Understanding the Ron Paul - Lew Rockwell empire.

If you really want to understand the Ron Paul - Lew Rockwell empire, follow the money. If you read James Peron's piece carefully, you would have read what's below. Assuming James is correct, it explains a whole lot:

"Ron Paul had a brief foray into the Libertarian Party in 1988—something the Party and the libertarian movement have not recovered from—and it was a disaster. Ron toned down his anti-immigration views, stifled his discomfort with gays, agreed to leave his anti-abortion views out of the campaign and with some difficulty won the LP nomination. His campaign just qualified as a libertarian one, but he was no radical by any means and was just barely over the line from being a conservative. When he lost the campaign he left the party and started multiple business to rake in the cash for his retirement. These used the mail lists of libertarians who donated to him as well as the 100,000 or so names on the mailing lists of the neo-Nazi Liberty Lobby and Willis Carto. Carto was an open anti-Semite and pro-Nazi and the Paul business model openly catered to them.

The editor Paul hired was Lew Rockwell, a former officer staff member for Paul, and a former staffer at the Conservative Book Club. Murray Rothbard, who had pushed a very hateful anti-gay message on Paul in regards to gays, was a regular ghostwriter. Rockwell did most editing and some of the writing. Ron’s campaign manager was on the staff along with Ron’s wife and one daughter."

It's easy to nod along without really noticing what James is saying here. Below, I point to the Wikipedia entry on Willis Carto, so that you can see just who the donor base was for Paul and Rockwell, and how that might explain so much of what's been discussed the last few days.

Carto was one of the premier anti-Semites of the 20th century as well as the founder of the Institute for Historical Review, the most well-known Holocaust denial organization around. His "resume" has a lot more that that, so take a look. And do note the very last sentence: "His media outlets have supported candidate and congressman Ron Paul."

So it's not an "accident" that racists and anti-Semites like Ron Paul. He doesn't do this twice in 25 years. He has, for 30 years, actively and continually sought them out by buying mailing lists full of them to send them his various newsletters and reports all through the 90s right up to the present. The "paleo" turn was the necessary strategic and intellectual move to keep the cash flowing to Ron Paul Inc., which was founded to a significant degree on an appeal to folks who were more or less American Nazi-lites. This is the Ron Paul brand.

This background makes so much sense of so much that's happened since. Libertarians ignore it all at their own peril.