Republican Presidential Paul-itics

A Headline you won't see in the MSM.

Ron Paul Beats Fred Thompson.

In the Iowa Straw Poll this weekend.

The final results:

Mitt Romney 4516 31.5%
Mike Huckabee 2587 18.1%
Sam Brownback 2192 15.3%
Tom Tancredo 1961 13.7%
Ron Paul 1305 9.1%
Tommy Thompson 1039 7.3%
Fred Thompson 203 1.4%
Rudy Giuliani 183 1.3%
Duncan Hunter 174 1.2%
John McCain 101 1.0%
John Cox 41 0.1%

14,302 Total Votes

Libertarian Anti-War Blog; Unfair Witness has interesting ongoing results of the Ron Paul campaign on the Internet and post debate polls.


The libertarian underdogs; Kucinich and Paul agree on abrogating NAFTA the WTO and the North American Union, they also agree on getting out of Iraq.

Karen Kwiatowski a libertarian blogger on the 'liberal' Huffington Post agrees with me in regards to the libertarian candidates in the upcoming U.S. Presidential Election.

Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich are the only candidates who seem to understand this. They are also the only candidates who will quickly, if not immediately, end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Wait a sec -- I mean end it peacefully. Ultimately, Iraqis and their supporters around the world will bring down the American occupation -- but they will do so limb by limb, heart by heart, and soul by soul. They will kill thousands of us and themselves before it reaches that inevitable point of non-occupation and honest political independence. Only Paul and two underfunded Democratic contenders offer wisdom to Americans across the nation who are hungry for wisdom, at least in foreign policy. However -- it is in domestic policy where Ron Paul completes the package. Unlike the democratic longshots, and the candidacy of GuiliClintoRomnObamThomEdwaCain, Ron Paul is about real freedom. Freedom to choose, freedom to live, freedom to decide for ourselves. He offers freedom from excessive government mandates, excessive rules and regulations, excessive confiscation of our life and property. In this, Paul is the only real conservative in the group, and yes, perhaps the only radical.

Where Paul fails as a Libertarian, and Kucinich doesn't,is over the issue of abortion, where he plays to the Republican Social Conservative base.

While abortion should be a non-issue for the President of the United States, it is a social cause for the fundamentalist social conservative right and their use of the Presidency to appoint anti-choice Supreme Court Justices.

The point is that Paul falls down as a Libertarian when it comes to the issue of a womans right to reproductive choice.

And while he opposes universal health care, unlike Kucinich, it's a good thing he has tax payer funded health benefits.

Ron Paul's wife hospitalized in Iowa


For libertarian Democrats the support has to be for Kucinich, for libertarian Republicans the choice is Paul. For the rest of us the ideal would be a Kucinich/Paul candidacy for President and VP. You choose which for Pres.


See:

Ron Paul

Mr. Conservative

Death Of Laissez-Faire Politics

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Ron Paul

Even the Democratic Candidates for President have not been this radical when it comes to the war in Iraq. Ron Paul is the self styled 'Libertarian' candidate in the Republican Primaries. He is not as libertarian when it comes to other issues like abortion, gay rights, or immigration.

Of course he has as much chance as the Democratic libertarian Dennis Kucinich does.

This is from the last Republican candidates debate.

Ron Paul

Voted against use of military force in Iraq. Supports withdrawing troops from Iraq, but opposed war spending bill which included a plan to withdraw most U.S. troops by March 2008. Calls for repealing authority given to the president in 2002 Iraq war authorization vote. Opposed Bush plan to increase the number of American troops in Iraq. Says military victory in Iraq is "unattainable."

You’d abolish the Department of Homeland Security in the middle of a war?

Ron Paul: We were already spending billions of dollars on homeland security prior to 9/11 and it didn’t prevent the attacks; inefficiency was the problem. Adding another huge, expensive, inefficient level of bureaucracy makes things worse.

You’re the only one on this stage who opposes the war. Are you out of step with your party, and why are you seeking its nomination?

Ron Paul: The Republican Party has lost its way. The conservative wing was always anti-interventionist: Taft was against NATO; Bush ran on a promise of a humble foreign policy, anti-nation-building, anti-global-policing; Republicans were elected to end the Korean and Vietnam wars; it’s the Constitutional position; the founders’ advice was to pursue friendship with other nations but avoid entangling alliances. We should negotiate, talk, trade with other countries; we lost 60,000 soldiers in Vietnam and lost the war, and now we invest there. We shouldn’t go to war so carelessly.

Follow-up: Is noninterventionism still a viable position after 9/11?

Ron Paul: 9/11 was a response to our previous interventions. We’d been bombing Iraq for a decade; we’re now building 14 permanent bases there and an embassy bigger than the Vatican. If China were doing this in the Gulf of Mexico we’d be upset.

Follow-up: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attacks?

Ron Paul: I suggest we believe their reasons are what they say they are; also bin Laden says he’s delighted our soldiers are over there where they can be targeted more easily.

Giuliani intervenes: As NYC mayor during 9/11, I’ve never before heard such a shocking claim that we invited 9/11 and I ask Ron Paul to withdraw it or clarify whether he believes it.

Ron Paul: I believe the CIA is correct when it warns us about blowback. We overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 and their taking the hostages was the reaction. This dynamic persists and we ignore it at our risk. They’re not attacking us because we’re rich and free, they’re attacking us because we’re over there.

(Later on Tancredo also attacked Paul, saying that regardless of what our foreign policy was or whether Israel existed, the terrorists would still attack us because they view it as a religious imperative. Paul did not have a chance to respond.)

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Who's the Loser?

The LA Times doesn't like Ron Paul. In this blog post they claim he 'lost again' last night in New Hampshire. Fact is he virtually tied with Giuliani.

How come they didn't post Giuliani loses again? His is after all the campaign that claimed to be inevitable, he claimed to be a contender. Ron Paul never did. And last night that one percent difference between his fifth place and Giuliani's fourth was a mere 2223 votes.Giuliani spent millions on ads in New Hampshire compared to Paul.

Rudolph’s camp knew he couldn’t win, so they used the effective strategy of downplaying his loss by claiming that the candidate didn’t make any real effort in New Hampshire. The media, however, today exposed some interesting facts about Guiliani’s efforts in New Hampshire. Guiliani not only made more campaign appearances in New Hampshire than any other candidate but he spent more money in the state than all over candidates except for Mitt Romney. That Ron Paul virtually tied Guiliani is an incredible political feat and the Paulites of New Hampshire should be wildly applauded. Had it not been for Paul activists, the candidate would have finished around Hunter’s 1%.

And Paul beat Giuliani in Iowa. And Paul has delegates while Giuliani has none.

Mr. McCain received 37% of the vote, in comparison to 32% for Mr. Romney. Mr. Huckabee garnered 11%, and Mr. Giuliani beat Ron Paul by one percentage point, 9% to 8%. Senator Thompson captured just 1% of the vote.

		Romney	73,806	32%	4
		Huckabee	26,035	11%	1
		Giuliani	20,054	9%	0
		Paul	17,831	8%	0
		Thompson	2,808	1%	0
		Hunter	1,195	0%	0

Republicans »

Jan 8 Del

Del*

Romney

24

4

Huckabee

18

1

McCain

10

7

Thompson

6

0

Paul

2

0

Hunter

1

0

Giuliani

0

0

*Pledged delegates to date. Republican Scorecard lists all Republican delegates, including unpledged RNC members.

And Paul beat the last best conservative hope the media has been pushing; Fred Thompson. Whom he also beat in Iowa. And he is tied with Thompson in SC where Fred promises to make his final stand; ala the Alamo.

This is probably the real reason the liberal LA Times is pissed off about 'loser' Ron Paul, he is still in the race and they will have to continue writing about him.

Ron Paul: N.H. no reason to let up

January 8, 2008

CONCORD, N.H.—His didn't upstage the Republican frontrunners in New Hampshire, but Ron Paul said Tuesday he will continue on, raising issues that have riled many other Republicans and raising record amounts of cash on the Internet.

"There's really no reason for us to be letting up. It's really only the beginning," the Texas congressman told a raucous crowd of campaign workers and supports in Concord.

Paul, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, was on track for fifth place with about 8 percent of the vote. He had hoped to better his 10 percent showing in the Iowa caucuses last week.

The libertarian-leaning doctor who says the Republican Party has lost its way said his campaign will gain strength as more voters hear his message of individual liberty and a strict interpretation of the Constitution.

"There is no doubt in my mind that we're on the right track. We're moving," Paul said.

He credited much of his support to young people, and an intense Internet campaign that saw him raise record amounts on the Web in the last three months.

Just like the right wing bloggers are gleefully cheering his loss in New Hampshire. They too suffer from Paulitis. But he just isn't going away or giving up, and good for him because unlike Kucinich this gadfly is getting press and will get more. He is far from irrelevant. Ron Paul is good for shaking up the conservative and Republican establishment in America and pissing off liberals who can't figure out his popularity.

These same folks also don't get Huckabee and his success either. They dismiss the populist as simply a born again phenomena, missing his appeal to the blue collar Republican base.

Working class America with all its peccadillo's and quirks is voting for change, both in the Republican and Democratic party's. And not just a change of leaders but a sea change in the politics of the two ruling party's of the ruling classes.


SEE

New Hampshire Polling Puts Paul Fourth

Tags;
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Canadians Support Ron Paul

Republican Libertarian candidate for President; Ron Paul's support online comes from Canada, or at least a web based company founded by a Canadian, but published with American content. And noticing this has not been the usual libertarians of the right, the so called Blogging Tories, but the progressive bloggers.

Because basically the right wing which makes up the majority of BT are war mongering opponents to libertarianism. And Dr.Paul is outspoken against the war in Iraq.

As one Canadian progressive blogger put it:

Colbert, Stewart and Maher on Ron Paul (includes video)

I don’t agree that Stewart and Maher let him off easy, rather they were probably just as blown away as I was that a Republican could articulate a common sense foreign policy agenda. Stewart and Maher (video) gave the American public a chance to hear the stark differences between Ron Paul’s views and all of the other Republican candidates. In my opinion, Paul is the only Republican candidate running whose foreign policy ideas/plans are not completely wacked and terrifying to the average world citizen. I also think Maher’s political views are actually much closer to Paul’s than Stewart’s or Colbert’s.

The American pundit blog Wonkette that noticed the Canadian source of Ron Pauls online support called Canada the Evil Empire (tongue in cheek).

Of course as anyone who watched Twin Peaks knows, Canada is the evil empire of the north that terrifies Americans.

Or if you listen to debates on single payer health care in the U.S. you find the same fears expressed. Socialism, Single payer health care, Canada, are all used in the same sentence.

Which is why Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is more Canadian than American, he supports a single payer Canadian style Medicare system. And as I said here unfortunately neither he nor Ron Paul stand a chance of winning their primaries.

But for a truly evil Canadian style libertarian socialist alternative to the two party candidates, a Paul/Kucinich ticket would be just the thing. Of course they would have to decide which one was running for President and which for VP. They are the ultimate geek ticket. Just look at those hairstyles.




SEE:

Liberal Republicans

Ron Paul Quotes Ayn Rand

Ron Paul

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Nevada A Tie

For second place getween Ron Paul and John McCain. It's a statistical tie, yet one announcer on MSNBC announced earlier that when McCain had a few votes ahead of Paul, that it was a 'lead' for McCain. Now CNN predicts a tie. Yet Paul has beaten McCain, by the numbers. Paul is in the lead. He places second. But as usual this will get no press.

Its a conspiracy of silence, the media isn't talking to or about Paul. Despite his beating front runners McCain and Huckabee, and wannabes Thompson and Giuliani.He has consistently scored above Giuliani the Great White Hope from New York yet nary a comment from the pundits about him.

REPUBLICAN CAUCUSES January 19, 2008

Race	Status	Candidate	State Del.*	%	Del*	Precincts
Nevada Updated 1 minute ago County Results Entrance Poll		Romney	21,537	52%	18	95% reporting
		Paul	5,345	13%	4
		McCain	5,244	13%	4
		Thompson	3,266	8%	2
		Huckabee	3,203	8%	2
		Giuliani	1,777	4%	1
		Hunter	811	2%	0
		Tancredo	0	0%	0

Nary a word about Paul not on Fox or MSNBC or CNN or heck even CNBC. Even though he has come in second twice now, first in Wyoming and now in Nevada. And he came in fourth behind Huckabee in Michigan.

Considering this deliberate media campaign of silence over Paul's candidacy and his campaign he still is getting support from the libertarians in the Republican base and independents.

While the media focuses on Evangelicals they overlook the importance of the libertarians and Barry Goldwater Republicans that have converged around Paul.

And he is getting their cash Ron Paul MLK "Money Bomb" is Coming Up Monday, January 21

And he still has more delegates than Republican establishment wannabe Giuliani.

While some pundits see Huckabee as the anti-establishment candidate the Republican leadership fears. Paul is the disestablishmentarian candidate that the whole neo-con establishment fears.

SEE:

Who's the Loser?

New Hampshire Polling Puts Paul Fourth

The Secret Of Ron Paul's Success

Fox Vs. Paul

Huckabee: Paul is Dead.

Gravel and Paul on PBS

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

Libertarians for U.S. President

Ron Paul



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Huckabee: Paul is Dead.

Republican candidate Mike Huckabee seems to have slammed Ron Paul yesterday when he defended his Christian Christmas TV Ad.

"I will confess this: If you play the spot backwards it says, 'Paul is dead. Paul is dead,'"

Was that a subliminal smear against Ron Paul? Since the National Journal Poll found Ron Paul was dead last in national polling for Republican candidates.

"Merry Christmas," Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said simply Tuesday in Houston in response to criticism that his latest campaign commercial mixes too much religion with politics.

Huckabee, here to raise campaign money, said the nation is in serious trouble if it is politically incorrect for him to use his TV spot to remind voters about the religious meaning of this holiday season.

Departing from the standard pitches for the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary two weeks from now, the former Arkansas governor and Southern Baptist minister appears on television screens in some states with the shape of a cross behind him and Silent Night playing in the background.

"Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? Well, I don't blame you," he says in the commercial. "At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and friends."

Subliminal message?

Some political observers see the ad as appealing directly to evangelical voters and tapping into the religious differences between Huckabee and one of his chief rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, a Mormon. Others such as candidate Ron Paul, the Republican congressman from Lake Jackson, said the ad goes overboard.

"It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. He says, 'when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross,' " Paul, a Protestant, told Fox News. "Now I don't know whether that's a fair assessment or not, but you wonder about using a cross, like he is the only Christian or implying that subtly. So, I don't think I would ever use anything like that."

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights President Bill Donohue said images of a cross in the commercial are an attempt to send a subliminal message.

"What he's trying to say to the evangelicals in western Iowa (is): 'I'm the real thing,' " Donohue said on the same news network. "You know what? Sell yourself on your issues, not on what your religion is."

Play it backward

Huckabee said Tuesday that he mentioned Jesus Christ in his unscripted commercial because, considering the meaning of the holiday, "I don't know what else to say about Christmas."

Some people are drawing such wild inferences from the commercial, Huckabee joked, that they might believe the ad says "Paul is dead" when played backward. It was a reference to the myth that the hidden news of Beatle Paul McCartney's "death" was revealed in the backward playing of one of the band's songs.

Really I heard Huckabee's quote and he said Paul is Dead, three times with no reference to McCartney. Now he is claiming he was referring to Paul McCartney but was he really?

After all Huckabee has no money and Ron Paul again broke a record for one day fund raising this week; when he raised over $6 million on internet donations. The previous record had been $4 million, raised by Paul a couple of months ago. And Paul was the first Republican candidate to criticize Huckabee's ad. And both are contenders in New Hampshire as I have pointed out.

Both these guys were once the so called second tier candidates in the Republican race. Huckabee now has the support of the evangelical conservative base in the party and Paul has become the most successful fund raiser, beating out all the front runners.

Huckabee is hated by the Republican establishment, who have abandoned their Moral Majority evangelical base that is the Reagan Republicans that Huckabee is shamelessly appealing to. He has little money or organizational staff with which to beat his opponents so he is doing the next best thing, talking to the folks, the base of the party who are alienated by the the current crop of 'liberals' running as Republicans; in this case the two front runners Mitt and Rudy.

This ad will come back to haunt him of course because he forgot that Hanukkah is also being celebrated this time of the year, and that Jesus was a Jew not a Republican.

In both races, Democrats and Republicans, this is not politics as usual, it is about the politics of change. Making this one of the most interesting U.S. Presidential elections in decades.




SEE:

Lieberman Endorses McCain

Huckabee A Red Tory

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

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Ron Paul Spoiler

There it was flashing on CNN and MSNBC, Ron Paul came in second in Montana, and as usual no comment from the pundits. And then he came in third in North Dakota. Silence. Ron Paul is still in the Republican race, a spoiler for a fight and spoiling to continue his fight against American Imperial aspirations. Go Paul Go. And notice even Coulter, Limbaugh and company don't dare take on Paul. Who is after all Mr. Conservative.

Paul did better in the Northern Midwest caucus states, placing second in Montana, third in North Dakota and fourth, but with 15 percent of the vote in Minnesota. He also placed third with 17 percent at the Alaska Republican caucus and, despite a fourth place finish in initial voting, got 3 national convention votes in a backroom deal with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in West Virginia.

Missoula GOP chooses Paul
By CHELSI MOY of the Missoulian

Diane Rotering casts her ballot for a presidential candidate at the Missoula County Republican caucus Tuesday night. Rotering, a designated caucus voter, cast her ballot for Ron Paul, who won the county by only three votes over Mitt Romney. “It's just awesome,” says Rotering. “(The caucus is) sort of like the Super Bowl: well-played and a good clean win.” LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian

Missoula County Republican caucus voters threw their support to maverick presidential candidate Ron Paul on Tuesday night, giving the Texas congressman a three-vote victory over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

An organized youth vote filled Missoula's empty precincts, helping Paul win 45 of the 97 votes cast at the caucus. Romney won 42 votes, while Sen. John McCain of Arizona had seven and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had three.

About 300 people turned out at Missoula's DoubleTree Hotel for the historic event, many of them sporting red - the color of the Republican Party. The turnout far surpassed the expectations of Will Deschamps, chairman of the Missoula County Republican Central Committee.

The Ron Paul National Delegate Count is now 42 or more, and the campaign intends to press on to the Republican National Convention.

And here is some good advice; Paul supporters, if you learn anything from this election, it should be this: Stop wasting your damn time waving signs on street corners. Canvassing and phone-banking aren't fun, but they win elections.

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Smearing Paul

I came across this article on Ron Paul being associated with the American Nazi party, posted on Indymedia. It is innuendo and a drive by smear.

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

Tue Jan 8, 2008 4:26pm EST

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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Libertarians for U.S. President

One can say that U.S Presidential candidates Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul have a lot in common. They are both opposed to the war in Iraq. They are both contenders for their parties nomination for U.S. Presidential candidate in 2008. And they are both libertarians. While Ron Paul is seen as such, Kucinich actually advocates for the Libertarian Left in many of his positions.

I have mentioned it here that the two share much in common. However the debate over these two 'third tier' candidates is going on hot and heavy in the political blogosphere, since they both confront the establishment in their respective parties. Much more so than any outsider candidate like Ralph Nader ever could.

A number of articles appeared after the 2006 election sweep that saw a new Libertarianism in the grass roots movement that led to Democratic victories. In fact at least one article suggested that since only the Democratic Party represented the anti-war vote Libertarians should vote Democratic.

The ideal candidates for Libertarians in either party are Kucinich and Paul, and they should be on a joint ticket when they lose their bids to be their parties nominee.

As these two articles show, it is not so much Paul and Kucinich that are the real impetus for a genuine libertarian rebirth, rather it is the Libertarian Left coming from conservative and liberal traditions in the U.S. talking to each other that really reflects the libertarianism that calls itself socialism.

They need to talk to each other not just at each other. In the same way that I am able to converse with those who come from the Rothbard right, individualists,and mutualists as a socialist libertarian.

This is the Libertarian Left, not your usual left or right.

A Libertarianism that does not toady to existing political parties and ideologies calling themselves Liberal or Conservative nor even Social Democratic.

AN OPEN LETTER TO LIBERTARIAN ACTIVISTS By Paul Donovan (Paul; Kucinich)

I discern in this thread what I have observed elsewhere, a tremendous infatuation by Libertarians with Rep. Ron Paul. That certainly strikes me as logical: Paul is one of your own. The point of divergence, however, is equally simple. The reasons and personal qualities you adduce for elevating Mr. Paul to the status of national saviour are matched, and in many dimensions clearly exceeded, by another political figure, Dennis Kucinich. What is the reason then for this partiality? I don't want to get ahead of myself here but just let me say the following: the only conceivable reason I can find for your complete disregard of Rep. Kucinich as a serious candidate and his clear and courageous stands is that he is not a Libertarian in political philosophy, that is, he does not worship individualism at the expense of the commonwealth.

In this context, first let me remind everyone here, once again, that it was Dennis Kucinich who filed papers to impeach Dick Cheney in order to get the ball rolling to go after the whole Bush mafia, well before Ron Paul made statements to this effect, so in light of that fact, may I ask what are you all talking about by placing all the adoration on Paul and ignoring Kucinich's obvious contributions? If we follow your logic, Kucinich bested Ron Paul because he is already (with little support from his own party of opportunistic cowards, or the media) actively seeking impeachment of those responsible in the Bush administration.

I guess the central question is this: what kind of broad social change do you Libertarians really advocate?

With all due respect, what is libertarianism if not an anarchic, passionately ahistorical form of laissez-faire capitalism? The cowboy, frontier capitalism still embraced by inordinate numbers of people in the US (especially the Southwest and Texas), Australia, Alaska, and other places where the vastness of the land confuses the superficial thinker into believing that vastness equals infinity? With no Democratic strings attached to control the destructive power of markets and monopolies, a libertarian regime, just as its older sibling, the Victorian-style capitalist regime, would drive wages into the ground worse than they are doing now, eviscerate workers' protection, make the workday longer to boost profits, while busy destroying what's left of the environment—all in the name of sacred property rights. Would you privatize the EPA as well? Fact is, it is ahistoricalism that truly characterizes all bourgeois conceptions of history and reality, but in the case of Libertarians only more so, because here we witness a total disregard for the lessons of history, or the similarly obvious evolution of economic institutions.

Have we forgotten already the long list of abuses in the name of free enterprise, before the system was moderately tamed by social corrective action? Considering your rather brutal philosophy, the fact that so many in your ranks decry social security, employment compensation, and other buffers against personal disasters, may we ask again what is your opinion on child Labor? After all, a true Libertarian would argue that it is a child's right to work and that's that.

The answer to this complex question of what should be the goal of a true revolution is plain: Socialism, American style, but true socialism, no more welfare capitalisms, or phony Democratic DLC/Blairite/Clintonite "Third Ways."

Socialism, having been viciously slandered for more than a century in this nation would and does entail a long road of understanding and political organizing. A road that will require deprogramming your mind away from the imbecilic and self-serving (to the plutocracy) indoctrination you have all received. There are no shortcuts to this kind of work. But once you join this monumental effort, you'll find yourself in truly distinguished company. Yes, friends, socialism, not libertarianism, is the answer.

Ron Paul vs Kucinich

This is a response to a bulletin post titled “An Open Letter to Libertarian Activists (Paul; Kucinich)”. This post is encouraging Ron Paul supporters to take another look at Kucinich because Kucinich seems to advocate more policy to protect the labor market. I am glad for this post because it is good to see intelligent reasonings on both sides of the issues.

I am mostly a libertarian myself, though not the hardest of the hard core. I’m more like a populist Constitutionalist than anything I suppose. I believe in free market, but I also believe we must have strong anti-trust laws. I don’t agree with the ultimate libertarians who oppose anti-trust laws. If we don’t have anti-trust laws, then monopolies will take over and then we’d have no free market. I argue often with other libertarians that if they love their precious free market so much then they should advocate anti-trust laws or else they’ll lose their free market. That usually shuts them up.

I actually see strong labor unions as part of the free market phenomenon. It is a natural formation in the labor market, hence it is actually part of the free market system. The phenomenon of workers bonding together to make themselves into a strong unified force that must be reckoned with by employers places the employers in the position of being forced to negotiate and make concessions or else they won’t have a workforce. I see this as pretty much falling under the basic principles of supply and demand. Supply = labor, demand = employer needs workers. If the employer wants his need of a labor force to be met, then he will have to deal with the market of the workforce which will place certain requirements on the employer if he wants to get his need of a workforce to be met.

I think that the workers themselves through strong labor unions can be greatly more effective at protecting themselves through this kind of heavy leverage by making specific demands that they deem necessary for their industry, rather than some kind of blanket government protective legislation that may or may not be able to be enforced. An employer may break a labor protection law, but it could take a long time to get anything done about it, if ever. But if the employer is facing losing all his employees if he doesn’t make his workplace safe for them however, that is where the enforcement and incentive comes in. The employer has to comply with the requirements the workforce is placing on him, and he has to comply IMMEDIATELY or else his business will go bankrupt in a big hurry due to strikes. This is why labor unions actually are part of the free market system because there is incentive for the employer to comply with the unions or else suffer a loss.

I believe that until we can get rid of the fraud of fiat currency there probably should be some safety-net type legislation to protect workers because not all businesses or industries are big enough to naturally develop labor unions in their markets, and with the currency having no intrinsic value, there is little leverage or bargaining power for those who hold that currency. But the real protections are going to come from the workers themselves banding together into a strong force that must be reckoned with by the employers. The main thing the government needs to do at this point would just simply be to prohibit employers from intimidating workers, discriminating against them, or firing them or threatening to fire them for being in the labor union, and to very strongly enforce labor union protections with heavy jail time and fines. The government also should protect unions by legislating to never interfere with strikes or any other actions by unions even if the unions consist of workers who work for the government, like transportation workers. Remember the subway workers in New York? The government ordered them to end their strike. This is wrong. Those workers got screwed.

I see employers undermining labor unions by threatening or firing workers as actually being akin to violating an anti-trust law. The employer would be making maneuvers to control or “monopolize” the labor market for his own purposes. Strong labor union protection laws would mean that if an employer does this kind of thing then he would not only be committing a felony but also could get his pants sued off. This way the power is in the hands of the PEOPLE where it belongs, rather than handing over the power to law-makers and depending on them to pass oodles and oodles of legislation to protect us when those laws may or may not be enforced.

The current situation appears to me that we don’t really have a free market. What we have right now is corporate welfare. The government is not protecting a free market. They won’t enforce anti-trust laws, they won’t protect labor unions, there are no-bid government contracts with private corporations on a daily basis. These no-bid private-public partnerships violate free market because there is no competition, monopolies are formed, and it undermines our Republic because taxpayers have no say in how our money is spent. I hear some people bashing free market a lot because workers get ripped off and taken advantage of, but those people don’t have an understanding of what free market really means. If we had free market the labor unions would keep employers in their place and the government would protect the free market by protecting labor unions.

I’m for Ron Paul because he’s not really a true hard core libertarian. He’s more of a populist constitutionalist and paleo-conservative. He’s the only one who is really advocating following the Constitution. I have looked at others’ philosophies like Kucinich, and the reason I still advocate Ron Paul is because I believe that he has by far the best and most thorough understanding of the fiscal and economic situation we are facing as a nation.

See:

Ron Paul

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Winds of Change

The Iowa Caucuses last night showed that the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign will break the mold of establishment politics. It is after all the fortieth anniversary of the winds of change that blew the establishment apart in 1968. And this Presidential campaign has all the makings of the grass roots rebellion that saw demonstrators take to the streets and activists support Bobby Kennedy in a Power to the People campaign.

Barack Obama has the Kennedy charisma and has captured the new Power to the People campaign. This showed in Iowa, with a massive increase in registered Democratic voters and their showing up at the caucuses, many for the first time. The Democratic Establishment is shaken to its core, for they back Hillary and she came in third. Even her feminist base could not be counted on, for the vast majority of those new voters were older women who supported Obama.

John Edwards whom I predicted would take Iowa, came in second, far ahead of Clinton. His populist message of bashing Wall Street, corporations and the party establishment echoed grass roots sentiments not only in the Democratic Party but in the Republican grass roots. That is why Huckabee won so overwhelmingly. Which I did predict several months ago.

Huckabee gives Kudlow and Co. on CNBC heartburn, they decry his anti-Wall Street message, ironically so does the Conservative establishment Rush Limbaugh was on Fox denouncing Huckabee, as did members of the Christian Coalition leadership. The reason is they are out of touch with their base. The days of the Moral Majority are gone, the vocal power brokers are either discredited like Ralph Reed who was caught up in scandal, or dead like Moral Majority boss Jerry Falwell.

What both Edwards and Huckabee appeal too is blue collar America, main-street. What the establishment appeals to is Wall Street. Sure the investors and bankers and movers and shakers in the marketplace are making money, but to the average American they are facing rising inflation, loss of their homes, increasing debt, lost jobs, frozen wages, lack of medicare, Huckabee and Edwards appealed to these real issues.

Obama does to, in a very personal way, and his message last night was a variation on the old Rastafarian slogan One Love, his statement was about running to unify One People, One America, this goes beyond the two America's Edwards denounces, in providing a more hopeful message. And Huckabee also uses that same language, talking about an inclusive Presidency, one that will not be bi-partisan perse, but anti-partisan. His is a message of hope as well.

The pundits and hacks are scratching their heads this morning, and the powers that be are cringing in their corners wondering how they can rally support behind the establishment candidates; Clinton and Romney. They are out of touch with their base. They are aloof from blue collar/white collar workers in America. This is a working class revolt in both parties.

Sure Republicans are concerned about abortion and gay marriage, but they are also concerned, as Huckabee tells the party bosses, loss of jobs due to globalization, rising interest rates, lack of health care, eduction. Just like their Democratic counterparts do. One listens to Johnny Cash the other listens to Steve Earle, what happened in Ohio last election, where the working class vote, the union vote was mobilized around values issues, abortion and gay marriage, has given way to mobilization around economic bread and butter issues. Fair Trade instead of Free Trade. This is what scares the bejesuzz out of the establishment. It is Pat Buchanan's message eight years later, but delivered by both Democrat and Republican contenders without the jingoistic nativism and isolationist rhetoric.

The pundits were claiming last night that McCain would rise from the dead but in Iowa he ended up tied with a movie star for third place. Sure McCain is a challenger in New Hampshire, but in this he is the establishments fall back candidate. By far the real challenger is Ron Paul. Yes Ron Paul.

His is the under reported story from last night. Until the caucuses his campaign appeared to be internet driven. For instance in a Myspace poll he won overwhelmingly. His messaging and fund raising has all be done on the net. And he showed, as Howard Dean did last round, that the internet is an authentic alternative to corporate fund raising. Paul did what no other Presidential candidate ever did, raise record funds off the internet in one day. Not just once but three times. This is not a mere footnote folks, this is an authentic challenge to the traditional fund raising that has relied on lobbyists and tit for tat promises that Edwards has complained about and McCain tried to change through legislation.

Ron Paul has not been given the credit he is due by the pundit and media establishment. But by coming in fourth with 10% in Iowa he has translated his internet base to a real political force. Now watch him gain even more support as a viable alternative in New Hampshire. Paul appeals directly to the libertarian base that is the New Hampshire voter. Despite the state going Democrat, there is a strong independent base that Paul can and will appeal to. Expect him to come in third there. His libertarian message is appealing to the left and the right, just as a New Left Alliance arose between anarchists of the left and Republican libertarians forty years ago

Winds of change. Expect the unexpected. And look forward to an amazing set of Presidential conventions where the grass-roots will be out in force as delegates, and they will be challenging the party establishments. Democracy never had it so good in the good old U.S.A.

This is after all the Year of the Rat.


SEE:

Huckabee: Paul is Dead.

Lieberman Endorses McCain

Huckabee A Red Tory

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

Gravel and Paul on PBS

Republican Presidential Paul-itics

Ron Paul

Ron Paul and Barry Goldwater

Liberal Republicans

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