ETS! encourages comments, feedback, tips, corrections, and info! Please keep them as concise as possible so we can print as many different voices as possible: ETS!, P.O. Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145, or e-mail ets@scn.org.

Logging Alaska

Over the past week, I've been distributing postcards on behalf of the Washington Wilderness Coalition to protect National Forests in Alaska from logging.

I used to be involved with a peace and justice organization that had phony surveys and petitions that were just an excuse to get names and contact information for its fundraisers, but I believe this has been an honest attempt at public lobbying, and if there has been any abuse of this process, I will find out about it because I've met my quota of 50 postcards

among friends and acquaintances rather than among strangers in front of PCC

or Whole Foods.

When I've asked my friends to fill out the postcards, I've advised them that we're in a situation where it may not matter what they do in the way of comments because this is a situation where responses are counted or weighed, but certainly not read. In that context, I am particularly touched

with there being people who have signed postcards who don't usually do such

things, and were genuinely concerned about issues like the exact wording of

their comments, or whether or not their e-mail address was completely clear. I've been involved in enough public processes to be somewhat cynical

about how much public processes work in this country.

What I'm sending in to the Washington Wilderness Coalition are not merely postcards filled out by someone acquiescent about signing something (with the exception of one volunteer at the University District Food Bank on a Mormon Mission). Instead, the signed postcards I'm forwarding are from people I have been in semi-regular contact with, and have been happy to fill out postcards after I explained issues to them. Of the many acquaintances I offered postcards to, the only three refusals were by another Mormon missionary at the food bank, someone with legal issues where

he prefers to keep a really low profile, and a retiree who is a long-time Republican who is a whole lot less skeptical than myself about the good faith of the Bush Regime. Those seem like overwhelming odds, more like public approval rates in "elections" in Communist Dictatorships than what put the Bush Regime in power.

It really disgusts me to be writing this.

A few years ago I was part of the biggest public participation in the history of the National Forest Service, and the results were overwhelmingly

on the side of, "Hey, if it's a roadless area in a National Forest, don't log it, don't mine it, don't pave it, and just leave it to be wild land for

posterity." The outcome couldn't have been clearer, and if it wasn't clear,

it puts in doubt the validity of every other public process the United States Government has conducted involving fewer citizens, and issues where public sentiments haven't been so one-sided.

Along comes the Bush Regime, put in power against the wishes of the majority of American voters, willing to discount the biggest peace demonstrations in world history as mere focus groups (not to mention defying international law), and put the interests of corporate criminals and other campaign contributors ahead of the interests of the environment, the economy, the American People, and the People of the World (in contrast with Multi-National Corporations, plutocrats, and corrupt political interests).

I haven't done research to know for sure if the logging interests that the Bush Regime wants to allow to profit from trees in National Forests in Alaska are campaign contributors (or how much these interests might have been allowed to deduct from taxes to purchase political influence). Maybe this is happening because the Bush Regime honestly believes it is in the best interests of the American People (who were somehow misrepresented in previous hearings) to allow logging in National Forests, and nobody paid them off to think that way. I would be completely mystified if political corruption wasn't what this is all about, and that we are not living under a government that stands for Freedom & Democracy in ways that the government is acting in the best interests of the public and the environment, rather than a government that gives priority to corporate campaign contributors.

If the National Forest Service "needs" to raise revenue by allowing private

interests to desecrate National Forests, it seems there are all sorts of better ways of having such monetary "needs" met, starting with having fewer tax dollars pissed away on military spending and tax breaks for the rich, not to mention a crack-down on tax-evaders. Short of such much-needed

changes in United States governmental priorities, alleged needs of the Forest Service (and National Parks) could come with reform of laws to have allowed public lands to be misused for private profit since the era of the Robber Barons, over a century ago. Abominations like the Mining Act of 1872

have been on the books for far too long, allowing corrupt political interests to be subsidized by taxpayers for use of lands they would have to

pay far more to use at going rates on private land. For well over a century, corrupt interests have been allowed to profit from public lands while paying kick-backs to the politicians of their choice, and if such interests had to pay going rates for land use (not including the political contributions), National Forests and National Parks could more easily meet their budgets without continuing to allow desecration of public lands for private profit.

In hopes that some pretense of Democracy can happen in America, I hope there are enough people in the National Forest Service with enough integrity to stand up to the Bush Regime and go along with the obvious public will and the best interests of the environment. Don't allow logging (or other developments) in either the Tongass or Chugach National Forests, nor any other National Forest lands that were protected before the Bush Regime took power.

Sincerely,

--Tony Formo, Seattle

Iraq? Not Again...

In "A council already divided" the writer gives the problems of the council

instead of arguing why WE SHOULD NOT BE IN IRAQ IN THE FIRST PLACE! Maybe Maria should switch espressos.

--William in Seattle

G.P. replies: Or, given that we've been running such arguments in virtually every issue of ETS! for the last year and a half, and so have hundreds of other alternative media outlets, maybe William should read more widely.

Come to think of it, the very first article in the very first issue of ETS!, Vol. 1 #1, Sept. 10, 1996, was entitled "Why the U.S. bombing of Iraq was stupid, pointless, and illegal." Perhaps William would be happy if we just reran that article every issue. Some weeks, it feels like we do. Meantime, the sickening details of what's happening on the ground in Iraq -- with both the corrupt U.S.-installed military dictatorship and the Iraqis resisting it -- are being sugarcoated or ignored by most U.S. media outlets. In order to get the U.S. out, first people in this country need to understand that we're being lied to -- and understand it as it happens, not six months later. The issue now is not "why we [sic] shouldn't be in Iraq in the first place." It's getting "us" out. Now.

Enquiring Minds Want to Know

Why isn't classism listed on your "tiny print" page among the things you want to end?

--Eric Patton, via e-mail

G.P. replies: Speaking of that first issue...that bit in the editorial box was our (well, my) attempt in issue #1 to mock the usual progressive/lefty/ anarchist publication tendency to present exhaustive mission statements, points of unity, or other deeply held beliefs, usually deeply theoretical, collectively arrived at by 243,000 hours of meetings, and met by the world's yawn. The response was so positive that we just kept it in there. So -- to answer queries by several people over the years as to why one or another type of oppression isn't listed -- that list wasn't ever meant to be comprehensive, let alone an authoritative statement of what ETS! or its writers or editors want the world to be.

One of these days, if we can ever get a meeting together, maybe we'll get around to writing that up. But we all do really agree: classism sucks, too. And we want it ended now, too.

Maybe It's Because They're Rich

I do not know what possessed our "Republican" Governor to give Boeing all the state's surplus to move to Chicago and now another $15.5 million to help move jobs offshore. As I understand it that works out to giving Boeing $166,000 per year for each $60,000 job that is kept in state. Such largess for a company that is obviously going away! Where is the money coming from? The usual places I suppose, schools and public health and the elderly. That will certainly make the state of Washington a less desirable place to live.

Instead of paying Boeing to move out of state why don't they just pay Washington citizens to move out of state? Just think of how much money the state can save by not providing services to the departed.

If they really do give Boeing all this public money I hope they make sure that they get the deed for the Everett plant in exchange. They will need it to fund the schools especially now since the forests have burned down.

--Robert at Mukilteo

Picky, Picky, Picky

The Earthsea books do not form a trilogy. They actually make a series of five books:

A Wizard Of Earthsea The Tombs Of Atuan The Farthest Shore Tehanu: the last book of Earthsea The Other Wind

Thank you for your article on a wonderful series of books. I enjoy Le Guin's work along with Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time quintet and Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga.

--Archer, Earth First! Journal, Tucson, AZ