And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 19:41:53 -0800 (PST) From: Eugene Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Those Damned Dams THOSE DAMN DAMS by Eugene Johnson (He Who Laughs A Lot) This is how I see it all starting... White Americans looked at the beautiful wild Che Wana (Columbia River) and all its power to provide for the people, then looked to god and said, "god, you did good work here. It's really nice. But god, you just didn't do it well enough. Let me show you how you should have done it to make it really provide for the people." Since then, they have dammed and built industries that have made the Columbia River the most endangered river in the United States and the second most radioactive river in the world. In the Sunday Oregonian of November 7, there appeared one article and one opinion piece about why the dams shouldn't be breached. The article, authored by Jonathan Brinckman and Jim Barnett, states that "government scientists have spent three years studying whether breaching four dams on the lower Snake River would be the best way to save endangered salmon." Until the federal government got involved and dammed and polluted the Columbia, the river was a great provider for all the people. The federal government does not care about its people, they care about amassing more wealth for the already wealthy. It is the wealthy that have the ear of our government, not the poor who cannot contribute as much to political campaigns. Since it is a study paid for by the government, and the government is owned by the wealthy, does this study benefit all the people or only the wealthy? The wealthy, of course. Who are the people most interested in keeping the dams? The energy corporations and the Department of Energy. Why? Because it adds to their wealth. Is saving the salmon something the energy corporations and the Department of Energy really care about? No, because saving salmon does not create wealth for the status quo. Who do the power corporations answer to? Their stockholders. What do their stockholders want? Maximum profits for the short term investment. Who does the Department of Energy answer to? Energy corporations. Basically, saving salmon does not create wealth for those who already have wealth. America prays to but one god, the Almighty Dollar. The article states that the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Administration support this study. The BPA senior policy advisor, Lorraine Bodi, is one of the authors. Whose interests do you think she had in mind when helping create this study: the people, or the energy corporations? The study is cleverly called the "4H Paper," making reference to: harvest, hatcheries, habitat and hydroelectric power. Of course, "4H" is also a youth agricultural education organization. A clever manipulation on the part of America's corporate propagandists. It makes it all sound so nice and pretty, doesn't it? Other industries opposed to salmon recovery are: logging, because it would restrict their "logging to infinity" policy (James Watt, former Secretary of the Interior, stated in the '80's that the "rapture" is coming so we need to clear cut for profit now); the cattle industry, whose grazing practices destroy habitat; developers, who want to leave no stretch of land untouched; farmers, who would have to extend their irrigation pumps to reach the lowered river; and chemical companies, who make environmentally damaging household cleansers, the use of which may soon be limited in cities whose drainage goes into the Columbia River. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it seems Americans think of themselves as too stupid to come up with ways to survive and make money in a sound and self-sustaining environment. The opinion piece in the paper makes several ironic statements. It tells us in the first paragraph the dam breaching "may not be the best way to save salmon," and in the second paragraph it states that the nine agencies that authored the "4H Paper" say that it's not the only method. Minor, yes, but listen to paragraph two: "the Snake River dams, while responsible for salmon mortality, are not the fish-killing fields that many claim." What is he saying? Dams are responsible for killing salmon, but they aren't responsible for killing salmon? Yes, he killed many unarmed people on his shooting spree, but that doesn't make him a murderer... In four recently published Oregonian articles, "environmental terrorism" was used to describe people who want to save some of the natural world for the future of the planet and its people. "Environmental heroes" are industries that destroy the environment to amass wealth for the few at the expense of the many. I'm told there was no mention of clearcutting, radioactive rivers, industrial pollution, overgrazing, pesticides that cause cancer, etc. in these articles (I couldn't stomach reading the corporate propaganda myself). What this study actually does is continue to table the discussion of salmon recovery while corporations continue to rape our mother earth for maximum profit. When the salmon are extinct in the Snake River, the corporations will point their propagandist finger at the tribes and environmentalists. The corporate mouthpieces will likely say that if it wasn't for the salmon-huggers, the salmon would have survived, even though it's corporate activities that caused the extinction of the salmon in the first place. It is corporate waffling and tabling of the discussion that has delayed the implementation of any kind of real recovery plan. Since corporations largely control the media, they will convince most Americans that their version of reality is true. Corporate interests will continue to erode support for the environmentalists and go virtually unchallenged in their rape and destruction of our mother earth for maximum short-term profits. One has to ask: when the earth can no longer sustain life because of our actions, what will our children eat, drink, and breathe? Do we care? After all, everything is fine for me right now. Besides, it was only true that god didn't know how to provide for the people and we had to teach god the truth and the error of his ways. (I hope you are aware that I am being facetious.) As Sherman Alexie reminds us in his poem "Prophecy:" "This is not the river we were promised." ===== Copyright ©1999 Eugene D. Johnson. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to redistribute this message, with this proviso attached. Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
