“Merry Christmas, Utah!”
Here’s your land back! No longer protected by the federal government as national monuments designated by two past presidents, the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments are now officially up for grabs. You can now fight it out among yourselves as how best to destroy it, or um, “use it.”
The thing president Trump doesn’t realize, however, is when you put things like this into the hands of “the people”, they will indeed destroy it ..one way or another. They always do. And when you have political curmudgeon parasites like Rob Bishop backing it, you know it will be a bad deal ..for everyone except Rob Bishop.
The on-site “compromise” everyone is now referencing is primarily between the developers and the environmentalists. The residents of these areas are at their mercy. They know how to over burden out collective conscience with their judgements and justifications. I’ll go with the conservationists. The tree-huggers are usually out in la la land, and the developers ...well, I live in Logan and if how the greedy housing developers here are any indication of how the real developers in the world of oil, gas, coal, tract housing, and even tourism, can wreck an environment, I’m for keeping the national monument designation as it is.
Always follow the money. It will always lead you to the garbage.
The Indians, America’s indigenous people, the original land owners, seem to not even get a seat at the table. Trump and his Utah political and development friends may as well refer to them as “Naive Americans.” However, the Wilderness Society and these true “Native Americans” will be taking this issue all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving. You almost have to admire his pigheaded insolence. His bullheaded chutzpah. Unyielding gall. If only he were on our side.
His willingness to humiliate himself, and America, is only surpassed by his inflexible, never-ending shamelessness.
His mouth and his brain seem to be connected by nothing more than flimsy knee-jerk tweets.
Trump is reality entertainment at its best. The man knows his audience. He knows Americans. He has us in the palm of his hands. He’s got the whole world in his hands! But we’re not in good hands, are we.
He’s not making America great again, he’s making America weak with his foolish rhetoric and biased policies. He’s not draining the swamp, he’s draining our national resolve and worldwide credibility.
Just how stupid does he think the American public is? Well, we’ve both had a good head start and the answer is, pretty damn stupid. We’ll buy anything.
He’s been accused of being a liar, a bully, a womanizer. We’ve watched him be these things on our television screens for many years. Yet, we made him our president. Go figure.
His apparent election collusion with the Russians, something else he denies and calls fake news, is probably the most treasonable criminal feature of Trump’s excessive personality, and most likely the thing that will ultimately bring him down. But of course, he denies having anything to do with the Russians. Doesn’t know anything about that now defunct but widely publicized Trump Tower hotel deal in Moscow. Never happened. Poof, gone!
Trump will throw his flunkies like Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner under the bus (the ‘Access Hollywood’ bus) before he admits any wrongdoing, even before he throws the Indians under the bus, but his time will come. He can run but he can’t hide. I just hope Robert Mueller doesn’t run out of time, or credibility, before he nails this guy.
Forget impeachment. When did we stop hanging people for treason in this country? It’s a serious thing.
Benedict Arnold, the Rosenbergs, Mary Surratt (a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination) all probably did less to deserve execution for treason against the United States than Donald Trump and his team may have done.
The times have changed, media has changed, social attitudes have changed, but the definition of treason as a punishable crime has not changed.
(Treason: The crime of betraying one’s country ...punishable by life imprisonment or hanging.)
You can’t blame Donald Trump for being who he is. He’s not the cause of any of America’s over excessiveness, its greed, or its political gridlock. He’s the result.
He’s the mirror we look into every day.
So, Merry Christmas, America ...and Happy New Year, Utah! Donald “Santa” Trump was our political exercise in self-gifting. Let’s not let him, the Russians, or anyone, take our true gifts, our freedoms, away from us, like we did the Indians, and let’s not abuse and lose them by taking them away from ourselves.
The Russians can have Donald Trump, or let's give him to the Indians. America’s freedom is our true gift from the men of long ago, including the Indians.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
