[Peace-discuss] Ron Paul

[C. G. Estabrook]

Mort--

I understand what it is to be addicted to cocaine or cigarettes, but I'm 
not sure what it means to "become addicted to the antiwar stance of 
(some) libertarians."  OTOH, I would think that someone committed to 
opposing the war (and not, say, merely looking to co-opt the majority 
anti-war sentiment for a conventional political party) would be happy to 
see people opposed to the war on principle, even if they happen to hold 
objectionable economic views... (I, e.g., am happy to see liberal 
capitalists oppose the war on principle -- and not just because it's 
costing too much.)

William Blum ends some generally sensible remarks about US foreign 
policy with a gratuitous (to his policy argument) swipe at 
Libertarianism (but he means Ron Paul).  Blum's sloppy about his 
ostensible target: he must mean that Libertarianism is "an eccentric 
blend of anarchism [not 'anarchy'] and runaway capitalism."  Few 
Libertarians want to see mere anarchy loosed upon the world, if only 
because it would interfere with (what they think is) the splendid and 
efficient workings of the free market.  But anarchism has a long and 
honorable history, in descent from 18th-century Liberalism, of defending 
human freedom against capitalist society, including the state-capitalism 
of 20th century Marxism-Leninism.

Blum's right about "eccentric," of course, because what we've come to 
call Libertarianism in America (and few other places) is off from the 
center of the generally social-democratic opinions of most Americans 
(who are thus well to the left of the Republican and Democratic parties).

But it's certainly not wrong to say (though Blum ridicules it) as a 
general rule that "If the government is doing it, it's oppressive and 
we're against it" -- given whose hands the government is in.  The 
political struggles in America in our lifetimes have been to force the 
government to act in the interests of the majority rather than in those 
of the few who control wealth and power in the country -- and to do that 
we have to recognize what the latter group wants desperately to conceal: 
that those interests are competing and contradictory, not identical 
("the national interest").

And incidentally the late Ellen Willis was surely wrong to write (during 
the Clinton administration) that corporations "have far more power than 
government to dictate our behavior and the day-to-day terms of our 
existence," as if there were a settled opposition.  The American 
corporate economy works in and through the government; that's been the 
case with capitalism since a now-forgotten German social scientist 
pointed out that "the executive of the modern state is but a committee 
for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."

The great error of Libertarianism does seem to be to think that liberty 
for real people is compatible with liberty for "legal persons," 
corporations -- and not to recognize that it is precisely the latter 
that vitiates the former. But the only difference between the 
Libertarians on this point and the Republican and Democrat supporters of 
the "Washington consensus" (neoliberalism) is that Libertarians seem 
honestly (if mistakenly) to believe it, while "mainstream" (they aren't) 
politicians are cynical about it.  E.g., to what extent is USG policy 
(Republican or Democrat) in the Middle East impelled by a real desire to 
establish liberty there (unless by liberty you mean a seemingly-legal 
arrangement that follows Washington's orders)?

It's unworthy of Blum to jeer at Ron Paul's opposition to the Iraq war 
-- which Paul opposes as contrary to the best traditions of the Untied 
States -- by asking, "Would he have the same attitude ... if the war 
were ... being fought by, for, and in the name of a consortium of 
Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Bechtel...?" (In part, because it is.)

Blum is not so foolish as actually to think, as he writes, that it is 
"simply the idea or the image of 'a government operation' that bothers" 
Paul.  And Blum doesn't mention what Paul is saying about the war that 
no other candidate (except Kucinich) is -- e.g., what a disaster an 
attack on Iran would turn out to be, and the possibility of a 
Gulf-of-Tonkin incident as an occasion for such an attack.

A more substantive commentator on Paul wrote, "The Patriot Act, the 
Military Commissions act, the legislative evisceration of habeas corpus, 
and the rise of the surveillance state -- Ron Paul stood like a rock 
against the War Party's relentless assault on civil liberties at a time 
when it was unpopular to do so."

And I don't see how anyone could look honestly at the Rumsfeld war 
department -- or the USG budgets for a generation and more -- and *not* 
say, "The government is too bureaucratic, it spends too much money, they 
waste the money"!  Blum's tu-quoque argument ("Corporations are 
bureaucratic, too!") is an obvious fallacy.

I think Blum's bothered by the weakness of his arguments, because he 
moves quickly to charge Paul with heretical pravity: while he's sure 
that "most libertarians ... are not racists," he says that "Paul 
certainly sounds like one."  He then quotes two apparently damning 
comments that he apparently got from "the house organ of the New York 
neocons," the New York Sun.  But he relegates to a footnote (not 
reproduced in the part quoted) Paul's response that he was not the 
author of these remarks -- they were written for a newsletter by a staff 
member (whom Paul apparently fired).

Perhaps it would be better to read Paul's own views on race -- e.g., 
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul381.html -- which are debatable but 
by no means racist.  They in fact are not that far from the arguments in 
what I think is one of the most important political books of the year, 
Walter Benn Michaels' *The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to 
Love Identity and Ignore Inequality*.  (Of course I know that the modern 
heresy-hunters are particularly good at ferreting out "unconscious 
racism" -- unless of course it's of the reverse sort that protects black 
liberals from criticism).

Although I think Libertarianism is importantly mistaken, I am surprised 
to find Blum (and you) repeating the arguments against Paul that are 
being used (e.g., by the Sun, the WSJ and George Will) to defend the 
"real" Republicans -- Giuliani, Romney and McCain -- against this 
eccentric who's threatening to disorder the Republican presidential 
campaign by speaking for the majority of voters who oppose the war. 
Paul's strength for that reason, in polls formal and informal, is 
disturbing the Republican establishment -- more, it seems, than the 
Democratic establishment is disturbed by Kucinich and Gravel (and maybe 
Richardson and Edwards).  Maybe the Democrats just think they can co-opt 
the antiwar sentiment better.

In any case,it's beginning to seem to me that support for Paul in polls 
and primaries may do more to disrupt the duopoly's agreement on war 
policy -- and express the real views of Americans on that subject, which 
they say is the most important issue -- than support for anyone else. 
Ceteris paribus, I'll probably vote for him February 5.

Regards, Carl


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> Lest one become addicted to the antiwar stance of (some) libertarians, 
> here is an antidote from BBlum's Anti-Empire report 
> [http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer48.htm]
> 
> Libertarians: an eccentric blend of anarchy and runaway capitalism
> What is it about libertarians? Their philosophy, in theory and in 
> practice, seems to amount to little more than: "If the government is 
> doing it, it's oppressive and we're against it." Corporations, however, 
> tend to get free passes. Perhaps the most prominent libertarian today is 
> Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who ran as the Libertarian Party's candidate 
> for president in 1988 and is running now for the same office as a 
> Republican. He's against the war in Iraq, in no uncertain terms, but if 
> the war were officially being fought by, for, and in the name of a 
> consortium of Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Bechtel, and some other 
> giant American corporations, would he have the same attitude? And one 
> could of course argue that the war is indeed being fought for such a 
> consortium. So is it simply the idea or the image of "a government 
> operation" that bothers him and other libertarians?
> 
> Paul recently said: "The government is too bureaucratic, it spends too 
> much money, they waste the money."[9]
> 
> Does the man think that corporations are not bureaucratic? Do 
> libertarians think that any large institution is not overbearingly 
> bureaucratic? Is it not the nature of the beast? Who amongst us has not 
> had the frustrating experience with a corporation trying to correct an 
> erroneous billing or trying to get a faulty product repaired or 
> replaced? Can not a case be made that corporations spend too much (of 
> our) money? What do libertarians think of the exceedingly obscene 
> salaries paid to corporate executives? Or of two dozen varieties of 
> corporate theft and corruption? Did someone mention Enron?
> 
> Ron Paul and other libertarians are against social security. Do they 
> believe that it's better for elderly people to live in a homeless 
> shelter than to be dependent on government "handouts"? That's exactly 
> what it would come down to with many senior citizens if not for their 
> social security. Most libertarians I'm sure are not racists, but Paul 
> certainly sounds like one. Here are a couple of comments from his 
> newsletter:
> 
> "Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks 
> have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, 
> individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action."
> 
> "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the 'criminal 
> justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the 
> black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."[10]
> 
> Author Ellen Willis has written that "the fundamental fallacy of right 
> libertarianism is that the state is the only source of coercive power." 
> They don't recognize "that the corporations that control most economic 
> resources, and therefore most people's access to the necessities of 
> life, have far more power than government to dictate our behavior and 
> the day-to-day terms of our existence."[11] 
> 
> --mkb
> 
> 
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