You picked the perfect metaphor: brands of hooch...to characterize the choices we Americans are presented with in this election year. After all, the entire government is on a drunken rampage and the citizenry appears to be suffering the DT’s to an extent that someone as professionally political as the smiling Ms. Palin is pitched....and swallowed as a “political reformer”. Another round for the house to be followed by a little hair of the dog that bit ye. Drink up, there is time enough for remorse later when things have gone from bad to worse.

Andrew Sullivan obviously has NO IDEA what theonomy means.

BTW, since Chopra is an M.D. he wouldn’t be a psychologist (PhD.). He would be a psychiatrist, but he isn’t even that. He is an endocrinologist who just pontificates about a lot of things other than endocrinology. Nothing wrong with pontificating, I’m just clarifying.

Actually, Sullivan doesn’t use the word theonomy. He uses the word theocratic. But the point is still valid. Sullivan obviously has no idea what a theocrat is. This is what passes for intelligent commentary on the left. Anything that isn’t slavishly secular must be theocratic.

Deepak or Deepockets has gotten bery, bery weatlthy telling vealthy Americans to relaxdee universe manifests itself thru dem and so everything is as it would have been anyway. Isn’t that Republican as well? Seems like Austin is saying the same thing but at least telling us to elevate it Up to consciousness. Ok, lets all now get on the Spice Airlines to Punjab. I drink beer and I feel badly doing it with climbers on the make nearby since I feel everyone around me thinking oh gosh he’ll never amount to anything. (They’re right.) Worse I pack my glass full of icebefore I pour the beer into it. Beer especially lite beer always tastes better the colder it is, and I only want to take the edge off, not get drunk, so I welcome its dilution as well by the melting ice. And I have no hangover the next day. Deepockets, isn’t that great? The universe is unfolding as it should! I am a child of dee universe no less than Deepockets & the stars. HMMMMMMMMMMMM : everything is as it should be. ??????? NOT.

I don’t know.

Good point of thinking about marketing in American politics. It’s far more productive to understand the American two-party mafia as composed of two giant law firms: mostly concerned with self-promotion and profit. Hence the media’s complete lack of interest in other parties: those have no money. But when it comes to marketing, our two parties claim to be motivated by some phony idealism.
Have the Republican mobsters become less neo-con because they’ve got a pretty face now to do the marketing? Have Lieberman, Scheuneman, Kristol et al. left the building?
It is all about image and, as rightly pointed out, wealthy (usually older) Caucasians flock to the party that represents them best (McCheney), the rest to the other party. McCain by himself probably only appeals to militaristic warmongers, so they needed someone to appeal to those Americans that gave Bush his one and half victories: enter Palin. Would the neo-conned Republicans pick someone whose principles are unknown, someone who would resist neo-connization, someone who would put America’s interest before Israel’s? Impossible.

It’s too bad the apoplectic MSM would stoop to any nadirs to disparage Sarah Palin--including editing out her most perspicacious comments--as ABC News did with the Charlie Gibson interview.  No wonder it was “disappointing.”

As for Deepak Chopak, he is the quintessential Fakir...faker.

It would behoove political thinkers to look closely at the Alaskan Independence Party and all they represent, although I fully expect the slander/slur machine to go into overdrive to eviscerate it. Todd Palin has been associated with AIP.

I heard an interview this morning on The Power Hour on GCNlive.com which made the point that Alaska was never admitted to the Union in a procedurally legitimate way!

Ironically, that would mean three of the four at the top of their tickets--excluding Biden--have questionable American birth location status, potentially barring accession to office.

Palin as the new Cheney?

Cheney achieved unprecedented power for a vice-president, a power based on an intimate knowledge of bureaucratic in-fighting gained from a life-time of public and quasi-public (Haliburton) service, combined with an impressionable president with a mediocre mind and thin credentials.

Palin, however, has a different source of power: she is more popular than McCain. Normally, a VP draws his strength from his association with the President, but this case is just the opposite; McCain can get a crowd only by bringing Sarah along. From an electoral standpoint, Palin is the top of the ticket and McCain the hanger-on.

It could be that after their election, Sarah will quietly retire into the background, and let the president rule. But she doesn’t seem that kind of person, nor do her supporters seem the kind of people who will allow her to do so. As McCain runs against Bush, Palin will run against McCain. A campaign that prides itself on running against its own party will have merely legitimated opposition to itself from its own ranks, particularly the ranks represented by the new VP. This being the case, Palin may dwarf Cheney in terms of influence.

McCain abandoned his friends to embrace his enemies, not an unusual act in politics. Nevertheless, I don’t think he will be able to dominate his enemies, but it is more likely that he will be dominated by them. If I were McCain, my first act as President would be to hire a food-taster.

Let’s see, how does this article fit with my rule that one’s pro- or anti-Palin stance aliases a personal interest in culture or policy, respectively?  I counted seven occurrences of the word “policies” in this article, zero occurrences of “culture.” Of course there were lots of references to culture, but it was always spelled m-a-r-k-e-t-i-n-g.

For the nth time: cultural conservatives are supposed to care about culture, which is something different from policy.  The way you fight a culture war is with images, with symbols.  You don’t fight it with policy statements on the geopolitics of the Caucasus. 

OK?  So don’t feel ashamed, Austin, of your feelings of attraction towards Mrs. Palin.  They’re perfectly natural--in fact, even healthy.  Learn to accept them as part of you.  In fact, I think it would be good for you, for all of us, to learn to express those feelings in a positive way.

In her interview with Charlie Gibson, Palin came across as a female version of G W Bush (c 2000).  A complete ignoramus, but able to recite various canned remarks fed to her beforehand.

This post serves as a refreshing corrective to all the obscure philosophical/theological posturing we tend toward here.  These realms are very real but have little or no place in the political calulus.

Someone once said that all American Politics is about personality.  As a long time participant in the electoral system, I’ve found this to be a given among all the people who actually get elected.  Political stratagems are for the sole purpose of getting “Joe Blow” elected. It’s really all about Joe’s ego and his side deals with his financial backers.  Promises to the voters are just the inducement to get them inside the tent.

The other great myth is that Parties decide things or have souls or preferences or ideals.  THERE ARE NO PARTIES.  What people call parties are just the mechanisms that elected officials control to ensure their continuance in power.  The people down at your local party headquarters have no more feeling for you that your Beare Sterns broker did. Why would they? You personal philosophy just complicates their political calculus. 

Perhaps it’s inevitable that in a mass-culture Democracy like our own, people will cling to a kind of political mythology.  But if we want to survive as a society we must stop assuming that Joe Blow is on our side.

Kudos on this essay.  It is only sad that these ideas won’t be disseminated across the country.

There are only three valid considerations for choosing which candidate to vote for:

1.  Are the candidate’s policy positions and values acceptable--are they good for America?

2.  What reason is there to believe the candidate will do what they claim they will--are they ethical and trustworthy?

3.  Since this isn’t a dictatorship, and it is necessary to be able to work with others to get things done, what reason is there to believe the candidate will be successful in enacting their policies--do they work well with others?

The liberals in the MSM have positively encouraged Americans to vote for any reason except the above.  So, when voters select candidates based upon being the lesser of two evils, or who has the best hairdo, we wind up with a government that reflects these inane criteria.

As a “conservative” Republican it’s all very clear to me. Why should I reward McPalin with my vote when her party has engaged us in a no-win war in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly destroyed our economy, and done absolutely nothing for the country in the last 8 years. Duh!

“. . . an appeal to all those who feels alienated from the white majority, which the Democrats have adopted more or less by accident.”

By accident?  You haven’t got a clue.  And while it’s true that the Republicans have never really helped working and lower middle class whites, the Democrats have helped minorities, or at least actually tried to help them.  This reflects the reality of media based power in a democracy, the Republicans need white votes but don’t dare defy the cultural establishment by actually doing anything for them as a specific group.

Well, politicians are suckers. Look how quickly Palin, for her ‘career’, capitulated into a pod-person. A blank page the AEI folks called her.

Sure Limbaugh is ridiculous. Jesus wasnt about eternal war, empire, babes or guns, but his sucker parrots, supposed conservatives, will repeat this blasphemy with glee.

The suckers, I say, are the ones who buy into the caca crowing craniums defecations and believe the piddle politicos prattle.

STOP FEEDING THE BEAST

After a long period of not voting in elections, a few months ago I registered to vote and joined the Constitution Party. I thought that for the first time since Reagan, I will have something to vote FOR, not just against. Hope springs eternal.

I offered help to the CP in voluntary activity such as manning booths at fairs, distributing literature, etc. While Ron Paul stuff had been all over my area, CP exposure was nothing, zilch. However, nothing ever developed and would not unless I WOULD BEAR ALL COSTS. I offered sweat equity only. After Baldwin appeared on stage together recently with the other small party candidates in I suppose a sophomoric machievellianism, I gave up on them as not understanding anything, and withdrew any offer of voluntary help.

During the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic primary, Eugene McCarthy, the anti-war candidate almost beat President Lyndon Johnson which caused Johnson to withdraw from the race. Later analysis revealed that over 40% of those who voted for McCarthy thought he was the pro Vietnam war candidate.

In 1996, I attended a Pat Buchanan rally in Burbank, California where the Fire Marshall had to bar the door because the 350 or so capacity of the room had been exceeded. Many had to remain outside in what was an energetic, exuberant even raucous event. When Pat spoke, the place was electric. That same Saturday night, Bob Dole had a short boring event from a local TV studio attended by 30 or so staffers. Sunday’s reporting was all about Dole, and not a single mention of Buchanan and his rally could I find.

Last year, the public rose up and pressured Congress to deny amnesty for illegal aliens and the implementation of a “legalization and citizenship” track.. John McCain’s loud advocacy for those positions was shouted down by an enraged public, and he was seemingly out of the presidential sweepstakes. And yet, somehow he was resuscitated from the politically dead and is now the Republican candidate. Ron Paul’s campaign was deflected at every turn.

McCain chooses Sarah Palin as his running mate. She is a social and cultural conservative, but recent events have shown that she had been vetted by the neo-cons. From the present globalists’ wars to global warming to relations with Russia, she is spouting the neo-con line. Is there any doubt now where she will stand on immigration if elected? She will acquiesce in the displacement of the traditional American patrimony, and the campaign to dilute and conquer. Either she is a convinced neo-con, or her ambition has compromised her honor. Because of her social conservatism, she was a sop tossed to the rank and file base to energize McCain’s campaign.

It is clear to me now, that I must return back to the Rothbardian position of “Don’t vote, because if you vote, you might get what you voted for.” The democratic process has long been a sham. It is controlled and managed by the globalists in their drive for power. These sham elections between two “chosen” candidates is an ingenious method to manage and control without the marks, er, public being aware of their manipulation. Most national elections are merely an intra-squad scrimmage deciding who will start on game day.  Buchanan, Paul and Baldwin are not on the team, and in fact they are not even allowed onto the playing field. The supposed “significant differences” between the opposing candidates from the major parties are magnified to get the public all excited for or against something or someone. It is all an exercise in political deflection. The globalist elite realized decades ago that all they had to do was control the few major news and media organs and the game was in their hands.

In 2000, Pat Buchanan said in a speech in Chicago that in the future, we will see conflicts of patriots of all countries against the globalists. This beast, the neo-con/globalist drive to create and rule an authoritarian empire encompassing the entire planet is the existential enemy of civilization everywhere. Therefore, STOP FEEDING THE BEAST!

If you vote, you are FEEDING THE BEAST.

If you participate in political activity, you are FEEDING THE BEAST.

If you support ANY political party, you are FEEDING THE BEAST.

If you watch national news broadcasts, you are FEEDING THE BEAST.

If you watch Fox News, you are FEEDING THE BEAST.

If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, you are FEEDING THE BEAST.

STOP FEEDING THE BEAST!

Starve the beast. The public’s participation is its life-blood. If a significant number of people withdrew from the political process, the sham would be exposed. When you are not participating, you are no longer implicitly endorsing with your personal moral sanction. Therefore, the only honorable position to take is to withdraw from the process except to encourage others to do the same. Only if there is a chance to return to a republican form of government, would it be honorable to return to political activity. First marker on that road would be the repeal of the 17th amendment to the Constitution, the direct election of senators. The BEAST and its organs can only control when elections are centralized. If a return to the “Old Republic” is not to be, then become one of Albert Jay Nock’s remnant. Live with honor, and with at least a hope that truths will be salvaged for future generations.

STARVE THE BEAST!

Great post!

The liquor analogy worked really well.

@ Rick J., The beast isn’t “starvable”.  It’s past that.  Buy gold, grow your own food.  Make sure you are locked, loaded and can reload.

Rick Johnson
I understand where you are coming from, but don’t necessarily agree. Sometimes “the beast” can be beaten. Putin may be an interesting example; although what he apparently did to trick “the beast” was appalling. Don’t abandon hope. (Trivia: In your Eugene McCarthy story, I think you will find that the 40% of his voters you refer to, thought that they were voting for Joe McCarthy).

At the beginning of September, Budweiser released a new high end (by their low standards) product, American Ale, ale being the drink of America rather than their sorry excuse for a lager.

Craft ale drinkers will not be rushing out to buy it, and at some level the Bud folks know this.  They also know that many don’t actually like craft brew, but want to be associated with the brand amongst their Bud Light Lime drinking prole friends.

I suppose some should focus on the marketing campaign, but the trick is to get the consumer to demand the real thing...American Ale, like Budweiser recently sold to foreigners, will fail because there is no market for it, maybe slight curiosity but I doubt committed masses, but there is the potential for Budweiser American Ale to expose a few to real craft brewing-- the real authentic America.

Thankfully, on Takimag, one doesn’t have to spend to much time on the analogy--though whiskey might be the better device if the marketing campaign is tied in with the Southern Strategy.

“she seemed to personally embody everything that is still right about this country”

Would those things include blind nationalism, total disregard for human suffering in an agressive war, a desire for wealth without work ( the politician’s main motivation), fungible values, and a cynical disregard for one’s oath of office?  If so, maybe you’re right about what little miss politico embodies.

To me she embodies much of what’s wrong with American politicians, and has merely given lip service to a very few American values.  Palin is a politician.  That sums it all up for me.

“In a multicultural America, the two parties have only two possible marketing strategies. One is an appeal to the white majority, which the Republicans have perfected, and the other is an appeal to all those who feels alienated from the white majority, which the Democrats have adopted more or less by accident… Everyone who hates these marketing strategies should relax. For better or worse, pending further demographic shifts, “regular Americans vs. effete elites” is the way every election will continue to be framed. “

Well said.  And extremely well observed.

In the ellipsis is a part I didn’t get--it seems to me Dems _do_ help rich cosmopolitan whites reasonably well.  They could be even more helpful of course, say on taxes, but their globalist agenda on the whole favors that group immensely, plus their social agenda is more to that group’s favor.  Maybe you meant spiritually?

What the GOP leadership likes about Palin is what they liked about Quayle and G. W. Bush.  She’s helpless in the face of the complicated stuff, an idiot who in a tight spot will do as she’s told.  Thankfully we now have the example of Lehman Brothers to hearten us, an ersatz “institution” gone with the wind.  With any luck the GOP goes the same way, overnight and completely, dragging the Donkeys, the corrupting “lobbies”, the boring, irrelevant punditocracy and all current incumbents down with them. Excepting possibly Ron Paul.

None other than Erwin Stelzer has an article in today’s London Telegraph entitled, “SARAH PALIN, YOU BRITS WILL NEVER GET HER.” So it’s come to this, Americans explained to Englishmen by Irwin Stelzer. Still I suppose, in order to betray a country, a working knowledge of its people and their customs is handy. 

He’s right about one thing.  The British will never get her.  She’s been gotten to already.