Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Mike Gravel: The Other "Ron Paul" Why we should support the candidacy and delegate fight of Mike Gravel towards the Democratic Convention.by Abelardo Arias
(Libertarian)
Monday, February 11, 2008
Maybe you sat at home wondering what you would do when you found out that Dennis Kucinich was no longer running for President. Perhaps you put your face in your hands in shock when Ron Paul announced in a confusing and tepid e-mail to supporters that he was cutting down his national campaign and instead focusing on his congressional race.
Well you’re not alone. But wait, there is another.
Another candidate is running for President of the United States. Like Ron Paul, he has been so ignored by the MSM that few people in the Democratic primaries even know he’s running or who he is.
Even if they had watched his few short minutes in the debates they may have not been able to fully understand the intensity with which he scolded and upbraided his fellow Democratic candidates.
While Kucinich and Paul are focusing on their difficult elections in their respective congressional districts, there is one man who is still in the race for his party’s nominating convention.
Gravel served for two terms in the United States Senate representing Alaska. Yeah, that’s right. The State of people with libertarian leanings that don’t quite like the Washington types telling them how to live their lives. Gravel is known mostly for his opposition to the Vietnam War as a U.S. Senator and for his involvement in the release of the infamous Pentagon Papers.
Unlike Obama and Clinton, Sen. Gravel has actually served two full terms and therefore has more experience than they do.
Unlike Obama and Clinton, he served in the U.S. Army and has military experience compared to the two candidates who are so willing to bomb Iran.
Gravel is a man of peace and a man who respects our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
He calls for the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and what he calls the "corrupt income tax system."
Gravel recognizes that Americans have lost confidence in the Federal Reserve system.
He supports a national initiative to allow the People to be a check and balance to government abuse and tyranny.
He will end our foreign escapades in Iraq and immediately bring our brave troops home and out of harm’s way.
Gravel will use diplomacy to ease tensions with Iran and Syria.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are supported by globalist elites from the Council of Foreign Relations and Bill Clinton's War in Yugoslavia.
Gravel is supported by those Democrats and independents sick of Republican wars and lies not just looking for "change".
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will still send people to federal prison for possesion of marijuana.
Gravel will decriminalize marijuana and end the War on Drugs.
He will protect a free, safe and open internet.
Gravel opposes NAFTA and favors reforming trade policies that have only benefitted international corporate interests.
He will protect our borders, monitor the flow of immigrants into our country, and establish a guest worker program and naturalization procedures that would fairly bring immigrants into legal status.
Gravel is is adamantly opposed to torture, indefinite detention, and the deprivation of lawyers/speedy trials.
He opposes the Military Commissions Act, flagrant ignorance of the Geneva convention, and Guantanamo.
Gravel opposes No Child Left Behind.
So what?
Why should I support Mike Gravel? Isn’t the media after all ignoring him? Haven’t they written him off more than Ron Paul?
Yes, they have. The Clinton machine is a very powerful political force. But don’t be fooled by the Clintons. Hillary is anxious to flex our military muscles overseas regardless of her criticisms of Bush. She will follow in the footsteps of her husband who began illegal military operations in Somalia and Yugoslavia.
Don’t be fooled by Obama. The man wants "change". It’s more like the change in your pocket for the War Fund Obama is very pro-aggressive military action. Obama has voted to authorize war funds for Operation Iraqi Oil. He is not against war. He is only against the Iraq battlefield. He wants to re-deploy troops to Afghanistan, Pakistan and yes even Iran. When it comes to military intervention, Obama feels that we have ignored Latin America too long. Is that an invasion of Venezuela in the cards? Is that the kind of "change" we want?
Mike Gravel Revolution?
As Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com and others have noted of the Democratic Party elite, they are merely the left wing of the War Party, led by such luminaries as Joe Lieberman and Nancy Pelosi. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain remain the leaders of the right wing of the War Party.
What’s an independent, Democrat or Republican to do? Support Mike Gravel!
Kucinich is out. Ron Paul appears to be on his way out.
After his "kick in the gut" email to supporters, Ron Paul still managed to gain a close third in Washington State. Paul is running a smart delegates game. But right now it’s too soon to tell whether it would pay off at the National Convention. Ron Paul has signalled to everyone that he will not run third party. This means that he will continue to push hard for his anti-war, anti-empire issues inside the very GOP that does not want him. They're even running one of their own well-funded neo-cons against him.
[UPDATE: Ron Paul's Myspace Blog has stated the following: A few news sources are misreporting Ron Paul's e-mail from last week. The presidential campaign is not ending, not being suspended, and not even drawing down. It's slimming down and ramping up — with over twenty states having already voted, we've shed staff, and we're concentrating financial and organization resources on the remaining states. We're going to the convention, and we're fighting for every vote and every National Delegate along the way.]
Ron Paul's success of course assumes that the number of his delegates will be enough to win him the day. But with 80-90% of the GOP despising his foreign policy, a brokered convention will be a very unwelcome place for his anti-war, anti-empire views. The Democratic Party on the other hand has a high percentage of people who didn’t agree with the loss of lives in Vietnam then or in the Middle East now.
The MSM blackout of Mike Gravel is even worse because the media already decided they could not afford to have the Senator tap into the values that Democrats already care about: values such as ending the war, protecting our civil liberties, ending the Patriot Act.
Mike Gravel is still running. He does not have a congressional district to worry about. He has nothing to lose if he attacks Obama and Clinton for their hypocrisy, vagueness and eagerness to plunge our country into more aggressive wars and economic destruction. He has everything to gain by going on the attack not sitting by waiting for his own grassroots to take him where he will.
But haven’t Obama and Clinton already won the majority of Democratic delegates? Well, you could argue that McCain and Huckabee have already won all the GOP delegates and Ron Paul supporters should just go home. Obama and Hillary are also heading into a convention nightmare. A lot can happen to change the delegates’ minds to vote for someone who is truly anti-war, anti-Bush and pro-democracy.
Why not take a moment and check out Gravel’s website? Consider an opportunity to help the one candidate who can expose Obama and Clinton. It certainly won’t be John McCain when he likely wins the GOP nomination. And if that happens, we know that Ron Paul will not be running third party.
Donate a dollar to the man who is working hard to help the Democratic Party find its soul, in spite of the corporate media’s insistence that it’s time for "change".
It's time for real change. It’s time to help Mike Gravel.
Abelardo J. Arias is a Connecticut attorney, involved in the Democratic Freedom Caucus, a homeschooling parent of four and the son of immigrants from Colombia and Puerto Rico. Add him on Myspace.
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2008 Abelardo Arias, all rights reserved.
Published: Monday, February 11, 2008
Last modified: Monday, February 11, 2008
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Kipper: Unfortunately, he'll never say that, because he has decided getting reelected as a Republican is more important to him than the consequences of this years election. And frankly, the whole cycle of getting reelected, and the compromise of principles and the accepting of bribes that go with it, are the main problems with our republic.
I feel like Ron Paul has let a lot of dedicated supporters down. I had a lot of respect for Paul, but I've been supporting Mike Gravel because of the National Initiative, and his history of doing what is right regardless of personal or political cost. I mean, he filibustered the draft for months when no other politician was willing to do something so politically risky "just to save lives". He risked imprisonment or death to expose the Pentagon papers; he had to fight for his rights in the supreme court in a ruling that involved open government, freedom of speech, and the balance of powers.
There's just not any other candidate as principled, as brave, or as relevant to our times. It's a shame you'd never know it from the corrupt, biased media coverage.
Shawn, I disagree with your assessment of Paul. He's been a voice of sensibility in our government for the last thirty years and more. As much as I want to see him take the President's oath of office, if that doesn't happen, I still want to have him there speaking for us. If he loses his seat to a snake in the grass, we could lose that voice and be poorer because of it.
I think that this "Ron Paul Revolution" is bigger than this year's election cycle. People have been working for years for the ideas Paul espouses and Paul, by some twist of fate, has been able to bring that message forward in a big way. And he's still doing it. He's not idling out of the race. But the movement isn't just about the race. The race has woken alot of people up to it. Its sparked alot of fires. I think there's that the Convention could serve to fan those flames, but even if Paul were to win the presidency, we'd still have a long row to hoe. Whatever happens we've all got a very long race ahead of us. And Dr. Paul's got my respect for doing his bit.
And I haven't paid much attention to Gravel, but it sounds like he's fighting the good fight, too. In which case, my hat goes off to him as well.
It's interesting the number of positions that Mike Gravel and Ron Paul agree upon, but one is labeled a liberal and the other a conservative. Gravel does favor Law of the Seas and other legislation that differs from Paul's. But when it comes to declaring war and defending personal liberties, those should be American values, not left or right.
Going forward, I would like to see more constitutionalists who are fiscally responsible in the Democratic Party. We're not seeing enough in the Republican Party.
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2008 Abelardo Arias, all rights reserved.