Crane and the Kochs - the Fascist State Eats Its Own

What does Anna Nicole Smith (Left) have in common with Kathryn Washburn Niskanen(Right)? You might ask.

On March 1^st the Koch Brothers filed a law suit against Widow Niskanen in an attempt to force her to sell her inherited interest in Cato Institute to them. The holding of one quarter of the shares of Cato, held until his death by her late husband, was left as one third to his widow, one third to Cato, and a third to the Institute For Justice, according to TPM Muckraker.

But there is far more story here than meets the eye, part of which is the lingering image of Anna Nicole Smith, the gorgeous, blond, nubile woman who married creaky, aged billionaire Howard Marshall, II, and so laid claim to an unimaginably valuable slug of stock in Koch Industries, the only shares in the very privately held company not owned by family members. The stock amounted to 16% of Koch Industries. The case went to the Supreme Court, firing the imaginations of Americans, enticed by the provocative form and story of Anna Nicole. But Americans did not understand what was really at issue.

Today, with the parallel revelations of manipulation funded by the Kochs in covert manipulations of the initiative process across the country and intrusions into local self-determination, this may began to dawn.

In 2006 I was contacted by Hart Williams, who had begun to investigate the Kochs and the denizens of Cato. Today, you can benefit from his detailed and accurate insights at HartWilliams.com. We know more than we did, but not enough.

Despite diligent research, the corporate books for Koch Industries still hold secrets thought to reveal cost plus contracts, unusual treatment by courts and government agencies that normally are charged with protecting the public, and other information lending insights to their relations with the Bush administration. Today, given the present, very political trajectory of the Brothers Koch, these events are well worth revisiting.

The bottom line of the Koch's profits include a string of offenses against public decency and safety of monumental proportions which were 'forgiven' by the Bushes, then in power.

In late 2000 it seemed some of these corporate policies might be catching up with Koch; they were hit with a 97-count indictment related to a cover up of discharge of more than 15 times the legal limit of benzene, a carcinogen, from a refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. Koch faced penalties of $350, 000,000.00, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

Four Koch employees were also charged individually, facing up to 35 years in prison according to the same source. The lawsuits were settled three months into the Bush Administration. Koch plead guilty to one count of concealment, agreed to pay 20,000,000. All criminal charges were dropped by the Justice Department.

According to Greg Palast, published on BBC.com, in May of 2001, Koch Industries was then the third largest industry donor to the Bush Campaign.

In another case, Koch was sued by the government in 1995 and 1997 over a reported 300 oil spills at pipelines owned and operated by the company. Those lawsuits sought from $71 million to $214 million in penalties for the spills, which dumped an estimated three million gallons of oil into lakes and streams in six states.

On January 13, 2000, the Justice Department settled that case for $35 million in fines, according again to the Center for Public Integrity.

Brad Goldstein
Corporate Communications Director
(561) 640-8822
brad_goldstein@oxbow.com

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/27/60II/main252545.shtml

But the back story is even deeper. Politico writes, “The group (Cato) had four shareholders until last year: Charles Koch; David Koch; Edward H. Crane III, Cato’s president; and William A. Niskanen,” what is left out is the curious exclusion of the founding shareholder left unnamed.

Murray Rothbard, the voice of the Austrian Economics in the last half of the 20^th Century, is the shareholder who goes unmentioned. Murray was a founding member of the board for Cato until kicked off in 1981 for the hideous crime of disagreeing with Ed Crane.

The bi-Monthly Newsletter for The Libertarian Forum for January – April of 1981 ran on its front page an article headlined as, “Purged from Cato! It Usually Ends With Ed Crane.” Sounding entirely like Murray the article begins, “On Black Friday, March 27^th, 1981, at 9:00 A. M. in San Francisco, the “libertarian” power elite of the Cato Institute, consisting of President Edward H. Crane, III and Other Shareholder Charles G. Koch, revealed its true nature and its cloven hoof. Crane, aided and abetted by Koch, ordered me to leave Cato's regular quarterly board meeting, even though I am a shareholder and a founding board member of the Cato Institute. The Crane/Koch action was not only iniquitous and high-handed but also illegal, as my attorneys informed them before and during the meeting. They didn't care. What's more, as will be explained shortly, in order to accomplish this foul deed to their own satisfaction, Crane/Koch literally appropriated and confiscated the shares which I have naively left in the Cato Witchita office for “safekeeping”, an act clearly in violation of our agreement as well as contrary to every tenet of libertarian principle.”

Murray was the spokesman for free market economics. Additionally, he had challenged the hold of Ayn Rand on the minds of Libertarians. Simultaneously, his voice was muted and replaced by Milton Friedman, who has never been a proponent of free market economics but is, rather, an adherent of the Chicago School of Economics. The difference between the two is significant. Friedman was entirely open to government intervention. As a proponent of the free market Rothbard opposed the use of legislation in human action and was a stalwart voice for individual rights, speaking out for unity between right and left. Retrospectively, this and not a 'personal conflict' was the source of Murray's ejection from Cato.

Koch Industries might have been free market during the life time of its founder, Fred C. Koch, the father of Charles and David, but, today, it is a solidly entrenched member of the Military Industrial Complex, or Greedville, as I call the constellation of banking, oil, war contracting, pharmaceutical, and other interests.

The Kochs, arguably, masterminded the conversion of the term, 'free market' into something very different, a justification of governmental subsidies which continue to fatten their bottom line, the antitheses of the direction intended by the original libertarian movement. In this, they had the eager assistance of Ed Crane, who is remembered in song, and with bitterness, by many.

“ Ed Crane is Cato's president, he keeps his standards high

He says he runs a trim, taut ship – just like Captain Bly.

The similarity is really nothing but a joke.

For there'll be no mutiny on the bounty of Billionaire Charles Koch.”

Lyrics by an obscure songster named A C Franklin, 1979

But the libertarian movement, suppressed by the actions of the Kochs and Cato, remained small. Today the mainstream believes the positions of Cato and Koch are Libertarian when nothing could be further from the truth.

It cost the Kochs to start Cato but the conversion of ideas, from freedom to those which supported the tenets of fascism, has paid off – for them. Solidifying their control of Cato was, and remains, all about the money.

The predatory strategies of the Koch Brothers were not popular, even in their own family. The Koch family came into enormous conflict on how the fortunes would be handled that reflect some of the questionable strategies that founded those fortunes, continuing to actively divide those involved.

Koch Brother, Bill, interviewed on 60 minutes August 21, 2001, said, "It was – was my family company. I was out of it," he says. "But that’s what appalled me so much... I did not want my family, my legacy, my father’s legacy to be based upon organized crime."

Of the four brothers who inherited control of Rock Island Oil & Refining Co., at the death of their father, Fred Koch, in 1967, Charles and David managed to get a lock on control, renaming the megacorporation Koch Industries. The other two brothers, Fred, Jr. and William, retreated, having lost what seems to be an attempt to change the direction of the corporation.

The guy inside Koch who orchestrates their PR and political strategy is named.....you will not believe this but I could not make it up......Rich Fink. Their money, how they get in and what they will do to lower their costs and hang onto that money are some of the things they want to keep private.

Koch Industries was hit by the largest judgment for personal liability in history over the incineration of Danielle Smalley and a friend on Aug. 24, 1996. The cause was a defective high-pressure gas pipeline that exploded, taking the lives of the two teenagers. Both were 17. The amount named by the jury was 296 million dollars. Punitive damage awards exist to make it possible to hit those with money and power who act with blatant disregard of others. This, although Koch Industries admitted in court it had not properly maintained the lines and had failed to tell the public, according to the site of the attorney representing the Smalleys, Jim Arnold and Associates. Conveniently enough for Koch Industries, the Texas court forced a reduction in the award that meant that Danielle's father had to sign a nondisclosure agreement on the amount awarded.

The Smalley case was only one of three hundred spills caused over six states in the 90s for which Koch Industries was fined according to Planet Ark.

Guess who was governor in Texas at the time? George W. Bush.

In 1992 a wedding took place at Camp David between Doro Bush and Robert Koch. When you notice the names and wonder about the relationship there you find, despite the visibility of the families, you cannot discover if Robert Koch is related to the Koch's who founded Koch Industries unless you really dig.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Howard_Marshall_II

http://www.smalleyfnd.org/danielle/accident.html

That is a small part of the real story. You can't get it all in an article and someday I will get around to writing the book.

Relight the Flame of Freedom in Denver - End WAR

First, I want to say how it warmed my heart to read the postings that accumulated on the article by Wayne Allyn Root, or WAR, as I think of him, on Third Party Watch. It was heart warning to see comments from so many people who understand what the Libertarian Party was intended to accomplish. Even better, one of the links lead to LP Radicals, a site that actually uses the phrase, “Radical Abolitionism.” That brought back a wave of nostalgia.

My great-great-grandfather, Benjamin L. Pillsbury, was a Radical Abolitionist and stopped attending his local church in Sandown, New Hampshire, because the pastor supported the 'law' on slavery and the Civil War. Neither he or his sons served in the Civil War, instead paying the fine to stay home because as radical abolitionists they did not approve of the use of war as a means for promoting Federal power. The Civil War, is more correctly called the Morell (Immoral) Tax War.

The Radical Abolitionists were pro-succession, demanding that the New England states leave the Union and so end their relationship with slave-holders. Parker Pillsbury, his cousin and a good friend of William Lloyd Garrison, frequently stayed at the homestead before and after their basement was used as a stop on the Underground Rail Road.

It is well to remember that our own generation is not the first to deal with “gradualists.” Using the cause of freedom the radicals of the Abolitionist Movement also found themselves sidelined by a campaign that used their rhetoric to establish a Federal State from which we are still struggling to escape.

They tried and failed. We need to keep their example in the forefront of our minds. As Libertarians we need to remember all the ways in which we are enticed to compromise. We need to remember that until the State no longer passes laws that truncate our freedoms, until we are sovereign on our own land and govern ourselves using only persuasion and consensus at the most local level, we are still serfs.

The Libertarian Party came into existence at a time when civil disobedience was understood and respected as a tool in the war for our freedom. We need to remember those lessons.

What you do to thwart the misused power of the state is honorable whether or not it defies statute. Benjamin L. Pillsbury and his wife Sarah Jane knew that and taught the lesson to their children. I learned that from my father. When a conflict exists between statute and the foundation of values for which the Revolution was fought the honorable individual finds the courage that creates the moral example others may follow. This can cost you in many ways but that is the direction for freedom.

That shines a light for others to see.

The Libertarian Party was founded to be that point on the horizon that lights the way to the vision that is still America. After more than 30 years of constant attrition on our freedoms, thanks to predatory opportunists such as Ed Crane, Bob Poole, Koch Industries, and their moral ilk, it is time to think hard about what we have tolerated. Why are we tolerating those who would impede our forward progress by using the rhetoric of freedom for their own ends? Freedom is not about efficiency or profits, it is the power that shines into the life of each individual as they determine for themselves their own course.

For Americans to find that direction for freedom we need to show them, not just talk.

Freedom is for all of us, every one; it is an absolute.

Our most dangerous enemies are those who distort what it means to be free, who seek to use the moral power of Libertarianism for their own profit. They are the enemy within. Such a one is WAR.

In his attempts to eliminate the most consistent voice for freedom available to us as a Presidential candidate, Mary Ruwart, WAR and his cronies have attempted to discredit the vision that a free people govern themselves. They instead assert that only government can protect children. The body of evidence to the contrary is well documented. We are not perfect, any of us, but those who are most likely to ensure the well-being of children are those who love them. A free world does not guarantee that we will all do the right thing, but by empowering the individual we make the right thing far more likely to happen. Look to the children stolen by the State of Texas, look at Waco. Remember Ruby Ridge and the bleeding body of Sammy Weaver, if you doubt.

If WAR thinks his local social worker is more fit, and he may be right, he should, forthwith, send his kids to the state.

As the mother of five, all now grown, who has done advocacy work for families, I can tell him that the individuals' right to self determination must begin early. It is best learned with love and discipline and by protecting children from those who would harm them. That power should always be with those who love, not those who would convert our children into profits.

When I was raising my kids deciding to give birth at home was often seen as child abuse, according to the State. I twice did just that because I knew otherwise. Children born at home, nursed immediately, and kept close, receive benefits you cannot calculate in whatever currency WAR uses in his business.

I, for one, am tired of hearing about WAR's children. I am tired of hearing about WAR all together.

But we should be grateful for what this has revealed. It does not matter that WAR did not write a word of what appeared under his name, he still told us who he and his supporters are. I agree with David Nolan that the letter sounds like Scott Lieberman or Aaron Starr. That makes perfect sense given their track records.

The WAR campaign doubtless held intensive strategy sessions that delved into possible issues and approaches to defame Ruwart. Hiding behind words is a favored strategy..

All those attempts tried to focus attention on what they present as an unsolvable problem without government, rejecting the idea that people can solve their own problems. These are the people working to continue the conversion of the LP into a tool that enriches them through hierarchy. They are using children to mask their intentions.

Government as it is today puts children, and us, at risk. It was the problem that brought the LP into being. Freedom is my right to live my own life, charting my own course without the interference of government. That is the issue.

Today government and their corporate partners are lurching towards the logical conclusion of viewing us as their property. Using Federalism, they have stolen the wealth that generations of Americans rightly earned, transferring that wealth into their own pockets. WAR and Co. want to pick up some pennies along the way.

WAR is just the latest in a long series of wanna-be power brokers who have tried to wedge themselves into a position that allowed them to profit from the essential truth of Libertarianism by selling our rhetoric in place of the reality of freedom. At best, they are Republican, or NeoCon-lite.

While there are still real 'conservatives,' the ideological position identified by Ron Paul, Goldwater, and Taft most recently, the present leadership of the Republican Party has long been non-ideological. Instead, the GOP focuses on how to position organizations to perpetuate an agenda intended to produce profits in place of individual happiness. Most particularly, they want to deflect attention from the unbridgeable chasm that exists between their own positions and those of a real Libertarian.

WAR and Co. want you to believe that government, Federal and State, are exercising power in the way laid out by the Constitution, that what we see today is in accordance with the vision that inspired the Revolution. They say that reforms are necessary but the system is essentially sound. Only through an ignorance two centuries deep could anyone believe that. The Constitution laid out a limited role for a Federal government, reserving the right of action directly to the people. In this way WAR would lead us to a perpetual serfdom because that is where his greed leads him.

The crew who have adhered themselves to the gravy train of a WAR campaign have an agenda. That agenda makes it essential that they persuade enough delegates that serfdom is freedom and WAR is peace. Therefore they obfuscate, position, and opine. They are all long practiced at the craft of deception by misdirection and fallacious argument.

Their hope is that jobs in the WAR campaign will be followed by jobs in the LP at the national level.

In his comment posted on the WAR article Stephen Gordon said that both he and Knapp are supported by the same organization. He provides a link to United Liberty. Notice that the site endorses Bob Barr for the nomination. Not only is Barr endorsed he is the only one with a listing. Look at the About US page. You will notice that the rhetoric is so bland as to give no one anything to think about. No solutions are suggested there. Now look at the 'solutions' suggested by Americans for Prosperity .

The whole site represents a strategy that deflects attention from the real issue, freedom. It talks about 'direction' but the direction is the same old thing, government. In the list of approved sites are five that are actually American Conservative Union, Americans for Prosperity , Cato Institute , Reason Magazine , The Federalist Society arguably working on enabling the NeoCon agenda through deflection from the real issues and ignoring the role of government in destroying the power of a truly free market.

David Koch is the brother of Cato founder Charles Koch. He is on the Board at Americans for Prosperity. When George Bush went into office in 2001 nearly 400 outstanding violations against Koch Industries were extinguished. The irresponsible behavior by the largest privately owned oil company in the US included a suit resulting from burning alive two teenagers. The company engineers admitted their gas lines were not properly maintained. The Koch and Bush families were linked by marriage at Camp David in 1992.

The issue for Libertarians is simple.

That remains a return to the Constitution, rescinding all statute, reviving the Common Law Court System, and allowing the people to take governance back into their hands at the most local level. Our rights are inherent, granted not by government but by God. Augments over legislation are pointless unless rescinding all law is the agenda.

Americans are daily more aware of their vital need for freedom. Starved of it, they can no longer ignore its absence. They are looking, desperate, ready to take the power into their own hands and live freedom. That is what we saw with the Ron Paul Revolution. Never have the prospects been brighter for relighting the flame of freedom so that its truth can take us home to the America that is yet to be. Go to Denver, relight the flame and extinguish the pretensions of such as WAR.

More WAR details. What other gamblers think of WAR. Where his donations go. Lieberman in 2006

2008, endorsed McCain and Lieberman.

Ron Paul and Victory in November with Mary Ruwart

The candidacy of Wayne Allen Root is yet another in a long line of attempts to use Libertarianism for purposes having nothing to do with the philosophy of freedom. What does he hope to gain? Notoriety to feed his gambling ventures? A well burnished ego? Does it matter?

His candidacy has reached depths previously unplumbed. Normally, ambitious and well-heeled wanna-be presidential candidates confine themselves to meaningless but entertaining flights of oratory. Since these platitudinous extrusions sell some extra packages we have long tolerated such ego indulgences. And Root followed the usual pattern – until Indiana. There things changed.

Using as his mouthpiece Mark Schreiber, a former LP employee whose debts to the LP were eventually written off, Root launched an obviously carefully planned attack on the most credible candidate opposing him, long time activist Dr. Mary Ruwart. Root stayed away from the Indiana LP Convention, letting Schreiber do the dirty work for him. At the candidate forum, in the morning session, Schreiber loudly accused Mary of approving of pedophilia. Mary produced forthwith her book that says otherwise. Later Schreiber blurted out that it would not have happened if Ruwart had agreed to accept the nomination for vice-president.

An honest moment in a campaign of lies.

It was an attempt at 'the big lie' that blew up in their faces. Anyone who has known Ruwart for very long knows the attack to be a complete slander of her personally and a misrepresentation of Libertarianism. The tactics of attack within political parties are not new to the LP, but never has the attacker been more plainly exposed.

The entry of Ruwart into the field of candidates provides the opportunity we have long needed, the opportunity to renew the original purpose for which the LP was founded.

The Libertarian Party was founded to advance the cause of individual freedom in the aftermath of the destruction of the Goldwater Revolution.

Ron Paul is a classical conservative in the Goldwater mold, a libertarian. Those who today use the word, 'conservative' are something very different.

In the mid 60s the word 'conservative' was hijacked through the efforts of people who were then called Rockefeller Republicans. Rockefeller Republicans were a small cadre of individuals who were using politics to ensure their continued subsidies through military adventuring by the US and a lock on the sale of gasoline. Their motivations were not ideological but to profit using any means necessary.

Today we know their replacements as NeoConservatives.

The Libertarian Party was intended to create the common ground for freedom between Right and Left, carrying the freedom message to the mainstream of America. Individual rights were our rallying cry.

For some of us freedom has been a life-long time issue.

As Libertarians what matters is making freedom happen. All too often in our movement words have been used to profit individuals who simply want to make a living in politics. We have accepted words instead of insisting on real change, real revolution. We need to become far more discerning. Just because someone has money and is willing to support a campaign staff does not mean they are a Libertarian.

Our movement started because of the yearning we felt to experience our own freedom back when the specter of the Vietnam War hung over America. We watched as Richard Nixon instituted Wage and Price Controls. We supported both civil liberties and economic freedoms. We left the GOP taking our power into our own hands, coming together locally to reach out to others with the message that they should be free – and settle for nothing less. Then, the freedom movement was local. Then, we did not sell the nomination to the highest bidder.

After listening to ad nauseum discussions over the years on various plans for fooling people into accepting freedom it was clear to me by 1988 that freedom was a condition that most did not understand. Before you can find something you need to know what it is you seek.

Yes, we started a political party. But our intention was never to make the existence of the LP an end in itself. We never intended to 'be a presence for the ideas of freedom.' We intended to enact freedom using the LP as our tool. The point of having a Libertarian Party was to fulfill the vision that made America a shining hope for the entire world. That vision still brings tears to our eyes, it remains the goal. We did not come together to make money, burnish egos, or make deals with politicians by selling the rhetoric and letting them use the 'brand' of freedom for their own designs.

Freedom is not rhetoric, it is the power to own your own life, make your own choices, discover the best in yourself and others. Freedom is crafting that life with the power God placed in your hands from birth. Freedom is an absolute. It is a whisper in your ear that says, take your life and live it, own it, make of it the glorious truth that speaks the best within you. The choices are yours as long as you do no harm. That was our joint intention when the LP was founded. But life happened.

We have taken wrong turns, compromised, sold out and bought in. All of that and more is true. But we can change direction, renewing our commitment, our party, and taking into our hands the work that remains to be done.

Root would have you view a life lived under the control of government as freedom. He is wrong.

Listen carefully to how he truncates the message, distorts what it means to be free. On every issue he plays false with what it means to live as a Libertarian.

Root has never understood that war is waged equally against those we bomb and on we who pay for the bombs. He does not feel the horror of honorable men and women, barely grown, who march off to kill for corporate profits. He sees 'terrorism' not for what it is, the newest boogie man used to frightened Americans into acquiescence and silence. Root also has failed to understand that a free market has never existed because the underlying freedom for each of us to choose has never been affirmed.

Iraq was not a mistake. It was a crime carried out by this administration at the behest of and for the benefit of the Bush 'core constituency.'

The rapacious greed of those who would put our money and lives into their own pockets kept that from happening. Divided we can be controlled. United we can win through to freedom.

Root and his ilk ignore the fact that until each of us is free of the limitations imposed on us by statute none of us are free. Laws that limit our rights violate the Constitution and bring moral bankruptcy. Freedom is the one thing in life you will never have until you give it to everyone.

Root has been critical of Ron Paul, attacking the Congressman fo lacking eloquence. What Root actually means is that Dr. Paul is uncompromising on freedom. Paul's words and obvious sincerity, not polished and deceptive delivery, are his strength. Paul simply says what he means and what he has lived.

Such as Root are incapable of understanding that in the cantankerous physician from Texas we see the essence of Libertarianism lived out through the life of a man who, understanding the principles, exemplifies the courage of his convictions. It is easy to speak the words of freedom, hard to live those words, transforming them from words into a consistent record that says, 'yes' to freedom in the face of sneers and contempt. Ron Paul has done that.

Root is a retread of past candidates who believe that we need a messiah to lead us. Look in the mirror to find the one you should follow. Look into your heart and mind and say YES to a campaign that delivers the reality of freedom. We hold the power in our own hands to live our own lives in community with others. That was the original Revolution, that is the essential lesson repeated when the LP was founded and most recently by the Ron Paul Revolution. Now we can take the Revolution home to America and finish the job we began in 1971.

The Ron Paul record of commitment galvanized the Ron Paul Revolution. It has created the opportunity of the campaign to come. But Ron will not be on the ballot this November. We need a candidate who is, like Ron, themselves the message.

Americans are ready for freedom, hungry for it, despite the dangers we face today. And there are dangers and problems to be overcome. But it can be done.

Freedom brings no guarantee of anything but the right to seek your own happiness and fulfillment. Freedom promises us nothing - but is everything. Such as Root sneer at absolutes but freedom is just that, an absolute.

Go to Denver and choose freedom, nominate Mary Ruwart. Renew and affirm the mission we took up in 1971. America is hungry for hope, ready to be free. This November, if you choose right, our candidate can give Americans what they so desperately want and need. If victory was ever possible this is the time.

Why You Should Nominate Mary Ruwart

If the Heartland’s 5-state straw poll is any indication, the LP has sadly lost its way and forgotten the core values that brought it into existence nearly two generations ago now. Some few of us still remember the tears that welled in our eyes when we came together to work for the vision that is America. Like no other nomination in our history this one matters and this is why.

The original idea was freedom for all of us, man and woman, every race, every kind and part of that cantankerous collation of living, beating spirits who comprise humanity. We felt that in those opening days, saw ourselves as new revolutionaries fighting a new battle for a war never truly won. It was all about the individual; it was never about playing into the frame of corporate glitz that is strangling America today. Now, at a time when the make up of those seeking our nomination clearly indicates that American politics faces a realignment of political parties, we need to choose for principle. This is the time for which we have been waited so long. Everything tells us so.

No one anticipated that a cantankerous family doctor from Texas, his words ignored for so long, would become an icon. But it happened. It happened because America is ready to hear the truth about freedom from the Party that made freedom its unifying goal. Dr. Paul gave Americans the thing for which they most hunger, hope and the promise of a renewed freedom. That ground swell awakened hundreds of thousands of Americans to the reasons America lost its way. War, corporate greed, rapacious government, the strangling of hope from all sides. Some among us decided that efficiency was a greater virtue than individual rights. Some of us came with only one issue clutched to our heart, the other issues we shrugged off as irrelevant. Too often we ignored the always present truth that until all are free no one is.

In all of these ways we went a long way down the path to losing everything that really matters. Now, we can redeem all the errors. This is the moment when we rediscover freedom for ourselves and help all Americans find it for the first time. We need the right candidate, and when you finish reading this the right candidate will be obvious.

To be a Libertarian is to understand that the people must govern themselves. To be a Libertarian is to know, down to your innermost being, that you own yourself. When you realize that you stand up a little straighter, feel the ease of tension across your back.

We have settled for words, rhetoric, that while well honed, was empty of the truth found only in action. It is actions, not words, that matter. True liberty is what we live. Ron Paul's message resonated because his actions, a full measure, speak his truth. That is the message for which Americans hunger; Not words but a life-time of proven truth.

We need a candidate we can trust, who understands us because they have withstood the terrible temptations of power. We need a candidate with honor we can take to the bank, not just another practiced salesman with eyes on the potential for publicity this nomination could bring. Most of all, we need a candidate who understands what it means to be a Libertarian.

And because this is a realigning campaign we need a candidate who can do the job if elected. If we ever had the opportunity to smash the two party system this is the moment. To grasp that opportunity we need a candidate who has been a consistent Libertarian and who can bring into their campaign people from both Right and Left. By so doing we could, finally, elect a Libertarian president. That is not an opportunity to be wasted.

That said, these are the candidates who offered themselves.

Wayne Allen Root, who received 22 votes is a polished speaker. He has practiced speaking the words of freedom. But what does his life say to us when examined? His professional association is with the gambling industry and he intends to recruit on-line gamblers who are angry with the government for Internet restrictions on their favorite pastime. Root has been a LP member for only a short time and has no record of activity with his state party. Root’s presidential run is his first LP campaign ever.

Until late February, Root told delegates that we needed to be in Iraq, but has recently changed his tune. Root uses his initials (WAR) proudly all over his web site. Root has been getting prime radio spots and some TV exposure because of his reputation in the gambling industry. Root might play well in Nevada, his home state, but how is the LP going to play to the public with a gambler at the top of our ticket? For years we’ve fought the image of gun-toting pot heads who advocate prostitution. The kind of media coverage we’re going to get with Root may brand us for decades. It will speak a powerful negative to our allies in the anti-war and peace movements.

The candidate is not words. The candidate is the message Americans will hear.

Next in line was Bob Barr, who has not formally announced his candidacy, but is expected to do so shortly. A former Republican congressman, Barr’s reputation as a drug warrior, Patriot Act supporter, and homophile have all been well-documented. Barr converted to the LP a couple years ago and currently serves on the LNC.

Barr probably has the most name recognition of any candidate, except Mike Gravel. He also has the most checkered past. Barr is actively hated by the gay community for his authorship of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies the federal benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. The LP will alienate the gay community, one of the LP’s strongest support bases, with Barr.

But that’s just the beginning. Barr is also the author of the legislation, which has effectively ended the possibility of medical marijuana in DC. The MPP recently paid the newly-reformed Barr big bucks to unsuccessfully lobby against his own legislation. Barr is likely to alienate yet another of the LP’s staunchest allies, those who want to end drug prohibition.

Barr now regrets his support for the Patriot Act, as do many others. I realize that he says he has had a change of heart and I am thrilled to have Bob in our party. However, we all must live with the consequences of our actions. Bob voted for the most egregious piece of legislation to pass through Congress in our lifetimes without even seeing it. He has been a typical Republican for many years, and only flip-flopped to the LP recently when the Republicans no longer had any use for him. His candidacy only serves to divide this party.

This background gives the media carte blanche to blacken the LP’s name. I can just see the headlines now: “Drug Warrior Receives LP Presidential Nomination.” “Patriot Act Supporter Nominated by Libertarians.” “Author of Marriage Defense Act to head the Libertarian ticket.”

Since Barr got 19 votes, when not even present, he could possibly, according to the straw poll, be the LP’s leading contender. The LP should welcome former evil-doers with open arms once they sincerely reject their past. Should they become the LP’s standard-bearer, when that same past will alienate large segments of the LP? Isn’t that a steep price to pay a little more media exposure, and potentially damaging exposure at that? We have fallen for the promises of big money and huge media attention before, and what did it get us? Nothing! It is time we stop believing in empty promises and select the best Libertarian nominee we can. We should have a messenger at the top of the ticket that we can be proud of, not one that we will have to make excuses for during the whole campaign!

Does Barr send a message that says NO to the concentration of power in Washington DC? Ask yourself and be honest.

Placing third was former Democrat Gravel, party member for all of 7 days. Gravel supports universal health care, a subject which he carefully avoided during the debate. As stated in the debate, he wants to replace the income tax with the Fair Tax (which appears to be about the only thing he and Bob Barr agree upon), rather than do away with it altogether. Two-time LP candidate Harry Browne used “eliminate the income tax and replace it with nothing” as his signature issue. Republican candidate and former LP nominee Ron Paul garnered a lot of support pledging to do the same thing. Will Libertarians back off from their “taxation is theft” stand in the hopes that Gravel’s, or Barr’s, name recognition will garner them a few new votes?

And what about Gravel’s signature issue, total democratic referendum, where every piece of legislation is passed not by Congress, but by direct vote of the people? The Constitution is out the window if a slick ad campaign can convince a majority of the voters to do so, an easy sell in the days of public education. Ron Paul has demonstrated that a large segment of our population is set on fire by the Constitution, but it looks like the LP is ready to throw the Constitution to the flames in the hopes for a bit of media.

Mike Gravel has done heroic things for America – but he has not even begun to understand freedom.

Running fourth in a field of over a dozen candidates is Dr. Mary J. Ruwart, long-term libertarian author and activist. Ruwart, a cancer survivor, has claimed for years that she would rather write than campaign. She has lived freedom, showing her courage in quiet ways that last, speaking loudly to those who know her. Eloquent and yet able to touch her audience, she is the author of Healing Our World, Short Answers to the Tough Questions, and an Advocates for Self-Government web-column. Through a career decades long she, like Ron Paul, has stayed on message in her own life as well as in what she says.

No other candidate has campaign books while Ruwart has a comprehensive libertarian primer and a short version for our public school graduates. Her life proves that what matters to her is freedom. She is one of the few who have extended the reach of the freedom message to the Left, and there she also has a following.

Ruwart decided to run not because one person asked her but because many veteran LPers asked saying they desperately needed an experienced, principled candidate. Ruwart, a veteran of close to a dozen state and local races, garnered one of the first major news endorsements (The Detroit News for State Board of Ed).

You may well be one of the many she has brought to the LP.

Ruwart brings the people together. She sees every person is a potential libertarian because everyone benefits from liberty and her fervor is tangible. She not only explains Libertarianism, she has lived it. When someone sits down with her to listen they understand our message from both heart and mind. They learn the same things by watching her live her own life. Man, woman and child, they get the message.

Mary is what we need. We must stop acting out of desperation. We must never fear that Americans cannot understand that vital, inner need to be free. The Ron Paul Revolution has proven the opposite to be true. Self doubt has made us weak just when we most need to be strong.

Go to Denver and nominate Mary Ruwart as your candidate for president. Give Americans the opportunity to see what freedom means when someone has lived it all of their life, in every way. If you really believe in freedom then believe in Mary.

Lessons on the Road to Liberty

The examples of how they steal elections are now thick upon the ground. Now, the most credulous and trusting have to see that elections are easily fixed. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and now the swath of states that comprise Super Tuesday, the number of elections stolen is mind boggling. We can still elect Ron president but elections are a problem we need to solve.

That is one issue. More follow.

Today, February 6^th, is the first day of the real Revolution, the final phase of the First American Revolution of 1776. This is the moment that will take us to the destination of an America where the people govern themselves. Do you want to be free? Do you understand that freedom has nothing to do with life style? You thought you were free but instead have been a slave shackled by an illusion of prosperity. To be a revolutionary you need to lose your illusions.

Like the issue of stolen elections the truth is less comfortable but only the truth allows you to fight effectively. There are problems but those can be solved if we have the facts. Hierarchies intentionally begin limiting what people know because, 'they know better.'

We are facing a multi-front war that demands the open and rapid sharing of information and creates the solution by producing the alternative that will displace the concentration of power that begot the problem originally. This can only happen through dispersed action from multiple sources, a guerrilla war fought out peacefully using the tools we already possess.

No matter what, a hammer remains a hammer and you cannot use it to remove the splinter from your finger. Your chosen tool matters; it determines your ultimate outcome in advance. Forms of human organization are tools. Centralizing authority and power creates an attractive nuisance that will eventually destroy freedom because the least ethical will have it at all costs.

In the 1970s the Libertarian Party was formed to work for the freedom that was then clearly slipping though the fingers of Americans. Many of its founders had experienced the disappointment of the failed Goldwater Revolution. In case you did not know the LP was founded on a mailing list made up from Goldwater activists and its founder had been the head of Young Republicans for Goldwater at MIT.

By 1971 the level of frustration with the War in Vietnam and US economic policy was mounting. Nixon, a Republican, had delivered us up yet again to the corporations and the continuation of war that enriched them. You can read more about the specifics in the chapter I wrote on the subject, Libertarian History.

The Libertarian Party started out as a decentralized hub, a grassroots organization run by activists. Our assumption was that we could do it ourselves. We believed and we worked. Then, there was no professional or want-to-be professional cadre; people from all walks of life came together. The beginning of the end of our revolution began with the election of Edward H. Crane, III as its national chairman in 1974 at the Dallas Convention.

Crane immediately asserted control in all directions. He tried but failed to control the candidacy of Roger MacBride for President; Roger was then producing 'Little House on the Prairie.” He did not miss in 1980.

Roger had made one critical mistake. He introduced Crane to Charles and David Koch, the owners of Koch Industries. Koch Industries is probably the largest privately owned oil company in the world. It was Koch money that started Cato Institute; the Kochs are intimately connected to the Bush White House.

The issue central to how the Revolution will operate is hierarchy vs. networked hub. You determine the outcome when you choose.

The decentralized hub is a network that freely shares information and resources. In the Ron Paul Revolution the decision of which projects to support is made by people either volunteering or not, donating or not. That is a direct application of the power of individual choice. Individual choices, made with clear knowledge.

Organizational tools can also be proprietary, effectively owned by its management. Those who want to participate then know the limitations they accept. We see this with most of the Ron Paul Projects, from the Toolbar to the Granny Warriors. They offer a project; others support or decline to support, their choice. That has worked well, too. The information is available going in and no one presumes to speak for others who have not authorized that on their behalf. It is transparent, consensual, and cooperative.

For freedom to work, as the universal principle enabling human action, we must all have the truth and the freedom to act. The truth allows us to make the right choices; centrists want to control information and become a priesthood who decides for you. They take from us the essential tools of autonomy. When the people have the truth they can govern themselves and that is what you have been doing in the Ron Paul Revolution. It has been glorious to experience, affirming the power to each of us.

Freedom, respect for others, and truth are therefore linked tools.

A Knowledge Commons is the Open Source for information. The Internet has moved us far in that direction but there are many fronts on which this 2^nd Revolution must be fought out. We need to see those and make sure that each battle is won.

All now see why clean elections are essential.

We also need to get Ron Paul on the ballot in every state, despite the corporate political structure. In parallel, we must ensure those votes are honestly counted.

To get Ron on the ballot in all 50 states we have many options. One is the Libertarian Party. Most LPers support Ron now.

Today the Libertarian Party is foundering and the reasons are clear. Having passed through central regime after central regime it is still controlled by individuals who are wedded to the tool of hierarchy. They could change that, save the organization, and elect Ron. It could do so by become the hub that we need. It could, after more than 30 years of existence, become itself the best tool for advancing freedom.

We need to take our tools seriously; we need to understand that the tools determine the outcome. As a political party it has ballot status in many states. It can reach out to other political parties by example, making Ron the candidate of many parties. It would not be acting like a political party and that would be the example that Americans need to see.

Ideas were the first human tools. Before any ancestor used a flint blade the idea of cutting was present. Tools define the frame of our world. The tool you are using determines the outcome you will achieve. If you use a hierarchy you will end up with a centralized power that limits access to knowledge so that someone can maximize their power and profits.

If you convert a hierarchy into a network you are proving it can be done.

I spent many years in the LP. I never noticed that local people running their own local organizations could not solve their problems using cooperation; I noticed that those who sought 'higher' office tended to have a further agenda.

It could have been different; it still can be.

When the National Office allowed it, sharing information planted seeds of new success across the country, but far too often that did not happen because of internal 'political' considerations. The issue was using the organization itself for personal profit, not to affirm autonomy for all individuals and so strengthen local community.

The problem can be solved. Close the National Office and create an online service hub that simply makes resources available through sharing. Build a place on line where projects, graphics, videos and literature can be shared and where each can get and give advice. Having it be peer to peer makes it a community itself. Use Chip-ins to fund projects that deserve support but make it specific to project. The problem of lagging fund raising would be solved and along with the constant internecine warfare that accomplishes nothing.

Power should remain always at the community level, exercised by the individuals whose time and money will be used by them for their own purposes. It is that simple.

Today we are facing a complete meltdown of the US economy and ever more problems. But those threats come from allowing the centralization of power in government, in corporations, and by our own organizations. The LP can begin that process and make history.

In this way the LP can fulfill its original purpose and become a tool that makes freedom bloom in the hearts and minds of everyone who sees it. Seeing that happen would be, itself, a powerful statement.

You have already proven that if it needs doing it can be done from a network. If we had relied on the Official Campaign Ron would have ended his campaign nearly a year ago. Today a Revolution has begin, all founded on cooperation and networking. Occasionally you will hear people say in the Ron Paul Revolution as they once did in the LP that, “they need the authority.” Now you will know what they are really saying. Those speaking want power.

Networking and cooperation are the essential tools of Revolution. Using those we can change the world. We can carry the Revolution to the enemy. It may seem impossible. It is not.

Above are the straightforward political issues. Those issues, as large as they might be, are only a small part of what must be accomplished.

If we only elect Ron Paul without beginning to fight the other fronts we will still lose. The wealth and capital of America is flooding off of our shores like a tidal wave that will leave us dry and worse, in debt we cannot clear.

We need to save ourselves and at the same time strike a blow against the supply lines to the corporations.

We need to get off the grids of greed that have allowed us to be plundered and begin to turn the lights out in Dubai, where right now the Bush Faction of the Corporate Globals are building their new capitol with the clear intention of using it to begin plundering the rest of the world.

Right now they are spending your grandchildren's lives right there on what was bare sand in 1990. They have seven star hotels, a snow mountain in the desert, and the first underwater hotel. If we succeed in ten years they will be back to breeding camels.

Failing will destroy not only our own lives but lives not yet begun. Failure is not an option.

We need to stop their agenda for control here and rebuild our own local economies. These two different fronts are defensive and then offensive. Both are necessary.

We can do this. We are still Americans, the most productive and inventive people on the face of the Earth.

These are the problems we face immediately.

Educating Americans

The educational program needs to be community based. It needs to show the young and their parents how the Constitution was intended to work. For an excellent example go to Ron Paul Road Show. Student Voter Registration. This turns students into experts on the Constitution.

On the Information Hub we will be adding to resources, though I hope the LP, or someone else, takes this over.

Defensive Agenda - Legislative

Stop the Real ID in those states that have failed to take action as of yet. This is critical because on May 11^th of this year the biometrics of their program swing into play. See Stop the Real ID for more information. They will own your most intimate information and you will not be able to stop them from selling it.

Laws are now being passed to nail us to the grids. The first of these will be laws that charge a surtax for getting off the electric grids. Get on the notification list at Off the Grid. We need to deliver the message to each state legislature and ensure it does not happen. There will be more, the corporations pay people to think of ways to suck us dry.

There are ways of challenging the corporations that have been in bed with government for so long, their clear intention to leave us homeless. We need to keep all capital here in the hands of individuals. Anyone who says that it is alright for corporations to lie, change the terms, suborn the courts, and still collect is simply not hitting on all pistons. It is a principle of law that the more powerful party must be the most, not the least, scrupulous.

The Offensive Agenda

We need to begin immediately to take back our counties. Clean Elections at the county level are essential to this. I say, again, build working coalition.

The Ron Paul Revolution should focus at the precinct level and many sites are doing that now. Get elected precinct captain, get elected to local office, network in your community. Share knowledge globally, act locally. This provides the local tools to extend the revolution and save people at risk who are threatened legally or financially.

We need to ensure that each sheriff in each county is ready and willing to kick the Feds out when our Constitutional rights are violated. Sheriff Richard Mack, one of the two proponents for the Mack – Printz Decision that overturned the Brady Bill, is already active on this issue. His book will be out soon but don't wait, sign up and schedule a workshop for your area by visiting his website, Constitutional Law Enforcement Association. When it is spelled out to your local sheriff he will develop a backbone.

You can also leave the Corporate State. Read the Red Amendment. It can be done, thousands have done it already. The Lakota chose one exit, this is another. There are many solutions. Comparing them and choosing what works for us works best.

This will give us the ability to both change government locally, establish common law courts, and rebuild the local economy. We can and will go off the dollar. We will have to, they planned the introduction of the Amero to hit when we could not afford to say no.

Each of these fronts is a part in the 2^nd American Revolution. Each is essential. Each demands from us a full commitment and most importantly to know what is happening so that we can begin to enact change in our own communities. Those changes include starting businesses that turn off the flow of money to the grid corporations; they include changing the framing for ourselves and others in our communities who are hurting but do not understand the causes. People will act to ensure their financial wellbeing without being persuaded for political reasons.

When we are finished we will have brought into existence the unfulfilled promise of America. Instead of remaining a dim vision the reality will come alive in our communities. It will fulfill the promise of freedom, make real and tangible the shining point on a horizon for which all humanity has hungered through untold generations. That is the point of the Revolution.

When you choose your fight make sure you also choose the right weapon. When you fight, make sure you will win the future.

What Happened to Freedom? A Story You Need to Hear.

Roger MacBride, Libertarian Presidential Candidate, 1976



It was an electric experience, heady, powerful, filled with joy and individual empowerment. People from all parts of society came together to work on the election. They made signs and waved them over freeway bridges; they printed their own literature because they could not get it fast enough. They wrote what was needed, did the graphics, printed it. They used their own money to get the job done. Every dollar they spent they saw as moving them closer to the shining vision on which America was founded. There was friendship, happiness and trust.

You may think I am talking about the Ron Paul Revolution. Actually, that was the early days of the Libertarian Party. The Presidential Campaign that incited us was that of Roger MacBride in 1976.

You would not know today. I still have many Libertarian friends but the Libertarian Party is very different. You need to know what happened and why.

We lived those heady days; We stood on the bridges holding up signs in all weather. We were well on the way to creating a real grassroots organization. What stopped us was people who decided we, 'needed to get organized.' You know about one of those people. That is Edward H. Crane, III of Cato Institute. Others of like mind followed.

If you are a Ron Paul Activist, working on the Revolution, you are working for something that matters much more than electing Ron Paul as President, as important as that is. You are working on creating a new form through which the people can govern themselves. That is the revolutionary part.

The people must govern themselves.

Ron Paul signed up to roll back the Federal Government. The rest of the job, most of it, truthfully, will remain to be carried out from our communities by us as individuals who live there. You will encounter many people who want to 'organize' you. Ignore them and keep doing it exactly like you are doing it now. Using the tools they offer you will result in the creation of yet another Reform Party, another 'not for profit' that makes lots of money for those who are at the top. The idea that there is a top should be enough to tell you this is the wrong direction.

Instead you need to continue to use the hub system that you have been using. That was what I recommended to the Libertarian Party in 1999. Instead of a National Office that 'coordinated' the grassroots I proposed that they close the office in DC and provide services to activists. Those were to include putting on a National Convention with speakers and a newsletter that simply let people share their experiences, successful and unsuccessful, with local projects. There, literature could also be shared, made available via the Internet with local people adding and using it as needed.

Naturally, no one listened. They were firmly entrenched in the 'structure' of a political party and busy jockeying for positions that would augment egos and income.

Here and there across the country local LP organizations continued to use the networking forms you would recognize. San Diego is one of those.

San Diego declined to be part of the centralization of the LP. Instead of central committees voting on how to spend money they came together (this spanned the time before the Internet) to hear people talk about their ideas for projects. Activists then decided how to spend their own time and money. That is what the Ron Paul Revolution has been doing online. That is the essence of networking, each deciding for themselves where they will participate.

That is the story of the past. It was easier for us then in many ways. We did not have the Internet but we also faced less immediate threats.

Today one of the most critical issues we face is the present use of the still unpassed Home Grown Terrorism Act.

It is already being used. Following their usual strategies the NeoCons did not wait for Congress. The idea of Constitutionalists as Terrorists is part of the training being given to local police and has been for a while now. I heard that straight from the horse's mouth last September at a National Federation of Republican Women's Luncheon. The guest speaker was a local law enforcement officer who lumped Constitutionalists together with gang members. In the terms of the man speaking I am a terrorist. None of the other ladies present questioned him on that. I did.

We are facing immediate danger and we need to take action. Increasingly, those of us involved on issues will be targeted because we are threatening the corporate establishment. There is no reason to make it easier for them and more dangerous for ourselves.

The solution is even more networking and increased communication between those of us working on specific issues.

Early last year Jeff Schwilk, Founder of the San Diego Minutemen was targeted by local police. They used a sealed warrant to arrest him. After months of trauma and much money he managed to get the warrant unsealed. The causes were manufactured. Today another man in the same area has been sitting in jail for over a month, waiting to make $600,000 bail. His crime? Posting a comment on the ACLU that was something like, “they should die and go away.” The site was Save Our State, one that focuses on ending illegal immigration.
We can expect to be targeted on issues that are critical to corporate interests. Those include clean elections and immigration and the North American Union and the Real ID.

We need to continue working to get Ron elected but also be more aware of the specific issues that his candidacy brings into focus. Those involved in those organizations need to be especially careful.

Staying decentralized while using networks for support and communication, reduces our exposure. Our networking must include providing support when the harassment and arrests, inevitably, come. If when activists are targeted and arrested they become the immediate focus of more effective activism then the long planned NeoCon strategy of suppression will fail. Many have already been dealing with harassment and found ways to handle it.

You should think about this for yourself. We need to respond rapidly and effectively. One thing we can all do is ensure harassment or arrest will be noticed immediately. That strategy is an early warning system that lets us know who is being targeted and what must be done to keep us and our families safe.

We call it the Ron Paul Revolution, and it is exactly that, a change in the form we use to govern ourselves, moving us from hierarchy to hubs and networks. Extend your personal network to protect yourself and your fellow Revolutionaries.

Coordination and cooperation are good. Control is not

Revolution. Be the solution. Stay Local.