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