Masks on airplanes are now optional! If you still wish to wear one, go ahead, but don’t claim defiance while doing so.
Be seeing you
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Wearing Masks Isn’t “Defiant”
Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2022
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Decentralization and the Rise of the West: The European Miracle Revisited
Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2022
The Amsterdam magistrate, in contrast, chose to treat all merchants, local or foreign, equally. Relatively speaking, the Dutch Republic was a beacon of political, economic, and religious freedom in the seventeenth century, and Holland in particular experienced an economic boom in the Dutch Golden Age.
https://mises.org/wire/decentralization-and-rise-west-european-miracle-revisited
Decentralization has long been at the forefront of the minds of Austro-libertarians. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, for instance, appeared on Austrian television this month sharing his dream of a Europe “which consists of 1,000 Liechtensteins.”
Although principally based on economic reasoning, this policy agenda emerged at least in part out of a celebration of the historiography on the “European miracle,” which posits that the West grew rich because of the existence of thousands of competing political entities of differing size and form in premodern Europe. Since Ralph Raico summarized this historiography thirty years ago, the “European miracle” school of thought has moved forward with varying degrees of success.
The European Miracle
Back in 1994, Ralph Raico wrote an essay on the then emerging “European miracle” school of thought in economic history. The scholars in this school, Raico argued, had at long last repudiated the “historical materialism” of the Marxists. Unlike Karl Marx and his followers, they insisted that technological change and economic growth were the result of certain legal, political, and ideological institutions—or the “superstructure,” in Marxist terms—rather than the other way around.
Institutions such as property rights, restraint in taxation, and liberalism, in turn, arose out of the political anarchy of medieval Europe. Although culturally homogenous and economically integrated, Europe for centuries remained a patchwork of different kingdoms, principalities, city-states, and ecclesiastical polities. This meant that the ever-growing middle classes of merchants, artisans, and shopkeepers could take their business elsewhere if the rulers usurped too much of their productive wealth. As a result, the political authorities competed with each other to develop an atmosphere conducive to economic freedom. As Eric Jones put it in The European Miracle, which Raico named his article after:
Political decentralization and competition did abridge the worst arbitrariness of European princes. There were many exceptions, but gradually they became just that, exceptions. Meanwhile, freedom of movement among the nation-states offered opportunities for “best practices” to diffuse in many spheres, not least the economic…. The number of states never shrank to one, to a single dominant empire, despite the ambitions of Charlemagne, the Hapsburg Charles V or Napoleon. Within many states a long process in the history of economic thought conditioned rulers to listen to academics and other wise men. Writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in central and western Europe dared to offer advice about how to rule, some of which was taken.
Political competition ultimately is what set the West apart from the rest. Asia’s Charlemagnes, Charles Vs, and Napoleons were successful in monopolizing political power, allowing them to establish command economies.
The Nation-State
Raico’s article appeared in a volume called The Collapse of Development Planning, edited by Peter J. Boettke. The implosion of the Soviet Union undoubtedly made Raico optimistic that the influence of left-wing ideologies in the field of economic history would collapse, too. Yet the institutional approach has not come to dominate the field. The idea that the rise of the West is principally the result of the exploitation of labor still holds a lot of support in academia.1 Historical narratives that explain the Industrial Revolution through out-of-the-blue technological progress or coincidental geographical factors abound as well. Moreover, historians have tried to prove the efficiency of premodern antimarket institutions, such as craft guilds and serfdom.
Finally, the nation-state is still allocated a decisive role in the economic rise of the West. In his Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction, for instance, Robert C. Allen celebrates the “standard model” for economic development spearheaded by nineteenth-century European nation-states and the US government. Influenced by Friedrich List and Alexander Hamilton, the four allegedly “successful” state policies, according to Allen, were investments in transportation and mass education, central banking, and tariffs.
Still, few historians would deny that political competition played a vital role in the European miracle. Niall Ferguson, for instance, included competition as the first of several “killer apps of Western power” in his popular 2011 book Civilization: The Six Killer Apps of Western Power. The problem is that since most historians are not libertarians, they do not a priori exclude the possibility that the nation-state can create wealth. Therefore, when government intervention and economic growth go hand in hand, even the institutionalists tend to conclude that the state somehow played a contributing role.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Austro-libertarians, Decentralization, European miracle, Property Rights | Leave a Comment »
Lady Emma Arbuthnot: Who Is Behind the Chief Judge Who Was Trying Julian Assange?
Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2022
This incisive article by Manlio Dinucci first published by Global Research on September 18, 2020 points “conflict of interest” of chief judge Emma Arbuthnot who conducted the trial for the extradition of Julian Assange.
Judge Lady Arbuthnot is married to Lord James Arbuthnot, a well-known Tory “hawk,” and former Minister for Defense Procurements, with links to the Military-Industrial Complex, British and US intelligence.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/who-behind-judge-trying-julian-assange/5724227
Global Research
Was Judge Emma Arbuthnot in conflict of interest? In 2020, she refused recusal. Did Assange’s lawyers issue a request for her recusal?
Emma Arbuthnot is the chief judge who conducted the trial for the extradition of Julian Assange in London to the USA, where a 175 year prison sentence awaits him for “espionage,” that is, for having published evidence of US war crimes, including videos of civilians’ killings in Iraq and Afghanistan, as an investigative journalist. At the trial, assigned to Judge Vanessa Baraitser, every defense request was denied.
In 2018, after Sweden’s sexual assault charges fell through, Judge Arbuthnot refused to cancel the arrest warrant, so that Assange could not obtain asylum in Ecuador. Arbuthnot rejected the United Nations Working Group’s findings on the arbitrary detention of Assange. The UN Officer’s remarks against torture also went unheard:
“Assange is detained in extreme conditions of unjustified isolation, and shows the typical symptoms of prolonged exposure to psychological torture.”
In 2020, while thousands of detainees were transferred to house arrest as an anti-Coronavirus measure, Assange remained in prison, exposed to the infection in compromised physical condition.
In court, Assange cannot consult with lawyers, but is kept isolated in an armored glass cage, and threatened with expulsion if he opens his mouth. What is behind this persistence?
Being Lord James Arbuthnot’s wife, married to a well-known Tory “hawk,” former Minister for Defense Procurements, linked to the Military-Industrial Complex and to the Secret Services, Judge Arbuthnot has the title of “Lady.” Lord Arbuthnot is, among other things, Chairman of the British Advisory board of Thales, a French multinational specialized in aerospace military systems, and a member of Montrose Associates, specialized in Strategic Intelligence (highly paid positions).
Lord Arbuthnot is also part of the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), an influential transatlantic think-tank linked to the US Government and Intelligence Agency. Last July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke at a round table of the HJS in London: since he was the CIA Director in 2017, he accused WikiLeaks, founded by Assange, of being “an enemy spy service.”
The Henry Jackson Society led the same campaign accusing Assange of “sowing doubts on the moral position of Western democratic governments, with the support of autocratic regimes.” Ms. Priti Patel, current United Kingdom Secretary of the Interior, who is responsible for the extradition order of Assange was until recently on the political board of the HJS, alongside Lord Arbuthnot.
Lady Arbuthnot is essentially connected to this pressure group that is conducting a pounding campaign for the extradition of Assange, directed by Lord Arbuthnot and other influential characters.
She was appointed by the Queen as chief magistrate in September 2016, after WikiLeaks published the most compromising documents for the USA in March. These documents included emails from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealing the true purpose of the NATO war on Libya: to prevent Libya from using its gold reserves to create a pan-African currency alternative to the dollar and the CFA franc, the currency imposed by France on 14 former colonies.
The real “crime” for which Assange is being tried is that of opening cracks in the political-media silence wall that covers the real interests of powerful elites who, operating in the “Deep State,” play the war card. It is this occult power that subjects Julian Assange to a trial, instructed by Lady Arbuthnot, who recalls those of the Holy Inquisition as to how the accused is treated.
If Assange is extradited to the US, he would be subjected to “special administrative measures” much harsher than those in Britain: he would be isolated in a small cell, unable to contact his family or speak, not even through lawyers who would be indicted if they brought forth his message. In other words, he would be sentenced to death.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.
Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Featured image: Lady Emma and Lord James Arbuthnot of Edrom at Buckingham Palace in May 2017 [Source: Instagram]
The original source of this article is Global Research
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Conflict of Interest, Julian Assange, Lady Emma Arbuthnot, Lord James Arbuthnot | Leave a Comment »
Ex-NATO Analyst Paints a Completely Different Picture of Ukraine War
Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2022
After the Maidan coup in 2014, the Russian-speaking part of the population – civilians – were attacked by Ukrainian soldiers. In cities like Odessa, Mariupol, Luhansk and Donetsk massacres were carried out by them.
The retired Swiss Colonel Jacques Baud has written a lengthy article in which he paints a completely different picture of the war in Ukraine than portrayed in the Western media. The former NATO analyst helped Ukraine build its army for years.
Baud noted that the so-called Russian-backed separatists in Donbass were never supported in any way by Russia for the past eight years. After the Maidan coup in 2014, the Russian-speaking part of the population – civilians – were attacked by Ukrainian soldiers. In cities like Odessa, Mariupol, Luhansk and Donetsk massacres were carried out by them. Since then, a civil war has raged in the country.
Baud was working as an army analyst for NATO in 2014, when his team discovered that the rebels’ weapons were not supplied by Russia, but by Russian-speaking defectors from the Ukrainian armed forces.
How did he know this?
There was a massive exodus, after which Baud had to help to rebuild the image of the Ukrainian army. This turned out to be a long and arduous process. In the process, extremist paramilitary militias, including the Azov Battalion, sprung up.
In 2020, 40 percent of the Ukrainian army consisted of these militias, Baud said. He describes the members as cruel fanatics. They were funded, trained and armed by the United States, Great Britain, Canada and France.
Baud further pointed out that President Zelensky announced last year that he intended to take Crimea and he sent his troops south to complete the task. In February, the Ukrainian army began bombing Donbass on a large scale.
The former colonel added that US President Biden announced on February 17 that Russia would attack Ukraine within days. How did he know this? Since February 16, the civilian population of Donbass has been massively bombed by the Ukrainian army. The European Union, media, NATO and Western governments nonetheless kept mum as this was happening.
Three reasons
It seems the European Union and Western countries deliberately did not say anything about the massacre in Donbass because they knew it would provoke a Russian response, the ex-NATO analyst said.
He also pointed out that in January saboteurs with Western equipment were caught in Donbass who spoke Polish. They had wanted to cause incidents with chemical substances in Gorlovka. Baud said Joe Biden knew the mass bombing and acts of sabotage would lead to a Russian invasion.
According to him, there are three reasons for this war: the expansion of NATO, refusal of the West to implement the Minsk agreements and the large-scale attacks on the civilian population of Donbass over the past eight years.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Donbass, Jacques Baud, Maidan coup | Leave a Comment »
The 1804 Northern Secession Plot and the Founding Fathers of the Deep State
Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2022
https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/the-1804-northern-secession-plot?s=r
The miracle of America’s surviving its many near death experiences over the years can be attributed less to fate and more to the immense sacrifices by great statesmen over the years… one of whom we will explore in this essay.
With America being set on fire by a diverse array of catalysts: hyperinflationary economic blowout, threats of martial law and British-run Deep State adding to the ongoing anarchy sweeping the nation funded by billionaire color revolutionaries, it is easy to become a bit lost, confused and cynical over the future of the republic or even humanity more broadly.
However, when reviewing the history of the USA from its earliest years throughout its numerous moments of near-collapse witnessed in 1804, 1812, 1861-65 to the present, the very fact that the republic even exists at all is nothing less than a miracle which should not be taken for granted. The miracle of America’s surviving its many near death experiences over the years can be attributed less to fate and more to the immense sacrifices by great (and often assassinated) statesmen over the years… one of whom we will explore in this essay.
Hamilton vs. Burr
As I mentioned in my recent paper on Alexander Hamilton’s Genius, America’s first U.S. Treasury Secretary killed by Aaron Burr (aka: the father of Wall Street) in 1804, was indispensable in the young nation’s survival during the first 30 years after 1776. Even though it hasn’t been taught in any western university in generations, Hamilton’s system of political economy which arose from his four reports of 1791 was premised on the practices of 1) national banking, 2) productive credit generation for long term internal improvements, 3) industrial growth (vs slave-based production) and 4) protective tariffs. Most importantly, this system set “economic value” not upon the worship of money but rather on the creative mental activity of citizens through constant scientific and technological progress.
Between 1776 until his death in 1804, Hamilton used every ounce of his influence to ensure that the many traitorous movements launched by diverse branches of British operations in America (including from his own Federalist Party), and often under the leadership of arch-traitor Aaron Burr, failed to achieve their goals. These operations which included Canadian United Empire Loyalists, New York financiers and southern slave interests, can collectively be defined as the “founding fathers of today’s deep state” which evolved over the years and took over much of the nation after the death of Franklin Roosevelt.
One of Hamilton’s most important victories during this precarious time occurred during the 1800 presidential elections which still confuses some scholars today. These scholars cannot understand why Hamilton’s feud with Jefferson didn’t stop the former from devoting all of his energy into helping the latter gain the victory over presidential hopeful Aaron Burr. Speaking of his motives for this paradoxical maneuver, Hamilton famously said:
“Mr. Jefferson, though too revolutionary in his notions, is yet a lover of liberty and will be desirous of something like orderly Government – Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself – thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement – and will be content with nothing short of permanent power in his own hands.”
To understand the conditions shaping this strategic fight only 11 years after Ben Franklin died, one must understand how the British Empire used an evil cancer embedded in the young nation to destroy it from within when it became obvious that external force could not succeed.
Slavery: America’s Achilles Heel
Despite the fact that slavery was nearly extinguished by 1792 (1), forces loyal to the British Empire within the “eastern establishment” led by aristocratically minded traitors like Timothy Pickering, Aaron Burr, Col. James Wilkinson, George Cabot and Albert Gallatin worked hard to advance a plot for breaking up the republic into two separate confederacies under the guise that “slave states and free states could not co-exist”. While this fact may have been true, rather than continue the struggle to abolish slavery by imposing the authority of the Constitution, such traitors made the argument that it were best to dissolve the nation and constitution completely. Under these designs, British Canada would merge with northern “free states” under a new Anglo-Saxon confederation, while the slave power would be free to create its own southern confederation. Under this design, both northern and southern confederacies would be defined by a special relationship with England and dominated by the City of London’s economic web of finance.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Deep State, Founding Fathers, Northern Secession Plot | Leave a Comment »
Neoconservatives are the Flat-Earthers of Foreign Policy
Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2022
In October of 2001, George W. Bush rejected the Taliban’s offer to hand Osama Bin Laden over to America in exchange for evidence of his guilt. The war in Afghanistan could have been avoided. Instead, NATO declared Article V (war) for the first time in its history.
by Keith Knight
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/neoconservatives-are-the-flat-earthers-of-foreign-policy/
Douglas Murray, the author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, claims:
Neoconservatism is not a cabal or a party, but rather a sense, an instinct, a way of looking at the world. That way of looking at the world is, in my definition, a blend of idealism and realism. We look at the world as it is, but act in the world to make it as we would like it to be. This makes our instincts different from traditional conservatives who often distrust social engineering projects or any form of alteration of a status quo they perpetually see as being an irreversible if often quietly enjoyable decline.
These are not defining characteristics of neoconservatives. Communists, fascists, minarchists, libertarians, and conservatives would have no trouble saying that they have goals in mind and that there are realities that also must be dealt with. As a libertarian, I hold the ideal that the principles of self-ownership and voluntary contracts are worth striving for. I also recognize the reality: that many people believe that other people (i.e., the state or collective) own your body, and that voluntary contracts are exploitative.
Murray also leaves out the small fact that in the pursuit of their alleged goals, neoconservatives often justify slavery in the form of military conscription and murdering civilians with bombings and blockades.
The Unrealistic and Unideal
To the Neoconservative I ask:
When, if ever, would another country be morally justified in bombing British or American citizens and forming blockades around our countries to starve us?
Has the war on terrorism decreased the number of Al-Qaeda members or international terrorists since 2001?
Have countries like Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen been “stabilized” or democratized?
As a result of these interventions, are America and her allies stronger nations with more international respect?
If the National Socialist violation of Polish independence was a crime worthy of waging war in 1939, why was Poland given to Joseph Stalin in 1945?
Did Britain’s 1914 declaration of war on Germany stabilize Europe?
It’s as though the Neoconservative has never stopped to think about costs, downsides, or unintended consequences of these policies. It turns out that politicians who are commonly seen as self-interested liars who will say anything to get elected are also untrustworthy when it comes to waging wars.
The 21st Century Opportunity to Lead the World
In July of 2021, Ayaan Hirsi Ali used her credentials as a former Muslim to debate at FreedomFest. Ms. Ali says:
…I read Bin laden. They’re not saying they’re acting the way that their acting because bombs are dropped on them… If they were saying, ‘It’s because of American foreign policy, it’s because of the bombs,’ I would be the first one in line to say, ‘Well, it’s very easy, we stop bombing, they stop attacking us, and they stop oppressing their people…’ This is a fact… Let’s read bin Laden together, let’s read al Qaeda together.
This is unequivocally false. Two sources using Bin Laden’s own words will suffice for now, but if you’d like 23 examples, see my video response to Ms. Ali.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Flat-Earthers, neoconservatives | Leave a Comment »
‘Mission Accomplished’? Blinken In Kiev Announces Ukraine ‘Has Already Succeeded”
Posted by M. C. on April 26, 2022
US Secretaries of State and Defense made a surprise visit to Kiev over the weekend to declare that Russia had already failed and Ukraine had already succeeded in the two-month conflict. Promising additional weapons transfers, the US is becoming ever more engaged in the war. Dangerous? Also today, some NATO officials openly declare the goal is to “bleed Russia.” And…Finland in NATO? Good idea? Get your tickets to RPI’s Houston conference: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-bide…
If Ukraine is winning so handily why is Biden so desperate to pour in money money and weapons. Mission Accomplished! Just like Iraq.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Blinken, Kiev, Mission Accomplished | Leave a Comment »
On doubt and indifference
Posted by M. C. on April 26, 2022
To any position that exhibits a Christian nature, the typical current-day Westerner responds with doubt or indifference. These responses–unwitting, effortless, even natural–are the fruits from the liberal, post-Christian environment in which most are immersed. Despite their ubiquity, for the reasons which follow, these responses should be rejected for being ignorant and close-minded.
The basis of Christian truth
Regarding the Apostles and their unique credibility as public witnesses to the Resurrection, Fr. John Laux concludes,
“If their testimony is not true, what testimony is true? If we doubt the simple, definite, unanimous story of the Evangelists, the blood-sealed testimony of the Apostles, can we believe in anything?” (page 94 of Catholic Apologetics: God, Christianity, and the Church; my emphasis).
This challenge may equally be rephrased in these terms: “If Christianity is not true, what is true? Can we believe in anything?” For any judgement involving a worldview and extending beyond the purely self-evident, the answer is no. This answer becomes apparent to any fair-minded observer, who considers the sheer volume of rational arguments which substantiate Christian truth.
The alternatives to Christian truth
Christianity authoritatively claims to explain existence, the purpose of human life, and our eternal destiny after death. Even at its lowest point, Christianity is a serious, sincere attempt to explain the universe and our place within it.
But what about the alternatives to Christian truth? The Gospel of St. John encapsulates the true nature of this contrast, relating an exchange between Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ shortly before His Crucifixion.
Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Everyone that is of the truth, heareth my voice.
Pilate saith to him: What is truth? And when he said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: I find no cause in him (John 18:37-38; my emphasis).
This contrast is as clear today as it was 2,000 years ago. Either one submits to Christian truth; alternatively, one is left completely unsure of or with an insufficient grasp of reality–thus Pilate’s reply to the Incarnate Word Himself: “What is truth?” In practice, the intellectual successors of Pilate fanatically enjoin themselves to passing, transitory beliefs before re-attaching to new beliefs as fresh circumstances arise.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Reparations for Government-Imposed Property Theft Are Justified and Necessary
Posted by M. C. on April 26, 2022
Jim Powell points out that although white farmers were duly compensated by the Tennessee Valley Authority for the condemnation of their properties, black farmers were ignored:
The TVA flooded an estimated 730,000 acres of land behind its dams, and 15,654 people were forced out of their homes. Farm owners received cash settlements for their condemned property. But tenant farmers—a substantial number of whom were black—got nothing.
https://mises.org/wire/reparations-government-imposed-property-theft-are-justified-and-necessary
There was great euphoria earlier this year when Bruce’s Beach was returned to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce. The couple acquired the property in 1912, and it quickly became an oasis for black leisure. Unfortunately, the success of Bruce’s Beach incited the venom of racists, whose lobbying motivated public officials to use eminent domain as an excuse to capture the property. Journalist Courtney Lindwell gives the harrowing details of the injustice meted out to the Bruce family:
Bruce’s Beach thrived for more than a decade…. Then in 1924, bending to the racist outcry of aggrieved white residents, Manhattan Beach city officials condemned 30 lots, which included Bruce’s Beach and four lots owned by Black families, seizing them under the legal guise of eminent domain. The city claimed it needed to turn the land into a public park, then left it undeveloped for decades. The family sought legal recourse but was unsuccessful. Ultimately, they received just $14,500 from the city (equivalent to about $224,603 today) and left town.
The example of the Bruce clan has inspired African Americans who have been disadvantaged due to abusive eminent domain laws to reclaim ancestral lands. These unjust policies have made black Americans worse off by diminishing their capacity to create intergenerational wealth. Without laws motivated by racism, black families would have more resources to transmit to future generations that could be employed to expand business ventures. Getting an inheritance offers greater scope for beneficiaries to actualize entrepreneurial ambitions by pursuing risks; however, blacks are less likely to be recipients of substantial transfers. Therefore for many blacks, taking risks can prove to be quite expensive.
Unlike reparations for slavery, the cases highlighted by the Bruce family and other victims of eminent domain entail identifiable victims. People can show the adverse effects of abuses perpetrated by the state on the current generation. Although the rights of Africans were violated when they were forcibly taken to the United States, the people who were actually enslaved are deceased, and their descendants are better off than Africans. Hence reparations for slavery are less compelling.
Furthermore, since politicians are embracing claims for reparations based on the misuse of eminent domain laws, activists must expand the debate to include reparations for violations that occurred during the Civil War. Historian Loren Schweninger paints a picture of social immiseration for free people of color during the height of the Civil War:
Everywhere the Union Army advanced, free Negroes told of death and destruction…. Even in New Orleans, where some former free persons of color continued to maintain their profitable business enterprises during the Union occupation (1862–65), and in Charleston, with its rapid postwar economic recovery (1865–68), the trend was downward for a majority of the free black entrepreneurs who had established businesses before the war.
Meanwhile, researcher Thomas W. Mitchell and his collaborators estimate that the unjust appropriation of black properties has wiped out trillions in intergenerational wealth for black Americans. Some of these unjust programs were sponsored by the New Deal, which many black Americans today hold in high regard. Jim Powell points out that although white farmers were duly compensated by the Tennessee Valley Authority for the condemnation of their properties, black farmers were ignored:
The TVA flooded an estimated 730,000 acres of land behind its dams, and 15,654 people were forced out of their homes. Farm owners received cash settlements for their condemned property. But tenant farmers—a substantial number of whom were black—got nothing.
However, the argument for reparations transcends race and must include whites who have been disadvantaged as a result of exploitative policies. White Americans have a legitimate claim to reparations because their ancestors also lost properties during the Civil War and because they have suffered from eminent domain laws.
If the purpose of reparations is to correct historical wrongs, then we must confront atrocities that white people encountered as well. Doing otherwise suggests that paying reparations is another ploy to enrich minorities at the expense of white Americans who had nothing to do with slavery or with laws and policies that specifically harmed blacks.
Author:
Lipton Matthews is a researcher, business analyst, and contributor to Merion West, The Federalist, American Thinker, Intellectual Takeout, mises.org, and Imaginative Conservative. Visit his YouTube channel, with numerous interviews with a variety of scholars, here. He may be contacted at lo_matthews@yahoo.com or on Twitter (@matthewslipton).
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Bruce’s Beach, Government, Property Theft, Reparations | Leave a Comment »
The Ukraine War is a Racket
Posted by M. C. on April 26, 2022
What we do see is that Russians are capturing modern US and NATO weapons by the ton and even using them to kill more Ukrainians. What irony. Also, what kinds of opportunities will be provided to terrorists, with thousands of tons of deadly high-tech weapons floating around Europe?
https://mailchi.mp/ronpaulinstitute/warracket?e=4e0de347c8
Apr 25 – “War is a racket, wrote US Maj. General Smedley Butler in 1935. He explained: “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
Gen. Butler’s observation describes the US/NATO response to the Ukraine war perfectly.
The propaganda continues to portray the war in Ukraine as that of an unprovoked Goliath out to decimate an innocent David unless we in the US and NATO contribute massive amounts of military equipment to Ukraine to defeat Russia. As is always the case with propaganda, this version of events is manipulated to bring an emotional response to the benefit of special interests.
One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, “Everything that ‘s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DOD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business.”
He wasn’t lying. Raytheon, along with Lockheed Martin and countless other weapons manufacturers are enjoying a windfall they have not seen in years. The US has committed more than three billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. They call it aid, but it is actually corporate welfare: Washington sending billions to arms manufacturers for weapons sent overseas.
By many accounts these shipments of weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile (jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin) are getting blown up as soon as they arrive in Ukraine. This doesn’t bother Raytheon at all. The more weapons blown up by Russia in Ukraine, the more new orders come from the Pentagon.
Former Warsaw Pact countries now members of NATO are in on the scam as well. They’ve discovered how to dispose of their 30-year-old Soviet-made weapons and receive modern replacements from the US and other western NATO countries.
While many who sympathize with Ukraine are cheering, this multi-billion dollar weapons package will make little difference. As former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter said on the Ron Paul Liberty Report last week, “I can say with absolute certainty that even if this aid makes it to the battlefield, it will have zero impact on the battle. And Joe Biden knows it.”
What we do see is that Russians are capturing modern US and NATO weapons by the ton and even using them to kill more Ukrainians. What irony. Also, what kinds of opportunities will be provided to terrorists, with thousands of tons of deadly high-tech weapons floating around Europe? Washington has admitted that it has no way of tracking the weapons it is sending to Ukraine and no way to keep them out of the hands of the bad guys.
War is a racket, to be sure. The US has been meddling in Ukraine since the end of the Cold War, going so far as overthrowing the government in 2014 and planting the seeds of the war we are witnessing today. The only way out of a hole is to stop digging. Don’t expect that any time soon. War is too profitable.
—
Read more great articles on the Ron Paul Institute website.
Subscribe to free updates from the Ron Paul Institute.
Copyright © 2022 by Ron Paul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: NATO, Smedley Butler, Ukraine, War is a racket | Leave a Comment »
MCViewPoint 