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Show A THE ZEPHYR/\UNE-JULY 2006 is that an organization devoted exclusively to saving wilderness by government decree ... that is, by staying pristine and avoiding serious contact with other movements, other views, other activists, other dangers... will make little real and lasting headway. Actually, as in so many other citizenship struggles, such as betrayals of women's reproductive rights and abandonment of the Equal Rights privatization/ commodification ofpublic! lands crack and corner of our public domain. tintrudes ee tlessly the into every What to do? Let's return to the question, where is the Big Picture? Who has it? One of the interesting facts we learn in exploration of worldwide context is that the power people don’t have it. They think they do and they want us to think they have it, but they don't. Is there no such thing? I offer, for discussion, that the Big Picture lies inside the work and discouragements and joys of people power. We can light out for that territory, the red heart of democracy. More than a New Year's Resolution, that democratic heart has to be kept beating, strong pe * . Tex's RIVERWAYS '3-D RIVER VISIONS, INC. Jetboat Tours A BITING MIDGE OR... Margot Ford McMillen sounds off on this matter: it "Becoming a citizen is a slow, painful process, but becoming a citizen brings power. Take 2) Nope...1 think it's that silly climber who scaled steady. Just last week I ran across some imaginative renderings of history by David Romtvedt, Wyoming’s poet laureate. Here’’s one I especially like: “Even the rich and powerful wonder if what they've done is right. There's been a shattering of a world of false dreams, a world that for all but a very few people has been an eternal nightmare. All the lands are lands of dreamy dreams, and all the people are relearning how to make choices about which dreamis they choose to live with. Soon people will not only know how to read and write, but how, as Black Elk remembered, to listen and speak.” (1) Canoe Outfitting and Rentals Shuttle Service Delicate Arch. Is that one of those annoying midges buzzing around your head? I have to add that becoming a citizen can bring happiness along with the pain, and sometimes we rise to the occasion faster than any of us might have predicted. We are, after Come to think of it, People Power isn't new. We aren't inventing it, we are discovering it. ...(and)there is no power on the earth we can hand the job to. PO Box 67 691 North 500 West Moab, UT 84532 435.259.5101 info@texsriverways.com | www.texsriverways.com It's ours. It's time. all, clever animals on the lookout. No armor, practically naked, we survived all those millenniums from the time when our ancesters decided to leave off being reptiles. Come to think of it, People Power is not new. We aren't inventing it, we are discovering it. Look where we’ve been, we left out citizens, since Tom Paine wrote that eighteenth century best seller. Come on Varmentalists, let’’s come in from the cold and join the other left-outs. There is no power on earth we can hand the job to. It’s ours. It’s time. March 19, 3rd anniversary of invasion of Iraq, Alison and 1 showed up at 12 on the dot at the usual demo place, where Elm meets East Main in Malone, New York, county seat of this sprawling half-wilderness county that borders Quebec on the north. A couple who had driven all the way from New York City that morning were there, waiting. So, right off the bat, four resisters. Others came, with signs. A great spread of views on those signs, all home made. We had organized only by word of mouth and an ad in the Free Trader. Ours was one modest demo among many all over our nation, all over the world. As in many of those places, the weather was not kind. We had cold wind that brought a couple spells of blizzard, but we had a good time, waving at traffic, harvesting honks. I think the opportunity to put our bodies where our thoughts were was a good part of the fuel that kept us warm enough. Winter is long up here, March madness a possibility. So, why not get out in it, freeze your fingers a little, feel the winter bite across your shoulders, laugh at the little things that comeie along, talk and wave at fellow citizens. A photographer from the local paper showed up, took a picture. It made a fine show on Monday’s front page: colorful people, everybody in a different winter outfit, and colorful signs. I’d say we were like early flowers coming out ahead of time. Is that fun? Yes. (1) David Romtvedt, /Crossing Wyoming/, Fredonia, New York, White Pine Press, 1992. (2) Margot Ford McMillen, /Rural Routes. Time for Citizenship. 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