Palin’s Wildlife Policies, Guns and (Sex) Appeal

Palin’s wildlife policies reflect junk science and cripple the eco-tourism industry

Do we want another gun toting VP with lifelong membership of the NRA and an advocate of conservative policies favoring big oil (preference national Alaskan companies) … an AIP opinion.

Sarah Palin spent $400,000 of state money to “educate” Alaskans about aerial hunting of wolves and bears.  State tax money was used to directly influence the outcome of proposition 2 which would have limited aerial shooting of predators.  Since Alaskans had previously voted twice to ban aerial shooting of predators, Palin used state tax money to buy support for aerial shooting. Buying votes with tax money worked – proposition two was voted down on 8/26/08.

Read more about Governor Palin’s “predator control” policies and the use of state money to slaughter bears and wolves.  This year the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game will exterminate 1,400 bears out of a population of 2,000 in an area west of Anchorage. The Alaskan Board of Game even approved the hunting of black bear mothers and cubs with the goal of killing 60 percent of the black bear population.  Although biologists have known since the 60’s that predators actually keep prey populations healthy, Alaskan wolves and bears are being exterminated (using cruel practices such as baiting, trapping, and aerial shooting) to boost dwindling moose populations.  Do we really want a vice president who doesn’t believe in science?  

Sarah Palin sues the federal government over listing polar bears as a threatened species.  Why?  Because it could restrict the oil industry that fills her pockets.  This is the same reason she wants to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. Read Governor Palin’s ignorant op-ed piece here.  Palin believes that global warming is a myth.

Bear viewing in Alaska generates $100,000,000/yr.
yet Palin refuses to even learn about the industry

I’m pretty shocked that John McCain chose Sarah Palin for VP.  As year round Alaska residents we’ve become all too familiar with the radically conservative policies of Palin.  I thought that because she is being investigated for abuse of power right now in Alaska, that she was out of the running.  Obviously McCain is trying to court the women’s vote.  Do Republicans really think women are so stupid that they will vote for an ultra conservative candidate just because she is a woman?  

Palin has no federal or international experience.  Prior to being appointed governor, Palin was the mayor of Wasilla, AK – a town of only 5,469!  Her main “experience” before entering public office was running for beauty queen in Wasilla!  Don’t be fooled by her young age – Palin is not progressive and works side by side with the oil industry.  Her policies are ravaging the Alaskan ecosystem at a time when most people support going green.

Sarah Palin and the Vikings (Ryan McFarland)

Sex, Culture, and Sarah Palin

First, let me just get it out of the way: I think she is a tremendously sexy woman. How this will effect the race, I have no idea, but it’s just got to. It’s not an issue of glamour so much as a kind of Paglian chthonic sexual power. Set in that context, her unabashed embrace of her fecundity and motherhood as a kind of qualification makes a lot of sense. Megan O’Rourke’s post on Palin’s political eros has it right, and I think she may even be on to something when she says we got a “glimpse of a novel problem for a presidential candidate: sexual tension with his VP.”

Palin exudes sexual confidence and maternal authority, which in a relatively conservative culture like ours is the most recognizable and viscerally comprehensible form of female power. It makes a lot of men uncomfortable, but that’s because it’s the kind of female power they are most often subject to, and most often fail to successfully resist.