Ron Paul climbs in the polls

  On 12/30/2011 at 12:41 AM, Awepittance said:

Michael Savage's 15 minute long anti ron paul rant opening his December 28th show.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkwySCu25A8

HA, here's a fucktard that needs to die of liver failure as soon as possible, lol.

Im not american .. how influential are these type of guys?? (rush limngball, Glenn beck , etc..) .. like.. do they have enough influence to decide an election??

  On 12/29/2011 at 6:35 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 12/29/2011 at 6:27 PM, disparaissant said:

  On 12/27/2011 at 5:47 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

Don't get me started on people using "queer theory" as a legitimate term for gay history.

 

Total 2 day old derail, but 'queer' in that context fits a lot better than gay because plenty of the people involved in gay history weren't actually gay, they fit elsewhere in the LGBT spectrum. Stonewall was started by trans people, after all.

 

That said, yes. 'theory' is fucking stupid, I split the difference and call it queer history.

 

yeah...I know its still in its infancy, but I'd like to see more scholarship on all things "queer" within the spectrum of deviancy....wtf does "queer" theory actually mean? sexual deviancy? this nebulous idea of "gender" deviancy? deviancy in any manner, whether moral or ethnic, etc. etc.?

 

Again, I agree that it is needed, but at the same time its the same problem I have with other histories that were recently created to combat our ignorance of repressed miniorities..its like saying I'm a doctor in History of "Different People".

yeah its a bit nebulous for sure. i tend to mostly stick with the history of gender and sexual minorities and don't stray too far from that. next semester i'm gonna help design a queer theory course though, so we'll see how that goes.

also lol wow michael savage.

sure marijuana has more toxins than cigarette smoke, but good lord if you're smoking upwards of 20 joints a day, the toxins are probably the least of your problems.

hella yea marijuana has toxins...thats what gets you hiiiiiiiigh

Been watching Ron Paul youtubes all night (not kidding) and I must say that it would be great if the GOP went back to their roots by sticking with Paul. At the very least because it would bring back some kind of moral consistency within the party. Instead of the "I'll just say the most crazy stuff to attract more of the crazy votes".

But who am I kidding. I don't really know the roots of the GOP. It just sounded like Paul knows. Or was a part of it even. (bad pun intended.. :-/)

  On 12/31/2011 at 11:24 AM, goDel said:

Been watching Ron Paul youtubes all night (not kidding) and I must say that it would be great if the GOP went back to their roots by sticking with Paul. At the very least because it would bring back some kind of moral consistency within the party. Instead of the "I'll just say the most crazy stuff to attract more of the crazy votes".

 

But who am I kidding. I don't really know the roots of the GOP. It just sounded like Paul knows. Or was a part of it even. (bad pun intended.. :-/)

The REpublican party started its descent into this weird hypocrisy all the way back during Teddy Roosevelt's admin, when they hated his trust-busting antics but supported invasive maneuvers in Central and South America.

Then in FDR's "New Deal" era there were nonstop accusations of FDR and later even Truman being a communist; Truman was practically excoriated for the Korean War, but not simply because of the war, but rather his refusal to allow MacArthur to be an idiot and continually demand nuking Chinese cities. From that point on, a militaristic far-right within the Republican party developed, and under subsequent presidencies were even supported by some worried moderate Dems, and the more racist anti-civil rights Dems from the Solid South.

Nixon was excoriated for similar reasons; he was accused of being a Democrat in Republican's clothing for his manipulation of the Fed and starting the supply shock economics that helped (partially) economic recovery. However, hardliner Republicans LOVED Nixon for his expansion of the Vietnam campaign into Laos and Cambodia...billions of dollars spent on the mil-ind complex for bombers and the shit they dropped on that poor country.

Finally, the rift was forever cemented under Reagan. Reagan not only pursued an aggressive big-govt foreign policy like his predecessors, but also through Reaganomics destroyed the last small-government policies that had existed in the Republican party. Thus REagan was forced into every republican talking agenda as the first "True Republican" since Goldwater, except this time Reagan won the elections.

This shit with foreign vs. domestic big govt. has existed for quite some time, the "Reagan Revolution" finally allowed hard line right-wingers to cement control over the Republican party.

i think it's safe to say that at this point in the election, Ron Paul has already done irreparable damage or good (depending on your persuasion) to the republican party itself. His influence can be felt all over the spectrum even among the ignorant lock-step republicans. IT's not normal to hear someone call in a republican talk radio show and talk badly about American foreign policy, right now it is very normal. Ron Paul has as far as i can tell lifted the taboo somewhat on what republicans are allowed to believe. Same with the war on drugs, you'll find a lot more rational conservatives coming out of the wood work and expressing their discontent with it. Before a lot of these people would have been afraid to express their opinion and afraid of being called a commie-liberal-pink-hippie. Asshole/idiot conservatives will still try to characterize Paul this way, such as Michael Savage or Mark Levine. It's because they need to reinforce to their drone listeners the imaginary and cloistering barriers that keep republicans from being intellectual people. It goes back to the classic prophet trying to take control of his masses, keep them uneducated and in the dark so they will be loyal servants. Ron Paul utterly shatters this paradigm for the desperate control freak conservative demigods. And for that alone i think the phenomenon is pretty awesome. I've been listening to these a-holes for years and hoping one day they would be challenged somehow, by a little old man from Texas is even more pleasurable.

  On 12/31/2011 at 7:57 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 12/31/2011 at 11:24 AM, goDel said:

Been watching Ron Paul youtubes all night (not kidding) and I must say that it would be great if the GOP went back to their roots by sticking with Paul. At the very least because it would bring back some kind of moral consistency within the party. Instead of the "I'll just say the most crazy stuff to attract more of the crazy votes".

 

But who am I kidding. I don't really know the roots of the GOP. It just sounded like Paul knows. Or was a part of it even. (bad pun intended.. :-/)

 

The REpublican party started its descent into this weird hypocrisy all the way back during Teddy Roosevelt's admin, when they hated his trust-busting antics but supported invasive maneuvers in Central and South America.

 

Then in FDR's "New Deal" era there were nonstop accusations of FDR and later even Truman being a communist; Truman was practically excoriated for the Korean War, but not simply because of the war, but rather his refusal to allow MacArthur to be an idiot and continually demand nuking Chinese cities. From that point on, a militaristic far-right within the Republican party developed, and under subsequent presidencies were even supported by some worried moderate Dems, and the more racist anti-civil rights Dems from the Solid South.

 

Nixon was excoriated for similar reasons; he was accused of being a Democrat in Republican's clothing for his manipulation of the Fed and starting the supply shock economics that helped (partially) economic recovery. However, hardliner Republicans LOVED Nixon for his expansion of the Vietnam campaign into Laos and Cambodia...billions of dollars spent on the mil-ind complex for bombers and the shit they dropped on that poor country.

 

Finally, the rift was forever cemented under Reagan. Reagan not only pursued an aggressive big-govt foreign policy like his predecessors, but also through Reaganomics destroyed the last small-government policies that had existed in the Republican party. Thus REagan was forced into every republican talking agenda as the first "True Republican" since Goldwater, except this time Reagan won the elections.

 

This shit with foreign vs. domestic big govt. has existed for quite some time, the "Reagan Revolution" finally allowed hard line right-wingers to cement control over the Republican party.

  On 12/31/2011 at 10:10 PM, Awepittance said:

i think it's safe to say that at this point in the election, Ron Paul has already done irreparable damage or good (depending on your persuasion) to the republican party itself. His influence can be felt all over the spectrum even among the ignorant lock-step republicans. IT's not normal to hear someone call in a republican talk radio show and talk badly about American foreign policy, right now it is very normal. Ron Paul has as far as i can tell lifted the taboo somewhat on what republicans are allowed to believe. Same with the war on drugs, you'll find a lot more rational conservatives coming out of the wood work and expressing their discontent with it. Before a lot of these people would have been afraid to express their opinion and afraid of being called a commie-liberal-pink-hippie. Asshole/idiot conservatives will still try to characterize Paul this way, such as Michael Savage or Mark Levine. It's because they need to reinforce to their drone listeners the imaginary and cloistering barriers that keep republicans from being intellectual people. It goes back to the classic prophet trying to take control of his masses, keep them uneducated and in the dark so they will be loyal servants. Ron Paul utteore rly shatters this paradigm for the desperate control freak conservative demigods. And for that alone i think the phenomenon is pretty awesome. I've been listening to these a-holes for years and hoping one day they would be challenged somehow, by a little old man from Texas is even more pleasurable.

lol'd before reading

My favorite reporter glenn Greenwald, writes a scathing critque on those out there who level the charge at Paul that he's 'crazy', but somehow find 90% of our politicians who like mass killing and preemptive war 'sane'

http://www.salon.com...05/28/crazy_10/

  Quote

One of the favorite self-affirming pastimes of establishment Democratic and Republican pundits is to mock anyone and everyone outside of the two-party mainstream as crazy, sick lunatics. That serves to bolster the two political parties as the sole arbiters of what is acceptable: anyone who meaningfully deviates from their orthodoxies are, by definition, fringe, crazy losers. Ron Paul is one of those most frequently smeared in that fashion, and even someone like Howard Dean, during those times when he stepped outside of mainstream orthodoxy, was similarly smeared as literally insane, and still is.

 

 

Last night, the crazy, hateful, fringe lunatic Ron Paul voted to repeal the Clinton-era Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy (or, more accurately, he voted to allow the Pentagon to repeal it if and when it chooses to) – while 26 normal, sane, upstanding, mainstream House Democrats voted to retain that bigoted policy. Paul explained today that he changed his mind on DADT because gay constituents of his who were forced out of the military convinced him of the policy’s wrongness — how insane and evil he is!

In 2003, the crank lunatic-monster Ron Paul vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq, while countless sane, normal, upstanding, good-hearted Democrats —including the current Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Senate Majority Leader, House Majority Leader, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, and many of the progressive pundits who love to scorn Ron Paul as insane — supported the monstrous attack on that country.

In 2008, the sicko Ron Paul opposed the legalization of Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program and the granting of retroactive immunity to lawbreaking telecoms, while the Democratic Congress — led by the current U.S. President, his Chief of Staff, the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House, and the House Majority Leader — overwhelmingly voted it into law. Paul, who apparently belongs in a mental hospital, vehemently condemned America’s use of torture from the start, while many leading Democrats were silent (or even supportive), and mainstream, sane Progressive Newsweek and MSNBC pundit Jonathan Alter was explicitly calling for its use. ComparePaul’s February, 2010 emphatic condemnation of America’s denial of habeas corpus, lawless detentions and presidential assassinations of U.S. citizens towhat the current U.S. Government is doing.

The crazed monster Ron Paul also opposes the war in Afghanistan, while the Democratic Congress continues to fund it and even to reject timetables for withdrawal. Paul is an outspoken opponent of the nation’s insane, devastating and oppressive “drug war” — that imprisons hundreds of thousands of Americans with a vastly disparate racial impact and continuously incinerates both billions of dollars and an array of basic liberties — while virtually no Democrat dares speak against it. Paul crusades against limitless corporate control of government and extreme Federal Reserve secrecy, while the current administration works to preserve it. He was warning of the collapsing dollarand housing bubble at a time when our Nation’s Bipartisan Cast of Geniuses were oblivious. In sum, behold the embodiment of clinical, certifiable insanity: anti-DADT, anti-Iraq-war, anti-illegal-domestic-surveillance, anti-drug-war, anti-secrecy, anti-corporatism, anti-telecom-immunity, anti-war-in-Afghanistan.

There’s no question that Ron Paul holds some views that are wrong, irrational and even odious. But that’s true for just about every single politician in both major political parties (just look at the condition of the U.S. if you doubt that; and note how Ron Paul’s anti-abortion views render him an Untouchable for progressives while Harry Reid’s anti-abortion views permit him to be a Progressive hero and even Senate Majority Leader). My point isn’t that Ron Paul is not crazy; it’s that those who self-righteously apply that label to him and to others invariably embrace positions and support politicians at least as “crazy.” Indeed, those who support countless insane policies and/or who support politicians in their own party who do — from the Iraq War to the Drug War, from warrantless eavesdropping and denial of habeas corpus to presidential assassinations and endless war in the Muslim world — love to spit the “crazy” label at anyone who falls outside of the two-party establishment.

* * * * *

This behavior is partially driven by the adolescent/high-school version of authoritarianism (anyone who deviates from the popular cliques — standard Democrats and Republicans — is a fringe loser who must be castigated by all those who wish to be perceived as normal), and is partially driven by the desire to preserve the power of the two political parties to monopolize all political debates and define the exclusive venues for Sanity and Mainstream Acceptability. But regardless of what drives this behavior, it’s irrational and nonsensical in the extreme.

I’ve been writing for several years about this destructive dynamic: whereby people who embrace clearly crazy ideas and crazy politicians anoint themselves the Arbiters of Sanity simply because they’re good mainstream Democrats and Republicans and because the objects of their scorn are not. For me, the issue has nothing to do with Ron Paul and everything to do with how the “crazy” smear is defined and applied as a weapon in our political culture. Perhaps the clearest and most harmful example was the way in which the anti-war view was marginalized, even suppressed, in the run-up to the attack on Iraq because the leadership of both parties supported the war, and the anti-war position was thus inherently the province of the Crazies. That’s what happens to any views not endorsed by either of the two parties.

(the amount of sourced links in this article is just one example of why if you're not reading Glenn Greenwald, you should be)

lol'd again.

[youtubehd]py8cXlLyX18[/youtubehd]

  On 12/31/2011 at 10:13 PM, Awepittance said:

(the amount of sourced links in this article is just one example of why if you're not reading Glenn Greenwald, you should be)

seriously, the guy is an amazing journalist. it doesn't hurt that i agree with him on almost everything in terms of politics.

Yeah let's look at just one of those links: the one where Paul talks about the housing bubble. What does he say? He says - Don't blame the market. Unfortunately The market and de-regulated industry are basically directly responsible.

i don't think anywhere in that article was Glenn Greenwald saying that Paul's views on the market or with the economy are any that he agrees with. He was pointing out that Ron Paul and his economic adviser Peter Schiff predicted exactly what happened. How and why they lead to this conclusion is not important, because as the phrase goes a broken clock is right twice a day. Never in the article does Greenwald emphasize that his correct views on the economy lead him to predict this.

you've chosen one of the only links in this article that doesn't put Ron Paul to the left of Obama on most issues

Don't I get points for having a link per sentence?

Don't Ask Don't Tell? Repealed by Obama

Drawdown in Iraq? Happening under Obama

Drawdown in Afghanistan? Obama administration trying to find ways to make it happen despite the war being a huge failure

Your notion of "How and why they lead to this conclusion is not important," (re: the economic crisis) is completely incorrect. The how and why the got to their conclusion is vitally important because Paul would attempt to enact laws that would perpetuate the situation, exacerbate the wealth gap, and deregulate the market as much as possible. His economic position would be insanity, and if you think the poor and oppressed have it hard in the US now, try and imagine what it would be like in a nation where stores or places of employment have the liberty to discriminate against whoever they like at will.

Obama's 'withdrawl' from iraq conforms to the already existing Bush timeline. Also look up giant embassies filled with thousands of contractors and 'state dept staff'. It demonstrates that they haven't withdrawn from the oilfields, manipulating local the local body politic or the encircling of iran. As to the other points, one is murky and the other is a propaganda exercise (note hillary's subsequent posturing about any global regimes not treating gays properly)

  On 1/1/2012 at 6:38 AM, chenGOD said:

Don't I get points for having a link per sentence?

No. I will assume you are joking

  Quote

Drawdown in Iraq? Happening under Obama

As delet says, this was determined by the Bush administration. Any president regardless of policy would presumably have followed this timeline.

  Quote

Drawdown in Afghanistan? Obama administration trying to find ways to make it happen despite the war being a huge failure

Sure. After Obama increased troop presence there by 50% soon after taking office, buying hook and line the patently ridiculous brute force strategies proposed by American military leaders (no sinker because McChrystal actually wanted half a million troops.)

Oh snap, almost forgot about Libya!

  Quote

Your notion of "How and why they lead to this conclusion is not important," (re: the economic crisis) is completely incorrect. The how and why the got to their conclusion is vitally important because Paul would attempt to enact laws that would perpetuate the situation, exacerbate the wealth gap, and deregulate the market as much as possible. His economic position would be insanity, and if you think the poor and oppressed have it hard in the US now, try and imagine what it would be like in a nation where stores or places of employment have the liberty to discriminate against whoever they like at will.

Paul is a mixed bag for sure. But if you ask what are the odds of his radical economic policies getting passed in office, well, probably very low. I think he couldn't possibly do more harm than Bush or Obama. I think he would be most effective in the areas precisely where he has it right: civil liberties and foreign policy. So to me it is worth the risk. Then again I am a well off white male

Oh well done Joseph - you spotted the sarcasm. Did you read the links?

Why would they have presumably followed the timeline? Guarantee any republican president keeps the troops there longer.

So he bought the line by the military leaders - but then realized his mistake and initiated plans to drawdown. (btw, the surge worked very well initially).

Civil Liberties? Did you read the link about what Ron Paul thinks of civil liberties? "Hey sorry negro, you can't come in this restaurant."

Foreign policy? Withdrawing all the troops, shipping them back to america while at the same time cutting funding for veterans assistance? Good work!

Isolating America economically by withdrawal from the WTO, IMF and I presume other FTAs? Awesome possum!

Delet - what encircling of Iran? The US can barely hold the bases it has in Afghanistan, and they're pulling out of Iraq.

As to contractors - this is data showing how many are US nationals:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdDFjazBZVWNQWjQ3RjFZMEpxdVF1U3c&hl=en#gid=0

And yes I know it's shocking but embassies are usually staffed by citizens of the nation from which they come.

More Greenwald on Paul vs. Obama http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/singleton/

Obama is a bad president and so are the alternatives. I would be really disenfranchised if I lived in the US with the political system being as it is. And there seem to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Actually, even if I don't live in the US, the way things are going, they still disturb me, for I know that whatever happens there will eventually find itself to Europe and up the secluded north. Be it political discourse or ideological views on things. Already neo-liberal policies have infested this place. We are so fucked.

*Adds Greenwald to bookmarks*

  On 1/1/2012 at 12:23 PM, azatoth said:

More Greenwald on Paul vs. Obama http://www.salon.com...cies/singleton/

 

Obama is a bad president and so are the alternatives. I would be really disenfranchised if I lived in the US with the political system being as it is. And there seem to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Actually, even if I don't live in the US, the way things are going, they still disturb me, for I know that whatever happens there will eventually find itself to Europe and up the secluded north. Be it political discourse or ideological views on things. Already neo-liberal policies have infested this place. We are so fucked.

Not if Ron Paul gets into power! Huzzah for isolationism.

this thread is a great example of how if no one like Paul is running there would be no reason to have this debate at all. If paul was not running there would be no one to bring up our overwhelming militarism, since Obama and every single candidate on the RNC side is seemingly completely ok with the status quo of our imperialism. Good GG article as always.

I don't see anyone thinking that Obama is NOT okay with imperialism I just think that Paul is not the answer to said imperialism.

he's against imperialism for all the wrong reasons and on top of that he would set this country back 100 years on social issues and top of THAT he'd let the poor starve to death as the rich use their frail broken bodies to power their luxury airships.

I agree with that for sure Robbie - there has been some much needed debate - the question is will it prove fruitful?