Sep 2nd, 2008 at 7:45 am
Alaska Independence?
It seems that Sarah Palin is a former member of some sort of an Alaska secessionist movement known as the Alaska Independence Party and went so far as to send them a nice video:
42 Responses to “Alaska Independence?”
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September 2nd, 2008 at 7:51 am
“I’ve always said that competition is sooo good.” Like brownies!
Also, she says Alaska was founded on hope, liberty, and opportunity.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:02 am
Hello:
Wow…yet again we are taken on a trip through the looking glass by the GOP.
Of course the REALLY important question has yet to be asked:
Given that AIP is on the verge of succeeding where the confederacy failed, what happens to a VP who WAS a citizen of Alaska when they remove themselves from the crushing grip of United States imperialism? Is she stripped of citizenship? Do security guards escort her from the navel observatory? Or does she abandon her new-found independence in order to maintain her grip on power?
The is also the macro question of once Alaska falls, what other dominoes tumble? Guam? The Virgin Islands? Rhode Island?!?!?!?!
My God….are we witnessing the end of our republic as we know it?
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:11 am
Why on earth is she wearing a gortex (or similar) jacket in her office? Is the roof leaking?
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:12 am
Matt:
Saudi Arabia has 27,000,000 people, and is the 46th largest country in the world. I would hardly classify this as a “very small population” country. And in what way does it work “well?” But, that’s another topic I suppose.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:21 am
The party of Lincoln is about to put a secessionist on its national ticket.
Repeat as necessary.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:29 am
Sell Alaska Back! That’s the only reasonable solution to the Alaska Problem.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 am
Thanks for the snark, Matt.
I have to admit — while a president Palin may well wreck our economy, indulge in God-knows-what foreign adventures, and maybe even impose theocratic fascism upon us, I can say this much: I’ll at least go to my unmarked grave laughing. I almost hope that McCain/Palin wins, just so he can kick the bucket and I can watch stuff like this for the next 4 years.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:33 am
Bruce beat me to it. It’s not reasonable to characterize Saudi Arabia as having a “very small population”.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:34 am
I was about to argue that the natural resource curse generally doesn’t apply to countries that had stable, honest, functioning democratic institutions before/during the discovery and exploitation of those resources (e.g. Norway). Then I realized this was Alaskan politics we were talking about and they have none of those things.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:37 am
You just have to look across the Bering Strait — where , and see the odd little provincial world of Mr Roman Abramovich, who, when he wasn’t the absentee governor of the Chuktoka Autonomous Okrug, was the busily running Chelsea FC.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:50 am
Re Matthew’s comment ” And it also raises the question of Alaskan independence — is it a good idea? ”
————-
1) Having had the misfortune to be educated at Harvard, Matthew never learned to look at the Numbers.
2) So let’s compare the RUSSIAN Stock Market Index with the S&P 500 during the Bush Administration:
a) RTS Index has risen from 163 on Jan 15, 2001 to 1667 today!!! (In dollar terms)
b) In the same period, S&P 500 has DECLINED from 1327 to 1283. (A significant LOSS when you add in inflation.
3) Plus, if you are a US Citizen, you owe almost $10 Trillion on the Federal Debt, up almost $5 Trillion from when Bush entered office. And your Social Security/Medicare “Account” –that some of you have been paying into for decades? Nothing’s there. Bupkus. Republicans cleaned out the larder.
4) Maybe Palin should build a Highway to the 48 states –so that the rest of us can defect to Russia with her.
5) That’s the reason WHY McCain picked her, you know. First South Ossetia defected to Putin — closing the door to that Caspian Sea oil Candy Store. Then Alaska started getting wobbly — as Palin sweetly explained to McCain in her interview. After all, Alaska still HAS a National Guard — whereas the lower 48 has its army in Iraq and Afghanistan and maybe Georgia soon.
6) That’s why the Republicans picked Palin. Sheer panic.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:02 am
“navel observatory”?
Is she a Buddhist, too?
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:10 am
Re: Saudi Arabia having a “very small population” — Saudi Arabia actually had a fairly small population until relatively recently. The population didn’t exceed the single digit millions until the 1980s, IIRC. A lot of the recent socio-political instability in the country has been attributed to the massive population boom which outstripped growth in oil revenues.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:13 am
What would Karl Rove do with this information? The fact is, the GOP candidate for VP is a traitor who wants to literally tear apart the United States of America and complete the job (”peacefully” they say) that Robert E Lee started.
Southern strategy, indeed.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:24 am
I just hope someone tells her to stop rocking her chair back and forth like that. It doesn’t do a lot to project that “experienced…tested…ready to lead” vibe that should be fairly radiating from her after her years of experience with the local PTA.
Cohen calls her a “sitcom” pick in that column; the smartest thing he’s said in years.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:34 am
All I have to say about the Alaska Independence Party fooferaw is:
This is a very, very bad time to be involved with the American Institute of Physics (A.I.P.). Sigh.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:34 am
Re nobi yuno’s comment “The fact is, the GOP candidate for VP is a traitor who wants to literally tear apart the United States of America ”
————
Think of it as “Change You Can Believe In”.
Hey, the USA was strongly modeled on the Roman Republic. Look on the back of a fucking quarter for Christ’s sake –that emblem once marched at the head of Caesar’s Legions.
So the Rich , having made a mint by shitting in their own nest, are packing up to flee to New Constantiople — and leaving the bankrupted rest of us to the Mexicans ..er Germanic invaders.
Of COURSE the Empire is going to break up — if not now then after the avian flu pandemic weakens the civic bonds –just as the Asian plagues did to Rome starting around 165 AD.
Only question is, when do we have the Year of the Four Emperors?
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 am
Wow … I’ve long ago given up trying to predict what will sway voters one way or another, but this seems like a big deal to me. She’s addressing a group of successionists! and now she’s running for veep…?
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
Whoops – make that “secessionists”
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
Bush concedes that we’ve already given California back to the Mexicans.
But, Hey, we still have 49 out of 50 states and that ain’t bad.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:31 am
According to the latest Census figures, the population of Wasilla is actually larger than Saudi Arabia’s–and growing fast!
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:40 am
If this is an accurate predictor of her debating/communication skills… good lord. She makes Dubya look like Cicero. Her vibe is that of the unctuous middle-manager who’s taken a couple of training seminars and thinks she’s a management genius. The way she says “I know you agree with that” in that rushed, I’m-affirming-you, corporate-meeting-speak way, is just priceless. Think crazy rightwing Michael Scott/David Brent, or the idiot-boss from Office Space (”I’m gonna have to go ahead and ask you NOT to have that abortion, mkay?”).
And round about the 40-second mark, what the hell does this sentence mean?
We have a great promise to be a self-sufficient state, made up of the hardest-working, most grateful Americans, in our nation.
Setting aside the inherent rhetorical contradictions (presumably she thinks she’s being clever, affirming secessionism and federalism simultaneously), it’s a marvel of gibberish. “Most grateful Americans”? Huh?
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:08 am
re Anomynous #5: The transformation of the party of Abraham Lincoln into the party of Jefferson Davis is now complete!
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:24 am
But in order to keep Alaska part of the US it is necessary to have an American population there. If we had left it a territory and Russia may have been able to steal it away from us. After all we stole territory from Britain and Mexico by sending Americans into their territories. This is all speculation since Wikipedia isn’t being much help and I am too lazy to do real research.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:42 am
Proof positive that media/pundit types don’t know history: I’ve yet to hear the term “Seward’s folly” (William Seward being the secretary of state who engineered the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867).
Given that we’re unlikely to sell it back, and that there’s no constitutional provision I know of to revoke statehood once it’s granted, and that the Late Unpleasantness made secession a non-starter, what do about Alaska and its pigs-at-the-trough/bad-reality-TV politicians?
Has anyone contemplated a RICO prosecution?
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Probably “Most grateful to Jesus of all Americans,” said with all the humility that Jesus himself demanded of his followers.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Well, I’d just like to make a pitch for merging it with the rest of the frozen northern wastes we up here call “Canada”. Geographically sensible, we Albertans know all about running a petro-economy, and Canada even provides migrating moose for the Palins’ dining pleasure.
In related news, moose stew is greasy as all hell. I’d steer clear. Caribou on the other hand, if you can track it down, is gorgeous. As is muskox. Simply season, quickly grill, and you’re away.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
A revolution without laughing is a revolution not worth having.
McCain picks a treasonous moron. More news at 11.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Sarah Palin was for Alaska being American before she was against it before she was for it.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
The knock on Alaska’s congressional representation shows a short memory. Sen. Ernest Gruening voted against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The only other senator to do so was Wayne Morse of Oregon. Sen. Mike Gravel read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. Of course, both were Democrats, and Alaska’s congressional delegation has been solid Republican for decades now.
Gruening is long dead now, but Gravel ran for president this year. He was probably the most solidly antiwar candidate in the race, but didn’t get any respect. Funny thing is that Palin seems to be about as far off in the Republican fringe as Gravel is relative to the Democrats. Had she run for president she wouldn’t have fared any better. Yet here she is, a heartbeat and the small matter of an election away.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I always pictured Alaska as a giant welfare state where all the residents get refunds from the gov’t instead of paying taxes. Amazing how people who live off the largess of the state consider themselves radical libertaians (i.e. Barry Goldwater).
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Can anyone enlighten us on what membership in the Scottish National Party means in Scotland? Are members considered dangerous radicals? Or, is being a member more a way of showing one’s deep love of Scotland’s history and heritage? I got the impression from the way she talks about the party, that she views it more in an historical appreciation context, kind of like a group of re-enactors or history buffs. Of course, it’s entirely possible that what she thinks, but that it is, in fact, a bit, or a lot scarier.
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