Sarah Palin is not for sale

Sarah Palin made some bold statements in her speech in Indianola. [The video is mercifully short and it pays to hear her stick one foot in her mouth and shoot herself in the other. If you really want to suffer, the whole speech is HERE.]



Sarah Palin proposed eliminating all corporate income taxes and making up the lost revenue by closing corporate tax loopholes (??), ending corporate welfare and eliminating crony capitalism.

Would the corporations be happy to keep all their earned money but lose all subsidies and all their political power?

Another question is whether she can make it to the White House without help from the corporations.

If she's serious about this and announces that she's running, she would be obliged to refuse any donations from the corporations. She's not for sale. She would be morally bound to accept donations only from "we the people."

Sarah Palin stands on her own and the corporations stand on their own. She said it herself: "I'm not for sale."

She make reference to how her opponents outspent her in the elections she won. Perhaps she really believes that running for president of the United States is the same as running for mayor of Wasilla or governor of Alaska.

If she pulls this off, winning the presidential election without any corporate money, she'll make history indeed.

Come on, Sarah, put your money where your mouth is.

Sarah Palin's god of wealth

Many people believe Sarah Palin is true to her word, that she leads a life dedicated to God. Yes, she does, but the name of her god is Mammon.

It's OK, her chosen church embraces Mammon:

Prosperity theology (also known as prosperity doctrine, the health and wealth gospel, or the prosperity gospel) is a Christian religious belief whose proponents claim has tens of millions of adherents, primarily in the United States, centered on the notion that God provides material prosperity for those he favors. It has been defined by the belief that "Jesus blesses believers with riches" or more specifically as the teaching that "believers have a right to the blessings of health and wealth and that they can obtain these blessings through positive confessions of faith and the 'sowing of seeds' through the faithful payments of tithes and offerings." In the words of journalist Hanna Rosin, the prosperity gospel "is not a clearly defined denomination, but a strain of belief that runs through the Pentecostal Church and a surprising number of mainstream evangelical churches, with varying degrees of intensity." It arose in the United States after World War II championed by Oral Roberts and became particularly popular in the decade of the 1990s.

Sarah Palin stepped up the use of religion as a marketing tool and accessorizes accordingly.

Just to be on the safe side, she sports a Star of David as well.

The God she invokes gives her assurances, the certainty that she was chosen for something special, from being the mother of a child with Down syndrome to leading the country. He also made her very rich.

Many politicians have jumped on the religion bandwagon, seeking power and prosperity.

Is it a coincidence that the very same politicians will go to any lengths to protect the corporations, the modern day personification of Mammon?

Is Democracy a farce?

The Murdoch scandal in the UK exploded when it was revealed that the phone of a thirteen-year-old murder victim had been hacked by his organization, pulling at people's heartstrings.

That may have caused outrage, but it's the tip of the iceberg and almost irrelevant in the great scheme of things. Yes, it was a despicable act, but ultimately, it affected a limited number of people. What emerged from the wider investigation is the level of influence Murdoch has both on politicians and the Police. Tony Blair took the country into an illegal war and it seems his narcissism, his desire to go down in history as a second Churchill, was well exploited by Murdoch, who also pushed the WMD agenda in the US very vigorously through Fox News. In the UK, he didn't need a dedicated propaganda TV channel in order to promote the invasion of Iraq, he went straight to the heart of government.

This is the story of one corporation in a country with considerably less influence in the world scene than the US.

Now we see the corporations calling the shots in the United States Congress. They don't want to pay their taxes and would prefer the old and the poor to foot the bill instead. The GOP and the Tea Party are very happily doing their bidding, even though none of it makes sense. How can they possibly justify taking from the poor to give to the rich?

The smell of corruption fills the air, but is anybody investigating how the corporations exert so much influence on so many politicians? The rhetoric about job creation is utterly unconvincing. They haven't created jobs for Americans, they have been outsourcing jobs abroad, putting many thousands of Americans out of work. Their only objective is to protect their profits, that's all there is to it. And these so-called representatives of the people are defending the corporations very ferociously, risking the derailment of the whole economy.

I can't believe these politicians are doing these things solely to oppose any of Obama's solutions, there must be some larger reward. A number of these representatives are too stupid and may be content with the transient taste of power, but I do believe some of the bigger fish are in line for future pay-offs for their efforts. They may not take the money now, but there must be something juicy in the horizon for them, when they stop being politicians.

News International rewarded many of the people who helped them through the botched investigations in the UK with well paid jobs. Other big companies have given former government ministers seats on their boards of directors after they had advanced their objectives in the House of Commons.

Are the corporations making similar promises to some politicians, both in Congress and the Senate? Are there some off-shore bank accounts getting bigger?

When a country is effectively run by the corporations, having elections and calling it a Democracy seems to be a farce of Shakespearean (or Disneyesque?) proportions.

Does anybody in the US have the power and the courage to probe and expose what kind of influence the corporations have on elected representatives of the people and on the lawmakers?

Perhaps if a thirteen-year-old murder victim was thrown into the mix, the authorities would finally become outraged and start asking questions...

Corporations v Real Citizens

I received an email today, which had a very interesting graphic:

(Please click to enlarge)

Dear MoveOn member, A few weeks ago, Senator Bernie Sanders released a list of the 10 companies worst at paying their fair share in taxes. We liked it, and our designer Gabe quickly put it into chart form and put it up on our website. What happened next was exciting: Tens of thousands of people started sharing the chart on Facebook. Blogs started posting links to it. It began to really blow up—and that gave us an idea: What if we could get this popular chart in front of millions of people today as they're finishing their taxes?

Sarah Palin is really keen on repaying the national debt and balancing the budget. She said so in Wisconsin this weekend. But her way of doing things places the burden on the "little people" by freezing salaries and cutting services. In her book, corporate "citizens" are more worthy than the little people.

Corporate "citizens" are very enthusiastic about the new status conferred on them by the Supreme Court when it comes to meddling in politics, but not so much when it comes to their civic duties, like paying their taxes.

Sarah Palin is not on the side of the people. She's on the side of her corporate paymasters and her own self, now that she has joined the economic elite...