THE VALDEZ TRAGEDY: INFLUENTIAL IN PALIN"S POLITICAL ACTIVATION.

Sarah characterizes the Exxon oil spill in Prince William Sound as the event that made her decide to become active in politics. This occurred on March 24, 1989 while she was baking a cake and a friend called and told her to turn on the television and she saw the coverage of the Exxon spill which horrified her. Valdez is located 260 miles from Wasilla but she knew that all Alaskans would fell the consequences of the event.

Fisheries are the first business in Alaska even before oil production so a blow to this industry would be felt by all Alaskans including the Palin's whose fishing rights on Bristol Bay to the North of Prince William Sound would be tainted by the spill in an adjacent fishing grounds to the South. Subsequently the price of Alaskan salmon dropped because of buyers fears it might be contaminated with oil.

She says many members of her family and friends went to help with the clean up. Apparently neither she nor Todd joined in, however as a result of the devastation to the fishermen in the area and other people who derived a living from the Sound a seed was planted in her that in retrospect she believes led her to go into public service. Initially it was a belief that she should help her fellow citizens and that if ever she had a chance to do so she would.

WASILLA, ALASKA : DUCT TAPE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD : HOME TO RUGGED INDIVIDUALS AND ROGUE POLITICIANS

In 1992 a local activist, Nick Carney, recruited her to run for Wasilla City Council thinking she would be a kindred political soul. He lived to regret his belief about her. She was 28 at the time. Wasilla was a small town of approximately 4000 residents in 1990. However a new road the Parks Highway had been built in 1975 from Anchorage to Wasilla, traditionally a lumber, mining, and trapping center with some agriculture as a result of 200 farm families resettled there from the upper Mid-West. As a result Wasilla was transitioning to being a bedroom community of Anchorage (Population in 1990: 216000) .

The population of Wasilla has more than doubled by 2008 to over 10,000.

Sarah Palin was elected to a seat on the city council from 1993 to 1996. It met twice a month on Monday nights. She alleges she ran on a platform calling for the restructuring of government and the reduction of taxation.

However Wasilla was forced to adopt a sales tax in lieu of an increased property tax because the growing city needed a police force at the time she was first elected. She alleges she was against any increase in taxes but supported the sales tax as being “fairer and more optional" in a town like Wasilla which was a hub for tourism and commerce.” The apparent thinking was that a sales tax would partly fall on others just passing through Wasilla. This mind set has been a touch stone of her policies ever since i.e. tax oil production in the state so that the end user in the lower forty eight would pay the tax that benefited Alaska. In fact Alaska receives $5 for every $1 paid into the Federal Treasury. So it is a welfare state made of rugged individuals, rogue politicians and Wasilla according to Wal-Mart is the city where they sell the most duct tape.

She describes her self as being an independent minded council woman. This became evident when she voted against garbage collection services for a new subdivision preferring to let the residents hall their trash to the dump like every one else. This in a growing Wasilla which was becoming a bedroom community for persons employed in Anchorage who may not have the time to or means to take care of their own trash. Nick Carney her fellow councilman owned the trash company so there was a conflict of interest on his part but another service provider could have been found by the city council for a necessary service in a growing town.

The book indicates that at this early date she was establishing her independent and rogue credentials with an anti new tax and no new government mantra. Whether this was in the interest of Wasilla, a city in the path or progress with an exploding population is doubtful.

Wasillians she declares were rugged individualists not interested in professional city mangers or city planners. Consequently Frommers Alaska Guide describes Wasilla “as the worst example of urban sprawl of highway fronting malls with gravel lots”. One wonders why she thinks other people (non Alaskans) are not rugged individualists or that somehow Alaskans are more resourceful then everyone else since Alsakans depend so much on Federal support which comes from the other citizens of the U.S.

After three years on the city counsel where she established her credentials as anti new tax and anti new government programs she decided to run against the “good old boys” and challenged the incumbent mayor who was educated in city management and administration. Thus characterizing her self as an outsider or definitely not a good old boy insider and as candidate that would bring a new breathe of fresh air to the "politics as usual" culture which she had been a part of for three years. Thus we see her mantra as the representative of the common man an against the fat cat insiders. This is coupled with the assertion that taxes are too high (meaning the fat cat insiders are using the peoples money to benefit themselves) and government is growing too fast (The fat cats are padding the payroll with their friends and relatives) which she used in her campaign for mayor.

She alleged the city didn’t need urban planners nor did the people need to be managed by city managers who weren’t born there, raised there and intended to die there kind of guys.

She says the opposition candidate, a three term incumbent , mainly said she was a young, inexperienced mother of three small children. She won the election. However when she cut the mayor’s salary( her own) and tried to lower departmental budgets and in particular the police budget she was subjected to a recall movement which she defeated.

Thus she was allegedly inspired to go into politics by the Valdez incident. Her political policies are basically what we hear today: no new taxes or fewer taxes, less government, the people are capable of regulating themselves so they don’t need a lot of urban planning or city administration by educated people who weren’t born here raised here or going to be buried here. This in a city that was in the process of doubling in population. This simplistic, atavist approach to politics sounds good on the campaign trail against incumbents but in practice it leads to disaster as we have seen in the recent financial meltdown allegedly caused by unregulated “free market " policies. The market is never “unregulated” if the government doesn’t do it for the public private interests will for their own benefit and their interest may not be in the public's interest.

Labels: Sarah Palin

EARLY YEARS OF MARRIAGE

“On April20 1989 my Life truly began.” That is the day she gave birth to Track Palin so named because he was born during track season? So much for the Christian tradition of naming children after biblical figures like the Apostles , older family members or carrying forth the mothers maiden name. Track was named because he was born during track season and she liked sports. She says jokingly he was lucky it wasn’t the hockey season or he could have been named Zamboni. Some people select names with more care and significance. Later Track told her we would have liked to have been named Colt.

Sarah goes into great detail describing the trials and tribulations of her first labor and delivery and the pain associated with it. Sarah says her drive to become a big time sports reporter was “mellowed’ by the arrival of Track, who was the center of her attention and adoration, so she settled for weekend work at an anchorage network affiliate.

Todd was working for British Petroleum on the North Slope so he didn’t get home that often.

Todd also had fishing rights on Bristol Bay that he acquired from his grandfather and while he was away with BP Sarah, despite being pregnant, and other family members worked the rights during Salmon season. This franchise reportedly brought in $50,000 for a months backbreaking work in the year before she ran for Vice President.

She and Todd moved into their own small apartment and while she was pregnant again with a child they expected to be named Tad for a mixture of Track and Todd. We are not told the significance of Todd’s name.

However her maternity doctor discovered the fetus did not have a heart beat and gave Sarah her choices in getting rid of “it”. The doctors word not Sarah’s.

She says the child miscarried although the medical form used by the doctor to describe the event had the word "abortion" typed in the space describing the procedure. This was changed using Wite-Out and “miscarriage’ was inserted. Sarah is careful to never use the word fetus in this passage and always called the pregnancy a baby and characterizes him as a boy child from the time gender was determined and designated by the name Tad.

She is devastated by the loss which she described as terminated by a D and C procedure. Curiously we are given no dates or doctors names involved in this event, except she describes it occurring one year after the birth of Track, and whether the dilation and curettage procedure was really the method chosen to remove a dead fetus or to remove the remaining products of conception after a miscarriage is any one’s guess. Also no information is given as to why the fetus should die in a presumably healthy mother. However, whatever the circumstances it appears to be a desired child because Bristol came along the following year.

She says we were “more cautious” with our next pregnancy apparently meaning she was less physically active and there is no mention of participating in the fishing season on Bristol Bay.

The next child was a girl whom Todd named Bristol after his beloved bay and fishing grounds. She says she thinks of the name as the substitute for her intended sports career at ESPN which is located in Bristol, Connecticut.

She devotes herself to raising her kids and abandons her goal of being a top sports reporter although she says she worked part time as a proof reader and occasional sports column writer for the Frontiersman, the Wasilla newspaper. Also she remarks she read the newspaper from beginning to end while tossing duct tape hockey pucks at young Track to practice on in hallway of the family home.

She doesn't say what newspaper she read. If it was the Frontiersman it is published three times a week now. So back then it doesn't sound like it would have a lot of thought provoking commentary and reportage on political, economic and cultural events outside of Wassila or Alaska.

So far this book is curiously silent on her academic achievements, interests and civic activities except sports reporting and beauty contests. Also she describes no transformative moments like reading Ayn Rand, or the day John Lennon was announced shot to death by her hero Howard Cosell during the broadcast of a football game or any other book signifying her reading preferences.

This book is very vague and doesn't really suggest the basis of her allegedly strongly held beliefs on i.e. creationism, global warming, right to life or even death panels or how she acquired them except in a most superficial way up to this point.

The book is really a most self centered, solipsistic, (as all political autobiographies seem to be) and soporific account and one wonders why she needed a ghost writer to assist her along with a phalanx of editorial assistants. It sounds like one air head talking to another who writes it down. Probably all the high powered talent at Harper Collins was driven out when Rupert Murdock became owner and the Judith Reagan’s of this world took over the storied publisher.

Thus far there is nothing to suggest this woman is the strong minded, independent who is a “rogue” politician as the title suggests. In 1989 she was twenty five.

Hillary Clinton by this time in her life had established herself as a force to be reckoned with as a student leader, a leader on children’s issues with published articles, and a lawyer.

Labels: Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin Discovers Conservative Politics, Motherhood And The Flag

Sarah Palin And Hillary Clinton Both With Middle Class Republican Roots But Different Carreer Paths.

Palin first intended to go to the Hawaiian Pacific University lured by the warm climate and romantic setting. However with the beaches and the climate so unlike Alaska she soon became disenchanted with the Islands and decided to transfer to Idaho to continue her education in a climate and terrain some what like her home in Alaska. She was not on the Hawaiian Pacific basketball team although she mentions she did tryout but thought she would be better off devoting her time to academics . At Idaho she majored in Journalism and her first year appears to be uneventful returning to Alaska in the summer to work for next years tuition.

An old friend Linda Menard talked her into entering the local Miss America Beauty Pageant. Sarah didn’t consider herself a beauty contest type however the lure of tuition money caused her to enter and she won in all categories including Miss Congeniality the title she seems to value most. She became Miss Wasilla and the next summer she entered the Miss Alaska Contest and became second runner up and again won Miss Congeniality

which she again seem to value most. On the other hand she was a heartbeat away from being Miss Alaska and going on to the Miss America finals. These contests ended her pageant career but provided tuition for the first two years of college. Her question at the pageant was whether she would vote for a woman for Vice President because she was a woman. Geraldine Ferraro was running on the Democratic ticket. She answered “no” she could only vote for some one who supported the same political beliefs and family values she held.

Thus we see that she had begun to form her political beliefs at this time. Later she extols Ronald Reagan and the ideas of Reagan's Administration. Most of which she still holds today and form part of her “message.”

Immediately after college she worked at various odd jobs including a slime line gutting fish, also as a waitress and with her fiancee, Todd, fishing on Bristol Bay. She married Todd in August 1988 and their first child, a son, Track, was born in April 1989. She is careful to give exact dates as to each event and that maybe iis a clue that this book is mainly for people who can read but cannot think. The fine hand of Ms Vincent is at work here in the

structuring of the information and disclosures of this book.

Palin’s political awareness flowered during her college years. She declared herself to be a Republican and was an admirer of the policies and accomplishments of Ronald Reagan. However she had not become a political activist at this point in her life. She doesn’t describe her academic standing in her class at the University of Idaho nor did she describe herself as a leader of her class like Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton also entered college as a Republican but left the party for what she viewed as racist policies espoused at the 1968 convention and for the Nixon primary campaign against Rockefeller. Hillary at an early stage of her career began to question the values she grew up hearing. Ms. Palin extols the conservative mantra of Ronald Reagan even though unregulated Capitalism, which he preached, is blamed for the current economic situation. We have yet to feel the full pain of the massive deficit spending needed to correct the excesses of the free market policies that flowed from Reagan and his advisors.

Hillary also worked in Alaska after her senior year as a waitress and on a Salmon slime line. However Hillary was an academic leader of her class and at her classmates urging gave the commencement speech. The speech in which she criticized, Republican Senator Edward Brooke, the prior speaker, and earned a seven minute standing ovation and nationwide news coverage. Two young women both from middle class Republican roots but with vastly different career paths who could someday oppose each other for political office one a high achiever intellectually and otherwise and the other a middle class homemaker, and state governor.

Labels: Sarah Palin/ Colege years

NO. 22 WASILLA WARRIORS
HIGH SCHOOL 1978-1982

After a normal adolescence Sarah goes to high school where her Dad was a teacher and mom a volunteer and part timer in the school. She she is interested in sports and dreams of one day becoming The female equivalent of a sports caster like Howard Cosell in the mean time she played woman’s basketball , softball and other sports. She was thankful for the feminine movement which made woman's sports programs possible. Her dad was coach of the basketball team.
During these years of growing up with her siblings she takes pleasure in the outdoors, athletics, religion and family life including hunting moose. Her high school years are uneventful yet formative. She plays basketball and meets Todd Palin a fellow student and part time commercial fisherman.
They graduate and he goes to Seattle for college and she goes to college in Idaho after winning scholarships for the Miss Wasilla Beauty Queen title and being second runner up in the Miss Alaska Contest. Life is pretty prosaic . She says she is a wholesome kid with no vices . She had a platonic relationship with Todd in high school and he gives her her first kiss, no other hot romances, no bout with drugs, no falling out with parents and book doesn’t talk about grades or academic standing. She says father teaches her to love reading.
The most interesting thing in the book is she gives little credit to Lynn Vincent allegedly the person who wrote the book with help from her and her journals or diaries . She does thank the executives at Harper Collins (a Rupert Murdock Property), her editor Adam Bellows and Lynn Vincent and the five others who helped" put words on paper and communicate her message" . This meager recognition shows up on the second page of acknowledgments at the back of the book. If Lynn Vincent never existed would their have been a book? Sure with another ghost writer. But Lynn is a real ghost in this book.
Also we really don’t know her motivation for writing the book except getting" her message" out … and maybe to cash in on the notoriety she gained by being chosen by John McCain as his running mate. One might say he is the real maverick in all this and we have yet to see him write a book on the campaign. Also this is starting out as a most self serving of books, however most autobiographies are. It is a disease that most writers have when they write about themselves. Maybe Ms. Vincent will add the perspective that has been missing up to now.
The most important information in this book is what she doesn't say or write about.
During her high school years (1978-1982) she alludes to no political activity or conviction to speak of except an admiration of the feminist movement. She was not active in any causes and these were the years Regan was campaigning for President. He took office on January 20, 1981. Their is no talk about the Reagan Revolution or how her family voted or supported Reagan. no discussion of what the issues she was interested in were or if she was on any student organization supporting Reagan. There is no mention of Roe v. Wade,(1973), or belonging to any Right to Life organization or supporting same. Guess they were not in her diaries. If she is following her diaries closely it would be like someones Twitter tweets about how they felt physically and mentally and what was happening on personal level at the time except for parts left out. So when we read a political personage's account of their life we expect to find out about their political development, how their ideas began and the mentors or influences that formed them. For instance: we hear from Hillary Clinton in her book that she was active in church and conservative politics in high school as well as being a high achiever academically. No strong influence has yet emerged as lasting influence or a guiding light for Palin. No mention of Barry Goldwater founder of the modern conservastive movement. Labels: Sarah Palin: Going Rogue/ High School

Labels: Sarah Palin: Going Rogue/ High School

THE ATAVIST

Going Rogue

Chapter 1

Alaska: “The Last Frontier”

Sarah Analogizes living in Alaska as living in the last frontier. An unrealistic, atavistic dream of a lifestyle in the West during the Nineteenth Century.

Life in Alaska; Ch.1

Is life in Alaska really comparable to the life of the plainsmen and pioneers who settled the West in the Ninetieth Century? No, and she is not a pioneer woman. As she has stated often, Alaska is modern with up to date communications , transportation, sanitary facilities, schools and all the amenities of life in the Twenty First Century. This Includes easy access to newspapers, books and magazines.

She drives an SUV, flies to her destinations, Todd has a private plane for his journeys and she doesn't relieve herself in an out house, as in days of yore, they live in a modern house and are building a second house.

Who does the cooking is anyone’s guess but it is done on a modern stove with food bought at the local supermarket for the most part. We hear a lot about eating wild Salmon, Moose and Reindeer but how often does this happen. Maybe at special occasions, outings and fairs to reaffirm their psychic connection with the old Alaska which was purchased by Seward in 1867. This dream of Alaska as the Last Frontier is just that a dream. Alaska never was self sufficient except perhaps under the Eskimos.

This is a State where for every one dollar paid to the Federal Government in taxes four dollars is spent by the U.S. Government in Alaska. So Alaska is on welfare and has been and still is even with the oil revenue received from the oil companies with a stipend paid by the State out of the Alaska Permanent Fund of $1305 per individual in 2009 and in $3269 in 2008. Was this why she wants more drilling as the North Slope bonanza will run out and is this why she flew from Texas to Alaska leaking amniotic fluid so Trig could be born in Alaska and thus qualify as a resident immediately for this and other the State benefits ? Thus she begins her book with a fantasy of living in a world that no longer exists and can never be brought back by would be pundits or politicians nor would the majority of Americans want to live that way.

Of course promising people a simpler and more satisfying life like they imagine their antecedents had is an old political theme that strikes a sympathetic cord in many people’s hearts but in truth it is a deception as we can never go back to the past and the conclusions drawn from studying the past can only be guides to addressing the new and different problems that confront society in the present.

Labels: Palin/ Going Rogue