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Today on Lew Rockwell's blog Donna Volatile, a long time peace activist, said in an open letter to the Anti-war Movement,
“A few activists like myself have crossed over to support Ron Paul but far too many others have not. Far too many from the left, far too many progressives and liberals and far too many anti-war activists have not.
We have so much in common but many on the left ridicule Ron Paul and his supporters. They are so stuck in their positions, they do not see the monumental things we have in common.
For many on the left it is Ron Paul's stance on abortion, or his stance on health care and the list goes on...
But as we face another election year and perhaps the most critical and important election year, I ask what cause can be more important than the cause of PEACE? Without it, we have no chance at all.”
Sometimes we reach a moment in time that calls us to question the framing of ideas that we have always accepted. That can be frightening. But necessary. This is such a moment. Peace is not the absence of war. Peace will only happen when we discard the initiation of deceit, coercion, and violence as individuals or through such human tools as government.
Ron Paul is not just anti-war, he is a peace activist who can bring us together in a new frame for all human action. The campaign spontaneously taking place for him is an authentic shock and awe moment.
Ron Paul's impact on the present framing is clear from the deer-in-the-headlights expression you catch on the faces of Republican candidates during debates. They cannot believe he is breaking the frame they have so carefully and expensively constructed.
Ron Paul has always stood up for the Constitution; His message resonates. That is why he has been ignored by such 'Libertarian' organizations as Cato Institute. Those involved with Cato are the NeoCons of their movement, dedicated only to their own profit; using the rhetoric of freedom for ugly purposes.
With Ron Paul alone does honesty trump rhetoric. Even as the Constitution is dismissed as just, 'a piece of paper,' by George W. Bush, Paul speaks clearly, his voice alone in Congress for the last years. Through his reminders of our Founder's intentions we are called to question our affiliations with all political parties. We are called to take back America.
That is what the Ron Paul Revolution is about.
There are only two parties in America today. The Corporate Party, comprised of the Democrats and Republicans who support corporate candidates and those who support individuals with integrity, like Ron Paul. A short list.
The Ron Paul Revolution is bringing America together; that will escalate. Honesty and integrity, speaking truth to power and meaning it, brings its own power.
The idea of a Paul – Kucinich Ticket first saw light of day on my show, The Spiritual Politician, last year when it was proposed by Gene Gaudette, a life long liberal and the editor of American Politics Journal, the longest running E-zine on the Internet. At the time no one believed it possible. The divides were too deep, but Gene was right. Kucinich and Paul disagree on the tools but share the qualities of honesty and integrity for which we hunger. . Elected they would take action to stop war, and there are more wars than the one being waged in Iraq.
Americans are coming to realize that war is being waged on them, using as weapons the very institutions they pay for to ensure our security. Legislation, regulation, the courts, taxation, education; we pay and they use these as weapons to control us.
Those who wanted to ensure their continued profits baffled us with bullshit, trying to bully and frighten us into submission. The ominous threats of 'Communism' still echo in the newly honed cries of 'Islamic terrorists.'
The people so identified are not honest ideologues; they were and are employed to build specious and carefully manipulated ideas into justifications that permit the continuation of their profits. The Greed Grids pour profits into Big Oil. Big Energy, Factory Food, Big Medical, Big Pharma, and Big Killing. As they grew they partnered with Big Money, which many identify as The Fed.
Alan Greenspan was not hired for his brains but because of his connection to Ayn Rand; his presence sustained hope as the policies passed into law stole us blind. It was cheap ideological cover. Examine the work of Milton Friedman's Chicago School in contrast with that of Ludwig von Mises. It is not a free market if it flows through government fingers.
The NeoCons and their employers play with ideas the same way teenaged boys play with themselves. For them the modes for gratification have increased while remaining very focused on personal outcome.
America was divided on manufactured issues. Those in the employ of corporations worked to anger us over issues of personal behavior, the environment, homosexuality, abortion, illegal immigration, 'national security,' marriage, crime, gun control, you name it. Take any of those issues and examine it closely. All push more intrusive, legislation, imposed and enforced by government. Such legislation carries policy that also accomplished a steady increase of subsidies, in military intrusions, diplomatic muscling of foreign governments, no bid contracts to such corporations such as Halliburton and Koch Industries, and most favored donor status that cemented relationships between legislators and those who control the corporate check books.
There is a name for this; that is racketeering. As time went on more intrusive legislation begot more power concentrated in the hands of those who use government as a tool to destroy competition and extinguish the accountability we have a right to expect from everyone, no matter what their income. Virtue comes from how money is earned, not how much.
We need to cut off the flow of funds by stopping the profits to the Grid Corporations.. That means climbing off all the grids.
We must exact accountability for these past wrongs. Profits grabbed through abuse of trust is thievery, plain and simple. Those responsible need to be emptied of funds, left penniless on the street to send a message to future generations of the wishful greedy. We need to compile their names for that accounting.
This is the time to come together to carry out those changes needed to return America to the full realization of individual rights, peace, prosperity, and community that was the original mission. That is the light that should shine out to the world, a beacon of hope.
Do right and you will do well for everyone.
You might think the goal impossible but it has never been closer. Now we see how the People of Greed operate; their greed lead them to expose their avaricious intent, their complete lack of ethics and morals and the fact that most of them come from families that view this kind of theft, like the Mafia, as the 'family business.'
Now we can take action to extinguish their predatory behavior through transparency, accountability, and a real adherence to the principles of individual rights. Never before realized, the idea of individual rights for all remains to be enacted. You have heard the rhetoric but never lived the reality.
Ideas are tools, they are, in fact, the first artifacts of human invention because the idea always comes first; we cannot see or touch them, we can only infer their existence from the material remnants left behind. Philosophies are sets of ideas with no material existence. But the idea we call Natural Rights is an extrapolation of the fact that each person born can, and must, take action to survive. Here, an idea met biological reality.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — “
The revolution came with the word, 'all.' It is not the barons but every person born who possesses rights. The rationalizations that condemned women and blacks to non-person status condemn the unwillingness of those in power to give up the profits that accrued to them. It was wrong. This time we need to make sure that our individual rights are secured; that government affirms those rights.
For most of us that began with political parties. Now, we need to change that framing. Parties have become tools for controlling the people instead of fulfilling their original purpose, that of enabling the people to govern their own affairs.
Today we see both the Republican and Democratic parties manipulate rhetoric to evoke our trust and their own internal rules and the election process to maintain control. When that fails they just cheat.
Future generations will see the Ron Paul campaign as the moment when the people took into their own hands the tool of the Internet to bypass political parties, creating for themselves a new form of government that ignores the framing enforced by politics, the media, and through the structure of rules forced on us by government owned and controlled by corporations.
The Internet connects us in a vast network that knows no hierarchy. It sends a message that resonates with the essential message of Christ, “You are One in Me.” In all the ways we understand ourselves, material and sacred, a revolution is happening as we learn to work together, all political viewpoints, all races and genders, all ages, and all faiths. One.
Two days ago the Libertarian Party passed a unanimously resolution that invited Ron Paul to seek their nomination:
“NOW THEREFORE, in the event that Republican primary voters select a candidate other than Congressman Paul in February of 2008, the Libertarian National Committee urges Congressman Ron Paul to seek the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party to be decided in Denver, Colorado during Memorial Day weekend of 2008.”
The Libertarian Party was under pressure because of the overwhelming numbers of Libertarians who had contacted members of the National Committee about the Paul candidacy. Former Republican Congressman Bob Barr, now registered Libertarian and serving on the National Committee, authored the resolution, partially reproduced above.
When as much as 80% of your membership speaks, you listen. Barr had also served with Ron in Congress and said of him, “I looked to Ron if I had a question on the correct way to vote. You could count on Ron voting the right way, especially on economic issues.”
We have long expected a realigning election. 2008, by all indications, will be the year when American politics change forever along with our own framing for what it means to be human. Eyes are turning back and forward to community, things that sustain and nurture us in the spirit.
Today Americans are leaving the major parties, disgusted with their corruption, hungry for something they feel should exist. They are finding that in Ron Paul. What comes into existence could be a form of government that mirrors the changes we are seeing taking place through the Internet.
The people are proving, by doing, that they can govern themselves.
Instead of politics as we have known it we can see cooperation through persuasion; consensus built through trust, local organizing, and transparency.
There is much to be done.
We need to take back elections into our own hands. Today they are weapons used to control us. Instead, we should be using paper ballots counted by precinct committees we elect from the precinct; we should tabulate on line where all of those votes can be tallied, and checked, by all.
They will probably steal this primary for one of their corporate candidates; they have the means in place and, clearly, that is their intention.
If that happens we need to keep going. Ron knows his duty and will not fail us.
I remember when local people ran their elections. There was community, trust, cooperation, and kindness. It was a time to come together. We need to come together again, for all of these reasons.
Get off the Grids - Build Coalition – Organize Locally
