“Ron Paul invented the notion of a populist, activist, modern movement thats transpartisan” says Reason’s Brian Doherty
Brian Doherty sat down with ReasonTV to talk about his new book and how Ron Paul has changed politics in America. Doherty wrote about the evolution of the libertarian movement in his 2007 book “Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement”. He has been following and writing about Ron Paul and his movement since then. Doherty examines Ron Paul’s influence in a new book out May 15, “Ron Paul’s rEVOLution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired”.
May 3, 2012
Reason.tv: Brian Doherty on Ron Paul’s Revolution
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Sarkozy’s best chance to win? The DSK effect
John Gizzi on the slim hopes Nicolas Sarkozy has to catch up to front-runner Francois Hollande in the French presidential election:
Before arriving here today to find France braced for its presidential election run-off May 6, I stopped at London’s Ladbroke’s, the world’s most storied of oddsmakers. The odds against Nicolas Sarkozy winning, the bookmaker told me, were 4-to-1, while the odds favoring Socialist challenger Francois Hollande were 1-to-7.
[. . .]
With those chunks of LePen and Bayrou voters, Sarkozy would be in a near-tie with his Socialist nemesis and would need some dramatic event or stumble by Hollande to put him over. As to what this stumble might be, one possibility could have occurred at a birthday party for Socialist politician Julian Drey last Sunday. The big news was who showed up: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, whose own presidential hopes were dashed in a sensational string of scandals beginning with his arrest in New York last May for allegedly assaulting a hotel maid. The politician known as DSK dodged that bullet, but is now facing more serious charges of his alleged involvement in a prostitution ring in France.
Upon learning that DSK was at the birthday party, 2007 Socialist nominee Segolene Royal (who is the mother of Hollande’s four children) stormed out and Hollande himself canceled an appearance at the party. Incredibly, the party was held at the site of what was once a notorious house of prostitution.
Just the appearance of Strauss-Kahn sent the Hollande camp into fervent denials that DSK would ever be considered for a position in a Socialist government.
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Remembering the heroism and sacrifice of the defenders at Kohima’s Garrison Hill
A little-known battle had major consequences to the tides of Japanese expansion, and has been called “India’s Battle of the Somme“:
Nestled in the vast country’s north-eastern state of Nagaland, it is a place where two Victoria Crosses were won for outstanding bravery, where a 1,000-strong British and Indian force, outnumbered 10 to one, halted the Japanese army’s relentless march across Asia.
Blood-soaked battles in April 1944 saw the troops of the Royal West Kent Regiment, with their comrades from the Punjab Rifles and other Indian regiments, under siege on the top of Kohima’s Garrison Hill.
Troops fought hand to hand in torrential rain from rat-infested trenches dug on the then British deputy commissioner’s clay tennis court.
The two sides were so close that they could lob grenades into each other’s strongholds barely 50 feet away and, according to chroniclers of the battle, Allied troops sometimes woke in their monsoon mud trenches with Japanese troops sleeping alongside them.
When the siege of the hill was finally relieved some 45 days after it had begun, British officers were appalled at the conditions in which both Japanese and allied forces had fought and compared it to the Battle of the Somme. Some of the Japanese soldiers had died of starvation and disease. By then end, more than 4000 allied soldiers were dead, and 5764 Japanese troops had been killed.
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Identifying activists
Kelly McParland explains some of the ways people come to identify themselves as “activists”:
You come across activists all the time. They are often quoted by legitimate news organizations, offering opinions on issues of the day. Generally their qualifications appear to be limited to an interest in the subject matter. So anyone involved in organizing a Root Vegetable Consumers Against Frozen French Fries (RVCAFFF) protest march can legitimately identify themselves as an “activist”.
No expertise is required, nor any specific experience, though activists often appear to have plenty of background in activism itself, i.e. they’ve been complaining about the same thing for a long time. There was a time when environmentalists needed nothing more than a desire to live in a remote hut without electricity or access to commercial television to consider themselves fully qualified to assess an energy plan that might impact millions of people. Since then, however, universities have discovered they can fill entire buildings with students eager to memorize environmental slogans and other arcania, and “environmentalism” has become a recognized discipline. But you can still be an “activist” by just registering to show up at a review hearing to condemn Big Oil, knowing little more than the price at the pump.
I was reminded of this when I saw the list of activist groups that are supporting the agenda of May Days of Action for Immigrant and Worker Rights and Economic, Social and Environmental Justice. (It’s a peculiarity of activist organizations that they require long titles. This is generally because slotting anyone into a particular identity goes against the activist code of conduct — as does having a code of conduct — so naming the group itself constitutes a balancing act that touches on the full range of obsessions held by its members. It’s a bit like forming a federal cabinet).
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Is the NFL at the peak of popularity also at the peak of risk?
Jim Souhan’s column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune shows the risks players are taking may be greater than they expect:
The problems faced by today’s NFL makes the notion of ballplayers inflating their muscles in an attempt to hit baseballs far almost charming.
Authorities said Seau apparently took his own life with a shot to the chest. Former Bear Dave Duerson also killed himself with a shot to his chest, and left a note asking that his brain be studied to increase awareness of how head injuries affect football players. Duerson believed hits to his head left him mentally impaired.
The NFL never has been more popular, or more endangered. Every year what was once suspected moves closer to universally accepted fact: Human beings shouldn’t play tackle football, at least at the level of violence required by professional coaches.
Malicious hits have become such an important part of the NFL that players, for the Saints and other teams, have defended the bounty system as nothing more than a bureaucratic form of violence as usual. Every NFL defender knows he should knock opponents out of the game, or just out; the Saints were the rare team arrogant enough to systemize their goals.
If Seau indeed committed suicide, and if he indeed shot himself in the chest so his brain could be studied, we will have another reminder of the NFL’s punitive laws of physics: Current NFL players are so explosive that allowing them to smash into each other at will is criminal.
