Sunday, October 26, 2008

Vote Obama! Village Alaskan Natives



There are at least 3 Alaskan peoples: NATIVES, Rich folks, Poor folks:

Natives: There are the village natives, who are subsistence people and the city natives. There are some very wealthy Alaskans and there are some very, very poor Alaskans. A Native that leaves the village will often fall into the poor demographics in the towns.

Alaska is not cheap to live in. Housing is expensive as is electricity, water, gas/ fuel oil is $13.00 a gal in the village.
In the village: Soda is often cheaper than water at the store. Milk is more expensive than soda. Kids have rotting teeth in the village - guess why?
FOOD: In the village, the natives live off of what they hunt and fish. If there were no fuel to run the boat or snow machine, they could not live-no access to food. In the village where I stayed for 6 months, they had no trees for firewood. It was on the Yukon delta and had bushes. The needed fuel oil to heat their homes. $13.00 a gallon to heat your home in MINUS 30 degrees would make a person go broke fast. Then if the water got soiled by an oil spill and fish were killed, a whole population would be in BIG trouble. An oil spill would decimate many villages- it is serious stuff.

I am against drilling in ANWAR. It is time to get higher milage cars and really push wind, solar panels, etc. The amount saved could be as much as that drilled out of new sources. Palin talks for the wealthy Alaskans and gives little thought to the villages, which are entirely different. VILLAGES ARE STRUGGLING to survive with doubled fuel costs in a year. Fouled water would kill the villages.

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