I see the Ron Paul newsletters are in the news again! If you haven’t heard about them, they were a series of newsletters Doctor Congressman Ron Paul put out in the 1980s and 1990s containing tons of insane, homophobic, and racist stuff (here’s a big article about them, featuring some scans) which he later claimed were all ghostwritten and that he’d never read any of them, somehow. Yes, this guy incapable of running an 8-page newsletter would like to run The United States of America.
I was going to make a fake parody one called the Ron Paul Independence Report. I wrote a quick rough draft consisting of about four pages or so, but it’s gone forever in a hard drive crash, and I lost the copy I’d printed out for myself (or maybe it’s in one of the zillions of boxes I still need to unpack). The only thing still existing is the thumbnail of the first page/cover over on the left that’s way too small too read, but I can make out most of it if I squint real hard:
June 18 [?], 1997
Volume I, Number 1Back in Town
As I write these words, I’m on the run. Not literally, mind you, but figuratively. I’m on the run from an insidious organization almost as sinister as the Trilateral Commission. It’s called the P.C. Police, and try as we might, even the most fleet-footed among us will never truly escape their nefarious clutches. Last year, my opponent tried to sabotage my message of Freedom by [taking?] quotes from my previous newsletters — Ron Paul Political Report Ron Paul Surival Report, and Dr. Ron Paul’s Freedom Report — out-of-context in a negative adversing campaign against Yours Truly. Fortunately The Truth prevailed in the end and I went on to win the election. [I get the impression there was supposed to be another paragraph here about mainstream America not being ready for The Truth yet here.] You, my friend, are ready. Let Freedom ring! I have ordered my subscription manager, Jean McIver, [can’t make out the rest of that sentence]
Ellen Degenerate
The Homosexuals have invaded our airwaves. Television star and “comedienne” Ellen DeGeneres “came out” in an April 1997 episode of her TV show “Ellen” which aired on the A.B.C. Network which of course is owned by the homo-friendly Walt Disney Co. [Can’t make out the rest]
[Next paragraph looks like placeholder “Lorem ipsum” text – this thumbnail was just a preview, mind you.]
Dog Watch
I saw a dog the other day. He was wearing a pink sweater. It looked kind of gay to me.
Some other things I remember: an anecdote about sharing an elevator with minority congressmen and feeling uncomfortable; some “predictions” about the future, like using the World Wide Web to coordinate money bombs, or something; something about meeting fellow Texan George W. Bush. Mostly it was just “Wacky Grampa”-type observations about the world.
Tell you what: if Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination, I’ll go ahead and finish it.