| August 11, 2006 Red Alert by Soren Wuerth This
Boat Is Making Me Sick
In a photo of eight bundled rafters, delivered to my mailbox a week ago, there is a young man in the center of the blue boat whose face gives the impression he is ready to vomit. He is leaning forward, as if someone has landed a blow to his navel. His yellow helmet is cocked back. Despite the rest of his party, whose smiling, open mouths convey a sense of exhilaration, this boy is depressed. While the rafters are having the thrill of a lifetime thanks to the munificence of the tourism trade, there is one worried, downcast lad holding his blue paddled like he would a railing above a cliff. Beneath the photo, we are told to “protect Alaska” by voting no on Ballot Measure Two. The flyer, part of a multi-million dollar ad campaign by “Alaskans Protecting Our Economy,” expresses concern that a $50 head tax could mean a lower revenue stream for companies like Nenana Raft Adventures. I’m not sure whom the anxious rafter is meant to represent. Does he signify the disgruntled Gershon Cohen, the professorial champion of the initiative that is causing the tourism industry so much distress? Or is he the manifestation of the tourism industry itself, dealt a blow by the initiative, aggrieved by a bad case of diarrhea on a roller-coaster white water raft trip? Could the pouting boy with a lid of bangs be none other than John White, the owner of Nenana Raft Adventures, who, mouth pursed, mumbles how “Measure 2 would discourage these visitors from coming to Alaska, hurt our economy and hurt my business”? No doubt many Alaskans are going to be persuaded by the rafting flyer and rest of the cruise ship industry’s sensational, misleading and insidious campaign. Similar to the initiative that would ban bear baiting—in which the same PR firm, the notorious Oregon-based Pac West, distributed harrowing flyers to voters days before the election showing a man’s hands holding the bars of a dark prison cell ... the initiative to tax Big Tourism faces a standing wave as thick and impenetrable as one formed of bullshit. Meanwhile, the initiative’s sponsor, Gershon Cohen, has a home in Haines, a cell phone, a kayak, a tweed jacket and about as much money to fight this campaign as his neighbor has in his old Subaru ... poor odds. What can we do? For those of you who have made it this far in my column and still are uncertain about Measure Two, listen: • the cruise ship industry profits handsomely from a resource that will only grow with little return for the state; • it threatens communities with a Faustian Bargain, warning a town that if it imposes a local tax the industry will take its business to a different port; • it illegally and routinely pollutes Alaska waters; • and the industry, unrelenting in its zeal to ensure that it benefits from every dollar the visitor spends, charges the poor sods who are passengers dozens of hidden fees and add-ons. “Two dollars for water, four for a soda,” said a woman in a coffee shop the other day. She wore a plastic poncho with a cruise ship logo. “The boat charges you an arm and leg for everything!” So how do we get through the thicket of corporate propaganda to reach the voter? And that sick boy on the raft? Come August 22 (election day) the cruise ship industry wants him to be you. Suck it up, buddy. Soren Wuerth is perhaps Alaska's best known community activist, and is the winner of the Alaska Press Club's 2006 'Best Columnist' award. He resides in an undisclosed location in rural Alaska and can be reached at soren@insurgent49.com. |
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