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on The Yellow Starthistles Are Coming!
["Homo sapiens itself is the consummate weed." the discussion of whether or not humans are the ultimate invasive species is moot - at best an academic discussion - with little or no effect on the discourse on those invasive species that are having both ecological and economic impacts on those resources to which we have attributed value.]
How is this moot? I'm surprised no one else brought this up, but we should ask the Native Americans what they think about invasive species. The first group of Homo sapiens were doing just fine here, creating and actively managing the ecosystem until a different, paler, "special" group of Homo sapiens with guns, germs and ammo came along and started doing things their way, decimating the original group and ecology. Now other species like quagga mussel and yellow star thistle are threatening the lifestyles of the special group, so they're bad and need to be eradicated, with a vengeance.
Personally, I find the invasive species campaign to be disturbing and hypocritical, especially since its featured so prevalently on OPB.
I'm not saying we should all pick up and move back to California, or Ohio or Kentucky, we're here, now. But maybe this issue of invasive species can open our collective eyes to the effects of our existence and lead to a much needed questioning of what we really value, our economic system in general. Perhaps we should start thinking about giving land back to Native Americans or at least adopt their land ethic. We could start with the restoration of Celilo Falls.
posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Necessary Roughness?
This is an interesting topic. I'm sorry I missed the show. I just wanted to share our experience here in Corvallis. We started an experiment called the Corvallis Open Forum where we met every week with a soapbox and some chairs and invited any and all to speak/perform about any and all for four minutes at a time with a signup sheet.
It has been really interesting at times and uncomfortable at others. Depending on the people, there have been differences aired with civility and I dare say understanding achieved and other times when some people have verged on physical hostility, no actual incidents, though, knock on wood. Of course the main guideline is to respect others, and for the most part this has worked, though that too has broken down on occassion. It takes a skillful, vigilant and emotionally detached moderator to maintain cohesion when things get really heated.
Whether we'll continue is up in the air but I'm convinced that providing people an opportunity for verbal expression, face to face with our neighbors is empowering for everyone involved.
Civility is difficult when it is not practiced. We need to practice it more and it will get better, like everything else, I imagine.
What are the benefits? Nothing less than a better society. The more we can engage each other and reach consensus, the better.
If you saw that program last night called Local Color, about how Portland and Oregon used to be so racist and discriminatory, you know that positive change does occur, slow though it may be, and sometimes, "requiring funerals" as the gentleman said. It made me think of equal rights for the LGBT community. We're not there yet, but its pretty much inevitable.
Having more civil discourse in general is a positive for society. Perhaps it could help ween us off of mass consumerism and complacency (as someone else mentioned).
We don't know its limitations because we don't really have much civil discourse to speak of.
posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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