Lew Rockwell Institute

For most of my life, I’ve observed the FDA belligerently suppress natural treatments and any unorthodox therapy which threatens the medical monopoly while simultaneously railroading through a variety of unsafe and ineffective drugs regardless of how much public protest the agency meets. Consider this 2004 Senate testimony by the FDA scientist who got Vioxx banned that accurately described exactly what would come to pass with the COVID vaccines two decades later.

As such, I do not hold the FDA in a positive light, especially given that during COVID-19, I (like many others) spent hundreds of hours trying to get the agency to allow the limited use of off-patent therapeutics for COVID-19—all of which ultimately went nowhere due to the unjustifiable roadblocks the agency kept putting up.

Over the past year, especially since Trump’s election, I’ve received many questions about FDA reform. To address the issue properly, I’ve carefully examined both sides.

In medicine, “sensitivity” refers to a test’s ability to correctly identify those who have a condition (e.g., detecting an infection), while “specificity” measures how well the test avoids false positives (i.e., correctly identifying those who don’t have the condition). The challenge is that improving one often reduces the other. For example, increasing the PCR cycle threshold in COVID tests made it more likely to detect infections (higher sensitivity), but also increased false positives (lower specificity). This trade-off leads to problems, like breast cancer screenings, where high sensitivity can result in false positives and unnecessary “treatments” for women who don’t actually have cancer.

The FDA faces a similar challenge: it must prevent harmful foods and drugs from reaching the market while ensuring useful products aren’t blocked. Though this seems straightforward, it’s incredibly difficult, and the FDA has often failed at both, even with leadership dedicated to public health.

Crime Against the Food Law

In the late 1800s, food producers were selling adulterated products, and pharmaceutical companies peddled medicines with secret ingredients like opium and alcohol. Public outrage grew, especially after exposés like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, which helped spark the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. This law gave the Bureau of Chemistry the power to ensure accurate labeling and prevent harmful additives in food.

The director of the Bureau of Chemistry (and thus the first head of the FDA), Harvey Wiley conducted tests on food additives, proving they made healthy volunteers sick. While the public and many scientists supported his findings, the food industry fought back with powerful lobbyists and legal tactics.

Note: the additives Wiley scrutinized were boric acid and borax, salicylic acid (aspirin) and salicylates, benzoic acid and benzoates, sulfur dioxide and sulfites, formaldehyde, sulfate of copper (used to green produce), and saltpeter (nitrates).

Gradually, the food industry hijacked the presidency, and in 1912, Wiley resigned, realizing he could achieve more for America’s health as a private citizen than within the government.

Wiley’s book “The History of A Crime Against The Food Law” details much of the same abhorrent industry tactics we see happening now. For example, a series of investigative reports recently showed that the processed food industry’s lobbyists worked fervently behind the scenes to block RFK’s nomination and had there not been widespread public protest, would have stopped us from Make America Healthy Again.

Those tactics also highlight a key point Wiley made—the only way to create change in this industry is to coax the public at large to demand it, as the moment you rely upon the members of the government to fix it, lobbyists will crush those efforts.

Generally Recognized as “Safe”

Many food additives are “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS), meaning they’re widely used without regulation. Wiley faced two major issues: food industry counterfeiting and harmful additives. The industry often faked products to cut costs, like selling grain alcohol as whiskey or using polluted waters to enlarge oysters.

Despite evidence of harm, the food industry claimed these additives were essential for production, even though competitors showed higher-quality (and ultimately more profitable) products could be made without them. Wiley also warned that chronic exposure to additives could cause long-term health issues, such as organ damage and aging.

Sadly, his concerns were ignored as industry influence grew and he was unable to ban them—rather they were eventually reclassified as “generally recognized as safe.” As a result, these “safe” additives have contributed to widespread chronic illness in society.

Note: those additives included sodium benzoate, sulfur dioxide, alum (potassium aluminum sulfate), sulfur dioxide, saccharin, modified corn sugars, saccharin, and nitrogen bleached flour—many of which were linked to cancer. Sadly, since 2000, nearly 99 percent of new food chemicals added to the food supply chain have exploited the GRAS loophole. I believe the widespread use of aluminum in processed foods is particularly detrimental (due to it greatly impairing the physiologic zeta potential and causing micro-clotting throughout the body), and provides a key explanation for why you often see certain rapid improvements in individuals once they stop eating processed foods and their additives.

The Kefauver–Harris Amendment

In the years that followed Wiley’s departure, the handicapping of the FDA continued. As such, the FDA agent assigned to the morning sickness drug thalidomide could only stall but not reject it—a tactic that prevented catastrophic birth defects across America. A 1962 amendment was then passed, giving the FDA the power to block unsafe drugs.

This law gave the FDA excessive power, slowing drug approval and causing mismanagement. It also required “well-controlled” trials for drug approval, which the FDA defined as expensive double-blind randomized controlled trials (RCTs). This:

• Elevated RCTs, making drug approval a “pay-to-play” system, with approval costs soaring to 0.98-4.54 billion.1,2
• Created bias, as RCTs cost so much they inevitably produce results in favor of their sponsor (which often outweigh any benefit of their expensive “controlled” design).
• Sidelined smaller, effective observational trials, which, being affordable, are feasible for investigators to conduct without pharmaceutical sponsorship and can yield the same results as large RCTs (proven by a 2014 Cochrane Review).
• Stifled innovative therapies, as unorthodox treatments lacking costly RCTs were dismissed. As a result, medical innovation in the U.S. slowed, with scientists financially pressured to avoid challenging existing paradigms, leading to fewer groundbreaking discoveries despite advancing technology.

Because the FDA had rapidly expanded in numerous directions it was not prepared for, it subsequently frequently failed to fulfill its primary responsibilities (e.g., taking something harmful off the market), and it simultaneously took things away Americans actually wanted. This in turn led to numerous committees investigating the FDA (e.g., Commissioner Lay’s Kinslow report of his agency’s serious shortcomings) and key officials with integrity like Lay being kicked out, all of which were encapsulated a series of scathing articles that were published by the New York Times in 1977.

In my eyes, the most important thing about this period of FDA reforms was that the FDA was the most complained about agency in the government. Congress made numerous attempts to fix it (as did ethical FDA officials)—but nothing was ever solved.

The DMSO Saga

Over the last seven months, I’ve begun exploring a remarkable forgotten side of medicine—DMSO. This simple and freely available natural chemical is incredibly effective at treating a variety of (often “incurable”) conditions, including many that are otherwise impossible to treat including:

•Strokes, paralysis, a wide range of neurological disorders and circulatory disorders.

•Chronic pain and a wide range of tissue injuries.

•Many autoimmune, protein and contractile disorders.

•Head conditions, such as tinnitus, vision loss, dental problems, and sinusitis.

•A wide range of internal organ diseases.

•Acute and chronic infections including shingles and herpes.

•Many skin conditions including acne, herpes, hair loss and varicose veins.

•Many aspects of cancer, and when used in combination with other therapies, directly treating challenging cancers.

Likewise, since publicizing this research, I’ve received over two thousand reports from readers who then took it and had almost unbelievable results that precisely match what many reported in the 1960s and 1970s.

This all raises a simple question. How is it that no one knows about DMSO or that an agent that could dramatically reduce the need for opioids or prevent millions with stroke and spinal cord injury from having a life of disability never saw the light of day?

That’s because as DMSO rapidly spread across America in the 1960s, the FDA reversed its initial positive stance, declaring DMSO dangerous without evidence. This pivot was initially prompted by the FDA not wanting to have to process a flood of new drug applications, and then evolved into being done to protect the status quo and to justify the FDA’s newfound police powers. Despite extensive safety studies showing DMSO posed no risk to humans and numerous Congressional hearing being held to legalize DMSO, for decades, the FDA continued to demonize it, claiming a lack of evidence for efficacy (as DMSO’s characteristic effects make blinded trials with it impossible). Because of this, DMSO only became available decades later after the public got fed up with the FDA targeting natural medicines and the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act was enacted (which removed the FDA’s ability to regulate natural medicines).

Read the Whole Article

The post The FDA’s War on America’s Health appeared first on LewRockwell.

Like everyone else I met on an overnight meeting in the Bahamas, I am worried about a recession. The world’s largest economy could dip into one, and very quickly, said a multibillionaire attending the same party as me. Personally, I have never understood much about economics. I have always left such matters to people who can tell the difference between a hedge fund and a mutual fund, duties and tariffs, and so on.

So, let those of us who regularly read this column and know as little as I do about economics try to figure out what The Donald is doing: Is he taking us down a black hole, or is he making those of us living in America better off? All I am certain of is that good faith in the U.S. dollar is what the government runs on, which in turn is based on “business as usual.” Where change must be introduced, it need be in slow increments. When upended, there’s a danger of recession. The tariff plan includes duties on many countries, but the planned start dates for many of those changed abruptly last week, with a ninety-day pause for goods from many places except China. This is very disruptive and roils global markets. U.S. debt and U.S. budget deficit are also big—in fact, enormous—worries. The reason I am worried is that I’m not at all the type who worries. Still, the naysayers can get to one, especially when reading an old bag like the Dowd woman, whose proof that Trump doesn’t get math was by recalling The Donald’s appearance on Howard Stern’s show and when asked what’s 17 times 6 answered 112. I’m pretty certain if Einstein were asked the same question and had to answer in a jiffy he might well have also missed the mark. Such are the joys of reading old hags like la Dowd about The Donald.

“Is The Donald taking us down a black hole, or is he making those of us living in America better off?”

Now let’s get back to economics, or finance, or the stock market, or even tariffs. Nobody knows “nuttin’,” as far as I’m concerned, and the so-called experts are always getting it wrong. The only thing I am sure of is that Trump is imposing tariffs on certain goods that Uncle Sam does not and cannot produce. Such as manganese from Gabon that American companies need to make steel. On the other hand, I am sure that once this is pointed out, Gabon will be excluded from the tariff burden. Or so the great economist Taki believes. Also making the great economist lose sleep are higher interest rates, because higher interest rates make the federal debt harder to repay. Oy vey, as Einstein would say. Uncle Sam owes trillions—37, to be close to exact—and the plunging dollar is not helping. What happens if the almighty buck suddenly goes the way of the Mexican peso or Bolivian Bolivar, if that’s the currency of that faraway and very “high” country. Americans will have to start growing their own drugs because they will not be able to afford buying them from those nice guys down south. Sure, reviving domestic manufacturing is my dream—Pat Buchanan and I wrote at length about it when Clinton and Obama and the idiotic W. were going globalist—but factories take years to build, and not many people are ready to plunge their money into projects when The Donald’s successors might not maintain his policies.

See why I’m worried, jelly bean? Tariffs are like guns—they can make you win big and lose even bigger. In the meantime the stock market is going up and down like a drunken sailor who is being refused entry to an upstairs whorehouse. A 10 percent loss in the market is enormous when felt by 60 percent of American adults who own stocks or mutual funds. The only ones benefiting from this chaos are the Democrats, who got a shellacking last November and now have been given a reprieve on a golden platter. What I think The Donald should do is keep the screws on China and take it easy on the rest of the world. China is a hostile global power but one that can be tamed easily because the Chinese are intelligent people who simply dislike the West because of what the West did to China for a couple hundred years.

And now for a happy ending: Lift the tariffs for everyone except China, force Israel to stop the genocide or else, and watch the stock market reach 50,000 and The Donald proclaimed the greatest president since my favorite, Warren Harding. Yippee!

This originally appeared on Taki’s Magazine.

The post Thoughts From the Great Economist appeared first on LewRockwell.

One of the most fascinating aspects of President Trump’s tariff attack on China has been the acceptance among so many Americans that China is now our official enemy or, if you prefer more benign imperialist terms, our “opponent,” “adversary,” “rival,” or “competitor.”

After all, wasn’t it just recently that our official enemy was Russia? Even when Trump was president the first time and through the Biden administration, the standard mindset of the American people was that it was Russia and Vladimir Putin who were coming to get us. The Russians were influencing the way Americans voted. They were conquering Ukraine on their way to worldwide conquest. “The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!” It all brought to mind the Cold War decades when the Reds, including the Russian Reds, were our official enemy and coming to get us.

After the 9/11 attacks, our official enemy became the “terrorists” or the Muslims. “The terrorists are coming!” replaced “The Russians are coming!” That’s what generated the perpetual “war on terrorism,” the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, USA Patriot Act, the illegal telecom surveillance scandal, the illegal mass surveillance schemes, the TSA, official state-sponsored assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, and all the rest of the anti-terrorism measures to keep us “safe.”

Heck, I remember when Saddam Hussein was our official enemy. For eleven years, I had to hear every day, “Saddam! Saddam! Saddam!” Many American was convinced that Saddam was going to unleash mushroom clouds across America.

But today under Trump, China has been named as the new official bugaboo. And the mindsets of many Americans, especially Trumpsters, have seamlessly and effortlessly now replaced Russia with China as America’s newest official enemy. That helps these people feel okay about the economic devastation that Trump’s tariffs will inflict on the Chinese people. The idea is that we don’t need to care about them because they are the new big, bad enemy of the United States.

Permit me to issue a personal public declaration: While China might well be the new official enemy of Trump and his Trumpsters, along with the State Department and the U.S. national-security establishment, China is not my enemy.

In fact, I feel pretty much the way Mohammad Ali felt when he declared, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me nigger.”

Oh boy, did that make U.S. officials angry. Not only was it considered “treason” for an American to not accept an U.S.-designated official enemy as his enemy, the fact that it was a black man saying this compounded the problem a hundred-fold. They went after Ali with a vengeance, trying everything they could to incarcerate him and destroy his boxing career.

Oh yes, I fully realize that China is governed by a communist regime. As a libertarian, I dislike communism immensely. But that still doesn’t make China my enemy. I’m with President John F. Kennedy, who declared in his Peace Speech at American University in June 1963 that Americans and communist nations could exist in mutual harmony despite their ideological differences. Of course, it was that mindset that got him killed.

Moreover, it’s worth noting that the officials in the Chinese Communist Party are as unlikely to be adversely impacted by Trump’s tariffs as Trump will be by China’s retaliatory tariffs. The rich and the political elites don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to tariffs and trade wars. It’s the regular, ordinary citizens of both countries who will pay the price of the tariffs. It is regular, ordinary Chinese people who will be impoverished and bankrupted. I feel very bad for those people — as bad as I feel for the regular, ordinary Americans who will be impoverished and bankrupted by Trump’s tariffs.

Why do Americans so readily adopt the new official enemies that are declared by U.S officials? That’s where the success of America’s public (i.e., government) school systems comes into play. For twelve long years, the minds of American children are shaped and molded by an environment of conformity, regimentation, obedience, and fear. By the time they graduate high school, most Americans have no conception of what was done to them through the power of state indoctrination. Thus, when a new official enemy is decreed, they don’t think it is strange that their mind immediately reshapes and conforms by accepting the new official enemy as their enemy as well. This mental phenomenon brings to mind the constant array of shifting enemies in George Orwell’s novel 1984. Like the citizens in Orwell’s fictional nation of Oceania, many Americans are also scared to death to question or challenge what the Trump administration is doing for fear of what it might to do them.

Color me treasonous, but the fact is that I ain’t got no quarrel with them Chinese. They’ve never done anything bad to me. I wish I could say the same thing about the U.S. government. It has done lots of bad things to me, including destroying my freedom and privacy with its income tax, IRS, welfare state, monetary debasement, mass secret surveillance, conscription, out-of-control federal spending and debt, managed/regulated economy, drug war, national-security state, denial of due process of law, denial of trial by jury, foreign invasions and occupations, attacks on freedom of speech, tariffs, trade wars, sanctions, embargoes, travel restrictions, immigration police state, and much, much more. In fact, if truth be told, the U.S. government has proven itself to be the real enemy of American liberty and privacy.

Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The post Them Chinese Ain’t My Enemy appeared first on LewRockwell.

In recent years, the global movement toward regenerative and organic agriculture has gained significant momentum. These approaches promise to restore soil health, enhance biodiversity, reduce reliance on synthetic chemicals and create more sustainable and resilient food systems. Rooted in ecological principles and farmer autonomy, these practices have become vital alternatives to the destructive patterns of industrial agriculture, which has long prioritised short-term yields and profit over environmental integrity and public health.

However, despite their promising potential, these movements face a formidable challenge: the encroachment of big agribusiness corporations seeking to co-opt and distort their core principles. Through aggressive marketing and lobbying and strategic rebranding, corporations are attempting to position genetically modified (GM) soil microbes and other biotech biologicals as sustainable or regenerative solutions.

This effort, cloaked in greenwashing rhetoric, aims to maintain corporate dominance, control over agricultural inputs and influence over public perception and policy.

Adding a layer of complexity and concern is the potential targeting of influential advocates such as Robert F Kennedy Jr (RFK Jr), a prominent voice championing organic and regenerative farming. Critics like Claire Robinson of GMWatch warn that these corporations may seek to co-opt RFK Jr and other respected figures to lend legitimacy to biotech products that fundamentally conflict with the principles of true sustainability.

At their core, regenerative and organic agriculture emphasise working with natural systems rather than against them. These approaches prioritise soil health, water conservation and ecological balance by adhering to agroecological principles. Practices such as cover cropping, crop rotation, reduced tillage, composting and integrated pest management aim to rebuild degraded soils, sequester carbon and foster resilient ecosystems.

Organic agriculture, as defined by certification standards, explicitly prohibits synthetic pesticides, fertilisers, GM organisms and artificial additives. It promotes natural nutrient cycles, biodiversity and animal welfare. Both movements are driven by the recognition that sustainable food systems must prioritise ecological integrity, social equity and long-term resilience.

The rise of these movements reflects growing public concern about the health impacts of chemical-laden foods and environmental degradation. The public increasingly demand transparency, sustainability and food sovereignty: the right of communities to culturally appropriate food and to determine their own food production, distribution and consumption practices, rejecting corporate-dominated models

Corporate Greenwashing  

Despite the noble principles underpinning regenerative and organic agriculture, the reality is that large agribusiness corporations are actively seeking to co-opt or undermine these movements for their own benefit. Their strategy involves promoting biotech innovations—particularly GM soil microbes and biologicals—as part of a narrative of “sustainable” or “regenerative” solutions.

Genetically engineered soil microbes are marketed as biofertilisers, biopesticides or soil conditioners that can enhance nutrient uptake, improve pest resistance or sequester carbon more effectively. These products are often gene-edited or genetically modified to supposedly outperform native microbes, with claims that they can revolutionise farming practices.

However, these biotech products are fundamentally incompatible with the principles of true regenerative and organic farming. They often rely on proprietary genetic technologies that require farmers to depend on corporate-controlled inputs, perpetuating dependency on chemical and biotech giants. Moreover, the ecological risks of releasing GM microbes into soil ecosystems are largely unassessed, and their long-term impacts on native microbial communities and soil health remain uncertain.

This corporate push is often accompanied by aggressive lobbying that frame GM biologicals as “natural”, “sustainable” or “innovative”, even though they are genetically engineered and may involve synthetic chemicals or proprietary technologies. Such messaging blurs the lines between genuine ecological practices and industrial biotech solutions, deliberately designed to confuse the public and undermine the credibility of authentic organic and regenerative systems.

GM biologicals, particularly soil microbes, are engineered microorganisms designed to supposedly enhance agricultural productivity and soil health through genetic modification techniques. Unlike traditional biological inputs, which rely on naturally occurring microbes, GM biologicals are created by altering the genetic material of microbes to perform specific functions or to introduce new capabilities.

GM biologicals are primarily microorganisms—such as bacteria, fungi or other microbes—that have been genetically engineered to serve specific roles in agriculture. These roles include improving nutrient availability, pest and disease resistance, soil remediation and plant growth promotion. The genetic modifications are made using various biotechnology techniques, including gene editing tools like CRISPR, gene guns or agrobacterium-mediated transformation.

The development of GM biologicals involves inserting, deleting or modifying genes within microbial genomes to produce desired traits. For example, nitrogen-fixing bacteria are engineered to ostensively increase nitrogen availability to plants, reducing the need for synthetic fertilisers. Biocontrol agents can be modified with the aim of producing natural insecticides or antifungal compounds, providing pest and disease control. Engineered soil remediators aim to break down pollutants or xenobiotics in contaminated soils. These microbes are then produced at scale and applied to fields as seed coatings, soil amendments or foliar sprays.

Examples of GM soil microbial products include Pivot Bio’s Proven, a gene-edited nitrogen-fixing bacteria used on millions of acres of corn designed to reduce synthetic fertiliser dependence; BASF’s Poncho/VOTiVO, a seed coating containing GM bacteria that aims to protect against nematodes and enhance nutrient breakdown around roots; and Pivot Bio’s Microbial Inoculants, engineered microbes designed to break down organic matter to release nutrients more efficiently.

Proponents argue that GM biologicals can increase crop yields, reduce chemical fertiliser and pesticide use, improve soil health and resilience and enable more sustainable farming practices.

However, there are significant risks. These include ecological disruption as GM microbes can share genetic material with native microbes, potentially creating invasive or unintended species. Moreover, the unpredictable spread of these microbes, because they can travel great distances via wind or water, makes containment challenging. And unknown long-term effects on soil ecosystems raise concerns about potential damage to soil biodiversity and ecosystem functions.

The potential for horizontal gene transfer also exists, raising the risk that engineered genes could transfer to non-target organisms, including pathogens or other beneficial microbes. The deployment of GM microbes at scale raises profound ecological concerns. Unlike traditional biological inputs, these engineered organisms can reproduce, spread and potentially disrupt native microbial communities. Once released into the environment, their ecological fate becomes difficult to control or reverse.

There may also be unintended effects on non-target organisms, including beneficial insects, plants and animals and soil health degradation if engineered microbes outcompete or displace native, ecologically balanced microbial populations.

Currently, at least two GM microbial products are used across US farmland, mainly in monoculture corn production. These include nitrogen-fixing bacteria and microbes that aid in nutrient breakdown. Despite their widespread use, there is ongoing debate about their safety, ecological impact and regulation.

Claire Robinson has discussed research indicating that GM biologicals, such as engineered soil microbes, often do not outperform existing natural or conventional microbial models in agricultural contexts. She highlights that despite aggressive corporate claims, many of these GM biological products fail to deliver superior benefits compared to native microbial communities or traditional biological inputs.

Robinson points out that studies and field trials frequently show that these engineered microbes do not consistently improve soil health, nutrient cycling or crop yields beyond what existing, naturally occurring microbes achieve. This challenges the narrative pushed by big agribusiness that GM biologicals are revolutionary solutions for regenerative agriculture. Instead, their efficacy is often overstated, and their ecological risks remain poorly understood.

Her critique emphasises that the promotion of GM biologicals as superior or essential components of regenerative farming is part of a broader corporate strategy to greenwash industrial agriculture and maintain control over farming inputs. By pushing GM microbes, companies attempt to rebrand their products as “natural” or “organic”, despite lacking evidence of clear advantages and raising concerns about ecological disruption.

Robinson’s perspective aligns with a broader critique of how big agribusiness attempts to hijack regenerative and organic agriculture through misleading claims about genetically engineered products.

Despite the risks, regulatory frameworks often lag behind technological developments, allowing biotech companies to release GM microbes with minimal oversight. This regulatory gap exacerbates fears that ecological integrity and public health could be compromised.

Robert F Kennedy Jr has emerged as a prominent advocate for organic and regenerative agriculture, emphasising the importance of reducing chemical inputs, supporting small farmers and restoring ecological balance. Robinson has expressed concern that big agribusiness interests may target RFK Jr as a potential figure to endorse or promote biotech solutions, including GM soil microbes.

The strategy would involve co-opting his reputation to lend legitimacy to products that are fundamentally at odds with organic principles.

This potential targeting is part of a broader pattern where corporations seek to influence or manipulate influential advocates to serve their commercial interests. By framing biotech innovations as essential to “feeding the world”, climate mitigation or soil health, they aim to position themselves as allies of sustainable agriculture, even as their products undermine ecological and social values.

History of Deception and Disregard  

The question of whether big agribusiness corporations can be trusted with the future of agriculture is central here and is not merely a matter of speculation; it is a question steeped in a history of documented transgressions. Reports of creating “hit lists” targeting critics, manipulating scientific research and employing PR companies to discredit dissenting voices are not isolated incidents, but rather indicative of a systemic willingness to prioritise profit and control over transparency, public health and ecological concerns.

These actions have been well-documented over the years, and far from being aberrations, they reveal a calculated strategy to maintain dominance in the face of mounting evidence against their practices.

Historically, some of these corporations have faced persistent accusations of suppressing or distorting scientific findings that contradicted their commercial interests. This manipulation of science, often achieved through funding biased research or discrediting independent studies, has had far-reaching consequences. It undermines evidence-based policymaking, endangers public health and silences those who dare to challenge the prevailing corporate narrative.

The consequences are particularly dire in the context of agriculture, where decisions about pesticide use, GM organisms and farming practices have directly and adversely impacted human health and environmental sustainability.

The vision of global agriculture being advanced by these corporations is one where genetically engineered seeds, soil microbes, data harvesting and drone technology are all employed to entrench corporate control and dependency. This vision actively displaces smallholder farmers and undermines agroecological practices that are essential for food sovereignty and ecological resilience.

The use of PR firms to attack critics and spread misinformation further erodes trust, creating a climate of fear and discouraging open debate about the risks and benefits of agricultural technologies. These tactics often involve character assassination, the spreading of disinformation and the creation of astroturf organisations designed to mimic grassroots movements while actually serving corporate interests (all of this and more is documented at length on the GMWatch website).

Deregulation efforts surrounding new genetic modification techniques are paving the way for the unchecked proliferation of gene-edited GM organisms and engineered microbes, further increasing risks to health, the environment and farmer livelihoods.

Given this well-documented history of deception, manipulation and disregard for public welfare, it is not only reasonable but imperative to approach any claims made by these corporations with a high degree of scepticism. Their involvement in regenerative and organic agriculture should be viewed through a lens of intense scrutiny, with careful attention paid to the potential for greenwashing, the co-optation of sustainable practices and the further entrenchment of corporate control over the global food system.

It is essential to increase transparency and public awareness about the ecological and health risks of GM biologicals while supporting farmer-led, ecologically based practices that prioritise soil health, biodiversity and community resilience without reliance on proprietary biotech.

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post Toxic Agribusiness’s Genetically Mutilated Greenwash appeared first on LewRockwell.

On April 4, 2025, South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol was formally removed from office after the Constitutional Court found him guilty of leading an illegal pro-government coup on December 3, 2024. Having lost the presidency, Yoon will now be tried for treason in a regular criminal court—a separate institution from the Constitutional Court—where he faces either the death penalty or life imprisonment. Western liberal media outlets have praised these developments as a testament to the strength and maturity of South Korea’s democratic system. They argue that South Korea is a politically advanced nation, capable of dealing with any wrongdoing or abnormality through constitutional procedures and democratic deliberation, serving as a model for Western democracies.

Indeed, since the 1990s, South Korea has widely been regarded as a leading example of democracy, highly respected by Western nations. Yet I argue that this case reveals not a robust demonstration of constitutionalism but rather its deep fragility. Far from celebrating a “victory” for constitutional democracy, this situation in South Korea actually underscores a nightmare scenario for constitutionalism.

The Constitutional Crisis in South Korea: A Brief Summary

Throughout the 20th century, the South Korean people waged a pro-democracy movement against a succession of illegal military regimes armed with tanks and guns. By the late 1980s, they successfully toppled the military government and amended the constitution. Unlike numerous non-Western nations that descended into perpetual political upheaval after ousting authoritarian regimes, South Korea managed to establish a lasting democratic order. The Economist Democracy Index and the V-Dem Democracy Index—today’s most trusted measures of democracy—have consistently ranked South Korea as one of the most democratic countries in Asia for the past decade, placing it in the global top 15–20. At one point, it rivaled established democracies in Europe and North America, even surpassing some, like Italy, Australia, Canada, and the United States. South Koreans refer to the post-1987 constitution—which introduced direct presidential elections—as the “1987 System,” and many take pride in how this system emerged from their struggle against a military regime.

The high level of constitutional democracy attained by a non-Western nation has often been used to show that constitutionalism and democracy are universal, ideal systems for humanity. However, South Korea’s events last year demonstrated how constitutionalism can fail when President Yoon Seok-yeol, who professed to follow Ludwig von Mises, declared a state of emergency to “eliminate communists and defend freedom,” invoking the very powers that the constitution grants. I do not highlight President Yoon’s coup attempt simply to show the failure of constitutionalism: it can be written off as the act of a historically rare “madman.” No system may be able to respond well to such a crazy person. Moreover, his coup, under the guise of constitutional authority, was thwarted within two hours by a constitutionally empowered National Assembly that nullified martial law. Indeed, one could say the same constitution that triggered the crisis ended it. Where is the problem, then?

The real trouble emerged in the aftermath: the series of severe and repeated failures by South Korea’s constitutional and political apparatus. These failures laid bare the brittleness of a constitutional system. Here are the key events in the three months following the state of emergency:

1. An impeachment motion against President Yoon passed, removing him from office, and elevating the Prime Minister—akin to the U.S. Vice President’s succession—to Acting President.
2. Under South Korea’s constitution, a specialized Constitutional Court addresses constitutional matters. It comprises nine justices: some appointed by the president, some elected by the National Assembly, and others nominated by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
3. Impeached on charges of insurrection, Yoon now faced a trial in the Constitutional Court. However, because three of its justices elected by the National Assembly were vacant due to prior political turbulence, only six justices remained—fewer than required by law to commence proceedings.
4. As the constitution grants the National Assembly authority to elect those three vacant seats, it attempted to fill them. But formally, the President (or Acting President) must sign off on these appointments. This step is meant to be a ceremonial approval, similar to a constitutional monarchy, rather than a genuine veto.
5. After Yoon was impeached, the Prime Minister (as Acting President) and his ruling People Power Party, which supported Yoon’s coup and opposed impeachment, refused to appoint the three new justices chosen by the National Assembly—an overtly unconstitutional move.
6. The Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the Assembly, responded by impeaching the Prime Minister as well. The next in the line of succession, the Finance Minister, did appoint certain judges(recommended by Yoon’s party), but again refused to seat those nominated by the opposition, prompting yet another impeachment.
7. The Constitutional Court, not yet fully functional, attempted to resolve the political chaos by ruling on the Prime Minister’s impeachment. While the Court declared the Prime Minister’s refusal to appoint justices was unconstitutional, it deemed it insufficient grounds for removal, ultimately reinstating him.
8. Once back in office, the Prime Minister continued to withhold appointments for the opposition’s chosen justices, deliberately delaying President Yoon’s impeachment proceedings. The apparent plan was to hold out until 2027, when Yoon’s term would end, effectively usurping power unconstitutionally.
9. In a final attempt to break the deadlock, the opposition-led National Assembly threatened to abolish the entire executive branch by impeaching all its members, thereby establishing legislative rule.
10. Facing mounting pressure, the undermanned Constitutional Court finally held a hearing with only eight judges, ultimately voting unanimously to remove President Yoon Seok-yeol from office.

Though it sounds like a contrived plot, this strange series of events is not an exaggerated worst-case hypothetical but a real situation unfolding in South Korea (with minor abstractions and omissions).

To summarize:

1. Using constitutionally sanctioned powers, the regime’s leader launched a pro-government coup.
2. Opponents of the regime countered the coup, also relying on constitutional powers.
3. Yet afterward, the president’s supporters openly flouted the constitution, seizing power illegally.

At first, both sides followed “the rules,” but once one side decided to ignore them, the constitutional structure offered no further mechanism. The only remaining path was a raw power struggle.

The Constitution Is Not an Automaton—It Is Enforced by People

Statists often argue that government is necessary to prevent criminal wrongdoing by individuals and private groups. But who, then, watches the government? The leading mainstream answer has been “the constitution,” which supposedly limits government power. Yet the constitution is ultimately written and enforced by the government itself. If a private individual announced they would draft their own murder or robbery statutes and then monitor themselves to ensure compliance, we would laugh at the absurdity. Why should we treat governments any differently?

Many libertarians reject giving the state any such privileged exemption. As Murray Rothbard famously observed in Anatomy of the State, it is self-defeating to entrust one agency with not only the authority to govern but also the ultimate power to interpret its own constitutional limits. He Says,

This danger is averted by the State’s propounding the doctrine that one agency must have the ultimate decision on constitutionality and that this agency, in the last analysis, must be part of the federal government. For while the seeming independence of the federal judiciary has played a vital part in making its actions virtual Holy Writ for the bulk of the people, it is also and ever true that the judiciary is part and parcel of the government apparatus and appointed by the executive and legislative branches. Black admits that this means that the State has set itself up as a judge in its own cause, thus violating a basic juridical principle for aiming at just decisions.

and,

Smith noted that the Constitution was designed with checks and balances to limit any one governmental power and yet had then developed a Supreme Court with the monopoly of ultimate interpreting power. If the Federal Government was created to check invasions of individual liberty by the separate states, who was to check the Federal power? Smith maintained that implicit in the check-and-balance idea of the Constitution was the concomitant view that no one branch of government may be conceded the ultimate power of interpretation: “It was assumed by the people that the new government could not be permitted to determine the limits of its own authority, since this would make it, and not the Constitution, supreme.”

The moment government monitors go astray, there is no recourse through ordinary rules. The constitution, far from ensuring our protection, merely subjects us to the will of those who enforce it. When that small group wields all legislative, executive, and judicial power, they inevitably oversee themselves. Once they abandon adherence to the constitution, legal forms of resistance are powerless. In this sense, the constitution fails as a safety mechanism and ends up as a fragile construct that functions only so long as “luck” and “good faith” last.

How might a constitutionalist respond? One counterargument is that South Korea’s case is “extreme” or “abnormal” and therefore no basis for broader critique. This is reminiscent of leftist attempts to dismiss North Korea as irrelevant to discussions of socialism. Singling out inconvenient examples as aberrations merely “immunizes” a favored theory from contradiction—a hallmark of pseudoscience in traditional philosophy of science.

Another tactic is to propose more stringent constitutional constraints that reduce government power to forestall such crises in the future. Yet history suggests otherwise. The expansion of government power has typically proceeded by transforming once-unconstitutional measures into legitimate functions of the state. According to Rothbard,

All Americans are familiar with the process by which the construction of limits in the Constitution has been inexorably broadened over the last century. But few have been as keen as Professor Charles Black to see that the State has, in the process, largely transformed judicial review itself from a limiting device to yet another instrument for furnishing ideological legitimacy to the government’s actions. For if a judicial decree of “unconstitutional” is a mighty check to government power, an implicit or explicit verdict of “constitutional” is a mighty weapon for fostering public acceptance of ever-greater government power.

Even Friedrich Hayek, the intellectual giant of the Austrian School, ended up endorsing conscription and certain forms of welfare within a constitutionally limited government. Such expansions demonstrate that tightening a constitution cannot ward off every eventuality; new loopholes, fueled by human creativity, invariably appear. We are left with an endless cycle of amending the constitution after each new breakdown—slamming the stable door after the horse has already bolted.

Ultimately, what is needed is not a patchwork fix but a wholesale transformation. As Rothbard insisted, the constitution is the greatest illusion of our supposed freedom. We must recognize its impotence in restraining the state and abandon the tyranny it facilitates. If there is a lesson to be drawn from the South Korean crisis, it is that constitutionalism’s vaunted safeguards are neither automatic nor fail-proof. The time has come to consider bolder alternatives that do not hinge on the goodwill of those who wield power, but which are rooted in genuine liberty for all.

[related article: The Political Crisis in South Korea and the Failure of Beltway Libertarians]

The post A Rothbardian Analysis of the South Korean Constitutional Crisis appeared first on LewRockwell.

For decades, U.S. foreign policy wonks such as Paul Wolfowitz, Raymond Tanter, Douglas Feith, and Richard Perle, argued that U.S. military power could reshape the Middle East, somehow transforming it from the tribal and religious mess that it is into an American-style liberal democracy.

The primary beneficiary of this miraculous transformation would—they claimed—be Israel. Both Tanter and Wolfowitz grew fond of the notion that “the road to Damascus leads through Baghdad,” meaning that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the first step to getting rid of the Assad regime in Syria, thereby eliminating Israel’s troubles with its two of its most bloody minded rivals.

It’s been obvious to anyone with eyes to see that none of the Neocons’ childish scheming has worked. They finally succeeded in getting rid of Assad, but he has been replaced by former Al Qaeda gangsters.

The primary intellectual deficiency of the Neocon clique is that all of their mental energy is directed at getting rid of bad guys, with apparently zero thought given to who will replace them. This is especially evident in the case of Russia. If these schemers and their friends in the CIA succeed in getting rid of Vladimir Putin, who do they believe will replace him?

It was precisely this kind of scheming that led the British and the French to believe it would be a good thing to get rid of Ottoman rule in the Middle East. In 1916, the British and French essentially redrew the map of the entire region with their Sykes–Picot Agreement.

One could easily make the argument that all the bloody tribal and religious conflict in the region that has happened ever since probably wouldn’t have happened if the Ottomans had remained in charge.

Neocon policy wonks are—like millions of Americans—given to the comic book concept that humanity can be neatly divided into good guys and bad guys, and that improving humanity is always just a matter of getting rid of the bad guys. This overlooks this essential fact that is expressed (literally or metaphorically, take your pick) in the Book of Genesis—namely, that man is a fallen and fractured created who must constantly contend with his own depravity.

After making a mess of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the same gang—suffering from incurable learning disabilities—wants to drag the Trump administration into war with Iran. This would be a total disaster for the American people and almost certainly for the Israeli people as well.

Here it is worth recalling that President Kennedy expressly warned Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his successor, Levi Eshkol, that if Israel succeeded in developing a nuclear bomb, everyone else in the neighborhood would want one. They didn’t listen to President Kennedy, despite the fact that he was obviously right about this.

War with Iran would be President Trump’s Waterloo. Iran is a huge country with mountainous terrain and a population of 80 million people. All the problems the U.S. military operation in Iraq encountered would be amplified manyfold.

Going to war with Iran would certainly result in an array of terrible consequences—many unforeseen— for the United States and the entire region, as well as for world trade. The Strait of Hormuz—with most of Middle East oil running through it—would be closed, as would the southern end of the Suez Canal.

The world economy and financial system is already in a precarious state, and the U.S. is already trapped in a debt sink, with annual interest payments now over a trillion dollars. The U.S. simply cannot afford war with Iran.

In other words, regarding Iran, President Trump should tell the obtuse Neocons to go jump in a lake. He should also be very wary of Benjamin Netanyahu doing something foolish to draw the U.S. into war with Iran.

Every great power in history was ultimately been sunk by foolish people who refused to accept the limits of their financial and military power. President Trump should stick with his instinct to negotiate with people instead of trying to get rid of them.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

The post War With Iran Would Be Trump’s Waterloo appeared first on LewRockwell.

Have you heard? The world is going to Hell in a handbasket. Our politicians are devils, our hierarchs are often devils themselves, and Catholics are leaving the Church in droves. The media lies to us, and our institutions turn our children into post-modern pill-addicted zombies who can’t be happy in a society where they lack no creature comfort.

Marriages are failing, and a lot of men are addicted to vile images of perversion that they sneakily watch on their phones while standing in a corner on the metro on their way home to their families.

And who is at fault?

Why, it is the media, it is the bankers, the Hollywood elite, and the Democrats; the public schools are to blame, and the bad priests and bishops; if we look a little deeper, it is also the Freemasons and the Zionists; and, somehow, it is also Jeffrey Epstein and Diddy. The forces of evil have been unleashed against us and the real reason that the world is on the brink of implosion is because the bad guys have done bad things, and they need to be exposed!

Granted, there are many wicked and vile men in this world, and they do wicked and vile things. There is no excusing the behavior of the lizard people who rig our economies, rig our elections, and kill our kings.

But we must admit, no matter how painful, that those lizard people are us.

God is All Good; man is a sinner.

One venial sin makes us more like Epstein than Christ, and one mortal sin makes us more like the devil than St. Michael.

The reason why our world is going so rotten is because we are rotten, and we have the world we deserve. We do not deserve peace—because peace can only come with the peace of Christ, but we don’t want that; no, we want religious liberty and the freedom of speech, where Satan and the Son of God are equals in the public square.

We scream and shout about our national debts which cause inflation, and then we spend money we don’t have, to buy something we don’t need, and post on social media how the bankers are controlling civilization!

The food companies and big pharma are to blame for our obesity rates and heart disease because they keep us dependent on Twinkies and pills, so we need RFK to make us healthy again. Well, RFK isn’t going to stop us from putting too much KFC in our gullets, is he?

In reality, we are to blame for our societal ills and the ills in our personal lives because we are sinners and the wages of sin is death.

Worse than the death of our nations or even the death of civilization is the death of God, which we also caused, and continue to cause in some mystical way.

When Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane while awaiting betrayal, he sweated blood in anticipation of what was to befall Him.

He saw the Passion in all its detail. He saw the blood, He saw the scourge, and He saw each and every splinter wedged into His shoulder from the rough wood of that Tree of Death. In a sense, He lived the Passion while awaiting the Passion in an interior way, thereby experiencing pain and suffering that none of us could ever understand.

He saw from Adam and Eve, right until the end of time; and sees every sin that men and women will commit and have committed. He saw your sins; He saw my sins; He saw each and every sin you or I will ever commit in gruesome and graphic detail. This means that while He was sweating blood, He saw just what vile creatures we all are.

Perhaps more painful than all this, Christ saw that so many souls would still go to Hell, despite all the merits and satisfaction earned by the Crucifixion. Innumerable souls have rejected Christ, knowing full well what He did.

You and I have rejected Christ with every sin and caused Him unspeakable pain. We may still go to Heaven, but we may not; we may be one of those souls who caused Him the greatest pain.

Keeping this in mind, perhaps we can look at the state of the world differently and with an eternal perspective. Yes, things are bad, and maybe some things will get worse; yes, there are bad actors who make things worse when they needn’t be. But, none of those things that they do to economies or governments are as bad as the things that we all do to Christ when we sin.

If the world is dying and the forces of evil are winning, it is because we have all contributed to deicide; we all killed Him.

May God have mercy on us all.

This originally appeared on Crisis Magazine.

The post We All Killed Him appeared first on LewRockwell.

Trump just released over 10,000 previously classified RFK assassination files—and America is buzzing. In this Free-form Friday episode of America’s Untold Stories, Mark Groubert and Eric Hunley break down what’s inside the documents, why the MLK Jr. family opposes further releases, and whether these revelations challenge the official narrative.

From secret records to modern power plays, we cover:

• MLK Jr. family backlash over declassification

• Harvard’s war with Trump on foreign student visas

• Letitia James’ mortgage fraud probe

• Silicon Valley drone companies stuck using Chinese parts

• CNN reveals most Americans now support mass deportations

• Tulsi Gabbard’s voting record sparks new controversy

• Grieving mother Patty Morin’s plea from the White House press room

Buckle up—this episode peels back layers of politics, history, and power

The post America’s Untold Stories – Trump Drops 10,000 RFK Files—What’s Inside? appeared first on LewRockwell.

In our perilous, chaotic times of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd, it is essential to know the deep background story of the history of Communist apparats/fronts and African-Americans, from the beginning of the Communist Party (and other Marxist-Leninist ideological instrumentalities) attempts to capture and engage the allegiance of Black Americans from 1919 to the present.  Black Lives Matter, Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA)

Here are several items below to explore:

“ANARCHY U.S.A.” –– 1966 John Birch Society Film.

This is a C-SPAN 3 re-broadcast of an anti-communism film, produced in 1966 by the John Birch Society, which uses narration and news footage to detail the methods of communist revolutionaries in China, Algeria, and Cuba, then argues that U.S. Civil Rights leaders are also Communists using the same methods. The film condemns several U.S. Presidents and the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts.

The Communist Position on the Negro Question (pdf)

For decades this was the official statement of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA)

“Even as the Great Migration witnessed a major shift of African Americans from the rural South to Northern cities and urban centers, during the Depression decade the majority of blacks were still scratching out a meagre living as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and migrant laborers tied by debt and KKK terrorism to peonage in the South. In the 1930s, the Communist Party U.S.A. dedicated itself to fighting the “defenders of white chauvinism,” educating and liberating oppressed African Americans, and advocating for “Self-Determination for the Black Belt.”

Here is the formal FBI analysis of this document.

Communist Revolution in the Streets, by Gary Allen

This seminal volume has been actively suppressed and surviving copies are extremely rare. Here are excerpts from this prophetic work — One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six

The Whole of Their Lives: Communism in America – A Personal History and Intimate Portrayal of Its Leaders, by Benjamin Gitlow

Gitlow was American Communist Party General Secretary, Communist International executive committee member who courageously revealed the true nature of subversion, infiltration & Stalinist control of the CPUSA.

I own a signed edition of this rare book.

The Red Decade: The Stalinist Penetration of America, by Eugene Lyons

Amazon Review:

As the author points out the “decade” of penetration by the communists in America never really ended. Those fanatical comrades wound up in places of influence and with each generation that influence has remained and become magnified. When you read this book you will recognize many tactics, ideas, and strategies that are visible today. This book should be read alongside the books by Diana West wherein she describes this country’s attack from within and how we have never really come to grips with nor denounced the communist takeover of our culture and society. That was a triumph of the reds: to operate in this country and to be able to simultaneously inoculate themselves from the blowback of condemnation. Much of what we are living with today, the political correctness and the rest of the insanity stems from the left’s desire to destroy from within.

Color, Communism And Common Sense, by Manning Johnson

This book by former Communist apparatchik Manning Johnson is a must read. As the current chaotic political environment swells, remnants of the past are ignored. This powerful book gives incredible insight into the tricks and the trade of the Communist Party, and their manipulation of minorities here in the USA. This been going on for a long period and the contemporary leaders of the BLM movement have claimed they are trained Marxists. In 1932, Johnson studied for three months under J. Peters, William Z. Foster, Jack Stachel, Alexander Bittelman, Max Bedacht, Israel Amter, Gil Green, Harry Haywood, and James S. Allen among others at the “National Training School,” part of the New Workers School, a “secret school” devoted to training “development of professional revolutionists, professional revolutionaries, or active functionaries of the Communist Party.” He served as a national organizer for the Trade Union Unity League. From 1931 to 1932, he served as a District agitation propaganda director for Buffalo, New York. From 1932 to 1934, he was district organizer for Buffalo. In 1935, Manning Johnson ran as a Communist Party candidate for New York’s 22nd Congressional District for the United States House of Representatives. From 1936 to 1939, he served on the Party’s National Committee, National Trade Union Commission, and Negro Commission. Fellow members of the Party’s National Negro Commission were: James S. Allen, Elizabeth Lawson, Robert Minor, and George Blake Charney. The infiltration of other parties started long before the Communist Control Act of 1954. Communists predominantly hide behind and operate under other party names, primarily the Democrats. They also do their work via many front organizations that indoctrinate, stir, and agitate their pawns.

In Hearings Regarding Communist Infiltration of Minority Groups: Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-first Congress, First Session, Parts 1-3, Manning Johnson produced a list of Communist-front organizations that included: African Blood Brotherhood (headed by Richard B. Moore and Cyril Briggs), All Harlem Youth Conference, American Negro Labor Congress, Artists Committee for Protection of Negro Rights, Citizens Committee for the Appointment of a Negro to the Board of Education, Civil Rights Congress, Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, Committee for the Negro in the Arts, Committee to Abolish Peonage, Committee to Aid the Fighting South, Committee to Defend Angelo Herndon, League of Young Southerners, Council on African Affairs, Defense Committee for Claudia Jones, George Washington Carver School, Harlem Committee to End Police Brutality, Harlem Council on Education, International Committee of Negro Workers, International Committee on African Affairs, International Trade Union Committee for Negro Workers, International Workers Order, League for Protection of Minority Rights, League of Struggle for Negro Rights, National Conference of Negro Youth, National Emergency Committee to Stop Lynching, National Negro Congress, National Student Committee for Negro Problems, Negro Cultural Committee, Negro Labor Victory Committee, Negro People’s Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, Scottsboro Defense Committee, Southern Negro Youth Congress, Southern Youth Legislature, United Aid for Peoples of African Descent, United Front for Herndon, United Harlem Tenants and Consumers Organization, and United Negro and Allied Veterans of America among others.

Black and Conservative: The autobiography of George S. Schuyler, by George S. Schuyler

Amazon Review

Don’t Believe the Hype!!: The Incredible History of Communist Subversion in America’s Black Community, by C Brian Madden

Amazon Book Description

Have you ever wondered why, today’s American culture has took a dramatic change for the worse? Have you ever wondered by our youth are no longer interested in pursuing the “American Dream” anymore? Ever wonder why, a certain culture of people, have no longer cared about whether they live or die or not, say “blank the police” and are always hostile towards those holding authority? The answer to these questions will shock you; and they are being done on purpose!! This book will show you how we got to this point in today’s society, especially when it comes to the African-American Community.

Black Revolutionaries in the United States: Communist Interventions, Volume II, by Communist Research Cluster

Blacks and Reds: Race and Class in Conflict, 1919-1990, by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Amazon Book Description:

In this important study, Earl Ofari Hutchinson examines in detail the American Communist Party’s efforts to win the allegiance of black Americans and the various responses to this from the black community. Beginning with events of the 1920s, Hutchinson discusses at length the historical forces that encouraged alliances between African Americans and the predominately white American Communist Party. He also takes an in-depth look at why, and how, issues of class, party ideology, and racial identity stood in the way of a partnership of black leaders and communists in the United States. Blacks and Reds addresses landmark events surrounding associations between communists and black activists. Hutchinson examines, among other things, how Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois’s support of party activities affected their lives and how the Communist Party used the trial of Angela Davis to promote its own interests. His scope ranges from oft forgotten signs of misdirection, such as how communists’ efforts to express racial sympathy in the early 1950s contributed to their own near destruction during the McCarthy era, to a thorough discussion of how the Party’s effort to gain a foothold in Stokely Carmichael’s SNCC, Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, Martin Luther King’s SCLC, and Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver’s Black Panthers shook up the civil rights movement by triggering the FBI’s secret war against King, Malcolm X, and others considered to be black radicals.

How Communists Became a Scapegoat for the Red Summer ‘Race Riots’ of 1919, article by Becky Little

Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist, by Harry Haywood

Amazon review

A Black Communist in the Freedom Struggle, by Harry Haywood

Amazon Book Description:

Mustering out of the U.S. army in 1919, Harry Haywood stepped into a battle that was to last the rest of his life. Within months, he found himself in the middle of one of the bloodiest race riots in U.S. history and realized that he’d been fighting the wrong war—the real enemy was right here at home. This book is Haywood’s eloquent account of coming of age as a black man in twentieth-century America and of his political awakening in the Communist Party.

For all its cultural and historical interest, Harry Haywood’s story is also noteworthy for its considerable narrative drama. The son of parents born into slavery, Haywood tells how he grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, found his first job as a shoeshine boy in Minneapolis, then went on to work as a waiter on trains and in restaurants in Chicago. After fighting in France during the war, he studied how to make revolutions in Moscow during the 1920s, led the Communist Party’s move into the Deep South in 1931, helped to organize the campaign to free the Scottsboro Boys, worked with the Sharecroppers’ Union, supported protests in Chicago against Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, fought with the International Brigades in Spain, served in the Merchant Marines during World War II, and continued to fight for the right of self-determination for the Afro-American nation in the United States until his death in 1985.

This new edition of his classic autobiography, Black Bolshevik, introduces American readers to the little-known story of a brilliant thinker, writer, and activist whose life encapsulates the struggle for freedom against all odds of the New Negro generation that came of age during and after World War I.

Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950, by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore

Amazon Review:

Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore redefines the standard chronology of the Civil Rights movement, popularly known for its post-WWII activity. Post-WWII civil rights action would culminate in achievement with Brown v. Board of Education and the 1964 and 1965 Acts of President Johnson. As the title of the book indicates, and according to Gilmore, civil rights in fact had far earlier and far more radical origins in Communism, labor, Fascism and anti-Fascism, and the Popular Front. She substantiates her thesis by tracing the activity of these movements, and by placing within them the African Americans and whites involved who both worked together and in opposition to one another to end or continue Jim Crow. The issue of black civil rights is typically isolated to the United States and is considered to be historically a distinct American problem. By highlighting the involvement of radical movements that found their roots in Europe, Gilmore places African American civil rights on an international stage and redefines it within the context of what the world was experiencing and how this weaved into American culture. Gilmore shows that in America there was an active Communist Party that was focused on illuminating how racism created class differences, and had a purpose to overcome this class inequality by organizing Southern black laborers into a force white supremacists could not reckon with. The CPUSA would become a major player in calling for an end to Jim Crow and white supremacy, and would operate at the same time of the NAACP, whom the communists considered too conservative and bourgeois. The distinction between the two is one where the Communist Party favored direct action and the NAACP preferred legal means to solve issues, and Gilmore states that when placed alongside Communism, the conservative nature of the NAACP is stark (7). In emphasizing this simplistic distinction between the two, Gilmore slights the NAACP of some of its own influence and early contribution. Though less radical in comparison to a system like Communism, the NAACP nevertheless operated within a legal system that was hostile to them. When placed within the cultural context of America in the early 20th century, the NAACP was also radical in its own way because it defied the “place” of the African American, and the organization enjoyed many successes of its own. For example, the NAACP played a major role in the 1923 Moore v. Dempsey decision that strengthened due process and African American’s Constitutional rights. It was not only the Communist Party that took an interest in labor either, though Gilmore makes it seem as if labor was a CPUSA concern only and does not mention that the NAACP was involved in the creation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first African American labor union (52). Though these successes are certainly not as radical as labor marches through the streets of Gastonia, they are still significant to early civil rights radicalism. In keeping with the international scope of civil rights and the importance of the Communist Party, Gilmore brings to light that Africa Americans even went to Russia, had audience with Stalin himself, and many even let out sighs of relief to be in a country where they could, for the first time, enjoy life without fear. African American civil rights and Communism are two movements not typically linked together. In placing them together, Gilmore effectively rewrites civil rights history to include world wide involvement. She does similarly with Fascism in the United States. Gilmore reveals that Fascist ideology was intertwined with white supremacy (106), yet Gilmore does not adequately make the connection between the ideologies of Fascism and white supremacy to explain how white supremacists co-opted Fascism into their beliefs. Additionally, Gilmore splits up the influence of Fascism into two different sections, one in which she describes how some Americans embraced it early on, and then how later Fascism became linked with Communism and Nazi policy, and was thereafter largely rejected within America. Gilmore skips from one to the other without describing the intermediate years and how white supremacists that were once Fascist came to reject the ideology. Gilmore makes it clear why they did, but does not trace how or what happened to the former Black Shirt white supremacist American Fascists. Gilmore focuses her narrative on select people and groups, which allows her to make her points without filling pages with names and events that would have made the monograph dense and less fluid. Through the experiences of her select characters, Gilmore documents the progress of movements and is then allowed to move on with her point made by their examples. As she admits in her introduction, she leaves out a significant portion of people in the South who played major roles in the Civil Rights movement (11). As reviewer Michael Dennis points out, the people ignored precisely the kind of political linkages that defined the popular front and did a good deal more grass roots organizing in the South than Fort-Whiteman. While leaving out these groups of people and their contributions does not weaken the argument Gilmore is trying to make, adding them would have strengthened her narrative by illustrating the scope of the work the Popular Front involved itself in. While she leaves out some groups and people, she includes other often overlooked players such as Truman’s committee on civil rights, adding another layer to the retelling of conventional civil rights history (409). Gilmore’s limited focus allows her to incorporate an element of familiarity that makes her story easier and more enjoyable to read. The people involved in the movements she writes about become more than just names, but people with personalities. The emotional connection forged with these people give the book a sense of intimacy. Much like in her previous book, Gender & Jim Crow, Gilmore uses this feeling of familiarity to make assumptions about people’s feelings and motivations that cannot be supported by evidence. For instance, Gilmore assumes that Louise Thompson must have been hiding something about her feelings for African American Communist Lovett Fort-Whiteman (143). She does the same when she attempts to psychoanalyze the reticence of Alain Locke and attributes it to an attraction to the charismatic Langston Hughes (137). These are things that Gilmore herself simply cannot know without personal testimony. In some cases, Gilmore is able to more successfully pull off her personal narratives. When she describes the death of Fort-Whiteman, she adds a touching reflection of his last moments that closes up the extraordinary life of this very unique man (154). It is in moments like those that Gilmore fosters a true emotional connection between her book and the reader. The combination of humanization and the personalization of events with a unique historical interpretation make Defying Dixie an essential book on the civil rights movement. Defying Dixie adds a new layer to the understanding of how the civil rights movement progressed, and what influenced the later movement. While it does not rewrite the entirety of the movement, it inserts a new level that should not be overlooked.

Red Chicago: American Communism at Its Grassroots, 1928-35, by Randi Storch

Amazon Book Description:

Red Chicago is a social history of American Communism set within the context of Chicago’s neighborhoods, industries, and radical traditions. Using local party records, oral histories, union records, party newspapers, and government documents, Randi Storch fills the gap between Leninist principles and the day-to-day activities of Chicago’s rank-and-file Communists.

Uncovering rich new evidence from Moscow’s former party archive, Storch argues that although the American Communist Party was an international organization strongly influenced by the Soviet Union, at the city level it was a more vibrant and flexible organization responsible to local needs and concerns. Thus, while working for a better welfare system, fairer unions, and racial equality, Chicago’s Communists created a movement that at times departed from international party leaders’ intentions. By focusing on the experience of Chicago’s Communists, who included a large working-class, African American, and ethnic population, this study reexamines party members’ actions as an integral part of the communities and industries in which they lived and worked.

Communists in Harlem During the Depression, by Mark Naison

Amazon Book Description:

No socialist organization has ever had a more profound effect on black life than the Communist Party did in Harlem during the Depression. Mark Naison describes how the party won the early endorsement of such people as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and how its support of racial equality and integration impressed black intellectuals, including Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson.

This meticulously researched work, largely based on primary materials and interviews with leading black Communists from the 1930s, is the first to fully explore this provocative encounter between whites and blacks. It provides a detailed look at an exciting period of reform, as well as an intimate portrait of Harlem in the 1920s and 30s, at the high point of its influence and pride.

Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression, by Robin D. G. Kelley

Amazon Book Description:

A groundbreaking contribution to the history of the “long Civil Rights movement,” Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 40s, Communists took on Alabama’s repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality.

The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals. In this book, Robin D. G. Kelley reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama’s farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the Party’s tactics and unique political culture. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals.

After discussing the book’s origins and impact in a new preface written for this twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, Kelley reflects on what a militantly antiracist, radical movement in the heart of Dixie might teach contemporary social movements confronting rampant inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, and neoliberalism.

How ‘Communism’ Brought Racial Equality To The South

National Public Radio (NPR Broadcast ) State-sponsored media interview:

Tell Me More continues its Black History Month series of conversations with a discussion about the role of the Communist Party. It was prominent in the fight for racial equality in the south, specifically Alabama, where segregation was most oppressive. Many courageous activists were communists. Host Michel Martin speaks with historian Robin Kelley about his book Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression about how the communist party tried to secure racial, economic, and political reforms.

Red, Black, White: The Alabama Communist Party, 1930–1950, by Mary Stanton

Amazon Book Description:

Red, Black, White is the first narrative history of the American communist movement in the South since Robin D. G. Kelley’s groundbreaking Hammer and Hoe and the first to explore its key figures and actions beyond the 1930s. Written from the perspective of the district 17 (CPUSA) Reds who worked primarily in Alabama, it acquaints a new generation with the impact of the Great Depression on postwar black and white, young and old, urban and rural Americans.

After the Scottsboro story broke on March 25, 1931, it was open season for old-fashioned lynchings, legal (courtroom) lynchings, and mob murder. In Alabama alone, twenty black men were known to have been murdered, and countless others, women included, were beaten, disabled, jailed, “disappeared,” or had their lives otherwise ruined between March 1931 and September 1935. In this collective biography, Mary Stanton―a noted chronicler of the left and of social justice movements in the South―explores the resources available to Depression-era Reds before the advent of the New Deal or the modern civil rights movement. What emerges from this narrative is a meaningful criterion by which to evaluate the Reds’ accomplishments.

Through seven cases of the CPUSA (district 17) activity in the South, Stanton covers tortured notions of loyalty and betrayal, the cult of white southern womanhood, Christianity in all its iterations, and the scapegoating of African Americans, Jews, and communists. Yet this still is a story of how these groups fought back, and fought together, for social justice and change in a fractured region.

Amazon Book Description:

In this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand Black people’s history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of Black people and Black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black radicalism, Robinson argues, must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of Blacks on Western continents, and any analyses of African American history need to acknowledge this.

To illustrate his argument, Robinson traces the emergence of Marxist ideology in Europe, the resistance by Blacks in historically oppressive environments, and the influence of both of these traditions on such important twentieth-century Black radical thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Richard Wright. This revised and updated third edition includes a new preface by Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, and a new foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley.

Marxist-Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism, by Frank Chapman

Amazon Review.

Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism, by Erik S. McDuffie

Amazon Book Description:

Sojourning for Freedom portrays pioneering black women activists from the early twentieth century through the 1970s, focusing on their participation in the U.S. Communist Party (CPUSA) between 1919 and 1956. Erik S. McDuffie considers how women from diverse locales and backgrounds became radicalized, joined the CPUSA, and advocated a pathbreaking politics committed to black liberation, women’s rights, decolonization, economic justice, peace, and international solidarity. McDuffie explores the lives of black left feminists, including the bohemian world traveler Louise Thompson Patterson, who wrote about the “triple exploitation” of race, gender, and class; Esther Cooper Jackson, an Alabama-based civil rights activist who chronicled the experiences of black female domestic workers; and Claudia Jones, the Trinidad-born activist who emerged as one of the Communist Party’s leading theorists of black women’s exploitation. Drawing on more than forty oral histories collected from veteran black women radicals and their family members, McDuffie examines how these women negotiated race, gender, class, sexuality, and politics within the CPUSA. In Sojourning for Freedom, he depicts a community of radical black women activist intellectuals who helped to lay the foundation for a transnational modern black feminism.

Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones, by Carole Boyce Davies

Amazon Book Description:

In Left of Karl Marx, Carole Boyce Davies assesses the activism, writing, and legacy of Claudia Jones (1915–1964), a pioneering Afro-Caribbean radical intellectual, dedicated communist, and feminist. Jones is buried in London’s Highgate Cemetery, to the left of Karl Marx—a location that Boyce Davies finds fitting given how Jones expanded Marxism-Leninism to incorporate gender and race in her political critique and activism.

Claudia Cumberbatch Jones was born in Trinidad. In 1924, she moved to New York, where she lived for the next thirty years. She was active in the Communist Party from her early twenties onward. A talented writer and speaker, she traveled throughout the United States lecturing and organizing. In the early 1950s, she wrote a well-known column, “Half the World,” for the Daily Worker. As the U.S. government intensified its efforts to prosecute communists, Jones was arrested several times. She served nearly a year in a U.S. prison before being deported and given asylum by Great Britain in 1955. There she founded The West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News and the Caribbean Carnival, an annual London festival that continues today as the Notting Hill Carnival. Boyce Davies examines Jones’s thought and journalism, her political and community organizing, and poetry that the activist wrote while she was imprisoned. Looking at the contents of the FBI file on Jones, Boyce Davies contrasts Jones’s own narration of her life with the federal government’s. Left of Karl Marx establishes Jones as a significant figure within Caribbean intellectual traditions, black U.S. feminism, and the history of communism.

Black on Red: My 44 Years Inside the Soviet Union: An Autobiography, by Robert Robinson

John Alt Review:

Some years ago, I read Black On Red: My 44 Years Inside The Soviet Union, a book by Robert Robinson, An African-American who lived in Detroit during the Depression. I had to read it again, for it is about as gripping an autobiography as one can find. Hired in 1927 as a floor sweeper by Ford Motor Company, he became a toolmaker there. In April 1930, through Amtorg, a Soviet trade agency based in New York, a Russian delegation toured the plant. A Russian asked if he would like to work in the Soviet Union. At Ford he earned $140 a month–good wages–but was offered $250 a month, free living quarters, maid service, 30 days vacation a year and a car. All of this for a one year contract. At 23 and recently from Cuba, where he grew up, he was ready for some adventure. Like most things Soviet, the promises were eventually to mark a tragic life, his.

So in 1930 Robinson went, and thereon hangs his tale. He describes various discrimination against blacks while the Soviet government painted itself as an ethnically tolerant utopia.

Robert Robinson was a highly talented, even gifted toolmaker and mechanical engineer. (He graduated from The Moscow Evening Institute of Mechanical Engineering. Despite its clumsy name, its training was excellent.) He received numerous Soviet medals, citations, and awards. As one instance of his ability, managers didn’t think he could quickly design, develop, and fabricate 13 indicators used for checking precision gauges, but he did in three and one half months. This increased production seventy-two fold. All the time, a jealous colleague was undermining his efforts by stealing pieces or sabotaging machines.

Despite his education, training, and ability, he was repeatedly passed over. Through the years he witnessed many less able men move up the ladder to become plant director or branch manager, but he did not get a promotion or pay raise.

During the 1930s Moscow purges, he never undressed until 4 AM, nervously awaiting a Secret Police knock at his door. Next day, he and others would silently take note of fellow employees who did not show up for work. He was aware of the foreigners who disappeared from the First State Ball Bearing Factory. When he started there, he found 362 foreigners. By 1939 only he and a Hungarian were left. Because he was a foreigner, friends begged him not to visit them.

Informers lurked everywhere. If a Russian was asked to spy on neighbors he dared not refuse else he became a suspect. Informants watched a neighbor’s comings and goings from his apartment, as well as who visited him, or what he bought at the store.

Late one night in 1943, Robinson did hear a knock on his door. He thought his time had finally come, his hand shaking as he opened it. Two agents were startled to see his face, then mumbled “Excuse us. There was some mistake.”

As I read the book, I could only feel immense sadness for this man, who lost the best years of his life in a dull, dreary, police state. He learned to control his feelings, to confide in nobody. Many times he would be sounded out–perhaps innocently–over his views on this or that, and always he responded with neutrality or political correctness. He could not afford to trust anybody. That was how he survived finally to leave the Workers’ Paradise.

Born in Jamaica about 1907, he became acclimated to bitter Moscow winters. He was there when Hitler’s wermacht and luftwaffe invaded Russia, the German army 44 miles from Moscow. The Russian government recruited every able-bodied man to age 60. In 1941 he was called for his draft physical, but was not inducted because of a bad left eye. Under fierce aerial bombardment, the streets of Moscow were barricaded against the coming onslaught as he and others were told that the factory would be moved to Kuybyshev. On the train, he beheld thousands upon thousands of people fleeing Moscow–men, women, and children, young and old–shivering while trudging icy roads carrying suitcases tied with cord. In Kuybyshev whole families shared horse stalls, with over 70 people using one toilet and one wash basin.

During the war with Germany, black bread was rationed at 600 grams (21.1 oz) a day. A sack of potatoes cost 900 rubles ($180). Robert Robinson made 1100 rubles month. He ate 7 or 8 cabbage leaves soaked in lukewarm water. Others at the factory became so weak that they could not control their bladders and urinated in their pants. Some died, collapsing on the floor in front of their machines. Every passing moment the men thought of food, its smell, its taste. After months of hunger, he began losing all energy, felt listless, and went to a doctor. As he took his shirt off, she went behind a screen and cried. He at first thought she was shocked to see his skin color, but she wept because his arms were toothpicks, his stomach stretched tight against corrugated ribs. He had not looked in a mirror for months. She told him he was at death’s doorway. She invited him to her house to dine each Sunday with her, her husband, and daughter.

He never joined the communist party because of his religious faith. He could not accept atheist doctrine. He saw through a racist, repressive system, and was watchful that he not suggest even a nuance of deviant political behavior. He was made to act in a Mosfilm propaganda movie, Deep Are The Roots, then considered a classic in Russia, about racism in the United States. When asked as an “expert,” Robinson told the director that the movie was over-the-top, extremely overdone, but the director had his own career at stake and probably could not listen.

During 44 years in Soviet society, Robert Robinson found that the deepest discrimination was against blacks and orientals. In his book he notes that in the USA people may or may not condone institutional and racial discrimination but they do recognize that it exists. In the USSR, officially and socially, such discrimination did not occur. To admit the contrary would have been to violate the Soviet agenda of equality and brotherly love. He states that he “could never get used to Russian racism. They prided themselves on freedom from prejudice, so racism was especially virulent.”

During the 1930s he met and chatted on a park bench with black American poet Langston Hughes. He met and spent evenings with the hugely talented and internationally famous American Paul Robeson (athlete, actor, orator, concert singer, lawyer, social activist), and his wife Eslanda each time they visited Moscow. He asked Robeson as a fellow black man to intervene for him so he could escape Russia. Robeson avoided him on the issue. Eventually Robert Robinson learned from Eslanda that Paul did not want to do it because that would sour his relationship with the Soviet leadership.

After many years of trying, and through the extended efforts of Ugandan ambassadors Mathias Lubega, and Michael Ondoga, Robert Robinson was granted a visa for a vacation in Uganda. He was careful. He bought an Aeroflot round trip ticket although he never wanted to return. To reduce suspicion he took just a few rubles, packed few clothes.

From the airport gate to the aircraft he took a bus. Then it happened. In freezing cold, a coatless woman ran after the bus shouting his name. He dared not turn around. But the bus stopped and the driver called back for him. He got off. She told him he could not go because he had no vaccination papers. This was false; he had shown them and had been vaccinated. He trembled, wept inwardly, was totally devastated, but he repeated the process, the doctor this time simply signing the form without using a needle. Again he waited months and finally got approval.

The day came, and he climbed on the bus, praying silently as it neared the airplane. He boarded and feared that somebody would again call his name before the plane began taxiing. Or the pilot would be ordered to turn the aircraft around. It did not happen. He landed in Uganda. We are left to imagine the feelings that must have overwhelmed him as he stepped off, out of a police state and into the warm African sun.

This was 1974 and he found himself at the hotel feted as personal guest of Idi Amin, Ugandan President For Life. When Robinson visited Amin the President offered him Ugandan citizenship, but Robinson declined, fearing that it would bring violent wrath of the KGB down on him in this relatively unprotected country. For several years he taught at Uganda Technical College outside Kampala. In Uganda he met Zylpha Mapp, an African-American lecturer at the Teacher College. They married in 1976. Tensions and suppression grew in Uganda as Idi Amin became mentally unstable. Through the unrelenting efforts of an African-American US Information Service Officer, William B. Davis, in 1980 he and Zylpha were able to fly to the United States, where he was declared a legal U.S. resident, as he had to forfeit his U.S. citizenship many years before. On December 6, 1986, they became U.S. citizens. living in Washington, DC. He died in 1994 of cancer. Zylpha Mapp-Robinson died in 2001, age 87. (She was born August 25, 1914.)

Even in the United States he could not rid himself of a life lived in fear, caution, and suspicion. Robinson hoped that his book would reveal the USSR for the oppressive society it was. “Even now,” he said, “I have to be careful because so many people do not understand the Russian psychology, that once you have offended the Russians, you are never forgiven. Never forgiven.”

He did not intend that statement to detract from the countless ordinary Russians who befriended and helped him. He understood them as victims of the same system. He had fond memories of people such as the lady doctor who invited him to her house to dine during the Great Patriotic War against Germany.

He was aware of the immense suffering of his Russian friends. He tells the story of a lovely sixteen year old girl on her way to school. She was stopped by an aide of Lavrentiy Beria, head of MVD, Soviet Secret Police. The aide wanted her to climb in his car, but she refused. At the end of the school day, she looked out the window. The aide was still there. She knew she couldn’t call her parents, else they would be visited and probably sent to a labor camp. She had no choice. For two years she was raped by Beria, her parents in despair and anguish. After Beria tired of her, he forced the family to give up their belongings and move to Lithuania.

If you want to know about the Stalinist purges, and about the horrible sacrifices Russians made during WWII, read this book. Robinson was there. Spending most of his life in the Soviet Union, he suffered, struggled, silently wept, but endured. He lived through it all, an eye witness to history from the purges to Hitler’s invasion to Sputnik and the Cold War.

Blacks, Reds, and Russians: Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise, by Joy Gleason Carew

Amazon Book Description:

One of the most compelling, yet little known stories of race relations in the twentieth century is the account of blacks who chose to leave the United States to be involved in the Soviet Experiment in the 1920s and 1930s. Frustrated by the limitations imposed by racism in their home country, African Americans were lured by the promise of opportunity abroad. A number of them settled there, raised families, and became integrated into society. The Soviet economy likewise reaped enormous benefits from the talent and expertise that these individuals brought, and the all around success story became a platform for political leaders to boast their party goals of creating a society where all members were equal.

In Blacks, Reds, and Russians, Joy Gleason Carew offers insight into the political strategies that often underlie relationships between different peoples and countries. She draws on the autobiographies of key sojourners, including Harry Haywood and Robert Robinson, in addition to the writings of Claude McKay, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Langston Hughes. Interviews with the descendants of figures such as Paul Robeson and Oliver Golden offer rare personal insights into the story of a group of emigrants who, confronted by the daunting challenges of making a life for themselves in a racist United States, found unprecedented opportunities in communist Russia.

The post Explore The History of Blacks and Reds appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Al Jazeera

The post Israeli soldiers filmed themselves destroying Gaza: See the video evidence appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks. John Smith. 

The Intercept

The post The Unusual Nonprofit That Helps ICE Spy on Wire Transfers appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes, Gail Appel:

He’s fabulous! Can you imagine he was a former BLM activist?

The post I love this guy appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

Daniel Greenfield is a very honest investigative journalist who calls balls and strikes. The good bad and the ugly.

See here.

The post The ADL was always rotten appeared first on LewRockwell.

“If it is known that authorities have power to coerce, few people will wait for actual coercion,” economist Friedrich Hayek wrote in the 1956 foreword to his 1944 classic, The Road to Serfdom. Hayek’s insight could be the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Trump administration’s censorship zealotry.

On March 25, six masked federal agents seized a Turkish graduate student on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Rumeysa Ozturk—who was wearing a hijab—was a Fulbright scholar working on a doctorate at Tufts University. Ozturk was snatched up because she co-authored a student newspaper op-ed a year earlier that criticized Israel, as I discussed here on March 31 (“First They Came for the Op-Ed Writers”).

Secretary of State Marco Rubio denounced Ozturk as a “lunatic” and implied she was guilty of participating “in movements that vandalize universities, harass students, take over buildings, and cause chaos.” Ozturk was shuffled between detention facilities before being taken to Louisiana. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deport her without any judicial proceedings.

Ozturk’s student visa was secretly revoked several days before she was taken into custody. Did the Trump administration want a high-profile incident in order to deter any other students from writing op-eds or from protesting Middle East policies?

On Sunday night, the Washington Post detonated the Trump case against Ozturk by publishing extracts from a confidential State Department memo. Prior to Ozturk being seized outside of Boston, senior DHS official Andre Watson sent a memo to the State Department stating that, “OZTURK engaged in anti-Israel activism… Specifically, [Ozturk] co-authored an op-ed article” that “called for Tufts to ‘disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.’” But the State Department found that no federal agency had turned up any evidence that Ozturk “engaged in antisemitic activity or made public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization.” Despite Rubio’s vilification of Ozturk, the feds didn’t have squat on her.

DHS wanted Ozturk expelled from the US under a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act that entitles the Secretary of State to deport any foreigner if there are reasonable grounds to believe their presence has “adverse policy consequence for the United States.” But there was no such evidence for Ozturk, so the Trump administration instead used a legal authority under which the Secretary of State can deport anyone on his own decree—no evidence required.

Because of her op-ed criticizing Israel, Ozturk vanished into the federal detention system, moved from state to state so the Trump administration could avoid a habeas petition in federal court challenging her detention. She was forced to wear leg shackles and a chain around her waist. She has asthma and had several attacks so far in lockup. At the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, she sleeps with 23 other people in a cell meant for 14. “None of us are able to sleep through the night. They come into the cell often and walk around triggering the fluorescent lights. They shout in the cell to wake up those who work in the kitchen around 3:30 am each day,” she said. Ozturk stated that a federal officer told her: “We are not monsters. We do what the government tells us.” So, of course, federal officials are blameless for any rights that they violate.

Ozturk is one of the most high-profile seizures that Trump’s DHS has made of students who criticized Israeli policies in Gaza. Hundreds of student visas have been revoked and the Trump administration has floated proposals to prohibit all foreign students from attending American universities that fail to fully suppress criticism or protests against Israeli policies.

It would be the height of folly for Americans to presume they face no peril from entitling the feds to seize boundless power to punish students’ speech. Ozturk’s name was provided to the Trump administration by Betar—an organization that the Washington Post characterized as a “militant Zionist group.” US citizens are at risk as well. A spokesman for Betar declared: “We provided hundreds of names to the Trump administration of visa holders and naturalized Middle Easterners and foreigners” who have criticized Israeli policies. The Anti-Defamation League condemned Betar as an extremist organization in February.

Any precedent for blanket censorship will propagate like a covid virus. Many conservatives and libertarians may shrug off Ozturk’s degradation because they have no interest in criticizing the policies of foreign governments. But the Ozturk case hinges on collective guilt—on assuming that anyone who advocates a position is culpable for any crimes committed by any other advocate with the same view.

This was the tacit doctrine that the Biden administration used to legally scourge peaceful January 6 protestors who merely “paraded without a permit” through or near the US Capitol that day. Because a minority of January 6 protestors became violent, the FBI presumed that “trespassing plus thought crimes equal terrorism,” justifying harsh sentences for anyone at the scene (except for the undercover federal agents and informants).

What legal perils will pro-freedom protestors face in the coming years if the Ozturk rule is canonized, entitling federal officials to crush any disfavored opinion? Big-spending Democrats may consecrate Modern Monetary Theory and demonize anyone who criticizes the Federal Reserve. I took this “Kill the Central Bank” photo of Ron Paul supporters at a 2008 Capitol Hill event for his presidential campaign. If the same protestors had peacefully carried the same banner within a half mile of the Capitol on January 6, they likely would have been nailed on a bevy of federal charges. Many politicians have made stark their hatred of libertarians and freedom advocates. A federally-funded Fusion Center tagged Ron Paul supporters as potential terrorist suspects, and another federally-funded center sounded the alarm on anyone “reverent of individual liberty.”

As long as anyone is sitting in shackles in a federal detention center simply for writing an op-ed, freedom of speech is not safe for anyone in the United States. Will Ozturk’s persecution finally wake up people too confident that “it can never happen here”?

The post Foreign Student Persecution Imperils any American Who Advocates for Freedom appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Donald Trump last week announced new plans for a $1 trillion defense budget in 2026. Trump bragged about his big plans for spending ever larger amounts of taxpayer funds, stating at a meeting with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu that “We’re going to be approving a budget, and I’m proud to say, actually, the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military … $1 trillion. Nobody has seen anything like it.” An increase in military spending to $1 trillion is a funding increase of more than $100 billion, or 12 percent. It would be the largest single-year increase since 2004, during the early years of the Iraq war.

Trump made no mention of earlier claims that his administration would cut overall federal spending while cutting the federal government’s annual deficit.

It’s easy to see why he wouldn’t mention those earlier promises. In recent days, Elon Musk has backtracked on his earlier promises that the Department of Government Efficiency would cut $1 trillion in federal spending in the near future. The new figure offered by Musk is only fifteen percent of that, or $150 billion. In other words, when it comes to spending, DOGE’s “savings” amount to about 2.2 percent of federal spending.

Things aren’t looking good for anyone who actually believed the administration’s promises to cut overall federal spending.

Assuming that DOGE actually delivers $150 billion worth of cuts to federal spending, and assuming that the Trump administration uses DOGE cuts to offset military spending, that means every other category of federal spending could increase only $50 billion overall if the goal is a cut to federal spending. Moreover, even if federal spending is cut by, say, $50 billion, that still leaves a federal deficit of nearly $2 trillion.

After all, the Trump administration has promised to not touch Social Security and Medicare, which make up forty percent of federal spending all by themselves. Given the nature of those two nondiscretionary programs, we can be sure that they will only increase in coming years.

Moreover, there is nothing in any of the new budgets approved by Trump and the GOP Congress to suggest that overall federal spending will decrease in coming years. Yes, the GOP promises to cut spending “over ten years” but anyone who has paid any attention at all over the past 30 years knows that this never happens. As Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie has pointed out, nothing beyond year three of these amorphous ten-year plans ever happens.

It’s looking more and more like this playbook is following the exact same story that we’ve witnessed during every other Republican administration over the past forty years: there is a lot of talk of budget cutting, but in the end, the trajectory of federal spending is always relentlessly upward—often with bloated military budgets leading the way.

A Huge Increase in Military Spending

The federal military budget for 2025 is estimated to be approximately $893 billion. If military spending increases to $1 trillion, that’s an increase of $107 billion. That means federal spending will continue to be well in excess of anything spent on the Pentagon during the Cold War buildup of the Ronald Reagan years. This is true even if we adjust for inflation. Indeed, in inflation-adjusted dollars, a budget of $1 trillion puts military spending even above President Obama’s military budgets in the days when the US was waging counter insurgency wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump’s proposed 2026 increase of $106 would be the largest increase since 2004,and would certainly be among the largest year-over-year increases in military spending in fifty years.

Where the Rest of the Money Goes

In 2024, (the most recently completed fiscal and calendar year), total federal spending totaled approximately $6.7 billion. In that time, military spending was about 13 percent of the total. That puts it about third place behind Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt. Interest payments have ballooned in recent years thanks to runaway federal deficits and rising interest rates. Military spending was slightly ahead of government health spending like Medicaid. Veterans spending—which is really just a form of deferred military spending—was an additional five percent.

With the exception of military spending, most of this spending is “nondiscretionary,” meaning that Congress would have to change statutes to end automatic increases to spending in these areas.

That leaves some relatively minor programs—where most of the discretionary spending is found—such as education and research.

If the Trump Administration were actually serious about cuts to federal spending, military spending would be an easy place to start because of its discretionary nature. Moreover, the administration would not have signed off on the most recent continuing resolution which essentially continued the Biden administration’s budget into the fall.

Instead, the administration has decided to double down on increases to Pentagon spending. This is especially curious given how the administration’s DOGE efforts were supposedly based in uncovering wasteful spending and poor accounting in government department. The Pentagon, meanwhile, failed its seventh audit in a row in December of 2024. The Pentagon has no idea where that money goes, and neither does DOGE. Apparently, this is no obstacle to historically large increases in budget recommendations from the White House.

The administration’s incorrigible fanboys, of course, will insist that the administration will soon—surely any time now!—implement bigtime cuts to non-military discretionary spending. Even if that were politically plausible, we now know for sure that DOGE will do virtually nothing to significantly erase federal deficits. Given the refusal of the GOP and the Trump White House to implement any meaningful cuts to federal programs, it is mathematically impossible for the White House to sizably cut the deficit, even if Trump wiped out all non-military discretionary spending.

For more realistic observers of American politics, this is all barely even worth remarking on. It’s all unfolding exactly as we’d expect. Unfortunately, many of Trump’s supporters continue to kid themselves into thinking that something is in the works that will change the nation’s debt and spending trajectory. Anything is possible, but there is zero observable evidence to suggest anything of the sort will actually happen.

The post Federal Spending Is Only Going Up: Trump Pushes Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget appeared first on LewRockwell.

International Man: Tensions between the US and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions are reaching a boiling point.

How likely is it that this long-simmering standoff erupts into a full-scale war?

Doug Casey: Iran has been an adversary of the US ever since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the capture of the US Embassy.

It’s unlikely to get better anytime soon, not least because the country is ruled by mullahs, Shia clergy. Iran is a theocracy. And that leads us to another problem. So is Israel.

The Quran and the Hadiths constantly assert that non-believers, in general, but Jews, in particular, are the enemy. Those beliefs are part of the fabric of Mohammedanism, and that’s not going to change.

Meanwhile, the US often accuses Iran of being a terrorist state, which is untrue. Iran doesn’t send teams out around the world to create terror. Their problem is with Israel. Even so, Iran never attacked Israel directly before last year, when it launched a missile barrage.

The main cat’s paw of Iran against Israel is the Houthis, who control Northern Yemen. The Iranians and the Houthis are both Shia Muslims. Almost all Islamic terrorism comes from the Sunnis, not the Shias.

As for the Houthis, they’re a state within a state. Yemen is just an agglomeration of tribes. It’s about the poorest and most dangerous place in the world. There’s no point in parsing local politics in a place like that; it’s enough to say that the Houthis support the Gazans and hate the Israelis. The Iranians supply them with missiles to launch at Israel, and ships headed to or from Israel on the Red Sea.

There’s no reason why the US should be involved in an ancient religious dispute on the other side of the world. But it is, launching expensive air strikes to kill local peasants and blow up their mud huts. It’s nothing unusual there. US involvement only makes things worse. The question is: Will the US start a war with Iran?

It’s said (we only know what we’re told) that the US has transferred six B-2 bombers, among other military assets, to the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. It’s a convenient launch point for an attack on Iran.

The US is already actively bombing the primitive Houthis, which amounts to state terrorism. Fun fact: The Houthis have never done anything against the US, nor are they capable of it. The US has gotten into the habit of promiscuously attacking any country it wants, especially small ones that can’t strike back. It’s quite shameful.

International Man: Even if Washington prefers to avoid a military confrontation, could Israeli actions effectively force the US into a war with Iran?

Doug Casey: The Times of Israel ran an article last week spotlighting 13 Jews, plus Ivanka and Jared Kushner, in Trump’s inner circle. In addition, there are 10 senators and about two dozen congressmen who are Jewish. A number of them are dual nationals of Israel and the US. It’s inappropriate to be a US Government official and simultaneously a citizen of another country. No doubt they try to influence Trump.

I realize that you’re not supposed to mention things of this nature, especially about Jews or Muslims. But most Americans are unaware that for decades, the US has been giving the Israelis and the Egyptians—each—about $4 billion per year.

It’s a mystery why that money goes to the Israelis. But for the Egyptians it’s a bribe to keep them friendly with the Israelis. Of course that’s only part of the $74 billion dispensed to foreign governments last year. I suspect that the real number is much higher. Who knows how much more goes out in loans, aid from NGOs, and all manner of disguised corruption? The proper amount of aid, FWIW, is zero.

The relationship between Israel and the US is like that between a vicious dog and his bad-tempered master. I’m not sure who’s the dog and who’s the master. But it’s an inappropriate relationship.

International Man: What would a full-scale war with Iran look like?

Doug Casey: Well, the first and most obvious consequence would be the Iranians closing the 30-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz at the southern end of the Persian Gulf. Most of the oil pumped from the Middle East has to go through it, too. It’s really an Iranian lake. The same is true about the exit of the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, which Yemen controls; the Suez Canal could become useless.

If these two waterways are closed—which they absolutely would be—it would be a catastrophe for world trade, oil in particular. Oddly, it wouldn’t have a huge direct effect on the US, which is now a net oil exporter and gets almost no oil or any other traffic through the Yemeni-controlled Red Sea or the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz. A full-scale war with Iran would be chaos for the world, plus a bunch of sunken US Navy ships.

International Man: In what ways would a war with Iran resemble—or differ from—the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Doug Casey: Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is big game. It would be practically impossible to invade Iran, because of its huge size, mountainous terrain, and population of 80 million.

The last thing the US needs is a sunk aircraft carrier. Even now, bombing the primitive Yemenis, it’s said the US has lost 10 Predator and Reaper drones, at $30 million a pop. Since war is essentially a matter of economics, and its adventure with the Houthis has already cost well into nine figures, I’d say the US has already lost.

On the bright side, as aggressive and threatening as the Trump regime is, at least they’re talking to the Iranians. Unlike the Biden regime, which spoke to neither Iran nor Russia. The Trumpers bluster, but at least they’re willing to negotiate. The Bidenistas fomented and financed the war between the Ukraine and Russia but remained totally incommunicado with a nuclear power. That was criminally stupid.

At least he’s talking with them, although Trump threatens to do things “like they’ve never seen before,” to use one of his favorite phrases. But he’s apparently insisting that they close their nuclear reactors, and essentially demilitarize. That’s a non-starter.

International Man: How might a war with Iran impact the Trump administration’s domestic priorities and broader foreign policy goals?

Doug Casey: One thing to remember is that China, Russia, and Iran have close trade and military relations with each other. So, threatening Iran can only worsen US relations with both China and Russia. And they’re not good right now.

You can expect the Chinese and the Russians to aid Iran with technology and materiel. Most likely they’ll do it covertly, the way the US helped the Ukraine. So if the US starts something with Iran, it’s not going to be a cakewalk like invading Panama or Grenada or bombing the Houthis.

Trump may understand something about the art of the deal, but he knows nothing about economics or history. It would be good if someone drew Thomas Jefferson’s words to his attention: The United States should be a friend to all but an ally to none. Or what John Adams said: We should never go abroad hunting for dragons to slay.

International Man: What do you see as the major geopolitical and financial consequences if the US becomes entangled in a war with Iran?

Doug Casey: It’s hard to tell how much money the US really spends on its military. Figuring it out is like rooting through a landfill.

I hate to call it the “defense” budget because that’s a misnomer, an extreme euphemism. It amounts to a welfare program for a military-industrial complex making obsolescent vanity toys. It’s generally reported at about $800 billion, but Trump says he wants to raise it to $1 trillion. That’s an incomprehensible thing to say when the country’s already over the edge of bankruptcy.

Remember what Randolph Bourne said: “War is the health of the State.” If you support freedom, you’ve got to be naturally opposed to war, especially a completely unnecessary one with Iran. There’s nothing the US can gain. Only Israel could conceivably benefit from that war.

And probably not even Israel. If you hit a hornet’s nest with a baseball bat, it will hurt the hornet’s nest, but the hornets will swarm anybody nearby. An it’s not like they’ll think the Israelis are innocent bystanders…

While I’m rolling out famous quotes, Field Marshall Helmuth von Molkte said that no battle plan survives first contact with an enemy. Trump wouldn’t be familiar with that quote. But who doesn’t know Mike Tyson’s take: “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

It seems to me that, although the US is obviously following in the footsteps of Rome as it declined, Athens might be a better comparison. They fomented the Peloponnesian War against Sparta, which ended up bankrupting and destroying Athens.

The same thing is happening before our eyes with the US. The wars and rumors of wars emanating out of Washington can’t end well.

We can’t do anything about the big picture. But you should stay long: gold, oil, gas, and coal.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Potential for War With Iran—and the Financial Shockwaves That Could Follow appeared first on LewRockwell.

Trump’s actions were neither ‘spur of the moment’, nor whimsical. The ‘tariff solution’ had been pre-prepared by his team over years.

The Trump ‘shock’ – his ‘de-centring’ of America from serving as pivot to the post-war ‘order’ via the dollar – has triggered a deep cleavage between those who gained huge benefit from the status quo, on the one hand; and on the other, the MAGA faction who have come to regard the status quo as inimical – even an existential threat – to U.S. interests. The sides have descended into bitter, accusatory polarisation.

It is one of the ironies of the moment that President Trump and right-wing Republicans have insisted on decrying – as a “resource curse” – the benefits of the Reserve Currency status that precisely brought the U.S. the wave of inward global savings that has permitted the U.S. to enjoy the unique privilege of printing money, without adverse consequence: Until now that is! Debt levels finally matter, it seems, even for the Leviathan.

Vice-President Vance now likens the Reserve Currency to a “parasite” that has eaten away the substance of its ‘host’ – the U.S. economy – by forcing an overvalued dollar.

Just to be clear, President Trump believed there was no choice: Either he could upend the existing paradigm, at the cost of considerable pain for many of those dependent on the financialised system, or he could allow events to wend their way towards an inevitable U.S. economic collapse. Even those who understood the dilemma the U.S. faces, nonetheless have been somewhat shocked by the self-serving brazenness of him simply ‘tariffing the world’.

Trump’s actions, (as many claim), were neither ‘spur of the moment’, nor whimsical. The ‘tariff solution’ had been pre-prepared by his team over recent years, and formed an integral part to a more complex framework – one that complemented the debt-reduction and revenue effects of tariffs, by a programme to coerce the repatriation of vanished manufacturing industry back to America.

Trump’s is a gamble that may, or may not, succeed: It risks a bigger financial crisis, as financial markets are over-leveraged and fragile. But what is clear is that the de-centring of America that will follow from his crude threats and humiliation of world leaders ultimately will cause a counter-reaction both for relations with the U.S., and also in global willingness to continue to hold U.S. assets (such as U.S. Treasuries). China’s defiance of Trump will set a ‘tone’, even for those who lack China’s ‘heft’.

Why then should Trump take such a risk? Because, behind Trump’s boldfaced actions, notes Simplicius, lies a harsh reality facing many MAGA supporters:

“it remains inarguable that the American workforce has been gutted by the triple threat of mass migration; general worker anomie as consequence of cultural decay – and in particular, by the mass alienation and disenfranchisement of conservatively-minded men. These have been strongly contributing factors to the current crisis of doubt about the ability of ‘American manufacturing’ to ever return to a semblance of its previous glory, no matter how big an axe Trump takes to the stricken ‘World Order’”.

Trump is mounting a Revolution in order to invert this reality – an end to the American anomie – by (Trump hopes) bringing back U.S. industry.

There is a current of western public opinion – “by no means limited to intellectuals”, nor to Americans alone – that despairs of their own country’s ‘lack of will’, or its inability to do what needs to be done – its fecklessness and its ‘crisis of competence’. These people hanker for a leadership believed to be tougher and more decisive – a longing for unconstrained power and ruthlessness.

One highly-placed Trump supporter puts it quite brutally: “We are now at a very important inflection point. If we are going to face ‘The Big Ugly’ with China, we cannot afford divided loyalties … It’s time to get mean, brutally, harshly mean. Delicate sensibilities must be dispatched like a feather in a hurricane”.

It is no surprise that, against the general context of western nihilism, a mindset that admires power and ruthless technocratic solutions – almost ruthlessness for its own sake – could take hold. Take note – we are all in for a turbulent future.

The West’s economic unravelling has been made more complicated by Trump’s often contradictory statements. It may be a part to his repertoire; yet nonetheless, the haphazardness evokes the thought that nothing is trustworthy; nothing is constant.

It has been reported by ‘White House insiders’ that Trump has lost all inhibition when it comes to bold action: “He’s at the peak of just not giving a f**k anymore”, a White House official familiar with Trump’s thinking told the Washington Post:

“Bad news stories? He doesn’t give a f**k. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail”.

When some portion of a country’s population despairs of their own country’s “lack of will” or inability to “do what needs to be done”, Aurelian argues, they begin, from time to time, to identify emotionally with ‘Another Country’, believed to be tougher and more decisive. In this particular moment, “the mantle” of being “some sort of Nietzschean super-hero – beyond considerations of good and evil” … “landed upon Israel” – at least for an influential layer of both the U.S. and European policy-makers. Aurelian continues,

“Israel, whose combination of a superficially western-style society with audacity, ruthlessness and a total disregard for international law and human life, was exciting to many and has become a model for emulation. Western support for Israel in Gaza makes much more sense when you realise that western politicians, and parts of the intellectual class, secretly admire the ruthlessness and brutality of Israel’s war”.

Yet, despite the disruption and the pain caused by the U.S. ‘turn’, it nonetheless represents a huge opportunity too – an opportunity to shift to an alternate societal paradigm beyond neo-liberal financialism. This has been ruled out, until now, by the élite insistence on TINA (there is no alternative). Now the door is open a crack.

Karl Polyani, in his Great Transformation (published some 80 years ago), held that the massive economic and social transformations that he had witnessed during his lifetime – the end of the century of “relative peace” in Europe from 1815 to 1914, and the subsequent descent into economic turmoil, fascism and war, which was still ongoing at the time of the book’s publication – had but a single, overarching cause:

Prior to the 19th century, Polyani insisted, the human ‘way of being’ (economics as an organic component of society) had always been ‘embedded’ in society, and subordinated to local politics, customs, religion and social relations; i.e. subordinated to a civilisational culture. Life was not treated as separate; not reduced to distinct particulars, but was viewed as parts to an organic whole – that is, to Life itself.

Post-modern nihilism (that descended into unregulated neo-liberalism of the 1980s) turned this logic on its head. As such, it constituted an ontological break with much of history. Not only did it artificially separate the ‘economic’ from the political and ethical ‘way of being’, but open, free-trade economics (in its Adam Smith formulation) demanded the subordination of society to the abstract logic of the self-regulating market. For Polanyi, this “meant no less than the running of community as an adjunct to the market”, and nothing more.

The answer – clearly – was to make society again the dominant part to a distinctly human community; i.e. given its meaning through a living culture. In this sense, Polanyi also emphasised the territorial character of sovereignty – the nation-state as the sovereign pre-condition to the exercise of democratic politics.

Polanyi would have argued that, absent a return to Life itself as the central pivot to politics, a violent backlash was inevitable. Is such a backlash what we are seeing today?

At a conference of Russian industrialists and entrepreneurs, on 18 March 2025, Putin referred precisely to a ‘National Economics’ alternate solution for Russia. Putin highlighted both the imposed siege on the state, and set out the Russian response it – a model which is likely to be adopted by much of the globe.

It is a mode of economic thinking that is already practiced by China which had anticipated Trump’s Tariff Blitz.

Putin’s address – metaphorical speaking – constitutes the financial counterpart to his 2007 Munich Security Forum speech, at which he accepted the military défie posed by ‘collective NATO’. Last month however, he went further – Putin stated clearly that Russia had accepted the challenge posed by the Anglo ‘open economy’ financial order.

Putin’s address was in one sense nothing really new – It was the shift from the ‘open economy’ model towards ‘National Economics’.

The ‘National Economic’s School’ (of the nineteenth century) argued that Adam Smith’s analysis, which was heavily focused on individualism and cosmopolitanism, overlooked the crucial role of the national economy.

The result of a general free trade would not be a universal republic, but, on the contrary, a universal subjection of the less advanced nations by the predominant manufacturing and commercial and powers. Those advocating for a national economy countered Smith’s open economy by advocating a ‘closed economy’ to allow nascent industries to grow and become competitive on the global stage.

“Hold to no illusions: There is nothing beyond this reality”, Putin warned the gathered Russian industrialists in March 2025. “Set illusions aside”, he told delegates:

“Sanctions and restrictions are today’s reality – together with a new spiral of economic rivalry already unleashed”.

“Sanctions are neither temporary nor targeted measures; they constitute a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure against our nation. Regardless of global developments or shifts in the international order, our competitors will perpetually seek to constrain Russia and to diminish its economic and technological capacities”.

“You should not hope for complete freedom of trade, payments and capital transfers. You should not count on Western mechanisms to protect the rights of investors and entrepreneurs… I’m not talking about any legal systems – they just don’t exist! They exist there only for themselves! That’s the trick. Do you understand?!”

Our [Russian] challenges exist, ‘yes’, Putin said; “but theirs are abundant also. Western dominance is slipping away. New centres of global growth are taking centre stage”.

These challenges are not the ‘problem’; they are the opportunity, Putin argued: We will prioritise domestic manufacturing and the development of tech industries. The old model is over. Oil and gas production will be simply the adjunct to a largely internally circulating, self-sufficient ‘real economy’ – with energy no longer its driver. We are open to western investment – but only on our terms – and the small ‘open’ sector of our otherwise closed, self-circulating real economy will of course still trade with our BRICS partners.

Russia is returning to the National Economy model, Putin implied. ‘This makes us sanction and tariff resistant’. ‘Russia is also inducement resistant – being self-sufficient in energy and raw materials’, Putin said. A clear alternate economic paradigm in the face of an unraveling world order.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

The post Trump Axes a Stricken World Order – But There’s Opportunity Amidst the Turmoil appeared first on LewRockwell.

It’s not as if it was ever a secret: The very core of the woke movement is fundamentally rooted in evil. The general definition of “evil” being a conscious act of deception and destruction, the deliberate victimization of others for the sake of personal power, pleasure and gain. When I try to imagine what a religion of evil might look like I consistently come back to the far-left woke movement along with its rabid mantras, agendas and self righteous narcissism.

The majority of human beings have an inherent sense of good and evil; we often refer to this condition as conscience or moral compass. The intuitive inner voice that guides us and warns us when we stray into “the dark side” is a product of archetypal knowledge – What psychologist Carl Jung described as a set of inborn complexes or symbols that tap into our deepest emotions and sense of identity. All our social interactions are in some way affected by these archetypes.

These ideas are universal, present in nearly every culture in every part of the world at every point in time in the world. Societies with zero social interaction and separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles all have these symbols and principles present in their mythology, academia and ideologies. The building blocks of everything from language, to mathematics to religion and morality are influenced by inherent psychological imprints present in our minds from the moment of birth.

I have written extensively about these inborn characteristics since 2006 because their existence is a fascinating window into the human soul. Numerous philosophers, anthropologists and mind scientists have spent their careers studying archetypes and their meanings.

Some people (myself included) see archetypes as scientific proof of creative design; proof of God. Fatalists take it further and argue that they are a kind of genetic “pre-programming” or divine software that controls everything we think and do. However, because archetypes share dual identities and competing concepts, this means we are not necessarily “programmed” like robots. Rather we are given the ability to choose and with choice comes the free will to do good, or evil.

For other people (globalists, leftists and run of the mill psychopaths) free will means the ability to choose not to believe in archetypes, or morality or even objective truth. They choose nihilism, but this is only part of the problem. The defiance of truth goes beyond some misguided attempt to be free from societal judgment.

Instead, evil people define freedom without responsibility as the ultimate state of being – In other words, they view the capacity to inflict suffering and destruction without regard as an evolutionary advantage. They think their lack of humanity makes them superhuman.

It’s no mistake that leftists and woke activists are obsessed with power dynamics; their new religion ensures that they cannot see the world any other way. For woke ideologues everything revolves around which groups hold power and how they can take that power for themselves. Thus, questions of right and wrong never enter into the equation. Power is the end that justifies all means.

They see moral order as an artificial construct that oppresses them (because they want to do evil without consequence). Moral relativism at its core requires the victimization of others as a form of rebellion against order. Of course, the injustice of this mentality is hard to dismiss but leftists have a way around that.

There’s no shortage of woke activists who have displayed a contempt for the law and for morals when they’re being judged, but they will joyfully embrace morals and the law when they think these things can be used against their enemies. Hypocritically, leftists like the idea of rules, but only for other people. Rules are a shield to prevent retribution from the people they victimize. That’s the only purpose rules serve for the woke.

To summarize, leftists are TOTAL relativists. The rules do not apply to them. The law does not apply to them. Morality does not apply to them. Conscience is non-existent for them (or it exists but they have trained their minds to ignore it). Biological reality does not apply to them. They think they are special and that boundaries should only exist for the people they don’t like.

This is pure evil. There’s no other rational way to look at it.

But where does this demonic belief system come from? Well, there are many theories. The term “Postmodernism” comes up often and is a philosophy from the latter part of the 20th Century that rejects ideas of objective and universal truth. Postmodernism is cited as an ideological offspring of Marxism; a smug rebranding of the socialist agenda for consumption by the academic elite.

Another source that I’ve covered over the years is “Futurism”, which was a precursor movement to the socialist regimes in Europe in the 20th Century. Futurists believe that all old ideas are inferior and must be constantly replaced with new ideas in order for society to progress. It emphasizes the inversion of conservatism; a war on the accomplishments and constructs of previous generations. That is to say, the past has no value to them because it gets in the way of the new order they want.

They believe that society must exist as an ever churning revolution against tradition, principles and reason. Chaos is the result. In many ways they even revere it. If I were to define Postmodernism and Futurism in practical terms, both represent a psychopathic love affair with chaos. For without objective truth there can be no order, and without order evil prevails.

It should be noted that both Postmodernism and Futurism started as artistic movements within the elitist fold. Both started as mind games for deconstructing archetypes and then they were adapted by academia and ideological zealots into the realm of politics. If the inborn meaning of archetypes can be deconstructed, then all the principles of our civilization can be deconstructed.

I’ve mentioned this quote many times and I’ll use it again here because it perfectly encompasses the problem posed by relativists – As Charlie Sheen states at the end of the movie Platoon:

“Somebody once wrote, ‘Hell is the impossibility of reason.’ That’s what this place feels like. Hell…”

This is the world that leftists and globalists are trying to build right now: A hell on Earth. A world without reason. But what would motivate people to embrace such a monstrous social inversion? That’s where Luciferianism comes in. Luciferianism is in part a religion; an ideology of self worship that venerates pride and believes SOME humans are gods trapped by the oppressive boundaries of nature and society. It’s a common trait among narcopaths and psychopaths; the internal lust for godhood is a tale as old as the Bible.

Lucifer (Satan) was a servant entity that sought to surpass God and rule the universe by his own standards. The Garden of Eden is based on the idea of humanity coveting the power of knowledge without responsibility and losing respect for creation. The Tower of Babel is a tale of man’s foolish urge to centralize and control creation, building great monuments to himself in a vain effort to reach the divine.

The theme pops up over and over again, not just in Christianity but also in secular mythology. The idea that we should not “play God” is present in popular media ever since the era of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Luciferians declare the opposite: They say yes, they will play god, and anyone that tries to stop them is an “inferior” that deserves to be eliminated.

In this way the trio of evils combines to form the New World Order religion. Postmodernism is a war on objective truth, especially as it applies to human society. Futurism is a war on the past, cultural heritage and the conservation of traditional values and structures. Luciferiansim is a war on God; the denial of natural law and the refusal to accept that there are limits to human understanding and control.

When a person adopts all of these beliefs together they are capable of any conceivable atrocity. There is nothing they won’t do to achieve the destruction of the very fabric of our current civilization. There is no crime they will not rationalize. No gruesome action they will not justify. After all, they are “gods”, but gods of nihilism and death.

Of course, a REAL God has the power to create, and that’s something woke adherents are incapable of. They know how to steal, copy, repurpose and tear things down, but they will never have the capacity to create anything new. They are only gods in their little minds, but the rest of us have to suffer because of their delusions.

The war on truth and reason is a strategy to invert the natural order. It puts power in the hands of moral relativists because a society that favors relativism will automatically favor people without moral restraint. The more vicious and predatory you are, the easier it will be to get ahead. Today we might try to discourage or punish this kind of behavior, but as time passes it is increasingly normalized.

The one thing evil people are most desperate to prove is that everyone else is just like them, given the right circumstances. Turn everyday life into hell and all morality goes out the window, at least in theory.

We need to ask, what happens when evil becomes acceptable and good becomes passe? In the end you get a black void of despair and the absence of direction or purpose. Imagine a future where your principles and conscience are used against you, holding you back while people that have no principles are given all of life’s rewards. The currency of your society becomes psychopathy and the lunatics run the asylum.

And what’s really horrifying is that we’re not very far from this Orwellian nightmare. In some ways, it’s already upon us. This is the intended religion of the future – A “faith” built on the hatred of all creation, in which self worship is divine and reason is considered a punishable heresy.

Reprinted with permission from Alt-Market.us.

The post The NWO Religion: How The Woke Postmodern ‘Faith’ Glorifies Evil appeared first on LewRockwell.

“Homegrowns are next. The homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places [like the CECOT prison]. It’s not big enough.”—President Trump on his desire to send American citizens to a megaprison in El Salvador, beyond the reach of U.S. courts and the Constitution

It has begun, just as we predicted, justified in the name of national security.

Mass roundups. Raids. Indefinite detentions in concentration camps. Martial law. The erosion of habeas corpus protections. The suspension of the Constitution, at least for select segments of the population. A hierarchy of rights, contingent on whether you belong to a favored political class.

This is what it looks like when the government makes itself the arbiter of who is deserving of rights and who isn’t.

Here is what we know: one segment of the population at a time, the Trump Administration is systematically and without due process attempting to cleanse the country of what it perceives to be “undesirables” as part of its purported effort to make America great again.

This is how men, women and children are being made to disappear, snatched up off the streets by press-gangs of plainclothes, masked government agents impersonating street thugs.

Presently, these so-called “undesirables” include both undocumented and legal immigrants—many labeled terrorists despite having no criminal record, no court hearing, and no due process—before being extradited to a foreign concentration camp in an effort to sidestep judicial oversight.

By including a handful of known members of a vicious gang among those being rounded up, the government is attempting to whitewash the public into believing that everyone being targeted is, in fact, a terrorist.

In recent years, the government has used the phrase “domestic terrorist” interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints, characteristics and behaviors that could be considered “dangerous.”

Thus, without proof, a sheet metal worker has been labeled a terrorist. A musician has been labeled a terrorist. A makeup artist has been labeled a terrorist. A cellular biologist has been labeled a terrorist. A soccer player has been labeled a terrorist. A food delivery driver has been labeled a terrorist.

Unfortunately, the government’s attempts to dehumanize and strip individuals of their inalienable rights under the Constitution by labeling them criminals and “terrorists” is just the beginning of the dangerous game that is afoot.

It’s only a matter of time before American citizens who refuse to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates are classified as terrorists, denied basic rights, and extradited to a foreign prison.

That time is drawing closer.

Indeed, Trump has repeatedly spoken of his desire to be able to send American citizens—whom he refers to as “homegrowns,” as in homegrown terrorists—on a one-way trip to El Salvador’s mega-prison, where conditions are so brutal that officials brag the only way out is in a coffin. His administration is currently trying to find a way to accomplish that very objective.

We’re not quite there yet, but it’s coming.

What we are witnessing is history repeating itself in real-time: the widening net that ensnares us all. In other words, it’s only a matter of time before anyone who is not fully compliant gets labeled a terrorist.

A prime example of how the government casting its net in ever-widening circles can be seen in the government’s sudden decision to target academics in the U.S. on work and student visas who have been critical of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 50,000 people (nearly a third of them under the age of 18), as threats to national security.

Given Trump’s eagerness to take ownership of the Gaza strip in order to colonize it, build resorts and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East”—at taxpayer expense—it should come as no surprise that the Trump Administration is attempting to muzzle any activities that might stir up sympathy for the Palestinians.

Thus, the government is classifying any criticism of Israel as antisemitic and equating it with terrorism.

Under such a broad definition, Jesus himself would be considered antisemitic.

So you can add antisemitic to the list of viewpoints that could have one classified as a terrorist, rounded up by ICE, stripped of the fundamental rights to due process and a day in court, and made to disappear into a detention center.

Mind you, the government isn’t just targeting protest activities and expression that might have crossed over into civil disobedience. It’s also preemptively targeting individuals who have committed no crimes but whose views might at some point in the future run counter to the government’s self-serving interests.

This is precrime taken to a whole new level: targeting thoughts, i.e., thought crime.

The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American with an opinion about the government or who knows someone with an opinion about the government an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

As German pastor Martin Niemöller lamented:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

You see how this works?

Let’s not mince words about what’s happening here: under the guise of fighting terrorism, the U.S. government is not just making people disappear—it is making the Constitution disappear.

When rights become privileges, the Constitution—and the rule of law—becomes optional.

We are almost at that point already.

Trump’s list of “the enemies from within” is growing in leaps and bounds.

The list of individuals and groups being classified as anti-American gets bigger by the day: Immigrants, both legal and undocumented. Immigration attorneys. Judges. Lawyers. Law firms. Doctors. Scientists. Students. Universities. Nonprofits.

Given what we know about the government and its expansive definition of what constitutes a threat to its power, any one of us who dare to speak truth to power could be targeted next as an enemy of the state.

Certainly, it is easy to remain silent in the face of evil.

What is harder—what we lack today and so desperately need—are those with moral courage who will risk their freedoms and lives in order to speak out against evil in its many forms.

Throughout history, individuals or groups of individuals have risen up to challenge the injustices of their age. Nazi Germany had its Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The gulags of the Soviet Union were challenged by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. America had its color-coded system of racial segregation and warmongering called out for what it was, blatant discrimination and profiteering, by Martin Luther King Jr.

And then there was Jesus Christ who not only died challenging the police state of his day but provided a blueprint for civil disobedience that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him.

Any reflection on Jesus’ life and death within a police state must take into account several factors: Jesus spoke out strongly against such things as empires, controlling people, state violence and power politics. Jesus challenged the political and religious belief systems of his day. And worldly powers feared Jesus, not because he challenged them for control of thrones or government but because he undercut their claims of supremacy, and he dared to speak truth to power in a time when doing so could—and often did—cost a person his life.

It makes you wonder how Jesus—a Palestinian refugee, a radical, and a revolutionary—would have fared in the American police state under a Trump regime.

Would Jesus—who spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—have been snatched up in the dead of night, stripped of any real due process, made to disappear into a detention center, and handed a death sentence when he was delivered into a prison where the only way out is in a wooden box?

Consider that the charges leveled against Jesus—that he was a threat to the stability of the nation, opposed paying Roman taxes and claimed to be the rightful King—were purely political, not religious.

Jesus was presented to Pontius Pilate “as a disturber of the political peace,” a leader of a rebellion, a political threat, and most gravely—a claimant to kingship, a “king of the revolutionary type.”

After Jesus was formally condemned by Pilate, he was sentenced to death by crucifixion, “the Roman means of executing criminals convicted of high treason.”  The purpose of crucifixion was not so much to kill the criminal, as it was an immensely public statement intended to visually warn all those who would challenge the power of the Roman Empire. Hence, it was reserved solely for the most extreme political crimes: treason, rebellion, sedition, and banditry.

This radical Jesus, the political dissident who took aim at injustice and oppression, is not the politically mute, humble and obedient one whom Trump praised in his presidential proclamation.

Almost 2,000 years after Jesus was crucified by the police state of his age, we find ourselves confronted by a painful irony: that in the same week commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus, a Palestinian refugee who was killed by the police state for speaking truth to power, the U.S. government is prosecuting Palestinian refugees who are daring to challenge another modern-day police state’s injustices, while threatening to impose widespread martial law on the country to put down any future rebellions.

President Trump has hinted that he could invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would allow the president to use the military on American soil.

This would in effect be a declaration of martial law.

Trump has already authorized the military to take control of the southern border, which puts parts of the domestic United States under martial law.

What comes next?

Trump has long speculated about using his presidential powers under the Insurrection Act to direct the military to deal with his perceived political opponents, whom he likens to “the enemy from within.”

As Austin Sarat writes for Salon: “The president alone gets to decide what constitutes an ‘insurrection,’ ‘rebellion,’ or ‘domestic violence.’ And once troops are deployed, it will not be easy to get them off the streets in any place that the president thinks is threatened by ‘radical left lunatics.’”

So where do we go from here?

History offers some clues.

Exactly 250 years ago, on April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began with a “shot heard round the world.” It wasn’t sparked by acts of terrorism or rebellion—it was triggered by a government that had grown deaf to the cries of its people.

What we don’t need is violence in any form—by the people or their government.

What we do need is a revival of moral courage.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are desperately overdue for a reminder to our government: this is still our country.

Or, as Thomas Paine so powerfully put it: “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”

This originally appeared on The Rutherford Institute.

The post Refugee. Dissident. Enemy of the State. Would ICE Have Crucified Jesus? appeared first on LewRockwell.

In his poem “The Betrothed,” Rudyard Kipling humorously weighed the advantages and disadvantages of marrying. Contemplating the constraints of monogamy when compared to “a harem of dusky beauties,” he takes consolation in the fact that he will, in his married state, still be allowed the pleasure of smoking a good Cuban cigar. As he reflects:

And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.

Kipling was reflecting on the reality that life and our desires are constrained by hard facts. A man cannot always get what he wants, he will grow old, and he will die. If a man has an interest in perpetuating the species, he must marry a woman and have children with her.

Kipling’s marriage to an American woman named Caroline Starr Balestier proved to be a happy one that defied that doubts of Henry James, who, upon giving away the bride at the ceremony, said, “It’s a union of which I don’t forecast the future.”

Finally—and obviously to anyone who hasn’t lost his mind—a man cannot become a woman. All of the surgery and hormones in the world cannot make a male into a female.

I often wonder what Kipling would have thought of the UK today. I suspect he would have laughed out loud at the UK Supreme Court’s April 16 finding that

The terms “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the EA [Equality Act] 2010 refer to biological sex.

What perspicacity!

It’s a testament to how badly reasonable grownups have been beaten down by the insanity of the last ten years that we now regard the affirmation of this obvious fact as a cause for celebration.

Those who are interested in the background of the case may read the Supreme Court’s press release For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent).

The Scottish author J.K. Rowling—who has been a fierce defender of women from male pretenders—celebrated the Court’s ruling with the following tweet:

I share Ms. Rowling’s sentiment, and I often wonder why more women who hold positions of power haven’t joined her in defending the female sex from male weirdos masquerading as women. I agree with her that most of the so-called transgender movement is an assault on true girlhood—most conspicuously in the arena of sports—and womanhood.

I just returned from a conference at Cambridge University, and while I was there I passed by Lucy Cavendish College, named in honor of Lucy Cavendish (1841–1925), who campaigned for the reform of women’s education. I visited the college in memoriam of an old friend who just died who was one of the first women to attend the college after it was founded in 1965.

Margaret was my old friend’s name, but everyone called her by her nickname Peggy. She attended Lucy Cavendish to study math, which has, since Isaac Newton, been the strongest academic discipline of Cambridge University. I believe that J.K. Rowling is part of the same intellectual tradition of Lucy Cavendish and the female academics at Cambridge who founded the college in her honor.

We hope that more women who value womanhood will join Ms. Rowling in defending the female sex. They can now cite a UK Supreme Court ruling to bolster their argument.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

The post UK Supreme Court Holds that ‘Woman’ Refers to Biological Sex appeared first on LewRockwell.