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The Duke in the Shining Attack Helicopter

The Duke in the Shining Attack Helicopter

by | Jan 23, 2023 | ,

A January 6 CNN headline read, "Prince Harry criticized by UK military figures—and Taliban—after claiming he killed 25 fighters in Afghanistan." Dear God, I thought. Had Henry Charles Albert David, aka Prince Harry, succumbed to the type of war zone fabrications made infamous by Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen? Had the man with the “titles and the styles” (including The Duke of Sussex) gone barmy? Had the co-star of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan watched one too many war movies? But then I recalled the iconic 2013 video of the “dramatic moment” Prince Harry ran from an interview at...

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A Tribute to the U.S. Marine Corps

A Tribute to the U.S. Marine Corps

by | Dec 5, 2022 | ,

A recent United States Marine Corps recruitment advertisement tells us: “When there are battles to win for America’s future, there is one constant: Marines.” Despite the advert being a minute-long, propagandizing call to imperial action, this line rings true. And it highlights why we are morally obligated to support Bring Our Troops Home. To be sure, the advert is mostly revealingly deceptive. It opens with a crumbling coastal cityscape reminiscent of the 2010 film Inception. Perhaps the advert filmmakers were merely fans of the Leonardo DiCaprio epic and had fun referencing it. But...

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Stand with Humanity

Stand with Humanity

by | Nov 27, 2022 |

  Stand with the Libertarian Institute The Empire has us on the brink of nuclear Armageddon. The central bank has us flirting with economic-social collapse. Americans are increasingly paranoid of one another and simultaneously invested in wielding the state against one another. The voices of the establishment are legion. The voices of dissent are few. Among the voices of dissent is your Libertarian Institute. You can amplify our message. Please donate to the Libertarian Institute today! We’ve been doing the work to bring you news, journalism, education and activism from a libertarian...

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Walking Wide Awake into World War III

Walking Wide Awake into World War III

by | Nov 5, 2022 | ,

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with rising tensions between NATO and Russia, have drawn comparisons to the outbreak of World War I. In 2014, back when the open hostilities in Ukraine really began, the journalist Eric Margolis said "We can stumble into a war with Russia. This reminds me of 1914 all over again.” This “stumbling” of course refers to the “sleepwalking thesis of war” that is part of both popular and scholarly narratives of World War I. The International Relations realist Stephen Walt warned “the West is sleepwalking into war in Ukraine” the day before Russia invaded. The...

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‘The Greatest Beer Run Ever’ Still Sanitizes the Vietnam War for American Audiences

‘The Greatest Beer Run Ever’ Still Sanitizes the Vietnam War for American Audiences

by | Oct 4, 2022 |

Hollywood filmmakers are adept at selling us goods and services. The industry has developed product placement (or “brand integration”) into a filming technique as impressive as its cinematography and sound design. Director Peter Farrelly’s new film, The Greatest Beer Run Ever, is a compelling two-hour commercial for Pabst Blue Ribbon. Zac Efron portrays protagonist John “Chickie” Donohue, a young man who brings PBR to the guys from his neighborhood fighting in Vietnam. Of course, a Hollywood war film can do a lot more than advertise products such as beer, soda, chocolate, pornography or...

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The National Football League’s Manipulative Militarism

The National Football League’s Manipulative Militarism

by | Sep 15, 2022 | ,

The National Football League (NFL) is a massive, capitalist endeavor. It provides wildly profitable entertainment, is adept at steering taxpayer money its way, and is a premier collaborator in our participatory fascist social order. Capitalist culture is relentlessly anti-capitalist. As such, the NFL (a privately owned organization) makes for a good villain. Hollywood cast it as the “Evil Corporation” in the 2015 film Concussion. The film features this line: The NFL owns a day of the week. The same day the Church used to own. Now it’s theirs. The implication that the NFL is as powerful as...

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‘I Want to Believe’ the Propaganda: The X-Files, Waco and the Federal Leviathan

‘I Want to Believe’ the Propaganda: The X-Files, Waco and the Federal Leviathan

by | Aug 31, 2022 |

On September 9, 1993, The X-Files television series premiered. It followed two employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, as they investigated the paranormal, the occult, and the extraterrestrial. They even hunted the occasional serial killer. The show, which became a hit and then a cultural phenomenon, functioned as highly effective FBI and federal government propaganda. Almost seven months earlier, on Sunday, February 28, employees of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) descended on a small parcel of land north-east of Waco, Texas....

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Public Choice ‘Conspiracy Theory’ and the Illusion of Grand Strategy

Public Choice ‘Conspiracy Theory’ and the Illusion of Grand Strategy

by | Aug 11, 2022 | ,

Murray Rothbard believed there are good conspiracy theories and bad conspiracy theories. He wrote about it for Reason Magazine in 1977. The bad ones are gratuitous claims made without evidence that tend “to wrap up all the conspiracies, all the bad guy power blocs, into one giant conspiracy.” The claim that the 9/11 attacks were an insurance fraud scheme is a bad conspiracy theory. The good conspiracy theories marshal evidence and recognize the political and economic incentives at play within government. The claim that high-level employees of the Saudi Arabian government helped facilitate...

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