Sarah Palin & the Desperation of the Elites

Sarah Palin (left) has President Obama in her sights, telling FoxNews.com she "would be willing" to challenge him in the 2012 presidential race. The former Alaska governor, in an interview Saturday on the sidelines of the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, said President Obama's "lack of experience" has held him back his first year in office and that she would put her credentials up against his any day. "I would be willing to if I believe that it's right for the country," Palin said when asked if she would run for president in 2012. She qualified the statement, adding that she sees "many" other potential candidates who are "in as strong or stronger position than I am to take on the White House and if they're in a better position than I in three years, I'll support them." But the former GOP vice presidential nominee told "Fox News Sunday": "I won't close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future." ... "I do want competition to allow the cream of the crop to rise (in the GOP contests)," Palin said, adding that her support would translate into everything from donations to campaign rallies. "There are hundreds of candidates on local, state and on the national level that hopefully we'll be able to help." Palin recently endorsed Rand Paul, the son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Kentucky. She said she was attracted to his limited government platform and that she's already donated to the campaign. - Fox News

Dominant Social Theme: A 21st century Joan of Arc?

Free-Market Analysis: Sarah Palin is really a last chance gasp, in our opinion, for the power elite to maintain the integrity of the two-party system in America. We predicted that Palin would run long ago - and that she would set up an alternative political structure in the process. And we received considerable flak, as we recall. But both things are actually happening. Over the weekend, Palin refused to rule out a run for president in 2012 against Barack Obama (who may be unelectable by then anyway) and using the Tea Party movement as a surrogate she's found her third party - though it may not function as a formal entity. See some former articles here:

Saturday, November 14, 2009 - Why Sarah Palin Doesn't 'Get' Free Markets

Sunday, November 08, 2009 - Sarah Palin - A Libertarian in Hong Kong?

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - Limbaugh: Palin Might Leave GOP for Third Party

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - Palin Says She's Not Leaving Politics

For the power elite, Palin is a godsend - and perhaps a last chance. The elite's political meme - that the American two-party system is an inevitable construct of national genius - is falling apart day by day. Turns out that despite ten covers on Time Magazine comparing him to FDR, Obama's popularity lasted about as long as one of Roosevelt's famous cigarettes. The elite's expectation that Obama would be able to ram through an incredible amount of domestic socialist legislation including gun control, health care and vastly increased police-state powers is starting to founder along with Obama's personal popularity.

No, Depression-era uber-regulatory solutions are not popular in the 2000s for some reason. Too bad for the elite. Deep-dish statism simply does not bake well in the United States - nor likely will it ever emerge a perfect golden-brown. The culture precludes the implementation of the recipe, and culture is a stubborn thing. After 100 years of trying, the elite STILL has not confiscated guns in the US - ergo much else that is on the menu is either stymied or continually unavailable.

So what do you do? Well, you keep going. You double down. And you try to find someone who can play on the national scene who still has some credibility. It can't be a professional politician - because after George Bush's compassionate conservatism and now Obama's yes-we-can-change, the majority of America does not look fondly on mainstream politics. It can't be someone whose viewpoints are well known, especially in the lower 48, because that's inevitably a turn-off. It has to be a fresh face.

Enter Sarah Palin. Her belief structure is perfect. She is attractive, malleable and has the facility of entertaining contradictory belief systems without acknowledging the cognitive dissonance, even to herself. She no doubt believes the free-market rhetoric she spouts, and from the power-elite's standpoint she's no threat - she's been thoroughly vetted and indoctrinated by the military-industrial complex. Heck, she ran as John McCain's VP, and he's a card-carrying proponent of US military power abroad and at home.

No, Sarah Palin won't likely rock the boat when it comes to the US$500 billion that America spends on the military every year. She'll make all the right noises about the American empire abroad as well, whether or not the US is still embroiled in its overseas' "war on terror." We have no doubt that Palin has given the proper assurance to the powers-that-be regarding these matters - and probably the "integrity" of the US central bank as well. And in return she has a best-selling book, a gig on Fox News and sooner or later a higher national profile than even Barack Obama, if she doesn't already enjoy it.

More and more, Obama is looking like yesterday's news. You want to tango with the power elite, you take your chances. He's going to have a tough time of it the next few years - but that's what he signed up for. And whenever he is "retired" the perks aren't bad. He'll write a book, too, and charge a million a pop (allowing for inflation) for speeches abroad, which is in our estimation a fancy way of laundering money for a job "well done."

Anyway, Palin has done it herself, by virtue of her gutsy personality and personal faith in her destiny, and this makes her all the more dangerous. We don't think the power elite necessarily had its eye on her from the beginning. Sometimes these things are luck (or perhaps not as Rove was apparently involved in her selection). But once she burst on the national stage - bold, brassy and "dumb as a stump" - the elite recognized its chance. A main chance. She was perfect. And so they set to work. Here's the brilliant Naomi Wolfe (from a 2008 Huffington Post article) to describe the rest of it:

Sarah "Evita" Palin, the Muse of the Coming Police State ... I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit --but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain. ...

Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protégé Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.

We have to note that Palin's support of Rand Paul is prominently mentioned in the article that began this analysis. Rand Paul, the son of libertarian Congressman Ron Paul, shares his father's point of view about politics. And that view could not be more opposed to Sarah Palin's, so far as we can tell.

Here's what we understand: Rand Paul wants an end to the American empire both abroad and at home, an end to the incessant warring, an end to 16 separate spy agencies, an end to domestic warrantless wiretapping and generally to the escalating lawlessness with which the military-industrial complex is now operating. That's what his father wants too. Neither Rand nor his father should be especially welcome over at the Pentagon. Nor likely are they.

Sarah Palin however still supports her old running mate John McCain and is said to count on the elder Bush as a core advisor. These two elderly gentlemen reside at the heart of the American military-industrial complex. It is impossible to serve two masters in our opinion, at least two that are so opposed. To indicate that one has no difficulty integrating these two entirely opposite socio-political perspectives simply means that either one has not thought through one's core beliefs, or one does not really have any.

We would tend to think Palin is mostly after a main chance. She wants the money and she loves the attention. She is indeed a kind of American "Evita Peron" in our opinion, a nationalist by virtue of her rhetoric ... someone who will speak of American virtues, espouse limited government and freedom but at the same time support the endless expansion of the American military state with all its lawlessness and bloodshed. Did Rand Paul make a mistake in accepting her support or funding?

Conclusion: We are not, despite the above, at all sure of a Palin presidency. At the rate the power elite memes are collapsing, we see why eventually Palin's inherent intellectual contradictions should not become evident and obvious to an increasingly alarmed electorate. No, we are not sure that Sarah "Evita" Palin is a shoe-in. In fact, we are beginning to believe that even the most sacred memes - the phony US war on terror, domestic "security," etc. - will be challenged and tested in the near future given how fast things are moving. And if the two-party system in America should founder, or real republicanism become attractive, then the entire faux-financial system of the West would be at risk including central banking and myriad securities and derivatives markets. It would all, in our opinion, be in danger of unraveling. So watch out investors! Keep track of your memes. It's one reason among many to believe in gold and silver.

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