Alright, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton, and I'm joined on the phone by Adam Kokesh.
Adam vs. the Man is the name of his web TV show.
And that's on YouTube, and then it's just adamvstheman.com, right?
That's it.
Alright, good deal.
Welcome back, happy to have you here.
Thanks for having me on again, I really appreciate it, especially with what we're working on right now for Veterans for Ron Paul.
It's a very exciting time.
Yeah, now what exactly is Veterans for Ron Paul?
Well, Veterans for Ron Paul started first as nothing more than a Facebook page.
And while there's the official campaign, Veterans for Ron Paul, this is the grassroots organization that is getting out and getting the message out online and making videos and spreading the word and having events and organizing with local meetups and getting the word out that Ron Paul is the choice of the troops.
And what we're doing now, what we're working on, at least almost not as an official group thing because there isn't an official group, but as the co-founders of the Facebook page at least, Nathan Cox and myself, Nathan is also an Army vet and a veteran of Iraq.
We are hosting the Ron Paul is the Choice of the Troops March on the White House.
But the inspiration for this, as you may know, is Corporal Jesse Thorson.
And Corporal Jesse Thorson attended the Ron Paul rally in Iowa following the caucuses as an active duty corporal in uniform and representing himself as such and was being interviewed by CNN's Dana Bash, who I suppose by now anybody who's a fan of Ron Paul should know is a, what is the accepted term we've got for her now?
Prestitute?
Is that what we're going with?
Well, that goes for all of them, but yeah, she's been singled out from time to time, I think.
Yes, I think Dana Bash, who's so uncomfortable, made uncomfortable, literally uncomfortable by Ron Paul as a unique place among journalists in her role because she's been assigned by CNN to cover the campaign.
And, you know, I saw her in New Hampshire and in Iowa and it was like, wow.
But anyways, the live feed mysteriously cut out while she was interviewing Corporal Jesse Thorson talking about how Iran isn't worth going to war with and that Israel, as per Dr. Paul's, as per Israel's position, can defend itself.
And that was when the feed died.
And so Dr. Paul let him come up on stage to finish his thoughts and it was really amazing to see that he had that opportunity.
And, of course, as a result, Corporal Thorson was reprimanded by his command for political participation in uniform, which is definitely a technical violation of the rules.
What he did afterwards, though, was put up a video on YouTube explaining himself and why he did it and why he felt so strongly about supporting Ron Paul right now and why he feels so strongly about his foreign policy.
Well, you know, I wonder whether he was clearly in violation of the rules and whether maybe if he's not, maybe you could highlight that as part of this march.
At least as I understand it, and you may know much better than me on it, but as I understood it, the prohibition on political speech against soldiers is simply that they may not disparage people above them in rank, including the elected president, obviously, but that doesn't mean that they're forbidden from saying, I support this candidate instead.
Well, if they're out of uniform, if they're on their own time and they are making it clear that they are speaking on their own behalf only, then yes, that is the only limitation, that they're not allowed to disparage anyone within their chain of command or say anything that would be considered treasonous, and there are a few other minor provisions to that.
But what Jesse did by going in uniform was making a different statement and saying that I will not be marginalized.
I will not be forced to blend in with the crowd when I'm here supporting Ron Paul, not just as a veteran but as an active-duty soldier.
And that's more important to me.
And the thing that's sort of critical about this and so many other rules, the other sort of restrictions on free speech within the military, is that it's really just set up to marginalize the independence of thought of the soldiers and marginalize their voice in the political dialogue, unless it's controlled.
I mean, it's okay for Ben Bernanke to go give a speech in front of a bunch of troops and have them pose for a photo-op with him, but if they put on the uniform that they wore that day and have someone come on base that was controversial or that was against the status quo, they could be punished for it.
So the government here serves as another way of restricting free speech and providing an entrenchment of the current system, and that's what's so horrendous about this.
But what's really missing now, because we see the statistic that's out there, that Ron Paul has gotten more campaign contributions from active-duty troops than all others combined, is not given its fair shake in the press, or at least we want it to have a more prominent role.
And if it was any other candidate that you could say that about, I mean, if it was true about Mitt Romney, that he had gotten more campaign contributions, I mean, you can imagine what they'd be saying, right?
Well, the race is over, Mitt Romney appears to have the support of the military and the Republican primary that pretty much guarantees you the nomination.
I mean, it's just ridiculous, but when it's Ron Paul, it's, oh, that's a statistical fluke, that's an anomaly.
I heard a national conservative talk radio host say, when confronted with this inconvenient fact about Ron Paul by a caller, that, oh, well, Ron Paul's supporters tend to be young and the military tends to be young and they just don't really know what kind of world we live in.
You've got to be kidding me.
You're telling me that the guys that we as a country are sending to fight and die on the front lines for us, wherever they may be, don't know the threat, that they haven't invested the thought that those who are donating to Ron Paul, that those who are paying enough attention to be politically engaged beyond pulling the lever for whatever candidate the mainstream media tells you to pull it for, that the ones that are paying attention overwhelmingly support Ron Paul.
It's not despite his foreign policy.
It's not like the guys on active duty are doing this or are drawn to Ron Paul in spite of his foreign policy and saying things like, well, I really like the Constitution and I swore an oath to the Constitution and that's the most important thing for me and he's the only one that's going to honor that.
But, you know, I'm not really comfortable with his foreign policy.
You don't hear that.
That's not what it's about.
And as much as the appeal of everything else about Ron Paul and the Constitution and living up to the oath that we both swore is appreciated by guys on active duty and veterans, they're supporting Ron Paul because of his foreign policy, because he wants to bring the troops home, because he wants to close the bases around the world, because he wants to ensure that when American troops are sent into harm's way, it's done with a clear moral imperative, be it outlined by a declaration of war or letters of mark and reprisal or whatever specific military action is even being ordered, it's clear that it's not being done as a matter of choice.
It's being done as a matter of moral imperative.
And when we hear things like, well, should we have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan or 130,000 or should we draw back now or, you know, well, we have to support this big government program or that big government program or safety and security of other nations, you know, for me as a veteran, I want to pull my hair out, but I can imagine if you're on active duty going, holy crap, they don't know what they're talking about.
There is no moral imperative behind what's being discussed.
They are playing with our lives.
They are like pieces on a board game.
And I know that that gets to these guys on a certain level.
I never complain to speak for others, you know, even for veterans, for Ron Paul 2012, but especially not for the active duty troops.
I think they're sick of having this perspective marginalized, and it can't be denied that so many troops are waking up to this.
And so we are going to be gathering on February 20th on President's Day at the Washington Monument with Veterans for Ron Paul and making it clear that Ron Paul is the choice of the troops and show that there's also a parallel support to what we see in those statistics with active duty troops within the veterans community, that there are an overwhelming number of veterans that also support Ron Paul.
And there are no statistics for that.
So in a way, this is going to be the only measurement, so to speak, of the relative strength of the veterans for Ron Paul community.
But I can tell you what, there are no veterans for Romney organizing any events right now.
Well, you're going to have to make it big to get past the obvious thread in the whole narrative, that, wow, when these guys serve, apparently they learn something that makes them want to support a guy who's opposed to it all.
They don't know what to do with that on TV, Adam, but hold it right there.
We'll discuss that and a bit more of this Veterans for Ron Paul marching on the White House after this.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton, and I'm on the phone with Adam Kokesh.
He's an Iraq veteran against the wars.
And he's putting together this thing, this March on the White House.
Ron Paul is the choice of the troops.
And I don't know if you have the exact numbers handy, Adam, but can you give us some ballpark estimates for people who aren't familiar with these statistics, just how much more money Ron Paul is raising from active duty military than the other candidates?
Well, it's more than all the others, including Obama, put together.
And I wish I had the exact latest numbers at my fingertips, but I don't.
But if you see the pie chart, what's really interesting is that Obama has about a quarter of the donations, Ron Paul has about 50%, and the other 25% is all divvied up between the other Republican candidates.
The biggest hawks.
So you have the fake peace candidate, the real peace candidate, and the hawks.
And what they come to is, I mean, if you wanted to even add them all up, another 25%.
But I think that's a really interesting indication of where the troops are thinking.
And, of course, this isn't the all-inclusive, be-all, end-all statistic.
That's why more work is needed to bring attention to this, to back it up, to bolster it, to show the appeal of Ron Paul's message on foreign policy.
But it's an important indicator.
And it shows that of the ones that are paying attention, of the ones that are politically engaged, of the ones that are compelled to donate to a candidate, they overwhelmingly support Ron Paul.
So when you're asking about numbers, let's ask about numbers for this event.
Because that's also really exciting, too, what we're going to be able to do with the kinds of people that have been inspired to be a part of this.
And I want to ask your listeners to join in and find the page on Facebook.
It's Ron Paul is the Choice of the Troops, March on the White House.
And as of right now, we've got 1,200 signed up going on Facebook.
Now, a little breakdown of that.
First of all, when I first came up with this vision, and, by the way, what we're going to be doing is marching up 15th Street to turn left on Pennsylvania Avenue to be pulling up in a formation in front of the White House, facing towards the White House, do a Recover the Line, Dress Right Dress, and then do an About Faith so that our backs will be turned to the White House.
And we're going to have a flag-folding ceremony and hold a hand salute for one second for every soldier that's died since Obama became president, and it's going to take about 25 minutes.
And then we're going to have another salute for all of the veterans that have committed suicide since Obama took office.
And it's not going to be a short salute either.
So we're going to do that, march silently back to the White House, or excuse me, back to the Washington Monument.
But when I first came up with this concept, I thought, you know, if we just had a platoon-sized group, if we just had, you know, 40 vets in formation doing this right, marching in time, looking snazzy, you know, carrying the American colors and a flag for Ronald Paul at the head of our formation, that that would be a really powerful visual.
That that would be something that even that would be undeniable by the mainstream media as something of political significance, of veterans doing that.
And I floated the idea on Ronald Paul's forums and Daily Paul and on my Facebook page and a few other places, and the reception was really incredible.
And I realized right away that, well, we're going to announce this thing, and already we're going to have, like, you know, we're not going to have a platoon.
We're going to have a couple hundred guys and gals who are going to come out for this.
This is really incredible.
And then I made the announcement speech in New Hampshire on January 7th when I was up there covering the primaries.
And I was really excited to see that all of the active-duty guys that were there, well, there were actually only two of them, but there were two guys on active duty in the audience, this very select audience.
And one of them said, yeah, I'm an officer, and I'm going to come.
I'm going to wear a suit.
I'm going to wear my ribbon bar on one side of my lapel, and I'm going to wear a Ron Paul button on the other, and I'm going to be there for this, even if it turns out that it's against the regulations for me to represent this way.
And by one interpretation of the rules, it is against the DOD directives for active-duty personnel to participate in any way actively in an event supporting a candidate for president or for any office.
And so there are some that are saying we'll be there as spectators.
We'll be there in the crowd.
We're not ready to take the risk.
They're just feeling the day out.
They're going to want to jump in the formation anyways.
And we're going to be requiring proof of service from anybody who's in that formation.
So if you want to come and march with us, make sure you know you're going to need a copy of your DD-214 or an old military ID or a good photograph or at least something like that to show that you're legitimate, something convincing that you're going to have to show to your squad leader to march in that formation.
We have the other guy that we saw in New Hampshire, the other gentleman on active duty, said he's going to be there and he's going to bring his friends on active duty to march in the formation.
They weren't sure whether they were going to be in uniform, but they were going to be there and they were going to be a part of this.
And it's really exciting to be creating an opportunity for active-duty guys to be reaching out to each other and say, hey, this is the time to stand up for Ron Paul.
This is the time to have our voices heard.
And so now we've got, like I said, 1,200 signed up on Facebook, and there are a lot of people that are also coming who are afraid to put their names on the event who are active-duty military or veterans, mostly active-duty guys.
But I've gotten at least half a dozen e-mails from people who said they're coming that are not on the Facebook page or are not on Facebook at all even.
But, of course, you know, having 1,200 on Facebook might mean a third of that.
So I'm being conservative here saying that I think already we've got a pretty solid commitment.
We're going to have 300 veterans and active-duty soldiers marching in this formation on the White House to turn their backs on Obama, to repudiate his foreign policy, to show that we support Ron Paul and that he is the choice of the troops.
I sure hope that there are people in the audience who are more savvy than me with the networking or whatever who will make sure to get this out to the broadest Ron Paul community that they can because certainly there's a hell of a lot of retired guys who would be right there with you.
And, you know, up there in the Northeast, all those states are real close together.
People could get to D.C. from, you know, all different places.
Yeah, well, we've got buses being organized, and we really need all the help we can get spreading the word.
This is an almost no-budget operation.
We had a little money grenade to raise $50,000.
Well, and you know what, Adam?
I think it's so important to me.
It's so important for peace in general, and, of course, I'm all about Ron Paul.
I'm his biggest fan in the whole wide world and whatever.
But it's so important he and you guys, what you're doing is so important for peace that people can see that you don't have to be part of the Answer Coalition or a big fan of Michael Moore to be against the war, that you could be a conservative Christian Republican congressman from Texas or you could be a small battalion of anti-war conservative-leaning or libertarian veterans who can differentiate between real defense and empire and these kinds of things and give the average right-leaning citizen the opportunity to go ahead and feel like it's okay to be anti-war, you know?
Amen.
Amen.
So this is a very important thing.
You know, I'm looking at Super Tuesday on March 6th, and I'm hoping that we can have an impact there for Ron Paul, and I'm hoping that we can take this as an opportunity to recruit veterans to do more work and phone banking for Ron Paul and get out there.
But also, you know, right now we've got a brigade.
Let's make it a division.
Let's take this as an opportunity to reach out to guys on active duty that aren't paying attention yet, to other veterans in our communities that haven't heard of Ron Paul yet but can look back at their experience and say, Damn, Ron Paul was right, and I want to support him, and I want to be a part of this, and I want to put my name down in supporting him, and this is my chance to do it publicly and come out on President's Day and march on the White House and stick it to Obama, stick it to the man, and say, No, this is not what we want.
You cannot hide behind the skirts of the military with this foreign policy of imperialism because the troops don't buy it anymore.
Right.
And good thing, too, man.
We're waiting a long time to do that.
All right.
Ron Paul is the choice of the troops.
March on the White House.
Find the event on Facebook.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention.
Hold on.
I know we've got only a few minutes left here in the segment, or a second left.
We're having an after party.
We're selling tickets online.
We have an amazing lineup of bands right now.
We've got Jordan Page, Amy Allen, Golan State, and Rebel, Inc.
It's like the top tier, the best musical acts in the Liberty Movement, all four of those acts are going to be performing that night for us in D.C.
Go to the Facebook event page.
The link's in there.
Find the event and get your tickets ahead of time.
They'll be cheaper online than at the tour.
There you go.
Make an important point and drink beer.
Sounds like fun.
All right.
That's Monday, the 20th of February.
Check out Adam Kokesh's great website.
You'll find his TV show there.
And check out on Facebook, Ron Paul is the choice of the troops.
March on the White House.
Thanks so much for your time, Adam.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, Scott.
Thanks so much for having me on and helping out with this effort.
