Joe Conason: The Bigots and Billionaires in Ron Paul’s Orbit

[marmar]

from truthdig:



The Bigots and Billionaires in Ron Paul’s Orbit

Posted on Dec 22, 2011
By Joe Conason


The latest evidence of simmering racial resentment on the American political fringe showed up Monday in a Facebook post by a California man who urged the assassination of the president and his two daughters in obscene, racist language. Aside from the Secret Service, there was little reason for most of us to pay attention to this sick boob—except that he was identified as a local political leader of the tea party and an avid supporter of Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who now seems likely to place first in the Iowa presidential caucuses.

To those who have followed Paul’s long career as a failed presidential candidate—these campaigns have become a family business—the appearance of yet another racist nut job in his orbit is scarcely news. The newsletters that earned millions of dollars for him from gullible subscribers over the decades were often soiled with vile invectives against blacks and other minorities. He is a perennial favorite of the John Birch Society and kindred extremists on the right. He once refused to return a donation from a leader of the Nazi-worshipping skinheads in the Stormfront movement.

What is it about the kindly old doctor that attracts some of the most violent and reactionary elements in society to his banner?

For many years, Paul was merely an outlying crank in the ranks of the Republican Party—a “libertarian” who courted the paranoid bigots in the John Birch Society, whose monthly magazine featured his name on its masthead as a “contributing editor.” More than a decade ago, during his 1996 campaign for Congress, the racist ravings in his newsletters were first exposed—the same series of articles that besmirched Martin Luther King and Barbara Jordan and encouraged every racist stereotype about African-Americans as criminals and welfare dependents. He disowns those words now, but back then a spokesman defended them as merely “taken out of context.” ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_bigots_and_billionaires_in_ron_pauls_orbit_20111222/

[Bucky]

1. Republicans, please nominate this man.

[tooeyeten]

2. He wins Iowa! n/t