Let us pay attention to what is going on with Ron Paul. The issue at this moment is not the number of our friends who have “drunk the kool-aid,” the issue is how he has been consistantly ignored by the mass media–ignored far more than his numbers are worth.
What does this tell us? I hope it doesn’t tell us that the major newspapers and television and radio networks are corporate entities working hand-in-glove with their political partners–that is, I assume we knew that. What is signficant is this: They aren’t ready for Ron Paul yet. They don’t need him yet. Yet. They believe their pet Democrats like Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Kucinich will be enough to act as a lightning rod for the anger and discontent directed at Bush.
At some point in the future, there may be a Ron Paul, probably under a different name, who does get media attention–and that’s when we need to be scared, because the next thing that happens involve street battles and open class warfare. Open class warfare.
The willingness to drink the kool-aid, combined with media attention, would be quite frightening indeed.
Kucinich is a pet Democrat?
Rone: I’d say so. He sounds like an alternative until the crunch comes, then he says, “Well, okay, time for us all to rally behind –insert name of current Democratic candidate–.”
So Steve, you’re arguing that in order to be true to his principles, he has to put them over those of the democratic party? i.e. rather than withdrawing when it becomes obvious that he can’t win (as if it weren’t from the start!), he should stick it out and take his votes with him?
I think I’m arguing that, by delivering x thousand votes to whatever Democratic gets the nomination, he IS being true to his principles. That’s the problem.
Haha yes, I think I rather agree. :)
The media have been quite scrupulous about ignoring Edwards, too — which is to me proof that his anti-robber-baron rhetoric is quite sincere. Robber barons don’t like that.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having drunken the Ron Paul Kool-Aid. As you learn more you always have the option of spitting it out.
My favorite part of the election process isn’t who wins, it’s the process itself that makes/allows the average person to use their brains once every four years.
Sorry to ignore the meat of your comment, Dr. Science, but I checked out your blog and it is quite engaging. I’m going to start reading it via RSS. Thanks for stopping by!
When a patient is sick, and a man offers him medicine, he is not necessarily going to ask too hard about the cure… such is the way with Ron Paul’s base.
Paul, of course, would be terrible for everyone, though all might not suffer equally– as is the case with flood and earthquake.
Kucinich may not go far enough, but he too is being shut out by the mainstream media (NBC in Vegas, for instance).
Once the Right resort to (domestic) violence, they’ve truly lost, and they’ll remember the consequences for generations. Trouble is… they don’t need to resort to (domestic) violence at this point.
Could somebody explain, shortly summed up, precisely what is so bad about Ron Paul? I’ve seen a lot of “oh crud” reactions, but I can’t find anywhere where somebody has explained “look, this is what he’s saying, and this is what this really means”. Thanks.
Todd: I was hoping someone else would do this, but briefly he’s an anti-labor white supremicist populist in the tradition of Father Coughlin, the Kingfish, and George Wallace. There was some discussion on my LJ not long ago. Find it here: http://skzbrust.livejournal.com/73114.html
let examine those points Steven:
anti-labor – Dr. Paul supports the free market, not the corporatism rampant in todays America. Ron Paul would get rid of corporate welfare. He gets little to nothing from corporate lobbyists. How is that anti-labor?
white-supremicist – Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder, who has known Ron Paul for 20 years, unequivocally dismissed charges that the Congressman was a racist in light of recent smear attempts, and said the reason for him being attacked was that he was a threat to the establishment.
populist – Populism is the use of discourses, ideas or policies which aim to appeal to “the people” by setting up a dichotomy between “the people” and “the elite”. SKZB wrote – “At some point in the future, there may be a Ron Paul, probably under a different name, who does get media attention–and that’s when we need to be scared, because the next thing that happens involve street battles and open class warfare. Open class warfare.” Pot, meet kettle.
in the tradition of Father Coughlin – yeah, cause clearly Ron Paul is the pro Nazi candidate. you know, Nazi, the national SOCIALISTS party. the racists idiots only support Paul because he would leave them alone. Cause in a free society, even morons have rights.
Steven, if you let us read the Firefly novel, i promise to forgive you for your Trotsky-ite heresy.
Thank you, kit, I shall have to update more often! Most of my activity is on my LJ, mecurtin.livejournal.com, but that’s heavily fanfiction and random blathering.
Todd:
David Niewert at Orcinus has been doing yeoman work on the less savory side of Ron Paul. David is an expert on American fascism and its fellow travelers, including the Klan, the Minutemen, the Patriot Movement, and Japanese internment.
I don’t know why the link to Orcinus didn’t work, but it should be:
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/01/clearing-view-of-ron-paul.html
which is merely the most recent in a series of articles on Paul.
CNBC hasn’t ignored Edwards. They’ve gone out of their way to paint him as 1) a Communist, and 2) a dysfunctional personality consumed with irrational hatred for American business interests.
Fitz: I keep meaning to ask you: what flavor was the kool-aid? I hope it was something good. I’ve always been partial to grape, myself.
I hope and expect to be putting up the Firefly novel within a month. Thanks for asking.
Steven,
the grape kool-aid has too high a body count for my tastes. http://www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives/communistbodycount.php
in all honesty, though, Dr. Paul is far from a perfect candidate. but unless you can recommend one who would actually be better (‘better’ in this context involves defending civil liberties against the feds, not screwing around with other peoples countries, and at least acknowledging the cliff our economy is about to dive over and considering what to do about it), i will gladly hoist a pint of Guinness (in lieu of kool-aid) to President Paul.
also, the firefly novel news makes me very happy. between that and the new Vlad novel, I won’t hold your crazy political views against you. and hopefully you won’t hold my crazy political views against me, either.
Oh, heavens no! I most certainly do not hold your crazy political views against you. Now, your incredibly hot wife, that’s another issue. That I hold against you.
My personal hope is for eight more years of republican presidents in the US. Nothing will spur change and inflame souls like that. Hopefully it will never come to warfare in the streets. There are a lot of movements afoot in this country. Making small changes over time. A fer instance is the slow food movement that has over the last twenty years changed grocery distribution and allowed small farms the start of a comeback. Not all change has to come from anarachy.
The problem I see with Ron Paul is that he doesn’t believe in individual freedom or liberty, he just believes in a weak Federal government (and letting the states trample all over the rights of the people).
Mudd: The whole ‘heighten the contradictions’ ploy hasn’t worked once in the entire span of human history, so why is it that people still find it so darned attractive?
Ron Paul’s fans must be delighted that the unregulated corporate media is free to ignore him.
Fitz, in your universe, did Hitler put capitalists in concentration camps? In mine, he locked up communists and was loved by companies like IBM.
Is the “‘heighten the contradictions’ ploy” any relative to the “things have to get worse before they can get better” gambit? If so, I can explain it.
The trick is to ask, “How much worse?” What the answer always boils down to is “Bad enough for everyone to see my way is right.” It gets you past all those pesky implementation problems and that long slow process of changing people’s minds, which of course makes it a very attractive theory.
The trouble with letting things get worse is that (1.) there’s no guarantee things are going to get better anytime soon. Historically, the world has frequently been in bad shape. How often has it reacted by suddenly snapping into a new and much better form? I can’t think of many. In act, I can’t think of any at all.
(2.), the world is full of people scraping by on the narrowest of social and economic margins. When things get worse, those people suffer. Some of them die, or lose their health, or have their lives ruined in some other way.
I can’t see it as a good thing.
Re: Teresa and Jeff, sure they have. History has been ripe with heightened contradictions. The French revolution, the fall of Rome, the Catholic church reformation several centuries ago, the economic collapse of the Soviet Union, etc. Change is not always good, but stagnation is worse. The status quo never works in world the is evolving in a healthy way. Most of the above scenarios deal almost solely with the upper managment becoming decadent and thinking they are safe doing it.
It sounds like what is being talked about isn’t “heightened contradictions” (which is a pretty empty abstraction when left like that), but the notion of “make things as bad as possible until people revolt.” So far as I know, this has only been tried by Heinlein, who confined it safely to fiction. Mr. Heinlein, whatever his skills, is not remembered for his contributions to the art of social revolution.
The two biggest flaws in that theory are, 1) historically, people make revolutions to defend what they have, rather than when they are utterly crushed. As Trotsky said, if privation were sufficient for revolution, the masses would be in a constant state of revolt. 2) How in the hell can you expect people to trust leaders who are trying to make their lives worse?
It is true that, when pushed far enough, people will fight back; but it is when we have gained some things (say, for example, a house, a car, a few luxuries) and see them threatened that we tend to get aggressive and become willing to accept revolutionary answers if there seems no other way out.
Ok, that was astute. Like Mr. Brust I was raised with benevolent neglect by my mother and consider Heinlein my spiritual father. So that was a heck of call. There seems though a growing understanding in US by people that there futures have been given away. The manufacturing capability, the social security system, the environment itself. All traded away for more bucks. Do you think those things can be as important to people as a house, car, or luxuries? I hope so.
As important? Maybe, after things like a house and food and medical care are covered. As Brecht said, “First feed the face, then talk right and wrong.”
Steven, you seem to have confused Ron Paul with Pat Buchanan — Buchanan’s the fellow who imitates Charles Coughlin. Paul’s intellectual ancestor is John C. Calhoun; he isn’t in any sense a populist politician, and he’s no closer to real popular opinion than Noam Chomsky is.
Just for the record i’ve no intention of voting for Paul but whats so wrong with unrestrained class warfare let them eat cat food!
Mudd, #25: “Change is not always good, but stagnation is worse.”
Nonsense. There are plenty of circumstances in which no change is better than the “change” that happens to be on offer. “Stagnation” is just a propaganda word deployed by the guy who thinks you should meekly accept the change he’s pushing.
Mudd’s formulation would be perfectly plausible coming out of the mouth of invading warrior nomads–or of 21st-century investors as they strip away the hard-fought rights of unionized workers. Because change is always good, right? You can’t have stagnation. Bah. It’s bullshit, and odious bullshit at that.
Patrick,#31: Let me see if I’m right in interpreting you. What you are saying in a nutshell is, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?
Well Patrick it is as simple as this. EVERYTHING invented by man, everything, is the result of someone wanting to change something. EVERY love affair, every child created, every tear shed, or beaming smile, is the result of change. Status quo can only come about by totally content people, with no imagination, no drive, and no desires. Even if for some horrendously evil reason you wanted it that way, the randomness of the universe won’t let you have it, thank whatever gods there be…..