s skippy the bush kangaroo: casting a paul over white supremacy

skippy the bush kangaroo



Friday, December 21, 2007

casting a paul over white supremacy

ron paul will keep $500 donated by a white supremacist. asspress:

republican presidential hopeful ron paul has received a $500 campaign donation from a white supremacist, and the texas congressman doesn't plan to return it, an aide said wednesday.

don black, of west palm beach, recently made the donation, according to campaign filings. he runs a web site called stormfront with the motto, "white pride world wide." the site welcomes postings to the "stormfront white nationalist community."

"dr. paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and inalienable rights. if someone with small ideologies happens to contribute money to ron, thinking he can influence ron in any way, he's wasted his money," paul spokesman jesse benton said. "ron is going to take the money and try to spread the message of freedom.

"and that's $500 less that this guy has to do whatever it is that he does," benton added.
we kept trying to come up with a joke about a white supremacist named black, but the irony of paul keeping $500 thinking it would keep the money from being used for something bad is too funny for us to compete with.

meanwhile, over at shakesville, jeff fecke thinks the problem with paul is not so much his appeal to neo-nazis, as much as his refusal to extend his libertarian ideals to women and people of color.

today's case in point begins with dana goldstein, who notes that it's hard to square paul as a true civil libertarian given his reactionary stance on abortion:

ron paul is virulently anti-choice. first dennis kucinich said he would appoint paul his v.p. and now andrew sullivan, defender of gay rights, idealizes the guy. earth to liberals and moderate conservatives who value individual rights and liberty: ron paul is not your guy, at least not if you believe women deserve the same freedom as men.
indeed. one needn't even get into ron's games of footsie with the racist fringe to see that paul is very invested in civil liberties when it affects the rights of white men, not as much when it affects anyone else. he has decent views on iraq and on gay rights, but his views on race and gender are nightmarish, and his views on eliminating the government are utopian, to put it charitably, and foolish, to put it bluntly.
meanwhile, dr. paul has again bested the fund-raising record with a $6 mill haul last weekend. asspress:

supporters of the campaign broke a record sunday when they raised a little more than $6 million in an internet campaign for paul, a 10-term republican congressman from texas whose antiwar, libertarian message has caught on with an enthusiastic and generous segment of the electorate. it raised an additional $360,000 on monday.

the donations eclipsed a previous one-day fund-raising record of $5.7 million, set by senator john kerry in 2004 after he accepted the democratic nomination for president. paul's previous single-day fund-raising high was $4.2 million nov. 5.
must be lots of neo-nazis w/spare cash out there.

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posted by skippy at 12:36 AM |

3 Comments:

Wow. So anyone who has supported Ron Paul is now a Neo-Nazi. What about those of us who have watched his campaign with a certain degree of pleasure as he attempts to shake up the system ever so slightly...does that make us Neo-Nazi sympathizers?

It is fairly certain Ron Paul will not get the nomination of the GOP, but he has managed to generate an enormous amount of energy among younger voters. So the nominations are finally rigged, I mean settled, how are you going to persuade these potential voters to your side? Sure, some will probably vote Libertarian or Green, but there might be some deluded enough to compromise and vote Democratic, but, wait, you just labeled most of them Neo-Nazis. Nice work.
commented by Blogger The Culture Ghost, 12:01 PM PST  
Man, I'm taking neither side this time. I've gotten into enough arguments lately...
commented by Blogger Jim Yeager, 6:28 AM PST  
Something I wrote a week ago:

Look, I'm familiar with both the pros and cons regarding Ron Paul the candidate. On the plus side, he's arguably the most prominent of this election cycle's sorry lot of Dems and Rethugs to run on an antiwar platform as well as advocating an overturning of some of this decade's more odious pieces of legislation such as the Patriot Act. He's also apparently giving The War Party (both Dem and GOP sides) fits, and is perceived of as a threat to their hegemony. That's all well and good. On the other hand, as others elsewhere have noted, he's no friend to people of color, to the GLBT community, to immigrants, or to women and their right to control their own bodies.

I don't mind that Paul has tapped into a vibe in the electorate - especially among us independents who are largely fed up with the status quo. All I ask is that if one wishes to advocate his candidacy, that one do so with open eyes. If one wishes to bash Paul, I would also ask that one do so with open eyes as well - especially to the failure of the antiwar left to date when it comes to supporting strong antiwar candidates, as well as the failure of many on the antiwar left to realize that some sort of solidarity or alliances with antiwar libertarians and conservatives may well be beneficial rather than detrimental to the cause. Obviously the current strategy of holding one's nose and casting votes for the lesser of evils has been an abysmal failure, and should not be repeated.
commented by Blogger James, 10:58 AM PST  

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