Nevada Governor Backs Selling Wild Horses for Food

I wrote to Governor Sandoval who backs the brutal roundups of wild horses, including foals, to sell to slaughter houses: All over the world American consultants are working to persuade local peoples not to kill the wildlife. Practical reasons: Wildlife is an essential part of the tourist and travel industry. Wildlife is part of what makes any given area unique. Other reasons: Wildlife are part of the web of life. Only recently we humans realized we were WITHIN and not above the web of life. We are not its rulers. We trample in it at our peril. What does it matter if we round up wild horses and sell them to eat? Our routine of killing to resolve wildlife "issues" belongs to the past. Certainly we can honor the past of the Wild West. That doesn’t mean we keep on as if we lived in the past, as if we were still those people who wiped out the herds of bison. They also thought it didn’t matter. Those who would like the earth to continue for our children and our descendants are thinking now about how we can transform our thinking and our approaches. We now see that we can harm the web of life. Harm can be caused that we can’t fix, no matter how hard we try. We are just beginning to learn about the web of life in ways we never knew before. Maybe you’ll say we can’t tell, right now, what we need to do in order to be guardians and caretakers of the earth for the future. Maybe not, but we can try to learn every day. We can re-examine the old ideas instead of blindly following them. And right now, we can stop holding up to our children examples like killing wild horses. Right now we can do that for our souls. And for the soul of the world. Thank you for reading this.

Obama, all politicians have prairie-sized holes in their world views

The oil companies fight like ravening ogres for every inch of the earth they can destroy for oil. The government kowtows to ranchers who want to kill wolves, coyotes and other life on adjacent lands to their lands, which now exist as despot-ruled nations within our larger nation. "Environmentalists" and others who see the need for different goals, for a different world -- they are voices in the wilderness. In fact there is a new kind of wilderness made up of massed and growing intertwined channellings of moneys and other resources for the rich and powerful and decreasing life -- indeed decreasing chance for survival -- of those who do not belong to the rarefied and degraded world of the new emperors. Today another appeal to "personalize" the Arctic drilling protest letters to the president. I wrote the following precede. "An enormous empty space in the president's world view has to do with his lack of consciousness about the web of life and the necessity of guardianship rather than destruction of the earth, with all its participants, including those humans ignorantly label as "other ... wild ... unnecessary ... disposable ... inconvenient" and so on. When we were younger in evolution one of our primary goals was killing for protection and for food. THINGS HAVE CHANGED. The human population-- billions of us; the human technical ability -- mass destruction and killing made effortless; the earth's status -- a living entity under continual gargantuan assault. These factors illustrate the need for a new perspective, a new consciousness. Our thrashing around in the web of life is atavistic,out of date, redounding to the threatening of life itself for our descendants. The questions are: Who or what will awaken us? How can we move to the position of guardians rather than destroyers? The babies born now, the grandchildren now growing up -- they will no doubt be living when the waters rise. This matter is not far away, it is as close as anything has ever been. And oh, yes, that empty mental and moral space exists in the views of almost all politicians -- but we expected more from this unquestionably brilliant president. Though we do know the brilliant can be blind -- worse, they can be ruled by pragmatism that, when continually appeased, grows continually to narrow the boundaries of thought."

RANCHERS/CEOS RULE THEIR OWN NATIONS

The Department of the Interior is taking away federal protection of wolves on August 1 to allow wholesale massacre. Here is my letter, probably never to be read by the secretary but thank you for reading it. Dear Secretary Salazar and colleagues in the Department of the Interior: Why propitiate wealthy ranchers by signing on for the mass murder of wolves? These ranchers in the cattle business are analogous to the oil companies – their goals are profit and all other considerations be damned. Corporations heads and cattle “barons” have been allowed by us and by our government to set themselves up in the same mode as the sovereign kings and emperors of olden days – considering their lands as royal domains -- in fact private nations -- and themselves as entitled to live outside the law and all considerations of the greater good of life itself. The most absolute power of a king was to order death as he wished. It is time to take away the absolute power that these self-appointed rulers have abrogated to themselves. Though they have boundaries, unfathomable wealth, private armies, and thousands of dependent laboring “citizens" – it is causing immeasurable harm to continue to allow them to live as separate nations within our nation, the United States of America. It’s time now for Americans to stop treating the very wealthy as royalty – think back to the Magna Carta -- are we really going to be the society which has revoked the Magna Carta in cases of the very wealthy? These "rulers" must be subject to the same laws and considerations as those in the larger society. As the Center for Biological Diversity said: “We can't let these intelligent, majestic animals be slaughtered to satisfy the whims of ranchers and politicians. Yet despite tens of thousands of letters and phone calls to save the wolves, Secretary Salazar will strip away their federal protection on August 31. Wyoming's plan will allow wolves to be indiscriminately killed outside Yellowstone National Park and a few other safe havens: 80 percent of the state will become a wolf-killing zone.” There are ways to live alongside “wild” animals without killing them. American and other western representatives continuously work with "emerging" companies to stop them from killing "wild life," to teach them the larger viewpoints of ecological living and the irreplaceable value of the “wild” as part of the travel and tourist industry, one of the richest sources of income on earth. Is wholesale murder of animals labeled as "wild" really the example we want to give to our children and to other societies? Wealthy ranchers have NO RIGHT to demand to live on lands or to be on adjacent lands where all "wildlife" must be killed, no matter how much money they give to politicians or lobbyists. They do not own the planet and the few remaining "wild" places. The human attitude has to change, for ourselves, for our descendants, and for the life of the planet. Knee jerk killing of other beings is not a viable reaction to human-identified problems. We must become guardians, not killers, in the web of life -- for the sake of our own lives and for the living earth, the largest of such beings and our only home. If our co-inhabitants in life and on earth WITH us cannot live on this planet, then it will be true -- sooner than later -- that we cannot live here either. We thrash about in the web of life at our peril.

JOHNNY CARSON

Discussing the Johnny Carson film: I was a fan. To me stand-up comics are as necessary to our culture as artists. My favorites just now are Jon Stewart, Louis CK and Patton Oswalt. I like to watch Chelsea Handler, although I like her personality more than her comic bits. Being as she "is" is her most effective statement -- I think -- in terms of trying to find and live some kind of edge in the chaotic clutter of our ricky-ticky pop culture, with its commanding pervasiveness and the undertones of darkness always creeping in, sometimes taking over whole memes, trends, groups, bodies, similar to archetypical science fiction plots. I was profoundly affected by Richard Pryor, breathtakingly on the edge and beyond brilliant. I don't think he can be actually described, except by saying his name. To go back to Carson, long ago even when I knew little about him I saw him as not just a comic but a person who performed by putting on a carefully crafted persona, like an entire body suit. Part of the fascination was to enjoy the performance - more like a one-man show than a stand-up routine – and keep alert for the brief seconds when the other Johnny peered through the curtain of himself. Also fun to watch him watching and assessing himself, more and more as time went on...and he subtly let us in on the game, the irony, the dissonance, how odd life is. Incremental revelations about his contrasting private life confirmed what lots of us had intuited, without knowledge. He had a lively intelligence, with the gift of curiosity, keenly aware of the peculiarity of the place he had landed, practical in using the money thus earmed to construct co-lives, some comradely and comforting, one the life of a loner who made sure his hermitage was perfectly made for him, and well protected. I didn’t watch tv for many years, just Carson at night. His predecessors I had not seen except in clips. In contrast Carson was cool, as the film said, and classy with a core of what I'll call a well-honed quietness that strengthened and protected him -- AND his audience in a way. But the underlying awareness of the menace or darkness in life was never not there. You didn't worry when you were watching him. Of course, sometimes we need to be worried and brought to levels of sorrow and outrage and so on... I like that in comics and artists. Now I think about it, which of the essential 20th century visual artists would have expressed something akin to Carson... maybe The Scream as candidate, also Broadway Boogie Woogie, some paintings by Van Gogh. Musicians of course, lots of them, would have been and are Johnny-like. Too bad he didn't get to really know Bruce Springsteen -- or did he? Don't know -- holes in my memory.

TO Ranchers -- Please think

As my last post of 2011, a copy of the email letter I just wrote to the California Cattlemen's Association,largest such group in the U.S.

California Cattlemen's Association
1221 H Street
Sacramento CA 95814

It's clear your industry has a history, a culture, a set of principles and ethics. It's clear that your lives and the lives of your families and loved ones are interwoven into your industry.

I am one of the people you probably hate because I question human killing of "wild" animals. I write on this last day of 2011 hoping to communicate as one good-hearted human to a special group of other good-hearted humans. I know you have much-repeated phrases and thoughts for those who oppose killing of wolves and coyotes by ranchers. But please think, even for a few seconds, beyond the familiar ideas and concepts.

Some people think a new crest of consciousness is arising among human beings, a realization that our most meaningful next evolutionary move will be to reconsider our attitudes and behavior toward the "wild," toward the animals and other living beings who are our co-inhabitants on earth, our only home. You may think of us as crazies or liberals or elitists, whatever -- I ask you for a moment to rise above such labels and I will try with all my heart to think of you not as focused wholly on profit and quick to kill as a kneejerk reaction to a "problem."

Is it right to kill animals because they are predators? We humans are the apex predators on the planet. Should we be killed because we kill? As our human domain expands, areas for other inhabitants continually shrink. Contact between our species increases. Certainly some of the cattlemen's meat animals may be killed by a "wild" predator.

Is mass killing of predator animals actually the best solution? Does any human being have the right to insist on living and working on lands, or to be on adjacent lands, where all "wildlife" must be killed, for convenience and profit? Is there a possibility "their" lives are as precious as ours? Is killing of "wild"animals the example we want to give to our children and to other societies? American representatives work continuously with "emerging" companies to stop them from killing "wild life," citing ecological and ethical reasons. Not one of us owns the planet; every one of us has a profound interest in what is done by us to the "wild" places of the planet.

Does it ultimately help human life to eliminate "wild" life? Our understanding and studies about the web of life are still in early stages. But we know it is this web to which we owe our existence and on which we must rely for our future. Who will be part of the change in thinking that will be essential for ourselves, for our descendants, and for the soul of the world?

If our co-inhabitants in life and on earth WITH us cannot live on this planet, then it will be true -- sooner than later -- that we cannot live here either. We thrash about in the web of life at our peril.

If you have read this far, I thank you with all the sincerity of my heart.

Very truly yours -- China Altman

Three Elephants Freed, One solitary to go -- in Canada

I wrote the following today to the Mayor and concillors of Edmondton, Canada where they have a solitary elephant Lucy. Toronto just consented to send their three elephants to a better environment in California.

Dear Mayor Mandel -- Thank you in advance for your thoughtful leadership in helping the Edmondton Zoo to do the best thing for Lucy the Elephant. Please consider the distress being caused her as she is kept alone as the sole member of her kind. I'm sure you know that elephants are among the most intelligent, social, and emotionally-sensitive mammals on earth. And think of the example being provided for children and adults -- they will know sooner or later that keeping Lucy in a kind of solitary confinement is not that far from doing it to a human being. The idea of imprisoning animals such as elephants so people can stare at them is outdated -- more and more it is seen as cruelty.

Now that we know, we can connect ourselves to the most forward-looking crest of thought, emerging ideas that tell us, unless we change our attitude to our co-inhabitants on earth, we will lose not just our souls but the future of humanity and that of the planet. We are in a transition of thought -- being "good" to animals is no longer just a random idea -- it's an issue that is becoming planetary.

I was so happy to hear about Toronto's enlightened action in agreeing to send the three elephants to a healthier and more appropriate life at PAWS. A new consciousness is arising as it becomes clear that humanity's role must be that of stewards of the web of life and of the earth. Thank you for reading this. China Altman

Defenders Oppose Big Oil

Defenders of Wildlife asked for voices and donations to join their stalwart opposition to Big Oil in the Arctic. I said:

"The non-destroyed parts of the earth are irreplaceable. It's an easy matter for humans to gauge, drill, set afire, flood, damage, violently extract from anywhere materials they wish to sell in order to make fortunes for themselves.

It is not easy -- and mostly is impossible -- for the earth to recover. While the destruction usually happens in a short time the recovery -- if possible -- would need eons.

There is a vision beyond that of individual men who wish to make themselves as rich as kings and emperors of former days.

No matter how much money they have it is unlikely that they or their descendants will be able to flee to another planet if this one is irrevocably ruined.

A new consciousness is arising. To continue to live -- and for our descendants to live -- humanity needs to reconsider the ideas of domination and endless "conquering" and begin to see the sense of another idea: taking care and become actual rather than sham stewards of the earth and of the web of life.

https://secure.defenders.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=2295&autologin=true&s_src=3WDE1201A1B11&s_subsrc=enews_donors&JServSessionIdr004=qlefb0to24.app226a