“Language Of Empire” Influences Lankan Human Rights Debate

Lankan minister and eminent writer/teacher Rajiva Wijesinha gave a  thumbs-up to “Language of Empire” in March on Lanka Web.

I couldn’t be more pleased. The minister, a part of the Rajapaksha government, was sent the book by someone who wanted to inform him about the depth of propaganda in the Western media.

Wijesinha, like many others, had been wondering about the manipulation of the international “human rights” agenda (the game of who gets to call what a genocide).

This manipulation has been termed Human Rights Imperialism by Jean Bricmont.

In this case,  the manipulators are the Tamil Tigers and Eelam separatists and their new-found supporters in the West, including Ron Paul’s legal advisor, one Bruce Fein.

The evident purpose of the manipulation is the continuance and augmentation of a covert war on the island….and on India….in an area of great strategic importance to Western interests

….that is not too far from Tamil Nadu with its huge concentration of foreign and domestic corporate interests and its nuclear reactors – one at Chennai and the other at Kudankulam, bordering the ocean, just opposite Sri Lanka. Kudankulam has been the site of intense anti-nuclear activism, which seems to have a covert political agenda and is apparently financed from abroad.

Of-course, India’s nuclear policy itself  seems to have come with foreign strings attached, so there is nothing to choose between the two sides.

Rajiv Malhotra’s “Breaking India” describes this long-term policy and its role in creating, sustaining, and manipulating Dravidian identity politics in Tamil Nadu as part of the creation of a larger Afro-Dravidian identity that has global consequences that play into Western geopolitical goals.

The manipulation of Nicholas Berg’s killing makes for interesting reading from this angle and throws a good deal of light on, among other things, the images of the alleged torture and assassination of Tiger leader Prabhakaran’s son, Balachandra, which became a cause celebre in the strange, seemingly “fanned” anti-Lanka rioting in Tamil Nadu, in March-April.

Wijesinha writes (“Dealing With Allegations of War Crimes,” March 10, 2013, LankaWeb):

“Some weeks back I was sent, by a friend in England, a book entitled The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media. It was by someone called Lila Rajiva, but doubtless that was not the only reason to assume it would interest me.

I took some time to start on the book but, once I did so, it had to be finished. Published in 2005, it is a graphic and convincing account of the manner in which the Americans ignored all moral restraint in the war against terrorism they were engaged in.


Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq

That part was convincing, and simply fleshed out what one knows anyway, that countries in pursuing their own interests will stop at nothing. What was more startling was the suggestion that the wholesale prevalence of this absolutist mindset also represented a takeover of the ruling political dispensation by a culture of chicanery that strikes at the heart of supposedly predominant American values.

At the core of this transformation is the corporate supremacy represented most obviously by Rumsfeld and Cheney, and the takeover of much supposedly military activity by private contractors and special agents, who move with seamless dexterity from one world to another. Exemplifying this, and indicative of what C S Lewis would have described as a Hideous Strength which finds its own partisans dispensable, is the strange story of Nicholas Berg, the shadowy contractor whose beheading served to deflect the story of torture at Abu Ghraib, and in some minds excuse the institutionalized torture that was taking place there.

Weapons of mass destruction

The book should be essential reading for those concerned not just with human rights, but with human civilization….”

Read the rest at Lanka Web.

Zerohedge: Party Time Over, Fight Club Time Begins

“Water, even when it’s polluted, is the source of life; blood, even when it’s carelessly spilled, is the symbol of life being fully lived. To put his point simply: it’s better to be wet than dry.”

—   Richard Schickel about “Fight Club”

Tyler Durden at Zerohedge says it’s time for the Paul grass-roots to grow out of politics and take their fire to the real world and the real fight: time to become self-sufficient, time to gain financial independence,  time to develop powerful networks, diversify your assets, travel or relocate abroad, if necessary, develop alternative currencies, new trading systems, new banks; counter-economics:

“It has become clear that Benton and others have been “handling” Ron Paul for a considerable portion of his campaign and attempting to divorce him from the elements of the movement which are seen as “extreme” or anti-establishment, even though these are the same elements that catapulted Ron Paul into the minds of average Americans.  My impression is that they have been targeted for surgical removal because they are impossible to co-opt for the purposes of diplomacy (submission) with the Neo-Con elites running the GOP carnival.

Rand Paul’s recent endorsement of Mitt Romney is not surprising given the parasitic nature of particular campaign organizers who buzz about him, including Benton.  The bottom line is that some people in the movement are not in it to fight for freedom, or to ensure a brighter and more Constitutional Republic.  Some are in the movement to further their political careers and ambitions, and are perfectly willing to use the energy of popular candidates to carry them to success.

Sadly, this is the ultimate weakness of the political ideal; regardless of how honest and forthright a candidate is, even a principled luminary like Ron Paul can be undermined by those closest to him if he is not careful.  Millions of people relying solely on the tenuous chance of victory of a single man in a single rigged contest is NEVER a recipe for liberty…..

Stewart Rhodes’ speech at Paulfest was the most shocking for many of the political Paulers, as well as the most necessary.  He removed the kid gloves completely as well as any feel-good rhetoric, stating that the GOP as a party was dead, and deserved to be, letting the Paul folks know that any further strategy of attempting to “infiltrate” the Republican establishment and turn it over to the side of good was a waste of time.  He also stated that it is no longer enough for the movement to play around as “intellectual warriors”, they might soon have to become real warriors.  I agree.

In my speech, I gave clear cut and tangible solutions to Paulfest attendees, including alternative markets and barter networks, commodity based currencies, micro industries and localized business models, useful trade skills, off-grid living, preparedness, and if all else fails, real revolution.  Not idealized intellectual activism under the catchy label of revolution, but fists in the air and rifles in hand revolution.  The kind that scares the crap out of most, not because of its danger, but because of its finality of purpose.  The will to fight, really fight, is frightening, especially to those who cling to the belief that one can reason with his opponents.  The cold hard fact is; some men are not men.  Some men are monsters, and reason is the last thing that will ever sway them…”

Assange & Anonymous: Sock-Puppet Rebels..

Willy Loman has an impassioned plea to forget the “dissent-chiefs” and official revolutionaries on the left (Greenwald, Ellsberg, Hedges, Cole, Chomsky, Goodman, Assange, Anonymous etc.) and on the right (Ron Paul, Alex Jones, Doug Casey, etc.).

Take what’s good in them, but go beyond.

They are reliable on past conspiracies.  Don’t believe them on present ones, unless confirmed by your own analysis. (Hint: If they support Assange and Anonymous, or keep pointing to the approved activists, think twice).

Light your own fire. Think your own thoughts.

And, follow the facts, not the leader.

Willy Loman::

The rolling psyop known as Julian Assange is not done with us just yet.

After serving as the CIA’s front-man for the distribution of phony intel for a couple years (and getting paid well for it) and then living like a king in an English mansion under “house arrest” for 500 days (while the patsy Bradley Manning is in lock down 24/7), now Julian is getting his very own interview based TV show…….

..Julian Assange lives with a globalist billionaire in the heart of the new imperialist England and he’s going to tell us 99%ers what we should be doing and which “politicians, revolutionaries, intellectuals, artists and visionaries” we should trust and follow.

Anyone else see an inherent problem with that?

With yet another economic collapse just off the horizon and the Occupy Spring taking shape and the entire European continent rioting, you don’t think steering the boiling over dissident movement would be something that the CIA, NSA, and the State Department would be interested in, do you?

If a psyop gets any more obvious than Julian Assange, I haven’t seen it……..

Unfortunately as you know there will be those on the dissident left and right who buy into this shit, believe it or not. Let’s see how our old friend Glenn Greenwald writes about it.

“A WikiLeaks press release states, “‘The World Tomorrow’ is a collection of twelve interviews featuring an eclectic range of guests, who are stamping their mark on the future: politicians, revolutionaries, intellectuals, artists and visionaries. The world’s last five years have been marked by an unrelenting series of economic crises and political upheavals. But they have also given rise to the eruption of revolutionary ferment in the Middle East and to the emergence of new protest movements in the Euro-American world. In Julian’s words, the aim of the show is ‘to capture and present some of this revolutionary spirit to a global audience.’””  RT

[Lila: This is exactly what this Peter Dale Scott article at Lew Rockwell is about. It too lists the activists you should pay attention to.  That’s just what prizes are intended to do – focus your eyes on what the globalists want you to focus on. That is how revolution has been co-opted from the start of scientific state propaganda.]

“Does anyone remember how much we trusted al Jazeera English after their great coverage of the Egyptian protests? Anyone getting the feeling that Russia Today is headed down the same path AJ took right after they earned our trust?

The RT article announcing this weekly psyop is hinting that the proven NSA asset “Anonymous” may be one of his first interviews.

The guest list has not been revealed, but it has been hinted that the first guest will be someone controversial. A tweet from the WikiLeaks account asks provocatively, “Any bets on who The World Tomorrow’s first mystery guest(s) are?” It then adds the hashtag “#ExpectAssange” — a play on the Anonymous slogan, “Expect us.” RT

“For those of you who don’t understand how these games are played, I’ll give you an example. If a law enforcement agency wants to get a new man on the inside of an organization, say a mob organization, what they do is they have someone who is already on the inside vouch for him. Someone with “street cred” so to speak. This is the same thing they do when trying to influence movements of different types.

Take for instance the Truth Movement (or what’s left of it). You have a fake “truther” named Jon Gold. His idea of the “truth” of 9/11 is whatever George Bush and Dick Cheney told us… plus.. “foreknowledge”… well, foreknowledge minus insider trading which he doesn’t think took place. Well, you have that guy (which no real Truth advocate believes for a second) write a book and then you get Sibel Edmunds of Boiling Frogs to stand beside him claiming he is the real deal. Then Gold promotes Sibel’s LIHOPy book and BINGO… you have the APPEARANCE of a consensus in the hijacked movement.

See how that works? One fake vouches for another fake. Jon and Sibel = Julian and “Anonymous”

[Lila: To give Sibel Edmonds credit, she is a lot more credible to me than the others. She is after all a brave person and a whistle-blower who has called out a lot of the lazy activism of another very well-heeled, “comfortable” group, Antiwar. Edmonds seems to be reliable until she gets to 9/11 and she falls silent about Hank Greenberg, as do most Republican activists. But other than that, I don’t feel she belongs in this group. I feel she’s been forced to join them.]

In the world of organized crime, this kind of game can be a bit dangerous. In the world of crime fighting this can be very very dangerous. But in the world of dissident movements, what’s the risk? Remember that guy who was busted infiltrating that movement down in New Orleans? What happened to him? Nothing. He went on after he was exposed to start some new assignment and that was the end of it. What happened to Nurse Nariah (whatever her name was) or that guy who pretended to be the “Gay Girl from Damascus” or “Syrian Danny” once they were all exposed?

This is how they work.

Right now we are on the edge of a massive popular uprising and it just so happens that their two most successful psyops are about to go on one of the most respected news outlets left to us to tell us what to do.

Get it?

Assange himself says in the trailer for the show, “Today we’re on a quest for revolutionary ideas that can change the world tomorrow.” RT

oooooo…. Julian himself tells us what to do…. oh I can’t wait… and “Anonymous” will be there too? And it’s on RT? Well hell, that must be legit.

If you notice though, at the end of the RT article, they seem to be presenting a little disclaimer. Turns out RT didn’t produce this CIA/State Department psyop… some “independent” company out of London produced it. I wonder if it is owned by the same globalist billionaire who is letting Julian live in his mansion while under “house arrest”

“A press release for the show, however, emphasizes that it was put together by an independent UK producer and that RT is merely serving as the initial broadcaster. Negotiations are presently underway with other possible licensees, who might broadcast longer versions of the same interviews.” RT

Seems like RT is already making sure they can distance themselves from this psyop even before it launches it’s first installment……

John Young of Cryptome said years ago that he knew Assange and Wikileaks was a CIA honeypot from the start and he was correct.

Now they are trying to cash in on his “street cred”, street cred that was given (“given”.. not earned) him by the likes of Amy Goodman, Glenn Greenwald, and Daniel Ellsberg.If you still that that is a group of true dissidents, I can’t help you.

[Lila: So what does that make Peter Dale Scott who points to the dissent-chiefs?]

All I can say about this State Department infomercial is: Don’t believe it folks and don’t watch it.

Let them know via their own ratings tools that we can’t be fooled by their Disneyesque smoke and mirrors.

The PR and influence peddling institutions think they’re the real power behind this country and time and time again they’re proven wrong but they just keep plugging away telling themselves they are smarter than all of us. They’re not.

If you don’t take the hint from me, take a cue from the RT article… there’s a REASON they posted the disclaimer in their press announcement and the article about the show. RT is trying to tell you something. The reason is… it’s BULLSHIT.

Don’t watch the show. Tell others its bullshit. Make sure Julian and his NSA handlers get the rotten tomatoes ratings they deserve.

No more Syrian Danny no more Gay Girl no more Julian of the Mansion. We’ve outgrown it. We’re tired of the bullshit. That’s it.

This is going to be our revolution and NOTHING they do is going to hijack it.

Whomever he puts on that fraud of a show of his is suspect. Whoever is on that show of his is just as much of a fraud as he is.

We saw through Invisible Children and Kony 2012 in record time (less than a day I believe) and we will see.. through.. this.. too.

No prepackaged heroes, no ready-made leaders. It’s ham-handed and obvious and we are too tired and angry to fall for this shit.”

Mitt Romney: Jerusalem Is Zionist and Jewish, not Christian Or Muslim

itt Romney lands in his favorite country and declares for it (“In Israel, Romney declares Jerusalem to be capital,” AP, July 29):

“On Israeli soil, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday declared Jerusalem to be the capital of the Jewish state and said the United States has “a solemn duty and a moral imperative” to block Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.

“Make no mistake, the ayatollahs in Iran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object and who will look the other way,” he said. “We will not look away nor will our country ever look away from our passion and commitment to Israel.”

Comment:

“Since when do Presidential candidates stand on foreign soil and pledge to conduct U.S. foreign policy in accordance with the desires of the foreign government on whose soil they are standing?” asks the DailyKos correctly (https://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/29/1114809/-You-re-not-President-yet-Mitt).

You’ll notice this is the same position that Ron Paul has recently taken (“Ron Paul shocks campaign staff with new position on Israel,” Business, April 13, 2012).…. albeit for constitutional reasons.

Does that bother me? Yes, I admit it does, even though Dr. Paul’s reasoning is perfectly valid….if you use strictly ideological arguments and forget politics,  history, and prudence.

It’s one more piece of evidence that Dr. Paul’s non-interventionism is weighted in favor of  Zionism.

I blogged as much last year – Ron Paul’s Zionist non-interventionism.

The whole thing bothers me, even though the campaign manager quoted in the piece, Douglas Wead (here he is blogging on the subject) has a tendency, reportedly, to put his own spin on Paul’s statements or actions.

It also bothers me that Ron Paul’s chief legal advisor is Bruce Fein, who has an extensive background as a lobbyist for foreign governments ( “Def(e)ining choice: Bruce Fein, the Turkish Lobby, and the Ron Paul campaign,” Nanour Barsoumian, The Armenian Weekly,January 20, 2012) that is completely at odds with Paul’s rhetoric against special interests.

I’ve blogged about Bruce Fein before and commented about him at other sites.

It was Bruce Fein who lobbied in support of US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, instead of as an international city, belonging equally to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism — which has been the position taken by the US State Department these many years (http://jerusalem.usconsulate.gov/about_the_embassy.html).

Sure, the State Dept. is left-leaning. But the left gets many things right, and I’m neither ideologically rigid enough nor partisan enough not to recognize when they do..

Last year, there was a seminal case that centered on whether a young Israeli-American dual citizen born in Jerusalem should have Jerusalem listed as his place of birth on his passport, or Israel. (“Court may rule on US stand on Jerusalem,” Barbara Ferguson and Tim Kennedy, Arab News, May 12, 2011)

The State Department  resisted all appeals from the parents and the case went to the Supreme Court, which decided in favor of having Israel on his passport, thereby setting a precedent for any judge who wants to overthrow US foreign policy from the bench.

That’s how the New World Order Works. Through judicial fiat.

The red-herring that constitutionalists dangle before everyone is the overweening power of the President and the constitutional limits that need to be set on it. That’s all very well and perfectly true,  except, again, the devil is in the details.

Who sets limits on Congress and the judiciary, both bribed and bought by  Zionists?

The media?

Also owned by Zionists.

It’s Zionists all the way down.

While the Paul/Rothbard anarcho-capitalist philosophy rails against secretive government and  executive over-reaching, you’ll notice that it also equates all commercial advertising and political donations with free speech.

Murray Rothbard, the principal intellect behind the hybrid movement,  also defended the decriminalization of bribery and blackmail. See M.N. Rothbard, Man, Economy and State, 443 n. 49, 1993, (http://mises.org/books/mespm.pdf).

Whom does that help? The Zionist financiers who buy  Congress and bribe and bully the Judiciary.

So, what the left hand (constitutionality) giveth, the right hand (anarcho-capitalism) taketh away.

Using the letter of the law to circumvent its spirit is legalism.

Depending on which sect of conspiracy theory you favor, you can blame this on Jesuitical or Talmudic casuistry… or on perfidious Albion.

I prefer more academic terminology. Like, phony-baloney.

You notice I didn’t use the politically correct terminology, which would be “pro-Israeli” Congress and “pro-Israeli” President.  Because Israel, the nation-state, is only one part of this and because nation-states seem to be slated for demolition in the near future.

Israel  is the cockpit, but not the whole plane.

If the Zionists want something, they can get it equally through extra-legal means or the most snow-white constitutionality. Paul’s constitutionalism, however well-meaning, has acted as nothing more than window-dressing.

I don’t think he can be blamed for it. It may not be something he or anyone can really help.

But it’s lesson should be clear.

Politics is not only not the answer. At this point, it is a diabolical diversion.

Ron Paul and Herman Cain Only Non-Deadbeats

LRC blog comments on a Politico piece about presidential dead-beats (“Presidential also-rans stiff small businesses, ” David Leventhall and Robin Bravender, Politico, July 29, 2011):


Politico goes down the list of shame, but for some reason neglects to mention the one non-deadbeat, Ron Paul.

Comment:

Ron Paul wasn’t mentioned, true. But why did Lew Rockwell emphasize Bachmann? The Politico piece emphasized her too and buried the Democrat names at the back.

It also buried Herman Cain’s notable difference from the crowd. He paid his vendors personally and ended up being owed by his own campaign, as well as Gingrich’s.

Even Bachmann was actually less in debt to vendors than the other candidates (under a million compared to multiple millions for the others, all of whom are richer than she was).

So why would a former paleo-libertarian pick on Bachmann?

Pandering to the left?

Stupid Party Leader Tells Stupid Party To Keep Being Stupid

H/T LRC blog:

“Former Texas Rep. and House Majority Leader Dick Armey said Thursday that while Mitt Romney will receive diligent support from tea party activists across the country, he’s not exactly everything they’re looking for.”

Sure. That’s why all those social- conservative activists went to bat yet again for the GOP. They get called everything from “bat-shit crazy” to American Taliban, only to have the party commissar tell them that crony-capitalist, socialistic fascist finance-capital in white-face is really, really different from crony-capitalist, fascistic-socialist finance-capital in black-face.

Dr. Paul, this is what you did by going light on Romney and hitting hard at everyone else.

Of a bad lot, Herman Cain was the best choice for the right….if you had to choose from the two parties. [Correction: I meant, to run along with Ron Paul. I think on his expressed positions, Paul was the best choice, but one the establishment would never have let win. Cain was the best among those it would have accepted and Paul could have hopped on to that ticket.]

Personally, much as I disagree with her methods and objectives, Lila Rose did more for social conservatives on her own than the whole party.

She actually almost got me rethinking my pro-choice stance.

Herman Cain would have trumped the race card. He came from outside politics and outside the financial sector.

He was smart and would have been teachable on economics. He and Paul would have been an unbeatable team, from a marketing perspective.

This year’s elections was the GOP’s to lose.

And, predictably, they’ve just about done that.

Elite Mouthpiece Taunts Ron Paul On Failure Of Fed Campaign

Added July 21, 2012:

How did I see the confrontation? I thought Paul did as well as anyone could in the time given. Except for a few word slips, he was pretty cogent and effective. Bernanke looked discomfited in the middle, when he was questioned about the transfer of authority from Congress to the Fed and when the issue of secrecy was brought up. Other than that, he was impassive and spoke little.  Paul wasn’t “subdued” at all. I don’t watch all his videos, but I’ve seen him a number of times in debate, and that was fairly straightforward Paul. If there was a white flag, I didn’t see it.

If he wasn’t as combative as some seem to think, it’s most likely because it’s his last such confrontation. He’s retiring, I’m told. Too bad.

I thought it was a fairly effective performance and a good wrap up of his major arguments. I think if you’d known nothing about the Fed until then, you would have got the salient points of the anti-Fed argument: he described Bretton Woods,  exchange-rate and interest-rate manipulation; big government financing through debt; transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-class to the wealthy; malinvestment; money supply expansion versus CPI inflation; the housing bubble; and the need for Congressional oversight.

I wouldn’t call it a knock-out, simply because Bernanke was so impassive through out.

That of course helps the media to reframe the confrontation anyway it suits them. Which is what Dana Milbank promptly did.

Paul Vs. Bernanke video

“Ron Paul Vs. Bernanke: final battle ends on surprising note,” David Grant, Christian Science Monitor, July 18, 2012

“Ron Paul Has The Final Say,” Bob Adelman, New American, July 19, 2012

ORIGINAL POST

Skull & Bones affiliated establishment journalist Dana Milbank taunts Ron Paul about the end of the “End the Fed” campaign in a piece entitled, “Ron Paul Fed Up With Trying To End The Fed” (Washington Post, July 18, 2012)

Well, I have plenty of problems with the whole Ron Paul movement these days (for a view from a Paul supporter see  this:), but the piece does more than criticize Paul.

What it does is gloat.

Here are some lines from it, with my parsing.:

“He didn’t even make a dent in it.”

[LR: The Fed is unassailable]

“…Paul raised the white flag.”

[LR: The Fed has won…]

“For the fiery Paul, it was a subdued surrender.”

[LR: So now you know how powerful we really are, old man.]

“….treating him with the cautious affection one might use to address a crazy uncle.”

[LR: You didn’t reach the point where we’d have to assassinate you, so we’ll just let people know that you and your supporters can’t be taken seriously.]

“But Paul faded away with surprising deference.”

[LR: Yes. He’s under our thumb. We call the shots. He knows what’s good for him, so he’s fading away.]

“The one substantial challenge to Bernanke — Paul’s “audit the Fed” bill, which the House is expected to approve next week before it dies in the Senate — was easily dispatched by the Fed chairman,”

[LR: Audit the Fed is croaking.]

“The Paul to Bernanke word ratio this time was 12 to 1.”

[LR: He’s just a rambling  old man. Real men don’t talk, they print.]

“There’s no constitutional reason why Congress couldn’t just take over monetary policy,” he said. “But I’m advising you that it wouldn’t be very good from an economic policy point of view.”

[LR: We’re the constitutionalists, not you. Audit the Fed is only about Congress taking over monetary policy, folks. Imagine! They can’t run a post office. How do you think they’re going to do with deep stuff like economics?]

“”At this point, the committee chairman cut him off. Paul’s time had expired.”

[LR: We’ve put up with you long enough, grandpa. Your time’s up. The game is over.]

The framing of the whole piece is quite masterful. There is not one substantial piece of analysis about the actual policies in question. We are not told what is involved in either “End the Fed” or “Audit the Fed.”

We are instead given information about procedure….rules regarding how bills go through the house, and how speakers get to speak. A contrast is set up between the grave, measured proceedings of the state and the law (the constitution) and the self-indulgent rambling of an aging politician.

The roles are reversed.

Paul becomes the political class. Bernanke becomes the embodiment of the constitution and of law.

From beginning to end we’re told how to think about what’s going on.

This is what we’re supposed to think:

Bernanke is sage, powerful and indulgent.

Paul is a crazy old man, who doesn’t know the elements of civility….or the constitution.

He’s an anti-government politician, but he’s for the government control of the money supply.

He cuts into other people’s time. He rambles on. He talks too much.

Paul is just a “supplicant” before the great Fed chairman. The final word is with the Fed.

So, even though he gets his fifteen minutes, it’s clear Paul doesn’t really understand the constitution or money.

And he’s for the government!

Notice how the piece distorts Paul’s position to make it look as if “Audit the Fed” (Paul’s fall-back position from “End the Fed”) is about putting arcane and complex professional matters into the hands of politicians.

Milbank turns Bernanke into the “private” expert and Paul into the bumbling government man.

That is sure to appeal to Americans of every political stripe. The average reader would immediately distrust anyone who intends to subject policies about the country’s money-supply to ignorant legislators driven by partisan bias.

What that does is clear.

It turns the  whole anti-government argument against anti-government activists.

It also turns  the pro-constitution argument against constitutionalists.

This is propaganda of the highest order.

Ron Paul Dithering Suspiciously About Romney

Oh dear. I told you Ron Paul has been looking worse by the minute these past few months.

See this from Politico (h/t Wenzel):

“Asked on the Fox Business Network’s “After the Bell” on Thursday if he will cast his ballot for Romney, Paul responded, “I’ve not made a decision.”

Look, he seems to be a nice man. He’s cleaner than most people in politics. He’s been a huge name-draw for millions and brought attention to major issues that are important to anyone opposed to war and empire or the bankster regime.

But, am I deaf, an anti-white racist, an Indian spy or a potential terrorist, if I say the obvious – these are weasel words….. at least to my brown ears.

And I blogged about Paul’s weasel words before.

What’s difficult about saying NO?

As in, not, nein, nope, nah, nay, nada, nyet, noway, nohow,untilhellfreezesoverbuster

And what’s with Romney tweeting “audit the fed”

This is co-option central!

Rothbard’s Leninist Attack On Gandhi And Voluntaryists

George H. Smith in the June 1983 volume of The Voluntaryist gives one more example of  Rothbard’s penchant for manipulating (in this case, manufacturing) evidence whenever he needed it. It is an article deriding the menace of Gandhism.

Smith correctly calls it “Leninist.” ((This, by the way, is Rothbard’s own term.  By it he meant not the substance of what he wrote but the strategy and tactics he used which he admitted he borrowed from Lenin.

Ah. I knew I wasn’t mistaken.  I know the smell of sulphur as well as anyone. …

Anyway, since I’ve read quite a bit on Gandhi (including the multi-volume biography by Pyarelal, Koestler, Chaudhuri, and dozens of others, as well as Gandhi’s own writing), I feel I am on very strong grounds when I say that Rothbard could not have known much about Gandhi at all, if he thought that Gandhi’s habit  of sleeping with some young women of his circle was unknown.  It was not. It was widely known.

To be clear, there was never any sex in these arrangements and the whole thing was highly public and visible to everyone. The young women were around the ages of 18 or 19 (maybe one was 17? I’ll check)   and vied for the honor of sleeping next to him.

This happened when Gandhi was in his eighties, and it happened after the death of his wife of nearly seventy years (he’d had a child marriage, a common practice in those days).

The young women helped him walk (he called them his crutches), bathed him, and often administered the enemas that were routine in his nature cures. Gandhi wrote about all of this at length, because he saw it as part of a spiritual practice testing his celibacy. He derived this apparently from Tantra and berated himself endlessly when he felt he had been aroused subconsciously or in his dreams (!), instead of just feeling like a “mother” to the women.

I’ve written about this at Counterpunch and Dissident Voice and I believe I was among the first to describe Gandhi’s practices as both arising from repressed psychological needs as a widower and from bona-fide Tantric techniques.

I even corresponded for a while with an academic who had written a dissertation to that effect.  Gandhi was a strongly sexed man, who married in childhood (13), fathered several children, and took a vow of celibacy in his forties. There is no evidence that he ever broke his vow, although he enjoyed warm and slightly very flirtatious relationships with several female admirers.

[Correction n July 18: Sorry, I overlooked more recent research since my 2005 piece that shows Gandhi had “spiritual marriages” with a couple of his close women friends and a very close emotional relationship with a male friend.  These were very close but not physical, so far as I know.  His own words certainly show him to be a highly sexed man and reveal what many will insist is a homoerotic tendency. My own conclusions are different, but I can see some one else thinking he was “creepy” or “freaky”.]

Where Rothbard misrepresents is in claiming that this is unknown. Gandhi himself talked incessantly about his sexual feelings in his letters and even in his startlingly honest autobiography, “My Experiments With Truth,” probably the most revelatory autobiography ever written by a man in his position. Also, there is very little traditionally Hindu about Gandhi in any way. He was a Westernized eclectic, most influenced by Jesus, Thoreau, Tolstoi, and Ruskin]

He was strict (even authoritarian) but affectionate with his own wife, and most of what took place after her death was a kind of acting out of  subconscious drama that he never confronted consciously.

What he did was certainly not harmless to the young women, who must have suffered a good deal of psychological damage.

But it was not intentional, and he was no charlatan.

Even Koestler never thought so.

Anyway, whatever you think about Gandhi or mysticism or Tantra, those who met the man were largely captivated.

Except for a few like Churchill who famously dismissed him as a “seditious Middle Temple lawyer,” most people were impressed by Gandhi’s patent sincerity, demanding personal discipline, and complete unwordliness with regard to money or power.

He loved India and he loved her villages and he wanted to free the masses of people from the most grinding poverty and oppression. No one can doubt that.

What is even more remarkable he never expressed hatred for the British and showed sincere affection and respect even for the officers who arrested and beat him.

When he was shot, his last words were “He Ram” (a salutation to God).

Gandhi’s  stature as a political figure and as a man  is probably a bit higher, I’d guess, than Rothbard’s, which makes R’s shoddy scholarship even stranger.

In sum,  Rothbard has no qualms about

1. Attacking major figures (Gandhi, Ayn Rand, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and others) in vicious and often personal terms.

2. Misrepresenting both what his targets said and what others have said about them.

3. Refitting the facts/history to suit his own ideological goals and individual temperament.

Why am I spending times analyzing Rothbard’s missteps?

Because for some time I have felt something terribly amiss with the Ron Paul movement.

There is more going on there than meets the eye and it is not just picking the right strategy or Rand’s tactics or alleged opportunism (or not).  My misgivings are not confined to Paul. They extend to the people who promote him, many of whom are anarcho-capitalists (if there is such a thing).

Rothbard is the central figure of this group.

That seems to be not just because of his scholarship (there are many Mises scholars) but because of his relative political success and the success of his acolyte Ron Paul.

Paul, Rothbard and Co. have become the mouthpiece of antiwar, antistate libertarianism.  What they say needs to be examined carefully.  It would be smart to give them more than uncritical support.

With all the establishment propaganda and co-optation out there, one can’t be too suspicious. And Rothbard and Paul have given any thoughtful observer plenty to worry over.

Here are some excerpts from the Smith piece.

“THE ROTHBARDIAN FLIP-FLOP

One of the first times I talked to Murray Rothbard was at the 1975 California Libertarian Party Convention. Looking for a conversational topic, and having just read Arthur Koestler’s anthology The Heel of Achilles, I mentioned to Murray one of  the essays, “Mahatma Gandhi: A Re-valuation.” Calling it “Gandhi revisionism,” I related some of Koestler’s debunking, such as Gandhi’s practice of sleeping with young girls to
test his vow of celibacy.

I vividly recall Murray’s reaction. Stating that Gandhi was a “good guy” who was “sound” on British imperialism, Murray emphasized that one’s personal life is irrelevant to one’s political beliefs and accomplishments. A simple point perhaps, but it sunk in.

Considering this background, it is surprising to see the Koestler piece re-emerge. This time, however, the article (reprinted in a recent Koestler anthology) is used by Rothbard to attack Gandhi with surprising vindict¡veness. Calling Koestler’s piece “a superb revisionist article,” Rothbard employs a Classic Comics version to argue that Gandhi was a “little Hindu charlatan.”

Something changed Rothbard’s view of Gandhi. Was it a scholarly assessment of Gandhi’s ideas and influence? The facts suggest otherwise. Rothbard displays little familiarity with Gandhian literature, primary or secondary. He seems to  think that Koestler uncovered obscure information about Gandhi, but Koestler relied on standard biographies and anthologies (as his footnotes reveal). “The time has come,” Rothbard announces, “to rip the veil of sanctity that has been  carefully wrapped around Gandhi by his numerous disciples, that has been stirred anew by the hagiographical movie, and that greatly inspired the new Voluntaryist movement.”
What “veil of sanctity”? Gandhi’s sexual theories and practices,  his dietary habits, his treatment of his children — these and other “revisionist” aspects of Gandhi’s life were extensively discussed by Gandhi himself, and they appear in many  Gandhi biographies. This may be scintillating revisionist fare for Murray Rothbard, but not for people who have read more than a solitary article. (Rothbard apparently hasn’t even seen the movie.)

Has voluntaryism been fueled by a trumped-up, sanctified Gandhi? Not one iota of evidence is given to support this claim. Not one word of voluntaryist writing is quoted to support Rothbard’s contention that we are, in effect, Gandhi disciples…”

And this:

Nonviolent resistance is not just a fallacy or mistake. True, it is “Hindu baloney,” nonsense,” and a “fad,” but it “cuts deeper than that.” It is a “menace,” “a spectre haunting the libertarian movement” which “has been picking off some of the best and most radical Libertarian Party activists [i.e., RC members], ones
which the Libertarian Party can ill afford to lose if it is to retain its thrust and its principles.” (How such a ridiculous fad appeals to the Party’s best and brightest is not explained.)

Here lies the solution to our puzzle. Here lies the difference between the 1975 Gandhi and the 1983 Gandhi: the latter is a threat to the Party, whereas the former was not. The good of the Party required some quick, if inaccurate, revisionism, so Gandhi got the axe. Rothbard assassinated a dead man for “reasons of Party.” (My own keen analyst informs me that Rothbard searched for someone else to do the dirty work; but apparently unable to locate a good hit man, he did the job himself.”

Rand Wants Spotlight, Ron Approves, Says Rand Staffer

Update 3 July 17:

OK. Apparently Ron Paul’s staff/campaign people are making statements at odds (deliberately? accidentally?) with what Ron Paul’s saying. Not the first time, either. Weird.

Here’s a link confirming that Romney did deny Paul a place to speak at Tampa.

Update 1: I noticed a link at LRC saying that Ron Paul would not be allowed to speak at Tampa, because Romney is terrified of him..but clicking it on it send me to an article at Jeff Berwick’s Dollar Vigilante (Berwick seems to be a Casey friend) talking about an anarcho-capitalist meet with Murphy, Woods, Casey and others. I couldn’t find anything about it at all about Romney preventing Paul from speaking, or anything about Paul on it at all. Maybe it’s a wrong link?

Update 2 (July 15) OK. I just noticed this, where it’s Ron Paul who’s claiming that Romney is too terrified to let him speak.  Maybe, but then why was he so soft on Romney for the last six months?

Sorry. All of this sounds like good marketing to me….including the Berwick stuff…directed at college age kids.

ORIGINAL POST

A report at Business Insider says the Rand endorsement shows he wants star status  in the GOP and a serious shot at the Presidency in 2016:

“For more pragmatic Paulites, however, the surprise endorsement was a shrewd political ploy that puts the younger Paul front and center in the national spotlight, and positions him as a leading figure in the Republican Party, with his eyes set on 2016.

James Milliman, Sen. Paul’s state director, explained the logic to a group of Young Republicans in Louisville, Ky., last week:

“As a practical matter, you have to endorse a candidate before the convention — Romney is going to get the nomination, no doubt about that at all, so it behooves everyone to have Sen. Paul to endorse him before the convention,” Milliman said. “It could enable Sen. Paul to have a prime speaking role at the convention, and his dad to have a prime speaking role at the convention. I think those things factored in.”

The remarks — the Paul team’s most candid comments yet regarding the endorsement — appear to suggest that the younger Paul is more concerned with attaining star status within the GOP than with retaining his father’s army of diehard fans.

Even more interestingly, the same report  quotes Milliman, Rand Paul’s state director, as saying that Ron Paul is OK with the endorsement.

“Rand would not have done this without his dad’s okay,” Milliman told the Louisville Young Republicans. “So if his dad is fine with it, I think everybody else will be fine with it.”

That’s not what Lew Rockwell has been saying.

So who’s right?

Ron Paul Implosion: End The Fed To Technology Revolution…

The Pauls have lost all credibility with me.

Read their latest missive, blogged at EPJ

And reported here at Forbes: “Ron Paul Takes Up Internet Freedom with New Technology Revolution.”

They’ve abandoned the financial battle.

I guess the financial coup of 2008, completed in 2010, is now sealed and cordoned off from prosecution. Last month, as if to confirm that, the White Queen (the City)  took down the Black Knight (Gupta) that had infiltrated the highest ranks of her court, while the White Bishop (Lloyd Doing-God’s Work Blankfein) was witness for the prosecution.

“End the Fed,” which  Rand Paul converted to” Audit the Fed,” is over.

The Pauls have now skipped forward to their new, new project –  the  “Technology Revolution.”

I  never thought that much of “End the Fed,” because, as I’ve blogged previously, the elites can manufacture money from other places besides the Fed, like the BIS and the reconstituted IMF.

But, apparently,  End the Fed doesn’t even work as a popular slogan any more.

So, what do I think about the new campaign?

I think it will be about as effective as their “End the Fed” campaign, which is to say, not effective at all.

See my comment at The Daily Bell in 2010:

Posted by Lila Rajiva on 11/23/10 11:55 AM
Daily Bell: “But by pursuing his strategy, he has made his opponents look like fools and perhaps altered the course of history.”

Lila: Let’s hope. Personally, I agree with Doug Casey on this:
“As a lone voice, his father was a breath of fresh, more principled air, but he didn’t change anything at all that I can see”

(Doug Casey on Presidents, LRC)

But it will be a great platform for the Pauls to sell books, promote ideas and launch political careers for their family members.

I only hope it won’t be done on the backs of idealistic young people. There were many who put change they could hardly spare in a tough economy into the Paul’s war chest.

The new campaign, which dubs itself  “The Internet Versus The Machine” is obviously a rebranding campaign to move young people away from what Forbes calls “the archaic” (they mean arcane) issues of finance.

Instead, the Pauls will focus on the hip world of the net.

Forbes:

“Young people have been a driving force in the Paul campaign, and the focus on internet freedom should only bolster that support.”

I’m going to call foul on that.

Their new “campaign” is in support of the Technology Revolution on the Internet?

Last I looked the tech revolution has been around for a while, getting on quite well without the Pauls.

One part of  the new project is going to be defending big business from attempts by consumers to scrutinize their data collection.

I kid you not. Here is Buzzfeed on the subject.

“The Pauls also take a stand for the growing industry known (and widely criticized) as “big data.”

They deride the notion that “private sector data collection practices must be scrutinized and tightly regulated in the name of ‘protecting consumers,’ at the same time as government’s warrantless surveillance and collection of private citizens’ Internet data has dramatically increased.”

So does this mean that Ron Paul is going to be fighting to prevent European governments or NGOs  like EFF or Asian governments from scrutinizing Google’s data collection practices?

Remember that I just blogged that Google’s CEO Larry Page should be arrested for privacy violations and espionage against foreign governments?

I was being satirical about US surveillance of foreign CEO’s and money-managers.

For instance, in the Galleon -Gupta cases, the government used wire-taps whose authorization was obtained pre-textually in violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights.

I don’t recall that the Pauls said a word about that, although the Galleon insider case has dominated the financial media for a couple of years now, and is directly tied via Rajaratnam’s funding of Tamil charities to  issues like terrorist money-laundering  with which Paul adviser Bruce Fein – once employed by an alleged front group for the Tamil Tigers –  is intimately connected.

A recent Washington Post article described how the military is outsourcing surveillance in Africa to private contractors (with little accountability, significant cost over-runs, and little to show for the expense).

Densely populated China and India are both locked in battles with the West for access to resources and agricultural lands.  Indian and Chinese companies compete with American and European countries on the African continent.  China and India have also complained about American corporate espionage.  American companies in turn complain about IP theft from the Indians and Chinese.  Meanwhile the US government itself is involved in IP theft through its pervasive global surveillance.  Where does data collection for corporations end and espionage for the state begin, anyway? Where does the government end and the private sector begin, when private companies are outsourced arms of the government and the government is the enforcement arm of the companies?

Ron Paul is not oblivious to the complexities of all this. He is far too shrewd.

Rajat Gupta’s conviction shows evidence in my opinion of being a  set up by the government, with some arm-twisting from Goldman Sachs. Likely it was an important blow in the  covert psy war against India, an ostensible US ally, about which I blogged here (“Coconut Imperialism”and here, “Educating the Gentoos In India”)

The obvious response from foreign governments (such as India) would be to treat American CEO’s the same way and wire-tap them.

So, is it just coincidental that the Pauls suddenly abandon their financial campaign (which never involved a word against Goldman Sachs), and suddenly rush to head off any animosity toward Google?

On their silence on G Sachs, here is a comment I made (one among many) below the same Daily Bell article:

Posted by Lila Rajiva on 11/23/10 11:40 AM

@Pisano.

Why would it distract him?
How hard is it to say, unequivocally, “Goldman Sachs and several other banks, are involved in corrupt actions and should be investigated and prosecuted.”

There. Back to “business.”

He certainly had no problem drawing a hard line over relatively trivial things like a monument to Rosa Parks. If he was really afraid of distraction, why would he make a fuss over something like that, and then on something crucial, suddenly go silent?

Why doesn’t he state clearly – “9-11 needs to be investigated. There is credible evidence that there was some kind of conspiracy involving intelligence agencies, US and foreign.”

I like Ron Paul and want to believe the best of him.

But this excuse doesn’t hold water for two seconds.”

This looks like more material to add to the mounting evidence (see  here) that Paul fronts for financial interests.

Perhaps he cannot avoid doing it, as I’ve said.

But there’s no need to be suckered into what could well be a counter-attack against foreign governments who defend themselves against espionage by Google/Facebook/Hotmail/Skype/TOR and the rest of the government-corporate spy sector, by couching the issue as a defense of the private sector.

That explanation also takes care of Paul’s pandering to the left.

The financial world (which controls the media) is left-leaning, in contrast to non-financial businesses.  Paul’s recent moves make quite a bit of sense when understood that way.  He acts to co-opt the brand of libertarianism appropriately called the Marxism of the right by deploying what seem to be ideologically inflexible positions in the service of  larger imperial goals.

So, I have to ask. Will the two Pauls now be collecting money from young people to defend multi-billion dollar multinationals like Google from scrutiny by the governments on which they spy?

I mean, if you phrased that in the appropriately anti-state way, there will be enough libertarian lemmings who’ll rush to defend Google, I’m sure.

This theory might explain why the financial media, usually so vocal in defense of insider-trading, when it’s done by Michael Milken or Ivan Boesky, is suddenly so quiet  about South Asian insider-trading not a tenth as bad.

Does it also explain why large parts of the alternative press  have had nothing but praise for Julian Assange, another front for western financial interests? And why the Pauls have promoted Assange?

Talk about Trojan horses.

Big corporations cannot be analyzed separately from government.

When the state outsources its spying to corporations, for someone to argue that the state should not limit corporate surveillance because it’s engaged in surveillance itself is confused, at best, and downright misleading, at worst.

Especially when it comes from seasoned politicians like the Pauls.

Parts of the government are scrutinizing the private sector. Often they’re right to.

Other parts of government are much worse than the private sector when it comes to privacy violation.

Those parts of the government are often most incestuously allied with corporations. This is the corporate-state or intel-industrial complex that produces programs like Echelon.

So it’s quite bizarre for the Pauls to claim that Microsoft (or Google or Apple) are pure private-sector entities, when they gain market share directly because of concrete government actions on their behalf and because of endemic and pervasive state-created judicial/legal/financial corruption.

One more thing.  Microsoft wasn’t prescient at all about the net, as the Pauls claim in their new manifesto.

It was way behind. Gates himself admitted it.

There is, finally, another reason why the Pauls may have turned their attention to protecting Big Data,

It looks like Big Data is bankrolling him.

Here’s Reason’s Brian Doherty, making the point:

“With Peter Thiel, founder of the controversial “big data” company Panantir, having made a $2.6 million investment in the (somewhat feckless in the end) superPAC “Endorse Liberty” during campaign season, perhaps the Paul machine sees this as a cause that can energize both grassroots and big money.”

And that’s all  I want to say now about this turn of events until I learn a bit more what is really going on.

But, if you were waiting to see Ron Paul libertarianism implode, it happened this week.

Support HR 5444: The Private Option Health Care Act

A message from Ron Paul (May 29) urging you to support The Private Option Health Care Act:

Dear Friend of Liberty,

Unlike the statists in Washington, the freedom movement
understands that our health care is too important to be left to
the whims of politicians and bureaucrats. Continue reading

Ron Paul: Governments Never Want Peace

Ron Paul:

“Meanwhile, it is rumored by the Financial Times, AFP and others that Greece may spend more than it saves from austerity measures on arms deals with Germany, France and the US as a potential condition of receiving bailout funds.

If true, it is certainly not unprecedented for the global military industrial complex to benefit from deals made by their friends in the central banking community. After all, war is the health of the state. The last thing big government proponents want is for peace to break out in the world.”

Vote Against Dodd Bill, Corker-Merkley Provision

Fed Privately Audits Senate to Kill Audit; What You Can Do
Mish Shedlock, May 4, 2010

A bill sponsored by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson to thoroughly audit the Fed, passed the House. However in a brazen move that ought to offend the sensibilities of every citizen, the Fed is lobbying Senate members to water down the bill so that it is meaningless. Continue reading

Ron Paul Smeared As Muse Of Anti-Semitic White Supremacist Killers

Update:

“President Clinton weighed in that  “legitimate” comparisons can be drawn between today’s grass-roots anger and resentment toward the government and the right-wing extremism 15 years ago.”

Actually, I think the Clinton statement was a pretty fair one, all in all. It didn’t equate “right-wing extremism” with tea-party goers and anti-government activists (as the SPLC did) and it did give room for people to voice their opinions, without having to “be nice.” It cautioned, correctly, that people should stop short of advocating violence.

Any discussion of the Confederacy, said the ex-Prez, should always include a mention of slavery, which doesn’t sound like an onerous requirement to me. So too any discussion of “Islamicism” should also include a complete list of  US interventions in the said Islamicist state, right?

In short, more balance and less polemics. I hope I’ve always tried to do that on this blog.
The only thing is, can we hope the government will live up to this standard and stop short of advocating violence, say, in Iran, or in Michigan…or anywhere else?

ORIGINAL POST

Thanks to David Kramer at LRC blog, for this slimy listing by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of Ron Paul among the “enablers’ of the “Patriot” movement, which, if you didn’t know by now is code to our dear leaders and their cohorts for “Nazi right-wing (definitely Christian)  loons-who-share-milk-shakes-‘n-training-manuals- with- OsamaJohnPatrickBedellDavidKoreshRandyWeaver-bin Laden” :

1. Michele Bachmann 2. Glenn Beck 3. Paul Broun 4. Andrew Napolitano 5. Ron Paul

On the page following, you can see what a smear this is. There’s a list of incidents making up a “Patriot” timeline (love those quotation marks) that starts with President Bush’s “New World Order” remark. (He said it, didn’t he?) and is dotted with references to anti-Semitism, white supremacy and violent acts.

Note that when “cultists” or militia members are murdered, the word used is “killed” or “left dead.” When a federal agent is killed, the term is “murdered.”

Et Tu, Ron Paul?

Victor Aguilar at Axiomatic Theory of Economics voices a silent worry I’ve been having recently (apologies if this upsets libertarians and Paul fans, among whom I still count myself):

Note: I don’t know who Aguilar is, have never heard of him, don’t endorse any of his views, since I don’t know them, and only post this because he seems to echo a recent fear of mine about the promotion of Zarlenga and Zarlenga-esque ideas in all sorts of venues, including what I always thought of as the libertarian Daily Bell.

“Stephen Zarlenga writes:

Infrastructure repair would provide quality employment throughout the nation.  There is a pretense that government must either borrow or tax to get the money for such projects.  But it is a well enough known, that the government can directly create the money needed and spend it into circulation for such projects, without inflationary results.

First, incorporate the Federal Reserve System into the U.S. Treasury.

Second, halt the banks privilege to create money by ending the fractional reserve system.

Third, spend new money into circulation on infrastructure, including education and healthcare.

Ron Paul (2009, pp. 204-205) writes:

While a gold standard would be a wonderful thing, we shouldn’t wait for one before we end the Fed…  An end to the money-creating power and a transfer of remaining oversight authority from the Fed to the Treasury would be marvelous steps in the right direction.

Aguilar:

So we see that Ron Paul’s proposal is essentially the same as that of Stephen Zarlenga and his man in Congress, Dennis Kucinich. Like Paul, Zarlenga also believes that a gold standard is a wonderful thing, provided that it does not have to actually be implemented.  Since Paul has no concrete plans for implementing a gold standard, he and Zarlenga are united in their desire to incorporate the Federal Reserve System into the U.S. Treasury as quickly as possible.

The only difference is that, once the Federal Reserve System is incorporated into the U.S. Treasury, Paul vaguely hopes that Timothy Geithner will freeze the money stock while Zarlenga hopes that Geithner will spend new money into circulation on infrastructure.  If I had to guess, I would say that Geithner, once given this enormous power, is more likely to spend the money, though not necessarily on infrastructure, than to freeze the money stock.

Ron Paul (2009, 203) writes,

“In an ideal world, the Fed would be abolished forthwith and the money stock frozen in place.”

Aguilar:

Idyllic is the right word.  There is no reason for Paul to think that Geithner will do this for him.  The Secretary of the Treasury is appointed by the President and the President panders to the voters.  And they certainly do not want the stock of money frozen.  If infrastructure is the new word for pork, then they want nothing more than to get some.

“If there’s anything worse than a secret Federal Reserve, it’s Congress controlling it,” says Sen. Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina.  I agree.  I dislike the United States having a central bank (I advocate free banking) but, given the existence of the Fed, I certainly would not put it in the hands of a bunch of squirrelly politicians.

Richard C. Cook writes:

I worked with Steve [Zarlenga] on his first draft of the American Monetary Act. The time came when Steve and I began to meet with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, briefing him and others in Washington on monetary ideas.

So much has happened since then. So many more people have become aware of the evils of the debt-based monetary system. We have seen Congressman Ron Paul ignite a national wave of revulsion against the Federal Reserve System. There is now even hope that the American Monetary Act might be introduced on the floor of Congress.”

Aguilar:

As for eliminating the Fed and giving the Treasury Department free rein to print money, I have already examined Zarlenga’s proposal in my 2008 paper and I specifically spoke of Cook here.  There is no need to duplicate that material here just because Ron Paul has joined them….”

My Comment:

What this tells me is that there can be collaborations with the left on civil liberties and foreign policy, but not on economic freedom, which, for me, actually precedes political freedom.

My money represents my work and my time…and my work and my time represent my life. Through them my engagement in the world unfolds. They are how I come to understand the world in the most real way.

Not in the superficial and  arrogant way that one “understands” the world only to meddle in it, as someone from the political class would. To them, the world is a black-box they engineer.

Hands off my world. Hand off my money. Hands off my work. Hands off my life.

I support Ron Paul, because I believe him to stand for these things and to fight for these things. If, ultimately ,for some reason can’t…. then for me at least there is no need to endorse any one else’s platform. It would be better to forget politics, since obviously there’s no one else who’s even broaching these issues. It’s that simple.

If Aguilar turns out to be right about this, then, regretfully, I’ll have to become a “mere” libertarian. With a small ‘l’. I’d sooner look to an alliance of counter-parties to the US government to teach the banking mafia the hard lesson they need in economics and justice than follow even libertarians blindly down a dead-end.

Ron Paul: Fight Draconian Biometric ID In US

A message from Ron Paul and the Campaign for Liberty:

“This is getting to be like a bad movie. You know the ones where the villain, dead and buried more times than you can count, somehow mysteriously reappears in a place you don’t expect him? Well, here comes… a new fight over a biometric national ID card — and if you don’t have the card, you can’t work.

Right now, freedom-stealing statists Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), banding together with other statists from both parties, are scheming to sneak a massive power grab into a new “immigration reform” bill.

This bill is a statist’s dream — “amnesty” for illegal immigrants and a biometric ID card for virtually everyone else.

That’s right. Instead of controlling the border and enforcing the rule of law, these statists want to control you.

That’s why it’s vital you sign the petitions to your Senators IMMEDIATELY. http://www.chooseliberty.org/NationalId3.aspx?pid=3

You see, a National ID scheme — complete with biometric tracking technology — is embedded in the new “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” being pushed by Senators Graham and Schumer, as well as other Big Government members from both parties.

And if passed, the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” would require a new National ID card that would:

*** Include biometric identification information, such as fingerprints, retinal scans or scans of veins on the back of hands. Depending on the technology used, the ID card could easily
be used as a tracking device;

*** Be required for all U.S. workers regardless of place of birth, and make it illegal for anyone to hold a job in the United States who doesn’t obtain the ID card;

*** Require all employers to purchase an “ID scanner” to verify the ID cards with the federal government. Every time any citizen applies for a job, the government would know –– and you can bet it’s only a matter of time until “ID scans” will be required to
make even routine purchases, as well.

Of course, the most dangerous part of the bill is the biometric tracking technology which would allow federal bureaucrats to track our every move.

Allowing our government to have this much “prying power” in our lives will ultimately result in the TOTAL loss of freedom.

This is exactly the type of battle that often decides whether a country remains free, or continues down a slide toward tyranny.

Government goon squads with all our personal information — information they do not need and constitutionally should not have — is a recipe for disaster for our nation.

You see, once “well-meaning” government bureaucrats know exactly how we live our lives, it won’t be long until they try to run them.

In fact, it will only be a matter of time until they spend their workdays making sure you and I don’t go anywhere we “shouldn’t,” buy anything we “shouldn’t,” read anything we “shouldn’t,” eat
anything we “shouldn’t” or smoke anything we “shouldn’t.”

You see, this fight isn’t really about immigration. Whatever you think of that fight, it’s simply being used as cover.

If there is good news in this fight, thanks to the help of grassroots citizens like you, it’s that we’ve been able to render the Big Government politicians’ REAL ID nearly toothless in more than two dozen states.

Now, the statists are growing nervous. They know Americans are FED UP with their mad rush to take over our health care system, expand Federal Reserve power and regulate and control every aspect of our lives.

We’re FED UP with trillion dollar deficits. We’re SICK AND TIRED of radical schemes like Cap and Tax.
We’re done with their out of control spending on foreign affairs and nation building all over the globe.
They also see that our anger is producing results. Many of their schemes are failing.

Rallies are growing in strength. Candidates are rising up in state after state to say “Enough!”
So the statists are trying a bipartisan “backdoor” scheme to impose more control on American citizens.
They’re hoping that after months of Big Media mouthpieces decrying the “poisonous and partisan politics” in Washington, the American people will jump for joy at the sight of a Democrat from
liberal New York and a Republican from conservative South Carolina “working together to solve our immigration mess.”

Well, you and I know better. After all, liberty activists can hardly find two Senators with
bigger vendettas against the liberty movement than Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Lindsey Graham. Senator Graham himself has very publicly denounced the limited government R3VOLUTION launched by Dr. Ron Paul. He’s stated that we’re not welcome in HIS party. And now, he’s proving why the one who should not be welcome in any party that values freedom is LINDSEY GRAHAM.
That’s why it’s up to you and me to FIGHT back.

Unfortunately, the only way to DEFEAT a new National ID card is to contact Americans from coast-to-coast and explain EXACTLY what’s at stake.

They’re not going to get the real story from the media. It’s up to you and me to reach them.
Already, I’ve prepared email blasts, blog posts and other internet activities to alert liberty-loving Americans to the National ID scheme included in the new “Comprehensive Immigration
Reform Bill.”

But that’s not all. Campaign for Liberty staff tells me if I pull out all the stops, there’s an additional twelve million folks I can reach through our mail and phone programs. And finally, if I can raise the resources, I’d also like to run hard-hitting newspaper, radio and TV ads in New York and South
Carolina, explaining to the citizens of those states exactly what Senators Schumer and Graham are up to.

With all the battles we’ve faced over the past several months to save AUDIT THE FED and stop ObamaCare, I simply don’t have the resources to do everything. So please sign the petition and chip in with a quick contribution of $5, $10 or even $25 IMMEDIATELY!

http://www.chooseliberty.org/NationalId3.aspx?pid=3

You see, this isn’t a fight we can afford to lose. Passage of the National ID card would virtually guarantee the last vestiges of freedom we enjoy as Americans would be seriously
jeopardized.

And if you and I don’t defeat it, who will? There is already a strong, “bipartisan coalition” developing,
and the American people barely know what’s going on.

So I have to ask you — in addition to your signed petition — can I count on you to help out with a $5 or more donation?
http://www.chooseliberty.org/NationalId3.aspx?pid=3

Sincerely,

John F. Tate

President

P.S. Embedded in Senators Lindsey Graham’s and Chuck Schumer’s “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill” is the groundwork for a National ID card — complete with biometric tracking technology
— for everyone with a job in America. If passed, it would require every American to obtain the card to
work legally in the U.S. — and you can bet it will only be a matter of time until they’re required even for simple purchases.

So please sign the petition and help out with a quick contribution of $5, $10, $25 or whatever you can afford right away.

http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/4099816:6090536223:m:3:187725201:99DF108C4BE0121D524C70E176DF1CFF

Ron Paul On Fed Coverup Of Watergate, Saddam Funding

Statement of Congressman Ron Paul
United States House of Representatives
Statement for the Record
February 25, 2010

Madame Speaker, I would like to enter into the record the following letter from Professor Robert D. Auerbach, a professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. This letter provides additional information regarding remarks I made at yesterday’s Financial Services Committee Humphrey-Hawkins hearing, remarks which Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke categorized as “bizarre.”

I thank Congressman Ron Paul for bringing to the public’s attention the Federal Reserve coverup of the source of the Watergate burglars’ source of funding and the defective audit by the Federal Reserve of the bank that transferred $5.5 billion from the U.S. government to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. Congressman Paul directed these comments to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the House Financial Services Hearing February 24, 2010. I question Chairman Bernanke’s dismissive response.

BERNANKE: “Well, Congressman, these specific allegations you’ve made I think are absolutely bizarre, and I have absolutely no knowledge of anything remotely like what you just described.”

The evidence Congressman Ron Paul mentioned is well documented in my recent book, Deception and Abuse at the Fed (University of Texas Press: 2008). The head of the Federal Reserve bureaucracy should become familiar with its dismal practices.

First, consider the Fed’s coverup of the source of the $6300 in hundred dollar bills found on the Watergate burglars when they were arrested at approximately 2:30 A.M. on June 17, 1972 after they had broken into the Watergate offices of the Democratic Party. Five days after the break-in, June 22, 1972, at a board of directors’ meeting of officials at the Philadelphia Fed Bank, it was recorded in the minutes [shown on page 23 of my book] that false or misleading information had been provided to a reporter from the Washington Post about the $6,300. Bob Woodward told me he thought he was the Washington Post reporter who had made the phone inquiry. The reporter “had called to verify a rumor that these bills were stolen from this Bank” according to the Philadelphia Fed minutes. The Philadelphia Fed Bank had informed the Board on June 20 that the notes were “shipped from the Reserve Bank to Girard Trust Company in Philadelphia on April 3, 1972.” The Washington Post was incorrectly informed of “thefts but told they involved old bills that were ready for destruction.”

The Federal Reserve under the chairmanship of Author Burns not only kept the Fed from getting entangled in the Watergate coverup, which the Fed’s actions had assisted, it allowed false statements about bills the Fed knew were issued by the Philadelphia Fed Bank to stand uncorrected. Blocking information from the Senate and House Banking Committees [letters shown in my book, Chapter 2] and issuing false information during a perilous government crisis imposed huge costs on the public that had insufficient information to hold the Fed officials accountable for what they had withheld from the Congress. Had the deception been discovered the Fed chairmen following Burns may have been forced to rapidly implement some real transparency to restore the Fed’s credibility. That would have reduced or eliminated many of the lies, deceptions, and corrupt practices that are described in my book.

The second subject brought up by Congressman Ron Paul is the exposure of faulty examinations of the Federal Reserve of a foreign bank in Atlanta, Georgia through which $5.5 billion was sent to Saddam Hussein that a Federal Judge found to be part of United States active support for Iraq in the 1980s.
On November 9, 1993, several federal marshals brought a prisoner, Christopher Drogoul, into my office at the Rayburn House Office Building of the U.S. House of Representatives. The marshals removed the manacles. Drogoul took off his jump suit and changed into a shirt, tie, and business suit. He immediately looked like the manager of the Atlanta agency with domestic headquarters in New York City of Banca Nazionale. Drogoul had come to testify about a “scheme prosecutors said he masterminded that funneled $5.5 billion in loans to Iraq’s Hussein through BNL’s Atlanta operation. Some of the loans allegedly were used to build up Iraq’s military and nuclear arsenals in the years preceding the first Gulf War.”[1]

Drogoul’s “‘off book’ BNL-Atlanta funding to Iraq began in 1986 as financing for products under Department of Agriculture programs.”[2] The loans allegedly had been authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since Drogoul told the committee he was merely a tool in an ambitious scheme by the United States, Italy, Britain and Germany to secretly arm Iraq in their 1980-88 war, the testimony was politically contentious and unproven. He was sentenced in November 1993 to 37 months in prison and he had already served 20 months awaiting his sentencing hearing.

U.S. District Judge Ernest Tidwell found that the United States had actively supported Iraq in the 1980s by providing it with government-guaranteed loans even though it wasn’t creditworthy. The judge said such policies “clearly facilitated criminal conduct.”[3]

Gonzalez was drawn to Drogoul’s answer about the Fed examiner who had visited his Atlanta operation. Gonzalez said that:

“At the November 9, 1993 Banking Committee hearing I asked Christopher Drogoul, the convicted official of the Banca Nazionale Del Lavoro agency branch in Atlanta, Georgia, how the Federal Reserve Bank examiners could miss billions of dollars of illegal loans, most of which ended up in the hands of Hussein.

Mr. Drogoul stated:

“The task of the Fed [bank examiner] was simply to confirm that the State of Georgia audit revealed no major problems. And thus, their audit of BNL usually consisted of a one or two-day review of the state of Georgia’s preliminary results, followed by a cup of espresso in the manager’s office.”

Gonzalez was appalled at the of lack of effective examination of a little storefront bank and also appalled by the gifts exchanged by officers of the New York Federal Reserve and the regulated banks in New York City where the main U.S. office of BNL was located. A description of what followed is in my book.

The Fed voted in 1995 to destroy the source transcripts of its policy making committee that had been sent to National Archives and Records Administration. Chairman Alan Greenspan had the committee vote on this destruction, telling the members: “I am not going to record these votes because we do not have to. There is no legal requirement.” (p. 104 in my book.) Greenspan thus removed any fingerprints on this act of record destruction. Donald Kohn, who is now Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve, answered some questions I had sent to Chairman Greenspan about this destruction. Kohn replied in a letter on November 1, 2001 to me at the University of Texas that they had destroyed the source records for 1994, 1995 and 1996, they did not believe it to be illegal and there was no plan to end this practice. That is one reason why the Federal Reserve audit supported by Congressman Ron Paul is needed. The Fed must stop destroying its records.

[1] Marcy Gordon, “Banker Imprisoned in BNL Case Tells Story to House Committee,” The Associated Press, November 9, 1993.

[2] U.S. Newswire: “Former Executive of Atlanta Agency of Italian-Owned Bank Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy”, from U.S. Department of Justice, Public Affairs, June 2, 1992.

[3] Peter Mantius, “Drogoul given 37 months Judge in BNL case also blasts actions of U.S. prosecutors,” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, December 10, 1993, Section A, p. 12.

Robert Auerbach is Professor of Public Affairs at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin. He was an economist with the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee during the tenure of four Federal Reserve Chairmen: Arthur Burns, William Miller, Paul Volcker, and Alan Greenspan. Auerbach also served as an economist in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Domestic Monetary Affairs during the first year of the Ronald Reagan administration and as a financial economist with the U.S. Federal Reserve System. Auerbach has been a professor of economics at the American University in Washington, D.C. (1976-83), and a professor of economics and finance at the University of California-Riverside (1983-93). He has written numerous articles, and two textbooks in banking and financial markets. He received two Masters degrees in economics, one from the University of Chicago and one from Roosevelt University, where he studied under Abba Lerner, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, where he studied under Milton Friedman.

Why The Establishment Is Attacking Ron Paul

“If the guy is such a sure loser in 2012, why all the attacks? In his quiet way, Paul must have tapped into something. And you can get an idea of that something from what Pat Buchanan wrote the other day about the CPAC poll.

After asking “how do conservatives justify borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states — to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states?” Buchanan answered his own question by making the case that such policies are not conservative at all.

“Ron Paul’s victory at CPAC may be a sign the prodigal sons of the right are casting off the heresy of neoconservatism and coming home to first principles,” Buchanan concluded.

Buchanan has put his finger on why the unemotional Texas congressman produces such an emotional reaction. The party establishment has to dread the prospect of a candidate who can unite the youthful libertarian conservatives with the Buchananite America-first types. Such a character might win a plurality running against Romney, Huckabee and neocon Barbie doll Sarah Palin.

And Paul might have the most money of them all, thanks to the support of those young voters who actually understand how the internet works. I suspect this is what all the shouting is about, even though the subject of it all never raises his voice.”

Paul Mulshine, NJ Star Ledger, via Lew Rockwell.

Ron Paul: No Military Occupation Of Haiti

Statement of Congressman Ron Paul,  United States House of Representatives Statement in Opposition to H Res 1021, Condolences to Haiti, January 21, 2010

I rise in reluctant opposition to this resolution. Certainly I am moved by the horrific destruction in Haiti and would without hesitation express condolences to those who have suffered and continue to suffer. As a medical doctor, I have through my career worked to alleviate the pain and suffering of others. Unfortunately, however, this resolution does not simply express our condolences, but rather it commits the US government “to begin the reconstruction of Haiti” and affirms that “the recovery and long-term needs of Haiti will require a sustained commitment by the United States….” Continue reading

Ron Paul: Fractional Banking Finances War…

John Rubino on Ron Paul:

*”Paul makes it clear that the Fed isn’t the whole problem. It’s just one part of a system that first went wrong with the introduction of fractional reserve banking centuries ago (banks used to be warehouses, storing depositors’ money for a fee), followed by the spread of European central banks (really just scams to allow a few elite bankers and politicians to expand their own power at the expense of everyone else) and then, finally, the introduction of fiat currency, which freed governments to expand spending and borrowing without regard to, well, anything. The problem, in short, is the whole of modern banking and finance.

*The middle part of the book features transcripts of Congressman Paul grilling Fed chairmen Greenspan and Bernanke. Some of these transcripts date back to the early Reagan era, which means that for going on three decades Paul has been fighting this fight, and slamming into the same brick wall. The Chairmen feel no need to explain themselves to a lowly congressman, and respond with a mixture of lies and obfuscation that apparently fooled most of Washington. The generally-respectful Paul even refers to Greenspan as “pathetic” after one especially dishonest piece of testimony. Less charitable readers will, by the end of this section, want to take a congressional microphone and beat Greenspan and Bernanke senseless.

*Fractional reserve banking and fiat currency make war easier. Back when a ruler needed actual gold to field an army, invading a neighbor required some serious forethought. But once a dictator (or the world’s policeman) could just print a few billion pieces of paper and order some new tanks, “defending the national interest” got a whole lot easier. Hence the bloodbath of the 20th century, and perhaps the mess of the coming decade.

*Paul knows all the major sound money/Austrian economics classics, and he cites them liberally. The “recommended reading” list contains a year’s worth of serious research.

*Though he continues to fight, he’s not optimistic about averting the coming train wreck, which he refers to as the “BIG ONE”.

Prince of Peace Loses With Christian Neocons

From the Lew Rockwell blog:

“The Christian neocons voted for Huckabee for president at their Value Voters Summit today in Dee-Cee. There was a virtual four-way tie for second: Romney, Pawlenty, Palin, and Pence. No reports in the media on Ron Paul’s votes, but given that the VVs booed him during the presidential campaign for saying that he worshipped the Prince of Peace, who could be surprised?”

War Pigs

War Pigs – Nothing’s Changed
Hat-tip to Brad Spangler

It’s still the bankers making money from debt and war…

While the sheeple swing their woolly heads back and forth, hypnotized –

left-right

black-white

public-private

socialist-capitalist

gay-straight, feminist-patriarchal, Muslim-Christian, East-West, poor-rich, working-class-middle-class, urban-rural, blue-state-red-state…

back-forth…democrat-republican…