It is official now. The Ron Paul campaign, despite surging in the Iowa polls, is not worthy of serious consideration, according to a New York Times editorial; “Ron Paul long ago disqualified himself for the presidency by peddling claptrap proposals like abolishing the Federal Reserve, returning to the gold standard, cutting a third of the federal budget and all foreign aid and opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
That last item, along with the decade-old racist comments in the newsletters Paul published, is certainly worthy of criticism. But not as an alternative to seriously engaging the substance of Paul’s current campaign—his devastating critique of crony capitalism and his equally trenchant challenge to imperial wars and the assault on our civil liberties that they engender.
Paul is being denigrated as a presidential contender even though on the vital issues of the economy, war and peace, and civil liberties, he has made the most sense of the Republican candidates. And by what standard of logic is it “claptrap” for Paul to attempt to hold the Fed accountable for its destructive policies? That’s the giveaway reference to the raw nerve that his favorable prospects in the Iowa caucuses have exposed. Too much anti-Wall Street populism in the heartland can be a truly scary thing to the intellectual parasites residing in the belly of the beast that controls American capitalism.
It is hypocritical that Paul is now depicted as the archenemy of non-white minorities when it was his nemesis, the Federal Reserve, that enabled the banking swindle that wiped out 53 percent of the median wealth of African-Americans and 66 percent for Latinos, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Fed sits at the center of the rot and bears the major responsibility for tolerating the runaway mortgage-backed securities scam that is at the core of our economic crisis. After the meltdown it was the Fed that led ultra-secret machinations to bail out the banks while ignoring the plight of their exploited customers.
As for the Times’ complaint that Paul seeks to unreasonably cut the federal budget by one-third, it should be noted that his is a rare voice in challenging irrationally high military spending. At a time when the president has signed off on a Cold War-level defense budget and his potential opponents in the Republican field want to waste even more on high-tech weapons to fight a sophisticated enemy that doesn’t exist, Paul has emerged as the only serious peace candidate. As The Wall Street Journal reported, Paul last week warned an Iowa audience, “Watch out for the military-industrial complex—they always have an enemy. Nobody is going to invade us. We don’t need any more [weapons systems].”
As another recent example of Paul’s sanity on the national security issues that have led to a flight from reason on the part of politicians since the 9/11 attacks, I offer the Texan’s criticism this week of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The act would allow the president to order indeterminate military imprisonment without trial of those accused of supporting terrorism, a policy that Obama signed into law and Paul opposes, as the congressman did George W. Bush’s Patriot Act. Paul said:
“Little by little, in the name of fighting terrorism, our Bill of Rights is being repealed. ... The Patriot Act, as bad as its violation of the 4th Amendment, was just one step down the slippery slope. The recently passed (NDAA) continues that slip toward tyranny and in fact accelerates it significantly ... The Bill of Rights has no exemption for ‘really bad people’ or terrorists or even non-citizens. It is a key check on government power against any person. This is not a weakness in our legal system; it is the very strength of our legal system.”
That was exactly the objection raised by The New York Times in its own excellent editorial challenging the constitutionality of the NDAA. It should not be difficult for those same editorial writers to treat Ron Paul as a profound and principled contributor to a much-needed national debate on the limits of federal power instead of attempting to marginalize his views beyond recognition.
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UFPJ’s Statement on Iraq
United For Peace and Justice was founded in 2002 to oppose the illegal and immoral, pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. Eight years and nine months after “Shock and Awe” U.S. troops have finally left Iraq. For that we must largely thank the Iraqi people, who refused to accept permanent occupation.
The costs of the war have been horrendous – most of all for the Iraqi people. The quality of life and security in Iraq is much worse than before the U.S. led invasion and occupation. An unknown number of Iraqis have died as a result of hostilities and the impact of the war. The count ranges from hundreds of thousands to over a million. More than four million have become refugees or have been internally displaced. All live in a country that has been destroyed – where one in four do not have access to clean drinking water, electricity is unreliable, violence is rampant, schools and hospitals no longer function and citizens’ human rights and civil rights are frequently violated. In many Iraqi cities and towns the environmental pollution caused by the war has produced an epidemic of birth defects and cancers.
The war has also wreaked havoc on our people and our economy. U.S. service members have paid a high price with 4,484 dead and 33,186 with physical wounds including traumatic brain injury, and loss of limbs and eyesight. Tens of thousands return with the unseen injuries of post-traumatic stress disorder. All return to a dismal economic outlook with many unable to find jobs; the unemployment rate for veterans 18 to 24 is an astounding 37.9%. Thousands are either homeless or one step away from it. Ultimately we see the pain of war reflected in the epidemic suicide rates of service members and veterans, reaching one death every 36 hours and one every 80 minutes, respectively.
In a nation where millions have lost their homes and millions more are unemployed, the trillions of dollars wasted to carry out this war is money desperately needed to invest in our nation’s future. With the country facing staggering debt and limited resources to address domestic human needs at a time of economic crisis, the war in Iraq proved to be a war of depravity and inequality at home enriching war profiteers and corporations at the expenses of the poor and middle-class.
U.S. troops have left Iraq, but has the occupation actually ended? The U.S. has built the largest embassy in the world in Baghdad – the footprint of our military is being replaced by that of the State Department and thousands of private security contractors in its employ. As UFPJ members protested the war, we must also protest this new form of corporate occupation.
U.S. troops have left Iraq, but is there peace? There can be no peace without justice. We must insist that the U.S. government end its interference in the affairs of Iraq. We must support the struggles of the Iraqis for jobs, security, and human rights. The Iraqi people deserve reparations from the U.S. for the damages and destruction that the immoral invasion and occupation spawned. In 2012, UFPJ will be exposing the impact of the war and advocate for the reparations and restitution that the U.S. government owes the Iraqi people.
As we move into 2012, we thank you for your dedication and perseverance. The world’s continued resistance to U.S. military aggression has made a significant difference. The people in the streets around the globe on February 15, 2003 were indeed a “second superpower.” We still have that power and in the coming year we will continue to use it to move forward the cause of peace and justice. In the face of a global recession and a sick U.S. economy, our message of peace and our solutions are more relevant than ever.
UFPJ will continue to call for an end to occupations and U.S. military aggression around the world. We will continue to pressure for a shift in spending priorities from war making to human needs. As part of the 99% we call on the wealthy and on corporations to pay their fair share, especially in this time of need. In 2012 we will continue to advocate for a vision of a world beyond war, where political and economic equity and peace and justice are shared aspirations.
Our work is not yet done, and new opportunities to create peace and justice emerge every day. Power To The Peaceful and persistent!
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