Red Redux?

This entire year , I ’ ve been a vagabond , but you , too , have been on a journey , away from just about everything you ’ ve known , into the vaguest of futures , and we ’ re just getting started .
Steered by obscured hands , we ’ re whipped around blind bends , towards a reality we have no part in shaping .
Yesterday , my friend Chuck Orloski emailed me photos of Fiddler ’ s , a bar in Larksville , PA ( pop .
4,400 ) .
They depict normal folks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 65-years-old , sitting next to each other , each with a glass or bottle of beer .
There ’ s a ketchup squeeze bottle as well , so at least hotdogs are served .
With a bag of potato chips , it ’ s a fine meal .
Chuck and I have sat in many bars like Fiddler ’ s .
It ’ s where guys like Johnny the Hat or Johnny AC go after work to reward and gather themselves .
It ’ s where they drop in after dinner to banter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old songs , again and again , or stare at balls and strikes .
If they ’ re retired or just unemployed , they can show up minutes after breakfast .
Of course , no one goes to faggoty concerts , operas or art galleries , but even ballgames have become way too expensive .
The Forsaken : An Ameri ... Tzouliadis , Tim Best Price : $ 9.07 Buy New $ 14.99 “ So bars in Scranton are operating normally now ?
” I asked Chuck .
“ No .
Have not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Fiddler ’ s is in a small town , Larksville , near Wilkes Barre .
Was like being on another planet , Linh.
” Now , just having a beer in a neighborhood dive is “ like being on another planet ” !
Looking more closely , I notice no one is smiling in Fiddler ’ s .
All fifteen faces are blank or even grim , and who can blame them ?
How many have lost their jobs ?
How many can no longer pay for groceries and must rely on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chuck himself ?
How many have skipped several months ’ rents and are facing eviction ?
Soon enough , you may have to hit actual roads , just to eat , a nation of juked and jived Joads .
During the last Depression , thousands of Americans were desperate enough to sail all the way to Stalin ’ s Soviet Union .
Though many were Communists or at least left-leaning , most were just economic migrants , with some arriving only on short-term contracts .
These distinctions didn ’ t really matter .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bullet to the back of the head or from overwork in gulags .
With the conniving yet bumbling FDR as Stalin ’ s chum , these hapless Yanks got no help from their government .
Thanks to an Unz commenter , mark tapley , I found out about Tim Tzouliadis ’ The Forsaken .
Scrupulously researched and beautifully written , it ’ s 364 pages of harrowing yet mesmerizing reading , and entirely relevant to our times .
Most instructively , Tzouliadis highlights the moral dimension of each character , from world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , even now .
Tzouliadis ’ important book was completely ignored by the Washington Post and New York Times , etc.
, but it ’ s no surprise , really , for the red tinted Paper of Record has just run a remarkably bloodless , wistful and even optimistic series on Communism , The Red Century .
Since there were a few unfortunate snags the first time around , let ’ s do it again , but more political correctly .
It ’ s time for a Red redux !
Opposing Jim Crow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Best Price : $ 36.03 Buy New $ 30.00 Invited writer Kristen R. Ghodsee tells us , “ Some might remember that Eastern bloc women enjoyed many rights and privileges unknown in liberal democracies at the time , including major state investments in their education and training , their full incorporation into the labor force , generous maternity leave allowances and guaranteed free child care .
But there ’ s one advantage that has received little attention : Women under Communism enjoyed more sexual pleasure.
” Yuri Slezkine spins hammer and sickle childrearing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the family , never policed the home , and never connected the domestic rites of passage–childbirth , marriage and death–to their sociology and political economy [ … ] Even at the height of fear and suspicion , when anyone connected to the outside world might be subject to sacrificial murder , Soviet readers were expected to learn from Dante , Shakespeare and Cervantes.
” Never policed the home ?
!
What about all those Soviet kids who were brainwashed and hectored into denouncing their parents as enemies of the people ?
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 14-year-old Pavlik Morozov became a Soviet hero whose statues littered the Russian landscape .
Andrew Gittlitz concludes his piece , “ ‘ Make it So ’ : ‘ Star Trek ’ and Its Debt to Revolutionary Socialism , ” with a “ revolutionary ultimatum ” from Rosa Luxemburg , “ socialism or barbarism , ” and that ’ s pretty much the New York Times ’ stance as well .
There ’ s only one correct way forward !
Even with 85 to 100 million victims , Communism remains au courant , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , well , Jews , so if you even dare to cite those unfathomably ghastly figures , you must be a Nazi or something .
Best of Reed : Ten Days ... Reed , John Best Price : $ 12.71 Buy New $ 10.95 With its absolute moral righteousness , us-against-them mentality and incitement to violence in the name of global justice , it attracts the worst kind of busybody fanatics .
Cloaking their boundless hatred , anger and resentment with feel-good buzzwords , they can go on an invigorating offensive against accused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , spies , wreckers , diversonists and deplorables , ad infinitum .
Since there will always be those who resist their suffocating orthodoxy , if only by a hair , they will never run out of enemies .
By 1937 , Soviet Russia has already disappeared 17 million souls .
Tzouliadis , “ According to a report from Mech , a Russian-language weekly published in Poland , the [ 1937 ] census declared a population total of 159 million , instead of the projected 176 , amounting to 17 million people who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the news by having the hapless statisticians shot .
A new census was ordered whose experts learned from their predecessors ’ mistakes and wisely presented the ‘ correct ’ set of results .
Years later a secret report ordered by Nikita Khrushchev revealed that between 1935 and 1941 , the NKVD arrested more than 19 million citizens.
” At the beginning of the 1930 ’ s , however , no one could foresee this impending carnage , so thousands rushed to the Socialist Paradise .
“ In the first eight months of 1931 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in New York—received more than one hundred thousand American applications for emigration to the USSR.
” As the country collapsed , like right now , citizens simply fled .
There were “ more people out of work in the United States , both actually and proportionately , than in any other nation on earth.
” This influx of Americans was a propaganda bonanza for the Soviets , so they gladly touted how well these transplants were doing .
In 1934 , 30,000 Russians watched as a 19-year-old American , Victor Herman , jumped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ free fall record , at 142 seconds .
Herman was feted as “ the Lindbergh of Russia.
” When a black American , Robert Robinson , was assaulted by two white compatriots , the resulting trial generated worldwide publicity .
Ironically , the repatriation of his assailants likely saved their lives , while Robinson would be stuck in the Soviet Union for 44 years , with his attempts to get out repeatedly thwarted .
When Robinson sought help from Paul Robeson , he was lectured by one of his aids , “ What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Robinson , running away from here ?
You must stay right where you are .
You belong here for the good of the cause .
Or maybe you ’ re trying to tarnish Paul ’ s reputation , by getting him involved in your attempt to leave .
That is all I have to say to you .
You may go now !
” Robeson ’ s wife added , “ We have thought about your request , and he has decided that he can not help you .
You see , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to know what is in your mind .
Suppose he were to help you leave , and then when you arrived in Ethiopia , you decided to turn anti-Soviet .
We would find ourselves in trouble with the authorities here.
” A People ’ s Trage ... Figes , Orlando Best Price : $ 14.20 Buy New $ 22.38 Finally allowed to take a vacation in Uganda in 1974 , Robinson was granted asylum by Idi Amin .
There , he married an American , but only in 1986 could they return @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1932 , the Anglo-American school in Moscow already had 125 students .
There , Lovett Fort-Whiteman taught chemistry , physics and math .
A co-founder of the American Negro Labor Congress , Fort-Whiteman had first come to Moscow in 1924 for ideological training .
By 1937 , the Texas native had seen enough of the Soviet Union .
Tzouliadis , “ Lovett Fort-Whiteman disappeared soon after applying for permission to return home to the United States .
His exit visa was refused , and the former teacher at the Anglo-American school , born @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Institute , was denounced as a ‘ counterrevolutionary ’ by a lawyer from the Communist Party of the United States .
Three weeks later Fort-Whiteman was arrested and sent to a ‘ corrective labor camp ’ in Kazakhstan .
In Moscow , Robert Robinson heard more news from a Russian friend who had returned from the same camp .
According to this witness , Fort-Whiteman had been severely beaten because he had failed to meet his work quota .
In the camp , he had died of starvation , a broken man whose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points out , “ Sympathy for the Soviet cause was no guarantee of safety ; instead it attracted suspicion.
” Born in Russia , Julian F. Hecker was educated in the US , where he published several books defending Communism .
With his American wife and three young daughters , Hecker returned to his native country to teach philosophy at Moscow University .
Tzouliadis , “ According to the American embassy , in earlier summers , when Moscow was crowded with tourists , Julius Hecker had made ‘ speeches almost daily to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Soviet Union.
’ His daughter Marcella Hecker remembered the day the NKVD came to take her father away .
‘ He was asleep in a little room which I occupy now , ’ she said .
‘ Although my mother opened the door very , very quietly , Father must have had some terrible dream , because he woke up at once with a jerk , and immediately understood everything .
They bore him away and we never saw him again.
’ Julius Hecker ’ s wife remained convinced that her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terrible mistake , and she waited long years for his return .
She never learned that just two and half months after his arrest , on April 28 , 1938 , Professor Julius Hecker confessed to being an American spy who had written his books merely to draw attention away from his espionage .
Two hours after making this false confession , he was shot.
” The hard-hearted may sneer that American Communists had it coming , but top American officials , from FDR on down , were also praising the Soviets , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Russian gold , as mined by its gulag slaves .
History of the Russian ... Leon Trotsky Best Price : $ 20.67 Buy New $ 23.82 Tzouliadis sums up Roosevelt ’ s assessment of Stalin , “ After his return from Tehran [ in December of 1943 ] , the president broadcast a fireside chat to the nation : ‘ To use an American and somewhat ungrammatical colloquialism , I may say that ‘ I got along fine ’ with Marshal Stalin .
He is a man who combines a tremendous , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I believe he is truly representative of the heart and soul of Russia ; and I believe that we are going to get along very well with him and the Russian people— very well indeed.
’ Nor was this simply a public façade designed to reassure the American public .
In her memoirs , Eleanor Roosevelt confided that her husband had been ‘ impressed by the strength of Stalin ’ s personality .
On his return he was always careful in describing him to mention that he was short and thick-set and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the people of his country was unquestionably due to their trust in him and their confidence that he had their good at heart.
” On March 17th , 1945 , Roosevelt telegrammed Stalin to ask that sick and injured American soldiers be allowed to leave Poland , “ This government has done everything to meet each of your requests .
I now request you to meet mine in this particular matter.
” Nothing came of it .
Stalin knew his ally well .
In fact , hundreds of US soldiers were kept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to death or killed , with survivors sighted well into the 1950 ’ s .
Having locked up Americans with impunity since the 30 ’ s , the Soviets saw no reason to stop .
Tzouliadis , “ There was no logic within this hidden underworld in which American soldiers were held captive with German and Japanese prisoners , their wartime enemies , in camps run by their former Soviet allies.
” Top capitalists felt no qualms dealing with Commies , and Victor Herman ’ s father , Sam , was personally recruited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Tzouliadis , “ No other firm in the United States , or even the world , conducted as much business with Joseph Stalin as the Ford Motor Company between 1929 and 1936 [ … ] Lenin himself had been a passionate advocate of Ford ’ s methods of mass production [ … ] ” Man as cog was their shared vision .
What doomed Victor Herman , “ the Russian Lindbergh , ” was his repeated refusal to declare himself a Russian in the paperwork for his record jump .
It made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an American .
In 1938 , Herman was abruptly taken away in a Ford Model A , of the kind his father had helped the Soviets build .
Herman couldn ’ t fathom why he was arrested , “ I am an American !
You will pay for this !
This is kidnapping !
You can not do this to an American !
” Herman would spend 18 years in Siberian gulags , where he somehow survived starvation , freezing temperature , barbaric overwork and beatings .
Before leaving Moscow , Herman was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Stalinist term , or what Americans now sinisterly christen as “ enhanced interrogation.
” Tzouliadis , “ After the fifteenth night , Victor began bleeding from his penis , his rectum , his nose , and his eyes .
He was returned to his cell each morning at dawn .
Eventually the cell ‘ elder ’ pleaded with him to talk— ‘ Save your life , American ’ —but Victor Herman stubbornly refused to confess to a crime he had not committed .
On the fifty-third night of his torture , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he only signed a list of names .
When Victor refused again , he was taken to a basement cell and beaten by a gang of men with clubs .
The next morning he was coughing up clots of blood , and the following night he was beaten again and told he was going to be killed .
Losing consciousness , Victor was woken by the sensation and smell of his leg being burned to bring him back around.
” After Herman returned to the US in 1976 , he published his memoir @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and another key source for Tzouliadis is Thomas Sgovio ’ s Dear America !
Why I Turned Against Communism .
Although many testimonies in Tzouliadis ’ book were already out there , they had not been essentialized , given a clear context or synthesized into a compelling narrative .
As Americans were disappeared , tortured , sent to gulags or killed , as they desperately needed protection , intervention and help in going home , their officials did next to nothing .
Their ambassador during the worst of the Soviet Terror was Joseph @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of FDR with no diplomatic experience , Russian knowledge or , apparently , much interest in being an ambassador , for he was often absent for long stretches .
Tzouliadis describes Davies ’ majestic entrance , “ In January 1937 , the Davies entourage arrived in Moscow on a special train , waited on by a small army of footmen , secretaries , chauffeurs , a chef , a hairdresser , and a masseuse–making up sixteen servants in all , with an attendant mountain of luggage .
Stepping off the train dressed for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hat , immaculately tailored coat , and gold-topped cane , Joseph Davies glanced around for the first secretary of the embassy , Loy Henderson , who recognized the ambassador ’ s ‘ flashing , probing eyes , ’ and noted his fine clothes.
” His residence has been thoroughly remodeled , with a crystal chandelier , insured for $ 10,000 , lording over the ballroom .
“ In the basement , a Belgian electrical engineer had installed the twenty-five deep freezers required for two box cars of American frozen food shipped ahead to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ game , and exotic fruit and vegetables were all now on the daily menu , with four hundred quarts of frozen cream specially imported to soothe the ambassador ’ s troublesome stomach .
News of the couple ’ s ‘ desert-island ’ food supply was soon leaked to the press , irritating the Soviet censors with its presumption that there was no decent food to be had in Moscow [ … ] ” This , in a country of long lines for food , with innocent Americans among the tortured and killed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be shooed away , to then be arrested , very often , right outside their embassy .
Too busy hunting art bargains everywhere , Davies was oblivious .
Tzouliadis quotes him , “ As usual , we can not resist them and have been having somewhat of an orgy again in picking up these interesting souvenirs.
” Attending show trials , Davies was convinced of each cowed and tortured defendant ’ s bizarre confession .
From Leningrad harbor , Davies and his heiress wife set sail for the Baltics on their 375-foot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Davies watched Hollywood movies with his Soviet secret police minders .
In this sick drama , there are plenty of villains , such as an NKVD who at age 79 recounted quite casually , “ I figure , that thirty-seven people were shot dead by me personally , and I sent even more to the camps .
I can kill people so that the shot won ’ t be heard… The secret ’ s this : I make them open their mouth and I shoot down their throat .
I ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like eau-de-cologne , and it doesn ’ t make a sound .
That I can do–kill .
If I didn ’ t have seizures , I wouldn ’ t have taken my pension so soon.
” One of the most repulsive characters in the book is Walter Duranty .
Working for the New York Times , his extensive reports on the Soviet Union earned this monster a Pulitzer .
Tzouliadis quotes Duranty on the gulags , “ Each concentration camp forms a sort of ‘ commune ’ where everyone lives comparatively free , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the good of the community .
They are fed and housed gratis and receive pay for their work .
.
.
They are certainly not convicts in the American sense of the word.
” Duranty on the Holodomor that killed millions , “ I have made exhaustive inquiries about this alleged famine situation [ … ] And here are the facts : there is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.
” According to Duranty , there was also no famine in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the word ‘ Famine ’ in connection with the North Caucasus is a sheer absurdity .
There a bumper crop is being harvested as fast as tractors , horses , oxen , men , women , and children can work… There are plump babies in the nurseries or gardens of the collectives… Village markets are flowing with eggs , fruit , poultry , vegetables , milk and butter at prices lower than in Moscow.
” The man simply lied and lied .
Tzouliadis , “ But Walter Duranty ’ s private remarks were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To British diplomats in Moscow he admitted ‘ that Ukraine has been bled white… It was quite possible that as many as ten million people may have died directly or indirectly from lack of food in the Soviet Union during the past year.
’ ” Abandoning his mistress and son in Russia , Duranty lived until 73 , and is buried in Orlando .
His breed lives on , of course .
There are many Duranties roaming around .
Tzouliadis , “ Many years later , Victor Hammer–the brother of the notorious American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had reported regularly to the OGPU throughout his period working for The New York Times in Moscow .
According to Victor Hammer , Duranty had a weakness for young girls , and Victor ’ s brother , Armand , had kept him supplied.
” On July 13th , 1956 , Paul Robeson had to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee .
Questioned about his long time support for Stalin , Robeson ’ s response is telling , “ Whatever has happened to Stalin , gentlemen , is a question for the Soviet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a representative of the people who , in building America wasted sixty to one hundred million lives of my people , black people drawn from Africa on the plantations .
You are responsible and your forebears for sixty million to one hundred million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations , and don ’ t you ask me about anybody , please [ … ] As far as I know about the slave camps , they were Fascist prisoners who had murdered millions of the Jewish people and who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Negro people could they have gotten hold of them .
That is all I know about that… You are the non-patriots , and you are the un-Americans and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves… You want to shut up every colored person who wants to fight for the rights of his people.
” Just brand all your enemies as Fascists then .
Sounds familiar ?
Russian POWs were also massacred after they had been repatriated , and even the greatest war heroes weren ’ t safe .
Tzouliadis describes a Kremlin meeting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perhaps the leaders of the Leningrad siege should replace him as premier and general secretary .
The rest of the Politburo immediately chorused , ‘ No , no , Comrade Stalin !
’ But when Aleksei Kuznetsov and Nikolai Voznesensky hesitated , Stalin had them arrested .
At the end of the show trial known as the ‘ Leningrad Affair , ’ the former Soviet war heroes were draped in white shrouds and led out of the courtroom to be shot one hour later.
” In a book filled with mass murderers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fools , there are also individuals who managed to remain decent and kind , to their own kind .
Tasked with burying eight bodies unloaded from a prison train , a worker noticed one was still breathing , so he didn ’ t put this half-dead man underground , for it “ did not correspond to Christian traditions.
” A second worker , one Mrs. Khorshunov , then nursed him for a week in her own home .
Before dying , he managed to tell Mrs. Khorshunov that he was American named Fred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Collins.
” With much strain , Fred Collins even managed to draw a picture of a falling airplane , to indicate that he was a pilot , perhaps ?
After Mrs. Khorshunov and her son , Yuri , buried the American , they tended to his grave for many years .
Tzouliadis , “ Decades later , fulfilling his duty to the American prisoner , Yuri Khorshunov sat down to write his letter to [ American ] investigators : ‘ There may be nonsense in my writing to you , since one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a great country like yours , though the relatives of that man may still be waiting for some information about him .
If you have any questions , I will be glad to answer them.
’ ” Germany ’ s invasion of Poland triggered WWII , we ’ re told , and though the USSR did the same , the US became its ally .
At the end , the Soviets controlled not just Poland , but Latvia , Estonia , Lithuania , half of Germany , Hungary , Czechoslovakia , Romania , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the last breaking from Stalin three years later .
Comrades in arms , the American and Russian empires divided their loots , split it in half , literally , with millions of subjected Europeans having no voice regarding their fate .
Human lives don ’ t matter much to “ great ” nations , for their elites must never lose sight of the big picture .
They don ’ t see humans , only maps , and , of course , profits must be tended to .
Though constantly hounded by the big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ try their best to nurture and protect their own identity and heritage , if they don ’ t want to be deformed , or even erased .
The Best of Linh Dinh

This entire year, I’ve been a vagabond, but you, too, have been on a journey, away from just about everything you’ve known, into the vaguest of futures, and we’re just getting started. Steered by obscured hands, we’re whipped around blind bends, towards a reality we have no part in shaping.
Yesterday, my friend Chuck Orloski emailed me photos of Fiddler’s, a bar in Larksville, PA (pop. 4,400). They depict normal folks, men and women from roughly 30 to 65-years-old, sitting next to each other, each with a glass or bottle of beer. There’s a ketchup squeeze bottle as well, so at least hotdogs are served. With a bag of potato chips, it’s a fine meal.
Chuck and I have sat in many bars like Fiddler’s. It’s where guys like Johnny the Hat or Johnny AC go after work to reward and gather themselves. It’s where they drop in after dinner to banter, brood, listen to all those old songs, again and again, or stare at balls and strikes. If they’re retired or just unemployed, they can show up minutes after breakfast. Of course, no one goes to faggoty concerts, operas or art galleries, but even ballgames have become way too expensive. The Forsaken: An Ameri... Tzouliadis, Tim Best Price: $9.07 Buy New $14.99 (as of 06:48 UTC - Details)
“So bars in Scranton are operating normally now?” I asked Chuck.
“No. Have not seen any Scranton bars open like that. Fiddler’s is in a small town, Larksville, near Wilkes Barre. Was like being on another planet, Linh.”
Now, just having a beer in a neighborhood dive is “like being on another planet”! Looking more closely, I notice no one is smiling in Fiddler’s. All fifteen faces are blank or even grim, and who can blame them? How many have lost their jobs? How many can no longer pay for groceries and must rely on food banks or soup kitchens, like Chuck himself? How many have skipped several months’ rents and are facing eviction?
Soon enough, you may have to hit actual roads, just to eat, a nation of juked and jived Joads.
*
During the last Depression, thousands of Americans were desperate enough to sail all the way to Stalin’s Soviet Union. Though many were Communists or at least left-leaning, most were just economic migrants, with some arriving only on short-term contracts. These distinctions didn’t really matter. Most would be killed, either with a bullet to the back of the head or from overwork in gulags. With the conniving yet bumbling FDR as Stalin’s chum, these hapless Yanks got no help from their government.
Thanks to an Unz commenter, mark tapley, I found out about Tim Tzouliadis’ The Forsaken. Scrupulously researched and beautifully written, it’s 364 pages of harrowing yet mesmerizing reading, and entirely relevant to our times. Most instructively, Tzouliadis highlights the moral dimension of each character, from world figures to the forsaken and practically erased, even now.
Tzouliadis’ important book was completely ignored by the Washington Post and New York Times, etc., but it’s no surprise, really, for the red tinted Paper of Record has just run a remarkably bloodless, wistful and even optimistic series on Communism, The Red Century. Since there were a few unfortunate snags the first time around, let’s do it again, but more political correctly. It’s time for a Red redux! Opposing Jim Crow: Afr... Roman, Meredith L. Best Price: $36.03 Buy New $30.00 (as of 06:48 UTC - Details)
Invited writer Kristen R. Ghodsee tells us, “Some might remember that Eastern bloc women enjoyed many rights and privileges unknown in liberal democracies at the time, including major state investments in their education and training, their full incorporation into the labor force, generous maternity leave allowances and guaranteed free child care. But there’s one advantage that has received little attention: Women under Communism enjoyed more sexual pleasure.”
Yuri Slezkine spins hammer and sickle childrearing, “The Bolsheviks never worried much about the family, never policed the home, and never connected the domestic rites of passage–childbirth, marriage and death–to their sociology and political economy […] Even at the height of fear and suspicion, when anyone connected to the outside world might be subject to sacrificial murder, Soviet readers were expected to learn from Dante, Shakespeare and Cervantes.”
Never policed the home?! What about all those Soviet kids who were brainwashed and hectored into denouncing their parents as enemies of the people? For accusing his peasant father of hoarding grain, 14-year-old Pavlik Morozov became a Soviet hero whose statues littered the Russian landscape.
Andrew Gittlitz concludes his piece, “‘Make it So’: ‘Star Trek’ and Its Debt to Revolutionary Socialism,” with a “revolutionary ultimatum” from Rosa Luxemburg, “socialism or barbarism,” and that’s pretty much the New York Times’ stance as well. There’s only one correct way forward!
Even with 85 to 100 million victims, Communism remains au courant, especially among the sophomoric, ahistorical and, well, Jews, so if you even dare to cite those unfathomably ghastly figures, you must be a Nazi or something. Best of Reed: Ten Days... Reed, John Best Price: $12.71 Buy New $10.95 (as of 06:48 UTC - Details)
With its absolute moral righteousness, us-against-them mentality and incitement to violence in the name of global justice, it attracts the worst kind of busybody fanatics. Cloaking their boundless hatred, anger and resentment with feel-good buzzwords, they can go on an invigorating offensive against accused bourgeoisies, kulaks, reactionaries, Fascists, spies, wreckers, diversonists and deplorables, ad infinitum. Since there will always be those who resist their suffocating orthodoxy, if only by a hair, they will never run out of enemies.
By 1937, Soviet Russia has already disappeared 17 million souls. Tzouliadis, “According to a report from Mech, a Russian-language weekly published in Poland, the [1937] census declared a population total of 159 million, instead of the projected 176, amounting to 17 million people who had disappeared […] Stalin reacted to the news by having the hapless statisticians shot. A new census was ordered whose experts learned from their predecessors’ mistakes and wisely presented the ‘correct’ set of results. Years later a secret report ordered by Nikita Khrushchev revealed that between 1935 and 1941, the NKVD arrested more than 19 million citizens.”
At the beginning of the 1930’s, however, no one could foresee this impending carnage, so thousands rushed to the Socialist Paradise. “In the first eight months of 1931 alone, Amtorg—the Soviet trade agency based in New York—received more than one hundred thousand American applications for emigration to the USSR.” As the country collapsed, like right now, citizens simply fled. There were “more people out of work in the United States, both actually and proportionately, than in any other nation on earth.”
This influx of Americans was a propaganda bonanza for the Soviets, so they gladly touted how well these transplants were doing. In 1934, 30,000 Russians watched as a 19-year-old American, Victor Herman, jumped from an airplane to set the world free fall record, at 142 seconds. Herman was feted as “the Lindbergh of Russia.”
When a black American, Robert Robinson, was assaulted by two white compatriots, the resulting trial generated worldwide publicity. Ironically, the repatriation of his assailants likely saved their lives, while Robinson would be stuck in the Soviet Union for 44 years, with his attempts to get out repeatedly thwarted.
When Robinson sought help from Paul Robeson, he was lectured by one of his aids, “What do you think you are doing, Robinson, running away from here? You must stay right where you are. You belong here for the good of the cause. Or maybe you’re trying to tarnish Paul’s reputation, by getting him involved in your attempt to leave. That is all I have to say to you. You may go now!” Robeson’s wife added, “We have thought about your request, and he has decided that he cannot help you. You see, we do not really know you well enough, to know what is in your mind. Suppose he were to help you leave, and then when you arrived in Ethiopia, you decided to turn anti-Soviet. We would find ourselves in trouble with the authorities here.” A People’s Trage... Figes, Orlando Best Price: $14.20 Buy New $22.38 (as of 04:38 UTC - Details)
Finally allowed to take a vacation in Uganda in 1974, Robinson was granted asylum by Idi Amin. There, he married an American, but only in 1986 could they return to the US together.
By November 1932, the Anglo-American school in Moscow already had 125 students. There, Lovett Fort-Whiteman taught chemistry, physics and math. A co-founder of the American Negro Labor Congress, Fort-Whiteman had first come to Moscow in 1924 for ideological training.
By 1937, the Texas native had seen enough of the Soviet Union. Tzouliadis, “Lovett Fort-Whiteman disappeared soon after applying for permission to return home to the United States. His exit visa was refused, and the former teacher at the Anglo-American school, born in Dallas and educated at the Tuskegee Institute, was denounced as a ‘counterrevolutionary’ by a lawyer from the Communist Party of the United States. Three weeks later Fort-Whiteman was arrested and sent to a ‘corrective labor camp’ in Kazakhstan. In Moscow, Robert Robinson heard more news from a Russian friend who had returned from the same camp. According to this witness, Fort-Whiteman had been severely beaten because he had failed to meet his work quota. In the camp, he had died of starvation, a broken man whose teeth had been knocked out.”
Tzouliadis points out, “Sympathy for the Soviet cause was no guarantee of safety; instead it attracted suspicion.” Born in Russia, Julian F. Hecker was educated in the US, where he published several books defending Communism. With his American wife and three young daughters, Hecker returned to his native country to teach philosophy at Moscow University.
Tzouliadis, “According to the American embassy, in earlier summers, when Moscow was crowded with tourists, Julius Hecker had made ‘speeches almost daily to the visitors on the subject of religious tolerance in the Soviet Union.’ His daughter Marcella Hecker remembered the day the NKVD came to take her father away. ‘He was asleep in a little room which I occupy now,’ she said. ‘Although my mother opened the door very, very quietly, Father must have had some terrible dream, because he woke up at once with a jerk, and immediately understood everything. They bore him away and we never saw him again.’ Julius Hecker’s wife remained convinced that her husband’s arrest was just a terrible mistake, and she waited long years for his return. She never learned that just two and half months after his arrest, on April 28, 1938, Professor Julius Hecker confessed to being an American spy who had written his books merely to draw attention away from his espionage. Two hours after making this false confession, he was shot.”
The hard-hearted may sneer that American Communists had it coming, but top American officials, from FDR on down, were also praising the Soviets, and the US was the biggest buyer of Russian gold, as mined by its gulag slaves. History of the Russian... Leon Trotsky Best Price: $20.67 Buy New $23.82 (as of 05:48 UTC - Details)
Tzouliadis sums up Roosevelt’s assessment of Stalin, “After his return from Tehran [in December of 1943], the president broadcast a fireside chat to the nation: ‘To use an American and somewhat ungrammatical colloquialism, I may say that ‘I got along fine’ with Marshal Stalin. He is a man who combines a tremendous, relentless determination with a stalwart good humor. I believe he is truly representative of the heart and soul of Russia; and I believe that we are going to get along very well with him and the Russian people— very well indeed.’ Nor was this simply a public façade designed to reassure the American public. In her memoirs, Eleanor Roosevelt confided that her husband had been ‘impressed by the strength of Stalin’s personality. On his return he was always careful in describing him to mention that he was short and thick-set and powerful… He also said that his control over the people of his country was unquestionably due to their trust in him and their confidence that he had their good at heart.”
On March 17th, 1945, Roosevelt telegrammed Stalin to ask that sick and injured American soldiers be allowed to leave Poland, “This government has done everything to meet each of your requests. I now request you to meet mine in this particular matter.” Nothing came of it. Stalin knew his ally well.
In fact, hundreds of US soldiers were kept by the USSR, to be worked to death or killed, with survivors sighted well into the 1950’s. Having locked up Americans with impunity since the 30’s, the Soviets saw no reason to stop. Tzouliadis, “There was no logic within this hidden underworld in which American soldiers were held captive with German and Japanese prisoners, their wartime enemies, in camps run by their former Soviet allies.”
Top capitalists felt no qualms dealing with Commies, and Victor Herman’s father, Sam, was personally recruited by Henry Ford to come to Russia. Tzouliadis, “No other firm in the United States, or even the world, conducted as much business with Joseph Stalin as the Ford Motor Company between 1929 and 1936 […] Lenin himself had been a passionate advocate of Ford’s methods of mass production […]” Man as cog was their shared vision.
What doomed Victor Herman, “the Russian Lindbergh,” was his repeated refusal to declare himself a Russian in the paperwork for his record jump. It made no sense, for he’s an American.
In 1938, Herman was abruptly taken away in a Ford Model A, of the kind his father had helped the Soviets build. Herman couldn’t fathom why he was arrested, “I am an American! You will pay for this! This is kidnapping! You cannot do this to an American!”
Herman would spend 18 years in Siberian gulags, where he somehow survived starvation, freezing temperature, barbaric overwork and beatings. Before leaving Moscow, Herman was subjected to “physical pressure,” a Stalinist term, or what Americans now sinisterly christen as “enhanced interrogation.”
Tzouliadis, “After the fifteenth night, Victor began bleeding from his penis, his rectum, his nose, and his eyes. He was returned to his cell each morning at dawn. Eventually the cell ‘elder’ pleaded with him to talk—‘Save your life, American’—but Victor Herman stubbornly refused to confess to a crime he had not committed. On the fifty-third night of his torture, he was told he would be released if he only signed a list of names. When Victor refused again, he was taken to a basement cell and beaten by a gang of men with clubs. The next morning he was coughing up clots of blood, and the following night he was beaten again and told he was going to be killed. Losing consciousness, Victor was woken by the sensation and smell of his leg being burned to bring him back around.”
After Herman returned to the US in 1976, he published his memoir, Coming Out of the Ice, and another key source for Tzouliadis is Thomas Sgovio’s Dear America! Why I Turned Against Communism. Although many testimonies in Tzouliadis’ book were already out there, they had not been essentialized, given a clear context or synthesized into a compelling narrative.
As Americans were disappeared, tortured, sent to gulags or killed, as they desperately needed protection, intervention and help in going home, their officials did next to nothing. Their ambassador during the worst of the Soviet Terror was Joseph Davies, a long-time friend and benefactor of FDR with no diplomatic experience, Russian knowledge or, apparently, much interest in being an ambassador, for he was often absent for long stretches.
Tzouliadis describes Davies’ majestic entrance, “In January 1937, the Davies entourage arrived in Moscow on a special train, waited on by a small army of footmen, secretaries, chauffeurs, a chef, a hairdresser, and a masseuse–making up sixteen servants in all, with an attendant mountain of luggage. Stepping off the train dressed for the Russian winter in a thick fur hat, immaculately tailored coat, and gold-topped cane, Joseph Davies glanced around for the first secretary of the embassy, Loy Henderson, who recognized the ambassador’s ‘flashing, probing eyes,’ and noted his fine clothes.”
His residence has been thoroughly remodeled, with a crystal chandelier, insured for $10,000, lording over the ballroom. “In the basement, a Belgian electrical engineer had installed the twenty-five deep freezers required for two box cars of American frozen food shipped ahead to Russia. Steaks, fowl, wild game, and exotic fruit and vegetables were all now on the daily menu, with four hundred quarts of frozen cream specially imported to soothe the ambassador’s troublesome stomach. News of the couple’s ‘desert-island’ food supply was soon leaked to the press, irritating the Soviet censors with its presumption that there was no decent food to be had in Moscow […]”
This, in a country of long lines for food, with innocent Americans among the tortured and killed, and others begging for help, only to be shooed away, to then be arrested, very often, right outside their embassy.
Too busy hunting art bargains everywhere, Davies was oblivious. Tzouliadis quotes him, “As usual, we cannot resist them and have been having somewhat of an orgy again in picking up these interesting souvenirs.” Attending show trials, Davies was convinced of each cowed and tortured defendant’s bizarre confession. From Leningrad harbor, Davies and his heiress wife set sail for the Baltics on their 375-foot yacht, Sea Cloud. On board, Davies watched Hollywood movies with his Soviet secret police minders.
In this sick drama, there are plenty of villains, such as an NKVD who at age 79 recounted quite casually, “I figure, that thirty-seven people were shot dead by me personally, and I sent even more to the camps. I can kill people so that the shot won’t be heard… The secret’s this: I make them open their mouth and I shoot down their throat. I’d only be splashed by warm blood, like eau-de-cologne, and it doesn’t make a sound. That I can do–kill. If I didn’t have seizures, I wouldn’t have taken my pension so soon.”
One of the most repulsive characters in the book is Walter Duranty. Working for the New York Times, his extensive reports on the Soviet Union earned this monster a Pulitzer.
Tzouliadis quotes Duranty on the gulags, “Each concentration camp forms a sort of ‘commune’ where everyone lives comparatively free, not imprisoned, but compelled to work for the good of the community. They are fed and housed gratis and receive pay for their work . . . They are certainly not convicts in the American sense of the word.”
Duranty on the Holodomor that killed millions, “I have made exhaustive inquiries about this alleged famine situation […] And here are the facts: there is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.”
According to Duranty, there was also no famine in the Caucasus, “The use of the word ‘Famine’ in connection with the North Caucasus is a sheer absurdity. There a bumper crop is being harvested as fast as tractors, horses, oxen, men, women, and children can work… There are plump babies in the nurseries or gardens of the collectives… Village markets are flowing with eggs, fruit, poultry, vegetables, milk and butter at prices lower than in Moscow.”
The man simply lied and lied. Tzouliadis, “But Walter Duranty’s private remarks were very different from his published story. To British diplomats in Moscow he admitted ‘that Ukraine has been bled white… It was quite possible that as many as ten million people may have died directly or indirectly from lack of food in the Soviet Union during the past year.’”
Abandoning his mistress and son in Russia, Duranty lived until 73, and is buried in Orlando. His breed lives on, of course. There are many Duranties roaming around.
Tzouliadis, “Many years later, Victor Hammer–the brother of the notorious American businessman Armand–told an investigative reporter that Duranty had reported regularly to the OGPU throughout his period working for The New York Times in Moscow. According to Victor Hammer, Duranty had a weakness for young girls, and Victor’s brother, Armand, had kept him supplied.”
On July 13th, 1956, Paul Robeson had to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Questioned about his long time support for Stalin, Robeson’s response is telling, “Whatever has happened to Stalin, gentlemen, is a question for the Soviet Union and I would not argue with a representative of the people who, in building America wasted sixty to one hundred million lives of my people, black people drawn from Africa on the plantations. You are responsible and your forebears for sixty million to one hundred million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations, and don’t you ask me about anybody, please […] As far as I know about the slave camps, they were Fascist prisoners who had murdered millions of the Jewish people and who would have wiped out millions of the Negro people could they have gotten hold of them. That is all I know about that… You are the non-patriots, and you are the un-Americans and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves… You want to shut up every colored person who wants to fight for the rights of his people.”
Just brand all your enemies as Fascists then. Sounds familiar? Russian POWs were also massacred after they had been repatriated, and even the greatest war heroes weren’t safe.
Tzouliadis describes a Kremlin meeting in 1949, “Stalin wondered if perhaps the leaders of the Leningrad siege should replace him as premier and general secretary. The rest of the Politburo immediately chorused, ‘No, no, Comrade Stalin!’ But when Aleksei Kuznetsov and Nikolai Voznesensky hesitated, Stalin had them arrested. At the end of the show trial known as the ‘Leningrad Affair,’ the former Soviet war heroes were draped in white shrouds and led out of the courtroom to be shot one hour later.”
In a book filled with mass murderers, evil cynics, hypocrites, liars and fools, there are also individuals who managed to remain decent and kind, to their own kind.
Tasked with burying eight bodies unloaded from a prison train, a worker noticed one was still breathing, so he didn’t put this half-dead man underground, for it “did not correspond to Christian traditions.” A second worker, one Mrs. Khorshunov, then nursed him for a week in her own home. Before dying, he managed to tell Mrs. Khorshunov that he was American named Fred, with his last name sounding like “Collins.” With much strain, Fred Collins even managed to draw a picture of a falling airplane, to indicate that he was a pilot, perhaps? After Mrs. Khorshunov and her son, Yuri, buried the American, they tended to his grave for many years.
Tzouliadis, “Decades later, fulfilling his duty to the American prisoner, Yuri Khorshunov sat down to write his letter to [American] investigators: ‘There may be nonsense in my writing to you, since one human life is really nothing for such a great country like yours, though the relatives of that man may still be waiting for some information about him. If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them.’”
*
Germany’s invasion of Poland triggered WWII, we’re told, and though the USSR did the same, the US became its ally. At the end, the Soviets controlled not just Poland, but Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, half of Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Yugoslavia, with the last breaking from Stalin three years later. Comrades in arms, the American and Russian empires divided their loots, split it in half, literally, with millions of subjected Europeans having no voice regarding their fate.
Human lives don’t matter much to “great” nations, for their elites must never lose sight of the big picture. They don’t see humans, only maps, and, of course, profits must be tended to.
Though constantly hounded by the big boys, small, underfed men must try their best to nurture and protect their own identity and heritage, if they don’t want to be deformed, or even erased.
As published at Unz Review, 10/20/20.
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
The Best of Linh Dinh


lewrockwell--2020-10-22--Covid: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Covid: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

In my last article , I explained why the only thing worse than Trump is Biden , and therefore Trump needs to win the election .
Face it .
Both men , in their own ways , are fronting for massive COVID crimes .
Biden hopes to front for even greater tyranny if he can gain the presidency .
To excuse the two of them , on the basis that they ’ re blind to the fake science , doesn ’ t cut it .
They ’ re willing to assault the Constitutional and natural freedoms of every American .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ NO emergency is permitted to go .
Natural disaster , health disaster , political violence , war—there is NO situation that excuses past , present , or future lockdowns .
The miles of fake science that have been launched to explain , justify , and make sense of the “ COVID containment measures ” are a farce ; but beyond that , they ’ re irrelevant—because freedom and liberty are the enduring foundations of life .
No matter what .
They are not subject to “ adjustment.
” They ’ re not “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ circumstances.
” Aloe Arborescens - Sup ... Buy New $ 61.99 ( $ 3.87 / Fl Oz ) Once , this would have been obvious to the majority of Americans .
Now , further pacified , further weakened , the majority are deep in hypnotic trance .
Exchanging freedom for chains is a titanic proposition .
Trump presided over it and did nothing .
Since then , he ’ s refused to confess to the amount of economic devastation that has occurred .
Biden wants to double down and make the slavery more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high visibility has the balls to call what has happened a COUP—call it a coup not once , but over and over , until more people wake up .
In the several versions of the film , Invasion of the Body Snatchers , the characters continue to look the same , but they ’ ve been taken over by an evil force .
They ’ re now robotic .
An updated incarnation of the film could be shot at a large Whole Foods , showing shoppers trudging along aisles pushing their carts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Liberty and freedom have been washed from their minds .
They are now “ products of circumstances.
” They can no longer think for themselves .
I would have a character dressed as Thomas Paine enter the store , unmasked .
He would walk among the shoppers , reciting his immortal words from The Crisis , Number 1 : “ THESE are the times that try men ’ s souls .
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will , in this crisis , shrink from the service of their country ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , deserves the love and thanks of man and woman .
Tyranny , like hell , is not easily conquered ; yet we have this consolation with us , that the harder the conflict , the more glorious the triumph .
What we obtain too cheap , we esteem too lightly : it is dearness only that gives every thing its value .
Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods ; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated… @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clerks who approach him and tell him he must put on a mask .
He would ignore the masked shoppers who give him hostile looks .
He would keep reciting his long-forgotten words , until…gradually the shoppers begin to awake from their induced trance .
One , two , three of them take off their masks .
They BREATHE… And why not have Trump enter the scene ?
He talks out of both sides of his mouth .
He attacks Fauci .
He praises the vaccine .
He hails the rebirth of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dangerous .
He puts on a mask .
He takes it off .
He puts it back on again… Tom Paine approaches him and says , “ When are you going to admit you were the central character in shutting down the American economy ?
When are you going to tell the people how great the economic and human wreckage is ?
” Reduced Glutathione 50 ... Buy New $ 24.94 ( $ 0.14 / Count ) Trump spouts out blame against various persons and governments , but will not take responsibility… He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Biden .
If he comes in here with his troops , they ’ ll shoot you.
” Paine laughs .
“ Dummy , I ’ m a SPIRIT .
Bullets can ’ t affect me .
I patrol the border between your side and mine .
What I say is buried in the hearts of many people on your side .
They turned into robots , but they never agreed completely with the change .
They still yearn for the freedom we won a long time ago .
They still know what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this whole insanity apart .
Stop bullshitting like a real estate operator .
Talk FREEDOM .
Go to the core .
You ’ re the PRESIDENT… ” Trump looks baffled .
“ You mean the freedom to prosper , economically ?
” “ NO , YOU IDIOT .
THE FREEDOM TO BE FREE .
FREE FROM CRIMINAL RESTRAINTS .
DON ’ T YOU KNOW WHY WE FOUNDED THIS NATION ?
” Well , does he ?
Does Trump know ?
If he loses this election , it will be on him .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t go to the core .
His mind and soul stop at building golf courses and re-energizing Kodak so it can manufacture pharmaceuticals .
The Best of Jon Rappoport

In my last article, I explained why the only thing worse than Trump is Biden, and therefore Trump needs to win the election.
Face it. Both men, in their own ways, are fronting for massive COVID crimes. Biden hopes to front for even greater tyranny if he can gain the presidency.
To excuse the two of them, on the basis that they’re blind to the fake science, doesn’t cut it. They’re willing to assault the Constitutional and natural freedoms of every American.
They’re willing to go where NO emergency is permitted to go.
Natural disaster, health disaster, political violence, war—there is NO situation that excuses past, present, or future lockdowns.
The miles of fake science that have been launched to explain, justify, and make sense of the “COVID containment measures” are a farce; but beyond that, they’re irrelevant—because freedom and liberty are the enduring foundations of life. No matter what. They are not subject to “adjustment.” They’re not “relative” qualities, subject to “circumstances.” Aloe Arborescens - Sup... Buy New $61.99 ($3.87 / Fl Oz) (as of 06:54 UTC - Details)
Once, this would have been obvious to the majority of Americans. Now, further pacified, further weakened, the majority are deep in hypnotic trance.
Exchanging freedom for chains is a titanic proposition. Trump presided over it and did nothing. Since then, he’s refused to confess to the amount of economic devastation that has occurred. Biden wants to double down and make the slavery more complete.
No American political leader with high visibility has the balls to call what has happened a COUP—call it a coup not once, but over and over, until more people wake up.
In the several versions of the film, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the characters continue to look the same, but they’ve been taken over by an evil force. They’re now robotic. An updated incarnation of the film could be shot at a large Whole Foods, showing shoppers trudging along aisles pushing their carts, wearing their masks, avoiding eye contact. Liberty and freedom have been washed from their minds.
They are now “products of circumstances.”
They can no longer think for themselves.
I would have a character dressed as Thomas Paine enter the store, unmasked. He would walk among the shoppers, reciting his immortal words from The Crisis, Number 1:
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated…”
He would brush away the store clerks who approach him and tell him he must put on a mask. He would ignore the masked shoppers who give him hostile looks. He would keep reciting his long-forgotten words, until…gradually the shoppers begin to awake from their induced trance.
One, two, three of them take off their masks. They BREATHE…
And why not have Trump enter the scene? He talks out of both sides of his mouth. He attacks Fauci. He praises the vaccine. He hails the rebirth of the economy. He says the virus is dangerous. He puts on a mask. He takes it off. He puts it back on again…
Tom Paine approaches him and says, “When are you going to admit you were the central character in shutting down the American economy? When are you going to tell the people how great the economic and human wreckage is?” Reduced Glutathione 50... Buy New $24.94 ($0.14 / Count) (as of 06:54 UTC - Details)
Trump spouts out blame against various persons and governments, but will not take responsibility…
He says to Paine, “Watch out for Biden. If he comes in here with his troops, they’ll shoot you.”
Paine laughs. “Dummy, I’m a SPIRIT. Bullets can’t affect me. I patrol the border between your side and mine. What I say is buried in the hearts of many people on your side. They turned into robots, but they never agreed completely with the change. They still yearn for the freedom we won a long time ago. They still know what it means. FREEDOM is what rips this whole insanity apart. Stop bullshitting like a real estate operator. Talk FREEDOM. Go to the core. You’re the PRESIDENT…”
Trump looks baffled. “You mean the freedom to prosper, economically?”
“NO, YOU IDIOT. THE FREEDOM TO BE FREE. FREE FROM CRIMINAL RESTRAINTS. DON’T YOU KNOW WHY WE FOUNDED THIS NATION?”
Well, does he? Does Trump know? If he loses this election, it will be on him. He doesn’t know. He can’t go to the core. His mind and soul stop at building golf courses and re-energizing Kodak so it can manufacture pharmaceuticals.
Reprinted with permission from Jon Rappoport’s blog.
The Best of Jon Rappoport


lewrockwell--2020-10-22--A Brief History of Court Packing

A Brief History of Court Packing

Since the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the determination of President Donald Trump to fill her Supreme Court seat before Election Day with the traditionalist Judge Amy Coney Barrett , the concept of court packing has reared its head .
The phrase “ court packing ” is a derogatory reference to legislation that alters the number of seats on the Supreme Court to alter its perceived ideological makeup .
The origins of modern court packing are from the depression era when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to expand the court from nine to 15 by adding a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declined to retire upon reaching his 70th birthday .
FDR offered the plan in the spring of 1937 , shortly after he was inaugurated to his second term .
He had just been reelected in a landslide and was frustrated that much of his legislation had been invalidated by the Supreme Court as beyond the powers of the federal government .
The Freedom Answer Boo ... Napolitano , Andrew P. Best Price : $ 0.10 Buy New $ 3.70 FDR ’ s stated reasoning was that the court had a “ congestion of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he claimed , slow to address the appeals that came before them , and a larger number of justices would make for a more efficient court .
Few believed this subterfuge .
If nine were too slow , then 15 would be slower .
FDR really wanted more pro-New Deal justices who would ratify his radical proposals to centralize , plan and control the economy .
Nevertheless , his court packing was immensely unpopular and the plan never made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee .
But historians have debated whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is why .
Before FDR ’ s plan died , one of the conservative justices , Owen Roberts , had a change of heart on the constitutional scope of the federal government , and he began voting with the court ’ s liberal wing to uphold New Deal legislation against constitutional challenges .
Though the case in which Roberts broke ranks involved a Washington state minimum wage law — which the court upheld 5 to 4 with Roberts joining the liberals — the hook on which Roberts hung his constitutional hat was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the power to regulate commerce among the states .
Prior to the New Deal , congressional power over commerce was generally interpreted as James Madison intended it .
Congress can regulate — that is , keep regular — the movement of goods over intestate borders among merchants and bar the states from favoring their own merchants .
After Roberts ’ change of heart , a majority of the court began to view the commerce power in a wildly expansive way , nowhere justified by the language of the Constitution or its original understanding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ current — view of Congress ’ commerce power is that the Constitution empowers Congress to regulate anything that affects interstate commerce , even private personal economic behavior too minuscule to measure , behavior that is not commercial in nature and behavior wholly within one state .
Lies the Government To ... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price : $ 0.25 Buy New $ 4.46 Roberts ’ shift , which he never justified publicly , was coined “ the switch in time that saved nine.
” FDR could not have known that his court packing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justice as to turn him into a big government liberal .
But it did .
Soon , retirements of justices allowed FDR to fill five vacancies on the court during his 12 years in office , and the landscape of American constitutional law would never be the same .
The number of justices on the court is fixed by legislation because the Constitution is silent on this .
Though FDR ’ s stunt was a misguided effort to treat the court as if it were a super-legislature , it is constitutionally permissible for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justices .
The only time this was done , it was the Republicans who were the scoundrels .
The era was Reconstruction , and the unpopular and impeached-but-acquitted President Andrew Johnson was in the White House .
Fearing that Johnson would fill the court with southern sympathizers , the Radical Republicans in Congress “ unpacked ” the court .
There were two issues that the Republicans feared would bring judicial invalidation of their legislation .
One was Reconstruction and the other was legal tender .
Reconstruction placed the Southern states that had joined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ draconian that congressional leaders feared the court would invalidate it .
Thus they enacted legislation that withdrew the Supreme Court ’ s jurisdiction over Reconstruction and reduced the number of justices by attrition from the fluctuating nine and sometimes 10 down to a permanent and fixed seven .
The latter prevented Johnson from replacing retiring justices unless the court ’ s membership fell to six .
Taking a Stand : Reflec ... Robert Higgs Best Price : $ 2.25 Buy New $ 13.95 The legal tender issue involved Civil War-era legislation that declared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ silver as the Constitution requires , and just printed by the government — to be lawful legal tender .
When the nine-member court invalidated paper money for private debts , the Republicans struck with their unpacking .
It worked .
After Ulysses S. Grant became president , Congress returned the number of justices to nine , Grant filled the vacancies with his buddies , and the new justices joined the former dissenters in another legal tender case that upheld the use of paper money for private debts .
No matter the outcome on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a conservative top-heavy Supreme Court .
If Joe Biden wins the presidency and the Democrats control Congress , some will try to pack the court by expanding its number .
But history teaches that tinkering with the judiciary for political reasons is dangerous to freedom and to longevity in office .
The court is not a legislature .
Its purpose is to restrain — not to unleash — the president , Congress and popular majorities from infringing upon constitutional rights .
Without this anti-democratic structure , who or what will protect us from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Best of Andrew P. Napolitano

Shop all books by Judge Napolitano
Since the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the determination of President Donald Trump to fill her Supreme Court seat before Election Day with the traditionalist Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the concept of court packing has reared its head. The phrase “court packing” is a derogatory reference to legislation that alters the number of seats on the Supreme Court to alter its perceived ideological makeup.
The origins of modern court packing are from the depression era when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to expand the court from nine to 15 by adding a new justice for every sitting justice who declined to retire upon reaching his 70th birthday. FDR offered the plan in the spring of 1937, shortly after he was inaugurated to his second term. He had just been reelected in a landslide and was frustrated that much of his legislation had been invalidated by the Supreme Court as beyond the powers of the federal government.
The Freedom Answer Boo... Napolitano, Andrew P. Best Price: $0.10 Buy New $3.70 (as of 02:50 UTC - Details) FDR’s stated reasoning was that the court had a “congestion of cases” since its nine justices were, he claimed, slow to address the appeals that came before them, and a larger number of justices would make for a more efficient court. Few believed this subterfuge. If nine were too slow, then 15 would be slower.
FDR really wanted more pro-New Deal justices who would ratify his radical proposals to centralize, plan and control the economy. Nevertheless, his court packing was immensely unpopular and the plan never made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But historians have debated whether the proposal actually worked, and here is why. Before FDR’s plan died, one of the conservative justices, Owen Roberts, had a change of heart on the constitutional scope of the federal government, and he began voting with the court’s liberal wing to uphold New Deal legislation against constitutional challenges.
Though the case in which Roberts broke ranks involved a Washington state minimum wage law — which the court upheld 5 to 4 with Roberts joining the liberals — the hook on which Roberts hung his constitutional hat was the Commerce Clause. That clause gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states.
Prior to the New Deal, congressional power over commerce was generally interpreted as James Madison intended it. Congress can regulate — that is, keep regular — the movement of goods over intestate borders among merchants and bar the states from favoring their own merchants.
After Roberts’ change of heart, a majority of the court began to view the commerce power in a wildly expansive way, nowhere justified by the language of the Constitution or its original understanding. The new — and regrettably, current — view of Congress’ commerce power is that the Constitution empowers Congress to regulate anything that affects interstate commerce, even private personal economic behavior too minuscule to measure, behavior that is not commercial in nature and behavior wholly within one state. Lies the Government To... Andrew P. Napolitano Best Price: $0.25 Buy New $4.46 (as of 12:15 UTC - Details)
Roberts’ shift, which he never justified publicly, was coined “the switch in time that saved nine.” FDR could not have known that his court packing stunt would have so terrified a conservative justice as to turn him into a big government liberal. But it did.
Soon, retirements of justices allowed FDR to fill five vacancies on the court during his 12 years in office, and the landscape of American constitutional law would never be the same.
The number of justices on the court is fixed by legislation because the Constitution is silent on this. Though FDR’s stunt was a misguided effort to treat the court as if it were a super-legislature, it is constitutionally permissible for Congress to alter the number of sitting justices.
The only time this was done, it was the Republicans who were the scoundrels. The era was Reconstruction, and the unpopular and impeached-but-acquitted President Andrew Johnson was in the White House.
Fearing that Johnson would fill the court with southern sympathizers, the Radical Republicans in Congress “unpacked” the court.
There were two issues that the Republicans feared would bring judicial invalidation of their legislation. One was Reconstruction and the other was legal tender.
Reconstruction placed the Southern states that had joined the Confederacy under a military occupation so draconian that congressional leaders feared the court would invalidate it. Thus they enacted legislation that withdrew the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over Reconstruction and reduced the number of justices by attrition from the fluctuating nine and sometimes 10 down to a permanent and fixed seven. The latter prevented Johnson from replacing retiring justices unless the court’s membership fell to six. Taking a Stand: Reflec... Robert Higgs Best Price: $2.25 Buy New $13.95 (as of 05:35 UTC - Details)
The legal tender issue involved Civil War-era legislation that declared paper money — unbacked by gold or silver as the Constitution requires, and just printed by the government — to be lawful legal tender. When the nine-member court invalidated paper money for private debts, the Republicans struck with their unpacking.
It worked. After Ulysses S. Grant became president, Congress returned the number of justices to nine, Grant filled the vacancies with his buddies, and the new justices joined the former dissenters in another legal tender case that upheld the use of paper money for private debts.
No matter the outcome on Nov. 3, we will soon have a conservative top-heavy Supreme Court. If Joe Biden wins the presidency and the Democrats control Congress, some will try to pack the court by expanding its number. But history teaches that tinkering with the judiciary for political reasons is dangerous to freedom and to longevity in office.
The court is not a legislature. Its purpose is to restrain — not to unleash — the president, Congress and popular majorities from infringing upon constitutional rights.
Without this anti-democratic structure, who or what will protect us from the tyranny of the majority?
Reprinted with the author’s permission.
The Best of Andrew P. Napolitano


lewrockwell--2020-10-22--About Two Years …

About Two Years …

There ’ s an old joke that runs through hard core libertarian circles that goes something like this .
An overly earnest newbie at a Libertarian Party meeting one night during a lull in a heated discussion of comma placement in a new rule change proposal asks , “ What ’ s the difference between an anarchist and a minarchist ?
” The grizzled party chair looks up from his copy of Rothbard ’ s The Ethics of Liberty and replies , “ About two years.
” And I can tell you that that joke , like all good jokes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
Embracing Minarchism is the toe-dip into the Non-Aggression Principle ( NAP ) .
It ’ s your first tentative step into the scarier world of imagining it without a state .
SparkPod Shower Head - ... Best Price : $ 21.44 ( $ 21.44 / count ) Buy New $ 29.99 ( $ 29.99 / count ) And it ’ s a position that ’ s comforting .
But it is also rife with contradictions .
Those contradictions weigh on a person who is trying to live up to the ideal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truly on an honest journey to find the right path for your own personal behavior , then rigorously applying the NAP to all facets of your life leads you to shedding the precepts of the necessity of the coercive state to shape and hold society together .
Anarchy in the You ‘ Kay ?
Because you begin to see the break points , the fault lines of our society in NAP terms .
For me , I quickly no longer gave credence to the idea that in order for my individual rights to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a human authority with a granted monopoly power on the use of aggressive force , which the NAP itself stands in opposition to .
At the core of all collectivist thinking is this basic tautology that your rights stem from the negotiation of what others define them as .
Only by submitting to a higher human authority over you can you have a hope of retaining any of them , so you need to negotiate them down from the ideal .
Sound complicated ?
That ’ s because it is and it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interpretation is to state I have a right to life .
I have a claim of ownership of myself .
Any abrogation of that claim of ownership and right to it by an aggressor is wrong .
Once you come to that conclusion and are willing to apply it consistently then you can become comfortable with freeing your mind of the need for the state .
But it also comes with responsibility .
How do you defend those rights ?
Will you defend every assault on them no matter how minor ?
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marxist will always throw at you to trip you up… Soft Tape Measureu00a0 ... Buy New $ 3.99 If you don ’ t defend yourself against a minor theft , say a pen or a coffee mug , was your right to property taken from you ?
Do you still have it in practical terms if you can ’ t defend against a murderer ?
The answers are , in order , No and Yes .
Just because the property was taken or the threat made , you always reserve the right to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That you choose not to is… wait for it… … also your right .
That leads to basic economic questions like : Should you always do so ?
When is forgiveness or acceptance better than retribution ?
Is it worth my precious time to chase down a guy who sold me a fake watch rather than chalk it up to experience and go about my other business ?
These are basic questions that form the filter on which to view the world around you and are the basic seeds of the growth from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and blossoming into the flower of Anarchism .
It leads you to conclusions about how to find ways to minimize , not eliminate , coercive forces on your life .
That we live in a world circumscribed by tyrants constantly climbing over each other for the power to tyrannize is irrelevant .
They may in real terms suppress the expression of your right to life but it most certainly doesn ’ t negate it .
You can always choose to say , “ No.
” Notice to this point I haven ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politics .
Because implementing these ideas isn ’ t a system to be imposed .
That , itself , is a violation of the NAP , the idea of imposing Anarchy is a Collectivist perversion of the process .
We ’ re seeing this in the hyper-violent rioting of Antifa and BLM wanting to impose their new system that they call anarchy at the point of a gun and an open-ended wrench .
Anarcho-Capitalism isn ’ t a political system , it is a behavioral model and a filter with which to view @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whose name implies an internal vision of the world we want rather than the world we have .
And that filter is an incredibly powerful tool to analyze the world — especially economics and politics as both lie at the intersection of behavioral dissonances within a given population .
Etekcity Stainless Ste ... Best Price : $ 17.03 Buy New $ 18.51 It is also a personal goal most people share — the best versions of ourselves possible .
Where the differences lie along the political landscape is the extent to which taking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not ours leads to violence , i.e .
the State and before that revolution .
And that leads to the next two-year process , the one of realizing that there is no Utopia where sin is expunged , theft conquered and sociopathy eliminated .
There is only the minimization of these things because people are capable of tremendous generosity and tremendous violence .
All of us .
At all times .
And the real struggle is coming to terms with that fear .
Fear drives Communists to overreach and hubris .
AnCaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limitations .
Only a culture which reinforces this idea of personal responsibility for one ’ s actions rather than glorifying thieves as winners will put us back on the right path rather than the wrong one .
Given where we are right now , that ’ s going to take a heckuva lot more than two years .
The Best of Thomas Luongo

There’s an old joke that runs through hard core libertarian circles that goes something like this.
An overly earnest newbie at a Libertarian Party meeting one night during a lull in a heated discussion of comma placement in a new rule change proposal asks, “What’s the difference between an anarchist and a minarchist?” The grizzled party chair looks up from his copy of Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty and replies, “About two years.”
And I can tell you that that joke, like all good jokes has a nugget of deep truth in it. Embracing Minarchism is the toe-dip into the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). It’s your first tentative step into the scarier world of imagining it without a state. SparkPod Shower Head -... Best Price: $21.44 ($21.44 / count) Buy New $29.99 ($29.99 / count) (as of 07:02 UTC - Details)
And it’s a position that’s comforting. But it is also rife with contradictions. Those contradictions weigh on a person who is trying to live up to the ideal of the NAP.
If you are truly on an honest journey to find the right path for your own personal behavior, then rigorously applying the NAP to all facets of your life leads you to shedding the precepts of the necessity of the coercive state to shape and hold society together.
Anarchy in the You ‘Kay?
Because you begin to see the break points, the fault lines of our society in NAP terms. For me, I quickly no longer gave credence to the idea that in order for my individual rights to express themselves I have to submit to a human authority with a granted monopoly power on the use of aggressive force, which the NAP itself stands in opposition to.
At the core of all collectivist thinking is this basic tautology that your rights stem from the negotiation of what others define them as. Only by submitting to a higher human authority over you can you have a hope of retaining any of them, so you need to negotiate them down from the ideal.
Sound complicated? That’s because it is and it’s also insane.
A far simpler interpretation is to state I have a right to life. I have a claim of ownership of myself. Any abrogation of that claim of ownership and right to it by an aggressor is wrong.
Clear, concise, powerful.
Once you come to that conclusion and are willing to apply it consistently then you can become comfortable with freeing your mind of the need for the state.
But it also comes with responsibility. How do you defend those rights? Will you defend every assault on them no matter how minor?
But here’s better questions, ones Marxist will always throw at you to trip you up… Soft Tape Measureu00a0... Buy New $3.99 (as of 07:02 UTC - Details)
If you don’t defend yourself against a minor theft, say a pen or a coffee mug, was your right to property taken from you? Do you still have it in practical terms if you can’t defend against a murderer?
The answers are, in order, No and Yes. Just because the property was taken or the threat made, you always reserve the right to express the right to defend it.
That you choose not to is… wait for it…
… also your right.
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” NEIL PEART – FREE WILL
That leads to basic economic questions like: Should you always do so? When is forgiveness or acceptance better than retribution?
Is it worth my precious time to chase down a guy who sold me a fake watch rather than chalk it up to experience and go about my other business?
These are basic questions that form the filter on which to view the world around you and are the basic seeds of the growth from being mired in the inconsistencies of Minarchism and blossoming into the flower of Anarchism.
The Right Stuff
It leads you to conclusions about how to find ways to minimize, not eliminate, coercive forces on your life. That we live in a world circumscribed by tyrants constantly climbing over each other for the power to tyrannize is irrelevant. They may in real terms suppress the expression of your right to life but it most certainly doesn’t negate it.
You can always choose to say, “No.”
Notice to this point I haven’t spent one word talking about implementation or politics. Because implementing these ideas isn’t a system to be imposed. That, itself, is a violation of the NAP, the idea of imposing Anarchy is a Collectivist perversion of the process.
We’re seeing this in the hyper-violent rioting of Antifa and BLM wanting to impose their new system that they call anarchy at the point of a gun and an open-ended wrench.
Anarcho-Capitalism isn’t a political system, it is a behavioral model and a filter with which to view the world. It is a philosophy whose name implies an internal vision of the world we want rather than the world we have.
And that filter is an incredibly powerful tool to analyze the world — especially economics and politics as both lie at the intersection of behavioral dissonances within a given population. Etekcity Stainless Ste... Best Price: $17.03 Buy New $18.51 (as of 07:02 UTC - Details)
(I talked with Jay Fratt, The Conservative Hippie, about Anarchism on his podcast over the weekend.)
It is also a personal goal most people share — the best versions of ourselves possible. Where the differences lie along the political landscape is the extent to which taking on the responsibility of fixing problems which are not ours leads to violence, i.e. the State and before that revolution.
And that leads to the next two-year process, the one of realizing that there is no Utopia where sin is expunged, theft conquered and sociopathy eliminated.
There is only the minimization of these things because people are capable of tremendous generosity and tremendous violence. All of us. At all times.
Sometimes simultaneously.
And the real struggle is coming to terms with that fear. Fear drives Communists to overreach and hubris. AnCaps are driven by the acceptance of their limitations.
Only a culture which reinforces this idea of personal responsibility for one’s actions rather than glorifying thieves as winners will put us back on the right path rather than the wrong one.
Given where we are right now, that’s going to take a heckuva lot more than two years.
Reprinted with permission from Gold Goats ‘n Guns.
The Best of Tom Luongo


Insurrection Then Revolution

A popular fantasy among the more edgy conservatives is that one day , the Left will get the civil war they claim they want and then they ’ ll get it good and hard .
In this fantasy , those gun-toting , constitution-loving conservatives will show Lefty why the right to bear arms was enshrined in the Constitution .
It is a popular fantasy on-line , because revenge fantasies are fun and they provide relief for well-founded frustration .
In reality , the great conflagration will never look like the fantasy .
Civil wars are when two sides in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ground and refuse to give into the other side .
The English Civil War , for example , was a fight between those elites who supported the King and those who supported Parliament .
Sure , commoners were in the mix and rose in status , but it was largely a war between two factions within the elite .
The same was true of the American Civil War .
Slavery was the pretext , but it was largely an extension of the English Civil War .
Revolutions , on the other hand , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old elite , because the old system offers no way for the new elite to join the elite .
The French Revolution is often framed as a peasant rebellion , but the Jacobins who led the revolt were educated and capable men , a new elite for a new age .
The Bolshevik Revolution was similar , except there was competition for who would be the new elite .
The communists won , so they got to name the revolution after themselves .
Amazon.com Gift Card i ... Buy New $ 25.00 In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unified as it has ever been .
Look around at the high ground of Imperial life and it is hard to find any dissenters .
The revolt within Washington against Trump is a good example .
Factions that have claimed to be opponents work naturally together to thwart the people ’ s choice .
In fact , genuine dissidents are presented with a shield wall guarding the high ground of the empire , a sign of elite unity that is deliberately intimidating .
That said , no ruling elite is as unified as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , these histrionic demands for unity are a sign they fear a lack of will and unity .
The tech oligarchs censuring a mainstream media site is one of those signs that maybe all is not well on the other side of the walls .
The elite media may be focused on defeating the evil orange man right now , but they see the danger in what is happening .
There are frictions on the other side that could one day be fissures .
No matter how unified a ruling elite may be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perform in order to remain in power .
The reason people allow themselves to be pushed around is the order provided by even the worst rulers ensures they have shelter , food and a predictable amount of safety .
Freedom ain ’ t worth a damn if you can not attain the essentials to sustain your life .
The big talk about preferring liberty to safety is just that , as people always choose safety over freedom , if those are the choices .
When people begin to sense that the invisible bargain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breaking down , that the ruler is not holding up his end of the bargain , that is the beginning of an insurrection .
After all , if the ruler can not provide the basics , like food and safety , what ’ s the point of having a ruler ?
Those rooftop Koreans during the Rodney King riots were the stirrings of insurrection .
The militias guarding property in Kenosha were the flicker of insurrection among the middle-class .
Every ruling elite relies on legitimacy .
The people over whom they rule @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Otherwise , the ruling elite must rely on force and that is the most expensive form of rule , draining both the elite and the subjects from whom they extract that which sustains them .
Rule by force is unsustainable .
It is why the ruling class must maintain its legitimacy .
The crisis we see today is a crisis of legitimacy , where a growing portion of the public questions the legitimacy of the system .
High Potency Vitamin D ... Buy New $ 19.97 ( $ 0.06 / Count ) If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close to that fantasy of those gun-toting , constitution-loving conservatives , it will first start as an insurrection .
Here and there , people will look around and realize the state can not or will not perform its basic functions .
If the cops , for example , refuse to do their job , then people take up arms .
If the state can not run the schools properly , people pull their kids from them .
Individually these acts are trivial , but collectively they change the public consciousness .
It is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we are seeing signs of insurrection .
We see states refusing to abide by federal law .
We see cities in open revolt against the national and state government over policing .
Federal judges are refusing to abide by the rules of the court , over ruling legitimate actions by the President .
This revolt of the elites is more like an insurrection within the elite .
They no longer accept the legitimacy of the system that allows them to be an elite .
This is the soil of revolution .
On the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seeing a breakdown of that invisible bargain between themselves and their rulers .
Basic things like road maintenance , policing and public order are not being done .
On the other hand , you have members of the elite who no longer accept the authority of the system in which they function , causing that system to further breakdown .
American is a machine that is breaking down and no one wants to repair it .
There is a small caveat to that .
There is a core of heritage Americans who do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they are now treated as an enemy by the elites .
The civic nationalists calling for reform are treated as subversives , enemies of the state , by the people controlling the apparatus of the state .
Increasingly , the people are viewing them as fools for thinking there is any way back to the old normal .
The civic nationalist is quickly becoming the royalist of this age .
Vegan Superfood Daily ... Buy New $ 39.95 ( $ 7.55 / Ounce ) Not all insurrections result in revolution .
Insurrections are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ authority from a unified and confident ruling class or through the careful reform of that ruling elite in response to the insurrection .
This is the crossroads in which America now stands .
Will the elite unify and crack down on the people or will they begin the process of imposing long overdue reforms on themselves ?
Or , has that ship already sailed and we headed for insurrection then a revolution ?
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Up until that point , I had never heard of chaga , but I gave a try and it is very good .
It is like a tea , but it has a milder flavor .
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It is a great summer beverage .
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A popular fantasy among the more edgy conservatives is that one day, the Left will get the civil war they claim they want and then they’ll get it good and hard. In this fantasy, those gun-toting, constitution-loving conservatives will show Lefty why the right to bear arms was enshrined in the Constitution. It is a popular fantasy on-line, because revenge fantasies are fun and they provide relief for well-founded frustration. In reality, the great conflagration will never look like the fantasy.
Civil wars are when two sides in the ruling class cannot find a middle ground and refuse to give into the other side. The English Civil War, for example, was a fight between those elites who supported the King and those who supported Parliament. Sure, commoners were in the mix and rose in status, but it was largely a war between two factions within the elite. The same was true of the American Civil War. Slavery was the pretext, but it was largely an extension of the English Civil War.
Revolutions, on the other hand, are when a new elite overthrows the old elite, because the old system offers no way for the new elite to join the elite. The French Revolution is often framed as a peasant rebellion, but the Jacobins who led the revolt were educated and capable men, a new elite for a new age. The Bolshevik Revolution was similar, except there was competition for who would be the new elite. The communists won, so they got to name the revolution after themselves. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $25.00 (as of 06:10 UTC - Details)
In modern America the ruling class is as unified as it has ever been. Look around at the high ground of Imperial life and it is hard to find any dissenters. The revolt within Washington against Trump is a good example. Factions that have claimed to be opponents work naturally together to thwart the people’s choice. In fact, genuine dissidents are presented with a shield wall guarding the high ground of the empire, a sign of elite unity that is deliberately intimidating.
That said, no ruling elite is as unified as what is being presented. In fact, these histrionic demands for unity are a sign they fear a lack of will and unity. The tech oligarchs censuring a mainstream media site is one of those signs that maybe all is not well on the other side of the walls. The elite media may be focused on defeating the evil orange man right now, but they see the danger in what is happening. There are frictions on the other side that could one day be fissures.
No matter how unified a ruling elite may be, they have certain duties they must perform in order to remain in power. The reason people allow themselves to be pushed around is the order provided by even the worst rulers ensures they have shelter, food and a predictable amount of safety. Freedom ain’t worth a damn if you cannot attain the essentials to sustain your life. The big talk about preferring liberty to safety is just that, as people always choose safety over freedom, if those are the choices.
When people begin to sense that the invisible bargain between the people and the ruler is breaking down, that the ruler is not holding up his end of the bargain, that is the beginning of an insurrection. After all, if the ruler cannot provide the basics, like food and safety, what’s the point of having a ruler? Those rooftop Koreans during the Rodney King riots were the stirrings of insurrection. The militias guarding property in Kenosha were the flicker of insurrection among the middle-class.
Every ruling elite relies on legitimacy. The people over whom they rule must accept them as the sovereign. Otherwise, the ruling elite must rely on force and that is the most expensive form of rule, draining both the elite and the subjects from whom they extract that which sustains them. Rule by force is unsustainable. It is why the ruling class must maintain its legitimacy. The crisis we see today is a crisis of legitimacy, where a growing portion of the public questions the legitimacy of the system. High Potency Vitamin D... Buy New $19.97 ($0.06 / Count) (as of 11:23 UTC - Details)
If we are ever to get to anything close to that fantasy of those gun-toting, constitution-loving conservatives, it will first start as an insurrection. Here and there, people will look around and realize the state cannot or will not perform its basic functions. If the cops, for example, refuse to do their job, then people take up arms. If the state cannot run the schools properly, people pull their kids from them. Individually these acts are trivial, but collectively they change the public consciousness.
It is not just among the Dirt People that we are seeing signs of insurrection. We see states refusing to abide by federal law. We see cities in open revolt against the national and state government over policing. Federal judges are refusing to abide by the rules of the court, over ruling legitimate actions by the President. This revolt of the elites is more like an insurrection within the elite. They no longer accept the legitimacy of the system that allows them to be an elite.
This is the soil of revolution. On the one hand, you have the people seeing a breakdown of that invisible bargain between themselves and their rulers. Basic things like road maintenance, policing and public order are not being done. On the other hand, you have members of the elite who no longer accept the authority of the system in which they function, causing that system to further breakdown. American is a machine that is breaking down and no one wants to repair it.
There is a small caveat to that. There is a core of heritage Americans who do want to fix the machine, but they are now treated as an enemy by the elites. The civic nationalists calling for reform are treated as subversives, enemies of the state, by the people controlling the apparatus of the state. Increasingly, the people are viewing them as fools for thinking there is any way back to the old normal. The civic nationalist is quickly becoming the royalist of this age.
Vegan Superfood Daily ... Buy New $39.95 ($7.55 / Ounce) (as of 04:42 UTC - Details) Not all insurrections result in revolution. Insurrections are quelled either by the firm smack of authority from a unified and confident ruling class or through the careful reform of that ruling elite in response to the insurrection. This is the crossroads in which America now stands. Will the elite unify and crack down on the people or will they begin the process of imposing long overdue reforms on themselves? Or, has that ship already sailed and we headed for insurrection then a revolution?
Promotions: The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is like a tea, but it has a milder flavor. It’s hot here in Lagos, so I’ve been drinking it cold. It is a great summer beverage.
Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb. Just email them directly to book at [email protected].
Originally published on The Z-Man Blog.