Rundle08: North to Alaska, the last American frontier
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“Alaska is the last frontier, the last place in this damn country where you can be free,” the ol feller said in the Izzy Jack’s bar, half the Miller Lite I’d just bought him going into his beard, presumably to be wrung out later. It’s half true of course. You can go up to the north slope, and earn six figures driving a truck, and you can get drunk fall asleep in the street and get eaten by a polar bear. You can take advantage of the “circle [i.e. Arctic] rule”, which is pretty much what it sounds like — or you can steal another man’s camp wife, and end up dumped down a hole in the ice, and come bobbing up downstream six months later during the thaw. The ol’ timer told me all this, and I suspect it’s pretty much true, even though it’s entirely possible that he’s a failed dotcommer paid by the tourist board to hang round the bars spinning tales for free drinks. But whatever it is, it’s mostly bollocks of course. Alaska preserves the image of America as the land of free enterprise and individual effort, while quietly carrying on as a quasi-socialist fiefdom of social dividends and big money patronage. In a month, every Alaskan is going to get a three thousand dollar cheque, their share of the huge tax the state charges the oil industry. The underlying idea, unless I’m very much mistaken, is that the oil is the property of ALL ALASKANS, not merely the private enterprises that staked the claims on it. Effectively, the place runs like Norway, which has had a similar fund in place for thirty years. Unlike Norway, Alaska hands over most of it as a cash payment, which is treated by the populace with the same prudent thriftiness as any chunk of free money is — i.e. not all of it goes on booze and crystal meth. Besides why do boring old infrastructure and investment like Norway does, when there’s a federal government? “We got a lot of time for Ted Stevens up here,” the cab driver told me as we drove into the main entrance of the Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, having passed a plaque commemorating Ted Stevens as “Alaskan of the century”. Stevens is, of course, the still-living six time Senator, who is to stand trial in Washington in September for decades of alleged rorting via undeclared gifts, the most recently being a sled dog, or huskie money, as they call it here. Of course they’ve got a lot of time for Ted — he’s head of the Senate appropriations committee, and nothing moves in nay direction without Alaska getting a little slice off the top. Consequently twenty-five per cent of the money in the state is big government investment, which spares Alaskans from funding their own development, which frees up the money for dividends to be used a political bribe. The ultimate result of this half-assed dependency is that the state is uniquely dependent, not independent, on high oil prices and Washington pork. When either or both of these vanish, the underinvestment sends the state spinning into poverty, as occurred with the low oil prices of the 90s. Unlike the Norwegians, who now have around $600 billion in their investment fund — and thus may be the first entire country to take early retirement — or Venezuela, which has plowed it back into poverty reduction, Alaskans simply let it float through the economy, inflating prices to the point where you don’t get much change out of ten bucks for a sandwich in downtown Anchorage. Of course it’s not all rents and royalties and rorts. There’s the fantastically high wages the closed shop oil industry generates, the sort of wages that for example, allow for single income families, which allows a woman with four children to pursue a political career, as city councillor, then as mayor, and then… “What about Palin?” I asked the Stevens-loving — and there is the faintest touch of North Korea ancestor worship about the place — cabbie. “Oh we like her a lot too.” “Isn’t she kind of famous for starting to bring down the whole Ted Stevens regime?” Silence for a while, then “Oh fall is really here. Look at the golden trees. Well here’s your gate.” True dat. Alaska is beautiful in every direction, the forests round Fairbanks striped gold and green, deciduous and evergreen trees planted together. Here, tonight, Sarah Palin is going to descend from the air like a returning hometown Goddess and speak in an aircraft hangar. Tomorrow, she farewells her son leaving here — on 9/11! — for Iraq. Nice touch. The Republicans are killing the Democrats at the moment and it’s stuff like this that’s doing it. The “country first” slogan, combined with their audacious theft of the “change” slogan, the selection of Palin making the GOP look like a pair of outriders, while Obama and Biden look like the sort of black-white team of political pros that most big inner cities run, suddenly old tired hackneyed. Though the Palin scandals are piling up — she took per diems for living expenses while staying at home in Wasilla as governor, she campaigned for “the bridge to nowhere”, the troopergate thing seems to go deeper than previously thought — none of it’s landing a blow. The GOP has played the last six weeks brilliantly, the kiss of the whip being placards featuring a modification of the old Rosie The Riveter WW2 posters, with Palin’s face in place. Suddenly, the historical impact of this campaign has become the way in which feminism, gender politics and all that were changed forever. But they’ve only been able to because the Democrats have failed and are still failing. They’re still defensive, reactive, unbelieving that the initiative’s been taken from them. The gaffes pile up — South Carolina democratic heavy saying that Palin’s only a candidate because she hasn’t had an abortion was a doozy — and the only punch they’ve landed has been a ridiculous fuss over whether’s Obama’s use of the old “lipstick on a pig” political line was a sexist remark. And still they won’t hack into the McCain-Palin ticket for the single most important thing about them: they’re Republicans. But really, after it looked that McCain had lost this months ago, it may be the Democrats who are now seeing the whole thing slip away. Why? Because the McCain team recovered from its disasters and pretty much changed the whole campaign around while the Democrats have had no campaign since the primaries. Had they been attacking McCain as an enemy of ordinary people from day one, there would have been traction now. Starting from zero is going to be tough. Not impossible by any means, but tough. And, when she descends tonight to farewell her son amid the flaming trees, the drifting mist and distant blue mountains of the Alaskan promised land, in this weird cult of death whereby parents contemplate the dispatch of their children to futile wars with pride, they’ll win this one too. This ain’t America, but it looks like it. As does America. And that is something the GOP understood, that the Democrats are yet to. |
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13 Comments
John James: personal and ugly comment does not convince anyone that you may have a point occasionally.
Lucy:
you’re feeling for a nation that tolerated a heinous paedophile homosexual head of FBI for 38 years regularly blackmailing presidents. Then in our time heads of FBI and CIA who lie to convince congressional investigations (successfully would you believe) that they didn’t understand the alerts that trainee pilots were only learning to steer planes. Those same organisations gutlessly execute their own presidents, then witnesses (its official – Washington docs release not dopey conspiracy theory) and stage it all to look like crime. Not a whimper in response to an annual home slaughter of 10 times the gun deaths at the hands of any old nut than are killed in the current war against ‘terrorist’. I could go on but subconscious drivers and castration has more to do with the vote than any sophisticated intelligent noises you hear floating above the pack.
”.. the outrageous precedent Palin is setting as a mother”, ‘.. the dispatch of their children to futile wars..” Talk about’ boofheads of the world unite’!
What women find terribly engaging is precisely that this woman is willing to care for her family in an exemplary fashion and answer a request to run for VP, as distinct from the Gillards of this’ Left surrealism’, who dont know which end of the bottle the teat goes on and think a woman’s breast is a “male plot”
As for futile wars, Americans have been fighting them for years, thanks be to God. That’s why Japanese isn’t our first language and the ‘Reich ’ lasted only 5 years.
Hi Crickey. I received this from the US the other day re sarah Palin:
Tonight I received this letter which came from a friend whose Bryn Mawr classmate lives in Alaska. Thought you might find it food for thought…feel free to send it forward.
Because you, like me, may never have heard of Sarah Palin until today, you may find this an interesting perspective from an Alaskan resident.
Dear classmates -
As an Alaskan, I am writing to give all of you some information on Sarah Palin, Senator McCain’s choice for VP. As an Alaska voter, I
know more than most of you about her and, frankly, I am horrified that he picked her.
The most accurate description of her is red neck. Her husband works in the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay and races snow mobiles. She is a life time member of the NRA and has worked tirelessly to allow indiscriminate hunting of wildlife in Alaska, particularly wolves and bears. She has spent millions of Alaska state dollars on aerial hunting of these predators from helicopters and airplanes, dollars that should have been spent, for example, on Alaska’s failing school system. We have the lowest rate of high school graduation in the country. Not all of you may think aerial predator hunting is so bad, but how anyone (other than Alaska wolf-haters, of which there are many, most without teeth), could think this use of funds is appropriate is beyond me. If you want to know more about the aerial hunting travesty, let me know and I will send some links to informative web sites.
She has been a strong supporter of increased use of fossil fuels, yet the McCain campaign has the nerve to say she has “green” policies. The only thing green about Sarah Palin is her lack of experience. She has consistently supported drilling in ANWR, use of coal-burning power plants (as I write this, a new coal plant is being built in her home town of Wasilla), strip mining, and almost anything else that will unnecessarily exploit the diminishing resources of Alaska
Maybe the ‘classmate’ has a lot of willing ‘friends’ ?
“The GOP has played the last 6 weeks brilliantly” Mate, the GOP have mobilised their heartland, middle America who the Left liberal elites, like the ‘boofheads’ wrting and editing Crikey, have never understood, just as they dont grasp the concerns of ordinary Australians. Only a week ago Rundle and his admirers were trumpeting Obamas 8 point lead and’ tut- tutting’ McCains failure to properly “vet” his VP nominee.
Now they discover that this chick can “rumble” and, to paraphrase a great line in a great film, isnt it just like the Left to come to a political knife-fight with a copy of ‘The National Enquirer’?
Great paraphrase John James. As soon as I read it, it clicked that Jimmy Malone would have to be one of your favourite movie characters of all time. Catholic, old school, a crusader for his causes and stubborn as a mule.
Guy, you’re a genius, i wet my pants laughing at your wonderful descriptions of the GOP convention. As for Alaska, you missed out on the bloody great stuffed bear at the airport, shades of things to come in the land where the night goes on forever. The worst feature of the Palin circus is the failure of American women to condemn the outrageous precedents Palin is setting as a mother - to think about running for VP with a baby with Downs Syndrome - a baby who will need enormous support and care as he grows - as well as four other kids. Her pregnant teenage daughter also needs dedicated support. Ego is driving her campaign, not women’s rights. Palin’s appalling environmental creds also demonstrate her lack of concern for future generations. No surprise.
Guy has this singular ability to sum up an entire state in one coherent-but-only-just rant. It’s incredible, genius as everyone always says.
I am annoyed at the Republicans for so many things, but the one that really burns me up is how they have managed to establish themselves as the Party of Real America, vis a vis the Democrats’ Party of the Elites, even though most Americans agree with the Democrats on just about every important policy issue and would be better off economically under the Dems besides. I mean I know the John Kerry speaks French thing worked in 2004, but I really thought intervening events had cured everyone of this bizarre attachment to shallow, faked-up cultural cues. John McCain has a million houses and Sarah Palin is an arch-creationist small-town mayor, but they know what Ordinary People Care About and so we’ll vote for them. It drives me bananas.
And yes, the Dems need to fight, and fight hard, and fight NOW. Otherwise they will be complicit in yet another Republican tragedy.
Dr Harvey: There was a hell of a lot wrong with J. Edgar Hoover but the fact that he was gay is not one of them.
Guy Rundle’s piece on Alaska today (9/11) reads like a classic from the pages of the boring elites of journalism here in Australia. More opinion dressed up as fact; tendentious smugness and villification of anyone who doesn’t fit with his perceptions of what “proper” people do and think.
“this weird cult of death whereby parents contemplate the dispatch of their children to futile wars with pride” - is it because I’m a left liberal boofhead that I find the situation captured in that line so awfully sad and horrific?
sue hollidday, your post is of of those email rumours doing the rounds of the internet - see snopes for details.
I take as much issue with Palin as the next left-liberal boofhead, but please, don’t insult our intelligence by basing your arguments on this kind of unattributed “friend of a friend of a classmate” scuttlebutt
Yep, America is a Neanderthal grazing land with lots of evolved wonderful modern intelligent people leading the world in a lot of clever human endeavours scattered around. The big boy’s been castrated twice inadvertently by the partner that would have saved him and now by the Palin. You can’t castrate a woman. There is a cure for castration but first you have to acknowledge it and it always takes longer than 55 days.