Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2006 My Turn • How long?

Publisher’s note: This My Turn column by Anthony E. Larson originally appeared in the Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2006 edition of the Lassen County Times.

How long will it be, I wonder, before the increasing chaos worldwide really reaches out and touches us in our otherwise happy little backwoods corner of the world?

As you are painfully aware, we’re paying more for gas because worldwide demand is growing exponentially. A corroded pipeline in Alaska, on top of everything else, threatens to send prices even higher. And who knows when bedlam in the Persian Gulf region will cut off some or all of those supplies, leaving us high and dry.

What would become of those of us who live on remote farms and ranches in this corner of the state? We rely on a cheap and plentiful supply of fuel to earn our living and get the goods and services we rely upon from distant cities. Where would we be without it?

The delivery systems that keep our thriving economy going are extremely fragile. Toss a monkey wrench in the smoothly running, clockwork mechanism, and the whole thing would slam to a screeching halt. It would be no different for us in these remote mountain valleys.

And we are vulnerable as a nation in so many other ways, as the recently thwarted terrorist plot to blow up numerous airliners over the Atlantic Ocean shows us. Of course, all we have to do is think back five years to the World Trade Towers debacle to realize how events can overtake us suddenly, without warning.

It seems to me that what we’re seeing for the first time since World War II is the potential for real harm right here on American soil. It may be that this generation is beginning to feel the hot breath of oppression breathing down its neck, just as its grandparents did in the 1940s.

Instead of Nazis preaching hatred and racial supremacy, we’ve got terrorists teaching hatred and religious supremacy. It took the combined effort of most of the world back then to defeat those fanatics in Germany, Italy and Japan. Can we expect the combined menace of Iran and Syria will be overcome any more easily?

The recent skirmish in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel appears to be over, at least for the time being. It could have become a full-scale war. Nations the world over quickly lined up on one side or the other. Imagine what might have happened if that fire blew up into a holocaust. It’s a small example of how the mayhem half way around the world could have a profound effect on our wellbeing.

If you’re like me, all this news is worrisome, but it doesn’t affect my day-to-day life all that much. That could all change tomorrow. What if the West Coast saw a terrorist attack similar to the 9/11 event in New York? Can you even imagine how that might touch our lives here in our high desert home? I shudder to think of the possibilities.

When I see the sun peacefully set over the mountains behind my home these warm summer days, it’s hard to believe that turmoil such as I see in the news really exists, that it could change the serenity of life here. But it can.

Life turns on a dime. And history teaches this one lesson: It’s only a matter of time. The only question is when it will come, what form it will take and how it will affect us. That it will happen is virtually certain.

Are you ready?