| updated weekly |
home - contribute - donate - message board - events - links - contact us - archive |
| |
| October 20, 2006 Red Alert by Soren Wuerth Ring in November
In October, the month with what is expected to be the
highest casualty rate yet of U.S. soldiers in Iraq (655,000 Iraqi
deaths aside), Kathy Kelly brought her song to Ketchikan.A quiet, diminutive woman up close, Kelly threw her voice across a packed library with the sturdiness of an urban English teacher. An English teacher myself, I wanted to know why Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness and an Iraqi human shield, left her job teaching for full-time activism. She said she left her teacher’s desk behind in 1986 to “devote myself full time to opposing Contra aid ... I found it intolerable to be comfortable at liberty in a country where people will stand by or accede to crimes against the life of another people.” She told us about the shuddering plane dive onto Gravina Island’s short runway. It must have been scary, though many times Kathy Kelly has held her shoulders tight around her ears in fear … the “Shock and Awful” bombing of Baghdad, when she huddled with Iraqi children who looked to see if she flinched, the prisons where she listened to lonely mothers cry on the phone to children they may never see, to the fear of sirens wailing after a row of corn is planted on top of an underground missile silo. These are the kinds of situations Kathy Kelly has placed herself in. Why? For the rest of us, risk is avoided in exchange for comfort. We might venture into bear country occasionally, go on an unplanned road trip, or drive through a fall storm, crouched over the wheel, chancing the roads for a Halloween party. But the calculus of risk we allow ourselves is a staggering distance from the wild uncertainty of a night of indiscriminate shelling, of a just-doing-my-job Army private with his knee on your back (you with a weak lung condition), or of a criminal justice system more criminal than just. I wish I had more courage to give. But I hold onto my job, sweat and stammer a weak protest at a faculty meeting when told I need to lock the doors of my classroom from now on because the media says schools are now unsafe, too. What’s the payoff for Kelly? Freedom, I suppose. I caught the Janis Joplin quote in her book, Other Lands Have Dreams, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” As an activist, people used to say they admired me for choosing to live on less than $10,000 a year, for choosing to ride a bike everywhere, to shop at Sally Ann’s, to spontaneously organize protests, to disrupt meetings and for choosing to get the word out through radio, TV, and, on occasion, the newspaper. We once even talked about hanging a banner from above the offices of Gov. Tony Knowles in the Atwood Building in downtown Anchorage, that enormous glass block across from Phillips Petroleum. An elite group of climbers and activists met each evening to discuss details about how we would descend the building to unveil an enormous banner reading, “TAX BIG OIL,” like a tic-tac-toe, protesting the portent of the monopolization of North Slope oil fields. It was a deal Knowles liked but the Security and Exchange Commission ultimately rejected, allowing Phillips in, a convenient compromise among our state’s oil mafia. The deal fell through and we were sucked irresistibly into our recliners of comfort, giving paltry excuses for apathy, wedged in like popcorn between our teeth. Just flip the channel. Flip the channel. At the end of Kathy Kelly’s talk, a man asked the standard question: what can we do? Kathy Kelly has heard this many times. She’s going directly to the military bases, pushing for their closure. She half-heartedly gave the obligatory solution of approaching our lawmakers … in her case that means refusing to leave their office, risking arrest until the blowhard hears what she has to say. “You can ask them to join you in a blood drive for soldiers and civilians wounded in the war,” she says, “with the message, ‘Give blood, don’t shed blood.’” “Who has that kind of time?” I ask myself. “Or, you can plan a public event to ring a bell for all those who have died,” and she starts singing ... “Hamash al Mousawi, 45-years-old ... ding ... Fadi Raad, age 13 ... ding ... Stephen Bicknell ...” This I can do. Ring in November. This November First, I’ll have a bell. And I will sing. 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. |
-
Columnists -
- column archive -
October 13, 2006 October 6, 2006 September 29, 2006 September 22, 2006 September 15, 2006 September 8, 2006 September 1, 2006 August 25, 2006 August 18, 2006 August 11, 2006 August 4, 2006 July 28, 2006 July 21, 2006 July 14, 2006 June 30, 2006 June 23, 2006 June 16, 2006 June 9, 2006 June 2, 2006 May 26, 2006 May 12, 2006 May 5, 2006 April 28, 2006 April 21, 2006 April 14, 2006 April 7, 2006 March 31, 2006 March 24, 2006 March 17, 2006 March 3, 2006 February 24, 2006 February 17, 2006 February 10, 2006 February 3, 2006 January 27, 2006 January 20, 2006 January 13, 2006 January 6, 2006 December 30, 2005 December 23, 2005 December 16, 2005 December 10, 2005 December 2, 2005 November 25, 2005 November 18, 2005 November 11, 2005 November 4, 2005 October 28, 2005 October 21, 2005 October 14, 2005 October 7, 2005 September 30, 2005 September 23, 2005 September 16, 2005 September 9, 2005 September 2, 2005 August 26, 2005 August 19, 2005 August 12, 2005 August 5, 2005 July 29, 2005 July 22, 2005 July 15, 2005 July 8, 2005 July 1, 2005 June 24, 2005 June 17, 2005 June 10, 2005 June 3, 2005 May 27, 2005 May 20, 2005 May 13, 2005 May 6, 2005 April 29, 2005 April 21, 2005 |
|||||||
| Copyright
2005
Insurgent Media. All Rights
Reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
||||||||
