Has The New York Times Magazine‘s David Wallace-Wells forgotten the star of Bedtime for Bonzo?

Maybe not, but his “Javier Milei Is a New Prophet of Apocalyptic Capitalism” (March 31) never mentions an obvious forerunner of the current president of Argentina. Wallace-Wells finds the tone of Milei’s speech at Davos 2024 on January 18 “vehement” and “millenarian,” but Milei’s conclusion that “The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself” is a near-verbatim echo of a much-quoted line from Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address.  Most of what preceded it could have appeared in an issue of The Freeman magazine like the one Reagan was photographed reading.

Perhaps Wallace-Wells’s comparison of Milei’s “Ayn Rand regime” to “a free-market junta, this time imposed not militarily but by 55.7 percent of the popular vote” intends to evoke Reagan, even if Wallace-Wells associates the phrase “shock doctrine” with milder measures than described in Naomi Klein’s book that introduced it. Milei’s opposition to abortion is to Wallace-Wells a sign that free-marketers regard feminism as a “war on progress and achievement.” Reagan’s was a deal-breaker for Rand, who warned a Q&A audience in 1976 that “should that monster succeed in 1980 … I damn any of you who vote for him.”

Rand’s assessment of Reagan as “a cheap Hollywood ham” who “always played idiotic parts in grade-B movies” was unduly harsh.  Bonzo wasn’t in the league of Oliver Stone’s effort to remake Planet of the Apes with another California actor-governor, or even Clyde the Orangutan’s outings with a Carmel-by-the-Sea mayor. Its lead does convincingly portray a college professor whose chimpanzee-rearing antics aim to scientifically disprove that crime and vice are inevitable results of innate inferiority.

Such a bleeding-heart academic activist might expect to be denounced by the ideologue Wallace-Wells describes as “not a protectionist trade warrior speaking to the losers of globalization but a radical free marketeer who believes too much has been done to console them.” Yet Milei explains at length how economic growth cuts the losses of “the losers of globalization” by making even the poorest less poor (speaking as the head of the country whose comic strip heroine Mafalda called it a grower primarily of “pesimistas”). At least Wallace-Wells acknowledges contrasting views on trade of a politician who otherwise “shares a certain style with Trump.”

Wallace-Wells calls Milei “certainly the first avowed anarchist to be running a large modern government” for whom “all tax was coercion” while accepting Milei’s self-description as a “minarchist,” which Wallace-Wells explains as someone who would “preserve only the defense and law-enforcement functions of the state.” Samuel Edward Konkin III, who coined the term, noted that by their own reasoning minarchists called “for criminals … to fight other criminals” rather than using “free-market (all-voluntary) methods.”

Instead of wielding his office as a cudgel “against the forces of collectivism, social justice, environmentalism and feminism,” Milei could try following Arnold Schwarzenegger and Clint Eastwood with a role in a future Apes or Kong installment.

New Yorker Joel Schlosberg is a senior news analyst at The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

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On March 25, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2728 , regarding the ongoing war in Gaza, by a vote of 14-0. The United States abstained rather than — as it usually does when the Israeli regime dislikes a resolution — using its “permanent member” veto.

The meat of the resolution “[d]emands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire, and also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs, and further demands that the parties comply with their obligations under international law in relation to all persons they detain.”

I have several questions about the resolution, including whether “all hostages” includes the thousands of Palestinian Arabs held by the Israeli regime, often for years, often without charge or trial. They’re not usually referred to as “hostages” by Israel or its allied regimes, but since they’re occasionally traded off for Israeli captives, they’re “hostages” by definition.

A second question: Why just until the end of Ramadan  (April 8)? If the UN Security Council wants an end to the fighting, why not demand a PERMANENT end to the fighting?

But here’s the big question:

Now that the UN Security Council has issued its demands, how are UN  member states, especially the US, going to enforce those demands?

UN Security Council resolutions are binding on all UN member states.

If this resolution means anything at all, the initial response SHOULD be for all UN member states to immediately declare and enforce a ban on the sale or delivery of arms to the belligerent parties.

Yet White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby insisted at a press briefing that “we are still providing tools and capabilities, weapons systems so that Israel can defend itself …. no change by this nonbinding resolution on what Israel can or cannot do in terms of defending itself.”

The resolution is not “nonbinding.” The Security Council HAS ordered a ceasefire, the the US regime IS bound by that order, and Kirby’s opinion that murdering tens of thousands of civilians and subjecting hundreds of thousands to starvation, etc. constitutes Israel “defending itself” doesn’t magically change so much as a comma in that resolution or an atom of that obligation.

While it’s a given that some other regimes are also going to flout a system of international law they loudly invoke when they find it convenient,  the regimes that do take their obligations seriously should start freezing US assets and sanctioning US regime figures until such time as the US regime decides to bring its actions into compliance with the “rules-based international order” it so piously claims to lead and personify.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” Politico reports, “is in talks to run on the Libertarian Party presidential ticket — a move that could translate his popularity into becoming a near-guaranteed choice on ballots in all 50 states.”

Kennedy also plans to announce his choice of running mate, likely tech lawyer Nicole Shanahan, on March 26. Presidential and vice-presidential candidates can spend unlimited money on their own campaigns and Shanahan’s a multi-billionaire, meaning that a  Kennedy/Shanahan ticket could go toe to toe with Joe Biden and Donald Trump when it comes to campaign finances.

However, I see some major problems with the idea of a Kennedy/Shanahan as a Libertarian Party presidential ticket.

First, a disclaimer: I’ve been involved with the Libertarian Party since 1996.  In 2022, when what I deemed a Republican “infiltrate and neuter” operation (my opinion) operating as a PAC/caucus “took over” (their own words) the party’s management, I withdrew from involvement. I am, however, back, and will attend the party’s national convention in Washington, DC over Memorial Day weekend. I hope and expect that actual libertarians will regain control.

Problem One: Kennedy is not a Libertarian. I don’t intend that as an insult. Some of his policy positions do align with the party’s, others don’t, and some completely contradict the party’s platform. Political parties should nominate candidates who support their platforms and policy positions. Candidates who don’t support a party’s platform and policy positions should run as independents or seek the nominations of parties they’re more representative of.

Problem Two: Being “in talks” to run on the Libertarian Party’s ticket is a meaningless claim. Unlike the major parties, the Libertarian Party has “unbound” delegates. More than a thousand of them. They vote as they choose, not as they’re required to by e.g. primary election results. If Kennedy wants the nomination, he’ll have to have some great “talks” with those delegates. And since most of them are already selected, he’ll have to do so AT the convention.

Problem Three:  Getting the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination is far from becoming “a near-guaranteed choice on ballots in all 50 states.” The party HAS managed to get 50-state ballot access before. But not always … and at present, after two years of destruction at the hands of the aforementioned the party is a shell of what it formerly was. Fifty state ballot access isn’t impossible, but it’s not “near-guaranteed.”

RFK, Jr. is a poor fit for the Libertarian Party’s objectives, and the party really doesn’t have as much to offer him as the Politico article implies.

Which is not to say he shouldn’t run for president. That’s his call. But he should run in his own lane instead of trying to get the Libertarian Party to run itself off the road for him.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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