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Thursday, July 25, 2019

Puerto Rico Got Rid Of Its Governor. Alaska, Now It's Our Turn

Puerto Ricans got 25,000 people out in the streets to protest their governor and after about a week he's announced his resignation.

Alaska's governor, apparently taking orders from his Outside handlers, is poised to destroy Alaska as we know it.  As I've written before, the only explanation that makes sense to me is that the Koch brothers want to defund government so that there are no obstacles for Outside corporations to plunder Alaska's resources.  No university scientists to challenge their reports, no government regulators to monitor their activities, no public processes to hinder their profits.  And, based on what happened at the Dunleavy chaired hearings a few years ago on Erin's Law, he personally would like to weaken public schools to the point that people either home school or demand vouchers for private schools, including religious schools.

Our university's Board of Regents has already declared financial exigency because of the budget cuts, and Anchorage's Mayor has declared Civil Emergency because of the impact of cuts on health and safety.

Puerto Rico's population is around 3 million. (Google searches give a variety of numbers, many estimates based on the 2010 census data, plus an AP report from April saying the population has dropped 4% since Hurricane Maria.  So, for my purposes here, 3 million is close enough.)

25,000  is .8% of Puerto Rico's population.  Yes, less than 1%.

Alaska's population was 736,239 in 2018 according to the State Department of Labor.  So, if we go for 1% of our population, that would be 7369.  7000 is a good round number.

So, if all the groups that are working to overturn the Governor's draconian (yes, that term has been used in the past, but this time it's not metaphorical) can get together and we can get 7000 people to rally around the Atwood Building - 550 W 7th Ave - where the governor's Anchorage office is, for a week, maybe we can get the kind of attention Puerto Rico has gotten.  I don't think we can persuade Dunleavy to resign.  He's not paying attention to Alaskans.  But maybe we can get some more momentum for overriding his vetoes and/or impeachment.

Is this an achievable number?  It's a tiny fraction of our population, but when that many people take to the streets, as Puerto Rico has shown, people pay attention.  We don't need the same 7000 people every day.  And if smaller rallies appear in other towns and villages, the world would notice.

Large rallies should be in addition to all the other pressures being put on our politicians to save Alaska form this impending calamity.

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