Open Thread: The Future of the Movement

one more thing, theres talk on another thread of a moneybomb with rebate checks,,,,those of us who can are willing to donate 100.00 ,they are tossing around dates now,,,this may also be a good rallying point

even on my darkest days when i thought our chances for nomination were over i came here and hung tight with fellow patriots and it kept me going, please keep the site up,,,,i dont have a lot of money and i dont have a lot of mobility, (single mom and aging mom with alzheimers keep me close to home) and i live in rural community but everyday i make it a point to wake at least one person up.some days i wake up more .last saturday s events at the Nevada convention gave me something i havent had in a while,,,,hope.we are still a force for good to be reckoned with , and by the way, i just got my rebate check,,,,im making a nice contribution to the campaign .....long live the Constitution

good post. Yes the people should know it is going to a new phase. There are still soem primaries, and also the support of local candidates.

I think the Paul campaign and local meetup groups should see about more candidates for congress, for instance in Montana etc.
There is also the senator seats of Chuck Hagel in Nebraska (he will not be extending), Larry Craig (Idaho), and Independent or LP/CP member ruinning in Arkansas (where the GOP failed to field a candidate) as well as several others, where very good candidates should be identified and rallied to go into the race. We need as many senators as possible! Incumbants are normally favored to win, but there are a few "new" positions as indicated above where the incumbant will not stand anymore. One could also think about challenging a Democrat senator: on the RP basis there should be a strong basis to win, much stronger than on the current pro-war GOP basis.

I think people should also think establishing a website, magazine and online TV as a true alternative and competitor for "reason magazine" where libertarian oritentated themes as well as philosophical and economic and social themes can be discussed. Also, the it could also be taken international in expanding such an opportunity in Europe, or combining wiht existing ones there may be. There are great programmers with the RP followers: they could make a truly great website with features.

Someone has an online magazine/newsletter already, I think, which is good. It could be a conservative mainstream competition for huffingtonpost
dailykos etc.

Organise more money bombs for the candidates, as well as slim jims etc.
Remember, the better our candidates fare, the strongest the voice for Paul to wint he nomination and we may also get some additional ("super")delegates this way.

I still frequent the DP, though more of my time is spend educating myself with the constitution and other important documented staples of our heritage. So may I suggest that, although there is less traffic here and less donations coming in, that there is a ground swell. This is the calm before the storm. We are learning our rights, strengthing our convictions. We are building our energy while we tighten up the loose ends and polish our platform. I truly feel that this is the part were we lose our insecurities and realize our significance in this thing. This is when we realize that this is really happening and it is WE that are doing it. Each one of us, from the candidates for congress to the person asking his dad about the meaning of liberty, it is moving. As for myself and many others it was Dr. Paul that brought these issues to light, but that is irrelevant what is important is that once you know the truth it is very, very difficult to revive the lie.

Ron Paul for the long haul

Just venting will not change anything in our wonderful country. I believe this forum should and can play an active roll in restoring our liberty and I applaud your efforts.

We can monitor votes in Congress and hold elected officials to the fire as our representative who we pay. Recalls for those who defy and deny our constitution. This forum could be a catalyst and a trend setter giving others courage to recall their congressmen for blatant disregard for the constitution.

We can promote state's rights more and monitor our state's elected officials and use this board as a help center for those who need help in proper procedures.

We can use this board to help by promoting energy independence and food independence which is shared with those on this site.

We can keep Ron Paul's ideas alive by press releases and action in our local communities holding our representatives to the constitution. Tom Feeney from the Orlando Florida area has a website that talks about old republican ideals, smaller government, yadda, yadda, yadda yet he sponsored a bill in the Congress taking away our liberty and freedom. Wonder what his voters would think of that?

Just some thoughts.

Whatever Happens Maintain this Daily Paul site.

I truly believe this site is a pinnacle of the movement and getting the word out about things.

Please keep this site going. There will be ups and downs..but Ron is still with us..he has his own strategy in mind.. He is very wise..maybe he knows something we are not thinking about and he wants what will move this country the farthest in the easiest way.

Don't give up..please keep posting I enjoy this site even when things slow a bit.

Peace-

Liberty Girl

Hi Michael,

Thank you for this forum.

We did lose some steam but it feels like we are moving in the right direction. Here in Massachusetts we felt kinda like you but many of us still went to caucus and to our surprise we did great. I keep reading about other states actually gaining momentum towards their caucus and winning! I agree we don't have the same "buzz" on the internet like before but I think that is because many of us are taking action. I spent one weekend collecting signatures for the Register of probate court spot for a Ron Paul supporter and every day I talk to at least one person about ending the state income tax here. We need every elected office we can get. So I think the steam we feel we lost is actually driving the engine now and we can't get to sites like this as often as before even though we need them more than ever.

Regards,
Todd

Fortune Favors the Bold

Keep in mind, the "Heights" with the incredible amount of visitors, was largely a college fad. I wouldn't say that those were serious political activists necessarily, more college kids who were into the new cool internet thing. Of course with the primaries largely over, many people have lost interest. Think about it, We used to consistently win the aol straw poll, but how many of those people went out and voted? I have encountered a ton of people while gathering signatures who wanted to support Ron Paul. When i asked them if they had voted in the primary, they had forgot to.
Those who remain are the truly dedicated. I think alot of kids were just into the anti-war, pro-marijuana, internet empowermet aspects. They didn't care much about the real free market ideology. I think we have also shed a number of racists and conspiracy types.

We need to keep a positive a possible.
Ron Paul looks for answers and does not dwell on the mistakes.
He is always trying to find the good and recognizes the need to correct the errors that have been going on.
Listen to Ron Paul for guidance.

http://www.dailypaul.com/...

The purpose of DailyPaul, now or in future, should not allow highly visible RP supporters to attack other highly visible RP supporters.

I just received an e-mail "from" Nancy Pelosi:

Here's what you and I can't let happen. We can't allow the tension and pressures of a spirited Presidential contest to spill over and harm hard-working Democratic candidates running to strengthen our Democratic majority in the House.

I will do whatever it takes to protect our candidates and make sure their campaigns to drive change forward don't skip a beat. I need you to do the same.

Threads/posts on DP have been more harmful than anything the Democrats or other GOP candidates have said/done!

I have seen the Granny Warriors attacked. Yet, they are the only ones I have seen to *take charge* of a Washington event vs. "it just happens".

I had hoped the anti-TREVOR LYMAN thread (http://www.dailypaul.com/...) by Dr. Steve Parent/SGP had "fallen off", only to see it not only resurrected, but additional unsubstantiated accusations publicly posted.

I would think that there could even be legal ramifications for *DP* for not removing those accusatory posts/the entire thread, particularly if there is any provable negative impact on Trevor's IPO of stock for his media company.

SGP also promised to keep that nasty thread "bumped" every day, as well, as though threats would "help".

After such nasty posts, expecting Trevor to interact with SGP or any other of the nasty posters is like thinking McCain would debate RP!

In some ways, SGP has almost "taken over" DP with the many, many delegate posts that are constantly being "bumped". What happened to the website he stated that he was going to use to publish that information?

Worse, has SGP done permanent damage to Trevor's ongoing support of the "movement"? If so, then SGP, personally, has also done *harm* to the future of the "movement" after "his" convention.

Question: Was the recent attack on DP "blowback" by one or more others for the very nasty treatment they publicly received on DP (that harmed the credibility of all of those posters, as well)?

Was that the Internet equivalent of "going postal"?

Liberty Maven (dot) com

Here is what we can do, and should be doing already, even if it is still technically possible for Dr Paul to win the nomination.
1. Join your local republican committee. I have and that is where the people who run for office are chosen and supported from. If you want to run on the republican ticket, you must go through the republican committees and ask for their support, or your name will not be on the ballot.
2. Run for office. We have here in upstate NY at least 3 potential seats in congress that are OPEN due to retirements. We have david gay running for one (central ny ron paul meetup organizer and RP delegate) and If I cant find someone better to run for tom reynolds open seat I may have to run myself.
3. keep a list of our network of supporters. Call for paul, ron paul grassroots, granny warriors, yourself, Trevor, lawrence lepard, dr steve parent, rp radio etc. etc, etc..Anyone who can get the word out to people and or provide connections to people who have experience or resources.
4. Fundraising. Elections cost money.
There are so many things to do. We just need to stay involved and keep our network together.

A final note. I have found that the people in the republican committees are generally supportive of a small govt low tax personal liberty agenda. The reason we get what we have gotten is those are the people willing to run for office. With all the talent we have gathered here we should be able to get some good and honest people in office, IF.. we continue the revolution. That starts at your local committee. and they are dying for new people, at my last few meetings we didn't even have a quorum. 10 more Ron Paul republicans in my committee and we could pass virtually any resolution we wanted. We wouldn't even need to "take over" my committee, the members there would support us, if we could only get people to show up, so we could have a quorum and vote.
Also, thank you Michael Nystrom. From all of us. You made this possible.

I'm all for creating a strong movement that can transcend a mere election cycle, but Ron Paul doesn't seem to want to lead it. When he did that video saying that the nomination was out of reach (duh) and that he'd be winding down the campaign, without articulating an alternative way to work towards our goals, many people felt rudderless. Yes, there are things that all of us can do individually do bring about a freer society, but we all latched onto Ron Paul because we get TIRED of working in isolation.

Now, I understand Paul's situation - he's getting into the golden years, and he probably doesn't have the energy for this stuff anymore. I don't blame him. But as a symbol, he is very powerful. All he'd have to do is pick somebody else who'd be a good candidate and tell everybody to throw their support behind that person.

And if you're gonna drop out of the race, do it in a way that makes sense to everybody and just drop out. No shame in it. Then, put forth a new plan for directing our energies. But this "takeover the Republican party" strategy smells like a replacement for an authentic political agenda.

What we need is somebody - maybe not Dr. Paul - to come in and announce a broad new project that we can all work towards. We all knew this was a long shot, but what drove us was that feeling of cameraderie and shared purpose, just knowing that there were other people out there who weren't sleeping. Now that we've established that there are all these other people on the same page as us, it's a crying shame that we're just squandering it on the frickin' Republican party machine.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

I will tell you why I stopped going to my meet ups. I bet there are many others who feel as I do. The movement lost me when it was decided to stay with the GOP and try to take it over from within. I could not remain a republican because of the dispicable way the GOP treated Ron Paul. There were other reasons also. The Neo Con movement, the shift from conservatism to the "moderate" stance. When my meet up organizer said we would have to support McCain in order to infiltrate the local GOP I wasn't having any part of that. If we are to win...we have to get off this two party system. The sooner we build a powerful third party, such as the Libertarian party, the sooner we can get rid of the monopoly on politics. I was hoping that would happen after the primaries...but it doesn't seem that we are sticking together. I understand why Ron Paul stays with the republican party..so he can keep his congressional seat. I even suggested to the meet up that the local libertarians and Ron Paul republicans work as a team to get people with our philosophy elected locally and they rejected that. They even saw me as a competitor and circulated negative emails about the libertarian party. I found that to be extremely counter productive. I was one of the more active members of the meet up group and put together a couple of events that landed our meet up on local news. That is why our meet up pretty much died. RON PAUL 2008 Jazzloversinc

I think I found a good solution to solve part of the problems:
Tax the federal reserve as any other business or corporation in the nation.
they are a private own bankers corporation independent to goverment they should also be taxed right??
Goverment doesn't elect FED presidents, they don't keep they payroll neither their have control on their decitions neither they own stock in the company.
Maybe we could go forward and tax them retroactive for all the years they have failed paying taxes to our goverment and surely we will be able to eliminate our national debt with that money.
This is a good solution guys, what do you think??

Hello fellow Patriots!

Yesterday our Ron Paul meet up group was quite informative. First of all I would like to report great news. In this Texas county we have control of ALL the delegates so there is no worry there. In fact, our problem is we don't have enough Ron Paul delegates to fill the slots. Also discussed resolutions that were decided upon in the committee that unfortunately was not as successful in infiltration. (We should be ready for 2010 though)

Later the group went into future ideas for the local meet up.

Everybody was curious about what we should do and our organizer gave us the floor. We had members proposing education and community projects, and various other forms of things we can take part in to keep our group not only from disbanding but growing.

For instance, we are going to try to meet with the group of a neighboring county for a social party after the county convention. We are going to try to hold contests with prizes (like movie tickets or money) for members to get our weekly participation up.

They also very responsive to the proposals I made. We did not decide over the course of this meeting what exactly our new image will take on; however, because of our county convention was our main focus. We definitely did approve of this proposal:

Seriously begin to concert our efforts with ALL our meet up groups in the nation to move to a new phase of our organization.

A programmer in our group is going to try to design a program so we can have an effective interface for communication with our own members. Furthermore we are going to move our main communication off the meetup.com site. We are still going to have it, but its not a site we as a group tend to use because of all the problems it has.

At the Green River CC. That will be my next meeting.

I think it's on April 12th. The meeting is to set the platform for King County republicans.

I live in San Diego and we are working on running Ron Paul Republicans for various offices. We also attend the monthly SD GOP meetings and are getting to know people. We try to educate them as much as we can, mostly with regards to military empire and its effect on the economy. We are most certainly NOT going away. I will be doing the writing and communications for a Ron Paul Republican running for congress in the 51st district in California, Dan Felzer.

We also have a good mix of Libertarians running for various offices as well. Hell, we've even got a couple of us running for school board!

We even attend some Democrat meetings to try and spread the message there as well =)

Fight on.

I haven't been on this site in awhile because of statements like this one. I've moved onto other areas that focus on the message more than the candidate and don't spend all their time on junk theories.

Maybe you could spend more time ostrasizing everyone that doesn't have the exact same mentality as the people on this site. After that you can go out an alienate the rest of the population.

It might be off topic but it is encouraging...
http://www.connietalk.com...

Even in YouTube views for new videos.

I'm doin my job at www.RingsideRevolution.co...
Makin videos and trying to keep the ball rolling. What was once a strong powerful movement has seems to have whithered a bit. RP always says that this movement was bigger than he had ever dreamed. I wish he would take that lesson and realize a third party run could be even bigger! But since he is not than I will continue the fight. Dr. Paul seems to like his cozy congressional seat and his more frequent tv interviews. He had a real shot at a third party run. But whatever. We will see if the Republican Party will even invite him to the convention. I was at my county convention a few days ago and I tell ya.. wanna talk about a bunch of fools. Just a few days before the convention they found some wealthy hispanic GOYA executive to run. All they did was a phone screening. What a joke. He is running against Sabrin and another guy that like prison camps in the US.

RP will be in it until the support runs dry and he also said that all the Revolution needs is a few hard core supporters. We have that. So keep your hopes up.

I found that getting involved locally and educating your town council and Police department are good ways to start. RUN FOR COUNCIL! Much can be done there.

Here is my newest video. There is a few curse words. So do not watch if hat offends you.
http://www.youtube.com/wa...

Peace

Peace

Ron Paul has always been here, some of you totally baffle me. I will not let the weekness of a few infiltrate my thinking or direction of the freedom message and revamping of our civil liberties. I am convinced that some of you can be and maybe have been baught out by the corruption in our society. But that dosnt totally suprise me either.
For those of you that have said things have died down are not on the same page of us that have been working day in and day out. Just because you do not hear bombs going off dosnt mean that there isnt a war going on, and battles are not being faught. Wake up and get with it !
Should any of you continue on in this battle along side Ron Paul and the numbers of us that are still standing all you have to do is continue research, ask questions, spread the message, get involved in the political world and the process it takes to take our government back. Once we get back to the drawing board of the politcal process and use our forces to wipe out those few in positions that are abusing their powers. We can reestablish the constitution as it was originally intended. Do not waiver. Stay focused on freedom or you will wake up one day and not have any.

Hi Mr. Nystrom,
I am a meet-up organizer in Ohio and I would like to say I am one of the people who was visiting Dr. Paul's official site as well as this one everyday before our state voted. Now that the official campaign has cut staff & conserving money there is not as much active news informtion so I visit the site less often but WE ARE STILL HERE AND STILL ACTIVE!! We are helping our neighbors just over the stateline in Pennsylvania and organizing many functions for the upcoming months to educate our communities, thus paving the way for Dr. Paul's final run after he wins the convention. Many say he cannot win or is not kicking up enough fuss now, but I am convinced that he knows how to win this thing and he is walking softly and carrying a big stick. If he kicks up a fuss now look at the Missouri GOP...they have time to mount a defense! So we are here and waiting quietly, and let them think we are gone because we are not! Look at Jefferson's win in 1800...the REVOLUTION of 1800! It can be done and we are still hard at work!

When you realize this is not your game, even if you're a multi-millionaire (Mitt Romney or Ross Perot). This is their game-the people who manipulate and control the money. Third party people need to get anything but one of the two parties out of their head-this isn't your game, its theirs and you gotta beat them at their own game to take back our country.

After we are established within one or both of the parties and everyone of the Ron Paul supporters have infiltrated local politics then we can talk about other parties. Right now we have to beat them at their own game, otherwise you're dead in the water.

Alexa shows a huge drop after RP announced that his Texas seat was more important than a 3rd party run.

I would not call those who immediately disappeared, including myself, "summer soldiers" especially because the people who sent so many packing were the ones who got rude and offensive at those who started asking who else could run third party.

These people were not necessarily giving up on the need to retake the Republican Party, but maybe they felt at the time that there were other ways to do that besides sign up as a delegate, etc

Besides entering into a conversation with a sympathetic (to libertarians) McCain operative (Charles Adams) who will probably NOT be able to deliver any relief, I at least temporarily moved to FreeRepublic.com after I saw that the dropoff meant that my words here were not reaching a large enough audience. DP had rivalled FR in audience for several months but FR started pulling ahead as McCain magically started pulling in voters in January.

Keep in mind that FReepers largely dislike McCain and are open to talk of libertarian candidates.

But libertarian FReepers often say things like "RP made a Faustian bargain with the far-left when he decided to harp on the anti-war issue to the exclusion of the libertarian issues we conservatives really want discussed".

Now that there seems to be some good discussion about who can run third party, DP has gotten interesting again.

I might suggest that we consider a new domain name after Memorial Day where the LP Party candidate, if she or he is a winner, gets all the hype.

The 'summer soldier and sunshine patriot' rhetoric, in my opinion, is not wise.

We need to keep as many people in the movement as we can at this writing, and keep as many donating to money bombs as possible. "Are you IN or are you OUT?" verbiage at this point just narrows the field of supporters and winnows them. Right now, logically, is the time for soft sell and sharing common ground, while most members of the Ron Paul Revolution watch to see if the delegate takeover strategy will work.

Lots of Paulians have doubts at this writing. I have doubts, lots of them, regarding the delegate strategy. I hope my doubts will be proven wrong. But I'm in the movement anyway, and no matter what happens, I WILL be voting for Ron Paul in November.

Lots of people have complained about the staff, the TV commercials, and so on. Many libertarians are unhappy with Dr. Paul's decision to stay with the GOP. Scolding those at the fringes and calling those who are drifting "summer soldiers" is not going to fill up the avenues in DC in June during the march. We need to be inclusive.

We need to keep as many people in the movement as possible..."stay in until the end, and vote for Dr. Paul even if you must write him in".

SUPPORT OUR FOUNDERS' AMERICA
Support the Constitution of the United States

....to remember, that while it is very important to have a centralized focus and central theme, we are all spreading the message of freedom every day. More people everywhere are whispering about it...at work, at home, on daily paul:-). Many of you here have already become delegates and some of you are still waiting your State's turn. Some are running for local offices, some are running for state and national offices. We have what we need already. As Dr. Paul has referred to many times, the Constitution has already been given to us by our Founding Fathers, let's put it to use and live Free.

From his last announced video clip, he mentioned organizing a CENTRAL ORGANIZATION and mentioned there would be structure to it.

We have to wait until after the convention, before we get going. Yes, the numbers have diminished coming to this website, but numbers are a little deceiving, if you base them on postings.

People are very tired, after having put bSO MUCH HEART & SOUL & MONEY into the campaign, as Dr. Paul has done. We are all pretty saddened by the realization that we couldn't succeed WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF THE MEDIA. It was a very sad reaization, indeed. All of us, all ages, figured we could overcome this somehow. But, corruption ran deep, not only IN the Media, but IN the National & State GOP levels.

Still, I believe things will take shape, once the Republican National Convention is over with.

Let's just BE PATIENT and inform everyone to enjoy the summer and relax for a much needed rest and to check back in September. That's my "take" on it...

For those who are lucky enough and have enough energy to fight their State GOP's, great, and perhaps they'll get lucky enough to go to the convention.

Until September, adios!

I think it'd be awesome if we were able to set up some sort of fund to buy literally thousands of copies of Dr. Paul's new book, and then distribute the books to people for free.... just get them out to as many people as possible.

Imagine, you're riding the bus, or your on a flight, or a train, and everyone is reading a copy of "The Revolution: A Manifesto."

Send copies to the public and school libraries. Leave a copy somewhere for somebody to find and pick up, etc.

Then multiply this effort to cover the whole country. Think of the effect. Mass education, and Dr. Paul's book is the textbook.