Ron Paul's flights: the same as everyone else's

"Who does Ron Paul serve? I say he serves himself and the members of his class – the members of the 1%. I think the evidence thoroughly supports this position. He promotes racist, sexist, homophobic, environmentally destructive, anti-science, and anti-working class policies. It is impossible to separate some of his “positive” positions (his claims that he wants to end the drug war, end the wars in the Middle East) – of which there are few – from his negative ones. Indeed most of his “positive” positions would be negated if his negative positions passed. The contradiction between Paul saying he wants to ‘end the drug war’ and supporting the further militarisation of the border with Mexico is a prime example of this.

All of Ron Paul’s policies ignore the reality of exploitation under capitalism. Exploitation, very simply, is the reality that workers create all of the wealth in society, yet have no control over what to do with it. This is true because workers don’t socially own and democratically control the means of producing wealth – those means (mills, factories, mines, land, stores, transportation systems, warehouses, ports, etc.) are owned and dictatorially controlled by the 1%. So when he says he’s against welfare, he really means he wants the 1% to get an even larger share of the social pie even though they do no work. When he says he’s against a women’s right to choose, or same-sex marriage, or legislation banning segregation, we should understand that he is really saying that certain groups should be more oppressed than they already are (women, people of color, immigrants, LGBTI people) and that the working class must be so divided so that they cannot unite to overthrow him and his ilk.

The social function of ideologues like Ron Paul within the capitalist system is to divide working people. If people weren’t divided in United States by ideologues like Paul, Bush, Obama, and institutions like the media, schools, etc. – if we actually talked to each other, discussed, debated, weren’t segregated by race, repressed sexually, etc. – then there would be no way that the imperialists could get us to support war and oppression. There’d be no way we’d submit to the exploitation of the 1% who do no work yet own and control all the wealth. That’s why they divide us, segregate us, teach us to hate each other over petty reasons, instead of recognising our common humanity: because unity is dangerous to the rich who benefit from all of our suffering. There are so many of us and so few of them – and they are scared of that.

Ron Paul’s supposed “anti-imperialism” and “opposition to the war on drugs” is just a distraction from his *material support* for imperialism and anti-working class policies. His efforts are aimed at dividing and confusing people. He will never be president. But as a Congressperson and rightwing ideologue he is able to promote and vote for all the other policies that divide working people, support imperialism, and further oppression and exploitation."---Liam O'Ceallaigh