Lew Rockwell Institute

President Trump on Monday announced that his administration is about to release 80,000 pages relating to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Jr. Trump told reporters the mass-release will happen on Tuesday afternoon. Fittingly, he broke the news on an afternoon visit to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

“While we’re here, I thought it would be appropriate: Tomorrow we are…giving all of the Kennedy files,” Trump told reporters. “I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything. I said ‘Just don’t redact. We can’t redact’. It’s going to be very interesting…you’ll make your own determination.” On Monday evening, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said the released files will be accessible at the National Archives JFK Assassination Records website.

Three days after his January inauguration,Trump signed an executive order instructing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Attorney General Pam Bondi to come up with a plan for “the full and complete release of all John F. Kennedy assassination records,” and records relating to the killings of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. The order made the JFK files the first priority. “More than 50 years after these assassinations, the victims’ families and the American people deserve the truth,” said Trump in announcing the order.

Last month, the FBI disclosed that, pursuant to the order, it found approximately 2,400 new records pertaining to the JFK assassination, saying they “were previously unrecognized as related to the JFK assassination case file.” It gave no indication about the substance of that batch of records. In 2022, the National Archives claimed that more than 97% of its Kennedy assassination documents were available to the public. At the time, the agency said the entire collection comprised approximately 5 million pages.

President Trump on JFK Files: “We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files…I don’t believe we are are going to redact anything…it’s going to be very interesting…approximately 80,000 pages.” pic.twitter.com/0NW4QdLSzL

— CSPAN (@cspan) March 17, 2025

“People have been waiting decades for this,” said Trump on Monday. “I said during the campaign that I’d do it, and I’m a man of my word.” Over those decades, a growing consensus has formed around the belief that the official story is false. On the other hand, there are many competing theories about who was really responsible. Here are just a few hypotheses (if your top theory isn’t listed, share it in the comments):

• The CIA killed JFK because of its outrage over his failure to invade Cuba in the wake of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and his desire to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.”
• The Soviet Union killed JFK in retaliation for embarrassing the USSR in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• Cuba’s Fidel Castro killed JFK because of US assassination attempts on him, and/or because of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
• The Mafia killed JFK because of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s crackdown.
• Vice President Lyndon B Johnson conspired to kill JFK to take power.
• Israel killed JFK because of his opposition to the country’s nuclear weapons development, potential sympathy with the Palestinians’ right to return to homes they were expelled from in 1948, and insistence that the American Zionist Council register as agents of Israel pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr — son of RFK and nephew of JFK — may have had a big influence on Trump’s move to release the long-secret documents. He’s Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, and he’s long pointed to the CIA as being a top suspect in both assassinations. “The evidence is overwhelming that the CIA was involved in the murder and in the cover-up [of my uncle],” RFK, Jr said in a 2023 podcast interview. Regarding his father’s death, he said evidence of the CIA’s guilt is “circumstantial” yet “convincing.”

In 1992, Congress passed the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, which required the release of all records by 2017. Under that law, further delays are only allowed with a presidential certification that

• “Continued postponement is necessary due to an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations, and
• Such identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”

There are questions swirling around what will be released on Tuesday afternoon. It’s unclear if this will truly represent “all” of the remaining pages, or if — contrary to Trump’s reassurance to reporters — some released documents may contain redactions that leave long-suffering transparency advocates aggravated.

The JFK Files I’m expecting tmrw pic.twitter.com/P6hkGvW7q1

— An0maly (@LegendaryEnergy) March 18, 2025

If they do this with the JFK files, we riot. pic.twitter.com/uyIph4rsIU

— Green Lives Matter (@Ultrafrog17) March 17, 2025

Reprinted with permission from Zero Hedge.

The post ‘We Can’t Redact’ – 80,000 Pages Of JFK Assassination Documents To Drop Tuesday Afternoon, Says Trump appeared first on LewRockwell.

A war economy is characterized, above all, by an extremely high time preference (i.e., a focus on the present). The conduct of war requires that scarce resources—previously allocated to the production of capital or consumer goods—be reallocated to the mobilization and operational readiness of the nation’s fighting forces. As Mises said, “War can be waged only with present goods.”

The economy, therefore, rearranges and “shortens” the overall structure of capital to favor the immediate production of finished goods. Capital is then consumed in great haste to satisfy the war effort. Labor, resources and capital goods are directed towards the production of consumer goods, instead of the more distant stages of the capital structure, which, as stated before, are oriented towards the future and the perfection of the production structure. The whole capitalist structure is turned upside down. Joseph Schumpeter explained,

Our poverty will be brought home to us to its full extent only after the war. Only then will the worn-out machines, the run-down buildings, the neglected land, the decimated livestock, the devastated forests, bear witness to the full depth of the effects of the war.

The transition to a present-oriented war economy leads to what Salerno calls a regressive economy, no longer building for future prosperity but for the present destruction of capital. War is synonymous with lost opportunities, wasted time, and the abandonment of the use of resources in genuinely productive alternative enterprises. Since the state has privileged access to stocks of resources, it also destroys all incentives for individuals and private companies to renew these stocks.

The general decumulation of capital is, therefore, the logical conclusion of any war economy. It is impossible not to think of Frédéric Bastiat—what we see and what we don’t see—and of all the opportunities and wealth lost forever. It is also impossible not to point out the enormous hypocrisy of Keynesian economics which believe that war and material destruction can generate wealth if they lead to production and full employment.

Financing War through Taxation

From the point of view of economic theory, it is perfectly possible for a state to raise the funds needed to achieve its war aims by raising taxes and borrowing from its population. On paper, there is no need for monetary inflation.

Taxation—which amounts to a seizure of the disposable income of a population—takes two forms: a reduction in consumption by individuals or a reduction in the income they save. These choices reflect a change in the time preference of consumers: where the former maintain a low time preference, the latter adopt a higher one. During wartime, the second option tends to be the norm, as individuals are naturally reluctant to sacrifice their usual standard of living in order to preserve their ability to save. This leads to higher interest rates in the economy, as available savings in the form of time deposits are reduced.

It is also important to note that because taxation reduces the disposable income of individuals, it also limits their ability to spend or save as they see fit. This, in turn, limits the market’s ability to allocate resources efficiently on the basis of consumer demand. Taxes make poor use of capital because the government has little incentive to allocate resources efficiently and because the government’s priorities do not necessarily coincide with those of individuals. This misallocation of capital damages the productive structure of society as a whole, even more so in times of war when the government decides to raise taxes to reallocate capital for the purpose of destruction.

Salerno also mentions an alternative to taxation to finance the war effort: the confiscation of non-reproducible goods other than money. We are thinking here of animals, vehicles, food, clothing, etc., which the state might confiscate from its population. In essence, this technique is very similar to taxation, but much less effective. Proof of this is the way it was used by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (1917-1923), the results of which were, not surprisingly, absolutely disastrous.

Finally, in wartime, the oppressive nature of taxation is all too visible to a population that can see first hand the damaging effects of war on society as a whole. A war that is too visible quickly becomes unpopular, draining the enthusiasm of both civilians and workers. This can lead to unrest and a dangerous defeatism for the state. The state cannot allow this to happen as it is engaged in a fight to the death against its rival, as total war dictates. Other financing techniques must be found.

Financing the War through Monetary Inflation

With inflation, the government decides to “monetize” its debt by selling bonds to the central bank. Since it has no money of its own, the central bank simply prints new money to buy these bonds. It can do this on the primary market, with the government, or on the secondary market, directly with commercial banks. This way, the central bankers inject money created ex nihilo into the economy and, at the same time, become the main financiers of total war.

As already mentioned in connection with the theories of capital and monetary calculation dear to Austrian economists, money is the most marketable commodity in an economy. As the basis of monetary calculation, it is the “guiding star of action,” the compass that guides the exchanges made by entrepreneurs and other individuals and makes it possible to lengthen the capitalist structure of society as a whole. By opting for monetary inflation, the state seeks, above all, to conceal from the population the all-too-visible signs of war. In other words, to hide the rise in interest rates, the bankruptcies, and the real cost to the economy of a massive increase in time preference.

Monetary inflation completely distorts the nature of money and falsifies economic calculation. Money is weaponized by the state, which channels it directly into military industries instead of the rest of the economy. The imbalance resulting from this monetary injection gradually spreads throughout society in the form of an uneven rise in prices. As Mises rightly explained, the first beneficiaries of the newly-printed money can still buy consumer goods at previous market prices (i.e., before they have had time to rise due to inflation).

This situation of economic disorder is not necessarily easy to identify in wartime, because of the false economic boom created by the massive injection of liquidity into the economy. While inflation may temporarily stimulate economic activity, it actually leads to accelerated capital consumption. Over time, it destroys the very capacity to create wealth, as the real value of savings and investments no longer matches the economic reality of the market. Inflation turns money into a “veil,” a “device for concealing costs,” as Salerno so aptly describes it.

The War Economy: The Road to Economic Fascism

War thus implies massive state intervention in the economy, justified by the exigencies of war. In many cases, however, this intervention continues after the war. The monetary inflation used to finance wars can thus lead to what Salerno calls “economic fascism” (i.e., total state control of the economy).

In times of war, the state has arrogated to itself the power to make all crucial decisions, not only on monetary matters, but also on taxation and production. The global war economy eventually became a fully planned economy, a “fascist economy” in its original definition: it was no longer private companies that decided what to produce, but the state that decided for them. This transformation into a fascist economy often goes hand-in-hand with the establishment of an all-powerful state, often in the form of a police state, necessary to suck up, confiscate, and redirect to the war effort all the disposable capital and income of a society.

There’s no shortage of historical examples: one of the most famous is the German Empire’s infamous Hindenburg Plan of World War I. The plan called for total economic mobilization to optimize Germany’s limited resources. The increase in military production was logically achieved at the expense of civilian consumption and by introducing rationing for the population. The author Günter Reiman describes such a system as a “vampire economy,” which—in permanent and total war—inevitably consumes all the capital of a society.

And that’s the point of this rich chapter from Money: Sound and Unsound Money: a war economy, geared to total war, with only one outcome in sight—the total annihilation of the enemy—has no choice but to vampirize its own economy and destroy the capital of its own citizens.

To achieve this, the central authorities can rely on fiat currency, the perfect tool for hiding the true cost of war from the individual, while at the same time draining the nation’s entire capital in order to condemn it to destruction. In short, war is always a negative-sum game: everyone loses, including the victorious nation. It loses not only its freedom, but also its capitalist structure, the only guarantee of its future prosperity.

The post The True Cost of War appeared first on LewRockwell.

On Friday night we took a Northern Lights Tour out of Fairbanks, Alaska, from 10 pm to 5 am, in a white Ford panel van on a snowy road into the wilderness. The Northern Lights were amazing, but didn’t really get started till 1 am. All of the five women on the tour went with someone. Three of the four men on the tour went solo.

I have noticed also, when I take my regular daily hill walk in North Seattle, that almost all the women I encounter are out walking with a woman friend.

I’m sure that women do this not because they are afraid but because there is something deep inside that prompts them to be with someone when out in the world.

SF writer Sarah Hoyt is on a parallel track when she talks about “Coming to Ourselves” waking from the dream of the long 20th century. She references a Substack piece “American Strong Gods, Trump and the end of the Long Twentieth Century” by N.S. Lyons. For the last century, the world has been “tied up in a regulatory, credential enforcing, bureaucratic state.” World War II was the excuse.

To prevent the resurgence of war, we were told we needed to do away with nationalism and religion and — really ultimately — the family and all natural connections.

And yet, women still like to go about in pairs when outside the house. And lower-class people still identify with their ethnic group, and the middle class still identifies with their nation, and the educated class identifies with the whole planet.

Meanwhile in the developed world, from the U.S. to China to South Korea, women aren’t having babies. Tech head Elon Musk does the math for South Korea: it’s scary. Our educated class leaders and their followers are all worried about defending illegal immigration, abortion, transgenders, defunding the police, and releasing criminal suspects on no-cash bail. Meanwhile women aren’t having babies.

What is going on, in this Houston We Have a Problem moment, when our best and brightest are all wound up in cult-like obsessions? It couldn’t be, could it, that cult leaders are typically so overwhelmed that they compensate with drugs? That’s what notorious “Holocaust revisionist” Darryl Cooper discussed on Joe Rogan last week: hello Jim Jones and Adolf Hitler:

Amphetamines when you get up barbiturates to go to sleep… I read a fair amount about the effects of long-term amphetamine use, the paranoia and mayhem that… can result.

By the way, Cooper told Rogan that he’s not a historian. “I’m a storyteller who uses historical stories to try to tell my stories.” But when he told Tucker Carlson that at dinner the night before doing the show, Tucker told him that he would call Cooper a historian.

You can understand the outrage in the higher circles. Back in the day, only the tippy-tops got to set the Narrative. Now the Tucker Carlsons and Megyn Kellys have broken free, and nobodies like Darryl Cooper are digging through the history books and doing podcasts without permission.

And Joe Rogan! How dare that foul-mouthed nobody interview the Elon Musks and the Marc Andreessens without the proper curation of regime philosophers like Margaret Brennan.

So I understand Cathy Young’s outrage about MAGA going off-message on Ukraine, or Matthew Omolesky’s outrage about the Trump Train trying to do a Nixon and divide Russia and China. Everything the noble Elves were taught at foreign policy school is blowing up, and unqualified Hobbits are daring to enter the conversation. Why, the guide on my Northern Lights tour dared to discuss the balance of power issue in the decision of Tsarist Russia to sell Alaska to the U.S. in 1867 rather than the global hegemon at the time, the British Empire. Who the heck does he think he is, talking about “balance of power” a hundred miles from Fairbanks in the middle of an Alaskan winter night?

As I review my pieces at American Thinker over the past months, there is really only one theme. What is happening and why, and what can we do about it. Is this really the end of the age of liberal hegemony? Can Trump and the ordinary middle class really go to battle against the educated class and win? Is the switch of the tech lords from Dems to GOP strategic or merely tactical, for the moment? Is the decline of mass media and the rise of independent media really the revolution we think it is? Will the woke world go quietly or will it return to send us all off to reeducation camp — or worse? Is the administrative and regulatory state really on death watch, or will it return to dominance?

We don’t know. But I think that it behooves us to wonder about little things like why women go out in pairs. Because little things often provide a clue to bigger things.

The post Maybe the Little Things and Little People Matter appeared first on LewRockwell.

For those of us who provide advice to those considering internationalisation, I would say that the sentiment that we most often encounter in those we offer to assist is, “I don’t want to go!”

Now, it should be said that those seeking our counsel rarely voice this comment, but it is often pervasive in their comments and questions. In spite of the fact that they may actively be pursuing internationalisation, they almost invariably reveal through their manner and their phrasing of questions that, consciously or otherwise, they are inwardly resisting the change in their lives that they are pursuing. Indeed, some are clearly hoping that they will be talked out of internationalising.

As someone who regularly provides advice to those pursuing internationalisation, it might be assumed that my reaction to this reluctance would be to say (at least inwardly), “O thou fool.” Not so. In fact, to me, such reluctance is understandable. It stems from two sources: 1) sensible caution when considering significant change, and 2) fear. I believe that most people experience both at the same time.

Sensible Caution

For most people, particularly those from larger countries, internationalisation represents a major change from what they are accustomed to, and this should not be taken lightly. The individual is considering the planting of flags in countries that he may have limited knowledge of. At the very least, there will be an unaccustomed difference in the legal structure and a difference in culture.

Much of what he presently knows about his own system may not be applicable. If he is to entrust other jurisdictions to provide him with changes in banking, residency, citizenship, employment, etc., he may be looking at an entirely different set of rules. Consequently, he would be a fool if he did not exercise caution.

This is not to say that he should shy away from internationalisation; rather, it is to say that he should do as much research as possible prior to making a commitment in the planting of any one of his flags in a new jurisdiction.

Fear

Another negative reaction to change is fear. Fear is a necessary instinct that exists in all the higher forms of animal life. It serves as a warning that something is out of the ordinary and, therefore, a possible threat to life and limb. Fear is what makes the antelope bound away long before the lion has reached striking distance. However, fear tends to obliterate reason like no other emotion can.

In regard to human action, it frequently acts as a deterrent to any sort of change. Our innate fear of change does not concern itself with whether the change being considered is actually for the better. Fear ignores reason and, at times, trumps it. With regard to internationalisation, this may mean the difference between an individual making a very positive move toward diversifying his life and, instead, scurrying back to the pen with the other sheep, where he will be available to his government at shearing time.

Whilst it may seem a cheap shot for those of us who are not caught in the sights of any particular government to take this view of those who are, the observation is not meant to be smug, but is offered in order to call attention to the price that is paid by caving in to fear.

To be sure, looking down the rabbit hole of internationalisation is a bit daunting. It may be dark, and, more to the point, it represents the unknown. However, internationalisation offers very definite rewards. Each country offers a different set of opportunities and stumbling blocks. The trick is to identify and take advantage of the opportunities, whilst avoiding the stumbling blocks. Hence the reason for planting several flags, in multiple jurisdictions.

The Erosion of Liberty

Political leaders, over time, have a rather nasty habit of steadily increasing taxation and regulations, eventually to the point that the individual becomes a serf in his own country. It is true that today’s serfdom contains cell phones and flat screen televisions, but the citizens of most of the more prominent countries have become serfs nevertheless.

This is nothing new. The erosion of liberty is a process that exists in all countries in all ages. As early as the 6th century BC, Lao Tzu stated,

The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished… The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be.

Governments tend to continue the erosion of liberty until the very point of collapse of the society in question. Whilst this has been true throughout history, the upside is that not all nations are in sync as to where they are in the process. At any given time, some countries will be blossoming, just as others are at their midpoint and yet others are nearing their collapse.

At one time, Europe was a collection of countries that were in healthy competition with each other. But, today, under the ever-more socialistic EU, the entire continent is facing collapse. At the present time, therefore, Europe is not the best place to be fully invested.

Uruguay, on the other hand, was under an oppressive military dictatorship in the 1970s and was certainly not a desirable place for the planting of flags. In the late ‘80s, however, the collapse had taken place and the recovery had begun. The dust has now settled, and Uruguay is now quite a desirable place to be.

Cuba, for many years, has been under dictatorship, but at some point, that progression, too, will end. When it does (Ten years? Twenty years?), Cuba may be an ideal location for the planting of one or more flags.

However, recognising the above developments and possibilities requires that we look down the rabbit hole, that we go out of our way to investigate and anticipate where along the progression each country around us may be at present and where it will be in the future.

To do so unquestionably brings out our fear. However, if we can succeed in replacing that fear with sensible caution and continue our investigations, we may find that the effort to internationalise is less daunting than we had anticipated. Further, if our home jurisdiction is one of those that are approaching the final throes of deterioration, our efforts at internationalisation may actually be revealed as the light at the end of the tunnel. This is particularly true for those who have children whom they do not wish to abandon to live out their lives in a decaying jurisdiction, but seek for them a long and prosperous future.

Above all, it is wise to remember that such investigation does take time (if we are to get it right) and that, therefore, the time to begin the pursuit is as soon as possible.

Again, to quote Lao Tzu, “Act before things exist. Manage them before there is disorder.”

The old guy had it right. For many people today, the jurisdiction that they call home has reached the point that its effects on them are more negative than positive. When this tipping point has been reached, the rabbit hole, dark though it may appear at first glance, represents the promise of a more equitable future.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post The Quest for Alice’s Rabbit Hole appeared first on LewRockwell.

‘A ceasefire is when the Israelis fire and we cease.’ ~ Refaat Al-Areer, RIP

The median elapsed time between an American official opposing anything Israel and then dropping out of history is getting shorter. ~ilana 

“We’re the United States. We’re not an agent of Israel. We have specific interests at play.” So said Trump Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs Adam Boehler to Zionist enforcer Jake Tapper, on CNN.

Boehler had been deputized by President Donald Trump to bypass Bibi Netanyahu and negotiate directly with Hamas. More to the point, Boehler had described Hamas, whom by now very many around the world consider resistance fighters, as holding points of view that merit a hearing. He even suggested, as Jewish Insider reported, that—lo—! “they’re actually pretty nice guys.” Hamas, that is.

Whatever was he thinking! Boehler was off his leash. Israeli officials were scurrying about in an attempt to get him back on it.

Talking to Hamas? Now Trump was talking!

Unlike the president’s Gaza Rivera plan to evict Palestinian survivors from Gaza; negotiations with Hamas do indeed constitute “out-of-the-box thinking,” if not original thinking. Unoriginal, because diplomacy, namely talking to adversaries, is standard statecraft. At least it ought to be.

Excerpted but barely in the Washington Examiner, the testy Boehler-Tapper televised exchange took time to propagate to the Internet. You see, US Deep Tech, Google included, generally cover for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which is also business partner to American tech. These multinationals are not about to throw sand in the IDF’s military bearings.

Tech multinationals (or Deep Tech, as I call them) have, after all, supplied the IDF with the killer infrastructure required to “build artificial intelligence (AI) programs designed to produce human targets with little human oversight.” (The other reasonable conclusion is that these multinationals are undisturbed by genocide.)

Talking to Hamas would certainly have been inconceivable under Joe Biden, alias Genocide Joe, remarks commentator extraordinaire Mouin Rabbani, a Palestinian. And while Trump has prioritized negotiations over American dual-national captives; his bold move broadcasts some salient facts about the situation:

Israel is an obstacle to an accord; to closing out the genocide. It is especially eager to avoid phase II of the January 17, 2025 ceasefire agreement. Not that the media system had noticed, but Israel never quite quit the killing.

By March 13, Israel had violated the ceasefire agreement upwards of one thousand times, in the estimation of Jon Elmer, military analyst at the Electronic Intifada. Staggering, perhaps, but utterly predictable historically. “Israel,” reminds a dejected Chris Hedges—he is a famed war correspondent—“has assassinated more people than any other people in the Western World.”

In the hours right after the ceasefire deal was announced; Israeli forces killed at least 87 Palestinians, 23 of them children. Quipped the late Refaat Al-Areer: “A ceasefire is when the Israelis fire and we cease.” As in “expire.” A mild-mannered, bookish Palestinian scholar, Dr. Al-Areer was murdered in his Gaza residence, in December of 2023.

Indeed, the low-grade killing across the coastal strip had continued throughout phase I of the “ceasefire.” To be exact, Israel had started up the killing fifteen minutes into the ceasefire’s implementation. Since January 15, 2025, Israel has murdered an average of three people every 24 hours—150 Palestinians since the start of the ceasefire on 19 January 2025.

No sooner were the Israelis steered by Steven Witkoff, in January, to a ceasefire; than the urge to kill overcame them. Israeli newspapers were telling about the “salty” language Witkoff, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, had deployed with Netanyahu, instructing the Israeli prime minister’s aides, as follows (and I paraphrase), “I don’t care that today’s your Sabbath. Get down here and sign this [old] ceasefire on the dotted line.” I ad-libbed “old” in, because the January-15 accord was modeled after one Hamas had composed in May of 2024.

Did Witkoff remind Netanyahu that the Israeli army, the IDF, does not rest up on the Seventh Day from the slaughter of innocents, and that, surely its commander-in-chief could get off his duff to make peace on the holy Sabbath?! Probably not. Still, what transpired was refreshing, even delicious.

The March 2025 violations of the agreement have seen Israel halt the meager aid let into starving Gaza, and cut off the remaining supply of electricity to Gaza. Because the main desalination water-treatment plant is producing a fraction of its prior output, running as it is only on generators—only one-in-ten Gazans currently has access to safe drinking water.

From the start, Israel had failed to allow into Gaza the agreed-upon medicines, fuel, food, housing units (15 out of a promised 60,000), tents (20 percent of the requisite 200,000), heavy earth-moving machinery, spare parts, construction material, and alternative energy systems, like generators.

Still regionally omnipotent, still resistless—Israel has now put its exterminatory foot to the floor again. The Jewish State continues to bleed the region like a leech, seizing Lebanese and Syrian territory, including the Golan Heights. As I write, via the chyron scroll across the screen comes news that Israel has just extinguished nine lives in Northen Gaza, and two in southern Lebanon, where a ceasefire is in effect.

Unless it is killing things, Israel is just not happy. Flora and fauna, too. Israeli genociders, candid economists might say, have a high time-preference mindset. In such an uncivilized society, impulses (to kill) are privileged over contractual commitments (to quit killing). Not some of the livestock, but all of the livestock. As hard as it is to believe, but under decades of a medieval blockade, Gaza’s farmers had, before October 7, fed a third of their people. Croplands, irrigation systems, batteries of greenhouses, living things that produce flowers then give fruit: everything has gone the way of cattle, poultry and family pets: dead.

The term Carthaginian Peace has lost its meaning under Israel’s malign sway. The bad idea of “peace” through crippling the opponent Israel has replaced with the idea of “peace” through conquering and killing the opponent off. Conversion is complete. The structural violence that is the State of Israel the US duopoly has helped normalize. Genocidal violence, yes or no, saturation bombing of civilians, pros and cons, and forced mass expulsion of starving, subjugated people—if not de rigueur, these state crimes are now part of normal governance in the West.

On top of all that, there was never a ceasefire in the West Bank. The West Bank’s civilians, so closely clustered, have been strafed from the air. For the first time in 20 years, tanks travel all over what are urban neighborhoods.

The depopulation underway in this de facto annexed territory hardly even percolates through to the West’s press. Yet thousands of West Bank Palestinians are being plucked from their homes, some detained, mostly without charges, at times shot on the spot; always degraded, tortured, and sicced upon by fulminating Jewish settlers, who “work” cheek-by-jowl with Israeli soldiers.

A screen picture of any day in the life of a subject in the State of Satan seconds my description. Taken on February 15, the captured headlines via Ha’aretz tell of 30,000 Palestinians driven from Jenin, a so-called refugee camp in the West Bank. The number of people evicted and dispossessed from these “camps” has since ballooned to close on 50,000.  The West Bank’s Palestinians are denied access to their agricultural land, which means that soon it will lie fallow, and settlers will colonize it.

I call places like Jenin “so-called” camps because these were proper cities, not tent cities. As was noted in the Journal of Middle-East Studies (1992), these “camps are similar to any other urban neighborhoods,” into which they have evolved.

I’d been to Jenin. Our family had been invited as guests by generous residents. Childhood in Israel saw me visiting what I then knew as The Triangle: Tira, Tulkarem and Jenin. In the 1970s, these were not yet cities, but were definitely no nylon-dome encampments. My step-father, a doctor, headed healthcare clinics in what he called The Triangle. Daily, he’d return home laden with export-quality fresh produce. His patients were poor, yet so very generous. Upon the town’s doctor, a South African Jew who was appreciated in his role as a healthcare provider, they showered respect, affection and gifts.

We’d also be invited as a family to feasts held on the occasion of a wedding. The tables groaned with heavenly cuisine. Bestowed, this was a great honor, and these were grand affairs, an example of a culture in which hospitality and generosity are defining values. An invitation meant that you were never ignored. A lovely, if genteel, welcome awaited.

I do not know if the term Triangle deployed then denotes the same cluster of cities and villages. I do know that Jenin today is 70-percent levelled. Burdened by history like never before, I note, too, that Tira is no longer visible on the map.

Although the occupation army has pulled out of the Netzarim Corridor, which divides Gaza, it retains a presence in southern Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor. The serial-killer state had hoped, with Trump’s backing, to renege entirely on the ceasefire agreement, and, in particular, on its Phase-II obligations to permanently end the offensive and “withdraw armed forces from the Gaza Strip completely.” In order to “surmount the obstacle” that is Israel, the Trump Administration had, therefore, chosen to speak directly with Hamas leaders.

Early in January of 2025, there was hope. Trump is an Alpha Male; Bibi Netanyahu is a kept man. How long can the ego-bound leader of a Super Power tolerate being bossed about by the leader of a “sh-thole country,” to use Trump’s old coinage?

Two months distant, and hope is fading. Trump chose to channel son-in-law Jared Kushner. Kushner, the nepotistic scion of a dodgy New York realtor, and an empty husk of a man, has had his eye on the waterfront property of a conquered and dying people. He had said as much about Gaza in 2024.

In essence, some of the world’s wealthiest men were coveting the property of the world’s poorest and most persecuted people.

Soon to follow was Trump’s Gaza plan, a gaudy vulgar production, replete with bearded belly dancers. “Trump Gaza,” the plan’s title, was not “out-of-the-box thinking,” as some in the president’s Westen coalition had dubbed it. Rather, it sits on a continuum of evil. It is an extension and completion of Joe Biden’s genocide.

Eager, it would seem, to write the Palestinian People’s obituary, Trump had vowed to assume control over Gaza, rebuild it and evict the survivors of a genocide committed by client state Israel.

By removing the pitiful exhibits from the scene of the crime; Donald Trump would be covering-up the crime of genocide. Next, he planned to conclude Biden’s genocide by scattering the survivors across the Middle East. Israel will have been rescued. Gazans will have ceased to exist as a nation. The forced displacement and mass murder of Gaza’s Palestinians would have been achieved, completed.

Who said crime doesn’t pay? When the Superpower inverts the moral order of the universe; the Crime of All Crimes pays—and then some.

As Trump told it, nobody quite knows how or why Gaza became a “demolition site.” Somehow, the soil got soaked through with the blood of tens-of-thousands of Palestinians, and a toxic mix of 50-million tons of building debris. Somehow, piles of bodies decay beneath the surface. Somehow, garbage is piled as high as the bodies, were they to be stacked. Open sewage runs through what remains of the streets, and the byproducts and contaminants of munitions, like unexploded ordnance, lie everywhere.

It’s all a big mystery.

The other thing nobody can quite determine is which of the two countries, America or Israel, is the Great Satan and which is the Little Satan.

Back to Boehler: Israel went barking mad when our ex-envoy failed to show monk-like devotion to Israel, asserting, instead, American foreign-policy independence. The Lobby was marshalled. Fervid assurances were soon provided. Soon enough, Adam Boehler was gone. After being “nominated for the Senate-confirmed position of Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs,” he was demoted to “special government employee,” reports Ha’aretz. Found deficient in Zionist solidarity, Boehler “withdrew his nomination.”

The median elapsed time between an American official opposing anything Israel and then dropping out of history is getting shorter.

Like Joe Biden did before him, president Trump followed the Israeli prime minister on a leash. On March 5, he bellowed on Truth Social:

“Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you.” Buoyed, at 2:00 AM today, March 18, Israel murdered over 400 Gazans. It is currently demanding that Hamas hand over hostages for nothing.

Will the Palestinians wronged and ruined get a reprieve? Will the mercurial Trump, who, to his credit, is ideologically unattached to Israel, cut Israel dead, as he ought to? These possibilities are looking remote.

The post The Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Farce appeared first on LewRockwell.

There’s little doubt that, once the dust settles, the post-collapse life is going to be tough. Most of the conveniences we take for granted today will be hard to acquire, regardless of whether or not money will still be worth anything. People who want them will say and do anything, people who sell them will come up with all sorts of strategies and you need to be prepared because, no matter how prepped you are, it’s still likely you’ll end up in desperate positions. That is why it is important to know how to barter.

In what follows I want to give you a few solid bartering and negotiation tactics and techniques that will help you get food, water or medicine when you’ll need them most. However, if you truly want them to work for you, you have to practice them. Reading them just isn’t enough, that’s why included a special section at the end where I suggest how you can do that.

Top 10 Barter Items To Stockpile

1. Bandages

First aid items are very valuable, especially care for larger wounds since they will require more dressing and frequent changes.

2. Batteries

AA and AAA are popular sizes for flashlights, headlamps, radios, and numerous other electronics. Batteries inevitably run out so these are a surefire need after SHTF.

3. MREs

Food. Need we say more? Keep in mind that someone desparate for food is very vulnerable and use caution when negotiating a deal.

4. Duct Tape

Infinite survival uses, including splinting a broken bone, repairing a tent, fletching an arrow, and marking a trail. An entire roll of duct tape should yield a high value in a trade.

5. Zip Ties

Versatile and strong, zip ties are great for hanging gear, securing shelter, fixing clothes and shoes, and more. It’s easy to carry a large number of them and separate into smaller bundles to trade.

6. Fish Antibiotics

Fish antibiotics can be purchased OTC and contain the same ingredients as human antibiotics. For more information on types and dosages, check out Fish Antibiotics For Humans: A Safe Option For Your Survival Kit?

7. Condoms

In addition to contraception, condoms have many survival uses such as carrying water (up to 2 gallons!), waterproofing gear, even a slingshot for hunting small game. They are also lightweight and easy to carry.

8. Water Purification Tablets

Since each tablet treats 16 oz of water, one bottle contains many bartering opportunities. Or trade the whole bottle for a larger item you need.

9. Waterproof Matches

Fire is essential to survival so waterproof matches can be a great bartering tool. You can also carry extra capsule lighters, such as the Everstryke Pro to add long-term value to your trade.

10. Button Compasses

Small and inexpensive yet very useful, especially in the absence of GPS or cell phone navigation. They can be used to find the way back to camp, locate family and friends, or to migrate to a new area.

Forget About Meeting The Other Person In The Middle

For some reason, many negotiations end before they begin. One of the parties gives a number, the other gives another and they both know they’ll agree to the sum of their offers divided by 2.

You can do better than that. The reason this happens is because they’re not taking into consideration other factors such as how bad one party needs what the other has to offer. Another thing you can do is find out as much as you can about your opponent beforehand.

The more you know about them and their situation, the more leverage you’ll have. And if you can’t find out much about them, it’s best to avoid doing any kind of post-SHTF deals. Those could be dangerous, anyway.

Start With A Lowball Offer

If you can do this and your opponent doesn’t turn around and leave, you just saved yourself a lot of money (or whatever you are using for currency). Starting really low means that the other party will eventually have to settle for a much lower price than if you’d started with something more reasonable.

Don’t Be Afraid To Walk Away From A Deal

Everything is a number’s game. Just because you need what the other person has to offer, this doesn’t mean you have to take it. You might find 5 or 10 other guys out there that will gladly take your deal and give you what you need, you just need to have the guts to end the negotiations and look for them.

Most people don’t see it this way, though. They might say:

What? You mean I have to go through the pain of finding someone else, especially since I have this guy right here who can give me what I need?

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. The reason you don’t want to do it is because it’s painful to think you have to spend more energy to find other people. But that’s the thing. If you can train yourself to do it regularly, if you allow yourself to play the numbers’ game, walking away from bad deals will become second nature.

Throw In A Bonus

People love things they can get for free. If you feel you’re close to closing a deal but still not happy with it, how about giving away a small bonus? Maybe something from your get home bag that you already have plenty of at home. You never know what the other person needs besides your money or bartering items, this is why due diligence and talking to them are a must.

Say “No” To Lowball Offers

We talked about giving really low offers but what if someone does that to you? This puts you in a weak position so the best way to counteract it is to simply say:

No, this isn’t an offer I might consider. If you can come back with a more decent offer, I’m open to negotiation.

If they like it, fine. They’ll give you a more reasonable first offer. If they don’t, like I said, there’re plenty of other guys who might be interested in the deal.

Read the Whole Article

The post How To Barter When Money Fails in a Post-Collapse Society appeared first on LewRockwell.

Alex Karp, the CEO of the controversial military tech firm Palantir, is the coauthor of a new book, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. In it, he calls for a renewed sense of national purpose and even greater cooperation between government and the tech sector. His book is, in fact, not just an account of how to spur technological innovation, but a distinctly ideological tract.

As a start, Karp roundly criticizes Silicon Valley’s focus on consumer-oriented products and events like video-sharing apps, online shopping, and social media platforms, which he dismisses as “the narrow and the trivial.” His focus instead is on what he likes to think of as innovative big-tech projects of greater social and political consequence. He argues, in fact, that Americans face “a moment of reckoning” in which we must decide “what is this country, and for what do we stand?” And in the process, he makes it all too clear just where he stands — in strong support of what can only be considered a new global technological arms race, fueled by close collaboration between government and industry, and designed to preserve America’s “fragile geopolitical advantage over our adversaries.”

Karp believes that applying American technological expertise to building next-generation weapons systems is not just a but the genuine path to national salvation, and he advocates a revival of the concept of “the West” as foundational for future freedom and collective identity. As Sophie Hurwitz of Mother Jones noted recently, Karp summarized this view in a letter to Palantir shareholders in which he claimed that the rise of the West wasn’t due to “the superiority of its ideas or values or religion… but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.”

Count on one thing: Karp’s approach, if adopted, will yield billions of taxpayer dollars for Palantir and its militarized Silicon Valley cohorts in their search for AI weaponry that they see as the modern equivalent of nuclear weapons and the key to beating China, America’s current great power rival.

Militarism as a Unifying Force

Karp may be right that this country desperately needs a new national purpose, but his proposed solution is, to put it politely, dangerously misguided.

Ominously enough, one of his primary examples of a unifying initiative worth emulating is World War II’s Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bombs. He sees the building of those bombs as both a supreme technological achievement and a deep source of national pride, while conveniently ignoring their world-ending potential. And he proposes embarking on a comparable effort in the realm of emerging military technologies:

“The United States and its allies abroad should without delay commit to launching a new Manhattan Project in order to retain exclusive control of the most sophisticated forms of AI for the battlefield — the targeting systems and swarms of drones and robots that will become the most powerful weapons of the century.”

And here’s a question he simply skips: How exactly will the United States and its allies “retain exclusive control” of whatever sophisticated new military technologies they develop? After all, his call for an American AI buildup echoes the views expressed by opponents of the international control of nuclear technology in the wake of the devastating atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II — the futile belief that the United States could maintain a permanent advantage that would cement its role as the world’s dominant military power. Nearly 80 years later, we continue to live with an enormously costly nuclear arms race — nine countries now possess such weaponry — in which a devastating war has been avoided as much thanks to luck as design. Meanwhile, past predictions of permanent American nuclear superiority have proven to be wishful thinking. Similarly, there’s no reason to assume that predictions of permanent superiority in AI-driven weaponry will prove any more accurate or that our world will be any safer.

Technology Will Not Save Us

Karp’s views are in sync with his fellow Silicon Valley militarists, from Palantir founder Peter Thiel to Palmer Luckey of the up-and-coming military tech firm Anduril to America’s virtual co-president, SpaceX’s Elon Musk. All of them are convinced that, at some future moment, by supplanting old-school corporate weapons makers like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, they will usher in a golden age of American global primacy grounded in ever better technology. They see themselves as superior beings who can save this country and the world, if only the government — and ultimately, democracy itself — would get out of their way. Not surprisingly, their disdain for government does not extend to a refusal to accept billions and billions of dollars in federal contracts. Their anti-government ideology, of course, is part of what’s motivated Musk’s drive to try to dismantle significant parts of the federal government, allegedly in the name of “efficiency.”

An actual efficiency drive would involve a careful analysis of what works and what doesn’t, which programs are essential and which aren’t, not an across-the-board, sledgehammer approach of the kind recently used to destroy the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), to the detriment of millions of people around the world who depended on its programs for access to food, clean water, and health care, including measures to prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS. Internal agency memos released to the press earlier this month indicated that, absent USAID assistance, up to 166,000 children could die of malaria, 200,000 could be paralyzed with polio, and a million of them wouldn’t be treated for acute malnutrition. In addition to saving lives, USAID’s programs cast America’s image in the world in a far better light than does a narrow reliance on its sprawling military footprint and undue resort to threats of force as pillars of its foreign policy.

As a military proposition, the idea that swarms of drones and robotic systems will prove to be the new “miracle weapons,” ensuring American global dominance, contradicts a long history of such claims. From the “electronic battlefield” in Vietnam to President Ronald Reagan’s quest for an impenetrable “Star Wars” shield against nuclear missiles to the Gulf War’s “Revolution in Military Affairs” (centered on networked warfare and supposedly precision-guided munitions), expressions of faith in advanced technology as the way to win wars and bolster American power globally have been misplaced. Either the technology didn’t work as advertised, adversaries came up with cheap, effective countermeasures, or the wars being fought were decided by factors like morale and knowledge of the local culture and terrain, not technological marvels. And count on this: AI weaponry will fare no better than those past “miracles.”

First of all, there is no guarantee that weapons based on immensely complex software won’t suffer catastrophic failure in actual war conditions, with the added risk, as military analyst Michael Klare has pointed out, of starting unnecessary conflicts or causing unintended mass slaughter.

Second, Karp’s dream of “exclusive control” of such systems by the U.S. and its allies is just that — a dream. China, for instance, has ample resources and technical talent to join an AI arms race, with uncertain results in terms of the global balance of power or the likelihood of a disastrous U.S.-China conflict.

Third, despite Pentagon pledges that there will always be a “human being in the loop” in the use of AI-driven weaponry, the drive to wipe out enemy targets as quickly as possible will create enormous pressure to let the software, not human operators, make the decisions. As Biden administration Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall put it, “If you have a human in the loop, you will lose.”

Automated weapons will pose tremendous risks of greater civilian casualties and, because such conflicts could be waged without putting large numbers of military personnel at risk, may only increase the incentive to resort to war, regardless of the consequences for civilian populations.

What Should America Stand For?

Technology is one thing. What it’s used for, and why, is another matter. And Karp’s vision of its role seems deeply immoral. The most damning real-world example of the values Karp seeks to promote can be seen in his unwavering support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Not only were Palantir’s systems used to accelerate the pace of the Israeli Defense Force’s murderous bombing campaign there, but Karp himself has been one of the most vocal supporters of the Israeli war effort. He went so far as to hold a Palantir board meeting in Israel just a few months into the Gaza war in an effort to goad other corporate leaders into publicly supporting Israel’s campaign of mass killing.

Are these really the values Americans want to embrace? And given his stance, is Karp in any position to lecture Americans on values and national priorities, much less how to defend them?

Despite the fact that his company is in the business of enabling devastating conflicts, his own twisted logic leads Karp to believe that Palantir and the military-tech sector are on the side of the angels. In May 2024, at the “AI Expo for National Competitiveness,” he said of the student-encampment movement for a ceasefire in Gaza, “The peace activists are war activists. We are the peace activists.”

Invasion of the Techno-Optimists

And, of course, Karp is anything but alone in promoting a new tech-driven arms race. Elon Musk, who has been empowered to take a sledgehammer to large parts of the U.S. government and vacuum up sensitive personal information about millions of Americans, is also a major supplier of military technology to the Pentagon. And Vice President J.D. Vance, Silicon Valley’s man in the White House, was employed, mentored, and financed by Palantir founder Peter Thiel before joining the Trump administration.

The grip of the military-tech sector on the Trump administration is virtually unprecedented in the annals of influence-peddling, beginning with Elon Musk’s investment of an unprecedented $277 million in support of electing Donald Trump and Republican candidates for Congress in 2024. His influence then carried over into the presidential transition period, when he was consulted about all manner of budgetary and organizational issues, while emerging tech gurus like Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz became involved in interviewing candidates for sensitive positions at the Pentagon. Today, the figure who is second-in-charge at the Pentagon, Stephen Feinberg of Cerberus Capital, has a long history of investing in military firms, including the emerging tech sector.

But by far the greatest form of influence is Musk’s wielding of the essentially self-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to determine the fate of federal agencies, programs, and employees, despite the fact that he has neither been elected to any position, nor even confirmed by Congress, and that he now wields more power than all of Trump’s cabinet members combined.

As Alex Karp noted — no surprise here, of course — in a February 2025 call with Palantir investors, he’s a big fan of the DOGE, even if some people get hurt along the way:

“We love disruption, and whatever’s good for America will be good for Americans and very good for Palantir. Disruption, at the end of the day, exposes things that aren’t working. There will be ups and downs. There’s a revolution. Some people are going to get their heads cut off. We’re expecting to see really unexpected things and to win.”

Even as Musk disrupts and destroys civilian government agencies, some critics of Pentagon overspending hold out hope that at least he will put his budget-cutting skills to work on that bloated agency. But so far the plan there is simply to shift money within the department, not reduce its near-trillion-dollar top line. And if anything is trimmed, it’s likely to involve reductions in civilian personnel, not lower spending on developing and building weaponry, which is where firms like Palantir make their money. Musk’s harsh critique of existing systems like Lockheed’s F-35 jet fighter — which he described as “the worst military value for money in history” — is counterbalanced by his desire to get the Pentagon to spend far more on drones and other systems based on emerging (particularly AI) technologies.

Of course, any ideas about ditching older weapons systems will run up against fierce resistance in Congress, where jobs, revenues, campaign contributions, and armies of well-connected lobbyists create a firewall against reducing spending on existing programs, whether they have a useful role to play or not. And whatever DOGE suggests, Congress will have the last word. Key players like Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) have already revived the Reaganite slogan of “peace through strength” to push for an increase of — no, this is not a misprint! — $150 billion in the Pentagon’s already staggering budget over the next four years.

What Should Our National Purpose Be?

Karp and his Silicon Valley colleagues are proposing a world in which government-subsidized military technology restores American global dominance and gives us a sense of renewed national purpose. It is, in fact, a remarkably impoverished vision of what the United States should stand for at this moment in history when non-military challenges like disease, climate change, racial and economic injustice, resurgent authoritarianism, and growing neofascist movements pose greater dangers than traditional military threats.

Technology has its place, but why not put our best technical minds to work creating affordable alternatives to fossil fuels, a public health system focused on the prevention of pandemics and other major outbreaks of disease, and an educational system that prepares students to be engaged citizens, not just cogs in an economic machine?

Reaching such goals would require reforming or even transforming our democracy — or what’s left of it — so that the input of the public actually made far more of a difference, and leadership served the public interest, not its own economic interests. In addition, government policy would no longer be distorted to meet the emotional needs of narcissistic demagogues, or to satisfy the desires of delusional tech moguls.

By all means, let’s unite around a common purpose. But that purpose shouldn’t be a supposedly more efficient way to build killing machines in the service of an outmoded quest for global dominance. Karp’s dream of a “technological republic” armed with his AI weaponry would be one long nightmare for the rest of us.

The post The New Age Militarists appeared first on LewRockwell.

Although Google Analytics and other standard third-party utilities show how much traffic my own articles on The Unz Review regularly receive, they fail to inform me exactly who is reading my work or how much influence these pieces may have. But every now and then a burst of external illumination suggests that at least some of my writings of the last dozen years have had a significant, perhaps even transformative impact.

Along with everyone else, I’ve been reading the media accounts of Elon Musk’s DOGE project. In that controversial effort, small teams of youthful engineers had been granted access to some of the most important systems of the federal government, resulting in widespread public claims of the massive waste and corruption that they had allegedly found and prompting the prospect of huge cuts in those gigantic bureaucracies. For example, the $40 billion USAID seems likely to be almost completely gutted by the Trump Administration, with plans to cut its 10,000 person staff by 97%.

One of the more prominent DOGE investigators has been 25-year-old Gavin Kliger, a 2020 graduate of UC Berkeley with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, who has been named a senior advisor to the Office of Personnel Management. His role at that agency and the IRS has been sufficiently important that the New York Times recently published a short article describing his activities.

These public attacks on enormous government agencies naturally inspired fierce counter-attacks by the many media outlets opposed to Musk’s project, and their journalists have sifted the background of those newly super-empowered twenty-somethings for controversial material.

Last week I’d noticed a sudden unexpected burst of new readership for “Our American Pravda,” an article that I had published a dozen years ago. This piece had eventually inspired my long series of a similar name.

• Our American Pravda
  Ron Unz • The American Conservative • April 29, 2013 • 4,500 Words

I soon discovered that this new attention had resulted from a wave of attacks against Kliger, including a hit-piece by Mother Jones, a prominent left-liberal investigative publication:

In a since-deleted Substack post, an engineer working for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) wrote about his radicalization, noting a key influence was an essay by Ron Unz…

The Substack post, titled “Why I Joined DOGE,” was written by DOGE engineer Gavin Kliger…

The post was published Friday and was still available online Sunday morning around 9:30 a.m. ET. It was deleted on Sunday. In the post, Kliger credits Unz’s “Our American Pravda“—a 2013 essay published in The American Conservative that railed against what Unz claimed were systemic media failures—with beginning the engineer’s “political awakening.”

“Reading it was like putting on glasses for the first time,” writes Kliger, whose LinkedIn says he is a senior advisor to the Director for Technology and Delivery at the Office of Personnel Management. “The issue wasn’t just bias—it was that entire narratives, the ones we took for granted as truth, were carefully curated illusions.” (Mother Jones saved a copy of Kliger’s Substack post before it was deleted.)

“Guilt by association” is a common media tactic employed to discredit political opponents. Someone else is somehow connected to the intended victim, and the argument is made that the massive iniquities of the former individual should carry over to the latter. The Mother Jones hit piece relied upon this doubtful approach.

After reporting Kliger’s declaration that he had been heavily influenced by my April 2013 article, most of the remaining text focused on some of the controversial or ultra-controversial pieces that I had written during the dozen years that followed, suggesting that these therefore tainted the young DOGE engineer. My lengthy American Pravda series runs well over 100 articles and nearly a million words, so the writers mined it for explosive quotations although Kliger claimed that he had remained unaware of that much larger body of work:

In an email to Mother Jones on Sunday, Kliger said he did not read the later “American Pravda” posts from Unz.

“I specifically referred to this 2013 article from The American Conservative, ‘Our American Pravda.’ Note the ‘Our’,” Kliger wrote. “I have neither referenced or read [the other work in the “‘American Pravda” series].” (The DOGE engineer also noted The Atlantic‘s Conor Friedersdorf recommended the 2013 Unz essay in a blog.)

• DOGE Worker Says He Was Radicalized by Reading Writer Who Later Denied Holocaust
  In a since-deleted Substack post, a member of Elon Musk’s team praised an essay by Ron Unz—who has called the Holocaust potentially a “hoax” and said Trayvon Martin was “a violent young thug.”
  Julianne McShane and Jacob Rosenberg • Mother Jones • February 16, 2025 • 1,100 Words

As Kliger explained, a writer at the very respectable Atlantic had strongly recommended my article when it first appeared. But if the journalists attacking him had further investigated, they would have found that the same had also been true of prominent free market economist Tyler Cowen, noted author Eamonn Fingleton writing in Forbes, and various other very mainstream writers and public intellectuals. Influential libertarian historian Tom Woods had heavily excerpted my article and Alexander Cockburn’s leftist Counterpunch publication had republished it in its entirety, as had ZeroHedge.

So if Mother Jones saw fit to interrogate and condemn Kliger for my far more controversial subsequent writings, why should all those other individuals and publications have escaped similar criticism? Indeed, my 2013 article became one of the most widely read pieces in The American Conservative that year, and as far as I recall almost nobody at the time had criticized or condemned it.

This underscores the extreme unfairness of the Mother Jones attack against Kliger.

Furthermore, this barely scraped the surface of the absurdities of the “guilt by association” argument used to tarnish Musk’s young DOGE protege.

Given their investigation of my body of work, the Mother Jones writers must surely be aware that just a few months before that 2013 article I had also published “The Myth of American Meritocracy” in that same publication. This exceptionally long and detailed 26,000 word analysis had documented the huge biases and unfairness in the admissions systems of Harvard and our other most elite American colleges.

New York Times Columnist David Brooks soon ranked my piece as probably the best magazine article published in America that year, a verdict strongly seconded by a top editor at the Economist.

One of my central findings had been the very strong quantitative evidence that Harvard and the other Ivy League schools were practicing racial discrimination by surreptitiously maintaining Asian Quotas in their admissions policies, and this soon prompted the New York Times to organize an important symposium on that explosive topic in which I eagerly participated. The Yale Political Union and the Yale Law School invited me to give a couple of public lectures on that controversial conclusion and the rest of my Meritocracy analysis. A very long list of other writers and public intellectuals commented on my article, an overwhelming majority of them quite favorably, with their discussions appearing in Forbes, The Atlantic, The Washington Monthly, Business Insider, and various other publications. These included such prominent public figures as Harvard Prof. Niall Ferguson and Fareed Zakaria.

So if Mother Jones is now raking Kliger over the coals for admitting that he had been heavily influenced by one of my articles from April 2013, why should they not do the same with David Brooks, Niall Ferguson, Fareed Zakaria, the editors of the New York Times, and all the others who had highlighted and strongly promoted a far longer article from November 2012?

Furthermore, in 2016 I published my first print collection, The Myth of American Meritocracy and Other Essays, a 700 page volume containing both those articles and many others, and it attracted strongly favorable comments by some very distinguished academic scholars and journalists:

With high intelligence, common sense, and advanced statistical skills, presented transparently and accessibly, Ron Unz has for decades been addressing key issues in a rapidly changing America, enlightening us on the implications and effects of bilingual programs in American schools, clarifying the issues around crime and immigration so often distorted in political and popular discussion, placing the question of an increased minimum wage effectively on the national agenda, and addressing most provocatively the issue of affirmative action and admission to selective colleges and universities, revealing some aspects of this ever disputed question that have never been noted or discussed publicly before. He is one of our most valuable discussants and analysts of public issues.—Nathan Glazer, Professor Emeritus of Education and Sociology, Harvard University, and author of Beyond the Melting Pot.

Few people on the planet are smarter than Ron Unz or have more intellectual curiosity. This fascinating and provocative collection of essays explores a remarkable range of topics, many of them high profile, some of them arcane. Unz’s analysis is always serious and invariably challenges prevailing wisdoms, which is to say there are a lot of controversial arguments in this book. No one is likely to agree with every one of his conclusions, but we would be better off if there were more people like Ron Unz among us. —John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and author of The Israel Lobby.

Ron Unz is a brilliant essayist. His interests run from ancient history and black holes to contemporary issues like racial quotas and the minimum wage. He moves swiftly to the heart of a subject with cogent analysis and limpid argument. This collection of essays sparkles with unexpected gems ranging from critiques of the mainstream press to appreciation of dissenters from common wisdom such as General Bill Odom and Alexander Cockburn. In every paragraph of these essays the reader enjoys a penetrating intelligence at work. —Nicholas Wade, former writer and editor for The New York Times, and author of Before the Dawn, The Faith Instinct, and A Troublesome Inheritance.

Over the past two decades as an original thinker and writer Ron Unz has tackled complex and significant subjects such as immigration, education, economics, race, and the press, pushing aside common assumptions. This book brings together in one volume these pieces from a variety of publications. Unlike other essayists on culture and politics, Unz shreds ideology and relies on statistical data to support his often groundbreaking ideas, such as his 2010 essay on “The Myth of Hispanic Crime.” And his 2014 efforts to put a $12 an hour minimum wage bill before California voters is an example of how the action of an individual can draw public attention to an issue he believes is necessary for the economic health of the Republic. Anyone reading this book will learn a great deal about America from an incisive writer and scholar who has peeled back layers of conventional wisdom to expose the truth on issues of prime importance today. —Sydney Schanberg, Pulitzer-Prize winning former reporter and editor for The New York Times, whose story inspired the 1984 film The Killing Fields.

Thus, Kliger seems to have had quite good company in his favorable reaction to my 2013 article, demonstrating that the attack against him on those grounds was entirely self-defeating.

Read the Whole Article

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Gail Appel wrote:

Lew,

Schlichter’s really funny, but he’s spot on. Get them ALL the hell out of here . It’s a damn shame we can’t send our home grown brain-washed, braindead spawn with them. Their parents ,or whatever the Woke/Marxist pronoun is , as well.

They hate us. They despise America. Doge  them all.

See here.

The post Boot the Ungrateful Foreigners the Hell Out of America appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

Neera Tanden has long been problematic. Questionable. But you’re not allowed to question the Democrats. The immediate onslaught of “ Racist! Misogynist! Xenophobe! White Supremacist! Nazi! Right Wing Conspiracy Theorist! Antisemite( that ship has sailed)! “ shutdown any inquiry.

I may have figured out the real method behind the multicultural minority melange madness. To enable the accusations and squelch having to answer for criminal activity.

See here.

The post Is This the Aide Behind Biden’s Controversial Autopen Signings? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tuesday Newsday is packed with bombshells! Trump is declassifying 80,000 JFK assassination files—but what will they reveal? Meanwhile, MS-13’s Most Wanted is captured, and Trump is pushing mass deportations under the Alien Enemies Act despite judicial pushback.

Also in this episode:

Hunter & Ashley Biden stripped of Secret Service protection—but Marco Polo tracks Hunter to South Africa, surrounded by government agents

Minnesota Republicans propose labeling ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ as a mental illness

Astronauts Butch Wilmore & Suni Williams finally return to Earth after 9 months stranded in space

Semisonic tells the White House to stop using ‘Closing Time’—‘You missed the point’

Mark Groubert & Eric Hunley break it all down—join America’s Untold Stories for the real story behind the headlines!

Like, share & subscribe!

The post America’s Untold Stories – 80,000 JFK Files Released, Trump Strips Hunter’s Security, & Space Crew Returning appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post From Yemen To Iran To Gaza To Russia – Is Trump Losing The Plot? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Gail Appel.

The post Mark Carney- Grim Reaper appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Ginny Garner. 

Natural News

The post Good News: USDA Secretary Rejects Bird Flu Vaccine appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

The American Conservative

The post Milei’s Struggles with Crypto Scandal Intensify appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Vasko Kohlmayer.

The post Why They Hate Him So Much appeared first on LewRockwell.

Over the weekend President Trump ordered a massive military operation against the small country of Yemen. Was Yemen in the process of attacking the United States? No. Did the President in that case go to Congress and seek a declaration of war against the country? No. The fact is, Yemen hadn’t even threatened the United States before the bombs started falling.

Last year, candidate Trump strongly criticized the Biden Administration’s obsession with foreign interventionism to the detriment of our problems at home. In an interview at the Libertarian National Convention, he criticized Biden’s warmongering to podcaster Tim Pool, saying, “You can solve problems over a telephone. Instead they start dropping bombs. Recently, they’re dropping bombs all over Yemen. You don’t have to do that.”

Yet once in office, Trump turned to military force as his first option. Since the Israel/Hamas ceasefire plan negotiated by President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, Yemen has left Red Sea shipping alone. However, after Israel implemented a total blockade of humanitarian relief to citizens of Gaza last week, Houthi leaders threatened to again begin blocking Israel’s Red Sea shipping activities.

That was enough for President Trump to drop bombs and launch missiles for hours, killing several dozen Yemeni civilians – including women and children – in the process.

After the attack, Trump not only threatened much more force to be used against Yemen, but he also threatened Iran. His National Security Advisor Mike Waltz added that the US may start bombing Iranian ships in the area, a move that would certainly lead to a major Middle East war.

Like recent Presidents Bush and Obama, candidate Trump promised peace after four years of Joe Biden’s warmongering and World War III brinkmanship. There is little doubt that with our war-weary population this proved the margin of his victory. Unfortunately, as with Bush and Obama, now that he is President, he appears to be heading down a different path.

The Republican Party is gradually becoming a pro-peace, America first party, but the warmongers and neocons of the old line in the Party are not going to let go so easily. Unfortunately many of these dead-enders have found their way to senior positions in Trump’s Administration, with voices of restraint and non-intervention nearly nowhere in sight among his top tier of advisors.

To solve the Yemen problem we must understand it: Russian and Chinese ships, for example, are not being threatened because they are not enabling the Israeli demolition of Gaza. The slaughter there has been facilitated with US money and US weapons. It is the US doing Israel’s bidding both in Gaza and in the Red Sea that is painting a target on us and unnecessarily putting our troops at risk of retaliation.

The US government, starting with Biden and continuing now with Trump, seems eager to make this our war even though, as Rep. Thomas Massie pointed out over the weekend, Red Sea shipping is of minor importance to the US economy.

In a real “America first” foreign policy we would be following the Russian and Chinese lead and staying out of the conflict. It’s not our war. End US military involvement in the Middle East and our troubles disappear. It really is that simple.

The post President Trump: Stop Bombing Yemen and Exit the Middle East! appeared first on LewRockwell.

Pope Francis has made headlines in recent months for expressing increasing concern about the death toll in Israel’s 16-month military incursion into Gaza, even invoking the specter of “genocide,” a term that has been used for many months now by international tribunals, jurists, U.N. officials, Holocaust historians, and human rights groups to describe Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza.

Francis’ statements are no less valid now that a temporary and fragile ceasefire has been declared between Israel and Hamas, the principal ruling party in Gaza. Israeli soldiers have continued to kill Palestinians in Gaza and now are effectively cutting off all humanitarian aid to the area, while launching a new and brutal invasion of the West Bank, where more than three million Palestinians live. Meanwhile, President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu threaten a new invasion, while Francis continues to speak personally to the Catholics of the area from his hospital bed.

Many English-speaking Catholics may be inclined to look askance at the stance taken by Pope Francis, given his well-established reputation for expressing sympathy with political causes associated with socialist or leftist political ideologies. Large numbers of Catholics in the United States now habitually (and often unthinkingly) place themselves under the vague rubric of “conservative,” a largely secularist and Americanist ideology that is currently dominated by unquestioning pro-Israel sentiment, bolstered by a constant barrage of propaganda in social media.

However, Catholics should be aware that, whatever his personal motives, Francis’ position on Israel and Gaza is not founded on leftist ideological premises but traditional Catholic doctrine dating back centuries on the natural law principles regarding the doctrine of just war and the treatment of foreign nations by superior powers. They also represent the Church’s clear teachings on war found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Pope urges investigation into genocide

In a new book based on interviews with the pope announced on November 17, Francis speaks about the plight of refugees, particularly “those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory.”

“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” Francis continues in Hope Never Disappoints. “It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies.”

Francis’ statements, the strongest he had made to date, were consistent with repeated expressions of concern about the sky-high civilian death toll in Gaza dating back to the earliest weeks of the war. However, he has recently shown a new determination to push the point, despite expressions of outrage from neoconservative publications like The Wall Street Journal, as well as the Israeli government and radical Zionist organizations.

Francis doubled down repeatedly during December. On the 7th, Pope Francis was publicly presented with a Nativity scene as a gift from two Palestinian artists. The scene features the baby Jesus lying on a keffiyeh, a traditional scarf used by Palestinians. During the inaugural of the scene in the Paul VI Hall, Francis urged believers to “remember the brothers and sisters, who, right there [in Bethlehem] and in other parts of the world, are suffering from the tragedy of war.” He added, “Enough war, enough violence!”

During his annual Christmas Address to the cardinals on December 21, Francis noted bitterly that Israel was continuing to harm the Palestinian Christian community as well as the rest of the civilian population of Gaza. “Yesterday the [Latin] Patriarch [of Jerusalem] was not allowed into Gaza, as had been promised, and yesterday children were bombed,” said Francis. “This is cruelty! This is not war. I wanted to tell you this because it touches my heart.”

Israel responded the following day by allowing the Patriarch into Gaza, while claiming that it had never prohibited his entry.

Then, during the Christmas Eve Angelus, Francis again denounced the cruelty of Israel’s policy in Gaza. “With sorrow I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children machine-gunned, the bombing of schools and hospitals,” said the pope. “So much cruelty!”

Francis is personally aware of what is happening in Gaza—and particularly the fate of Christians there—because, according to him, he speaks “every day” with Gaza’s only Catholic parish, Holy Family, which has been devastated by deadly direct attacks by the Israeli military.

“They tell me ugly things, difficult things” about what is happening there, the pontiff said in a recent press conference. “Please, when you see the bodies of killed children, when you see that, under the presumption that some guerrillas are there, a school is bombed, this is ugly,” he added.

On January 9, in an audience with the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See—and despite bitter push-back from the State of Israel for his earlier comments—Francis again decried the mass killing of civilians in Gaza and the destruction of its vital infrastructure.

Calling for a return of hostages and a ceasefire, Francis noted,

War is always a failure! The involvement of civilians, especially children, and the destruction of infrastructures is not only a disaster, but essentially means that between the two sides only evil emerges the winner. We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians or the attacking of infrastructures necessary for their survival. We cannot accept that children are freezing to death because hospitals have been destroyed or a country’s energy network has been hit.

Elderly Catholic parishioners targeted by Israeli snipers

Holy Family Parish made headlines in late 2023 when Israeli snipers shot and killed an elderly Catholic parishioner, Nahida Anton, who was sheltering in the parish. They then shot her daughter Samar when she attempted to save her mother by dragging her back into the parish church.

“Around noon today, December 2023, 16, a sniper of the IDF murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families have taken refuge since the start of the war,” stated the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem in a press release at the time. “Nahida and her daughter Samar were shot as they walked to the Sister’s Convent. One was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety.”

Apart from the two women, “seven more people were shot and wounded as they tried to protect others inside the church compound,” reported the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem later. “No warning was given, no notification was provided. They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the Parish, where there are no belligerents.” The Convent of the Sisters of Mother Teresa, which was staffed by nuns caring for disabled patients, was also hit by a rocket attack by an Israeli tank, rendering the mission home “uninhabitable” and damaging the electrical generator.

Over a year after the Latin Patriarchate’s protest, the Israeli government hasn’t offered an explanation for the shootings and bombing, which are far from unique; in fact, they are only one of many thousands of similar cases of sniper attacks on women and children, Muslim and Christian, that have been reported throughout the Gaza Strip on a daily basis during Israel’s 16-month incursion.

The New York Times, a publication with a documented history of pro-Israel bias in its journalism, has  collected testimonies and radiographic evidence from dozens of non-Palestinian doctors who treated numerous children in Gaza who were shot in the head and chest with high-power sniper rifles. The Israeli government has permitted almost no international journalists to enter, and Arab journalists have been repeatedly targeted by the military, so documenting such cases has been difficult. However, they are very much reflective of the murderous and genocidal rhetoric that has been repeatedly voiced by militant West Bank settlers, who are amply represented in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, as well as by Netanyahu himself.

Disturbing statistics

According to statistics published by Gaza health authorities (whose estimates are generally accepted by Israeli intelligence sources), almost 58,000 Gazans, the majority women and children, have been either directly killed or are missing under the rubble following Israel’s 2023 invasion. However, a study published in the British medical journal TheLancet estimates that as of June 19, 2024, the indirect death toll caused by the destruction and blockades of food, water, electricity, and other goods had minimally reached 189,000. If the same factor of indirect deaths to direct deaths is applied to the current estimated direct death toll, the total number of deaths would now be well over 200,000, with countless more wounded, maimed, and traumatized.

The civilian population has been subject to embargoes of food and medicine resulting in countless deaths. All of the major hospitals in northern Gaza have been shut down, their patients force-marched out in freezing weather after being stripped down to their underwear, and their doctors taken off to prisons where they have been tortured, a fate that has also befallen countless other Palestinians taken prisoner by Israeli troops. The director of northern Gaza’s last hospital to be shut down, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a pediatrician whose teenage son was killed at the gates of the hospital by an Israeli drone strike in October, was taken off to such a prison in December. According to his lawyer, Abu Safiya has been subjected to torture and denied medical care.

Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign has targeted apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals with 2,000-pound bombs, with an estimated total of over 75,000 tons of explosives, the equivalent of multiple atomic bombs, resulting in the damage or destruction of 90 percent of the housing, which proportionally exceeds the Allied bombing of Germany by a factor of nine, and also far exceeds the Allied bombing of Japan. “It is heartbreaking that many times more bombs were dropped on Gaza than on Tokyo in massive US air raids during World War II,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was quoted as saying by Japan’s NHK news service in October of last year.

Such figures are the latest and worst of a long series of atrocities and injustices against Arab Palestinians, both Christian and non-Christian, that have been denounced by the Latin Patriarchate for decades, with little interest shown from English-speaking Catholics.

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Governments regularly claim that they favour tax reform. When this claim has been repeated so many times that virtually no one believes them anymore, they announce a tax reform, to show that they really mean it. They then reshuffle the existing taxes to give the appearance that taxation will actually be lowered.

When it becomes apparent that the reform is a sham, they often pull a rabbit out of a hat in the form of a “temporary” tax, that’s pre-legislated to end sometime in the future.

Sounds promising.

So, let’s have a look at one such temporary tax and see how things worked out.

The US government introduced the War Revenue Act of 1898—a tax on telephone use—under the claim that it was necessary to pay for the Spanish American War.

In what way does telephone use pertain to a government invading another country? Well, actually, one has nothing to do with the other. But, let’s leave that discussion for another day and see how this temporary tax played out.

The Act was repealed in 1902 but was reinstated, this time as the Emergency Internal Revenue Tax Act of 1914. The justification then given was that another war was on the way and increased taxation to pay for it couldn’t begin too soon. Telephone users needed to cough up.

It was decided by both parties to increase the tax on telephones and the War Revenue Act of 1917 was created. It hadn’t passed the debate stage until the war was over, but they decided that they’d implement it anyway, as the work had already been done. In the bargain, they introduced not only increased rates, but graduated rates.

This act was also repealed, in 1924, but was reinstated with the Revenue Act of 1932. Since that date, it has been reauthorised 29 times.

In 1941, an increase was put in place to pay for (you guessed it) another war—World War II. This was increased again in 1943, but people complained and the new law contained a provision that the increased rates would end six months after “the date of termination of hostilities in the present war.” However, the Excise Tax Act of 1947 was passed to assure that the tax would continue indefinitely.

Over the subsequent years, periodic changes were made. Although the rates went up and down like a bride’s nightie, most, not surprisingly, were upward.

As further (undeclared) wars came and went, taxation on telephone calls repeatedly needed to be increased and, regardless of the party in power, increases continued.

At long last, on 14 September, 2000, the House of Representatives took up legislation which included the repeal of the telephone excise tax. This measure passed both houses, but the fix was in. President Clinton vetoed the repeal. (The legislative branch and the executive branch have to take turns playing the bad cop, but the outcome is the same: increased taxation.)

Then, in 2006, a case was made (in the words of the Treasury Secretary), to amend the Internal Revenue Code “of an outdated, antiquated tax that has survived a century beyond its original purpose, and by now should have been ancient history.”

Finally, American citizens could wash their hands of a one-hundred-year theft of their earnings that, even at the start, was based upon a ludicrous concept.

Unfortunately… it didn’t happen.

The repeal was never enacted and Americans continue to pay for the Spanish American War today.

So, what’s the takeaway here?

Well, first off, this little history serves as a reminder that there’s nothing so permanent as a temporary government measure.

Second, although not a month goes by without one politician or another, from one party or the other, rising up in righteous indignation that a new tax or an expanded tax is absolutely necessary to continue the welfare of the American people, there is, in truth, no sincerity in their claim. They simply want more money.

Third, no amount of money is ever enough. Even if Washington, D.C., is the only part of the US that is enjoying prosperity, even if no congressman leaves office without more zeroes behind his net worth than when he went in, virtually every legislator will vote for increases in taxation.

And, fourth, there’s no such thing as tax reform. From time to time, legislators will need to trot out the idea of tax reform, and be seen to be arguing over the details, but will ultimately always do the same: the deck will be reshuffled, but somehow, taxes will rise once again.

But the overall lesson to be learned is that Government is, and has always been, a shell game. Its purpose is not to serve the electorate; it is to separate them from the fruits of their labours.

Full stop.

As former US Chief Justice John Marshall stated,

The power to tax involves the power to destroy.

More recently, Ron Holland offered the following:

Since the beginning of recorded history, the business of government has been wealth confiscation.

However, both these individuals were conservatives, and it would only be fair to ask for commentary from the liberal side. One such liberal political leader is none other than Vladimir Lenin, who stated,

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

Of course, the reader may wish to consider relocating to a jurisdiction where the taxation is far lower, but if he chooses to remain in the US, EU, Canada, or other jurisdiction where the tax level is already oppressive, his plans should include temporary taxes that are unlikely to end in his lifetime.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post The Endlessness of a Temporary Tax appeared first on LewRockwell.

A geo-political reading of Israel’s incipient civil war

Israel is deeply fractured. The schism has become bitter and heated as both sides see themselves to be in an existential war for the future of Israel. The language used has become so venomous (particularly in reserved channels in Hebrew) that calls for a coup and for civil war are far from uncommon.

Israel is nearing the precipice and the seemingly irreconcilable differences may soon erupt into civil unrest – as Uri Misgav writes this week, the “Israeli spring” is on its way.

The point here is that President Trump’s utilitarian and determinedly transactional style may work effectively in the secular western hemisphere, but with Israel (or Iran) Trump may find little or no traction amongst those with an alternative weltanschauung that expresses a fundamental different concept of morality, philosophy and epistemology, to the classic western deterrence paradigm of material ‘carrots and sticks’.

Indeed, the very attempt to impose deterrence – and to threaten ‘all hell breaking out’ if his injunctions are not followed – may produce the opposite to that which he seeks: i.e. it may trigger new conflicts and wars.

An angry plurality in Israel (led for now, by Netanyahu) have taken the reins of power after a long march through the institutions of Israeli society, and now have their sights focussed on dismantling the ‘Deep State’ within Israel. Equally, there is a furious push-back to this perceived take-over.

What exacerbates this societal fracture are two things: Firstly, it is ethno-cultural; and second it is ideological. The third component is the most explosive – Eschatology.

At the last national election in Israel, the ‘underclass’ finally broke the glass ceiling to win election and to take office. The Mizrahi (Jews from the Middle East and North Africa) have been long treated as the poorer, lower order in society.

The Ashkenazi (European, largely liberal-secular Jews) form much of the urban professional (and until recently) the security class. These are the élites whom the coalition of National Religious and Settler Movement displaced at the last election.

This present phase to a long struggle to power perhaps can be put at 2015. As Gadi Taub has recorded,

“It was then, Israel’s Supreme Court judges removed sovereignty itself—that is, the power of final decision over the whole realm of law and politics—from the elected branches of government and transferred it to themselves. One unelected branch of government officially holds power, against which there are neither checks, nor balances, by any counterforce”.

In the optic of the Right, the self-awarded power of Judicial Review, gave to the Court power, Taub writes,

“to prescribe the rules of the political game – and not just its concrete results”. “Law enforcement then became the huge investigative arm of the press. As was true of the “Russiagate” hoax, The Israel Police and State Attorney were not so much collecting evidence for a criminal trial as they were producing political dirt for leaks to the press”.

The ‘Deep State’ in Israel is a consuming point of contention for Netanyahu and his cabinet: In a speech at the Knesset this month – as one example – Netanyahu savaged the media, accusing news outlets of “full cooperation with the deep state” and of creating “scandals”. “The cooperation between the bureaucracy in the deep state and the media didn’t work in the United States, and it won’t work here”, he said.

Just to be clear, at the time of the last general election, the Supreme Court was composed of 15 Judges, all of whom were Ashkenazi, bar one Mizrahi.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to see the war of the rival blocs as some arcane dispute about the usurpation of executive power – and a lost ‘separation of state powers’.

The struggle is rooted rather, in a profound ideological dispute about the future and character of the State of Israel. Will it be a messianic, Halacha state obedient to Revelation? Or, in essence, will there be a democratic, liberal, largely secular ‘state’. Israel is shredding itself on the blade of this debate.

The cultural component is that the Mizrahim (loosely defined) and the Right view the European liberal sphere as barely truly Jewish. Hence their determination that the Land of Israel should be wholly immersed in Jewishness.

It was the events of 7 October that absolutely crystalized this ideological struggle, which is the second key factor largely mirroring the general schism.

Israel’s classical security vision (dating from the Ben-Gurion era) was configured to provide an answer to the enduring Israeli dilemma: Israel cannot impose an end to conflict on its enemies, yet at the same time, it cannot maintain a large army in the long term.

Therefore, Israel – in this optic – had to rely on a reserve army that needed adequate security warning before any war occurred. Advance intelligence warning of coming war therefore, was a paramount requirement.

And that key presumption blew apart on 7 October.

The shock and sense of collapse arising from 7 Oct led many to think that the Hamas attack had irrevocably broken the Israeli concept of security – the policy of deterrence had failed and the proof of that was that Hamas was not deterred.

But here, we approach the crux of the Israeli internal war: What was destroyed on 7 Oct was not just the old security paradigm of the Labour Party and the old security elites. It did that; but what arose from its ashes was an alternative weltanschauung that expressed a fundamentally different concept in philosophy and epistemology to the classic deterrence paradigm:

“I was born in Israel; I grew up in Israel … I served in the IDF”, says Alon Mizrahi;

“I was exposed to it. I was indoctrinated this way, and for many years of my life I believed it. This represents a serious Jewish problem: It is not just [a matter of one mode of] Zionism … How can you teach your children – and this is almost universal – that everyone who is not Jewish wants to kill you. When you put yourself in this paranoia, you give yourself permission to do anything to everyone … It is not a good way to create a society. It is so dangerous”.

See here in the Times of Israel an account of a High School presentation (post-7 Oct) on the Morality of Wiping out Amalek: A student raises the question: “Why do we condemn Hamas for murdering innocent men, women, and children – if we are commanded to wipe out Amalek?”

“How can we have normality tomorrow”, Alon Mizrahi asks, “if this is who we are today”?

The National Religious Right is leading the charge for a radical change to the Israeli concept of security; they no longer believe in the classic Ben Gurion paradigm of deterrence – particularly in the wake of 7 October. Nor does the Right believe in reaching any settlement with the Palestinians – and absolutely does not want a bi-national state. In the concept of Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s security theory henceforth must include a continuous war against Palestinians – until they are expelled or eliminated.

The Old (Liberal) Establishment is outraged – as one of its members, David Agmon (former IDF Brigadier-General and former bureau chief to Netanyahu), articulated this week:

“I accuse you, Bezalel Smotrich, of destroying religious Zionism! You are leading us to a state of Halacha and Haredi Zionism, not religious Zionism … Not to mention the fact that you joined the terrorist Ben Gvir, who diverts lawbreakers, hillbilly boys, to continue breaking the law, who attacks the government, the judicial system, and the police under his responsibility. Netanyahu is not the solution. Netanyahu is the problem, he is the head of the snake. The protest should act against Netanyahu and his coalition. The protest should demand the overthrow of the malicious government”.

Netanyahu is in one sense secular; but in another, he embraces the Biblical mission of Greater Israel – with all its enemies annihilated. He is, (if you like a label) a neo-Jabotinskyist (his father was private secretary to Jabotinsky), and, in practice, exists in a relationship of mutual dependency with figures like Ben Gvir and Smotrich.

“What do these people want?”, asks Max Blumenthal; “What is their ultimate goal?”

“It is apocalypse”, warns Blumenthal, whose book Goliath traces the rise of Israel’s eschatological Right:

“They have an eschatology that is based on the Third Temple ideology – in which the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be destroyed and be replaced with a Third Temple and traditional Jewish ritual will be practiced”.

And in order to bring that about, they need a ‘Big War’.

Smotrich always has been frank about this: The project of ultimately removing all the Arabs from the ‘Land of Israel’ will require an emergency – a ‘big war’ – he has said.

The big question is: Do Trump and his team grasp any of this? For it has profound implications for Trump’s methodology of transactional deal-making. ‘Carrots and Sticks’ and secular rationality will carry little weight amongst those whose epistemology is quite different; those who take Revelation literally as ‘truth’, and who believe it commands complete obedience.

Trump says he wants to end the conflicts in the Middle East, and bring about a regional ‘peace’.

His secular, transactional approach to politics, however, is wholly unsuited to resolving eschatological conflict. His bravura style of threatening ‘all hell will break out’ if he doesn’t get his way will not work, when one or other party actually wants Armageddon.

“All hell break out”? ‘Bring it on’, might well be the response Trump gets.

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

The post The Kingdom of Judea vs. The State of Israel appeared first on LewRockwell.