Welcome to Our Global Censorship and Surveillance Platform

Facebook has ~7,500 (largely low paid subcontractors) reading posts and (private) messages to find and delete content they deem objectionable and ban the people who post it.  However, these folks are just temporary employees.  The real goal is to build AIs that can read posts and messages to ID objectionable content to do what the human team (above) is already doing, but on a global scale.

 

Yep, quite a while ago I was severely chastised for using the word “fag.” Then only a short while back I was banned for 24 hours from posting to FaceBook. All I did was call Scott Pelly a “little commie fag.”

Read all of this. It will scare the pants off of you. — jtl, 419

 

by John Rob via Global Guerrillas

I recently ran into a European counter-terrorism expert who complained that it was getting very difficult to build a fake profile on Facebook.  Every time his team tried to set up a fake profile, it was shut down in less than 24 hours.  Here’s why he ran into problems.

• Facebook has an initiative to prevent the creation fake accounts (something Facebook strangely calls recidivism).  
• This initiative is a small part of a larger overall effort being undertaken by Facebook, Google and others, to become what can best be described as fully functional global censorship and surveillance systems.  I know that people have been concerned about this for a while, but it’s not speculation anymore folks.  It’s here.
• The surprising thing to me?  The US and nearly all of the governments of the world (outside of China and Russia) are pushing them to do it.

A global censorship and surveillance platform

Here are some of the aspects of these efforts:

• AIs that can identify violent imagery and extremist symbols in videos and pictures and rapidly delete them — or better yet, block their upload or shut down a livestream as soon as they show up.  For example:  a live broadcast during a terrorist attack or murder (both happened).
• Routine censorship and surveillance.  For example:  Facebook has ~7,500 (largely low paid subcontractors) reading posts and (private) messages to find and delete content they deem objectionable and ban the people who post it.  However, these folks are just temporary employees.  The real goal is to build AIs that can read posts and messages to ID objectionable content to do what the human team (above) is already doing, but on a global scale.
• A complete social graph.  A real-time census of every living person in the world (outside of China and Russia).  One that knows all about you, whether or not you are on Facebook/Google/etc.  These companies are already close to this goal in Europe and the US, and at 2 billion daily users (Facebook and Android), so it won’t be long before they expand that to the rest of the world.

Where is this Headed?

The decline of the US security framework at home and abroad, growing political and economic instability and widespread distrust/illegitimacy will make an expansion of this platform inevitable.  Let’s look at this expansion from a couple of angles:

• Already, the social networks are replacing the media as the gatekeepers and the shapers of national and global public opinion.  It’s clear that the media can’t play this role anymore, they are outgunned. To wit: millions watch TV news while billions get their news from Facebook.  How will they replace the media?  They will use AIs to subtly block, blur or bury fake or objectionable information and conversations while promoting those they approve of.  This process will become extremely apparent during the next presidential campaign.  It also suggests that we will see candidates from within these companies running for office in many countries, and given their edge in using these platforms: win.
• AI’s built using real time and detailed social graph information could become better at detecting violent behavior far sooner and better than human analysts.  Simply, it may not matter if the attackers were using Facebook or Google, the ripples from their actions on adjacent social networks might be more than enough to detect them.  Pushing this forward even further, as the data flows and the depth of the information increases, how far down in the stack of violence could these AIs prove to be effective?  Down to domestic murders, abuse, and rape?
• A global ID.  Simply, Facebook is getting close to being able to create a global ID for everyone on the planet (sans China/Russia).  It’s not a bit of paper or something you put in your wallet.  It’ll be passive.  It’ll replace your passport and driver’s license. If you can be seen by a camera, you will be known.

Sincerely,

John Robb

 

     

 

FOLLOW FLYOVER PRESS ON FACEBOOK

Check out our WebSite

Check out our e-Store

Combat Shooter’s Handbook. Call for a pizza, a cop, and an ambulance and see which one arrives first. So, who does that leave to protect you, your life, property and family? The one and only answer is: YOU This Handbook is intended to help you exercise that right and meet that responsibility. Available in both paperback and Kindle versions.

I just chased a cop. Here’s what I’m feeling.

Old Gavin is a pistol. — jtl, 419

 

  

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: The Austrian View

edited by

Dr Jimmy T (Gunny) LaBaume

Is now available in both PAPERBACK and Kindle

Murray N. Rothbard was the father of what some call Radical Libertarianism or Anarcho-Capitalism which Hans-Hermann Hoppe described as “Rothbard’s unique contribution to the rediscovery of property and property rights as the common foundation of both economics and political philosophy, and the systematic reconstruction and conceptual integration of modern, marginalist economics and natural-law political philosophy into a unified moral science: libertarianism.”

This book applies the principles of this “unified moral science” to environmental and natural resource management issues.

The book started out life as an assigned reading list for a university level course entitled Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: The Austrian View.

As I began to prepare to teach the course, I quickly saw that there was a plethora of textbooks suitable for universal level courses dealing with environmental and natural resource economics. The only problem was that they were all based in mainstream neo-classical (or Keynesian) theory. I could find no single collection of material comprising a comprehensive treatment of environmental and natural resource economics based on Austrian Economic Theory.

However, I was able to find a large number of essays, monographs, papers delivered at professional meetings and published from a multitude of sources. This book is the result. It is composed of a collection of research reports and essays by reputable scientists, economists, and legal experts as well as private property and free market activists.

The book is organized into seven parts: I. Environmentalism: The New State Religion; II. The New State Religion Debunked; III. Introduction to Environmental and Natural Resource Economics; IV. Interventionism: Law and Regulation; V. Pollution and Recycling; VI. Property Rights: Planning, Zoning and Eminent Domain; and VII. Free Market Conservation. It also includes an elaborate Bibliography, References and Recommended Reading section including an extensive Annotated Bibliography of related and works on the subject.

The intellectual level of the individual works ranges from quite scholarly to informed editorial opinion.

FOLLOW FLYOVER PRESS ON FACEBOOK

Check out our WebSite

Check out our e-Store

The greatest scandal in American history?

 

     

FOLLOW FLYOVER PRESS ON FACEBOOK

Check out our WebSite

Check out our e-Store

The Essence of Liberty Volume III: Liberty: A Universal Political Ethic. This is the volume that pulls it all together. With reference to Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s description of Murray Rothbard’s work, it is a “unique contribution to the rediscovery of property and property rights as the common foundation of both economics and political philosophy, and the systematic reconstruction and conceptual integration of modern, marginalist economics and natural-law political philosophy into a unified moral science: libertarianism.” Available in both paperback and Kindle versions.

You might be interested in the other two volumes of this three volume set: The Essence of Liberty Volume I: Liberty and History and The Essence of Liberty Volume II: The Economics of Liberty

A free robot lawyer is fighting parking tickets and much more

From Yahoo Finance:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/free-robot-lawyer-fighting-parking-tickets-across-us-152052274.html

 

In 2015, British entrepreneur—and current Stanford junior Joshua Browder—launched DoNotPay, a site offering consumers free help fighting parking tickets. DoNotPay is a chatbot and, using artificial intelligence, asks its pro-bono clients a series of questions and plugs those answers into a form letter template. Then, a pdf is available to save, email, or print.

In the two-plus years of operation, Browder estimates the chatbot has beaten 375,000 tickets in the U.K., New York, and Seattle.

DoNotPay’s parking ticket success led Browder to an ambitious goal to provide legal help of all kinds – for free – and on Wednesday, DoNotPay is adding about 1,000 consumer categories to its portfolio for all 50 states.

Some of the matters relate to legal claims, but much of the help is simply with writing strongly-worded lawyerly letters for things like formulating requests for compensation from airlines, requests to landlords, reporting discrimination, filing for maternity leave, dealing with defective products, or disputing a credit report entry or credit card charge.

The bot’s surge forward took about a year. Around eight months ago, Browder managed to automate the creation of bots by creating a code-less backend he could use. “I could go from building a bot in a month to building it in an hour,” he told Yahoo Finance. With a tech-free way to make bots, Browder managed to recruit four lawyers on a volunteer and part-time basis, via Twitter, to lend a hand.

Even with the lawyers and two friends helping, the process of jumping from handling a few tasks to 1,000 was delayed due to Browder’s student status. “I try to do this on the side, so it took a year when it should have taken two months,” he said.

How bots can handle legal issues

Browder and his lawyers found that two categories of situations were ripe for DoNotPay’s bots. “The first category is just filling in documents to ensure you can send something off—filling in a PDF or automating a letter,” he said. “The second thing is getting people to the right document and ensuring they’re eligible. Whenever there’s a thing when there’s a huge decision tree, then a document, that works particularly well.”

Of course, there are significant limitations of the platform currently, like going to court. “We tried to go with things that are both legally accurate and needed,” said Browder. “Obviously, we didn’t try to do everything. The bot doesn’t help you get divorced, for instance.”

Disrupting the legal industry

As an entrepreneur looking to disrupt the legal industry, Browder is very critical of lawyers and legal services that too are often cost-prohibitive, shutting out those who can’t afford to pay fees necessary to escalate a small consumer complaint.

“I think [DoNotPay] shows that the law in terms of legal tech is really broken. I’m so surprised this hasn’t been done,” he said. “There’s a huge stagnation in legal technology.”

  There are a few factors that have made DoNotPay the first of its kind. Partners at law firms may not have significant incentive to innovate, and raising venture capital is challenging due to the structure of law firms, said Browder. Not to mention there are regulations that carefully control the sale of legal advice. But since DoNotPay is free, it manages to sidestep the issue.

However, this does make monetization a challenge, limited to revenue from sources other than subscriptions or fees—ads for instance. To date Browder has not monetized his service, but  wouldn’t be against it so long as it stays free.

After the rollout of the new functionality, Browder plans on tackling other issues like declaring bankruptcy. “It’s actually really expensive to go bankrupt,” he said. Browder also noted that wills are “really interesting,” but that he was holding off as some friends of his had already begun reinventing estate planning with an app called FreeWill, which supplies “totally legal” wills.

Browder may be abutting the limits of a simple fill-in-the-blank Mad Libs-style approach at dealing with the law, but with machine learning and ascendancy of artificial intelligence, it seems like a foregone conclusion that legal services from robots will have a large effect on the industry, and in a big way. If a simple bot in just three cities beat 375,000 parking tickets—likely saving over $10 million—even Browder’s rollout to all 50 states should make a splash.

Correction: An earlier version identified an incorrect “FreeWill” app. The one in question pertains to the U.S., not England and Wales.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Got a tip? Send it to tips@yahoo-inc.com.

Have you recently complained to a company about a problem such as a faulty product, bad service or wrongful charge? Did you get compensation? Take our survey and tell us about the experience.

Read More:

Consumer watchdog is making it easier for consumers to sue banks

Cable’s new strategy? You can pay $5 to avoid commercials

How ringless spam voicemails became a partisan issue

How TripAdvisor hunted a robocaller that made 100 million calls to random people

Uber’s series of scandals has yet to put a dent in ridership

FOLLOW FLYOVER PRESS ON FACEBOOK

Check out our WebSite

Check out our e-Store

The Essence of Liberty Volume II: The Economics of Liberty Volume II will introduce the reader to the fundamental principles of the Austrian School of Economics. The Austrian School traces its origins back to the Scholastics of Medieval Spain. But its lineage actually began with Carl Menger and continued on through Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and many others. It is the one and only true private property based, free market line of economic thought. Available in both paperback and Kindle versions.

You might be interested in the other two volumes of this three volume set: The Essence of Liberty Volume I: Liberty and History  and The Essence of Liberty Volume III: Liberty: A Universal Political Ethic.

Sessions’ Plan To Expand Slavery & Gov’t Theft

Civil Asset Forfeiture is going to expand under Sessions.

If this, the most blatant of government theft, does not make your blood boil, then you are not one of “us.” — jtl, 419

David Knight | Infowars.com

 

If you have no property rights, YOU are the property.

Property rights are fundamental to a free people and a free society.

A society where there are no property rights, no judicial process before seizing property is a society of slaves where the owners can take whatever they wish, when they wish, under whatever pretense they choose.

“Civil” Asset Forfeiture allows “law enforcement” to steal property without ever charging anyone with a crime, let alone finding them guilty, in order to fund their bureaucracy.

Attorney General Sessions likes Civil Asset Forfeiture and has announced a plan to expand this unconstitutional, unlawful theft.

     

   

FOLLOW FLYOVER PRESS ON FACEBOOK

Check out our WebSite

Check out our e-Store

The Essence of Liberty Volume I: Liberty and History chronicles the rise and fall of the noble experiment with constitutionally limited government. It features the ideas and opinions of some of the world’s foremost contemporary constitutional scholars. This is history that you were not taught at the mandatory government propaganda camps otherwise known as “public schools.” You will gain a clear understanding of how America’s decline and decay is really nothing new and how it began almost immediately with the constitution. Available in both paperback and Kindle versions.

You might be interested in the other two volumes from the three volume set: The Essence of Liberty Volume II: The Economics of Liberty and The Essence of Liberty Volume III: Liberty: A Universal Political Ethic.

Sessions’ Plan To Expand Slavery & Gov’t Theft

Civil Asset Forfeiture is going to expand under Sessions

If this does not make your blood boil, you are not one of “us.” — jtl, 419

David Knight | Infowars.com

 

If you have no property rights, YOU are the property.

Property rights are fundamental to a free people and a free society.

A society where there are no property rights, no judicial process before seizing property is a society of slaves where the owners can take whatever they wish, when they wish, under whatever pretense they choose.

“Civil” Asset Forfeiture allows “law enforcement” to steal property without ever charging anyone with a crime, let alone finding them guilty, in order to fund their bureaucracy.

Attorney General Sessions likes Civil Asset Forfeiture and has announced a plan to expand this unconstitutional, unlawful theft.

   

    

FOLLOW FLYOVER PRESS ON FACEBOOK

Check out our WebSite

Check out our e-Store

All unclassified Army and Marine Cops manuals and correspondence courses are products of the US Federal Government. They are NOT subject to copyright and can be freely copied and redistributed.

The Marine Corps Institute (MCI) develops correspondence courses for Marines with all kinds of Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) on all manner of subjects. This is one of those courses.

The print is relatively small because that is the way it was in the original and this is an exact reproduction. Also, as a tribute to the individual (and a touch of reality), you will notice that the editorial pencil marks and underlined passages that were put there by the Marine that took this course. They were intentionally left in the reproduction.

This version of the course was authorized in September of 1984. With the exception the development of Infrared technology, it contains information and techniques that have changed very little since the Vietnam war. These battle proven tactics are as valid today as they were in Quang Nam province in 1968.

They will maintain their validity during the upcoming inevitable event of total economic, political and social collapse. Yours for freedom in our lifetimes. jtl, 419

Slavery Was Always and Everywhere

Also, too many people do not realize that, had Dishonest Abe not murdered some 600,000 Americans (the modern day equivalent of about 6 million), slavery would have died a peaceful death just as it did in all the rest of the hemisphere. How you ask?

Read the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. Somewhere along about Article 3 (I think?), it prohibits trade in slaves. — jtl, 49

By Walter E. Williams via LewRockwell.com

 

 

Too many people believe that slavery is a “peculiar institution.” That’s what Kenneth Stampp called slavery in his book, “Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South.” But slavery is by no means peculiar, odd or unusual. It was common among ancient peoples such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Persians, Armenians and many others. Large numbers of Christians were enslaved during the Ottoman wars in Europe. White slaves were common in Europe from the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages. It was only after A.D. 1600 that Europeans joined with Arabs and Africans and started the Atlantic slave trade. As David P. Forsythe wrote in his book, “The Globalist,” “The fact remained that at the beginning of the nineteenth century an estimated three-quarters of all people alive were trapped in bondage against their will either in some form of slavery or serfdom.”

While slavery constitutes one of the grossest encroachments on human liberty, it is by no means unique or restricted to the Western world or United States, as many liberal academics would have us believe. Much of their indoctrination of our young people, at all levels of education, paints our nation’s founders as racist adherents to slavery, but the story is not so simple.

At the time of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, slaves were about 40 percent of the population of the Southern colonies. Apportionment in the House of Representatives and the number of electoral votes each state would have in presidential elections would be based upon population. Southern delegates to the convention wanted slaves to be counted as one person. Northern delegates to the convention, and those opposed to slavery, wanted only free persons of each state to be counted for the purposes of apportionment in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. The compromise reached was that each slave would be counted as only three-fifths of a person. American Contempt for … Walter E. Williams Best Price: $7.74 Buy New $8.60

Many criticize this compromise as proof of racism. My question to these grossly uninformed critics is whether they would have found it more preferable for slaves to be counted as whole persons. Slaves counted as whole persons would have given slaveholding Southern states much more political power. Or, would the critics of the founders prefer that the Northern delegates not compromise and not allow slaves to be counted at all. If they did, it is likely that the Constitution would have not been ratified. Thus, the question emerges is whether blacks would be better off with Northern states having gone their way and Southern states having gone theirs, resulting in no U.S. Constitution and no Union? Unlike today’s pseudointellectuals, black abolitionist Frederick Douglass understood the compromise, saying that the three-fifths clause was “a downright disability laid upon the slaveholding states” that deprived them of “two-fifths of their natural basis of representation.”

Douglass’ vision was shared by Patrick Henry and others. Henry said, expressing the reality of the three-fifths compromise, “As much as I deplore slavery, I see that prudence forbids its abolition.” With this union, Congress at least had the power to abolish slave trade by 1808. According to delegate James Wilson, many believed the anti-slave-trade clause laid “the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country.” Many of the founders abhorred slavery. Their statements can be read on my website, walterewilliams.com.

The most unique aspect of slavery in the Western world was the moral outrage against it, which began to emerge in the 18th century and led to massive elimination efforts. It was Britain’s military sea power that put an end to the slave trade. And our country fought a    costly war that brought an end to slavery. Unfortunately, these facts about slavery are not in the lessons taught in our schools and colleges. Instead, there is gross misrepresentation and suggestion that slavery was a uniquely American practice.

The Best of Walter E. Williams

 

 

FOLLOW FLYOVER PRESS ON FACEBOOK

Check out our WebSite

Check out our e-Store

The Betrayed: On Warriors, Cowboys and Other Misfits. Although woven around the experiences and adventures of one man, this is also the story of the people who lived during the period of time in American history that an entire generation was betrayed It is the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place. It is the story of the betrayal of an entire generation of Americans and particularly the 40% (of the military aged males) of that generation that fought the Vietnam war.

 

Why America is in perpetual war

People don’t start wars. Governments do. — jtl, 419

by Bob Livingston via Personal Liberty

Humanity has been cannon fodder in concocted wars and revolutions for millennia. Anywhere you look it is still going on today.

The strategy for authoritarianism throughout the ages is to divide and conquer. Now listen! All “public forums” are presented as opposing sides, or opposing politics, or opposing theology or opposing morality.

What few of us ever discern is that the good guys and the bad guys are the same guys? The good politicians and the bad politicians are the same politicians. The good religion and the bad religion is the same religion.

“All the world is a stage.” — Shakespeare.

What I am writing here will challenge your mind and test your discernment.

Mass deception is always created by authoritarianism by dividing issues between two evils. It is the nature of man to choose sides in politics and in religion. Many millions have paid for this with their lives.

Not one in a million looks for the likeness or sameness of issues. We do not look for the essential ingredient common to all politics and religion. We never hold the master key that would set us free above humanity. That essential ingredient does exist. That master key does exist; however, we never see it because we never suspect that it exists.

To find the essential ingredient and the master key to all politics and religion would be the end of tyranny in our world. Authoritarianism could no longer deceive us by dividing issues between the same evil.

Read More

    

   

 

FOLLOW FLYOVER PRESS ON FACEBOOK

Check out our WebSite

Check out our e-Store

Combat Shooter’s Handbook. Call for a pizza, a cop, and an ambulance and see which one arrives first. So, who does that leave to protect you, your life, property and family? The one and only answer is: YOU This Handbook is intended to help you exercise that right and meet that responsibility. Available in both paperback and Kindle versions.

Death of the West?

Had Woodrow Wilson not intervened in the European war, the exhausted opposing sides would have been driven to a fair peace, rather than a draconian peace of the victors, which would have totally altered Europe’s modern history.  There would likely have been no Hitler and his National Socialists; tens of millions of lives would have been saved by averting World War II.  The 1930’s Depression may have been avoided or mitigated.  Communists might not have seized power in Russia and, later, Eastern Europe.

Another interpretation of American History that we were never told at the Mandatory Government Propaganda Camp. — jtl, 419

by Eric Margolis via LewRockwell.com

As a former soldier and war correspondent, I abhor demonstrations of flag-waving, militarism and nationalism. That great American, Benjamin Franklin, put it perfectly:  ‘no good war, no bad peace.’

But I must admit that my heart does beat faster when I hear the rousing strains of France’s glorious national anthem, ‘La Marseillaise.’  One must be almost dead not to respond to the hymn, first known in 1775 as ‘the war song of the army of the Rhine’ and then the marching song of volunteers from Marseille.

Allons! Enfants de la Patrie!      Forward! Sons of France,

Le jour de gloire est arrivé!        The Day of Glory has Arrived,

Contre nous de la tyrannie,        Against us Tyranny

L’étendard sanglant est levé!     Its bloody standard is raised!

A few years ago, I was a guest of France’s government on the reviewing stand of the annual 14 July Bastille Day military parade. Watching the glittering Garde républicaine cavalry, the tough Alpine troops in their huge berets known as “tartes,” and, of course, the grim Foreign Legion march down the Champs Élysées was thrilling.

Time to buy old US gold coins

US President Thomas Jefferson put it best: ‘Every man has two homelands:  his own, and France.’

Both Franklin and Jefferson spent time in Paris as ambassadors and helped negotiate France’s decisive military intervention that saved the American Revolution.  French troops under the Marquis de Lafayette and a fleet under Admiral Rochambeau and Count de Grasse played the key role in defeating British forces.

Ironically, France was bankrupted by this military effort which also contributed to the French Revolution against King Louis XVI.

One hopes US President Donald Trump reflected on these facts when he was French President Emmanuel Macron’s guest of honor at Bastille Day.  He was hopefully reminded by aides of American Gen. ‘Blackjack’ Pershing’s memorable statement  upon landing with US troops to join France in World War One, ‘Lafayette, we are here!’

Two hundred US troops led the great parade down the Champs Élysées, headed by a contingent from the venerable 1^st US Infantry Division, known as ‘the Big Red One’ and other American units.  Their march marked the 100^th anniversary of the US landing in France. President Trump, who managed to avoid military service due to a small foot problem, stood and saluted the American troops.

The US and France owe much to one another and should regularly recall their mutual debt.

Particularly so for all those uninformed Republicans who keep calling the French cowards and sissies.  France lost more than 1.5 million dead in World War I.  Churchill observed, ‘you will never know war until you fight Germans.’

But the key question remains, was US intervention in World War I a catastrophic mistake?   By 1917, France, Britain, Russia and their allies were militarily exhausted. So was Germany and its allies Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary.  The war had become a giant siege in which millions had died for nothing in history’s most barbarous war.

Both the bankrupted Allies and Central Powers were beginning discreet contacts over a possible peace in the stalemated war.  At this point, US President Woodrow Wilson, a sort of idealistic imperialist, pushed America into war against Germany, using some German blunders, the sinking of the ‘Lusitania’ and waves of British propaganda as a ‘casus belli.’   This at a time when the largest ethnic group in the United States was of German origin.  In spite of this, Wilson secretly aided, armed and financed the British Empire and finally secured a declaration of war against Germany.

By the end of 1917, one million US troops arrived in France.   The advent of so many American soldiers tipped the stalemated military balance. Germans were heavily outnumbered, exhausted, and unable to fee their people due to a crushing British blockade.

Generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg, who had led the war, walked away, leaving civilian politicians to surrender and make whatever terms they could get.  After the war, these civilians and wealthy German Jews would be blamed by all sides for ‘stabbing Germany in the back.’

At the notorious Versailles Treaty, the victorious Allied powers tore away 14% of Germany’s people, 13% of its lands and imposed crushing monetary sanctions. Austria-Hungary was ravaged. An obscure Austrian politician, Adolf Hitler, called for revenge and vowed to restore Germany’s and Austria’s lost lands and populations. American Raj: America … Eric Margolis Best Price: $14.93 Buy New $15.30

Had Woodrow Wilson not intervened in the European war, the exhausted opposing sides would have been driven to a fair peace, rather than a draconian peace of the victors, which would have totally altered Europe’s modern history.  There would likely have been no Hitler and his National Socialists; tens of millions of lives would have been saved by averting World War II.  The 1930’s Depression may have been avoided or mitigated.  Communists might not have seized power in Russia and, later, Eastern Europe.

Responsibility for many of these disasters lies with Woodrow Wilson who is wrongly portrayed in the US as a noble idealist; in Europe, he’s seen as a rampant fool or dangerous naïf.

The 200-man US contingent on the Champs Élysées recalled all these bitter memories.  Their uniforms looked dowdy compared to the snappy French.  President Trump, by contrast, looked seriously presidential; wife Melania was serene and elegant.  They did a fine job.

The French are masters of the art of seduction.  Let’s hope Trump was charmed by his brief visit to Paris and reminded that France has resumed its role as diplomatic leader of Europe and key American ally.  Trump may even reconsider his ill-advised withdrawal from the Paris climate pact.

The Best of Eric Margolis

Death of the West?

Had Woodrow Wilson not intervened in the European war, the exhausted opposing sides would have been driven to a fair peace, rather than a draconian peace of the victors, which would have totally altered Europe’s modern history.  There would likely have been no Hitler and his National Socialists; tens of millions of lives would have been saved by averting World War II.  The 1930’s Depression may have been avoided or mitigated.  Communists might not have seized power in Russia and, later, Eastern Europe.

 

Once again, an interpretation of history that you were never taught in the Mandatory Government Propaganda Camp (aka public school). WWI begat WWII. They were both un-necessary wars–Chapter 2 of Dishonest Abe’s War of Yankee Aggression.

Then Chapter 3 was written by FDR and his New Deal–the first overt introduction of Communism into America.

Then finally, in Chapter 4, LBJ and his “Great Society” finished us off–left us with nothing but a flock of vultures feasting on the rotting carcass of American liberty. — jtl, 419

 

by Eric Magolis via LewRockwell.com

As a former soldier and war correspondent, I abhor demonstrations of flag-waving, militarism and nationalism. That great American, Benjamin Franklin, put it perfectly:  ‘no good war, no bad peace.’

But I must admit that my heart does beat faster when I hear the rousing strains of France’s glorious national anthem, ‘La Marseillaise.’  One must be almost dead not to respond to the hymn, first known in 1775 as ‘the war song of the army of the Rhine’ and then the marching song of volunteers from Marseille.

Allons! Enfants de la Patrie!      Forward! Sons of France,

Le jour de gloire est arrivé!        The Day of Glory has Arrived,

Contre nous de la tyrannie,        Against us Tyranny

L’étendard sanglant est levé!     Its bloody standard is raised!

A few years ago, I was a guest of France’s government on the reviewing stand of the annual 14 July Bastille Day military parade. Watching the glittering Garde républicaine cavalry, the tough Alpine troops in their huge berets known as “tartes,” and, of course, the grim Foreign Legion march down the Champs Élysées was thrilling.

Time to buy old US gold coins

US President Thomas Jefferson put it best: ‘Every man has two homelands:  his own, and France.’

Both Franklin and Jefferson spent time in Paris as ambassadors and helped negotiate France’s decisive military intervention that saved the American Revolution.  French troops under the Marquis de Lafayette and a fleet under Admiral Rochambeau and Count de Grasse played the key role in defeating British forces. War at the Top of the … Eric Margolis, Eric S…. Best Price: $0.99 Buy New $6.30

Ironically, France was bankrupted by this military effort which also contributed to the French Revolution against King Louis XVI.

One hopes US President Donald Trump reflected on these facts when he was French President Emmanuel Macron’s guest of honor at Bastille Day.  He was hopefully reminded by aides of American Gen. ‘Blackjack’ Pershing’s memorable statement  upon landing with US troops to join France in World War One, ‘Lafayette, we are here!’

Two hundred US troops led the great parade down the Champs Élysées, headed by a contingent from the venerable 1^st US Infantry Division, known as ‘the Big Red One’ and other American units.  Their march marked the 100^th anniversary of the US landing in France. President Trump, who managed to avoid military service due to a small foot problem, stood and saluted the American troops.

The US and France owe much to one another and should regularly recall their mutual debt.

Particularly so for all those uninformed Republicans who keep calling the French cowards and sissies.  France lost more than 1.5 million dead in World War I.  Churchill observed, ‘you will never know war until you fight Germans.’

But the key question remains, was US intervention in World War I a catastrophic mistake?   By 1917, France, Britain, Russia and their allies were militarily exhausted. So was Germany and its allies Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary.  The war had become a giant siege in which millions had died for nothing in history’s most barbarous war.

Both the bankrupted Allies and Central Powers were beginning discreet contacts over a possible peace in the stalemated war.  At this point, US President Woodrow Wilson, a sort of idealistic imperialist, pushed America into war against Germany, using some German blunders, the sinking of the ‘Lusitania’ and waves of British propaganda as a ‘casus belli.’   This at a time when the largest ethnic group in the United States was of German origin.  In spite of this, Wilson secretly aided, armed and financed the British Empire and finally secured a declaration of war against Germany.

By the end of 1917, one million US troops arrived in France.   The advent of so many American soldiers tipped the stalemated military balance. Germans were heavily outnumbered, exhausted, and unable to fee their people due to a crushing British blockade.

Generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg, who had led the war, walked away, leaving civilian politicians to surrender and make whatever terms they could get.  After the war, these civilians and wealthy German Jews would be blamed by all sides for ‘stabbing Germany in the back.’

At the notorious Versailles Treaty, the victorious Allied powers tore away 14% of Germany’s people, 13% of its lands and imposed crushing monetary sanctions. Austria-Hungary was ravaged. An obscure Austrian politician, Adolf Hitler, called for revenge and vowed to restore Germany’s and Austria’s lost lands and populations. American Raj: America … Eric Margolis Best Price: $14.93 Buy New $15.30

Had Woodrow Wilson not intervened in the European war, the exhausted opposing sides would have been driven to a fair peace, rather than a draconian peace of the victors, which would have totally altered Europe’s modern history.  There would likely have been no Hitler and his National Socialists; tens of millions of lives would have been saved by averting World War II.  The 1930’s Depression may have been avoided or mitigated.  Communists might not have seized power in Russia and, later, Eastern Europe.

Responsibility for many of these disasters lies with Woodrow Wilson who is wrongly portrayed in the US as a noble idealist; in Europe, he’s seen as a rampant fool or dangerous naïf.

The 200-man US contingent on the Champs Élysées recalled all these bitter memories.  Their uniforms looked dowdy compared to the snappy French.  President Trump, by contrast, looked seriously presidential; wife Melania was serene and elegant.  They did a fine job.

The French are masters of the art of seduction.  Let’s hope Trump was charmed by his brief visit to Paris and reminded that France has resumed its role as diplomatic leader of Europe and key American ally.  Trump may even reconsider his ill-advised withdrawal from the Paris climate pact.

The Best of Eric Margolis