The problem with Ron Paul

As the all-important Iowa caucuses approach, the race to the finish line grows more heated by the minute, with each of the GOP hopefuls jockeying for position.

The preceding statement was a bit sarcastic, actually. Iowa is a backwards, unrepresentative state that tends to elevate the compulsive liars who push cynical, patronizing nonsense at the yahoo nation in the hopes of getting the fundamentalist, right-wing voters to give them the nod. It is almost too painful to bear.

What is interesting this year is Ron Paul. Paul, in spite of being out of step with the inside-the-beltway consensus on global empire and the rule of the corporate oligarchy, shows genuine potential to come out on top of the heap -- a development that's causing extreme discomfort amongst the spear carriers of the status quo. Observe the characterization of Rep. Paul from the Asphyxiated Press:

The Associated Press: Romney, Perry slap at Paul on Iran: "A conservative, Paul commands strong allegiance from his supporters but appears to have little potential to expand his appeal and emerge as a serious challenger for the nomination. Yet he could complicate other candidates' pathway to the nomination."

It seems simply unfathomable to those whose careers have been laid at the service of the corporate state and the grand poobahs of finance that someone so far out of the mainstream can actually be communicating a simple idea to the masses: that the US is on a catastrophic and unsustainable course that will certainly end in the complete disintegration of this society and our way of life.

Currently, the likes of Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich are exercised at Paul's refusal to condemn the Iranians for their nuclear research and development program -- assuring their audience among the consensus elites that the mullahs are single-mindedly pursuing a weapon which they will promptly fire at Israel. No one but a damned fool -- or a Bilderberg liar -- would assert such a thing, given the Israeli nuclear arsenal numbering in the hundreds of weapons. Still, though, they persist in being purveyors of utter manufactured reality in the service of perpetual war in the service of filling the yawning coffers of the resource barons.

We can listen to Gingrich, Romney, Perry and company boogey until we puke, as they spin a narrative about a world that only exists in the whorish, paid-for media in the US, or we can tune these tedious bastards out once and for all, and turn our back on their blandishments. They promise only more of the same, more war, more impoverishment of the working people of this country, as the oligarchs build a new world order that reduces all working people to peons and wage slaves, while they rake away the profits that should accrue to those whose labor makes the wealth of nations.

Let's cut these clowns off once and for all, including the present occupant of the White House -- the supreme fraudster himself. It's long past time for people to ignore the bastards, and go a different way. We have the power in 2012 to start shaking things up. Let's take it!