Lightning Joe - a piece of work
Alpha Sarah
posted Friday, 5 September 2008
So much has happened in the last few days, and I just looked at my own last post. OMG, how much the story changes, how faster!
I wrote my last entry before the stuff about Sarah Palin's book-banning question came out. Before the Alaska Legislature said they thought they had a pretty good case against her, in the Department of Public Safety firing. Before I even knew she was hard "pro-life" and an Evangelical. I knew something about her husband being an oil man, and something about snow machines, but the other, um, stuff never really made it into the statewide press before she announced for VP.
And I had voted for Tony Knowles anyway; because even a Democrat some people don't like, is likely going to be better than a Republican everyone (Republican) likes.
I live in SouthEast, the part of Alaska that she's regularly castigated for ignoring. Which also means I'm not one of her neighbors, which seems to make all the difference, in what you know about Sarah. Some of those neighbors, it turns out, had these questions all along, about her.
So I've had a little Sarah-gucation lately, filling in the things I didn't know -- which of course were salacious and -- given that anonymity is actually HARDER in Alaska than in many other places -- rather easy to credit. I find myself agreeing with the real people who have real questions about her.
Not about her family choices, or even her religion, interesting though those may be. No, this is about her character, and her concept of government.
My provisional evaluation:
Sarah is an Alpha wolf. She leads the pack, to bring down the meat. You don't tease your prey, you go for it. This blood-thirst may be what plays to the Faux nuke-the-mid-east crowd, but is it a good thing to have in the Oval Orifice? You know what's coming next, it's-
Yes, you guessed it -- it's the when-the-old-man-dies meme! Old John-S gets a call at three in the morning, and the vibration shorts out his pace-maker. Palin and the kids are bustled down the hall to the big office to handle the crisis, while the guy with the "football" tries to blend into the shadow of the drapes, and -- oh, where do I begin...?
And then, there's her AIPness.
I don't know what kind of decree it would take for the Alaska Independence Party to get the vote they want, or who can even grant such a thing. Would it take Congress (or the courts?) to declare it, or could it effectively be declared under the egis of the ever-expanding Presidential "powers" that the Republicans have gifted our republic with?
How ever, if ever, such a vote were granted, it would be another referendum by Alaskans, to decide (again) whether to be a State -- or NOT to be a state. That's kind of a romantic idea for some, to take that choice back, and replay history; especially in light of the crucial insult many think Clinton did us, by putting large areas of the national forests out of access for timber.
Under AIP's preferred outcome, of course, Alaska would vote itself a separate nation, and suddenly all the resources would be up for grabs (and they'd be grabbed, too -- Alaskans being who they are).
But I must confess that a statehood vote holds a certain appeal to me, too.
Oh, not to make us our own lonely -- and probably lousy -- nation; but for another option on the AIP's list -- the choice to become part of a different country than the US.
I don't think we'd join the Philippines, or Seychelles, though I'd expect to hear both proposed, once Alaska gets on a roll. But Canada might take us in -- so long as we promise to stop making fun of them and their whiskey. Mind you, we drink a lot of it; so maybe we can begin the cultural rapprochement with Black Velvet and Yukon Jack.
Besides, a vote for Canada would mean instant National Health; so the AIPs might get a run for their money after all!
I wrote my last entry before the stuff about Sarah Palin's book-banning question came out. Before the Alaska Legislature said they thought they had a pretty good case against her, in the Department of Public Safety firing. Before I even knew she was hard "pro-life" and an Evangelical. I knew something about her husband being an oil man, and something about snow machines, but the other, um, stuff never really made it into the statewide press before she announced for VP.
And I had voted for Tony Knowles anyway; because even a Democrat some people don't like, is likely going to be better than a Republican everyone (Republican) likes.
I live in SouthEast, the part of Alaska that she's regularly castigated for ignoring. Which also means I'm not one of her neighbors, which seems to make all the difference, in what you know about Sarah. Some of those neighbors, it turns out, had these questions all along, about her.
So I've had a little Sarah-gucation lately, filling in the things I didn't know -- which of course were salacious and -- given that anonymity is actually HARDER in Alaska than in many other places -- rather easy to credit. I find myself agreeing with the real people who have real questions about her.
Not about her family choices, or even her religion, interesting though those may be. No, this is about her character, and her concept of government.
My provisional evaluation:
Sarah is an Alpha wolf. She leads the pack, to bring down the meat. You don't tease your prey, you go for it. This blood-thirst may be what plays to the Faux nuke-the-mid-east crowd, but is it a good thing to have in the Oval Orifice? You know what's coming next, it's-
Yes, you guessed it -- it's the when-the-old-man-dies meme! Old John-S gets a call at three in the morning, and the vibration shorts out his pace-maker. Palin and the kids are bustled down the hall to the big office to handle the crisis, while the guy with the "football" tries to blend into the shadow of the drapes, and -- oh, where do I begin...?
And then, there's her AIPness.
I don't know what kind of decree it would take for the Alaska Independence Party to get the vote they want, or who can even grant such a thing. Would it take Congress (or the courts?) to declare it, or could it effectively be declared under the egis of the ever-expanding Presidential "powers" that the Republicans have gifted our republic with?
How ever, if ever, such a vote were granted, it would be another referendum by Alaskans, to decide (again) whether to be a State -- or NOT to be a state. That's kind of a romantic idea for some, to take that choice back, and replay history; especially in light of the crucial insult many think Clinton did us, by putting large areas of the national forests out of access for timber.
Under AIP's preferred outcome, of course, Alaska would vote itself a separate nation, and suddenly all the resources would be up for grabs (and they'd be grabbed, too -- Alaskans being who they are).
But I must confess that a statehood vote holds a certain appeal to me, too.
Oh, not to make us our own lonely -- and probably lousy -- nation; but for another option on the AIP's list -- the choice to become part of a different country than the US.
I don't think we'd join the Philippines, or Seychelles, though I'd expect to hear both proposed, once Alaska gets on a roll. But Canada might take us in -- so long as we promise to stop making fun of them and their whiskey. Mind you, we drink a lot of it; so maybe we can begin the cultural rapprochement with Black Velvet and Yukon Jack.
Besides, a vote for Canada would mean instant National Health; so the AIPs might get a run for their money after all!
comments