A MUST READ: View from Alaska: Big money surrounded by big wilderness

This was a guest column in the Sarasota Herald Tribune, brought to me attention by my father (thank you, Dad).

We Alaskans are not generally so magazine-pretty like her, nor are we so confrontational and vapid. Most of us don't have those peachy cheeks -- we have sunburn, windburn and frostbite. Our fingernails are dirty from actually gutting moose, not yakking about it. Our hands are chapped from picking thousands of salmon out of nets, not holding one up for the camera.

Having said that, here in Alaska we are accustomed to getting jobs we're not qualified to fill. In our far-flung villages and towns, we have big money surrounded by big wilderness; the combination causes warped career opportunities. Sort of an Edge of Nowhere phenomenon -- cousin to the Bridge to Nowhere one.

For example, in the village closest to the wilderness homestead where I was raised, I remember standing in my friend's cabin when his dad got a call on the CB radio: "People are writing you in for mayor."

LET'S PUT SOCIALISM TO REST

"Like, Socialism": Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker

During the 2000 campaign, on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” a young woman asked him why her father, a doctor, should be “penalized” by being “in a huge tax bracket.” McCain replied that “wealthy people can afford more” and that “the very wealthy, because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes, really don’t pay nearly as much as you think they do.” The exchange continued:

YOUNG WOMAN: Are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism and stuff?. . .
MCCAIN: Here’s what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.

For her part, Sarah Palin, who has lately taken to calling Obama “Barack the Wealth Spreader,” seems to be something of a suspect character herself. She is, at the very least, a fellow-traveller of what might be called socialism with an Alaskan face. The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist. ♦

Click title for full article; and note: emphasis, mine. (The argument that Obama is giving money TO PEOPLE THAT DO NOT PAY TAXES AT ALL, is not true, as it implies people that do not work at all are receiving benefits. Only workers that pay payroll taxes would receive the credit, as it is an income tax credit, not a direct handout. In Alaska, every man, woman and child received $3,269 this year; EVEN those that don't work at all. What exactly is that?

The Palin's And The Alaska Independence Party

Click the title link for the video of Sarah Palin addressing the AIP convention; 3 months ago; and telling them to "keep up the good work".

Some interesting points from Alaska Independence Party website:

The platform of the AIP is, as one would expect, centered on Alaskan issues. Although it is widely thought to be a secessionist movement, the Party makes great effort to emphasize that its primary goal is merely a vote on secession, something that Party advocates say Alaskans were denied during the founding of the state. A plebiscite was, in fact, held in Alaska at the state's inception in 1958, but AIP members argue that voting was corrupt and that residents were not given the proper choice between statehood, commonwealth status, or complete separation -- something they say has been granted to other U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico.

Ideologically, the AIP is considered to be a hybrid of conservative Republicanism, populism and libertarianism. Among the issues advocated by the party: the direct popular election of the state attorney general and all judges, the right to keep and bear arms, the privatization of government services, the right to home schooling by parents, and a constitutional amendment to ban property taxes. The AIP, following Vogler's infamous confrontations with officials from the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, remains steadfastly opposed to environmental regulations and actively promotes the private ownership and widespread development of Alaskan land.

Todd was a member of the AIP party for almost seven years, according to the Director of the Alaska Division of Elections.