Vol. 18.1–2, January–February 1984

—— Double Issue ——

THE Libertarian Forum		Murray N. Rothbard, Editor
A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER Vol. XVIII, No. 1–2		JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1984
Box 341. Madison Square Station, New York, New York 10010		US-ISSN0047-4517

Bergland Campaign in High Gear

On February 1, the Bergland for President campaign, ideologically sound from the very beginning, swung into organizational high gear. The Bergland campaign opened national headquarters in Orange County, in southern California, and moving down to take over as full-time campaign manager for the duration was the redoubtable Williamson Evers. Coming down to join him as his full-time Administrative Assistant was Evers’ wife, outgoing California LP chair Mary Gingell, a sparkling combination of efficiency and warmth. Since Evers’ installation, a steady stream of knowledgeable and hard-core statements on current news and political issues has been flowing from the Bergland camp—all of which (in stark contrast to the 1980 campaign) have been cleared in advance with the Review Committee. Coming on board as Bergland media coordinator was a pro at the job, Laurie Sano, and no sooner was Laurie in place than she began to line up scads of top media interviews for Bergland. One of our Mavens pointed out the incredible contrast with the media coordinator of the 1980 campaign, Ed Crane, who had virtually specialized in the instant personal alienation of leading media people.

The veteran John Robertson has taken to the road as travelling ballot-drive coordinator, and fund-raising has been going well under the dedicated direction of Burt Blumert and Emil Franzi.

Alicia Clark did a fine job as Bergland scheduler for LP appearances, and this task has now been turned over to Melinda Pillsbury-Foster of the southern California party.

Meanwhile, Jim Lewis, LP Vice-Presidential candidate, has been doing a fine job travelling tirelessly around the country, conveying the hard-core radical Libertarian message without fear or favor.

The Bergland campaign has also developed a crucially important organizational tool: the name and address of everyone who calls headquarters for information is being computerized, put on cards, and the cards sent to the local LPs where the caller resides. In that way, the Bergland campaign will not be just a ship that passes in the night; it will systematically use its resources to develop grass roots Libertarian parties throughout the country. In this way, the presidential race is functioning harmoniously as a combination education, recruitment, and grass-roots party-building campaign.

Call for information, or send money to, Bergland headquarters: Bergland for President Campaign, Suite 105 West, 1525 Mesa Verde Drive East, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 (714) 754–1776.

As an example of the excellent statements emerging from the campaign, we are herewith publishing Dave Bergland’s article on The Nebraska Seven.

The Nebraska Seven

by David Bergland

Prison is not the happiest place to spend the holidays, but in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, seven fathers spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas in the Cass County Jail—while their wives lived as fugitives in a neighboring state—all for the “crime” of sending their children to a church school which had not been certified by the Nebraska Department of Education. Worse—the men had not been tried and found guilty of any charges. They were imprisoned when they invoked the Fifth Amendment at a court hearing, believing their testimony would later be used against them. Until they break down and agree to waive this Constitutionally protected right they must remain in jail, where they have already spent nearly three months.

This travesty of justice is no surprise to those who have been following the underlying conflict. State officials and their allies in the education establishment have been stepping up their opposition to parents seeking alternatives to a government operated school system. Across the country, parents are increasingly disenchanted with government schools. They are aware of the billions of tax dollars poured into these institutions, while each year graduates emerge less literate and informed than their predecessors. Children are not receiving adequate instruction in such basic skills as reading and arithmetic. They are being engulfed in what the National Commission on Excellence in Education has called “the rising tide of mediocrity.” Parents are alarmed, and to save their children from being swept away by this tide, many are removing children from government-operated schools, to teach them at home or in private schools where parents have direct control over subject material.

It is often said, incorrectly, that only the well-to-do can afford to send their children to private schools. But, these new private schools are being established and supported by parents of moderate, even low incomes. As such repudiation of government schools becomes a widespread movement, the educational establishment is panicking.

To inhibit this grass-roots movement, many states have established mandatory certification requirements for schools and teachers which give state authorities the power to prohibit the formation or continuation of any school of which they disapprove. By making it very difficult to operate a private school, the government monopoly on education—and its control over children—is being protected.

Foremost in the new home education-private school movement are Christian fundamentalist parents for whom reading the Bible is of primary importance. They are thus also foremost in challenging the government monopoly over education. When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision outlawing prayer and Bible reading in public schools, many Protestant parents were dismayed—but this ruling did force the issue. Religious observances in tax-supported schools violate the principle of separation of church and state required by the First Amendment of the Constitution.

But the first Amendment not only separates church and state, it also outlaws government interference in the exercise of religion. Yet such interference is taking place in Nebraska.

The church-school parents there take seriously the Biblical injunction to “train up your children in the way they will go . . .” As they see it, it is not only their right, but their duty to oversee the education of their children—and to be certain they receive thorough instruction in the Bible.

Five years ago, as an expression of their convictions, nine sets of parents in Louisville, Nebraska, formed a school which met in the basement of their church, Faith Baptist—an independent Baptist church. They were assisted by their pastor, the Rev. Everett Sileven and his daughter, Theresa Schmidt, the school supervisor. There were 29 students enrolled, grades K-12. Emphasis was on the basics: reading, arithmetic, spelling, grammar, etc.—and the Bible, for them, the most basic text of all.

From the school’s founding, the Nebraska Department of Education opposed it—refusing to certify it or the teachers, although several had college degrees, and the children consistently scored one to three years above the Nebraska average. The parents and their pastor offered to permit yearly testing on standardized tests to demonstrate that the children were maintaining their high performance level. They refused, however, to hire state certified teachers who may well hold doctrines contrary to those held by the parents themselves. As long as the students are maintaining certain objective standards, the parents reason that the state has no legitimate interest in the matter.

Nebraska authorities feel otherwise. On several instances, through court order, the church itself was forcibly closed down and padlocked—to be open only Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings for permitted services! On November 23, 1983, a hearing was held at which Everett Sileven and Theresa Schmit were ordered to show cause why they should not be held in contempt of court if they continued to operate the school. Warrants were issued for the parents, but through an error, only seven couples were subpoenaed. The day of the hearing, the seven fathers appeared, took the Fifth Amendment, and were thrown into jail. The mothers, fearing their children were to be seized and made wards of the court, fled into hiding. Bench warrants were ordered for their arrest.

The Louisville parents are not alone. Six other independent Baptist schools in Nebraska are similarly threatened, and school authorities across the country are watching to see how the courts handle the situation.

We libertarians wholeheartedly support the parents and the Rev. Sileven in their courageous and non-violent stand against the arrogant Nebraska government. The argument is not about literacy—but about authority. Who has the ultimate right to decide about the upbringing and education of children: parents or bureaucrats? That is what is at stake. We hold that the right to direct the education of one’s children is as important a right as freedom to practice one’s religion or exercise free speech—and should be recognized as such.

Centuries ago the great cry was for a separation of church and state—and in this country that was achieved. Libertarians are calling for a similar separation between education and state. In particular, we would repeal mandatory certification requirements as well as all other tax and regulatory roadblocks to the growth and development of private schools or home schooling. A free people requires freedom in education—and separation from the state is critical if education is to be free. Without that crucial separation, government will assert ever increasing control over our lives, and the lives and future of our children.

Who Is the Real Mafia?

by Emil Franzi

A MAN OF HONOR—The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno. With Sergio Lalli. Simon and Schuster, $17.95.

by Emil Franzi

After reading several rather poor reviews of this book, all by more or less WASP reviewers. I would maintain that only an Italian, even a Piedmontese like me, is fully capable of appreciating this magnificent piece of cultural anthropology. After all, even my half-WASP older daughter referred to the unfortunately demised television series “The Gangster Chronicles” as “Guinea Roots”. Fascination with what has come to be known as “The Mafia” is as American as fascination with the Old West. Having an autobiography of Joe Bonanno is as valuable to the study of the former as having an autobiography of Geronimo or Crazy Horse would be to the latter. The critics of this book claim that it is Bonanno’s goal to make himself look better than his press clippings. Well, so what? Most, if not ALL autobiographies are written in favor of their author, leaving little difference between Bonanno’s and, say Kissinger’s. Except I think Bonanno was probably more honest than Kissinger—but that wouldn’t be hard.

This book may be far more relevant than its author may have expected. In telling his own story, Bonanno tells many others. There is a steady and growing interest in this country in what Joe Bonanno calls “The Tradition”. While several interesting biographies of principal players have been published, notably Meyer Lansky’s, and while such decent fictional accounts as The Godfather exist, most of the literature about “the Mafia” is pure garbage. From the Valachi Papers to The Last Mafioso to the reams of government-produced drivel, most of what we have been told about “The Tradition” is false. To have this rather candid discourse by someone who was a “heavy hitter” from the 1920’s onward (I know of no other book that gives you a lineage chart of the five New York families, complete with photos) is of great value to students of this aspect of American history and sociology. No one who was as many places as Joe Bonanno and was at so high a level has chosen to tell us as much about it. In this regard, Lalli’s translation (Bonanno’s English is admittedly inadequate) of Bonanno’s lifestyle, principles, and reminiscences may well be as important historically as Riordan’s similar efforts on behalf of Tammany leader George Washington Plunkitt (Plunkitt of Tammany Hall) some 75 years ago.

A Man of Honor has many passages that are of distinct interest to Libertarians. After one recognizes, as Joe Bonanno ably points out, that “Mafia” is one term for what is, to many Sicilians, not a formal organization but a way of life based on custom and tradition, it’s easy to understand how the Sicilian people, one of the most oppressed in history, have chosen to react to varied but constant tyrannies. To begin with, they have comprehended (as most WASPs coming from a freer tradition have not) that the game of government isn’t on the level. Their response was to group around family and village in mutual self-defense. In doing so, trade-offs were made—such as submitting individual will to the good of the group. While this response would hardly be applauded by hard-core Randians, the reason for it is of obvious interest to those of us who share a distrust in “lawful” and “legitimate” rulers. What Joe Bonanno tells us about his Sicilian heritage—family group first, allegiance to a small piece of turf, a lack of interest in the political process as a solution to problems—is validated by (or aids in validating) Thomas Sowell’s superb treatise Ethnic America. Sicilians, when moving to a new country, treated their new government with the same distrust as they did the old one. In fact, they often found it more baffling. As Joe Bonanno explains:

. . . if people, ordinary people, didn’t demand such services as gambling and money lending, no one would bother to supply these services . . . It is difficult, therefore, for me to take seriously government attempts to dislodge the entrepreneurs who provide such services . . . Men of my Tradition (Family members) some of whom were involved in illicit gambling operations, understood the human condition and provided these services, which society demanded. The naive view is to believe that a certain group of people, such as Sicilians, somehow force these activities on society . . . (p. 218)

I think we call them victimless crimes.

Other portions of the book of direct interest to Libertarians are the many accounts of the sloppy, shoddy, sleazy, unconstitutional behavior of our law enforcement “Mafia”. Bonanno make a rather good case that the government wanted him in the slammer, and didn’t care how many rules (or laws, or rights, or constitutions) they had to screw over to do it. It’s easy for Libertarians to defend constitutional rights when the victim is a little old lady getting eminent domained, or an Amish farmer losing his livestock for non-payment of Social Security, or young men being drafted for some lousy war. Those are cheap, and relatively popular. Well, let’s try it when the victim is this time someone who is supposed to be one of the biggest criminals in America. Same rights. Same Constitution. Same principles.

Whatever Joe Bonanno is supposed to have done, whatever laws he may have broken, it is glaringly apparent to me that he is of far less danger to the rest of us than many of the lawenforcement dirt-balls and scum-bags who claim to be protecting us while they treat such items as the Bill of Rights as so much toilet paper. I do not, as some Libertarians have in the past, mean this as a blanket condemnation of all of those involved in law enforcement, many of whom are decent people with a tough job. Let Joe Bonanno himself differentiate:

In discussing policemen, it is best to distinguish between street cops and paper cops. Street cops are the ones who work for a living. They’re out on the streets, responding to calls, chasing criminals, settling disputes, putting their lives on the line. A man of my Tradition can have respect for a street cop.

Then there are the paper cops, the bureaucrats of their profession. Paper cops spend most of their time at a desk, shuffling papers, doing research, making out reports, filing for government grants and the like. Paper cops rarely put themselves in dangerous situations. They have normal working hours for the most part. Paper cops like to sit around and chew the fat. They are very big on holding conferences and attending crime seminars. Of course, paper cops wouldn’t be seen dead in uniform. (p. 358)

The “Organized Crime” Scare of the last 20 years or so will someday be looked upon by rational Americans the way “Reefer Madness” is now. As an attempt to manipulate the truth and scare the Hell out of people for the primary purpose of giving certain select government agencies more money and more power over the lives of the rest of us. The danger to this country posed by the “Mafia” is as phony as the politicians and paper cops who promote it. This book helps make that clear.

Take it from a Piedmontese.

Crisis ’83: The Council of Foreign Relations and the Libertarian Party

by Howard S. Katz

“Libertarian Party nominates C.F.R. for President.”

These words were not the headline to come out of the Libertarian Party National Convention of 1983. They missed by a margin of 27 votes. And there hangs a tale.

One week before the convention, Gene Burns, the leading contender for the LP’s presidential nomination, withdrew, leaving an open field. Several candidates emerged, most prominent of whom were Dave Bergland, the Party’s vice-presidential nominee in 1976, and Earl Ravenal, who has been featured in libertarian publications for his anti-interventionist foreign policy analyses.

Ideologically these were two fine choices, although Ravenal is somewhat of an unknown quantity in economics. The problem was that Ravenal is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The further problem was that a substantial minority of delegates did not understand what was wrong with that. Ravenal was defeated, but a great many people did not realize that nominating a member of this organization would seriously threaten the basic goal which the Libertarian Party was set up to achieve.

I History of the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission

A generation ago, intellectual Objectivists and conservative economists in the pro-liberty movement used to turn up their noses at crackerbarrel Birchers who ranted about a giant conspiracy centered about the Council on Foreign Relations. Conspiracy theory was not respectable.

It turned out that the intellectuals were wrong. The Birchers colored their view of this conspiracy with a right-wing interpretation, but the basic facts were true. We owe a note of thanks to people like Pete McAlpine for making the study of this conspiracy intellectually respectable and to Steve Zarlenga for publishing one of the definitive works on the subject, Carroll Quigley’s second conspiracy book, The Anglo-American Conspiracy. Taking all of these things together, the following facts have now emerged.

In the late 19th century, a group of British conservatives, inspired by the ideology of the arch-reactionary John Ruskin, formed a secret society dedicated to the goal of British imperialism. England was superior, these people argued; therefore, the British way of life should be imposed on all the inferior peoples of the world (for their own good of course). The British public of the time, which tended to more liberal ideas of freedom and self determination, would not have supported this policy of imperialism openly. Therefore, the group had to operate in secret, that is to become a conspiracy, to further its goal.

This conspiracy, like thousands of others that are hatched each year in the political arena, would probably have died a rapid death if not for the fact that its early leader was a millionaire named Cecil Rhodes, who devoted a large share of his fortune to its promotion. The crucial element was its ability to control the London Times, one of the world’s most influential papers. This conspiracy was variously called, the Rhodes group, the Round Table, Milner’s Kindergarten, the Cliveden set, the All Souls group, or just Us. It fomented the Boer War¹ as an excuse to achieve one of its goals, the Cape to Cairo railway (a prelude to British control of Africa), and it regarded the loss of America as one of the worst mistakes of British foreign policy (a mistake it fully intended to rectify).

J. P. Morgan was the head of the American affiliate of the Round Table, and when Germany challenged the British Empire in World War I, Morgan manipulated to bring the United States into the war on England’s side.² After the war, Morgan set up the Council on Foreign Relations as a public forum to serve as a front for his Round Table group. Its key positions would be controlled by Round Table members, but it would also contain naive third parties and publicly hold idealistic goals.

Thus, it is necessary to make a few corrections in the Birch view of the conspiracy. First, it is not a left-wing conspiracy, and there is no connection with any Bavarian Illuminati.³ Its founder, its ideology and its most important members were on the extreme right.⁴ Second, the C.F.R. itself is not the conspiracy but merely a front for it. Thus many naive and innocent people can belong to the C.F.R. without understanding anything about the conspiracy that controls it. Third, the goal of the conspiracy was not one-world government in the idealistic sense in which Birchers oppose it. (Although, since it wanted England to control the world, it did favor one-world government in the imperialistic sense in which many conservatives favor it.) Fourth, the conspiracy is nowhere near as powerful as the Birchers make it appear. It failed to bring the United States back into the British Empire. It failed to conquer the world for England. In fact, it stood helplessly by in the late 1940s as the British left smashed the empire into little pieces. And finally, this conspiracy was never a top-down, authoritarian organization headed by a firm leader (a la a James Bond movie). It was an old-boy network of people in the same social class who used their college, business and class associations to good advantage, and were able to accomplish many things by these associations, their money and their positions.

In the 1930s the U.S. Branch of the conspiracy passed out of Morgan hands and came under the control of the Rockefellers. From the late ’30s on, it began to have a dominant influence on U.S. foreign policy. It was the Eastern Establishment in the Republican Party, and it controlled the Democratic Party. A succession of Secretaries of State and advisors came from C.F.R. ranks: Cordell Hull, Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles and Henry Cabot Lodge, to name a few. Under the influence of these advisors, Presidents abandoned traditional American anti-interventionism and followed a foreign policy of successive hot and cold wars in various parts of the globe. There is a great deal of evidence that several of these wars were deliberately provoked by the C.F.R. officials in Government (Vietnam,⁵ possibly Korea, probably the Pacific theater of World War II. Again, see The Warmongers.) In 1972, a sister organization, the Trilateral Commission, was formed by David Rockefeller (C.F.R. Chairman), and from that time on the C.F.R. played a less active role in foreign affairs. C.F.R./Trilateral control of the American media is so complete that information about these organizations cannot penetrate to the American people. Some prominent Trilateral in Government in recent years have been: Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paul Volcker, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Alan Greenspan, John Anderson, Alan Cranston, John Glenn, George Bush, Casper Weinberger, Arthur F. Burns, I. W. Abel, George Ball, Bill Brock, Hedley Donovan, Walter Heller, Lane Kirkland, Paul McCracken, David Packard, Robert Roosa, Bill Scranton, Michael Blumenthal, Warren Christopher, Elliot Richardson, Cy Vance, Paul Warnke and Andy Young.

II Goals and Modus Operandi

When I questioned Earl Ravenal about his membership in the C.F.R., he responded that the C.F.R. did not take any ideological positions. It was merely a discussion group of the top foreign policy people in the country. As a foreign policy analyst, it was his duty to belong. The Trilateral Commission, Ravenal continued, was another matter. It did take positions, and he has refused to join this group. He felt this justified his membership.

It should be pointed out that Mr. Ravenal was incorrect in his answer. I debated George Franklin, the Trilateral Commission’s coordinator and David Rockefeller’s brother-in-law, on two occasions; each time he strongly affirmed that the Trilateral Commission did not take positions but, like the C.F.R., was open to all views.

Although the C.F.R. and the Trilateral Commission are theoretically open to all points of view, there is a tacit understanding that lunatic positions, such as support for a gold standard or reduction in the size of the government, are beyond the pale. After all, the organizations must be limited to sane people if the discussions are to be fruitful. (Which is another way of saying that despite their non-ideological cover these organizations are still loyal to the ideology of their founder, John Ruskin.)

But even if we grant that the C.F.R. and Trilateral organizations are non-ideological, citing this as an excuse for cooperating with them shows a frightening naivete. It reflects a premise that our entire battle is ideological and that changing people’s minds is 100% of what we have to do.

To win the battle for liberty, it is necessary not only to defeat the ideas of the enemy, it is also necessary to block his anti-liberty actions. If you are fighting the Marines, the Notre Dame football team or the CIA, you must defeat them in reality; there is no contest in the ideological realm. In the same way, the C.F.R. and the Trilateral Commission are not our ideological enemies. They are not (as organizations) expounding anti-liberty ideas. They are aiding and assisting their members to take anti-liberty actions. Draft boards, local boards for seizing property by eminent domain, and the I.R.S. are not ideological organizations either. But no libertarian can join one of these organizations without violating his fundamental principles. So to justify a membership by taking the C.F.R./Trilateral ideology (or their non-ideology, or their propaganda about their non-ideology) at face value very much misses the point.

In general, a person or organization cannot be condemned for his (its) ideas. Even false or evil ideas can be held by error. This is unfortunate, but it is not immoral. People or organizations must be judged on the basis of what they do, not what they say. The CIA is evil because it is engaged in lying and murdering on a wide scale, that is, because of what it does not what it believes.

In the same way, there is a long list of C.F.R. and Trilateral officials who have lied and schemed to kill millions of people, to subvert freedom in this country (and others) and to steal billions of dollars. I condemn these officials, and I condemn the organizations which helped them get power.

To get the flavor of these organizations, one must get a sense of John Ruskin, the intellectual inspiration for this conspiracy. Ruskin was a fervent enemy of the 19th century and longed to go back to some time about the 12th, back to the time when an armed aristocracy had reduced the majority of the people to serfdom and when the only meaning given to the word “rights” was “Permissions granted by the lord.” Although these aristocrats armed themselves to the teeth and trained themselves in techniques of fighting, they were not able to maintain their power completely by brute force because they were outnumbered by the peasants 100 to 1. Therefore, they devoted themselves to the art of politics and became extremely skilled in intrigue and insider manipulation. The object was for the small elite to control the government which, in turn, controlled the people. It is this basic idea which motivates the members of the C.F.R. and Trilateral Commission today.

Power today results from a combination of media, money, intellectuals and politicians. One function of C.F.R. and Trilateral meetings is to bring these four elements together so that things can happen. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the intellectual, could never hope—given his anemic personality—to win an election. But pair him with Jimmy Carter, who is as American as apple pie, and they are off to a start. Let Carter meet Hedley Donovan, then editor-in-chief of Time Magazine,⁶ at a Trilateral Commission meeting, add a few wealthy contributors, and presto. Four elements, neither of whom could achieve its goal alone, have power when they work together. These organizations are trying to seize control of the apparatus of the state, to increase state power and to use this power for the furtherance of their goals. They are in a direct succession from men whose goals have been the fomenting of war, the killing of millions of human beings, the seizure of vast amounts of wealth and the suppression of freedom. They do not publicly state their current goals,⁷ but in The Warmongers I marshal a great deal of evidence that these are in essence the same.

The Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations have been extremely successful in seizing control of the U.S. Government in our generation. Their members get appointed to high positions in both Democratic and Republican administrations. They had three of the top five Presidential contenders in the 1980 election—Bush, Anderson and Carter. The man whom the American people actually elected was the one candidate who spoke out against the Trilateral Commission; but still they occupy the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve, the Vice-Presidency and the positions of Secretary of Defense and Ambassador to Germany.⁸

But the really frightening thing about the Trilateral Commission and the C.F.R. is that they are never covered in the press. When Trilateral members perform acts which by any contemporary standard are newsworthy, there is a wall of silence. When a conflict of interest tempts a high official from his public duty, it is normally a front page story. But if the conflict involves the Trilateral Commission, silence. The associations of men in public life are carefully studied; they are exposed to a blinding publicity. But Trilateral and C.F.R. associations are never mentioned, even when these associations directly affect actions and policy decisions.

A good example of this is the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-80 (which probably surfaced because of an internal conflict in the Trilateral Commission itself). This crisis was fomented by David Rockefeller using his Trilateral connections (principally Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter and Warren Christopher). I broke this story in The Gold Bug, and it was picked up by L. J. Davis, a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine. Davis did an excellently researched article and offered it to the New York Times, which turned it down. If finally appeared in Penthouse (October 1980, December 1980) where the establishment could pooh-pooh its conclusions because they had appeared in a girlie magazine. Shortly after the article ran, Iran offered to return the hostages, and Christopher, who was the U.S. negotiator, refused to accept them unless Rockefeller’s bank was guaranteed $500 million which was in dispute. This conflict of interest on Christopher’s part was never mentioned anywhere in, the media. Neither was his membership in the Trilateral Commission. Neither was Kissinger’s membership in the T.C. or the fact that he is now under salary to Rockefeller’s bank.

Careful students of current events will have noted that, when the U.S. gave the Panama Canal to Panama, it paid them a sum of money to take it. This bonus from the U.S. taxpayers enabled the dictator of Panama to pay a debt to Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank. The negotiator of the canal treaty for the U.S. was a Trilateralist. Similarly, the Federal Government bailed out New York City, whose bonds were held in large quantities by Chase but never bailed out other cities faced with bankruptcies.⁹

III The Threat to the Libertarian Party

The total number of C.F.R. and Trilaterals is quite small (100 U.S. citizens in the T.C. and a few thousand in the C.F.R.), and despite their wealth and power, they could not dominate the country to the extent they do without the use of certain techniques. One of these is to infiltrate from within and control all parties (small p as well as capital P). Their ideal election is a Republican Trilateralist against a Democratic Trilateralist. The C.F.R. would have no objection to Earl Ravenal accepting the Libertarian nomination. It fits perfectly with their policy of a foot in all camps. They understand that access is power and that personal ties are more important in determining policy than ideology.

Of course, the C.F.R. is not engaged in an all-out effort to control the Libertarian Party. We are, as yet, but a mosquito to them, perhaps a petty annoyance. But it is quite possible that during the campaign certain libertarian positions would become embarrassing to the C.F.R. Naturally almost all libertarian positions are anathema to C.F.R. members, but one particular position could easily become dangerous. It might tilt the balance of power to have a nosy little third party harping on this issue (for example, the issue of the IMF bailout of the big banks¹⁰). A major party candidate might be forced to pick the issue up to keep us from taking votes from him. And if one major party candidate picked it up, the other might be forced to go along. That would be very bad for the power structure.

The Ravenal supporters were promising delegates that Ravenal’s establishment (that is, C.F.R.) connections could be used for the benefit of the Party. Would they if one of the Party’s positions began to annoy these people in this way?

If one of Ravenal’s positions began to annoy the establishment, then lo and behold, the promised connections would disappear. The pressure would be on, not necessarily to change his position, but merely to tone it down a bit. If he cooperates, he gets the support and the votes, and most Party members don’t even know that he has sold out. If he doesn’t cooperate, no connections, electoral disaster, shame and disgrace.

This is what happened to Gov. Brown of California in the 1980 New Hampshire Democratic primary when he began speaking out about the Rockefeller-Iran connection. He simply disappeared from the newspapers.

To depend on an enemy for support is incredibly stupid. To walk into a situation such as I have described—as Ravenal was intending to do—indicates, at best, that he had not thought the matter through. One does not place one’s self in a position in which integrity requires the destruction of one’s enterprise.

(Libertarians, of course, are not supposed to put things like personal ties above ideology in determining political actions. It is only the power structure which understands the importance of such things. For example, some years ago after a presidential campaign in which the Libertarian Party candidate had been pristine pure on the issues, I found his name—along with his conservative friends—on a letter supporting the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. I did not make an issue of it because by that time the election was over and done, and I do not enjoy intra-Party fighting. Perhaps he did not consider the ability of the Chilean state secret police to make people disappear to be a deprivation of civil liberties.)

Since Ravenal was proposing to place himself in a position in which his integrity would be under a great deal of strain, a key point becomes relevant.

One of Ravenal’s apologies for his C.F.R. membership consisted in asserting that C.F.R. members represented the top people in his field. Membership was a professional sine qua non. Sadly this is nothing more than establishment propaganda. It is what George Franklin told me about the Trilateral Commission during our first debate. It is the myth of the best and the brightest.

Strange it is, Mr. Ravenal, that David Rockefeller is so well qualified (and motivated) to choose America’s best and brightest. For moral integrity he has given us Henry Kissinger. For intellectual achievement he selected Jimmy Carter, for charm and personality, Zbigniew Brzezinski. For economic advice he picked Walter Heller and Arthur Burns but passed over Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. For advice in foreign policy, he selected many of the people who gave us the Vietnam War. How curious that our foreign policy is in such a mess with such intellects to guide it.

I find Ravenal’s assertion that this collection of boot lickers and power mongers constitute America’s best and brightest to be offensive and absurd, and I will take a random sample of LP delegates over them, for integrity, for political theory, for awareness of the facts, any day in the week. But it does lead to a question. If Ravenal really believes that his C.F.R. associates are the best and the brightest, from where would he have selected his advisors for the campaign, from libertarians or from the “top” people in their field (meaning his C.F.R. associates)?

Worse than what Ravenal said was what he implied. For to advance expertise as a virtue carries the implication that the people in question are on our side. It would only be said in the context that there is one foreign policy which is best for America and that all of these people are carefully searching for it.

But the fact is that there is not one America with interests at stake; there are two. There is the American power structure and the American people. These interests are often diametrically opposed, and the damning thing about Trilateral and C.F.R. operatives is that, when faced with this conflict, they do not hesitate to place the interests of the power structure above the interests of the people. In such a situation, intelligence or expertise, were it to exist, would be a negative quality.

For example, Kissinger helped the Shah of Iran to manipulate the price of oil higher in the early ’70s.¹¹ This was of benefit to Exxon (a Rockefeller controlled corporation) but hardly to American motorists, who were shooting each other in frustration over the gas lines of the time. When Russia invaded Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter committed the lives of American youth to help defend Saudi Arabia, again protecting the special relationship which that country has with Exxon (through Aramco). At present the issue is whether the American people should be taxed to make good the bad loans which Chase Manhattan and a number of other banks made to a variety of tinhorn and Communist dictators. (These dictators are not seriously worried about paying back those loans because they know that the real payment owed is subservience to David Rockefeller. As long as they make this payment, they do not have to worry about the other kind.)

For the Libertarian Party to nominate a C.F.R. for President would be to immediately and permanently lose the support of all those political activists who are familiar with the above facts. It would seriously undercut the message of those like myself who are writing and lecturing to tell the American people that the Rockefeller organizations are an evil power which must be rejected. It would deal a long term blow to the Party from which it might never recover.

David Rockefeller is a man obsessed with power. He has studied it with the intensity of a Hitler, a Louis Napoleon or a Julius Caesar. He has assembled all of the elements of power, including a very tight grip on what is widely considered to be a pluralistic press. You cannot have power and liberty together. You cannot place the Libertarian banner in the hands of a member of the C.F.R.

If I am permitted to assume what was going on in the mind of a Ravenal supporter during the time of the convention, I would say something like: “These people have the power. They are the establishment. We will win them over to our side by our ideology, and they will do lot of good for our cause.” Such people do not understand the structure of power in our society. Their naivete dooms them to defeat. There are two factors, one inherent to any power structure, the other unique to 20th century America, which give us much more power than they realize and which indicates the nature of our battle.

(1) The first factor, inherent in any power structure, is that liberty is in the interests of the people. The classical liberal political activists understood this, but it appears that modern libertarian theorists do not. Power is always wielded on behalf of a small elite and against the majority. The propaganda of the New Deal, to rob from the rich and give to the poor, is a myth. It is one of the lies of our time, on everyone’s lips but nowhere in reality. What our government does, on issue after issue, is to rob from the poor and give to the rich.

This means that direct appeals to the interests of the majority are a useful libertarian tactic—as Howard Jarvis proved with Proposition 13 in California. California property owners were not voting on the basis that taxation is theft. They were simply voting their narrow interests. In the same way the Anti-Corn-Law League in 19th century England was able to abolish the corn tariff. The average Englishman of the time did not understand the economic theory of free trade. He voted for cheap bread.

In short, the pro-liberty theorist concretized a libertarian principle, and its concrete form was in the interest of the majority (who would not necessarily understand the abstraction). In this way pro-liberty activists of the 19th century (Jefferson, Van Buren, Sam Adams) won victory after victory. By neglecting this principle and by cutting themselves off from their mass base, pro-liberty advocates in the mid-20th century (Robert Taft, Ayn Rand) suffered defeat after defeat.

(2) The second factor results from the very success which the statist forces have had. In the 19th century, the average person’s political views were more collectivist than the existing system. The statists could not make an appeal to those views because the liberals had a better grasp of the mechanism of power. The liberals controlled the press; they had committed political activists, and they understood the proper techniques of mass action. They literally pushed the country to be more free than was strictly warranted by its ideas.

But in the 20th century exactly the opposite has occurred. The power structure has gotten control of the press and understands the proper techniques of insider manipulation. They have pushed the country to be less free than is strictly warranted by its ideas. For this reason, if every issue were left to be decided by a nationwide referendum to be voted on immediately without any consideration in the media, libertarians would win some striking victories. We would definitely have a balanced budget. We would probably have a gold standard. We would certainly have lower taxes. We would probably not have troops in Lebanon or El Salvador. The average American is not ideologically a libertarian, but he is closer to libertarianism than the current power structure is.

I found that, when I toured the country promoting my books on the gold standard and against the Trilateral Commission, I was shut out by the establishment media. But I was avidly welcomed by the local radio and TV stations. The public response in some of those areas (such as Dallas and San Diego) can only be described as overwhelming. And I was described as “one of the hottest guests on the circuit” by a talk show host in Illinois. But no network show wanted one of the hottest guests on the circuit, not when he was advocating a gold standard and denouncing David Rockefeller by name. No way. It is my understanding that Ed Clark was treated the same way, being welcomed by the local media but shut out by the majors.

The major infusion of statism into this country came in the 1930s when a number of left-wing intellectuals who had brought socialism and chaos to Germany were kicked out by Hitler and came to the U.S. These people were well trained in the mechanisms of power. They moved quickly to capture the high points, the most influential newspapers, the TV networks the places where power was centralized and could be controlled by a small number. They played up to wealthy businessman, like the Rockefellers.¹² Their converts still hold power in those places today.

Thus, the American people are more libertarian than the existing power structure, and the existing system is only maintained by a combination of media pressure and power politics (of which the forced resignation of Secretary Watt is only a recent example). The media may create an image totally different from reality. They may present an issue in a way that plays upon the fears of a large ethnic group. They may create an impression in a politician’s mind that there is a large majority for some position, causing him to espouse the position out of expedience. For example, there are millions of people in this country who believe that John Anderson was a liberal (in the modern sense of the term) Republican and do not know that he is a member of the Trilateral Commission. In fact, Anderson is an ultra-conservative who once tried to make Christianity the official religion of the country. Registered Democrats do not know that the main choices being promoted by the media for the 1984 presidential nomination (Glenn, Mondale and Cranston) are Trilateralists. People are never told of David Rockefeller’s dealings and manipulations, and every effort is made to prevent issues from being joined in a national election (which is why we have election after election in which both candidates take identical positions on all the issues).

Again, it is well known that political candidates routinely lie to the American people. (The media always treat this moral outrage with jovial good nature.) But they almost always lie by taking a pro-liberty position in the campaign and betraying it after the election. They very rarely lie in the opposite manner. They promise to balance the budget; they promise to keep us out of war (1964); they promise a free economy (1968); they promise an outsider who has no connection to the power structure (1976); they promise to reduce the size of the government (1968 and 1980). Why would they make these promises during a campaign if they did not find such promises effective in gaining votes? Why would they betray them after the election if they were not basically in league with the power structure? Thus the American power structure is fundamentally out of touch with the American people and only maintains its positions by a succession of lies and manipulations.

It is this position of fundamental weakness which determines elitist strategy and which must determine our strategy as well. A few members of the elite, those with unusual integrity, might be won over to our side by ideology. But the majority can only be moved by direct self-interest. (And, quite frankly, I do not put much faith in the program of attempting to convert David Rockefeller to our ideas by pointing out to him that he suffers a loss of self-esteem every time he steals millions from the American people. It may be true, but I don’t think it will play in lower Manhattan.)

Rather than try to convert 60 or 70 elitists who gain wealth, power and fame from government programs, it makes more sense to try to convert the 200 million Americans who are taxed, regimented, conscripted and murdered by big government. These are exclusive strategies. Power is fundamentally an elitist instrument. It is always authority which wields power. To expect this elite to dismantle the power which makes them rich is extremely naive. During the pro-freedom revolutions of the 19th century there were always a few aristocrats who come over to the side of the people on moral grounds—but there were never more than a few.

Two essentials to defeat this power structure are media which tell the truth to the American people and a political party which stands for something and does not betray its campaign promises.¹³ The power structure depends on its members placing personal loyalty above loyalty to principles. It bears a striking resemblance to a medieval power structure where a small group of related families schemed and manipulated to maintain and increase their power over the peasants. Behind-the-scenes manipulation and personal contacts are their game. To nominate a C.F.R. and to hope to use his personal contacts for our purposes is to play it by their rules. It is the formula for defeat. It is precisely the formula by which the Republican Party gave up any hope of saving liberty in America.

If Earl Ravenal wants to aid libertarianism vis à vis the Council on Foreign Relations, I would suggest the following. He should immediately quit the C.F.R. and denounce it and the bulk of its members as evil. He should publicly reveal the proceedings of the meetings.¹⁴ He should maintain the kind of association with these people that a virtuous person has with pimps and prostitutes. And he should start a campaign with the media to cover C.F.R./Trilateral meetings and activities. This would put the pressure on David Rockefeller in the same way that Ravenal put the pressure on the Libertarian Party by his attempt at the nomination.

The power structure’s great weakness is its smallness in size. Given a persuasive ideology, it is possible to assemble considerably larger amounts of both people and wealth against them. The only way to stop this from happening is by the insider manipulation I have described above. To enter into personal associations with these groups is to play their game. It is to play the only game they can win. It is like a man trying to defeat a woman by sexual intrigue. It is like an elephant trying to defeat a mosquito by seeing who can fly fastest. It abandons the arena of principle and truth, which are our forte, and allows the issue to be resolved by personal wealth, connections, insider manipulation and media influence. It is a sure formula for defeat.

IV On the Need for a Libertarian Movement

What almost happened at the LP Natcom ’83 is very alarming. It shows that a significant percentage of the most involved libertarian activists do not understand the evil of the C.F.R. and the danger of getting into bed with it. It reveals a libertarian movement composed of coteries of experts in several fields. There are experts on the power structure. There are experts on education. There are experts on monetary theory. There are experts on tax law. But the experts in one field do not understand the other fields. And the five days of education we try to cram into our national conventions every two years is simply not enough.

What is happening is that libertarians are falling victim to the American consensus. This is a set of views propagated by the major media that dominate the country: the validity of the welfare state, the need for foreign involvement, the nonexistence of a power structure (or the identity of its interests with the country’s interests), the basic truth of everything printed in The New York Times.

This set of ideas is continually propagated by the establishment media and convinces many people. But a small number of the most intelligent discover, through their own thinking and through specialty work in their field, that the consensus is wrong. They get very upset about this and then find that the libertarians are also against the consensus on this point. Thus they join the libertarian movement.

However, they keep reading the establishment newspapers, watching the network news on TV and believing most of the establishment lies. Their home town newspaper carefully copies the New York Times, and their home town TV station carries the news produced in New York. Outside of their own specialties they do not understand the lies and misrepresentations of the consensus. They become one-issue libertarians.

It used to be a saying in the socialist movements of the early part of the century that no one was a socialist in his own field of expertise. This was because the socialists had established a consensus. They had a network of socialist media read by their membership, and this media convinced them of all aspects of socialist ideology—except where the individual had special knowledge or expertise. What we have in the libertarian movement is the opposite. Everyone is a libertarian in his own field, but we are ragged about the edges. Our people are getting their basic sources of news from the lies of the opposition. Thus the movement is undercut in every way.

On the issue of the power structure, the media propounds the view that it does not exist and anyway, if it does, its interests are the same as those of the American people; so what difference does it make? Although I have twice debated the Coordinator of the Trilateral Commission, I still get know-it-all looks from people when I assert that this organization exists. (“Oh, he’s one of those kooks who believe in the Trilateral Commission.”) Believe me, I do not appreciate seeing a similar attitude coming from libertarians who take the attitude, “I don’t have any evidence of a conspiracy.”

Those who do not have evidence of a conspiracy should not offer their ignorance as evidence in a debate. They should educate themselves. For starters I would recommend:

The Anglo-American Conspiracy by Carroll Quigley (New York, Books in Focus, 1982).

The Warmongers by Howard S. Katz (New York, Books in Focus, 1979).

The Carter Presidency and Beyond by Laurence H. Shoup (Palo Alto, Ramparts Press, 1980).

Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley (or for those who do not want to wade through this long book, only small parts of which deal with the conspiracy, The Naked Capitalist by Cleon Skausen contains its essential parts from a Bircher point of view.)

the L. J. Davis articles on David Rockefeller in Penthouse, Oct. and Dec. 1980.

Trilaterals Over Washington by Anthony Sutton.

The solution is two fold. We need more libertarian media, not just one or two magazines. And we need movement people to shift their basic source of information from the American consensus to the libertarian consensus. This will make us into a true movement and avoid disasters of the type that almost occurred at Natcom ’83.

---

1. The conspiracy managed to place two of its men into top positions, one on the English, the other on the Boer side. These two men began a series of provocations and ultimatums which led to war. The Boers never found out that one of their highest officials was an English agent. See Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley.

2. Aside from Morgan’s overt war policy and his control of The New Republic, we have substantial evidence that he indirectly controlled much of the American press. This press pilloried anti-war congressmen and frightened them into voting for war in April 1917. President Wilson was in Morgan’s pocket. He was reelected in 1916 by running as peace candidate and then immediately reversed his stand. The submarine warfare issue (which we are still taught in school) was a smokescreen for Morgan’s policies. See my book, The Warmongers.

3. Which was probably a pro-liberty organization.

4. However, Ruskin was a socialist, common among the 19th century right.

5. Upon arriving in South Vietnam, Lodge found that Premier Diem had the Communists well in check and did not want American troops in his country. Lodge used the CIA to overthrow Diem and replace him with a more pliant, less effective leader. In the chaos, Communist strength grew until American troops were “necessary” to prevent a Communist takeover. This was the pretext for American entry. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan was copied from Lodge’s manipulations in Vietnam (overthrow a friendly head of state who refused to accept your troops and replace him with a more obedient chief who would “invite” them in).

6. It was Time which, by a number of features prior to 1976, made Carter a national figure. See, The Carter Presidency and Beyond by Laurence Shoup. Conversely, libertarians who begin with more public support than Carter are treated as non-entities.

7. Except in very namby-pamby terms indicating that they are in close alliance with the Girl Scouts (“a group of concerned citizens”).

8. There are also a number of aspiring members who serve the conspiracy’s goals, for example, Richard Burt, who as a reporter for The New York Times acquired a reputation as Brzezinski’s mouthpiece and who is now an underling in the Reagan Administration.

9. The House Banking Committee, which normally moves at snail’s pace, was in session until 3:00 A.M. to get the NYC bailout voted through on schedule. When David Rockefeller cracks the whip, mere congressmen jump.

10. The I.M.F. bailout is being managed in Congress by Rhode Island Congressman Fernand St. Germain. We may assume that Mr. St. Germain is not indifferent to the current Rockefeller interest in acquiring R.I. radio and TV stations, as with their recent purchase of The Outlet Company.

11. This probably would have happened anyway because that was the direction indicated by supply and demand. But looking at the incident from the point of view of a man like Kissinger, who does not know anything about supply and demand, it is indicative of the way the men involved thought and acted.

12. Which is why so many Trilateralists still have trouble with the English language.

13. Yes, a victory by idealistic Communists would also defeat the power structure (but not in the way we want).

14. I am sure this suggestion will be met with horror on the part of C.F.R. members. Their promises to each other are considered sacred. It is only their promises to the American people, involving millions of lives and billions of dollars, which are treated as a joke.

Reagan War Watch

Part II

IV. Bringing “Democracy” to Grenada

It is instructive to examine what kind of regime the U.S. military brought to little Grenada. Having gotten rid of the Leftist Thugs, what was the New Democracy U.S. Army-style?

The victorious U.S. troops, in collaboration with their ally Scoon, imposed a regime of military despotism. After the war was over, the occupation ensued. Key to the occupation was the U.S. attempt to purge the little island of anti-democratic elements. Using a computer which classified all Grenadians as “A” (no risk), “B” (uncertain) and “C” (hard-core Communist), the U.S. military arrested, interrogated, and detained without warrant or formal charges more than 1,000 Grenadians in the first two weeks of November. That’s one per cent of the Grenada population, the equivalent of a foreign occupying army arresting and detaining over 2,000,000 Americans in two weeks. Note the revealing explanation of his role that Brigadier-General Jack Farris, commander of the occupying forces, gave to the Philadelphia Inquirer in early November:

You develop a human intelligence network, whereby you have your police and your agents throughout the country and find out who the bad guys are and find out who were guilty of murders and torture and hard-line politics and have them tried for their crimes . . .You build a data base on those people, on thousands of them . . . and that’s how you stamp out something like that.

Oh. “Hard-line politics”; is that a new crime that somehow worked its way into the common law or the U.S. Criminal Code while none of us were looking?

Of the over 1,000 Grenadians arrested, nearly 500 were detained for at least twenty-four hours, many of them kept for two days in solitary confinement in specially constructed 8x8 foot wooden crates with leaky roofs. Kendrick Radix, minister of legal affairs under former Prime Minister Bishop, was held for nearly twenty-four hours in such a box at the Point Salines detention camp, charged with “sowing discontent and ill will in public places” (Oh, gee, we can’t have any of that in a “democratic” country), and released while handed a green card. The card warned: “Refrain from participating in any anti-government activities.” Over fifty detainees were sent to prison for being “extremist-Leninists”, while nearly forty foreigners were simply expelled from Grenada without a hearing.

Amnesty International protested the political detentions and the degrading punishment of the wooden crates, which violated the Human Rights Convention of the OAS. James E. Thyden, director of the Orwellian-termed “Human Rights Office” of the U.S. State Department, said about the crates that “the use of those structures was reasonable and not a violation of human rights.” Is that because, pace Dragon Lady Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S.-conducted torture is only “authoritarian” and not “totalitarian”?

As a final icing on the cake, the U.S. Army conducted its own propaganda campaign in occupied Grenada. Its Psychological Operations Unit took over the island’s only radio station, and the Army put up posters showing the junta leaders Austin and Coard bound and blindfolded, with Coard wearing only undershorts—a clear violation of the Geneva Convention on treatment of detainees. One of the posters, presuming to speak on behalf of the Grenadian people, thundered that “The Grenadian people will never again allow such characters to assume power . . . Support democracy in Grenada.” (For the above picture of Grenada under U.S. occupation, see Jonathan Rosenblum, “Grenadian Dilemmas,” The New Republic, January 9 & 16, 1984, pp. 14–16).

One man who has been detained by the U.S.-Scoon combine for two months now is the much-hated Bernard Coard, the fat, jolly alleged hard-line theoretician of the Austin regime. Coard, Coard’s wife Phyllis, Austin and other members of the Revolutionary Military Council were captured by the U.S. forces and still languish in prison, detained without charges, and suffering restricted access to legal counsel. Unrepentant and understandably not very jolly now, Coard insists that he resigned from the Austin regime several days before the murder of Maurice Bishop on October 19. He threatens to sue the U.S. government and the associated Caribbean governments for kidnapping and libel for denouncing him publicly as a murderer and tyrant. Also, some Grenadian lawyers are getting worried that Coard might have a good case in attacking the constitutionality of Scoon’s assumption of absolute power behind U.S. bayonets and his jailing of Austin, Coard et al for political acts on the grounds of criminality—a precedent that could easily boomerang on many State apparati, including the U.S. (Edward Cody, “Jailed Coard May Sue U.S.”, Washington Post, Dec. 26, 1983. On other aspects of the Scoon dictatorship, see the (London) Sunday Times, Dec. 11, 1983).

But never fear, the Yankee dollar is here. Already, $30 million is being poured by the U.S. into the little island, not just for reconstruction but for economic development. It is the Falklands all over again, or, on a lighter note the delightful satire by Leonard Wibberley, The Mouse that Roared. Declare war on the U.S., lose quickly, and then sit back and see the money pour in.

V. Are the American Masses Pro-War?

One discouraging aspect of Reagan’s October Surprise is the huzzahing by which the American public greeted the war in Grenada. It is over-optimistic to believe that the public is opposed to war; as was the case in Vietnam, the American masses are only opposed to a war that the U.S. has difficulty in winning. Give them a quick victory, with small loss of American life, and they love it. As one Pennsylvanian said after the invasion, “I’m glad our President is a man!” Americans seem to have little interest in the immorality or illegality of the invasion, in the principle of non-intervention, or in the fact that the closest modern analogy to the U.S. assault on Grenada was the much-reviled Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, where the Soviets invaded a country whose Commie ruler was too Commie for the Soviets to handle. No, the average Americano seems to glory in the vicarious macho thrill of war, provided victory is swift, and the resistance of the foreign victim disappears quickly. But let the resistance of the natives grow chronic, and U.S. casualties mount, and then finally the Americano will grow tired of the fun, and begin to adopt moral as well as strategic arguments for finding a way out of the morass. It is sad but apparently true that the only consideration that might deter Reagan (or, for that matter, other Presidents since World War II) from aggression and war is the prospect or fact of heavy American casualties. And even that might not be enough, as witness the willingness of U.S. Presidents, in the Berlin airlift crisis, in Korea, and in the Cuban missile crisis, to threaten nuclear aggression.

VI. Who’s a “Coward”?

A cowardly bully is a person who exults in the macho thrill of kicking the teeth out of a small, virtually defenseless victim, and then thinks better of the deal when his victim shows a good prospect of fighting back. On that criterion, Ronald Reagan and his host of supporters among the American masses qualify neatly for the “cowardly bully” emblem.

Yet, in a reversal of proper meaning, the apologists for the U.S. war machine in Grenada have, of course, placed the “coward” label on all with the guts enough to stand out against the cheers of the war mob. Thus, Rep. Mark Siljander (R., Mich.) accused the (all too mild) Congressional critics of the invasion of “creeping cowardice.” And his ultra-right colleague Rep. Henry Hyde (R. Ill.) added the psycho-smear: “An abnormal psychologist would have a field day listening to some of you people.” The gutsiest Congressional critic was Rep. Theodore Weiss (D., N.Y.) the only one to call for—and still call for—the impeachment of Ronald Reagan for his invasion of Grenada.

A curious—and special pleading—use of the “coward” label is also habitually placed by the U.S. on the actions of enemy “terrorists.” Characteristically, Vice-President Bush, in his trip to Beirut after the truck-bombing, denounced the bombing as the work of “cowards”. Now however we might want to designate the young putative Shiite who drove the truck to his death into the Marines’ headquarters building, “coward” is surely not a sensible label. In fact, how he came to be a “fanatic” and a “coward” at the same time passeth understanding.

The designation of “coward” has been used by imperial troops against guerrillas and “terrorists” since at least the American Revolution. Thus, at the Battle of Lexington where untrained farmers picked up their rifles and virtually annihilated a crack British force, the British heatedly denounced the Americans for being “cowards” by not marching into open-field battle and getting mowed down for their pains. Instead, the Americans instinctively turned to effective guerrilla tactics, hiding behind windows, barns, and trees, and picking off the British with sniper fire as they marched, with their superior firepower, down the road from Concord back to Boston. Ever since, imperial forces with greater fire-power have always denounced the alleged immorality of natives with greater numbers and inferior firepower who fight the best way they can, in the guerrilla mode. And among all the Western Empires, the British and the American have always been the most adept at the use of phony moralizing to spin a web of excuses for their acts of conquest and to sucker the American and British publics into enthusiastic support of “their” Empires. It is the old trick of inducing the citizen to identify with “his” State; but the trick has always been most effective in time of war, real or imagined. That is just one of the reasons that the libertarian Randolph Bourne, during World War I, called war “the health of the State.” Unfortunately, many libertarians, here and in Britain, are just as ready as avowed statists to hail “their” State whenever it fights a war of aggression. How can the cause of liberty ever triumph if libertarians themselves are confused about this central issue?

VII. Reagan “Takes Responsibility”

It is fitting to conclude by noting Ronald Reagan’s allegedly noble gesture in “taking full responsibility” for the fact that the truck-bombing killed 241 ill-prepared and badly defended Marines. In this way, by drawing all sin upon his own head, Reagan let our incompetent military commanders off the hook. A noble gesture? But let us examine this: In precisely what sense did Reagan “take responsibility” for the killing of a large number of Americans? Clearly in no sense, for the limit of Ronnie’s assumption of responsibility is obviously his oral statement. After which statement, we are supposed to forget about the whole thing. (In much the same way, ESTholes often claim that they have “taken responsibility” for the world’s hunger—whatever that is supposed to mean.)

What should “taking responsibility” for the deaths of hundreds mean? It should mean, first, that Ronnie be indicted and tried for criminal negligence, and accept the full measure of legal penalty for the deaths of the Marines. Perhaps he might even be convicted of manslaughter, and spend many instructive years in the pokey as a result. But to indict and try Reagan, he must first and at the very least be impeached. Impeaching Reagan seems to be the very least that could be done as a way of taking this “assuming responsibility” hogwash at Ronnie’s own word.

But he doesn’t have to be impeached; for if Ronnie really meant what he said, if this cretin had any idea of the meaning of what he said, he would resign posthaste from the presidency, and then I suppose that George Bush could pull a Ford and grant Reagan legal absolution.

The chance of either impeachment or voluntary resignation is of course nil, the world being what it is. But one thing the American people have the power to do, provided they understand the meaning of Reagan’s confession. They can vote the monster out come November 1984.