The North Coast times-eagle., June 01, 1995, Page 9, Image 9

PAGE 9
BUT WASN'T IT GOOD WHILE IT LASTED?
BY R. LOUIS RICHARDS
I have long considered Irene and Kent Martin to be my
friends. I've too often been on the receiving end of their gener­
osity to feel otherwise. Whereas my argumentativeness may be
the negative balance for my honesty, and my cache of facts and
opinions may be to some degree errant, I hope I can make a few
statements without endangering our friendly rapport. It is as just
another human trying to get by on the same Earth that I offer
this as work, hopefully, toward understanding.
I was reading Irene’s article in the May 1995 issue of the
Times Eagle (Work Is Our Joy*) when I started scratching out a
few reactive notes. Admittedly, the quotes I pull up may be out
of context. I hope I haven't misunderstood any of her intention. I
deeply respect and appreciate both the quality thinking and the
sincerity she invested in her writing.
The idea of "frontier" that she takes up from a 1991
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) article she quoted,
says more to me about the conquest psychology of an empire
culture than the reality of a necessity to find lifestyles contained
wthin the natural balance. The last widespread application of
such a balanced lifestyle fell victim to the outreach of what was
a generally global conquest. Part of the conqueror's plunder
was/is the controlling of the mindset of the conquered.
She states, 'The shift in terminology from such words as
fishing, farming, and logging, to 'extractive' industries carries a
negative moral weight, which in turn justifies the turning over of
resources to the morally superior non-extractive users." This
may or may not be true. When we feel attacked or threatened,
we can get defensive and look for fault in the alternatives. Any
new course should be carefully considered, but preferably when
the fearful or painful emotions have been dealt with. I believe
we each want what is best for us all.
In my usage, the term "resource extraction" would not
be meant to debase anyone's humanity or moral standing. To
me it is simply, and precisely, the definitive term for what fish­
ing, whaling, logging, mining, and any forms of manufacturing or
agriculture requiring the import/export of resources (air, chemi­
cal, energy, species, and/or water) actually are. A spade is a
spade. Extractive is extractive. If a grizzly bear threw a plastic
net in the river and sold salmon, it would qualify as extractive.
Our mining of the very finite supply of virgin forests has always
been extractive. There has never been anything renewable
about the exchange of plantations for biota.
It is certainly not my intention here to say that some
form of top down enforcement would be the right choice. The
contextual predicament seems far beyond any definable
position's present means. We have little time to do what is right
and necessary, and perceivably a better chance of winning the
lotto. It may be the most we can hope for just to have given it
our best shot because we cared enough to try.
Morals would enter the equation only when we have
realized and understood that there are negative implications in
our actions and we consciously choose personal gain over a
recognized greater good. Unwse behavior due to ignorance, or
to a denial symptomatic of psychological illness, is to be
expected and empathized with under our current conditions.
Today, as a culture, we are no less than any other addicted
organism. We could all easily die from our condition. This is
very possible and in the view of Dr. Bob, the prognosis is doubt­
ful. He doesn't feel he has the time or luxury of a comforting
bedside manner.
We go on to ask, "Is there not a disturbing echo here of
how the original frontier was created by means of a land grab
from the aboriginal inhabitants of North America. Must frontier
creation always involve a wrestling away of resources from one
owner/user by another?" Yes is what I would say in recognition
of the nature of the conquering empire. The aboriginal inhabit­
ants were not 'owners' or 'users' of a 'frontier or 'resources'. To
said aboriginals these forms and ideas were completely foreign.
They were simply part of the life of the Earth and are blameless
of any result arising from their having been invaded.
We cannot separate the case of the salmon's decline
from the kaleidoscopic context of the empire culture. We exist
here in a last little back comer of the continental United States,
part of a constitutional republic protracted some time ago from
British common law. We are tied by law and economy to the
world of empire. Some say we can't go back. This, fellow
lemmings, may well be true. We do have the capabilities of
superior lemmings, should we choose to use them. Our progress
toward the great leap is being covered, live, by the Goodyear
blimp. We can tune in at 11 and listen to discussions of what the
movement of the herd really means. Is it a cliff or just a virtual
cliff? Amazingly, the pros and cons of running en masse toward
some kind of precipice are being debated right this moment as
we continue our run.
Yes, I agree. We must understand the economic and
theological aspects of the social question. Chapter one of the
Bible commands the Judeo-Christian Empire that this oft trans­
lated and variously interpreted book so strongly influences, to
subdue the Earth and dominate it. This is no less than the
conceptual codification of the empire, serving its prototypical
emperor, the dominator god.
We are asked: "Must a pro-environmental stand elimin­
ate all human considerations?" The very question shows that the
full context is not seen.
It is stated: 'There was a time when the Judeo-Christian
tradition was the undergirding of a nation's philosophy of taming
the frontier." Was the state in which the invaders found this
continent so terrible?
"How does the society choose to sacrifice one ethic for
another?" I don't know, I guess it just does, providing it's not too
late. Didn't General Sheridan order the destruction of the buffalo
in order to eliminate and replace a long proven and functioning
Earth-centered ethic, seen as no ethic at all by the blessed
barbarians?
Don't expect the defenders of the Earth, battling the
empire, to act entirely politely when they perceive us to be in an
emergency situation. Once "pirates" used cannons. Now maybe
they use 25-mile pieces of clear plastic web. Few are out there
to catch fish as to net living gold. How much of their nearly
eternal webbing now sits on the bottom beyond the continental
shelf, fishing on forever? What if an industry generated invisible
"From Legacy & Testament: The Story of Columbia
River Gillnetters by Irene Martin (Washington State University
Press).
backyards and beaches vastly expanded. Their kids didn't have
to play out in the road in front. But their kids get leukemia in
every second household.
People thought I was being unreasonable because I
would not compromise about a few dollars as I opposed every
increase in the basic rate of electrical supply I insisted that
morally only the use rate should be increased Using an old
refrigerator outside of my wood heated space on the north side
of my cabin, a few lights, a solid state radio and the occasional
power tool, my usage of electricity was limited to what could do
best for me After three years wthout any electrical service, my
consumption was under 1000 kilowatt hours per year, or about
equal to the continuous use of one 100 watt bulb Paying only
the basic charge, which often exceeded my usage, in about
fifteen years my charges went from $18 per year to almost $120
In this system of negative feedback I was punished for conserv­
ing electrical power and not tripping up the salmon.
Yeah, I still use electricity, paper, food and gas. I too am
a prisoner of the empire context. Many of my lifestyle decisions
have been based on environmental considerations with no hope
of monetary compensation. Besides no longer eating meat or
salmon, cars, fuel and insurance are now beyond my ability to
pay. My 'net' monetary worth (no pun intended) could not come
close to the value of a modem gillnet boat with its mechanized
high-tech gear and fuel guzzling engine. I've been called in the
pejorative by some professional resource extractors a "preser­
vationist." Thank you. If I were to characterize those too greedy
to change course, I'd call them "mercenaries in the war against
Nature" and think I was describing them quite accurately.
We talk of blaming victims when I can go to the local
store and buy a "Campbell's Cream of Spotted Owi Soup" T-
shirt or cap. I've heard no one casting such aspersions toward
CHRISTOPHE VORLET
the salmon which has its respect based on an economic stand­
ing to which the lowly and "useless" owi can make no such
claim.
suffocating snares capable of being lost along our children's
Sportsmen (so-called) condemn the netters. Are those
route to school? If there was enough money in it, do you
who hook and engage an innocent and unwilling opponent in a
suppose it would be okay? Am I being an alarmist? Why have I
life or death struggle, just for the fun of it, the more moral? I've
found so many lost nets along the river over the years? Because
worked the fish commercially, both hook and net. I also "played"
they were discarded or got away from someone, obviously.
many a fish for my personal pleasure. I did this for many years
The dangerous troth is we can't live without fish to eat.
without ever a question that I would cop to at the time Such was
Living as I do (conservatively) I have long been priced out of the
my cultural programming. If I said I'd never felt the twinge of
market for salmon. This planet's destruction is not about our
conscience, I'd be lying.
living. It's about our living higher on the hog Maybe the time
I've cut down my share of trees and even had a sawmill.
has come to question our moral bases. And what, precisely, are
I've picked oysters, raked clams, stolen Douglas fir cones from
the standards we think of as "just getting by?"
the squirrels that worked so hard to cut them. I've secretly
I don't want the "dehumanization of loggers." I want the
broken international law under orders in the military. I've hunted
"deloggerization of humans." Aren't humans reputed to be the
and farmed for subsistence. For my ego and a rush of excite­
most adaptive species on Earth after the cockroach? So, ulti­
ment I've wastefully raced cars. We all do what we've got to do.
mately, this is all simply a question of our choices of identity,
Just when it will be that we start knowing and dealing with the
isn't it. Richard Bach said in his book Illusions, "Argue for your
implications of our actions is to each of us our personal ques­
limitations, and sure enough they're yours."
tion.
This is not a question of who is to blame so much as
Our communities are communities of self-interest. I
what is to blame. And what is to blame is our socio-religious
think Bill Gunderson's observations are indicative of what the
software, our cultural operating programs. When we get a
"subdue the Earth" empire ethic does when it reaches the end
message indicating danger we must stay mentally cognizant,
of its blessed subduing. He said, "It's sort of barbaric." Yes it is.
fight off our programmed tendency toward denial, and try to
Must we buy the biggest engine and pour in the most fuel to be
embrace what we have learned.
the first boat to the drift? Are we all out for corkin' each other at
Be it lemmings off the cliff or the Apocalypse, we are
the trough? We have been programmed to our appetites for fine
without a doubt, accelerating the decrease of the life and health
homes, green lawns, energy, wood products, metals, meat, fish,
of this planet by our actions. Armageddon is not a done deal.
and most of all more money. It seems there is never enough
God is not to blame. We don't own God though we each own a
money.
human's conceptual description of Her. We are each responsible
We're asked, "What happens when the fishing commun­
for what comes out of what we choose to believe. Call it free
ities change into retirement communities and resort towns,
agency. We are affecting all life, personally and culturally, in our
sending the price of waterfront property so high that fishing
own home and across the whole globe.
families must relocate?" Nice while it lasted, wasn't it? Sucks for
The Columbia River. I imagine it once had as many
most all of us though, doesn't it? What happens? I don't know,
names as the various nations it easily supported What once
maybe we cash in our highly appreciated real estate and
spread down and around out of the Canadian Rockies like a
contribute the capital gains to the Earth Firstlers who have put
giant cornucopia is now sick and tiring. I would not find it
their bodies on the line, been beaten up, bombed, burned out,
surprising to leam that the earliest Euro-barbarian explorers to
murdered, had their pets killed, and have gone to jail for us all,
cross the bar on a calm high slack tide could look down from
in spite of us, with no pay, and who intend their sacrifices only
their gunwales through clear crystal and see the corrugated
for the greater good You can’t buy 'em, these eco-defenders.
sandy bottom wth shoals of fish, flying over it through liquid air.
Maybe we don't like what they do, but you've got to give 'em
Dams have slammed shut over the thresholds of the
some credit.
legendary June Hogs' homes. The biggest and best, first to
So the official word is that we need diversity in our
decline, now disappeared. The waters slow to a near stop and
culture. How can we have cultural diversity when we all seek the
turn to the particulate green of southern rivers traversing flat
same power, that of The Economy of Empire that is working its
deserts.
damage worldwide? It is the economy that will dredge the
Poisons, invisible, black, orange and white, pour dowi
channel for deeper draft ships, pumping the heavy metals and
from mills, mines, smelters, and radioactive tailings and waste
radioactive sands up on the shores and islands. It is the econ­
dumps, to find their lowest levels in the absolute desecration of
omy that w ll bleach its paper waiter with dioxins, making the
glaciers and forests' patiently created purity
ocean dwelling salmon only the least carcinogenic of the fish in
Throughout Columbia's drainage cattle piss and shit in
the Columbia. It is the economy that will develop the waterfronts
every tiny tributary that they can't possibly reach They trample
for profit. And who says that El Nino is a "natural" disaster? It is
down the banks and much of what they don't eat as they
the result of equatorial warming, which is driving polar cooling,
unconsciously race to our Sunday barbecues and fastfood
which is driving the heat engine of our stronger and stronger
slums. Cultured by the mind-craft of the moneyed classes, we
storms Not proven? Okay, everything is A-okay. Forget I said it,
and our children see it as the natural way to be Bon Appetit
have a drink. It's time for Rush, turn on the TV We must evolve
or perish
Whole provinces and states of shaved hills and mount­
ains replace what were once called watersheds so we can have
I just called Okie's Store and received a quoted retail
phone books, newspapers, napkins and the rest. I have seen a
price for Chinook salmon today in Naselle, Washington, at $5 a
6x3 foot satellite photo of British Columbia's motheaten Crown
pound Clear vertical grain (old growth) Douglas fir presently at
Forests. Don't assume they will be outdone by the Yanks. The
the yard in Astoria is $5.85 per board foot. Curiously, it's roughly
Chinese, even before the Bible, had embraced the cadence of
the same price by weight, the fir costing just slightly more
empire and stripped their own forests, laying down hundreds of
While several species of salmon teeter on the very edge
feet of silt in their river valleys. They now invest in papermills in
of eternity and many of the remaining big firs are "harvested"
British Columbia that scrape the trees from whole watersheds
under the latest canard of "salvage logging," the very rich, in
Meanwhile, Canadian copper mining interests lobby to subvert
their hotels and mansions of clear grained Douglas fir, will still
longstanding water quality legal standards in the Cascades, as
dine on Chinook salmon. When no legal form of reaping these
South African and Dutch corporations spray water mixed wth
lifeforms still remains, a black market will arise from the dark
cyanide on ground-up portions of Eastern Oregon to leach out
depths of their deep pockets All the while, just as Chief Seattle
any traces of gold.
said, his people's spirits, unseen, w ll silently walk amongst us.
Disease plagues our mother river. Near the town of
Like any finite 'resource' on the verge of elimination, the
Boundary, Washington, where the Columbia crosses in from
salmon like the old growth trees before them took off on a steep
Canada, residents on the river suffer an inordinate level of
curve up the dollar graph. As the big trees' and salmon's value
intestinal disorders. Only a few miles north of the border, heavy
jumped the moneyed middlemen were quick to carve out a big­
metals and uranium have been entering the water for over half a
ger slice of the pie for themselves Fewer fishermen and fewer
century.
loggers were needed to provide the hard dirty sweaty labor
The stretch of choppy water near the Dalles, Oregon,
They were played off against each other for the dwindling jobs,
draws thousands of windsurfers from all over the world Many
held loyal to the industry by no more than a good living wage at
have complained of various elements, and many no longer go
the most.
there for the great wnd conditions just 120 miles downstream
Work was their joy.
from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation
The south shore of Puget Island, Washington, known
as Sunny Sands, faces the ship channel It's a handy place to
R. Louis Richards (aka the 99th Monkey) lives near
pump dredge spoils. This was a great thing for everyone The
Nasselle, Washington. He is a frequent contributor to the NCTE
U S. Army Corps of Engineers got rid of the deep channel sand
his most recent, It s Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding appeared in
International commerce prospered. The home owners got their
the May 1995 issue.