Category Archives: History

A Government by Experts, by Andrew Napolitano

Posted on January 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Experts aren’t even mentioned in the Constitution. From Andrew Napolitano at lewrockwell.com:

I have often thought that after Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson was our worst president. By worst is meant least faithful to the Constitution and most destructive of personal liberty.

With the exception of Lincoln’s dictatorship — during which the federal government used violence to crush the states’ natural right to secede from a compact they had voluntarily joined, and instead brought about the systematic murder of 750,000 persons — America from its founding to the early part of the 20th century more or less enjoyed the James Madison model for the federal government.

Under this model, the federal government could only legislate, regulate, spend and govern in the 16 discrete areas of human behavior that the Constitution delegated to it. All other areas of human behavior were left free to individual choices or governance by the states.

From and after Wilson’s presidency, the Madisonian model was replaced by the Wilsonian one. Under this model, the feds could legislate, regulate, spend and govern in any areas of human behavior for which there was a national political will, except for those areas that are expressly prohibited to them by the Constitution.

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Posted in Government, History, Law, Philosophy, Politics

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Decline of Empire: Parallels Between the U.S. and Rome, Part II, by Doug Casey (With Link to Part I)

Posted on January 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

The second part of Doug Casey’s excellent comparison between the Roman and American Empires. From Casey at internationalman.com:

See here for Part I

Like the Romans, we’re supposedly ruled by laws, not by men. In Rome, the law started with the 12 Tablets in 451 BCE, with few dictates and simple enough to be inscribed on bronze for all to see. A separate body of common law developed from trials, held sometimes in the Forum, sometimes in the Senate.

When the law was short and simple, the saying “Ignorantia juris non excusat” (ignorance of the law is no excuse) made sense. But as the government and its legislation became more ponderous, the saying became increasingly ridiculous. Eventually, under Diocletian, law became completely arbitrary, with everything done by the emperor’s decrees—we call them Executive Orders today.

I’ve mentioned Diocletian several times already. It’s true that his draconian measures held the Empire together, but it was a matter of destroying Rome in order to save it. As in the U.S., in Rome statute and common law gradually devolved into a maze of bureaucratic rules.

The trend accelerated under Constantine, the first Christian emperor, because Christianity is a top-down religion, reflecting a hierarchy where rulers were seen as licensed by God. The old Roman religion never tried to capture men’s minds this way. Before Christianity, violating the emperor’s laws wasn’t seen as also violating God’s laws.

The devolution is similar in the U.S. You’ll recall that only three crimes are mentioned in the U.S. Constitution—treason, counterfeiting, and piracy. Now you can read Harvey Silverglate’s book, Three Felonies a Day, which argues that the average modern-day American, mostly unwittingly, is running his own personal crime wave—because federal law has criminalized over 5,000 different acts.

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Posted in Collapse, Debt, Economics, Economy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Imperialism, Law, Politics, War

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Why the CIA attempted a ‘Maidan uprising’ in Brazil, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on January 11, 2023 | 1 comment

The CIA is addicted to regime change. However, what worked in the Ukraine hasn’t worked in Brazil . . . so far. From Pepe Escobar at thecradle.co:

The failed coup in Brazil is the latest CIA stunt, just as the country is forging stronger ties with the east.

https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Lula-1.jpg

A former US intelligence official has confirmed that the shambolic Maidan remix staged in Brasilia on 8 January was a CIA operation, and linked it to the recent attempts at color revolution in Iran.

On Sunday, alleged supporters of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and  presidential palace, bypassing flimsy security barricades, climbing on roofs, smashing windows, destroying public property including precious paintings, while calling for a military coup as part of a regime change scheme targeting elected President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva.

According to the US source, the reason for staging the operation – which bears visible signs of hasty planning – now, is that Brazil is set to reassert itself in global geopolitics alongside fellow BRICS states Russia, India, and China.

That suggests CIA planners are avid readers of Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar, formerly of the New York Fed. In his ground-breaking 27 December report titled War and Commodity Encumbrance, Pozsar states that “the multipolar world order is being built not by G7 heads of state but by the ‘G7 of the East’ (the BRICS heads of state), which is a G5 really but because of ‘BRICSpansion’, I took the liberty to round up.”

He refers here to reports that Algeria, Argentina, Iran have already applied to join the BRICS – or rather its expanded version “BRICS+” – with further interest expressed by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Indonesia.

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Insurrection, Intelligence

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Zelensky has achieved unique results in the destruction of Ukraine, by Alyona Zadorozhnaya

Posted on January 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

Ukraine has been destroyed and the Western press won’t report the story. From Alyona Zadorozhnaya at thesaker.is:

By the end of 2022, Vladimir Zelensky has achieved unique and in many ways tragic results. He managed to reduce the population of Ukraine to the level of a century ago, put the country in bondage to the West and deprive fellow citizens of the elementary benefits of civilization. What other “successes” could be added to Zelensky’s track record?

In 2023, a catastrophic drop in the birth rate is expected in Ukraine. This was stated by the director of the Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Research, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Ella Libanova. According to her, by 2030 the population will decrease to 35 million people, and the reduction process has been going on since 1994. At the same time, Libanova assures that 34-35 million people still live in Ukraine.

However, these figures are questionable. The number of refugees who arrived in Russia from the territory of Donbass and Ukraine has already exceeded five million people. In the summer, according to the UN, there were about 6.3 million Ukrainian citizens who left the country in all the European states. Experts are convinced that Libanova gives inflated figures – and already today there are significantly fewer people living in Ukraine than she claims..

“Even before the start of the SVO, it was difficult to understand how many people really live in Ukraine. Official figures were around 40 million people, while in reality there were approximately 33 million people, if not less,” economist Ivan Lizan told the newspaper VZGLYAD. “From 2016 to 2019, Ukrainians were leaders among those who obtained primary residence permits in Poland. Every year, up to 500 thousand people “flowed out” this way. Also, do not forget that a large number of their refugees have recently moved to Europe,” the expert emphasizes.

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Posted in Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, War

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Biden’s existential angst in Ukraine, by M. K. Bhadrakumar

Posted on January 10, 2023 | 1 comment

The Beltway consensus is moving slowly to acknowledge that Russia is winning its war with Ukraine. From M. K. Bhadrakumar at indianpunchline.com:

President Vladimir Putin attending Christmas Mass, Annunciation Cathedral, Kremlin, Moscow, January 7, 2023

The bipartisan consensus in the Beltway on the United States being    the ‘indispensable’ world power is usually attributed to the neocons who have been the driving force of the US foreign and security policy in successive administrations since the 1970s.

The op-end in the Washington Post on Saturday titled Time is not on Ukraine’s side, coauthored by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in George W. Bush presidency and Defence Secretary Robert Gates (who served under both Bush and Barack Obama), highlights this paradigm.

Rice and Gates are robust cold warriors who are enthusiastic about NATO’s war against Russia. But their grouse is that President Biden should ‘dramatically’ step up in Ukraine.

The op-ed harks back to the two world wars that marked the US’ ascendance as world power and warns that the US-led ‘rules-based order’ since 1990 — code word for US global hegemony — is in peril if Biden fails in Ukraine.

Rice and Gates indirectly acknowledge that Russia is on a winning streak, contrary to the western triumphalist narrative so far. Evidently, the expected Russian offensive ahead is rattling their nerves.

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China Cements its Position in the Middle East, by Judith Bergman

Posted on January 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

It’s real simple. Most nations prefer mutually beneficial exchange (offered by China) over bullets, bombs, bribery, and bombast (offered by the U.S.). From Judith Bergman at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • Saudi Arabia is now not only one of China’s most important suppliers of energy, but the kingdom is also an important link in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — a gigantic global development project to enhance China’s global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China. Under the BRI, China has signed cooperation agreements with 20 Arab countries.
  • China is also Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner — an arrangement that extends to military cooperation….
  • Biden took a longstanding ally, Saudi Arabia, and, by repeating that he would make the kingdom a “pariah nation,” created an adversary. “For an American president to be silent on the issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am,” Biden said. The same concern for human rights has not seemed to bother him, however, when it comes to China or Iran, whose record on human rights is at least as bad as Saudi Arabia’s, if not worse.
  • China jumped in to fill the vacuum.
  • Xi Jinping has made no secret of his wishes to “replace America as the global superpower” economically, militarily, diplomatically and technologically by 2049. The United States might be “well poised to lead,” but is it leading?

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Posted in Business, Eurasian Axis, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, War

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Top Ukrainian & Former US Officials Are Panicking That $100 Billion In Aid Isn’t Enough, by Andrew Koryobko

Posted on January 9, 2023 | 1 comment

What’s the Big Guy’s cut? From Andrew Koryobko at koryobko.substack.com:

Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov and Ambassador to the UK Vadim Prystaiko tried guilting NATO into sending more arms by emphasizing Ukraine’s status as that group’s proxy in the hopes of swaying popular Western perceptions to its side, while the second-mentioned also contributed to former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s fearmongering that the failure to do so would leave Russia in control of extremely strategic territory. All four top officials shattered prior narratives by either admitting Ukraine’s proxy role and/or acknowledging the success of Russia’s special operation thus far.

Zelensky’s trip to DC last month wasn’t the success that the US-led West’s Mainstream Media (MSM) spun it as being as evidenced by the panic that’s since taken hold of top Ukrainian and former US officials. They’ve begun an information warfare offensive alleging that the approximately $100 billion in American aid that Kiev’s received thus far supposedly isn’t enough to completely dislodge Russia from that former Soviet Republic’s pre-2014 borders, let alone defend against any forthcoming offensives.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov told national TV last week (video here, news item here, analysis here) that “Today, Ukraine is addressing [the] threat (of Russia). We’re carrying out NATO’s mission today, without shedding their blood. We shed our blood, so we expect them to provide weapons.” This was followed up by Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK Vadim Prystaiko telling Newsweek something similar in spirit shortly thereafter.

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Posted in Geopolitics, Governments, History, Politics, Propaganda, War

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What foreign policy elites really think about you, by Kelley Beaucar Vlacos

Posted on January 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

They think you’re supposed to shut up and let them run things. From Kelley Beaucar Vlacos at responsiblestatecraft.org:

If public opinion doesn’t match up with the Washington program then it must be wrong, misunderstood, or worse, irrelevant

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The Great Decentralization, by Joel Bowman

Posted on January 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

Decentralization is the growing counter-force to centralization and tyranny. From Joel Bowman at bonnerprivateresearch.com:

(Source: Getty Images)

May the forces of history be with you

Joel Bowman, appraising the situation from Buenos Aires, Argentina…

Welcome, dear reader, to a new year and another Sunday Session… that time of the week where we pull back from the granular and ponder the grander, all with the abiding help of a glass or two of Bonarda. Today, we widen the lens even further…

Inflation and deflation… tyranny and liberty… bulls and bears… Betty and Veronica.

History is full of epic matchups. Apparently equal, yet wholly opposing forces wrench at the heart… the brain… the wallet… and other vital organs… tearing us in impossible-to-reconcile directions.

The story is the same in markets, in politics, in love and in life…

Take, for example, the economy, our primary area of concern in these here pages.

On the one side, innovation and competition tend to exert downward pressure on prices over time. It is the natural outcome of competition, of creative destruction, where weaker hands and lesser ideas are weeded out over time. Lessons are learned… skills acquired… processes bettered. The resulting price deflation should deliver, as Jim Grant once phrased it, a kind of “dividend for the working man.”

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Posted in Economy, Financial markets, Governments, History

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The First US Onslaught to “Weaken” Post-Cold War Russia, by John V. Walsh

Posted on January 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

The U.S. was well on its way to turning Russia into a U.S. vassal after the fall of the U.S.S.R until Vladimir Putin came along. Which explains the continuing antipathy. From John V. Walsh at unz.com:

The first post-cold war assault on Russia by the West began in the early 1990s well before the expansion of NATO. It took the form of a U.S.-induced economic depression in Russia that was deeper and more disastrous than the Great Depression that devastated the U.S. in the 1930s. And it came at a time when Russians were naively talking of a “Common European Home” and a common European security structure that would include Russia.

The Disastrous Russian Depression Resulting from Western supervised “Shock Therapy.”

The magnitude of this economic catastrophe was spelled out tersely in a recent essay by Paul Krugman who wondered whether many Americans are aware of the enormous disaster it was for Russia. Krugman is quite accurate in describing it – but not in identifying its cause.

The graph below shows what happened to Russia beginning in the early 1990s as a result of the economic policies that were put in place under the guidance of U.S. advisors, the economist Jeffrey Sachs, perhaps the foremost among them. Sachs describes his contribution here. These policies drive an economy abruptly from a centrally planned economy with price controls to an economy where prices are determined by the market. This process is often described as “shock therapy.”

The plot shown above is from the World Bank (The link is here.) in accord with the standards set by the World Bank under the policies of Creative Commons.
The plot shown above is from the World Bank (The link is here.) in accord with the standards set by the World Bank under the policies of Creative Commons.

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Posted in Economy, Geopolitics, Governments, History

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