• Handed out about 100 half page fliers with one side information about Rothbard’s The Case Against the Fed and the other Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Photos of the book cover, description and links to online versions and audio books. People snatched them up real quick. One woman was a freegan. She told me she doesn’t buy books to save trees, has a computer or at least access to one, no digital audio player, but yet still took everyone’s fliers… including mine.
• Almost every person their was anti-capitalist. Everything I heard told me they were in fact anti-corporatist. As you see in the footage they, like many on the left, incorrectly label what currently exists in the Western world as capitalist.
• I spoke with an employee of Revolution Books who was a Marxist. He believed in the end goal of stateless communism but said a state was needed to get there. Seems a bit contradictory to me. He didn’t like when I asked if he was a statist as he reminded me that communism doesn’t have a state. I tried to explain to him that it was incorrect to call what the USA economy is as capitalist and that if he was non-violent he would find allies in the anarcho-capitalist camp. He wasn’t familiar with Rothbard or ALL which I found unfortunate but he was receptive to learning about them. I’ll be sending him some links.
• I ran into Chris Maloney. He’s written some articles on Mises.org and LewRockwell.com.
• Explained to a young 20 something y/o woman who had shown up to find out more about what was going on. I explained to her how the Federal Reserve works, how it causes the boom bust cycle and what’s generally going on now.
• They had an open mic and I was real close to taking advantage of it and explaining what capitalism really is and some better reasons to oppose the bailout and the Federal Reserve instead of just complaining about which people gets the stolen goods. I decided that was likely a bad idea.
• Someone gave me an article entitled “No to the Bailout of the Capitalist Speculators! Down with the Dictatorship of Finance Capital!” by The Internationalist. Last I check it wasn’t available on their site. It’s interesting because it has some things I wouldn’t have expected to read such as noting that since 1971 the US dollar is no longer backed by gold. They call out the Socialist Equality party for not being hardcore enough effectively and the Green and Working Families as being “capitalist” parties. The article speaks of the Austrian (not the school but the country) economist Joseph Schumpeter. “Free-market ideologues like to quote the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter on the ‘creative destruction‘ unleashed by capitalism on outmoded economic structures. But today, as the wages and living standards of the working people are being steadily eroded, as social programs are drastically slashed, there is nothing creative a bout the destruction unleashed by the wold-be masters of the universe.” The authors really need to recheck what Schumpeter was speaking about, get an understanding as to why the standard of living is being eroded, and acknowledge the fact that what they complain about is in no way, shape or form a free market. Actually… the author and those protesting need to realize that these banks are more regulated than just about any other time period in history and this situation still developed. Regulation is not the answer, removing government control over the money supply is.
• There were lots of Obama buttons around. It was rather entertaining to see hardcore socialist 1 argue with hardcore socialist 2 over how the Democrats and Obama are the enemies of their cause. I, walking around with my Ron Paul, “Taxation is Theft”, “I do not consent to be searched”, etc. pins, found that many people knew of Paul and had generally good things to say in the few words exchanged.
• I was yelled at at one point for moving due to several people with cameras who were filming the back of my bookbag which has a Ron Paul civil flag patch and a “Ron Paul 2008″, Paul and V mask, and 4th Amendment pins. I usually have a gadsden flag like “Don’t tread on me” patch and more pins but I took some off for the Service Nation Summit and have yet to put them back.
• Not directly related but a coworker is leaving my firm Friday and so we went out to lunch. During which I got to pretty much fully explain the full Austrian School of economics’s position on what’s going on. Needless to say several of my coworkers who I don’t typically talk with were fascinated. They didn’t seem to trust a transition to a commodities based system… giving me “what about the guy who chooses the wrong commodity? do you really want people bothered with deciding on a common currency?” type arguments. They also has hangups on acknowledging or accepting the inherent harm central banks cause and underestimated the influence artificially cheap debt has.

Update: CNN’s coverage of the event, some photos

So why did I choose the wrong rally? From LewRockwell.com/blog:

Writes Jim Sheehan: “I just walked by the New York Stock Exchange. Hundreds of demonstrators have gathered to protest the government’s bailout of Wall Street. Several were holding placards that read ‘Stop the bailout! Read The Road to Serfdom by FA Hayek. Read mises.org.’ They were also handing out copies of Ron Paul’s 2002 speech introducing his bill to eliminate subsidies to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Keep up the good work!”

I’m not sure where this was advertised but the NYC Campaign for Liberty Meetup.com event listed the Bowling Green but I didn’t notice anyone familiar when I showed up at 4PM. Oh well. Hopefully some of those who I handed info to will actually read one of the suggested books. If it’s one thing many of those lefties need is an overview of economic theory.

Most historians are liberty hating statists. So what if they think he is the greatest president? His desire to unconstitutionally and anti-liberally hold the states together led to the death of a greater percentage of Americans then any other war. His obsession with keeping the union together at the threat of war, his instigation of the war, the reality that he didn’t much care about the slavery issue or freedom of speech and association, etc. is not the makeup of a great constitutional republic executive. It’s the makeup of a tyrant and a dictator and a bigot.

There is already evidence that Obama is a bigot and an anti-liberal (in the traditional sense) nationalist. Perhaps the comparison is fitting. Lets hope that’s where the similarities end.

It’s funny that the supposed liberal party idolizes a Republican who started the largest war this nation ever saw. A war against its own people. Against its own constitution. Someone who printed money, used to the government to help out the railroads and made money from it, suspended habeas corpus, arrested and jailed his political opponents, who jailed the press, who had no real concern for the slaves, who freed no one.

Animated as ever. It’s interesting that the grievances are more or less the same as the Ron Paul Republicans and libertarians. The causes for the problems and the solutions are different however. These statists seem to ignore the primary fact that it is government intervention which is the common thread which ties all those grievances together. Their monopoly of force is a honey pot for those seeking advantages and a breeding ground for corruption. By ignoring economic law and advocating larger government they are also asking for more wealth destruction, more corruption, more of the same failing policy we’ve had for the last 100+ years. You can’t “get the right people.” They don’t exist. The system is flawed.

I.O.U.S.A., I Want a Refund

I.R.I.P.O.F.F.U.S.A.

After the conclusion of the film, the premier’s rather schizophrenic benediction was staged by panelists Walker, Peterson, billionaire investor Warren Buffet, chairman William Niskanen of the pro-Fed CATO Institute, and some hack from AARP. In their best ‘Ah Shucks, folks’ corn pone delivery, they told their assembled Omaha audience (and the multitudes in theaters coast-to-coast, struggling both to keep awake and their dinners down) that the scary bad old film really didn’t mean it. Everything is really alright with the U.S.A. We’ve been in tight scrapes before and we always pulled through. Americans simply must save more and spend less. We need to tighten our belts and cut out all that nasty partisanship in Congress. I kept waiting for Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, and the Andrew Sisters to rush onstage and break out in a chorus of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah! Nothing was ever said about our draconian welfare-warfare state, its American Empire based in 130 countries, and their sinister symbiotic relationship with their enablers, the Federal Reserve, the real source of the problem supposedly addressed in the film. But then no one ever expected them to either.

The I.O.U.S.A. Scam

Writes Tim Moore: “The initial impression of this circus was somewhat promising, until the marquee lit up. The farcical exhibit was nothing more than a marketing vehicle in brand recognition for Peterson, Walker, and Novelli. All of whom are fully involved in the ServiceNation national servitude movement and their upcoming summit in NYC on Sept. 11/12. As expected, McBama will be headlining and any reference to the memory hole will be obliterated.”

Movie: Save the State

Writes Keith Mercer: “I just read the posts about IOUSA. I am quite familiar with Bonner and Wiggins work and went to see the film because they were involved. I was quite disappointed, not so much surprised, but disappointed.

“It started out OK with an amusing clip with Steve Martin.

“There was also an unintentionally amusing part later. They portrayed Bill Clinton as an heroic, paragon of fiscal responsibility, which caused a significant portion of the theater to literally laugh out loud.

“The theme for the movie can be summed up in one section. We are told that Eisenhower forced the British to leave the Suez Canal by threatening to trash their currency. The British had to comply because they were dependent on us to finance their debt. Then we were told in an ominous tone, that many historians consider that moment to be the end of the British empire.

“The message of the movie is clear. The state is in trouble and it is time for all good Americans to come to its aid by paying more taxes and saving more money, by force if need be.

“We were shown clips from the 40’s of various celebrities encouraging Americans to buy bonds. We were told that our parents and grandparents faced similar crisis and pulled together to pay higher taxes and buy govt. bonds.

“In case anyone missed it, the point was driven home several times during the panel discussion, which was worse than the movie. We were told repeatedly by Buffett that we don’t pay enough taxes. And the idea of forced savings was received warmly.

“When the event was over, my impression was that they are all statists and they are all in a panic because the state is in trouble and they want us to save it.”

Tim Moore notes how the some of the same people responsible for I.O.U.S.A. are also coalition members and sponsers of Service Nation.

He links to blog of bile too which is nice to see. In a weeks time we get plugged on FTL, Stefan Molyneux trying to log into blog of bile the other day (i’m assuming, username attempted was ‘freedomainradio’ and ’stefbot’ and they came from Canada, the login IP wasn’t in my visitor log oddly enough) and linked from one of the highest ranked libertarian blogs available.

John McCain:

Patriotism is deeper than its symbolic expressions, than sentiments about place and kinship that move us to hold our hands over our hearts during the national anthem. It is putting the country first, before party or personal ambition, before anything.

Barack Obama:

Instead of a call to service, we were asked to go shopping. Instead of a call for shared sacrifice, we gave tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans in a time of war for the very first time in our history.

And that is why I won’t just ask for your vote as a candidate – I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am President of the United States.

Just as we must value and encourage military service across our society, we must honor and expand other opportunities to serve. Because the future of our nation depends on the soldier at Fort Carson, but it also depends on the teacher in East LA, the nurse in Appalachia, the after-school worker in New Orleans, the Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, and the Foreign Service officer in Indonesia.

As President, I will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots, and make that increased service a vehicle to meet national goals like providing health care and education, saving our planet and restoring our standing in the world, so that citizens see their efforts connected to a common purpose. People of all ages, stations, and skills will be asked to serve.

Asked? How about told. McCain’s looking to start another war or ten and likely a draft will be needed. Obama is looking to expand national services of all sorts and even if they aren’t giving me busy work they will be using their guns to make me pay for it.