The Barbarians Are At The Gate
gray wolf
The barbarians are at the gate. The reference is not about the RJR Nabisco company that experienced a failed leveraged buyout during a bidding war, or how the Romans encircled their enemies, but by those killing our wildlife for their own selfish reasons. The barbarism towards animals goes along with an impotent, heartless, and barely literate populous. We have a Congress filled with porn obsessors, grifters, Nazis, nitwits, conspiracy theorists, bimbos, bozos, marginally human gunslinging cretins, and liars. They gather together in significant numbers in the GOP—Gang of Putin party, which lives inside the larger Party of Trump.
They are on an oil and gas consuming bender in hopes to use as much of it as possible. Creating a country with a mindful soul is not of interest to them.
The Great Lakes Ojibwe, as well as many native peoples around the world, believe that animals are humans and their relatives; therefore, deserving of respect. We live in a cult-species world and by doing so, it gives us a feeling of wholeness. It is unfortunate that the barbarians at the gate are happy to exterminate many animals with their rifles, snares and traps.
They believe in a throw away society. Dominionism is their creed—man’s sovereign control over nature. It’s rooted in Christian belief. It is a belief embraced by the far-Reich American radical Christians. This belief dictates government policies. Burn fossil fuels in spite of the outcome damaging our planet’s ability to manage the climate. Those same fossil fuels are used to manufacture plastics and styrofoam used in everyday packaging filling up our landfills. Miles and piles of landfills. Waste recycling is too inconvenient for far too many Americans. Outta sight, outta mind. Glass bins, cardboard bins, metal bins, paper bins are only available to too few communities, instead of being mandatory and patriotic. America is a country that specializes in throwing everything away. Reuse, recycle, and repurpose are practices very foreign to most Americans, as is veganism, vegetarianism, and organics. Americans are addicted to bad practices and bad behaviors.
Patriotism has become a yard filled with American flags, while stacking up very reusable items and donatable household goods at the curb for the trash hauler to pick up and dump at the nearest landfill. In many communities glass no longer is permitted to go into the curbside recycling bin along with metals, cardboard and paper, which are still picked up in that bin. So glass ends up going into the garbage bag hauled off to the dump. These fake patriots might be able to haul their own glass containers to a designated glass recycling dumpster in their community or greater metro area, but they are too lazy, too ignorant, or just too busy to make the effort to be more environmentally conscious and actually show true patriotism by saving the planet. But no. Come Springtime, they begin spraying their lawns with toxic chemicals, which is more important than to understand that those toxic weed killing chemicals get washed into the groundwater, then into storm sewers, and eventually find their way into water treatment plants processed for drinking water. Not all chemicals get filtered out. One such class of chemical plastics, which are called microplastics are another problem. We now all have these plastic micro-pellets circulating throughout bodies. They, too, don’t get totally filtered out of our drinking water. There are PFAS chemicals that are not getting filtered out of our drinking water, either. “PFAS are man-made chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer products worldwide since the 1950s. They have been used in non-stick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain resistant fabrics and carpets, some cosmetics, some firefighting foams, and products that resist grease, water, and oil.”
The New Yorker writer Bill McKibben explains that solar, wind and geo-thermal systems have become more economical to manufacture , install, and use than what is going on in the fossil fuel industry. “…a few nations—including Iceland, Costa Rica, Namibia, and Norway—are already producing more than ninety per cent of their electricity from clean sources.” “In December, Mark Jacobson’s Stanford team published an updated analysis, stating that we have ninety-five per cent of the technology required to produce a hundred per cent of America’s power needs from renewable energy by 2035, while keeping the electric grid secure and reliable.” Here is an interesting footnote, Democrat Joe Manchin received more fossil-fuel donations in the past election cycle than anyone else in the Senate. “Senator Patrick Toomey, of Pennsylvania, who was the Senate’s sixth-biggest recipient of oil-and-gas contributions during his last campaign…” “…the cost of coal is flat, and the cost of solar is plummeting…” “…renewable power actually uses less land than fossil fuels, which require drilling fifty thousand new holes every year in North America alone.”
So many Americans have nothing better to do than to kill. This country has killed 1.7M animals in just one single year!!! It is enough to make one very sick.
The solution to a problem with wildlife is to kill it. This is where Dominionism comes into the picture. Even the U.K’s Guardian publication is appalled by rancher, farmer, developer, industrialist solutions to encroaching wildlife, which is to exterminate them. Killing 200 animals per hour is the answer. If a wolf, bear, coyote, cougar steps outside the boundary of a national park, these blood thirsty, gun toting men with low levels of testosterone are waiting to kill as a way to prove that their masculinity is still intact. For example, a gray wolf unaware of the invisible boundary line gets shot by these human predators.
Kill the bees; kill the wolves; kill the wildflowers; spray poisons over the fields; plow down old growth trees; poison the salmon rivers; dump toxins in the oceans; poison the groundwater and soils; Frack the aquifers and fill them with methane gas; all to satisfy the bottomline of greedy corporations.
This is the country we live in. A country where 50% of the people lack common sense, critical thinking skills, and cannot read above a sixth grade level. Many of these people, as well as many composing the other 50 percent do not think about their actions and the long term impacts of those decisions and actions.
antelope
The obliteration of moose, antelope, owls, otters, and turtles, just to name a few, is how they soothe their emptiness. 1M starlings, 143K feral hogs, 75K Northern Pike fish; 66K pigeons; 64K coyotes; 27K Canadian geese; 25K beavers; 22K Chestnut Munias, just to name a few, were killed just last year.
Last year, 404,538 native animals were killed by our very own Wildlife Services on behalf of farmers, ranchers, developers, industrialists, which also “included 324 gray wolves, 64,131 coyotes, 433 black bears; 200 mountain lions; 605 bobcats; 3,014 foxes, and 24, 687 beavers.”
Chestnut Munia
The Wildlife Services use barbaric methods to kill, such as “leg hold traps, snares, and poisons.” Also, following in Sarah Palin’s footsteps, animals are killed from aircraft. In 2008 and 2010 the Wildlife Services killed 5M animals!! This illustrates that Democratic presidents are not anymore compassionate toward our wildlife than the GOP when it comes to conserving the lives of wild animals critical to our delicate ecosystem.
bobcat
“M-44 cyanide “bombs” were used to kill, as well. A cloud of sodium cyanide powder kills in 5 minutes after being triggered by a curious animal. Thus far, it is still legal even after a child walking his dog in Pocatello, Idaho triggered a canister covering them both in the deadly powder. The boy survived but his dog was not so lucky.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland doesn’t appear to be putting an end to these acts of barbarism. She apparently answers to the rancher, farmer, developer and industrialist. She doesn’t seem to be an ally of our wildlife and wildlands, as well as, the pollinators, and the pollen producers. Plant and animal species are disappearing forever every year. Our waterways, streams and creeks, and aquifers are still being polluted, in spite of the fact that clean and clear water is a resource on the edge of extinction, as well. Recycling and reprocessing remain an option, and not mandatory. If it is too expensive, it become out of reach.
beaver
Just as our society finds the front end of consumer goods (retail, grocery, etc.) valuable and important, we need to realize that the back end (trash, garbage, etc.) must be understood as equally important to our society and not dismissed as worthless trash.
Georgia’s largest garbage dump
To contact Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland:
U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240.