Bill Still to Seek Libertarian Party’s Presidential Nomination

Award-winning documentary film director Bill Still announced yesterday that he intends to seek the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination in 2012.  Appearing on Salt Lake City’s KTKK radio, the longtime fiat-money champion said that his candidacy will focus “like a laser beam on the monetary reform issue,” which he described as “the root cause of all our economic problems today.”

Quoting from William Jennings Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech during the 1896 presidential campaign, Still argued that the U.S. government should be in control of the nation’s money supply instead of the private banking system.

Still, who maintains that no amount of stimulus or austerity will fix the U.S. economy, said in a press release declaring his candidacy that there are “two inviolable pillars upon which any true reform of our economic system must rest” — ending government borrowing and the elimination of fractional-reserve banking.  If examined closely, both of Still’s draconian proposals would plunge the nation and the global economy into a deeper financial crisis by recklessly reducing current and future levels of government spending (which, unlike most major corporations, are the only entities doing anything to stimulate the present U.S. economy), while further curtailing the flow of credit to small businesses and consumers.

“Simply ending the Fed, won’t fix this,” says Still.  “As Prof. Milton Friedman told me, ‘If you end the Fed and do nothing about fractional reserve lending, you’ve done nothing.’” 

Still, who wrote and directed the 2010 award winning documentary The Secret of Oz, claimed support among Libertarian delegates from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Utah and predicted that he could emerge as the party’s presidential frontrunner heading into the Libertarian national convention next spring.

Exuding unusual confidence — perhaps it was just bravado — the longtime journalist and author also said that he’s already in discussions with potential vice-presidential running mates.

In announcing his candidacy, Still joins a crowded field that includes longtime libertarian writer R. Lee Wrights of Texas, co-founder and editor of Liberty for All.  He also faces potential opposition from Wayne Allyn Root, a former right-wing Republican and sports handicapper who served as former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr’s vice-presidential co-star on the Libertarian ticket in 2008.

The Libertarian Party’s national convention will be held in Las Vegas on May 2-6.