forestry, husbandry

In the ‘bad old days’ we called it “HUSBANDRY” (the judicious use of resources) and “CONSERVATION” (careful preservation and protection of something; especially : planned management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or neglect) … or, more often than not, COMMON SENSE.

Farmers, and most people were farmers, took good care of their land such that their family could grow, prosper and enjoy the same lifestyle for generations to come. Short term, selfish thinkers wasted the resources and moved on. Stewards of the Earth outlasted and took over from them.

Then the merger of corporate and state (definition of FASCISM) butted in. Government took land. Government agents leased it to their friends, their sponsors and their benefactors. Rape and move on gained in popularity.

The next step was to add “environmental responsibility” to governmental over-reach. We couldn’t go for LESS government, could we?

Now the EPA smashes little guys with little ponds or rainbarrels under their eves, publishes via captive media all the wonderful work government protectors accomplish, while approving continued rape, pillage, destruction by mega-miners, frackers and their ilk.

Feel-good snowflakes proudly unload cloth bags from their Prius into their plastic apartments that were built without any environmentally destructive lumber.

Popular vegetable gardening advice includes planting radishes because the time from seed to harvest is quick and rewarding.

Near the opposite end of the agricultural spectrum is the logger who plants trees that his son or grandson will harvest. That is, unless modern “environmentalists” with no skin in the game mob the silviculturalists, stealing use of their multi-generational resources.

The moderns then manage it with their ignorance and crony-fascism to the detriment of nature, environment, liberty and healthy society.

I live near Darby, Montana. Not that long ago it was a vibrant logging town with mills, loggers, mill-work, infrastructure jobs, children, parents, grandparents. There are no mills now. There is no economic core. Retirees move into the vacancy. Service jobs for retirees is most of what remains for working-age parents.

Environmentalists hug themselves with pride.

The forest has been saved.

August through October we watch the forest burn.

Our eyes and lungs complain on “low air quality days”.

We run air filters in our houses to provide clean air.

There are now two jobs in the forest:

1) Government employees “managing the forest” and fighting fires. This is both where the good-paying jobs are, in forestry management. And where the military-grade sub-minimum-wage part-time summer jobs are using hand tools to guide the fires away from structures.

2) Freelance firewood harvesters. Another sub-minimum-wage line of work where guys buy permission from government workers, then run clapped out pickups through the forest to sell retirees enough firewood to heat their home next winter.

Most of the lumber turns into forest fire, adding to the summertime heat and sending smoke across Montana, the Dakotas and often much further East.

One might think that nobody is that stupid.

Evidence proves that thought to be incorrect.

That frustrates me.

What angers me, though, is that the designers of this idiocy are not that stupid.
It is pure malevolence.
And they get to drive this bus.
At least for a little while longer.