The Revolution: A Manifesto Book

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington

The Revolution is what our founding fathers did. Give me liberty. Freedom isn't free. If you give it up it will not be yours by right any longer. The constitution was written in mind of those who would twist it to give themselves more power. Checks and balances. It was protection for the people against a government that would exist only to serve itself, defeating the sole purpose for its creation. That is not the country that the United States was in 2008 when Ron Paul wrote The Revolution: A Manifesto. It isn't the country in 2012 either. He was running for the presidential race that year. A story that I only heard because my mother was present at the GOP convention in Fla this year was that the party changed the rules at the last moment to keep Paul off of the ballot (cheating). We get to have Mitt Romney as the "option". Why didn't the media cover this? Free press? Nope. Regardless of which candidate one supports, it should send chills down anyone's spines that a political party would get away with cheating in this way. What more proof do people need that the ideal candidate who will be the kindly parent who will take care of all your concerns for you is not going to happen? (Voter fraud is not new [that it is not new should not take away from the importance] but the shooting down of the plane carrying the votes of the military this election scared me a great deal.) My sister related to me the idea that American politics was like voting for a sports team. The empty sports jersey to root for, regardless of ability to play the game, or the outcome. That's the only way I can reckon the absence of opposition for Obama where Bush was censured for the exact same things by the same people. The war became just over night. "Crippling sanctions" in Iran would have been evil under Bush, I suspect. Oh, politicians are evil. You can't expect any better so... Lesser of two evils (anyone else get told "lesser of two evils" by both Romney and Obama supporters?). The solution is to be scared shitless when President Obama says that HIS presidency won't abuse all of these new powers but you don't know about the NEXT guy... However you feel about Obama, if you are okay that the next president will have these same powers and you are willing to risk that they won't abuse them then you don't understand what the USA is supposed to be about. What you are hoping for is a benevolent despot. There is a constitution so this kind of shit does not happen. The federal government shouldn't be in control over everyone's lives. That means the rest of the world too. They are not supposed to own us. The government is only supposed to work for the people.

USA history is filled with law breaking. The draft that turned citizens into slaves. The Korean war when Truman acted without congress. Troops are still there. There are American troops in 130 countries around the world. Obama and Bush would follow in his law breaking footsteps. Ron Paul has a valid point that there should not still be American troops in Germany (!) and Korea. Whatever the "good intentions", a government that sets out to impose their will on another will end up a dictator. (I can't take seriously that governments that "disrespect women" should be bombed. Is the USA going to bomb all of the places in the world that disrespect women? Where will it end? Or is that just the countries that have oil and make the corporations very, very rich?)

I believe that constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald has identified a fatal contradiction in these claims. If it is true that the executive branch knew the locations of so many people with al Qaeda links, why were they seeking merely to eavesdrop on their conversations? Why were they not arresting them instead? This, after all, is an administration that has detained people indefinitely, without charges, on the basis of some shaky evidence of an al Qaeda connection. This time, we are supposed to believe that the administration had knowledge of countless al Qaeda figures and decided to let them remain free? Not plausible, and that is why it seems likely that the targets of this surveillance included many Americans who had no ties to al Qaeda or terrorism at all.

Did you know that the USA monitors all pharmaceutical use of every American? Why?! That's not covered in this book (it does get into the mandatory mental health screenings and subsequent mandatory prescription use for school children. I had not known about this. Why didn't I know about this if we have a free press... Oh, right). The hand holding of the people. Do people want the government to control this much of their lives? It isn't just the federal government, of course. Zoning restaurants out of poor neighborhoods because they aren't smart enough to make the right choices? The hell? I know everyone knows about the illegal big gulps in NYC. The revolution says that the government does not tell you what to eat. That is what freedom is.

The revolutionary ideas include that the federal reserve stop printing money. This makes everyone poorer by devaluing their money. I have deep concerns that the American people are nothing but a personal piggy bank and reserve of fleshly fodder for corporations to send out to fight their overseas interests. Pointless and endless wars over seas that cost trillions of dollars. More money is printed. Who is paying for it all? I know who is benefiting from it. Follow the money, as Lester Freamon on The Wire was fond of saying. Who got billions in campaign donations from Goldman Saks? Who gave the banks bail outs? The media turns a blind eye to what is going on. Who gave campaign donations to both candidates? Rupert Murdoch, who monopolizes the media. Hey, aren't monopolies supposed to be illegal? Not anymore. Ron Paul also illustrates how big business lobbys the government for restrictions they know their little competitors will not be able to meet. What happened to "job creating", anyway, and the "free market correcting itself"?

The job creating that appeared suddenly before this election time was because due to the Obama Care restrictions on employers to pay for health insurance after a certain number of full time employees. The full time hours were changed from 40 to 30. That means that a lot of employees were dropped down to 29 hours a week to keep them from being full time. More part time jobs. Could you live on 29 hours a week? If you aren't full time that means you are not getting health care. National health care, eh? No single payer plan was implemented. It is not national health care. Not to mention if you a preexisting condition [fat people are included in this, I don't know if many people know that] you cannot get covered. If you get sick you still get fired. If you get fired and lose health insurance you will be liable for what the insurance had paid before that point. America is a cruel country. Health costs go up first because of the printing money out of the Fed Reserve. It's comforting to know that the government has been spending the only program that had a surplus, social security. They tell the public that it is CHARITY when they had been paying into it out of their paychecks. Something that they are legally obligated to do! I wonder how long before "They are going to die anyway" is trotted out about the elderly. Why did government meddle in health care in the first place?! Why was this their job? It wasn't supposed to be.

It shouldn't be revolutionary that the Patriot act should not be. Americans should not be indefinitely detained for "terrorism" (and I will keep saying this because the media does not) and now gangs and drugs. The war on terror is now permanent. The loss of liberties occur during war time. Does that scare the shit out of you too? Torture is illegal, of course. Still happens. Remember when Obama said he was gonna get rid of Gitmo in 2008? National security, oh yeah. Somehow Americans are in danger and there are multiple wars raging that no one can afford. Is anyone defending the usa? (Because terrorism had nothing at all to do with the "crippling sanctions"? Blow-back? Do you feel safe because they can spy on us all? I don't.) By the way, my hometown is a drone site. Why?!

Ron Paul still had hope that America could pull out of this crisis in 2008. I wonder if he still feels that way. I haven't read it yet but will soon historian Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land (it looks to be in a similar vein to this and Glenn Greenwald's With Liberty and Justice for Some that I highly recommend). He had had hope too. That was before the bail outs. No strings attached bail outs that everyone now knows were used to give out bonuses to the executives who caused the mess in the first place. Why were they given these bail outs with no restrictions? Why were bail outs given to Europe! (Two under the table without the knowledge of the American people, no less. The German president was vilified for actually asking for austerity measures for Greece. What happened? Everyone knows that they did what the American bankers did. Bonuses for the criminals. Bail outs shouldn't have happened in the first place. The media tells us that Obama is a hero to Europeans.)

This is a great book about asking the questions that Americans should be asking and their representatives are not going to talk about unless it is demanded that they talk about them. I'm pretty ignorant about economics (Paul suggests some places to start for beginners. There's even a reading list at the back of the book for those who want to become better informed). I don't know how I feel about the gold standard idea. I do know that printing more and more money is the worst thing to do. Gold can't be printed out of the whim of the administration so there is that.

I don't see eye to eye with Paul on abortion, exactly, but it does make me ever so sore when I hear people talk about abortion as if it is the ONLY issue that should ever come up during election time. See, that's a big problem. Why are the American people ignoring all of these issues that really and truly do effect their lives, and the lives of their children? I do think Paul has a point that people shouldn't cede rights from the states because they think some of them will make "the wrong choice". I can't tell you how much I don't agree that my state has the death penalty. I have voted against it every chance I have had. We still have it. Would I want it to be decided by the federal government and then get a president that feels as the current governor of Texas does (they've had 250 executions during his term)? Too much power to one person is bad is the idea, right? I do wonder about people who are okay with millions of deaths in war rather than using birth control (please don't take me the wrong way here. I find the idea that anyone should be forced to have a baby absolutely abhorrent). It drove me crazy when a favorite musician, John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, twittered the other day that people should vote for the candidate least likely to overturn roe vs. wade (as if it was even an issue, as if they weren't more than one candidate, as if there wasn't any other possible factor to vote for!). I know this is a prevalent attitude from people I have talked to in my real life. I have to ask why?

If there was one issue that I saw eye to eye with Ron Paul on more than anything else it was ending the war on drugs. People should not be in prison for a health issue. Clinton went against the constitution when he prosecuted users of marijuana where it was legal to use it for medical reasons. I didn't know how the war on drugs began. A senator on the floor of the Texas senate said: "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff is what makes them crazy." It became a federal tax act in 1937. It became against the law in 1970 instead of the tax charade (you could still call it an act, I suppose). The war on drugs has ruined communities, lives, imprisoned countless people.

If the history of American government teaches us anything, it is that the time to fight oppressive and absurd programs is before they are established, since once they are in place they are essentially impossible to dismantle. They need to be blocked before they have a chance to start. Otherwise, local programs with federal funding will grow larger and larger and be found in many more localities, until we finally have a mandatory federal screening program. This is how it always works.

One more thing: the loss of the right to protest. Why is this being allowed to be given up? Isn't that one of our fundamental rights? One of the things that made the usa what it was? How change happened? The revolution is don't give up what the usa is all about. Don't let anyone take it away from you. If the government doesn't have too much power you don't have to be terrified that the wrong guy could get elected into office.