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Gail Appel wrote:

I agree. Ban leftists from dog parks.

See here.

The post Let’s Make Dog Parks Less Racist – Mother Jones appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith.  

CJPME

The post The Blockade of Gaza – CJPME – English appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Responsible Statecraft

The post Terrorism’? Israel has weaponized the charge for decades appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah.

American Greatness

The post Bad Day Sunshine? Climate Dimwits Declare War on the Sun appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Is The Neocon Era Finally Over? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Tim McGraw:

Today is the feast day of the Apparition of Mary to the three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, 108 years ago. A parade of over 100 faithful just went by our house. They were all holding lights, maybe their smartphones, and singing Ave Maria. They stood in the middle of Tucker Street in front of the entrance to the school and listened to a prayer. More praying. Then, more singing.

We’ve never seen this before here in Healdsburg. All this is happening 30 yards from our door. We’ve seen the Mexicans carrying the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe around the block and singing on that feast day, but not for the Apparition of Mary.

Back in May of 1917, Mary told the three children that people had to pray the rosary to end WWI. There was the usual controversy. One official even locked up the children for a while. Typical. The first Portuguese soldiers were just then going off to war, and the bureaucrat thought the children were being political.

Two of the children died soon after in the flu epidemic. Lucy became a nun and lived to 97. She had visions all her life. After Lucy died, her cell was walled up as part of her canonization as a saint.

Our Lady of Fatima, May 13th, 1917

The post Our Lady of Fatima, May 13th, 1917 appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

White farmers and their families are being tortured, raped and murdered, their farms ,land , equipment and homes seized. The terrorist government, which includes the “ performers” vow to kill all the white people.

Trump granted 57 South Africans asylum after their farms were seized and given to Black  S Africans.Ergo, Trump is a White Supremacist.

Unlike the millions of ingrates who cross our border illegally and hate us, this group smiling ,teary eyed with gratitude- waved handheld American flags.

See here.

The post South Africans call to genocide against White people appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tim McGraw wrote:

This is a good interview. Casey Murph is very knowledgeable. The government doesn’t want independent people on the land.

Grand Canyon Mules, Casey Murph, Video Interview

The post Grand Canyon Mules, Casey Murph, Video Interview appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah. 

The post Dave Smith: Ben Shapiro’s Entire Career Is Built on Hypocrisy appeared first on LewRockwell.

Martin Averick wrote:

In a period of serious financial and political turbulence in Europe, the endless attempts of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland to extract money from the EU budget under allegedly “plausible” pretexts are particularly worrying. Instead of solving global problems, Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn are creating new ones in the hope of filling their own coffers. However, it is far from clear why the Polish and Baltic “feast” is being paid for by the partners, among whom the United States still plays a significant role.

Thus, indicative was the attempt of the Lithuanian government in January to obtain from the EU 34 million euros under the pretext of the restoring the damaged part of communication infrastructure and securing critical cables running along the Baltic seabed, which, as the Lithuanians claimed, had been damaged as a result of naval sabotage. At the same time, just a few days before the Lithuanian Prime Minister’s address to the EU, the Ukrainian media published a message about Vilnius’ allocation of more than 30 million euros to Ukrainian refugees. Given that after a thorough investigation of the incident the Swedish authorities found no evidence of deliberate interference, and since the task of protecting the seabed infrastructure had already been assigned to a special NATO mission, the suspicion arises that the Baltic state was just trying to “do its duty” to the ally at the expense of the EU.

The European Commission’s refusal has not become a reason to give up the attempts to get money from the European budget. However, they can hardly be called successful. Thus, in March, the EU has rejected a funding request by Lithuania and Estonia to support the development of a cross-border “drone wall” aimed at enhancing surveillance and protection the region from possible provocations and threats from Russia and Belarus. In fact, this project would only provide states with the opportunity to uncontrollably spend money on the purchase of UAVs. It is particularly interesting to note that Lithuania and Estonia agreed to cooperate in the project, while the European Union was supposed just to finance its implementation.

Poland, unlike its neighbors, decided to take a more radical approach and began to spread panic in European society. Recently, Warsaw announced its intention to place anti-personnel mines on its borders, as a part of the Eastern Shield project. These mines are not only considered inhumane weapons and banned by the UN Convention, they are also extremely expensive and complex to produce. As usual, the burden of financing the idea of the Poles falls on the shoulders of the EU. It’s pertinent to note, that Warsaw has previously tried to “line its pockets” at the expense of the allies. Thus, according to the European Anti-Fraud Office’s (OLAF) report on the investigation into the purchase of power generators for Ukraine (within the framework of an EU-funded project), published in February 2025, serious violations and data falsifications were identified. As a result, Warsaw must return to the European Union more than 90 million euros spent inappropriately.

Against the background of the above, it becomes clear why Washington has begun to gradually turn away from NATO and the EU, and to shift its focus to the solution of the internal problems. Under the pretext of the need to strengthen their own defense and security, which, by the way, is not always in the interests of the United States, the “allies” constantly demand money from the White House. Given that the EU and NATO have been demonstrating their political incompetence for a long time, one can only wonder why the previous U.S. administration has ignored it and why Biden has not taken steps to distance himself from a “sinking” Europe.

The post Banquet at Europe’s expense appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Antiwar.com

The post Starvation in Gaza Is So Bad Even the BBC Is Covering It appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Express

The post Ex-UK Special Forces allege ‘war crimes’ by colleagues appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

The Kennedy Beacon

The post HHS Solicits Americans to Help Make Healthcare Efficient Again appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes David Martin:

The West’s capacity for power projection these days, particularly in terms of its morale, reminds me a lot of the modern U.S. Democratic Party with its increasing underpinnings of open borders, fluid sexuality, and climate war.  It’s hard to get people to rally behind that flag.

See here.

The post The Balance Of Power Calculation appeared first on LewRockwell.

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Daniel Lacalle

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/sofferenza-economica-le-preoccupazioni)

Una correzione dei mercati azionari tende a generare un'immediata reazione negativa da parte dei cittadini, i quali citano i dazi e gli scambi commerciali come cause della volatilità. Tuttavia, se i mercati fossero stati preoccupati per l'economia statunitense, i titoli di stato tedeschi e giapponesi non sarebbero calati. Inoltre 493 titoli nell'indice S&P 500 risultano invariati nel primo trimestre, nonostante abbiano raggiunto i massimi storici nel 2024 e siano stati oggetto di tutte le notizie negative nel 2025.

L'indice Bloomberg US Large Cap, escludendo i “magnifici sette”, è piatto da inizio anno. Sembra che stiamo vivendo una normale correzione dopo la massiccia corsa al rialzo degli ultimi cinque anni, dovuta alle aspettative di un'inflazione persistente e di un minor numero di tagli dei tassi. Ecco perché i titoli di stato tedeschi e giapponesi, storicamente i beneficiari di uno scenario di avversione al rischio, sono deboli.

Le stime di consenso sulla probabilità di recessione sono salite al 30%, lo stesso livello raggiunto nell'ottobre 2024 e significativamente al di sotto della probabilità del 65% prevista nell'aprile 2023. Inoltre la probabilità di recessione negli Stati Uniti, secondo Bloomberg, è attualmente la stessa dell'area Euro. Deloitte e Coutts prevedono una continua crescita del PIL nel 2025 e la Federal Reserve afferma che l'economia statunitense dovrebbe crescere di circa l'1,8% quest'anno. Molti investitori potrebbero essere preoccupati dalle notizie e credere che queste stime saranno riviste al ribasso. Tuttavia, se guardiamo agli indicatori principali, la stragrande maggioranza punta a un'espansione.

Il Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI), che misura l'attività economica e le pressioni inflazionistiche negli Stati Uniti, è salito a +0,18 a febbraio 2025, in rialzo rispetto al -0,08 di gennaio, il che indica che l'attività economica è superiore al suo trend storico. Inoltre l'S&P Global US Composite PMI, che misura l'attività nel settore manifatturiero e dei servizi, ha segnalato un'espansione ed è salito a 53,5 a marzo 2025, in rialzo rispetto al 51,6 di febbraio, la crescita più forte da dicembre 2024. Non tutto è positivo, perché il Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index ha subito un forte calo a marzo 2025, scendendo a 92,9, il livello più basso in oltre quattro anni, ma ben lontano dai livelli osservati nelle precedenti gravi recessioni, 87,1 durante la pandemia e 26,9 nella crisi del 2008.

La creazione di posti di lavoro rimane solida e si prevede che a marzo le buste paga non agricole negli Stati Uniti aumenteranno di 133.000 unità, con Bloomberg Economics che alza la stima a 200.000. Inoltre il 2025 dovrebbe segnare un anno di crescita dei salari reali.

Quali sono le principali preoccupazioni degli investitori, quindi? Riduzione della spesa pubblica e i dazi. Ridurre la spesa pubblica è essenziale per abbassare l'inflazione e il deficit. Nel 2024 la spesa pubblica è aumentata del 10%, una cifra del tutto anomala che ha portato il deficit federale a quasi $2.000 miliardi, lasciando l'economia statunitense con la peggiore crescita del PIL al netto dell'accumulo di debito sin dagli anni '30. Questo percorso insostenibile di spesa e indebitamento stava portando l'America a una crisi del debito e a un'inflazione galoppante. Quest'ultima è stata causata da un'elevata spesa pubblica che a sua volta ha portato a una crescita smisurata dell'offerta di moneta e alla distruzione del potere d'acquisto del dollaro. Il MIT ha concluso che la spesa federale è stata responsabile del picco di inflazione del 2022 e che i successivi aumenti di spesa pubblica e offerta di moneta hanno perpetuato le pressioni inflazionistiche e creato un problema di debito insostenibile, con spese per interessi che hanno raggiunto quasi i $1.000 miliardi. Con questa tendenza, il rapporto debito/PIL degli Stati Uniti passerebbe dall'allarmante 122,3% attuale al 156% entro il 2055, secondo il Congressional Budget Office. Pertanto tagliare la spesa pubblica è essenziale per ridurre l'inflazione ed evitare una crisi. Un rallentamento della crescita del PIL derivante da una riduzione della spesa pubblica non è negativo, bensì un segnale di rafforzamento dell'economia produttiva.

I dazi, poi, sono un problema globale.

La maggior parte degli investitori sembra beatamente ignara delle enormi barriere commerciali imposte dall'Unione Europea o dalla Cina negli ultimi anni. Gli operatori di mercato sembravano perfettamente soddisfatti dell'aumento dei dazi e delle barriere commerciali contro gli Stati Uniti da parte di altre nazioni. Nell'indice delle barriere commerciali, infatti, India, Russia, Sudafrica, Brasile e Cina figurano tra le peggiori nazioni. Inoltre l'Unione Europea e la Cina impongono dazi più elevati contro gli Stati Uniti rispetto al contrario, secondo ING e Bank of America. Senza contare che i mercati hanno raggiunto i massimi storici con Biden che ha mantenuto e aumentato alcuni dei dazi in vigore al suo insediamento.

I dazi non causano inflazione, poiché non generano un aumento della quantità di valuta o della velocità di circolazione della stessa. I dazi sono uno strumento per livellare il campo di gioco e affrontare l'eccessivo deficit commerciale degli Stati Uniti, che non è causato da mercati aperti e competitivi, ma da tutte le barriere contro gli esportatori statunitensi in altre nazioni. Molti Paesi sembrano avere una visione del libero scambio che significa poter vendere quanto vogliono negli Stati Uniti, imponendo al contempo barriere commerciali sempre più severe contro gli esportatori statunitensi, tra cui dazi, limitazioni legali e oneri normativi e fiscali. Il deficit commerciale degli Stati Uniti è triplicato, passando da $43 miliardi a marzo 2020 a $131 miliardi a gennaio 2025.

I mercati potrebbero essere spaventati da dazi, tagli alla spesa e preoccupazioni inflazionistiche, perché potrebbero tradursi in una minore offerta di moneta e in un minor numero di tagli dei tassi. Tuttavia i dazi sono uno strumento di negoziazione volto a migliorare la bilancia commerciale. Eliminare le barriere e negoziare condizioni migliori è positivo per tutti i mercati. Inoltre la storia dei negoziati commerciali e l'uso dei dazi hanno dimostrato di avere un impatto molto minore sull'economia degli Stati Uniti di quanto inizialmente temuto. Anche il periodo 2016-2019 lo dimostra. Senza contare che l'economia statunitense è più dinamica e potente di quanto molti credano. I tagli alla spesa dal lato dell'offerta e la riduzione del debito, le riduzioni fiscali e il riequilibrio degli scambi commerciali non sono negativi per l'economia. Sono tutti strumenti essenziali per recuperare salari reali, solidità finanziaria e un settore produttivo fiorente.

Dolore a breve termine per un guadagno a lungo termine.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una “mancia” in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

While days like Mother’s Day are corny, they do elicit memories.  I think of my mother. She died at the age of 100. Although she was quite debilitated at the time, she still kept asking me not to let her go, as if I had such power. She was afraid of death, but when I looked at her photo this morning, I felt she wasn’t dead or buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York where thirteen years ago we placed her next to our father and her husband Edward of sixty years.

“The dead don’t stay where they are buried,” the English writer John Berger’s mother tells him when he sees her in Lisbon seated on a park bench fifteen years after her death. Here Is Where We Meet is the book where you can read of this encounter and more. And there is much more, as when John remembers his mother saying to him when he was thirteen years-old, “Most people, she said, can’t stand the truth. It’s too bad but there it is, most people can’t stand it. You, John, I think you can bear the truth, we’ll see. Time will tell. I didn’t reply.”

When I spoke to my mother this morning, she told me to not make it public because people will think I am crazy. She was always worried that I would put myself in danger by saying or doing controversial things. But she knew also that I would not heed her advice and she was glad for that as well – secretly. When I told her what Berger’s mother said to him, she said, “Of course she was right. Would you stay buried there?”

It didn’t seem appealing, but I didn’t answer her.

“Where are you now?” I asked her.

“Don’t be too nosy, Eddy,” she said.

“I always want to know everything,” I said.

“There are some things best left alone. You are in one side of the world and I am in another. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Don’t you remember when I gave the eulogy at your funeral and I said you had a favorite saying about how the truth shall make you free?”

“I remember, but you also recalled my other favorite about being true to your own self, and I feel where I am at the moment would be of no help to you. I get around.”

Okay, Mom, but would you agree with what I more or less said about you in my eulogy? It went something like this : My mother was an artist at heart, and being an artist, she possessed all the bittersweet attributes that come with such a gift. She never developed the conventional shell that allows most people to hide their true feelings. She was a raw nerve, and had a nerve, and this could unnerve others who were content with euphemisms. But she was also a thwarted actress, and this complicated everything, for when an artist/actress has few opportunities to express themselves, a frustration seeps in. My mother suffered from such frustration, and it was sad. (It’s called being an artiste-manque by the great Otto Rank, the Austrian psychoanalyst, who in his masterpiece, Art and the Artist wrote: “The artist does not create, in the first place, for fame or immortality; his production is to be a means to achieve actual life, since it helps him to overcome fear.”)

“Yes, my dear son, I was afraid of something I couldn’t name and it haunted me. It goes back to many things when I was young, maybe thirteen years-old, and my father, with whom my mother and I didn’t live until I was ten and I had never met till then, put his policeman’s gun on the table and threatened us to obey him or else. The ‘else’ entered me and never left. He stood in my way then, and my mother’s sticking with him after really frightened me. I wanted to live my own life, but he thwarted me at every turn and my mother suffered through it as an accomplice because she too was afraid.”

Then I was right to say about you that in your pilgrim soul you always suffered from faith and doubt, hope and despair, and “she fleetingly wished to be blissfully ignorant, But that was not her destiny. She wanted more. She knew that so-called blissful-ignorance was beneath her dignity. She had soul, and as the poet John Keats wrote, ‘This life is a vale of soul-making,’ and Rita Mary Rose struggled mightily in that endeavor.”

I heard you then, Eddy, and I felt so close to you for grasping my struggles. I remember you also said that as an artist of life, a great mother – I gave birth to “nine children, losing three of them along the way – a heartache impossible to grasp, and that the artist in her, the seeker that she was, wanted more.” You said it perfectly, as I remember well, you also said that I loved and nurtured you all as best I could. That is so true. I did my utmost best, but I know it wasn’t perfect. After a twenty year span of being pregnant and giving birth from the age twenty-two, and another twenty of raising all of you, I wanted to give birth to the parts of me that lay fallow.  You were right to say that I wished, maybe unconsciously, especially for your sisters, that they live out the parts of me that fate and circumstances and fear prevented me from achieving. My dreams for them were quite superficial – to be discovered for their looks by some Hollywood mogul –  for so much was focused on their appearance, as mine was for me.

I know you were frustrated, and when we were all grown and gone you hoped for more. But like John Berger’s mother you had that favorite phrase: “it’s too late.” You were saying that when you were in your mid-fifties and had so long to live. It’s never too late, I always thought, for time is always present, but time is the enemy when looks are emphasized, but you even escaped that fate. You were a beautiful woman into old age. Yet looks need accomplishments and they demand the courage to create, and fear needs to be overcome for that. Sentimentality won’t do it, and you got a bit sentimental with some of your paintings as you aged.

You were not the grandmotherly type, and while it irritated me, I understood it. You were an artist with a soul and needed more than the mother title. You wanted to use you poetic and artistic abilities to create a new life beyond that of only mother and grandmother. Some us found that hard to accept even though it was obvious.

As your favorite son – an appellation unearned since there was no competition – I want to honor you for all your strivings for a second and third life. You deserve it. You suffered and struggled for it. You wanted to turn the world you saw with your beautiful eyes into a beautiful painting, a poem to touch the soul.

Your great gift to us was your effort, your internal struggles, your failures and small successes. You were a work of art, always in the making, never arriving.

Where are you now, Mother? I love and miss you. Your poem about Dad resonates.

But she was silent and just looked at me and smiled.

I Wish

By Rita Curtin

I wish that I could turn back the clock
But not to long ago.
Content I’d be if I could see and hear my loved ones calling me.
Oh Mama dear, I dream of you
In everything I see,
If only I could hold your hands
That lovingly held me.
And Ed my dear, I can’t forget
A wondrous man I dream of yet.

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

The post Rita Mary Rose Curtin appeared first on LewRockwell.

In seeking to understand why nations go to war, we often search for rational motivations such as the quest for money, or power, or territory, or that most elusive of goals—justice. But the truth is that often there is no reason behind descent into war other than the hostility and animosity between one nation and another.

In his essay “Separation of Reconciliation? The Nationalities Question in the USSR,” Igor Shafarevich identifies “resentment, malice and pain” as a predominant cause of conflict between nations—people driven by these emotions set aside all rational thought as they become consumed with thoughts of vengeance and retribution for their grievances. As Shafarevich puts it, “the pitch of emotion is more powerful even than the instinct of self-preservation,” and the warmongers “tend to forget everything the past has taught us.” They understand the tragedy of war, yet time and again they agitate for war as the solution to their political disputes.

The caution sounded by Shafarevich applies to those who glorify General Sherman’s total war against civilians in the American South. As Sherman saw it, there was no distinction between civilians and combatants since combatants might rely upon the moral and practical “aid and comfort” of their civilian families. In his 2007 book, Slavery, Secession, and Civil War, Charles Adams observes that, “When the war ended, and even 140 years later, the gatekeepers of Civil War history are still making the North’s war on the South—the most tragic event in all our history—into a noble cause for abolition.”

Those who celebrate the burning of the South claim that war crimes against Southern civilians were justified because it was for the “higher cause” of ending slavery. By conferring a “righteous cause” on the war, they are able to celebrate an event that left almost a million men dead and the South in smoking ruins. The glorification of their righteous war has become so important to them that it crowds out any concerns about the horrors of war. Their only philosophy is that their righteous ends justify the tyrannical means which, as they see it, was necessary to achieve the desired goal. In “Just War,” Murray Rothbard explains:

The Northern war against slavery partook of fanatical millennialist fervor, of a cheerful willingness to uproot institutions, to commit mayhem and mass murder, to plunder and loot and destroy, all in the name of high moral principle and the birth of a perfect world. The Yankee fanatics were veritable Patersonian humanitarians with the guillotine: the Anabaptists, the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks of their era. This fanatical spirit of Northern aggression for an allegedly redeeming cause is summed up in the pseudo-Biblical and truly blasphemous verses of that quintessential Yankee Julia Ward Howe, in her so-called “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Any “righteous cause” harnessed in that way to justify violence poses a grave threat to peace and liberty, because such moralistic arguments are often used to justify brazen acts of aggression. As C.S. Lewis famously said, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.” The same warning applies to warmongers. When moral busybodies claim that waging war is necessary to uphold values such as democracy or human rights, their supporters seem to be so beguiled by the apparent morality of their cause that they overlook the lessons of history. This tendency to overlook the tragedy of war is often seen in the discourse on slavery and abolition.

When people think of “abolition” they often envisage morally-principled men like Lysander Spooner. But although Spooner was an abolitionist, he was adamantly against war. The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison also did not see abolition as a justification for war. In “Just War,” Rothbard takes a similar view. He compares the American Revolutionary War to “the Southern cause, the War for Southern Independence,” and asks: “But if the British wanted to hold on and expand their empire, what were the motivations of the North? Why, in the famous words of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, at least early in the struggle, didn’t the North ‘let their erring sisters go in peace?’” Far from permitting the South to secede in peace, the Radical Republicans were determined to prevent the South from seceding by any means, including war if necessary. The New York Times reported that in April 1861 not everyone supported the Radical view:

Many believed that the states that had seceded should be brought back into the Union at any cost. On the other hand, some of the city’s businessmen, terrified that the Northern economy would collapse if Southerners stopped paying their debts and started selling a larger portion of their cotton directly to Europe, met on April 14 to plan a rally in City Hall Park to call for a peaceful reconciliation (even if it meant allowing the continuation of slavery).

The hypocrisies of the time were well known, hence observers cast doubt on the claim that the men of the North were so much more racially “enlightened” than those of the South that they were prepared to wage war to secure the emancipation of an oppressed race. Charles Adams notes that the British and European press—who were closely observing the events unfolding in America—were incredulous at the suggestion that the North intended to wage a war of abolition. It was well known that black people in the North did not have the right to vote, so it would seem extremely unlikely that Northerners would risk their own lives to ensure that blacks in the South would have the right to vote. Describing the British commentary on the situation preceding the war, Adams gives the example of the Chambers Journal of Popular Literature, which reported in 1857 that, “The statute-books of Indiana and Illinois, both free states, are disgraced by a series of what are termed ‘Black Laws;’ the effect of which is to deprive the coloured man not only of all political privileges, but even to render his oath invalid.”

When war broke out in 1861, it would seem strange, indeed, for these states to claim that they had waged a war to secure rights for blacks in the South which blacks in the North did not have. In the case of Indiana, the state constitution banned the immigration or settlement of black people. In later years “Nationally, Indiana was said to have the most powerful Ku Klux Klan.” Although today it is fashionable to claim that Indiana really did fight a war because they considered blacks to be “worthy of justice and equality,” their history shows them not to be overwhelmingly devoted to racial equality.

We are now invited to believe that most Indianans wanted equality for blacks, despite their hostility and even violence towards black abolitionists: “Sometimes there was white violence against African Americans. Most notable was the mob that severely beat black abolitionist Frederick Douglass when he spoke in Pendleton in 1843.” Francis T. Hord—a “War Democrat” who supported the Union—clarified in an Indiana senate debate in 1863 that his support for the Union should not be seen as support for abolition. He supported the war but opposed Republican party plans to have black troops in the army:

…it appears that in some localities our soldiers have mutinied on account of the employment of negro soldiers. Let us as a nation be politic and wise. But the Republican party have great confidence in the measure. They esteem the negro as one of the ordained instruments of protection. I advise them against such a delusive and fallacious hope.

Hord further clarified that he was not opposed to the employment of black people in principle, but only deemed it “impolitic” due to the objections of white men who were loyal to the Union.

I do not esteem the policy of the measure to arm the negroes of the South. Not, sir, that I abstractedly object to negroes aiding to restore this Union, for I would hitch the devil to the Chariot of the Union if he could drag it safely from the flames of this discord uninjured, but I believe it, sir, impolitic… this measure will alienate the loyal sentiment in a country where we need it. We gain more for our cause in nerving the strong arm of the white man in the border States by pacific measures towards them, than by driving them from us in arming slaves.

The mythology of a righteous war waged to uphold justice and equality for black people seems to be largely a post-war attempt to lend legitimacy to a deadly war which, before it broke out, was understood to be a struggle not over abolition but over the balance of power between the states. A Republican senator from Ohio, Samuel Galloway, responded to the infamous dispute between Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Preston Brooks of South Carolina with an overly enthusiastic and entirely unnecessary escalation of hostilities, by declaring,

Up and be doing!—put on the whole armor, and go out to the battle! The great question now before the people of this country is not the emancipation of the negro, but the emancipation of the white man… Gold cups, gold-headed canes, and other testimonials, to the disgrace of humanity, are being presented by the Virginians to the ruffian Brooks.

Who was the real ruffian is for readers to decide, but such escalation of political disputes into all out war should be rejected by all.

The post The Tragedy of War appeared first on LewRockwell.

Cicero had it right when he described the Sword of Damocles.

To be the leader of a country is like having a sword constantly dangling over your head from a single horse hair. You never know if or when the sword is going to cause your demise, but you know that the danger is ever-present.

That is just as true today as it was in Cicero’s time, but the modern-day Sword of Damocles hangs over the heads of not just the world’s leaders. It hangs over the heads of the populations as well.

If we rely on the conventional media for our interpretation of world economic and political conditions, we may well be scratching our heads continuously as to what needs to be done to “save” the situation.

Whether the discussion is over the debts of nations, the likelihood of war, or the increase in the loss of rights, the governments of much of the world are heading in a similar direction.

And that direction is not a positive one.

However, the pundits in the media offer a wide variety of solutions for the problems being discussed.

The solution to national debt is either to expand monetisation or to back off on it, depending upon who is speaking at the moment. Whether debt monetisation is the right thing to do in the first place is rarely discussed.

The solution to the Middle East problem is either to arm the rebels or send in the military.

The solution to domestic terrorism is either to build up the power of the various authorities, or to pass more dramatic laws restricting basic freedoms.

And so, we are to be forgiven if we imagine that the solution to such problems lies in whether we choose one destructive approach or another.

Truth be told, the most difficult assessment for us to make is that we should sit very far back from the rhetoric and ask ourselves, “Is a solution even possible at this point, or have the powers-that–be gone past the point of no return?”

Here’s why the problems won’t be solved:

As regards the debt of the most prominent countries of the world, the point of no return has certainly been reached by most.

Historically, once the present level of debt has been reached, no amount of monetisation will save the economy. It may be possible to give the addict yet another injection of heroin to stave off the immediate withdrawal symptoms, but at some point, it becomes necessary to go cold turkey.

It may be a very painful thing to do, but it truly is the only solution. A country cannot reach solvency through increased debt.

However, political leaders are loath to go cold turkey. To do so is to cut the horse hair that holds the sword hanging above their careers. Better to push the situation further into ruin, if it can buy a little more time.

As regards the rapid deterioration into police states that is occurring in so many countries, no amount of discussion by the pundits in the media will reverse the present destruction of basic rights. After all, the decision is not in their hands. It is in the hands of congresses, parliaments, presidents, and prime ministers.

They know that, very soon, the façade of “economic recovery” will come tumbling down, and they have no intention of allowing the populace to have the basic freedom of removing them from power, once the veil has been removed from the lie that a solution is in the works.

Political leaders, whose hold over power is in danger, will always do whatever is necessary to retain that power.

As regards warfare, it is interesting that none of the pundits who discuss the subject in the media ever raise the question, “How can a country that is facing bankruptcy possibly fund a war—traditionally the most expensive undertaking for any country in any era?”

Yet, throughout history, political leaders have often used warfare as a distraction when a government has reached the tipping point economically. As Hermann Goering said,

“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

The disconnect here seems to be that the populace seems to believe that the governments of the West sincerely hope to avoid war, so the discussion in the media revolves around what can be done to that end.

However, far from seeking peace, the governments of the day consciously seek to create war. After all, a populace that is otherwise unhappy with its government tends to toe the line if the country is at war. Further, the government has a greater ability to silence domestic detractors in time of war.

Thus, the ability to hold power is assured. A state of war is the single most effective tool in silencing dissent in any country.

In considering all of the above, not only as a present-day anomaly, but as a recurrent theme throughout history, any discussion of “if” there will be an economic collapse, “if” there will be an increase in the loss of basic freedoms, “if” there will be a ramping up of warfare, becomes a non-starter. It is a question of “when.”

Of course, in spite of this, there will be those individuals who will say, “I like to be positive. I’m going to hope for the best.”

But, in truth, this is not positive thinking at all. If we see the truth before our eyes and then cover our eyes in order to be positive, we are merely delving into self-deception.

Positive thinking begins with truth. Once we accept what is true, we may then be as positive or as negative as we wish regarding what that truth means to us.

If we are faced with the fact that much of the world is, once again, passing through the classic cycle of economic decline / removal of rights / distraction of war, we can either shut our eyes to that fact and hope for the best, or we can open our eyes and recognise that the one choice left to us is to try to step aside of coming events.

As Benjamin Ola Akande wrote, “Hope is not a strategy.”

If we recognise that the sword of Damocles is indeed hovering above our own heads, we would be unwise to continue to sit below it and ponder whether the horse hair may break.

Instead, we should understand that our very first move should be to put some physical distance between ourselves and the potential harm that unquestionably hangs over us.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post It’s Not ‘If;’ It’s ‘When’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

Donald Trump rolled the dice and came up snakes-eyes. He thought he could bully China, but China called his bluff. Now he must report his failure to the American people by trying to make the biggest trade blunder in the nation’s history, look like a ‘stunning triumph of the will’. Good luck with that.

Fortunately, we have a reliable metric for determining whether Trump succeeded or failed. If China makes concessions to preserve trade with the US, then we can say that Trump ‘won’. But if Trump is forced to remove his tariffs before China agrees to resume trade, then Trump ‘lost’. So, it’s really just a matter of who blinks first.

We figure that Trump will ‘blink first’ based on the fact, that Trump ‘has no cards to play.’ China has him over a barrel and they know it. Many analysts knew this from the very beginning, but their views were drowned out by the army of anti-China scribes and pundits who think the mighty USA can crush China whenever it wants. Now they’re going to see that the world doesn’t work that way. Now they’re going to see that a poorly governed country that is $36 trillion in debt and sliding towards irreversible insolvency, doesn’t get to make the rules. This is from a piece at CNN (on Sunday):

Top US officials involved in high-level trade negotiations with China emerged from two days of talks touting “substantial progress” and appearing to confirm that a deal between the two countries had been reached, which could have massive implications for the global economy.

“I’m happy to report that we’ve made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a brief statement Sunday in Geneva, Switzerland, where the talks were held, calling the negotiations “productive.”

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer indicated that an agreement had been reached Sunday, after President Donald Trump imposed sweeping 145% tariffs on most Chinese goods last month.

“The president declared a national emergency and imposed tariffs, and we’re confident that the deal we struck with our Chinese partners will help us to resolve work toward resolving that national emergency,” Greer said.

He added, “It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to come to agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as maybe thought.” CNN

“GREAT PROGRESS”, he says. That either means that China has accepted Trump’s unilateral tariffs or they have made important concessions. So, which is it?

We’ll know on Monday.

All we know so far, is that both sides agreed to establish a US-China trade consultation mechanism.

What does that mean?

It means the US and China agreed to a particular framework for ongoing dialogue between the two countries on issues related to trade, tariffs, export controls, and access to markets. In other words, they agreed to pick up the phone when officials from the other country call.

Don’t they do that anyway?

Yes, they do, which means the terminology was created to divert attention from the fact that China has offered no concessions and is refusing to budge until the tariffs are lifted. All of this is very bad for Trump who wants to convince his base that “tough talk” and bullyboy tactics can force rivals to bend to Uncle Sam’s will. But that clearly has not happened. This is from an article at the Global Times on Sunday:

Global attention is focused on Geneva, Switzerland, where China, US high-level economic and trade meeting has been held over the weekend….

In response to questions about the US abuse of tariffs, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Miao Deyu on Sunday stated at a media briefing… that the US uses tariffs as a weapon to exert maximum pressure and seek self-interest, embodying typical unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying. This approach sacrifices the legitimate interests of countries worldwide to serve US hegemonic interests. China firmly opposes the US imposition of so-called “reciprocal tariffs” and has taken forceful legal measures to resolutely counter them, CCTV News reported on Sunday.

China will firmly safeguard its development interests, uphold international fairness and justice, and maintain the international trade order. We are willing to strengthen communication and coordination with Latin American countries to jointly uphold multilateralism and the multilateral trading system, Miao said….

China’s decision to engage in talks with the US was made after careful consideration of global expectations, China’s own interests, and the concerns of US businesses and consumers, and it reflects China’s openness and sense of responsibility as a major global power…

If the US continues to cling to “America First” and unilateralism, seeks concessions from China through pressure tactics, any dialogue is unlikely to achieve meaningful progress, Ying noted….

The world’s largest economy had already contracted in the first quarter – marking the first decline since 2022. The tariffs have only added to the strain, dealing a heavy blow to the US economy by exerting mounting pressure across key areas such as consumer spending, employment, investment and trade… In comparison, China has the resilience and the necessary policy tools to protect its legitimate interests. The country has maintained its position as the world’s largest goods trading nation for eight consecutive years and it is a major trading partner for over 150 countries and regions….

China’s trade continued to expand at a solid pace in April. The country’s total import and export value in April reached 3.84 trillion yuan ($531.46 billion), up 5.6 percent year-on-year. Exports stood at 2.27 trillion yuan, rising 9.3 percent, while imports totaled 1.57 trillion yuan, a 0.8 percent increase, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on Friday. Global Times

So, as of Sunday, there is no indication that China is going to resume trade with the US unless Trump caves in and removes the tariffs. So, what Trump must do now is throw in the towel to China and then claim ‘victory’ for creating the invaluable “trade consultation mechanism”. He must snooker his backers into believing that his capitulation is actually a solid ‘win’ for Team USA.

Now The Bad News: China Has Replaced Us Already

CHINA HAS ALREADY sold huge amounts of products originally meant for US consumers to its neighbors… And the neighbors are buying big, giving China giant an 8.1% boost in export sales, surprising analysts.

“In early April, I said that Trump’s tariffs on China will strengthen trade ties between China and the rest of the world in the next few years,” said Prof Justin Hauge of Cambridge University in the UK, commenting on X. “It didn’t take a few years. It took a month.”

This is bad news for US Treasury chief Scott Bessent as he heads into negotiations later today in Switzerland, to bargain with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng.

THE NUMBERS

Newly published figures show exports from China rose a staggering 8.1% in April, compared to this time last year. Most of the goods are being snapped up by Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and other countries. Bloomberg’s stable of analysts predicted a 2% rise and Reuters predicted a 1.9% jump.

The 8.1% leap follows 12.4% growth in March, when exporters worked overtime to beat the April 2 launch of Donald Trump’s “global tariff attack”.

The Financial Times quoted Heron Lim, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, saying that, while China’s trade with the US dropped 21% year-on-year in April, it rose by an equal percentage with south-east Asian nations and 8 per cent with the EU…..

China, which is focused on trade rather than politics, makes goods for anyone who will buy—and that means the other 95% of humanity will do just fine as substitute customers. Nury Vittachi @NuryVittachi

Looks like the indispensable nation is not so indispensable after all. Here’s more from the Global Times:

China moved to accelerate the replacement of US products before the high-level China-US trade talks in Switzerland... China signed letters of intent with exporters of Argentina to purchase soybeans, corn, and vegetable oil shortly before the Geneva talks…. Earlier in April, China signed contracts to purchase at least 2.4 million tons of soybeans from Brazil….

The report noted that these moves underscore China’s efforts to secure alternative sources of US goods before the bilateral trade meeting started.

China signed a letter of intent with exporters in Argentina to buy about $900 million of soybeans, corn and vegetable oil, Bloomberg reported on Friday….. The Chinese delegates also held talks with local business representatives, focusing on expanding bilateral economic and trade cooperation and defending the free trading system….

Despite the headwinds posed by escalating US tariffs, China’s foreign trade performed better than expected in April.

According to data released by the General Administration of Customs, while exports to the US fell 21 percent year-on-year to about $33 billion last month, overall Chinese exports rose 8.1 percent, with exports to non-US markets increasing 13 percent. Global Times

The irony of these developments is that the Communists are acting like Capitalists while the Capitalists (Trump and Co) are acting like goofballs. Can’t they see that their dim-witted strategy has blown up in their faces? China is still trading, thriving and growing while US ports on the West Coast have turned into Ghost-towns and retail merchants are planning for a dismal future of higher prices and empty shelves. Isn’t it time to make an honest accounting and try to stop the bleeding before the patient dies? Here’s more from Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz:

Reducing US dependence on certain Chinese imports is not a straightforward task. Manufacturing of iPhones, for example, could move elsewhere… but it will take a long time and will be costly….

China now has a comparative advantage in logistics, manufacturing supply chains and engineering. It is no accident that China dominates in the production of smartphones and so many other products: it is far cheaper to produce them there. Prices of these products will rise as supply chains are reconfigured….. China has the knowhow, the determination and the resources to make up for this deficiency of demand, and it may be able to do so quickly….

China can also strengthen its systems of social protection and increase wages... There is scope for large increases in government expenditure…..

It can thus make up for the deficiency of aggregate demand from loss of exports to the US without resorting to “dumping” them on the rest of the world….

Moving production to the US will require massive upfront investment yet, because of all this disruption, no firm can be sure about the economic environment three months from now, let alone four years from now…..Trump talks about bringing back manufacturing jobs, but manufacturing jobs today make up less than 10 per cent of US employment.

He is looking to the past, not the future. Even if he were successful in resuscitating American manufacturing, it would not create good jobs for workers in the deindustrialised parts of the country.

Cars these days are made by robots, with the best companies employing as many engineers and researchers as production workers, and the production-line work is often not paid well.

Today, it’s the service and knowledge sectors that really matter, yet almost surely America’s longstanding trade surplus in these services will diminish, particularly given the damage Trump is doing to its considerable soft power: tourism is falling off a cliff, foreign students are discouraged from studying in the US, the rule of law is being tested and the president is waging a massive battle on the country’s leading universities….

China, meanwhile, has built dozens of new universities over the past decade.

China holds the cards over Trump, Joseph Stiglitz, The Sunday Times

I don’t have a crystal ball, so I can’t predict what’s going to happen on Monday,(when the details of the China-US talks are published) but I expect that Trump’s claims of “great progress” and a “total reset” with China are going to be exposed as ‘wishful thinking’ at best and a deliberate fabrication at worst. The days when the United States could beat China in a trade war are over, and the sooner we get used to it, the better.

Reprinted with permission from The Unz Review.

The post Trump’s Tariff Blunder Backfires Bigtime appeared first on LewRockwell.

If you want to escape immiseration, that option is available–upgrade to Premium.

I propose we set aside the conventional economic measures (GDP, unemployment, corporate profits, etc.) in favor of a more real-world metric: how many times we’re hectored to “upgrade to Premium” to regain services that were once part of what we already paid for.

I submit that this metric is a far better measure of what’s really going on in the economy than abstractions like GDP which say nothing about our real-world quality of life or whose getting the lion’s share of the spoils.

If we track how many times we’re hectored to “upgrade to Premium,” it’s clear the economy is in some terminal stage of decay beneath the happy story of soaring corporate profits. Or perhaps more accurately, the economy is in a terminal stage of decay in which corporate profits depend on reducing the quality of daily life as the last remaining means of pushing profits higher.

Consider a subscription to a major national newspaper. A subscription was once simple: you paid the publisher a monthly fee and you received the entire newspaper in print or online. Now you pay the monthly fee, click on a recipe link, and are nagged to “upgrade to Premium” to regain access to the Food section.

OK, forget the recipe, let’s check the sports section. Click on a story, and voila, we’re nagged to “upgrade to Premium” to access the “premium” sports section.

When did the Sports and Food sections become available only to those paying First Class rates? Please tell me this is a parody of corporate greed. Oh, it’s now the New Normal. If that’s the case, isn’t our economy now a parody of a functioning economy?

Next up, a bulk email service. As we set up the email, we’re prompted to select “send email now” or “schedule email to be sent later.” If we choose the latter, we’re prompted to “upgrade to Premium” for what was once part of the service we’re already paying for.

Anti-virus software was once a complete set of tools with a single price. Not any more. Now when we run a scan, we’re prompted to “clean up all the junk files.” If we click on that link, surprise, we’re prompted to “upgrade to Premium.”

If you want to book a specific seat on an airline flight, that’s extra now, too. And so on.

This immiseration of the quality of our lives is extraordinarily profitable. Here is the FRED (Federal Reserve) chart of corporate profits’ share of domestic national income. Note that corporate profits’ share of the national income poked above 7% in the go-go 1960s and 2000s, but only poked above 6% in the go-go 1990s.

Corporate profits’ share of the national income in the 6% to 7% was good enough for the economy to expand smartly. Now corporate profits are around 9% of the national income and we’re hovering on the edge of stagflation and immiseration as wages’ share of the national income has continued its 50-year decline.

Read the Whole Article

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