Clearcut in the Oregon Coast Range. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
As Americans celebrate the 250th year of this young nation’s existence, perhaps we could take a moment to reflect upon where and what we were in 1776, and what we have become. This is a good time to critique how we’ve treated this great continent that nurtures us and mourn the many ‘disappeared’ lifeforms that once roamed the plains, forests, and waters of the United States.
The wild mountainous ecosystems surrounding Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks are being liquidated, habitat turned to wasteland as the resident sentient beings of these territories are mercilessly killed off.
As an activist advocating for wilderness, forests and habitat for native wildlife and fish, the combination of natural and man-caused catastrophes is reaching unfathomable proportions. Rather than take some responsibility for our mistakes, denial and indifference has gripped our hearts, minds, and souls.
Shouldn’t ‘good,’ and powerful Puritans, Zionists, and Techno-fascist billionaires (oligarchs) begin to have regrets at some point before every acre of wild land has been bulldozed, clearcut, overgrazed, and set on fire? Before all the songbirds and hummingbirds have vanished from the countryside, original art, poetry, and music has been extinguished, along with human imagination, visions, and dreams, we must find ways to stop the plunder.
Modern society’s ruling elite can’t seem to constrain its infantile desire to meddle with the great mysteries of the Universe that creates and restores beauty and magic in our untrammeled remnant territories. Worst of all, these ruling class pirates employ their machines and common slaves to control one another, registering, tracking, and policing each other in a meaningless system of mutually un-beneficial depravity.
Can everyone see clearly now? Money and power are relative, the supreme goal of an oligarch’s worth (his/her/its salt) is enslaving everyone else to objectify and exploit Nature and overproduce man-made things, and then produce more things, all to end up in the local dump. There is no aim.
Before Christian colonization and mechanization many species shared, cooperated, competed, adapted, and survived through a complex, asymmetrical multi-layered system of interrelationships that encouraged species diversity and persistence through challenging natural and man-made events. When these myriad processes and relationships are broken down the remote backcountry dies. It is all becoming too much for human discernment to handle.
Self-criticism is consistently the piece missing and point at which hubris begins to obscure understanding natural limits that press against the current ‘unreality.’ Distraction and denial prevent our looking beyond, to see the abyss at the end of the path we’re on.
The U.S. Forest Service (USDA) and Bureau of Land Management (USDI) are a great example of what ills America today. Rather than heal their own internal sickness first, these disgruntled slaves push deadly misdiagnoses and ‘treatments.’ They shamelessly promote dangerous narratives to cover up their heinous crimes against Nature. Computer programs crank out fear campaigns that scream of unacceptable risk of wildfire, insect epidemic and disease.
There is no rational reason to explain how, or why, clearcutting and deliberately burning millions of acres of healthy public forests can “save” them. The USFS and BLM have transformed into massive, senseless hospital operations.
Wild backcountry is being disposed of without a thought to the cost of treating misdiagnosed, fake forest health issues. Billions of tax dollars are wasted annually on unnecessary treatments which are converting healthy forests into deserts and failed tree plantations. It’s the boondoggle that keeps on giving.
Our national forests are not sick!
Public forests and grasslands are perpetually healing themselves without man’s meddling. It’s nature’s way, and a whole lot less expensive.
Cheer up. These useless federal agencies are facing down their own Death Clock. I hear it ticking.
Exceptionally scrappy, reliable grassroots forces have been fighting for decades to keep our public lands and human sensibilities from being murdered and hauled off to the landfill. A small gift can make a big difference.
Check out my top two favorites at:
1) allianceforthewildrockies.org and
2) counterpunch.org
