November 14, 2007

The Ron Paul Campaign and its Neo-Nazi Supporters

By Andrew Walden

When some in a crowd of anti-war activists meeting at Democrat National Committee HQ in June, 2005 suggested Israel was behind the 9-11 attacks, DNC Chair Howard Dean was quick to get behind the microphones and denounce them saying: "such statements are nothing but vile, anti-Semitic rhetoric."

When KKK leader David Duke switched parties to run for Louisiana governor as a Republican in 1991, then-President George H W Bush responded sharply, saying, "When someone asserts the Holocaust never took place, then I don't believe that person ever deserves one iota of public trust. When someone has so recently endorsed Nazism, it is inconceivable that someone can reasonably aspire to a leadership role in a free society."

Ron Paul is different. 

Rep Ron Paul (R-TX) is the only Republican candidate to demand immediate withdrawal from Iraq and blame US policy for creating Islamic terrorism.  He has risen from obscurity and is beginning to raise millions of dollars in campaign contributions.  Paul has no traction in the polls -- 7% of the vote in New Hampshire -- but he at one point had more cash on hand than John McCain.  And now he is planning a $1.1 million New Hampshire media blitz just in time for the primary. 

Ron Paul set an internet campaigning record raising more than $4 million in small on-line donations in one day, on November 5, 2007. But there are many questions about Paul's apparent unwillingness to reject extremist groups' public participation in his campaign and financial support of his November 5  "patriot money-bomb plot."  

On October 26 nationally syndicated radio talk show host Michael Medved posted an "Open Letter to Rep. Ron Paul" on TownHall.com.  It reads:
Dear Congressman Paul:

Your Presidential campaign has drawn the enthusiastic support of an imposing collection of Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Holocaust Deniers, 9/11 "Truthers" and other paranoid and discredited conspiracists.

Do you welcome- or repudiate - the support of such factions?

More specifically, your columns have been featured for several years in the American Free Press -a publication of the nation's leading Holocaust Denier and anti-Semitic agitator, Willis Carto.  His book club even recommends works that glorify the Nazi SS, and glowingly describe the "comforts and amenities" provided for inmates of Auschwitz.

Have your columns appeared in the American Free Press with your knowledge and approval?

As a Presidential candidate, will you now disassociate yourself, clearly and publicly, from the poisonous propaganda promoted in such publications?

As a guest on my syndicated radio show, you answered my questions directly and fearlessly.
Will you now answer these pressing questions, and eliminate all associations between your campaign and some of the most loathsome fringe groups in American society?

Along with my listeners (and many of your own supporters), I eagerly await your response.

Respectfully, Michael Medved
Medved has received no official response from the Paul campaign.

There is more.  The Texas-based Lone Star Times October 25 publicly requested a response to questions about whether the Paul campaign would repudiate and reject a $500 donation from white supremacist Stormfront.org founder Don Black and end the Stormfront website fundraising for Paul.  The Times article lit up the conservative blogosphere for the next week.  Paul supporters packed internet comment boards alternately denouncing or excusing the charges.  Most politicians are quick to distance themselves from such disreputable donations when they are discovered.  Not Paul.

Daniel Siederaski of the Jewish Telegraph Agency tried to get an interview with Paul, calling him repeatedly but not receiving any return calls.  Wrote Siederaski November 9: "Ron Paul will take money from Nazis. But he won’t take telephone calls from Jews." [Update]  Finally on November 13 the Paul campaign responded. In a short interview JTA quotes Jim Perry, head of Jews for Paul describing his work on the Paul campaign along side a self-described white supremacist which Perry says he has reformed. 

Racist ties exposed in the Times article go far beyond a single donation.  Just below links to information about the "BOK KKK Ohio State Meeting", and the "BOK KKK Pennsylvania State Meeting",  Stormfront.org website announced: "Ron Paul for President" and "Countdown to the 5th of November".  The links take readers directly to a Ron Paul fundraising site from which they can click into the official Ron Paul 2008 donation page on the official campaign site.  Like many white supremacists, Stormfront has ties to white prison gangs.

Finally on October 30 Paul's campaign came back with a non-response.  In a phone interview with the Lone Star Times, Ron Paul national communications director Jesse Benton was non-committal about removing the donations link from Stormfront.org.  After a week of internet controversy, the best Benton could come up with is:
"We hadn't thought of these options but I'll bring up these ideas with the campaign director.  Blocking the IP address sounds like a simple and practical step that could be taken.  I doubt there is anything we can do legally.  Tracking donations that came from Stormfront's site sounds more complicated.  I'm concerned about setting a precedent for the campaign having to screen and vet everyone who makes a donation.  It is important to keep in mind is (sic) that we didn't solicit this support, and we aren't interested in spending al of our time and resources focused on this issue.  We want to focus on Dr. Paul's positive agenda for freedom."
Perhaps frustrated by the weasel words, Lone Star Times asked Benton: "Bottom line- Will the Ron Paul campaign be rejecting the $500 contribution made by neo-Nazi Don Black?"

Benton's response:
"At this time, I cannot say that we will be rejecting Mr. Black's contribution, but I will bring the matter to the attention of our campaign director again, and expect some sort of decision to be made in coming days."
On October 11 Stormfront Radio endorsed Ron Paul for President saying: 
"Whatever organization you belong to, remember first and foremost that you're a white nationalist, then put aside your differences with one another and work together.  Work together to strive to get someone in the Oval Office who agrees with much of what we want for our future.  Look at the man, look at the issues, look at our future.  Vote for Ron Paul, 2008."
As of November 11--the Ron Paul donation link is still up and active on Stormfront.  No IP address has been blocked.  Stormfront's would-be stormtroopers are still encouraged to contribute to Paul's campaign. 

The white supremacists do more than raise funds.  Blogger Adam Holland reports:
"one of Rep. Paul's top internet organizers in Tennessee is a neo-Nazi leader named Will Williams (aka ‘White Will'). Williams was the southern coordinator for William Pierce's National Alliance Party, the largest neo-Nazi party in the U.S." 
Pierce is author of the racist "Turner Diaries".   When the Lone Star Times exposed the $500 Don Black donation, Williams responded on the national Ron Paul meetup site,
The mild responses to Williams' MeetUp post make a sharp contrast to the hatred and invective with which Paul supporters respond to Medved or any other writer questioning Paul's refusal to disassociate himself from his racist supporters.  Any other campaign would presume Williams' expression of anti-Semitism was a dirty trick by an opposing campaign.  Williams would have been hurriedly denounced and booted out of the campaign.  Not Ron Paul.

Williams has also organized at least one other discussion, "the Israel factor revisited" on the national Ron Paul MeetUp site.  Again the measured tone of the remarks by Ron Paul supporters in the comments section contrasts sharply with the invective Paul supporters rain down upon bloggers who oppose him.  Paul's campaign relies heavily on MeetUp sites to organize.  Over 61,000 Paul supporters are registered on MeetUp as compared to 3,400 for Barack Obama, 1,000 for Hillary Clinton, 1,800 for Dennis Kucinich and only a couple of dozen members for most other candidates.

On the white-supremacist Vanguard News Network, Williams links to Paul's "grassroots" fundraising site and organizes other racists to "game You Tube" to advance a specific Ron Paul video to the top of You Tube's rankings.  Writes Williams, "Everybody here can do this, except bjb w/his niggerberry."  Holland points out, "BJB" stands for "burn Jew burn".  BJB's internet signature is, "Nothing says lovin' like a Jew in the oven."    

Williams is not Paul's only supremacist supporter.  "Former" KKK leader (and convicted fraudster) David Duke's website http://www.whitecivilrights.com/, calls Ron Paul "our king" and cheers while "Ron Paul Hits a Home Run on Jay Leno Show."  Duke also includes a "Ron Paul campaign update" and plugs Ron Paul fundraising efforts.  These articles are posted right next to articles such as "Ten reasons why the Holocaust is a fraud" and "Germans Still Remember their Historical Greatness"-featuring a map of Hitler's Third Reich at its 1942 military height, just in case anybody doesn't get the point.  Apparently "Dr. Paul's positive agenda for freedom" is attractive to those who ape the world's worst tyrants and genocidaires.

There are others.  In a You Tube video circulating the internet, Ron Paul is endorsed by Hutton Gibson, a leading Holocaust denier and father of controversial actor and director Mel Gibson.      

Ron Paul is supported by Patrick Buchanan, whose website carries videos and articles such as: "Ron Paul epiphany" and "Ron Paul a new hope."  Buchanan has a long history of remarks some call anti-Semitic (see link).  Ron Unz, editor of Buchanan's American Conservative magazine, is a Paul contributor and may have helped raise money from Silicon Valley sources. 

Ron Paul's American Free Press supporters run literally from one end of the country to the other: 
There is more to the Paul campaign than racists.  The mis-named 9-11 "truth" movement has also been a big source of Paul support.  The Detroit Free Press describes the scene as Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani shared the ferry ride back from a Mackinac Island Michigan Republican caucus September 21.  
"According to one eyewitness, Giuliani was beset by dozens of Paul enthusiasts as he was leaving the island, some of whom shouted taunts about 9/11, including: ‘9/11 was an inside job' and ‘Rudy, Rudy, what did you do with the gold?' -- an apparent reference to rumors about $200 million in gold alleged to have disappeared in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.  Ed Wyszynski, a longtime party activist from Eagle, (MI) said the Paul supporters threatened to throw Giuliani overboard and harassed him as he took shelter in the ferry's pilothouse for the 15-minute journey back to Mackinaw City."
Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton told the Detroit Free Press "Ron Paul does not think that 9/11 was an inside job."  But the "truthers" aren't fooled.  Paul's committee paid 9-11 conspiracy nut and talk-show host Alex Jones $1300.  Jones claims the payment is a partial refund after he over paid August 27 when giving Paul a $2300 contribution.  Aaron Dykes of Alex Jones' company Magnolia Management and Alex Jones' Infowars website gave Ron Paul $1600. 

Jones has been pumping Paul's campaign on his nationally syndicated radio show for months.  Alex Jones got Paul's first radio interview January 17 after announcing his Presidential campaign.  LINK: http://prisonplanet.tv/audio/170107paul.mp3.  In a lengthy October 5 interview -- apparently Paul's fourth with Jones -- Paul thanks Jones for his support saying: "You and the others have always said run, run, run."  Alex Jones' websites are piled with Ron Paul articles and campaign paraphernalia for sale.

Other Paul donations and activists come from leftists and Muslims.  Singer and Democrat contributor Barry Manilow is also a Ron Paul contributor and possibly a fundraiser.  There are close ties (but no endorsements) between Ron Paul's San Francisco Bay Area campaign and Cindy Sheehan's long-shot Congressional campaign.

An Austin, TX MeetUp site shows Paul supporters also involved in leftist groups such as Howard Dean's "Democracy for America."  MeetUp lists other sites popular with members of the Ron Paul national MeetUp group.  The number one choice is "9/11 questions" another leading choice is "conspiracy."  

MuslimVoterOnPaul.com chimes in writing:
"Brothers and Sisters, please vote for Ron Paul in the Republican Primaries. It's our obligation to come together and try to stand up for not only our best interests, but the best interests of the entire Ummah." 
A Ron Paul flyer directed at Muslims reads: "Who is Ron Paul and why does the Jerusalem Post call him crazy?"  A "Muslims for Paul" bumper sticker puts the Islamic crescent in Paul's name.

The ugly mishmash of hate groups backing Paul has a Sheehan connection as well.  David Duke is a big Cindy Sheehan supporter eagerly proclaiming "Cindy Sheehan is right" after Sheehan said, "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel."  Stormfront.org members joined Sheehan at her protest campout in Crawford, TX and posed with her for photos.  Sheehan is also intimately associated with the Lew Rockwell libertarian website which has posted over 200 articles by Ron Paul as well as some "scholarly" 9-11 conspiracy theories. 

The white supremacist American Nationalist Union also backed Sheehan's Crawford protests and endorsed David Duke for president of the United States in 1988.  Now they are backing Ron Paul-linking to numerous Pro-Paul articles posted on LewRockwell.com. 

Medved's questions surprise many, but they shouldn't.  Paul's links the anti-Semites and white supremacists continue a trend which has been developing since the 9-11 attacks.  Barely six weeks after 9-11, Paul was already busy blaming America.  On October 27, 2001 Paul wrote on LewRockwell.com, "Some sincere Americans have suggested that our modern interventionist policy set the stage for the attacks of 9-11".  Paul complained: "often the ones who suggest how our policies may have played a role in evoking the attacks are demonized as unpatriotic."  He says the US is "bombing Afghanistan" and is upset nobody is interested in his solution:
"It is certainly disappointing that our congressional leaders and administration have not considered using letters of marque and reprisal as an additional tool to root out those who participated in the 9-11 attacks."
Paul is quick to blame the victim when the issue is Islamist violence.  But when it comes to ordinary criminal violence, Paul once blamed "95% of black males."  During Paul's 1996 Congressional campaign a Houston Chronicle article raised questions about  a 1992 Ron Paul newsletter article.  Under Ron Paul's name was written: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.' Paul added: "I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city (Washington, D.C.) are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." 

Texas Monthly later interviewed Paul.  He claims:
"They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn't come from me directly, but they campaign aides said that's too confusing.  'It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.'" 
Adds Texas Monthly:
"It is a measure of his stubbornness, determination, and ultimately his contrarian nature that, until this surprising volte-face in our interview, he had never shared this secret. It seems, in retrospect, that it would have been far, far easier to have told the truth at the time."
Paul defenders often point to a December 24, 2002 Paul essay, "What really divides us?"  Wrote Paul,
"Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans only as members of groups and never as individuals. Racists believe that all individual who share superficial physical characteristics are alike; as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups." 
What his supporters don't often mention is that Paul deployed this fine rhetoric only in defense of Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS).  Lott was pilloried in the press for his flattering words about the segregationist 1948 Presidential run of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond.

Responding to rioting in Los Angeles under the heading "Terrorist Updates", Paul's 1992 article exposes a double standard.  Substitute the words "Islamist terrorism" for "riots" and try to imagine Paul using this language:
"The cause of the riots is plain: barbarism. If the barbarians cannot loot sufficiently through legal channels (i.e., the riots being the welfare-state minus the middleman), they resort to illegal ones, to terrorism. Trouble is, few seem willing to do anything to stop them. The cops have been handcuffed. And property owners are not allowed to defend themselves. The mayor of Los Angeles, for example, ordered the Korean storekeepers who defended themselves arrested for "discharging a firearm within city limits."  Perhaps the most scandalous aspect of the Los Angeles riots was the response by the mayors, the media, and the Washington politicians. They all came together as one to excuse the violence and to tell white America that it is guilty, although the guilt can be assuaged by handing over more cash. It would be reactionary, racist, and fascist, said the media, to have less welfare or tougher law enforcement. America's number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks.

"Rather than helping, all this will ensure that guerrilla violence will escalate. There will be more occasional eruptions such as we saw in Los Angeles, but just as terrifying are the daily muggings, robberies, burglaries, rapes, and killings that make our cities terror zones."
If one forgets the implication that the US treasury is a "white checking account" or the suggestion that all "underclass blacks" are thugs, it seems that Paul believes that appeasing street criminals "will ensure that guerrilla violence will escalate."  But when it comes to the Islamist terror, Paul's message, now the theme of his Presidential campaign is: "our policies may have played a role in evoking the attacks."

The double standard raises questions.  Paul's real motivation for appeasing Islamists may be underlined in quotes from a May 24, 1996 Congress Daily article:
"Stating that lobbying groups who seek special favors and handouts are evil, Paul wrote, ‘By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government' and that the goal of the Zionist movement is to stifle criticism." 
"Ron Paul-America's Last Chance", a January, 2007 article by Ted Lang on the anti-Semitic site Rense.com, makes a familiar argument for supporting Paul.  Lang claims,
"Dr. Paul's best credentials are those identifying him as a true libertarian, meaning a ‘classical liberal' of the anti-Federalist genre of libertarians that helped found this country, true liberals such as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams...." 
Paul himself writing on antiwar.com says:
"Thomas Jefferson spoke for the founders and all our early presidents when he stated: ‘peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none...' which is, ‘one of the essential principles of our government'. The question is: Whatever happened to this principle and should it be restored?"
Perhaps Paul forgets America's 1801-05 war with the Islamic terrorists known as the Barbary Pirates?  Paul's interpretation of American history is false.  This writer explained in "The Colonial War against Islam":   
"In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. ambassador to France, and John Adams, then American Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey's ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote of funding. To Congress, these two future presidents later reported the reasons for the Muslims' hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

"‘...that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.'"
Apparently Paul chooses to remember only the parts of American history which benefit his arguments.  As part of the War on Terror Paul wants the US to abandon, the US Navy is on duty fighting Islamic pirates off the coast of Somalia, in the Persian Gulf, and Southeast Asia.

In spite of official silence from the Paul Campaign, hordes of Paul supporters lit up the comments section of Michael Medved's open letter on TownHall.com.  In a phenomenon familiar to any blogger who posts information negative to Paul, the 500-plus comments include several which indicate that Medved has got Paul's supporters dead to rights:
  • "Your own Zionism is slipping, Medved!  Why should anyone disassociate from 9/11 Truthers?"
  • "I suggest you take off the tin-foil yamika (sic), your brain is fried."
  • "You will do anything to smear this good man to try and safeguard US policy in Israel."
  • "Hey Medved. Tell your AIPAC handlers to be nervous. You are failing miserably."
  • "It's patently obvious why you don't support Dr. Paul: He's not hand-picked by AIPAC and the Likud Party."
Over at Liberty Post, a self-described "Christian Zionist" identifying himself as ‘David Ben-Ariel' adds this response:
"If discredited and paranoid Michael Medved is so concerned about it, let him actually follow his Judaism to the Jewish Homeland of Israel and take the treacherous ACLU and its liberal ilk, and every other self-hating, defeatist, godless group and loathsome organization with him. What's he got to lose, especially if he fails to believe the Israeli oligarchy is under German-Jesuit control and guilty of murdering Yitzhak Rabin?  ... I'm voting for Ron Paul." 
Besides the Paul backers whose words seem to provide backing to Medved's case, others complain that it is wrong to question the sources of Paul's support.  Writing on the "Daily Paul", Mike Bergmaier complains it is "unfair" for Medved to demand Paul renounce the support of anti-Semites, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis.  Really?  Why?

Lew Rockwell attempts to respond to Medved's question by echoing leftist themes equating Nazis with mainstream conservatives.  Rockwell argues Medved should renounce Cheney and Bush.  In a weak effort at verbal judo, Rockwell calls Medved's letter a "neocon libel."  Rockwell continues:
"Mr. Medved, will you repudiate belligerent nationalists, drooling torturers, scheming warmongers, redistributing pressure groups, foreign aid thieves... (etc)"
and then without even pausing to catch his breath accuses Medved of practicing "guilt by association." 

Perhaps Rockwell hopes weak-minded readers will not notice that associating Medved with "drooling torturers" is itself "guilt by association."   No "drooling torturers" have been identified among Medved's financial backers but actual neo-Nazis have been identified by name amongst Paul's.  Is this what passes for scholarship at the Ludwig von Mises Institute headed by Rockwell?  Judging from many of the comments Paul supporters have flooded the internet with, it apparently is good enough for them.  

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Daily Paul, Paul's "fair" supporters are organizing to call radio stations and demand they yank Medved's show, thus demonstrating that censorship is a Libertarian value.   

Neither Paul nor his campaign has officially responded to the questions raised by Medved.  But then perhaps these types of comments are the official response. 

Paul supporters complain endlessly that the "mainstream media" is censoring or ignoring their candidate.  They should be careful what they ask for.  If Paul wants to be taken seriously, he must stop cowering behind the internet and face these questions.  Until then it is only reasonable to presume that Paul is happy to wallow in well-financed obscurity accepting the support of some of the worst enemies of freedom and liberty within American society.
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