Going Feral: A lack of the land ethic in office.

Going Feral: A lack of the land ethic in office.: 

A lack of the land ethic in office.

Back when I was 18 years old and first registered to vote, I registered as a Republican.  The first President I voted for was Ronald Reagan.

Soon thereafter, relative terms, and certainly before I went to the University of Wyoming I changed my registration to Democrat.  Wildlands had a lot to do with that, maybe everything, almost, to do with that.  Sometime prior to the Fall of 1983 I'd concluded that the Democrats wanted to protect nature, where as Ronald Reagan's Administration, with James Watt as the Secretary of the Interior, most definitely didn't care about it.

I was a Democrat for a very long time, but I often voted Republican, following a family trait of really voting very independently.  If you aren't thinking about the person you are actually voting for, you aren't thinking.  I voted, I know, for our Democratic Governors, but I also voted, I know, for some Republican Congressional candidates.  Starting prior to the 2000 election I started to consider 3d parties.  Some time after that I became disgusted with the Democrats constant embrace of abortion and changed my political affiliation to none.  By that time a lot of Wyoming Democrats were feeling the same way and a lot of them drifted into the GOP, some so solidly that they're regarded as stalwart traditional Republicans now, which in a lot of ways, they are.

I also eventually came into the GOP.  

I was comfortable, if often upset, with the GOP up until it nominated Donald Trump for the Oval Office the first time, which absolutely horrified me and still does.  This term, which is illegitimate (Trump is a seditionist who has not had the ban from holding office lifted upon him by Congress), has been bad beyond my fears as to what it would be.  Trump is all about land rape on the land.

We're back to the 1970s, I fear.

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Condemns Effort to Roll Back Public Lands Rule

Posted by Nadia Marji | September 12, 2025

Trump moves to nix Public Lands rule; Alfalfa exports data dump

Also re-upping and freeing-up a piece on political violence and rhetoric

I still am registered as a Republican, but I constantly debate it. The Wyoming "Sweet Home Alabama" pack of carpetbaggers Freedumb Caucus has gained control of the Legislature and is busy driving through the state's culture like the Dukes' of Hazzard through Hazzard County in the Gen. Lee.  It's disgusting.  There''s some reason to believe that this is changing, but it isn't changing quickly enough.  Wyoming's GOP Congressional delegation supported the land raping proposal by the Senator from Deseret, Mike Lee, in spite of the majority of Wyomingite's being opposed to it.  "Your dumb" was the practical reaction to Wyoming voters from one of the three.

If you aren't a registered Republican, you aren't going to get to have a say in the primary, which is why I'm still there. Am I one of the RINO's that Chuck Gray cries about?  If the current GOP reflects the Republican Party, I am.  There's no alternative here, however.

This is all appalling.  

Lex Anteinternet: Public Lands demand Action This Day.

Lex Anteinternet: Public Lands demand Action This Day.:  

Public Lands demand Action This Day.

 

It appears the Big Ugly Bill with Mike Lee's scheme to sell public lands that fall within the former putative state of Deseret, which he acts as if he represents, will occur today or tomorrow.

Call you people in Congress today and inform them you are opposed.

If you live in Wyoming, inform them that they better start putting in their resumes for post Congressional punditry right now, as you'll not vote for them for anything ever again.  They aren't representing you if they vote for this.

Lex Anteinternet: Earth Day, 2024. Native to this place.

Lex Anteinternet: Earth Day, 2024. Native to this place.: 

Earth Day, 2024. Native to this place.

We have become a more juvenile culture. We have become a childish "me, me, me" culture with fifteen-second attention spans. The global village that television was supposed to bring is less a village than a playground...

Little attempt is made to pass on our cultural inheritance, and our moral and religious traditions are neglected except in the shallow "family values" arguments.

Wes Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place

Today is Earth Day, 2024.

In "Red State", which now means more than it used to as the Reds in the Red States are supporting the Russian effort to conquer Ukraine, and hence are aligned with what the old Reds would have wanted, it's not going to mean all that much.  I don't expect there to be much in the way of civil observances.

I saw a quote by somebody whose comments I wouldn't normally consider, that being Noam Chomsky, in which he asserted that a certain class of people who are perceived (not necessarily accurately) as something beyond evil, as they're putting all of humanity in jeopardy for a "few dollars" when they already have far more than they need.  That is almost certainly unfair.  Rather, like so much else in human nature, mobilizing people to act contrary to their habits is just very hard.  And some people will resist any concept that those habits are harmful in any fashion.

Perhaps, therefore, a bitter argument is on what people love.  People will sacrifice for that, and here such sacrifices as may be needed on various issues are likely temporary ones.

Of course, a lot of that gets back to education, and in this highly polarized time in which we live, which is in part because we're hearing that changes are coming, and we don't like them, and we've been joined by people here locally recently who have a concept of the local formed by too many hours in front of the television and too few in reality.  We'll have to tackle that.  That'll be tough, right now, but a lot of that just involves speaking the truth.

While it has that beating a horse aspect to it, another thing we can't help but noting, and have before, is that an incredible amount of resistance to things that would help overall society are opposed by those who are lashed to their employments in nearly irrevocable ways.  In this fashion, the society that's actually the one most likely to be able to preserver on changed in some fashions are localist and distributist ones.   Chomsky may think that what he is noting is somehow uniquely tied to certain large industries, but in reality the entire corporate capitalist one, which of course he is no fan of, as well as socialist ones, which he is, are driven by concepts of absolute scale and growth.  That's a systematic culture that's very hard to overcome and on a local scale, when people are confronted with it, they'll rarely acknowledge that their opposition is based on something that's overall contrary to what they otherwise espouse.  We see that locally right now, where there are many residents opposed to a local gravel pit, who otherwise no doubt make their livings from the extractive industries.

But I'd note that this hasn't always been the case here.  It was much less so before the influx of outsiders who stayed after the most recent booms.  And that too gives us some hope, as the people who are of here and from here, like people of and from anywhere they're actually from, will in fact act for the place.

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Lex Anteinternet: Missing the point: Blog Mirror; Dennis Sun: Biden's Climate Change Actions Will Be & How They Affect Agriculture

Lex Anteinternet: Missing the point: Blog Mirror; Dennis Sun: Biden...: From the Cowboy State Daily: Dennis Sun: Biden's Climate Change Actions Will Be & How They Affect Agriculture The real thing that wi...

Missing the point: Blog Mirror; Dennis Sun: Biden's Climate Change Actions Will Be & How They Affect Agriculture

From the Cowboy State Daily:

Dennis Sun: Biden's Climate Change Actions Will Be & How They Affect Agriculture

The real thing that will affect agriculture, particularly the beef industry, is in failing to attempt to arrest climate change.

I've long been utterly baffled by; 1) grazers failure to get a clue over climate change, and 2) ongoing agricultural admiration for the Republican Party.

More than anyone, those who graze ought to be able to freakin' wake up and notice that the climate ain't what it used to be.  I'll hear ranchers talk about it, but they seem incapable of closing the circle. Gee, it's been warm. Gee, it's been dry. Gee, we have no grass.

D'uh.

But climate change? Nope, not happening.

Now there are some exceptions. The late Pat O'Toole, who married into a Carbon County ranching family, was one.  But by and large ranchers simply refuse to believe that something is happening, even while worrying about what is happening.

Hmmm. . . 

And ironically, practices in the industry which gave it a larger carbon footprint are quite recently  Older ranchers can easily look back on an industry that wasn't diesel powered.

On the GOP, ranchers seem to have a really dedicated belief that the Republican Party protects their ability to do what they want.  In reality, the Democrats have preserved ranch lands themselves. The GOP is more of the development party, which never ends up actually benefitting ranchers.  I'll them complain about this too, but not close the circle.  Why is this oil company in my pasture?  Why are squatters trailers showing up all over.  Why are out of state rich buying this up and not doing anything about it?

Why indeed?

Maybe because of how we vote and whose support we choose to ignore.

Lex Anteinternet: Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns

Lex Anteinternet: Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns: 

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns: Ted William's recent article in Audobon lambastes hunters, anglers, and environmental activists for failing to make common cause. In ...

Interesting comment.

I have long thought this very thing.