When Alaska Constitutional Convention member Vic Fischer and the wife
of the Governor who established the Alaska Permanent Fund, Bella
Hammond, signed onto a lawsuit protesting action taken by the Pebble
Mine developers, little did they think they would be
hit with a $1 million bill for legal expenses.
People were out to protest the Governor's decision to stick it to Vic and Bella.
The Governor's former Attorney General,
Dan Sullivan promised in his confirmation hearings, that he would fight the US government
by filing suit against every action that infringed on Alaska's
sovereignty (just about any action the feds take in their minds). The
administration sees this as a way to wear down the Feds and keep them
from requiring resource extracting corporations - large and small - to
prove they won't do any serious environmental damage while they are
taking Alaskan resources to the bank. When they sue the federal
government, the administration is using money that belongs to the State
of Alaska, that is, money that collectively belongs to all the residents whether they agree with the Governor or not.
So
it's no wonder that when others sue those corporations and oppose what
the Administration wants to do, they assume it's the same sort of political tactics they use. They go into win-lose mode and declare
these people enemies of the State (anti-development is one such term)
and set up obstacles to do what is their own strategy against the feds.
Parnell and his associates can't imagine or understand that there are
people who do this sort of thing out a belief in public duty and public
good. For Parnell it's just a tactic to maintain and increase their power.
But
some people use these sort of lawsuits the way they were intended. Not
simply as a way to clog up the process or to protect their personal
financial stake, but because they strongly believe it's in the best
interest of the future of the state. Of course, Parnell says he
believes that too, but when his actions are always on the side of large
corporations - ones he used to work for like being the lobbyist for
Conoco Philips - the lines between public and private good are seriously blurred. A large, multinational corporation that, despite their feel
good ads and pocket-change-to-them strategic contributions to the
community, really have no interest in Alaska except how our resources
will help their company's bottom line. Sure, as individuals, their employees may enjoy Alaska's wonders, but their collective work as employees is NOT for Alaska, it's for the corporation and its stockholders.
Individuals
who raise objections to their projects are dubbed "anti-development" as
though all development were good and all opposition to development were
bad. These folks go to court, risking their own money, to fight their
case. Most jurisdictions recognize this sort of public interest
lawsuit and protect the folks that undertake them. But the Parnell
administration got legislation passed to prevent such suits that oppose
their projects and their corporate backers by intimidating them with the
threat of having to pay the State's legal fees. Now if they sued the
state over offering abortions or for the right to buy as many automatic
weapons as they can afford, I'm sure he would not think they needed to
pay the court costs if they lost. And I don't think the State of Alaska
will pay the Feds' legal costs if they lose any of their suits against
the Feds. And even if they do, it's our money, not the Administration's
personal money. This is part of the stifle dissent campaign that shut
down coastal zone management programs. We're the state with the largest
coast and the only coastal state without a coastal zone management
program. No program means no pesky local folks raising objections to
corporations developing projects that threaten their community and
environment.
The Feds, in other words, should leave
Alaskans alone to do things their own way, but the local communities
should simply let the State do whatever it pleases to them. This
inconsistency suggests to me that the issue isn't so much to protect
Alaskans' best interests, but to protect the Parnell Administration to
do what it wants to protect its corporate sponsors.
I
realize that Parnell and Sullivan (the one running for Senate, not the
mayor) have converted to the church of commerce which says that whatever
corporations do is good, so that their sense of the public good is
consistent now with their actions. We all seek confirmation in
ideologies that support what we want to do. But some ideologies better
match what how things actually work in the world. And they make us, sometimes, give up what we want for what is the right thing to do.
And
so I'm sure that Parnell and his backers looked at today's rally with
disgust and condescension. Taking to the streets to protest simply
demonstrates your lack of power. If you have real power, you talk to
the Governor privately without inconvenient questions being raised. You
work out your deals and you do what you want as unobtrusively as
possible. But you are always ready to squash any opposition.
The protestors used all the symbolism of the location they could.
On
the plaza of the Atwood Building that houses so many state offices,
with the large faceless building looming over them, they mocked
Parnell's "Choose Respect" anti-domestic violence campaign by holding a
large sign in defense of two Alaskan icons: the last active signer of
the Alaska constitution Vic Fischer; and the wife of the governor who
established Alaska's Permanent fund, Bella Hammond. It read: "Real
Alaskans Don't Bully Their Elders."
They mocked the
anti-tax line often used by conservatives, and used by Anchorage
Assembly Chair last night, to justify the draconian anti-union ordinance
passed last spring, that seniors will lose their homes because they
can't pay the property tax. The other big sign said, "Don't Evict Bella
Hammond" (with the attempt to charge her exorbitant court fees.)
These
are the same kinds of tactics the Palin administration (of which
Parnell was a part) used by charging huge sums for public records
requests.
And behind the demonstrators loomed the
huge (and in my opinion, awful) mural of some of Alaska's founders -
Ernest Gruening, Bill Egan, Bob Bartlett, and Ralph Rivers.
I
realize that I'm sounding a little ideological myself here. But how
else can you explain what's going on? With corporations being seen by
the Supreme Court as 'people' deserving the constitutional rights
reserved for individual human beings (though actual human women,
Indians, and slaves weren't originally given all these rights) like
freedom of speech, we now have inordinate corporate money funding pseudo
think tanks to pump out studies that discredit legitimate science on
everything from evolution to the link between cigarettes and cancer, or
the harmful effects of all the chemicals in household products, to
global climate change and they push a corporate agenda that has created
the greatest disparity in wealth America has seen for nearly a century.
They're funding the Tea Party members of Congress who shut down the government over the Affordable Care Act.
While they justify this because, they say, the ACA will bankrupt the
US, and they want to keep federal spending sustainable, they absolutely refuse
to consider any new taxes to help reduce our debt, even though the tax
rates today are the lowest in 50 or 60 years. And they had no such
misgivings about the money to be spent on their (and it was mostly their) war against
Islam (well for some that's what it is) which brought huge corporate
profits for defense contractors at the cost of countless lives
interrupted and ended.
Not only do they kill in the
name of Christ, they promote guns, not helping the poor, and treating
foreigners with hostility and deportation. That's not the Christ I've
been told about
who said things like:
For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.
As
you can see, I'm agitated today. I can find you links to support all I
say, and I'm confident that in 20 years, most sane and rational folks
won't see anything amiss in a post like this. (I'd like to think that's
true of sane and rational folks today.) But I'm also mindful not to
fall into the same strident rhetoric of the people I oppose because of
their abuse of facts, of truth, of the people they are supposed to
represent, of their power.
But I think my words and
actions are moderate compared to the people who support the Governor and
encourage him with model legislation from ALEC to pass laws that
intimidate publicly minded citizens from legally protesting programs
they see as harmful to our way of life. People like Vic Fischer, Bella
Hammond, and the other, less well known, people who expect that Pebble
Mine, like most other huge mining operations around the world, will take
its money out of state and leave in the state huge environmental
degradation. The history of mining suggests this is not an
unreasonable expectation.
I would note that
Michael Dingman has a piece in the ADN today that argues in part, that:
"Something happened in court last month that the anti-development folks don't want you to know about.
Rather
than focusing on the facts of the court case -- which they don't want
you to know -- they are going to show you photos of former State Senator
and Alaska Constitution Delegate Vic Fischer and former First Lady
Bella Hammond because they are sympathetic Alaskan heroes.
Don't fall for it."
I would argue that my claims about Parnell's pro-corporate stands are
much easier to document and much more accurate than Dingman's
characterization of Fischer and Hammond as part of the anti-development
movement.
Vic Fischer and Bella Hammond and I are not
anti-development. He was part of the constitutional convention that
wrote in Article 8:
"It is the policy of the State to encourage the settlement of its land
and the development of its resources by making them available for
maximum use consistent with the public interest. "
And
then went on to innumerate how to allocate those resources. That's not
anti-development, but apparently Governor Parnell believes his
administration alone should determine what 'consistent with the public
interest' means.
Bella Hammond's husband ushered in
oil development and, understanding that oil was a finite resource added a
program to reserve a portion of the wealth raised for the use of future
generations.
Governor Parnell's notion of public
interest appears to have been affected by his years arguing the
interests of Conoco Phillips before the legislature. The real problem
in Alaska is that people are not at all alarmed by this obvious conflict
of interest. I guarantee you that if the former lobbyist for the
Sierra Club were running for Governor, the Right would create such a screech
and howl in the election that you'd think Satan himself were running.
Alaskans - and the Democrats play a role in this - would see that
conflict, but don't seem to have a problem with the Governor's obvious
conflict. I think we have petro dollars - we know about the Corrupt
Bastards Club before Citizens United - and later Citizens United to
thank for this.
Bella Hammond and Vic Fischer (and I) are
for development that will benefit the people of Alaska and is
sustainable and won't damage the other resources important to Alaska.
Immediate short term profit for political supporters shouldn't be the standard, but rather the long term benefit to Alaska's current and future residents. These don't seem to be worries for the Governor and his people. And
that worries me too. What also worries me is their stifling of channels
of dissent where citizens can raise legitimate questions. To the
Parnellites, any hint of a question of their intent brings out a loud
charge of anti-development. It's either or. Development is good. Any
opposition is bad. It's an almost biblical application of good and
evil, and they always see themselves among the good.
[I've been having problems with feedburner lately intermittently working and not working to connect my posts to subscribers and other weblogs. This one was posted Oct. 23 but has not been linked elsewhere, so I'm reposting it to see if that will help..]
