Essays

John Kerry, Organization Man

"Lots of people have lots of complaints about the Internet, and some of those complaints are based in fact. One that I hadn’t heard before, until US Secretary of State John Kerry brought it up, is that the Internet makes it 'much harder to govern, much harder to organize people, much harder to find the common interest …' Kerry’s lamentation isn’t the first such, nor will it be the last: The American and global political classes recognize fast, cheap communication between their subjects as the death knell for their own tenuous grip on power. The bloated, bureaucratic, hierarchal, snail-paced organizations on which states rely are no match." Continue reading →

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John Kerry, Organization Man

"Lots of people have lots of complaints about the Internet, and some of those complaints are based in fact. One that I hadn’t heard before, until US Secretary of State John Kerry brought it up, is that the Internet makes it 'much harder to govern, much harder to organize people, much harder to find the common interest …' Kerry’s lamentation isn’t the first such, nor will it be the last: The American and global political classes recognize fast, cheap communication between their subjects as the death knell for their own tenuous grip on power. The bloated, bureaucratic, hierarchal, snail-paced organizations on which states rely are no match." Continue reading →

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Paul Craig Roberts: Washington’s Drive For Hegemony Is A Drive To War

"NATO lost its purpose with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet, it has been greatly expanded and now includes former constituent parts of the Soviet Empire. NATO has become a cover for US military aggression and supplies troops for Washington’s wars. Georgia’s troops are fighting for Washington in Afghanistan and fought for Washington in Iraq. Washington kept NATO alive and made it into a mercenary army that serves Washington’s world empire. Are Americans aware that Washington is conducting military exercises all over the world, is surrounding Russia and China with military bases, and now has an Africa Command?" Continue reading →

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How Nixon the Keynesian Destroyed the Monetary Regime of Keynes

"Richard Nixon made a lot of bad decisions, but this one was his worst. This one has had long-term consequences far beyond anything he ever imagined. We are now trapped by the Federal Reserve, which buys $1 trillion worth of government debt every year. If it stops, we will get into another major recession. So far, there are few signs the Federal Reserve is going to stop. From 1965 until 1971, foreign governments and central banks could put pressure on the Federal Reserve to stop its expansion of money. All the government or the central bank had to do was order gold at $35 an ounce. That leverage ceased 42 years ago." Continue reading →

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Detroit, Demographics and Detonation

"The baby boom generation is an abnormality. It was the byproduct of halcyon days — not that we knew it at the time. But as we have seen in Detroit, when demographics shift from production to pension, there is trouble ahead. Low birth rates combined with a plethora of maturing adults on the cusp of retirement turns the pyramid of society on its head. Lower growth in itself is not a bad thing. We are still moving forward. The problem is certain promises (welfare and health commitments) have been made that cannot be kept if growth does not return to around the 3% mark. Putting this genie back in the bottle is going to be a political nightmare." Continue reading →

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Rising Inequality and Poverty: Can They Be Fixed?

"Societies can choose between two forms of relatively stable but impoverishing feudalism--stagnant backwater or financial--or accept the existential risks of embracing innovation and experimentation, not just in narrow technological fields but across the entire economy, society and government. Incentivizing the values that favor wealth creation--thrift, investing, improving skills, entrepreneurial drive, flexibility, strong families--may be just as important as leveling the playing field, i.e. maintaining opportunity via maintaining access to education and social capital building." Continue reading →

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The Secret History of G.I. Joe

"Joe, like much else in his era, was hardly what he seemed. Launched the year Lyndon Johnson ran for president as a peace candidate against Barry Goldwater while his administration was secretly planning the large-scale bombing of North Vietnam, Joe, too, was involved in a cover-up. For if Joe was a behemoth of a toy soldier, he was also, though the word was unmentionable, a doll. War play Joe-style was, in fact, largely patterned on and due to a 'girl' -- Mattel’s Barbie." Continue reading →

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On Target Pressure Points: Educational Compliance

"As John W. Whitehead explains in his new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, our nation's children are not being spared from the police state mentality which is slowly gripping all aspects of American society. While parents get ready to send their children back to school, Whitehead provides a chilling reminder that the police state mindset is pervasive in our public schools, with students becoming the victims of inflexible zero tolerance policies, mass surveillance, and arrest for childish, noncriminal behavior." Continue reading →

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On Target Pressure Points: Educational Compliance

"As John W. Whitehead explains in his new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, our nation's children are not being spared from the police state mentality which is slowly gripping all aspects of American society. While parents get ready to send their children back to school, Whitehead provides a chilling reminder that the police state mindset is pervasive in our public schools, with students becoming the victims of inflexible zero tolerance policies, mass surveillance, and arrest for childish, noncriminal behavior." Continue reading →

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Anthony Gregory: The Habeas Corpus Myth

"We know many things about habeas corpus. We know that it goes back to the Magna Carta and that the U.S. Constitution affirmed this bulwark of Anglo-American liberty. We know that habeas prohibits jailing people without cause, and that it remained healthy throughout U.S. history, except during wartime, until George W. Bush’s 2006 Military Commissions Act. And we also know that in 2008, the Supreme Court guaranteed basic due process rights for Guantánamo’s inmates. The trouble is that none of these things are true." Continue reading →

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