Perhaps the most fascinating action on the current political stage is the way the Left in this country attacks Ron Paul.
The Republican nomination race right now consists of four candidates. The mainstream Democratic noise and propaganda machine mainly focuses on two. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Newt is doing is usual grandstanding routine, where he says anything that might get him attention and thus help make future book deals and speaking appearances pay in the hopes that he can live the rest of his life without ever having to get a real job. Santorum is usually described as the dumbest guy in politics, and routinely appeals to the people who would have burned Galileo and Copernicus at the stake for daring to suggest that the church was wrong when they said that the Earth was the center of the universe.
These two characters are the heart of the current Democratic campaign, which basically says that we should all vote for the current President and his economic policies of Hoover and Reagan and his foreign policy of Dubya just because these guys are worse. So, there's lots of noise from the noise machine about how awful Santorum and Gingrich are. The writers of the Dem noise machine generally ignore Mr. Paul because he's doesn't fit the role of this sort of propaganda as well as Santorum and Gingrich.
Mitt Romney is the Wall Street candidate on the right this year.
Opensecrets.org records how the early Wall Street money in this election cycle has been flowing to Romney and Obama. So, the Democrats largely leave him alone. After all, he's backed by the same Wall Street money that backs the Democrats, and the likes of Santorum and Gringrich make much better propaganda for the Democrats politics of fear campaigns.
Then there's Ron Paul. On the surface, there's much in common between the left and Paul. There's a fake 2-D world-view imposed on politics in this age of 3-D entertainment that consigns candidates to the 'left' or 'right'. But when you look closely, its more of a mobius strip that wraps on itself as you find opposition to the wars and pro-corporate governance on both the left and right ends of the strip. In reality, what there really is is a corrupt, self-defined center that believes in taking your money and using it for corrupt payoffs to supporters and more and more and more war. All defended by an ever growing police and prison system that defends this corrupt, self-defined center from any real popular challenge.
In this view of politics, it makes sense for the left to support a Paul campaign that opposes our wars, opposes a corrupt pro-corporate government, and which opposes the anti-constitutional police state that tries to infiltrate, subvert and crush any opposition from the left.
Yet, what you find around the internet is the most shrill and nasty attacks upon any Republican from the left are aimed at Ron Paul. Reading these, you'd think Ron Paul is another Ralph Nader. Its a very strange sight to see. What passes for the left in this country is vigorously attacking the only anti-war candidate in the Presidential race that has even a slight prayer of success. With the only apparent outcome of such attacks to be the implied support of Obama and the Democrats and their goal to make Dubya look like a piker when it comes to starting war after war around the world.
You see the usual techniques of left-ist propaganda aimed at Mr. Paul. That is the cherry-picking of positions that the left doesn't like,and a focusing on those in their shrill screaming.
To me, I read these, and I ask the following questions. Does the left really want the wars to continue? The left is doing its political impersonation of Monty Python's dead parrot these days. There's absolutely nothing happening to the left of Obama to challenge his Reaganist government and policies. Which continues the pattern of the organized left that has existed for some time in that they only oppose Republican wars and policies. When a Democrat does the same things that a Republican does, the left falls into silent agreement.
If there was a strong left-ist challenge to Mr. Obama in this election, I'd support it. But there is none. The left has decided to sit out the Democratic primaries this year. And the popular left is so devoid of candidates in the general election that Rosanne Barr seems driven to take her comedy routine on to the political stage to fill the void that only a publicity hound could apparently spot.
With the left sitting there nailed to its perch in silence, the only political game in town right now for those who oppose our pro-war, pro-corporate, pro-police state government is the Ron Paul campaign. But, when people seem to spot that, that's when the screeching noises start to come from the dead lefty parrot nailed to its perch that suddenly start to tell you how awful Congressman Paul really is.
Its truly a quite bizarre political spectacle. I thought I'd seen the depths of how politically stupid and ineffective the left can be in politics, but this appears to be new depths.
Does the left not want the wars to end?
Does the left not want an honest government by a candidate who isn't bought by Wall Street?
Here's the main reason the left should support Ron Paul. Mr. Paul believes in the Constitution. We live in an age where the left's favorite Democrat has been sending the FBI and grand juries in vindictive attacks on the anti-war movement. We live in an age where one feels that in any political organizing attempt on the left one needs to look around the room to find out who's the FBI agent in the room. We live in an age where Cointel like activities seem to dominate anything on the left as you see people who seem to be actively subverting organizing and political goals from within any leftist popular movement.
Last year, we saw Obama's Department of Homeland Security and largely Democratic mayors and governors combine on coordinated police attacks on the Occupy Movement in cities across the country.
Given all of that, wouldn't it be nice to have a President that actually respects and believes in the Constitution?
To me, any political candidate is going to have policies I agree with and ones I don't. I don't agree with Ron Paul on everything. But, I think he's right on the important stuff. I'd like to see a President who ends these wars and who tries to reign in the military industrial complex. I'd like to have a President who seems to be honest and un-bought. If nothing else, I'd like to see a victory for Ron Paul because that victory would be a defeat for the minions of money from Wall Street that have dominated the government of this country for twenty years or more.
But, most of all, wouldn't it be nice to have a President who respects the Constitution and who isn't building a police state and using it to infiltrate, subvert, attack and crush any political organizing on the left? Wouldn't that just perhaps open up a little operating room for leftist activists in this country?
If you truly oppose rule by Wall Street and the wars and police state of the Dubya/Obama administration, you support Ron Paul. If you attack Ron Paul, I'm left wondering what you really support? At the very least, what can be said about the attackers of Ron Paul from the left are that they put their own narrow-minded political ideologies above any effective attempt to organize politically to challenge the power that's destroying this country. Of course, for anyone who's been around the left, that's not exactly a new revelation.
If anything decent is ever going to come from the political left in this country, first its going to have to grow up. And a sign of political maturity from the left would be support for an opposition candidate from the right that would give the left at least a few victories. Little things, like saving the lives of thousands of people who die in the Dubya/Obama wars.
So far, the left is still showing they haven't moved past political kindergarten. Does not play well with others is the political report card on the left so far this year.
