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March 11, 2003
ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny: Now more than ever!
A lot of readers have complained to me that they have been
dropped from my ZGram list. We are still having technical problems. Please
check and try to subscribe again within a week. It is not my fault, and we
are trying to fix our malaise. Meanwhile, check for updates on the
Zundelsite, and please don't get mad at me or think I disregard your
loyalty. I am so swamped with work I sometimes eat breakfast in late
afternoon.
To get today's ZGram out of the way, I send you this - an
update on a man I have long admired. Ron Paul, to me, is the quintessential
American - the kind I used to encounter when I was still on the road as a
freelance writer and convention speaker and did lots and lots of programs
for Rotarians.
I guess these days I would have a hard time getting a
speaking invitation at a Rotary Luncheon if I tried to tell them that my
husband has been kidnapped through the interference of another country and
now is held as a hostage for an American website. Want to bet?
[START]
A Far-Right Texan Inspires Antiwar Left
By SHAILAGH MURRAY Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- A far-right Republican congressman from Texas
is looking like a voice of reason to the antiwar left.
Ron Paul is a political iconoclast who takes his libertarian
ideology seriously. He's a cheerful advocate of all sorts of unpopular
causes like abolishing the federal minimum wage and returning to the gold
standard.
That few of his ideas will ever catch on doesn't deter him
one bit. Rep. Paul's nickname is "Dr. No" because he votes against
so many things, often alone. Despite his lack of clout in Congress, he ran
as the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in 1988, drawing less than
one half of 1% of the vote.
But on an Iraq war Mr. Paul is finding plenty of allies,
especially at the other end of the political spectrum. Unlike his fellow
Texas Republican in the White House, the retired obstetrician believes
Saddam Hussein poses no direct threat to Americans and wants the U.S. to
mind its own business. A fiscal conservative, he also believes the country
can't afford the war's potentially staggering cost.
"Ultimately, our money, weapons, and interventionist
policies never buy us friends for long," Mr. Paul wrote in one of his
recent columns, which are published on a range of Web sites, including
libertarian and Christian. "And more often we simply arm our future
enemies."
Rep. Paul attracts special attention across the Atlantic,
far more than in the mainstream U.S. media that largely ignores him.
Writings such as his 35 "Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq"
have appeared in French, German, Russian, Italian and Swiss publications.
The congressman's 3,200-word "Statement Opposing the Use of Military
Force in Iraq" was posted on the progressive New Zealand publication
Scoop, two days after its Oct. 8 delivery on the House floor.
Mr. Paul has even inspired an antiwar group, the
Washington-based National Peace Lobby Project. It was formed Feb. 6 to
promote a resolution introduced by Mr. Paul and Oregon Democrat Peter
DeFazio that would repeal the authorization of military force in Iraq that
Congress granted to Mr. Bush last year.
Project founder Jenifer Deal is a Washington actress and
D.C. Green Party official. "What we have here is a nexus of ideological
concerns," Ms. Deal says of her alliance with Mr. Paul. It doesn't faze
her that she disagrees with the congressman on almost every other subject.
"If he were a fascist Klansman, I would obviously have
misgivings," she says. "But I actually think Ron Paul has
tremendous moral courage."
Mr. Paul's aggressive stand, a stark contrast to most
mainstream politicians reluctant to challenge the president, hasn't hurt him
with his southeast Texas constituents -- in fact, he is more popular than
ever.
In November, weeks after joining just five other Republicans
voting against giving Mr. Bush authority to go to war, Mr. Paul was
re-elected with 68% of the vote. It was his most lopsided victory ever.
"It's so clear where he is, and that works for him," says Rep.
Lloyd Doggett, a liberal Texas Democrat from an adjoining district.
Mr. Paul believes that, privately, he has much broader
support within his party. "If this had been a Clinton war, the majority
of Republicans would be with me," he says, noting that most of his
colleagues refused to support North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrikes
in Kosovo.
Mr. Paul's swath of rural Texas stretches southeast from
Austin to the Gulf of Mexico. The region is populated by farmers and
small-town folk who voted twice against President Clinton and overwhelmingly
backed Mr. Bush. Mr. Doggett describes the mood as "rugged
individualism and independence of the Texas frontier spirit."
Mr. Paul, in an interview, attributes his record re-election
margin to the combined forces of independent-minded "Ross Perot
types" and Democrats who are upset that their national party leaders
aren't rigorously challenging Mr. Bush on Iraq. Local Republicans, too, have
misgivings about their former governor's actions. "I think people are a
little apprehensive about what's going on," says Mary Wyatt, leader of
the Republican Party in Victoria County. "President Bush has a
tremendous level of support here, but everyone is concerned."
THE LONELY CRUSADER
Right-wing and antiwar, Ron Paul is in a category all to
himself on Capitol Hill.
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Born: Aug. 20, 1935, in Pittsburgh
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Occupation: Obstetrician/Gynecologist
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Ideological Inconsistency: A libertarian who supports a
government ban on abortion
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Political Inspirations: "Doctor Zhivago;"
Austrian economist and free- marketeer Ludwig von Mises
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Radical Positions: Wants to abolish the IRS and federal
drug laws
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Infamous Quote: "I fear, and there's a lot of
people in this country who fear, that they may be bombed by the federal
government at another Waco." -- (C-Span, February 1997)
Source: Congressional Quarterly
When the Texas Republican Party sent a questionnaire to
state politicians in 2000 on core issues, Mr. Paul, 67 years old, wound up
95% in sync with the party platform, helped by his opposition to abortion
and his staunch support of gun-owners rights. Plus, there is his advocacy
for the smallest possible government. He refused to accept Medicare and
Medicaid when he ran his medical practice and won't apply for a government
pension.
For all his Washington bashing, Mr. Paul is known in his
district as an effective congressman. Paul staffers are whizzes at tracking
down a Social Security check. And while he votes against all spending bills,
he has found a way to deliver some of the highway and Army Corps of
Engineering pork that his sprawling coastal district craves. He gets the
money shifted from previously authorized funds that were originally directed
elsewhere.
Don Truman, another Victoria Republican who runs a family
storage business, didn't support Mr. Paul earlier in the legislator's
career, but has grown to admire how he sticks to his beliefs. "He's
consistent and he's a very honorable person," says Mr. Truman.
"People are willing to give him a little more allowance on certain
things because they respect him."
The goodwill isn't universal. Some Republicans have cast
support for the war as a patriotic litmus test. House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay, also of Texas, last September called Mr. Bush's Iraq critics
"hand-wringers and appeasers." Mr. Paul says he has never
exchanged harsh words personally with his Republican colleagues. After Mr.
Paul and the five other Republicans voted against the Iraq resolution, House
Speaker Dennis Hastert said on Fox News that he respected the group's
stance.
Mr. Paul doesn't even bother to attend the administration's
war briefings: "I don't want to get confused by their propaganda."
His alliance with the left -- the "NPR crowd," as aide Jeff Deist
calls it -- makes him a little uncomfortable, but not so much that he's
backing down. He may even attend an antiwar student rally in a few weeks, at
the liberal oasis of the University of Colorado-Boulder.
(SOURCE: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB104725224693862700,00.html
)
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