Memorial Day 2009

RIP Burt Blumert (1929-2009)

Burt Blumert died this morning from cancer. He had just turned 80 last month.

I knew Burt only peripherally. He was president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, which he founded with the great Murray Rothbard in 1975. He was chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. And he was publisher of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, the Austrian Economics Newsletter, the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, and LewRockwell.com. Of course, over the years, I’ve written for LewRockwell.com. And over the past 15 years, Debbie and I attended many of Burt’s “weekends” in both San Mateo, CA, and even Arlington, VA — for the old John Randolph Club, the Triple-R, and LRC. He was always welcoming, always friendly. And though I only saw him on those special weekends, he always greeted me like an old friend, as he did everyone.

I’ll miss Burt.

[Photo: Burt, Lew Rockwell, David Gordon, and Murray Rothbard]

When the U.S. nuked civilians 63 years ago

Ralph Raico writes about it here.

Your Memorial Day Meditation

“If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no it will not be us who die. It will be you.

“It will be you — you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.

“We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

“Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.”

Johnny Got His Gun
by Dalton Trumbo
(Citadel, 1939)

Thinking about CLOVERFIELD

“Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”
— Harry Lime to Holly Martins, looking down from the top of the Ferris wheel in The Third Man

Cloverfield is about the dots. My expectations were high for this movie, based largely on the reviews I’d seen online for the past few days. And remarkably, I wasn’t disappointed. Cloverfield takes the Big Monster genre and brings it down to the people, Harry Lime’s nameless, faceless “dots.” This film, in a very odd way, reminded me again that when we hear the numbers from, say, Iraq, there are flesh-and-blood people attached to those numbers. People with families and friends. There are also, quite likely, many many stories of bravery and loyalty and sacrifice. Stories we’ll never hear.

When was the last time a goddamn MONSTER MOVIE made you think about that?

How to use a ring-tone for political outreach

Yesterday morning, waiting in line at Starbucks, my cell phone rang.

Actually, my phone doesn’t ring for incoming calls. Like many cell phones these days, it plays a song. In the case of my phone, it plays John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.”

“Your ring-tone reminds me of the old days in college,” said the woman behind me, after I’d finished my call. “We used to sing that song a lot during antiwar sit-ins. It’s too bad so few people seem to care enough to participate in demonstrations when we most need them right now.”

“So true,” I agreed. And with that, we spoke briefly of Bush’s saber-rattling and of how the Democrat “opposition” is really no opposition at all. Then we collected our coffees and parted company.

I wish I'd been armed with appropriate Libertarian Left pamphlets. I must make a habit of carrying some before another opportunity like this one arrives.

Bob Dylan: "Masters Of War"

What's so funny, warmongers?

Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe ask the right question.

Phil Ochs: "One More Parade"

Last days of the American Republic

Chalmers Johnson, Ph.D., author of Blowback and the brand new Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, was interviewed recently by the people at Black Op Radio. And a very fine interview it is. You can listen to it or download it right here.

Memorial Day 2007

Dalton Trumbo's great antiwar manifesto

I can’t remember who first gave me a copy of Dalton Trumbo’s magnificent antiwar novel Johnny Got His Gun. But back in 1970, when I was a high school sophomore, copies were making the rounds all over campus. Everybody was reading it. It knocked me on my goddamn young Republican ass and changed my life forever. And every time I reread it — which I do from time to time — it still rattles me. As I wrote a few years ago, Johnny Got His Gun isn’t just a novel, it’s a friggin’ concussion device.

The book closes with the most powerful antiwar manifesto ever written, something that ought to be read aloud at family gatherings this coming Memorial Day:

“If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no it will not be us who die. It will be you.

“It will be you — you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.

“We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

“Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.”

"...and put an end to war"

Take away the gun
From ev-ry mother’s son.
We’re taught by God above
To forgive, forget and love,

The weary world is waiting for,
Peace, forevermore,
So take away the gun
From ev-ry mother’s son,

And put an end to war.

— Al Jolson, 1920

NEWS FLASH! Hell has frozen over!

J. Neil Schulman has called on President Bush to bring the troops home from Iraq and for the U.S. to mind its own business:

The presence of Infidels in the Middle East is what drives Islamic terrorism. We Infidels are still there because of remnants of a Great Game for domination of the Middle East that stopped making strategic sense when the British Empire collapsed, when the Cold War ended, and when Japan, China, and Russia became trading partners of America and Europe.

We don't need Middle Eastern oil. American energy independence is ours any time we decide to take it. Short-term we can pump and refine all we need from our own supplies in Utah and Colorado, and long-term we can switch to alternatives — everything from bio-diesel to solar-power satellites and — one of these days — Mr. Fusion machines.

We don't need to defend Israel from Syria or Iran. All we have to do is let the Sunni and Shia get back to killing each other instead of us — let al Qaeda fight Hezbollah.

Mr. Bush, you're the President who Won the War on Terror. Please brings our troops home from Iraq and declare a domestic State of Emergency that suspends the numerous federal, state, and local impediments to domestic oil and coal production and refinement.

We don't have to stop the Iraqi Insurgency for our own security, or for Israel's. We can accomplish that merely by doing what Americans do best: minding our own business.

Mr. Bush: Make Oil, Not War.