Guest Column: US Foreign Policy, Palestine-Israel, and BDS

Posted on August 1, 2016 by Brian Wright

Platform statement by Jill Stein, Green Party candidate 2016

Editor’s Note: I’m pretty sure the vaunted Libertarian Party platform takes no such stand for common-sense decency in foreign and military policy—certainly not to the extent of implicating Israel for “war crimes and massive human rights violations,” and supporting the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. [BDS seeks to end Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people.]

The Greens are holding their national convention in Houston next weekend (August 4-7), and the way I read the tea leaves, they will be on the ballot in 24-30 states. By contrast, I expect the Libertarian Party, currently at 36 states, will achieve ballot status in very close to 50 states. Basically, even though the LP has ‘shot itself in the foot’ in many ways insofar as taking the ethical high road of the nonaggression principle, I’m still leaning toward the LP’s Johnson-Weld ticket… though weakly, esp. every time I hear William Weld open his mouth.

Anyway, Here Goes, I Only Wish an LP Had Written Something Similar

The Jill Stein campaign calls for ending support for governments committing war crimes and massive human rights violations, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

It supports the BDS movement as a peaceful, nonviolent set of actions organized by civil society across the world aimed to end Israeli apartheid, occupation, war crimes, and systematic human rights abuses. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Doreen Hendrickson, American Gandhi

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Brian Wright

The good word from Doreen’s husband Pete is that she’s on home tether
The epochal word is their message of truth and peace is about to break thru

Let’s all liberty lovers share in Pete Hendrickson’s elation that his dear wife Doreen has now been released from federal prison where she was serving an 18-month sentence for refusing to commit perjury under orders of a federal judge. Yes, you read that correctly. The facts are plain and well presented in the video on the right. →

Doreen is now in home confinement… with the proviso that within 60 days she swear to a lie that her economically-gainful activities in 2002 and 2003 (and Pete’s) were taxable activities, rather than activities of common right in which the government has no ownership interest. [The statements have been written by the government and Doreen is meant to swear them as being her own words.] Almost certainly, at the end of 60 days, Doreen will again refuse to commit perjury[1]… “and THEN… and THEN… uh uh… and then along came Jones…” as the song goes.

Along Comes the Great Spirit of Mohandas Gandhi and Rosa Parks

Make no mistake about it, the federales have tied themselves up in a Gordian Knot… through stupidity, arrogance, and just plain meanness. What is Rogue Judge #2 going to do when Doreen continues to refuse to yield to Rogue Judge #1’s unlawful command? Send our hero back to the West Virginia federal compound for life? Even in the toxic, dumbed-down, lackey-media country we’ve become, Doreen’s struggle and truth will break through.[2] She will have become an insuperable moral indictment of the rotted system for all to see, which system will unravel as the British Empire in India and racial supremacists of the Old South. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Celestine Prophecy (1993)

Posted on July 29, 2016 by Brian Wright

by James Redfield

1993, Warner Books, 246 pages

“We know that life is really about a spiritual unfolding that is personal and enchanting—an unfolding that no science or philosophy religion has yet fully clarified. And we know something else as well: we know that once we do understand what is happening, how to engage this allusive process and maximize its occurrence in our lives, human society will take a quantum leap into a whole new way of life—one that realizes the best of our tradition—and creates a culture that has been the goal of history all along.”
— James Redfield

This is a book I generally find myself reading again and again, when I need a lift or when I want to feel more spiritual about things. It was published back in the early years of the Clinton presidency at a time when early Baby Boomers like me were passing into their 40s: suddenly middle age and looking for meaning… as important, not finding it in the belief systems handed down to us. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Michael Clayton (2007)

Posted on July 27, 2016 by Brian Wright

Human costs of the corporotocracy 7.5/10

Politically probing George Clooney’s Michael Clayton arrives on the big screen just in time to greet the winter. And it has a theme that befits the falling of the leaves and the dimming of the light: a topnotch Mr. Fixit working for a high-powered New York law firm (Kenner, Bach & Ledeen) runs into an assignment that causes him to consider whether the way of life he has chosen is the way his life is meant to be… or the way his particular corporate world is meant to be.

We get a profile of Clayton (Clooney) early as his fast-lane excellence is contrasted with a personal life going down the tubes: divorced, financial troubles, gambling problems, having difficulty relating to the son he adores. On the fast-lane side, we see how deftly he resolves incidents that can be deeply embarrassing for his big-money corporate clients: traffic accidents, addictions, infidelities, immigration barriers.

But as smooth and polished as Clayton is, the true secret to his success lies in his honesty and realism. One client complains that Clayton isn’t the miracle worker that Kenner, Bach & Ledeen’s (KBR’s) CEO Marty Bach, a hard-headed, grizzled weasel played perfectly by Sydney Pollack, has represented him to be. Clayton replies: Continue reading →

Guest Column: Liberty Lessons Learned via Trump 2016

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Brian Wright

What the liberty minded can take away from Trump’s triumph
by Shane Trejo [full column via The Liberty Conservative]

Image courtesy of Pong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Lessons Learned: What the Liberty Minded Can Take Away from Trump's Triumph ID 100170695

Take some notes, class is in session

I have noticed a troubling trend amongst liberty conservatives that is growing lately. Instead of forging alliances with the anti-establishment Republican grassroots, they are pouting, whining, doing the bidding of the Bill Kristol’s of the world, abandoning ship, taking their ball and going home. They are proving all the worst stereotypes about the liberty minded: that we are marginal, petty, flaky, unreliable, melodramatic and undeserving to enjoy the blessings of freedom.

Although events in the last year have killed morale and bruised many of our egos, there is a silver lining. The Trump phenomenon has harmed our enemies more than it has us. The elite media is reeling, having been out-smarted by a reality TV star. The neocons have never looked more foolish and out of touch. The special interest money machine that fuels Washington D.C. has been neutered by Trump’s garbage machine. When looked at as a case study, there are many lessons that we can learn from Trump’s historic campaign.

Lesson #1: Populist, antiestablishment politics are a gold mine

Donald Trump has proven this once and for all. Nigel Farage has overseas proven it as well. The people are fightin’ mad for a multitude of obvious reasons. We have to embrace this fact, not reject it. The liberty movement is not a cheerleader outfit for the status quo. We want to rock the boat. We want to turn the table on establishment politics. We are not guardians of liberal democracy nor the defenders of equality. We are liberty warriors on march to ultimate victory for a radical, anti-statist cause. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Speculation on Johnson-Weld 2016

Posted on July 24, 2016 by Brian Wright

The success scenario is not all that unlikely considering the context

Proprietor’s Note—I’ve written extensively on the Libertarian Party (LP) and Libertarian grand strategy, in particular, with my Pusillanimous Prize-winning book, Leaving the Sandbox: Grownup grand strategy and operations for Libertarians in an era of wanton US federal crimes and terror. More recently, in my novel, The Truman Prophecy, I’ve referred to the LP as being rife with anarchists of the irrelevant kind… thus I saw very little in the way of prospects for it.

As usual, the world is far more unpredictable than my understandings; at the national LP convention in Orlando this year, instead of dissolving itself in a flurry of ‘Dilatory Young Men Who Pontificate Incessantly on the Nonaggression Principle,’ the party goes the other way and basically sells its soul to the Republican Establishment. It nominates Gary Johnson (P) and William Weld (VP) (Weld, by a whisker), both utilitarian rather than principled libertarians—having the broad moral passion of a Mitt Romney with a sense of humor.

Strangely enough, this ticket may actually be THE ticket of the 21st century! Continue reading →

Movie Review: Black Book (2006)

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Brian Wright

Zhivagoesque epic for Nazi-occupied Europe 8/10

Black Book (from the Dutch Zwartboek) is a wonderfully casted and executed World War II movie about the Nazi oppression of conquered peoples that doesn’t stereotype anyone. It also doesn’t pull any punches about the brutality of the Nazis toward the Jews, the brutality of the Nazis toward any of the locals—in this case the Dutch—who dared to object to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to worship the Fuhrer, and the treachery within the ranks of the Reich’s victim classes.

Apparently, this latter quality—that many individuals secretly collaborated with the Nazis, even when they weren’t under special duress—is somewhat controversial among some Jewish (and Dutch) viewers, but it shouldn’t be: anyone who’s been in a concentration camp, just as people who’ve been in military combat, will tell you there’s no way to predict how a man or woman will stand up under persistent threats of force. Simply watch Saving Private Ryan… or Bridge on the River Kwai. The same guy who cowers in a foxhole one day, the next day takes on a whole brigade singlehandedly. Certainly no ethnic group is immune from individuals caving, too easily, under pressure, and doing nasty things to their own.

But aside from some PC reservations, this movie doesn’t make a false step; it deserves a ranking among the best noncombat World War II movies I’ve seen—many of which were made in a different era, closer to the war. What distinguishes Black Book, for movies war and nonwar, is the lead role: like Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien, Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten) is a true-to-life heroine. The story is her story, conveyed in a retrospective as Rachel takes a timeout from teacher duties at an Israeli kibbutz in 1956; the sentimental journey is triggered by a tourist who turns out to be a coworker Ronnie (Halina Reijn) of Rachel’s in Holland during the Occupation. Continue reading →