Sorry, but I read this post about the growing Ron Paul movement and really liked it. A similar one could be written about Kucinich - but not so about practically any other candidate.
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts." -Abraham Lincoln
Are those who somehow aren't yet aware of the Ron Paul movement or know only what the mainstream media have painted of it having that nagging feeling you get when the checkbook just won't balance? Something a little like that persistent agitation of hearing a familiar song and struggling to remember who the artist is?
Something is clearly amiss, or at the edge of memory, but you just can't quite put your finger on it.
There's an underdog campaign that has set a GOP fundraising record – and all from small, individual contributors – which is also receiving the most contributions from military men and women of any presidential campaign while inspiring a true 'rainbow coalition' to join up with a commitment and passion undreamt in modern political history.
But something is wrong.
TV news keeps assuring us that it's just a fringe movement while they report with glee on a brothel owner's 'endorsement'. They go all out over some neo-nazi screwball paypaling $500 to the campaign website (who even knew who this guy was until the media broke it as a story?) all the while more or less ignoring the college campuses all over America abuzz with creative energy and ideas to further the movement.
In fact, attacking the supporters seems to be all they have – usually it's a candidates record or checkered past that's put under the microscope. That it's the supporters getting the media black eye in many cases should tell you a great deal about Ron Paul's impeccable record over ten terms in congress. In my research I've only been able to confirm one 'flip-flop' and this was on capital punishment which he no longer supports for the unfair manner in which it is meted out.
John Stewart quipped on the Daily Show, "You're known as an honest man of integrity and principle….American voters don't usually go for that." And Bill Maher, not known for endorsing republicans, said recently that Ron Paul is "his new hero."
From USC to Harvard to MIT to U of M and OSU, we see a spectacular display of patriotism and democracy vibrating with a cool intensity and determination. From the planes flying over Wolverine Stadium to the planes flying over St. Petersburg Florida to the rooftops of Manhattan and now to the airship - all 200 feet of her - something very unexpected and very big is going on in America.
And yet, inexplicably, our alphabet soup of media is curiously silent about the phenomenon when not openly mocking it.
Why?
We hear of Mitt's flip-flops, Giuliani's mistress's cab fare, Huckabee's likeability and Hillary's plausible deniability but these campaigns are a yawn for the most part when there's not fresh dirt – there is little to nothing new being offered us and we Americans clearly want change! They report with enthusiasm every spat and squabble like they're looking for a rousing chant of "Jerry, Jerry..." but on a real and genuine movement expanding exponentially we hear only that a fringe element of the internet has made some noise. "Don't look over there" they tell us, "it's just some cyberpunks, skinheads and prostitutes." They've even made the complaint that too many of us are voting in their polls!
Why?
And then I watch the CNN debate - Tancredo and Hunter are still there and stranger still, they're getting more face time than Ron Paul despite Ron Paul polling 4th in New Hampshire, and nearing double-digits in Nevada and Iowa. It gets worse when CNN spits up their selected question to Ron Paul and from the 5,000 or so video questions submitted it's an odd question about conspiracies. We find out immediately after the debate that the man given a microphone and perhaps more airtime than Ron Paul at the debate is co-chairman of a Hillary Clinton steering committee.
Why?
I suspect that many are beginning to realize - if only at the periphery - that there is some injustice going on and they are not getting the whole story and that, somehow, they're being manipulated rather than informed.
I believe very strongly that there are those who feel we'll all be better off if they do the thinking for us.
And so I issue a call to those who still do their own thinking: Join us and let liberty, peace and prosperity be the adjectives of our age and our legacy to those who will follow us.
We cannot long continue plodding along more or less unchanging – tweaking a few subtleties here and there - as we continue to count the casualties on both sides in the middle-east while making new enemies faster than we kill the old ones, push near 10,000,000,000,000 in national debt while the dollar collapses, legislate away our freedoms for, ostensibly, security, and watch the last American manufacturing job disappear over the horizon.
Who will answer the call?
Some might simply feel too old for revolution and so take comfort in its media dismissal. I say you're never too old for a worthy and admirable revolution! I call to those who cling to status quo government as the panacea to an uncertain world – you don't need more government, you need more freedom! I call especially to those who identified themselves with a party at some point and stopped caring really where that party is heading - what that party has become. If you view everyone opposed to your views as either a lefty loon or a neo-con, I'm talking to you. Join us – it's better over here!
I believe we're at a precipice in US history and as a nation and a people we need to take a collective intellectual walkabout and ask the questions: What would Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Paine think of our republic in 2007? What would they say of our stewardship of The America Experiment? What is it we love most about America? What do we as Americans and even the rest of the world admire most about the idea of America?
And why are we not standing up for it?
Consider this: 70% of Americans are opposed to the war in Iraq and presidential and congressional approval ratings are at historic lows and yet media darlings - and so, it follows, front-runners - Giuliani, Romney and Hillary are for expanding our middle-east military blitz and are more or less status quo party insiders. It seems fair to say that the only changes we can expect from them are positions on issues in the run-up to the election. Romney goes as far as refusing to condemn torture carried out in the name of America!
"Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us." -John F. Kennedy
There's a disconnect here and it's a serious one. On an issue as profound and important as war, many people seem to prefer comforting lip service, partisanship, or worse, escalation, to a peaceful revolution and change.
How can this be?
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." -James Madison
If you're for empire America and all the death, misery, isolationism and staggering resources that entails you'll do fine with the candidates brought to you by CNN and Fox.
But, if you believe as our founding fathers – that playing favorites with nations and entangling alliances are the road to corruption and ruin, that "commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto" and that "that government is best who governs least" – there is only one candidate:
Ron Paul.
Google George Washington's Farewell Address of 1779 for a far more prosaic expression of this warning against favoring nations at the expense of others than I could ever hope to compose.
Carl Sagan once said that the people of the world want peace and someday governments are going to have to get out of their way and let them have it.
Sounds like something Ron Paul would say.
