Top news event of 2008: the Ron Paul Revolution

Typically, an Associated Press poll of news editors and directors missed the real top story of 2008. No wonder print media are going under.

AP’s top story: Barack Obama’s election. But his “Change you can believe in” is unbelievable. He’s keeping Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and Hillary will be secretary of state. Some “change.”

As to his being the first black president, that’s nice. But it’s far less relevant than what he will do — and what he will do is maintain the rancid status quo.

Other top stories are things we’ve seen before: wars, a new Depression, the Olympics, terrorism, a woman nominated for vice president (Ferraro was the first by a major party in 1984).

Ho-hum.

The Revolution

The real top news story mostly was neglected by the dying Old Media, but not only reported on, but caused by the burgeoning New Media: the Ron Paul Revolution. And it really was a revolution — a completely new development that will affect all of us, in this case for the good.

Ron Paul inspired millions of Americans with his vision of liberty and a return to the principles of our Founding Fathers, especially the U.S. Constitution. He fired up young folks, who used the Internet to raise record amounts of money for his campaign, while putting up countless blogs backing him.

His brilliant and principled defense of liberty completely overshadowed the shallow and almost identical “platforms” of Obama, Hillary, McCain, Romney, and the rest of the dull retreads.

True, he didn’t do so hot with the voters. But late in the campaign, when he was running mano-a-mano against McCain, he was getting around 22% — and rising. If the campaign had lasted a couple of months longer, Paul might have won the GOP nomination. If so, he would have cruised to victory over Obama, the fake “reformer” who’s really just a cog in the corrupt Chicago political machine.

Back to the Founders

Ron Paul’s platform is simple, profound — and brilliant: just go back to what the Founding Fathers intended for America:

* Dismantle the fascist superstate imposed in recent decades. Reduce the central (“federal”) government by 95% or more.

* End the imperialist interventions around the world, where American troops are in 130 countries and wars are being waged — and lost — in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Syrian, and Colombia. These wars have bankrupted us.

* Return to George Washington’s admonition:

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.

The Bush-Clinton-Bush Obama of hyperinterventionism has nothing in common with Washington and the best in America, and everything in common with Napoleon, Mussolini, and Trotsky.

* Repeal the income tax, Socialist Security tax, and other robberies of the American people.

* Abolish the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Board, the engine of inflation and Depression.

Nostradamus 2008

Ron Paul also was prescient in warning, for years, that Bush’s Iraq War, being paid for with the Bush-Greenspan-Bernanke inflation and massive deficits and debt, would bring about an economic collapse. Not many listened to him. But the collapse hit hard in September, and shows no signs of improving.

He’s also right in opposing the Bush-Obama-Bernanke socialist “bailouts” of their Wall Street cronies and the auto companies. All this will only delay the economic recovery while making the Depression even worse.

When are people going to listen to him?

Real hope

Obama blabs about the “Audacity of Hope,” and got rich off his autobiography of the same name — even as he disowned his close friendship with the Rev. Wright, who coined the phrase.

But Obama’s philosophy is one of despair: that Americans are a weak, incompetent people who cannot even walk across the street without a massive government program to help them. Despair also is shown in his refusal to reverse the disastrous, aggressive, and un-American wars of Bush that have destroyed our country.

Real hope comes from Ron Paul and his movement. It’s the first major political movement since Grover Cleveland was president more than 100 years ago that wants to completely follow the U.S. Constitution.

The Goldwater movement of 1964 was diverted by the whole Cold War dynamic. It wanted to abolish the welfare state at home while building up America’s stance against the murderous Soviet Union. (What we got was the worst of all worlds: Lyndon Johnson, who imposed socialism at home while escalating the Vietnam War against Hanoi’s socialist regime. Basically, LBJ’s philosophy was: My socialism good, Ho Chi Min’s socialism bad, so I’ll kill 2 million Viets.)

Ronald Reagan won in 1981 and proclaimed, in his First Inaugural Address, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” — then increased the budget of the problem by 90% in 8 years. He did cut taxes (later repealing about 2/3 of his cuts) and wound down the Cold War without getting us all killed. But he also perpetrated, among other statist outrages, the “War” on drugs that has destroyed so many of our liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

Ron Paul’s Revolution is different because there’s no dilution of his principles. If he ever becomes president — let’s hope he runs again in 2012 — he actually would do his best to restore our liberties.

As 2009 begins, the Ron Paul Revolution is a light in the darkness of the Bush-Greenspan-Neocon Depression that rapidly is descending on us, and the Bush repression that continues.

That’s real hope, from a real hero.