Rick Reuben wrote:warmowski wrote:Ron Paul is punk rock? No. Ron Paul is...fake populism.
-r
How can Ron Paul be 'fake' populism when every point he makes about the illegality of the Fed and the IRS is supported by facts that you can't disprove?
Here's how: by demonizing government to a load of twits while being oh-so-quiet about the real civil requirements government represents. Classic populism promoted the public interest; Ron Paul -- like all right-wingers -- panders to hatred of taxes in an presidential election year, and this pandering is at the expense of public interest.
What escapes you is that government is not international political theater. You just don't get that. Again, always and forever: A does not actually equal B. Granted, it's fun to play with that equals sign and shove it where it doesn't belong (sorry,
might belong), but grown-ups with names and bodies of actual work tire of that eventually. You haven't gotten there yet; I'd be less proud of that if I were you. But whatever.
What government actually is can be easily found by reading the 18-year Congressional appropriations record of Ron Paul. Given the very low number of times that record can be beaten off to, you almost certainly have not.
Government - as your candidate knows, and I suspect you know but dare not say - is reinforcing bridges, dredging rivers, buying database systems, staffing and equipping cultural centers and if you're in Ron Paul's district this fiscal year, marketing shrimp.
In other words, government is mostly just what this and all other free-market fundamentalist clowns rail against. Paul did it himself for eighteen years and we're supposed to just ignore that because of his monetary policy? Fuck that. He nationally panders Reaganite free-market we're-all-on-our-own horseshit to the tens of millions of isolated don't-tax-me dullards sprawled everywhere while knowing all the while that
the Texas 14th wasn't on its own, isn't on its own and will never be on its own, Fed or no Fed, IRS or no IRS.
That right-wing message is a fucking bluff, and plenty of us know to call Ron Paul and every other right-wing cocksucker on it. Just not you, apparently.
Rick Reuben wrote:
What we have here is a byproduct of the malignant nostalgia for the grossly exaggerated social value of old punk rock, promoted by old punk rockers[...]
That would be interesting and insightful analysis if it weren't for the small problem that nothing I said is terribly punk rock.
I just wish you'd admit it: the perennial smash-hit Reaganite shrieking that government needs to "get off our backs" is what drives Paulbots - not technical monetary policy.
I recognize that capital American-style includes magic money - lots of it. I recognize that accounting-trick capital has hugely devalued the dollar. I howl with the irony of a modern 10% fractional-reserve requirement for lending matching the 10% margin requirement for loans for stock purchase that fueled the crash in '29. I know that addiction to liquidity then and now is the source of a great and recurring problem and that a new, worse 1929 is very likely coming as a result.
I know all of this, and so do you. But the difference between us is Fed or no Fed, I won't pretend that right-wing libertarian lies about civil life and government are anything but scummy, pandering lies. Bridges gotta get built; kids gotta get taught.
You say that makes me a fake liberal. Sorry, anonymous guy. What it makes me is not a sucker. Until I see you at the liberal meetings, until you and I work together on liberal causes and I may then judge your worth to them beyond your prolific, anonymous tippy-tapping on the internet, I'll just be ignoring your silly criticism, thanks.
Rick Reuben wrote:Now we have the internet. For now. Finally, we have the machine to transmit the message. Imagine if the anti-Vietnam movement had the internet at their disposal. Imagine if we had the internet back in 1910, when the bankers were finishing their plot to seize and bankrupt America. Imagine if the power of instant unedited communication with millions existed at other forks in the road of America.
Bernadine Dohrn didn't need the internet, and every blow she struck against war profiteering offices and infrastructure counted for a fuckload more than your clicking Submit 10,000 times. In light of that, I ask you to get the fuck over yourself, because compared to her, you are an anonymous pussy typist using a DARPA technology to jerk off with.
-r
