DIGG THIS

Burt Blumert was one of the closest friends of Murray and Joey Rothbard, and it was in that connection that I met him in 1979. As he often did, he had invited the Rothbards to dinner and I was fortunate enough to be included as well. It was immediately apparent that Burt was a remarkable person. He knew almost everyone important in the libertarian movement, as well as in the hard money community of which he was a leading member. In his conversation, his sparkling wit was always apparent: he had an inexhaustible repertoire of funny stories.

His humor, as readers of this collection of his articles will discover, goes along with a serious purpose. Burt is firmly committed to a free society and sound money. He is much more than a bystander in his pursuit of this goal; quite the contrary, he has been a major supporter, not only of Murray Rothbard personally, but of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the Center for Libertarian Studies. He is also the publisher of LewRockwell.com, in which all the articles in this book first appeared. In these organizations, Burt and Lew Rockwell have been an indispensable team.

His support for these organizations has remained constant over the years, but he has been involved as a major player in several presidential campaigns as well. He and Pat Buchanan are friends, and he vigorously defended Buchanan against false charges that neo-conservative war hawks like Norman Podhoretz brought against him. "The neocons are smart. The ugly campaign they orchestrate against Pat simply reveals how much they fear him. But that is no excuse."

Politics is a matter of friends and enemies; and for Burt, Rudy Giuliani belongs firmly in the latter class. He assails the ex-New York mayor for his ruthless tactics as a prosecutor. "Prosecuting attorneys are never lovable, but Rudy Giuliani was despicable." He expresses his feelings with characteristic humor: "Politically, Giuliani is like the horror film monster who refuses to stay dead."

One political figure stands foremost in Burt’s estimation. Of course this is Ron Paul, and Burt makes no secret of his admiration. "The entire rotten establishment is terrorized by Ron’s campaign, and they have employed every strategy to derail him. . . . These evildoers have at least one serious problem. The guy they are trying to destroy is a giant."

Burt’s writings on politics are by no means confined to praise or condemnation of particular people. He grasps the essence of issues that most others fail to see at all. Thus, he asks, are the so-called Y2K doomsayers really so bad? "The Y2K scare motivated people to improve their emergency preparedness. If it abetted people’s suspicions of basic institutions like banks, insurance companies, and government itself, what’s wrong with that?"

He uses a hilarious joke about elephants to make a serious, and devastating point: "There is something deliciously perverse in seeing a major world government selling or renting their military paraphernalia to any and all customers. Some folks express panic at the mere thought of Russian weapons in the hands of u2018unaccountables.’ Seems to me, that the risks are no greater when the weapons are in the hands of government murderers with u2018legal sanction.’ (Ask Chechnya.)"

Burt’s versatility is amazing. Among many other things, he is an authority on sports. He offers a vigorous defense of Barry Bonds. Should the accusation that he uses steroids, or complaints that he is aloof, Burt asks, prevent us for seeing that Bonds is a great athlete? In another article, "Seabiscuit Revisionism," Burt displays an expert knowledge of horseracing. Burt is also, by the way, an authority on boxing: the present collection of his articles offers only a sampling of his many interests.

Burt applies his keen analytical mind to explaining what goes on in our daily life. He inquires, "How is it that Chinese cuisine successfully cuts across all borders and cultures? The answer is simple: Most Chinese restaurants maintain an unusually high standard and the food is generally cooked when ordered, ensuring freshness." He lists, in careful detail, a number of other reasons for this success. Having dinner with Burt in his favorite Chinese restaurant is an experience hard to match.

Travel by airplane, under current conditions, does not evoke much enthusiasm: "It was like a WWII newsreel: the endless line of defeated people pushing their baggage, inching towards the inevitable checkpoint. u2018Achtung! Achtung!’ blared the sound system at peak volume. u2018Do not leave your baggage unattended. It will be confiscated and destroyed.’ The smell of fear was pervasive."

Burt also does not view doctors with complete approval. "We have coddled doctors long enough. They can’t keep blaming government agencies, HMOs, and third-party payers for all their deficiencies. . . . Particularly objectionable is what happens when a medical office employee becomes expert in every medical specialty. The patient must convince this high priestess their condition warrants an appointment with the doctor."

As if this were not enough, Burt is also is a skilled book reviewer. His review of H.L. Mencken’s In Defense of Women grasps the essence in a few sentences: "The book continues to be controversial through its many printings. Mencken was perplexed that women viewed his classic as an attack. The point he was making was that it was the superiority of women that had led to their dominance over men in the important aspects of life."

Like his great friend Murray Rothbard, Burt is an excellent movie reviewer. His careful account of Helen Mirren’s portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II shows his considerable talent in this area: "There is a sadness as Mirren’s queen grudgingly accedes to the pressures put upon her. She is powerless, yet, never loses her grace. Finally, Helen Mirren’s Elizabeth realizes what we knew all along. We live in a u2018Pop Culture’ and even tradition is fading fast."

Book and movie reviewing, and even writing on politics, are just avocations for Burt. He is by profession a dealer in coins and precious metals, and he offers readers the advice of a genuine authority in this field. Gold, he suggests, is in the long run a good investment, although investors should be able to cope with temporary falls in price. Beware the person, he tells us, who claims to have a scientific formula that predicts the market: "Of all the mystics, only the Chartist pretends a rational basis for his gobbledygook. The Chartist further elevates his status by including himself in a larger, even more virulent group that label themselves as u2018market-technicians’."

Burt’s friends are dear to him. He vividly brings out the personality of R.J. Rushdoony, the founder of Christian Reconstructionism. "I advised Rush and [his wife] Dorothy I needed fifteen minutes to prepare for departure. He smiled, removed a small volume from his leather briefcase, and started to read. I don’t recall the nature of the calamity. It might have been a fire, a flood, or an armed robbery, but my office was in total chaos that afternoon. I do know that Rushdoony’s eyes never left the page of the book. From someone whose attention-span is about thirty-five seconds, I marveled at his power of concentration."

For Burt, one friend stood above all others: Murray Rothbard. "I think about Murray all the time and my midnight excursions to the fresh LRC page remind me that Lew [Rockwell] is Rothbardian #1. Read something Murray wrote a decade ago. Shake your head in wonderment. Whatever the subject, Murray comes armed with a rapier, while the rest of us blunder along with butter knives. Except in the realm of machines and technology. In that struggle the best Murray could achieve was a stalemate."

Burt Blumert is a great and good man. I’m honored to be his friend.

September 18, 2008

David Gordon [send him mail] is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and editor of its Mises Review. He is also the author of The Essential Rothbard. See also his Books on Liberty.

David Gordon Archives

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

I was born (a few months before the Crash) at 4:20 PM on February 11, 1929, in the Crotona Park Hospital, the Bronx, New York. My mother: a pert 20-year-old, my father, 26, a bon vivant. Both were homegrown New Yorkers, and I would be an only child. From a poor family, Goldie was eldest of four. The youngest of three, Max was doted on by his parents and sisters. He would remain “spoiled” his entire life.

My paternal grandfather earned $10,000 per year as a designer of women’s clothes. Actually, with sketchbook in hand, he shopped the show windows of Manhattan’s finer stores, and “stole” the latest fashions with his pad. Within hours, inexpensive “knock-offs” were being manufactured and destined for department stores all over the nation. Grandpa Jake’s skills kept him well paid and in demand until his mid-80′s.

Unlike most young couples that were forced to live in cramped quarters with their parents, my folks rented an airy, bright apartment in a brand new building on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. For young middle-class Jews moving up, this was the place to be. I’m told that parts of the Grand Concourse remain a prestige address to this day. It seemed likely that the Bronx would have been the permanent home for the young Blumerts, but then, when I was four-years-old, my sunny childhood was disrupted.

I would reach adulthood before I learned the details of what had happened. Max had developed a great respect and affection for the young Italian mobsters and their family affiliations in the Bronx. One night, after closing the speakeasy he worked in, he witnessed the murder of a Mafia family member. The Bronx DA sought my father as a material witness. Fortunately, Max’s “pals” gave him the opportunity to quietly disappear “on the lam” rather than have him face a more predictable and grisly fate. That wasn’t so good for my mother and me. For the next three to four years, I have vague and unpleasant flashes of us moving from one place to another. Finally, we wound up living in a grungy, furnished flat in Brooklyn Heights. To this day I despise beaded room dividers.

Most likely, Max spent those years in Cleveland, and I recall speaking to him on the phone once or twice. I don’t know where the money was coming from, but my mother always seemed to have cash. Eventually, it was safe for Max to come back to New York, but, the Bronx remained off limits, and we became a Brooklyn family. I spent eight years in public grammar school with the same 32 kids. They were all Jews, except the Italian janitor’s kid. The teachers were mostly Irish, and the school principal, Miss Joanna Becker, was a magnificent, and imposing German spinster.

We didn’t know it at the time, but our education was rigorous and first rate. After all, this was the 1930′s, the depth of the Depression, and jobs were scarce. The New York City school system attracted the best. A teacher’s job was a plum. On to four years of high school. Although my grades were good, there was always a group of girls who were at the top. I easily won entrance to Washington Square College, NYU. NYU was a private school and few parents could afford the tuition. At the time most of the kids who continued their education attended the free city colleges, like CCNY.

Can you imagine having Greenwich Village as your campus? The Village was a cultural treasure with creative people everywhere. While walking on the busy streets, I encountered important writers daily. Poetess and critic Eda Lou Walton taught my American Lit. course, and the American Prima Ballerina Maria Tallchief sat next to me at the coffee house. (How could I not fall in love with her?) My parents read books and were high-school graduates, but I was not prepared for the culture shock I faced in the classroom and on the Village streets. The art and genius of Western Civilization was overcoming my senses. I became a giant sponge absorbing everything, but retaining little.

  $25      $14      

I was an adolescent with little guidance. Several teachers tried to help. Poetess Eda Lou Walton made a mark on my life with her friendship, and I think of her when I talk to young people today. I remember my last year at NYU. Graduate or law school remained a possibility, but it was the draft that occupied most of my thoughts. The Korean War was raging and every day there were new directives on how you could or couldn’t avoid the draft. After I graduated from NYU with a BA degree, a family friend got me a job in a defense plant. While the job got me exempted from the draft, I remember cutting aluminum blocks with a band saw and doing it badly.

The days there were numbered. The draft board was tightening the noose around my neck. I quit the defense plant and was soon taking a US Army pre-induction medical exam. In spite of complaining of poor health at every station, I passed and was waiting for the letter of “Greetings” from the US Army. And then a stroke of luck. The US Air Force was having a tough time recruiting Flight Personnel. Potential applicants didn’t want to be stuck with an enlistment period of four years if they flunked out of flight training. To attract these folks, recruiters came up with a two-year enlistment plan. I was first in line that next morning to enlist in the Air Force as an Aviation Cadet. It was interesting how quickly my general health improved as I breezed through the very same physical exam I had almost failed just weeks earlier.

On the other hand, it was disappointing to wash out of flight training due to a problem with depth perception, but my Air Force career, although short, was with some distinction. I earned a 3rd stripe in less than 14 months, a record at the time. More important, my term in the Air Force was only two years. My first semester at NYU Law School started days after my release from active duty, but I knew from day one that I was not to be a lawyer. In spite of family pressures, law was not my calling. After dropping out of law school, leaving NYC seemed appropriate. While in the Air Force, I saw much of the US and learned that there was more than NYC. Answering a “blind” NY Times help wanted ad, I hired on with a company whose clients were suffering losses due to employee theft and inefficiency. After a short training course, I became an industrial spy.

Only top management knew my identity. I had two assignments, both in department stores, one in Rochester, New York, and the other in Dayton, Ohio. I uncovered “crimes” involving buyers who received “gifts” and provided false inventory figures. I thought I was headed for a great career with the firm until I was told that my next assignment was to infiltrate a Mid-West industrial plant allegedly infected with gambling and drugs. I turned the assignment down and decided to accept a job offer from Reed’s, a chain of women’s millinery stores. It wasn’t as interesting as the industrial spy job, but my chances of survival were better. What made the hat shop job appealing was that my territory would cover the Old South from the Virginias and the Carolinas to Alabama and Louisiana.

After years of working for Reed’s in the South, there was an opening in the company’s California territory. Moving to a suburb south of San Francisco in 1958 was irresistible. My base was in San Mateo County’s new regional shopping center and nearby was a Coin Shop geared toward collectors. I soon befriended the owner. Within three months I evolved from a coin-collecting customer to becoming his partner. For a while I split my time between both businesses, but I knew I would have to decide upon one or the other. It wasn’t easy deciding between the security of the old-line retail firm or the risk of going on my own. I chose to go out on my own. I never had time to suffer any remorse. Incidentally, the security of Reed’s was an illusion. Two years after I sold my first gold coin, they were out of business.

The coin business placed me in the middle of the most amazing monetary revolution. For the first time in America’s history, silver was removed from the coinage, and Silver Certificates were no longer to be honored. Camino Coin became an integral part of what followed; the disappearance from circulation of the silver coins and the change in regulation allowing the trading of gold. Camino Coin earned a solid reputation in the industry. I am very proud of that. Surviving since 1959 is an accomplishment in itself. This led inexorably to wanting to know more. More about money: more about the history of money. Ultimately, I discovered the writings of Murray Rothbard. In 1973, I would meet the great man and this changed my life forever. I became a passenger on Murray’s freedom train. My fate was sealed when I met Lew Rockwell in 1980. The rest of the story you probably know, or can figure out.

This recently discovered essay was written in 2003.

Burt Blumert (1929-2009) was owner of Camino Coins, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, chairman of the Mises Institute, publisher of LewRockwell.com, and the author of Bagels, Barry Bonds, & Rotten Politicians.

The Best of Burton S. Blumert

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

DIGG THIS

In his 1975 film Love and Death, Woody Allen plays a conscript in the Tsar’s army, which is desperately fighting against the vastly superior forces of Napoleon.

In one scene, Woody and a fellow soldier peer down on the horrors of the battlefield: dense smoke and the hideous cries of man and animal; French and Russian bodies, some still alive; twisted canons and carriages; desolation and despair.

Woody’s friend, with broken voice, wails, "God is testing us."

Woody, unflappable and whiney, responds, "Couldn’t He have made it a written?"

2008 has been that sort of year: economic crash, wars, threats of wars, mad dollar printing, police state tactics, bailouts of the power elite, growth of the malignant DC, not to speak of all the blabbing criminal politicians.

Then there was the shining light of Ron Paul. Ron called forth millions of Americans and citizens of other countries too, young and old, from all walks of life, who cared about sound money, personal freedom, economic freedom, and peace. He rallied them, energized them, educated them, and inspired them. He built the future.

LewRockwell.com could have stood aside. We could have kept our tax-exempt status.   But Lew and I felt that would be deeply wrong. So we threw ourselves into the fight, and neither of us regrets a minute of it.

Of course, we were smeared along with Ron — by the minions of oil plutocrats, by the tools of neocon billionaires, and by statists of all stripes. But if that was the price we had to pay for speaking the truth, so be it. Neocon David Horowitz even said LRC was “in bed with terrorists” for opposing perpetual war in the Middle East. But as Lew pointed out, “if we were ineffective, they’d ignore us.”

Ron Paul, as you know, has taken the libertarian movement to levels never seen before, and kept it focused on Austrian economics, honest money, and non-intervention. That bothers not only the establishment Republicans and Democrats, but also the "libertarians" who shill for the Federal Reserve, the Pentagon, and the rest of the regime. I say: Good. It is important that people reveal their true colors.

Ron, as he is the first to say, could not have done it alone. He had the foundation that Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, and LRC writers helped build. It’s called the "division of labor." LRC helped prepare the kindling for the fire of freedom. Ron is the leader who lit it at just the right time, and fanned it into a mighty bonfire.

No, I haven’t forgotten your role. The most important part of this message is coming up.

Because contributions to LRC are no longer tax-deductible, we got clobbered. We took on advertising, which has helped close the gap, but there’s still a gap, especially with the podcasts (a runaway success), and our increased traffic. LRC is the most powerful beacon of liberty on the Internet, and the Internet is the most important communications medium in history.

While on the subject of the podcasts, please, please, don’t tell Lew how good he is as an interviewer. Sure, he gets great guests, but Lew draws the best from them. (If Lew ever does find out how good he is, we may lose him to "Meet the Press.") Only kidding, fellas.

In the early days of LRC, readers approached our site as they would an oasis. They came to be refreshed, energized, and informed. Today, you had better show up at LRC every day. Your life and freedom depend upon it. 

Fascism roams the District of Parasites. The Fed has plunged us into an economic cataclysm. The conservative neocons have combined with the liberal neocons (and even the DC “libertarians”) to cheer the regime and its new Duce. And they all agree on the importance of silencing LRC. They know our reach. They know we change minds, and create activists. That is why they want to shut us up, and do not hesitate to use the basest tactics in their campaign of fear and hate.

We will not be silenced. All over America and the world, millions are clamoring for the unvarnished truth about the economic crisis, the imperial crisis, the state crisis. We will answer the call with principle, passion, and intelligence, if you make it possible.

We will serve all those hungry for the truth in this age of lies. We will not let the Capitol Hill gang of thieves toast our demise. We will expose the warmongers, torturers, spies, and inflationists, the liars and the crooks. Yes, we have our work cut out for us, but we would be voiceless without your help, (you didn’t think I’d forget you, didja?).

For almost 11 years, Lew Rockwell and his magnificent writers have battled the bad guys. Now is not the time to hesitate, stumble, or fade. If freedom is to survive, we must teach the truth, clearly and fearlessly. Please, help LRC fight on in 2009, harder, more widely, more effectively. Your descendants will bless you for it, and so will all who love liberty. And so will I.

In February, I celebrate my 80th birthday. It’s bad taste to announce your own birthday and make it sound as if you’re fishing for gifts. Well, I am guilty of bad taste and your financial support for LRC would be the best birthday gift ever.

These are really tough times, and things may not get better soon. But how much more important, then, is this work? LRC deserves your support even more. We will make you proud of our efforts. Do not let the torch be extinguished; it must blaze higher and brighter. Please help. And, remember, there is a bonus.

You will have made this 80-year-old a very happy man.

Burt Blumert [send him mail], dealer in gold since 1959, is publisher of LewRockwell.com. He is the author of Bagels, Barry Bonds, & Rotten Politicians.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

DIGG THIS

Anna Marie Robertson, "Grandma" Moses, lived 101 years and was recognized as one of America’s great Folk artists in the twentieth century. Her work continues to be exhibited in fine galleries throughout Europe and the US.

Amazingly, she had never painted a stroke until her early 70s!

Well, move over Grandma. Here comes Blumert.

In my first seventy years I had written letters, a handful of articles for trade publications, and my share of angry missives to the Editorial Page. I had composed subscription pleas for the old Rothbard-Rockwell Report (RRR) newsletter and proudly produced fundraisers for LewRockwell.com (LRC).

All good stuff, I must admit, but not exactly creative writing.

And then a fateful day. I was complaining bitterly to Lew Rockwell how shabbily the media was dealing with Pat Buchanan.

"They’re playing the anti-Semitism card against poor Pat and it makes me mad AS hell."

Lew’s response was typically terse.

"Write it up," he grumbled.

On November 1st, 1999, my first article appeared on LRC, followed by more than a hundred others, many included in these pages. I’ll not earn any literary awards, blue ribbons, or Pulitzer prizes, but that doesn’t mean a twit. It’s the rush you experience when editor Rockwell advises that your submission meets his demanding standards, and that you’ve made the LRC page.

Look, we all know that Lew Rockwell stands alone as a libertarian thinker and writer. His prose is crisp, clear, and he never wavers on principle. A wag once wryly observed that Murray N. Rothbard would never win a Nobel Prize in economics because he wrote too clearly. Lew shares that precision with Murray, his great mentor.

But, I have news for you; writing is just another skill for Lew. He is the most exacting and creative editor on the Internet and is proficient in every phase of that craft. I’ve watched him cast his editing magic since 1990 at the old RRR and now at LRC, but what amazes most is Lew’s impact on his writers.

Keep in mind that most LRC authors are amateurs who earn their livelihood in other venues. (I should add that Lew pays his writers nothing, zero, bupkis.) Sure, they glow when receiving friendly e-mails from appreciative readers, but winning approval from editor Rockwell is their true reward.

"Gee, Blumert," a pal observed, "you see things through a warped lens."

"Listen, Buster," I replied. "The only thing funny about you was when you came home from school to find that your parents had changed the lock on the front door."

What is humor? Why do we laugh? Steve Allen, the late, great humorist answers the question as follows; "Humor is the social lubricant that helps us get over the bad spots."

Steve’s right. In most jokes the victim has been betrayed, robbed, maimed, or even killed. He is often stupid and always ridiculous.

Just like the fellow who arrives home early one day to find his wife in bed with his best friend. Our fool runs to another room, returns with a gun and proceeds to point the pistol to his own head. Waves of laughter come from the bed.

"What are you laughing about?," he shouts. "You’re next!"

Political humor takes a different twist. The satirist studies these oft’ dangerous politicians/bureaucrats, extends their cruel and calloused behavior to the absurd, and we laugh. If the satirist is too good at what he does, he may wind up with his head in a noose.

The "loveable" Transportation Security Administration (TSA) provides us with overwhelming evidence of such behavior every day at every airport, and we laugh through our tears.

Here is a snippet of pure satire from the essay "Revisiting The Friendly Skies" (p. 20). Blumert is at the Security Check Point and the young TSA agent is about to use the electronic wand on him.

" I hope you’re in good health," she said. "Earlier today I short circuited an old dude’s pacemaker."

"Good Lord," I stammered. "What happened to him?"

"Well, after a few scary moments we finally revived him. It was nice that they gave him a free upgrade to first class."

If you’re going to write political satire, you had better be funny. Not necessarily, "falling off your chair, gasping for air, funny," but the bulk of your readers better, at minimum, be breaking a smile or two.

"Blumert, your last article was not funny. In fact, it was over the line and tasteless," wrote the e-mailer. His outrage was directed at my article, "Blumert Almost Qualifies As A Suicide Bomber" (p. 46).

I knew I was treading on hazardous ice with this piece. After all, nothing is conceptually more horrible than the image of innocent people being blown to bits.

I wrestled with the dilemma of submitting, or not and decided, Yes, that there was no better way to express my abhorrence of this dastardly act.

Dear reader, if you are troubled by anything in this volume, that’s okay. I can handle it. But, if you don’t laugh out loud at least ten times, I will be devastated. You wouldn’t disappoint me, would you?

My deep appreciation goes to Dr. David Gordon for lending his brilliant editorial skills to these pages. Also, thank you, Lew Rockwell for your constant support and friendship through the years. Without your counsel and encouragement, this volume would not exist.

If there are any errors of commission, omission, or anything really stupid in the pages ahead, I would love to place the blame elsewhere, but I alone bear the responsibility.

Burt Blumert [send him mail], dealer in gold since 1959, is publisher of LewRockwell.com.

Since the hyper-statist Progressive Era especially, American intellectuals have tended to disrespect and even hate business people. Instead of troubling themselves to learn about the real world of commerce, and the entrepreneurs who are responsible for the material well-being of the world, intellectuals have tended to promote everything evil, from Communism to perpetual neocon wars. Business people in turn have rightly suspected that anything smacking of scholarship might pose a mortal threat. But this split is not inevitable. As Murray N. Rothbard noted, it was Ludwig von Mises who saw that the free society had no future without an alliance between capitalist intellectuals and the far-seeing business leaders who could make their work possible.

Burton S. Blumert is an example of what Mises and Rothbard hoped for, an entrepreneur dedicated to the intellectual cause of freedom and free enterprise. That cause started to become clear for Burt when he enlisted in the Air Force to avoid being drafted into Truman’s slave army during his war on North Korea. As a member of a socialist organization, Burt saw that a society organized in that fashion would be catastrophic for humanity.

After the war and NYU, Burt began his private-sector experience, and learned that this sector is the one and only key to social progress. It was also in this period that Burt was exposed to the writings of Ayn Rand, Mises, and Rothbard. In fact, he knew Mises, and was later Murray’s closest friend.

After managing a chain of millinery shops in the South — he has loved the region ever since for its manners and traditions — Burt was transferred to California, and then entered the coin and precious metals business, eventually establishing the Camino Coin Company and running it for almost fifty years. Burt always felt blessed to be dealing in collector coins, a hobby he had enjoyed his whole life. Camino, while always important, was central to monetary affairs in the 1960s and 1970s, decades of dramatic changes in the precious metals market.

The US had abandoned the domestic gold standard and then the coinage of silver. Ever since FDR, it had been illegal for Americans to own gold. That finally changed, and people needed a reliable business to make that ownership real. Camino became the most respected name in the industry. Burt’s buy-sell spreads consistently beat the competition, his attention to the consumer was famous — his long-term customers became his friends — and he fought against unethical practices, as recognized by various industry groups. Burt was also a Silicon Valley pioneer: in 1970, he founded the first computerized price and news network that knit together dealers all over country, and made the coin market more efficient. Xerox recognized Burt’s entrepreneurial achievement when it bought the network.

As a collector, Burt would use real examples of hard money and depreciated paper money for the most engaging lessons in monetary history and theory I’ve ever heard. He especially enjoyed teaching young people about inflation, and the direct connection between monetary deprecation and tyranny. Among his tools were zero-filled Yugoslavian notes, and paper currency printed and used in Nazi concentration camps.

Burt helped Murray Rothbard found the Center for Libertarian Studies in 1976, later becoming its president. In this role, he was publisher of the Journal of Libertarian Studies and the Austrian Economics Newsletter, and the benefactor — materially and in friendship — to many libertarian intellectuals. His offices were a kind of home base for thinkers in the movement. He also became the chairman of the Mises Institute, succeeding Margit von Mises, and then the publisher of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report and its successor, LewRockwell.com, where these funny and profound essays first appeared.

Burt Blumert has been charitable, far-seeing, and steadfast in his role as Misesian-Rothbardian entrepreneur. As a man, he is funny, charming, decent, and generous. As a writer, as you will see from this book, he is a talented satirist who can teach the truths of liberty and life while making you laugh out loud. Most of all, he has shown how the Mises-Rothbard dream of drawing together commerce and ideas can be achieved.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail] is founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty.

Lew Rockwell Archives

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

DIGG THIS

"Look, Blumert, you’ll have to whip up your own dinner tonight. Ron Paul is on CNN with Larry King and later, PBS is showing their terrific, u2018Now’ documentary featuring Ron for almost the full hour. I can’t miss that, and then, according to LRC’s u2018Breaking News’ blog, O’Bnoxious O’Riley has a segment discussing Ron’s foreign policy. So you’re on your own this evening, and it wouldn’t kill you to miss a meal once in awhile anyway."

There are times when negotiating with my beautiful wife is pointless. This was one of those times, and I was ready to nuke the popcorn.

Ron Paul’s amazing political odyssey has turned the lives of many people topsy-turvy. It could not be more so than in my own home. My life companion had never been that interested in the political process and she certainly wasn’t much of a television fan. Her interest in TV diminished as the size of the sets increased.

After "Best Buy" covered our living room wall with a 73" HDTV, her viewing was rare. The only time the giant box won her attention was when she was dusting the furniture, and that only occurred during the summer solstice. (This revelation will insure many popcorn dinners in my future.)

But, that was then.

Now, since Ron Paul’s heroic mission, my dear wife is never more than 6 feet from the giant Hitachi. Her daily schedule breaks down as follows; 14 hours for essentials like sleep, meals, shopping, and ministering to me, 3 hours at her blog, 3 hours of intense internet search on anything Ron Paul (I must say that LRC has made that aspect of her life easier).

The excitement begins when the TV political shows take over the tube. That’s where she spends the remaining four hours of her day. She switches from CNN to MSNBC to CNBC, to FOX to PBS with an occasional visit to NBC, CBS, and ABC, the old- fashioned channels.

There are days when the phones ring off the hook as she compares notes with other Paulian junkies. Supporters of Ron from the neighborhood are invited to join in the viewing, and the 73" screen is very attractive on debate nights. Last night, we had a full house for the New Hampshire debate. One fellow actually arrived clutching a Ron Paul for President sign.

My wife is a gentle person, but nowadays, I’ll often hear her snarling at a talking head and on one occasion she came close to hurling a shoe at the screen. That was before we bought the new 73-incher. She’s now required to wear soft slippers during TV time.

The entire rotten establishment is terrorized by Ron’s campaign, and they have employed every strategy to derail him. Initially, they pretended that he wasn’t there. If he isn’t there, they reasoned, maybe he’ll go away. Next, they decided to marginalize Ron. During the earlier debates, while Ron was making a point, the cameras would scan the faces of the sorry crop of contenders as they smirked, rolled their eyes, and did everything but stick out their tongues to show disdain.

Then they initiated frontal attacks to pound Ron down. Rudy did it in South Carolina and Huckaboob tried it during a later debate. Not only did every one of these strategies fail, the Paul campaign seemed to feed on and grow with each failure.

A TV reporter pal in San Francisco analyzed it as follows:

"In the war against Ron, the establishment has the five following areas in which to attack him;

1. THE DEBATES. Attacking him here hasn’t worked out too well and is fraught with risk. When someone hits Ron, the moderators are compelled to allow him to respond. This is where Dr Paul shines. (As I point out above.)
2. THE PRINT MEDIA. Ron is well received by local newspapers when he hits town and since nobody pays attention to the national opinion mags these days, any hit pieces from them are futile.
3. THE INTERNET. Ron wins every skirmish on the net. (His dazzling array of supporters make sure of that.)
4. TV. As with the hometown newspapers, Ron does very well with local TV coverage. It is only through the national networks and cable that Ron’s enemies can effectively try to destroy his remarkable run.
5. THE REPUBLICAN APPARATUS. In most instances, a single word from an upper level Party functionary can stop a candidate in his tracks. Ron Paul has never been part of their "club," and thus is immune to their dictates.

My TV reporter pal’s logic is irrefutable. National TV is the only effective weapon they can use against Ron. The "talking heads" continue to ridicule and marginalize him, and it will get worse. Future elections may be decided otherwise, but this presidential election will, unfortunately be affected by the images transmitted by the networks and cable.

"TV is where the people live," my wife says. "I don’t know how we can neutralize their venom, but we have to watch them every minute and expose every evil thing they do."

She has been meticulous in monitoring the "heads" and I couldn’t help peeking at her scribbled notes from last week. Included below are some cogent observations about the media "stars."

"George Stephanopoulos — He will one day choke on his own words — definitely a drone without an original thought. He is not as dangerous as some of the others.

"Tim Russert — A slick performer, but not slick enough to conceal the strings that control him. He should be considered deadly dangerous.

"Chris Matthews — Constantly playing the u2018choir boy’ while seeking u2018truth and justice’. He has been assigned to promote Obama and will most likely be his Press Secretary. Matthews is an embarrassment to his profession.

"The Fox Boys — Combined brainpower would barely light a bulb. They are bullies, have no sense of morality and are simply u2018hit-men’.

Frank Luntz — Probably once had a brain, but he sold it along with his soul. It’s a wonder he can sleep at night.

"Wolf "the Blitzer" — Although fully bought and paid for, on rare occasion he displays some reportorial integrity.

"Pat Buchanan — Of course, he should endorse Ron, but he does have to make a living hanging around the NBC studios. This is no excuse, but it’s difficult not to like Pat and wife Shelly, so Pat gets a partial pass.

"Tucker Carlson — Tucker is top of the short list for Ron’s running mate. He’s smart, young, and would lend balance to the ticket."

Frankly, it’s not easy to watch inferior people degrading Ron Paul from one TV channel to the next. Except for that one time when she almost hurled her shoe at the screen, my beautiful wife has remained stoic under the avalanche of innuendo and lies.

That was until yesterday. I don’t know whether it was Russert’s mean-spirited interview on Meet the Press, or David Shuster’s smug effort to assassinate Ron on MSNBC, but she finally lost it. "How dare these pygmies malign a man like Ron Paul," she said with disgust.

"Look," I tried to explain, "as Ron brings the message of freedom from one state to the next, the attacks will intensify. They will call him a racist, a Nazi, a neo-Confederate, and Lord knows what else. I’m not talking about crazed fringe websites. It will be the MSM leading the charge."

These evildoers have at least one serious problem. The guy they are trying to destroy is a giant. Bigotry is not in Ron’s makeup, and those who make such charges know it. The hundreds of thousands (soon to be millions?) of young people who listen to Ron’s words know the real thing when they encounter it.

Here’s a vignette I’ve recounted before; Please don’t hold me to precise dates, but I think it was the summer of 1988, at the California LP Convention, and Ron announced his decision to run for President as the Libertarian Party candidate. Those of us close to Ron celebrated. We saw it as an incredible opportunity to spread the message of freedom.

Former Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey, a maverick Republican and Korean War hero, came to the hotel to congratulate Ron and wish him well. McCloskey was no libertarian, but he was a true patriot and told me that Ron Paul was the most principled man he had served with in the US Congress.

I later learned that McCloskey carried some advice for Ron and his campaign. He knew that Ron’s non-interventionist foreign policy views precluded US foreign aid for ANY country. He warned Ron that this would ire the Israeli lobby in the US, and he suggested that Ron have some Jews represented in his campaign to demonstrate that he was not anti-Semitic.

Ron mentioned McCloskey’s warning to Lew Rockwell. He laughed and told Ron, "Well you have nothing to worry about. Blumert Is your campaign chairman and Murray Rothbard is your economic advisor." “Oh, OK,” said Ron.

Yes, this was 20 years ago and we were all a bit more innocent, but it does say something about Ron and the way his mind works.

Well, here it is Sunday after the New Hampshire debates. McCain is on "Meet The Press" and Romney will be on with Stephanopoulos. I don’t know how my dear wife will be able to stomach all of it, but she will persevere.

One day they will tell the truth about Ron Paul. The United States will be a better place when that happens.

Burt Blumert [send him mail], dealer in gold since 1959, is publisher of LewRockwell.com.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

DIGG THIS

When the NY Times called Ron Paul a “Nazi,” in a smear typical of the newspaper that printed press releases for Josef Stalin, LRC blew the whistle, and mobilizing the Ron Paul movement, forced the newspaper to retract. Has that ever happened before? When Tim Russert on Meet the Press slammed Ron in a nasty attack-interview, we helped get the truth out, and made sure Tim and NBC heard about our concerns. When Glen Beck said that Ron Paul supporters were potential “domestic terrorists,” LRC helped make sure his sponsors knew our outrage. Next thing you knew, Glenn was hosting Ron for an hour interview that was, by Beckian standards, pretty darn fair. This is the 21st century, and 18th-century technology like newspapers, and 20th-century technology like television, better get used to the Internet. LRC and the Ron Paul Revolution are holding them all to account. Indeed, LRC has more readers than at any time in our eight-year history. We have greater influence than ever before. Yet we are in danger of being put out of business.

The trouble began almost a year ago. LRC had become Ron Paul Central, and the lawyers urgently told us to cut down drastically on the amount and favorability of our Ron Paul coverage, since we were allied with the tax-exempt Center for Libertarian Studies. So we did the only thing possible: We seceded from CLS. We knew that when donors lost tax-exemption for their gifts, it would endanger the future of LRC. But frankly, this worry had to come second to the essential role LRC was called to play in the most exciting, hopeful movement in our lifetimes. After all, it was Lew who was asked to announce Ron’s decision to the world in LRC, and we knew then that this would be THE great opportunity for libertarian ideas.

Like you, we love and admire Ron Paul. I chaired his 1988 run for the presidency; Lew has been his friend for more than 30 years, and was his congressional chief of staff before starting the Mises Institute. When Ron wanted someone to introduce his new books on foreign policy and economics to the world, Lew was his choice.

Of course, the Ron Paul Revolution has exceeded even our hopes. Ron has done more to spread the ideas of peace, liberty, and hard money than anyone ever. Combine that with 1) his personal integrity, principles, and obvious honesty and goodness; 2) the magnificent potential of the internet, including LRC; 3) the lives and work of great libertarian intellectuals like Murray Rothbard; 4) the war crimes and economic disasters of Cheney-Bush-Greenspan; and 5) the masses of young people and other Americans desperate for a change, and: Wow!

All we have worked for all our lives, is coming true before our eyes. Yet this could also be our last, best hope against the empire, the Fed, and the neocons. Were we to sit back? Ignore? Be apathetic? Never. The stakes are too high.

I am so proud of Lew and the role LRC has played in our movement. Since 1999, we’ve taught millions of young people in this country and around the world about the ideals of personal liberty, free markets, peace, private property, and the gold standard. Ron once named LRC the “Top Freedom Site on the Web.” It’s his home page on his own computer. And the Ron Paul Revolutionaries feel the same. LRC has long been the most trafficked libertarian site. But we’re growing really fast now. Just last month, we had more than 1.8 million visits!

A Houston consultant, looking at Google Analytics and all the readership-rating sites, tells us that LRC is among the top 10 political sites in the world. Indeed, we are virtually tied with such sites as the huge and viciously anti-Paul "Daily Kos," which has employees upon employees. At LRC it’s Lew’s nights and weekends, and a bleary-eyed Webmaster. Lew really needs an assistant or two. We must do more advertising and outreach on the Web. It’s Lew’s dream to be able to assign libertarian investigative reporters, to expose the opposition, and sponsor large Internet publishing projects on our ideas and a Ron Paul Administration. There is demand for an LRC magazine as well. But forget all that. Right now I just want to keep the wolf from the door. Most important, we cannot let Ron and our ideas down. We have to stand with Ron, no matter what the smears and attacks. It has fallen upon LRC to rebut the hate brigade. And its venom increases minute by minute.

Why? Ron has lit an unprecedented prairie fire for liberty, with his peaceful revolution (and don’t you love the highlighting of the word “love” in revolution?). We must do our part. It is up to us to teach the Austrian economics upheld by Ron, and the real truths of American history — about Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, and the rest.

I have never been so optimistic in my life. Ron has rocked the Fed, the military-industrial complex, the spenders, the taxers, the neocons, every bad guy in our national life. And when I meet a young person on fire about Ron and our ideas, I know that chances are, Lew has played a role in his or her development.

As I indicated above, the attacks mount. David Horowitz calls us “Islamofascist.” David Frum says Lew is “unpatriotic.” Newt Gingrich denounced him for criticizing FDR (the neocons’ favorite after Lincoln). And Bill Kristol’s father Irving — the so-called godfather of neoconservatism — once warned Lew against starting the Mises Institute. Imagine what he’d say about LRC!

But as you might expect, Lew has a track record of not obeying neocon orders. Indeed, we were anti-neocon before it was cool. And did you know, by the way, that we helped make “neocon” a well-known pejorative term? Though they adopted the name for themselves, the neocons now call anyone else’s use of it “bigotry”! Sure, fellas.

Gosh, I’d hate to see these birds toasting each other at LRC’s funeral. But they’ll do it unless you help. And look, LRC is Internet Central for the Ron Paul Revolution. Our blog is checked many times a day by me and everyone else following Ron (and even looked at by the Man himself). We are growing and growing in readership. It’s inconceivable that we should go out of business while our outreach and influence are increasing at such an amazing pace. If we can stay in existence, there is no telling where we will be in one, three, six months, and how much more good we’ll be able to do.

Look, I am careful not to ask you for money too often. But I really need your help now for LRC to keep going and growing; indeed, I need your help for us to stay in existence, even though your contribution will NOT be tax-deductible. For libertarianism, for peace, for freedom, for the Ron Paul movement, LRC is indispensable. And the thought of putting another smirk on the face of Horowitz or Gingrich is sickening.

Sure, I’m biased, but I think LewRockwell.com is indispensable. This is our time. This is our moment. Please help us keep the cause of freedom growing on freedom’s medium, the Internet. We can win. But we can’t play our central role if we are off the air. In this, the great crisis and opportunity of the new century, LRC’s voice must not be stilled. You can help make sure it isn’t.

GO HERE TO DONATE

Burt Blumert [send him mail], dealer in gold since 1959, is publisher of LewRockwell.com.

“Look, Blumert,” the lawyer told me. "There’s nothing complex here. Ron Paul is a big problem for you people.” So I responded:

BLUMERT: You can’t imagine how strange that sounds. Ron is a problem only to the moribund political establishment, and their cowardly media. At LewRockwell.com (LRC) we revere Ron Paul and regard him as a modern day Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Ron’s even more principled than Jefferson, and he knows Austrian economics as well.

LAWYER: That’s my point. In the past few months, too many articles and blogs at LRC have cast a positive light on Ron Paul, and therefore on his presidential candidacy. LRC, and its parent, the Center for Libertarian Studies, are non-profit entities, and you guys cannot be involved with political campaigns in any way, shape, or form.

BLUMERT: The Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) was chartered in 1975, and we have never been involved with electoral politics. The same is true for LRC, which has been around since 1999.

Now, Ron Paul has been a champion for freedom for his entire career, and we have been proud to publish his articles and speeches as important libertarian documents. By doing so, we dramatically raised his internet profile. But that doesn’t mean we are involved with any political campaign.

LAWYER: The fact remains that Ron Paul is now a real world candidate for president, and you guys are playing with fire every time you publish a positive article about him.

Sure, you might win the argument that you are not political, but you have some powerful enemies, the pro-war crowd, for example. They would love to destroy you, and if they can use the levers of power against you, they will.

And by the way, given the way you are legally structured now, you also can’t run articles or blogs that are critical of other candidates. No going after Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, Thompson, or McCain.

So here are your choices as I measure them: You can stop publishing articles and blogs on Ron Paul and other candidates (and cross your fingers), or you can shut down LRC immediately. Total closure is what I recommend, and right now.

BLUMERT: Abandon Ron Paul? Never.

Close down LRC? You might as well cut off Lew Rockwell’s fingers.

I’ll pretend I didn’t hear either of your suggestions.

Look, LRC is too important to silence. It has become the most significant libertarian website in the world. Literally thousands of people, from all over the world, have told me that LRC has been key to their intellectual development, and a source of sanity in this Age of the Neocon.

Of course, we also get hatemail; we’re "anti-Semites" for opposing endless Mideast wars; we’re "traitors" for resisting the omnipotent executive; we’re "pro-terrorist" for fighting the police state; we’re "mean-spirited" for supporting the free market; we’re "conspiracy nuts" for criticizing the Federal Reserve; and we’re "anti-American" for working against the empire.

But even our enemies can’t stay away; vast numbers of people visit the site every day, to learn, to cheer, or to boo, because this is where it’s happening — for everyone dedicated (or opposed) to freedom and peace.

As to Ron Paul, we have some history here. In 1988 I was chairman of Ron’s first presidential campaign. Lew has been his friend and associate since 1975, and served as Ron’s chief of staff in Congress. We both know him very well, and, like all who know him, think the world of him, as a man of great integrity and as a leader. This is not political; it is supporting the ideas we have loved and promoted for decades.

Of course, it’s no coincidence that Ron calls LRC his favorite website. Bail on him? Never. Lew and I have worked all our lives for this moment. And we will keep working.

As Ron himself has said, "More important than the man is the message for liberty." And after today’s debates, primaries, and elections, are over, LRC will still be spreading that message.

LAWYER: Okay, okay, Blumert, I get the message. To protect both LRC and CLS, and you and Lew, you only have one prudent course of action. You must spin LRC off from CLS. The good news: CLS will stay as it is. The not-so-good news: donations to LRC will no longer be tax-deductible, though it still can be a non-profit educational effort.

There was a certain surrealism in dealing with this tax attorney; profit vs. non-profit; tax-exempt vs. non-tax-exempt. These are state-created categories, and libertarians should never have to deal with such distinctions. Some libertarian purists refuse to use a state driver’s license. Others, on the fringe, don’t want to travel a government built roadway. (And after Minneapolis, who can blame them?)

Still, Lew has sufficient challenge six days a week, every week of the year, without some bureaucrat peering over his shoulder determining whether an LRC article falls under regulation A (politically acceptable) or B (politically unacceptable).

So, on June 30, 2007, LRC seceded (an appropriate word for us!) from the Center for Libertarian Studies, which will carry on its scholarly work. LRC, now to become a 501(c)4, will continue as a popular educational endeavor, operating on a not-for-profit basis, but not tax-deductible.

That is, donations to LRC as of July 1, 2007 (Lew’s 63rd birthday), are NOT tax-deductible.

Frankly, this worries me very much. (Of course, to know me is to know that everything worries me very much.) Can LRC survive under this new regime? Will people donate to LRC if they no longer can claim a deduction on their taxes? Some people tell me No. Lew says Yes, we can. Frankly, I don’t know. What I do know is that our decision is the right one.

Our "Ron Paul Problem" has a price tag. It’s going to cost us at least $15K to set-up our new non-profit entity. In addition, since we started suffering with the lawyers, and stopped fundraising given the uncertainty, we have consumed about $30K of our reserves. Then we need about $25,000 to keep going for the rest of the year, and I’d like to restore our reserve so we are not perpetually on the knife-edge. So that is $70,000 in total.

Will you help? You have never failed us. And now LRC needs you more than ever.

I know I don’t have to remind you (but I will anyway!) that the neocons are smart, well-organized, and unscrupulous. They seem committed to one bloody war after another: Iraq today; Iran or Syria next; and then maybe China. They control wealthy foundations, powerful mass media, and part of the Bush administration. We have done them damage, so waving bye-bye to LRC as it sank beneath the waves would give them great pleasure.

After all, Lew has been fighting these "big-government conservatives," in one way or another, since the late 1960s. In the old days, they regarded him as a small dog nipping at their heels. Today, they fear him. And they really do want him to disappear. Especially now, thanks to Ron Paul.

In my 78 years, I have never seen a moment like this. The enemy has done serious damage. But their evil influence is vulnerable to a motivated, educated people in revolt, and using the ideas of Mises, Rothbard, and other great libertarians, Ron Paul has jump-started the revolution against all the statists who threaten us. And Lew Rockwell has been laying the groundwork for 40 years, to be ready for just this time.

I believe this is The Moment. Will LRC be able to play its essential role? Or will the neocons be toasting our demise? How I would hate to tell Ron we had to close our doors.

Please help. If you want us to keep fighting, please send your most generous donation. Keep LRC going. We have never needed it more.

PS: We owe it to the great men and women of our past, to Ron, and to the future, to never give in and never give up. Please help Lew keep fighting. How we need him.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

“Look, Blumert,” the lawyer told me. "There’s nothing complex here. Ron Paul is a big problem for you people.” So I responded:

BLUMERT: You can’t imagine how strange that sounds. Ron is a problem only to the moribund political establishment, and their cowardly media. At LewRockwell.com (LRC) we revere Ron Paul and regard him as a modern day Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Ron’s even more principled than Jefferson, and he knows Austrian economics as well.

LAWYER: That’s my point. In the past few months, too many articles and blogs at LRC have cast a positive light on Ron Paul, and therefore on his presidential candidacy. LRC, and its parent, the Center for Libertarian Studies, are non-profit entities, and you guys cannot be involved with political campaigns in any way, shape, or form.

BLUMERT: The Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) was chartered in 1975, and we have never been involved with electoral politics. The same is true for LRC, which has been around since 1999.

Now, Ron Paul has been a champion for freedom for his entire career, and we have been proud to publish his articles and speeches as important libertarian documents. By doing so, we dramatically raised his internet profile. But that doesn’t mean we are involved with any political campaign.

LAWYER: The fact remains that Ron Paul is now a real world candidate for president, and you guys are playing with fire every time you publish a positive article about him.

Sure, you might win the argument that you are not political, but you have some powerful enemies, the pro-war crowd, for example. They would love to destroy you, and if they can use the levers of power against you, they will.

And by the way, given the way you are legally structured now, you also can’t run articles or blogs that are critical of other candidates. No going after Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, Thompson, or McCain.

So here are your choices as I measure them: You can stop publishing articles and blogs on Ron Paul and other candidates (and cross your fingers), or you can shut down LRC immediately. Total closure is what I recommend, and right now.

BLUMERT: Abandon Ron Paul? Never.

Close down LRC? You might as well cut off Lew Rockwell’s fingers.

I’ll pretend I didn’t hear either of your suggestions.

Look, LRC is too important to silence. It has become the most significant libertarian website in the world. Literally thousands of people, from all over the world, have told me that LRC has been key to their intellectual development, and a source of sanity in this Age of the Neocon.

Of course, we also get hatemail; we’re "anti-Semites" for opposing endless Mideast wars; we’re "traitors" for resisting the omnipotent executive; we’re "pro-terrorist" for fighting the police state; we’re "mean-spirited" for supporting the free market; we’re "conspiracy nuts" for criticizing the Federal Reserve; and we’re "anti-American" for working against the empire.

But even our enemies can’t stay away; vast numbers of people visit the site every day, to learn, to cheer, or to boo, because this is where it’s happening — for everyone dedicated (or opposed) to freedom and peace.

As to Ron Paul, we have some history here. In 1988 I was chairman of Ron’s first presidential campaign. Lew has been his friend and associate since 1975, and served as Ron’s chief of staff in Congress. We both know him very well, and, like all who know him, think the world of him, as a man of great integrity and as a leader. This is not political; it is supporting the ideas we have loved and promoted for decades.

Of course, it’s no coincidence that Ron calls LRC his favorite website. Bail on him? Never. Lew and I have worked all our lives for this moment. And we will keep working.

As Ron himself has said, "More important than the man is the message for liberty." And after today’s debates, primaries, and elections, are over, LRC will still be spreading that message.

LAWYER: Okay, okay, Blumert, I get the message. To protect both LRC and CLS, and you and Lew, you only have one prudent course of action. You must spin LRC off from CLS. The good news: CLS will stay as it is. The not-so-good news: donations to LRC will no longer be tax-deductible, though it still can be a non-profit educational effort.

There was a certain surrealism in dealing with this tax attorney; profit vs. non-profit; tax-exempt vs. non-tax-exempt. These are state-created categories, and libertarians should never have to deal with such distinctions. Some libertarian purists refuse to use a state driver’s license. Others, on the fringe, don’t want to travel a government built roadway. (And after Minneapolis, who can blame them?)

Still, Lew has sufficient challenge six days a week, every week of the year, without some bureaucrat peering over his shoulder determining whether an LRC article falls under regulation A (politically acceptable) or B (politically unacceptable).

So, on June 30, 2007, LRC seceded (an appropriate word for us!) from the Center for Libertarian Studies, which will carry on its scholarly work. LRC, now to become a 501(c)4, will continue as a popular educational endeavor, operating on a not-for-profit basis, but not tax-deductible.

That is, donations to LRC as of July 1, 2007 (Lew’s 63rd birthday), are NOT tax-deductible.

Frankly, this worries me very much. (Of course, to know me is to know that everything worries me very much.) Can LRC survive under this new regime? Will people donate to LRC if they no longer can claim a deduction on their taxes? Some people tell me No. Lew says Yes, we can. Frankly, I don’t know. What I do know is that our decision is the right one.

Our "Ron Paul Problem" has a price tag. It’s going to cost us at least $15K to set-up our new non-profit entity. In addition, since we started suffering with the lawyers, and stopped fundraising given the uncertainty, we have consumed about $30K of our reserves. Then we need about $25,000 to keep going for the rest of the year, and I’d like to restore our reserve so we are not perpetually on the knife-edge. So that is $70,000 in total.

Will you help? You have never failed us. And now LRC needs you more than ever.

I know I don’t have to remind you (but I will anyway!) that the neocons are smart, well-organized, and unscrupulous. They seem committed to one bloody war after another: Iraq today; Iran or Syria next; and then maybe China. They control wealthy foundations, powerful mass media, and part of the Bush administration. We have done them damage, so waving bye-bye to LRC as it sank beneath the waves would give them great pleasure.

After all, Lew has been fighting these "big-government conservatives," in one way or another, since the late 1960s. In the old days, they regarded him as a small dog nipping at their heels. Today, they fear him. And they really do want him to disappear. Especially now, thanks to Ron Paul.

In my 78 years, I have never seen a moment like this. The enemy has done serious damage. But their evil influence is vulnerable to a motivated, educated people in revolt, and using the ideas of Mises, Rothbard, and other great libertarians, Ron Paul has jump-started the revolution against all the statists who threaten us. And Lew Rockwell has been laying the groundwork for 40 years, to be ready for just this time.

I believe this is The Moment. Will LRC be able to play its essential role? Or will the neocons be toasting our demise? How I would hate to tell Ron we had to close our doors.

Please help. If you want us to keep fighting, please send your most generous donation. Keep LRC going. We have never needed it more.

PS: We owe it to the great men and women of our past, to Ron, and to the future, to never give in and never give up. Please help Lew keep fighting. How we need him.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

DIGG THIS

“Look, Blumert,” the lawyer told me. "There’s nothing complex here. Ron Paul is a big problem for you people.” So I responded:

BLUMERT: You can’t imagine how strange that sounds. Ron is a problem only to the moribund political establishment, and their cowardly media. At LewRockwell.com (LRC) we revere Ron Paul and regard him as a modern day Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Ron’s even more principled than Jefferson, and he knows Austrian economics as well.

LAWYER: That’s my point. In the past few months, too many articles and blogs at LRC have cast a positive light on Ron Paul, and therefore on his presidential candidacy. LRC, and its parent, the Center for Libertarian Studies, are non-profit entities, and you guys cannot be involved with political campaigns in any way, shape, or form.

BLUMERT: The Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) was chartered in 1975, and we have never been involved with electoral politics. The same is true for LRC, which has been around since 1999.

Now, Ron Paul has been a champion for freedom for his entire career, and we have been proud to publish his articles and speeches as important libertarian documents. By doing so, we dramatically raised his internet profile. But that doesn’t mean we are involved with any political campaign.

LAWYER: The fact remains that Ron Paul is now a real world candidate for president, and you guys are playing with fire every time you publish a positive article about him.

Sure, you might win the argument that you are not political, but you have some powerful enemies, the pro-war crowd, for example. They would love to destroy you, and if they can use the levers of power against you, they will.

And by the way, given the way you are legally structured now, you also can’t run articles or blogs that are critical of other candidates. No going after Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, Thompson, or McCain.

So here are your choices as I measure them: You can stop publishing articles and blogs on Ron Paul and other candidates (and cross your fingers), or you can shut down LRC immediately. Total closure is what I recommend, and right now.

BLUMERT: Abandon Ron Paul? Never.

Close down LRC? You might as well cut off Lew Rockwell’s fingers.

I’ll pretend I didn’t hear either of your suggestions.

Look, LRC is too important to silence. It has become the most significant libertarian website in the world. Literally thousands of people, from all over the world, have told me that LRC has been key to their intellectual development, and a source of sanity in this Age of the Neocon.

Of course, we also get hatemail; we’re "anti-Semites" for opposing endless Mideast wars; we’re "traitors" for resisting the omnipotent executive; we’re "pro-terrorist" for fighting the police state; we’re "mean-spirited" for supporting the free market; we’re "conspiracy nuts" for criticizing the Federal Reserve; and we’re "anti-American" for working against the empire.

But even our enemies can’t stay away; vast numbers of people visit the site every day, to learn, to cheer, or to boo, because this is where it’s happening — for everyone dedicated (or opposed) to freedom and peace.

As to Ron Paul, we have some history here. In 1988 I was chairman of Ron’s first presidential campaign. Lew has been his friend and associate since 1975, and served as Ron’s chief of staff in Congress. We both know him very well, and, like all who know him, think the world of him, as a man of great integrity and as a leader. This is not political; it is supporting the ideas we have loved and promoted for decades.

Of course, it’s no coincidence that Ron calls LRC his favorite website. Bail on him? Never. Lew and I have worked all our lives for this moment. And we will keep working.

As Ron himself has said, "More important than the man is the message for liberty." And after today’s debates, primaries, and elections, are over, LRC will still be spreading that message.

LAWYER: Okay, okay, Blumert, I get the message. To protect both LRC and CLS, and you and Lew, you only have one prudent course of action. You must spin LRC off from CLS. The good news: CLS will stay as it is. The not-so-good news: donations to LRC will no longer be tax-deductible, though it still can be a non-profit educational effort.

There was a certain surrealism in dealing with this tax attorney; profit vs. non-profit; tax-exempt vs. non-tax-exempt. These are state-created categories, and libertarians should never have to deal with such distinctions. Some libertarian purists refuse to use a state driver’s license. Others, on the fringe, don’t want to travel a government built roadway. (And after Minneapolis, who can blame them?)

Still, Lew has sufficient challenge six days a week, every week of the year, without some bureaucrat peering over his shoulder determining whether an LRC article falls under regulation A (politically acceptable) or B (politically unacceptable).

So, on June 30, 2007, LRC seceded (an appropriate word for us!) from the Center for Libertarian Studies, which will carry on its scholarly work. LRC, now to become a 501(c)4, will continue as a popular educational endeavor, operating on a not-for-profit basis, but not tax-deductible.

That is, donations to LRC as of July 1, 2007 (Lew’s 63rd birthday), are NOT tax-deductible.

Frankly, this worries me very much. (Of course, to know me is to know that everything worries me very much.) Can LRC survive under this new regime? Will people donate to LRC if they no longer can claim a deduction on their taxes? Some people tell me No. Lew says Yes, we can. Frankly, I don’t know. What I do know is that our decision is the right one.

Our "Ron Paul Problem" has a price tag. It’s going to cost us at least $15K to set-up our new non-profit entity. In addition, since we started suffering with the lawyers, and stopped fundraising given the uncertainty, we have consumed about $30K of our reserves. Then we need about $25,000 to keep going for the rest of the year, and I’d like to restore our reserve so we are not perpetually on the knife-edge. So that is $70,000 in total.

Will you help? You have never failed us. And now LRC needs you more than ever.

I know I don’t have to remind you (but I will anyway!) that the neocons are smart, well-organized, and unscrupulous. They seem committed to one bloody war after another: Iraq today; Iran or Syria next; and then maybe China. They control wealthy foundations, powerful mass media, and part of the Bush administration. We have done them damage, so waving bye-bye to LRC as it sank beneath the waves would give them great pleasure.

After all, Lew has been fighting these "big-government conservatives," in one way or another, since the late 1960s. In the old days, they regarded him as a small dog nipping at their heels. Today, they fear him. And they really do want him to disappear. Especially now, thanks to Ron Paul.

In my 78 years, I have never seen a moment like this. The enemy has done serious damage. But their evil influence is vulnerable to a motivated, educated people in revolt, and using the ideas of Mises, Rothbard, and other great libertarians, Ron Paul has jump-started the revolution against all the statists who threaten us. And Lew Rockwell has been laying the groundwork for 40 years, to be ready for just this time.

I believe this is The Moment. Will LRC be able to play its essential role? Or will the neocons be toasting our demise? How I would hate to tell Ron we had to close our doors.

Please help. If you want us to keep fighting, please send your most generous donation. Keep LRC going. We have never needed it more.

PS: We owe it to the great men and women of our past, to Ron, and to the future, to never give in and never give up. Please help Lew keep fighting. How we need him.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

“Look, Blumert,” the lawyer told me. "There’s nothing complex here. Ron Paul is a big problem for you people.” So I responded:

BLUMERT: You can’t imagine how strange that sounds. Ron is a problem only to the moribund political establishment, and their cowardly media. At LewRockwell.com (LRC) we revere Ron Paul and regard him as a modern day Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Ron’s even more principled than Jefferson, and he knows Austrian economics as well.

LAWYER: That’s my point. In the past few months, too many articles and blogs at LRC have cast a positive light on Ron Paul, and therefore on his presidential candidacy. LRC, and its parent, the Center for Libertarian Studies, are non-profit entities, and you guys cannot be involved with political campaigns in any way, shape, or form.

BLUMERT: The Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) was chartered in 1975, and we have never been involved with electoral politics. The same is true for LRC, which has been around since 1999.

Now, Ron Paul has been a champion for freedom for his entire career, and we have been proud to publish his articles and speeches as important libertarian documents. By doing so, we dramatically raised his internet profile. But that doesn’t mean we are involved with any political campaign.

LAWYER: The fact remains that Ron Paul is now a real world candidate for president, and you guys are playing with fire every time you publish a positive article about him.

Sure, you might win the argument that you are not political, but you have some powerful enemies, the pro-war crowd, for example. They would love to destroy you, and if they can use the levers of power against you, they will.

And by the way, given the way you are legally structured now, you also can’t run articles or blogs that are critical of other candidates. No going after Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, Thompson, or McCain.

So here are your choices as I measure them: You can stop publishing articles and blogs on Ron Paul and other candidates (and cross your fingers), or you can shut down LRC immediately. Total closure is what I recommend, and right now.

BLUMERT: Abandon Ron Paul? Never.

Close down LRC? You might as well cut off Lew Rockwell’s fingers.

I’ll pretend I didn’t hear either of your suggestions.

Look, LRC is too important to silence. It has become the most significant libertarian website in the world. Literally thousands of people, from all over the world, have told me that LRC has been key to their intellectual development, and a source of sanity in this Age of the Neocon.

Of course, we also get hatemail; we’re "anti-Semites" for opposing endless Mideast wars; we’re "traitors" for resisting the omnipotent executive; we’re "pro-terrorist" for fighting the police state; we’re "mean-spirited" for supporting the free market; we’re "conspiracy nuts" for criticizing the Federal Reserve; and we’re "anti-American" for working against the empire.

But even our enemies can’t stay away; vast numbers of people visit the site every day, to learn, to cheer, or to boo, because this is where it’s happening — for everyone dedicated (or opposed) to freedom and peace.

As to Ron Paul, we have some history here. In 1988 I was chairman of Ron’s first presidential campaign. Lew has been his friend and associate since 1975, and served as Ron’s chief of staff in Congress. We both know him very well, and, like all who know him, think the world of him, as a man of great integrity and as a leader. This is not political; it is supporting the ideas we have loved and promoted for decades.

Of course, it’s no coincidence that Ron calls LRC his favorite website. Bail on him? Never. Lew and I have worked all our lives for this moment. And we will keep working.

As Ron himself has said, "More important than the man is the message for liberty." And after today’s debates, primaries, and elections, are over, LRC will still be spreading that message.

LAWYER: Okay, okay, Blumert, I get the message. To protect both LRC and CLS, and you and Lew, you only have one prudent course of action. You must spin LRC off from CLS. The good news: CLS will stay as it is. The not-so-good news: donations to LRC will no longer be tax-deductible, though it still can be a non-profit educational effort.

There was a certain surrealism in dealing with this tax attorney; profit vs. non-profit; tax-exempt vs. non-tax-exempt. These are state-created categories, and libertarians should never have to deal with such distinctions. Some libertarian purists refuse to use a state driver’s license. Others, on the fringe, don’t want to travel a government built roadway. (And after Minneapolis, who can blame them?)

Still, Lew has sufficient challenge six days a week, every week of the year, without some bureaucrat peering over his shoulder determining whether an LRC article falls under regulation A (politically acceptable) or B (politically unacceptable).

So, on June 30, 2007, LRC seceded (an appropriate word for us!) from the Center for Libertarian Studies, which will carry on its scholarly work. LRC, now to become a 501(c)4, will continue as a popular educational endeavor, operating on a not-for-profit basis, but not tax-deductible.

That is, donations to LRC as of July 1, 2007 (Lew’s 63rd birthday), are NOT tax-deductible.

Frankly, this worries me very much. (Of course, to know me is to know that everything worries me very much.) Can LRC survive under this new regime? Will people donate to LRC if they no longer can claim a deduction on their taxes? Some people tell me No. Lew says Yes, we can. Frankly, I don’t know. What I do know is that our decision is the right one.

Our "Ron Paul Problem" has a price tag. It’s going to cost us at least $15K to set-up our new non-profit entity. In addition, since we started suffering with the lawyers, and stopped fundraising given the uncertainty, we have consumed about $30K of our reserves. Then we need about $25,000 to keep going for the rest of the year, and I’d like to restore our reserve so we are not perpetually on the knife-edge. So that is $70,000 in total.

Will you help? You have never failed us. And now LRC needs you more than ever.

I know I don’t have to remind you (but I will anyway!) that the neocons are smart, well-organized, and unscrupulous. They seem committed to one bloody war after another: Iraq today; Iran or Syria next; and then maybe China. They control wealthy foundations, powerful mass media, and part of the Bush administration. We have done them damage, so waving bye-bye to LRC as it sank beneath the waves would give them great pleasure.

After all, Lew has been fighting these "big-government conservatives," in one way or another, since the late 1960s. In the old days, they regarded him as a small dog nipping at their heels. Today, they fear him. And they really do want him to disappear. Especially now, thanks to Ron Paul.

In my 78 years, I have never seen a moment like this. The enemy has done serious damage. But their evil influence is vulnerable to a motivated, educated people in revolt, and using the ideas of Mises, Rothbard, and other great libertarians, Ron Paul has jump-started the revolution against all the statists who threaten us. And Lew Rockwell has been laying the groundwork for 40 years, to be ready for just this time.

I believe this is The Moment. Will LRC be able to play its essential role? Or will the neocons be toasting our demise? How I would hate to tell Ron we had to close our doors.

Please help. If you want us to keep fighting, please send your most generous donation. Keep LRC going. We have never needed it more.

PS: We owe it to the great men and women of our past, to Ron, and to the future, to never give in and never give up. Please help Lew keep fighting. How we need him.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

“Look, Blumert,” the lawyer told me. "There’s nothing complex here. Ron Paul is a big problem for you people.” So I responded:

BLUMERT: You can’t imagine how strange that sounds. Ron is a problem only to the moribund political establishment, and their cowardly media. At LewRockwell.com (LRC) we revere Ron Paul and regard him as a modern day Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Ron’s even more principled than Jefferson, and he knows Austrian economics as well.

LAWYER: That’s my point. In the past few months, too many articles and blogs at LRC have cast a positive light on Ron Paul, and therefore on his presidential candidacy. LRC, and its parent, the Center for Libertarian Studies, are non-profit entities, and you guys cannot be involved with political campaigns in any way, shape, or form.

BLUMERT: The Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) was chartered in 1975, and we have never been involved with electoral politics. The same is true for LRC, which has been around since 1999.

Now, Ron Paul has been a champion for freedom for his entire career, and we have been proud to publish his articles and speeches as important libertarian documents. By doing so, we dramatically raised his internet profile. But that doesn’t mean we are involved with any political campaign.

LAWYER: The fact remains that Ron Paul is now a real world candidate for president, and you guys are playing with fire every time you publish a positive article about him.

Sure, you might win the argument that you are not political, but you have some powerful enemies, the pro-war crowd, for example. They would love to destroy you, and if they can use the levers of power against you, they will.

And by the way, given the way you are legally structured now, you also can’t run articles or blogs that are critical of other candidates. No going after Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, Thompson, or McCain.

So here are your choices as I measure them: You can stop publishing articles and blogs on Ron Paul and other candidates (and cross your fingers), or you can shut down LRC immediately. Total closure is what I recommend, and right now.

BLUMERT: Abandon Ron Paul? Never.

Close down LRC? You might as well cut off Lew Rockwell’s fingers.

I’ll pretend I didn’t hear either of your suggestions.

Look, LRC is too important to silence. It has become the most significant libertarian website in the world. Literally thousands of people, from all over the world, have told me that LRC has been key to their intellectual development, and a source of sanity in this Age of the Neocon.

Of course, we also get hatemail; we’re "anti-Semites" for opposing endless Mideast wars; we’re "traitors" for resisting the omnipotent executive; we’re "pro-terrorist" for fighting the police state; we’re "mean-spirited" for supporting the free market; we’re "conspiracy nuts" for criticizing the Federal Reserve; and we’re "anti-American" for working against the empire.

But even our enemies can’t stay away; vast numbers of people visit the site every day, to learn, to cheer, or to boo, because this is where it’s happening — for everyone dedicated (or opposed) to freedom and peace.

As to Ron Paul, we have some history here. In 1988 I was chairman of Ron’s first presidential campaign. Lew has been his friend and associate since 1975, and served as Ron’s chief of staff in Congress. We both know him very well, and, like all who know him, think the world of him, as a man of great integrity and as a leader. This is not political; it is supporting the ideas we have loved and promoted for decades.

Of course, it’s no coincidence that Ron calls LRC his favorite website. Bail on him? Never. Lew and I have worked all our lives for this moment. And we will keep working.

As Ron himself has said, "More important than the man is the message for liberty." And after today’s debates, primaries, and elections, are over, LRC will still be spreading that message.

LAWYER: Okay, okay, Blumert, I get the message. To protect both LRC and CLS, and you and Lew, you only have one prudent course of action. You must spin LRC off from CLS. The good news: CLS will stay as it is. The not-so-good news: donations to LRC will no longer be tax-deductible, though it still can be a non-profit educational effort.

There was a certain surrealism in dealing with this tax attorney; profit vs. non-profit; tax-exempt vs. non-tax-exempt. These are state-created categories, and libertarians should never have to deal with such distinctions. Some libertarian purists refuse to use a state driver’s license. Others, on the fringe, don’t want to travel a government built roadway. (And after Minneapolis, who can blame them?)

Still, Lew has sufficient challenge six days a week, every week of the year, without some bureaucrat peering over his shoulder determining whether an LRC article falls under regulation A (politically acceptable) or B (politically unacceptable).

So, on June 30, 2007, LRC seceded (an appropriate word for us!) from the Center for Libertarian Studies, which will carry on its scholarly work. LRC, now to become a 501(c)4, will continue as a popular educational endeavor, operating on a not-for-profit basis, but not tax-deductible.

That is, donations to LRC as of July 1, 2007 (Lew’s 63rd birthday), are NOT tax-deductible.

Frankly, this worries me very much. (Of course, to know me is to know that everything worries me very much.) Can LRC survive under this new regime? Will people donate to LRC if they no longer can claim a deduction on their taxes? Some people tell me No. Lew says Yes, we can. Frankly, I don’t know. What I do know is that our decision is the right one.

Our "Ron Paul Problem" has a price tag. It’s going to cost us at least $15K to set-up our new non-profit entity. In addition, since we started suffering with the lawyers, and stopped fundraising given the uncertainty, we have consumed about $30K of our reserves. Then we need about $25,000 to keep going for the rest of the year, and I’d like to restore our reserve so we are not perpetually on the knife-edge. So that is $70,000 in total.

Will you help? You have never failed us. And now LRC needs you more than ever.

I know I don’t have to remind you (but I will anyway!) that the neocons are smart, well-organized, and unscrupulous. They seem committed to one bloody war after another: Iraq today; Iran or Syria next; and then maybe China. They control wealthy foundations, powerful mass media, and part of the Bush administration. We have done them damage, so waving bye-bye to LRC as it sank beneath the waves would give them great pleasure.

After all, Lew has been fighting these "big-government conservatives," in one way or another, since the late 1960s. In the old days, they regarded him as a small dog nipping at their heels. Today, they fear him. And they really do want him to disappear. Especially now, thanks to Ron Paul.

In my 78 years, I have never seen a moment like this. The enemy has done serious damage. But their evil influence is vulnerable to a motivated, educated people in revolt, and using the ideas of Mises, Rothbard, and other great libertarians, Ron Paul has jump-started the revolution against all the statists who threaten us. And Lew Rockwell has been laying the groundwork for 40 years, to be ready for just this time.

I believe this is The Moment. Will LRC be able to play its essential role? Or will the neocons be toasting our demise? How I would hate to tell Ron we had to close our doors.

Please help. If you want us to keep fighting, please send your most generous donation. Keep LRC going. We have never needed it more.

PS: We owe it to the great men and women of our past, to Ron, and to the future, to never give in and never give up. Please help Lew keep fighting. How we need him.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

DIGG THIS

The AMA, the FDA and the entire medical bureaucracy suffered a mortal blow at the LRC Benefit Health and Wealth Conference in Foster City last week.

You couldn’t make it? Don’t despair. You can still participate by listening to all the talks and panel discussions.

Want a sample?

• Aids is not caused by a virus.

• For proper nutrition and weight, no protein should be eaten after 3:00pm.

• Better throw away your fluoride toothpaste. It may be killing you.

• But iodine and garlic may save your life.

Order our handsomely produced and packaged MP3s ($29 plus $3 postage and handling) or CDs ($49 plus $4 postage and handling).

To order, phone Cathy in my office during California business hours at 800-982-7070, or purchase through our donation form, being sure to let us know your shipping address.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

DIGG THIS

Don’t despair.

Sure, we’ll be having a great time, getting healthier and wealthier, wishing you were here, but I still want you to help LewRockwell.com, and a deserving student at the same time.

Here’s the plan.

We have a bunch of terrific kids who would love to attend, but can’t afford the $200. So, if you make a donation to the Center for Libertarian Studies for that amount, you will be providing a scholarship to the conference for a great kid.

For a young mind, this weekend could influence the rest of their lives. 

Wait, there’s more.

You will also receive a VIP package which includes a set of MP3s or CDs of the entire conference, and a surprise gift or two.

You’ll be with us in spirit.

Be a VIP; help LRC, help a student, and listen to the best conference ever.

What website is more important to your life, liberty, and property (and health) than LRC? Please click here to help LRC and a student (please indicate $200 as the donation). And let us know if you want an audio recording of the whole conference, and in what format. Or phone Cathy at 800-325-7257, and she can take your credit card.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

DIGG THIS

The commute over Devil’s Slide was uneventful but I still sighed with relief as I pulled into the garage and shut down the engine. The fog was rolling in, Pumpkin days were behind us, and it was good to be home.

But, it was not to be.

"We can just make the 4:20 showing of The Queen in Palo Alto if we leave right now," my dear wife said breathlessly. There was no negotiating. She’s all business when she dons those Grand Prix driving gloves.

"Look, isn’t this the movie about Queen Elizabeth I, who reigned in the 16th century?" I whined. "Wasn’t she beheaded, or locked up in the tower? In any case, do we really want to see a period piece movie, where they all talk funny?"

She rolled her eyes once or twice, and I noted that we were already on Highway 280 heading south.

"The Queen," she sniffed, "is about Queen Elizabeth II, the present monarch, stars the great actor Helen Mirren, and is directed by Stephen Frears, whose 1985 film, My Beautiful Launderette, is a cult classic."

My spirits improved as we exited at Page Mill Road. I was now minutes away from a large-sized popcorn with the hope that they used real butter and, more importantly, I reflected that Helen Mirren is one of the finest actors of our time. She was dazzling as Jane Tennison in PBS’s Prime Suspect series, and remarkable as the brilliant but difficult Russian émigré in The Passion of Ayn Rand. Helen Mirren does not disappoint as The Queen. She is at the top of her game.

The story line of the film covers those shattering events in the UK during 1997. Tony Blair, amazingly portrayed by Michael Sheen, has become the first Labor Prime Minister in about 20 years. He is young — Blair was born in 1953, the year Elizabeth ascended the throne — and handsome. Although raised in privilege and properly educated, he is a socialist "new man."

His first official meeting with the Queen sets the tone for the entire film. Elizabeth, reserved, formal, but armed with a rapier wit, duels with Blair. She advises that he is her 14th Prime Minister. He is amused by the monarch, but remains respectful throughout.

Blair’s wife, Cherie, does not share this respect. She is in sympathy with the 25% of the British population who believe the monarchy is an expensive anachronism and should be abolished.

To the tradition-bound Elizabeth, Blair might as well be a rock-star.

And then…the dark event that turns our story from a gentle tale of a collision of manners to a political crisis that could threaten the UK’s constitutional monarchy:

Princess Diana is tragically killed in a motor accident in Paris.

To Elizabeth, this event is the final act of the dismal drama that Diana created for the Royal family. The movie, The Queen, does not dwell on the "sordid" events that led to Diana’s divorce from Prince Charles. The audience is reminded, however, that Diana has been "excommunicated" from the royal family.

The only potential problem Elizabeth sees is the need to protect the young princes, Harry and William, from the evil media. In this she is supported by her consort Prince Philip — well portrayed by American actor James Cromwell. Her mother, “the Queen mum,” is also quick to offer her full support.

The royal family never once considers that the young princes should be mourning the dead mother they dearly loved. Shut off the TV sets, hide the newspapers, this was the royal strategy. Prince Philip decides that fresh air is the best remedy and takes the boys hunting on the 40,000 acres that make up the Balmoral Castle grounds.

As the days pass the outpouring of grief for the dead princess rages like a forest fire. To the royal family this outpouring is incomprehensible.

The headlines begin to turn ugly; why is the flag at Buckingham not flying at half-mast? Why is Princess Diana not being afforded a royal funeral? When will Queen Elizabeth break her silence and acknowledge the tragedy of Diana’s death?

From this point, The Queen becomes an elegant nail-biter. On the one hand, we have the intractable Elizabeth and her royal entourage clinging to traditions and views forged through 1,000 years.

On the other — the average Brits who revere a different stripe of royalty: Elton John, Madonna, Elizabeth Taylor, the Spice Girls, and even the likes of Tony Blair.

To these subjects, Diana was the real princess.

The Queen relies heavily on archived tapes and films. It is a sticky matter to successfully weave old images into a screenplay. Director Frears does it artfully.

First, we see old BBC tapes of an ocean of flowers placed by grieving Brits around Buckingham and the other palaces. Then, seamlessly, Mirren’s Elizabeth walking amidst the bouquets. She reads some of the attached messages and is stunned by the anger directed against the Royal family. She is in agony, yet, never buckles, never loses the royal demeanor that defined her life.

There is a sadness as Mirren’s queen grudgingly accedes to the pressures put upon her. She is powerless, yet, never loses her grace.

Finally, Helen Mirren’s Elizabeth realizes what we knew all along. We live in a "Pop Culture" and even tradition is fading fast.

This article first appeared on HalfMoonBayMemories.com.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

Paul is our regular UPS man and he has been telling his wife that they should own some gold. Finally, with gold in the headlines, they made their decision and bought 5 ounces.

He picked up his order yesterday;

"Sure, the minute I buy something, you can bet the price goes down," poor Paul mumbled as he wrote his check.

I’d like to have an ounce of gold, or even a gram, for how many times I’ve heard that wail from clients throughout the decades.

The corollary, that the price immediately spikes higher as soon as we sell something, is the other side of the coin (if you’ll excuse the expression).

Few investors have escaped the agony of these experiences. It’s as if there were little gods who monitor such matters and they whack us every time we decide to buy or sell something.

The dramatic ups and downs of the price of gold in recent days has tested everybody.

Some new gold buyers are disheartened; others are in a state of shock. Even gold professionals have been emotionally wrung out by the schizophrenic price gyrations of the ancient yellow metal.

In case you missed it, here’s a summary of the gold market over the past 2 weeks using prices from the London Metals Exchange as our source; On Dec. 2, the price of gold punctured $500 per ounce price for the first time in about 20 years.

For the next 10 days the gold price spiked higher almost every trading day and the inter-day price edged close to $540 per ounce.

Over the last few days gold has dropped sharply, and tomorrow, Thursday, Dec 15, the price could very well drop below $500. *

*This article was written on Wednesday night, December 14. The price touched $500.80 early Thursday morning in London.

Let’s consider these numbers in some prospective:

From its highs of 2 weeks ago gold plunged about 6%.

I suspect that when we examine the history of gold prices in the years ahead, this recent spasm will register as a mere blip on the chart.

The following figures tell us the real story. I’m using the price of gold for each January since the year 2000 to make my point:

January, 2000 $310 per oz.

January, 2001 275

January, 2002 295

January, 2003 375

January, 2004 425

January, 2005 431

January, 2006 ??? (I predict the price next month will be $500 +)

If you purchased gold recently and you’re worried, phone me and I’ll hold your hand.

If I’m more worried than you, you can hold mine.

I can assure you of this:

When all other monies crumble into dust, the value of gold will endure.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

Memo From: Editor Lew Rockwell To: Burt Blumert Subject: Your next assignment.

I regret to advise you, Blumert, that your article on Katrina and the tragic flooding in New Orleans is unsuitable for LRC.

Interviewing the waiters at the Mardi Gras Bar and Grille in San Francisco hardly qualifies as adequate research.

Your revisionist theory that a clique of renegade CIA agents created Katrina so that damning JFK assassination evidence would be destroyed by the rampaging floodwaters is fascinating. But naming Waldo, the bartender at the Mardi Gras as your primary source for the story also falls short as proper investigative reporting.

Incidentally, the $125 charge on your expense account for "2 rounds of drinks for Katrina’s victims at the Mardi Gras Bar" is also rejected.

This next assignment gives you a chance to regain your status as LRC’s #7 investigative reporter.

It’s predictable that people will react violently to foreign invaders on their soil, but to see them blowing themselves up as "suicide bombers" is beyond the ability of most Americans to fathom.

Who are these people that blow themselves up? How are they chosen? We need answers, Blumert. Infiltrate their organizations; sign on if you must; do whatever it takes to get us the facts.

Following is a transcription of Blumert’s interview at the Your Last Job Agency, located in the hills of Marin County.

Simon Rasputin is the Agency interviewer; Simon earned international notoriety as the Kool-Aid dispenser at the People’s Temple in Guyana.

RASPUTIN: Hello, Blumert. And thanks for using Your Last Job Agency. We are an equal opportunity, non-sectarian agency seeking qualified suicide bombers (SBs) from all walks of life, regardless of their political or religious biases.

I don’t wish to sound like an ageist but aren’t you a little old to be applying for this kind of work?

BLUMERT: Well, being old may be part of it. The current costs of dying have skyrocketed and a suicide bombing might save my estate thousands of dollars. In fact, don’t some SBs earn up to $25,000 for their family survivors?

RASPUTIN: Yes, that’s true, less, of course, our 18% agency fee.

At the risk of being rude, Blumert, may I ask why are you wearing that ridiculous, pink Lawrence of Arabia costume? Are you making some political statement, or is it left over from Halloween? (See Sheik for a Week.)

BLUMERT: No political statement intended, but there are so few occasions when I can wear it and my wife says that the flowing lines are flattering and make me look thinner.

As to the color, don’t jump to any conclusions, Buster. The tailor ran out of white and all he had left was pink. Do you have trouble with that?

RASPUTIN: Well, Excuuuuuse me! Let’s move on.

Your application is impressive, Blumert. It’s hard to imagine anyone so consistently identified with losing causes. This is a very positive indicator for us. You just may be one of those "naturals" we encounter every now and then.

Are you ready to start talking about an assignment?

BLUMERT: Not so fast. There are several things that trouble me. First, I read that the strap-on bombs are getting bigger and more powerful. Please, make a note that my bomb can’t be too heavy as I have a chronic bad back.

Can you imagine if my back went out just when I was pushing the button, or pulling the ripcord, or whatever it takes to set the thing off?

RASPUTIN: OK, OK. So noted. Now, are you ready to talk assignment?

BLUMERT: Well, let’s see. I have a dental appointment on Tuesday and on Thursday I’m scheduled for a Karate lesson. How about after Christmas?

RASPUTIN: Some of the clients we represent might be hiring extra people for the Christmas season, but I’m confident we could place you after the holidays.

BLUMERT: Now, the first reports I heard on the hotel suicide bombings in Jordan indicated that a husband and wife team were involved. I know that some employers don’t approve of hiring married couples, but it seems like a romantic idea to me.

RASPUTIN: I suppose it would be all right if we teamed the two of you up, but your wife will have to go through the same training course and don’t try to get another $25,000 out of us. It’s $25,000 per family.

BLUMERT: You just made that up. We should get at least $35,000 for the two of us.

Rasputin: All right, already. $35,000 it is. Call your wife and have her come down to sign up.

BLUMERT: Well, it’s not quite that simple. She hasn’t the foggiest notion I’m here or what we’re discussing. She might very well be against this whole thing. You know how difficult women can be sometimes.

RASPUTIN: This interview is not going well. Tell me, Blumert, what other problems would you have as a suicide bomber?

BLUMERT: For one thing, I’m crazy about animals. I’d need total assurance that not a hair on any kitty or doggy would be hurt.

Also, the world does not have enough music. It certainly wouldn’t be a big deal to have any musicians discreetly removed from the scene before I set the thing off.

RASPUTIN: I’m certain that somewhere, someone would be happy to see you become a suicide bomber, Blumert, even if you are the only casualty. I’ll give some thought to locating such a client. In the meanwhile, as they say, "Don’t call us. We’ll call you.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by June Morrall and Burton S. Blumert by June Morrall and Burton S. Blumert

Shanghai, 1985 By June Morrall

It was like jumping hurdles when I decided to fly from the US to Red China in 1985. There was no choice of air carriers. It had to be CAAC, the Chinese state airline’s direct flight from San Francisco to Shanghai — and, in those early days, travelers from Europe and the US harbored deep concerns about survival when they boarded CAAC’s planes, all purchased from the Soviet Union.

(I was gripped with fear on this very CAAC flight when, after being over the Pacific for 3 hours and without a word of explanation in Chinese or English, we returned to San Francisco. They did put us up at a decent hotel and the next morning we departed without incident. Still without a word of explanation.)

Only a trickle of Americans flew CAAC, usually in official clusters. The Chinese were mystified by my presence on that San Francisco-Shanghai flight twenty years ago. They were unaccustomed to seeing a young woman flying alone, and it was evident later that they were suspicious about the purpose of my trip.

Well, there was no mystery: Shanghai had a special hold over me and I knew one day I would make that visit. Let me explain: although born in San Francisco, I was u201Cconceivedu201D in Shanghai. That fact was as much a part of me as the color of my eyes.

Like many victims of Hitler’s Third Reich, my parents were slow to accept the reality of how dangerous it was for them to remain in Germany.  

Finally, in 1938, my father made the decision to flee; to abandon home and business, knowing he would never see them again. It was time to survive, to begin a new life.

My father soon learned the planet had slammed all doors shut to European Jews on the run. The solitary exception, at that moment in time was Shanghai. And even though China itself was in turmoil, threatened with civil strife and war with Japan, my father managed to overcome every obstacle and move his immediate family to their new beginnings in Shanghai.

As the most Europeanized city in China, Shanghai had been dubbed the u201CParis of the East.u201D About a half-century earlier the colonial powers had forced u201Cconcessionsu201D from the Chinese government, and the city was carved up into European-style enclaves.

My 1985 trip to Shanghai was not just a sentimental journey. After all, my parents had lived in that exotic mixture of east and west from 1938 until 1947, yet I knew little of what their lives were like. The visit to Shanghai might help me understand them better. 

After several months in Shanghai, my father (and his sister and their parents) opened Elite Fashion, a little storefront business that manufactured silk blouses similar to those the family had made in Berlin. Successful from the outset, Elite Fashion employed both European refugees and local Chinese as sewing-machine operators.   

As a youngster, rummaging through the family’s archives, I found a photograph of Omia, a young Chinese woman, who worked at Elite Fashion. In the photo she is wearing a Chinese-style, tight-fitting dress. The brief note on the back of the picture made it clear that this vital young woman was more than an employee. Omia had become part of the family. Decades later, my parents still had her address, as if retaining it kept alive the hope of seeing Omia again.

Omia’s fate was important to me. Had she survived Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution, I wondered. If so, had she exchanged her fashionable clothes for the baggy jacket and pants uniform worn by the slaves of Chairman Mao?  I had to know.

If she was alive, I would find her, but I needed help.  

There were perks working for Time Magazine. I had just ended a stint at their San Francisco news bureau. This gave me access to Time people throughout the world. The Hong Kong bureau chief arranged to have a young Chinese woman in Shanghai act as my interpreter and guide.   

  This is where Omia lived in Shanghai.  

After recovering from the sixteen-hour CAAC flight, I met my guide, Miss Li, in the lobby of the hotel. She let me know that her last client was Margaret Thatcher. (Now, I don’t know if u201Ctheyu201D thought I was somebody special, but if being special meant that they searched your things in the hotel room, I guess I was special.)

Could Miss Li help me find Omia? I showed her the address, and in less than an hour we stood before a depressing collection of compact huts, made of concrete or cinderblock. I peeked inside one and noted cooking utensils hanging on the wall, but little else. These people were very poor.

Miss Li directed her questions to the u201CBlock Leader.u201D

Is this where Omia lived? Is she alive? If so, where is she now?

The Block Leader’s answer lacked emotion as did Miss Li’s translation. Omia had been murdered during the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Her crime? Contact with Europeans.  That was it.  Under Mao’s paranoid regime, knowing foreigners made you a spy.   

Upon returning to San Francisco, I was surprised at how curious people were about Red China. I was bombarded with the usual questions: How was the food? Do the hotel rooms have toilets? How are women treated?

My impressions were well received, that is until I began to tell them about the murderer Chairman Mao. It was as though someone had thrown a switch. Their eyes would glaze over and whatever I said from that point fell on deaf ears. To many, particularly my media associates, the Chairman was given an historical u201Cpass.u201D

u201CStalin and Hitler were the really bad guys. Mao was basically a reformer. He significantly improved the plight of the Chinese peasants,u201D they said.

Earlier this year I found a magnificent book that explodes the myths about the u201Cloveable, rotund Land Reformer, Chairman Mao.u201D

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Knopf 2005. Reviewed by June Morrall and Burton S Blumert

Like a bolt of lightening, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece Gulag Archipelago, published in 1974, destroyed in an instant, over 50 years of lies and deceit about the Soviet Union and its leaders. Stalin would never again be seen as kindly Uncle Joe, but as a ruthless killer of millions.

Some scholars suggest that it was Solzhenitsyn’s revelations that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union rather than Ronald Reagan’s strategy of u201Cspending the u2018evil empire’ into oblivion.u201D

Like the u201CGulag,u201D we finally have this extraordinary work by Jung Chang and husband Jon Halliday that will forever end the web of lies that has insulated Chairman Mao from his true place in history as the worst murderer the world has known.

Mao: The Unknown Story is a step-by-step guide to how this evil man used terror as a tool to subjugate every Chinese citizen. Fear of a horrible, slow death, torture and humiliation silenced every voice. Only what the Chairman said or thought mattered.

You must read this book.

It wasn’t fashionable to criticize Mao in the West, particularly in the US. In San Francisco’s Chinatown, only the local Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party, attacked Mao and they were marginalized as u201Creactionaries.u201D

During the hippie era of the 1960s, in many households, Mao’s Little Red Book was a popular Christmas Stocking stuffer. Mao was thought of as a modern Confucius, a gentle peasant who had freed China from its corrupt warlords.

Was it the media that promoted this false image about the worst tyrant who ever lived? It’s time to know the real Mao.

You must read this book.  

Clearly the authors despise Mao, so it was essential that they support their 650-page treatise with an additional 200 pages of meticulously researched notes. Not just scholarly citations, but countless interviews with people who worked for, or otherwise knew Mao personally, and survived the violence of his regime. The notes also include many official documents that have not been seen in the West before.    

Mao wanted to impress Stalin and modeled his state after that killer-thug. He then proceeded to u201Cone-upu201D his Soviet teacher. Stalin would wait for the right moment to use violence and treachery against his enemies.  Mao was brazen and did not need a timetable. He used torture and murder on a daily basis to control fellow communists.

Chairman Mao made it known that his tactics were never on holiday. Often his punishment was meted out in front of huge crowds. This was certain to spread the news quickly. u201CWatch out! Everyone is a potential spy. And you could be next.u201D

The masses were easy to control. He simply starved them to death.   

In the end, Mao had either killed or imprisoned, or sent to work camps so many of his former officials that he had run out of credible bureaucrats to run the day-to-day business of government.

He had no choice but to u201Crehabilitateu201D some that he had purged earlier, like the u201CCapitalist Roader,u201D Deng Xiao-ping. These men hated Mao, and the Chairman made a critical error in underestimating how they would undermine him as his health began to fail.

Most interesting was the revelation that the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek (who later fled to Taiwan) was thwarted in his earlier negotiations with Mao because the Soviets were holding Chiang’s son "hostage." By appeasing Stalin and Mao, Chiang hoped he would get his son back.

During his reign of terror, Mao forced the peasants to grow huge amounts of wheat and eggs and other foodstuffs to give to Stalin in return for technical information on how to build The Bomb. Mao starved his already poverty-stricken people and conducted public executions if quotas were not met. Business as usual for Chairman Mao.

Mao turned the country into one big concentration camp and he was the gatekeeper, allowing in selected outsiders, controlling what they saw so that when they returned home they would glorify what the Chairman had accomplished for his people.

Mao had little difficulty locating western media whores who would promote the lies about Mao and life in Red China and spread them like a deadly virus. There should be a special place in Hell for these people.

If there is a deficiency in this book, Mao: the Unknown Story, it is that after hundreds of pages outlining Mao’s unspeakable cruelty, the reader becomes numb and desensitized. The fault is not the author’s, but with the endless crush of evidence present.

As an antidote to becoming desensitized, keep in mind that this is not about a madman like Pol Pot. Mao may, in fact, match the crazed Cambodian in savagery. But, there’s a major difference; Today, Pol Pot, often considered a protg of Mao’s, is a statistic in the World List of Lunatics, while Mao retains his place as a great figure in world history. This remains true 20 years after the Chairman’s death. Well, until this Chang and Halliday masterpiece.

You must read this book.

Here are some tidbits from Mao: The Unknown Story:

• A conservative estimate is that 70 million perished — in peacetime — as a result of Mao’s misrule.

• During the famous, u201CLong March,u201D rather than trudging along with the troops, Mao reclined in an elaborate u201Clitteru201D weighted down with his favorite books and other comforts, all carried by peasants forced to perform like pack animals.

• Mao spent about US$4.1 billion to create a Chinese atomic bomb. That money if spent on food would have saved the 38 million Chinese lives lost in the famine.

In a recent TV ad promoting the 2008 Summer Olympic Games to be held in Beijing, China, the camera focussed on what appears to be Tiananmen Square. In the center of the screen, lo and behold, is a giant portrait of the despicable Chairman Mao.

Why do nations continue to show reverence for their tyrants?

Yes an economic miracle is taking place in today’s China. The by-product of such an explosion is always freedom. China is a long way from being a totally free society, but, if this book, Mao: The Unknown Story, leads to the Mao portraits finally being torn down, that will be a giant symbolic stride towards individual freedom in China.

And maybe in other countries as well.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

June Morrall [send her mail] was a stringer for Time and Newsweek during the early 1980s. She is a Northern California historian and was a regular contributor to the San Mateo County Times and the Half Moon Bay Review. She has published two books.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

As a kid growing up in the frigid northeast, winter seemed without end. Any small sign of spring was dashed by the inevitable "surprise" snowstorm in early March. But there was one infallible symbol of spring’s inevitability,

"Baseball’s Spring Training camps open in Florida," blared the sport’s pages.

The headlines were reinforced with photographs of overweight pitchers and catchers descending upon sun-drenched fields. (They always came first.)

Baseball is a metaphor for renewal, for hope and optimism. As the fresh season nears, even last year’s losers start without a blemish, tied for first place. After all, look what the Boston Red Sox did last year.

To most New Yorkers in the 1940s and 50s, Florida was a mysterious paradise, with palm trees yet. The flocks of "snow-birds" migrating south was a decade or two away and Arizona had not yet been discovered by baseball’s moguls as a spring training alternative to southern Florida.

To most easterners Arizona was a place they sent you if you had trouble breathing.

Fans from small market cities like Milwaukee and Kansas City may never see their teams in a playoff, but, for those few weeks before the games start to count, they shed the loser’s mask and dare to believe this will be their year.

Such is the joy of baseball in the spring.

But not this year.

STEROIDS

Major League baseball initiated a steroid testing program last week. Nobody showed much enthusiasm. The Player’s Union has always been wary of any such testing, and the owners’ primary concern remains "counting the house."

Commissioner "Bud" Selig, seemed near nausea at the press conference announcing Baseball’s great need to cleanse the game of "performance enhancing" drugs. This was the party line, and Selig was faithful to the script,

Everybody knows what’s going on here. This is a media generated fraud.

Baseball has no steroid problem!

BLUMERT’S BEAUTIFUL WIFE (BBW) "Did I hear right? You’ll get 10,000 angry e-mails on that one. Why do I suspect that Barry Bonds has something to do with all of this?"

As I patiently explained to my dear wife: steroids can have a critical impact on people who are "jerking and lifting 500 pounds," or, racing 100 yards in less than 10 seconds. To such folks a jolt of steroid juice could make a difference.

Those 300-pound behemoths that put on body armor for three hours every Sunday and are called "Linemen," can also be beneficiaries of a visit from the friendly "vitamin" dealer.

But not Major League baseball players. They would never benefit from the use of steroids over a 162-game season. Baseball is a slow, measured game. Things can get excruciatingly tense, but rarely is there need for an explosion of effort that would be abetted by a stab of steroids in the butt.

The media people know this. If they are appalled, yet fascinated by the use of steroids, let them spend their time monitoring Track and Field. They can compete for Pulitzer prizes every 4 years at the Olympics where there are enough "dopers" to go around.

Allow me to dwell a moment on that great American, the "sports writer." Most were nerds at college, jealous of the "jocks" they would later report about, hating them all the while. By temperament, they would be better suited writing obituaries.

My wife was right about one thing; Barry Bonds is the real target of the media’s attack on steroids and baseball. We know the media despises Bonds (see "All Baseball Players Are Mortal — Even Barry Bonds" and "Barry Bonds: The Baseball Superstar the Media Love To Hate") and this was their grand opportunity to mortally wound him.

"Bonds is a u2018cheater’ and an asterisk should be placed next to every one of his records," whine the media pygmies. Some of Bonds’s more vociferous critics would have his name expunged from the Record Book entirely.

Bonds has remained indifferent to the years of image-hammering the media has conducted. He’s done little off the baseball diamond to win friends and influence others. A charmer he’s not.

This may explain why people who should know better have succumbed to the media’s scurrilous attack on Barry’s accomplishments.

One absurd example is that steroids have enlarged Barry’s head by several hat sizes. You mean there are muscles on the skin side of the skull?

Maybe Bonds knew the "clear" he rubbed on his knees was an illicit substance; maybe not, but 2005 is his 20th year in the Major Leagues. For those who have been suckered by the media and would give credit to chemicals for his assault on Baseball’s hallowed records, I submit this brief overview of his career; what follows are Bonds’ production for his first 15 years and the last 5 (steroid years?):

– First 15 Years Last 5 Years Base Hits 2010   720   Stolen Bases 460   46   Bases on Ball 1430   872   Home Runs 445   258   Strike Outs 1112   316   All Star 9   4   MVP 3   4   Golden Glove 8   0  

To the non- or casual baseball fan they may be just numbers, but to those of us weaned on baseball statistics, these are the "stats" of a super superstar.

Is Barry Bonds the best baseball player ever? I don’t know, but it’s the sort of debate that links the generations. Don’t let the loathsome media poison the well.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

"We’re going to see Million Dollar Baby on Tuesday and The Aviator on Thursday. I want to see these movies NOW, not on TV in 2008."

When my dear wife begins to sound like her mother, I know thereu2018s no room for negotiations.

"And, there’s no room for negotiations on this one, Blumert."

"But, we were at the movies just last month," I responded without much hope.

"Last month? It was the summer of 2003 and we saw Seabiscuit. How could you forget? Yours was the only review that panned that wonderful movie. The people at Bay Meadows Race Track, Seabiscuit’s u2018home,’ were so offended that they actually considered barring you from their track."

"Just another example of the Power Elite suppressing dissenting views, but that’s history, and my present concern is dealing with two movies in one week. I have an idea. Let’s see them at the Drive-In. At least we can have a beer and a burger while watching, and if the movie drags a bit, I can take a nap. That Drive-In just south of Candlestick Park is my favorite."

"The last Drive-In anywhere near San Francisco was mothballed by 1991. Get with it, Blumert. We’re going to see Million Dollar Baby on Tuesday at the Cinema 12 Multiplex in the Mall and on Thursday, The Aviator is playing at the new Cinema 47 Megaplex, downtown San Francisco. We will be there."

"Look, it’s not that I don’t enjoy Clint Eastwood and DiCaprio, it’s the multi- and mega- atrocities they call theatres that I despise. They remind me of bus stations, where finding your movie is like locating the platform your bus departs from.”

In the old days, going to the movies was something special. It hardly mattered what film was showing. An evening at your neighborhood movie house was a social event. When I went I never failed to encounter neighbors and school chums. On special occasions, we went “downtown” to the “Roxy,” or “Paramount.” They were breathtaking examples of Hollywood’s Golden Age; magnificent movie palaces of the sort found in almost every major urban center. (A few have been restored, like the Paramount in Oakland, California.)

At New York City’s Paramount in the late 1930s and early ’40s, the customer was treated to more than a First Run movie. You got an Organ Recital AND a star-studded variety show. This was my first taste of "live" entertainment. There they were, I could almost touch them: Louis Armstrong, Danny Kaye, and Sinatra creating memories that endured a lifetime.

Back to reality and Tuesday at the Cinema 12 Multiplex. As my wife had predicted, there we were, standing in the ticket line.

"Don’t forget to tell them that we want to see Million Dollar Baby in Theatre #7 and that you get a senior’s discount," my wife reminded. On a past occasion, I had forgotten which movie we came to see, panicked when asked, bought the wrong ticket and suffered through Disney’s 101 Dalmatians, engulfed by screaming, microbe-infested children.

Our fellow ticket buyers were grim-faced. If you didn’t know otherwise, you’d think we were all waiting in line for a flu shot.

Built in the late 1960s, Cinema 12 was an early multiplex and like many similar across the nation, located near a Regional Shopping Center. I’m no construction maven, but I suspect that they were all slapped together cheaply and quickly.

The Men’s Room was too small; the popcorn too expensive ($4 for a small bucket) and the butter-like substance squirted on the popcorn, close to rancid. The candy bars offered came in super jumbo size only, at super jumbo prices, and every soft drink dispensed was different than the one before or after.

"Small, medium or large," the youngster asked, pointing to varied red plastic cups.

"Can I get a bottle of Coke instead of that thing you’re mixing back there?" I snickered.

Her answer exposed me as a pretentious horse’s rear-end.

"Gee, sir, I don’t know if we have those, but I’ll ask my manager.

We finally located the small room they called "Theatre # 7," which was showing "Million Dollar Baby." It was so dark that we nervously groped our way looking for empty seats. In the process I stepped on one fellow’s foot and almost sat on his wife.

Fortunately, there was little danger of falling down as our shoes were glued to the floor by a sticky, sugary substance that is a nuisance to the moviegoer, but a deadly trap for small animals.

Local gossip has it that Cinema 12 is scheduled for demolition, and if true, it’s not a moment too soon.

"Don’t despair, Blumert. On Thursday, we see The Aviator at the brand new Megaplex in San Francisco. People are raving about the place."

They’re “raving," huh? Well, nobody’s asked, but here is my critique of that monstrosity; the most unusual aspect of watching a movie at the Megaplex is that you might be 800 feet above street level. As Tony Bennett might put it, you’re "half way to the stars."

The facility is built vertically, with each of the 4 levels connected by hundreds of feet of escalator. As we ground our way up to level 4, I couldn’t shake the mental image of being a patron at the Megaflex 47 during an 8.5 earthquake.

The tub of popcorn is $6; the candy bars the most expensive in town and the fancy European-style coffee house, a resounding dud. We had our coffee and biscuits across the street at Starbucks after the show.

"I hate to admit it, Blumert, but I totally agree with your opinions about these dismal modern movie factories and how much more we enjoyed our neighborhood theatres."

"Hold everything. I’ve got to get that on tape. Having you agree with me on anything qualifies for the archives."

From the 1920s through the ’50s every small town in America had a movie theatre on Main Street. In the larger cities, each neighborhood had its own version.

They are all gone; disappeared from the face of the earth. Well, almost all gone. San Francisco had 45 neighborhood movie houses through the early 1950s. Remarkably, 12 still exist. The unusual cultural make-up of San Francisco’s neighborhoods may account for this anomaly, but that analysis is for another day.

Growing up in my neighborhood in New York City, the Waldorf Theatre was our entertainment Mecca. Any kid who could raise the 10 or 25-cent admission showed up for the Saturday matinee.

We got our money’s worth: an Errol Flynn swashbuckler and a Jean Arthur comedy, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, a Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers chapter episode with the superhero facing sure death every week only to survive at the beginning of next Saturday’s Chapter, a black and white Newsreel, hosted by the avuncular Lowell Thomas that even entertained the kids — and "Coming Attractions" that gave moviegoers a peek into next week’s thrills and spills.

You could sit through the Saturday matinee show 3 times if you managed to avoid the dreaded "Matron." She wore a white nurse’s uniform and was armed with a large metal flashlight that she’d shine on a guilty kid’s face with uncanny precision. She ferreted out those who had been there too long and swiftly rotated them through the exit door. They were not to be seen again until next Saturday.

At some point the more adventurous filmgoer started to cross neighborhood boundary lines and tasted the flavor of another neighborhood’s movie house. In order to keep their old customers and attract new ones, every theater manager became intensely competitive.

The "free set of dishes" promotion caught on fast across the nation. You’d buy a ticket for a movie and get a free glass dish. If you went to 72 movies you could build a complete set. If you missed a week, you might be short a butter dish. Acquiring one wasn’t easy.

I don’t recall many of the movies that I saw at the Waldorf, but I’ll never forget Camille (1936) starring the mysterious Swedish beauty, Greta Garbo. It was a tragic love story and not the sort of movie suited for an 8-year-old. I don’t know what I was doing there, but it was clear mother wanted me next to her.

Garbo’s Camille lies near death from consumption. Her lover, played by Robert Taylor, handsome as a god, conceals his grief at her bedside. The men in the audience suppressed their tears but the women were openly sobbing. At that heart-wrenching moment, my mother’s free soup dish slipped out of my hand and crashed to the floor. The sound of shattering glass resonated throughout the theater. I thought I would never breathe again.

Lew Rockwell tells me that today some of these cheap old dishes fetch big bucks on eBay.

As usual my wife summed up: "Well you’ve told us about grand movie palaces, neighborhood theaters and your childhood — but you never said a word about Million Dollar Baby or The Aviator.

Ok, here’s my review: The Aviator is a technically brilliant depiction of aviation history, and Howard Hughes’s significant part in it. Beautifully acted, although a bit long, the film focused too much on some of the negative aspects of Howard Hughes’s life.

As for Million Dollar Baby, Hilary Swank’s work will be remembered as one of the finest performances EVER.

You’d better see them both.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

I know I’ve had too much when the Thunderbird Industrial Red the host bought at $4 per gallon begins to taste like a rare French Bordeaux.

Like most cocktail receptions, the idle chatter around me was typical, but that all changed when the young woman smiled and said, with obvious respect and affection,

"Mr. Blumert, I’m so pleased to see that you’re still around."

When she realized her unfortunate choice of words, the poor thing was horror stricken and ready to die on the spot.

Those close by pretended they’d heard nothing, and I should have followed their lead, but not me. I had to save the day,

"Well, I really died two years ago, but I haven’t had the good sense to lay down."

Nobody laughed and I was astonished to see my wife able to roll her eyes with such intensity.

This was not the first occasion where my advancing years had caused discomfort for others.

There was the time I showed up a day early for a dinner party. (The hostess was very kind about the mix-up and insisted upon fixing me a ham and cheese sandwich.)

My wife says that I have worn the story out, retelling it to the same people at 100 dinner parties ever since.

She exaggerates, and fails to mention that these folks are also ageing, that they don’t remember much, and that they laugh each time I tell the story as though it were the first.

If you need hard evidence that not everybody is loving and patient with the aged, observe how abrupt and mean-spirited some family members become as Grandpa’s hearing fails. (When I lost patience with my own father’s refusal to use a hearing aid, he responded, "So you think I’m deaf, huh? Well, drop a coin and see who’s first to hear it hit the floor.")

Some sociologists believe that you learn a great deal about a culture by examining their attitudes towards the aged. Some societies come out better than others, but, I assure you, the elderly have a tough time of it in EVERY society.

It doesn’t matter how lofty the accomplishments of a person’s life, if they live long enough, eventually, they will encounter disrespect.

Worse, live into your 90′s and you run the risk of outright cruelty at the hands of the “low-level” types who comprise the work force in many "retirement" institutions.

Even those expensive, "Assisted Living Residences" that look like a country club hide dirty little secrets of cruelties visited upon helpless old folk.

All of which set me to thinking about how different societies in different times dealt with their old and sick.

In an earlier, more gracious time, 19th century American composer Stephen Foster (1826—1864) sentimentalized about, "The Old Folks at Home":

Way down upon de Swanee ribber, Far, far away, Dere’s wha my heart is turning ebber, Dere’s wha de old folks stay.

All up and down de whole creation, Sadly I roam, Still longing for de old plantation, And for de old folks at home.

Through the 19th century in America, the burden of caring for the elderly was a family matter. For those without family support, society looked to charity for assistance. The neighborhood church was usually the focal point for such help.

In the early years of the 20th century, in many American cities, the churches began to provide institutional support for the elderly. Almost every religious denomination had its version of a "Home For the Aged."

A close friend was a career social worker with Catholic Family Services in the San Francisco Bay area. He was one of those tireless professionals who genuinely helped real folks dealing with life’s real problems.

One of Bill’s fellow workers called him, " A priest without collar or credential for those who didn’t attend a regular church."

During the 1980s things changed. It seemed like the private charities were having "jurisdictional" problems with various government agencies. The "private sector " social workers didn’t have a chance and they were losing ground to the government "commissars" by the minute.

It wasn’t much later that Bill quit social work. I recall his comment that, "when the elderly were designated as ‘Senior CITIZENS’, their lives were doomed to domination by the state, just as what happened to the u2018citizens’ during the French Revolution." (Everybody was called, "citizen," even as your head was lopped off.)

A visit to Google and the San Francisco phone books reveal that the Private Sector of charities, although shrunken, still exist and do good work, BUT the bloated leviathan of state agencies will smother them until they are extinct.

There are optimists out there who look to advances in science and medicine to alleviate the pain and misery of being old. I wish I could share the view that the market, through science, will create "Golden Years" for the elderly, but I wouldn’t bet a dime on it. Not as long as the bureaucrats infect the entire system.

Well, is there anywhere in the world where the old are revered and treated with respect? I don’t think so.

The Chinese are supposed to dote on their aged. Maybe they did a few dynasties ago, but I fear they are just as callous with the aged as their occidental counterparts. At least that’s the way it seems in San Francisco.

I doubt if anybody really believes that the Eskimos abandon their elderly on a chunk of ice. It’s a heartless piece of mythology, but at the center of it, is there an underlying integrity?

After all, the folks they deposit on the ice are old, unproductive, sick, and not long for this world. It seems pointless to expend scarce resources on them. Resources that can be better used elsewhere. (Or so it seemed when I was a Randian, and a young one at that!)

"Your piece is a downer, Blumert," chided my wife. "People don’t want to hear about getting old, getting sick and dying. Lighten up, or Rockwell will u2018deep-six’ it.

"Don’t forget he wouldn’t take your calls for three months after that article you did on u2018The Inca Indians and Their Influence on Suicide in the West.’"

Well, as I always say, "When reality is too grim, try fiction."

In the 1937 Frank Capra film, Lost Horizon, the world was introduced to Shangri-La.

Robert Conway, played by Ronald Colman, leads a group of plane crash survivors from certain death in the frigid mountains of Tibet to a perfect valley called Shangri-La.

Shangri-La is paradise, but eventually we learn that the place has its problems. I won’t spoil the movie for you by telling everything, but I can say that "Lost Horizon" presents the best fictional example of a society dealing with ageing by putting it on "hold."

It just so happens that my favorite Star Trek episode, The Menagerie, Episode 16, Season 1, takes a different approach. This Gene Roddenberry masterpiece solves the problem of ageing and other disasters through a combination of science and mysticism.

In "The Menagerie," former Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike is severely injured from exposure to delta rays. The Captain’s mind is prisoner to his broken body.

Mr. Spock had served under Pike for many years and at the risk of being charged with mutiny, is determined to bring Pike to Talos 4, a planet off-limits to Federation spacecraft.

The Talosians, after losing a war several thousand years earlier, developed illusion and telepathy to a remarkable degree.

The plot is intricate, but Spock knows that the Talosians have the ability through illusion to put Captain Pike "back together."

The court martial committee exonerates Mr. Spock and Captain Pike is left on Telos, finally free of his disfigured body, to live a perfect life of illusion.

Good science fiction puts me in a reflective mood. What would a life of illusion on Telos be like, I wondered?

My reverie was penetrated by my wife’s pronouncement that,

"There are two people at the front door asking for Blumert. They look like Eskimos and are talking about a reservation you have somewhere in the Bering Sea. What’s that all about? And, what shall I tell them?"

It’s clear that I have enemies on the "Eskimo Ice-Floe Selection Committee." Tell them I’ve already booked the Motel 6 in Shangri-La and to buzz-off.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

The passengers carried the Captain and crew on their shoulders cheering and popping bottles of cheap Champagne as they disembarked the plane. They were followed by grim-faced stretcher-bearers rushing away the wounded.

The clean-up crew, wearing gas masks, prepared to board the aircraft and clear the debris. When they were done, our exhausted group of passengers for Flight 666 was finally ready to board.

This flight did not look promising.

Bad things had begun earlier in the terminal when I was "randomly selected" for special security clearance.

BLUMERT: "Why do you guys always pick on me? You see that I’m too old for this terrorism business. My bomb-throwing days are well behind me."

(The mere mention of the word "bomb" triggered sirens and the release of snarling German shepherds. They would have surely eaten me, but someone decided I was more valuable alive.)

TURBAN WEARING AGENT (TWA); "To paraphrase George W., either you’re with us, or you’re with them. Which is it?"

BLUMERT; " Can I have my shoes, please? My feet are getting cold and the last time I caught Athlete’s Foot from your filthy floors. Are you finally done with me?"

TWA: "Yes, but you will be on probation for the next 60 days.

You will report to the FreeRepublic website every fortnight and I advise that you give up eating halvah. It may be delicious, but it’s un-American.

Finally, it would be wise if you forgot about wearing that ridiculous Lawrence of Arabia costume you exhibit every Halloween.

Find an American costume in which to do your u2018trick or treating.’ "

BLUMERT; "Alright already. This year I’ll go as George Patton."

Back at Gate 12, we passengers of Flight 666 fought our way onto the plane. I thought my luck had changed as I plopped into an unoccupied window seat.

How could I know that I was soon to be in charge of the Emergency Exit?

The Captain, swore me in using a King James version of the Bible, gave me a 48- page pamphlet outlining my duties, and then strapped a slightly used WWII parachute onto my back.

"You’re in charge of that Emergency Exit Door, Blumert," said the Captain. "You’ve never once shown up for Jury Duty when called. Well, here’s another opportunity for you to serve."

I could feel the glaring eyes of my fellow passengers. I was determined to win their respect.

Things brightened when the Flight Attendants started to serve lunch. This time, I would beat the system. "Order a kosher lunch," the travel experts recommended. "You won’t get the same tired fare," they said.

Well, I got the same tired ham and cheese sandwich as everybody else, only mine was in a wrapper with Golda Meir’s picture on it.

The fellow next to me had ordered vegetarian. His ham and cheese sandwich wrapper had a picture of a cauliflower.

We all munched in silence.

The reality of air travel these days is hardly less absurd than the above.

Southwest and America West may be the only money-making airlines in the nation. In fact, they may soon be the ONLY airlines in the nation.

Just as Kaiser Permanente became the model for today’s HMOs in providing minimal levels of medical care, so Southwest and America West have established standards (or should I say sub-standards) to the misery of the air travel consumer.

Southwest ticket holders are given Boarding Passes, but no assigned seats. This is part of the "success" of Southwest. Get those seats filled. No frills, no comfort.

There are three categories of Boarding Passes, A, B, and C. Which you get depends on how early you arrived at the ticket counter. A’s board first and so on.

Getting on board early means a place for your bag in the compartment above your seat. Getting on board early means avoiding the middle seat between two 300-pound garlic eaters.

The flight would only last an hour and twenty minutes, but I waited almost that long to protect my "turf" in line B.

There is a democratic aspect to current and future air travel. Everybody is in steerage.

The fear that kept people from flying after 9/11 appears to have vanished. The terminals are jammed with travelers. They seem numb, surly if approached, but they’re not afraid. At the airport, even fear has been stamped out.

Going through Security used to engender outrage and archives filled with horror stories. A genre of gallows humor developed and we laughed while we shared our humiliations at the hands of the security buffoons.

"I can top that," said the office comedian. "I had to explain why I wasn’t wearing underwear and the security clerk hardly spoke English," he recounted, to roars of laughter.

Maybe it’s since the feds took over the job, but there’s an attitude at Security which says, "there is nothing humorous going on here."

Say the magic "woid" and you’ll wind up in jail. Try, "box cutter," or "9/11," or, "I remember a time when you just walked to the gate and boarded the plane, without being set upon by bozos."

There’s no illusion that anybody is safer for "their efforts." The purpose is to compress the passenger into a silent, obedient and docile lump.

"Since our flight is two hours from now, let’s have some lunch," my wife suggested, recognizing my blackening mood. "Look," she said, " All the fast food restaurants are here now."

She was right. They were all there: Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried, even Nathan’s Hot dogs from New York. I don’t remember airports having all the national fast food chains on site.

I’m not a big fan of these great American dining institutions, but, they are predictable in what they deliver.

Not at the airport! Their prices were higher than in the outside world and the food was markedly inferior.

"Blumert, you’re on the brink of some conspiracy theory," she said, pretending that her slice of pizza was edible.

I made it sound as if I had some facts when I told her, "Look, almost all fast food places are operated by franchisers, small business men who try their best to provide a decent product. Who knows who is running these dumps at the airport?"

Maybe I guessed right.

I wanted to tell you about what happened at the Car Rental place in Phoenix, but the Judge said we can’t discuss the case until after the trial.

I can tell you that I had ordered a luxury car and they delivered the winning vehicle from a Demolition Derby.

They’re not getting away with it.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

"Sgt. Preston from the Sheriff’s Department on line 4 for Blumert," my secretary trilled. I’d never heard her page me with such joy.

What could they possibly want?

It’s folk lore that your entire life flashes before you when faced with imminent death. Getting a call from the sheriff’s department isn’t quite that serious, but my brain conjured up every horrible reason why they wanted me:

Could it be that parking ticket I got in Las Vegas in 1991 that was “lost” and never paid?

No, there is a statute of limitations on old parking tickets and they must have known that I lost $800 on that trip. Anyway, Las Vegas would never use the sheriff’s department to collect a debt.

Oh Lord, now I know, it was the Gore Vidal speech I attended in San Francisco last year. The creep next to me was surely CIA and, like a dummy, I spent the entire evening establishing my anti-war credentials.

He still would never have remembered me, but "old swifty" Blumert made sure to give him a business card.

No, this is still America. They don’t drag you away because you listened to a speech and tried to sell a gold coin to a CIA agent. Not yet.

"Face it, Blumert," I said to myself. "You know damn well why they want you. It’s because of LRC and those ridiculous articles you write attacking doctors, Rudy, and almost every sacred aspect of contemporary American culture. Well, you’ve finally gone too far and now they’re coming to get you."

That’s ridiculous. Why would they want me? I’m too much trouble. I need a nap every afternoon, and at 3:00 PM there’s a chat group on line that expects to hear from the "Freedom Stud." They could never take me away from all that.

This was false bravado. I was panicked. My fingers quivered as I grasped the phone.

BLUMERT: "Sgt. Preston, I would like to serve my time in the federal prison near Palm Springs. Do you know if an inmate can have a low-carb menu? And like Martha, I’d like to start this Monday and get it over with."

SGT. PRESTON: "Gee, Mr. Blumert, as far as I know the food is better in San Quentin, but the reason I’m calling is to see if we can count on you for 4 tickets for the Sheriff’s Department Annual Square Dance. Can I stop by and pick up a $100 check right now?"

BLUMERT: "Who is this? Sgt, Preston? You sound like a child. In fact, you sound like my paper boy, Billy Preston."

SGT. PRESTON: "It’s me, Billy. I started on the phones as a lowly Officer on Thursday and I got my Sgt’s stripes yesterday when I sold 400 tickets to the Square Dance.

"It’s amazing how frightened people are when I call and how easy it is to sell them tickets. A few more sales and I’ll be up for Lieutenant.

“When can I come by to pick up a check?

BLUMERT: "Billy, I’ll take 8 tickets if you promise not to mention any of this to my wife when you deliver the paper tomorrow morning."

I grind my teeth when I take a call from a tele-marketing "slickster." I suppose they have a place in this world and I oppose any government restrictions on their activities (unless they’re outright crooks). But they sure get under my skin.

On most occasions I won’t take their calls. But sometimes I get trapped and I’ll decide to challenge them — you never win. (See Billy Preston above.) After all, they have a wealth of experience in overcoming the lame protests from their phone victims. The longer the conversation, the weaker my resolve, so I’ve devised an exit strategy.

It goes something like this: "My wife won’t let me talk to you anymore."

It almost always works. Either they have a wife like that themselves, or they feel so much sympathy that they click off, leaving me to my miseries.

In the old days setting up a "boiler room" to sell securities, collectibles, swamp land, or "worthy causes" was expensive and time consuming.

Obtaining "hard-lined" phone equipment and getting on line was a major project. The phone companies, anxious for new business, generally managed to push the order along, while remaining oblivious to the true activities of the "new customer."

Next, the "boiler-room" needed people to man the phones. Rounding up an experienced team of "tele-marketers" wasn’t easy. It often meant scouring cheap hotels and other haunts of the "specialty salesman."

They had to get the word out that "here was a new pitch to separate folks from their money." The salesmen came from all points, answering the siren’s call.

Things are different now.

Technology has altered the world of the tele-marketing scam. No "boiler room" needed, no phone banks necessary. The tele-marketing enterprise can be reduced to a series of $49 cell phones, located anywhere and changed as frequently as underwear.

The cell phone is the magic key into the land of limitless victims.

The tele-marketing salesman can be operating from Calcutta, or even from prison.

There may be legitimate tele-marketing operations, but how does the consumer know the difference? I’d like to believe that the "market" will weed out the bad apples.

Meanwhile, it’s prudent to avoid ALL tele-marketers, but if one of these phone slicksters gets you, don’t feel too stupid. It happens to the best of us.

By the way, can I interest you in some tickets to the Sheriff’s Square Dance?

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

The dialogue was all too familiar:

BLUMERT: No, I don’t need an appointment with Dr. Kaloofka (see: "I Hate Doctors"). All I do need is for you to call Walgreen’s with a prescription for Vandoors, I don’t recognize your voice, but I’m a long-time patient. Please check your files.

VOICE FROM HELL (V FROM H): Yes, Mr. Blumert and as long as I have you on the phone, let’s spend a minute bringing your file up-to-date. Here goes:

Are you still a proponent of Midwifery, Health Food stores, Chiropractic and other zany cultlike activities?

Are you still overweight and slovenly?

BLUMERT: Hold it! I don’t have time for this nonsense. What else is in that file of yours?

V FROM H: Your file reveals that we have prescribed Vandoors 6 times over the past 8 years. Have you become addicted to Vandoors, Mr. Blumert? We are constantly on the alert for drug abuse. Have you considered seeking help?

BLUMERT: My dear Miss Who-ever-you-are, Vandoors is a skin ointment which combats warts. I no longer choose to speak to you. Would you kindly ask Dr. Kaloofka to come to the phone immediately.

V FROM H: Yes, I now see it on your chart. Warts. Tee hee, I’ve never heard of anybody having warts on—

BLUMERT: Enough! In less than 12 minutes I will be arriving at the doctor’s office.

Have my file ready for me to pick up and if you are still around when I get there, it’s likely I will strangle you with my bare hands.

V FROM H: Oh, don’t be such a grouch. I was only trying to be friendly. I’ll call Walgreen’s right now and I hope you get rid of those warts. Tee hee. You must laugh out loud every time you think about them.

BLUMERT: Keep in mind that a physician has a privileged relationship with his patient. That extends to his dizzy receptionist as well. So, just forget about my warts.

V FROM H: OK, I’ll only tell my husband, I promise. By the way, Dr. Kaloofka has you scheduled for your annual medical check-up on October 9. Remember, no food or water for one week prior to the exam.

BLUMERT (beaten): I’ll be there.

EPILOG

Life is filled with petty indignities as above. To maintain sanity and longevity, one must build defenses: "Know your own worth," "Brush the cretins off," "Consider the source," "Don’t be marginalized by midgets." (I just made that one up.)

So fortified, I only spent two days in bed after the confrontation with the V FROM H.

Friends and enemies alike are dazzled with such resiliency.

THE ANNUAL MEDICAL CHECK-UP (AMC-up)

I must admit, thinking about my scheduled AMC-up, shortened my rehabilitation.

Why was I so submissive in agreeing to it? Is the procedure valid, or just another chunk of mythology that we inherit at birth?

Consumed with the challenge of the project, I set out to learn the origins of the AMC-up.

Predictably, there are competing theories as to how it all happened; I present them to you without bias.

THE ECONOMIC THEORY

It was the winter of 1913, in Troy, New York, and two young physicians were faced with closing down their shared medical practice for lack of patrons.

Dr. COHEN: I have no idea where the patients have gone. Could it be that they are just not getting sick, or maybe they’re all broke and taking their ailments to the Free Clinic?

Dr. KELLY: Well, there’s always a job in the US Army. With 3 or 4 wars on the horizon, they will be creating an abundance of patients for the indefinite future.

Dr. COHEN: No, there has to be a better way. Whenever my father’s wholesale dress business was in trouble, he had a Sale. How can we get customers, oops, make that patients, to fill the Waiting Room? We need the medical equivalent of a Sale.

Dr. KELLY: I’ve got it! Our own patient base is the best source of business.

After my uncle bought his Model T Ford he was told to bring it back to the dealership for regular "check-ups." He originally paid $440 for the car, but has spent double that to keep it running. Some of the problems were discovered during those routine "check-ups."

The primitive Cohen-Kelly AMC-up program spread through the medical community like a prairie fire. Soon, Madison Avenue types were writing brilliant copy.

"You had better get an annual medical check-up, or you will die," was the essence of their message.

After all, it was a time when scientific progress was seen as inexorable. Every disease would be stamped out and life expectancy would be significantly extended.

It was not surprising that the concept of the AMC-up quickly became part of standard medical procedure.

(As a footnote: the two physicians, Cohen and Kelly, prospered. Later on, sadly, Dr. Kelly changed his name and drank himself to death. Cohen became an ambulance driver in the Spanish Civil War and was executed by a Franco firing squad when he refused to discard his red beret).

THE BENEVOLENT (non-profit) ORIGINS OF THE AMC-up.

Little is known about the disease Northern Puppick Fever, nor its cure. There is lore that it appeared in the Maine woods during the summer of 1914, killed and then disappeared forever — HYPOCHONDRIAC’S MEDICAL DICTIONARY.

A young biologist had just exposed himself to the bite of a Warp Headed Beetle. He faced certain death if his theory was correct; The harmless looking little bug carried Northern Puppick Fever. Sadly, he was right.

Within seven hours the young man was dead, but there was the hint of a smile on his face and his dead eyes were frozen on a note in his hand.

We will never know the exact wording of the note, but old-timers I interviewed advised that the lumber company doctors, following the heroic biologist’s instruction, instituted an AMC-up.

We don’t know what it was they looked for, nor what they prescribed if they found it.

We do know that the AMC-up made Northern Puppick Fever disappear forever. And, monetary profit played no part in the drama.

Benevolence, as a motive to save lives by using AMC-ups, has also become part of medical ritual. Unfortunately, most of the non-profit research comes from Government laboratories, or those labs under contract to the state.

Granted, there are some really decent folks who advocate AMC-ups to keep people alive and healthy, but I’m perfectly comfortable with "Profit" as the driving force behind the Annual Medical Check-up.

The constant risk is that such a "check-up" becomes economically viable ONLY IF SOME DEFICIENCY IS REVEALED.

In another time, the guy who pumped gas often found that the hoses under your hood were frayed and, for safety sake, needed to be replaced.

As a consumer, there are times I’ll buy the AMC-up, at other times not. As always, the consumer must maintain constant vigilance.

The concept of an "annual check-up" is a compelling merchandising concept. So compelling that I am creating Blumert’s Annual Gold Check-up.

My Gold Check-up will scientifically analyze the individual’s economic circumstance; it will explore his psychological make-up. Vital questions will be answered: Is it possible there is a genetic family link to gold? And, most important, how much brain damage has been caused by the pollution of the "war on gold"?

Once the Check-up is completed, the patient and Gold Dealer consult about the report’s findings. Finally, the prognosis and the recommended prescription to achieve and maintain proper Gold health.

I have a strong premonition that every Annual Gold Check-up will indicate that the patient is woefully deficient and in need of some gold coins, NOW.

Please call our offices to schedule an appointment for your Annual Gold Check-up.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

The Hollywood of my youth didn’t contaminate their product with four-letter words.

But it was the 1960s, and I was at the movies with my mother.

And there it was: THE dreaded four-letter word coming from the screen, resonating around the theatre.

I don’t recall the film, but it was a horrid moment, THAT profane word in a movie, and my mother sitting right next to me.

Panicked, I felt like sliding under the seat — did she hear it? Maybe she heard it, but didn’t know what the word meant. After all, this pure creature was my mother.

I admit it. I come from a different time. All aspects of sexuality were governed by, "Don’t ask…don’t tell… don’t talk about it. Don’t even think about it."

Not only were those of "deviant" sexuality confined to a closet, almost every male 11 to 17 had his own version of a closet.

My first sexual text was a dog-eared National Geographic Magazine featuring photos of bare-breasted tribal women, which passed from one sub-teen to another.

My parents would sooner discuss the insane uncle who lived in our attic than the specifics of procreation.

I don’t recall the word "sex" uttered in a classroom until high-school biology, and then the reproduction they covered was confined mostly to the plants of the planet.

The bright kids, however, began to uncover wondrous excerpts about the taboo subject from "banned" books like God’s Little Acre and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, but those of us who grew up in the 30s and 40s were generally so ignorant on the subject that had it not been for the power of the human sex drive, the species might have died out — at least in my neighborhood.

By now, you’ve got the picture. I’m a prude, or worse. The so-called Sexual Revolution of the 1960s didn’t even budge me. I remain unnerved by the way sex is dealt with in the schoolroom, and the boardroom. The only place it belongs is in the bedroom and even then, don’t provide me with the details.

I squirm when I witness sexuality in film or theatre, especially when it’s designed to shock or arouse. I’ll admit to sharing an off-color joke now and then, but never with eroticism as the theme.

No, you won’t find me on any picket lines. I state my position by flipping the dial or not buying a ticket — but I’ll join you on the barricades if you’re fighting government censorship.

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a new assault on our sensibilities.

It all began with Viagra, and Bob Dole on network TV, often in prime time.

Most of us laughed, some were repelled, and others too uncomfortable to even discuss it. The Leno and Letterman writers had a field day, and I suspect that the supposedly staid Midwesterner Dole was the subject of a million jokes at water-coolers around the nation.

Soon the chuckles faded and the commercials became more graphic. Words we never read in print became "household" in TV sitcoms.

Here was the same old tactic: repeat the four-letter word often enough and it no longer shocks. Thoughts once private and personal become obscene. What was sacred becomes profane.

A desensitized herd is easier to corral, but don’t get me started on that subject.

Back to Bob Dole, the new sex symbol, and the TV ads. They implied the nation was in the midst of an epidemic. Actually, two epidemics. "Male impotency" was the first, a problem solved by science. The consumer has the choice: chemicals requiring prescriptions or over-the-counter natural compounds.

The second "epidemic" is based on the "myth" that "size doesn’t matter." In one TV ad, a deli clerk eyes a beautiful waitress, then turns to the camera, picks up a large salami, and tells you, the viewer, that size DOES matter and that just one dose a day will change your life. (Initially, their claims for "male enhancement" seemed based on hocus pocus, but lately, they, too, suggest that "science" plays a role in their remedy.)

The variety of brands fill a counter at Walgreens: Viagra, Vigorex, Cialis, Levitra, Enzyte, to name a few.

Enzyte produced a cartoon-like series of TV commercials featuring real people, including their own, "Bob." Since discovering the wonders of Enzyte, Bob has a grin frozen on his face. His matronly wife stands in the background of each episode gazing adoringly at the new Bob. His friends and associates are consumed with envy.

Cialis, the latest entry in the impotence drug market, runs the most graphic ads. Promoted by the biotech company ICOS and drug giant Eli Lilly, Cialis was late in coming to market. (Viagra had a five-year head start.)

The FDA requires that all negative side-effects for all drugs be listed in advertising. The listed side-effects for Cialis are predictable and boring: Headaches, upset stomach, nasal congestion, backache, muscle ache AND then comes the shocker: The voice over warns YOU about the possibility of suffering a FOUR-HOUR erection.

Although a rare event, the Voice advises, you’d better seek immediate medical attention.

"Did he say four-hour erections?" I asked my wife.

"Blumert, why don’t you switch to C-Span? I always worry when you get interested in commercials."

It isn’t often that I’m visited by my muse. She shows up so infrequently these days that I can hardly claim her as my own. I don’t think she likes my politics.

But this time, she magically appeared and swept me away to the Emergency Room at the County Hospital. She was at my side through the following encounter.

(If Editor Rockwell deems this final scene too vulgar for LRC readers and my essay ends abruptly here, e-mail me and I’ll forward the tasteless conclusion to you. If not, read on.)

Scene: Time: 2 AM, Emergency Room, Mills Hospital, San Mateo.

ERD (Emergency Room Doc): "What seems to be your problem, Blumert? The Admissions Clerk says you are suffering the side effects of Cialis. Is that correct?"

Blumert: "Yes, Doc. I took one Cialis tablet 24 hours ago and I’ve got a pressing problem."

ERD: "Let’s see, the PDA says the side effects could range from a headache to nasal congestion. Which symptom is yours?"

Blumert: "None of those, I fear. For the past 3 hours, I’ve had an…Doc, could you please ask the nurse to leave the room. Uh, well, since about 11 PM I’ve got an…

ERD: “Stop mumbling. You mean, ‘an erection’. How interesting. I haven’t seen that reaction to Cialis as yet. Face the table, please, and hold this tray. Let’s take a look.”

Blumert: "What are you doing with that fork, Doc?"

ERD: "Fork? I was having lunch when you came in and I was about to sample the coleslaw. Don’t panic, please. Here, I’m putting the fork away."

Blumert: "What do I do? I have important people to meet with tomorrow. This could be an awful embarrassment."

ERD: "The way I size things up, Blumert, nobody would even notice. Go home and take a cold bath."

Humiliated, my muse and I slink away. That Doc was certainly unsympathetic and rude. I hope he needs a gold coin some day.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

Maybe it’s because they were brought up as slaves to changing fashions. Whatever the reason, women don’t have the proper respect for tradition and the institutions which render service to those traditions. Take my wife, for example,

"Look, Blumert, Thom McCann Shoe stores don’t exist anymore. They’re history. The one that was on Market Street in San Francisco probably closed during the Johnson Administration."

I was going to make some crack about President Andrew Johnson almost being impeached in 1868, but, she wouldn’t have laughed.

Instead, I pointed out that, "If the US Government had shown some spunk there’d still be an American shoe industry and a Thom McCann’s store. All the jobs went to Tibet, I think. Pat Buchanan wrote all about it."

"I know you were fond of those $13 loafers Thom McCann sold, but let’s go to the Mall and we’ll find you something just as nice."

Going to the Mall is her solution to every problem.

It had been a while since I’d been to the Mall and I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to death with my observations.

It took only moments to realize that there were more cars parked than there were people shopping. This suggests that many of the vehicles were abandoned.

I scratched a note on my shirt cuff to do an LRC article on the mystery of abandoned cars at the shopping Mall.

Well, there was one vehicle that wasn’t abandoned; while snooping about, I inadvertently peered into a 1963 Chevy Station Wagon and startled a family of 6 having their dinner.

The back seat, which served as a bed for the children, had been converted to a dining table. (Their main course was Beef Wellington with wild rice and mushrooms) I was invited to join them, and later, while munching a zero carb sandwich at Subway, I regretted having declined.

You won’t be surprised to learn that the "Handicapped" have more of the choice parking slots than ever before. I have NEVER, EVER seen a single car parked in one of those Handicapped slots. That record remains intact.

It’s time for some class action litigation. Look, my handicaps are just as important as anybody else’s. What arrogant legislator or jurist gave them the cushy parking slots?

I look forward to giving testimony at the trial,

"Your honor, overeating is MY handicap. Every time I pass a "Handicap" parking slot I am forbidden to use, I get frustrated, and hungry, which leads to more overeating. Save me from that vicious circle and grant me a Handicap Parking Permit."

Whatever YOUR handicap, join me in this class action. (Sorry, a golf handicap is not applicable.)

The most significant change I observed at the Mall was that the folks manning the aisles and the computers were no longer "sales people". Salesmanship is dead. For purposes of this report they shall be known as "clerks".

Let’s quickly dispense with the statistics:

• 37% of the clerks do not speak English.
• 29% of the clerks have English as their second language.
• 100 % of the remaining 34% speak English, but hate the customers. (margin of error for this poll, 3—4%).

In such an environment, it’s no surprise that I didn’t find anything like those old Thom McCann loafers. (Tomorrow, I’ll look for them on EBay.)

I must admit that I was drawn to an astonishing Nike shoe that had lights and could be inflated by pressing a button.

The young clerk with the shaved head said they were a bargain at $285. He was unimpressed when I told him I paid less for my first family car (a 1957 Ford).

Now that my loafers were forgotten, I became a barely tolerated presence. Tolerated only if I stayed out of the way and spoke only when spoken to.

It was as though I had a Visitor’s Day Pass in an enclave meant for Females Only.

Teenage girls were the dominant population. They giggled and raced from one store to the next, understanding every protocol. After all, they were in training, in transit to the lofty status of "Superior Shopper" that every woman achieves.

I was lost in such thoughts when my wife rattled me out of my torpor with a deadly question,

"Which dress (substitute, shoes, purse,) looks better on me, the red or the blue?"

There are a series of dreaded questions every man learns to fear:

"Do you think I’m looking fat? ("Truth MUST be avoided when dealing with this question.")

"Do you like this hair style? (If she’s crying hysterically, the answer is, "No!")

"Does she look younger and prettier than I do? (The more beautiful the woman in question, the more vehement your, "No!")

Finally, back home to the safety of my Lazy Boy Recliner, I realized what a close call I had survived at The Mall.

I won’t be going back there again soon.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

Please don’t tell me this government doesn’t know how to bury a President.

There are critics who contend that Reagan’s eight-day, bi-coastal journey to the next world, never came close to the medieval pageantry practiced by our British brethren when they crown a King, for example.

For all their pomp, though, the Brits know it’s pure "show biz." Simply Shakespearean theatre. Nobody’s sacrificing their life for the new king, nor are they promoting a Crusade to smash the infidel. (Such assignments are reserved for George W’s partner-in-crime, Tony Blair.)

The Reagan Event was more than a Hollywood epic: it was pure nationalism, elevating a B-grade movie actor into a mythological being, noble, kind, humorous, tough, principled and God-fearing, a giant worthy of supreme power. He could fight you "tooth and nail," but he was never mean-spirited.

He was — a god and everyman at the same time.

Hundreds of political hacks, all wearing $3,000 suits, trudged from one TV camera to another giving testament to the great man and telling their favorite "Dutch" anecdote.

I was getting groggy, but I think I heard the following. If so, it deserves the "Windbag Prize":

"Ron and myself were sitting alone talking about matters of state when Gorby entered the room and his fly was unzipped. We were on the brink of WWIII, but Ron said something so funny that Gorby nearly fell to the floor laughing, and the crisis passed."

The days droned on, and the incessant stream of testimonials never seemed to end. All the while, the main theme was jack-hammered home: Great men of power are ecumenical. They cut across party lines: Reagan. FDR. Lincoln.

Even die-hard California Democrats who still gag when they see Bonzo the chimp in late night movies, bought the package and now, like sleepwalkers, have come to terms with Reagan’s surpassing greatness. Or at least they did for the eight days.

Things have quieted down. It’s Sunday and the clean-up crews are sweeping up the confetti. My regular soap, pre-empted the entire week, returns on Monday. Thank the Lord.

It’s as if we’ve been on holiday, and now we’re back to life’s banalities.

Back to those two bloody wars.

Back to watching Americans stumble through minefields, blindly following George W’s leadership.

Back to politics as usual and the tedious presidential campaign.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t really a holiday for the rest of us. This epic Reagan event was contrived to allow the state’s present administration, its camp followers and the media (if there’s a difference) to sort out the lies and deceit.

Ronald Reagan suffered two deaths, the first with the coming of his dementia. The second gave "Them" the opportunity to place him in the pantheon of state religion, andu2014

It provided the much-needed "breathing space" as indicated above.

But wait… while we were all teary-eyed and ecumenical, a seething power struggle was being fought out of camera range. The Reagan Loyalists, not satisfied with a federal airport carrying the great man’s name, now required his imprint on the money.

The "Ronald Reagan Legacy Project" (there really is such a group) began its efforts years ago. In addition to a government Reagan memorial in every county in the United States, they favor a Reagan $10 bill, replacing Alexander Hamilton, who was not even a president, they argue.

Others, proud to compare Ronnie with FDR, feel he should supplant that great welfare-warfare president whose face has dominated the dime for almost six decades. Rumor has it that Nancy, outraged at the thought of "Ronnie’s" likeness on small change, torpedoed the plan.

Mitch McConnell (R-KY), number two man in the federal senate, is pushing for the Reagan $10. Not to be outdone, "former libertarian," Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) is doubling the ante by proposing a Reagan $20 bill.

Congressman Jeff Miller (R-FL) is the Reagan 50-cent piece "point man." He wants to eliminate JFK’s countenance from the half dollar and substitute Reagan’s image

(There are still customers at my coin company, who, when buying US silver half dollars, insist that 1964 Kennedy halves be EXCLUDED from their order.)

I suspect that the $10 Reagan will prevail, with one of those prettified (or is that deified) portraits that now adorn the fiat dollar in the various denominations.

All of this reminds me of my father Max’s strong views about retaining the "dollar" as the name of our currency. He felt it was a mistake.

For those who have not suffered amnesia of the monetary past, the US dollar once had terrific buying power, thanks to gold and silver and carried a worldwide prestige unlike the current buck.

Retaining the name of something that no longer exists leads to confusion. Other countries think nothing of knocking off zeros and renaming their currency.

"Let’s call it a u2018Schmollar,’" Max used to say.

Well, here’s my plan: Let’s eliminate the word, "dollar," no longer defined as a weight of precious metal and, in its place, substitute "Reagan." This will silence the combatants vying for their favorite place for Reagan’s face.

Ronnie will be on every denomination of coin and currency.

It won’t take us long to get accustomed to hearing the following while people exchange currency or make change:

"How many drachma to the Reagan?"

"Can you give me two Reagan tens for a twenty?"

"I need three 25-cent Reagans for the meter. Can you break a Reagan buck?"

"I’ll bet you a 5 Reagan that George W wins the election."

Who knows, the "Reagan" might circulate for eternity.

Fortunately, to quote a former, prescient French finance minister, "eternity in monetary affairs is of short duration."

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

Criticizing Rudy Giuliani is dangerous, and I have the u201Chate-mailu201D to prove it.

My u201CI Hate Rudy Giulianiu201D piece was posted in LRC on Nov 5, 2001, Most of the initial e-mails shared my disgust with the aura of sainthood which glowed around the power-mad ex-NYC Mayor. u201CBenitou201D Giuliani didn’t fool many of our crowd.

Several weeks went by, and the e-mails turned ugly. I was a u201Chater,u201D an “ingrate.u201D A few even compared me to the u201Cterrorists.u201D How dare I attack this great American?

Who were these people? Lew Rockwell explained that they were not LRC regulars and that the article was being sucked up by search engines employed by Giulianiites seeking out infidels. Well, they found me.

Rudy had accumulated hordes of political enemies, but they were all muffled by the events of September 11. Every time he appeared on TV he became more self-assured. A first-rate actor growing into his role. Sure, Giuliani was arrogant, but the grim events which created him permitted the swagger.

When his term as Mayor of New York City neared its end, Rudy faced the prospect of being unemployed. There was a flurry of ill-conceived plans to: 1) eliminate the term limit restriction and allow him to run for Mayor again (it failed). 2) make Rudy the Czar in cleaning up and restoring the devastated area in lower Manhattan (it never happened). 3) find Rudy an important, cushy post in the Bush administration (not a chance). To hard-core GOP operatives, New York City Republicans, when the veneer is stripped away, are actually disaffected Democrats and this brash Giuliani fellow was too ambitious to be trusted.

His last chance for political glory was the much anticipated race against Hillary for the US Senate seat. Rudy’s bout with cancer made him drop out, but he never had a chance against la Clinton.

And that was the end of elective politics for Rudy Giuliani.

I’m sure there were many nights when Rudy dozed off amidst pleasant images of being the first Italian American in the White House. It was a shame that didn’t work out. Well, maybe someday, but for now, it was time to get rich.

Giuliani Partners, a consulting firm, was born out of the tragedy and debris of the World Trade Center. Guess who’s chairman and CEO? Rudy’s corporate team includes many cronies from his corrupt administration. The company provides “preparedness and leadershipu201D during crisis. Huh?

I wouldn’t trust that crowd to wash my car.

The u201CCommodities Pageu201D in the Wall Street Journal is usually as far as I get, but I do recall reading that Giuliani Partners had established alliances with Nextel and Ernst & Young and they have attracted major corporations as clients.

Maybe one of our Wall Street mavens could tell me exactly what it is these folks do for their clients. Whatever it is, I suspect the bucks are rolling in.

In the meanwhile, Rudy the Icon was collecting a glittering array of trophies:

• In 2001, Rudy Giuliani was Time Magazine’s u201CPerson of the Year.u201D
• In 2002, u201CSiru201D Rudy was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
• In 2003, a crowning glory. A made for TV movie. u201CRudy: The Rudy Giuliani Storyu201D starring actor James Woods as Rudy was viewed by millions. It met with mixed reviews.
• Rudy became one of the hottest and most expensive speakers on “the tour.u201D Reportedly, his fee was $75,000.

There may be other instances in the nation’s history when a relatively obscure figure skyrockets to fame and fortune almost overnight. Charles Lindbergh comes to mind, but there had never been anything quite like Rudy Giuliani.

In recent days, Rudy sort of faded from view. I don’t know if he still rates invitations to the best parties, but if you look at Vanity Fair, or New York magazine you’ll probably find photos of Rudy and his new wife.

As far as I’m concerned, Rudy’s revered status is just another unpleasant fact of life I’ve learned to live with. As usual, I’m on the wrong side of the issue.

And then it happened. Giuliani and his aides were called to testify before the Independent Commission investigating the September 11 attacks. The hearings were held on Rudy’s turf, at the New School, just blocks from the site of the Twin Towers.

Rudy’s former commissioners of the police, fire and emergency management departments appeared before the panel on the first day. They didn’t fare too well. Rudy was scheduled for the next day.

Many instances of neglect on the part of the Mayor’s team were revealed in the questioning of Giuliani’s department heads, but one tragic issue dominated the proceeding.

Had faulty communications been responsible for the horrible death of at least 121 firemen?

The doomed firemen were following orders, trekking up the North Tower’s stairways in full gear. Exhausted, they stopped to rest between the 19th and 37th floors. Their last communication was the u201Corder to evacuate.u201D

Police helicopters were blaring the news that the North Tower was ready to collapse and for all to flee the building immediately. The police in the North Tower escaped just in time. The firefighters couldn’t hear the bull-horns and they NEVER got that urgent message from their own superiors.

Every inch of the auditorium at the New School was occupied as Giuliani sat to face the panel. The only sound was the clicking of cameras. It was soon evident that there were some angry folks in the room. Initially they were silent, and their presence was known only because they occasionally flashed signs which read, u201CLies.u201D

The panel members were a dismal bunch. They are tired, used-up functionaries. Any integrity they might have once displayed was pounded out years ago.

Typically, everybody had to make an opening statement. Each exceeded the previous in extolling u201CAmerica’s Mayor.u201D Rudy has become so accustomed to the adulation that he has learned to bask in low key.

Next, it was Rudy’s turn. His recounting of that horrible day and his own survival is theatre at its best. Laurence Olivier could not do better. As Rudy concluded, the audience was barely breathing and the panel sat mesmerized.

God gave us Rudy Giuliani to direct us through that desperate time.

Watching C-Span at 3AM reveals much about a person’s life style. The cats are usually frisky at that hour, but even they nod off when C-Span is on. Only the knowledge that Rudy was soon to be answering questions kept me conscious.

Finally, finally, the questions. More compliments, more adulation. Would somebody please ask a tough one? Then, I dozed and missed the question, but Rudy was in the middle of a response and I was wide awake. He said, u201Cu2014those firefighters heard an evacuation order, but still did not leave the building. They were standing their ground to make sure civilians got out.u201D

What did he say?

It was about that point in the hearings that the small group of dissenters started to shout their complaints. “You murdered my son,u201D shrieked one woman. Everybody squirmed. As they pushed him out of the room, one bearded young man said,

u201CRemember, your government taught them how to fly.” Nobody listened. With such views he would have been better off on the Internet.

Rudy and entourage briskly exited the room shortly after that outburst.

Rudy, Rudy, witnesses say that there were few civilians left to rescue at that point. Those poor firefighters should have walked down to safety. They didn’t know. They hadn’t been told. It was the negligence of your Fire Department that cost them their lives. This was confirmed by the oral testimony of over 100 witnesses.

Jim Dwyer of the NY Times, May 20 commented, u201CFor all the power of his voice and stature, however, Mr. Giuliani’s account must compete with a substantial and diverse body of evidence that flatly contradicts much of what he and his aides say happened that day, particularly on matters that could be seen as reflecting on the performance of his administration.u201D

Is the Giuliani mythology near being punctured? I think so.

In his May 20 Newsday column, u201CCamera hog, not a hero,” inveterate New Yorker, Jimmy Breslin writes:

u201CHe was a nowhere guy until the planes hit the World Trade Center buildings. He was a failed mayor, was Rudy Giuliani.u201D

u201CHe went on the television. He was good. What was he supposed to be, bad? He was talking to the world from a city of catastrophe. He went on television five or six times that day. He went on more the next day, and the day after that, and for all the days of the fall of 2001 and the television made him an international hero.u201D

Nice prose, Jimmy, but where have you been for the past 26 months?

Breslin is a good guy and I’m confident that he will keep the heat on reminding New Yorkers that Giuliani is a creep through and through.

Once the Giuliani myth is shattered in New York, the rest of the world will fall in line.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

During an earlier lifetime I spent several years as assistant to Morris Colliers, an elegant Southern gentleman who kept an inventory of charming aphorisms and proverbs that he smoothly produced in a blink.

"If you hang by the neck long enough, you’ll get used to it," was one of the old gent’s favorites and it got stuck in my consciousness as well,

My wife says that watching the gold market during the month of April was like, "hanging by the neck" and, she claims," That’s what reminded you guys of the proverb."

There’s much wisdom in the "hanging by the neck," maxim, but there are some serious exceptions.

For instance, you’re in a commercial airliner and it hits an air pocket. It falls 3000 feet before the pilot regains control. He announces that the plane is encountering "heavy turbulence." To me, that translates, "This plane is about to crash."

You can fly 100 times a year for 50 years and never get accustomed to one of those moments of shear terror in the sky.

It may not quite match the drama of nose-diving in a Boeing 767, but the gold buyer, too, never "gets accustomed" to as sharp a break in the gold price as we experienced in April.

It’s a different kind of scary, but it’s scary nevertheless.

While it’s still fresh in our minds let’s take a look what happened to gold in April, 2004.

The month started out with the price of gold at about $430. On the last day of April, gold was approximately $385.

A drop of $45 per ounce, 10.37 %! That’s a significant hit, and the volume of phone calls at Camino Coin increased as prices went lower. The first wave of questions were reasonable.

"Doesn’t gold usually shoot straight up when there are wars and strife?"

"How come the price of oil is at highs, but not gold?"

Some callers seemed angry. It was as if gold had betrayed them. Others, suggested that their original decision to buy gold might have been ill advised.

In every instance, to a man, they wanted to talk. It wasn’t long before their fears and panic became evident.

"How much lower do you think the gold can drop?"

(I never answer that one.)

"What about selling now and buying back at the bottom?"

(I had never even heard that one before last Friday.)

"Maybe I should have bought Krugerrands instead of St Gaudens?" or

"Maybe I should have bought St Gaudens instead of Krugerrands?"

Where I had the time I went back to basics:

• Why they should own gold?
• Who are the enemies of gold and why?
• Which gold items are the best to hold?
• When do you sell gold?

"Blumert, you sound like you’re at the pulpit giving a sermon." observed George Resch, my long time associate at Camino Coin.

I started thinking. (Very dangerous) What’s wrong with a sermon directed to the disappointed gold buyer? Show them the brighter side. Reveal the history. Explain that fiat money is immoral.

George Resch was right. I was sermonizing and, most of the callers admitted that they felt better after our visit. I felt better too. Returning to "basics" does it every time.

If you have read this far, you have been "sermonized" as well. But, any sermon to be judged as valuable, must close with "hell and brimstone."

1. If you are a novice playing with Precious Metals in the Futures Market, you shouldn’t be there, GET OUT NOW.! See "The Risks You Run When You Own Gold, and the Danger You Face If You Don’t."
2. Some newcomers succumb to the trap of "getting even." As gold goes lower, they get belligerent. "They’re not going to shake me out of the market! Buy me two hundred ounces. If it goes lower, I’ll buy more." See "The ‘Hardly Noticed’ Rally in the Gold Market."
3. A long term commitment to any market requires mental gymnastics. "Yes, the gold is down 10%, but look at the losses in other markets," See "Why in Heaven’s Name Isn’t Gold Moving Higher?"

Even though you never get used to a market breaking down like it did in April, living through it does help build scar tissue which makes it easier to handle next time.

I was discussing this complicated dilemma with long-time customer, Prospector Mike, who, when faced with a dismal precious metals market, closes the door of his den, goes to the calculator, adds up his total ounces of gold, silver, and platinum and then basks in the fact that, "it’s all paid for."

Needless to say, old Prospector Mike could be a Poster Boy for the Sound Mental Health Society.

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.

by Burton S. Blumert by Burton S. Blumert

Memo From Editor Rockwell To:Blumert

"These are dangerous times. Since it’s an election year, everybody’s military record is being examined with a finetooth comb.

"There are questions about your commitment to liberty, Blumert.

"It’s time to come clean. And don’t tell me again that your records were lost in the San Francisco earthquake.

"You’ve given us different versions about your military career.

"Once, you dazzled a group of young libertarian women with an absurd tale about being America’s ace fighter pilot during the Korean War.

"That you’d shot down 15 MIGs and reached the rank of Major General upon retiring. (For your information, the women weren’t dazzled. They were nauseated.)

"I also recall, during a discussion about Senator John McCain, you had to outdo his epic tale by recounting your experience in Korea. You told the group you were a POW for NINE years, finally released in a trade for a Russian ballerina who had defected to the West. (It was later learned she was a female impersonator.)

"I want the truth, Blumert. I expect an immediate response."

Memo: from Blumert To: Editor Rockwell

"Alright, I admit it. Some of those reports of my being an Air Force ace, shooting down 15 Russian MIGS are greatly exaggerated.

"Actually, the closest I ever came to combat during the Korean War was getting airsick in an Air Force Transport and barfing all over the pilot’s dress uniform carefully folded on the seat next to me.

"It required all my negotiating skills to survive that close call.

"Before finally winding up in Air Force blue, like all other thinking cowards, including Dick Cheney, I did everything to avoid the draft.

"Dick Cheney’s five deferments are chicken feed. I had at least eight. The first 7 were related to student deferments.

"Then, disaster. The rules changed. The only deferments left were for war related research, like PhDs working on Hydrogen Bombs.

"I had run out of options. It was like waiting for the executioner to beckon. Korea, here I come.

"Then, a glimmer of hope.

"Get a job in a factory doing war-related things," some unremembered faceless fellow said. "This can get you out of the draft and it won’t cost you much."

"Details are blurry and I don’t recall the price, but I have a faded recollection of depositing money in somebody’s Swiss Bank account. My next image is of sitting in a windowless interview room in a Long Island City factory.

"I later learned that they produced pretty little precision objects that made bombs more deadly.

"Management consisted of seven ex-Nazi tool and die makers. After five minutes with me it was clear that I had to be kept away from any task that required dexterity, or tool and die making skills.

"There’s only one job here for you, Blumert," SS Officer Schmidt said,"Cutting the aluminum bricks, that’s your job. An average person can cut six bricks in a day. You might do four."

"It took three days, six band saws and a gallon of cooling fluid to produce my first (and last) cut brick. All of a sudden, combat in Korea seemed less horrible than another day at the band saw.

"There must be some way other than the band saw to avoid the draft?

"Yes, flunk the pre-induction medical and get the magical u20184- F’ status.

"The setting for this medieval ritual was a cavernous stone building on Whitehall Street on Lower Manhattan, clearly built for earlier wars. Hundreds of thousands of shivering American kids in their skivvies were herded through the drafty old facility during WW 11 — and those with a sense of irony were later able to make the experience part of a comedy routine.

Nobody was spared the indignities.

"Bend over," the rear-end doctor ordered.

"Do you like girls?" the psychiatrist inquired.

"Can you see the eye chart on the wall?" If you located the wall, this doc was satisfied.

The doc in search of hernias said, "Cough, but not on me."

"I didn’t get the cherished u20184-F’" rating, but had they awarded a 3-E status, I might have come close. But, you know the old bromide, — ‘close’ only counts in horseshoes.

"I was resigned to my fate: Korea here I come. Only divine intervention could save me now.

"I don’t know if the US Air Force qualifies as an agent for divine intervention, but they came to the rescue.

" During the Korean War, the Air Force was having a tough time acquiring and keeping pilots. No surprise. Some functionary at u2018military intelligence’ decided that if the enlistment period were cut from four to two years they would net more volunteers.

"Well, they netted one more, me, Blumert.

"The prospect of serving in the Air Force for two years instead of being killed or maimed on a desolate Korean mountainside was irresistible.

"The draft board was indifferent. Air Force/Army, it was all the same to them. u2018Go to the Air Force, my son, with our blessings.’ Maybe those weren’t the exact words, but I was off to Basic Training and Aviation Cadet school.

"This is the end of Part I."

Part II will reveal Blumert as a glamorous Aviation Cadet.

You will learn that he was the only Cadet in his class who didn’t know how to drive a car. (The other Cadets could disassemble and assemble a motorcycle in two hours).

You will get the details when, Blumert, wearing Air Force Blue, almost won $16,000 on a popular TV Quiz Show.

You will be fascinated (yawn) learning of other notable incidents in Blumert’s Air Force career.

"Finally, Editor Rockwell, I trust that making this information public will put those ugly rumors to bed, once and for all.

"(I’m having some difficulty locating the negatives of those horrid photographs that keep popping up on the Internet. I assure you, they have all been digitally altered.")

Burt Blumert [send him mail] is publisher of LewRockwell.com, president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, and proprietor of Camino Coin. See Burt’s Gold Page.