THE WAR IN AMERICA YOU NEVER SEE IN THE NEWS

A war within America grows more aggressive every day – never seen in the news --  the war against animals and insects such as bees.  Thousands of animals are killed every day by the US Department of Agriculture Wildlife Service (USDA WS) and the U.S. Forest Service.  Yes, hundreds of professional killers hired by the government go to work every day in America  to produce as many animal corpses as possible. 

 To learn more, on the Internet go to Defenders of Wildlife, In Defense of Animals, and World Wildlife Service.  Among the many animal groups these three are the ones I interact with most frequently.

These groups keep us informed about local, state and national bills concerning animal welfare and, more somberly, the ongoing massacres organized by the federal government,  paid for with taxpayer money.  Some states have their own programs of killing.

I am distressed beyond endurance about government spending of tens of millions of our tax dollars to kill more than 100,000 wolves, bobcats, foxes, black bears and other native carnivores every year.

See below for a listing of just some of the animal-kill news from today.

What does it matter? 

No American citizen has been allowed to vote on the government’s massacre of "wild" animals in the west. The real push to kill them comes from wealthy businessmen and ranchers of the cattle industry who impel these actions in exchange for their campaign contributions. All land is for the cattle industry – they get the government to kill all other creatures to increase their convenience and profits.  No one has voted to turn the American west over to the cattle industry.  American advisors continually counsel "emerging" countries to protect rather than kill their native wildlife since the native animal life is such an integral part of each country's identity and heritage. What about  America? These animals are as American as you and I.

We have to look differently into humanity's place on earth. All humans, including Americans, exist WITHIN the web of life -- not apart or above it. Why continue to ignore the signs that illustrate the need for us to become guardians of the web of life? Not just for moral reasons but for survival itself. No one knows where the tipping point is as we trample about in the web of life as if our rubber stamping of the bottom line policies of out dated capitalist practices would ultimately protect or save us.  Really?

The killing of wild horses and wolves and the other native American animals sends a message to children and to all the peoples of the world. Nothing is so powerful as the example.  Do we want to continue using killing as a knee-jerk solution to mis-labeled “problems?”  The dollars these animal killers fold into their bank accounts are for today. The destruction is for eternity.

In the new consciousness now arising about humanity's place on earth we see clearly that it's not just a momentary choice but a necessity to become guardians rather than senseless destroyers of the web of life. We are not apart or above it.  Within it we have our being and our hope.  No one knows whether or if a human soul exists.  If it does, can you think of a more abiding place than the web of life itself?  

TODAY’S ANIMAL MASSACRE NEWS;

--In Montana the state legislature has a bill to increase the number of otters the state is allowed to trap and kill.

--At Bush Airport in Houston they are killing thousands of birds.

--In Kentucky they are using gas chambers identical to those used in the Nazi genocide to kill cats, dogs and other animals at shelters

--In Annapolis Maryland they have contracted with the U.S. Wildlife Services to kill deer in a 90 acre woodland.

--The City of Berkeley in California has proposed to kill  up to a thousand of California Ground Squirrels and Western Pocket Gophers in Cesar Chavez Park, formerly known as Berkeley Landfill,  situated along San Francisco Bay.

--Idaho and its macho governor, Butch Otter, hold rallies to kill wolves. The state now is revealed as using traps to torture and crush lynxes. The government appears to want the state to contain only commercial development and housing tracts. Earlier this year, Idaho officials hired a hunter/trapper to kill two entire wolf families in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area, and then, in cooperation with USDA Wildlife Services, gunned down another 23 wolves from helicopters. Idaho State Senator, Bert Brackett sponsored a bill to allocate $2 million of taxpayer money to kill hundreds of wolves.  Idaho officials stood by private parties who conducted wolf and coyote killing contests, with no objection to a private foundation's $500 bounty for each wolf killed.

--In Holley, New York the Fire Department is gearing up for the eighth annual fundraiser “Squirrel Slam,”  which gives prizes to persons, including children of 14 and upwards,  who kill the most and largest squirrels.

--Many large companies, especially Proctor & Gamble, continue to torture and kill thousands of animals such as rabbits and cats by out-of-date and ineffective “testing” so they can boast of cosmetic and other products as being hypo-allergenic. Representative Jim Moran of Virginia introduced a new bill to end animal testing in cosmetics,  H.R. 4148, entitled the "Humane Cosmetics Act," which would prohibit animal testing in the U.S. cosmetics industry and phase out the sale of cosmetics tested on animals in other countries.

Moran said "The U.S. can and should phase out the use of animals in cosmetic safety testing. Not only are animal-based tests fundamentally inhumane, they also rely on outmoded science that can fail to accurately predict safety for humans." 

--Companies such as Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta and others are completely free of government enquiry and sanctions as they make millions on pesticides containing  neonicotinoids, or "neonics," a class of pesticides that many scientific studies have linked to the devastating decline in bee populations across the country. It has been proven that these neonics are toxic to bees. Yet the EPA remains silent and inactive on this matter.

When I have written on the White House or presidential Comment Site, I receive meaningless public relations answers such as the following auto-signed by the President: “My Administration will keep working to protect animal welfare in areas where there is a role for the Federal Government.  Please know I value your perspective, and I appreciate your thoughts on how we can meet our responsibilities.” 

 

This language is appalling in light of the government’s role in animal massacre.  This president has descried elephant poaching in Africa – good for him – but he remains blind and silent to the animal killing war in the United States.  He is not alone – no other president has addressed this tragic American activity.

Why pursue such a cause as animal rights?

I spend a part of every day at my computer with several animal activist groups who organize petition and letter writing campaigns for politicians, corporations, university medical schools and government officials. These groups question, protest and give information about the never ending killing, especially of wild animals in the west, information that is never in the “news,”  which by the way is never news but a distortion, a formulaic and lop-sided glancing glimpse at reality. These sign-up (sigh-up) campaigns usually have a line asking us to personalize the messages.  Someone emailed me that it was a waste of time to write anything personal. A good point really.   Here’s what I said.

Much of the time I do only add my name to petitions because I know that adding another number is the most help I can give.  I know that in general nobody reads these words. You say the Joe Shmoes delete them without reading them. Of course they do – they are part of the sleepwalkers who make up most of humanity.  I know they are there.   Nothing in life is so difficult as communication.  I just keep on and I think it’s better to use the best mind I have at any given moment in this great planetary crisis that most people think is not occurring. Killing our animal co-inhabitants is a significant and deeply meaningful part of the assault on the web of life itself.

Once I’ve written personal comments I post them on my blog and sometimes on Facebook, and to some on my email list. Sometimes when I write to University presidents and people like that I get an answer.  I got an answer from a sheriff a couple of times, a few times from editors. Quite often I get an answer from politicians too, although I know the actual letters don’t have much of a chance to get to them. 

I will continue to write my thoughts and hope that they may edge someone here and there a little closer.  A stranger responded negatively to one of my Facebook comments about wolf and coyote killers – she said it was the first time she had ever seen or heard anyone use the term “wealthy ranchers.”  She thinks there is no such thing. !!!!  I won’t respond because it’s impossible to communicate with anyone who makes such a strange statement, a statement that illuminates so clearly her world which she thinks is the only world.  The obstacles we face are complex and quite terrible, really.  And THEY think the same thing about us.  !!!!   We all think we’re on the right side. 

As humans we can be wrong about anything at any time. In the so-called “wild” a creature who chooses a certain place to walk may be killed and eaten for the mistaken choice while another on another track goes free to live another day. As humans we have thought of ourselves as being superior to nature – a word that can now be interpreted by some of us as the “web of life.” For a long time and still today for some of us, nature is something we conquer…exploit…turn into commerce…transform…fear…think of as a danger.

Some random thinkers referred to the idea throughout time, as far as we know -- the thought that the essential being of our lives is within, not separate from the web of life. Being human, for all our triumphalism, does not mean we can actually transcend nature – the ultimate proof of that lies in the process of our lives and our deaths.  

It has been a complicated dimension of many variations and kinds of persuasion  – the idea that we can be separate from nature, that we are superior to the web of life.  We walk on that path whistling distortions we think will make us safe.  We think our descendants can walk on the same path.

In my small view I feel compelled to think that a different approach to our co-inhabitants on the planet could lead us to different ways of being.  Why do we remain “kill first … take first … win first?”  What has it brought us that we really wanted if we can be truly quiet to think about it for a time?    Evolution awaits us. 

Global Hunting Glorifies Killing Animals

GLOBALHUNTS@AOL.COM  is the contact for Aaron Neilson whose Facebook page shows him smiling and holding his rifle over the corpses of many animals, elephants, lions, bighorn sheep and so on.

I wrote to the company today:

Dear Aaron Neilson -- Killing so-called animals  with modern weapons is not so far from opening fire on other humans in unprotected situations. This approach is out of date and evil. I know you will scoff at what I think. But enlightened visions see another approach to our co-inhabitants on the planet.   Seeing and caring for other creatures leads us to see and understand the web of life, to which we belong. We are not above it, we are within it.  In the web of life is where we have our most essential being and we have no other home.

Killing animals and glorifying yourself for doing so is to proceed backward against common sense and the reality of right now. It illustrates you as an ignorant bully.  All the assault rifles in the world cannot make you into the man you wish you were.  I have seldom seen anything so ugly as your web site, which I note has space only for” likes.”  You may censor out from the page those who have other views but that does not disguise who you are or keep others from seeing you as an ego-obsessed killer of unarmed and helpless creatures, a person who sees beauty in others as a signal to murder by pulling a trigger.

There is no equality and no contest between a person armed to the teeth and an unprotected animal.  It is not  “hunting.”  It is killing.  You are a blight on life itself. 

Must Syria Be Iraq?

I admit to an attitude of mockery toward "commentator" Glenn Beck. However, a friend sent me an excerpt from his broadcast.  I was deeply saddened.  I agree with what Glenn Beck said:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=294976200639003

I sent the comment below to the president and Massachusetts senators.  Although President Obama still promises the most open White House in history I doubt whether mine and other comments are seen or tallied in any useful way. Surveys show we Americans don't want to continue the endless wars, we don't want the President to be Bush II. Yet here we are.

I continue to send occasional comments into the White House's equivalent of the astronomically labeled "Black Holes" in outer space.  This from today:

"NO to U.S. war in Syria, upon Syria or within Syria. Please learn from the bad years that have injured our souls, that have corrupted American ideals, that have killed our people and thousands of innocents, that have bankrupted our country, that have cost us our place as positive examples for the world.

"The lies that led us into Iraq caused harm that will not be resolved in hundreds of years in the Middle East. The dictators we supported in South America have killed tens of thousands and degraded the lives of millions.

"Please, look for a higher and wiser vision. Endless wars have not supported but invalidated our ideals. Continuous political language speaking eloquently for the greatness of America -- when will that be made true and real? How far down must we fall before we see ways to match our actions with our persistent dreams? Do we really want to stand as those of whom they say: "Bring in the big guns. Bring in the killers?" We must look, in MLK's example, for a light we have not yet seen. We must look for a better way."

Helen Thomas Attacked, Even Unto Death

Reporter Helen Thomas of the United Press and the United Press International died last month and there’s been a lot of renewed talk about an offhand remark she made about Israel. She covered the presidents for more than 50 years and was the heart of the Washington press corps. For her remark she was attacked, and all sorts of evil occurred: stripping her of past honors and more. When she was interviewed a few years ago by Playboy they identified her as disgraced.  Following is part of the reaction I wrote in my journal at that time and the last part I wrote while thinking about the continuing calumny heaped on her (even unto death) by jealous people.  They do it because she was a highly accomplished WOMAN who rose above them. You could feel the glee and sanctimony when they heard the remarks and sprang to attack, as if they finally GOT her, as if their minds were famished from years of watching her excellence. I posted the following on the UPI Downhold wire and also in her funeral book.

"When Playboy labeled Helen Thomas “the disgraced dean of the White House press corps,” it bothered me in my heart.

Who is disgraced?  Justice is disgraced when a 35 year old white man is serving a six year sentence for killing his wife while in an adjacent cell a 25 year old black man is in the sixth year of 25 years to life for having marijuana in his pocket.

Torture disgraces all of humanity. Disgraces are common.

Helen Thomas was attacked, maligned, opposed, envied, scorned.  She was not disgraced. Grace could no more be removed from her than her courage and her constant spirit.

When she was removed from her seat I felt a lightning quick silence, like a wave through the air and out to the horizons and around the world. Disgrace was when humans of various kinds hooted and reveled and sprang to opportunities to contribute to the desire to obliterate her. 

The Israeli stuff?  Quibbles like old shreds of debris blown by the wind at the feet of a monument.  Mistake or not, consider why the reaction was so vicious. Other mistakes that result in innumerable deaths and unimaginable destruction, mistakes that hurt the soul of the world – these in their thousands are disregarded, discarded, tossed into the transient box, their perpetrators allowed and welcomed into ordinary life.  We must get on.

In Helen Thomas’s case – mistake or no -- why such a reaction to such a person?

I am a very small person compared to her but in instances when I have stood up in a very strong way I have sometimes felt anger and rage coming at me like a blast from a furnace.  What she stood for was very simple at its core. Now the world is inundated with the infinite verbosity of political and public relations language, language which is dead, which does not breathe. Those who want, in Helen’s way, to find out what happened and to report it – they are scarce on the ground, hard to find in the noise.

What Helen Thomas did in her life will resonate – to borrow from Rilke -- “far beyond life and far beyond time.”

She is and always has been to me a warrior and an exemplar.”

Maybe it's not killing if we do it somewhere else

Less than 90 whales remain in Puget Sound and now the World Wildlife Action Fund reports a consortium of coal companies plan to use trains to move 100 million tons of coal every year from Montana's Powder River Basin to coal terminals to be build in Oregon and Washington. From the terminals the coal goes onto giant barges to be shipped overseas - spewing coal and toxic pollution into orcas' waters.

Along with the destruction of the ocean waters coal pollution will be spread over huge continental areas. Take it somewhere else, get the money, don't look at the killing.

The waters and life in the oceans are as essential to human life as the air we breathe. To destroy life in the oceans leads directly -- and sooner than you think -- to the destruction of all life. Another vision now being developed leads humans to take a role as stewards of life and of the planet and of our fellow inhabitants.
 
This monumental plan by Big Coal exemplifies the bad and ignorant processes that are destroying the world -- get the money now, buy and buttress yourself with luxuries, let somebody else worry about it. That is as wrong-headed and out of date as the inquisition.

As distressing as this plan for profit is the knowledge underlying it:  This destruction and these deaths will not make the front pages of any  mainstream paper nor be reported on any mainstream tv news.  Perhaps when the corpses are floating, a titilating visual, a tsk-tsk.

We cannot trample in the web of life without consequences to ourselves. Beyond the actual terror of this kind of thinking, overriding everything is the damage being done to our souls and to the soul of the world.

Go to World Wildlife Action to sign the petition.  

https://online.nwf.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1773

Obama speaks for Elephants but Not For Wildlife of the West

 

“On Monday, President Obama made an unprecedented move in the fight against illegal wildlife trafficking.” the Wildlife Conservation Society reported. “In a visit to Tanzania, the President launched a poaching crackdown, dedicating the United States to fighting back against poachers and criminal wildlife traffickers.” 

This touched and surprised me.  “Larger” planetary concerns such as oil drilling and fracking are mired in layers of politics and power.  As to concerns about “wildlife”  has President Obama taken any other action that clearly speaks to the essential matter of wildlife as part of the evolving new approach to human stewardship of the planet?  

Consciousness grows slowly as we see, learn and work to develop a different role in the wellbeing of the planet.  The lives of the “wild” animals who are our co-inhabitants of the earth most often are not considered, or they are placed in secondary or minor positions within the discussion.

The actual concept of the web of life – and especially the reality that we humans live within the web, not above or separate from it – still is thought in the main as poetic or irrelevant or invalid. Business and commercial leaders, if considering the concept at all, demonstrate that they regard the idea primarily as being obstructive to their goals.

Any new approach to planetary thinking has to consider the human position within the animal realm – to which we belong. We are animals. How strange that we flaunt and praise our “civilization” and “progress” while we wear the skins of our fellow beings, enslave them in “meat industries,” trap and use them for experimentation and entertainment.  In the case of elephant and rhino poachers humans often shoot them with tranquilizer darts, then saw off their tusks while they are alive and leave them to die long and horrible deaths – all that for what is called “ivory” to be used for objects or adornments or ground up to sell as potions for sexual potency.

Obama comes late, as most people do, to the global plight of elephants.  But most remarkable, he does not come at all to the American equivalent:  whole sale federally funded massacre of wolves, coyotes, wild horses and other such “wild” animals in the west of the country. There is an industry for rounding up and killing wild horses for their meat. These and other killing actions are fueled primarily by the political contributions and the subsequent power of ranchers who abrogate unto themselves the kind of status formerly held by kings and emperors.  To increase, everlastingly, the profits of the meat industries – America is business - they demand to kill all animals who may encroach or compete from adjacent lands.

Since they are imperial, they see no other options. Since they possess the power of one of the globe’s most profitable businesses, they exist in private kingdoms within the United States. They are no more interfered with than the leaders of other sovereign nations.

Obama takes no stand on the wholesale killing of wildlife in the American west. 

Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that American “advisors” routinely use campaigns of education and various kinds of pleadings to convince those in “emerging” nations not to kill the wild animals who are a part of their identity, their heritage, their birthright – and not incidentally the foundation for profitable tourist and travel enterprises that can profoundly affect the quality of their lives. 

There are a few organizations and voices who speak for the animals of the American west.  {These “animals” are as American as you and I!)  However, in the overwhelming snarl of distortions, omissions and lies that comprise so-called news and information in the America that has come to be, they are voices in the wilderness.