AIP and League of the South

[KingFlorez]

This Kos Diary is worth a read. Not sure if this was already posted, so I apologize if it was.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/2/0033/80749/111/582648

Palin's Former Party Links to White Supremacists
by Larry Madill

Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 09:00:33 PM PDT

As has been rumored for days now and confirmed by ABC News, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, now John McCain's V.P. Pick, was once a member of the far right, fringe Alaska Independence Party.

It also seems that the Alaska Independence Party (AIP) is also affiliated with, or have at least "rubbed shoulders" with some of the worst elements of the Southern White Supremacist movement as identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

While nothing I've found ties Sarah Palin directly to any White Supremacist Organization, her membership in the Alaska Independence Party, and AIP's relationship with other explicitly racist secessionist groups, raises some more serious questions about Sarah Palin's judgment, character, and her own political beliefs.

* Larry Madill's diary :: ::
*

As I am sure every knows by know, the AIP's main goal is for Alaska to secede from the U.S.A. and become its own country. To achieve this goal the Alaska Independence Party finds itself in some fairly shady company; company such as the Neo-Confederate, White Supremacist "League of the South", whose founder, J Michael Hill, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report, once said,

"It is time for us, as Southern whites, to look to our own well being and defense against these thugs,"

speaking of an attack s on white women by African American and Hispanic youth. Adding,

"Moreover, it is time we demand that respectable members of the 'minority community' control their debased 'brothers and sisters.' If they refuse, then we can only believe that they secretly condone such behavior. Let us not flinch when our enemies call us 'racists'"

On October 3rd and 4th, 2007, almost a year into now Republican Sarah Palin's first year as Alaska's Governor, the Alaska Independence Party attended The Second North American Secessionist Convention, sponsored by the League of the South and the Middlebury Institute, in Chattanooga, Tennesse. The gather also include the Free Hawaii Party, and several other minor groups including,

Christian Exodus, a theocracy-minded outfit headed by a former league leader from Texas; and the Abbeville Institute, which was established by Donald Livingston in 2003 after he finally left the League of the South due to its "political baggage." Livingston's institute is devoted to the "Southern tradition," including what it describes as the ignored "achievements of white people in the South."

However, The League of the South was the spark-plug behind the gathering of Secessionist Groups that members of the Alaskan Independence Party cheerfully attended. The League of the South is an organization that, again in the words of The Southern Poverty Law Center's Summer 2008 Intelligence report, entitled "North Meets South" is...

The Alabama-based group is against interracial marriage, believes the old Confederacy never surrendered, and wants to reestablish "the cultural dominance of the Anglo-Celtic people and their institutions" in a newly seceded South. It seeks to accord different classes of people differing legal rights in what sounds very much like a medieval theocracy of lords, serfs and clerics. League intellectuals have defended both slavery (which was "God-ordained") and segregation, a policy described as protecting the genetic "integrity" of both blacks and whites. Right after Hurricane Katrina, league members put up "whites only" housing offers, including one from Alabama offering a trailer to a "white family of three or four," and another from Tennessee offering to temporarily house a "White Christian family."

Yet the Alaska Independence Party has no problem rubbing shoulders with White Supremacists groups such as the League of the South. In fact AIP's Vice Chair, Dexter Clark, who went to the 2007 Second North American Secessionist Convention, went out of his way to legitimize groups like the League of the South when interviewed by the Anchorage Press:

“We’re not talking about a bunch of Klans-people walking around with white sheets and pointed hats,” Dexter said. “These are some pretty legitimate people with some legitimate concerns about our government.”

Give you two guesses who Dexter Clark's wife is? Give up? Dexter Clark's wife is Lynette Clarke, chairman of the AIP, who also attended the 2007 Second North American Secessionist Convention as an ambassador, and the person who identified Sarah Palin as a member of the Alaskan Independence in the late 90s to ABC News.

Dexter Clark can also be seen in this video, extolling the virtues of Sarah Palin, and implying she is still sympathetic to the AIP (about six minutes in):

(Hat Tip to Marc Ambinder's blog at The Atlantic for the video, although he incorrectly identifies Dexter Clark as Dexter Carter)

When you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas, and right now the Alaskan Independence Party is covered in a lot of Fleas in White Sheets. It is clear that, by their willingness to associate with and legitimize White Supremacist organizations like the League of the South, the Alaska Independence Party is more than just a "fringe party", it is an extremist party that openly and freely associates with elements of the White Supremacist movement. I would also venture out on a limb and say this sympathy towards elements of the Racist Secessionist movement did not spring to life in 2007, it is a sympathy that has most likely been present since the party's inception.

So what does Sarah Palin know and when did she know it? Why did she join the AIP precisely? Does she still endorse AIP's ridiculous Secessionist Platform? Why, after the AIP publicly associated itself with known White Supremacist Organizations, did Sarah Palin record the greeting for AIP's Convention earlier this year? And is she prepared to "reject and denounce" her former political party and its links to the Southern White Supremacist Movement?