THE LATEST IN THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA: OUR CURRENT FEATURE ARTICLE
Table of Contents
FROM BEHIND ENEMY LINES:A Conservative Libertarian Inside Academia
SOUTHERN HERITAGE: Dedicated to the truth about the War of Yankee Aggression
Constitutional Law
NEW WORLD ORDER, UNITED NATIONS, ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT AND AMERICAN SOVERIGNTY
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How to Lobby Congress
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A Condensed Version of The People's Pottage by Garet Garrett. The complete book is available for download at: http://www.mises.org/books/pottage
Condensed by
Dr. Jimmy T. (Gunny) LaBaume
Rise of Empire. The Ancient Design.
Part I. 1952.
We have crossed the boundary between Republic and Empire. The precise moment when it happened can not be determined but, by now, the crossing is irreversible.
There were no frightening omens that warned us of it and it certainly was not the will of the people. Never the less, it is an elementary school book fact that a republic can vanish.
The Roman Republic became an Empire. And, in the process, Augustus Caesar demonstrated a proposition of Aristotle's Politics: "People do not easily change, but love their own ancient customs; and it is by small degrees only that one thing takes the place of another; so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about a revolution in the state."
This “revolution within the form” is precisely what happened in America.
Part II. 1952
In 1952 Garrett wrote: “How much does the younger half of this generation reflect upon the fact that in its own time a complete revolution has taken place in the relations between government and people? It may be doubted that one college student in a thousand could even state it clearly.” (Editor's Note: Today, more than 50 years later, even a smaller proportion of college students are aware of it—much less being able to state it clearly.)
The first article of our inherited tradition—that "Government is the responsibility of a self-governing people”— no longer exists. It is a political fact today that “ people are the responsibility of government.” Although some of the forms of republican government linger on, the fundamental character of the state is totally different.
The Welfare State arose suddenly within the form. Its architect (Roosevelt) had appointed men with sympathetic minds to the Supreme Court. The Constitution did not have to be changed. Only one clause had to be reinterpreted—the one that says: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, imposts and excises to pay its debts and to provide for common defense and welfare of the United States." As Chief Justice Hughes put it, "We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is." The Welfare State is “legal” for no other reason but that the Supreme Court says it is.
To this day, if the President and a majority of the Senate want a Welfare State (or any other anti-American innovation) and pack the Court with like-minded men, the Constitution is little more than a “rubberoid instrument.” It can then be flouted, with impunity, by executive will. In fact, to outsmart the Constitution and circumvent its restraints is currently a popular exercise in the art of government.
As long as the Republic was alive, there was one sentence in the Constitution that could not be usurped. "The Congress shall have the power to declare war." As long as we still remotely resembled a Republic, this was the one thing no President could do. Only Congress (representing the will of the people) could declare war. This was the most important internal safeguard of the republic.
Roosevelt wanted and planned World War II. But, the Constitution forbade him to declare war. He had to go to Congress for a declaration. But only nine years later, Truman, a much weaker President, declared war on North Korea and congress actually condoned this blatant usurpation of its power. Supporters argued that the pertinent sentence in the Constitution was obsolete because "war may not begin suddenly."
This reasoning is childishly foolish. First, the war did not begin that way. Second, Congress was in session at the time and could have acted promptly. Third, the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, may legally act in defense of the country before a declaration of war is made—which is bound to happen if the nation is attacked. Truman's supporters argued that his act was defensive. Even if that were so, he would still be legally obligated to ask Congress for a declaration of war later, but he never did. A year later Congress was still debating whether or not we were legally-constitutionally at war.
(Editor's Note: And what has happened since? Haiti, Vietnam, Panama, Beirut, Grenada, Haiti again, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq and probably a half-dozen others that I have left out.)
Part III. 1952.
Only a few months after the Korean fiasco had settled some, Truman sent American troops to Europe to join an international army. He did this without a law. In fact, he did it without so much as even consulting Congress. Congress made a few sounds of anger and then passed a resolution saying that it was all right.
The State Department obliged by publishing the document, Powers of the President to Send Troops Outside of the United States, which said, in part, “… constitutional doctrine has been largely molded by practical necessities. Use of the congressional power to declare war, for example, has fallen into abeyance because wars are no longer declared in advance."
That could be something that Caesar might have said to the Roman Senate. Why have a written constitution if constitutional doctrine is formed by necessity? The immediate purpose of this document was to defend the unconstitutional Korean precedent. Never the less, it was a forecast of executive intentions and a mortal challenge to the principle of parliamentary government.
It is too late to ask, "Whose hand shall control the instrument of war?"
Properties of Empire. Part I. 1952
What are the true marks of an Empire? War and conquest are not among them because republics may pursue conquest. For example, conquest of the continent did not give the United States the character of Empire. Ideas of Empire are ideas for external conquest.
So then do colonies characterize empire? Not necessarily. For example, the possession of colonies did not make Greece an Empire. The Greek colonists were emigrants and the colonies were sovereign states and, as such, were not politically bound to the mother-state.
War, conquest, colonization and expansion have all occurred in the history of all kinds of states—tyrannies, oligarchies, republics, democracies and others. But the characteristics that are unique only to empire are:
- The executive power of government is dominant.
- Domestic policy is subordinate to foreign policy
- The military mind has ascended to a level that the civilian mind is intimidated
- A system of satellite nations
- An emotional complex of vaunting and fear
The next five parts of this chapter deal with the nature and development of these characteristics within the united States government.
Part II. 1952
The first characteristic of an Empire is the dominance of the executive branch of government.
Nowadays “ executive” means a great deal more than was intended by the Constitution, which created a government with three coequal powers. These three powers could annul each other's work and none of the three was the sovereign or in any way could have the final word. Instead, the founders put sovereignty safely beyond seizure—in the hands of the people. If the people really wanted a law that the Supreme Court declared to be unconstitutional, they could change the Constitution through the peaceful procedure set forth in the document itself.
This works well for a Republic but an Empire needs an executive that can act immediately.
The Federal income-tax law of 1914 gave the government unlimited access to wealth and power that could be used for social purposes. Then World War I followed. These two events marked a large increase in the power of the executive. Then the Great Depression, the revolutionary Roosevelt regime, and World War II all happened in rapid succession causing Executive Government to explode. In the time before these events, executive power was only the power to execute and administer the laws. After these events, it meant the power to govern.
Only a few years earlier Congress spoke for the people. Now the President does. The President, the embodiment of the executive principle, stands between Congress and the people and assumes the right to express their will.
He plays on the emotions and passions of the people in order to influence their thinking. He controls the largest and most powerful propaganda machine on earth. The government's ideas are broadcast by the administration from Washington. Furthermore, the government has printing and duplicating plants of its own (the Government Printing Office) through which it applies the subtle propaganda technique of briefing editors, writers, educators and selected social groups on the government's point of view. In addition, every government agency has a public relations staff. Since Congress has no such propaganda machine, it is constantly under pressure from the people who have been influenced by the President's.
Congressman Harnes summarized it this way: “…individual liberty and free institutions cannot long survive when the vast powers of government may be marshaled against the people to perpetuate a given policy or a particular group of office holders. Nor can freedom survive if all government policies and programs are sustained by overwhelming government propaganda."
Then, as now, the Federal bureaucracy fought every attempt by Congress to stop its expansion. The tax-supported propaganda machine used distortion, misrepresentation and out right chicanery to muster overwhelming pressure for continued growth in Federal Government. Senator Douglas said that there was no pressure group "more persistent and skilled in the technique of getting what it wants” than the bureaus of Executive Government.
In time Executive Government became a “fourth entity” that acts “in a dimension of its own with a force, a freedom and a momentum beyond any control of the law-making power.” This entity is so vast, has so many parts and is so shapeless that no mind can comprehend it.
Eventually Congress asked former President Hoover to organize a commission to study it and attempt to make it intelligible. The full report of this commission was never published because of its great length. A bare bones summary was more than 250 pages long. But, essentially, the Commission said: "The executive branch is a chaos of bureaus and subdivisions” and that "Thousands of Federal programs cannot be directed personally by the President." As a result, government is administered by bureaucrats who are not elected by the people.
The Hoover Commission had no mandate to criticize or suggest that any activities be discontinued. Its assignment was to say how the bureaucracy might be organized for greater efficiency. An efficient bureaucracy may cost less but it is much more dangerous to liberty than a bungling one. (Editor's Note: Do we really want an “efficient” secret police or administrator of gas chambers?)
It was just such a bureaucracy that strangled Rome. Bureaucratic growth is both a symptom and a cause of the increasing power of the executive principle. There are several ways in which the executive principle is aggrandized:
(1) By delegation— Congress delegates its Constitutional powers to the President.
(2) By reinterpretation of the Constitution by the Supreme Court.
(3) By innovation – the President does things not specifically forbidden by the Constitution because the founders never thought of them.
(4) By the appearance of administrative agencies with power to issue rules and regulations that have the force of law.
(5) By usurpation – when the President confronts Congress with something he has already done which Congress cannot repudiate without exposing the government to ridicule. Examples include: By-passing the Senate by signing an executive agreement in place of a treaty (which requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate); going to war by agreement with the United Nations and without the consent of Congress; or sending troops to join an international army by agreement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
(6)Finally: the powers of Executive Government increase as the country becomes more and more involved in foreign affairs— because, by tradition and the terms of the Constitution, foreign affairs is the realm of the President. Only the President can receive foreign ambassadors and negotiate treaties, with two limitations. First, any treaty must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. (As pointed out above, this may be avoided by signing “executive agreements” with foreign countries instead of treaties.) Second, ambassadors appointed by the President must be approved by the Senate. (Again, the President sometimes avoids this by sending personal representatives on foreign errands.) And finally, in both peace and war, the President is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the point of which was to make civil authority supreme over the military power.
Today executive power is no longer coequal. It is the dominant power as Empire requires.
Part III. 1952.
The second mark identifying Empire is: "Domestic policy becomes subordinate to foreign policy."
That is what happened to Rome and to every Empire including the British and now us.
As we convert into a garrison state and build a terrible war machine, every domestic policy will be conditioned by foreign policy.
Government tells us that our survival as a free nation is at risk. That makes it simple because, if that is the case, then there is no domestic policy that may not be sacrificed—even freedom. We no longer have a choice between war and peace. We are committed to perpetual war. If it is a question of survival, domestic policies are unimportant. If necessary, all private property may be confiscated and all labor conscripted.
The American mind is conditioned to accept this. For proof, consider the blind resignation with which the lead editorial of the October 31, 1951 edition of The New York Times was received by the people: "…the Korean war has brought a great…change in our…way of life…forcing us to adopt measures which are changing the whole American scene and our relations with the rest of the world……which will affect the lives of a whole generation. The productive effort and the tax burden resulting from these measures are changing the economic pattern of the land…What is not so clearly understood…is that these are no temporary measures…but rather the beginning of a wholly new military status for the United States, which seems certain to be with us for a long time to come."
The people have felt helpless about it as if it were not the harvest of our foreign policy but Jehovah acting through the Russians to afflict us.
(Editor's Note: And now, 55 years later, “a long time to come” has arrived. The same can be said about our most recent adventures known as “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”)
Part IV. 1952.
Another identifying characteristic of Empire is: "Ascendancy of the military mind, to such a point at last that the civilian mind is intimidated."
The Pentagon is the symbol of this ascendancy. It was built during World War II and, from the beginning, was never considered “temporary housing” such as was built during World War I. In other words, it was built with perpetual war in mind.
Global strategy is conceived in the Pentagon. But, exactly what it is or how they arrive at the estimates of what it will cost, nobody knows. Any information that might be forthcoming is only what the military wishes to be divulged. The rest is "classified" and even Congress itself can not access it.
Exactly how and when this nation was legally converted into a garrison state for perpetual war and the civilian mind surrendered to the military mind is in the Congressional Record (Nos. 167,168 and 170, September 10,11 and 13,1951).
Garrett then proceeds to summarize the closing debate that took place on "Department of Defense Appropriations, 1952” (pgs 142-147). He details how all opposition to that appropriations bill was systematically beat down and the bill was past.
In the end, not a single vote was cast against the bill. The entire Senate had said, in effect: "Who are we to question the judgment of the military mind?" The intimidation of the civilian mind was complete.
A few days earlier Congress passed a bill authorizing a construction of secret overseas bases. Of these, Senator Russell, of the Armed Forces Committee, said: "These projects are highly classified. The committee inquired into them as best we could…)." The phrase “as best we could" made it obvious that the civilian mind no longer governed.
From that point on, the moment anyone criticizes or expresses any sort of doubt about the amount of money the military requests, it is immediately implied that he is in some way giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
But, General MacArthur himself said: "Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense....Indeed, it is a part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war."
Interpretation: War is an instrument of domestic policy—just another control mechanism where military expenditures are increased or decreased as central planners decide that the economy needs a little more or a little less inflation (but never any deflation). An Executive Government in control of the economy has a vested interest in inflation. Thus it naturally follows that it will have a proprietary interest in perpetual war.
A Republic can put its armor on and take it off because, for it, war is only an interlude. However, an Empire must wear its armor perpetually. Furthermore, war is strictly a military business. All it requires from civilians it acquiescence, exertion and loyalty.
V. 1952.
History reveals another feature of Empire: A system of satellite nations.
“Satellite” means “ the hired guard.” In the sense it is used here, a “satellite” nation is a following of dependent people who act as an outer guard.
All satellites have one thing in common. Their security is vital to the security of the Empire. A satellite nation wants the Empire's protection so it is willing to strike a bargain.
By this definition our principal satellite is Great Britain. By the same definition, the thirteen countries that are signatories to the North Atlantic Treaty are satellites. On the other side of the world we have assumed responsibility for the security of Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Japan under the Pacific Pact.
In words too eloquent to edit, Garrett writes: “It is a long list…(of) client nations, suppliant nations and waif satellites, all looking to the American government for arms and economic aid. These are scattered all over the body of the sick world like festers. For any one of them to involve us in war it is necessary only for the Executive Power at Washington to decide that its defense is somehow essential to the security of the United States.” (Pertinent to the time Garrett was writing, Korea was a waif satellite.)
This vast system of entanglement had its origin in Lend-Lease—the most reckless delegation of power to the President by the Congress that could have been imagined. In fact, it amounted to abdication. Under this law, the President could have literally given the uS Navy away. The President was free (on his own, without limitation or accountability) to give economic and military aid of any kind as well as secret military information to any country "whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States…"
At war's end Lend-Lease goods were flowing into every port in the world that was not considered to be an enemy. After the war came the Marshall Plan which invited all European nations to participate in the sharing of our wealth—including Russia.
But when Russia spurned our capitalistic dollars, the Marshall Plan changed into subsidies and benefits for the Western European countries that were willing to align themselves with us against the Russian menace. The Marshall Plan was scheduled to expire in 1951. It did not. Instead, its name changed. The Marshall Plan countries became the North Atlantic Treaty countries and they all continued to look to the American Empire for arms, economic aid and security.
Motivated by fear (which is stronger than any political party), Empire puts its faith in arms. Once again, too eloquent to edit: “The basic conviction is simple. We cannot stand alone. A capitalistic economy, though it possesses half the industrial power of the whole world, cannot defend its own hemisphere. It may be able to save the world; alone it cannot save itself. It must have allies. Fortunately, it is able to buy them, bribe them, arm them, feed and clothe them; it may cost us more than we can afford, yet we must have them or perish. This voice of fear is the voice of government.”
Only five years after World War II we were sending troops and armaments to an international army in Europe which we hoped would “defend the security of the United States somewhere between the river Rhine and the Pyrenees.”
VI. 1952.
A characteristic emotional weakness of Empire is: A complex of vaunting and fear.
The vaunting comes from what could be called a “ Titanic feeling.” Passengers on the Titanic could not believe such a ship could sink. Her listing deck seemed safer than a life boat. And that is the way it is with the people of an Empire.
They feel mighty. They have never known defeat. They scorn those who say, “We are not infinite.” They are resolved to do what is necessary and are convinced that necessity will create the means.
But then there is the fear…fear of the barbarian; of standing alone; of world opinion; fear that our security is no longer in our own hands. Sometimes the guard itself (our system of satellites) becomes a source of fear. Finally there is the secret fear of allies. What if they fail or falter? What will become of the weapons we supplied them? Will they be turned against us?
The possibility of having to face its own weapons is a nightmare for an Empire.
VII. 1952.
Up to this point in the book, Garrett has identified five characteristics of Empire:
(1) The executive principle is the dominant power,
(2) Domestic policy is formed by foreign policy,
(3) Ascendancy of the military mind,
(4) A system of satellite nations for collective security, and,
(5) An emotional complex of vaunting and fear.
There is another indicator of Empire that gradually reveals itself. The Empire becomes a prisoner of history. The history of a Republic is its own and unique to its own people. But the history of an Empire is a history of the world and belongs to many people.
A Republic has no obligation to act upon the world but an Empire must exert its power. America is obliged to act upon the world not only for our own security but also for the greater idea that we should assume the moral responsibility for world leadership. We are obliged to maintain a balance of power against the forces of evil, keep the peace, save civilization, and serve mankind.
The Romans saw themselves as the defenders of civilization. The Spanish added salvation. Then the British added the noble myth of the white man's burden. We have added freedom and democracy. But this is the language of power—the language of Empire.
The ends always justify the means. But this involves two ironies. The first is that the Empire actually believes what it says. The second is that the ultimate end is invariably “ peace”— but peace through the use of force.
Along this road to Empire there is a point of no return. Moral world leadership is not a role you can easily discard. But, on the other hand, you never really know where the road will ultimately lead.
When, in response to the Russian menace of the 1950s (the “Cold War”), Congress blindly voted billions for the Pentagon, nobody could imagine how that could continue indefinitely. At the same time, however, no one could imagine how to stop it or suggest a way to go back.
(Editor's Note: The uS response to the collapse of that great menace is instructive. There was not so much as a hint of any “going back.” Instead we continued (even expanded) our role as world moral leader and policeman. Indeed, we are beyond the point of no return.)
VIII. 1952.
The voice of rationalization says it will be a new kind of Empire. For the first time in history the dominant power in the world is held by a nation that has neither the will to exploit others nor any motive to increase its wealth at their expense.
But this is a lofty view and it will not save us if, as we reach for the stars, we step in a chasm. It is true that Empire is a great civilizing force. It is also true that America is an Empire in a new sign. But therein lies the chasm.
Every Empire in history that advanced civilization extracted its price. Rome exported peace, law and order in exchange for food, wine, luxuries, treasure and slaves. It laid its satellites under tribute. The British did not lay direct tribute but, instead, managed the terms of trade in such a way as to be very profitable for England.
Never before has it been imagined that Empire should not only pay all the costs but actually pay other nations for providing their protection and security and maintaining their economic welfare. “That indeed is Empire in a new sign. The chasm is bankruptcy.”
Our payment to Europe to allow us to defend European civilization acted with a kind of centrifugal force to scatter dollars all over the world. The author then provides an exhaustive, detailed list of (then current) uS funded “development projects” in the colonial territories of Great Britain; the colonial territories of France; the Belgian Congo; Portuguese Angola; Burma ;Indo-China; the Indonesian Republic; Thailand; and industrial projects in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Turkey.
Billions of dollars worth of wealth have been bestowed as gifts, grants, subsidies and un-repayable loans by this “Imperialism of the Good Intent”—this “Empire of the Bottomless Purse.”
(Editor's Note: And now, over 50 years later, we have still not reached the bottom.)
The Lost Terrain. Part I. 1952.
There is a mortal hostility between constitutional, representative, limited government and Empire. Each will destroy the other but never by the choice (or the vote) of the people.
America committed to Empire by Executive Government one step at a time and this sequence of events seems to be irreversible. The President, the State Department, the globalists and oneworlders are all saying that it is impossible to alter the course.
But, if it were possible, what would it take for the people to recover their sovereign rights? Of the lost terrain, what would they have to recapture?
Subsequent parts of this chapter deal with answering those questions.
Part II. 1952.
To regain the first height of the terrain we have lost, the people must learn again to think for themselves—a kind of self-awakening needed because thinking has been laid under a spell. Once the mind is liberated, it is easy see through the fog of propaganda and it becomes clear that there is an alternative course.
Herbert Hoover pointed to it when, in 1950, he said: "… the prime obligation of Western Continental Europe rests upon the nations of Europe … America cannot create their spiritual forces; we cannot buy them with money." But, these words were lost on the propagandized American mind. Hoover was seen as an isolationist back from the grave.
Then in 1951 General Mac-Arthur said: "… Our potential in human and material resource, in alignment with the rest of the Americas, is adequate to defend this hemisphere against any threat from any power or any association of powers." Then, in "Foreign Policy for Americans," Senator Taft said "…we are completely able to defend the United States itself." The spell-bound American mind hardly noticed the contradiction—if the hemisphere is invulnerable, then why do we have to defend America overseas? Why are we so reliant on allies?
The Pentagon plotted an alternative course but would not disclose it on the grounds that disclosure would not be in the public interest. Should it not be for the people to say what they will defend and how they will defend it? Should the people not have a choice as to whether to save the United States or save the whole world? If so, why should the government withhold the necessary military information? Whose property is it, the government's or the people's? Granted, strategy must be secret but we are speaking of national policy, not strategy.
Part III. 1952.
The second height of lost terrain to be regained is public debate of foreign policy. How was that lost? No battle was fought for it. The government simply seized it. Now, the President dictates foreign policy and the people must accept it without debate.
In a 1951 speech Harry Truman said, in effect: “When the people voted for Harding in 1920, we turned our backs on the new-born League of Nations. But, the people now recognize that they chose the wrong course. The people I have chosen to fill foreign policy positions have been picked without regard to party labels because I want to keep our foreign policy out of domestic politics.” This extraordinary statement was absent mindedly received by the American mind because it was infatuated by the phrase, bi-partisan foreign policy.
What the President really said was that, because the people once voted wrong on foreign policy, they should not be allowed to vote on it at all any more—just leave it to the President. The only logical outcome of such reasoning is that the people no longer have anything to say about war and peace.
Foreign policy must once more be debated by the people who may have to die for it. Until this portion of the terrain is regained, any discussion of domestic policy will be pointless because the very fate of the republican form of government is at stake.
Part IV. 1952.
The next height to be retaken is control of the public purse.
Until that happens Executive Government cannot be tamed. Up until the Roosevelt Revolution no popular prerogative was so jealously guarded. Granted, the people have not always managed the purse well. But the difference is that, no matter how badly they manage, the public purse cannot control them. However, in the hands of the government the purse becomes the single most powerful instrument of executive policy.
Part V. 1952.
The next height to be conquered is occupied by the evil serpent of inflation. Its effect is to cause people to become economic alcoholics. It afflicts them with the delusion that they can get rich by destroying the value of money.
This serpent's food is irredeemable paper money. Sound money is its poison. Its life is immortal. Victory cannot be unconditional. A guard will have to be left and then someone sent to watch the guard.
Part VI. 1952
All positions on the lost terrain must be stormed and captured but the last is the highest of them all—the enemy that is within yourself.
You must face up to the fact that the cost of saving the Republic may be extremely high. In fact, it could be as high as the cost of setting it up in the first place—back when the love of liberty was a passion and people were willing to die for it.
When Moses brought his people near to the Promised Land he sent out scouts. They returned to say: "The only thing is, this land is inhabited by very fierce men." But then Moses said: "Come. Let us fall upon them and take the land. It is ours from the Lord."
And Garrett concludes: “No doubt the people know they can have their Republic back if they want it enough to fight for it and to pay the price. The only point is that no leader has yet appeared with the courage to make them choose.”
(Editor's Note: And things have not changed [except for the worse] since 1952.)
Copyright ©2004, FlyoverPress.com
Jimmy T. LaBaume, PhD, ChFC is a full professor teaching economics and statistics in the School of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, TX. He does not speak for Sul Ross State University. Sul Ross State University does not think for him.
Dr. LaBaume has lived in Mexico and spent extended periods of time in South and Central America as a researcher, consultant and educator.
“Gunny” LaBaume is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War and Desert Storm. His Marine Corps career spanned some 35 years intermittently from 1962 until 1997 when he refused to re-enlist with less than 2 years to go to a good retirement. In his own words, he “simply got tired of being guilty of treason.”
He is also currently the publisher and managing editor of FlyoverPress.com, a daily e-source of news not seen or heard anywhere on the mainstream media. He can be reached at jlabaume@sulross.edu.
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