I'll cut to the chase: this is another article about Ron Paul. The man has become nigh unavoidable these days on the internet (especially on SG). His supporters range from dissatisfied Republicans to Libertarians to more moderate Democrats to stoner Canadians to white supremacists.

In early October, Stormfront Radio endorsed Ron Paul for president.

From the recorded broadcast:

Whatever organization you belong to, remember first and foremost that you're a white nationalist, then put aside your differences with one another and work together. Work together to strive to get someone in the Oval Office who agrees with much of what we want for our future. Look at the man, look at the issues, look at our future. Vote for Ron Paul, 2008.

Stormfront's founder, Don Black, also contributed $500 to Ron Paul.

According to Federal Election Commission records, on 9/30/07 the Ron Paul presidential campaign received a $500 contribution from a Mr. Don Black, who lists his address as 203 Lakeland Drive and identifies his occupation as self-employed/website manager

David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, is also a fan of Ron Paul, going as far as calling him "our king".

If this were a chess game, the neocons have just put our king in check. We must come up with a good response immediately to stay in the game.

Paul's campaign and supporters claim that he should not be held accountable for donations from neo-Nazi groups (much like they denied any affiliation with the Liberty Dollar). Likewise, Ron Paul also fails to repudiate other supporters, who have displayed anti-semitism, (posted by Will Williams, southern coordinator for the National Alliance Party), 9/11 conspiracy theories, homophobia, and anti-atheism.

The denial, bordering on uncomfortable complacency, is presented as naiveté. How can Ron Paul be held responsible for the personal views of his supporters? How is he to know exactly who is contributing to his campaign?

Problem is, they may not just be the opinions of his constituency. The New Republic's James Kirchick explains.

Most voters had never heard of Paul before he launched his quixotic bid for the Republican nomination. But the Texan has been active in politics for decades. And, long before he was the darling of antiwar activists on the left and right, Paul was in the newsletter business.

Paul's newsletters have carried different titles over the years--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report--but they generally seem to have been published on a monthly basis since at least 1978. (Paul, an OB-GYN and former U.S. Air Force surgeon, was first elected to Congress in 1976.) During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a nonprofit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman. The Freedom Report claimed to have over 100,000 readers in 1984. At one point, Ron Paul & Associates also put out a monthly publication called The Ron Paul Investment Letter.

The Freedom Report's online archives only go back to 1999, but I was curious to see older editions of Paul's newsletters, in part because of a controversy dating to 1996, when Charles "Lefty" Morris, a Democrat running against Paul for a House seat, released excerpts stating that "opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions," that "if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be," and that black representative Barbara Jordan is "the archetypical half-educated victimologist" whose "race and sex protect her from criticism." At the time, Paul's campaign said that Morris had quoted the newsletter out of context. Later, in 2001, Paul would claim that someone else had written the controversial passages. (Few of the newsletters contain actual bylines.) Caldwell, writing in the Times Magazine last year, said he found Paul's explanation believable, "since the style diverges widely from his own."

But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

Well, that doesn't sound too positive. While not all of the newsletters' content could be attributed directly to Ron Paul, the inclusion of the questionable articles is an endorsement of their views by the publisher. Filled with animus towards various social groups (including blacks, gays, and Jews) and anti-government paranoia (including passages alluding to a government cover-up of AIDS), the newsletters are damning indeed.

Choice selections from the newsletters:

On race:

"A Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992: "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. ... What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided."

This newsletter describes Martin Luther King Jr. as "a world-class adulterer" who "seduced underage girls and boys" and "replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."

An October 1990 edition of the Political Report ridicules black activists, led by Al Sharpton, for demonstrating at the Statue of Liberty in favor of renaming New York City after Martin Luther King. The newsletter suggests that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" would be better alternatives--and says, "Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house."

On gays:

The June 1990 issue of the Political Report says: "I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."

A January 1994 edition of the Survival Report states that "gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense," adding: "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

On conspiracy and government:

In an undated solicitation letter for The Ron Paul Investment Letter and the Ron Paul Political Report, Paul writes: "I've been told not to talk, but these stooges don't scare me. Threats or no threats, I've laid bare the coming race war in our big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS (my training as a physician helps me see through this one.) The Bohemian Grove--perverted, pagan playground of the powerful. Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress's Mr. New Money. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica."

The January 1995 issue of the Survival Report--released just three months before the Oklahoma City bombing--cites an anti-government militia's advice to other militias, including, "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

When approached with the newsletters, Ron Paul's campaign spokesman, Jesse Benton, responded by saying "that over the years, Paul had granted 'various levels of approval' to what appeared in his publications--ranging from 'no approval' to instances where he 'actually wrote it himself.'"

After I read Benton some of the more offensive passages, he said, "A lot of [the newsletters] he did not see. Most of the incendiary stuff, no." He added that he was surprised to hear about the insults hurled at Martin Luther King, because "Ron thinks Martin Luther King is a hero."

In other words, Paul's campaign wants to depict its candidate as a naïve, absentee overseer, with minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf. This portrayal might be more believable if extremist views had cropped up in the newsletters only sporadically--or if the newsletters had just been published for a short time. But it is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views. In that respect, whether or not Paul personally wrote the most offensive passages is almost beside the point. If he disagreed with what was being written under his name, you would think that at some point--over the course of decades--he would have done something about it.

From his newsletters, however, a different picture of Paul emerges--that of someone who is either himself deeply embittered or, for a long time, allowed others to write bitterly on his behalf. His adversaries are often described in harsh terms: Barbara Jordan is called "Barbara Morondon," Eleanor Holmes Norton is a "black pinko," Donna Shalala is a "short lesbian," Ron Brown is a "racial victimologist," and Roberta Achtenberg, the first openly gay public official confirmed by the United States Senate, is a "far-left, normal-hating lesbian activist." Maybe such outbursts mean Ron Paul really is a straight-talker. Or maybe they just mean he is a man filled with hate.

To think that Ron Paul lacks editorial control over newsletters bearing his own name is ludicrous, and for him to not recognize the vitriol published in his name for over a decade is not naïve, but disgustingly negligent and wholly inappropriate for a politician. For his campaign to attempt to portray him as having "minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf" is irresponsible indeed. Therefore, the question must be asked: is this man really capable of holding the position of President of the United States? The answer, regardless of whether or not he participated in the creation of the questionable articles, is a resounding "NO."

MrCrisp spent too much time researching and writing this article, instead of packing the rest of his belongings and moving into his new apartment. In his opinion, though, sleeping on the floor for one night is worth it.

_DictionaryGirl_

NEWSWIRE

San Diego, CA

JAN 10, 2008 10:19 AM

Wow, what an excellent read, and just what I needed this morning. (After FTR's last article I was beginning to feel a little bit sorry for the guy.) Thanks for getting my head back on straight!

Uncognitive

Brooklyn, NY

May 2003

JAN 10, 2008 10:27 AM

MrCrisp said:
David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, is also a fan of Ron Paul, going as far as calling him "our king".

Ron Paul's also a fan of David Duke.

From a 1991 issue of the Ron Paul Survival Report article that praised David Duke's campaign for Louisiana Governor:

"...our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of (David) Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom."