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In recent weeks, the Trump administration has deployed—or threatened to deploy—National Guard troops in at least five American cities, including Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. Many of Trump’s supporters have cheered this, claiming that it is the responsibility of the president to send federal troops wherever he determines they are needed.

In some cases, deployments have occurred over the objections of the governments in the states where the troops are deployed. This has led to a complex legal situation, with the governments of California and Oregon suing the administration over the deployments. Judges, pundits, and lawyers will surely continue to argue for some time over the current legality of these deployments—as interpreted by federal judges—in federal court.

The fact that this is a matter of debate at all, however, illustrates how far the United States has come from the American Revolutionaries’ original vision of a federal republic with a greatly limited and decentralized military force. In the founding era, Americans feared the existence of a standing army that could be deployed at the will of federal officials. Moreover, Americans demanded that the states maintain their own, independent militias that could not be subjected to federal control without the cooperation of state officials.

That attitude is now long gone.

Instead, we find that both Left and Right in the United States now generally support more federal control, depending on which political party is in power, or which group is on the receiving end of new federal prerogatives. At the moment, it’s the Right that is in power, and so it is now conservatives who are clamoring for more federal power to deploy troops, expand federal law enforcement, and further bury the last few vestiges of the sovereignty once enjoyed by state governments.

For those who are actually concerned about the further concentration of political power, and who support real limits on the federal government, the president’s habit of sending federal troops to American cities is serious problem.

The Dangers of a Standing Army, and the Creation of a Decentralized Military in America

In the very early years of the United States, American political sentiment was heavily against any standing army under federal control. As summarized by Griffin Bovée at the Journal of the American Revolution:

Few ideas were more widely accepted in early America than that of the danger of peacetime standing armies. This anti-standing army sentiment motivated colonial opposition to post-French and Indian War British policies, intensified after the Boston Massacre, influenced the writings of most founding fathers, and remained politically relevant well after the Revolutionary War ended. This sentiment remained largely unchallenged until the introduction of the U.S. Constitution to the public for ratification. The Constitution’s “army clause,” which allowed the U.S. Congress to raise and support armies with biennial funds, sparked a nation-wide debate that pitted tradition against innovation, precedent against necessity, and federalism against nationalism.

The new federal military powers outlined in the proposed new constitution of 1787 sparked much resistance from the so-called anti-Federalists. Chief among them was Patrick Henry who initially opposed ratification of the new constitution on the grounds that the balance of military power under the new constitution favored the federal government. Henry wanted to ensure that an independent system of state militias would remain in place as a safeguard against centralized federal military power. In a 1788 speech, Henry railed against both the raising of a permanent army, and federal control over state troops: “Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress?”

Back then, it was assumed that the Congress would be the dominant power in the federal government, but if Henry were around today, seeing how the presidency now effectively controls the federal government, he would ask how Americans could resist federal power if the states’ militias were “put into the hands of the President?”

The idea here is that the states must not allow state troops—nowadays called the “National Guard”—to be controlled by the federal government.

For most of the nineteenth century—until the Civil War—the federal standing army was tiny. In effect, the federal government had access to very few troops for federal deployments of any kind. Federal control of state militias was still subject to veto by the state governments, and state governments were also known to use this veto. For example, the state governments refused to comply with federal attempts to take control of state troops in wartime in Connecticut in 1812, and Kentucky in 1861. In peacetime, state governments guarded their prerogatives over the militia even more jealously.

Turning State Militias Into a Federalized Military Force

By the late nineteenth century, however, state troops increasingly came under the control of the federal government, and the beginning of the end came with the Dick Act of 1903. As noted by David Yassky:

Statutes subsequent to the Dick Act have placed the National Guard under ever-greater federal control. Currently, anyone enlisting in a National Guard unit is automatically also enlisted into a “reserve” unit of the U.S. Army (or Air Force), the federal government may use National Guard units for a variety of purposes, and the federal government appoints the commanding officers for these units.1

The Dick Act introduced the use of the phrase “National Guard” in federal statutes. This new legislation also paved the way for the use of National Guard units to be used outside the territory of the United States, with a 1906 amendment specifically creating a provision for the use of militia units “either within or without the territory of the United States.”

This provision was later contested on constitutional grounds, but the Congress responded with the National Defense Act of 1916 which made it even easier for the president to call up state troops for federal purposes.

Over time, the line between state militias and federal troops became increasingly blurred, and today, state National Guard units today do not function independently of the United States government in any meaningful way.

Notably, the Dick Act also played a big part in overturning the idea that the general public constituted the informal militia of the United States. In the nineteenth century, there was a symbiotic relationship between the state militias and private gun ownership. This was due largely to the founding-era conception of the militia. Yassky adds:

 [I]n the Founders’ conceptual framework the militia consisted of the mass of ordinary citizens, trained to arms and available to serve at the call of the state. As George Mason put it: “Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except [for] a few public officers. … When the Second Congress sought to exercise its constitutional authority to “provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia,” it directed “each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states [except for persons exempted under state law and certain other exempted classes] … who is … of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years” to enroll in the militia of their states. Or as Patrick Henry declared at the Virginia ratifying convention: “The great object is, that every man be armed.”2

With the invention of the federally controlled “National Guard,” however, the legal concept of an “unorganized militia” was effectively abolished, and with it the perceived value of armed citizens. Even worse is the gradual subversion of the independence of the state militias.

Nonetheless, many modern-day conservative Trump supporters have apparently discovered their love of a federalized militia and the idea that the central government can deploy it at the whims of the central government. Trump has even proposed a permanent nationwide “reaction force” of National Guard troops for deployment to American cities at the president’s discretion. This would be the realization of a standing army specifically designed for use against Americans.

This was exactly what Henry, Mason, and the anti-Federalists feared and argued against. But, for Trump, it seems no amount of federal power is too much so long as it’s in the service of “owning the libs” and targeting political opponents. One would think that those who purport to oppose federal power and support individual liberty would balk at the idea of handing over even more coercive power to the federal government. Alas, if Trump supporters are any indication, this is apparently not the case.

The United States is already so far down the road of centralization and militarization that the average American of the founding era would find this country utterly unrecognizable. Americans of that era were far more realistic and less naïve about how abuses of power are carried out. The preservation of freedom often comes down to balancing one coercive power against another. A country where the central government holds almost all the military power, however, is a country where the central government is effectively free to do whatever it wants to its citizens in a time of emergency, either imagined or real. Those early Americans who sought to prevent the centralization of military power were right. But their words of warning are long forgotten.

—

1 See: David Yassky, “The Second Amendment: Structure, History, and Constitutional Change,” 99 Mich. L. Rev. 588 (2000).

2 Ibid.

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The Israel Lobby Wants Thomas Massie Gone. Will American Voters Obey their Israeli Masters?

“Pro-Israel Republican megadonors recently set up the MAGA Kentucky super PAC with $2 million specifically to oust Massie. Paul Singer contributed $1 million, John Paulson added $250,000, and Miriam Adelson’s Preserve America PAC provided $750,000. The Republican Jewish Coalition has promised “unlimited” campaign spending if Massie runs for Senate, with CEO Matt Brooks declaring that ‘if Tom Massie chooses to enter the race for US Senate in Kentucky, the RJC campaign budget to ensure he is defeated will be unlimited.’

“President Donald Trump has also jumped into the fray, branding Massie a ‘pathetic loser’ who should be dropped ‘like the plague.’ Overall, a constellation of pro-Zionist forces is mobilizing at full force to unseat Congress’s most principled non-interventionist politician since Ron Paul retired in 2013. In many respects, Massie has taken up Paul’s mantle of foreign policy restraint — a political agenda that has never sat well with organized Jewry. Massie’s legislative track record on foreign policy speaks for itself.” See this.

Paul Singer, John Paulson, and Miriam Adelson are billionaire Jews.  The money of these three Jews is sufficient to have the American electorate and Congress answerable to Israel.

That President Trump is so deep in the Jews’ pocket that he aligns against  one of the few members of Congress with the courage to represent American interests over Israel’s suggests the US will soon be at war with Iran.

In 2022 Trump had a different opinion of Massie, calling him “a Conservative Warrior” and”first-rate Defender of the Constitution,” but once Massie criticized Israel, he became a “loser” who should be “dropped.” It is easy for Israel to control a country that is not permitted to acknowledge Israel’s control.

How can America be made great again when Israel can simply buy the presidency and the Congress?  Israel has had Americans at war for Israel for a quarter century.  That’s what the “war on terror” was all about.

As I have said many times, no Western government represents its ethnic citizens.  Neither does America’s.

Read the full article here.

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Members of Congress still get paid when the government shuts down. They get every bit of their $174,000 salary, plus all the benefits and perks that come with being a member of Congress.

The post The Shutdown Won’t Affect All Government Employees appeared first on LewRockwell.

Brian Dunaway wrote:

In a post in these pages about a week ago I offered a few comments on AI euphoria, as well as a typical example of AI-driven search engine error.

Charles Hugh Smith (CHS) seems to have covered all my “earthly” concerns very well in an article here. (Perhaps my biggest concerns with AI are more metaphysical than physical, but I will not address them here.) CHS enumerates the current primary issues with AI, each of which is enormous.

CHS doesn’t appear to believe that AI is a “nothing” technology (neither do I), but he does characterize it as a con. No doubt there is some of that, but I think the AI euphoria is a genuine case of very poor understanding and judgment, fueled by The Promise of Singularity, and solving all the mysteries of the universe – and, easy money looking for the next big thing.

AI seems to have a lot of promise as a research tool, pointing primary research in directions that might have taken researchers many years to imagine. In this context, the researcher would employ scientific methods to verify the validity of an AI “conclusion.” As such, the AI entity would be part of the trial-and-error scientific process.

This is altogether different from what industry seems to think AI will accomplish: a Unified Field Theory of human endeavor. But at this point, AI just doesn’t seem anywhere near capable of doing what industry is trying to do with it.

A few additional comments, employing CHS’s numbered subheadings:

1. AI revenues are orders of magnitude lighter than the sums being invested 

In a similar vein to the subheading, a rule-of-thumb states that “if you buy stock at a P/E ratio of 15, then it will take 15 years for the company’s earnings to add up to your original purchase price – 15 years to ‘pay you back.’ That’s assuming that the company is already in its ‘mature’ stage, where earnings are constant. [Emphasis mine.]” “Assuming” – that’s the mother of all assumptions.

But, even if one is a “true believer,” even the market indicates AI technology is in its nascent stage. A typical AI large corporate P/E is around 50 (that is, when the “E” isn’t negative!). So, half a century? Sounds about right. That is, IF it ever works as advertised, with profit-making reliability in the distant future, and requiring enormous resources that aren’t even yet available. And a lot can happen in 50 years. This technology should be considered very high risk.

2. AI tools are inherently untrustworthy and lend themselves to generating “going through the motions” slop

CHS offers a very good summary here: AI has a “superficial appearance of value but actually has negative value as it’s incomplete, misleading and/or incoherent. Sorting the wheat from the chaff actually takes more time because AI is so adept at generating a superficial gloss. In other words, AI generates time sinks rather than productivity.” Exactly.

Currently, I would place AI technology at a TRL (Technology Readiness Level, in NASA parlance) of around 4 (of 9) – and that is probably very generous – even at this level it simply seems unproven. At a TRL of 5 (component and/or breadboard validation in relevant environment), it would be pretty difficult to make an argument other than that AI has proven to be unreliable and/or not cost effective at scale.

A few weeks ago Epoch Times penned an article that illustrates well the idea of “time sink” in the context of coding software with AI. One report noted 45% of code samples failed security tests. A programmer and IP attorney commented, “I’m surprised the percentage isn’t higher. AI-generated code, even when it works, tends to have a lot of logical flaws that simply reflect a lack of context and thoughtfulness.”

In the same article, in the context of law, “AI hallucinations have already made headlines for the problems they can create in the workplace. A 2024 study observed LLMs had a ‘hallucination’ rate between 69 percent and 88 percent, based on responses to specific legal queries. [Emphasis mine.]”

3. The rate at which major companies are adopting AI is rolling over

I have nothing to add here, other than to say that apparently larger companies that have the resources to understand the future of AI are pulling back from AI adoption. CHS includes a fascinating graph suggesting that firms with more than 50 souls had a negative AI adoption rate starting this last summer.

4. AI data centers are competing with other users for electricity, water and capital

AI power requirements alone are stratospheric, and as CHS notes, this is having an enormous impact on power bills. That would include the power bills of the most vulnerable – not just economically vulnerable, but cruelly, those whose jobs the overlords want to eliminate.

And regarding “singularity” – as defined – one study I read suggested that all the current power in the world would not be sufficient to achieve it. Added to that little detail are the ridiculous requirements of Green Fantasies like an EV in every driveway and net zero power generation, and all this with a backdrop of failing power infrastructure.

The post Will AI Crash the Economy? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Zero Hedge

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Tim McGraw wrote:

My parents grew up in Minneapolis. My American roots are in southern Minnesota. The poor leadership of the politicians in Minnesota and the Twin Cities has ruined the state.

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Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

In the last two years of his life, Charlie Kirk, up until then an unwavering supporter of Israel, began to ask questions about the Netanyahu government. On October 13, 2023 Kirk appeared on Patrick Bet David’s podcast and denounced “bloodthirsty neocons.” He described himself as a 30 year old Millennial tired of no win Middle East wars. “When America is not leading, at least diplomatically, you’ve got serious problems.” A transcript of the podcast and the video:

https://podmarized.com/episodes/pbd-podcast/charlie-kirk-pbd-podcast-ep-314

Kirk asked if Israel stood down on 10/7 (29:00 on video); was opposed to a kinetic war against Iran (at 41:00); revealed how the US’s coup in Iran resulted in radical Islam taking over (44:00). 

The post Charlie Kirk Opposed “Bloodthirsy Neocons” and No Win Middle East Wars appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah.

The post Charlie Kirk’s Death Planned Long Ago (Predictive Programming Shaping Humanity’s Consciousness) appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Bill Madden

vtforeignpolicy.com

The post Kirk assassination – Chris Martenson best analysis of the conspiracy; other theories are wrong, may be plants by the perpetrators appeared first on LewRockwell.

Johnny Kramer.

* not satirical

The Far Left Satirical Ad

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Thanks, Saleh Abdullah.

iNewParadigm

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Thanks, David Martin.

Independent

The post Soros-linked NYC money manager arrested on trafficking charges that include ‘sex dungeon’ claim and Playboy models appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post ‘Mediator’ Trump Approves Intel For Deep Strikes Into Russia appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

John Leake

The post No Hercules to Slay the Swamp Hydra appeared first on LewRockwell.

Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato fuori controllo negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/bitcoin-non-gioca-piu-al-gioco-delloro)

Per anni Bitcoin è stato trattato come un asset puramente inerte: un caveau decentralizzato, economicamente passivo nonostante il suo programma di emissione fisso. Eppure oltre $7 miliardi in bitcoin generano già rendimenti nativi on-chain tramite i principali protocolli, quindi la premessa iniziale sta venendo confutata.

La capitalizzazione di mercato dell'oro, pari a circa $23.000 miliardi, rimane per lo più inattiva. Bitcoin, al contrario, ora guadagna on-chain mentre i possessori ne mantengono la custodia.

Man mano che nuovi livelli sbloccano rendimenti, Bitcoin supera una soglia strutturale: da meramente passivo a produttivamente scarso.

Questo cambiamento sta ridefinendo silenziosamente il modo in cui il capitale determina il rischio, il modo in cui le istituzioni allocano le riserve e il modo in cui la teoria del portafoglio tiene conto della sicurezza. La scarsità potrebbe spiegare la stabilità dei prezzi, mentre la produttività spiega perché miner, chi applica strategie di tesoreria e fondi d'investimento ora stanno parcheggiando asset in BTC invece di limitarsi a costruirci attorno.

Un asset custodito in un caveau che genera rendimento non è più oro digitale, ma capitale produttivo.

La scarsità è importante, ma la produttività è fondamentale

Il DNA economico di Bitcoin non è cambiato: la sua offerta rimane limitata a 21 milioni, il programma di emissione è trasparente e nessuna autorità centrale può gonfiarlo o censurarlo. Scarsità, verificabilità e resistenza alla manipolazione hanno sempre contraddistinto Bitcoin, ma nel 2025 questi fattori distintivi e unici hanno iniziato a significare qualcosa di più.

Con il tasso di emissione bloccato, e nonostante i nuovi livelli di protocollo consentano a BTC di generare rendimenti on-chain, esso sta guadagnando terreno grazie alle sue potenzialità. Una nuova serie di strumenti offre ai possessori la possibilità di ottenere rendimenti reali senza rinunciare alla custodia, senza affidarsi a piattaforme centralizzate e, soprattutto, senza modificare il protocollo di base. Lasciare intatti i meccanismi fondamentali di Bitcoin, ma cambiare il modo in cui il capitale interagisce con l'asset.

Stiamo già vedendo questo effetto nella pratica. Bitcoin è l'unica crittovaluta ufficialmente detenuta in riserve sovrane: El Salvador continua ad allocare BTC nelle sue casse nazionali e un ordine esecutivo statunitense del 2025 ha riconosciuto Bitcoin come asset di riserva strategica per le infrastrutture critiche. Nel frattempo gli exchange-traded fund (ETF) spot detengono ora oltre 1,26 milioni di BTC, ovvero oltre il 6% dell'offerta totale.

Anche sul fronte del mining, i miner non si affrettano più a vendere. Al contrario, una quota crescente alloca BTC in strategie di staking e rendimento sintetico per migliorare i rendimenti a lungo termine.

Sta diventando evidente che la proposta di valore originale si è evoluta in modo sottile nella progettazione, ma profondamente nei risultati. Ciò che un tempo rendeva Bitcoin affidabile ora lo rende anche potente: un asset un tempo passivo sta diventando un asset che produce rendimento. Questo getta le basi per ciò che verrà dopo: una curva dei rendimenti nativa che si forma attorno a Bitcoin stesso, per non parlare degli asset a esso collegati.

Bitcoin guadagna senza rinunciare al controllo

Fino a poco tempo fa l'idea di ottenere un rendimento dalle crittovalute sembrava irraggiungibile. Nel caso di Bitcoin, era difficile trovare un rendimento non-custodial, almeno non senza compromettere la sua neutralità di base. Ma questa ipotesi non è più valida: oggi nuovi livelli di protocollo consentono ai possessori di utilizzare BTC in modi un tempo riservati alle piattaforme centralizzate.

Alcune piattaforme consentono ai possessori a lungo termine di puntare BTC nativi per proteggere la rete e generare rendimenti, senza dover “wrappare” l'asset o spostarlo tra le blockchain. A loro volta altre consentono agli utenti di utilizzare i propri bitcoin in app di finanza decentralizzata, guadagnando commissioni da swap e prestiti senza cederne la proprietà. Nessuno di questi sistemi richiede la consegna delle chiavi a terzi e nessuno si basa su quel tipo di giochi di rendimento poco trasparenti che hanno causato problemi in passato.

A questo punto è chiaro che non si tratta più di un progetto pilota. Inoltre strategie orientate ai miner stanno lentamente guadagnando terreno tra quelle aziende che applicano soluzioni di tesoreria senza abbandonare l'ecosistema Bitcoin. Di conseguenza sta iniziando a delinearsi una curva dei rendimenti nativa di Bitcoin e basata sulla trasparenza.

Una volta che il rendimento di Bitcoin diventa accessibile e auto-custodito, emerge un altro problema: come misurarlo? Se i protocolli diventano disponibili e accessibili, manca chiarezza. Perché senza uno standard che descriva i guadagni di BTC, investitori, chi applica strategie di tesoreria e miner si ritrovano a prendere decisioni al buio.

È il momento di confrontare il rendimento di Bitcoin

Se Bitcoin può generare un rendimento, il passo logico successivo è un modo semplice per misurarlo.

Al momento non esiste uno standard. Alcuni investitori considerano BTC come capitale di copertura; altri lo sfruttano e ne incassano i rendimenti. Tuttavia ci sono incongruenze su quale dovrebbe essere il benchmark effettivo per misurare Bitcoin, poiché non esistono asset realmente comparabili. Ad esempio, un team potrebbe bloccare le coin per una settimana ma non avere un modo semplice per spiegarne il rischio, oppure un miner potrebbe incanalare le coinbase in una strategia di rendimento ma trattarla comunque come una diversificazione del bilancio.

Consideriamo un'organizzazione autonoma decentralizzata di medie dimensioni con 1.200 BTC e sei mesi di stipendi da pagare. Deposita metà del capitale in un caveau a 30 giorni su un protocollo protetto da Bitcoin e ne ricava un rendimento. Senza una base di riferimento, però, il team non può dire se si tratti di una mossa cauta o rischiosa. La stessa scelta potrebbe essere elogiata come un'abile strategia di tesoreria, o criticata come una ricerca di rendimento, a seconda di chi analizza l'approccio.

Ciò di cui Bitcoin ha bisogno è un benchmark. Non un “tasso privo di rischio” nel senso del mercato obbligazionario, ma una base di riferimento: un rendimento ripetibile, autocustodito e on-chain che possa essere generato nativamente su Bitcoin, al netto delle commissioni, e raggruppato per durata (sette giorni, 30, 90 giorni). Una struttura sufficiente a trasformare il rendimento da una supposizione in qualcosa a cui fare riferimento e che possa essere utilizzato come benchmark.

Una volta che ciò esiste, è possibile costruire politiche, informative e strategie di tesoreria attorno a esso, e tutto ciò che supera una tale base può essere valutato per quello che è: un rischio che vale la pena correre oppure no.

Ed è qui che Bitcoin si scrolla di dosso la metafora dell'oro. Il metallo giallo non vi paga, ma un bitcoin produttivo sì. Più a lungo le strategie di tesoreria trattano BTC come un tesoro nascosto senza alcun ritorno, più è facile capire chi vuol trarre profitto dal capitale e chi lo vuole solamente conservare.

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

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

Background

For the past 100+ years, the Middle East has been plagued by western-initiated conflicts and wars no end. The purpose is to dominate one of the world’s largest energy resources. Other energy-rich countries are Russia and Venezuela. Both are in the crosshairs for US-western domination. Venezuela is being aggressed, as I speak, by President Trump’s US Navy. However, China sends her Navy to President Maduro’s rescue. It is clear the plates of world dominion are shifting away from the west.

Russia is in the forefront of US and western aggression for her resources and vast territory, and has been for over hundred years, with two world wars directed to subdue Russia. To no avail. Today, Russia’s alliance with China is stronger than ever, and after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit of 31 August-1 September 2025, the Global South under the leadership of the BRICS-plus is no longer looking up to the west – but is calling the shots to the detriment of the gradually “extinguishing” importance of the western “Empire”.

Just a few impressive figures: The Global South accounts for about 85% of the world population and close to 50% of the world’s GDP; compare this with the fading G7’s 40% of world GDP.

Similar with China, her success story during the last 76 years, unmatched by any country in recent history, cannot be simply accepted but must be dominated by the west. “China is a danger for western hegemony” … is the going slogan, although China’s non-aggressive, peaceful behavior with the rest of the world is legendary proof for the contrary.

The west will not be able to subdue China either. Far from it. China is said to be the second largest world economy. However, in terms that really count for the living economy, in Purchasing Power Parity or PPP, China is and has been the world’s number one economy for the last at least five years.

China represents peace – peace is light, and light will overcome darkness. Darkness and confusion is what we are living today.

Let us hope the Middle East saga – aggression by the same self-styled empire and the Zionist forces behind the US empire, as well as its European vassals – will make a turn towards the light and peace, lest they may fail and fall too.

Now to the Middle East – Or Rather Western Asia

It would appear fair to say that one of the first “disturbances” in Western Asia was the Zionist-initiated Balfour Declaration, a public statement issued by the British Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour in 1917, during the First World War which eventually led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, in what was known for hundreds, actually thousands of years as Palestinian territory.

The Balfour Declaration was initiated in a letter from then self-nominated Zionist Chief, United Kingdom (UK) Lord Rothschild, to then British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour.

The UK Government submitted this proposal to the newly created United Nations (1944) with then only some 51 member-states, almost all western-oriented. The UN approved the British proposal. Israel was created within Palestine in 1948. This was a major “declaration of aggression” for Palestine and for the Arab world.

Tensions between the Jewish and Arab populations began already in 1925 and deepened when the UK agreed in principle to the establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. Before 1948, Palestine was a land of bustling cities like Jaffa and Haifa, serene villages, ancient olive groves, and a deep cultural and artistic heritage. Images from this era provide a window into Palestine often absent from modern history textbooks.

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Crates of Jaffa oranges being ferried to a waiting freighter for export, circa 1930 (Public Domain)

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The UK-sponsored preparation for the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine may have laid the cornerstone for future conflicts in the Middle East.

The expansion of Israel beyond Palestine, taking over Lebanon, Syria, and now attempting to capture also Iran, Iraq and parts of Saudi Arabia, with Jordan an easy annexation, is the long Zionist-planned realization of Greater Israel. It does not bode well for peace.

In the Israel-Palestine conflict, what the world is witnessing today is genocide, ethnic cleansing, outright expulsion of Gazans from their land, of unheard-of proportions, carried out on a once autonomous nation Palestine, by a western-implanted nation, Israel, and its US-Zionist backing, which the irresponsible vassalic non-union, the so-called European Union, whole-heartedly supports.

In Gaza, an additional reason for western aggression and Israel’s expansion may be enormous gas reserves offshore of Gaza – of an estimated worth of US$ one trillion, possibly more.

It is like a red line through the myriads of wars and aggressions – all western-initiated and perpetuated, often through specially for this purpose created terror groups, like ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), later shortened to IS (Islamic State), and more are prime examples.

They were created by the infamous triad of the Israeli Mossad, the UK MI6, and the US CIA. Likewise, Hamas (Gaza) and Hezbollah (Lebanon) are western Secret Services creations, similar to Al-Qaeda, created by the US in Pakistan in 1988.

Such “counter-terrorist” groups are required to justify the West’s armed intervention in countries they want to overthrow, take over and dominate. The reason for domination is their wealth – mainly their hydrocarbon wealth, their strategic geographic position, their anti-US political position, or their alliance with a perceived US enemy.

A globalist hegemony cannot tolerate independent, sovereign states with resources sustaining their autonomy and sovereignty.

*

As history evolves in dynamic ways, the wars in the Middle East – alias Western Asia — has recently been expanded by a new one. On 13 June 2025, Israel –  unprovoked –launched dozens of airstrikes against Iran targeting Iran’s nuclear program, military facilities and killing Iran’s top commanders and nuclear scientists in a devastating large-scale attack that pushed the Middle East into a new war.

Russia Today (see this) reports that while armed conflicts are a constant presence in West Asia, this time the stakes are higher. Israel has found itself in direct confrontation not with a proxy or insurgent group, but with Iran – its principal geopolitical adversary and a likely future nuclear power and not only a member of the BRICS, therefore a key member of the Global South, but also newly a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Not to forget, Israel has nuclear warheads since the 1960s. Nobody officially talks about them and Israel has never signed the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). However, Iran did sign the treaty (NPT).

The Israel-Iran war started already in 2024, when the two countries exchanged direct strikes as far back as April 2024. For decades before that, they waged what is commonly known as a “shadow war,” primarily through intelligence operations, cyberattacks, and support for regional proxies. But now, at Israel’s initiative, the conflict has escalated into open warfare.

Be sure, Israel attacks Iran only with the consent of the US.

On his Truth Social platform, US President Donald Trump warned, or you may call it “blackmailed,” Tehran, saying that the next “already planned attacks” on her would be “even more brutal”, adding that “Iran must make a deal [on its nuclear enrichment program], before there is nothing left (of Iran].”

Strangly, lately it has been quiet around the topic of Iran’s alleged enrichment program.

After the US Air Force and Navy attacked three Iranian nuclear sites: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, in an operation called “Midnight Hammer”, President Trump says Iran’s nuclear program is over; there is no more need for Israel to keep bombing Iran – “Iran is finished.” That is what Trump says. But by now the world knows that Trump lies. He promised he would within days of his taking the Presidency end all wars. He is now almost eight months in office and wars are raging like never before.

Iran is far from finished; Iran being a member of the Chinese Strategy Center, the SCO, as well as of BRICS.

Is this leading to or is it already the beginning of WWIII?

Let us meditate it is not – and peace will prevail.

Read the Whole Article

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Kiev is planning a false-flag operation in the EU involving the deployment of a sabotage group to Poland posing as Russian and Belarusian special forces, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said.

Earlier this month, Warsaw claimed that 19 Russian drones had entered the Polish airspace and called the incident a deliberate provocation by Moscow intended to test NATO’s response. Similar claims of a drone incursion were later made by Romania.

The SVR said in a statement on Tuesday that the drone incursions into the EU were part of continued efforts by Ukraine, which is losing on the battlefield, aimed at “drawing European NATO countries into armed conflict with Moscow.”

“Another provocation is currently being worked out” by the government of Vladimir Zelensky, the statement read. It would revolve around “a sabotage and reconnaissance group deployed into Polish territory and allegedly consisting of special forces servicemen from Russia and Belarus,” it added.

Members of the unit have already been selected from the ranks of the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Belarusian Kastus Kalinouski Regiment, which have been fighting for Kiev in the Ukraine conflict, the agency said.

According to the scenario being prepared by Ukraine’s military intelligence (GUR) together with Polish spy agencies, after “the ‘detection and neutralization’ of the group by the security forces of Poland, its members are expected to appear before the media and give confessions, implicating Russia and Belarus in attempts to destabilize the situation in Poland,” the SVR stressed.

The belief in Ukraine is that, following the drone incursions, “such an event should leave no doubt in the minds of the Poles and other ordinary Europeans that Moscow and Minsk stand behind all the hostile actions,” it said.

“Kiev expects to prompt European countries to respond to Russia as harshly as possible, preferably in a military manner,” the SVR warned.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk claimed on Monday that the Ukraine conflict was “our war” and urged Western Europe to mobilize against Russia.

Speaking at the UN General assembly last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that Moscow has no aggressive plans against NATO, but warned that any aggression against the country would be met with “a resolute response.”

This article was originally published on RT News.

The post Ukraine Plotting False Flag in EU – Moscow appeared first on LewRockwell.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the former “Fox and Friends” cohost, claims to be obsessed with making the Pentagon and the military services about “the warfighter.” His main approach to doing so is a deeply misguided campaign to reduce “distractions” like commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (the dreaded “DEI”). No matter that the purpose of DEI is to combat White supremacist attitudes, misogyny, and anti-gay and anti-trans violence in the ranks.

All such forms of discrimination are, in fact, already present in the U.S. military, and the way to build a cohesive defense force is certainly not by allowing them to run wild and be seen as acceptable or “normal” behavior. The best way to build a stronger, more unified military would, of course, be to make people feel welcome regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or gender identification. That would, in fact, be the only way to build a military that reflects the nation it’s charged with defending. DEI, after all, is not an irritating slogan. It’s an attempt to right historic wrongs in the service of a more effective military and a more unified populace. And it’s one thing to suggest that current approaches could be made more effective, but quite another to demonize them in the name of forging “better” warfighters.

In short, the Hegseth method is bound to prove destructive. Count on this, in fact: it will only weaken our military, not strengthen it. The result, if Hegseth’s efforts succeed, will indeed be a Whiter, more aggressive armed forces, and quite likely one significantly more loyal to the current occupant of the Oval Office than to the Constitution.

Ex-Warriors for Peace

Thankfully, Hegseth’s vision is not shared by many of the veterans of America’s disastrous post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. The eye-opening documentary What I Want You to Know presents the views of just such veterans about their service and about the meaning of the conflicts they fought in. Almost to a person (no, not “a man”!), they said the following four things:

– They don’t know why they were sent to the places where they fought

– They did not believe the U.S. could win the war they were sent to fight

– Their government lied to them

– They were forced to do things that will haunt them for the rest of their lives

It took courage for such veterans to go on camera and offer the unvarnished truth about the disastrous wars they helped to fight. They are, of course, far from alone, but as one of the producers of the film told me, many veterans are reluctant to discuss such feelings and insights publicly. Some don’t want to reflect on the idea that the wars they fought in were disastrously misguided and didn’t end in anything resembling an American victory. Others fear political retribution. Still others prefer to keep such conversations among their fellow vets, in large part because they feel that people who haven’t served can’t fully understand what they went through.

It’s little wonder that many vets keep their feelings about their long years in service within a close circle of friends and other veterans. But whether they choose to speak out publicly or not, a striking number of them are now either antiwar or “war skeptical,” questioning whether some of our recent conflicts were faintly worth fighting in the first place.

Don’t misunderstand me on this. There are indeed veterans speaking out against such unnecessary, unjust wars (past or future). Fifteen of them, for instance, contributed chapters to Paths of Dissent, a volume edited by Quincy Institute co-founder Andrew Bacevich and U.S. Army veteran Daniel Sjursen. A description of a 2023 webinar marking the release of the book caught its main theme perfectly:

“[T]hese soldiers vividly describe both their motivations for serving and the disillusionment that made them speak out against the system. Their testimony is crucial for understanding just how the world’s self-proclaimed greatest military power went so badly astray.”

There are also entire organizations, including Veterans for Peace (VFP), Common Defense, and About Face: Veterans Against the War, devoted to ensuring that such endless wars remain over and crafting an American foreign policy grounded in diplomacy and defense rather than in a quest for global military dominance. (And, of course, they are distinctly not dedicated, like President Donald J. Trump, to ever more regularly blowing boats out of the water in the Caribbean.)

Common Defense, in fact, goes beyond an antiwar stance to address the underlying ills that make such wars so much more likely. Its members describe themselves this way:

“We are the largest grassroots membership organization of progressive veterans standing up for our communities against the rising tide of racism, hate and violence.  We vow to organize together against those who seek to divide us so they cannot rig our systems and economy for their own gain.”

As for VFP, one of its members, Chris Overfelt, offered a succinct summary of the group’s stance in a 2019 House Budget Committee hearing organized by the Poor People’s Campaign: A Call for Moral Revival. He noted that he had “indirectly participated in the destruction of… Iraq and Afghanistan.” He then reflected on the consequences of those all-American wars, adding, “Neither of these countries will likely recover from that devastation in my lifetime. Nothing I can do… will make up for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan men, women, and children killed in these useless wars.”

About Face’s current campaign, “Keep the Military Off Our Streets,” reaches out to the 35,000 or more National Guard and military personnel that President Trump has already deployed to U.S. cities and the Mexican border area, offering assistance in “exploring your options.” As that outfit puts it, “If you are a National Guardsperson or active-duty member and you’re concerned about the moral, ethical, or legal implications of your situation, you’re not alone.”

Nor is opposition to such fruitless, devastating conflicts limited to progressives. Trump himself used his 2016 election campaign to hammer Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton for supporting the disastrous 2003 U.S. intervention in Iraq. And then there were statements like the one that he made at a September 2024 campaign stop in Mosinee, Wisconsin, in which he said, “I will expel the warmonger from our national security state and carry out a much needed clean-up of the military-industrial complex to stop the war profiteering and to put always America First.”

The president has, of course, not faintly fulfilled that pledge, but he said it for a reason — to appeal to those in his base who are sick of war and no longer trust corporations or traditional politicians to rein in the war machine.

One of the most interesting political collaborations of the past few years was when the conservative group Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) teamed up with VoteVets, which describes itself as “a home for progressive veterans and their supporters.” The two groups worked together to repeal the authorization of military force, or AUMF, passed by Congress after the 9/11 attacks, a document that has been used ever since as a public rationale for numerous wars all over the globe. Dan Caldwell, the head of CVA at the time, explained how the two groups had come to work together in an interview on C-SPAN that included Will Fischer, then the director of government relations for VoteVets:

“I honestly did go into the interview expecting a combative conversation… but when we started talking about foreign policy, it was clear there were some areas of alignment especially on war powers. The wheels started turning in my head, and we came together and decided to pursue some of these shared goals.”

Perhaps most important right now, Major General Paul Eaton, who (among his many other assignments) served as commanding general in charge of reestablishing the Iraqi Security Forces in 2003-2004, has joined with other veterans to roundly criticize Trump’s deployment of troops to U.S. cities. As he put it, “This [deployment of troops to U.S. cities] is the politicization of the armed forces. It casts the military in a terrible light.”

Of course, there are also what might be thought of as warriors for war in this country, veterans who believe the U.S. isn’t spending enough on its military or relying on force (or the threat of force) often enough. For example, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Alabama), a prominent voice on national security in the Republican Party, is all in on pushing for yet more Pentagon spending, the development of ever more and different kinds of nuclear weapons, and a quicker trigger for using force (including a possible war with Iran). Then there’s General Mike Minihan who, in January 2023, wrote a memo predicting that the U.S. would be at war with China within two years. That was hardly an official U.S. position. He was, in fact, publicly contradicting the stance of his commander-in-chief and yet he was never held accountable for that rogue statement of his.

Military Invalidators

Many liberals and progressives feel that the only way to generate sustained public pressure against overspending on the Pentagon budget (now heading for the trillion-dollar mark) is to get military validators, ideally high-ranking officers, to weigh in. This was possible in the past, as in the Vietnam War years, when Admirals Gene Larocque and Eugene Carroll founded the Center for Defense Information, an indispensable resource for opponents of massive Pentagon budgets and misguided wars.

It’s important to remember, however, that the use of military validators can go terribly wrong. This was certainly the case in 1983 when President George W. Bush sent General Colin Powell, whose approval rating was then 20 points higher than his, to the United Nations in February 2003 to make a case for Iraq’s alleged (but, in fact, nonexistent) arsenal of nuclear weapons, a month before the U.S. invaded that country. It was certainly good theater, but many of his points would prove to be sheer fantasy.

There were also prominent retired generals like Lee Butler and James Cartwright who called for sharp reductions in, or the total elimination of, all nuclear weapons globally, including the American arsenal. Butler, a former head of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, signed a 1998 statement, organized by the group Global Zero, that called for the elimination of nuclear weapons globally. And Cartwright, a retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former commander of United States nuclear forces, endorsed a 2012 report by Global Zero arguing that nuclear deterrence could be maintained with a far smaller U.S. nuclear arsenal of 900 total warheads, versus the current stockpile of thousands of them, either deployed or in reserve.

But high-level military officers able and willing to criticize Donald Trump’s current global strategy and this country’s still rising military spending levels are an ever-shrinking cohort. Little wonder, given that, as a Quincy Institute report found, 80% of all three- and four- star generals who retired in a recent five-year period went to work for — yes, of course! — the arms industry in one capacity or another.

And although mid-level officers and those below them in the ranks are the likely backbone of a growing movement for peace and racial, gender, and economic justice, they simply can’t do it alone, even if their voices are crucial for reaching certain key audiences.

And here’s a reality of this moment: Given the torrent of threats to basic rights now emanating from Washington, movements of resistance need all the help they can get. In that grim context, antiwar veterans will certainly be crucial allies in the struggle for peace and justice, but there will also have to be a cultural and psychological shift, weaning many Americans from their attraction to war as a way to solve problems and their sense of themselves as citizens of “the most powerful country in the world.”

America’s “increasingly dysfunctional relationship to war” is analyzed in detail in 26-year Army veteran Gregory Daddis’s new book, Fear and Faith: America’s Relationship with War Since 1945. He believes that this country’s “martial bonds… have been informed by deep-seated frictions between faith in and fear of war and its consequences.” In his concluding chapter, “War for War’s Sake,” Daddis underscores the stubborn commitment to war that prevails among many Americans, despite the costly and disastrous wars of this century. “War,” he writes, “remains with us because we have inherited Cold War tendencies toward viewing the world in black-and-white terms, where every threat seems existential to the global American project… America’s faith never truly wavered, even after the debacle in Vietnam. Calls for military crusades against evil still resonate.”

Daddis believes that “a twisted relation with faith and fear, if left unbroken, can only preordain the nation to a militarized way of life bounded by the grimness of war.”

In light of the devastating impact of America’s post-9/11 wars, as documented by the Costs of War Project at Brown University — the loss of $8 trillion, hundreds of thousands of civilian lives, millions of people driven from their homes, and hundreds of thousands of U.S. veterans suffering physical wounds or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) — calls for “peace through strength” and ever higher Pentagon budgets should ring increasingly hollow.

Isn’t it finally time for a respectful national dialogue about what constitutes an adequate defense and how to balance military preparations with other urgent national needs? Of course, having any such conversation, given the present deep divisions in American society, will be a challenge in its own right. But the alternative is a continuation of some variation of the devastating wars of the post-9/11 period, and such new and perilous conflicts will involve boots on the ground, air strikes, or the endless arming of repressive regimes.

Reprinted with permission from TomDispatch.com.

The post Can Warriors Stop Endless Wars? appeared first on LewRockwell.

“Frank’s death was a real personal blow to me,” Murray Rothbard confessed in 1973. Frank Meyer and Rothbard debated at the Harvard University Institute of Politics in 1971. Less than a year later, Meyer was dead at 62.

Starting in the 1950s, both men worked as the two paid reviewers of scholarship for the Volker Fund. Ex-Communist Meyer ran Rothbard’s book reviews as literary editor of National Review during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1972, the year of Meyer’s death, Rothbard modeled much of his “Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult” on Meyer’s Moulding of Communists. They occasionally met, periodically spoke on the phone, and corresponded dozens of times from 1954 to 1972.

This correspondence, discovered in an Altoona, Pennsylvania, warehouse in 2022 as part of research for The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, amounts to about three dozen letters and numerous other items. Meyer, a telephonic creature to such a degree that he began spending about a quarter of his income on long-distance bills, often responded to letters with calls. The quotations and paraphrased material in this article—and four succeeding ones that explore their discussions of American history, populism, conservative politics, and the counterculture—appear in print for the first time here. A lengthier scholarly article on Rothbard and Meyer’s correspondence about Ayn Rand and the Objectivists appears in The Journal of Libertarian Studies.

The Meyer-Rothbard relationship started in November 1954. “I had such an enjoyable time meeting and talking to you,” Rothbard wrote, “that I thought I’d continue the conversation by typewriter.”

During the first weekend of May 1955, Frank Meyer and his wife, Elsie, ventured from Woodstock downstate to Manhattan for camaraderie with the Circle Bastiat. Rothbard’s libertarian friends, to include Leonard Liggio, Ralph Raico, and Bruce Goldberg, gathered in these years for late-night bull sessions. They allowed the outsiders to join them. Meyer told his fellow partisans of liberty that the common denominator for so many of the great political upheavals in American history remained Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” These remarks, according to Rothbard, inspired Ralph Raico to stay up Saturday night rewriting that song into the “Battle Hymn of Freedom.” The reworked lyrics, boasting a refrain of “the Circle marches on,” included:

All of Freedom’s blessed martyrs are here marching by our side

Ours the spirit and the cause for which they smiling bled and died

With us now they cut those fetters which men’s mind and body tied

Man will at last be free.

Meyer seemed amused.

“We thoroughly enjoyed our evening with the Cercle Bastiat,” he wrote Murray and Jo Rothbard the way the Frenchman Bastiat would spell the modifier to his name. “I would love to have the entire Cercle spend a rousing weekend up here some time this summer—who knows how many songs might be composed?”

Rothbard’s travel phobias prevented that upstate summer meeting.

The correspondence includes a letter of recommendation from William F. Buckley, Jr., for the “brilliant,” “congenial,” and “imaginative” Rothbard for the aim of securing him employment with the Econometric Institute’s Manhattan office after he lost a position with the Princeton Panel. This followed, and perhaps sprang from, Rothbard’s confessions to Meyer about his precarious economic situation. The National Review chieftain’s 1957 laudatory sentiment yielded to a very different one by 1959, when Rothbard suggested to Buckley that his magazine’s objections to Nikita Khruschev’s visit to the United States must be some sort of parody given its embrace of Winston Churchill, Francisco Franco, and other state leaders also responsible for death and destruction and such. Rothbard found the magazine’s complaint especially “humorous” that Khrushchev “might be sleeping in the sainted Lincoln’s bed; but this surely would be more apt, considering that Mr. K’s deeds in Hungary were precisely equivalent to Mr. Lincoln’s Butchery of the South.”

Buckley responded, “National Review may be ambitious, but it is not so ambitious as to take on the job of educating you on how to make elementary moral distinctions.”

This exchange strikes as one that reoriented the relationship between the two men. Meyer, who launched one of the anti-Khrushchev groups that Rothbard lambasted, did not let the disagreement destroy the friendship.

Other differences existed between Meyer and Rothbard. The letters show the men at loggerheads, for instance, over semantics in a manner similar to Meyer’s ongoing epistolary debates with Rose Wilder Lane. Rothbard wondered whether conservatives wished to conserve the status quo, adhere to the outlook of European rightists of the previous century, or perhaps merely favor gradual to sudden change.

“Perhaps you are a ‘conservative’ because you wish to conserve the ‘western heritage,’” he wrote. “But the Western heritage contains quantitatively more bad than good from our point of view—more murder than laissez-faire. So what you really want to promote is not the heritage en bloc but parts of it—which parts to be picked out by reason. So where can conservatism come in?”

On October 26, 1956, Rothbard’s letter exudes an ebullience regarding the as-yet uncrushed Hungarian Revolution. “The Circle Bastiat,” he noted, “is thrilled to the core.” He enclosed a “monstrous” article by Walter Lippmann on the uprising that prompted a vow to forgo reading him. As Meyer had inspired Raico to rewrite the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” the previous year, events in Hungary catalyzed Rothbard to rewrite The Communist Manifesto in abridged form. He included within a letter to Meyer his “Individualist Manifesto”:

A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Individualism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise the spectre: ……… The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of caste struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a world, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another…a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending castes….The modern Statist society that has sprouted from the ruins of laissez-faire capitalism, has established new castes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle… Our epoch, the epoch of the bureaucrat, possesses, however, this distinctive feature; it has simplified the caste antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting into two great hostile camps, into great castes directly facing each other: State and People …… Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one caste for oppressing another….In place of the old Statist society, with its castes and caste antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of all ……. Let the ruling castes tremble at an Individualistic revolution. The people have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. People of all countries, unite!!

The ruling castes, alas, did not tremble. Meyer, an actual revolutionary, understood why.

Prince Mirsky, who accompanied him into the Communist Party headquarters in London where he joined the party in 1932, had died a few years later in a Soviet gulag; Walter Ulbricht, whom he worked directly for on peace activism in 1934, had already ordered murders and would later erect the Berlin Wall as the longest serving dictator of East Germany; and John Cornford, Charles Darwin’s great-grandson and Meyer’s protégé in England, died fighting for the Communists in the Spanish Civil War the day after he turned 21 in 1936.

In other words, Meyer knew that Communists not just died but killed for the ideas in The Communist Manifesto.

The reasons why the ruling castes did not tremble ultimately became obvious to Rothbard as well. Although he continued to romanticize and fetishize the rebellions against authority that the more conservative Meyer forcefully rejected, Rothbard, in the year after Meyer’s death, articulated the nonaggression principle that “no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else.”

Murray’s revolution, then, necessarily differed from Marx’s revolution not merely in ends but means.

[Daniel J. Flynn, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and American Spectator senior editor, wrote The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer (Encounter/ISI Books, 2025).]

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