McCain for President:  A Call for the Second American Revolution

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

  The emergence of Sarah Palin on the national scene as a candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States offers the best chance we are likely ever to get in our efforts to separate Islam as a religion from terrorism, both in the popular mind and in governmental policy. 

  Her courage in bucking entrenched thinking and special interests also suggests that she can lead the way in addressing the real causes of terrorism.  These are not Al Qa’ida or even Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.  The causes of terrorism are not even the militarization of American foreign policy, because this is merely a result of failure to address the real cause, which is entrenched injustice.  We are indeed engaged in a Fourth World War against the extremism that leads to terrorism, but the only way to win it is to lead the world in the pursuit of peace, prosperity, and freedom by addressing the institutional dynamics of injustice, both economic and political.

  During the next three months, Sarah Palen may become captive of advisers who reflect the NeoCon ideology, just as has Barack Obama.  Unlike Barack, however, Sarah Palen has shown that she is open to new ideas in the pursuit of justice, whereas Obama seems to pursue change without any higher goal and indeed as an end in itself.  We now have a window of opportunity to develop at the highest levels a new “grand strategy” to develop America’s global leadership. 

  The task is to recover Washington from the special interest groups, who have captured it by hijacking the Republican Party, so that we can work with both the Republicans and Democrats not only to restore American values but in the process help to marginalize the extremists who have attempted to hijack all three of the Abrahamic religions.

  Sarah Palen’s strongest qualification for the U.S. presidency or any other position is her deep commitment to seek and do the will of God, and not to set herself up as a divine spokesperson.  She will always question those who invoke God to gain popular support for policies that may be fundamentally flawed.  Three months ago, in a talk to the ministry students at her church in Wasilla, she urged them to “Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right; also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [soldiers] out on a task that is from God.  That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that this plan is God’s plan.” 

  Sarah Palen is not without her faults as even many citizens of Alaska would admit.  This is why it is so unfortunate that she has chosen to attack the symbol of the American wilderness and of ecological balance, the wolf.  She has taken the lead in promoting the aerial hunting of wolves by personally advocating that a $150 bounty be paid for the left foreleg of every wolf shot. 

  Her position is perhaps natural, because she grew up as a product of America’s last frontier.  Furthermore, she is also an advocate of both snowmobile and sleddog racing.  Sleddog racers are paranoid about wolf attacks on their dogs, even though no wolf has ever attacked sleddogs during any race in Alaska.  When I was in Sarah Palin’s hometown, Willow, 35 years ago preparing for the Iditarod, my friend Earl Norris, who was Willow’s first settler back around 1947, was very pro-wolf.  He was shocked when I showed up with the last legally sold wolf parka in Alaska (which I bought for what now would be $3,000), but he was obviously nervous when he found the tracks of an enormous wolf on the snow near his two hundred Siberian Huskies.

  Wolf-phobia is a forgiveable sin, given the circumstances.  Aside from this blot on her record, Sarah Palin is the embodiment of Frontier America.  She is like Abraham Lincoln, who introduced the Homestead act to make accessible free land to every American, which then was the major source of value.  John McCain is a male copy of Sarah Palin.  Both are far ahead of all the Democrats on the values that really built America. 

  By far the most decisive criterion for voting this November should be courage in bucking the vested interests in Washington in order to perfect the institutions of money and credit in a new era of capital homesteading designed to broaden individual ownership of productive wealth both in America and around the world.  As traditionalist conservatives, in the Goldwater vein, McCain and Palin more than anyone else in American politics should best be able to understand that the fundamental causes of terrorism around the world are the wealth gap within and among nations and the democracy gap that is caused inevitably by the fact that whoever owns the means of production owns the government. 

  America is fast losing its pioneer values to the false vision of “democratic capitalism,” which is a NeoConservative euphemism for oligarchical fascism.  This creeping spread of state socialism under the guise of concentrated private wealth threatens the sanctity and self-determination of every individual American and, indeed, of every person on the planet.  The current institutionalization of centralized power in Washington and around the world is the mortal enemy of the economic and political justice that can come only from demonopolizing both economic and political power, as so powerfully advocated by Mason and Jefferson.  The only way to recover America’s heritage as a moral leader of the world and to marginalize extremism of every kind is to help McCain and Palin throw out the bums in Washington, from both parties.

  The challenge in the next four years is to stop the juggernaut of concentrated ownership by passing legislation and promoting policies designed to institute universal access to individual capital ownership and thereby to devolve power from the Washington tyranny to every American, and to do the same worldwide based on the two most powerful principles of social justice: “own or be owned” and “close the wealth gap.”  This is the only answer to extremism and terrorism, and the only way to shift America’s bankrupt global strategy of peace through military power (by what the NeoCons call “creative destruction”) to peace, prosperity, and freedom through compassionate justice.  The details are available at http://www.theamericanrevolutionaryparty.us.

  Obama and Biden call for change, but they have no idea how to change the fundamentals of power in order to make a real difference in promoting justice.  Perhaps neither do McCain and Palin yet, but at least these current Republican candidates for the White House have the basic values that must undergird it.  Even more importantly, McCain’s selection of Sarah Palen as his running mate proves that they have the courage to act.  Ideas without action are worse than useless.

  The 2008 election in America should be about a single issue, namely, who has the guts to make a change.  Obama and Biden might shape up eventually, but it is too risky to gamble on them.  McCain and Palin have everything going for them.  If they knuckle under there is no future for world civilization, which is why they need all the support they can get from really concerned Americans during the next three months and in the next four years if they win in November.

  Ronald Reagan called for a “Second American Revolution” to make every American an owner.  He scared the wits out of just about every politician in Washington, which is why he never followed through on his own advocacy.  Now we have a second chance, a really good one, and probably the last one in our time.  Vote McCain/Palin for the Second American Revolution.