Ron Paul, Ralph Nader agree on progressive libertarian alliance

Ron Paul, Ralph Nader agree on ‘progressive-libertarian alliance’
By Nathan Diebenow
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

In this corner, a libertarian, tea party hero who ran several campaigns as a candidate for US president on the Republican ticket. And in that corner, a progressive icon of the left who also ran several campaigns for the US presidency but on the Green Party ticket.

One might think the two men, seemingly ideologically opposed to one another, would rather argue than help one another.

However, on Wednesday's broadcast of Freedom Watch on the Fox Business channel, Judge Napolitano sat down for an amiable interview with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Ralph Nader to discuss a progressive-libertarian alliance in the 112th session of respective chambers in Congress.

Nader, who has recently called this coalition "the most exciting new political dynamic" in the US today, explained that it works well because both groups stand against corporatists who believe government should be run in the interests of corporations.

"I believe in coalitions," Rep. Paul echoed. "They talk about we need more bipartisanship, and I say we have too much bipartisanship because the bipartisanship we have here in Washington endorses corporatism."

Paul added that he agreed with Nader on a host of issues, such as cutting the US military's budget, ending undeclared US wars overseas, restoring civil liberties and civil rights by dumping from the Patriot Act, and withdrawing from the NAFTA and World Trade Organization agreements.

"I think we should come together and work together, and I think we can," he said, noting that the coalition had previously worked on deficit financing solutions.

Rep. Paul and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the most conservative and most liberal members of their respective chambers, joined forces last session to fight for an audit of the Federal Reserve, a private institution that handles America's monetary policy, which Nader explained is under no legal control of Congress.

"The banks fund the Fed," Nader said. "It doesn't go through the congressional appropriations process as it should under our constitution."

Paul is the current chairman of a congressional subcommittee that would conduct oversight on the US Federal Reserve bank

He explained, however, that he would not have the subpoena power to force Tim Geithner, US Treasury Secretary, and Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, to testify under oath about the Fed's policies. That power is in the hands of the chairman of the full committee, he said.

"But that doesn't mean we'll go lightly on digging up for this information because Ralph is absolutely right on this thing," Paul said.

When asked, Nader stopped short of endorsing a full repeal of the Federal Reserve.

"The Fed, whatever it does, should be a cabinet-level, accountable institution," he proposed instead.

Paul also reiterated his stance that spending on overseas bases in US military's budget should be cut and that US troops should be brought home.

Trends analyst predicts global youth uprising, ‘progressive libertarians’ in 2011

Trends analyst predicts global youth uprising, progressive libertarians in 2011
By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
AFP

An American trends analyst told a Russian news service recently that in 2011, young people from industrial societies around the world will unite on the Internet to overthrow increasingly ineffective elements of globalism that have driven their economies into depression.

In a wide-ranging interview with Russia Today (RT) on Monday, Gerald Celente made the bold prediction along with a raft of other prognostications on humanity's growing trends.

As founder of the Trends Research Institute, Celente has made a number of highly accurate predictions in the past, including the rise of gold as an alternative store of monetary value and the popularization of hyper-local, organic food commodities. He also accurately foretold the economic collapse, predicting at the start of 2008 that it would happen later in the year.

Thanks to his track record, Celente has been featured by a raft of mainstream media outlets and has a strong following among American libertarians.

His overall prediction for 2011: Get ready for the cyber wars.

"[The Internet is] exposing the corruptness, the ineptitude and the double dealing going on that [governments] don't want the public to know about," he told RT. "The more freedom of information that goes out, they're going to start using cyber war and the war on terror to take that Internet freedom away from America."

He predicted a rising tide of government and private intervention online, with entities acting alongside each other to shut down speech they dislike.

"But in 2011, the game's gonna run out," he said. "...On one end, it's a wake-up call and on the other hand it's [an effort to] screw the people."

"What we saw in England, again with 'off with their heads,' what we saw in Italy with the students taking to the streets, you're gonna see in Spain, you're going to see in Ireland. You already saw it in France. Figure it out.

The US is going to be slower, but it's going to happen here at a different level. Remember, the US has been beaten down and pushed down. You're going to see a revolution world-wide. What's going to unite them in this cause is another major trend: Journalism 2.0.

"The Internet has become the great connector. They all know what's going on. They're all Facebook. They're all together. They have a system where they're interacting and relating. It's a different kind of social network than the other one, but the same."

He added that cyber war and cyber crime -- the likes of which targeted companies that refused to do business with WikiLeaks -- will escalate throughout the year.

"The worse conditions get, the more you're going to see cyber crime. The worse economic conditions go globally, the more you're going to see cyber wars. It's going to be a new element of warfare. It's an Internet nuclear bomb waiting to go off. You can bring down entire financial systems, stop bank transfers. You can blow apart, without ever having to light a fuse, a whole stock exchange... Every major computer-connected industry or service is a potential target for cyber war."

He predicted that government-sponsored cyber war would ultimately follow economic sanctions that fail to produce desired results.

Celente also predicted the rise of "progressive libertarians" in the US, which had already begun as early as 2007 when Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) became popular among not just conservatives, but progressive youth as well.

The hybridization would be "libertarian in the sense of government staying out of people's lives," he said, and progressive "with the government having control of issues where they can make a difference."

This video is from Russia Today, broadcast Jan. 10, 2010.