Propaganda of the Deed: I don’t need a Liberation Front

Propaganda of the Deed.

I went and voted yesterday. I did everything I said I was going to do. Big deal. That’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back. But I suppose it was all worth it for two reasons.

First of all, what was on the ballot. I got to write in 7 people. The rest of the candidates I voted for were all Republicans or nonpartisan. Except for one Libertarian for Clerk of the Montana Supreme Court. And I suppose the ballot initiatives needed an up or down vote as well, despite their imperfections.

Second. Although those scoundrels didn’t give me an “I Voted” sticker like they usually do, I did get a free pen out of the deal.

Well, sort of. I may have actually “liberated” it from the voting booth. But before you accuse me of voter intimidation or theft, let me state a few things:

I have done this before. At the primary election. I got a black pen with a blue grip on it. I just wanted it so I could someday tell my grandchildren “I voted for Ron Paul in the 2012 Primary with this pen.” Same goes for the pen I individually reappropriated yesterday, except this one had a red grip. Yes, I wrote in Ron Paul with this pen.

There was another pen in the booth so its not like I prevented someone else from voting.

Democracy is basically theft, so I was just returning the favor. And I drove on a taxpayer-funded road on my way to the taxpayer-funded voting location (an indoctrination center), so I’m already guilty of plundering the Egyptians. What harm does one more small offense cause? Besides, I take pens from all sorts of private sector locations all the time. On the other hand, I think they encourage that. Kind of a perk for customers and free advertisement for the business.

Red pens and blue pens…You think maybe there was a subliminal message?

And no, I am not a black bloc anarchist. But I just couldn’t resist the obvious parallels. As pathetic as they are.

Obama is NOT the Worst President in this Nation’s History

Obama is NOT the Worst President in this Nation’s History.

You can read this also over at Liberty’s Republic. They could use the traffic!

You keep hearing this (that Obama is the worst president in history and therefore if we don’t vote for the so-called alternative we are all going to go up in flames along with our great republic), mainly from conservatives (there still are some that refuse to give in!) who don’t like Romney but convince themselves that this is a good reason to vote for him. Well, I am here to cry “foul!” There are several presidents much worse than Obama, not just from a libertarian perspective, but from a conservative perspective (though their criticisms would be different, except on economic policies, at least on the surface), but conservatives have short memories and are easily distracted by rhetoric, coming from both the persons in question and the court historians of latter days. For now, I will call attention to just three presidents many orders of magnitude worse than Barack Obama, and then apply the rules that make these men conservative heroes, to their mortal foe, our current president. To start, here is a response I gave to a RON PAUL SUPPORTER saying he was going to vote for Romney now that Paul was not the nominee.

Sorry, but I can think of worse presidents. Like the guy responsible for the deaths of 600,000^[1] of his fellow Americans, a draft,^[2] suppression of free speech, indefinite detention, and acts of terrorism against civilians.^[3] Or the guy who got us into a world war that had nothing to do with us, leading to a stronger Federal Reserve,^[4] a new military-industrial complex, two depressions (1920-1921 and 1929-1945),^[5] the blatant suppression of free speech, involuntary servitude in the form of a draft, and the set of entangling alliances that got us into another world war.^[6] Or the guy who prolonged a depression by a factor of ten,^[7] aided and abetted one of the worst dictators in history,^[8]whose arrogance and machinations dragged us into a world war,^[9] who re-instituted the draft, got the ball rolling on nuclear weapons, detained an entire ethnic demographic on the pretext of security,^[10] and sold Eastern Europe and parts of Eastern Asia to the Soviets and Red Chinese for more than a generation.^[11] Obama doesn’t hold a candle to Lincoln, Wilson, or Roosevelt.

So why is it that people think he is the worst president? I realize that he is an awful president, but unless you have a very poor knowledge of history and/or are easily led astray, where do you get off saying he is the worst? That’s not only wrong by probably their own standards were they actually to apply them instead of getting all emotional at the first sign of wrongdoing, its borderline offensive.

So what are these criticisms of Obama that conservatives have but not necessarily libertarians don’t necessarily? Most conservatives criticize Obama for being too weak on national security and the borders. What they don’t realize is that Obama has actually been tougher on illegal immigrants than amnesty Bush ever was. And though his rhetoric would lead one to think otherwise, he has carried on the “War on Terror” and the surveillance state like its a job he was born for. But people bring up red herrings like Fast and Furious or the 30,000 surge when the generals wanted 40,000.

But Fast and Furious had nothing to do with an open-borders immigration policy. My best estimation was that it was intended to increase border violence to justify gun control and a further crackdown on border crossing. How conspiratorial of me! Sorry but I don’t buy the idea simply that “mistakes were made.” And crossing the border is not just harder for illegal immigrants (which is a useless blanket term) but for US citizens as well!

And the troop surge should have been at 0 (and yet Obama is called weak on defense because he only sent in 30,000!) And then we should have gotten out.  ”We just marched in, we can just march out.” Did it really take 30,000 extra troops to find Osama and put a cap in him? No. And the fact that it took ten years is disgraceful as well. If that was really what going to Afghanistan was ever really about Bush would have gotten him in six months. And Obama in three because he at least had someone’s “legacy” to build off of. “Our” money was not worthless, “our” troops were not ill-prepared, and “our” intelligence agencies were not incompetent. And don’t get me started on toppling Gaddafi and drone warfare and the assassination of US citizens and the National Defense Authorization Act.

Do people seriously think these are things Bush wouldn’t have done (I refer here more to the national defense policies than the immigration ones) if he could have? And the only reason he couldn’t have, would have been the backlash coming from the left that is now blindly in the tank for Obama! And would the right say Bush was weak on defense for doing them? Hell no! Because he would have used fancy rhetoric about freedom and democracy and justice. Not only would he not be deemed weak, he would be lavished with praise. So why does Obama seem so weak on these pet “conservative” issues? The answer, as you have no doubt discerned by now, is rhetoric. It’s all perception. If you are casting your vote on that instead of reality, you are in fact wasting your vote, not those of us who plan on voting for neither Romney nor Obama.

Most conservatives today idolize Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt. If not always for their economic policies, absolutely for their national defense policies or flag-wrapped rhetoric! But the policies are more or less the same as Obama’s, or at least in the same vein. So why don’t they just vote for Obama? Because it’s his non-flag-wrapped rhetoric that scares them, not his actual policies which they mischaracterize as somehow radical. But they are actually quite normal, just accentuated by his statements and the faux reaction coming from the establishment right.

By normal, I do not mean that they are in-line with how our nation prior to Obama’s inauguration was perceived by conservatives. What I mean is in-line with actual reality. And what is this reality? That every president from Hoover and Roosevelt, on up through Eisenhower and Kennedy, Carter and Reagan, and Bush and Obama has simply maintained the status quo, making no attempts to change it or utterly failing in their attempts to do so because they were not so courageous and upright and insightful as they made themselves out to be or once were.

If Obama had an R next to his name and was as eloquently conservative in his demagoguery as Newt Gingrich is most conservatives would support him. No questions asked. So much for vetting! For proof of this I give you Mitt Romney. And once the rhetoric is forgotten, give it 50 to 100 years, “conservatives” will idolize Obama too. The same thing has already happened right before our very eyes in the instances of the presidents I cited above.

1: That’s the traditional statistic. It has been revised upward to 850,000, but I digress. back

2: Bullying the Supreme Court, exiling of opponents, Union-busting, racism, a false flag attack, and maybe even voter fraud should be added to Lincoln’s list. Not to mention several forms of corruption and public-rent seeking long before having reached the highest office of the land. back

3: When ending slavery and cruelty is your excuse for enslaving and maiming others, you know there is something else that is afoot. back

4: Via the Liberty Bond Act, which fundamentally amended the relatively innocuous original charter; as well as exchange imbalances resulting from the different levels of inflation each nation suffered as a result of World War One, which resulted in an end to the gold standard that finally culminated with the 1971 Nixon Shock. back

5: These in fact have the same root, the fiscal and monetary policies around the world during and resulting from World War One. back

6: World War Two is often laughingly blamed on so-called isolationists. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was the interventionists during World War One and their subsequent failures (sometimes inadvertent, sometimes intentional) to seek peace and offer forgiveness after the war. back

7: The Depression of 1920-1921 only lasted about 18 months whereas the one from 1930 to 1945 arguably lasted at least 180 months. There is nothing in the fundamentals of their respective beginnings to suggest one should have dwarfed the other. The differences were the government reactions and the policies that ensued. However, part of the blame does rest on Herbert Hoover‘s head. back

8: Josef Stalin to you neophytes and deniers. back

9: FDR’s State Department refused to negotiate with the Japanese whom “we” had aggressed against and ultimately neglected to communicate with the lower echelons of the Defense Department about the threat that was posed. Pearl Harbor is not so shocking. back

10: Japanese Americans. There were a few exceptions of course. But these were made up for by the Italian-Americans and German-Americans that were detained separately. Oh, haven’t you heard? I guess the reverse-racist court historians forgot to tell you that white people have been mistreated in this nations past too! back

11: The Yalta and Potsdam Accords, as well as the occupation of former Japanese conquests by the USSR and soon-to-be Communist China. And this in spite of the fact that the pretext for the war, at least on Britain’s part (I said pretext; the reason, however, has more to do with Britain’s superiority complex, which happens to have been the same thing the Kaiser in World War One and Hitler in World War Two were suffering from; of course, a steady, sustained erosion of their century-and-a-half-or-so world hegemon status didn’t help the matter), was to “liberate” many of these regions! back

The Problem With Excessive Anti-Communist Rhetoric, An Edit

The Problem With Excessive Anti-Communist Rhetoric, An Edit.

I emailed Old Right celebrity Paul Gottfried about my Joe McCarthy piece because he had written one on old Joe that same day. I told him that I read his piece at Lew Rockwell and then asked him to read mine on this blog and give me some feedback, whether positive or negative. He had one main criticism:

I find it hard to buy your argument about the effects of McCarthyism. I for one don’t think McCarthy did much to change partisan loyalties in the US; and except for providing a rallying point for the early postwar conservative movement and a bugaboo for the Left, I really don’t see him as having been a significant historical figure. The Jews who backed him and who belonged to the Jewish Anti-Communist League had nothing to do with the neocons. They were an isolated minority of genuinely rightwing Jews.

Paul Gottfried is surely more knowledgeable on most of these subjects than I am. Here is a list of just some of his books. Not only that but he was kind and willing to take a look at what I wrote. So the purpose of this post is to make modifications of my argument to make it more accurate. This of course, requires me to do some extra research.

So instead of this,

It was not too long ago we had someone in town for a conference where one of his featured roles was to heap laud upon Conservative Hero Joe McCarthy. Ever since Obama and his Marxist rhetoric (but not so much deeds) have been front and center on the national stage, Conservatives have found it stylish to immerse themselves in the history and propaganda of all things Anti-Communist. And while there is a time and a place for this, I find it incredibly unhealthy for the Conservative movement at large, because it leads them to focus on words more than deeds. If someone uses the language of a wealth-envier, class warrior, what have you, he is automatically labeled a Stalinist, whether he is or not. But those that are more subtle in their wealth-distributing ways, and who may even have a few nefarious deeds under their belt, are just as quickly given a pass. Especially if they happen to have an R next to their name. But remember, the greatest danger to a nation or a movement is always from within. So, I will attempt to set the record straight on Joe and go off on several related tangents, including ones dealing with two August 15 Anniversaries: The unofficial Surrender of Japan which ended World War Two, and Nixon’s termination of the Bretton Woods System which put the last nail in the coffin of the gold standard.

Joseph R. McCarthy was largely responsible for the influx of East Coast (and very progressive) Jews (both religious and agnostic) and Catholics (both devout and nominal) into the Republican Party, which (because of the Neoconservatives this influx brought with it) ultimately has spelled its (still ongoing) demise (which, in my opinion, culminated in the year 2001, when George W. Bush reneged on his promises to pursue a humble foreign policy and end the Department of Education. I guess he learned that from his father: No New Taxes!). What I mean by this is that the Protestant Ethic that had come to be central to both major parties was replaced with either a virulent strain of secular totalitarianism (mainly Marxist) or religious totalitarianism. This is not to disparage either Catholics or Jews. Nor is it to let Protestants off the hook. And neither is it to diminish or downplay the other ideological inroads made into the two major parties over the decades that have also in some way contributed to their destruction.

Joe’s legacy, though not his intent, was to destroy his own party by building a coalition of Middle American Protestant Conservatives with East Coast Totalitarian Progressives, thus watering down the once Conservative GOP. Both of these groups, despite having little in common in terms of heritage, politics, or demeanor, opposed Stalin’s Soviet Communism (which bore more resemblance to Nazi Germany than it did the idealized Communist state). It is important to note that some key persons in the eastern part of the coalition were in fact Communists and Socialists themselves, though of a different strain than the Soviets. They were more intellectually aligned with Trotsky, Luxemburg, De Leon, and others than they were with Stalin, whom they viewed as an impure Marxist.

Joe was right about the influence of Stalinists in the State Department, but his jingoism played right into their hands. In the end Joe was betrayed by President Eisenhower (1951-1959). Vice-President Richard Nixon sided with Joe, which some see as a source of vindication. But during his presidency (1969-1974), on the 26th anniversary of the Japanese surrender, he enacted widespread wage and price controls for the first time since the Great Depression. On the same day he ended the Bretton Woods System. The Bretton Woods System was created in 1944 by the Allied Nations, and was the last vestige of the Gold Standard. The average lifespan of a fiat currency is 27 years (see this, this, this, and this). Bretton Woods lasted exactly that. The post-BWS Dollar turns 41 next month. It is well past its date with destiny.

I would like to go with this,

It was not too long ago we had someone in town for a conference where one of his featured roles was to heap laud upon Conservative Hero and Anti-Communist Icon Joe McCarthy. Joseph McCarthy was representative of the Anti-Communist movement in post-War America. Ever since Obama and his Marxist rhetoric (but not so much deeds) have been front and center on the national stage, Conservatives have found it stylish to immerse themselves in the history and propaganda of all things Anti-Communist. And while there is a time and a place for this, I find it incredibly unhealthy for the Conservative movement at large, because it leads them to focus on words more than deeds. If someone uses the language of a wealth-envier, class warrior, what have you, he is automatically labeled a Stalinist, whether he is or not. But those that are more subtle in their wealth-distributing ways, and who may even have a few nefarious deeds under their belt, are just as quickly given a pass. Especially if they happen to have an R next to their name. It is good to remember that the greatest danger to a nation or a movement is always from within. So, I will attempt to set the record straight on “Anti-Communism” and go off on several related tangents, including ones dealing with two August 15 Anniversaries: The unofficial Surrender of Japan which ended World War Two, and Nixon’s termination of the Bretton Woods System which put the last nail in the coffin of the gold standard.

The Anti-Communist movement, over the decades, has been largely responsible for the influx of East Coast (and increasingly progressive with each new wave) Jews (both religious and agnostic) and Catholics (both devout and nominal) into the Republican Party, which (because of the Neoconservatives, like Kristol, and New Righters, like Buckley, this influx brought with it) ultimately has spelled its (still ongoing) demise (which, in my opinion, culminated in the year 2001, when George W. Bush reneged on his promises to pursue a humble foreign policy and end the Department of Education. I guess he learned to break his promises from his father: No New Taxes!). What I mean by all this is that the Protestant Ethic that had come to be central to both major parties was replaced with either a virulent strain of secular totalitarianism (mainly Marxist) or religious totalitarianism. This is not to disparage either Catholics or Jews. Nor is it to let Protestants off the hook. And neither is it to diminish or downplay the other ideological inroads made into the two major parties over the decades that have also in some way contributed to their destruction.

Anti-Communism’s legacy, though not its intent, was to destroy the Republican Party by building a coalition of Middle American Protestant Conservatives with East Coast Totalitarian Progressives, thus watering down its Conservatism. Both of these groups, despite having little in common in terms of heritage, politics, or demeanor, opposed Stalin’s Soviet Communism (which bore more resemblance to Nazi Germany than it did the idealized Communist state). It is important to note that some key persons in the eastern part of the coalition were in fact Communists and Socialists themselves, though of a different strain than the Soviets. They were more intellectually aligned with Trotsky, Luxemburg, De Leon, and others than they were with Stalin, whom they viewed as an impure Marxist.

Joe was right about the influence of Stalinists in the State Department, but his apparent jingoism played right into their hands. In the end Joe was betrayed by President Eisenhower (1951-1959). Vice-President Richard Nixon sided with Joe, which some see as a source of vindication. But during his presidency (1969-1974), on the 26th anniversary of the Japanese surrender, he enacted widespread wage and price controls for the first time since the Great Depression. On the same day he ended the Bretton Woods System. The Bretton Woods System was created in 1944 by the Allied Nations, and was the last vestige of the Gold Standard. The average lifespan of a fiat currency is 27 years (see this, this, this, and this). Bretton Woods lasted exactly that. The post-BWS Dollar turns 41 next month. It is well past its date with destiny.

The Problem With Joe McCarthy, Dispelling Other Accepted Narratives

The Problem With Joe McCarthy, Dispelling Other Accepted Narratives.

It was not too long ago we had someone in town for a conference where one of his featured roles was to heap laud upon Conservative Hero Joe McCarthy. Ever since Obama and his Marxist rhetoric (but not so much deeds) have been front and center on the national stage, Conservatives have found it stylish to immerse themselves in the history and propaganda of all things anti-Communist. And while there is a time and a place for this, I find it incredibly unhealthy for the Conservative movement at large, because it leads them to focus on words more than deeds. If someone uses the language of a wealth-envier, class warrior, what have you, he is automatically labeled a Stalinist, whether he is or not. But those that are more subtle in their wealth-distributing ways, and who may even have a few nefarious deeds under their belt, are just as quickly given a pass. Especially if they happen to have an R next to their name. But remember, the greatest danger to a nation or a movement is always from within. So, I will attempt to set the record straight on Joe and go off on several related tangents, including ones dealing with two August 15 Anniversaries: The unofficial Surrender of Japan which ended World War Two, and Nixon’s termination of the Bretton Woods System which put the last nail in the coffin of the gold standard.

Joseph R. McCarthy was largely responsible for the influx of East Coast (and very progressive) Jews (both religious and agnostic) and Catholics (both devout and nominal) into the Republican Party, which (because of the Neoconservatives this influx brought with it) ultimately has spelled its (still ongoing) demise (which, in my opinion, culminated in the year 2001, when George W. Bush reneged on his promises to pursue a humble foreign policy and end the Department of Education. I guess he learned that from his father: No New Taxes!). What I mean by this is that the Protestant Ethic that had come to be central to both major parties was replaced with either a virulent strain of secular totalitarianism (mainly Marxist) or religious totalitarianism. This is not to disparage either Catholics or Jews. Nor is it to let Protestants off the hook. And neither is it to diminish or downplay the other ideological inroads made into the two major parties over the decades that have also in some way contributed to their destruction.

Joe’s legacy, though not his intent, was to destroy his own party by building a coalition of Middle American Protestant Conservatives with East Coast Totalitarian Progressives, thus watering down the once Conservative GOP. Both of these groups, despite having little in common in terms of heritage, politics, or demeanor, opposed Stalin’s Soviet Communism (which bore more resemblance to Nazi Germany than it did the idealized Communist state). It is important to note that some key persons in the eastern part of the coalition were in fact Communists and Socialists themselves, though of a different strain than the Soviets. They were more intellectually aligned with Trotsky, Luxemburg, De Leon, and others than they were with Stalin, whom they viewed as an impure Marxist.

Joe was right about the influence of Stalinists in the State Department, but his jingoism played right into their hands. In the end Joe was betrayed by President Eisenhower (1951-1959). Vice-President Richard Nixon sided with Joe, which some see as a source of vindication. But during his presidency (1969-1974), on the 26th anniversary of the Japanese surrender, he enacted widespread wage and price controls for the first time since the Great Depression. On the same day he ended the Bretton Woods System. The Bretton Woods System was created in 1944 by the Allied Nations, and was the last vestige of the Gold Standard. The average lifespan of a fiat currency is 27 years (see this, this, this, and this). Bretton Woods lasted exactly that. The post-BWS Dollar turns 41 next month. It is well past its date with destiny.

The one decent president (policy-wise) we have had between Coolidge (1923-1929, who said, “the chief business of the American people is business.”) and Reagan (1981-1989, who was fond of quoting Coolidge), Kennedy (1961-1963), actually committed voter fraud during the 1960 election, most notably in Illinois (with his father’s help) and Texas (with help from Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969). It is generally acknowledged, though very quietly, that Nixon would have won in 1960 if not for this. Some have speculated that the Watergate Scandal, which was little more than a non-newsworthy political prank was his latent and vengeful response to the stolen election. Note that Kennedy, Nixon, and McCarthy all served in the US House together, and were very close friends. Kennedy’s father was one of McCarthy’s biggest supporters. He was also named Joseph and was also an Irish Catholic. Joe Kennedy, though a Democrat who had initially supported Roosevelt, later opposed him and some of his policies, including in regards to entry into World War Two in the Atlantic theater.

The Communists in the state department, along with “conservative” icon Winston Churchill (whose hero Lord Kitchener essentially invented the concentration camp and rivaled Union General Sherman for his inhumanity to soldiers and civilians alike) and “liberal” icon Roosevelt (1933-1945) were also responsible for giving Eastern Europe to Stalin. WWII was started to liberate Poland and Czechoslovakia from the Nazis. Both of these nations were given to Stalin in exchange for his help in the war effort against Japan. Roosevelt died before both the German surrender and the Japanese surrender. Truman (1945-1951) oversaw both victories.

George S. Patton was one general who knew not to trust the Soviets. He wanted to get to Berlin before them because he knew they would wreak havoc and attempt to occupy Germany indefinitely. It was possible for the Americans to get there first but the British (who hated Patton because he knew better than to get along rust a smarmy pederast redcoats like Lord Bernard Montgomery) and their lackey General Eisenhower prevented this. The Red Army reached Berlin first, and as a result Germany was divided between the West and the Soviets. The Western portion flourished in the post war era. The Eastern portion was in a similar situation that North Korea is in today. Today, as a result of the Western portion’s economic liberty (which was fostered, in part, by German Minister of Economics Ludwig Erhard), Germany is Europe’s economic powerhouse. It is likely all that is keeping the European Central Bank and the Euro afloat. It also stands to gain no matter what happens. What Charlemagne, Napoleon, Otto, Bill, and Adolf could not accomplish and sustain with brute force, Angela will, simply by being at the helm of so great a productive engine.

General Patton also wanted to push the Soviets out of Eastern Europe. But since Eastern Europe was sold down the river at the Yalta Accords by Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Communists in the State Department (some of the ones Joseph McCarthy later warned about), there would be none of this. He died as the result of a “car accident” while being driven through the German countryside in December 1945. There is a substantial, though still dubious case to be made that he was in fact assassinated by the OSS (forerunner to the CIA) to either silence him or prevent him from getting his way.

Truman’s Atomic bomb, sickly dubbed Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. On August 7, the Japanese were considering surrender, a conditional one, but surrender nonetheless. On August 8, the Soviets broke the Neutrality Pact and invaded Japan. This caused a reaction within the higher echelons of Japan’s war ministry. The desire now was to NOT surrender but instead declare martial law and repel the invasion. There was now the “need” to drop another nuclear weapon, named Fat Man, this time on Nagasaki. Such was done on August 9. On August 15, in a radio address, Emperor Hirohito announced surrender, this time unconditional. The official surrender was on September 2. The United States has troops there to this day.

Because the Soviets and the Chinese had become involved, they were allowed to take part in the occupation. The Soviets were given North Korea, which is why it is a communist hellhole to this day. The Chinese were given Taiwan, which is today a breakaway republic and a major point of contention between the US and China.

And why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor in the first place? Because they wanted to conquer Hawaii? Nope. Japan had invaded China TEN years before. But because Britain had its eye on China for its own reasons, America cut off Japan’s oil supply. The nation was also economically and diplomatically isolated by the League of Nations (created by Woodrow Wilson and reconvened as the UN by Roosevelt and Truman). The Japanese attempted to placate the British and American’s all throughout the 1930s, including by appointing Pro-Anglo ministers and seeking out diplomatic alternatives to sanctions. These gifts were rejected out of hand. The Roosevelt administration deliberately antagonized the Japanese so as to keep the from becoming involved with the Russians. Roosevelt did not want his buddies Stalin and Churchill to have to fight the Germans and the Japanese. The result was Pearl Harbor, which some have contended was known about days in advance and preventable even up to just minutes before the attack. Such was ignored by the administration and the Naval bureaucracy because entry into the European conflict on the side of Britain and the USSR (something Roosevelt had explicitly promised to not do) was apparently the ultimate goal.

Hitler’s rise to power was a direct result of the World War One Allies chopping Germany into little pieces (resulting in the invasion of France to reclaim German-speaking Alsace-Lorraine, the invasion of Czechoslovakia to reclaim German-speaking Sudetenland, and the invasion of Poland to reclaim German-speaking Silesia and Prussia) and the steep reparations that caused Germany defaulted on, which led to hyperinflation. Hitler did not let the crises go to waste. And the story of how the US got involved in World War One and with the British Empire, and its foreign policy aftermath is just as reprehensible as the story of our involvement in World War Two and with the Soviet Empire.

I saved the best for last. The Federal Reserve System was created in 1910 at a secret meeting of some of America’s most elite bankers. It was “justified” by the [government-induced] Banking Panic of 1907. The Federal Reserve Act, and its older sibling, the Sixteenth Amendment (the increase in revenue from the Income Tax actually made tariffs, which had been the norm since 1861, when the excuse for them was the Banking Panic of 1857, obsolete as a source of revenue) were enacted by Congress (and in the case of the 16th, three fourths of the states) in 1913, one year before the onset of World War One and four years before the United States’ unnecessary entry into that conflict. And after that Great War, and the heroin-like addiction to Central Banking that ensued, there was no turning back. The Federal Reserve System’s and Department of the Treasury’s role in financing and lending to heavily indebted England after World War One was the cause of the Depression of 1920-1921 AND the Great Depression of 1929-1945. Warren Harding (1921-1923, and a corrupt politician to be sure) let human action and the Free Market allocate resources to their proper places, and the Depression lasted less than a year. 

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) and Franklin Roosevelt, on the other hand, did everything in the book to prolong the Depression that began in 1929. Wage and price controls. Bailouts. Stimulus. Tax increases. Public works projects. Seizure of the population’s gold. Fixing the price of gold. Beginning the end of the gold standard. Welfare. Subsidies. War. The Depression ended in large part due to World War Two ending. Keynesian economists tend to claim that the Depression ended because the War spending primed the pump and revived consumer confidence, acting as a sort of stimulus program and that the draft cured unemployment. On the second count, there is truth, but a very priggish truth. Of course SLAVERY (involuntary servitude, which violates the Thirteenth Amendment) cures unemployment! Should everyone out of work be enslaved? And on the first count nothing could be further from the truth. In reality the Depression subsided because men were coming back from Europe and the Pacific and adding to the nation’s productive capacity and Harry Truman cut “defense” spending by 75 percent. It is very ironic that one of the presidents that neoconservative warmongers worship and adulate (often in disgusting and servile fashion) the most (mainly because he has the blood of 200,000 unsuspecting Japanese civilians on his hands) actually CUT “the military”! Why don’t they emulate their hero? Wait! I know what you are thinking: A neocon wanting to cut a nickel from the Military-Industrial Complex’s profligacy and plunder about which we were warned by none other than their other [ironic] demigod, Dwight Eisenhower?! And I agree: You would have better luck finding a jihadi attending a church potluck humbly asking for another helping of roast pork.