Oliver Stone Prefers Ron Paul for President

Filmmaker Oliver Stone prefers Ron Paul to Barak Obama for president!

Speaking to Ed Rampell of Rock Celler magazine, Stone engaged in the following exchange:


Rampell: In Our History you ask if there's "a potential wild card in an internal economic collapse of the empire"? Is America an empire? And if so, do you foresee the fall of the empire?

Stone: Yes. Yes, both. I don't think it's a wild card, I think it's a given. There's no way that we can continue this spending spree. In fact, I think in many ways the most interesting candidate -- I'd even vote for him if he was running against Obama -- is Ron Paul. Because he's the only one of anybody who's saying anything intelligent about the future of the world.

How do we go on being who we are? We have an identity crisis here. But as long as we keep running this fantasy through our minds that we can dominate history, it's not a wild card, it's a given!


Read the entire interview.

Oliver Stone's admiration for Ron Paul is yet another example of Paul's strong appeal to progressives -- and to artists and youth.

This is the crowd the Libertarian Party needs to court if it is to have a future. Instead, the LP is being guided by the Clintonesque neocon Wayne Allyn Root, who insists that the LP's future lies in courting "conservatives" (i.e., the neocon/pro-war Fox News crowd).

Were he ever asked to "discuss" Stone, Root would likely just vomit out one of his boilerplate screeds, ranting about how Stone is a "radical Marxist" who "hates America" etc. Really, Root need only take one of his past rants (they all sound alike), delete "Barak Obama" and insert "Oliver Stone."

Ron Paul's strength is that he appeals to a broad spectrum of thoughtful Americans who have a serious understanding of the dangers of war and empire. Whereas Root has no strengths -- just a few mindless rants that he endlessly reworks and recycles.

That Root supports Gary Johnson is worrisome, and would make me hesitant to support Johnson, were I still an LP member.

Gary Johnson on Israel and Iran

Carol Moore, of the Libertarians for Peace Yahoo Group, gives a heads up on Gary Johnson's views on U.S. support for Israel.

In a December 30, 2011 NPR interview with Robert Siegel, Johnson said:


SIEGEL: By the way, what do you make of Congressman Paul's libertarianism which pointedly does not include respect for the reproductive rights of women?

JOHNSON: Well, that would be one of our differences. I also happen to think that Israel, you know, we were responsible for the creation of Israel and that was through the United Nations; that they've been a strong military ally, that they will remain such. I do not think a military threat right now exists from Iran, but we should be vigilant to that. And I think it's naive to think that Israel is not going to act in their best interests should there be weapons of mass destruction showing themselves.

SIEGEL: And you would say the U.S. should support an Israeli action in that case, if Israel were to act militarily?

JOHNSON: Well, I would argue that that would probably be in our best interest. And to have them do that is a better situation than U.S. men and servicewomen engaged in the same.


Johnson's remarks sound vague and squishy to me. As if he knows that 1. many Libertarians support a strictly non-interventionist foreign policy (i.e., ending all foreign aid and military alliances/favored nations -- no exceptions), and 2. that other Libertarians (e.g. Wayne Allyn Root) want the LP to carve out an exception for Israel (i.e., continued U.S. aid and military alliance).

Johnson's answer sounds like he's hinting that he supports such an exception for Israel, without coming out and saying so unequivocally.

Curiously, while Johnson claims that Israel has been a "strong military ally" of the United States, there are counterclaims that Israel has never been -- legally or officially -- a U.S. ally, because no treaty of alliance has ever been signed between the two nations.

Carol Moore wrote the influential and controversial article, "Is Applying Libertarian Principles to Israel Anti-Semitic?"

Libertarian Party Joins Muslims to Oppose NDAA

An interesting press release from the Council on American Islamic Relations (dated January 2, 2012):


On Tuesday, January 3, representatives of the Libertarian Party and the Green Party will join the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT*) -- a national coalition of major Muslim organizations -- and other civil liberties group leaders at a news conference in Iowa to express their opposition to the unconstitutional nature of the National Defense Authorization Act's detention provisions.

This news conference is intended to convey a broad-based public response to President Obama's signing into law of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that authorizes the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens suspected of terrorism without charge or trial.

WHAT: News Conference on New Law Authorizing Military Detention of U.S. Citizens "Without Charge or Trial"

WHEN: Tuesday, January 3, 11 a.m.

WHERE: Des Moines Marriott Downtown, Sioux City Meeting Room, 700
Grand Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50309

CONTACT: AMT National Director Muhammad Salim Akhtar (773-507-5335)

AMT is an umbrella organization that includes:

Member Organizations:

American Muslim Alliance (AMA)
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)
Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA)
Muslim American Society (MAS)
Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA)
Muslim Students Association-National (MSA-N)
Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA)
North America Imams Federation (NAIF)
United Muslims of America (UMA)

Observer Organizations:

American Muslims for Civic Engagement (AMCE)
Islamic Educational Council of Orange County (IECOC)
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)

SOURCE Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)


This move by the Libertarian Party is especially interesting given Wayne Allyn Root's opposition toward Muslim outreach.

Wayne Allyn Root vs. Glenn Greenwald

Wayne Allyn Root often brags this his articles are widely distributed. Yet it's always the same brainless boilerplate: "I'm so great, Obama is Satan, I'm so famous, I never saw Obama at Columbia, etc."

But how widely read an article is does not benefit Truth or Liberty if that article is a mindless rant.

Today I read a brilliant piece from Glenn Greenwald (a progressive), contrasting the respective moral merits of Ron Paul vs. Barak Obama. Greenwald's article is nuanced, intelligent, informed, and thoughtful, emphasizing understanding and insight over sledgehammer partisanship. It's the exact opposite of Root's moronic screeds.

Reading Glennwald's article about Ron Paul, one can only feel shame and grief that the LP is represented by the idiot scribblings of Root.