Political Lessons of Late Summer '08 Dem and Rep conventions, Rally for the Republic, one clear message: Support the Libertarians
My political convention viewing this
year did not start until the Democrats set up in Denver the last week of August. Unfortunately, I could not personally attend the convention of
the political party of which I'm a member: the Libertarians, also in Denver. And as much as I regard the freedom credentials of Bob Barr as a bit shaky, I'm glad he's our nominee. He's respectable, he's polling in double digits in a few states, and he's going to probably take more votes away from the neocon-lunatic Republicans than from the seriously flawed yet essentially-and-redeemably human Democrats.
What I'm going to do for this column is basically transcribe with editing of my special "VIP notes" that I email to a small group of Coffee Coaster aficionados approximately twice a week. [If you're interested in being on the VIP list (or you want to be removed from it) please send me an email to that effect.]
Michelle Obama and General Prospects
I wanted to comment on Michelle Obama's speech last night, which was one of the best and most connecting speeches I've had the privilege to hear. It definitely signifies an end to the Neocon Republican reign of the Bushoviks and their descendants. I can't see the McBush team as having any response whatsoever. At last a real human being married to another real human being running for president; neither of them in the maw of the great power machine that Washington and the other oligarchical cities of the West have become.
Alas, for all the genuine humanity, we do have some genuine problems to solve that Obama is not going to find in the conventional Democratic toolbox, particularly economic problems... but he's a pragmatist and perhaps he's honest enough to think for himself and read some good salutary tomes, such as The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin, so we can work our way out of the credit hole created by the Federal Reserve System and the income tax... among many other disasters created by coercion of the state. Further, he's going to have to stand up a lot better for civil liberties and peace: Obama failed us on the FISA Amendments and has recently been playing footsie with the war and bogus-terror crowd (esp. wrt to Iran).
Doesn't anyone wonder why we couldn't have just nominated (then elected) Ron Paul?
So naturally I'm worried about Obama. Many columnists are stating that if Obama doesn't go on the attack against the neocon-Nazis who have effectively taken over the government, and make the case for justice, the people won't support him... he'll turn into another lukewarm pablum pusher like Nancy Pelosi or, well, Hillary Clinton. No storm and fury. Speaking of which, everyone has to read Vincent Bugliosi's tome The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Recall Mr. Bugliosi is the prosecutor who convinced a jury that Charles Manson needed to be put away for murder; and he's no opponent of the death penalty either. Wouldn't it be interesting to convict GWB of first degree murder and have him executed: the distinguished Execution Governor of Texas becoming the distinguished Executed President from Texas.
Under the law, GWB definitely committed murder.
Bugliosi's case is air tight, and a large number of high administration officials also appear to be guilty of the conspiracy to commit murder, the wrongful killing of American service people. The nuts are off the buggy now. But back to the big O. The Huffington people are telling him to step up and go on the attack, and they're right. Basically, we have a slam dunk for the criminality of the war as well as for perpetrating the attacks of 9/11--please all architects and engineers out there, join Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Justice is supposed to be a big theme among Democrats, now's the time to put some real bad guys where the sun don't shine. Before they cobble up another excuse for war, such as the US/Israeli/Georgian aggression on Ossetia, which precipitated the Russian counterattack. A subject of my guest column yesterday.
Keep the faith, my friends. We have them on the run now.
Off to See the Wizard
The Wizard of Cool, that is, Ron Paul and his minions are gathering in Minneanoplace to hold an alternative convention to the Republican one, calling it: Rally for the Republic. I believe all 13,000 seats at the Target Center are sold out for the Tuesday signature day when Dr. Paul, Jesse Ventura, Barry Goldwater, Jr., and other notables present their case for Constitutional Liberty to the American people. And I'm going to be a minion. Considering that McCain with his senility-induced VP pick, Sarah Palin, has essentially thrown in the towel to Obama World, what Ron Paul does on the other side of town should be of interest to all Republicans.
After all, Republicans are delegates to a convention, which is a private political organization that can change its own rules with enough votes. Ron is still formally a Republican candidate for president, with delegates pledged to him. Don't be surprised if the incomprehensible McCain VP pick, combined with the libertarian shenanigans down the street that I'll be part of, throws the entire convention into a tizzie. It's fascinating to watch the neocon pundits turn blue having to swallow this pill of politics of the absurd, and trying to put a smiley face on this bona fide doodoo in the punch bowl. The Republicans and the Neocon horse they rode in on are a Laughingstock. Bah bah.
Unless in convention they suspend the rules and nominate Ron Paul.
I'm not holding my breath. It's too soon for that level of consciousness to be dawning in America. Speaking of which, this idea of liberty via consciousness is increasingly my approach to politics these days, ever since I've become enthralled with the guru of the 21st century, Eckhart Tolle. I've been rereading The Power of Now—yes, Oprah recommended it once as the book of the month, so what—and I swear I'm marking every page that I didn't mark before on the first two times I read it. As Deepak Choprah says on the cover, "Every sentence rings with truth and power."
And that's what I see happening this week in Minneapolis, regardless of whether Ron Paul takes the nomination. Stay tuned for a full diary of the Freedom Rider's impressions to be posted on these Coffee Coaster pages. On the other side of things, I'm leaving town having watched and reviewed an exceptional movie from 2002, Far from Heaven. Aptly named. Enjoy your Labor Day, originating in 1882 as a day off for working citizens.
Rumble for the Republic
The Freedom Rider is officially back from the front, having spent an extended Labor Day weekend at Ron Paul's Rally for the Republic. So much to discuss, and I've begun to assemble my images and words for the trip report, but I'd like to say a few words right here in my Friday Beaniegram.
First, the typical man-on-the-street Ron Paulist is pretty much an everyday sort of person, who understands the Constitution and wants to reestablish it in America: to this "typical" person, Ron Paul appeals to them, but Jesse Ventura appeals to them even more, because: Jesse believes in a) reproductive freedom, b) 9/11 truth, c) that Democrats and Republicans are destroying our country—Dr. Paul remains perversely Republican—, d) prosecution of the Bush administration for war crimes, e) in natural as opposed to supernatural Jesus, f) the objective reality that humans are affecting the planet dangerously adversely with fossil-fuel wastes.
In other words, Jesse Ventura, who spoke at the Rally—indeed he brought down the house and essentially declared his presidential candidacy as an Independent come 2012—exhorted the freedom people assembled there to take our revolution to the streets and throw out the ruling class... in so many words. He talked about how the Democrats and the Republicans have colluded to deny us the views of other parties or persons in the national debates. One thing is for sure, if Jesse is the 2012 candidate as an independent, he'll be in the debates; they won't be able to keep him off the stage. Further, he'll win... the debates and the election. I don't think there's any doubt. For me, Ventura is everything I wish Ron Paul (and Bob Barr, for that matter) were: a secular-humanist man of science and liberty, with buckets of charisma, and willing to take it to the Man, on the streets, like Now!
RP, alas, is light in the slippers when it comes to reason (he's a supernaturalist Christian), science (he believes in creationism), choice (the states would have the right to coerce a woman to carry pregnancies to term, but there would be no federal involvement), and a handful of other issues that bear on Bible stories. And he has the charisma of an apple. Thus, the other typical Ron Paulist in attendance at a convention like this—probably a large minority approaching 50%—is similarly weak in the reason/science/choice department, and falls in with the "just folks" kind of cracker-barrelish temperament of Dr. Paul.
They like him, and, sure, we reason/science/choice people do, too. Why do we all like him? Well, because he's consistent on the Constitution, he'll end the Drug War, he'll end the Empire, he'll restore civil liberties to everyone—and probably all but the worst-off poor women will retain the effective civil liberty of aborting unwanted blastocysts. With Ron Paul, we'll get our country back. With the Campaign for Liberty he's basically established a pressure group to coalesce the Constitutional Liberty movement, focused mainly on bringing the Republican Party back to its roots. [I hate to tell them this, but the Republican Party's roots are and have always been war and corporatism—i.e. fascism, welfare for the rich, imperialism. The simple libertarianism of Robert Taft and one or two other Republicans like Dr. Paul have to be seen as aberrations to real Republicanism.]
The soft-spoken, Mittyesque Ron Paul is quite the Revolutionary in his own right. Further, he's an animal when it comes to the Federal Reserve and the income tax. They're history under a Ron Paul administration. In the area of hard-money economics and economic freedom, RP is probably a head and half a shoulder above Jesse Ventura... and miles above any other candidate of 2008. It was a pleasure to be in attendance... which attendance was a bit disappointing, candidly. (I'm guessing we had 8,000 for the big speeches.) I met and talked with so many interesting people, and I estimate the average age at less than 35 years old. It was truly an exciting experience. Several musical acts were inspiring and exhilarating, though the sound system basically sucked.
Down the street, in fact in St. Paul at the ExCel Building, the evil Republicans were meeting to anoint John McCain.
I heard from sources in the NH Peace Movement that several peaceful protestors were arrested, virtually all of them intimidated and menaced by a massive police-state presence; Democracy Now's Amy Goodman was arrested. My landlord back in Merrimack, who was supposed to come but could not get the ride to come through, tells me he witnessed coverage of SWAT teams entering residences and motel rooms with sham warrants to disrupt planning of legal protests and then expropriating money, computers, basically anything the goons felt they should take. This outrages me and, along with the VP nomination of Sarah Palin—a theocratic tyrant wannabe—concerns me deeply.
Has anyone seen the brilliantly prophetic movie by Tim Robbins, Bob Roberts? Well, we're getting down to the dregs of society, believe me, when characters like the ones played by Jack Black—he and his other young psycho "pro-war-pro-life" friend eagerly volunteer to commit acts of violence against leftists and other protestors—start to materialize on the mainstream stage. With Sarah Palin in tow, the anti-abortion terrorists have now been handed a blank check by the Republican authoritarian hierarchy to do whatever is necessary to thwart the wishes of civilized people for peace, civil liberties, and a reasonable reduction of corporate privilege. And as Arianna points out, Sarah is the perfect distraction from the McCain record of deceit and warmongering. We must not fall into that trap: best approach for Democrats (and Libertarians and other third parties) is to ignore Sarah and focus on the massive defects of the Sleazemeister Senator from Arizona that Barry Goldwater despised but was too gentlemanly to say so in public.
I want to mention as well, that I've formally decided to vote for Libertarian Bob Barr, and I advocate that anyone considering voting for McCain/Palin instead vote for B2... because: a) at all costs McCain must not win and b) we need to make sure Obama understands that not fighting the massive US-security/police-state/empire—he's supported the FISA amendments, Iran provocations, the whole endorsement of Georgian aggression, temporizing on Iraq withdrawal, etc.—is not an option. And I'm chagrined that neither Ron Paul nor Jesse Ventura nor any of the other speakers deigned to state the obvious: B2 is the most consistent remaining candidate advocating CL (Constitutional Liberty).
One other thing before I go, I have to say during the course of this convention I've come to let go of the need that all semblances of unconsciousness—from Sarah Palin and her insane anti-abortionist minions to ordinary ostensibly otherwise thinking libertarians (mostly theists, but a distressing number of Objectivists as well) who, for reasons ranging from Al Gore hatred to ExxonMobil PR shills, don't accept the unassailable science and arithmetic behind what we're doing to the environment with fossil fuels—have to be urgently eliminated. Fact is, consciousness will emerge (or not) whether or not I get myself into a Berserker's Rant about it. And actually I think it will emerge.
The fundamental observation: the achievement of liberty is a pure function of consciousness. Check out Mr. Tolle.
