Ron Paul: The Only One We Can Trust

Mutually Assured Destruction vs Mutually Assured Respect

This old man is shaping his ideas into a whole new paradigm for America and the world. We have tried war and debt. Every President since Coolidge has been a war President. Every one has added debt.

It is time to try peace and sound economics. It is time to give this old man a shot.

If We Are To Be An Empire, Then Let’s Do It Right

The US Empire embarked on another Imperial war for oil five months ago and the Empire botched the job again, just like it botched the job in Iraq. The Imperial legates and our client Principalities couldn't finish the job, even with unlimited resources and unchallenged air power. Mr. Gaddafi is still with us and seems to be reorganizing. He has made it clear that he will now target ports and oil facilities. So, Libya is going to go up in flames again as Gaddafi loyalists turn into the resistance, and the Empire's associate petroleum companies may not be able to abscond with the oil for months or even years.

Why do our wars cost so much and produce so little benefit? It is because the Empire insists on pretending that it is not after resources, that it is not an Empire. The Empire seems to believe its own lies, that it is motivated by humanitarian concerns. But if the ruling elites in the Empire believe their own lies, they are alone in that belief. No one else with any idea of what is going on believes the Empire’s lies. Outside of the USA, it is clear to everyone that the Empire is after resources and is intent on controlling the Muslim world through client kings and bases for the legions from Carthage to Memphis and from Tyre to Bactria.

But all this war and conniving drains the Imperial Treasury of great torrents of wealth that purchase weapons systems that serve no function in these wars, in maintaining garrisons that do not pacify the natives, but rather sharpen their resolve to fight back. This Empire is bleeding to death as the wealth of the productive part drains into the Bactrian sands. That is not the way to go about Empire. Empire is not supposed to produce debt and poverty for the victors. It is supposed to amass wealth for the conqueror. It is not supposed to leave the conqueror bankrupt. If you're going to be an Empire, be proud to be Empire, be proud to plunder under the Eagles!

So, I just wish that the powers-that-be would be honest about their intentions. If they were honest imperialists, at least they might not drive us to economic ruin. If the goal is to go steal the oil, just say so and go steal the damn oil! If Muammar and his people don’t like it, crucify a couple thousand of them along the Libyan coast road the way that Crassus did on the road to Rome. Do you think that Trajan successfully marched through the Parthian Empire to the Persian Gulf telling reporters that he was there to "protect civilians"? No, he was clear and direct. He was there to conquer! Did Caesar incorporate Gaul into the Empire by spending too much money and housing his legions in air-conditioned tents? No, his legions were expected to fight and kill and work and sweat and only get paid if they captured enough slaves and loot for Caesar to pay them! Did Gaius Verres make sure to spread Imperial Treasure among all the Sicilians so that they would accept the Roman presence? Heck no! He stole everything that wasn’t bolted to the floor. (Well, not exactly. He stole the stuff that was bolted down too.)

If we are to be an Empire we need to change a few things:

- 1. Go after the resources openly so that all Imperial citizens can benefit. Make sure that a substantial part of the loot gets paid into the Treasury.

- 2. Eliminate local resistance with proven methods such as putting entire cities to the sword or mass crucifixions. Caesar’s innovation of cutting the hands off of all the men in a Gallic city that defied Roman domination and then spreading these cripples to all parts of Gaul was quite effective in curbing resistance.

- 3. Immediately upon pacification, send in the tax collectors and squeeze the people till they bleed. We want loot. Pay up or die.

That Roman form of Empire is actually more honest than what the US Empire is doing, and it would benefit most Americans. The US Empire as it is today only benefits a tiny elite power group in the USA while it kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people and beggars everyone else. And this happens in a democracy! That just shows that a democracy made up of mostly ignorant, brainwashed voters is one of the worst forms of government imaginable. The current Empire is bankrupting the USA, destroying the economy and engendering global resentment, while making billions of dollars for a few, well-connected companies and individuals. That’s crazy.

If we’re going to survive as an Empire, we’d better learn to make it pay. If we can’t stomach the violence and immorality of that, if we can’t rein in the security state parasites and steal resources for all Americans, then we have no business comporting ourselves as an Empire. In that case we need to deconstruct the Security State (empire), cut the Federal Budget by 60% and decentralize the US of A into small enough polities for the citizens to be able to overpower the special interests. 

Peter Schiff educates a House economic panel

From 37 Banks to 4 in 20 years

Click on the chart for a bigger image.

If we have banking regulators, why do they allow the banks to consolidate to the point where they are "too big to fail"?

Banking regulation no longer works because the Federal government has been completely captured by a small number of hyper-large corporations. This explains why these banks were all bailed out against the wishes of more than 55% of Americans. It explains why we continue to make incredibly expensive weapons systems that are designed for the Cold War, which has been over for twenty years. It explains why our government coerces other countries to legalize GMO seeds, leading to thousands of deaths by suicide.

The giant corporations in cahoots with the giant Federal government is a recipe for economic collapse and the loss of individual liberty. We have to change the American mentality. The answer is very small government and very little regulation. The Federal government is too large to respond to the American people. And there is no way that will change. The only hope for freedom and sanity is to dismember the Federal government, rescind the 17th amendment and give power back to the States. Then we need to start eliminating regulations on everything.

Forget what you have been trained to believe. Regulations do not "level the playing field", instead regulations always benefit the largest corporation and punish the small. In fact many regulations are written by the large corporations that were supposedly going to be regulated. That is the case of the Dodd Frank bill which was supposed to clean up banking and Wall street, but has been used to protect the big banks because it was written by them and they know how to operate all the loopholes. America's Safe Food legislation was written by Monsanto's chief attorney. FDA regulations are written by ex-drug company attorneys and scientists.

More regulations is NOT the answer. Less government IS the answer

The Big Gangster and the Little Gangster — Gaddafi and NATO

Written by Michael S. Rozeff

There is more and more explicit news showing that Gaddafi worked closely with the CIA from 2002 onwards. Gaddafi — the little gangster — blundered by letting the U.S. — the big gangster — get too close. The U.S. had been keeping the pressure on Gaddafi for decades. He wanted out from that pressure. Being a long-lived ruler, a socialist, a nationalist, an African, and reaching an older age, he actually wanted, in his own dominating way, to do some good for Libyans, and he had to get out from under U.S. pressure to do that. He renounced nuclear ambitions and got into bed with the CIA. This he calculated would help him control Libya and keep the lid on the jihad-minded groups that wanted to overthrow him.

Gaddafi blundered. Such benevolence toward Libyans and independence from the West, and ideas of raising Libya's share of oil revenues, and ideas of pan-African unity and currency (even golden), and ideas of closer ties with non-western nations, didn't sit well with the Big Gangster and its NATO clique of satellite gangsters who always had painted him as a dangerous clown and resented his presence. The West requires conformity. It gets very uncomfortable with independent visions, independent visionaries, neutrals, and political systems, persons, and groups that do not link into and fall under its control system and alliances. The Arab Spring provided the opportunity for the Western gangsters to disgrace themselves fully and publicly and dislodge Gaddafi.

All the little gangsters of this world are taking note. Chavez is bringing his gold back home. Others will be far more wary of letting assets pile up in Western banks where they can be frozen and stolen. The other bigger gangsters of this world like Russia, India, and China will not fail to draw the appropriate lessons from this episode either, inasmuch as it occurred under a Democrat and follows hard upon the heels of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan instigated by Republicans and supported by both parties.

Thanks to http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/ for this precise little article.

Edit: There is another article about Libya that I find very interesting. This article is very much longer and is written by an African from an African perspective. It reflects a Muammar Gaddafi that is very different from the Gaddafi that is portrayed in the Western press. Here is the article:

Why the West Want the Fall of Muammar Gaddafi…Analysis by Jean-Paul Pougala

As long as we are looking into Gaddafi, Libya, Al Qaeda and NATO please watch this interview of Pepe Escobar from the Asia Times as he talks about the reality in Libya. Pepe is interviewed by Alex Jones, who is not otherwise given space on this blog, but what Pepe has to say is important

What if?

Speech before the US House of Representatives, 02/12/09

Madame Speaker,

I have a few questions for my colleagues.

What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is a predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others?

What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel?

What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan - and bombing Pakistan - is directly related to the hatred directed toward us and has nothing to do with being free and prosperous?

What if someday it dawns on us that losing over 5,000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair trade-off for the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens, no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistani, and Afghan people are killed or displaced?

What if we finally decide that torture, even if called enhanced interrogation techniques, is self-destructive and produces no useful information - and that contracting it out to a third world nation is just as evil?

What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy?

What if all wartime spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing?

What if we finally see that wartime conditions always undermine personal liberty?

What if conservatives, who preach small government, wake up and realize that our interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government?

What if conservatives understood once again that their only logical position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire throughout the world?

What if the American people woke up and understood that the official reasons for going to war are almost always based on lies and promoted by war propaganda in order to serve special interests?

What if we as a nation came to realize that the quest for empire eventually destroys all great nations?

What if Obama has no intention of leaving Iraq?

What if a military draft is being planned for the wars that will spread if our foreign policy is not changed?

What if the American people learn the truth: that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security and that it never changes from one administration to the next?

What if war and preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests?

What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan and it turns out worse than Iraq and Vietnam put together?

What if Christianity actually teaches peace and not preventive wars of aggression?

What if diplomacy is found to be superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America?

What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded - nothing!

What happens if my concerns are justified and ignored - nothing good!