The Age Demanded
by Earnest Hemmingway

The age demanded that we sing, and cut away our tongues.

The age demanded that we flow, and hammered in the bung.

The age demanded that we dance

And jammed us into iron pants.

And in the end the age was handed

the sort of shit that it demanded.

Negligent Erosion

The erosion of the Natural Treasury of The United States and the Resulting Danger:

As a lad growing up in the 1950s I played in the creek with my cousins on my grandfather's farm. We removed our shoes and traversed up and down the creek looking for water moccasins to kill, swatting a "apple bugs" who could run on top of the water and generally had a ball in the clean cool water. When we were thirsty, we reached down into the running stream and scooped up the cool water to quench our thirst....because we could. The water was clean and OK to drink. I would be afraid to drink from that same creek today.

The Environmental Protection Agency was created by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970 to fix national pollution control standards, guidelines, and to monitor and enforce them. The Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, the Clean Water Act in 1972, and 10 other major statutes of law in force today to control uranium mill tailings; ocean dumping; safe drinking water; insecticides, fungicides, and other hazardous elements.

So why could it be dangerous to drink untreated water from the creek I played in as a child? ...especially since we have so many laws to prevent its pollution and a major federal agency to control it. Answer: We have placed business interests above the welfare and health of the citizens of the US. You see its not that we do not have the laws...its that we refuse to enforce the laws we have and we have allowed business interests to have too much influence through bribery and influence peddling. All three branches of the US government are guilty of allowing this tragedy of the loss of the health and safety of Americans. 

We have been willing to spend trillions of dollars on defense spending but unwilling to spend the minimum required to control the pollution of our environment. The present Presidential Administration is doing its best to dismantle the EPA with the assistance of the Republican Congress and to defund the enforcement of our environmental laws. Their ears are tuned to listen to business interests first and foremost which is a blatant form of bribery!

The land we took from the Natives was rich. Natural and healthy. We have filled it with pollution. We are and will in untold ways pay for our lack of stewardship of the land...like it says in the gospel, "...to whom much is given, much shall be required..." So were you partially responsible for this tragedy by making your voting choices...voting for those who were so ready to put their business above your own health. You voted against your own welfare...perhaps against your own life!