Everything you need to know about Ron Paul

21 Comments

1. 

   Arthur Gilroy on December 24, 2011 at 9:59 am

   Back up and further define the  statements that you are supporting, please. Erickson doesn’t sufficiently back up any of them as far as I am concerned. The gist of his article is based entirely on hearsay, innuendo and an obvious politically founded set of motives.

   Ten years ago, when confronted with some of the crazy stuff…Ron Paul says he wrote them, but they must be taken in their whole context to understand them.

   1-Link to some evidence. Make it good, too…no crackpot sites, please. And stay away from the purely politics-driven or rabidly pro-Israel sites as well.

   2- You include “…some of the crazy stuff…”

   Which so-called  “crazy stuff?” So many people have said so much shit about the so-called “craziness” of Ron Paul that it is almost impossible to focus in on any one area of his ideas when looking at hare-brained terms like “crazy stuff.” Some think that his approach to foreign affairs is “crazy.” Some agree with that but think that his small government ideas are “crazy.” Or his anti-Fed bank ideas. Or his disdain for the Civil Rights bill. (Not for civil rights themselves. He has been oh so clear on that point for 30+ years.)  Etc., etc., etc., etc.

   You also write:

   Eric [Erikson] may normally be wrong about, well, everything, but he sure nails this perfectly.

   Oh.

   You mean he agrees with you this time so he’s right?

   Please.

   AG

   • 

     BooMan on December 24, 2011 at 10:11 am

     link

     Dr. Paul was confronted about the letters in 1996.  He used his standard defense. “I’m not racist, talk to my neighbors. Don’t take me out of context.”

     Dr. Ron Paul, a Republican congressional candidate from Texas, wrote in his political newsletter in 1992 that 95 percent of the black men in Washington, D.C., are “semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”
     He also wrote that black teenagers can be “unbelievably fleet of foot.”
     An official with the NAACP in Texas said the comments were racist and offensive.
     Dr. Paul, who is running in Texas’ 14th Congressional District, defended his writings in an interview Tuesday. He said they were being taken out of context.
     “It’s typical political demagoguery,” he said. “If people are interested in my character . . . come and talk to my neighbors.”

     Did he deny writing the pieces?

     According to a Dallas Morning News review of documents circulating among Texas Democrats, Dr. Paul wrote in a 1992 issue of the Ron Paul Political Report: “If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be.”
     Dr. Paul, who served in Congress in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said Tuesday that he has produced the newsletter since 1985 and distributes it to an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers. A phone call to the newsletter’s toll-free number was answered by his campaign staff.
     Dr. Paul also said he did not know how his newsletter came to be included in a directory by the Heritage Front, a neo-Nazi group based in Canada. The newsletter was listed on the Internet under the directory’s heading “Racialists and Freedom Fighters.”

     Did he justify making any of these statements?

     In the interview, he did not deny he made the statement about the swiftness of black men.
     “If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them,” Dr. Paul said.
     He also said the comment about black men in the nation’s capital was made while writing about a 1992 study produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank based in Virginia.
     Citing statistics from the study, Dr. Paul then concluded in his column: `Given the inef! ficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”
     “These aren’t my figures,” Dr. Paul said Tuesday. “That is the assumption you can gather from” the report

     But now he says he not only didn’t write those things, but he doesn’t know who did.  And he now refuses to justify them.

     • 

       Arthur Gilroy on December 24, 2011 at 10:52 am

       C’mon, Booman…I ask again:

       Does stuff in a Dallas (!!!) newspaper (Always remember what went down in Dallas after JFK’s murder. I will. As crooked a town as ever existed in the world. Bet on it.) “prove” that Ron Paul wrote or even knew about those things? I don’t think so. They go against everything that he has ever publicly stated and they go against his voting record (and his statements in support of that record) as well.

       And this shit?

       He also said the comment about black men in the nation’s capital was made while writing about a 1992 study produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank based in Virginia.

       Citing statistics from the study, Dr. Paul then concluded in his column: `Given the inef! ficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

       “These aren’t my figures,” Dr. Paul said Tuesday. “That is the assumption you can gather from” the report.

       Did I not make myself clear enough here? (And demolish that particular out-of-context mini-meme while I was at it?) Or didn’t you read it?

       Either way, here it is again.

       But don’t expect the rest of us to agree with your decision, or the tortured logic you use to defend Paul on civil rights issues.

       Tortured logic?

       I give up.

       I got yer “tortured logic.” Right here.

       About that “95% of black males in [Washington DC] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal?” In context, please. Try to make some sense of what he is saying. It’s subtle but quite understandable.

       In 1996, Paul told The Dallas Morning News that his comment about black men in Washington came while writing about a 1992 study by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank in Virginia.

       Paul cited the study and wrote: “Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

       “These aren’t my figures,” Paul told the Morning News. “That is the assumption you can gather from the report.”

       So here he is making a point that the criminal justice system in DC is full of shit, as is this particular think tank. He is disagreeing with those figures. Duh. But taken out of context? Hoo boy!!! What an asshole he must be!!!

       This is media disinfo at its best. Or is that at its worst? Either way, there it is. I have said this and said this here over the past several years. If something appears in the mass media news, it is by that definition untrue in some serious way.  If the mass media overwhelmingly either supports or attacks an idea, an individual or a movement? Watch out. You are being hustled. Look for the magician’s other hand, because that is where the real action is occurring.

       The mass media are presently chock full of talking heads quoting this out-of-context  “95% of black males” line. That is “tortured logic”…a veritable Abu Ghraib of logic. And it is also precisely what the media are all about. Media hype…the so-called “common knowledge”… has no reality other than whatever it has been told to spin and/or fooled into spinning. In defense of the PermaGov line, Ron Paul is now the villain. So it goes. It will probably take him down. So that goes as well. But at the very least…do not be a willing part of the dumbshow.

       I repeat…at the very least, do not be a willing part of this dumbshow.

       Not for partisan reaons, and not for any reasons.

       The PermaGov Ratpubs are after him.

       The Dems…naturally…are after him.

       And the whole AIPAC-funded crew is after him as well.

       Beware any and every mass media gang action, Booman. When the whole gang acts almost as one it is a sure sign of disinfo. Bet on it.

       Always remember the runup to the invasion of Iraq after 9/11. There it was, naked and plain as day. And here it is again. Bet on that as well. During the post-WWII period in the U.S.S.R. every Russian with even a semblance of intelligence knew that Pravda (“Truth” in Russian) was a total disinfo rag and that to get to the truth of the matter all one had to do way go the other way.

       Our own “Pravda?”

       The mass media.

       Watch and learn, sir.

       You are being had, and not even in the missionary position.

       Had from the left, had from the right, and had from the back and front as well.

       Media gang rape.

       Do not lay back and enjoy it!

       Fight, goddamnit!

       AG

       P.S. Mini Meme says:

       

       DUH!!!

     • 

       Oui on December 24, 2011 at 3:46 pm

       .
       Booman are you believing this sh** put in the Dallas Media by the likes of Gingrich in a smear campaign?

       Newt Gingrich tried to prevent Ron Paul’s 1996 return to Congress.

       Paul had decided to run for Congress in 1996 after a ten year absence. Gingrich went to great lengths to try to stop Paul in Republican primary. Ron Paul’s primary opponent, incumbent Greg Laughlin, was a former Democrat. Newt Gingrich recruited Laughlin to the Republican camp in 1995 by promising him a position in the Republican controlled US House. Gingrich recruited fifty congressmen and then Texas Governor George W. Bush to endorse Laughlin over Paul.

       RON PAUL WINS RUNOFF PRIMARY

       With four weeks to go until the runoff, the establishment locked arms behind the incumbent: the NRCC and NFIB flooded the district with pro-Laughlin mail. The NRA followed suit, and added an independent expenditure broadcast advertising for good measure. Gov. Bush, Hutchison, and even ex-U.S. attorney general Ed Meese all hit the hustings for the recent convert, the latter to castigate Paul as a Judas to the sainted Reagan.

       “Bringing Meese in was a bit much,” opines Houston Chronicle political reporter Clay Robison. “It made it look as if the establishment was really desperate to push Greg Laughlin over. People began to resent all these outsiders coming in, telling them how to vote.”

       With little more than two weeks to go, Laughlin played the John Wayne card, usually a strong suit in Texas. A TV ad waved his tour of duty in the Gulf War, pointed out Paul’s opposition to the enterprise, and claimed the Air Force veteran-turned-doctor “refused to support our troops.”

       Read my earlier comments about the Newsletters and Ron Paul
       • Slate On the Origin Of Ron Paul’s Newsletters
       • Ron Paul and Racist Rant Caught on Tape  

       "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on December 24, 2011 at 4:18 pm

         And…err…ahhh…hem…haw…

         Who won?

         House races (from 1996)

         Texas’s 14th congressional district, 1996 (Republican primary):[11]
         Greg Laughlin (inc.) – 14,777 (42.52%)
         Ron Paul – 11,112 (31.97%)
         Jim Deats – 8,466 (24.36%)
         Ted Bozarth – 398 (1.15%)

         Texas’s 14th congressional district, 1996 (Republican primary runoff):[11]
         Ron Paul – 11,244 (54.06%)
         Greg Laughlin (inc.) – 9,555 (45.94%)

         Texas’s 14th congressional district, 1996:[11]
         Ron Paul (R) – 99,961 (51.08%)
         Charles Morris (D) – 93,200 (47.62%)
         Ed Fasanella (Natural Law) – 2,538 (1.30%)

         Err…ahhh…hem…haw…

         RON PAUL WON!!!

         Dassit, Booman.

         Ron Paul won.

         The whole kaboodle.

         Was that the beginning of another mini-meme?

         A better one?

         I certainly hope so.

         How Paul wins. A primer.

         See Paul run.

         See the PermaGov try to stop him.

         See Paul run some more. In the same direction, using the same stride.

         See the PermaGov try even harder.

         See them lose.

         As below, so above.

         Watch.

         Could happen…

         Like this, only bigger.

         With four weeks to go until the runoff, the establishment locked arms behind the incumbent: the NRCC and NFIB flooded the district with pro-Laughlin mail. The NRA followed suit, and added an independent expenditure broadcast advertising for good measure. Gov. Bush, Hutchison, and even ex-U.S. attorney general Ed Meese all hit the hustings for the recent convert, the latter to castigate Paul as a Judas to the sainted Reagan.

         “Bringing Meese in was a bit much,” opines Houston Chronicle political reporter Clay Robison. “It made it look as if the establishment was really desperate to push Greg Laughlin over. People began to resent all these outsiders coming in, telling them how to vote.”

         With little more than two weeks to go, Laughlin played the John Wayne card, usually a strong suit in Texas. A TV ad waved his tour of duty in the Gulf War, pointed out Paul’s opposition to the enterprise, and claimed the Air Force veteran-turned-doctor “refused to support our troops.”

         “People began to resent all these outsiders coming in, telling them how to vote.”

         Yup.

         Watch.

         AG

         P.S. Thank you, Oui. Fool me once, err…ahhh…hem…haw…

         There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — maybe everywhere else in this godforsaken country–that says, “Fool me once, shame on — shame on me. Fool me twice — I won’t get fooled again.”  Or something like that.

         We’ve been “fooled” for going on 60+ years.

         Time we stopped it?

         Maybe.

         Could happen…

         

         Wouldn’t that be special!!!

         

         Yes it would…

         • 

           Oui on December 24, 2011 at 4:39 pm

           .

           Ron Paul: War on drugs undermines civil liberties

           Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul called the war on drugs “ridiculous” on a visit to “The Daily Show“.  “I fear the war on drugs a lot more than I fear the drugs themselves,” Paul said. “And I think drugs are horrible.” Paul argued that the war on drugs was too costly and posed a threat to civil liberties. Watch the video.

           Ron Paul Interview with Wolf Blitzer CNN January 2008

            

           "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

       • 

         Superpole on December 25, 2011 at 11:28 am

         Actually, both parties are anti-democratic, anti opening the current system up to “outsiders”.

         Prime example is Nader related to the 2000 POTUS election. The Illinois Democratic party fought to keep Nader off the state ballot there. Nader had to sue to make it happen, and he got on the ballot.

         This is one more example where the “two” political parties are exactly alike- making the notion by many “progressives” in Bloggo world, i.e. the democratic party is significantly better/different than the repuglican party hard to defend.

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 25, 2011 at 2:47 pm

           Precisely.

           AG

2. 

   Arthur Gilroy on December 24, 2011 at 11:25 am

   Read this.

   And think, fer chrissake. Don’t just Demtificate.

   Ghostwriters Gone Wild

   By Jeremy Lott on 12.21.11 @ 6:08AM

   No, Ron Paul didn’t write the Ron Paul newsletters.

   “I was born in East Baltimore, on Chester Street. I lived there for three years, then we moved out to Pimlico and for the rest of my adult life until I got married I lived there on Oakmont Avenue about four blocks from the racetrack…”

   Those are the opening words of former Maryland governor Marvin Mandel’s memoirs, “I’ll Never Forget It”, but he didn’t write them down. I did. There is nothing wrong with that, nor is there anything wrong with me telling you. Politicians strike different deals with their ghostwriters. Ours placed my name on the cover of the book (“with Jeremy Lott”).

   Politicians exercise various degrees of control over their ghostwritten material. Richard Nixon was a notorious control freak who would drastically rework the chapters that his research assistants produced for him. Everything that went out under his name had to sound exactly right to him.

   Ronald Reagan was much less hands-on with his ghostwriters. At the press conference introducing his ghostwritten post-presidential autobiography An American Life, he quipped “I hear it’s terrific. Maybe someday I’ll read it.” The crowd loved the line but I’ve heard that his publisher did not.

   Four years ago, during his first campaign for the GOP nomination for president, Texas congressman Ron Paul came under fire for incendiary words that appeared in his newsletters. We can chew on the substance of those words some other time. Suffice it to say that they are not defensible statements, that many of them are racist or racially-tinged, and that Paul himself has expressed deep regret for ever letting them go out under his name.

   Right now, I am concerned with the latest effort to fan the old flames of controversy to blaze by folks insisting that Paul really did write those words, or played an active role in editing and producing those newsletters. The simple truth is that, no, he didn’t write or edit the newsletters in question. Usually, he didn’t bother to read them until well after the fact.

   We learned all of this in the last election cycle, but critics are trying to make old charges new again. The website Conservatives Network has splashed pictures of the newsletters up in a post titled “Who Wrote The Ron Paul Newsletters? Ron Paul Wrote Them — Clear Proof.” The site’s “clear proof” consists of helpful red arrows and circles that highlight the use of the first person in the newsletters, a mimeographed signature, and the fact that Paul was listed as editor.

   All of those things are true and beside the point. Paul says that he did not write the words in question. He published four different newsletters over the years: “Ron Paul’s Freedom Report,” “The Ron Paul Political Report,” “The Ron Paul Survival Report” and “The Ron Paul Investment Letter.” For some time, he took an active interest in writing and editing them but in the early nineties, newsletter production was farmed out to ghostwriters who were given de facto free rein. At that point in his life, Paul was out of politics and working crazy hours to reestablish his medical practice as an ob-gyn after he had torched a whole year of his medical life to challenge George H.W. Bush as the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president.

   Paul has declined to name the ghostwriters for a couple of reasons. One, anonymity was part of the deal that he struck with them. Two, he professes genuine ignorance of who wrote what specific words, and he may have a point there. After an investigation, Reason magazine fingered former Paul congressional staffer Lew Rockwell and a few of his colleagues that he had farmed the ghost-ghostwriting out to as likely culprits.

   We should note that nearly every single fair-minded person who has looked into the matter believes Paul didn’t write the offending newsletters. The words in question simply do not sound anything like Paul’s message or delivery. The question that critics such as The American Spectator ‘s own Jeffrey Lord are now pressing is, Well, OK, he didn’t write those words, but he knew what his ghostwriters were doing in his name.

   To that poisonous end, Lord cites the words of embittered former Paul staffer Eric Dondero. Dondero is an interesting and erratic character who, like Lord, has very serious disagreements about Paul on foreign policy. Dondero once founded an organization called Libertarians for Lieberman, which makes about as much sense as Marxists for Tax Cuts. Dondero charges that Paul “did read them, every one of them” and signed off on the newsletters “before they were published.”

   When I put these charges to Paul’s presidential campaign spokesman Gary Howard, he was a bit exasperated. His first e-mail read, in full, “Eric Dondero is a disgruntled former staffer who was fired for performance issues. He is not a valid source.” I kept prodding. In a follow up, Howard, who is black, said, “Congressman Paul has said many times that he didn’t know about these terrible writings, and did not sign off on them.”

   That may not be the end of the matter. There are all kinds of questions stemming from the newsletters, especially the issue of Ron Paul’s executive competence. (Paulistas will no doubt rejoin that he learned something from the debacle.) But the unsmoking gun here is Paul’s authorship and creative control of those newsletters. If this were a reality TV show, we might call it “Ghostwriters Gone Wild.”

   And now for something completely different but also very…interesting.

   Service Personnel Prefer Ron Paul

   By Doug Bandow on 12.24.11 @ 10:25AM

   Rep. Ron Paul has raised more than his share of controversy in Republican ranks by advocating an end to promiscuous intervention and war-making.  While it is hard to know what service personnel generally think, Rep. Paul is winning the money-raising race among those in the military.

   Observes Timothy Egan [In the NY Times, no less!!!]:

   Representative Ron Paul, the congressman who favors the most minimalist American combat role of any major presidential candidate and who said all of the above quotes, has more financial support from active duty members of the service than any other politician.

   As of the last reporting date, at the end of September, Paul leads all candidates by far in donations from service members. This trend has been in place since 2008, when Paul ran for president with a similar stance: calling nonsense at hawk squawk from both parties.

   This year, Paul has 10 times the individual donations – totaling $113,739 – from the military as does Mitt Romney. And he has a hundred times more than Newt Gingrich, who sat out the Vietnam War with college deferments and now promises he would strike foes at the slightest provocation.

   Actually, this should surprise no one.  Service personnel may argue about policy like anyone else.  But most important for anyone who could end up in harm’s way is to have a president who takes their potential sacrifice seriously and does not view them as just another campaign prop in the next election.

   Very interesting.

   

   Very interesting indeed.

   AG

3. 

   Don Durito on December 24, 2011 at 4:19 pm

   Rachel Maddow’s take on her show a couple days ago, via YouTube. See Melissa Harris-Perry’s take during the last few minutes in particular. The very BEST one can end up saying about Ron Paul on this particular issue is that even if it could be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he didn’t author the newsletters (I’m still pretty skeptical about that, but whatevs), as a Congresscritter he sure seems to vote in a manner that supports white privilege. Granted that means he’s practically indistinguishable from the rest of the goons running for the GOP nomination as far as race goes.

   • 

     Arthur Gilroy on December 24, 2011 at 4:58 pm

     …as a Congresscritter [Paul] sure seems to vote in a manner that supports white privilege.

     and

     …that means he’s practically indistinguishable from the rest of the goons running for the GOP nomination as far as race goes.

     As usual…back those statements up, please. Links? Quotes?

     “White privilege?”

     He is against any race-based privilege. You could look it up.

     But…sigh…I’ll post it again, just in case you have mind enough left over after the hypnomedia cement hardened to actually change your mind.

     Ron Paul on racism:

     Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist. The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.

     Ron Paul, Government and Racism, April 16, 2007
     http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst041607.htm

     His statement that he would have voted against the Civil Rights Act had he been in Congress when it was passed?

     Here are some of his statements:

     On Civil Rights Act of 1964

     The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society… Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees… Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife… Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
     “The Trouble With the ’64 Civil Rights Act”, LewRockwell.com, 3 June 2004

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     The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties.

     The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society.
     2004-07-03 speech to Congress opposing House resolution celebrating 40th anniversary of Civil Rights Act, quoted in “Civil Rights Act”, RonPaul.com

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     Chris Matthews: Let me ask you this: the ’64 civil rights bill. Do you think a [em]ployer, a guy runs his shop down in Texas has a right to say, “If you’re black, you don’t come in my store”. That was the libertarian right before ’64. Was it the balanced society?

     Ron Paul: I believe that property rights should be protected. Your right to be on TV is protected by property rights because somebody owns that station. I can’t walk into your station. So right of freedom of speech is protected by property. The right of your church is protected by property. So people should honor and protect it. This gimmick, Chris, it’s off the wall when you say I’m for property rights and states’ rights, therefore I’m a racist. I mean that’s just outlandish. Wait, Chris. Wait, Chris. People who say that if the law was there and you could do that, who’s going to do it? What idiot would do that?

     Chris Matthews: Everybody in the South. I saw these signs driving through the South in college. Of course they did it. You remember them doing it.

     Ron Paul: Yeah, I but also know that the Jim Crow laws were illegal and we got rid of them under that same law, and that’s all good. Government…

     Chris Matthews: But you would’ve voted against that law.

     Ron Paul: Pardon me?

     Chris Matthews: You would’ve voted against that law. You wouldn’t have voted for the ’64 civil rights bill.

     Ron Paul: Yes, but not in — I wouldn’t vote against getting rid of the Jim Crow laws.

     Chris Matthews: But you would have voted for the — you know you — oh, come on. Honestly, Congressman, you were not for the ’64 civil rights bill.

     Ron Paul: Because — because of the property rights element, not because it got rid of the Jim Crow law.

     Chris Matthews: Let me ask you this: I once went to Laundromat when I was at a Peace Corps training in Baker, Louisiana. A Laundromat had this sign on in glaze: “Whites only on the Laundromat”, just to use the Laundromat machines. This was a local shop saying no blacks allowed. You say that should be legal?

     Ron Paul: That’s — that’s ancient history. That’s ancient history. That’s over and done with.
     Hardball, MSNBC, 3 May 2011, quoted in “Ron Paul on Hardball”, RonPaul.com

     You believe that he is a serial liar? Could be…but if he is, he is certainly the most consistent serial liar in the history of humankind. I kinda doubt it, myself.

     Your results may differ. Being wrong is not a crime here in America. Not yet it isn’t, anyway.

     AG

     • 

       ishmael on December 24, 2011 at 8:00 pm

       The Civil Rights Acts clearly protected the individual rights of blacks who were being oppressed and persecuted by the state. His defense of white privilege and his vile characterizations of MLK Jr. tell me where his sympathies lie.

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on December 24, 2011 at 8:19 pm

         …his vile characterizations of MLK Jr???!!!

         Where on earth do you people get this shit?

         Prove it.

         Here’s my proof.

         Wake the fuck up.

         AG

         • 

           Don Durito on December 25, 2011 at 6:07 pm

           The vile characterization of MLK Jr. came from the newsletters that, depending upon whom one reads or listens either Paul wrote himself or had ghostwritten under his name, and of which he either knew or did not know about. His own claims about his newsletters seemed to have shifted between the mid 1990s when the controversy first sprang up and the present. At one point he tended to take ownership of the position expressed in those newsletters. Today, he seems to disavow them altogether. To his true believers, it won’t matter. Regardless, one can always look at how he’s voted as a Congresscritter, and who he has endorsed for political offices. What’s his civil rights record look like? Why would he have once endorsed Pat Buchanan for one of Buchanan’s unsuccessful Presidential bids? Those might not tell us per se what is in his soul, but if nothing else those are tangible behaviors on record that he can be visibly tied to.

           Please spare me the Ayn Rand inspired quotes about racism and collectivism. Any politician can spout off words or have words ghostwritten in his/her name, apparently with or without his/her knowledge. Ultimately, it comes down to deeds.

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on December 26, 2011 at 12:54 am

           Yes. “Ultimately, it comes down to deeds.”

           Obama’s record?

           Awful.

           Thud of the Jackboot

           by ALEXANDER COCKBURN

           Too bad Kim Jong-il kicked the bucket last weekend. If the divine hand that laid low the North Korean leader had held off for a week or so, Kim would have been sustained by the news that President Obama is signing into law a bill that puts the United States not immeasurably far from the Democratic People’s Republic of  Korea in contempt of constitutional protections for its citizens, or constitutional restraints upon criminal behavior sanctioned by the state.

           At least the DPRK doesn’t trumpet its status as the last best sanctuary of liberty. American politicians, starting with the president, do little else.

           A couple of months ago  came a mile marker in America’s steady slide downhill towards the status of a Banana Republic, with Obama’s assertion that he has the right as president to order secretly the assassination, without trial, of a US citizen he deems to be working with terrorists. This followed his betrayal in 2009 of his pledge to end the indefinite imprisonment without charges or trial of prisoners in Guantanamo.

           Now, after months of declaring that he would veto such legislation, Obama has now crumbled and will soon sign a monstrosity called the Levin/McCain detention bill, named for its two senatorial sponsors, Carl Levin and John McCain. It’s snugged into the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

           The detention bill mandates – don’t glide too easily past that word –  that all accused terrorists be indefinitely imprisoned by the military rather than in the civilian court system; this includes US citizens within the borders of the United States.  Obama supporters have made strenuous efforts to suggest that US citizens are excluded from the bill’s provisions. Not so. “It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next,” says Senator Lindsay  Graham, a big backer of the bill. “And when they say, `I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, `Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer.'” The bill’s co-sponsor, Democratic senator, cosponsor of the bill, Carl  Levin says it was the White House itself that demanded that the infamous Section 1031 apply to American citizens.

           Anyone familiar with this sort of “emergency” legislation knows that those drafting the statutes like to cast as wide a net as possible. In this instance  the detention bill authorizes use of military force against anyone who “substantially supports” al-Qaeda, the Taliban or “associated forces”. Of course “associated forces” can mean anything. The bill’s language mentions  “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or who has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”
 
This is exactly the sort of language that can be bent at will by any prosecutor. Protest too vigorously the assassination of US citizen Anwar al Awlaki by American forces in Yemen in October and one day it’s not fanciful to expect the thud of the military jackboot on your front step, or on that of any anti-war organizer, or any journalist whom some zealous military intelligence officer deems to be giving objective support to the forces of Evil and Darkness.

           Since 1878 here in the US, the Posse Comitatus Act has limited the powers of local governments and law enforcement agencies from using federal military personnel to enforce the laws of the land. The detention bill renders the Posse Comitatus Act a dead letter.

           Governments, particularly those engaged in a Great War on Terror, like to make long lists of troublesome people to be sent to internment camps or dungeons in case of national emergency. Back in Reagan’s time, in the 1980s, Lt Col Oliver North, working out of the White House, was caught preparing just such a list. Reagan speedily distanced himself from North. Obama, the former lecturer on the US constitution, is brazenly signing this authorization for military internment camps.

           There’s been quite a commotion over the detention bill. Civil liberties groups such as the ACLU have raised a stink. The New York Times has denounced it editorially as “a complete political cave-in”. Mindful that the votes of liberals can be useful, even vital in presidential elections, pro-Obama supporters of the bill claim  that it doesn’t codify “indefinite detention.” But indeed it does. The bill explicitly authorizes “detention under the law of war until the end of hostilities.”

           Will the bill hurt Obama? Probably not too much, if at all. Liberals are never very energetic in protecting constitutional rights. That’s more the province of libertarians and other wackos like Ron Paul  actually prepared to draw lines in the sand in matters of principle.

           Simultaneous to the looming shadow of indefinite internment by the military for naysayers, we have what appears to be immunity from prosecution for private military contractors retained by the US government, another extremely sinister development. Last Wednesday we ran here an important article on the matter from Laura Raymond of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

           The US military has been outsourcing war at a staggering rate. Even as the US military quits Iraq, thousands of private military contractors remain. Suppose they are accused of torture and other abuses including murder?

           The Centre for Constitutional Rights  is currently representing Iraqi civilians tortured in Abu Ghraib and other detention centers in Iraq, seeking to hold accountable two private contractors for their violations of international, federal and state law. In Raymond’s words, “By the military’s own internal investigations, private military contractors from the US-based corporations L-3 Services and CACI International were involved in the war crimes and acts of torture that took place, which included rape, being forced to watch family members and others be raped, severe beatings, being hung in stress positions, being pulled across the floor by genitals, mock executions, and other incidents, many of which were documented by photographs. The cases – Al Shimari v. CACI and Al-Quraishi v. Nakhla and L-3 – aim to secure a day in court for the plaintiffs, none of whom were ever charged with any crimes.”

           But the corporations involved are now arguing in court that they should be exempt from any investigation into the allegations against them because, among other reasons, the US government’s interests in executing wars would be at stake if corporate contractors can be sued.  And Raymond reports that  “they are also invoking a new, sweeping defense. The new rule is termed `battlefield preemption’ and aims to eliminate any civil lawsuits against contractors that take place on any `battlefield’.”

           You’ve guessed it. As with “associated forces”, an elastic concept discussed above, in the Great War on Terror the entire world is a “battlefield”. So unless the CCR’s suit prevails, a ruling of a Fourth Circuit federal court panel will stand and private military contractors could be immune from any type of civil liability, even for war crimes, as long as it takes place on a “battlefield”.

           Suppose now we take the new powers of the military in domestic law enforcement, as defined in the detention act, and anticipate the inevitable, that the military delegates these powers to private military contractors. CACI International or a company owned by, say Goldman Sachs, could enjoy delegated powers to arrest any US citizen here within the borders of the USA, “who has committed a belligerent act or who has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces,” torture them to death and then claim “battlefield preemption”.

           Don’t laugh.

           On this issue of the “privatization” T.P.Wilkinson has a brilliant essay in our latest newsletter on “corporate nihilism and the roots of war”. Wilkinson starts with a critique of the familiar argument that a return to the draft would bring America’s wars home to the citizenry and the prospect of their children being sent off to possible mutilation by IEDs or death would spark resistance. Wilkinson suggests that this underestimates the saturation of our society by  militarism. He goes on:

           “But does the new warfare even need the large battalions of expendable troops? Just as financial “engineering” has replaced industrial production as a means of wealth extraction, remote-control weapons deployment and mercenary subcontracting have largely replaced the mass armies that characterized U.S. and U.K. warfare in Korea and Vietnam. In this sense, warfare has become even more “corporate.” The fiction that wars of invasion and conquest are the result of state action is obsolete. The entire “national security” process has been fully depoliticized; in other words, the state is more clearly than ever a mere conduit for policies and practices whose origin and essential characteristics are those of boardroom strategic planning and marketing. The difference between global business and global warfare has, in fact, dissolved.

           “This presents a serious cognitive problem for anyone trying to find the root of this poisonous plant in order to tear it from the ground that nurtures it. The military sustained by the draft was mimetic of the steel mill in Gary, Indiana, or the cotton plantation in the south? Today’s military operates like the headquarters of Microsoft or USX – the actual physical violence has been outsourced.”

           Read it and weep.

           Read it and think, goddamnit!!!

           First They Came – Pastor Martin Niemoller

           First they came for the communists,
           and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

           Then they came for the trade unionists,
           and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

           Then they came for the Jews,
           and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

           Then they came for me
           and there was no one left to speak out for me.

           Think!!!

           AG

         • 

           Don Durito on December 26, 2011 at 10:54 pm

           I doubt I have ever excused Obama’s war record. If one were to go through my old blog around 2007 or 2008, one would find my statements about Obama to be nothing short of scathing. I probably threw my support – which for an obscure blogger means zip – Cynthia McKinney/Gloria LaRiva that year. And even then, I would have hardly considered McKinney to be above criticism (her thing for 9/11 truthers has annoyed the hell out of me forever, and I’ve been critical of the Green Party for a variety of reasons, even though I do have some things in common with the party’s platform). I guess that’s the thing – I don’t consider my preferred political candidates to be perfect, or saviors, nor do I expect that of them in the first place.

           That, and it gets annoying being lumped in with Obama’s supporters simply because Ron Paul is not my particular flavor. That whole schtick is just getting beyond tedious.

   • 

     Superpole on December 25, 2011 at 12:13 pm

     Ron Paul:

     I believe that property rights should be protected. Your right to be on TV is protected by property rights because somebody owns that station. I can’t walk into your station. So right of freedom of speech is protected by property. The right of your church is protected by property. So people should honor and protect it. This gimmick, Chris, it’s off the wall when you say I’m for property rights and states’ rights, therefore I’m a racist. I mean that’s just outlandish. Wait, Chris. Wait, Chris. People who say that if the law was there and you could do that, who’s going to do it? What idiot would do that?

     Closer analysis of these “freedom of speech rights are tied to property ownership” statements by Paul do IMHO indicate it’s about white privilege/dominance.

     Again, read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States”. You’ll readily see early in our nation’s history the right to serve in the U.S. Senate and to vote in elections was set up exclusively for property holders– wealthy white men.

     Not only did women/minorites not participate in elections early in our nation’s history, neither did white men of no means (wealth).

     Property comes from wealth, and wealth implies/gets you exclusive rights– access, and this includes access to government largesse (subsidies, tax breaks, etc. which reinforce support wealth in the hands of the few).

     Paul is correct, not anyone can get on, get access to mainstream media– that is loosening a bit with Current TV, Olberman’s show where we can see/hear people like Jesse LaGreca of the OWS movement speak his mind. The powers that be would prefer LaGreca and others now questioning the legitimacy of the system not have a voice. The violent removal of the various OWS camps makes this clear.

     Paul is not as clever as he thinks; he is not explicitly racist, he doesn’t have to be. What he and others like him do is this: he’s more or less stating “Hey, if you have something to say, get your OWN network/magazine/newspaper (“property”). You do have the right to do that. You cannot demand access to mainstream media because you do not own it.

     Of course this is easier said than done on a large scale, because it takes a good deal of time and wealth to do what Ted Turner did with CNN, for example.

     It’s also a rather facile/weak argument; sort of like comparing access to the airwaves with access to one’s personal home. It’s not the same thing. Much has already been written regarding the importance of free/open access to media to all– not just to those who own everything.

     Bottom line: this quote by Jello Biafra I have to bring up regularly on the orange blog: “Don’t complain about the media, become the media!”

     If only more people understood the power of this- and were willing to invest the time and money to make it happen.

     • 

       Oui on December 25, 2011 at 1:18 pm

       .
       I understand Libertarianism is a Bigger Tent than Liberalism and grants the individual most space for differing views. Read Libertarianism, Property Rights and Self-Ownership.

       One reason to be sceptical about the views of Ron Paul is the company he keeps within the Libertarian movement. Don’t need to remind you of skirting Pat Buchanan and his bid to oppose George H. Bush in 1992. I expect they didn’t make many new friends in the Republican party establishment.

        « click
       Big Tent Republicans

       Especially for AG – Ron Paul Day Is Today

       "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

       • 

         Don Durito on December 25, 2011 at 3:05 pm

         There are also libertarians from a distinctly left persuasion – I got to know quite a few of them back in the day when I hung out with a lot of anarcho-punks. Their views are distinctly anticapitalist and influenced as I understood it at the time by either some Marxian analysis, or by the writing of Proudhoun or Bakunin. That sort of libertarianism probably still has a minor influence on me. I think it’s the sort of libertarianism that influences Jello Biafra, whom someone quoted elsewhere on this thread, more deeply. It also is what gets thought of as anarchism (although that’s a label with a lot of baggage). These libertarians on the left would have an uncomfortable, at best, relationship with the US Libertarian Party – in fact the anarcho-punks I knew who had any awareness of its existence at the time seemed to really dislike what it was. Of course that was back in the 1980s. Maybe anarcho-punks, if there are any left, have a different spin on things now.

         I also got to know quite a few folks who were more into the LP during my college days – and if I had a nickel for every time I heard one of them quote Ayn Rand as if she were some sort of prophet, I’d be well-off. Some of these folks seemed to take very seriously the idea that if you as an individual wanted a road, you built your own or built your own sewer, etc. A different flavor altogether, and probably folks more receptive to a Ron Paul or equivalent. What I observed then, and what I have read over the years, seemed to suggest that it was a perspective that might work well for the privileged few with the means to hire out subsistence labor to build their roads and sewers and hire out mercenaries to guard their possessions, but would not exactly help people who were in my particular situation. Personally, that wasn’t my trip.

         Anyhoo, just a few thoughts.

         • 

           Superpole on December 26, 2011 at 8:59 am

           I get it, but given the high level of xenophobia in our nation and the fact something as fundamental as social democracy has been twisted to mean something negative and horrible, it’s more or less impossible to discuss anarchism with the majority of the people out there.

           I’m not anti-capitalist, I’m against monopoly capitalism aided/abetted by congress. The whole thing has become a sham.

           Regarding Rand, objectivism, I view it as a romantic, simplistic approach which doesn’t work for large, complex systems. If the population of the U.S. were one million people, Rand’s approach might work, but we’re a nation of well over 300 million people. I don’t see how we run a nation this large and complex without some sort of government in place. We can argue our government is not as good/efficient as it could be, but the notion we can get rid of government altogether is fanciful at best.

4. 

   nalbar on December 26, 2011 at 4:28 pm

   Everything;

   http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/11/ron-pauls-record-in-congress.html

   .