Paul Craig Roberts’ Biography

Many readers will expect to see Matt Drudge or Arianna Huffington on this list. Although they both indeed have leading Internet news websites that cover some fringe stories and report on systematic injustices more so than the mainstream media, they primarily aggregate mainline news. Therefore, they are excluded from our “alternative media” label.
The criteria we’ve chosen to base these rankings of the most influential alternative media figures are the following;

• people that have the courage to seek the truth no matter where the information leads them;
• those with the courage to question 9/11;
• those who don’t buy into the false left-right political paradigm;
• those who are grounded in peace and liberty;
• those with the communication skills and platform to affect real change.

Significantly, each of the people who made our list is clearly driven by unyielding passion. Despite some natural disagreements, they each provide a unique bridge to forbidden knowledge and they all deserve high praise for their efforts and commitment to inform the public. Sincerely, it is very encouraging to have so many talented voices leading the stampede for truth, liberty, justice, and peace.

With so many people doing great work in the real alternative media, we are sure that some deserving reporters will be left off the list. Although Activist Post has forged relationships with some of the people on this list, we’ve tried to remain as non-biased as possible in our observations. At the end, we’ve also included a list of those who deserve honorable mention for their tireless work and talent providing the truth.
10. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: Paul Craig Roberts is one of the most respected columnists in the alternative media. His syndicated articles can be seen on many leading alternative news websites including Lew Rockwell, Infowars, Counterpunch, InformationClearingHouse and countless others. Roberts scores huge points in the credibility department having been the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury under Reagan, and an editor of the Wall Street Journal — among a long list of other accolades. His research is impeccable and his vision of how the world really operates is second to none. He knows why and when the global chess pieces are moving, and has the incredible talent to communicate difficult concepts to the general public. He has written several books including The Tyranny of Good Intentions and How the Economy was Lost. His many interviews can be seen on Russia Today and Prison Planet TV. Roberts is also a recent contributor to Gerald Celente’s esteemed Trends Journal. There is no one better at reporting the reality of geo-political events and the workings of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

Empire Burlesque

By JUDE P. DOUGHERTY

Paul Craig Roberts may be remembered, if for no other reason than for the title he used for his farewell syndicated column: “Truth has fallen and taken liberty with it.” (1) Although syndicated as a newspaper columnist, Roberts was primarily an economist in the mold of Von Mises. The holder of a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, a degree capped with advanced study at the University of California, Berkeley, and Merton College, Oxford, he served during the Reagan administration as assistant secretary of Treasury. At one time he was an associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal and for a decade wrote as a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service. He was carried in 300 newspapers. Those credentials apart, he is the author or coauthor of eleven books, notably The Neoconservative Threat To World Order, How America Was Lost, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism, The Supply-Side Revolution, The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy, Alienation and the Soviet Economy. Those titles alone would indicate the direction of his thought and how he became anathema within elite intellectual circles and eventually was all but silenced by the mainstream media.

Whether writing as an economist or as a commentator on social issues, Roberts writes in a domain where demonstration is rare or impossible. In reading him one is reminded of Plato’s discussion in the Meno, where after introducing the notion “true opinion,” Plato has Socrates speak of the value of such knowledge. True opinion, although supported by fact, falls short of demonstrative knowledge but is nevertheless required by him who would govern. “Men,” says Socrates, “become good and useful to states not only because they have knowledge, but because they have right opinion.” (2) The contribution of Roberts to political and social discourse can without doubt be called “true opinion” and valued in the Platonic sense. Pope Benedict XVI advanced a similar notion in his address to the World of Culture meeting in Venice: Rejecting the notion that European culture is “liquid,” he affirmed that cultural and economic decisions depend on one’s historical insight. “Men and women are free to interpret and give meaning to reality,” but in doing so, they “must not be afraid of the Gospel.” (3)

With Roberts, there is never any difficulty discerning what he holds to be true on any topic he chooses to address, i.e., foreign policy, multiculturalism, affirmative action, subprime mortgages, derivatives, globalization, national identity, immigration policy, the secularization of America, or the tyranny of Brussels over the member states of the European Union. Roberts speaks clearly with a wisdom rooted both in scholarship and experience. Anyone who has followed his work has found there a coherent social philosophy indebted to the time-transcendent sources of Western culture. In an essay published on Christmas Day, 2003, he wrote: “There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not in a single country….All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak….Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples.” (4)

Multiculturalism and group rights based on victim status, Roberts is convinced, are eroding equality in law and free speech. “Both the United States and Europe now have crimes of opinion. Americans and Europeans are subject to arrest and imprisonment for words judged offensive to the therapeutic state. The frightening departure from Western tradition is justified in the name of curtailing hate and advancing human rights.” (5)

In The New Color Line Roberts argues that the United States took a wrong turn when the Supreme Court decided to forcefully impose integration on the country. (6) In doing so it discarded the fundamental presumption of any democratic order, namely, good will among the citizens regardless of race, class, or color. Without good will there is no basis for uniting different people under democratic self-rule.

In How the Economy Was Lost he surveys the damage done by free trade and the off-shoring of the American manufacturing base. (7) When goods and services are created off shore and then brought back to America to be sold, they increase the trade deficit. Satisfaction of that deficit inevitably results in a transfer of ownership from U.S. assets to foreign hands. Because the trade deficit is financed by foreigners, this means that profits, dividends, capital gains, interest, rents, and tolls leave American pockets for foreign accounts. The American economy has gone away, Roberts insists, and is not coming back until we free ourselves of the free trade myth.

Roberts’ exclusion from what he calls “corporate media” is understandable given his assessment of its reliability. In the farewell column cited above he wrote: “Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home.” He is convinced that with the present administration, mainstream media have become a propaganda ministry for the U.S. government.

He was Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute from 1993 to 1996. From 1982 through 1993, he held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University. During 1981-82 he served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. President Reagan and Treasury Secretary Reagan credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department’s Meritorious Service Award for “his outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy.” From 1975 to 1978, Dr. Roberts served on the congressional staff where he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy.