Date: 07/09/2010

Transcript

David Asman: Hi everybody. Happy Friday, I’m David Asman. Thanks for joining us. Kicking off tonight; “Obama’s a socialist”. Now that’s the view of 55% of American voters, according to a new poll. Now this isn’t coming from a Republican pollster. It comes from Democracy Core. This is a poling group started by a life long democratic operative, James Carville and his partner, Stan Greenberg. When this group asked 1000 voters in mid June “How well does the term ‘socialist’ fits President Obama?”, 55% said well or very well. That’s a BIG group of people! Now this must scare the HELL out of the elites in the media and academia who think such talk is just a provice of folks like Glenn Beck, not the majority of voters. But YES and yes again; It IS Glen Beck and it IS the American people who now think this way.

And when you look at the evidence it IS hard to dispute it. Nationalizing companies in all industries, overriding constitutional laws regarding property rights…. these ARE socialist policies. It’s fair to assume that the man directing socialist policies IS a socialist. And Americans have always been fair. They were fair to give Obama the benefit of the doubt and elect him and after seeing him in action, they are fair to think he’s a socialist. His recess appointment of the new health czar, Donald Berwick, helps confirm that impression. Remember, HE’S the guy who says that “The only way to improve health care in America is to force the redistribution of wealth in this country.” Now that’s the kind of socialist non-sense you hear in academic circles all the time.

And in academic circles, this talk most of the time goes unchallenged. These folks believe people are poor because other people are rich. They even extend that belief to the entire world, believing that the only reason poor countries exist, the only reason they’re poor is because they were exploited by us, the rich countries. Now that’s called “Dependency Theory”, but it’s really just warmed over socialism and it’s got the same emotional core as socialism, drawing its energy from guilt, from envy and from jealousy.

When these ideas are isolated in academic circles, well they’re just another theory to argue about late at night over coffee and cigarettes. But when they’re played out in reality, they can cause devastation. The world has buried in it far more corpses resulting from the envy of socialism than it has from the greed of capitalism.

Now thankfully most Americans, even inside the beltway, understand that income redistribution is NOT the key to our social problems or to helping health care or to anything else. They understand that the ultimate outcome of that belief is to make everybody poor. Americans don’t want a society that pushes everybody down, they want one that brings everybody up, or at least that provides the opportunity for everyone to succeed as high as they can go.

And it is on those great heights that our next guest has been focused over a lifetime of service as a doctor and as a politician. Joining us now from Clute, Texas, near Houston is Republican congressman, Ron Paul of Texas. Congressman, great to see you, thanks for coming in.

Ron Paul: Thank you, David. Good to be with you.

David Asman: Appreciate you being here. So, what do you make of this poll?

Ron Paul: Haha. Very interesting. I think it is bad news for Obama. It certainly is. But you know, we could be a stickler for a precise definition of socialism, but he certainly is socialistic. He doesn’t come out and advocate total ownership of insurance companies and drug companies and health management companies, but he works very hard with them. So it’s a form of corporatism, which lends itself to socialism. I think it’s very dangerous. I usually like to use the word ‘authoritarian’. People who are authoritarian are very socialistic and it can lead to total socialism and I’m afraid that’s the way we’re going.

But there are certainly different versions. Nazism was a form of socialism, communism, Russian communism was socialism, so there’s a lot of variety. But there is no doubt he is an authoritarian, he’s a big government guy, he’s socialistic. I think it’s bad news for him. And I don’t think socialism is a good word. I don’t think the American people like it. They like the words about freedom and liberty and things like that.

David Asman: They don’t like it, but Congressman, but they are fair. The American people have this tremendous sense of fairness and they were fair, as i mentioned, to elect this guy president and now they’re looking at him, they’re looking at his policies and they think they ARE socialist. I mean, Americans; not only are they fair, they love to boil things down to simple points. And that is a simple point, is it not?

Ron Paul: There’s no doubt about it and that’s why I say it’s very bad news and it’s good news for Republicans in general, you know, in the fall because that’s not the direction that we want to go. And I think this came out, sort of, in the health care debate. The country and the people who railed against it knew which direction we were going in. We weren’t going toward more freedom and medical savings accounts and independent choices and alternatives like that. They knew we were going for more government control and redistribution of wealth as now it finds out his appointees are probably a little more blunt with where their heart really is, and that is into socialism and forced redistribution of wealth and that’s a bad sign for…

David Asman: Well you know he’s the guy who appointed him. You know, the buck stops with him. The buck stops with President Obama. As Harry Truman said, the buck stops with the president. I mean, he’s the guy who appointed him, he knows the history of this guy. He’s appointing a guy to head up, to become our health czar, to become the head of Medicare and Medicaid, who does believe that the only way to get better health care is distributing wealth. I mean, he is appointing these guys. He is nationalizing whole industries and yes he is working with the healthcare companies, but don’t you think eventually those health care companies will go out of business as the government takes over more and more?

Ron Paul: Oh yeah. They’ve taken over insurance companies already so i think that definitely will happen. But we can expect the quality of care to go down and the movement is in that direction. But Obama, on his appointees, some people give the president a pass “because it was his advisors and it wasn’t him,” but like you point out very correctly is we, whether it’s me and my congressional office, or if it’s the president making his appointment, we’re responsible because we pick these people, so he can’t duck and say “Oh I didn’t realize he had these beliefs.” He probably very well knew exactly what the beliefs are of every single person that he has appointed.

David Asman: The fact is that American people are not giving him a pass anymore. They are saying “You are now a socialist!” 55%. By the way, I have to re-emphasize. This is the democratic poll. It comes from James Carville, the most democratic Democrat around. So if Carville is saying, you better expect it to be true. So how does the president get out of this? I mean, is this a label he will not be able to duck for the rest of his presidency?

Ron Paul: I don’t see how he will. I mean the more he gets up and the more he denies it, the more attention it will draw. He’s not going to fire all of these people that he appointed and have these viewpoints and I don’t think he’s going to change HIS viewpoints. And still, I will argue the case that possibly he doesn’t have in his mind that he wants the government owning every single thing. I still think that he’s an authoritarian. I-

David Asman: Now YOU’RE giving him a pass, but the American people… I’m surprised I’m hearing Ron Paul giving the president a pass on this!

Ron Paul: Well, I think actually if you understood what I mean by corporatism-

David Asman: No, I get you.

Ron Paul: it’s a much worse system. It leads to fascism is what it is. I mean in Germany, the business people still own their businesses. You can’t have a worse type of socialism than the German fascism did. So the word itself is a healthy word to identify what’s happening. That’s why I would slightly qualify it; socialistic means he wants to take over and to go in and run things and take care of his buddies and bail out his friends. I mean, they’re still involved with a monetary system where they bail out banks and their friends. That isn’t pure socialism when they use this banking system and the Federal Reserve to bail out big banks and big corporations. So he’s in the pocket of big corporations and big banks and that’s a form of authoritarianism, which just for me is a better description.

David Asman: Well again, a rose is a rose. The point is that politically it’s a killer. This label, if he doesn’t get out from this label, it is really devastating politically. Congressman Paul, stay with us please. We want to bring in James Taranto. He’s a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, he’s written about this also. Tim Carney, of the Washington Examiner, who has also written about it. Tim, first to you. You agree with Ron Paul, by the way, about how socialist is the wrong term, right?

Tim Carney: Well, I absolutely agree that corporatism is the right word. I mean, Congressman Paul said everything that I was going to say. That it’s a corporate socialism. Socialist isn’t an incorrect word, but there are better words and frankly, George W. Bush made us more socialist than we were. He’s the one who took over AIG through the fed, he’s the one who bailed out Bear Stearns and did the tarp and then started the Detroit bailout, so they are better words to use I think.

David Asman: Yeah, but again, James Taranto, I think this is the sort of thing academics discuss at night, whether it’s corporatist or redistributionist or socialist. I mean, the American people have simplified the issue, I think in a sort of an eloquent way, “It doesn’t matter. Look, the guy’s a socialist. He doesn’t agree with the economic ends that we do”.

James Taranto: I think you’re right. I wrote a column a week ago saying that I think calling the president a socialist is a gross exaggeration and perhaps that shows what an out of touch, liberal, mainstream media elitist that I am.

David Asman: Hahaha, absolutely, as always you have. Has this been picked up on by the way? This is one of the things James does if you don’t know, to study the blogs out there, to find out what the Internet chatter is all about. What are they saying about this poll?

James Taranto: It’s getting a lot of attention, it’s getting a lot of interest, especially among conservatives. But I want to go back. What’s fascinating is how this has gotten into the mainstream, this idea that Obama is a socialist. There were two polls done early in this year, in the winter and spring. One by the Daily Kos, although apparently there might not actually have been a poll there. He’s now accused as a pollster of making up numbers. But another one by Harris Interactive which was inspired by a book by a fellow named John Avlon, who’s arguing that conservatives are wing-nuts as he calls them. And also they shouldn’t engage in name calling. So these polls ask a series of questions that are designed to show that Republicans are crazy. So they ask you agree or disagree to the following statements. And there are things like “Obama wasn’t born in America” “Obama is a Muslim” “Obama may be the anti-christ” “Obama is a socialist”, so the idea that Obama is a socialist, a few months is something only right wing lunatics believed, but now according to this poll, it’s believed by about 55% of the American people. It’s quite astonishing how this idea has moved into the mainstream.

David Asman: Congressman, one thing that’s interesting while this label may be sticking to Obama, other labels for people that the mainstream media and others can’t stand, like your son for example, Ran Paul, they tried to label him as a racist by some of the comments he made. That label doesn’t seem to be sticking, does it?

Ron Paul: Well it’s so extreme and in that instance it was based on a false charge and it wasn’t even correct and there had to be apologies for misconstruing what he said, and you can go too far. And once again, I think you have to give the American people some credit. You know, I’ve been hit pretty hard in a few of my campaigns over the various issues, but sometimes they were just very extreme and the people that knew me in the district were like “Eh we don’t believe that,” and it just passes by them. So I think that is what happens, but it looks like in THIS case, like it was just pointed out, calling him a socialist seems to be pretty appropriate because it seems it was the same percentage that said he was too liberal. So being too liberal and being a socialist is very much the same and I think that’s probably a legitimate comparison.

David Asman: Well James, you were complaining about the term socialist before and you said it’s like you have these wing nuts on the left who were calling Bush a fascist during Bush’s presidency, but you never had 55% of the American public believing that Bush was a fascist. At most it was maybe 20% of the American public. This has gone beyond wing nut, the label socialist.

James Taranto: Yes, and Bush was not even arguably a fascist, there was nothing fascist about Bush’s administration. I mean, there was no effort to silence opposition.

David Asman: But what I’m saying is that the effort to label Bush as a fascist cannot be similar to the effort to label Obama a socialist because the level of American people never came up to 55%.

James Taranto: But this was the contrast I raised. I said calling Bush a fascist was a complete falsehood, whereas calling Obama a socialist is merely a gross exaggeration.

David Asman: Or just a matter of opinion. Tim, what about what’s happened to Rand Paul and other conservatives by the mainstream media, their attempts to label them racist or something abhorrent have failed and have fallen on deaf ears in the American public, have they not?

Tim Carney: Well, yes they have, but it’s incredible because this is all that I see the left talking about. I have a lot of liberal friends and I always say to them, “Why is the most important thing for you to try to bring down Rand Paul or bring down Sharron Angle when your party is in power and is doing, again, this corporatist stuff, this selling out the liberal base,” but on the left I think they are sort of averting their eyes to that and to sort of pick on people who have ideas that are easy to pick apart and that’s what’s going on with Ran Paul and Sharron Angle.

David Asman: Congressman Paul, I just want you to be assured that Scoreboard has many times pointed out the connections between the Obama administration and a lot of corporate entities such as Goldman Sachs, like BP for example. There was no bigger supporter of BP among politicians than President Obama.

Ron Paul: Yeah, that’s right and of course and we find out that BP was a strong supporter of cap and trade, and they were in bed with the government in many ways. So that’s why this connection between big governing corporations is the big and most serious thing going on right now. But the concern about socialism is real and realistic and the people are interpreting it right, even though there might be a technical definition that we all have a slight disagreement on, but I don’t think that’s really too important because I think it’s the direction of the country that counts. You know, when they these questions in all these poles, “are we satisfied with the direction of the country?” and they are not satisfied in the way we are going socialistic, believe me, simplisticly they say “Wrong direction, change the party”.

David Asman: James, I think that’s the point is you know you will never find a 100% of anything whether its capitalism, socialism, it depends on what trend you’re directing towards and clearly it’s THAT trend that concerns the American public.

James Taranto: Well, right, and to some extent when people say “Obama is a socialist,” it’s their way of expressing disapproval for him. Just like when people say “He may be the anti-christ,” or “He wasn’t born in America”, that’s why you get bigger answers to those questions among Republicans. It doesn’t really tell you anything about what they believe except they don’t like Obama.

David Asman: James Taranto from The Wall Street Journal, Tim Carney, Washington Examiner and of course Congressman Ron Paul. Great to see you all, have a wonderful weekend and actually, James is going to be coming back in just a moment and we want to know what you think. “President Obama is a Socialist”, is that declaration a buy, sell or a hold.

Socialism vs Corporatism

by Ron Paul

Lately many have characterized this administration as socialist, or having strong socialist leanings. I differ with this characterization. This is not to say Mr. Obama believes in free-markets by any means. On the contrary, he has done and said much that demonstrates his fundamental misunderstanding and hostility towards the truly free market. But a closer, honest examination of his policies and actions in office reveals that, much like the previous administration, he is very much a corporatist. This in many ways can be more insidious and worse than being an outright socialist.

Socialism is a system where the government directly owns and manages businesses. Corporatism is a system where businesses are nominally in private hands, but are in fact controlled by the government. In a corporatist state, government officials often act in collusion with their favored business interests to design polices that give those interests a monopoly position, to the detriment of both competitors and consumers.

A careful examination of the policies pursued by the Obama administration and his allies in Congress shows that their agenda is corporatist. For example, the health care bill that recently passed does not establish a Canadian-style government-run single payer health care system. Instead, it relies on mandates forcing every American to purchase private health insurance or pay a fine. It also includes subsidies for low-income Americans and government-run health care “exchanges”. Contrary to the claims of the proponents of the health care bill, large insurance and pharmaceutical companies were enthusiastic supporters of many provisions of this legislation because they knew in the end their bottom lines would be enriched by Obamacare.

Similarly, Obama’s “cap-and-trade” legislation provides subsidies and specials privileges to large businesses that engage in “carbon trading.” This is why large corporations, such as General Electric support cap-and-trade.

To call the President a corporatist is not to soft-pedal criticism of his administration. It is merely a more accurate description of the President’s agenda.

When he is a called a socialist, the President and his defenders can easily deflect that charge by pointing out that the historical meaning of socialism is government ownership of industry; under the President’s policies, industry remains in nominally private hands. Using the more accurate term – corporatism – forces the President to defend his policies that increase government control of private industries and expand de facto subsidies to big businesses. This also promotes the understanding that though the current system may not be pure socialism, neither is it free-market since government controls the private sector through taxes, regulations, and subsidies, and has done so for decades.

Using precise terms can prevent future statists from successfully blaming the inevitable failure of their programs on the remnants of the free market that are still allowed to exist. We must not allow the disastrous results of corporatism to be ascribed incorrectly to free market capitalism or used as a justification for more government expansion. Most importantly, we must learn what freedom really is and educate others on how infringements on our economic liberties caused our economic woes in the first place. Government is the problem; it cannot be the solution.

Ron Paul: “The question has been raised whether or not our president is a socialist. And I’m sure there are some people here [at the SRLC] who believe it and I know this conference has talked about that already and I think that is very important, he deserves a lot of criticism. But you know, in the technical sense, in the economic definition of a socialist, no, he’s not a socialist. What he is is a corporatist and unfortunately, we have corporatists in the Republican party and that means you take care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country. We see that in the financial institution, we see it in the military-industrial complex, and now we see it in the medical-industrial complex who runs medicine.”

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Spending Freeze Not Likely

by Ron Paul

Last week politicians in Washington made a few things clear about how they really feel about the state of the union. First, they are beginning to hear the growing discontent with the size and scope of government and the broken promises that keep piling up. Certain events in Massachusetts recently made that statement loud, clear and unavoidable. In the face of those events, the powers that be made the determination that some populist rhetoric was in order, and the idea of a spending freeze in Washington was proposed, albeit with several caveats. These caveats to the proposed spending freeze ensure that we are not at any real risk of actually doing anything about spending.

First of all is timing. It wouldn’t go into effect until 2011, which allows plenty of time to increase spending levels quite a bit before they are frozen. If the administration really understood and cared about our spending problems they would not freeze spending a year from now, but cut spending immediately and significantly. But, spending cuts almost never happen in Washington, and they are not likely now or a year from now – if the politicians have anything to say about it.

The second caveat is the huge areas of the budget that are shielded from this freeze. The entire State Department budget is exempt, as are all entitlements, all military industrial spending and almost all foreign aid. Fully 7/8 of federal spending is excluded from this freeze, and some areas to be frozen were actually set to decrease, which means a freeze actually guarantees a higher level of spending.

Especially insulting is the idea that in spite of our own fiscal problems at home, taxpayer dollars will continue to be sent overseas in the form of foreign aid where it often does more harm than good. When need is demonstrated to Americans and they can afford it, they can be counted on for a tremendous outpouring of private, voluntary charity to worthy aid organizations, as we recently saw in Haiti. By contrast, government-to-government aid is taken from the poor by force and too often enriches the corrupt. It is counterproductive and wasteful. But the idea of eliminating, freezing, or reducing foreign aid is not up for serious debate any time soon.

The third caveat is what is included in the freeze that would make it politically impossible to pass Congress, for example air traffic controllers salaries, education, farm subsidies and national parks.

I do not necessarily want a cut in spending in this country – I just want to change who does the spending. The spending should be done by the people who earn the money, if they choose, and on what they choose, without any government interference. That is what makes the economy work. Politicians should stick to the very limited roles given them by the constitution instead of allocating such a sizeable portion of our capital and intervening through regulations and tax policy. But because politicians have disregarded the constitution, and the people have no idea what rule they will break next, there is already a very real spending freeze underway in this economy, by the people. If government would stick only to what it was authorized to do, and leave the rest to the people, most of these problems would resolve themselves.

Channel: MSNBC
Date: 4/14/2009

President Obama: I know there is a criticism out there that my administration has been spending with reckless abandon, pushing a liberal social agenda while mortgaging our children’s future. The worst thing that we could do in a recession is to try to cut government spending at the same time as families and business around the world are cutting back on their spending.

News Anchor: President Obama spoke to his critics directly earlier today saying the last thing the government should be doing during a recession is cutting back on spending and one of the critics of the president has been Republican Congressman Ron Paul. He joins us now live on the phone from Jackson, Texas. Thank you so much for joining us, sir.

Ron Paul: Thank you, good to be with you.

News Anchor: Let me get your thoughts on what you heard today from the president saying that they got a plan, they have seen some success, but are not out of the woods yet.

Ron Paul: Boy, that’s for sure. I think that we haven’t even come close to having a policy that might get us out of the woods because we’re doing exactly what got us into the problem; we’re spending more, regulating more, having new programs, printing more money and they’re trying to re-inflate the bubble. And it’s the bubble that was the problem in the first place. And he assured us today that he is never going to let this happen again, never have another bubble and everything he said today, he was pushing, you know, inflating the financial bubble. He even talked about how fractional reserve banking contributes to the bubble. So, I don’t think people can be very hopeful that this is going to solve our problem.

News Anchor: Well, let me look at some of the spending. You got the president just yesterday announcing the 2000 transportation project, he says, funded by the stimulus. He also talked about government sector layoffs that were canceled, as a result some of the police departments have been able to keep on officers, and just yesterday Goldman Sacks reported surprising profits saying that because of the help they received they might be able to pay back the TARP funds they got from the government.

Ron Paul: But the problem is that nobody in Washington (a bureaucrat or a politician) is smart enough to know how to allocate capital. So if you take that and if you see a so called benefit you don’t know where that money might have gone elsewhere. It might have gone into something productive. So, nobody knows whether building a highway is the most productive thing to do. Maybe the most productive thing to do is to save the money and build a plant or to build a steel plant or something.

News Anchor: So since no one knows, why not try?

Ron Paul: Why not try capitalism is what I’m saying. Why not try freedom and let the market work? We haven’t allowed it to work for so many decades. But they’re falling in the same trap like in the 1930s. They’re blaming capitalism and free market choices for this problem and that’s why we can’t expect it to work, because he claims that… you know… the worst thing we did in the depression and all these other times was we didn’t send enough money and that’s what prolonged the depression. But …

News Anchor: But wasn’t it the spending for the war that ended it?

Ron Paul: Pardon me?

News Anchor: But wasn’t it the spending for the war that helped this country during the depression?

Ron Paul: No, that’s not true because at the end of the 1930s when the war was starting it put people to work, but they were still very, very poor and they had rationing. I remember those days, and the economy was very weak and here at home the people were suffering and there were shortages. The depression ended after the war, after the war taxes were cut by one third, spending was cut by two thirds and he’s claiming never cut spending. The end of the depression came with cutting spending and cutting taxes.

News Anchor: Congressman, let me get this in real quick this was this Gallup poll of Americans asking who they were confident in right now to fix this economy. 71% said President Obama, 51% said the Democratic leadership, 38% say Republican leadership. You bring up the war and getting people back to work. The president said more job losses and foreclosure on the way, but even with that bleak outlook, and you hit hard with the jobs issue, it looks like Americans still have confidence in this president over the Republican party.

Ron Paul: Well, of course, that doesn’t prove a whole lot because they had a lot of confidence in Roosevelt and he prolonged the depression so I don’t think that’s very much of an argument at all. The only thing it changes things is not personalities. It has to be economic policies and the ideas of freedom and free choices and sound money and the Federal Reserve. If we don’t talk about that we can’t solve the problems.

You just can’t keep inflating an economy through the creation of new money and credit. That’s how we got into the mess, that’s how the bubble was created. It finally collapsed, the market is saying you have to have a correction. Individuals have corrections and he admitted it. The people who are out there, they’re tightening their belts, they’re looking for jobs, they’re working hard and they’re saving their money. That’s what a country has to do as well. You can’t start a war to get out of a depression. That scares the living daylights out of me.

News Anchor: I know there is a lot more to talk about here and I wish we could continue but we’re out of time. Thank you for making time for us today.

Ron Paul: Thank you.

Channel: CNN
Date: 4/14/2009

Transcript

News Anchor: …eventually went to John McCain, and Congressman Paul is on the line with us. Congressman, thanks for your time, we appreciate it.

Ron Paul: Thank you, good to be with you.

News Anchor: Hey congressman, do you give the president’s policies credit for thawing markets and auto sales and student loans? What do you think about what the president said in his speech?

Ron Paul: Well, I don’t think a whole lot of it. I think we had a new deal and a fair deal, but I think this is going to be a bad deal and not help at all. But I don’t blame him for the problems, I blame him for the prolongation of this, because he was very explicit by saying that government shouldn’t cut back on spending. He wants to massively increase the spending. And therefore, he is going to prolong it.

But this was a long time in building. This took 25-30 years to build the bubble. And everything he talks about is re-inflating the bubble and buying up bad assets and then later on we’ll deal with discipline. But he had mentioned that individuals don’t want to spend money because they’re doing the correct thing. They’re cutting back, they’re saving. That’s what an individual is supposed to do.

But a country shouldn’t be any different. When you spend beyond your means and have too much debt, too much borrowing, that’s what you have to do. And his statement that if government didn’t do this it would prolong the depression… he’s absolutely wrong on that because that is the understanding of the depression. It was prolonged because of the intervention of Hoover and Roosevelt.

News Anchor: Okay, congressman, let me jump in and ask you this: Do you believe the markets would have cleared away the wreckage in our economy, to use the president’s words here, without the 787 billion dollars stimulus package?

Ron Paul: Well, it wouldn’t be completely done, but this way it is going to go on for years and years and they’re going to destroy the dollar. I’ve use the analogy about a sound foundation, but the foundation should be on a sound dollar, and he never even mentioned the Federal Reserve. The only time he talked about money was when he said, “you know, if we create one dollar and put it in the bank we get interest 7 or 8 dollars”. He’s preaching inflation and that’s how you destroy the value of the dollar. That’s actually the way you liquidate debt, too. Unfortunately that is a tragic way of liquidating debt, because you punish those ‘foolish’ people who are out saving money and planning for their future because they want to take care of themselves. So we preach a deliberate policy of ruining the people who act fiscally responsible.

News Anchor: Go you. So you clearly are suggesting that a different set of policies would have shortened the duration of this downturn. Give me a couple of areas… just two… that’s all I have time for, I’m sorry. But give me two policies that you would have pursued differently from the president, that might have curtailed the length and depth of this recession.

Ron Paul: Okay, maybe if General Motors went bankrupt one year ago and somebody bought up the bad assets, so they can get their house in order or something, that would have been over and done with and we’d be back buying their cars by now. Because right now we are not going to buy their cars, because we don’t know what the government is going to do to GM. The same way with…

News Anchor: Did you suggest that to President Bush, “Hey, GM is in trouble, let them go under?”

Ron Paul: No, but that’s why I said that Obama isn’t to blame to all this, this has been a long time coming, and that’s what we have to understand. It’s Keynesian interventionist economics that we’re pursuing, they went awry and now all we’re doing is accelerating it. It leads to a business-government partnership which trends towards fascism.

News Anchor: Wow!

Ron Paul: It is socialism, but when you get in bed together and businesses are owned and regulated and controlled, that adds a fascist aspect to socialism.

News Anchor: Okay, can I say something to you? You know what? Very few people will remember the context in which you used that word ‘fascism’. Is that responsible to toss that word around?

Ron Paul: Well, that is if you don’t understand economic fascism versus military fascism, and I am not referring to military fascism. I’m strictly talking economic terms and there is an economic fascism where government and business are partners. And when businesses get into trouble they love that. Is it the [big] guy that’s going to have the tax rallies tomorrow? No. It’s not the big guys. The big guys are getting all the benefits. The little guys are having the rebellion because they haven’t received anything. So they are sick of this type of partnership where the big guys get bailed out and when times are good they get low taxes and they make million. But no, I think you have to understand there is a difference between economic fascism and military fascism.

News Anchor: Well, I wanted to at least give you an opportunity to expand on that statement. Congressman Paul, thanks for your time. We appreciate it.

Ron Paul: Thank you.

Source: Campaign for Liberty
Date: 2/22/2009

Transcript:

Ron Paul: Well the administration has just announced a new bailout for the housing market, 275 billion dollars; 75 billion dollars of new money and 200 billion dollars coming from the TARP funds that would go to propping up Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. But so far the markets aren’t buying it, the markets still remain in the doldrums and it seems like in the past year one program after another. More spending, more borrowing, more inflating and there’s no reassurance but we shouldn’t be surprised because we can’t get out of this mess by merely doing what we’ve been doing all along getting us into this mess.

But the whole idea that the people who have been paying their mortgages should now suffer the consequence of bailing out those who can’t pay their mortgages; those individuals who got mortgages, that really didn’t qualify, no down payments, borrowed against the increase and the value of their house. And now they’re saying: “Well there’s 92%. See it’s about 92% of the people are doing okay and paying their mortgage.” 8% of defaults are causing these problems that we have and I’m sure there’s some innocent people being involved and ultimately a lot of innocent people suffer from the dependency on inflation. Inflation of course is when the Federal Reserve tries to solve its problems or manage the economy by increasing money and credit out of thin air and artificially fixing interest rates.

But a characteristic of monetary inflation is the middles class gets wiped out. So right now the middle class has not been wiped out but if we continue to do this, we will wipe out the middle class. But right now what we’re trying to do is find more victims and the victims have to be those individuals who have been paying their mortgages, probably saving some money and living within their means and now they have to bail out not only those who didn’t pay their mortgages but all the Wall Streeters, the mortgage companies, insurance companies, the housing industry and the developers and the builders; they’ll all want bail out too and of course the banks on Wall Street as well had been getting this bail out.

But it can’t work, it won’t work and the sooner we wake up and realize what we need, we need to allow the market to liquidate the bad debt, get rid of the mal-investment, encourage people not to spend but encourage people to live within their means; pay their bills, get rid of their debt and save some money. And when that is accomplished and there’s a little bit of money in the bank and they’re feeling better about themselves they’ll go back to spending but the faster that occurs the better. But everything the government has done in the past year has delayed the correction and that’s why we’re facing serious consequences in the future because right now I don’t see any decent proposals coming out of Washington; either from the administration, from the Federal Reserve or the Congress. It’s all more the same, sadly so.

Lately I’ve been getting more questions about Afghanistan, they want to know what I think is happening over there. So far I don’t think anything good is happening because right now we’re having another military surge and all I can say about it is Obama’s sticking to his word because he was honest with us during the campaign. He did say that he would send more troops into Afghanistan and he is but I can’t see how anything good will come from it.

We’re not learning one thing from history; whether it was the British or whether it was the Soviets, it’s a dead end street to try to militarize Afghanistan. As bad as Iraq is and has been, Afghanistan is going to be much worse. But Obama has announced that 17,000 more troops will be moved in there, that along with the troops we already have that will take us up to 60,000 plus the troops from our allies under NATO, the troops’ level will be up to a hundred, hundred thousand. The Soviets at one time had a hundred fifty thousand troops in there and they couldn’t control Afghanistan. And it is very costly and it looks like it’s going to be a quagmire and I see no good purpose coming from this. And unfortunately if this thing gets out of control which it very well could because we’re literally bombing Pakistan from Afghanistan and this war is liable to spread which means if it gets out of control it’s going to move us in the direction of the administration wanting to oppose the military draft on our young people. The sooner we get out of Afghanistan the better.

The market certainly did not do well this week; whether it was the signal we’re getting from gold, the signal we’re getting from the stocks, things look very bad and it shouldn’t surprise us. A lot of people say that we’ve been in a bear market since the fall of 2007, but I don’t believe that’s true. I think the market place has been in a bear market since the year 2000. Yes the Dow reached new highs but that was only because of the tremendous bubble that was built by the Federal Reserve through the inflation in the last 10 years and finally they built, after this Dow and the NASDAQ collapsed they were able to create a new bubble; the housing bubble and then that finally collapsed. Right now actually they’ve created a new bubble, one more bubble and that’s the bond market and that’s the last one that will finally dissipate.

But the markets are indicating that there’s no confidence in what the government is doing. No confidence in the Congress or the executive branch or in the Federal Reserve. And there’s an old saying that I think is appropriate it says “Pushing on a string”. They’re trying to push in a lot of credit and a lot of new financing but if the confidence isn’t there it doesn’t work and that’s what’s happening. The confidence is gone because the dollar system has ended. The dollar system that was devised after Bretton Woods in 1971, that is gone and they’re frantically trying to keep that together. But the best measurement of what they are doing in devaluing our currency is the traditional relationship of any currency to gold.

During the Bush years it was not good, the dollar lost 69% of its value in terms of gold. In the old days, if you had a 10% devaluation of currency it was big news but here it’s 69% devaluation and people hardly blink to nod because they don’t think in terms of gold and they don’t think in terms of constitution of money and they’re just thinking in terms of managing the economy and nobody paid any attention to it but it seems to be getting worse.

The one thing that has been very, very clear cut since Obama has become President and that is gold is acting almost only like a currency. A good, sound money, commodity money is both a good commodity as well as money. No one individual of one country makes gold money, that came about through history and is by tradition so it is money but it’s acting like money now. And gold of course before the week ended went over a thousand dollars. Just think, just think of the record of the Federal Reserve, and nobody really questions the Federal Reserve except more, there are a lot more all the time. But when the Federal Reserve took over, 1/20th of a dollar could buy 1/20th of an ounce of gold. Today a dollar would’ve bought 1/1000th of an ounce of gold and that is 98% depreciation of our money. And lo and behold, even the consumer price index, if you look at the consumer price index of 1913 compared to now it’ worth 3 to 4 cents, so it’s a very good measurement.

But the real message is that there’s a lot more inflation to come. This week everybody was just shocked; shocked because producer price index went up at a rate of 9% per year. In spite of the weak economy they say “Oh that’s just a fluke, that can’t happen.”You can’t have prices going up, you can’t have price inflation in the oncoming week. Demand is down, oil prices are supposed to drop; yeah but gasoline prices are going up, medical care costs are going up, insurance costs are going up because we have to look at the value of money.

So I think we’re seeing singles now, that there’s a lot more inflation to come and that the policies that we have been pursuing for the past year or so are nothing more than the policies that got us into this mess. And the sooner we wake up and realize what we need is a market economy and we need less spending, we need savings and then maybe we’ll get back to work and solve this problem.

But today in this past week, the markets did not send a very good signal and they’re reason to us in government that were doing the right thing. The signal is change our ways, the government should change our ways, the Federal Reserve should change our policies and quite frankly I think I intend to ask Bernanke some of these very same questions because he will be before the financial services committee next week and oh by the way, Volcker will be before the joint economic committee on which I sit so I might get to quiz him as well.

In the interview, Ron Paul reveals the name of the person who is most responsible for the crisis, condemns the scaremongering tactics and planned takeover by Obama and his cronies, and reports on the shenanigans surrounding the passage of the stimulus bill.

Station: 1210 AM The Big Talker
Host: Dom Giordano
Date: 2/17/2009

Transcript:

Dom Giordano: We’re happy to welcome back Representative Ron Paul, Congressman Ron Paul in the Big Talker 1210; Congressman welcome back.

Ron Paul: Thank you good to be with you.

Dom Giordano: Well Congressman, I had Bill Press on last night. Every prominent person I bring on, we’ve been asking them, coming off TIME magazine, who are the one, two or three people, because there are a lot of them I guess, that are responsible if you had to sort out responsibility for where we are now?

Ron Paul: Of course, sometimes I think immediately about the philosophy that does it rather than the individual.

Dom Giordano: Okay.

Ron Paul: But who were the individuals that did it? But philosophically it’s the economic system we have of interventionism and inflationism and the Federal Reserve. But I would put the person who’s had the biggest contribution to the bubble was Alan Greenspan.

Dom Giordano: Greenspan, yup, and for what reason? What did he do?

Ron Paul: Well because he was there so long, and every single time the market was saying things are getting out of kilter and out of whack and the market wanted to correct, he would inflate more and aggressively and not allow any correction to happen; so he kept the bubble going much longer. So his sophistication in preventing the recessions actually created the situation to be much worse than we’ve ever had before. So I think he’s on the top of the list.

After that I have to look to both the Congresses and the Executive Branch, and I would think the Republicans were every bit as responsible as the Democrats, because unfortunately during the last 8 years Bush didn’t veto one single spending bill. When you run up deficits you put more pressure on the Alan Greenspans to print the money, and that’s where the bubble comes around. So I don’t put more blame on Clinton than I do on Bush, and then if you look at all the Speakers of the House for the last 25, 30 years you have to blame them as well.

Dom Giordano: You’re rolling. I think we should make you the commissioner; I’m looking for a commissioner. You’d be the perfect guy because you go after all of them Dr. Paul.

Ron Paul: Yes, but what about the people? Maybe you could blame the people too they’re the ones who wanted freebies. They want the free welfare and corporate welfare.

Dom Giordano: The American consumer but our listeners have given it zero so far, but TIME magazine has the American consumer in fifth place. They haven’t blamed you; I don’t think you ever will be for this. Let me ask, in your view, how much of this was fuelled by the Housing Crisis and then how much by the separation between the bank and the bank investment type of thing? Those are the two principle causes a lot of people throw at.

Ron Paul: The separation has nothing to do with it. I mean, it seemed to have because there was so much inflation, but if you have sound money people can’t speculate and overextend themselves, so I don’t think that is it. Now the housing bubble, they say the housing bubble was the cause. That was one of the major symptoms; it was just one of the things that had been severely inflated. Actually our corrections finally got a foothold in the year 2000; that’s when NASDAQ collapsed, you know up to 5000 and that never recovered just because DOW went back up again and touched on new highs.

The real message came in the year 2000 and then, once again Greenspan comes in and he says, “Wow this is dangerous, I got to really print the money.” And so he goes full force and he says “Create one more bubble; the housing bubble,” and he was able to do that. The Housing bubble was just a symptom just like the NASDAQ was a symptom, but right now the big bubble is in the Treasury bills and that’s Bernanke’s bubble. People are still buying Treasury bills and parking their money and hesitant to spend it and invest it and do all those things that free markets are supposed to do, so we had a very bad time with Greenspan creating the bubble. But Bernanke is every bit as dangerous now because he’s on the verge of totally destroying the dollar.

Dom Giordano: When we got to the middle of September, Congressman Paul, did you think, even if it was the wrong corrective, did you think we were facing any kind of economic Armageddon? Was that overblown in your view, or do we have real fundamental problems because of all these things that were done that we were going toward a collapse?

Ron Paul: Well, I think it was very, very serious but I think they used it to overstate it to promote what they wanted, not to do the right thing. Now it was very serious, but if you had done the right thing you should have told the people “Look it’s tough. It’s just like if you spend too much you have to go back to work and pay off your debt, and we as a nation can do it. We’ve done it before. It will take up a year or so and there’s going to be some unemployment,” and reassure them that we can all get back on our feet. Cut the taxes, cut the spending, reduce regulations and it wouldn’t have been so bad. But they weren’t intending to do that they wanted to expand the government especially you know, with this new administration. I mean, has Obama come in and said “Oh you know, things are okay and tomorrow it’ll be alright.”? You know, he’s scaring the death out of everybody because he wants to take charge. He and his cronies want to take total control of everything, and even today the speech he gave I mean it just scares, it should scare everybody about how much the government’s taking over. I mean we are moving rapidly toward total nationalization.

Dom Giordano: Yeah I think that’s exactly right. Now before we go forward and take listeners inside the stimulus, you put up a video and I’d like you to tell them where people can find the video, where they can do an extended basis, lay out what it was like going through the stimulus.

Ron Paul: The one video that was watched a whole lot is up on the CampaignforLiberty.com [also on Youtube; transcript here]

Dom Giordano: CampaignforLiberty.com, okay.

Ron Paul: Right. It might not be right at the top of the page now you might have to go down a little but it can be found on CampaignforLiberty.com.

Dom Giordano: Now what was it like for you, you have to be crawling the walls given your position on a lot of these things, that you weren’t able to offer amendments? I guess there wasn’t much real debate as they surged toward… And was it true, this had to be voted on Friday because Speaker Pelosi was headed off to Italy?

Ron Paul: Well, that’s all we, you know, part of it, but they wanted it before we took that break, because we were not in session this week, so that was probably the biggest motivation. The fact that we had a break, people had these trips planned, so there’s probably been a lot of people making trips. I happened to be in my district here in Texas. But they needed to get it down into this momentum type of thing, and Obama going out there and parading around and bragging how much they’ve done in this short of period of time. And when I look at what they do, it just depresses me on what they’re doing here or there, they’re chanting and cheering on how wonderful, how much they’ve achieved in these short few weeks.

Dom Giordano: Doctor Paul, with your words now I’m following the poll in real time on my website. The American consumer has shot up now to be 7% of the problem and Bill Clinton has dropped 40%. You’re a magic maker here, you can run elections here in my show and Alan Greenspan now is at 13%. He was a…

Ron Paul: And they put Bernanke real close to him.

Dom Giordano: What do you see, what can you tell me because I had on the woman who at best in the popular media of exposed the notion, there were healthcare restrictions in here that could lead to some pretty serious stuff. What do you think is in there as far as the healthcare restrictions they’re going with through the government?

Ron Paul: What they’ve done is they’ve opened up a new database and the Federal Government will control it, and the way I understand it every transaction will have to be reported to the Federal Government. That means if I’m the physician and you’re the patient, anything we do or say or touch, there’s going to be a record of this to make sure that I gave you the right advice, and gave you the right medication, and didn’t overstep my bounds, didn’t use more expensive medicine than I have to. It is a huge bureaucracy. If anybody cares about the doctor-patient relationship, they should be very, very concerned because it’s been undermined for decades now. But what they’re doing now is really practically destroying it, totally and completely.

Dom Giordano: And I believe also in there we were told that there’s also this notion of forcing physicians like you to follow so-called best practices. In other words, you know, you don’t have this idea of what your doctor might use in his judgment. You’re going to have a computer model to contain cost. That’s also in there.

Ron Paul: Right. And you know, medicine has become very defensive. I’m not currently practicing but early in my career I didn’t worry about it, but later on everything that I did, especially since I was an O.B. it was, “Hmmm how is this going to be interpreted tomorrow? If something goes wrong, out of my control, out of everybody’s control, but if it goes wrong, how am I going to explain it to the attorneys?” So first you had the attorneys, now you’re going to have to explain it to the bureaucrats. Because if you don’t fulfil their protocol they’ll come in and suspend your license, they’ll put you on a blacklist and all kinds of things. So there’s going to be a lot of people who won’t want to practice under those conditions.

Dom Giordano: We’re talking with Doctor Ron Paul, Congressman Ron Paul. I watched some of your video presentation today and in there too you talk about the notion, and I kind of share this and fingered it. You run up the bill to over a trillion of what you’re going to put in, and then when somebody cuts out a hundred billion you go, “Wow we’ve cut out the pork.” I mean it’s the oldest game in the world.

Ron Paul: Yeah, and it’s sort of a psychological trick that they play. The other thing that bothers me a whole lot was you know, the effort I made to read the bill and find the bill and it wasn’t available the night before. It became available on a website after midnight, and of course nobody’s reading a thousand-page bill at midnight. There were essentially no hard copies until the next day, there were 5 total for the whole House. They were on the House floor and they were not bound, they still had scribbles on the side which were considered authentic, there was still some handwriting.

Dom Giordano: Ohh! And you’re voting on a…

Ron Paul: And we’re voting on it, but the other thing is that they went when I was checking with my staff, “Do you have it? Do you have it?” – “Oh no but we have 120 pages of it because so and so sent it to us here.” Some of the staff people who were their friends, they take care of their friends and they send copies of it out to the lobbyists. So the lobbyists through the banks or some other groups sent it to my staff and that’s how I got the information.

Dom Giordano: Wow.

Ron Paul: If that isn’t an insult, I don’t know what is.

Dom Giordano: I’m loving the handwriting on the side too, and this is what we’re voting 800 billion dollars on.

Ron Paul: Yes right, there you go.

Dom Giordano: Doctor Paul thanks for fighting the good fight on this one. Would you please give that website where people can go and see this video?

Ron Paul: CampaignforLiberty.com

Dom Giordano: Thanks Doctor Ron Paul. Thank you for joining us tonight.

Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss

On November 4th, 2008, 8,538,559 more people voted for Barack Obama than did for John McCain, giving Obama a landslide victory in the Electoral College. Mr. Obama won this election by doing what most other campaigns try to do: run against the establishment on a message of ‘change’, not just in the superficial and artificial sense, but in a meaningful and profound way. Among other commitments, Obama promised to restore the rule of law and our cherished Constitutional principles. Touting his career as a Constitutional lawyer and law professor, Obama gave some hope to civil libertarians by denouncing torture, domestic spying, and Guantanamo Bay. He danced around these issues all the while voting for the FISA amendment and perpetuating his double-talk; saying one thing, and doing another.

Now that he’s been President for several weeks, Obama has begun to deal with an issue that is very dear to my heart: civil liberties. Throughout every one of his executive orders President Obama gave the appearance of reversing the policies of George Bush. However, he has left, and continues to leave, loopholes that allow for torture and extraordinary rendition. He is even open to “modified military commissions.” He will take over a year to close Guantanamo and he will allow the CIA to operate our empire overseas despite the predictable blowback that would result from this. He will continue to allow our troops to be stationed in over 135 countries across the globe. He will continue giving money to dictatorships. Essentially, the product was not as advertised. Barack Obama will not significantly change US policy. The deception continues.

The use and abuse of executive branch powers under Barack Obama will apparently be used no less than they were under his predecessor, George W. Bush. The office of the President of the United States of America, over the past 60 years, has grown increasingly and progressively more powerful and aggressive. This power has been taken forcefully by presidents over the years, each adding his own contribution and helping to set unfortunate precedent. Each president has used a ‘crisis’ to usurp more power from the Congress and the Legislature; Bush used the 9/11 attacks and Obama will use the economic crisis. The use of executive orders with almost no oversight from Congress or the courts will continue with Obama.

All of these culminate into one large disappointment for civil libertarians who believe in civil liberty, non-interventionism, and sound Constitutional principles. More and more it is becoming apparent that the vast majority of politicians in Washington are two sides of the same coin. More important and more worrisome, is the complete media blackout about important issues such as the Federal Reserve, our national sovereignty, third party candidates, monetary policy, and our foreign policy blow back.

Many Obama supporters may become disillusioned with their leader and may turn to a third party. Many Republicans may tire of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and may do the same. Both Democrats and Republicans may become so disillusioned with their leadership in Congress that they may look to real alternatives, like Ron Paul. He represents more than himself; he represents a large swath of patriots in this country who reject the two self-serving corporate parties.

Now is the time to grow the Ron Paul movement. Spread the message! From 2009 and into the future, the Ron Paul Revolution lives on.

Show: Alex Jones Show
Channel: Genesis Communication Network
Date: 1/20/2009

Transcript:

Alex Jones: Now without further ado, Congressman Ron Paul, for the next 20 minutes, joins us. Congressman, the 44th president with messianic media coverage, I mean is this good in history? We’ve never seen this in American history to have someone being worshipped and the media saying, “get behind him, do whatever he says”, and then Obama says another banker bailout, a new bank of the U.S. that’s private, just a youth brigade, he’s formed USAService.org, at private army for himself to go out and ensure his policies, literally out of Mao’s playbook. Congressman?

Ron Paul: Well no, I don’t think it’s a good idea at all, and he can fool a lot of people. But you know, I was watching the speech he gave on business station, it was interesting he wasn’t reassuring the market. I mean the gold is up sharply and the Dow Jones is down sharply, so if he really was reassuring us that he was going to take care of us. I think the markets would have acted differently. But a lot of people are fooled and a lot of people are expecting a whole lot and think that he is going to be a savior, but I think it will be short lived.

Alex Jones: Congressman, as you know they introduced a new bill to give dictatorial power to the attorney general to where he can ban any semi-automatic or any “rifles” that could have a military use, most rifles and shotguns and handguns, that has been introduced. They are introducing a bill to nationally register all firearms. I mean, out of the gate, he’s saying he’s going to call for a carbon tax and declare CO2 a toxic waste. We thought Bush crippling the size of government was bad. What are we facing, Sir? What are the biggest threats right now from the new Obama administration that just launched?

Ron Paul: Well, he’ll make it grow much faster if the whole system hangs together for that long, but the big question is whether there’s going to be a collapse of the dollar, and all bets are off on what will transpire then. But no, if we go along with the system held together relatively so, I mean, he’s going to massively increase the government. I think there’ll be national youth service and also the possibility of a military draft, I think there’ll be an expansion of operations overseas. And the only way they know how to pay for any of this is putting more money. That’s why it’s a contest. How long can this go on by massively expanding the size of government and undermining the value of the dollar before people give up on the dollar. So, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. I find it fascinating, tragically though it’s so dangerous, you can’t really sit back and relax about it. We all have to prepare for what’s going on.

Alex Jones: We’re talking to Congressman Ron Paul from Texas and he joins us for the balance of the hour. Congressman, specifically, let’s talk about solutions, then get into more of the threats. Obama, Biden, the pundits, they all admit that he’ll have about 150, 200 days. He’s saying he’s gonna have a blitzkrieg of gun control legislation, illegal alien amnesty, carbon taxes, new federal agencies, new wars, record defense budgets and they’re saying that they know that things are going to be so bad in the economy. They’re saying this in speeches, saying it’s going to be painful, it’s going to be austerity, get ready we got to give trillions away to the bankers. How important is it now to resist this agenda and point it out and organize the huge Ron Paul liberty movement that Obama mimics successfully with a false organic movement. How important is it and how do we mobilize and what are the key things to fight in the first 200 days if we’re gonna save this republic because he always talk about that coming crisis when the world government imploded the economy by design so they could rebuild it with even greater control that we could use that key window to reverse it and bring in the culture of liberty?

Ron Paul: We have to continue to do exactly what we are doing to win people over to our side, to spread the message, to get the attention of Washington as best we can. And the one way we can look at this in a positive way is those Republicans who went along and did everything George Bush told to do are now resisters. So we have more resistance there, we’re gonna hear more noise in Washington against Obama than we ever heard against George Bush because the Democrats love George Bush and the Republicans wouldn’t say boo. At least we’ll have a little bit of that but the problem is in a hundred days or 200 days, I mean we do our best but we can’t really expect to reverse this tide because he’s assuming that he has this mandate and he’s going to march forward. And how we act when an acute monetary crisis hits is something that has to be determined then. But in the mean time, people have acted in their own best interest. It didn’t take individuals very long to figure out that it would be controlled on guns, all of a sudden gun sales soared, and prices of guns soared, ammunition, they’re afraid that ammunitions will be taken away or registered. And those prices have soared; people are learning how to make their own ammunitions. All kinds of things automatically happen. I don’t think you have to have one group or one person to tell everybody what they have to do. My goal has always been to get information out there and try to counteract the socialistic totalitarian ideas with ideas of freedom.

Alex Jones: Sir, specifically you are on the House banking committee. Bloomberg and AP reported 5 weeks ago, the last time we saw numbers that it was 1 trillion 300 million a week in the federal reserve, will not tell congress or anyone else where the money has gone. Now they are saying they need a trillion more to “unfreeze” these toxic derivatives, these instruments. Can you specifically speak because now Newsweek has the headline “a world government run by a world bank”… the very people that engineered the crisis are now openly proposing a world government run by the very private central banks that have hijacked our economy and deluding us in a financial coup. I mean, this is so huge it’s just hard to even analyze something this brazen, with this much chutzpa. My question is, you’re on the banking committee, we have this giant heist going on, they are openly announcing the world government saying we have to pay carbon taxes to this new central bank. This is outrageous, this is totally unpopular on all the polls. 98% are against it. How is, I mean, is the elite pinning everything on Obama, hoping to do with his messianic fervor and hype that somehow he can bring this through and get it done?

Ron Paul: I think so and maybe they also are in deep planning right now for the crisis that we expect with the dollar collapse. They want to be in the position worldwide to device the next system, so I’m sure, you know, they are making their plans for that as well. Last week we had a vote on the amendment on the bill that did not get passed, Barney Frank’s bill on the TARP funds. And the amendment had to do with demanding that the Federal Reserve turn over the information about where all these credits are going. And I didn’t pass over one, I think it passed unanimously. So the sentiment is changing. And we are, specifically at my request going to have hearings in a couple of weeks that Barney Frank has agreed to, and that is to get Bernanke in front of the committee and give us more information about what they are doing. I don’t think much will come of it, I don’t think because we’re having these hearings and he’s coming and all of a sudden they are going to do it. But, the sentiment is growing. The people want the information. The people are tired of it and they’re getting frightened and members of Congress evidently know about it. But in the meantime though, when you hear speeches like we just heard and the plans being laid and the internationalism that goes on, I think there’s a lot of plans going on right now with what they are going to replace the dollar system with.

Alex Jones: Well the good news, Sir, as you know, everything you’ve been talking about for 30 years has now come true. It’s sad that you are right but we have now hit the iceberg and our credibility is the liberty movement, the freedom movement, the libertarian movement, true conservative moment, is exploding right now. So, I mean, I guess that is the opportunity in all of this, now Henry Kissinger two weeks ago on MSNBC, I don’t know if you saw it, said “Obama is worshipped worldwide. We can use his personality as a plus with this global crisis to bring in the New World Order.”

Ron Paul: Yeah, you know the first president that ever said that in open discussion was George Bush Sr., when he talked about the new world order. Before many talked about it and we had read about it and if you believed in it then you know, you’re some nut. But George Bush talked about it openly so it is more likely to be mentioned and I did hear Kissinger’s comments, [part 2 begins here] and I think that’s what they’re really working on because they are not going to move back to the original order of individual freedom and limited government and very small federal government. And of course that’s what we want and yet they want to move in the opposite direction but you know chaos as it comes may offer some opportunity as well because it’s very difficult to manage a hundreds of millions of people.

Alex Jones: I’ve got on screen for the PrisonPlanet.tv viewers for radio listeners I’m gonna play a 30 second clip. Here is Henry Kissinger saying “use Obama and his incredible world support and the image of him to ram through the New World Order”, using the crisis they’ve engineered to bring us even deeper under their control. Here it is…

Henry Kissinger: So he can’t really say there is one problem, that it’s the most important one. But he can give new impetus to American foreign policy, partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. I think his task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It’s a great opportunity, it isn’t just a crisis.

Alex Jones: OK. Congressman, specifically the Trilateral Commission in ’74 said that within three decades they would engineer a world banking collapse, knowing their fiat system had to implode, and they would then offer a global bank that sets currency rates for the major 10 nations or major 10 regions. Club of Rome said it as well, again, how do we stop this?

Ron Paul: Well I think the market will eventually stop it, because what they’re trying to impose on us is not workable. But we don’t know the timing. We knew the Soviet system wouldn’t work because socialism doesn’t work, but just look at the pain and the suffering that occurred for many many decades. But it was predicted by Austrian economics that the Soviet system would collapse, and it did. And what they’re proposing can’t work either. The big thing is politically, how much pain and suffering are we going to go through? People should be ready to deal in the market, the real marketplace. They may have to use gold and silver coins, but internationally they’re going to play games with us, they are not going to give up easily. But what we do know, it always fails. They couldn’t maintain the Bretton Woods system and they can’t maintain the system that came out of Bretton Woods, that’s not been maintained, it’s collapsing at this very moment. And the one they’re talking about won’t work either. The big question is how far along can they get, and will our movement grow fast enough to counteract them.

Alex Jones: [administrative comments skipped] I’ve been asking a lot of questions, I’ve been bringing out a lot of points, what are the points you’d like to make, Sir, today to the viewers and listeners?

Ron Paul: The optimistic side is that we’re very pleased with our organization around the country, especially on the college campuses. The more I think about it, the more excited I get about reaching out to a generation that most people believe are all with Obama. I don’t happen to believe that. Even the statistics show that they didn’t necessarily come out and vote the way the people thought. So that we should have some optimism that we can reach the next generation. But, we have a lot of activity going on, but we do live in a very, very dangerous times, and hopefully we can work within the system before it breaks down completely, which means people should be involved and drive influence to their members, and get involved in the campaigns and try to get me some help in Washington.

Alex Jones: Sir, we know that governments love to stage events or use events to get more power and control. Are you worried about Gulf of Tonkin events continuing, Obama has said he wants to deal with Iran and swiftly in the next year. Are you concerned about staged events?

Ron Paul: Yes, you know, years ago, I think because so many times we had expressed concerns about this, they actually backed off when we were worried about a staged event for an excuse to go into Iran. And, Bush backed off, I think, because of some of the publicity we gave to that. But now I think all big events like that in foreign policy have to have a staged event or use an event that taken claim is the main reason for going in. But policies have not changed on foreign policy. If you listen to his speech, he said nothing that would be different. He is still, you know, going to follow the same foreign policy.

Alex Jones: Well, that’s the good news. Not that he’s following the policy. But the good news is, I am talking to Obama supporters. We just talked to them on the ground at DC and they were admitting, yeah he is continuing the wars, yeah he is continuing the wireless wiretapping, yeah he is saying he’s going to keep troops in Iraq basically forever just in smaller groups, yeah he is going back on everything he said. So I see them kind of getting apprehensive, so the mainstream corporate media, the establishment, comes in and says “look he’s a good guy, he’ll save you, just do whatever he says”, knowing he’s carrying the ball for the elite agenda to get through what they want, so, can you speak to that?

Ron Paul: Well, I think this is good that some of the Obama supporters are starting to recognize this. And we shouldn’t ignore the fact that some of our allies may well come from the left. The principal liberal or the progressive who doesn’t fit the mould of an Obama supporter are very concerned about the same things we are, you know about the PATRIOT Act and personal liberty and the foreign policy. And, in time, I think that we can work with other groups because we’ll need everybody to point how that it’s civil liberty that we want protected, we want our personal liberty protected, at the same time we don’t need any more wars, which will help us economically. You know, the other arguments could be done but we do need a strong coalition. But you never know that we are very strong from the average news class everyday and what we saw today. But I think our numbers are growing and there’s a reason for us to continue this effort.

Alex Jones: Absolutely, Congressman, in the four minutes we have left with you, I wanted to get you to specific speak to this because I know you’re a student of history and an avid newshound, so I specifically wanted to get your take on this. Because I’ve studied Hitler, Stalin, Mao and literally even the Washington Post a week ago admitted that the symbolism, the things they’re doing, is classical fascism or communism, where these evil movements want a true grassroots army and now with USAService.org it’s a separate group under Obama’s control, and they are getting hundreds of thousands, it launched a week ago. They’re running national ad council federally paid for ads promoting his private army, which I believe is illegal according to Congressional research that’s been done. I hope you’ll investigate that so specifically just on that one issue, there’s hundreds. This is classical, the dirtiest, most wicked type of pathogens to a free society and they are doing it out of the gates. So can you speak to that, I mean just the whole messianic thing?

Ron Paul: Well, the messianic thing is very obvious to most people and we should be very cautious about it. As far as the private army goes I don’t know enough to say that I have all the answers on that but it certainly deserves looking at. I think the big thing right now which is progressing as it has been for years and more so now, is not so much that Obama is going to present socialism in the Soviet style where government ownership is always going be this business arrangement between big business and big government.

Alex Jones: It’s more fascism. They socialize our wealth and then give it to the banks.

Ron Paul: That’s right, and he was emphatic today and said that yes, Sir, markets are good and the free enterprises they do produce, but, on occasion they spin out of control and they fail and therefore we have to step in. What he was saying there, which was what they said in the ’30s is, “capitalism, gold standard, freedom failed so therefore we need government”. And just look, do you think the businessman is resisting that? The businessman is begging to be part of it all.

Alex Jones: Exactly, but what really failed is the fascist/crony capitalism, false free market, but they are trying to blame the free market. In closing, let’s get a prediction from Ron Paul or a prime projection. Do you think he will be overall successful in becoming this messianic demi-god they’ve introduced a thing to appeal the 22nd amendment? Do you think in the future Obama will be successful or will liberty defeat him?

Ron Paul: I don’t think he will be successful. I think for a year or two or three, he’s going to get away with a lot and there’ll be a strong segment that will continue to support him. But I think ultimately, truth wins out in the end, and that’s why I remain optimistic.

Alex Jones: Congressman, liberty committee… tell folks about some of the websites they should visit.

Ron Paul: Okay, go to CampaignForLiberty.com and join us and we are going to have meetings around the country, and we’re looking for new members and we continue to grow and we’re emphasizing a lot of organizations on college campuses.

Alex Jones: And I would add in the minute we have left. This is classic! They saw what you did the Obama campaign admitted they mimicked your true grassroots. They did that, the media attacked you, he launched ahead… he won. And so that shows how important a true grassroots movement under liberty individualism is to counter their collectivist movement, do you agree?

Ron Paul: Oh, absolutely and that’s the only way it should be. And I feel pleased about that but like I try to simplify that, I really believe freedom is a popular issue.

Alex Jones: I think the thing that is going to sink him now is going after the guns, do you agree?

Ron Paul: Oh yeah, the American people are not going to give up the guns. Can you imagine now the millions of people who bought gold coins and can’t even find them now realizing what’s going on? They’re not going to give up their guns and they’re not giving up their gold and…

Alex Jones: They say it’s an opportunity for the new world order, in reality it’s an opportunity for freedom isn’t it?

Ron Paul: Absolutely. We should work hard.

Alex Jones: Congressman God bless you. Godspeed. We’ll talk to you soon.