five out of six

the wildfire season was one of the striking discoveries i made after my move west. being from the rolling green hills of appalachia, forest fires aren't something i thought much about. we must have had them once in a while but it wasn't something one really worried about. imagine my surprise not only at the number of fires each year (about 1,100 in colorado alone) or the size and ferocity of some of them (the Idaho Sawtooth fire consumed 40,000 acres). what surprised me was how normal everyone around me found the fact that (a) eighty-five percent of forest fires are started by intentionally or carelessly and (b) we can't do much about it.

most of what we are suffering -- attacks on americans at home and abroad, dropping real wages, increasing race and class discrimination, deteriorating environmental conditions and personal health, the loss of personal rights and the growing sense that we are a pariah among nations -- is the direct result of intentional policy choices or run-of-the mill incompetence in the white house and congress. yet we seem to accept this as a fact of nature, like a lightning strike that starts a fire, rather than seeing it for what it is: elected officials intentionally pursuing policies that make life much more difficult for the vast majority of americans, the ones that do not have trust funds, political connections or top ten business school degrees and master-of-the-universe jobs.

in the same way that lightning starts one out of six forest fires, well-meaning policy choices sometimes turn out to have bad consequences. but that means that five out of six fires -- and five out of six bad policy outcomes -- arise out of intention or incompetence. five out of six happen, not because of an act of nature or well-meaning intention gone wrong, but because human beings wanted a particular result. people often start fires on purpose. they also make policy decisions with intent.

the good news? we can do something about it. resistance, like fire prevention, is not futile. it may be difficult. it may be exhausting. but it is not pointless. in some ways, political resistance is a good deal easier than fire prevention. we have more means to force policy change than the prevention expert has to enforce a campfire or smoking ban. the expert doesn't know who the backpackers are and can't see what they are doing, only what they have done. but we know where the administration lives. congress meets in the open (most of the time). government doesn't carelessly drop a butt into a pile of brush outside our view. what government does, it does on purpose and it does, mostly publicly, in press conferences, public hearings and published legislative agendas. what we can see, we can prevent.

five out of six. whenever you think, i can't make a difference, remind yourself of this number. remember that it is not lightning you are trying to stop -- an impossible task -- but an intentional act of political destruction. the truth is that the harmful effects of the vast majority of policy decisions can easily be seen before they happen. and if they can be seen, most of the time they can be stopped.

remember this, too. forest fires like the sawtooth detroy tens of thousands of acres of forest along with the wildlife, people and communities that depend on them to survive. they cost millions of dollars, and often the lives of firefighters, military personnel, police and civilians, to extinguish. the emotional, physical, environmental and psychic damage takes generations to heal. if you have ever seen one of these fires or its aftermath, let alone had your life changed by one, you know that the time, energy and money poured into prevention pays an incalculable return. the same thing goes for bad government. stopping it before it makes bad policy is so much less economically, socially and politically expensive as to be a no brainer.

if you don't step up and demand that our policy makers put away the gasoline and matches, who will? if you do not resist, if you do not refuse to endorse what is being done in your name, if you do not say it is wrong, if you do not vote, write, protest... how can you not take responsibility for the next big blaze?

five out of six. wildfire season is here and the world is tinder dry. a good time to make sure that the kids aren't playing with matches and fireworks, don't you think?
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tags: politics, bush, government, resistance