Book Review: Ron Paul's "Revolution"

I just finished Ron Paul's eye-opening book "The Revolution: A Manifesto", and had to do a quick post on it to basically say YOU NEED TO READ THIS. Prior to reading it, I already knew the political establishment was corrupt as hell, I knew the media keeps us in the dark about everything, I knew America and the rest of the Western world was descending a slippery slope into a New World Order dystopia - yet this book still managed to impress upon me just how much we're being screwed over, every day of our lives. Paul goes into detail about American foreign policy, and how meddling in the rest of the world's affairs does the US no good at all (no shit); the real motivations behind terrorism and 9/11, i.e. protests against perpetual Western military presence in the Middle East (personally I find this more plausible than most of the "9/11 was an inside job" conspiracy theories, although I'm sure neither theory has the 100% truth); how America is surreptitiously straying ever farther from the sound ideals for a restrained government laid out in the Constitution; how the Federal Reserve creates inflation by printing money out of thin air and thus imposes a hidden tax on the people; and plenty more besides that. His solution, in a nutshell, is a return to the principles of the Constitution and a far more limited, decentralized form of government, which is the opposite of what America has got now. As Paul rightly points out, the people are only ever presented with false dichotomies by the media and politicians, so the debate is limited to "would you prefer an oppressive, highly centralized left-wing government or an oppressive, highly centralized right-wing government?" with no one ever asking the question: Does it have to be this way? Or was it always this way? And Ron Paul is basically saying no to both!

Now apparently this book is a #1 New York Times bestseller, so presumably that means a lot of Americans have been exposed to these ideas.... so the question I'm asking is, why is Barack "change = more of the same" Obama now President, and not Ron Paul?!?!?! (That is, of course, assuming the whole voting thing isn't a fix, which to my mind is quite possible - even likely.) Paul blows Obama's vapid hope-and-change bullshit out of the water. His ideas seem so on-target, in fact, that I'm actually slightly suspicious at the fact that this book was allowed to get as big as it has - and that Dr. Paul is even still alive. Would it simply raise too many eyebrows if he were to suddenly disappear? Is that why they haven't "got rid of him"? Or is he actually one of them? I've seen a few other conspiracy-heads suggest just that. The jury's out I guess. Either way, I still appreciate his ideas, and like the way he delivers them. READ THE BOOK!

...In other news, this is super lame, and this is scary.