Q & A
Q1. Why should anyone
pay any attention to you? What have you
accomplished in your life that would indicate you are
qualified to be President of the United States?
A1. Good question. The only
real qualification I have for the job is having become who
I am. That includes a state of being, an
understanding of the problems we face, the courage to face
those problems, and the intellectual curiosity and
integrity to inquire about how things are, tell the truth
about them, and offer my services in helping to resolve
them, if I can.
Well, I suppose I should also mention
that I'm 67 years old and I have a degree in
economics and an MBA in Finance. I've spent most of
my career
advising people on financial matters. I also develop
computer models for financial and estate planning
purposes. Over the last 10 years or so I've written
three books and many commentaries, most of which in an
effort to protect and defend the Constitution and the rule
of law. I felt I had to do this because most of
our elected officials won't.
Surely there are many American citizens who are smarter,
better educated, better informed, more experienced, more
accomplished, more articulate, more well known, more
skillful, in better physical shape, younger, and better
looking than I am. But they are not
necessarily better suited to handle this particular job
than I am, and perhaps most important, they aren't
running.
Find me someone who is willing to run and is also likely
to be a better leader and President than I would be and I
will step down and support that person for
President. None of the current candidates
qualify.
A question you might ask yourself
is, "Do I have the consciousness, intelligence,
integrity, and honor to vote for the candidate who, if
elected, would make the best President."
I've spent the better of my life
preparing for this job; how well prepared are you to do
your part as citizen.
http://www.gpln.com/citizen.htm
Without honorable, well educated and well informed
citizens to stand with me, neither I nor anyone like me
will ever get elected. And if that happens, you and
your loved ones will have to live with the consequences,
probably well into the future.
Q2. Why do you say that all the
current candidates (as of 9/15/2011) are unqualified to be
President of the United States?
A2. First of all, the most
important qualification of any would be public servant is
their ability, willingness, understanding, honor and
courage to keep their oath of office. As far
as I can tell, of those currently running only Ron Paul
has made any significant effort at all to do this.
But if any of the candidates were qualified in this regard
they would have been saying many of the things I have been
saying for a number of years and they haven't done that.
http://www.gpln.com/timetotellthetruth.htm
Ron Paul did oppose the Iraq war and he is sensitive to
some issues as they impact our rights and freedoms, but
having been called upon to protect the Constitution, he
has not fully risen to the occasion.
Nevertheless, I believe Ron Paul is an honorable person
who intends to do his job as well as he knows how.
But it's important that a public servant also understand
how an economy in a democracy is supposed to work or needs
to work and why
our government is failing miserably in that regard.
One of the primary functions of
government is to insure that there is a level playing
field on which every citizen has the opportunity to live
out his or her life in a manner that supports their
dignity and ability to become all they can be as a citizen
and human being.
Government needs to be big enough and honorable enough to
protect everyone's basic human rights in the face of
powerful economic forces that work to diminish them.
http://www.gpln.com/udhr.html
This requires enough legislation and regulation to limit
those forces that give unfair advantage to a privileged
few at the expense of everyone else. I don't believe
Paul understands this and unfortunately, this is
particularly important in today's world.
http://www.gpln.com/reflecting_on_soros.htm
Ron Paul's stated economic polices
would continue to benefit the rich and well connected few,
at the expense of the many. He doesn't support a
universal single payer heath care system (such as Medicare
for all) when it's the only approach that makes both moral
and economic sense.
One more thing. Ron Paul is not
going to advocate to the general public that it would be
in their best interest to replace most of our officials
who currently hold office. Nor will he suggest that the current
two party system we have is a total failure at advancing
democratic principles, protecting our freedoms,
improving our culture, or helping other peoples of the
world experience peace, justice, or success.
Q3. The
nation looks to me to be irretrievably divided. How
do you suppose you can make positive change when half the
population sees and experiences life in a manner 180
degrees opposed to the way the other side sees and
experiences life? Even in your writings you say that
the nation is divided as far into the future as you can
see. What can you say or do to bring us together in
pursuit of peace and brotherhood-- in pursuit of
truth, honor, dignity, compassion, courage, love?
A3. Do you believe in love?
This is not about me. This is about you.
The truth is the truth. When you are not
afraid of the truth, of how the truth might change you or
change your life, an opportunity opens -- a doorway
through which you can go to observe who you really are -- and
as you begin to see yourself more clearly, the divisions
will begin to disappear. This is not about
me. This is about you. It is for
you to choose. I am just an invitation.
The rest is up to you.
Q4. I don't
understand why you're not doing more to get your name out
there. How come you didn't announce your candidacy
using normal channels like everyone else... how about TV
or newspapers, etc?
A4. I need to do it this
way. Even the local newspaper in the small
town where I live didn't consider it newsworthy when I
informed them of my candidacy.
So that's not an option, and the fact
is, I don't want to be in the news, raise
money, or be on TV... at least not yet.
Why? I am not well known enough to raise the
amount of money it would take to be an independent
candidate and still compete on an equal footing with the
major party candidates. And if I were in the
news, no mainstream pundit would speak of me favorably or
even consider me to be a viable candidate. In
fact, they would do everything possible to make sure I am
not taken seriously. I know what I'm talking about
in this regard. Maybe it's not fair, but
that's how it is.
The only way my strategy can work is if you decide to
accept my leadership in conducting this campaign.
Here's the first part of my strategy for building a better
America:
1) You need to decide that on
election day, no matter what, you will vote for the person
you believe, if elected, would make the best president of
those running;
2) You need to communicate to others that you
have decided, that on election day you will vote for the
person you believe, if elected, would be the
best president among those running, regardless of who you
think will win;
3) And please tell them, that I will be one
of the candidates they can consider before making their
final choice; and
4) Please send them a
link to my web site (this web page will do) so they can
begin to do their own research to see if they too would be
willing to help execute this strategy as I've outlined it.
If you need to get a better sense of who I am... what I
look like, how I speak in public, that will come in time.
I want to win this election without doing anything to
raise money. If we can do that, this country will be
transformed even before I take the oath of office.
The only real power a president has, comes from you, but
that's another story.
Money is not speech or votes. You can speak
out and you can vote without spending money. And
you can think for yourself without having people in the
media tell you what to think.
By executing this strategy the way
I've outlined it, there will be no need for people to ask
for money, hold protest signs, or march in the streets in
order to get those in office to act like decent human
beings.
And it won't be necessary for citizens to put up yard
signs either, or any of the other ways politicians waste
money and people's time trying to get themselves elected,
most of whom are totally unqualified for the offices they
want to hold.
If the people we elected to office were qualified, we'd
have a government that works. It's not that difficult to
understand. We need people who are able to keep
their integrity in tact and stay loyal to you rather than
to their corrupted party leadership or campaign contributors. Money has a funny
affect on people.
What I am asking citizens to do is think for themselves,
act like adults, have some integrity and be conscientious
about choosing the best people available for the jobs that
need to be filled. Honorable people can make
government work. There are many competent, wonderful
people in America who don't participate in politics
because it's become a dirty, stupid business... and it
doesn't have to be that way. We need qualified,
honorable people in politics and we need to develop a
process that encourages our best men and women to seek
these critical jobs that require a high level of
competence and integrity.
Our government is not too big, but it is much too corrupted.
In this campaign you will have the opportunity to learn at
least as much about me and how I would likely conduct
myself in office as you will learn about the other
candidates whose faces you will have to watch and listen
to on TV for weeks or months on end, not to say how many
pundits and pollsters you will have to endure who will,
more often than not, have little to say that will be worth
hearing.
Politics in this country is now, for the most part, an
exercise in distributing disinformation to unsuspecting
citizens who are being set up to be fleeced. That's
what you get when politicians tell you what they think you
want to hear or what they want you to believe, rather than
what you need to know. And let's face it, to a large
extent, it's your own fault... because you never really
bothered to understand what your job is in all of this.
It doesn't take a genius to understand... that you can't
change something that's broken into something that works
if you don't even know that what you've got is broken in the first place?
Anyway I don't think my campaign will be more of the same.
Stand with me so I can stand with you. Get on this
peace train... Be the little engine that could.
This time for real.
Q5. I still don't get it. I
think you're just another nutcase. There's no way in
hell that you will ever win this election. So why
should I spend one more minute listening to or thinking
about you?
A5. This is not about me and
whether or not I can win an election. This is
about you and whether or not when the election is over you
will have won or lost. There are a lot of good
people in this country that probably would not only make a
great president, but might also strike you as being
electable. I'm not going to argue with you about
that. But if after this next election, one of
the candidates now running wins and that person is not me,
one day you might wish that you had voted for me.
I can't prove this. But I'm giving you a
chance to avoid making that mistake.
What I'm suggesting is that it would be in your best
interest to either get someone on the ballot that you know
you would be proud to vote for, or take the time to
learn enough about me to see if perhaps I could be that
person. I hope you will make an intelligent choice
between me and the other candidates when the time comes,
particularly if that special someone you really want to
vote for hasn't shown up yet.
I don't think you're going to get a
second chance at this. This country cannot
afford five more years headed in the direction we're
going. And as far as I can tell, all of the
candidates currently running right now, except for me, are
headed in the same direction... over a cliff.
Q6 . Our society has always had
its ups and downs. You sound like some sort of dooms
dayer who tries to scare people into paying attention to
them by telling them the sky is falling. We had
slavery and we got past that. We had McCarthyism and
we got over that. Vietnam was a b*tch but now that's
behind us. Blacks can now sit at lunch counters or
anywhere else they want, even in a big chair at the White
House. We have problems, true. But we can
weather whatever storms come our way and we can do it
without any help from you.
A6 . Well these are good points
you're making.
You know, I've been advising people on financial matters
for a long time. I've been helping a few people
manage money and I also create computer models in my work
for analytical purposes. Recently, one of my clients
sent me a fifty page report produced by a large
organization filled with all kinds of economic data,
including graphs and charts, thinking that I might find it
of interest. I looked it over and came to the
conclusion that this kind of analysis is of limited value
to me now no matter how good it is. The same is true
of my own computer models. Why? Because the
political forces at work in today's environment now
overpower the underlying assumptions of almost all
econometric models. We are at war... with other
people and with ourselves. Those who set policy have
their own agendas and those agendas are not goal oriented
towards peace, prosperity, democracy, or other values that
any society or culture on Earth would normally favor.
For example, I believe our country's energy policy is
literally insane... and its execution is criminally
insane. Extraction of the planet's oil resources are
damaging the ecosystem even as they are being depleted.
We're depleting our carbon based resources, a process
which in geological time is almost complete. It
cheats our posterity out of the same opportunities to use
oil that we had. For example, oil is a fundamental
ingredient in all kinds of miracle products such as
plastics, chemicals, medicines, etc. And yet we are
burning up those resources primarily to move vehicles and
heat homes when we know that renewable technologies such
as wind, solar, and geothermal would make much better
sense than carbon based technologies in performing those
tasks, if we would only make the commitment to use them.
Scientists tell us that over the last 150 years or so we
have used up about fifty percent of all the oil that ever
existed or will exist on planet Earth in our lifetimes.
At current rates of use, we will deplete what's left
sometime this century. Now it took maybe 200,000,000
to 300,000,000 years for nature to make this stuff and now
we are on target to deplete it all in our grandchildren's
lifetimes. And we're doing this knowing full well
that our use of carbon is a threat to life itself on our
planet. And this is happening for no other reason
than that those who run things value their own personal
wealth and political power above the survival of our own
species and maybe all species. How does one even
begin to quantify that level of irresponsibility and
selfishness?
And that is just one example of the insanity.
Nuclear energy is another. The risks are so high for
nuclear energy that nuclear facilities are privately
uninsurable. Our use of atomic
energy has put every man, woman, and child on earth at
risk without first getting permission to do so after fully
disclosing the potential dangers. The same can be
said for some aspects of genetic
engineering.
Like I said, the political forces at work bearing down on
us are inspired by people who are, when you consider what
we have now learned by experience, quite literally,
insane. The inmates are running the asylum.
Maybe they seem normal to their families and associates.
But to pursue agendas that could conceivably lead to the
end of life as we know it on Earth; that's not normal
sane behavior. People can do crazy and
unconscionable things when they're motivated by fear.
So what difference do economic charts make if those
holding our lives in their hands are hell bent on pursuing
a mind warped trajectory? We know they're on this
trajectory because we read and hear people argue for it
every day. Economic data can sometimes help
investors make investment decisions, but that's not what's
influencing the political forces at work shaping our
grandchildren's future. I sometimes wonder if our
grandchildren are going to have a future.
I'm sorry for sounding a bit dark. I'm just
reporting how I see political forces in the world
evolving. That's why I'm running for office.
We need people who are better prepared to make responsible
decisions than those now making those decision.
Could I be wrong? Maybe. I hope so. But
how much risk should we allow our leaders to take when
we're not really sure that their policies are even
consistent with sustainable life on this planet? Who
are the people making these decisions and how did they get
to such a state of mind?
I will tell you this. If I am elected President of
the United States, I will do what I can to leave as much
oil in the ground as possible as I try to create programs
that insure the sufficiency of our energy needs without
cheating ourselves, our posterity, or threatening life as
we know it.
I'm laying my cards on the table for all to see. I'm a
candidate for president and I'm asking for your vote.
Q7. Well
damn, I think it's pretty unfair to characterize
people in the oil industry, in the finance sectors of our
economy, or in politics as being insane because they want
to insure that the American people have sufficient energy
resources to keep our engine of democracy going.
You're not going to run airplanes on solar energy and
while maybe in the future technology will improve enough
to have solar and wind energy compete with oil and gas on
an even basis, the fact that we're not there yet does not
make people who have devoted their lives to bringing us an
abundance of energy, insane. You are dark, and I
don't like your attitude. Sounds much too hateful to
me.
A7 . Well, I think we have to
expand our discussion to deal with your comment.
My research, based on what I think
are reliable sources, indicates that over a million
innocent Iraqi civilians have unnecessarily lost their
lives as a result of our illegal war in Iraq. If you
consider UN sanctions put in place by the US during the
Clinton years, you have to add over
half a million dead Iraqi children to those stats.
Many thousands or hundreds of thousands of children have
been killed, maimed, starved, or orphaned by this war and
many thousands of surviving children now have birth
defects or cancer because of the depleted uranium weapons
we used there. Iraqi women will continue to give
birth to such unfortunate children well into the future.
You can't quantify the suffering we have inflicted on
these people. The land has been poisoned with
radiation and large areas may be uninhabitable, or ought
to be uninhabited, for maybe tens, hundreds or thousands
of years. Many millions of people have been
displaced from their homes or have otherwise become
impoverished by the war. Essentially the country has
been destroyed. And I'm only talking about Iraq here, not
all the other countries subject to our military
interventions.
What I am describing are horrendous war crimes perpetrated
against these people by our leaders and their followers.
We were told that the reason we had to employ our military
might against this nation was because their leader was
developing weapons of mass destruction that would be used
against us. These were all lies and there's plenty
of evidence that they were intentional lies and not simply
mistakes. I believe, based on my research, that we
went into Iraq to secure their oil resources and also to
make sure Saddam Hussein didn't have the opportunity to
influence other countries to trade oil in currencies other
than dollars.
Hussein was in the process of trying to end the monopoly
of the US dollar being the world's only reserve currency.
He was set on selling his country's oil to other nations
in currencies other than dollars. This of course
would undermine a US monopoly, a great advantage the
United States has over the rest of the world. So we
took him out.
I can understand why the powers-that-be wouldn't like this. But that didn't give us the
right to commit grievous war crimes against those people.
All people have a right to live in peace and pursue their
own destinies on a level playing field based on
international law and basic
human rights. Killing them and their children
and making them suffer did not enhance their human rights,
advance their society towards democracy, or help them to
understand what real democracy means. And it didn't
help us either... or our posterity.
In my view, the wars we engage in are designed to secure
our control over other people's resources and to make sure
their countries don't become democracies. If they
did become democracies, they would likely choose to
reclaim control of their own resources and kick us off
their land. Of course our government tells us a
different story. But our government lies. We
(our nation) are engaged in criminal behavior. The
murder and mayhem we create is, in truth, so devious,
wrong-headed, immature and callous that the only way to
accurately describe such behavior is to call it insane,
criminal, or criminally insane.
And I will tell you this. I don't hate anyone,
not even people who commit dastardly deeds.
But we all have a responsibility to stop criminals
in their tracks and to correct any injustices they
perpetrate in our name. They are not bad
people. (I don't really think there are any
bad people.) But I do think there are plenty of
people who are simply intellectually and emotionally
unprepared to occupy positions of leadership and ought not
to be given the opportunity to mistreat others. It's
part of our job as citizens, and also a key function of
government, to make sure our fellow citizens and other
world citizens are protected from intellectually,
emotionally and spiritually unenlightened people.
When you give people who are unprepared to handle the
responsibility of what amounts to almost unlimited
military and economic power, the damage they can do to
others is enormous. People can and do become
corrupted by such power.
It's important to understand that as citizens we have a
responsibility, and it's our primary duty to stop people
who represent us from doing unsavory things in our
name. We need to be vigilant. It's our
job. We haven't done that. We've lost
sight of who we are and what our responsibilities are.
Most of our leaders are not qualified to hold the offices
they hold. They get elected by way of a system
that is drastically flawed. We haven't been
mature and wise enough to modify our systems so as to
become well enough informed and intellectually prepared to
hire (i.e., vote for) qualified people to represent us.
And so our leaders have not preserved our freedoms,
advanced human rights, or insured the sustainability of
life on our planet. We have instead accepted a
worse than mediocre status quo.
We don't educate our
children on how to handle the responsibilities of
citizenship. We don't even educate them on how
to handle economic life when they leave school.
And we don't properly educate them on the importance of
having intellectual integrity as a critical part of their
character.
We too were educated by that system. Maybe
that's why we're a little bit confused about why things
seem to be going in the wrong direction. This
has been going on for a long time now. Many of
our schools are failing, and so are many of our most
important institutions. We're beginning to see
that our way of life is collapsing under the strain and
weakness of years of moral decay and neglect.
Our people feed on myth, propaganda, lies, and corruption
handed to us by confused people in authority. If we don't
reverse course, there's no telling how much despair we and
our offspring will eventually have to endure because of
it.
We need to understand the power of
the truth. We understand the power of lies now
very well. We see how lies allow some of us to
control and manipulate others. We've sometimes been the
victim of those lies and sometimes the perpetrators.
Now it's time to experience the power of the truth.
I'm not talking about some airy fairy existential
truth. I'm talking about the simple act of
telling the truth about our own experience, as
opposed to using lies as a short cut to get what we think
we want, or to avoid responsibility for our behavior or
lack of it.
Living in a sea of lies removes us from reality.
We live now on the edge of insanity and/or collapse.
If you look at the death, despair, devastation, hunger,
war, and pain being experienced in the world now, what I'm
saying should start to appear somewhat obvious.
Our leaders have killed or ruined the lives of millions of
innocent people in our name. Our Constitution and
the rule of law is in shreds. If you think there
will never be a price to pay for this treason,
you are living in a dream world.
We can turn this around. I think I can
help. We all can help once we all understand
the challenge. I don't have all
the answers. But I think I can help.
So can you.
Q8. You don't sound presidential
to me. I appreciate your efforts but I don't think
you can be elected. Sorry.
A8. Well... I
understand why you see it that way, but here's the thing:
If you go on the internet you will find bloggers and
commentators, accurate and inaccurate reporting, and
enough opinions to make your head spin. But as far
as offering any real solutions or alternatives... well...
not so much. Electing me to this office or even
just being willing to vote for someone like me would
be real change and a beginning towards cleaning up the
mess. The other people running are not more
qualified to do this job than I am. Few of them have
kept their oath of office or inspired us to do better.
The lack of integrity and the incompetence is destroying our
country and other countries too.
So listen. It might just come
down to this: On election day there will be a
Democrat, a Republican, maybe a Green Party Candidate, a
Libertarian, and me as candidates for President (although
my name might not appear on your ballot.) You're
going to have to pick one. If you're smart, you'll
vote for the candidate you think will make the best
president whether or not you think he or she can win.
And if you decide you want to vote for me, you might have
to go to the trouble of writing my name in on your ballot.
If you don't like that strategy, it's your right to vote
for anyone you want.
I can't change your mind about
anything. You have to do that for yourself. I
respect your right and everyone else's right to make their
own choices in life. I told you what I think might
work, or help, and I'm offering my services.
If you've got a better idea, by all means, go for it.
In any event, I think it's
time to end this particular question and answer session.
Before I do, let me offer you an
observation: I don't think most people really
believe there's a God. Well, they do believe in
something... I'm just not sure they know exactly what. Certainly not
the God I know. That's understandable given what
they've been taught. God is not a religion.
But God is real and not a myth... and God is not a liar or
a cheat. And for sure, God
is not the fool so many people think He is.
By now you may have already made up
your mind about me. If you still want to know more,
I suggest you review the links on this page if you haven't
already done so.
In any event, thanks for caring
enough to read as much as you have. I really do
appreciate it.
Best regards,
Mark
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