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"[Rep. Ron Paul] said his opposition to the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan give him an edge over other Republicans and could help
him defeat President Barack Obama in a national election. At CPAC,
Paul drew thunderous applause for bashing the Patriot Act, US aid to
foreign nations, and US military bases overseas during his speech.
The conservative group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) later
announced that he would be expelled from the group's National
Advisory Board because of his 'delusional and disturbing alliance
with the fringe Anti-War movement.'"<br>
<br>
Rep. Ron Paul wins another Republican presidential straw poll<br>
By Eric W. Dolan<br>
March 21, 2011 @ 8:14 pm<br>
<br>
Texas Congressman Ron Paul beat out top Republican presidential
hopefuls Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in a straw poll for the
second time this year.<br>
<br>
Nearly 18 percent of Republicans voted for Rep. Paul in the straw
poll conducted at a GOP Convention in Sacramento on Saturday.<br>
<br>
He was followed by former governor Mitt Romney, who received 10.9
percent of the vote and 2010 president candidate Sarah Palin, who
received 7.9 percent of the vote. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
came in fourth place, with 6.9 percent of the vote.<br>
<br>
The informal survey was conducted by the libertarian-leaning
Republican Liberty Caucus of California [1] (RLCCA).<br>
<br>
"Given that Congressman Paul and the RLC share a common commitment
to individual rights, limited government, free enterprise and
constitutional principles we are happy with the results," RLCCA
Chairman John Dennis said. "In these times of big government and
even bigger deficits, it is exciting to see increased conservative
interest in candidates such as Paul."<br>
<br>
The results of the RLCCA poll reflect another presidential straw
poll conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference [2]
(CPAC) in February, where Paul took 30 percent of the vote, followed
by Mitt Romney with 23 percent.<br>
<br>
Paul describes himself as a libertarian and is hardly the party's
typical standard bearer.<br>
<br>
He has said his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan [3]
give him an edge over other Republicans and could help him defeat
President Barack Obama in a national election.<br>
<br>
At CPAC, Paul drew thunderous applause for bashing the Patriot Act,
US aid to foreign nations, and US military bases overseas during his
speech. The conservative group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)
later announced that he would be expelled from the group's National
Advisory Board because of his "delusional and disturbing alliance
with the fringe Anti-War movement."<br>
<br>
URL to article:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/21/rep-ron-paul-wins-another-republican-presidential-straw-poll/">http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/21/rep-ron-paul-wins-another-republican-presidential-straw-poll/</a><br>
<br>
URLs in this post:<br>
<br>
[1] Republican Liberty Caucus of California:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.rlc.org/2011/03/21/ca-gop-convention/">http://www.rlc.org/2011/03/21/ca-gop-convention/</a><br>
[2] straw poll conducted at the Conservative Political Action
Conference:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/12/ron-paul-wins-cpac-presidential-straw-poll/">http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/12/ron-paul-wins-cpac-presidential-straw-poll/</a><br>
[3] said his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/14/congressman-ron-paul-slams-obama-hes-a-warmonger/">http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/14/congressman-ron-paul-slams-obama-hes-a-warmonger/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
On 3/22/11 10:16 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4D88BD54.6000702@illinois.edu" type="cite">
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The so-called Tea Party is as we know a mood rather than a
movement, much less a party, and is even more various than the
anti-war movement. Unlike the antiwar movement, it has moneyed
interests (such as the Koch brothers) and traditional political
groups that re trying to co-opt it.<br>
<br>
But we can't simply ignore the anti-war currents within the
TP/Libertarians, e.g.<br>
<br>
~ the Ron Paul movement: Paul won the straw poll for president at
both recent CPACs; he's been consistently anti-war,
anti-intervention, anti-Pentagon.<br>
<br>
~ <antiwar.com>, one of the best sites on the web, is a
Libertarian site.<br>
<br>
~ paleo-conservative elements, such as the journal American
Conservative, have been against the neo-con wars in principle from
the beginning; Pat Buchanan has attacked the Libyan adventure as
unconstitutional (which it is). <br>
<br>
For the anti-war movement itself, the co-option has already taken
place, by the Democrats and Obama. We forget that the Democrats
were given control of Congress in 2006 specifically to end the
war, as they recognized. The firing of Rumsfeld after the
election was the administration's recognition of the fact. But the
Democrats quite consciously and cynically pissed it way - e.g.,
with "timelines" - when they could have de-funded the wars (which
required only 41 votes in the Senate) in the SE Asia and LA were
finally defunded. Then the coup-de-grace was provided by Obama's
smiling lies and the foolish trust that so many people who should
have known better put in him.<br>
<br>
Remember that the antiwar movement of the 1960s grew up in
opposition to both business parties. There were attempts to
co-opt it, notably by Robert Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Nixon
(whom Obama much resembles in this regard) was elected in 1968 as
the "peace candidate" because in part it was widely believed that
he had "a secret plan for ending the war."<br>
<br>
Events of this week have shown once again how much a new antiwar
movement of that sort is required. The percent of the population
opposed to the administration's wars is now about where it was in
1968.<br>
<br>
Regards, Carl<br>
<br>
On 3/22/11 9:13 AM, Corey Mattson wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTikm_NbAEmJVPaDrO=dRSP-j-Kdv91451t_64Fs4@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">I support what Iraq Veterans Against the War did in
Madison on March 12 --- bring the anti-war cause to our natural
allies, workers and students <i>fighting</i> the Tea Party.
When I was in Madison February 19th, there were about 1,000 Tea
Party counter-demonstrators to our 80,000. Those 1,000 Tea Party
activists were way more than any of their number ever protesting
the war.<br>
<br>
An anti-war Tea Party movement? Where is it? Fledgling
right-wing libertarian groups clearly haven't been that
successful in bringing them to the anti-war cause. It's not
worth diluting the substance of our opposition to the war to
attract a handful of libertarians who are opposed to the war for
the wrong reasons and are our enemy on practically every other
issue. In the proposed movement to "Stop the War, Stop the
Spending," what are left-wingers supposed to say when their
right-wing partners attack the poor, bust our unions, and make
U.S. capitalism even more savage and inhumane?<br>
<br>
By the way, in the piece below, David Boaz gets the timeline
wrong as to when the anti-war movement weakened, and I believe
he does it purposefully for political points. The anti-war
movement was already seriously weakened by 2006, maybe as early
as 2005, as demoralization set in. Surely hopes in a electoral
victory played a role, but there was no sudden death of the
movement upon Obama's election. If Boaz is going to blame the
Democrats for the movement's demise, he should at least get it
right. I suspect that he wasn't involved in the anti-war
movement back then and wouldn't know what happened.<br>
<br>
--- Corey <br>
Bloomington-Normal Citizens for Peace and Justice<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 11:29 PM, C. G.
Estabrook <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu">galliher@illinois.edu</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt
0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);
padding-left: 1ex;">[From a director of the 'libertarian'
Cato Institute.]<br>
<br>
"...the $64,000 question — though these days it would have
to be at least a $64 billion question — could a new antiwar
movement hook up with the Tea Party movement in a Stop the
War, Stop the Spending revolt?"<br>
<br>
What Ever Happened to the Antiwar Movement?<br>
David Boaz - March 21, 2011<br>
<br>
About 100 antiwar protesters, including Daniel Ellsberg of
Pentagon Papers fame, were arrested Saturday outside the
White House in demonstrations marking the eighth anniversary
of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. It’s a far cry from the Bush
years, when hundreds of thousands or millions marched
against the war, and the New York Times declared “world
public opinion” against the war a second superpower. Will
President Obama‘s military incursion in a third Muslim
country revive the antiwar movement?<br>
<br>
On a street corner in Washington, D.C., outside the Cato
Institute, there’s a metal box that controls traffic
signals. During the Bush years there was hardly a day that
it didn’t sport a poster advertising an antiwar march or
simply denouncing President George W. Bush and the war in
Iraq. But the marches and the posters seemed to stop on
election day 2008.<br>
<br>
Maybe antiwar organizers assumed that they had elected the
man who would stop the war. After all, Barack Obama rose to
power on the basis of his early opposition to the Iraq war
and his promise to end it. But after two years in the White
House he has made both of George Bush’s wars his wars.<br>
<br>
In October 2007, Obama proclaimed, “I will promise you this,
that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am
president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our
troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take
that to the bank.” Speaking of Iraq in February 2008,
candidate Barack Obama said, “I opposed this war in 2002. I
will bring this war to an end in 2009. It is time to bring
our troops home.” The following month, under fire from
Hillary Clinton, he reiterated, “I was opposed to this war
in 2002….I have been against it in 2002, 2003, 2004, 5, 6,
7, 8 and I will bring this war to an end in 2009. So don’t
be confused.”<br>
<br>
Indeed, in his famous “the moment when the rise of the
oceans began to slow” speech on the night he clinched the
Democratic nomination, he also proclaimed, “I am absolutely
certain that generations from now we will be able to look
back and tell our children that . . . this was the moment
when we ended a war.”<br>
<br>
Today, however, he has tripled President Bush’s troop levels
in Afghanistan, and we have been fighting there for more
than nine years. The Pentagon has declared “the official end
to Operation Iraqi Freedom and combat operations by United
States forces in Iraq,” but we still have 50,000 troops
there, hardly what Senator Obama promised.<br>
<br>
And now Libya. In various recent polls more than two-thirds
of Americans have opposed military intervention in Libya. No
doubt many of them voted for President Obama.<br>
<br>
There’s another issue with the Libyan intervention: the
president’s authority to take the country to war without
congressional authorization. As many bloggers noted over the
weekend, in 2007 Barack Obama told Charlie Savage of the
Boston Globe,<br>
<br>
The President does not have power under the Constitution to
unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that
does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to
the nation.<br>
<br>
Candidate Hillary Clinton spoke similarly:<br>
<br>
If the country is under truly imminent threat of attack, of
course the President must take appropriate action to defend
us. At the same time, the Constitution requires Congress to
authorize war. I do not believe that the President can take
military action – including any kind of strategic bombing –
against Iran without congressional authorization.<br>
<br>
And candidate Joe Biden:<br>
<br>
The Constitution is clear: except in response to an attack
or the imminent threat of attack, only Congress may
authorize war and the use of force.<br>
<br>
Fine words indeed. Will their supporters call them on their
apparent reversal?<br>
<br>
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that antiwar activity in
the United States and around the world was driven as much by
antipathy to George W. Bush as by actual opposition to war
and intervention. Indeed, a University of Michigan study of
antiwar protesters found that Democrats tended to withdraw
from antiwar activity as Obama found increasing political
success and then took office. Independents and members of
third parties came to make up a larger share of a smaller
movement. Reason.tv looked at the dwindling antiwar movement
two months ago.<br>
<br>
With his launch of a third military action, President Obama
seems to have forgotten a point made by Temple University
professor Jan C. Ting: “Wars are easy to begin, but hard to
end.” Americans haven’t forgotten, though.<br>
<br>
Nearly two-thirds of Americans now say that the war in
Afghanistan hasn’t been worth fighting, a number that has
soared since early 2010. Where are their leaders? Where are
the senators pushing for withdrawal? Where are the
organizations? Could a new, non-Democratic antiwar movement
do to Obama what the mid-2000s movement did to Bush? And the
$64,000 question — though these days it would have to be at
least a $64 billion question — could a new antiwar movement
hook up with the Tea Party movement in a Stop the War, Stop
the Spending revolt?<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2011/03/happened-antiwar-movement/"
target="_blank">http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2011/03/happened-antiwar-movement/</a><br>
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