I remember a post I did a several months ago about Ron Paul. In it, I brought up questions about a newsletter, published under his name in the early 90’s, in which anti-black, racist vitriol was spewed. His supporters tried to dismiss it because Paul says he didn’t write it — it just appeared in a newsletter bearing his name but, he had no idea about what was being put out.

At the time, I thought this was a problem with just one issue of the newsletter so, to be fair, I could see how one issue of a printed newsletter could slip under the radar.

However, what I did not know was that this was not an isolated incident.

After scouring such obscure places as the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society, The New Republic was able to track down some of the old newsletters and their contents are eye-opening and hard to defend, to say the least.

First of all, it’s apparent that the Ron Paul newsletter has been in existence since 1978 and has been published under many names: Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report. Did you notice that they all have “Ron Paul” in the name? Wouldn’t you think that, if a newsletter is being put out with your support for many years, you might be responsible for the content. Furthermore, many of the writings don’t contain bylines so, it seems that someone wanted to express these as the opinions of Ron Paul so, did he only denounce them because of the unwanted scrutiny these writings were receiving?

Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, read this excerpt from the article:

This “Special Issue on Racial Terrorism” was hardly the first time one of Paul’s publications had raised these topics. As early as December 1989, a section of his Investment Letter, titled “What To Expect for the 1990s,” predicted that “Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities” because “mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white ‘haves.’” Two months later, a newsletter warned of “The Coming Race War,” and, in November 1990, an item advised readers, “If you live in a major city, and can leave, do so. If not, but you can have a rural retreat, for investment and refuge, buy it.” In June 1991, an entry on racial disturbances in Washington, DC’s Adams Morgan neighborhood was titled, “Animals Take Over the D.C. Zoo.” “This is only the first skirmish in the race war of the 1990s,” the newsletter predicted. In an October 1992 item about urban crime, the newsletter’s author–presumably Paul–wrote, “I’ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming.” That same year, a newsletter described the aftermath of a basketball game in which “blacks poured into the streets of Chicago in celebration. How to celebrate? How else? They broke the windows of stores to loot.” The newsletter inveighed against liberals who “want to keep white America from taking action against black crime and welfare,” adding, “Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems.”

Such views on race also inflected the newsletters’ commentary on foreign affairs. South Africa’s transition to multiracial democracy was portrayed as a “destruction of civilization” that was “the most tragic [to] ever occur on that continent, at least below the Sahara”; and, in March 1994, a month before Nelson Mandela was elected president, one item warned of an impending “South African Holocaust.”

Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul’s newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. (”What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!” one newsletter complained in 1990. “We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.”) In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the “X-Rated Martin Luther King” as a “world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours,” “seduced underage girls and boys,” and “made a pass at” fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis” were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as “a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.”

While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. In a passage titled “The Duke’s Victory,” a newsletter celebrated Duke’s 44 percent showing in the 1990 Louisiana Senate primary. “Duke lost the election,” it said, “but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment.” In 1991, a newsletter asked, “Is David Duke’s new prominence, despite his losing the gubernatorial election, good for anti-big government forces?” The conclusion was that “our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom.” Duke is now returning the favor, telling me that, while he will not formally endorse any candidate, he has made information about Ron Paul available on his website.

Of course Paul states that, though these newsletters were printed under his name and with his support, he’s only responsible for not conducting more oversight:

“This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade. It’s once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the day of the New Hampshire primary.

…

When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.”

For some reason, I find it hard to believe that such a thing could continue on for years, if not decades, and Paul not know its contents. If nothing else, this indicates that Ron Paul has at least had some clear associations with racists. I couldn’t imagine anyone being able to associate with such folks without sharing some of the same beliefs.

Just my $.02.

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