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Why Did You Sell Your
Soul?
by Joshua Katz
by Joshua
Katz
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Why did you do it, Dennis? Your
party laughed at you when you ran for President. They hid your name when
you won the polls, they kept you out of their debates. Why did they do
it? Because you dared speak the truth, because you were willing to say,
publicly and in full view of the voters, that the President lied us into a
war. You attacked their security state, you pointed out that America had
become a rogue nation, a nation that sanctions torture, that attacks sovereign
nations without provocation. You called on Congress to fulfill its
Constitutional duties and impeach the men who violated numerous federal
laws. You demanded that our troops return home, that we stop policing the
world, and that we dismantle the domestic security state.
In return, they called you
a kook. They said you were crazy, that you believed in aliens (even as
they believe in a self-regulating executive – which is more likely to
exist?) They disenfranchised your supporters and used every dirty trick in
the book to keep you down. Your party was every bit as guilty as that
other party – they voted for the wars, they sanctioned the torture, they cheered
for the loss of civil liberties. They knew it, and you knew it, and that's
why they kept you down. Your party leader visited your office and promised
you would be defeated in your primary if you dared expose the lies and crimes of
that other party, and you bravely did it anyway, and yet still won your
primary. I was proud to support you, to send you money to do your good
work. Although you weren't my favorite candidate, you were up there, far
above the fools and pretenders who tried but failed to compete with
you.
I turned my face the other
way when you told your supporters in Iowa to vote for Obama if you had less than
15%. After all, I comforted myself, you were talking to people who were
already at the Democratic caucus, you couldn't tell them to support the man you
really would have liked to endorse. I tried to tell myself you hadn't sold
out when you ended your campaign and failed to endorse Ron Paul, or, for that
matter, Mike Gravel – after all, perhaps you sought the VP slot, perhaps you had
more good left to do.
Then you went to your
convention, and sold your soul. You spoke eagerly, energetically, in
support of a man whose positions you don't share, and who hasn't an ounce of
your courage. You criticized the war in Iraq, but neglected to mention
that the man you were endorsing has no intentions of cutting back our warfare
state – that he complains that Bush hasn't sent enough troops to
Afghanistan. You spoke about the war contractors, but gave no indication
that you were endorsing a candidate who promised to spend more on defense than
Bush had. You told us about Big Pharma and their control over our
healthcare money – but neglected to mention that they had achieved that
control because of government involvement in healthcare, and that the man you
were endorsing promised more of the same. You criticized the security
state – while endorsing a man who voted for domestic spying without warrants,
who has never opposed the horrific loss of civil liberties, and who promises to
do more of the same.
You appeared, as always, as
a man who is outside the system, who bucks the trends, who stands for what
is right no matter what the cost, for justice though the heavens fall, but
you endorsed a man who is nothing but an insider, a man whose promises of change
and hope sound so empty and hollow. You, the man who defends the
Constitution, endorsed a candidate who promises, with every speech, to ignore
that document. A man who voted for war, who promises AIPAC that he will be
their defense candidate, who sends chilling threats to Iran, to Russia, to the
world.
Why did you do it,
Dennis? How could you speak at a convention of men and women who sought to
destroy you, who did destroy your campaign, who worked so hard to make sure that
the truth wouldn't be heard? How could you endorse a man who promises to
build a better, stronger warfare state, who despises civil liberties? Did
you want to gain the approval of evil men? They will never approve of you,
Dennis, and you know it. You've fed the tiger, but remember that, when it
serves him, the tiger will not hesitate to bite off your head. Today, they
love you; but they will toss you aside if you ever pose a threat to them again,
make no mistake.
You had a role model; there
was a man who demonstrated to you the right way to lose a primary. Ron
Paul promised that he would not endorse a candidate who desires to misuse the
armed forces, who wants more wars, and he didn't. He organized a massive
counter-convention, keeping his supporters eagerly involved in a massive
campaign for liberty, for peace, for the Constitution. He built a
promising organization to keep his ideas alive, his supporters built their own
media network and worked to defeat FISA – a bill Obama voted for, the same Obama
you dared endorse.
You, too, built an organization – you called it "Integrity Now." Where was your integrity, Dennis? Where was your
integrity when you urged your supporters to give up their efforts for peace and
civil liberties, and instead vote for a man who despises both? I met so
many of your supporters when I, a Ron Paul supporter, protested at your
exclusion from the debates. They struck me as having more integrity than
that. I don't think they will sell out so easily, be so easily persuaded
to support a man who opposes their principles. There were men you could
have endorsed, and women too. Did it occur to you what an endorsement
would mean for Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Chuck Baldwin, or any other
candidate who continues to fight bravely for peace and liberty, to fight the
battles you once did? With your support, these campaigns could have been
energized and ignited. Instead, you chose to hand your soul to the Devil,
in exchange for what? For the knowledge that you, yes you, contributed to
the continuation of the American Empire, that you helped elect a man who took
away the last of our civil liberties? Why not sell your birthright for a
bowl of lentils?
August 29,
2008
Joshua Katz,
NREMT-P [send him mail], is the
Legislative Director of the Libertarian Party of Connecticut. A member of the
faculty of Oxford Academy in Westbrook, Connecticut, his areas of interest
include mathematics, philosophy of mind, and the use of the synthetic a
priori.