Effrontery
The Lights
are On
$9,565,217!
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
“The
lights are on!”
That
image was always preceded by a trip in the dark. The mornings started as early
as 3:30 as in the case of my grandparents. The glimpse of lights on in the
bottom of Sacaton, or the mouth of the Mangus, or even above the box in Nine
Mile, though, always created goose bumps of anticipation.
It was
especially so for a young cowboy anticipating the events the promised day.
It meant
the folks at home and at the destination were awake and waiting for daylight. Arriving
under those conditions meant something important was going to happen. It might
be the smell of horses being groomed or a branding pen by midday. It might be
the sound of rolling rocks and the smell of gunpowder as soon as there was
enough light to see, or it might be the sound of a now extinct David Bradley chainsaw.
Every one of those meaningful experiences was couched in adventure and outdoor
wonderment.
Lights
on also meant the presence of a most important albeit brief social exchange
that has more impact than ever given credit. As the car lights led the way
through all the expanse, the big surroundings remained out of sight. They
existed only by past experiences and in your imagination. The place where the
lights blazed was a hugely important point of reference. It was a haven for
many things. When the walk to the front door was in freezing cold, the kitchen
upon entry was always warm and friendly. If it was grandparents’, the greetings
were always affectionate. If it was an aunt and uncle’s, they were joyful and
loud with greetings.
It was
always a safe and welcome place. Perhaps those little snippets of time before
the sun came up contributed more to the customs and culture of a way of life
than any other single period.
It was
then that family recipes were the central theme of a meal without mention. Home
produced butter, milk, biscuits, preserves, chile rellenos, eggs, and venison
were not novel or new at all. They were standards. Discussions invariably
reverted to stories of times past where now departed loved ones were present
and participating. Even when we had never known them they were made part of our
lives and our knowledge of our history.
Another
fact of image was that those welcoming elders were ready to perform. They were
always dressed, groomed, and ready. There was never a suggestion of leisure or day
of rest. They were up and going. Their lives were intertwined with their
surroundings largely without condition.
And,
they went forward with gusto and intent.
They had
no reason or desire to change the where they
were. They were part of everything that was real and preferred in their lives. It
was the basis of who we became and how we lived. All of those things became
traits and images in which we found normal and basic … as long as those lights served
as navigational beacons long before the sun came up.
$9,565,217!
Last
week we learned that the average back room settlement hush money payouts by the
Department of Interior to the various and sundry environmental cartels between
January, 2012 and January, 2017 was $9,565,217.
Yes, you read that right.
There haven’t just been a few
of these gaspers, either. There have been 460 of
them. It all equates to over $800 Million annually or a
whopping $4.4 Billion over the course of five years. Put in a different context,
about $3.9 Billion was paid in cash out of your taxes for issues the majority
of you have absolutely no idea of and another $.5 Billion was billed to you in
borrowed funds because that is the current ratio of federal spending to
shortfalls in revenues collected (the marginal rate of shortfall was greater
throughout those years).
Of
course, this was all for the good of the environment, or … was it?
Effrontery
Henry Kissinger
wrote it:
The weak grow strong by effrontery … the
strong grow weak by inhibition.
For those of us who didn’t
attend a prestigious prep school, effrontery, of course, means insolent or impertinent behavior. The
genesis of the word, though, is much more colorful and appropriate. It comes
from the French word effronterie which is based on the Latin effrons which
means shameless or barefaced which
will be the basis of our concluding environmental musings for this morning.
As the political grist mill
continues to churn in the press, the realization that Kissinger’s words are not
true at all starts to mount. In fact, they are contradictory. The crises that
we face constantly may be couched in a form of weakness or vulnerability, but the
substance and promotion is simply a decoy. The polarization of all these issues
is not a game plan or the honest drive toward a logical remedy for anything.
Rather, it is a planned action to divide and profit. The real outcome is that
the large powerful forces that are coordinating the skirmishes are simply
growing in power and might.
We are being taken for fools and
it is our dollars that are fueling the fires. The real version of Kissinger’s
theorem is this:
The strong grow stronger by effrontery … the weak grow weaker by
inhibition.
These political witch hunts and
uprisings are not spontaneous. They are well financed, rehearsed, and
coordinated to the highest degree. Only one of the battle fronts is represented
in the payouts from the Department of Interior, but, in our case, it is the one
that affects our well being to the greatest extent. We still operate under the misguided
belief there are remedies that government can impose that will fix these
issues, but those are hallucinations.
Right now, we are on our own.
Stephen
L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “There need to be more pinpoints
lights before dawn in big western country.”
No comments:
Post a Comment