Like this one or this one. We can expect to see more of them in the coming days resurfacing as Paul's campaign gains momentum and becomes more visible in the MSM.
Now the smear campaign makes it into the main stream press. It began last fall and gained more attention during the New Hampshire primary .The smear campaign comes from the left and the right.
First, the New York Times claims that Ron Paul is in cahoots with KKK racists. Then they retract the story because the paper failed to properly investigate its own story. Jamie Kirchick of the pro-war publication "New Republic", owned in part by Roger Hertog (a neoconservative), went on Tucker Carlson's show tonight to supposedly prove that Ron Paul is a racist, that he called Martin Luther King horrible things and is a secessionist (i.e. he probably supports slavery as well).
On the Tucker Carlson Show, The New Republic’s Jamie Kirchick accused Ron Paul of engaging in a massive conspiracy to propagate a racist agenda by speaking to white supremacists in code. He explained that when regular viewers and Paul supporters think they are hearing a typical stump speech or a press interview, they are actually the witless pawns of Paul and his real, intended audience. Sure, it sounds like Paul is spreading a message of freedom and liberty, but Kirchick insists that Paul has woven an encoded message of hate into his live-and-let-live platform. Kirchick did not explain how he managed to crack the code. Nor did he explain why Paul chooses to spread his message this way rather than, you know…using telephones.
Alyssa Lopez | January 8, 2008, 1:40am | #James Kirchick is a Giuliani supporter
Of course American politics is the politics of conspiracy and conspiracy theories, has been since the founding of the republic. You can't have a revolution after all without a conspiracy of equals.
And of course Paul like other fringe political candidates has support amongst well the fringe, where conspiracy theories abound like jelly beans. And some of these folks are racist, antisemitic, red necks. But that doesn't mean Paul is.
After all he is a genuine libertarian not a poser like Ted Morton.
But to smear his libertarian politics as racist or Nazi is to misunderstand American libertarianism. It is a desperate attempt to equate libertarianism with secessionist white nationalism, etc. deliberately divorcing it from its roots in the traditions of Lysander Spooner, Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker,Lucy Parsons, Voltairine de Cleyre , Emma Goldman, etc.
And later in the Sixties with the New Left Alliance of Murray Rothbard and Sam Konkin with the likes of Carl Davidson and Carl Oglesby of the SDS. This is tradition that Paul comes from, not the Ayn Rand Objectivism of the right wing conservative establishment as exemplified by Allan Greenspan.
It is the same smear that has been used against other anarchists be it Proudhon, who was accused of antisemitism and mysogny, or Bakunin, again antisemitism. Or Aleister Crowley, who deliberately and with calculated glee made outrageous sexist and racist statements to upset the staid Edwardian bourgeois. Rather than argue their ideas, one focuses on their political foibles. In Bakunin's case his fatal alliance with Nechayev. Antisemitism is also a smear that has been used against Marx to devalue his theories. It is the oldest canard and apparently still a useful one.
This smear campaign against Paul can be seen in the same light. On the right it is the desperation of the War Mongering Imperialist establishment. On the left it is fear of his growing popularity amongst the anti-war left, progressives and liberals.
Ron Paul Statement on The New Republic Article Regarding Old Newsletters
ARLINGTON, Va.--(Business Wire)--
In response to an article published by The New Republic,
Ron Paul issued the following statement:
"The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do
not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never
uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.
"In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that
we should only be concerned with the content of a person's character,
not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S.
House on April 20, 1999: 'I rise in great respect for the courage and
high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of
individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.'
"This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade.
It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the
day of the New Hampshire primary.
"When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a
newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several
writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have
publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention
to what went out under my name."
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Bemjamin Tucker, Liberty, Lysander Spooner, Godwin, Constitution, law, libertarian, anarchism, invdidualist-anarchist, Proudhon, mutualist, mutualism, anarchist-law, Ayn Rand, Republicans, US Presidential race, Ron Paul, US, libertarian, Democrats,
6 comments:
Did you catch him on CNN last night? He did a pretty decent job of defending himself and diffusing the claims. Even Wolf Blitzer helped him out, because this was such an obvious hatchet job, especially the TNR piece by Jamie Kirchick.
I think, sadly, the damage has been done.
All the more reason I choose not to participate in such a loaded game.
Speaking of smears... that's all you've managed with respect to Rand (see here). Clearly, you "blanked-out" every important aspect of her works --including her reverence for great art-- so as to maintain your rationalizations. Nothing like the Left and the Libertarians for raising hypocrisy to an art form!
P.S. Your blog is heinously slow to load.
Ayn Rand does need anyones healp to "smear" herself - her words do just fine.
You Randroids really broach no criticism, even from fellow travelers.
Sorry, but when it comes to libertarian thought, I'll side with Murray Rothbard over the cultist every time.
Richard you should use Firefox instead of whatever it is you are using. As for Rand she is of the Imperial Romaov clique, those post Russian Revolution aristocrats that headed for New York to cry over the decline of their Empire. Her writings are turgid at best if not unreadable. Her only work that is readable is Anthem which is an out an out plagiarism of Eugene Zamatiev's We. Which being published in Russian wasn't available till the late sixties, by then she had published Anthem.
Her appreciation of art is that of the crudest of social realism, the statuary of the state.
Her ideology like her personal psycho sexual peccadilloes is typical of Masoch's Cold Russian Bear Mother.
Nyah, Nyah, top that.
Shorter Rand: Reward all polluters, shoot all poor looters.
As for Paul, the options are he's a racist or he let racists write and publish a Ron Paul newsletter without noticing -what was being put out there with his name on it. Uncool and troubling either way.
And Eugene, I run Firefox, a high end gaming computer and a shaw high speed plus connection. Your blog is a bear to load and occasionally times out when every other site I'm visiting I'm visiting is whip fast.
You've got one of the most fascinating sidebar collections out there but I think it comes with a cost.
I've had some problems with La Revue per slow loading. But it is not so bad now, perhaps thirty seconds. I also use Firefox and my connection is via cable (high speed lite) with less than T1 downloads most of the time. People should be more patient I think.
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