Ron Paul's dark secret
He is MAGNETO!
Is Magneto the alter ego of Ron Paul? Does he wield super powers?
At the Republican debates in South Carolina it certainly seemed that Ron Paul had super powers as he handily trounced his opponents and came out looking like the only engaged and knowledgeable candidate. This in itself was nearly a superhuman feat considering how fox news made a rather obvious and disgraceful attempt to sabotage Paul throughout the debates. Fox News, with it's running punch line of "Fair and Balanced" has long been a purveyor of disinformation, misinformation and even outright lies and all the while holding it's head high almost with pride in what can be charitably termed shoddy journalism or infotainment. (much the same way Bush himself seems to revel at being the most reviled president in U.S. history). But at the debates they really reached a new low. First, not once, but twice did they question Ron Paul's suitableness to be in the Republican party. To ask this question of any candidate itself is both biased and outrageous and to ask it twice is doubly outrageous, bordering on criminally subversive. Beyond even that outrage, Groler, the questioner, attempted to put words into Ron Paul's mouth and then allowed Rudy Giuliani to rebut Groler's, not Paul's words.
This little exchange has been reported widely by now. The skinny of it is, Ron Paul asserted more or less that America's meddling in the middle east was and is a contributing factor in anti-American sentiment and the attacks of 9/11. Giuliani, with Grolers help interpreted this as some sort of 'blame America' statement or that we 'invited' the attacks which was untrue to begin with, but he went further and disregarded the idea that America's actions or foreign policy can and does have any effect at all on the real world. In fact, Giuliani instead stated that he'd never heard of such an idea (as America's actions having real world consequences) and fell back into to same old tired mentality that produced the ridiculous statement 'they hate us for our freedoms'.
Of course, following the debates, the attack dogs and spin doctors were immediately unleashed. An attempt was made to bolster the rather unsophisticated neocon line of thinking which Giuliani and all the other GOP candidates besides Ron Paul espouse, and even went so far as to claim this exchange as some sort of win for Giuliani. This bit of political maneuvering by the neocons and their supporters failed miserably and even generated a bit of it's own 'blowback'.
A mini media storm followed the debates and centered around this exchange. Ron Paul was able to clarify and expand on his remarks and was vindicated. He was correct and that is backed up by all the intelligence reports. This had several very important consequences:
The term 'blowback' has been injected into mainstream politics, which was long overdue.
Ron Paul, who was already gathering momentum on the internet has exploded in popularity. He has won hands down every straw poll he's been in. Internet traffic related to Paul is through the roof. The search term 'Ron Paul' has been dominating over all other political candidates in every metric. Ron Paul has been reigning supreme over the blog tracker Technorati and the video site Youtube since the debates and he shows little sign of being unseated anytime soon. Ron Paul has become so popular, he has spawned his own anti-paul fan club. A small group of individuals scurrying around the internet attempting to disparage the statesman. They often drop quotes which are either out of context or just plain wrong. Another tactic is to claim that Paul's support is much less than it appears to be, and is merely due to a dedicated group trying to 'game' the system. This of course doesn't stand up to the metrics and the companies that report such statistics which make their money and found their entire livelihood on being fairly accurate which show that interest in Paul is clearly widespread and quite real. The fact seems to be, Ron Paul resonates with the internet crowd and the more people find out about him, the more people like him. The question remains however as to whether or not he can translate internet popularity into actual votes.
Rudy Giuliani was exposed for what he is: A thug with no grasp whatsoever of foreign policy. He really shouldn't have been running in the first place, he occupied a default slot for many republicans as the least bad of many unfavorable choices. His qualifications as a bully who uses draconian measures never really sat well with the majority of compassionate conservatives and the only thing he had going for him was 9/11. Now, he'd be insane to even bring up 9/11 again, as it will only serve to spotlight his own lack of experience and the basic knowledge that any first year political science or foreign affairs student would have. I'm sure he'll hang on a while longer, perhaps dreaming of what could have been and milking the publicity for use as a fear-profiteer, but his chances of receiving the republican nomination are realistically over.
Most importantly, what this whole hell storm has done was expose the flaws and illogic of one of the cornerstones of the neoconservative movement. Bush and his supporters have been drilling the people time and again with the phrase 'they hate us for our freedoms' as if by repeating such a thing it would make it true. They continually paint a picture of a grand ideological struggle using brushes of fear and hatred yet ignore the simple, verified facts that they are creating the very terrorists that they claim are coming for us, and in record numbers. The neocon ideology conveniently chooses to ignore the common sense that, yes our actions elsewhere do indeed have consequences. The neocon agenda conveniently chooses to ignore that its methods are the polar opposite of what conservatism stands for: small government, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty. In one fell swoop, Ron Paul has ignited a debate which should have taken place in the republican party years ago. A debate which must address the basic questions of 'who are we and what do we stand for?'. A followup question might be 'How did we let this happen to our party?'. The death knell of neoconservatism
has been sounding for a while now, perhaps it's time for the real conservatives to wake up and reinvent their party before they get taken down with them. Perhaps it's not too late to reclaim those real patriots the party has been hemorrhaging since the neocons slipped into power.
So in the end, no, Ron Paul doesn't have super powers. He came armed with honesty, integrity and knowledge, but that's all he needed to triumph over lies, rhetoric and ignorance.
Blowback is a term used in military and intelligence circles to describe unintended consequences as the result of military or intelligence operations. Brought to the attention of the mainstream media by Ron Paul following the GOP debates in May of 2007.
Is Magneto the alter ego of Ron Paul? Does he wield super powers?
At the Republican debates in South Carolina it certainly seemed that Ron Paul had super powers as he handily trounced his opponents and came out looking like the only engaged and knowledgeable candidate. This in itself was nearly a superhuman feat considering how fox news made a rather obvious and disgraceful attempt to sabotage Paul throughout the debates. Fox News, with it's running punch line of "Fair and Balanced" has long been a purveyor of disinformation, misinformation and even outright lies and all the while holding it's head high almost with pride in what can be charitably termed shoddy journalism or infotainment. (much the same way Bush himself seems to revel at being the most reviled president in U.S. history). But at the debates they really reached a new low. First, not once, but twice did they question Ron Paul's suitableness to be in the Republican party. To ask this question of any candidate itself is both biased and outrageous and to ask it twice is doubly outrageous, bordering on criminally subversive. Beyond even that outrage, Groler, the questioner, attempted to put words into Ron Paul's mouth and then allowed Rudy Giuliani to rebut Groler's, not Paul's words.
This little exchange has been reported widely by now. The skinny of it is, Ron Paul asserted more or less that America's meddling in the middle east was and is a contributing factor in anti-American sentiment and the attacks of 9/11. Giuliani, with Grolers help interpreted this as some sort of 'blame America' statement or that we 'invited' the attacks which was untrue to begin with, but he went further and disregarded the idea that America's actions or foreign policy can and does have any effect at all on the real world. In fact, Giuliani instead stated that he'd never heard of such an idea (as America's actions having real world consequences) and fell back into to same old tired mentality that produced the ridiculous statement 'they hate us for our freedoms'.Of course, following the debates, the attack dogs and spin doctors were immediately unleashed. An attempt was made to bolster the rather unsophisticated neocon line of thinking which Giuliani and all the other GOP candidates besides Ron Paul espouse, and even went so far as to claim this exchange as some sort of win for Giuliani. This bit of political maneuvering by the neocons and their supporters failed miserably and even generated a bit of it's own 'blowback'.
A mini media storm followed the debates and centered around this exchange. Ron Paul was able to clarify and expand on his remarks and was vindicated. He was correct and that is backed up by all the intelligence reports. This had several very important consequences:
The term 'blowback' has been injected into mainstream politics, which was long overdue.
Ron Paul, who was already gathering momentum on the internet has exploded in popularity. He has won hands down every straw poll he's been in. Internet traffic related to Paul is through the roof. The search term 'Ron Paul' has been dominating over all other political candidates in every metric. Ron Paul has been reigning supreme over the blog tracker Technorati and the video site Youtube since the debates and he shows little sign of being unseated anytime soon. Ron Paul has become so popular, he has spawned his own anti-paul fan club. A small group of individuals scurrying around the internet attempting to disparage the statesman. They often drop quotes which are either out of context or just plain wrong. Another tactic is to claim that Paul's support is much less than it appears to be, and is merely due to a dedicated group trying to 'game' the system. This of course doesn't stand up to the metrics and the companies that report such statistics which make their money and found their entire livelihood on being fairly accurate which show that interest in Paul is clearly widespread and quite real. The fact seems to be, Ron Paul resonates with the internet crowd and the more people find out about him, the more people like him. The question remains however as to whether or not he can translate internet popularity into actual votes.
Rudy Giuliani was exposed for what he is: A thug with no grasp whatsoever of foreign policy. He really shouldn't have been running in the first place, he occupied a default slot for many republicans as the least bad of many unfavorable choices. His qualifications as a bully who uses draconian measures never really sat well with the majority of compassionate conservatives and the only thing he had going for him was 9/11. Now, he'd be insane to even bring up 9/11 again, as it will only serve to spotlight his own lack of experience and the basic knowledge that any first year political science or foreign affairs student would have. I'm sure he'll hang on a while longer, perhaps dreaming of what could have been and milking the publicity for use as a fear-profiteer, but his chances of receiving the republican nomination are realistically over.
Most importantly, what this whole hell storm has done was expose the flaws and illogic of one of the cornerstones of the neoconservative movement. Bush and his supporters have been drilling the people time and again with the phrase 'they hate us for our freedoms' as if by repeating such a thing it would make it true. They continually paint a picture of a grand ideological struggle using brushes of fear and hatred yet ignore the simple, verified facts that they are creating the very terrorists that they claim are coming for us, and in record numbers. The neocon ideology conveniently chooses to ignore the common sense that, yes our actions elsewhere do indeed have consequences. The neocon agenda conveniently chooses to ignore that its methods are the polar opposite of what conservatism stands for: small government, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty. In one fell swoop, Ron Paul has ignited a debate which should have taken place in the republican party years ago. A debate which must address the basic questions of 'who are we and what do we stand for?'. A followup question might be 'How did we let this happen to our party?'. The death knell of neoconservatism
has been sounding for a while now, perhaps it's time for the real conservatives to wake up and reinvent their party before they get taken down with them. Perhaps it's not too late to reclaim those real patriots the party has been hemorrhaging since the neocons slipped into power.
So in the end, no, Ron Paul doesn't have super powers. He came armed with honesty, integrity and knowledge, but that's all he needed to triumph over lies, rhetoric and ignorance.
Blowback is a term used in military and intelligence circles to describe unintended consequences as the result of military or intelligence operations. Brought to the attention of the mainstream media by Ron Paul following the GOP debates in May of 2007.
3 comments:
Great article... kudos.
great stuff, thanks.
This is a very intelligent article, interspersed with some humor too. I'd say it's a real cut above the rest of the blogosphere.
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