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Sun 14 Mar 2004 6:17
by Kevin McGehee
in Coweta County, GA
[Alaska]
[Our Times]
[blogoSFERICS]
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AIP Updates Its Image
Dan Rice, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Longtime Alaskan Independence Party chair Mark Chryson was the only person who wore a tie during Saturday’s town hall-style forum here to talk about the Alaska Permanent Fund.
Chryson found the distinction in a room of about 50 people notable, considering his party’s image has typically been associated more with a flannel shirt and coveralls wardrobe.
He said the AIP’s “old white man” stereotype is on the outs.
The party is gaining more acceptance and, in the process, undergoing a bit of an image makeover, said Chryson, who was in Fairbanks Saturday to attend the AIP’s annual convention in the morning and an afternoon forum organized by Alaskans, Just Say No, a group formed to protest using any of the permanent fund for state government.
“When (AIP founder) Joe (Vogler) was around, we had kind of what I call the old white man syndrome,“ said Chryson, the AIP’s chair the last seven years. “That’s not the case now. It’s not just white European men.“
He said almost all of the candidates who ran in the party’s gubernatorial primary in 2002 were Alaska Natives.
» Read the rest.
“Alaska Native,“ for those who don’t know, is a term of art—it doesn’t just mean “someone born in Alaska.“ These are Eskimos, Aleuts and Athabascan Indians.
At a time when the politically correct Alaska Native position is in favor of greater federal control superseding state sovereignty, you have to wonder what’s drawing Natives to a political party founded on an agenda of secession from the United States.
By the way, I think every state needs a secessionist party. When the times don’t call for the threat, it’ll serve as a place for the wingnuts away from mainstream politics. Meanwhile, it’s there if the times ever do call for a threat of secession.
Comments:
Uh, my home state (Texas) had a seccessionist party—then the Union came down, kicked our asses, and occupied us for a few years (but called it “Reconstruction”)
While it’s okay to joke about it now, remember that the most number of Americans killed in any war was over whether states had the right to secede or not (it WASN’T over slavery). 300,000 Americans died so we can learn that the answer is “no”.
Director Mitch (IP: 68.122.174.102) Mar 14, 2004 8:19 PM
Being a Republican myself, I wouldn’t expect the times to ever call for a threat of secession when there’s a Republican in charge (and as your example suggests, it would be a bad idea anyway to try it with a Republican in the White House).
However that Republican’s Democrat opponent for re-election was arguing for the two sides to seek a peaceful accommodation. Thus with a Democrat in office I would think that if the times did call for a threat of secession the results for those making the threat would be decidedly positive.
McGehee (IP: 24.240.122.201) Mar 14, 2004 8:36 PM
“Eskimos”?? Isn’t that the racial slur the Inuits object so strenuously to?
No time to Google. Anybody know?
Indigo (IP: 24.25.55.174) Mar 16, 2004 5:19 PM
If they don’t like it they can go back to Eskimoland where they came from.
Seriously—in Alaska there are Yupik and Inupiat linguistic groups, and in Canada they mostly speak Inuit. Other than that I am unaware of any preferred collective name for all of the non-Aleut coastal tribes in Alaska.
BTW, I also left out the Tlingit people of Alaska’s panhandle region; there are other tribes in that region as well but I can’t recall the names.
McGehee (IP: 24.240.122.201) Mar 16, 2004 6:30 PM
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