hjmick
01-08-2008, 02:59 PM
I rarely cross post a thread on two seperate boards, but for this topic I made an exception, some of you will recognize it from "another board."
I was exchanging thoughts on "another board" about Ron Paul earlier and I expressed the notion that one factor that gives me pause where Paul is concerned is the fact that my bigot of a cousin supports him quite strongly. While I acknowledged that the fact that a racist may support him, that in and of itself does not make Ron Paul a racist, I was prompted to look into his positions a bit more. I also applied this idea to the other candidates. It seems that I am not the only one looking at Ron Paul.
While tripping around the internet today, I stumbled upon this article over at The New Republic. The author was curious about Ron Paul. He delved into Ron Paul's political past, particularly the different newsletters published under Paul's name. There is some disturbing content to be found in the newsletters, homophobic commentary, anti-semitism, racist comments.
As the author points out, there are very few by-lines, so whether or not Paul wrote the pieces is debatable. However, if he did not author the work, the question should be asked, why allow the work to be published giving the impression that these are your beliefs?
It is an interesting read. I am not accusing Ron Paul of being a bigot. I do not know the man. This is why the title of the thread is a question.
But I will say that if he is not, perhaps he would have been better served by paying closer attention to what was printed in his name.
Angry White Man
by James Kirchick
If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum. Antiwar conservatives, disaffected centrists, even young liberal activists have all flocked to Paul, hailing him as a throwback to an earlier age, when politicians were less mealy-mouthed and American government was more modest in its ambitions, both at home and abroad. In The New York Times Magazine, conservative writer Christopher Caldwell gushed that Paul is a "formidable stander on constitutional principle," while The Nation praised "his full-throated rejection of the imperial project in Iraq." Former TNR editor Andrew Sullivan endorsed Paul for the GOP nomination, and ABC's Jack Tapper described the candidate as "the one true straight-talker in this race." Even The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of the elite bankers whom Paul detests, recently advised other Republican presidential contenders not to "dismiss the passion he's tapped."
Most voters had never heard of Paul before he launched his quixotic bid for the Republican nomination. But the Texan has been active in politics for decades. And long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business. In the age before blogs, newsletters occupied a prominent place in right-wing political discourse. With the pages of mainstream political magazines typically off-limits to their views (National Review editor William F. Buckley having famously denounced the John Birch Society), hardline conservatives resorted to putting out their own, less glossy publications. These were often paranoid and rambling--dominated by talk of international banking conspiracies, the Trilateral Commission's plans for world government, and warnings about coming Armageddon--but some of them had wide and devoted audiences. And a few of the most prominent bore the name of Ron Paul.
Paul's newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978. (Paul, an OB-GYN and former U.S. Army surgeon, was first elected to Congress in 1976.) During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a non-profit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman. The Freedom Report claimed to have over 100,000 readers in 1984. At one point, Ron Paul & Associates also put out a monthly publication called The Ron Paul Investment Letter.
...
Continued... (http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca)
I was exchanging thoughts on "another board" about Ron Paul earlier and I expressed the notion that one factor that gives me pause where Paul is concerned is the fact that my bigot of a cousin supports him quite strongly. While I acknowledged that the fact that a racist may support him, that in and of itself does not make Ron Paul a racist, I was prompted to look into his positions a bit more. I also applied this idea to the other candidates. It seems that I am not the only one looking at Ron Paul.
While tripping around the internet today, I stumbled upon this article over at The New Republic. The author was curious about Ron Paul. He delved into Ron Paul's political past, particularly the different newsletters published under Paul's name. There is some disturbing content to be found in the newsletters, homophobic commentary, anti-semitism, racist comments.
As the author points out, there are very few by-lines, so whether or not Paul wrote the pieces is debatable. However, if he did not author the work, the question should be asked, why allow the work to be published giving the impression that these are your beliefs?
It is an interesting read. I am not accusing Ron Paul of being a bigot. I do not know the man. This is why the title of the thread is a question.
But I will say that if he is not, perhaps he would have been better served by paying closer attention to what was printed in his name.
Angry White Man
by James Kirchick
If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum. Antiwar conservatives, disaffected centrists, even young liberal activists have all flocked to Paul, hailing him as a throwback to an earlier age, when politicians were less mealy-mouthed and American government was more modest in its ambitions, both at home and abroad. In The New York Times Magazine, conservative writer Christopher Caldwell gushed that Paul is a "formidable stander on constitutional principle," while The Nation praised "his full-throated rejection of the imperial project in Iraq." Former TNR editor Andrew Sullivan endorsed Paul for the GOP nomination, and ABC's Jack Tapper described the candidate as "the one true straight-talker in this race." Even The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper of the elite bankers whom Paul detests, recently advised other Republican presidential contenders not to "dismiss the passion he's tapped."
Most voters had never heard of Paul before he launched his quixotic bid for the Republican nomination. But the Texan has been active in politics for decades. And long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business. In the age before blogs, newsletters occupied a prominent place in right-wing political discourse. With the pages of mainstream political magazines typically off-limits to their views (National Review editor William F. Buckley having famously denounced the John Birch Society), hardline conservatives resorted to putting out their own, less glossy publications. These were often paranoid and rambling--dominated by talk of international banking conspiracies, the Trilateral Commission's plans for world government, and warnings about coming Armageddon--but some of them had wide and devoted audiences. And a few of the most prominent bore the name of Ron Paul.
Paul's newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978. (Paul, an OB-GYN and former U.S. Army surgeon, was first elected to Congress in 1976.) During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a non-profit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman. The Freedom Report claimed to have over 100,000 readers in 1984. At one point, Ron Paul & Associates also put out a monthly publication called The Ron Paul Investment Letter.
...
Continued... (http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca)