I’ve recently heard from a few friends who are considering candidates of choice in the primary elections, who seem to be leaning somewhat in the direction of Ron Paul. I have a few thoughts on this man as a candidate for President of the United States.
I do think Ron Paul is fantastic when it comes to defending the Constitution, and pretty good on foreign policy and war, BUT (and this is a big “but”) when it comes to social policy, and policy on regulating and controlling corporations’ vast and dangerous influence, he’s a DISASTER!
I heard an interview with Congressman Paul recently on Air America Radio. On the issue of corporate media concentration and the death of real news in the U.S., he basically said that he doesn’t see any problem—nothing that “the marketplace” can’t sort out. Questioned further about the overwhelming representation of the corporate agenda in corporate media, he said (I’m paraphrasing), “Well, you do have the Internet.”
Oh, brother! As if we should be satisfied with having the average citizen’s concerns and point of view relegated just to the Internet! This completely ignores the fact that the Internet is an active communications medium, and broadcast media are primarily a passive channel… and most Americans have for decades been content to get most of their “news” from broadcast media (primarily TV).
Sure, you could say that people should take a more active role as consumers of news—and they should—but when the hard working wage earner comes home from a hard day in the “salt mines” (whether it’s a blue collar or a white collar job), it’s so much easier to just turn on the TV and collapse into the recliner with a nice cold beer. And because the corporate media news moguls know that they’ve got a more or less captive consumer audience (OK, yes they can switch the channel… but the next channel is just as corporate-brainwash as the previous one, and the next, and the next…) Well, it’s so easy to use that powerful and passive medium as a corporate brainwashing tool, to convince Joe Six Pack to support government policies and politicians that aren’t working in his best interests.
In the same interview, Ron Paul suggested that we should “trust the market” to do what’s right—thus negating the role of government regulation in the public interest, which is to protect the less powerful citizen from the imminently more powerful corporation (which, by the way, has been deceitfully given the rights of “personhood” by U.S. courts). This is a familiar mantra coming from Mr. Paul. SORRY, but I’m not buying this boatload of crap!
“Trust the market,” indeed. What did deregulation of corporate media get us? (Thanks, but no thanks to Bill Clinton for that!) What did lax oversight of the mortgage banking industry get us? What did look-the-other-way, see-no-evil lack of oversight of the Pentagon’s contracting processes get us? (Multi-multi millions and billions of cost over-runs and outright fraud on the American taxpayer, that’s what!!)
Remove environmental controls on polluting industries such as coal fired power plants, and what do we get? Record high, highly toxic levels of mercury in the air and watersheds of middle America—that’s what we got. And now it’s in the breast milk of millions of moms, and in their children.
I’ve never understood this faux-altruistic ideology of Libertarians and Repub-libertarians, the idea that government regulation is the big evil we have to fight, and that if we just leave the poor corporations alone, they will do “the right thing” and we’ll all be living fat and happy in the Land of the Free. Sorry, but I never bought it, and I’m still not buying. Maybe it’s nice to hearken back romantically to the days of yesteryear and the hardworking, industrious American farmer and the American craftsman, who ran their small businesses on an ethical bedrock, on a strong handshake and a direct look in the eye. Nice sentimental stuff, for sure… but it doesn’t apply to today’s corporate monsters!
To be fair to Congressman Paul, he does have a record of opposing government regulation when it becomes intrusive on certain citizens’ rights. Case in point: He opposed and spoke out against a bill that was passed by the Senate Commerce Committee last year aimed at “universal filtering” on the Internet. Good on yer, Mr. Paul, for that one.
But protecting the civil rights of citizens, as opposed to supposed civil “rights” of corporations ain’t the same thing, simply because corporations wield infinitely more clout than just about any citizen. It’s a tempting idea for some, I guess, to try to be egalitarian when it comes to defending rights, but we all know what happens (if we’re paying attention) when big business is given free reign by government.
Look at the mess our nation is in now. A federal government in bed with giant corporations and multinationals—a veritable orgy of corporate/government incest. Skyrocketing, perilous national debt. Our nation led to war against a nation that posed no threat, with a web of lies as the rationale, and the real agenda (lust for Iraqi oil—$21 trillion in proven reserves!) being the giant elephant in the living room that no one in the corporate media or in government (except a rare few) will dare to speak out about. The Bush administration has gutted federal regulatory power over corporations, and what do we get? Certainly not “the right thing.”
Ron Paul’s defense of the Constitution is admirable and inspiring, and I wish more Senators and Representatives were as passionate. But his laissez faire defense of corporations—and via his anti-regulatory ideology, a further enabling of their poisonous stranglehold on our government—this is inexcusable, for someone who calls himself a patriot.
The United States of America was birthed in opposition to Empire, and now we have become the very same dark force that our forefathers fought against. These corporations and their bedfellows in government need to be reigned in. As I’ve said before, American capitalism is now a runaway train with no brakes. Capitalism, in order to work for everyone in our nation, must have some brakes on it.
It’s time to put the brakes back on this train. I don’t see any indication that Ron Paul is the one who will take the lead in doing so.
peace,
steve
Ron Paul
Comment by Steve Sanders
3 January 30, 2008, 12:54 am o'clock |
Hmmm… So the fat cat CEOs and board members are going to suffer as bad as the rest of us, huh? Somehow I doubt it. A few millions, or tens of millions less in the bank doesn’t hurt them in the same way that falling real incomes hurt the middle and working classes. Since the NeoCons have tightened their stranglehold over our government and our economy, the disparity in distribution of wealth in the U.S. has grown increasingly, obscenely, almost exponentially, to the point where we’re entering a new age of the Robber Barons.
It’s not about class warfare, at least not in the sense that you’re hinting at. How unfortunate that you choose to use that transparent canard that’s served up by the NeoCons as a diversionary red herring, to get the ignorant proles to believe that standing up for a fair and just economic system should be equated with “class warfare.”
Hey, it’s not the middle class and the working class that’s waging class warfare—it’s the NeoCon corporate billionaires and multi-multi millionaires (not all of them… not all millionaires are corrupt… I’m talking about the NeoCons) and their lackey bedfellows in government that have been waging covert class warfare against US, ever since Ronald Reagan and his cohorts started the ball rolling. Soon as George Bush and his goons hijacked their way into the White House (twice), they’ve put the program on steroids and, as I said, they’ve taken the brakes off the train of capitalism. The danger is, it’s likely headed for a train wreck, but they won’t care—not one whit. They got THEIRS—they’ll be sitting fat and happy when the whole thing comes unraveled and, perhaps, China and Saudi Arabia and the other creditors decide to call in their chits—and the rest of us… well, we can just “eat cake” (or shit) for all they care.
Don’t make the mistake of characterizing citizens like me who rail against this corporate abuse and excess as being “anti-capitalist.” I am NOT anti-capitalist; I happen to be a business owner. I just believe—I KNOW—that capitalism must have some controls placed on it, for one simple reason: The GREED factor!
Watch the film “Wall Street” again, and listen to Gordon Gecko’s pronouncement that “Greed is good!” Sorry, but greed is NOT good. Greed is destructive, and now we’re seeing the fallout from this latest orgy of greed (helped along, to be fair, during the Clinton administration… Bill and his minions were members of the NeoCon club, too.) Sure the stock market is tanking! That’s a result of these short-sighted, greedy, rake-it-in-while-you-can and damn the consequences NeoCon policies. They really DON’T CARE that they’re saddling my children, and your children, and our grandchildren with a massive debt that will be crushing us for decades to come. They got theirs, and we the middle class and working class can just pay the piper for them, suffer the consequences.
Jesus didn’t say (as he is often misquoted) that “Money is the root of evil.” He said that “Love of money (meaning, LUST after money) is the root of evil.”
I won’t be a defeatist, as you seem to suggest we should, and just sigh and say that “Oh well, no one can touch these NeoCon corporatists. So why bother?” Bob, they have HIJACKED our government, and our democracy (if we can even call it that anymore). It’s certainly not a government of “We The People.” It is clearly a government of “We The Corporations.”
Listen to the words of one of our greatest presidents, and then tell me that you’re ready to let these bastards destroy all that we and our forefathers have fought and bled for:
Comment by Bob D
2 January 29, 2008, 2:38 pm o'clock |
Looks to me that American corporations are about to suffer as bad as the rest of us. Check the stock market. I’m not sure what your soution is. Are you a class warfare advocate? Is your bogey man the rich when you say the corporations? Or the “elites”? Maybe its the multinationals. Ron Paul just does’t kid himself that he has any control over those guys. Neither would Obama. Roosevelt couldn’t touch them. And they have more options now than they did then.
How about electing a president who will make the few positive contributions you speak of that only Ron Paul will do (and some you do’t speak of like getting us out of the Iraq war).
Rely on the democrats in congress to stop Ron Paul where you want him stopped!!!!!!
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