WeDaPeople vs. DaSwamp – who wins? You tell me!

WeDaPeople – America First? Maybe – and only with some! Most folks say: It’s all about me? (More about this later)

DaSwamp – What’s that? DaDeepState = DaSwamp – and Empire First is their cash cow!

Doug Casey explains: ‘’The Deep State is an extremely powerful network that controls nearly everything around you. You won’t read about it in the news because it controls the news. Politicians won’t talk about it publicly. That would be like a mobster discussing murder and robbery on the 6 o’clock news. You could say the Deep State is hidden, but it’s only hidden in plain sight.”

Empire ‘uber-alles’:

“…. Empire First dominates our foreign policy, because there’s so much money flowing into the Pentagon, the 17 intelligence agencies, and the rest.

That money is also going to the tens of thousands of people who are getting paid big salaries to work as contractors for the NSA and other agencies. They form a built-in lobbying force of tremendous effectiveness to keep the funds flowing.

When you add to that all of the think tanks that get money from the State Department, the National Endowment for Democracy, and various pockets and crevices in the Pentagon that no one can even keep up with, essentially you have what I call the equivalent of a self-licking ice cream cone.”

Why? Empires are expensive!

“Instead of keeping faith with the promise that was made to Gorbachev by Secretary of State Jim Baker and George Bush the elder—that NATO would not expand a single inch to the east—instead, we basically encircled the entire rump state of Russia that was left after the Soviet Union fell apart. That has then led to the case for a military budget this year of $750 billion, when the truth is a homeland defense would cost less than $250 billion.”

“The thing just keeps going because it’s so big it feeds itself—the $750 billion defense budget is just the beginning. That’s the Department of Defense budget per se, but if you add in another $25 billion for nuclear energy programs at the Department of Energy, $50 billion for security assistance and foreign aid, international relations, another $60–70 billion for Homeland Security, and then the veterans’ budget, which is $200 billion, it’s just massive. It represents the deferred cost of all these stupid wars that we’ve had and didn’t need.

Altogether we’re talking about a $1.1 trillion budgetary monster that creates these enormous flows of dollars that want to perpetuate themselves.”

Who profits from these wars? Shhhhhh…..!

“The reason poverty, war, and political tyranny are beyond my control is because powerful people have too much at stake to allow anyone or anything to get in their way. Let’s get real here: Poverty, war, and political power are extremely profitable businesses, and if the ruling class believes you’re a serious threat to its agenda, you might just end up ………….” – Robert Ringer

How did we get here? Everything you and I learned and knew about America in the 20th century - AINT so! – a LONG read!

What about the 545 elected members of Congress that WeDaPeople elect?

“The only comprehensive and scientific study which has ever been done of whether the U.S. is a democracy or instead a dictatorship, was published in 2014. It studied the period during 1981 through 2002, and it found that, “In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes.”

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

What about DaConstitution?

It’s sorta like with DaBible – quote it when it’s convenient and ignore it when it ain’t! Besides, who believes what it says anyways?

“The U.S. Constitution is just an arbitrary piece of paper… entirely apart from the fact the whole thing is now just a dead letter. You have a right to free speech and to be armed because they’re necessary parts of being a free person, not because of what a political document says.

Even though the essence of the State is coercion, people have been taught to love and respect it. Most people think of the State in the quaint light of a grade school civics book. They think it has something to do with “We the People” electing a Jimmy Stewart character to represent them. That ideal has always been a pernicious fiction, because it idealizes, sanitizes, and legitimizes an intrinsically evil and destructive institution, which is based on force. As Mao once said, political power comes out of the barrel of a gun. But things have gone far beyond that. We’re now in the Deep State.” – Doug Casey

So who are WeDaPeople? Danged if I know!

“The question comes down to this: Is the fragile American experiment in republicanism begun in Philadelphia in 1787, which required a commonly-shared understanding of basic principles, now over, or at the very least is it entering its agonizing death throes?” - Is It Time for America to Break Apart?

How did we get here?

That isn't a graph of "the changing face of America". That is a graph of America being transformed into Not-America, all thanks to one man, Emanuel Celler. – and passed into law by Congress!

The "two Americas" to which the author refers are not, in fact, two Americas. There is a white Christian America and there is a not-white not-Christian not-America which are now locked into an existential struggle. The USA is now divided into a New World remnant of Christendom and the stronghold of Satandom. The latter wishes to conquer and destroy the former because it is a separate nation that worships the god of this world rather than God the Father of Jesus Christ. – Vox Day

The USA is presently facing its own October Revolution right now, one that has been decades in the making. And many of those seeking to complete the destruction of Christian America and rule over a USSA are the literal descendants, intellectually, ideologically, and genetically, of the very Bolsheviks who subjected Christian Russia and Christian Ukraine to 70 years of persecution and suffering.

The author sees three possibilities:

(1) Either there must be some large mass conversion of one side or the other (a ‘Road to Damascus’ conversion?), probably occasioned by some immense and earth-shaking event, war, depression, disaster; or (2) there must be a separation into independent jurisdictions of large portions of what is presently geographically the United States, including possible massive population exchanges—this separation/secession could be peaceable, although increasingly I think it would not be; or lastly, and worst, (3) the devolution of this country would continue into open and vicious civil and guerrilla war, followed by a harsh dictatorship. 

Scenario (3) is a near-certainty simply because virtually no one who is even potentially on the side of the Christian Nationalists is currently capable of recognizing the situation, much less doing anything about it. And as Sun Tzu observes, those who know neither themselves nor their enemies almost always lose.

So what do we do?

“No, don’t hide in a cave – ‘simply start building something better’ – right within your own family, friends and community. Become informed – read and analyze – challenge your own long held beliefs. Do they hold up to careful scrutiny? Are you stuck with pre-suppositions that cloud every interpretation of new information? We will get into some serious confrontations here with our long held opinions that we consider to be factual. You think I am kidding? If you begin to diligently read and research the Limbraw Library here, as well as other sources - carefully compare and contrast the content - you will come to the conclusion that almost ALL of  what you learned in public school and DaEveningNews about the 20th century, for example, was not just usual national propaganda - it was outrageous LYING by our political leadership! In the last 15-20 years, I have come to admit that I have had to change almost everything I had accepted as gospel truth - it is quite humbling!”

 If I had all the answers I’d be lying, but I had to start somewhere - http://www.crushlimbraw.com/ - it’s a work in progress and with the grace of Almighty God, we’ll git’er’done – or our descendants will. There are many others as well – most of whom we’ll never meet or know – but they’re out there!

“Expect to meet resistance and ridicule, often from your family and friends. It comes with the territory.”

All I promise is ‘blood, sweat and tears’! At worst – whoever survives will be here to pick up the pieces!

US-China "Trade" War? No Way. Only the Defeat of Turbo-Capitalism!, by Andre Vltchek - The Unz Review

It is very popular these days to talk and write about the “trade war” between the United States and China. But is there really one raging? Or is it, what we are witnessing, simply a clash of political and ideological systems: one being extremely successful and optimistic, the other depressing, full of dark cynicism and nihilism?

In the past, West used to produce almost everything. While colonizing the entire planet (one should just look at the map of the globe, between the two world wars), Europe and later the United States, Canada and Australia, kept plundering all the continents of natural resources, holding hundreds of millions of human beings in what could be easily described as ‘forced labor’, often bordering on slavery.

Under such conditions, it was very easy to be ‘number one’, to reign without competition, and to toss around huge amounts of cash, for the sole purpose of indoctrinating local and overseas ‘subjects’ on topics such as the ‘glory’ of capitalism, colonialism (open and hidden), and Western-style ‘democracy’.

It is essential to point out that in the recent past, the global Western dictatorship (and that included the ‘economic system) used to have absolutely no competition. Systems that were created to challenge it, were smashed with the most brutal, sadistic methods. One only needs recall invasions from the West to the young Soviet Union, with the consequent genocide and famines. Or other genocides in Indochina, which was fighting its wars for independence, first against France, later against the United States.

Times changed. But Western tactics haven’t.

There are now many new systems, in numerous corners of the world. These systems, some Communist, others socialist or even populist, are ready to defend their citizens, and to use the natural resources to feed the people, and to educate, house and cure them.

No matter how popular these systems are at home, the West finds ways to demonize them, using its well-established propaganda machinery. First, to smear them and then, if they resist, to directly liquidate them.

As before, during the colonial era, no competition has been permitted. Disobedience is punishable by death.

Naturally, the Western system has not been built on excellence, hard work and creativity, only. It was constructed on fear, oppression and brutal force. For centuries, it has clearly been a monopoly.

Only the toughest countries, like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or Cuba, have managed to survive, defending they own cultures, and advancing their philosophies.

To the West, China has proved to be an extremely tough adversary.

With its political, economic, and social system, it has managed to construct a forward-looking, optimistic and extraordinarily productive society. Its scientific research is now second to none. Its culture is thriving. Together with its closest ally, Russia, China excels in many essential fields.

That is precisely what irks, even horrifies the West.

For decades and centuries, Europe and the United States have not been ready to tolerate any major country, which would set up its own set of rules and goals.

China refuses to accept the diktat from abroad. It now appears to be self-sufficient, ideologically, politically, economically and intellectually. Where it is not fully self-sufficient, it can rely on its friends and allies. Those allies are, increasingly, located outside the Western sphere.

Is China really competing with the West? Yes and no. And often not consciously.

It is a giant; still the most populous nation on earth. It is building, determinedly, its socialist motherland (applying “socialism with the Chinese characteristics” model). It is trying to construct a global system which has roots in the thousands of years of its history (BRI – Belt and Road Initiative, often nicknamed the “New Silk Road”).

Its highly talented and hardworking, as well as increasingly educated population, is producing, at a higher pace and often at higher quality than the countries in Europe, or the United States. As it produces, it also, naturally, trades.

This is where the ‘problem’ arises. The West, particularly the United States, is not used to a country that creates things for the sake and benefit of its people. For centuries, Asian, African and Latin American people were ordered what and how to produce, where and for how much to sell the produce. Or else!

Of course, the West has never consulted anyone. It has been producing what it (and its corporations) desired. It was forcing countries all over the world, to buy its products. If they refused, they got invaded, or their fragile governments (often semi-colonies, anyway) overthrown.

The most ‘terrible’ thing that China is doing is: it is producing what is good for China, and for its citizens.

That is, in the eyes of the West, unforgiveable!

In the process, China ‘competes’. But fairly: it produces a lot, cheaply, and increasingly well. The same can be said about Russia.

These two countries are not competing maliciously. If they were to decide to, they could sink the US economy, or perhaps the economy of the entire West, within a week.

But they don’t even think about it.

However, as said above, to just work hard, invent new and better products, advance scientific research, and use the gains to improve the lives of ordinary people (they will be no extreme poverty in China by the end of 2020) is seen as the arch-crime in London and Washington.

Why? Because the Chinese and Russian systems appear to be much better, or at least, simply better, than those which are reigning in the West and its colonies. And because they are working for the people, not for corporations or for the colonial powers.

And the demagogues in the West – in its mass media outlets and academia – are horrified that perhaps, soon, the world will wake up and see the reality. Which is actually already happening: slowly but surely.

It is very popular these days to talk and write about the “trade war” between the United States and China. But is there really one raging? Or is it, what we are witnessing, simply a clash of political and ideological systems: one being extremely successful and optimistic, the other depressing, full of dark cynicism and nihilism?

In the past, West used to produce almost everything. While colonizing the entire planet (one should just look at the map of the globe, between the two world wars), Europe and later the United States, Canada and Australia, kept plundering all the continents of natural resources, holding hundreds of millions of human beings in what could be easily described as ‘forced labor’, often bordering on slavery.

Under such conditions, it was very easy to be ‘number one’, to reign without competition, and to toss around huge amounts of cash, for the sole purpose of indoctrinating local and overseas ‘subjects’ on topics such as the ‘glory’ of capitalism, colonialism (open and hidden), and Western-style ‘democracy’.

It is essential to point out that in the recent past, the global Western dictatorship (and that included the ‘economic system) used to have absolutely no competition. Systems that were created to challenge it, were smashed with the most brutal, sadistic methods. One only needs recall invasions from the West to the young Soviet Union, with the consequent genocide and famines. Or other genocides in Indochina, which was fighting its wars for independence, first against France, later against the United States.

Times changed. But Western tactics haven’t.

There are now many new systems, in numerous corners of the world. These systems, some Communist, others socialist or even populist, are ready to defend their citizens, and to use the natural resources to feed the people, and to educate, house and cure them.

No matter how popular these systems are at home, the West finds ways to demonize them, using its well-established propaganda machinery. First, to smear them and then, if they resist, to directly liquidate them.

As before, during the colonial era, no competition has been permitted. Disobedience is punishable by death.

Naturally, the Western system has not been built on excellence, hard work and creativity, only. It was constructed on fear, oppression and brutal force. For centuries, it has clearly been a monopoly.

Only the toughest countries, like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or Cuba, have managed to survive, defending they own cultures, and advancing their philosophies.

To the West, China has proved to be an extremely tough adversary.

With its political, economic, and social system, it has managed to construct a forward-looking, optimistic and extraordinarily productive society. Its scientific research is now second to none. Its culture is thriving. Together with its closest ally, Russia, China excels in many essential fields.

That is precisely what irks, even horrifies the West.

For decades and centuries, Europe and the United States have not been ready to tolerate any major country, which would set up its own set of rules and goals.

China refuses to accept the diktat from abroad. It now appears to be self-sufficient, ideologically, politically, economically and intellectually. Where it is not fully self-sufficient, it can rely on its friends and allies. Those allies are, increasingly, located outside the Western sphere.

Is China really competing with the West? Yes and no. And often not consciously.

It is a giant; still the most populous nation on earth. It is building, determinedly, its socialist motherland (applying “socialism with the Chinese characteristics” model). It is trying to construct a global system which has roots in the thousands of years of its history (BRI – Belt and Road Initiative, often nicknamed the “New Silk Road”).

Its highly talented and hardworking, as well as increasingly educated population, is producing, at a higher pace and often at higher quality than the countries in Europe, or the United States. As it produces, it also, naturally, trades.

This is where the ‘problem’ arises. The West, particularly the United States, is not used to a country that creates things for the sake and benefit of its people. For centuries, Asian, African and Latin American people were ordered what and how to produce, where and for how much to sell the produce. Or else!

Of course, the West has never consulted anyone. It has been producing what it (and its corporations) desired. It was forcing countries all over the world, to buy its products. If they refused, they got invaded, or their fragile governments (often semi-colonies, anyway) overthrown.

The most ‘terrible’ thing that China is doing is: it is producing what is good for China, and for its citizens.

That is, in the eyes of the West, unforgiveable!

In the process, China ‘competes’. But fairly: it produces a lot, cheaply, and increasingly well. The same can be said about Russia.

These two countries are not competing maliciously. If they were to decide to, they could sink the US economy, or perhaps the economy of the entire West, within a week.

But they don’t even think about it.

However, as said above, to just work hard, invent new and better products, advance scientific research, and use the gains to improve the lives of ordinary people (they will be no extreme poverty in China by the end of 2020) is seen as the arch-crime in London and Washington.

Why? Because the Chinese and Russian systems appear to be much better, or at least, simply better, than those which are reigning in the West and its colonies. And because they are working for the people, not for corporations or for the colonial powers.

And the demagogues in the West – in its mass media outlets and academia – are horrified that perhaps, soon, the world will wake up and see the reality. Which is actually already happening: slowly but surely.

To portray China as an evil country, is essential for the hegemony of the West. There is nothing so terrifying to London and Washington as the combination of these words: “Socialism/ Communism, Asian, success”. The West invents new and newer ‘opposition movements’, it then supports them and finances them, just in order to then point fingers and bark: “China is fighting back, and it is violating human rights”, when it defends itself and its citizens. This tactic is clear, right now, in both the northwest of the country, and in Honk Kong.

Not everything that China builds is excellent. Europe is still producing better cars, shoes and fragrances, and the United States, better airplanes. But the progress that China has registered during the last two decades, is remarkable. were it to be football, it is China 2: West1.

Most likely, unless there is real war, that in ten years, China will catch up in many fields; catch up, and surpass the West. Side by side with Russia.

It could have been excellent news for the entire world. China is sharing its achievements, even with the poorest of the poor countries in Africa, or with Laos in Asia.

The only problem is, that the West feels that it has to rule. It is unrepentant, observing the world from a clearly fundamentalist view. It cannot help it: it is absolutely, religiously convinced that it has to give orders to every man and woman, in every corner of the globe.

It is a tick, fanatical. Lately, anyone who travels to Europe or the United States will testify: what is taking place there is not good, even for the ordinary citizens. Western governments and corporations are now robbing even their own citizens. The standard of living is nose-diving.

China, with just a fraction of the wealth, is building a much more egalitarian society, although you would never guess so, if you exclusively relied on Western statistics.

So, “trade war” slogans are an attempt to convince the local and global public that “China is unfair”, that it is “taking advantage” of the West. President Trump is “defending” the United States against the Chinese ‘Commies’. But the more he “defends them”, the poorer they get. Strange, isn’t it?

While the Chinese people, Russian people, even Laotian people, are, ‘miraculously’, getting richer and richer. They are getting more and more optimistic.

For decades, the West used to preach ‘free trade’, and competition. That is, when it was in charge, or let’s say, ‘the only kid on the block’.

In the name of competition and free trade, dozens of governments got overthrown, and millions of people killed.

And now?

What is China supposed to do? Frankly, what?

Should it curb its production, or perhaps close scientific labs? Should it consult the US President or perhaps British Prime Minister, before it makes any essential economic decision? Should it control the exchange rate of RMB, in accordance with the wishes of the economic tsars in Washington? That would be thoroughly ridiculous, considering that (socialist/Communist) China will soon become the biggest economy in the world, or maybe it already is.

There is all that abstract talk, but nothing concrete suggested. Or is it like that on purpose?

Could it be that the West does not want to improve relations with Beijing?

On September 7, 2019, AP reported:

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow compared trade talks with China on Friday to the U.S. standoff with Russia during the Cold War…

“The stakes are so high, we have to get it right, and if that takes a decade, so be it,” he said.

Kudlow emphasized that it took the United States decades to get the results it wanted with Russia. He noted that he worked in the Reagan administration: “I remember President Reagan waging a similar fight against the Soviet Union.”

Precisely! The war against the Soviet Union was hardly a war for economic survival of the United States. It was an ideological battle, which the United States, unfortunately won, because it utilized both propaganda and economic terror (the arms race and other means).

Now, China is next on the list, and the White House is not even trying to hide it.

But China is savvy. It is beginning to understand the game. And it is ready, by all means, to defend the system which has pulled almost all its citizens out of misery, and which could, one day soon, do the same for the rest of the world.

First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook – a journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences]

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora”and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. His Patreon

http://www.unz.com/avltchek/us-china-trade-war-no-way-only-the-defeat-of-turbo-capitalism/

Vox Popoli: 572% and counting - 2020 Junior Classics - one of the greatest homeschooling assets ever printed

News of the availability of the 2020 Junior Classics is has observably spread as far as Australia and Hong Kong. If you are similarly interested in acquiring one of the greatest homeschooling assets ever printed, whether in digital, hardcover, or deluxe leather editions, you can do so here.

The campaign owner is aware that the campaign cannot be found by searching for it on Google or the crowdfunding site. That is by design, so there is no need to repeatedly inform us of that fact. If you wish to help spread the news about the , please feel free to post the animated GIF above with a direct link to the campaign attached. And thanks very much to the Classics backer who created the banner.

In other crowdfunding news, we are aware of about 500 AH Vol. I omnibuses that have not yet shipped due to a problem with the order formatting. We are in the process of fixing that with the printer, so if you have not yet received your omnibus, just sit tight, as this is just a minor procedural problem.

UPDATE: The Heirloom perk is intentionally priced higher than the sum of its parts because certain backers have requested a means of providing additional support to the project.

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2019/10/572-and-counting.html

What Should We Do About the War on History? - By Brion McClanahan

Jarrett Stepman has a new book out from Regnery titled The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.

This is a good and timely topic, and I was excited to read what Stepman had to say.

The book is a nice, breezy read–and a worthwhile purchase–and he takes the Left to task on several issues, most importantly on Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson.

But he could have punched harder.

I have talked a lot about the destruction of Western Civilization and in particular the assault on all things Southern and Confederate on both my show and over at the Abbeville Institute’s website and podcast–a great place to get more of me each week.

Stepman missed an opportunity to take it to the enemy. His chapter on “The War for Union” begins by discussing Robert E. Lee and ends with a defense of Abraham Lincoln?

Yes, because Lincoln is clearly under assault in America, where again?

Malcolm X thought Lincoln “did more to deceive Negroes and to make the race problem in this country than any man in history.”

I guess that counts, but Stepman does not mention this. And of course X said that to Robert Penn Warren in the 1960s.

Stepman does cite Harry Jaffa and Allen Guelzo, though. Who could pick two more strident defenders of all things Southern?

This is the problem with modern “conservatism.” They fall all over themselves trying to appeal to the Left by parroting the “proposition nation” fallacy of the founding.

Stepman falls into that trap. If the War was about slavery and nothing else, as Stepman and the neoconservatives contend, then how is the Left wrong to want to eradicate that part of American memory?

They don’t see that they are digging their own intellectual graves.

I review Stepman’s book in Episode 263 of The Brion McClanahan Show.

You can watch it here.

Or

You can listen to it here.

How Alexander Hamilton...Brion McClanahanBest Price: $4.95Buy New $5.98(as of 11:25 EDT - Details)

Speaking of the war on history, Donald Trump supposedly stepped in it again when he insisted that Italy and the United States “are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years to Ancient Rome.”

The Twitter historian brigade jumped on the chance to let Trump have it for his historical ignorance, that is until these nimrods woke up.

Even Newsweek defended Trump’s comments.

I, of course, have spoken twice about Roman influence on American history on my show and what that history means for the future of the United States. Just goes to show that listening to me puts you on the cutting edge.

I do all of this free of charge, so if you would like to help, consider supporting the show. I appreciate anything you want to send my way.
https://brionmcclanahan.com/support

The Best of Brion McClanahan

Brion McClanahan [send him mail] holds a Ph.D in American History from the University of South Carolina. His newest book is How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America.

Copyright © 2019 Brion McClanahan

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/10/brion-mcclanahan/what-should-we-do-about-the-war-on-history/

David Stockman on How the US Went from America First to Empire First

International Man: In a broad sense, how would you describe the foreign policy of the US?

David Stockman: Well, in two words: Empire First. I contrast that with what Donald Trump thought he wanted to seek as a candidate, America First.

Now these are obviously simplifications and slogans, but there is an underlying substance that’s really important.

I think the basic idea behind “America First” is reaching way back to Robert Taft in the 1950s. He said that we cannot have a permanent warfare state in America, because our foreign policy doesn’t require it and our fiscal capacities can’t afford it.

What Taft basically said is the US sits between these two great ocean moats in a nuclear age, where the number-one threat is a nuclear threat, not an invasion of conventional forces. The way you deal with that is to have overwhelming retaliatory capacity, to keep the other side at bay.

As a matter of fact, he was totally right. It worked for 40 years. The Soviet Union finally crumbled under its own weight in 1991, and therefore the case was proved. There was no industrial society, high-tech conventional military threat left in the world. The opportunity arose in the early 1990s to go really full out America First.

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Why did we keep all of these aircraft carriers, battleships, all this forward power projection capability, air refueling capabilities, 100 bases or more all over the world? None of that was needed throughout the entire Cold War, but most especially after 1991. That’s the direction we should have gone.

Where we ended up was in the opposite direction of what I call “America First.” Instead of dismantling NATO, we expanded it from 15 to 29 countries.

Instead of keeping faith with the promise that was made to Gorbachev by Secretary of State Jim Baker and George Bush the elder—that NATO would not expand a single inch to the east—instead, we basically encircled the entire rump state of Russia that was left after the Soviet Union fell apart. That has then led to the case for a military budget this year of $750 billion, when the truth is a homeland defense would cost less than $250 billion.

International Man: What are your thoughts on the amount of money the US spends on foreign aid, wars, the so-called intelligence community, the State Department, and other aspects of foreign policy?

David Stockman: The excess over what we need for homeland defense is more than a half trillion dollars per year—money we are wasting that we don’t have, that we’re borrowing and passing on to future generations.

We’re really at a point where there is a stark contrast between what homeland security and the safety of people in Lincoln, Nebraska, or Spokane, Washington, require—and what they continually produce in the imperial city in Washington, DC, with this massive warfare-state budget.

Now, unfortunately the lesson that we’ve learned in the first three years of the Trump administration is that good intentions, even vague ones—and Trump surely had no articulated or well-developed content to his notion of America First—they don’t stand a chance against this massive machine that is self-perpetuating.

In other words, Empire First dominates our foreign policy, because there’s so much money flowing into the Pentagon, the 17 intelligence agencies, and the rest.

That money is also going to the tens of thousands of people who are getting paid big salaries to work as contractors for the NSA and other agencies. They form a built-in lobbying force of tremendous effectiveness to keep the funds flowing.

When you add to that all of the think tanks that get money from the State Department, the National Endowment for Democracy, and various pockets and crevices in the Pentagon that no one can even keep up with, essentially you have what I call the equivalent of a self-licking ice cream cone.

The thing just keeps going because it’s so big it feeds itself—the $750 billion defense budget is just the beginning. That’s the Department of Defense budget per se, but if you add in another $25 billion for nuclear energy programs at the Department of Energy, $50 billion for security assistance and foreign aid, international relations, another $60–70 billion for Homeland Security, and then the veterans’ budget, which is $200 billion, it’s just massive. It represents the deferred cost of all these stupid wars that we’ve had and didn’t need.

Altogether we’re talking about a $1.1 trillion budgetary monster that creates these enormous flows of dollars that want to perpetuate themselves. Therefore, the kind of America First rationality that the world situation clearly would permit and support is completely lost.

I don’t know what these people think they’re fighting. Do they think that China is going to get up and bomb 4,000 Walmart stores in America? That’s not going to happen. Their economy would collapse in six months if they began serious military activities or threats against the United States or Western Europe.

Russia has a GDP of $1.6 trillion, which is less than the GDP of the New York metropolitan area. It’s a little rump state that has a lot of hydrocarbons, some wheat fields, and a workforce that is shrinking because of a fondness for vodka.

These are obvious facts and the fundamentals. Let’s call it the structure of the global national security environment. It’s so obvious that this massive warfare state machine that we have is not needed. We could go the route of America First—homeland defense, the Taftian posture—and yet there’s not a snowball’s chance in the hot place that it gets any kind of airtime, exposure, or debate in Washington, DC.

Donald Trump even tried to get the last 2,000 or 3,000 troops out of Syria, where we have no reason to be whatsoever. None, zero, zip. He can’t do that because he is undermined by his own advisors and the embedded Deep State that has never seen a war that it wanted to end and never an occupation that it didn’t want to perpetuate.

International Man: It seems the one thing Democrats and Republicans agree on is a more aggressive foreign policy. Why does US foreign policy never seem to change, regardless of who is in power?

David Stockman: That’s really a good question, and I think there are two dimensions to it.

One, just in terms of the structure, when you have $1.1 trillion dollars pouring into the system every year, it creates an overwhelming lobbying force for self-perpetuation. To perpetuate this massive budget, it needs to have threats, dangers, enemies, and all the rest. The whole system is in the business of threat inflation—even threat manufacture.

It’s not just the defense contractors, as I said before. It’s all the chattering classes that inhabit these NGOs, think tanks, and all the rest of it.

Ukraine would be a great example of this now, or why we are stumbling around in Syria. Why did we walk away from the Iranian nuclear deal and impose this vicious economic blockage and sanction war? That’s inviting some kind of hostile response at some point.

The second thing is this whole Russia-gate issue from 2016. It has essentially neutered the Democratic Party as a rational voice in foreign affairs and the restraint that it historically had on the warfare state.

I started back in the ’60s, protesting the Vietnam War. I went to all the marches on the Pentagon and all the rest of it.

The reason I bring this up is, at that point in time, the Democratic Party was loaded with doves and antiwar people and people who were skeptical of anything you would hear from the CIA. We knew what the CIA was.

The Democratic Party produced a lot of statesmen in the 1970s: McGovern, Fullbright, the Church Committee, and all these guys who investigated the abuses of the warfare state and the CIA—the lies that got us into the quagmire of Vietnam, which ended up being a stain on America’s history. It really was a genocide perpetuated against a defenseless people who weren’t a threat to us at all. That’s what it was.

We came out of the 1970s with a pretty healthy debate—and a lot of checks and balances politically against this warfare-state machine.

Now what happened to the Democratic Party? They’re basically AWOL on the issue of war and peace—and on the need for a restrained foreign policy. They’ve got it into their heads that they lost the election not because their policies were failing and not because they had the worst candidate the Democrats had fielded in decades, but because allegedly the Russkies infiltrated our political system in the Trump campaign and stole the election.

Now, we can make fun of that, but what it’s done is basically put the Democrats in a posture where every night if you watch the war channel, CNN, they have half a dozen of them saying Trump is jeopardizing national security. He’s not listening to his intelligence community. He’s leaving the Ukrainians high and dry—and Putin’s going to be occupying Kiev within hours.

This is all complete nonsense. They’ve lost their minds. There’s a couple antiwar Democrats left, and that’s it. That changes the equation fundamentally.

Here’s why. One way or another, the Republican Party was hijacked by the neocons back in the 1980s and 1990s, and it’s just gone from bad to worse.

So, you can’t expect the Republican Party to be any kind of vehicle for common sense and a peaceful foreign policy. The Democratic Party was supposed to be the check, and it is now AWOL. So, now there is no debate. It’s a pretty dangerous thing, because we’re doing stupid stuff all over the world.

The latest example, which is red hot of course, is Ukraine-gate.

Let’s just roll back the picture a couple years. Why is this thing even happening? The answer is because, in 2014, Washington supported, financed, and encouraged a coup on the streets of Kiev that threw out a legitimately elected government. It put in a lot of right wing neo-Nazi Ukrainian nationalists that scared the hell out of the Russians living in the eastern part of Ukraine and in Crimea—where there are few Ukrainians by the way; only 15% of the population of Crimea is Ukrainian. The rest is basically Russian and Tatars.

That’s where the whole damn thing started. We never should have been there. That’s right on Russia’s doorstep. It’s not our business to sort out the history there. Crimea was a Russian territory for 200 years anyway.

Once we got into the middle of that, that’s why we had to send our vice president, Joe Biden, to Ukraine to be the policy coordinator. Now let’s think about it.

There are 190 countries or so in the world, and Ukraine has a GDP of $130 billion. Ukraine is an absolute nothing, irrelevant piece of global real estate. We didn’t need to send the vice president of the United States to coordinate policy. In a good policy environment, you wouldn’t need to send the vice president there to coordinate anything.

What did that lead to? Well, once the vice president was there, all of a sudden everything changed, including this Burisma energy company. It was basically run by a guy—which never comes out on CNN—but he was allied with the president who was overthrown. And what did they do? They called Washington. They looked for the sleaziest lobbyist they could find. What they came up with was Hunter Biden and his buddy, Devon Archer, who was equally a sleaze bag, his roommate in college apparently or something like that. He was a campaign finance bundler for John Kerry all the time he was in the Senate.

This is how the whole damn thing got started. The debate today focuses on what Trump was doing during a very brief phone call in July 2019 and not about the history—how we got there and why the thing is off base to begin with. They pretend history only started with a phone call on July 25, 2019.

That’s the way the empire rolls. It demands that anybody who is paying attention should have amnesia and that the only thing that you’re supposed to focus on is what happened yesterday, as it’s spun by the machinery of the warfare state.

That’s why we have the irony of the Democratic majority in the House. I don’t think that they’re necessarily conscious tools of the military-industrial-intelligence complex. They’re just stupid. They’re uninformed, and they’re caught up in this imperial city groupthink.

Now they’re out to impeach a president who casually wanted to look into what was clearly a blatant case of influence peddling on the part of the prior vice president and his son.

Biden says he didn’t know what Hunter was doing. Who believes that? But the point is, why in the world would this big energy company based in Ukraine be hiring a guy, a lobbyist from Washington, DC, unless his name was Biden? Biden knew nothing about natural gas, energy, Eastern Europe, or Ukraine.

Once the empire gets as massive as it is, it behooves everybody around the world to have all of the influence operations that they can afford or can mobilize in Washington to weigh into the policy debate.

It really is like an imperial city. There are tens of millions—hundreds of millions—and billions of dollars every year being paid by foreign countries to Washington, because they think they have to defend their self-interest in the day-to-day operation of the US warfare state.

Again, it’s another example of how Empire First perpetuates itself. Not only do you have all of the domestic lobbies, the defense contractors, intelligence contractors, and think tanks that get all their money from government agencies, but then you have all of the foreign outposts. The two are actually pretty melded together.

The Atlantic Council is one of the most odious of these so-called think tanks that dominates the debate. They confuse these wet-behind-the-ears young people who get elected to Congress. I can appreciate that. I was elected when I was pretty wet behind the ears.

They send people to Washington to influence in a very subtle way, because the money goes through the back door. Much of the money for the Atlantic Council comes from Ukrainian oligarchs who are anti-Russian for whatever reason, and a lot more comes from Saudi Arabia and the UAE and the rest of the oil states.

It’s all on behalf of a big, slick lobbying operation that’s created this pro-empire mentality. It got us in the middle of all of these conflicts in the Middle East, but also Ukraine.

It is really bad. The Atlantic Council’s role in pushing the Russia-gate hoax and getting us involved in Ukraine—essentially threatening Russia on its very border—is pretty nasty stuff.

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Don’t forget that Russia bought Crimea in 1783 with good gold money from the Turks, who were perennially short on cash. It was populated by Russian speakers all that time. It became the base for the home port of the great Black Sea Fleet, which is what Russia has seen as its defense under czars and commissars alike. For 170 years, it was an integral part of the Old Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union.

Crimea got added to Ukraine when there were few Ukrainians living there, only because Khrushchev won the violent struggle for succession after Stalin died. Khrushchev was Ukrainian, and so in a drunken celebration one night, he basically said, I hereby will Crimea to my buddies in Ukraine for all the good work that they did in helping kill off my two rivals to power.

Then a couple days later, the Presidium officially passed a law that added Crimea to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine.

So, what these Washington idiots are doing—led by think tanks like the Atlantic Council and all the rest of those who got us into this conflict in Ukraine—is basically trying to enforce the dead hand of the Soviet Presidium from 65 years ago.

Crimea wasn’t the site of a Russian occupation. After the Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis took control of the Ukraine government in the coup, the people in the Russian-speaking regions were scared to death.

There’s a whole bloody history behind this. Hitler marched through on the way to Stalingrad, and the Nationalist Ukrainians were with him. Then the Red Army marched back through after Stalingrad and liquidated all their Ukrainian enemies. Yet decades and decades later, Washington gets itself into the middle of this, trying to enforce the dead hand of the Soviet Union.

Crimea got partitioned. There was a vote. No one can say that 90% of the people didn’t vote to rejoin Mother Russia, because they did. So what is the big deal? And yet the warfare state found it convenient to bulk up the Russian threat as one reason for continuing to have all the defense money and the imperial footprint around the world. The next thing you know, it becomes policy, because the Democrats really embrace it—after they decided that Putin cost them the election.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The Best of David Stockman

Former Congressman David A. Stockman was Reagan's OMB director, which he wrote about in his best-selling book, The Triumph of Politics. His latest books are The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and Peak Trump: The Undrainable Swamp And The Fantasy Of MAGA. He's the editor and publisher of the new David Stockman's Contra Corner. He was an original partner in the Blackstone Group, and reads LRC the first thing every morning.

Copyright © 2019 International Man

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