Review: “Turmoil and Triumph. My Years at the State Department”, by George P. Shultz

 I'm a little late to report, but on New Year's Day 2026, I have finished my first book of the year.

Now, without context, this could sound like rage-bait, given that the book clocks in at approximately 1,138 pages. Truth is, it took me approximately three months or so, so rather quick by my standards. But I enjoyed it wholly, even though my favourite part was the end. Let me tell you why: Shultz described his last post, when the whole DoS staff gathered together with the President &c., and they siad him goodbye. A marching band played “California, here I come”, a song I only know in the rendition of Ray Charles and which matchesh im well, as a Stanford (CA) local. He wrote on the last page that his eyes “welled with emotion“; it meant a lot to me because throughout his tenure, according to his narration, he remained sober, level-headed, the only emotion he let through was good humour, but even then, it was strategically applied to serve his diplomatic strategem of “gardening”. His last day in office was the only one in which he allowed himself to be all human. Politics is no walk in the park; it is, in fact, a walk in the woods. 

Is Donald J. Trump an Oligarch?

Introduction

To download the full text as a PDF, click on the following link:
»Wayback Machine«

In case you would like to leave a comment, post them in the comments of this post: »Telegram«

Editorial Note

   When it comes to planning texts ahead of writing them, I do a piss poor job. Ever since I heard of President Joe Biden’s farewell address and when he came to allege his successor Donald J. Trump of being an oligarch, I was excited to learn a little more about the concept that I hitherto only heard of with reference to Russia. Little did I know, although I should have expected, that I was going to end up completely out of bounds and with a text that would be much more than a little commentary and correction of the outgoing President’s remarks. As things stand now, this little side hustle as I was getting prepared to write about the Geneva Conference of 1954 in my main project turned out to become a two-months project by itself. I do not claim that it wasn’t worth it as it was fun and I learnt a lot in the process. But I admire those who are able to discipline themselves and are able to stop adding more and more content to their project to the point where they became immobile. Alas, I know why I do not work with publishers and instead choose my independence in my hobby: It gives me space to not deal with such hindrances. 

Thoughts on an article on "Flaking"

On the Normalisation of  Antisocial Behaviour

   This is something that has been hypothetically grinding my gears, although I was not affected by it yet: The benefit of having no social circle anywhere. But I see what people are posting online, and it's not looking good, which is why I would agree with the author of this piece.

    I don't condemn those who have to opt out spontaneously because of unforeseen events, but those are also not who the author condemns. They speak about those who opt out in the last minute because they changed their mind. And that is only when they will call to notify about their absence, instead of being no-shows and AWOLs. This is just plain antisocial behaviour and cannot be justified anyhow. If you think that you don't want to attend a soirée or a party, that's fine, but give the host or whoever you meant to meet some leeway to plan ahead, rather than pushing them off minutes beforehand. 

Community Notes and Fact-Checking

 Community Notes are better than you may think

    I think that everyone has heard of Zuckerberg's plans to discontinue fact-checking cooperations in favour of Twitter-like community notes to delegate the service to the users of Meta services[1]. Many have complained that he thus gave away responsibilities for the paddling of misinformation and disinformation, more specifically its combatting, to the users, implicitly conceding to incoming POTUS Donald J. Trump. To be fair, on that latter point, I agree to some degree, although I also believe that he tries to play it cool with him as he may remember that he threatened to imprison him on the basis that is either pure retaliation or an unofficial lèse-majeste[2]. Whatever the reason may be--perhaps Ms. Telnaes was right and gradually more wealthy entrepreneurs and businesspeople kneel before the authoritarian president not only to be left alone but to appeal to him for personal or corporate benefits[3]--, but what I want to focus on is to take up the cudgels on behalf of community notes as a means of fact-checking. They are much better than their reputation gives them credit for.

Murder is bad

 On the Murder of Brian Thompson by Luigi Nicholas Mangione

   I am currently thinking about staying off Facebook for a while until the community here has found another issue to bad-mouth. You could imagine what I am thinking of at the moment, and to be honest, I find the title of Robin Hood attached to Mr. Mangione quite appropriate, because unlike those who attached it, I have read at least the Pyle book; while I haven't read the older English ballads of Robyn Hood and his posse, the theme doesn't really change, and he fit the predicate of chaotic evil. The same applies to Mangione.
   Luckily, the feuilletons have been saner than the online communities that found their new 'folk hero' in the bourgeois computer science graduate who couldn't help himself looking briefly into a camera to consequently be identified at a McDonald's. The police have later found what was called a 'manifesto' but is actually just a short handwritten note in whiche proved that he didn't understand how the healthcare system works¹ . As the above-cited Economist piece writes:

Trump and the Language of Hate

How Trump's Language likens that of Classical Authoritarians

It makes sense to allege Donald J. Trump of equipping a language comparable to that of Adolf Hitler¹, especially since he has become more fond of likening his political opponents to vermin and the likes; he is only one tad away of calling them a disease begetting the American popular body² (Volkskörper), if he hasn't already--I don't keep up with his public iterations, online or offline. Overall, it is needless to say that his speech has become more dehumanising by the minute, after having become more ressentiment-laden during the Biden presidency³. We know that he has blamed incumbent POTUS Joe Biden for the two assassinations⁴ (and the one that was firstly suspected and contradicted later), as well as his VPOTUS Kamala Harris who he likes to call "comrade", although he has yet to prove either of the two implicit allegations: That Biden instigated assassination attempts against Trump--so far, he has only once made a remark that affiliated Trump to (semi-)Fascism⁵, and even that has been uttered years ago, while Trump usually refers to presidential candidate Kamala Harris as a Socialist, again totally unsubstantiated⁶. Altogether, if there is one candidate in the presidential race tainting the other with hateful language that had the potential to provoke violent actions, it would be Mr. Trump.

Reflections on the excerpt from Aleksei Nawalny's “Prison Diaries”

 From the excerpt:

“Having spent my first year in prison, I want to tell everyone exactly the same thing I shouted to those who gathered outside the court when the guards were taking me off to the police truck: Don’t be afraid of anything. This is our country and it’s the only one we have.

"The only thing we should fear is that we will surrender our homeland to be plundered by a gang of liars, thieves, and hypocrites. That we will surrender without a fight, voluntarily, our own future and the future of our children.” [1]

Trump the Tyrant

An Introduction to the Text

 It has almost left the public mindset that President Trump has almost been assassinated during a campaign stop in Butler, Pennsylvania, but given the tremendousness of the event as a whole, I felt inclined to wonder whether what Thomas Matthew Crooks barely managed to do could be ethically justified. To many this question likens abhorrence and the terminality of a Liberal mindset, but once one begins to think sober about it, it comes close to an intriguing question, no less because there are so comparably many incidents of this kind took place in the relatively short history of the United States. Abraham Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theatre; William McKinley was shot at the World Fair in Buffalo, New York State. Before him, James Garfield was shot at a railroad station. Finally, Ronald Reagan was almost shot in broad daylight on a road. One could cynically remark that it must be an American tradition to shoot one's president down every couple of years.

Hamas, Israel, and Online Discourse

How Israel's war against Hamas reinvigorates an inherent issue of online discourse

Once I have come across this article on the internet and read it, I must confess that I wasn't surprised since it was happening on Twitter, which has always been problematic even before Elon took over, but worsened rapidly after he took over. «The Washington Post»

But it's also symptomatic of a culture where paroles have trumped elaborate, fine-tuned arguments especially on thorny issues. What I mean is: Instead of detailing why they, for example, would support Palestinians despite their strong endorsement of the Hamas, the organisation whose rape, murder and pillage spree has triggered this all-out war, they will just share hashtags and paroles that you could easily repeat loud and wide on protests, and later wonder why the response to this is equally hateful and dispirited. As we would say in German: “So, wie man es in den Wald hineinruft, so kommt es auch wieder heraus”.

The October 07 Conflict between Israel and Hamas

The Question of the Genocidal Conduct 

THE AD HOMINEM

First of all, an ad-hominem argument I want to discuss early so that we can ignore it hereafter because ad-hominem arguments are fallacies for a reason. What usually comes into my mind is the fact that Ramaphosa had good reason to perhaps not bother with transnational conflicts not even tangentially relevant to a country like his. South Africa does not play a major role in any international alliance, so that there is no reason to push itself into the limelight. If he wanted to solve conflicts, he should sweep in front of his own doorstep, first of all. General poverty¹ frequently triggers violence on the streets, in the shape of robberies and thievery, the police cannot get hold of it². When his country passed the lawsuit, he announced it on his LinkedIn profile too, and the comments, particularly the top comment, spoke for themselves³. Those are not (just) boeren who fear to become targets of POC⁴, those are POC who fear that they could be begotten by their peers. So, in my opinion, as a side argument, Ramaphosa had enough conflicts to care about at the homefront, there is no need to move the points of interest abroad. One argument on why he does that are elections: Recently, he has announced that the general election will be held on May 09, 2024⁵, so this could be part of his re-election campaign, to stylise himself as a civil-rights activist in the fashion of Nelson Mandela, who is now placed up front with the quote that " our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians"⁶. The second part of the quote--that the same applied to Timor Leste--is of course crapped out because those people don't care about Timor Leste, the fewest could even tell where the country is even located⁷. But the more concerning, hypocritical point is that today's ANC is audacious enough to still call itself the party of Mandela, a misnomer comparable to the Trump GOP calling itself "the party of Lincoln"⁸. Also, if Nelson Mandela were still alive today, I think that while he were seriously concerned about the Palestinians' well-being, for which everyone had a reason, I think he were firstly more concerned about his own people, which made sense. Back in 1997, things looked brighter for South Africa. Nowadays, they are back at zero. Coming back to the speech that is so often cited (without context or source, to my great destitution), it should also be noted that he held then-Israeli president Yitzak Rabin in high regard for his contributions to the Oslo Agreements. For context: Rabin was later murdered by Zionists for those same contributions⁹. I cannot tell in what way this is relevant, but I thought that those who didn't know should know.

“Christian” Nationalism?

 Trump, the Heritage Foundation, and the Threat of a US Theocracy

It has become undeniable by now that Trump is likely going to become the candidate who, while not necessarily endorsing it himself, will represent the idea of “Christian Nationalism” in the 2024 General Election, at least as per the definition think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and others have forged. At first glance, this idea seems contradictory, given that Trump often represents the exact opposite of Christian ideals: He's an adulterer who has paid off an adult-movie starlet so that their affair did not become public; he's a pathological liar who has often enough sown hatred against the needy and his next ones; the man who couldn't quote any part of the Bible who has likely never looked into the Good Book. Apparently to such organisations, it's not about having someone to represent the ideals he's supposed to infuse into their policies, but someone they can manipulate for their own means. And ever since Michael Wolff's book “Fire & Fury”, it's known that everyone around him has used him as a puppet rather than a serious president with whom one could have discussions on policies from which to draw compromises that would finally convince both sides in Congress¹. The second tenure, if it were going to materialise, would be no different, only with more extreme manipulators in the White House and outside thereof.

Plastic, Paper and Perdition

 How Recycling becomes the Tip of Climate-Change Scales

Germany is often being reprimanded for its underperformance in recycling, despite its reputation as a pioneer and avantgarde[1]. Expectedly, outside of Germany, it doesn't look better, to a degree that pointing towards Germany's allegedly innovative separation of different wastes doesn't hold up to one's own underperformance: A recently published study[2] has shown that in the US, paper and cardboard worth millions of dollars are wasted due to improper recycling procedures. Now it was not the point to emphasise the waste of paper as all wastes that can be reprocessed are ought to. This accounts for wastes like plastic, which is known to infest the oceans and, in microscopically small shape, enters our bodies, from which it can even be “inherited”[3]. (Not to speak of the fact that very little plastic is actually being recycled, despite having just the right traits to be nearly infinitely being recycled[4]) But paper is a particularly crucial issue because of the raw material it is produced of, namely wood. Trees play an important role in our combat against climate change because of their essential ability to convert CO2 into oxygen. Many times when people became aware of Brazilian farmers' deforestation in the Amazon forest to create more arable land, the rainforest was described as the 'lung of the earth', a false equivalence[5] not only because algae in the oceans encapsulate disproportionately more CO2 than the rainforest[6]. (Algae can also contain hazardous materials like Bisphenol A[7]) But trees still play a major role, indisputably, which is also the reason why awareness has risen for the need to plant more trees altogether, globally, while reducing their felling for whichever purposes. We have already seen the consequences of losing entire forests while degrading their amount simultaneously because of vermin such as the bark beetle.[8][9]

My Christmas Message for 2023

 On Christmas, Politics & Society

Now the countdown has begun again: 14 days until Christmas. Many in our street have begun illuminating their house, decking the inside and outside with lavish decorations as if they needed to be visible from space, and of course the first christmas-themed sweets were already purchasable in late summer. All of this made me wonder again about how little the whole eve actually mattered amidst this ludicrous pomp. In Germany, we've got the famous skit movie entitled „Weihnachten bei Hoppenstedts”, where said pomp is being ridiculed, but as always, the best comedy is based on at least a grain of truth.

Individual Responsibility and Corporate Guilt

Recognising the import of the individual in a collectivised world

Foreword

In the early 20th century, many economic and political philosophers and thinkers began to see with aghast how collectivist philosophies and movements began to pave their way into power. The most prominent example was for sure the Большевики movement in Russia that would eventually bear the Soviet Union. Ayn Rand would thus be its most famous dissident who also contributed greatly to a political philosophy. (Even though many would perhaps disparage her or the Libertarian philosphy as a non-philosophy or apology for misanthropic instrument to smother the poor, and her as a spiteful bully mocking the same for their state of impoverishment; I have since offered a more sober and constructive critique of her thinking¹) Other dissidents, like Александр Солженицын or Жорес Медведев, instead decided to stay within their country and oppose against the Stalinist régime from the inside, undergoing several kinds of mistreatment, documenting the terror from the inside and exhibiting it for the rest of the world to see, even though knowledge about the reign of terror remains awfully low within post-Soviet Russia² as well as in the Western world. (For which I ironically didn't find any relatable articles; if you have got any, let me know through the known means of communication so that I will add them in a separate footnote)

Killing is his business — and business is good

 Russia — between international trade and international war crimes

Ever since Russia has initiated its war against Ukraine, presumed by a prior attack on the Eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, two things have frequently, although not regularly, happened: Companies have departed from the Russian market because of either sanctions or ethical reasons. (To alternating levels), and leading talking heads have contemplated the question if, and if yes, when, 'The West' could return to the Russian market because Russia couldn't allegedly be cast out forever. One could wonder why that shouldn't be possible, given that not only has Russia become, if not always been, a pariah of Western principles and human rights, but also shows no sign of remorse, meaning that in consequence, it could start the same procedure again, against another country such as Estonia or Bulgaria, both of which have been alternately supportive of Ukraine. Russian talk shows have not been shy on waging unofficial wars against not only neighbours of Russia, but also Western countries who have pledged abundant military and financial support for Ukraine in its effort to defend itself and reconstruct destructed infrastructure. 

The State of the Republican Party in the 21st Century

Between Performative Politics and “Partisan Terrorism”

As I heard surprisingly positive remarks about Biden's SOTU speech, I gave it a listen and must say that given the circumstances in which he now has to legislate in accompaniment of a crucially divided Congress, it was a solid speech and some solid proposals, although I agree with the Libertarians who are concerned about the protectionist measurements for foreign policy and trade policies¹. What one needs to understand, of course, are two things:

Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire

 Russia is Descending into Authoritarianism--again

In less than one more month, we are going to commemorate the first anniversary of the Russian war aggression against Ukraine, and much has happened since then. As we currently observe a stalemate in terms of conquests and losses of territory in Eastern Ukraine, even though the Wagner Group claims to have vanquished villages around Bakhmut[1], Ukraine was able to regain territory that was occupied by Russia before the initiation of the war[2]. In the meantime, Putin solemnly signed declarations manifesting the annexation of the occupied territories of Луганск & Донецьк[3]. Even before this annexation, there were valid claims stating that those so-called 'separatists' were actually Russian invaders who conquered the land with the plan to incorporate the two territories into the Russian Federation. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) underscored those claims by mentioning that those territories had been in the hands of the Russian government since 2014, when the first 'separatists' invaded them[4]. Under normal circumstances, separatists have been citizens of the country they want to separate from, anything different therefrom would constitute a régime change wherein infiltrators function as proxy agitators.

Capitalism & Anarchism

 Preamble

“Governments never learn. Only people learn.”

— Milton Friedman

rom the emergence of the first primitive hominy to the days of today, humankind has aspired for greatness. Since our earliest days in cold and dark caves, until the construction of high-rising skyscrapers in desert metropoles, we have aspired for ultimate achievements and the solution of the impossible. Whether we have thereby required the support of our fellow human beings or obtained victory all by ourselves, it was because of the Homo sapiens’ superiority over inferior beings, may they be bipedal with wings or quadrupedal capable of chasing prey at the velocity of sports cars. There are at least two things that will keep humankind ahead of all of them: Thumbs—and our brain. Some may argue, but it should be clear that it is the latter that had us stick out of the crowd of cohabitants on this marvellous blue marble. 

On Respect and Decency in the Public Discourse

On an Example of Stephen Douglas in the Lincoln

Today as I was reading a speech by Stephen Douglas, the counterpart to the latter President of the United States [POTUS] Abraham Lincoln, I came across the following passage:

«In the remarks, I have made on this platform and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. [Applause and laughter] He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world's goods, Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything in which they undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than with anything else; [cheers] but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. [“No doubt.”]»[1]

Nowadays, we must say that there is little chance to meet such respect and credit for a political counterpart as Mr. Douglas has expressed for his counterpart in this debate on slavery, itself a hot iron. It therefore inspired me for the following text which you will read hereunder.

Murray Newton Rothbard

A Review

The Books to be reviewed

1. Rothbard, Murray N. (1962). Man, Economy & the State, with Power & the
2. Market. Scholar’s Edition. Auburn (AL): Ludwig von Mises Institute. 
3. Rothbard, Murray N. (2005). The Ethics of Liberty. Auburn (AL): Ludwig von Mises Institute. 
4. Rothbard, Murray N. (2015). The Case against the Feds. Auburn (AL): Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Murray Rothbard—there may be no need for an introduction for this household name not only amongst (very online) Libertarians but also more proactive Conservatives, party members as well as non-parliamentarian Conservatives, such as feature writers and columnists. (“Leitartikler” in German, but the English language lumps all opinion writers together, as if they didn’t differ[1]) Whilst fewer have read them, most of them know him, and about his philosophy. The latter accounts even for those who may not relate to the general idea of right-winged Liberalism or the more extreme, subordinated concept “Mr. Libertarian” figuratively represents as both its spiritus rector and best-known thinker. Like von Mises, he also inspired writers and thinkers alike to come, by alternating degrees. To some, Hans Herrmann Hoppe, who himself states to have dominantly been inspired by von Mises, might come to mind as they share a common radicalism of denouncing the state and its regulatory functions altogether (While Rothbard stuck to analysing the state and its institutions from a sober perspective, compiled in books like his “Man, Economy & the State”, which we will discuss later on, or his “Anatomy of the State”, Hoppe was more radical and even declassified Democracy, a common and favoured shape of stately order as a “failed God” in his best-known work, a collection of essays), while others might think of… Well, it is hard to think of any other thinkers in the modern days. But the idea should be clear: He was one of the most influential Libertarian thinkers, whose reputation precedes him unto this day.