Dear HCN,
Every time I read a
“protect our constitutional rights’ or “jobs save our rural
lifestyle” rap (HCN, 1/23/95), I think of two
things:
The first is that a “rural” lifestyle is
a romantic vision that these people have not lived for several
generations, if then. They do not grow much of their own food. They
rarely exchange labor and raw materials and finished goods with
their neighbors. They are not living off the land by virtue of
outdoor survival skills honed from experience and passed through
generations in place. They are not living a lifeway of communion
with that place.
Instead, they live a “rurban”
existence. Other than having more space around them, their
existence is an urban one. They buy most of their food, and it
comes from far, far away. They extract energy from their
environment using tools and supplies produced by the labor of
people outside their community, add their own labor, and then
export the results for the benefit of others far outside their
community. (When the logger builds a house, do you think the wood
he buys comes from his own or his neighbor’s logs?) They ask for,
receive, and staunchly cling to tax breaks, subsidies, and
exclusive public-land leases (even when a neighbor might “need” it
more than they). They rely on technology, machines, chemicals, and
software that are produced by people they have never met, let alone
been related to, and who lack any knowledge of their “place” or
“survival skills.” They sit in front of their TVs, VCRs, and
Internet links, watching the same set of artificial experiences
from which they receive their “sense of place.”
The second thing I always think of is that there
are far more attacks upon our constitutional rights that seem to
get ignored by these folks. For instance, what about citizens
denied the right to vote because they don’t have an address? Or
what about the serious erosion of rights called the “War on Drugs’?
One of those rights it attacks just happens to be “private
property,” in the form of “civil forfeiture,” which is done by
violating another right called “innocent until proven guilty,” and
the “double-jeopardy” clause, and the “excessive fines’ clause,
and, and, and.
When extractive corporations set
up shop in a community, a great deal of people still remain
unemployed, unfed, unhoused, etc. When “local control for the
benefit of our community” advocates start recognizing those people
as also part of their community, I will better be able to believe
that they are sincere about “community.” When “protect our
constitutional rights’ advocates start demanding an end to the way
our “War on Drugs’ is conducted, and demand an end to all denials
of constitutional rights, then I will believe
them.
Until then, I call it
hypocrisy.
Jim
Green
McKenzie Bridge,
Oregon
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A rural lifestyle is a romantic vision.
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