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Overlord: Thomas Eddlem Unmasks The Empire

Thousands of scholars have taken on the central geopolitical question: Is the United States of America an empire? It’s a fierce debate that has unfolded over decades, places the moral status of our society at stake, and has four prevalent positions:

1.     Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton says yes, it is an empire and that’s evil.

2.     Neoconservative policy advisor William Kristol says no way, and the U.S. government is righteous and benevolent.

3.     Regime historian Niall Ferguson agrees with Scott that we’re dealing with an empire but agrees with Kristol that it’s all for the good. The world needs more of it.

4.     Director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities Lyle Goldstein disagrees with Scott that our government is an empire but also disagrees with Kristol that our government is righteous and benevolent. He might not call it evil, but certainly problematic.

On March 3, the Institute’s William Norman Grigg Fellow Thomas Eddlem dealt a stunning blow to the insidious myth that America is not an empire. In an Institute article entitled “Plutocratic America’s War on the Working Class,” Eddlem illuminated America’s imperial center with a harsh and uncompromising light:

“Establishment Democrats have long whined that working people pay a higher rate of combined income and payroll taxes than billionaires. They’re not wrong. Income from labor is taxed three times (payroll taxes, income taxes, and inflation) while income from capital is taxed only once (capital gains). In America today, capital gains tax is capped at 20%, but labor’s floor is 15.3% with a payroll tax, plus the 3-8% inflation tax, both of which start at dollar one. Add the income tax, which tops out at 39%, and labor is generally taxed at twice the rate of capital. The billionaire who relies upon investments and capital gains for income generally doesn’t pay income taxes or payroll taxes on his gains. And if the billionaire is a real estate baron, he benefits from the inflation that makes his mortgage debt easier to pay.”

To fully appreciate Eddlem’s critique, imagine the following scenario. The U.S. government withdraws from every military alliance, shuts down every single one of its foreign military & intelligence bases & installations, and brings all of our troops, spies, and contractors home. It then grants full independence to all of its territories or in the case of uninhabited ones, leaves them to nature.

This would seemingly free the U.S. government from being categorized by the definition of empires given by American Historian Daniel Immerwahr:

“…polities that have colonies and outposts.”

Now imagine the U.S. government sells Alaska back to Russia and gives Hawaii back to the Kānaka Maoli. The United States has been reduced to the “48 contiguous states,” the “Mainland,” or “CONUS.”

In such a scenario, the U.S. government would still be an empire. Because what are we even talking about? One city, Washington, D.C., ruling over a multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural population spread over 3.1 million square miles. Can you imagine the elite from ancient Persepolis, ancient Athens, and ancient Rome visiting Washington, D.C. and being shown maps of CONUS?

Imagine Emperor Charlemagne visiting the White House and being given a lecture on CONUS by Victor Davis Hanson and Jon Meacham. He would certainly see the analogous nature of the U.S. president and state governors to the emperor and kings of his domain. And while a clever ideologue can make the case that the U.S. government does not extract tribute from its vassals (it actually does; minerals for example), there is no way to hide its extractions from the population of CONUS.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall said, “The power to tax involves the power to destroy,” and D.C. crushes American workers with this power every day of their lives. The empire has its intellectual comforters who defend D.C.’s diabolical doings. The despicable Cato Institute is filled with them. Eddlem said:

“The Cato Institute, a regime ‘libertarian’ group inside the Washington DC beltway, spends most of its time focused on federal budgeting, fretting about whether top-level income taxes for the wealthiest are on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve (see here and here). Not surprisingly, more than half of their donations come from just five anonymous billionaire donors ($32.925 million total in 2023), according to its IRS filings. The Cato Institute used to be called the Charles Koch Foundation, after the billionaire who helped found the organization.

Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with finding a few billionaire donors who are willing to support you year after year. But these billionaires know what they are funding, and they are getting return for their investments. And if Cato tried to buck the establishment, its income would dry up. Cato knows its core audience, and it’s not working people.

Like the Democrats, Cato doesn’t even offer the working classes any crumbs. Cato’s institutional slogan may as well be, ‘The poors just aren’t paying enough in taxes.’”

It is highly fitting that Eddlem is the William Norman Grigg Fellow. Grigg argued that to the state’s retail distributors of violence, most civilians are “the mundanes.” Eddlem shows that the entire apparatus of the state views us that way.

If you live in CONUS, welcome to the Empire.

Abolish Draft Registration, Mr. Trump

During Friday’s famous White House meeting, VP Vance criticized Ukrainian President Zelensky for his government’s abduction of men from the streets to fight against Russia. Good for Vance. Conscription is one of the worst things a government can do, especially during a war. As a form of slavery, it goes against every libertarian, or classical liberal, principle. It’s indecent.

Presumably, President Trump shares Vance’s horror. So this is a good time to abolish draft registration here. The penalty for not registering is a maximum five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000. President Carter should never have imposed it, and presidents from Reagan onward should have scrapped it. Shame on them for not doing so.

Well, Mr. Trump?

The Crappiest Ship That Couldn’t

r/megalophobia - An LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) out of water.

The Navy continues to fail with the Little Crappy Ship. Some of these non-functional Navy floating welfare programs posing as ships are being retired five years into the alleged 35 year cruise life. As I have mentioned before, between the LCS and the Zumwalt and the Ford, the Navy has not commissioned a successful surface hull since 1991. Currently, the Navy is primarily focusing on decommissioning Freedom-class LCSs but they need to give it up and retire the entire class soonest.

The real littoral combat ship is the adoption of diesel electric submarines and taking advantage of the German Type 214 boats to jump-start the non-nuclear submarine revival that will inform the opening salvos of weighting naval warfare to underwater operations for the remainder of the 21st century.

Surface navies are on life support and the next peer war will prove that point.

The U.S. Navy had originally planned to procure about 55 Littoral Combat Ships. But as the challenges, cost overruns, and design defects inherent in the ship’s design became more and more apparent, the Littoral Combat Ship program was curtained dramatically, and the U.S. Navy only procured a paltry 35 Littoral Combat Ships. A number of the early ship builds have been retired early in order to save costs and better sustain other programs.

https://www.twz.com/air/cracks-in-kc-46-pegusus-tankers-halt-all-deliveries

For a very exhaustive examination of the nuts and bolts of the failed program, go here.

 
Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

The White House Showdown That Shook Europe: New Episode of the Kyle Anzalone Show

In a fiery White House meeting, Donald Trump and JD Vance clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, igniting a political firestorm that sent shockwaves through Europe.As European leaders rush to Zelensky’s defense, is the West fracturing over Ukraine? Plus, Trump weighs cutting all aid, Speaker Johnson warns of a leadership change in Kyiv, and Bernie Sanders calls the push for Zelensky’s resignation “horrific.” Tune in as we break down the high-stakes battle for Ukraine’s future and the global power plays at work!

K46 Refueler Grounded Again

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The last KC135s were produced in the 1960s and the Boeing KC46 was thr program to update and replace it.

It is a disaster.

The crisis continues as the refueler programs continue to crash and burn.

After the inspection, if any cracks are found, “the aircraft will undergo repairs before flying again,” the Air Force explained.

“The cracks were not found on any flight surfaces or hinges, but rather on the primary or secondary structures,” the Air Force told us. 

Boeing told us it is working to fix the problem.

“We are working closely with the customer to assess a potential issue on KC-46A aircraft and to mitigate any potential impact to the fleet and in-production airplanes,” the company told The War Zone after our inquiry about the cracks.

The Pegasus program has been beset by problems even before they were delivered. It was years behind schedule before the flying branch received its first KC-46A in January 2019.

https://www.twz.com/air/cracks-in-kc-46-pegusus-tankers-halt-all-deliveries

 
Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

Let’s Not “Run after a Share in the Trouble”

Of course “principles,” phrases, and catch-words are always invented to bolster up any policy which anybody wants to recommend. So in this case. The people who have led us on to shut ourselves in, and who now want us to break out, warn us against the terrors of “isolation.” Our ancestors all came here to isolate themselves from the social burdens and inherited errors of the old world. When the others are all over ears in trouble, who would not be isolated in freedom from care? When the others are crushed under the burden of militarism, who would not be isolated in peace and industry? When the others are all struggling under debt and taxes, who would not be isolated in the enjoyment of his own earnings for the benefit of his own family? When the rest are all in a quiver of anxiety, lest at a day’s notice they may be involved in a social cataclysm, who would not be isolated out of reach of the disaster? What we are doing is that we are abandoning this blessed isolation to run after a share in the trouble.

—William Graham Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain” (1898)

Anti-War Blog – Herr Himmler and the Boys

Anti-War Blog – Herr Himmler and the Boys

In many ways Heinrich Himmler is the depiction of a perfect historical villain. A chief Nazi and a key player in the mass murder of millions of human beings in the name of State policy and the religious ideology of Nazism. Towards the end of the war, as it was obvious that Germany was losing their was a softening in his self-image in the hopes that should he take over from Herr Hitler, then he could sue for peace with the Allies or should he be captured by them, then they would see a humanity in him. He did some easing back on mass killings in areas, showing a mercy of sorts for some. Breaking the law, to save his legacy and perhaps life.

There was a humanity in him. Like all of the architects of genocide and their killers, they were not monsters but real people like their victims. It’s easy to forget that. To dehumanise them, removes them from being like us. To segregate them from ourselves is how history tends to rhyme. The power was with men like Himmler and in the infrastructure, but above all else the belief in authority that allowed them to pillage and murder on such an industrial scale that it became historic.

The above fixed image is of Himmler with his fellow SS officers inspecting a boy in Belarus on 15 August, 1941. The Nazi fetish for race was such that men of importance took it upon themselves to inspect children to determine their racial stock. Those deemed acceptable were kidnapped and adopted into the Reich. Those inferior to suffer in starvation, slavery or death.

Not new to the Nazis, the inclination to take boys and turn them into slaves or warriors is an ancient privilege of tribes and governments throughout history. To base this on a form of ‘science’ born from Darwinist theories, Eugenics and the then modern sciences of psychology and genetics made the Nazi’s feel superior and certain.

There is a tale of Himmler visiting one of the many death camps, a starving young boy peering through the barb wire as the well dressed and generously fed officers walked near. Himmler noticed the innocent child, empathetic and with an inclination as a human man to wrest him free from such bondage and the inevitability of slaughter. Asking the child of his racial background, the boys answer the determining factor in his fate. Himmler asked many questions, in the hopes of finding some salvation for the child. Upon learning that the boy was a full Jew, Himmler answered, “Then I can not help you.”

Witnesses claim that there was pain in Himmler’s answer. The ideology of the Nazi State was such, that not even Himmler could make an exception. So, with millions of others that little boy was murdered. It was after all the law.

Another Jewish boy had a more fortunate fate among the killers. He became a mascot of sorts, adopted by the Nazi’s who paraded him about, dressing him in martial costumes to use him as a prop for film and photos. He survived the war. Alex Kurzem, also from Belarus was taken in by the Nazi’s who assumed him to be a Russian orphan. Just six at the time, he had given them a false name. Despite the certainty of their racial sciences, the Nazi’s had decided that this little boy was not only worth saving but also should be made famous. He was cute and looked to be of good racial stock.

The National Socialist government had various rules and levels of grading to determine whether one was of a particular race. It is one of the key aspects of their ideology that separated them from other collectivist movements at the time. It was not that they were merely class or nation based in their supremacy but racialist to the point of religion.

In one of his last public appearances Adolf Hitler can be seen smiling as he awards medals to German boys, who were defending Berlin, ‘to the last.’ In the most desperate moments, those who would so easily execute boys, enslave them or even embrace them as mascots, those with power, just as easily cower in their final moments behind the boy soldiers as they defend a collapsing empire.

In war time, or when desperation strikes the masters of government and their eager killers will and do, easily kill children, especially boys. Ever notice that only, women and children (girls and boys under ten) are considered innocence. From the ages ten and up, in the modern era, ‘if they are able to hold an AK,’ then they can be claimed a militant or terrorist. They can have their arms smashed, as preemptive punishment for throwing rocks at armoured vehicles. Boys are blown to pieces by drones, press ganged into slave soldiery by cultist rebels and for men like Himmler they can exist as flesh and blood human beings who, despite their innocence can not be saved. The law, is after all the law.

And even when there is no law in place, those protected by it can just as easily kill them with such ease. It’s after all, so we are told, war. A small boy selling bottled water on the side of the road can have his throat slit or another his skull mashed in by the butt of soldier’s rifle, it’s after all war. And war gives great exceptions, even when it’s not even declared. It exists as a special status allowing arbitrary execution by policy enforcers. The voting and dependent public, so long as welfare and bullshit jobs exist, so long as real estate stays high and the trains arrive on time allow for it, it’s always happening over there.

The hubris of such thinking did not save the National Socialist state, despite their certainty and confidence, the intricate laws, the educated populace and mechanised work force, the faith in sciences, it collapsed fast. Taking with it millions of lives. The men who would kiss little boys, save their lives, can smile with them and love their own sons but in the end, such men, are no different to any of you. Maybe, just like them you, under the right circumstances, outside the mundane also love your government, your nation, perhaps race so much that you would kill innocent people. Or, is it just the hating them, whoever they happen to be, is all that it takes. Not love of a thing, just hatred. When hatred is law or policy, good people are capable of doing very evil things.

Alex Kurzem survived because he lied to authority. Those other little boys, they told the truth and obeyed authority, the architects and enforcers of law killed. Not just one, but as many of them that they could. Because they obeyed, millions died.

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