Welcome to The Magic of YellowstoneA little bit of Wonderland
Jim's Eclectic World
About Me
Name: Jim Macdonald
Location: Bozeman, MT, United States
Hi, my name is Jim Macdonald, and I have an odd assortment of interests. In no particular order, I love Yellowstone, I am an anti-authoritarian activist and organizer who just moved from Washington, DC to Bozeman, and I have a background in philosophy, having taught at the college level. My blog has a lot more links to my writing and my other Web sites. In Jim's Eclectic World, I try to give a holistic view of my many interests. Often, all three passions show themselves interweaving in the very same blog. Anyhow, I think it's a little different. But, that's me. I'm not so much out there, but taken together, I'm a little unusual.
What it was like to volunteer with Buffalo Field Campaign
A small group of us with Buffalo Allies of Bozeman went down to volunteer with Buffalo Field Campaign on Saturday. I'm going to share a little here so that you know how easy it is to do and how much fun besides.
Buffalo Field Campaign lives west of the park near Hebgen Lake and is mostly comprised of volunteers, a number of whom spend November through May looking out for the bison populations roaming out of Yellowstone. Because buffalo that leave Yellowstone are not generally tolerated by the state of Montana and have been subject to killing and hazing (or forced movement) in large numbers, Buffalo Field Campaign was founded to stand up for the wild buffalo of Yellowstone. Their primary focus is media and outreach, documenting what happens to the buffalo and educating the public at large in the hopes that the slaughter stops and that buffalo are respected and treated as wildlife, i.e., without being forced to stop at the arbitrary boundary of Yellowstone National Park. Buffalo Field Campaign was founded in the winter of 1996-1997, during one of the worst buffalo slaughters on record.
Our group, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman, was founded by a small group of us in Spring 2008 during the worst slaughter of wild buffalo since the 19th century, and we were founded in large part to serve as a locally-based support group for other activists, including and especially Buffalo Field Campaign, working on the buffalo issue. We are in part here to help with the needs of other groups working on the buffalo issue.
One goal that I have always had is to empower local people to take action on behalf of the buffalo. From my years in the anti-war movement, I became convinced that local movements have the greatest power to bring about change and are the most sustainable. Whereas national organizing can bring an issue to large numbers of people, often the participation is passive. People think that action amounts to signing petitions and giving money, but no one is expected to put their heart and soul into it. So, when I lived in Washington, DC, I did not know how you could be an anti-war activist and not take action with the oppressed communities in your locality. We spent a lot of time in our activism not simply marching but also serving the homeless community; we spent time trying to understand how militarism affected our neighborhoods. Being in Gallatin County, Montana, we are drawn necessarily to our environment, to what lives in our environment, and one crucial part of that is the buffalo.
The point I am trying to make is that Buffalo Field Campaign has often depended on volunteers from across the country and across the world, sometimes from across Montana, but the Gallatin Valley has not always been a ready participant in buffalo activism. Bozeman has the reputation of a sleepy town of recreational enthusiasts and college students but certainly not social and environmental activists. However, if I am right about the ultimate need for local empowerment to local causes, then the success of the movement for wild buffalo will depend a lot on our success in Bozeman, the largest population center close to the wild buffalo migrating from Yellowstone National Park.
That's why we organized a number of us to go down to Buffalo Field Campaign to ski and look for buffalo.
This winter, only two buffalo have been killed. One was a buffalo in Idaho back in the fall; the other was killed on the first day of Montana's bison hunt in November. Outside of that, bison have simply not left the park and have not really come close. Two hypotheses have been offered: 1) Last year's record kill have left fewer bison to leave the park; 2) The mild winter has left grass plentiful and easily accessible within the park.
Nevertheless, we felt it important to go down to Buffalo Field Campaign anyhow because we want to build a base of people who can be volunteers that can be called on when necessary. We also want this base of volunteers to be able to educate the general public here in Bozeman about what it's like in the field with buffalo and how people can take action on their behalf. Before this fall, none of us who went down on Saturday could have told you much of anything about what it was like or how to take action. Now, we feel we understand enough that we could hold our own workshops to let people know what it is like. In fact, on December 6, we did just that, after Mark from our group (whose picture you see) took the first steps for us.
Volunteering with Buffalo Field Campaign is a lot of fun. At the very least, it's a ski trip into the Yellowstone borderlands in the world's most beautiful place. Saturday was quite sunny, and the snow was pristine, fields of white going on forever.
When you volunteer with Buffalo Field Campaign, they like to know when you are coming to give them a heads up of what to expect. When you arrive, one of the volunteers will give you a tour of their grounds and how they operate, and you are bound to meet several people. There are usually somewhere between 10 and 30 volunteers living there from anywhere ranging from days to months. It's quite an operation and worth seeing. A lot of camp life obviously involves keeping the camp going. Every day, meals have to be prepared, grounds have to be cleaned, there are maintenance chores. If you come to Buffalo Field Campaign and have a particular skill - like say, fixing cars - you will find something to do that does not involve going out into the field with buffalo. Whatever skill you have - whether you think it's relevant or not - Buffalo Field Campaign can probably find a use for it.
However, a great many people coming down want to go into the field. Before that happens, you have to understand what the campaign does and what its tactics are. As I mentioned, Buffalo Field Campaign is primarily a media campaign. When crews go out into the field, they take with them video cameras and radios in order to record and report what is happening. The campaign is nonviolent and nonconfrontational; they are there to document. If people want to take other kinds of actions - like for instance, setting up a blockade to stop a Montana Department of Livestock agent from reaching a buffalo - that is something you will do on your own. Actually, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman would support you - talk with us! - but is not what the campaign does when they are in the field.
When you are ready to go into the field, and assuming there is snow on the ground like we had, Buffalo Field Campaign has you covered. I had my own set of boots and skis and was ready to go, but some in our group needed boots and skis. They'll do their best to set you up, though the truth is that they could use more bindings, boots, and even skis. One of our group repeatedly had an issue with his boots coming out of the bindings. One thing we can do in Bozeman is to provide ski equipment to BFC. However, if you don't have skis, that should not stop you. And, if you have never skied, that shouldn't stop you, either! One person in our group had only skied once while another hadn't skied since childhood, and yet within no time they were on their skis moving forward. There are patrols to flat areas, as well as very hilly areas, and what's more, you will always be paired with an experienced Buffalo Field Campaign volunteer.
If the snow isn't good, people snowshoe. If there's no snow, they hike. Patrols on the west side of the park go along the Madison River at the park boundary, to lowlands near the Department of Livestock's Duck Creek trap, as well as to high overlooks like Sandy Butte. In our case, we went to the top of Sandy Butte, from which you can see the entire Madison valley inside the park. Sandy Butte is quite high, and though none of us were especially experienced skiers, most of us made it up. There we saw about four (perhaps, as many as six) buffalo, all of them small dots on the landscape, the largest small dot below us on Duck Creek, still about two miles from the park boundary. Apparently, buffalo have made it repeatedly to that spot without daring to venture closer to the park boundary. Though the buffalo weren't near, we were encouraged by seeing any at all, especially from such a stunning point.
In the nearby distance, we heard the roar of snowmobiles, sounding like the Daytona 500 or a plague of locusts. It was quite a contrast in worlds and cultures, separated by the well marked park boundary.
In any event, we had a blast on skis and returned to camp. When you return, you will be encouraged to stay for dinner, which they will provide. Dinners generally consist of vegan, vegetarian, and wild game alternatives. There's always plenty to eat. Before or just after dinner, every night, the group has a meeting, where they share their patrols and make sure that volunteers cover the tasks for the next day. People will be encouraged to share their experiences on the patrols and be part of whatever decisions need to be made at the meeting.
Obviously, Buffalo Field Campaign would like people to stay the night and continue to volunteer. But, just as obvious, people in Bozeman much more often than not will need to return to their homes. However, each time you return, each time the people and places become more familiar to you, the more useful you will become as a volunteer. At this point, we in Buffalo Allies are mostly just tourists on skis, but we are getting information and experience that will continue to help us help Buffalo Field Campaign and the buffalo.
I can say very sincerely that this is a very delightful experience that people should be encouraged to have. If someone wants to go up next week, we might be willing to go with you. And, if by chance we can't, we could tell you everything and set you up with the volunteer coordinators.
In the spring, the buffalo will come out of the park to calve. They are likely to face troubles then, especially if they are in no hurry to return to the park. We can do something about this and be a positive force for the buffalo and a steady source of solidarity for Buffalo Field Campaign. Please consider joining us as we work to make that happen.
Bison bill defeated in Montana, but what's the strategy?
Montana House Bill 253 - the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery and Conservation Act of 2009 - went down to defeat 10 - 8 on Thursday in the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee.
What I am going to say now represents my views on this and does not necessarily reflect the views of anyone else in my group, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman. In fact, I suspect my views will go beyond most of the members of the group.
I am having a lot of trouble understanding what the strategic purpose has been in pushing a bill that most people have acknowledged was likely to be defeated. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this bill, especially by members of the Gallatin Wildlife Association, much like the blood, sweat, and tears they put into a similarly defeated effort in 2005. Back in June, Rep. Mike Phillips, who drafted and shepherded the bill, said very clearly at a forum that there was almost no chance of this passing if both Gov. Schweitzer and Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) did not support the bill. And, they didn't. Officially, they stayed silent, but they were against the bill. The Governor's policy advisor, Hal Harper, and FWP's Pat Flowers made their views known to activists before this ever went to committee.
And, what do you know? It went down to defeat in committee. Imagine that; almost everyone knew it would fail, and it did.
I believe in a diversity of strategies and tactics. If you can get a win in the state legislature, go for it. I'll be glad to help, even if I have very little interest in pursuing these tactics. However, what's the strategy here? Does anyone plan to hold anyone accountable? Republican representative Ted Washburn supposedly supported the bill and wound up voting against it. Is anyone going to call him out? Or, are people naive enough to think that if they are just a little more persuasive that people will change their votes?
The problem for me always with using the legislature as a tactic is that it's liberal and reformist. It pretends that the system can be used to correct the abuses of symptoms in our society that are wrong. And, while it may be the case that occasionally you can treat a symptom, what really ever gets changed? What's wrong with Yellowstone, with buffalo, with everything in this region is not merely a symptomatic problem, a problem of just fixing this and adjusting that. Even if this bill had passed, we would still need to ask ourselves, what next? Like the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) that we decry as unworkable so too is the way the system functions.
The fact is that Montana politics is dominated by the livestock industry, an industry that might economically be responsible for only 1% of GDP but has an outsized presence in the political power of the state. You don't negotiate with a fundamentally irrational power or pretend that it's just a matter of winning an argument. You have to fight a different fight. It's like a bantamweight taking on a heavyweight. You don't fight like that on their turf and on their grounds. And, if anywhere is their grounds in Montana, it's in the political establishment.
The misguided idea has been that if you got wildlife advocates, environmentalists, other property owners, and sportsmen together, maybe you can politically overwhelm the livestock interests. Nope; you can outnumber them 4 to 1 in a committee hearing, you can win in the newspapers, but you won't win in Helena.
HB 253 was a tame bill; it didn't do much. The IBMP would have still held sway. All it would have done is alleviate an incoherence in Montana law where wildlife were managed by a livestock department, while allowing property owners to determine whether they wanted bison on their property. They would have been allowed to call in the Department of Livestock to deal with problems; however, all of that might have been moot anyhow under the IBMP (it might have been for a court to decide). It was worth supporting as a tactical victory toward a larger aim except we all knew it didn't have a chance of passing no matter how many hours spent trying to get it passed.
So, what is the strategy? I am going to find out, and I want to see what the Gallatin Wildlife Association has in mind. It's not enough that the issue is in the public dialogue unless there's a way to thrust that dialogue into further action.
If there was one thing that happened was that a lot of pro bison groups that haven't been getting along that well got behind this bill in a way they didn't four years ago. If this is an exercise in movement building, that's great. But, then, I have trouble understanding why anyone is pretending that action in the legislature is the best means toward that end? Is it just the culture of the groups involved? That's what they do? I'd be fine with that answer so long as no one is pretending that the bison situation actually will be solved simply by passing a law. Because, it won't. This is a very long struggle that depends on a lot more changing.
I believe we need to learn to embrace different tactics alongside this one. If we don't, this sorry story will just keep repeating itself until no one cares anymore.
By writing so harshly, I don't mean to put down the efforts of those who pushed this bill. In fact, I admire them very much. I truly just want to know what's next, and if that hasn't been thought about, then we all had better start.
William "Doubting" Thomas, founder of the Peace Park vigil in Lafayette Park outside the White House, died on Friday morning after a long illness. He was 61; he was my friend. I mourn his loss intensely.
Thomas, as he was known to all of us, began his 24/7 vigil for "Wisdom, Honesty, Truth, Justice, and Global Nuclear Disarmament" on April 13, 1981 interrupted only by numerous arrests and a "stay away" order the last year of his life. The anti-nuclear vigil became the most visible statement of an anti-nuclear organization called Proposition One. He was joined in the vigil by his more famous sidekick, Concepcion "Connie" Picciotto, who achieved a small measure of fame when she was filmed by Michael Moore at the vigil for a scene that appeared toward the end of Fahrenheit 9/11. As we mourn the loss of Thomas, we must remember that Connie struggles on and needs our support.
The Peace Park vigil is certainly a tourist curiosity, situated right across the street from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, so close that it has been dubbed 1601 Pennsylvania Avenue. Over the years, the National Park Service has tried to remove it many times, but it remains the eyesore on the front steps of the greatest power the world has ever known, reminding us of our role as a nation in nuclear destruction and urging us to stop now and forever. Unfortunately, that message is as pertinent now as it was when Reagan was ratcheting up the Cold War in 1981. The United States still possesses the world's largest nuclear arsenal; more nations possess nuclear weapons than ever, and the world's energy crisis is increasing calls for nuclear power (or disguise it in the form of hydrogen power, a byproduct of the nuclear process).
This issue is what my friend Thomas fought for, passing out information, talking with strangers, and keeping watch year after year, decade after decade.
Thomas leaves behind his beloved wife Ellen, whose email message reached me this evening. When they were not at shifts at the vigil, they lived in a house not too far distant called the "Peace House," taking in and feeding homeless people, providing space for the Washington Peace Center, and providing a welcome mat to anyone who needed anything or simply wanted the company of good people. Whenever I visited Ellen and Thomas at the Peace House, I was chastised for not coming by enough - tonight, I regret that I didn't.
What I want to reiterate to you all and to Ellen, if she reads this, is the role that Thomas and the Peace Park vigil had on my life. I had a transformative experience in November 2000 because of Thomas and the vigil he started. Without that experience, I really don't think I would have taken the road I went down as an anti-war activist, as a global justice activist, and now as an advocate for buffalo in and near my beloved Yellowstone National Park. It was one of those experiences I will never forget, and it made a profound difference for me and no doubt the people I have been able to touch through my own activism.
If you recall, in November 2000, we had a contentious presidential election involving George W. Bush and Al Gore. I had only moved to Washington, D.C., that past spring in order to work on a Ph.D. in philosophy at Catholic University. However, as upset as I was by the politics and the process of what was happening in Florida, I did not do anything. Never had I protested; never had it really crossed my mind. That was something my parents did during Vietnam; I had thought that era of history was more or less gone, though it had never really stopped. In any event, I was temping at the Urban Institute over in the Dupont Circle area. One morning I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to do more, but I didn't know what. The only thing that came to my mind was how much I hated the death penalty; however, I didn't really know if that was what was calling me.
I got off of work early in the afternoon and wandered in the direction of the White House. There I saw the Peace Park vigil, which for some reason at that time was set up near H Street on the other end of Lafayette Park, perhaps because the city was getting ready for another inaugural, which tended to move the vigil. I don't recall whether I saw Thomas or Connie, but there was a man there. He looked defeated and sad, as though he needed something from me. All of my being wanted to go up to him and simply say, "God bless you." However, I can be painfully shy sometimes, and I couldn't work up the courage. Instead, I walked away saying nothing.
There have been few times where I felt more guilty than I did at that moment; it is a hard thing to explain because there was nothing technically that I had done that was wrong. Yet, inside of me, I felt this incredible moral failing. And, there was something in that feeling that told me that I needed to be doing more, that to make up for what I had done wrong I had to become active.
And, so I did. I became involved in grassroots organizing, protesting what was happening in Florida. Within weeks, I spent an entire night on the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court. It never occurred to me that what felt like an amazing feat for me was something that Thomas probably could count years of his life doing in Lafayette Park. I worked with others to try to start a grassroots group. Though that experience burned me in many ways, it didn't ultimately stop me. The lead up to the war in Iraq led me to anti-war organizing, led me to the DC Anti-War Network, and ultimately that work led me finally to know Thomas, to know Ellen, to know about Proposition One and the Peace Park vigil. I'd spend time occasionally covering the vigil when someone had to go for a bathroom break; I joined my partner Genevieve when she and a friend named Midge held a solidarity one week vigil alongside Peace Park. I spent another night in the park honoring the work of the vigil. And, I got to know Thomas little by little.
So, Peace Park and Thomas inspired me to where I am now in so many ways. So many of you getting this know my work right now on Yellowstone issues, but Thomas is an important inspiration that drives me. And, I miss him.
When I knew Thomas, he had this dog named Wise Guy, who died a few years ago. Wise Guy was a pit bull, and yet Thomas kept him at the vigil without a leash. What a sweet dog, and Thomas once got arrested because of Wise Guy not being on a leash. And, yet, through millions of tourists, I never saw anyone afraid of Wise Guy. However, Thomas, when he was in a foul mood, could scare you because he was so passionate and could be so caustic toward the relentless BS from people who tried to defend American war and nuclear policy. He had certainly heard it all, and yet someone would inevitably approach him as though they were giving him an argument he had never heard before. I delighted in watching Thomas talk with people.
It was clear in recent years that Thomas was ill, and I'd often feel sad knowing that. Nevertheless, I was amazed at the way he kept up his commitments despite how badly he often felt. I saw so many activists fall by the wayside over much, much less.
Sometimes, I felt that a lot of people thought the Peace Park vigilers were crazy, and I can only imagine what endless days in the tourist hell outside the White House in all kinds of weather does to one's sanity. However, I have always been convinced that that vigil is the sanest expression of protest against war, that war and those who perpetrate it for any reason are absolutely nuts and that no amount of rationalization in the world can make the carnage of war any more sane. When such power is held in the hands of one man, that's insanity. I heard that a CIA drone killed 18 people in Pakistan today, and few here would blink an eye. How can anyone - are you listening Barack Obama - have that kind of power; how can anyone with that kind of power dare to use it? Thomas was just one man, and perhaps he and Connie alone have stayed sane while we all delude ourselves that the madness of the world is normal.
I want to fight the madness like Thomas fought the madness.
Nuclear war vigils seem distant sometimes to me in the relative paradise of Montana, surrounded by mountains, near the most beautiful and greatest wonders of the world. Here we deal with issues related to the land and those that live on it and the way we should live with land. Yet, another dear friend of mine in the Washington area, John Steinbach - and a friend to Ellen and Thomas - understands perhaps better than anyone how nuclear issues relate with indigenous issues (where on whose reservations so many nuclear tests have been conducted) and relate with land and wildlife issues. Like John, I can't see the Yellowstone I love and the buffalo I love without giving a loving glance back to Ellen and Thomas.
Thomas, we are hurt in ways we scarcely understand by your loss.
The best I can do now is write this ode in your memory and honor, Thomas, and hope that a few people take notice to make the commitment and the connections that your life was about. "Wisdom, Honesty, Truth, Justice, and Global Nuclear Disarmament" indeed.
Warning: This essay has nothing to do with earthquake swarms or the Yellowstone supervolcano. Be forewarned or else you might fall under the apocalypse of reading what is to follow on something else entirely pertaining to Yellowstone. ;)
On January 5, 2009, I was a participant in a march on behalf of the wild buffalo population in Yellowstone National Park, animals who have been denied year round habitat in the state of Montana. The action, sponsored by Buffalo Field Campaign and Buffalo Allies of Bozeman, was in Helena and was targeted at the swearing in of the state legislature and Gov. Brian Schweitzer, under whose watch the greatest wild buffalo slaughter since the 19th century has happened. It was in support of the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery & Conservation Act of 2009, which calls for shifting management of wild bison from the Montana Department of Livestock to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks so that bison are managed as wildlife instead of as animals in need of disease control. During the action, about 15 activists from West Yellowstone, Bozeman, Missoula, and Helena were able to get inside the capitol rotunda with signs that read, "Stop the Slaughter" and "Stop the B.S. = Buffalo Slaughter = Brian Schweitzer." Reporters took our pictures, filmed us, and wrote articles about it.
Those are most of the basic facts about the action. I can also add that the crowd - mostly Montana policy makers and their families - received us mostly with thumbs up. One of our number reported that the governor acknowledged our sign. I can add that the march through the empty streets of Helena reached few people. Perhaps, I should also add that a native man joined our action outside of the capitol and supported us inside the rotunda. There was no trouble from Helena police; besides the signs and buffalo masks, there was no disruption inside the rotunda. After the rally, participants expressed a sense that the action had gone well, especially once we were inside the capitol, where policy makers were forced to notice and where reaction was mostly positive.
However, the basic facts of an action often miss one of a million other things that can be said. What we are doing is for the buffalo, and while the rest of what I write will deal more with the people power aspect of the action, we cannot forget that the buffalo are at the center of everything that happened. Without the basic injustice being done to this animal by Montana and the federal government, none of what we had to say would have any resonance. Without the great disconnect that we who are living on this continent are continuing to have because of the way we confine buffalo inside of Yellowstone National Park, the drama of the moment would be missing. The organizing of people around a cause, the friendships and challenges, and even the resistance against us would mean nothing if not for the animals caught up in the absurd way we play god over everything under the sun.
All that said, in any action I am regularly struck by the metrics we come up with for judging its success. At the most basic level, we can ask ourselves here whether this advances the cause of the buffalo. And, while helpful to have that framework, that really doesn't get us much further in answering the question. It also seems likely that the success of an action targeting any injustice likely would have similar metrics, and there's no reason not to broaden the continent of our question in just the way we would hope that the buffalo might broaden across the North American continent.
So, based on what I felt about the action, I want to say that the action was a success. If it was a success, what made it successful? How successful was it?
These are all incredibly difficult questions to answer because a lot depends upon what the ultimate goal posts are and how much is possible for a particular group of people acting a particular way. As I understand the question, fighting the injustice of buffalo confined to Yellowstone is only the beginning of an incredible problem facing our society. Yellowstone is that place that was set aside after everything else had been run over or was about to be run over. It was the refugee camp for centuries of pillaging a continent, a pillaging that continues. Undoing everything that was ever done is not even possible; however, undoing the ethical arrogance that continues to drive our relationship with the land must be possible if we are to be better off. Yellowstone itself suffers under the weight of the burden. We must free what is trapped within Yellowstone also to free Yellowstone; and we must also do this to free ourselves. I know that all of that sounds poetic, but this is not the place to rehash old arguments, demonstrating the logical fallacies in our prevalent world views about our relationship with the land.
In any event, I think the goal posts are very far from us, and I also think that the individual should, in her or his particular actions, fervently avoid any action that would give that person power over the agency of another. What I mean is that no person should ever strive for too much power - even for an apparent good - lest you simply create one fundamental problem to replace another. I should never have any right to have power over you and your decisions; I might resist the power you wield over others, but I have no right to become lord over you as you lord over others.
Thus, the challenge against injustice is of a great scale - like the one we see with the buffalo, like the one we see against indigenous people, like the one we see in warfare, like the one we see in sexism, like the one we see in racism, and on and on - and we have to realize that our particular power in exerting our influence over a situation must necessarily be small. We are only capable of small feats against great problems, and that is a terrible dilemma for anyone who wishes to fight against injustice.
I believe that our action in Helena was a small feat that can help us move toward defeating a great problem. Remaining small in scale to fight what's large in scope requires incredible creativity and persistence in organizing. It requires communication, organization, and flexibility. If my action is going to ever be part of something large enough to fight the problem, it has to be part of something that encourages others to take similar actions. It has to be part of something that inspires us to reach out for others and increase our network of support. We have to at once build our own small communities - family units, if you will - while using those family units to build herd after herd so that the injustice eventually falls apart. However, that's a romantic analogy; in truth, it's very difficult for families to get along, for groups of people to get along with other groups of people, for those groups of people to stay in touch, to collaborate, and to build the movement necessary to overrun injustice. It may be hard, but it had better not be impossible.
So, let's look at the action in Helena. What it was first was a collaborative effort, spearheaded by a strong small community - Buffalo Field Campaign - inspired by another small community - the legislation proposed by the Gallatin Wildlife Association - in conjunction with a budding new community - Buffalo Allies of Bozeman - built on connections that already existed with people in Missoula and Helena. However, beyond that, it drew new people in - marchers not known about in Helena, inspiring new connections in our group in Bozeman. Secondly, the action managed to reach the media so that others have the opportunity to know and take action. It provoked the power holders and those guilty of injustice to react, as Schweitzer apparently did. It inspired those who took action to want to take more action, to share their experiences as I am here, and therefore to do more.
Of course, the gains of the action are tentative; their permanence depends on us continuing to chip away, to continue making connections, and to work on inspiring new people both to join our group or to perhaps form their own groups. Maybe, protest isn't your thing; maybe, you are an academic and have information to share. Maybe, you are a farmer and have food to share. Maybe, you are a poet or a musician and have beauty to share. Maybe, you are a cynic and have your honesty to share. The point is that the more we build these connections and embrace and overcome the challenges that arise, the stronger we will become, even though our own individual efforts will remain small and tied to the families and communities with which we belong.
That is the core of people power. Now, if I am wrong that the individual should not aspire to overwhelming acts of heroism or wrong that the problem of the buffalo is huge, then perhaps one could argue that the action was not really a success because the acts were tiny but not large enough to handle a relatively small problem. In that case, no doubt people will keep throwing their money and their energy at that individual who promises to fix the problem. I think that's why people have such faith in electoral politics. If only this guy - for some, it was once Brian Schweitzer - gets elected, then he can fix this problem. We can argue about that, but I will contend that the problem with the buffalo is greater than the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery & Conservation Act of 2009 and that respecting any animal as wildlife opens quite a pandora's box. And, I will continue to argue that it's beyond any one of us to fix. So, that's why small acts - like pushing for this bill, like rallying in support of it, like organizing in Bozeman, like connecting with friends in the movement - can truly be the most effective and meaningful acts that we undertake. Again, that's my assertion, but I must keep my ambitions relatively small for this essay to be a success.
Thus, protesting, marching, and holding signs can be powerful when they tend to build the roaming of the movement that they are supposed to support. If we are looking for the knockout punch, we are in the wrong sport. Winning will come as we build strong families and strong herds (i.e., strong families and strong communities), but that is built on what might seem to be a lot of pointless moving about. It can be, sometimes, but if you look closely at this action in Helena, this one was far from pointless. Yes, we made our point to Gov. Schweitzer and the politicians of Montana, but more importantly, we made it with each other in a way that can only make us stronger and make our point more strongly.
Jim Macdonald *** Somewhat related, please read about the May 2008 action in Helena that I wrote about here.
A new year has begun, one of the arbitrary boundaries we set in order to measure the passage of time. It's a time where we reflect backwards and look forwards, and doing so is socially shared. We all do it, and even if we don't, we are conscious of the fact that we don't. Even the rebels among us who treat New Year's as just another day do so fully aware of what they are not doing.
New Year's, arbitrary though it is, nevertheless has a stunning significance.
For me, it almost marks my first year since I've moved much closer to my beloved Yellowstone. In fact, the day I moved here was December 23, 2007; however, it's close enough to the magnetic pull of New Year's that it might as well be a year today. What a neat year it has been, watching my little baby boy grow, watching the seasons change, adoring the mountains, co-founding an activist group, moving into a new house, learning to ski, and taking every opportunity I could to know Yellowstone.
Who knows if next year will be as fortunate? The impermanence of our experience is in part what makes it so compelling. That it might be otherwise or might have been otherwise, whether by luck or our own control, the possibility of what might have been or what might still be certainly is part of the drama of our existence. We never know whether the moment we live might be our last or whether bad times might be better or worse yet. We'd like to think that what goes up might go down, but we wonder if it mightn't just keep rising forever. The odds that I would be here right now writing this essay in this place are almost impossible. That I am when I might not have been, that I am here and not there, there is nothing that can amaze the mind more than imagining all the possibilities.
Perhaps, that's why people are so drawn to doom. In recent days, a ridiculous number of people have been drawn to reports of a large swarm of minor earthquakes in Yellowstone. There have been hundreds of small quakes within the Yellowstone caldera, one of the world's largest volcanoes (supervolcanoes). There's nothing unusual about small or even large earthquakes in Yellowstone, but what made this newsworthy was the sheer number of earthquakes all at once mostly in the same area. And, once that became a national story, it has drawn out dozens and dozens and dozens of blog posts about it, a great many of them with apocalyptic predictions of what might come, or in the words of many, what surely will come.
It has been almost absurd to see that my newspaper on all things greater Yellowstone has had more unique visitors the past couple of days than any other day of the online paper's existence. That's more striking because we are not in the main tourist season, and in fact we are in the holiday season. It's been particularly hard to keep up with the sheer number of blogs posting opinions on this. Like New Year's draws us in right now, for me, the fact that so many people are obsessed with news about the very common occurrence of earthquakes in Yellowstone is something that I cannot avoid thinking about.
So, impermanence is our lot. We will die. The Earth one day will surely be gone, at least when the sun finally explodes, perhaps sooner. What we work to protect, what we fear of losing, we all will lose. Just as today passes into yesterday, we will lose the possibility of what might still be into a merely what might have been. Doom, whether it comes in a spectacular ball of fire, or dying quietly surrounded by hospice caretakers like my partner Genevieve cares for, is certainly our lot, at least in terms of our lives here on Earth.
Old Faithful will be gone one day. And, yes, one day, that supervolcano will indeed explode.
However, the fact of doom is perfectly normal, the essence of mundane. However, no one is interested in something simply because it is perfectly normal. No one is interested about my sleeping schedule, when I choose to eat, when I choose to relieve myself. Few particularly care whether I live or whether I die. The inevitability of doom isn't what's attractive to people; what is attractive is thinking the possibilities of what might happen. People are attracted in particular to the manner of their death - or perhaps the death of others. If someone is murdered, they care more than if they happened to die a slow, agonizing death overcome by dimentia, or perhaps Parkinson's--like my grandmother. The unexpected--the death of a young child, the sudden heart attack, perhaps a suicide that was a surprise. And, the more bizarre and unusual, the more attractive. If we all go down in a fire of ash, suffocated by chlorine gas, and an ice age, caused by the most beautiful place in the world, now that's a story. That's something people can buy into; that's really an attractive way to die or to cheat death. That's drama, and that's the kind of possibility that people dream about.
And, even if it's not likely, that the notion that the supervolcano is overdue is based on a very weak inductive generalization of the fewest instances, the sheer possibility, the knowledge that maybe we are the lottery winners in a game of the most sensationalized doom, is enough to keep hope alive for those who don't want their lives to be merely normal, their doom to be like all the others.
That it's sadistic to the hilt is of no matter; I imagine many thousands of people were thrilled at first when Hurricane Katrina struck hard. It's disgusting and revolting but no doubt true, or else why would cable news outlet after outlet send reporters down to the eye of the storm? They don't do it because they are concerned; they do it because people have a fascination with disaster. When terrible disaster struck, the sensationalism couldn't last but a few weeks even though the problems for the people of New Orleans still remain. But, at that point, it was mundane. People were used to it; the drama of the true tediousness of life no longer concerned them. Perhaps, people felt a little guilty for wishing such doom, but then the thought creeps in, "What if it were to happen again?"
In fact, disasters are happening in Yellowstone right now that are apparently not sensational enough to matter. Wolves are caught in the crosshairs of political disputes and land wars. Buffalo were slaughtered in record numbers in 2008 by the government. Unexploded ordnance, all to keep Sylvan Pass open during winter for a few snowmobilers, litter eastern Yellowstone (oh wait, you didn't know about that, isn't that a disaster waiting to happen?) No doubt that all around Yellowstone, you won't have any trouble finding hundreds of people whose obituaries are being written and thousands of animals who die in the life and death struggle of the ecosystem (oh wait, you really dig that - that's what National Geographic or an Anderson Cooper special are for or perhaps all the spotting scopes in the Lamar Valley). But, how can any of that compete with supposedly impending planetary doom? One person's year, one person's possibilities, one blade of grass's hopes and dreams cannot possibly connect us so powerfully. Just as New Year's connects us all, we are connected by really big, unique notions of doom.
There might be no helping our sensationalistic tendencies; how can we tell anyone not to imagine doomsday scenarios? We are drawn magnetically to considering what might be. However, I think sometimes our imaginations aren't brilliant enough. That might seem odd considering some of the apocalyptic nonsense that you can read online right now about Yellowstone or the Mayan prophecy and 2012. It seems the imagination is doing well, but is it? Actually, it's pretty dull and predictable. People are drawn to the same kinds of disasters - volcanoes, earthquakes, meteors, plagues. It's particularly dull to see so many people running to my Web site looking for the same thing. Rather than evidence of a vivid imagination, it's evidence that people are basically trapped by the same societal paradigms. Those who are accused of having overactive imaginations in fact are just guilty of bad reasoning, and those who spend all their time debunking them - while just as lacking in imagination - at least have the good sense not to be totally trapped.
What I mean by a lack of imagination is that we seem unable to understand anything close to the full range of possibility so that we might empathize with anyone or anything caught in any situation. There's absolutely no reason that we cannot wonder at the situation of a single pebble in our backyard. Now, that we don't wonder about these things isn't always surprising, but it would be far more interesting to live in a world where we at least are making the effort. Every time the wind blows over the surface of our lands, an entire universe is displaced. One breath of air is doom for an infinity of molecules. Just the wonder of such a reality where disaster lurks around every keystroke can compel us, can help us reach new levels of empathy for our world and for our own situation. The what might be and what might have been is infinite; there's no reason to fall back to the same scenarios of doom.
Right now, we are stuck in a New Year's state of mind, not that there's anything wrong with that. What's wrong is that it's so dull. It's all very much the same, lacking in the critical variety of experience that our five senses demand. So, this New Year's, I don't resolve to be rid of it. How can I? But, I do resolve to wonder just that much more at what's not being wondered about, to care just that much more, and if in the process, I'm forced to consider a lot of doomsday scenarios about things all too familiar - like the Yellowstone supervolcano - so be it. At least, I'm not going to confine myself to just the same kind of essay. Hopefully ... hopefully ... there is something new under our weary sun.
1/5: RALLY FOR THE BUFFALO IN MONTANA'S STATE CAPITAL!
From Buffalo Field Campaign
**** RALLY FOR THE BUFFALO IN MONTANA'S STATE CAPITAL!
Dear Buffalo Friends in Montana,
Join Buffalo Field Campaign and other wild bison advocates on Monday, January 5, 2009 for a *RALLY IN HELENA*! We need you to stand with us for the buffalo as both Governor Brian Schweitzer and the Montana Legislature are sworn into office. Stand with us to let the Montana Governor and the Legislature know that wild buffalo have a right to migrate into and be treated respectfully in Montana!
* WHO: Everyone who cares about restoring wild bison in Montana
* WHAT: March & Rally with banners, puppets, speakers and take action items
* WHEN: Monday, January 5, 2009. 9:00 - 10:30 am
* WHERE: Meet at Women's Park then we'll march to the state capital around 9:30 am. Women's Park is located between Neill and Fuller Avenues, near N. Last Chance Gulch, about a mile from the state capital building. Visit Google Maps, and type in Women's Park, Helena, Montana for a map and directions.
* WHY: America's last wild bison that migrate into Montana from Yellowstone National Park continue to be harassed and killed for following their natural instincts. Last year, the state of Montana and Yellowstone National Park perpetuated the largest-scale wild bison slaughter since the 1800's, killing more than 1,600 wild bison. During Governor Schweitzer's first term, more wild bison were killed than under the combined three terms of the governors who preceded him, even though when he first campaigned he did so under the promise to provide "more tolerance for wild bison in Montana."
We gather to hold the Governor accountable for his actions against wild bison, to encourage him to support actions recognizing wild bison as a valued wildlife species in Montana, and to provide year-round habitat for this special, prehistoric species.
When he ran for office Governor Schweitzer said that the Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) is "ill-equipped to manage wild buffalo." We will ask the Montana legislature to repeal MCA 81-2-120, the current law that places the Montana Department of Livestock in charge of bison management, and urge them to support LC0128, the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery and Concervation Act of 2009; a bill that will remove the DOL's authority, respect wild bison, and designate Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks as the managing agency.
We will also have post cards on hand for you to sign and mail or hand deliver to your state legislators, and we'll have enough post cards for you to take back to your community. Hot beverages and snacks will be provided to keep you warm and happy!
CONTRIBUTE YOUR CREATIVITY & ENERGY! There are many ways you can help make this rally a success:
Join us and bring your friends and family
Make banners, puppets, masks (Message should include: Year-round habitat, Respect bison as wildlife, Remove the DOL's authority, or any others that are close to your heart for the buffalo)
Organize or be available for carpools to get as many people as possible to attend
Distribute fliers around your community (flyer to be distributed in subsequent email)
Contact local media to let them know about the event
Write letters to the editor of local and regional newspapers to talk about the buffalo
We look forward to seeing you there! Please spread the word to save the herds!
Return to the Ontological Argument for God's existence
It's been awhile since I have written anything for this blog, but it's not for lack of activity. Instead of writing essays, I've been on the ground organizing for Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.
However, returning to my roots in philosophy, I've recently been discussing God with my dearest friend. I recently remarked that I've always been impressed with a version of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. This, perhaps, may surprise some of you who may only know me for my anarchist writings. It's certainly anarchist heresy to be a theist and an anarchist. But, perhaps, that's another part of what makes me eclectic.
My father is a United Methodist minister back in Ohio. He always taught us that Christianity is a radical religion, that love in particular is the most radical concept the world has ever known. Unfortunately, little about Christianity or love in practice is all that particularly radical. However, we were always taught that in Christ there was no male or female, for instance. That, God's kingdom resided principally within the hearts of the community of believers, that the "kingdom" was an anti-kingdom where the last shall be first, and God was first servant of all. The language of hierarchy was used to invert and subvert hierarchy. The only thing that mattered was the practice of love to each other. "What you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."
That sounds in some sense Quaker, for those of you familiar, and to some extent it is. However, culturally, I've always felt more at home with non-Christians, with those who preferred to make a lot of noise, with those who weren't afraid to identify with trouble making and subversion - who weren't afraid to embrace the radical aspects of virtue. So, perhaps, most of my friends have been agnostics of various types, pagans, and other kinds of spiritualists.
And, yet, all that being the case, I am firmly a theist.
In that context with one of my agnostic/atheist and dearest of friends, I have tried to explain why it is I believe in God and what I mean by that.
Here is most of the recent letter that I sent her, covering my arguments for the ontological argument and then moving beyond that, trying to bridge the implications of the ontological argument, the implications of my experience as a being, with faithful adherence to a theistic view of God.
This is only the start. If people want to chime in relevant comments, they are welcome to do so. You can find some very old writings by me on the subject at http://www.geocities.com/jsmacdonaldjr/six.html. Defending the basis of these views is at the heart of everything I do and has taken up many years of my life. No doubt you can find many online arguments I've had with people just by doing some Web searches.
Here is my letter written today:
Aneslm's version of the ontological argument.
Define God as "that than which a greater cannot be conceived." "That than which a greater cannot be conceived" includes the concept of existence because a "that than which a greater cannot be conceived" would not be a "that than which a greater cannot be conceived" if it lacked existence. Therefore, God exists.
Critique: The argument does not prove that existence is necessarily greater than non-existence. That is, if one denies that existence is not something that necessarily makes a concept greater, where is the contradiction in that? Therefore, God's existence would not depend upon the definition of God, it would depend on knowing the value of existence to a concept. So, it is incomplete.
Leibniz's version of the ontological argument.
Define God as "necessary," that is as "that which cannot be conceived not to be." If God is possible, then God exists. That is, if the concept of a "that which cannot be conceived not to be" is logically possible, that is - without contradiction -, it must exist because nothing can limit it from being. God is possible. That is, there is no contradiction in conceiving of a "that which cannot be conceived not to be." Therefore, God exists.
It follows from this that this is the only sort of being whose existence follows merely from considering the definition. That is, I don't exist by definition because I might not have been and might not be. That is, one could posit the non-existence of anything that is not necessary.
A "that which cannot be conceived not to be" is little different than positing the law of noncontradiction, not merely as a law of our thought, but as an existing being in its own right.
But, why call this God? What would it have to do with the God believed in by the churches or the various religions of the world?
Let's consider this more. However, let's note this first. One thing that religious people certainly mean by God is a being that cannot be conceived not to be. The existence of God must be the most pre-eminent axiom of a religion, but whether what necessarily exists bears any other likeness to what people call God than mere existence is a pertinent question. Why not simply call a "that which cannot be conceived not to be" simply a law of reason, or a law of being, required for reason, required for understanding reality, but not an active being in its own right, not a good being, not an all powerful being, not an all present being - as is required by theism.
Certainly, if we simply stop with the law of noncontradiction, we merely have God as an empty tautology. The philosopher and logician Fred Sommers called the ontological argument by Leibniz a sound argument; however, he said that it implied that this notion of "God" was purely negative. It suggested that God was simply the domain of discourse, or the domain in which we make assertions about objects in the world, but was nothing else in its own right. To suggest that God was more than a domain of discourse would lead to paradoxes that philosophy is not (yet) equipped to deal with - namely others like Bertrand Russell argued, how an object could be a member of its own class. How could we make assertions about God - defined first as a necessary being - if God is the domain in which all assertions about God must be considered.
So, to say as theists do that God is all powerful, all knowing, always present, and all good would be, according to this view, to make claims about God that cannot be applicable to the concept of God.
Therefore, we need to look more closely at the question of what else can be known about God; we also have to understand how tautologies of any type can be incarnate, so to speak.
Just as there is one thing that can be known to exist by consideration of its definition - that is, necessary being (a "that which cannot be conceived not to be"), there is at least one being that can be known to exist through the consideration of experience. Descartes's great dictum whereby he recognized his own existence because he was not able to escape the notion that it was he who was thinking it. When he tried, it was he who was trying. In fact, I do exist. I might not have existed; I may not exist. However, I do in fact exist right now. That I exist, I who am thinking, who might have been otherwise. My existence, however necessary to acknowledge right now, by force of the inescapable experience of my existence, am not a logically necessary being. That is, I can be conceived not to be, at least in terms of what I am, even if I am unable to conceive of it as I am thinking it right now in terms of my experience. This is what Leibniz in part meant by calling a being contingent. Logically, a contingent being, as opposed to a necessary being, is one that can be logically (essentially) conceived not to be without contradiction. However, in one sense, my being is necessary, in that I cannot escape the conclusion that I do in fact exist. That is what Leibniz meant by hypothetical necessity. That is, it might not have been the case that I exist, but that I exist is surely a necessary conclusion. It does not follow from my essence, however. It's not the same nature as a "that which cannot be conceived not to be." That is a being that necessarily exists in fact and also by logic. There is nothing hypothetical about it. The existence of a necessary being does not depend upon me conceiving of God's existence; in fact, it's the other way around.
So, here I am, a being whose existence is contingent. It might not have been; in my definition, I don't contain within me the reason for my own existence. What then is the reason for my existence? To suggest that there is no reason for my existence is nonsensical because the lack of sufficient reason for my existence is precisely what makes me distinct from that of a necessary being. To deny a sufficient reason is to deny my own existence, which we cannot in fact do. Thus, we have unearthed another principle of reason, one that follows from considering the distinction between necessity and contingency. That is, there is such a thing as a principle of sufficient reason. There must be a reason that explains what a thing is - either that thing is necessary, in which its existence is explained from within its own definition, or a thing is contingent, in which its existence is explained by something else.
What explains my existence? Perhaps, it is another contingent being. Maybe, we are like a jigsaw puzzle, not one of us is explained in ourselves, but we are explained by the sum of our parts fitting together. In that way, our sufficiency is a sum. But, then the reason - the sum - is still something which is distinct from a consideration of the parts themselves. Even if we considered existence a sum of parts (a problem for infinite reasons), the sum itself is not reducible to a consideration of the meaning of the part. That is, the existence of contingent beings cannot be explained by contingent beings, no matter how many others there are, and no matter how they fit together. The sufficient reason for anything contingent must have its reason arise from something necessary. Out of the nature of necessary being then, my own existence arises.
This leads to more questions. How can what is necessary implicate the reality of my own existence, which we know is contingent? This is an important question, but we cannot deny that we have reached the point where we cannot doubt that the question has a rational answer to it even if we are not there. One thing we must realize is that there is a connection between my own existence and the existence of necessary being, and this also is something that is consistent with what we find in the religions. But, we must admit its also what we find in philosophies like materialism, which teach that we arise out of the material of the universe. If the universe is that material, and that material is necessary, then we who are less than the sum of the universe nevertheless find our reality from the attributes of universal matter, according to this view. This is not something the religions generally would subscribe to. It doesn't bring us to a theistic notion of God, but it brings us now closer to understanding the connection. Notice that what I've done here , though, in considering the nature of sufficient reason, is give a version of the cosmological argument. It is an argument that derives its force only if the ontological argument is sound. If it is not, then the cosmological argument cannot hold weight. If one can truly deny that a necessary being exists, then there is no reason to posit a principle of sufficient reason.
I'm going to stop here. I've taken a lot of steps; do we need to backtrack? Is there something to this point that you don't find ironclad convincing? We need to stop and look over that. That starts with the ontological argument.
Where have I gone amiss, if I have gone amiss? I have not considered Kant's objections here, either. Should I go over those before I move forward?
A small group of us with Buffalo Allies of Bozeman went down to volunteer with Buffalo Field Campaign on Saturday. I'm going to share a little here so that you know how easy it is to do and how much fun besides.
On January 5, 2009, I was a participant in a march on behalf of the wild buffalo population in Yellowstone National Park, animals who have been denied year round habitat in the state of Montana. The action, sponsored by 
