Why Did You Sell Your Soul?
by Joshua Katz Why did you do it, Dennis? Your party laughed at you when you ran for President. They hid your name when you won the polls, they kept you out of their debates. Why did they do it? Because you dared speak the truth, because you were willing to say, publicly and in full view of the voters, that the President lied us into a war. You attacked their security state, you pointed out that America had become a rogue nation, a nation that sanctions torture, that attacks sovereign nations without provocation. You called on Congress to fulfill its Constitutional duties and impeach the men who violated numerous federal laws. You demanded that our troops return home, that we stop policing the world, and that we dismantle the domestic security state. In return, they called you a kook. They said you were crazy, that you believed in aliens (even as they believe in a self-regulating executive – which is more likely to exist?) They disenfranchised your supporters and used every dirty trick in the book to keep you down. Your party was every bit as guilty as that other party – they voted for the wars, they sanctioned the torture, they cheered for the loss of civil liberties. They knew it, and you knew it, and that's why they kept you down. Your party leader visited your office and promised you would be defeated in your primary if you dared expose the lies and crimes of that other party, and you bravely did it anyway, and yet still won your primary. I was proud to support you, to send you money to do your good work. Although you weren't my favorite candidate, you were up there, far above the fools and pretenders who tried but failed to compete with you. I turned my face the other way when you told your supporters in Iowa to vote for Obama if you had less than 15%. After all, I comforted myself, you were talking to people who were already at the Democratic caucus, you couldn't tell them to support the man you really would have liked to endorse. I tried to tell myself you hadn't sold out when you ended your campaign and failed to endorse Ron Paul, or, for that matter, Mike Gravel – after all, perhaps you sought the VP slot, perhaps you had more good left to do. Then you went to your convention, and sold your soul. You spoke eagerly, energetically, in support of a man whose positions you don't share, and who hasn't an ounce of your courage. You criticized the war in Iraq, but neglected to mention that the man you were endorsing has no intentions of cutting back our warfare state – that he complains that Bush hasn't sent enough troops to Afghanistan. You spoke about the war contractors, but gave no indication that you were endorsing a candidate who promised to spend more on defense than Bush had. You told us about Big Pharma and their control over our healthcare money – but neglected to mention that they had achieved that control because of government involvement in healthcare, and that the man you were endorsing promised more of the same. You criticized the security state – while endorsing a man who voted for domestic spying without warrants, who has never opposed the horrific loss of civil liberties, and who promises to do more of the same. You appeared, as always, as a man who is outside the system, who bucks the trends, who stands for what is right no matter what the cost, for justice though the heavens fall, but you endorsed a man who is nothing but an insider, a man whose promises of change and hope sound so empty and hollow. You, the man who defends the Constitution, endorsed a candidate who promises, with every speech, to ignore that document. A man who voted for war, who promises AIPAC that he will be their defense candidate, who sends chilling threats to Iran, to Russia, to the world. Why did you do it, Dennis? How could you speak at a convention of men and women who sought to destroy you, who did destroy your campaign, who worked so hard to make sure that the truth wouldn't be heard? How could you endorse a man who promises to build a better, stronger warfare state, who despises civil liberties? Did you want to gain the approval of evil men? They will never approve of you, Dennis, and you know it. You've fed the tiger, but remember that, when it serves him, the tiger will not hesitate to bite off your head. Today, they love you; but they will toss you aside if you ever pose a threat to them again, make no mistake. You had a role model; there was a man who demonstrated to you the right way to lose a primary. Ron Paul promised that he would not endorse a candidate who desires to misuse the armed forces, who wants more wars, and he didn't. He organized a massive counter-convention, keeping his supporters eagerly involved in a massive campaign for liberty, for peace, for the Constitution. He built a promising organization to keep his ideas alive, his supporters built their own media network and worked to defeat FISA – a bill Obama voted for, the same Obama you dared endorse.
August 29, 2008 Joshua Katz, NREMT-P [send him mail], is the Legislative Director of the Libertarian Party of Connecticut. A member of the faculty of Oxford Academy in Westbrook, Connecticut, his areas of interest include mathematics, philosophy of mind, and the use of the synthetic a priori. Copyright © 2008 LewRockwell.com
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You,
too, built an organization – you called it "Integrity Now."
Where was your integrity, Dennis? Where was your integrity
when you urged your supporters to give up their efforts for peace
and civil liberties, and instead vote for a man who despises both?
I met so many of your supporters when I, a Ron Paul supporter, protested
at your exclusion from the debates. They struck me as having
more integrity than that. I don't think they will sell out
so easily, be so easily persuaded to support a man who opposes their
principles. There were men you could have endorsed, and women
too. Did it occur to you what an endorsement would mean for
Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Chuck Baldwin, or any other candidate
who continues to fight bravely for peace and liberty, to fight the
battles you once did? With your support, these campaigns could
have been energized and ignited. Instead, you chose to hand
your soul to the Devil, in exchange for what? For the knowledge
that you, yes you, contributed to the continuation of the American
Empire, that you helped elect a man who took away the last of our
civil liberties? Why not sell your birthright for a bowl of
lentils?