Sarah Palin and Alaskan secessionism

“I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

That’s from the late Joe Vogler, founder of the Alaskan Independence Party. It’s not dredged up out of old news clips: it’s prominently featured on the AIP website.

Makes you wonder what the Governor of Alaska, who is now running to be understudy to the Chief Executive of those “damned institutions,” was doing encouraging the delegates to this year’s AIP convention to “Keep up the good work.” The party’s fundamental demand is for a plebiscite on whether Alaska should remain a state, become a commonwealth, or secede entirely and become an independent country.

Perhaps you might think that Gov. Palin was merely being polite, and was unaware of what the AIP stands for. But that seems hard to square with the fact &#8212 at least, the claim by the Chair of the AIP &#8212 that Palin was a party member and attended an AIP convention before deciding that if she was going to get elected to anything in Alaska it would have to be as a Republican.

Here’s some of the “good work” Gov. Palin wanted to encourage: