Why Won't Ron Paul Quit?

I'll spare you the rehash of Mainstream Media theories.  You've probably heard them all.  Ron Paul continues on, in my opinion, for two reasons: 

1.  He's building a Movement.  Movements have patience.  He was branded a lunatic in 2008, half-serious in 2012, and what of 2016?   I think Paul's organization will be utilized by the next Paul Libertarian as a big leap towards establishing a serious Third Party challenge.   

A Movement isn't dependent on Cult of Personality, rather, those who share ideology.  What if Paul is paving the way for future Libertarians?  Then, Ron Paul becomes the seminal first Presidential candidate for what turned into the first competitive Third Party candidate in modern history.  If that were to happen, Ron Paul gets a big ol' hat-tip in tomorrow's history books!

2.  He's waiting for every other candidate to be called out, politically destroyed, or indicted for their various massive cronyism and corruptions.  I think Ron Paul intends on being the true Last Man Standing.

That's just my two drachmas, worth just as much.

Friday, June 24, 2011: This Week In Crazy, Chaos, Criminality, And Cool..

What if the radiation IS the transformation?  There's nothing to back this up, but an interesting question, nonetheless..

LulzSec releases ‘classified’ data of ‘racist’ Arizona law enforcement  From Raw Story.  Aww..  Anonymous has made a friend..

World's oceans in 'shocking' decline    BBC.  Excerpts:

The oceans are in a worse state than previously suspected, according to an expert panel of scientists.

In a new report, they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history".

They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognised.

The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity.
..
"As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications became far worse than we had individually realised.

"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years."
..
"The rate of change is vastly exceeding what we were expecting even a couple of years ago," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coral specialist from the University of Queensland in Australia.


Some species are already fished way beyond their limits - and may also be affected by other threats
"So if you look at almost everything, whether it's fisheries in temperate zones or coral reefs or Arctic sea ice, all of this is undergoing changes, but at a much faster rate than we had thought."


But more worrying than this, the team noted, are the ways in which different issues act synergistically to increase threats to marine life.
..
In a wider sense, ocean acidification, warming, local pollution and overfishing are acting together to increase the threat to coral reefs - so much so that three-quarters of the world's reefs are at risk of severe decline.

Here's hoping..  New bill ending federal ban on marijuana to be introduced in Congress

7.2 Earthquake, Aleutian Islands, Alaska

The In Betweens  Aquarius Papers.  Excerpts:

It seems we are in one of those time spaces I have termed "the in-betweens." This is the moment between breaths, between steps, between thoughts, and between life chapters.



If you are impatiently waiting for an answer, a response, a clear vision, a sense of definite movement into something you haven't glimpsed, understood, or captured, you're in "the in-betweens." The trick is not to get hooked into counterproductive emotional and mental states while we're waiting for the unknown to manifest.


Whether a minute, a day, a month, a year, or a decade, we find ourselves in the in-between place throughout our lives. It's actually a great time to meditate, contemplate, and understand our larger life mythos, if we don't allow fear, impatience, or frustration to jam our mental and emotional gears.

Many feel like elements of the old have ended, but the new isn't yet manifest. In manifesting a new way to do or be, Spirit works out in specific ways. When we "send out the call," or do an intention to manifest a higher way to be, Spirit always answers, though sometime it is in strange and mysterious ways.

Not Only Does Ron Paul Have A Bigger Set Than Any Other Politician, So Do His Supporters..

‘War criminal!’: Ron Paul backers crash Cheney-Rumsfeld reunion Friggin' awesome(!) excerpts:
Supporters of libertarian Republican Ron Paul shouted down(!!-me) former Vice President Dick Cheney at a conservative conference Thursday, in a sign of a growing foreign policy rift on the American right.

Cheney had appeared on the first day of the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference to introduce Donald Rumsfeld, the former Bush-era defense secretary who was scheduled to receive this year's "Defender of the Constitution Award."

That didn't sit well with "Team Paul," supporters of Rep. Ron Paul who have long called for an end to the US's foreign wars.

"Where's bin Laden?" one heckler shouted as Cheney stood at the podium to introduce Rumsfeld.

"War criminal!" another shouted out, prompting a heated reaction from the crowd. (Ya think?)

The specter of a Republican vice president being called a "war criminal" at a conservative conference was so unexpected that it prompted TalkingPointsMemo's Evan McMorris-Santoro to describe it as "what a Cheney-Rumsfeld hug at the Netroots Nation convention might look like."
..
Rumsfeld's "Defender of the Constitution" award has been ridiculed by liberal anti-war activists and libertarians alike, who argue that Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials were among the most dismissive of constitutional rights.

Because Libertarian/Conservatives said it, I'm sure the other Conservatives didn't try to beat them up. The essence of a collective "pants-shitting moment," to be sure.. And you thought the last two political cycles were hot..
Paul/Kucinich '12!

Ron Paul, Ralph Nader agree on ‘progressive-libertarian alliance’

More encouraging news regarding what should be (and will, hopefully..) the political direction for 21st Century America. From RawStory. Excerpts:

In this corner, a libertarian, tea party hero who ran several campaigns as a candidate for US president on the Republican ticket. And in that corner, a progressive icon of the left who also ran several campaigns for the US presidency but on the Green Party ticket. One might think the two men, seemingly ideologically opposed to one another, would rather argue than help one another.

However, on Wednesday's broadcast of Freedom Watch on the Fox Business channel, Judge Napolitano sat down for an amiable interview with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Ralph Nader to discuss a progressive-libertarian alliance in the 112th session of respective chambers in Congress.(Video courtesy Mox News from Fox News)
And:
"I believe in coalitions," Rep. Paul echoed. "They talk about we need more bipartisanship, and I say we have too much bipartisanship because the bipartisanship we have here in Washington endorses corporatism."

Paul added that he agreed with Nader on a host of issues, such as cutting the US military's budget, ending undeclared US wars overseas, restoring civil liberties and civil rights by dumping from the Patriot Act, and withdrawing from the NAFTA and World Trade Organization agreements.

"I think we should come together and work together, and I think we can," he said, noting that the coalition had previously worked on deficit financing solutions.

This needs to grow and become cohesive, and quick. I hope they understand(and I think they do) that time is of the essence, and the time is now. Now.

The Ends Meet; The Circle Is Complete

Awesome political news: Nader: Progressive-libertarian alliance ‘the most exciting new political dynamic’ in US Hell yeah! Excerpts in italics:

Prepare for the rise of libertarian progressives.

That was the message earlier in the week from trends analyst Gerald Celente, who predicted that the rapid acceleration of wealth into the coffers of the ultra-rich would drive a global youth resistance movement in 2011 and reformat long-held political boundaries.

Longtime American politics gadfly Ralph Nader, a man of many ideas almost diametrically opposed by most libertarian conservatives, said Wednesday that he sees a coming convergence of liberals, progressives and libertarian conservatives in the wake of a worsening financial crisis and dogged partisanship that's put the government into gridlock.

Speaking to Fox Business's libertarian host Judge Napolitano, Nader called these shifting alliances "the most exciting new political dynamic" in the US today.
And:
So how will this left-right alliance begin?

Nader suggested that it already has, thanks to the unity of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the most conservative and most liberal members of their respective chambers. They've teamed up to propose cuts to the US defense budget, which has long been by far the largest sector of America's annual budget, and to push a more thorough audit of the Federal Reserve, the private central bank which controls America's currency.

And:

"The authentic tea partiers hail from the conservative libertarian wing of the Republican party that has been so disrespected and corporatized by the likes of Bush and Cheney," Nader said. "So here they come into town and they're going to go after a lot of things the Republican establishment is opposed to."

He added that a coming "liberal-conservative connection" will ultimately "draw that distinction between the corporatist and the genuine libertarian conservatives."

And:

"The key thing is when they go after all the bloated corporate welfare subsidies, handouts, give-aways, bailouts -- they're going to alienate all these corporate Republicans, but they don't care," he said. "The one's I'm talking about, in the House and Senate, they operate on principle. They don't care if they're overruled, if they don't get the monuments or the freebies. They operate on principle and they're going to make an alliance with the liberal progressives."

So.. When can you guys start work?

This could be an amazing development. I'm thrilled it's happening. Politicians standing on principle? This is the most hopeful, optimistic story we've had in 2011, and maybe all year. Maybe we can turn this catastrophe around, averting disaster at the last second. Not likely. More likely? We can prepare for this upcoming crash, navigate the simultaneous insanity(s) resulting from such a crash, successfully rebound from said insanity(s), and we can become a stronger nation, and a more perfect union. To paraphrase Clif over at halfpasthuman; Learning to fall can save our lives.

This can be achieved if our best thinkers from the far ends of our spectrum, come together, think objectively, synthesize their best thoughts, and genuinely plan for the welfare of all Americans. And these men and women can do so with equal parts passion and civility. We can achieve much when we work together, without infighting. We are capable; but will we, really? And are we too late?

WikiLeaks: Ron Paul Has Something To Say..

Video: Ron Paul Tells The Truth About WikiLeaks In front Of Congress,

Granted, he's no Jeri Blank, but who is?  Of course these two aren't related; I just miss "Strangers With Candy."

Bradley Manning Is So Much More Intelligent Than The Official Line Portrays Him..

WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning "designed Facebook" as a schoolboy, friends say

This person sounds much more.. capable of the know how needed to engineer such a massive transfer of information, and the thoughtfulness to understand and stand up for his beliefs and motivations. Excerpts:

Bradley Manning, the prime suspect in the leaking of top secret documents to the WikiLeaks website, was such a computer expert that he designed a version of Facebook years before modern social networking sites took off, friends have disclosed.

Friends remember the teenager as a shy schoolboy who was determined to speak his mind and “had his own sense of right and wrong”.

"He produced a website with another schoolmate. It was pre-Facebook. It was like a community site. It didn’t really lift off, but it was a good idea.

"It was pretty much a social networking site before its time. You could log in and find out about local news."
..
..Those who befriended Manning when he arrived in Wales aged 13, after his parents divorced, suggested that he had always possessed some of the character traits which may have prompted the biggest-ever leaks of confidential information from the US government.

Mr Dyer told Channel 4 News that Manning had quickly established a reputation for computer expertise at his West Wales comprehensive.
..
He said: “He's always had this sense that 'I'm going to right a big wrong'. He was like that at school.

Mr Dyer insisted that Manning never meant any harm but was simply determined to stand his own ground.

"He has his own sense of what is right or wrong,” he added. “It’s not directed against another person in particular. He's certainly not malicious in any of his actions."

This portrait of Manning doesn't really fit the Lady Ga Ga narrative pushed when the story initially broke. Will his early friends stand by and not respond to the "Manning is treasonous" talk thrown around the punditsphere? I find the differing reactions to the event so far very interesting. The calls for Assange's arrest, execution(Very Christlike, Mike, by the way..), assassination, re-classification as terrorist, and yet, fascination with the cables they might have interest in...**Like this:

I would not want to be in Mr. Assange's shoes right now. Assange gave an interview to Forbes earlier this month. Wikileaks is supposed to be unveiling a major U.S. banking scandal in early 2011, consisting of thousands of documents obtained from a major U.S. financial firm (Goldman Sachs ??? Those are some documents I wouldn't mind seeing). **

Ron Paul, though, gets it right.. "In a free society we're supposed to know the truth," Paul said. "In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it."

I can't attribute this yet, but something I picked up this week's readings was this: If the government can know all of your secrets and peer into so many aspects of your private life, why shouldn't they be held by the same standard? Do not forget, they indeed work for us; not us for them. Whether or not you agree with Bradley Manning's actions, it does sound like he stands behind his convictions and probably hasn't changed his mind about what he has brought about. This story becomes more compelling with each passing day..