[Peace-discuss] Why Ron Paul?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[I think Raimondo's right about why Ron Paul, who's been preaching the 
Libertarian gospel for years without notable effect, is suddenly the 
beneficiary of a boom: "His antiwar message is the key to Paul's 
burgeoning success."  With the depressing prospect of having to listen 
to bilge from Clinton-Obama-Giuliani-Romney-etc. for more than a year, 
while we and our creatures continue to destroy people around the world, 
we can hope that Raimondo's right when he predicts Paul will make it a 
least a little more "fun to watch." --CGE]

	October 8, 2007
	The Ron Paul Breakthrough
	His antiwar message is the key to Paul's burgeoning success
	by Justin Raimondo

...Andrea Mitchell proclaims him the new Howard Dean, network television 
takes note of his fundraising prowess and the resonance of his message, 
and then we have this very favorable piece on CNN, not to mention this, 
this, and this [lomks in original] – all of which points to the 
appearance – or, rather, reappearance – of a resurgent political 
movement on the horizon: an anti-interventionist wing of the GOP.

Commentators, including those who most definitely look on Paul's success 
with a very jaundiced eye, are baffled. Why is this happening? How could 
a mere blip on the electoral screen, a man nobody thought was worth even 
a footnote in the story of this presidential campaign, suddenly catapult 
into prominence?

The answer is illustrated in a recent poll, which shows that the 
majority of Iowa Republicans want us out of Iraq in six months – a far 
more radical proposition than any of the major Democrats has yet to 
offer. It's no accident that Paul's political breakthrough is occurring 
just as the dissatisfaction of the GOP rank and file over the Iraq war 
issue reaches the breaking point. As the sole antiwar candidate in the 
Republican field, it makes perfect political sense that Paul's campaign 
is in the ascendancy.

...the single most important question in this election, the answer to 
which underlies the basic approach of all the presidential candidates, 
... is the war – not just the war in Iraq, but the one to come in Iran, 
as well as the broader "war on terrorism" that has eaten up so much of 
our attention and resources since 9/11.

...The massive erosion of our civil liberties, the fiscal crisis staring 
us in the face, and even the immigration quandary have all been either 
brought to the fore out of relative obscurity or else greatly 
exacerbated by the post-9/11 hysteria that has so deformed the national 
consciousness and, consequently, our politics. Underlying all these 
disparate issues is the foreign policy question, and only Ron Paul is 
giving Republican voters an answer quite different from, say, Giuliani's 
– to take a cartoonishly extreme example of the pro-war view.

The media-anointed "front-runner" has problems other than having to 
explain himself to social conservatives. After all, how many Americans, 
even including Republicans, really want to see Norman Podhoretz 
ensconced in the Department of State? Once they hear Poddy's plea to 
President Bush to please, pretty please start bombing Iran, I'd venture 
to say not many.

...The approach the chattering classes have taken to the Ron Paul 
phenomenon has been classic, rather along the lines of Gandhi's famous 
aphorism: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight 
you, then you win.

The "let's ignore him and maybe he'll go away" phase ended right after 
the contretemps with Giuliani over the theory of "blowback." Giuliani's 
verbal assault on Paul condensed the ridicule-fight-victory process into 
a single, signal incident. What Giuliani and his enablers in the media 
failed to realize is that Paul's calm, considered, and thoughtful answer 
resonated with many voters.

...Rudy Giuliani is going around the country hectoring audiences with 
his Podhoretzian message of a civilizational war between the U.S. empire 
and international Islam: They hate us, he yells, they really hate us for 
who we are! Yes, but who are "we," exactly? If we're starting with the 
speaker of those words, then no wonder they hate us, but, aside from 
that, what's the problem? Is it our obsession with Britney Spears – or 
is it the bombs raining down on the Arab world, the propping up of 
killer regimes like Hosni Mubarak's in Egypt and the House of Saud, and 
our unconditional support for Israeli aggression (and not just against 
the Palestinians)?

Ron Paul has an answer quite different from the one usually given – or, 
I should say, the one allowed – by the self-appointed arbiters of 
political correctness: the debate "moderators," the pundits and 
television talkers, the "analysts" and "experts" who, like ancient seers 
examining the entrails of goats, interpret the meaning of political 
actors and events for us.

...the existence of the Internet, far from destroying journalism, as 
predicted by some die-hard dead-tree'ers, has forced the "mainstream" 
media to be more responsive and flexible. That's why they're now paying 
attention to the Paul campaign: Ron is news, big-time political news. 
He's drawing thousands to his campaign rallies, a boast not many 
presidential candidates of either party can credibly make. And he's 
raking in the money. This quarter, he's brought in almost as much as 
McCain, and he's third – behind Giuliani and Romney – in the 
cash-on-hand sweepstakes. Money talks – and now they have to take him 
seriously.

The establishment has fallen back on their second line of defense: they 
ridicule him as a "kook," a "loon," and even a "bigot" ...

The neoconservatives have been the target of Paul's scorn on several 
occasions, and he is likely to receive it back in kind before long ...

In their view, Paul is falling for the line of the "Left" that America 
is fighting a futile war against forces it neither understands nor has 
any hope of controlling, and yet if this was truly a "leftist" idea one 
would imagine that the Left would come to Paul's defense – but, no. The 
same "Ron is nuts" meme being spread by neocon snarkers on the right 
side of the blogosphere is being echoed by the "center" liberal-left. 
You see, anyone who opposes the system that makes imperialism possible – 
the mercantilist, state-capitalist system of corruption that enriches 
the few at the expense of the many – is "crazy" ...

The Good Doctor is not alone in prescribing a change – a radical change 
– in our stance toward the rest of the world. You're hearing it not only 
on the Washington cocktail party circuit, but around the office water 
cooler: it's time to start disengaging from the mess our interventionist 
policymakers have created, starting in the Middle East. In carrying this 
stance into the arena of GOP presidential politics, Ron is a 
libertarian-noninterventionist gladiator taking on several lions at 
once. The resulting knockdown drag-out battle, regardless of its 
outcome, is going to be fun to watch.

	###