A Ray of Hope: Ron Paul Upsets Fox News' "Palin 2012" Cart and Completely Shreds Their Credibility (if they had any left) by Winning CPAC's Presidential Poll

The single most stunning development over the weekend was Ron Paul's win of the Conservative Political Action Conference's (CPAC) Presidential straw poll. Paul received 31% of the votes, trumpeting not only Mitt Romney (22%) but most importantly Fox News' new found darling Sarah Palin (7%).

Given that both Ron Paul and Sarah Palin represent the rapidly emerging "Tea Party" base that Fox News has been desperate to capture, we find it fascinating that Fox decided to place all their chips in the utterly incompetent Ms. Palin's bag. Why not choose the extremely competent Ron Paul?

Fox's blind support for Palin, captured aptly by the crocodile tears filled Glen Beck, in his stomach churning ode to Palin equating her to an enigma, pales in comparison to their comparatively scant coverage of Ron Paul whom they parade out occasionally for his very popular Audit the Fed campaign. Glen Greenwald of Salon.com points out Fox's charade in his must read piece "The GOP's "small government" tea party fraud":

The Party that spat contempt at Paul during the Bush years and was diametrically opposed to most of his platform now pretends to share his views. Standard-issue Republicans and Ron Paul libertarians are as incompatible as two factions can be -- recall that the most celebrated right-wing moment of the 2008 presidential campaign was when Rudy Giuliani all but accused Paul of being an America-hating Terrorist-lover, for daring to suggest that America's conduct might contribute to Islamic radicalism -- yet the Republicans, aided by the media, are pretending that this is one unified, harmonious, "small government" political movement.

Why would Roger Ailes, Fox's President and an extremely shrewd and cunning man, so heavily support someone that Stephen Colbert nationally outed as "a retard"? The reasons are many and we outline them below:

1. Firstly the Republican Party is no different from the Democrats when it comes to actual on the ground policies. The two parties election rhetoric's may differ, but once in office they both work to propagate corporation driven agendas with scant regard for the Constitution or the will of the people.
2. In promoting Sarah Palin, Fox News is determined to create a repeat of the Bush-Cheney years by putting an utterly incompetent but easily manipulated person, in the Presidents office. Just as Bush, a functional retard, carried out the military industrial complexes perpetual war agenda, the banksters loot the treasury agenda and blithely shredded civil liberties through the imposition of the Patriot Act, so will Sarah Palin. When you have neither the brains to question nor the conviction to stand up to corporate interests, that makes you a very valuable tool in the hands of the mighty corporations.
3. Obama too, has proven to be no different. He too is a corporate tool, intellectually superior to both Bush and Palin but completely lacking in the sheer guts to stand up to his profit driven overlords. When he campaigned for "Change" all the American people got was a change in parties but NOT policies. The media's successful anointment of Obama as a "peace" candidate has succeeded in quelling the domestic anti-war sentiments that were snowballing during the Bush-Cheney years. BUT the fact remains that NOTHING has changed: Obama has widened the war well-beyond Iraq into Afghanistan and Pakistan. In fact he has taking the war mongering to a whole new level by not only threatening Iran, but also engaging in a covert cold war with both China and Russia.
4. Progressive and independents who supported Obama have now been put on the defensive - if they rally against Obama's war policies they will be labeled as "stupid" and "unable to make the right decisions". With the opposition silenced, the entire nation has ended up supporting Obama's right-wing Republican agenda of ever expanding wars, destruction of democracy and invasion of civil liberties.
5. In fact, if elected in 2012 (and we do not say this lightly): Sarah Palin will be the final nail in America's coffin - the next step will be a military dictatorship. The militarisation of America has already reached dangerous levels: Consider the insane levels of fear, the movement to subvert civil processes and try terrorists (who are no worse than criminals who rape and kill people) in military tribunals, the movement to bring back torture, the rapidly expanding wars, a trillion dollar annual military budget and high unemployment forcing desperate folks to join the only employer left in town - the military. If the country moves down the right-wing led Palin path, the nations bankruptcy and a currency collapse are 100% assured. At that point American military might would be thoroughly used to control any internal/external movements of dissent. (This may still happen but with Palin the probability is 100%).

Which brings us back to Ron Paul. We most definitely like him, along with Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader. His win in the CPAC convention, is yet another indication that the traditional 2 party system in America is fracturing. Just like Massachusetts upset the Democrats, Ron Paul has upset the Republicans. Americans are completely fed up and are beginning to support new independent candidates. Ron Paul is no right wing Republican and everyone knows that he is a complete misfit in the traditional republican party. As we wrote in our post titled "Massachusetts a Harbinger for a NEW Independent Third Party":

Americans are increasingly disenchanted with BOTH political parties and the movement for a NEW independent third is currently underway. Both Democrats & Republicans continue to hold the nation in a paralysed state as they engage in traditional partisan bickering and doggedly hold on to outdated belief mantras such as "free-markets" and "unrestrained government support for Wall Street, defense and the military establishment but no spending/help for "main street". This ground swell movement for an independent third party in 2012 is only going to grow.

For now many of these "independent" minded candidates are being forced to take refuge under either the Democratic or Republican party umbrellas, but look for them to separate out once 2012 approaches.

As for the Tea Party movement it is legitimate and will only grow in the coming days. The Fox dominated right-wing republican camp is trying their best to en cash on the tea party folks but as Ron Paul's win indicates they are failing miserably. Support for Palin is at 7% - that sums up the picture quite well that no one is buying their right wing agenda.

And even though the left has chosen to label ALL tea party folks as write-offs (due to Fox's branding of them as Palin and Beck supporters), many of they are intelligent, sensible and truly patriotic Americas - otherwise Ron Paul would not appeal to them.

Greenwald points out in the same article that "the tea partiers that has been (largely though not exclusively) dominated by libertarians, Paul followers, and other assorted idiosyncratic factions who are hostile to the GOP's actual approach to governing. This is a huge wedge waiting to be exposed -- to explode -- as the modern GOP establishment and the actual "small-government" libertarians that fuel the tea party are fundamentally incompatible".

Which is why we are hopeful and happy that the re-education of Americans is finally happening. The ship is turning if ever so slowly. Here is an excellent 1 hour interview of Paul; and here are some of the policies he supports:

1. Audit the Fed - so that we know the true extent of book cooking and currency debasement fraud that Bernanke, Greenspan and his banking cohorts have perpetuated.
2. Protect civilian privacy and expose government secrecy.

3. Take away Bernanke's printing press. We need a sound currency backed by hard assets.

4. Real Small Government, unlike the one propagated by Glenn Beck, Fox News and many Republicans. Which means:

• Ending the trillions in senseless military spending.
• Ending the insane wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Stop nation building and policing the world.
• Bring the troops home.
• Stop belligerent behavior against Iran - which is not a threat to America.
• End government meddling and spying on civilians by suspending the Patriot Act.
• End welfare.
• Bring deficits under control.

5. Stop letting the rest of the world steal American jobs when we have plenty of homegrown talent right here.
6. Disband the CIA.
7. The Constitution while imperfect needs to be upheld, because that is the rule of law. The executive branch, congress and the judiciary are hell-bent on shredding it.

8. End unconstitutional wars such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.