Tag: government

Can Economic Crashes Lead Toward Independence? – Follow the Money, Politicians Do

Catalonia Independence Movement

Without a doubt, the current overarching panic has been framed to be that of COVID-19. From all angles, those opportunists are hoping that this crisis can assist them in burying some past or paving the way to some glorious future. Whether it is the unsustainable debt, the banking sector, the pharma sector or even those that deal in welfare (to both corporations (GOP) or individuals (Dems)), everyone it seems are bent on not wasting this crisis.

The very last thing on these people’s mind is that of personal liberties or the free market. To them it is the desire of command and control that consume their soul. Real men (when I use this word I use it the same way our Creator would, meaning men and women), men of character, principled humans who are both compassionate for others and yet principled in not attempting to fix other’s lives or circumstances. Help is afforded when both the opportunity presents itself and the help aligns with what is on the giver’s heart, because surely, Jesus did not heal everyone in the crowds, only those that were on His Father’s heart.

So here we are again where a divided nation is fighting both the effects of a virus as well as the proper method to achieve that. Authoritarians (even the ones that were libertarian just weeks ago) want the government to mandate nothing less than house arrest and martial law all across this land. Libertarian leaning people think the people themselves can figure this out on their own, since only they know their specific and unique circumstance. They might be a city dweller with a network of like minded people that CAN achieve social distancing while also bartering for what may be needed in the weeks to come, OR they might live on a farm or ranch that is miles from their neighbor who can also be in their network for critical supplies.

Montana “social distancing”

What comes to mind then, out of an article penned as Brexit was achieved, is that this is not too different than what face the American people in 1860. Yes there were those who felt righteous enough to demand that others free their slaves immediately, and yet if anyone knew how prepared these slaves were for freedom, it was probably their owners and others on the plantation or farm. While slavery was in fact winding down, there were people willing to demand their agenda no matter the cost, even if it was 700,000 dead soldiers and economically ruined regions of the country that would not recover for a century.

The American leader that most people black and white still rally around today as a man of principled freedom and equality for all is Abraham Lincoln. At times, if you read his very words you have to wonder when in fact he had his heart on the fate of the black slaves and IF his version of “the union” which he was so fond of keeping intact was the best for the marriage that existed between the north and south.

John Marquardt from the Abbeville Institute only a week ago penned an article that is rich in unpacking what really happened 150 years ago as well as the economic factor that was at the root of almost all the BAD decisions by politicians along the way. Lets work our way through some critical quotes and see where this leads:

1775:

… thirteen of its major colonies, with a cry of “no taxation without representation,” declared their independence, seceded from the British Empire and joined together to form the United States of America. Faced with the loss of a vast source of the revenue needed to fill coffers drained by its seemingly endless wars with France, Great Britain opted to wage war on its own colonies.

1860:

… seven of the States in the new American nation felt that the weight of long economic oppression by the Federal government was more than they should be forced to bear and opted to secede from the Unites States to form their own more perfect union . . . and once again the action brought forth a war in which the central government attacked its own citizens to prevent their departure.

At this point I think it is helpful to see Lincoln’s own thought processes and see how they changed through the years (an inevitable characteristic of being a politician as there is nothing off the table morally when a crisis is at hand):

1848:

.. when Lincoln was a U. S. congressman from Illinois, he gave a speech in the House of Representatives in which he stated “any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.”

1858:

“neither the General Government, nor any other power outside of the slave States, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists.”

Lincoln said that he did not understand the Declaration of Independence “to mean that all men were created equal in all respects,” and added that he was not in favor of “making voters or jurors of Negros nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people.” He then went on to say that “there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”

Lincoln was not a huge fan of the blacks it is very apparent, but his core philosophy that he never gave up was that the blacks were never to be allowed to migrate north and take away jobs from whites, which would cause economic upheaval. One has to come to terms that back in 1860, it was conceivable that the northern regions were more racist than southern regions who interacted with blacks on a daily basis:

The North feared that slave labor would compete unfairly with its own low-wage, largely immigrant labor force which, unlike slaves, could be willfully hired and fired as needed and did not require food, housing, clothing or even rudimentary medical attention.

It is at this point that John paints the real economic condition of the United States in 1860. Have you ever been taught this in schools as part of a CSI to understand what businessmen around the country thought about seven states leaving the Union? I doubt it, so here it goes, consider it COVID-19 home schooling:

In regard to the true economic cause behind the War, just as it was with Great Britain’s case in 1776, the gaping hole that would be formed in the Federal revenue served as the actual rationale for the Union to wage war on the departed Southern States. In 1860, there were more than thirty-one million people in the thirty-three States and ten Territories, with only a third of these, including almost four million slaves, living in the South. According to the U. S. Federal Abstract for 1860, the total Federal expenditures for that year amounted to some sixty-three million dollars, with over eighteen million of this being used mainly to finance railways, canals and other civil projects in the North. On the other hand, Federal revenues at that time amounted to a little over fifty-six million dollars. As there was then no corporate or personal income tax and revenue from domestic sources, such as the sale of public land, amounted to less than three million dollars, the remaining fifty-three million dollars were provided by what was termed “ad valorem taxes,” in other words, the tariff on foreign goods imported by the United States. The basic problem with this, however, was that as much as three-quarters of that revenue was collected in Southern ports, which meant that there would be a loss of up to forty million dollars in Federal revenue if the Southern States left the Union. Added to this was the fact that well over half of America’s four hundred million dollars in exports in 1860 were agricultural products from the South, mainly cotton, rice and tobacco.

You can see the predicament that Lincoln had when he was inaugurated in early March 1861. You can also see what the British view was back in 1775 and why they did what they did.

Now project yourself forward in time and try to understand what the so-called united States of America faces in 2020.

  • Will the economic crisis cause everyone to stick together and pay the $25T in debts over the next hundred years OR will regions of the US be allowed to go their separate ways?
  • Would anyone in the federal government be willing to let ANY state go in peace?

These are the questions one must answer themselves, along with, what is the moral path forward? Personally I think that bankruptcy is the only moral path forward, but as I was told in the US Navy, ‘opinions are like *ssholes, everyone has one’.

Ok then, let us look to see how Lincoln (Trump-like?) evolved as President:

04MAR1861:

Lincoln stated that he would “hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the (Federal) government, and collect the duties and imposts . . . but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using force against, or among the people anywhere.”

.. [then] stating he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

Pretty clear that economics forced his hand to propose the absurd notion that tariffs would still be collected in the seven states that LEFT the union while he had no real heart change on the fate of the black slaves.

Early April 1861 before Ft. Sumter:

Virginia, which still remained in the Union, commissioned a three-man delegation headed by John Baldwin, a pro-Unionist and former judge of the State Supreme Court of Appeals, to meet with Lincoln at the White House in an effort to negotiate a peaceful settlement. During their meeting, the president was reported as saying privately to Baldwin “but what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery (i.e., the Confederates)? Am I to let them go on and open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry with their ten-percent tariff? What, then, would become of my tariff if I do that, what would become of my revenue? I might as well shut up housekeeping at once.”

By early April, Lincoln and his cabinet, the majority of the New Englanders as well as the farmers in the West (now called the Midwest) all saw clearly the economic ramifications of having just 7 states leave the union. Like today, the panic and gross exaggeration seemed to consume people and they were all looking to the US government to do something, ANYTHING!

Lincoln’s Cabinet

It is well documented that Lincoln’s plan to send troop transports to Charleston harbor where his Union garrison had broke a gentleman’s agreement on Christmas 1860 and moved from Ft. Moultrie to Ft. Sumter was to have the South Carolina cannon to fire the first shot (not unlike FDR’s efforts to have Japan do the same at Pearl Harbor, or Bush II’s efforts to have 9/11 be allowed) so he could be “justified” in his next action:

Lincoln’s call to the Union for seventy-five thousand volunteers to suppress what he termed the “rebellion” of the Southern States. Lincoln’s call not only led to the secession of Virginia, but Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee as well, and brought about a war that made casualties of five percent of America’s population, devastated a third of the nation’s States and left deep wounds in the American psyche that to this day have not yet completely healed.

Lincoln, a lawyer, never addresses the seceded states from this point forward, but relied on George Washington’s legislation created during the Whiskey Rebellion to “legally” put down the southern “insurrection” as if it was an unorganized scene of violence that had to be safely extinguished for the safety of the masses.

Keep this in mind for 2020, just sayin’.

By 1862, it was obvious what had happened:

A comparison between the conflicts of 1776 and 1861 was also made in a “London Times” article of November 7, 1861, in which it was said of the War Between the States that the “contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces.”

In a letter written in March of 1862, Dickens stated “I take the facts of the American quarrel to stand thus; slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it . . . but the North having gradually got to itself the making of the laws and the settlement of the tariffs, and having taxed the South most abominably for its own advantage, began to see, as the country grew, that unless it advocated the laying down of a geographical line beyond which slavery should not extend, the South would necessarily recover it’s old political power, and be able to help itself a little in the adjustment of the commercial affairs.”

So whatever became of Lincoln’s transition toward loving the black slave? Well, we do know that Lincoln was surrounded by a culture that he was totally in alignment up to the so-called Civil War:

… pertaining to racial discrimination, Dickens said “Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale.”

When the war went poorly and Lincoln was doubtful to his re-election and the possibility of an externally arranged peace conference, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation which sounded good but did not actually free one slave (and later admitted that this was a “war measure”). One can see that even this act was not from his heart as can be revealed by the following quotes:

“Send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” ~ Lincoln, speaking in favor of ethnic cleansing all blacks from the United States.

“I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I favor colonization.” ~ Lincoln, in a message to Congress, December 1, 1862, supporting deportation of all blacks from America.

“They had better be set to digging their subsistence out of the ground.” ~ Lincoln in a War Department memo, April 16, 1863

 

After securing a 2nd term as president he continued to meet with northern Black leaders about his plan to export blacks to the Caribbean or back to Africa after the war. For those black slaves that remained:

“Root, hog, or die” ~ Lincoln’s suggestion to illiterate and propertyless ex-slaves unprepared for freedom, Feb. 3, 1865.

So here you see that war and economics changes everything and allows politicians to make decisions that in peacetime or prosperity would have been prevented, one way or another.

It seems that today, most Americans have given in to their lot as tax slaves happy for just enough freedom for them to claim they live in the land of the free and are able to worship the flag and eat the occasional apple pie. To a majority of Americans, they know little of their history that would help them to see the red flags all around them as freedom and liberty evaporate in this once free land (mainly in 1783-1878).

May a new generation and a new remnant of Americans see though the infectious nature of government and decide for the future that they will take responsibility for themselves, their livelihood and the education of the next generation and never trust any government again.

I can dream can’t I?  One day at a time everyone, one day at a time, however, it is good and well to dream and hope for a better tomorrow where the lessons of this crisis are well learned!

Peace out.

-SF1

Trajectory of the State: What Happens When Statists Overplay their Hand?

It has been a good run for state worshipers. The 1800s gave more and more people the belief that the state could bring about a good utopia for all to enjoy. (Outside those who saw peril in the state, like those in the most southern seven US states in the “deep south” in 1860 and 1861)

By the end of the 1800s it seemed that the progressive movement was about to birth and bring about a century of peace. However, WWI and WWI PLUS all the genocides of the 20th century meant millions died during as well as outside of official wars.

By the end of the 20th century we saw two collectivist Communist states morph in various ways towards entities that pay more attention to well-being of the taxpayers. Russia emerged out of a God-less era to embrace family and Christianity in the 20th century. China backed off on the underground Church (that was thriving under persecution) to a degree where this is tolerated in this Communism version 2.X coupled with quite a capitalist friendly environment where regulations are minimized that allow entrepreneurship to thrive. While these states are not perfect, it does appear they have learned the lessons of the 20th century.

This brings us to the US state complex that is exceptional enough that it still believes there are no lessons to learn. However, if Lew Rockwell’s post “Working Around Leviathan” predictions are true, their days are numbered as they get less and less relevant in society as technology advances so much faster than the state can digest it.

Lew does a great job at balancing the forces at work in 2020, where he compares the US state apparatus:

Never before has a government in human history owned more weapons of mass destruction, looted as much wealth from a country, or assumed unto itself the power to regulate the minutiae of daily life as much as this one. By comparison to the overgrown behemoth in Washington, with its printing press to crank out money for the world and its annual $2.2 trillion dollars in largesse to toss at adoring crowds, even communist states were powerless paupers.

.. to the private commercial/business side:

At the same time — and here is the paradox — the United States is overall the wealthiest society in the history of the world. The World Bank lists Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Norway as competitive in this regard, but the statistics don’t take into account the challenges to mass wealth that exist in the US relative to small, homogenous states such as its closest competitors. In the United States, more people from more classes and geographic regions have access to more goods and services at prices they can afford, and possess the disposable income and access to credit to put them to use, than any other time in history. Truly we live in the age of extreme abundance.

Some will claim it is the government’s role that has made especially large corporations most successful and should receive credit for all they do. However, Lew is quick to point out a disclaimer to that effect, but not before sharing what both the so-called “right” and so-called “left” tend to think:

It seems that people on the right and left are quick to confuse correlation with causation. They believe that the US is wealthy because the government is big and expansive. This error is probably the most common of all errors in political economy. It is just assumed that buildings are safe because of building codes, that stock markets are not dens of thieves because of the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), that the elderly don’t starve and die because of Social Security, and so on, all the way to concluding that we should credit big government for American wealth.

I do hope you chuckled as you read this. Only those in DC would take this seriously, most of the rest of us recognize sarcasm.

If we are looking for those that create value and wealth, do we think of government? Does on think of Obamacare, Amtrak or the United States Postal Service?

Government is not productive. It has no wealth of its own. All it acquires it must take from the private sector. You might believe that it is necessary and you might believe it does great good, but we must grant that it does not have the ability to produce wealth in the way the market does.

If you understand economics, or if you have ever spent time in a monopoly, you will find that they do not have any good feedback loop that helps them indicate what the market needs. Government is even more handicapped since no one in their bureaucracy is ever accountable for government action or inaction. They simply have no skin in the game and do not see the taxpayers as customers:

Economic law limits what the state can do. The state cannot raise wages for everyone. It cannot dampen prices that want to rise without causing shortages, or increase prices that want to fall without causing surpluses. It cannot predict the course of markets or human events. It can control surprisingly few forces that work in the world.

In all its central planning, government is forever declaring the major combat operations are over, whether in foreign or domestic policy, only to discover that its real struggles and battles last and last. A good example is in the area of foreign trade. If a good or service is more efficiently produced abroad, the logic of the market will reassign production patterns until they conform. An attempt to protect domestic industry can do nothing to change this reality. Instead, protection only increases prices for consumers, subsidizes inefficient firms, and brings about ever-increasing amounts of wasted time, work, and resources.

On the other hand are those that seek to truly bring value to the market and are rewarded with wealth that can be placed into capital improvements that can make the business even more productive, efficient and even adaptable to the changing market. This was seen by the 1700 and 1800 farmers all the way to the manufacturers of the 1800s that could accomplish this all without government involvement.

Lasting prosperity can only come about through human effort in the framework of a market economy that allows people to cooperate to their mutual advantage, innovate and invest in an environment of freedom, retain earnings as private property, and save generation to generation without fear of having estates looted through taxation and inflation. This is the source of wealth. This is the means by which a rising population is fed, clothed, and housed. This is the method by which even the poorest country can become rich.

I will only add one more quote and if you are interested, please read all of Lew’s words that at least to me, give hope for the generations to come:

But here I would like to concentrate on what I think is an explanation that is too often overlooked. It requires that we understand something about the extraordinary capacity of the human mind to overcome obstacles put in its path. In all the history of states and the history of reflection on social organization and economics, this component is the most underestimated because it is the least predictable and the most difficult to comprehend. Human beings are creative and determined, and, if they have a love of liberty, and cooperate through exchange, they can overcome seemingly impassable obstacles.

It is because of this power of human ingenuity and determination to improve the world around us, despite the state, that a vast gulf has come to separate the accumulated power of the nation-state from its effective power in the management and guidance of society and the world economy.

Yes, despite the state, human ingenuity can improve the world, as well as its parallel, despite religion, humans with God’s help and hope, can improve the world in loving those around them.

Praying that the future does see the archaic state fall by the wayside and that grassroots communities with free trade on a global basis can improve the lives of those all over the world.

One can dream can’t they?

Acts 2:17

Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.

-SF1

Most People Are Nice People – Why it is So Hard to Understand that the State is Organized Crime

If you had asked me 20 years ago if I thought that the US government was a criminal organization, I would have laughed and called you a conspiracy theorist (a CIA term to discredit those who have doubts about the official government narrative).

Since then I have read a lot about our history (American and pre-American) from a variety of sources that have links to established source materials. At the end of the day, I can say with certainty, that there are elements of our government, and some of the elite who pull the strings they have at hand, that pure evil does exist in this world. This evil prefers to operate behind the mask of the state to accomplish its evil deeds. All too willingly there are political minded people that start out to make the nation or world a better place then over time will either be blackmailed or bought out to follow along with this evil agenda, taking on a mask of themselves as being one who “helps” “the people”.

This propensity for evil to find power structures to use for their own personal agendas is nothing new. Reading the accounts of God’s own nation of Israel or even the atrocities of the Roman Empire can give you a flavor of the depravity of the human soul.

Assisting me in coming to terms with this reality, in light of my indoctrination fo American Exceptionalism in government school systems, have been articles and searches from Lew Rockwell’s site over the past almost two decades. I have always been amazed by the sheer volume of material available for free from his site or others like the Mises Institute that can help anyone research for themselves how the world really operates, as well as the United States government, the Deep State and even Deep Politics.

There has been an article that I bookmarked earlier this week that referenced another lengthy article that intrigued me earlier this year that I never had time to really look at in detail. Let’s just say, I am still overwhelmed by the HTTP links, books and articles that cover not only US history but also world history that unveils what has happened behind the curtain for so many decades and centuries. Let me just say, the trust factor of government in general just keeps ratcheting down the more I read. I think I now know how many of the founders felt when they attempted a “good version” of government after it’s War for Independence from the British Empire.

“Who Rules America: Power Elite Analysis, the Deep State, and American History” by Charles Burris helps to unpack the trajectory of powerful men who have heavily influence many things behind the scenes that shows the heart of government is in fact, organized crime.

Here is a clip of the historical events that led to the effort in the American colonies in the 1770s to try and accomplish something new:

Why Power Elite Analysis (Libertarian Class Analysis) is Distinct From And Superior to Marxist Analysis

  1. Libertarian Class Theory Antedates Marxist Theory
  2. The English Civil War (The Levelers)
  3. Jean-Baptiste Say,  Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer
    1. The Industrial Society Versus the Statist Society
    2. The Competitive Free Market Versus the Monopolistic Society
    3. The Free Market Pitted Against Mercantilism and Feudalism
  4. Henri de Saint-Simon and the Distortion of Class Theory
  5. From Saint-Simon to Karl Marx
  6. Elitism and the Myth of Pluralism
  7. Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class
  8. Later 19th Century Libertarian Class Analysis
    1. Herbert Spencer: Military Society Versus the Industrial Society
    2. Sir Henry Maine: From Status to Contract
    3. Richard Cobden: War and the Interests

I have to admit, I have scrimped when it comes to researching history before the 1770s, and have found myself ill prepared to understand why the wheels came off the American Revolution’s “cause” so fast after the war had ended. In less than a decade, some of the same people that were pro-liberty, took up the reigns of government to be used as the British Empire did, to control the people, to enrich themselves at their expense, and establish a central strong government and central bank to keep people like them in power for generations to come in America. At the end of the day, America looked more like Europe with each passing decade. I guess the imperialism DNA is a strong thing to resist for even noble causes and honorable principles.

Even the honorable Thomas Jefferson tried to do the right thing as President of the United States and came away discouraged for how he had led this young country in those early years. As a older man he was actually thinking that yet another revolution could bring about two or three confederations out of the exiting united States.

In part two of Charles outline, he focuses mainly on the United States trajectory of becoming a hidden organized crime unit led by the power elite:

Part Two

  1. Early American Historical Overview

Theme of Liberty Versus Power –  (Ivan Jankovic, The American Counter-Revolution in Favor of Liberty: How Americans Resisted Modern State, 1765–1850); The Country Party Versus Court Party: The Declaration of Independence and the Revolution (Bernard Bailyn, The Origins of American Politics; The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution; Angelo M. Codevilla, The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About it)

  1. Counter-Revolution
    1. U.S. Constitution (Sheldon Richman, America’s Counter Revolution: The Constitution Revisited; John Taylor, New Views of the Constitution of the United States; Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States; Saul Cornell, The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism & the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828; What The Antifederalists Were For)
    2. Alexander Hamilton and the Plutocratic Federalists: “The Funding Fathers” (John McConaughy, Who Rules America: A Century of Invisible Government; Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution – and What It Means for America Today; Brion McClanahan, How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America)
    3. The Early Nationalist Period (Stanley Elkins & Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800; Gordon Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815; Phillip H. Burch, Elites in American History: The Federalist Years to the Civil War)
    4. Republicanism: From Jefferson to Van Buren
  2. Jeffersonian Drive to Roll Back the Federalist Program and Rid America of its Powerful Ruling Elite (Lance Banning, The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology)
  3. Failure of Jefferson/Madison Regimes and the Rise of the Old Republicans or “Tertium Quids” (Norman K. Risjord, The Old Republicans: Southern Conservatism in the Age of Jefferson)
    1. John Taylor of Caroline County, Virginia (John Taylor, Tyranny Unmasked)
    2. John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia
    3. The Panic of 1819, James Monroe, and the “Era of Good Feelings“

This exhaustive set of links ends with the current era highlighting the Obama and Trump administrations:

It is beyond a doubt, that even if one were to investigate only a fraction of these things, it would remain as the tip of the iceburg as to what was really accomplished via politics in secret.

What I appreciate about Charles Burris is that he then goes on to outline some of the historical events that were made possible by the power elite. Going back from the present to WWI, one can only imaging the lives lost or scared by these sociopaths in our midst:

The question for someone in the present is not whether the US should have intervened in these conflicts but what have we learned from this previous century of war, destruction, and the needless death of millions?

What we now know concerning the horrific wars of the previous century, as well as 21st century conflicts such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, provides us with a historical template to guide us in making future principled decisions concerning intervention or non-intervention.

Briefly, working backwards, what have revelations concerning non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction, deliberately falsified intelligence from the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, and an elaborately coordinated media disinformation campaign done for the case for US intervention in Iraq in 2003? For falsified (and/or still classified) information concerning the September 11th attacks leading to intervention against Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Afghanistan?

What has declassified revelations from the archives of the former Soviet Union and the Venona files in the United States done to totally reshape the narrative story of espionage and the Cold War?

What has archival revelations concerning the Pentagon Papers and the deliberately contrived Gulf of Tonkin Incident done to spurious justification for the massive intervention in the Vietnam conflict?

What has fifty years of revelations concerning the November 22, 1963 coup d’état and brutal murder of President John F. Kennedy by Lyndon Johnson and the highest echelons of the National Security State done to totally reassess the dynamic behind the change in US policy toward Vietnam within days of JFK’s assassination? How have the powerful behind-the-scenes revelations concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 aided in seeing a more complete picture regarding Kennedy’s murder and the subsequent change of policy toward Vietnam?

How have incisive revelations concerning the birth of the National Security State in 1947 impacted the story of the Cold War? How have revelations concerning the use of former Nazi intelligence officers in the Reinhard Gehlen organization grafted upon US military intelligence and the CIA, been shown to have provided unreliable and provocative disinformation which fueled early Cold War tensions?

How have decisive revelations concerning the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor reshaped the narrative of US intervention into WWII?

How have revelations concerning the Hitler/Stalin Non-Aggression Pact and the joint German and Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 affected our historical portrait of the larger story of how the Second World War began?

How have revelations concerning American and British financial, corporate, and political elites substantially aiding and rebuilding the Nazi war machine in the years prior to WWII as a bulwark against the Soviets change our view of the deep historical background?

How have revelations of the decades of joint military training and cooperation by intelligence services between Germany (during the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich) and the Soviet Union impact upon the lead up to WWII?

How did the Treaty of Versailles and agreements such as Sykes-Picot affect the interwar course of events leading to the Second World War?

How did the internecine network of secret treaties, entente cordiales, and clandestine military alliances drawn up prior to the First World War lead to this conflagration?

To this legacy one can only conclude that maybe America is not really exceptional at all, but just another self-serving nation who stuck their nose in other nation’s business totally contrary to the wishes of even the very statist George Washington!

The great American Experiment has indeed run its course. It would be nice if the next revolution was one of minds and hearts and not violent, however, man is prone toward the shortcuts of utilizing sanctions and war to accomplish the ‘greater good’.

-SF1

US Empire (Which Lies Like a Rug!) Gets Impatient with Iran: Why Does Iran Bug the US War-hawks So Much?

American exceptionalism gives those in power the encouragement to make believe that any means necessary are acceptable to accomplish the American Dream on a global scale.

The US Empire is morally bankrupt. As in society and community circles, a person’s actions, when compared to their words, determine the type of character they really are. The habitual liar’s history goes a long way in understanding what, if anything, that comes out of their mouth can be believed.

From Moon of Alabama comes a right understanding of the current situation with Iran, especially after the US immediately accused Iran of attacking oil tankers off their shore WITHOUT any evidence. As with the WMDs in Iraq, the Malaysian passenger jet shot down over Ukraine and “chemical weapons” attacks in Syria, the Western governments and their media know that the masses of people will only pay attention to the first few snippets of news and will never think again months and years later as to what really happened after careful investigations are completed.

From the Moon of Alabama article:

To say that the attacks were provocations by the U.S. or its Middle East allies is made easier by their evident ruthlessness. Any accusations by the Trump administration of Iranian culpability will be easily dismissed because everyone knows that Trump and his crew are notorious liars.

We do have a history of US government lying going back years, decades and even centuries, ask the American Indians about US treaties!

We know the damned lies from the US government as well. The US republic, or federation or democracy is not exempt from the DNA of the state. Murray Rothbard in his essay, “Anatomy of the State,” wrote of how states preserve their power with a number of tools, most notably an alliance with “intellectuals.” In return for power and positions, the “intellectuals” work diligently to persuade “the majority” that “their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable.”

To think that the swamp was actually created recently is a fallacy as much as expecting Donald Trump to drain this swamp. Ain’t happening, ever. His very position depends on the existence of the swamp, both those in official government position as well as in and around the deep state including a subset of the elite.

It did not take long after the American Revolution to see that lies, damned lies and statistics were to be at the core of the general government and subsequently into the state governments (especially after Lincoln violently reacted to even the thought of state’s rights) and beyond.

One of the first major liars on the scene was Alexander Hamilton. Suck a duplicitous liar Hamilton was in that he could speak out of both sides of his mouth, saying one thing in his Federalist Papers essays, and then spending the rest of his life doing exactly the opposite.  He defended states’ rights and federalism in these essays but when pressed by Jefferson and Madison, he “would often backtrack and advance positions he favored during the Philadelphia Convention, namely for a supreme central authority with virtually unlimited power, particularly for the executive branch.”  This was “the real Hamilton,” who “made a habit of lying when the need arose.”

It was Hamilton who first spread the outrageous, ahistorical lie that the states were never sovereign and that the Constitution was somehow ratified by “the whole people” and not by state conventions, as required by Article 7 of the Constitution itself.  It was Hamilton who John C. Calhoun must have been thinking about when he warned of “intellectuals” reinterpreting the constitution in a way that would essentially destroy it.  Hamilton’s lifelong goal was to subjugate the citizens of the states to the central government and render the states irrelevant and powerless.  The most Hamiltonian of all presidents, Abraham Lincoln, finally achieved this goal.

So it must be of no surprise that the wars of 1812, Mexican-American War in the 1840s, the so-called, mis-named Civil War of the 1860s, the American Indian wars, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII were ALL started based on lies by the US government. So much for the Greatest Generation who I refer to as their actual designation, the Silent Generation, as they did little to investigate the lies that catapulted the US into a two front war that distracted the public enough about US government failure to engineer a recovery from the Great Depression. Especially damning was the economic manipulation FDR orchestrated against Japan the year before Pearl Harbor and the fact that his administration was well aware of the Japanese fleet’s route to Pearl but decided to keep the US Navy in Hawaii in the dark. So much for that “surprise”.

We all should be aware of the lies since the close of WWII (the damned lie that the US had to have “unconditional surrender of Japan”, that only allowed the US government a live experiment of what nuclear weapons could do on two Japanese civilian population centers, and then settle for the same terms Japan offered in May 1945). The lies about the Korean War (our bombing of dams in North Korea causing so many innocent deaths will not be soon forgotten, can you blame them for retaining nuclear weapons?). The lies about Vietnam (yes, the Gulf of Tonkin incident that changed the course of that war under LBJ was made up), about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria all point to a major character flaw in the US government. Topping all this was the revelation by the hero Edward Snowden that the US government was indeed spying on all its citizens, capturing not just meta-data but actually phone, e-mail, text communications for the past two decades.

So now that we have the context, let us look briefly into the whole Iran thing. Historically, it must be noted that in 1953, the CIA actually assassinated the democratically elected president of Iran, a secular nationalist, Mohammad Mossadegh, the elected leader of the Majlis, Iran’s parliament. Operation Ajax was conceived by MI6, the UK’s foreign spy agency, and the CIA would organize the coup. Kermit Roosevelt, a grandson of former US President Teddy Roosevelt, was the CIA officer in charge.  Like North Korea, damned lies like this will be hard to be forgotten for generations of Iranians!

It should also be noted that in the late 1970s, many Iranians were students of mine in electronics classes in the US Navy. These are an honorable people with a rich heritage. I believe those who doubt this can watch this Rick Steve’s documentary accomplished five years ago about the Iranian people:

Fast forward to 2019. Moon of Alabama paints the near-term context:

In early May 2018 U.S. President Trump broke the nuclear deal with Iran and sanctioned all trade with that country. Iran reacted cautiously. It hoped that the other signatories of the nuclear deal would stick to their promises and continue to trade with it. The year since proved that such expectations were wrong.

Under threat of U.S. sanctions the European partners stopped buying Iranian oil and also ended their exports to it. The new financial instrument that was supposed to allow payments between European countries and Iran has still not been implemented. It is also a weak construct and will have too little capacity to make significant trade possible. Russia and China each have their own problems with the United States. They do not support trade with Iran when it endangers their other interests.

Meanwhile the Trump administration increased the pressure on Iran. It removed waivers it had given to some countries to buy Iranian oil. It designated a part of the Iranian armed forces, the Revolutionary Guard Corp (ICRG), as a terrorist entity. On Friday it sanctioned Iran’s biggest producer of petrochemical products because that company is alleged to have relations with the ICRG.

Why? Regime change is the M.O. (modus operandi) of the US Empire. It matters not the lives this endeavor may cost, Trump, his cabinet, his and his cabinet’s kids will not show up in any casualty lists, neither will war-hawks like Obama, Hillary, and others who happen to wear a “D” on their suits and pantsuits instead of an “R”. I am sure, the agenda is the same as in 1953 except for getting the United Kingdom what they wanted, Iranian oil, now the US Empire is accomplishing this on behalf of Israel, the empire’s new buddy and will satisfy Saudi Arabia as well.

How does a nation without nuclear weapons (in a proverbial “gun-free”zone) stay independent? History shows that when Libya gave up their nuclear ambitions, it is then when they were regime-changed. However, its actions to date are very honorable (especially if you compare their actions to that of the USA!):

The strategic patience Iran demonstrated throughout the year since Trump killed the deal brought no result. Trump will stay in power, probably for another five and a half years, while Iran’s economic situation continuous to get worse. The situation requires a strategic reorientation and the adoption of a new plan to counter U.S. pressure.

I am impressed by Iran’s response to this pressure from a global bully. It would be interesting to see how many parallels this effort has with Russia and even China as the US Empire threatens any nation that refuses to bow down to American Exceptionalism with sanctions and tariffs. From a Middle East Policy expert, Elijah J. Magnier, we see this four point plan outlined:

  • The first step suggested by Sayyed Ali Khamenei is for Iran to develop its resources and reduce imports to a minimum level in the years to come. Iran’s imports range from 40 to 65 billion dollars a year (in 2010, Iranian imports reached $65.4 billion while in 2017, they amounted to $51.6 billion). These imports are mainly related to machinery, computers and phone system devices, pharmaceuticals and medical instruments, electrical machinery, wheat, cereals and corn, rice and soya beans, transport vehicles, iron and flat-rolled steel, and organic chemicals.
  • The second recommendation is for Iran to behave on the premise that it has no loyal and established friends. The Leader of the revolution indicated that relationships with countries should be based on mutual interest rather than strategically established. Iran should count on its capabilities to defend its existence and continuity, without isolating itself. Countries may stand with Iran for their common benefit and interest, but such alliances should be considered related to circumstances and opportunities rather than taken for granted.
  • The third recommendation would be to ease domestic pressure on all political parties, including reformers (Mehdi karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard). The Iranian leadership considers national unity of paramount importance in this period of crisis that may last for another five years if Donald Trump is re-elected. Moreover, Iran has taken a unified stand against US sanctions; moderates such as President Hassan Rouhani and his Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif have adopted hard-line positions, similar to those of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
  • The Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s fourth recommendation is that Iran relies much less on oil export revenues in the future. Iran’s annual crude petroleum shipments are worth 21 to 27 billion dollars, representing 4.3% of the world market share. The Iranian leader suggested increasing and diversifying other domestic products Iran could export, mainly but not exclusively to neighbouring countries. This measure is meant to lessen the effect of US sanctions on Iranian energy exports, in place not only under the Trump administration but also under previous US administrations throughout the life of the “Islamic Revolution” (1979).

I also wonder how the US’s “founding fathers” might have also approached this same strategy in its battle against the British Empire and its King George from 1775 – 1783.

Beyond this four-point plan, there is another shift happening:

Trump continues to call for negotiations with Iran but he can accept nothing but a total capitulation. Trump also proved that the U.S. does not stick to the agreements it makes. There is therefore no hope for Iran to achieve anything through negotiations. There is only one way to counter Trump’s maximum pressure campaign and that is by putting maximum pressure on him.

Neither Washington, nor the anti-Iranian countries in the Middle East, nor the other nuclear deal signers have so far paid a price for their hostile acts against Iran. That will now change.

Marine Traffic – Oil Tanker ONLY

Iran’s coast and reach can have a huge impact on the oil business

Iran will move against the interests of the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It will do so in deniable form to give the U.S. and others no opening for taking military actions against it. Iran has friends in various countries in the Middle East who will support it with their own capabilities. The campaign Iran now launches will also create severe damage for other countries.

In the last 30 days we have seen the shift start as “things” start to happen in the oil shipping channel, is this coincidence or is that part of a strategy either by MI6/Mossad/CIA or by Iranian forces?

In mid May 2019, one year after Trump destroyed the nuclear deal, a demonstration of capabilities damaged four tankers which anchored near Fujairah in the UAE. There was no evidence to blame the attack on Iran. The incident was a warning. But the U.S. ignored it and increased the sanction pressure on Iran.

Yesterday two tankers with petrochemical products were attacked while crossing the Gulf of Oman. Coming only a few days after Trump sanctioned Iran’s petrochemical exports points to Iran’s involvement. But again no evidence was left in place to blame the incident on Iran.

Early reports seem to indicate drone use in the latest attacks:

Meanwhile the owner of the Kokuka Courageous, one of the stricken ships, said that the damage to its ship was not caused by mines but by drones:

Two “flying objects” damaged a Japanese tanker owned by Kokuka Sangyo Co in an attack on Thursday in the Gulf of Oman, but there was no damage to the cargo of methanol, the company president said on Friday.
…
“The crew told us something came flying at the ship, and they found a hole,” Katada said. “Then some crew witnessed the second shot.”

Drones also are the M.O. of the US Empire. Ask anyone in the Middle East! I do not rule out Iranian involvement, but they know that any Iranian fingerprint would be dealt with swiftly.

At the US Empire’s core, there seems to be an alliance of disgusting personalities. Iran’s leadership is very aware of this team they call the “B-team”:

Javad Zarif @JZarif – 12:11 UTC – 14 Jun 2019

That the US immediately jumped to make allegations against Iran—w/o a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence—only makes it abundantly clear that the #B_Team is moving to a #PlanB: Sabotage diplomacy—including by @AbeShinzo—and cover up its #EconomicTerrorism against Iran.

I warned of exactly this scenario a few months ago, not because I’m clairvoyant, but because I recognize where the #B_Team is coming from.

Moon of Alabama goes on to call out these war-jockeys:

The “B-team” includes Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton, Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahoo, Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Zayed of the UAE.

So the focus that was on Syria from this alliance has now shifted to Iran yet again as it seems that Russia has subtly been able to shore up Venezuela for the time being.

The deep state is looking for a war, it needs war profits (in addition to the drug trade) to continue it existence, and at some point in the future, it will follow-through on something, somewhere.

So sad. So sick.

The sad truth remains, as Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are all well aware:

Politics is indeed the poison that honorable people must reject outright. The problem is in a democracy, “the people” are given the “political power” (in principle only) to get what they want. Dividing people into groups while inciting violence from time to time tends to keep our eyes off the most evil element of our society, our tyrannical and narcissistic governments.

Expect the lies, damned lies (and statistics) to continue.

Matthew 24:6 (Bible)

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

-SF1

The Core of Government: Necessary Evil?

From the Burning Platform post, Doug Casey challenges popular theory that different cultures can’t live in a more peaceful harmony, community by community:

Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together peaceably in Palestine, Lebanon, and North Africa for centuries until the situation became politicized after World War I. Until then, an individual’s background and beliefs were just personal attributes, not a casus belli. Government was at its most benign, an ineffectual nuisance that concerned itself mostly with extorting taxes. People were busy with that most harmless of activities: making money.

But politics do not deal with people as individuals. It scoops them up into parties and nations. And some group inevitably winds up using the power of the state (however “innocently” or “justly” at first) to impose its values and wishes on others with predictably destructive results. What would otherwise be an interesting kaleidoscope of humanity then sorts itself out according to the lowest common denominator peculiar to the time and place.

Politics again is the poison, but the promises of safety seem to trump all other concerns …

… collectivism grows because the “thing” can’t deal well with individuals .. it is too messy and takes too much time. Even the Hebrews mandated the need for a king to replace judges (1 Sam 18 – The Bible). They were warned what would be the consequences of “good” intensions:

“This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

Basically:

Doug goes on to say:

Sometimes that [a certain group gaining power] means along religious lines, as with the Muslims and Hindus in India or the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland; or ethnic lines, like the Kurds and Iraqis in the Middle East or Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka; sometimes it’s mostly racial, as whites and East Indians found throughout Africa in the 1970s or Asians in California in the 1870s. Sometimes it’s purely a matter of politics, as Argentines, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and other Latins discovered more recently. Sometimes it amounts to no more than personal beliefs, as the McCarthy era in the 1950s and the Salem trials in the 1690s proved.

Throughout history government has served as a vehicle for the organization of hatred and oppression, benefiting no one except those who are ambitious and ruthless enough to gain control of it.

Those of us who know real history are awake to this truth, but these days, our own history is being removed .. Milan Kundera sais:

“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long that nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.“

The alternative that Doug Casey has is the effectiveness of markets, however, when an empire blows through your neighborhood, how good will the market be to achieve a better way for family, friends, community and society?

That’s not to say government hasn’t, then and now, performed useful functions. But the useful things it does could and would be done far better by the market.

I don’t have the answers here .. just questions.

-SF1

Definition of anarchy: