This article was originally published in americanchronicle.com on March 2nd, 2008
For all the reporting they´ve done on him, you´d think Ron Paul didn´t exist. He´s one of three candidates left in a Republican field that started with eleven, and yet you´d never know he was one of the last three survivors. If he was on American idol he´d be making headlines. Most everyone in America would know his name. People would be spending money on cell phone calls just to vote for him. Yet here he is running for the most important position in the world, one of three left who could possibly become the Republican presidential candidate, and so many still have no idea who Ron Paul is and what he stands for. So many people out there are just too lazy, just too dependent on the mainstream media to find out what their choices are. As a result, we all get the bottom of the barrel, the dregs of the political establishment, and so it is that corruption is so rampant in Washington DC.
Corruption is all over the news. The current crop of candidates for president is thick with it. We all know of the Clinton´s past. Many questions about Hillary´s ethics remain unanswered or unasked. Barak Obama´s career is also questionable. He may be young and he may give people hope, but already there are skeletons creeping out behind him and specters dancing in front of him that will not be scared back into the ethers by even the prettiest of words. John McCain has a long and illustrious career of scamming the public. Mike Huckabee´s past is anything but exemplary. Lately he´s stolen Ron Paul´s call to rid us of the IRS, but he wants to implement an unfair "fair tax" that would steal as much or more of our hard earned money than the IRS ever did. All these candidates have little to worry about as their rich contributors are happy to make certain they never feel the pain of having to decide between paying the rent or buying food. Meanwhile, an honest, principled man who does have a verifiable record of supporting the ideals of liberty, smaller government and the constitution is battling to get his message of peace and hope out to an ailing nation and the mass media couldn´t care less. A candidate exists who has received millions in donations from common folks and more donations from regular military personnel than all the other candidates combined, and the mass media ignores him. They don´t want you or anyone else to hear what Ron Paul has to say. They don´t care about Ron Paul and they don´t care about common human beings. They´re happy to maintain hold on their old media, government sanctioned monopolies, and would hate to see an advocate of truly free markets re-introduce competition into their field and make them actually have to do work and become real news reporters again.
This fact alone should make people want to see Ron Paul win. He is the underdog to end all underdogs, and the people love an underdog. The old media is part of the establishment that Ron Paul is standing up to. They are owned by the same multi national corporations that own our government. The same people that have bought and paid for congressmen, senators and presidents pay for the news and entertainment coming from these media conglomerates. These days, the mass media is not the voice of reason set in place to keep watch over those who are supposed to serve the people. It is not the fourth estate it once was. The mass media no longer serves us as a thought provoking source of information offering objective news and critical commentary. The mass media has become a mouthpiece for the government. Those who control it tell you who will be the next president, and who will not be. They tell you what to think. They tell you a version of reality they want you to hear and believe. If you´ve been listening to them, then you already know that they had picked Barak or Hillary long ago. It really didn´t matter to them which one. McCain was also picked long ago. Huckabee is also an establishment candidate thrown in there just to give a little twist and to make things seem interesting. Yet one might wonder if he isn´t in there just to give the media further reason to ignore Ron Paul and make sure his message is not as widely disseminated as it might be. If it was just Ron Paul and John McCain, they´d have to cover him. Why hasn´t there been a Republican debate since Jan. 30th, while there´s been two Democratic debates in February? That is the establishment trying to keep the only advocate for real change, Ron Paul, down.
If you are the establishment, then freedom is a dangerous message and truth is a powerful enemy. The rot goes deep in Washington DC, to the core, and everybody knows it. The people are upset with government millionaires mishandling their funds. Yet the mass media conglomerates continue to spew government propaganda. They continue to pretend that everything is as it should be. They continue to promote the establishment candidates and ignore those who make sense and those who would make a real difference. The mass media has no respect for the common American. They believe we are stupid. I don´t believe that. I have a great deal of respect for common Americans. We have achieved so much. Yet the mainstream media makes all seem hopeless. They promote these establishment politicians as if we haven´t another choice. They all want us common folk to believe we are helpless. But there are still many subtleties in politics that many aren´t aware of. The establishment may think that by hook or by crook they will have their candidates in place come September, but the world is full of surprises and the best laid plans of mice and men oft times go astray. And those who lead, those who would rule the world, are nothing more than men, whether they believe otherwise or not.
The mass media´s silence is deafening. When it comes to Ron Paul, they also hope to keep us blind and dumb as well. Still, I haven´t seen the fat lady up on stage. As a great American, Yogi Berra, someone who can be thought of as one of us common folk, once said "It ain´t over until it´s over." It´s not over yet. Ron Paul aims to stay in this until the convention and I believe that no matter the outcome he and his supporters have already made an impact on this election and will continue to make an impact on political discourse in this country for years to come. And four years from now, when the 2012 elections roll around, the old media should play as insignificant a roll as the Internet played on the 2000 elections, that is if we can keep the government out of regulating the Internet until that time.
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