…And Not a Drop to Drink

Editor’s note: Whatcom Watch does not endorse candidates. The views below are the author’s.

Speaking of water (see last month’s alleged column, “Water, Water Everywhere”)....

I would like to lead off this month’s verbal nonsense by suggesting that you support candidates like Sharon Crozier (she’s running for a seat on the Bellingham City Council) in the upcoming, crucial local elections. By “candidates like Sharon” I mean concerned citizens (alarmed citizens, actually) who will boldly oppose the empty economic promise of growth for growth’s sake and the ensuing ecological disasters that always follow (see: “California, Southern”). Medical professionals have a term for growth for growth’s sake; it’s called “cancer.” And cancer is likely what we’ll be visiting upon our children is we continue, actively or tacitly, to support the proliferation of condos and strip malls which pour their poisonous effluents into our local ecosystem.

As we’ve noted before, construction work and retail sales have never formed the basis for a sound economy. Together, they will, however, most assuredly undermine any area’s ecology.

Now, I know that Sharon Crozier and I have our differences on what to do about the menace to Bellingham’s water supply posed by gas-powered vehicles on Lake Whatcom. Sharon wants to ban them; I say impose a hefty user fee on the power boaters, with the proceeds being applied toward cleaning up the lake and buying up the surrounding property in the watershed. But that’s all, so to speak, water under the bridge.

And I know that Whatcom Watch does not condone the endorsement of political candidates. So I apologize if my shameless promotion of certain individual citizen activists upsets you, dear reader. But…

The point is (and really, people, I grow weary of trying to make points and would much rather be consuming rum drinks with umbrellas in them during this long, languid summer), that Sharon Crozier and I share something in common. Namely, we’re sick and tired of seeing the rolling hills and pristine waters of Whatcom County sold to the highest bidder with the lowest conscience. The developers and land speculators must be stopped. They must be stopped here and they must be stopped now. Why? Take a look around, and try to remember…

Remember when the hills were covered with trees, not condos? Remember when tap water tasted so sweet that filters and bottled water were unheard-of? Remember when the local markets were filled with delicious fresh-caught fish instead of painted farm-raised tasteless monstrosities? Remember when it was so safe to eat tasty local fruits and vegetables that there was no need for the label “organically grown”?

And now? We’ve so grossly overpopulated the Earth and sorely taxed Her resources that genetic manipulation, chemical altering and irradiation have replaced sunshine, soil and shit as the basics of farming. We’ve so grossly overgrown and overdeveloped our environment that pollution has become a way of life.

There you go: Pollution has become a way of life. It’s all downhill from there. And pollution, need I remind you, tends to run downhill. Right into our drinking water.

That’s why I support citizen activists like Sharon Crozier. She won’t molly-coddle the developers and speculators with a namby-pamby short-term regulation here or slap-on-the-wrist there. She will stand up to the developers and speculators with a City Council vote that says unequivocally, “This stops here. This stops now.”

Speaking of pollution, developers, and speculators, how can the Building Industry Association (BIA) of Whatcom County be a nonprofit organization? After all, the BIA (proudly proclaiming itself a “private nonprofit trade organization”) is nothing more than an ill-disguised shill for the Republican Party and its well-heeled interests in the real estate and construction industries. It must be okay to call yourself “nonprofit” as long as your profits go toward propping up the economic elite.

Perhaps someone with more legal training than this reporter might want to look into the nonprofit status of the Building Industry Association of Whatcom County? Just a thinly veiled thought.

Speaking of ill disguised and thinly veiled…have you heard about the upcoming protests, lobbying and educational efforts to be waged against Emperor Dubya’s “War on Terrorism”? Yes, we all know that the invasion of Iraq orchestrated by fundamentalist Christian terrorists (the Bush Cartel) has stirred up a hotbed of fundamentalist Islamic fervor throughout the world, and that the real war is being waged against the civil liberties of law-abiding citizens of the Empire like you and me. But how might we awaken the slumbering masses to this simple truth, and urge them toward the clear-cut cause of peace?

Funny you should ask. On September 24, an immense grassroots action will occur (see http://www.pdamerica.org.) Thousands of Imperial citizens like you and me will descend upon Washington, D.C., to protest the invasion and occupation of Iraq and lobby the Congress directly for an end to this terroristic insanity and a beginning to causes that really count: national healthcare, environmental healing, civil liberties and the restoration of democracy to America, to name just a few.

So, what are you planning to do on September 24? Care to initiate some citizen action in your neighborhood? Our brothers and sisters, friends and loved ones, are being sent to Iraq to die for God and oil. Mother Earth is being sent to Her death for fun and profit. Will you stand up?

If we do not all swim together in the sparkling waters of liberty, we will all surely drown in a brackish lake of worldly greed and spiritual self-contempt. §