Monthly Archives: September 2014

Complicity is NOT Acceptable

Image via FaceBook.

On September 15, Islamic State stepped up a campaign in the Kobani region of northern Syria. Kobani is a Kurdish enclave that many refugees had fled to as threats of ISIS rose throughout the area. According to a report in “The Independent”:

“Isis fighters used tanks and artillery captured in Iraq to assault the Kurdish enclave around the city of Kobani, also called Ayn al-Arab, where between 400,000 and 500,000 members of Syria’s Kurdish minority have taken refuge. Idris Nassan, the deputy foreign representative of Kobani canton, told The Independent in a phone interview that the attack by Isis, also known as Islamic State, started on 15 September. “[It] is being made from three sides. So far they have captured 15 villages and we have evacuated another 10 because they are too close to the fighting,” he said.

Speaking from Kobani, Mr Nassan said that for the first time, the city had been hit by rockets, three of which exploded in the centre yesterday. The encircling Isis forces are between 12 and 18 miles from the city, which is surrounded by Kurdish villages held by fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian franchise of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The latter has many battle-hardened veterans experienced in fighting the Turkish army over the past 30 years.

Some 400 Kurdish hostages have been taken by Isis, including 133 school children aged between 13 and 14 who were abducted on 30 May as they returned to their homes in Kobani after taking their junior high school final exams in Aleppo.

The siege of Kobani has not attracted much publicity, far less than that of the Old City of Homs, but if it did fall then its half-million Kurds would be at risk. The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is quoted as saying that there are fears of massacres in the villages seized by Isis. In addition to eliminating the Kurds as opponents, Isis wants to establish its hold on the border region with Turkey across which it can bring in supplies and foreign volunteers. Mr Nassan says the siege of the enclave is not complete since “we can still buy food at high prices from Arab brokers” but he adds that “unfortunately, the world cares nothing about what happens in Kobani”.

The YPG and PKK have proved the most effective fighters against Isis but the PKK is still labelled a “terrorist organisation” by the US and Europe. The labelling was done at the behest of Turkey, which fought the PKK from 1984, though a ceasefire was declared in 2013. Turkey has been talking to the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan for five years but US and European officials are still wary of contacts with the Syrian and Turkish Kurds.

Isis has captured most of eastern Syria, defeating both the Syrian army and rebel movements during the summer. Isis fighters are within 30 miles of Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, and have been consolidating their positions elsewhere. They have been moving their headquarters and heavy weapons out of easily identifiable locations in preparation for US air attacks.”

Occupy World Writes calls on the coalition forces to assist the Kurds in defense of Kobani. These people are from the same ethnic group that brought the world’s attention to the plight of the Yazidi when ISIS chased them into the Sinjar mountains. The international community responded overwhelmingly to save the Yazidi from certain massacre. Now the Kurds are facing that very same fate. We also have no reason to believe the Islamic State would show no mercy toward the inhabitants and refugees in Kobani, since Kurds are the only ground force able to offer a defense against ISIS.

We can not sit in complicity while children, women and men are slaughtered at the hands of a terrorist organization. This is not humane, this is not sane, this is not in accordance with the words of Allah, God, or any divine entity.

SAVE KOBANI

SIGN THE PETITION TO THE UNITED NATIONS CALLING FOR ACTION!

The Stakes Were High And So Was The Turnout

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Yesterday, Scotland’s people went to the polls to vote on a referendum with one question on it: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” The no votes ended up winning (at this time, it looks like a ten point victory), but it still was a historical vote in many ways. As we were reading the news about the returns, we were struck by the contrasts between the Scottish referendum and what’s happening here in the U.S.

Flag of Scotland (public domain) via Wikimedia Commons

The first thing that jumped out at us was the complete 180 degree difference between the U.S. secession movements and the Scottish independence movement as far as their view of the role of government goes. The Scots want more government spending on things such as education; they want the social safety net expanded or at the very least restored to where it was before the 2008 global crash; they want a stronger national health care system; they want a clean, non-nuclear energy plan; they want to remain in the E.U. but as a separate country – in other words, anything but the less government/no taxes/isolationist stance that we hear from secessionists here in the U.S.

The second thing is how easy Scotland makes it to vote. The polls were open for 16 hours; from 6 AM to 10 PM local time. Residents 16 and over were eligible to vote. Every step was taken to ensure that people would be able to vote. Compare this to our country, where the focus seems to be more on restricting the right to vote for large segments of the population through voter ID laws, fewer polling places and reduced voting hours.

The third thing was voter participation. A record number of people came to the polls. And, unlike here in the U.S. where the highest turnout we’ve seen in a national election in the last 100 years was 63%, turnout was estimated to be somewhere in the mid-80% range.

Occupy World Writes has to wonder what would happen in our country if we had such a motivated electorate and the same effort to make voting possible as we saw in Scotland yesterday. We have a dream…

How Not To Be Awakened

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TransCanada Building, Calgary. Photo by Qyd (talk · contribs) (Own work (Own photo)) CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

In case you’ve never noticed (or if you’re new here), we write a lot about pipelines. Like any other addict who knows that his or her habit is bad for their health, but continues with it anyways, we as a society are dependent on our fossil fuels. As with any other addiction, there’s an infrastructure in place for getting the product (in this case, oil and/or gas) into the hands of the addict. And, just as in the drug trade, there’s often what the military calls “collateral damage” among the residents of the area where such infrastructure is operating.

On Tuesday, we saw a prime example of this in Benton Township, Michigan. Sometime around 2 AM, a natural gas line operated by TransCanada (yes, the same company whose oil is the prime mover of the Keystone XL proposal) started leaking. This in turn led to an evacuation of residents within a one mile area of the leak – such a wonderful thing to wake up to, no?

Vic Rogers, who lives on the property where the leak occurred, described what happened; “If you ever hear lightning strike and hear the big boom afterwards that’s what it sounded like. After that it was like a train or a jet engine roar. Everything started to shake and vibrate I looked out the window and I could see this plume of black debris.”

15 hours later, the approximately 500 people who had evacuated were allowed to return home. Yesterday, TransCanada went into full damage control mode. TransCanada spokesperson Gretchen Krueger said; “Our focus right now is on the community and on people, Yesterday was responding to the event and today is responding to the community and we want to be here for them to answer those questions.” It seems to us as if we’ve heard this exact same script recited by the gas and oil companies before – I wonder if TransCanada has the walrus listed in their response plan too. But, I digress…

Pipelines leak. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when and how much. TransCanada doesn’t have a stellar record as far as safety goes, either. In late 2012, the Canadian national energy-industry regulator (NEB) announced that it was performing a major audit of TransCanada’s Canadian operations after confirming a whistleblower’s story documenting repeated violations of pipeline safety regulations.

Last summer in testimony before a Canadian Senate committee, Evan Vokes, a pipeline safety whistleblower and materials engineer, said that TransCanada “has a culture of non-compliance,” which he blamed on a “mix of politics and commercial interests that has resulted in false public claims of exceptional industry practice when the reality is that industry struggles to comply with code and regulation.” In other words, business as usual.

Accidents like this are a prime example of why Keystone XL is a bad idea. We can’t trust TransCanada to be proactive as far as the environment goes, and their safety record is lackadaisical, to put it mildly. The pipeline has no upside for America whatsoever; we’d be carrying Canadian tar sands oil down to the Gulf refineries to be processed and exported on the global market. The reduced refinery capacity brought about by the tar sand oil having priority could lead to higher gas prices here ion the US. And, the profit goes back to Canada, while we assume all the risk.

Does that sound like a good deal to you? We thought not…

Gimme Some More Water

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Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Six months ago, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) announced that it would start shutting off services to households and businesses with delinquent accounts. We’ve written occasionally about what’s been happening between the DWSD and the people of Detroit, and we thought that we knew the background leading up to the shutoffs. However, we appear to have been mistaken.

On Monday, The Grist reported that the shutoffs may not be due to people not paying their bills on time, but instead could be due to the DWSD trying to fix an enormous billing mistake they made six years ago. How enormous? Try $115 million.

In documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Alice Jennings, a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the DWSD is shown not as a company that has been patient with deadbeat customers for many years, but as a incompetent bureaucracy that can’t keep its billing straight.

It seems that they went through a “systems change,” and somehow forgot to bill one third of their customers for sewage service. The customers were still getting bills, so they didn’t realize anything was wrong; they just weren’t being billed for sewage service.

The documents were released as part of Lyda et.al v. City of Detroit, a class action lawsuit which was filed with help from the ACLU of Michigan and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The lawsuit argues that the DWSD broke its own rules when it began shutting off services with no advance warning, by shutting off water to people who were actively disputing their bills, and by continuing to shut off water to homes even after the city supposedly had a shutoff moratorium in place, as well as actively discriminating on racial and economic lines as to who got shut off.

We’d laugh about the sheer incompetence shown by the DWSD in years past if it didn’t have such a horrific impact today on the most disadvantaged residents of the city the DWSD is supposed to be serving. Recently, the DWSD has resumed the shutting off of services to residential customers they claim are overdue. But, why are they overdue? Is it due to non-payment, or is it due to gross incompetence? We suspect it’s the latter.

Occupy World Writes calls for a moratorium on shutting off residential customers’ services by the DWSD until their responsibility in this matter is determined. The people shouldn’t have to pay for the gross incompetence of one of their service providers.

The Modern Gladiator Games

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Adrian Peterson. Photo by Mike Morbeck – Flickr: Adrian Peterson. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A week ago, we wrote a piece about Ray Rice and the NFL’s waffling on domestic abuse cases. Normally, we wouldn’t think about the NFL, much less write about it – none of us are huge football fans. However, since our last piece, some very disturbing things have happened that have everything to do with our previous story.

On Thursday, the Baltimore Ravens played their first game since Ray Rice’s indefinite suspension was made public. There were a number of fans wearing Ray Rice jerseys, and saying such things as “I don’t condone domestic assault, but I support Ray Rice.” One woman was given air time in a lot of the media; she said “I don’t condone domestic violence, but she hit him first. I’m sorry, but I think that if a woman hits a man, the man can hit her back.” The other reoccuring theme besides the “I don’t condone domestic violence” bit (which sounds a lot like the “I’m not a racist, but…” theme) was that he brought a Super Bowl championship to Baltimore, which somehow lent respectability to him. Really, people? Is that where your priorities lie?

Then on Friday, Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was indicted by a Texas grand jury for child abuse. The charges stemmed from Peterson beating his 4 year old son with a branch as punishment for something the child had done. He beat him hard enough that the boy had welts on his legs, buttocks and back. After the news of the indictment broke on Friday, the Vikings benched Peterson for last Sunday’s game against the New England Patriots; a responsible move on their part. The Vikings lost their game – badly. Yesterday, the Vikings said that Peterson would play this Sunday.

Yesterday was a big day in the domestic abuse crisis surrounding the NFL. After the Vikings reinstated Peterson for Sunday’s game, news came out about another child abuse allegation about him. Ray Rice is appealing his suspension, claiming that at the most, he should be suspended for the six games that the new NFL rules call for. He further claims that he’d told the NFL’s head office everything about the domestic abuse incident in April, contradicting NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s claim that he (Goodell) didn’t know all the facts until TMZ leaked the second video last week. Meanwhile, the three other players who have been charged with domestic assault are playing and practicing with their teams every week.

Does anybody really think that the NFL will take the needed actions to make sure that the families and significant others of their players are safe from domestic violence? We sure don’t. Are these the role models we want for our children? Absolutely not.

The NFL is a huge business, taking in billions of dollars a year. It’s becoming more and more apparent that the NFL cares much more about their bottom line than they do about the players and their families’ health and safety, not to mention that they still promote these people as role models. Late yesterday, Radisson Hotels announced that they were suspending their sponsorship deal with the Vikings. Radisson spokesman Ben Gardeen said in an email; “Radisson takes this matter very seriously, particularly in light of our long-standing commitment to the protection of children. We are closely following the situation and effective immediately, Radisson is suspending its limited sponsorship of the Minnesota Vikings while we evaluate the facts and circumstances.”

Occupy World Writes applauds Radisson’s actions, and we encourage all of the other NFL sponsors to do the same. We’re revolted by the excuses we’ve heard from the media and fans for both the NFL’s and individual players’ behavior. We’d like to think that we as a nation are better than glorifying what’s essentially a replay of the Roman era’s gladiator events.

How did this happen?

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With the growing world concern regarding the Islamic State, the question has been raised about how this group achieved enough power and assets without being noticed, enabling them to morph into the threat they have become today.

The same thing was said in past uprisings from terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and others.

As the world scrambles to figure this out, it boggles our mind why the question exists. When you limit journalism, take freedom of the press out of vast areas, and stifle the news to only what the state approves, this is what happens.

We’ve written before about the challenges and dangers that journalists face. We have heard of the confirmation of two American journalists being beheaded by the Islamic State, We have witnessed Egypt imprison Al Jazeera staff. The world over, journalists are threatened by criminals, governments and terrorists.

Yet these people dedicate their lives to getting the news out. Trying to tell the world what is happening when those around you would rather see you dead is a bit challenging.

Occupy World Writes is grateful to all journalists who get their story out. We call on Egypt and all other governments currently imprisoning journalists to release them immediately. We support those who assist these people in their efforts and recognize journalists as true heroes.

Journalism is not a crime.

Journalist James Foley was beheaded by Islamic State on August 20, 2014. Photo via FaceBook.

Wasted Away Again

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“Clean your plate, There’s starving children in the world.” “Don’t eat that! It’s past its expiration date!” “I’m too full to finish.” “No thanks, we don’t eat leftovers…” “What is that thing in the refrigerator?”

Grocery stores, restaurants, fast food chains, agriculture, food industries and manufacturing all produce huge amounts of food that are thrown out. Additionally, one must consider the resources used to produce that “thing” that is being discarded. 40% of the food Americans purchase is disposed of without ever being consumed.

How many times have you seen, participated in, or known of food being thrown out? Has it ever occurred to you what the impact of this waste amounts to?

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has published Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources Summary Report. In the first ever study of the question of food chain security and its relationship to natural resources throughout the world, the FAO has identified areas of concern that should bring every individual on the planet to the level of awareness and action.

Their report begins, “FAO estimates that each year, approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption in the world is lost or wasted. This food wastage represents a missed opportunity to improve global food security, but also to mitigate environmental impacts and resources use from food chains. Although there is today a wide recognition of the major environmental implications of food production, no study has yet analysed the impacts of global food wastage from an environmental perspective.”

The quickest way to grasp the basics of their research, watch this clip:

Occupy World Writes sees concern when reading this report and considering the impact of global unrest and climate change. Wars and terrorism have prevented crops from being planted, from being harvested and from being taken to market. Refugees go without sufficient nutritional food while stockpiles of perishables rot in warehouses. Climate change has brought drought to regions that have always produced abundant food, and floods have stricken various regions of the world, wiping out crops, food supplies and infrastructure needed to replace them.

Before you toss that next apple away, refuse to take a box home from the restaurant or don’t bother to use what you purchase, consider how much more you are wasting than just the food item you decide is not consumable. How much energy? How many gallons of water? How much fuel and electricity was consumed in order to give you the opportunity to make this choice?

ABLE Is Ready

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“A bunch of artificial limbs” by Nadya Peek – originally posted to Flickr as More uncanny piles of discarded prothetics. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons –

Across America, over 37 million people begin their day much different than the rest of our society. Some need to put on a limb or two. Others need to go through their shower, breakfast and trip to their job in a wheelchair. Still others confront obstacles that would cause most of us to give up.

Just over 1 in 4 of today’s 20 year-olds will become disabled before they retire.¹
Over 37 million Americans are classified as disabled; about 12% of the total population. More than 50% of those disabled Americans are in their working years, from 18-64.²

Yet our continued open discrimination of disabled people remains not only legal, it causes some to think we are too lenient with those that have “different abilities” than the rest of us. When workers have weekly or monthly payroll deductions taken from their paychecks, it includes disability insurance, referred to as a FICA (Federal Insurance Contribution Act) tax. This is not an entitlement program, it is an insurance program. The scrutiny and processes used by the SSA to determine eligibility is not easy to navigate, and IF you manage to qualify, your monthly benefit amount becomes a political football whenever budget discussions take place in Washington.

Our labor laws allow corporations to pay a disabled worker far less than minimum wage. We make it nearly impossible for many disabled people to live independent lives by keeping them in economic poverty. We don’t allow recipients of disability benefits to have savings accounts in excess of $2,000. We ask every job seeker in the country if they are one of “these people” on job applications.

In what some think of as an often “disabled body” in and of itself, Congress is poised to be ABLE to do something about a portion of the hardships these people face. The Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act would ease the financial burden for individuals with disabilities by creating tax-free accounts that can be used to save for disability-related expenses. These accounts can be created by individuals to support themselves or by families to support their dependents.

The ABLE act was introduced by Ander Crenshaw [R-FL4] in the House and by Robert Casey [D-PA] in the Senate. Together, the two bills have over 400 cosponsors.

The bill would create tax-exempt, state based private savings accounts to fund disability-related expenses to supplement benefits currently provided by Social Security, Medicaid, employers, and private insurance. The account shall be treated in the same way as a qualified tuition program, such as a 529. A 529 account allows families to save money for an individual’s education without being disqualified for certain aid programs and prevents tax penalties on the money saved and any income earned from it.

Expenses would qualify as disability-related if they are for the benefit of an individual with a disability and are related to the disability. They include education; housing; transportation; employment support; health, prevention, and wellness costs; assistive technology and personal support services; and other expenses.

The only problem we could find with this piece of legislation is the clause that explains what happens to the savings account in the event of the disabled person’s death:

‘Subject to any outstanding payments due for qualified disability expenses, in the case that the designated beneficiary dies or ceases to be an individual with a disability, all amounts remaining in the qualified ABLE account not in excess of the amount equal to the total medical assistance paid for the designated beneficiary after the establishment of the account, net of any premiums paid from the account or paid by or on behalf of the beneficiary to a Medicaid Buy-In program, under any State Medicaid plan established under title XIX of the Social Security Act shall be distributed to such State upon filing of a claim for payment by such State. For purposes of this paragraph, the State shall be a creditor of an ABLE account and not a beneficiary. Subsection (c)(3) shall not apply to a distribution under the preceding sentence.'”

Occupy World Writes questions why the state gets the savings account of these people, while all other people are allowed their assets to be inherited by designated beneficiaries after their death. Even with the best of intention, we still can’t recognize that these people are PEOPLE, not a sub-human class less deserving of the rights, liberties and freedoms granted all “other” able-bodied people.

Is Congress ABLE to pass ABLE?

U.S. Social Security Administration, Fact Sheet February 7, 2013
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2011

We Hoped For The Best, But…

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Last Friday, we ran a piece on the The Democracy for All Amendment. This wasn’t the first time we’ve touched on Citizens United and its impact on our politics and policies; we ran a piece back in January proposing that our Congressthings wear the logos of their “sponsors” at all public engagements and while conducting the business of politics. But, last Friday’s post was especially timely, considering that a procedural vote was scheduled for Monday.

We pointed out the inherent flaws in the bill that went before the Senate, especially when compared to HJ Res 29, which is a comprehensive resolution introduced at the behest of the grassroots organization Move to Amend. First of all, the bill didn’t address transparency in the campaign contribution process. Secondly, it was designed to be passed with a companion bill, The People’s Rights Amendment, that defined the legal status of a corporation as far as constitutional rights went. We questioned whether the two bills instead of the one all-encompassing bill strategy was a smokescreen – pass one and we’d be so happy that one got through that we won’t notice that the other’s going nowhere, when both are needed the way that they’re written.

Monday’s procedural vote almost gave us reason to be hopeful; the Senate voted 79-18 to let it advance to the floor. However, then the corporate and big money spin machine went to work, and we heard such absurdities as a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United was an attempt to repeal the First Amendment. Our favorite psychopath from Texas, Ted Cruz, went as far as to claim “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels could be thrown in jail if the amendment passed, as according to him, the amendment would outlaw political speech by corporations. Of course, Teddy knows it does nothing like that at all; yet that and other such absurdities were spouted as gospel by those on the right to ramp up the paranoia among their followers. Then came yesterday’s vote.

via Facebook

We hoped that we would be wrong in our prediction of what would happen, but alas, it was not to be. In a completely partisan voice, the Senate voted 54-42 to pass this amendment. However, since this is the modern Senate where everything besides confirmation of nominees to various posts requires 60 votes to pass instead of a simple majority, the bill won’t go forward to the House. Once again, the Republicans in the Senate paid more heed to the corporations putting lobbyist money in their pockets than to listen to the American people.

We could not help but note this vote was taken on 9-11, when most media outlets would be paying very little attention to what the Senate was doing. So, once again, while we were distracted, our elected officials did their utmost to screw we the people out of having any say in our government.

So, what can we do? Is it game over – have they won? Absolutely not!

Be an active participant in the process, and not a passive watcher. Get involved with Move to Amend. Let your Congressthings in both the House and Senate know that you’re watching; remind them that they work for you, and not the other way around. Get out and vote in November. Just do it.

America’s future generations will thank you…

Parks For Sale!

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One of our country’s finest features is our National Park System. It’s grown from its humble beginning in 1864, when Abraham Lincoln signed a bill granting Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias to the State of California “for public use, resort and recreation… inalienable for all time,” and the first federally administered park (Yellowstone in 1872- the federal administration came about due to problems with California administering Yosemite) to the present day’s assortment of over 450 natural, historical, recreational, and cultural areas throughout the United States, its territories, and island possessions.

Grand Canyon South Rim from Powell Point. Photo by Tuxyso – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The purpose has remained the same throughout the years; to preserve places of scenic beauty and/or historical significance for the public’s use and enjoyment. However, if some of our elected officials (and some who want to be elected officials) have their way, this won’t be true any longer.

Last Friday, Colorado had their first gubernatorial debate. In the debate, the Republican candidate Bob Beauprez went on the record as supporting the seizure of Colorado’s national parks, forests and public lands by the state government. And, in a campaign document, he lays out his plans to “reestablish state rights and duties,” including “establish[ing] a process for taking control over public lands back from the federal government.”

He’s not alone in his quest. Others who publicly support the states seizing public land from the federal government include such people as both Senators from Arizona (John McCain and Jeff Flake), both Senators from Utah (Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch), everybody’s favorite psychopath (Texas Senator Ted Cruz), the leading contender thus far for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination (Kentucky Senator Rand Paul) and Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers from Washington (the Chair of the House Republican Conference and the highest ranking Republican woman in Congress).

Why do they want this? Because then the oil, mining and timber interests can pressure the states into selling the rights for drilling for oil, mining and logging, of course. Instead of preserving and protecting these lands for our enjoyment, they’d rather chase after the almighty dollar, and to hell with everybody else.

The cost to the taxpayer would be immense. In Colorado, for example, 36% of the land is public land owned by the federal government, who pay for maintenance and the like. Then, there’s the money brought in by the tourist trade, and the jobs that catering to that trade provides. The current Colorado governor, John Hickenlooper, stated in the debate that the estimated cost to Colorado taxpayers of transferring Colorado’s national parks, forests and public lands to the state would be at least $200 million dollars. On top of that, the additional costs of fighting wildfires in those areas could easily be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

We’ve already seen the results of this profit driven agenda in some locations. For example, there’s fracking going on in the Everglades near a major nesting site for the wood stork, a species just recently taken off the endangered species list. We can’t forget the damage done to the Gulf Islands National Seashore by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Or the steady chipping away of our National Forests by the timber industry. Or…

This would affect all of us, whether we realize it at the present time or not. Our National Lakeshores and Recreation Areas sit on some of our most abundant supplies of fresh water. Our National Forests are not only beautiful to look at; they also scrub carbon dioxide out of the air, and prevent land erosion. The last known living examples of many species live on our public lands. Is it worth destroying all of this in the name of extracting a finite amount of resources from the area so that some company can make a profit? We think not.