Whoa, Nellie! You may need to be sitting down for this one. Check out this video from a meeting of the Alaskan Independence Party. The guy in the beard and suspenders is Vice Chairman of the AIP, Dexter Clark. Partial transcript is below, but you may want to sit and really listen to the whole thing. It’s like being a fly on the wall at the crazy uncle/secessionist convention! The AIP now has over 13,000 registered members, and added 300 this year.

The basic argument of the Alaskan Independence Party has always been the number one plank in our platform - the question of our vote to become a state. So…the most blaring disparity in that vote was the definition of an eligible voter. Among those qualified to cast a ballot were 41,000 American soldiers and 36,000 dependants. Now, to the native population of Alaska, to me, these were occupation troops! And they were made eligible and, in fact encouraged to vote. There were educational meetings held on the military bases. I can’t imagine them telling anyone that anything but that statehood would be very good for the military - in fact they still have 6, 7 big bases and numerous smaller holdings in the state. Statehood would be good for the military. Now can you imagine the international uproar if American troops had all went and got their purple fingers in Iraq?

After his discussion of the American ‘occupying troops’ getting the right to vote (purple finger analogy), he goes on to say that instead of having the options to vote to either remain a territory, become a commonwealth, become a state or become an independent nation, that voters were only given the option - Statehood? Yes or No. And also, under the Voter Rights Act of the time, you had to be able to read and write English to vote, which disenfranchised much of the Alaska Native population. There’s the rationale for taking the vote we never got to take. Now, we get to the good part, just before 6:00 on the video.

“Our current governor, we mentioned at the last conference, the one we were hoping would get elected, Sarah Palin, did get elected. There’s a joke, she’s a pretty good looking gal, there’s a joke goes around we’re the coldest state with the hottest governor. (laughter) And there was a lot of talk about her moving up. She was an AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town — that was a non-partisan job. But to get along and go along — she eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics, and well, I won’t go into that. She also had about an 80% approval rating, and is pretty well sympathetic to her former membership.“

So…basically what he’s saying here, is that Palin’s philosophical loyalties lie with the Alaska Independence Party, but in order to get elected, she had to distance herself from the AIP and infiltrate the Republican Party, because they’re the only ones who can ever actually get voted into office. But don’t worry boys and girls, her heart is still with us, and her sympathies are with the agenda of the Alaskan Independence Party, namely, independence.

Then he begins to discuss the the oil industry, how it breeds corruption, and how Alaskans aren’t making enough money from it. He also talks about Republican Senator Ted Stevens and Republican Congressman Don Young being under investigation. (Young is still under investigation, and Stevens is indicted on seven felony counts of non-disclosure of gifts totalling over $250,000 from an oil service company). He goes on:

If there is ever a time that is right for change, this is it. In our own situation, we discussed several options. Do we try and get our case into the International Court of Justice, or to the World Court? Several Native Alaskan organizations are taking that route, independent of us. They want to do it on their own terms. They haven’t realized, in my mind, the potential of their own political party. The pitfalls of an organized political party - you don’t have any control over who joins that party. They put the X next to it on the registration form, and if they join the — go into the primary, and win that primary, they’re your candidate, like it or not. I think Ron Paul has kind of proven that. He’s a dyed -in-the-wool Libertarian. He came to Alaska and spoke as a Libertarian. And he put the Republican label on to get elected. That’s all there is to it. And any one of your organizations should be using that same tactic to infiltrate. I know that Christian Exodus is in favor of it, I know that the Free State Movement is in favor of it. I don’t know that they even care which party it is. Which ever party you see where you can get something done, get into that political party, even though it does have it’s problems. Right now that is one of the only avenues. If you can get a few people on the city council, or a town board, you can have some effect.

Wow. Another plot twist in our drama. So, despite the claims that Palin has been a member of the Republican Party since 1982, this would appear to contradict that pretty strongly. Dexter is implying that Palin ‘marked the box’ Republican, but isn’t one.

Let’s indulge in a little mind movie for a moment. Suppose, if you will, a video surfaced of a local Islamic mullah talking in a mosque about how Barack Obama, in order to get elected, had infiltrated a Christian church, and was planning to take over the country with an Islamic agenda. How would that play in Peoria?

So, the Alaskan Independence Party has 13,000 registered members, but how many others are out there??? ….They walk among us…

UPDATE: Oops…forgot my Quote of the Day from Alaskan Independence Party founder Joe Voegler:

“The fires of Hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won’t be buried under their damn flag!”

Happy Monday!