Jim's Eclectic World

Wells Fargo and the Loss of Our Voices: One Anarchist's View

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:36:00 +0000

Original at Northern Rockies Independent Media Network at http://www.rockymt.org/?q=node/374.

In weeks past, I have – in my capacity as a member of Occupy Bozeman – written about many of the reasons why you should get your money out of big banks – particularly Wells Fargo – as part of a divestment campaign we are waging against the bank. That campaign continues with an action next week, and I have been a good foot soldier for the campaign.

Today, I write entirely for myself and my analysis of what really drives me to take on this campaign. In the past, I found myself appealing to the most selfish motives you might have for making a switch. I have mentioned high fees, high interest rates, and low rates of return. I have mentioned bailouts and subprime mortgages, investments in private prison companies, in the coal industry, and in fracking. I mentioned unfair practices toward people with disabilities and African Americans. I talked about fines and court settlements for wrongful practices. While all those things are and remain true, the appeal was mostly to address reasons why I think that you the reader might find Wells Fargo objectionable. I have spoken little of my own motivation.

I intend to do that in this essay. However, note that I do not think you need to accept the arguments I am about to give in order to come to the conclusion that getting your money out of Wells Fargo is a good idea. Nevertheless, I think there are reasons that may be overlooked that need to be brought to light. We may not always bring them out for fear of hurting the harmony in our organizing environment, realizing that we do not come to the same conclusions for action based on the same reasons. However, I would be dishonest not to point out my reasons and point us to these aspects of the discussion.

It is tempting to go into a diatribe against capitalism because at root this is what this is about and in defense of what I am, which is an anarchist. That is a necessary discussion to have, but it may take us too far adrift for the purposes of this essay. I want to hone in on an aspect of what big banks represent that I think is critical to talk about while fully well understanding that the issues I raise are really part of a much bigger discussion about the nature of governance, wealth, and our reaction to that world.

You should get your money out of Wells Fargo and other big banks because the very act of doing so is a direct affirmation of what has been silenced by them – your voice. The most pernicious thing about banks is not that they make record profits or are deceitful or take care of their investors while hanging you out to dry. What is most pernicious is that the whole process by which this happens fortifies a system that leaves you out of it, which limits your options to register and act on your disapproval.

Banks like Wells Fargo have largely become what we so affectionately term “too big to fail.” While that term has become quaint, I do not think we understand the full import of it. An institution that has become so large that it cannot be allowed to collapse for fear that it will send us into a depression essentially has become an unofficial arm of our government. If we cannot do without something for fear of collapse, then it is who and what we are. That these banks continue to engage in practices that keep the entire system teetering on the edge of collapse, we have much to fear in them because collapse does indeed bring greater economic hardship to those who can least afford more hardship. It is an untenable situation. Those held hostage are the people. As one example, we can easily see how the looming Greek default is being held at bay on the backs of the Greek people.

Wells Fargo, then, is a non-governmental financial institution that wields enormous leverage and power on the American government. No matter who you elect into office, the situation does not change. From George W. Bush to Barack Obama, the Wall Street interests and the financial institutions have held the country hostage. No one dares to let them collapse for fear of the political implications that arise from an economic superpower suddenly with more starving and jobless people than it already maliciously tolerates.

Thus, the one manna that most Americans believe is their power, their voice – the vote – is for nothing when it comes to this state of affairs. Voting, whatever else it might be, is not power to make any change when it comes to a bank like Wells Fargo. Even if you somehow managed to elect someone who would go after these banks, all you would be doing is setting up the conditions that will hurt the people who least can afford to be hurt. You will at once be propping up a political and economic system that allows for renegade banks to assert so much leverage, or you will be wiping them out and starting us surely into the storm of depression. Doing the latter might have some opportunities for the radicals among us to foment our lofty ideals of revolution, but only people with privilege can dare assert that they want the hungriest to become hungrier and the jobless to suffer even more. It is playing God to the extreme to think that we should manufacture economic crisis for a chance at a systemic change that is not likely to happen from those means. Look at the Arab Spring where dramatic increases in the price of basic goods drove people into the streets, toppled their governments, and found themselves ruled in most cases by the same ruling classes. Revolution is a beautiful idea, but it is not as easily attained as some imagine.

One might argue that maybe you could elect – in some strange world that does not seem to exist in America except in the racist pretenses of the Tea Party in their views of Obama – some socialist who will nationalize the banks and therefore rob them of their pernicious incentive to ruin us and the country. Thus, instead of a state that tries to keep banks in line through a Central Bank, we simply have another bank of the United States as the sole chartered national bank in the country. One has to ask, though, even if such a thing were to happen, what would fundamentally change in practice. Who would still have the most influence on government? The poor? In what sense would such a bank then be accountable to the people? While some of the pernicious incentives might be erased by such a move, it might mean less than what some might imagine. Wells Fargo and other big banks already are essentially arms of government; they are already institutionalized into the fabric of the country; they already have complete influence over governing. All you would be changing is the C.E.O. It would be little less than a nominal change in practice. Wells Fargo, whether in the private or the public sector, already is welded to the state. The rich will exert their leverage either way.

Thus, voting is not synonymous with your voice. It is not an action that you can take that does anything to restore what is lost in this system.

As a result, we are left with people in our country who have little say in the governance of their own lives. We are at the mercy of economic factors out of our control and political factors that keep us muted. While I can give an anarchist diatribe like this, it’s only because I have been deemed powerless. We are far from the days when Emma Goldman could be thrown in jail simply for passing out mere information about contraception, when a speech on any subject could get you thrown in jail for years. Everything is essentially entertainment. We can choose “taste’s great” or “less filling”; we can pay exorbitant rates to go to sporting matches, buy our cable and our internet where we can be free to watch or say a million things. Yet, all of that is because we are thoroughly defeated. When push comes to shove, if the food trucks stop coming, if the jobs go away, if your home is foreclosed – those are the things that really matter to the functioning of life – you really have no say whatsoever. It is a game ruled by a very small plutocracy. We have been left helpless and foolish like babbling idiots. It is no wonder that people care nothing for politics. Why should they? People also don’t care about essays like this; what does it matter? We need our fix; we are junkies in so many ways. We know the results of American Idol, or The Voice, but very few of us really know our neighbors or each other or believe or even think about whether anything is wrong. Those who do must because something is very wrong. They are sleeping homeless in our streets, dying too young on the reservation, and wasting away in prisons (perhaps for succumbing to the socially unacceptable drugs). They are often too weakened to take action, and most of us go on ignoring the truth we must all know – that we are not really free or secure.

What action can we take in such a system? Anything we can do which not only takes power from the system but also puts it in or closer to our hands is an action that not only hurts the system but also empowers us if and when such a system collapses. Thus, it is not enough to let big banks fail; we have to have means in place to take care of others when those banks fail. Moving money from one of the banks that are too big to fail into something like a credit union is not some revolutionary move in itself. Credit unions in the way they function in practice are not some idyllic solution; they are not all as democratic as they seem. Nevertheless, they represent the right kind of transition. Moving your money to a place that gives you a greater degree of control over it is a step toward restoring your voice. It begins the process of transferring the power that banks hold over you back to where it should be – within your community. Right now, your money goes to fund who knows what – anything and everything. Shouldn’t it be closer to the space where you live and breathe, where people still hear what your voice sounds like? Shouldn’t your voice be sounds and melodies coming from your vocal chords, and not an abstract balance sheet in a New York or San Francisco office, or a number on a voting tabulation?

The decentralization of capital from institutions that are too big to fail to those closer to where we breathe has the effect of wrestling control of the system from giant banks all while avoiding depression. Developing the means to exert real popular power at the local level gives the means for the community to take care of each other when federal systems begin to fail.

It is an act that tends to restore voice; of course, it is not enough. The banks do not represent the be all and end all of political and economic justice. There are many other things besides. We have touched on issues like food and shelter. Exerting greater control over the wealth within the community should offer some leverage to better deal with the problems we all face when the national and global economy collapses (either in part as is often in American history or in whole as it did during the Great Depression). If we are not completely at the mercy of the whims of policy makers and corporate executives somewhere else, we can actually take steps to do something about the things that matter to us.

Thus, it seems the first act is simple enough. Get your money out of a big bank, and move it somewhere else – preferably somewhere like a credit union. However, the second act, which can happen concurrently with the first, is to organize in your community and take actions together which deal with the needs in your community. The more we do that now, the more we find our voice, and ironically the more dangerous we become. Essays like this will no longer simply be for your reading entertainment. They will be seen as revolutionary calls to arms, the way that disseminating information on contraception was seen in this country only a century ago. That may be when things get interesting, but let’s get that far. We need to go that far, or one day – as they are discovering in places like Greece – things will not really be in our control. The rich will stay rich, somehow, but we will be starving and struggling to survive, much like so many already are – as the system does not ultimately care who thrives so long as those on top stay on top.

Please take action. Please get your money out of big banks, and please take action in your community. I don’t want this essay merely to be an exercise in vanity, which right now is all that it is.

Foreclose on Wells Fargo: So Many Reasons to Divest

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 06:12:00 +0000

Note: This article and many others I'm writing these days appears at the N. Rockies Indymedia site at rockyMT.org. - Jim
***

There are a lot of reasons to get your money out of the big banks – starting in Bozeman with Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank – but I don’t think people realize just how many reasons there are. Let’s look at Wells Fargo, in particular, where Occupy Bozeman has put out a call to divest.

I think everyone knows that Wells Fargo took over $35 billion in bailout money and is neck deep in the housing crisis – most recently being a party to a $26 billion settlement for a lawsuit brought by all 50 states regarding improprieties with foreclosures. What people don’t necessarily know, however, is Wells Fargo’s poor record on the environment, its ownership stake of corporations in the private prison industry, and charges it faces of discriminatory lending to African Americans and discriminatory practices against people with disabilities. Wells Fargo also spends a lot of the money it makes from your accounts on lobbying and political contributions. People may not know just how much money Wells Fargo makes from these practices, and they may not know that not every financial institution functions this way. There are alternatives to all these things, as well as to the high fees, low rates of return, and poor customer service that are also the hallmarks of Wells Fargo.

In brief, Wells Fargo contributes to economic disparity in this country. A first step toward economic justice in our community requires you to divest from Wells Fargo and other big banks. That will help our region, too, because it will keep your money here. More importantly, though, if a divestment campaign like this works – and evidence is that divestment campaigns like this are beginning to take hold – we will actually be taking a concrete step toward empowering the people rather than the economic interests of the one percent. It will represent a dramatic shift toward embracing an economy that considers the community stakeholders first rather than the one we have now that enriches the most affluent at the expense of everyone else.

Let us take a look at some of the reasons why you should divest from big banks in general and Wells Fargo in particular.

Wells Fargo Bank, headquartered in San Francisco, is the fourth largest bank in the United States and is the country’s largest mortgage provider. Last year, Wells Fargo’s net income was approximately $15 billion from $73 billion in gross profits.

Whatever you feel about profit, the bank ultimately is there not to serve its customers but to provide a profit for its shareholders. Therefore, there are often incentives for a bank to take actions that are not necessarily to the benefit of many of the bank's own customers.

That is how Wells Fargo has been implicated repeatedly in the housing crisis. Wells Fargo, like other big banks, engaged heavily in the subprime loans that precipitated much of the economic downturn. In fact, in July 2011, the Federal Reserve levied an $85 million fine, the largest ever of its type, against Wells Fargo for falsifying documents and pushing borrowers to the high-interest subprime loans. Worse than that, there are charges that Wells Fargo has specifically targeted poorer, particularly African American, borrowers for these bad mortgages. The charges are serious enough that the Department of Justice is currently investigating Wells Fargo on those charges.

Wells Fargo could do this to customers even if they believed that the buyer would default because it turned around and sold many of those mortgages to other investors, thus turning a profit. In many cases, the customers would have qualified for a lower interest loan, but Wells Fargo still steered people to the subprime loans because more money was to be made from it with very little consequence. For when the bottom fell out and banks were beginning to wobble and fail, most of those banks were deemed too big to fail, and so there were very few consequences. Wells Fargo received $36.9 billion in the bailout. Then, the government arranged the sale of Wachovia - a bank that was failing - to Wells Fargo in a sweet deal of about $1 per share. There were also relatively few legal consequences. An $85 million fine is nothing for a company that nets over $15 billion a year. Even a $4 billion share in a $26 billion settlement comes out to only $2,000 per person - a small consolation for ruining people's lives. It only amounts to one quarter of profits, and it was money the bank had already saved and accounted for.

The recent $26 billion settlement has to do with how Wells Fargo and other big banks dealt with foreclosing the properties of people who could no longer afford their homes because of high interest rates, a precipitous drop in home values, a lack of buyers, and the subsequent loss of jobs. Wells Fargo and other big banks often falsified foreclosure documents and repossessed homes with either fraudulent or incomplete documentation. They have also been very slow at working with homeowners on reducing their mortgage payments - part of a federal program in which Wells Fargo is supposed to be participating called HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program).

When Wells Fargo finally forecloses on a home, many of these homes sit vacant as real estate owned properties (REOs). While Bozeman has a great shortage of space available for rent and a problem with affordable housing, Wells Fargo and other REOs sit vacant. Others are up for auction, and still others sit there with their owners waiting to be repossessed.

Most people, however, have some knowledge that Wells Fargo has been a big bank that's continued to profit despite hurting customers, particularly related to its mortgage business. However, there are even more things to consider that are less well known. Some of those are directly related to Wells Fargo's practices, some are related much more generally to the nature of banks. Not all financial institutions are the same; there are key things that make a credit union - for instance - distinct from a huge bank like Wells Fargo.

Let's start with Wells Fargo's record on the environment. When we think of banks, we do not typically think of environmental impact; nevertheless, because banks finance all kinds of projects, we can see what kinds of projects that Wells Fargo finances. All big banks brag about their environmental record, and Wells Fargo is no exception. There is no doubt that corporations have the luxury to do many things - both good and bad. Nevertheless, there are some things you might consider. Wells Fargo is a large financier of the coal industry, a distinction that led one report to list Wells Fargo as the 19th worst polluting bank in the world. The Rainforest Action Network has criticized Wells Fargo for financing illegal logging projects in Indonesia. On the issue of natural gas hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), Wells Fargo has funded Chesapeake Energy all while being one of the leading lenders who will not give mortgages for homes with gas leases. They seem to know a home where fracking occurs is a bad investment all while funding the practice.

Wells Fargo also has the distinction of having an ownership stake in two private prison corporations. They have $120 million in investments in the GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation in America. These private prison corporations house inmates and detain undocumented immigrants for a profit at government expense and use their political connections to influence policies on crime and immigration. This has been particularly true in Arizona, where the Corrections Corporation of America has had a cozy relationship with Gov. Jan Brewer and may have used its influence to pass one of the harshest and most notorious anti-immigrant bills in the country, SB 1070. Activists in Arizona have as a result not only called on Wells Fargo to divest from the private prison industry but also on customers to divest their money from Wells Fargo altogether.

If all that is not enough, last year Wells Fargo settled a case brought by some disabled customers. The suit brought by people who were deaf, hard of hearing, or have speech disabilities alleged that Wells Fargo refused to accommodate them in telephone services. This suit was settled for $16 million.

Is it necessary to add that Wells Fargo is spending more money on lobbying politicians than ever before and does its fair share of contributing to political candidates?

We could go on and on.

All of that may make no difference to you if Wells Fargo were a good choice for you and your money. Certainly, no one can compete with the convenience that big banks provide in offering many branches, many ATMs, and a wide array of financial services. Many people may opt for a big bank if they only live in the area seasonally or must travel a lot for work, if only to avoid ATM fees. Banks may stay open longer, and online banking may be more robust.

However, these positives may actually be more costly to you and yield less return than other financial choices, particularly credit unions. Indeed, report after report after report show that fees and interest rates at big banks are higher, while rates of return are lower. Whatever you save from ATM fees (and local credit unions are often part of national networks and sometimes will reimburse ATM fees), you are losing many times over in the ways that banks like Wells Fargo skim from you.

The biggest reason that a bank like Wells Fargo is so expensive relative to a credit union is that credit unions are not-for-profit financial institutions. They are not sharing their profits with shareholders somewhere else. Instead, they pass the savings to their members, who also as members have some say in their governance. Credit unions also have no incentive to ruin you through risky mortgages or other exotic financial instruments.

Something else working in favor of putting your money somewhere small rather than somewhere large is that very little of the money you put into a big bank stays in the local region. In other words, the money you spend gets put somewhere else. It gets put into the pockets of wealthy investors, into the hands of polluters, and into the hands of the private prison industry. It goes lots of other places as well, but you get the point. If you keep your money in some local context, you should better be able to take action against any abusive use of that money.

It is an understatement, then, to say that there are a lot of reasons to take your money out of Wells Fargo and other similar big banks. We have seen that although Wells Fargo has been fined or settled out of court repeatedly that these sanctions do not make a dent in their profits. The only leverage that we can exert is to make a concerted effort to divest. So long as we give permission to Wells Fargo, they will continue to engage in activities that create the economic hardships we have seen, that widen the gulf between rich and poor, that pollute our air and water, and that abuse those most vulnerable in our society. Without our money, at least they will not be able to do these things in Bozeman.

One worry about such campaigns is the fear that we may not have the power to do enough and that Wells Fargo will continue to churn out record profits no matter what we do. Fortunately, Occupy Bozeman is hardly the first group in recent months to propose divestment. Last fall's Bank Transfer Day, where many thousands of people moved their money from big banks to credit unions, was more than a blip on the radar. In fact, credit union membership is rising. So, there already is a wave away from big banks. The wave, however, is not yet big enough. We need to help it along and need to take creative action here in Bozeman that will foreclose the only properties that should be foreclosed - the big banks, starting with the biggest - Wells Fargo.

Stopping Wells Fargo by itself will not bring economic justice to our community. It will not by itself end the class gap or bring an end to the evils in the economic and financial system. However, it can be an important start toward that goal. If a bank like Wells Fargo can no longer operate in Bozeman, it will have taken massive community support. That will say at least two things. One, it will show people that Bozeman is a place that values its community and is serious about economic justice. Two, in building a strong community movement around this issue, it will provide a forum where the many other issues of economic injustice can be heard, discussed, and acted upon. We will not be a community that considers the expedience of a few more ATMS to mean more than justice.

If you want to help, it starts by getting your own money out of a big bank. It then continues by talking with your friends and sharing this and other information with them. However, more than that, there will be opportunities for more action against Wells Fargo. These things are being discussed at every weekly Occupy Bozeman General Assembly. You have the opportunity to do something. What's more, if you don't, we see what the consequences are. Because we give so much money to the big banks, a lot of people are hurting. You can be part of the solution; do not be part of the problem. It is hard enough taking on a huge corporation; it is impossible if those in our community enable them.

There are so many reasons to take your money out of Wells Fargo. For all the information we are finding related to our divestment campaign against Wells Fargo, you can start your own (and contribute to our) research at occupybozeman.org.

My newest project

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:57:00 +0000

I haven't posted in forever. This is my newest project. I built the web site. I'm also currently working on a book after spending a full season at Buffalo Field Campaign.

Northern Rockies Independent Media Network (RockyMT.org) launches
Primary tabs

RSS: http://www.rockyMT.org/rss.xml , http://www.rockyMT.org/local-newswire.xml , http://www.rockyMT.org/national-global-newswire.xml .

Jim

Thursday, November 10, 2011
rockyMT.org

The Northern Rockies Independent Media Network collective is excited to announce the launch of our new website, http://www.RockyMT.org!

Here is our mission statement:

Northern Rockies Independent Media Network is a consensus-based collective located in Bozeman, Montana, supporting non-hierarchical, sustainable community by providing a forum for exchange of media. We dedicate ourselves to featuring voices who might otherwise be silenced by mainstream media on issues that have local significance and/or entail direct action.

That means that right now you can be the media. More specifically, you can publish your written news, your videos, your audio, your events, and your comments while finding out about what's happening in our region. It's easy to do, and you don't need any computer savvy or user account to do so.

We even have a functioning online radio station featuring independent media content from around the country and globe.

Our hope is to provide media resources of multiple types (on the web and in our community) so that your voice can get out there. We serve Gallatin County and immediately surrounding regions, but as our name suggests, we wish this to be a network. If others in what can be called the Northern Rockies want to start their own indymedia efforts, we want to offer free resources for doing so (and can even offer subdomains and web support).

Finally, we are independent, we do not receive any corporate or government dollars. In fact, we are all volunteer activists who live in and around Bozeman.

Check us out, use the website, and even join our collective and get involved with our work. Without your direct participation, this project does not succeed. We look forward to seeing your contributions at rockyMT.org.

Buffalo torture 2010: Firsthand witness account of Tuesday's haze

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:39:00 +0000

Buffalo torture 2010: Firsthand witness account of Tuesday's haze
by Jim Macdonald

Here is something to keep in mind before reading any further. When describing through any medium the cruelty of a buffalo haze (forced march), you need to keep in mind that these moments are highly edited moments. We followed this haze for six hours - mostly on foot - it continued for hours longer. It's probably going on right now as I begin to write this account. You miss the step after painful step; each whoop and holler and whistle of an agent on a horse; each desperate breath prolonged over time; each blade of grass or sagebrush plant trampled under foot. I cut out many points of dialogue, many repetitive words of desperation.

Yet, as necessary as editing and cutting down is - much like the video footage I spent the whole morning collecting - you the reader miss so much of the experience over and above the sense experience you obviously cannot fully fathom. I can paint, but I can't breathe life into these words - for that, the sad truth is that you will have to see for yourself. And, if you cannot, then I hope you can appreciate the sadness of it all to take whatever action you have time for (as I know that injustice is pervasive everywhere). Yet, if you are touched, donate your time for the buffalo, even if it's as simple as sharing with others their story or as complicated and involved as organizing (and we desperately need more organizers and activists - especially in my area).

Anyhow, on to a sad story, one that happens every single year . . . the story of the forced removal of wild buffalo back deep inside Yellowstone National Park, the thing that's supposedly the more humane alternative to outright slaughter.

Here is my account of a haze. As I haven't spoken with my running partner for this gauntlet about my intentions in writing this, I will leave her name out of this; however, let me say that I couldn't have asked for a better partner and friend for this ordeal, which is the worst thing I've personally witnessed in my life. To her - as I expect she'll be reading this, too - I just hope I've been faithful to our experience and perhaps more importantly to the experience of the buffalo. I hope, my friend, that something good can from my writing (from the footage that I took as well) that will bring the people out who can make a difference for future generations of buffalo. Alas, it is too late for this one.

Okay, the haze . . .

It is relatively overcast at 8:30 AM, Tuesday, May 11, 2010. The temperature hovers somewhere in the 30s, as an overnight snowfall has already mostly melted. Our vehicle has just followed a horse trailer all the way to a field just past the Romset Summer Homes, which is about 8 miles west (as the crow flies; it's much further by car) of the boundary of Yellowstone National Park. The day before, a patrol had spotted buffalo in the area, and we expect that this is where the haze will start.

From their vehicles, agents appear. Today looks to be a major haze day; we would see agents from many law enforcement agencies (Montana Department of Livestock; National Park Service; U.S. Forest Service; Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks; Montana Highway Patrol; and more). Out of one of the vehicles pops out Christian Mackay, Executive Officer of Montana's Board of Livestock. Even the bigwigs like Christian are out today, and this is a dispiriting sign that today is not going to be a good day for Montana's wild buffalo population.

Agents mount their horses and begin to ride in the direction of buffalo who we can see just beyond the parking area in the willows. We now follow on foot. I'm carrying a video camera; my partner has a radio. Our job is to get as much useful video footage of hazing operations as possible. Thus, with horses moving and buffalo running, the challenge is to keep up and yet be able to stop long enough to hold the camera steady enough to get something useful for Buffalo Field Campaign as they edit and share footage with other media and the world. Doing that while moving, while keeping your emotions in check, while trying to catch your breath can be extremely difficult. And, when the most crazy abuses happen, it's often at high speed; you aren't stopped, and so you can't effectively document.

So, the agents on horse are moving; they approach a channel that pours into the Madison River as it widens into Hebgen Lake. They stop; the buffalo herd is on the other side, at the moment unconcerned with the danger they face. I am close enough to the agents to hear their radio transmissions to each other. They decide that it is too dangerous to cross the channel with their horses and that they should wait for the helicopter. We relay that information to other Buffalo Field Campaign patrols in the field, who are strategically placing themselves in order to gather footage of the hazing operation.

We worry that the helicopter might plan to run the buffalo into the channel that is deemed too dangerous for the horses.

Within a couple minutes, we hear the loud whop-whop-whop-whop-whop of the helicopter and soon can see it. The helicopter flies extremely low to the ground, not entirely clearing all the trees. My camera focuses on the chopper, as I'm no longer in a position to see the buffalo. We cannot stay at our previous position in fear that the buffalo would be run right over us. The helicopter flies low to the ground, though, and scares the buffalo into movement. Someone later suggests to me that it is the air of the helicopter that moves the buffalo; the helicopter flies forward and backward, up and down, then circles. Sometimes, it is so low the nearby trees actually block the view.

We notice the agents on horseback positioning near a field. Based on the position of the helicopter and the agents, it looks like the buffalo are thankfully not being run through the channel but instead around it and into a big swampy field. The horsemen take off, and soon we see the buffalo and the helicopter. The horses, as though we are watching a cattle roundup from an old Western, move around the herd and direct it along with the helicopter. Here is a big open field where I can take a wide video of the entire scene - buffalo that were once peaceful are now suddenly marching, forced along by helicopter and horsemen. When buffalo go the "wrong" way, horsemen whoop and holler and run them down to turn them around. Confusion sometimes reigns, and buffalo occasionally turn on each other with aggression.

Before you know it, they cross the field, and we're running to catch up. Splash, splash - this is soggy stuff, as snow pack has only just melted in this area. The terrain is uneven; we are not running on a track or a trail. Buffalo also don't have the greatest footing, especially when stressed. I've seen them fall in snow before and stumble on the ground; here I don't notice that happen - just the obvious fact that they are being forced to move on this ground against their will. This is the beginning of a very long day.

I gasp when I notice that the buffalo are being run fast up a steep hillside that rises to a nearby wooded area. With this group are a number of newborn calves. They have all been born anywhere from that very morning to the last couple of weeks. They too are being forced to run. Everything is happening too fast for me to count; there seems to be a few dozen in this group, but perhaps there were more. In a matter of a few minutes, all the bison are all the way up the hill and out of sight; we are significantly behind.

We're running through the swampy meadow and then up the steep hill. We each have small backpacks, and I'm carrying the small video camera in my hand. At this point, there's nothing to film; all we can think about is seeing if we can catch up with the haze. I'm breathing heavily; my partner up ahead is amazing. Whether running or walking, she moves nimbly. This inspires me to keep moving but to keep pacing myself; I know this is the beginning of a long day. Yet, I know that moving quickly and smartly here is the key; whatever video footage I can get depends on it.

The path of the haze is not hard to follow. Besides the loud buzzing of the helicopter, the trail of the haze is also just as obvious. Grass and sagebrush have been destroyed by an onslaught of 1,000-plus pound buffalo (females, yearlings, and then smaller babies) followed by the horses being forced into this cruel labor. There is an unmistakable path of destruction, and we are trudging desperately over it.

For the first of many times, we feel like we might have lost the haze for good, but around one of the bends on our descent on the other side of the hill, I catch a glimpse of a horse. We are catching up with the back end of the haze, and so we press forward. We keep moving down and notice a road. As it turns out, we are near some more summer homes around the Lonseomehurst Campground along the South Fork, which flows north into the Madison River (Hebgen Lake). We cut down to the road climbing quickly down a steep embankment. Then, we catch sight of not only a horseman but also a buffalo with a newborn calf.

The horseman is Christian Mackay, and he is personally hazing this pair to the main group of bison being hazed. We continue moving south, and I take every chance I can to stop and film this politician playing cowboy for a day. It's hard to film because I'm breathing so heavily. My breath naturally moves the camera up and down; I'm trying to keep my emotions in check so that I can film this. Then, the pair runs up another road (I think it's something called the Contour Road). This isn't where the powers that be intend them to go. Christian rides up the hill with his horse and chases the pair until they return back to the main road. I think I get good footage of this, but it's not satisfying because I'm afraid that the world won't notice what's happening.

Then, the helicopter flies low near us. Suddenly, I see another newborn with her/his mama racing out of the woods onto the road with the other pair. All four take off running scared. The horse chases them, scaring them to run harder. How is it that these babies in their first days of their lives have to spend it running from horses and a low flying and very loud helicopter? Of course, further behind, we start running as well. We are not anywhere near enough to be contributing to the haze, but the thought nevertheless strikes me that maybe I'm part of the rampage of humanity scaring these buffalo. I know that I'm not, but it's a disconcerting thought all the same. The day before, nearby, I was documenting a haze when a second part of the hazing operation had buffalo running right down the road where we were standing, hemmed in by a barbed wire fence and buffalo on each side of it. Could I have blamed the buffalo if they had gored me and hurt me badly? No. Could I have blamed myself? I don't think so, and yet you still wonder.

To our surprise, we see our friends with the vehicle up ahead of us. When we get to the car, we join them, continuing to film the haze as it approaches and then crosses the South Fork, where it soon hits Madison Arm Road and a whole large section of forest south of the Madison River. At this point, there is no reason to stay along Denny Creek Road where we are, and so we drive to a new location, attempting to get in a better spot to film the haze.

It hasn't taken long for these buffalo to be pushed a couple miles and across the river. Yet, again, their day had just begun. Those who were older have been through this every year since they were newborn calves; now their children are joining them for this awful rite of passage.

We drive around the Madison Arm area to the other side closer to the park and in through the Madison Arm road so that my partner and I can re-deploy in the woods. The goal is to get direct footage of the haze while avoiding what are called "lawful orders." A lawful order is not something I had ever heard about in years of protest and activism in other parts of the country; however, they are the main mechanism that law enforcement officers here use to keep us from getting footage of the haze. While they cannot legally stop us from filming, they can keep us away from the operations. Often, patrols will get stuck behind the last vehicle in the hazing operation, and the haze will become virtually invisible much of the way. That is not ideal for bearing witness to the rest of the world about what the state of Montana and the federal government are doing to wild bison.

We are dropped off near mile marker 4 of the Madison Arm Road, meaning four miles from U.S. 191 and just a little further to Yellowstone National Park on the other side of the road and Madison River. We are now in the middle of burnt forest; this is forest that burned only a few years ago. Beneath this forest of lodgepole pine trees is now a lot of vegetation. Though the Christian Mackay's and the Rob Tierney's (another livestock official) have tried to claim there is no bison habitat in these woods, it just isn't true. The buffalo love the burnt areas and find plenty of food growing in areas now exposed to the sun by the fire.

We set up a spot in the woods where we can hide but potentially still get footage of the haze when it arrives. For awhile, we have nothing to do but wait and talk while listening to grim reports from the radio. We talk about our sense that maybe we aren't doing enough for the buffalo, even if we succeed in getting the best footage possible. We talk about what else might be done. This happens between reports from the radio on the progress of the haze. We hear blurbs talking about how one of the hazed females has started to give birth right in the middle of the haze, how two grizzly bears are being caught up in the operations, about how more and more buffalo are getting caught up in it. Some of these buffalo have already been moved so many miles, and here the two of us are still recovering from a relatively short distance that was difficult enough for us (two people who had just run in a 10K race just a month before).

After awhile, we finally see some U.S. Forest Service vehicles, and then we see our first buffalo. Some look extremely tired, but further on they are forced to press. Babies abound; there are so many newborn calves in this haze that I can't keep track of them all. The only blessing is that I don't see any injured buffalo - which isn't to say that there aren't any. Last year, footage shows a newborn buffalo forced to march for miles with a broken leg.

Then, all of the sudden, there is a horse on top of us. As I have been looking through the video camera, I don't see the horse until it is within about 10 feet of me. We try to scatter quickly, but, of course, the agent sees us. He immediately issues us a lawful order to stay away from the haze. As that is rather vague, we continue to run a distance from the haze. The lawful order does us a favor because we are now moving to better positions to catch footage. Now, we can hear the helicopter, the horsemen (and women now) whooping and hollering. We can see the relentless push of the bison - yet so many are stopping for a brief second just to eat before being pushed further. Herds are being combined, family units are being consolidated and in many cases scattered. Just the day before, a cow and a calf were separated from the haze and forced off on their own where they had no choice but to fend for themselves - essentially grizzly bait.

The Fish, Wildlife & Parks agent who gave us the lawful order approaches again and has the nerve to tell us that all our running is spooking his horse and that we need to be further back; this isn't phrased as a lawful order, but we aren't taking any chances. I tend to think that he, the agent, is being spooked by our presence; with helicopter buzzing, bison running and grunting, horses neighing, and an operation that has no business being here, our running isn't spooking his horse! Give me a break. His horse should not be in that position in the first place; what a cruel thing to do to the horse. And, I don't believe it anyhow; his horse is spooked by the entire circumstance that he has put his horse into - whether it is because it is his job to do that or because he is a true believer in cruelty to bison.

In any event, the haze has now moved off the road, and we wait for vehicles to clear before crossing in pursuit. We lose time waiting, but we have little choice after these confrontations with the agent in the forest. We even see the car that was with us move on the road ahead of us. After they pass around a bend, we take off after the haze.

Again, the direction of the haze is easy to follow; vegetation was dead everywhere. I know that we cannot ascertain any feelings for all the dead plants, and so it becomes next to impossible to empathize with that whose feelings you cannot possibly fathom, but I become upset all the same. Cruelty to bison is something that might move you; how much does cruelty to the land move you? Should we just be running roughshod over anything that gets in our way just because we don't understand or appreciate its place in our universe?

We sometimes run and sometimes hike quickly over hills, over dead trees that had fallen all over the place, through muddy and trampled dirt. The helicopter looks like it's too far from us, and we again fear that we've lost the haze for good. Eventually, we hit the Madison Arm Road again. Just prior to that, I realized that we have been on something of a short cut. It was becoming clear to me that this was a haze determined to go all the way to Yellowstone because previous hazes had stayed close to the winding road; however, this one was showing no regard for the road - simply the shortest line to Yellowstone, whatever the terrain. So buffalo are having to move their relatively thin legs up and over a forest of fallen logs and up and down these hills. If any bison have fallen during this part of the journey, I cannot say, but it's hard for me to imagine given the terrain that accidents haven't happened.

Back at the road, we are a little discouraged because we are behind. Then, we notice behind us a Park Service vehicle leading our vehicle. Somehow, we have moved faster than our friends, though we had started out behind them. The man in the Park Service vehicle tries to play nice with us, expressing in a friendly tone, "You have covered a lot of ground today, haven't you?" I don't particularly care if he is being sincere, if he is trying perhaps to let us know that maybe he's not the biggest fan of the haze - something you hear is true of many rangers. The fact is that he is a part of it and helping to enable it. And, today just as much as yesterday or tomorrow, I don't want to hear friendly words from sympathetic and yet complying officers of the law. Until he stops, I perhaps am angrier with him than I am with every Christian Mackay in this world because I know that Christian is a true believer in his torture of buffalo; I know who he is and what to expect from him. But, we could deal with him if he and his ilk didn't have the support of the people who work for the National Park Service.

So, I ignore him and joined my friends in the vehicle. It looks like we are only an hour from our shift change, where we would be relieved from the field. I do not want to be relieved. Though I am tired and have already seen more cruelty than I had in my life, I don't want to abandon my post in the field. I know that my partner and I have perhaps a better chance than any other group in the field at keeping up; we just need another chance. Then, almost just as quickly as those thoughts leave my lips to my friends in the car, our chance comes. We saw the haze off the road across a field.

Out we go trying to catch up.

We run some more, and we keep gaining ground on the agents and the buffalo. It seems they are having more trouble. We are soon back into burnt forest, and the fatigued buffalo are becoming more aggressive. Individuals and small groups run in different directions; the whooping and hollering of the people on horses becomes more frantic. Horses race them down, and calves are run off of positions just as easily as the yearlings and adults. There is no regard for anything except moving these animals in the right direction. The helicopter continues to hover nearby; it seems it is driving another group of buffalo into the main haze group. Then, yes, it is obvious that it is.

All of a sudden, this group of buffalo being hazed by the helicopter starts to merge in with the main group, but they keep running. They are running straight toward the spot where we are standing. "Oh no!" or something like that I shout. It is extremely scary for us, and we have to scramble away as quickly as possible. If it's scary for us, it must be that much scarier for the buffalo who have just gone from a morning of peaceful grazing to this awful trail they are now blazing back into Yellowstone. Whenever I can, I film, but when buffalo are running straight toward you, you run just like they do, and you are thankful that someone has your back.

Our emotions continue to well up; it is getting harder and harder to contain them. Sometimes, I'm angry; more often I am intensely and emotionally sad for what the buffalo are going through. And, yet, my emotions are also mixed with more positive feelings. I am happy with our ability to catch up repeatedly with the haze, happy as I could be with the footage I have been getting, and extremely happy to be out there with someone who I can call a friend, who is feeling and seeing things the way I am, who is extremely empathic, who is extremely dedicated, and who can keep me running and moving and inspired to keep my wits about me. Nevertheless, mixed feelings are still being drowned in growing sadness.

We keep moving through burnt forest, now not falling behind but actually starting to move to the side of the haze. These animals are all exhausted, including some of the horses. I see an agent actually stop in the forest and tie up his horse while the others continue. We move forward, lose sight of the animals, but then notice that we are actually now in front of the haze at mile marker 1. In fact, we are now almost directly in front of the haze that is now back on the road.

I get my closest footage from this vantage. Buffalo after buffalo, now a much larger number than had started our day, move past the shot of my camera that I keep fixed on a spot. Newborn calf after newborn calf . . . Behind me, I can hear my patrol partner apologizing to each as she or he goes by. The group out front, not immediately being pushed, stops along the woods for grass. They keep congregating near me, and I realize a couple times that I need to keep moving back. I hear a yell about a bison getting close to me, and I retreat as quickly as I can, again so thankful to have my partner looking out for me. The same Fish, Wildlife & Parks agent that had given us the previous lawful order approaches us yet again, yelling that I had gotten too close and telling us that this would be the last lawful order he would give us about getting too close to the haze. We assume that he means it would be the last lawful order until we would both be arrested. Having a 2-year-old child and a significant other back at camp, I am in no mood to tempt fate, and neither is my partner. Our footage might be useless if we are pulled from the field by agents and our tape confiscated.

So, we keep as far away as possible, but sometimes we are accidentally close to the haze again. Near here the road veers away from the Madison River, and we accidentally keep veering toward the river. We end up along the shores about a half mile from U.S. 191. So, we hike until we reached the road, and I'm thinking our day is about to be done. When we reach U.S. 191, traffic is stopped in both directions. We catch a glimpse of the haze we've been diligently following forever and the buffalo being forced across U.S. 191; soon these animals would surely soon be forced across the Madison River and into Yellowstone National Park. Their journey is not nearly done, though.

Radio patrols ask us to move to the northeast bluffs of the Madison River on the other side of U.S. 191 and to the Yellowstone National Park boundary. As we hike up the hillside to the steep, tall, and sandy bluffs overlooking the Madison River, there is a feeling of spectacle and confusion. Cars are all around; locals and tourists alike are out with their cameras watching the hazing. A newborn calf and its mama head by themselves north on U.S. 191. To give them space, we actually go into the very wet and swampy area below the Northeast bluffs until we are sure we aren't disturbing them.

At this point, we're both physically tired - we've covered a lot of ground, but we still are hiking uphill to the top of the bluffs. The hope is to get a better view of the haze from on high. However, we yet again think that we are outside the main part of the action.

We hit the top of the bluffs when a local's chihuahua comes running at us threatening to attack us. After having survived too many close calls with buffalo running at me, I am both skiddish and yet bemused by the absurdity of this scene. We get around and make it to the park boundary. It's clear some of our friends are out on patrol from this point. The Park Service is also up there, and we run into the same guy who had tried to be nice to us from the vehicle. Here he told us that he knew of us and the lawful orders given to us and that we're the ones who have been out spooking horses. The suggestion seems to be that we had better be careful or else.

The helicopter continues to buzz around low to the ground. Surprisingly, he flies over us where we now spot a group of buffalo inside the park at the top of the northeast bluffs. The helicopter all by itself forces these buffalo on the hillside in the park to race down the very steep and very sandy bluffs into the water below and the woods on the other side. So, all the sudden, we are in another part of the hazing operations, and my camera is fixed on buffalo going down the side of a cliff. We move along the bluffs, now inside of Yellowstone National Park and where the buffalo have just been driven off; in the distance, we can see the main haze being moved down the Madison inside the park. You see, these operations don't stop at the park boundaries; they continue for miles and miles inside the park. There are often further hazing operations inside the park of buffalo that have never left it to make room for the buffalo being pushed in - this can go on well inside the Wyoming border within 10 miles of Old Faithful.

Five park rangers on horseback come up from behind us. At this point, we are frazzled and worried about getting arrested. To our luck, there are some teenagers and a woman (a longtime Buffalo Field Campaign volunteer who has just arrived) who serve as eyes and ears for us. They let us know about bison still on the bluffs that are close to us, about agents coming; they are a fantastic help to us. Our senses are shot; all I can hear playing over and over in my brain is the buzzing of helicopters, the whooping of agents on horseback, the babies marching over fallen logs, buffalo charging in our direction being chased by horses, and mamas and babies being separated from their families. What is immediately around me mixes in with all these very fresh images now burned forever in my memory.

Still, we move along the bluffs, now at a much slower pace due to our exhaustion. We still almost catch a group of horses and see yet another buffalo forced to race down the cliffs, apparently to funnel her into the Madison River valley. Down below we see the occasional mama and calf that hasn't yet been rounded up by the haze running scared in the forest below.

We stop, though, knowing we can't keep up with the fast pace of the Park Service horses as they mop buffalo into the river valley, knowing that we've reached our physical and emotional limits. We don't yet realize how far into the park we have hiked.

We finally get word that our shift is about to be over; the haze continues.

In the end, I don't know how far the haze went or for how long, but it was still going on when I left a couple hours later. My partner - my ever dearer friend - and I hiked back out and to the vehicle waiting to take us back to camp. It was filled with others who all had their own stories and perspective on the day. When we saw a group of buffalo on U.S. 287, a group I had briefly seen hazed the day before and who I had kept watch over for an entire night on the highway, I could no longer keep my emotions in check. Yet, I was too dehydrated for the tears to flow. I was crying without tears, and I couldn't take it emotionally anymore.

And, I've been in that place ever since.

Whatever good I took from the day - my ability to keep up with the haze, to work with a wonderful and amazing person, to stand bravely and take footage - was lost and has been lost in the powerful images that I'm remembering and desperately trying to paint for you with my words. I know these words fail; I knew they would fail before I tried. Yet, I have to try. I have to do anything I can to let you know about it, to let you know what these animals are going through. Because, if you are inspired, you will help them, help me help them, or work on something completely different with them in mind.

And, I've been gloomier and gloomier and sadder and sadder since. But, I am determined to write and do more.

There's still a lot of buffalo in Montana, and so hazing operations are no doubt going on right now as I'm writing. You may all wonder why this happens or expect me to go into the whole policy; I've done that before. The absurdity of the policy and the execution of the policy could take up accounts much longer than this one. But, it would be hard to understand even if the policy were the most sound policy you could dream up how the consequence would be this kind of cruelty and torture to these beautiful, roaming grass eaters. How can any of that matter to what I'm writing?

So, I have to hope what I'm doing means something and that I have the creativity to do more and the inspiration for others in joining me to do more. I know that I can't stop the state and federal government by myself; I need friends. I need partners. I need people who want to work with me. And, I need to overcome some of my own weaknesses.

Okay, writing has exhausted me, too. I'll leave my account at that and pray that you were not only touched but moved to act in some way as well. And for those of you reading who are acting, who are there far more than me, who have been far more dedicated than me, please help me be as strong as you are and as strong as those buffalo who keep you strong. Just as I needed her pulling me along by moving a little more quickly than I thought I could, I need all of you to do the same in your own ways.

Jim Macdonald
May 12, 2010
Bozeman, Montana

A newborn buffalo breathes (iconic?) significance into my disjointed narrative (of intimate specifics?)

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:01:00 +0000

A newborn buffalo breathes (iconic?) significance into my disjointed narrative (of intimate specifics?)

by Jim Macdonald (April 22, 2010)

We trudge through the mud and melting snow, feet thoroughly soaked, thinking mostly of the best route to a dry step. Then, we stop; we have to stop. Fifty yards away we see a small group of bison roaming slowly in our direction. We immediately scan trying to count, when I notice to my delight the smallest little buffalo calf I have ever seen. She or he is sucking milk from her mother. The calf is so newborn that afterbirth is still visible from the mother. Our hearts melt; we let out high-pitched cries of excitement. Tears almost start flowing from my face. Here are two of us witnessing a joyous day for the small group of buffalo, other expectant moms in their midst. The baby, whose legs look like little sticks, sucks milk, walks a few steps, then sticks her or his nose to the grass, before finally returning for another drink. The other buffalo, now aware of us, continue to eat grass and meander.

We get low and quiet, trying to take in the scene, excited and overwhelmed with emotions. However, the bison are in our path; we have to hope they continue to move because there's no good way around them. Because we are so wet, we plant ourselves on a dry patch of grass toward the edge of a steep hill. The herds keep moving, and there's occasionally tension between some of the buffalo cows, especially near the calf. In small little rushes, they creep closer and closer, pinning us into our location. I begin to become frightened and start gathering my things for further retreat. Then, the buffalo, agitated with each other, begin a quick jog right nearly on top of our position. To my chagrin, I'm now only 5-6 feet from the calf and two other buffalo. I let out a cry of "Oh no" as I fear being trampled, but they stop short, giving us time to scramble down a few more feet. Separated from some of our gear, other buffalo eventually stop nearly on top of it; our radio goes off while this is happening, and we fear that the buffalo will become spooked. Then, they plop down and sleep, leaving us 2 1/2 hours to wait for them to get up and move so that we can recover our stuff. We watch them sleep, some completely on their sides, and I wonder how they sleep without getting very uncomfortable from their horns. Are they about ready to give birth?

I could go on, but let me stop. I experienced all of this just two days ago on Montana's Horse Butte Peninsula just west of Yellowstone National Park. And, I think it's important to stop and understand the context of this situation. These 10 buffalo are some of the 3,000 or so wild bison that are usually not found in Montana, except in the spring time during calving season. By May 15, management plans decree that they will be forced to return back into Yellowstone National Park. Agencies including the Montana Department of Livestock; Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks; the National Park Service, and the U.S. Forest Service will take these buffalo, newborn and all, using helicopters, ATVs, agents on horseback, and force them to march miles and miles back into Yellowstone. Newborn calves taking their first steps will be required to run the gauntlet; last year, video shows one of them being forced to march with a broken leg. Another agency, the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) came to Horse Butte yesterday and took bull bison for a study. According to eyewitness reports, APHIS "first darts the bulls to inject a drug to knock them out, then collects their semen by inserting a large vibrating probe in their anus. Before injecting the downed bulls with the reversal agent that wakes them, they spray-paint a thick blue line across their magnificent hind quarters." APHIS has been doing this north of the park and now is disturbing the beautiful scene I described above.

In other years, this cruelty also includes slaughter of large numbers of the herds. The management plan for 2008 ultimately led directly to the death of more than 1,600 bison.

Why does this happen? The absurdities are for other essays; they have been talked about at great length by others.

I want to focus on where the unique presence of living and breathing buffalo finds life in a real moment couched within a cruel context, one that often has us look at bison as generalities at the expense of seeing them the specific way I did in my story. What I mean by that is so often we think of buffalo as iconic; we think of them merely as symbols perhaps of an America that used to be with 30-40 million bison roaming the Great Plains, an ancient beast of the past that we've memorialized in buffalo nickels, in state flags, on the very seal of the U.S. Department of Interior. And, even if we realize that buffalo are still around, we generalize them as I have in this sentence here. We talk about "the" buffalo, rather than this or that grouping of buffalo. Buffalo become nothing more than an idea, whatever you make of that idea - whether we are talking about the relationship with Plains tribes, or a healthier alternative to beef, or those animals that are commonly found all over the roadways of Yellowstone. We often idealize buffalo and yet forget that right now there's a calf that's not more than a few days old, taking in the cold night of Horse Butte, probably bedded against her or his mother, with no idea that maybe as early as tomorrow that that calf's herd will be forced on something akin to a Trail of Tears, only one that happens year after year after year.

It is not that buffalo are not iconic and that the relationships they hold to us aren't often true; it's that when we forget that there's a mama likely giving birth or about to give birth somewhere in those hills that you get to from Rainbow Point Road, outside of the manmade political boundaries of Yellowstone, we make these general notions of what buffalo are meaningless or altogether false. It is okay to wonder about the history of destruction of the bison as a story in a genocide that the general "we the people" have often failed to acknowledge, but when we don't see these buffalo snorting and peeing and chewing grass (or like the buffalo nearest our gear, making the chewing motion for hours without ever actually dipping her head to the grass), we aren't likely to grasp the presence of the story. What happens to the buffalo isn't simply an abstraction about yesterday that somehow relates to today; it's an abstraction about yesterday that is having real consequences now, has real actors right now, and is of urgency to those of us living and breathing with them right now.

Let me try to illustrate my general idea, my specific point with another story.

By day, the spot in the Porcelain Basin, within Yellowstone National Park's Norris Geyser Basin, could teem with tourists. For most, it was a spot of unearthly thermal activity and astounding colors. Imagine Venus, only with trees nearby; it seemed poisonous and unearthly, except for those trees growing where nothing organic seemed plausible, even if that seeming is actually untrue - the colors are caused by algae growing at different temperatures in the water of the thermal runoff.

However, at night, all we could see was the darkened outline of the boardwalk where we held each other tight, the clouds moving about, sometimes moving away enough to expose the moon. By moonlight, we could see darkened steam rise all around us. What was unmistakable was the popping and crackling of the geysers and thermal springs; we could hear the water rushing under us. Yet, most of all, we saw each other, two people daring to find a lonely spot at the end of this boardwalk. I saw her face, her arms, her legs. My own body felt sexual excitement, though I was embarrassed by it. You see, I had never even so much as kissed a girl. Here I was on only my second date with my new girlfriend (my second date ever with anyone); I couldn't possibly know that it wouldn't last much longer. This night, there was a kind of magic, holding her close, sharing stories, and feeling all the intensity one can feel when one's affections at last were met with affection in kind. Just before deciding to leave, she put her cold lips to mine twice. Yet, even as this chemistry between us was the only thing that mattered, I somehow doubt it would have meant the same thing without the boardwalks, without the cold air, without the shivering going on just above a cauldron of sizzling heat. This I knew was a special moment; these moments are far too few in life.

I was 20; it was June 1994. I will never forget it or the sour circumstances that followed. Four nights later on a different boardwalk and in a different geyser basin, she broke it off with me, saying she feared I could never be happy. That followed a few weeks later with the most intense depression of my life; a depression so deep that I had no interest even in killing myself - I had moved beyond that. When she left Yellowstone reasonably wanting nothing to do with me, I never saw or heard about her ever again.

Yet, for a night, the reality was intensely magical; longing for moments like that again - and I've had more than a few but not nearly as many as I would like - would drive me nearly insane more than once.

We can talk iconically of Yellowstone, of places - if you know them - like the Norris Geyser Basin, of first kisses, or first girlfriends. We can talk iconically of moments. Yet, how often do we really allow ourselves to search the intimacy of experience and to know Yellowstone, to know a geyser basin, to know a first kiss? Do we remember? I think we do often; we often have something in mind. Yet, we don't share, and we cloak ourselves in generalities, and we don't let ourselves deal with the reality of today, of how those pasts still are very present today. We bury and we run and we symbolize and generalize, but we disembody it. We don't dare share what it is we are feeling and experiencing, bottling it up - perhaps unable to express it, unable to share it. In my case, I know I am afraid right now; why else would I be driven to write an essay like this? I am afraid for that calf especially; however, I also fear for myself and wonder what sorts of things might accidentally trample me (how is that for cloaked metaphors and generalities? - I'll have to keep writing to do better).

And yet, we have to keep the narrative together - we have to see how the icon lives and breathes now, or how that living and breathing moment has a special significance. We have to see those 10 buffalo, that precious and sweet calf and her family, as breathing beings but also inside a context of now and of history that we cannot and must not ignore. And, we have to see our lives like that as well. We cannot run from these experiences just because they do not fit well with our current narrative; I doubt I could have written tonight if this thought didn't bother me greatly.

Truthfully, right now there are buffalo that need a break to go their way. They need agencies hell bent on pushing them cruelly back to stop, and they could use our help to stop them and recognize them as living and breathing and struggling right now. And, just as truthfully, it would help if we could see this situation as part of a longer narrative that we cannot ignore, that needs our care and attention. Just as I need to work out things in my past experience and incorporate that fully into the specifics of my current experience, just as we all do, I think in the course of doing that we can also weave in what's going on right now on Horse Butte.

I hope you're okay, buffalo! I will do whatever I can to help. And, as for the rest of the stuff I shared and why that would arise in the course of these thoughts, I think I'm ultimately getting at trying to live more magic moments. Starting with the buffalo and all the people who are seeing what I'm seeing would be an excellent place to start.

A critique of national parks as "America's best idea"

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:25:00 +0000

A critique of national parks as "America's best idea"
by Jim Macdonald

Anyone who has been watching the epic Ken Burns six-part documentary on PBS entitled The National Parks: America's Best Idea cannot help but be swept up by the places captured by his camera. When I see Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, I want to drop everything and plan my next adventure, discovering new places I have never seen. When I see familiar video and old pictures from my beloved Yellowstone, a flood of pleasant memories overwhelms me. For evoking such responses in a well-traveled man like me, for doing so to a large number of people for whom the national parks is but a sketchy mystery, Ken Burns should be applauded for that alone.

Ken Burns does many things well both at the sweeping level as well as in minute points (for instance, one I quickly noticed was in not sharing the discredited story that the national park idea was dreamed up at Madison Junction in Yellowstone back in 1870). What I'm writing from hereafter shall be critical, but I don't want to take more away than I will in the following paragraphs. By all means, if you've never visited a national park, if you want a basic primer on the history, if you want to see beautiful things and be inspired, please take the time to watch this documentary. I can't imagine watching it and not wanting to visit some of these places, not wanting to know them more, and not having a greater sense of many of the complicated issues that surround the parks. It is worth at least some of your time.

My biggest problem with The National Parks: America's Best Idea, filmed by Burns but written by Dayton Duncan, is that we are left with a generally positive view of American history. Whether we are talking about the "national park" idea itself, the process by which national parks were "saved," or many of the characters involved - coming to mind right now are Teddy Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller Jr. - I am afraid to say that I believe that the story is far bleaker. That we can be inspired still by these lands is less a testament to the so called "national park idea" so much as the accidental force of American history that allows them to be temporarily saved while everything else is ripped to shreds.

Let's start with what it is to say that the national parks are America's best idea (although that view was qualified by one historian who suggested it was the second best idea). What does that really say if that's true about our country? It says to me that in a country that basically destroyed an entire continent, it found fit to preserve only the most spectacular landscapes and wildlife refuges it could find (and even then, only barely and not entirely). The "best idea" is that we didn't absolutely destroy every last inch of the place; we had destroyed Niagara Falls, cut down the eastern woodlands, turned the Great Plains into a dustbowl, forced native peoples to the point of extinction, killed almost every last buffalo, and nearly poisoned every stream looking for ore before then damming them. We poisoned the air, but we managed to save these last refuges by keeping them within the public domain. Wow, good on us! And, that says nothing about slavery, sexism, economic classism, and on and on.

Yet, when we "saved" some lands as national parks, Burns would have us believe that this a "movement" of preservationists, some enlightened people in government, and the fortuitous involvement of the railroads. A movement? In what sense? As noted in the documentary, the first mention of a "national park" was by the artist George Catlin, who wanted to close off the west so that native tribes could live as they had always lived. Yosemite was set aside as a state park as an obscure bill during the Civil War, on the pretense that the land was useless. The first national park, Yellowstone, was made a national park in large part because the Northern Pacific Railroad believed it could best profit off the park if it only had to deal with the government. Other parks were set aside often by the efforts of wealthy elites. John Muir is a nice voice to quote, inspiring many ultimately to see the national parks as a movement, but the truth is that parks were not set aside because there was a cogent "national park" idea, not because there was a strong impulse to protect the areas from capitalistic exploitation, not set aside because of the force of a movement, but they were set aside by the very same capitalistic, exploitative forces that were at the same time destroying everything else.

When Jay Cooke financed the Northern Pacific Railroad, at least until he went broke after in part causing the Panic of 1873, he understood that the railroad would be most profitable not by simply supporting extractive industries but also by promoting ridership, by promoting the places along the line that would be attractive. Yellowstone, i.e., Wonderland, was that place, and it was easiest to exploit in the hands of a single owner –in this case, the U.S. government - not in competing with local businesspeople who were already trying to set up shop before Yellowstone became a park (and even as it was being "discovered.") Burns, for his part, makes note of what the railroads were doing in the parks, but he fails to make as much of it as I think is necessary to understand the story.

My point is this: The railroads - the greatest forces of capitalism and destruction in the West - are both the destroyers and the saviors of wild lands. That is, it was not some interest against the grain of destruction that saved the national parks; it was the very same force that did both at the same time.

Another example of the destroyer being the savior was Gen. Phil Sheridan, often credited with having a large part of saving Yellowstone's bison herds and for pushing for the military rule that "saved Yellowstone." Sheridan had just finished destroying the buffalo herds he was about to save. The great slaughter of the 1870s of bison was policy of the U.S. government and of the military, and especially Sheridan and Gen. Sherman in particular. Market hunting on the plains was encouraged in order to starve native tribes and force them into government reservations, thus opening the land for settlement and clearing the way for the expansion of the railroads. It was the same total war strategy that Sheridan and Sherman used to win the Civil War. When the Texas legislature considered passing a law to stop the buffalo slaughter, Sheridan himself showed up to testify against it, saying that the hunters had done more to solve the Indian problem than anyone in the field of battle had ever done. Yet, when the buffalo were about to be destroyed for good, Sheridan shows up in Yellowstone to save them, teaming up with a Senator from Missouri who had supported the Confederacy - George Graham Vest. Why did Sheridan do that? Change of heart? A love of the "national park idea"? No, Sheridan, like most military commanders, believed that the military should control the West, not the Department of the Interior. The buffalo issue was a convenient wedge in the military power play. Yes, Interior was powerless to defend the buffalo, was corrupt in its collusion with the railroad companies, but it was the military that had overseen the policy destroying the herds in the first place.

So, the very same force in Phil Sheridan both destroyed and saved the buffalo.

We also find a similar story in Teddy Roosevelt, the man so eager to kill animals his entire life worked so hard to protect them from extinction. How can you kill animals if there aren't some left? That passes for enlightenment? Surely, it was a step above those who actually did kill animals all the way to extinction. Yet, Roosevelt's view, like that of Gifford Pinchot (his chief forester) was that wildlife and landscapes and forests and waterways were ultimately there to serve the good of the country. They are ultimately expressions of the nation itself. And, out of this manliness, this patriotism, we get what seems to be the paradox of protection and setting aside and reserving and sometimes even preserving. But, it's the very same force that calls on both. That's how Roosevelt could at once support a dam at Hetch Hetchy and support preserving the Grand Canyon as is; he operated from the very same idea in a way that could lead to multiple, apparently conflicting ends.

What I'm getting at is that in the Ken Burns view of history, dynamic people rise up within the American democracy and do dynamic things that have often had profoundly good, if complicated, effects on all of us who live now. These people see the problems and rise against the grain often to do things that are heroic. The national parks, in the view presented by Ken Burns, are that refuge, are that ingenious system blended by John Muir's ecstatic reverence and practical American know-how (think Stephen Mather or Horace Albright as examples) that have managed to use what's best of what's uniquely American to protect what's best so that we can now have these reservoirs (or perhaps, preservoirs) of inspiration as we face our current world dilemmas.

Yet, I'm here to tell you is that the same grain that committed genocide to our native peoples, that raped the land, enslaved other people, and continues to foul up our air and water is in fact the same grain that set these parks aside "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people" (unimpaired for future generations.)

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. anyone? Or, is my point clear?

Still, even if Burns is right and I am wrong, the original point would still be true. If the national parks are America's best idea, that would be a particularly sad state of affairs to admit about our history. It would be as if John Muir's worries about the impossibility of fighting those who would despoil everything were in fact correct. Surely, it would be a miracle if these lands survived much longer under such an onslaught. In fact, they survive as well as they do because they are outgrowths of the same corrupt, exploitative system and are simply a part of it. It didn't hurt that Mather and Albright really did find a way for millions of people to "see America first" (to borrow the slogan of the Great Northern Railway).

Unfortunately, it's not enough that these places have been set aside. Ecosystems are far larger than park boundaries; animals trapped within them ultimately don't help these parks flourish. I'm thinking particularly of the dynamics of wildlife in Yellowstone and the suffering of its northern range, of buffalo not allowed to re-establish habitat, of wolves and grizzly bears. Perhaps, it would be good enough to protect parks simply to let the story of our country play out, but over time, it won't work. You can save the boundary, but you won't save the land (even without another Hetch Hetchy dam).

So, the hard truth I'm ultimately driving at is that the force of American history is bound to undermine those things that it has managed to set aside. Even though we can admit that there are some accidental preservation that's bound to happen within even the most ruinous system, it won't work. Nature is not a parcel; it cannot flourish simply by setting aside refuges. That is to say, even at its best, the national park idea is not a particularly good idea. Whether we are talking about people acting against the force of American history or in concert with it, it ultimately cannot be positive simply to set land aside within a political boundary. In the short term, yes, I can and have been inspired to ecstasy like John Muir, drawn into the magic, understood the power of place, and been replenished time and time again. However, for the buffalo that face slaughter or forced movement every year, for native peoples who have lost their connection with wildlife and land essential to their self-identity, the present is already a disaster of sorts. Time will only erode things more, the only hope being that the system that confines beauty within national park boundaries disappears faster than the parks themselves. The hard truth is that we who have been called Americans come to terms with our truth, that we haven't been a particularly good people, at least to our land, at least to people not counted as among our own. Perhaps, this is true the world over - I suspect it is - but in the caste we've been placed by Thomas Jefferson and others, it most certainly is.

If we don't come away from the national parks without a profound sense of despair conjoined with our wonder, I don't know if we've really understood what it is to see both the Lower Falls plunge into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and it's multi-colored walls within the same land where buffalo are routinely rounded up and shipped to a slaughterhouse in order to protect the interests of the livestock industry. The very same forces at work in the very same place, and we have every reason to be appropriately inspired and pained.

There are no uniquely American forces to join in the quest for preservation, or for encouraging a president with the flick of his pen to do so. That force, if it exists, rests with a fundamental change in the way we look at land and people and the way we've organized both within this nation; it is even to question the nation itself, not just this nation, but any and all that would claim a land as its own to do with as it pleases.

As I write, I wonder if I am one with the very same forces of American history or someone set against it. Somehow, I doubt as a single writer that I am a force at all, not until I and that writing am attached to an actual movement. I'd suggest an actual movement, not the one imagined by Burns, actually begin.

From within the cauldron of boiling pools under the stars, we imagined we were alone and in love. Then, the man in green and brown approached before nicely kicking us out. "It's for your protection; it's for the good of your park," he informed us. I understood what he was driving at from within his world, but I couldn't help wonder if it might be different if .... And, if more inspired, ecstatic voices wonder along, then maybe ... well, until, that supervolcano goes off, anyhow.

Tom Hoyle's firsthand account of the rescue on the Firehole last week

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:17:00 +0000

A couple days ago, I shared with you quite a rescue story on the Firehole River, a story that hasn't been otherwise reported out of the park office or in Yellowstone.

Another person who was there, Tom Hoyle, shared his version with me by email and gave me permission to post what he shared with me verbatim. Thanks, Tom!

Here it is:

***

I was also involved in the rescue at the Firehole River as was my son Jeff and son-in-law Rick Wenger. We were in the river at the bottom of the first set of cascades where the river sinks into the Firehole canyon. We were right next to the eddy at the bottom of the falls just getting out of the water when we see a blond haired boy pop up from the eddy and scramble out of the river. He was very concerned about losing his mothers shoes!!!. We realized in about two seconds that he came thru the cascading falls. I immediately ran up the hill slightly the boy concerned that someone might try to follow him. As I crested the hill and could see the river I saw two others people in the swift water. A man ans a teenage boy. Andrew, the boy, was at the brink of the falls in a sitting position facing downstream. I asked him if he was OK and he said he was fine. I them went a little upstream and asked the man (Andrew’s father) if he was OK and he said the “he couldn’t hold on much longer” At that point I ran halfway down the hill and yelled for my son and son-in-law to come quickly. The river was very shallow where the man was – about 12 to 18 inches but also very swift. At first we tried to pick up a long lodgepole pine pole but it wasn’t long enough. And the river was too swift to hold hands to form a human chain. Several others arrived to help. We asked for someone to call 911. I was just going to run to my car to get a rope when someone showed up with a long yellow tow strap. On the fourth attempt one of the young men was able to get the strap to the father in the water. We (probably 5 or more men) walked out in the water to get the father. I was first and grabbed his wrist but I also fell down in the swift moving water. We all pulled and got the father out of harm’s way in short order probably no longer than 10 minutes. He was is good shape and went to the small hill above the river where his son was perched in the rocks.

We then focused our attention on Andrew in the river. We talked to him and again he said that he was stable and had a good perch in the river with his feet and legs holding him there. Another person showed up with a small (3/8”) rope which was thrown upstream of Andrew and he got it on the first throw. We then had him tie it around his chest and secure it. At some point about this time another man showed up who identified himself as a rescue ranger at McKinley park. He tied the rope off to a long (60’) log that was by our feet parallel to the river and part in the water and the larger trunk out of the water. At this point we felt good the we had the 15 year old Andrew somewhat safe. A few on the bank above us were yelling at us to just pull him in. But with the angle that the rope was to the river as soon as we pulled he may have gone partially over the first falls. We let his father make the decision to wait for help to arrive. Rangers started to show up and prepare for the rescue. We asked for a life vest which we were able to slide down the rope attached to Andrew. Later we did the same thing with a ranger’s helmet. At this point we felt that we had a good backup plan to bring him to safety if he slipped into the river. We also suggested that the rangers set up a team downstream at the bottom of the cascade which I assume they did. As Robert said we waited for a very long time for the park rescue ranger to enter the water. As we talked to the rescue ranger his plan was to tie on to the boy and then cut our rope free and be pulled in by the upstream rangers on the end of the rope. As it turned out the water was too deep and too swift and the ranger started to slide into our rope. At that point the ranger grabbed the boy and started to head to the side of the river. I had earlier put on a life vest on and had swapped places with Robert and had a very good view of the rescue. I could see the rescue ranger with his arm around the boy. However the boy’s face was clearly visible to me under about a foot of water. We very quickly pulled the boy and ranger to the river's edge and got the boy safely on shore. When the ranger (this was a very strong guy) got out of the water he just sat on a log and was breathing heavily. Clearly this used a lot of energy. A few minutes later I looked at Andrew sitting on a log with a blanket over him shivering uncontrollably. This part of the Firehole River is quite warm but it still cools the body down.

A word about Robert. For most of the wait time he was first on the line and talking to Andrew and was able to keep focused for a long period. He did an outstanding job. I believe that he is a police officer

I was also happy to have my son Jeff and son-in-law Rick with me as they are very athletic and were a great help when needed. My grandson Bradley Wenger (7) was there but left the area with Jeff when the rangers cleared the rescue site of extra people.

The rescue ranger from McKinley was very professional and a perfect person to have assist. He made a lot of suggestions which most were accepted by the park rangers. He is the type of person that you would want to lead a crew if you were in trouble.

Another person in the water was a trauma nurse who did some mountain climbing. He provided good suggestions and support also. I believe it was his life jacket the we put on Andrew.

I’m not sure but I believe that 45 minutes was in waiting for the right diameter and length of rope to arrive. The Yellowstone team were well organized and very professional. The ranger doing the rescue was definitely the right man for the job, Smart, strong and able.

Andrew and his brother (who went down the falls) and family are from Iowa. Andrew was attending a rigours wrestling camp in Montana prior to there visit to Yellowstone.

My son Jeff talked to Andrew's brother that went through the cascade. He told my son Jeff that he almost gave up as he couldn't catch a breath and thought that he would sink to the bottom but just put in an extra effort. We were glad he did. It is one thing to help in a rescue and quite another to recover a body.

Yellowstone is a beautiful area but the rivers and hot pots and animals have to be respected.

The names and addresses of all people involved in the rescue were recorded by the park rangers

Tom Hoyle retired engineer (age 63), Richland, WA

What it was like to volunteer with Buffalo Field Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:29:00 +0000

A small group of us with Buffalo Allies of Bozeman went down to volunteer with Buffalo Field Campaign on Saturday. I'm going to share a little here so that you know how easy it is to do and how much fun besides.

Buffalo Field Campaign lives west of the park near Hebgen Lake and is mostly comprised of volunteers, a number of whom spend November through May looking out for the bison populations roaming out of Yellowstone. Because buffalo that leave Yellowstone are not generally tolerated by the state of Montana and have been subject to killing and hazing (or forced movement) in large numbers, Buffalo Field Campaign was founded to stand up for the wild buffalo of Yellowstone. Their primary focus is media and outreach, documenting what happens to the buffalo and educating the public at large in the hopes that the slaughter stops and that buffalo are respected and treated as wildlife, i.e., without being forced to stop at the arbitrary boundary of Yellowstone National Park. Buffalo Field Campaign was founded in the winter of 1996-1997, during one of the worst buffalo slaughters on record.

Our group, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman, was founded by a small group of us in Spring 2008 during the worst slaughter of wild buffalo since the 19th century, and we were founded in large part to serve as a locally-based support group for other activists, including and especially Buffalo Field Campaign, working on the buffalo issue. We are in part here to help with the needs of other groups working on the buffalo issue.

One goal that I have always had is to empower local people to take action on behalf of the buffalo. From my years in the anti-war movement, I became convinced that local movements have the greatest power to bring about change and are the most sustainable. Whereas national organizing can bring an issue to large numbers of people, often the participation is passive. People think that action amounts to signing petitions and giving money, but no one is expected to put their heart and soul into it. So, when I lived in Washington, DC, I did not know how you could be an anti-war activist and not take action with the oppressed communities in your locality. We spent a lot of time in our activism not simply marching but also serving the homeless community; we spent time trying to understand how militarism affected our neighborhoods. Being in Gallatin County, Montana, we are drawn necessarily to our environment, to what lives in our environment, and one crucial part of that is the buffalo.

The point I am trying to make is that Buffalo Field Campaign has often depended on volunteers from across the country and across the world, sometimes from across Montana, but the Gallatin Valley has not always been a ready participant in buffalo activism. Bozeman has the reputation of a sleepy town of recreational enthusiasts and college students but certainly not social and environmental activists. However, if I am right about the ultimate need for local empowerment to local causes, then the success of the movement for wild buffalo will depend a lot on our success in Bozeman, the largest population center close to the wild buffalo migrating from Yellowstone National Park.

That's why we organized a number of us to go down to Buffalo Field Campaign to ski and look for buffalo.

This winter, only two buffalo have been killed. One was a buffalo in Idaho back in the fall; the other was killed on the first day of Montana's bison hunt in November. Outside of that, bison have simply not left the park and have not really come close. Two hypotheses have been offered: 1) Last year's record kill have left fewer bison to leave the park; 2) The mild winter has left grass plentiful and easily accessible within the park.

Nevertheless, we felt it important to go down to Buffalo Field Campaign anyhow because we want to build a base of people who can be volunteers that can be called on when necessary. We also want this base of volunteers to be able to educate the general public here in Bozeman about what it's like in the field with buffalo and how people can take action on their behalf. Before this fall, none of us who went down on Saturday could have told you much of anything about what it was like or how to take action. Now, we feel we understand enough that we could hold our own workshops to let people know what it is like. In fact, on December 6, we did just that, after Mark from our group (whose picture you see) took the first steps for us.

Volunteering with Buffalo Field Campaign is a lot of fun. At the very least, it's a ski trip into the Yellowstone borderlands in the world's most beautiful place. Saturday was quite sunny, and the snow was pristine, fields of white going on forever.

When you volunteer with Buffalo Field Campaign, they like to know when you are coming to give them a heads up of what to expect. When you arrive, one of the volunteers will give you a tour of their grounds and how they operate, and you are bound to meet several people. There are usually somewhere between 10 and 30 volunteers living there from anywhere ranging from days to months. It's quite an operation and worth seeing. A lot of camp life obviously involves keeping the camp going. Every day, meals have to be prepared, grounds have to be cleaned, there are maintenance chores. If you come to Buffalo Field Campaign and have a particular skill - like say, fixing cars - you will find something to do that does not involve going out into the field with buffalo. Whatever skill you have - whether you think it's relevant or not - Buffalo Field Campaign can probably find a use for it.

However, a great many people coming down want to go into the field. Before that happens, you have to understand what the campaign does and what its tactics are. As I mentioned, Buffalo Field Campaign is primarily a media campaign. When crews go out into the field, they take with them video cameras and radios in order to record and report what is happening. The campaign is nonviolent and nonconfrontational; they are there to document. If people want to take other kinds of actions - like for instance, setting up a blockade to stop a Montana Department of Livestock agent from reaching a buffalo - that is something you will do on your own. Actually, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman would support you - talk with us! - but is not what the campaign does when they are in the field.

When you are ready to go into the field, and assuming there is snow on the ground like we had, Buffalo Field Campaign has you covered. I had my own set of boots and skis and was ready to go, but some in our group needed boots and skis. They'll do their best to set you up, though the truth is that they could use more bindings, boots, and even skis. One of our group repeatedly had an issue with his boots coming out of the bindings. One thing we can do in Bozeman is to provide ski equipment to BFC. However, if you don't have skis, that should not stop you. And, if you have never skied, that shouldn't stop you, either! One person in our group had only skied once while another hadn't skied since childhood, and yet within no time they were on their skis moving forward. There are patrols to flat areas, as well as very hilly areas, and what's more, you will always be paired with an experienced Buffalo Field Campaign volunteer.

If the snow isn't good, people snowshoe. If there's no snow, they hike. Patrols on the west side of the park go along the Madison River at the park boundary, to lowlands near the Department of Livestock's Duck Creek trap, as well as to high overlooks like Sandy Butte. In our case, we went to the top of Sandy Butte, from which you can see the entire Madison valley inside the park. Sandy Butte is quite high, and though none of us were especially experienced skiers, most of us made it up. There we saw about four (perhaps, as many as six) buffalo, all of them small dots on the landscape, the largest small dot below us on Duck Creek, still about two miles from the park boundary. Apparently, buffalo have made it repeatedly to that spot without daring to venture closer to the park boundary. Though the buffalo weren't near, we were encouraged by seeing any at all, especially from such a stunning point.

In the nearby distance, we heard the roar of snowmobiles, sounding like the Daytona 500 or a plague of locusts. It was quite a contrast in worlds and cultures, separated by the well marked park boundary.

In any event, we had a blast on skis and returned to camp. When you return, you will be encouraged to stay for dinner, which they will provide. Dinners generally consist of vegan, vegetarian, and wild game alternatives. There's always plenty to eat. Before or just after dinner, every night, the group has a meeting, where they share their patrols and make sure that volunteers cover the tasks for the next day. People will be encouraged to share their experiences on the patrols and be part of whatever decisions need to be made at the meeting.

Obviously, Buffalo Field Campaign would like people to stay the night and continue to volunteer. But, just as obvious, people in Bozeman much more often than not will need to return to their homes. However, each time you return, each time the people and places become more familiar to you, the more useful you will become as a volunteer. At this point, we in Buffalo Allies are mostly just tourists on skis, but we are getting information and experience that will continue to help us help Buffalo Field Campaign and the buffalo.

I can say very sincerely that this is a very delightful experience that people should be encouraged to have. If someone wants to go up next week, we might be willing to go with you. And, if by chance we can't, we could tell you everything and set you up with the volunteer coordinators.

In the spring, the buffalo will come out of the park to calve. They are likely to face troubles then, especially if they are in no hurry to return to the park. We can do something about this and be a positive force for the buffalo and a steady source of solidarity for Buffalo Field Campaign. Please consider joining us as we work to make that happen.

Bison bill defeated in Montana, but what's the strategy?

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 06:35:00 +0000

Montana House Bill 253 - the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery and Conservation Act of 2009 - went down to defeat 10 - 8 on Thursday in the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee.

What I am going to say now represents my views on this and does not necessarily reflect the views of anyone else in my group, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman. In fact, I suspect my views will go beyond most of the members of the group.

I am having a lot of trouble understanding what the strategic purpose has been in pushing a bill that most people have acknowledged was likely to be defeated. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this bill, especially by members of the Gallatin Wildlife Association, much like the blood, sweat, and tears they put into a similarly defeated effort in 2005. Back in June, Rep. Mike Phillips, who drafted and shepherded the bill, said very clearly at a forum that there was almost no chance of this passing if both Gov. Schweitzer and Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) did not support the bill. And, they didn't. Officially, they stayed silent, but they were against the bill. The Governor's policy advisor, Hal Harper, and FWP's Pat Flowers made their views known to activists before this ever went to committee.

And, what do you know? It went down to defeat in committee. Imagine that; almost everyone knew it would fail, and it did.

I believe in a diversity of strategies and tactics. If you can get a win in the state legislature, go for it. I'll be glad to help, even if I have very little interest in pursuing these tactics. However, what's the strategy here? Does anyone plan to hold anyone accountable? Republican representative Ted Washburn supposedly supported the bill and wound up voting against it. Is anyone going to call him out? Or, are people naive enough to think that if they are just a little more persuasive that people will change their votes?

The problem for me always with using the legislature as a tactic is that it's liberal and reformist. It pretends that the system can be used to correct the abuses of symptoms in our society that are wrong. And, while it may be the case that occasionally you can treat a symptom, what really ever gets changed? What's wrong with Yellowstone, with buffalo, with everything in this region is not merely a symptomatic problem, a problem of just fixing this and adjusting that. Even if this bill had passed, we would still need to ask ourselves, what next? Like the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) that we decry as unworkable so too is the way the system functions.

The fact is that Montana politics is dominated by the livestock industry, an industry that might economically be responsible for only 1% of GDP but has an outsized presence in the political power of the state. You don't negotiate with a fundamentally irrational power or pretend that it's just a matter of winning an argument. You have to fight a different fight. It's like a bantamweight taking on a heavyweight. You don't fight like that on their turf and on their grounds. And, if anywhere is their grounds in Montana, it's in the political establishment.

The misguided idea has been that if you got wildlife advocates, environmentalists, other property owners, and sportsmen together, maybe you can politically overwhelm the livestock interests. Nope; you can outnumber them 4 to 1 in a committee hearing, you can win in the newspapers, but you won't win in Helena.

HB 253 was a tame bill; it didn't do much. The IBMP would have still held sway. All it would have done is alleviate an incoherence in Montana law where wildlife were managed by a livestock department, while allowing property owners to determine whether they wanted bison on their property. They would have been allowed to call in the Department of Livestock to deal with problems; however, all of that might have been moot anyhow under the IBMP (it might have been for a court to decide). It was worth supporting as a tactical victory toward a larger aim except we all knew it didn't have a chance of passing no matter how many hours spent trying to get it passed.

So, what is the strategy? I am going to find out, and I want to see what the Gallatin Wildlife Association has in mind. It's not enough that the issue is in the public dialogue unless there's a way to thrust that dialogue into further action.

If there was one thing that happened was that a lot of pro bison groups that haven't been getting along that well got behind this bill in a way they didn't four years ago. If this is an exercise in movement building, that's great. But, then, I have trouble understanding why anyone is pretending that action in the legislature is the best means toward that end? Is it just the culture of the groups involved? That's what they do? I'd be fine with that answer so long as no one is pretending that the bison situation actually will be solved simply by passing a law. Because, it won't. This is a very long struggle that depends on a lot more changing.

I believe we need to learn to embrace different tactics alongside this one. If we don't, this sorry story will just keep repeating itself until no one cares anymore.

By writing so harshly, I don't mean to put down the efforts of those who pushed this bill. In fact, I admire them very much. I truly just want to know what's next, and if that hasn't been thought about, then we all had better start.

Mourning the loss of William "Doubting" Thomas

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:25:00 +0000

William "Doubting" Thomas, founder of the Peace Park vigil in Lafayette Park outside the White House, died on Friday morning after a long illness. He was 61; he was my friend. I mourn his loss intensely.

Thomas, as he was known to all of us, began his 24/7 vigil for "Wisdom, Honesty, Truth, Justice, and Global Nuclear Disarmament" on April 13, 1981 interrupted only by numerous arrests and a "stay away" order the last year of his life. The anti-nuclear vigil became the most visible statement of an anti-nuclear organization called Proposition One. He was joined in the vigil by his more famous sidekick, Concepcion "Connie" Picciotto, who achieved a small measure of fame when she was filmed by Michael Moore at the vigil for a scene that appeared toward the end of Fahrenheit 9/11. As we mourn the loss of Thomas, we must remember that Connie struggles on and needs our support.

The Peace Park vigil is certainly a tourist curiosity, situated right across the street from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, so close that it has been dubbed 1601 Pennsylvania Avenue. Over the years, the National Park Service has tried to remove it many times, but it remains the eyesore on the front steps of the greatest power the world has ever known, reminding us of our role as a nation in nuclear destruction and urging us to stop now and forever. Unfortunately, that message is as pertinent now as it was when Reagan was ratcheting up the Cold War in 1981. The United States still possesses the world's largest nuclear arsenal; more nations possess nuclear weapons than ever, and the world's energy crisis is increasing calls for nuclear power (or disguise it in the form of hydrogen power, a byproduct of the nuclear process).

This issue is what my friend Thomas fought for, passing out information, talking with strangers, and keeping watch year after year, decade after decade.

Thomas leaves behind his beloved wife Ellen, whose email message reached me this evening. When they were not at shifts at the vigil, they lived in a house not too far distant called the "Peace House," taking in and feeding homeless people, providing space for the Washington Peace Center, and providing a welcome mat to anyone who needed anything or simply wanted the company of good people. Whenever I visited Ellen and Thomas at the Peace House, I was chastised for not coming by enough - tonight, I regret that I didn't.

What I want to reiterate to you all and to Ellen, if she reads this, is the role that Thomas and the Peace Park vigil had on my life. I had a transformative experience in November 2000 because of Thomas and the vigil he started. Without that experience, I really don't think I would have taken the road I went down as an anti-war activist, as a global justice activist, and now as an advocate for buffalo in and near my beloved Yellowstone National Park. It was one of those experiences I will never forget, and it made a profound difference for me and no doubt the people I have been able to touch through my own activism.

If you recall, in November 2000, we had a contentious presidential election involving George W. Bush and Al Gore. I had only moved to Washington, D.C., that past spring in order to work on a Ph.D. in philosophy at Catholic University. However, as upset as I was by the politics and the process of what was happening in Florida, I did not do anything. Never had I protested; never had it really crossed my mind. That was something my parents did during Vietnam; I had thought that era of history was more or less gone, though it had never really stopped. In any event, I was temping at the Urban Institute over in the Dupont Circle area. One morning I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to do more, but I didn't know what. The only thing that came to my mind was how much I hated the death penalty; however, I didn't really know if that was what was calling me.

I got off of work early in the afternoon and wandered in the direction of the White House. There I saw the Peace Park vigil, which for some reason at that time was set up near H Street on the other end of Lafayette Park, perhaps because the city was getting ready for another inaugural, which tended to move the vigil. I don't recall whether I saw Thomas or Connie, but there was a man there. He looked defeated and sad, as though he needed something from me. All of my being wanted to go up to him and simply say, "God bless you." However, I can be painfully shy sometimes, and I couldn't work up the courage. Instead, I walked away saying nothing.

There have been few times where I felt more guilty than I did at that moment; it is a hard thing to explain because there was nothing technically that I had done that was wrong. Yet, inside of me, I felt this incredible moral failing. And, there was something in that feeling that told me that I needed to be doing more, that to make up for what I had done wrong I had to become active.

And, so I did. I became involved in grassroots organizing, protesting what was happening in Florida. Within weeks, I spent an entire night on the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court. It never occurred to me that what felt like an amazing feat for me was something that Thomas probably could count years of his life doing in Lafayette Park. I worked with others to try to start a grassroots group. Though that experience burned me in many ways, it didn't ultimately stop me. The lead up to the war in Iraq led me to anti-war organizing, led me to the DC Anti-War Network, and ultimately that work led me finally to know Thomas, to know Ellen, to know about Proposition One and the Peace Park vigil. I'd spend time occasionally covering the vigil when someone had to go for a bathroom break; I joined my partner Genevieve when she and a friend named Midge held a solidarity one week vigil alongside Peace Park. I spent another night in the park honoring the work of the vigil. And, I got to know Thomas little by little.

So, Peace Park and Thomas inspired me to where I am now in so many ways. So many of you getting this know my work right now on Yellowstone issues, but Thomas is an important inspiration that drives me. And, I miss him.

When I knew Thomas, he had this dog named Wise Guy, who died a few years ago. Wise Guy was a pit bull, and yet Thomas kept him at the vigil without a leash. What a sweet dog, and Thomas once got arrested because of Wise Guy not being on a leash. And, yet, through millions of tourists, I never saw anyone afraid of Wise Guy. However, Thomas, when he was in a foul mood, could scare you because he was so passionate and could be so caustic toward the relentless BS from people who tried to defend American war and nuclear policy. He had certainly heard it all, and yet someone would inevitably approach him as though they were giving him an argument he had never heard before. I delighted in watching Thomas talk with people.

It was clear in recent years that Thomas was ill, and I'd often feel sad knowing that. Nevertheless, I was amazed at the way he kept up his commitments despite how badly he often felt. I saw so many activists fall by the wayside over much, much less.

Sometimes, I felt that a lot of people thought the Peace Park vigilers were crazy, and I can only imagine what endless days in the tourist hell outside the White House in all kinds of weather does to one's sanity. However, I have always been convinced that that vigil is the sanest expression of protest against war, that war and those who perpetrate it for any reason are absolutely nuts and that no amount of rationalization in the world can make the carnage of war any more sane. When such power is held in the hands of one man, that's insanity. I heard that a CIA drone killed 18 people in Pakistan today, and few here would blink an eye. How can anyone - are you listening Barack Obama - have that kind of power; how can anyone with that kind of power dare to use it? Thomas was just one man, and perhaps he and Connie alone have stayed sane while we all delude ourselves that the madness of the world is normal.

I want to fight the madness like Thomas fought the madness.

Nuclear war vigils seem distant sometimes to me in the relative paradise of Montana, surrounded by mountains, near the most beautiful and greatest wonders of the world. Here we deal with issues related to the land and those that live on it and the way we should live with land. Yet, another dear friend of mine in the Washington area, John Steinbach - and a friend to Ellen and Thomas - understands perhaps better than anyone how nuclear issues relate with indigenous issues (where on whose reservations so many nuclear tests have been conducted) and relate with land and wildlife issues. Like John, I can't see the Yellowstone I love and the buffalo I love without giving a loving glance back to Ellen and Thomas.

Thomas, we are hurt in ways we scarcely understand by your loss.

The best I can do now is write this ode in your memory and honor, Thomas, and hope that a few people take notice to make the commitment and the connections that your life was about. "Wisdom, Honesty, Truth, Justice, and Global Nuclear Disarmament" indeed.

Love,
Jim

Buffalo Rally in Helena : Success of a small action inside a big problem

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:14:00 +0000

Warning: This essay has nothing to do with earthquake swarms or the Yellowstone supervolcano. Be forewarned or else you might fall under the apocalypse of reading what is to follow on something else entirely pertaining to Yellowstone. ;)

On January 5, 2009, I was a participant in a march on behalf of the wild buffalo population in Yellowstone National Park, animals who have been denied year round habitat in the state of Montana. The action, sponsored by Buffalo Field Campaign and Buffalo Allies of Bozeman, was in Helena and was targeted at the swearing in of the state legislature and Gov. Brian Schweitzer, under whose watch the greatest wild buffalo slaughter since the 19th century has happened. It was in support of the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery & Conservation Act of 2009, which calls for shifting management of wild bison from the Montana Department of Livestock to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks so that bison are managed as wildlife instead of as animals in need of disease control. During the action, about 15 activists from West Yellowstone, Bozeman, Missoula, and Helena were able to get inside the capitol rotunda with signs that read, "Stop the Slaughter" and "Stop the B.S. = Buffalo Slaughter = Brian Schweitzer." Reporters took our pictures, filmed us, and wrote articles about it.

Those are most of the basic facts about the action. I can also add that the crowd - mostly Montana policy makers and their families - received us mostly with thumbs up. One of our number reported that the governor acknowledged our sign. I can add that the march through the empty streets of Helena reached few people. Perhaps, I should also add that a native man joined our action outside of the capitol and supported us inside the rotunda. There was no trouble from Helena police; besides the signs and buffalo masks, there was no disruption inside the rotunda. After the rally, participants expressed a sense that the action had gone well, especially once we were inside the capitol, where policy makers were forced to notice and where reaction was mostly positive.

However, the basic facts of an action often miss one of a million other things that can be said. What we are doing is for the buffalo, and while the rest of what I write will deal more with the people power aspect of the action, we cannot forget that the buffalo are at the center of everything that happened. Without the basic injustice being done to this animal by Montana and the federal government, none of what we had to say would have any resonance. Without the great disconnect that we who are living on this continent are continuing to have because of the way we confine buffalo inside of Yellowstone National Park, the drama of the moment would be missing. The organizing of people around a cause, the friendships and challenges, and even the resistance against us would mean nothing if not for the animals caught up in the absurd way we play god over everything under the sun.

All that said, in any action I am regularly struck by the metrics we come up with for judging its success. At the most basic level, we can ask ourselves here whether this advances the cause of the buffalo. And, while helpful to have that framework, that really doesn't get us much further in answering the question. It also seems likely that the success of an action targeting any injustice likely would have similar metrics, and there's no reason not to broaden the continent of our question in just the way we would hope that the buffalo might broaden across the North American continent.

So, based on what I felt about the action, I want to say that the action was a success. If it was a success, what made it successful? How successful was it?

These are all incredibly difficult questions to answer because a lot depends upon what the ultimate goal posts are and how much is possible for a particular group of people acting a particular way. As I understand the question, fighting the injustice of buffalo confined to Yellowstone is only the beginning of an incredible problem facing our society. Yellowstone is that place that was set aside after everything else had been run over or was about to be run over. It was the refugee camp for centuries of pillaging a continent, a pillaging that continues. Undoing everything that was ever done is not even possible; however, undoing the ethical arrogance that continues to drive our relationship with the land must be possible if we are to be better off. Yellowstone itself suffers under the weight of the burden. We must free what is trapped within Yellowstone also to free Yellowstone; and we must also do this to free ourselves. I know that all of that sounds poetic, but this is not the place to rehash old arguments, demonstrating the logical fallacies in our prevalent world views about our relationship with the land.

In any event, I think the goal posts are very far from us, and I also think that the individual should, in her or his particular actions, fervently avoid any action that would give that person power over the agency of another. What I mean is that no person should ever strive for too much power - even for an apparent good - lest you simply create one fundamental problem to replace another. I should never have any right to have power over you and your decisions; I might resist the power you wield over others, but I have no right to become lord over you as you lord over others.

Thus, the challenge against injustice is of a great scale - like the one we see with the buffalo, like the one we see against indigenous people, like the one we see in warfare, like the one we see in sexism, like the one we see in racism, and on and on - and we have to realize that our particular power in exerting our influence over a situation must necessarily be small. We are only capable of small feats against great problems, and that is a terrible dilemma for anyone who wishes to fight against injustice.

I believe that our action in Helena was a small feat that can help us move toward defeating a great problem. Remaining small in scale to fight what's large in scope requires incredible creativity and persistence in organizing. It requires communication, organization, and flexibility. If my action is going to ever be part of something large enough to fight the problem, it has to be part of something that encourages others to take similar actions. It has to be part of something that inspires us to reach out for others and increase our network of support. We have to at once build our own small communities - family units, if you will - while using those family units to build herd after herd so that the injustice eventually falls apart. However, that's a romantic analogy; in truth, it's very difficult for families to get along, for groups of people to get along with other groups of people, for those groups of people to stay in touch, to collaborate, and to build the movement necessary to overrun injustice. It may be hard, but it had better not be impossible.

So, let's look at the action in Helena. What it was first was a collaborative effort, spearheaded by a strong small community - Buffalo Field Campaign - inspired by another small community - the legislation proposed by the Gallatin Wildlife Association - in conjunction with a budding new community - Buffalo Allies of Bozeman - built on connections that already existed with people in Missoula and Helena. However, beyond that, it drew new people in - marchers not known about in Helena, inspiring new connections in our group in Bozeman. Secondly, the action managed to reach the media so that others have the opportunity to know and take action. It provoked the power holders and those guilty of injustice to react, as Schweitzer apparently did. It inspired those who took action to want to take more action, to share their experiences as I am here, and therefore to do more.

Of course, the gains of the action are tentative; their permanence depends on us continuing to chip away, to continue making connections, and to work on inspiring new people both to join our group or to perhaps form their own groups. Maybe, protest isn't your thing; maybe, you are an academic and have information to share. Maybe, you are a farmer and have food to share. Maybe, you are a poet or a musician and have beauty to share. Maybe, you are a cynic and have your honesty to share. The point is that the more we build these connections and embrace and overcome the challenges that arise, the stronger we will become, even though our own individual efforts will remain small and tied to the families and communities with which we belong.

That is the core of people power. Now, if I am wrong that the individual should not aspire to overwhelming acts of heroism or wrong that the problem of the buffalo is huge, then perhaps one could argue that the action was not really a success because the acts were tiny but not large enough to handle a relatively small problem. In that case, no doubt people will keep throwing their money and their energy at that individual who promises to fix the problem. I think that's why people have such faith in electoral politics. If only this guy - for some, it was once Brian Schweitzer - gets elected, then he can fix this problem. We can argue about that, but I will contend that the problem with the buffalo is greater than the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery & Conservation Act of 2009 and that respecting any animal as wildlife opens quite a pandora's box. And, I will continue to argue that it's beyond any one of us to fix. So, that's why small acts - like pushing for this bill, like rallying in support of it, like organizing in Bozeman, like connecting with friends in the movement - can truly be the most effective and meaningful acts that we undertake. Again, that's my assertion, but I must keep my ambitions relatively small for this essay to be a success.

Thus, protesting, marching, and holding signs can be powerful when they tend to build the roaming of the movement that they are supposed to support. If we are looking for the knockout punch, we are in the wrong sport. Winning will come as we build strong families and strong herds (i.e., strong families and strong communities), but that is built on what might seem to be a lot of pointless moving about. It can be, sometimes, but if you look closely at this action in Helena, this one was far from pointless. Yes, we made our point to Gov. Schweitzer and the politicians of Montana, but more importantly, we made it with each other in a way that can only make us stronger and make our point more strongly.

Jim Macdonald
***
Somewhat related, please read about the May 2008 action in Helena that I wrote about here.

Yellowstone doom: Imagine better this new year

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:05:00 +0000

A new year has begun, one of the arbitrary boundaries we set in order to measure the passage of time. It's a time where we reflect backwards and look forwards, and doing so is socially shared. We all do it, and even if we don't, we are conscious of the fact that we don't. Even the rebels among us who treat New Year's as just another day do so fully aware of what they are not doing.

New Year's, arbitrary though it is, nevertheless has a stunning significance.

For me, it almost marks my first year since I've moved much closer to my beloved Yellowstone. In fact, the day I moved here was December 23, 2007; however, it's close enough to the magnetic pull of New Year's that it might as well be a year today. What a neat year it has been, watching my little baby boy grow, watching the seasons change, adoring the mountains, co-founding an activist group, moving into a new house, learning to ski, and taking every opportunity I could to know Yellowstone.

Who knows if next year will be as fortunate? The impermanence of our experience is in part what makes it so compelling. That it might be otherwise or might have been otherwise, whether by luck or our own control, the possibility of what might have been or what might still be certainly is part of the drama of our existence. We never know whether the moment we live might be our last or whether bad times might be better or worse yet. We'd like to think that what goes up might go down, but we wonder if it mightn't just keep rising forever. The odds that I would be here right now writing this essay in this place are almost impossible. That I am when I might not have been, that I am here and not there, there is nothing that can amaze the mind more than imagining all the possibilities.

Perhaps, that's why people are so drawn to doom. In recent days, a ridiculous number of people have been drawn to reports of a large swarm of minor earthquakes in Yellowstone. There have been hundreds of small quakes within the Yellowstone caldera, one of the world's largest volcanoes (supervolcanoes). There's nothing unusual about small or even large earthquakes in Yellowstone, but what made this newsworthy was the sheer number of earthquakes all at once mostly in the same area. And, once that became a national story, it has drawn out dozens and dozens and dozens of blog posts about it, a great many of them with apocalyptic predictions of what might come, or in the words of many, what surely will come.

It has been almost absurd to see that my newspaper on all things greater Yellowstone has had more unique visitors the past couple of days than any other day of the online paper's existence. That's more striking because we are not in the main tourist season, and in fact we are in the holiday season. It's been particularly hard to keep up with the sheer number of blogs posting opinions on this. Like New Year's draws us in right now, for me, the fact that so many people are obsessed with news about the very common occurrence of earthquakes in Yellowstone is something that I cannot avoid thinking about.

So, impermanence is our lot. We will die. The Earth one day will surely be gone, at least when the sun finally explodes, perhaps sooner. What we work to protect, what we fear of losing, we all will lose. Just as today passes into yesterday, we will lose the possibility of what might still be into a merely what might have been. Doom, whether it comes in a spectacular ball of fire, or dying quietly surrounded by hospice caretakers like my partner Genevieve cares for, is certainly our lot, at least in terms of our lives here on Earth.

Old Faithful will be gone one day. And, yes, one day, that supervolcano will indeed explode.

However, the fact of doom is perfectly normal, the essence of mundane. However, no one is interested in something simply because it is perfectly normal. No one is interested about my sleeping schedule, when I choose to eat, when I choose to relieve myself. Few particularly care whether I live or whether I die. The inevitability of doom isn't what's attractive to people; what is attractive is thinking the possibilities of what might happen. People are attracted in particular to the manner of their death - or perhaps the death of others. If someone is murdered, they care more than if they happened to die a slow, agonizing death overcome by dimentia, or perhaps Parkinson's--like my grandmother. The unexpected--the death of a young child, the sudden heart attack, perhaps a suicide that was a surprise. And, the more bizarre and unusual, the more attractive. If we all go down in a fire of ash, suffocated by chlorine gas, and an ice age, caused by the most beautiful place in the world, now that's a story. That's something people can buy into; that's really an attractive way to die or to cheat death. That's drama, and that's the kind of possibility that people dream about.

And, even if it's not likely, that the notion that the supervolcano is overdue is based on a very weak inductive generalization of the fewest instances, the sheer possibility, the knowledge that maybe we are the lottery winners in a game of the most sensationalized doom, is enough to keep hope alive for those who don't want their lives to be merely normal, their doom to be like all the others.

That it's sadistic to the hilt is of no matter; I imagine many thousands of people were thrilled at first when Hurricane Katrina struck hard. It's disgusting and revolting but no doubt true, or else why would cable news outlet after outlet send reporters down to the eye of the storm? They don't do it because they are concerned; they do it because people have a fascination with disaster. When terrible disaster struck, the sensationalism couldn't last but a few weeks even though the problems for the people of New Orleans still remain. But, at that point, it was mundane. People were used to it; the drama of the true tediousness of life no longer concerned them. Perhaps, people felt a little guilty for wishing such doom, but then the thought creeps in, "What if it were to happen again?"

In fact, disasters are happening in Yellowstone right now that are apparently not sensational enough to matter. Wolves are caught in the crosshairs of political disputes and land wars. Buffalo were slaughtered in record numbers in 2008 by the government. Unexploded ordnance, all to keep Sylvan Pass open during winter for a few snowmobilers, litter eastern Yellowstone (oh wait, you didn't know about that, isn't that a disaster waiting to happen?) No doubt that all around Yellowstone, you won't have any trouble finding hundreds of people whose obituaries are being written and thousands of animals who die in the life and death struggle of the ecosystem (oh wait, you really dig that - that's what National Geographic or an Anderson Cooper special are for or perhaps all the spotting scopes in the Lamar Valley). But, how can any of that compete with supposedly impending planetary doom? One person's year, one person's possibilities, one blade of grass's hopes and dreams cannot possibly connect us so powerfully. Just as New Year's connects us all, we are connected by really big, unique notions of doom.

There might be no helping our sensationalistic tendencies; how can we tell anyone not to imagine doomsday scenarios? We are drawn magnetically to considering what might be. However, I think sometimes our imaginations aren't brilliant enough. That might seem odd considering some of the apocalyptic nonsense that you can read online right now about Yellowstone or the Mayan prophecy and 2012. It seems the imagination is doing well, but is it? Actually, it's pretty dull and predictable. People are drawn to the same kinds of disasters - volcanoes, earthquakes, meteors, plagues. It's particularly dull to see so many people running to my Web site looking for the same thing. Rather than evidence of a vivid imagination, it's evidence that people are basically trapped by the same societal paradigms. Those who are accused of having overactive imaginations in fact are just guilty of bad reasoning, and those who spend all their time debunking them - while just as lacking in imagination - at least have the good sense not to be totally trapped.

What I mean by a lack of imagination is that we seem unable to understand anything close to the full range of possibility so that we might empathize with anyone or anything caught in any situation. There's absolutely no reason that we cannot wonder at the situation of a single pebble in our backyard. Now, that we don't wonder about these things isn't always surprising, but it would be far more interesting to live in a world where we at least are making the effort. Every time the wind blows over the surface of our lands, an entire universe is displaced. One breath of air is doom for an infinity of molecules. Just the wonder of such a reality where disaster lurks around every keystroke can compel us, can help us reach new levels of empathy for our world and for our own situation. The what might be and what might have been is infinite; there's no reason to fall back to the same scenarios of doom.

Right now, we are stuck in a New Year's state of mind, not that there's anything wrong with that. What's wrong is that it's so dull. It's all very much the same, lacking in the critical variety of experience that our five senses demand. So, this New Year's, I don't resolve to be rid of it. How can I? But, I do resolve to wonder just that much more at what's not being wondered about, to care just that much more, and if in the process, I'm forced to consider a lot of doomsday scenarios about things all too familiar - like the Yellowstone supervolcano - so be it. At least, I'm not going to confine myself to just the same kind of essay. Hopefully ... hopefully ... there is something new under our weary sun.

1/5: RALLY FOR THE BUFFALO IN MONTANA'S STATE CAPITAL!

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:25:00 +0000

From Buffalo Field Campaign

****

RALLY FOR THE BUFFALO IN MONTANA'S STATE CAPITAL!

Dear Buffalo Friends in Montana,

Join Buffalo Field Campaign and other wild bison advocates on Monday, January 5, 2009 for a *RALLY IN HELENA*! We need you to stand with us for the buffalo as both Governor Brian Schweitzer and the Montana Legislature are sworn into office. Stand with us to let the Montana Governor and the Legislature know that wild buffalo have a right to migrate into and be treated respectfully in Montana!

* WHO: Everyone who cares about restoring wild bison in Montana

* WHAT: March & Rally with banners, puppets, speakers and take action items

* WHEN: Monday, January 5, 2009. 9:00 - 10:30 am

* WHERE: Meet at Women's Park then we'll march to the state capital around 9:30 am. Women's Park is located between Neill and Fuller Avenues, near N. Last Chance Gulch, about a mile from the state capital building. Visit Google Maps, and type in Women's Park, Helena, Montana for a map and directions.

* WHY: America's last wild bison that migrate into Montana from Yellowstone National Park continue to be harassed and killed for following their natural instincts. Last year, the state of Montana and Yellowstone National Park perpetuated the largest-scale wild bison slaughter since the 1800's, killing more than 1,600 wild bison. During Governor Schweitzer's first term, more wild bison were killed than under the combined three terms of the governors who preceded him, even though when he first campaigned he did so under the promise to provide "more tolerance for wild bison in Montana."

We gather to hold the Governor accountable for his actions against wild bison, to encourage him to support actions recognizing wild bison as a valued wildlife species in Montana, and to provide year-round habitat for this special, prehistoric species.

When he ran for office Governor Schweitzer said that the Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) is "ill-equipped to manage wild buffalo." We will ask the Montana legislature to repeal MCA 81-2-120, the current law that places the Montana Department of Livestock in charge of bison management, and urge them to support LC0128, the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery and Concervation Act of 2009; a bill that will remove the DOL's authority, respect wild bison, and designate Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks as the managing agency.

We will also have post cards on hand for you to sign and mail or hand deliver to your state legislators, and we'll have enough post cards for you to take back to your community. Hot beverages and snacks will be provided to keep you warm and happy!

CONTRIBUTE YOUR CREATIVITY & ENERGY! There are many ways you can help make this rally a success:

Join us and bring your friends and family
Make banners, puppets, masks (Message should include: Year-round habitat, Respect bison as wildlife, Remove the DOL's authority, or any others that are close to your heart for the buffalo)
Organize or be available for carpools to get as many people as possible to attend
Distribute fliers around your community (flyer to be distributed in subsequent email)
Contact local media to let them know about the event
Write letters to the editor of local and regional newspapers to talk about the buffalo

We look forward to seeing you there! Please spread the word to save the herds!

For more information, please visit http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org or contact bfc-media@wildrockies.org

--
Media & Outreach
Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

BFC is the only group working in the field every day
in defense of the last wild buffalo population in the U.S.

--

Media & Outreach

Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

BFC is the only group working in the field every day

in defense of the last wild buffalo population in the U.S.

Stay informed! Get our weekly email Updates from the Field:

Send our email address to bfc-media@wildrockies.org

* View BFC Video Footage:
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

* Why are they killing the last wild buffalo?

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/issueinbrief.html

* Buffalo Field Campaign Blog

http://www.blog.buffalofieldcampaign.org

* Protect Horse Butte for Wild Buffalo!

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/legal/horsebutte.html

* BOYCOTT BEEF! It's what's killing wild buffalo

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/boycott.html

* Speak Out! Contact politicians and involved agencies today:

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/politicians.html

* Write a Letter to the Editor of key newspapers:

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/lte.html

* BFC Wish List

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/aboutus/wishlist.html

Return to the Ontological Argument for God's existence

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:35:00 +0000

It's been awhile since I have written anything for this blog, but it's not for lack of activity. Instead of writing essays, I've been on the ground organizing for Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.

However, returning to my roots in philosophy, I've recently been discussing God with my dearest friend. I recently remarked that I've always been impressed with a version of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. This, perhaps, may surprise some of you who may only know me for my anarchist writings. It's certainly anarchist heresy to be a theist and an anarchist. But, perhaps, that's another part of what makes me eclectic.

My father is a United Methodist minister back in Ohio. He always taught us that Christianity is a radical religion, that love in particular is the most radical concept the world has ever known. Unfortunately, little about Christianity or love in practice is all that particularly radical. However, we were always taught that in Christ there was no male or female, for instance. That, God's kingdom resided principally within the hearts of the community of believers, that the "kingdom" was an anti-kingdom where the last shall be first, and God was first servant of all. The language of hierarchy was used to invert and subvert hierarchy. The only thing that mattered was the practice of love to each other. "What you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

That sounds in some sense Quaker, for those of you familiar, and to some extent it is. However, culturally, I've always felt more at home with non-Christians, with those who preferred to make a lot of noise, with those who weren't afraid to identify with trouble making and subversion - who weren't afraid to embrace the radical aspects of virtue. So, perhaps, most of my friends have been agnostics of various types, pagans, and other kinds of spiritualists.

And, yet, all that being the case, I am firmly a theist.

In that context with one of my agnostic/atheist and dearest of friends, I have tried to explain why it is I believe in God and what I mean by that.

Here is most of the recent letter that I sent her, covering my arguments for the ontological argument and then moving beyond that, trying to bridge the implications of the ontological argument, the implications of my experience as a being, with faithful adherence to a theistic view of God.

This is only the start. If people want to chime in relevant comments, they are welcome to do so. You can find some very old writings by me on the subject at http://www.geocities.com/jsmacdonaldjr/six.html. Defending the basis of these views is at the heart of everything I do and has taken up many years of my life. No doubt you can find many online arguments I've had with people just by doing some Web searches.

Here is my letter written today:

Aneslm's version of the ontological argument.

Define God as "that than which a greater cannot be conceived."
"That than which a greater cannot be conceived" includes the concept of existence because a "that than which a greater cannot be conceived" would not be a "that than which a greater cannot be conceived" if it lacked existence.
Therefore, God exists.

Critique: The argument does not prove that existence is necessarily greater than non-existence. That is, if one denies that existence is not something that necessarily makes a concept greater, where is the contradiction in that? Therefore, God's existence would not depend upon the definition of God, it would depend on knowing the value of existence to a concept. So, it is incomplete.

Leibniz's version of the ontological argument.

Define God as "necessary," that is as "that which cannot be conceived not to be."
If God is possible, then God exists. That is, if the concept of a "that which cannot be conceived not to be" is logically possible, that is - without contradiction -, it must exist because nothing can limit it from being.
God is possible. That is, there is no contradiction in conceiving of a "that which cannot be conceived not to be."
Therefore, God exists.

It follows from this that this is the only sort of being whose existence follows merely from considering the definition. That is, I don't exist by definition because I might not have been and might not be. That is, one could posit the non-existence of anything that is not necessary.

A "that which cannot be conceived not to be" is little different than positing the law of noncontradiction, not merely as a law of our thought, but as an existing being in its own right.

But, why call this God? What would it have to do with the God believed in by the churches or the various religions of the world?

Let's consider this more. However, let's note this first. One thing that religious people certainly mean by God is a being that cannot be conceived not to be. The existence of God must be the most pre-eminent axiom of a religion, but whether what necessarily exists bears any other likeness to what people call God than mere existence is a pertinent question. Why not simply call a "that which cannot be conceived not to be" simply a law of reason, or a law of being, required for reason, required for understanding reality, but not an active being in its own right, not a good being, not an all powerful being, not an all present being - as is required by theism.

Certainly, if we simply stop with the law of noncontradiction, we merely have God as an empty tautology. The philosopher and logician Fred Sommers called the ontological argument by Leibniz a sound argument; however, he said that it implied that this notion of "God" was purely negative. It suggested that God was simply the domain of discourse, or the domain in which we make assertions about objects in the world, but was nothing else in its own right. To suggest that God was more than a domain of discourse would lead to paradoxes that philosophy is not (yet) equipped to deal with - namely others like Bertrand Russell argued, how an object could be a member of its own class. How could we make assertions about God - defined first as a necessary being - if God is the domain in which all assertions about God must be considered.

So, to say as theists do that God is all powerful, all knowing, always present, and all good would be, according to this view, to make claims about God that cannot be applicable to the concept of God.

Therefore, we need to look more closely at the question of what else can be known about God; we also have to understand how tautologies of any type can be incarnate, so to speak.

Just as there is one thing that can be known to exist by consideration of its definition - that is, necessary being (a "that which cannot be conceived not to be"), there is at least one being that can be known to exist through the consideration of experience. Descartes's great dictum whereby he recognized his own existence because he was not able to escape the notion that it was he who was thinking it. When he tried, it was he who was trying. In fact, I do exist. I might not have existed; I may not exist. However, I do in fact exist right now. That I exist, I who am thinking, who might have been otherwise. My existence, however necessary to acknowledge right now, by force of the inescapable experience of my existence, am not a logically necessary being. That is, I can be conceived not to be, at least in terms of what I am, even if I am unable to conceive of it as I am thinking it right now in terms of my experience. This is what Leibniz in part meant by calling a being contingent. Logically, a contingent being, as opposed to a necessary being, is one that can be logically (essentially) conceived not to be without contradiction. However, in one sense, my being is necessary, in that I cannot escape the conclusion that I do in fact exist. That is what Leibniz meant by hypothetical necessity. That is, it might not have been the case that I exist, but that I exist is surely a necessary conclusion. It does not follow from my essence, however. It's not the same nature as a "that which cannot be conceived not to be." That is a being that necessarily exists in fact and also by logic. There is nothing hypothetical about it. The existence of a necessary being does not depend upon me conceiving of God's existence; in fact, it's the other way around.

So, here I am, a being whose existence is contingent. It might not have been; in my definition, I don't contain within me the reason for my own existence. What then is the reason for my existence? To suggest that there is no reason for my existence is nonsensical because the lack of sufficient reason for my existence is precisely what makes me distinct from that of a necessary being. To deny a sufficient reason is to deny my own existence, which we cannot in fact do. Thus, we have unearthed another principle of reason, one that follows from considering the distinction between necessity and contingency. That is, there is such a thing as a principle of sufficient reason. There must be a reason that explains what a thing is - either that thing is necessary, in which its existence is explained from within its own definition, or a thing is contingent, in which its existence is explained by something else.

What explains my existence? Perhaps, it is another contingent being. Maybe, we are like a jigsaw puzzle, not one of us is explained in ourselves, but we are explained by the sum of our parts fitting together. In that way, our sufficiency is a sum. But, then the reason - the sum - is still something which is distinct from a consideration of the parts themselves. Even if we considered existence a sum of parts (a problem for infinite reasons), the sum itself is not reducible to a consideration of the meaning of the part. That is, the existence of contingent beings cannot be explained by contingent beings, no matter how many others there are, and no matter how they fit together. The sufficient reason for anything contingent must have its reason arise from something necessary. Out of the nature of necessary being then, my own existence arises.

This leads to more questions. How can what is necessary implicate the reality of my own existence, which we know is contingent? This is an important question, but we cannot deny that we have reached the point where we cannot doubt that the question has a rational answer to it even if we are not there. One thing we must realize is that there is a connection between my own existence and the existence of necessary being, and this also is something that is consistent with what we find in the religions. But, we must admit its also what we find in philosophies like materialism, which teach that we arise out of the material of the universe. If the universe is that material, and that material is necessary, then we who are less than the sum of the universe nevertheless find our reality from the attributes of universal matter, according to this view. This is not something the religions generally would subscribe to. It doesn't bring us to a theistic notion of God, but it brings us now closer to understanding the connection. Notice that what I've done here , though, in considering the nature of sufficient reason, is give a version of the cosmological argument. It is an argument that derives its force only if the ontological argument is sound. If it is not, then the cosmological argument cannot hold weight. If one can truly deny that a necessary being exists, then there is no reason to posit a principle of sufficient reason.

I'm going to stop here. I've taken a lot of steps; do we need to backtrack? Is there something to this point that you don't find ironclad convincing? We need to stop and look over that. That starts with the ontological argument.

Where have I gone amiss, if I have gone amiss? I have not considered Kant's objections here, either. Should I go over those before I move forward?

Buffalo was topic of discussion at Northern Rockies Bioneers in Bozeman: Presentations available for download

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman, Buffalo Field Campaign, and the InterTribal Bison Cooperative sponsored a two-day workshop at the Northern Rockies Bioneers Conference in Bozeman.

We want to thank everyone who helped us, presented, and sat in on our presentations about the buffalo, about the history of buffalo and native peoples, and what's being now about Yellowstone's buffalo both in the park region and with native tribes.

We now have three of the five slide presentations available for download (see below).

Below also is a brief synopsis of the speakers and what they talked about.

Saturday
Jim Macdonald - Buffalo Allies of Bozeman - (download PowerPoint presentation): Jim spoke about the history of buffalo and indigenous population declines and the reason for the decline. He argued that indigenous population decline was due to genocide and that the buffalo slaughter was a chapter in that genocide. He further argued that Bozeman has a place in that story and a continuing place in that story, near Yellowstone National Park where the same rationale is at work keeping buffalo confined within Yellowstone National Park. Jim's presentation is in large part based on a previous presentation that can be downloaded here, where you can find the sources for much of the information used in Saturday's presentation.

Mike Mease - Buffalo Field Campaign: Mike spoke to the issues related to bison in the Yellowstone area, especially to the common sense solutions that could be implemented that would protect bison and the property claims of landowners outside of the park. There was discussion on who was responsible and what could be done to take action for Yellowstone's buffalo, as well as Buffalo Field Campaign's role in documenting the struggle of the bison. Mike also spoke to the quarantine of bison to the north of the park, what those buffalo go through, and how unfortunate it was that it was the only choice that the tribes had to restore their relationship with the buffalo.

Sunday
Kristine Reed - InterTribal Bison Cooperative: Kristine spoke about her role as a wildlife biologist with the InterTribal Bison Cooperative (ITBC) and the efforts to restore wild bison, especially from Yellowstone, onto the reservations of the various tribes who are members of the ITBC. Christine spoke about the efforts of some of the tribes to get quarantined bison from Yellowstone that are currently being held at Corwin Springs, MT, just north of the park. She reported that despite all the red tape and the process involved with getting bison, the ITBC had their initial proposal for the bison accepted, making it likely that quarantined bison will ultimately end up on the reservation. She described the process the bison would then need to go through after reaching the tribes.

Jason Baldes - Eastern Shoshone, Montana State University - (download PowerPoint presentation): Jason is working with the Shoshone tribe on the Wind River Reservation to get wild bison onto the reservation. He described the history of the reservation, split between Western Shoshones and Northern Arapahos, the geography of the reservation, and the challenges of restoring bison to the reservation. Unlike the ITBC, the Shoshones are not planning on using Yellowstone buffalo that are in quarantine because of the red tape and rules involved with keeping the buffalo. The Shoshone plan calls for placing wild buffalo from Utah's Henry Mountains onto 800,000 unfenced acres on the northern section of the reservation. They are actively working with Wyoming on a management plan if and when bison cross the reservation boundaries.

Chris Klatt - Buffalo Allies of Bozeman - (download PowerPoint presentation): Chris wrapped up speaking about the issue of science as it relates to the Yellowstone buffalo issue. A lot of conversation throughout the workshop focused on the science of the buffalo; however, Chris pointed out that we need to be careful how we consider that issue. Science not only can be politicized but the scope of the scientific inquiry can be misused depending on the value assumptions that the scientist brings to the subject. So, for instance, 19th century scientists misapplied Darwin's theories on evolution to study the physiological differences between different human races. Likewise, scientists can do the same with Yellowstone's buffalo if they don't understand the values driving the science. Chris talked about population genetics and how the policy that a certain number of buffalo be in the park drives the scientific question that looks at the population required to maintain minimum genetic diversity of a herd. However, that question often ignores the way buffalo are killed, upsetting buffalo sub-populations, and therefore genetic diversity. Therefore, the science in the service of a policy value can be misused.

Please feel free to download and distribute these presentations. The ultimate feeling from the talks was that people could be doing more. One way to do more is to join Buffalo Allies of Bozeman as we plan to take actions here locally in support of the buffalo. We meet every Wednesday at Montana State University's Strand Union Building, 7 PM, in the 2nd floor cafeteria in the NW corner. Join us.

Reflections on the beauty of waterfalls

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:40:00 +0000

Why are waterfalls so pleasing to the senses? As they noisily rush over a precipice of land, crashing to the surface below, the air cooler where the water rushes, why are they so beautiful? What makes the experience different than sitting here at my laptop, the keys clicking, on a green recliner, the noise of construction and television in the background? Would it matter if the waterfall experience were more common than the sitting at the laptop experience? Is there something that just happens at a waterfall that mystically connects us with the thing? Is it the shared consensus that waterfalls simply must be more beautiful?

I love waterfalls, like Union Falls and its 265 foot drop, deep within Yellowstone's backcountry, the fall happening right where two bodies of water flow into each other. When I saw this waterfall and took this picture 10 years ago, there were a couple of other hikers hanging by who soon left. I was alone. No one close to me in life had ever seen Union Falls. There was a feeling of awe but also one of loneliness. The sense of wonder was something I might be able to convey but not the fullness of the beauty, the uniqueness of the sense experience, this waterfall flowing like one imagines an angel's head of hair. In fact, I think I might think Union Falls more beautiful but never having seen an angel's head of hair, all I can point to in describing it this way is the unspeakable nature of this fall to those who can only but imagine.

Waterfalls, then, must be in part beautiful based on something in the sense experience. The loneliness of the feeling is not simply a function of uniqueness. It's a matter of a uniqueness that can't be shared because of what it is. Beauty, then, at least in part must touch us in a particular way. But, what way is it? What is it that brings person after person to the Lower and Upper Falls in Yellowstone, for instance, to admire them often at the expense of everything else around. In the parking lot for Uncle Tom's Trail, people look out at the Upper Falls - so mesmerized they are, they often miss the other beautiful fall visible between the trees on the right. What draws people in? What is so pleasing about waterfalls?

I don't have an answer. We are more likely to get at some of the aspects of what we call beautiful than we are to understand what makes this type of thing so often admired. What is it about the combination of power, grace, uniqueness that evokes such pleasure? We have a better understanding of why certain foods, drinks, and drugs evoke certain things in us. But, we cannot really reduce a waterfall, can we? It is not simply a collection of molecules, of atoms, and light. It is signified only by its function. It must have water, but it's water functioning in a certain way. Yet, this unique function does something inside of us that is often as consistent as H₂O does inside our bodies when we are thirsty. It's in fact often more satisfying than a drink of water. Water that we drink fills a need but rarely uplifts us the way that water flowing over a cliff does.

So, we can gather from these considerations that beauty is not simply an exercise in reduction. It seems highly unlikely that we can reduce the beauty of a waterfall by understanding the physics of the human being who experiences the fall. Perhaps, we can deny the beauty altogether, but then we must have some explanation for the shared phenomena. It would be just as highly unlikely if the beauty of a waterfall was just as much a phantom as it would be to say that my sitting here writing did not evoke the same kind of aesthetic pleasure. We cannot deny that there is a distinction, but what is the nature of the distinction? There are a few people in life who think I am attractive, but I have no illusion of thinking that the sight of me could compete with the sight of Niagara Falls, even overrun by more tourists than usual. We cannot reduce that real difference out of existence.

All of this only makes the subject more perplexing. If the beauty of waterfalls comes in part from the sensing of the waterfall but cannot be explained simply by explaining the sensations of the person experiencing it, we are forced to see the light shimmer on the water and hear the roar of it all that much more. That is, unless the waterfall has been frozen by the winter such that it's almost impossible to tell that a waterfall even exists? Has the beauty dissipated, or has it been enhanced just that much more by the power of winter? Is beauty even something that we can so easily quantify, as though we are measuring teaspoons of sugar?

Again, these are questions I have little insight into. I can say that sitting under the mist of Tower Fall in silence broken only by the fall in a darkness that made seeing the fall nearly impossible was perhaps a more profound experience for me than it is seeing the fall from the top of the trail now washed out making my past experience next to impossible to repeat. Certainly, the waterfall had something to do with the power of the experience, and it didn't necessarily require that it be seen. The waterfall did not exist alone outside of a life context, but it also was more than simply an accidental part of it. The beauty of Tower Fall was essential to the moment, even if pegging that beauty down seems to be an illusory exercise.

Waterfalls seem also to be beautiful because they, for whatever reason, give us an almost endless amount of fodder for musing about them. They inspire musings like this. I'm not musing about the fabric in the carpet, though I might. I could put a piece of fabric under a microscope and discover a universe unto itself. I could see fabric through different colored glasses, touch the fabric, contemplate the fabric in the dark, compare other fabrics. The fabric is no less infinite in some respects, but what keeps me from the same kind of inspiration? Why is there a knowing sense that the waterfall is indeed more beautiful, even if I'm only talking about waterfalls in general? Certainly, we could be wrong. We could start talking about the beauty of different races, different genders, different kinds of destructive weaponry, and we would rightly be called idiots. Yet, we know that waterfalls are more beautiful than pieces of fabric and mere grains of sand. If we are wrong about that, then what explains our prejudice? What has led us astray? We can understand that arrogance and the self righteous need for power explains racism; nothing comparable can explain our attraction to waterfalls over other types of things. What then is it?

Waterfalls are so beautiful to us that even artificial waterfalls can often inspire us.

Anyhow, of course, I am thinking about more than waterfalls. I'm trying to understand my experience, what is it that touches me, what is it that doesn't, and why? I'm trying to understand loneliness and intimacy and what fills me up? What is it about our sexual connection that means something so different to us than a warm embrace or a handshake? What is it about this lonely moment writing that can drive me to such distraction whereas a lonely moment in front of Union Falls can be mostly satisfying and perhaps a little less lonely than it was? And, really, what will allow my next experience with a waterfall to be even richer than it already is?

I don't know the answers to these things, but it would be beautiful if we could explore this much more. Why would it be? Well, that's part of the question.

Yellowstone buffalo: Borders, migration, and the privileged lords

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:52:00 +0000

The map on the left, courtesy of Buffalo Field Campaign, shows bison herds and migrations inside of and outside of Yellowstone National Park. All the problems with and all the inspiration we have of buffalo herds must take these migrations into account.

Humans have an issue with migration because the variance in movement often comes against boundaries that humans have set up. Many Americans have trouble with the migration of people, especially from Mexico, who are often escaping the economic boundaries placed on their own existence by global trade policies - many of them promoted by American politicians. Boundaries create boundaries, and the consequences of the boundaries often create unexpected movements. In 1872, Congress set aside Yellowstone National Park, with boundaries that have not changed a great deal since then. No one could communicate with the animals those boundaries, but each animal has had its movement impacted by those boundaries and others.

Bison, in particular, are bound by the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park, by the movements of its visitors, of its vehicles, but they are also bound by other policy considerations. They are bound by those who control lands both public and private. They are prevented from moving by those who put the values of livestock industry interests ahead of their movements -just as the park boundary prevents those interests from moving cattle and other livestock. They are physically prevented by park rangers and agents from Montana's Department of Livestock, who make sure that bison stay out of Montana. Yet, the boundaries also set up the terms of migration. Because bison need to move by the boundaries of winter, of the need to eat, they move. They move across boundaries.

In that context, some of the bounded entities within the boundary of the United States, groups with very conflicting missions, have been thrust together to manage the movements of bison and to determine their fate. The bounded partners created a new bounding document--one called adaptive because presumably the boundaries can shift, though how and why is a mystery - called the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP). With that, the lords of the border - the ICE of Yellowstone - enforce a reality on buffalo, who continue to roam as they must.

And, what a mess it has been! More bison were killed last winter (1,613) than at any time since the 19th century. More than half the herds in Yellowstone from the previous fall are now dead, some killed because they could not move away from the winter. Now, the partners of the IBMP have been meeting the past couple days here in Bozeman to consider the parameters of their torture and death, to determine the appropriate ways to implement the plan without ever considering whether the border that has been set up makes any sense at all.

Of course, borders of a kind are necessary. To type these words, I am creating all kinds of borders, choosing words that might not have been otherwise and placing them in a space, all with their own boundaries. I am the lord of this essay; I presume to make my point. If life is motion, and motion arises from and creates borders, then borders are necessary. However, the imposition of borders without reason is irrational. That is, it makes no sense to keep beings from pursuing their own survival because of a perceived need to protect the integrity of a nation state or the integrity of an allotted use of private or public land. All of that is to protect an entitlement or privilege for which there is no good reason to presume at the cost of that freedom. Borders in a physical sense are necessary, but as means to defend the arrogance of arbitrarily defined entitlement, they are disgusting.

Is it not enough that we are bound by the four seasons, by the fact that we will die, by time and space? Why do we insist on enforcing boundaries the way we do?

I was only able to attend the IBMP meeting for an hour, and even then, I could not hear more than a few minutes of anything because I was bound by the noise of my 10-month-old son. In fact, I was told that the noises from him that I labored to keep from distracting the meeting in fact had been at least somewhat distracting. My son's movements bounded me and bounded others, and so I moved elsewhere. It was entitlement and privilege that allowed me to be there at all; it would have been for nothing to have stayed under those circumstances. I removed the boundary and left. Yet, there are no similar qualms about disrupting the lives of so many buffalo. What passes for rational discourse among the pre-ordained stakeholders is actually the most arrogant noise of all on the land north and west of Yellowstone. If I had been more ornery, I would have felt perfectly justified not only to let my son cry to stop the meeting but also to join in the chorus myself - to disrupt the moment, to bring people into the primal moment of our physical limitations, to insist on a boundary in that meeting to stop what they will do. But, of course, they will enforce those boundaries anyhow. At this time and place, it was not for me to presume. But, they presume all the more.

What a privilege it is to stand over an entire border and be able to build and move fences, to deal so flippantly with the lives who are so bound by one's decisions. What a magnificent and deadly power that the wildlife manager has, that the livestock owner, the World Bank president, and the general all have. And, what a privilege I have as well in the domain where I set borders and where lives are influenced by my every action. But, why are we so arrogant, so non-chalant? The IBMP partners met as though it were just another meeting, just something that had to be done. It wasn't even news - at least not yesterday. We are so numb to this power, this abuse of power, that we think nothing of it. We don't think anything of what we run over, who we run over, and we're always happy to point the finger elsewhere.

But, what of us? Is our silence not complicity? Is our inability to see the buffalo issue beyond the bonds of buffalo not also a kind of complicity? We are constantly stomping things, erecting borders, and we do so with the same arrogance of entitlement. And, we are almost bound to do so in order to survive the winters in our world.

I still believe that undoing all this is possible if we will own up to it, talk with each other, and collaborate together in resistance against the kinds of borders all of us are bound to set up. Resistance is not simply against what's not us, it's also resistance against ourselves. We all bleed with the boundaries of nationalism and capitalism, and we are enforcers of it.

But, deep down, we are still humans, we still cry, we still make uncomfortable noises, we still move the way the buffalo do. If we can make those noises, that is, collaborate together, then we can do something for ourselves, others, and buffalo. That's what I've committed my life to doing. Who will join us? I come with my own baggage and limits; so do you. But, let's work. Because right now, I can't tell you that these IBMP people aren't going to keep up their arrogance; it goes unchecked. But together, we can at least tear down these fences.

Newspaper article misrepresents Buffalo Allies position on brucellosis and bison management

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:35:00 +0000

Appearing in today's Missoulian and Billings Gazette, Lee Newspapers reporter Jennifer McKee misrepresented the press release of Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.

I wrote the following letter to McKee in response.

Ms. McKee,

I am writing on behalf of myself and not the group I am a member of - Buffalo Allies of Bozeman - regarding your article today that appeared in some newspapers on the brucellosis issue as it relates to corriente roping cattle. Though I am writing for myself alone, I am quoted in the press release that we sent out, and I helped edit and distribute the release.

I believe there is a severe misrepresentation of what's said in the release, and I hope to set the record straight - hoping that the papers will correct the mistake or at the very least that you will give written acknowledgment of the error.

You write about Bozeman Allies of Buffalo:

"Another wildlife group, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman, put out a statement calling for Gov. Brian Schweitzer to pull out of the current brucellosis management plan because Corriente, not bison, were behind the outbreak."

In fact, this is wrong on two counts.

What we say in our press release regarding corriente is the following:

“The current rhetoric from state officials refuses to consider that diseased Mexican Corriente roping cattle may have been the source of the outbreak in Pray. Let’s stop pouring tax dollars into a failed plan, where we spend more than what Montana’s economy will suffer for losing its brucellosis-free status.”

First of all, we don't say that corriente were involved; we say that they may have been the source of the outbreak. Secondly, and more importantly, we never say anywhere in the release that Schweitzer should pull out of the management plan because of corriente, especially since we don't identify corriente as the cause. What we say here and elsewhere in the press release is that bison weren't involved since they have not been in the Paradise Valley near that ranch in a long time, that the continued slaughter and hazing of bison did not prevent brucellosis, and that the IBMP has cost more over time to implement than it will cost Montana for losing its class free status (especially absurd given that buffalo were certainly not the cause - and note that we do not identify the cause and merely tangentially suggest what might have been the cause).

So, we never say that corrientes "were behind the outbreak"; we never call on Schweitzer to pull out of the plan "because Corriente" were behind it. All that's correct is that we have called on Schweitzer to pull out of the plan and that we believe it's not possible that bison were behind the outbreak.

As a new grassroots group in Bozeman, this is the first mention of our relatively new group in the newspapers that this appeared in; it's not helpful to our group to have our press release and therefore our group misrepresented. I ask again that you would correct this for us.

Thank you for your research on corrientes; I'm not sure that what you've written proves definitively that the cattle was not involved; however, I did find the piece informative. If anything, it only deepens the mystery of the source. However, no matter what, what's been happening with cattle and brucellosis in Montana only further is exposing the absurdities of the Interagency Bison Management Plan.

Most Sincerely,
Jim Macdonald

Update: McKee wrote me back saying that she believes her report is "essentially accurate" but failing to elucidate what is essentially accurate. about it.

Press Release: Buffalo Allies of Bozeman Calls upon Gov. Schweitzer to Withdraw from Interagency Bison Management Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:23:00 +0000

I plan on writing an essay pretty soon - for now, activism is taking a lot of my time. Here is another press release that our group has worked on. I try to avoid being quoted in these things, but here I am quoted this time.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Chris Klatt
406-599-3629
lodgepole@riseup.net
June 12, 2008

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman Calls upon Gov. Schweitzer to Withdraw from Interagency Bison Management Plan
Brucellosis outbreak where there are no bison shows that IBMP is not working for buffalo or for cows.

(Bozeman, Mont.) – The grassroots citizens group Buffalo Allies of Bozeman responded to the Monday announcement of brucellosis in a cattle herd in the Paradise Valley with a challenge to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer to withdraw from the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP).

According to a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report, the IBMP “lacks accountability and transparency.” The IBMP has also been criticized by Gov. Schweitzer. Despite criticism, federal and state government agencies acted under the IBMP to sanction the slaughter of over 1,600 wild bison this past winter under the guise of preventing the spread of disease to cattle. However, the largest slaughter of buffalo since the 19th century did not prevent cattle in Greater Yellowstone from being afflicted. “There has never been transmission of brucellosis from bison to cattle in the wild, and it is clear that no link can be made between the current outbreak in Pray and Yellowstone’s buffalo herds, which haven’t been that far north in the Paradise Valley since they were extirpated for livestock interests. It’s time to scrap the useless IBMP, which treats buffalo as diseased, domesticated animals instead of as wildlife,” said Buffalo Allies member Jim Macdonald.

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman contends that there is no reason bison should be considered “a species requiring disease control,” as they are currently classified under Montana law. The group supports a legislative bill proposed by the Gallatin Wildlife Association, which has in part called for repealing Montana law 81-2-120, where bison are managed by the Department of Livestock as a disease issue.

“These American icons are the only animals that cross Yellowstone National Park’s boundary with a death sentence,” said Macdonald. “The current rhetoric from state officials refuses to consider that diseased Mexican Corriente roping cattle may have been the source of the outbreak in Pray. Let’s stop pouring tax dollars into a failed plan, where we spend more than what Montana’s economy will suffer for losing its brucellosis-free status.”

The grassroots group will be hosting a forum at the Bozeman Public Library on Monday, June 30, at 6:30 PM with State Representative Mike Phillips. This forum will introduce ways in which Bozeman residents can take action to stop the mistreatment of buffalo. In addition to these events, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman will be hosting a community potluck in Beall Park on Sunday, June 29, at 7 PM.

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman meets every Wednesday at 7 PM at Montana State University’s Strand Union Building. For more information, please visit: http://www.buffaloallies.org.

Support Obama? Live near Bozeman? Check out this flyer on Yellowstone's buffalo, Obama, and us

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:52:00 +0000

I was wearing my hat as activist and organizer with Buffalo Allies of Bozeman again yesterday. This is a report from flyering yesterday.

Late yesterday afternoon, there were thousands of people waiting to see Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speak in Bozeman.

Knowing that a few days in advance, I created the flyer shown in the picture, which you can also download as a pdf. Because the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) has three federal agencies as its partners, it was fitting that we try to convince people who are supporting the man who might be the next president, to do something about the buffalo in part by pulling the federal government's support for this terrible plan.

I couldn't have possibly created enough flyers. They went out of my hands so fast as people waited in line to enter the event.

So, if you support Barack Obama - heck, even if you don't -, if you live in the Gallatin Valley, if you support wild buffalo, please consider this flyer; or give it to someone else who might be interested. Our community potluck on Sunday, May 25, will be out of date soon, but everything else will still be timely.

Report from BFC rally in Helena, May 14, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:15:00 +0000

Some of us in Buffalo Allies of Bozeman went over to the State Capitol building in Helena to support Buffalo Field Campaign's rally for the wild buffalo in and near Yellowstone National Park and to protest Governor Brian Schweitzer's part in the largest slaughter of wild buffalo than at any time since the 19th century.

This season to date 1,607 buffalo have been killed, according to Buffalo Field Campaign. As the killing continued, I joined a new group dedicated to providing support for the buffalo. One part of that mission is to provide solidarity to other groups with related missions. As a result, those in our group gladly support Buffalo Field Campaign; a few of us found the time to take the trip to Helena - a town I personally had never before been.

While we were in Helena, hazing of buffalo west of the park had begun. That was among the first topics of conversations among participants. The National Park Service in their press release have promised a "slow haze." As one of the rally participants said, "There's no such thing as a slow haze with a helicopter."

The rally itself was a small affair on a breezy and cloudy day in Helena. Besides hundreds of tombstones in place of the record number killed this winter, there were a couple of banners. One in particular was held by rally participants at the corner of the intersection. Food was provided by Seeds for Peace, and there was a small skit involving the impossibility of interagency juggling of the Interagency Bison Management Plan. A juggler tried repeatedly to juggle six items only to have the items fall to the ground. Participation at the rally was small. Besides the BFC volunteers who were there - most of BFC were in the field monitoring the bison haze - the next largest group was from Bozeman. We met a person from Bozeman who had just found out about our group via the revised press release as it appeared in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that morning. There were also a couple people from Helena there.

However, because of the location, there was not too much interaction with local people. A few stopped to look or came over to ask questions. From my personal standpoint, the point seemed to be one of spectacle so that a visual image of the death might be put on the Governor's lawn, indeed the lawn of the people of Montana - all of us in a small way culpable for not stopping this embarrassment. If the image provokes, then the action will be a success. I suppose reports like this - whether they are read and seen - will be part of the story of this particular action.

There was a television media person who came at the end of the rally. She was from ABC in Helena and interviewed Joe Gutkoski from our group. Joe traveled with us and is an amazing marvel to me. He has been working on these issues for a very long time, on the front line for the buffalo long before there was a Buffalo Field Campaign. Joe seems to know everyone in Bozeman; more remarkably to me, he knows everything about the land and wildlife along every square inch between Bozeman and Helena. I learned so much from him riding in a car, about river flows, about where dams are, where irrigation is, the history of land and water fights on a particular parcel of land, about the loss of 99% of bighorn sheep this year in the Elkhorns. He was at a meeting early in the morning; later he finished the day at our Buffalo Allies of Bozeman meeting. I hope I can have that much dedication and energy as time goes by.

The rally ended with a kind of comical farce, a trip up to the Governor's office to give Governor Brian Schweitzer (along with Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis) a "Buffalo Bill Award" for having killed the most buffalo since any time since the 19th century. We marched into the State Capitol, up the stairs, and into his office to present him the award.

Predictably, Gov. Schweitzer was not in the office. Instead, there was an intern there ready to greet us. The young man admitted that he knew very little about the issue but said that we should all stay in touch, that the governor loves to hear from his constituents, and he had ready a press release that the governor had issued that very day in anticipation of the rally (though one that has not appeared on his Web site as of this report). The scene was rather amusing. Bureaucracy insulates itself putting people on the line not empowered to do anything to deal with people who would like to raise an issue.

At one point, some of the governor's staff peaked in through the doorway. However, they soon scurried back into their office. Instead, it was an intern and buffalo friends engaged in a kind of silly banter. I said aloud that perhaps we should just sit there until he returns, but that wasn't really the plan.

From there, the rally ended. Perhaps, the governor got the message; however, it will take people continuing to let him know how badly he has turned his back from his campaign promises for him to feel the punishment. Schweitzer somehow has overseen a bison slaughter worse than his predecessors; however, he has done it with the gall to pretend that he is making progress on bison management. Buffer zones and split-state status and now the CUT deal all are slick ways to obscure the point - he is not doing anything to stop the killing.

If this rally had some shortcomings in getting the message across, it is only that much more imperative that we do more. It was heartening to see our town represented in Helena; with that, let's do more.

Press Release: Buffalo Allies of Bozeman Is Founded to Take Action against the Slaughter and Hazing of Wild Buffalo

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:14:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Chris Klatt
406-599-3629
lodgepole@riseup.net
May 12, 2008

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman Is Founded to Take Action against the Slaughter and Hazing of Wild Buffalo
New group takes a grassroots approach toward advocacy of buffalo in the Yellowstone area.

(Bozeman, Mont.) – In a winter where more wild buffalo have been killed than at any time since the 19th century in and near Yellowstone National Park, concerned local residents in the Bozeman area have formed Buffalo Allies of Bozeman – a new grassroots group taking action on behalf of the American bison.

“We believed we needed to build a community of action so that the slaughter we have seen this year, where over 1,600 animals have been killed, never happens again,” said Mel Schroeder, one of the members of Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.

The theme of community is at the heart of the new group, which is open to everyone in the Bozeman area who accepts the group’s mission. Buffalo Allies of Bozeman calls for stopping the slaughter and hazing of Yellowstone’s wild buffalo herds, promoting the expansion of free-roaming buffalo outside of Yellowstone National Park, conserving the natural habitat of the buffalo herds, allying with and giving solidarity to groups working on related missions and supporting a diversity of strategies and tactics to achieve the mission. All those participating at meetings make decisions together on events and actions.

“What makes us a little different than some of the larger environmental groups is that we depend entirely on the energy of the public for making decisions,” said Schroeder. “There is no Executive Director or President; we all roam on this path together.”

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman held an educational event in March, featuring Mike Mease of Buffalo Field Campaign. On May 25 at 7 PM, the group will be hosting a potluck in Bogart Park that is open to the public. In June, the group will host a forum on the various ways Bozeman residents can take an active role in buffalo advocacy.

The group will also be working with the Gallatin Wildlife Association on changing Montana law so that buffalo are respected as wildlife and not treated as a disease control issue. Furthermore, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman will be speaking out against the recent deal made between state of Montana, the National Park Service and the Church Universal & Triumphant. According to Schroeder, “This is a bad deal that, contrary to what some have said in the media, is not a step forward for a single buffalo. The more I learn about it, the more I realize that this does not actually provide habitat, safety or respect for any buffalo – and at an exorbitant cost to taxpayers.”

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman meets every Wednesday at 7 PM at Montana State University’s Strand Union Building. For more information, please visit: http://www.buffaloallies.org.

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman at http://www.buffaloallies.org

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Sun, 11 May 2008 06:53:00 +0000

The new Web site is up at http://www.buffaloallies.org for Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.

A delightful trip into the park

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:38:00 +0000

I had a need to go into Yellowstone on Saturday, and so I did - this time by myself. I'm not going to share much here except a fraction of the photos from Saturday. It's not even worthy of mention in the Yellowstone Newspaper, which according to my own standards, I only post stories when they express some unique point of view. These are just pictures that I took.

If you are curious, however, I have still been writing. Check out this discussion on ethics that I've participated in over at Ralph Maughan's site.

Click on the pictures, and they should get somewhat larger; I reduced them somewhat to save bandwidth.

self-shot at the Lower Falls

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Lower Falls

Upper Falls

Big ice at the Upper Falls

Pearl Geyser at Norris Geyser Basin

Ledge Geyser - check out that weird snow

Blue Star Spring (near Old Faithful)

Old Faithful

Bison and calves in the Firehole geyser region

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman is born; mission adopted

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Macdonald) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:12:00 +0000

I am very excited to be part of this effort. Last night, our new buffalo group had two exciting developments that will help us move forward - we came up with a name and adopted a mission statement! Check it out. For the short term, (the listserve name and address will change), sign up to keep involved by sending a blank email to bab-announce-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.

***

At tonight’s meeting, local Bozeman activists, focusing on the Yellowstone buffalo situation have adopted a name and a mission.

We are now the Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.

Here is our mission adopted tonight.

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman is a grassroots, consensus-based organization in the Bozeman, Montana area focused on:

- stopping the slaughter and hazing of Yellowstone’s wild buffalo herds;

- promoting the expansion of free-roaming buffalo outside of Yellowstone National Park;

- conserving the natural habitat of the buffalo herds;

- allying with and giving solidarity to groups working on related missions; and,

- supporting a diversity of strategies and tactics to achieve the previous tenets of our mission.