An Unlikely Revolution

  • July 26, 2008 – 11:09 pm

An Unlikely Revolution is an account of my personal involvement with the campaign to elect Ron Paul as the Republican Candidate for President. Although this was for the election to be decided in 2008, all of the events described happened in 2007.

What began as an accidental journey ended up becoming a full-time passion. Along with a few other dedicated supporters, we started with the smallest grassroots effort to building a statewide network that consisted of over a thousand people, all working to support a candidate whose rallying cry was our own Constitution. Through the trials and tribulations, they achieved so much and I was fortunate that they gave me the opportunity to lead in some small ways and to witness this outpouring of support.

The story has happy moments and sad ones, as I portray what actually happened with the supporters, as well as the challenges of working with the national campaign. Although I would rise to build a statewide grassroots network and become a member of the national staff, the marriage was an uneasy one and ended badly when the idealism and vigor that I brought from the grassroots clashed with the pragmatism that came from their headquarters in Virginia. The story is there with both sides being told, as we both had our reasons, and letting you the reader make your own assessments.

Lastly, this describes what was the end of my active involvement in this phase of the campaign. I walked away for a time and I had my reasons. I did what was expected of me and remained quiet about those, but I recorded those thoughts and I think the time has come now to share these openly.

Over the course of about ten days, I wrote nearly two hundred pages about this campaign that opened my eyes to so many things. It was a way to begin to understand what we all went through, and I hope that by sharing my own account, that more people will be able to understand what the Ron Paul Revolution was about, because it really is a great story of American idealism and civic participation.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing this.

~Tom

TABLE OF CONTENTS

8 Comments

  1. It is a little gauche to comment in one’s own comments section first, but there are a few points I wanted to include just for reference that didn’t seem appropriate in my comments.

    I actually completed writing this in December of 2007, having finished my active involvement in the campaign, and being rather pissed off at the time. I knew that I needed time to cool down.

    I made some effort to get this published, but I wasn’t able to succeed as publishers seemed to be of the opinion there wasn’t a market for information on Ron Paul. This was a few weeks before his “Manifesto” shot up to #1.

    It has also made me think of what I might write in the future. Even in the time since I’ve written this, my thoughts have evolved on several topics, and I want to talk more about the future than the past. I think it will be good for writing.

    As ever, your comments are welcome as well as your recollections.

  2. You’re definitely a good writer, I look forward to your story. Thanks for the link I put a link one crazy kook back to you

  3. Tom, I would love to read this but the black background and white print are not eye-friendly, at least to my eyes.

    Kathy

  4. For anyone who is having difficulty with reading the text in this format, I also have a copy available in MS Word format that I’m happy to e-mail. Just send me a message or leave me a note to let me know.

  5. Hi Tom,

    I look forward to reading your book describing your experience as the Pennsylvania state coordinator of the Ron Paul campaign. I’ve been active in the campaign in central Kentucky, and it’s been very educational. There is no way to understand the problem we face trying to educate the 90% who just don’t get it until we venture out into the trenches and try to persuade people. I’m currently pessimistic because it seems that most people not only don’t understand, they don’t want to understand. They aren’t suffering from a lack of information so they aren’t going to have a miraculous political conversion when the missing information is provided.

    We aren’t rational beings. We’re rationalizing beings. The scientific method seems obvious to me, but that’s not how most people function. Opinions aren’t based on facts, and are instead based on emotions. We have faith based politics. People believe what they want to believe, and damn the facts. That’s where the rationalizing comes into play. Once the emotional opinion is formed, people use the full power of their intellect to construct elaborate rationalizations to support their irrational beliefs which are not supported by fact or observation of the reality around us. I always knew that people have a nearly inexhaustible capacity for self delusion and rationalizing their own behavior, but I had previously thought of this in the context of buying expensive toys we don’t need and telling ourselves we do. I had no idea the extent to which people lie to themselves to maintain their political views. Somehow, people continue to believe that invading and occupying Iraq was the right thing to do. It’s amazing.

    You mentioned having a Word version of your book you’d be willing to email. I’d very much like to have a copy. I’ll make it worth your time. If you email me a Word file, I can email back a PDF that can be read on any computer without the need for proprietary Microsoft software.

    Thanks for writing of your experiences in the Ron Paul campaign. I look forward to reading them as I embark on the next phase, the Campaign For Liberty. Frankly, I’m cautiously optimistic, mostly because giving up isn’t an option for me and this is still the best game in town, but so far, I am completely underwhelmed by their efforts. So far, the website is just a blog, and there is no educational literature suitable for dissemination as the economy unravels and fascism rises and people might finally awake from our national nightmare and be receptive to the message of liberty. The only plan so far seems to be for the convention in St. Paul, which I think is a good idea in general, but only as part of a much larger agenda. As a stand alone event, I think it would be a pep rally when the big game has been canceled.

  6. Bruce,

    Thanks for writing. I appreciate that, and when I get home this evening, I’ll send you a copy of the Word file for viewing.

    I agree with you about people and rationalizations. My friend Scot tells me that people take fifteen minutes to make a decision and the next fifteen years, whether right or wrong, defending and justifying the conclusion already made.

    I am a little more open to taking in more than reason in considering a decision. I think you base what you think on facts, using the best information possible at the time, and being willing to remain open to new data as it comes in. I find many people think they are acting on reason, but that they develop a context for viewing the world and simply slot things into those beliefs.

    That said, politics is not something for someone devoid of faith. As you rightly attest, so many people are ill-informed tyhat it takes some sort of faith to believe our work will succeed. It is confidence in yourself, without the resignation that will alienate others, and remaining positive. People have to feel good to work, and no matter how inconvenient our feelings may be, we cannot escape them fully.

    I could write another novel about my experiences with national and how I feel about what has and has not been done. I talk about that in some depth in the novel, which you might appreciate (especially as I was canned by them). My concern with the Campaign for Liberty is that it needs to really be collaborative, and realize that the supporters of this campaign need something more loose-knit and networking based than like a single campaign. There are too many competing ideas that will fight any other way.

    I may post about that in more detail before the event, but if you look at the blog (search by category, political), you’ll get a feel for it.

  7. I want to read this but the old eyes can’t take the glare of the white letters on the black background!!!

  8. Can you please send me the MS word version? Thanks!


2 Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. By Crazy Kook » An Unlikely Revolution on 27 Jul 2008 at 3:38 am

    [...] You can find the rest of the book on his blog at: http://tomkawczynski.com/an-unlikely-revolution/ [...]

  2. By “An Unlikely Revolution” Complete « Connecting the Dots on 29 Jul 2008 at 1:49 pm

    [...] About TomAbout ChristineAbout JillAbout JustinAbout RayOur LinksAn Unlikely Revolution « Burial in an [...]

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