I’ve been compelled to write about something different. It may afford me new friends and enemies, I don’t know. But this is my blog so I suppose what I put on it is my prerogative. I am incredibly uneasy living in this world of hate, ignorance, and no respect for the land or animals. This is a slippery slope and I feel we are already half way down.
Recently there was a bill to be proposed that Federal Public Lands could be handed over to the states and that when in need the states could sell off said land to anybody. Our great parks. The legacies of Roosevelt. The lands that were crucial in helping to bring back endangered species that we had already succeeded in almost wiping out once. Luckily there were enough Americans who loved our wild places that spoke up that the bill was taken off the table. But the fight for our land is far from over. As of today, there is a vote happening on weather or not, on those same federal lands, the government has a right to drill and mine without need of vote or permission or even a need to tell park officials of their plans. Those same great places like Yellowstone, Arches National Park and The Redwood Forests. Land that is precious purely as the wild and untouched places they are. This is genocide against the land.
Still in this age of science, there are those that believe global warming doesn’t exist and that humans have had no impact on the earth. How is that even possible to believe? How can you not see our polluted oceans, our massive pit mines and dumps, oils spills, roads, factory farms, acres and acres of forest lost for farm ground, the sheer volume of waste and somehow say, we have no effect on the land? These are the same people that will tell you that coyotes, wolves and wild horses are pests that destroy ranges, hunting and waste water. A few k9’s and some mustangs are “destroying” the range, but millions of humans have no effect on the planet? It’s purely because global warming, or the acknowledgement of it would mean you’d have to change your ways. You’d have to acknowledge your faults and change your life. And that, is too much to ask of any American.
Our planet is dying and over half the population doesn’t seem to care. What will you do, what will your children do, when there is no clean water to drink? Or clean air to breath? What will they do when the land is so tapped out from farming it cannot produce anymore? What will we do when the bees die? And still, there are those that believe global warming is not real. Over population is not real. Pollution is not real. No wonder they see no problem in destroying our only wild places that we have left.
The fear that has gripped our nation has led to a close mindedness I don’t believe we have seen in a long time. This is what genocides are made of. Fear, a scapegoat, a “solution”, murder. How can it be that after so long humans continue to repeat history over and over instead of learn from it? A huge backlash over refugees. Last I check, as a Christian we are called to “love the least of these”. How many times do you have to wonder, how many churches would let Jesus, a poorer, simple middle eastern man, in and welcome him with open arms? Today’s America? Close to none. Have we truly forgotten all we have supposed to have learned? Because the thing is, is that all the hate, is really disguised fear. That’s all it is. And fear makes people do crazy and irrational things. And the government knows it, and uses it to fuel the fire. Can we not be smart enough to see past all this?
Animals are certainly no better off with this administration. Since the transfer of power, a governor has come forward saying he’s hoping to make dog fighting legal in the States. A bill that was supposed to protect horses from the awful abuse of soring, making it illegal and federally punishable, has been thrown to the side. For what reason I cannot imagine. If this is only the beginning I fear what will happened to government funded shelters, humane laws in agriculture, the protection offered wildlife and endangered species and of course, God protect our wild horses. We are loosing sight of the fact that the way we are all the same is far more important than the way we are different.
Our world is broken. Innocent people and animals are suffering, our planet is hemorrhaging and when I speak to people and ask why they don’t seem to feel it’s important or worth changing they just say “that’s just the way things are.” I’m sure many felt that same way about the genocide of the Native Americans. That it was unfortunate what our government was doing, but it is what it is. Probably the same for slaves and you know it was said over and over in Nazi Germany. No use trying to fight it. It’s just the way things are. I’m truly heartbroken that people care so little. It keeps me up at night.
“I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder, that one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.” -Anne Frank
