By Ron Paul
In a recent interview I was asked why Bernie Sanders, a self-described “democratic socialist” had seemingly attracted so much support among young people. In fact polls suggest Sanders is the most popular candidate among people aged 18-29, and 51 percent of that same age group appears fed up with “capitalism in its current form,” according to a recent Harvard study. It was just four years ago that so many young people turned out to hear and support my message of personal liberty, non-aggression, and non-intervention at home and abroad. I was thrilled that so many young people were attracted to a candidate whose main message was “I don’t want to run your life.” Socialism, of course, is the opposite philosophy. The socialist philosophy has at its core the desire to run people’s lives. It is by design an authoritarian system. Who would willingly give up so much of their own property to the state to redistribute to others? That is where the use of government force comes into play. Socialism tells how much of your money you can keep, how you can spend it, if you can spend it, which of your personal habits must be modified in order to qualify for your “free” healthcare, what course of study you must pursue to qualify for your “free” education, and so on. But we also know the false promises can be very seductive. Socialism preys on that human fault that would like to have something for nothing. You deserve an education, the socialist tells young people, so I will give you one for free. He never tells the student that he will pay for that education many times over in the hidden tax called inflation. Or the student may “pay” for that education with unemployment after college as his potential employer was forced to shut down over the high taxes required to pay for all the things the socialist promises. So am I surprised that it seems so many young people have fallen for the seductive lies of socialism? Well I don’t really believe they have. They are frustrated by a system they are told is capitalism. They are angry over the same things I have been talking about for years. Our current system is far from the free-markets that we in the Austrian school of economics espouse. We have a system of cronyism, corporatism, inflationism, regulated and managed trade to the benefit of special interests, and the criminality of central banking. Unfortunately because of our faulty and biased education system and the relentless propaganda of the mainstream media, many young people are taught that the mess they see all around them is all caused by “capitalism.” Politics is about getting people excited about a candidate. Ours is a much longer effort. The young generation that first attended my rallies in 2007 is by now in its mid-20s. They are raising a new generation that in many cases will be home-schooled and outside the propaganda machine that is modern public education. They understand that the real freedom revolution will not be won at the ballot box, but in the battleground of ideas. They continue to learn the freedom philosophy and they support the various educational organizations that provide the intellectual ammunition for our fight. I am more optimistic than ever that our message is taking hold and growing deep roots. Ideas really can change the world. Contrary to what many would like us to believe, the Freedom Revolution is alive and well! By Daniel McAdams If anyone wants a short course on what's wrong with US diplomacy look no further than US Ambassador to Hungary Coleen Bell's speech Friday to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian Parliament. In typical diplo-speak there was plenty of flowery language about shared values, fish swimming together in the same water (?), sappy poetics like "together, out of that winter, we would force the spring," and talk of together being "part of the world’s greatest military and political alliance." But make no mistake: Inside Ambassador Bell's velvet glove is an iron fist, poised to strike should Washington's annoyingly independent-minded Fidesz-led government step out of line on the big issues. And by "big" issues it should be understood that the US means the issues it considers in the interests of its own foreign policy, not those in Hungary's interest. Message to Hungary: do as we say or you will be sorry. Ambassador Bell's previous job was as a television soap opera producer, but raising more than two million dollars for the election of Barack Obama "earned" her the position of top US diplomat in Hungary. The former television producer does know how to deliver her lines, though. She lectured the Hungarians about Syria, explaining to them that ISIS and Assad are both equally evil and both equally to blame for the disaster that is Syria. ISIS has flourished in Syria, she told the Hungarians, because it "exploits the chaos of civil war in Syria, a conflict that has now claimed more than 250,000 lives." But she does not mention that it was US backing for "regime change" in Syria -- beginning at least in 2006, as we learn from a critical Wikileaks-released US Embassy Damascus memo -- that created that very chaos she blames for the rise of ISIS. In fact it is propaganda to call what is happening in Syria a "civil war," as the forces battling the Syrian government are all sponsored by foreign powers like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the US. It is a proxy war against the Syrian government, not a civil war. She then tells the Hungarians ISIS will never be defeated in Syria until Assad is overthrown: [W]e know we won’t be able to defeat Daesh in Syria unless we also deal with the civil war and particularly with Assad. Because as long as Assad is there, he remains the most powerful magnet for foreign fighters and recruits to Daesh. Does she assume Hungarians are so stupid that they believe that by attacking and beating ISIS back nearly to Raqqa (with Russian assistance), the Syrian government of Assad is actually benefitting ISIS? Attacking ISIS means Assad is on the side of ISIS? "Since February, the cessation of hostilities reduced the violence in Syria, allowing millions of Syrian civilians to take the first steps toward reclaiming a normal life," says the Ambassador, without even mentioning what brought the ceasefire about in the first place: Russian participation along with the Syrian army in the decimation of al-Qaeda and ISIS positions in northwest and central Syria. In fact it is absolutely bizarre that in the world of Ambassador Bell (and the State Department hacks who drafted her speech), the Russian intervention against al-Qaeda and ISIS simply never took place or was too inconsequential to mention. Is any Hungarian so ill-informed that he would believe such nonsense? Bell used the tragedy in Syria to pressure Hungary on the (largely American-made) refugee crisis. Hungary's firebrand prime minister, Viktor Orban, has, along with several of his central European counterparts, stood up to Brussels' (and Washington's) demands that Hungary take in tens of thousands of migrants who heeded German Chancellor Angela Merkel's call to come to Europe and enjoy lots of free stuff. Last month Orban told Hungarian Radio that if he accepts the EU migrant resettlement plan, “it would be determined not in Hungary but in Brussels who we have to live together with, and how the ethnic composition of the country will look in future.” He has rejected such a notion. "Every sovereign nation has the right and an obligation to protect its borders," Bell told the Hungarian Parliament, "But every nation, as a part of the international community, also has a fundamental obligation to help refugee populations seeking safety." Translation: your sovereignty is not determined by you, but rather by us. It is a practice articulated by Orwell in 1984 whereby a person can think two completely contradictory thoughts at the same time seemingly without any mental conflict. But here is where the iron fist inside Bell's velvet glove glints in the sun. She pointedly condemned the Hungarian government position by praising those in Hungary who hold the opposite view, i.e. the Hungarian opposition: We commend the humanitarian spirit of Hungarian leaders, law enforcement and military personnel, and ordinary citizens who are responding to this crisis with generosity and compassion. Then she gives Hungary Washington's marching orders: We continue to stress that any solution to these migration challenges should focus on saving and protecting lives, ensuring the human rights of all migrants are respected, and promoting orderly and humane migration policies. That includes the support of all Member State governments for the refugee agreement forged between the EU and Turkey. Translation: Hungary must support the EU agreement with Turkey which would see tens of thousands of migrants settled in EU member countries, including Hungary itself. The problem is that the Hungarian parliament explicitly rejected Brussels' forced migrant settlement plans for Hungary and plans to hold a nationwide referendum on the subject. Bell is saying here that Hungary's elected representatives and even the Hungarian voter must be ignored and Brussels' dictate obeyed. When it comes to Russia, Ambassador Bell also has some instructions for Budapest: Moscow is your enemy and don't you forget it. She told Hungarian parliamentarians: As many Hungarians have reminded me, you need no introduction to the nature of Russian aggression. Your response has always been to show resolve. Our best weapons, in fact, are resolve and solidarity. Weapons? Quite a loaded word. Orban has been seen in Washington as insufficiently enthused about sanctions on Russia, which hurt Hungarian trade and business interests. Ambassador Bell makes it clear that Hungary must adhere to US demands of Russia, even if they are completely incoherent: As the United States and Hungary have both stated many times, Russia has a simple choice: fully implement Minsk or continue to face sanctions. Russia must withdraw weapons and troops from the Donbas; Russia must ensure that all Ukrainian hostages are returned; Russia must allow full humanitarian access to occupied territories; Russia must support free, fair, and internationally-monitored elections in the Donbas under Ukrainian law; and most important, Russia must restore Ukraine’s sovereignty. That last point should be taken to mean that Russia must ignore the will of the people of Crimea who voted in overwhelming numbers to re-join Russia after just 25 years as part of independent Ukraine. Not to worry, Ambassador Bell is confident that Budapest will do everything Washington tells it to do: More than this, Hungary is equal to the great challenges of our times, and the United States is counting on you. To stiffen their spine, US Ambassador Bell reminds the Hungarians that they are part of "our global order" and touts the great examples set by the US, including: Our system of international economic, political, and social norms and institutions have kept the peace and fostered prosperity for decades. Whether it is international law, environmental protection, trade regulations, anticorruption laws, child labor laws, human rights safeguards, the nonproliferation regime, public health systems, international financial institutions, UN peacekeeping, or a robust civil society – these norms and institutions give life and stability to our global order. In the era of NSA spying on innocent Americans, Guantanamo, CIA torture, weapons sales to the world's worst dictators (Saudi Arabia for one), destruction of the environment by the US war machine, "regime change" operations that violate the sovereignty of other states, and outright aggression in opposition to US and international law (Libya, etc.), Bell's suggestion that "our global order" is the pinnacle of civilization should get a laugh out of most Hungarians. In fact, from Libya to Syria to Ukriane to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the US interventionist attempt to forge a global order with blood and bullets will go down in history along with the authoritarianisms of the 20th century as one of humanity's darkest chapters.
Here is the short version of Ambassador Bell to Budapest: "to be our partner means you do what we say whether or not it is in your interest." Funny, that was Moscow's message to Budapest from 1948 to 1989. This article was originally published at The Ron Paul Institute. ....point them to Simon Black, who writes: Yet anytime I talk about US government debt, there’s invariably a voice in the crowd that says, “yeah, but we owe it to ourselves. . .”
By Chris Rossini
The closer that Trump gets to having the crown placed on his head, the more he's going to have to fall in line with the status quo. All that "outsider" talk is fun on the campaign trail (remember Obama's "Hope & Change" schtick) but when Trump gets to the finish line, there's an entire Deep State waiting for him to keep everything rolling as is. There have been plenty of signs (with more to come) of Trump melting in with the establishment. First, all of the "self-financing" talk is now disappearing. Trump has named Steven Mnuchin as his National Campaign Finance Chair. Mnuchin is a former Soros money manager and spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs, where he was also partner. Soros? Goldman Sachs? Ouch. On Israel, Trump now insists that Israel should keep building West Bank settlements. At first Trump portrayed himself as "neutral" on Israel/Palestine. But, once again, he's getting closer to the crown, so..... Today news broke that Sheldon Adelson, the powerful casino mogul who is famous for financing neocon presidential candidates, has thrown his support behind Trump. Adelson joins a choir of other neocons who have lined up with Trump, like Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, and Jeff Sessions. If you're not familiar with any of those names, let's just say that they're not even close to being synonymous with peace and non-intervention overseas. And these aren't just passerby neocons. Trump is considering putting Giuliani and Christie in his cabinet! Yes, Chris Christie. The same one that Senator Rand Paul said this about:"If you are in favor of World War III you have your candidate." But probably the most interesting neocon endorsement comes from none other than Dick Cheney himself. Today on CNN, Cheney announced that he's supporting Trump. This endorsement is the most fascinating because Trump has been railing against Bush/Cheney for lying this country into war. Trump basically called Cheney a liar, and Cheney is endorsing him anyway! So, if you're supporting Trump, and think he's some kind of "outsider" remind yourself as you pull the lever that:"Dick Cheney supports my man Trump too!" Hope & Change 2.0 will only get worse as we get closer to November, and (of course) beyond.
By Jeff Deist
Political parties might be coming to an end. We might have to face the possibility that the future is less ideological, because populists by definition are less ideological. There is nothing wrong with issue libertarianism - single issue libertarianism. Ron Paul worked this very well, with regard to End The Fed, which was a populist uprising, and with regard to getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. These were both populist sentiments that didn't need a lot of intellectualization to sell. Libertarianism is not an intellectual exercise. It's not a suicide pact. It has to offer real solutions to the problems that people see. The State isn't working. The Fed can't work. Neoconservative foreign policy can't work. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid can't work....on paper, or otherwise. We know what can work. We know what real money is. We know what real economic prosperity is. We know what real peace is. And finally, despite claims to the contrary, as believers in the marketplace, we know what real social cohesion looks like. It's not The State. So we can't afford to look down our noses at this sort of populist uprising. Remember, it's not just elections that are won or lost on these tribal and emotionalist grounds. It's not just elections that are won on self interest, it's whole movements that are won on naked self interest. Too often libertarianism is viewed as people who have heads without bodies...without guts, without stomachs. Or, worst case scenario, as C.S. Lewis called them, "Men without chests." So libertarianism doesn't need to mean this hyper-individualized, atomized society, where all we care about is pure economics. Society without The State doesn't mean society without culture, or language, or identity, or God, or something bigger than ourselves. So I'll conclude with this. The future is not necessarily left vs. right, red state vs. blue state, statist vs. libertarian. The future is centralized vs. decentralized. It's what work versus what doesn't. It's reasonable people versus unreasonable people. It's PC versus the truth. By Jacob Hornberger
Do you remember what U.S. national-security state officials were saying when millions of Americans were demanding that the U.S. government withdraw its troops from Vietnam and bring them home? They were saying that “national security” was at stake — i.e., the very survival of the United States. If the U.S. government withdrew from Vietnam, they said, the dominoes would start falling to the communists, first in Southeast Asia and ultimately all over the world, with the United States being the final big domino. Vietnam was our line of defense against the entire world going red. It was all false. As I point in my new ebook The CIA, Terrorism, and the Cold War: The Evil of the National Security State (which just hit #5 in Amazon’s top 100 bestselling ebooks in Political Freedom), in actuality it didn’t make a whit of difference whether Vietnam and other countries in the world went red, at least not insofar as the United States was concerned. That is, the existence of the United States was never threatened by the fact that other countries had communist regimes. How do we know that this is true? Because Vietnam did fall to the communists, and nothing happened to the United States. In fact, so did North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union. And Cuba. And Guatemala. And Chile. And Nicaragua. And Venezuela. What difference did it make, insofar as the United States was concerned? Not one whit of difference. Those 58,000 plus U.S. soldiers who were sacrificed in Vietnam died for nothing. It’s no different today with respect to ISIS, the terrorists, the Muslims, or, yes, even the communists. It doesn’t matter one whit whether ISIS takes control over Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, or wherever. Even if they do, they’re not coming to get you, cart you away, and force you to study the Koran, any more than the communists came to get you and forced you to study Das Kapital. That’s not to say, of course, that it would be in the interests of people living in those countries to live under an ISIS regime, any more than it is in the interests of the North Korean, Vietnamese, Cuban, and Chinese people to be living under communist regimes. But the fact is that people’s suffering under foreign tyranny is no business of the U.S. government. It’s certainly no legal business, given that the Constitution does not grant the power of regime change and foreign intervention to the federal government. But it’s also no moral business of the U.S. government, especially given that when the U.S. government intervenes against foreign regimes with the aim of effecting regime change, it just makes things worse for the people living in those societies. After all, just look at the death, destruction, misery, and suffering that the U.S. government’s interventions and regime-change operations have brought to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and the rest of the Middle East. The problem is that U.S. officials just don’t want to get out because they’re afraid of “losing face,” which was the same fear that Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon had about withdrawing the troops from Vietnam. Thus, if the American people want to restore a normally functioning society to our land, the responsibility lies with them to accomplish this. They need to do what Americans did with the Vietnam War. They need to start demanding, with mass protests if necessary, that the president — whoever he or she is — bring the troops home now, without any further delay. No more killing and no more destruction on the part of the U.S. government. Just leave the people of the Middle East alone to work out their own problems. Thank goodness millions of American people began demanding that the troops be brought home from Vietnam. If they hadn’t, they might well still be over there today fighting to prevent the dominoes from falling and America from going red. If only the American people had demanded a withdrawal from Vietnam much sooner than they did. Think how many more Americans would not have died for nothing. Today, the news media is announcing that another American soldier has just been killed in Iraq. Yes, believe it or not, U.S. troops are back in Iraq. Americans need to do what they did to get us out of the Vietnam War before more U.S. soldiers die for nothing. It’s the only way to restore a society of freedom, peace, prosperity, and harmony to our land. This article was originally published at The Future of Freedom Foundation.
By Ron Paul
The gut reaction of far too many people is to blame "capitalism", or "free markets" for the woes of modern America. Unfortunately, such a view displays a gap in understanding the difference between free markets and an economy shackled with a hyper-interventionist government. We suffer from the latter, and desperately need the former. I, myself, am against today's so-called "capitalism". It is a shadow of what America once used to be. America never had a total free market economy, which is a shame. Government, even at the very beginning, would meddle here and there. But the American economy was many magnitudes freer than it is today. We owe so much of the accumulated savings, capital, and wealth in America to that era. It's time to place the blame where it really belongs. It's time to start cutting the government chains off the economy so that free markets may breathe once again. I was recently on RT to discuss these issues, and I thank them for transcribing the interview, which you can read below. (Or, if you'd like, you can watch the interview here.) RT: Do you think this poll is just politics, or do you agree that there is something wrong with the US economic system as it operates today?
View the original on RT.
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