Discuss: One Nation Under Elvis

Environmentalists might very well do what Rebecca says, but it still won’t make any difference. Here’s the problem: global capitalism needs to show bigger profits every year. This means it can’t conserve, can’t be sustainable. To the contrary, global capitalism must- by its own mad logic- chew up more planet each year than it did the year before. Which is the very definition of “unsustainable”
I do not know what a sustainable global economy might look like, but it can’t be this one.
Permit me to illustrate. Before Europeans arrived Native Americans practiced an economy that was really,truly sustainable. Never mind seven generations- it was sustainable forever. At the end of each year there was more planet than there had been at the beginning.
I know we can’t go back there but we do need to start thinking of sustainability in realistic terms, and see if we can find a workable model for the future.

“And daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County/Down by the Green River where Paradise lay?/Well, I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking/Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.” —John Prine

This illustrates in short form what I read Wendell Berry for. I believe that in the millenium ahead, stitching up the divide between the country and the city will turn out to be a very major issue. Environmentalists have every reason to be in the vanguard here. This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s not a class issue. It’s not even just a human issue. At this point, the health of our world is an organism issue. Country music loving organisms included.

I’ve seen that once you show rural people the respect they deserve, they can become environmentalism’s staunchest supporters. A lot of rural people have a strong independent streak. Nobody likes to be talked down to. Everyone wants to do what’s best for their families, and farmers in particular have been totally screwed by industrial agriculture and globalization.

I’m interested in assuring the means of providing for people in my locality, forever. The only way to do that is to open up a welcoming and rewarding dialogue with the people who raise our food and hold our rural lands.

Thank you Rebecca Solnit! This is an important article and every conservationist should read it.

God bless you. Nothing turns off Middle America quicker than west or east coast big city snobbery.  I fully recognize that it is a few loud jerks from New York and LA that make the most noise, and that there are ten good or great metropolitans for every person looking down their nose at us.
Any long-term winning coalition in politics or the environmnet has to include rural America, and it needs to be at least a little sensitive to our lives and culture.  We have so much to contribute!  Just treat us with respect. 
Finally, it’s fine to look down on most modern country music, which can be pretty crappy. But the older stuff by Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard the older outlaws (Waylon & Willie) and the newer outlaws (The Dixie Chicks, Robert Earl Keen) is just wonderful, because it is authentic.  And that is the mark of most good music- authenticity; at least to my farm-raised ears.
Long live the Longleaf Pine.

Solnit writes really interesting, vital, provocative stuff—the best reason to read Orion! Great article! Here’s a smattering of responses:

- This speaks to a small part of what Solnit wrote about, but for what it’s worth here’s an anecdote. I lived in NYC last summer. I grew up in the rural south, place-symbol for alive-and-well racism in America. Yet, I found NYC blatantly and profoundly segregated along racial lines. Yet the pervasive pretension (for NYC and its surrounding region) is always one of successful cosmopolitanism. Bull.

- I’m curious to know where Solnit lives, as in, do you write from the rural South, the urban NE, etc.?

- I like it when Solnit speaks in various ways to the dissoluntion of human/wilderness divide. But when she wraps up, I think she always unfortunately reinstates it, if subtly or without exactly resolving the divide. This will freak people out, but I would love to just not use the word ‘wilderness’ at all. Or ‘nature’. That may also cause problems for the idea of environmentalism. But not using any of those words doesn’t have to change some sort of practical impertive to take care of living things—does it?

Such synchronicity! Last night, on my drive home from work through Michigan farm country, I was listening to Johnny Cash’s famous live album, recorded at San Quentin prison. I’ve never heard any music more genuinely American in the best sense of the word. But for me, classic country music (or NASCAR, or chainsaw-hewn lawn art, all-you-can eat buffet restaurants) are equally emblamatic of the class and culture divide that separates many working class Republicans who live in the country from middle and upper class urbanite Democratic who love the countryside. Or at least, their vision of what it should be. It’s an song we’ve all heard before: the farmers, hunters, loggers others who make a living from the land are often at odds with those who value the land for aesthetic reasons, but rarely rely on it for economic necessity.

So how to do we bridge this divide? My answer is, “you don’t, because much of it is none of your business.” Instead, you find tangible things you can agree on and build from there.

For instance, I’ve been working with a local land trust since its inception in the mid-1990s. Since then, we’ve protected more than 5,300 acres on some 35 preserves. I’m a church-going Republican and many of the board members and volunteers I’ve served with have polictical views on issues such as the Iraq War, abortion, stem cell research, vegeterianism, organized religion, etc. that differ greatly from mine. But so what? We work together on what we care about, which is saving wild and scenic places. After that, what everybody does, and who they do it with, is their own business. What frustrates me about guys like Dick (as mentioned in Solnit’s piece)is that they’re above that. They won’t work with you, or acknowledge that your ideas could have merit, unless you share their whole ideology lock, stock and barrel. That’s where the environmental movement often breaks down—it’s get hamstrung by it rarified ideological zeal. Fortunately, I think the people that Orion reaches can do better and are doing better. As for the Dick’s of the world, if we’re patient enough, maybe they’ll join in, too.

i’m surprised nobody mentioned willie nelson’s support of dennis kucinich. to me, willie represents the bridge and he’s been doing it since at least the early 70s (bring together “hippies” and “rednecks”).