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| May 7, 2007 Editor’s Desk by Aaron Selbig, insurgent49 A Dark Day In Alaska History
 It’s been an arresting week here at Insurgent Headquarters.Last Friday, the day that the news broke that three more Alaska legislators had been arrested and indicted in connection with the Veco bribery scandal, a friend of mine commented that I, being a liberal, must be excited that so many corrupt Republicans were finally getting their just desserts. Not so. As a matter of fact, the first emotions I felt that day were sadness and shame. It is sad that our state seems to have become a breeding ground for corrupt politicians. It’s sad that we have a state legislature that is incapable of policing itself, blind or simply indifferent to the wolves among them. As for the shame, well, there is plenty to go around. Bruce Weyrauch, Tom Anderson, Pete Kott and Vic Kohring should, one would hope, regret their actions, not so much for the consequences facing them, but for the great disservice they have done to their constituents and the rest of Alaska. Bill Allen, Rick Smith, and anyone else at Veco who was involved in this should be ashamed, as well, for the damage that they have done to their company and their cause. Some of the blame for this, however, falls not on those who abused the trust of elected office, but on us … the citizens of Alaska. For too long we have turned a blind eye to corruption in our state government and the too-cozy relationships between our legislators and the army of lobbyists who man the halls of our Capitol. For too long, we have underestimated the depths to which the oil industry will go to protect their own interests at the expense of ours. It is time for everyday Alaskans like you and me to wake up. It’s time for us to reclaim our state, our resources and especially our government. The sad display of three legislators being led off in handcuffs last week was not something that happened overnight, but was the culmination of a long advance on the part of the oil industry and their foot soldiers at Veco to corrupt the public process in Alaska. And it happened on our watch. We, after all, are the ones who voted for these people who sold their own souls and sold us out for so little. The good news is that this terrible episode, although it hurts tremendously at the moment, could be exactly what we all needed, a forced catharsis that inspires all of us to value the power we have as voters and as citizen watchdogs just a little bit more. Perhaps now we will pay a bit more attention to what transpires in the halls of the Capitol. Perhaps we will demand more from our local media, who have shown less and less interest in recent years in sending their best reporters to Juneau. Perhaps we will remember, the next time we see a TV commercial reminding us of what good neighbors the oil producers are to us, that they have yet to repay what they owe to the people of Prince William Sound, that they lied to us about their corroded pipelines, and that they are in no small way connected to the ‘Corrupt Bastards Club’ that has shamed our entire state. Aaron Selbig is an activist and media junkie who resides in an undisclosed location in downtown Anchorage. He is the winner of a 2006 Alaska Press Club award for Best Editorial Writing, host of KUDO 1080 AM's 'The Aaron Selbig Show' and a co-founder of Insurgent49. Aaron may be contacted at editor@insurgent49.com 'Editor's Desk' appears on insurgent49.com every Thursday. |
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