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For a Leviathan to function, it must remain rational and powerful, Alastair Crooke writes.

Israel’s strategy from past decades continues to rest on the hope of achieving some literal Chimeric transformative ‘de-radicalisation’ of both Palestinians and of the Region, writ large – a de-radicalisation that will make ‘Israel safe’. This has been the ‘holy grail’ objective for Zionists since Israel was first founded. The code word for this chimaera today is the ‘Abraham Accords’.

Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s Strategic Affairs Minister, former Israeli Ambassador to Washington and key Trump ‘whisperer’ – writes Anna Barsky in Ma’ariv (Hebrew) on 24 August – “sees reality with cold political eyes. He is convinced that a real agreement [on Gaza] will never be concluded with Hamas, but [only] with the United States. What is needed, Dermer says, is the Americans’ adoption of Israel’s principles: the same five points that the Cabinet approved: disarmament of Hamas, return of all hostages, complete demilitarization of Gaza, Israeli security control in the Strip – and an alternative civilian government that is not Hamas and not the Palestinian Authority”.

From the perspective of Dermer, a partial hostage release deal – which Hamas has accepted – would be a political disaster. By contrast, were Washington to endorse the Dermer outcome – as an ‘American plan’ – Barsky infers Dermer suggesting: “we would have a situation in which everyone benefits”. Moreover, in Dermer’s logic, “the mere opening of a partial deal gives Hamas a window of two to three months, during which it can strengthen itself and even try to obtain a different ‘final scenario’ from that of the Americans – one that suits [Hamas] better”. “This, according to Dermer, is the truly dangerous scenario”, writes Barsky.

Dermer has for years insisted that Israel can have no peace without the prior ‘transformative de-radicalisation’ of all Palestinians. “If we do it right”, Ron Dermer says, “it will make Israel stronger – and the U.S. too!”

Some years earlier, when Dermer was asked what he saw to be the solution to the Palestinian conflict. He replied that both the West Bank and Gaza must be totally dis-armed. Yet, more important than disarmament however, was the absolute necessity that all Palestinians must be mutationally “de-radicalised”.

When asked to expand, Dermer pointed approvingly to the outcome of WW2: The Germans were defeated, but more significantly, the Japanese had been fully ‘de-radicalised’ and rendered docile by the war’s end:

“Japan had U.S. forces for 75 years. Germany — U.S. forces for 75 years. And if anyone thinks that was by agreement at the beginning they’re kidding themselves. It was imposed, then they understood it was good for them. And over time there was a mutual interest in keeping it”.

Trump is aware of Dermer’s thesis, but seemingly it is Netanyahu who instinctively dithers, so Barsky writes:

“A partial deal [with Hamas] will almost certainly lead to the resignation of Smotrich and Ben Gvir [from the government]… The government will fall apart … A partial deal means the end of the right-right government … Netanyahu knows this well, which is why his hesitation is so difficult. And yet, there is a limit to how long one can hold the rope at both ends”.

Trump seemingly accepts the ‘Dermer Thesis’: “I think they want to die, and it’s very, very bad”, Trump said of Hamas before leaving for his recent weekend trip to Scotland. “It got to a point where you’re [i.e. Israel] gonna have to finish the job”.

But Dermer’s notion about having the consciousness of adversaries seared by defeat was never just about Hamas alone. It extended to all Palestinians and the region as a whole – and, of course to Iran in particular.

Gideon Levy writes that we must thank the former head of the Military Intelligence, Aharon Haliva, for admitting on Channel 12:

“We need genocide every few years; the murder of the Palestinian people is a legitimate, even essential act”. This is how a “moderate” general in the IDF speaks … killing 50,000 people is “necessary”.

This ‘necessity’ is no longer ‘rational’. It has metamorphosed into bloodlust. Benny Barbash, an Israeli playwright, writes of the many Israelis he meets, including at the demonstrations in favour of a hostage-prisoner deal, who frankly admit:

“Listen, I’m really sorry to tell you this, but the children dying in Gaza really don’t bother me at all. Nor the hunger that’s there, or not. It really doesn’t interest me. I’ll tell you straight: As far as I’m concerned, they can all drop dead there”’

“Genocide as the IDF’s legacy, for the sake of future generations”; “For every one [Israeli] on 7 October, 50 Palestinians have to die. It doesn’t matter now, children. I’m not speaking out of revenge; it’s out of a message to future generations. There’s nothing to be done, they need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price”, Gideon Levy soberly quotes General Haliva saying (emphasis added).

This must be understood to represent a profound shift within the core of Zionist thinking (from Ben Gurion to Kahane). Yossi Klein writes (in Haaretz Hebrew) that:

“We are indeed in the stage of barbarism, but this is not the end of Zionism … [This barbarism] has not killed Zionism. On the contrary, it has made it relevant. Zionism has had various versions, but none resembled the new, updated, violent Zionism: the Zionism of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir …

“The old Zionism is no longer relevant. It established a state and revived its language. It has no more goals … If you ask a Zionist today what their Zionism is, they wouldn’t know how to answer. ‘Zionism’ has become an empty word … Until [that is] Meir Kahane came along. He came with an updated Zionism whose goals are clear: to expel Arabs and settle Jews. This is a Zionism that doesn’t hide behind pretty words. “Voluntary evacuation” makes it laugh. “Transfer” enchants it. It is proud of “apartheid” … To be a Zionist today is to be Ben-Gvir. To be non-Zionist is to be antisemitic. An antisemite [today] is someone who reads Haaretz …”.

Smotrich declared this week that the Jewish people are experiencing ‘physically’, “the process of redemption and the return of the divine presence to Zion – as they engage in the ‘conquest of the land’”.

It is this train of apocalyptic thought that is bleeding into the Trump Administration in its various formats: It is metamorphosing the Administration’s ethical posture towards one of ‘war is war and must be absolute’. Anything less must be seen as mere moral posturing. (This is the Talmudical understanding arising from the story of wiping out the Amalek (see Jonathan Muskat in Times of Israel)).

Thus we can see Washington’s new found thrall for de-capitation of intransigent leaderships (Yemen, Syria and Iran); the support for the political neutering of Hizbullah and the Shi’a in Lebanon; the normalisation of assassination for recalcitrant heads of state (as was mooted for Imam Kamenei); and for the toppling of state structures (i.e. as planned for Iran on 13 June).

The transformation of Israel to this Revisionist Zionism – and its hold over key factions of U.S. thinking – is precisely why war between Iran and Israel has come to be perceived as inevitable.

The Supreme Leader of Iran articulated his understanding of the implications explicitly in his public address earlier this week:

“This [American] hostility has persisted for 45 years, across different U.S. administrations, parties, and presidents. Always the same hostility, sanctions, and threats against the Islamic Republic and the Iranian people. The question is why?.

“In the past, they hid the real reason behind labels like terrorism, human rights, women’s rights, or democracy. If they did state it, they framed it more politely, saying: ‘We want Iran’s behaviour to change”.

“But the man in office today in America gave it away. He revealed the true objective: ‘Our conflict with Iran, with the Iranian people, is because Iran must obey America’. That is what we, the Iranian nation, must clearly understand. In other words: A power in the world expects that Iran—with all its history, dignity and its legacy as a great nation — should simply be submissive. That is the real reason for all the enmity”.

“Those who argue, “Why not negotiate directly with America to solve your problems?” are also looking only at the surface. That’s not the real issue. The real problem is that the U.S. wants Iran to be obedient to its commands. The Iranian people are deeply offended by such a great insult, and they will stand with all their strength against anyone who harbours such a false expectation of them … the U.S.’ real goal is Iran’s submission. Iranians will never accept this ‘great insult’”.

‘De-radicalisation’ in the Dermer thesis’ meaning means installing a Leviathan-esque “despotism that reduces the region to total powerlessness – including that of a spiritual, intellectual and moral powerlessness. The total Leviathan is a unique, absolute and unlimited power, spiritual and temporal, over other humans”, as Dr Henri Hude, former head of the Department of Ethics and Law at France’s prestigious Saint-Cyr Military Academy, has observed.

Former IDF Ombudsman Major General (Res). Itzhak Brik too has warned that Israel’s political leadership are “gambling with Israel’s very existence”:

“They want to accomplish everything through military pressure, but in the end, they won’t accomplish anything. They have put Israel on the brink of two impossible situations [–] the outbreak of a full-fledged war in the Middle East, [and, or, secondly] a continuing of the war of attrition. In either situation, Israel won’t be able to survive for long”.

Thus, as Zionism transforms to what Yossi Klein has defined as ‘late stage Barbarism’, the question arises, could ‘war without limits’ work, despite Hude’s and Brik’s deep scepticism? Could such Israeli ‘terror’ impose on the Middle East an unconditional surrender “that would allow it to change profoundly, militarily, politically and culturally, and to transform as Israeli satellites within an overall Pax Americana?”

The clear response that Dr Hude gives in his book Philosophie de la Guerre is that war without limits cannot be the solution, because it cannot deliver long-lasting ‘deterrence’ or de-radicalisation:

“On the contrary, it is the most certain cause of war. Ceasing to be rational, despising opponents who are more rational than it is, arousing opponents who are even less rational than it is, the Leviathan will fall; and even before its fall, no security is assured”.

Hude identifies too such extreme ‘will to power’ without limits as necessarily containing the psyche of self-destruction within it.

For a Leviathan to function, it must remain rational and powerful. Ceasing to be rational, despising opponents who are more rational, and angering opponents who are less rational than it is itself, the Leviathan then must – and will – fall.

This is precisely why Iran, even now, knows it must prepare for the Big War as Leviathan ‘arises’. And so too, must Russia – for it is one single war being prosecuted against recalcitrants to the American new order.

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

The post Israel’s ‘New, Violent Zionism’ as a Harbinger of Imperial Geo-Politics of Submission and obedience appeared first on LewRockwell.

August 1st marked the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Accords’ inking. The event’s golden jubilee passed without much in the way of mainstream comment, or recognition. Yet, the date was absolutely seismic, its destructive consequences reverberating today throughout Europe and beyond. The Accords not only signed the death warrants of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and Yugoslavia years later, but created a new global dynamic, in which “human rights” – specifically, a Western-centric and -enforced conception thereof – became a redoubtable weapon in the Empire’s arsenal.

The Accords were formally concerned with concretising détente between the US and Soviet Union. Under their terms, in return for recognition of the latter’s political influence over Central and Eastern Europe, Moscow and its Warsaw Pact satellites agreed to uphold a definition of “human rights” concerned exclusively with political freedoms, such as freedom of assembly, expression, information, and movement. Protections universally enjoyed by the Eastern Bloc’s inhabitants – such as free education, employment, housing and more – were wholly absent from this taxonomy.

Helmut Schmidt, Erich Honecker, and Gerald Ford sign the Helsinki Accords

There was another catch. The Accords led to the creation of several Western organisations charged with monitoring the Eastern Bloc’s adherence to their terms – including Helsinki Watch, forerunner of Human Rights Watch. Subsequently, these entities frequently visited the region and forged intimate bonds with local political dissident factions, assisting them in their anti-government agitation. There was no question of representatives from the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, or Yugoslavia being invited to assess “human rights” compliance at home or abroad by the US and its vassals.

As legal scholar Samuel Moyn has extensively documented, the Accords played a pivotal role in decisively shifting mainstream rights discourse away from any and all economic or social considerations. More gravely, per Moyn, “the idea of human rights” was converted “into a warrant for shaming state oppressors.” Resultantly, Western imperialist brutality against purported foreign rights abusers – including sanctions, destabilisation campaigns, coups, and outright military intervention – could be justified, frequently assisted by the ostensibly neutral findings of “human rights” defenders such as Amnesty International, and HRW.

Almost instantly after the Helsinki Accords were signed, a welter of organisations sprouted throughout the Eastern Bloc to document purported violations by authorities. Their findings were then fed – often surreptitiously – to overseas embassies and rights groups, for international amplification. This contributed significantly to both internal and external pressure on the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and Yugoslavia. Mainstream accounts assert the conception of these dissident groups was entirely spontaneous and organic, in turn compelling Western support for their pioneering efforts.

US lawmaker Dante Fascell has claimed the “demands” of “intrepid” Soviet citizens “made us respond.” However, there are unambiguous indications meddling in the Eastern Bloc was hardwired into Helsinki before inception. In late June 1975, on the eve of US President Gerald Ford signing the Accords, exiled Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn addressed senior politicians in Washington, DC. He appeared at the express invitation of hardcore anti-Communist George Meany, chief of the CIA-connected American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Solzhenitsyn declared:

“We, the dissidents of the USSR don’t have any tanks, we don’t have any weapons, we have no organization. We don’t have anything…You are the allies of our liberation movement in the Communist countries…Communist leaders say, ‘Don’t interfere in our internal affairs’…But I tell you: interfere more and more. Interfere as much as you can. We beg you to come and interfere.”

‘Political Aberration’

In 1980, mass strikes in Gdansk, Poland spread throughout the country, leading to the founding of Solidarity, an independent trade union and social movement. Key among its demands was the Soviet-supported Polish government distribute 50,000 copies of Helsinki’s “human rights” protocols to the wider public. Solidarity founder-and-chief Lech Walesa subsequently referred to the Accords as a “turning point”, enabling and encouraging the union’s nationwide disruption, and growth into a serious political force. Within just a year, Solidarity’s membership exceeded over 10 million.

Lech Walesa addresses Polish workers in Gdansk, August 1980

The movement’s inexorable rise sent shockwaves throughout the Warsaw Pact. It was the first time an independent mass organisation had formed in a Soviet-aligned state, and others would soon follow. Undisclosed at the time, and largely unknown today, Solidarity’s activities were bankrolled to the tune of millions by the US government. The same was true of most prominent Eastern Bloc dissident groups, such as Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77. In many cases, these factions not only ousted their rulers by the decade’s end, but formed governments thereafter.

Washington’s financing for these efforts became codified in a secret September 1982 National Security Directive. It stated “the primary long-term US goal in Eastern Europe” was “to loosen the Soviet hold over the region and thereby facilitate its eventual reintegration into the European community of nations.” This was to be achieved by; “encouraging more liberal trends in the region…reinforcing the pro-Western orientation of their peoples…lessening their economic and political dependence on the USSR…facilitating their association with the free nations of Western Europe.”

In August 1989, mere days after Solidarity took power in Poland, marking the first post-World War II formation of a non-Communist government in the Eastern Bloc, a remarkable op-ed appeared in the Washington Post. Senior AFL-CIO figure Adrian Karatnycky wrote about his “unrestrained joy and admiration” over Solidarity’s “stunning” success in purging Soviet influence in the country throughout the 1980s. The movement was the “centerpiece” of a wider US “strategy”, he revealed, having been funded and supported by Washington with the utmost “discretion and secrecy.”

Vast sums funnelled to Solidarity via AFL-CIO and CIA front the National Endowment for Democracy “underwrote shipments of scores of printing presses, dozens of computers, hundreds of mimeograph machines, thousands of gallons of printer’s ink, hundreds of thousands of stencils, video cameras and radio broadcasting equipment.” The wellspring promoted Solidarity’s activities locally and internationally. In Poland itself, 400 “underground periodicals” – including comic books featuring “Communism as the red dragon” and Lech Walesa “as the heroic knight” – were published, read by tens of thousands of people.

Karatnycky boasted of how the Empire was intimately “drawn into the daily drama of Poland’s struggle” over the past decade, and “much of the story of that struggle and our role in it will have to be told another day.” Still, the results were extraordinary. Writers for Warsaw’s NED-funded “clandestine press” had suddenly been transformed into “editors and reporters for Poland’s new independent newspapers.” Former “radio pirates” and Solidarity activists previously “hounded” by Communist authorities were now elected lawmakers.

Signing off, Karatnycky hailed how Poland proved to be a “successful laboratory in democracy-building,” warning “democratic change” in Warsaw could not be a “a political aberration” or “lone example” in the region. Karatnycky looked ahead to further neighbourhood insurrection, noting AFL-CIO was engaged in outreach with trade unions elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc, including the Soviet Union itself. So it was, one by one, every Warsaw Pact government collapsed in the final months of 1989, often in enigmatic circumstances.

‘Shock Therapy’

The “revolutions” of 1989 remain venerated in the mainstream today, hailed as examples of successful, largely bloodless transitions from dictatorship to democracy. They have also served as a template and justification for US imperialism of every variety in the name of “human rights” in all corners of the globe since. Yet, for many at the forefront of Western-funded, Helsinki Accords-inspired Warsaw Pact dissident groups, there was an extremely bitter twist in the tale of Communism’s collapse across Central and Eastern Europe.

In 1981, Czechoslovak playwright and Charter 77 spokesperson Zdena Tominová conducted a tour of the West. In a speech in Dublin, Ireland, she spoke of how she’d witnessed first-hand how her country’s population had benefited enormously from Communism. Tominová made clear she sought to fully maintain all its public-wide economic and social benefits, while purely adopting Western-style political freedoms. Given she’d risked imprisonment to oppose her government with foreign help so publicly, her statements shocked audiences.

“All of a sudden, I was not underprivileged and could do everything,” she sentimentally recalled of the eradication of Czechoslovakia’s class system. “I think that, if this world has a future, it is as a socialist society…a society where nobody has priorities just because he happens to come from a rich family,” Tominová declared. She moreover reiterated her vision and mission was global in nature – “the world of social justice for all people has to come about.” But this was not to be.

Czechoslovakia’s late 1989 ‘Velvet Revolution’

Instead, newly ‘liberated’ ex-Eastern Bloc countries suffered deeply ravaging transitions to capitalism via “shock therapy”, eradicating much citizens held dear about the systems under which they’d previously lived. Thrust into a wholly new world, hitherto unknown homelessness, hunger, inequality, unemployment and other societal ills became commonplace, rather than prevented by basic state guarantee. After all, as decreed by the Helsinki Accords, such phenomena didn’t constitute egregious “human rights” breaches, but instead an unavoidable product of the very political “freedom” they had aggressively promoted.

This article was originally published on Global Delinquents.

The post How ‘Human Rights’ Became Western Weapon appeared first on LewRockwell.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has called President Trump “the gravest threat to American democracy.”  Nonetheless, Schumer wants to erase the Second Amendment.  House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries calls Trump a “racial arsonist” and urges supporters to “fight” the Trump administration “in the streets.”  Still, Jeffries wants to limit gun ownership and confiscate Americans’ firearms.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz claims Trump is a “tyrant” who “finds new ways to trample rights” each day.  Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia says, “President Trump is a tyrant.”  Senator Alex Padilla of California insists that Trump is a “tyrant.”  Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon calls Trump a “tyrant.”  Democrat lawmakers across the country have repeatedly described President Trump as a “dictator,” a “racist,” a “white supremacist,” a “Russian agent,” and a “Nazi.”  They have compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and other genocidal maniacs.  They swear that Trump is the greatest “threat to democracy” that Americans have ever faced.

Yet every one of these Democrats wants gun control.  Even after taking oaths to defend the Constitution, they actively work to undermine the Second Amendment.  They believe that only the U.S. military, federal agents, law enforcement officers, and private security details for the well-to-do should be permitted to carry firearms.

Consider this another example of why leftists sound insane to normal people.  Rational individuals don’t prance around complaining about “dictatorship” and “tyranny” while looking for every available excuse to disarm the public.  Historically, when alert citizens feared that a government had become too powerful or an official had become too authoritarian, they encouraged their fellow citizens to be well-armed and prepared to defend themselves.  They did not make long-winded speeches in the town square insisting that the time had come for the people to hand over their weapons so that the “tyrant” could provide for their safety.

In leftist-globalists’ upside-down world, “men” get pregnant, free speech requires censorship, we’re all about to die from “climate change,” and the best way to oppose “fascism” is to relinquish your guns to the government.  As the kids like to say, make it make sense.

One thing seems certain: Democrats don’t really believe President Trump is a “tyrant,” but they are pretty sure that they will soon be back in power.  Democrat officials are deliberately riling up their political followers and legitimizing violence against Trump and his supporters.  At the same time, Democrats expect to exercise exclusive authority over which Americans will be disarmed in the future.

Why wouldn’t they?  Even with Trump in the White House, we live under a two-tier “justice” system right now in which Democrats commit crimes without consequence and Republicans are criminally punished for their political beliefs.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Brennan, Susan Rice, Jim Comey, James Clapper and so many other co-conspirators spied on Republican presidential campaigns, defrauded the American people with the Russia Collusion Hoax, and attempted to overthrow President Trump in a coup d’état.  Those traitors will most likely never be so much as charged for their high crimes.  Meanwhile, corrupt prosecutors and judges in Democrat-controlled jurisdictions have engaged in the worst kinds of lawfare against Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, political advisor Roger Stone, policy strategist Steve Bannon, economic advisor Peter Navarro, and numerous attorneys (including Rudy Giuliani) who litigated 2020’s fraud-filled mail-in-ballot presidential “selection.”

Five years ago, Antifa domestic terrorists and Black Lives Matter shock troops for the Democrat Party burned down entire neighborhoods and caused billions of dollars in property damage across the nation.  Few of these Democrat foot soldiers have ever been prosecuted.  Meanwhile, when Trump voters showed up in D.C. to protest 2020 election fraud and demand secure elections, the FBI and DOJ dedicated unprecedented resources to hunt down every patriotic granny and selfless veteran for the “crime” of walking around the Capitol.  The information warfare specialists in the corporate news still treat Antifa and BLM as if they were peaceful, virtuous organizations.  Those same propagandists have spent the last four-plus years defaming Trump voters as “racists,” “terrorists,” and “insurrectionists.”

When it comes to Democrat plans for gun control, there is no doubt that those who want to deprive Americans of their natural right to self-defense anticipate favorable and continuing two-tiered “justice.”  Although public debate routinely centers around Americans’ Second Amendment right to own weapons, the heart of the issue also concerns the Fourth Amendment — the right of all Americans to be protected against unreasonable government searches without judicially-sanctioned warrants first establishing probable cause.  If Democrats were serious about disarming dangerous criminals, after all, they would go door-to-door in every American neighborhood with an extensive gang presence and arrest anyone illegally in possession of a firearm.  But Democrats have no interest in disarming known criminals.  They have no interest in infringing upon known criminals’ Fourth Amendment rights.  They prefer to target the Second and Fourth Amendment rights of Americans without criminal records.

So-called “red flag” laws aren’t used to disarm urban gangs (that’s racist!) or mentally ill men who pretend to be women (that’s transphobic!).  They are used to target law-abiding gun owners with the “wrong” political beliefs.  Democrat officials routinely ignore violent individuals with the right skin color or sexual fetishes.  Democrats look the other way when illegal aliens are found to be in possession of weapons.  Conversely, Democrats force citizens to jump through hoops to secure concealed carry permits.  Criminals get a pass; citizens are forced to fight the bureaucracy for their constitutional rights.  The more authority that Democrats obtain to confiscate Americans’ firearms, the more certain it becomes that Democrat-aligned foot soldiers will be the only people “entitled” to a weapon.  Like two-tiered “justice,” two-tiered self-defense is the Democrats’ favorite kind of “progress.”

Since the Catholic school shooting in Minneapolis, Democrats and the propaganda press have done everything they can to hide the fact that this anti-Christian attack marked another instance of “trans” terrorism and have instead exploited the tragedy by renewing calls for gun confiscation.  Democrat talking heads ignore the fact that Minnesota already has “red flag” laws that would have permitted Democrat officials to disarm the shooter had his “trans” delusions been considered a sign of troubling mental health.  Because Democrats and the propaganda press have spent the last decade trying to convince normal people that mentally ill “trans” people “deserve our respect,” they cannot now admit the obvious — that violent men who believe they are women are a growing threat to society.

On the toxic sewage dump known as Reddit, leftists are advocating for more attacks on “white Christians” in order to achieve their dream of national gun bans.  As one conservative notes, “If they are openly talking about killing you and your family WHILE you’re armed, imagine what they’ll do once they disarm you.”  Other leftists are actually happy that a “trans” terrorist murdered Catholic school children and hoping that more mass shooters target Christians.  The Minnesota Star Tribune seems primarily concerned about how “trans” terrorism and the murder of praying children will ultimately affect the “trans” community.

For all their talk that President Trump is a “dangerous tyrant,” it is Democrats who continue to embrace violence against political adversaries.  Eddie Scarry wrote an article for The Federalist last week entitled, “Democrats Keep Talking About A ‘Knife Fight’ And It’s Time To Take Them Literally.”  In that piece, Scarry argues that the political party responsible for inciting at least two assassination attempts against President Trump last year is “eager and ready to cross the point of no return.”  The Minneapolis Catholic school terror attack occurred the same day as the article’s publication.

This is no time for vigilant Americans to disarm.  We must defend our families, neighbors, lives, and liberties.

This article was originally published on American Thinker.

The post Vigilant Americans Should Be Armed appeared first on LewRockwell.

Dear western liberal,

Saying “I support a two-state solution” does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

Saying “I oppose Netanyahu” does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

Saying you find the Gaza holocaust “heartbreaking” and “terrible” does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

Saying “I want there to be peace” does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

Saying you think “both sides” should cease their aggressions does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

Saying “it’s complicated and I don’t understand it” does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

Saying “Hamas attacked on October 7” does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

Saying “the Jews deserve a homeland” does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

Saying “I’m busy” does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

Saying “I’m overwhelmed” does not release you from your moral obligation to ferociously oppose a genocide backed by your own government.

We are all morally obligated to do everything we can to oppose a live-streamed genocide that’s being facilitated, supported and defended by the western power structure under which we live. Nothing besides tooth-and-claw ferocious opposition satisfies that moral obligation.

Don’t tell me about your feelings. Don’t tell me what political positions you support. Don’t tell me what thoughts you privately think to yourself. Do everything you can to stop the genocide that’s being facilitated by your government and its allies.

Nothing else qualifies. Nothing else is defensible. Nothing else will satisfy the questions you’ll be asked by younger generations about what you did during the Gaza holocaust.

_____________________

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Occasionally a song lyric hits just the right tone. I heard one recently that sang, “He’s with us while we wait.” The song was talking about God. Younger people might wonder, “what are we waiting for?” Older people know: we wait for peace and rest— and “the rest of the story”.

I recently spent a few months too happily busy to worry about waiting; there were no dull delays. Life was happening, and I had no time to linger, no leisure for unanswered longings. There were school things, sports things, home renovation things, new grandparent things, travel things. I needed to plan stuff, order stuff, tackle this and that. Waiting seemed irrelevant to a life bursting with healthy activity and cool deadlines and real-time excitement.

Well, soon enough, the world, the flesh and devil would have their doggone way. My emotional energy plummeted as serious concerns popped up amid our continued geyser of activity. We discovered our son had a pituitary tumor; meanwhile, my husband’s job had become nearly unbearable. We needed to move several rooms of furniture to clear out for a big renovation and somehow survive without a kitchen. Meanwhile, school was starting, with all its associated hype and demands (see a previous post on over-involved adults).

Aggravations piled up; interruptions marred my carefully engineered schedule. Exciting possibilities were swapped for boring responsibilities. With heavier worries, multiplying chores and no easy solutions in sight, and I slowly festered in an ugly stew of overwhelm.

My problem-solving instincts were still in full swing, though, so I just needed to keep moving. I’d proven my skill in navigating international travels, brain surgery, and home renovations; and for an extra display of multitasking, I would also decorate my college girl’s apartment, order my other kids’ textbooks and school uniforms, and join the special events for my high school senior. On the side, I will figure out how to manage my struggling, elderly mom.

I survived the inner turmoil and household tension by maintaining a neutral facial expression, remaining too busy, and avoiding topics that could spark angry conversations. That worked for a while, but the enemy never sleeps, and he soon capitalized on unguarded moments. We also had a ready supply of needs and complaints—highly combustible materials for his Molotov cocktails.

At the end of our impressive resources, and after weeks of quietly exulting in my endurance and imagined strength—against my very best efforts—I was breaking down; actually, we were breaking down. The summer of multitasking glory was over; it was finally time to wait.

Wait for what? I would now wait for all sorts of elusive things—logistics, healing, direction, and a working kitchen, among them. I waited while resuming the marching orders of motherhood and its school year routines. I waited through days when, surrounded by dangling cords and construction debris, no work crews show up. I still wait through teenage drama, uncertain paths, and my own middle-aged insecurities. Is this big renovation worth it, will my kids get into the right college, and what about my husband’s job? Some of these are luxurious “first world” issues, but they disrupted my peace and forced me to wait.

I recently discovered a contemporary, reformed confession written in the early 1980’s. It’s called “Our World Belongs to God,” and it starts with this:

As followers of Jesus Christ,
living in this world—
which some seek to control,
but which others view with despair—
we declare with joy and trust:
Our world belongs to God!

What an accurate picture of life this presents; it’s the life we want to control, or the life we mourn in despair. If we are honest about our situation, we must admit that it doesn’t conform to the utopian dreams of our youth, and our proud stoicism is cold comfort. We see human misery, we’re bored, and disappointments plague us—and yet, this bold confession proclaims that our world belongs to God!

Biblical truth always cuts deep across our broken human perspective. When things get out of our control, and when dark things conceal our sun, a sense of despair lingers close at hand. Under the enemy’s diabolical suggestions, our circumstances feel hopeless and empty. We deny or forget God, mistake his character, and imagine that this world actually belongs to humans; we imagine that we are the center of a tragic cosmic story.

The devil is a liar, as he has been from the beginning, yet we believe his lines again and again. Contrary to his claims, though, our world does belong to God, and that same God speaks into our chaos through his truthful word. He does not speak through our lying emotions, experts, or astrologers; he chose the written word to communicate his redemptive kingship to a sinful and needy world that sits squarely within his control.

The God who made heaven and earth promises us peace through Jesus Christ, who provides authentic, purposeful and eternal life, even in the midst of our guaranteed troubles. He brings order to spiritual chaos. His timeline extends into eternity; and nothing—not today’s sin, disease, addiction, weather, political revolution or collapse—can thwart this beautiful cosmic will.

Before I move on, if you’re not familiar with how God reveals himself in scripture, look over these verses that speak of his character and purposes, from creation to our present darkness.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.” Genesis 1:1-4

Why do the nations rage, and the people plot in vain?…..He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Psalm 2:1, 4

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers. Psalm 24:1-2

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

The thief comes only to steal and skill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. John 16:33

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!” Revelation 5:13

For those who are intimidated by the biblical language, its truth can be summarized by metaphor. The architect of our cosmos has designed us to fit within his master plan; the author of truth wrote our chapter to fit within his epic storyline. History is truly his story, and for those who know its author, it won’t disappoint.

We can’t always decipher our circumstances, but without a doubt we can know they are accomplishing eternal plans. For believers, these struggles must conform us to the character of Christ, work everything for our good, and point to his glory. For nonbelievers, they expose persistent voids that will only be satisfied in our creator; ultimately, they reveal a cosmic chasm only Jesus Christ can bridge.

Back to my own construction dust, I see God is as busy as ever, even if the drywall guys still haven’t arrived. He hasn’t laid out blueprints that would satisfy my cravings for control, but he has promised to complete his perfect work in me. God’s purposes aren’t held up by permits, surgeries or school schedules. He will accomplish everything written in his scroll.

How can I know that? It’s written in his word: Many are the plans in the mind of man, but it’s the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

This article was originally published on Restoring Truth.

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Click here:

Eric Zuesse

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Click Here:

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

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Thanks, Chris Sullivan.

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Thanks, Saleh Abdullah.

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Of course, there were notable recordings, none more impressive than those by Kate Smith, who also sang it thrillingly in the 1943 film version of This Is the Army. Deanna Durbin sang it in the 1943 film Hers to Hold; and the great opera singer Lotte Lehmann and a young Marni Nixon, dubbing for Margaret O’Brien, sang it in the 1948 film Big City. For many years a Kate Smith recording was played at Philadelphia Flyers hockey games, and for especially key contests Smith was on hand to sing it in person. Berlin himself sang it on television in 1968 during an eightieth birthday tribute presented on The Ed Sullivan Show and sang it again, most movingly, at the White House in 1974 in honor of returning Vietnam War prisoners. It was his last public appearance.

Excerpt(s) from The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin edited by Robert Kimball and Linda Emmet, copyright © 2001 by The Estate of Irving Berlin, Robert Kimball, and Linda Emmet. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing. Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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Tony Agular witnesses and the Trump profiteers plan for a vacated Gaza that others fund, once all the Gazans are disappeared.   They confirm each other, but only one will get the peace prize.  This is Zionism.

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______________________________________________________________________________________

di Ethan Yang

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/i-dati-in-via-di-sparizione-della)

Le informazioni sulla salute economica della Cina sono sempre più difficili da reperire. Sebbene Pechino sia sempre poco trasparente su qualsiasi cosa possa potenzialmente indicare instabilità o debolezza, questo comportamento sta raggiungendo un punto in cui i suoi tentativi di occultamento stanno trasmettendo un messaggio inequivocabile: l'economia cinese è in difficoltà.

Il 4 maggio il Wall Street Journal ha riferito che il Partito Comunista Cinese (PCC) sta “facendo sparire” enormi quantità di dati economici in seguito alle notizie di un crollo delle vendite di terreni, di una crescita stagnante del PIL, di una disoccupazione in aumento e persino di un calo della produzione di salsa di soia. 

“Pechino ha smesso di pubblicare centinaia di statistiche”, ha riportato il quotidiano, “la scomparsa dei dati ha reso più difficile per le persone sapere cosa sta succedendo in Cina in un momento cruciale, con la guerra commerciale tra Washington e Pechino che dovrebbe colpire duramente la Cina e indebolire la crescita globale”.

Il motivo per cui ciò sta accadendo è ovvio: il PCC, e in particolare Xi Jinping, sono preoccupati per le conseguenze che i dati economici negativi potrebbero avere sulla loro credibilità e sulla loro presa sul potere.

Non dovremmo affrettarci a concludere che siamo nel 1989, sul punto di assistere alla caduta del Muro di Berlino; né dovremmo concludere che si tratti semplicemente di una transizione strutturale prima che la Cina diventi una superpotenza tecnologica.

La realtà è probabilmente da qualche parte nel mezzo.

La Cina, come gli Stati Uniti, sta affrontando una miriade di difficoltà politico-economiche che non necessariamente faranno deragliare il Paese, ma preannunciano risultati mediocri in futuro. La differenza principale è che gli Stati Uniti dispongono di un sistema per rimuovere pacificamente i responsabili quando le loro idee falliscono.

La storia della crescita della Cina

La Repubblica Popolare Cinese, dopo una serie di riforme di mercato nel 1978 e l'adesione all'Organizzazione Mondiale del Commercio (OMC) nel 2001, ha vissuto un miracolo economico, passando dall'essere uno dei Paesi più poveri del mondo alla seconda economia più grande. Le spiegazioni sono molteplici e ampiamente citate, tra queste l'enfasi sulla produzione manifatturiera e su una manodopera a basso costo ma sempre più produttiva, un solido livello di istruzione, una governance stabile e una generale apertura alle imprese, soprattutto nei confronti di un regime comunista. La Cina, inoltre, adotta una linea di politica industriale su larga scala, un grado relativamente basso di libertà economica e un sistema politico che reagisce violentemente a qualsiasi cosa possa minacciare il potere del PCC. Quest'ultimo punto è particolarmente rilevante dopo il 2012, quando Xi Jinping, l'attuale presidente, è salito al potere e ha deciso che il Paese aveva ceduto troppo al presunto caos del settore privato, provocando una drastica riduzione delle libertà politiche ed economiche.

Con il rallentamento della crescita economica, dovuto sia a ragioni naturali che politiche, il governo cinese ha iniziato a diffondere sempre meno informazioni. La Cina, che un tempo vantava tassi di crescita annui a due cifre, ora cresce a un tasso di circa il 3-4%, secondo alcuni esperti. Sebbene questo dato possa essere considerato significativo per un Paese sviluppato come gli Stati Uniti, il PIL pro capite della Cina è di gran lunga inferiore e rimane un margine di crescita sostanziale.

Impedimenti alla crescita 

Parte del motivo di questo rallentamento della crescita è naturale. Con il progredire di un'economia, devono verificarsi determinati cambiamenti strutturali prima che essa raggiunga la fase successiva. Questo fenomeno è noto come “trappola del reddito medio”, uno in cui i Paesi rurali sperimentano una rapida crescita economica man mano che si modernizzano e progrediscono verso un'economia basata meno sull'agricoltura e più sulla produzione e sugli investimenti. Tuttavia la crescita inizia a rallentare perché la fase successiva, oltre la produzione manifatturiera, che non richiede una formazione specializzata, richiede invece determinati livelli di istruzione e infrastrutture. È facile costruire fabbriche e riempirle di lavoratori; creare invece le condizioni per startup tecnologiche, finanza aziendale e un'economia guidata dai consumi richiede più che semplice manodopera e una ragionevole stabilità. La Cina sta affrontando questo problema in questo momento, mentre si confronta con enormi disparità di sviluppo tra le sue ricche città costiere e l'entroterra rurale.

Un altro motivo per cui la Cina sta attraversando un rallentamento economico deriva dalle linee di politica del suo governo centrale. La crescita del PIL sta rallentando per una serie di ragioni, ma alcuni settori dell'economia sono particolarmente ostacolati dall'intervento governativo. Ad esempio, a seguito di un improvviso e aggressivo attacco normativo alle proprie aziende nell'ambito di una campagna nota come “Prosperità Comune” nel 2021, il mercato azionario cinese ha subito un impatto sostanziale e continua a essere in difficoltà.

La Campagna per la Prosperità Comune è stata aggravata dalla continua repressione della società cinese durante l'epidemia di COVID-19 e dall'uso della Strategia Zero COVID. L'indice composito di Shanghai, che monitora tutti i titoli della Borsa di Shanghai, è rimasto relativamente stabile, mentre Alibaba, l'equivalente cinese di Amazon, è trattato a meno della metà del suo massimo di ottobre 2020. La Cina, che aveva iniziato a costruirsi la reputazione di futuro del business, è ora vista dagli investitori come ostile e imprevedibile. Anche la sua dipendenza dal commercio estero per alimentare la sua base manifatturiera è sempre più vista come un difetto, mentre gli Stati Uniti e altri Paesi riequilibrano le loro relazioni con essa per ragioni sia economiche che geopolitiche.

La realtà è che le linee di politica industriali cinesi stanno iniziando a ritorcersi contro di essa. Un importante motore di crescita è sempre stato il settore immobiliare e ora è sull'orlo del collasso a causa degli anni di denaro facile e di pianificazione governativa che hanno lasciato il segno, in particolare con il default del gigante finanziario Evergrande. Le linee di politica industriali volte a sostenere settori specifici (dai semiconduttori ai veicoli elettrici) allocano in modo errato il capitale, causano inefficienze e sconvolgimenti di massa. Nel 2023, ad esempio, i titoli dei giornali erano pieni di resoconti di cimiteri di auto elettriche, poiché le persone hanno ritenuto più conveniente abbandonare completamente le proprie auto piuttosto che cercare di venderle. Il principale fattore scatenante di questo problema sono stati i sussidi sconsiderati che hanno sostenuto le aziende in fallimento e hanno incoraggiato i consumatori ad acquistare auto indipendentemente dal fatto che le loro città disponessero delle infrastrutture adeguate per supportarle.

Cosa significa tutto questo per il futuro?

Il rallentamento della crescita economica della Cina dovrebbe certamente essere visto come un'accusa alle linee di politica di Xi, e più in generale alla linea di politica industriale, e all'incapacità del modello autoritario di Pechino di affrontare adeguatamente le difficoltà strutturali della crescita economica. Ciò non significa necessariamente che la Cina crollerà domani, o che non sarà un contendente geopolitico per gli Stati Uniti. Il settore high-tech cinese continua a crescere, alimentando la crescita di settori strategici come i droni, le terre rare e l'intelligenza artificiale. Sebbene resti da vedere se le linee di politica industriali di Pechino catapulteranno il Paese nella modernità, c'è ancora spazio per la crescita, a un ritmo molto più moderato di quanto desiderato ovviamente. Si può affermare con certezza che troppe cose devono andare per il verso giusto affinché la Cina possa vedere la rapida crescita economica che i fautori della linea di politica industriale ritengono dovrebbe arrivare.

La Cina sperimenterà una crescita economica molto più lenta del previsto, ma il futuro probabilmente non porterà al collasso, bensì alla mediocrità. La domanda da porsi, quindi, è: come affronterà questo dilemma un'entità sempre più paranoica e autoritaria come il PCC?

Il governo cinese adotterà misure radicali per promuovere la libera impresa e ripristinare le relazioni con l'Occidente? Altamente improbabile. Come affronterà Xi Jinping le proposte, benintenzionate, di moderare alcune delle sue linee di politica? Accoglierà silenziosamente le critiche, o ricorrerà a purghe politiche? Ha già fatto entrambe le cose in passato.

Il risultato è probabilmente una via di mezzo. Si tratta di un comportamento sempre più imprevedibile da parte del governo cinese, che cerca da un lato di placare il malcontento popolare e dall'altro di reprimerlo. Il risultato finale è una debole crescita economica nel prossimo futuro e un mandato di Xi Jinping sempre più ansioso e incerto.

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

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America is supposed to be a democracy, and people worry about whether elections are genuine or rigged. Should voting by mail be allowed? Should voters be required to show ID? In the current political climate, such questions are important, but there is an underlying premise that libertarians have good reason to question.

The premise is that America should be a democracy.  You might at first wonder “What is the alternative? Are you in favor of dictatorship?” The alternative I have in mind isn’t a dictatorship. Instead, I support libertarian natural rights. Each person owns himself and his property, and all transactions people make are voluntary. No person or group of people has the right to interfere with your individual rights. Having a vote doesn’t change matters: your rights don’t depend on approval by a majority. In this week’s column, I’d like to discuss several characteristically brilliant arguments against democracy advanced by our greatest libertarian theorist, Murray Rothbard. I will also talk about an argument advanced by an outstanding follower of Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

In his great book Power and Market, Rothbard points out that democracy is caught in a contradiction. Democracy is rule by the majority. All political questions are to be decided by majority vote. Can a majority vote to end democracy? If it can, democracy would no longer exist. But if it can’t, then not all political issues are decided by majority vote. Whether to retain democracy is certainly a political issue. Democracy is thus either unstable or non-existent. As Rothbard puts it:

“In the first place, suppose that the majority overwhelmingly wishes to establish a popular dictator or the rule of a single party. The people wish to surrender all decision-making into his or its hands. Does the system of democracy permit itself to be voted democratically out of existence? Whichever way the democrat answers, he is caught in an inescapable contradiction. If the majority can vote into power a dictator who will end further elections, then democracy is really ending its own existence. From then on, there is no longer democracy, although there is continuing majority consent to the dictatorial party or ruler. Democracy, in that case, becomes a transition to a nondemocratic form of government. On the other hand, if, as it is now fashionable to maintain, the majority of voters in a democracy are prohibited from doing one thing—ending the democratic elective process itself—then this is no longer democracy, because the majority of voters can no longer rule. The election process may be preserved, but how can it express that majority rule essential to democracy if the majority cannot end this process should it so desire? In short, democracy requires two conditions for its existence: majority rule over governors or policies, and periodic, equal voting. So if the majority wishes to end the voting process, democracy cannot be preserved regardless of which horn of the dilemma is chosen. The idea that the ‘majority must preserve the freedom of the minority to become the majority’ is then seen, not as a preservation of democracy, but as simply an arbitrary value judgment on the part of the political scientist (or at least it remains arbitrary until justified by some cogent ethical theory).”

Rothbard raised another point that you can’t avoid hearing about, if you keep up with news. The competing political parties will try to rig electoral districts in their favor. Rothbard shows that this is an inevitable result of a “democratic” system in which people vote for their representatives:

“According to the ‘will of the people’ theory, direct democracy—voting on each issue by all the citizens, as in New England town meetings—is the ideal political arrangement. Modern civilization and the complexities of society, however, are supposed to have outmoded direct democracy, so that we must settle for the less perfect ‘representative democracy’ (in olden days often called a ‘republic’), where the people select representatives to give effect to their will on political issues. Logical problems arise almost immediately. One is that different forms of electoral arrangements, different delimitations of geographical districts, all equally arbitrary, will often greatly alter the picture of the ‘majority will.’ If a country is divided into districts for choosing representatives, then ‘gerrymandering’ is inherent in such a division: there is no satisfactory, rational way of demarking the divisions. The party in power at the time of division, or redivision, will inevitably alter the districts to produce a systematic bias in its favor; but no other way is inherently more rational or more truly evocative of majority will.”

One of the most common arguments in favor of democracy is that it provides a way to avoid violent revolution. If the majority wants a change, it just has to wait until the next election and can then vote itself into power. Rothbard says that this argument doesn’t work either. Elections aren’t the only way to avoid violent revolution and they also generate a contradiction, if the “democratic” majority vote for a different government from the one a violent revolution would have put into power:

“Perhaps the most common and most cogent argument for democracy is not that democratic decisions will always be wise, but that the democratic process provides for peaceful change of government. The majority, so the argument runs, must support any government, regardless of form, if it is to continue existing for long; far better, then, to let the majority exercise this right peacefully and periodically than to force the majority to keep overturning the government through violent revolution. In short, ballots are hailed as substitutes for bullets. One flaw in this argument is that it completely overlooks the possibility of the nonviolent overthrow of the government by the majority through civil disobedience, i.e., peaceful refusal to obey government orders. Such a revolution would be consistent with this argument’s ultimate end of preserving peace and yet would not require democratic voting.

“There is, moreover, another flaw in the ‘peaceful-change’ argument for democracy, this one being a grave self-contradiction that has been universally overlooked. Those who have adopted this argument have simply used it to give a seal of approval to all democracies and have then moved on quickly to other matters. They have not realized that the ‘peaceful-change’ argument establishes a criterion for government before which any given democracy must pass muster. For the argument that ballots are to substitute for bullets must be taken in a precise way: that a democratic election will yield the same result as would have occurred if the majority had had to battle the minority in violent combat. In short, the argument implies that the election results are simply and precisely a substitute for a test of physical combat. Here we have a criterion for democracy: Does it really yield the results that would have been obtained through civil combat? If we find that democracy, or a certain form of democracy, leads systematically to results that are very wide of this ‘bullet-substitute’ mark, then we must either reject democracy or give up the argument.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe raises another question about the alleged good qualities of democracy. Democratic regimes will tend to take a short-run perspective on things. They know that their time in power is limited, so they will tend to take as much as they can now, while adopting a “who cares?” attitude to what comes afterward. In his outstanding book Democracy: The God That Failed, Hoppe says:

“A democratic ruler can use the government apparatus to his  personal advantage, but he does not own it. He cannot sell government resources and privately pocket the receipts from such sales, nor can he pass government possessions on to his personal heir. He owns the current use of government resources, but not their capital value. In distinct contrast to a king, a president will want to maximize not total government wealth (capital values and current income) but current income (regardless and at the expense of capital values). Indeed, even if he wished to act differently, he could not, for as public property, government resources are unsaleable, and without market prices economic calculation is impossible. Accordingly, it must be regarded as unavoidable that public-government ownership results in continual capital consumption. Instead of maintaining or even enhancing the value of the government estate, as a king would do, a president (the government’s temporary caretaker or trustee) will use up as much of the government resources as quickly as possible, for what he does not consume now, he may never be able to consume. In particular, a president (as distinct from a king) has no interest in not ruining his country. For why would he not want to increase his confiscations if the advantage of a policy of moderation-the resulting higher capital value of the government estate-cannot be reaped privately, while the advantage of the opposite policy of higher taxes-a higher current income—can be so reaped? For a president, unlike for a king, moderation offers only disadvantages.”

Let’s do everything we can to promote libertarian natural rights and to expose the fallacies of phony “democracy.”

The post What’s Good About Democracy? appeared first on LewRockwell.

On 7 March 2021, Swiss citizens voted already on the introduction of the electronic ID (e-ID) and rejected the government’s proposals by a landslide of 64.4% NO, against 35.6% YES.

This was just four years ago. And now the Swiss government puts the proposal again before the people. Not voluntarily. It was presented to both Swiss Parliamentary Houses and accepted, as is often the case, as the Swiss Parliament does not really represent the interests of the people, but the interests of business.

This is a clear signal that Switzerland has converted from a democratic republic to a corporation, with a corporate accounting system, where profit making is the Master, where the common people are the workers, and those at the head of the Corporation, like the Seven gnomes in Bern, are the Swiss Corporate Management, the CEOs so to speak.

Immediately, a referendum was launched against the e-ID, so that the government must present the e-ID proposal again to the Swiss people. This time with better prepared arguments with more lies and misinformation, because the essence of the e-ID remains the same: It would be a major step into full digital control, full digital enslavement of the population.

Just as a reminder, Swiss Parliamentarians absurdly have the right to sit on the boards of as many corporations and financial institutions as they desire. It is the epitome of conflict of interest.

It means we have in Switzerland a built-in lobby, close to unique worldwide, in a country that calls itself the heart of democracy.

Think again.

Now the case of YES or NO e-ID is again presented to the same people, with other arguments and, frankly, misinformation that should make a “yes” vote more palatable. What it really means, the Swiss Government wants to push this e-ID through, come hell or high water. What does that tell you about our government?

Can it be trusted as it pretends and want you to believe?

No way!

Why else would the Government disrespect the will of the people, so clearly expressed with an almost two-thirds voter rejection of e-ID in 2021, just four years ago?

Do not trust the government.

You have not forgotten the Covid scandal, better called Covid-crime — a good reason for disbelieving anything pushed by the Government against the will of the people.

Let us just enumerate a few of the most obvious arguments against an e-ID, arguments valid around the world, not just in Switzerland.

Arguments against e-ID include privacy risks, with legitimate fears of data tracking and exploitation for profiling and marketing by companies or authorities. Just think of the “cookies” you must approve for almost any article you want to read.

Security concerns are issues due to potentially insecure technology and insufficient protection against cyberattacks, i.e., data can be stolen and sold to who knows whom, for example to the so-called Five-plus One Eyes, the Secret Services of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and guess who? Israel’s Mossad.

Data can also simply be used by our government for total control and manipulation of groups or individual citizens who do “not behave.” Digital data can be linked to bank accounts and block bank accounts, if the Master authorities deem it necessary, because a citizen is out-of-line with a corrupted and dictatorial government policy. Digital e-ID is the precursor for a Social Credit System.

Digital exclusion, or discrimination, is another issue as those unfamiliar with digital tools could be disadvantaged or forced out of accessing services. Additionally, there are fears of increasing coercion by companies or authorities to use the e-ID, and the possibility that it could, indeed, enable a social credit system.

Digital e-ID data could be used for blackmailing, either by your own government or by those who have stolen or bought your digital data.

Today, Swiss citizens at home and abroad must use their paper ID card or passport to prove their identity.

That is SAFE.

With digital e-ID, you must download one or various apps on your computer and smartphone to be able to upload a digital ID. Every new App is a new risk.

Like with electronic payment systems – another enslavement horror which unfortunately many people, especially the younger generations, have not yet realized – data on your smart phones can be hacked, and when your phone is lost or stolen, all your security is gone, including banking ID and everything linked to the digital e-ID.

For now, the Swiss Government says the e-ID will remain optional.

Wait a minute: That’s “for now.”  In 2026, the government is planning to introduce a biometric Swiss identity card (ID), a precursor to the e-ID. Have you been told about it?

The Swiss Government is among those governments which push most for an all-digitization of everything, including money. Once a certain level of digitization is reached, the next step to compulsory e-ID is easy. The government simply erases the validity of paper IDs – and what will you do against it?

You are then at the point of no return, digitally enslaved with hardly an escape.

An ALARM, please vote NO on 28 September 2025 on the digital e-ID, make it a resounding NO, against digitization of everything.

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post Citizens of Switzerland Say No to the Electronic ID (e-ID) appeared first on LewRockwell.

Elon Musk has stated that he wants to make human beings a “multiplanetary species” by establishing a self-sustaining human colony on the planet Mars. While this is a sensible and laudable goal for the immediate future, in the long run there are much better places to establish human colonies in the Solar System. The best way to move humanity off Earth was outlined forty-nine years ago by visionary Gerard O’Neill in his book The High Frontier.

There are very significant challenges in constructing a human colony on Mars. The environment is harsh.  The average surface temperature on Mars is about minus 80 F, and the planet is subject to abrasive dust storms that can last for months.  The atmospheric pressure of Mar’s carbon dioxide atmosphere is only 1 percent that of Earth’s. Mars lacks a magnetic field, and human beings on the surface will be exposed to damaging levels of both cosmic and solar radiation. Mars’ gravity is 38 percent that of Earth, and people living under low gravity for long periods of time may experience health problems including bone density loss, muscle atrophy, and cardiovascular disease.  Perhaps most worrisome of all is the lack of a reliable and powerful energy source.  Potential solar power on Mars is only 40 percent that of Earth due to increased distance from the Sun and blockage by dust in the Martian atmosphere.  The importation of nuclear power from Earth is possible, but only at great expense and difficulty.

None of the preceding challenges are insurmountable, but there are much better places establish human colonies in space. As Gerard O’Neill explained, it’s entirely feasible to construct artificial cities in space near Earth-Moon LaGrange points L4 and L5. These locations are 585 times closer to Earth than Mars and there is sufficient space to house a human population that is of the order of 10 billion, comparable to Earth’s present population of 8.2 billion. Living conditions in these stations will resemble the Garden of Eden, unsurpassed in comfort and quality of life.

A significant advantage to O’Neill colonies is the availability of vast amounts of power from solar insolation. Solar power on Earth is limited by atmospheric blockage, the Earth’s rotation, and oblique impingement at most latitudes.  Altogether, the intensity of solar radiation in outer space is about 5 to 7 times higher than can be harvested on Earth. Furthermore, this number can be increased arbitrarily by focusing and reflecting sunlight onto photovoltaic panels with mirrors. Compared to the surface of Mars, the solar power potential will be at least ten to twenty times greater.

Human beings require 100 percent Earth-normal gravity for optimal health. This is easily provided on an O’Neill colony by rotation. O’Neill described rotating spheres or pairs of cylinders that can house 10,000 to as many as 10,000,000 people. While living quarters can be maintained at Earth-normal gravity, other areas of these space cities will experience much lower gravity which can be exploited for recreational activities such as human-powered flying.

No one wants to live in a sterile, artificial environment that is cramped, without trees, grass, sunlight, parks, gardens, or flowers. All of these amenities will be present in an O’Neill colony. Sunlight can be brought inside through mirrors and windows. Every personal residence will have a garden and perhaps an orchard.  There will be green spaces, parks, and bodies of water.  Both plants and animals can be introduced to form stable ecological communities. Butterflies, honey bees, and hummingbirds will be included, but obnoxious species such as ticks, mosquitos, and cockroaches will be strictly excluded.  Weather will be perfect, day after day, year after year. Both temperature and humidity will be set at optimum levels for human comfort. Natural hazards will be absent.  There will be no earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, floods, droughts, tornadoes, or wildfires. On Earth, it’s virtually impossible to stop an epidemic disease like Covid, influenza, or the Bubonic Plague from spreading through the entire human population. In space it will be a relatively simple matter to confine and limit a plague through quarantines. While it is true that space itself provides hazards in the form of radiation and meteorites, shields can be constructed to protect from these.

Given sufficient energy, information, and raw materials, anything permitted by the laws of nature is feasible. Nearly all of the materials needed to construct space cities can be found either on the Moon or in the Asteroid Belt. The Moon is rich in silicon, oxygen, iron, aluminum, titanium, and magnesium. Water can be found in permanently sheltered craters. Because the Moon’s gravity is relatively weak, raw materials can be efficiently and inexpensively lifted into space using a nuclear-powered catapult.  Volatile elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur are scarce on the Moon, but can be mined from asteroids. Moving materials from the Asteroid Belt to near-Earth orbit will be a challenge, but is facilitated by the fact that the transport will in effect be downhill, toward the Sun and lower potential energy. Rocket fuel itself can be obtained from carbonaceous asteroids by extracting and processing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Perhaps the greatest challenge will be locating and moving quantities of nitrogen, essential for agriculture and to generate Earth-like atmospheres.

Food production on an O’Neill-type space colony will be straightforward. Human beings have extensive experience growing plants under controlled conditions in greenhouses. In space, production of edible plants will be engineered for optimization of light, temperature, and humidity. There will be no need to use pesticides, because all harmful weeds, insects, viruses, and fungi will be excluded from the beginning. Greenhouse atmospheres can be supplemented with carbon dioxide to speed plant growth. Techniques such as vertical farming and hydroponics will be utilized. All plant nutrients, water, and human waste products will be recycled endlessly. What makes such ideal systems feasible is the availability of virtually unlimited electric power from solar energy. Animal husbandry in space will be more challenging. Aquaculture of fish is certainly possible. Chickens and turkeys need relatively little space, pigs a little more. Cows require significant space, about one acre per animal, but it’s possible to envisage specialized structures entirely devoted to meat and milk production. The maximum human living area on a large O’Neill colony is about 800 square kilometers (197,684 acres), so a specialized colony could support approximately 100,000 animals. Even if this rough estimate is too high by a factor of ten, production facilities with 10,000 animals could supply significant amounts of food.

The construction of human colonies in space will undoubtedly be the greatest engineering and construction project in human history. While this superficially appears to be a hopelessly difficult and complex task, it can be easily accomplished by breaking it down into small steps. This is a principle known to every computer programmer.  Large and complex programs are written as a series of short subroutines. Once the subroutines are tested, they can be assembled into a large program that runs flawlessly.  There is nothing new about incrementalism. A lever is a form of mechanical incrementalism, whereby small movements are used to move heavy weights. The Gothic Cathedrals of the High Middle Ages were constructed by repeating relatively simple patterns of ribbed vaults and pointed arches. Stone blocks were chiseled to standard sizes and dimensions using molds and templates.

Since O’Neill published The High Frontier in 1976, much of what was then speculation is now a straightforward extrapolation of existing and well-established trends. The development of reusable rockets, technological advances, commercialization, and economy of scale have caused the cost of moving material out of the Earth’s gravity well to drop by nearly two orders of magnitude, from about $50,000 (2020 $US) per kilogram to $100 to $1500.  There have been significant advances in machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics. AI will be able to write perhaps 80 to 90 percent of the computer code necessary. The abilities of humanoid robots are in a nascent, but rapidly evolving stage.  At the present time, robots can replace humans in perhaps 30 percent of tasks, but it is likely that this number will rise to 70 or 80 percent in a few decades.  In the last 50 years, the efficiency of photovoltaic cells that provide electric power has approximately doubled, from about 10-12 percent to 23-25 percent. Research panels have reached efficiencies in the range of 40-50 percent.

The rate at which space colonies are constructed will be slow at first. There will be a period of initial investment before construction activity can begin. The establishment, for example, of lunar and asteroid mining operations will require significant allocation of resources with little to no return for several years. There will be continuous increases in efficiency and productivity though trial-and-error, and the rate of construction will increase dramatically as time passes.

The prospect of living in an artificial structure in space no doubt incurs horror and revulsion in some people. But the move to space is only the culmination of a long-term trend that began hundreds of thousands of years ago when people first sought to shelter themselves by stretching animal hides over wooden poles. No one desires to live naked in the woods. And there is a great advantage to a large human population. Larger populations facilitate the specialization of labor that drives human progress. There will be more people who can innovate, maintain, and transmit knowledge and complex skills.

The movement of humanity into space will also increase human freedom and reduce conflict and war. Historically, the leading causes of war have been competition for resources, territorial disputes, and disagreements concerning religion, economics, and culture. Space offers abundant resources for everyone. Solar energy is unlimited, and the amount of raw material that is available in the Solar System is enormous. Incentives for theft and depredation will be removed. At some point, the technology will be sufficiently advanced that a structure capable of housing a million people can be constructed by simply pushing a button. People with different ideas, cultures, and religions will be able to live any way they choose. An Islamic space city, for example, could be governed by Sharia Law. A libertarian city would minimize regulations and the size of government. And communists can construct utopian communities with shared property and guaranteed income.

Most people will choose to live in space because the quality of life in space will be superior to that on Earth. Human population on Earth will be reduced to a caretaking staff, and the entire planet can be turned into a park and nature preserve. The Earth’s natural environment will be both preserved and restored. Toxic waste dumps and environmental damage will be cleaned up and repaired by robotic labor. Millions of bison will once again roam the Great Plains of North America, and wolves will repopulate the continent. People will visit Earth the same way they visit Yellowstone Park today.

The movement of humanity into space is not the end, but a beginning. It will be a prelude to interstellar travel and the slow spread of human colonies throughout the galaxy. The experience and knowledge gained in robotics and artificial intelligence will be used to send robotic probes to promising stars. Once it arrives, a probe will survey a chosen stellar system to see if that system has the raw materials and energy to sustain human life. If so, each autonomous probe by itself will begin reproducing and constructing the machines necessary to fabricate an entire world suitable for human habitation. This is the process nature itself uses when an oak tree grows from an acorn:  a small amount of initial energy combined with information is utilized to gather energy and materials from the environment to fabricate a structure of arbitrary size and complexity. The process of interstellar migration will be slow, due to the enormous distances involved, but it is conceivable, if not inevitable, that biological science will be capable of extending human lifespan. The future is just beginning.

The post Our Future in Space appeared first on LewRockwell.

I’m deep into writing my latest book. It will be even more controversial than the ten that came before it, if such a thing is possible. I am going after a true sacred cow. It will be fully sourced and documented, and the points will be irrefutable. Numbers don’t lie quite this often. I expect to be called lots of predictable names.

This picture shows the great Tom Brady with three of his New England Patriots’ White wide receivers. That was almost as many as the rest of the league had combined. This group won a couple of Super Bowls, and had the number one offense in football for several years. And yet no other team, in a supposedly “copycat” league, tried to mimic their formula of taking White skill position players from off the scrap heap, which no other teams wanted. Despite the Patriots’ great success, the other teams in the league continue to ignore White skill position players. No one has talked about this. If anyone else has noticed it, they’ve opted to forever hold their peace. Well, I’ve noticed it, and am talking about it regularly. I don’t care if anyone calls me “racist.” This is about fundamental fairness. And merit. We know that the best person rarely gets the plum job, but most of us still think that the best players play.

Sports has been both a passion and a pain in the ass to me, my whole life. I saw things as a player, and then as a youth sports coach, that really raised questions. Now this is hardly surprising, since it obviously takes very little for me to question something. I recall one basketball game, where I was coaching an 8 year old girls’ team. The other team had a huge kid, who just happened to be Black. I held my tongue, but doubted she could possibly be only 8. This girl ran roughshod around the court, knocking over my girly girls, and committed probably twenty fouls in the first quarter alone. She also took every shot for her team. Fortunately for us, she had zero skills and missed all of them. I attempted to point out how unfair it was to allow a bigger kid to foul with impunity, but the referee threatened me with a technical. She finally made a free throw, after clearly jumping at least a foot over the line. I protested, and he told me, “I’m not going to take her heart away.” What? He was, of course, a typical White cuck.

I bring that incident up to emphasize how widespread the favoritism towards Black athletes extends, in every sport, at all levels. White fans, White referees, and White parents, see a Black kid, and everything that Black kid does on the court or field is viewed through the prism of athletic superiority. I once saw a little Black kid, who literally couldn’t dribble, shoot, or pass, make a select basketball team simply because he had his hair in corn rows and was wearing an Allen Iversen jersey. Take that kind of prejudiced perception to a warp speed level, and you will begin to understand how all those same Whites view Blacks who are wearing an NFL or NBA uniform. The pandering and condescension we see toward common, everyday Blacks by cucked out Whites becomes unbearably nauseating when the Black is an athlete. If you haven’t seen it, watch the movie The Fan, starring otherwise hopelessly “Woke” Patton Oswalt, where a White fan is beaten severely by his Black hero, who he still loves.

The following quote should give you an idea of how the sports “journalism” community treats every Black athlete: “In profile, against the orange sun setting into the smog over the industrial badlands of northern New Jersey, Barber’s facial structure is so defined that you imagine you know what he will look like in a thousand years, long after the flesh has decomposed and he is only bone. His face is all sharp angles and perfect planes. His broad smile bares gleaming white, evenly arrayed teeth, an extra helping of perfection after the symmetry of his features.” This was not written about one of humanity’s greatest benefactors. Karl Taro Greenfeld (I know you’re shocked by the name) was referring here to former NFL running back Tiki Barber. Barber was a decent player, but no superstar. Of course, because he’s Black, he’ll almost certainly make the Hall of Fame. I will have a whole section of the book devoted to undeserving Black Hall of Famers in every sport.

Mac McClung won the NBA slam dunk contest the last three years. So, evidently this White man can not only jump, but jump better than any other professional basketball player. And yet, amazingly he is not actually really in the NBA. No team can seem to find a way to feature such a phenom, such a feel good story. Now, I wonder why that is? Remember how popular tiny Mugsy Bogues was? McClung isn’t small, despite cucky old White sports talking head Skippy Bayless calling him a “little White Boy.” Bogues was only 5 foot 3 inches tall. And had a fourteen year NBA career. You can watch the NBA for the next century, and you’ll never see a 5 foot 3 White player with a 14 second career, let alone 14 years. But Bogues was Black. And so he was cute, humble and lovable. All the adoring Whites wanted to pat his head. But McClung is literally ignored other than when he keeps winning the slam dunk contests. And the league doesn’t appear to even want him.

Most Whites accept the shocking number of Blacks in football and basketball especially, because they instinctively believe they are better athletes. I’m sure they laughed uproariously at the film White Men Can’t Jump. But my research shows that it isn’t just Mac McClung who most decidedly can jump. And run. These unheralded and mistreated Whites often jump higher and run faster than their Black counterparts. Beyond the athletic numbers, Whites often dominate on the field, when they are given a fair chance. The problem is that the vast majority of them are not given a fair chance. Such a small minority group can’t innocently have such disproportionate representation in these celebrated and well paid professional sports. It’s just as unnatural and mathematically impossible as it is for an ethnic/ religious group that is just two percent of the population to run every movie studio, television network, and record company. And, significantly, the sports “journalism” community.

The numbers even shocked me. The NFL came up with something called a Relative Athletic Score (RAS), which measures a variety of skills, like the 40 yard dash, high jump, cone shuttles, bench press, etc. You don’t hear much about it now because too many of the overpromoted Black prospects produced low RAS scores, and too many of the unrecognized White prospects produced high RAS scores. Every search engine tries to hide these facts, as surely as if you were searching for information about the Epstein List or Bohemian Grove. Black 40 times and RAS scores are only available when they are good. And they also “tweak” the scores of White prospects, always to make them worse. For instance, star college running back Cam Skattebo’s decent 4.56 40 time became 4.65 and then 4.7. Black players, conversely, often see their numbers “tweaked” in a positive direction. It’s all very, very obvious.

I won’t go too much into the statistical minutiae here, in order not to lose the interest of those who ignore sports. Which I really should be doing. At any rate, you’ve all heard of Tim Tebow. I will make a very strong case in the book that he was the most unfairly treated athlete in the history of the world. The fact that he was of good character, openly Christian, and stood out like a clove of garlic in the den of NFL vampires, certainly didn’t help him. But it was his great athleticism, his unstoppable running ability, his chiseled frame, that did him in. The NFL decided a long time ago that few if any Whites should be allowed to run the ball. It might not look kosher (pun intended) if a “White Boy” was shown either bowling over the magnificent Black defenders, or outracing them down the field. I will provide plenty of examples of great White players who were drummed out of the league for just this reason.

When I was a kid, there were lots of White sports stars. Now there are virtually none. There are still Whites producing at a high level, but they are largely underpublicized by the same state controlled media that lies about everything. Have any of you heard of Cal Raleigh? He just became the first catcher in Major League Baseball history to hit 50 home runs in a season, and joined Mickey Mantle as only the second switch hitter to ever do it. So ESPN must be going crazy over him, right? The Karl Greenfelds of the world must be devising new homoerotic ways to describe his shocking manliness. Guess again. He is not now, and never will be a household name. He’s White. He’s irrelevant. Every backup Black point guard and cornerback will garner more news coverage for their latest escapade with the law, from which they always emerge unpunished. It’s a White privilege thing, you wouldn’t understand.

The two best players in the NBA right now are arguably White guys. Nikola Jokic has won three of the last four NBA Most Valuable Player awards, and was cheated out of the other. Luka Doncic is right there with him, and just as undeniably White. But I don’t hear the awed reverence in the tones of the odious Stephen A. Smiths of the world, or the perverted lust in the words of the Greenfelds writing about them. White players are only discussed on any sports talk show in order to ridicule them. Tom Brady will probably be the last true White superstar, and even he was largely hated by both the sports “journalists” and what I call the Drunk White Fans. Sure, he may look like a movie star, but can he inspire the Greenfelds of the world to wax rhapsodic about what his face would look like in a thousand years? Of course, he won a record 7 Super Bowls, but he doesn’t wear pimp outfits or do “creative” end zone dances.

Conservatives are no help on this issue. They firmly believe that sports is a meritocracy. Virtually no other sector in our crumbling society uses merit as a basis for hiring and promoting. Conservatives fully understand that the fraud of DEI taints all other areas of life, but remain committed to a belief that sports is somehow sacrosanct. So the highest percentage of Blacks, succeeding beyond what 99% of Whites and other races are able to, achieve because they are just that good. Better than what White quarterback Eli Manning smilingly called “slow ass White Boys.” Since Affirmative Action was created primarily to give Blacks an advantage in the workplace, why would the industry where you find the largest percentage of wealthy and celebrated Blacks somehow not be considered a giant DEI project? Especially now since some Thought Criminal like me has taken the time to thoroughly prove statistically just how overtly Blacks have been favored in sports.

Drunk White Fans have such man crushes on their Black sports heroes that the number of violent crimes they are accused of is meaningless. Like Patton Oswalt’s character in The Fan, there is never a moral component to their idolatry. Oswalt’s character was severely injured himself by his Black idol, and yet his primary concern was that the player not be suspended. He didn’t have to worry about him being prosecuted, because Black athletes are almost never prosecuted. And when they are, a jury that probably includes both Drunk White Fans and Blacks who are in racial solidarity with them, invariably find them not guilty. Think of Kobe Bryant’s rape case, where for the first time in history, the rape victim’s name was reported by the media. Not a peep from the feminists about this. Bryant was Black. They would have objected if the accused player was just some “slow ass White Boy.” Below is Cam Newton, former NFL player whose ridiculous outfits Whites routinely drool over.

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“We are headed into darker times. War could return to Iran at any moment.” – Max Blumenthal, founder of The Grayzone news site

“We are in extremely dangerous times. You need to know the truth but you act on it at your own peril.” – Judge Andrew Napolitano, host of the podcast “Judging Freedom”

Both of these dire predictions were made at an event called Icarus Fest sponsored by The Grayzone and featuring its courageous journalists. Nonetheless, there was hope in the 150 or so dissident voices united to support peace and end US funding for the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Attendees traveled to the Williams Center Rutherford, New Jersey from all over the US including Seattle for a day of discussion and Q&A. The audience was also united in its admiration for the brave correspondents who spoke. Later that evening comedian, broadcaster, podcaster and fellow dissident voice for peace Jimmy Dore performed. His stand-up act proved by speaking truth to power and fiercely defending the First Amendment, he is carrying on the legacy of the late, great George Carlin.

With Judge Napolitano’s presence, The Grayzone event was an opportunity for the populist progressive/socialist “left” and populist libertarian/constitutionist “right” to bypass divide and rule strategy of the oligarchs to unite for peace and diplomacy in opposition to Zionist, British and global elitist control over US foreign policy. These destructive forces are waging wars attempting to prop up the failing empire and the biased, controlled media manufacturing consent with its pro-war propaganda. A week earlier, Judge Napolitano moderated a panel featuring Blumenthal and his wife, journalist Anya Parampil, at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity “Blueprint for Peace” conference held near, as Blumenthal calls it, “the corridor of death” lined with the paid conspirators of the military industrial complex.

Event topics were Ukraine, NATO and the War for Eurasia; Greater Israel: Where Does It End?; and American Empire in the Age of Trump. Thaddeus Russell moderated the panel on Ukraine comprised of Wyatt Reed and Kit Klarenberg. Grayzone journalists have been enduring “horrendous” circumstances attempting to cover the war in Donbas. Dissent is treated as treason, and accordingly, these reporters have been de-banked, arrested, censored, and accused of being terrorists or agents for Iran, Russia, and/or China. Americans are mostly ignorant about the war run by elites for the empire, Russell stated, and US foreign policy has been ruled by an irrational fear of Russia dating back for centuries. Interestingly, he pointed out Russia supported the American Revolution. The concept of total world dominance is a British idea and Russia is standing in the way of complete conquest by these globalists. It is not for us to decide how Russia handles the LBGTQ+ issue, one speaker noted.

Greater Israel panel moderator Sabby Sabs said the hatred of Palestinians is embedded in the culture in Israel. Israeli policy is putting Jews at risk with its celebration of genocide, Katie Halper said, and called those denying the murder of Palestinian children “morally bankrupt, foul ghouls. “ Being anti-Zionist is a key to her identity as a Jew, she noted, but anti-Zionist Jews are dismissed as self-hating. Journalists attempting to report the atrocities in Gaza have been killed. Blumenthal astutely noted Zionism is a messianic secular movement enforced by people who don’t believe in God yet they believe God gave them the land. No change in US policy is possible until AIPAC registers as an agent for a foreign government. Jeffrey Loffredo related details about his arrest and interrogation by Israel, how he was given emasculating pink sandals to wear and consigned to solitary confinement, and how he endured his regular requirement to subject himself to interrogation by the Israeli military.

During the panel on empire, Judge Napolitano, who described himself as an “antiwar and anti-empire fanatic” asked why no viable antiwar movement exists in America. There is currently no draft, responded Christian Parenti. Conscription, along with the evening network news’ exposure of the atrocities as well as the bodies of US soldiers in flag-draped coffins, ended public support for the Vietnam War. Aaron Mate blamed former President Obama who told protesters to go home; the DNC which concocted the Russiagate fable after the 2016 presidential election, and Hillary Clinton who refused to criticize the neoliberals. “A sub-culture of total intolerance spirals down to irrelevant issues,” he noted, while critical issues like war are submerged. Anya Parampil, citing the Founding Fathers’ non-interventionist perspective, explained why and how Trump is attempting to topple the government in Venezuela. Parenti talked about the unreality of those trying to keep the empire going and the repression of free speech at US universities. Napolitano denounced the arrests of law firm attorneys and the existence of 850 overseas US military bases.

Jimmy Dore passionately ranted in support of free speech and against censorship violating the First Amendment with laws to persecute and censor critics of US foreign policy or Israel. He appeals to his audience to understand they are being manipulated to fight each other when they should unite against the oligarchs to oppose the wars. “We live in an age of spectatorship, not spiritualism,” he said, describing himself as a “lazy Catholic” who has had personal experiences that have given him a knowing he will spiritually live forever.

Grayzone event videos are here.

Related links:

https://thegrayzone.com

https://judgenap.com

https://jimmydore.com

The post Grayzone Event for Peace appeared first on LewRockwell.

My wife, Ellen, and I have danced in many places: in Newark’s Rutgers’ Student Center and law school basement parties and the chic, but short-lived, Club America; also at New York City’s early-80s Danceteria, mid-80s Lincoln Center outdoor Summer Swing and the Nightingale dive bar on the Lower East Side. On our honeymoon, we got down—literally—in a very dark, subterranean Costa Rican concept disco called El Tunel Del Tiempo (The Time Tunnel). Two years later, we danced under moonlight and palm trees alongside a Vieques, Puerto Rico oceanfront patio/bar. We also carried on at the painfully-loud Rodeo Bar New Year’s Eve 1990 party with Ellen carrying a bellyful of a baby who became a rock drummer.

Decades later, kids raised, we Salsa-ed to an almost deafening ten-person band with a horn section in a packed, small Medellin club called Son Havana. Perhaps most memorably, we bopped until we almost dropped in some unfancy, yet exotic places in Nicaragua. On our first trip there, we did so in a big, circular, open-air, but crowded, corrugated zinc-roofed pavilion surrounded by a 20-foot-high chain-link fence in an urban shanty town at Masaya’s edge. In the mountain city of Matagalpa during a subsequent visit, the club had a dance floor aside a ceiba tree left in place and allowed to grow through a gap cut into another metal roof. It rained through that gap the night we were there, so we danced some of the time in an indoor/outdoor downpour.

We’ve often stuck out like sore thumbs, for decades by complexion and more recently, by age as well. We have some great memories from these nights: clapping or howling along with people in crowded, loud, dark places often to jumpy, unfamiliar tunes in Spanish with some incongruous stuff like a Donna Summer medley thrown in, as other partiers in these crowded, dark venues surrounded us and signaled us to bust moves inside their human circle. These experiences aren’t stories with a quirky plot or a funny ending. Rather, in addition to the affection shared between Ellen and I, there was, with the larger group, shared motion, exuberance, mutual affinity and some amusing visuals and comments.

Are we great dancers? Not really, though one night in a large, waterfront Gloucester, Mass bar with a funky jazz band, of my friends labeled me “the best, straight, white, male dancer” he had seen. In life, one’s happiness often depends on who one is compared, or compares oneself, to. Despite all of TV’s trivia, singing and dancing contests, not every human activity needs to be a competition. When one goes all-in, what was once fun can turn into work.

Ellen and I have a basic sense of rhythm, coordination, and a core, cross-genre repertoire and we’re comfortable moving to music. Ellen’s a better dance follower than I’m a leader. As in life, she knows what I’m trying to communicate. As some—mostly women—say, women have to do everything men do, only backward and in heels. Though I can skate backward in circles in ice hockey skates and hardly any women can. So take that!

I feel the same way about dance as my brother’s artist friend, whom I mentioned last week, felt about the vaxxes: it’s something I’m supposed to do. Not as, with the vaxx, a concession to social pressure or some misplaced sense of duty, but instead, to celebrate my love for Ellen, community with unknown others and gratefulness for having vital and flexible bodies with unspecified, yet inevitable expiration dates.

—

This past Friday evening, Ellen and I went to a county/arts group-sponsored outdoor “Salsa by the Bay” in Perth Amboy, New Jersey’s hillside Bayview Park. Perth Amboy is a densely populated, de-industrialized city of 55,000. Most of its old houses have small, if any, yards. A belt of highways and former factories—now warehouses—set its western and northern edges. Raritan Bay makes up the city’s eastern and southern boundaries. Perth Amboy’s location isolates it from the many other cheek-to-jowl cities and towns in the New York Metropolitan Area. It’s alone in a crowd.

Friday had the best weather of any day/night this summer. Before the eight-person band began to play, we sat on a park bench on a small hill, basked in a light breeze and gazed out at the wide bay and the sailboats in the marina in the foreground below as the sun dropped beyond the hill horizon behind us. Once you get a few miles from the Turnpike, New Jersey isn’t as ugly as they say.

The band played from nearly sunset until after dark. We danced nearly the whole hour-and-a-half. We were rusty and didn’t remember the full array of moves we had developed while, during peak Scamdemic, we did Saturday Night Salsa in our living room.

While those nights were pleasing, it’s much better to be among a crowd of people who are actively on the floor. The women dress up and make-up to varying degrees. Some of them arrive in groups and happily dance with each other until men approach them and ask them to. Men don’t dance with each other. At least in the places we go to.

Being in a public dance setting clearly displays the pleasing and sometimes amusing physical and social differences between men and women. Life is more real and enjoyable when we don’t pretend that women and men are the same.

On Friday night, about 200 people, 80% Latin, 10% Black and 10% White, stepped the Salsa in close proximity on the impromptu floor of stone pavers about 100 feet in front of, and 30 feet in elevation above, the gazebo/bandstand, which had the bay behind it. Though no one was drinking, everyone was smiling. There were even a few kids under five bouncing to the music at their parents’ knees. No one wore a mask.

I hadn’t been in a public dance setting since before the Scamdemic began. Seeing so much motion and joy was beautiful. It sucked that such gatherings were forbidden during a contrived crisis.

—

At any decent party, as on Friday, many people pair off in close proximity to other couples. On that evening, I thought briefly, and with derisive detachment, of all of the microbes being exchanged as dancers held hands, wrapped their arms around and breathed on each other and those nearby. No one seemed to be thinking about germs. Microbes have always been here. Before 2020, clubgoers never hid from these. They didn’t even consider them.

It’s not clear when or why the public largely, though belatedly, abandoned its Covophobia. It’s not as if The Virus—whatever it was or wasn’t—has disappeared. Some people are still said to be dying from it. I learned the day before Salsa Night that one of my relatives, vaxxed to the max, has just “gotten Covid” for at least the third time. In 2021, this same person stormed out of a room I had entered without a mask. She didn’t return until after I went home an hour later. Warning to re-entrants: I might’ve recklessly left some germs behind. Though somehow, I never got sick.

Any remotely healthy person could have safely danced at close range and/or with strangers any time during the Scamdemic. Dancing is a fun, low-cost Covid survival test. If you could move your body on two feet for ten minutes, The Virus couldn’t kill you. If you could dance even a little, you were far better protected from SARS-CoV-2 than was the most isolated, masked, vaxxed and boosted person who couldn’t. This had, by mid-March, 2020, already been proven by research. Why didn’t officials “Follow The Science?”

Since 2020, some people have aged out of salsa-bility, as Ellen and I soon might. During the past five years, as they were told to hide from others and wait for The Virus to be “crushed,” and their joints or organs worsened from age or inactivity, many aging but still-breathing individuals missed their last chances to do various enjoyable, physical and mental health-building activities like this. No one at any age should have forgone fun because the government and media effected a politically and economically-driven Scam. Life is short: ain’t nobody got time to waste.

—

I’m not sure about this but I suspect that some of the males and females at Friday’s Salsa by the Bay either danced with people they knew, or with strangers, and went home and put their bodies even more closely together than they did while the band had blared and its members repeatedly and characteristically sang “Bai-le! Bai-le!”

Such unions often occur in the post-dance darkness. I speak from some experience here. When they do, even more microbes are exchanged. Oh, the humanity!

On this germy theme, some officials who demanded that everyone quarantine themselves were caught having extramarital affairs during the lockdowns. New York City’s “Covid Czar” admitted that he participated in orgies. To civilians who didn’t already know that officials were playing them, such arrogant conduct should have underscored how phony the Covid response was.

If disease statistics are ever again to be believed, STD rates dipped for a few months in March-June 2020. Some attributed this to decreased testing. Regardless, thereafter, these rates continued their years of increase, especially among gay males. STD rates among that demographic far outnumber those among the general populace.

Public health officials selectively tolerate health risk, based on political correctness. If public health officials really want to crush infectious diseases, why don’t they police-tape the doors on gay bars?

They might say that doing so wouldn’t stop such interaction; sex seekers, gay or straight, will just default to hook-up websites. Though just as Covid dissidents’ messages were censored as “misinformation,” public health officials could block internet hook-up sites “to advance the public interest.” Why don’t they apply, to STDs, the core Covid Era principle that any intervention is “worth it, if it just saves one life?”

For that matter, how did a government that not only endorses but profits from sales of alcohol, tobacco and now, marijuana, justify locking down, masking, testing and injecting an entire society when only the old and baseline unhealthy were at any— and microscopic—risk?

Those who still think the Covid interventions were driven by the public health concerns of earnest experts should wake up and realize that they fell for a massive lie.

Read the Whole Article

The post Dance Floors and Coronamania appeared first on LewRockwell.

I continue to believe that it is more important to watch what Donald Trump does rather than focus on what he says. However, his remarks during the meeting of his cabinet earlier this week regarding negotiations to end the war in Ukraine are alarming and merit attention. When asked about Sergei Lavrov’s comment that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not legitimate, Donald Trump dismissed the statement, saying:

It doesn’t matter what they say. Everybody’s posturing. It’s all bullshit, okay. Everybody’s posturing.

He characterized Lavrov’s remarks—and the broader Kremlin rhetoric on Zelensky’s legitimacy—as meaningless showmanship, emphasizing that such claims should not obstruct peace efforts. Trump did not directly defend Zelensky, but instead focused on downplaying the significance of Russia’s statements and suggested that “everyone is just putting on a show” in ongoing negotiations.

I believe that Trump genuinely believes this, and he is dangerously mistaken. President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov are not posturing when they try to explain to clueless westerners that they do not believe that Zelensky is the legitimate President of Ukraine. While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not explicitly “cancel” the presidential election, as Ukrainian law prohibits holding elections during martial law, which has been in effect since Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, the reality from the Russian perspective is that a negotiated agreement with Zelensky could easily be overturned or rejected once Ukraine holds the required election.

The scheduled presidential election, expected in March or April 2024, was automatically postponed due to this legal restriction under Article 19 of Ukraine’s “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law,” which bans presidential, parliamentary, and local elections during martial law. Martial law has been extended in 90-day intervals by the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament), with the latest extension as of July 2025 lasting until November 5, 2025.

Based on Zelensky’s multiple public remarks since his last meeting with Trump at the White House, it is clear that he is completely disinterested in reaching a peace agreement with Russia.

Stephen Bryen has just published a new piece on his Substack, and it provides an explanation for Zelensky’s recalcitrance… NATO is going to attack Russia. Steve writes:

While Putin has flown off to meet with his two buddies, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un, in China on an unprecedented four day jaunt, NATO, with full US backing, is stepping up its effort to hand the Russian army a major defeat and, following that, introducing NATO troops to “stabilize” Ukraine.

What is the evidence? First and very noticeable is the US decision to ship 3,350 missiles to Ukraine, ostensibly to be paid for (someday?) by the Europeans (which ones is not defined). These are known as Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAM), a type of air launched cruise missile missile. The Aviationist reports that “Ukrainian Air Force’s F-16s, Mirage 2000s and its fleet of Russian-origin MiG-29s, Su-25s and Su-27s would be able to operate it. This new weapon would be an addition to the AASM Hammer and GBU-39 SDB already employed by Ukrainian fighters.”

According to open source intelligence, ERAMs have a range of 250 miles. However, that is the range once launched by an aircraft. Washington says it opposes Ukrainian missile attacks on Russian territory, and while it is restricting the use of long range HIMARS, it is not restricting the use of ERAM. Reportedly ERAM carried a 500 lb. warhead, far larger than any Ukrainian UAV and more than double any of the different HIMARS missiles (M31 Utility Warhead, ATACMS warhead). It may be that ERAMs can be fielded with cluster munitions, although much about the ERAM is uncertain.

Ignore what Trump says, watch what he does. Deploying ERAMs is not a gesture of peace or de-escalation. While it is possible that this action was taken without Trump’s knowledge, now that the information is public he has not countermanded the order.

Steve goes on in his article (I encourage you to read it in its entirety) to highlight the faulty assumptions that NATO planners and leaders are making:

NATO has understood Russia’s use of North Korean troops as an admission that Russia faces manpower shortages and instability in the Russian army, and that Russia is taking heavy casualties in the Ukraine war. NATO may be reading Putin’s statements that he has no intention of attacking Europe now or in future as an admission that he cannot attack Europe with an army that is too small and one that has been broken by the Ukraine war. Part of the pushback can be found in the Saratoga Foundation report, “A Systems View of Russia’s Early Failure in Ukraine.”

Now Russian sources are reporting two developments that indicate that a new offensive will soon materialize, heavily supported by NATO, and aimed at Crimea.

Those sources say that the US and its NATO partners have significantly increased overhead intelligence gathering preparing for the coming attack.

Once again we have Western leaders — both military and political — wrongly interpreting Russia’s execution of a special military operation as a sign of weakness. The belief that Russia is suffering “manpower shortages and instability” is beyond ridiculous. During the course of the last 42 months, Russia has doubled the size of its army and is now conducting multiple offensive operations in Zaporhyzhia, Dniepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Sumy. Even if we accept as true the false Western claims about Russia suffering massive casualties, the fact remains that even with such losse Russia has 1.3 million men in uniform and carrying arms. Instead of being “broken,” the Russian army has enhanced its capabilities and developed new techniques, especially with the use of drones, that far exceed anything NATO is capable of doing.

Besides conducting the ground war, Russia continues to enjoy a lopsided advantage in the use of missiles and drones. It has carried out massive strikes on missile production facilities and other key logistic nodes in the past week, and shows no sign of weakness on that front.

A NATO-backed attack on Crimea will put increased pressure on President Putin to shift from the Special Military Operation to full war footing. NATO’s inability to supply Ukraine with something as simple as artillery shells is just one indicator of NATO’s impotence if it decides to up the ante with Russia.

This article was originally published on Sonar21.

The post Donald Trump Still Does Not Understand the Russia’s Position Regarding Ukraine appeared first on LewRockwell.