| August 26, 2005 Alaskan in Exile by Neil Zawicki We were two miles off shore when we heard the news. Afterward, I had a sobering revelation. Clay Berry rousted me out of bed at 4 a.m. Tuesday to “get in a little sailing,” as he put it. So I rode to the coast in his restored Willy’s Wagon, smelling my coffee more than drinking it, as Clay rambled over the noise of a Warren Zevon CD about how well the boat will handle on the way to Hawaii. Today we were only sailing for the day. Once on the water, we mixed drinks and set the sails for a close reach toward Cannon Beach and the rock formation known as Haystack Rock. Clay dialed in a news radio station, and that’s how we got the word. It seems Pat Robertson, republican and extreme Christian Righter, has suggested we assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Chavez is an outspoken anti-U.S. leftist who alleges the United States is plotting to kill him. “If [Chavez] is so concerned about us assassinating him, we ought to just do it,” Robertson said on his 700 Club TV show, “it would be a whole lot less expensive than starting a war.” As soon as Robertson, who gunned for the GOP presidential nomination in 1988, made the remark, Clay and I were certain, even from two miles offshore, that we could hear every Right Wing heavy in the nation spit out their cocktails in unison. White House officials rushed to the microphones, still straightening their ties, to distance themselves from the words, and religious leaders did their own special version of Tonto’s famous quote, “What do you mean WE, white man?” Clay and I were speechless. We hove to in order to mark this momentous occasion. To emphasize the moment, I loaded and fired three rounds from the flare gun, which attracted a fishing boat and two Coast Guard Cutters, and not one of them could believe the news either. We have reached a point in our history as a nation where influential political-religious hybrids are making off-handed remarks about killing leaders of other nations just for disagreeing with us. And while the more subtle of the serpents are quick to act as if they don’t hold the same views, their outrage is only at the idea that somebody said it; that somebody took off the mask, if only for a second. It is clear to me now that this mean era is certainly the Third World War. The beast has come to roost, and not one book, prediction or historian’s supposition could have recognized it, until now. The Third World War is not a big crazy slug-fest between big crazy nations. It is not a sudden and comprehensive atomic blast. The Third World War is the fragmented and unpredictable erosion of ethics, prudence, power and perspective. One by one, our leaders will take off the mask, and take off the gloves. One by one, nations will die, until there is nothing left but little tribes of shivering people, who have forgotten how to speak, and can only scratch at their sores. This is the way the world will end. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. T.S. Eliot said that.  Neil Zawicki, exiled Alaskan, is Editor at Large for Insurgent49, a former reporter for the Alaska Star, and winner of the Alaska Press Club's 'Best Columnist' award. He is now living out the rest of his days in an undisclosed location in Oregon. He can be contacted at - neil@insurgent49.com |
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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 April 14, 2005 April 7, 2005 April 1, 2005 - also by this
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Reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
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