“Federal officials have called for killing about 30 sea lions near Bonneville Dam each year to keep them from gobbling a rising share of Northwest salmon that the government spends millions of dollars to protect.”
– The Oregonian Friday, January 18, 2008
Dear salmon. I have a confession to make. When I worked as a production assistant for television commercials, a friend called me for a job… on a political campaign advertisement.
The conversation went like this:
“Hey Peter. I’ve got a job for you if you want it.”
“Yeah, sure. I need some work right now,” I say.
“Great. Well, how do you feel about political ads?”
I think for a second and ask, “Does the person belong to the democratic or republican party?”
He pauses, “Does it matter?”
I laugh, “…Nope.”
“Let’s just say, the guy doesn’t look pretty.”
The job felt as horrible and revealing about my former line of work as you can probably imagine. We drove around the state for two days shooting the local political candidate (just some billionaire business tycoon) “talk” with “people” about issues. Of course, he didn’t really talk about anything because the footage would serve as “b-roll” for the voice over and text that would narrative the commercial. We drove to Molalla where he had some farmer buddies to show him talking with farmers. We went to a shipping room for one of his business clients to show that he cares about businesses (that business happened to have all kinds of plaque awards on the wall for their donations to anti-abortion organizations).
At lunch the topic of politics came up. Some people all agreed that Al Gore lost the election because his posture felt too stiff. I wanted to say, “Actually, he won the election. Bush stole it, remember?” But then I remembered that I didn’t give a shit who “won” or stole anything. It all looks like a shame to me anyway (I voted for Nader, Ha!). I had worked on many commercials at this point and never had the crew eaten in complete silence with the occasion glance of recognition that the people talking sounded insane.
As the tension built on that shoot, things just kept getting more and more revealing. We traveled to the political candidate’s mansion for the last location for the shoot. His backyard had a vineyard that ended at his own personal dock on the Willamette river in yuppieville Lake Oswego. When we got to the house he said, “I really only intended it to reach 4,000 square feet, but I just couldn’t stop building! (yuck yuck) All together now I think it stands at 11,000 square feet.”
Out back we set up some gear for the shoot on his dock. Two of his fishing buddies showed up for part of the video of him talking with fishermen. The producer felt like they needed a third person, so he hired an old Asian man with a long white beard who had coincidentally come to the house to clean the guys pool.
Down on the dock the pressure felt high. Not just because the sun would soon set and we raced the daylight, but because of all the bullshit I had seen and experienced in the previous hours. They began shooting the b-roll of the political candidate talking to the fisherman. The director suggested that the man talk about fishing policy, even though they wouldn’t actually record it, but just to “set the mood.” So off he went. He begun saying that reason the salmon runs have depleted involves the endangered sea lions who hunt them. He suggested killing sea lions, endangered sea lions, as a solution to declining salmon populations. He argued that environmentalists, by protecting the sea lions, which disallowed them from receiving the death sentence, indirectly held responsibility for the declining salmon populations.
Stop for a minute. We all know that the dams killed the salmon by not letting salmon return to their spawning grounds. A few years (depending on the life span of the particular salmon) without a fish latter and you have no more salmon runs up river from the dam. Dams killed the salmon. We all know that logging killed the eggs of those salmon who did make it past the dams by silt run-off from clear-cuts burying the eggs and by removing trees that shaded the river making it hotter than the temperature that salmon eggs need to mature. We know that those salmon who survived to make it back out to the ocean died in fishing nets from commercial fishing companies.
At that point I turned away from the crew and started to cry. I thought about the discussion I had with Derrick Jensen the time I rescued him. He said that when you kill something you make an agreement that you will take responsibility for the continuation of said killed something’s species. This political commercial paid me $200 a day for two days, a grand total of $400. During the Nuremberg trials, they sentenced Julius Streicher, editor of the weekly Nazi newspaper to death. What about the writers of the paper? What about the paper boys (and girls)? They all played a part as good Germans. I stood on that dock, keeping my mouth shut and playing the part of the good civilian.
I couldn’t escape the fact that in some way, my work contributed to the success of bullshit politicians and the continuation of a civilized system of programmed environmental devastation. Whether republican or democrat, whether the guy won the election or not (which he didn’t). The simple fact that two years later “federal officials” have called for the death of sea lions shows that it doesn’t matter which person gets in office, but the cultural momentum of civilizations destruction.
I knelt down and looked into the murky waters of the Willamette, wiping the tears from my eyes. I began to speak to the salmon. “I promise you, I will do whatever I can, use the tools I have to help your species survive. Please hold on. Please.”
A few weeks earlier another article came out about the death of salmon at the hands of the good citizens.
“Salmon survived massive dams and fishing fleets, but now they’re feeling the heat of global warming — and it’s likely to hammer them as hard as anything they’ve faced.”
– The Oregonian Jan 6th, 2008
Salmon did not survive the dams and fishing fleets as the above moronic Oregonian writer says. An endangered species looks more like someone who has cancer; you don’t know if they will survive or not. The salmon populations would not have declined to near extinction without the logging and dams and over fishing.
I have a genius idea. Let’s pour thousands of tons of concrete across a river and stop the fish who spawn in it from having the ability to come back next year. After a few years, most will no longer live. Dams (a product of civilization) decimated the salmon, logging (a product of civilization) kicked them while they lay on the ground. And now, mysterious global warming (influenced heavily by civilization) lifts the club to the sky threatening the final blow and taking credit away from the obviously civilized dams and logging. How convenient for the Hydro-Timber industries. Than when fisherman complain we blame the deaths of the salmon on the endangered sea lions (who became endangered when the dams killed their main food supply, the salmon) and kill them. Who fucking came up with this idea? No, serious. Who fucking came up with this shit?!?
Humans lived in the Northwest coast of this continent for (at least) 8,000 years in a sustainable manner as hunter-gatherer-horticulturalists. Civilization has occupied (after stealing) this land for a mere 200 years. How many more do you think it will take to destroy every life here? How long do you think before civilization puts humans on the endangered species list. Do you honestly think that corporations will allow the government (with all its bullshit laws and loopholes) to dismantle the dams?
How long before the rest of the oceans have no more life in them? Oh yeah… 40 years.
“Unless humans act now, seafood may disappear by 2048, concludes the lead author of a new study that paints a grim picture for ocean and human health.” National Geographic November 2, 2006
In order for the salmon to survive they need to make it up the river. The dams need to go. In order for salmon to spawn they need cool and silt-free places to do so. Logging needs to stop. In order for the mature salmon to make it back to the ocean, we need commercial fishing to stop. The amount of paperwork and lobbying and funding and time needed to do that adds up to an impossibility. It feels hard enough just to get a couple of friends to agree on what movie to go see. Bureaucratic means will not save the salmon. They take too long and the salmon don’t have the time. A marine biologist in the Oregonian actually gave the best (and possibly only) way to save the salmon.
“‘We want to be very careful to be very sure we are removing the right animals,’ said Garth Griffin, a marine biologist with the fisheries service in Portland.”
– The Oregonian Friday, January 18, 2008
Don’t you find it funny that I actually agree with this biologist!? I think we need to think very carefully and make sure we remove the right animals. If by removing the “right” animals they mean removing those animals who destroy the most salmon and by removing them we will see the most impact on improving the restoration of salmon populations. Following this line of thinking… Sea lions don’t come to my mind when I think about the “right” animals to remove.
I have a better idea. How about people dismantle 30 of the real salmon gobblers, the dams, logging & fishing industries, every year? 30 of those salmon gobblers a year. Of course, this may prove difficult to use bureaucratic means… We’ll have to think up some new ideas, outside of civilizations box… if you know what I mean.
Say it with me:
CIVILIZATION OUT OF CASCADIA NOW!
—
Show your support and appreciation for Urban Scout
17 responses to “Bureaucracy Vs. Rewilding”
WE’RE HERE
WE’RE QUEER
THOSE GODDAMN DAMS
MUST DISAPPEAR!!!
Scout–Another knock-’em-the-fuck-outta-here write!!!
“..In order for the salmon to survive they need to make it up the river. The dams need to go. In order for salmon to spawn they need cool and silt-free places to do so. Logging needs to stop. In order for the mature salmon to make it back to the ocean, we need commercial fishing to stop. The amount of paperwork and lobbying and funding and time needed to do that adds up to an impossibility. It feels hard enough just to get a couple of friends to agree on what movie to go see. Bureaucratic means will not save the salmon. They take too long and the salmon don’t have the time…” Thank you for sharing your confession. (And thank you for helping me set up an account here!–Finally figured it out! 😉 Great first read of the day…
This is a good first read of the day. I’m sitting at work stewing over everything. Not work itself but life & civilization and how its made me feel. I feel I’m going going crazy wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. So I thought I’d check out your website to find…. i dont know, maybe some enlightenment from some one that feels somewhat like i do. It helps a little… The problems with civilization are so vast. Todays topic, Salmon. A grim future indeed. What to do? A very good question. As you said about getting friends to agree on a movie. It will be hard to persuade them to do something about dams when you have dicks on tv blaming it on precious sea lions. I wish it were as simple as blowing up the dams ourselves. But besides being impossible, all the debris and bad shit that would be put into the water at once would probably kill off any living thing in the water anyway. This situation is a true tragedy. To kill off a species. Every species is a true masterpiece of the earth. They have evolved to live and do what they do perfectly. To destroy a whole species is a true discrace to the earth. Thinking about it. As much as we’d all like civilization fail and go away, pretend it never happened, by that point everthing will be huge ecological disaster. I like to picture nature reclaiming our cities. wildlife roaming the streets and occupying my old house. But that is just a fairytale. Once we take a couple key species out of the loop. Like the salmon. Its going to start a chain reaction. In the future I see barron cities scarring the earth as a monument for everything man became. A bunch of crazy greedy shit heads.
Good article. Thanks for the info…
totally with you ! Right now a message is playing on TV that in 2010 50% of the dutch population will have some form of allergy. Its gonna all come down and we better take it as best we can…. keep smiling….keep smiling……
Williuam,
Nice.
Roxanne,
Thanks for your words of encouragement! I finally just opened up my comments for anyone to post… dangerous, but necessary.
Lobo Victim,
I know how you feel. I hope the vision of the future you described does not come to pass, but I wonder everyday
Moriartyb,
Thanks for the props.
timeLESS,
KEEP SMILING!!! 😉
Hell ya! I totally agree all you left coast shitheads go drown youselves in the cold pacific. Maybe it would provide a meal for some struggling life form;-}
present company excluded, of course:-}
Scout,
Awesome stuff bro, and hey man, humans are gonna make things a lot worse before they get better, but eventually, someday, after the last human dies, things will slowly but surely start healing, and in one blink of Times eye, every last race of humanity will have been completely, irrevocably, and thankfully erased. Humans will take some species down with them, but in the end humans will lose. Anytime you start feeling blue, just remember, someday there will be no more humans….say it with me, someday there will be no more humans…..again,…
keep it up,
Col. Kurtz
Hopefully nature will cough-up some nasty pathogen for a certain species reduction or the planet will simply hit the ‘reset’ button. We are long over due.
I love humans and I hope they do not die off. I hope we can reclaim our sustainable roots. Civilization is not humanity. Humanity has not treated the planet this way, just one culture of it. We are not inherently destructive. I do not wish to see the death of my species like this. I’d rather see it with the sun exploding or something like that. 😉
Check it out! FREE CASCADIA BUMPER STICKERS!
More specifically, FREE bumper stickers that say ‘FREE CASCADIA’!
http://www.cascadianow.org/mediastickers.html
Those are rad!
[…] best friend Lisa, sobbing. I had just read the latest about the sea lions. If you read my article Civilization Out Of Cascadia Now! you’ll know the story, but in short, “they” plan to kill 60 (endangered) sea […]
Thanks for the informative post
This subject of salmon and the dams on the Columbia was one of the main reasons that my wife and I did not turn the electricity on in this house when we moved into it in 1989. It was fully wired and hooked up to the grid. All we had to do was turn it on. We had already lived without electricity since 1981 so it wasn’t hard to continue.
I figured if I was going to pray for the dams to go, (and I seriously was) I should not be supporting their existence by buying the power they produce. Back in the early 90’s I went to a pow wow in Grand Coulee that was part of the celebration of some anniversary of the completion of Grand Coulee dam (Ha ha). They had elders get up and talk about the effect of the dam on the Interior Salish and other salmon people on the Columbia. They talked about the destruction of their burial sites and traditional food and medicine gathering areas and of course the destruction of one their most important food sources, salmon. Also the cultural significance of the salmon to the people. It really inspired me to keep the electricity turned off.
After over twenty years of carrying our drinking water from a creek, catching rain water and melting snow for washing, our creek started to run dry in the summer months. We started having to haul water in barrels from town for a couple of months each year. Snow started coming later so we were left with cold temperatures but no snow to melt so we had to haul water in November too.
We finally got a well drilled but alas it is deep enough that it requires power to get the water, so we caved in and turned on the electricity. Now here I sit at a computer at 11:00 o’clock at night. I would never have been up at this time in my off the grid days.
There were many times back then when I asked myself why do I live like this when hardly anybody else (even those who say “the dams must go”) would turn off their power to back up their talk? But it’s not about them is it. It’s about us.
Do we really want the dams to go? Does it just sound cool? It’s pretty easy to rabble rouse about something that we aren’t even willing to put our money where our mouth is about. If the dams go, that means the shit has REALLY hit the fan. So of course we’ll all be in the same boat with no electricity but what about now. Doesn’t integrity have something to do with this? Doesn’t making a commitment to being something different have a place here and now not just down the road when the shit hits the fan and there’s no choice?
I don’t mean to start this whole “walk the talk” thing again but this particular subject of the salmon and the dams is kind of a personal thing for me and I have some very strong feelings about it. Including some guilt for not holding fast to my resolve. I put it on the line for many years because of my firm belief that the dams were wrong. I get a bit testy if I think people are being flippant about this and jumping on a bandwagon of cool sounding revolutionary rhetoric. I immediately view people with suspicion who use the “dam blowing” angle to show how much of a radical they are.
Scout, your story is a powerful one that illustrates where a lot of folks are at about the dams. ” I need this job” “I need this money” “I need this electricity” “I need these fish” “I’m not the bad guy” “I’m just a poor working guy” and your analysis of where the real problem is is pretty much real.
[…] kill millions of salmon every year. They said it, not me. And yet, who takes the wrap? First the sea lions, now the pikeminnow!?! Anyone but us! I love how experts *think* that. What experts? Who *thinks* […]