I've heard people complaining lately that nobody in the media is covering Ron Paul, in spite of the fact that he's running for President.
My first reaction was "There's a good reason for that. He's Ron Paul."
Well, I read something today that changed that initial reaction.
Since he won't go away, and is currently number four in the latest polling for candidates in the GOP clown car, maybe he does deserve more coverage. Granted, I'm not a member of the traditional media, but I'll jump in anyway, because this little item deserves all the coverage it can get:
Ron Paul slammed the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and said that no national response to Hurricane Irene is necessary.
"We should be like 1900; we should be like 1940, 1950, 1960," Paul said. "I live on the Gulf Coast; we deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district.
"There's no magic about FEMA. They're a great contribution to deficit financing and quite frankly they don't have a penny in the bank. We should be coordinated but coordinated voluntarily with the states," Paul told NBC News. "A state can decide. We don't need somebody in Washington."
Yeah! Who needs FEMA?
Really? I'll bet the people of his district in Galveston might feel a little differently about that, especially if they have to rely on Ron Paul to act in their best interests the next time a hurricane comes their way. Do they agree with Paul, that "We should be like 1900?"
Like this 1900, from the NOAA website?
On September 8, 1900, the greatest natural disaster to ever strike the United States occurred at Galveston, Texas. In the early evening hours of September 8, a hurricane came ashore at Galveston bringing with it a great storm surge that inundated most of Galveston Island and the city of Galveston. As a result, much of the city was destroyed and at least 6,000 people were killed in a few hours time. The following is the account of Isaac M. Cline, the senior Weather Bureau employee present at Galveston, of the events leading up to the storm, his personal experiences in the storm, and the aftermath. The horror of Galveston is only partly described in this work. He was probably somewhat still in shock when he wrote this report as he lost his wife when his house collapsed during the storm and virtually all of his possessions. In a later biographical work, he referred to the shooting of hundreds of looters by vigilantes in the aftermath of the storm and the cremation of hundreds of unknown storm victims who otherwise would have decomposed where they lay. This particular report is excerpted from the Monthly Weather Review for September, 1900.
You can read the entire account from Isaac M. Cline here.
Doesn't that paint a rosy picture of Ron Paul's vision for America 111 years later?
It's bad enough that the current Republicans in Congress want to cut funding for weather satellites and hurricane hunters from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, all of which provide critical information and help predict the path of a hurricane. That's not nearly good enough for Ron Paul. He not only doesn't want "demon big government" to prevent disaster, he doesn't think it should lift a finger to help in the aftermath either.
To quote President Obama, when speaking of the GOP: "You're on your own!"
And then some, says Ron Paul!
Ron Paul may have some warped romantic vision of the good old days before there was "modern technology" and an evil organization like FEMA, but many of us who live along the Gulf Coast and have lived through actual hurricanes don't share it.
Meanwhile, back to those of you who say there's not enough coverage of Ron Paul?
Well, there ya' go!
