The Limits Of Free Speech Protections In American Broadcasting

Demonstrators hold signs on Sept. 18, 2025, outside Los Angeles’ El Capitan Entertainment Centre, where the late-night show ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ is staged. AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

BY MICHAEL J. SOCOLOW

PROFESSOR OF COMMUNICATION

AND JOURNALISM, UNIVERSITY

OF MAINE

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is displeased with a broadcast network. He makes his displeasure clear in public speeches, interviews and congressional testimony.

The network, afraid of the regulatory agency’s power to license their owned-and-operated stations, responds quickly. They change the content of their broadcasts. Network executives understand the FCC’s criticism is supported by the White House, and the chairman implicitly represents the president.

I’m not just referring to the recent controversy between FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, ABC and Jimmy Kimmel. The same chain of events has happened repeatedly in U.S. history.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s FCC chairman, James Lawrence Fly, warned the networks about censoring news commentators.

Then there was John F. Kennedy’s FCC chairman, Newton Minow, who criticized the networks for not airing more news and public affairs programming to support American democracy during the Cold War.

And there was George W. Bush’s FCC chairman, Michael Powell. He decided that a fleeting “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show – when Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed – was sufficient to punish CBS with a fine.

In each of those cases, the FCC represented the views of the White House. And in each case, the regulatory agency was employed to pressure the networks into airing content more aligned with the administration’s ideology.

But what’s interesting in those four examples is that two of the FCC chairmen were Democrats – Fly and Minow – and two were Republicans – Powell and Carr.

As a media historian, I’m aware of the long-existing bipartisan enthusiasm for exploiting the fact that no First Amendment exists in American broadcasting. Pressuring broadcasters by leveraging FCC power occurs regardless of which party controls the White House. And when the agency is used in partisan fashion, the rival party will criticize such politicization of regulation as a threat to free speech.

This recurring cycle is made possible by the fact that broadcasting is licensed by the government. Since a Supreme Court decision in 1943, the supremacy of the FCC in broadcast regulation has been unquestioned.

Such strong governmental oversight separates broadcasting from any other medium of mass communication in the United States. And it’s the reason why there’s no “free speech” when it comes to Kimmel, or any other performer, on U.S. airwaves.

The FCC’s empowerment

Since its establishment in 1934, the FCC’s primary role in broadcasting has been to authorize local station licenses “in the public interest, convenience, or necessity.”

In 1938, the FCC began its first investigation into network practices and policies, which resulted in new regulations. One of the new rules stated that no network could own and operate more than one licensed station in any single market. This forced NBC, which owned two networks that operated stations in several markets, to divest itself of one of its networks. NBC sued.

In the first serious constitutional test of the FCC’s full authority, in 1943, the Supreme Court vindicated the FCC’s expansive power over all U.S. broadcasting in its 5–4 verdict in National Broadcasting Co. v. United States. The ruling has stood since.

That’s why there’s no First Amendment in broadcasting. The Supreme Court ruled that, due to spectrum scarcity – the idea that the airwaves are a limited public resource and therefore not every American can operate a broadcast station – the FCC’s power over broadcasting must be expansive.

The 1934 act, the 1943 Supreme Court decision read, “gave the Commission … expansive powers … and a comprehensive mandate to ‘encourage the larger and more effective use of radio in the public interest,’ if need be, by making ‘special regulations applicable to radio stations engaged in chain (network) broadcasting.’”

The ruling also explains why the FCC can be credited with having created the American Broadcasting Company. Yes, the same ABC that suspended Kimmel in the face of FCC threats was the network that emerged from NBC’s forced divestiture of its Blue Network as a result of the 1943 Supreme Court decision.

The empowerment of the FCC by NBC v. U.S. led to such content restrictions as the Fairness Doctrine, which intended to ensure balanced political broadcasting, instituted in 1949, and later, additional FCC rules against obscenity and indecency on the airwaves. The Supreme Court decision also encouraged FCC chairmen to flex their regulatory muscles in public more often.

For example, when CBS suspended news commentator Cecil Brown in 1943 for truthful but critical news commentary about the U.S. World War II effort, FCC Chairman Fly expressed his displeasure with the network’s decision.

“It is a little strange,” Fly told the press, “that all Americans are to enjoy free speech except radio commentators.”

When FCC Chairman Minow complained about television in the U.S. devolving into a “vast wasteland” in 1961, the networks responded both defensively and productively. They invested far more money into news and public affairs programming. That led to significantly more news reporting and documentary production throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

A ‘hands-off’ FCC

In the early 2000s, FCC Chairman Powell promised to “refashion the FCC into an outfit that is fast, decisive and, above all, hands-off.”

Yet his promise to be “hands-off” did not apply to content regulation. In 2004, his FCC concluded a contentious legal battle with Clear Channel Communications over comments ruled “indecent” by shock jock Howard Stern. The settlement resulted in a US$1.75 million payment by Clear Channel Communications – the largest fine ever collected by the FCC for speech on the airwaves.

Powell apparently enjoyed policing content, as evidenced by the $550,000 fine his FCC levied against CBS for the fleeting exposure of singer Janet Jackson’s breast during the Super Bowl. The fine was eventually overturned. But Powell did successfully lobby Congress to significantly hike the amount of money the FCC could fine broadcasters for indecency. The fine for a single incident increased from $32,000 to $325,000, and up to $3 million if a network broadcasts it on multiple stations.

Powell’s regulatory activism, done mostly to curb the outrageous antics of radio shock jocks, resulted in some of the most significant and long-lasting restrictions on broadcast freedom in U.S. history. Thus, Carr’s 2025 threats toward ABC can be viewed in a historical context as an extension of established FCC activism.

But Carr’s threat also appeared to contradict his previously espoused values.

As the author of the FCC section in Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for federal government policies, Carr wrote: “The FCC should promote freedom of speech … and pro-growth reforms that support a diversity of viewpoints.” In exploiting the FCC’s licensing power to threaten to penalize speech he found offensive, Carr failed to promote either freedom of speech or diversity of viewpoints.

If there’s one thing the Carr-Kimmel episode teaches us, it’s that more Americans should know the structural constraints in the U.S. system of broadcasting. Media literacy has proved essential as curbs to free expression – both official and unofficial – have become more popular.

When the FCC threatens a broadcaster, it does so in Americans’ name.

If Americans applaud regulatory activism when it supports their partisan beliefs, consistency demands they accept the same regulatory activism in the hands of their political opponents. If Americans prefer their political opposition show restraint in the regulation of broadcasting, then they need to promote restraint when their preferred administration is in power.

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West Africa’s Trade Monitoring System Has Collapsed - Why This Is Dangerous For Food Security

BY OLIVIER WALTHER, ANDREA APOLLONI AND LACEY HARRIS-COBLE

A decade ago countries in West Africa set up a unique trade monitoring mechanism. Its purpose was to track intra-regional trade in agricultural products and livestock in the region. But the system was closed down in 2022 due to a lack of funding by regional organisations.

The mechanism provided West African countries with data from more than 320 markets and along 10 corridors, enabling the tracking of not only trade patterns but livestock and zoonotic diseases.

The lack of up-to-date trade data has a number of knock-on effects. Detailed intra-trade data are essential to help assess the impact of external shocks that can significantly affect food security and economic development. These include political crises, extreme weather events, currency devaluation, or epidemics.

Good data is also essential for mapping trade networks. In turn, this can strengthen market information systems and disease surveillance efforts. These rely heavily on the movement of goods, people, livestock and capital across the region.

Using data collected by the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel from 2013 to 2017, researchers show the importance of considering the social structure of trade networks, their geography and temporal changes.

The social structure of trade networks could better inform market information systems and disease surveillance, both of which rely heavily on the movement of goods, people, livestock and capital across the region.

They conclude that regional bodies should support the resumption of trade data collection. They should also foster dialogue with national statistical offices and other national institutions that have experience in collecting data on informal regional food trade to work towards a coherent regional statistical approach.

A unique database on the regional economy

In West Africa, agricultural goods and livestock trade operates in well-established corridors. Animals, for example, flow from the Sahel to the major urban centres of the Atlantic Coast and of the Gulf of Guinea.

Our analysis of the trade data suggests that border markets play a key role in livestock trade and that a large proportion of movements are trans-boundary.

This high level of mobility facilitates the spread of livestock and zoonotic diseases. These include Rift Valley fever, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Foot and Mouth disease, and Peste des petits ruminants. At the end of September 2025, for example, a new outbreak of Rift Valley fever was observed in Mauritania and Senegal. The two West African countries have very close ties when it comes to animal movements.

The transnational nature of trade in West Africa led to the creation of a regional database by the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel in 2013. Data collected on more than 320 markets and along 10 corridors, from Guinea and Senegal in the west to Nigeria in the east, were unique on the African continent.

The data was particularly well suited for analysis of locally-produced food stuff and livestock at the regional level. This is because it incorporated both formal and informal trade. Both are prevalent throughout the region. Our recent work estimates informal activities could reach up to 85% of total trade, representing US$10 billion. This is six times higher than portrayed in official statistics.

Filling the statistical gap

The experience of recent years and the transnational nature of trade flows suggest one key step. That being regional institutions, rather than bilateral donors, take over data collection.

Initially, the data were collected within the framework of the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel’s Regional Support Program of Market Access. This was developed to increase the volume and value of trade within the Economic Community of West African States and the West African Economic and Monetary Union .

From 2017 to 2019, the United States Agency for International Development provided funding to establish the database as part of its West Africa/Regional Agriculture Office. The data was eventually integrated to the ECOWAS Informal Cross Border Trade database. This was developed to monitor informal cross-border trade in the region in 2019.

The United States Agency for International Development programme ended in 2019. After this, data collection was transferred to the Family Farming, Regional Markets and Cross-Border Trade Corridors in the Sahel project. Launched in 2020, its aim was to develop a sustainable and self-financed means of collecting reliable data on agricultural and food trade in West Africa.

Funding for these activities was provided by the International Fund for Agricultural Development. It was locally managed by the West African Association for Cross-Border Trade in Agro-forestry-pastoral and Fisheries Products, based in Togo.

This initiative, covering 17 countries unfortunately came to an end in 2022 (agricultural products) and 2024 (livestock).

The cessation of this funding has had dire effects. It profoundly affected researchers’ ability to measure the impact of structural and political changes affecting the region. For example, it is still impossible to measure the extent to which the closure of certain borders following successive coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger in recent years has affected the trade networks linking the Sahel to the Gulf of Guinea.

Better data to monitor trade and animal diseases

Re-establishing a permanent data collection system by supporting local associations such as the West African Association for Cross-Border Trade in Agro-forestry-pastoral and Fisheries Products is one of the essential steps for policymakers wishing to strengthen the region’s resilience.

The World Animal Health Organisation’s International Animal Health Code has suggested centralising livestock mobility data. This could be a starting point. It is the most efficient way to prevent and respond to transnational disease spread through trade.

Accurate, timely and centralised data collection could help identify possible hotspots and reconstruct transmission patterns. It could also develop control measures and alert systems to protect unaffected areas.

Beyond disease control, resuming the collection of data on intra-regional trade would also contribute to design policies that support the adaptation of regional economy to new climate conditions and political unrest. Better trade data on West Africa’s informal sector could unlock climate adaptation finance by highlighting its real value.

For instance, in one of our latest reports, we estimate that regional livestock exports for Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso are likely to be close to USD 1 billion when counting unrecorded trade, against USD 80 million in official statistics.

The research for this article was carried out in conjunction with Mr. Brahima Cissé who coordinates the Regional Markets program at the Economic Community of West African States in Togo; Dr. Alban Masaparisi, an economist specialising in food systems transformation and agricultural policy at the OECD Sahel and West Africa Club, France and Mr. Koffi Zougbede, an economist working on food systems at the OECD Sahel and West Africa Club, France.

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Supporting Palestine While Denying Biafra Height Of Hypocrisy, Igbo Union Tells Tinubu

BY UGOCHUKWU ALARIBE

UMUAHIA (VANGUARD NIGERIA) – The Igbo National Union–Worldwide (INU-W) has accused the Federal Government of hypocrisy for supporting the recognition of an independent State of Palestine while allegedly suppressing the agitation for Biafra’s sovereignty within Nigeria.

The group was reacting to President Bola Tinubu’s call—delivered through Vice President Kashim Shettima—for the recognition of Palestine as an independent state during the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 80) held recently in New York, USA.

In a statement signed by its Administrative Secretary, Mazi Austin-Mary Ndukwu, INU-W said Nigeria’s position at the UN amounted to “the height of hypocrisy” and “a clear case of double standards,” given the continued detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

“The most significant and symbolic item presented by Nigeria at the meeting was her tacit recognition of a Palestinian State,” the statement read.

“Therefore, the question being asked by the Igbo National Union–Worldwide is this: did Nigeria act because other nations did so, or did she suddenly recognize the importance of freedom for indigenous peoples? Or was it simply an individual decision by the Vice President in solidarity with his Muslim brothers?”

The group said Nigeria had no moral right to champion the freedom of indigenous peoples elsewhere while “hundreds of pro-Biafra agitators” were allegedly detained in correctional centres and police cells across the country.

“Nigeria must purge herself of such hypocrisy by releasing all prisoners of conscience—epitomized by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu—and save herself from international embarrassment. That is the irony of recognizing a Palestinian State while denying Biafra’s right to self-determination,” INU-W stated.

The organisation further cautioned against granting Africa, particularly Nigeria, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, citing widespread insecurity and corruption across the continent.

“Nigeria, with the highest rate of insecurity, criminality, and corruption in almost all the 36 states and the FCT, lacks the moral justification and capacity to be admitted into the Security Council as a permanent member.

“Charity, they say, begins at home. Nigeria must first fix the insecurity ravaging her land, which has claimed countless lives and destroyed infrastructure, before seeking to play a global leadership role,” the group added.

NIGERIA: Presidential Pardon: Mercy, Manipulation, Or Autocratic Ambition?

BY EMMAN USMAN SHEHU

In Nigeria, the presidential pardon, enshrined in Section 175 of the 1999 Constitution, is a constitutional instrument intended to embody mercy, correct judicial errors, and facilitate rehabilitation. Yet, its application has long been a lightning rod for controversy, often perceived as a tool for political expediency rather than justice. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s October 9, 2025, clemency to 175 convicts—82 of whom were drug-related offenders, alongside high-profile figures like former Delta State Governor James Ibori and ex-lawmaker Farouk Lawan—has intensified this debate, exposing fault lines in Nigeria’s governance.

Critics argue that the pardons, framed by the presidency as a gesture of “healing historical wounds and promoting societal reintegration,” reveal a deeper agenda: Tinubu’s desperation to consolidate power and project autocratic control, even at the cost of undermining the rule of law. In a nation grappling with corruption, a rampant drug trade, and eroding public trust, this sweeping clemency raises questions about whether mercy is being wielded as a democratic virtue or a calculated step toward entrenching unaccountable authority.

Globally, the pardon power exists to temper the rigidity of legal systems, offering a pathway for redemption, correction of miscarriages, or compassion for the reformed. In Nigeria, however, its exercise often sparks accusations of abuse, with critics pointing to a pattern of selective mercy that favors the politically connected. Tinubu’s latest clemency, announced after recommendations from the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy and endorsed by the Council of State, freed 175 individuals, including drug offenders, corrupt politicians, and posthumous beneficiaries like the Ogoni Nine and Major General Mamman Vatsa. The administration cites criteria such as old age, ill health, good conduct, and vocational training, positioning the move as a humanitarian act to decongest prisons and reward rehabilitation.

Yet, the scale and composition of the pardons—particularly the prominence of 82 drug-related offenders—have drawn intense scrutiny. Nigeria is a key transit hub for heroin and cocaine, with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) reporting over 50,000 drug-related arrests annually. Pardoning individuals convicted of offenses ranging from cannabis possession to life sentences for cocaine trafficking, like Nweke Francis Chibueze, risks undermining anti-drug efforts and signaling leniency toward crimes that devastate communities. Supporters argue that many of these offenders were low-level players, often driven by poverty or coercion, and that clemency aligns with global trends toward decriminalizing minor drug offenses. However, the lack of transparency in the selection process and the absence of post-release monitoring plans fuel suspicions that the pardons are less about reform than political strategy, possibly aimed at easing prison overcrowding ahead of international scrutiny or currying favor with specific constituencies.

No case better illustrates the contentious nature of Tinubu’s pardons than that of James Ibori, the former Delta State Governor whose 2012 conviction in the United Kingdom for money laundering and fraud remains a landmark in Nigeria’s corruption saga. Ibori, a powerful figure in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) during his 1999–2007 tenure, was sentenced to 13 years in a UK prison for embezzling an estimated $250 million of public funds, funneled through London banks and property deals. Released in 2016 after serving less than half his sentence, Ibori returned to Nigeria a free man, his foreign conviction carrying no domestic weight due to Nigeria’s legal framework at the time. His inclusion in Tinubu’s 2025 pardon list, framed as a restoration of rights, has reignited debates about elite impunity and political rehabilitation.

To Ibori’s supporters, particularly in Delta State, the pardon is a triumph of pragmatism. They view him as a charismatic leader who delivered infrastructure and patronage, arguing that his UK conviction was a form of Western overreach targeting a Nigerian politician for crimes dwarfed by global financial misconduct. The pardon, in this light, restores his dignity and opens the door for his potential return to public life, a prospect that resonates in a region where political loyalty often trumps legal accountability. Critics, however, see it as a brazen endorsement of corruption. Ibori’s theft deprived Delta State—one of Nigeria’s poorest despite its oil wealth—of funds for schools, hospitals, and roads, exacerbating inequality in the Niger Delta. His pardon, alongside that of Farouk Lawan, convicted of bribe-taking in a fuel subsidy scam, suggests to detractors that Nigeria’s elite can evade justice if they wield sufficient political influence, reinforcing perceptions of a two-tiered legal system.

The dominance of drug-related offenders in the pardon list—82 individuals, comprising nearly half the total—has sparked particular alarm. Nigeria’s role in the global drug trade is well-documented, with heroin from Afghanistan and cocaine from Latin America flowing through its porous borders, fueling addiction and organized crime. The NDLEA’s relentless operations, seizing tons of narcotics annually, underscore the stakes: a single trafficker can destabilize communities, from urban slums to rural villages. Pardoning dozens convicted of such crimes, including serious offenders like Chibueze, raises questions about the administration’s commitment to combating this scourge. Critics argue that the move risks normalizing leniency, potentially emboldening traffickers and eroding deterrence.

The administration counters that many of these offenders were low-level operatives, often coerced or impoverished, and that their release reflects a commitment to rehabilitation over punishment. Correctional reports highlight “remorse and good conduct,” with some inmates having acquired vocational skills or served decades in prison. Nigeria’s overcrowded correctional facilities, housing over 70,000 inmates, many in pre-trial detention, lend weight to arguments for decongestion. Yet, the opacity of the pardon process—lacking public disclosure of individual cases or evidence of rehabilitation—invites skepticism. Without robust post-release monitoring or data on the offenders’ roles in trafficking networks, the pardons risk appearing as a superficial gesture, potentially driven by motives beyond justice, such as political optics or external pressures.

The posthumous pardons for the Ogoni Nine, including environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Major General Mamman Vatsa, executed in 1986 for an alleged coup plot, aim to address historical injustices. Saro-Wiwa’s 1995 execution, alongside eight other Ogoni activists, for protesting oil exploitation in Ogoniland, remains a dark chapter in Nigeria’s human rights history. Vatsa’s death, similarly, is widely seen as a product of military-era paranoia rather than credible evidence of treason. These gestures have been broadly welcomed as steps toward acknowledging state-sanctioned wrongs.

Yet, even these pardons are not immune to criticism. Activists argue that “pardoning” the Ogoni Nine implies guilt, when full exoneration is needed to affirm their innocence and the illegitimacy of their trials. The timing, coinciding with renewed oil exploration talks in Ogoniland, fuels suspicions that the gesture is less about justice than political appeasement, aimed at placating restive communities. Vatsa’s pardon, meanwhile, raises concerns about selectively rewriting history to favor military-era elites, potentially glossing over the complexities of his case. These controversies highlight a broader issue: even well-intentioned pardons can be perceived as manipulative when they align too closely with political objectives.

Beyond the specifics of individual cases, Tinubu’s pardons have sparked accusations of a deeper agenda: a calculated bid to consolidate power and project autocratic control. Since assuming office in 2023, Tinubu has faced criticism for centralizing authority, from appointing loyalists to key positions to exerting influence over state institutions. The pardon power, vested solely in the presidency with minimal checks, offers a potent tool for reinforcing this dominance. By selectively freeing high-profile figures like Ibori and Lawan, both with ties to Nigeria’s political class, Tinubu signals his ability to reshape the political landscape, rewarding allies and rehabilitating influential figures who could bolster his 2027 re-election bid.

Ibori’s pardon, in particular, is seen as a strategic move to secure loyalty in the Niger Delta, a region critical to Tinubu’s electoral coalition. Lawan’s restored eligibility for public office similarly suggests a quid pro quo, potentially reintegrating a once-vocal legislator into the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) fold. These moves echo historical patterns: past presidents, from Olusegun Obasanjo’s 2000 pardon of his deputy Salisu Buhari to Goodluck Jonathan’s 2013 pardon of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, have used clemency to cement alliances or neutralize rivals. Tinubu’s pardons, however, occur against a backdrop of broader governance concerns, including crackdowns on dissent, media restrictions, and economic policies that have strained public patience. Critics argue that this clemency blitz is less about mercy than about entrenching a patronage network, signaling to Nigeria’s elite that loyalty to the presidency guarantees absolution.

The sheer scale of the drug-related pardons further fuels suspicions of autocratic maneuvering. By prioritizing a group that constitutes nearly half the clemency list, Tinubu may be appealing to populist sentiments, portraying himself as a compassionate leader while deflecting attention from the elite beneficiaries. Yet, this risks backfiring: the public, weary of crime and corruption, may see the move as a capitulation to criminal networks, especially given Nigeria’s prison overcrowding crisis, which some speculate prompted the pardons to curry favor with international human rights observers. The lack of transparency—coupled with the absence of legislative or judicial oversight—reinforces perceptions of unchecked executive power, a hallmark of autocratic drift.

Tinubu’s personal history adds a complicating layer. In 1993, a U.S. federal court in Illinois ordered the forfeiture of $460,000 from his bank accounts, linked to a heroin-trafficking operation involving Nigerian operatives in Chicago. Though no formal conviction ensued, the case has shadowed his career, resurfacing during his 2023 campaign. Critics argue that pardoning 82 drug offenders risks amplifying these associations, casting doubt on his commitment to the NDLEA’s anti-trafficking efforts. The administration dismisses such claims, emphasizing that the pardons reflect institutional recommendations, not personal bias. Yet, in a nation where public trust in leadership is fragile, the optics are damaging, feeding narratives that Tinubu’s mercy is a personal exorcism rather than a principled stand.

The controversy surrounding Tinubu’s pardons underscores a systemic flaw: Nigeria’s pardon process lacks checks and balances. Unlike democracies where pardons undergo judicial review or legislative scrutiny, Nigeria’s system grants the president near-absolute discretion, guided only by an advisory committee whose deliberations are opaque. This invites accusations of abuse, particularly when high-profile or politically sensitive cases dominate the narrative. Reform advocates propose measures like mandatory public hearings, independent audits, or categorical bans on pardons for corruption or violent crimes. Victim impact assessments and post-release monitoring could further align mercy with justice, ensuring that clemency serves society rather than select elites.

Tinubu’s controversial list of pardons not only comes across as a middle-finger to morality and uprightness, it plainly reflects Nigeria’s broader struggle to balance compassion with accountability. For every argument that clemency fosters rehabilitation or corrects historical wrongs, there is a counterpoint that it undermines the rule of law, particularly in a country battling corruption and a burgeoning drug crisis. The cases of Ibori, Lawan, and the 82 drug offenders encapsulate this tension, while the broader pattern suggests a presidency intent on consolidating power at all costs. Whether driven by genuine mercy or autocratic ambition, Tinubu’s actions risk deepening public cynicism, portraying the pardon power as a privilege for the connected rather than a remedy for the unjustly punished.

As Nigeria navigates its complex socio-political landscape, the presidential pardon remains a potent symbol—of redemption in its best moments, and of systemic flaws in its worst. Tinubu’s legacy will hinge not only on those he frees but on whether he can restore faith in a system that too often appears to favor power over principle. For now, the debate rages on, a testament to a nation yearning for both justice and accountability, wary of a leader whose mercy may mask a hunger for long-term control.

Dr Shehu is an Abuja-based writer, activist and educator.

Venezuelan Opposition Leader María Corina Machado Wins The Nobel Peace Prize

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado holds up tally sheets during a protest against the reelection of President Nicolás Maduro one month after the disputed presidential vote which she says the opposition won by a landslide, in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado holds up tally sheets during a protest against the reelection of President Nicolás Maduro one month after the disputed presidential vote which she says the opposition won by a landslide, in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

BY KOSTYA MANENKOV, REGINA GARCIA CANO AND GEIR MOULSON

OSLO, NORWAY (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation, winning recognition as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”

The former opposition presidential candidate is a “key, unifying figure” in the once deeply divided opposition to President Nicolás Maduro’s government, said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee.

“In the past year, Ms. Machado has been forced to live in hiding,” Watne Frydnes said. “Despite serious threats against her life, she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions. When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist.”

Machado says she’s humbled and grateful

Machado’s ally, Edmundo González, who lives in exile in Spain, celebrated the Nobel award as a “very well-deserved recognition” of her fight and that of Venezuelans for freedom and democracy. He posted a short video on X of himself speaking by phone with Machado.

“I am in shock,” she said, adding, “I cannot believe it.”

“This is something that the Venezuelan people deserve,” Machado said in a call with the Norwegian Nobel Institute. “I am just part of a huge movement. ... I’m humbled, I’m grateful and I’m honored not only by this recognition, but I’m honored to be part of what’s going on in Venezuela today.”

“I believe that we are very close to achieving, finally, freedom for our country and peace for the region,” she said, adding that “even though we face the most brutal violence, our society has resisted” and insisted on struggling by peaceful means. “I believe that the world will now understand how urgent it is to finally, you know, succeed.”

Crackdown on dissent

Maduro’s government has routinely targeted its real or perceived opponents.

Machado, who turned 58 this week, was set to run against Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government disqualified her. González, who had never run for office before, took her place. The lead-up to the election saw widespread repression, including disqualifications, arrests and human rights violations.

The crackdown on dissent only increased after the country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared him the winner despite credible evidence to the contrary.

The election results announced by the Electoral Council sparked protests across the country to which the government responded with force that ended with more than 20 people dead. They also prompted an end to diplomatic relations between Venezuela and various foreign countries, including Argentina.

Machado went into hiding and has not been seen in public since January. A Venezuelan court issued an arrest warrant for González over the publication of election results. He went into exile in Spain and was granted asylum.

More than 800 people are in prison in Venezuela for political reasons, according to the human rights advocacy group Foro Penal. Among them is González’s son-in-law, Rafael Tudares, who was detained in January.

Dozens of those prisoners actively participated in Machado’s efforts last year. Some of her closest collaborators, including her campaign manager, avoided prison by sheltering for more than a year at a diplomatic compound in Caracas. They remained there until May, when they fled to the U.S.

Early Friday in Caracas, some people heading to work expressed disbelief at the news of Machado’s win.

“I don’t know what can be done to improve the situation, but she deserves it,” said Sandra Martínez, 32, as she waited at a bus stop. “She’s a great woman.”

There was no immediate reaction from Maduro’s government.

Support for Machado and the opposition in general has decreased since the July 2024 election — particularly since January, when Maduro was sworn in for a third six-year term and disappointment set in.

Machado was included in Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in April. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote her entry, in which he described her as “the Venezuelan Iron Lady” and “the personification of resilience, tenacity, and patriotism.”

Machado becomes the 20th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, of the 112 individuals who have been honored.

Speculation about Trump’s Nobel chances

There had been persistent speculation ahead of the announcement about the possibility of the prize going to U.S. President Donald Trump, fueled in part by the president himself and amplified by this week’s approval of his plan for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Asked about lobbying for and by Trump, Watne Frydnes said: “I think this committee has seen any type of campaign, media attention. We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what for them leads to peace.

“This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates, and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. So we base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel.”

White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a post on X Friday morning that “President Trump will continue making peace deals around the world, ending wars, and saving lives.” He added that “the Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”

The peace prize is the only one of the annual Nobel prizes to be awarded in Oslo, Norway.

Four of the other prizes have already been awarded in the Swedish capital, Stockholm this week — in medicine on Monday, physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The winner of the prize in economics will be announced on Monday.

Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City and Moulson from Berlin. Jorge Rueda contributed from Caracas, Venezuela, and Mike Corder from The Hague, Netherlands.

AP coverage of Nobel Prizes: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes

Hungarian Writer László Krasznahorkai Wins The Nobel Prize In literature

Hungary’s Laszlo Krasznahorkai poses for photographers in London, Tuesday, May 19, 2015. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

BY KOSTYA MANENKOV, JILL LAWLESS AND MIKE CORDER

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose philosophical, bleakly funny novels often unfold in single sentences, won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for his “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

The Nobel judges praised his “artistic gaze which is entirely free of illusion, and which sees through the fragility of the social order combined with his unwavering belief in the power of art,” Steve Sem-Sandberg of the Nobel committee said at the announcement.

“László Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through (Franz) Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess,” the Nobel judges said.

The work that won the Nobel Prize in literature

Zsuzsanna Varga, a Hungarian literature expert at the University of Glasgow, said Krasznahorkai’s apocalyptic and surreal novels probe the “utter hopelessness of the condition of human existence,” while also managing to be “incredibly funny.”

Varga said Krasznahorkai’s near-endless sentences made his books the “Hotel California” of literature – once readers get into it, “you can never leave.”

Other books include “The Melancholy of Resistance,” a surreal, disturbing tale set in a small Hungarian town, and “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming,” the sprawling saga of a gambling-addicted aristocrat.

Several works, including his debut, “Satantango,” and “The Melancholy of Resistance” were turned into films by Hungarian director Béla Tarr.

Varga suggested readers new to Krasznahorkai’s work start with “Satantango,” his debut, which set the tone for what was to follow.

“Satan who is dancing a tango — I mean, how surreal can you be?” she said.

Krasznahorkai has also written several books inspired by his travels to China and Japan, including “A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East,” published in Hungarian in 2003.

How Krasznahorkai came to win

Sem-Sandberg said that Krasznahorkai had been on the Nobel radar for some time, “and he has been writing and creating one outstanding work after another.” He called his literary output “almost half a century of pure excellence.”

Krasznahorkai, 71, couldn’t immediately be reached for his reaction. He didn’t speak at the announcement.

He was born in the southeastern Hungarian city of Gyula, near the border with Romania, and has since traveled the world. Throughout the 1970s, he studied law at universities in Szeged and Budapest before shifting his focus to literature.

Krasznahorkai has been a vocal critic of autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, especially his government’s lack of support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

But in a post on Facebook, Orbán was quick to congratulate the writer, saying: “The pride of Hungary, the first Nobel Prize winner from Gyula, László Krasznahorkai. Congratulations!”

In an interview with Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet earlier this year, Krasznahorkai expressed criticism both of Orbán’s political system and the nationalism present in Hungarian society.

“There is no hope left in Hungary today and it is not only because of the Orbán regime,” he told the paper. “The problem is not only political, but also social.”

He also reflected on the fact that he has long been a contender for the Nobel Prize in literature, saying: “I don’t want to lie. It would be very interesting to get that prize. But I would be very surprised if I got it.”

Previous awards for Krasznahorkai and the other Nobels this year

Krasznahorkai has received many earlier awards, including the 2015 Man Booker International Prize. The Booker judges praised his “extraordinary sentences, sentences of incredible length that go to incredible lengths, their tone switching from solemn to madcap to quizzical to desolate as they go their wayward way.”

He also won the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the U.S. in 2019 for “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming.”

The American writer and critic Susan Sontag once described Krasznahorkai as the “contemporary master of the Apocalypse.” He was also friends with American poet and writer Allen Ginsberg and would regularly stay in Ginsberg’s apartment while visiting New York City.

He’s the first winner from Hungary since Imre Kertesz in 2002. He joins an illustrious list of laureates that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro.

The literature prize has been awarded by the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy 117 times to a total of 121 winners. Last year’s prize was won by South Korean author Han Kang for her body of work that the committee said “confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

The literature prize is the fourth to be announced this week, following the 2025 Nobels in medicine, physics and chemistry.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. The final Nobel, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, will be announced on Monday.

Nobel Prize award ceremonies are held on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite who founded the prizes.

Each prize carries an award of 11 million Swedish kronor (nearly $1.2 million), and the winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma.

Mike Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Jill Lawless from London. Justin Spike contributed to this report from Budapest, Hungary.

In 1776, Thomas Paine Made The Best Case For Fighting Kings − And For Being Skeptical

Published in 1776, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet ‘Common Sense’ inveighed against monarchy and hereditary privilege and in favor of independence for the Colonies. Smithsonian National Museum of American History

BY MATHEW REDMOND

LECTURER, UNIVERSITE DE LILLE,

FRANCE

In one of his stand-up sets, comedian David Cross rejects all political commentary that tries to answer the question, “What would America’s Founding Fathers think if they were alive today?”

For Cross, it is pointless to speculate about the present-day views of men who could not have imagined cotton candy, let alone the machine that makes it.

“What’s a machine? What’s a machine???” he screams in their collective voice, recoiling from the sorcery of the state fair.

The first time I saw this bit, something odd happened. Having just read the 1776 political pamphlet “Common Sense,” I could hear its author, one of America’s founders, laughing louder than anybody.

That would be Thomas Paine, the man credited with turning the American Revolution from a complicated Colonial fracas into a titanic struggle for the soul of liberty itself.

If Cross is skeptical that anything 250 years old still holds up, Paine, were he alive today, could probably name one thing: skepticism. Ways of thinking and being do not grow out of the ground; we make them ourselves, then hand them down as best we can. Paine would smile to see his favorite heirloom, the skeptical worldview, still intact.

Saying “no” – especially to those in power – is an underrated American pastime, and Paine was its Babe Ruth. If you plan on joining No Kings rallies and have yet to find a slogan for your sign, Paine’s got you covered: “In America, the law is king!” “No King! No Tyranny!” “Monarchy hath poisoned the republic.”

Birth of a revolutionary

Where did all this anti-monarchical fire come from? Originally, from a small town in Norfolk, England, in 1737. Turning from his father’s trade of corset-making, Paine tried his hand at business, met and impressed Benjamin Franklin in London, sailed to America, and there found his true metier as a pamphleteer and radical.

Using simple yet incandescent prose, Paine renounced, repudiated and ridiculed at a clip seldom witnessed in print before or since. Hereditary privilege, colonialism, the supernatural: no, no, no.

But what Paine made his name lambasting – what he knocked out of the park with almost steroidal force – were kings. All of them, from the figures of ancient legend and Scripture to those who warmed England’s throne during his lifetime.

“Common Sense,” his first major work, was an urgent wake-up call to every light-sleeping lover of liberty within earshot. In that pamphlet, Paine labels kingship “the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry.” He never minced words; he wanted the right people to choke on them.

‘Simple facts, plain arguments’

Exactly what was Paine’s problem with kings?

The same problem you’ll have, “Common Sense” promises, when you examine the evidence.

This is partly the secret of Paine’s rhetorical power: It’s hard to imagine any wordsmith demanding more vigorously that you not take his word for it.

Paine was a student of history, and history is chock-full of receipts. It shows that abuses of kingly power extend back to the “early ages of monarchy,” when some “principal ruffian” first took power, and “it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed … to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar.”

Since that time, says Paine, even those fortunate enough to live under benevolent rule have seldom been more than one generation away from yet another dreadful monarch.

“One of the strongest NATURAL proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.” What a tweet this would have made, caps and all.

Bring the Paine

The only thing Paine liked less than monarchical rule was its enablers, anyone who relinquished their freedom willingly to an aspiring tyrant.

This is not only wrong, Paine insists, but against nature, since all of us are created equal.

But even that’s not the worst part. Those who sacrifice their own freedom on the altar of monarchy also sacrifice that of future generations. Their “unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool.” Ouch.

“Most wise men,” Paine adds, “in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.”

Federal worker firings, court settlements, a government shutdown. Paine would loathe how right the U.S. is proving him.

Besides criticizing both tradition and manipulative elites for their role in abetting monarchs, Paine’s writing gestures toward a more widely accessible sense of false freedom that comes with getting what you want from whoever happens to wear the crown.

This kind of pleasure obscures a painful reality: that the tyrant can strike as well as stroke.

The problem of unchecked power is not nearly counterbalanced by any number of indulgences the wielder of that power deigns to bestow. Freedom, Paine insists, is not transactional; whatever price you name, you’re getting fleeced.

Or, to put it his way: “O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!”

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Jane Fonda, Other Stars, Revive The Committee For The First Amendment – A Group That Emerged When The Anti-Communist Panic Came For Hollywood

Movie stars, led by Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, protest hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947. Bettmann/Getty Images

BY KATHY M. NEWMAN

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH,

CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

Jane Fonda is joining forces with more than 500 celebrities and Hollywood heavyweights to defend free speech.

The membership roll already includes scores of famous actors like Jamie Lee Curtis, Viola Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, Pedro Pascal, Natalie Portman and Michael Keaton. Successful directors like Spike Lee and Ben Stiller have signed on, along with singer and actress Barbra Streisand and pop star and songwriter Billie Eilish.

Fonda, a star who has championed progressive causes since the 1970s, explained when she announced the group’s new edition on Oct. 1, 2025, that the effort isn’t really new. Instead, it marks the relaunch of the Committee for the First Amendment, an organization her father, actor Henry Fonda, had belonged to.

The original Committee for the First Amendment was formed in October 1947 at a time when the U.S. government worried that there were communists in Hollywood who were putting left-wing propaganda into the movies.

Hearings divided Hollywood

The attack on Hollywood started when a bipartisan congressional committee held a series of highly publicized hearings in 1947 on what it said was the “communist infiltration of the motion picture industry.”

The House Un-American Activities Committee, known as HUAC, invited 23 “friendly” anti-communist witnesses to testify.

Ayn Rand, a Russian-born novelist and screenwriter who hated communism, was one of the witnesses. She testified that the 1944 MGM movie “Song of Russia” showed clean, well-dressed, happy peasants, which she said was a sanitized, propagandized version of life in the USSR.

Another movie that came under suspicion was “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The FBI complained that the 1946 blockbuster, which starred Jimmy Stewart as a broken man who learns the true value of his life, “deliberately maligned the upper classes” with its negative portrayal of Mr. Potter, the town’s richest man.

The HUAC hearings continued for a decade and divided Hollywood. The committee’s interrogators demanded that people turn on each other and “name names.” Due to these hearings, as well as an anti-communist publication called Red Channels, hundreds of screenwriters, directors, producers, actors and musicians were fired or blacklisted for having ties to liberal groups.

Fighting back

The HUAC hearings brought Hollywood stars and the flashbulbs of the nation’s press corps to Capitol Hill. Conservative screen idols like Gary Cooper testified that communism wasn’t “on the level.”

Friendly witnesses, like Rand and Cooper, were allowed to read prepared statements and to speak for as long as they liked. Such courtesies were not granted to the 10 “unfriendly” witnesses – the suspected communists who became known as the “Hollywood 10.”

Screenwriter John Howard Lawson was the first of the Hollywood 10 to testify. Lawson, after refusing to answer if he was a communist or not, was shouted down by Rep. J. Parnell Thomas, a New Jersey Republican who served as HUAC chair. After Lawson was removed from the courtroom, HUAC’s chief investigator, Robert Stripling, read detailed evidence of Lawson’s communist affiliations.

Prominent Hollywood liberals understood that these hearings were an attack on free speech, free assembly and other rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Ira Gershwin, the lyricist known for his hit show tunes such as “I Got Rhythm” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” hosted the first gathering of the Committee for the First Amendment at his Beverly Hills mansion. Attendees included Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Gene Kelly.

The committee quickly raised US$13,000 – the equivalent of $188,000 today – and chartered an airplane to Washington. Upon their arrival in the capital, they marched and spoke out in support of the Hollywood 10. Next, they produced a radio broadcast, “Hollywood Fights Back,” as a defense of the rights of Americans to write, produce, act in and see whatever movies they pleased.

The committee released an initial statement with 35 signatories. A few months later, it published a pamphlet with more than 300 additional names supporting the effort.

Purging Hollywood

If you’ve never heard of that committee, or if you only learned about it recently when the new version made headlines, you’re not alone. The group fizzled out almost as quickly as it had mobilized.

Bogart, perhaps its most famous member, soon retracted his support for the Hollywood 10, saying in March 1948 that he regretted his trip to Washington.

“I’m no Communist,” the “Casablanca” star declared in a widely circulated statement.

Two crucial developments kneecapped the committee. First, the HUAC cited the Hollywood 10 for contempt of Congress. They were later tried in court and convicted of that crime. They eventually served prison time.

Also, studio executives drafted new hiring policies for the movie industry. Later known as the “Waldorf declaration” because the meeting took place in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Manhattan, the studio heads announced that the Hollywood 10 would be fired and banned from any studio, and that all the studios would agree to fire and ban any known communists.

Over the next decade, hundreds more stars and other key players in the entertainment industry were fired, purged and blacklisted in what became known as the blacklist era.

I’m a professor of English and film studies, and I’m writing a book about progressive films made during those years. The original committee’s members were mainly leftists and liberals whose careers survived the political pressures to root them out of show business.

The Committee for the First Amendment ultimately failed to protect the Hollywood 10 from professional attacks or incarceration, nor did it prevent hundreds of others from being blacklisted.

Bad timing

But I don’t believe that the original Committee for the First Amendment was destined to fail.

The Hollywood 10’s legal strategy, rooted in the First Amendment, reflected the hope that their convictions might be eventually overturned by the Supreme Court.

Unluckily, however, Frank Murphy and Wiley Blount Rutledge, two of the court’s most liberal justices, died before the appeal of the first two Hollywood 10 convictions could reach them.

After President Harry Truman replaced them, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals. Most of the Hollywood 10 served prison sentences between 1950 and 1951.

Why bother?

Given that the Committee for the First Amendment failed to protect Hollywood from conservative repression in the 1940s and 1950s, why would anyone revive it?

One reason is that there are parallels between the blacklist era and today.

For example, the Trump administration is trying to get comedians who poke fun at him kicked off the air, as evidenced by talk show host Jimmy Kimmel being temporarily pulled off the air.

Hollywood has also seen a surge in labor organizing. Many members of the new Committee for the First Amendment were on the front lines of the screenwriters and actors strikes of 2023.

Finally, this fight is arguably worth waging. Most Americans see the First Amendment as enshrining valuable rights. An October 2025 Marist poll found that 4 in 5 Americans think the U.S. is restricting First Amendment freedoms too much.

Americans still debate whether or not it was right to fire and blacklist Hollywood’s suspected communists. While many see the HUAC hearings as a travesty, others defend the House committee and the anti-communist fervor that inspired it.

Resilience and silence

Many look at the blacklist era as a time of capitulation by progressives in the face of repression. While there’s some validity to these claims, I’ve found that many progressive filmmakers also banded together, using allegory and other creative techniques to make movies with progressive – sometimes radical – messages.

Take “The Pajama Game,” for example. It’s a musical comedy about labor trouble in a pajama factory. While the film is a sexy, frothy romp, on the one hand, the film also casts Doris Day as Babe, a feisty union steward. In “Racing with the Clock,” workers sing about the pressure they feel to speed up the pace of their labor.

Scenes include workers organizing a slowdown, sabotaging machinery and going on strike. The last word spoken in the film is “solidarity.”

To me, the revival of the Committee for the First Amendment draws attention to the dangers implicit in efforts to muzzle writers, artists and filmmakers.

“Silence the artist, and you silence the most articulate voice the people have,” the actress Katharine Hepburn said in May 1947 in a speech written for her by Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood 10. “Destroy culture and you destroy one of the strongest sources of inspiration from which a people can draw strength to fight for a better life.”

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

Letters To Frank Meyer Reveal Rothbard’s Views On Lincoln, Slavery, And Popular Sovereignty

BY DANIEL J. FLYNN

When Frank Meyer described Abraham Lincoln in National Review shortly after the centenary of his death as the purveyor of “an authoritarianism that was, in terms of civil liberties, the most ruthless in American history,” he left colleagues and readers stunned. Editor-in-chief William F. Buckley, Jr., for one, wrote that the “Books in Brief” review by his senior editor “comes close to blasphemy.”

The review’s 101 words set off both a tete-a-tete and a published brouhaha between Meyer and Harry Jaffa. It elsewhere set off bewilderment regarding where a National Review editor came upon such ideas. Not just the centenary of the 16th president’s assassination, but the concurrent context of the civil rights movement in full force by 1965 made Meyer’s words impolitic at best.

Meyer, after he left the Communist Party in the 1940s but before he emerged as the personification of fusionism during the 1960s, came under the influence of Rose Wilder Lane, Frank Chodorov, and even, to some degree, a man who entered the world after Meyer had graduated from high school: Murray Rothbard.

New evidence of the Rothbard-Meyer friendship comes to us as part of the research for The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer. The correspondence between Rothbard and Meyer discovered in an Altoona, Pennsylvania, warehouse starts in 1954 and ends with a note from the younger man to Meyer’s widow, Elsie, shortly after the older man’s 1972 death. The letters offer a glimpse into Rothbard’s thoughts on myriad subjects. Those examined in this article focus on his complex views of the Civil War and unique approach to U.S. history, for which he admitted that he enjoyed anointing heroes and villains.

“Although an economist,” he told Meyer, “when I move over to history my first love is not economic history but political history—the clash and struggle of ideas, legislation, and parties.”

A year before the launch of National Review, Rothbard met Meyer. Like so many before caught in Meyer’s tractor-beam personality, Rothbard did not seek to escape the pull. He instigated an epistolic continuation of their late 1954 conversations. This, in turn, brought telephonic responses from Woodstock and eventual in-person reunions.

“The slavery question is one I have always found very difficult to cope with,” a twentysomething Rothbard confessed to Meyer in November 1954. “I stand for the right of secession and nullification (the Southern Dem. position). On the other hand, on the issue of the territories, I believe I favor the Douglas (Northern Dem.) doctrine of popular sovereignty within each territorial legislature.”

Rothbard cited union attacks on freedom via bayonets, conscription, greenbacks, the introduction of the income tax, and much else to illustrate what he saw as Lincoln’s aggression upon not just the South but liberty as well.

“If I were a citizen of a slave state,” he told Meyer, “I would have been in favor of state abolition of slavery, but not Federal. If I were a citizen of a territory, I would have favored that territory go in without slavery in its boundaries. If I were a Northern state, I would have favored civil disobedience against fugitive slave laws, but no coercive abolition by Federal action. I would have probably been a William Lloyd Garrison abolitionist, i.e. secession by the free states from the slave states. As you see, I think there were merits in all the positions, except that of the Republican Party.”

He regarded the Copperheads and Clement Vallandingham—whose claim that Lincoln used the war to establish tyranny found a rebuttal both forceful and weak in federal troops breaking down his door, arresting him, and exiling him to the Confederacy—as the real statesmen of the conflict.

Meyer, like Rothbard, came into the world the scion of Jews in America’s northeast. Meyer gravitated from left to right. Rothbard never endured the obligatory Marxist phase of so many others on the postwar Right. They both entertained thoughts heretical to others occupying space right of the middle.

Less controversial opinions from Rothbard included praise for the Loco-Focos, Martin Van Buren as one of America’s great presidents for refusing calls to intervene in the economy despite hard times, and James K. Polk as another on that level, if not for his Mexican War. He encouraged Meyer to read the 1840 platform of the Democratic Party. He pointed to the New York Post’s William Leggett and William Cullen Bryant as 19th-century journalists whom he admired. He cited the antebellum period as a golden age in American political history.

And that golden age, for Rothbard, ended at Fort Sumter.

“The Civil War was really the watershed,” he wrote Meyer. “Lincoln was America’s first dictator, and almost all the Republican Acts were monstrous.”

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Imports And Developing Countries: Countering The Myths Of Western Exploitation

BY LIPTON MATHEWS

For much of the twentieth century, the history of industry in the Global South was written in terms of decline. Dependency theorists argued that the nineteenth century brought about the destruction of local industries as European and American manufacturers flooded peripheral markets with cheap textiles. In this view, artisans could not withstand the onslaught of imports and were reduced to supplying raw materials for the industrial core. The picture that emerged was one of sweeping deindustrialization.

Yet this is not what the evidence shows. Across Asia and Africa, many industries survived, adapted, and, in some cases, flourished despite the growth of global trade. Textiles—the industry most often cited as a victim of deindustrialization—provide the clearest counter-examples. From Java to Kano, from Mogadishu to Ethiopia and West Africa, producers found ways to remain competitive. They did so not by isolating themselves from global markets but by exploiting advantages of quality, cultural specificity, and adaptability. Consumers were active participants in this process, often preferring local cloth because it suited their tastes, traditions, or practical needs better than factory-made imports. The exception to this general pattern was the Lower Shire Valley of Malawi, where the collapse of the Mang’anja textile industry was driven not by foreign imports but by devastating local disruptions.

It is therefore more accurate to describe the nineteenth-century history of textiles in the Global South as a patchwork of resilience and adaptation punctuated by isolated cases of decline. The Lower Shire Valley was one such case, but it was hardly representative of the wider story. A closer look at the evidence makes clear why. The idea of a universal decline rests on shaky foundations. As one study observes, “the deindustrialization of the developing world is a myth” because modern manufacturing in the Global South extended not just to factory-based industries but also to the modernization of handicrafts, export processing, and other small-scale sectors. In India, for example, hand spinning declined under the influx of machine-made yarn, yet handloom weaving expanded by using that same yarn to supply massive domestic markets. Dyeing and printing likewise benefited from new industrial dyes. These cases demonstrate that handicrafts were not destroyed but reshaped, often strengthened by new inputs and opportunities.

Java provides one of the clearest illustrations of this dynamic. Dutch authorities tried to capture the Javanese market for Dutch-made textiles, assuming that factory cloth would easily replace local production. Yet Javanese batik manufacture not only survived but thrived. Artisans used imported cambric and industrial dyes to create ever more varied designs, and consumers continued to prefer batik because it carried cultural meanings and aesthetic qualities that factory cloth could not replicate. Rather than displacing local producers, imports became tools for their innovation.

Further, African cases reinforce this picture of resilience. In northern Nigeria, Kano remained a major textile hub into the twentieth century. Its weavers and dyers blended local and imported yarns to produce durable cloths that were valued across West Africa. The expansion of cash-crop agriculture did not eliminate this industry but actually reinforced it, as the income from exports created demand for textiles.

On the Benadir Coast of Somalia, weaving communities in Mogadishu adapted to changing consumer tastes, ensuring that their products remained competitive even when foreign goods were available. In Ethiopia, weaving remained vigorous and was integrated into regional trade, with demand persisting because local cloth met cultural and practical needs better than imports.

Similarly, the success of the Tiv people of Nigeria provides another striking case. By the mid-twentieth century, the Tiv of Nigeria still produced more than half of the cloth consumed in their region, even though imported cloth was widely available. They not only supplied their own households but also sold to surrounding markets. This shows that even under conditions of heavy import penetration, local industries could remain central to everyday life.

Set against these examples, the decline of the Mang’anja textile industry in the Lower Shire Valley appears unusual. In the mid-nineteenth century, the valley’s machila cloth was widely traded and highly regarded. But by the 1860s, weaving had ceased. At first sight, this might appear a textbook case of deindustrialization caused by imports. Yet the evidence rules this out. Imports into East Africa only increased dramatically in the last decade of the nineteenth century, long after the Mang’anja industry had collapsed.

The real causes were local and devastating. Slave raiding in the 1860s decimated the population, while famine and drought compounded the destruction. Labor shortages crippled weaving, which depended on cooperation across households. Even when raiding subsided, ecological change reshaped the economy. Falling river levels exposed fertile land along the Shire River, encouraging villagers to switch to cash-crop farming. With labor scarce and land newly abundant, agriculture offered better returns than weaving. The collapse of the Mang’anja cloth industry was thus the result of demographic catastrophe and ecological transformation, not foreign competition.

Indeed, the fate of industries in the nineteenth-century Global South cannot be reduced to the binary of survival or destruction at the hands of global competition. In many places, from Java to northern Nigeria to Ethiopia, textile industries thrived despite an influx of foreign cloth. They succeeded because they adapted, differentiated their products, and exploited their competitive advantages. Where decline occurred, as in the Lower Shire Valley, the reasons were local: population collapse, famine, and new agricultural opportunities.

Dependency theory’s sweeping claims obscure this complexity. Developing countries did not simply succumb to global capitalism; they competed within it. Their industries reveal a story not of inevitable deindustrialization but of resilience, adaptation, and agency in the face of global change.

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