shortly before the incident in the article, i got a call from oxman, wanting to talk about what he was doing. i still hold to what i said to him: life is about finding out who you are. your experiences are for that reason.
with any luck, he's getting to know himself.
the other option, which some of us prefer, is to sit back and judge everybody else by some measuring stick we carry around in our unexamined rule book.
it seems we have a poor understanding of activism...it's just something to do so you don't have to have a real job.
activism is for lazy dope-smoking hippies? it's easier than getting a job? no. it's not. otherwise i would be an activist. it takes an incredible amount of commitment and self-sacrifice. if it's true as has been suggested that some of us didn't care enough to do something 'acceptable' to save the trees, and that that is lamentable, then perhaps we owe a debt of gratitude to the radicals who are willing to risk their lives to take up the slack for us. because if most of us are not willing to save the environment by 'socially acceptable' means (oiling some palms), then the few who are left that are willing to do something are given little choice. how much money would it take to buy the land and preserve it? especially if it's owned by someone who can only see dollar signs. these issues are never black or white. at any rate, it would take a whole heck of a lot more money than a few activisits could hope to come up with or it would have been done. how many people would you have to get to pool together? and how do you make people aware of the issue in the first place? how in the world do you make them care? how do you know those avenues haven't been tried and lost? maybe the activists are hoping somebody will at least notice, for heaven's sake, that there's even anything needing to be preserved if they can get some publicity. telling them to just come up with the money is a pretty simplistic directive.
private property. that's a rich subject. what happens if you can't pay your property taxes for a couple years in a row? still think you own that property? what if 'the government' thinks of a reason they 'need' your property? how about a national emergency and fema goes into action?
better though, for this argument, what if you 'own' the property on which stands the one thing that will keep the earth liveable for everyone? and you don't want it there. should you be permitted to destroy it because it's on your property? or what if you want to do something on your property that will destroy the liveability of your neighbors? should you be permitted to do it because it's on your 'private' property?
it's not really so simple as private property rights. like treespyder says, connectivity counts.
with any luck, he's getting to know himself.
the other option, which some of us prefer, is to sit back and judge everybody else by some measuring stick we carry around in our unexamined rule book.
it seems we have a poor understanding of activism...it's just something to do so you don't have to have a real job.
activism is for lazy dope-smoking hippies? it's easier than getting a job? no. it's not. otherwise i would be an activist. it takes an incredible amount of commitment and self-sacrifice. if it's true as has been suggested that some of us didn't care enough to do something 'acceptable' to save the trees, and that that is lamentable, then perhaps we owe a debt of gratitude to the radicals who are willing to risk their lives to take up the slack for us. because if most of us are not willing to save the environment by 'socially acceptable' means (oiling some palms), then the few who are left that are willing to do something are given little choice. how much money would it take to buy the land and preserve it? especially if it's owned by someone who can only see dollar signs. these issues are never black or white. at any rate, it would take a whole heck of a lot more money than a few activisits could hope to come up with or it would have been done. how many people would you have to get to pool together? and how do you make people aware of the issue in the first place? how in the world do you make them care? how do you know those avenues haven't been tried and lost? maybe the activists are hoping somebody will at least notice, for heaven's sake, that there's even anything needing to be preserved if they can get some publicity. telling them to just come up with the money is a pretty simplistic directive.
private property. that's a rich subject. what happens if you can't pay your property taxes for a couple years in a row? still think you own that property? what if 'the government' thinks of a reason they 'need' your property? how about a national emergency and fema goes into action?
better though, for this argument, what if you 'own' the property on which stands the one thing that will keep the earth liveable for everyone? and you don't want it there. should you be permitted to destroy it because it's on your property? or what if you want to do something on your property that will destroy the liveability of your neighbors? should you be permitted to do it because it's on your 'private' property?
it's not really so simple as private property rights. like treespyder says, connectivity counts.
