11 posts tagged “iran”
Business vs Politicians – Guess Who Knows Better? by Manuel Lora and Juan Fernando Carpio.
Scott Horton interviews Lew Rockwell. Listen here [mp3] as they discuss the Ron Paul Revolution, government and the moral law, money and the Fed, and more.
Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime by Evan Wallach.
The Latest Torture Twists & Turns: We Have Ways… by James Bovard.
The Foreign Policy of Barack Obama by Jeff Taylor. (Make War not Love.)
Bought and Paid For: Lobbyist for Pakistan Maxed Out Donations to Clinton.
[See The Paleo Blog entry on the holistic solution versus "campaign finance reform" proposals.]
Rev. Pat Robertson endorses, guess who? Giuliani.
Sometime back, in one of those online political quizzes, I was asked if I felt the "Christian Right" was a danger to America. At the time I voted "No." Today it is clear to me that I was very mistaken. Ever since the Bush administration has been in power, has it been a danger. One thing rises above in importance for these particular "Christians": Bigger, Better, and More War. With this administration, they have come to see the State as a "friend" for Christianity and the family. Instead of focusing on church activities, family and community, it is State action. (And that is the best way to diminish the former things.) They have come to see it to be used against anyone they do not like, and many times on people they not only do not like but literally hate. They love the use of police power, for example the immoral, economically and socially destructive, infinitely costly war on drugs. It can be a very scary group.
To that end, Giuliani is a great pick. It also displays the paramount issue for them. Empire, Empire, Empire. That is what is important. His social views? His own personal life? Or his record on gun rights? Who cares? They love the bomb and nightstick.
Thankfully the Christian Warmongering Right is not as strong as they use to be. So there is some optimism on this subject. Many people have come to see the light away from the leadership of the Christian community, but there are still some very dark spots. Robertson would be one of them.
The War on Christmas: Already Starting. Even the war starts earlier every year, I guess. Here is Taki reporting on Goodbye, Whites and Christmas.
Joseph Sobran's printed newsletter has shutdown. :( Thankfully, though, he will still pen articles online. Health and financial reasons are the cause. Have him in your prayers. See:
Adieu! by Joe Sobran.
Publisher's Note by Fran Griffin.
Sobran's website is now posting up classics from the late Sam Francis.
Plus Paul Gottfried is contributing: Paul Gottfried's "Ornery Observer" Archives.
Thomas E. Woods, Jr., on the return of the old Latin Mass.
[See Past Entries on Subject: Catholicism --- Authority and Economics & Relighting the Flame of Catholicism]
Hurray, Hurrah! Oregonians Rejects An Additional Tax on Cigarettes.
Any government program or idea "for the children" should have you always react in the negative.
Lew Rockwell writes that there is more good news: "New Jersey voters rejected a state-funded stem-cell boondoggle, and Utah voters said no to statewide school-voucher welfare."
Ron Paul Campaign Raised over $4 Million on Nov. 5th.
Those darn "spammers"! Not sure where, but on some blog a poster was joking that those one or two Ron Paul supporters must be counterfeiting money to spam it to his campaign.
Of course (haha), Ron Paul is against counterfeiting money. He wants money to be as good as gold.
See what the Ron Paul Rider is up to. (I say rider, singular not plural, because there really is only one, but he has a lot of backup support.) Grassroot support for Ron Paul is amazing. The passion, enthusiasm, ... is all there. It is second to none.
One of the highlights in subscribing to TAC is Philip Giraldi's "Deep Background." Mr. Giraldi reports on the Israeli air strike on Syria last month.
The New Your Times reported that what was hit was a nuclear reactor, and that this nuclear reactor was being build with the help of North Korea. Surprise. This is nonsense. First, there was "no American satellite photography indicating that the area bombed was a nuclear site." "Moreover," he writes, "U.S. satellites and ground collector facilities did not detect any radiation emissions following the bombing, something that would have result if uranium or plutonium was actually present." The conclusion from a "CIA briefing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Oct. 8 concluded that the intelligence community has nothing that points to a Syrian nuclear program." But this is not stopping the Bush administration for trying to link North Korea and Syria.
Giraldi reports that one of his sources has said that the attack was really aimed to "gather intelligence on a new anti-aircraft radar system being installed by Russia in both Syria and Iran." Furthermore, the Pentagon was involved in this attack to gather such info, "concerned about the effectiveness of the new air defenses if there is an American attack on Iran." During the attack Syria did not turn their system on, knowing full well that Israel would gain intelligence in regards to their defenses.
The desire to attack Iran is not going away. It would not, at least initially, take much effort to attack. They are right next-door to the U.S. military. It is hard to believe that any administration----even this one---would do such a evil and stupid thing, but State officials rarely think about the long-term much. They are short-term, high time preference people. All of the usual propaganda is coming out about Iran. Like I have said before, it is deja vu.
Saddam Hussein was portrayed as "the Hitler of today." That he was an aggressor outside of his borders, specifically directed at the United States. But if you remember back, Hussein was constantly obsessed with power and controlling that power. He had food-tasters. He had people sitting in his chair before him. And so forth. He knew the second he started to develop a "WMD," he would be nailed. The United States government was watching all of his moves. Come on. This is how much interest he had in engaging militarily directly or indirectly with the U.S.: zero. Saddam Hussein had no self-interest. But all of this was ignored. The goal was always to invade Iraq, and it happened, as we know, with sweetness, light, and the villagers showering the U.S. troops with flowers.
The United States Empire is always searching for a new Hitler or Hitler-like person or sympathizer. Yesterday night, when I turned on Michael Savage's talk radio program (ugh), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was being portrayed as "the (new!) Hitler of today." Yeah, I am sure with the spitballs he has in that third world nation... See Scott Horton on "The Case Against the Case for War With Iran".
'Invade and Bomb With Hillary and Rahm'
Why war with Iran is likely
By Justin Raimondo
Read Here.
____________________________
[Nota Bene: A few of the previous entries from Nov 3 have been reedited and corrected a bit.]
Author, former Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins Charles in the studio to discuss some of the repercussions of being right, the rewards for those who lie us into war, the high probability of a war with Iran, the complicity of the Democrats in Congress, the military’s readiness for a fight, the extent of the Iranian nuclear program, the history of the weapons inspections in Iraq, how the Clinton government prevented him and his colleagues from finishing their work in the 1990’s, the fight between the vice president’s office and the professional military over the next war and why relying on them to stand up to Bush/Cheney is a bad idea.
Listen Here [mp3]
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Speaking of Anti-War and Peace...
One leftwing website to bookmark would be Counterpunch. Lew Rockwell links to a piece by Jan Oberg about "peace" man Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a worthy addition to the previous "peace" men. Maybe George W. Bush should be next in receiving it? He'd fit right in. Here is Dr. Anderson on the subject. And here is Dr. Shaffer.
/ / / Plus see the Great Joe Sobran on the Nut Bush and the Very Real Possibility of War with Iran. Click here.
/ / / Mr. Raimondo had a piece on another mad man bloodthirsty killer. Rudy Giuliani campaign is surrounded with neocons. Read here. Plus see his "notes in the margin" for good links.
The New Al Qaeda --- 'rebuilt, new younger leaders, profiles of leaders, new recruits'
Are We Safer Today? I'll give you one guess.
(Above links via ConservativesForPeace.com----check it out.)
The Diagnosis of a Dying Republic by Anthony Gregory
Article on the book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson.
Scott Horton Interviews Anthony Gregory on American Empire and Its History. Listen Here [mp3].
Pat Buchanan asks "Is Terrorism Really a Mortal Threat?"
See also his article Infantile Nation.
Justin Raimondo: "Ahmadinejad's visit revives the War Party's sinking fortunes" and how the neocon spin-doctors have used it. Read Dress Rehearsal for War.
Lew Rockwell Breaks Taboos: None Dare Call It Genocide.
Saying No to Democracy.
Yes, it is certainly accurate to say that I am not a fan of voting, the voting process or democracy. As I have typed here, returning to a comparatively more free society would mean returning to a republic or a more aristocratic government (if we must be content with a government at all, or be confined to a non-monarchial government form). Access to voting should go back to being much more restrictive and discriminatory, more so. For example, no welfare bums or government workers should be allowed to vote. Only land property owners should be given access and newly arriving ('legal' and 'illegal') immigrants should be blocked from access.
And, while we are talking about striking down democracy, ballot propositions (see my Paleo Blog entry on this here), which do more to increase government than to decrease it, should be ended too. The democratization that occurred with mass popular elections of senators, for another example, should also be ended. Simply put, the de-powering of democracy. It is better if the United States be a Republic once again and not a Democracy.
Voting ---- Lesser of Two Evils? Which is the "Lesser"?
“Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
While I am not fan of the democratic or voting process, if I do get the opportunity to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary, I have decided that I will.
Now I think I was probably mistaken on being so critical or harsh to those that do vote, as I have in the past. In The Ethics of Liberty, Murray Rothbard quotes Lysander Spooner on why a man voting for candidate X does not therefore mean that the voting man gives X a complete pass or acceptance on everything he does. And, as the great Walter Block has written at LRC: "If a slave master allows his property to vote between a harsh and a more humane overseer, we are to blame to slaves for choosing the latter? This is a perversion of libertarianism."
The issue I want to address here, for those that do vote, is how some people believe that they can only vote for someone who "has a chance of winning." This leads some people to reject such candidates as the principled and independent old fashioned conservative or minarchist libertarian Ron Paul. Why do that? Now, if your goal is to vote for someone who "has a chance," why not just vote for the candidate who you believe will win the election, despite, or leaving aside, his positions or views on the political issues of the day? It appears as if one who votes according to "who has a chance" might as well do this.
Besides, when the choice "of having a chance to win" is between, at the end, between Republocrat A and Republocrat B it is difficult, if you vote between them, to figure out who is the "lesser of evil." It as if one is going to risk a lot of money at a casino. Who is the lesser evil? It is hard to tell.
As talked about before, in the 2000 presidential election with George Bush and Al Gore it would be understandable how someone could have said that Bush would be the "lesser of evil." Today it is difficult to say that. Bush's rhetoric was in promotion of a more non-interventionist foreign policy (unlike Gore, who belonged to an administration which behaved exactly the opposite) and whose rhetoric was more limited government (again, unlike Gore). Half-way decent rhetoric in 2000 turned into political policies that were the polar opposite under this nightmare administration.
In retrospect, Gore would probably have been relatively better, be it only by a small margin. All modern Republican presidents have grown government faster and more than Democrat presidents. As for war, the political parties take turns on this one, it appears. There is all the reason in the world, plus more, to suspect that if Gore were president there still would have been a war in Iraq. Would it be more limited or would it end sooner, though, is anyone's guess.
If you think the Democrats are so different on the Iraq War issue, you are kidding yourself. They now have the majority, and what to do they? Expand it. They are nothing but power-hungry unprincipled politicians. They are also sitting in the sidelines twiddling their fingers when Bush and the neocon echo chamber is pushing a war with Iran.
(By the way, maybe people should think twice before being spoon-fed the neoconservative lines for the reason "we" "must" attack Iran. They do not have the best record when it comes to these matters.)
Neoconservatives claim that the Democrat Party gained the majority due to Bush's growth of government. No, the reason related to war issues. As people voted in the Democrats, who appeared the "lesser evils," nothing has changed or is changing in regards to Iraq and little pressure is being applied to the Bush administration in the possibility of war with Iran.
In this case, the possibility of war with Iran might be slightly less with more Republicans in office. This is because they would be more seen as the cause for the war and this would make them more conservative in deciding the proper course of action.
So the "lesser evil" is a lottery game. It is a waste. The Republican and Democrat parties are just part of the Washington Party. Voting between is just a vote for the Washington Party. If you must vote, vote for the politician that is the most independent and principled. This may require voting third party in all elections, but so be it. Maybe by doing that, it might lead to some good impact. To win people over to Liberty is to engage in the war of ideas. Good libertarianism, property understood, is the anti-politics philosophy. As a late libertarian said, it seeks the death of politics. The political process might not be the first choice of many libertarians (me included), but Ron Paul has opened up a lot of individuals to the philosophy of liberty. It has made a lot of people excited about these ideas.
Rush Limbaugh-style "Left" versus "Right" is Nonsense
And this "lesser of evil" is a complete distraction from the left-neocon establishment.
Democracy and the voting process pushes into this stupid debate. Turn on Rush Limbaugh to constantly hear about it. Read a neoconservative blog. Or turn on Air America Radio. Or read a left-liberal blog, who also keeps on the message of "Democrat, basically good. Republican, basically always, bad." To these people that is what politics is all about. It is about partisanship and drinking the "kool-aid." Who can stand that stuff? Why do so many people? These people are cartoon characters of one another, sorry to say. Not only do they make usually false statements about the supposed "other side," but they themselves typically have no guiding principles.
This is one of the things I very much dislike. The establishment tries to pin everyone down into this erroneous "left" versus "right" debate. As if the establishment of what they define as the "left" (i.e., Democrats) and the "right" (i.e., Republicans) are actually fundamentally different! A scam this is. A point that Paul Gottfried has been making is that you will virtually never see (with a few rare exceptions) a paleoconservative or a paleolibertarian in the media. Left-liberals are completely happy to engage with neoconservatives, because they are not much different in their views (as they wish and daydream).
To illustrate politics today, Mr. Charles Goyette and his son wrote a great article during the 2004 presidential election. Here is an except:
"Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Election"
"Did so!" "Did not!" "You're a liar!" "You're one, too!"
The presidential contest sounds so much like your kids in the backseat on a long road trip, that you almost expect them to break out in chants of "I'm rubber and you’re glue!"
It is in this atmosphere of elevated public debate that my 11-year-old son Steven and I decided a convincing case could be made that this is the Winnie the Pooh election. While this may be the Fifty State Nation, not the Hundred Acre Wood, we believe the comparison is otherwise uncanny.
That is politics. And that is the debate of politics. Turn on talk radio, read the neocon-liberal blogs, et cetera.
You have to wonder about people sometimes. Yesterday morning I was listening to The Charles Goyette Show, a talk radio program in Phoenix, Arizona. Mr. Goyette was not on live. A "Best Of" was playing. There was an interview of some author------I wish I caught his name or book----oh, well. If I were not busy at the time, I would have taken some notes of all the idiotic statements from this gentleman. I do not say this lightly, but what a double-talk ignoramus.
In the first part of the interview, the interviewee said that he does not support going to war with Iran. Sounds good, so far. He said, however, that he "only" supports bombing them! And, all this time, I thought dropping bombs was something that happens in wartime. You have could have fooled me.
Someone needs to create a Neo-Con Lexicon.
Bombing = Peace, Love (Not War!)
Next, one can suppose, this man will tell us that troops pulling triggers of guns in a foreign land is not "war," but "merely" and "only" bullets traveling through space-time. No, it is not War. Call it anything but that! "Why, no, I do not support war! Not with today's polls. I 'only' just support bombing."
Why, I imagine that few, be it a small few, dedicated Bush supporter talk radio listeners actually follow this without hearing any double-talk or idiocy.
Wasn't it Old Rightist H. L. Mencken who said: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public"?
This guy's book was number two at Amazon, at the time of this interview. This is what passes in American debate. (I'll have to do a search on Amazon, hopefully I can find it.)
Conflict in the Middle East and this rise of terrorism has only heated up when the United States got involved. It was in response to that. As others have said, "they supposedly hate our freedoms . . . but, say, thirty years ago they must have been okay with them, when freedom was greater." Is it too much to ask people to try to place themselves into the shoes of other people? Picture a young man whose parents were killed by American bombs. Or a father who lost his wife and children. Imagine a Thomas Jefferson seeing the American government fund the despotic government he is under.
Another thing that caught my attention, during the interview, was his talk about how it is just (and it so sadly is) awful for Christians to live in Iraq. Does he not know that before the war there was a large segment of Christians who lived in Iraq peacefully (they were not disturbed)? It is hell for them now because we made the place a much greater hell!
He went on about how those who oppose the Iraq War are "relativists." Well, sir, I am not a relativist. It is someone like you that is. I will not excuse any side of a conflict. When the American government commits an act of butchering innocents, I will not excuse it. Anymore than excusing terrorist organizations that butcher innocents. Nor, as he says, do I deny in evil or the existence of evil.
Unlike this interviewee, interviewer Mr. Goyette actually responded without using bumper sticker slogans of "how anti-war activists are relativists; do not think such things as evil exists; if you are against the war you are for the terrorists; etc.; etc." We could call this part of the Binary Political Syndrome, which most neoconservatives and left-liberals appear to have.
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(Addendum)
Side Links:
- Mr. Justin Raimondo at Taki's Top Drawer, says how a war with Iran is almost certain. Read here.
- See Also Mr. Patrick J. Buchanan's Stopping the Next War.
[I have a habit for going a bit on a tangent, but sometimes for the good. In this free-riding entry I go over a few of the lessons that really should have been seen as it relates to 9/11/01 and where we are today. I also explain the logic behind the rise of fascism, from the frame of reference of the State, and how that applies to today's department of homeland "security." I also briefly talk about the democratization of war. I am sure there are several articles and blog entires online on 9/11, my focus might be somewhat more unique in the areas I chose to focus and zero-in on.]
“It is in war that the State really comes into its own:
swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the
economy and the society. Society becomes a herd, seeking to kill its
alleged enemies, rooting out and suppressing all dissent from the
official war effort, happily betraying truth for the supposed public
interest. Society becomes an armed camp, with the values and the morale
– as Albert Jay Nock once phrased it – of an 'army on the march.'”
--- Murray N. Rothbard; War, Peace, and the State
***
Six years later, where are we today?
For one thing, it does not feel that it has been that long. The government and its ever-willing media make the tragic affair feel like it was merely two or perhaps three years ago. They exploit the event as much as possible for their gain, to further encroach on the liberties of the American people, and not to mention to further encroach on the liberties of other peoples of the world. Sept 11 was nothing more, for the government, than a pretext to thrust the agenda of neoconservative global hegemony, the expansion of the warfare-welfare state, and the domestic police state.
Robert Higgs is the author of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. War really is the Health of the State, as Randolph Bourne said in an uncompleted essay. History has never failed to show otherwise, as people like Dr. Higgs have shown.. It is in times of crisis and war that State power explodes. Since democratic government is all about rallying people to its causes under the illusion that “‘we’ the people” are the government, the State will do its best to meliorate its hold of power in times when people are most likely to rally together.
Many of men often talk about a so-termed “New World Order” or a “World Government,” but I exhort to those individuals that this is not entirely accurate. The powers that be see they, themselves, as the global controllers of the United States (Empire). They see themselves as the power holders. It is not as if they want to hand over power to the United Nations, unless they themselves control it. Ditto goes for the idea of a “North American Union.” Even if it be they in charge, this should not diminish any of our views of what that would mean and entail, to those truly concerned about freedom. Clearly this is of a most dangerous scenario, because it is a growth function of democratic government to mass centralize in this fashion----to centralize in a way that no classical monarchy could ever.
This is not just some cooked up rhetoric about neoconservatism and those that subscribe to this ideological creed, though. Mr. James Bovard makes the point in his excellent latest book, Attention Deficit Democracy, that the parallels of speech and written word to dictators like Benito Mussolini and neoconservative Bill Kristol, who the late Sam Francis called the “neoconservative sex god,” is very clear and vivid. There need be no dramatic hyperbole. Kristol, for example, in 1996 spoke of how the U.S. should exploit its "military supremacy and moral confidence" to achieve "benevolent global hegemony." (What is "benevolent" about that, I am unsure.) Or take William Buckley, who has called for (his very words) "a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores" to fight the Soviet Union-------only this attitude or view did not end after the Cold War.. Today, like it or not, this is what conservatism means in the modern world.
Security and Transportation
Government’s supposed job, which people say needs a monopoly over a geographical territory (but, interestingly and paradoxically, it is suggested by nearly everyone that there not need be a monopoly over the entire world, contra their logic that would suggest that), is of “protection.” Of course, government failed miserably on 9-11. It monopolized security in regards to airports and airliners. Its control gutted airliners to look after their own interests. Interests of which they have a direct and immediate concern about, unlike government which only has an indirect and secondary (at best!) concern about. They were not allowed to do the things they would have otherwise been allowed to do. Government’s banning of the airliners possessing a gun for protection is a clear example. There is a direct concern for private enterprise to protect their paying customers and to continue to do that for new potential customers. They have to respond to the free market and guard against the possibility of losses; chief among them would be the possibility of hijacking. Instead, government took this transportation industry off the gird of the market, so to speak. Failure was not punished, as in what happens to a free market enterprise that fails, but instead the State was rewarded with more power and control. Imagine, from this, the incentive system that the State has! It is of no accident that so-called government provided “services” are the areas of life that are the worst.
One of the lessons that should have been figured out with the events of Sept 11th, 2001 is that government provided “security” is not security at all! What should have been demanded is that the government get out of the business altogether. All that has been “gained” with government getting even more involved in security is airport authoritarianism.
This does not only go for the governmental operations in the area of transportation and the security thereof. The State’s myopia fills all of the diverse departments that are supposed to “protect” us. All of them did not accomplish the task and made us all the more vulnerable. Instead of being deprived of funding, they were only expanded. Even new departments were created to add to the mess after 9/11. Departments, that for all obviousness, are nothing but pork. Today’s so-called conservatives, one thought, are supposed to condemn such government projects. The matter is entirely different, of course, and they gladly cheer on the most extravagant (in ugliness) of government programs.
Homeland “Security”
As Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo writes in “The Fatherland Protection Racket,” the pork projects that fill the department of Homeland “Security” are so visibly pork that one wonders why there is hardly the outrage against this department that there ought to be. Believing that this department “protects” us is delusional. (More on this later.)
The Rise and Reason of Fascism
Individuals qua government officials who seek power via political contra economic means, motivated by the same basic interests and desires as all other men, while at the same time under the identical economic laws and limitations, understand that the best way to facilitate government power is not through socialism. Socialism’s bankruptcy only produces bankrupt states. The former Soviet Union, while internally aggressive and oppressive to the people under it, had only consequently weak hosts to live parasitically on. This explains why, relatively speaking, the former Soviet Union was never as imperialistic or aggressive, outside of “its” territory, as the United States, which is (relatively) internally less aggressive or classically liberal. Such states, as the U.S., will therefore tend to turn into empires. The record only bears this out for today’s empire (the U.S.) and ones past.
Thus, with the above acknowledged, such political individuals will try to “harness” the abundance of wealth that is created under the “engine” of society, i.e. of capitalism. This will generally turn capitalism, under statist conditions, into fascism (i.e., anti-capitalism). In such a case, the alliance between big government and big business is amplified and enlarged. Mythical attacks in which left-liberals have against capitalism for being nothing more than fascism is utterly nonsense then, because there is a clear and definitive difference between the political versus the economic means for an individual to obtain wealth: one of taking (stealing and coercion, i.e. political) or mobbing out competition (closing the door for competition via coercive regulations, i.e. political) and the other of producing wealth (production and voluntarism, i.e. economic). Fascism is the only natural course for Leviathan Statism. One has to actually abolish the idea of coercive and monopolistic “protection” and socialist (state provided) “law and order” to get rid of the natural flow of statism and accordingly its flow to the rise of fascism.
(People will take the easier or shortest route, after all. The man that is offered $X dollars by the government will take it. The man that is offered to regulate his competitor out of business will have the urge and strong desire to take it. There is no polylogism or polyeconomic analysis for men directly working in government, either. No wishful thinking by even non-Austrian analysis can change that.)
This explains the reason of the existence of such departments as Homeland “Security” and why they are heavily protected against those who call for it to be destroyed. It also applies as well to the entire military-industrial complex.
Homeland “Security” Continued
What has the “Fatherland Protection Racket” brought? Far from protection, it is another racket of fascism. To quote DiLorenzo:
As for the pork, a few examples will give you the flavor of how out-of-control it has become:
* Boeing was given a five-year, $1.37 billion contract to equip U.S. airports with "bomb screening devices" that experts say are "laughingly ineffective."
* Northrop Grumman "landed a $350 million contract to construct a DHS data network.
* "First-responder training facilities are springing up like toadstools after a rainstorm. The Nevada Test Site . . . which trains 3,000 fire fighters, paramedics, and policemen annually, is slated to quintuple that number as the DHS money rolls in."
* The new Hampshire town of Bennington, population 1, 272, spent part of its Homeland Security grant to buy chemical weapons suits – just in case bin Laden chose Bennington as his next maximum impact target.
* Local police departments in New Hampshire will get access to "satellite television channels that transmit continuous news," courtesy of a DHS grant.
* Colchester, Vermont, population 18,000, received a DHS grant to purchase a "search-and-rescue vehicle" that "can bore through concrete and search for victims in collapsed buildings."
* Thanks to the influence of Dick Cheney, "Wyoming receives more money per capita than any other state in homeland security grants."
* And naturally, "a non-state – the District of Columbia – is far and away the biggest recipient of homeland security grants per capita," receiving more than twice as much as Dick Cheney’s home state.
* Citgo, Conoco-Phillips, and Shell received tens of millions of dollars in DHS grants for "refiner security," something they are very well equipped to finance themselves.
* The former mayor of Washington, D.C., Sharon Pratt, received a no-bid "bioterrorism consulting contract" for $236,000.
* Forty "young people" in Washington, D.C. were paid by a DHS grant to "rap and dance about emergency preparedness."
This is the reality of such wasteful programs----programs that have nothing to do with “protecting” us. From one perspective, this can be viewed as a slap in the face to the families that suffered because of the event of 9/11. They were obviously looking to the government (even if it be misguided) for the role of actually cleaning house and setting up a system of real protection. Instead, what they got was this neo-con abomination.
(See Also: “The Security-Industrial-Congressional Complex (SICC)” by Robert Higgs)
Such government programs can never do the job of protection. The torpor of such programs can only be worse with their expansion or the implementation of additional departments (programs). Providing security, like all other goods and services, is under the reality of scarcity. The direction or allocation of any good or service can never be directed or allocated under statist conditions because there is no rational way to do so. There are no prices; no profit--loss; and so forth. Resources require as a requisite markets and by definition they are absent under statist conditions. Hence, production will always by necessity be irrational; up to the whims of government officials. There will always be “too much” or “too little” of production, with a constant state of flux between the two, and shades of the two in regards to the various tasks that these programs are supposedly designed for. Nor is there competition. The production of security, then, will be one of ever decreasing service and production, while at the same time increased costs. Instead of a Soviet Union-like government program for the allocation of food, which resulted in chaotic conditions; there will be, mutatis mutandis, these conditions for protection and security.
Osama bin Laden and Terrorism
Six years of the government supposedly going after Osama bin Laden and catching him “dead or alive,” has proven fruitless. Allegedly he was the mastermind of the event, but instead of the government putting its resources in trying to capture him; government officials have diverted their limited resources to even more reckless actions of interventionism, and have incited more levels of hate and anger against the U.S. Resources were diverted into Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, and has only contributed to the problems, and possibility of another attack. It has made the region more unstable, and, unlike the propaganda from the neoconservatives, the ground is not being “transformed” into peace and light void of terrorism (so far from!), but, instead, is being filled with the squalid atmosphere much friendly for terrorism and its growth.
Government politicians, officials, and the neoconservatives working in their various “think”-tanks are once again setting the stage, before our very own eyes, for another aggressive, interventionist, and nation-“building” war in the Middle East. Although, it is hard for me to personally put down odds on such an event, others with far more knowledge than I, like Pat Buchanan, believe that the odds are sadly quite high. (Read “Phase III of Bush's War.“) Thus, far from learning from experience and history, the setting of the stage for another potential war, this time with Iran, is in the works! It is true when they say that the only thing we learn from history, is that we do not learn from it. To call this administration and President Bush mad is to put it mildly.
Terrorist organizations are stronger than before because of all of this. Indeed, as Mr. Scott Horton writes at AntiWar.com, the concept of the mass of people (a complete democratic construct of reasoning, especially in wartime) in the Middle East hating our (decreasing) freedoms is nonsensical. The increase of hatred of larger bulks of people is tied with our interventionism. They set their aims for the United States and not Switzerland or Sweden. The very first conflicts were directly involving U.S. presence; not attacks on the shores of the United States. Indeed, writes Horton, “Ayatollah Khomeini spent the 1980's railing against American culture and the entire region yawned. Osama bin Laden, on the other hand, kept his pitch straight and to the point – and it worked.” [Emphasis mine.] Bin Laden's focus has been on occupation. For example, his 1996 “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places...”
The focus was, as Horton writes in his important article, on {1} bases in Saudi Arabia; {2} support for Israel (a bizarre neoconservative love affair, clinging to the love of the totalitarian form of government known as democracy); {3} no-fly zone bombings and trade sanctions, killing hundreds of thousands of people (the monster Janet Reno said it was “worth it” on TV); {4} direct support to the various dictators in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, etc.; {5} control and manipulation of the prices of oil; and {6} giving support to Russia, China and India in their wars against Muslims.
And as Mr. Horton says, “by studying every single individual suicide bomber on Earth between 1980 and 2004 – the one characteristic that all suicide bombers have in common is the presence of foreign combat forces in their country – not Islam.”
U.S. Imperialism
State wars are unjust and immoral. And will always be that. The State, despite all of the rhetoric to hide the real nature of this institution, is nothing but a “bandit gang writ large.” And as Russell Kirk wrote, "there is no tyranny more onerous than military life."
It requires quite a large leap to see how so many “anti”-abortion folks (I myself am no fan of abortion, as you could guess) are so pro-war, who give the State a complete and utter pass in literally butchering so many innocent civilians, including children and women, caught in the bombardment. How any mind, any sense of decency could do that is thankfully, thank God, beyond me. I agree with Mr. Jeffrey Tucker, “I have nothing in common with these people [the mainstream conservative of today]!” (See also “The Violence of Conservatism.”) Maybe there is something in the Republican kool-aid?
In the claimed mission to bring justice after 9/11, a majority of the U.S. government’s killings have been against innocent bystanders (“collateral damage”). In today’s “progressed” age of the democratization of war, has come the melting pot of togetherness in favor above and over the “dark ages” of making a distinction in war between combatants and noncombatants. Surely the numbers of murdered civilians by the U.S. government surpass the number of al-Qaeda. The majority of its killings have not be directed against those involved with the planning and implementation of 9/11. (And torture, is, well, A-OK too. And its use is far from being a few tinny incidents. Nor is Bush administration unconnected with its implementation.)
Of course, mentioning this in our democratic age of nationalism and left-neocon state worship is completely taboo and absolutely forbidden. Thanks go to the embodiment and exemplifier of this transition in the leftist and egalitarian French Revolution, what traditional conservative monarchist Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) called a “sadistic sex orgy.” This transformation of war brought us such war crimes as the dropping of atomic weapons in World War II, where today, wrote Richard Weaver, "the word 'noncombatant' [has] almost [reduced] to meaninglessness."
Democracy and a Wilsonian foreign policy go hand-in-hand. It is the ideological cousin of democracy. So ignorant are today's conservatives, who cheer on any and all wars, of their own foundation of thought, that Russell Kirk's words on Wilsonianism is lost:
The political wisdom of the Federalists and Burke was diluted, in Wilson, by a dose of doctrinaire liberalism. In the hour of criss liberal abstraction prevailed over conservative prudence.
According to Kirk, one of the main principles of conservatism is prudence. It is obviously lost today.
Civil Liberties & Power
This would take an entire new entry to go through everything here, but I find it humorous how the conservative of today claim to be for economic liberty, but see civil liberties as fundamentally different. Government that invades us economically is bad, but government that invades us in our privacy is somehow not bad or relatively not as bad. As if they be two separate issues or birds, detached from property rights! (Talk about polylogism!)
Restriction of power or "limited" government is a foreign idea to President Bush and neoconservatives. If it be Bush using “sticky notes” a.k.a. signing statements, to rewrite a law to whatever suits his command and fancy, or the power to declare martial law. Or we could be talking about warrantless wiretapping for our “protection.” Habeas corpus, a constitutional right? Well, not according to the Bush administration. . . . . Who will protect us from these so-called "protectors!?" (So-called "protectors" who will even take the guns away from people, and practically put into place a police state, during a crisis, à la New Orleans.) Suffice to say, the record of abuses is long. All I can recommend is for people to buy a couple of books by James Bovard, who does such good work in this department.
Is There More to the Story?
I personally do not believe 9/11 was a complete “inside job” by the government. I have not seen evidence to convince me of that. However, interesting anomalies and questions have arisen. They should be looked into. Debate is healthy and it should be encouraged and not censored. Also, all of the records that government has should be released on the matter. When government creates a black void, that void will be filled with conspiracy theories----some maybe correct or partially correct or completely false.
I certainly, however, do not say that we should support the official story that government has spoon-fed us. Instead of white-wash commissions and other sorry excuses, government should be demanded to open up the books, at the very least.
Is there more to the story? Yes, there is a very good chance that there is more to the story. My guess it is more in the “middle ground.” Only one who is badly informed (kiddy cons) about government and history would think that there could not be more to the story. See Robert Higgs' "Another 9/11 – in a Long Series."
[Word War II is case-in-point. President Franklin Roosevelt promised (in the politician’s dictionary it has a different meaning) the American people that he would be "neutral" and stay out of the war, but behind the scenes did everything he could to get into it. Moreover, the U.S. and Britain government decoded their marine code (JN-25), monitoring the coming Pearl Harbor attack. While fascist FDR promised not to get involved and respect the put-into place Neutrality acts, he was engaged in a kind of "cold war" with Japan. {Supporting China, by selling them military equipment (so much for neutrality); increasing naval military outfits; renouncing U.S.-Japan Commercial Treaty of 1911; implementing an embargo and freezing assets (in particular oil, something much needed----a very provocative act asking for trouble); allowing U.S. pilots in the China air force; etc. The U.S. crippled Japan. Either they would have to give up, talk with the U.S. (an impossibility with FDR not allowing talks), or attack.}]
[In this sense, WWII was not much different compared to WWI. Wilson, too, did everything he could do to get involved. Of course, the ideological war of spreading democracy, maybe something we should take note of today, back-fired completely. Hitler could never have arisen if it not for Wilson.]
See FDR, Pearl Harbor and the U.N. by John V. Denson
2001 . . . 2007
Six years later, we are ever more vulnerable, helpless, and defenseless. Anyone, if they wanted, could just walk through the artificially created open borders. Airport security is not only a shamble, but a laughing stock. Terrorists, six years later, are ever larger in number, have increased support from the Middle East public, and are ever more capable in engaging in terrorist acts (indeed numbers have skyrocketed in the Middle East). Killing and bloodshed is also, obviously, higher than ever. The U.S. government continues on its expansion of imperialistic actions. Needless to say, or at least it should be needless to say today, it has just been an utter disgrace. This is not even to mention the atrophy of liberties at home.
I agree with what former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter says, it is not so much that the American people are waking up, but that we are not winning. The American people, far from tired of empire, only are against it if it appears to be failing. How much government intrusions into our lives, families, churches, and communities will the American people stand? And how much innocent bloodshed will the American people stand? With presidents from Wilson to FDR to Bush, I think we know the answer. To quote the great Joseph Sobran: "Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves."
***
Being
generally on the pessimistic side when it comes to political matters
(one must remember that there is more to life than politics), there
still may be some hope that things may change. The cycle of relatively
great freedom to tyranny is cyclical. States rise and fall.
Civilizations rise and fall. My personal feeling is that the only
possibility of the U.S. empire ending is in bankruptcy, joining the
rest of the bankrupt empires of past in history. And then the cycle
starts again. However, one thing to note is that during a major
economic crisis (even catastrophic ones) an even more despotic
government can emerge, as the ignorant and power-seeking erroneously
fault the free market for the dilemma. But, then again, capitalism
might win out. The more complex and diversified the market becomes, the
more it requires social peace free of coercion. (But will the State
allow capitalism to get that far? Capitalism is no longer capitalism
today.) Well, history will judge. I hope Ron Paul is a sign.
Mr. Sobran is of course brilliant. Read his latest piece available online, "The Nixon I Didn't Know," by clicking here.
"Hey, Neocon": Paleos are winning on the web.
(Plus see A Few More Thoughts)
Paul Gottfired talks about his new book, Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right . . .
--- The Neoconning of the American Right at LRC.
--- Buy Making Sense Of The American Right! at VDARE.
--- My Book at TakiMag.
Lew Rockwell on War Without End.
Justin Raimondo: Vietnam, Again.
War With Iran? It has already started, says Raimondo.
An Acid Trip Gone Bad by Fred Reed.
A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks by Jeffrey Tucker (Which are you? Geek or Wonk?)
(I did take the time to watch this, despite a slow connection. Great interview! And a very nice look inside the wonderful Mises Institute and its, from all I have seen, delightful atmosphere and, dare I say, culture.)
Download The Bastiat Collection [PDFs]
Antiwar radio host Mr. Scott Horton guest hosted on Charles Goyette's show today (7/24).
Interviews Conducted With:
- Dr. Gordon Prather --- Iran's nuclear program
- Juan Cole --- Translates some Farsi
- Philip Giraldi --- Iran and al Qaeda, US-friendly terrorists and the Nuke option
- Robert Dreyfuss --- Badr vs. Sadr and US support for Iran in Iraq
- Gareth Porter --- Iran behind the bombs killing our guys in Iraq and Afghanistan?, Gen. Bergner and the Stovepipe, The peace offer of 2003
- Justin Raimondo --- The Neocons, their motives, the Old Right and Ron Paul
I listened to most of it live. Unfortunately the audio connection between Scott Horton in Texas and the KFNX radio studio in Arizona was bad. I am sure you will hear that in the MP3's. But it is still worth the listen.
Jeff Tucker Interviews Lew Rockwell
Audio [MP3] ~ They talk about Rockwell's visit, with Ron Paul, to Google.
Ron Meets Google
Watch YouTube Video
Ron Paul's YouTube Interview
Watch YouTube Video
Justin Raimondo On Ron Paul at TakiMag.com
"Ron Paul: The Conscience of Conservatism"
33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask
More Articles and Sneak Peeks at Thomas Woods' New Book.
Book Preface - "What the History of the Bathtub Can Teach Us"
Plus "Were American Indians Really Environmentalists?"
Pat Buchanan on War
Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan asks: "Is the United States
provoking war with Iran, to begin while the Congress is conveniently on
its August recess?" . . . "[S]omething smells awfully fishy here,"
writes Buchanan.
See "Tonkin Gulf II and the Guns of August?"
And "This Is How Empires End"
Plotting Martial Law
"Working for the Clampdown" by James Bovard.
Justin Raimondo Goes After So-Called Pro-War "Libertarianism"
"Bizarro 'Libertarianism': Fake libertarian legal scholar crawls out of the woodwork to attack Ron Paul's antiwar stance"
Gary North on The Evil of Envy
Read his superb LRC article here.
In addition to great commentary by North, this might benefit the menace of what is known as the religious left.
