The War on Pabst

In this selection from “World War I As Fulfillment: Power and the Intellectuals,” Murray Rothbard connected the moralistic prohibitionism of the early “progressives” with the militaristic world-saving spirit of Wilsonian internationalism in a way that made me laugh out loud:

“The Anti-Saloon League thundered that ‘German brewers in this country have rendered thousands of men inefficient and are thus crippling the Republic in its war on Prussian militarism.’ Apparently, the Anti-Saloon League took no heed of the work of German brewers in Germany, who were presumably performing the estimable service of rendering ‘Prussian militarism’ helpless. The brewers were accused of being pro-German, and of subsidizing the press (apparently it was all right to be pro-English or to subsidize the press if one were not a brewer). The acme of the accusations came from one prohibitionist: ‘We have German enemies,’ he warned, ‘in this country too. And the worst of all our German enemies, the most treacherous, the most menacing are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, and Miller.'”

TV Says We Won, But My Father Died

A neighbor of mine, Hrag Vartanian, writes today in his blog about the NYT‘s Nicholas Kristof’s Iraq Poetry Contest. One entry that particularly moved him was by a fourth grader from the South Bronx whose father apparently was killed in Iraq. I wonder what young Raphael’s peers will think of this war and this president when they grow up and begin influencing the historical narrative. At least kids whose fathers died in WWII labored under the delusion that their dad helped saved the world.

Edward Peck

Sink the Liberty!

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/awedpeck061207.mp3]

Former ambassador Edward Peck discusses the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 and the cover-up.

MP3 here. (16:56)

Peck, a former U.S. chief of mission in Iraq and former ambassador to Mauritania, was deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan administration.

Robert Parry

Scooter Libby’s Situation

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw061107robertparry.mp3]

Investigative reporter Robert Parry of ConsortiumNews discusses Robert Gates’ decision to replace Peter Pace as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Scooter Libby situation.

MP3 here. (18:16)

Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek, has written a new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.