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What US policymakers don’t get about the Iranian people

Posted by M. C. on October 11, 2022

According to author Assal Rad, identity has been shaped by opposition to government — and to foreign interference and control.

American policymakers consistently fail to understand how others see the world and how people in other countries see U.S. policies, and that has led to decades of destructive and failed policies that have left both the United States and the targeted countries worse off.

What US policymakers don’t get about the Iranian people

Written by
Daniel Larison

U.S. Iran policy has long suffered from a deficit of understanding the history and culture of the Iranian nation. While our government professes to distinguish between the Iranian people and their rulers, it has in practice lumped them together and punished the former for the abuses of the latter.

While the latest round of protests shows how many ordinary Iranians are challenging and resisting their government at great risk to themselves, our policies have served to strengthen the same forces of repression and injustice that are cracking down on those protesters.

American policymakers have long had a poor grasp of Iranian nationalism and Iranians’ desire for independence and dignity, and they often fail to see that the same nationalism that motivates protesters against the Islamic Republic also rejects outside meddling in Iran’s affairs.

Fortunately, a new book on Iranian national identity and politics offers some much-needed insights into how the Iranian people understand their history and their country’s place in the world and how they have made use of that history to construct their modern identity as a nation.

Assal Rad’s “The State of Resistance: Politics, Identity and Culture in Modern Iran” is an outstanding investigation of how Iranian national identity has been formed, contested, and remade over the last century. Rad explores how the Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic both sought to create narrow definitions of national identity for Iranians, and she then shows how those narrow definitions have continually been met by resistance from the Iranian people as they express their devotion to their vatan (homeland) in several ways that draw on different elements of Iran’s religious and cultural heritage.

A recurring theme in the later chapters of the book is Iranians’ attachment to their country and especially to the land itself. As Rad sums up, “Forming an identity of resistance, Iranians clung to the most tangible aspect of the nation-state, land.” This is what comes through in Iran’s popular music and cinema, and it is also what Rad found in her interviews while doing fieldwork for four years.

See the rest here

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Mises on Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Right of Self-Determination | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on May 27, 2021

As a classical liberal, Mises is careful to specify that the right of self-determination is not a collective right but an individual right: “It is not the right of self determination of a delimited national unit, but rather the right of the inhabitants of every territory to decide on the state to which they wish to belong.” Mises makes it crystal clear that self-determination is an individual right that would have to be granted to “every individual person . . . if it were in any way possible.” It should also be noted in this respect that Mises rarely speaks of the “right of secession,” perhaps because of its historical connotation of the right of a government of a subordinate political unit to withdraw from a superior one. 

https://mises.org/wire/mises-nationalism-colonialism-and-right-self-determination

Joseph T. Salerno

For Mises, liberalism first emerged and expressed itself in the nineteenth century as a political movement in the form of “peaceful nationalism.” Its two fundamental principles were freedom or, more concretely, “the right of self-determination of peoples” and national unity or the “nationality principle.” The two principles were indissolubly linked. The primary goal of the liberal nationalist movements (Italian, Polish, Greek, German, Serbian, etc.) was the liberation of their peoples from the despotic rule of kings and princes. Liberal revolution against despotism necessarily took on a nationalist character for two reasons. First, many of the royal despots were foreign, for example, the Austrian Hapsburgs and French Bourbons who ruled the Italians, and the Prussian king and Russian Czar who subjugated the Poles. Second, and more important, political realism dictated “the necessity of setting the alliance of the oppressed against the alliance of the oppressors in order to achieve freedom at all, but also the necessity of holding together in order to find in unity the strength to preserve freedom”. This alliance of the oppressed was founded on national unity based on a common language, culture, and modes of thinking and acting. 

Even though forged in wars of liberation, liberal nationalism was for Mises both peaceful and cosmopolitan. Not only did the separate national liberation movements view each other as brothers in their common struggle against royal despotism, but they embraced the principles of economic liberalism, “which proclaims the solidarity of interests among all peoples.” Mises stresses the compatibility of nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and peace:

[T]he nationality principle includes only the rejection of every overlordship; it demands self-determination, autonomy. Then, however, its content expands; not only freedom but also unity is the watchword. But the desire for national unity, too, is above all thoroughly peaceful. . . . [N]ationalism does not clash with cosmopolitanism, for the unified nation does not want discord with neighboring peoples, but peace and friendship.1

As a classical liberal, Mises is careful to specify that the right of self-determination is not a collective right but an individual right: “It is not the right of self determination of a delimited national unit, but rather the right of the inhabitants of every territory to decide on the state to which they wish to belong.” Mises makes it crystal clear that self-determination is an individual right that would have to be granted to “every individual person . . . if it were in any way possible.” It should also be noted in this respect that Mises rarely speaks of the “right of secession,” perhaps because of its historical connotation of the right of a government of a subordinate political unit to withdraw from a superior one. 

While championing of self-determination as an individual right, Mises argues that the nation has a fundamental and relatively permanent being independent of the transient state (or states) which may govern it at any given time. Thus he refers to the nation as “an organic entity [which] can be neither increased nor reduced by changes in states.” Accordingly, Mises characterizes a man’s “compatriots” as “those of his fellow men with whom he shares a common land and language and with whom he often forms an ethnic and spiritual community as well.” In the same vein, Mises cites the German author J. Grimm, who refers to the “natural law . . . that not rivers and not mountains form the boundary lines of peoples and that for a people that has moved over mountains and rivers, its own language alone can set the boundary.” The nationality principle therefore implies that liberal nation-states may comprise a monoglot people inhabiting geographically non-contiguous regions, provinces and even villages. Mises contends that nationalism is thus a natural outcome of and in complete harmony with individual rights: “The formation of [liberal democratic] states comprising all the members of a national group was the result of the exercise of the right of self determination, not its purpose.”2

It should be noted here that, in contrast to many modern libertarians who view individuals as atomistic beings who lack emotional affinities and spiritual bonds with selected fellow humans, Mises affirms the reality of the nation as “an organic entity.” For Mises the nation comprises humans who perceive and act toward one another in a way that separates them from other groups of people based on the meaning and significance the compatriots attach to objective factors such as shared language, traditions, ancestry and so on. Membership in a nation, no less than in a family, involves concrete acts of volition based on subjective perceptions and preferences with respect to a complex of objective historical circumstances. According to Murray Rothbard, who shares Mises’s view of the reality of the nation separate from the state apparatus:

Contemporary libertarians often assume, mistakenly, that individuals are bound to each other only by the nexus of market exchange. They forget that everyone is necessarily born into a family, a language, and a culture. Every person is born into one of several overlapping communities, usually including an ethnic group, with specific values, cultures, religious beliefs, and traditions. . . . The ‘nation’ cannot be precisely defined; it is a complex and varying constellation of different forms of communities, languages, ethnic groups or religions. . . . The question of nationality is made more complex by the interplay of objectively existing reality and subjective perceptions.

Colonialism as the Denial of the Right of Self-Determination

Unlike many late 19th- and early 20th-century liberals, Mises was a passionate anti-colonialist. As a radical liberal, he recognized the universality of the right of self determination and the nationality principle for all peoples and races. He wrote powerful and scathing indictments against the European subjugation and mistreatment of African and Asian peoples and demanded a quick and complete dismantling of colonial regimes. It is worthwhile quoting Mises on this at length:

The basic idea of colonial policy was to take advantage of the military superiority of the white race over the members of other races. The Europeans set out, equipped with all the weapons and contrivances that their civilization placed at their disposal, to subjugate weaker peoples, to rob them of their property, and to enslave them. Attempts have been made to extenuate and gloss over the true motive of colonial policy with the excuse that its sole object was to make it possible for primitive peoples to share in the blessings of European civilization. . . . Could there be a more doleful proof of the sterility of European civilization than that it can be spread by no other means than fire and sword?

No chapter of history is steeped further in blood than the history of colonialism. Blood was shed uselessly and senselessly. Flourishing lands were laid waste; whole peoples destroyed and exterminated. All this can in no way be extenuated or justified. The dominion of Europeans in Africa and in important parts of Asia is absolute. It stands in the sharpest contrast to all the principles of liberalism and democracy, and there can be no doubt that we must strive for its abolition. . . . European conquerors . . . have brought arms and engines of destruction of all kinds to the colonies; they have sent out their worst and most brutal individuals as officials and officers; at the point of the sword they have set up a colonial rule that in its sanguinary cruelty rivals the despotic system of the Bolsheviks. Europeans must not be surprised if the bad example that they themselves have set in their colonies now bears evil fruit. In any case, they have no right to complain pharisaically about the low state of public morals among the natives. Nor would they be justified in maintaining that the natives are not yet mature enough for freedom and that they still need at least several years of further education under the lash of foreign rulers before they are capable of being, left on their own.

In those areas where native peoples were strong enough to mount armed resistance to colonial despotism, Mises enthusiastically supported and cheered on these national liberation movements: “In Abyssinia, in Mexico, in the Caucasus, in Persia, in China—everywhere we see the imperialist aggressors in retreat, or at least already in great difficulties.” 

To completely phase out colonialism, Mises proposed the establishment of a temporary protectorate under the aegis of the League of Nations. But he made it clear that such an arrangement was “to be viewed only as a transitional stage” and that the ultimate goal must be “the complete liberation of the colonies from the despotic rule under which they live.” Mises based his demand for the recognition of the right of self-determination and respect for the nationality principle among colonized peoples on the bedrock of individual rights:

No one has a right to thrust himself into the affairs of others in order to further their interest, and no one ought, when he has his own interests in view, to pretend that he is acting selflessly only in the interest of others.

The Breakdown of Liberal Nationalism: Majority Rule and Nationality Conflicts

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Contact Joseph T. Salerno

Joseph Salerno is academic vice president of the Mises Institute, professor emeritus of economics at Pace University, and editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.

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Nationalism and Secession – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 24, 2020

Other things being equal, the lower the tax and regulation burden imposed by a government on its domestic economy, the larger its population tends to grow (for internal reasons as well as immigration factors), and the larger the amount of domestically produced wealth on which it can draw in its conflicts with neighboring competitors. For this reason centralization is frequently progressive. States that tax and regulate their domestic economies little—liberal states—tend to defeat, and expand their territories at the expense of, nonliberal ones

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/08/hans-hermann-hoppe/nationalism-and-secession/

By

[Published in Chronicles, Nov. 1993, p. 23–25]

With the collapse of communism all across Eastern Europe, secessionist movements are mushrooming. There are now more than a dozen independent states on the territory of the former Soviet Union, and many of its more than 100 different ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups are striving to gain independence. Yugoslavia has dissolved into various national components. Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia now exist as independent states. The Czechs and the Slovaks have split and formed independent countries. There are Germans in Poland, Hungarians in Slovakia, Hungarians, Macedonians, and Albanians in Serbia, Germans and Hungarians in Romania, and Turks and Macedonians in Bulgaria who all desire independence. The events of Eastern Europe have also given new strength to secessionist movements in Western Europe: to the Scots and Irish in Great Britain, the Basques and Catalonians in Spain, the Flemish in Belgium, and the South Tyrolians and the Lega Nord in Italy.

From a global perspective, however, mankind has moved closer than ever before to the establishment of a world government. Even before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States had attained hegemonical status over Western Europe (most notably over West Germany) and the Pacific rim countries (most notably over Japan)—as indicated by the presence of American troops and military bases, by the NATO and SEATO pacts, by the role of the American dollar as the ultimate international reserve currency and of the U.S. Federal Reserve System as the “lender” or “liquidity provider” of last resort for the entire Western banking system, and by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Moreover, under American hegemony the political integration of Western Europe has steadily advanced. With the establishment of a European Central Bank and a European Currency Unit (ECU), the European Community will be complete before the turn of the century. In the absence of the Soviet Empire and its military threat, the United States has emerged as the world’s sole and undisputed military superpower.

A look at history reveals yet another perspective. At the beginning of this millennium, Europe consisted of thousands of independent territorial units. Now, only a few dozen such units remain. To be sure, decentralizing forces also existed. There was the progressive disintegration of the Ottoman Empire from the 16th century until after World War I and the establishment of modern Turkey. The discontiguous Habsburg Empire was gradually dismembered from the time of its greatest expansion under Charles V until it disappeared and modern Austria was founded in 1918. However, the overriding tendency was in the opposite direction. For instance, during the second half of the 17th century, Germany consisted of some 234 countries, 51 free cities, and 1,500 independent knightly manors. By the early 19th century, the total number of all three had fallen below 50, and by 1871 unification had been achieved. The scenario in Italy was similar. Even the small states have a history of expansion and centralization. Switzerland began in 1291 as a confederation of three independent cantonal states. By 1848 it was a single (federal) state with some two dozen cantonal provinces.

How should one interpret these phenomena? According to the orthodox view, centralization is generally a “good” and progressive movement, whereas disintegration and secession, even if sometimes unavoidable, represent an anachronism. It is assumed that larger political units—and ultimately a single world government—imply wider markets and hence increased wealth. As evidence of this, it is pointed out that economic prosperity has increased dramatically with increased centralization. However, rather than reflecting any truth, this orthodox view is more illustrative of the fact that history is typically written by its victors. Correlation or temporal coincidence do not prove causation. In fact, the relationship between economic prosperity and centralization is very different from—indeed, almost the opposite of—what orthodoxy alleges.

Political integration (centralization) and economic (market) integration are two completely different phenomena. Political integration involves the territorial expansion of a government’s power of taxation and property regulation (expropriation). Economic integration is the extension of the interpersonal and interregional division of labor and market participation.

In principle, in taxing and regulating (expropriating) private property owners and market income earners, all governments are counterproductive. Read the rest of this entry »

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Deceived in Liberty: The Curse of American Nationalism – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on November 16, 2019

Hamilton was the most despotic in this regard. Rothbard quotes him as saying, “We must establish a general and national government, completely sovereign, and annihilate the state distinctions and state operations.”

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/11/thomas-dilorenzo/deceived-in-liberty-the-curse-of-american-nationalism/

By

All governmental power is propped up by an avalanche of myths and superstitions about the alleged benevolence, omniscience, honesty, selflessness, and magnanimity of the state, coupled with critiques if not outright demonization of private property, free market voluntarism, private enterprise, limited government, the rule of law, the free society, and all those who educate about and advance such concepts.  Your author once co-authored a book entitled Official Lies: How Washington Misleads Us, about mountains of such myths and superstitions.  A case can be made that at the top of the list of statist myths and superstitions is the myth of American nationalism — about the supposed “superiority” of a virtually unlimited, centralized and consolidated government, coupled with the never-ending hatred and demonization of federalism, states’ rights, nullification and secession, and anything else that challenges the notion of the “supremacy” of the central government.

In this regard American “nationalism” has nothing to do with the older concept of a people with a common language and culture, living within the borders of their own nation state.  The unique American version of “nationalism” was invented at the time of the founding by a group of conniving, Machiavellian politicians who sought to overthrow the results of the American Revolution – the casting off of the centralized, oppressive, mercantilist/crony capitalist British empire – and adopt the very same system in America – the British empire without the British.  There is nothing wrong with a corrupt, tyrannical, mercantilist empire that uses the coercive powers of the state to enrich the ruling class at the expense of the working class, these men said, confident that they would naturally assume the position of the ruling class.

These men were led by the likes of Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Paine, and other “Federalists,” many of who were “defectors” to the cause of liberty – the cause of the American Revolution – as Murray Rothbard wrote in Conceived in Liberty: The New Republic: 1784-1791.

The “triumph” of these “nationalists” with the adoption of the centralizing U.S. Constitution is the  theme of the latter two-thirds of Rothbard’s latest great work of scholarship, made possible by the heroic efforts of Patrick Newman in painstakingly (with the emphasis on “pain”) translating Murray’s handwriting of nearly the entire manuscript, which is 319 pages long in print.  The nationalists, wrote Rothbard, “wanted a strong central power that would control an aggressive national army and navy, wield a national taxing power to decimate the rights of the states and individuals, and federally assume public debts and army pensions.”  In doing so they hoped to “destroy the original individualist and decentralized program of the American Revolution.”  Conceived in Liberty tells the story, chapter and verse, of how these men subverted and overthrew the principles of American freedom that inspired the American Revolution with their “devious and sinister machinations.”

These “machinations” were employed to rig the constitutional convention with a lopsided majority of delegates from “the wealthy and eminent” and “also from the urban commercial interest, merchants, and artisans, the majority of commercial farmers, and leading urban-exporters.  In short, nationalist strength came from men who supported centralizing tariffs and navigation laws, raising the value of public securities, and an aggressive foreign policy, all at the expense of the taxpaying inland farmer.”  In seven of the twelve states represented at the constitutional convention there was no representation at all by the inland farmers.

This point calls to mind another statist superstition – that Alexander Hamilton was some kind of educated genius when it came to economic theory, whereas his political nemesis, Thomas Jefferson, was sort of a dopey agrarian dreamer on the subject who supposedly wanted all of America to be “a nation of farmers.”  Exactly the opposite is true: In his biography of Hamilton William Graham Sumner described his writings as a jumble of British mercantilists superstitions copied from propaganda pamphlets written by publicists for protectionists and other mercantilists.  When Hamilton’s political sponsor, Robert Morris, told George Washington that he wanted Hamilton to be the first Treasury Secretary, Washington told Hamilton that he didn’t know that he knew anything about finance since they never talked about it, as described in Ron Chernow’s Pulitzer prize-winning biography of Hamilton.

Jefferson, on the other hand, had read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and translated the writings of French physiocrat Jacques Turgot, the French finance minister and precursor of the free-market Austrian School of economics.  To this day, a bust of Turgot is at the entrance of Jefferson’s home, Monticello.

What Jefferson opposed was not industrialization but the use of governmental power to tax farmers in order to subsidize the corporate merchant class.  He opposed, in other words, the nationalist project of using the coercive powers of the state to plunder the farmers of America for the benefit of the merchant class.  It is an insidious, nationalist lie that Jefferson opposed business and industrialization per se.

Like all criminal schemers, the nationalists decided “to hold the entire [constitutional] convention in strictest secrecy in order to make sure that the public would not know what was going on.”  This of course begs the question:  If what they were up to was in “the public interest,” as Hamilton laughingly argued, then why was it so important to hide it all from the public?

The main objective of the nationalists, Rothbard explains, was to “place the all-powerful national government beyond popular control.”  James Madison was one of the chief nationalist theorists who concocted the theory that a large, centralized government would somehow prevent the abuse of electoral minorities by majorities, the main argument of Federalist #10.  Rothbard correctly points out that exactly the opposite is true, as has been proven time and again by history.  It is decentralization that makes “the oppression of minorities” more difficult, not consolidation.  Nevertheless, the nationalists sought to crush the states altogether, for that is how the vaunted “people” had their only means of exerting any kind of control over the central government – as political communities organized at the state and local levels.

Hamilton was the most despotic in this regard. Rothbard quotes him as saying, “We must establish a general and national government, completely sovereign, and annihilate the state distinctions and state operations.” To Hamilton, “British monarchical government” was “the model for the American framers to follow,” even though they had just fought a bloody revolution to escape from such a system. Hamilton’s “ideal polity,” wrote Rothbard, was such that “no clearer blueprint could have been devised for absolute despotism.” (This perhaps is why the Broadway play “Hamilton” has been so wildly popular among today’s American statist class).

The Hamiltonian nationalists mastered the dark art of “fake news” some 230 years before Donald Trump made it a part of the American lexicon. Rothbard describes how most postmasters were Federalists who had a “stranglehold” over the nation’s press (newspapers were all delivered by mail). Consequently, they were able to “dictate the news at will” by censoring out opposition to the nationalist agenda while broadcasting it far and wide, giving the nation the false impression that there was not opposition to it. Many other means of what Rothbard labeled “the depths of chicanery” were employed by the nationalists to rig the ratification votes in most states. They even employed “outright bribery,” as Rothbard documents.

All in all, the new constitution was not the charter of freedom that generations of conservatives have insisted. The nationalists, said Rothbard, used “propaganda, chicanery, fraud, malapportionment of delegates, blackmail threats of secession, and even coercive laws to get enough delegates to defy the wishes of the majority of the American people . . .” A “new super government was emerging and carrying out on a national scale the mercantilist principle of taxation, regulation, and special privilege for the benefit of favored groups.” They even protected slavery with the Three-Fifths Clause and the Fugitive Slave Clause in order to get their consolidating, mercantilist constitution. The Constitution was in reality “a counterrevolutionary reaction to the libertarianism and decentralization embodied in the American Revolution” that would “institute a British-style mercantilism over the country.”

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Nationalism, Amash, Black Sabbath, and More – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 31, 2019

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/07/atilla-mert-sulker/lew-rockwell-on-amash-nationalism-black-sabbath-and-more-an-interview/

By

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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WW1 Storyboard Part 2 by Anthony Jennings

 

 

 

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Fascism Has Always Been An Enemy of Private Property | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on June 3, 2019

https://mises.org/wire/fascism-has-always-been-enemy-private-property

The Left and mainstream political science identify Italian fascism and German national socialism as a right-wing ideology. Their motivation is clear — they do not want to be associated with regimes that brought civilization the horror and suffering of an unprecedented scale. The Left traditionally substantiates their point of view with two theoretical propositions. First of all, fascism and Nazism do not belong to the Left because those regimes did not institute total collective ownership on means of production as Marx prescribed. Secondly, nationalism and racism have traditionally been features of the Right, whereas the Left is perceived to be internationalist in nature.

Private Ownership in Name Only

Let us consider the first postulate about the failure of these regimes to carry out total socialization of private property. Thus, Stalin pointed out in his interview to American journalist Roy Howard, “The foundation of the [socialism] society is public property: state, i.e., national, and co-operative, collective farm property. Neither Italian fascism nor German National-‘socialism’ has anything in common with such a society. Primarily, this is because the private ownership of the factories and works, of the land, the banks, transport, etc. has remained intact, and, therefore, capitalism remains in full force in Germany and Italy.” That has been the notorious argument of Marxian socialists.

The great Ludwig von Mises attacked logical inferences of the Left by pointing out that in non-Marxian socialist regimes the private property was de jure allowed, but de facto the state was the principal owner of the means of production. “If the State takes the power of disposal from the owner piecemeal, by extending its influence over production; if its power to determine what direction production shall be, is increased, then the owner is left at last with nothing except the empty name of ownership, and property has passed into the hands of the State”, wrote Mises in Socialism.

Indisputably, his arguments authentically describe real economic affairs under these regimes. Indeed, entrepreneurs were deprived of the free commodity market, labor market, and international money market; the state established wage and price controls, and overall influenced all stages of production, distribution, and consumption. However, it should be recognized that Mises’s arguments do not find the proper understanding and effect in modern realities.

[RELATED: “How the Nazis Converted German Agriculture to Socialism” by Chris Calton]

The thing is, the twentieth century was cracked by two bloody World Wars and the prolonged Cold War. Only a state can wage World Wars as it can gather and manage the necessary financial, economic, and people resources. Thus, for the last century, the state had been very firmly fixed in the economic sphere of society, and it reluctantly gave up its position. After all, many generations of people live in conditions where the state dictates the conditions of the economy. They do not even suspect that the state and the economy may have different relations. Contemporary industrial countries are guilty of conducting policies that resemble ones from the cookbooks of Italian and German governments. Indeed, the state has put in place various regulations that adversely affect the business and economy as a whole, including, among other things, control over the minimum wage, the establishment of social programs that are fueled by the substantial redistribution of wealth, and many other measures.

Mises pointed out that the state controlled the economic life, conducting various measures of coercion. He is undoubtedly right; however, the socialist regimes have utilized both methods: coercion and persuasion, and the latter occupied even more prominent importance. In contemporary settings, the outright collectivist indoctrinations in educational institutions became a primary form of persuasion…

Nationalism Is Not Unique to the Right

The supposed exclusive nationalism and racism of the Right is a political myth propelled by the vicious leftist propaganda. It is known that the founders of Marxism were xenophobes that adhered to the Hegelian division of nations to historical and non-historical. The founder of revolutionary syndicalism Sorel was an ardent anti-Semite. Some currents of socialism preached outright chauvinism; others used internationalist rhetoric in order to gain political benefits. Moreover, nationalism was not a factor that divided the political spectrum into the Left-Right wings at the beginning of the 20th century. Instead, it was the attitude to property rights (or antagonism between capital and labor, in Marxian terms) that divided the political spectrum. Therefore, nationalism might be inherent in various political philosophies, in both the defenders of capital and the proponents of labor…

Italian Fascism and German Nazism constitute anti-materialist, anti-positivist current of the socialist movement, which was extremely hostile toward ideas of Marxism and democratic socialism. Nevertheless, they shared a continuum bench of the socialist team. Communists occupy the extreme left, followed by the Social Democrats; the right flank belongs to fascists and Nazis — they are the right wing of the Left.

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banksy-anarchism

Banksy

 

 

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U.N. Secretary: Rise of Nationalism Threatens Fight Against Climate Change

Posted by M. C. on November 30, 2018

Give up your sovereignty, its for your own good.

Straight out of the Soros play book.

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/11/29/u-n-secretary-rise-of-nationalism-threatens-fight-against-climate-change/

United Nations (U.N.) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saidin an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Thursday that the trend in favor of nationalist policies around the world is making it harder to promote a global approach to fighting climate change.

“I think that it is clear to me that the world is more polarized. We have more and more nationalist approaches being popular and winning election or having strong election results,” Guterres said. “We see the trust between public opinions and institutions — governments, political establishments but also International organization … being eroded.”

The BBC journalist who interviewed Guterres pressed him on President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. 

“Is it a problem that the world’s most powerful man is a climate change skeptic?” BBC’s New York correspondent Nick Bryant asked Guterres.

Guterres did not criticize Trump but instead said it is more important that the fight against so-called manmade climate change should be a grassroots effort.

“It always helps if everyone is in line with what we think, but we shouldn’t reduce the discussion about climate change to the individual position of this or that leader,” Guterres said…

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mark of the beast

The Mark of the Beast

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French President Emmanuel Macron: ‘Nationalism is Treason’

Posted by M. C. on November 12, 2018

A preview of a socialist millennial world.

Macron is busy “saving the world” while the 20th century France he so admires is being eaten alive by invaders.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/11/11/french-president-emanuel-macron-nationalism-is-treason/

French President Emmanuel Macron denounced nationalism during an Armistice Day centennial observance in Paris on Sunday.

“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is treason,” Macron said, according to a Euronews translator.

Macron spoke in front of world leaders including President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“If we think our interests may only come first and we don’t care for others, it is a treason of our values, a betrayal of all moral values,” he said. “We must remember this.”…

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The simple truth of nationalism

Posted by M. C. on March 25, 2018

You can be anything you want as long as it is approved and non-Western. Gang rape in a European town square is PC, diversity correct and acceptable. You could ask Angela Merkel and the media except they don’t seem to know about that cultural proclivity. I’ll take my brand of culture appropriating, Elvis loving nationalism.

Speaking of cultural appropriation, read Myth of the Andalusian Paradise to see learn about the masters of “appropriation”.

https://aussienationalistblog.com/2018/03/24/the-simple-truth-of-nationalism/

Aussie Conservative

While globalists have resources, Hollywood, the media and government policy (largely) on their side, nationalists/ identitarians/ pro European advocates have an eternally powerful tool: the truth.

Amidst smears, doxxing or physical attacks, this sincere, rooted perspective should never be forgotten. Read the rest of this entry »

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Soros Predicts EU Breakdown – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on January 20, 2018

And the problem with that is…?

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/01/no_author/soros-predicts-eu-breakdown-calls-russia-resurgent-power/

In his native Hungary, Soros is thought to be plotting against the government of hardline rightwing politician Viktor Orban. Prime Minister Orban believes Soros has been creating a low-key network to undermine his cabinet and influence EU policies in Brussels.

Hungary’s leader has consistently accused Soros of fueling the refugee crisis in Europe and eroding European cultural identity. In October last year, the Prime Minister said more than 200 members of the European Parliament are listed by the billionaire’s “empire” as “friends to the network.”

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