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Ron Paul See other Ron Paul Articles Title: Can Ron Paul Be Tamed? No – but his campaign can You know you’ve hit the big time when the Establishment comes knocking on your door with an offer to sell out. It means you’re drawing blood: that your campaign, or whatever, is having an effect — and not one that pleases the Powers That Be. They want to defang you, if not shut you up, and they’re willing to offer you what Satan offered Jesus up there on that mountain: "Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him." If Ron Paul isn’t exactly Jesus, many of his supporters treat him as if he is indeed the incarnation of Liberty in human flesh: the media routinely describes them as "fanatical" – or, more charitably, "devoted" – and I don’t blame them for their enthusiasm (indeed, I share it). Paul is undoubtedly a messianic figure, although he is the last one to give himself that kind of aura, and that’s because we are indeed living in a time of woe, from whence a great many people are seeking deliverance. Ron is their one hope, a bright spot in an ever-darkening and increasingly scary world – and our elites don’t like that one bit. What they especially don’t like are his foreign policy views, which are routinely described in the lame-stream media as "isolationist" – as if minding our own damned business and not trying to dominate the world would be an isolating act. And of course none of these geniuses ever described, say, Eugene McCarthy, or George McGovern as an "isolationist" – they were "antiwar" candidates because they were on the left, and because no one on the right can ever be against wars of aggression for moral reasons. Yet the 76-year-old country doctor and presidential candidate defies those stereotypes – and, in the process, delegitimizes them as standards of the American political lexicon. He has succeeded in creating a movement that truly transcends the tired old categories of "left" and "right." ........... Paul and his movement are onto the War Party’s games, and they are consciously fighting this left- right illusion — with amazing success. The time is right for it: the nation faces a crisis on a scale not seen since the 1930s. Once again we face the twin specters of an economy in collapse and a world at war. Paul cuts through the ideological fog and in doing so breaks with all the conventions, the worn and now useless political labels that have misled us for so long. Smearing him hasn’t worked, mockery has just added to his fame, and ignoring him has seriously backfired on the mainstream media, which has made itself more hated by the Republican rank- and-file than it already is — no mean feat. Their last hope is to co-opt him – or, at least, co-opt his movement. And we are seeing the first signs of such an attempt in a front page story in the Washington Post, which posits the existence of a "strategic alliance" between Mitt Romney and Paul. .......... So here is the bargain: give up this non-interventionist foreign policy stuff and we’ll let you speak at the convention, maybe let your son speak – all in exchange for an endorsement of Romney. We may even pay lip service to some of your economic views: maybe we’ll set up a Gold Commission, as was done some years ago under Reagan. Just shut up about foreign policy. It isn’t going to happen: unless it’s a wide-open convention, Paul will not be given a speaking slot of any prominence, because he won’t endorse Romney. Period. But there are other ways to influence the candidate, who is after all conducting more of an educational and movement-building campaign within the GOP, as opposed to a conventional candidate-centered campaign. In the Paul camp, the focus is on the message, not the candidate – but there are ways to influence the manner in which that message reaches the general public. Ron himself is incorruptible: indeed, he is far more radical on foreign policy than I ever expected him to be. When the subject is economics, he always brings it back to foreign policy, pointing out the indissoluble link between a free and growing economy and a peaceful foreign policy. He is constantly saying that if only we would get rid of the Empire, we could begin to reform our domestic entitlement programs and deal with all the problems we have right here at home. They can’t influence Ron – but they can influence his organization. Gardner reports that after Ron’s son, Rand, won the Kentucky primary against an Establishment opponent, "Then, quite strangely, the establishment and the Pauls came together": ............ The Establishment’s strategy is clear: get to the father through the son, whose political career can be imperiled by the GOP elders, like McConnell (although that didn’t stop Paul from getting elected over McConnel’s opposition). If the Paul campaign is "infiltrating" the GOP, as Gardner puts it, then the GOP Establishment is intent on infiltrating the Paul campaign at the highest levels. So if you wondered why the official Paul for President campaign ads devote almost no time to foreign policy issues, then perhaps now you have your answer. Of course, that hasn’t stopped several independent political action committees from making strong anti-interventionist statements on Paul’s behalf: but still, that this end run is even necessary raises all sorts of questions, one of which is surely the exact nature of Olson’s role. The libertarian movement has been through this sort of thing before. Back in 1980, the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate, Ed Clark, and his handlers at the Cato Institute, tried to pass off libertarianism as "low tax liberalism." The scheme failed miserably: as Murray Rothbard put it at the time: "They sold their souls for a mess of pottage, and then didn’t even get the pottage!" A similar effort to sell libertarianism as a marginally less belligerent version of conservatism isn’t going to do much better – and certainly Paul himself would have nothing to do with such an effort. As we all know, however, Paul isn’t a hands-on manager: he tends to trust people to carry out his wishes. That hands-off tendency has gotten him in trouble before. The GOP Establishment fears – and, yes, hates – Ron Paul, and they have good reason to feel that way. It is hardly beyond comprehension that they would attempt to influence – and, ultimately, derail – the campaign and the movement it represents in this covert manner. I don’t think they are stupid enough to believe they can somehow finagle Paul into endorsing Romney, or whoever the GOP candidate might be: what they rightly fear, however, is that the Paul campaign will not end in Tampa – that Paul will launch a third party bid. That’s what this wheeling and dealing, these shadowy movements in the background, are all about. Whether they will succeed remains to be seen. The signs, however, are not good. Gardner cites Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign manager, as saying: "You can dress in black and stand on the hill and smash the state and influence nobody, or you can realize the dynamics and the environment and get involved in the most pragmatic way to win minds and win votes and influence change. That’s what we’re trying to do." This is the classic argument for a sell out. The irony is that there is nothing pragmatic about it. The American people stand shoulder to shoulder with Ron when it comes to foreign policy, as every poll has shown. The question is whom do the Paulians want to "influence" – the American people, or the very Establishment they’ve been fighting all these years? The alternative to standing on a hill and making a fashion statement isn’t selling out libertarianism’s anti-imperialist heritage: it’s making that heritage understandable and attractive to the American majority, which is already with us in spirit. 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#1. To: Buzzard (#0)
The solution is very simple. For those of us who support Ron Paul, we must publicly ruin his enemies by outing their dirty secrets. I would bet that if people were to become educated as to who is really running things, and they became active in neutralizing those people, we could indeed have our nation back.
"Call Me Ishmael" -Ishmael, A character from the book "Moby Dick" 1851. "Call Me Fishmeal" -Osama Bin Laden, A character created by the CIA, and the world's Hide And Seek Champion 2001-2011. -Tommythemadartist
Newt is cfr turd, and has been for decades. ... If a man has nothing that he is willing to die for, then he has nothing worth living for....
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