A couple of posts ago, I was asked in a comment by one of my regular castigators which of the candidates I felt were "the strongest allies/foes of corporatism". I felt that was a fair question, and one which deserved careful consideration. After due deliberation, I'm ready to answer. Much of the following biological and funding information comes from Project Vote Smart, which has a fairly nice site with easy links to the information regarding the remaining active candidates. With a bit more effort, one can also locate all of the others.
I'll get to my foes of corporatism first, as that list is very short: Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel. Each is essentially running on one and the same issue: ending the war in Iraq. I feel that this lack of a broader appeal makes it easy for both to be marginalized as they are by the media, the best measure I can use to demonstrate that they aren't corporate insiders.
I know that Ron Paul has had his troubles with the media as well, but he's been included in debates through the exertion of less effort than Kucinich, who remains excluded despite the exertion of far more effort.
As for the allies of corporatism, just look at all of the other candidates of both parties. You have corporate lawyers (Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Biden, Dodd), corporate executives (Romney), corporate lackeys (Hunter, Thompson), corporate shills (Keyes, Tancredo), corporate crooks (McCain [see: Lincoln Savings]), corporate televangelist (Huckabee), a corporate clown cross-dresser (Giuliani), and sitting corporate governance servants (Paul, Richardson).
Then see where their campaign funds come from, courtesy of Open Secrets. The following figures are the percentage of total contributions which came from business interests:
Dodd - 78.3%
Paul - 77%
McCain - 72%
Giuliani - 70%
Biden - 60.1%
Huckabee - 60%
Richardson - 60%
Romney - 60%
Clinton - 56%
Hunter - 54%
"Single-issue" candidates' business contribution percentages:
Thompson - 40%
Obama - 26%
Tancredo - 5.5%
Edwards - 4%
Keyes - "too little to measure"
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - RickH
That is about the nearest thing to a bald-faced lie regarding Ron Paul's fund sources as it is possible to make. The link shows $8.2 million of which $10,000 came from PACs. I seem to recall reading someplace that the biggest share of that $10,000 came from Google employees.
Bowing down to his corporate masters, indeed!
2 - Irene Wagner
Maybe not a baldface lie. Realist may have just misinterpreted the "PAC contribution breakdown chart." The chart does list represent the $10,500 coming from Business as 77%. Realist apparently misinterpreted the 77% as meaning "percentage of TOTAL contributions from business" rather than "percentage of PAC contributions from business." The percentage of Paul's contributions from PAC's in general, business or otherwise, is $10,500 divided by 8.2 million, which is effectively 0%, and it is stated as 0% in the "Source of Funds" chart above the "PAC Contribution Breakdown" chart.
RickH, you are correct in listing Google as the top contributor for Ron Paul--this fact can be verified by clicking on the top contributors link to the upper left of the pie charts. Also interesting to note how many employees of the armed forces gave to Ron Paul. 21K army. 14K navy. 11K Air Force. Sounds like the US military, in terms of it's employees contributing as individuals aren't bothered by Ron Paul's persistent Get Out of Iraq message.
3 - Lee Lafferty
Please recheck your %'s from business donations.
For example, you have Ron Paul as receiving 77% from business. But 77%, of what? Of total PAC donations is what. What % of TOTAL contributions does the PAC represent? 0.0012%
77% of Paul's total donations is not from business. Check you opensecrets.org links again.
You can not get a Business % of donations directly of these charts without computing it yourself. The data, as you present it, is flawed.
Lee
4 - Irene Wagner
It's OK Realist. Math is hard. Anyone could have made that mistake. So, let's move on to the statement that Paul's "message from the past is obscuring his message in the now." Actually, Realist, the message from the past that you may have been reading about in a certain notorious newsletter is not now and never has been Paul's message. It's the message a group of political rivals (shock! horrors! from the his erstwhile Libertarian associates no less) wants you to BELIEVE is Paul's message.
I sometimes wish Ron Paul had decided to buddy up with Kucinich and run as a Democrat.
5 - Leslie Bohn
Actually, it's a message Ron Paul has been getting across in his newsletters for 30 years. Ms. Wagner won't address the homophobic, racist shit in the Ron Paul newsletters and fundraising letters, I think because she doesn't like me. But the candidate she supports published shit like this:
...our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of [KKK Grand Wizard David] Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom
And she won't even talk about it.
6 - Irene Wagner
Leslie Kohn, this is beginning to feel a heck of a lot like being stalked. Bug off. And it's MRS.
7 - Irene Wagner
But I'll talk about it with anyone ELSE.
It’s easy to cut and paste the out-of-context quotes from James Kirchick’s "Angry White Man" to shock people. It takes more time (and typing!) to go back to the .pdf images of the yellowed originals from which the quotes are sourced and provide an analysis of the quotes and their context. The links and the spin, but not the context, are provided in another TNR piece Selections from Paul’s Newsletters.
For instance, "Selections from Paul’s Newsletters" sums up in a single line the content of one of the issues of the newsletters. "The November 1990 issue of the Political Report had kind words for David Duke." What exactly are those kind words?
"David Duke received 44% of the vote in the Senate primary race in Louisiana, 60% of the white vote, and (underlined)9% of the black vote!. This totaled 100,000 more votes than the current governor when he won. Duke lost the election, but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment. If the official Republican hadn’t been ordered to drop out, he might have won. Certainly there would have been a run-off. Duke’s platform called for tax cuts, no quotas, no affirmative action, no welfare, and no busing. “Tonight, we concede the election,” he said. “But we will never concede our fight for equal rights for all Americans.” To many voters, this seems like just plain good sense. Duke carried baggage from his past, but the voters were willing to overlook that. And if he had been afforded the forgiveness an ex-Communist gets, he might have won. Liberals like Richard Cohen of the Washington Post say he got so many votes because Louisianians were racist and ignorant. Baloney. David Broder, also of the Post, and equally liberal, writing on an entirely different subject, had it right: “No one wants to talk about [race] publicly, but if you ask any campaign consultant or pollster privately, you can confirm the sad reality that a great many working-class and middle-class white Americans are far less hostile to the rich and their tax breaks than they are to the poor and minorities with their welfare and affirmative-action programs.” Liberals are notoriously blind to the sociological effects of their own programs. David was hurt by his past. How many more Dukes are there waiting in the wings without such a taint?”
While you’re looking at that November 1990 .pdf file, by the way, be sure not to miss the section entitled “Jews and Christians Against a Mideast War.” Then you’ll know what James Kirchick was so REALLY so worked up about, and it wasn’t the “kind words for Duke.”
I won't waste anyone’s time defending myself against charges of homophobia and racism. This discussion is about Ron Paul, not me. Justin Raimondo, a nonhomophobic homosexual, and Nelson Linder, the not surprisingly, BLACK, director of the NAACP in Austin, both of whom have defended Ron Paul in the matter of the newsletters, are immune to the accusations of racism and homophobia.
8 - Dave Nalle
Irene, you should know that no one is immune to groundless accusations of anything in the world of politics. We've got self-hating Jews. Why not self-hating blacks and self-hating gays?
What I want to know is what Realist thinks about the $20 million the Clintons have gotten from Dubai and Saudi Arabia for their various pet projects and how that figures in to their political biases.
dave
9 - Leslie Bohn
Mrs. Wagner:
Thanks for posting those kind words for KKK Grand Wizard David Duke from Ron Paul's newsletter. I posted above another relevant quote from the same piece above, where Paul concludes that ...our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of [KKK Grand Wizard David] Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom.
I urge everyone to indeed read the crazed nuttery of those newsletters linked above by Mrs. Wagner.
As to your "typo," the more common spelling would be "Cohen." And mazel tov!
10 - Irene Wagner
Mazel-tov? You're telling me mavel-tov, Leslie Bohn? I'm going to type out that section of the November newsletter under the heading "Christians and Jews against Middle East War." I think I'm about to watch somebody's head explode.
11 - Leslie Bohn
Mrs. Wagner:
Yes, do please post more from Ron Paul's racist newsletters.
"Mazel tov" is used to mean "congratulations." I meant to wish you well upon your marriage, as I didn't know you were, hence "Ms," now corrected.
12 - Irene Wagner
Jews and Christians Against a Mideast War (November 1990 issue of the "Political Report.")
"I was pleased to facilitate, and to sign, an ad that ran on the op-ed page of the New York Times last month. It denounced the smear of anti-Semitism used on war opponents, and noted that “America can only be harmed by this war. Our kids are killed, our liberties suppressed, our taxes raised, the government engorged, the recession deepened, our Constitution shredded.” It urged those “salivating for war” to “buy rifles and “parachute into Baghdad. But not to kill our soldiers and wreck our economy.” The promoters of the war want a “New World Order,” said the ad. We believe in the “old American republic.”
“Co-chairman of the new group are Burt Blumert of the Center for Libertarian Studies and Lew Rockwell of the Mises Institute. Other signers included: Professor Richard M. Ebeling of Hillsdale College, Professor Paul Gottfried of Elizabethtown College, Professor Edward Kaplan of Western Washington University, Dr. Gary North of “Remnant Review,” entrepreneur James Rodney, and Professor Murray N. Rothbard of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “
“The committee has a small deficit. To help, and to join, send dues of $50 to JCAMW (Jews and Christians against a Mideast War)”
13 - Irene Wagner
Talk to Ruvy in Jerusalem first, Leslie Bohn, before you add "antisemitism" to the "homophobic" and "racist" you've already tried to smear me with. Oi VAY! What a piece of work.
14 - Leslie Bohn
Ron Paul's opposition to war is admirable indeed. And congratulations for finding a couple of paragraphs from the 88-94 period that are not chock full of overt racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism.
Is that the same issue where Paul wrote: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."?
15 - Leslie Bohn
Mrs. Wagner:
I don't need to ask anyone. I can develop my own ideas about someone who approvingly posts racist material supporting former Grand Wizard of the KKK David Duke on the internet.
16 - Irene Wagner
It's hard to have a conversation with a racist but its easier than having one with a liar.
17 - Leslie Bohn
Mrs. Wagner:
I agree. That's why I stick to the truth when I'm expressing my opinions, and I'm glad you do too.
18 - Leslie Bohn
Mrs. Wagner:
[Edited]
Opposing your candidate because he published racist and homophobic newsletters for many years is a perfectly logical and moral position. No lies are necessary to elucidate it.
I think our conversation has illuminated the Ron Paul phenomenon for readers, and has alerted lots of folks to the contents of these newsletters. I'd love to continue the conversation, which has been enlightening for me despite your ill humor.
Let the sunshine in!
19 - Irene Wagner
And there you have it, Ron Paul supporters, an example of the kind of opposition you can expect over the next few months.
If there hadn't been an audience ("thousands a day" he estimated in comment #82 of the "Why Hucabee Scares Me" thread where his personal attacks of racism and homophobia first started), I would have cut him off a lot sooner.
Nobody said it was going to be easy, but don't let the threat of being ridiculed and called a racist and a homophobe and an anti-Semite dishearten you. Not everyone whose door you'll be knocking has a law degree! You'll be meeting a lot of people who are tired of the war, wanting new solutions for the economy, and were born before 1980 so they have some perspective on how decent, freedom-loving blacks and decent, freedom-loving whites have matured in the way they speak to and about one another.
20 - Clavos
"I think our conversation has illuminated the Ron Paul phenomenon for readers, and has alerted lots of folks to the contents of these newsletters."
Perhaps. But, given the circumstances under which those newsletters were written and published, and the fact that RP did not write them himself, all of which have been detailed upthread, it is unlikely that your obsessive repetition of your specious arguments will have the effect you hope it will.
For the record, I am not a Ron Paul supporter, which fact I have discussed on these threads previously.
21 - Irene Wagner
But I haven't given up hope for you, Clavos ;)
*folds a "Hope for America" campaign flyer into an airplane, sails it into the air, and runs away*
22 - Leslie Bohn
Mr. Editor:
Due to editing, it looks as though I've violated the comment policy above. I have not, and I'd prefer if that were made clear.
23 - Leslie Bohn
Mr. Clavos:
My "argument," which is really more of a judgment, is that Ron Paul is a bad choice for President because he published a racist, homophobic, crazy newsletter for many years. Feel free to point out the logical fallacy in it that would qualify it as "specious."
If, as you seem to argue, you believe that Ron Paul was not the author of this hateful shit, but merely paid someone else to write it under his own name and for his own financial benefit, know that I feel THAT makes him a poor choice for President of the United States, and I welcome your argument as to why I should excuse it.
24 - Clavos
Mr. (Miss? Mrs?) Leslie,
The papers were published many years ago, and you have shown no proof that, if RP did indeed endorse those views then, he still does now, which is what makes your arguments specious.
The New Republic (a left wing journal) article to which you linked does not mention a date more recent than 1999 for the newsletters.
Indeed, what proof there is (the endorsements from the NAACP Irene has pointed out), indicate that he does not hold those views at this time, if he ever did.
25 - Christopher Rose
Leslie, if I'm following the debate correctly, you responded to a comment that breached the policy and that was edited for clarity's sake. That is all.