Ron Paul has for decades endorsed international sporting competitions between adversaries instead of pointless diplomatic talks — or worse, bombs! Though many of us cheered his answer in the Presidential Debate to a theoretical unexpected call from then-Cuban leader Castro (“I’d ask what he wants”), he has several times since then said he wishes he had responded differently. He says he would have loved to have responded to the “gotcha” question of “Fidel Castro calls you unexpectedly, what do you say to him?” with “I’d ask him if we can put together a friendly baseball game between the US and Cuba!”

Sporting events are a friendly competition that should bring people together, highlighting individual human achievement and the success that comes from years of dedication and hard work. We root for our team, while admiring the skills of the opposing team.

The Olympic games should be the premier event to highlight athletic achievements outside the realm of politics and global power games. In the Olympic games one may root for one’s country while marveling at the achievements of those from far off corners of the earth. I remember my first Olympic games as a spectator: it was the Montreal games of 1976 and as a very young boy I could not get away from the television. Marvelous!

Sadly, as the Marxists have long maintained, the personal is political. The Olympic Games are these days just another opportunity for the warfare state to push pro-war propaganda.

Who can forget just four years ago, where the games at Sochi in Russia provided a venue for US commentators to relentlessly pummel everything and anything Russian. It was the pre-Russiagate psychological preparation of battlefield, brought to you by the military-industrial complex that pulls the strings of its mainstream media puppets.

This year the target is still Russia, whose athletes innocent of doping are still forbidden from wearing their country’s colors or being identified as citizens of that country. It seems Orwellian.

But the big target of the warmongers in this year’s Olympics is North Korea. Neocons — and even many “non-interventionists,” “libertarians,” and even “progressives” — have worked themselves into a frenzy simply because the North Korean leader has sent his sister down to “turn on a charm offensive” with the South in hopes of an ultimate reunification of the long-divided country. How DARE Kim’s sister be allowed to observe at the games! “The North Koreans are killing millions of their own people, they need regime change!”

Maybe it’s true. Maybe Kim Jong-Un is on a long murderous rampage, killing millions of his citizens for fun. Maybe he’s operating a network of black sites where people are “disappeared” without charge or trial just for his amusement. But that’s just what they told us about Saddam. And Gaddafi. And the Taliban. Any anyone else they want us to get lathered up about. But thus far each and every time it’s turned out to be a lie. It’s turned out to be nothing but war propaganda. No babies thrown from incubators, no Viagra brigades raping at a frenzied pace.

The war that follows these lies enriches the military-industrial complex which is neck deep in the think tanks and media that amplify the propaganda. But the people in the countries thus “liberated” have in every case ended up far worse than before their salvation on the receiving end of US firepower.

Ask the Libyans how they like their “freedom.”

Oh but these invasions have made us safer! Really? There was no al-Qaeda or ISIS in Syria or Libya before the neocons dragged us in to “liberate” the people. Does more al-Qaeda and the emergence of ISIS make us safe?

Anyone who dares suggest that the “two minutes of hate” toward North Korea that has been whipped up as a by-product of the Olympics is nothing but war propaganda is accused of being an apologist for a communist dictatorship.

But war propaganda must be resisted simply because it is war propaganda. It is a psychological preparation of the reluctant American psyche to accept a US attack on the demonized country and its de-humanized population.

The intention is to convey the message that there are no options short of war to rid the earth of this singular evil.

What if Vice President Mike Pence had not “taken a knee” for every team entering the Olympic stadium that was not wearing uniforms reading “USA”? What if he did not boycott the VIP dinner simply because the sister of the North Korean leader was present? What if the United States answered the “charm offensive” with a charm offensive of its own. What if we suddenly engaged North Korea on all fronts: diplomacy, trade, tourism, etc.?

“I can still call out the murderous North Korean regime without demanding a US attack!” Yeah, right. You become a conveyor belt for neocon propaganda and when it reaches its ultimate purpose — war — you can smugly exonerate yourself from any guilt. “Yes I repeated all of their propaganda and worked up the country into a war frenzy, but technically I never called for war!”

Maybe Kim is the monster they claim he is. But did he launch an unprovoked war on Iraq, LIbya, and Syria based on lies in which millions of innocents have been killed? No, that would be the neocons. With the help of every single person who spread the war propaganda even while claiming to opposing a US attack.

Bite your tongue when they expect you to repeat war propaganda. Stand your ground. Do not allow them to drag you into their war games. In the end, we are the victims of war propaganda. As Solzhenitsyn said, “A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.”

We fight the war machine even when it is extremely unpopular to do so. Please join us in this fight. Your support makes it all possible.

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