The Dish Volume 15

The Dish Volume 15

Table of Contents

1. Bit of History...Ronald Earnest Paul
2. Intuit’s Vibe...Dr. Paul on the Record
3. Reject NDAA: Defend the Constitution...By John Burl Smith
4. Venue for an Artist...2012 Predictions (Excerpts)...Junious Ricardo Stanton
5. Disgruntled
6. Mailbox
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Bit of History
Ronald Earnest Paul

Born August 20, 1935 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Ronald Earnest Paul is the third of five sons born to Howard Caspar and Margaret Paul. His paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Germany, and his mother was of German and Irish ancestry. Paul grew up in the western Pennsylvania town of Green Tree, where his father ran a small dairy company.

As a child, Paul worked in the family business, checking hand-washed milk bottles for spots. To earn extra money, Paul worked as a paper boy and later at a local drug store. Paul attended Dormont High School; he was a member of the track and wrestling teams and served as student council president. In 1957, Paul earned a B.S. degree in biology from Gettysburg College and married Carol Wells, his high school sweetheart.

In 1961, Paul received his Doctor of Medicine degree from Duke University then moved to Michigan to complete his medical internship at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. From 1963 - 1968, he served as a surgeon in the US Air Force and Air National Guard.

In 1968, Paul and his wife moved to Texas, where he began his private obstetrics and gynecology practice, delivering more than 4,000 babies Dr. Paul routinely lowered his fees or worked for free, refusing to accept Medicaid or Medicare payments.

Dr. Paul became active in politics in the 1970's, failing in his first bid for a congressional seat in 1974. In the special election two years later to replace Representative Robert R. Casey, Paul was victorious. However, his tenure was brief; he failed to win in the general election later that year. Dr. Paul ran again in 1978 and was elected, then twice re-elected. A critic of the US banking and financial systems, he wrote Gold, Peace and Prosperity: The Birth of a New Currency (1981) and The Case for Gold: A Minority Report of the U.S. Gold Commission (1982). His 1983 book, Abortion and Liberty, expressed his pro-life and anti-federal government views.

In 1984, Paul unsuccessfully ran for the Senate. Succeeded in the House of Representatives by Tom DeLay, Paul returned to his private practice.

In 1988, Paul ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket. He came in third in the 1988 general election, receiving almost half a million votes.

In the mid-1990s, Paul returned to the Republican Party and ran for the party's nomination for a seat in the House of Representatives. Against significant odds, Paul defeated his opponent in the 1996 general election. He has remained in the House of Representatives ever since, representing Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes Galveston. Paul serves on the House Committees on Foreign Affairs and Financial Services, and on the Joint Economic Committee. He is the chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology.

Paul has been consistent in his views of limited government, low taxes, free markets, a sound monetary policy and pro-life issues, unlike many of his Republican peers. He voted against the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq. He supported military action in Afghanistan after 9-11, but opposes US militarism. Dr. Paul has voted against farm subsidies and regulating the Internet, and he opposes the war on drugs.

Dr. Paul initiated the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE) during his first term in Congress. In 1976, the foundation began publishing a monthly newsletter. His conservative and libertarian ideas have been expressed in numerous published articles and books, including Challenge to Liberty; A Republic, If You Can Keep It; Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom (2011); End The Fed (2009); The Revolution: A Manifesto (2008); Pillars of Prosperity (2008); and A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship (2007). A counselor to the Ludwig von Mises Institute, he has received numerous awards and honors.

In 2008, Paul made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination, garnering a great deal of support as the anti-establishment candidate. He is currently seeking the Republican Party nomination for president. On January 3, 2012, he came in third in the Iowa Caucus behind Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.

Dr. Paul remains married to Carol Wells. The couple has five children. Their son, Randal Paul, is the junior United States senator from the state of Kentucky. (Sources: http://paul.house.gov, http://en.wikipedia.org and www.biography.com/people/ron-paul-265881)

Intuit’s Vibe
Dr. Paul on the Record

The song and dance about Rep. Ron Paul being a racist has certainly interjected race relations into the Republican presidential debate. Except for Newt Gingrich’s prescription to improve the work ethic of poor children, there has been scant mention of the problems facing black and poor people in this country. So, the Paul controversy has shed some light where there has been nothing except darkness. Excited by the controversy, one colorful virtual commentator remarked that Paul’s efforts to refute the charge were reminiscent of the dance of a June bug teetered to a string.

Apparently, the charge of racism against Rep. Paul revolves around articles, which were not written by him, that were published more than twenty years ago in his monthly newsletter. The issue was raised during his 2008 bid for the presidency and run for Congress. It is now being rehashed because Paul is among the top contenders for the Republican nomination.

An avowed libertarian and defender of the US Constitution, Rep. Paul did not support the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he viewed as an attack on liberty and a violation of the principle of private property. In one segment of the CNN Sunday news program State of the Union, Anchor Candy Crowley interviewed Rep. Paul and asked him specifically to clarify a statement regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that he requested be inserted into the Congressional Record.

Crowley: "It was something that was in the Congressional Record that you inserted into the Congressional Record from June 2004. And, I wanted to talk to you about it. You said, ‘Contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964...[the act] did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions, while diminishing individual liberty.’ So, my question to you is, whose individual liberty did it diminish, and do you think the country would have been better off, in terms of race relations, without the Civil Rights Act of 1964?"

Paul: "Well, we just could have done it in a better way, because of...the Jim Crow laws obviously had to get rid of and we are all better off for that and that is an important issue and I strongly supported that.

What you don’t want to do is undermine the concept of liberty in that process and what they did in that bill was they destroyed the principle of private property and private choices. So, if you do this, all civil liberties are protected by property rights, whether it’s your TV station that’s a piece of private property, whether it’s the newspaper, whether church building or whether it’s the bedroom. This is something that people don’t quite understand that civil liberties aren’t divorced from property. So that if you try to improve relationships by forcing and telling people what they can do and you ignore and undermine the principle of liberty, then the government can come into our bedrooms. And, that is exactly what has happened.

Look at what has happened with the Patriot Act; they can come into our houses, our bedrooms, our businesses. And, so the principle of private property has been undermined and it was started back then.

But, they can’t twist that and say that I was against or favored Jim Crow laws or anything else. I mean it’s the government that causes so much of the racial tensions when you look at anything from slavery on down to segregation in the military and the Jim Crow laws. And, right now, the real problem we face today is the discrimination in our court system -- the war on drugs. Just think of how biased that is against minorities. They go into prison much way out of proportion to their numbers; they get the death penalty out of proportion to their numbers. And, if you look at how minorities suffer in ordinary wars, whether there is a draft or no draft, they suffer much more out of proportion.

So, those are the kinds of things that discrimination that have to be dealt with. But, you don’t want to ever undermine the principle of private property and private choices in order to solve some of these problems. You need to repeal the very, very bad laws that governments have propagated over the many centuries, because it is the government so often that institutionalizes segregation and slavery and all the other things. So, the understanding of private property will solve our problem, and we, indeed need to look at the war on drugs, if anybody cares about the abuse of our civil liberties and the abuse of minorities in the court system."

While Rep. Paul’s explanation may seem like a tortured dance to some, it makes perfect sense when one considers the "very, very bad laws" that govern this country. Probably the worst of these laws is the Three-Fifths Compromise of Article I, Section 2 of the US Constitution -- the grand bargain struck between the Founding Fathers to legalize slavery, a bargain that made black people private property rather than citizens Despite subsequent amendments to the Constitution, it was never repealed and the institutions that supported it were never dismantled. Rep. Paul’s explanation for his lack of support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is an admission that the government is responsible for the institutionalized racism and discrimination that marginalizes the lives of minorities in this country.

Reject NDAA: Defend the Constitution
By John Burl Smith

Prior to passage of the FY12 National Defense Authorization Act (12-12-11), Representatives Hank Johnson (D-GA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), along with 30 House members sent a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committees, outlining what they believed were serious threats to citizens' individual freedom in the United States (US) and requesting reexamination of the language authorizing detention by the military.

Speaking in opposition to the bill on the U.S. House floor, Rep. Johnson led the effort to remove several dangerous last-minute changes relating to detainees from the bill. "Mr. Speaker, we must reject indefinite detention of Americans and defend the Constitution. ... No matter how you spin it, it's wrong. It's unjust, it's Orwellian, and it's not who we are. Any expansive authorization for detention by and use of military forces against broadly defined adversaries substantially exceeding the scope of authorizations already in our laws must be rejected. We are deeply concerned that this provision could undermine the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth amendment rights of U.S. citizens who might be subjects of detention or prosecution by the military."

Elected in 2006, Johnson made clear his opposition to the Iraq war (1-25-07), responding to President George W. Bush's State of the Union with the criticism, "This war has proven to be one of the gravest missteps in the recent history of our country." Starting with the Bush administration shortly after Sep. 11, 2001 - the executive branch began indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. When those detentions were challenged in court, the federal government argued that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by the U.S. Congress (9-18-01), allowed the detentions and the Supreme Court agreed (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld 2004).

Johnson and his colleagues came down on the side of those who say the President should not have signed the bill. Strangely, opponents to specific language in the bill included the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, the Director of the CIA, the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, and the Secretary of Defense.

After originally issuing a veto threat because of the aforementioned provision, Mr. Obama did another about-face two days before the deadline and signed the defense spending bill into law (12-31-11). While admitting he has "serious reservations with certain provisions related to how suspected terrorists are held and questioned, President Obama offered this statement, "I want to clarify that my administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation. My administration will interpret that provision in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law."

Civil liberties advocates and other activists responded with skepticism to Obama's promises to nullify certain provisions of the law for two reasons. First, by authorizing the killing of a US citizen who had not been arrested, arraigned or indicted, Mr. Obama certainly violated the spirit, if not the letter, of individual protection in the Constitution. Secondly, a presidential "signing statement" does not carry the force of law.

Denouncing the provision as "ill-conceived" because it will "do nothing to improve the security of the United States, Mr. Obama defended his signing of the bill by saying he believes he can "circumvent" this and other provisions to which he objects. This statement seems to be only a ploy to placate disgruntled supporters who feel betrayed by Obama's flip-flops on closing Guantanamo and ending the war. The reality is Congress blocked his effort to close Gitmo and move terror suspects there to a maximum security facility in Illinois. Consequently, Obama's "signing statements" regarding the NDAA is not worth the paper on which it is printed.

Moreover, candidate, Obama was very critical of Pres. George Bush for using "signing statements," charging that he was circumventing the will of Congress. Furthermore, he demanded that Mr. Bush veto bills and insist they be re-written to his likening. Now as in many other instances, Mr. Obama continues to eat from George Bush's plate while complaining about the cook.

Civil liberties groups and activists outraged over language in the NDAA believe the provision lays the legal groundwork for the indefinite detention of US citizens without trial. Debra Sweet, national director of the World Can't Wait said, "It's quite severe. If this continues, people will not be able to count on constitutional protections at all."

David Gespass, president of the National Lawyers Guild, went even further in his assessment, calling it, "an enormous attack on the U.S. and our heritage" and a "significant step" towards fascism. For a very long time the U.S. has been moving towards what I personally think of as fascism - the integration of monopoly capital with state power, combined with an increased repression at home and greater aggression around the world."

Section 1021 defines who can be detained by the military. The definition of "covered persons" under the provision includes not only those who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, but also "a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the US or its coalition partners, including anyone who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces."

Critics see problems with such language that includes vague terms such as "substantial support", "belligerent act", or "directly supported". Moreover, because the act allows for individuals suspected of support or belligerence to be held indefinitely without trial - until the end of the "war on terror", which could be never - there could be no opportunities for these individuals to challenge the vagueness of the charges against them.

Hoping to further define and narrow the scope of the Act, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) (12-15-11) introduced the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011 (DPGA), with 15 co-sponsors. She said, "This legislation states, an authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes such detention." A companion piece was introduced in the U.S. House on Dec. 16; it has 29 co-sponsors.

Meanwhile, angry citizens in Montana have begun an effort to recall their entire Congressional delegation for supporting the NDAA.

Venue for an Artist
2012 Predictions (Excerpts)
Junious Ricardo Stanton

"Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of." - Anonymous

While for some it may seem presumptuous of me to make predictions for 2012, actually it is relatively easy. Why? Because you don’t have to be a pundit, prognosticator, Swami or Fortune Teller to make predictions. Quiet as it’s kept the best predictor of current and future behavior is past behavioral patterns. Human beings are creatures of habit, we all have them, they are an integral part of our make up. Habits are attitudes and behaviors we repeat over and over again so often they become second nature.

If you really want to know something about a person simply observe them over time. This is what sociologists and anthropologists do. They study and observe human behaviors.

I say all this because the predictions I’m making about what will probably occur in 2012 are no brainers given observable past patterns and history. For example in our community, the African-American community, if current trends continue, we will spend over 95% of our money with other ethnic groups enriching them and keeping ourselves in a woeful state of economic backwardness and dependency. Based upon past trends, our community will continue to eschew a "Do for self" mentality and work ethic, we will continue to act like there is nothing wrong with this or the socio-economic and political situation we are in and we will choose to mindlessly follow the dictates of our self-aggrandizing leadership class, Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington D.C.

Even in an economic downturn black folks love to spend money. In 2012, we are projected to spend (and the operative word here is spend as opposed to invest or save) 1.1 trillion that’s with a T; and we’ll get little or nothing in return except more depreciated gizmos and gadgets (www.marketingcharts.com/television/affluent-african-americans-making-impact-on-consumer-economy-3412/). I also predict the various ethnic groups who get rich off of us to continue to laugh all the way to the bank and hold us in even higher contempt.

As we all know, 2012 is an election year, so expect the totally insane partisan rhetoric and deliberate gridlock to continue in Congress. Look for the Republicans to ramp up their dirty tricks to get Ron Paul the only sane Republican candidate out of the race, leaving only the most rabid warmongers and fascists to duke it out with Obama. In this scenario, Obama’s warmongering will seem tame and "reasonable" compared to the Republican crazies so either way the Military Industrial Complex, and the international banksters will win. Speaking of Wall Street, the Too Big To Fail firms, and the corporatist special interests will continue to call the shots while conditions worsen for working class and poor people. The economy will decline even more, unemployment and homelessness will rise and more tent cities will pop up around the country. The public’s tolerance and approval of Congress will fall even lower as the Kleptocrats continue to rob and plunder our pensions and savings and go Scott free. Look for more social unrest in 2012.

On the international front the US, Britain and France using NATO as their enforcement arm along with Israel will continue to beat the drums for war in the "Middle East," claiming Syria is undemocratic and Iran is a terrorist state. This will be a repeat of the same lies they told us about Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Only in 2012 fewer people will believe them and fewer still will fall for their okey-doke. The governments both local and national will crack down on dissent in their respective countries (like they did against the Occupy Wall Street and the anti-austerity protestors).

The Anglo-American- French- Israeli hydra will also continue their mischief in Africa. In 2012 look for them to ramp up their covert and blatant interventions in: North and South Sudan (to kick out the Chinese, get the South Sudanese oil and the Water from the Nile). Things will also intensify in: Somalia for the uranium and oil there, in Uganda (for oil), in the Democratic Republic of Congo (for the gold, diamonds, coltan, natural gas etc), in Nigeria for their oil, in Cote d’Ivoire for their oil. By now you get my drift, oil will become an ever increasing focal point of Western intrigue and intervention in Africa. I predict the whites will continue to use the bogus Global War On Terror to equate any resistance to their imperialism and exploitation to Islamic terrorism/fanaticism (in the corporate media, the culprits are always Muslims never Christians, Jews or atheists) as a pretext to minimize Chinese influence on the African continent and bum rush the various countries for their resources.

I know many people may be worried because the Mayans left an ancient prophesy about the world ending in 2012. However I think we will stumble on despite the insanity of the global elites, their secret societies, their pawns and puppets in high and low places. But if the world does go poof, it will be because the psychopaths in Washington, New York, London and Switzerland decided to go full throttle with their plans for massive global depopulation by igniting a regional if not global conflagration starting in Iran and/or Syria then spreading like wild fire.

There is a saying: "Insanity is doing the same things over and over with the same people expecting different results." As the last Poets said "This Is Madness!" The good news is, we can stop the madness!! If we want peace, stability and prosperity, we will have to do things differently. The only way to stop or break a current habit is to start another one. So, if we truly want 2012 to be really different, and better; we will have to think, plan and most importantly act differently. Happy New Year!

About Me: Stanton is a journalist and broadcaster. This article can be found online at http://groups.yahoocom/group/OurWorldView/message/10435. Access more of his work at http://harambeeradio.ning.com and http://www.rbgtube.com. Send comments to jrswriter@comcast.net.

Disgruntled says: An examination of presidential pardons over the past decade by ProPublica shows that white criminals are four times more likely than minorities to be granted pardons. Moreover, the data show that blacks are the least likely to receive presidential pardons or commutations. The disparate treatment revealed by this data parallels the treatment accorded blacks and other minorities during the real estate bubble, when even blacks with good credit and stable incomes were steered into sub-prime mortgages. While the pardon data examined dealt primarily with the Bush administration, it is important to note that nothing has changed in the way pardons are handled in the Obama administration. In fact, despite the known injustice of the war on the drugs and the havoc it has wrecked in urban communities across the nation, President Obama has granted fewer requests for clemency than any president in the last century. While blacks have been willing to excuse his failure to address specific problems plaguing urban America ad nauseam, there is no excuse for allowing blacks to languish in prison for non-violent drug offenses when he has the power under the Constitution to grant pardons. His failure to free these people is shameful!

Disgruntled wants to know: When it was initially revealed that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) contained language that could be construed as applying to the indefinite detention of US citizens, President Barack Obama indicated he would veto such a bill. However, based on statements made by Senator Carl Levin during Senate debate, the Obama administration asked that language precluding US citizens and lawful residents from Section 1031 be removed. There was never an intention on the part of Obama to veto the measure. The reservation contained in his signing statement is thinly veiled ploy and mainstream media have succeeded in aiding him in this duplicity. There is C-Span video of Senator Levin explaining what the Obama administration requested. See it for yourself on C-Span or the brief clip at www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=xQgXZxzgRp0&NR=1. With all the disappointments from the "yes we can" man, can we believe anything that passes his lips?

Disgruntled feels: Denial! Published on Salon.com, Peter Birkenhead’s article "Why the White South is Still in Denial about Slavery" does a credible job of describing the fact that southern whites exist in a state of denial regarding slavery. However, I believe his article should be expanded to include all of America. Why simply focus on the dirty south? The entire nation has unclean hands when it comes to the mistreatment and exploitation – past and present – of black people in this country and then pretend otherwise. Certainly, one understands the Yankee oversight of northern complicity since it is southerners that insist on celebrating the "Lost Cause," but to do so would dismiss the north’s role in crafting the gentlemen’s agreement that rendered humans property and its ongoing collaboration in maintaining white supremacy. Yes, there is denial in the white south, but the denial about slavery is countrywide.

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone CAlls

Email www.dw-world.de...Obama signs 'toughest yet' Iran sanctions...By David Levitz...Mounting tensions between the United States and Iran are likely to flare even further after US President Barack Obama signed into law tough new sanctions targeting Iran's banking and oil sectors. Effectively, the measures will force companies and financial institutions throughout the world to choose between the United States and Iran as their business partner. The sanctions, conceived to punish Iran for its nuclear program, are part of a $662 billion (511 billion-euro) defense spending bill Obama signed on Saturday, December 31, during his vacation to Hawaii. Firms and financial institutions, including foreign central banks, could be barred from trading on US financial markets if they continue ties with Iran's central bank or oil industry. Iran's central bank is essential to processing income from Iranian oil exports.

Email www.presstv.ir...'Invading Iran is invading Russia, China'..Russia and China will be a headache for US President Barack Obama if he decides on a military confrontation with Iran. A political analyst says Russia and China consider a US military action on Iran as an attack on their own borders and a threat to their own national security. "The US is assuming that Russia or China will not respond militarily, but they've been wrong before," Shamus Cooke wrote on the Global Research website. Cooke explained that when former US president George W. Bush gave the green light to the then President of Georgia Mikheil Saakahvili to attack South Ossetia in 2008, "Russia surprised everyone by responding militarily and crushing Georgia's invasion." "Attacking Syria and/or Iran opens the door to a wider regional or even international war," Cooke stressed.

Email cosmidot@yahoogroup.com...Obama’s change: From kidnapping and torture to assassination...The promise to scrap his predecessor’s hardliner war-on-terror policies, which helped Barack Obama win presidential election, is apparently off the table. The political reality is that the current administration is doing quite the opposite thing. Long before he became US president or the winner of a Noble Peace Prize, Barack Obama was a constitutional law professor. During his election campaign he vowed to reverse the abuses and policies of his predecessor George W. Bush. Three years later, many civil rights advocates, who once cheered "yes, we can," are finding themselves disillusioned. World-renowned author and scholar Noam Chomsky believes the Obama administration has changed gears and accelerated illegal practices into overdrive. Bush’s policy was to kidnap people, take them to Guantanamo or Bagram or some other torture chamber and try to extract some information from them. Obama’s policy is just to kill them. As Obama gears up for his re-election campaign, civil liberties groups that believed his words the first time around are now left to judge the commander-in-chief on his actions.

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