The examples of how they steal elections are now thick upon the ground. Now, the most credulous and trusting have to see that elections are easily fixed. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and now the swath of states that comprise Super Tuesday, the number of elections stolen is mind boggling. We can still elect Ron president but elections are a problem we need to solve.
That is one issue. More follow.
Today, February 6th, is the first day of the real Revolution, the final phase of the First American Revolution of 1776. This is the moment that will take us to the destination of an America where the people govern themselves. Do you want to be free? Do you understand that freedom has nothing to do with life style? You thought you were free but instead have been a slave shackled by an illusion of prosperity. To be a revolutionary you need to lose your illusions.
Like the issue of stolen elections the truth is less comfortable but only the truth allows you to fight effectively. There are problems but those can be solved if we have the facts. Hierarchies intentionally begin limiting what people know because, 'they know better.'
We are facing a multi-front war that demands the open and rapid sharing of information and creates the solution by producing the alternative that will displace the concentration of power that begot the problem originally. This can only happen through dispersed action from multiple sources, a guerrilla war fought out peacefully using the tools we already possess.
No matter what, a hammer remains a hammer and you cannot use it to remove the splinter from your finger. Your chosen tool matters; it determines your ultimate outcome in advance. Forms of human organization are tools. Centralizing authority and power creates an attractive nuisance that will eventually destroy freedom because the least ethical will have it at all costs.
In the 1970s the Libertarian Party was formed to work for the freedom that was then clearly slipping though the fingers of Americans. Many of its founders had experienced the disappointment of the failed Goldwater Revolution. In case you did not know the LP was founded on a mailing list made up from Goldwater activists and its founder had been the head of Young Republicans for Goldwater at MIT.
By 1971 the level of frustration with the War in Vietnam and US economic policy was mounting. Nixon, a Republican, had delivered us up yet again to the corporations and the continuation of war that enriched them. You can read more about the specifics in the chapter I wrote on the subject, Libertarian History.
The Libertarian Party started out as a decentralized hub, a grassroots organization run by activists. Our assumption was that we could do it ourselves. We believed and we worked. Then, there was no professional or want-to-be professional cadre; people from all walks of life came together. The beginning of the end of our revolution began with the election of Edward H. Crane, III as its national chairman in 1974 at the Dallas Convention.
Crane immediately asserted control in all directions. He tried but failed to control the candidacy of Roger MacBride for President; Roger was then producing 'Little House on the Prairie.” He did not miss in 1980.
Roger had made one critical mistake. He introduced Crane to Charles and David Koch, the owners of Koch Industries. Koch Industries is probably the largest privately owned oil company in the world. It was Koch money that started Cato Institute; the Kochs are intimately connected to the Bush White House.
The issue central to how the Revolution will operate is hierarchy vs. networked hub. You determine the outcome when you choose.
The decentralized hub is a network that freely shares information and resources. In the Ron Paul Revolution the decision of which projects to support is made by people either volunteering or not, donating or not. That is a direct application of the power of individual choice. Individual choices, made with clear knowledge.
Organizational tools can also be proprietary, effectively owned by its management. Those who want to participate then know the limitations they accept. We see this with most of the Ron Paul Projects, from the Toolbar to the Granny Warriors. They offer a project; others support or decline to support, their choice. That has worked well, too. The information is available going in and no one presumes to speak for others who have not authorized that on their behalf. It is transparent, consensual, and cooperative.
For freedom to work, as the universal principle enabling human action, we must all have the truth and the freedom to act. The truth allows us to make the right choices; centrists want to control information and become a priesthood who decides for you. They take from us the essential tools of autonomy. When the people have the truth they can govern themselves and that is what you have been doing in the Ron Paul Revolution. It has been glorious to experience, affirming the power to each of us.
Freedom, respect for others, and truth are therefore linked tools.
A Knowledge Commons is the Open Source for information. The Internet has moved us far in that direction but there are many fronts on which this 2nd Revolution must be fought out. We need to see those and make sure that each battle is won.
All now see why clean elections are essential.
We also need to get Ron Paul on the ballot in every state, despite the corporate political structure. In parallel, we must ensure those votes are honestly counted.
To get Ron on the ballot in all 50 states we have many options. One is the Libertarian Party. Most LPers support Ron now.
Today the Libertarian Party is foundering and the reasons are clear. Having passed through central regime after central regime it is still controlled by individuals who are wedded to the tool of hierarchy. They could change that, save the organization, and elect Ron. It could do so by become the hub that we need. It could, after more than 30 years of existence, become itself the best tool for advancing freedom.
We need to take our tools seriously; we need to understand that the tools determine the outcome. As a political party it has ballot status in many states. It can reach out to other political parties by example, making Ron the candidate of many parties. It would not be acting like a political party and that would be the example that Americans need to see.
Ideas were the first human tools. Before any ancestor used a flint blade the idea of cutting was present. Tools define the frame of our world. The tool you are using determines the outcome you will achieve. If you use a hierarchy you will end up with a centralized power that limits access to knowledge so that someone can maximize their power and profits.
If you convert a hierarchy into a network you are proving it can be done.
I spent many years in the LP. I never noticed that local people running their own local organizations could not solve their problems using cooperation; I noticed that those who sought 'higher' office tended to have a further agenda.
It could have been different; it still can be.
When the National Office allowed it, sharing information planted seeds of new success across the country, but far too often that did not happen because of internal 'political' considerations. The issue was using the organization itself for personal profit, not to affirm autonomy for all individuals and so strengthen local community.
The problem can be solved. Close the National Office and create an online service hub that simply makes resources available through sharing. Build a place on line where projects, graphics, videos and literature can be shared and where each can get and give advice. Having it be peer to peer makes it a community itself. Use Chip-ins to fund projects that deserve support but make it specific to project. The problem of lagging fund raising would be solved and along with the constant internecine warfare that accomplishes nothing.
Power should remain always at the community level, exercised by the individuals whose time and money will be used by them for their own purposes. It is that simple.
Today we are facing a complete meltdown of the US economy and ever more problems. But those threats come from allowing the centralization of power in government, in corporations, and by our own organizations. The LP can begin that process and make history.
In this way the LP can fulfill its original purpose and become a tool that makes freedom bloom in the hearts and minds of everyone who sees it. Seeing that happen would be, itself, a powerful statement.
You have already proven that if it needs doing it can be done from a network. If we had relied on the Official Campaign Ron would have ended his campaign nearly a year ago. Today a Revolution has begin, all founded on cooperation and networking. Occasionally you will hear people say in the Ron Paul Revolution as they once did in the LP that, “they need the authority.” Now you will know what they are really saying. Those speaking want power.
Networking and cooperation are the essential tools of Revolution. Using those we can change the world. We can carry the Revolution to the enemy. It may seem impossible. It is not.
Above are the straightforward political issues. Those issues, as large as they might be, are only a small part of what must be accomplished.
If we only elect Ron Paul without beginning to fight the other fronts we will still lose. The wealth and capital of America is flooding off of our shores like a tidal wave that will leave us dry and worse, in debt we cannot clear.
We need to save ourselves and at the same time strike a blow against the supply lines to the corporations.
We need to get off the grids of greed that have allowed us to be plundered and begin to turn the lights out in Dubai, where right now the Bush Faction of the Corporate Globals are building their new capitol with the clear intention of using it to begin plundering the rest of the world.
Right now they are spending your grandchildren's lives right there on what was bare sand in 1990. They have seven star hotels, a snow mountain in the desert, and the first underwater hotel. If we succeed in ten years they will be back to breeding camels.
Failing will destroy not only our own lives but lives not yet begun. Failure is not an option.
We need to stop their agenda for control here and rebuild our own local economies. These two different fronts are defensive and then offensive. Both are necessary.
We can do this. We are still Americans, the most productive and inventive people on the face of the Earth.
These are the problems we face immediately.
Educating Americans
The educational program needs to be community based. It needs to show the young and their parents how the Constitution was intended to work. For an excellent example go to Ron Paul Road Show. Student Voter Registration. This turns students into experts on the Constitution.
On the Information Hub we will be adding to resources, though I hope the LP, or someone else, takes this over.
Defensive Agenda - Legislative
Stop the Real ID in those states that have failed to take action as of yet. This is critical because on May 11th of this year the biometrics of their program swing into play. See Stop the Real ID for more information. They will own your most intimate information and you will not be able to stop them from selling it.
Laws are now being passed to nail us to the grids. The first of these will be laws that charge a surtax for getting off the electric grids. Get on the notification list at Off the Grid. We need to deliver the message to each state legislature and ensure it does not happen. There will be more, the corporations pay people to think of ways to suck us dry.
There are ways of challenging the corporations that have been in bed with government for so long, their clear intention to leave us homeless. We need to keep all capital here in the hands of individuals. Anyone who says that it is alright for corporations to lie, change the terms, suborn the courts, and still collect is simply not hitting on all pistons. It is a principle of law that the more powerful party must be the most, not the least, scrupulous.
The Offensive Agenda
We need to begin immediately to take back our counties. Clean Elections at the county level are essential to this. I say, again, build working coalition.
The Ron Paul Revolution should focus at the precinct level and many sites are doing that now. Get elected precinct captain, get elected to local office, network in your community. Share knowledge globally, act locally. This provides the local tools to extend the revolution and save people at risk who are threatened legally or financially.
We need to ensure that each sheriff in each county is ready and willing to kick the Feds out when our Constitutional rights are violated. Sheriff Richard Mack, one of the two proponents for the Mack – Printz Decision that overturned the Brady Bill, is already active on this issue. His book will be out soon but don't wait, sign up and schedule a workshop for your area by visiting his website, Constitutional Law Enforcement Association. When it is spelled out to your local sheriff he will develop a backbone.
You can also leave the Corporate State. Read the Red Amendment. It can be done, thousands have done it already. The Lakota chose one exit, this is another. There are many solutions. Comparing them and choosing what works for us works best.
This will give us the ability to both change government locally, establish common law courts, and rebuild the local economy. We can and will go off the dollar. We will have to, they planned the introduction of the Amero to hit when we could not afford to say no.
Each of these fronts is a part in the 2nd American Revolution. Each is essential. Each demands from us a full commitment and most importantly to know what is happening so that we can begin to enact change in our own communities. Those changes include starting businesses that turn off the flow of money to the grid corporations; they include changing the framing for ourselves and others in our communities who are hurting but do not understand the causes. People will act to ensure their financial wellbeing without being persuaded for political reasons.
When we are finished we will have brought into existence the unfulfilled promise of America. Instead of remaining a dim vision the reality will come alive in our communities. It will fulfill the promise of freedom, make real and tangible the shining point on a horizon for which all humanity has hungered through untold generations. That is the point of the Revolution.
When you choose your fight make sure you also choose the right weapon. When you fight, make sure you will win the future.
