http://www.liveleak.com/browse?channel_token=b58_1302938921 Items in channel 'd3dsh33p' Sun, 19 May 2013 02:27:55 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?channel_token=b58_1302938921 Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:46:34 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5da_1245300259 d3dsh33p Published on 06-17-2009 Source: Food Freedom monsanto-no-foodA new food safety bill is on the fast track in Congress-HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The bill needs to be stopped. HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency. The bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse. HR 2749 does not address underlying causes of food safety problems such as industrial agriculture practices and the consolidation of our food supply. The industrial food system and food imports are badly in need of effective regulation, but the bill does not specifically direct regulation or resources to these areas. To read a detailed account of the bill, go to: http://www.ftcldf.org/news/news-15june2009.htm (Read the section on tracing. That is NAIS, isn't it? - highly disguised yet triggered by the word "trace." ) Alarming Provisions: Some of the more alarming provisions in the bill are: * HR 2749 would impose an annual registration fee of $500 on any "facility" that holds, processes, or manufactures food. Although "farms" are exempt, the agency has defined "farm" narrowly. And people making foods such as lacto-fermented vegetables, cheeses, or breads would be required to register and pay the fee, which could drive beginning and small producers out of business during difficult economic times. * HR 2749 would empower FDA to regulate how crops are raised and harvested. It puts the federal government right on the farm, dictating to our farmers. * HR 2749 would give FDA the power to order a quarantine of a geographic area, including "prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area." Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination. The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area. * HR 2749 would empower FDA to make random warrantless searches of the business records of small farmers and local food producers, without any evidence whatsoever that there has been a violation. Even farmers selling direct to consumers would have to provide the federal government with records on where they buy supplies, how they raise their crops, and a list of customers. * HR 2749 charges the Secretary of Health and Human Services with establishing a tracing system for food. Each "person who produces, manufactures, processes, packs, transports, or holds such food" would have to "maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food," and "establish and maintain a system for tracing the food that is interoperable with the systems established and maintained by other such persons." The bill does not explain how far the traceback will extend or how it will be done for multi-ingredient foods. With all these ambiguities, it's far from clear how much it will cost either the farmers or the taxpayers. * HR 2749 creates severe criminal and civil penalties, including prison terms of up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $100,000 for each violation for individuals. If it was not clear before how frightening these bills were, this small section of provisions, should make their actual fascism clear now. It goes way beyond "food safety" to absolute control over farms, animals, food, and us, including our movements and access to food at all. Action to Take: Contact your Representative now! Ask to speak with the staffer who handles food issues. Tell them you are opposed to the bill. Some points to make in telling your Representative why you oppose HR 2749 include: 1. The bill imposes burdensome requirements while not specifically targeting the industrial food system and food imports, where the real food safety problems lie. 2. Small farms and local food processors are part of the solution to food safety; lessening the regulatory burden on them will improve food safety. 3. The bill gives FDA much more power than it has had in the past while making the agency less accountable for its actions. HR 2749 needs to be defeated!! Please take action NOW. To contact your Representative, use the finder tool at http://www.Congress.org or send a message through the petition system (the petition will be on our website this evening) athttp://www.ftcldf.org/petitions_new.htm. Or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. To check the status of HR 2749, go to http://www.Thomas.gov and type "HR 2749'' in the bill search field. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5da_1245300259 d3dsh33p HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply food, the stuff you eat Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:33:21 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d59_1244819864 d3dsh33p Source: Raw Story After months of activism and lobbying by Congressman Ron Paul's supporters, House Resolution 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, will move out of committee to be debated by the full House of Representatives. In a show of cross-party unity, Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich became the bill's 218th co-sponsor, pushing it over the threshold for debate in Congress. The bill, which achieved its 222nd co-sponsorship on Thursday, has been in consideration by the House Financial Services Committee since Feb. 26. Congressman Kucinich, along with Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), announced Tuesday that the House Financial Services Committee will subpoena the Federal Reserve to ascertain the details of the Fed's agreements with Bank of America in the institution's acquisition of Merrill Lynch. "The full committee and Domestic Policy Subcommittee, under the leadership of Chairman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), have been investigating the circumstances surrounding the federal government's bailout of the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch transaction," Kucinich's office noted in a Tuesday release. "Specific documents subpoenaed include emails, notes of conversations and other documents." While the bill enjoys some Democratic supporters, the vast majority of H.R. 1207 co-sponsors are Republican. "The tremendous grass-roots and bipartisan support in Congress for HR 1207 is an indicator of how mainstream America is fed up with Fed secrecy," said Congressman Paul in a Thursday media advisory. "I look forward to this issue receiving greater public exposure." Though the move from committee to full House is sure to hearten supporters, the Senate also has pending before it a bill which would have originally given Congress greater oversight of the Federal Reserve. But in its present form, notes Huffington Post writer Ryan Grim, a recent, every-so-slight modification essentially 'neutered' the bill. "Thanks to an overlooked document posted on the website of Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, voters can virtually watch the water being dumped into the brew that Grassley had hoped to force the Fed to drink," he wrote. "On page five of Grassley's amendment, he intends to give the Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office power to audit "any action taken by the Board under...the third undesignated paragraph of section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act" - which would be almost everything that it has done on an emergency basis to address the financial crisis, encompassing its massive expansion of opaque buying and lending." Grim adds: "Handwritten into the margins, however, is the amendment that watered it down: 'with respect to a single and specific partnership or corporation.' With that qualification, the Senate severely limited the scope of the oversight." Congressman Paul, in defense of his proposal to audit the bank which controls America's currency, argues not just for transparency. He wants to close it down. "Detractors have argued that the Fed must remain immune from the political process, and that that more congressional oversight would distort their very important decisions," Paul wrote in an editorial titled, 'Audit the Fed, Then End It!' "On the contrary, the Federal Reserve is already heavily entrenched in the political process, as the Fed chairman is a political appointee. High-level officials routinely make the rounds between positions at the Fed, member banks, Treasury and back again, taking care of friends and each other along the way." He continued: "As far as the foolishness of placing complex monetary policy decisions in the hands of politicians - I couldn't agree more. No politician or central banker, no matter how brilliant, is smart enough to know more than the market itself. The failure of central economic planning has been witnessed over and over. It is frankly beyond me why we ever agreed to try it again. "To understand how unwise it is to have the Federal Reserve, one must first understand the magnitude of the privileges they have. They have been given the power to create money, by the trillions, and to give it to their friends, under any terms they wish, with little or no meaningful oversight or accountability. Thus the loudest arguments against greater transparency are likely to come from those friends, and understandably so." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d59_1244819864 d3dsh33p US House to debate Ron Paul's Audit The Fed Bill ron paul, audit the fed, criminals, killers, central banking, meltdown, prison Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:06:10 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ff2_1244397270 d3dsh33p by Peter Schiff source: lewrockwell.com This week, Team Obama took their dog and pony show on the road. Treasury Secretary Geithner went to China, Fed Chairman Bernanke to Capitol Hill, and the President himself began a Mideast tour in Saudi Arabia. This full-court press is not coincidental, and comes just as the federal government has begun unloading trillions of dollars in new Treasury obligations. The coordinated charm offensive is meant to assure the world-at-large that the United States can repay these obligations without destroying the dollar. Given the renewed weakness in the dollar and the recent expressions of concern from China, our largest creditor, about the safety of its current holdings, this is no easy sell. Not only must our leaders convince holders of our debt not to sell what they already own, but to back up the truck and buy a whole lot more. The hope is that a dream team consisting of a charismatic politician, a skilled Wall Street banker with longstanding ties to China, and a respected Fed Chairman, can close the deal. However, no matter how slick the sales pitch, no amount of lipstick can dress up this pig. The most obvious fear the trio must address is that oversized deficits will persist indefinitely. Reading from a carefully scripted rebuttal book, all three proclaim that as soon as the stimulus revives our economy, the government will take all necessary steps to rein in the deficits that result. Bernanke's testimony showcases this rhetorical shift. The Fed Chairman claimed that catastrophe has been averted and that the recession is nearly over. As a result, he advised Congress to now focus on debt management. How he expects them to do that was left unexamined. Setting aside the fact that the recession is far from over and that the stimulus will actually weaken the economy in the long run, Bernanke's words were less a practical guide to Congress than a bromide for our foreign creditors. Meanwhile, Obama carefully peppers his speeches with calls for Americans to live within their means, to save more and spend less, to produce more and consume less. But nothing in the government's current fiscal or monetary policy will encourage such behavior. In fact, the objective of economic stimulus is to prevent such changes from taking place! The laughter of Chinese students that greeted Secretary Geithner at Peking University shows how ridiculous this spiel sounds overseas. Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of the current Administration are deafening. Multi-trillion dollar deficits, bailouts, nationalizations, quantitative easing, and grandiose plans for government-provided healthcare, education, and alternative energy, render all their claims of future prudence meaningless. If our leaders will not make tough choices now, why should anyone believe they will do so later when those choices will be even harder to make? Of course, it's not just major holders, like China and Saudi Arabia, that need to be convinced. Since the largest holders are already in so deep, they have the greatest short-term incentive to play ball. While throwing good money after bad is certainly a lousy investment strategy, it is politically expedient as it delays the need to officially acknowledge losses. The spin is designed to keep all the smaller, more nimble holders from dumping their Treasuries. The major holders can publicly pledge their commitment to Treasuries, while they privately planning their exit strategies, as long as they feel that the smaller holders won't spook the market by front-running their trades. However, once the psychology turns, there is no way to stop the rush for the exits. Remember how quickly the secondary market for subprime mortgages collapsed? One day, investors were lining up to buy; the next day, the stuff couldn't be given away. Make no mistake about it, we are issuing subprime paper and no amount of political spin can alter that reality. Bogus credit ratings aside, I think the world already knows this and it's just a matter of time before someone admits it. In the meantime, by continuing to lend, our creditors merely supply us the shovels to dig ourselves into an even deeper economic hole. Their credit enables our government to grow when it needs to shrink, finances bailouts of companies that should be allowed to fail, and enables a nation that should be saving and producing to continue borrowing and spending. As a result, the more money the world loans us, the less capable we are of paying it back. I really wish the world would stop doing us favors, as neither party can afford the consequences. For an timely example, just look at California. With an unmanageable $20 billion deficit, California recently asked Washington for a bailout. With none immediately forthcoming, California was forced to make real and needed budget cuts. The hard choices, which will benefit California in the long run, would not have been made if federal funds had been committed. We all should be so lucky. June 6, 2009 Peter Schiff is president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets and Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse. Copyright (c) 2009 Euro Pacific Capital http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ff2_1244397270 d3dsh33p The Charm Offensive peter schiff, economy, hyperinflation, crooks, liars, debt, fiat currency, lies, predictions, collapse, crash, depression, soup lines Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:51:46 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f74_1226202706 d3dsh33p I thought this was an interesting read, even more if you keep up with ammo supplies, and gun sales. THE NEXT CIVIL WAR FOR HISTORIC AMERICA: ARE YOU MY ENEMY? By Greg Evensen October 31, 2008 NewsWithViews.com After the last week of market disasters and scenes of mobs clamoring for just a glimpse of Barack Hussein Obama, I had all of these thoughts fresh in my mind as I ended my radio show and finally fell asleep last Saturday. My last conscious thoughts were of the dark clouds coming ashore in America and what our response to martial law, shortages, imprisoned patriots, and riots would be...... I seemed to be present as military leaders exclaimed during heated campaigns, over the great map of America, "the battle lines are becoming clear." I saw riflemen on the field of combat as they whispered to each other at four a.m., "I can smell 'em coming." The meaning was the same. All hell was about to break out. Indeed my fellow patriots, constitutionalists, and true citizens of the failing Republic, HELL IS staring you in the eyeballs. As much as it has truly pained me to the core, I have come to the irreconcilable fact that on Election Day, the line will be drawn. We will no longer argue amicably about politics or the latest imbecilic actions occurring in Washington, our statehouses, or in court rooms. We are considering for the first time in our lives, the unthinkable. That is, my neighbor, my associates in the office, my cousin, or my fellow citizen has become my potential enemy. They have betrayed me and what is left of my grandfather's country. I am faced with the certain realization that no matter how I may try to sugar coat it, this time -- those who voted or supported the socialist left, the democrats, the liberals, the "elitists" in the universities and business, the apostate "liberation theology" or do nothing church, and politics everywhere--are my enemy. It can be stated in no other terms. That's a fact, Jack. To all those who have supported the constant killing of the unborn, entitlements for those who don't deserve them, for assisting undocumented illegals, to corrupted politicians, sanctuary cities, to USDA agents forcing the implantation of chips into the livestock herds of America, to those pushing social security numbers and locator chips on newborns, to thieves who forced an unconstitutional income tax on "sovereign" American workers, for the loss of privacy, the restraint of second amendment natural rights, to BATFE master search and arrest warrants, to SWAT teams and Taser Thugs in every hamlet in the land, to all of the homosexual rights fanatics and bullies who use their perverted lifestyles to intimidate my grandchildren in school and in the parks, to drug dealers who employ minority kids in Obama's south Chicago neighborhoods, and the young men and women in our military who are now mercenaries trained to rove our streets when the first shots are fired and produce body counts similar to the ones in Iraq, you have become my potential enemy. The despicable power mad scurrilous maggots who have created this mess deserve a hole in hell deeper than the rest. They have already destroyed my family's national ideals, my community's cohesion, and our collective futures. They have aided and abetted the national calamity that has unfolded during the past seven weeks. The banks and investment houses, the stock market and derivatives, have all waltzed us off the pier into a thousand feet of cold dark water from which there is no return. The bankers, still standing safely on the wharf, have begged us in the water to throw them our lifejackets so that we can drown while they offer to sell us back the life vests we already had. In the meantime they ordered lobster while we dined on saltwater. Is this absurd picture, clear and painful enough? In no small measure this IS the America we inhabit at this moment. While I do not know at this time who will be elected, I suspect it may well be Barack Hussein Obama. If that is the case, then my opening premise is correct. Those of you who have anointed this socialist, Muslim sympathizing, gun rights hating, Mexican illegals embracing, abortion loving charmer as POTUS, you are not only the most stupid generation of Americans who have ever lived, you are the most dangerous. You have single-handedly embraced your own destruction. For including me in that, I detest your actions and see you as my enemy. What else can I think? Advertisement Am I picking a fight? Pretty much. Might as well, one's coming down the street anyway. You have been warned. You have been told of the consequences of your actions. McCain is not the answer, no matter how "appealing" Sarah Palin might appear. Chuck Baldwin is the only candidate that deserves my vote. Chuck can and will do the job and we can thank God Almighty that he is in the running. Vote what is right, not what you think is your only choice. Baldwin's Constitutional Party is the only truly American party that is left. All the others are wasted losers and nut jobs. American patriots you need to decide what your battle plans are. You can not wait any longer. Are you stored up? Are you prayed up? Have you stayed up figuring it all out? Have you decided that the time has come for you to take that same principled stand that your founders took to establish this FREE nation in the first place? Have you decided who your true enemies are? Are you tired of the bankers running it, ruining it and then demanding we pay up for their greed? Are you sick over this nation finalizing its socialistic stance nationalizing the infrastructure of the county and Obama as an open socialist/communist/radical presidential candidate? Will you resist the "state's" efforts to take you in and deprive you of your freedoms? Will you try to work with patriotic police officers and American armed forces that will fight with you? Will you stand firm when they shut off your supplies? Will you resist in the cold and in the dark? Will you go all the way to a constitutional victory? Can you dress your own wounds? Can you jog a half mile? Will you be able to live without commonplace things you have grown accustomed to having any time you wanted them? Minutemen and the militia were responsible for their own arms, ammunition and supplies. Can you muster with others and provide the essentials? Can you carry all that you need for two to three days at a time? Can you sleep with your back to a tree on cold, wet ground? Can you be still for an hour or two just watching and listening? How will you communicate with your fellow patriots-safely? When the bad guys start shooting, what will you do? Will you give away your position by firing randomly to "scare" them off? Will you remain defensive and not set yourself up for being killed? Will you learn how to move with stealth? Can you disarm someone and take them as a prisoner? What then? Have you organized with others to defend what is yours and theirs? Can you shoot and then seek good cover so you can survive another shot? Do you have a back-up retreat line and then another so that you can get out when you have to? Do you take your wounded with you? How? It's not like the movies. When martial law is declared, can you and will you do these things or will you be rounded up by the hundreds of thousands each day? Many will resist for about as long as it took you to eat lunch. This is the new reality, friends. It may soon be your own personal reality as well. Ultimately, the bad guys are counting on you being weak, uncommitted, and afraid. They want you to believe that their superiority in initial numbers, training and equipment will take you out in minutes. Let me tell you something confidential. American police officers are used to overwhelming criminal groups of one, two, three, or four. Not twenty, thirty, fifty or one hundred determined well armed citizens who are otherwise first class community stand-outs. A whole department of twenty-five officers would not stand a chance against one hundred solid minutemen. I do not want it to come to that, but those are real scenarios. Muster five hundred or a thousand and an entire state police department is going to need regular army troops with air assault assets to have a chance. AND THEY KNOW IT! Multiply patriot numbers 1000 times that and the good guys win! Then we rebuild.........at least that is where I saw it going. Foreign troops? So what? They understand determined resistance and the costs involved for their side as well. You'll have Green Berets fighting with you if that happens. Where the good guys lose, is when they don't organize, think, and carry out precision guided strategies. Guerilla warfare is well planned and executed. About the time I imagined a real rout of these traitorous snakes, I realized my twilight sleep was bringing me back to the real world. I had a strange mix of apprehension, relief, excitement and dread all in the same moment. The worst feeling though, was of the great loss of potential that this nation held for so many decades. I realized what we had done to the efforts of so many Americans who fought and died believing they were doing it for an America that was true to its heritage. I looked out my window to see peace and solitude---for the moment. My day long prayer was that it will remain peaceful, but I fear that we are--in the words of those seasoned command officers--seeing the battle lines being drawn very clearly, now. And like that entrenched rifleman I, too, "can smell 'em coming." Sure am glad it was all---------------------------just a dream. (c) 2008 Greg Evensen - All Rights Reserved E-mail This Page Sign Up For Free E-Mail Alerts E-Mails are used strictly for NWVs alerts, not for sale Greg Evensen is an award winning former Kansas State Trooper and Kansas Marshal. He speaks across the nation for Patriot groups and is available to come to your area as well. Call 906-367-0505 or e-mail him at greg@theheartlandusa.com. Greg's weekly radio show, "Voices from the Heartland" is heard on the Republic Broadcasting Network each Saturday from 12 noon to 2:00 pm Central time. Download the exciting "Power Pad" from Greg's web-site, http://www.theheartlandusa.com. Web-cam e-mail is available at "Power Pad" as well. This is a FREE download. If the internet goes dark, this massive program will keep your children home-schooled. There are full copies of the Bible and many other features designed for your use. Join the tens of thousands who have already placed the "Power Pad" on their desktop. It is essential to do this and it's FREE!! God bless you, each one! Website: TheHeartLandUSA E-Mail: greg@theheartlandusa.com http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f74_1226202706 d3dsh33p THE NEXT CIVIL WAR FOR HISTORIC AMERICA: ARE YOU MY ENEMY? THE, NEXT, CIVIL, WAR, FOR, HISTORIC, AMERICA:, ARE, YOU, MY, ENEMY? Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:49:26 -0500 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2d8_1225734566 d3dsh33p by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. This talk was delivered at the Mises Institute's Supporters Summit, November 1, 2008, Auburn, Alabama. I originally conceived of this talk - a case for abolishing the central bank - as an applied update to my 1995 lecture at the Heritage Foundation on "Why Austrian Economics Matters." That's because so many of the policy ideas suggested within the Austrian framework can be subsumed under the need to abolish the central bank. The Austrian school has been battling the central bank since 1913 and before. Right now, the writings of our tradition are more prominent than ever before, thanks to our great predecessors, our faculty, our students, our donors, our publishing programs, our electronic media, and the desperate search on the part of people all over the world for an explanation of the current crisis, and a new way out. Never have the ideas of the Austrian tradition reached such heights as in recent weeks. I'm pleased to report that the Mises Institute, after 26 years of preparation, was ready in every way. We have economists, historians, philosophers, and many others working at the university level all over the country and the world who have been trained in our programs, such as the Mises University, the Rothbard Graduate Seminar, and the Summer Graduate Fellowships. They were ready to provide answers in a classroom setting and for the media. The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and the Journal of Libertarian Studies have helped build the foundation, as have our Austrian Scholars Conference. Books such as Rothbard's America's Great Depression and The Panic of 1819, Hayek's Prices and Production, and Mises's Causes of the Economic Crisis, among 300 other titles, have been flying out of our warehouse. We've issued new books on this topic, including de Soto's Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles. H"ulsmann's Ethics of Money Production couldn't have come out at a better time. Nor could our new edition of Rothbard's Mystery of Banking. Our online bookstore has been the world's source for information for scholars and citizens, just as our website as been the source for news, data, and analysis, with thousands of hours of video and audio that address the topic at hand. Our offices have stayed constantly busy. I would say that we have all been taxed as never before, but I think we should reserve that word for involuntary labor, not work we glory in. And the world press has taken notice as never before. Today's events are similar to the crash of 1929, but there is a difference this time: the ideas of our tradition are in circulation. The Mises Institute has been consistently pushing this message since our founding in 1982. Our first conference in 1983 was on the gold standard. A book on the topic soon followed. It has not been a fashionable subject, and we endured many years of criticism and even attacks because we kept focusing on the dangers of the Fed and fiat money. Even as far back as the late 1980s, we have been editorializing against the federal priority of giving all living things a home to own. There is an economic and moral difference between legitimate ownership that comes from deferred consumption, and premature ownership that is subsidized by the monetary system. I report on this not so that we can say "We told you so," but rather to underscore the need to stick to principle, depart from the crowd, avoid the fashion, and adhere to the truth no matter what. This is what Mises taught us, and if he had done nothing more than be his era's most tough-minded resister to collectivism of all types, it would be enough to earn him an institute founded in his name. In some ways, it's tragic that it takes a crisis on this scale to cause this level of focus on our work. We all wish that that the drive for truth alone would turn attention to what we do. But the scarcity of time dictates that people tend to learn on a need-to-know basis. For that reason, Google trends records a massive increase in searches for Austrian economics, with the leading city for most such searches being Washington, DC, but extending to all areas of the world. The Google news archives on searches for Mises show more mentions this year than any year since records have been kept. Of course, the Austrian school has so much more to offer than a theory of the boom-bust cycle. It has value theory, property theory, price theory, a compelling logic for understanding the entire microeconomic foundation of the science, a methodological case to make for deductive theory, production and capital theory, a case for the origin and function of interest, as well as contributions to trade theory, industrial organization and antitrust, a vast historiography that turns the mainstream on its head, a huge and innovative critique of war and of interventionist and socialistic states - as well as a passion for liberty as the foundation of social development. As I said in the earlier speech on why Austrian economic matters, we are not merely talking about a school that has contributed one or two ideas, but an entirely different way of thinking about the meaning and applications of economics and a wholly different conception of the social order. Had progress in economic thought not been interrupted by Keynesian theory and the rise of positivism in the social sciences, we would not even be speaking of the Austrian school. Misesian theory would be economics proper. For this reason, we can hope that if people get interested in the Austrian theory of the business cycle, this will eventually turn to deeper study and intellectual transformation. What starts as a narrow interest changes to a broad interest. We know that this happens often, and it is the stuff of which intellectual revolutions are made. For now, what interests people is the Austrian account of the bust. And the Austrian account is the only compelling one in circulation. In fact, as compared with the past, parts of the Misesian-Rothbardian view of the cycle have fully entered the mainstream, with just about everyone agreeing that the current bust originated in a bubble fueled by easy money. That is a message that our forbearers never entirely made stick. In the 1930s, they struggled for a hearing in ways that we do not. I'm almost in a shock to say it , but these days, the idea that the Fed should be abolished is no longer greeted with catcalls. No longer is the Fed seen as the savior of mankind. Indeed, we can sum up the case for abolishing the central bank rather quickly. Abolishing the Fed would put a huge brake on the planning state. Without the ability to expand the money supply at will, the federal government would become about as threatening as state or local government. That is to say, the federal government would still be an intolerable imposition on life, liberty, and property. But we wouldn't be worrying about hyperinflation, large scale bubbles in specific sectors, crazy business cycles, trillion-dollar bailouts, controls that reach into every nook and cranny of our lives, a cradle to grave welfare state, or a global empire that invades any and every country at will, and makes America the enemy to whole regions of the world. That's only the beginning of what the end of the Fed would mean. It would dramatically change the political culture in this country. Bureaucracies would tumble. Trade would stabilize. The investment-risk calculus would accord with the free market. The left could no longer live out its pipe dreams of socialist utopia at our expense. The right would have to give up its wacky notion of a world police state. The power ambitions of whole sectors of society would be scaled back. The state is always and everywhere a danger, even when it has no monopoly on money and no printing press that can create money tickets at will. But a state with the ability to make its own money is a grave and relentless threat to prosperity and freedom. It leaves the future entirely to the discretion of the money managers. Every day we live under the threat that the US could be the next Weimar Republic or even another Zimbabwe. All that stands between us and that day is the wisdom and prudence of the Fed. And we've seen in recent days just how much those character traits matter when the crisis hits. We've learned that nothing counts to these people but the short-term well-being of themselves and their friends. They will gladly give up our future for their immediate satisfaction. We've learned that Congress - with the sole and heroic exception of Ron Paul - is no help. It too was bought off by newly printed money - just as if the local counterfeiter agreed to cut the city council in on the deal. Many of us have wondered whether or not the government and its central bank were capable of repeating such historic calamities as wage and price controls or total monetary destruction. But now we see that there are no institutionalized limits to the level of depredations they are willing to commit. But what is lacking today as versus the past is a theoretical rationale. Time was when the inflationists could rely on the promises of Keynesianism to turn stones into bread. Few today believe that is possible. You can detect the absence of sound theory in the terms used to debate the policy response. On the one hand, everyone seems to agree that reckless lending is the source of the problem. On the other hand, they are proposing more reckless lending as the solution to the problem. It is as Hayek said: proposing to cure a poisoning with more poison. Does anyone really believe that bailing out the system is the answer? Perhaps a few weeks ago, there were still some policymakers who believed that. But when the billions and trillions have failed to do anything but prop up zombie companies, it becomes clear that these bailouts will not have and cannot have any positive macroeconomic effects. Governments can pretend to be effective in a host of ways. They can ban products for "our own good." They can march around overseas and claim to be killing bad guys. They can say they are protecting you from poverty at both ends of life. But one thing that government cannot do, and very obviously cannot do, is stop prices that want to fall from falling, all else remaining equal. A government that wages war on the price system is a government itching to lose a fight. Stabilization policy is a war on human volition. Think of the recent efforts to inflate the money supply. The Fed is building up reserves as never before. They are making these available to banks at unprecedented levels. Meanwhile, the banks are playing it safe and waiting to see what is and is not profitable. This is roughly what happened in 1930 as well. The central bank tried to inflate through the credit markets, but ultimately it bumped up against the unwillingness of people to undertake the risk. So it is today. The critical mechanism that makes it possible for the Fed to do what it wants to do is missing. Short of actually putting everyone in a FEMA camp and forcing them to borrow, lend, and spend, there is very little that the Fed can do to overcome this problem. When you speak to people about this issue, it is best to use a simple analogy. Choose any good you can think of. Let's say it is the price of milk that takes a sudden tumble and milk producers don't like this state of affairs. Government swears that it will raise the price of milk and does so by fiat. Milk is declared to cost $6 per gallon. What will happen? It will sit on the shelves as consumers move to substitutes. Then the stores themselves will have surpluses and might even demand compensation. They certainly won't buy anymore from producers. Then the producers will complain. At this point government can bail out the producers, or buy the milk themselves. Perhaps they will ultimately require everyone to buy milk and drink it. But ultimately, short of turning all citizens into tin soldiers, there is nothing that government can do to change the underlying reality. A war on prices is a war on human choice and, ultimately, a war on unchangeable aspects of reality. To confront this truth is to come face-to-face with economic law. Economic law is something that surrounds us constantly as a fact of life and a driving force of the material world. To deny economic law is akin to denying gravity or the change of seasons. But its principles remain abstract enough to require careful thought in order to discern them and comprehend their meaning. Bad times are good times for introducing economic ideas to people who otherwise would be content to be blissfully unaware. More absurdly, the ignorant and the propagandists will continue to claim that the economic meltdown is a result of laissez-faire or too little regulation or a lack of much-needed nationalization and socialization. A small introduction to the reality of economic law can change everything. But let us return now to the realities of the present situation. There is indeed a risk of further meltdown, depending on how far government is willing to go in its war on reality. On the other hand, there are ways to prevent calamity. We will soon hear reports of much higher unemployment. There is an urgent need to cut employment taxes, to end the minimum wage, to reduce mandates on business, to repeal union privileges, to cut FICA, to scrap employment discrimination law - to restore a free market in labor. There is also a chance for dramatic monetary reform. A gold-coin standard would be ideal. Absent that solution, a repeal on the restrictions on private money production and banking would be a huge and important step. We still have time to disable the power of central banking, ruining it before it ruins us. And here we get to the positive theory of money and banking from an Austrian perspective. You understand nearly all of it if you absorb the following insight. Money is a commodity like any other commodity. It should be produced and managed under competitive market conditions, the same as shoes, eggs, or computers. Banking too is a market service that should be managed by the market order, with no government involvement, and so subjected to the discipline of market forces, including the restrictions against fraud. Establishing a market system of money and banking requires nothing other than having the government step entirely away. This might seem unlikely, but so did the unraveling of the Soviet Union in 1989. Socialist ideology was bankrupt in the same way that Russia was bankrupt. So it is in our time. Major players in the banking system are bankrupt in the same way that stabilization policy is intellectually bankrupt. We cannot rule out the impact of intellectual bankruptcy on real economic history. There is a certain poetic justice that alarm at the central bank would be the driving force behind the new interest in the Austrian school. Austrian economics was born with Carl Menger's reflections and innovations on the nature and function of money. It matured under Mises's own contributions and warnings about the dangers of central banking. Hayek joined Mises in the 1920s and 1930s to focus on the business cycle and the dangers of using the money and banking system as a stabilization tool. This led to further reflections on macroeconomic principles. Mises and Hayek lived in a world that had fallen for Keynesianism, so their advice was rejected on grounds that it was outmoded. Today, that belief is gone and people are looking for new answers. It is time that the world return to the one school of economic thought that predicted this current crisis, explains its origins and source, and offers the only plausible way out. It doesn't matter that some of their writings date back more than 100 years, or, in the case of our predecessors, even up to 800 years. Economic science teaches timeless truths. Sound money is an immutable need always and everywhere. I'm pleased to say that I'm under no burden today to explain to you why Austrian economics matters. We know that it does. We know that it is the one theoretical apparatus that fully accounts for the seeming chaos that surrounds us today. But the Austrian school does more than merely explain why we find ourselves in the worst monetary meltdown in generations. It shows the way out, providing an achievable vision of Mises's free and prosperous commonwealth. I am also pleased to tell you that, just as for the last 26 years, you can always count on the Mises Institute to show the way. November 3, 2008 Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. is founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty. Copyright (c) 2008 LewRockwell.com http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2d8_1225734566 d3dsh33p Why Austrian Economics Matters More Than Ever lew rockwell, austrian ecoonomics Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:55:52 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8f1_1225223752 d3dsh33p Source: Global Research - Dr. Judith H. Young Part II: Deconstructing the Power of the Global Elite In Part I of "Deconstructing the Power of the Global Elite," I discussed a threefold model of power: Brute Force, the Power to Hurt and Psychological Control. In Part II, I will address several forms of psychological control designed to induce states of mind that are inherently disempowering, that eliminate or severely diminish our will to take corrective action in the face of grievous harm. stock market Normalization of the abnormal has been achieved in large part through the power elite's control of the news media and entertainment. As stated in a famous quote from Henry David Thoreau, the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation, marked by a state of resignation which is confirmed desperation. This phenomenon, which is so antithetical to the joyful natural instincts of newborns, has not come about by accident, but rather through the careful crafting of a cold-blooded global oligarchy. An oligarchy whose insidiousness calls to mind an ancient story in which a perfect murder is committed by Brak the ice man, who kills a woman with an icicle dagger: both he and his weapon melt away in the next day's sun, leaving nothing behind as a basis for prosecuting the crime. For in addition to brute force and the power to hurt, the global elite uses another form of power that is as stealth like and chilling as Brak's perfect crime: sophisticated techniques for psychological control stemming in large part from the ability to mold the perceptions and behavior of the populace through mental and emotional manipulation of the very reality it experiences. As observed by Aldous Huxley in 1962 in explaining his novel Brave New World, these are methods of control that are "probably a good deal more efficient" than control "exercised wholly by terrorism and violent attacks upon the mind-body of individuals."1 Although it would take volumes to do justice to deconstructing the crimes against the human spirit perpetrated by the globalists, I will here attempt to expose several of their common themes: normalizing the abnormal, learned helplessness, and the disorientation of the betwixt and between syndrome. In my view, if we explore the ways these states of mind disempower us, they will be stripped of their disabling mystique and reveal the very ways they can be neutralized. This truth is stated well by Jungian Analyst and wise woman Clarissa Pinkola Est'es in discussing the core agenda of terrorists, that of casting a net of mental poison over their victims by trying to deprive them of hope - by trying to limit their living life as a completely free person focused on goodness, love, peace, and happiness: "How strongly that poisonous net holds when one is unaware of what it is made of, and how easily it falls apart when one consciously begins to contradict its malicious urgings."2 Normalizing the Abnormal Dr. Est'es observes that the disorder of normalizing the abnormal is rampant across cultures. When there are formidable punishments for breaking silence, for pointing out wrongs, for demanding change, we cut away our rightful rage and become used to not being able to intervene in shocking events. Despair, fatigue and resignation follow.3 Normalization of the abnormal has been achieved in large part through the power elite's control of the news media and entertainment. This dominance has permitted not only deciding the "information" the public is allowed to receive, but also the molding of public opinion and behavior. One example is sponsorship of the TV show 24, carefully designed to desensitize the viewers to the use of torture. Another is the use of TV commercials showing stars cheerfully endorsing invasive personal identification technology, as part of a carefully designed program for grooming us to accept Big Brother surveillance and control, including the eventual implantation of microchips under our skin. The power elite goes to any lengths to keep the public misled, distracted, fearful, and ultimately imprisoned in a matrix of disinformation, rampant consumerism and the lowest common denominators of human nature, including raw violence and mindless sexuality. As Huxley observed in 1962, the controlling oligarchy has long been at work developing scientific methods of control to "induce people to love their servitude" - to make them "enjoy a state of affairs which by any decent standard they ought not to enjoy."4 This dystopic scenario was echoed by Bertrand Russell, who predicted that as a result of the gradual and ruthless use of technological advances, "a revolt of the plebs would be as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton."5 I would contend that the disorder of normalizing the abnormal consists in large measure of reshaping our very construct of human nature in terms of its basest parameters, especially in the areas of acquisitiveness, violence, and sexuality. Massive effort has gone into studying and modifying human behavior to serve the global elite's greed for money and power. The modern consumer is not reflective of genuine human nature, but rather a phenomenon created in great part by the psychoanalytic studies, experiments and recommendations of the brilliant capitalist asset Edward Bernays. The widespread aberration of a dumbed down populace, unaware and largely uncaring regarding its destiny, has taken years of careful elitist effort to orchestrate. And the disgusting extremes of human sexual behaviors that are fast approaching the excesses of the infamous last days of the Roman Empire are similarly a product of diligently researched scientific techniques of psychological and social control. It is terrifying but essential to come into awareness that it is in great part the knowledge of human nature gained through the application of torture techniques by intelligence agencies that has infused the broader mind control strategies of the ruling class. More generally, its control techniques have evolved in large measure from "black" psychological operations (psyops) that are carefully compartmentalized and hidden from our bone fide representatives in all three branches of government. Many of the current mind control techniques have been derived from barbaric projects secretly conducted by governments, private laboratories and universities. In his 2000 book titled The Mind Controllers, Dr. Armen Victorian used the Freedom of Information Act to document experiments by the CIA and other agencies exploring new forms of "non-lethal" weapons which exploited hospital patients, pregnant women, school children, prisoners and military veterans without their consent. Other extremely dangerous experiments, including nuclear radiation experiments, have been conducted on an unsuspecting public at large, and even on our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.6 Learned Helplessness The phenomenon of normalizing the abnormal was given experimental validation in the 1970s through controlled studies with groups of dogs. The experiments revealed a great deal about the innate flight or fight reactions to danger and indicated that self-protective instincts can be overriden by inducing "learned helplessness." In one experiment the bottoms of cages were wired to produce a shock on one side only, resulting in the expected avoidance behaviors; then the entire floors of the cages were wired to give random shocks, resulting in confusion, then panic, and then just lying down in resignation, taking the shocks as they came and no longer trying to avoid or outsmart them. Next the cage doors were opened, but the dogs did not move to escape as expected, leading to the hypothesis that they had adapted to or "normalized" their pain and were consequently exhibiting symptoms similar to chronic clinical depression.7 Learned helplessness manifests in everyday situations or environments in which people perceive, rightly or wrongly, that they have no control over what happens to them, e.g., war, famine, or detention (those who refused to care or fend for themselves in the Nazi concentration camps were called Muselm"anner). When the instincts for self-determination are injured, as observed by Dr. Est'es, humans will 'normalize' assault after assault, acts of injustice and destruction toward themselves, their offspring, their loved ones, their land, and even their moral and spiritual values.8 The electroshock of the dogs in the learned helplessness experiments has, as Naomi Klein documents, been copied on a societal level by the financial oligarchy. The capitalist elite shocks a nation with an event like 9/11, and in the ensuing stage of confusion and panic rushes in with salvation in the form of protective father figures who provide a narrative that offers a perspective on the shocking events that allows the profoundly disoriented victims to make sense of the trauma.9 Hence the extraordinary power of the mind control matrix known as the War on Terror. But what is learned can be unlearned; what has been forgotten can be relearned. Especially in the case of our inherent instincts of preservation, we can engage in forensic analysis with a view to restoring the natural skills that give us power: " normalizing of the shocking and abusive is refused by repairing injured instinct....To re-learn the deep...instincts, it is vital to see how they were decommissioned to begin with.... a map of the woods in which we live, and where the predators live, and what their modus operandi is.... if our wild nature has been injured by something, we refuse to lie down to die. We refuse to normalize this harm. We call up our instincts and do what we have to do."10 Klein demonstrates a similar optimism: "Once the mechanics of the shock doctrine are deeply and collectively understood, whole communities become harder to take by surprise, more difficult to confuse-shock resistant."11 The Betwixt and Between Syndrome The relentless march toward tyranny in the United States and other nations with a heritage of freedom, underscored by the blatant criminality of the recent bailout package implemented against the political will and interest of the populace, seems to portend a terrifying future for humanity. It leaves us in a no man's land between the familiarity of our previous reality and the uncharted dangers lying ahead. This loss of bearings should be seen as a form of psychological control by the globalists over the populace for two reasons. First, it is a situation they have engineered, and engineered in such a way as to serve their self-interest. Second, our fear of a destiny they have designed for us keeps us from exercising our full potential of actively opposing its unfolding. At a time of the implementation of what can only be perceived as their endgame, we find ourselves floundering and cut off from our inner fire. Humans have an instinctive fear of the unknown, which is exacerbated if trends indicate an unknown that is negative rather than positive. In the present case the unknown seems to be characterized by the probability of enormous global destabilization, with massive suffering in store for the populace. Although the world as we have known it is far from acceptable, the horizon appears quite possibly unbearable-hence the phrase "looking into the abyss" used recently by a number of analysts. This makes the betwixt and between predicament more difficult to navigate than it would be in less extreme situations, such as adolescence as a normal and predictable transition from childhood to maturity. Another exacerbation is the endless onslaught of crises that the oligarchy orchestrates in order to keep us in a state of continual disorientation, seemingly unable to process one trauma before the next one hits. But as in the case of normalizing the abnormal and learned helplessness, the solution lies in keen understanding of the problem. Once we dissect the betwixt and between predicament, a predicament that all of us have experienced and navigated in our personal lives but may well not have recognized and named as such, our fear will lose its hold and we can reclaim our power. The betwixt and between predicament occurs whenever we are forced to revise our previous sense of self and reality, and are required to remain in a zone of unfamiliarity, disorientation and loss of control until a new set of truths emerges and is integrated. All of us have faced this predicament again and again in our lives, e.g., during the teen years, after a major loss, and in our daily lives when our personal growth process entails the death of old aspects of the self and the birth of new ones. Even transitions that one welcomes gladly, such as marriage, a better job, or moving, are in fact highly stressful because of their magnitude. Anthropological insights on initiations and rites of passage have much to teach us regarding the betwixt and between phenomenon. Rites of transition are marked by distinct (although often overlapping) stages: "Separation: a detachment or departure from a previous state, whose familiarity provided a sense of security; Marginality / Ambiguity: entering the margin between the former and the new state of being, not quite here but not quite there, having lost the security of familiar boundaries and facing disorientation; * Consummation: a culmination in which one integrates a new state of being and sense of self." 12 In a classic essay on the betwixt and between predicament, Victor Turner observes that the transition from separation to ambiguity is marked by temporary invisibility: one cannot be classified either in the old or the new way and is therefore structurally invisible.13 This goes a long way in explaining the fear that marks major transitions and initiations. The good news is that, as with the process of grieving, there is a well-charted process by which we can move from the frightening state of ambiguity and achieve a new equilibrium: a new equilibrium that is in fact healthier and more resilient because it is based on full awareness of the truth of things. It is less painful to accept the need for change than to stay in denial. Indeed, as the renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell stresses, there is great dignity in answering the call to heroism, a call that is now sounding to all of humanity. The good news goes further: Turner and others in fact see potential gifts in the betwixt and between ambiguity that is so emotionally difficult. The inability to classify oneself, while one is in the stage of uncertainty and not-knowing, is also freedom to explore new ways of constructing reality and identity. The stage of ambiguity can become one of enormous creativity and fertility as we move to a new reality that we ourselves construct. It is vital to keep this awareness as we face and oppose the unfolding of the financial elite's endgame of cementing its global control through the current economic crises and so-called solutions it has itself engineered. As an advancing power nears its goal of full spectrum dominance, its crimes break the surface for all to witness, as evidenced by the audacity of the corporatocracy in forcing the passage of the bailout package and in its brazenly self-serving implementation. Our Republic was not always ignorant and apathetic in the face of such criminality. In reaction to an offer in 1905 of a $100,000 donation by John D. Rockefeller for the missionary work of the U.S. Congregationalist Church, its most eminent leader asked, "Is this clean money? Can any man, can any institution, knowing its origins, touch it without being defiled?" The Reverend Washington Gladdington, echoing the prevalent outlook of the era, berated the accumulation of wealth on every side "by methods as heartless, as cynically iniquitous as any that were employed by the Roman plunderers or robber barons of the Dark Ages. In the cool brutality with which properties are wrecked, securities destroyed, and people by the hundreds robbed of their little, all to build up the fortunes of the multi-millionaires, we have an appalling revelation of the kind of monster a human being may become."14 No longer can the oligarchs use the insidiousness of the iceman Brak to further their agenda. And longer do we need to allow them to disempower us through technocratic techniques of psychological control. The efficacy of these techniques has stemmed in great measure from our internalization of oppression, a process we can work to reverse once we understand it. The technocrats would have us believe we are helpless to join battle. We are not. I support this optimistic claim with a comment on Part I of my deconstruction of the power of the global elite, which serves as a powerful ending to end Part ll: "I for one have been subjected to much of this torture as being part of a marginalized class of society. The criminal global elites like to practice their abuse experiments on the less fortunate that cannot defend themselves and offer any resistance, but as the author so rightly observed, the human spirit is indominitable and will not go quietly into the night. Excellent job in exposing these psychological crimes for what they are. When people start realizing they were once human beings and hate what the behavioural criminals are doing, we can stop this learned helplessness and say with Patrick Henry, 'Give me Liberty or give me death.' "15 Endnotes 1. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/audiofiles.html#huxley 2. Clarissa Pinkola Est'es, "An Open letter: Healing from Terrorism Sickness," September 15, 2001, p.3. http://www.mavenproductions.com/estes 3. Est'es, Women Who Run With the Wolves, Ballantine Books, New York, 1992, p. 244. 4. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/audiofiles.html#huxley 5. Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1953, pp. 49-50 6. Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, passim.; Dr. Armen Victorian, The Mind Controllers, Lewis International, Inc., Miami, 2000; Colin A. Ross, The CIA Doctors: Human Rights Violations by American Psychiatrists, Manitou Communications, Inc., Richardson, TX, 2006. This phenomenon brings to mind another form of disempowerment that afflicts freedom fighters and others who see all too clearly the abnormal and grotesque nature of the oligarchy's evil: the evil is so horrific to those with an open eye that they recoil utterly. There is a powerful Latin phrase for phenomena (such as incest) that are so far outside the archetypal realm of acceptability that they fall under a special category: "contra naturum." The power elite's audacity is indeed opposed to the very laws of nature. Rather than allowing our disbelief and horror to disable us, including our horror over dehumanization efforts that attempt to degrade the majesty of the human species, we must find the outrage needed to confront and eradicate it as an evil that is so aberrational as to be itself sub-human. 7. Est'es, Women Who Run With the Wolves, p. 244. 8. Ibid., p. 246. 9. Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, p. 458; Keith Olbermann interview with Naomi Klein: "Iraq Is the Classic Example of The Shock Doctrine" December 2, 2007 http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/69481/www.alternet.org 10. Est'es, Women Who Run With the Wolves, p. 252-53. 11. Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, p. 459. 12. Victor Turner, in Stanislov Grof, ed., Spiritual Emergency, Jeremy P. Tarcher, New York, 1989. 13. Ibid. 14. Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, New York, 1976, p. 3. 15. See Keepers of the Trust community on the author's website: http://freefalltofascism.homestead.com/testimonials.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8f1_1225223752 d3dsh33p Psychological Control: States of Mental Disempowerment sheep, behavoiral criminals Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:18:15 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=307_1224087495 d3dsh33p I do! Recent post on http://www.lewrockwell.com Originally published in The Libertarian Forum, Vol. 10, No. 7, July 1977. I have been ruminating recently on what are the crucial questions that divide libertarians. Some that have received a lot of attention in the last few years are: anarcho-capitalism vs. limited government, abolitionism vs. gradualism, natural rights vs. utilitarianism, and war vs. peace. But I have concluded that as important as these questions are, they don't really cut to the nub of the issue, of the crucial dividing line between us. Let us take, for example, two of the leading anarcho-capitalist works of the last few years: my own For a New Liberty and David Friedman's Machinery of Freedom. Superficially, the major differences between them are my own stand for natural rights and for a rational libertarian law code, in contrast to Friedman's amoralist utilitarianism and call for logrolling and trade-offs between non-libertarian private police agencies. But the difference really cuts far deeper. There runs through For a New Liberty (and most of the rest of my work as well) a deep and pervasive hatred of the State and all of its works, based on the conviction that the State is the enemy of mankind. In contrast, it is evident that David does not hate the State at all; that he has merely arrived at the conviction that anarchism and competing private police forces are a better social and economic system than any other alternative. Or, more fully, that anarchism would be better than laissez-faire which in turn is better than the current system. Amidst the entire spectrum of political alternatives, David Friedman has decided that anarcho-capitalism is superior. But superior to an existing political structure which is pretty good too. In short, there is no sign that David Friedman in any sense hates the existing American State or the State per se, hates it deep in his belly as a predatory gang of robbers, enslavers, and murderers. No, there is simply the cool conviction that anarchism would be the best of all possible worlds, but that our current set-up is pretty far up with it in desirability. For there is no sense in Friedman that the State - any State - is a predatory gang of criminals. The same impression shines through the writing, say, of political philosopher Eric Mack. Mack is an anarcho-capitalist who believes in individual rights; but there is no sense in his writings of any passionate hatred of the State, or, a fortiori, of any sense that the State is a plundering and bestial enemy. Perhaps the word that best defines our distinction is "radical." Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and anti-statism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul. Furthermore, in contrast to what seems to be true nowadays, you don't have to be an anarchist to be radical in our sense, just as you can be an anarchist while missing the radical spark. I can think of hardly a single limited governmentalist of the present day who is radical - a truly amazing phenomenon, when we think of our classical liberal forbears who were genuinely radical, who hated statism and the States of their day with a beautifully integrated passion: the Levellers, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine, Joseph Priestley, the Jacksonians, Richard Cobden, and on and on, a veritable roll call of the greats of the past. Tom Paine's radical hatred of the State and statism was and is far more important to the cause of liberty than the fact that he never crossed the divide between laissez-faire and anarchism. And closer to our own day, such early influences on me as Albert Jay Nock, H. L. Mencken, and Frank Chodorov were magnificently and superbly radical. Hatred of "Our Enemy, the State" (Nock's title) and all of its works shone through all of their writings like a beacon star. So what if they never quite made it all the way to explicit anarchism? Far better one Albert Nock than a hundred anarcho-capitalists who are all too comfortable with the existing status quo. Where are the Paines and Cobdens and Nocks of today? Why are almost all of our laissez-faire limited governmentalists plonky conservatives and patriots? If the opposite of "radical" is "conservative," where are our radical laissez-fairists? If our limited statists were truly radical, there would be virtually no splits between us. What divides the movement now, the true division, is not anarchist vs. minarchist, but radical vs. conservative. Lord, give us radicals, be they anarchists or no. To carry our analysis further, radical anti-statists are extremely valuable even if they could scarcely be considered libertarians in any comprehensive sense. Thus, many people admire the work of columnists Mike Royko and Nick von Hoffman because they consider these men libertarian sympathizers and fellow-travelers. That they are, but this does not begin to comprehend their true importance. For throughout the writings of Royko and von Hoffman, as inconsistent as they undoubtedly are, there runs an all-pervasive hatred of the State, of all politicians, bureaucrats, and their clients which, in its genuine radicalism, is far truer to the underlying spirit of liberty than someone who will coolly go along with the letter of every syllogism and every lemma down to the "model" of competing courts. Taking the concept of radical vs. conservative in our new sense, let us analyze the now famous "abolitionism" vs. "gradualism" debate. The latter jab comes in the August issue of Reason (a magazine every fiber of whose being exudes "conservatism"), in which editor Bob Poole asks Milton Friedman where he stands on this debate. Freidman takes the opportunity of denouncing the "intellectual cowardice" of failing to set forth "feasible" methods of getting "from here to there." Poole and Friedman have between them managed to obfuscate the true issues. There is not a single abolitionist who would not grab a feasible method, or a gradual gain, if it came his way. The difference is that the abolitionist always holds high the banner of his ultimate goal, never hides his basic principles, and wishes to get to his goal as fast as humanly possible. Hence, while the abolitionist will accept a gradual step in the right direction if that is all that he can achieve, he always accepts it grudgingly, as merely a first step toward a goal which he always keeps blazingly clear. The abolitionist is a "button pusher" who would blister his thumb pushing a button that would abolish the State immediately, if such a button existed. But the abolitionist also knows that alas, such a button does not exist, and that he will take a bit of the loaf if necessary - while always preferring the whole loaf if he can achieve it. It should be noted here that many of Milton's most famous "gradual" programs such as the voucher plan, the negative income tax, the withholding tax, fiat paper money - are gradual (or even not so gradual) steps in the wrong direction, away from liberty, and hence the militance of much libertarian opposition to these schemes. His button-pushing position stems from the abolitionist's deep and abiding hatred of the State and its vast engine of crime and oppression. With such an integrated world-view, the radical libertarian could never dream of confronting either a magic button or any real-life problem with some arid cost-benefit calculation. He knows that the State must be diminished as fast and as completely as possible. Period. And that is why the radical libertarian is not only an abolitionist, but also refuses to think in such terms as a Four Year Plan for some sort of stately and measured procedure for reducing the State. The radical - whether he be anarchist or laissez-faire - cannot think in such terms as, e.g.: Well, the first year, we'll cut the income tax by 2%, abolish the ICC, and cut the minimum wage; the second year we'll abolish the minimum wage, cut the income tax by another 2%, and reduce welfare payments by 3%, etc. The radical cannot think in such terms, because the radical regards the State as our mortal enemy, which must be hacked away at wherever and whenever we can. To the radical libertarian, we must take any and every opportunity to chop away at the State, whether it's to reduce or abolish a tax, a budget appropriation, or a regulatory power. And the radical libertarian is insatiable in this appetite until the State has been abolished, or - for minarchists - dwindled down to a tiny, laissez-faire role. Many people have wondered: Why should there be any important political disputes between anarcho-capitalists and minarchists now? In this world of statism, where there is so much common ground, why can't the two groups work in complete harmony until we shall have reached a Cobdenite world, after which we can air our disagreements? Why quarrel over courts, etc. now? The answer to this excellent question is that we could and would march hand-in-hand in this way if the minarchists were radicals, as they were from the birth of classical liberalism down to the 1940s. Give us back the antistatist radicals, and harmony would indeed reign triumphant within the movement. Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) was the author of Man, Economy, and State, Conceived in Liberty, What Has Government Done to Our Money, For a New Liberty, The Case Against the Fed, and many other books and articles. He was also the editor - with Lew Rockwell - of The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, and academic vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Copyright (c) 2005 Ludwig von Mises Institute All rights reserved. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=307_1224087495 d3dsh33p Do You Hate the State? by Murray N. Rothbard libertarian, not liberal you right wing morons, anti-state Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:54:05 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=184_1223830445 d3dsh33p "our economy will now face death by hyperinflation" The Beginning of the End October 10, 2008 Peter Schiff, President and Chief Global Strategist While I have warned for years that the United States was headed into the eye of an economic hurricane, nearly every other "expert" from Washington, Wall Street, the press and academia saw nothing ahead but sunny skies. Now, suddenly, there is an overwhelming consensus that absent the Federal mortgage bailout, my dire forecast would have come to pass. While I'm glad that rose colored glasses have finally been removed from so many eyes, the vast majority of these observers are still blind. In truth, the bailout plan substantially increases the threats to the U.S. economy. When I wrote my book "Crash Proof", I not only predicted that our consumer/mortgage credit-based economy would fall apart, but that the government would ineptly try to repair it. The magnitude of those potential policies formed the basis of my worst case scenario. My fears have now been confirmed, and the U.S. Government is now set to destroy all hope of economic recovery. Make no mistake; had the government resisted the political pressure to interfere with the markets, we would now be experiencing a very deep recession. But by refusing to let the markets work, policy makers are resisting the only medicine capable of curing the economic disease that afflicts us. The same mistakes were made in the early 1930's, causing a severe financial crisis to morph into the decade-long Great Depression. The government will now attempt to keep bad loans from failing and real estate prices from falling. Rather then allowing market forces to rein in excess borrowing and replenish savings, it will encourage even more borrowing and drain what is left of our savings pool. Rather than allowing our economy to return to one based on legitimate production, it will continue to encourage reckless consumption. In the end, by refusing to allow market forces to work their cure, our economy will inevitably die from the disease. Our economy will now face death by hyperinflation, which will cause a complete loss of confidence in the dollar and result in prices and interest rates skyrocketing out of sight. The evaporation of our national wealth will lead to civil unrest, food and energy shortages, and the possible imposition of martial law. If such a scenario unfolds, what is left of our Constitution will surely be completely shredded. Although this reality looms as large as anything I have ever seen, investors still do not see the forest for the trees. Convinced that the bailout will actually work, and that foreign governments are derelict for not launching similar plans, global investors are fleeing other currencies in favor of the dollar. Soon investors will discover that foreign politicians and central bankers have acted responsibly. When they do, the current gains seen by the dollar will reverse violently. Investors seem to be bracing themselves for a global depression that will not occur. Foreign stocks, particularly those exposed to China or natural resources, are trading at the lowest valuations I have seen in my entire career. Fears of a global meltdown are based on the misconception that the U.S. economy is the tent pole for economic activity around the world. The premise of my entire argument is that the U.S. economy, by consuming so much of the world's resources and manufactured goods, and borrowing so much of the world's savings, has in fact been a drag on the global economy. The enormous global vendor financing scheme is finally coming to an end as the vendors discover that their biggest customer is flat broke. In the short run, our creditors are experiencing some pain because they finally realize that they will never get their money back. Once the foreign stock markets take this hit, they will be far better poised to grow than their American counterpart. Foreigners will reclaim their productivity and savings for themselves, and will subsequently experience the biggest global economic boom in history. America on the other hand will fare much worse, as we will be left with a hollowed out manufacturing base, dilapidated infrastructure, no savings, and a gigantic Federal Government that will regulate, spend, borrow and print our economy into ruin. For an updated look at my investment strategy, order a copy of my just released book, "The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets." While the "bull moves" I forecast have yet to materialize, I am confident that given time they will. The good news is that now you actually have some time to put my strategy in place at favorable prices and exchange rates! -- Peter Schiff is the President, Founder and Chief Global Strategist for Euro Pacific Capital. He is widely acknowledged as a expert in international markets, and in global economic strategy. He is a speaker at all the major investment conferences. He is regularly featured on CNBC and Bloomerg TV , and often quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, New York Times, the Financial Times, Investors Business Daily, and many others. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=184_1223830445 d3dsh33p Peter Schiff: The Beginning of the End - peter schiff, economy, hyperinflation, crooks, liars, debt, fiat currency, lies, predictions, collapse, crash, depression, soup lines Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:20:09 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=907_1223580009 d3dsh33p by Ron Smith The American people spoke last week, and their rulers ignored them. That's nothing new, I know, but the passage of the bill to rescue Wall Street and other corporate interests from being grievously injured by what they themselves created in a frenzy of runaway greed is the most egregious, morally repugnant piece of legislation to be signed into law since - well, since when? I can't think of anything more ghastly in not only what it does but also what it implies about the future of this nation of ours. It provides welfare for the mega-rich from the ordinary taxpayer. The rulers will ride out falling markets on the backs of the masses, who were told time and again during the drama preceding the enactment of this thing that the reason they didn't like it one bit was that they - the little people - didn't understand it and were too stupid to applaud forking over hundreds of billions of dollars to their betters in just the manner being prescribed. This unprecedented raid on the public till had to be done lickety-split. Authority figures agree, so who are we to argue? Why should there be hearings when the experts were in agreement as to what should be done? Why listen to any of the many dozens of economists who thought the measure to be insane? It's become trite to call this swollen, pork-laden bill "socialism for the rich," but it is precisely that. And these men we have running for president, where are they on this? Initially, both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama expressed their tentative approval of the bailout, oops, I mean rescue bill, and then began backtracking when the extent of voter disapproval made itself known. A few days later, they came to agree on the necessity of it, thereby illustrating beyond any lingering doubt that, as Ron Paul puts it, "our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people." People being what they are, many folks of a partisan bent like to blame the other party for the mess we find ourselves assigned, against our will, to clean up. Who dug the hole? Be assured that both Republican and Democratic politicians have been shoveling away at it for many years. Democrats say the GOP is at fault for foisting upon us various deregulations that caused the mortgage mess that triggered the credit implosion. But Tom Donlan says in Barron's that the problem is not that there weren't enough regulators or regulations, but that the regulators "were not sane." In an opinion piece, Mr. Donlan says, "Regulation and regulated institutions encouraged the risk-taking, helped to finance it and continue to excuse it." Republicans accuse the Democrats of pressuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into creating a market for toxic mortgages. Again, Mr. Donlan: "Who did the pressuring? A string of presidents and their appointees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a legion of congressmen inspired by housing activists dreaming of home ownership for all." Republicans. Democrats. They're all in it together, an idea those partisans and their media champions find difficult to accept, even though it seems to me undeniable. I find it strangely satisfying that Congressman Paul, the little Texan who was soundly thrashed in his Quixotic quest for the Republican presidential nomination - the man who was laughed at and mocked as a kook when he tried to alert us all to the fragile and unsustainable nature of our money system - is now seen by more and more Americans as the one politician who told us the truth. No wonder the system spit him out. The plan bulldozed through Congress last week carries with it dire implications about the future of our country. To redistribute income upward as this does means the game is over. We live in an age looking suspiciously like that of other empires in their late periods of decay, and if you don't know what that portends, it's probably just as well. October 9, 2008 Ron Smith can be heard weekdays, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., on Baltimore's 1090 WBAL-AM and WBAL.com. His column appears Wednesdays in The Baltimore Sun. Copyright (c) 2008 The Baltimore Sun http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=907_1223580009 d3dsh33p Wall Street Rescue May Be Worst Legislation Ever wall street criminals, paulson, bernake, treason, nwo, failing empire, crooks, theives, ron paul, Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:52:52 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bee_1219809172 d3dsh33p a little history behind it also http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bee_1219809172 d3dsh33p The American form of government republic, american, democracy Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:05:54 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=535_1219608354 d3dsh33p Watch the ending. I sure hope the people could smell this nice steamy pile of BS!!! Rare Event? New Phenomenon? My word!! Did they have to invent something so blame the cause on? wtf?!?!? Infowars reporter gets ignored or censored. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=535_1219608354 d3dsh33p NIST Shyam Sunder vs Infowars WTC7 debunked? wtc7, nist, infowars, censored, lies Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:54:17 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4b3_1219607657 d3dsh33p this is for you criticalthinker The "site manager of the Environmental Health Laboratories , which certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings, Kevin Ryan wrote an open letter to NIST (National Institute of Standards) questioning NIST's Oct. 19, 2004 report that fire caused the three towers to collapse." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4b3_1219607657 d3dsh33p original NIST wtc report exposed part 2 (the details) bush science nist, liars, joke, laughable, criticalthinker, bush science, computer animations, unscientific