freedom_junkie
11-09-2007, 04:42 AM
Sean Scallon
November 8, 2007
Joel Stein you blew it.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=42497
You had in your hands a story that could have been the defining piece on the 2008 presidential election.
Your editors at Time magazine gave you the assignment to delve into the Ron Paul campaign and find out what made it tick, find out what motivates his supporters and find out who they’re made of and why.
You had a chance to look at this campaign and the movement that spawned it and place it in a larger context of not just the U.S political scene, but the whole zeitgeist as well.
And you blew it.
Instead of writing something on par with...
...Stein may have blown his chance for greatness but a poster on Ron Paul Forums.com (www.ronpaulforums.com) under the nom de plume of “BillyDKdd” hits the bulls-eye with this post I’d like to share:
“After watching {Carson} Tucker last night it dawned on me what has been obvious all along - nobody in the media understands the Ron Paul movement at all - not even Tucker whom I would have thought would know better. In Tucker's mind the only people who could possibly support Ron Paul are the relative handful of people in this country like him who "really understand" what Ron Paul is about, leftists who hate the war and tin foil hat wearing, ex-hippie conspiracy theorists. Well yes, we are all of those things, but we are also doctors and lawyers and soldiers and scientists.
And we are civil libertarians and conservatives and liberals and democrats and republicans and libertarians and constitutionalists. We are shelf stockers at Walmart and high powered executives and self employed small business owners and internet gurus. We are policemen and firemen and ditch diggers and even people on public assistance. We are black and white and asian and hispanic and some mixture of all of these things. We are people whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower and whose ancestors met those people when they arrived. We are people who became Americans six months ago.
We are young, pot smoking college freshmen and guys who fought in Vietnam. We are people of virtually every possible stripe and persuasion who all have one single thing in common - we love this country and want to see the promise of what America was intended to be fulfilled, so that we can leave our children the American we grew up believing in - free and prosperous nation with justice and opportunity for all where any person who wants it and is willing to put in the effort has a reasonable chance of being whatever he or she wants to be and can make a better life for their children than they had. We want an America which is the land of liberty and where the idea of the pursuit of happiness means something.
A place where courage and gumption and effort and creativity counts for something - where the deck is not pre-stacked so that those on top can not lose no matter what they do and those on the bottom have little hope of winning no matter how hard they try. And where our leaders are people we can be proud of and who represent the best of what America is and not America at its basest and most venal. As for myself, I am proud to be associated with all of these types of Ron Paul supporters - even the wackiest among us. I happily welcome all the tin foil hat wearers and the hippies as well as the veterans and the old right conservatives and even the lefty liberals. When I start hearing stuff about needing to keep the movement "pure" then I know I'm talking to somebody who doesn't understand the movement at all."
Perhaps this fellow should be a campaign reporter instead of Stein.
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PS Ron Paul Forums getting more press, more mainstream people are coming here. Just be aware you are representing now. Not like before. Know you are being analyzed when you post.
November 8, 2007
Joel Stein you blew it.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=42497
You had in your hands a story that could have been the defining piece on the 2008 presidential election.
Your editors at Time magazine gave you the assignment to delve into the Ron Paul campaign and find out what made it tick, find out what motivates his supporters and find out who they’re made of and why.
You had a chance to look at this campaign and the movement that spawned it and place it in a larger context of not just the U.S political scene, but the whole zeitgeist as well.
And you blew it.
Instead of writing something on par with...
...Stein may have blown his chance for greatness but a poster on Ron Paul Forums.com (www.ronpaulforums.com) under the nom de plume of “BillyDKdd” hits the bulls-eye with this post I’d like to share:
“After watching {Carson} Tucker last night it dawned on me what has been obvious all along - nobody in the media understands the Ron Paul movement at all - not even Tucker whom I would have thought would know better. In Tucker's mind the only people who could possibly support Ron Paul are the relative handful of people in this country like him who "really understand" what Ron Paul is about, leftists who hate the war and tin foil hat wearing, ex-hippie conspiracy theorists. Well yes, we are all of those things, but we are also doctors and lawyers and soldiers and scientists.
And we are civil libertarians and conservatives and liberals and democrats and republicans and libertarians and constitutionalists. We are shelf stockers at Walmart and high powered executives and self employed small business owners and internet gurus. We are policemen and firemen and ditch diggers and even people on public assistance. We are black and white and asian and hispanic and some mixture of all of these things. We are people whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower and whose ancestors met those people when they arrived. We are people who became Americans six months ago.
We are young, pot smoking college freshmen and guys who fought in Vietnam. We are people of virtually every possible stripe and persuasion who all have one single thing in common - we love this country and want to see the promise of what America was intended to be fulfilled, so that we can leave our children the American we grew up believing in - free and prosperous nation with justice and opportunity for all where any person who wants it and is willing to put in the effort has a reasonable chance of being whatever he or she wants to be and can make a better life for their children than they had. We want an America which is the land of liberty and where the idea of the pursuit of happiness means something.
A place where courage and gumption and effort and creativity counts for something - where the deck is not pre-stacked so that those on top can not lose no matter what they do and those on the bottom have little hope of winning no matter how hard they try. And where our leaders are people we can be proud of and who represent the best of what America is and not America at its basest and most venal. As for myself, I am proud to be associated with all of these types of Ron Paul supporters - even the wackiest among us. I happily welcome all the tin foil hat wearers and the hippies as well as the veterans and the old right conservatives and even the lefty liberals. When I start hearing stuff about needing to keep the movement "pure" then I know I'm talking to somebody who doesn't understand the movement at all."
Perhaps this fellow should be a campaign reporter instead of Stein.
-----------
PS Ron Paul Forums getting more press, more mainstream people are coming here. Just be aware you are representing now. Not like before. Know you are being analyzed when you post.