Category Archives: Presidency

Why is North Korea Being So Unreasonable?

On April 28, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the U.N. that North Korea “must dismantle its nuclear missile programs” before the US “can even consider talks.”*

Sounds reasonable.

Why hasn’t the Kim Jong-Un regime responded with open arms and shouts of joy for this generous and fair-minded proposal from Uncle Sam?

Maybe it is because North Korea not only has first-hand knowledge of US “diplomacy,” but it can point to the grisly consequences that happen to regimes that do not have nuclear capabilities when they fall out of favor with Washington war mongers. Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria are just some recent examples.

Nor does North Korea have to look around the globe for what the US does to nations without nuclear arsenals, but can recall events which took place not so far away. For more than a decade, America mercilessly pulverized the little, defenseless country of Vietnam. Despite the destruction and mass murder inflicted, it was to no avail except, of course, to line the pockets of arms manufactures while American citizens were drained of their wealth and blood.

Or simply, Kim Jong-Un can look at his nation’s own history and see how the US treated it prior to it becoming nuclear. In the “police action” of 1950-53, American coalition forces killed over 3 million North Koreans and dropped more bombs on the country then were used on Japan in World War II according to international war crimes lawyer Christopher Black.**

And, why would North Korea or, for that matter, anyone else have any faith in diplomatic agreements with the US which consistently violates terms of international accords and often complains afterwards when agreements are reached. The latest example is President Trump carping that Iran is not living up to the “spirit” of the nuclear deal concluded under the Obummer Administration and signed off on by six major world powers.

North Korea, as well as the rest of the world, which is not bribed or threatened by the US Deep State, is certainly aware that the two American-Iraqi Wars had their origins due to American duplicity. While it originally gave Saddam Hussein permission to intervene in Kuwait, the US then reneged blaming the Iraqi strongman which thus laid the groundwork for his murder and the country’s destruction.

Not only can North Korea look to the murderous and duplicitous US foreign policy record, but it can point to how the American state has killed its own citizens from its involvement in the take down of the World Trade Center, to the gassing and slaughter of men, women and children at Waco, Texas. Moreover, the federal government and now local authorities are terrorizing their citizens with increasing regularity via a number of false flag events and drills.

By all means, the Kim Jong-Un regime should come to its senses and acquiesce to US demands.

Unfortunately, because it is an authoritarian society based on the immoral and economically unworkable system of communism, North Korea is unable to make an ethical case against the hypocrisy of the US which accuses Syria and others of human rights violations, yet has allowed the slaughter of innocent babies of some 40 million since the legalization of abortion in 1973. Moreover, in another societal-wrecking and depraved act, the US Supreme Court has sanctioned sodomy, one of the four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance.

While no single entity can militarily challenge US hegemony, a reversal of the murderous ways of American foreign policy will only come about through a change in ideology on the home front. Once the justification for empire is debunked in the court of public opinion, the mobilization of anti-war/anti-empire movement can commence.

After generations have been inculcated by the media, public schools, colleges/universities and the government about the glories of the US military, it is unlikely that there will be any paradigm shift in American foreign policy matters anytime soon. Only an economic collapse or severe enough financial panic will force the US to pull back on its overseas adventurism.

In the meantime, if Kim Jong-Un intends to survive and keep his country from resembling Iraq or Syria, he should maintain his “unreasonable” stance when the likes of Rex Tillerson demand that North Korea disarm.

*Tyler Durden. “Trump Slams ‘Disrespectful’ North Korea After Unsuccessful Missile-Test, Warns Situation is ‘Bad.'” 28 April 2017. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-28/north-korea-test-fires-another-ballistic-missile

**Christopher Black. “North Korea: The Grand Deception Revealed.” New Eastern Outlook. 3 March 2017. http://journal-neo.org/2017/03/13/north-korea-the-grand-deception-revealed/

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

On the Commemoration of World War I: From Woodrow Wilson to Donald Trump

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Trump - Wilson

It is altogether fitting that the US attack on a Syrian airport, the dropping of a MOAB on defenseless Afghanistan, and the potential outbreak of nuclear war with North Korea have all come in the very month one hundred years earlier that an American president led the nation on its road to empire. President Trump’s aggressive actions and all of America’s previous imperialistic endeavors can ultimately be traced to Woodrow Wilson’s disastrous decision to bring the country into the First World War on April 6, 1917.

This month, therefore, should be one of national mourning for the decision to enter that horrific conflict changed America and, for that matter, the world for the worse.

Had the US remained neutral, the war would most likely have come to a far quicker and more politically palatable conclusion, however, the entry of America on the Entente side prolonged the conflict and extended its economic and political destruction to such a degree that the Old Order could not be put back together again. The great dynasties (Germany, Russia, and especially Austria) were ruthlessly dismantled at the conclusion of WWI by the explicit designs of Wilson which left a power vacuum across Central Europe. The vacuum, of course, was filled by the various collectivist “isms” which produced the landscape for another global conflagration even greater than WWI.

For America, after a brief revival of isolationism and non-interventionist sentiment throughout the land, the country, led by another ruthless and power-mad chief executive, provoked and schemed its way into the second general European war within a generation, this time via “the backdoor” with Japan. A second US intervention, making the war global, could not have come about had there been no WWI, or if that war had ended on better terms.

After the Second World War, the US emerged as the world’s dominant power with bases across the globe and entered into a string of never ending hot and cold wars, regime changes, destabilizations, assassinations, bombings, blockades, and economic sanctions that have continued to this very day and hour. Quickly after the war’s conclusion, the American media, academia, and the security and military industrial complex had to invent the myth that the Soviet Union and the US were of equal military might which turned out to be a blatant lie. After being decimated in WWII and its adherence to unworkable and economic destructive socialistic planning, the Soviet Union could never produce the wealth necessary to maintain a global empire as the US did, and still does. The “Soviet threat” was always a ruse to get gullible Americans to vote for and support greater and greater “defense” spending.

Besides Ron Paul and to a far lesser extent his son, Donald Trump was the only viable candidate who spoke of taking a new, less interventionist foreign policy which is why he was able to garner so much support from millions of empire-weary Americans during the presidential campaign. He rightly called the Iraqi War a “disaster,” spoke of getting along with Russia, and the US’s commitment to NATO should be rethought, among other refreshing comments on foreign affairs.

In one of the most memorable and hopeful passages of his Inaugural Address, the new president championed non-intervention abroad:

We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.

Unlike Ron Paul, however, Trump had no grounding in a true America First foreign policy. While critical of his predecessors’ foreign policy decisions, Trump was not opposed philosophically to the US Empire or saw it as the greatest threat to world peace which currently exists.

Without an ideological basis against American globalism, Trump was easy pickings against the threats and machinations of the Deep State. Without a refutation of the ideology which drove Wilson and all of his successors to promote military adventurism abroad, Trump will be little different than his imperial predecessors and with a personality that is thin-skinned, impulsive and unpredictable, Trump could, God forbid, become another Woodrow Wilson.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com

The Cost of a Trump Presidency

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Syrian Bombing

Last Thursday’s wanton attack on a Syrian air field by the US and its bellicose actions toward North Korea have brought to the forefront the real cost of candidate Trump’s landslide victory last November.

Unlike most laymen, accountants, and financial analysts, economists look at cost differently. For economists, cost or more specifically, “opportunity cost,” means “a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action. Stated differently, opportunity cost represents an alternative given up when a decision is made.”

Such thinking can be roughly applied to the political realm. In the case of last fall’s US Presidential election, the cost of Donald Trump’s unexpected victory was not the money spent on the campaign, but the diffusion (hopefully, only temporary) of the growing anti-Establishment groundswell that was percolating not only in America, but across the globe.

The Trump phenomenon, Brexit, Texas secession talk, anti-immigration gatherings, central bank scrutiny, the exposure and decline of the lying, dominant mass media, and other populist movements and causes were symptoms of the masses dissatisfaction with their exploitation by the ruling elites. Trump’s triumph has squashed and defused many of these populist uprisings since a number of his campaign themes empathized with these trends.

A similar situation occurred after Ronald Reagan’s victory in the 1980 election as the great anti-government wave, which swept him into power, dried up almost immediately since Ronnie was perceived as “one of us.” Of course, Reagan was a disaster and fulfilled none of his anti-government campaign rhetoric, but instead went on to become, for a time, the biggest Presidential spender in US history.

A Clinton victory, although certainly tyrannical in the short run, would have, no doubt, furthered the anti-Establishment fires and inspired more. For example, Texas may be now on the road to independence from the Federal Leviathan.

The ills that plague the US and, for that matter, the Western world, will not be solved through a Trump Presidency in “making America great again,” but will only come about through political decentralization and the abolition of central banking with a return to sound money. Concomitant with political decentralization and secession is military contraction, as smaller political jurisdictions will have lesser pools of wealth to tap from while the absence of an inflationary central bank will make military adventurism extremely difficult to conduct.

Yet, before such a transformation can take place, an ideological foundation must first be established. A Hillary Clinton Administration would have provided fertile ground for such change.

Since the groundwork for a depoliticized world has not been laid, a Trump Presidency made sense as long as he kept as close as possible to his campaign agenda, the most important of which was foreign policy. His condemnation of the neocons’ policies which have bankrupted the nation, murdered thousands of innocents abroad, and heighten tensions everywhere was crucial in his shocking victory last November. It is apparent that he did not understand how important this support was or he would have never undertaken such an utterly stupid decision.

With the strike on Syria and seemingly more military action in the offering, Trump’s Presidency is now the worst of all possible worlds, at least in the short run, for those opposed to the New World Order. Most serious observers, however, understood, especially after the appointment of so many Goldman Sachs cretins, Israeli Firsters, and nutty warmongers to his administration, that Trump would eventually succumb to the pressure. More importantly, Trump was never fully grounded in an America First mindset, probably not knowing where that term originated or its gallant founders.

All, however, is not lost.

Trump’s capitulation makes it abundantly clear that the system itself is beyond repair. Getting the right individual to salvage the American welfare/warfare state cannot be done. Trump had many advantages that no future candidate will likely possess which means that anybody that follows will be an “insider.” Much of his base, therefore, will no longer support a future Republican candidate or will give him only lukewarm support . With no independent personality to rally around, the millions of disappointed Trumpians will seek new governing paradigms which hopefully will lead to the growth of secession movements.

Ultimately, however, a permanent American foreign policy of non intervention, peace, and free trade will only come about when there is a change in the prevailing ideology of society where all contenders for political office espouse such a notion and today’s warmongers are seen for what they are: enemies of humanity and its Creator.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

The American Empire and Economic Collapse

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Despite the widespread hope among libertarians, classical liberals, non-interventionists, progressive peaceniks, and all those opposed to the US Empire that it may have some of its murderous reins pulled in with the election of Donald Trump, it appears that such optimism has now been dashed. While the hope for a less meddlesome US foreign policy is not completely extinguished and would never have existed had the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua been elected, a number of President Trump’s foreign policy actions, so far, have been little different than his recent predecessors.

President Trump’s biggest blunder was his acquiesce to the Deep State’s coup of General Michael Flynn, the most Russian friendly among Trump’s foreign policy entourage. Since Flynn’s abrupt departure, there has been little talk of a rapprochement with Russia, but instead there has been continued saber rattling by the war mongers that Trump has, unfortunately, chosen to surround himself with.

The most recent Russian badgering has come from Secretary of Defense, James “Mad Dog” Mattis who wrongly accused it of “bad behavior:” “Russia’s violations of international law are now a matter of record from what happened with Crimea to other aspects of their behavior in mucking around other people’s elections and that sort of thing.”* Of course, the US has never tried to influence the outcomes of elections or “mucked around” in the affairs of sovereign countries, heaven forbid!

While candidate Trump correctly spoke of the Iraqi War as a disaster and US Middle Eastern policy as a failure, he has done little to alter course in the region, but continues to follow and has, in some instances, escalated tensions. Some ominous examples:

Bombing raids of Mosul killing over 200 civilians

The deployment of another 1,000 ground troops to Syria

Additional US ground troops “expected” to be deployed to Afghanistan

Continuous threats to Iran – “put on notice”

In the Far East, President Trump has done little to alleviate hostilities. In a belligerent March tweet during Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson’s trip to the region, he wrote: “North Korea is behaving very badly. They have been ‘playing’ the United States for years. China has done little to help.”**

A number of perceptive commentators think otherwise and have shown that it has been the US over the years that has acted disingenuously. “Despite Western media demonization of North Korea as some kind of crazy rogue state,” Finian Cunningham points out, “the people there are not fools. They know from family histories the atrocious cost of American war. And they know that any nation perceived as weak by Washington will be bombed back to the Stone Age.”***

These trends, and the President’s unnecessary request for increased “defense spending,” all point to more of the same for US overseas relations. In fact, there will most likely be continued military escalation if the likes of General “Mad Dog” Mattis get their way.

It is now apparent that the only way in which significant change will come about in American foreign affairs will be if there is a severe financial crisis which impairs the nation enough so that it can no longer bankroll its military adventurism. History has a number of examples of this.

Great Britain, who the US Empire is largely patterned after, lost its empire when it became financially exhausted due, in large part, to its insane decision to enter the two World Wars of the past century. To fight in those conflagrations drained Britain of its wealth and devastated it demographically which it, and the rest of Europe, has never recovered.

The US is heading down a similar path of decline as it has squandered its wealth and treasure in the maintenance of an overseas empire while it has expanded its welfare state at home, meaning less wealth which can be tapped from an increasingly unproductive and parasitic populace. Couple this with an onerous tax burden, an inflationist monetary policy which has destroyed the purchasing power of the dollar, and gargantuan public debt and you have primed the country for a financial cataclysm.

Despite the dramatic fall in the standard of living and the immense social strife and unrest that an economic collapse would bring about, there is a silver lining. Like Great Britain before it, a financial crisis and/or the loss of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency would force the US to abandon its overseas empire – closing bases, bringing troops home, and stopping intervention in the myriad of arenas across the planet.

A defunct US Empire would also be bad news and mean grisly retribution for all those lackeys and puppets who have been supported and propped up by American might: another positive aspect to the end of the Empire.

The collapse will mean America, too, will face reprisals from all those who have suffered under its hegemony. The payback will come from both economic warfare as the US has used through its “Dollar Diplomacy” to control and manipulate foreign economies and by some sort of military humiliation.

The impact of an economic collapse could be mitigated somewhat if the US abandoned its role as global policeman as resources squandered abroad could be then available for the rebuilding of the domestic economy while, at the same time, hostility with America’s adversaries would be reduced.

Unless President Trump replaces the warmongers and interventionists which he has unwisely surrounded himself with and return to his wildly popular campaign promise of an American First foreign policy, the US Empire will remain the greatest threat to world peace that currently exists. If things continue as such, it will only be through the comeuppance of Economic Mother Nature when She bursts the American bubble economy that the Empire upon which it rests will, at long last, come to a fitting and much needed end!

*Ellen Mitchell, “Mattis Says Response Coming Soon on Russia Arms Treaty Violation.” The Hill. 31 March 2017.

**Pamela Engel, “Trump: North Korea is ‘Behaing Very Badly,’ and China ‘Has Done Little to Help.'” Business Insider. 17 March 2017.

***Finian Cunningham, “Only a Fool Would Trust Rogue State USA.” Sputnik Internaional. 19 March 2017.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

Welcome to Totalitarian America, President Trump!

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Deep-State-vs-Trump II

If there had been any doubt that the land of the free and home of the brave is now a totalitarian society, the revelations that its Chief Executive Officer has been spied upon while campaigning for that office and during his brief tenure as president should now be allayed.

President Trump joins the very crowded list of opponents of the American State which includes the Tea Party, tax resistors, non-interventionists, immigration opponents, traditional family advocates, and a host of others who have been spied upon, persecuted and badgered by federal “intelligence” authorities. While Congress conducted some feeble hearings and investigations of the shenanigans of the US spy agencies during the interminable Obummer Administration, no real action or reform was taken to reign in the eavesdropping and spying by the national security state on American citizens.

Hopefully, the surveillance of President Trump will change his outlook on the US “intelligence community” especially in regard to those courageous souls who have spoken out and risked life and limb to alert the public about their rulers’ nefarious activities. Edward Snowden should be among the first to receive a pardon while the person who provided him sanctuary from his American persecutors, the reviled Vladimir Putin, should be commended for his noble act, a rarity among world leaders in this democratic age.

President Trump has demonstrated throughout his life loyalty to those who have supported him. He should, therefore, do all in his power to extricate Julian Assange from the Ecuadoran Embassy in Great Britain and provide him with safe conduct to the US or any destination in which the heroic whistleblower prefers. Without the deluge of Wikileaks during last fall’s presidential contest exposing the massive corruption of the Clintonistas, it is unlikely that Trump would have ever prevailed never mind winning by an electoral landslide.

Not only has candidate and President Trump been monitored, but just about every American citizen is under surveillance, the data of which can be used against them at the appropriate time if and when they should challenge the American Leviathan. NSA whistleblower William Binney confirmed what has been long known in government circles and by those Americans awake to Washington’s tyranny.

Binney confirmed Trump’s suspicion about surveillance to Fox News, “I think the president is absolutely right. His phone calls, everything he did electronically was being monitored.”* He added that, “Everyone’s conversations are being monitored and stored.”

Ironically, it has been the immense wealth generated by a relatively free market in America that has provided the means for the government to create, expand, and maintain such a sophisticated and dangerous spying apparatus that is now being used on the very people funding it. That such a situation could emerge under the supposed “checks and balances” of the US Constitution demonstrates again how truly worthless the document is in the protection of individual rights.

While reform of the current system has proven to be futile and without any constitutional restraint, it, unfortunately, will mean that spying and the murderous US empire of which it is a part will continue as long as the economy does not collapse and the dollar retains its world reserve status. A silver lining, therefore, from a dollar crisis, would mean a decline in the US military and security state.

Of course, the demise of the US spy and military establishment will not be a simple process, but will be fraught with tremendous social and political upheaval and more than likely bloodshed as the Deep State will do everything in its power to protect its turf.

While a collapse may be a ways off, it is hoped that the spying on President Trump will move him to rethink his position on the Deep State which wants to sabotage his every move that goes against its interests most notably a potential detente with Russia. Talk of deescalation of American military presence in world affairs is anathema to the powers that be.

In his Inaugural Address, President Trump repeatedly promised to put America first. The nation’s intelligence agencies do not share that vision, but instead owe their allegiance to the New World Order. If the President has not figured this out after having been secretly monitored, there is little hope for the near future.

*Tyler Durden. “Former NSA Whistleblower: ‘Trump Is Absolutely Right, Everything Was Being Monistored.'” Zero Hedge. 3 March 2017. http://www.zerohedge.com/print/589722

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

Charles A. Beard, “American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932-1940″*

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Review: Charles A. Beard, American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932-1940: A Study in Responsibilities. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946.

american-for-pol-in-the-making charles-a-beard-ii

Introduction

Last year, 2016, marked the 70^th anniversary of the publication of Charles Beard’s masterful study of United States foreign policy prior to the nation’s disastrous entrance into the Second World War, American Foreign Policy in the Making1932-1940: A Study in Responsibilities(AFPM). The book was soon accompanied by President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941 published in 1948, the year of the great historian’s passing.

The two volumes were extremely influential and became cornerstones of World War II revisionism. AFPM chronicled US policy in the crucial decade prior to the fateful attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The records released and the research done in the decades following Beard’s studies have only substantiated the historian’s interpretation of events.*

The most recent of the growing literature of WWII revisionism has been by the German historian Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof, and his provocative book, The War That Had Many Fathers.**As Beard did with AFPM, Schultze-Rhonhof seeks to assign responsibility for the outbreak of WWII in the European theatre. Like Beard, and in contrast to the official historical interpretation, Schultze-Rhonhof blames the provocative actions of the “Allied” governments in the years leading up to the conflict.***

Continue reading at: https://antoniusaquinas.com/history/

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

*This essay is dedicated to the late Charlie McGrath of Wide Awake News.

charlie-mcgrath

Donald & the Dollar

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donald-dollar

John Connally, President Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury, once remarked to the consternation of Europe’s financial elites over America’s inflationary monetary policy, that the dollar “is our currency, but your problem.” Times have certainly changed and it now appears that the dollar has become an American problem.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, the soon to be 45^th President of the United States believes that the greenback’s strength – up some 25% against a broad basket of currencies since 2014 – is now “too strong,” “killing us,” and has hurt companies trying to compete overseas.* A top Trump economics advisor, Anthony Scaramucci, reinforced his boss’ sentiment adding that “we must be careful of a rising dollar.”

Apparently, making America great again does not include the nation’s monetary standard. Trump’s belief that the dollar is too strong also shows a distinct lack of historical understanding. Every great nation and empire (which Trump promises to restore America to) had a sound monetary system. It is no coincidence that the pound sterling was the world’s “reserve currency” at the time when the British Empire was at its height. Debasement of it to finance Britain’s insane decision to enter World War I led, in large part, to the eventual loss of its empire. If Trump truly seeks to restore American greatness at home and its prestige throughout the world, devaluating the currency is not the way to go.

Nor does a weakened dollar benefit the middle class whom the president elect throughout the campaign has pledged to help. In fact, it has been the fall in the purchasing power of the dollar due to the inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve which have decimated the living standard of the middle class. And, while the proposed Trumpian middle class tax cuts will help, just as important is a sound monetary system if Middle America is to become a creditor class once again.

Pensioners and retirees, another group that Trump has promised to help, would continue to see their financial condition decline under a policy to weaken the dollar. A fall in the purchasing power of money would devastate the income stream of pensions and social security payments.

While a weaker dollar policy would hurt the middle class, retirees, and savers, it would benefit the most responsible for the continued economic doldrums of America – banksters and the government. A weaker dollar would allow the government to continue to borrow and maintain its profligate spending. Financial houses and the banksters would receive credit at nearly zero cost which would allow them to continue to blow bubbles in the asset markets. Export firms, too, would benefit at least for a while, but would more than likely face retribution from foreign governments and central banks which would retaliate with their own devaluations sparking potential currency wars.

Talk of “currency manipulation,” “weakening the dollar,” “trade deals,” and the like do not address what lies at the heart of not only America, but the Western world’s economic problem – too much debt. The reason why the West has been able to incur its current gargantuan level of debt is not because of a “weak” or a “strong” dollar, but because the dollar is a fiat currency not backed by any commodity. A true gold standard, where each currency unit represents either gold or silver, provides monetary discipline which prevents politicians and banksters from incurring ruinous levels of debt.

Since money is the lifeblood of an economy, any hope that one can be turned around without a stable monetary order is, to say the least, delusional. If president-elect Trump and his policy makers do not realize this, they will be severely disappointed in the years to come. Sound money allows for the accumulation of savings and capital formation, the essential elements of the market economy and the only basis upon which real economic growth can occur. More savings and capital are needed to boost production and create employment, not supposedly wiser and more competent international trade negotiators.

Talk of currency devaluation is what is typically heard from banana republics, it should not be advocated by those who have aspirations of making their country great again.

*Tyler Durden, “Dollar Tumbles After Trump Calls Currency ‘Too Strong,’ Slams Border-Adjustment Tax.” Zero Hedge. 17 January 2017.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

Fidel Castro and the American Empire

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castro

The death of the brutal Cuban Communist dictator Fidel Castro closes the door, in some respect, on another disastrous page in US foreign policy history. For all the denunciations and criticism of Castro from conservative elements and exiled Cubans, his despotic rule was the outcome of decades of American imperialism which began with President William McKinley’s infamous decision to wage war on hapless Spain in 1898.

The defeat of Spain and the confiscation of its possessions, which the US imperialist and corporate forces had longed prized, set the stage for the nation’s hubristic foreign policy course throughout the 20^th and 21^st centuries. America’s action against Spain showed its ungratefulness for it attacked the country that did more for it than any other (including France) in its struggle for independence. Maybe Castro’s interminable reign, which had always been a thorn in the side of US globalists, was payback for America’s wanton aggression against Spain.

Castro’s rise to power came about not only through the bungling of American diplomacy, but also from genuine “populist” support directed against the thoroughly corrupt regime of the US puppet in charge at the time, Fulgencio Batista. Even by Latin American standards, the corruption which existed under Batista was legendary!

The US government played an enormous role in Batista’s second presidency which began when he seized power in 1952. Throughout his second tenure, Batista received massive kickbacks from American multinational businesses for grants of monopoly privileges on the island. The most notable was the ITT corporation.

Batista used his unjust gains to enrich himself and buy weapons to be used against his opponents. It was claimed that when he fled Cuba he took a personal fortune of $300 million with him. While Batista and his ruling clique were enriching themselves through US assistance, the Cuban population suffered as the gap between rich and poor continued to widen.

Like Castro, Batista was ruthless in political repression which even American politicians noticed. In a speech during the 1960 presidential campaign, John Kennedy claimed that Batista had murdered some 20,000 Cubans!

Of course, the US empire learned little from the fiasco with Castro and continued on its rampaging, destructive ways – destabilizing, bombing, and squelching populist uprising across the globe. No sooner had the island become a lone communist outpost in the Western Hemisphere and the “Cuban Missile Crisis” was defused, than the nation plunged itself into a far bigger and more costlier quagmire in Vietnam.

Donald Trump rightfully condemned Castro’s murderous reign:

The world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who

oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel

Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable

suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human

rights.*

The President-elect must, however, understand the reason why Castro came to power and was able to maintain his totalitarian grasp for so long if America is to begin a new and hopefully peaceful foreign policy path.

Trump promised that the US would do all that it can to bring about a “free Cuba:”

Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro

cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure

the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity

and liberty.**

The best way he could accomplish this task not only in Cuba but in regard to all other nations is to heed the words of America’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, on the proper foreign policy path for the nation: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none.”

Maybe the demise of Castro and the ascendancy of Donald Trump is not a coincidence, but an opening which points to a new direction in foreign affairs: one that rejects nation building, intervention, and financial terrorism against friend and foe alike. Let us hope so.

*David Jackson, “Trump Condemns Castro as ‘Brutal Dictator.’” USA Today. 26 November 2016.

**Ibid.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

Pope Francis is at it Again

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pope-trump

As if there are not enough sufficient reasons for right thinking individuals to want a Donald Trump Presidency, one of the biggest is that it would be a direct and quite necessary rebuke and humiliation of the purported head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis.

Bergoglio has once again injected his neo-Marxist self into areas where he has no right to interfere. Of course, this has never stopped this cretin from doing so before, especially when it comes to liberalistic causes such as climate change. Whatever happened to popes that preached the Gospel, spoke of the saints, or expounded on doctrine?

In a speech given at the Vatican on November 5, Bergoglio spoke of not giving into those politicians who talk of building walls, but those who work to build bridges. He condemned “physical and social walls” that “close in some and exclude others” and added: “mercy is the best antidote against fear” while it “is much more effective than walls, than barbed wire fences, than alarms and arms, and it is free. It is a gift of God.”*

That the timing of Bergoglio’s remarks – on the eve of the Presidential election – criticizing those who actually seek to get a handle on unwanted and country-wrecking mass immigration is not surprising, but it is particularly revolting coming from a person who heads an organization that has done virtually nothing to end its own great Sex & Embezzlement Scandals. This is a “Church” which has protected, hid, and actually promoted known perverts and rapist of children and young adults while its leader has the unmitigated gall to lecture American voters about not electing someone who will try and prevent the country from descending into multicultural disintegration!

What is surprising is that Bergogolio is again seeking to influence American politics on the heels of credible revelations that emerged from the investigation of Anthony “pervert” Weiner’s laptop of a child pedophile ring inside the Clinton Crime Family and their sleazy and demented associates and friends. If Bergoglio had any political acumen he would have kept his big and nauseating mouth shut since now the Church’s own abominable, criminal actions with children and the Clintons’ will be linked in voters’ minds. One can only hope so!

Bergoglio was elected, in part, to clean up the sex scandals and the financial improprieties which surround the Vatican Bank. Instead of fixing the criminality and expunging the perverts, rapists, and embezzlers, Bergoglio has instead become one of the world’s leading social justice warriors. Furthermore, he has been an unabashed opponent of the market economy constantly speaking of income disparity and the supposed exploitation of the poor which takes place under capitalism.

While Bergoglio has shown himself to be an ignoramus on subjects such as immigration, global warming, and economics, he is apparently quite deficient in his knowledge of the glorious history of his own institution. Such a lack of knowledge is probably intentional since the Church’s rich past does not coincide with its new ecumenism, which was hatched during the tragic years of the Vatican II Anti-council, 1962-65.

It was the Catholic Church which organized the military forces on a number of occasions to fight and defend Europe from invading Muslims hordes. Inspired by real popes, the Church rallied the Continent’s often indifferent and self absorbed political leadership to take up their crosses and liberate the Holy Land from the Muslim yoke. Any talk of allowing Muslims to infiltrate European lands would be rightly countered with cries of treason and punishment in blood.

Such facts are no longer spoken of by Bergoglio or his Vatican II predecessors who have made every effort to encourage mass migration. The historical record cannot be denied; it, therefore, must be ignored.

The election of Donald Trump will hopefully not only be the end of the Clinton Crime Family, but it will put a brake on destructive mass immigration while inspiring anti-immigration forces throughout Europe. Moreover, a Trump victory will put in his place the self righteous “pope” who, through the office which he unworthily occupies, is just as dangerous to the future of what is left of Western civilization as a Hillary Clinton Presidency.

*Michael O’Loughlin, “Days Before U.S. Election, Pope Francis Warns Against Politics of Fear.” America. 5 November 2016.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/

It’s Still the Media, Stupid!

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The US Presidential campaign has demonstrated once again that the mainstream mass media is still the dominant force and arbitrator of political events and if it is successful in pushing the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua past the finish line this November, it may have achieved its greatest triumph. During the campaign’s stretch run, the mainstream media has used every form and variety of spin, distortion, half truth, calumny, and lies in its diabolical effort to make Killary Rotten Clinton President of the USSA.

The mass media – television, newspapers, movies, the Entertainment industry, book publishing, advertising, and now sports – is part of society’s opinion molding movers and shakers which form part of what Noble Prize winning economist F.A. Hayek called “intellectuals.” This all important group are not simply nerdy academic professors with patches on their sleeves, but are those who have the ability to shape public opinion, as Hayek describes:

It is the intellectuals in this sense who decide what views and

opinions are to reach us, which facts are important enough

to be told us, and in what form and from what angle they are

to be presented. Whether we shall ever learn of the results of the

work of the expert and the original thinker depends mainly on their

decision. *

Since at least the 1960s, the dominant opinion-molding sector of the mass media has been the electronic media, which has far outpaced newsprint and academia in influence. While its power may be on the wane in the Internet Age, it is still the most powerful and important tool in the political elites arsenal for imparting their agenda.

The electronic media, through its use of pictures and images, has been able to manipulate political outcomes and shape public policy discussions at almost every turn. As every media realist has long understood, the mainstream media has long been controlled by the Left which has used this power to counter any opposition to its narrative.

The major media outlets are controlled by five corporate giants – Time Warner, Disney, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom – the largest purveyors of crony capitalism and cultural Marxism the world has ever witnessed. No dissent is allowed to be heard on these outlets nor is there any hope of career advancement for journalists or writers if the Leftist paradigm is not trumpeted.

A free society does not exist because of a free press. In fact, every society which has naively allowed a free press to exist, invariably finds that the press will seek to undermine it, especially its most innovative and successful individuals. The reason, as Hayek so brilliantly explains, is that the press, and in this age the electronic media, is part of the intelligentsia which by its nature is envy ridden since it has little to offer the world in the production of actual goods and services. Its members, therefore, are constantly denigrating their betters.

Such a mindset and sociological disposition will naturally lead members of the mass media to support politicians who will regulate, tax, and control the productive members of society. This explains, in part, their vile and hysterical opposition to Donald Trump. For Trump, unlike his crazed and corrupt opponent, has largely gained his wealth and position through his own intelligence, foresight, and hard work.

Offsetting media bias is a Herculean task and can only be done by one who is savvy and financially independent enough. This is why Donald Trump has gotten as far has he has and has used his leverage to heroically call out the manipulations of the mainstream media.

It is surprising, therefore, that Trump agreed to the Presidential “debates” in a forum orchestrated by the media with “moderators” who would be gunning to undermine him at every turn. Better to have chosen a neutral environment with an honest third party participant such as Brian Lamb of C-Span. Agreeing to the same rigged debate format was a tactical mistake.

For anyone to seriously challenge the American Leviathan, it must be understood that the mainstream media is a part of that despotic structure and it too must be neutered. Donald Trump has done more than any Presidential candidate to expose the treachery of the mainstream media, now others must take up the cause.

*F.A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism.” https://www.mises.org/sites/default/files/Intellectuals%20and%20Socialism_4.pdf

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

https://antoniusaquinas.com/