Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 131

How War Propaganda Has Fueled American Foreign Policy for a Century

The New York Times this week reports that the Trump administration has canceled many grants that were to fund “research” on “misinformation.” This is being presented by the media as a dastardly deed that will supposedly allow the spread of misleading or false information through various media channels.

Of course, if there were any genuine interest in studying the most egregious efforts to spread misinformation, media outlets like the Times would study themselves and their friends in the regime. ...

Yes, the Visible Head of the Church Is the Pope—This Is Our Christian Faith

In a recent post on her Substack newsletter, Sarah Cain made a statement that, although predictable and already common in such difficult times, always gives us pause for thought: “Pope Francis was the biggest impediment to my conversion. I know that I’m not alone in that.”

Clearly, Cain is not the only one who has had to overcome such a difficulty. Terrible problems and doubts have confronted all those converts to Catholicism who, like myself, embraced—out of ignorance or excessive enthusiasm—a ...

Rick Steves, the Fascist Playbook and the Covid Response

While waiting with a friend on the southbound platform at the crowded junction of Medellin, Colombia’s two Metro elevated train lines in February 2017, a short, bespectacled, wavy-black-haired, thirtyish man approached me and asked, in Spanish, where I was from.

I answered, “Los Estados Unidos.”

He replied, “Gracias para derrotar Alemania en la segunda guerra mundial” and walked away, smirking.

I can say most of what I want to say in Spanish and understand most of what natives say to me. But aft...

Living on Meds, Vitamin C and Ibogaine: American Precarity

Favoring capital over wage earners is the long-established policy of both political parties.

Cribbing a line from a Grateful Dead song (“ain’t it a shame”) seems appropriate when discussing the prospects of America’s burgeoning Precariat Class who are increasingly depending on tips, side hustles, credit cards and buy now, pay later schemes to survive in a stupidly high-cost economy where all the media-hyped “GDP growth” benefits the few at the top, a fact well-documented here courtesy of FRED-Fe...

Will Trump Invade or Bomb Mexico to Win the Drug War?

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iván Archivaldo Guzmán recently evaded capture by Mexican police by using escape tactics that he learned from his father Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The Journal described Iván as “Mexico’s Most Wanted Drug Kingpin.”

But wait a minute! I thought that when U.S. officials recently sentenced El Chapo himself to life in a U.S. prison, the war on drugs was supposed to have been won. Alas, apparently not. It turns out that El Chapo has several sons who to...

A Peculiar Measure of the Prevalence of ‘Antisemitism’

On Wednesday, the United States House of Representatives approved yet again legislation (this time H. Res. 352) to counter “antisemitism” — something the US government has been redefining for its purposes as going beyond being related to race, ethnicity, or religion so that it also includes criticizing the government of Israel. In its concluding section the resolution states, in addition to a couple other demands, that the House “calls on elected officials, faith leaders, and civil society leade...

DOGE, Deficits, and the Coming Financial Earthquake

International Man: What’s your perspective on the claims Elon Musk and others made about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) during the campaign, and how would you assess the actual progress they’ve achieved since then?

Doug Casey: I hate to sound pessimistic, because the idea of DOGE was excellent, but it’s not making much in the way of progress. Musk first thought he could cut $2 trillion from the budget. I see how he could say that; it’s a very reasonable estimate. But as he discov...

Why Trump Now Says ‘Russia Will Have To Give Up All of Ukraine.’

On May 4th, U.S. President Trump — about whom I had headlined on 4 December 2024, “Reuters reports Trump is set to continue Biden’s policies on Ukraine.” — told NBC News, that “Russia will have to give up all of Ukraine. Because that’s what they want.”

Not only is that the exact opposite of what Russia is, in fact, deeply committed to — they’ve made clear, numerous times, that the five regions of the former Ukraine where voters in plebiscites have voted overwhelmingly to be Russians instead of U...

The Classical Liberals Were Radical Opponents of War and Militarism

One of the most disastrous elements of the post-World War II conservative movement in America has been its commitment to severing the ideology of “classical liberalism” from its historical roots in antiwar and anti-interventionist foreign policy. What we now call classical liberalism—the ideology of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Frederic Bastiat, Richard Cobden, and Herbert Spencer—was consistent in opposing state power in all spheres, both international and domestic.

This was true in the United...

The Thought Police Arrive

Just last year in California, a federal court declared a first grader’s crayon drawing may constitute “impermissible harassment.” Ironic, perhaps, that such a decision was made in nation where—starting in elementary school—talk about the founding principle of liberty and the sanctity of an individual’s rights are drummed into the people daily.

Are such lessons serious? Were they ever?

This crayon drawing episode and its aftermath is not some dystopian fiction but came as a heavy dose of reality ...