Now, is this the real Sara Robinson who wrote this? Or someone hired to portray her?
Nobody's sent me a check yet.
Are you offering?
I cant get over the gullibility of the supporters. This guy wrote a newsletter for almost 2 decades. with all kinds of racist crap and we are expected to believe he had nothing to do with it. How does this pass their smell test? biggest load of horseshit I ever heard. Imagine someone was writing in your name for years and years and years. ridiculous.
There are awards for corporate newsletters? (Not diminishing it, I am honestly surprised)
I assume that all Republican candidates are racists. And also quite a few Democrats. That crap in that newsletter is how Reagan got elected twice. Ron Paul still speaks truth to power on the war and on the restoration of Constitutional power. All of this is a bit academic considering a pro-war, anti-Constitution Republican will win. But this is grist for the mill.
The ability to call people on overt racism and have them punished for it is really the only power it seems that we have anymore. The sad reality is that the other ones are too politically smart to write it down. Find some John Birch Society diatribe in one of the frontrunner's writings and you have a story.
A corporate manager who claims, "Oh, some underling of mine let that defective product out onto the market -- I wasn't really watching, so I had nothing to do with it" is still going to be out of a job so fast he'll have asphalt marks on the butt of his Brooks Brothers suit.
Mrs. R., you're wrong on that one. Most readers of Steve's work at NetSlaves are going to catch this and note it whether they call you on it or not.
Compare and contrast.
Mortgage Crisis Forces Big Cuts at WaMu
Washington Mutual Inc. (WM) (finance.yahoo.com profile> - Read down a bit, and add up "Pay" and "Exercised Options" for the CEO.
Multiply this one single example by thousands upon thousands. Some of which are far more excessive than this one. I can speak from personal knowledge about some of them, as can many other here in attendance.
I'm just about the last person on Planet Earth who is going to rush to the defense of Ron Paul. I think he's a racist nutbar. He needs to go down in flames very badly in 2008. If for no other reason than to make an example of what racial politics buys you.
But when you attack him, it's best to do so from solid ground.
Is this the same James Kirchick of the New Republic who was racebaiting just last week at Commentarymagazine?
I keep trying to tell people that if Paul's accepting money from assholes like Stormfront he's immediately suspect.
"Next time we tell you someone's a closet racist, spare us all the angst and friendly fire, and consider that we just might know what we're talking about, OK?"
Angst and friendly fire may not be necessary, but I say question everything you read *and* question your own responses, and don't let a told-you-so from anybody change that. I have no comment on this Ron Paul business, I'm just saying in general.
As any writer for hire knows, the word is DRAFT. You submit a first draft and on it goes until it is published. In no situation does something get published that is not vetted by an editor, a client and basically through to the janitor when it is a largish organization.
The funniest part about the Ron Paul issue is that most of it was back in the day... before the internet and quick desk top publishing. The process was a lot different then before the type it and publish it on the web... as one can see by the massive typos and run on sentences of today.
Being an old dog, I know for a fact Ron Paul's racist drivel all started as typewritten pages long before it became typeset pages. Some schmuck used a typewriter to produce a first draft that was handed into a superior, it was marked up and then retyped... again on a typewriter. At some point the approved copy was sent to a typesetter with strict instructions and pasted up in what was then called a keyline. Approved at the keyline stage with or without graphics and then approved again at a proofing stage... something that looked close to what was coming off the printing press. Even tiny little publications had to go through this long process... so in no way was the racism of those quotes unknown to the person who's name the publication went out on. It just would not have happened... even if the man was a very hands off publisher, the first copies off the press before mailing would have been handed to him.
Ron Paul's excuses might fly with youngsters who grew up with computers and desk top publishing, but everybody who even knows what the word "keyline" means knows he is lying.
I'm with snoozer- isn't it the point of blogging that you have to demonstrate what you know, not just "take my word for it" I'm pretty sure that was Gilly's concept.
Why NOT to vote for Ron Paul:
1- Rascist
2- Texan
3- Republican (alleged former)
4- Libertarian
5- Liar
Please add to this list as needed.
Yeah, it's that Kirchick.
It might help if you don't think of this as TNR attacking a Republican. Think of it as TNR attacking someone who thinks the US is too darn supportive of Israel.
What Mrs. R. said.
But...also, sadly, what Stormcrow said. "Accountability"? That's something that rich people pay big bucks (or have their boards of directors pay big bucks) to hide from.
The Wanderer: the second that a group like stormfront wants to give him mony he is suspect. regardless of weather or not he gives it back. when the racists see you as one of theirs you got problems
Even tiny little publications had to go through this long process... so in no way was the racism of those quotes unknown to the person who's name the publication went out on. It just would not have happened... even if the man was a very hands off publisher, the first copies off the press before mailing would have been handed to him.
If that is indeed the case, then one really has to wonder what Dr. Paul was smoking that he thought this wouldn't come to light once his presidential campaign attracted so much as a smidge of the public's attention.
Did he think we wouldn't care? Texas must really be a different world from anything I've ever known if he dared think such a thing.
Pat Buchanan is a fan of Mr. Paul's - that is all the evidence I need.
US Blues, don't forget (6) homophobe
Hey even if w take paul's statemnts at face value. even if we cut him all teh slack his fanbois want us too. it still means he is incompitant and unfit to be president.
nice how that works out.
Amuseinc, I'm old enough to remember that process, too. And you're right: there were not only ample opportunities for everyone to see what was going out; there was almost no way anyone even remotely involved could avoid reading it. Great point.
Stormcrow, we wrote seven posts very carefully laying out what we did know. The evidence was mostly circumstantial -- but there was a lot of it, and it was solid enough that we felt very sure that we were making a well-founded accusation. (Courts do, in fact, convict people on cases built of cirumstantial evidence. You just need a lot of it, and it has to be good. We were pretty much there.) Nobody had to take our word for it.
So were surprised when Glenn Greenwald went into defense lawyer mode, and called us out viciously and publicly onto his very big soapbox, saying that our evidence amounted to "guilt by association." It was a very nasty week; and nothing we could say would get him off his kick that we were accusing his buddy Paul unfairly.
But we knew we were right, and stood by our story. And this information proves beyond a doubt that we were right all along.
Yes, by all means, question what you read. But also reflect on the fact that some people are more reasonably credible than others -- and that list includes those who've been covering a given beat for a long time and know things about it that are not generally known. I do think we've earned the benefit of that doubt, and -- given the crap we took -- don't feel much hesitation now in saying "We told you so."
About the corporate manager: Notice I used the word "manager" -- and go back and read what Jesse said last week about managers. No, of course nobody in the exec suite will get fired. The manager in charge of the division, however, will. The execs will fire him just to prove that they're "doing something," and insulate themselves from the shit that comes down.
Heads do roll. They're always managers' heads, never executive heads. You can only complain about this if you conflate the two.
Maybe Ron Paul's editorial process was similar to this one: The Funniest Joke in the World.
I don't believe that sorry excuse either of Ron Paul's.A newsletter goes out with your name on it, and nobody gives you a copy of the latest edition? Bull. Just being on the letterhead entitles you to a free copy, and that's the way it always has been.
Also, I can't imagine anybody being astute enough to run for public office NOT wanting copies of this, just in case someone brings up something that was said in it. If he's right, and he didn't pay attention, he's showing how unaware and clueless he is. Too clueless to even consider being President of anything, let alone the United States,
But I've never believed that Ron Paul's game is to win the Republican Nomination, but to build an independent movement. He knows that he isn't religious enough, or corporate enough to win wide Party support. But he thinks he can create a wave of sorts with disgusted fiscal conservatives and libertarians and other more bigoted types to do..what?
That's what I want to know. He's not going to win the White House, or the nomination. If it comes down to him, Republicans will see if Daddy Bush is healthy enough for another term. He's lose to just about any Democrat breathing. So what does he really want?
Over the last few months I haven't been able to avoid noticing something- that every Goddamned kook, crank, quack, hatefreak and paranoid conspiracy loony with a 'net connection has been shouting "RON PAUL! RON PAUL!".
Even if I were completely unaware of Paul's extremist-wingnut background (nicely doecumented by Orcinus), I would still take this as significant. One has to ask "what is the dog whistle these demented fuckwits are hearing?".
Or, to put it another way, if you want to find some shit, just follow the flies. They're inescapably attracted to the stuff.
Oh, and not that anybody's reading any more -- but yes, Wengler, there are awards for corporate newsletters.
I've created and run several in my day. One was a Chevron employee newsletter. Another was a Ziff-Davis newletter for advertisers in one of its magazines. The best one was the one that Electronic Arts sent out to a quarter million end users every other month. That's the one I won the Addy for.
The Addies are to PR what the Clios and Beldings are to straight advertising. They are a Big Effing Deal; and the EA rag won the national Addy for best newsletter in the country in 1988. Big banquet, big hair, the best damn cocktail dress I ever owned (it set me back a week's pay), and a sweet moment of glory. A rising young comic (the news came down that week that she'd just been signed to her own TV show) named Roseanne Barr announced my name and handed me my plaque. I took it back to the office on Monday, and they hung it in the lobby for everyone to see.
Six weeks later, they disbanded my entire department and laid me off. It was a big, bitter life lesson, and my attitude toward work was never ever the same after that.
I guess it's better I learned it young.
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