Day of Reckoning for the Ron Paul Revolution
The Day of Reckoning for the Ron Paul Revolution has come.
At first, they dismissed us.
Then they ridiculed us.
Then we outraised them in money, setting an all-time record for grassroots fundraising.
Now they fear us. Even the belly of the neoconservative beast, the Wall Street Journal, once dismissing Paul, is now hedging its bets, preparing its readers for the possibility of a Paul victory.
All of the hope and labor and sweat and tears of the last year has come to this. The time is now.
It is time to win where it counts, in the coming voting over the next six weeks, particularly the imminent contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. This may all be over by Valentine’s Day.
But instead of a pep talk, I am writing this to give a warning.
For months we have complained of biased polls showing Dr. Paul with single-digit support among “likely” voters. This has not shaken our faith because it conflicts with what we see with our own eyes.
We see the bumper stickers and yard signs for Dr. Paul.
We see the enthusiasm of our local meetup groups.
We see the overwhelming victories of Dr. Paul in straw polls, online polls or almost any forum requiring a modicum of active effort to participate.
But there is something yet missing from this reasoning. The polls, though biased, do measure one thing. They measure the opinions of people with a history of voting. And that, frankly, scares me for our Revolution.
In my experience in local politics, I have found one thing to be true: voters are voters and non-voters are non-voters, and never do the two meet. Despite hours of effort and thousands of dollars, there seems to be nothing in heaven and earth than can motivate the non-voter to vote.
The statistics are grim. In one campaign I managed, people who voted infrequently, despite being contacted personally by the campaign and even agreeing to vote for my candidate, were only 15% as likely to show up and vote as someone with a solid voter history.
So in some sense the polls are accurate. They are a snapshot of where Dr. Paul stands among those who’ve voted and are likely to vote again. Which means the test of our Revolution has come: for Dr. Paul to win, something must change.
What must change is that the conviction of our hearts and the desire of our souls to begin the political redemption of this country must exceed our apathy.
No matter how much you’ve read and watched about Dr. Paul or how much you’ve given to him, none of that does a bit of good unless you, yes you, your physical person shows up and votes.
If you don’t, nothing happens. Either this Revolution permanently destroys the statistical models of the pollsters by bringing millions of new voters they never guessed would show up or WE LOSE.
Dr. Paul is 72 years old. Though he’s in excellent health, he can’t run again. There’s no one else like him in a comparable office or with a comparable following.
And the momentum we have right now is a gift, a precious gift of a once-in-a-generation coincidence (for those who believe in coincidences, though I certainly do not!) that has left no heir apparent to the nomination and has cleared the path to victory if we will only reach out and take it.
This is the time and this is the hour to save our country.
Show up and vote. Get as many people as you can to do the same, or else watch this great country run into the ground by Tweedledee or Tweedledum (for it matters not which is elected!) as you spend the rest of your days in painful contemplation of something that almost was and might have been.
This is either the turning of the tide or the last death throes of the Old Republic.
The choice, for better or for worse, is yours and yours alone.
December 31st, 2007 at 1:17 am
Why Be Surprised? Fox is the NeoCon Central.
by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
We need to send thank you notes to Fox for handing us this opportunity. Now, the Ron Paul Revolution can show America why the past ‘debates’ always leave them with more questions.
Fox is excluding the candidate who raised the most money; money raised from small donations, direct from the hearts and labor of Americans; by doing that they finally admit, “Presidential campaigns, all political campaigns, are carried out to simulate elections. The people can have no real choices. The real choices are made by those who own us, corporations.”
For our entire lifetimes those same corporations, working through and with government, have controlled us. They accomplish that through our mortgages, with banks issuing those mortgages by creating money, against the law but with the cooperation of the FED and government. They do it with credit card companies that change the terms and then hound us for with usurious interest rates. They do it through the money we earn and struggle to save, sucking out our labor for their own profit through endless expansion of the money supply. Every part of our lives profits them; therefore they demand to control all of us.
They exclude Ron because he speaks the truth about all of these things. For the same reason they are determined that the real questions will not be asked. Cast your mind back to past debates; you will hear that echoing silence. All questions were parsed to avoid exposing the collusion between government and corporations that is used to keep us on the grids of their greed.
They use our love of America, our honesty, our decency, our concern for our families, our patriotism, our love of God, to exact that control. They divide us and manipulate us so that we fight each other instead of seeing the truth.
Then, they run elections.
That is the simulation they play to entertain and confuse us. With the Ron Paul Revolution that stopped working like the smoothly orchestrated play they have put on for so long.
We need therefore to thank them for this monumental opportunity. That is what this is. Yes, boycott their advertisers. But get ready to move into a new phase of Revolution.
We will have our own debate. This time, we frame the debate and set the rules. This time the questions they evade are the ones asked.
We will let CNN or another media outlet televise the event. Those who write the questions will be the people who understand what has been happening to America, the voices silenced until now. We will make sure they answer those questions even if the GOP candidates, personally, remain silent.
The GOP Presidential Debate in New Hampshire will be held where ever they choose. Close by we will hold the real Debate. We will invite all of the candidates. They will decline, pleading their prior commitment. They will suspect what is coming.
Every living individual, and perhaps the ghosts of the previous Revolutionaries, will sense the importance of the event. The blimp will be flashing its message, the Granny Warriors will be on the ground and on the air. The people will begin signing the Declaration of Independence for the 2nd Revolution across the New Hampshire, focusing in on Ron Paul Hall.
Online sites will cover unfolding events. Local papers will get updates, ready to print several times a day.
Airplanes with banners will be seen from every town, from every farm. Every citizen of New Hampshire will understand that the people are about to be heard. The State of Live Free or Die will remember its proud heritage, recalled to that vision by ordinary people who have discovered they can do it themselves.
The embers of freedom will ignite.
The media has used the debates to keep us in line. Before we were content to just be included, Dr. Paul marginalized and sneered at by such as Sean Hannity. That is over.
Now we shatter their pretensions, change the frame of assumptions they take for granted, taking up the vision of freedom promised in the Declaration of Independence. Beginning in New Hampshire we will start climbing off their grid of media deceit, intended to control us, keep us compliant and quiet.
We will begin signing a new Declaration, with the causes carefully laid out.
We build a new media, connecting Americans to the truth.
In the hall we hire, Ron Paul Hall, the seats will be filled to overflowing the night of January 6th. Big screens will have been set up in buildings and parks nearby. The people will have been gathering for days to hear and see.
The black limousines will roll up to the GOP event through crowds holding signs that read, “The Revolution is Here,” and “Join the Ron Paul Revolution.” Activists, as ever, will innovate, exercising their power. The faces of the GOP candidates and their few supporters will be ashen. They will feel fear although no threats were ever made. We will ignore them.
In their auditorium there will be many empty seats; it will feel cold, abandoned. Their audience will be comprised of GOP faithful who are hoping for profits from their political activities. They will be uncomfortable, tense. A few will wear buttons in support of some candidate. Those who do will have carried those buttons in pockets to the event before putting them on.
They are afraid because their world is ending. They no longer matter. They are the past. We are the future of America.
In the Ron Paul Hall excitement will have been building for days; there will be laughter and joy, tears and nearly unbearable anticipation. Those attending will know that this event will be one that remains with them forever. The two events will take place at exactly the same time. No events could be more different. One is about the end, the other a new beginning.
On stage there will be an individual for each absent candidate. Each is highly qualified, grounded in all relevant disciplines, someone who has done the research thoroughly and completely. The compiled record of votes, life history, platform, how and when that platform changed, and, very important, who is funding them, will be available. Absent, each candidate will speak through their own record, despite their silence. Ron Paul will speak for himself. Only he has lived transparently.
The Master of Ceremonies, Chris Lawton, will ask the questions giving each their turn. But what you will hear, for the first time, is the truth, drawn from the evidence of what each has done.
America will hear. On a screen above the stage you will see the GOP event as it limps along. The sound from that event is turned off, as it should be. Their words were all lies, anyway.
When all the words are spoken there will be a long moment of silence.
From that moment the Revolution will flow into the mainstream of America.
The website made available so that all can see for themselves the documentation may occasionally go down, over loaded with traffic; demand will grow. On the sputtering campaign trail candidates will continue to lie. Several will drop out of the race. Americans will study those hard, unpalatable facts they had not imagined possible. In the days that follow each will experience anguish, revulsion, and then acceptance.
And the Revolution will grow because the people see the truth and have the tools to enact change.
We live in a human world that is held in place through our faith. We have accepted ideas that we never asked be proved. That faith made it possible for our lives and labor to be converted into the wealth controlled by individuals without conscience. Now, we, the people, will get the answers.
The people will govern themselves because now they can.
December 31st, 2007 at 3:00 am
Wonderfully said, Tom. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for months now. I cannot wait until Thursday to finally exhale.
December 31st, 2007 at 6:04 pm
So, Chris, how well do you know Ms Pillsbury-Foster? A good friend, is she? [kidding]
Seriously, call me a hopeless optimist, but I really think the movement is going to turn all expectations on their ears, Tom. I can’t wait to see the faces of the punditry go all slack and disbelieving.
‘Course, I hope I’m not just getting caught up in a “this time it’ll be different” fallacy.
January 1st, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Great vid on this subject; I dunno if you saw this at Rockwell’s log:
January 1st, 2008 at 11:19 pm
log=blog, and here’s the stupid link!
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Too bad Paul is now saying that a fence on the border is offensive.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/ron_paul_on_immigration.html
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I hate to say it, but at this point, it looks like the Iowan rEVOLution is not so much. Thoughts? Fears?
January 4th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Iowa certainly disappointing. However, Iowa is a poor predictor historically of who gets the nomination. So is New Hampshire, though that’s probably Paul’s best chance to put up a win early.
With no clear frontrunner, we could have a national race.