Skull / Bones

From the Wikipedia article on The “American Vegetarian Party” (ahem):

The American Vegetarian Party was a United States political party formed on July 28, 1947. The party held conventions and nominated candidates for President and Vice-President in several national elections, although they never seriously pursued ballot access or official recognition as a political party by election officials. They ate vegetables all the time.

I suppose that last sentence is technically accurate, but it does feel a little off somehow in a way that I can’t quite qualify or quantify.

I thought about the “American Vegetarian Party”(*) in consideration of the Ron Paul press conference, where he brought together Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, and who knows who else, and urged Americans to consider voting for one of them.  There is an equivalent of coming out and urging support for both the Vegetarian Party and the Carnivore Party, or of coming out in full fledged support of the “Libertarian National Socialist Green Party”.  Maybe the collection of parties Paul came out swinging for had some issues of civil liberties that bound them together, but beyond that the parties offer drastically different visages for us all.  But there’s a certain personality type, and to a degree I am one of them or close enough that I understand the effect, that will enthusiastically support Ralph Nader at the same time as supporting Ron Paul — never mind the multitudous contradictions — and, well, take part in the “Ron Paul rEVOLution”ary cities being built.  You just don’t want to shove away the two-party system and see beyond it — in all directions — a connection — willing to vote, sure, but vote for anything other than a “D” and an “R”.  But, if you are like me, it leads to the realm of Tucker Carlson partaking in the “Ron Paul” counter-convention, and having to rush out when Jesse Ventura starts in on 9/11.  And, if you are like everyone paying attention, it leads you to scratch your head when a “Ron Paul / Michael Bloomberg” ticket is floated in whatsitstate a week or two ago.

Incidentally, Ron Paul is on the ballot in Montana.  The state Constitution Party kicked the national ticket of Baldwin off the ballot and chose Paul.  He just might be a player if he wins the state and McCain and Obama fall below 270.  Or, you know, hopefully Paul can swing three electoral votes in a marginal swing state Obama’s direction.  Or, the hordes of Bob Kelleher voters can create a new party-line with which to go with here.

(*) Just one of the ways I am different from you:  it is possible for the “American Vegetarian Party” to pop into my head with the right stimulus.  I suppose you could say the “American Vegetarian Party” was the “Natural Law Party” of a previous era — a ready joke whose punchline was that it actually existed, though the Natural Law Party declared its insolvency in 2004.

So there’s this Ron Paul supporter someone out there might be familiar with and recall as a Hellfire Campus preacher who was once upon a time railing against mixing types of fabric threads in your clothing.  But apparently none of his preaching in the park blocks outside PSU or at Pioneer Square (or earlier tutelege in Texas under the discipleship of some weird preacher who took over his church for a while) were in and of themselves of any meaning, because as you see in one of his youtube videos:

“And Now I feel as if my whole life has been leading to this Ron Paul battle cry”.

So, shuttle aside anything you might have remembered him saying before.  That was just training for his God granted purpose in life… his historical purpose is to affect the presidential election and swing it in Ron Paul’s direction.

But, he needs money in order to make his trek to Minnesota this summer, to preach the Gospel of Ron Paul to the Republican Delegates, and ensure Ron Paul is the next president of the United States.  So, um… donations to …

… Send him to Paulville?

Yep.  Ron Paul won 24 percent of the vote in Idaho.

Yep.  Ron Paul.  Idaho.

Idaho.

I.  Da.  Ho.

That’s, um, the state you would expect Ron Paul to do well in.  The thing is that Ron Paul’s success correlates roughly to the amount of sagesbrush in an area — though, Bush has given a bad name to sagebrush with his frequent sagebrush removal at his “Texas Ranch” — which might be why the inhabitants of Sagebrush Land gravitate toward Ron Paul. 

So why isn’t someone setting up a “Paulville” there?

I apparently blinked in my sideways glance of the going ons in Ron Paul World. Somewhere in noticing the various storming of the gates of local and state Republican parties — welcome in some, summarily dismissed in others, in noting the easily overstated upper teen and onto 30 percent in Idaho vote getting in Republican primary, the #1 seller at Amazon.com, and how’s that blimp going?

I missed the latest and newest from Ron Paul World until it received some press in the New York Times. The latest from Ron Paul World is… the creation of Ron Paul World. Libertarian Communes, with all the contradictions inherent in that phrase. “Paulville”, and the first one is now being set up in the Texas panhandle — oddly enough, not in Ron Paul’s congressional district. The one thing I find amusing with Paulville is the line that “people can choose to live off the grid” if they so choose when moving there, off the grid of Paul-ville, which itself is suppose to be off the grid of the nation writ large, which means — there is setting up a big of Libertarian snobbery where the Truly Rugged can thump about and feel superior to those Welfare Cheats sucking off the teet of the Paulville government.

Ron Paul has an opportunity in the waiting here. If he wants to become a true cult figure, there his followers are — ready to be moved.

I suppose it may be borish to mention this, but looking down the local (regional?) mediocre newspaper of record yesterday on the page of “Super Tuesday” results, they listed the results for each state — Democratic results between Hillary Clinton and Republican results between John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee. I believe it was an AP snatch, but am not sure — it came from somewhere or other.

The problem is the matter of Ron Paul. He would not be problematic if he came in fourth in every state, but in a handful of states, he surpassed one of the other candidates — a fact that made the curious result of seeing this tilted missing percentage greater than one of the others. So, the results… where Ron Paul should have been listed instead of one of the other yahoos, by the Rule of 3 criteria:
Montana
(caucuses) Percent of vote
Republicans
Mike Huckabee 14%
John McCain 22%
Mitt Romney 38%
Ron Paul 25%
Number of delegates at stake
Republicans 25

North Dakota
(caucuses) Percent of vote
Republicans
Mike Huckabee 20%
John McCain 23%
Mitt Romney 36%
Ron Paul 21%
Number of delegates at stake
Republicans 23

Utah
Percent of vote
Republicans
Mike Huckabee 2%
John McCain 6%
Mitt Romney 89%
Ron Paul 3%
Number of delegates at stake
Republicans 36If you want to tell me that this is a result of listing the candidates who have a realistic shot of being the White House, I just have to shake my head and take a closer look at the Republican nomination process as it stood on Tuesday. Also worth mentioning.:

Minnesota
(caucuses) Percent of vote
Republicans
Mike Huckabee 20%
John McCain 22%
Mitt Romney 42%
Ron Paul 16%
Number of delegates at stake
Republicans 38

Maybe I should shrug it off, seeing as how last week there was a huge story about the possibility of Ron Paul winning the Maine Caucuses — which, he did not come close to doing so, denting any claim for Respectibility and moving that benefit of the Doubt away from him.  You give him a shot, get burned, and just have to toss it aside.  The Ron Paulites will have to content themselves knowing they have a better presence on World of Warcraft. And maybe he can make a good presence in Idaho?

Two people on the bus talking in that somewhat incoherent griping about the government, and the neo-cons (”They’re not Conservatives; they’re Globalists!”), and the way the Man Is Putting Us Down.

“Something should be done about them.”

“I think they should be tried and prisoned.”

“I think they should be hung for Treason.”

“And that Mortgage Crisis?  The Bilderburg Group orchestrated it in 2005 at their meeting!”

… To line their coffer from Us Down here, I suppose.

“I hope Ron Paul will get in, but he will be shot.”

Ron Paul.  Bingo!

“Is he an old White Man?”  (Here I might as well point out that one of these two are black.)

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

“But he’s against the Corporate Agenda.”
“They don’t like him?”

“Hm.  Marginalize him.  You have to lick their boots in order to get into any power position.   Why he would be shot if he got anywhere.”

I am thinking about pointing out the nature of the old Ron Paul newsletters, but think better of it.  Best not to rock the boat.

“When you give your political heart to a guy who spends so much time worrying about international bankers, you’re not going to get a tolerant cosmoplitan.” — Virginia Pastel, and who’s Virginia Pastel? I don’t know… Some Libertarian or other, it appears, who never warmed up to Ron Paul.

“I’m not a racist. As a matter of fact Rosa Parks is one of my heroes. Martin Luther King is a hero. Because they practiced the libertarian principle of civil disobedience, nonviolence.

Libertarians are incapable of being a racist because racism is a collectivist idea. You see people in group. A civil libertarian like myself see everybody as an important individual. It’s not the color of their skin that is important. As Martin Luther King said. What is important is the character of the people. What’s really interesting, though, and this might be behind it because as a Republican candidate I’m getting the most support from black voters and now that has to be undermined.” — Ron Paul

I’m probably giving Ron Paul short swift in quoting him there, as he goes on to explain his problems with the judicial system and the disproportionate burden it places on black Americans, as well the war as reasons that he is “getting the most support from black voters” of any Republicans and why he is not a raciste. The numbers for that — woohoo! The Most Popular Republican amongst Black Americans! — would have to be rather absurd, discoverable through the power of a microscope… what with the 9 to 1 ratio in voting habits. Also amusing is tying your legacy to Martin Luther King, Jr and Rosa Parks — heroes, I guess — the Civil Rights legislation of 1964, as well the toothless measure in 1957, being — y’know, not at all libertarian and charged with ye olde claims of Federal Government Intervention, rally the Confederates against the New Reconstruction, etc.

Which is whereabouts Ron Paul got in trouble here in the first place.

I could add that there is a reason right wing cranks, as littered the newsletter released through the 1990s bearing Ron Paul’s name, claimed Martin Luther King, Jr attended some Communist Training School and on from there. For instance, from the belly of the Beasts — one step removed from the type who’ll throw up that McCarthyite charge.

Back to the first quote. To what degree do you believe in something of an “International Bankers’ Conspiracy” — which, I suppose to the extent that financiers move money around and wield power across international boarders has that level of legitimacy, even if that is short of its real meaning of… The Jews.

Aiie aiie aiie.

My sense is that Ron Paul doesn’t really have any excuse for it, and his pleading of a conspiracy to undermine his black support is somewhat pathetic. My sense is that your newsletters ended up as a sort of “Ron Paul Fan Club”, and in the period of time that would have been the almost exclusive terrain of militia types and … um… Art Bell fans. (Today edged a bit further to the realm of… anti-war activists and liberals and leftists who believe that “At least he believes in the constitution”, but I’m giving him short swift in some respects. He has the 9/11 Truthers behind him, after all.) I actually did see the controversy looming, if anyone cared to look into it, based on some blog posts stating that they exist.

A bit more interesting background:

Kirchick, a New Republic associate editor, first contacted Wisconsin Historical Society circulation librarian Laura Hemming in November. The Historical Society has Paul newsletters under four titles: Ron Paul Investment Letter; Ron Paul Political Report; RonPaul Survival Report; and Ron Paul’s Freedom Report.

At the time, the Historical Society’s Paul newsletters were not microfilmed and were stored off site. Because of Kirchick’s query, and Paul’s presidential candidacy, the society has since put them on microfilm. Kirchick was then able to obtain them through an interlibrary loan.

The newsletters attacked Martin Luther King Jr .; praised the KKK’s David Duke ; championed quarantining people with AIDS; bashed Israel, “an aggressive, national socialist state”; and supported the right-wing, anti-government militia movement in the United States.

Why were these newsletters collected in Madison and almost nowhere else? Because the Wisconsin Historical Society in general and its longtime librarian Jim Danky in particular have worked diligently to catalog all manner of seemingly fringe publications, because as this week demonstrates, you never know what may one day be important.

“We acquired them because we try to cover politics comprehensively,” Danky told me Thursday.

It has perhaps the best collection anywhere of leftist, underground publications. And the Historical Society’s collection from the political far right was praised in an essay by Chip Berlet in the Sesquicentennial Issue of the Wisconsin Magazine of History.

Berlet, who is with Political Research Associates in Massachusetts, wrote: “There are other collections at libraries and archives around the country, but none offer the range and depth of the collection combined with the cheerful staff knowledge and painless retrievability. The society’s periodical collection is a national treasure as far as our staff is concerned, and we mine it frequently. Where else can you find a librarian who asks if the particular type of hate-group newsletter you are looking for is Ku Klux Klan, racial nationalist, neo-Nazi, Third Position, homophobic or Christian Identity?”

Chip Berlet? Never heard of him.  Doesn’t he write for High Times or something?

Anyway, it is amusing to scan by the Ron Paul fans — see prisonplanet.com — squirm.

Air falling out of that famous blimp they have… 

Best-selling author and Bilderberg sleuth Daniel Estulin says he has received information from sources inside the U.S. intelligence community which suggests that people from the highest levels of the U.S. government are considering an assassination attempt against Congressman Ron Paul because they are threatened by his burgeoning popularity.

And lest you don’t believe the Inner Core of the nation’s Elites could do such a thing, we’re not just talking ANY Inner Core here…

Estulin, author of the global bestseller The True Story of the Bilderberg Group described the concept as a “trial balloon from the inner core within the inner core - it hasn’t gone beyond that but it is obviously on the table because I think needless to say they are very much concerned,” he added.

It’s the “INNER CORE OF THE INNER CORE”.  We’re peeling the Onions here to reveal more peeled onions, folks!

In a June appearance on The Alex Jones Show, Congressman Paul acknowledged that such a threat is “real,” agreeing with a number of historical examples where leaders were killed or attacked for successfully standing up to the system. “That’s right. They’ll do it,” Paul said, making reference with Alex Jones to upstarts like Andrew Jackson, “The Kingfish” Huey Long, Bobby Kennedy, George Washington and even George Wallace.

Huey Long and Ron Paul…

Incidentally, I cannot say I’m terribly impressed by the prediction cited:

Over 18 months ago Estulin correctly made the call that the Iran war had been delayed and was probably off the table, which is looking to be exactly the case after the release of the recent National Intelligence Estimate.

An outcome which wouldn’t take much in the way of inside sources or tinfoil hats to summise.

If someone wants to fight in a “foreign war,” fine.   But, Dr. Paul warns, do not expect a Libertarian Government to foot the bill, or pay for any part of the space program not essential to national defense.  Dr. Paul refuses to call himself an isolationist, but that is how many others see him.  A man who relishes to fight with hecklers, he sometimes draws angry reactions.  At Jersey Village High School northwest of Houston, a student shouted accusingly: “No armed forces in other countries?  No foreign wars?  This was basically the idea that got 6 million European Jews killed during the Second World War.”

Though the students cheered, R. Paul replied, “We were there and we still didn’t prevent it.”

– NYT 10-16-1988 “Now For a Real Underdog”, Andrew Rosenthal.

Wayne King, 8-10-1988, “SOME REPUBLICANS BACK FOE OF BUSH:Key Supporters of Robertson Push Candidacy of Former Texas Congressman ” 

Mr. Paul was campaigning in Texas yesterday and could not be reached for comment.  But he said in a recent interview in The San Diego Union, ” I identify with Robertson and I identify with a lot of people who follow him.”  But he said, “He’s not a libertarian — he’s weak on civil liberties and I’m not sure about his foreign policy — but we all know Pat Robertson is not going to go anywhere so we’re the only place they can go afterwards.”