This guilt by association thing has gotten out of hand, with Sarah Palin lambasting Barack Obama for his supposed "association" with Bill Ayers, who was a Weatherman radical in the '60's when Obama was 8 years old. Now Palin, too, can enjoy her own "guilt by association"! CNN's Rick Sanchez, much to the chagrin and angst of the McCain campaign, brought out Palin's strong ties to the Alaska Independence Party, which advocates ... seceding from the Union! Yes, you got it - Sarah's been palling around with guys who hate the United States so much they want to secede from it, cut ties, become a separate nation of Alaska. Unionists, anyone?
All 3 videos are here - one of the CNN show video, one of Sarah Palin addressing the A.I.P., and one of its founder, Joe Vogler, founder of the A.I.P.
Full report in Salon is here...
Mark Chryson, 51, former chairman of the Alaska Independence Party, surprised Salon reporters when
he pulled a 9-millimeter Makarov PM pistol -- once the standard-issue sidearm for Soviet cops -- out of his glove compartment. "I've got enough weaponry to raise a small army in my basement," he said, clutching the gun in his palm. "Then again, so do most Alaskans." But Chryson added a message of reassurance to residents of that faraway place some Alaskans call "the 48." "We want to go our separate ways," he said, "but we are not going to kill you."
Take a good look. This is the guy who helped Sarah Palin get to where he is today.
Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory.
Secessionist movements in the deep South?? Is this what they mean by the "South Will Rise Again"? Against whom??? Well, it doesn't stop there.
Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution's language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as "Black Helicopter Steve," to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. "Every time I showed up her door was open," said Chryson. "And that policy continued when she became governor."
"Anti-government militias"??? Doesn't that constitute right-wing terrorism? Remember Oklahoma City and Tim McVeigh... it was called "domestic terrorism"... Seems that Sarah Palin not only "pals around" with people who could be considered "terrorists", but helps to promote their policies, ideologies, and pet projects or fight their pet peeves, as the case may be. This is a far stronger "connection" than the hazy, sleazily-made "connection" they force-feed on the public of Obama and Ayers.
So what about Joe Vogler, the Godfather of the AIP? Godfather? No, he was the Original "Maverick"!
The AIP was born of the vision of "Old Joe" Vogler, a hard-bitten former gold miner who hated the government of the United States almost as much as he hated wolves and environmentalists. His resentment peaked during the early 1970s when the federal government began installing Alaska's oil and gas pipeline. Fueled by raw rage -- "The United States has made a colony of Alaska," he told author John McPhee in 1977 -- Vogler declared a maverick candidacy for the governorship in 1982. Though he lost, Old Joe became a force to be reckoned with, as well as a constant source of amusement for Alaska's political class. During a gubernatorial debate in 1982, Vogler proposed using nuclear weapons to obliterate the glaciers blocking roadways to Juneau. "There's gold under there!" he exclaimed.
Oh no! Don't tell me Sarah Palin "pals around" with folks who hate America! Where does that put "Country First"? I guess she agreed to go with McCain for the chance at Big Power ... a pretty big draw, I might add. But if she's gonna get nasty about Obama's alleged associations, we have the full right, and in fact, responsibility, to get real, real close and have a critical look at her associations, too. And they don't look all that, shall we say, patriotic, or even anti-terrorist. Oh, and speaking of terrorists or alleged terrorists, how about this?
With sponsorship from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Vogler was scheduled to present his case for Alaskan secession before the United Nations General Assembly in the late spring of 1993. But before he could, Old Joe's long, strange political career ended tragically that May when he was murdered by a fellow secessionist.
Yeah, it wasn't a threat. It was a damn serious thing, this secessionist thing. This guy went international to leave the United States, literally, and become another separate nation of Alaska. And it's his party that continues to haunt our stone-throwing, accusing, not-so-innocent-herself Sarah Palin.
Let the voter beware.
Cutest Candidate: John Edwards
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