seeking substitutes for employees who are becoming costlier. One substitute that has emerged for cashiers is automated kiosks where, instead of having a person take your order, you select your meal and pay for it using a machine. Robots are also seen as an alternative to a $15-an-hour minimum wage. In fact, employee costs are much higher than an hourly wage suggests. For every employee paid $15 an hour, a company spends an additional $10 an hour on non-wage benefits, such as medical insurance, Social Security, workers’ compensation and other taxes. That means the minimum hourly cost of hiring such an employee is close to $25.
The vision that higher mandated wages (that exceed productivity) produce no employment effects is what economists call a zero-elasticity view of the world — one in which there is no response to price changes. It assumes that customers are insensitive to higher product prices and investors are insensitive to a company’s profits. There is little evidence that people are insensitive to price changes, whether they be changes in taxes, gas prices, food prices, labor prices or any other price. The issue is not whether people change their behavior when relative prices rise or fall; it is always how soon and how great the change will be. Thus, with minimum wage increases, it is not an issue of whether firms will economize on labor but an issue of how much they will economize and who will bear the burden of that economizing.
Fast-food restaurants must respond to higher prices because they have two sets of ruthless people to deal with. We can see that with a hypothetical example. Imagine that faced with higher employee costs, Burger King automates and, as a result of finding cheaper ways to do things, it can sell its hamburgers for $3. Its competitor McDonald’s does not automate and keeps the same number of employees in the face of higher wages, maybe to be nice and caring. McDonald’s might try to forestall declining profits by attempting to recover higher labor costs by raising product prices — say, charging $5 for a hamburger. However, consumers are not insensitive to higher prices. They would seek cheaper substitutes, thereby patronizing Burger King. The bottom line is that in the wake of higher minimum wages, surviving companies will be those that find ways to economize on labor usage.
There is another ruthless set of people. They are investors. If customers were to flock to Burger King, McDonald’s profits would fall. What is your guess as to what investors would do? My guess is they would sell shares in McDonald’s. An even more dismal picture for McDonald’s would be the specter of corporate takeover attempts. Somebody would see that money could be made by bringing McDonald’s to its senses.
The saddest aspect of the minimum wage story is the damage it does to human beings. The current hourly wage for a fast-food restaurant cashier is $7.25 to $9 per hour. That produces a yearly salary of $15,000 to $20,000, plus fringes. That’s no great shakes, but it is honest work and a start in life. It might be the very best some people could do. Enter the arrogance and callousness of the elite. Their vision of what a person should earn, expressed by higher minimum wages, destroys people’s best alternative without offering a superior one in its place. Maybe the elite believe that welfare, unemployment compensation and possibly engaging in illegal activities are a superior alternative to earning an honest and respectable living on a cashier’s salary. That is a despicable vision.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/walter-e-williams/arrogant-elite/
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
"The findings are particularly troubling given how many studies have shown that antidepressants have little, if any, benefit over a placebo – but with a much higher rate of potentially dangerous side effects, including suicide."
Medical journal openly admits 50% of people on antidepressants don't even have depression
by: David Gutierrez
Nearly half of people taking depressants are not suffering from depression at all, according to a study conducted by researchers from McGill University in Montreal, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
These people have been prescribed the drugs for "off label" uses not approved by drug regulatory agencies. These uses have never been proven safe or effective.
"It's an interesting phenomenon," author Jenna Wong said. "We had heard that in the scientific community there has been a suspicion among doctors that physicians are commonly prescribing antidepressants for uses other than depression. We also found that for the major classes of antidepressants, there was an increasing prescribing trend over time."
Treatments not backed by evidence
The researchers reviewed 10 years of antidepressant prescription records, containing data on more than 100,000 prescriptions written by approximately 160 doctors for nearly 20,000 patients. They analyzed trends of prescribing for every antidepressant class except monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which are almost never prescribed as antidepressants anymore and therefore rarely occurred in the records.
They found that only 55 percent of the prescriptions were written for depression. The other 45 percent were written for anxiety (18.5 percent), insomnia (10 percent), pain (6 percent), panic disorders (4 percent), and for a slew of conditions that are off-label for every antidepressant, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), digestive disorders, eating disorders, migraine and vasomotor menopause symptoms.
Twenty-nine percent of antidepressant prescriptions were written for a use that was off-label for that particular drug. Fully 66 percent of prescriptions written for conditions other than depression were off label.
If nothing else, the study shows that rates of antidepressant prescriptions are a not a good indicator of the rate at which depression is being diagnosed, or treated, the authors noted. It also raises concerns that the drugs are being so widely used for conditions not backed by scientific research.
"The findings indicate that the mere presence of an antidepressant prescription is a poor proxy for depression treatment, and they highlight the need to evaluate the evidence supporting off-label antidepressant use," the authors wrote.
Deadly placebos
Wong noted that off-label uses have never been proven effective, and may also carry a risk of unknown side effects.
"I can't make a statement to say that for sure they don't work or that they are exposing patients to health risks but there's the possibility that they could be causing adverse health effects or that they may not be effective for the conditions," Wong said. "Without any scientific evidence, it's hard to be able to say."
"It raises the question of why they are prescribing them," she said.
The authors speculated that many doctors are relying on tradition or informal channels of information, rather than scientific research.
"Physicians may be talking to their colleagues and saying, 'Hey, I've used this drug in my patient population and it works,'" Wong said. "So it's more word of mouth."
Other potential reasons for off-label prescribing may be marketing by pharmaceutical companies or simply the use of antidepressants as a last resort when other treatments have failed.
"Some of these conditions are things where there is no exact treatment," Wong said. "The patients may be desperate for something to treat their ailments."
The findings are particularly troubling given how many studies have shown that antidepressants have little, if any, benefit over a placebo – but with a much higher rate of potentially dangerous side effects, including suicide.
In an article published last year in the British Medical Journal, esteemed evidence-based medicine researcher Peter Gotzsche argued that nearly all psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants, could be discontinued without harming public health. In fact, he said, there would probably be a benefit; currently, these drugs kill 500,000 people per year – and that's just for people over the age of 65 living in Western countries.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/054281_antidepressants_off-label_use_dangerous_drugs.html#ixzz4AtOAFFEm
by: David Gutierrez
Nearly half of people taking depressants are not suffering from depression at all, according to a study conducted by researchers from McGill University in Montreal, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
These people have been prescribed the drugs for "off label" uses not approved by drug regulatory agencies. These uses have never been proven safe or effective.
"It's an interesting phenomenon," author Jenna Wong said. "We had heard that in the scientific community there has been a suspicion among doctors that physicians are commonly prescribing antidepressants for uses other than depression. We also found that for the major classes of antidepressants, there was an increasing prescribing trend over time."
Treatments not backed by evidence
The researchers reviewed 10 years of antidepressant prescription records, containing data on more than 100,000 prescriptions written by approximately 160 doctors for nearly 20,000 patients. They analyzed trends of prescribing for every antidepressant class except monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which are almost never prescribed as antidepressants anymore and therefore rarely occurred in the records.
They found that only 55 percent of the prescriptions were written for depression. The other 45 percent were written for anxiety (18.5 percent), insomnia (10 percent), pain (6 percent), panic disorders (4 percent), and for a slew of conditions that are off-label for every antidepressant, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), digestive disorders, eating disorders, migraine and vasomotor menopause symptoms.
Twenty-nine percent of antidepressant prescriptions were written for a use that was off-label for that particular drug. Fully 66 percent of prescriptions written for conditions other than depression were off label.
If nothing else, the study shows that rates of antidepressant prescriptions are a not a good indicator of the rate at which depression is being diagnosed, or treated, the authors noted. It also raises concerns that the drugs are being so widely used for conditions not backed by scientific research.
"The findings indicate that the mere presence of an antidepressant prescription is a poor proxy for depression treatment, and they highlight the need to evaluate the evidence supporting off-label antidepressant use," the authors wrote.
Deadly placebos
Wong noted that off-label uses have never been proven effective, and may also carry a risk of unknown side effects.
"I can't make a statement to say that for sure they don't work or that they are exposing patients to health risks but there's the possibility that they could be causing adverse health effects or that they may not be effective for the conditions," Wong said. "Without any scientific evidence, it's hard to be able to say."
"It raises the question of why they are prescribing them," she said.
The authors speculated that many doctors are relying on tradition or informal channels of information, rather than scientific research.
"Physicians may be talking to their colleagues and saying, 'Hey, I've used this drug in my patient population and it works,'" Wong said. "So it's more word of mouth."
Other potential reasons for off-label prescribing may be marketing by pharmaceutical companies or simply the use of antidepressants as a last resort when other treatments have failed.
"Some of these conditions are things where there is no exact treatment," Wong said. "The patients may be desperate for something to treat their ailments."
The findings are particularly troubling given how many studies have shown that antidepressants have little, if any, benefit over a placebo – but with a much higher rate of potentially dangerous side effects, including suicide.
In an article published last year in the British Medical Journal, esteemed evidence-based medicine researcher Peter Gotzsche argued that nearly all psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants, could be discontinued without harming public health. In fact, he said, there would probably be a benefit; currently, these drugs kill 500,000 people per year – and that's just for people over the age of 65 living in Western countries.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/054281_antidepressants_off-label_use_dangerous_drugs.html#ixzz4AtOAFFEm
We’ve been warned...
Endorse Your Enemy – And We’ll Let You Live.
Christopher Manion
Support Trump and get assaulted. Put a Trump bumper sticker on your car and get a smashed window. A Trump yard sign makes you a target for home invaders.
And it’s YOUR fault!
And Trump’s, of course. Because he’s Hitler, you know (long ago our national consciousness lost all sense of evil, and “Hitler” is now the Manichaean universal to designate people who make you feel bad).
Ever since, the world has been full of Hitlers – and they’ve all been assassinated. Saddam Hussein; Osama Bin Laden; Muammar Gaddafi.
R.I.P.
Next on the list? According to Hillary, Donald Trump. And Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, is not amused.
He’s been remarkably adept as assessing the rhetorical devices employed in the campaign, and Hillary, he says, is so desperate that she’s turning a dangerous corner.
So for safety’s sake – his safety –he’s endorsing her.
“If Clinton successfully pairs Trump with Hitler in your mind – as she is doing – and loses anyway, about a quarter of the country will think it is morally justified to assassinate their own leader. I too would feel that way if an actual Hitler came to power in this country. I would join the resistance and try to take out the Hitler-like leader. You should do the same. No one wants an actual President Hitler.
“So I’ve decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, for my personal safety. Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. So I’m taking the safe way out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.”
We’ve been warned.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/
Christopher Manion
Support Trump and get assaulted. Put a Trump bumper sticker on your car and get a smashed window. A Trump yard sign makes you a target for home invaders.
And it’s YOUR fault!
And Trump’s, of course. Because he’s Hitler, you know (long ago our national consciousness lost all sense of evil, and “Hitler” is now the Manichaean universal to designate people who make you feel bad).
Ever since, the world has been full of Hitlers – and they’ve all been assassinated. Saddam Hussein; Osama Bin Laden; Muammar Gaddafi.
R.I.P.
Next on the list? According to Hillary, Donald Trump. And Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, is not amused.
He’s been remarkably adept as assessing the rhetorical devices employed in the campaign, and Hillary, he says, is so desperate that she’s turning a dangerous corner.
So for safety’s sake – his safety –he’s endorsing her.
“If Clinton successfully pairs Trump with Hitler in your mind – as she is doing – and loses anyway, about a quarter of the country will think it is morally justified to assassinate their own leader. I too would feel that way if an actual Hitler came to power in this country. I would join the resistance and try to take out the Hitler-like leader. You should do the same. No one wants an actual President Hitler.
“So I’ve decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, for my personal safety. Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. So I’m taking the safe way out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.”
We’ve been warned.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/
"The criminals running the System at the top are terrified and striking back viciously. But their days are now short."
Americans Are Waking Up to the System
By Jack D. Douglas
As far as I can remember, I have known commonsensically from about the second or third grade [around 1947] that activities like cigarette smoking, boxing, drinking while driving, and many other mass activities in our society are dangerous for your health, your mind [in the case of boxing], and your life [especially in the case of driving while drinking].
I was not a medical genius. I did not know that sunburns could lead over many years to dangerous and life-threatening skin cancers. I did not know of the dangers of long-run sugar consumption. etc.
But those first three dangers seemed obvious from what I could see and heard of routinely in American schools around the country. I saw the coughing fits in the morning and so on among big cigarette smokers like my mother. In the second grade some older boys in Baltimore convinced me to try a cigarette. I couched badly and it hurt. I assumed from then on it was harmful.
From some time early in life I knew about “punch drunk” boxers and I never tried boxing, though I loved sports in general and was very athletic.
Everyone knew that drinking much and driving had deadly relations [later defined as positive correlations].
I’m sure lots of other people have had the same experiences over the centuries. There were doctors two centuries ago who discovered in cases that what we call Parkinson symptoms were probably caused by head blows over years in boxing.
I have “discovered” many other obvious facts about dangers in our society over my long life and actually written a great deal about them over the decades before they were officially discovered. The horrific dangers of multi-drug users by older Americans, especially in the brain, is one example of that. I’ve written lots on that. It’s obvious with no billion-dollar studies that multi-drug use, especially involving brain-mood changes, are a major cause of the soaring Alzheimer’s Medical Plague in our society and other Western societies.
If you are intelligent and follow what is happening in our society, I expect you have the same experience. It’s easy and obvious.
The same things are true about the total corruption at the top of our society in politics, law and judges, the Big Media, etc etc.
Intelligent people see through all the mass mistakes, Big Pharma propaganda, political lies etc. It takes most people many years to “catch on,” but they do eventually. The slaves of totalitarian societies eventually realize their “freedoms” are staged propaganda.
They then revolt against the System and it collapses.
This is happening very fast in America now and Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are helping people to see the total corruption, total lies, total propaganda, hidden evils of the System.
The criminals running the System at the top are terrified and striking back viciously. But their days are now short.
Once people see how the Evil Wizards at the top are rigging the System, they never forget and the whole System soon implodes.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/jack-d-douglas/americans-waking/
By Jack D. Douglas
As far as I can remember, I have known commonsensically from about the second or third grade [around 1947] that activities like cigarette smoking, boxing, drinking while driving, and many other mass activities in our society are dangerous for your health, your mind [in the case of boxing], and your life [especially in the case of driving while drinking].
I was not a medical genius. I did not know that sunburns could lead over many years to dangerous and life-threatening skin cancers. I did not know of the dangers of long-run sugar consumption. etc.
But those first three dangers seemed obvious from what I could see and heard of routinely in American schools around the country. I saw the coughing fits in the morning and so on among big cigarette smokers like my mother. In the second grade some older boys in Baltimore convinced me to try a cigarette. I couched badly and it hurt. I assumed from then on it was harmful.
From some time early in life I knew about “punch drunk” boxers and I never tried boxing, though I loved sports in general and was very athletic.
Everyone knew that drinking much and driving had deadly relations [later defined as positive correlations].
I’m sure lots of other people have had the same experiences over the centuries. There were doctors two centuries ago who discovered in cases that what we call Parkinson symptoms were probably caused by head blows over years in boxing.
I have “discovered” many other obvious facts about dangers in our society over my long life and actually written a great deal about them over the decades before they were officially discovered. The horrific dangers of multi-drug users by older Americans, especially in the brain, is one example of that. I’ve written lots on that. It’s obvious with no billion-dollar studies that multi-drug use, especially involving brain-mood changes, are a major cause of the soaring Alzheimer’s Medical Plague in our society and other Western societies.
If you are intelligent and follow what is happening in our society, I expect you have the same experience. It’s easy and obvious.
The same things are true about the total corruption at the top of our society in politics, law and judges, the Big Media, etc etc.
Intelligent people see through all the mass mistakes, Big Pharma propaganda, political lies etc. It takes most people many years to “catch on,” but they do eventually. The slaves of totalitarian societies eventually realize their “freedoms” are staged propaganda.
They then revolt against the System and it collapses.
This is happening very fast in America now and Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are helping people to see the total corruption, total lies, total propaganda, hidden evils of the System.
The criminals running the System at the top are terrified and striking back viciously. But their days are now short.
Once people see how the Evil Wizards at the top are rigging the System, they never forget and the whole System soon implodes.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/jack-d-douglas/americans-waking/
Absurdity...
The Absurdity of “Gender Identity”
By Laurence M. Vance
Due to the ongoing transgender controversies at public schools around the country, the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, have joined forces to issue a “Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students.”
The letter begins:
In recent years, we have received an increasing number of questions from parents, teachers, principals, and school superintendents about civil rights protections for transgender students. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) and its implementing regulations prohibit sex discrimination in educational programs and activities operated by recipients of Federal financial assistance. This prohibition encompasses discrimination based on a student’s gender identity, including discrimination based on a student’s transgender status.
That “this prohibition encompasses discrimination based on a student’s gender identity, including discrimination based on a student’s transgender status” is, as far as I know, not yet enshrined in federal law. But let’s continue anyway.
Regarding schools receiving federal funds, the letter goes on to say:
As a condition of receiving Federal funds, a school agrees that it will not exclude, separate, deny benefits to, or otherwise treat differently on the basis of sex any person in its educational programs or activities unless expressly authorized to do so under Title IX or its implementing regulations.
Regarding the definition of the word “sex,” the letter explains:
The Departments treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for purposes of Title IX and its implementing regulations. This means that a school must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity. The Departments’ interpretation is consistent with courts’ and other agencies’ interpretations of Federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination.
And as it specifically concerns restrooms and locker rooms, the letter states:
A school may provide separate facilities on the basis of sex, but must allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity. A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual user facilities when other students are not required to do so. A school may, however, make individual user options available to all students who voluntarily seek additional privacy.
But since “gender identity refers to an individual’s internal sense of gender,” and therefore has nothing to do with sex-change surgery, hormones, clothing, sexual orientation, body transformation, sexual practices, or even outward appearance—
Can someone identify as a senior citizen and collect Social Security?
Can someone identify as a resident of Colorado, Alaska, Washington, or Oregon and legally use marijuana recreationally?
Can someone identify as a resident of Missouri and only pay a 17-cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes?
Can someone identify as a college graduate and qualify for a job?
Can someone identify as a new parent and take advantage of a company’s paid family leave?
Can someone identify as a TSA agent and grope people in airports?
Can someone identify as an ex-con and be released from prison?
Can someone identify as a cop and seize cash from motorists?
Can someone identify as a NASCAR driver and disregard the speed limit?
Can someone identify as a minority and take advantage of a company’s Affirmative Action policy to land a good job?
Can someone identify as an unwed mother with three children and get a huge Earned Income Tax Credit?
Can someone identify as a resident of Seattle and get paid a minimum wage of $15 an hour?
Can someone identify as having an income below the poverty level and receive welfare benefits?
Can someone identify as a veteran and get a free or discounted meal on Veterans Day?
Can someone identify as a U.S. Air Marshall and board an airplane with a gun?
Can someone identify as a resident of a state where medical marijuana is legal and smoke a joint when he gets a headache?
Can someone identify as the president and have a hit list of people to be killed?
Can someone identify as a season ticket holder and get free access to Yankee games?
Can someone identify as a senior citizen and get a senior citizen discount?
Can someone identify as a child and take advantage of a “kids eat free” promotion at a restaurant?
If the answer to all of these things is no, then why should a boy be able to identify as a girl and use the girl’s restroom? Why isn’t that idea viewed as just as absurd as all the others I have mentioned?
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/laurence-m-vance/absurdity-gender-identity/
By Laurence M. Vance
Due to the ongoing transgender controversies at public schools around the country, the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, have joined forces to issue a “Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students.”
The letter begins:
In recent years, we have received an increasing number of questions from parents, teachers, principals, and school superintendents about civil rights protections for transgender students. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) and its implementing regulations prohibit sex discrimination in educational programs and activities operated by recipients of Federal financial assistance. This prohibition encompasses discrimination based on a student’s gender identity, including discrimination based on a student’s transgender status.
That “this prohibition encompasses discrimination based on a student’s gender identity, including discrimination based on a student’s transgender status” is, as far as I know, not yet enshrined in federal law. But let’s continue anyway.
Regarding schools receiving federal funds, the letter goes on to say:
As a condition of receiving Federal funds, a school agrees that it will not exclude, separate, deny benefits to, or otherwise treat differently on the basis of sex any person in its educational programs or activities unless expressly authorized to do so under Title IX or its implementing regulations.
Regarding the definition of the word “sex,” the letter explains:
The Departments treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for purposes of Title IX and its implementing regulations. This means that a school must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity. The Departments’ interpretation is consistent with courts’ and other agencies’ interpretations of Federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination.
And as it specifically concerns restrooms and locker rooms, the letter states:
A school may provide separate facilities on the basis of sex, but must allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity. A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual user facilities when other students are not required to do so. A school may, however, make individual user options available to all students who voluntarily seek additional privacy.
But since “gender identity refers to an individual’s internal sense of gender,” and therefore has nothing to do with sex-change surgery, hormones, clothing, sexual orientation, body transformation, sexual practices, or even outward appearance—
Can someone identify as a senior citizen and collect Social Security?
Can someone identify as a resident of Colorado, Alaska, Washington, or Oregon and legally use marijuana recreationally?
Can someone identify as a resident of Missouri and only pay a 17-cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes?
Can someone identify as a college graduate and qualify for a job?
Can someone identify as a new parent and take advantage of a company’s paid family leave?
Can someone identify as a TSA agent and grope people in airports?
Can someone identify as an ex-con and be released from prison?
Can someone identify as a cop and seize cash from motorists?
Can someone identify as a NASCAR driver and disregard the speed limit?
Can someone identify as a minority and take advantage of a company’s Affirmative Action policy to land a good job?
Can someone identify as an unwed mother with three children and get a huge Earned Income Tax Credit?
Can someone identify as a resident of Seattle and get paid a minimum wage of $15 an hour?
Can someone identify as having an income below the poverty level and receive welfare benefits?
Can someone identify as a veteran and get a free or discounted meal on Veterans Day?
Can someone identify as a U.S. Air Marshall and board an airplane with a gun?
Can someone identify as a resident of a state where medical marijuana is legal and smoke a joint when he gets a headache?
Can someone identify as the president and have a hit list of people to be killed?
Can someone identify as a season ticket holder and get free access to Yankee games?
Can someone identify as a senior citizen and get a senior citizen discount?
Can someone identify as a child and take advantage of a “kids eat free” promotion at a restaurant?
If the answer to all of these things is no, then why should a boy be able to identify as a girl and use the girl’s restroom? Why isn’t that idea viewed as just as absurd as all the others I have mentioned?
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/laurence-m-vance/absurdity-gender-identity/
Culling the population...
We Can’t Afford To Cure Cancer
By Bill Sardi
Someone has said there are just too many jobs in the pursuit of a cancer cure to allow any therapy to be proven and put into practice. Recognize the nation is dotted with cancer research centers that hold billions of dollars of debt. For example, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington holds $176 million of debt. [Moody’s Investor Service] Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the nation’s cancer research center, holds $1.9 billion of debt. [Moody’s Investor Service] A cancer cure would leave research centers like these on the hook for loans that could not possibly be paid back.
Better for cancer research centers to live off the $4.95 billion of research grants that get divvied out by the National Institutes of Health each year than to find a cure.
In light of this revelation, the public may be better served by private enterprise that is not reliant on public funding to find a cure for cancer.
While Facebook co-founder Sean Parker has pledged $250 million towards a “moon shot” attempt to cure cancer, donating his money to six cancer research centers [USA Today April 13, 2016], another entrepreneur operating clinics he founded in Austria and Germany is way ahead of the pack having successfully treated thousands of patients, though he had to resurrect a dismissed cancer therapy from its grave, undergo closure of his company by health authorities and incur severe criticism to do it.
New era of immunotherapy
Before I get to that compelling story, let me say cancer therapy is undergoing a massive change. The slash-burn-poison era of cancer therapy may be over. The age of cancer immunotherapy has begun. And I’m not the person saying this. Many cancer researchers are saying immunotherapy is already replacing chemo. Just how much longer conventional oncologists can continue to subject their patients to harsh of cancer treatments is unknown.
An article entitled: “Cancer Immunotherapy: The Beginning Of The End Of Cancer,” says: “the tide has finally changed and immunotherapy has become a clinically validated treatment for cancer cancers.” [BMC Medicine]
The futility of chemotherapy is revealed by the very fact toxic anti-cancer drugs impair a type of white blood cell known as natural killer cells, thus limiting the cancer patient’s chances for a cure altogether. [Molecular Cancer Therapy]
The clock is counting down on chemotherapy as immunotherapy is already producing long-term remissions for some types of cancer, particularly non-solid tumors. Toxic chemotherapy finally comes to the end of its product life cycle.
The goal of cancer immunotherapy is to stimulate a patient’s immune system to recognize cancer cells as foreign and attack them.
The four white blood cells that kill cancer
Cancer immunologists are presently unleashing four types of white blood cells against cancer:
1. Neutrophils, which produced “cancer-proof mice” at Duke University. [Knowledge of Health] Neutrophils track down, dock up next to tumor cells and blow them up with a burst of oxygen free radicals. However, a trial was proposed to glean activated neutrophils from healthy patients and instill them in cancer patients, but it never materialized. It became apparent healthy young subjects exhibit the same immunity from cancer in summer months as laboratory mice bred for their ability to produce neutrophils. This strongly suggests sunlight exposure in summer produces sufficient amounts of vitamin D to reduce cancer risk.
However, instead of launching a vitamin D trial, vitamin-averse researchers ludicrously proposed the removal of activated neutrophils from healthy subjects and instillation in cancer patients because it needed a profitable business model to be successful. What can be concluded is that any natural and inexpensive cancer therapy will be summarily dismissed.
2. T-cells are successfully being harvested from cancer patients, grown in numbers and then activated and instilled back into the patient to produce long-lasting cures for non-solid tumors like leukemia (cancer of the blood) and lymphoma (cancer of the lymph system). [Knowledge of Health]
3. Natural killer cell therapy involves NK cells that inject toxins directly into cancer cells. This is considered the most direct way to conquer cancer because NK cells do not depend on the development of antibodies like T-cells do. [International Journal Molecular Sciences;ResveratrolNews.com]
4. Macrophages that literally digest or engulf roaming cancer cells and are abundant in the environment surrounding solid tumors have long been considered for use in cancer therapy. Since most immunotherapies for cancer have had limited success in solid tumors, focus on macrophages has been intense. [Immunology]
Macrophages (pronunciation) are not all beneficial. There is a Janus face to macrophages.
One type of macrophage actually induces biological chaos at tumor sites – uncontrolled inflammation and suppression of tumor-fighting white blood cells. Tumor cells escape what is called “immune surveillance” via inflammation and produce immune suppressors. Out-of-control macrophages even facilitate the spread (metastasis) of cancer. [Immunity]
Reckless macrophages
Reckless macrophages via their ability to wreak havoc by inducing uncontrolled inflammation not only interfere with the immune system’s ability to ward off cancer but also can, for example, induce inflammation in the lungs due to a viral infection that fills the lungs with fluid, with a potentially deadly outcome. [Respiratory Research] Out of control macrophages are also a major cause of morbidity and mortality in childhood arthritis. [Current Opinion Rheumatology]
These uncontrolled macrophages are responsible for legal blindness induced by wet macular degeneration, a condition where the visual center of the eye (macula) leaks fluid or produces new blood vessels (angiogenesis) in an attempt to deliver oxygen to eye tissues. [Cell Reports; Knowledge of Health]
One group of cancer researchers describe macrophages as “unwitting accomplices in cancer malignancy.” [NPJ Breast Cancer] Another report characterizes macrophages as “corrupt policemen in cancer-related inflammation.” [Advances Cancer Research] A damning revelation here is that conventional chemotherapy can in many instances inhibit the anti-tumor properties of macrophages. [Journal Experimental Medicine]
Dietary factors control macrophage-induced inflammation
Dietary factors may determine whether macrophages are cancer killing or not. For example, it has been demonstrated that high intake of salt converts macrophages into devilish villains that impair the ability of T-cells to control cancer. [Journal Clinical Investigation] Salt is highly alkaline (so much for the alkaline theory of cancer).
A high-fat diet also predisposes macrophages to become inflammatory. [Diabetes]
What can entrain macrophages to seek out and eradicate tumor cells without inducing inflammation and suppression of the very immune system that is attempting to do the same thing?
Enter vitamin D binding protein
Enter vitamin D binding protein, a molecule that facilitates the transport of vitamin D throughout the body. When two enzymes (galactosidase and sialidase) knock off two sugar-like molecules off of vitamin D binding protein, this becomes a unique molecular entity called Gc protein-macrophage activating factor, or gcMAF.
The discovery of the process by which gcMAF is produced was published in 1991 and 1993 by Nobuto Yamamoto, then a noted immunologist at Temple University in Philadelphia. [Immunology]
Dr. Yamamoto comes from a prestigious background having been appointed a full professor of microbiology and immunology at Hahnemann University School of Medicine. [Bloomberg News]
It was Dr. Yamamoto who noted that gcMAF greatly enhances the cancer ingesting properties of macrophages by 3-7 fold. [Proceedings National Academy Sciences 1991]
In 2003 Dr. Yamamoto also noted that gcMAF increased tumoricidal activity without releasing two known activators of inflammation- tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and nitric oxide (NO). [Anticancer Research] GcMAF was like taking wild horses and saddling them to work together as a team against cancer. Were cancer biologists paying attention?
Just 10-50 picograms (a trillionth of a gram) of gcMAF was demonstrated to stimulate the activity of macrophages by 7-9 fold in laboratory mice. [Molecular Immunology]
Dr. Yamamoto fails to carry the torch for gcMAF
Dr. Yamamoto advanced further into his research with gcMAF by administering this blood protein in minuscule amounts to laboratory mice that had tumor cells implanted. A single injection of gcMAF resulted in an average survival time of 21 days (one mouse survived beyond 60 days) whereas untreated mice survived an average of 13 days. Dr. Yamamoto described this curative therapy as “a consequence of sustained macrophage activation by inflammation resulting from the macrophage tumoricidal process. “ [Proceedings Society Experimental Biology Medicine]
Are nagalase enzyme levels a marker of gcMAF activity?
Dr. Yamamoto took another step forward in 1996 by instilling gcMAF into a lab dish with macrophages taken from cancer patients. Dr. Yamamoto reported that an enzyme is known as nagalase (aka alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase) was blocking the conversion of vitamin D binding protein to gcMAF. [Cancer Research] Later Dr. Yamamoto reported nagalase enzyme levels correlate with the size of tumors. [Cancer Research]
Here was Dr. Yamamoto pioneering cancer immunotherapy two decades before it is now being given the spotlight in cancer therapy. Dr. Yamamoto’s work was also validated by other researchers in the field. [Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy] Yet there was no impetus to advance it from the laboratory bench to the bedside of cancer patients.
Then Dr. Yamamoto embarked upon a series of published human studies conducted in Japan and published in 2008 to demonstrate gcMAF had remarkable ability to inhibit nagalase and reduce the size of tumors and produce tumor-free individuals. Dr. Yamamoto’s gcMAF was positively reported to rescue patients battling prostate, breast, lung and colon cancer. [Translational Oncology; International Journal Cancer 2008; Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy]
It was then, in 2008 that I was alerted by a laboratory researcher, Timothy Hubbell, that I should examine the published works of Dr. Yamamoto dealing with gcMAF and cancer. I published an online report about Dr. Yamamoto’s seemingly remarkable discoveries and wondered why the research community wasn’t paying attention. My report drew worldwide attention and broke the story to the public. [LewRockwell.com]
Unexpectedly, Dr. Yamamoto was not pleased with issuance of the report. He claimed only his gcMAF was safe to use. But when asked what plans he had to market it, he provided nebulous answers. I arranged for a major worldwide Fortune-500 company to enter into discussions about licensing his gcMAF, but he never responded to that offer. Cancer patients called him frantically begging for gcMAF, to no avail. Dr. Yamamoto advised me to get a job writing about other topics.
By 2014 the editors of a cancer journal retracted Dr. Yamamoto’s report involving gcMAF and nagalase in breast cancer patients citing irregularities in documentation for institutional review board approval. [International Journal Cancer]
Retraction Watch pilloried Dr. Yamamoto, discrediting his work completely. Inexplicably, the 90+-year old researcher did not respond or comment about the retraction. [Retraction Watch] Was Dr. Yamamoto guilty of fabricating or was he being silenced?
But, as it is pointed out by the besmirched clinic in Europe that is administering gcMAF to cancer patients, there are 142 scientists that have penned research papers regarding gcMAF. [gcMAF.se] If Dr. Yamamoto produced fraudulent research, then what are all these other research scientists doing studying it?
Since 1998 Dr. Yamamoto works at a tax-exempt foundation he established, the Socrates Institute in Philadelphia, which appears to be a very modest operation. [NonProfits] From 1993 thru 2015 he filed for 13 patents involving gcMAF. [Justia Patents]
Yamamoto’s studies questioned
In 2014 The Anticancer Fund pf Belgium delved into the human gcMAF studies conducted under Dr. Yamamoto. They have a Big Pharma director on their board, appear to be funded by Big Pharma, and put forward entirely fraudulent science to get two of Yamamoto’s papers retracted. [gcMAF Truth] They report that institutional review boards for these trials “do not exist.” Dr. Yamamoto’s co-authors “could not be found.” They claim naturally occurring gcMAF in cancer patients is about 4 milligrams/liter of blood, “making the 100 nanograms (used by Yamamoto) meaningless.”
But were researchers in Japan clamming up, cowering from pressure that would surely come and ruin their careers?
These Belgian researchers demanded “adequate randomized controlled trials,” full well knowing they would be unethical. You can’t ethically leave cancer patients to take placebos and die. GcMAF must be compared against existing conventional therapy, and not chemo that degrades it. [Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy] I often remind skeptics that insulin, penicillin, aspirin, nitroglycerin, digoxin and most vaccines came into common use without long-term double-blind placebo-controlled studies.
In the modern pharmaceutical world, drugs are approved if they marginally improve markers of disease, not the disease itself. For example, statin drugs are widely prescribed for cholesterol reduction but have never been shown to significantly reduce mortality, though they do marginally reduce the risk for a non-mortal heart attack (by 3% over 5 years). Cancer drugs are approved if they reduce the size of a tumor by 50% in 30 days regardless of whether they improve survival or not.
Searching for an alternative hypothesis
Another troubling report published in 2009 probed into the mechanism that converts vitamin D binding protein to gcMAF. The claim is that an enzyme, nagalase, degrades gcMAF in cancer patients.
In fact, these researchers show there is a significant amount of the precursor for gcMAF in blood serum of cancer patients (~4 milligrams/liter), which “makes it unlikely there is a depleted gcMAF precursor in cancer patients.” These researchers say “alternative hypotheses must be considered to explain the relative inability of patient serum to activate macrophages.” [Protein Science]
But then again, we refer to the previously mentioned paper published in PLos One in 2010 where it was shown that gcMAF exhibits “a direct and potent effect upon tumor cells in the absence of macrophages.” [PLoS One] GcMAF is taking us on a scientific roller coaster. GcMAF exhibits very potent ability to inhibit tumor cell growth directly. Was this the alternative hypothesis gcMAF researchers were searching for?
Another research study, authored by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Kentucky, showed gcMAF produces “strong inhibitory activity on prostate tumor cells independent of macrophage activation.” By the way, that study was funded by a Department of Defense grant. [PLoS One]
Should gcMAF be renamed DNMAF — direct non-macrophage activating factor?
The unexpected occurred in another recent study. Macrophages were instilled into a dish of breast cancer cells and nothing happened. Tumor cells were unaltered. But when human breast cancer cells were cultured with macrophages that had been previously activated by gcMAF, these macrophages surrounded the breast cancer cells and induced their death. This was anticipated, but the following experiment wasn’t.
Even more striking was when gcMAF was added to a lab dish with breast cancer cells only (no macrophages). Researchers at the University of Firenze, Italy, showed gcMAF-treated tumor cells reverted back to healthy cells! [Multifaceted immunotherapeutic effects of vitamin D-binding protein, 15th International Congress of Immunology, Milan, Italy, Aug. 2013; Anticancer Research] This direct reversion of tumor cells to a healthy state without macrophages should have provoked a top-to-bottom re-think on the dynamic mechanisms exhibited by gcMAF. To view macrophages turning cancer cells back to healthy cells click here.
Maybe gcMAF had little to do with nagalase levels. But researchers could not rule out that the dramatic reduction in breast cancer cells observed in a lab dish emanated from the ability of gcMAF to inhibit angiogenesis.
GcMAF and angiogenesis
Angiogenesis (pronounced an-gee-oh-gen-esis) is a biological phenomenon where blood vessels near oxygen-starved tissues develop new tributaries to nourish tissues with oxygen and other nutrients. In this case, angiogenesis facilitates tumor growth by provision of nutrients.
GcMAF has been shown to inhibit the sprouting of new blood vessels that feed tumors . [Angiogenesis; Neoplasia]
Researchers also demonstrated vitamin D3, the natural form of D, works synergistically with gcMAF. [Nutrients]
These researchers showed gcMAF has multiple biological activities, notably its interaction with the cell surface receptor for vitamin D, that could be responsible for its seven anti-cancer effects.” GcMAF’s ability to activate macrophages may be overemphasized. It exerts other powerful biological actions to quell cancer.
This compelling experiment involving the vitamin D cell surface receptor was performed by the very same researchers affiliated with Immuno Biotech Ltd., the maligned company in Europe that makes gcMAF (more below).
And let’s not overlook the fact that vitamin D itself, a synergistic co-factor with gcMAF, activate two other classes of cancer-killing white blood cells – neutrophils and natural killer cells. [Journal Pediatric Hematology Oncology; Knowledge of Health; Clinical Immunology Immunopathology]
Attempts to make a synthetic gcMAF
If gcMAF were an outright fraud, then why are research centers attempting to develop look-alike molecules (analogues) to make into patentable drugs? Efforts to synthetically produce molecular mimics of gcMAF date back to 2002. [Anticancer Research] Other researchers reported their attempt to produce a patentable gcMAF synthetic in 2006. [Journal American Chemical Society]
David Noakes, uncloaked
That businessman mentioned in the opening page of this report, who has founded the gcMAF clinics in Europe, is tech entrepreneur David Noakes. His broad-based team of researchers has, like Dr. Yamamoto, shown that gcMAF decreases nagalase levels in patients with advanced-stage cancer. As nagalase activity diminished with weekly gcMAF injections, patients experienced improvement. [Oncoimmunology]
Mr. Noakes’ company, Immuno Biotech, sponsored another study that demonstrated how gcMAF complexes with olive oil (oleic acid) to further stimulate its immune-therapeutic effect. This curative effect was visibly observed in ultrasound images of human cancer that confirmed reduction in tumor size from 8.7 to 49.2% within 1-4 weeks of gcMAF/oleic acid treatment among humans with stage-4 cancer.
This answers the criticism lodged at Dr. Yamamoto that he never provided evidence of tumor shrinkage, only evidence of reduced nagalase activity, and he only chose patients with early-stage cancer. [American Journal Immunology] David Noakes finally provided the evidence Dr. Yamamoto couldn’t produce. The absence of side effects was also noted.
Immuno Biotech provides evidence for examination
Immuno Biotech has 33 scientific research papers currently published on the mechanisms and results of gcMAF therapy for cancer, autism and other disorders. There are now over 200 scientists who have published over 120 research papers on gcMAF. [Immuno Biotech] Its website cites an 80% response rate (reduction in tumor size for Stage 1 and Stage II cancer).
In their experience at Immuno Biotech, late-stage cancer may require up to 18 months of treatment to become cancer free.
Immuno Biotech asks all of its cancer patients to adhere to a no-added sugar/ low carbohydrate diet and to supplement their diet with 10,000 units of vitamin D. [gcMAF Science]
Typical experiences of individual patients who have undergone gcMAF treatment during the years 2011-2013 are also provided online. [gcMAF Participants]
As a human protein, GcMAF has no side effects. [gcMAF Side Effects]
David Noakes can be heard delivering an oral presentation on YouTube about Immuno Biotech’s gcMAF cancer therapy. [YouTube]
According to information obtained online, Immuno Biotech currently employs five doctors at its clinics. GcMAF is injected directly into the tumor using ultrasound imaging. Mr. Noakes clinics generally provide gcMAF for a period of 3-4 weeks and then patients are sent home to receive it on their own. In general by the first week a 25% reduction in tumor size is achieved (range 8-40% reduction).
He says his company has supplied gcMAF now to 11,000 patients. He also supplies 100 clinics and 250 doctors around the world with genuine gcMAF. His company also offers an improved dropper form of gcMAF.
Recognize, it is difficult for a company like Immuno Biotech to provide data on cure rates since 5-year survival is the gold standard.
Is this a health quack?
A distant assessment does not reveal David Noakes to be acting like the health quack he is portrayed to be online. In fact, all of the evidence demanded of Dr. Nobuto Yamamoto, David Noakes seems to have provided – mechanism studies, survival data, ultrasound images of shrinking tumor volume that correlate with gcMAF therapy.
Authorities close in
Despite his transparency, David Noakes has undergone considerable scrutiny by authorities. Shamefully, that oversight was coming from a country whose cancer survival rate is the worst in western Europe. [Telegraph UK]
Where are the dead bodies?
As we ask in the natural medicine business, “where are the dead bodies?” With all of the clamor about gcMAF being branded as an unlicensed health product that poses “a significant risk to health,” [ITV.com] it is difficult to find a cancer patient who feels he was bilked by Mr. Noakes.
While the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), an agency bereft with corruption itself [MHRA Corrupt], raised concerns whether the gcMAF product is sterile and free from contamination, no product-related infections were reported. [BBC News] Mr. Noakes explains his company’s gcMAF product goes through 22 steps of purification. Batch testing for sterility by an independent laboratory are reported to show perfect sterility for 5 years.
Hundreds of people in Guernsey applied pressure on their doctors and politicians to maintain gcMAF therapy but it was banned on the isle Guernsey in February of 2015 anyway. [Guernsey Press]
Health authorities demand gcMAF be synthetically produced and undergo drug testing, something that would, according to Mr. Noakes, cost around $20 million and take 5 years to gain approval. Immuno Biotech’s laboratories have made two forms of a synthetic gcMAF, but human drug trials are not likely to happen, says Mr. Noakes.
In The Guernsey Press, a letter (abridged) to the editor read:
Mike13768
July 18, 2014 7:32 pm
Up until recently I was a complete skeptic about Gcmaf, however events in the last few weeks have made me reconsider my position.
I have recently met with several people who have been told that they have terminal cancer and there were no avenues left for their treatment.
These people have taken Gcmaf and also have changed their lifestyle and have fantastic results. One lady who was diagnosed as terminal is now completely clear, whilst another gentleman has had his tumor shrunk by over 50%
I was at David Noakes house two weeks ago along with over 80 other people there, deputies from the local cancer charities and people who were currently receiving treatment. What strikes me about this treatment is the conspiracy of silence about it. For example I know of a local cancer charity whose board members will not actively talk about it for fear of upsetting certain other board members.
I am also aware that the local clinicians refuse to acknowledge this treatment for fear of upsetting Health & Social Services Department (HSSD). People who are in hospices are not made aware of this potential treatment and let’s be brutal about this if you are dying what have you got to lose.
I urge the cancer charities to acknowledge this is your job is to promote treatments to get rid of this disease. If charities fail to acknowledge this, the question begs to be asked “WHY,” what are they hiding from?
[Guernsey Press July 18, 2014]
Deaths of researchers surrounds gcMAF
This report will not delve into the unexplained deaths of clinicians and researchers associated with gcMAF [Global Research] except to say that early on in 2009, Narasimha Swamy PhD of Brown University, who had knowledge how to produce gcMAF, died suddenly at age 39 without a history of any health problems. He authored and co-authored papers on gcMAF. [National Library of Medicine] It was an untimely if not a suspicious death. Did Dr. Swamy plan to bring gcMAF back to his homeland of India where generic drug makers would distribute it globally without regulatory approvals? Who knows?
Health product licensing and manufacturing oversight have become roadblocks to innovation, not assurances a product is safe and effective. The public can see through this now.
Culling the population
In the UK the National Health Service is billions of dollars in debt. [The Guardian UK] Hospitals there have resorted to withdrawing drinking water from bedridden patients, which is the perfect way to cull this patient population, as it leaves no fingerprints. According to one news report, 12,000 are “killed” annually in British hospitals due to dehydration. [Mirror UK] Elderly patients report they have averted dehydration by drinking water from flower vases.
A more horrific report delivered to the Royal Society of Medicine in London by a leading professor of medicine claims 130,000 patients annually in the National Health Service system have been placed on a “death pathway” instead of a “care pathway.” [Daily Mail UK]
It’s not just physician greed nor Big Pharma profiteering, it’s something much more ghastly that keeps cancer from being cured. Health systems worldwide are underfunded. Health systems can’t afford a cancer cure. For the good of insolvent retirement and health trust funds and life insurance companies the elderly must die on time. That is the hidden determinant that blocks adoption of any cancer cure.
For those who wish to learn more about gcMAF, Dr. Tim Smith has written a free online book on the topic. [gcMAF book]
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/bill-sardi/cant-afford-cure-cancer/
By Bill Sardi
Someone has said there are just too many jobs in the pursuit of a cancer cure to allow any therapy to be proven and put into practice. Recognize the nation is dotted with cancer research centers that hold billions of dollars of debt. For example, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington holds $176 million of debt. [Moody’s Investor Service] Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the nation’s cancer research center, holds $1.9 billion of debt. [Moody’s Investor Service] A cancer cure would leave research centers like these on the hook for loans that could not possibly be paid back.
Better for cancer research centers to live off the $4.95 billion of research grants that get divvied out by the National Institutes of Health each year than to find a cure.
In light of this revelation, the public may be better served by private enterprise that is not reliant on public funding to find a cure for cancer.
While Facebook co-founder Sean Parker has pledged $250 million towards a “moon shot” attempt to cure cancer, donating his money to six cancer research centers [USA Today April 13, 2016], another entrepreneur operating clinics he founded in Austria and Germany is way ahead of the pack having successfully treated thousands of patients, though he had to resurrect a dismissed cancer therapy from its grave, undergo closure of his company by health authorities and incur severe criticism to do it.
New era of immunotherapy
Before I get to that compelling story, let me say cancer therapy is undergoing a massive change. The slash-burn-poison era of cancer therapy may be over. The age of cancer immunotherapy has begun. And I’m not the person saying this. Many cancer researchers are saying immunotherapy is already replacing chemo. Just how much longer conventional oncologists can continue to subject their patients to harsh of cancer treatments is unknown.
An article entitled: “Cancer Immunotherapy: The Beginning Of The End Of Cancer,” says: “the tide has finally changed and immunotherapy has become a clinically validated treatment for cancer cancers.” [BMC Medicine]
The futility of chemotherapy is revealed by the very fact toxic anti-cancer drugs impair a type of white blood cell known as natural killer cells, thus limiting the cancer patient’s chances for a cure altogether. [Molecular Cancer Therapy]
The clock is counting down on chemotherapy as immunotherapy is already producing long-term remissions for some types of cancer, particularly non-solid tumors. Toxic chemotherapy finally comes to the end of its product life cycle.
The goal of cancer immunotherapy is to stimulate a patient’s immune system to recognize cancer cells as foreign and attack them.
The four white blood cells that kill cancer
Cancer immunologists are presently unleashing four types of white blood cells against cancer:
1. Neutrophils, which produced “cancer-proof mice” at Duke University. [Knowledge of Health] Neutrophils track down, dock up next to tumor cells and blow them up with a burst of oxygen free radicals. However, a trial was proposed to glean activated neutrophils from healthy patients and instill them in cancer patients, but it never materialized. It became apparent healthy young subjects exhibit the same immunity from cancer in summer months as laboratory mice bred for their ability to produce neutrophils. This strongly suggests sunlight exposure in summer produces sufficient amounts of vitamin D to reduce cancer risk.
However, instead of launching a vitamin D trial, vitamin-averse researchers ludicrously proposed the removal of activated neutrophils from healthy subjects and instillation in cancer patients because it needed a profitable business model to be successful. What can be concluded is that any natural and inexpensive cancer therapy will be summarily dismissed.
2. T-cells are successfully being harvested from cancer patients, grown in numbers and then activated and instilled back into the patient to produce long-lasting cures for non-solid tumors like leukemia (cancer of the blood) and lymphoma (cancer of the lymph system). [Knowledge of Health]
3. Natural killer cell therapy involves NK cells that inject toxins directly into cancer cells. This is considered the most direct way to conquer cancer because NK cells do not depend on the development of antibodies like T-cells do. [International Journal Molecular Sciences;ResveratrolNews.com]
4. Macrophages that literally digest or engulf roaming cancer cells and are abundant in the environment surrounding solid tumors have long been considered for use in cancer therapy. Since most immunotherapies for cancer have had limited success in solid tumors, focus on macrophages has been intense. [Immunology]
Macrophages (pronunciation) are not all beneficial. There is a Janus face to macrophages.
One type of macrophage actually induces biological chaos at tumor sites – uncontrolled inflammation and suppression of tumor-fighting white blood cells. Tumor cells escape what is called “immune surveillance” via inflammation and produce immune suppressors. Out-of-control macrophages even facilitate the spread (metastasis) of cancer. [Immunity]
Reckless macrophages
Reckless macrophages via their ability to wreak havoc by inducing uncontrolled inflammation not only interfere with the immune system’s ability to ward off cancer but also can, for example, induce inflammation in the lungs due to a viral infection that fills the lungs with fluid, with a potentially deadly outcome. [Respiratory Research] Out of control macrophages are also a major cause of morbidity and mortality in childhood arthritis. [Current Opinion Rheumatology]
These uncontrolled macrophages are responsible for legal blindness induced by wet macular degeneration, a condition where the visual center of the eye (macula) leaks fluid or produces new blood vessels (angiogenesis) in an attempt to deliver oxygen to eye tissues. [Cell Reports; Knowledge of Health]
One group of cancer researchers describe macrophages as “unwitting accomplices in cancer malignancy.” [NPJ Breast Cancer] Another report characterizes macrophages as “corrupt policemen in cancer-related inflammation.” [Advances Cancer Research] A damning revelation here is that conventional chemotherapy can in many instances inhibit the anti-tumor properties of macrophages. [Journal Experimental Medicine]
Dietary factors control macrophage-induced inflammation
Dietary factors may determine whether macrophages are cancer killing or not. For example, it has been demonstrated that high intake of salt converts macrophages into devilish villains that impair the ability of T-cells to control cancer. [Journal Clinical Investigation] Salt is highly alkaline (so much for the alkaline theory of cancer).
A high-fat diet also predisposes macrophages to become inflammatory. [Diabetes]
What can entrain macrophages to seek out and eradicate tumor cells without inducing inflammation and suppression of the very immune system that is attempting to do the same thing?
Enter vitamin D binding protein
Enter vitamin D binding protein, a molecule that facilitates the transport of vitamin D throughout the body. When two enzymes (galactosidase and sialidase) knock off two sugar-like molecules off of vitamin D binding protein, this becomes a unique molecular entity called Gc protein-macrophage activating factor, or gcMAF.
The discovery of the process by which gcMAF is produced was published in 1991 and 1993 by Nobuto Yamamoto, then a noted immunologist at Temple University in Philadelphia. [Immunology]
Dr. Yamamoto comes from a prestigious background having been appointed a full professor of microbiology and immunology at Hahnemann University School of Medicine. [Bloomberg News]
It was Dr. Yamamoto who noted that gcMAF greatly enhances the cancer ingesting properties of macrophages by 3-7 fold. [Proceedings National Academy Sciences 1991]
In 2003 Dr. Yamamoto also noted that gcMAF increased tumoricidal activity without releasing two known activators of inflammation- tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and nitric oxide (NO). [Anticancer Research] GcMAF was like taking wild horses and saddling them to work together as a team against cancer. Were cancer biologists paying attention?
Just 10-50 picograms (a trillionth of a gram) of gcMAF was demonstrated to stimulate the activity of macrophages by 7-9 fold in laboratory mice. [Molecular Immunology]
Dr. Yamamoto fails to carry the torch for gcMAF
Dr. Yamamoto advanced further into his research with gcMAF by administering this blood protein in minuscule amounts to laboratory mice that had tumor cells implanted. A single injection of gcMAF resulted in an average survival time of 21 days (one mouse survived beyond 60 days) whereas untreated mice survived an average of 13 days. Dr. Yamamoto described this curative therapy as “a consequence of sustained macrophage activation by inflammation resulting from the macrophage tumoricidal process. “ [Proceedings Society Experimental Biology Medicine]
Are nagalase enzyme levels a marker of gcMAF activity?
Dr. Yamamoto took another step forward in 1996 by instilling gcMAF into a lab dish with macrophages taken from cancer patients. Dr. Yamamoto reported that an enzyme is known as nagalase (aka alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase) was blocking the conversion of vitamin D binding protein to gcMAF. [Cancer Research] Later Dr. Yamamoto reported nagalase enzyme levels correlate with the size of tumors. [Cancer Research]
Here was Dr. Yamamoto pioneering cancer immunotherapy two decades before it is now being given the spotlight in cancer therapy. Dr. Yamamoto’s work was also validated by other researchers in the field. [Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy] Yet there was no impetus to advance it from the laboratory bench to the bedside of cancer patients.
Then Dr. Yamamoto embarked upon a series of published human studies conducted in Japan and published in 2008 to demonstrate gcMAF had remarkable ability to inhibit nagalase and reduce the size of tumors and produce tumor-free individuals. Dr. Yamamoto’s gcMAF was positively reported to rescue patients battling prostate, breast, lung and colon cancer. [Translational Oncology; International Journal Cancer 2008; Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy]
It was then, in 2008 that I was alerted by a laboratory researcher, Timothy Hubbell, that I should examine the published works of Dr. Yamamoto dealing with gcMAF and cancer. I published an online report about Dr. Yamamoto’s seemingly remarkable discoveries and wondered why the research community wasn’t paying attention. My report drew worldwide attention and broke the story to the public. [LewRockwell.com]
Unexpectedly, Dr. Yamamoto was not pleased with issuance of the report. He claimed only his gcMAF was safe to use. But when asked what plans he had to market it, he provided nebulous answers. I arranged for a major worldwide Fortune-500 company to enter into discussions about licensing his gcMAF, but he never responded to that offer. Cancer patients called him frantically begging for gcMAF, to no avail. Dr. Yamamoto advised me to get a job writing about other topics.
By 2014 the editors of a cancer journal retracted Dr. Yamamoto’s report involving gcMAF and nagalase in breast cancer patients citing irregularities in documentation for institutional review board approval. [International Journal Cancer]
Retraction Watch pilloried Dr. Yamamoto, discrediting his work completely. Inexplicably, the 90+-year old researcher did not respond or comment about the retraction. [Retraction Watch] Was Dr. Yamamoto guilty of fabricating or was he being silenced?
But, as it is pointed out by the besmirched clinic in Europe that is administering gcMAF to cancer patients, there are 142 scientists that have penned research papers regarding gcMAF. [gcMAF.se] If Dr. Yamamoto produced fraudulent research, then what are all these other research scientists doing studying it?
Since 1998 Dr. Yamamoto works at a tax-exempt foundation he established, the Socrates Institute in Philadelphia, which appears to be a very modest operation. [NonProfits] From 1993 thru 2015 he filed for 13 patents involving gcMAF. [Justia Patents]
Yamamoto’s studies questioned
In 2014 The Anticancer Fund pf Belgium delved into the human gcMAF studies conducted under Dr. Yamamoto. They have a Big Pharma director on their board, appear to be funded by Big Pharma, and put forward entirely fraudulent science to get two of Yamamoto’s papers retracted. [gcMAF Truth] They report that institutional review boards for these trials “do not exist.” Dr. Yamamoto’s co-authors “could not be found.” They claim naturally occurring gcMAF in cancer patients is about 4 milligrams/liter of blood, “making the 100 nanograms (used by Yamamoto) meaningless.”
But were researchers in Japan clamming up, cowering from pressure that would surely come and ruin their careers?
These Belgian researchers demanded “adequate randomized controlled trials,” full well knowing they would be unethical. You can’t ethically leave cancer patients to take placebos and die. GcMAF must be compared against existing conventional therapy, and not chemo that degrades it. [Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy] I often remind skeptics that insulin, penicillin, aspirin, nitroglycerin, digoxin and most vaccines came into common use without long-term double-blind placebo-controlled studies.
In the modern pharmaceutical world, drugs are approved if they marginally improve markers of disease, not the disease itself. For example, statin drugs are widely prescribed for cholesterol reduction but have never been shown to significantly reduce mortality, though they do marginally reduce the risk for a non-mortal heart attack (by 3% over 5 years). Cancer drugs are approved if they reduce the size of a tumor by 50% in 30 days regardless of whether they improve survival or not.
Searching for an alternative hypothesis
Another troubling report published in 2009 probed into the mechanism that converts vitamin D binding protein to gcMAF. The claim is that an enzyme, nagalase, degrades gcMAF in cancer patients.
In fact, these researchers show there is a significant amount of the precursor for gcMAF in blood serum of cancer patients (~4 milligrams/liter), which “makes it unlikely there is a depleted gcMAF precursor in cancer patients.” These researchers say “alternative hypotheses must be considered to explain the relative inability of patient serum to activate macrophages.” [Protein Science]
But then again, we refer to the previously mentioned paper published in PLos One in 2010 where it was shown that gcMAF exhibits “a direct and potent effect upon tumor cells in the absence of macrophages.” [PLoS One] GcMAF is taking us on a scientific roller coaster. GcMAF exhibits very potent ability to inhibit tumor cell growth directly. Was this the alternative hypothesis gcMAF researchers were searching for?
Another research study, authored by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Kentucky, showed gcMAF produces “strong inhibitory activity on prostate tumor cells independent of macrophage activation.” By the way, that study was funded by a Department of Defense grant. [PLoS One]
Should gcMAF be renamed DNMAF — direct non-macrophage activating factor?
The unexpected occurred in another recent study. Macrophages were instilled into a dish of breast cancer cells and nothing happened. Tumor cells were unaltered. But when human breast cancer cells were cultured with macrophages that had been previously activated by gcMAF, these macrophages surrounded the breast cancer cells and induced their death. This was anticipated, but the following experiment wasn’t.
Even more striking was when gcMAF was added to a lab dish with breast cancer cells only (no macrophages). Researchers at the University of Firenze, Italy, showed gcMAF-treated tumor cells reverted back to healthy cells! [Multifaceted immunotherapeutic effects of vitamin D-binding protein, 15th International Congress of Immunology, Milan, Italy, Aug. 2013; Anticancer Research] This direct reversion of tumor cells to a healthy state without macrophages should have provoked a top-to-bottom re-think on the dynamic mechanisms exhibited by gcMAF. To view macrophages turning cancer cells back to healthy cells click here.
Maybe gcMAF had little to do with nagalase levels. But researchers could not rule out that the dramatic reduction in breast cancer cells observed in a lab dish emanated from the ability of gcMAF to inhibit angiogenesis.
GcMAF and angiogenesis
Angiogenesis (pronounced an-gee-oh-gen-esis) is a biological phenomenon where blood vessels near oxygen-starved tissues develop new tributaries to nourish tissues with oxygen and other nutrients. In this case, angiogenesis facilitates tumor growth by provision of nutrients.
GcMAF has been shown to inhibit the sprouting of new blood vessels that feed tumors . [Angiogenesis; Neoplasia]
Researchers also demonstrated vitamin D3, the natural form of D, works synergistically with gcMAF. [Nutrients]
These researchers showed gcMAF has multiple biological activities, notably its interaction with the cell surface receptor for vitamin D, that could be responsible for its seven anti-cancer effects.” GcMAF’s ability to activate macrophages may be overemphasized. It exerts other powerful biological actions to quell cancer.
This compelling experiment involving the vitamin D cell surface receptor was performed by the very same researchers affiliated with Immuno Biotech Ltd., the maligned company in Europe that makes gcMAF (more below).
And let’s not overlook the fact that vitamin D itself, a synergistic co-factor with gcMAF, activate two other classes of cancer-killing white blood cells – neutrophils and natural killer cells. [Journal Pediatric Hematology Oncology; Knowledge of Health; Clinical Immunology Immunopathology]
Attempts to make a synthetic gcMAF
If gcMAF were an outright fraud, then why are research centers attempting to develop look-alike molecules (analogues) to make into patentable drugs? Efforts to synthetically produce molecular mimics of gcMAF date back to 2002. [Anticancer Research] Other researchers reported their attempt to produce a patentable gcMAF synthetic in 2006. [Journal American Chemical Society]
David Noakes, uncloaked
That businessman mentioned in the opening page of this report, who has founded the gcMAF clinics in Europe, is tech entrepreneur David Noakes. His broad-based team of researchers has, like Dr. Yamamoto, shown that gcMAF decreases nagalase levels in patients with advanced-stage cancer. As nagalase activity diminished with weekly gcMAF injections, patients experienced improvement. [Oncoimmunology]
Mr. Noakes’ company, Immuno Biotech, sponsored another study that demonstrated how gcMAF complexes with olive oil (oleic acid) to further stimulate its immune-therapeutic effect. This curative effect was visibly observed in ultrasound images of human cancer that confirmed reduction in tumor size from 8.7 to 49.2% within 1-4 weeks of gcMAF/oleic acid treatment among humans with stage-4 cancer.
This answers the criticism lodged at Dr. Yamamoto that he never provided evidence of tumor shrinkage, only evidence of reduced nagalase activity, and he only chose patients with early-stage cancer. [American Journal Immunology] David Noakes finally provided the evidence Dr. Yamamoto couldn’t produce. The absence of side effects was also noted.
Immuno Biotech provides evidence for examination
Immuno Biotech has 33 scientific research papers currently published on the mechanisms and results of gcMAF therapy for cancer, autism and other disorders. There are now over 200 scientists who have published over 120 research papers on gcMAF. [Immuno Biotech] Its website cites an 80% response rate (reduction in tumor size for Stage 1 and Stage II cancer).
In their experience at Immuno Biotech, late-stage cancer may require up to 18 months of treatment to become cancer free.
Immuno Biotech asks all of its cancer patients to adhere to a no-added sugar/ low carbohydrate diet and to supplement their diet with 10,000 units of vitamin D. [gcMAF Science]
Typical experiences of individual patients who have undergone gcMAF treatment during the years 2011-2013 are also provided online. [gcMAF Participants]
As a human protein, GcMAF has no side effects. [gcMAF Side Effects]
David Noakes can be heard delivering an oral presentation on YouTube about Immuno Biotech’s gcMAF cancer therapy. [YouTube]
According to information obtained online, Immuno Biotech currently employs five doctors at its clinics. GcMAF is injected directly into the tumor using ultrasound imaging. Mr. Noakes clinics generally provide gcMAF for a period of 3-4 weeks and then patients are sent home to receive it on their own. In general by the first week a 25% reduction in tumor size is achieved (range 8-40% reduction).
He says his company has supplied gcMAF now to 11,000 patients. He also supplies 100 clinics and 250 doctors around the world with genuine gcMAF. His company also offers an improved dropper form of gcMAF.
Recognize, it is difficult for a company like Immuno Biotech to provide data on cure rates since 5-year survival is the gold standard.
Is this a health quack?
A distant assessment does not reveal David Noakes to be acting like the health quack he is portrayed to be online. In fact, all of the evidence demanded of Dr. Nobuto Yamamoto, David Noakes seems to have provided – mechanism studies, survival data, ultrasound images of shrinking tumor volume that correlate with gcMAF therapy.
Authorities close in
Despite his transparency, David Noakes has undergone considerable scrutiny by authorities. Shamefully, that oversight was coming from a country whose cancer survival rate is the worst in western Europe. [Telegraph UK]
Where are the dead bodies?
As we ask in the natural medicine business, “where are the dead bodies?” With all of the clamor about gcMAF being branded as an unlicensed health product that poses “a significant risk to health,” [ITV.com] it is difficult to find a cancer patient who feels he was bilked by Mr. Noakes.
While the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), an agency bereft with corruption itself [MHRA Corrupt], raised concerns whether the gcMAF product is sterile and free from contamination, no product-related infections were reported. [BBC News] Mr. Noakes explains his company’s gcMAF product goes through 22 steps of purification. Batch testing for sterility by an independent laboratory are reported to show perfect sterility for 5 years.
Hundreds of people in Guernsey applied pressure on their doctors and politicians to maintain gcMAF therapy but it was banned on the isle Guernsey in February of 2015 anyway. [Guernsey Press]
Health authorities demand gcMAF be synthetically produced and undergo drug testing, something that would, according to Mr. Noakes, cost around $20 million and take 5 years to gain approval. Immuno Biotech’s laboratories have made two forms of a synthetic gcMAF, but human drug trials are not likely to happen, says Mr. Noakes.
In The Guernsey Press, a letter (abridged) to the editor read:
Mike13768
July 18, 2014 7:32 pm
Up until recently I was a complete skeptic about Gcmaf, however events in the last few weeks have made me reconsider my position.
I have recently met with several people who have been told that they have terminal cancer and there were no avenues left for their treatment.
These people have taken Gcmaf and also have changed their lifestyle and have fantastic results. One lady who was diagnosed as terminal is now completely clear, whilst another gentleman has had his tumor shrunk by over 50%
I was at David Noakes house two weeks ago along with over 80 other people there, deputies from the local cancer charities and people who were currently receiving treatment. What strikes me about this treatment is the conspiracy of silence about it. For example I know of a local cancer charity whose board members will not actively talk about it for fear of upsetting certain other board members.
I am also aware that the local clinicians refuse to acknowledge this treatment for fear of upsetting Health & Social Services Department (HSSD). People who are in hospices are not made aware of this potential treatment and let’s be brutal about this if you are dying what have you got to lose.
I urge the cancer charities to acknowledge this is your job is to promote treatments to get rid of this disease. If charities fail to acknowledge this, the question begs to be asked “WHY,” what are they hiding from?
[Guernsey Press July 18, 2014]
Deaths of researchers surrounds gcMAF
This report will not delve into the unexplained deaths of clinicians and researchers associated with gcMAF [Global Research] except to say that early on in 2009, Narasimha Swamy PhD of Brown University, who had knowledge how to produce gcMAF, died suddenly at age 39 without a history of any health problems. He authored and co-authored papers on gcMAF. [National Library of Medicine] It was an untimely if not a suspicious death. Did Dr. Swamy plan to bring gcMAF back to his homeland of India where generic drug makers would distribute it globally without regulatory approvals? Who knows?
Health product licensing and manufacturing oversight have become roadblocks to innovation, not assurances a product is safe and effective. The public can see through this now.
Culling the population
In the UK the National Health Service is billions of dollars in debt. [The Guardian UK] Hospitals there have resorted to withdrawing drinking water from bedridden patients, which is the perfect way to cull this patient population, as it leaves no fingerprints. According to one news report, 12,000 are “killed” annually in British hospitals due to dehydration. [Mirror UK] Elderly patients report they have averted dehydration by drinking water from flower vases.
A more horrific report delivered to the Royal Society of Medicine in London by a leading professor of medicine claims 130,000 patients annually in the National Health Service system have been placed on a “death pathway” instead of a “care pathway.” [Daily Mail UK]
It’s not just physician greed nor Big Pharma profiteering, it’s something much more ghastly that keeps cancer from being cured. Health systems worldwide are underfunded. Health systems can’t afford a cancer cure. For the good of insolvent retirement and health trust funds and life insurance companies the elderly must die on time. That is the hidden determinant that blocks adoption of any cancer cure.
For those who wish to learn more about gcMAF, Dr. Tim Smith has written a free online book on the topic. [gcMAF book]
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/bill-sardi/cant-afford-cure-cancer/
Saturday, June 4, 2016
NATO Needs Enemies to Justify Its Existence...
Provoking Moscow: NATO Needs Enemies to Justify Its Existence
By Stephen Lendman
NATO was always more about offense than defense, about America controlling the policies of Alliance members, increasing their numbers, pressuring them to stress militarism more than they’d chose otherwise – and selling them lots of US weapons.
When founded in April 1949, Soviet Russia was a North Atlantic Alliance enemy in name only, ravaged by WW II – needing years after Stalin’s April 1953 death to regain pre-war normality, peace essential to restore it.
Washington controls NATO, covering 75% of its budget, calling the shots, installing subservient Alliance officials to serve its agenda.
At a time when no US enemies exist, they’re invented to justify NATO’s existence – including Milosevic, bin Laden and the Taliban, Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad, Yemeni Houthis, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and independent democratic leaders everywhere America doesn’t control.
Cold War II is much more intense than its earlier version, Putin bashed and denigrated shamelessly for not bowing to Washington’s will, for wanting multi-world polarity according to international rule of law principles.
Russia’s envoy to NATO, Alexandr Grushkko, understands how US-dominated NATO operates, its aims and ways whereby it justifies its existence.
It pressured Europe to treat peaceful, good neighbor Russia as a major adversarial threat – at a time it seeks mutual cooperation among all nations, a world at peace, and nuclear disarmament, polar opposite to America’s agenda.
Russian diplomacy can’t change US-led NATO’s rage for war, waging endless ones, spurning peace and stability, promoting American interests belligerently “from Greenland to the Caspian Sea, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Levant,” said Grushko.
“The question is where is the US and where is the Caspian Sea,” each distant from the other, Moscow not about to let it become a US-dominated NATO lake – while concentrating its own military strength within its borders, polar opposite America’s empire of bases.
Provoking Moscow with US-led NATO combat troops and warships near its borders, so-called missile defense systems entirely for offense, hyping nonexistent “Russian aggression,” denigrating its legitimacy, and falsely calling it America’s greatest threat risks East/West confrontation with super-weapons able to end life on earth.
Speaking in Warsaw on Tuesday, US-installed NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg hyped “the importance of collective security (and) NATO’s (so-called) essential role in continuing to keep the peace” while claiming a nonexistent “more assertive Russia intimidat(es) its neighbors and chang(es) borders by force.”
Truth is polar opposite his willful Big Lies, bashing Putin, claiming he threatens continental security, ignoring his preeminent peacemaker role.
Instead of Europe seeking peaceful, cooperative relations with its important Russian neighbor, it lets Washington bully it into being an imperial tool – harming its welfare and security in the process.
Link:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/provoking-moscow-nato-needs-enemies-to-justify-its-existence/5528577
By Stephen Lendman
NATO was always more about offense than defense, about America controlling the policies of Alliance members, increasing their numbers, pressuring them to stress militarism more than they’d chose otherwise – and selling them lots of US weapons.
When founded in April 1949, Soviet Russia was a North Atlantic Alliance enemy in name only, ravaged by WW II – needing years after Stalin’s April 1953 death to regain pre-war normality, peace essential to restore it.
Washington controls NATO, covering 75% of its budget, calling the shots, installing subservient Alliance officials to serve its agenda.
At a time when no US enemies exist, they’re invented to justify NATO’s existence – including Milosevic, bin Laden and the Taliban, Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad, Yemeni Houthis, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and independent democratic leaders everywhere America doesn’t control.
Cold War II is much more intense than its earlier version, Putin bashed and denigrated shamelessly for not bowing to Washington’s will, for wanting multi-world polarity according to international rule of law principles.
Russia’s envoy to NATO, Alexandr Grushkko, understands how US-dominated NATO operates, its aims and ways whereby it justifies its existence.
It pressured Europe to treat peaceful, good neighbor Russia as a major adversarial threat – at a time it seeks mutual cooperation among all nations, a world at peace, and nuclear disarmament, polar opposite to America’s agenda.
Russian diplomacy can’t change US-led NATO’s rage for war, waging endless ones, spurning peace and stability, promoting American interests belligerently “from Greenland to the Caspian Sea, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Levant,” said Grushko.
“The question is where is the US and where is the Caspian Sea,” each distant from the other, Moscow not about to let it become a US-dominated NATO lake – while concentrating its own military strength within its borders, polar opposite America’s empire of bases.
Provoking Moscow with US-led NATO combat troops and warships near its borders, so-called missile defense systems entirely for offense, hyping nonexistent “Russian aggression,” denigrating its legitimacy, and falsely calling it America’s greatest threat risks East/West confrontation with super-weapons able to end life on earth.
Speaking in Warsaw on Tuesday, US-installed NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg hyped “the importance of collective security (and) NATO’s (so-called) essential role in continuing to keep the peace” while claiming a nonexistent “more assertive Russia intimidat(es) its neighbors and chang(es) borders by force.”
Truth is polar opposite his willful Big Lies, bashing Putin, claiming he threatens continental security, ignoring his preeminent peacemaker role.
Instead of Europe seeking peaceful, cooperative relations with its important Russian neighbor, it lets Washington bully it into being an imperial tool – harming its welfare and security in the process.
Link:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/provoking-moscow-nato-needs-enemies-to-justify-its-existence/5528577
"Censorship of opposing viewpoints is always the Number One Goal of the Marxist Left..."
Welcome to Guatemalan Politics
Thomas DiLorenzo
Trump haters punch, throw eggs at, and break the car windows of people peacefully leaving a Trump rally in San Jose, California while assaulting the police to boot. “I’ve never seen anything like it in America” said one bystander. The mayor of San Jose, identified as “a Hillary Clinton supporter,” blamed the violence on Donald Trump for appearing in his town and “causing problems.” He therefore condoned and encouraged violent attacks on those with whom he disagrees about politics. (It’s the Mexican way, I suppose).
The media are happy to highlight the violence as the story of the day instead of whatever Trump said during his speech. Censorship of opposing viewpoints is always the Number One Goal of the Marxist Left (or any other kind of Left).
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/welcome-guatemala-politics/
Thomas DiLorenzo
Trump haters punch, throw eggs at, and break the car windows of people peacefully leaving a Trump rally in San Jose, California while assaulting the police to boot. “I’ve never seen anything like it in America” said one bystander. The mayor of San Jose, identified as “a Hillary Clinton supporter,” blamed the violence on Donald Trump for appearing in his town and “causing problems.” He therefore condoned and encouraged violent attacks on those with whom he disagrees about politics. (It’s the Mexican way, I suppose).
The media are happy to highlight the violence as the story of the day instead of whatever Trump said during his speech. Censorship of opposing viewpoints is always the Number One Goal of the Marxist Left (or any other kind of Left).
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/welcome-guatemala-politics/
"I guess your community college classes didn’t discuss covert agent provocateur operations by central governments. What then is to be done? Nothing. The government thrives on this sort of thing. And there you all are, puppets of the government thinking the tune you’re dancing to is one you wrote. Huh. That’s a good one."
Papa Jack's Bedtime Stories For The San Jose Protestors
By Jack Perry
I have observed very interesting phenomena. The people protesting the violence they say Trump’s supporters commit have outmatched them in terms of violence. Take for example the latest near riot and assaults against Trump supporters in San Jose. Wow! I guess you sure showed them to not engage in violence by committing even greater amounts of violence! Who do you people think you are, anyway? The United States government?
I can tell you who these so-called “protestors” are. They’re from a loosely-knit coalition of various Far Left groups that often go by the name “The Black Block”. Now, they don’t use that name out loud when pulling together various groups for a demonstration. They like to think of themselves as “anarchists” but, in reality, they’re communists. And I don’t use that word lightly. Because I remember back when that word was used wrongly by the government to justify the insanity of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan. But here’s what I don’t get about these jokers. You can’t be an “anarchist” and still believe in a central government! Hel-LO “Black Block”! Communism and socialism are another central government! It’s the flip side of the coin of the current government.
Look here, children. Papa Jack will explain it all to you, my misguided waifs. You might think tying a black bandana around your face and throwing hen fruit at cops makes you a real, genuine article “anarchist”. Excuse me, but you guys were still crapping in diapers when I had already abandoned the entire premise of a government. Know why I don’t go to political demonstrations? Because I don’t believe in political systems! Why would I waste my time taking a side in an election if I am not voting in the first place?
Papa Jack says: Do unto governments as you would have them do unto you. In other words, ignore them. Maybe they’ll go away. But sitting out there throwing tomatoes (because they’re red, maybe?) at Trump supporters and punching them in the face demonstrates what? I’ll answer that: That you are fools. You think that violence persuades people not to vote for him? On the contrary, it swells his ranks. But besides all of that, what have you accomplished besides showing us all that you have not yet mastered your own ego and abandoned the concept of a government? Anarchists, are you? Since when did a real anarchist believe in a central government?
See, I saw all the protest signs from the various splinter factions that show up to these cop-pelting exercises. Many were professionally made. As in someone had the money to have them printed. Meaning someone with money is playing you clowns like a cheap fiddle. Wake up and pull your heads out of your fourth point of contact. You’ve all been had. Not only are you out there demanding your own version of a central government, which is comical enough as it is, but some shadow group with money is out there paying for the protest signs and egging you all on. If I had to venture a guess as to who that entity is, I’d have to say it’s the CIA or some other intelligence agency. Because guess what? You’re all making a case for a crackdown on “domestic terrorism”. See, my little wayward orphans, that is why you don’t get involved in politics and especially not demonstrations that obviously had violence planned for them. If you were real anarchists, that would not be needful to explain to you.
You cuddle-bunnies might all ask yourself this question: Whose idea was the violence? Was this planned? If so, by whom? You might also keep in mind this fact. For every group such as this, there are at least two informants in your midst. When the hammer comes down from the state, which it will, they’ll already have your names on the arrest warrants. Plus the evidence that the violence was planned. Of course, who actually instigated it might have, gosh, disappeared. Probably back to Langley.
Anarchists, huh, yeah right. You people couldn’t hold the line against your own minds. That’s where the real battle is fought, dummies. Not in the streets. He who realizes the concept of government itself is a falsehood also realizes “fighting” it only leads to another government manifesting like maggots in a corpse. Violence is not a solution because there is nothing to fight against here. As for myself, the government can criticize, slander, defame, or ridicule me and I simply do not care. If I thought I needed praise from the government, or cared if they slandered me, would be to say I care about the government or admit it’s ideas have value. I don’t pay attention to the government. To think I need to “fight” the government would be saying the government is a concept I’m attached to.
Listen to me now, children. What if they gave a government and nobody came? What if they held an election and no one showed up? Protests and demonstrations are futile. They are simple exercises in obtaining felony convictions, your name on the no-fly list and domestic terrorism list, and quite often a prison sentence. In a very real sense, you are doing the government’s work for them. You guys all use the term “brother” and “sister” for one another out there throwing rocks at the cops. Let me tell you this. A brother doesn’t do it with a rock or his fist. A brother does it with his mind peacefully. A sister doesn’t do it with an egg or a bat. A sister does it with her mind peacefully. Violence is not a solution. Know why? Because that, my brothers and sisters, is what the government uses. How are you different now? You’re wearing a black bandana? That is your badge and gun. Welcome to the State you have created in your own mind and enforce with your fists.
No, this isn’t the way. You had all this time to go out there and throw crap at the cops and punch people in the face? Really? Where were you that day when food banks needed help? See, I know you people. You’re big on talk, but you don’t walk the walk. “Food should be free!” Unless you have to work passing it out, right? Yes, I know you people more than you might realize. I’m not some dude that went through life in a bubble called a sheltered life. That’s why I’m telling you to stop this madness. Before it’s too late and you’re in a Homeland Security holding cell. Did you know they can hold your keesters indefinitely when it comes to terrorism charges? You can go to a military prison now, not just county lockup. Wake up, fools.
If you really were anarchists, you wouldn’t concern yourself with a political election! How many times must that be repeated? Come out from this illusion you’re living in! Someone scammed you and you think you’re a revolutionary. That dude on your t-shirts? Che Guevara? Know what happened to him? He got smoked by the CIA. Whatever it is you are doing, the government is two steps ahead of you and ordering your own steps, too. I guess your community college classes didn’t discuss covert agent provocateur operations by central governments. What then is to be done? Nothing. The government thrives on this sort of thing. And there you all are, puppets of the government thinking the tune you’re dancing to is one you wrote. Huh. That’s a good one.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/jack-perry/communist-rioters-san-jose/
By Jack Perry
I have observed very interesting phenomena. The people protesting the violence they say Trump’s supporters commit have outmatched them in terms of violence. Take for example the latest near riot and assaults against Trump supporters in San Jose. Wow! I guess you sure showed them to not engage in violence by committing even greater amounts of violence! Who do you people think you are, anyway? The United States government?
I can tell you who these so-called “protestors” are. They’re from a loosely-knit coalition of various Far Left groups that often go by the name “The Black Block”. Now, they don’t use that name out loud when pulling together various groups for a demonstration. They like to think of themselves as “anarchists” but, in reality, they’re communists. And I don’t use that word lightly. Because I remember back when that word was used wrongly by the government to justify the insanity of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan. But here’s what I don’t get about these jokers. You can’t be an “anarchist” and still believe in a central government! Hel-LO “Black Block”! Communism and socialism are another central government! It’s the flip side of the coin of the current government.
Look here, children. Papa Jack will explain it all to you, my misguided waifs. You might think tying a black bandana around your face and throwing hen fruit at cops makes you a real, genuine article “anarchist”. Excuse me, but you guys were still crapping in diapers when I had already abandoned the entire premise of a government. Know why I don’t go to political demonstrations? Because I don’t believe in political systems! Why would I waste my time taking a side in an election if I am not voting in the first place?
Papa Jack says: Do unto governments as you would have them do unto you. In other words, ignore them. Maybe they’ll go away. But sitting out there throwing tomatoes (because they’re red, maybe?) at Trump supporters and punching them in the face demonstrates what? I’ll answer that: That you are fools. You think that violence persuades people not to vote for him? On the contrary, it swells his ranks. But besides all of that, what have you accomplished besides showing us all that you have not yet mastered your own ego and abandoned the concept of a government? Anarchists, are you? Since when did a real anarchist believe in a central government?
See, I saw all the protest signs from the various splinter factions that show up to these cop-pelting exercises. Many were professionally made. As in someone had the money to have them printed. Meaning someone with money is playing you clowns like a cheap fiddle. Wake up and pull your heads out of your fourth point of contact. You’ve all been had. Not only are you out there demanding your own version of a central government, which is comical enough as it is, but some shadow group with money is out there paying for the protest signs and egging you all on. If I had to venture a guess as to who that entity is, I’d have to say it’s the CIA or some other intelligence agency. Because guess what? You’re all making a case for a crackdown on “domestic terrorism”. See, my little wayward orphans, that is why you don’t get involved in politics and especially not demonstrations that obviously had violence planned for them. If you were real anarchists, that would not be needful to explain to you.
You cuddle-bunnies might all ask yourself this question: Whose idea was the violence? Was this planned? If so, by whom? You might also keep in mind this fact. For every group such as this, there are at least two informants in your midst. When the hammer comes down from the state, which it will, they’ll already have your names on the arrest warrants. Plus the evidence that the violence was planned. Of course, who actually instigated it might have, gosh, disappeared. Probably back to Langley.
Anarchists, huh, yeah right. You people couldn’t hold the line against your own minds. That’s where the real battle is fought, dummies. Not in the streets. He who realizes the concept of government itself is a falsehood also realizes “fighting” it only leads to another government manifesting like maggots in a corpse. Violence is not a solution because there is nothing to fight against here. As for myself, the government can criticize, slander, defame, or ridicule me and I simply do not care. If I thought I needed praise from the government, or cared if they slandered me, would be to say I care about the government or admit it’s ideas have value. I don’t pay attention to the government. To think I need to “fight” the government would be saying the government is a concept I’m attached to.
Listen to me now, children. What if they gave a government and nobody came? What if they held an election and no one showed up? Protests and demonstrations are futile. They are simple exercises in obtaining felony convictions, your name on the no-fly list and domestic terrorism list, and quite often a prison sentence. In a very real sense, you are doing the government’s work for them. You guys all use the term “brother” and “sister” for one another out there throwing rocks at the cops. Let me tell you this. A brother doesn’t do it with a rock or his fist. A brother does it with his mind peacefully. A sister doesn’t do it with an egg or a bat. A sister does it with her mind peacefully. Violence is not a solution. Know why? Because that, my brothers and sisters, is what the government uses. How are you different now? You’re wearing a black bandana? That is your badge and gun. Welcome to the State you have created in your own mind and enforce with your fists.
No, this isn’t the way. You had all this time to go out there and throw crap at the cops and punch people in the face? Really? Where were you that day when food banks needed help? See, I know you people. You’re big on talk, but you don’t walk the walk. “Food should be free!” Unless you have to work passing it out, right? Yes, I know you people more than you might realize. I’m not some dude that went through life in a bubble called a sheltered life. That’s why I’m telling you to stop this madness. Before it’s too late and you’re in a Homeland Security holding cell. Did you know they can hold your keesters indefinitely when it comes to terrorism charges? You can go to a military prison now, not just county lockup. Wake up, fools.
If you really were anarchists, you wouldn’t concern yourself with a political election! How many times must that be repeated? Come out from this illusion you’re living in! Someone scammed you and you think you’re a revolutionary. That dude on your t-shirts? Che Guevara? Know what happened to him? He got smoked by the CIA. Whatever it is you are doing, the government is two steps ahead of you and ordering your own steps, too. I guess your community college classes didn’t discuss covert agent provocateur operations by central governments. What then is to be done? Nothing. The government thrives on this sort of thing. And there you all are, puppets of the government thinking the tune you’re dancing to is one you wrote. Huh. That’s a good one.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/jack-perry/communist-rioters-san-jose/
A libertarian perspective...
Hillary, Bernie, Donald, Gary: A Libertarian Perspective
By Walter E. Block
Before I begin, let me take note of the fact that I can call all four remaining candidates in the 2016 race for president by their first names. With the possible exception of the latter, and this will prove less and less so as time goes on, there is little chance that anyone who is not a very low information voter will fail to know of the four people of whom I am speaking. Informality seems to have taken hold of our culture.
Now to business. I will attempt to offer a libertarian perspective on these four candidates. What is a libertarian perspective? That of course, is based on the libertarian philosophy, which is, in turn, predicated upon the non-aggression principle ( NAP: do not initiate violence against innocent people or take their possessions without permission); on free association (all interactions between persons should be on the basis of individual choice; no one should be forced to associate with anyone else against his will) and private property rights (based on Lockean-Rothbardian homesteading). To the degree a political candidate adheres to these principles is the extent to which, other things being equal, a libertarian should support him (I am not politically correct, but, in honor of our fellow citizens who have come under the thrall of this pernicious doctrine, I now offer a trigger warning: this is not a typographical error; rather, “him” includes members of both genders.)
There are three broad arenas to which these libertarian principles can apply: foreign policy, economics, and personal liberties. But the first is by far the most important. It probably outweighs the other two, even put together, by a wide margin. This is because, as Murray Rothbard and Robert Higgs have emphasized, this area determines what occurs in the other two. There are of course some feedback effects in all directions, but the causation is mainly a one-way street. For example, if the country is at war, the central banking system is typically strengthened, as taxes and borrowing become unable to finance the gargantuan appetites of the imperialist intervention abroad. And, too, the military draft is more likely to be implemented, reducing not only economic liberties but personal ones as well.
Now, let us weigh the candidates against these criteria. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Bernie is clearly ahead of the Wicked Witch of the East. And I say this not because I was a boyhood chum of the former; I do so based on their widely divergent foreign policies. Killary is a vicious warmonger as ever seen on the boards of the play which constitutes U.S. imperialism. (By the way, I favored my man Barack Obama vis a vis John Mccain in 2008 on these grounds and see La Clinton as very much in the camp of the latter; with only slight exaggeration I can say that neither has ever met a foreign war they did not like). Bernie is far from being a libertarian non-interventionist, but he stands head and shoulders above the espionage by e-mail former Secretary of State. They are both bloody awful on the subject of economics and personal liberties, although, I concede, she is perhaps less horrendous than the Vermont commie-socialist. However, as said above, foreign policy is more important than the other two venues; thus, Bernie is more congruent with libertarianism than Hillary. Moreover, she will have to prove that as a woman she’s just as tough as a man; how? By seeking war, which will only cement her natural inclinations.
What of The Donald? He is the only one of the Republican contenders (apart from Rand Paul) who said anything along the lines of: he could get along with Putin; that he wanted to end NATO; that we were mistaken to get into the Middle East; that US soldiers should leave Korea, German, Japan, etc. He said of dictators Saddam Hussain and Muammar Ghadafi, sure, they were monsters, but at least they fought the far-worse ISIL type terrorists! He asked are Iraq and Libya better off for our intervention? He answered with a resounding No. And now they want to go into Syria? Not on my watch, he averred. It cannot be denied that Mr. Trump also said a few things incompatible with these sterling statements such as we are going to kick the butt of ISIS, but this only shows he is becoming “Presidential.” However, no one else, again except for Rand Paul, has channeled the thoughts of our founding fathers such as George Washington: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible” (emphasis added). Thomas Jefferson: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” (emphasis added). John Quincy Adams: “America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy.” When the neo-cons hear views of this sort, they go berserk and start gnashing their teeth and frothing at the mouth. This shows that Mr. Trump is on the right path. When I was involved in the setting up of “Libertarians for Trump” this group was aimed, mainly, at garnering for him the Republican nomination vis a vis the right-wing war-mongers Cruz and Kasich; it was to ensure that this nomination was not stolen from the candidate overwhelmingly supported by the voters. Then, too, Trump’s thrashing of political correctness, an excrescence of the cultural Marxists which attempts to stifle all debate, at least that emanating from libertarians or conservatives, is a breath of fresh air.
Is Donald Trump a libertarian? He is no Ron Paul, but he is pretty close to foreign policy. Hey, give the man a B-, at least. He is execrable on free trade and does not seem to understand economics. He seems ambivalent about the minimum wage and supports such socialist nostrums as welfare and Social Security. Of course, Bernie and Hillary are far worse than Donald on these issues from a libertarian point of view. At least the GOP standard bearer is not an out and out egalitarian. We should perhaps thank goodness for his vast wealth.
How does Gary Johnson stand on libertarianism? Is he even a libertarian? I answer Yes, but only if the tent is big enough, and it will have to be a really big tent in order to fit him into it. Stupendous violations include his support for U.S. atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is blatantly incompatible with the NAP. The argument in favor of this war crime is that it ended the hostilities sooner than would have a land invasion, saving more lives, on both sides, than the actual atomic conflagration. Bah, tosh, fiddlesticks and nonsense. For one thing, the U.S. never should have been at war with Japan in the first place. FDR ran on a peace platform and initiated the war with the Japanese by cutting off their oil supplies with a blockade. He knew their navy was steaming toward Pearl Harbor, their secret codes were compromised, but wanted an excuse to go to war with them. In 1945, the Japanese were willing to surrender, but not unconditionally. They wanted a face-saving provision for their Emperor. The U.S. insisted on a total surrender, at the cost of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent people. Why did not Truman drop the bombs in uninhabited areas of Japan to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new weapon? Surely, that would have sufficed. But no. This is because that mass murder had little to do with World War II. Instead, these were the opening salvos of the Cold War. The U.S. government wanted to demonstrate to the U.S.S.R. not only the power of this new weaponry but of their willingness to use it against civilian populations.
Gary Johnson also favors the 1964 so-called civil rights act, which outlaws discrimination against certain arbitrarily protected groups (why is it still legal to discriminate against those of us who are follically challenged? Against short people?) But picking and choosing friends, mates, business associates, customers, employers, merchants, is part of yet another bedrock of libertarianism, Free Association. The former governor of New Mexico went so far as to hypothetically support compelling a Jew to bake a cake for a Nazi. Worse, he does not seem to realize that this stance of his contradicts black letter libertarian law. It is as if he has no libertarian compass and takes things on a case by case basis. Nor does he want to legalize all drugs for adults, only marijuana. His instincts are vaguely libertarian on a whole host of issues (the BIG libertarian tent will indeed hold him), but he does not appear to apply libertarian PRINCIPLE to anything. Nor is he, either, any Ron Paul on foreign policy. He would not want to withdraw all US troops from foreign lands, where they simply do not belong. And, to make matters worse, he advocates US intervention (but only benevolently!) in areas our country has not yet heavily invaded, such as in Africa.
Why am I being relatively more harsh with Gary than with Donald? It is due to the fact that the former is running on the Libertarian Party ticket, and the main present purpose of this organization, given that its standard bearer will not be the next president of the US (I am going out on a limb, here) is to promote liberty, not win. This task if difficult to accomplish for a non-principled libertarian who takes numerous positions incompatible with that philosophy. (What is it with the LP anyway? Apart from Ron Paul and Harry Brown, only a mere two or three others fit this bill. For example, Bob Barr, the candidate of 2008, was an unmitigated disaster; far worse, even, than Gary Johnson. Several of the leading candidates, beaten by our nominee, confessed that they had never read Murray Rothbard, never even heard of him; that they rejected the NAP; these are leading libertarians?). And this is to say nothing of Johnson’s choice for VP of the LP: William Weld. The less said about him from a libertarian point of view the better.
At last, we arrive at the $64,000 question. As a purist libertarian of the Rothbardian stripe, as one of the conveners of “Libertarians for Trump,” as a long-time supporter and activist for the LP (I ran for office in New York State for the Assembly there in 1969, before even the formation of the National Libertarian Party in 1971) who do I now support for president? Now that Trump and Johnson are running against one another this is a challenging question. On the one hand, I desperately want Donald to beat Hillary. Now only are two and maybe three Supreme Court nominations likely to be in play in the next four years, but more important, far more important, a second President Clinton (gulp, I can barely make myself write those words) is likely to usher in World War III, with nuclear not atomic bombs, this time. I oppose this with every fiber of my being. A nuclear exchange between the US and either Russia or China or both of them, could ruin our entire day. Not only is she bloodthirsty by inclination, but as a woman, she will likely feel she has to prove she is tough. Already NATO forces are on the front porch of Russia, and there have already been “incidents” between the US and Chinese warships in the Pacific. All we need is for Killery to light the conflagration.
So, who in my opinion should libertarians support, vote for? Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party, or Donald Trump and the Republican Party? Donald is our last best chance of averting a nuclear war. On the other hand, Gary will (sort of) spread the “libertarian” word. Well, at least the mass media will mention “libertarianism” even if in a decidedly watered-down version, thanks to him. If Mr. Johnson garners more than 5% of the vote, something completely unprecedented in the history of the party (its usual share hovers around 1%), the “libertarian” word will be on everyone’s lips. Who are these guys, people will ask, and, maybe, possibly, some of them, many of them? will explore a more radical version of this political economic philosophy, hopefully along the lines laid out by Murray Rothbard, “Mr. Libertarian.” Surely, this is something also to be fervently wished for. Further, if libertarianism is given a boost this time around, perhaps at some future time fewer innocents will be slaughtered in foreign adventures.
When asked if we want vanilla or chocolate ice cream, Mozart or Bach, the best answer is, both. How can we apply that insight in the present context? How can we have our cake and eat it too? How can we both reduce the chances of a modern all-out war, and, also, spread the libertarian message via the LP?
I am glad you asked. Here is the plan. In states where either Clinton or Trump is leading by a wide margin, vote for, support Johnson. Trump either does not need our backing there or, it will do him little or no good in any case if he gets it. However, in purple states such as Florida or Ohio, in which the polls indicate a virtual tie between Mr. Pretty Good and Mrs. Evil, then and only then pile on in behalf of Donald. He will need every bit of sustenance we can give him on such occasions. Who to support financially? Both. Let us hedge our bets.
I realize this advice is a bit Machiavellian; somewhat strategic; rather tactical; even unprincipled. Ok, ok, very much in that direction. I make no apology for this. We are not now in the realm of libertarian principle or deontology. In choosing who to support, we are in the arena of prudential judgment. Principled libertarians may disagree with each other over such matters, without anyone’s purist credentials being called into question. Here, I claim, we have a reasonable compromise. In this suggestion, we have a chance of achieving both desiderata: reducing the chances of a war that can threaten the entire human race, and, also, spreading the libertarian word, however truncated and cloudy. It is not, I insist, a violation of libertarian principle to aid and abet Donald Trump. It may be wise or not, a very different matter. Similarly, it is not a violation of the NAP to support Gary Johnson, even though this will to some degree increase the chances of Bill Clinton becoming the “first husband.” Which course of action will more likely promote liberty and bring us the free and safe society? Donald or Gary? It is hard to say, given far less than the information we would like to have about the future course of events.
Here is a word of advice to the man I want to become the next president of the U.S.
Dear Mr. Trump:
More important than any of your policies, more important than all of them put together, at least from your own personal point of view and from that of those who love you, is that you finish out (at least) your first four-year term, unscathed, let alone your first few weeks. If you choose as your Vice Presidential running mate someone who the powers that be think they can get along with far better than they think they can get along with you — several have so far been mentioned who fit this bill — I fear you will be assassinated. Yes, I make no bones about this. Our country, unfortunately, has a history of this sort of thing. But, never have a president and a vice president both been assassinated in the same term. There are, hopefully, limits as to how even far the Deep State will go. Therefore, as a life insurance policy, I ask, no, I beg, that you will pick someone equally, or at least almost equally, hated by the establishment.
I suggest Senator Rand Paul.
Yes, yes, you and he have had words with each other. But that is now in the past. Senator Paul has recently endorsed you, so, at least in my opinion, that episode is water under the bridge. I cannot think of any other person of substance sufficient to be Vice President of the U.S. who, one, has endorsed you, and two, far more important for your very survival, is utterly reviled – as are you — by certain political leaders. Choose him, then, as a life raft, as a lift insurance policy, as protection for your very life.
Nor, of course, is that his only merit as your VP. He is also a successful senator, likely to re-elected. He, like you, can bring into the voting booth in your behalf moderate or independent voters. He, along with you, can help make inroads for your ticket amongst the Bernie Sanders supporters, assuming that Hillary (or Biden??) takes the Democratic nomination since there is something of an overlap in foreign policy between you, Rand and Bernie.
God-speed to you, Mr. Trump.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/walter-e-block/hillary-bernie-donald-gary/
By Walter E. Block
Before I begin, let me take note of the fact that I can call all four remaining candidates in the 2016 race for president by their first names. With the possible exception of the latter, and this will prove less and less so as time goes on, there is little chance that anyone who is not a very low information voter will fail to know of the four people of whom I am speaking. Informality seems to have taken hold of our culture.
Now to business. I will attempt to offer a libertarian perspective on these four candidates. What is a libertarian perspective? That of course, is based on the libertarian philosophy, which is, in turn, predicated upon the non-aggression principle ( NAP: do not initiate violence against innocent people or take their possessions without permission); on free association (all interactions between persons should be on the basis of individual choice; no one should be forced to associate with anyone else against his will) and private property rights (based on Lockean-Rothbardian homesteading). To the degree a political candidate adheres to these principles is the extent to which, other things being equal, a libertarian should support him (I am not politically correct, but, in honor of our fellow citizens who have come under the thrall of this pernicious doctrine, I now offer a trigger warning: this is not a typographical error; rather, “him” includes members of both genders.)
There are three broad arenas to which these libertarian principles can apply: foreign policy, economics, and personal liberties. But the first is by far the most important. It probably outweighs the other two, even put together, by a wide margin. This is because, as Murray Rothbard and Robert Higgs have emphasized, this area determines what occurs in the other two. There are of course some feedback effects in all directions, but the causation is mainly a one-way street. For example, if the country is at war, the central banking system is typically strengthened, as taxes and borrowing become unable to finance the gargantuan appetites of the imperialist intervention abroad. And, too, the military draft is more likely to be implemented, reducing not only economic liberties but personal ones as well.
Now, let us weigh the candidates against these criteria. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Bernie is clearly ahead of the Wicked Witch of the East. And I say this not because I was a boyhood chum of the former; I do so based on their widely divergent foreign policies. Killary is a vicious warmonger as ever seen on the boards of the play which constitutes U.S. imperialism. (By the way, I favored my man Barack Obama vis a vis John Mccain in 2008 on these grounds and see La Clinton as very much in the camp of the latter; with only slight exaggeration I can say that neither has ever met a foreign war they did not like). Bernie is far from being a libertarian non-interventionist, but he stands head and shoulders above the espionage by e-mail former Secretary of State. They are both bloody awful on the subject of economics and personal liberties, although, I concede, she is perhaps less horrendous than the Vermont commie-socialist. However, as said above, foreign policy is more important than the other two venues; thus, Bernie is more congruent with libertarianism than Hillary. Moreover, she will have to prove that as a woman she’s just as tough as a man; how? By seeking war, which will only cement her natural inclinations.
What of The Donald? He is the only one of the Republican contenders (apart from Rand Paul) who said anything along the lines of: he could get along with Putin; that he wanted to end NATO; that we were mistaken to get into the Middle East; that US soldiers should leave Korea, German, Japan, etc. He said of dictators Saddam Hussain and Muammar Ghadafi, sure, they were monsters, but at least they fought the far-worse ISIL type terrorists! He asked are Iraq and Libya better off for our intervention? He answered with a resounding No. And now they want to go into Syria? Not on my watch, he averred. It cannot be denied that Mr. Trump also said a few things incompatible with these sterling statements such as we are going to kick the butt of ISIS, but this only shows he is becoming “Presidential.” However, no one else, again except for Rand Paul, has channeled the thoughts of our founding fathers such as George Washington: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible” (emphasis added). Thomas Jefferson: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” (emphasis added). John Quincy Adams: “America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy.” When the neo-cons hear views of this sort, they go berserk and start gnashing their teeth and frothing at the mouth. This shows that Mr. Trump is on the right path. When I was involved in the setting up of “Libertarians for Trump” this group was aimed, mainly, at garnering for him the Republican nomination vis a vis the right-wing war-mongers Cruz and Kasich; it was to ensure that this nomination was not stolen from the candidate overwhelmingly supported by the voters. Then, too, Trump’s thrashing of political correctness, an excrescence of the cultural Marxists which attempts to stifle all debate, at least that emanating from libertarians or conservatives, is a breath of fresh air.
Is Donald Trump a libertarian? He is no Ron Paul, but he is pretty close to foreign policy. Hey, give the man a B-, at least. He is execrable on free trade and does not seem to understand economics. He seems ambivalent about the minimum wage and supports such socialist nostrums as welfare and Social Security. Of course, Bernie and Hillary are far worse than Donald on these issues from a libertarian point of view. At least the GOP standard bearer is not an out and out egalitarian. We should perhaps thank goodness for his vast wealth.
How does Gary Johnson stand on libertarianism? Is he even a libertarian? I answer Yes, but only if the tent is big enough, and it will have to be a really big tent in order to fit him into it. Stupendous violations include his support for U.S. atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is blatantly incompatible with the NAP. The argument in favor of this war crime is that it ended the hostilities sooner than would have a land invasion, saving more lives, on both sides, than the actual atomic conflagration. Bah, tosh, fiddlesticks and nonsense. For one thing, the U.S. never should have been at war with Japan in the first place. FDR ran on a peace platform and initiated the war with the Japanese by cutting off their oil supplies with a blockade. He knew their navy was steaming toward Pearl Harbor, their secret codes were compromised, but wanted an excuse to go to war with them. In 1945, the Japanese were willing to surrender, but not unconditionally. They wanted a face-saving provision for their Emperor. The U.S. insisted on a total surrender, at the cost of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent people. Why did not Truman drop the bombs in uninhabited areas of Japan to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new weapon? Surely, that would have sufficed. But no. This is because that mass murder had little to do with World War II. Instead, these were the opening salvos of the Cold War. The U.S. government wanted to demonstrate to the U.S.S.R. not only the power of this new weaponry but of their willingness to use it against civilian populations.
Gary Johnson also favors the 1964 so-called civil rights act, which outlaws discrimination against certain arbitrarily protected groups (why is it still legal to discriminate against those of us who are follically challenged? Against short people?) But picking and choosing friends, mates, business associates, customers, employers, merchants, is part of yet another bedrock of libertarianism, Free Association. The former governor of New Mexico went so far as to hypothetically support compelling a Jew to bake a cake for a Nazi. Worse, he does not seem to realize that this stance of his contradicts black letter libertarian law. It is as if he has no libertarian compass and takes things on a case by case basis. Nor does he want to legalize all drugs for adults, only marijuana. His instincts are vaguely libertarian on a whole host of issues (the BIG libertarian tent will indeed hold him), but he does not appear to apply libertarian PRINCIPLE to anything. Nor is he, either, any Ron Paul on foreign policy. He would not want to withdraw all US troops from foreign lands, where they simply do not belong. And, to make matters worse, he advocates US intervention (but only benevolently!) in areas our country has not yet heavily invaded, such as in Africa.
Why am I being relatively more harsh with Gary than with Donald? It is due to the fact that the former is running on the Libertarian Party ticket, and the main present purpose of this organization, given that its standard bearer will not be the next president of the US (I am going out on a limb, here) is to promote liberty, not win. This task if difficult to accomplish for a non-principled libertarian who takes numerous positions incompatible with that philosophy. (What is it with the LP anyway? Apart from Ron Paul and Harry Brown, only a mere two or three others fit this bill. For example, Bob Barr, the candidate of 2008, was an unmitigated disaster; far worse, even, than Gary Johnson. Several of the leading candidates, beaten by our nominee, confessed that they had never read Murray Rothbard, never even heard of him; that they rejected the NAP; these are leading libertarians?). And this is to say nothing of Johnson’s choice for VP of the LP: William Weld. The less said about him from a libertarian point of view the better.
At last, we arrive at the $64,000 question. As a purist libertarian of the Rothbardian stripe, as one of the conveners of “Libertarians for Trump,” as a long-time supporter and activist for the LP (I ran for office in New York State for the Assembly there in 1969, before even the formation of the National Libertarian Party in 1971) who do I now support for president? Now that Trump and Johnson are running against one another this is a challenging question. On the one hand, I desperately want Donald to beat Hillary. Now only are two and maybe three Supreme Court nominations likely to be in play in the next four years, but more important, far more important, a second President Clinton (gulp, I can barely make myself write those words) is likely to usher in World War III, with nuclear not atomic bombs, this time. I oppose this with every fiber of my being. A nuclear exchange between the US and either Russia or China or both of them, could ruin our entire day. Not only is she bloodthirsty by inclination, but as a woman, she will likely feel she has to prove she is tough. Already NATO forces are on the front porch of Russia, and there have already been “incidents” between the US and Chinese warships in the Pacific. All we need is for Killery to light the conflagration.
So, who in my opinion should libertarians support, vote for? Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party, or Donald Trump and the Republican Party? Donald is our last best chance of averting a nuclear war. On the other hand, Gary will (sort of) spread the “libertarian” word. Well, at least the mass media will mention “libertarianism” even if in a decidedly watered-down version, thanks to him. If Mr. Johnson garners more than 5% of the vote, something completely unprecedented in the history of the party (its usual share hovers around 1%), the “libertarian” word will be on everyone’s lips. Who are these guys, people will ask, and, maybe, possibly, some of them, many of them? will explore a more radical version of this political economic philosophy, hopefully along the lines laid out by Murray Rothbard, “Mr. Libertarian.” Surely, this is something also to be fervently wished for. Further, if libertarianism is given a boost this time around, perhaps at some future time fewer innocents will be slaughtered in foreign adventures.
When asked if we want vanilla or chocolate ice cream, Mozart or Bach, the best answer is, both. How can we apply that insight in the present context? How can we have our cake and eat it too? How can we both reduce the chances of a modern all-out war, and, also, spread the libertarian message via the LP?
I am glad you asked. Here is the plan. In states where either Clinton or Trump is leading by a wide margin, vote for, support Johnson. Trump either does not need our backing there or, it will do him little or no good in any case if he gets it. However, in purple states such as Florida or Ohio, in which the polls indicate a virtual tie between Mr. Pretty Good and Mrs. Evil, then and only then pile on in behalf of Donald. He will need every bit of sustenance we can give him on such occasions. Who to support financially? Both. Let us hedge our bets.
I realize this advice is a bit Machiavellian; somewhat strategic; rather tactical; even unprincipled. Ok, ok, very much in that direction. I make no apology for this. We are not now in the realm of libertarian principle or deontology. In choosing who to support, we are in the arena of prudential judgment. Principled libertarians may disagree with each other over such matters, without anyone’s purist credentials being called into question. Here, I claim, we have a reasonable compromise. In this suggestion, we have a chance of achieving both desiderata: reducing the chances of a war that can threaten the entire human race, and, also, spreading the libertarian word, however truncated and cloudy. It is not, I insist, a violation of libertarian principle to aid and abet Donald Trump. It may be wise or not, a very different matter. Similarly, it is not a violation of the NAP to support Gary Johnson, even though this will to some degree increase the chances of Bill Clinton becoming the “first husband.” Which course of action will more likely promote liberty and bring us the free and safe society? Donald or Gary? It is hard to say, given far less than the information we would like to have about the future course of events.
Here is a word of advice to the man I want to become the next president of the U.S.
Dear Mr. Trump:
More important than any of your policies, more important than all of them put together, at least from your own personal point of view and from that of those who love you, is that you finish out (at least) your first four-year term, unscathed, let alone your first few weeks. If you choose as your Vice Presidential running mate someone who the powers that be think they can get along with far better than they think they can get along with you — several have so far been mentioned who fit this bill — I fear you will be assassinated. Yes, I make no bones about this. Our country, unfortunately, has a history of this sort of thing. But, never have a president and a vice president both been assassinated in the same term. There are, hopefully, limits as to how even far the Deep State will go. Therefore, as a life insurance policy, I ask, no, I beg, that you will pick someone equally, or at least almost equally, hated by the establishment.
I suggest Senator Rand Paul.
Yes, yes, you and he have had words with each other. But that is now in the past. Senator Paul has recently endorsed you, so, at least in my opinion, that episode is water under the bridge. I cannot think of any other person of substance sufficient to be Vice President of the U.S. who, one, has endorsed you, and two, far more important for your very survival, is utterly reviled – as are you — by certain political leaders. Choose him, then, as a life raft, as a lift insurance policy, as protection for your very life.
Nor, of course, is that his only merit as your VP. He is also a successful senator, likely to re-elected. He, like you, can bring into the voting booth in your behalf moderate or independent voters. He, along with you, can help make inroads for your ticket amongst the Bernie Sanders supporters, assuming that Hillary (or Biden??) takes the Democratic nomination since there is something of an overlap in foreign policy between you, Rand and Bernie.
God-speed to you, Mr. Trump.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/walter-e-block/hillary-bernie-donald-gary/
Thursday, June 2, 2016
THINK!!!
Socialism for the Uninformed
by THOMAS SOWELL
Testing easy assumptions against facts reveals uncomfortable truths.
Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster. While throngs of young people are cheering loudly for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, socialism has turned oil-rich Venezuela into a place where there are shortages of everything from toilet paper to beer, where electricity keeps shutting down, and where there are long lines of people hoping to get food, people complaining that they cannot feed their families. With national income going down, and prices going up under triple-digit inflation in Venezuela, these complaints are by no means frivolous. But it is doubtful if the young people cheering for Bernie Sanders have even heard of such things, whether in Venezuela or in other countries around the world that have turned their economies over to politicians and bureaucrats to run.
The anti-capitalist policies in Venezuela have worked so well that the number of companies in Venezuela is now a fraction of what it once was. That should certainly reduce capitalist “exploitation,” shouldn’t it? But people who attribute income inequality to capitalists’ exploiting workers, as Karl Marx claimed, never seem to get around to testing that belief against facts — such as the fact that none of the Marxist regimes around the world has ever had as high a standard of living for working people as there is in many capitalist countries. Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the Left.
What matters to the true believers are the ringing slogans, endlessly repeated. When Senator Sanders cries, “The system is rigged!” no one asks, “Just what specifically does that mean?” or “What facts do you have to back that up?” Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the Left.
In 2015, the 400 richest people in the world had net losses of $19 billion. If they had rigged the system, surely they could have rigged it better than that. But the very idea of subjecting their pet notions to the test of hard facts will probably not even occur to those who are cheering for socialism and for other bright ideas of the political Left.
How many of the people who are demanding an increase in the minimum wage have ever bothered to check what actually happens when higher minimum wages are imposed? More often they just assume what is assumed by like-minded peers — sometimes known as “everybody,” with their assumptions being what “everybody knows.” Back in 1948, when inflation had rendered meaningless the minimum wage established a decade earlier, the unemployment rate among 16- to 17-year-old black males was under 10 percent. But after the minimum wage was raised repeatedly to keep up with inflation, the unemployment rate for black males that age was never under 30 percent for more than 20 consecutive years, from 1971 through 1994.
In many of those years, the unemployment rate for black youngsters that age exceeded 40 percent and, for a couple of years, it exceeded 50 percent. The damage is even greater than these statistics might suggest. Most low-wage jobs are entry-level jobs that young people move up out of, after acquiring work experience and a track record that makes them eligible for better jobs. But you can’t move up the ladder if you don’t get on the ladder. The great promise of socialism is something for nothing.
It is one of the signs of today’s dumbed-down education that so many college students seem to think that the cost of their education should — and will — be paid by raising taxes on “the rich.” Here again, just a little check of the facts would reveal that higher tax rates on upper-income earners do not automatically translate into more tax revenue coming in to the government. Often high tax rates have led to less revenue than lower tax rates. In a globalized economy, high tax rates may just lead investors to invest in other countries with lower tax rates. That means that jobs created by those investments will be overseas. None of this is rocket science. But you do have to stop and think — and that is what too many of our schools and colleges are failing to teach their students to do.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436022/bernie-sanders-fans-dont-bother-think?utm_source=NR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=May31Sowell
by THOMAS SOWELL
Testing easy assumptions against facts reveals uncomfortable truths.
Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster. While throngs of young people are cheering loudly for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, socialism has turned oil-rich Venezuela into a place where there are shortages of everything from toilet paper to beer, where electricity keeps shutting down, and where there are long lines of people hoping to get food, people complaining that they cannot feed their families. With national income going down, and prices going up under triple-digit inflation in Venezuela, these complaints are by no means frivolous. But it is doubtful if the young people cheering for Bernie Sanders have even heard of such things, whether in Venezuela or in other countries around the world that have turned their economies over to politicians and bureaucrats to run.
The anti-capitalist policies in Venezuela have worked so well that the number of companies in Venezuela is now a fraction of what it once was. That should certainly reduce capitalist “exploitation,” shouldn’t it? But people who attribute income inequality to capitalists’ exploiting workers, as Karl Marx claimed, never seem to get around to testing that belief against facts — such as the fact that none of the Marxist regimes around the world has ever had as high a standard of living for working people as there is in many capitalist countries. Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the Left.
What matters to the true believers are the ringing slogans, endlessly repeated. When Senator Sanders cries, “The system is rigged!” no one asks, “Just what specifically does that mean?” or “What facts do you have to back that up?” Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the Left.
In 2015, the 400 richest people in the world had net losses of $19 billion. If they had rigged the system, surely they could have rigged it better than that. But the very idea of subjecting their pet notions to the test of hard facts will probably not even occur to those who are cheering for socialism and for other bright ideas of the political Left.
How many of the people who are demanding an increase in the minimum wage have ever bothered to check what actually happens when higher minimum wages are imposed? More often they just assume what is assumed by like-minded peers — sometimes known as “everybody,” with their assumptions being what “everybody knows.” Back in 1948, when inflation had rendered meaningless the minimum wage established a decade earlier, the unemployment rate among 16- to 17-year-old black males was under 10 percent. But after the minimum wage was raised repeatedly to keep up with inflation, the unemployment rate for black males that age was never under 30 percent for more than 20 consecutive years, from 1971 through 1994.
In many of those years, the unemployment rate for black youngsters that age exceeded 40 percent and, for a couple of years, it exceeded 50 percent. The damage is even greater than these statistics might suggest. Most low-wage jobs are entry-level jobs that young people move up out of, after acquiring work experience and a track record that makes them eligible for better jobs. But you can’t move up the ladder if you don’t get on the ladder. The great promise of socialism is something for nothing.
It is one of the signs of today’s dumbed-down education that so many college students seem to think that the cost of their education should — and will — be paid by raising taxes on “the rich.” Here again, just a little check of the facts would reveal that higher tax rates on upper-income earners do not automatically translate into more tax revenue coming in to the government. Often high tax rates have led to less revenue than lower tax rates. In a globalized economy, high tax rates may just lead investors to invest in other countries with lower tax rates. That means that jobs created by those investments will be overseas. None of this is rocket science. But you do have to stop and think — and that is what too many of our schools and colleges are failing to teach their students to do.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436022/bernie-sanders-fans-dont-bother-think?utm_source=NR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=May31Sowell
"Most of those soldiers died because officials within the national-security branch of the federal government ordered to go to some foreign country thousands of miles away, where they were placed in a position of kill or be killed. In fact, many of them were first conscripted (i.e., seized) and then ordered to deploy."
The Troops Did Not Die for Our Country or Our Freedom
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Yesterday, I received an email from an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Alaska, Margaret Stock, which pointed out that she is a retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a former professor at West Point. In her email, Stock stated that she had served alongside and mentored soldiers “who have given their lives for our country.”
It would be difficult for me to find anything more nonsensical than that. Does she really mean what she says? Or is it just political pabulum?
Show me U.S. one soldier — just one — in the past 65 years who has died for his country or, as others assert, in the defense of our freedoms here at home. You can’t do it.
Most of those soldiers died because officials within the national-security branch of the federal government ordered to go to some foreign country thousands of miles away, where they were placed in a position of kill or be killed. In fact, many of them were first conscripted (i.e., seized) and then ordered to deploy.
Some soldiers volunteered to go and fight in order to improve their chances for promotion. During the Vietnam War I knew of an Air Force colonel who volunteered to go to Vietnam because he was convinced that that was the only way he could make general. I also knew of several officers who were trying to get to Vietnam in the waning stages of the war to pad their combat resumes.
One thing is for certain: Contrary to what Stock asserts, the deployment of U.S. troops in wars for the past 65 years have had nothing to do with defending America or the freedom of the American people for one simple reason: America and American freedom were never under attack.
Suppose that U.S. troops had not gotten involved in the Korean War in the early 1950s. Ask yourself: How many Americans would have voluntarily traveled to Korea and helped the South Koreans defeat the North Korean communists?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have done that, even if President Truman and his national-security establishment had pointed out the dangers that international communism posed to America.
Suppose the U.S. national-security establishment had never invaded Vietnam and simply decided to stay out of that country’s civil war. Suppose President Johnson, the Pentagon, and the CIA told Americans that a victory by North Vietnam would pose a grave threat to U.S. national security because the dominoes would begin falling to the communists, with the big domino (the United States) ultimately falling to the Reds.
How many Americans would have traveled to South Vietnam and joined up with South Vietnamese forces to help them prevent a communist victory?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have gone to fight the commies in Vietnam.
Suppose George H.W. Bush had refused to involve his army in his war against Iraq in 1991, but had exhorted Americans to travel to the Middle East and join up with forces that were attempting to reverse Iraq’s (i.e., Saddam Hussein’s) invasion of Kuwait. Suppose that Bush had told Americans that while the U.S. government had partnered with Saddam during the 1980s in his war on Iran, Saddam had since become a “new Hitler” who threatened the world.
How many Americans would have traveled to the Middle East to join up with forces attempting to liberate Kuwait from Saddam?
Answer: None! Zip!
Suppose George W. Bush had declined to invade Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks but instead simply put out an arrest warrant and bounty for Osama bin Laden.
How many Americans would have traveled to Afghanistan and Iraq to oust the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power?
Answer: None. The only ones who would have gone over there would have been the ones looking for bin Laden in the hopes of collecting a large bounty.
If the U.S. government evacuated the Middle East and Afghanistan today, how many Americans would travel to Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria or the rest of the Middle East to fight ISIS and prevent it from taking over those countries?
Answer: Not one single one, including the infamous neocons who continue to tell us that “national security” is at stake. In fact, if all U.S. troops were ordered to withdraw from that part of the world today, not one single U.S. soldier, including officers and enlisted men, would seek to resign from the U.S. military and travel to Iraq and Afghanistan to prevent ISIS and the Taliban from winning and taking control in that part of the world.
So, does all that mean that the American people are cowards? That they are only courageous when it comes to sending the troops to do the fighting for them? That they’re not willing to put their lives on the line in the defense of their country? That they’re not willing to defend their own freedom and the freedom and security of their family members and countrymen?
No, it doesn’t mean any of those things. It simply means that the American people are not stupid. The reason they wouldn’t have traveled to South Korea or South Vietnam and helped them to defeat the communists is simply because giving their lives in a civil war thousands of miles away wasn’t worth it to them. If someone had told them that a communist victory in Korea or Vietnam could mean that the Reds would ultimately take over the federal government and run the IRS, they would have summarily rejected that notion as ridiculous.
The same holds true for the Middle East and Afghanistan today. Deep down, every American knows that it’s not going to make one whit of difference, insofar as the United States is concerned, if ISIS wins or if the Taliban wins. If they really believed that America’s existence and freedom were at stake, you’d see Americans traveling over there and volunteering to help the Iraqi and Afghan armies.
Oh, for sure, most (but certainly not all) Americans would have sympathized with the South Koreans and the South Vietnamese but they never would have gone over there to commit their lives fighting a communist unification of both countries.
Now, imagine that the United States were suddenly invaded by the troops of some foreign nation-state. How many Americans would come to the defense of their country, their families, and their freedom?
Answer: 98 percent.
Everything changes, however, when it comes to the U.S. national-security establishment, the totalitarian apparatus that came into existence with the Cold War. When the national-security establishment says that it’s imperative that U.S. military forces defeat North Korea or North Vietnam or Saddam Hussein or the Taliban or Iran or whoever, everyone hops to, clicks his heels, salutes, and automatically accepts it as gospel. People have converted the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA into their god — their idol — and heaven help anyone who dares to criticize what their warrior angels — the troops — do with respect to all those foreign interventions.
Suddenly, everyone’s mindset changes. “The troops in Korea are dying for our freedom!” “The troops are dying in Vietnam for their country.” “The troops are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq for their country and our freedom.”
It’s all a crock. They’re dying because the national-security state deemed it necessary to involve the United States in overseas conflicts whose participants never invaded the United States or threatened our nation or our freedom in any way.
It’s been a racket since the day the national-security establishment was grafted onto our original governmental system. It’s the national-security state that has gotten America into all these unnecessary wars and conflicts. And they’re not stopping. They’re now provoking two other major nuclear powers, Russia and China. If anyone thinks that nuclear war isn’t possible, he is naïve to the extreme.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that suicides among soldiers who have experienced repeated deployments to the Middle East and Afghanistan are suffering record suicide rates. We all know about the family violence, the alcoholism, the drug addiction, and the depression that U.S. troops who have fought in that part of the world are experiencing.
And of course there are the dead — the soldiers who, we are told, made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and our freedom. It’s all one great big lie, one that people feel is necessary to keep intact at all costs, just like everyone was expected to admire the emperor’s new clothes. The naked truth is that U.S. soldiers who died in all those overseas military adventures died for nothing — that is, they died for something that no American would have been willing to die for if the U.S. national-security establishment had not gotten America embroiled in those (illegal and unconstitutional) wars.
As our ancestors understood so well, there will always be monsters in the world in the form of such things as tyrannical dictatorships, civil wars, and famines. (See John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address to Congress entitled “In Search of Monsters to Destroy.”) America, Adams said, would not send soldiers abroad to slay any of those dragons but instead would serve as a sanctuary for people fleeing those monsters. He also pointed out that if America ever abandoned this non-interventionist philosophy, it would inevitably change America in drastic ways, for the worse. Who can argue that he was wrong?
The Cold War national-security state apparatus overturned that non-interventionist philosophy, committing America to a perpetual crusade to slay monsters overseas. That’s what every U.S. soldier has died for and sacrificed for during the past 65 years — not for freedom, not for our country but instead for such things as regime-change operations, coups, partnerships with dictators, and other vital interests of the national-security establishment, all with the aim of keeping that old Cold War dinosaur, the national security state, in perpetual existence.
The sooner Americans, including the troops, acknowledge this truth, as discomforting as it might be, the better off America and the troops will be, because then we can restore a constitutional republic to our land and make America, once again, a peaceful, harmonious, prosperous, and free country.
Link:
http://fff.org/2016/05/31/troops-not-die-country-freedom/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Yesterday, I received an email from an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Alaska, Margaret Stock, which pointed out that she is a retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a former professor at West Point. In her email, Stock stated that she had served alongside and mentored soldiers “who have given their lives for our country.”
It would be difficult for me to find anything more nonsensical than that. Does she really mean what she says? Or is it just political pabulum?
Show me U.S. one soldier — just one — in the past 65 years who has died for his country or, as others assert, in the defense of our freedoms here at home. You can’t do it.
Most of those soldiers died because officials within the national-security branch of the federal government ordered to go to some foreign country thousands of miles away, where they were placed in a position of kill or be killed. In fact, many of them were first conscripted (i.e., seized) and then ordered to deploy.
Some soldiers volunteered to go and fight in order to improve their chances for promotion. During the Vietnam War I knew of an Air Force colonel who volunteered to go to Vietnam because he was convinced that that was the only way he could make general. I also knew of several officers who were trying to get to Vietnam in the waning stages of the war to pad their combat resumes.
One thing is for certain: Contrary to what Stock asserts, the deployment of U.S. troops in wars for the past 65 years have had nothing to do with defending America or the freedom of the American people for one simple reason: America and American freedom were never under attack.
Suppose that U.S. troops had not gotten involved in the Korean War in the early 1950s. Ask yourself: How many Americans would have voluntarily traveled to Korea and helped the South Koreans defeat the North Korean communists?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have done that, even if President Truman and his national-security establishment had pointed out the dangers that international communism posed to America.
Suppose the U.S. national-security establishment had never invaded Vietnam and simply decided to stay out of that country’s civil war. Suppose President Johnson, the Pentagon, and the CIA told Americans that a victory by North Vietnam would pose a grave threat to U.S. national security because the dominoes would begin falling to the communists, with the big domino (the United States) ultimately falling to the Reds.
How many Americans would have traveled to South Vietnam and joined up with South Vietnamese forces to help them prevent a communist victory?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have gone to fight the commies in Vietnam.
Suppose George H.W. Bush had refused to involve his army in his war against Iraq in 1991, but had exhorted Americans to travel to the Middle East and join up with forces that were attempting to reverse Iraq’s (i.e., Saddam Hussein’s) invasion of Kuwait. Suppose that Bush had told Americans that while the U.S. government had partnered with Saddam during the 1980s in his war on Iran, Saddam had since become a “new Hitler” who threatened the world.
How many Americans would have traveled to the Middle East to join up with forces attempting to liberate Kuwait from Saddam?
Answer: None! Zip!
Suppose George W. Bush had declined to invade Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks but instead simply put out an arrest warrant and bounty for Osama bin Laden.
How many Americans would have traveled to Afghanistan and Iraq to oust the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power?
Answer: None. The only ones who would have gone over there would have been the ones looking for bin Laden in the hopes of collecting a large bounty.
If the U.S. government evacuated the Middle East and Afghanistan today, how many Americans would travel to Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria or the rest of the Middle East to fight ISIS and prevent it from taking over those countries?
Answer: Not one single one, including the infamous neocons who continue to tell us that “national security” is at stake. In fact, if all U.S. troops were ordered to withdraw from that part of the world today, not one single U.S. soldier, including officers and enlisted men, would seek to resign from the U.S. military and travel to Iraq and Afghanistan to prevent ISIS and the Taliban from winning and taking control in that part of the world.
So, does all that mean that the American people are cowards? That they are only courageous when it comes to sending the troops to do the fighting for them? That they’re not willing to put their lives on the line in the defense of their country? That they’re not willing to defend their own freedom and the freedom and security of their family members and countrymen?
No, it doesn’t mean any of those things. It simply means that the American people are not stupid. The reason they wouldn’t have traveled to South Korea or South Vietnam and helped them to defeat the communists is simply because giving their lives in a civil war thousands of miles away wasn’t worth it to them. If someone had told them that a communist victory in Korea or Vietnam could mean that the Reds would ultimately take over the federal government and run the IRS, they would have summarily rejected that notion as ridiculous.
The same holds true for the Middle East and Afghanistan today. Deep down, every American knows that it’s not going to make one whit of difference, insofar as the United States is concerned, if ISIS wins or if the Taliban wins. If they really believed that America’s existence and freedom were at stake, you’d see Americans traveling over there and volunteering to help the Iraqi and Afghan armies.
Oh, for sure, most (but certainly not all) Americans would have sympathized with the South Koreans and the South Vietnamese but they never would have gone over there to commit their lives fighting a communist unification of both countries.
Now, imagine that the United States were suddenly invaded by the troops of some foreign nation-state. How many Americans would come to the defense of their country, their families, and their freedom?
Answer: 98 percent.
Everything changes, however, when it comes to the U.S. national-security establishment, the totalitarian apparatus that came into existence with the Cold War. When the national-security establishment says that it’s imperative that U.S. military forces defeat North Korea or North Vietnam or Saddam Hussein or the Taliban or Iran or whoever, everyone hops to, clicks his heels, salutes, and automatically accepts it as gospel. People have converted the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA into their god — their idol — and heaven help anyone who dares to criticize what their warrior angels — the troops — do with respect to all those foreign interventions.
Suddenly, everyone’s mindset changes. “The troops in Korea are dying for our freedom!” “The troops are dying in Vietnam for their country.” “The troops are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq for their country and our freedom.”
It’s all a crock. They’re dying because the national-security state deemed it necessary to involve the United States in overseas conflicts whose participants never invaded the United States or threatened our nation or our freedom in any way.
It’s been a racket since the day the national-security establishment was grafted onto our original governmental system. It’s the national-security state that has gotten America into all these unnecessary wars and conflicts. And they’re not stopping. They’re now provoking two other major nuclear powers, Russia and China. If anyone thinks that nuclear war isn’t possible, he is naïve to the extreme.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that suicides among soldiers who have experienced repeated deployments to the Middle East and Afghanistan are suffering record suicide rates. We all know about the family violence, the alcoholism, the drug addiction, and the depression that U.S. troops who have fought in that part of the world are experiencing.
And of course there are the dead — the soldiers who, we are told, made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and our freedom. It’s all one great big lie, one that people feel is necessary to keep intact at all costs, just like everyone was expected to admire the emperor’s new clothes. The naked truth is that U.S. soldiers who died in all those overseas military adventures died for nothing — that is, they died for something that no American would have been willing to die for if the U.S. national-security establishment had not gotten America embroiled in those (illegal and unconstitutional) wars.
As our ancestors understood so well, there will always be monsters in the world in the form of such things as tyrannical dictatorships, civil wars, and famines. (See John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address to Congress entitled “In Search of Monsters to Destroy.”) America, Adams said, would not send soldiers abroad to slay any of those dragons but instead would serve as a sanctuary for people fleeing those monsters. He also pointed out that if America ever abandoned this non-interventionist philosophy, it would inevitably change America in drastic ways, for the worse. Who can argue that he was wrong?
The Cold War national-security state apparatus overturned that non-interventionist philosophy, committing America to a perpetual crusade to slay monsters overseas. That’s what every U.S. soldier has died for and sacrificed for during the past 65 years — not for freedom, not for our country but instead for such things as regime-change operations, coups, partnerships with dictators, and other vital interests of the national-security establishment, all with the aim of keeping that old Cold War dinosaur, the national security state, in perpetual existence.
The sooner Americans, including the troops, acknowledge this truth, as discomforting as it might be, the better off America and the troops will be, because then we can restore a constitutional republic to our land and make America, once again, a peaceful, harmonious, prosperous, and free country.
Link:
http://fff.org/2016/05/31/troops-not-die-country-freedom/
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