shaDEz Report This Comment Date: December 12, 2007 09:59AM
[
www.socialistappeal.org]
“The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent
people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free
society.” - Ron Paul
Given the lack of a mass working class party in the U.S. and the instability
that characterizes the current state of affairs on a domestic and global level,
there is enormous pressure to “vote for somebody”. It is therefore not
surprising that some workers and youth are curious about Republican Congressman
Ron Paul’s bid for the Presidency. His primary draw is his vocal
“anti-war” stance, which gives him some distance from the majority of
Republicans and Democrats in Congress. It is mainly on this issue that his
supporters find support for the so-called “Ron Paul Revolution”. An example
of this could be seen in the nation-wide regional anti-war demos of October
27th, where small contingents of his supports came out in various cities to
promote his campaign.
But does Ron Paul offer anything that can truly be called a “revolution”, or
is he more of the same from the capitalists’ ranks? Should workers and
students in the anti-war movement, or in general, give him support in any
way?
Ron Paul has been involved in U.S. politics for some time now, but the key issue
for workers and youth to understand about him is that in his nine terms in
office as a Republican, he has focused above all on turning back the wheel of
history to a more “ideal” form of capitalism: a “pure” bourgeois
constitutional republic.
Paul calls for strong “individual rights” and greater “freedom”. However
“rights” when taken out of the real context of society, become little more
than the jargon of the ruling class; i.e. the “right of private property”
becomes an eternal truth. To view society in its full scope, we must understand
it in terms of the different classes that exist and the conflicting interests
between these classes. On a whole number of issues of fundamental importance,
Paul is at odds with the basic interests of the U.S. working class.
While Paul’s opposition to the war has garnered him support, we must
understand the way in which he opposes the war. Instead, he is in favor of an
isolationist policy – that is, a policy of “strengthening” the U.S. by
pulling it out of the rest of the world. In this epoch of globalization, such a
notion is not only absurd but impossible within the limits of capitalism in its
imperialist stage of development. To end U.S. imperialist intervention, an
internationalist working class policy must be carried out. This could only
happen through the coming to power of the working class here at home, something
he is sharply opposed to. Sorry Ron; you can’t eat your cake and have it too!
And as for all his non-interventionist demagogy, Paul did vote to authorize the
invasion of Afghanistan as part of the “war on terror”.
When it comes to immigration, Paul favors strong enforcement measures, voting
for the 700 mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, and saying: “Enforcing
the law was important, and border security is important … about amnesty, which
I’m positively opposed to. If you subsidize something, you get more of it. We
subsidize illegal immigration, we reward it by easy citizenship, either
birthright or amnesty.”
He has also voted against alerting Mexicans about the activities of groups such
as the Minutemen, who “enforce” immigration law with vigilante methods. He
also voted for a bill that would require hospitals to report on any treatment
received by immigrants without documents. The bill also specified that
hospitals aren’t required to provide care to undocumented immigrants if they
can be deported “without a significant chance of worsening their
condition.”
On the issue of women’s reproductive rights, Ron Paul is a staunch opponent,
consistently voting against access and funding. He also wants a total overturn
of Roe v. Wade. Apparently women’s “individual rights” are not as
important as the right of private property for this want-to-be President.
He is also hotly against federal funding of public schools – he favors private
schools in their place – which if actually implemented would result in an even
wider gulf of disparity between those who could afford quality education and
those who could not.
On the question of the separation of Church and State, Paul has the following to
say: “Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination,
the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that
religion must be driven from public view.” And: “Separation between church
and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of
our Founding Fathers.” As well as: “The Founding Fathers envisioned a
robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as
vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance.” This
“revolutionary” sounds more like Rasputin than Thomas Jefferson!
Paul also voted against the most recent rise in the minimum wage, meager as it
was. He is also against the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make the
union certification process easier for workers. And while he “opposes”
NAFTA, it is not on a working class basis, rather he claims it is “not free
trade enough,” rather, that it is “managed trade”.
Ron Paul does not want a society in which the social production of humanity is
rationally and consciously planned democratically by the majority. Instead, he
envisions an idealized bourgeois republic, governed by the logic of the inhuman
capitalist market, a world where the only conscious economic planning takes
place in private by and for those who will turn a profit from production. For
the rest of us he presents only a false hope of a benevolent ruling class.
Simply put, he dreams of the current state of society without all its problems.
However, the war, the economic crisis facing millions, sky high incarceration
rates, etc., all stem directly from the rule of the capitalists.
We must understand that capitalism is not a reversible process. It has its own
laws of development that inevitably tend towards instability, and by extension
to revolution. In wanting to turn back the clock of social development to a
fictitious “ideal” form of libertarian capitalism, Ron Paul wants the
opposite of that change: counter revolution!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2007 10:00AM by shaDEz.
Anonymous Report This Comment Date: December 12, 2007 09:32PM
Shadez,
It'sinspring to read a responsible, intelligent appraisal of the 2008
Presidential race. FIVE STARS for you, man....
Ron Paul is a self absorbed, pompous ass, just like most of his
followers....
I found a 'toon that pretty much sums up the entire right wing that I may post
if I get time later...
Keep on stickin' it to 'em, right, left or center when they lie.
(A warning sign is usually if their lips move.....P
fossil_digger Report This Comment Date: December 13, 2007 12:15AM
Ron Paul is good right where he is (throwing a wrench in the rep./ democraps
bullshit) 1 reason why i helpd send him to washington, but as a commander in
chief....he'll get us all killed.
maybe he can get ross perot to be his running mate....noone else will go with
him. maybe a veterinarian.
