Not too far from where the principal military industrial complex power players work and live, hundreds of liberty-lovers congregated in the suburbs of Washington DC at the ninth annual Ron Paul Peace and Prosperity Institute (RPI) conference. RPI brings together voices of differing ideologies to achieve its core mission. In its own orderly, diplomatic manner, the event was a raging against the war machine and a reminder that there is opposition to the trillions spent on military budgets in pursuit of a global empire, an empire that is nonetheless destined to collapse. Yet the event also signaled a fostering of hope. When asked who was attending a Ron Paul conference for the first time, about one third of the several hundred in the audience raised their hands and many were young adults.
From the podium, institute executive director and conference organizer Daniel McAdams recalled that as his plane began its descent toward Dulles Airport, he flew over the Pentagon and the mansions in McLean where defense contractors and government workers reside, their salaries paid for by profitable U.S. overseas military interventionism and wars. “These people made money…to rob us,” he said. “And they are stealing our children’s future.” With defiance and expectation, he thanked the audience for their presence, acknowledging the next generation of the Ron Paul revolution: the 14 students who had participated in the scholars seminar the previous day.
Among the courageous and principled thought leaders and independent journalists speaking truth to power, a highpoint was the panel comprised of Col. Douglas Macgregor, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and his wife Anya Parampil. They were questioned by Judge Andrew Napolitano, whose “Judging Freedom” podcast livestreamed the discussion. You can watch the panel exchange preceded by Sachs’ speech here:
“No one has been more right than Ron Paul,” observed Macgregor, whose authentic heroism on the battlefield, brilliance as a military strategist, gravitas and physical presence qualify him as the man who should be the US president. Macgregor predicted an economic collapse has to happen before the wars end. “When the fake money collapses, we will focus internally.” The war machine sends Americans to die and they are of no value to those who start the wars. “The globalist class live around here and are enjoying life,” he said. “They have no accountability. They approve PowerPoint slides and attack defenseless people. The media doesn’t report on the vulture capitalists and fake news is the business model. Palantir, a CIA startup, is developing a digital prison for us all. The vets living in Pennsylvania and Ohio falsely believed they were fighting for US national security. We are governed by people who ride in golf carts,” he said. “The ruling class preach virtue and practice vice. The people who run DC have no business being there. We have a government of the corrupt by the conniving, crooked and connected. Trump’s MAGA base is eroding, and the diehards are going down with the Titanic. They got into the same car and changed lanes but the destination is the same.” Macgregor compared our situation in the US with 18th century France leading up to the revolution when wars were waged, leadership eroded and society began to rot from within. Macgregor’s blueprint for peace: Break up the financial cartels, make banks serve communities, restore sound money, restructure the national debt, defend the nuclear family, respect other cultures, be fearless, and build alternative structures. “The future is not written. They are counting on your apathy. Destiny rests on the shoulders of a few.”
Professor Sachs said all current “artificially prolonged” major military conflicts the U.S. is involved with can be easily resolved. JFK was killed by the CIA because he was for peace and he was the last truly independent US president, he stated. “Of course, the Mossad spies on and blackmails presidents,” he said. Presidents are either all afraid of the Mossad or they don’t know the true power controlling the presidency. “These people are crazy,” Sachs said of neocons like Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland who promote war at any cost. He called Netanyahu a “vile, misguided criminal” and decried the starving and shooting of Palestinians at food depots. The U.S. government is supporting “maniacs and murderers,” he said. “We are trapped.” The think tanks are bought and Americans are subjected to endless paid propaganda. The “zealots in Israel” and powerful Israeli lobby in America keep the US from joining the 192 nation state votes at the UN in favor of a Palestinian state. “We are now preparing for a war with China,” he warned, “the worst idea ever.”
Chris Rossini, co-host with Dr. Paul of the Liberty Report’s Friday editions, said Blumenthal and Parampil risked their lives by visiting Iran two months before the US bombing. What the couple witnessed was very different from what is “reported” by mainstream media. They said Christians and Jews are allowed to practice their faith, the churches and synagogues are full, and the Iranian leadership is anti-Zionist. Blumenthal denounced the Mossad’s assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and Palestinian journalists.
Dutch politician Thierry Baudet, the founder of the political party Forum for Democracy who was elected to the House of Representatives in the Netherlands, said he was the only European politician who opposed the Covid mandates: “This was the hill I was prepared to die on.” He denounced the “Russia-phobic paranoia” of his political colleagues and said the Israeli lobby is very powerful in Europe. The mainstream media and government conspire to oppose dissident voices, he said. While “change goes slower than we want it to,” he admitted, he believes the new generation is beginning to see through the lies.
Natali Morris, who hosts Redacted News on Rumble, YouTube and X with her husband Clayton Morris, asked why Fox News and CNN fight about the culture wars but not the real wars that kill children, women and men. “There is no daylight between them,” she said. “They share identical support for Israel” but have small audiences. The couple live in Portugal where the police patrol the beaches and mortgages have quadrupled. “How do they have these monsters in power?” she asked. “Europe must decide if it wants freedom. But there is still time to fight in America,” asserted the mother of three. “We must think about the future we want to leave our children.”
Before mathematical statistician and essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb spoke, I told him I did some research on him and concluded he was a genius. He responded by laughing. I was right. He told the audience the warmongers no longer have skin in the game compared to the days when there was a risk they could actually die. Taleb then explained seven economic points he had compiled. McAdams posted on X the speech was “one of the most incredible things I have ever heard. I could not believe how great it was. I kept texting my son who also loves Taleb about each thing he was saying in real time. Taleb challenged everyone and he did it with a smile. Many people had no idea what the hell he was talking about as they told me afterward. He blew everything out of the water. They weren’t absurd sound bites. They were reality bites. This is what made it legendary! Video coming!” So, if you want to know what Taleb was talking about, ask McAdams or his Space X engineer son. As for me, I’ll watch the video to see if I have more success in comprehending Taleb’s message.
This was the first time Dr. Paul did not appear in person at his own conference. As he explained during his live on camera appearance, his absence was due to serious family concerns and admitted it was disheartening to let his supporters down. He projected the same energy and enthusiasm he always has had and, at 90 years young, it is apparent he is still teaching, studying and learning. He said the battle is good vs. evil, the truth seekers vs. the nihilists. The world is waking up and starting to prepare for the collapse of the economy. “We have God-given individual rights and the government ought to butt out,” he said. “We need to return to the Constitution.” Dr. Paul remains optimistic because the message of liberty is an idea whose time has come and one that even armies cannot stop and, he said, everyone has a role to play.
It is a testament to the enduring ideals of liberty Dr. Paul has communicated throughout his life, the drawing power of the speakers, and the elation attendees feel by interacting with each other in person, an experience that has no substitute, that the conference stood on its own even without the physical presence of Dr. Paul. I treasure the times I have spoken with Dr. Paul and felt great joy as I have sensed the enthusiasm that emanates from him. And I understand I am in the presence of the greatest living American, the man ordained by destiny to be, as Judge Napolitano has called him, the Thomas Jefferson of our time. I will always believe that what makes Dr. Paul an important historical figure was not only that he spoke truth to power but that he entered the political arena and led the Ron Paul Revolution, a political movement that continues today.
While the conference was entitled, “Blueprint for Peace,” a detailed plan was not presented, so here is my takeaway summary based on the speakers’ content and side conversations with attendees: The younger generation will not tolerate the subordination of US foreign policy to Israel or any other foreign power. As Dr. Paul and Col. Macgregor pointed out, the wars will not end until the inevitable financial collapse forces them to end. The wars will then be unaffordable and, by necessity, America will be forced to turn inward to tend to its own problems. When this will occur is unknown but do all you can to prepare. Keep the faith. Be fearless. Pray. Act in faith. Have children, start a business, speak out, write, tell the truth, do whatever you can. And support the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
Afterward, I drove home on roads that were wet from an earlier rainfall. In the distance ahead of me I saw a beautiful rainbow curved across the clear blue sky.
