Bad American

Financial Times (UK)

Well, of course you’re going to have to go to a foreign newspaper to find out about the real movers and shakers in the American presidential race! The US news media isn’t going to tell you the following:

The US presidential candidates are heading towards the $1bn mark in campaign fundraising, shattering records as Wall Street and corporate America pump cash into a race that started ­early and has produced at least eight viable candidates.

snip

Barack Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois, said he raised $32m (€21.5m, £16m) in January alone. ­Hillary Clinton, the New York senator and Mr Obama’s chief rival, said she raised $27m in the last three months of the year.

snip

In contrast to previous years, Democrats are solidly Bad American › Create New Post — WordPressoutraising Republicans, reflecting stronger enthusiasm for their candidates and some fatigue on the GOP side following eight years in control of the White House.

snip

Mrs Clinton had raised about $5m from securities industry workers through September, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That amount took her just ahead of Rudy Giuliani, the Republican former mayor of New York City, who dropped out of the race this week.

Mrs Clinton has lined up support among many senior Wall Street executives, including John Mack, head of Morgan Stanley, who has been a significant fundraiser for Republicans in the past.

Mr Obama has generated widespread enthusiasm among younger Wall Street executives such as Eric Mindich, founder of hedge fund Eton Park, and Jamie Rubin, a private equity executive and son of Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary.

While trailing the Democrats, the leading Republicans have won widespread Wall Street support. Many executives have written cheques and raised money for multiple candidates because there has been so much uncertainty about the outcome in both parties.

Isn’t always funny that when a candidate like, say, Ron Paul, who raises enormous sums of campaign money from ‘ordinary people,’ get ridiculed for it in the media? As if ordinary Americans should stay out of the game so the big boys can play king-maker.  ‘Oh, all his money is from small donors, on the Internet,’ you hear the talking heads say, almost disdainfully.

It used to be ‘our’ democracy, didn’t it?

Well, Duh!

CommonDreams

Noblesse oblige is officially dead in the United States, at least in terms of national politics.

One can hope that Barack Obama can become his own man once in office without being worn down by the lilliputian ties of the special interests he’s had to don in order to get the kind of cash needed to fight Clinton Incorporated.

But as for a guy who rose from not much to serious wealth trying to bring the dialog in this country back to issues of class, well, apparently we’re not hurting enough yet to have that talk.

So Edwards departs stage right. I love some of the comments from the CommonDreams posters at the end of the story (first six comments pretty well sum it up):

1. satr9prodxns January 30th, 2008 9:32 am
   wonderful.

   besides kucinich, john edwards was one of the only candidates offering what the people actually want. a government that works FOR THE PEOPLE.

   i gotta get the hell outta this country.

2. whatfools January 30th, 2008 9:39 am
   Nuts! Take your money with you for safe keeping.
3. dlp67 January 30th, 2008 9:43 am
   Wow. No Edwards, no Kucinich. No real need to vote now. It’s hard to imagine how much more depressing this presidential campaign could get.
4. Big_Money January 30th, 2008 9:43 am
   Every day, it gets a little worse. The “frog and the pot of water”.

   I went digging around for some information, and I discovered that there is in fact a Green Party in the US. Whodda thunk? It would appear to me that the time for talking about the un-electability of any individual who is not a corporate operative is over. Can you support the Green Party? Can you convince others to do so? There seems to be zero sense in bickering about anything else at this point. Stack the Congress, the Senate, and the White House with Greens. Or put forth some other rational alternative.

5. colleen January 30th, 2008 9:53 am
   There is an underlying flaw in the way the US government has been set up by our founders.

   Under a parliamentary system there would be a place for political parties like the Green Party.

   A leader like Bush in a parliamentary system would have been recalled very quickly and it would not have caused the kind of disruption an impeachment causes.

   Our system is dependent on a news media that will uncover corruption and will give all points of view. That news media has been compromised by the vested interests that own it. (Thank God for the internet..which has preserved freedom of the press)

6. Losertarian January 30th, 2008 9:55 am
   It’s not to late to support a candidate who can accomplish some of your goals.
   Ron Paul support bringing home ALL American troops
   He supports ending corporate welfare
   He supports civil liberties
   He has stood up for what he believes in so many times they call him crazy

   Now he’s not progressive perfect
   He’s against universal healthcare
   He’s for federalizing a number of issues that would put abortion and gay marriage questions in the hands of some very unprogressive states

   So which is more important fighting the imperial MIC or Hillarycare if the former is a bigger issu then Ron Paul is your guy if the latter Hillary or Obama but either way you should support the Greens in the general. They ARE more progressive perfect than even you think you are. Greens however have very few contested primaries and generally don’t garner attention until the general so use the primary election to fight the system from within and the general to fight it from without.

   A revolution a day keeps the tyrants away.

I tend to agree with number 5 commenter. I would prefer a parliamentary form of government where a no confidence vote could be called to make the government fall. I think it would have gotten rid of Bush a lot quicker than our system. And Canada, for instance, has at least four viable political parties under their parliamentary system. The more voices, the better, I say.

Of course fat chance we’ll ever see a viable Green Party in the United States as long as the corporations rule the political process and the media. Perhaps 50+ million out of work, 30+ million foreclosures and the formerly middle class actually wondering about how they’re going to feed their kids might actually be what is called for to wake people up in this country. Until then, change the channel and fetch the Doritos.

(1-25-0 ‘Here’s the little lady herself’ . . . is this is starting to backfire? And someone give Bill a clue about those pant cuffs. (AP)

Oh yeah, I wrote mis-calculating on purpose. Because these two are nothing if not professional human calculators.

First from The Pain Dealer Openers:

Lillian Freeman, 51, a Cleveland Heights educator, is one of many black Ohioans who have switched from Hillary Clinton to Obama in recent weeks.

What prompted her change of heart? “Watching Hillary change faces,” first with her teary remarks and then her aggressive attacks on Obama in the following days, Freeman said.

Also, seeing Obama win Iowa gave Freeman new faith in his ability to go all the way. “It’s just kind of exciting to watch,” she said.

A year ago, few blacks allowed themselves to dream that a black man could win the White House, said Richard Scott, 50, a Richmond Heights television producer and technician and longtime Obama supporter. But “winning in Iowa made a big difference,” Scott said. “He’s showing a lot of backbone and people are now starting to say . . . maybe we can see this in our lifetime.”

Clinton once had a stronghold on older black voters, and Obama appealed more to younger ones, said Jason Johnson, a Hiram College political science professor. But that’s changing swiftly, Johnson said.

The testy back-and-forth between Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton in recent weeks has generated more support for Obama among black voters, who make up half of South Carolina’s Democrats, polls show.

“Five or six months ago, South Carolina looked like it was sewn up for Clinton. Not any more,” said John C. Green, director of the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

“It doesn’t surprise me his value has skyrocketed among many African-American voters,” Johnson said. “When black men or men who are perceived to be supportive of the black community are under assault, blacks rally around them,” he said.

Johnson and other blacks say they suspect the Clintons deliberately caused a commotion over Martin Luther King’s importance in history, to force Obama to align himself more clearly with blacks, which could cost him white votes. It was a calculated decision on Clinton’s part to sacrifice the African-American vote, in favor of endearing herself to conservative whites and Latinos, Johnson believes.

Clinton’s strategists have denied trying to woo non-black voters by casting Obama as “the black candidate.” Yet a new McClatchy/MSNBC poll shows Obama’s support among white Democrats eroded from 20 to 10 percent after race emerged as a campaign issue.

“That was her goal. He had been running this perfect de-racialized campaign. That was scaring her to death,” Johnson said.

The Clinton people can denied it all they want but this move on the part of the Calculating Clintons was about as subtle as a falling safe.

But here’s the rest of the calculus reporter Margaret Bernstein doesn’t quite spell out: the Clintons believe that although most blacks vote Democrat than whites, when it comes to who will show up to the primary polls, they believe whites will outvote blacks by a large margin over the long run.

Up until now, they may have been right. But as Bernstein points out, they failed to understand just how much Barack Obama could rouse black voters to show up at the polls not only because Obama is solid black candidate but because they perceive Clinton as being disrespectful to Obama in a calculated racial politics play.

And one more thing on this article that Bernstein points out that perhaps the Clintons forgot:

“Ohio is riddled with insanely enthusiastic college students,” Johnson said. “There are going to be areas that Barack Obama is going to carry just by a twinkle in his eye. Ohio is critical, and the black vote becomes critical if Super Tuesday doesn’t determine the winner.”

My son, 18, saw Obama at his high school in Iowa and came home with a bunch of Obama paraphernalia. He is, of course, white. If Obama can mobilize this group, well, it might be fun seeing a red-faced Bill throwing shoes at the television come Ohio primary night.

In fact, the Obama campaign has already got a jump on the Calculating Clintons in Ohio. I’ve been seeing Obama’s ads on cable tv all week and not one from Billary. Someone’s dropped the ball here and badly.

And as for Bill, I think he has ceased to be a net positive for his wife. More and more of the cable talk shows are having viewer commentary that its beginning to look as though Hillary can’t get the job done without her big bad hubby providing cover. For someone who likes to pose as tough as the men, this is going to erode some of her support among her core female constituency and especially among Democratic men.

Bill doesn’t help wifey with comments like this either:

He also said that Mrs. Clinton had worked with Republicans, including Senator Lindsay Graham, Republican of South Carolina.

And then he painted this scene: “She and John McCain are very close,” he said. “They always laugh that if they wound up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history and they’re afraid they’d put the voters to sleep because they like and respect each other.”

You know, this only adds fuel to the broad suspicions of many people (like me) that the whole system is a Punch and Judy show set up for the voters by Corporate America. I have to believe that most people in this country are tired of dueling platitudes masquerading as a democracy. If Bill is right, and he may be, expect more people to give up on the system than you might believe.

This is why I feel for John Edwards. He’s not the perfect candidate by any means, but at least he is speaking to the increasingly savage class divisions in this country and laying out steps he would take to combat our economic woes. Of course, he’s being marginalized for being a so-called ‘class warrior’ while idiots like Glenn Beck are likening Hillary to Joseph Stalin.

And yes, that is unfair to Hillary if I haven’t said so in plain language.

In a perfect world, voters would be smart enough to send Hillary back to New York, give Barack Obama another seasoning term in the Senate and elect and Edwards-Gore ticket (yes, in that order) to the White House. You notice I didn’t say, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul here — I’m trying hard to be realistic and reasonable.

So let’s see if the whole thing isn’t some kind of late inning kabuki theater - let’s see if Obama can take out The Clinton Machine in the next few weeks. I wouldn’t bet on it though, but it might make for slightly more interesting television that what we’re getting from the ‘me-too’ Republicans.

Update: here’s one from Monday, Jan. 21 - Paul still missing!  Edwards nearly gone.

Associated Press

Here’s the one from 2 days ago:
Associated Press

Go ahead and read the above controlled news story and tell me who is missing.

Did not Ron Paul beat John McCain in Nevada?

Would that not at least get some passing mention of Paul in the media?

Tell me what you want but please don’t try to tell me the media isn’t doing a ‘disappeared’ number on Ron Paul.

But he’s not the only one.

Next up on the disappeared list will be John Edwards.

Joshua Holland nails it:

So, now, Survey USA, which conducts an influential state-by-state poll, has decided that John Edwards is not sufficiently “viable” to be included in their head-to-head match-ups for the general election.

This is in keeping with a major theme of campaign 2008: our media and political establishments narrowing the field before most Americans get to cast a vote.

Nothing new there — our electoral choices are always limited to a few candidates whom the Beltway establishment finds “palatable” — who raise a lot of cash from large donors and who won’t disturb the status quo. But this cycle, they appear to be doing so with unusual intensity. Why? Because they’re terrified — this is an election in which voters are pissed off, and many appear ready to reject the anointed front-runners in favor of candidates they believe will shake up Washington’s business-as-usual ways.

That volatility scares a lot of people who do quite well under the status quo, thank you, and the attacks on candidates like Mike Huckabee — a heretic for questioning the GOP’s unquestioned fealty to Wall Street’s investor class — have been particularly striking. As have been the efforts to narrow the larger political debates, with Fox sidelining Ron Paul and NBC rewriting its own rules in order to uninvite Dennis Kucinich to Tuesday’s Dem show-down in Nevada.

John Edwards, with his explicit and sharp critique of the ways in which corporate power distorts our political discourse, is in a special category. Unlike a Paul or Kucinich, Edwards was the VEEP on the Dems’ last ticket, and therefore can’t be marginalized as easily. But they’ve tried to marginalize him nonetheless, both by focusing on his haircuts and failing miserably to engage the actual messages of his campaign.

Ron Paul: restore the Constitution.

John Edwards: take a knife to the capitalist plutocrats.

Both men and their ideas are off the table in this National Farce we call our ‘free elections.’

No, we will get Hillary, like it or not.

And no matter who wins you can take the following to the bank:

No withdrawal from the Middle East

No health care for the uninsured

No meaningful tax reform for the Middle Class

A continuing hemorrhage of jobs and capital from this country

The rich will get richer and everyone else will fall into penury

The continuing rise of ‘friendly fascism’ in the USA as things get worse

A registered voter in Iowa I know recently received this handwritten letter from a woman in New City, NY. The letter is as follows:

I don’t know about you (name), but I sense that something is very wrong with the way our government works these days. And I’m talking about both parties. As a 22-year-old who just got out of college and became a taxpayer, I can’t believe the immense immense debt and the tax burden that my generation is inheriting! All we see is more bureaucracy, more inefficiency and negativity. Well, I decided to do something about it: I volunteered my time and money to write to Independent Iowa voters such as yourself about Congressman Ron Paul.

Before this year, I was apathetic about politics and government. Then I heard Dr. Ron Paul speak and he cured my apathy. I now write to you, (name), in the hope that you will also look into Ron Paul’s message and support his candidacy for President in the Republican Iowa Caucasus on January 3rd. You can register Republican the evening of the caucus.

After watching Ron Paul speak for himself on You Tube.com, I quickly realized why he has the most campaign donations from members of the military out of all the candidates: he does not speak half-truths, he does not pander and he truly respects the Constitution that every President swears to uphold at their Inauguration. He is the modern day Thomas Jefferson. Please join us,

Sincerely,

Subir (last name withheld by me)

The letter included the writer’s telephone number and e-mail address. Because this is private correspondence, I have withheld identification of the sender and receiver.

I do not know how many Iowa voters are receiving similar handwritten letters, but I do know this: this is extraordinary grass-roots campaigning that is completely in tune with the bottom-up appeal of Ron Paul. This goes back to the original committees of correspondence formed prior to the American Revolution which spread the news about what was going on in opposing the British around the colonies.

There is nothing more personal than a sincere handwritten letter. I mean, who writes letters any more? And laugh if you will at the allusions to Jefferson but people who support Paul say what they truly believe. In all the slick pamphlets and TV ads bombarding Iowa voters, there is nothing that truly touches the visceral issues facing America today as a letter from a young woman in another state who has been energized out of apathy by the candidacy of an extraordinary campaigner.

I have talked politics with a number of people in both Iowa and Ohio and what bothers me is that so many people seem to take their cues on candidates by the smears from TV commentators. This is especially true of Paul, whom the media has treated with measured disdain when it doesn’t ignore him completely. There seems to be a contempt for what is perceived as the political naivete of Paul’s supporters. I think this is a huge mistake. If you want to energize the electorate, hold them in contempt and see what happens. It’s clear that Paul’s supporters are not letting these attacks keep them from their work.

What is also clear is that the tenor and coordination of these attacks are lending credence to Paul’s status as a genuine threat to the status quo. On the day before Christmas, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com, weighed in with this piece that details shameful coordinated smears from both the far left and far right. Here’s a taste of what Paul is up against:

There’s nothing worse than a sloppy smear, but then again, Paul’s enemies aren’t too particular about the quality of the slime they sling at him. Charles Johnson, the anti-Arab fanatic who runs the Little Green Footballs Web site, has absolutely no compunctions about teaming up with a neo-Nazi goofball like White if it serves the purpose of discrediting Paul. Yet by acting as a megaphone for a crazy person, Johnson only winds up discrediting himself.

Oddly, it turns out that Johnson the ardent Zionist and White the goose-steppin’ Nazi have an awful lot in common: hatred of Paul and of libertarianism – and that clearly outweighs the hatred they have for each other.

Yes, it’s all about hate, and that’s the irony of it: these people accuse Ron of being a hater, but if we investigate the perfervid fever swamps of anti-Paulism, the one emotion that hits us in the face, like a blast of hot, fetid air, is pure, undiluted malevolence. (Just go here, if you can stand it, and breathe that fetid air!) Of course, White deals in hate. His whole identity and crazed persona as the second coming of Adolph Hitler is wrapped up in bile and brazen evil: another “outsider” gone bad. Yet if we go to the other side of the spectrum and meet White’s opposite number, we see the same bile, expressed in the same style.

And what’s even more incredible, when you think about it, are the smears coming from people you would assume might support Ron Paul, like WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah. But guess again:

Despite being called every name in the book and then some by rabid Ron Paul supporters over the last year, I still had a modicum of respect for the candidate himself – until his big moment on “Meet the Press.”

I’ve had my disagreements with Ron Paul – and they are big ones.

He and his supporters seem to think America can, in 2008, decide we just don’t want to be involved with determined foreign enemies who have sought to destroy the U.S. since it became a nation. He and his supporters seem to think that America itself is to blame for creating its enemies because of its own interventionist meddling.

While I agree America has involved itself in world problems far more than it should, I will never accept that our enemies will leave us alone if we leave them alone.

Having studied America’s No. 1 foreign enemy, Islamic radicalism, for the better part of the last 28 years, I can only say Ron Paul and his supporters are just dead wrong about this. Furthermore, we’ll all be dead wrong if we follow his prescription.

Believe me, I wish it were as easy as Ron Paul suggests. But the sad truth is that if we run from this enemy now, our days as a country living in relative peace and prosperity are over. Dr. Paul’s prescription for peace is actually the kind of prescription you’d expect from Dr. Kevorkian.

See, being a Libertarian isn’t enough for the pro-Zionist fringe - one must be a five-star warmonger to get the support of someone like Farah. It’s easy to dismiss Farah as an idiot but he’s not: I’ve been watching the evolution (!) of his website from the beginning and it’s followed a pattern of independent Libertarian news morphing into a complete propaganda arm of both the Israeli lobby and the nutty Christian Dominionists. Its been a sad slide into nutcake land for WND, but Farah simply knows which side butters his financial bread. I would have expected Farah and WND to have supported Paul 10 years ago, but not now.

Raimondo has written extensively about this split in the American Libertarian community: between the traditional Von Mises-Rothbardians and the new neo-con/AIPAC Libs who enjoy cozying up to the War Party cocktail circuit. So I won’t go into that here - the motivations of the War Party Libertarians seem pretty transparent.

What amazes me is the historical amnesia of so many Americans. I would ask Farah when radical Islamism became the Numero Uno threat to the safety and security of the Homeland? I would venture that when Soviet Communism faded away, the Military Industrial Complex realized a basic lesson in perpetuating their control and profit: another ‘enemy’ must be found to justify the greatest war machine spending on the planet Earth.

Interesting to note that Chinese Communism was also thought of as just as evil a threat to America as the Soviet variety. Watch the original Manchurian Candidate, if you want a refresher course. Funny then, how the evil Red Chinese Commies suddenly became the savior of American consumerism after the fall of Soviet Communism. Hmmm, maybe the ‘Commie threat’ was indeed the hyped up masquerade many claimed it was.

And what are we to think of fear-mongers like Farah who believe that if we don’t unquestioningly support the War Party state, we’ll live to see the rise of the American Caliphate.

Bullshit.

There is no way in heaven or hell that the people of this country would EVER allow the establishment of an Islamic state in this country. Faster than the Japanese were rounded up in 1942, every Muslim in the US would be herded into camps if there was any serious threat to undermine the Western structure of the American government. And people like Farah know it.

But fear of ‘the other’ is the greatest whip that demagogues have used against the American people for almost their entire history. And fear of the other will continue to be effective as long as the mass of the American people remain willingly, blissfully ignorant of people and cultures outside its borders.

It is this ignorance and prejudice that Ron Paul is running up against and it is why his campaign is being subjected to underhanded fear-generated smear campaigns from both sides of the Punch and Judy show that our two party system has become.

This is a tall hurdle for the man from Texas to overcome and I believe he realizes it.

But as long as Paul can mobilize an Army of ordinary outside-the-beltway Americans to dig down deep in their pockets to contribute and actually put pen to paper to write letters to people they don’t even know, then democracy still has a fighting chance in America, even at this late date.

And that is something to be excited about as we move into the new year.

Matt Simon in HuffPo

So what happens when the champion of freedom and free markets from the U.S. Congress sits down for a chat with his counterpart from the mainstream media? That’s when we learn that freedom is simply too hot for TV, or at least, too hot for ABC.

That’s right, they are only airing this interview on the internet, in pieces. And the justification is a laugh, at best.

Stossel explained, presumably writing with a gun to his head, in the first article posted Dec. 7:

Despite relatively low poll numbers, Paul has had a big influence on the presidential campaign. That’s in part because he’s raised a ton of money, and in part because of the passionate following he has on the Web. It’s one reason we’re posting my interview with Paul only on the Internet, where the debate about Paul is very active. In fact, he’s the most Googled presidential candidate.

I’m pretty sure I heard a wink in there somewhere…

This really provides a nice illustration of how the controlled media operates, because it really isn’t all about the ratings. This interview, in which Paul articulates his controversial views on drugs, prostitution, gay marriage, health care, foreign policy, and the proper role of government in society, would have received terrific ratings. What’s more, it would have served the public interest by giving viewers a clearer view of this once-unknown candidate’s proposals. And whether his ideas are good or bad, shouldn’t they at least be understood prior to dismissal?

Amen, amen, again I say Amen. It isn’t about ratings - its about controlling the flow of information and ideas. And the MSM is definitely afraid of Paul and want to cover him in a way that provides the least exposure possibly while maintaining a pious stance that they did a fair job.

Simon does an excellent job here making the case for fair coverage but it will fall on deaf ears. In my experience with daily newspapers and commercial talk radio I saw how the beast works close up and very personal. There is precious little journalism on newspapers anymore and almost none in broadcasting. Paul threatens the ownership class and for this reason the ownership class (which owns the means of communication) will marginalize him.

Except, of course, for the Internet. The problem remains that the vast majority of Americans gets their marching orders from television and finds it painful to think outside that box.

And people like Stossel would rather be on TV and get the paycheck than actually stand for anything. Its an American disease. Recently, I commented on an article by Chris Hedges on CommonDreams in which several comment writers were honest enough to admit that as long as they were ‘comfortable’ they wouldn’t do anything.  This is poison for a free society and in my response, I wrote that those of us who have already lost jobs among other things are beginning to wonder if this country’s population is worth fighting for. You can lead a horse to freedom, but you cannot make them work for it.

As I’ve said before, if people are willing to continue playing with their toys while the country slips into fascism, there’s not much anyone can do about it.

I’ve actually been invited to a Ron Paul Internet fund-raiser this weekend. I’m not ready to pony up any hard earned cash but I might check it out.

Latest Raimondo:

Paul accurately pointed out that we could ameliorate a lot of suffering – including the pain of tax hikes and a decaying infrastructure – right here in our own country with the $1 trillion we’re spending on the Iraq war, McCain grimaced: the truth hurts. Unable to contain himself – not a very presidential trait, but essential to any demagogue – McCain replied:

“I just want to also say that Congressman Paul, I’ve heard him now in many debates talk about bringing our troops home, and about the war in Iraq and how it’s failed.

(Applause)

“And I want to tell you that that kind of isolationism, sir, is what caused World War II. We allowed…

(Applause)

We allowed …

(Audience booing)

Cooper: Allow him his answer. Allow him his answer, please.

McCain: We allowed – we allowed Hitler to come to power with that kind of attitude of isolationism and appeasement.

(Audience booing)

And I want to tell you something, sir. I just finished having Thanksgiving with the troops, and their message to you is – the message of these brave men and women who are serving over there is, ‘Let us win. Let us…’”

If you oppose the war, says McCain, you’re – pro-Hitler.

Well yeah, but our American fascists learned a lot from old Adolf. They use him as a prop while envisioning an American world empire that would make Hitler green with envy. And one based every bit as much on (expedient) racial theory as Hitler’s.

All you have to do is read the entry below this one about Obama.

Yes they are getting desperate and desperate people do desperate things and what better time of year to stir the deep warlike emotions of the average American through a false flag attack than Christmas? That’s why I approach this holiday with a great deal of fear and trepidation. If we can get through Christmas without attacking Iran, we might have a better chance of staying off such a disaster in the coming year. Of course, the orders may have already been given.

An interesting story in Mother Jones shows us that the War Party are indeed, scientifically trying to sell the rape of Iran to Joe and Jane America - even using focus groups to do so.

From the story:

On November 1, she went to the offices of Martin Focus Groups in Alexandria, Virginia, knowing she would be paid $150 for two hours of her time. After joining a half dozen other women in a conference room, she discovered that she had been called in for what seemed an unusual assignment: to help test-market language that could be used to sell military action against Iran to the American public. “The whole basis of the whole thing was, ‘we’re going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to along with it?” says Sonnenmark, 49.

Soon after the leader of the focus group began the discussion, according to Sonnenmark, he directed the conversation toward recent tensions between Iran and the United States. “He was asking questions about [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad going to speak at Columbia University, how terrible it was that he was able to go to Columbia and was invited,” Sonnenmark says. “And he used lots of catch phrases, like ‘victory’ and ‘failure is not an option.’“

It never ceases to fascinate me just how utterly stupid these people believe the American people are. The shocking thing is that they may be right with a large enough percentage of the population to get some kind of imprimatur on what they want.

But I think even the most hardcore warmongering neo-con is starting to wince when Hitler comes up. Most Americans, unfortunately, have very little actual knowledge of the history of Nazi Germany. Most of the time, the neocons try to at least paint the story of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich but even this tack tends to require a much longer attention span that the average person can muster about history.

Which is why I think you’re seeing a subtle shift from using Hitler to using another durable (and far more well-known) evil dude to sell a war: Satan himself. Appeals based on religion are starting to more and more center on getting the American public to believe that Islam, as a monolithic whole, would, if it could get its way, shoot every Christian in Cincinnati who would not accept their belief system, never mind about all that ‘religion of peace’ crap.

I know the neo-cons really didn’t want to go there. In the beginning (the months following 9-11) President Bush took great pains to urge the American people not to paint all Muslims as America-hating suicide bombers. Gradually this stance seems to have fallen by the wayside as appeals to stopping a ‘new Hitler’ lost credence after Saddam was found to have no WMDs in his quiver. And the effort to get people to envision a ‘nuclear holocaust’ seems to have failed the smell test as well. Now all that’s left is the most reliable yet problematic appeal: good Christian America in a worldwide fight to the death with evil Satanic Islam.

This appeal could have coalesced a lot of support right from the beginning. After all, there are quite a number of evangelical wingnuts who’d like nothing better than to turn Mecca into a glass parking lot. Whether they just hate and fear Muslims or believe it will protect Israel and thus ensure their ‘rapture’ it really doesn’t matter.

But selling a Clash of Civilizations runs the risk of actually getting what you want - and getting it good and hard. An attack on Iran could very will set the powder keg off in such a war as to radicalize the majority of the Muslim world and spark World War (take your pick of numbers). This would would eventually go nuclear and because the West has all the big bombs, eventually, they would be the last man standing.

Standing over a smoking radioactive ruin of a planet.

Its doubtful whether many Americans could actually conceive of such a scenario. But with other pressures coming to bear (Peak Oil, economic collapse, environmental degradation) a go-for-broke strategy from the world’s ruling elite is not quite as far fetched as it may seem at first blush.

It would be a rather efficacious way of reducing the surplus population down to a ’sustainable’ (for the ruling elite) number as many proponents of the ‘die off’ theory have postulated.

(by the way, sorry if you’re reading this over mealtime)

And I seem to have (again) digressed.

Back to the present day. Back to Raimondo on Ron Paul:

The War Party hates Ron Paul because he takes them on without euphemism or hesitation: it is worth it having Ron up there if only to bask in the uneasiness he causes, which is all too visible on the faces of the other contenders, who would rather not have to deal with his iconoclasm. That’s why the Stuart Rothenbergs and the Sean Hannitys would much prefer to exclude him from participating in the debates, but it’s too late for that now: the Ron Paul Revolution is shaking up the GOP Establishment, and it sure is fun to watch. McCain staked his campaign on the war, and his political fortunes are sinking as fast as support for the war in the polls – yes, even in the formerly solid ranks of the GOP. Over half the Republican voters in Iowa want us out of Iraq within a year. A full third of GOP voters nationwide are war-weary to the point of supporting a rapid withdrawal. Paul owns this vote, and – thanks to the fundraising prowess of his spontaneously self-organized supporters – now has the resources to pursue it. McCain’s star is sinking, as Ron’s is rising – and that, my friends, is good news for opponents of this rotten war, and the dangerous foreign policy that made it possible.

So there: a little hope.

Robert Scheer?

Cheering for Ron Paul?

Well!

In The Nation?

This is getting serious, yes?

From Scheer’s column:

What can you get for a trillion bucks? Or make that $1.6 trillion, if you take the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as tallied by the majority staff of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee (JEC). Or is it the $3.5-trillion figure cited by Ron Paul, whose concern about the true cost of this war for ordinary Americans shames the leading Democrats, who prattle on about needed domestic programs that will never find funding because of future war-related government debt?

snip

How damning that it takes a libertarian Republican to remind the leading Democratic candidates of the opportunity costs of a war that most Democrats in Congress voted for. But they don’t need to take Paul’s word for it; last week, the majority staff of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress came up with similarly startling estimates of the long-term costs of this war.

snip

Those now celebrating the supposed success of the surge might note that, as the JEC report points out, “[m]aintaining post-surge troop levels in Iraq over the next ten years would result in costs of $4.5 trillion.” Until the leading Democratic candidate faces up to the irreparable harm that will be done to needed social programs over the next decades by the red-ink spending she supported, I will be cheering for the libertarian Republican. At least he won’t throw more money down some foreign rat hole.

I have to admit, I really don’t know how to take this.

I mean, its great that Scheer is pointing all of this out and rightfully castigating Democrats for not having the cojones that Pail has for putting the hard figures on the table.

Yes yes and yes. To think of what could have been done with all of that money to make this nation stronger and its people healthier. The mind reels.

But when a liberal like Scheer jumps on the Paul bandwagon, my first response is not necessarily to cheer but to check that the political silver hasn’t been filched from the china cabinet.

Readers of this blog I’m sure will set me straight. I should love this, but I can’t help but be a little wary. Maybe I’m just too paranoid that any time mainstream liberals (or conservatives) for that matter, approach a movement like Paul they’re not seeking to join it so much as co-opt it.

Let’s assume for the present that Scheer’s support is good news.

After all, I’ve been writing for months that it seems many liberals and middle of the roaders fed up with the Punch and Judy show of our fixed and rigged political system are coming around to Paul.

Old line conservatives of the Goldwater stripe find a great deal to like about Paul. Liberals love the fact that he’s anti-war.

However there does exist a bit of a problem with some of the liberal community and Ron Paul and only time will tell if these difficulties are not insurmountable.

As someone who leans socialist, I understand Paul’s economic theories are free market libertarian. As a small business owner, if Paul casts his lot with the small business class in this country, I’ll feel a lot better about his economic stances. We all know there isn’t any such think as a true ‘free market’ being practiced in this country and I will also gladly join more libertarian brethren in the chorus that too much small business is hamstrung by Federal and (in many cases) onerous state tax codes and regulations.

But I still want some guarantees that product safety will be a priority in the Paul administration. And that the beef will be inspected and our food and drugs will be safe.

Give me that and I’ll feel better about Paul’s economics.

Abolish the IRS? Go for it. Trash NAFTA and GATT while you’re at it, no problem.

Economically, Paul needs to do only a little to assuage the concerns of progressives who applaud his anti-war stands.

On other websites that have been running Scheer’s column, there has been a lot made of Paul’s vote against the 1965 Civil Rights Act.

Here are Paul’s comments on that event:

Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.

This expansion of federal power was based on an erroneous interpretation of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The framers of the Constitution intended the interstate commerce clause to create a free trade zone among the states, not to give the federal government regulatory power over every business that has any connection with interstate commerce.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.

Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I join the sponsors of H.Res. 676 in promoting racial harmony and individual liberty, the fact is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not accomplish these goals. Instead, this law unconstitutionally expanded federal power, thus reducing liberty. Furthermore, by prompting raced-based quotas, this law undermined efforts to achieve a color-blind society and increased racial strife. Therefore, I must oppose H.Res. 676.

July 3, 2004

While we can argue if Paul was right, should he become a serious threat to siphon anti-war voters from the Democrat side, you’ll see more and more reference to this particular stance in the media. Two questions: (1) could the media cast Paul as a genteel racist (in the Robert Byrd mold) and (2) can Paul sell position on the Civil Rights Act to mainstream as well as progressive voters?

In my estimation, he has his work cut out for him if the media really chooses to pick up on this.

Another question many progressives may parse from Paul’s remarks is: under what circumstances is it proper to interfere in the rights of people to hire, fire and enter into contracts? Progressives see no absolute rights in these things and may be more than a little intimidated by a ultra libertarian stance on these issues. Does Paul really believe its OK for businesses to discriminate against people as a Constitutional right? Or does he believe that any business foolish enough to try would be ‘corrected’ into oblivion by the free market?

Also there are those on the Internet that are dropping hints that Paul is the darling of white nationalists. Whether this is a targeted hit job or not is unclear. Paul certainly can’t stop people from supporting him but he can denounce haters of all stripes. I wonder seriously how informed Scheer is on these allegations?

No doubt, all manner of opposition research on Paul is currently being compiled. His fellow Republicans will probably turn on him in due time anyway, especially on these issues - they already have their belly full of his anti-war stances.

In another development, I’m already hearing Paul’s radio ads on Sirius which is also (pardon the pun) a serious development. If Paul is ‘flying under the radar’ that honeymoon is about to end.

I’d love to get the comments of Paul’s Internet Legions who pop in here. This is, without a doubt, the most fascinating political story of the year.

Justin Raimondo on Antiwar.com:

Why Are They So Afraid of Ron Paul?

Always, always always read Justin Raimondo’s columns before you read anything else anyone writes including anything I write. The man is brilliant. And his latest on the Ron Paul campaign should be used by that campaign in their strategic plan.

Of particular note in Raimondo’s column are the points I’ve been making on Paul - that as soon as he looked like a threat the smear machine would get to work to ruin him in the eyes of the American people. A big part of that effort is enlisting mental midget demagogues like Glenn Beck to do their dirty work.

To stanch the incipient pro-Paul rebellions at both ends of the political spectrum, the anti-Paul brigades have called out two disparate, albeit strangely congruent, figures to start slinging some real dirt in Paul’s direction. Despite the ideological divide that separates Glenn Beck, who recently did a segment on his show accusing Paul of being a “terrorist” along the lines of Timothy McVeigh, and David Neiwert, a self-proclaimed “professional journalist” and resident left-blogosphere “expert” in right-wingology, both have come out with very similar assaults on the Paul campaign. Neiwert, whose recent series of blog posts attacking Ron Paul takes the same line as Paul’s neoconservative critics, gives the Paul-is-Hitler meme a “leftist” patina. Both explicitly invoke the name of McVeigh, a violent and dangerous extremist, as emblematic of the Paul campaign. That Beck hauled out the ineffably repulsive David Horowitz to pull off his drive-by smearing indicates just how broad this anti-Paul “popular front” is, stretching all the way from the ex-communists of the 1960s turned warmongering neoconservatives to the present-day lefties of Neiwert’s ilk. The Right and Left faces of the Smear Bunds are singing slightly different tunes, but in unison. To Beck, who never mentions that the Paul fundraiser he rails about was based on a movie, and not Guy Fawkes the historical personage, Paul is a supporter of terrorism. To Neiwert, on the other hand, who has run a long list of legislation introduced by Paul that – gasp! Horror of horrors! – demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that Paul opposes a lot of federal programs and doesn’t believe government is the be-all and end-all solution to our problems, he’s worse than a mere terrorist: he’s an authentic conservative! The Republican Establishment must be thrilled.

There’s so much more to it in the column that I don’t want to quote it here - I want you to read it whole but let me make a few more points here.

It is absolutely clear to me that the establishment that controls both political parties views Paul as a growing threat that must be stomped out now. They believe they can use the playbook once used on Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot, i.e. “the dangerous nut” and the “fascist” ploy.

They trust that the American people are too dumbed down to tell the difference between fact and propaganda. Just once, I’d like for the people to prove them wrong.

Paul himself is his own best rebuttal. The more airtime and face time he gets the harder it will be to paint him as dangerous without the sludge coming back at the slingers. Paul might answer back: ’so you really think the way taxes are collected by the IRS is both Constitutional and a good thing?’ ‘So you really think the war in Iraq is a genuine benefit for the US?’ ‘You really think that running these ruinous deficits are healthy for future generations?’

And then make them answer why.

No they really do fear Paul. Doubly so since, as Raimondo writes (and I have written as well) he is beginning to gather a coalition from both sides of the political spectrum who see him as the only candidate who will stop our ruinous foreign interventionism and take domestic profligacy in hand at home.

Is he my idea candidate? No, but who ever really is? But he’s the only one who is willing to stake his claim on the core principles that our Constitution was based on and right now, that’s as good as a candidate gets.

The Little Libertarian Engine That Could Chugs Along:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, aided by an extraordinary outpouring of Internet support Monday, hauled in more than $3.5 million in 20 hours. Paul, the Texas congressman with a Libertarian tilt and an out-of-Iraq pitch, entered heady fundraising territory with a surge of Web-based giving tied to the commemoration of Guy Fawkes Day.

Fawkes was a British mercenary who failed in his attempt to kill King James I on Nov. 5, 1605. He also was the model for the protagonist in the movie “V for Vendetta.” Paul backers motivated donors on the Internet with mashed-up clips of the film on the online video site YouTube as well as the Guy Fawkes Day refrain: “Remember, remember the 5th of November.”

Paul’s total deposed Mitt Romney as the single-day fundraising record holder in the Republican presidential field. When it comes to sums amassed in one day, Paul now ranks only behind Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, who raised nearly $6.2 million on June 30, and Barack Obama.

Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said the effort began independently about two months ago at the hands of Paul’s backers. He said Paul picked up on the movement, mentioning in it speeches and interviews.

“It’s been kind of building up virally,” Benton said.

The $3.5 million, he said, represented online contributions from more than 22,000 donors.

More here at Washington Post blog

And like many of the Paulites, the Texas congressman’s loyal, Web-savvy supporters, Morley is blogging about Paul on his own site. “I can’t really say what my support means. But, you know, I first heard about him two years ago, and I’ve studied his voting record and I’m convinced that more than any candidate, Republican or Democrat, he’s the most principled candidate out there,” Morley, a libertarian, told The Trail this afternoon. “By the way, I’m at Denny’s outside LAX. Here for a fight later tonight. I’m wearing a Ron Paul T-shirt. It’s a great day for Ron Paul, you know.”

MY TAKE:

We’ve seen this before, of course. Ever get “Clean for Gene?” Had big love for Curtis LeMay? Attended at car wash for John Anderson (I did)? Stand outside of Wal-Mart collecting money for Ross Perot? Fire up the pitchfork brigade for Pat Buchanan?

Insurgent campaigns are nothing new in American presidential politics but this time there may be something different.

First, what I find amazing is that after the fiasco of the Perot campaign, is that a committed group of populists have taken the bit and are off to the races with it again. I thought that after Perot that no one would let themselves get suckered into a outside-the-beltway populist insurgency candidate again.

But Paul is no Perot and his followers know it. The man is committed and in it to win it.

OK, its all cliches but sometimes the cliches are true.

The other remarkable note in this campaign is that so many people are so dissatisfied with the Republican field. There are no Reagan personas in the field outside of Paul and most importantly, no get-out-of-Iraq candidate either. That there are so many on the right that want us out of Iraq enough to support an outside-the-establishment candidate is a bellwether for how deep the dissatisfaction runs in American politics.

Last night on Lou Dobbs CNN show, Dobbs was amazed at a poll showing a full 80 percent of American said they were mad about something having to do with the nation. I wasn’t surprised although what people are ‘mad’ about could range very widely from not having a single payer health care plan to wanting to invade Iran.

But there is little doubt that people are frustrated with what’s become of America and are desperate for a leader. Paul is grabbing a coalition of paleo-conservatives (the non-interventionist right), libertarians and Perot type populists. What is not being discussed much is another possible group for Paul - the anti-war centrists.

Liberals know that Paul’s economic policies are not their cup of tea. They can live with some of his libertarian ideas about the war on drugs and personal freedom issues. But mainstream Democrats who find Clinton’s pro-war stance and decades long baggage unpalatable also know the ant-war Democrats are unlikely to prevail against the Clinton money machine.

So that leaves a Hobson’s choice of sorts. Suck it up and vote Clinton and hope she was just kidding about the hawkish stances or, if Paul’s insurgency should capture the GOP nomination, vote for him as the sole anti-war candidate and hope to influence his economic policies.

No one to the best of my knowledge has taken a poll matching Clinton against Paul with likely voters but I would like to know the results of such a poll.

Its getting harder for the mainstream media to ignore the Paul insurgency. But what happens when they turn their big guns on Paul?

What happens if Paul starts looking like he might just grab the nomination? Would the party turn on him like they did Pat Buchanan after he won the New Hampshire primary?

Stay tuned, the ‘08 campaign might be fun to watch after all.