Who’s Country is This?
This is a post in response to Abby’s post on President Bush’s plan to put American land from national reserves up for sale. Here is a link to her original post. http://abbyr.wordpress.com/2006/11/12/goodbye-national-land/#comment-55
I’m not sure that I have much to say that hasn’t already been said, but this issue rubs me so wrongly that I’m going to say it anyway.
If America is the land of quickfixes and half-baked schemes, then President Bush must be the poster child (how fitting). Land was put aside into national reserves for the purpose of saving it for future generations. The reasons for this saving include both saving the aesthetic qualities of the area, and saving the generally renewable resources they contain, so that America will have something to fall back on in an extreme emergency. Apparantly Mr. Bush has a different concept of what resources our National Forests contain. Based on what I’ve read now in Abby’s post and in her original article, Mr. Bush seems to be looking for some quick cash. Why would he do that? I don’t want to sound horribly accusational, but isn’t there a war going on? Hmm. If that is the truth, then I’m sorry (not really), but I do not find it acceptable at all to steal from the future in order to finance a war in the present that half of Americans no longer agree with. Stealing from the future so that a couple hundred more people can be killed? Of course, this money could be going towards other expenses, such as education, or transportation, or whatever else you will. But take a quick look at America’s national budget, and it’s clear where our money has been going. The Departament of Defense budget is $352.1 billion higher than the next highest number, $67.2 billion in the Departament of Health and Human Services.
To me, this does not seem right. The President attempting to permanently sell national land so he can get a few bucks once, while he’s got a $400 billion war interest going on. Sounds a bit rash.
Who’s this land going to anyway? Mentioned in the article were real estate and mining intrests, and other unmentioned development interests. Say real estate agencies buy some land. Who’s going to buy it and live there? The poor? Of course not! This would just benefit the rich by giving them another summer/winter home. Little to no progress would be made in America’s current housing problems. As far as I’m concerned, that land would be wasted. It would go from being national land accessible to all Americans to being private land that benefits no one except the owner. Does this remind anyone else of class priviledge and landed aristocracy?
Mining ravages landscapes, and to subject some of our selectly preserved lands to this, because the country is lacking money, while engaged in a very expensive war that seems very well to not have had a veritable cause, seems rash, immoral, and irresponsible. Mining can leave the ecosystems it affects as virtual deserts. I ask, why create two battlegrounds when one is too many?
Basically, my concern is that our national lands, preserved for all citizens, are at risk of being sold to private interests, and as far as I’m concerned, this is theft.
Original article:
http://www.sierraclub.org/forests/notforsale/
U.S. 2006 National Budget
