Year: 2020

9\11: Academics Refuse to Consider Evidence Against Their Main Benefactor – Government

Peer-Reviewed Journal Publishes Article on Academic Resistance to 9/11 Truth

Outright Hostility Ensues to the author and scholarly journal thus proving the author’s point 9/11 Truth and the Silence of the IR Discipline (IR stands for International Relations)

By David A. Hughes

March 12, 2020

The consequences of the terrorist attacks of 11th September, 2001 have been catastrophic. In addition to the estimated 3,000 people who lost their lives during the attacks themselves, millions more have been killed in the “War on Terror”; there has been an aggressive worldwide expansion of US military power, including the introduction of drone warfare; the MENA region has been destabilized, leading to massive flows of migrants; international law has been violated (most egregiously with the Iraq War); and domestically there has been a draconian scaling back on civil liberties, including historically unprecedented levels of surveillance, arbitrary detention, and torture. All of this has worked to undermine the post-1945 liberal internationalist order and has contributed to mounting concerns about liberal democracies being transformed into police states. It would not be difficult to defend the claim that “9/11” represents the most significant political event of the post-Cold War era. 

These consequences rest on the fundamental premise that the United States was attacked by Al Qaeda on 9/11. Upon that premise are erected the moral and legal bases of the “War on Terror,” i.e. that “civilized” states have the right to defend themselves preemptively against terrorist barbarism in an age where terrorism is networked, transnational, and more threatening than ever before owing to new technologies of destruction. Yet, what if the fundamental premise were false? As Benjamin observes, 

Were this claim ever to be proved false – were it ever to be shown that the United States was not in fact attacked by “others” on 9/11 but rather attacked itself (or let itself be attacked) for the purpose of blaming others and justifying international war – then its war would not be one of self-defence but of pre-meditated and carefully camouflaged aggression (2017: 373).

Legal responsibility for verifying the US claim to self-defence, even if only retrospectively, rests with NATO and the UN. However, both organizations “accepted without hesitation the American claim to have been attacked by elements of international terrorism” and continue to do so  (Benjamin, 2017: 373).

Academia has followed suit. Despite the gigantic volume of academic literature on 9/11, “almost all such studies assume the correctness of the core US claim of self-defence and then proceed to nibble on issues lying around its perimeter” (Benjamin, 2017: 374-5). Thus, debates revolve around the appropriate relationship between civil liberties and security, whether or not to treat 9/11 as an act of war or a crime, the ethics of torture and drone warfare (implicitly assuming the “War on Terror” itself to be just), and so on. Particularly in the International Relations literature, including the Security Studies and terrorism literature, there is little to no suggestion that 9/11 may have been a false flag operation used to provide the pretext for illegal wars of aggression and domestic repression.

Prima facie, this seems odd given the long and well documented history of false flag terrorism. In 1931, for example, Japan sabotaged a railway line that it operated in the Chinese province of Manchuria, blamed the incident on Chinese nationalists, and launched a full-scale invasion, occupying Manchuria and installing a puppet regime there (Felton, 2009: 22-3). In 1933, the Reichstag fire, caused by the Nazis, was blamed on communists and used as the pretext for a witch hunt of political opponents (Hett, 2014). Operation Himmler in 1939 involved a series of false flag events, the most famous being the Gleiwitz incident, the day after which Germany invaded Poland (Maddox, 2015: 86-7). In 1967, Israel bombed and strafed the USS Liberty and sought to blame the incident on Egypt in order to bring the United States into the Six Day War (Mellen, 2018). The Apartheid regime in South Africa carried out stealth attacks against government officials and installations and blamed them on the African National Congress in an attempt to discredit the anti-Apartheid movement (Baker, 2017: 377). The Algerian government is thought to have covertly murdered civilians and blamed the murders on Islamic parties during the civil war of the 1990s (Baker, 2017: 378). 

Is the United States above such behaviour? Hardly. The sinking of the USS Maine, widely suspected of being a false flag, provided the pretext for the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the conquest of various Pacific islands (Anderson, 2016: v-vi). Operation Northwoods, approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962, contained proposals for all manner of false flag attacks to be blamed on Fidel Castro and used as the pretext for invading Cuba (Scott, 2015: 94, 98). These included sinking a US Navy ship in Guantánamo Bay, sinking boats carrying Cuban refugees, staging terrorist attacks in Miami and Washington, D.C., and making it appear as though Cuba had blown up a US passenger plane by replacing the plane with a drone in mid-flight and secretly disembarking the passengers. The Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 was cynically invoked by President Johnson as the reason to launch air strikes and escalate the war against North Vietnam: it is known never to have occurred (Moise, 1996). In 1967, when Israel tried to sink the USS Liberty, President Johnson called back rescue ships and planes, indicating complicity in the attack (Mellen, 2018). Operation Gladio, orchestrated by the US government via NATO, involved using far right and neo-Nazi groups to stage political assassinations and terrorist attacks against civilians in Western Europe and blame them on left-wing organizations (Ganser, 2005). 

“Putting all these pieces together,” Benjamin (2017: 385) notes, “what emerges is a disquieting mosaic showing the very real possibility of a mass-casualty false-flag attack being executed to justify international war.” Prima facie, it is not inconceivable that certain elements of the United States government, possibly with links to other transnational actors, could have staged 9/11 in order to provide the pretext for the “War on Terror.” At the very least, this possibility should not be dismissed out of hand.

Continue reading…

From LRC, here.

התורה נקנית בארבעים ושמונה דברים – פירוש חדש

תניא בפרק קנין תורה (אבות ו’ ו’):

גדולה תורה יותר מן הכהונה ומן המלכות, שהמלכות נקנית בשלשים מעלות, והכהנה בעשרים וארבע, והתורה נקנית בארבעים ושמונה דברים, ואלו הן, בתלמוד, בשמיעת האזן, בעריכת שפתים, בבינת הלב, באימה, ביראה, בענוה, בשמחה, בטהרה, בשמוש חכמים, בדקדוק חברים, בפלפול התלמידים, בישוב, במקרא, במשנה, במעוט סחורה, במעוט דרך ארץ, במעוט תענוג, במעוט שנה, במעוט שיחה, במעוט שחוק, בארך אפים, בלב טוב, באמונת חכמים, בקבלת היסורין, המכיר את מקומו, והשמח בחלקו, והעושה סיג לדבריו, ואינו מחזיק טובה לעצמו, אהוב, אוהב את המקום, אוהב את הבריות, אוהב את הצדקות, אוהב את המישרים, אוהב את התוכחות, ומתרחק מן הכבוד, ולא מגיס לבו בתלמודו, ואינו שמח בהוראה, נושא בעל עם חברו, ומכריעו לכף זכות, ומעמידו על האמת, ומעמידו על השלום, ומתישב לבו בתלמודו, שואל ומשיב שומע ומוסיף, הלומד על מנת ללמד והלומד על מנת לעשות, המחכים את רבו, והמכון את שמועתו, והאומר דבר בשם אומרו, הא למדת כל האומר דבר בשם אומרו מביא גאלה לעולם, שנאמר ותאמר אסתר למלך בשם מרדכי.

הפירוש המפורסם היינו שכל הרשימה מקשה אחת של תנאים לקנין התורה.

לדוגמא, הגר”א משלי ל”א כ”ט:

רבות בנות עשו חיל גו’, שהתורה נקנית במ”ח דברים כמ”ש לעיל וכל מי שיש לו מדות מן אלו המ”ח יותר יש לו תורה יותר אבל א”א שיהיה לאדם כל המ”ח רק שיש לא’ איזה מהם ולהב’ מדות אחרים עד שבין כולם יהיה כל המ”ח והתורה כולה אינה נקנית רק ע”י כל המ”ח וזהו רבות בנות שהם הת”ח עשו חיל שהן המ”ח וא”ת שהוא כלל התורה כולה עלית על כולנה ע”י כולם.

אבל אחד הקוראים החביבים שלנו האיר עיני בטובו לדבריו המתוקים מדבש של הרה”ג הרב אברהם ציטרין שליט”א במאמרו בענין אמונת חכמים (קובץ “אבן בוחן” שע”י ישיבת אדרת אליהו-זילברמן, עמ’ 71, הערה 48).

הנה דברי הרב ציטרין שליט”א:

אגב אורחא נראה להציע פירוש בברייתא של מ”ח דברים שהתורה נקנית בהם (ואף שאין זה משנה כ”כ את הצעתנו בענין הגדרת אמונת חכמים).

בתחילת הברייתא נאמר “גדולה תורה יותר מהכהונה והמלכות, שהמלכות נקנית בל’ מעלות והכהונה בכ”ד מעלות והתורה נקנית במ”ח דברים”.

ויש להקשות:

א. מדוע ריבוי הקושי לקנותה, בהכרח עושה אותה ‘גדולה’?

ב. הכ”ד מעלות כהונה והל’ מעלות המלכות, מפורשים בסוף פ”ח דמסכת כלה, לא על דרכי קנינם, איך לקנותן (ואין דרך לקנות כהונה אלא להיות נולד כהן) – אלא מעלות שיש לו עם הקנין – כשקונה כהונה יש לו כתוצאה מזה כ”ד טובות (מתנות כהונה), וכשקונה מלכות יש לו ל’ מעלות שנקנין יחד אתה) כסף, זהב, עבדים, שפחות, בתים וכרמים). ומה ענין לקניני התורה שצריך כדי לקנותן?

ג. כמה מהדברים שנמנו כאן נמנו גם בברייתא הראשונה של אותה פרק “ר’ מאיר אומר כל הלומד תורה לשמה זוכה לדברים הרבה: אהוב, אוהב את המקום, אוהב את הבריות, ענוה, ויראה” ואיך יתכן שהוא הקנין והוא המתנה?

ד. ברשימה של המ”ח דברים נמנו מקרא ומשנה – ואיך יתכן שהם קניינים כדי לקנות את התורה, הלא הן הן התורה עצמה?

אמנם ניתן ליישב כל קושיא בפני עצמה, אבל לכאורה יש לפרש כפשוטו, שקניני תורה הם ממש על אותו דרך של קניני כהונה ומלכות. לא דרכים איך לקנות תורה, אלא קנינים שנקנים עם התורה. אדם הקונה תורה הרי הוא קונה את המ”ח דברים ומפנים מעלות אלו בקרבו.

ולעניננו – אמונת חכמים. הרי הוא לומד להעריך את החכמה, ואת החכמים בעלי החכמה. לא שאמונת חכמים מקנהו את התורה, אלא שהתורה מקנהו אמונת חכמים!

ע”כ.

Walter Williams on the Wacky ‘Wealth Tax’

Let’s Not Waste a Crisis

By 

May 13, 2020

Former Barack Obama adviser Rahm Emanuel, during a recent interview, reminded us of his 2008 financial crisis quotation, “Never allow a crisis to go to waste.” The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a wonderful opportunity for those of us who want greater control over our lives. Sadly, too many Americans have already taken the bait. We’ve allowed politicians and bureaucrats to dictate to us what’s an essential business and what isn’t, who has access to hospitals and who hasn’t, and a host of minor and major dictates.

Leftist politicians who want to get into our pocketbooks are beginning to argue that the COVID-19 pandemic is the best argument for a wealth tax. Let’s first define a wealth tax. A wealth tax is applicable to and levied on a variety of accumulated assets that include cash, money market funds, real property, trust funds, owner-occupied housing and other wealth accumulations. Assume a taxpayer earns $150,000 a year and falls in the 32% tax bracket. That individual’s income tax liability for the year will be 32% x $150,000 or $48,800. Say the taxpayer has a net worth of $500,000 consisting of a business or home and the government imposes a wealth tax of 32%, the person’s tax liability is $160,000.

The problem with most politicians is when they enact a law, they seldom ask, “Then what?” They assume a world of what economists call zero elasticity wherein people behave after a tax is imposed just as they behaved before the tax was imposed and the only difference is that more money comes into the government’s tax coffers. The long-term effect of a wealth tax is that people will try to avoid it by not accumulating as much wealth or concealing the wealth they accumulate.

A wealth tax has become increasingly attractive because it lends itself to demagoguery about the significant wealth disparity in the United States. The Federal Reserve reports that, in 2018, the wealthiest 10% of Americans owned 70% of the country’s wealth, and the richest 1% owned 32% of the wealth. That fact gave Democratic presidential contenders such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren incentives to propose a wealth tax as a part of their campaign rhetoric. Leftists lament that multibillionaires such as Charles Koch, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison and Sheldon Adelson have not made charitable efforts to address the coronavirus crisis.

My questions to these political leeches are: To whom does the billionaire’s wealth belong? And how did they accumulate such wealth?

Did they accumulate their great wealth by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man, as has been the case throughout most of human history? No, they accumulated great wealth by serving and pleasing their fellow man in the pursuit of profits. Unfortunately, demagoguery and lack of understanding has led to “profit” becoming a dirty word. Profit is a payment to entrepreneurs just as wages are payments to labor, interest to capital and rent to land. In order to earn profits in free markets, entrepreneurs must identify and satisfy human wants in a way that economizes on society’s scarce resources.

Here’s a question for you. Which entities produce greater consumer satisfaction: for-profit enterprises such as supermarkets, computer makers and clothing stores, or nonprofit entities such as public schools, post offices and motor vehicle departments? I’m guessing you’ll answer the former. Their survival depends on pleasing ordinary people. Public schools, post offices and motor vehicle departments’ survival are not strictly tied to pleasing people but rather on politicians and the ability of government to impose taxes.

Some advocates of wealth taxes and other forms of taxation might argue that they are temporary measures to get us over the COVID-19 crisis. Do not buy that argument. The great Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman once said, “Nothing is more permanent than a temporary government program.” The telephone tax was levied on wealthy Americans with telephones in 1898 to help fund the Spanish-American War. That tax was repealed over 100 years later in 2006. One of the objectives of the World War II withholding tax was to bring faster revenues to fight the war. The withholding of taxes is still with us blinding Americans on the taxes they pay. Let us not allow a crisis to bamboozle us again.

From LRC, here.

Corona: Prepper Says ‘Told Ya So!’

What I Learned During the COVID Crisis

By 

The Organic Prepper

May 12, 2020

The COVID-19 crisis has affected just about every family in the United States in some way or another. All of our situations are unique and everyone I’ve spoken to has learned some lessons about their levels of preparedness. Some of those lessons are unconventional but valuable nonetheless. There are a whole lot of things you can’t learn from a book or a blog.

Here are the things I’ve learned.

Trust your instincts.

I began writing about this virus back in January when it was announced that the entire city of Wuhan was being locked down and millions of people were under stay at home orders. With that many people under a mandatory lockdown, I was firmly convinced that this had potential global ramifications.

I had come back from Europe to attend a funeral in early January and was supposed to return on January 28th. After doing the research for the article mentioned above, I rescheduled my flight for March 28th and settled in with my youngest daughter at her apartment to help out with the bills. We immediately began stocking up.

A lot of folks at that time said I was crazy – a few here on my website but more so on other sites that republished my work. I’m no stranger to being called crazy – I’m in the preparedness industry and I like guns, so right there, the mainstream media sees me as a lunatic. It no longer bothers me and I was convinced that this was going to be a big deal.

Every day from January 23rd to the present, I’ve spent hours researching as this pandemic has unfolded. I sincerely wish that I had not been correct, but here we are, still in lockdown in many parts of the country.

You can prepare fast if you’re aware before other folks are.

I had sold or donated nearly everything that my daughters didn’t want before I took off on an open-ended trip to Europe last fall. The other items were divided up between my two girls. So while the daughter with whom I stayed still had a few things, like firearms, water filters, etc., the stockpile was pretty much gone.

By the end of January, I was pretty sure that we were going to see mandatory quarantines or lockdowns here and I began stocking up. It’s important to note that at this point, you could still buy anything you wanted or needed. I grabbed some extra masks and gloves but most of my focus was on food and other everyday supplies. By the end of February, I was pretty content with the amount of supplies we had. I had spent as little as possible on “right now food” and focused most of my budget on shelf-stable items like canned goods, pasta, and rice.

For about $600, we accumulated a supply that would see us through a minimum of 3 months without leaving the house. I figured, if it turned out that I had overreacted, my daughter would use the food anyway.

I also started a personal spending freeze at the end of January. If it wasn’t an item we needed to become better prepared, I didn’t spend a dime. I was able to put back a few months’ worth of expenses while still stocking up. It helped that my daughter was living thrifty in a less expensive apartment with utilities included. I was very concerned about things like cash flow and it turns out, this has been a huge problem for a lot of people.

You can’t always have the “ideal” situation.

There were a lot of things about my situation that were less than ideal. But that’s probably true in a lot of cases. You just have to adapt to the reality of your situation instead of endlessly wishing it was different or feeling that it’s hopeless. “Less than ideal” does not mean that all hope is lost.

Continue reading…

From LRC, here.