War Gave Us Caesar
The President today is the focus of political and increasingly social life, dominating, with the connivance of the media and popular entertainment, regardless of which of the two political cartels he may nominally belong to, mainstream debate on social and financial issues and is presented to the public as an all-purpose master of every issue and situation, a veritable demigod in his reputation for near omniscience and infallibility. For this, we can thank war. [Full article]
Comments (32)
Cute Lenin quote at the end.
The vile infection of Leninism injected by Rothbard in the 1970s rears its ugly head. And we know where Leninism leads....
Published: October 12, 2004 8:06 AM
The only thing that can be done is to weather the storm. An empire in decline is a dangerous place to live, but live we must.
Alternatives exist, always. The Four Boxes of Liberty still exist, I'm constantly reading about the efforts of the FIJA, for instance, as well as JPFO.
I believe that the Arizona LP is right in their taking action against the exclusionary Debates. Making as much noise as possible may be the only way to avoid having to utilize that last, awful Box.
May there never come a good time to vote from the rooftops.
Published: October 12, 2004 9:50 AM
Batman gave us clayface, but Daniel (in the bible) gave us clayfoot.
Given that our economic bubble will burst, even assuming we don't have more terrorism or some unsuccessful war-called-otherwise, my only consolation about the two party system is that one of the two knaves will have it burst in his face.
The empire is dead, but is on the credit ventilator. But even that can't keep it alive much longer.
Published: October 12, 2004 10:01 AM
Oppression requires both the oppressors and the oppressed to operate in the same paradigm. The resolution to the seemingly interminable decline lies not in "taking back our government," as some are want to say, but in giving up our dependence on it.
Published: October 12, 2004 11:05 AM
It is truly amazing how little others understand Americans, as evidenced by this article.
Published: October 12, 2004 11:15 AM
WHATTTT!? This is the most incomprehensible group of comments I have ever seen. Ever. What do all the strange initials mean? What is there in the article to remind one of Stalin or of something he said? What is there about Americans or about how others see them? If I were able to look back at the other comments, I would give you other examples of what is incomprehensible to me in the comments. (I do not say the comments are unexplainable--only that they are unexplained). The article itself appears straighforward, insightful. The commentary, WAYYYY out there! To quote a particularly unoriginal quote: What we have here is a failure to communicate.
Published: October 12, 2004 12:10 PM
It is far more correct to say that war gave us Sulla, whose example Caesar followed a generation later. The difference was that Sulla favored the patrician, oligarchic Senate and proscribed his enemies; while Caesar favored the Tribunes and the Popular Assembly and granted clemency to his enemies, who included in their number most of his assassins.
Published: October 12, 2004 5:11 PM
Back to the topic ... John Edwards seems to think that the President of the United States can make crippled people get out of their wheelchair and walk again. If Kerry is elected President, will he shortly afterwards have himself deified?
Published: October 12, 2004 6:09 PM
Since Bush is (according to the pictures showing he was wired) an idiot & Kerry is, while smarter, not more trustworthy perhaps the only option is for the dissolution of the USA into it's constituent states. Some of which would practice statism & fail & some of which would practice free marketism (a la Hong Kong) & succeed.
Published: October 12, 2004 6:57 PM
Good article but Young fails to mention the role played by the globalist organizations starting with Wilson's doomed League of Nations and reincarnated in the execrable UN which is now used as a pretense for imposing the will of American emporers on the rest of the world while his loyal subjects, the poor "taxpayers," pick up the tab and provide the necessary cannon fodder. Now the push is to establish regional governments such as the European Union and the soon-to-be-implemented FTAA with the final step to be the integration of these regional tyrannies into a one world police state.
Published: October 12, 2004 7:44 PM
And GWB's grandfather financed Hitler in the early 1930's in Germany - and history happened as it is well known now... - otherwise we would have been free and without suffering. Well, everbody deserves his 'karma'...
The petro-chemical-pharmaceutical mafia who is backing 'Georgey' will not give up so quickely, but Dr. Rath, the MD who worked in the US with Nobel prize winner (2x) Linus Pauling is trying hard to show us how rotten these people are.
I recommend you all to read the play 'Romulus' written by the famous swiss writer Friedrich Duerrenmatt and be prepared: The outcome will be exactly the same as about 1,600 years ago. The rest will be 'skull & bones': a perfect drama in which GWB is the protagonist and I am sure that Schwarzenegger will be glad to help GWB on the stage.
The 'Patriot Act' gives GWB the same power as Hitler got in the late 30's in Europe, thanks to his Grandfather Prescott Bush who represented Harriman and Thyssen in Holland...
See www.skolnicksreport.com for more info.
Love, happiness and peace,
Siegfried Haberl
Published: October 12, 2004 8:25 PM
Why is it so hard for people to believe that America can do something with good intentions?
And why are we comparing a backwater province (the America of George Washington) with the economic engine of the world?
And lets add Hitler to the blender, and we have an epithetic sludge of an article, with seemingly logical grounding and with fear and hate as its only message.
Published: October 12, 2004 10:55 PM
These Mises emails keep getting worse!
Read more of my thoughts at my blog, October 13, 2004 entry.
http://www.1971films.com/company_blog.htm
Best,
JKL
Published: October 13, 2004 12:09 AM
Hey JKL,
From the look of your web space, I have little doubt that you feel compelled to defend Hitler in your self-absorbed blog comment titled "To Mises Or Not To Mises." You seem to have been fascinated with Nazi culture since your college days.
Here's a news flash: Navel-gazing is subjective by definition. Be thankful for an objective viewpoint from a Canadian, for Canadians are the most media-savvy people on the planet.
Not bragging, just fact. A century of arms-length observation of the general American media pukefest now gives all us Canadians a thorough education--from early childhood--about the delusion that is propaganda. A subjective observation of the same pukefest provides no such media maturity--only media hyperbole, like Hollywood, for example.
As for the article itself, this seems to be an early entry into the tomes of this era's history. Is America doomed to repeat the narcissistic, treacherous orgy that was the Roman Empire? Not necessarily. Then again, maybe Scalia wants open love fests to prove that the Roman--oops, I mean American--value system is superior to any other.
Published: October 13, 2004 1:00 AM
I'm loving this. See, I'm from Brazil, and here, if you're not a socialist, you're a... socialist! So here are my comments, as one of the rare brazilian classic-liberals:
I enjoyed the article, but not because I dislike GWB in particular (actually I like him better than Clinton), but because I dislike the system of one man rulling the country (not the world). Of course, compared to our president Lula, Bush is a confederated leader.
Anyways, I liked the article not because it attacked Bush, but because it criticized the system of "one most powerfull man in the nation". No matter if it is republican, democrat, workers party (Brazil), free people loose a little everytime it's more normal for a country to have one superior leader and commander - especially if it is a party system. The writer of the article forgot to mention what George Washington thought about the party system... he used to say that it would destroy democracy in the long haul.
Published: October 13, 2004 9:15 AM
JKL
Regarding your blog entry critiquing Young's work, I would strongly recommend that you study the Civil War in depth -- its causes, events, and effects -- prior to making so many comments about it and about the Lincoln administration. You demonstrate a very clearly poorly-informed point of view on the matter.
Regards,
Pellinore
Published: October 13, 2004 9:45 AM
The sad shame of the so-called American society is that it has become both conditioned and enamored with the socialistic(communistic) liberal government that it will not make any attempt to repudiate it or to deny it.
When I think about what the Founding Fathers lost/sacrificed in order for us to have a "limited and restricted, representative Republic", my eyes water in shame! d daxx
Published: October 13, 2004 10:49 AM
"The Crash of 1929 gave every statist intellectual and greedy politician the opportunity they had long desired to turn the federal government into a permanent presence in the decisions of every American. And in the process they created the Great Depression.
The Roosevelt administration permanently altered the relationship between the American people and their government."
This segue is sly, but it's not very subtle. It slips right over the fact that there were nearly three and a half years between the Crash and FDR's first inaugural. After Harding and Coolidge are named in the previous paragraph, Hoover miraculously remains invisible.
Published: October 13, 2004 12:32 PM
Oh, the lovely liberal thoughtfulness and contemplation considers all sides of humanity while sipping turncoat bordeaux through their rose colored glassed, or better yet - drinking a nice bailout Port after a delectible oil for food creme-brulee. The intelligensia declares "War is Bad", and there was a heartfull "HEAR HEAR" from the fat, drunk crowd before they retire to their mansions in hills.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world understands that people are plotting to kill them. The Monroe Doctrine is DEAD, and if there is any doubt about that, visit ground zero. My regret of capitalism is that it has disconnected the "intelligensia" from reality. But then again, what do Austrians care if Americans die anyway, they are bringing it on themselves, right?
Published: October 13, 2004 2:27 PM
QUOTE: A century of arms-length observation of the general American media pukefest now gives all us Canadians a thorough education--from early childhood--about the delusion that is propaganda. A subjective observation of the same pukefest provides no such media maturity--only media hyperbole, like
Hollywood, for example. UNQUOTE
As a Canadian I would like to offer a dissenting opinion. Canadian news media are complete shite. The biggest news network of all, CBC, is by far the worst. With the possible exception of Radio Moscow and Bagdhad Bob, I have never heard another more biased and and incompetent state-owned broadcasting organization than the CBC. That includes BBC, PBS, and Radio France.
As bad as the U.S. media may be, you can still find plenty of dissenting voices from all parts of the political spectrum. This is no accident - the U.S. constitutional protection of freedom of the press and a relative lack of desire to "protect" American culture still puts American media miles ahead of the media of just about every other country in the world.
Whereas in Canada, you have the largest private media organizations in a grotesque competition to out-toady each other as they seek favor with the federal government. This competition has become more feverish and more nauseating in the last several years, as "media convergence" has seen the merger of newspaper chains with broadcasting and internet companies. No newspaper chain will dare to seriously criticize the political status quo in Canada anymore, because to do so would put them at risk of being denied regulatory approval for their broadcasting/internet/telecoms ventures.
Canada wears its biggest failures like badges of honor - our military is a joke, but that's a good thing, because "we're peacekeepers after all not warriors"; our literature and films are boring and inconsequential, because somehow Canadian culture is so "valuable" that it needs "protection"; Canadian businesses compete very poorly on the world stage, but that's a good thing, because "we're not greedy like the Americans"; our socialist health care system is horrific, but that's a good thing because it shows that "we care about people"; and the whiney, navel-gazing, annoying culture of Quebec is worth all those wretched and corrupt political compromises, because somehow the existence of this Quebec culture "defines Canada".
Published: October 13, 2004 8:15 PM
I'm not sure about who is the one doing the navel-gazing there. For my part, I have a Media Studies minor...
As for Canadian media being second-rate, that is (mostly) a laughable argument. Perhaps American propaganda has clouded the judgement of Canadian ex-pats.
My original point, though, was that Canadians--as individuals, not as business concerns--understand how media operates better than any other people on the planet (political/economic hurdles to production aside). Like I said, a century spent in objective observation of the largest pukefest in history has changed our DNA ever-so-slightly that we now have a certain instinct for seeing through the media smokescreen. This is why shows like “This Hour Has Seven Days� were trailblazers of the news-magazine TV genre that led to copycat American shows like “60 Minutes.� Nowadays the world (even Canada, shamefully) copies templates like “American Idol� with its shallow cavalcade of one-person cover bands.
Published: October 13, 2004 11:57 PM
"Whereas in Canada, you have the largest private media organizations in a grotesque competition to out-toady each other as they seek favor with the federal government."
That quote describes American media, not Canadian media, and is a remarkable topsy-turvy confusion of a kind that seems all too prevalent in modern Oceania--oops, I mean America. The past decade of media convergence in the US--almost cemented by that jerk Powell at the FCC--demonstrates the most shameful abandonment of independent press the world has ever seen. Media companies are either colluding with or afraid of a government that they know ignores the 1st Amendment anyway (something Congress allows because of equivalent PAC pressure). Almost no American "journalist" dares now to do anything but lead the cheer for abandonment of the Monroe Doctrine, and after-the-fact mea culpa pleas are an insult to the intelligence of dogs, let alone humans. Tass had nothing on the "one voice" of the new American press, while Canada is moving back from a similar brink of insanity that totalitarian Black tried to force down our throats during the 80's (when fascism was the fashion and Mulroney was would-be king).
Published: October 13, 2004 11:59 PM
Still, there are--thankfully--right and left mainstream papers in Canada, plus right and left mainstream television, right and left mainstream radio. In America, from the WSJ to NPR, there is only varying mainstream degrees of the right--which is wrong, not right.
American media is "ahead" of nothing. Today, US-based bands that release million-record-selling albums filled with cover tunes are mislabeled as "artists." Semi-literate masses now demand People magazine over Jorge Luis Borges. Newspapers are extensions of the White House communications department. Reality television voyeur-izes life at the expense of constructive engagement. Don't even get me started on the radio meme-monopoly of Clear Channel and the Rush-popper. America has all but abandoned creativity, the "fine arts" that Kant described as the "genius of mankind." Instead, Americans now prize the work of artisans, the "industrial arts" that Kant described as being a mere shadow of fine art, with its "rules" that can be "learned" even though such motivation ruins everything about a piece except its predictable marketability (hence the American obsession I suppose, even a basis for American-style Romanticism).
Mind, moral cowardice and duplicity often enable sustained profitability in this credit-debt world--just ask Enron. Is that the mises.org definition of near-perfect competition? Or maybe instead, some other sinister kind of interventionism-of-the-individual is happening to America right now--the interventionism of insecure, narcissistic psychopaths. How do we purge them without stoking the fires of statism? I find little comfort in the knowledge that "the market will take care of things," because right now the market is the government is the market, and by the time the invisible hand sorts things out there may be millions dead at the visible, bloody hands of modern Caesars and their covers of old Roman empire-tunes.
Published: October 14, 2004 12:14 AM
OmchĂ…r
Noam Chomskys new book "Hegemony or Survival"
and Chalmers Johnsons new book "The sorrows of Empire" are books you may enjoy.
Chomskys web site is: www.chomsky.info
Published: October 14, 2004 10:19 AM
Adam Young writes "What is to be done?"
The only answer, as far as I can see, is secession. So how do we achieve secession, whether individually, in communities, or even up to Hellenic city territory level? Ah, now that's a question I would love to hear the answer to! :-)
Here's my 2 cents worth, 4WIW.
If there is any such place left unclaimed by a state, Mises.org buy a small insignificant unpopulated island, with some potential for development, and with full-blooded Robinson Crusoe Austrianism develop this into a hyper-Hong Kong or a super-Singapore.
If there really is no such place, all of them having been grabbed by one state or another, we copy the tourist development agency in Dubai and build some islands somewhere in state-free waters, much like the Venetians did when they escaped the Hun and the Goths at the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
The only other alternative I can see is that when states like the US and the EU collapse fully and totally decivilise, the secession and independence of tiny micro-territories will seem like an obvious step - much as the Roman Empire broke into a myriad of micro-territories, particularly on the periphery in places like Britain, when its empire collapsed. But can we wait that long? And can we endure the increasing state slavery and imperial taxation that will inexorably build up before this boil-bursting collapse?
If anyone has any interesting links on how we can achieve secession, I'd be pleased to see 'em. TIA! :-)
Published: October 14, 2004 10:20 AM
Wow. I just re-read what I wrote, and I now remember what a bad mood I was in last night.
Sorry if I sounded over-confrontational. Rest assured that as a good Canadian, I know how to be ashamed about speaking my mind. Ha.
Rolf, I have read Chomsky, even met him in Vancouver. He's ok, not any more or less of a genius than McLuhan (media) or Mises (what was his specialty again?).
Of course, after all is said and done, most of us Canadians are afraid to kill our beloved socialism babies. The fact that the Liberals just sold off the last remaining government shares in PetroCan is a good start...
Published: October 14, 2004 3:19 PM
And, as a Canadian, I must add:
The best possible Caesar is one with vodka and Clamato juice...
Published: October 14, 2004 4:20 PM
[QUOTE] The fact that the Liberals just sold off the last remaining
government shares in PetroCan is a good start... [UNQUOTE]
This is certainly a good thing, but I view it as a desperate attempt to raise some cash to pour into the corrupt political system. Looking at this from the Liberal point of view, there no political reason to hold onto Petro Canada. Bush's gunboat diplomacy nothwithstanding, the oil industry works in a pretty straightforward way and there is not enough ideological or cultural obfuscation present in the industry in order to justify and conceal the usual Liberal corrupt practises.
Now consider all the other Crown Corporations (state owned enterprises) ... can you imagine the Liberals ever selling them off? Via Rail, Canada Post, and the Business Development Bank. Such lame institutions and so tangled up in the Liberals' agendas of regional pandering, patronage appointments, corrupt procurement, bilingualism, ethnic quotas, and other "fundamental" cultural requirements.
BTW I don't know of any right wing newspapers in Canada. I stopped reading the National Post when Steyn quit. As "pro business" as the Globe and Mail is (allegedly) I don't find it right wing at all. Didn't they come out with a cheesy editorial before the last federal election, steering voters back to the sinking, stinking Liberal ship on the justification that this "does the least harm?" This is easy to understand - Globe and Mail's parent company Bell will do and say almost anything to keep the Liberals in power, because they are protecting Bell's satellite TV service from American competition. And besides, the mutual fund and stock brokering industries whose advertisements are the bread and butter of the Globe and Mail are not exactly free enterprise - government regulation has been steadily pushing this business into the laps of the Big Banks.
Published: October 14, 2004 7:30 PM
OmchAr
Chomsky, linguistics, MIT
Published: October 15, 2004 3:10 AM
Rolf,
I am familiar with Chomsky's work, but haven't read "Hegemony or Survival."
I sent this thread too far off-topic as it is...
Published: October 16, 2004 1:11 AM
OmarĂ…r
The empire is spread far and wide.
And todays Bush and the neocons make
Nixon and his hechmen appear rather meek and Nixon
did have the decease to get out. The present group are so convinced of their own rightness that they have become really a danger to all.
Published: October 16, 2004 2:43 AM
Jack
Your artificial islands will be built in space.
With Burt Rutan's commercial space venture coming on the time is coming (couple of decades?) that it will be possible to commercially develop space based living.
With Spaceship One it would now take active government action to prevent space development rather than the opposite (which is not to say we won't get that). Once established Imperial control could not be maintained in more than a token sense. If we get a lot of them we may even find economics becoming an experimental science.
Published: October 26, 2004 5:22 PM