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While Americans contemplate the future of their computer files, and question the government’s authority to monitor phone calls without warrants, the Bush administration has been successful in creating a smoke screen on several other domestic issues.
And it’s not that the war on terrorism isn’t important, but rather it’s about a rampant administration that continues to snub its nose in the general direction of anyone remotely concerned with the environment.
And while it appears that there’s something disturbingly apathetical about the vast majority of people in this country when it relates to environmental issues, be warned, President Bush is big oil, big business and no friend of the environment.
If the city of Johnson City can turn a blind eye toward a few beech trees, one can only visualize what the Bush administration will be able to accomplish in the Sequoia National Forest with their renewed efforts for commercial logging operations, and what the Walden Bill – H. R. 4200 – if passed, will do to the nation’s environment.
A report issued by the Sierra Club said, “The Bush administration and U.S. Forest Service in July 2005 allowed a timber company to start commercial logging operations in the Giant Sequoia National Monument.”
The Sierra Club secured a temporary injunction to halt logging there, “… only to find out that logging was initiated in another part of the monument.”
A second injunction was secured, “… but it has become apparent that the Forest Service and its pro-logging allies are determined to log there anyway.”
The Walden Bill, introduced by Greg Walden, R-Ore., will simply make it easier for the Forest Service to log forests that have had catastrophes, such as fires or infestations by insects.
In a recent article published in the Johnson City Press, Mark Schelling, with the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition said, “The [Walden] bill is aimed at expanding logging practices that could lead to the loss of national forests.”
“It’s basically designed to come behind a catastrophe. A catastrophic event within this bill is broadly described.
“This bill,” Schelling said, “is basically an attempt by certain groups to get access to timber at any cost … making it more difficult for folks to get involved in the process of having a say in their lands.”
In 2000, then President Bill Clinton proclaimed the Giant Sequoia groves a national monument.
Today, the Bush administration wants to render Clinton’s proclamation meaningless by wrapping their logging plan in a guileful pretense and proclaiming that it’s protecting the forests from wildfires.
The Sierra Club is advocating that the management of the Sequoia National Monument be transferred to the National Park Service, where it will be better protected.
The National Park Service has had great success in managing the Sequoia ecosystem without logging for decades, and therefore is the only logical choice.
Sixty years ago, logging in Louisiana eradicated the habitat and environment of the ivory-billed woodpecker to the point of extinction.
In fact, the bird was considered extinct until February 2004, when it re-emerged and was sighted in a remote and swampy area in eastern Arkansas called The Big Woods.
The energy that has been generated for the ivory-billed woodpecker must also be generated for the preservation of this country’s national forests.
The Bush administration must be held accountable for its recklessness when dealing with environmental issues and immediately stop pandering to the logging industry.
Bush’s self-importance and general cowboy attitude, which is directly aimed toward anyone who questions his judgment and handling of the war in Iraq, also needs to cease.
Everyone is not a terrorist and everything is not related to 9/11. Beware of the smoke screen.
Illegal wiretapping and government intrusion of personal computer files are disconcerting and has the public crying foul, yet very little interest has been shown when it pertains to logging. This is called apathy.
Perhaps that was the intent of a bumper sticker recently observed in Johnson City that someone had carefully placed over their Bush-Cheney campaign sticker.
It read: I sure miss Richard Nixon. For further information about the ivory-billed woodpecker and its connection to ETSU, visit The ETSU Accent site at www.etsu.edu/univrel/accent.htm and click on the Oct. 13, 2005 issue.
For further information on the Sierra Club, visit www.sierraclub.org.

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