Blog

John Boyd: Persona Non Grata at the Pentagon

by Bill Buppert | Apr 22, 2024 | Blog

Widely recognized as one of the U.S. Air Force’s best jet pilots in the 1950s, John Boyd wrote his own combat flying manual, which would subsequently be adopted by air forces around the world. (Courtesy of the Boyd Family)

COL John Boyd was quite the maverick in the military ranks and rocked the boat all the time. You will not though incredibly capable, he was never promoted to flag rank.

One of the best insights he ever gave was that when one distills strategy simply, it is: encouraging alliances and isolating enemies.

He was one of the few really critical thinkers who shifted the military strategic paradigms in a positive way in the twentieth century. Unfortunately, he never wrote a book.

Here is his power-point presentation that spells out his notions in detail.

Class versus Identity Politics?

by Sheldon Richman | Apr 20, 2024 | Blog

Parts of the “left” and “right” often lament that class politics has given way to identity politics. I don’t get that. Class was the original modern political identity, and state privilege was part of the cause. Libertarians and classical liberals long warned that lethal and impoverishing social disintegration would result from an ideology — socialism– based on Marxist class conflict, which pits business people against working people (as if business people don’t work).

We need to abolish politics, not reform it because it’s toxic. That won’t eliminate classes, or useful social categories. We’ll always have people who own businesses, people who manage them, and people employed by them. But those are not and won’t be pure categories. Owners work. Managers work. And workers own — shares in corporations. (Check your retirement account.) Ultimately, in the free market everyone has the same boss: the consumers.

What we must strive for is, to coin a phrase, classes without borders. That is, mobility. To get it we need free markets, which would end: occupational licensure, home-bulding restrictions, business permits, the minimum wage, immigration control, and so much more.

Trita Parsi Interview on Israel and Iran

by Scott Horton | Apr 20, 2024 | Blog

A good one, by Michael Holmes.

An American Bombing

by Scott Horton | Apr 19, 2024 | Blog

The most mainstream documentary about the truth behind the Oklahoma Bombing is now running on HBO.

An American Bombing is a great, if partial, vindication of the great work of Glenn and Kathy Wilburn, J.D. Cash, Roger Charles, Jesse Trentadue, Richard Booth, Wendy Painting, William Jasper, Charles Key, Mark Hamm and many other great truth-tellers on this issue over the last 29 years.

https://thepiratebay.org/description.php?id=75077270

The Waco Tragedy

by Scott Horton | Apr 19, 2024 | Blog

Last year, I sat down with author David Hardy and filmmaker Dan Gifford for a 13-hour in-depth review of the ATF, FBI and US Army’s slaughter of the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas on this day in 1993. Also feat. James Tabor, Paul Fatta, David Thibodeau, Jim Bovard, Barbara Grant and Mike McNulty. Listen here.

TSA Gets a Raise

by Scott Horton | Apr 19, 2024 | Blog

Are you bummed because inflation’s got you again wit’ yer broke ass?

Well take heart. Federal Government employees are doing better than ever at your expense.

So at least they’ve got that going for them.

Lexington and Concord: The Fire Begins

by Bill Buppert | Apr 19, 2024 | Blog

lexcord

The divorce proceedings between London and America began on this day in 1775, 249 years ago.

In Episode 011 of my podcast, I did a historical memorium to the events at Lexington and Concord.

In honor of this day, give it a listen.

The “Israel Has the Most Moral Army in the World” Trope

by Jeremy R. Hammond | Apr 18, 2024 | Blog

On April 17, ZeroHedge hosted a debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict moderated by Saagar Enjeti of Breaking Points, which pitted libertarian comedian and political commentator Dave Smith and The Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur against conservative talk show host Dennis Prager and Newsweek deputy opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon.

The main topic of debate was whether Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza is justified. Smith and Uygur argued in the negative while Prager and Ungar-Sargon argued in the affirmative.

The apologists for what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has deemed to be a plausible genocide in Gaza premised their position on the claim that Israel does everything possible to avoid harming civilians, and Palestinian civilians have only been dying because Hamas was using them as human shields.

Ungar-Sargon additionally argued that the “kill ratio” of combatants to civilians is evidence that Israel is trying to avoid harm to civilians.

She also argued that Israel’s warnings for Palestinians to flee northern Gaza is additional evidence of its benevolent intent — which she immediately conceded, before even being challenged on the point, could also be construed as evidence that Israel was at least guilty of the crime of ethnic cleansing.

Prager went so far as to describe the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as “the most moral army in the world”, citing as evidence the word of Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired former commander of British forces in Afghanistan.

Kemp is frequently cited by Israel’s apologists as though his statements about the IDF’s wondrous munificence can be considered credible and serious.

Alan Dershowitz, for example, has rolled out the same talking point about Israel being “the most moral army in the world”, similarly citing Kemp.

But we’ll come back to Kemp. First, let’s briefly examine the “human shields” and “kill ratio” arguments.