brought to you in conjunction with the Campaign for Real Handguns and the No Child Left Unarmed Trust
Pressed into the armed service of a brutal, drug-dealing, third world gangster government before his balls have even dropped - it isn't much better on the other side of the Thames either....
41 comments:
Hmm... puzzling... shouldn't that read 'real' guns instead of 'fake'? or does Lambeth police really intend to use their resources looking for plastic Star Wars swords?
Sad but true, as usual.
Hmm... puzzling... shouldn't that read 'real' guns instead of 'fake'?
apparently not, from the article in question...
"Chief Inspector Patrick Beynon from Lambeth Police said: "Replica guns are just as dangerous and damaging to our community as real guns, because they can be indistinguishable from the real thing"
Welcome to Bizarro World...
On a completely unrelated matter: has anyone noticed the complete absence of Ron Paul (one of the US presidential candidates) on UK news reports? Weird.
Or, "freedom of expression should not be measured by how likely the average person is to be silenced, but by how likely someone with something to say is."
After the above I should supply lots of youtube links to him grilling Greenspan etc but I don't have the bandwidth. (Anyone ...?).
On a completely unrelated matter: has anyone noticed the complete absence of Ron Paul (one of the US presidential candidates) on UK news reports? Weird.
Yup, that's for sure. Even Huckabee has got more coverage and Paul seems to be doing better than him in some places at least
However, UK-based Conspiraloons have an innate scepticism about semi-Messianic figureheads who get heavily boosted by established 'conspiracy' sites like those operated by Alex Jones.
Which is a shame as Paul is talking about a lot of interesting things - and certainly covering ground that other politicians in the US, and the UK, won't go anywhere near
Ron Paul is a good example of how trained people are to react in a certain way to certain ideas. Now as far as I'm concerned he sounds like the only rational man amidst an army of lunatics. His policies sound completly sensible and he himself comes across as a principled and honest man. Yet whenever I've discussed him with people they immediately go 'ohh that nutter', 'the conspiracy theorist', 'white supremacist' etc
I think its inexplicable that people would have such strong kneejerk reactions to a set of perfectly reasonable, if radical, ideas unless they have been subtly brain-trained into a pavlovian reaction when anything that disturbs their world view comes along.
And it's not even as if the current set of ideas on how to run things are a blazing success is it?
There's also been fuck all mention of Cynthia McKinney's campaign.
She mentions the 2008 election theft in her announcement video, but I don't suppose that's anything to with it.
Ron Paul is a good example of how trained people are to react in a certain way to certain ideas.
Exactly, he knows his core audience pretty well and he gives them a distilled, heady version of everything that's gone before. Anti 'big government', individualism and of course an appeal to 'real' patriotism.
He also takes a priestly approach and views everything through an extremely fundamentalist libertarian economic prism. (he even named his son rand for fucks sake). He also uses his reverence for the constitution to support him, as if that document was the last word in human organisation
This leads him to sponsor bills repealing the ban on guns in schools, stating that katrina victims were silly to live where they did and blacks are congenitally criminals
From his newsletter (which didn't read or write or allow to be released to the public)on the LA riots:
"The cause of the riots is plain: barbarism. If the barbarians cannot loot sufficiently through legal channels (i.e., the riots being the welfare-state minus the middleman), they resort to illegal ones, to terrorism.
Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.
Of course he denies being a racist but he certainly has no objection to hanging out with them
"The beneficial, educational impact of the John Birch Society over the past four decades would be hard to overestimate."
His anti union, anti welfare, anti minimum wage positions, while no doubt sincerely held, show he is a deeply, deeply reactionary zealot.
He conflicts some by his anti war/ sound money stuff but that only shows he can't be wrong all the time, and there are better critics of any of these things available.
His main appeal is to folks who want to rebuild america along the lines of hazzard county.
No govt, no taxes, no darkies.
I don't believe Ron Paul is a racist and the only evidence his enemies have ever managed to find in the public record is something from 15 years ago which he didn't write and didn't know about. Hardly conclusive. In fact, If you examine Paul's actual words and actions they show him to be a man who abhors racism and has always supported civil rights and liberty for everyone.
I do agree that he goes too far in over literally interpreting the constitution, but that seems quite a minor flaw compared to those of the mainstream political establishment. Ron Paul is no where near perfect, but on the core issues that really matter, he is bang on.
I don't believe Ron Paul is a racist and the only evidence his enemies have ever managed to find in the public record is something from 15 years ago which he didn't write and didn't know about.
And I believe he is, those quotes come from the ron paul political/survival report and as he is seen as a man of integrity I doubt he has changed his views.
They came out under his name, but he didn't read or write them and I'm sure he didn't inhale the noxious fumes wafting out of the green ink.
I don't care much about him either way, I think he's just a storm(front)drain for disaffection while the real business goes on
"There is good news after the L.A. riots. Statewide, gun sales are up 45% over the same period last year. People have been purchasing a record number. If the cops are not going to take care of the problem, the people will.
which pairs up deliciously with this sentiment
There is no such thing as a hate crime, only crimes against person and property.
This coming from out of Texas, tell that to james byrd's / paul broussard's family
It's clear it's the race angle the multi million dollar smear machines have gone for but it's not worked. The fact they can't find any other evidence that he's racist apart from one quote, not written by him, from 15 years ago says it all. I can't imagine a racist having personal heroes such as Mohammed Ali, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks either.
Some words actually spoken by Paul -
"Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans only as members of groups and never as individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike; as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups."
From the ron paul newsletter
Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul's newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. ("What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!" one newsletter complained in 1990. "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.") In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the "X-Rated Martin Luther King" as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours," "seduced underage girls and boys," and "made a pass at" fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as "a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."
Hate to see what he thinks of his anti-heroes
It's clear it's the race angle the multi million dollar smear machines have gone for but it's not worked.
There's no multi million dollar campaign, the guy's an irrelevance. Albeit an extremely avuncular, right wing irrelevance.
even more ron paul reports:
“My friend waved to the tiny [African-American] child, who scowled, stuck out her tongue, and said (somewhat tautologically): “I hate you, white honkey.” And the parents were indulgent. Is any white child taught to hate in this way?”
“Our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists—and they can be identified by the color of their skin.”
(I don't think the colour is white)
“Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots.”
Not a racist bone in his body
We've touched on this subject before in the context of chat I had with someone about Guido Fawkes' blog and 'Right Wing' Libertarians in general
A lot of these guys make some very sound noises about subjects like money supply (an area subject to nowhere near enough discussion/ education), civil liberties and foreign entanglements
but then, and taking the people who comment on Fawkes' blog as example, a significant number of them start raving about fantasy reactionary bollocks such as the risk of the imminent imposition of Sharia law on the UK population (with the aid of the occasional wind-up supplied courtesy of the Haribo crowd
Like Paul, I'm not fussed much about Ron Paul either way. As usual, good ideas are the important thing and I'm wary of any movement which presents any individual as the embodiment of those ideas
RP's clearly not going to win and the good stuff he is coming out with is not being allowed to penetrate the Mainstream Media. The moral of the tale is, I think, you can't work with a bankrupt system and all that money and well-intentioned time being sunk into RP's campaign might be better applied elsewhere with the aid of some lateral thinking
I'm f*cked if I know where though...
@tim
you're bang on about Cynthia McKinney IMHO
from the Establishment point of view she's the really scary candidate
Yes, Ron Paul could never win. If it even looked like he may win, he'd be taken care of, probably in a much more subtle and invisible way than '63.
I wish I knew what the lateral alternative to people like Paul was too. The ultimate aim must surely be to dismantle party politics and our current broken 'democracy' and build something new. But that doesn't look like happening any time soon. In the meantime, Paul for all his faults, is surely a better candidate that more of the same Obama and Hillary. The danger of those two candidates is both allow the US and Western democracies to slap themselves on the back for 4 years about how liberal and free they are because they elected a woman or a black man. Superb PR in the fight against the savages from the Middle East, but absolute bollocks on any substantial level.
In fact, i'd go as far to say the fact the two main contenders are a woman and a black man is no accident. The pantomime of liberal democracy is looking a bit threadbare so they need to give it a temporary shot in the arm...
The ultimate aim must surely be to dismantle party politics and our current broken 'democracy' and build something new. But that doesn't look like happening any time soon.
It might happen sooner than you might think. Unless you're one of those crazy Coincidence Theorists, it's reasonable to conclude that all those new cameras, databases and laws are being put into place for a reason (aside from the need to counter the ghastly spectre of global terrorism and the unparalleled threat it poses to our way of life and freedoms, obviously)
I'm sort of ambivalent to RP myself.
The libertarian movement does have some very appealing philosophical underpinnings, which remind me of organised anarchism (oxymoron Iknow). The idea that flesh and blood individuals (with souls) trump abstract concepts such as groups and legal fictions (up to a point).
American libertarians seem to me, to separate themselves from anarchism/nihilism by basing a absolutist moral code off of the constitution/bill of rights (and the teachings of the new testament). [Though there are some deep legal researchers (conspiraloons of course) in the US, who claim that the Constitution was never meant for the lay person (only representatives in DC), and that constitutional considerations in court like the 5th amendment were only awarded through the 14th amendment citizen's 'due process' clause... but thats another story]
The thing that RP and others don't seem (or want) to realise, is that we don't live in a perfect world where a free/free market individualistic society would suddenly be the utopia they think it would be for everyone.
I don't think that RP is a racist, but he doesn't seem to me, to be much different than most white american country folk who don't 'get' the black experience in the US, or the institutional racism inherent.
worth a look though:
RP interview re: stormfront
I do get his monetary policy, that the money creating process should be debt free and solely within Congress, though I'm not sure if a gold backed currency is the way to go. I thought gold was pretty much controlled?
Besides Kucinch & Mckinney, RP is miles better than the others, partly because he'll never get many of his goals achieved. Edwards has been rattling some cages too. Been hearing about Zbigniew Brezinski's backing of Obama, which even makes Hillary slightly more appealing than Obama, scary stuff.
I don't think that RP is a racist
He publishes what looks like racist literature (to me if not you) under his own name, and then denies it. For a supposed conviction politician, that looks like base hypocrisy to me.
but he doesn't seem to me, to be much different than most white american country folk who don't 'get' the black experience in the US, or the institutional racism inherent.
He certainly hasn't put any effort into it.
Maybe it is down to the obama/brezinki faction against the bush/clinton one, but he is no better, he's just another slimy, populist coward.
Anyway, it's not my election. Its not even the american's election.
Its curious that Counterpunch is where I first came across byrd (klansman), roberts (diehard pinochet fan) and paul (racist, randian nut). It seems to be a a fan of these 'constitutionalists'. Strange, as they hark fondly back only to a constitutional class, one of (white men) of sophistication, (human)property and a genocidal disposition.
Interesting about RP's opinions on Ayn Rand. Didn't realise he was a fan. I see he has some criticisms of her, but is generally positive. Never been a fan of objectivism myself, from what I know of it. Extremely materialistic. Just finished Bioshock recently, a pretty cool game criticizing a world run by Randians.
I hear you about the racism too. It is hard to believe that he didn't know that at least some of that crap was written in his name. Hmmn, RP is a strange bedfellow no doubt.
His stance on 911 also changed on the campaign trail (surprised that FOX didnt grab some of his alex jones audio to smear him with...then again, maybe that would make him more popular!). Though that could probably due to his publicists telling him to keep mum. At least Kucinch promised a reinvestigation.
and yes, Counterpunch, run by Alexander Cockburn, gatekeeper extraordinaire
So yeah, I'm sort of in agreement paul. Just living in the states, sh*t is so f**cked up here, someone like RP actually looks amazing, compared to McCain or Romney, Obama or Clinton.
I think its very much the flatness of the landscape around him
Of course, it's hardly Himalayan around here either...
What with exciting and varied figures like gordon brown ,nick clegg and david cameron? At last there is a neoliberal concord! They only thing they disagree on is who can execute it best.
Caroline Flint's stroke of genius represents the very best of what they have to offer; a determination to formulate new ways to punish the poor.
Missed this one at the weekend, Got everything, crime, racism, little children
captcha is synchromystically asking me for ASBEO
"though I'm not sure if a gold backed currency is the way to go. I thought gold was pretty much controlled? "
It's a sovereignty thing. With fiat you don't have sovereignty over money as a store of value; with commodity currency (gold), you do.
To illustrate, imagine that fiat currency is commodity currency. Better still imagine that we're all using gold sovereigns, silver shillings and copper pennies etc. Now go to a casino. At the casino your money is exchange (as a right of admission) for crappy pieces of plastic called chips. You spend your chips at the casino; after you're done, and if you've got some chips spare you can convert them to gold/silver/copper, whatever.
Now, replay the above but imagine trying to cash in the chips and find that the casino has rigged the system such that you get less for your cash that when you bought the chips. This is what happens under a fiat system.
The value of chips are being eroded; the value being accrued by whoever controls the money supply, see here and comments.
Hence, commodity currency equals sovereignty between holder and market. Fiat currency equals sovereignty between State and market.
Missed this one at the weekend, Got everything, crime, racism, little children
to be fair, when it comes to testing one's anti-racism principles, the Roma are the Big One
even staunch, saintly, civil rights activist and anti-racism campaigner Sacha Baron Cohen couldn't resist emphasising their sub-human qualities in his Borat movie
and is it just me or does Caroline Flint bear a suspicious resemblance to Anne Summers sex shop CEO Jacqueline Gold?
Paul, could you respond to these radio interviews of the director of the NAACP?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2008/011308_not_racist.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvFLSwDvBUA
I suppose he's an uncle tom, yeah?
Ah, those didn't link so well, let me try again: one and two
Paul, could you respond to these radio interviews of the director of the NAACP?
Nelson Linder is not the director of the naacp, he the president of the austin chapter and he states that it's his personal opinion, not an official one:
"Nelson Linder contacted our office and wanted prisonplanet.com to stress the fact that he made his comments as a private citizen, not as president of the Austin NAACP.
"
But I'm willing to take him at his word. In his experience, RP is not a racist.
OK, RP is a non racist who publishes the quotes above under his own name, endorses the john birch society and takes money from stormfront's leader
<circular argument>After all RP cannot be a racist as racism is a collectivist problem and he's not a collectivist.
<circular argument/>
Or he could be a man of principle who is anti war but supported the invasion of afghanistan. But then that was different, I'm sure, even though most afghans might be hard put to see it.
RP is a slick triangulator for sure, but then how do you maintain support from a support base with such (to put it kindly) diverse views?
I suppose he's an uncle tom, yeah?
Why do you suppose that, or are you implying that is how I would respond?
Why do you suppose that, or are you implying that is how I would respond?
Come on, lighten up. I was making a joke.
But I'm willing to take him at his word. In his experience, RP is not a racist.
Can I infer that you no longer seriously regard Paul as a racist?? Hooray!
OK, RP is a non racist who publishes the quotes above under his own name, endorses the john birch society and takes money from stormfront's leader
Clearly, Ron Paul is more than willing to ignore the more unsavory aspects of his constituency, just like any other Texas politician. Welcome to southern american politics; sucks doesn't it?
Seriously, there are much better things to criticize him for, like maybe his political beliefs (gasp!!).
Or he could be a man of principle who is anti war but supported the invasion of afghanistan. But then that was different, I'm sure, even though most afghans might be hard put to see it.
There we go, that's more like it.
P.S.: Just so you know, I am deeply embarrassed that I didn't bother to google Nelson Linder; that's the kind of lazy that breeds ignorance, for sure.
Can I infer that you no longer seriously regard Paul as a racist?? Hooray!
I'm not able, like your president, to look into a man's soul. The best I can say is he's just a racist of convenience, when he panders to certain constituency (his subscribers) and when he doesn't get caught.
Seriously, there are much better things to criticize him for, like maybe his political beliefs
I had, I thought. Though I have noticed that despite being the hammer of the financial elite, he has not chosen to sponsor a bill reinstating the glass steagall act, preferring to champion ones to carry guns in parks and schools, or endless quixotic attempts to restore the gold standard.
Where would RP find the gold necessary, perhaps he could hit the BLACK EAGLE TRUST
(courtesy of mario lanza maniac jeff rense)
just reading the articles's author's book on it. 4 chapters in and I'm convined the Japanese should not be allowed as much as a catapult ever again
"...perhaps he could hit the BLACK EAGLE TRUST
(courtesy of mario lanza maniac jeff rense)
just reading the articles's author's book on it."
Interesting suubject; interesting book.
The argument in the book has been hotly debated amongst gold bugs. One camp takes on board what the Seagraves say based upon their credibility as journalists etc. The other camp says that they've been hoaxed. The hoax camp has three arguments; (i) gold was so valuable that even in times of antiquity reliable accounts were made of where gold was and who owned it etc; (ii) gold is so scarce that there would have needed to be seventy or so California gold rushes to supply the quantities discussed in the book,(iii) these sort of stories come up every ten to twenty years in order to discredit gold as a store of value.
The former camp disputes all of the above points, they cover points (i) and (ii) by saying that the looted gold was collected over thousands of years and ignore point (iii).
Another point in the book is tangential but interesting. They describe the fifty or so years of looting and theft by the Imperial Army but end up by saying that the campaigns ran out of money. In other words, rather than using the looted treasures to fund more campaigns they went bankrupt (or the Japanese people upon whom they preyed for money and men went bankrupt) while the looted treasures were centralised and hidden. Interesting parallels can be drawn with the USA's current imperial expeditions and the looting of the American taxpayer and dollar holders.
A couple of other points from the "Black Eagle Trust" thing ... a name that cropped up was Norbert Schlei and I would recommend reading Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon after you've put down the book.
thx to the pointer towards Seagrave's book on Yamashita's Gold - I've added it to the wish list
and this one as well...
"Lords of the Rim"
with a title like that how could I say no?
Magneto lives to fight another day!
RP 'reloveution' postponed in 'shrewd' move.
It's very shrewd to be able to use his presidential campaign funds to keep his day job. Alex thinks its all good.
Here's good one for your wish list. Qlipoth pointed me to yoda's blistering review:
Rather than acknowledging that free trade, privatization, and the rest of their policies are ahistorical, self-serving economic nonsense, apologists for neoliberalism have also revived an old 19th century and neo-Nazi explanation for developmental failure—namely, culture.
there's lovely
That Prison Planet piece reads like very bad satire in places
If RP's campaign wasn't a distraction exercise designed to channel people's money, time and hopes into a dead end and despair it certainly saved someone the effort
Sad to say, The System is Broke and people aren't going to be able to vote it better
If RP's campaign wasn't a distraction exercise designed to channel people's money, time and hopes into a dead end and despair it certainly saved someone the effort
Ha ha ha
Still it'll guarantee another 4 years of Paul's entirely pointless guns'n'gold guff
Never trust a reloveutionary, because they aren't very revolutionary
a name that cropped up was Norbert Schlei
Just finished that bit, genuinely chilling
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