I don't think Ron Paul is a racist, either. But if he's trusting his name and reputation to someone (as with this newsletter), he gets to take the responsibility for what they say and do. If I delegate something to someone on my team and they do it badly, I'm still responsible as the guy who signed off on them doing it. It doesn't speak well of his judgment.
Or perhaps the delegation trickled down too many steps. Either way he has disavowed them, and putting them in context of all the printed newsletter content, which was centered around investing, it's less that 100th of 1 percent. So it's apparent that the media is really grasping here at this guilt by association trick. And when you have Gloria, who's husband is an inside contractor for the military industrial complex, there sure is a reason to attempt to smear Ron Paul - he's bad for their business! But it's disturbing to say the least that CNN and other outlets would run with this... the entire interview shows that the interview was simply over. It's really disturbing that our press is nothing more that biased agenda pieces that support their corporatist, big govt industries. I do not trust the media at all!
I haven't followed this thread in a while but is anyone paying attention to the fact that Paul, who spoke so passionately against NDAA didn't bother to show up to vote against it? Is he afraid to take a stand because he is in "campaign" mode or did he just not feel the need to show up and do the job he is elected to do? Either way, I have a much lower view of him because of that. Bachmann and a small handful also neglected to show. The only name I saw on the no vote list that seemed to have a legit excuse is Giffords, although I'm not sure why they don't have someone standing in for her at this point. She is not ready or able to resume her duties and it seems unfair to her constituents to be unrepresented.
There's more to it than that. It was moved off the agenda, then quickly moved back and voted on. If it was close he would have been there, I'm sure. But the important thing is that he is against these types of things. Bachmann voted FOR it!
Paul is campaigning to become president to he can veto things like this. We know where he stands and doesn't flip flop, something we can't say about anyone else in this race.
I haven't followed this thread in a while but is anyone paying attention to the fact that Paul, who spoke so passionately against NDAA didn't bother to show up to vote against it? Is he afraid to take a stand because he is in "campaign" mode or did he just not feel the need to show up and do the job he is elected to do? Either way, I have a much lower view of him because of that. Bachmann and a small handful also neglected to show. The only name I saw on the no vote list that seemed to have a legit excuse is Giffords, although I'm not sure why they don't have someone standing in for her at this point. She is not ready or able to resume her duties and it seems unfair to her constituents to be unrepresented.
The only other politician in recent times who has matched Paul’s goodwill-generating capacity is Barack Obama. When the Jeremiah Wright scandal broke, Obama had grown a layer of Teflon. No one was willing to buy that the man who was loftily declaring that “there is no white America, there is no black America, there is only the United States of America” could actually have any sympathy for the kind of divisive racial rhetoric that Wright was peddling. Apart from Obama’s right-wing detractors, everyone was eager to believe him. Hence Obama could make a speech distancing himself from Wright and condemning his vitriol without looking hypocritical or losing credibility.
Paul could pull off something similar, although, admittedly, he has a rockier road ahead of him given that he is more directly culpable for the statements in the newsletters than Obama was for his preacher’s remarks. But if Paul stumbles and falls in the course of explaining what the philosophy that has inspired him does not stand for—namely the kind of thing contained in his newsletter—he will have turned his downfall into an even bigger teaching moment than his meteoric rise.
Can you point me to the works of a notable, (living) libertarian that doesn't contain any of the above nor any ramblings about property rights and taxes = theft and the like?
Liberalism started out quite well but went astray at some point:
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is, in reality, instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have property against those who have none at all."
In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that "they cannot be bothered with democracy", "cannot be bothered with politics"; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.
V.I. Lenin The State and Revolution Chapter 5: The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State
Soma®, its what's for dinner ... Huxley (loosely)
So many have been drugged into complacency ...
Want the revolution to start in a month ? Shut down the supply of tranks and anti depresants tomorrow.
Made sense to me, but you know I'm twisted to begin with.
I'm just so fed up with the crap going on right now, from all sides.
Its kept me off the boards and from really winding myself up.
Its getting hard to see how anything will change, regardless of who is in charge.
We be FUBARed.
In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that "they cannot be bothered with democracy", "cannot be bothered with politics"; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.
Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich — that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the "petty" — supposedly petty — details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for "paupers"!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., — we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been inclose contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.
V.I. Lenin The State and Revolution Chapter 5: The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State
I'm looking for the blog I read just a day or two ago, but according to that, it was pretty clear that the reporter who "broke" the story had the dirt given to him by someone else's Dirty Tricks operation. That doesn't have any bearing on whether it was good journalism to publish the story, but before anyone goes off ranting about journalists and whatever else, remember that that's all part of someone's plan. And is how we get the politicians we get.
edit: re-reading that, it's one disjointed mess of illogic and nonsense but I think there's a nugget of truth in it anyway. But I'm too full of ham & pie to care enough to write it better.
Made sense to me, but you know I'm twisted to begin with.
I'm just so fed up with the crap going on right now, from all sides.
Its kept me off the boards and from really winding myself up.
Its getting hard to see how anything will change, regardless of who is in charge.
...I am willing to bet that by next summer there will be an equal number of people who believe that Mitt Romney is a member of the KKK as those who believe that Obama is a Muslim. ...
You're on for $100. If you take the bet we'll have to agree on a source authority.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Dec 25, 2011 - 7:08pm
kurtster wrote:
...I am willing to bet that by next summer there will be an equal number of people who believe that Mitt Romney is a member of the KKK as those who believe that Obama is a Muslim. ...
You're on for $100. If you take the bet we'll have to agree on a source authority.
Its not clear anymore when you have an entire network such as NBC / GE shilling for Obama, with its CEO Immelt as one of Obama's chief advisors. And when someone like Mort Zuckerman of USN&WR and the NY Post invests in Bernie Madoff, keeping the secret rather than investigating Madoff, the Fourth Estate is rendered an elitist scam.
Who investigates anything anymore using two independent sources to substantiate or verify the accuracy of a claim or story ? That former Cardinal rule or gold standard for journalism has left the building a long time ago. Now it is just repetition of a claim to the point of if you say it often enough a lie becomes the truth.
I am willing to bet that by next summer there will be an equal number of people who believe that Mitt Romney is a member of the KKK as those who believe that Obama is a Muslim. Neither of which is true. Because the MSM media jumped on Romney's remarks and made him out to be a sheet wearer, yet no one will have noticed the retractions. Yet the Romney haters will have heard the confirmation they were waiting for and stopped listening, their minds closing like a steel bear trap.
The ad Romney PAC is running in Iowa against Gingrich using his past gets 4 Pinnochios from the Washington Post, no small accomplishment.
The current state of journalism is disgusting, IMHO. What happened to the 5 W's and two independent sources ? The editorial page is now the whole thing and people are believing anything that confirms their fears or beliefs without verifying anything, just as the authors of these masked opinions fail to verify the accuracy of their purported 'facts'.
2 ¢
I'm looking for the blog I read just a day or two ago, but according to that, it was pretty clear that the reporter who "broke" the story had the dirt given to him by someone else's Dirty Tricks operation. That doesn't have any bearing on whether it was good journalism to publish the story, but before anyone goes off ranting about journalists and whatever else, remember that that's all part of someone's plan. And is how we get the politicians we get.
edit: re-reading that, it's one disjointed mess of illogic and nonsense but I think there's a nugget of truth in it anyway. But I'm too full of ham & pie to care enough to write it better.
Are there reporters who live for making a candidate squirm? I'm sure. That, however, is not why most people go into journalism. A good journalist wants to be known as asking tough but fair questions (think Tim Russert).
Folk should be apprenhensive about this ever-escalating belief that the real villains in almost every scenario are those in the media. For politicians, it is an easy out — scapegoat the media. If it works — and there are those who lap up this kind of branding of the media by candidates — it diverts attention from the issue. A free and vigorous press is an essential part of the constitutional framework. We're walking a dangerous path when we believe that the role of journalists is just to seek to embarrass a candidate for his or her own personal gain or amusement.
It is up to the public to determine whether a particular issue is important for an upcoming election.
I'm not so much focused upon this particular issue with Ron Paul, and I don't know all of the details. However, it is not at all unusual for past issues to resurface when one is running for President (or other office; Robert Byrd had to answer questions about his affiliation with the KKK over and over). If he answered all the questions before, he just needs to repeat those answers. Are there those who are going to attempt to spin his answers? Sure; each of them employs folk who do that in his or her campaign.
Its not clear anymore when you have an entire network such as NBC / GE shilling for Obama, with its CEO Immelt as one of Obama's chief advisors. And when someone like Mort Zuckerman of USN&WR and the NY Post invests in Bernie Madoff, keeping the secret rather than investigating Madoff, the Fourth Estate is rendered an elitist scam.
Who investigates anything anymore using two independent sources to substantiate or verify the accuracy of a claim or story ? That former Cardinal rule or gold standard for journalism has left the building a long time ago. Now it is just repetition of a claim to the point of if you say it often enough a lie becomes the truth.
I am willing to bet that by next summer there will be an equal number of people who believe that Mitt Romney is a member of the KKK as those who believe that Obama is a Muslim. Neither of which is true. Because the MSM media jumped on Romney's remarks and made him out to be a sheet wearer, yet no one will have noticed the retractions. Yet the Romney haters will have heard the confirmation they were waiting for and stopped listening, their minds closing like a steel bear trap.
The ad Romney PAC is running in Iowa against Gingrich using his past gets 4 Pinnochios from the Washington Post, no small accomplishment.
The current state of journalism is disgusting, IMHO. What happened to the 5 W's and two independent sources ? The editorial page is now the whole thing and people are believing anything that confirms their fears or beliefs without verifying anything, just as the authors of these masked opinions fail to verify the accuracy of their purported 'facts'.
The only other politician in recent times who has matched Paul’s goodwill-generating capacity is Barack Obama. When the Jeremiah Wright scandal broke, Obama had grown a layer of Teflon. No one was willing to buy that the man who was loftily declaring that “there is no white America, there is no black America, there is only the United States of America” could actually have any sympathy for the kind of divisive racial rhetoric that Wright was peddling. Apart from Obama’s right-wing detractors, everyone was eager to believe him. Hence Obama could make a speech distancing himself from Wright and condemning his vitriol without looking hypocritical or losing credibility.
Paul could pull off something similar, although, admittedly, he has a rockier road ahead of him given that he is more directly culpable for the statements in the newsletters than Obama was for his preacher’s remarks. But if Paul stumbles and falls in the course of explaining what the philosophy that has inspired him does not stand for—namely the kind of thing contained in his newsletter—he will have turned his downfall into an even bigger teaching moment than his meteoric rise.
The only other politician in recent times who has matched Paul’s goodwill-generating capacity is Barack Obama. When the Jeremiah Wright scandal broke, Obama had grown a layer of Teflon. No one was willing to buy that the man who was loftily declaring that “there is no white America, there is no black America, there is only the United States of America” could actually have any sympathy for the kind of divisive racial rhetoric that Wright was peddling. Apart from Obama’s right-wing detractors, everyone was eager to believe him. Hence Obama could make a speech distancing himself from Wright and condemning his vitriol without looking hypocritical or losing credibility.
Paul could pull off something similar, although, admittedly, he has a rockier road ahead of him given that he is more directly culpable for the statements in the newsletters than Obama was for his preacher’s remarks. But if Paul stumbles and falls in the course of explaining what the philosophy that has inspired him does not stand for—namely the kind of thing contained in his newsletter—he will have turned his downfall into an even bigger teaching moment than his meteoric rise.
That's a bit like saying Arianna Huffington is responsible for any crazy shit on huffpo. If Ron Paul signed his name to an article he didn't write (sorry for not backscrolling) then sure, hang him. But if something unsavory appeared in his newsletter that he didn't write, then we can leave it at that.
If HuffPo started running racist nonsense while her name was on the masthead, then yes, I'd say she was responsible. Either she condoned it or she was too hands-off to nip it in the bud.
Yes, his responsibility for it is limited. But it's still there. If I was operating a newsletter that had my name on it and generated revenue for me, I'd want to know that it reflected my views and values accurately. I don't think this reflected Paul's views or values, but the fact that he let it go where it did is a little worrying.
That's a bit like saying Arianna Huffington is responsible for any crazy shit on huffpo. If Ron Paul signed his name to an article he didn't write (sorry for not backscrolling) then sure, hang him. But if something unsavory appeared in his newsletter that he didn't write, then we can leave it at that.
i agree
for what it is worth, over the last 17 years i've sent out (or had sent out) literally hundreds of news letters to thousands of clients with out reading - prior to receiving one in the mail myself
most all newsletters in my field are done through turn key services, all compliance approved
i do get to pick the parameters in general and they aren't detailed (no specific actionable refs) and they are free to our clients
from all of the info i've seen, these questionable remarks are completely out of character with everything paul says
i haven't backscrolled either, but is there any video of him quoting this stuff?
i'm not aware of any
as i've said before, i do have disagreements with some of paul's actions or rather the lack of
i just think it is a tragedy that the broad msg he has been delivering is being overshadowed by something like this
I don't think Ron Paul is a racist, either. But if he's trusting his name and reputation to someone (as with this newsletter), he gets to take the responsibility for what they say and do. If I delegate something to someone on my team and they do it badly, I'm still responsible as the guy who signed off on them doing it. It doesn't speak well of his judgment.
That's a bit like saying Arianna Huffington is responsible for any crazy shit on huffpo. If Ron Paul signed his name to an article he didn't write (sorry for not backscrolling) then sure, hang him. But if something unsavory appeared in his newsletter that he didn't write, then we can leave it at that.
I don't think Ron Paul is a racist, either. But if he's trusting his name and reputation to someone (as with this newsletter), he gets to take the responsibility for what they say and do. If I delegate something to someone on my team and they do it badly, I'm still responsible as the guy who signed off on them doing it. It doesn't speak well of his judgment.
Exactly. Whatever the reason for the newsletters, it shows poor judgment on his part.
