Response to
    http://www.theseminal.com/2007/10/11/what-should-we-ask-ron-paul-tonight/

by vsync

First, congratulations on getting to the event and engaging in a
community process to plan your questions.

I like your first question.  Unfortunately it's one that I think he's
already answered as best he can, to the extent that he's said the
Meetup groups and so forth have sprung up outside of the "mainstream
media".  By its very definition, "alternative media" is always going
to be on the outside looking in (although "mainstream" and
"alternative" views or publications can change places of course).

A variant of the second portion of that question that's more
interesting to me is "What can be done, within U.S. culture, to
increase the people's interest in current events and public policy and
decrease their dependence on ever-more-monolithic corporate media?"

You should drop your second question now.  I followed the link you
gave to SPLC and didn't find any credible justification to label
Mr. Epstein as a "white supremacist".  And I notice in your resulting
question, you don't even bother to qualify that allegation but merely
pass it along wholesale, adding credibility to the charge.  I found a
number of excellent criticisms of the name-calling at that link, but
I'll attempt to summarize my issues with your question as framed here,
and believe it or not I think it's actually part of the answer to your
first question [3]:

This ad hominem stuff that passes for political discourse in our
country has to stop, now.  To treat any person or group as beyond the
pale, as corrupted beyond redemption, as not worthy of notice, is both
insulting and counterproductive.  You lose, probably forever, any
chance of de-radicalizing them, let alone bringing them to your point
of view.  And people who either privately sympathize with them or look
past their identity and see a good point they made will see you
throwing the baby out with the bathwater and ignoring that good point.
They will be vicariously offended and dismiss you as shrill and
unreasonable.

To judge someone by their associations is unfair and dangerous.  Those
of us that fought the Patriot Act and related encroachments by the
police state realize this.  When you give the state -- be it the
legislature; the executive; the judiciary; or the fourth estate, the
media -- power to make someone a pariah you are on a slippery slope
where the offense that started it begins not to matter.  How is it
fair to defend someone who gave money to Hamas for Palestinian medical
relief, yet attack this man for reviewing a book, or linking to an
article, or for bringing up uncomfortable and difficult issues in a
different light?

Ron Paul has said that he'll speak whereever he's invited, and he is a
man of his word.  The "front-runner" Republican candidates were
excoriated, and rightly so, for avoiding the Morgan State debate.  But
in fact Ron Paul and those who attended were first subjected to a
tirade celebrating the Barrabas-like release of the attacker in a
brutal racially-motivated beating [1], and those that avoided it could
probably say credibly that they assumed they would be pressured to
support racial discrimination [2].  Ron Paul goes many places and
speaks with many people, but he does not change his message, pander to
his audience, or commit sins of omission.

I joined the "Serious Change" group hosted on this very site.  I think
it recognizes an important point: that as we advocate for change we
can often be embarrassed or misrepresented by fellow-travelers with
different motivations and goals, and that the media unfairly allows
the sideshow to obliterate the message.  In fighting your enemy, take
care you do not become him.

Notes:

[1] For the record, the little I've read on the Jena 6 indicates that
    the school was a powder keg and the local police were biased; Ron
    Paul also held forth in that debate against racially disparate
    sentencing that disadvantages minorities.

[2] In the form of affirmative action.

[3] Meaning that if "alternative media" wants to supplant "mainstream
    media" it must not do so by antics and upping the ante, but rather
    by listening before speaking, and respecting the intelligence of
    its audience.