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Strategic Lessons from the Rand Paul Fiasco | Veterans Today

July 8, 2012 Leave a comment Go to comments

By Moti Nissani, Ph.D. Prof. Emeritus, Dept. of Biology, Wayne State University

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English: Ron Paul's son, Rand, speaking at a R...

English: Ron Paul’s son, Rand, speaking at a Ron Paul Rally in Nashville, Tennessee on 28 January 2008. Esperanto: Rand Paul, parolis ĉe politika amaskunveno por subteni la kandidatecon de sia patro, Ron Paul por Usona prezidanto, en Naŝvilo, Tenesio je 28 januaro 2008. ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬: Ron Pauls sønn Rand, holder en tale til en Ron Paul-forsamling i Nashville, Tennessee den 28. januar 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.”—Lenin

Summary: For many years, the liberty movement’s aspirations and actions have been focused on the presidential candidacy of Congressman Ron Paul. In Early June, this strategy backfired, following Rand Paul’s (Ron’s son) endorsement of Mitt Romney, a most dedicated servant of the Banking-Militarist Complex.

This essay argues that revolutionaries can draw two valuable lessons from Rand Paul’s about-face. First, they must realize once and for all that electoral politics in the USA cannot possibly bring meaningful change, and hence, that more radical strategies are required. Second, to survive, to retain its relevance, to deserve the gratitude of future generations, the liberty, environmental, social justice, and peace movements must merge into a single revolutionary movement.

Congressman Ron Paul at an event hosted in his...

Congressman Ron Paul at an event hosted in his honor at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Background: The Rand Paul Fiasco

This essay highlights the Rand Paul fiasco merely because of its recency and typicality. The exact same points could be made with thousands other historical occurrences.

In 2010, Rand Paul was elected to the U.S. Senate in part because he is the son of Ron Paul, a congressman well-known for his principled and uncompromising allegiance to constitutional principles. As well, to gain the support of Republican power-brokers, Rand was willing to give them the assurances they required—an act that by itself should have raised red flags in the liberty movement.

In early June of 2012, when it appeared that his father was not going to win the Republican nomination for president, Rand Paul endorsed the allegedly winning candidate, Willard “Mitt” Romney. Now, in American politics, a president is nothing more than the puppet of the tycoons who propped him. All mainstream candidates, apparently, are groomed, screened, and nurtured by the Banking-Militarist Complex. At the very least, the Complex will be just as comfortable with Romney as it has been with Reagan I, Bush II, Clinton I, Bush III, and Obama I. If anything, Romney could inflict even greater damage on what’s left of our personal freedoms. With even greater subservience, he will do the biddings of our masters of war and will accelerate the trends of planetary destruction and growing poverty. He will be, in other words, a valuable toady of the reckless psychopaths now in control of our planet. In particular, he cares nothing for the Constitution or Bill of Rights, and made it clear that he will continue the ongoing dismantling of both. Rand Paul, then, is a willing accessory of a criminal, and can be written off by any decent and informed person as a traitor to the supposed ideals of his father.

But what about Ron Paul himself? Can he emerge unscathed from his son’s double-dealings? So far we encounter troubling ambivalence. To begin with, it is unlikely that Rand endorsed Romney without Ron’s approval. Second, Ron Paul’s own website defends Rand’s Romney endorsement. More recently, however, Ron Paul said “there is no way I’d endorse Romney.”

I shall now argue that it might have been a mistake, all along, to anchor our hopes on the presidential race and aspirations of Ron Paul—or anyone else’s…………

EXCERPT

via Strategic Lessons from the Rand Paul Fiasco | Veterans Today.

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