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The Political Revolution Will Not Be Televised
[The Occupy Wall Street movement may not know it yet, but Ron Paul is their candidate. You would never guess this is so from the mainstream media's aloof, retrograde reportage of the campaign season. In the essay below, my wife, Marilyn, explains why the TV networks and the New York Times are missing a grassroots groundswell that will be seen as a Political Revolution by the time the 2012 rolls around. If this proves to be so, look for a shot across the bow when disaffected young people switch their affiliation to Republican so that they can get Rep. Paul nominated. RA]
No one questions that “something” is brewing, or rather simmering beneath the surface in America. The discontent, having finally reached the heretofore silently and sublimely disaffected youth who are occupying Wall Street and any other street in any other town you might mention, is a phenomenon that has every journalist and blogger on the planet analyzing their heads off. Is the OWS movement the left’s Tea Party? Will progressive politicians regret throwing in with the legions of urban campers? Do these people have a platform? Who is supporting them? (Well, we actually know that Soros and the unions are doing that, because they’ve pretty much told us)
These are the questions everyone is pondering, and yet the most obvious issue – one that hasn’t been much written about — is how, and, much more importantly, where will this whole revolution-in-the-making play out? Don’t bother reading the New York Times or tuning in to the nightly news, or even punching up talk radio on your way to work. By the time any of them is onto the latest “breaking story,” the social networkers have already tossed it into the rerun heap, having dissected it to death in the preceding three days. This revolution is happening online, and the average American doesn’t see it. Yeah, we know Obama was elected by “the connected.” But, that was an “early adopter” phenomenon, like the kids on American Bandstand who “voted” for this week’s best dance tune because it had a good beat and catchy lyrics. Obama’s “youth” revolution was merely a well-timed call-to-arms – a call to people who were just then learning how to answer. They liked the hope-y, change-y message because it had a good beat and catchy lyrics.
What is happening now? Well, for one, we have had two grassroots developments in the last two years, wherein people came together to fight “the man.” Sure, in the instance of the
Party it was a very well-defined MAN, and what was being attributed to said man was a level of spend-thriftiness that a portion of the American populace was no longer willing to tolerate. What can be said of the latest incarnation of American fed-up-ness, the Occupy Whatever brigade? Well, they are mad, too. However, they are slightly less informed and mostly less organized than their Tea-bagging brethren. They just want rich people to turn over their riches to them – pay their student loans, pay their mortgages, pay to rebuild their roads and bridges, bring their teachers back to the classroom and their firefighters back to…the fire?
Evening News Is Stale
I know this because I was fighting a bad case of the flu for about ten days earlier this month. Bedridden, I kept abreast of the news of OWS, Greece and the gathering Eurostorm, and other topics of the hour. In every case, the news that I imbibed didn’t even make it to TV for about three days. Seriously. All the YouTube diatribes by hopped up anti-Semites in NY, all the police brutality accusations, all the protests moving to the homes of B of A’s top brass — all of it made it to the evening news…three days after-the- fact. Doesn’t the mainstream media have “online” specialists – people who are supposed to be right on “the pulse” of the young, the hip, the at-the-ramparts people who are…making the news? Apparently not. The TV networks just trudged along, well after the fact, to weigh in on something that had lost most of its relevance in the intervening days.
What does this mean? At a basic level it means just what it illustrates: that mainstream media people are completely out of touch with the electorate. By the time ABC News reports that there might be evidence of anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street, the YouTube video of a clearly hopped-up young “protestor” yelling “Jew!” over and over and over again at an elderly man in a yarmulke – a man who evidently erred in thinking he could have a conversation or debate with his young co-protestor — had already made the rounds of every social networking site and was already a tiresome “rerun” put out by people who check their wall once a week and share everything with their 100 friends, who share with their 100 friends. You get the picture.
Those “in the know” online have more influence on how this movement is developing than do the countless liberal sycophants like Michael Moore, or over-the-hill actresses like Susan Sarandon – or even OWS financier George Soros or perpetual foot-in-mouth VP Joe Biden. If you don’t believe me, look at how the protestors’ signs are mutating from “Pay my Loans” and “We are the 99%” to a more reasonable “End the Fed” and “Obama is bought by Wall Street too.” How did this happen? Easy, people who watch the videos online and see how desperately ill-educated the “protestors” are, go down there and try to knock some sense into these people. One person who is particularly adept at it is Adam Kokesh, the former Marine and Libertarian bellwether for countless Young-ish, recently converted Austrian economics students, who, in countless self-produced interviews with protestors, is able, usually in 8-10 minutes, to completely annihilate the faulty reasoning of his “Capitalism is evil!”-spouting victims. About a third of the time he gets them “thinking.” The other two-thirds simply get too frustrated at being made the dupe over and over again and simply storm off, with or without a snarky comment about Kokesh himself.
Backed by Soros
Kokesh has appeared on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show on Fox News. He has a huge following on the internet. But he’s just one of many people who have ventured to Occupy Wherevers around the country to try to get people to see that the problem isn’t capitalism, the GOP, the banks (in isolation) or greedy rich people. The problem is The Government — just as the Tea Party said it was two years ago, before they came up with a plan to get the bums out and replace them with nominally-more-tolerable bums. The OWS-ers, and their comrades in cities around the country (I don’t much care about Occupy Belgrade or Occupy Melbourne, to be honest), started this whole exercise with nothing more than time on their hands and a desire to live through something resembling the exciting sit-ins, stand-ins, sleep-ins and various other sex- and drug-fueled “ins” that their parents were so lucky to attend. They got their free food, their free signs, Wi-Fi access and, in some instances $600/week from the Soros-backed or union-backed goons trying to run the show and dictate the terms of the “debate” – as it is.
The people who are getting through to the hordes, people who at least say that they have gotten others to listen to reason, seem to have similar experiences with the protestors’ modus operandi: “These people just seem to like force.” “They just, I don’t know, they just think that the answer to everything is more government control; just more government in general.” “ Maybe it’s because they learned in school that only the government ‘protects’ us – maybe that is why they believe that government is the only solution.”
Winter Is Coming
How much they get through, and to how many, remains to be seen. With winter coming, the movement may well have to move indoors. Rumor has it that they (Soros and the unions) have secured the first floor of…gasp! – a bank building to house their electronics station when inclemency sets in. But, the longer they stay, the more likely someone will confront them with a solid and reasonable message – maybe just that they ought to be occupying the White House and Congress, for starters. Even now, the signs indicate that is already happening. Do they sense any irony in the fact that Obama’s cabinet is packed with people who, prior to coming on board with him, occupied offices in the very buildings standing above their encampments? One thing they do know: The interview they are doing right now will go viral by sundown. It will be picked and shredded like a Boston Butt days before Bill O’Reilly or Rush or Anderson or Rachel even get a whiff of it.
How will this play out in November of 2012? The election could prove to be the most interesting fallout from the seismic shift in American political discussion, from mainstream media to social media: namely, that what we are seeing on debates, in the recaps and in the seemingly endless parade of panel discussions about Perry’s N-word rock, Romney’s cult membership, Cain’s pizza-price tax plan or Gingrich’s grinching, is all but irrelevant when we ponder the question of what is actually about to happen. The presidential election will be decided by this social media crowd, and those who get their news from television and the New York Times will be the last to realize this.
Crossing Over to Nominate Paul
With the primaries coming, how will we know that this tectonic change is indeed happening if we don’t read about it in the Times? The first indicator will be the number of people who in just the past few months have changed their party affiliation from “X” to Republican just so they can make a difference in who the GOP runs against Obama. Who are they going to vote for: Ron Paul. Yes, the old man with the charming drawl and the dorky shoes has gained a level of online popularity that I haven’t seen since Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain” sensation on YouTube a few years ago.
Ron Paul has touched a nerve in the collective psyche of the young for very simple reasons: He’s been right about practically everything AND he doesn’t take money from PACs – not a penny. Add to that a 30-year track record of principled ideology; a pro-life stand that is grounded unassailably in his experience as a physician; support from active military personnel that is unrivaled; and the ability to raise $2 million in just two days from college kids at $25 per, and you start to see the idea. The young are hungry… no, desperate for a leader who isn’t like the moral-relativist teachers they’ve had for 16 years. They know what integrity looks like, even though it’s been politically-corrected out of their lives. They like simple honesty. They’ll pay for it; they’ll vote for it. All while the news media blather on about Romney’s cult and Perry’s rock.
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Thx
Dr Ron Paul, life, liberty, peace and prosperity candidate, is the only experienced candidate for President who can stop this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=p7tSYG3zsvQ&annotation_id=annotatio... 1:00
He has more Austrian Economic and Foreign Policy experience than the other candidates combined
The OWS movement are shills for the statist anarchists (oxymoron) that surround Soros. They are not the friends of civilization, they are here to promote a civil war for civil wars sake. Revolutionary pap.
Of course, the Tea Party knows a civil war is coming as well, they are just positioning themselves to be able to end it rather than start it. They have all the ammo and garages filled with groceries. People who are going to survive this whole mess are the ones who learn to "Go Galt", by getting off grid as best they can. That means internationalizing finances, buying gold, going solar, starting a garden - doing whatever it takes. http://www.futurnamics.com/goinggalt.php
ayn rand is a dirty, nasty bitch who corrupted countless minds.
Tell me, what did Ayn Rand ever do but run her mouth?
go crawl back under that rock.
Where the fuck do you get your info? I'm a Tea Partier and I am not going to end a civil war or shoot anybody. Tea Partiers are mostly thoughtful people who actively and peaefully advocate change. Having food and ammo in your garage is a good idea if the financial system melts down, but the only people talking about civil war a extremist nutballs...I hope you're not one of those.
yeah, sure we all hope for peaceful resolutions, but as our freedoms are slowly and inexoriably taken away one by one, and those in power become even more brazen in their contempt, what then?? Just sit there and take it like they are doing us a favor or something?
???????!!!!!!!!!!"and peaefully advocate change". Visualize Whirled Peas.
I visited the local OWS protest last week to see it for myself. The first guy I met was involved since the beginning and had been arrested in a planned civil disobedience tresspass by staying in the park after hours. I asked him neutral questions about movement and listened. He spoke about the corruption of big banks, big food, big busness, big government, and how they all work against the interests of average people, and so on. He eventually got around to saying that he really liked Ron Paul.
I would like to think that the author is right, but doubt that enough people are engaged and informed enough to conclude that they should register republican to vote for Ron Paul in the primary.
So why is Dr Paul winning most of the straw and legitimate independent polls?
Why did he win the MSNBC debate poll on who won the debate with over 200,000 votes, more than the rest combined, before MSNBC stopped the landlside?
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/9134
Because the average voter does not participate in straw polls, internet polls and debates. They watch TV and maybe read a newspaper, but they are not keyed in on elections so much.
Good point HC
Never underestimate a motivated electorate voting to save their lives and children's future
Bastiat if you were refering to me I changed the link to a more appropriate video
thanks
I remember Kent State also,not so young but young enough
Yes.
Visions of Kent State.
History repeating.
There's something happening here.
There's a man with a gun over there.
Everybody look whats going down. The Constitution is in dire danger.
We must not, let it die. Strength to the oath keepers. Onward. Death before dishonor.
Better with that video, thanks.
Its just a shot away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM8ix0siRVQ
Thanks for the link.
Funny, heard that on the radio on the way to work this morning, sat in the car in the garage until it was done.
Sorry. Pro-life always = anti women, and this woman is not going to be dragged kicking and screaming, back into the dark ages.
Well, well Maifiori...21 red arrows because you let the mostly white over 60 guys on this blog know you believe it is your business and only your business what you choose to do with your own body. Never fails to amaze (disappoint) me how righteous upright they act about a fetus while turning their heads from the thousands of born children our government kills, maims and orphans in the name of 'peace'. If each of these men adopted an unwanted child...or were as vocal about our country killing innocent beings...then I would have a bit more respect for their anti-abortion opinions. But, as it is now, they are just a bunch of mouths spouting self-righteous hypocrisy. I'm with you sister. We have each and every right to decide what we do with an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy. Early abortions are preferred by all of us. The morning after pill is the way to go...unless of course you are on the newfound GOP platform of human integrity at the moment of conception. Give me a break. And no you guys, I am not a man-hater. Most of my friends are of your gender. But MY guy friends like women who know who they are and what they want and how they belong in the world. AKA my guy friends have balls.
If you believe that not having the right to kill your unborn child equates to being "back in the dark ages" you are a sick and twisted excuse for a human being.
If you believe that you have the unfettered right to kill another you are a sick and twisted excuse for a human being.
I place a large portion of the burden of responsibility for how messed up this world has become upon the doorstep of people that think like you. Not all of the burden - but a substantial portion of it.
If you kill (or advocate) the killing of an unborn child - you are a murderer. The way that abortions are conducted is on a level comparable to what is done by the sickest sadists.
If you havent gotten the message - you disgust me.
Outlawing abortion is bad public policy for many reasons, but the good news is, no one really cares about your cute little emotional responses to the issue. You have EVERY RIGHT to be disgusted.
You're FREE to think what you like.
Yeah, and we also have the right to our opinions on the instant incineration of 100,000 human beings (who were not fetus's by the way) in Southern Japan at the end of WWII. Isn't freedom of opinion great? Of course objecting to or mourning those deaths is just a cute little emotional response, n'est pas, Mr. Have-to-break-eggs-to-make-an-omelette?
The reason you hardcore pro-lifers can't get anywhere has a lot to with the fact that you can't stay on topic.
Abortion as an act is something you can debate the morality of and moan and wail and gnash your teeth. Pray for the souls of the unborn, pray for intervention to show the killers the light, do whatever little primitive rituals you prefer. Light smudgepots, slaughter and burn an ox, yeah yeah, it's all so very holy and righteous. Some Jewish Mexican a few thousand years ago had a lot to say about how you should love your brothers and sisters and stuff, because ultimately it's that Big G who's going to judge us all.
But once you step up and say you want to create LAWS, you need to make the public policy argument work. And none of the pro-life zealots have ever had anything other than emotional appeals.
That won't suffice.
If it makes you feel better, there's no need to convince me of anything. I'll never get an abortion.
tsk tsk dbl post
Well said Blunderdog. High five to you.
~SheHunter
Who said anything about religion? As the person above said, it's not murder if you kill the baby 10 minutes before it's due to be born, but murder 10 minutes after it's born. That's your pro-choice logic. You pro-choicers are line drawers. You claim you know where to draw the line. You play God with someone elses' life. What gives you the right? Oh yeah, magic words: public policy.
Even Christopher Hitchens, an avowed atheist to his last moment, didn't buy into the twisted logic of the pro-choice position. He didn't like the death penalty either. You showed your hand when you brought in religion. You hate religion. That's your choice. You are FREE to hate religion.
Yeah, I don't hate religion, though. I hate the idea that religion is a good basis for LAW.
Since I pegged you all wrong, and you don't care about religion, you must have a pretty good public policy argument for why banning abortion is a good idea.
Let's hear it. Grounded in simple civics--why should abortion be outlawed? Why should the government be making laws about it? Whats gives the government any legitimate right to be "counting" its unborn taxpayers?
The elementary idea is this: it's ALWAYS a bad idea to expand the powers of government based on people's emotional responses to things.
In most regards, this is basic conservatism.
When you take the stance of the white male, you can never understand what the non-white male must endure throughout the ages. This kind of Occupy movement happened also, decades ago, to give women the right to vote, to own land, to be equal to their male counterparts. It is happening again, and I fully support the OWS, but I refuse to go backwards. Womens' Rights that have been VERY HARD WON, must not be allowed to be taken away again.
Would it please you to think that your aborted son or daughter (who probably don't even have names) is being mined for stem cells? Is it human to literally throw another human in the trashcan? All so you can fuck without consequences? Is that what you call freedom?
As a matter of fact, it does not bother me at all Escapeclaws. Not at all. And when I die every useful part of me goes to whoever needs the part for survival or for science. So no, my aborted kid can be used for whatever purpose whatsoever. Now. why not stop fretting over something not yet born and look into being a foster parent or an adopter of an unloved already born child? Oh, I see...then you really have to DO something instead of just spouting of righteous indignation. I see. Yes, I do see.
Such "little inconvient things" to contemplate ;-)
+1
Interesting to watch the social pendulum swing over to the far right isn't it? Now we are supposed to feel bad or guilty for screwing just for the fun of it and then popping a morning after pill. Bring on those red arrows you hypocritical zealots. I cannot believe my eyes and ears. Punch those red arrows lofty ZH-ers and then snooze on a full belly when the MSM lowers itself to mention how many we killed in our daily drone attack in this or that country (which, by the by, has its fair share of tiny, loved, already born babies). Yawn...you guys kind of bore me. ZH is different now than it was a year ago.
Are you in fact a non-white male be-ach?
Please spare us the neo-fascist misandrist racist class warfare rant
Do you think it's great for government to force taxpayers to fund abortions and call it reproductive freedom?
http://www.aclu.org/reproductive-freedom/public-funding-abortion
Do you believe in affirmative action and wealth redistribution as well?
How about eugenics and compulsory sterilization for ubermenschen like Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger?
Just wondering
http://www.blackgenocide.org/sanger.html
Gotta get over that "stance of the white male" nonsense.
Patriarchy, colonialism, empire, etc....those are the issues. It's a mistake to apply the failings of the various power institutions onto a demographic. There were far more white males who never got shit than the guys who earned the legit criticism for thousands of years of subjugation and slaughter.
I'm a white male and more than happy to support aims of equality and democracy....but if your rhetoric depends on demonization of "the white male," you wouldn't really expect me to show up and help, would you?
Methinks the 'lady' doth protest too much
I suppose if everything is black/white it's easier to make a decision and close your mind.
I fully support the right of a women/couple to make decisions regarding conception and birth. Hell...I'd support infaticide (go Sparta) but killing a baby 10 minutes after birth is considered murder and 10 minutes before birth is abortion. Short view: If you want to kill your baby, you go ahead. Because if you, the mother, want to kill your baby, I really don't want you, the mother, to raise it to psycopathic adulthood.
I understand the stance of Dr. Paul regarding abortion. I disagree with that view. A mother should be able to kill her baby. That's not going to make me vote for the marxist that's in the WH right now.
Our nation is going in the wrong direction (bigger and bigger government). Dr. Paul is the only candidate that is speaking of the problem and providing his solutions. That's what I'm worried about. Not you being able to kill your baby.
He is a Republican. Republicans scare me because of the things they do and have done in the past. I am not going to go into all the details, because if you found your way here, you are all supposedly intelligent human beings and understand what happened and who did what to make it happen. And no worries. You will continue to have the stage, unchallenged, at least by me. After today, I will remove myself from this account and will no longer respond or view the threads. I find your views to be too conservative and hateful for my continued participation.
cya sweetie have a good one
I love women they are no less no more than I but they do possess various assets physically and mentally that I absolutely adore... I mean GOD did give them those qualities, unforetunately for you your mind is tweaked. choice = death statement is utter bullshit, but maybe you're too dumb to see it or your just lieing to yourself again. Which is it?
this is fight club. btw you you beat him senseless. one more post and he would have been left in hypocritical condition.
Are you for real?
Welcome to the dialogue
Ds & Rs two sides of the same DC NWO WS K Street corporate bankster monopoly coin in case you did not notice
Two legs bad, four legs good, two legs better didn't work in Animal Farm and it does not work in American politics either
Since when is the truth hateful?
To the woman with a chip on her shoulder, everything looks like the enemy
Bye
This anti-demographic attitude is anti-American
TD, why aren't the red triangles working?
What do you mean? I just checked--they work just fine.
And you're an asshole. Ta!
Them that smelt it dealt it dog
Get away from me blunder
Get away from me blunder
That may have been a mistake. I'm now a bit tempted to stalk your dumb ass all over these boards just to annoy ya.
Scratch an abortion advocate and face a fascist
too bad you were not aborted so you truly understand just what you are saying
You are evil.