Arne O. Holm says Locked Up in Washington, Murkowski Gave an Almost Absurd Insight Into American Madness
Senator Lisa Murkowski(R) of Alaska via video link in Reykjavik. Here with another senator, independent Angus King of Maine. (Photo: Trine Jonassen)
Reykjavik (Comment): A deeply affected US Senator, Lisa Murkowski, spoke via videolink to 2,000 participants at the international Arctic Circle conference here in Reykjavik yesterday. She was supposed to be on stage, but instead showcased an involuntary digital demonstration of the madness of US politics.
This is a comment written by a member of the editorial staff. All views expressed are the writer's own.
It all started with a shutdown of the American state. This is what happens when a paralyzed Congress cannot agree on a budget. The consequence is that federal programs and agencies stop working. The shutdown, which has lasted 17 days so far, leads to mass firings and a halt in payments to government employees.
Dramatic situation
Public services break down quite quickly.
A dramatic situation, in other words. Yet, a common occurrence in US politics.
To Lisa Murkowski and all other senators, it means that they cannot, for all intents and purposes, leave Washington. Although not physically locked up, they must be prepared for negotiations or votes at any moment.
Therefore, Lisa Murkowski could not go to Reykjavik and give her speech. As a republican, she is also a part of this political breakdown, although she often serves as a strong opposing voice in US politics. I have previously written about how she was tricked by Donald Trump.
Cutting grants for universities as if it were a boxwood hedge.
Murkowski cannot go to her home state, Alaska, either, where a historic evacuation is currently taking place. One of the worst storms to ever hit Alaska has torn up two remote villages. The ensuing flood has leveled or swept away virtually every home in Kipnuk. Rescuers are calling the severity of the ordeal one of the most significant airlift efforts in recent disaster preparedness in Alaska, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Frontal assault on research
The US policy and the Trump Administration play a central role in this as well. Because one of the first things Donald Trump did when he came to power was to cut allocations for preparedness for the remote communities in Alaska's wilderness. More specifically, he cut an already adopted grant of USD 20 million for a necessary flood dam to secure Kipnuk against the exact thing that just happened last weekend.
In total, he has cut several hundred million dollars from Alaska.
Trump has also launched a frontal assault on climate research, and he is cutting grants for universities as if it were a boxwood hedge.
A US shutdown at the same time as a natural disaster is literally a lethal cocktail as long as Trump sits in the presidential chair. I cannot even find a trace of empathy in the comments made by Trump on the extremely difficult evacuation of thousands of people. Not all survived. Few will have homes to return to as winter sets in.
A life in Alaska is invisible to the rest of the world.
Trump's silence did not stop a representative of the Environmental Protection Agency from defending the cuts, according to Anchorage Daily News:
"To be brutally candid, due to the proactive cancellation of this grant, $20 million of hardworking U.S. tax dollars are currently sitting in the U.S. treasury instead of swept into the Kuskokwim River."
The cynical and brutal statement comes amidst a full-scale rescue work and reports of several deceased.
I have traveled across the Alaskan wilderness and seen, with my own eyes, the vulnerability of the small communities. The indigenous people often live under extreme climate conditions. When disaster threatens, they are still told by their own president to fend for themselves.
And not only that, they are practically thanked for having saved US tax dollars.
War and climate
They don't have the money to contribute to the president's private fortune, and they are not many enough to have political influence.
Living in the US Arctic is, for many, a life that is invisible to the rest of the world.
Thus, this international conference on the Arctic became an arena that fully illustrated the challenges facing Arctic people. War and the danger of war are themes in many of the several hundred sessions in Reykjavik, but climate challenges and indigenous issues are also among the most important topics.