Brian’s Column: Doreen Hendrickson, American Gandhi

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

IRS on TrialLet’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)

by James Redfield

1993, Warner Books, 246 pages

Celestine“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)

Human costs of the corporotocracy 7.5/10

Michael_ClaytonPolitically 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

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

The success scenario is not all that unlikely considering the context

Cover_Leaving_Sandbox_FrontProprietor’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)

Zhivagoesque epic for Nazi-occupied Europe 8/10

Black_BookBlack 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

Guest Column: Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression

Excerpt of white paper from International Jewish AntiZionist Network
[Full original column here; white paper here.]

“Those who have the privilege to know have the duty to act!” — Albert Einstein
“Those who have the privilege to see have the duty to look!” — Brian R. Wright

Israel_Police_State_RoleEditor’s Note: The white paper is a couple of years old, but considering the source—namely a network of respected mainly-Jewish journalists and scholars who question the Zionist foundations, goals, and even the legitimacy of the Israeli state qua self-righteous, ethnic-cleansing operation—it’s amazing to see such a sane perspective persist midst the barrage of largely Zionist-sourced mind control to which ‘the West’ is subjected, 24/7/365. I’d like to also recommend a couple of key books for readers as objective analyses of important history and intentions of these particular ‘Men of the Power Sickness‘ who would rule Palestine and, indeed, the world:

The hyperlinks take the reader to my reviews of what I consider two of the most liberating-via-truth-telling books of the 21st century.

Introduction

This pamphlet focuses on the role of Israel’s government, its military, and related corporations and organizations in a global industry of violence and repression. The states most involved with this industry profit from perpetual war and occupation across the globe while maintaining vastly unequal societies of their own.

Israel exports weapons, technologies, training, and techniques of violence for use by governments and corporations against populations around the world. The expertise on which it relies has been developed through its occupation of Palestine and parts of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, as well as its repression of and military aggression against the people living there. Continue reading