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.

The People Are Governing Themselves.

Most of us think of a people governing themselves as just so much rhetoric. Not true. The last year of the Ron Paul Revolution has proven that using the social networking tools provided by the Internet we can indeed come together to take action that is unprecedented in scope and power. These have been early steps but, in fact, whether or not Ron Paul is inaugurated as President next January, a mass movement of people have created the tools that provide the means to displace the present morass of government. We will change the world.

It was impossible. It happened anyway. Now it will become the new standard for what it means to be a grass roots and the marker that changes the measure of political action. The panic you see in those in power, the threats of martial law, are evidence that they know perfectly well their ploys are not working.

Despite what many say the Ron Paul Revolution is not over and Ron Paul, as the singular icon and spokesman for the movement that bears his name, will continue. We will displace the status quo imposed by government, stop the profits of grid corporations and those who control them. The Revolution will accomplish that not because of any brilliance in the Official Campaign. It has proven itself to be incompetent at the most elementary political tasks. It will happen anyway.

The people are doing it themselves.

Americans are coming together from all imaginable points and so changing the landscape on which the political battles of the near future will be played out. We are set up for a realigning election despite the Vote Stealing Machines and despite the ugliness of those in power.

At the foundation of this change is the Revolution. Hierarchy in its various forms has proven itself to be no match for the hub, the network, where individuals either cooperate or decline to be involved, keeping their money and time for other purposes.

Future historians will, given the time, explain it all as inevitable and they will also explain how Americans regained access to the truth through a media they controlled in the same fashion. That is about to happen; again it will shock the establishment and those who use the tools of the past.

There is power in the Hub and power in the Mesh. The impact of the Hub has hit, the Mesh is about to be felt.

The Hub is the sharing of knowledge to facilitate cooperation. You see that in the Revolution. We share freely. The Mesh takes the Hub one step further into our communities, building the platform for local cooperation that connects to others like a sea of wildflowers in springtime. Getting off the grids has many parts, this is one of them.

The Revolution faces a series of challenges. It will use the same tools to solve those problems that it has used this last year.

Stolen Elections, the Media, the economy, the list seems endless.

Here, the failing economy and the need to survive meet our rising awareness that the present system is irreparably broken.

The first issue is elections and local organizing. Other needs will follow. We will displace the MSM with the truth, reported without being filtered; given to us unmanicured and without being withheld until convenient. The media is now an extension of the PR departments of major corporations. To enact change will enable the people to become their own media.

The people are now poised to take elections back in to their own hands. Over the last months a coalition has been building. Elections will be run at the precinct by committees elected by the people in that precinct; votes will be counted by the same process. The totals will then be placed on line and counted transparently, leaving no doubt as to the outcomes. No longer right and left, there is one agenda.

We will pass model legislation where this is proscribed by law; we will demand our money back from the companies who sold us vote stealing machines. Let them figure out what to do with the things.

The new media coming into existence will tell the truth because it will be run on the same principles that run the Revolution, transparency, cooperation, and individual freedom.

The basic tool is the Mesh Wireless Node. You can buy one for around $500.00 and connect hundreds of homes. CUWiN Community Wireless Solutions. The same system can be used to set up neighborhood barter exchanges, organize emergency preparedness, and food coops, something Americans will need increasingly in the months to come.

It might seem new but it is actually the original American tradition of individual initiative, continued today by such organizations are REACT. The people still govern themselves at the most local level, we have simply not noticed.

REACT links people together and has been doing so since January 23, 1962. They are all volunteers except for one lady, Dora Wilbanks, who runs their office in Maryland. They have focused on emergency situations; the form is local, voluntary, and cooperative. They are routinely asked to help find lost children and provide communications for such disasters as the wild fires that destroyed parts of California in 2003 and 2007. Ed Greany, Executive Vice President of REACT International, said for this article that the technologies for radio and the Internet are converging. Cooperation is not only possible it is natural. Their teams are local, organizing on what is near the precinct, or neighborhood, level.

The first requirement for an honest media is the means of transmission and the people to give you the truth. The list of needs in neighborhoods includes those now provided by REACT. We can help each other. We have the technologies and the people, now we need to bring them together.

Our new media will use the same principles and organization that gives the Revolution its power. We need the truth, not cheesy anchorpersons whose eyes are firmly on their next gig. We do not need another Times – Warner or another Faux News; corporations have been the problem. The Revolution is not about turning a profit. It is not glamorous. It is people coming together to enact freedom. If we wanted glamor and a more lavish life style we would go into acting, not activism.

The tool you use determines the outcome you get. We want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We want to restore power at the local level so that we can govern ourselves. We will become the solution.

It will be different, friendlier, better for families and us as individuals.

Given the content of the news today that is a good thing The new media will give you control of what you hear about and you will not have to worry so much about unpleasant surprises because transparency and going local means that surprises are not as likely to be unpleasant. Locally, you know who is to be trusted with your lawnmower, experience tells you that.

You will not remember next year which new cell phone you had but you will remember the things that really matter. Your local news will be what matters most.

“Frank Truehearted got a record number of strawberries from his garden yesterday. See him if you want to trade. He says he would like some asparagus. Kelly Morganstern has started her own lemonade stand at the corner of Harp and Philo Streets. You can buy cups and cookies for Local Exchange or for script, your choice. The Chocolate Chip Cookies are to die for.

And now for the National News.

The new Congress has voted to make the president's salary dependent on how much he can bring in using the White House as a B & B. Call the President for reservations or make yours online.”

We are heading for a different world. Buy the cookies, they are open source so you can get the recipe.

Get off the Grids, Organize Locally, Build Coalition

Be the Revolution

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.

The Primaries and the Ron Paul Revolution.

The Truth, Transparency, and Freedom.
The contest between the Corporate Candidates, Republican and Democratic Divisions, and the one non-Corporate Republican contender continue to remake the play book of politics in America this campaign season. The action needs to be considered differently than ever before because of the bifurcated campaign of Republican Ron Paul.

Ron is the only candidate with two campaigns; one driven by the grass roots, who raise the money and do the work; the other by the Official Head Quarters in Arlington, Virginia. Both are funded by that same grass roots. Look long and hard; This Revolution is a campaign of the people in every way.

Poised between primaries, with Iowa having taken place on the 3rd and the Primary in New Hampshire on the 8th , the Ron Paul Revolution continues to remake the landscape of corporate politics and media.

South Carolina will take place tomorrow. Then, we are looking towards Super Tuesday, three weeks from now. Normally, that date would mark the end of real campaigning. This time the probability of a brokered convention, at least for the GOP, rises every day. You can measure the likelihood by the signs of panic in the major media as they clutch at reasons for excluding the GOP candidate with the most money and most grass roots support, Ron Paul.

Nothing is business as usual in this primary season.

In most campaigns the voter lists are sort of like the piles of literature; just there, ordinary, easily acquired tools that are used and then shelved. That was different in Iowa, at least for the Official Campaign for Ron Paul. That list, acquired sometime before October, never functioned. Weeks of wages and time were poured into trying to get it to work and then another list to work with it. While that waiting was going on a volunteer in California bought a list from the Iowa Secretary of State for $1,000 for calling to take place from Los Angeles. It worked fine, by all reports.

In most campaigns that routinely employ professionals, getting the list is like ordering the toilet paper. But this campaign is different.

New Hampshire was also different.

Normally, after its Primary New Hampshire would return to a condition of less excitement. But early this week first Dennis Kucinich asked for a recount of the Democratic Primary followed, after threats and excitement, by Al Howard of Ann Arbor, Michigan for the Republican Primary.
Let's be clear about why this happened; Kucinich does not for a moment think that a recount is going to prove he received more votes. But Dennis has always been committed to transparency.

This was a gift he could give to Americans. His name has been floated as a possible vice-presidential candidate – for Ron Paul, another unusual event since they are from different parties.

The GOP recount in New Hampshire is a little more complicated.

Outraged at the low vote totals received by Ron Paul in the Live Free or Die State the Granny Warriors, an activist group of older women, set up a fund to pay for a recount. They squeaked out the money, $55,600, by the due date, though New Hampshire had moved that date forward 24 hours. Then PayPal froze their entire account, refusing to give them access so they could pay for the recount to start.

That was when the Revolution kicked in, flooding PayPal with complaints; PayPal released the funds. It seems that a prominent Mitt Romney supporter, Meg Whitman, was in the chain of command.

The funds were broken out of their clutches, barely in time, and the Republican recount also began Linda Hunnicutt, the founder of Granny Warriors, got three calls of apology; three additional letters of apology were issued afterwards.
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Meanwhile, Black Box Voting, Election Defense Alliance, and others remain up in New Hampshire working to ensure that the recount is honest.

In South Carolina Ron Paul's name was excluded from an official poll which showed a vote of 'undecided' of 12%; the corporate media are increasingly cutting Paul although they include Guiliani and Thompson, who he is beating handily. The issue of whether or not an election held using voting machines is legal is under consideration in South Carolina and law suits are being considered.

Activists in the Ron Paul Revolution have moved from politically naive to savvy in just weeks on the issue of vote fraud, a transition that bodes well for the coming primaries and the general election and will make a cross-party coalition work.

To stave off further problems with the vote a Ron Paul Revolutionary, Jade Torres, wrote this letter, which is now winging its way across the Etherworld of Paulists.
“Southern Patriots, I encourage you to take action given the likelihood of "issues" with the New Hampshire vote count, and probably that of other states as well. The affidavit will document any discrepancies between the "official" tally and our records. A signed and notarized affidavit, is legally binding evidence, and could be direct confirmation of vote stealing if it occurs. Attached are the forms needed to carry out this mission. Modify them according to your precinct and county. When mailing the affidavit be discrete Do Not use Ron Paul’s name or vote count we do not want the affidavits intercepted. We desperately need people to set up a table at their precinct and post a sign. Example: Ron Paul affidavit information. In addition, please use registration form to collect contact information in order to verify Ron Paul supporters. For those of you sending affidavits please enclose all contact information i.e. name, address, telephone number, and email address. I appreciate you If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me. Contact Information: Jade Torres”

The Ron Paul Revolution has a learning curve that makes all of us proud.. A few weeks ago the same activists believed the Official Campaign when they were told that monitoring the vote was not necessary.

And while that excitement goes on the Nevada GOP has been scampering about trying to short sheet Paulists there. Their governing body decided to demand affidavits affirming that only GOP voters who have been registered for a substantial period will be able to cast a vote for president. This is an obvious move to keep Ron Paul voters out. Since primary elections in Nevada are run by the parties the State will not interfere and it is probably useless to file a law suit. However, GOP voters are considering the fact that it would be embarrassing for the GOP, badly imploded due to the failed policies of the Bush Administration, to, in effect, sue them for reversing the direction of their growth to a positive.

Imagine how it would look in court.

So we have an election where the most principled Democrat has endorsed the Republican who has been characterized as, “The Champion of the Constitution”; where individuals of all political viewpoints are coming together to work for clean elections, and where the iron lock of the media and the political establishment is feeling the heat and making mistakes.

Ron Paul is a contender, coming out of the back field with cheers roaring across the turf.

And the Official Ron Paul Campaign continues Amateur Hour.

Forward the Revolution!