 All right, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce our next speaker you're someone I think most of you are familiar with already Daniel McAdams of course heads up the Ron Paul Institute for peace and prosperity He worked for dr. Paul in the foreign policy arena for several years on Capitol Hill dr. Paul is in the International Relations Committee Which was Daniel's purview? but the interesting thing about The Ron Paul Institute and the effort that Ron and Daniel and Chris Rossini and Adam Dick have made since Ron retired from Congress is that It's actually it's a lot easier to raise money for politics You know a political campaign or even for economics at the Mises Institute people understand those issues And they feel like they have a self-interest in perhaps advancing the cause of markets and of course it's very easy to raise money for war There's a whole industry in the north of Virginia suburbs But which is devoted to that very cause and they managed to be very well funded when it comes to their lobbying efforts So they're at roost chris today up in DC having lunch While we're having this much more important meeting But but Daniel and Ron have nonetheless managed to raise money and they have created what I consider the most hardcore Pro-peace organization in the country. So please a round of applause for Daniel McAdams Hello, everyone. It's great to see you here in Lake Jackson. Dr. Paul in my hometown now so I want to start by saying it's got it's got touched on it But today is an important day today is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall Really one of the fundamental points in our history Certainly the fundamental point in our remembered history unless we're quite we're quite Elderly But what's interesting about the fall of the wall is it didn't happen the way we think it happened It wasn't a dramatic event that we think it was we have misremembered history I always joke with some friends of mine who study history that 89 needs an 89 There needs to be a revision of the history and that's sort of fundamental I just realized this this morning that I wanted to start with this But it's sort of fundamental to what I wanted to say which is that revolutions don't really happen the way You think they happen. We all remember Late in November when they were sitting on the wall chipping away at it and we thought that's the end of communism They look what's happening right now. This is people power people in the streets. That really isn't what happened What really happened was earlier in the summer of 1989 On the border of Hungary and Austria There was a picnic the fall of the Berlin Wall really Was built around a picnic a picnic called the pan European picnic It was organized by the Hungarian Democratic Forum, which was an opposition anti-communist pro-traditionalist party in Hungary That was they were a sponsor out of on Hubsburg was a sponsor because he was the head of the pan European Union the the son of the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary and Emery post guy who nobody has heard of in this room if anyone has I'll buy you a drink But he was a he was a top member of the Communist Party at the time the three of them got together and Launched this this pan European picnic on the border of Austria We didn't know at the time but word had already been given to to Miklos Neymet and And Yula Horn who were the top communists in Hungary word had already come from Gorbachev That we're not gonna we're not gonna come get you if you if you ease things up So it already came from on high the drama was really not what we saw what happened is you know in East Germany? It wasn't super happy in those times a lot of people in the summer They went to Lake Balaton in Hungary, which is the largest freshwater lake in Europe I lived in Hungary for a long time and they went there to meet their relatives in the West That's the one place where East and West Germans could meet Eat a lot of bad food greasy food drink a lot of beer Show off their big bellies in the in the lake But it was an important way for families to get together on that particular summer of 1989 with the pan European picnic Something amazing happened Which is that the East Germans didn't go back to East Germany as they were supposed to as they did every year What they did is they went into Austria and from Austria they went into West Germany And that was the fall of the Berlin Wall just a bunch of people eating bad fish and drinking beer On Lake Balaton it wasn't the people you see on the wall when we remember the fall of 89 So this is important. This is how revolutions happen They're not the dramatic people power that you see in the streets that the media loves to focus on It's something very different from that and I think it's important to know so that Brings me to the really the point I want to get across in my talk And it's a subject that I think is a little bit more controversial than it should be even among libertarians and non Interventionists and we can agree we can all agree on part of it Which is that for war to start you have to in Jeff's touched on this as well You have to have a real long run-up of war propaganda and war propaganda takes a lot of different forms It uses a lot of different hosts and mediums to convey different conveyor belts across all layers of society It's not just the leo neocons who do it But you have to establish a pro war narrative in order for a war which most people don't want as we know to Be waged and that may not be a bomb dropping war It may just be sanctions may just kill a few thousand innocent people with sanctions But you have to prepare the intelligence preparation for battlefield You have to prepare the minds of Americans for what's going to happen. And so I have a few points I want to make on this particular line Propaganda and lies are the lifeblood of US interventionism every US intervention that we've had is all based on lives There's never been an honest one Even Pearl Harbor. Okay pro interventionist narrative must be established and it must be accepted Americans must accept the narrative It's all about narratives the US mainstream is the third point the US mainstream media Speaks with one voice as in the old Soviet Union when it comes to the interventionist narrative They all support the interventionist narrative Now there are a couple of exceptions who are noted by the fact that they are exceptions But does anyone remember a little show called you can and impress on MSNBC at the beginning of the Iraq war? We used to watch it in dr. Paul's office We had it on the TV in the back was better than c-spam because they're actually talking about the war and how dumb it was in The lead-up. Well, they were Pretty quick when things started and we have some good stuff from Tucker Carlson who I don't watch a lot of TV news But I know that he said some good things about not attacking Iran So there are some exceptions, but they just prove the rule. Okay media Establish narrative pro intervention counter narratives no matter how seemingly insignificant They are must be quashed, you know, this is the Ron Paul rule. They never asked the 434 why they voted Yes, they always called up Jeff and said, why did he vote? No, you know So this is any counter narrative must be completely crushed And that's why you see the the war in the in the in the social media of all things people tweeting The counter narrative is crushed. You have the Atlantic Council. You have the German Marshall fund all these Organizations who are making sure that you don't get you don't get to challenge the narrative And it's not you know, unfortunately a lot of the Trump people say oh, they're just there They're hassling conservatives on the soap. No, it's not it They're hassling people who challenge the narratives from left right beyond neither So that's the other thing The pro intervention narrative can be maintained and spread by those who claim to oppose Military action overseas is getting a little conspiratorial But if you take part in endorsing the promotion the establishment the conveying of the counter narrative You are taking part in promoting the interventionism. This is where it starts getting more controversial. I guess unfortunately the pro intervention narrative and conveying and being a conveyor belt to it includes participating in the demonization of a foreign leader or a foreign nation who is designated by the CIA the deep state whatever you want to call it The Empire who is designated by these entities as the bad guy of the week the bad guy of the month participating in the demonization of the people that the neocons and CIA Want to have a regime change with right? So the real anti interventionists The purists the hardcore ones always adhere steadfastly to what I call the Rockwell rule Named after one of my great mentors Lou Rockwell. The Lou Rockwell rule is simple And it's very easy to digest and it's very easy to follow Never participate in any way in the demonization of any country or leader the CIA wants to overthrow Full stop. That's it. That's the Rockwell rule so We have the idea of war propaganda used to promote wars and we understand a lot of it We know what happened in the run-up to the first Iraq war. Some of us were a little older and the second Iraq war The lies feed the war machine Iraq in 1990 it was a great ally in the 80s when we wanted them to send a bunch of chemical weapons and kill a million Iranians In fact, we gave them the chemical weapons back when I was working for dr. Paul Uncovered some friends help me uncover some documents from the old banking committee, which were the literal receipts for the chemical weapons We sent to Iraq. I leaked it to Bob Novak at the time and he did a great column on it We sent them this stuff. Okay But propaganda is important. I'll read you a good quote. This is something I just came across From the Christian-sized monitor September 6 2002 the run-up to Iraq war 2 Listen to this. Just just just a paragraph Okay More than 10 years remember going back to Iraq war more than 10 years later. I can still recall my brother Sean's face It was a bright red. It was bright red furious Not one given to fits of temper Sean was in an uproar He was a father and had just heard that Iraqi soldiers had taken scores of babies out of incubators in Kuwait city and left them to Die the Iraqis had shipped the incubators back to Baghdad a pacifist by nature My brother was not in a peaceful mood that day quote. We've got to go and get Saddam Hussein now He said passionately so that's how war propaganda works and as we know of course it was all a lie Nairo was the was a young gal who was testifying before Congress the whole thing was cooked up She was not a poor Kuwaiti girl coming to tell us about the horrors in her country She was a daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington. She was coached by Hill and Nolton Who had been hired by an NGO NGOs here we go citizens for a free Kuwait sounds great Who wouldn't support that which one of you wouldn't want a free Kuwait? They spent 12 million bucks hired Hill and Nolton They coached this young woman on how to tell this story Tom Lantos was in on it by the way the late Tom Lantos He knew what was going on. I'm sure plenty of others did And the other NGOs played their role to Amnesty International. They corroborated the story. Yep. Indeed. They sure did Of course, it was all a lie. It was all cooked up The same thing happened in the 03 Iraq war. We all know about it. Saddam had to be yet again demonized Iraq was a threat an existential threat chemical weapons were going to be loaded on to little planes You know and floated over New York Anyone questioning the propaganda and it happened a lot to dr. Paul Saddam lover unpatriotic Americans I think the national review had a cover story unpatriotic conservatives so The the narrative the false narrative had to be established and just for fun. Let's look at some history was what they were saying This is great. This is how they established the lies Ken Edelman 2002 February 13th. I believe demolishing Saddam Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk Who remember that one? Here's Bill Kristol who I think Scott's gonna meet up with here in a few months Here's Bill having defeated and then Occupati rock democratizing the country should be not too tall of an order for the world's soul superpower easy Here's Paul Wolfowitz Who was an honest guy in his own way? I'm reasonable be certain They will greet us as liberators and that will help us keep troop requirements down We can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops. It's way off the mark wildly off the mark What about casualties? Here's W talking to Pat Robertson. Oh, no, we're not gonna have any casualties And I'm gonna there's these are great This is from Huffington Post believe or not in no way, but here's a final one even though I could go on all day I love this one Michael Ladine Who freaked out once when Dr. Paul mentioned his name on the floor of the house for writing a book on how wonderful war is Here's Michael Ladine in just before the invasion three twenty five oh three I think the level of casualties is secondary all the great scholars who have studied American character Have come to the conclusion that we are a war like people and that we love war We can what we hate is not casualties, but losing says Michael Ladine who smokes a a Stoge in his American Enterprise Institute office and wouldn't know war if it bit him where you know where So this is the war narrative. It's used to establish regime change wars of regime change and Operations of regime change. We talked a little bit about Ukraine. Ukraine is central right now to what we're looking at in the US The Ukraine gate whatever you want to call it What what did it have in common? Well Saddam didn't play ball. That's why he had to go He was an independent person in the Middle East. He wasn't playing ball with us after we gave him a bunch of stuff He wouldn't stay bought same thing happened with Ukraine. Remember the Orange Revolution. I think Scott thankfully mentioned that this was back In 0405 they were not in the US orbit They happened to be unfortunately right next to Russia their major trading partner half of the country at least Considered itself Russian speaking and Russian by origin. They wanted to trade with their neighbors So they weren't in our orbit. We tried it once we kicked out Yanukovych once remember the Orange Revolution deposed an elected president Yanukovych as soon as the Ukrainians could go back to the polls they voted him back in They said oh we got to fix this so we fixed it again. We kicked him out again. This is Obama And what were we hearing in the propaganda realm? We got to support the people the people who are on the streets They're fighting for their freedom. They're fighting against corruption If you don't support this if you don't support Victoria Newland handing out her cookies and getting on the phone with Jeff Pie at the ambassador and picking literally hand-picking the next government. Well, you hate democracy What's wrong with you? So You know the by the way Newland the cookie lady she worked closely. We're finding out what I can't even say his name I'll whisper it The whistleblower She worked with him closely on Ukraine stuff. So it all comes around Fighting corruption. That's why we had to overthrow the government in Ukraine and how many people even a lot of libertarians Hey, you know these people want the freedom. How dare we got it. We got to praise them. We got to be all for it We fought corruption there immediately after we defeated corruption there Joe Biden sent a son in there For a $60,000 a month job in the most one of the most corrupt countries in the world It's still the poorest country in Europe after being liberated for how many of these years corruption is endemic They have not done a thing to solve the corruption problem in Ukraine and Ukraine is now again as I mentioned at the center of Ironically our regime change in Ukraine is at the heart of the attempted regime change in Washington and you have the same players The people who are responsible for the attempted regime change against Trump regardless of what you think about him are the same people who engineered the regime change in Ukraine and I spent a lot of time in the 90s monitoring elections in the first round of colored revolutions and to scots list I would add Slovakia 98 and Albania 96 and all of the different places I was at That was the model that served and we always thought that it would someday come to our shores And that's exactly what's happened and Vindman They were both they were the guys who were doing it They were the second and third tier in the NSE staff who are coordinating the overthrow of the government of Ukraine Well, they were holdovers and thanks to you know Trump's boneheadedness. He brought in McMaster McMaster I think brought Vindman back. He was out and To do to do Ukraine stuff these people they did not agree with Trump saying We should get along with Russia and he's not that enthusiastic about regime change in Ukraine. What's in it for us? What's what's the point? They would not let go of this and that's why they wanted to to get rid of to get rid of him So What do we get for it? Okay, the Russians that we're going to give them $20 billion. Hey, here's some here's some money You want some money and everything and we freaked out and said no we we want them And so now we're still giving them billions of dollars So I mean are we happier that that's happened and we feel better that you know We're throwing armlet the Russians throw their money at the Ukrainians, but that's not what happened. Okay, Venezuela getting more controversial Okay, what's what's up with Madura? What's up with Venezuela doesn't matter what you think about Chavez, Madura? They're not in the CIA US orbit. They're one of the countries in Latin America that are not towing the line They're not listening to Pompeo. They weren't listening to Hillary when she was the Secretary of State So what do you have the narrative comes out corrupt enriching himself? Maybe true? I don't know with holding aid right on his border. Well, that was a lie. That wasn't true and the s-word Socialism it's all about socialism We have got to support a regime change in Venezuela because we have to defeat socialism and even libertarians will say that Well, why why libertarians who can't even defeat socialism at home somehow think that thousands of miles away. Oh, we got it We're gonna fix it here, you know, so this is what it is Got to support the people. Well, who are the people who are the people in the streets one tenth of one percent of the population What about all the other people who don't want to have a regime change in their country because they've seen everywhere else that They've had a regime change and it's really been a pretty crappy thing, right name one place where it's turned out better When we've changed the regime. I'd like to hear it So who are the people who are the people who gets to count? Well, unfortunately from our safe purchase here a lot of people think they have the right to tell them Who counts and who doesn't count? It turns out now, you know, we're paying the salaries literally of these people that the CIA wants to put into office And it really is interesting being lectured about socialism by Pompeo Bolton and Abrams, you know Who've lived their entire lives, you know in socialism and put in pushing military socialism military Keynesianism So Hong Kong, what does that have in common? Well, it's China's weak underbelly. We've got to deal with the Chinese We got to take down the chai comms, right? So they're fighting for their freedoms in the streets of Hong Kong But who are they? You know, maybe they have a good cause. Who are they each one of the leaders of the anti-China parties is literally on the US payroll they roll into town and they have a visit with Mike Pompeo, you know With who does that happen? So this is the propaganda line. It's for the people Syria the people rose up against Assad. It was peaceful and he mowed them down untrue 2005 Christiane Amanpour Interviewed Assad and said, you know, you're going this regime change thing is coming for you and you're going down Okay, that was under GW Bush. That's when ambassador Peter Ford started undermining the the government there Interesting that the yellow vests are never fighting for their freedom ever hear about those guys, right? Zero sympathetic coverage in the media none So what do they have in common all the people that we are supposed to say are just fighting for their freedom And you damn well better support them unless you're a terrible person They all happen to live in countries where the CIA the Empire or whatever wants to change the regime Maybe that's a massive coincidence. Who knows but it is very interesting nonetheless so How should libertarians and non-interventionists of all stripe view these regime change operations Skepticism default is it's fake. That's my default. You don't have to take my people. It's fake I don't believe it. I want to see I want to see the receipts We've seen the receipts from from Venezuela and Hong Kong from USA ID national endowment for democracy I want to see the receipts Um, you know, I had a little little run-in with an organization. Otherwise a good organization But they put out a video about Iran And the whole video was it was it was a person who had been born in Iran or what have you And the whole video was well everything that's wrong with Iran is socialism If we just give it a socialism there, it'll be fine And of course, that's that's that's ridiculous. It's absurd But it transmits the regime change narrative why in all times in history Now would you would you focus on that right when the regime when our regime wants to change their regime's regime so much You could talk about a million other places where socialism is a problem. Let me DC maybe everywhere. Maybe austin. Maybe sacramento No, but you focus on it right at that point All of a sudden in venezuela became the nation of venezuela experts here We knew exactly what their problems were and how to fix them and it's not interventionism We resist that temptation When it comes naturally when it comes to our neighbor, I don't like the church He goes to I don't like what he's smoking. I don't like how he's raising his kids We would never think of doing that But somehow we have this amazing wisdom to understand what the people Want and should need and get it good and hard as jeff might say Oh thousands of miles away. I don't buy that. I just don't buy it so the uh So what do we do? I mean, uh, what do we do if we if we do Have a sense that people should be free overseas and uh, you know should live better lives You know, there are places that aren't that good and I'm not under any illusions of venezuelan paradise. Don't get me wrong What do we do? Oppose socialism and forced collectivism here at home That's one thing we can do. We have a pretty good sense of what's going on We can follow the news. We understand the language We know what's happening to half our money or not more We know what's happening with truth tellers being thrown into in jail. We know what's happening to people like chelsea manning julienne assange and many others We know that sanctions Are not making these other places better places. They're not Getting people to overthrow their governments and bringing into libertarian paradise What they're doing is causing people to starve and die and when they starve and die They're just as likely to blame america because guess what it's america's fault We shouldn't be having sanctions. We shouldn't deny medicine to the iranian people Because we want them to overthrow their their regime their government if they want to have a theocracy It may not be our cup of tea But as non-interventionists we have to accept that the rest of the world may not decide to be exactly like us That's the thinking of the trotskyites and the neocons We want a worldwide revolution and everyone's going to be just like us It's not going to happen because the only way you can get this to happen is through the use of force The use of force to force people to be like you and that's an impulse. We have to resist We have to resist that impulse So no sanctions you want to make life better for the venezuelans Fight sanctions here at home. Let's trade with them the iranians fight sanctions here at home Let's trade with them fight the neocons are telling lies Uh, let's travel Let's fight for the opportunity to travel to cuba Which boneheaded trump has now put restrictions on one of the only good things obama did in his entire presidency Was open things up to cuba and now we've got a back so fight for that Those are things we can do that we understand and um I'll read a couple of quotes because jeff mentioned Uh, katelyn johnstone who's who does great work. She's not she's not a libertarian yet But she's um But she's she's great on two things. First of all, she's great on the war issue She's great on the beyond war issue, which is the narrative Which is fighting the narrative. They want you to push to be the conveyor belt And and she's also good because she wants to make coalitions a lot of people on the left hate us Because they don't want to have a broad coalition. They want to own it. So she's good on that But let me just read one thing that she wrote back in february And it's kind of funny because I remembered the article as being really really good And i'm not saying anything about this but I went back to read it again And I realized she wrote the whole article because she quoted something that I did on venezuela. So but this is this is really uh I think this is really worth uh worth listening to A common refrain is it's possible to be opposed to u.s interventionism while also opposing these tyrannical governments, you know And quote but it isn't not really It's impossible to oppose us interventionism while also helping to advance its propaganda narratives Against targeted governments And she goes on to say all u.s-led military Agendas begin with propaganda if the public were allowed to see the reality of war with fresh eyes They would all instantly recoil in horror and adamantly demand its immediate end The only reason u.s-centralized empire is able to sow death and destruction around the world without this happening is because of propaganda Which is why americans, they're not going to want to hear this are the most aggressively Propagandized people in the world So and this is the final thing that she said on this is good So before they can launch missiles planes and ships they launch propaganda They launch mass media psyops They launch narrative control campaigns to make sure that americans hate the leader of the targeted nation And want the people of the targeted nation to have freedom and democracy at least one of those words jeff pointed out as being a completely meaningless word So this is my admonition since everyone is giving So far everyone a task to do is to fight to resist this inclination To be a conveyor belt of this propaganda. Does it mean you absolutely must Not feel any sympathy for people. Maybe they're they're certainly they're people in hong kong. You'd rather have a More open economic and political system That doesn't mean you reject them as all a bunch of dupes But you have to resist what they want you to do which is to convey propaganda Which equalizes what lowers the ground which makes it easier for regime change and whenever i think about this whole thing uh, maybe it's because I always think about it as meme and meme is is a crazy thing it conveys complicated Ideas with a picture and it's a new phenomenon young people are are doing good at it But I always think about this meme and I know you guys have seen it It's batman slapping robin if you all seen that one and I always think of robin saying something like you know Yeah, but I said, you know, but I want to support the struggle freedom Batman slaps him upside the head and says, you know, don't be a conveyor belt of propaganda So I think I would humbly suggest and request at least consider this this option. So thanks you very much