PALIN'S TIE TO SECESSIONIST ALASKA MOVEMENT RECALL CIVIL WAR

by Roberto Lovato

(PNS) -- Sarah Palin's repetition (five times) of the word "Alaska," her home state, during her acceptance speech last night may actually have sounded to some Latinos like "Aztlan," the mythical homeland of the Aztecs. If Lou Dobbs and other political prognosticators are right, Latinos' interpretation of the Republican vice presidential nominee's references to her home state were not simply the product of bad English-to-Spanish translation (Spanish language media's payback for years of garbled, sometimes horrific, Spanish-to-English translations in mainstream media, perhaps?), but something else, something much more nefarious: the mainstreaming of secessionist sentiments.

Palin's personal connections to the Alaska Independence Party (AIP), which has, since 1978 sought the Last Frontier states' separation from these United States, have brought state secessionist sentiments onto the national political stage like no candidate since Alexander Stephens and his Confederate President Jefferson Davis' did in the lead up to the civil war. Palin and her husband, Todd, the "First Dude," may well have their greatest appeal among Latinos in the southwestern United States if we are to believe Lou Dobbs, Michelle Malkin, Pat Buchannan and many other conservative commentators and politicians who rail daily against what they believe is the upcoming conflict sparked by Latinos' lust to reclaim their former land.

Just a week before Palin's speech, for example, a videotape was released in which New York Congressional candidate Jack Davis decried how "in the latter part of this century or the next, Mexicans will be a majority in many of the states, and could therefore take control of the state government using the democratic process." And, he added: "They could then secede from the United States, and then we might have another civil war."

For almost a decade now, the careful research, in-depth investigations and the almost daily denunciations of the commentators have detailed a Southwestern Latino, especially "illegal" Mexican, plot to secede from the United States in what has become popularly known as the "reconquista," or reconquest.

According to Malkin, "Aztlan is a long-held notion among Mexico's intellectual elite and political class, which asserts that the American southwest rightly belongs to Mexico. Advocates believe the reclamation (or reconquista) of Aztlan will occur through sheer demographic force." Like most of the commentators and pundits, Malkin has the uncanny ability to divine the workings of the Latino immigrant mind, without speaking Spanish. And after years of careful study of the Latino Fifth Column, Malkin and other Latino experts will surely be alarmed by how Palin's speech shortened the distance from cold Alaska to sunny Aztlan.

Meanwhile, the major and minor Latino organizations and Latino leaders allegedly spearheading this invisible demographic empire, (all of whom are more careful and surreptitious than Palin and the First Dude about any statements or ties to secessionist groups), may be inspired to go public by the Palin's links (ie; Todd was a card carrying AIP member in 1995 and 2002) to an organization with 13,681 registered members whose political platform calls for securing the "complete repatriation of the public lands, held by the federal government, to the state and people of Alaska."

Sarah Palin's mantra-like repetitions of the Aztlan-sounding "Alaska" may finally provide the conservative commentators their most definitive lead in their relentless hunt for the secessionist menace. The big difference is that the more dangerous secessionist movement will not be led by white people belonging openly to an actual political party whose candidates (including a former governor) and initiatives are included on state voting ballots, a secessionist party ignored by the media and lauded loudly by politicians like Palin for their "inspiring convention," and encouraged by her to "keep up the good work."

Instead, the imminent and potentially catastrophic urge to unmerge will be realized by poor, brown-skinned secessionistas, especially those "illegal" Latinos that syndicated multimedia stars like Glenn Back regularly tell us are silently, secretly waiting to come out of their closet of illegality by taking back the Southwest. "You've got people coming here that have no intention of being Americans. They say, you know, 'Hey, this is our land. We deserve it back.'"

Though they have spared us the pain of focusing on the lesser, whiter of the secessionist threats, Dobbs, Malkin, Beck and their peers must be credited for their pre-emptive strikes against a threat that has yet to come out of its separatist cave -- but which may finally do so in no small part thanks to the secessionist leanings of a candidate who promises to "put America first" when she starts working the White House.

Palin's rapid and apparently non-vetted rise to political prominence may, however, also reveal contradictions in some of these same pundits who've denounced those carrying the "reconquista" gene.

Though he has for many years made regular statements and written many books and articles about how Latinos are bringing about "the complete Balkanization of America," MSNBC commentator Pat Buchannan himself has ties to the secessionista-friendly GOP vice presidential candidate and her hombre. Just last week Buchanan confessed to MSNBC's Chris Matthews that Palin "was a brigadeer in 1996 as was her husband ... They were at a fundraiser for me. She's a terrific gal, she's a rebel reformer."

Unfortunately for Buchannan and his conservative commentator peers, Palin may turn out to be more rebel than reformer as rural and big city Latinos in the Southwest start hearing calls to create the Aztlan Confederacy in her stump speeches about small town Alaska.

Whatever the outcome, we are fortunate to have political observers and politicians that are so committed to the cause of racial and political unity.