Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

Ron Paul: End Obamacare, Abolish the IRS, Eliminate Support for Big Government

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lpBfhxF1XM

America's Culpability In 9/11: The Military Industrial Complex

By Frosty Wooldridge
9-19-11

This reality pains me more than anyone can understand. I am the son of a career U.S. Marine. My grandfather served and earned a Purple Heart in WWI. My father served in WWII and Korea, and died in service. My brother served in the U.S. Army in Desert Storm. I served as a U.S. Army officer during Vietnam.

War is hell and it scrambles men's and women's minds. From the Vietnam War alone, over 200,000 once healthy men committed suicide after coming back from Nam in 1975. Hundreds of thousands more suffered broken marriages and descended into drugs and alcohol. The expectations for suicides from Iraq and Afghanistan run into the 150,000 range. Those suicides can be based on the lunacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Nixon and now, George Bush and Barack Obama.

For the record, I personally know Peter Gadiel the father of a young boy who died in one of the twin towers on 9/11. His pain continues today because he has battled the U.S. government to stop illegal immigration and secure our borders for 10 year, but they have not. The incompetence or the "on purpose" path of supporting illegal immigration as well as relentless legal immigration shows a grand design to destroy the sovereignty and culture of our country by some very powerful elites at the top of the power structure.

My heart goes out to every American and non-American that suffered in the 9/11 massacre. This past 9/11 Sunday, America mourned. I mourned.

I love America with every cell in my body. At the same time, I urge a reality check to Americans as to open door for 9/11. Nothing in this universe or in this world happens without a cause. We live in a cause and effect world. Something or some act causes a corresponding reaction.

A bit of history from the United States of America

When the European settlers came to this country, they slaughtered the Native Americans with superior, mechanized violence. It proved deplorable yet humanity tends toward self-aggrandizement. Conquering human tribes always write history in their own best interest. They (our forefathers) grouped the Indians into detention camps called "reservations." Our forefathers took away their freedoms, cultures, customs, languages, religions and ways of life. We introduced them booze and small pox. We broke treaty after treaty with the Indians. We massacred men, women and children. Read Trail of Tears, Sand Creek Massacre and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee if you want to appreciate a really in-depth understanding of white men's violence toward Native Americans.

They have not recovered. They live on welfare, on reservations, drink endless booze, live on hopelessness and suffer domestic violence as they attempt and fail to adjust to the white man's world. We also turned their pristine continent into a chemical, carbon, paved, polluted and littered trash pit. Look them in the eyes and one can feel their emptiness. How can we look in the mirror ourselves and feel nothing?

During Harry Truman's administration, his advisors cooked up the idea that we should halt communism by fighting in Korea. We jumped in to kill hundreds of thousands while suffering 33,000 deaths ourselves-in a conflict that we had no business entering over 10,000 miles away from our shores. The Korean War killed countless tens of thousands of people and did absolutely nothing to move the world toward peace. North and South Korea today stand as ardent enemies with no solution.

When Dwight D. Eisenhower finished his two terms as president, he warned about the Military Industrial Complex. Quite simply, that is a group of men and organizations that feed on wars, and as we have seen, they create and engineer wars. We American citizen did not heed Ike's words.

Thus, the U.S. Military Industrial Complex created the Vietnam War. It did not create it to make America safer; those elites created it to make more money and wield their power. We waged it for 10 years because that's how long those engineers could manipulate us. It would still be going if not for the "reaction" of the college students screaming, "Hell no, we won't go!"

The architect of Vietnam, Robert McNamara, before he died at 92 a year ago, wrote Fog of War. He admitted that, "Vietnam was a mistake." His mistake killed over 2.1 million Vietnamese and poisoned their country with Agent Orange. It still causes ecological mayhem and birth defects throughout Vietnam in 2011. Since we don't see or feel the consequences, we feel immune to our causing them.

The Gulf of Tonkin fraud provided the pretense for the Vietnam War. But that's all it took for Johnson to start bombing and sending 53,267 men to their violent deaths with another 350,000 amputated or maimed emotionally. The "Silent Majority" felt no culpability for the deaths of 2.1 million Vietnamese any more than it felt culpability for the massacres of Native Americans. When might we understand that we are not the final "father figure" of the planet?

Then, in the early 1990s, we stuck our noses into Kuwait and Iraq. We killed a few thousand people with our firepower. We lost just short of 400 kids. At that time, Osama bin Laden warned us to leave Muslim lands. Several other imams demanded that we leave Muslim lands or face jihad. We didn't believe them because we felt immune to the law of cause and effect.


In 1993, Muslims tried to bomb the World Trade Towers at the basement level. They failed while bin Laden again warned us to leave Muslim lands. We still didn't listen in 1993. We do not listen in 2011 at what costs to our young men and women? Answer: 4,200 American soldier (kids) deaths and 42,000 maimed.


On September 11, 2001, not Afghanistan and not Iraq, but 17 of the 19 men from Saudi Arabia hijacked our airplanes and flew them into the towers, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania cornfield. Some very cogent proof shows that 9/11 was an inside job and that someone in high places concocted the entire terrorist act to get us into another war. Building #7 collapsed because it was rigged with explosives.


From there we have bombed and killed tens of thousands of "insurgents" in that goat herder country of Afghanistan that lacks a single fighter jet or helicopter. Isn't it amazing how the finest army in the world can't conquer a bunch of illiterate goat herders and poppy seed growers?


Then, as usual, the Military Industrial Complex boiled up "Weapons of Mass Destruction," which allowed George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to start bombing a country that did not have any weapons of mass destruction. They used and made a fool out of General Colin Powell. Subsequently, Bush/Cheney killed hundreds of thousands as they created 2.5 million refugees and contaminated Iraq's soil and water with depleted uranium "shock and awe" bombs. I charge George W. Bush and coward Dick "five draft deferments from Vietnam" Cheney with crimes against humanity. Their total arrogance in the face of Muslim leaders' warnings borders on Hitler's megalomania.

In the meantime, Bush and Cheney stroll around their mansions with endless money while our precious, though naïve volunteer soldier/kids walk around with plastic arms, legs and other body parts. Not only that, 100,000 combat soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan will commit suicide in the coming years as well as suffer horrible broken families and orphaned children. Of special note, one young man this past week earned the Medal of Honor while millions more earned a PTSD diagnosis. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is another term for having your brains scrambled for life.)

Continued Below

We mourn that dreadful moment on 9/11, yet our own government's actions and the Military Industrial Complex caused 9/11. Today, we harbor over 572,000 military personnel on over 700 bases in over 100 countries around the world. In effect, we foist our standing army into every corner of the Earth. We push our empire onto everybody else's country without merit and without reason.

The results: as a nation, we're broke, in-debt and spiritually vacuous. We suffer 14 million unemployed while spending $12 billion monthly for two wars of 10 years. Our schools turn out illiterate kids and our country suffers from insidious malaise such as "flash mobs."

Our Congress features a 12 percent approval rating and our president suffers from a 46 percent approval rating, worst in the modern era. He has failed on every pledge to get Americans back to work and bring peace to our country. Obama's Nobel Peace prize is a contradiction as he added to and lengthened the war in Afghanistan. His floundering represents our floundering. What could that $12 billion monthly war bill do for our citizens within our country? Plenty! We have spent over $1 trillion blowing up two ancient countries.

As you now appreciate, 9/11 didn't occur out of the ether. By our apathy and refusal to listen to Muslim demands to leave their countries, our government and the Military Industrial Complex caused 9/11. We're accountable because we supported Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and Iraq with our silence and apathy.

Taking responsibility powers change for a more positive outcome. Doing nothing as we citizens have done for 50 years-allows the Military Industrial Complex to continue without pause.

How do we stop our Congress, presidents and the Military Industrial Complex from creating and starting more wars?

1. We need term limits to stop the good old boy network that allows men like Mark Udall, Orrin Hatch, John McCain and Charles Schumer to languish in office for decades, accomplishing little as politicians.

2. Invite fresh minds and statesmen (women) to move our country forward.

3. We must elect presidents that honor the Constitution instead of emotions, hunches or other indolent manners of leadership that start wars.

4. We citizens must cease supporting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with our apathetic complicity.

5. We must abandon our ethnocentric arrogance for a 21st century integrity that understands that all humans matter in their own countries-versus our long standing superior view of America's power.

6. May this be America's time to move toward authentic power with equitable, moral and spiritual actions-understanding that we are part of the human family. To maintain our current imperialism will invite another 9/11.

http://www.rense.com/general94/amrrr.htm

Barry Manilow is a Ron Paul fan

Sep 15, 2011
21 Comments
Catalina Camia, USA TODAY Updated 4d 10h ago



GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul has an unlikely fan in pop singer Barry Manilow.

Manilow, known for hits such as Mandy and Copacabana, told The Daily Caller website that he agrees with "just about everything" the Texas congressman says.

"I like him. I like what he says, I do. I like what he says. I think he's solid," Manilow is quoted as saying. "I agree with just about everything he says. What can I tell you?"

Paul is a libertarian-thinking Republican who has long taken issue with federal spending, especially for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and any federal program that doesn't derive directly from the Constitution.

In 2008, Manilow donated $2,300 to Paul's presidential campaign. But the singer opened his checkbook primarily to Democrats, according to a review of Manilow's donations through the Center for Responsive Politics website.

Manilow also gave money in 2008 to Democrats Joe Biden, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, the man Paul would like to replace in the White House.

See photos of: Ron Paul, Barry Manilow

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...ential-race-/1

Ron Paul the unlikely star of state GOP convention


Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas (center), the overwhelming winner of the state Republican convention's straw poll, prepares to speak to his supporters.


LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 17: Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) hold up signs as they wait for his arrival at the California Republican Party Convention on September 17, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. The three-dayCalifornia Republican Party 2011 Fall Convention began yesterday with an appearance by Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).


A Ron Paul supporter carries a large campaign sign around the lobby of the California Republican Party Fall Convention in Los Angeles, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2011.


LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 17: Robert Broski, an Abraham Lincoln impersonator, walks around during the California Republican Party Convention puts her fingerprint on her ballot as she votes in the straw poll on September 16, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. The three-day California Republican Party 2011 Fall Convention began yesterday with an appearance by Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).


Attendees of the California Republican Party Fall Convention vote during a straw poll in Los Angeles, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2011.


Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) speaks during the California Republican Party Convention on September 16, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. The three-day California Republican Party 2011 Fall Convention began yesterday with an appearance by Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).


A dog named Keelut, wearing a placard in support of Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), waits in line with his owner Gan McGee, from San Luis Obispo, California, to enter a ball room to hear Paul speakat the California Republican Party Convention on September 17, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. The three-day California Republican Party 2011 Fall Convention began yesterday with an appearance by Republican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...5VGA.DTL&tsp=1

Ron Paul the unlikely star of state GOP convention

Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer
San Francisco ChronicleSeptember 18, 2011 04:00 AM
Sunday, September 18, 2011

Los Angeles -- At California's usually staid GOP state convention, hundreds of unlikely Republican activists - many sporting porkpie hats, dreadlocks and tie-dyed shirts - lined up Saturday to cast ballots in the party straw poll, then jammed meeting rooms and hallways to ecstatically greet their favorite candidate.

"President Paul! President Paul!" they chanted, carrying signs proclaiming the "Paul Revolution," as Rep. Ron Paul of Texas swept from event to event at the convention and decisively won Saturday's straw poll with 44.9 percent of the vote.

The object of all the passion and excitement was not a show-horse presidential candidate like Texas Gov. Rick Perry or Tea Party darling Rep. Michele Bachmann - but the longshot and somewhat rumpled renegade Paul. The ardor bestowed on the unlikely star was clearly a matter of discomfort at the convention, which attracted more than 1,000 GOP activists.
Disregarding polls, pundits

The youthful crowd who make up the congressman's brigade call themselves "Paulistas." They insist they are unfazed by polls showing Paul to be a mere footnote in the race or by media pundits who dismiss him as fringe and even fanatical. They invaded the halls of the Marriott hotel, chanting "End the Fed!" and wearing T-shirts saying "I'm voting for peace." And they overwhelmed the typically unremarkable straw poll when huge crowds waited to cast ballots for their man.

"It's everyone, all walks of life," said Orange County commodities broker Allan Bartlett, looking around at a packed hall. "What they crave is a consistent political philosophy."
Paul far outdistanced his nearest rivals in the straw poll. Perry finished second with 29 percent, Mitt Romney was third with 9 percent and Bachmann came out fourth with just 8 percent of the 833 total ballots cast.
In an interview with The Chronicle, Paul appeared nonplussed by the adulation, saying that his views - admittedly unorthodox by GOP standards - separate him from the rest of the pack and attract Americans who "value freedom."
"They're young people, mostly, who realize our country's in a mess ... and they're very open to the ideas of liberty," said Paul, 76. "They'd just as soon assume responsibility for themselves ... be left alone, get the government off their back and get out of wars."
Paul declined to rule out a possible independent presidential run if he fails to secure the GOP nomination. But, he emphasized, "I have no plans to do it."

"It's the wrong thing to think about," he said. "If I go around here and talk to people, and I said, 'Well, I guess our Plan B is when we lose in January, we have to start a third-party movement' - that would be so negative."
Focus on individual freedom

Addressing a matter that earned him boos in the most recent Tea Party debate, Paul told The Chronicle that he stood by his criticisms of the United States' policies - not the country, he insisted - after Sept. 11.

"We should always be cautious about the unintended consequences of our policy ... that it could come back to haunt us," he said. "People want to twist it and say because I'm critical I blame America. And they're not fair ... because I blame its policies."

Paul acknowledged that his core belief in individual freedom extends to the position that the federal government should never mandate what many view as basic health and safety requirements - vaccines for polio, whooping cough, or even seat belt laws.

"I don't like mandates," he said simply.

Asked about Tea Party cheers at the last debate on a question regarding an uninsured man who might die in the streets without government aide, Paul said his view that entitlement programs such as welfare and health care need to be dramatically slashed is both compassionate and constitutionally sound.

Paul organizer John Dennis, who ran last year as an unsuccessful Libertarian candidate against Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, drew cheers from the crowd when he seconded that philosophy.
"I believe in a strong, robust and efficient safety net. I just don't think the federal government should be involved in it," he said. "I think it's time that we start working toward the end of those programs."
Still, Paul is fighting an uphill battle, even with his own party. State GOP officials publicly invited Perry, Romney and Bachmann to speak. They snubbed Paul, who showed up anyway. On Saturday, most party officials steered clear of his events.
Reaching younger voters

Former state party Chairman Shawn Steele, a member of the Republican National Committee, was the exception, telling Paul's supporters they were infusing the GOP with "a whole bunch of raw energy that we haven't had in the party for decades."

An added benefit, he noted wryly, was that "you're lowering the average age of Republican delegates by about 30 years."

Paul told The Chronicle that while he has run for president before, this time is different. Younger voters are involved in social media such as Facebook where "hundreds of thousands" of them are spreading his message.
"The only way we'll find out is what happens in January, whether that translates into real votes," he said. "We see the enthusiasm ... and the volunteers. But under our system, the litmus test is: Do they come to the polls and vote? We'll see."

E-mail Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...5VGA.DTL&tsp=1

Ron Pauls Foreign Policy: Peace & Respect Not Intimidation, Bribes & War

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtQTTSmc ... r_embedded



September 15, 2011
675 Responses

Ron Paul: The Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear bomb on August 29, 1949, leading to the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, shared by both the USA and the Soviets. The unwritten agreement by the two super powers deterred nuclear war with an implied threat to blow up the world, if need be, to defend each of their interests.

I well remember the Cuban missile crises of October 1962, having been drafted into the military at that time. Mutually Assured Destruction had significant meaning to the whole world during this period. This crisis, along with the escalating ill-advised Vietnam War, made me very much aware of the problems the world faced during the five years I served as a USAF flight surgeon.

It was with great pleasure and hope that I observed the collapse of the Soviet Empire between 1989 and 1991. This breakup verified the early predictions by the free market economists, like Ludwig Von Mises, that communism would self-destruct because of the deeply flawed economic theories embedded in socialism. Our nukes were never needed because ideas are more powerful than the Weapons of War.

Many Americans at the time were boldly hopeful that we would benefit from a generous peace dividend. Sadly, it turned out to be a wonderful opportunity wasted. There was to be no beating their swords into plowshares