Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Announcing: Morning Coffee with Murray Rothbard

In doing some research for a video series I have come to realize there is an abundance of short youtube videos that are clips from various Murray Rothbard speeches, where Rothbard in a few short sentences is able to get to the essence of many topics.

Starting this morning, I am launching a series here at EPJ called, Morning Coffee with Murray Rothbard. They will be clips of Rothbard, under 5 minutes long, where Rothbard discusses some topic that still has relevance today.

The videos will be up each morning, right here at EPJ, Monday through Friday.

17 comments:

  1. Bob, this is a great idea. Rothbard provides insight and clarity like no other, and with his unique sense of humor. Thanks for doing this.

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  2. If it isn't too much to ask, can you, from time to time, address the negatives coming Rothbard's way from sources such as www.mindbodypolitic.com. I enjoy that site and share some of the opinions. Until recently, I haven't seen much criticism of Rothbard. Thanks.

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    1. Don't pay attention to Lila Rajiva, she is just upset because she discovered that Rothbard took down here guru, Ghandi.

      Rothbard just called it the way he saw it. Gandhi wouldn't let his wife have an inoculation that could have saved her life, although he accepted Western medical treatment for himself. Also, she doesn't mention Gandhi's aggressive anti-Pakistan attitude after Partition and the fact that during World War I, he gave recruiting speeches for the British army.

      Also, he was a freak. He was against sex but slept every night with naked young woman to "test" his strength against sex.

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  3. Couldn't be cooler.

    Thanx!!

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  4. What a great idea!

    Btw, there are about a hundred short audio clips available on iTunes too. You can find them by searching ''Murray N. Rothbard (1926 - 1995)'' under the Postcast section. They are mixed in with a bunch of other Rothbard lectures, audio books, etc. If you download the entire collection, you'll find the short clips. They were all uploaded in July of 2009, and they are a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

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  5. Don't you think you've lionized Rothbard enough? Look, he was a bright guy. He had some good ideas. He was an indefatigable researcher. But he wasn't infallible. He disagreed with Mises on some points. He disagreed with Hayek on others. And on some of those points he was simply wrong.

    Why limit your morning coffee to just Rothbard? I don't suppose there are many clips of Von Mises on the internet, but I think there are quite a few of Hayek. But there are plenty of other Austrain thinkers out there. A variety of opinions would desirable rather than a propaganda page where we all genuflect to the Great Rothbard.

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  6. Awesome! Morning java with Murray!

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  7. @Anonymous

    You're mistaken. I am not a Gandhian at all. I strongly criticize both Gandhi and Tolstoi...I think they were both mistaken, Tolstoi especially.

    Gandhi was a very flawed person in many ways, but he was not a charlatan in the way Rothbard portrayed him to be.

    Rothbard discussed all the things that Koestler wrote about (and he wasn't the first, many Indian followers of Gandhi made the same point, including Rabindranath Tagore and others).

    Gandhianism is close to voluntaryism, but Gandhi was an eclectic and very westernized in some ways...and possibly a Tantrist, as I write here

    http://dissidentvoice.org/July05/Rajiva0711.htm

    By all means, take down Gandhi and anyone else you want to. But make sure you know what you're talking about first.

    You make all of libertarianism look not just malign but, worse, ignorant.

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  8. @Anonymous
    Sorry, I made a mistake

    I said "Rothbard discussed all the things that Koestler wrote about...."
    I should have said Gandhi himself discussed all the things....

    And some thing about Gandhi:

    General Smuts was Gandhi's antagonist in South Africa, and acted duplicitously toward him, even though Gandhi remained charitable to his faults to the end.

    HIS extract from The Essential Gandhi records what Smuts said to the Mahatma when he returned the sandals he had given him decades earlier.

    "His work in South Africa finished, Gandhi left South Africa with his wife in July 1914. Before he departed, he sent General Smuts a pair of sandals as a gift.

    "Smuts wore the sandals every summer at his farm and then returned the sandals to Gandhi on Gandhi’s seventieth birthday. Smuts remarked, ’I have worn these sandals for many a summer … even though I may feel that I am not worthy to stand in the shoes of so great a man. It was my fate to be the antagonist of a man for whom even then I had the highest respect. … He never forgot the human background of the situation, never lost his temper or succumbed to hate, and preserved his gentle humor even in the most trying situations. His manner and spirit even then, as well as later, contrasted markedly with the ruthless and brutal forcefulness which is the vogue in our day…’"

    — Gandhi, M. The Essential Gandhi, Louis Fischer (ed.). Random
    http://heritage.thetimes.co.za/memorials/gp/MohandasGandhi/article.aspx?id=582746

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  9. @Anonymous

    1. Gandhi also refused western treatment for himself. He believed in nature cures. His supporters and colleagues were afraid of riots across India if he died, so they forced to go to hospitals. It's quite a misreading to phrase it as you do.

    2. Yes, he was harsh to his own family, making them follow the same standards he preached to others. He felt Indian in South Africa were dirty and didn't keep their environment clean (they were). So he focused on sanitation and forced everyone including his wife and caste Hindus (who traditionally would never touch a public latrine) to clean the latrines on the farm he set up (named after Tolstoi, whom he admired and with whom he corresponded).


    3. He took a vow of celibacy in his forties and never broke it. After his wife died in his seventies or eighties (not exactly sure) he began intensifying his vow of celibacy. By then he believed (from his readings of Tantric literature in prison) that the sexual act was not physical but linked to the exchange of energies and to the flow of prana in the body and thus connected to the collective energies of the planet.

    This may be freaky to you, but it is the basis of much traditional medicine in the east (Chi in Chinese medicine for example )and their western derivatives including a lot of those alternative medicine sites pushed on LRC.

    One traditionally verboten part of Tantra is the use of sex to develop what are called siddhis (extrasensory abilities, if you will). Gandhi began to believe at the end of his life that the violence that would occasionally still break out despite his fasts and calls for non violence, was related to his imperfect command of his libido (unchaste thoughts).

    He felt he ought to be the perfect androgyne by then - indifferent to sex. I think, more likely, he was lonely after his wife died, and bitterly disappointed in the looming possibility of partition which he felt the British had somehow instigated...and he became self-deceiving about his own needs. His repressed sexuality emerged and he rationalized his actions by saying he was testing himself.

    To make it clear, he didn't have sex with any of the women. His bedroom was public (he slept on the floor or on camp cots) and people came and went and there was no question that he was just lying next to them. They did everything for him. It was psychologically abusive in my opinion, but not charlatanry.

    Gandhi also refused the highest political offices dozens of times, never appointed his family members to political post, never lied, gave away most of his belongings except a watch and a few other things, worked constantly to set an example of independence and self-reliance, was beaten physically until he was unconscious several times and jailed for decades...
    yet he never gave up and never had a mean word to say about his foes..let alone his friends, in which respect he towers above Rothbard.

    Finally, Gandhi was assassinated and died with a prayer on his lips.
    Koestler, his debunker, a bright man, and passionately interested in the occult (wrote books about it), committed suicide.
    You tell me whose beliefs were, as they say, "sustainable".

    Also, I'm curious - did Rothbard think Jefferson was all bunk because he had sex with slaves?

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    1. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_evidence_that_Thomas_Jefferson_had_an_affair_with_Sally_Hemmings#ixzz20uXOyg8j

      There is NO proof that Thomas Jefferson had an affair with Sally Hemings. I assisted Dr. Eugene Foster with the DNA Study and NOTHING PROVES this.
      The media grabbed false statements in the British Nature Journal and "ran with it" because it was profitable and sensational. Monticello (owned by The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, but now they have eleminated the "Memorial" part, a different mission. Dan Jordan, Monticello President, always open to new research (he says), will NOT request that the Hemings permit a match of a NEW source of DNA from a son of Madison Hemings (so much for his brand of research).......the Hemings will NOT permit a match......oral history is good enough for them .......THEY say. They make money from appearing at various functions, writing books, etc.
      Various agendas surround this fiasco and the public is confused by historical revisionist, political correctness.
      For many details please go to: www.angelfire.com/va/TJTruth and www.tjheritage.org
      A new organization was formed to counter the Monticello brand of "research" which was charged as biased, one sided, and with a preconceived outcome (see Dr. Wallenborn's Minority Report on the web pages. His Minority Report was NOT included in the original Monticello Report (even though he was a long time Monticello employee who saw their "study" as a preconceived outcome....Chaired by an African-American who was originally hired to do slavery and oral history at Monticello.
      My statement to Dr. Daniel Jordan, Monticello President, "I don't know how you can sleep at night for your actions." I had long complained to him of HIS brand of research and when informed of the grave of William Hemings (Madison's son) and my suggestion to contact the Hemings for permission to test his DNA.......HE REPLIED....."YOU CONTACT THEM......DON'T PUT TOO MUCH PRESSURE ON THEM!" This from the TOP man at Monticello and who serves as President of The Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TV personality, Katie Curic, is also on their board.) Julian Bond, NAACP Chairman is on the Monticello Getting Word Board, as is the Chairman of Mr. Jordan's DNA Study Report.

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    2. 2

      Madison Hemings's statement in the Pike Co. newspaper written by abolitionist, Samuel Wetmore, is pointed out in the Scholars Commission Report (13 prominent scholars), as being incorrect on several points. Read their full report (much of it critical of the Monticello in-house report). On a link from the above web pages, get the book mentioned also, "The Jefferson-Hemings Myth, An American Travesty."
      The statement in Madison Hemings story that he was named for James Madiuson on the date of his birth at Monticello by Dolly Madison is UNCORRECT. On this cold January 19, 1805 date, she was in Washington with her husband and friend, Thomas Jefferson, acting as his official hostess in the White House. The Madisons NEVER visited back to Virginia during the winter months. Can you just imagine Dolly Madison telling her husband, James Madison, Sec. of State and Mr. Jefferson, whom she was acting as his hostess,and stating that she is sorry to have to rush off to Monticello to be present at the birth of a slave child of Sally Hemings.
      Of course maybe they may have known about the sex of a child bneforehand OR was that a recent invention).......we know don't we?
      Of course the slick, icy roads, merely ruts in winter, the streams out of banks and all the winter hazards would not deter our Dolly from her commitment and yet to be charged by Madison as going back on her word to give Sally a promised gift. Of course Madison clairified it for us by stating that white folks always did this.
      Read the Scholars Commission Report good and you can see who is manipulating YOUR Country's history and move on to the book mentioned for INSIDE information on this outrageous FIASCO. ASK MONTICELLO why they don't have the very detailed Scholars Commission Report on the web pages.......why they do not stock the cited book on their book shelves.....ask them why they revised their web page in February 2004 as reported on web page: www.angelfire.com/va/TJTruth.
      They no longer state that not only Thomas Jefferson fathered possibly ONE but ALL (all....only one tested), of Sally's children, but now they leave it for you to decide.....YES, YOU decide.....DON'T TRUST others replies. DON"T ever accept ONE opinion of anything important......investigate yourself. Just because "authorities" come out of the woodwork on these occasions, have unlimited media access, movie and TV productions but in the end.......their bias and manipulation is uncovered.
      Two media outlets, PBS Frontline and A&E Biography denied you MY "other side of the story" because it would not side with the Sally Hemings programs they were giving you. I was interview for about an hour by both and not one word was used. Freedom of the press.......BEWARE......they control the cameras and mikes.
      Herb Barger Jefferson Family Historian

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    3. "did Rothbard think Jefferson was all bunk because he had sex with slaves?"

      Prove your assumption.

      Delete
  10. What about non-coffee drinkers?

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  11. Great idea! This is something I think has needed to be done for quite some time.

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