Ron Paul: CIA runs the U.S. government

[compared2what?]

Notice any similarities?

The financial institution is too big to fail.

The military is too big and widespread to drastically dismantle.

"Oh, if we did that, the consequences might be too severe."

So we allow Goliath to stand, because we fear the price that accompanies such an effort.

Which makes Goliath very happy.

Where is the courage of David, today, in a land that is subjugated by several Goliaths?

It's in you and it's in me. And I bet it's in your daughter, too. I will never back down for any Goliath for any of us, or for any of the bigger and more metaphorical "us." And I know you wouldn't either. I respect it that you stick to your guns.

And that's the only position from which I'm asking you to think hard about how solid a case you can make for that same courage being in Ron Paul.

I hope you know that already. But in case you don't, I'm telling you.

[compared2what?]

Put another way: I think you'd make a better president than Ron Paul would. And I think it's because your understanding of him draws on your understanding of yourself that you credit him with a kind of courage and moral integrity that you actually have and Ron Paul actually doesn't.

Which does you credit, as a person. And as a man with heart and soul and guts. It even makes me see the distant reflection of what you see in Ron Paul. But not enough for me to switch my vote from you to him. Do you know what I mean?

[23]

I've always believed that our leaders are a reflection of the values of the people who elect them.

Ergo, the current superficiality of Obama reflects the current superficiality, critical mass-wise, of the general electorate.

Similarly, we elect leaders who lie because lieing is acceptable to us, under certain conditions (AKA "white lies"). When it becomes unacceptable to us, behaviorally, we will be unaccepting of lieing leaders.

The change really does begin and and end with us.

I have the highest regard for people like Dr. Paul and Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney, "simply because" (I will use that phrase here) they have the courage to speak the truth. when speaking the truth is not the highest cultural value for our current society.

I don't look for perfect judgment from our leaders. Judgments change through personal experience and seasoned self-reflection. Mine certainly do.

I do, however, look for truth telling in them, and expect them to be truth tellers. Not ideologues who agree perfectly with my changing set of ideas. But minimally truth tellers.

The three leaders, whom I cited earlier, qualify more than the rest of the bunch of non-truth tellers. I include Dennis in the former group as well.

As I often remind my daughter, "if you can't tell the truth about how you formed your judgments and their inherent imperfections, you'll destine yourself to a life of maintaining and defending them at all costs". Not in those words, of course; she's only 11, after all.

[23]

Hey, elfismiles. Since you're busy keeping Austin and RI wierd, I'm curious if you have any feelings re. your Governor's comments here. TIA.

[compared2what?]

The change really does begin and and end with us.

Truer words never spoke.

As I often remind my daughter, "if you can't tell the truth about how you formed your judgments and their inherent imperfections, you'll destine yourself to a life of maintaining and defending them at all costs". Not in those words, of course; she's only 11, after all.

I have an 11-year-old girl in my life, too! Not a daughter, but in a close enough position that my world was recently rocked when (much to the general shock of all who know and love her) it became clear that....the battle over skinny jeans had begun.


Though to be fair, that's actually kind of intentionally hyperbolic. She's a lovely, considerate, self-secure person with many interests and aims of her own. And not a wild child in any way. So I'm hoping that The War of You-Can't-Wear-That-Sorry-But-No-Way will turn out not to have been all that severe an affair at the end of the day. But, seriously, 23, I swear: You'd really never have seen that one coming at all if you'd known her since birth. It's just completely unprecedented.

Um....And I guess the reason that I say that with as much idiotic surprise as if I'd never met any pre-adolescent girls before (or been one myself) is: Some things never change.

Which is really kind of comforting. In its own terrifying way.

[elfismiles]

Hey, elfismiles. Since you're busy keeping Austin and RI wierd, I'm curious if you have any feelings re. your Governor's comments here. TIA.

Replied here:

Shooting in Austin at State Cap Building
viewtopic.php?p=315724#p315724

[stefano]

I was in two minds about whether or not to kick this thread. Feels like unfinished business though.

please throw your strawmen back on the hay pile. Thanks.

OK, fair enough... When I wrote that I didn't have an idea what American Dream was arguing for, and I think I posted at an imaginary person. Sorry.

And no, "truly" free markets would not solve world hunger. More libertarian religion.

I never claimed that free markets would "solve world hunger", so, you know, throw your strawman back on the haypile please. Same goes for:

How is giving market forces more or less free reign going to lead to a world where everyone has decent food, shelter, energy, medical care, education, work, and everything else? [...] a world where the air and water aren't massively poisoned? Where animals aren't imprisoned and killed in little mini-Aushwitzes? Where millions don't die of preventible diseases? Where there is enough food for children and other human beings?

Kind of a tall order there. I don't think anyone has a plan to deliver all of that, except perhaps some North Korean speechwriters, and it's bad faith to attack policy proposals because they won't result in a paradise on earth.

All countries who developed economically and achieved industrialization did so by protectionist measures. No country ever industrialized by allowing completely "free markets" to foreign capital.

I'm not calling for a global free trade zone. I'm not calling for deregulation either. I was supporting Paul's policy of discontinuing subsidies in the US. OECD farm subsidies are a major fucking issue for me, and good for him if he wants to end them.

I personally like the anti-capitalist strains of Anarchism advanced by people like Grubacic and Graeber

I had a look at that article and that philosophy is closer to my own than Paul's is (but I'd never heard of Grubacic and Graeber, while Paul is a figure with some influence). Your advocating anarchism is at odds with your calling free education and animal rights "needs", though. You can't have it both ways. If your core principles are decentralization and voluntary association, you have to accept that some communities are going to run their affairs in ways that you don't like.

at some level some sort of "world government" will be required if the world wants to solve its collective problems effectively

At some level, and in some spheres like the environment. But I'm in favour of as much as possible being governed locally.

I do think Anarcho/Left voices offer an important counterpoint to Right-wing Libertarianism.

The way I see it, Anarcho-Left and Right-Libertarian are counterpoints to Centrist-Authoritarian. I mean, Labour has gone Thatcherite, and the US Democratic Party is a right-wing party by the standards of the 20th century. In this kind of world, considered with reference to what the mainstream political philospohy in the West is, the similarities between ideologies of non-control are far more important than their differences.

Do you think that Dr. Paul's investments are ethically defensible?

They're not a shining example of integrity, but I think they're defensible. In the class of US Politicians, where the norm is cheering on illegal war and airstrikes anywhere in the world, investing in mining shares is not that big a deal. My old man owns shares in Anglo American. Does that invalidate everything he might say on the subject of ethics or politics?

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but well put from Daniel Larison:

The impulse to label an opponent as an extremist is a common and tempting one. It is a very easy thing to do, provided that you are not concerned with accuracy or persuading undecided and unaffiliated people that you are right. These labels are not descriptive. They are a way to express the extent of one’s discontent and disaffection with the other side in a debate. When some Republican says that Obama and his party have been governing from “the left,” he might even believe it inasmuch as Obama and his party are to his left politically, but what he really means is that he strongly disapproves of how Obama and his party have been governing. He may or may not have a coherent reason for this disapproval, but declaring it to be leftist or radical leftist conveys the depth of his displeasure. That is, it is not analysis of political reality. It is therapy for the person making the statement.

The same thing goes for progressives who were trying to find words to express how outraged they were by Bush. Inevitably, many resorted to using labels such as theocrat, extreme right, radical right and the like. These did not correctly describe the content of Bush’s politics, but they did express the critics’ feelings of disgust and loathing for Bush’s politics. That doesn’t mean they weren’t right to be disgusted and outraged, but the words they used to express these sentiments typically had no relationship to the substance of what Bush was actually doing. Likewise, there could be merit in objecting to Obama’s agenda, but if critics begin by using the wrong definitions and descriptions they will not be critiquing an agenda that really exists, but it will instead be a fantastical one that they have imagined. Where this creates problems in understanding political reality is when partisans begin believing their own inaccurate descriptions of their opponents and then when they draw conclusions about the political landscape based on their misinterpretations of their opponents’ beliefs.

[JackRiddler]

.

Wow, this thread not so long ago went 18 pages!

.

[Nordic]

So ... I'm surprised this hasn't come up in the last few days.

Ron Paul is suddenly the front runner for the Iowa caucus.

And suddenly the media has decided to take him down.

After all, Ron Paul doesn't fit into the manufactured "narrative" of the 2012 race.

Since they can't just ignore him now, they're orchestrating his destruction.

Disclaimer: I am not a Ron Paul fan. Although I tend toward supporting anyone the establishment sees as a threat. I do like some of the things he advocates, but other things that he advocates are just plain nutty. Another Magical Thinking Libertarian.

Still, I'll take that over the Coke vs. Diet Coke corporate bullshit of the Repub vs. Dem - Red vs. Blue BULLSHIT that's shoved down our THROATS.

Anyway, anybody notice this going on the last few days?

Here's an article I found from a quick Google. I know nothing of this site, or this writer, so don't jump all over me if you don't like whoever it is, I'm just posting this as an example of what I'm talking about:

Possible Ron Paul Iowa Win Drives NeoCons to Apoplexy | Print |
WRITTEN BY WILLIAM F. JASPER
FRIDAY, 23 DECEMBER 2011 19:00

Rep. Ron Paul’s top-tier status heading into Iowa and New Hampshire means he definitely can’t be totally ignored by the major media, as he has been in the past. So the censors and blackout artists have been replaced by the smear bund. This past week they got pretty well revved up, but they’re still probably a long way from being in high gear.

As The New American's Jack Kenny noted here a couple of days ago in his article, “Campaign Could Get 'Downright Ugly' if Paul Wins Iowa,” the Big Government Republicans are sharpening their knives for a bloodfest.

But they’re not waiting for the results of the January 3, 2012 Iowa caucuses to get ugly.

Over the past week, the apoplectic attack dogs of the neoconservative kennel were unleashed for a rabid, howling blitz against the Texas Congressman. It’s testimony to Dr. Paul’s squeaky clean personal and political life that the attackers have been forced to fabricate issues with which to clobber him. No sex scandals. No political payoffs from Freddie Mac or favoritism for Goldman Sachs. No political flip-flops on issues. No sellouts to special interests. So how do you attack a straight arrow such as Dr. Paul who is a constitutional purist and has doggedly stuck to his convictions for over three decades of public life? Well, they’re dusting off their playbook from the 2008 presidential campaign, and adding a few new twists. The smear bund is harping on several memes, hoping that sufficient repetition from multiple voices will convince voters that Ron Paul is “dangerous,” “crazy,” a “pacifist,” an “isolationist,” a “conspiracy crank,” and a “grumpy old man.”

And, let’s not forget, most of all, the “racist” and “anti-Semite” labels the smear bund is attempting to affix to Ron Paul. In adopting this tactic, the neocon attack dogs have torn a page from the Obama/Democrat/MSM “progressive” playbook. Will this tune play in Des Moines, Davenport, Cedar Rapids — and beyond? Perhaps, with the woefully uninformed; but for the Tea Party conservatives in Iowa who form a large part of the Paul support base, this will sound precisely like the false charges which Tea Party activists have been subjected to for the past several years.

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post ran a furious diatribe by National Review’s Rich Lowry on December 19 decrying Paul as “a ‘blame America first’ Republican” that “has taken a principled anti-government position and associated it with loons and bigots.”

According to Lowry, Paul is an “irritable, absent-minded-professor” with “a poisonous view of America” who is guilty of “race-baiting and rancid Israel-bashing.”

For his ad hominem attack on Paul as a racist and anti-Semite, Lowry cites as a source the intellectually dishonest James Kirchick of The New Republic, the “progressive” magazine that has endorsed and promoted Big Government socialism for nearly a century (and endorsed Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for President).

Kirchick, who is recycling material from his 2008 anti-Paul campaign, was given space in the neocon Weekly Standard’s December 26 issue (which appeared several days earlier in the online edition) to rail about “The Company Paul Keeps,” in which he condemns the Congressman for “decades-long promotion of bigotry and conspiracy theories.”

Matt Barber penned an op-ed for the Washington Times on December 21, 2011, deriding Ron Paul as “cute, but unstable” because he is unwilling to take America into another war against Iran. Says Barber:

I personally like Mr. Paul. He’s that affable — if not a little “zany” — uncle who has the whole family on edge at Thanksgiving. “Oh boy; what’s Uncle Ronny gonna say next?”

Still, you wouldn’t give Uncle Ronny the carving knife for the turkey, much less the keys to the Oval Office.

David Frum, the Canadian neocon and speech writer for George W. Bush, has been churning out regular anti-Paul rants at his Frum Forum that end up being quoted and reposted across the blogosphere. This past week he featured “Ron Paul’s Useful Idiots,” and in the previous two weeks blasted Paul in several columns. One of those columns attacked Paul for criticizing Newt Gingrich’s global warming commercial, in which Newt and Nancy Pelosi sat together on a couch to promote Al Gore’s green socialist regime for the planet, ostensibly to save us from human-caused, catastrophic climate change. Newt now says the ad was “dumb,” and is trying to distance himself from his “Green Conservatism.”

But Frum, a true believer in the global warming “crisis” — despite Climategate, the avalanche of data contradicting anthropogenic global warming (AGW), and the huge number of scientists opposing the draconian “solutions” — says, “Newt, Your Ad With Pelosi Wasn’t Dumb.”

Says Frum: "What's so objectionable? Is it the notion that climate change is occurring? There is a vast body of evidence that it is, in the form of a long-term rise in average global temperatures. There is also ample evidence that this change is due primarily to anthropogenic carbon emissions.”

Ergo, he says, it makes sense for the federal government to push and promote “clean” alternative energy, to replace dirty old oil and coal. (Yes, we need more Solyndra debacles that reward politically connected insiders with billions of taxpayer dollars for solar, wind, and ethanol boondoggles.)

Yet Frum, who supports Big Government and foreign intervention (almost) everywhere, is a darling of the Republican establishment and Big Media. The ultra-left Frank Rich of the New York Times, for instance, is a big fan, describing Frum’s book Dead Right as “the smartest book written from the inside about the American conservative movement.”

NBC’s Domenico Montanaro took after Ron Paul on December 21 on a catalog of his “controversial” stands and statements, including his opposition to the FDA’s persecution of dairy farmers who sell raw milk to customers who want it.

Blatherskite blogger Adam Yoshida seems to be wholly fixated on the threat that the Ron Paul revolution presents to Big Government programs, policies, and institutions that traditional conservatives oppose but neoconservatives embrace.

In his December 21 attack in American Thinker entitled, “The Madness of Ron Paul,” Yoshida blasts Paul, among other things, for wanting to abolish the Federal Reserve System. The “extremist views held by Paul,” he says, “are very dangerous.” In fact, claims Yoshida, they are “in truth, destructive to the ideals that he claims to hold dear.” Yoshida goes on to defend the Fed, an institution advocated by Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto but wholly incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. According to Yoshida:

The primary virtue of the Federal Reserve and its printing presses is its flexibility. By maintaining control of the money supply, the Fed is able to exercise broad control over the direction of the economy.... Obviously this gives the Fed immense power over the economy, and certainly that power has been, is being, and will continue to be abused from time to time. However, that does not change the fact that these powers are vitally necessary.

“The time has come for a libertarian voice to make itself heard on national affairs,” says Yoshida. “Ron Paul, however, does not represent that cause. He is little more than a cranky old man espousing failed ideas that were obsolescent even when he was born.”

However, it is Ron Paul’s foreign policy that has most of the neocons in a dither. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt, Andy Dean, and the rest of the Bush league talk radio choir have been in overdrive, launching non-stop frenetic fusillades suggesting that Ron Paul would strip the nation of its defenses and bring catastrophic disaster upon us.

However, a calmer, rational look at Ron Paul’s foreign policy reveals a non-interventionist (not isolationist) policy in accord with the Constitution and America’s founders.

“Like every other conservative, Paul believes that America must have a strong national defense — he simply believes we can no longer afford our current irrational offense,” says Jack Hunter in “Why conservatives must adopt Ron Paul’s foreign policy” in a December 19 column in The Daily Caller. Hunter, who blogs for the Ron Paul campaign, raises important issues and challenges the usurpation of the “pro-defense” and “patriot” label of the neocons, who support perpetual and ever-expanding global war. Not only is that economically unsustainable, but immoral and counterproductive. Hunter writes:

Unfortunately, unlimited Pentagon spending remains the big government too many Republicans still love. During the Reagan era, when we were fighting a global superpower that possessed thousands of nuclear weapons, this made sense. It does not make sense anymore. Today, we are fighting individuals, or collections of individuals, with infinitely less military capabilities and no particular attachments to nation-states. Ask yourself this: What, exactly, does having thousands of troops stationed in Afghanistan do to prevent some sick individual from trying to blow up his underwear on an airplane? Just as important, ask this: Does having thousands of troops in places like Afghanistan make it less likely — or more likely — that some sick individual will try to blow up his underwear on an airplane? Our own military and CIA intelligence tells us that our overseas wars actually encourage terrorist attacks. A majority of the members of the U.S. military agree, or as a Pew Research Poll of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans published in October revealed: “About half (51 percent) of post-9/11 veterans say that the use of military force to fight terrorism creates hatred that breeds more terrorism."

Says Hunter: “Paul continues to make the same argument that former Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Mike Mullen has made: that our debt is the greatest threat to our national security.”

Nevertheless, as the Iowa caucuses draw nearer, the anti-Paul attacks and smears are certain to escalate — and get even nastier.

[StarmanSkye]

^^^^
Although there's much in the preceeding article I agree with, and the issue of what seems certain to be a somewhat coordinated if not just reactionary and reflexive neocon campaign to smear and vilify Ron Paul definitely needs to be thoroughly aired and made evident, the article is sloppy and uses some very sly maneuvering to introduce the authors own firm convictions about several issues that are totally besides the point (ie, the fact or fiction of Global Warming).

And here:
"During the Reagan era, when we were fighting a global superpower that possessed thousands of nuclear weapons, this (viz, unlimited Pentagon Spending to host non-stop global wars) made sense."

These wars the author blithely excuses as 'making sense' arguably only heightened global tensions while destroying countless millions of lives, impeding 3rd world development, undermining and sabotaging more legitimate, homegrown, authenticly democratic citizen-involved governments and the development of more equitable & just economic systems. I take GREAT offense with the author's unquestioning acceptance of the official history of American exceptionalism that has done so much to damage the world's chances for prosperity, progress, peace, justice and a sustainable future -- instead, establishing a globalized criminal-military-corporate technocracy that is dependant on war, misery, violence, debt-indenture and extortion.

Of course, I realize he may just be pandering to the unsophisticated, immature political sensibilities of his target audience who are potential Ron Paul supporters, and who he doesn't risk alienating by being too candid about America's long history of malicious, manipulative & monstrous foreign policy that is directly counter to stated, widely endorsed American principles. And so he blurred the Cold War's counterproductive hypocrisy to make his criticism of the anti-Paul dirty-campaigners palatable to as wide an audience as possible.

Maybe -- but if so, that kinda smacks of duplicitous and manipulative scheming, its NOT principled Speaking Truth to Power, is it?

The author may have been more honest to eliminate this seeming embrace of Cold War idealism, unless he really does support it.

The rightwing villianing and demonizing of Ron Paul will only succeed IF the American public are as ignorant, foolish, unprincipled, immature, uncaring, naive & gullible as the PTB hope and think they are.

To me, the issue of supporting Ron Paul boils down to whether I believe the small positive net-change he MIGHT be able to make is worth the gamble of giving the corrupt election system/government another chance, deferring the No Confidence crisis which is likely the ONLY way a major restructuring of American politics will happen, another several years -- perhaps enabling the total fascist conversion of America and the Modern World to happen.

I think the fascist motherfuckers are already too deely entrenched and their scheming has made the western world so corrupt, vulnerable and subject to totalitarianism that NO one indicidual will be able to make a dent in it -- scores, thousands of committed, dedicated and organized people will need to coordinate a popular, widespread and ongoing revolution that understands the massive betrayal the American public have abetted by enabling political frauds and sociopaths to undermine and subvert the ideals our nation was founded on. Its going to take a LOT more than a Ron Paul candidate to pull-off the consciousness-raising necessary to change the disasterous course this nation has been on.

Maybe I'm just too cynical to trust American politics the way it currently is to be capable of the necessary self-directed courage, truth and integrity to turn things around. So for now at least, my 'vote' is "None Of the Above!"

[2012 Countdown]

Being in a state that will go to the assumed R nominee, I may vote Paul. Cenk is entertaing the idea too. There ARE problems with him, but as Cenk says, maybe I don't vote to re-elect him when those other issues come up maybe in his second term. The corporate/military establishment HATES RP. Almost as bad as they HATED Howard Dean (Cenk's words too). So ideally, I'm hoping they do screw him, he goes indy, and Jesse joins him as VP. Either way, the presidential race would be infinitely more interesting and compelling with him IN rather than out.

[Searcher08]

Being in a state that will go to the assumed R nominee, I may vote Paul. Cenk is entertaing the idea too. There ARE problems with him, but as Cenk says, maybe I don't vote to re-elect him when those other issues come up maybe in his second term. The corporate/military establishment HATES RP. Almost as bad as they HATED Howard Dean (Cenk's words too). So ideally, I'm hoping they do screw him, he goes indy, and Jesse joins him as VP. Either way, the presidential race would be infinitely more interesting and compelling with him IN rather than out.

I think it would be great if he got in but far greater if he got in with a strong stabilising hand of Progressives on the rudder of State too. I think the sequence of his policies is something that is really important and I think he himself sees it. Realistically, if one goes down the two party front, there is no one to challenge Obama - short of Larry Sinclair getting traction Four more years of the same but even worse...

[JackRiddler]

.

He says he wants to end the empire and the wars, end the drug war (and thus remove the biggest single impetus for the prison-industrial complex and the police state), restore the protections afforded by the Bill of Rights.

He says, anyway. Never quite in ways that make me feel secure that he would not back down in a high-stakes confrontation on these matters, but he says. Too much hollow America and Constitution talk. Too much about the waste of taxpayer money, instead of the inherent barbarism and atrocity of the military-industrial-intel-empire system. But he says these things, and no one else remotely in line for the office is doing so at all.

On those points, which are all-important, it's very hard not to see him as the best, possibly the necessary alternative to what's been in the executive since 1980, or 1968, or the 1963 coup, or really since the war.

His solution for the financial tyranny is a return to the 19th century, but at least he says he would let the zombie banks fail. Anything could come from the resulting collapse of Wall Street (since the next crash(es) are inevitable, so it may come to that).

He also wants to end Social Security and Medicare, and outlaw abortion. It's very unlikely anything positive would change in the wealth disparity, or the power of the corporations. This is the man who was co-plaintiff on the original Citizens United complaint. On principle he's all for the one-dollar-one-vote campaign finance and influence system and the consolidated corporate media, although it's the same system that has marginalized him. Has he commented on Newt Gingrich's proposal to allow child labor, or on the Tea Party governors attack on public sector unions? I can't see that he would differ, given his commitment to "deregulation."

Why this particular package? If, beyond the questions of empire and drug war, he were merely for the rotten status quo on all other issues, rather than an advocate of making most things worse than they already are, of course I could back him. Why don't we have a real left in party politics in this country? (I know why, but being forced to contemplate voting for Ron Paul as a truly lesser evil on the basis of his empire and drugs stances is... painful.)

.

[Iamwhomiam]

Let's not forget too, that amongst the agricultural subsidies Paul want eliminated are Food Stamps for those of low income.

I am more than a bit surprised to find so many supporters of Paul posting here. False Hope.

[panthergod]

Paul is right on the merits on most issues, and he's far better than the so-called progressives, who are often closet fascists/totalitarians in disguise. IF you believe in freedom and peace, that that means leaving people who don't want to take care of you ALONE, and learning how to take care of yourself. Making the poor dependent on the rich makes them slaves all over again--and yes, that's the clear plan of the progressive elitists. The progressive people on the ground are usually good hearted-- I know I was one of them having grown up in the 'People's Republic' of Cambridge MA--, but once you think you have the right to force someone else to take care of you, you just gave them the authority to control you. You are noe their child, and they are the parents--and the parents make the rules when you pay for the food and shelter--Hence, for instance MK-Ultra and CointelPro arising from the same big government structure originally intended for external protection and the New Deal. I'm for self sufficiency and independence from the corrupt elite, and the only way to get there is for us to realize that we learn to take care of ourselves both individually, and collectively. In those instances when we have to come together and work for common goals --which can only work when it is done completely and totally voluntarily.