The case of Ron Paul and the bigoted libertarians

Seems that Ron Paul has some serious baggage in his background, that has been known for years.  That in the past he published a political newsletter which routinely printed, under his name, bigoted screeds that include saying all black (afro-american) people are criminals, and such things like advice from a supposed ex-cop to carry a gun with you at all times to protect yourself from black criminals, but not any old gun but an unregistered gun bought from an unregistered dealer so the gun can't be traced to you and you can easily wipe the gun clean and dispose of it if needed.  Seems like some of the most horrid sort of race bating bigoted idiocy you can think of, completely illegal advice, and going out in a newsletter with Ron Paul's name on it.

Now that Ron Paul is a front-runner the allegations have resurfaced - and Ron Paul is denying responsibility for the bigoted stuff that was published in his newsletter, the one with his name at the top.  Supposedly Conservatives/Libertarians are all about personal responsibility being the law of the land, but maybe personal responsibility doesn't extend to when you want to later run for high political office?

That is - Ron Paul portrays himself as a real deal dyed in the wool conservative.  Which should mean he practices personal responsibility.  Hence, it's his personal responsibility for what got published under his name, right?  So why does he deny responsibility?  Maybe he's a real deal dyed in the wool hypocrite instead?

Anyway ... there's a couple things I came across to help understand the issue better.

Ron Paul and Libertarianism's Dirty Secret -- Pandering to Racist "Rednecks" to Get Ahead:  The idea is that there are several brands of libertarians.  Some of them, such as Ron Paul, are truly bigots or else they're pandering to the bigots to get votes.  Some of them see the conservative rural bigots as their base, and say what that base wants to hear.  Just to get votes.

The Alternet piece includes this 1995 interview with Ron Paul that includes an explanation of the newsletter issue.  It was recorded between the two periods he was a congressman.  In this video he sounds very reasonable, especially considering it was a softball interview by C-SPAN.  It also sounds a bit hypocritical in that he says he believes in term limits, and had left congress in 1984 so he could return to real life, that he wasn't seeking after power, but he's now again been in congress for a long time, has gathered positions of power, and is seeking the Presidency. 




The other thing is this report on Rachel Maddow's show last night calling this the skeleton in Ron Paul's closet

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Last thing is a video on youtube from 2008 with Ron Paul making several interesting statements about unequal treatment of minorities and especially focusing on the drug laws that end up imprisoning black people disproportionately to drug use or drug law violations.  The youtube posting it titled about Ron Paul being caught saying racist stuff on tape.  My listening to this - heck - it doesn't sound racist to me.  Instead it sounds like a stand on principles that people should be treated equally, etc, etc.  It's clear from the information in the latter part of that video, that in 2008 the issue of these newsletters had come up then and he had faced these criticisms before.

Neither America nor any other country are Businesses .. We are not electing a CEO

Perhaps this is a sign of the corporatization of American government.  That it's the next step after the Supreme Court's Citizen United ruling saying that Corporations had unlimited ability to spend money in politics, and there was surely a step before that which looked like an egregious example of the corporatization of our Politics and Government.  What I'm concerned about is a tagline attached to Herman Cain's 2012 Presidential campaign, where he is campaigning to become America's CEO.

Perhaps he'll be bowing out of the race later today due to sexual misconduct.  But for the moment let's just ponder this on its face.  The Cain campaign released a video today, an advertising pitching a not-quite-accurate line of reasoning about jobs creation, and featuring Cain saying "I've spent a life time creating jobs, and if you make me Americas CEO…" which just clicked in my mind as WRONG.  So here I am, writing about how WRONG this is.

Countries and Businesses are different animals, and most importantly play different roles and have different goals.  It is wrong to run a Country as if it were a Businesses.

I'm not entirely sure if there is a canonically correct list of attributes of companies versus countries but this list illustrates what I have in mind.  Perhaps a debate is in order about this sort of thing to make it clear what the differences are.

In fact there is a debate related to this - happening via the Occupy protests and some other organizations like Slow Money, Slow Food, Transition Towns, Resilience Circles, and other groups where we the people are gathering with the idea to recreate our society in a way that works for all of us.

Are we going to continue living under the government that was constructed by and serves the elite, or are we going to create a government that is truly our common body of all of us acting as a united whole?

Businesses are:

• Purpose is to be profitable - highest revenue possible
• Current business practice is the "growth at all costs" mantra that's completely unsustainable
• Based on a web of contracts where people make bargains for money that remove their rights --- for example employees sign employment contracts that in part remove their right of free speech, because employees are required to not speak publicly about corporate proprietary knowledge
• Businesses are essentially top-down dictatorships with, for example, Management holding rights to fire people as a threat to keep everyone in line with corporate dictates
• Formed by getting a permit (business license) from a Government

Countries are:

• Purpose is to maintain a piece of land for the betterment of the people living there
• Purpose is to maintain common resources and well-being
• Collects money through fees and taxes
• Does not have shareholders - instead, in effect, governments are in the ideal mutually owned by the people
• Is not expected to maintain a profit - indeed many politicians have claimed that when a government runs a surplus, that's a sign of the government taking too many taxes, and that's a reason for a tax cut (but such tax cuts later cause government deficits leading to government borrowing and government debt causing a wastage of government resources)
• Is not expected to grow faster than the rate of population growth - indeed many politicians decry overly large government (some of whom hypocritically create massive expansions of government)

 

Former Keystone XL pipeline lobbyist hired by Obama campaign

Writing on the LA Times blog Neela Banerjee reports that the Obama re-election campaign has puzzlingly hired a lobbyist who had worked on lobbying for approval of the widely hated Keystone XL pipeline.  Environmental activists are working hard to block that pipeline with Bill McKibben describing it as "game over" for being able to control climate change if the pipeline project were to be allowed to go forward.  Obama ran in 2008 on a platform that included green jobs, green technology, and working hard to address climate change and environmental issues.  The Keystone XL project is exactly wrong for that sort of campaign platform.

The (former) lobbyist is Broderick Johnson, described as "founder and principle" of the Johnson Communications Group.  Last spring he was a lobbyist working for Bryan Cave LLP and his client roster included Microsoft, Comcast and TransCanada.  His work for TransCanada in turn focused on supporting the “submission for a presidential permit for Keystone XL Pipeline.”  He lobbied members of Congress as well as the Administration and the State Department.  However TransCanada denied he lobbied on behalf of the Keystone XL project.

The Obama campaign describes his role as “serve as a national surrogate for the campaign and our representative in meetings with key leaders, communities and organizations.  Broderick will be an ear to the ground for the campaign's political and constituency operations, helping to ensure that there is constant, open communication between the campaign and our supporters around the country.”


A little side story to this is that Johnson's wife is Michele Norris, host of NPR's All Things Considered.  She has announced she'd be taking a hiatus from that show during the campaign, and would refrain from covering the campaign.

The Keystone XL pipeline is a horridly bad environmental disaster from beginning to end.  The purpose of the pipeline is to carry "oil" extracted from the Alberta tar sands, pipe it to Houston area refineries and then sell the oil on the export market.  Because tar sands are poor quality "oil" resources, extraction involves huge machines scraping up the tar-soaked sands, carrying this sand to other gigantic machines that steam-treat the sands (at huge energy cost) to convert the thick sticky tar into something which can be piped long distance.  The pipeline route is planned to cross many environmentally sensitive locations, at huge risk in case of pipeline leaks or bursts.  The result will be a continuation of the regime of using oil, rather than switching to other energy sources.  See: 350.org to encircle the White House on Nov 6 protesting Keystone XL pipeline

The Obama Administration promised us during the campaign as well as via several actions since, such as the bootstrapping of a clean energy revolution, that official policy would be to encourage a switch to clean renewable energy.  In a weekly address last spring Obama suggested Instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy, we need to invest in tomorrow's


See:

Former Keystone pipeline lobbyist hired by Obama campaign


350.org to encircle the White House on Nov 6 protesting Keystone XL pipeline

Messaging Miracle (VIDEO): Obama Says GOP Plan is “Dirtier Air, Dirtier Water”

The Obama Administration has found a winning talking point on their Jobs plan.  To focus on how the Republican plan is "Dirtier Air, Dirtier Water" .. etc ..