Category Archives: Libertarian Politics

Centrifugal Force: How Many of My Predictions Came True?

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Three years ago last month I published my first book, the agorist science fiction novel Centrifugal Force. Though I hate to toot my own horn (there’s some false modesty for you) many of the things I wrote about in this book either have come to pass or are in the process of doing so. The major difference is that Centrifugal Force dealt solely with North America, and these phenomena have been global in scope.

As I predicted in my book, on-line business models are replacing and bypassing traditional regulated industries. Examples of this are Uber, Airbnb, and the online music and publishing industries. Unlike my fictional scenario, these are currently above-ground, legal efforts. However, competing institutions (such as taxi drivers’ unions) are striving to outlaw Uber, and rapacious cities are imposing their exorbitant hotel taxes on Airbnb participants. There’s no reason these businesses couldn’t exist underground, on a peer-to-peer basis. This will become more likely if the current economic situation worsens.

Continued, escalating acts of “terrorism” are giving governments an excuse to crack down on what little freedom we have left, such as free speech, freedom of movement, and financial privacy. The difference from my novel was again that terrorism has been a world-wide phenomenon, particularly in Europe and Africa. France takes the place of the despotic fictional US, where Joel Walter is forced to go into hiding. Since the Paris 11/13 attacks, the country has closed its borders and declared a state of emergency. Thankfully this hasn’t come to America yet, but I’m sure that our government is only one major terrorist attack away from doing the same.

Centrifugal Force featured the Undernet, an unregulated pirate alternative to the Internet. In real life we have the Dark Web and the notorious Silk Road drug marketplace. My book had E-barter, we have Bitcoin and other digital currencies. Politicians are simply apoplectic about these developments, and are even making noise about outlawing encryption. I was not surprised by the draconian punishment meted out to the Dread Pirate Roberts, though in my opinion, he’s a hero! Yet I believe the government’s efforts will fail in real life as they did in the novel.

In my book, several characters went underground to escape harassment or prosecution, staying in the US because of the difficulty of crossing the border. In the real world, many such activists have gone overseas, for example Edward Snowden in Russia or Glenn Greenwald in Brazil. Probably the most analogous real-life equivalent to Nephi Snow’s hacker network is Anonymous – assuming this group isn’t, as many claim, a CIA front.

Secession is a major theme of my book, because I believe this is the most plausible way to deal with the arrogant, rapacious, unaccountable American Empire is to break it up. Considering the roadblocks thrown at any serious reformer (such as Ron Paul), working “within the system” is not an option. Again, this has come to pass in Europe, with Catalonia seceding from Spain and Scotland almost leaving the UK. Here in America, a more current controversy is state nullification of Federal law, which causes many a progressive to shriek in outrage. The recent round of secession petitions at whitehouse.gov – and yes, I signed one for Arizona – gave me cause for hope. This might become more realistic if our Kenyan President keeps trying to rule this country by decree.

Other predictions include surveillance drones becoming commonplace (obviously true) and organized criminals posing as police to rob their victims. The latter seems largely confined to Mexico, but given the lawless behavior or police in many parts of the US, I expect it’s only a matter of time. Has political correctness gone crazy? Check; to the mainstream media, government opponents are evil racists. Also, we have seen curfews, like the one in Boston after the Marathon bombing. This one’s a no-brainer: anti-smoking fascism has definitely increased. Thankfully, though, we haven’t yet seen the activation of FEMA camps. I expect the Federal government will need to take a different approach to detainment of its enemies, due to the justifiable paranoia of the libertarian and patriot communities.

On the other hand, I was wrong about the following:

  • The Draft has not been reinstated, thank God! Not that I believe a slave army is ever necessary in any nation or circumstance, but in this time of drone wars and bombing campaigns, conscription would be especially redundant. Yet it still may happen, because it would be an effective way to control and indoctrinate America’s youth, particularly if females were included.
  • The District of Columbia did not become a state. This movement appears to be dead for the time being, but I expect it to be resurrected if Hillary becomes President, as it would provide two more guaranteed Democrats in the Senate. (And yes, no need to speculate; she’s the inspiration for the evil female President in my book.)
  • 3D printing – I missed this completely. This is a wonderful vector for revolution, enabling home-based manufacture of guns and other contraband items.
  • Ethnic self-defense/vigilante militias did not, to my knowledge, come to pass. In my book, Muslim-Americans banded together to protect themselves from harassment and violence, and to punish those who had wronged them. I haven’t seen evidence of this, even in Europe (if you don’t include terrorist groups, which was not my intent — those are all state-sponsored, anyway.) Even the Donbas rebels in eastern Ukraine, who are wildly popular in their area, are essentially a government-in-waiting.
  • The resurgence of Russia – another thing I missed entirely. There were Russian mafia characters in my book, but I didn’t address the possibility that Russia itself could be the “black swan” that could bring down he US Corporatocracy. This subject is, of course, a matter of great debate in alternative media circles. Is Vladimir Putin a hero, a villain, or a New World Order collaborator? That’s a question I’ll address in a future post.

 Centrifugal Force cover design by Kyle Dunbar.

 

Armistice Day and the End of the “Great” War

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This is the time of year we often hear people claim that the original meaning of the holidays Thanksgiving and Christmas have been lost to commercialism. The same holds true for Veteran’s Day, formerly know as Armistice Day.

Armistice Day celebrates the signing of the treaty that ended World War I, at that time known as the Great War. It was a celebration of peace, though there were also tributes to the men who died (and those who survived) that war. The name change was an attempt to add recognition for veterans of later wars, since 11/11 is a very specific anniversary. The peace theme has been forgotten; it has become yet another day on which Americans glorify war, under the guise of honoring veterans.

November 11th is, in any case, an excellent day to celebrate, because it marks the ending of what was probably the most pointless, idiotic conflict in human history. This mother of all atrocities cost the lives of 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians. There were no good guys, no Allies versus Nazis, just a collection of aging colonial empires (plus the upstarts Germany and America) jockeying for wealth and power.

The so-called Great War normalized the use of conscription (volunteer armies being dismissed as “unscientific”) and censorship of the press, even in the United States. As a direct result of the war’s toll upon Russia, the Czar’s government fell, giving rise to the 75-year nightmare known as the Soviet Union. The venality and greed of the victorious British and French led them to humiliate and punish the German people, and fragment the Austro-Hungarian Empire, creating the fertile soil that gave rise to Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Iron Curtain.

But wait, there’s more! The years 1914-1918 were a time when technology made the old modes of war obsolete, with weapons that enabled murder on an industrial scale. Yet the military leadership refused to recognize this change, treating their slave armies as disposable cannon fodder. British and French commanders ordered their men to charge into German machine gun fire to be mowed down like cattle. Those who refused these acts of suicide were charged with desertion and murdered by their so-called leaders.

Then there was the introduction of chemical weapons such as mustard gas, a horror that plagues us to this day.

It was called “the war to end all wars,” but it led to an even bigger war just 20 years after the Armistice. It was the “war to save democracy,” yet it, gave birth to totalitarianism and genocide in the world’s largest country, and severely impacted freedom in many others. Even the Spanish Flu pandemic, which killed around 50 million people worldwide, probably would not have been as severe if not for the widespread dislocation of peoples, and the diversion of public resources to warfare rather than health.

Had the United States not been foolish enough to join in the carnage, the war might have ended in a stalemate, saving millions from oppression and annihilation in the years to come. The planet-sized ego of US President Woodrow Wilson, combined with the corrupt greed of J.P. Morgan and other anglophile tycoons, guaranteed that the worst possible outcome would result.

Perhaps we humans will someday learn from our mistakes. We, the common people of the world, can reject the propaganda of the psychopathic elites and refuse to fight. In the midst of the bloodshed of the Great War was the inspiring example of the spontaneous, unofficial Christmas Truce of 1914, in which German and British soldiers crossed the trenches to exchange gifts, prisoners, and well wishes.

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Another inspiring result of the Armistice was the Peace Dollar, designed by sculptor Anthony de Francisci, which is in my opinion the most beautiful coin ever minted by the USA. (Lady Liberty is modeled on de Francisci’s lovely Italian-born wife Teresa.) Note that contrary to most US coins, the bald eagle is perched, resting, and minding its own affairs. That’s a symbol for the non-interventionist ideals this nation must learn to live by.

For more information, see Wilson’s War by Jim Powell.

Sources:

Wikipedia.org, http://history1900s.about.com, http://www.threeworldwars.com

Photograph of Peace Dollar is from coinpage.com

 

Calling All Free Speech Warriors!

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Those of you who’ve been following the #Gamergate and Hugo Award controversies are no doubt familiar with the term Social Justice Warrior, or SJW for short. SJW’s are the folks who are easily offended by perceived instances of racism, sexism and homophobia, and relentlessly push for everything to be perfectly diverse and fair. I wish them no ill will, and they have a right to their opinion, but I reject it emphatically!

SJW’s are victims of magical thinking. They seem to believe that if only we use the right euphemisms, the pain of being black, gay, transgendered, or handicapped will go away, and the world will be filled with sunbeams, rainbows and unicorns. Conversely, a dirty joke or a naked picture is like the curse of the Dark Lord, spreading rape, domestic violence, and female genital mutilation in its wake. SJW’s focus on superficial, legalistic “solutions” as opposed to actually doing something to help the victims of discrimination, violence,or other misfortunes help themselves. Mollycoddling the officially designated “victims” with talk of “trigger warnings” and “micro-aggressions” helps no one.

At best, the SJW’s obsession with political correctness is a distraction from real issues. At worst, it’s an invitation to any tyrant who can mouth the right platitudes.

It’s not that I’m opposed to social justice, depending upon your definition of the term. To me, it means equality under the law, tolerance of different ethnicities, viewpoints, and faiths, and the freedom to pursue economic opportunity. However, it’s no justice at all if the welfare of the individual must be sacrificed to the collective. That’s why I hate the idea of favoritism in hiring (dishonestly called “diversity”), or hysterical, overwrought reactions to trivial offenses. A case in point is the silly controversy over Sir Tim Hunt‘s innocent remarks about women in science. You may or may not have found them funny, but the man didn’t deserve to be hounded out of his job over them! As a Nobel prize winner in medicine, Hunt’s contributions to society outweigh all the kvetching of all the world’s armchair feminists. Advancing human knowledge is both social and just!

This is why I’m declaring myself to be an FSW, or free speech warrior and First Amendment absolutist. All opinions, no matter how repugnant, deserve to be protected. Even Neo-nazis, Holocaust deniers, ISIS supporters and Westboro Baptists should be able to speak without fear of prosecution. As my favorite radio host John Holmberg has put it, “We need to know who the crazies are!”

So join me, Free Speech Warriors! You have nothing to lose but your self-censorship!

Illustration: Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States by Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952)

Building the Future: China Homesteads the Sea

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In the wake of the controversy over Russia’s intervention in Syria, many of you may have overlooked the controversial events in the South China sea. As usual, our overlords on the Potomac are outraged whenever anybody anywhere takes the initiative without saying “Uncle may I?” The corporate media echoes their allegations that China is a horrible aggressor for reclaiming reefs to create island bases. Not so; China’s island-building is not only justified, it’s awesome!

Normally I don’t support anything governments do, which mostly involves killing people and breaking things. Even when in their constructive mode, they use resources stolen from the people by taxation. Sometimes, however, they create things impressive enough to almost make us forget that: the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Netherlands’ dikes and polders, the Trans-Siberian railway, the International Space Station, and the Suez and Panama Canals. These are astonishing feats of human endeavor, even if some of them used slave labor or forced peasants from their homes.

China’s man-made islands are similarly impressive, and more compatible with libertarianism than many of the other examples. As John Locke advocated, the Chinese are mixing labor with nature to create property. Several Asian nations claim the Spratly Islands, but only the Chinese have done anything significant with them,

The fact that China’s actions are self-interested doesn’t make them wrong. They’ve created several thousand acres of new territory, always helpful for an overpopulated country. Secondly, they’ve established a claim to the surrounding seas for future extraction of oil and gas. Most importantly, they’re building bases to safeguard the free movement of goods through these strategic sea lanes. Washington’s claim that this threatens freedom of the seas is Orwellian nonsense, because only the US habitually slaps blockades, embargoes and sanctions on countries that defy its dictates. China depends on trade for its survival; these bases are a kind of insurance policy.

Contrast China’s activities in the Spratlys to similar projects by America. On Diego Garcia, a remote island in the Indian Ocean, the US built a massive military installation and expelled the entire native population. In the US Territory of Guam, the Pentagon blocks the Guamanians’ requests for increased autonomy. The natives mustn’t have a say in the scope of military operations on their islands.

Furthermore, if China’s claim to the Spratly reefs is recognized internationally, private projects might fare better in the future. In 1972, a group of American investors tried to establish a libertarian nation on the Minerva Reefs in the Pacific, but the neighboring Kingdom of Tonga invaded and stole the fruits of their labor. Hopefully China’s actions will also weaken the Communistic “Law of the Sea” treaty, which restricts development by defining the oceans as “the common heritage of mankind.” Finally, if humans are ever going to colonize the asteroids or terraform Mars, we need to start somewhere. As the proverb goes, even the longest journey begins with a single step.

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The accompanying picture is from http://slide.mil.news.sina.com.cn and shows personnel on Fiery Cross Reef AKA Yongshu Island. Here’s an unrelated question for you military folks out there: though the female sailors look adorable in their blue camouflage uniforms, what’s the purpose? People don’t fight battles in the water, except as“frog men” (or should I say “frog persons?”)

Sources: zerohedge.com, wikipedia.org and heritage.org. Image at the start of the article is a LANDSAT-7 image of Fiery Cross, from April 2000. How things have changed!

 

Time to Abolish Reality?

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I’m a writer of fiction, which means I spend a lot of time inventing scenarios that aren’t real. I also like to think that I’m good at distinguishing an actual news stories from a hoax. Occasionally I’m fooled, because reality itself has become strange – such as the story of a kid being expelled from school for doing PHP, which the administrators didn’t realize was a programming language. Thankfully, that was a hoax. Two days ago, for the first time, I was taken in by a story that appeared to be straight out of The Onion, but was actually real.

It appeared on Alex Jones’ infowars.com, a site well known for conspiracy theories and making innocuous events seem menacing. The headline was “Trannies want you to say ‘birthing individuals’ instead of ‘pregnant women.’” The gist of the article was that LGBT activists had persuaded the Midwives Alliance of North America to adopt politically correct language (such as ‘pregnant people’ instead of ‘mothers’) on their website. A group of midwives complained about this in an open letter, and a transsexual activist in turn accused them of ‘trans hatred.’

I was flabbergasted to discover the story was no exaggeration, but 100% real. The MANA website does indeed contain this bizarre PC language, and I quickly found a post by Trevor MacDonald on the Huff Post Parents blog, called “Transphobia in the Midwifery Community.” Mr. MacDonald, as a parent, don’t you have better things to do?

Being a conspiracy buff, I tend to see everything as connected. Mr MacDonald’s rantings bring to mind one of my favorite topics, magical thinking. Perhaps because we humans are the only animals with language, we ascribe to it more power than it actually has. This is why the ancient Hebrews considered the ‘name of God’ to have immense power; thus they mandated death by stoning for anyone uttering it casually. Likewise, Muslims see the Koran as being more than the message contained on its pages; therefore its ‘desecration’ will provoke violent protests. Millions of people seem to live in a Harry Potter world, where uttering the name ‘Voldemort’ will bring the Dark Lord to their door.

Such beliefs aren’t confined to the religious. Our society is awash with secular ‘social justice’ activists who flip out over mere words. Conservatives see this as the influence of Antonio Gramsci, a Marxist theorist who advocated promoting revolution by attacking the cultural foundations of society. That may be so, however, I blame the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

Sapir and Whorf were two linguists who never actually collaborated. Their ‘hypothesis’ is the idea of linguistic relativity, that a language determines the way its speakers experience the world. Benjamin Whorf is best known for his study of the Hopi language, in which he speculated that its lack of past tense verbs influenced the way its speakers experienced time. This idea was all the rage in the psychedelic 1960’s. It was the basis for Robert Heinlein’s 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land, in which the lone survivor of a Mars expedition is discovered, having been raised by the spirits of deceased Martians. His knowledge of the Martian language gives him a special view of the universe, as well as psychic powers. As much as I enjoyed the book, it was, alas, fiction. Even Whorf’s theories appear to have fallen out of favor in the linguistic community.

In other words, though language may influence our view of the world, it can’t change reality. Wishing for something won’t make it so. Even surgery can’t change biology. Woman can have babies; men can’t. If the facts of life intrude on someone’s fragile self-concept, that’s unfortunate.

Transsexuals have more serious issues to confront than ‘transphobic’ speech. A 2013 survey found straight Americans to be more accepting of gays and lesbians that they are of transsexuals. Perhaps it’s squeamishness; the thought of a man having his genitalia removed makes many of us cringe. Despite having these feelings myself, I support transsexuals in their personal struggles.The transsexuals I’ve met seem to just want to be accepted for who they are.

On the other hand, if I were an evil doctor bent on destroying the LGBT movement, I would secretly promote the social justice warrior mentality. Nothing scares the straight world more than outsiders who want to ‘corrupt’ their children and forcibly change their lifestyles. This is why Americans perceive ISIS/ISIL as such a threat, and why many people suspect it to a gigantic psy-op – evil, murderous and barbaric, but a psy-op nonetheless.

Yes, I support the LGBT community’s quest for acceptance and equality. But attacking the straight world for being straight is not the way to accomplish that.

Illustration is “Cinny Bun System” by Thunder Falcon on publicdomainpictures.net.

 

What’s all this fuss about Net Neutrality?

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Hail, hail, the FCC has just enacted Net Neutrality. What is that? Techno-geek types have been concerned for some time about service providers’ plans to charge different rates for different levels of Internet service. The reason is that some applications – HDTV for example – require a very high bandwidth. Some people opposed such differential rates, out of fear that the big players, for example digital content providers like Hulu and Netflix, will hog all the bandwidth, leaving smaller providers out in the cold.

I feel this fear is misguided, for several reasons. Internet bandwidth is not a fixed-sized pie. It’s been steadily increasing with demand, and it will continue to do so. As long is there is competition, the little guy won’t get squeezed out. My bigger concern is about the customer’s connection, the so-called “last mile.” Competition is an issue here, because of state and local governments’ encouragement of telephone and cable monopolies. Many of us have only have three choices – phone, cable, and satellite, and I’ve seen tons of online complaints about the billing practices of Dish Network. City-run wifi networks might help somewhat, but any subsidized service could undercut private providers and become a monopoly, a problem I’ll address later.

As far as the FCC regulation, it’s unlikely to address the problem, even if there is one. That’s because of a phenomenon call regulatory capture – the industry ends up controlling the regulatory agencies. Corruption is one cause, but the biggest reason is that no one knows an industry better than the companies themselves. People often bounce between the corporations and the agencies that supposedly control them. Secondly, regulation costs money, and will undoubtedly increase the cause of our service. Thirdly, why do we need 300 pages of regulation? As usual, the government doesn’t want the public to see the rules until they’re implemented.

The other issue with net neutrality is the allegation, mostly by conservatives and libertarians (see Alex Jones’ infowars.com) that the FCC is doing this as part of a plan to regulate content, which will eventually lead to censorship and licensing of websites. I agree that classifying the Net as a “public utility” sets a bad precedent, but I don’t see the threat as imminent. Censorship will likely come from other directions, such as the un-PATRIOT-ic ACT or “hate crimes” legislation, Furthermore, if city governments take over the “last mile” via public wifi networks, they will be tempted to impose their propagandistic agendas on their citizen customers.

A much bigger threat, I think comes from Obamacare. Well, not exactly the Affordable Care Act itself, but the medical fascism that gave rise to it. Obama’s adviser Cass Sunstein has advocated outlawing the promotion of unapproved, non-mainstream health theories, such as the idea that moderate sun exposure is beneficial. If the insurance companies or Big Pharma were to sue, for example, an anti-vaccine website for cutting into their profits, I doubt that the Supreme Court will have the cojones to go against them. After all, the Supremes were dumb enough to buy the notion that a mandated purchase is the same as a tax. But that’s an issue for another time.

 

Congress Has Lost Its Mind

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The US House of Representatives, excluding 10 brave members, recently gave us proof of its collective insanity. House Resolution 758, passed on December 5, 2014, condemns Russia as an aggressor nation that must be sanctioned. The bill’s supporting arguments are a tapestry of lies and propaganda, and hypocrisy. Among the howlers:

  • Russia has “invaded” Ukraine. Every month or so the corporate media spouts some nonsense about Russian tanks invading its neighbor’s separatist-ruled eastern provinces, but we’re never offered any proof. Even if they’re talking about Crimea, Russia’s actions there are not an invasion but an occupation. Crimea is a historic part of Russia populated mostly by ethnic Russians which was granted arbitrarily to the Ukrainian SSR by Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev in 1954. Somehow the US doesn’t have any trouble with Israel occupying Palestinian land, and the Palestinians didn’t welcome their occupiers as did the Crimeans.
  • Russia was responsible for the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17, because the commercial airliner was shot down by pro-Russian separatists using Russian weapons. Again, we’re not offered a shred of proof, and it’s equally plausible that Ukrainian forces shot down the plain either accidentally or intentionally (as a false flag promoting war with Russia.)
  • Russia has initiated economic sanctions against Ukraine. More precisely, Russia has eliminated subsidies, the same way the US Federal government threatens to cut off funding for states that refuse to enact its policies. In reality, the US is the aggressor, first supporting the ultra-nationalist coup in Ukraine, and then strong-arming our allies in the EU into supporting sanctions that hurt them (our friends) far more than they hurt the “evil” Putin.
  • Russia has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This one’s true, which is to Putin’s credit: Assad is the good guy in this situation, opposing the barbaric, genocidal so-called “Islamic State.” It’s the United States that illegally initiated aggression against Syria by arming the so-called “moderate rebels.” In reality, it was arming ISIS. Whether this was an act of sheer stupidity or Machiavellian evil, I can’t say.

Unfortunately, a lot of people I know believe the US corporate media’s bullshit about Russia. Please don’t take my word for it, look to the alternative media for a more balanced perspective. There are even British mainstream sources such as the Mail Online which tell the truth about Russia. I’m not saying it’s a perfect country; it has many policies I abhor, such as military conscription and oppression of gays and Chechens. Yet at the rate we’re going, with our rising rates of incarceration and “anti-terrorist” legislation, America will soon be less free than Russia.

Should we really risk igniting a new world war by antagonizing a fellow nuclear power for dubious reasons? Absolutely not!

 

Why I’m Not Voting in This Election

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I cast my first vote at the age of 19. Since then I’ve participated in every significant election, both Presidential and mid-term. I once ran (unsuccessfully) for the Arizona State Legislature. I’ve given money to campaigns and I spent two years as the secretary of the Arizona Libertarian Party. As of now, I’m done with all that, and here’s why.

There’s no significant difference between major-party candidates. Though their rhetoric may differ, once in office they do the same thing as their predecessors. Barack Obama could have ended the wars, vetoed extensions of the so-called Patriot Act, closed Guantanamo and ended NSA spying, but he didn’t. In many ways, his administration was worse than that of George W Bush.

Third parties are locked out. The only candidates who advocate real change are in alternative parties such as Libertarian and Green, but the powers that be put huge hurdles against them getting on the ballot. Including these extra candidates would “confuse the voters,” the politicians say, as if we’re children. Third parties spend all their meager funds collecting signatures to achieve ballot access. If they do get on, the corporate media treat their candidates like a joke, or more commonly ignore them completely.

The system – both the media and the party hierarchy – discriminates against those who work for real change. Congressman Ron Paul tried for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008 and 2012 against incredible odds. He was immensely popular, yet the pundits dismissed his successes in the primaries as flukes, or failed to report them at all. The party apparatchiks rigged convention rules to prevent Paul’s representatives from speaking or even being seated.

Voting machines enable fraud, which I suspect is widespread. Many jurisdictions use machines manufactured by companies such as Diebold. The software on this devices is secret and there is no audit trail. Machines are in the custody of party hacks who have the ability to change the votes. This almost certainly happened when John Kerry lost Ohio to Bush in 2004, yet no charges were ever filed.

If the people don’t vote the way the elite want, they keep bringing the issue back until they do. Initiatives and referenda are a powerful tool for democracy, ye the system prevents them from working. Here in Arizona, the public turned down boondoggles for riverside development and public transit, but both projects were repackaged and approved years later. If, on the other hand, a measure threatens the system, such as an initiative we had years ago to repeal the state income tax, it is subject to close scrutiny and “disqualified.”

Although big money dominance of the elections is a problem, campaign finance reform won’t work. Campaign laws are most often used against the little guy, or anyone who challenges the status quo. Congressman George Hansen of Idaho, an outspoken opponent of the IRS, was convicted in 1984 of irregularities in his filings and spent 15 months in Federal prison, enduring unspeakably brutal treatment. Personally, I believe campaign finance restrictions to be an unconstitutional limitation on free speech. Some kind of disclosure requirement might be helpful, but I don’t expect the wealthy 1% would ever be held accountable.

Voting in 21st Century America is a waste of time and a distraction from the real issues. It’s time that would be much better spent researching government wrongdoing, finding ways to safeguard our privacy and beat the system, or engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience. In the words of Emma Goldman, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

 

Vladimir the Terrible?

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As a libertarian, I don’t like political leaders or their phony, arrogant claims to “legitimate” use of power. I despise every last one of them, especially Obama, the Clintons, and the Bushes, both father and son. They are among the worst people the world has ever produced. Being at the helm of the world’s most powerful country has allowed them to exceed the evils of those whom they’ve demonized, two-bit dictators such as Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Khadaffi. Power corrupts, whether you lead an autocracy or an alleged republic. That is why I’m surprised by the restraint that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, has shown so far in the Ukrainian crisis.

It’s not that Putin is a nice guy. He was formerly in the KGB, the kind of organization which would not exist in a just world. Many people believe that Putin’s government, not Chechen separatists, were behind the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings. These false-flag events gave “Vlad the Terrible” an excuse to crush that rebellious province, rather than granting them a plebiscite on independence as is their right. Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was mysteriously poisoned by the radioactive element polonium while in exile in London. Who but the government of a nuclear power could pull this off? Putin has also presided over a ridiculous anti-gay law that serves mainly to focus the peoples’ minds on an imaginary threat.

Yet Putin’s Russia has proved to be a worthy adversary for the arrogant and self-righteous United States. The American corporate media likes to blame Russia and Putin for the chaos in Ukraine, but in reality, America’s spy services and its captive “non-government” organizations initiated the conflict. Obama’s State Department interfered by supporting the protests, even after they became violent. When Ukraine’s President Yanukovych compromised to schedule new elections, the US-supported far right elements drove him from the country. The new junta in Kiev immediately passed discriminatory laws designed to outrage the Russian minority in the country’s east and south. Did the holier-than-though US government tell our allies to stop this, lest the country slide into civil war? Of course not; provoking ethnic Russians and their cousins across the border was probably their real aim.

Again and again we hear that Russia “invaded” Crimea. Balderdash. Crimea was historically part of Russia, not the Ukraine. Its people are mostly ethnic Russians, a majority of whom supported the annexation in an internationally monitored election which the Ukraine opposed. Ironically, the US did the exact same thing in supporting Kosovo’s split from Serbia in opposition to the wishes of the Serbian people. Consistency has never been the US government’s strong suit.

Because of this alleged “invasion,” the US proceeded to impose ridiculous economic sanctions on Russia and strong-arm its lackeys in the European Union to go along with them. Then came the crash of flight MH-17 over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine. Without providing any evidence whatsoever, the US government blamed the pro-Russian rebels (and by extension Russia) for this atrocity. The media refused to entertain the possibility that the Ukrainian military did this themselves in order to whip up anti-Russian sentiment.

This kind of “false flag” operation has happened throughout history, such as Nazi Germany’s Gleiwitz Incident (which it used to justify invading Poland) the CIA’s Operation Gladio which terrorized post-war Europe and Israel’s Lavon Affair which attempted to frame Islamists for a series of bombings in Cairo.

I believe the reason America hates Putin is that he’s one of the few world leaders who appears to be sticking up for the interests of his own country and against those of the globalist corporate community. Throughout the world we see leaders kow-towing to the “neoliberal” world order, plunging their countries into IMF-engineered debt servitude.

Libertarians detest this exploitative system, and also oppose the sanctions against Russia. Putin has done a lot of evil things, and is certainly no hero in our philosophy, though some (myself included) admire his determination and apparent cleverness. Best of all, he’s no stooge of the financial industry. The oligarchs who looted Russia during the Boris Yeltsin era were not “too big to jail.”

No matter what Putin’s motivations are, it hardly seems sane for our leaders to risk war with another nuclear power over a small patch of territory, and over what was probably just a tragic accident. Another, more probable outcome of this new cold war is that Russia and its allies such as China will create their own independent systems for trade and banking.This would end the economic supremacy of the US, already under threat, along with most of the value of the dollar. That would be a disaster for all of us “commoners,” whether the event was intentionally planned or just the unintended consequences of the incredible arrogance of American politicians.

Though what happened to MH-17 is still a mystery, one thing is for certain: the story the corporate media tells us is based upon lies.There may not be much we can do about the insane belligerence of so-called leaders such as Barack Obama (and his bloodthirsty Republican opponents), but we must not let ourselves be their fools, either.

The “Real Words” of our National Anthem

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On this July Fourth I’d like to say a few words about the US national anthem. Many of you are no doubt aware that this year marks the two hundredth anniversary of the lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key as “The Defence of Fort McHenry.” Few people know that the song has four verses, because we seldom hear any but the first these days. Far fewer people are aware of the origin of the melody, a popular English drinking song from the 1700’s.

Yet another little-known fact is the controversy that surrounded the adoption of the song in 1931 as the nation’s official anthem. An article that appeared in the Daily Beast on last July 4th tells some of this fascinating story. The song has been the target of criticism for a melody that is difficult to sing (with a range of an octave and a fifth) and for its lyrics that celebrate militarism.

By the way, today’s history-challenged young people may not know the story behind the war that inspired Key’s poem. The War of 1812 was the nation’s first major war after the American colonies secession from the British Empire. In grade school I learned that this second war was Britain’s fault for restricting our trade with France and conscription of American sailors into the Royal Navy.

In junior high school I was fortunate to have a teacher named Frank Lewis, an offbeat-looking man (he wore coke-bottle glasses and a 50’s style pompadour) who helped inspire my own passion for history. In his class, we learned that another over-riding reason for the war was the desire of certain American politicians to violently annex British holdings in Canada (the southeast portion of the current country) and Florida. They were known as War Hawks, birds of prey with the distinctive cry, “Canada! Florida!” They got their war, which ended in a stalemate. At least 5000 American and British soldiers and sailors died and untold numbers of civilians, all for naught. It’s not a glorious episode in our history, which is why I prefer the original lyrics of the song.

Speaking of the original song, its creators were members of a London men’s club called the “Anacreon Society.” Anacreon was a poet from classical Greece whose works extolled the virtues of “wine, women and song.” As such these words are at least as appropriate for us Americans. Back in 1835, French writer Alexis de Toqueville observed that “the drinking population constitutes the majority in your country, and that temperance is somewhat unpopular.” Here without further adieu is the first verse of the famous “Anacreon in Heaven” (which you can listen to here):

 

THE ANACREONTIC SONG

as Sung at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand

Words by Ralph Tomlinson, music by John Stafford Smith

 

To Anacreon in Heav’n, where he sat in full glee,

A few sons of harmony sent a petition,

That he their Inspirer and patron wou’d be;

When this answer arriv’d from the jolly old Grecian

“Voice, fiddle, and flute,

“No longer be mute,

“I’ll lend you my name and inspire you to boot,

“And, besides, I’ll instruct you like me, to intwine

“The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine.

 

Remember these words on this Fourth when you hear the line about the “land of the (formerly) free and the home of the (occasionally) brave.” And if you haven’t seen it, watch this clip of Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat singing the words of the fictional Kazakhstan national anthem to this tune for unsuspecting rodeo patrons. He was lucky he didn’t get himself lynched!