The media has stepped up attempts to smear Ron Paul, but that hasn't stopped the candidate's supporters from getting involved.
Follow this link to the original source: "Finding Temporary Housing For 1,000 Ron Paul Volunteers"
On November 5 when the Ron Paul campaign garnered more than $4 million from an online, all-volunteer fund raiser, the news media made what can only be described as a non sequitur "guilt by association" connection between candidate Paul and the supposed 17th century "terrorist" Guy Fawkes. This attempt at discrediting the man and his campaign is highly suspicious given the fact that most Americans have absolutely no idea who Guy Fawkes was or under what circumstances he lived and was ultimately compelled to rebel against. But there are other suspicious incidents, one of which stems from recent spamming allegations that some in the media have disingenuously associated with the Paul campaign.
In October, several hundred email addresses received spam in support of Ron Paul that contained random characters at the end of their subject lines indicating that they were avoiding an email filtering system, a common technique used by spammers. The spam was investigated by the University of Alabama at Birmingham's computer forensics department. They discovered that rather than originating from the Ron Paul campaign, whose spokesmen deny any knowledge of the emails, the spam was traced to computers from various nations around the globe, including South Korea, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and Brazil.
Also in October, Ron Paul videos posted on YouTube experienced problems when the links were changed, with tiny additions showing up at the end of the URLs. The changes automatically result in a violation of the user terms for YouTube and the videos were all taken down as a result.
These smell like dirty tricks as they are all fairly efficient means to change public perceptions and remove a competitor's message from public view. Such tricks may work to discredit other candidates, but they are seemingly ineffective against Ron Paul, who continues to draw enthusiastic support.
A case in point is Vijay Boyapati. Having worked at a desirable, highly paid, prestigious job with Google for over five years, Boyapati quit that job in order to work as a full-time volunteer for the Paul campaign. An immigrant to this country, Boyapati says his decision to quit Google was easy, saying only: "It's going to be hard to leave, but I can't think of anything more important than having a chance to do something like the Ron Paul campaign." Working for liberty in America is much more important to him. That's passion and dedication!
Boyapati calls his first effort on behalf of the Paul campaign "Operation Live Free Or Die," an effort to bring 1,000 volunteers to New Hampshire for the nation's first primary. It's a daunting task — transportation must be arranged for those coming from all over the United States, and housing arrangements found for the volunteers. After that, actual events have to be staged, venues rented out, and publicity and grass-roots activities arranged.
Whether one supports Ron Paul or not, all lovers of freedom should take heart from the efforts of those who, like Vijay Boyapati, are willing to make substantial sacrifices to work on projects they believe will help keep America free. Too often, with bad news all around, Americans who otherwise would proudly work for freedom despair of success and move to the sidelines, taking themselves out of the fight. Boyapati's efforts are a reminder that patriotic Americans who passionately believe in freedom can make a difference, if only they get involved.
