See you in September?

Summer is speeding by and Walt is planning his post-Labour Day travel schedule. I'm circling the calendar for a don't-miss event to be held in the nation's capital on September 9th, although I'm not sure the old Plymouth will make it all the way to Richmond. [Walt! Try to keep up. It's not Richmond any more. Ed.] Oh. I see. Well... Let's just look at the poster.

Yes, dear reader, Ron Paul is still preaching his message of conservatism and common sense. Amidst all the hoo-rah of the Trump presidency, there's still lots of interest in Mr Paul's foreign policy of non-intervention in the affairs of others, a strong defence of America and an end to the trillion-dollar military empire overseas. Readership at the Ron Paul Institute website is up and viewership of the Ron Paul Liberty Report continues to increase.

We live in a society of splendid isolation. Instead of going to church, joining service clubs, or gathering at the local watering hole to discuss the events of the day, people sit in front of their computers or thumbing their "devices" [??? Ed.], kidding themselves that they are connecting with others via the Internet. Walt has never done Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the other anti-social media. I call them that because it seems most of the people posting on FB etc are so busy posting that they have no time to socialize with anyone in person. See Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert D. Putnam (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). But I digress...

Yes... It's all very well to keep informed by reading Internet blogs and articles and watching videos, but we also need to meet in person -- face-to-face -- with other like-minded people. We need to hear from those who are out there in the front lines. Any true movement -- religious, political or otherwise -- is built on human contact and connections.

If you agree with all (or at least some) of the sentiments expressed by Ron Paul, or Yours Very Truly, you'll find hundreds of like-minded people at the Dulles Airport Marriott, just outside of Washington DC, this coming September 9th, as the Ron Paul Institute holds its second major foreign policy conference. At the rostrum will be Mr Paul, of course, plus Lew Rockwell, Daniel McAdams and other erudite and interesting speakers TBA.

The conference proper runs from 0930 to 1500, and a "whistleblowers' roundtable" will follow. What could that be? Be there to find out! Tickets are just $75, and are expected to sell out well in advance. The Marriott folks are offering a special rate to conference attenders. Click here for tickets and/or more information. You never know who you may see there!

Fred Reed explains "why Trump must be stopped!"

I admit to having forgotten about Fred Reed. Agent 17 told me about his blog years ago, and I followed it for awhile. I love the rantings of Americans who are so pissed off with the State of the Union that they desert the sinking ship. (For realistic advice about moving to Canada if Trump wins, check out this video.) But in the course of relocating, upgrading computers and other disruptive activities, I lost Fred's bookmark and... well...

Now Agent 6 has sent along a link to a piece by Fred which appears on a new (to Walt) site called LewRockwell.com, which boasts that it is anti-state, anti-war and pro-market. My sentiments exactly! I could add another half dozen antis and pros, but those three will do for a start. I see Lew also features articles by Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan and Laurence Vance, so I know I'm in good libertarian company!

Fred's piece is called "The Mask Comes Off: Putrefaction Most Foul". It's about the conspiracy of the Republican and Democratic Establishments to secure the GOP nomination for Donald Trump. I wrote about the Republican insiders' motives just yesterday. Fred's style owes a lot to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, so it's a pretty scathing screed, but it's way too long to be reposted here in full. I'll just give you a couple of excerpts and the conclusion.

I love it: Donald Trump’s campaign reveals the establishment for what it is, a swamp of corruption as fetid as those of Latin America. It is better entertainment than Vaudeville. The frantic scramble to rig the primaries, change the rules, and thwart the voters–anything to defend their cozy entanglement of political tapeworms–makes absurd any pretense of democracy.

The Republicans try desperately to ditch the only Republican candidate who could win the Presidency because…Hillary is one of them. Because, as every sentient being has by now noticed, the Republicans and Democrats are members of the same corrupt club of blood-sucking parasites, the action arm of the corporations, Wall Street, the Israeli lobby, and those who want the US to control the world at any cost–except, of course, to them. They are panicked at the rise of someone who might put first the interests of America. Better Hillary, a fellow parasite, than Trump, who isn’t.

If the Republicans deep-six Trump, and Hillary runs against Kasich, or Cruz, or some other derelict, what then? Our choices will be not to vote, which will make no difference, to vote for either of the party candidates, which will make no difference, or to vote for Trump if he runs as a third party, which will make no difference. But at least we will have seen under the log, the squishy pale creatures scurrying. They will keep their grip on the country, but the world will know them for what they are.

It is to preserve these overflowing rice bowl [= the troughs from which the insider pigs feed. Walt] that we have elections without substance between candidates without a difference. Hillary is just Jeb Bush in a dress, Biden a universally applicable cipher, Cruz a compliant applicant for membership in the club. Since the parties collude in avoiding issues that people care about, the contest becomes a popularity contest of the sort found in middle school. Whoever wins, the Insiders win.

Of course, Trump also is a billionaire,but he is a turncoat, a class traitor, the Benedict Arnold of billionaires. He addresses the issues that the Insiders want to remain unaddressed. He is indeed dangerous. He threatens the endless (immensely profitable) wars, the endless (immensely profitable) shipping of American jobs to China, the endless (immensely profitable) importation of cheap Mexican labor. He threatens the sacred rice bowls.

It is why he must be stopped.