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

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(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/lo-stato-puo-vietare-bitcoin-quattro)

Di recente abbiamo sentito banchieri e politici esprimere il loro desiderio di vietare Bitcoin.

L'idea che un qualsiasi stato possa vietare Bitcoin è popolare per una buona ragione: minaccia una fonte significativa del suo potere, ovvero quello di creare denaro dal nulla e costringere tutti a usarlo.

Questo perché Bitcoin può dare sovranità monetaria all'individuo e rendere obsolete le banche centrali, insieme ai loro coriandoli.

Non è un risultato da poco.

È uno sviluppo storico che altera profondamente lo status quo tra governanti e governati. È simile all'invenzione della polvere da sparo, della macchina da stampa e di Internet.

Non c'è dubbio che lo stato vorrebbe proteggere il proprio racket da un concorrente monetario invadente nello stesso modo in cui fa la mafia quando un rivale invade il proprio territorio.

La domanda è se ci riuscirà...

Friedrich Hayek, il grande economista Austriaco, una volta disse: “Non credo che avremo mai più una buona moneta prima di togliere la cosa dalle mani dello stato, cioè, non possiamo toglierla violentemente dalle sue mani, tutto ciò che possiamo fare è introdurre qualcosa con qualche subdolo stratagemma che non possa fermare”.

Hayek aveva ragione.

Per sua stessa natura lo stato non rinuncia mai pacificamente al potere. E se toglierglielo con la forza è fuori questione, allora l'unico modo per farlo è attraverso “qualche subdolo stratagemma per introdurre qualcosa che non possa fermare”.

Bitcoin è la soluzione?

Molte persone pensano che la risposta sia “no” perché lo stato ha la facoltà di spegnerlo.

Qualcuno può spegnere Bitcoin?

Bitcoin non ha un'autorità centrale e nessun singolo punto di errore.

Invece funziona su una rete mondiale decentralizzata, volontaria e in crescita di oltre 17.300 computer in quasi 100 Paesi.

Qualsiasi computer desktop, laptop, Raspberry Pi e persino alcuni cellulari hanno il potenziale per eseguire il software Bitcoin. Inoltre, con l'avanzare della tecnologia, l'esecuzione di Bitcoin diventerà ancora più diffusa.

Molti di questi computer sono abilmente nascosti con Tor, che sta per “The Onion Router”. Esso cripta il vostro traffico Internet e poi lo nasconde rimbalzando attraverso una serie di computer in tutto il mondo per offuscare il vostro indirizzo IP e la vostra posizione fisica.

In ogni caso, con Bitcoin, non c'è una posizione centrale in cui una squadra SWAT possa fare irruzione. Non c'è un amministratore delegato da arrestare. Il meglio che gli stati possano fare è giocare a un gioco infinito di “colpisci la talpa” mondiale.

Anche se gli Stati Uniti e la Russia si impegnassero in una guerra nucleare totale, distruggendo gran parte dell'emisfero settentrionale, Bitcoin non perderebbe un colpo nell'emisfero meridionale.

Per avere anche solo una possibilità di fermare Bitcoin, ogni stato del mondo dovrebbe coordinarsi simultaneamente per chiudere tutto Internet ovunque e poi tenerlo spento per sempre.

Anche in questo scenario improbabile, la rete Bitcoin può essere tenuta in piedi tramite segnali radio e reti mesh. Allo stesso tempo, piccoli pannelli solari portatili possono alimentare i computer che gestiscono la rete se la rete normale non è disponibile.

Inoltre una rete di satelliti trasmette costantemente la rete Bitcoin sulla Terra.

In breve, tutti gli aspetti di Bitcoin sono genuinamente decentralizzati e robusti.

Salvo un inevitabile ritorno globale all'età della pietra, Bitcoin è inarrestabile.

Il genio è fuori dalla lampada. Bitcoin è più grande di qualsiasi stato.

Se non possono spegnerlo, allora lo proibiranno?

Molti Paesi hanno già provato a vietare Bitcoin: Algeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ecuador, Egitto, India, Iran, Kirghizistan, Marocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Arabia Saudita, Thailandia, Turchia e molti altri. Tuttavia hanno tutti fallito miseramente, poiché l'adozione in questi Paesi ha continuato a crescere.

Anche il governo cinese ha vietato Bitcoin numerose volte, con pochi o nessun effetto a lungo termine. Bitcoin non solo è sopravvissuto a un attacco da parte di una superpotenza globale, ma è emerso più forte e più resiliente che mai.

Nonostante tutto questo, un qualsiasi stato potrebbe ancora provare a mettere fuori legge Bitcoin?

È certamente possibile che un presidente possa emettere un ordine esecutivo che metta al bando Bitcoin. Ricordate, l'ordine esecutivo 6102 mise al bando il possesso di oro per i cittadini americani dal 1933 fino alla sua abrogazione nel 1974.

Tuttavia, tale risultato è improbabile per quattro motivi.

Motivo n°1: il codice informatico è comunicazione protetta

Bitcoin è codice informatico open source disponibile per chiunque.

Nel caso giudiziario, Bernstein contro il Dipartimento di Stato degli Stati Uniti, le corti federali degli Stati Uniti hanno stabilito che il codice informatico è equivalente alla libertà di parola ed è protetta dal 1° emendamento della Costituzione degli Stati Uniti.

D'altra parte la Costituzione non è un protettore affidabile dei diritti, come hanno dimostrato l'isteria del Covid, la guerra al terrorismo e la guerra alla droga. Quindi non farei affidamento esclusivamente su di essa per proteggere Bitcoin.

Tuttavia i precedenti che hanno stabilito che il codice informatico equivale alla libertà di parola complicano qualsiasi tentativo di vietarlo.

Motivo n°2: la chiarezza normativa esiste già

Date le sue dichiarazioni, è chiaro che la Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) considera quasi tutte le criptovalute come titoli non registrati, rendendole vulnerabili ad azioni esecutive.

Ciò ha portato molti a credere erroneamente che la SEC si scaglierà contro Bitcoin.

La realtà è che Bitcoin è l'unica criptovaluta che NON è inequivocabilmente un titolo.

Il governo degli Stati Uniti è stato chiaro nel considerare Bitcoin una merce, una designazione molto più favorevole, sotto la competenza della Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) e del Commodity Exchange Act.

Bitcoin è una merce perché non c'è nessuno che lo emette.

Allo stesso modo oro, argento, rame, grano, mais e altre materie prime hanno produttori ma non hanno chi li emette.

Ogni altra criptovaluta diversa da Bitcoin ha qualcuno che la crea. Hanno anche fondatori identificabili, fondazioni centrali, team di marketing e addetti ai lavori che possono esercitare un controllo indebito.

Bitcoin non ha nessuna di queste cose, proprio come il rame o il nichel non hanno un reparto marketing o un fondatore.

La SEC non potrebbe perseguire Bitcoin anche se volesse, perché non c'è nessuno a cui indirizzarsi. Non c'è una sede centrale di Bitcoin, non ha un amministratore delegato, un reparto marketing e nessun dipendente.

Ma presumendo che la SEC possa perseguire Bitcoin, non lo farà perché anche loro ammettono che non è un titolo e quindi non rientra nella loro competenza.

Ecco la conclusione: l'IRS, la SEC, la CFTC e altre agenzie federali hanno già fornito a Bitcoin chiari quadri normativi e fiscali.

Ciò ha aiutato molte aziende statunitensi, tra cui grandi istituzioni finanziarie, a entrare in Bitcoin. Invertire queste linee guida, che sono state stabilite per molti anni, e vietare Bitcoin genererebbe una forte resistenza oltre a essere ormai diventata una sfida ardua.

Motivo n°3: vietare Bitcoin è poco pratico

I divieti a livello statale possono limitare qualcosa approvando una legge, ma non possono far sparire qualcosa di prezioso e desiderato da molte persone.

Pensate ai governi di Venezuela e numerosi altri del Sud America con leggi che limitano l'accesso dei cittadini ai dollari statunitensi.

Queste leggi hanno scarso effetto sul desiderio e sulla capacità dei cittadini di utilizzarli; creano invece un fiorente mercato nero o, più precisamente, un libero mercato.

Allo stesso modo, pensate a quanto successo hanno avuto gli stati nel proibire la cannabis nel corso dei decenni. Nonostante i loro sforzi è sempre stata disponibile nella maggior parte delle grandi città.

Cercare di imporre un divieto su qualcosa di digitale e senza confini come Bitcoin è assolutamente poco pratico. Sarebbe molto più difficile per gli stati vietare Bitcoin piuttosto che i dollari statunitensi o una pianta.

Inoltre molti wallet Bitcoin utilizzano una frase di 12 parole come un modo per recuperare i vostri fondi. Se riuscite a memorizzarle, potete immagazzinare miliardi di dollari di valore equivalenti nella vostra testa e basta.

Provate a vietarlo... è come cercare di vietare la matematica.

Anche se fosse pratico farlo, è già troppo tardi.

C'è una massa critica di sostenitori di Bitcoin tra grandi aziende, politici e persone normali.

Pensate a tutti gli avvocati, lobbisti e contatti politici che verrebbero sguinzagliati. È un sacco di potenza di fuoco politica e i loro numeri non fanno che crescere.

Secondo un sondaggio di NYDIG, 46 milioni di americani possiedono Bitcoin. Ciò equivale a circa il 22% di tutti gli adulti negli Stati Uniti.

Sostenere un divieto di Bitcoin significa andare contro di essi, molti dei quali sono ricchi, potenti e ben collegati.

In breve, mettere fuori legge Bitcoin non aiuterà nessuno a vincere le elezioni.

Bitcoin ha già raggiunto la velocità di fuga. In altre parole, è troppo popolare dal punto di vista politico per essere messo fuori legge e ogni giorno diventa più forte man mano che ne aumenta l'adozione.

Motivo n°4: vietare Bitcoin avvantaggerà i propri rivali

Se un qualsiasi stato fosse tanto sciocco da vietare Bitcoin nonostante tutto questo, darebbe a Russia, Cina e altri rivali un'opportunità d'oro per essere in prima linea in una nuova industria redditizia e nel futuro del denaro.

Vietare Bitcoin sarebbe un errore finanziario e geopolitico di primissimo ordine.

Conclusione

Quando si mettono insieme tutti questi elementi, si ottiene una forma di denaro superiore e inarrestabile che sta conquistando il mondo.

Non è difficile vedere dove andrà a parare questa tendenza. È una rivoluzione monetaria.

Ciononostante molte persone credono ancora che un qualsiasi stato possa spegnere Bitcoin o proibirlo in altro modo.

Questo divario di percezione è una benedizione che ci consente di capitalizzare questa asimmetria informativa con investimenti che la sfruttano.

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

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“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Trump said in a telephone interview. “It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”

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President Trump is determining equivalent reciprocal tariffs, considering remedies, and estimating fiscal impacts on the national government and information-collection costs to the public.

Fast, extensive change, even change that’s initially for the worse, works out best for freedom. Even so, tariff increases have done serious harm and have persisted for decades.

It’s worth discussing constitutionality, harms, dynamics, and options.

Constitutionality

Tariffs unconstitutionally deprive each person of a different proportion of his liberty, as do all revenue sources other than fully flat taxes on labor income.

Setting tariffs is archetypal legislative power. Tariffs raise revenue, so they must originate in the current house of representatives.

Tariff agreements, though, are treaties. Treaties are law, and remote collaboration is practical now. All treaties should be drafted by the current senate and the other nations’ authorities, passed if they’d be helpful, and signed by the current president if they’re advisable and enforceable.

Harms When Unfree

People build up skills as they work together. People can live in their homes but provide their skilled work to people elsewhere by selling products to others, through trade.

When the scarcest resource, people’s time, is put to more-valued uses by people by performing more-skilled work that they can sell to customers, both the producers and the customers benefit.

Tariffs get in the way.

Tariffs make marginal producers unprofitable, so tariffs reduce supplies, which increases prices. Increased prices must get paid, by producers who buy intermediate products and by customers.

Government people take a bigger cut, making us less free.

Investment returns get unknowable, so producers forgo investment. America’s Great Depression was prolonged by similar regime uncertainty.

Domestic producers grow increasingly uncompetitive and end up losing business and cutting jobs.

Harms When Unbalanced

People who export more than they import need to invest their accumulating foreign money. These people—including China’s government people—invest in their customers’ assets.

Customers can become more productive and earn more. Investors earn returns.

But these investments are driven by excesses of foreign money more than by opportunities, and excess money bids up prices. For example, prices get higher for family farms, and this makes returns lower and riskier.

Also, compared to engaged local investors, passive foreign investors can’t add as much value.

Strengthening a Major Enemy Government

China’s government people have long been taking unconventional-warfare actions against the USA’s people. If the USA’s people would keep helping the Chinese people build up more resources that China’s government people could take for war, this wouldn’t help the USA’s people or China’s people.

USA government people could block the USA’s people trade with China’s people until China’s government people stop their warfare actions against the USA’s people. As this continued, freer nations’ people would increasingly outproduce China’s more-coerced people. When freer governments’ people have significantly outproduced the more-coercive governments’ people, major wars haven’t started.

Dynamics

With tariff reciprocity, the USA government people would change their tariffs to match other government people’s tariffs. Helpfully, this strategy would be intuitive to the USA people and to other nations’ people.

The USA government people currently have lower tariffs than many other government people have, so the USA government people’s first move to match tariffs would raise many tariffs.

When one nation’s government people have raised their tariffs, usually other nations’ government people have raised their tariffs still higher. The political consensus that had previously pushed tariffs high has just pushed tariffs higher.

In the Great Depression era Smoot-Hawley tariffs, USA legislators pushed tariff duties up by a typical proportion, 20%.

Meanwhile, some people were going bankrupt. Other people’s bank deposits weren’t backed fully by reserves, so these people tried to withdraw their money, and banks failed, destroying the unbacked money. Very quickly, customers had far-less money to buy products, and producers had to significantly lower prices.

Two-thirds of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were assessed at fixed dollar rates per unit of product. At the new lower prices, these fixed tariffs became much-higher percentages of the products’ values. Legislators didn’t lower these fixed tariffs to return to the original percentages. As a result, the legislators’ Fed-executed boom and bust, together with the legislators’ failures to adjust these fixed tariffs, ended up pushing up the resulting percentage tariffs by an additional 30%.

Raising the tariffs from 40% to 59% took 2 years. Lowering the tariffs from 59% to 12% took 22 years.

During these 22 years, the legislators’ Fed-executed money inflation raised nominal prices. The legislators had passed most tariffs as fixed dollar rates per unit of product, so these tariffs became lower percentages of the products’ values. This produced most of the tariff-rate reduction, 71%. Negotiations only produced the remaining much-smaller reduction, 29%.

Nowadays most tariffs are set as percentages. Inflation won’t reduce these tariffs at all.

Trade negotiations have a strong track record of producing favors to cronies, but a weak track record of producing free trade.

Unilateral Repeals

In our roles as customers for final products, and as workers for producers that use intermediate products, the USA people would gain the most from getting USA tariffs unilaterally repealed.

In our roles as workers for producers that export products, the USA people would gain the most from helping get other governments’ tariffs fully repealed.

Moving towards trade reciprocity could initiate valuable change.

Still, politics and history strongly suggest that other nations’ governments might not reduce tariffs, or might not reduce tariffs much. It would be sensible to equally lean towards freedom.

To lean towards freedom, initially set USA government tariffs at 1/2 of other governments’ tariffs, category-by-category. Subsequently match other governments’ moves, whether higher or lower, to maintain this lean towards freedom. Applying this same generous factor to each tariff from each government that isn’t a major enemy would be forceful, but simultaneously would beckon towards freedom.

In the bigger picture, success breeds success. Minimize spending and regulation, and the resulting enviable freedom and success will be the best incentives for everybody.

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The county of Burma or Myanmar has seen its share of natural disasters. A devasting cyclone in 2008 killed tens of thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands more homeless. To make things worse, the country has suffered from internal conflict for 50 years, and is currently in the midst of a civil war.

Last month it was a devasting 7.7 earthquake that hit Myanmar. Over 2,000 people are confirmed dead, thousands are injured, and countless numbers of people are still buried.

The United States has pledged $2 million in aid. The Trump administration has been criticized for not responding fast enough because of cuts to USAID. Meanwhile, China has scored a public relations win by sending 400 Chinese personnel and providing $14 million in aid.

Just what does this mean that the United States has pledged $2 million in aid? I don’t recall pledging to send money to Myanmar, and neither do any of my family or friends. I also don’t recall pledging to send money to the federal government to send to Myanmar, and neither do any of my family or friends.

It is the U.S. government that has pledged the $2 million. And where did the U.S. government get the $2 million it will send to Myanmar? There are only two possibilities. The federal government can simply print the money or it can take the money out of the wallets, pockets, and purses of Americans in the form of taxes. There are no other options. The federal government has no money of its own unless it sells some of the land or assets it owns.

But without U.S. aid, won’t more people fail to be rescued in Myanmar? Won’t more people be homeless? Won’t more people suffer? Won’t more children get sick or starve? Won’t more people die?

Perhaps.

But that is not the point. The point is simply this: Should the U.S. government be taking money from Americans and using it for relief efforts in Myanmar?

Of course not. Disaster relief is just as Illegitimate as foreign aid.

There was a time in this country when it was recognized to be improper for the federal government to provide humanitarian relief even within the United States.

In 1887, President Grover Cleveland vetoed the Texas Seed Bill to appropriate $10,000 for the purchase of seed grain for some farmers in Texas who had lost their crops due to a drought. Cleveland stated in his veto message:

 I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution; and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadily resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people.

When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, Congressman (and future president) James Madison objected, saying: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

Congressman Davy Crockett explained his opposition to a congressional attempt to help the widow of a naval officer: “We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”

If it is unconstitutional for the federal government to provide disaster relief to Americans, then it is certainly even more unconstitutional for the federal government to provide disaster relief to foreigners or their governments. Although domestic relief is clearly an illegitimate purpose of the federal government, foreign relief is even more so. I would certainly rather see American taxpayer money go to Americans than to foreigners. After all, Americans are the ones paying the taxes.

This doesn’t mean that I dislike foreigners or wish them ill will. It just means that I believe in the Constitution, limited government, federalism, property rights, and individual freedom.

The case of Myanmar is actually a test of one’s commitment to the freedom philosophy. A free society includes the freedom to be unconcerned, insensitive, or stingy.

Although any American is certainly welcome to contribute to the relief effort in Myanmar, no one should be forced to do so via his taxes or otherwise. There is no doubt in my mind that Americans would give liberally to alleviate the suffering of the people of Myanmar if the federal government just did nothing. But whether Americans give or don’t give, it is still the case that it should be the decision of each individual American. All charity and relief—domestic or foreign—should be private and voluntary.

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Last week I was one of the featured speakers at a conference in Texas hosted by the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Ron Paul himself hosted the events. He will be 90 years old later this year and is still speaking out through a daily TV show and a weekly column.

The other main speakers were David Stockman, who was President Reagan’s budget director; Tom Woods, host of a leading national podcast; Jeff Deist, head of a company called Monetary Metals; and Daniel McAdams, a foreign policy expert.

Many of my Focus columns have been picked up and re-published on several popular national websites, and I was honored to be asked to speak at this conference, which had attendees from all over the country.

Stockman was elected to Congress from Michigan and served just four years before being asked to join Reagan’s cabinet. He has been a very successful financial advisor over the years and has authored several books.

He told the conference that he has just written a new book giving specific details on how to cut more than two trillion dollars from the federal budget.

He said the trendlines show we will double our $37 trillion national debt in ten years or less. If we let that happen, social security payments and other incomes will buy very little.

Tom Woods is a Harvard graduate with a Ph.D. from Columbia. He has one of the nation’s most popular podcasts, and he has had both me and Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs on his show several times. In his speech, he told how he and millions of others, especially young people, have been inspired by Ron Paul’s message and campaigns in favor of economic freedom, limited government, and especially opposition to unnecessary wars.

Jeff Deist formerly headed the Ludwig von Mises Institute at Auburn University, working with students and scholars on economics education. Now he is with Monetary Metals, a company that pays interest on gold its clients own.

Deist is also a political historian and he gave an interesting talk on how most of Donald Trump’s conservative populism and anti-war views came out of what is sometimes called the Old Right of the 1930s and 40s on up to the America First books, speeches, and television campaigns of Pat Buchanan in the 1990s.

Daniel McAdams, the foreign policy expert, gave a talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of President Trump’s actions so far. He applauded the efforts of the president toward ceasefires in Israel and Ukraine.

He expressed great concern about sending more bombs to Israel, the ending of the ceasefire there, the bombing of civilians in Yemen, and the actions against free speech for peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

In my presentation at the conference, I quoted the popular Jewish podcaster Dave Smith, who said Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians was “horrific and inexcusable,” and that going to war in Iran would be “insane.”

The so-called neo-conservatives like Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz – neither of whom ever served in the military – were the leading cheerleaders for the war in Iraq.

Now, neo-cons want us to join Israel in a war against Iran. The conservative columnist George Will once wrote that neo-cons were “magnificently misnamed” and that they were really “the most radical people in this city,” meaning Washington, D.C.

Libertarian conservatives are afraid that Trump might go along with Netanyahu in a war against Iran because Miriam Adelson supposedly gave $100 million to the Trump campaign and several other Jewish billionaires also gave millions in return for promises to support Israel in any and every way.

In 1956, Israel demanded that the U.S. join it in a war against Egypt over the Suez Canal. Mitchell Bard wrote in The Times of Israel in 2014: “Eisenhower went on television to criticize Israel’s failure to withdraw from Egypt and warned that he would impose sanctions if it failed to comply. Eisenhower was prepared to cut off all economic aid, to lift the tax-exempt status of the United Jewish Appeal, and to apply sanctions on Israel.”

Eisenhower did this only a week before the 1956 election.

We have not had a president with the courage to stand up to Israel since then. In fact, our foreign policy in the Middle East today is Israel First, and has created much animosity and even hatred for the U.S. I said in my talk that our Congress would have condemned any other country if it had killed as many thousands of little children as Israel has in the last year and a half.

Also in my presentation, I explained my vote against going to war in Iraq despite tremendous pressure to vote for it. I wish I had mentioned that I also voted to get out of Afghanistan many years before we did. If we had gotten out many years earlier, the 13 U.S. soldiers, including a young man from Gibbs, who were killed at the end might still be alive today.

This originally appeared on The Knoxville Focus.

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SANA’A, Yemen – No wonder the Roman Empire called it Arabia Felix.

It’s 3 pm in Al-Sabeen square in the Haddah neighborhood of Sana’a on Friday, March 28, Al Quds Day, at Ramadan, only two days before Eid al-Fikr, and the crowd of over one million Yemenis stretches to the horizon, gently surrounded by naked hills in the distance and with the grand Al-Saleh mosque framing the foreground.

The foreign pilgrim climbs to a small stage and after all his pilgrimages across the world and the lands of Islam, he knows that in one fleeting minute he must essentially thank the crowd – and this nation – for being so noble, so upright, so fearless, bearers of so much moral clarity and purpose. They should know that the whole Global Majority instinctively gets it – and stands with them.

This is not so much about support for Palestine, which they have been showcasing in this same vast square for 17 months, non-stop – as shown all over global social media – but most of all about the inner strength of Arabia Felix. Free Palestine rhymes – and echoes – in eternity with Freedom of Yemen. They can be heroes not just for one day – as Bowie the Western Chameleon immortalized it: they are heroes for posterity.

One week immersed in deep Yemen is untranslatable in mere words. I was privileged to be part of a small group – from East to West – that actually broke the blockade on Yemen, as our gracious hosts never ceased to remind us. We were primarily guests in a wide-ranging conference on Palestine titled, most appropriately, “You Are Not Alone”.

What strikes us like lightning, right away, is the unbounded Yemeni generosity and their naturally aristocratic-cum-debonair allure. They are the epitome of chic not only sartorially but spiritually. Nearly every night last week I was trying to convey this magic across several podcasts, such as this one and this one. As much as the conversations with towering academics, diplomats and top members of the High Political Council, the real delight in Yemen is the famous – Xi Jinping-style – “people to people’s exchanges”, particularly at night time in the mesmerizing souks of Saada in the northwest and the Old City in Sana’a.

This is the true soul of Arabia, its secrets perfuming the air like the incense a Purifier dressed in white spreads around the al-Kabir mosque in the Old City, blind men crouching at the entrance chewing qat and absorbed in meditation. This magic is what Allah himself characterizes in the Holy Book in several verses and chapters – a generosity only bestowed to Yemenis.

Fighting a “coalition” of willing vassals

Amidst a cornucopia of meetings and cups of the best coffee on the planet, a convoy of decoy SUVs slicing the raw landscape from Sana’a to Saada, non-stop pledges of solidary with Palestine and instances of cowardly CENTCOM bombing – from several civilian, residential buildings to an in-progress cancer hospital in Saada – soon it becomes clear that Yemen is fighting yet another lethal chapter, now against the Trump 2.0-led CENTCOM, of what is a 10-year war, initiated in March 26, 2015.

That was the first war in History, as defined by the masterful Undeterred: Yemen In The Face of Decisive Storm, by Prof. Dr. Abdulaziz Saleh bin Habtoor – which I had the honor to meet in Sana’a – “in which all the rich Arab countries” (with the exception of Oman) stood “under the cloak of the most powerful imperialist country in an unsacred coalition against the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula”.

A trademark “coalition” of willing vassals, led by Saudi Arabia and for a stretch also the UAE, with the U.S. under the Obama-Biden racket “leading from behind” and providing the weapons alongside the British, not only bombed Yemen indiscriminately but also imposed a devastating blockade of air, land and sea, preventing the arrival of medicine, fuel and food, and generating at least 2.4 million displaced people and a cholera epidemic.

It’s hardly an accident that the upstart, tawdry, bling bling Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia hate Yemen with a vengeance. War on Yemen, virtually for decades, as Prof. bin Habtoor noted in our meeting, has been the Enterprise Weapon of Choice for a family scam set up by the British Empire in the 1920s to extract the wealth of Arabia.

Obviously no one across the – now fractured – collective West remembers that Yemen later became “Crown Prince” MbS’s war. The existence of his regime – now a darling of Trump 2.0 – was leveraged from the start on winning this war, until MbS was forced to realize he could never make it: only in 2017 the war was costing him more than $300 billion. He had to accept an armistice.

No “victory”: not against these unconquerable heroes.

The memory-impaired, fractured collective West also has no recollection that Britannia Rules the Waves was forced to surrender its self-imagined global dominatrix role to the Americans after it could not subdue extremely fierce resistance in – where else – South Yemen in the 1960s.

That opened the way to Saudi-led dementia – even as the pattern remained the same: Yemenis simply won’t surrender their homeland’s fabulous natural wealth to subsidize the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder’s chronic need for liquidity, collateral for new cash manipulations, and most of all the commodities that lie under Yemen’s rich soil.

And that brings us to the current, relentless CENTCOM bombing of civilian (italics mine) buildings and infrastructure from Sana’a to Saada and the port of Hodeidah – which we could not visit because it’s being bombed virtually every day. As much as we detailed to our Yemeni interlocutors how worried we are with the Empire unleashing its fury, they invariably answered with a smile: We Will Win. That may come from Yahya Saree, the military spokesman of the Yemeni armed forces – who against all security odds visited us in our hotel – or from a drop dead cool camel biker in the souk in Saada.

Extra mischief against Yemen comes from the UAE, a privileged partner of Trump 2.0 in Persian Gulf business, which has primacy over Yemen’s oil assets and access to much of Yemen’s supremely strategic southern coastline, investing heavily in colonizing the island of Socotra. And then there are the “unofficial” proxies, on and off, of Saudis and Emiratis: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS/Daesh – weapons of choice for selected factions of the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder.

Meanwhile, Ansarallah won’t back down, staring down the Empire in the Red Sea: “When American soldiers are killed in the Red Sea, what will they say to their people and families? Will they claim they were killed for the liberation of their country, or will they say they were killed to protect the Zionist terrorists?”

Unconquerable.

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

The post Unconquerable Yemen appeared first on LewRockwell.

Happy Liberation Day!

Aside from our senses, what are we being freed from?

A properly functioning market? The greatest quality and quantity of goods sold at competitive rates? Producers having to innovate to excel? The ability to buy what we want without giving government a bigger cut?

Whatever deliverance we’re promised was postponed by a day, so Americans wouldn’t think the jokers in charge were playing them for fools.

But this afternoon, at long last, our president will unshackle us from foreign “unfairness”… by building a bigger blockade around ourselves.

Seriously, not Literally

What are the components of today’s Emancipation Proclamation?

Tho’ plans could change before lunch, and be revised again until (or after) details are announced, the Trump Administration will ostensibly impose 25% import taxes on cars and parts… atop the same percentage already applied to steel and aluminum… with comparable duties on countries buying oil and gas from Venezuela.

The president has also intimated he’ll impose tariffs on certain agricultural imports. Specific products and rates remain unclear (of course), but this could tie to the broader notion of reciprocal tariffs.

As of now, these are anticipated for all trading partners. If taken literally (they shouldn’t be, tho’ they should be taken seriously), this would entail reducing taxes the U.S. currently imposes on most countries’ imports. But it’s probably safe to assume that “reciprocal” runs only one direction.

Sector-specific taxes on imports such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, microchips, lumber, and copper have also been bandied. But recent reports suggest they might not be part of today’s rollout, with some (or all) delayed indefinitely or excluded entirely.

Other last minute changes may be in the works. Apparently, the Trump team was scrambling into the small hours this morning to concoct new medicine, to make the potion more palatable to Congressmen and executives whose stock portfolios are making them sick.

What ailment is this elixir supposed to cure? Is it more deadly than the assortment of diseases it’s bound to cause? We don’t know. Nor does anyone else, especially the quacks who are selling this snake oil.

The idea that other countries are “ripping us off” simply isn’t true. The 300% Canadian tariffs on US dairy and Japan’s 700% imposts on American rice take effect only above export thresholds that are rarely reached.

David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s budget director, explains one example that’s indicative of many:

“In 2024 Canada did not collect one single Canadian dollar or US dollar or even plug nickel of tariff revenue from US dairy exporters of the four leading dairy export products—fluid milk, butter, cheese and skim milk powder….

And the reason for that lies in the so-called TRQs (tariff rate quota) that the Donald himself negotiated with the Canadians in the course of attaining his ballyhooed USMCA deal in 2020.

[In 2024] US export volumes did not reach the quota level in any of them. Therefore, no tariff was applied to nearly 71 million pounds of US dairy exports to Canada last year, meaning that the Donald keeps ranting about a problem that he had already fixed himself!”

Economics and Politics

Most economic debates are really political squabbles. We’ve been conditioned to think of economics and politics are two sides of the same coin. In reality, economics is the gold and politics an alloy… if not outright rust.

“Economists” who advocate tariffs… like those who urge a minimum wage or centrally managed money… are akin to “scientists” who pushed lockdowns to contain a respiratory virus. They almost certainly know better. But they definitely know what’s best… for themselves.

As with any government “authority” or corporate “expert”, they’re extremely knowledgeable in what they are paid to say. They’re compensated to promote particular politics under the guise of economics. It’s a cloak that gets a lot of wear.

Economics is the study of purposeful human behavior under conditions of scarcity. Politics is forcibly shifting wealth from one pocket to another. As with any taxes, tariffs are terrific for doing that.

Economically, tariffs don’t make sense. But politically, they can be potent. As in most political battles, beneficiaries are concentrated and vocal, while victims are usually indifferent and diffuse.

During the most recent campaign, Trump tried to soothe them too. On several occasions, he suggested tariffs could replace the income tax.

That’d be great.

But since the election, it looks like we’re getting one and keeping the other. In a shocking development, repealing the income tax is no longer discussed. Probably because the idea was never practical with our gargantuan government.

From the founding to the “progressive” era, tariffs were the main source of government funds. That worked well when the federal budget was only $715M (as it was in 1913). In today’s dollars (based on gold), that’s about the size of the Department of Energy (among many that shouldn’t exist).

Read the Whole Article

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Martial Law is by far one of the greatest nightmares we might face, one that leaves many preppers up at night.

This is because it can occur in the midst of any natural or man-made disasters.

The march into Martial Law is frequently overlooked by the general population, often branded as nonsense or something belonging to conspiratorial websites. Yet what’s going on in this country is just what our founders have warned us of, and Martial Law is something they’ve taken very, very seriously.

When Martial Law is going on, the world is in so much trouble that even the government won’t be able to handle it. Now I’m assuming Martial Law hasn’t happened yet.

Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to read this. This means that you have the opportunity to prepare for it, and I hope, for your sake, that you will do it fast.

What is Martial Law

Martial Law has no established definition, so if you’re looking for a general definition of Martial Law, then Martial Law essentially means using state or national military power to impose the government’s will on the citizens.

Soldiers, rather than city police, execute the law. Military officers make strategic decisions rather than elected officials. People convicted of offenses are taken to military courts rather than regular civil courts. In short, the army is in charge.

Under Martial Law, fundamental liberties and freedoms are abolished and citizens are no longer entitled to their constitutional rights. It effectively helps the army, or a tyrannical politician, to break the Constitution and enforce its will by military force.

The History of Martial Law in U.S. History

In one way or another, tyrants have often used political authority to suppress and influence the people. Although if we’re searching for specific instances of Martial Law being used within the United States, we don’t have to search too hard or deep to find them.

Using the strictest meaning of the word, we can see the origins of Martial Law taking place in America during the time leading up to the Revolutionary War. While there were many motives for the war, including opposition to taxation levied by the British Parliament, the primary cause for England was the use of armed powers to enact the daily rule in the colonies.

Many of the most striking examples of this can be seen in the civil war. Although the history books of today largely neglect the true motives for the war or the several crimes committed by President Lincoln, the reality of what actually happened cannot be denied.

As an example, On 15 September 1863, President Lincoln imposed Martial Law by Congress. In fact, Lincoln had never had a top priority to eradicate slavery. In fact, Lincoln had never wanted to eliminate slavery. His primary interest was to centralize political authority and use the federal government to exercise full control over all residents.

The abolition of slavery was merely a by-product of the war. It actually took the thirteenth amendment to bring an end to slavery, as Lincoln really only liberated Southern slaves, not slaves, in states loyal to the Union.

Lincoln suspended the writing of Habeas Corpus without the consent of Congress. Lincoln put down or spoke against, publications whose authors expressed some dissension to the position of the Union.

Lincoln raised his forces without the approval of Congress. Lincoln closed the courts by force of statute. And eventually, without cause or trial, he too arrested residents, newspaper owners, and public officials

What Will Happen When Martial Law Takes Place

I’m pretty confident that the term “Martial Law” will never be seen. The word ” state of emergency” would undoubtedly take its place first. Martial Law can easily be accomplished globally, in situations of conflict, major terrorist threats, or locally, as observed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Examples of what has occurred in modern years include Martial Law in New Orleans, August 2005. New Orleans has been declared a disaster area, and the governor has declared a state of emergency.

This allowed state officials to order evacuations and forcibly evict people from their residences, suspend some rules, confiscate weapons and suspend selling products such as liquor, firearms, and ammunition.

In the following of hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Police Department, U.S. Marshals, and the Louisiana National Guard illegally seized more than 1,000 lawful weapons from law-abiding civilians.

During Martial Law, you will probably see:

• The suspension of the Constitution is likely to persist with the first amendment.
• Detainment of firearms; it has happened in history, and it may happen again.
• Suspension of Habeas corpus: Jail without due process and without trial.
• Travel limits, including road closures and likely quarantine areas.
• Obligatory Curfews and Required Identification.
• Automatic search and seize without a warrant.

When Likely is Martial Law in the U.S.

Let’s address it now. The nation is a complete mess. From massive civil strife, crime, and violence to the rising national debt, which comprises a whole segment of our society that relies on government aid to survive, the writing is on the wall: Trouble is coming.

In my view, we are now in the preliminary form of Martial Law. The founders never expected standing armies to police the United States’ people; unfortunately, that’s just what we have. Drones, armored vehicles with high-powered guns, tanks, and fighting helicopters are no longer something you can find on an overseas battlefield; they are all normal operating practices at police stations across the country.

Our federal government has invested billions of dollars into militarizing and taking over our country’s municipal police departments in what can only be characterized as a domestic military force or a standing army equipped to enforce federal law.

So what exactly do I mean that this has already started?

On 29 September 2006, President George W. Bush signed the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2007 (H.R. 5122).

The legislation increased the power of the President to declare Martial Law in the form of amendments to the Rebellion Act. In fact, it allowed the President to take command of the National Guard forces without the consent of the state governors.

Although several parts of the bill were rolled back in 2008, President Obama used the 2012 NDAA to further expand the Executive Office’s right to declare Martial Law and introduced clauses that would allow U.S. armed forces to arrest U.S. civilians without trial.

In March 2015, the Obama administration set up a task force detailing our nation’s police rules. In his Task Force on the 21st-century Police Report, he proposed the establishment of the National Police Standards and Oversight Division of the federal government.

The study went on to explain how the Department of Homeland Security should be used to “ensure that community police tactics in the state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies are incorporated into their role in homeland security.”

The last and most troubling example is the growing number of Combined Police/Military Practices that view American citizens as theoretical risks.

From the Jade Helm military drills that identified Texas and Utah as dangerous areas to the California National Guard, using crisis actors to represent “right” U.S. civilians in their training exercises, there is an increasing number of military-style drills that portray American citizens as seen as a threat.

Back in 2012, the Army’s study on the military’s potential utilization as a U.S. police force aimed into possible scenarios that the U.S. did. The army may be used against Tea Party “insurgents” that take over U.S. cities.

Over the same time frame, the Department of Homeland Security issued a study entitled “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States,” in which it claimed that the federal government considered the country’s greatest terrorist danger – the threat to U.S. people of radical “right-wing” views.

The United States of America that our Fathers have created is gone; it has been replaced by a system that has become so strong that most people do not even know that they have been enslaved by that same system.

Read the Whole Article

The post This Is How Your Life Will Look Like Under the Coming Martial Law appeared first on LewRockwell.

While studying scholastic theology when I was preparing for the priesthood, St. John Henry Newman inspired me to examine early apostolic Catholic spirituality. Then, over 35 years ago now, I sought out a life of semi-solitude to intensify this search and practice contemplation, and I rediscovered the sublime spirituality that we have so recently lost.

By we, I mean more specifically born Catholics, for whom the faith has become little more than a philosophy of life since the heretical Quietism of the 17th century nearly succeeded in removing contemplative prayer from Catholic spirituality, leaving us with dry moralism.

After a very long life teaching, preaching, and writing about early apostolic spirituality that was, incidentally, first lived and practiced by converts to Christianity, I have seen that it is not new converts, but born Catholics who have let our side down. And their failure has dangerous consequences for converts.

When genuine new converts join the Church, it is only to have their first enthusiasm boiled down to nominalism, externalism, moralism, and relativism, rather than having it raised to the contemplative heights that galvanised the first Catholic converts in apostolic times. I can point to certain modern converts wreaking some havoc in the Church, but this would not, could not have happened if those born Catholics who received them had embodied fully and deeply the new faith to which the converts felt drawn by God.

After nearly 10 years as a weekly columnist, I resigned from a national Catholic newspaper because a recent clerical convert, bristling with Protestant qualifications, was leading the readers astray, and my orthodoxy was an embarrassment to him.

Another convert put me through the third degree to test my orthodoxy before I was allowed to use his website, yet his own, self-taught and deficient spiritual theology has been misdirecting serious seekers for years; his “half knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

Even though my book The Primacy of Loving was originally accepted by a major American Catholic publisher, I spent more than three months trying and failing to convince a senior editor—again a convert who was received into the Church without adequate preparation—that what I had written was true Catholic orthodoxy. His ignorance has been depriving Catholic readers for years of the deeper dimensions of Catholic spirituality, of which he is quite ignorant. In the end I chose to withdraw my book.

Such things could only happen because the born Catholics who welcomed these converts into the faith were even more ignorant than they about the mystical theology that, although it has been largely cast aside, should permeate our faith and certainly was its bulwark for the great saints who came before us.

Once I heard a talk given by a convert on the conversion of St. Paul. Unfortunately it focused exclusively on St. Paul’s brilliant mind; there was no mention of the fact that after his conversion St. Paul went into the desert for three years, nor that he spent double that time in semi-solitude near his own home of Tarsus, to complete what the great historian Monsignor Philip Hughes called his “novitiate.” If St. Barnabas had not insisted that it was time for his apostolate to the Gentiles to begin, he would have spent longer.

At the end of St. Paul’s “novitiate,” he had profound mystical experiences; like the novitiate itself, these also were not mentioned by the speaker. Yet these experiences are clear evidence that St. Paul passed through a prolonged purification, similar to that described by St. John of the Cross. If so, he received in abundance the fruits of contemplation, namely all the infused theological, cardinal and moral virtues. This then—not his brilliant mind—was the source of the divine wisdom that suffused and brought his human wisdom to perfection just as it did for the other apostles, who completed their “novitiate” in Jerusalem.

In early Christianity a minimum of two years of ascetical and spiritual training was necessary before reception into the Church. Then new Christians had to learn how to be further purified in a second “baptism of fire” after the baptism of water. But now that Catholicism is seen as a philosophy of life rather than a call to ongoing spiritual transformation, a simple intellectual reorientation seems to suffice as initiation for new members. Even the preparatory courses for new converts, primarily intellectual in content, are easily bypassed if you are a highflying academic.

When I was a young man a convert had to wait two years before he was admitted to train for the priesthood or religious life. Then it would be six or more years before he could begin, as a junior and supervised member of the hierarchy, to preach to the faithful.

To be clear, in my experience the vast majority of converts come home to the Catholic Church for the right reasons. But many then find the sublime spirituality they had every right to expect in the Catholic Faith has long since been lost to sight, misunderstood, or squandered by born Catholics.

Read the Whole Article

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Christine Grady, a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the wife of Anthony Fauci, was fired during the restructuring at the Dept. of Health and Human Services.

I don’t think she will miss the high salary she earned. The Faucis are worth an estimated $11.5 million.

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And sixteen other fascinating speakers at our Revisionist History of War conference in Auburn, Alabama, May 15-17, 2025.  Here’s a short clip of Col. Macgregor.

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