Hillary returns to #1 position on iTunes despite lower popularity

Here are screen shots of the iTunes Music Store on 7-20-2007. Hillary's podcast is listed first, despite Ron Paul's higher popularity. Perhaps Hillary's promise of a mandatory MacBook for every kindergartner, is paying off.

Ron Paul most popular on iTunes (Sorry Hillary)

I guess it is no surprise that Ron Paul's weekly podcast leads the "Government and Organizations" category in popularity on the iTunes Music Store.

The revolution is in progress!

Libertarian Party ranks up 18% in '07

The Libertarian Party has had an 18 percent increase in membership since January, said Shane Cory, executive director of the Libertarian National Committee. More Americans are joining the Libertarian Party because they are "disillusioned with typical party politics and are looking for a change,"

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Why Germans Supported Hitler, Part 1

Why did some Germans support the Hitler regime while others opposed it? Each American should first ask himself what he would have done if he had been a German citizen during the Hitler regime. Would you have supported your government or would you have opposed it, not only during the 1930s but also after the outbreak of World War II?

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The Reason for bin Laden’s Jihad

Jacob Hornberger’s Commentary 7/2/2007

An interesting part of the Jose Padilla trial failed to garner much publicity, not surprisingly. Certainly U.S. officials, including President Bush and Vice President Cheney, ignored it. It involved a statement by Osama bin Laden that was contained in a videotape that was shown the Padilla jury. In the videotape, bin Laden tells the interviewer, Peter Arnett: “We declared a jihad, a holy war, against the United States government because it is unjust, criminal and tyrannical.”

Notice the operative word in that sentence — government, the U.S. government to be exact. That’s right — no talk about hating America because of its “freedom and values.” No talk against the First Amendment, rock and roll, or religious freedom. Bin Laden is directly his words against the U.S. government and its foreign policy.

Of course, this is what we have been saying here at FFF since the 1990s, that is long before the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. government went into the Middle East with its bombs, missiles, sanctions, embargoes, no-fly zones, invasions, occupations, and foreign aid to Israel and other Middle East regimes, including that of Saddam Hussein. All those things produced massive death and destruction, which produced the anger and rage, which produced the terrorist blowback.

As we have long pointed out, the reason that the president and vice president and their minions cited hatred for America’s “freedom and values” immediately after the 9/11 attacks is that they did not want Americans to question the pro-empire, pro-interventionist foreign policy that the U.S. government had been pursuing and intended to continue pursuing. If Americans figured out that the real reason for the 9/11 attacks, along with the previous terrorist attacks (i.e., the 1993 attack on the WTC in 1993, the 1998 attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole) was U.S. foreign policy, then they might demand that such policy be changed, a terrifying prospect for imperial Washington, D.C.

As I was recently going through security at the airport, I reflected on this as I watched people take off their shoes and display their plastic bag containing their tiny containers of toothpaste, shaving cream, and deodorant. I thought to myself: Look at all of us going through this nonsensical, childish humiliation, not to mention loss of critical liberties, ahd all for the sake of maintaining the U.S. government’s pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy.

So, there you have it: a foreign policy that produces terrorist blowback that is then used to take away the liberties of the American people and subject them to ever-growing petty humiliations. It’s not surprising that federal officials, with their ever-growing thirst for more power, would favor such a policy. What’s disappointing is that the American people would choose such a policy, especially knowing the consequences.

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Ron Paul on the Daily Show 6-4-2007

Ron Paul: "The two parties are very much in control of the system and exclude individuals who aren't in that mold."

Republican Moral Degeneracy on Display in N.H. Presidential Debate

Jacob Hornberger’s Commentary 6/5/2007

The moral degeneracy of the Republican Party was on full display in the presidential debate in New Hampshire. With the exception of Ron Paul, the other candidates said that they would be more than willing to drop nuclear bombs on Iran to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yes, nuclear bombs—as in the type of bombs that have radiation that can kill untold numbers of people within the blast radius.

This degenerate mindset is absolutely unbelievable. The attitude toward the Iranian people is no different from that which pervaded the U.S. government during the Iraq sanctions and, in fact, during the entire Iraq occupation. From the standpoint of U.S. officials and Republican presidential candidates, the deaths of Iranians are simply no big deal, just as the deaths of the Iraqi children from the sanctions and the deaths of countless Iraqis during the U.S. invasion and occupation are no big deal. In fact, in a nuclear strike on Iran, there is no doubt that U.S. officials would have the same policy that they’ve had toward Iraqis—not to keep count of the deaths because Iranians, like Iraqis, just don’t count.

Let’s keep in mind the obvious fact: Iran has not attacked the United States and has never threatened to attack the United States. The primary reason that Iran wishes to acquire a nuclear weapon is to deter a regime-change attack by the U.S. government. Iranians have not forgotten the secret and surreptitious regime-change operation in 1953, when the CIA ousted the democratically elected prime minister of Iran and re-installed the brutal, dictatorial, tortuous regime of the shah of Iran. They don’t want another U.S.-installed puppet to rule over them, torture them, and execute them. They also have learned the lessons that Iraq and North Korea have learned: Acquire a nuclear weapon and the U.S. military will not level a regime-change attack on your country. But fail to do so, and it will, no matter how many foreign casualties must be incurred in the process.

Let’s spare ourselves the bromides about how the Iranian people are just a bunch of radical, extremist, Islamo-fascists who hate America for its freedom and values. After all, don’t forget that when the shah of Iran was partnering with the U.S. government, the Iranian people were considered to be friends and allies of the U.S. It was only when the Iranian government became independent of the U.S. Empire that U.S. officials turned against the Iranian people, to the point that killing them with a few well-placed tactical nuclear weapons is no big deal.

Ultimately, it is up to the American people to end the U.S. government’s arrogant, pompous, self-righteous, aggressive, deadly, and destructive role as the world’s international policeman, invader, occupier, interloper, intervener, bomber, torturer, and destroyer. The well-being of the American people depends on it. The well-being of the Iranian people depends on it. The well-being of the people of the world depends on it.