Interview conducted 7/20/19 at the Mises Institute, in Auburn, AL
Atilla Sulker: What are your views on nationalism, especially considering its dynamic and dichotomy in regards to globalism today?
Lew Rockwell: Well like Mises, I’m pro-nationalism. I think it’s normal to love one’s homeland. Aquinas talks about that, Aristotle. It has a significant history, I would say. It’s only recently that you’re supposed to hate your homeland, and turn it over to whoever wants to come in on welfare. I think it’s very important in resisting the state, even though the state tries to use nationalism, to benefit itself against the people. I think that it (nationalism) is a natural response to the state. I don’t think that nationalism that’s built on hating the guts of the nation next door, for example, is a good one. But it’s about loving your own country, and opposing its enemies, which you should come to understand, the head of that is your own government. And also, I notice that all the bad people in society hate nationalism, and are always denouncing it, whether it’s the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or academics, or left wingers. It’s bad. I noticed that Colorado State University banned the use of “America” and “American” as words that would trigger people.
AS: Why do you think people like the Bushes and the McCains, who in many ways can be seen as nationalistic imperialists, denounce Trump’s brand of nationalism?
LR: I don’t think that imperialism is at all, necessarily connected to nationalism. The good nationalism has nothing to do with imperialism. It should oppose imperialism, because it brings war and destruction to your own people, as well as other people. But I think Bush and McCain, both of course, extremely evil and promoters of world government, are not nationalists at all. Maybe they want to see their own families and their own connections at the height of the global government running everything. But they don’t like Trump, because of what they thought he might turn into, in terms of America first, and no more wars. So that unfortunately hasn’t happened, although he (Trump) hasn’t started any big wars. But he has done terrible things like fund the war in Yemen, by giving or selling weapons, and selling weapons to Saudis. And of course his constant drumbeat of aggression against Iran is horrendous, and he’s strangling those people. American sanctions are worse than sanctions that the Bushes put on against Iraq before they invaded. In that famous exchange with the Secretary of State (Madeleine Albright), she was asked that apparently 500,000 children and people had died because of sanctions, and she said “we think it’s worth it”. I just heard this recently from Pompeo, but this has been going on for a long time. The reason you have sanctions, according to these people, is to hurt the citizens of the other country, so they will rise up and overthrow their government. I’m not aware of any instances where that has ever happened. In fact, it just makes people more loyal to their own government. Part of it is that, I think there is a lot of money made off of sanctions, for people connected to the “sanctions giver”. I also think that this is just typical of government- they love hurting other people, they love killing people, they love starving people, sickening them. Denying baby toys, and baby food, and so forth to the people of Iran. I must say that I have not seen the whole list, which I’d like to see, of everything that you can’t sell to Iran. But it includes, just like Iraq, all sorts of medicines, and it’s really a vicious business. And Trump- it’s like he’s strangling the people of Iran, and they’re stepping on his toe, and he’s going “Hey! How dare you do that! You’re really in trouble now! You’re in big trouble now!”. And of course this is because of Israel. This is why the U.S. fought the war against Iraq. And regarding Iran, Netanyahu has advocated this since 1999. He said that Iran was a terrorist threat against the Jewish people, and they had to be stopped and destroyed, so they wouldn’t hurt Israel. I don’t believe that. The Iranians are not an aggressive people. They’re not an aggressive people. It’s true that they’ve helped their co-religionists in Iran, and cooperated with the ones in Iraq, but Israel does that all the time. People in Lebanon are being attacked by Israel, as they have invaded the capital a number of times, destroyed the capital, that sort of thing. But the people they hate the most are the people who kicked them out of Lebanon, and created guerrilla warfare. And because Iran is connected to those people- they’re all Shiites- this is supposed to be unbelievably evil. Well I must say it doesn’t seem so to me. Of course I would like everybody to mind their own business. The U.S. is the ultimate example of never minding your own business- minding other people’s business. Because of course the U.S. always knows what’s best. The U.S. is the font of wisdom. Also, it’s the biggest arms dealer in history, selling weapons to, giving weapons to countries all over the world, to start wars. And once those wars start, well it’s just a great business opportunity for Lockhead and others, and the rest of them. Somebody mentioned today, during the contest (Mises University event), that 91 percent of U.S. senators, take money from Lockhead. Raytheon, and all the rest of these companies of course, pretty much own the Congress. And that’s the money that’s on the surface. There’s a lot of money that changes hands under the table. And they do things like having very beautiful women being their lobbyists, offering themselves to the senator, or the congressman, and they’ll do what the company wants them to do. So it’s very sick, sicko business, and we’re supposed to of course cheer all of this, and think it’s wonderful. The U.S. is killing- I think I’ve made this point to you before- how many millions of people has the U.S. killed in its history of wars? Just in WWII, we’ve killed millions, and WWI, and what they did to the Philippines, and what they did to the South. It’s been just horrendous. The U.S. has pretty much always been at war, ever since it was founded as an independent country. Not good. And Americans, I don’t think, think of themselves as a war like people. It’s those other guys that are warlike. We’re all just peaceful. But of course the U.S. has troops in 181 countries, its military bases everywhere, its navy everywhere, its air force everywhere. In the official statement of military goals, it’s dedicated to making sure that nobody can ever rise up, or ever do to other countries what the U.S. has repeatedly done to other countries. Very bad business. Now they hate Turkey of course too, for buying the Russian anti-missile defense system, which is apparently better than the so called “Patriot System”, but why is it up to them to make a decision? But of course, it simply would be evil to deal with the Russians. They’re this little tiny country. They’re not a tiny country geographically or in population, but their GNP is about 10 percent of that of the United States. And their military budget is 10 percent. And of course, China is the same- they have a lot of people, but a small military, small GDP. And we’re supposed to think “ooh, they’re gonna take us over, ooh those Chinese, they’re really bad”. Terrible.
AS: What do you think of Amash’s recent breaking from the Republican Party, and his sort of “bold stance” against Trump? And what are the implications for libertarians?…
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