[Peace-discuss] The case for Ron Paul
C. G. Estabrook
galliher at uiuc.edu
Fri Nov 9 06:52:34 CST 2007
[From a Counterpunch author. --CGE]
By Mike Whitney 11/07/07
“The American Republic is in remnant status.
The stage is set for our country to devolve into
a military dictatorship, and few seem to care.”
--Rep. Ron Paul
First we stop the killing, and then we restore the Constitution. These
are our two main priorities. And that’s why I’m voting for Ron Paul. He
is the only candidate (with a chance to win) who’s promising to do
either. And he’ll keep his word. That makes him the only truly American
candidate running for president.
Paul is serious about withdrawing US troops from Iraq. He knows that the
war was a mistake and believes that the American occupation must end. He
has promised to stop the ongoing slaughter of Iraqi civilians. That
should be the primary moral consideration for anyone casting a ballot on
November 3.
Will you vote to stop the killing or not? It’s as simple as that.
Paul has also promised to restore the rule of law -- to repeal the
Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act; to reinstate Posse
Comitatus, due process, habeas corpus, and the “presumption of
innocence”. He’ll make sure that US prisoners -- whether they are
American citizens or foreign nationals -- are treated in way that
complies with our treaty obligations, the Geneva Conventions, the Bill
of Rights, and the basic tenets of human decency.
Under Paul, the torture will stop. Period.
What other candidate will stop the torture of US prisoners? What other
candidate will stop the government’s spying on the American people? What
other candidate will challenge Bush’s claim that the president can
arbitrarily cast an American citizen in prison and keep him there as
long as he chooses without charging him with a crime?
Bush has abolished the basic safeguards which protect the citizen from
the long-arm of the state. The legal system needs be purged of his
executive signing statements and presidential decrees. Only Paul
promises to restore the Constitution. There is no second choice.
Paul is the only candidate who grasps the economic problems facing the
nation from our massive deficit spending, the destruction of our
manufacturing base, and the falling dollar. He may not be able to pull
us back from the brink, but he will rebuild confidence in our currency,
our markets, and our trade policies. That’s the best we can hope for
given the mess that Bush has created.
On November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, the Paul campaign raised over $4.07
million in one day mostly from private citizens. He surpassed all the
other candidates except Hilary Clinton and has raised more than $6.84
million in the first five weeks of this quarter alone. Paul’s “purely”
grassroots movement is energized by working class Americans who see his
candidacy as a last-ditch effort to end the war in Iraq, reestablish
fiscal sanity, and restore civil liberties.
Despite the fact that Paul has a strong personal approval ratings and
polls well against his competitors; the media has deliberately -- and
very successfully -- kept him out of the public eye. That will be more
difficult to do now that his campaign war-chest is packed with
contributions and his base of support is expanding across the country.
We expect the media to ditch its failed strategy of simply ignoring Paul
and take the more aggressive approach of attacking him outright. Now
that Paul has established himself as a credible threat to the
warmongering, autocratic corporate elite; he will have to be discredited
through a coordinated media-blitz which will target his voting record,
his character, and any other trivial foible which may incite public scorn.
He’s got a bull’s-eye on his back.
We’ve seen it all before, haven’t we? The politics of personal
destruction organized and directed from the penthouse suites of the
media’s corporate offices?
Perhaps, it will be a repeat of the “Dean Scream”, where the voice of
antiwar candidate Howard Dean was isolated from the crowd noise -- and
played on the mainstream media over 900 times in 48 hours -- making Dean
look like a maniac and torpedoing whatever chance he may have had of
winning the Democratic nomination.
Or maybe it will be like John McCain’s “rumored” out-of-wedlock black
baby in the North Carolina primary? Or the “Swift-boating” of John Kerry
in the 2004 election? Or the attacks on Dan Rather following his report
that the president was a slacker who vamoosed from the “Champagne Unit”
of the Texas National Guard during wartime?
Whatever the plan may be, we should know by now that the media will
continue to act as the chief adversary of the American people and the
cause of freedom. That won’t change until the 5 corporate media-giants
are brought to account and busted up into a thousand little pieces.
But don’t expect the Paul supporters to throw in the towel like the
weak-kneed Dean throng. These guys are stubborn and resolute. And they
won’t budge on matters of principle. They’re not taken in by the media’s
cheesy smear-campaigns and they won’t jump off the bandwagon at the
first sign of trouble.
The Paul crowd has some heavy artillery of their own, too -- and they’re
wheeling it into place right now. Their ranks are gradually swelling,
the money is pouring in, and they are not going to give up their country
without a fight.
This election is shaping up to be a clash of ideals between the people
who still believe in freedom and those who don’t. It’s going
hand-to-hand combat and it’ll probably crack the country in two.
Good. Let the battle begin. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Every generation
needs a new revolution.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18681.htm
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