Sunday, February 21, 2010

Debra Medina: Threat to Governor Rick Perry’s Run for the Presidency in 2012?

 debra_medina2 

Debra Medina: Still Voter Ignorance Despite Glenn Beck’s “Gallant” Effort

I suggest that there are a number of reasons for this phenomenon.  SOME of the potential answers are already well known, following the marginalizing of 2008 Presidential candidate, Ron Paul, by the media and by Republican, political operatives.  We saw this in the Republican debates where the other candidates were asked substantive questions, and when it came time to question on Dr. Paul, the questions were most often focused on some sort of fringe issue that attempted to create guilt by association, i.e., the 9/11 Truth issue.  Even when others were answering questions about the economy and healthcare, were such questions addressed then to Dr. Paul, who is not only an expert on fiscal and monetary policy, but the only experienced health care provider in the field of candidates ?  Nope!

We also saw a dearth of media coverage of Ron Paul’s campaign until it could no longer be ignored until, of course, his avid supporters broke the all-time one day record for the most money raised in a 24 hour period, viz., in excess of $6 Million.  Even then, the marginalization continued, even when they did interview him, it was always focused on his supporters or some tangential issue and not on the substantive issues on which his campaign was based such as “sound monetary policy.”  It is interesting to note that now that his predictions have come true with regard to the current economic debacle, he is a high demand on news shows.  On the Fox network, alone, by his count, he has been interviewed about 60 times in recent months and now has won the straw poll at the CPAC meeting of conservatives.

Debra Medina, interestingly, is also a health care provider (a registered nurse), who was mentored by Ron Paul, having lived and worked in the Republican Party in his congressional district, and having served as his Texas political coordinator in the national campaign.  It is no surprise, then, that her data-oriented, principle-oriented campaign is coming under personal attack, just like that directed at Dr. Paul, when she is making it too hot in the kitchen for those who wish to maintain the neo-conservative (neo-cons) and now the “tea-o-conservative” (tea-o-cons) hold on the Republican Party.  In addition, there are, accordingly, further attempts to keep remotely connected Texas voters ignorant of her candidacy and proposals for reviving honest government in Texas. 

The major radio and television outlets and the local newspapers, especially the smaller ones, who pick up their news from the conglomerates, give the local audiences predigested, political Pablum which people can easily swallow whole without ever critically masticating it and just as easily digest, never knowing that there was any other life sustaining food for thought available.  They don’t even ask for a little bit of applesauce blended in with the Pablum, although they are often given this, too, just to keep them listening for purported new developments.

One such predigested report appeared online.

I took the writer and his docile followers to task with an extended comment:

As a former university professor for many years, I have personal experience of the lack of objectivity and belief-dominated thinking of many intellectuals in academia. The reporters who listen to the professors [that you referenced] also fail to look at the objective evidence and accept the implied omniscience (know it all mental capacity) of these ivory tower intellectuals. To wit: White polled worse against Hutchison and best against Medina.

There has been a huge turnout in the Republican primary. Do you suppose that some of the voters are Democrats? I, personally, have read about Liberals encouraging people to vote in the Republican primary, since White is a shoo-in. Who do you suppose the Dems are probably voting for in the primary? Certainly not Hutchison!!

Also, as evidenced in the following statement, they [typical reporters] have ignored the fact that the “Indy Texans” have endorsed Medina almost 2-1 over Hutchison. There are 5 million independents in Texas, I am told.

"Other professors agreed and said with White being the most viable Democratic candidate since Ann Richards, any Republican will have a tough race. But, Hutchison likely less so because she can win over a more significant portion of independents who otherwise may be intrigued with the former mayor of Houston and his business-friendly attitudes.”

That being said, why only the passing reference to the Medina campaign in the article? The "professors" said that some of her votes will likely go to Perry and Hutchison. What about the backlash? I am speaking of those who were undecided and will now vote for Medina because of the unwarranted attack with the "Truther" nonsense.  If you really search for the truth, what you will find is that Medina is NOT a 9/11 Truther, but a "24/7 Truther" who is perpetually searching for the truth in the labyrinth of falsehoods that cover the corruption in the Perry administration. One example is the recent revelation confirmed by the Medina campaign after searching long and hard for the facts. Debra Medina announced this in a talk to supporters in Rockwall just two days ago. I commend this to the author of this article and to your readers.

Rick Perry Already Campaigning for 2012?

One could reasonably ask:  Could the attacks and the marginalization be coming because it is a “must win” situation for incumbent Governor Rick Perry, who is rumored to have his eye on the Republican nomination for the Presidency in 2012?  Has anyone heard him say that he will definitely serve out his full term as governor?  I haven’t.

In fact, today, I just came across a website out of New Zealand which is promoting items for a Perry Presidential run. 

There is a lot of campaign paraphernalia on this page and it piqued my curiosity.  Let me ask you the questions that I asked myself:  If you were a business person, would you be willing to make such a substantial investment in stocking such items if you had not been paid up front?  Would you be willing to undertake this risk, with all of the uncertainties of the political landscape, or if you did not have hard, inside information that Perry was planning a run?  Or, unless you were the person pulling the strings on the Perry puppet?

When I searched further, I found that zazzle.com is a business with global outlets, only one of which is in Zealand.  There are subsidiary websites in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, with Austria and Switzerland listed as coming soon. 

I searched WHOIS.com and found that zazzle.com was registered as a private, not public, domain with the owner given as only the domain company which handled the domain registration: Network Solutions.  So, it would appear that this is a big enterprise that was registered in March 2009.  Given that it has not been in existence for quite one year, I think we are talking about investment of a lot of money in this enterprise. 

Another link appearing on the zazzle site goes to ArtsProjekt.com.  This, too, is registered privately with the same domain company, so in both cases, we cannot determine who really owns these companies.

Given that Rick Perry attended the Bilderberg Group meeting in Turkey in 2007, it seems likely that SOMEBODY wanted him as a candidate for President in the near future, perhaps after setting up the current situation with the Obama debacle.  Perry probably could never be elected president on his own merits, but with the groundswell of anger toward Obama, there will be little incentive for the average disenchanted voter to pay the least bit of attention to the skeletons in Perry’s oversized closet.  And, I am not talking about an ordinary walk in closet the size of a small bedroom.  It would have to be more like Superdome size to fit everything in, considering only what has thus far been uncovered and then recovered by Perry’s fancy mouthwork.

I think I recall reading that he only has a 50% approval rating as a result of his political shenanigans.  This is probably not enough, given the typically sizeable margin of error of 3-5% in political polls, to avoid a runoff election, which will occur between the top two vote recipients in Texas if no candidate receives a majority of the votes (i.e., 50% +1)

So, was the Glenn Beck incident orchestrated to insure a Perry victory by stealing votes from Medina?  The fact that robocalls attacking Medina for her comments on the 9/11 Truth issue were going out to voters all over Texas, reportedly with minutes and certainly within an hour.  I recall one individual who reported that he got a call only 7 minutes after the Medina “interview” ended.  Even it took an hour to get the calls launched, it seems that this would have taken an implausibly herculean effort to pull this off without some pre-planning.

I suggest that it is time to hold Perry’s feet to the Presidential fire.  Why did he go to the Bilderberg meeting in Istanbul in 2007, and according to some, violate the Logan Act?  There has been speculation for many years that the Bilderbergers “select” the American president.  Go here for the list of attendees for the most recent meeting.  Bill Clinton went to the meeting in 1991, “just by chance invitation” he says, because he was in Europe at the time.  He assumed the presidency in 1993.  There is strong prima facie evidence that Obama attended the Chantilly, VA meeting in 2008, when he was supposedly meeting with Hillary Clinton after he “kidnapped” reporters on his campaign plane and flew them to Chicago.

So, are the people of Texas embroiled in the clandestine political aspirations of their governor or those who control him?  Are their efforts to remove him democratically from office running up against a global Leviathan which will brook no resistance?  That is the question which we must continue to ask, particularly in view of the extensive promotional campaign already in progress via zazzle.com.

For more information on the Debra Medina’s campaign go here and to join her as a fan on FaceBook click here.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Debra Medina Leads the Second Battle for Texas Independence

The battle for Texas’ sovereignty is brewing again in the state that was an independent Republic for ten years before voting to enter the federal union.  The first major confrontation between the forces of sovereignty and those who support the ever-extending reach of the federal leviathan into state affairs will occur on March 2, 2010, the 174th anniversary of Texas’ independence from Mexico, when voters will make the final trek to the polls to cast their ballets for governor.

It is a “David” versus “Goliaths,” scenario, with Debra Medina, the young (age 47), “upstart,” citizen candidate facing Rick Perry, the longest serving, incumbent governor and U.S. Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Washington, D.C. fixture for many years.  When she entered the race, no one gave her an icicle’s chance in Hell to compete with her well-known, politically well-heeled opponents.  But, her burgeoning support has surprised everyone, except her followers who seem hell bent, not just on making it into a runoff with Rick Perry but to winning the Republican primary election outright.  Texas election law requires a runoff between the two top candidates if no one gets a 50% +1 majority of the vote.

Medina is a registered nurse, small business owner, and rancher, who has been working actively in Republican politics for 20 years.  Her common sense, anti-corruption, anti-establishment, anti-federalist message is ringing loud and clear with rank and file Texans who are incensed by what has been going on in the Texas government, bureaucratic maze of “now you see it, now you don’t” manipulations that pander to the money and influence of special interests.  One prime example is the Trans-Texas Corridor that has seemed to die five times after massive opposition from the citizens of Texas, but is still very much alive.  This project, which many people feel sells Texas out to foreign interests, i.e., a Spanish company, Cintra, would be the biggest land grab in American history if it lives.  And, if it does survive, it will give Cintra the right to collect tolls on this massive network of highways, rail lines, etc. in perpetuity!

Debra Medina is leading the fight for independence NOT in the form of secession that would return Texas to an independent and sovereign Republic, but  to a status as a sovereign state in the federal union, as intended by the Founders.  She has pledged to use “nullification” and “interposition” to tell Federal agencies such as the EPA that they have no jurisdiction in Texas.  She is sending a message to Washington DC that other federal bureaucracies had best keep their hands off Texas affairs.  This will require, as she has emphasized, working with the legislature to pass legislation that she will enforce as the chief executive.

Passionately contested skirmishes are already being fought across the state and even in the nation as a whole, particularly on the Internet, where, on Facebook, Rick Perry fans are being doggedly pursued by Debra Medina fans and the gap is steadily diminishing daily!  The fan list for Rick Perry currently stands at 25,459 and the corresponding list for Debra Medina fans is now at 21,444.  Kay Bailey Hutchison’s fans are far behind at 15,065.  This means if the election were held on Facebook, Perry would have 41% of the vote, Medina, 35% and Hutchison 24%, throwing the election into a runoff between Perry and Medina, since Perry has only a plurality and not a majority.  Related to these facts are data reported in a recent poll in which Medina trailed Hutchison 24% to 29% with Perry at 39%, very similar results when you take into account that the margin of error in this poll was about 5 percentage points, putting Medina essentially in a statistical tie with Hutchison an perhaps even ahead, given the momentum of the Medina campaign.

Recently Indy Texans, an association of Independent voters endorsed Debra Medina, with over 60% of the membership giving her the nod.  Independents comprise over 40% of the U.S. electorate and are estimated to number about 5 million in Texas.  In addition, people are already turning out in record numbers for the primary election, as indicated by early voting statistics.  In many locations, the ratio of Republican voters is 3 times the number of voters in the Democratic primary where former Houston mayor Bill White holds a commanding lead in the polls.  This suggests two possibilities, both of which are likely to be true.  (1)  Democrats are choosing to vote in the Republican primary instead of the Democratic primary because they want to pick the candidate against White will run in November.  And, since he polls best against Debra Medina and worst against Hutchison (although all Republicans are projected to beat him), it is highly likely that many of them are voting for Debra Medina.  (2)  There are many new Republican primary voters turning out, if Facebook postings are any indicator.  There are people indicating that they voted for her and had never ever voted in a primary before.  In addition, the number of new first time voters, primary or not, has apparently swollen like a Texas creek after a downpour.  We should also note that the polls typically sample only voters who have voted in a previous primary.

So, Debra Medina’s support appears to be greater than would be predicted from the plentiful media advertising by Perry and Hutchison.  Medina warriors are spreading the word by word of mouth and on the Internet.  Medina is appearing on more radio talk shows than the other candidates, yet her penetration into the electorate at large, the politically uninvolved who will cast their ballots not knowing that Medina even exists until they get to the polls, has only begun to be felt.

For more information go to:

http://www.medinafortexas.com/

where you will find that Debra has raised less than $500 shy of $3/4 million in small $10, 25, 50, 100 contributions.  Assuming an average contribution of $30 (an educated guess) this represents 25,000 supporter-donors who have access to the Internet.

Or, you can go to Debra Medina’s Facebook fan page and observe the spirited discussion that is incredibly more varied and fast-paced than you will find on the creeping Perry and Hutchison fan pages.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Debra-Medina/95669721909?ref=ts

I suggest you become a fan, so that you can ask questions and comment on other posts.  It is a real education in the making.  You can “home-school” yourself. ;-)  Becoming a fan is easy if you have a Facebook account, which is free and also easy to obtain.  Just click on “Become a Fan” and voila you are good to go!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Is Debra Medina the Next Scott Brown?

Is this a trick question?

 Debra Medina Scott-Brown-Cosmo-1

The title of this post repeats a question asked recently by the LA Times.  In response, the Internet exploded with postings that screamed “Scott Brown is no Debra Medina.”  The posts were all clones of an article written by Alex Wallenwein, who concluded with the following:

People like Debra Medina are what every state government needs, whether in the governor's mansion, in the state senate, or in their legislatures, county commissions, or city halls. It won't be the Scott Browns of the world who will clean up DC. Watch him closely. He will get "turned" rather quickly and start singing a different tune once he is there. If he doesn't, it's only egg on my face. If you keep him there and he indeed turns, it's egg on yours. I'd rather have it on mine. It affects fewer people.

We need more Debra Medinas in America. Watch what a huge boost candidates like her will get after she wins this election. Let's keep the Debra Medinas at home and send the Scott Browns to Washington DC. That's my idea of "federalism." Let Washington DC have the scraps that fall from our states' tables. We're not without compassion. DC must "eat", too.


We just have to make sure it doesn't keep eating our own lunch!

On another site, Likkerish turned the phrase around in his headline:  “Debra Medina is no Scott Brown,” and then wrote:

But, they are both tea partiers, right? Yep, but the difference ends there. They host very different tea parties.

Debra Medina is the "real deal." Scott Brown is really a wanna-be "wheeler dealer," who happened to be in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the dire need to block Democrats from having their 60 vote super majority in the Senate. His farm coat and pickup truck were political props that covered his Cosmo playgirl image. Debra Medina grew up on a farm and is a rancher who drives a real truck and pitches hay, not B.S. Witness Brown's immediate solicitation of support for John McCain after his election to the Senate.

Yep, Debra Medina is "the real deal," not someone who fancies herself as a "wheeler dealer" who will ignore the interests of "We the People" to get the best self-serving deal.

To understand her political style and to deconstruct the implication that she supports secession, as implied in the LA Times article, go…[here] [Embedded link not in original].

Likkerish nailed it!  Debra Medina and Scott Brown do, indeed, host very different Tea Parties. 

The Tea Party Movement was effectively birthed by the massive outpouring of financial support for Ron Paul on the December 16, 2007 commemoration of the original Boston Tea Party.  The Internet “Money Bomb” raised an all time one-day record of more than $6 million in small contributions.  However, in early 2009, the idea of the tea party was co-opted by individuals in the Republican Party (GOP) with quite different values from those of the Ron Paul Revolution.  So, now the Tea Party Movement is an amorphous, hodge-podge of individuals of very differing persuasions and goals, some of whom are conservative, some neoconservative.

The essential difference between Debra Medina and Scott Brown is that people who attend a Medina Tea Party consume the elixir of Freedom.  Those who attend the Brown Tea Party often imbibe something quite different. 

An easy visual mnemonic to keep the two tea parties separate is to be found in the following photo, a larger version of which shows Sarah Palin’s 7th-grade-style, crib notes written on her palm.

Sarah palm

Sarah Palin, the “darling” of the GOP co-opted faction of the Tea Party Movement endorsed Scott Brown and didn’t endorse Debra Medina, but rather endorsed the Big Government incumbent governor, Rick Perry, after which she endorsed Rand Paul, Ron Paul’s physician son, for U.S. Senator.  Go figure.  Maybe she couldn’t read her own writing.

Medina’s Grass Roots Support Octuples: From 3% in September 2009 to 24%

Today, I commented on an article on Politico about Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is running, or should I say “sputtering,” in her quest for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Texas.  The article mentioned her buying Super Bowl air time to run an advertisement attacking incumbent governor Rick Perry.  It was a case of the “Kay Kettle” calling the “Perry Pot” black, while the “other” Republican candidate, Debra Medina, was ignoring this GOP infighting, as her grass roots campaign was quietly building up a momentum that spilled all over the national scene today.

 GOP - Nowhere
[Credit for this cartoon goes to: Dick Locher, Tribune Media Services] 

Hutchison is "blowing money in the wind" as she attempts to close the double-digit gap between herself and incumbent governor, Rick Perry, after leading him by double digits early in the campaign. She had best worry about stopping the Medina Liberty Express which is barreling down on her.

Debra Medina, the grass roots, citizen candidate, whose poll results have "octupled" since September 2009, when she registered 3% support from likely Republican primary voters, to the most recent 8-point jump in her poll figures to 24%. According to Public Policy Polling, she now trails Hutchison, whose support lost one point to 28%, by less than the margin of error of the poll, which was nearly 5%. She is currently only 15 points behind Governor Perry, whose numbers fell from 44% ten days ago to 39% currently.

Thus, Medina may already be, statistically speaking, in a position to challenge Perry in a runoff election, leaving Hutchison with an excuse to pack up and head back to Washington before the outcome is clear. This is especially likely, since polling typically samples likely Republican voters. This leaves out of consideration the large number of Independents, who represent over 40% of the American electorate, and who in Texas are very unhappy with the Governor on many fronts. Supporting this possibility is the fact that "Indy Texans" just gave Debra Medina their endorsement, which required support from 60% of its membership.

I have published an analysis of Medina's political style here

[Link not embedded in original].

So, while Kay and Rick were battling it out in the kitchen, Debra was seen all over the state speaking impromptu without benefit of a teleprompter, crib notes on her palm, or millions of dollars of television advertising.  The question that remains is: What happens if Hutchison does drop out early to save face and retain her senate seat despite her promise to resign win or lose?  Where will her votes go?  She tends to attract moderates and some Independents.   My guess is that they will split with the majority going to Medina.  Then, if one factors in the Independents who are recently endorsed Medina, one has a very interesting race developing for a runoff.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Debra Medina: The Heart of a Political Poet

 

Poet, Heart

[Credit for this photo goes to Jim Oliver Photography. See his lovely website at: http://www.jimoliverphotography.com/]

What Makes a Political Poet?

what did the red rooster say to the crow? i dont know. and neither do they. but that doesnt stop them from babbling, that doesnt stop them from traveling, down the same dead road again.
-- Roopa Singh, Political Poet, Lawyer, and Hip Hop Artist

In the aforementioned poetic narrative, the political poet, Roopa Singh, could have been describing almost any of the political machinations that masquerade as democratic elections in the Republic, for which so many citizens of the United States of America have failed to stand.  Certainly, they  vividly portray the two major, establishment candidates in the Texas Republican Gubernatorial Primary in 2010 (Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchinson).

In fact, Singh’s words could serve as the political mantra for the gubernatorial campaign of upstart, grassroots candidate, Debra Medina as she surges in the polls in her seemingly unlikely quest to come out of political obscurity and to represent the rank and file citizens of Texas.  Wresting the Republican nomination from the grasp of the longest serving governor in Texas history, now, seems no longer an impossibility.  Is any human endeavor ever impossible?  Or, does it only appear that way because people do not have the heart or the will to make their dreams a reality?

The role of the poet in society is not simply to write or speak musical or flowery words.  The poet need not even write with rhyme or meter.  The form of the words represent only the technical characteristics of poetic speech.  They don’t even have to be phrased using “the King’s English” in proper grammatical form, nor must they demonstrate good spelling and punctuation.  A poet need not even write or speak in a form recognizable as poetry as such.  The poet may speak in narrative prose with or without metrical rhythm.  As Jeffrey Petty has pointed out, in a verse entitled, “What is a Poet,” a poet uses words, embellishing them

…to tell a story
of love, hate, beauty or hard won glory.
One who can make us laugh or cry
imagine, enjoy or give a soft sigh….

In fact, Petty writes,

A poet can be most anything
their pen allows them to be
as long as the words which they bring
enable us each to see.....

[Final ellipsis in original]

In other words, the poet’s role is to enable us to see what we have ignored or have failed to see or what we are just not prepared to see because of the way in which our individual brains are wired and how they function. 

Hank Lazer, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Alabama , writes reflecting on the 25th anniversary of a symposium he organized in 1983, which included lectures by both poets and critics, and which he edited in  a volume  published in 1987 entitled, What is a Poet [which is still in print]

Each poet presented a lecture and a reading; each critic presented a lecture; all participants took part in the concluding panel discussion.  Certain questions came up again and again – in the lectures, in conversations throughout the symposium, and in the panel discussion: what is a poet?  what is a critic?

One participant, Louis Simpson, hit the proverbial nail on the head, in my opinion, when he stated:

I think that this distinction between poets and critics as it’s going around here is not good.  I’ve never met a poet who was not a critic.  It is impossible to be a poet without being a critic as you write.  And most of the good critics have much of the poetic feeling in them.

In an earlier post on this blog, entitled

We Need “Political Artists” in Government, Not “Political Hacks”

I quoted the late, famed, symphonic conductor, Leonard Bernstein, who once said:

"It is the artists of the world….who will ultimately save us; [those] who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing and shout the big dreams [Emphasis Added].

Sovereignty or Secession?

Debra Medina has been criticized even uncritically attacked by those who have misread her intent in running for Governor of Texas.  These adversaries harken back to a speech, which she gave early in her campaign at the Texas Sovereignty or Secession Rally on August 29, 2009.  They miss the point of her speech, playing up her association with the talk of secession that has been occurring, not only in Texas, but all over the country.  What they fail to recognize is that her passion and her criticism of the status quo, which she clearly shares with poets, as described above, is not intent on “deconstructing” society, in particular Texas or U.S. society, as one supportive critic has recently expressed.

I responded to the aforementioned critic, questioning his use of the term “arch-conservative” to characterize Debra Medina.

Nice post. However, I think that the term “arch-conservative” does her an injustice. To some, it might suggest ultra-right wing neoconservatism, which is not Debra Medina by a long shot. Is she conservative? Yes. But, hers is a kind of constitutional, libertarian conservatism that is far more independent than that expressed by the typical run-of-the-mill Republican who claims to be a conservative.

The author replied:

Alan, thanks for dropping by. Your blog suggests you are a Medina supporter and a rather passionate one at that.

As for the arch-conservative description, I leaned heavily on the understanding that the prefix is synonymous with “extreme.”

Engaging in talk of state secession from the United States, combined with her desire to completely dismantle the property tax system–a system that has been the key to funding government services and programs at state and county levels, not to mention the state’s public education–these positions I consider to be extreme and radical social deconstructions. So I would agree with you that she’s not a traditional conservative, nor is she a Neocon, whose expansion of government was primarily focused on privatizing wealth and socializing debt.

In the August 2009 speech, it is clear that Medina has taken up the challenge to “articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing and shout the big dreams,” as Bernstein described.  She is clearly not intent on “deconstructing” society as the supportive critic worries, but rather in “reconstructing” social and political edifices that have fallen into disrepair out of apathy and gross neglect.  Her effort during this speech and her efforts throughout the campaign have been to try to waken people from their collective stupor, induced by institutions like the Super Bowl, which is surely capturing more attention of the American public today, as I write, than these poor words can add or detract. 

It does not take much impetus to cause Americans to spring into passionate action and to line up on their respective sides of the virtual gridiron on Super Bowl Sunday.  But, such passionate reactions are mobilized by mass advertising and mass indoctrination into the competitive, “wanna-be,” sports mythology and culture that dominates the consciousness of America as a whole.  The poet leader is the voice crying in this consciousness-bereft wilderness, trying to instill some small inkling of a reality that transcends big screen TVs, Doritos, and beer.

Extremism in the Defense of Liberty?

In 1964, Senator Barry Goldwater delivered a stirring reaffirmation of the defense of freedom in accepting the nomination of the Republican Party for President of the United States.  This address came in the national turmoil in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the year before.  Goldwater said:

The good Lord raised this mighty Republic to be a home for the brave and to flourish as the land of the free—not to stagnate in the swampland of collectivism, not to cringe before the bullying of communism.

Now, my fellow Americans, the tide has been running against freedom. Our people have followed false prophets. We must, and we shall, return to proven ways—not because they are old, but because they are true. We must, and we shall, set the tides running again in the cause of freedom. And this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom—freedom made orderly for this Nation by our constitutional government; freedom under a government limited by the laws of nature and of nature's God; freedom balanced so that order lacking liberty will not become the slavery of the prison shell [cell]; balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the license of the mob and of the jungle.

Now, we Americans understand freedom. We have earned it; we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This Nation and its people are freedom's model in a searching world. We can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world. But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew freedom's mission in our own hearts and in our own homes….

Now, those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. They—and let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions, ladies and gentlemen, of equality. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

Fellow Republicans, it is the cause of Republicanism to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which—which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism. It is the cause of Republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people. And, so help us God, that is exactly what a Republican President will do with the help of a Republican Congress….

Now I know this freedom is not the fruit of every soil. I know that our own freedom was achieved through centuries, by unremitting efforts of brave and wise men. And, I know that the road to freedom is a long and a challenging road. And I know also that some men may walk away from it, that some men resist challenge, accepting the false security of governmental paternalism [Emphasis added]….

And, then, Goldwater brings his speech to a dramatic climax with his classic and signature sound byte, which continues to resound down through the decades.

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

And, let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Some would say that extremism is always a vice, that the end does not justify the means.  In other words, to act in an extremist manner is to behave irresponsibly and potentially destructively.  With this in mind, let’s now carefully examine Debra Medina’s words in the “Sovereignty and Secession Rally” video, not simply with a kind of football, “we versus them” mentality, not with a high school English teacher’s critical perception, not with the conventional wisdom of the two factions of the Big Government Party (BGP), but with an appreciation of her love of liberty, her respect for the Constitution in protecting that freedom, and her single-minded willingness to put herself in front of the troops who are willing to get up off their duffs and to say, “No more” to those who would continue to disregard and shred the Constitution, as was so ignobly etched in our consciousness by the phrase, “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper.”

When she quotes Ben Franklin’s homage to the symbol of the coiled serpent on the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag of the early revolutionaries, she is not intent on disrespecting or devaluing the United States of America, as some have claimed, but clearly intent on emphasizing the basic notion of a voluntary union of the States for their common benefit, and the fact that such voluntary union is indelibly inscribed in, and reinforced by, the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.

Her images from Franklin’s description of the unseen weapons of the snake and metaphorical connections to her campaign are graphic with implicit violence, and may be taken by some as evidence of extreme or radical views, even perhaps demagoguery, but they are clearly, in my view, reflections of the natural tendency of living organisms to protect themselves when they see danger on the horizon, or in this case, when they see their fellow Americans and Texans behaving like the frog in the pot, the water of which is being slowly increased in temperature to forestall it’s jumping out until it is finally too exhausted to muster the energy to avoid destruction. 

Human beings are not frogs, although they have fallen into acting like them in our complex, modern society and, I am not talking just about TCU fans.  It’s the whole Southwest Conference, for Pete’s sake!  No, it’s the freaking whole nation who have become like listeners to “The Buster Brown TV Show with Smilin' Ed McConnell and his Buster Brown Gang,” a program, which was on radio and TV up until about the mid-50s. 

There was a character on this popular show, which pitched “Buster Brown” shoes, called “Mr. Froggy the Magic Gremlin.” Mr. Froggy lived in a clock.    In the Buster Brown advertising, there was a kid dressed like Little Lord Fauntleroy,

Buster Brown and Tige 

a character in the 1886 novel of the same name that was made into a movie in 1936.  He would routinely say,

I'm Buster Brown, I live in a shoe. That's my dog, Tige.  He lives there too!

The catchphrase, of course, referred to the company label inside its kids’ shoes.

Smilin’ Ed would predictably say at a point of suspense,

“Plunk your magic twanger, Frog-gy!”

And, after this ominous foreboding, one would hear a twanging sound that signaled something that was to happen next.

One writer, reminiscing about the shoe recalled that there was  “something about the character that bothered me, and I can recall having some ‘weird’ dreams because of this.”  Maybe his remembered discomfort reflects his childish preoccupation with unfamiliar, and thus scary things, and it is this residual, archaic, tendency to avoid which makes us, as modern citizens, uncomfortable, and which prevails now as people are willing to give up their freedom in order to protect their freedom from assault by individuals who would terrorize them.  Give up freedom to protect freedom?  Is not the illogic evident.  Once we acquiesce to efforts to limit freedom, we are truly becoming like frogs in the pot.  The powers that be can turn up the heat of tyranny so gradually that we never even notice that we are being slowly and unknowingly enticed to participate in our own destruction.

But, Debra Medina, like Congressman Ron Paul, before her in his 2008 campaign for the Presidency has come forward to say “No” to the proposition of relinquishing freedom under the guise of providing for our welfare.  It does not matter whether it is the false boogie man of “global terrorism” or the  attempts of governments (federal, state, and local) to steal more and more power and control over our lives with their ever-expanding bureaucratic and corrupt extraction of private property from citizens, be it in income or property taxes or unconstitutional and absurd, federal regulations such as requiring all public swimming pools, even in private condominium complexes to install “child-proof” drains.

In the previously mentioned video, one hears Debra saying (again early in her campaign, her words having been subsequently fined-tuned to clarify her intent)

Hear us Washington.  Hear us Austin, Texas.  We will not stand for tyranny in our state, and we will not stand for tyranny in our country….We will not stand for the nationalization of our business.  We will not stand for fascism in our country.  We are here today to talk about sovereignty or secession.  I am here today to encourage the Texas legislature and the governor of the State of Texas to defend the sovereignty of this great state...to defend in a fierce and vigilant way in which they have never defended before, and I am here today to remind them that our Founders gave us the ability to do that.

Then, came the words that have given her critics the ammunition which they have tried to use to shoot down her vision and leadership in seeking a positive reconstruction of a political infrastructure that is bleeding American citizens into exhaustion,  like patients of old who were bled by their trusted physicians with the belief that the doctors were acting in their best interests.  In addressing those who would impulsively and irresponsibly encourage secession, Debra speaks of the possibility of secession as a heroic last resort and is mindful that this raises the possibility of dire consequences, including bloodshed, which thoughtful, committed citizens are willing to countenance or endure in order to preserve what they truly value and hold dear.

We are aware that stepping off into secession may in fact be a bloody war….

She is speaking graphically and powerfully to the potential hotheads, in a way that holds their attention.  Then, she uses the metaphor of a quotation from Thomas Jefferson, popular in the Liberty Movement, to further arrest and hold the attention of those who have become infected with idealistic heroism and self sacrifice.

We understand that the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.  These are serious days.

Then she segues, rather subtly away from the secession imagery and toward advocacy of her unconventional, but certainly not extremist approach, for dealing with  the excesses of government.

I want to remind us, though, Jefferson made an eloquent argument for the use of nullification and interposition.  We’ve not even tried those weapons in our arsenal.  We’ve not even begun to use them [Emphasis added].

Then, she quotes Jefferson in a different context, which represents an ingenious shunting of Jeffersonian, patriotic energy onto another, constructive track.

Jefferson said that, if those who administer the general government, be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by out compact as a union by a total disregard, could we have any more total disregard for this compact as we have today, the power therein contained that the states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent states have the unquestionable right—it’s our right to judge when you are transgressing on us, it’s our right—and we have the right to nullify by those sovereignties all unauthorized acts done under the color of the Constitution.  That is our rightful remedy. 

We will nullify Cap and Trade.  We will nullify national healthcare.  We will nullify Real ID. And, we will damn sure nullify you (sic) trying to take our guns. 

Not Texas, not Austin, Texas nor Washington D.C., will transgress on our property.  We will not—we will no longer stand in Texas for leasing back [that], which we have worked hard to possess, from our government.  We will eliminate property tax in Texas.  We will own our property and we will own our guns and Texans will be free.

And, when Texas stands, and when Texas waves that “Don’t Tread on Me” [flag], and Texas says, “Come and take it,” when we stand for freedom in Texas, the United States of America will begin again to look like a republic, the great Republic that we are.

It is up to us.  It is up to you.  Power corrupts and money corrupts, and there was corruption in Washington, D.C. and there was corruption in Austin, Texas, and we will stand for it no more.

Heart of an Extremist or Political Poet?

The words which Debra Medina spoke  in the Summer of 2009 are manifestly not the words, nor do they reflect the heart, of a secessionist, of an extremist rabble-rouser, if you will.  They are words reflecting the heart of a political poet, even if she lacks all of the technical skills of the poet’s craft.

In my previously referenced blog entry, I wrote:

The artist [and I showed elsewhere in the post that this designation included poets, or word artists], is one who perceives what the ordinary person fails to perceive, who articulates what the common person fails to articulate.  Thus, the artist is a leader in the sense of challenging us to look for new understanding in previously unexamined areas and with previously unrecognized awareness.

Debra Medina is challenging all of us “to look for new understanding in previously unexamined areas and with previously unrecognized awareness.  Her challenges do not make her an “arch-conservative.”  Such a term only is sensible in the context of the mentality of all of the “Archies” and “Veronicas” and “Jugheads,” who reside in a comic strip parody of American reality, where  candidates, carefully groomed and selected by the elite powers-that-be, to be the standard bearers for the two wings of the Big Government Party (BGP), carry out political machinations that masquerade as representative democracy in the presumed Republic which was once truly the United States of America.

For updated information regarding Debra Medina’s position on nullification and interposition and the secession issue, as well as many other important issues, go to the Medina For Texas site.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Debra Medina and the “Great Partisan Divide.”

 Super Bowl Colts

The Great Partisan Divide in the politics of this country manifests even in the Super Bowl.  Check out this AP article in The Oregonian.

Fancy that!  How often I have likened partisan political bickering or attack to an ongoing Super Bowl Game in which onlookers choose sides and sit together calling out insults across the field to their counterparts.

Today, in perusing recent postings on the Internet regarding Debra Medina’s gubernatorial campaign, I came across an article in My SA News to which I responded and also engaged other readers, offering a number of commentaries.  One was to an individual with the username, “bnuckols,” who wrote referring to Debra Medina:

She's a *convenient* pro-life Republican, not a principled one. If she's about principle, why won't she vote for the Republican, prolife candidate over the certainly (since they've said so) pro-abortion Democrat? Where is her history as a prolife activist? Where has she lobbied or testified for a pro-life law? Where has she ever marched with pro-life rallies, without her own political campaign sign?

I wrote in response:

Your comment is reflective of the myopia induced by the "Great Partisan Divide" in this country. Like many other people, you stand on one side of this chasm and you hear voices, which appear to come from the other side, but because of your myopic perspective, you cannot see who is talking and from where the voice really issues. Part of this results from the fact that your eyes are so closely focused on the pet issues that are so "near" and dear to your heart, (e.g., supporting the pro-life movement) that you cannot see the big picture in 360 degree, living-color Panavision. Many of the voices, including that of Debra Medina and mine, come from behind you, as well as from those who stand behind your clear adversaries on the other side of the chasm (e.g., those who support the pro-choice movement). All of these voices which you misinterpret come from people who are looking at the root causes of problems in the State and in the Nation. But, because of your myopia, you believe that they come from those immediately across the divide, i.e. the Left.

Debra Medina stands back from the divide (or perhaps above it), not aligning herself with the mobs, which sheepishly congregate at the edge of the precipice, but this in no way means that she is not pro-life. Her many statements have shown that she has an abiding respect for the unborn and acts to protect them.

You ask why she would not vote for "the Republican, prolife candidate over the certainly (since they've said so) pro-abortion Democrat?" This begs the question. Medina has said that she will not support a statist, big government, liberty-suppressing candidate, be that person Democrat or Republican. She has said that she will vote for the candidate who supports the Constitutional mandate for a limited, federal government and who acts in the interest of the personal liberties of the citizens of Texas by not stealing them blind for personal benefit or to support special interest lobbies. 

Medina's view sees respect for individual liberty as paramount.  This would mean that the federal government has no business telling the people of Texas what they can and cannot do with regard to the abortion issue.  Her position, like that of any Constitutionalist, is that the federal government has no Constitutional power to make laws regarding issues not specifically delegated to it by the Constitution.  And, this position is mindful of the fact that the federal government has given itself powers, never intended by the Founders, by stretching the interpretation of the General Welfare, Commerce, and Supremacy clauses in the Constitution to fit its quest for increasing control over the states and the people.  And, people in their myopic concern for their personal pet issues, and their battles with others across the partisan divide, have allowed this shredding of the Constitution to proceed unabated.

The states have the last say on the issue of abortion according to the Tenth Amendment.  Debra Medina is, first and foremost, a Constitutionalist.  I suggest that if people would study the Constitution and not simply remain mired in their nearsighted, pet beliefs and attitudes, they would understand why she has had the courage to throw herself into the lions' pit and to stand up to governments, both State and Federal, which are devouring our freedom, bit by bit, at an ever-increasing and voracious rate. This is the fundamental perception that will result from seeing the forest instead of individual trees.

Needless to say, my response provoked a spirited exchange.  Those interested can follow this debate here.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Debra Medina Aligned with Top Voter Issues: Rasmussen Poll, Texas

 

Debra_Medina, crop

According to a recent Rasmussen Poll (2/3/10) Debra Medina’s Texas gubernatorial campaign is well positioned with regard to the issues of spending and taxation.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters in Texas say the government should cut government spending. Six percent (6%) favor an increase in spending, while 21% think a freeze on spending is the best way to go.

Sixty-six percent (66%) say cutting taxes is the best way to create new jobs. Just 12% think more government spending is a better job-creator, and 14% say neither will work [Emphasis added].

Medina scores high on both issues in advocating both tax cuts, notably abolishing the property tax, as well as dramatic cuts in spending to shrink the size of the Texas government.

Regarding national issues, Rasmussen data show:

Forty-eight percent (48%) of Texas voters say reducing federal spending is more important than reducing the deficit. Thirty-seven percent (37%) disagree and say reducing the deficit is more important.

Debra’s signature issue of getting rid of the property tax, as a way of preserving freedom, puts her in harmony with 2/3 of the likely voters.  This is a huge advantage.  Don’t be surprised to see a Medina victory in the primary fire a shot for freedom heard around the world.

What Price Democracy?

 

Perry, Money can buy me Love

 

Paying People to Recruit Voters

An article in the Dallas Morning News, which was picked up by the web site Raw Story reports that Governor Rick Perry’s campaign…

…has unknowingly paid convicted felons as part-time workers under its incentive program to turn out voters for the Republican primary.

The campaign lists about 300 part-time workers on the financial disclosure forms it filed with the state, recruits under the "Perry Home Headquarters" program that pays people to get others to sign up as a Perry supporter and pledge to vote. A handful have criminal histories, a Dallas Morning News review shows.

Beyond that, the program has become a money-making opportunity, especially for those with extensive social networking profiles. Some may be in it more for the cash than the candidate. For instance, one lists herself as a Facebook fan of President Barack Obama, an unlikely political pairing [Emphasis added].

Campaign officials don't screen those who sign up to be part-timers. They say that both the re-election effort and the workers benefit from the Home Headquarters program.

"People in life make mistakes," said Perry spokesman Mark Miner. "It doesn't mean they can't get a second chance and work hard. That's what these people are doing. They are out there trying to change their lives and make a difference."

Perry has described the campaign as a grass-roots effort that would help sweep him past Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the primary. But the voter turnout program has been problematic, requiring campaign staffers to spend crucial time verifying the voters who are recruited, campaign e-mails show [Emphasis added].

The problem with such an effort is that the weeds sown by the Establishment Elite threaten to wipe out “grass-roots” of democracy and the seeds of individual liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.  The same situation occurred in the 2008 election when ACORN employed criminals in signing up voters who would vote for Obama.  This is just one part of “Perry’s Political Playground.”  Go here for more evidence of Perry’s “fiscal irresponsibility.”

Thus, we find, distilled in these instances, a fundamental problem facing our representative democracy, based as it is on majority-rule selection of candidates to represent us.  The essence of the problem is that once elected by manipulating the voting process, the so-called “representatives” typically end up not representing the views of their constituents, but the views of whatever special interest groups were instrumental in their election and which will support their reelection to continuing terms.

Here is how the program, known as Perry Home Headquarters was initially set up to operate.

1. Volunteers are asked to recruit friends and neighbors, who are called Perry Home Headquarters.

2. The "headquarters" pledge in turn to recruit 11 more people to vote for Perry in the March primary.

3. The initial volunteers get $20 for each Perry Home Headquarter recruited, plus another $20 for every 11 voters each headquarter signs up to vote in the primary. The campaign has recently quit paying out for the recruitment of an additional headquarter.

•The campaign paid out $360,000 to "part-time field staff" in the second half of 2009, and more than 300 people were listed on Perry's report as "part-time workers."

The lowest amount paid out was $20. The highest total was $34,060 to Jeff Cline of Rockwall [Emphasis added].

For those who are adept at social networking on the Internet, this recruitment program works better than most network marketing programs in generating extra income.  One recruiter posted the following on Twitter.

Shaniqua Curry of Denton earned $3,420 for her effort, which included a plaintive Twitter plea: "HELP ME RAISE MONEY FOR MY NEXT CAR!!! COPY, PASTE, AND SIGN UP TO SUPPORT RICK PERRY!" the tweet read.

Good try, Shaniqua, but what, pray tell does this have to do with being a genuine participant in the democratic process?  Absolutely nothing, I submit!  It is participation in a subversion of the democratic process and it clearly highlights the vulnerability of “representative democracy,” which I have pointed out elsewhere and followed up here.

Campaign Reform Desperately Needed

Paying people to register voters or to recruit voters is a perversion of the democratic process, period.  It should be stopped.  It should be illegal and violators should be subject to harsh penalties for any efforts to circumvent  the laws that prohibit it.  Such perversion of the principles on which our Republic were founded can only occur when the crews of our “Ships of State” are asleep while the “Captains of Industry” steer these vessels on the shoals for their personal gain. 

Permitting partisan recruitment of voter registrations or votes is anathema to the spirit of Liberty and the importance of one’s individual voice.  If we allow such individuality to be drowned out by the efforts of those who would circumvent the democratic process and thus suborn unprincipled, self-serving individuals to violate Liberty, then we are guilty of a failure to uphold the cherished principles upon which this country was founded.  The ultimate outcome of this failure to support freedom can only be the loss of Liberty and the unquestioned acceptance of slavery.  The American people and the people of Texas are like frogs in the pot which is being slowly heated.  The trick that is being employed by those who would manipulate the democratic process is to turn up the heat so slowly that we frogs are not prompted to jump out of the pot before the heat has gradually exhausted our ability to jump.  This is just another of the Freedom Follies which face us as individuals and as a free people.

What Price Democracy?  I say not this “Price.”  In my opinion, we need to think in terms of a new, “post-representative” democracy in this country.