Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 77

The Secondary Sanctions Squeeze

U.S. President Donald Trump is now largely following his predecessors hostile policy towards Russia.

If the war in Ukraine continues on its current path Russia will end it with an outright victory. The U.S. and its European vassals are trying to impose a ceasefire to prevent that. It would give time to rebuild the Ukrainian army and to restart the war at a more convenient time. But Russia won’t budge until its war aims are met.

A hoped for countermeasure is to pressure Russia’s oil customers, to...

How The 1987 Ban Came About in America and What It Means to Your Food Security Today

A “scientific” ideology banned raw milk and vilified mothers who chose it anyway. Behind this, was a wealthy philanthropist pushing his agenda and setting the stage for the demise of the small farmer and food security in America.

An age-old food

In the opening scenes of the famous musical Fiddler on The Roof, our hero–Tevye–arranges his milk cart.

As the overture plays, drawing us into the scene and his inner musings on “Tradition!” he and his horse drive through the village serving his communit...

Eighty Years After the Atomic Bombs

“It will not be long before we are reduced to savagery. We are the barbarians within our own empire.”

—Russell Kirk

Eighty years ago today, the U.S. government committed one of the awful acts in human history. Three days later, it did it again.

Harry Truman insisted the decision to vaporize or fatally irradiate almost a quarter million civilians (plus a dozen American prisoners of war) was his and his alone.

Whether meant as acknowledgment or confession, this assertion was correct. The buck stop...

As America Soul Searches, the Rest of the West Is Falling Apart

In terms of geopolitics one could argue that allies don’t have to like each other, they just have to provide a mutual benefit that serves the greater purposes of peace. One could also argue that through cultural exchange the good habits of one country could easily influence the bad habits of another, but that kind of influence can also happen in reverse.

Though we might think of American culture as the content driver of the planet, the reality is that our ideals are an exceedingly rare dynamic f...

They Lied to You About Rerum Novarum

In his first address to the College of Cardinals, Leo XIV explained his choice of name was inspired by “Pope Leo XIII [who] in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”

I knew of Rerum Novarum as the foundation of Catholic Social Teaching, and I had accepted the common claim that it rejects both socialism and capitalism. But there was a certain dissatisfaction about this understanding, a sense that I must have be...

Starving Little Children Creates Global Outrage

When I began to think about what I would write about in this week’s column, my first thought was that I hoped everyone saw the gruesome photographs of the tiny five-month-old girl in Gaza who had starved to death.

She had weighed six pounds, six ounces at birth. Five months later, at her death, she was skin and bones with legs thinner than an ordinary pencil.

My second thought, though, was that I wished nobody had had to see those photos, because I wish neither she nor anyone else had starved to...

Nathaniel Macon: The Forgotten Prophet of States’ Rights

Nathaniel Macon was one of the most significant figures during the first half century of American history. Yet Macon is basically unknown in the contemporary United States, and his role and importance in American history, so appreciated before the War Between the States, are largely ignored or glossed over. Mention the name “Nathaniel Macon” to a contemporary politician, and the response is usually a blank stare, betraying ignorance, a lack of basic familiarity.

Years ago, while researching Maco...

Juul’s Vindication Good for Individual Liberty

Founded by two Stanford University graduate students who were former smokers, Juul is the top-selling e-cigarette in the United States. According to the Juul website:

JUUL is a vaporizer, also known as an electronic cigarette or e-cigarette, unlike any other — designed to be convenient, easy-to-use, and familiarly enjoyable for adult smokers. Our proprietary nicotine-containing e-liquid formulation is the first of its kind, making innovative vapor technology a truly satisfying alternative.

The m...

Theft of a Nation: How the Deep State Swamp Is Stealing the People’s Power

“Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.”—John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“Power to the people.”—John Lennon

What on earth is happening to this country?

How, over the course of 250 years, did we go from prizing self-government to allowing a corrupt, self-serving ruling elite to dominate us with terror campaigns, brute force, and psychological warfare?

Don’t be fooled: the madn...

A Catastrophic War Seems Inevitable

Yesterday, August 4, Nima and I discussed on Dialogue Works the three iron constraints on the US government that seem to guarantee the world is heading into catastrophic  war.

One constraint is the US foreign policy doctrine of US hegemony over the world, known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine:  The principle goal of US foreign policy is to prevent the rise of any country that can serve as a constraint on US unilateralism. This doctrine targets Russia and China. 

As President Trump recently declared to...