[lbo-talk] "so nice"

[Carrol Cox]

On 10/5/2011 12:21 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Oct 5, 2011, at 1:15 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> This is an example of Ron Paul people being both acutely annoying AND quite harmless. They can mostly be ignored. Someone might dig up from the web some short but particularly revealing quote from him on gays or migrants. It's not reallly worthwhile arguing with Ron Paul people, but having something like that in one's hip pocket as it were might be useful at times.
>
> Insofar as anyone around OWS has thought about the Federal Reserve, many seemed to have picked up some ideas from Paul. There's a video rant making the round by a guy who blames the Fed's "printing money" for the high price of gas and rent. Where to start with something like that?

Indeed. That sort of thing is a cousin at least of Conspiricism -- and 
in fact the 9/11 conspiricist in BNCPJ also believes Ron Paul must be 
o.k. But here's the thing. In an actual movement there is a tangle of 
all sorts of positons, some really core, some marginal, some (like lvoe 
of Paul) obnoxious. But one dare not pull the loose string or all sorts 
of things come unraveled. For example, there is locally (a) a college 
libertarian group, (b) a really active Vision 20/20 group,* (c) an 
active MoveOn group that works with BNCPJ, plus two or 3 conspiracists & 
Ron Paul admirers. (*More or less in the 'localist' spectrum: google 
them.) I wish I really do that they would all go away. But various 
people and groups who are central to our local political activity 
overlap these 'elements' in one or another way. It would be horribly 
destructive to attack one of them. We are far from being strong enough 
to go in for purifying ourselves! As to Fed-Hating; I agree it's a 
deadly virus, but I don't think it squabbling over it is the remedy. As 
Movement grows, some of these things will evaporate, others will lead to 
splits. Not predictable.

Carrol