Is He Or Isn't He? Ron Paul, Racism And Straight Talk

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sun Nov 18, 2007 at 06:19:31 AM EST

The notion that he's not responsible for something published in his name is clearly absurd.  And the racism is unmistakeable.  Thus, we have clear evidence that Paul is anything but the "straight shooter" he claims to be.  And he's either a flat-out racist himself, or else has simply been willing to exploit and encourage the racism of others.

There is nothing new to this story.  The old newspaper copy came out during his 1996 run to return to Congress, and it was written about--sympathetically--by the Texast Monthly back in October, 2001.  It has also cropped up a number of different times this year, for instance, back in early June at Orcinus in a diary by Sara Robinson, "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast".  The ability of Paulistas to pretend this story doesn't exist rivals anything the Bushies ever did in the way of denial.  Details on the flip.

Realchange.org's section, "Ron Paul's Skeleton Closet" contains a concise introduction to the story:

Since 1985, Ron Paul has published a newsletter, first called the Ron Paul Political Report (and since renamed the Ron Paul Survival Report.)

In 1992, the newsletter published a bunch of inflammatory comments on racial subjects, listed in the Quotes section of this page. Pretty raw stuff.

The quotes cited are:

"If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be." - Ron Paul, 1992

"Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." - Ron Paul, 1992

"We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such." - Ron Paul, 1992

"What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" - Ron Paul, 1992

Realchange.org's account continues:

In 2001, as Paul moved to the mainstream and rejoined the Republican party, he disavowed these comments and blamed them on an unnamed ghostwriter. But when Paul ran for Congress in 1996, as a Libertarian, his opponent brought these up to show that Paul had fringe ideas. At that time, Paul told the Houston Chronicle that he opposed racism and his commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." In other words, he didn't deny writing the Ron Paul column in the Ron Paul newsletter, profits of which go to Ron Paul, until many years later. Then he claimed that his campaign aides thought it would be "too confusing" to tell the truth, so he had to lie and accept responsibility.

Whichever story is true, he's clearly responsible for the contents of that newsletter and pretty squirrelly about the whole thing.

This account is damning enough in its own right, but it's actually only part of the story.  While it really does seem possible that Paul harbors no racial animus, he clearly doesn't "get it"--passive participation in this sort of racist slander is, if anything, even more reprehensible if one clearly knows better.  After all, who was it who said, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"?  Oh, yeah--it was Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism.

The Wider Story

The 1996 Houston Chronicle article is here, but most of its contents are summarized above.

Realchange.org cites one other source: "Ron Paul Race Smear Erased?", Free Market News, May 22, 2007, noting "I have no idea if this is a credible source-- the piece is obviously slanted in a very pro-Ron-Paul way -- but the quotes are still interesting. Take it with a grain of salt."

Indeed, it is an extremely interesting account.  The unsigned story quotes only anonymous sources, and refers only to an unidentified entity--or entities:

Ron Paul Race Smear Erased?
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com

Internet information claiming that presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX) is a racist - and made derogatory comments about African Americans - has been making the rounds within the blogosphere. But sources close to the editorial group that published the newsletter (or newsletters) that supposedly carried the comments claim that Ron Paul never had anything to do with them, and wasn't even aware of them.

These sources say that editorial operation in question was a fairly large one, and profitable for its time - focused in large part on measures that one could take to generate a lifestyle independent of government influence and intervention.

The publication, or publications, comprised a business venture to which Ron Paul lent his name. Headquarters were "60 miles away" from Ron Paul's personal Texas offices. At the time that the publications were being disseminated, primarily in the 1980s, Ron Paul was involved in numerous activities including Libertarian politics. He eventually ran for U.S. president as a Libertarian.

"This was a big operation," says one source. "And Ron Paul was a busy man. He was doctor, a politician and free-market commentator. A publication had to go out at a certain time and Ron Paul often was not around to oversee the lay out, printing or mailing. Many times he did not participate in the composition, either."

This source and others add that publications utilized guest writers and editors on a regular basis. Often these guest writers and editors would write a "Ron Paul" column, under which the derogatory comments might have been issued.

Says one source, "Ron Paul didn't know about those comments, or know they were written under his name until much later when they were brought to his attention. There were several issues that went out with comments that he would not ordinarily make. He was angry when he saw them."

Ron Paul has said that he did not write the comments in question, but, nonetheless, has taken "moral" responsibility for them.

So, this is how Ron Paul supporters "clarify" things--with anonymous comments about unnamed entitites which published other people's writing under Ron Paul's byline, but no new release of the underlying documents in question.  And that's supposed to reassure us?  Anyone reading this who's familiar with the long history of G.W. Bush's National Guard obfuscations must surely be having a bad case of "deja vu all over again."

And, of course, Ron Paul, like Bush before him, is a man highly touted for his plain-spoken honesty.  After all, what part of "deja vu all over again" didn't you understand?

The account continues:

An excerpt from an apparent interview with Texas Monthly as quoted on the blog Everything2.com clarifies the above information as follows:

"In spite of calls from Gary Bledsoe, the president of the Texas State Conference of the NAACP, and other civil rights leaders for an apology for such obvious racial typecasting, Paul stood his ground. He said only that his remarks about Barbara Jordan related to her stands on affirmative action and that his written comments about blacks were in the context of 'current events and statistical reports of the time.' He denied any racist intent. What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U. S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this.

"When I ask him why, he pauses for a moment, then says, 'I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren't really written by me. It wasn't my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around. I think the one on Barbara Jordan was the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady.' ...

"His reasons for keeping this a secret are harder to understand: 'They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn't come from me directly, but they campaign aides said that's too confusing. "It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it." ' It is a measure of his stubbornness, determination, and ultimately his contrarian nature that, until this surprising volte-face in our interview, he had never shared this secret. It seems, in retrospect, that it would have been far, far easier to have told the truth at the time."

http://everything2.c...

The operative sentence in the above would seem to be: "What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U. S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this." The remarks may well have been seen as out of character because they were not written by Ron Paul, and he had no knowledge of them and no input into their composition, even though he eventually took responsibility for them.

Well, FreeMarketNews.com can chose their "operative sentence," and I'll choose mine.  Mine will come from a paragraph that wasn't quoted--an innocent oversight, I'm sure--the one just before the quited passage from everything2.com:

In one issue of the Ron Paul Survival Report, which he had published since 1985, he called former U.S. representative Barbara Jordan a "fraud" and a "half-educated victimologist." In another issue, he cited reports that 85 percent of all black men in Washington, D.C., are arrested at some point: "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." And under the headline "Terrorist Update," he wrote: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

Ah, heck, I don't even need an operative sentence.  I'll settle for an operative fragment: "In another issue."  That's right kiddies, this wasn't a one-time deal.  It happened over a period of time.  Add that to Paul's claim that he liked Barbara Jordan--but not enough to retract the racist slur against her issued in his name--and we begin to get a very clear picture of the man, assuming he is not a racist: a picture of a weak-willed man who probably wished he had principles at his core, the same way he pretended to in public life.  That is, quite frankly, the best possible spin I can credibly imagine putting on Paul's behavior.

Blunderland

After all, in early June, at Orcinus, Sara Robinson explained (in "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast") that she herself had done newletter writing for hire, which meant that "the client ordered me to produce work carefully-tailored to their own needs, bought that work outright, owned all rights to it, and put their own names on it."

She continued:

So, Paul's facile assertion that somewhere, somehow, a nasty, scheming ghostwriter slipped all those hateful words in under his name is just ridiculous. To swallow this line, you'd have to be as daft as the White Queen, perfectly willing to believe half a dozen impossible things before breakfast:

  1. That the ghostwriter who wrote The Ron Paul Survival Report was never really under Ron Paul's control

  2. That somebody other than Ron Paul put their money on the line to pay the writer (these things don't come cheap -- I charged a minimum of $1K per page for my copy, and his was eight pages per issue).

  3. And, by extension: that somebody other than Ron Paul owns the resulting intellectual property. (It'd be interesting to see what would happen if some other right wingnut started plagarizing those articles.)

  4. That Ron Paul never read, commented on, or approved what was written for the newsletter that bore his name -- and was so critical to building his early political base

  5. That The Ron Paul Survival Report was written, laid out, published, and shipped during the night by elves, with no input from Paul at all

  6. That Ron Paul actually had nothing whatsoever to do with the Survival Report. Apparently, his name ended up in the title as some kind of perverse coincidence. He was out of town that day. All those days.

Now, I have to admit that when I first read Sara's diary, I was utterly convinced by it that Ron Paul's story was a load of hooey.  But now I'm not so sure. I think of another fictional character--Chauncy Gardner from Being There.  As Judy Tenuta would say, "It could happen."  After all, Ron Paul's political notions are so wildly divorced from reality, why shouldn't he be wildly divorced from reality in his everyday life as well?

Still, after the whole G.W. Bush experience, "deja vu all over again" really doesn't cut. It would--quite frankly--be even more devastating if Ron Paul had simply sleep-walked through all of this.  It's not an excuse.  It's an indictment.

But, Wait!  There's More!

What makes all the above even more interesting/bizarre/unbelievable is a conntemporaneous account from the midst of the 1996 race, from the Austin Chronicle, which is a real doozy.  In addition to racist comments cited by others, here's "Ron Paul" advocating for the destruction of the United States!  But not only that, he does so in the name of the Founders:

* "Why do we need the federal government? There's no Cold War and no Communist threat. Many other nations are breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. The centralization of power in Washington occurred in a different time. Why not think about getting rid of the federal government, returning to the system of our Founders, and breaking up the United States into smaller government units?"

Somehow, it's hard to suppress the thought that "Ron Paul"--whoever he was--was confusing Thomas Jefferson and Jefferson Davis.  Hardly something an ordinary person might do.  But when you're just a ghost of yourself, these things just have a way of happening.  Or, mayhe he was quite intentionally referring to Jefferson Davis and company when he wrote about "returning to the system of our Founders."

Whatever the explanation, one thing's for sure: He's no more of straight-shooter than John McCain is a straight-talker. Chancey Gardner does Glenngary Glenn Ross?

But I digress.  My real purpose in bringing up this article is for the further light it throws on the controversial racial quotes. The article notes:

about a dozen volunteers with the partisan political group the 21st Century Democrats protested Paul's August 8 press conference at the Victoria Holiday Inn, where Paul announced a 14-point plan for the district. Though billed as a pledge for no new taxes, the plan took a back seat to the protestors, who carried signs denouncing Paul and requesting that he release his newsletters to the media. Morris [Paul's Democratic opponent] had repeatedly made the same request; while he had already provided the media a smattering of articles received anonymously, there were years of back issues he wanted to see. For months, Paul had responded that it is impossible to dredge up all his old writings, but he told voters that they could request individual copies from his campaign headquarters. However, at the press conference-turned-protest, Paul conceded to pressure from reporters, promising to release all back copies.

But that promise has yet to come to pass. His concealment is easy to figure: The articles that have been leaked have been an embarrassment for Paul. In one 1992 article, Paul labeled the illustrious congresswoman Barbara Jordan, now deceased, a "moron" and "fraud" whose accomplishments depended on her race and sex. Paul now explains that he's been wronged -- his "academic, tongue-in-cheek" opinions have been stripped of their context. But when the Victoria Advocate requested the entire copy of the newsletter, promising to publish its entirety, he refused that too.

So, what we have here is a continuing pattern of refusing to come clean--promising to, but then reneging, and offering a third contradictory explanation for his embarrasing remarks--" his 'academic, tongue-in-cheek' opinions have been stripped of their context."  He almost sounds like a Harvard/Yale man, like, well, you know who that would be.

There's a whole lot more juicy material in this Austin Chronicle article.  Like, for instance, his full-throated Militia of Montana-style advice about how to hide your money from ZOG IRS:

Then there's his paranoia about the expansion of the federal government. In a letter to subscribers of his Survival Report entitled "Forfeiture Alert" and addressed "Dear Frightened Reader," Paul warns that the government has unleashed "forfeiture squads" to acquire the assets of unsuspecting Americans. He advises the readers to purchase two books that offer legal advice on how to safely move money across the U.S. border, how to "buy and sell gold privately without leaving a paper trail for the IRS to follow," and how to avoid transactions that "label you a money launderer." If you follow the advice, it will "make it difficult or impossible for bureaucrats... to know what you have and where you have it," and will allow you to "bulletproof from seizure those assets you can't hide."

One might well suppose that if that was the "normal" sort of material "Ron Paul" sent out, then it's much more understandable how the racial slurs got through. 

It's also much more understandable how Ron Paul got associated with all those racists, nativists and militia types--he was actively pandereing to them for years.  Or possibly worse, he let others do so using his name for an undisclosed amount of money.

Whatever the real reason, one thing is for certain: Ron Paul has still not told the straight story about what he was doing all those years.  He's still hiding his past, just like G.W. Bush.