Recognizing righteousness cont'd.

This country has been seriously leaderless for a lot of years and couple that fact with the war-machine recently re-elected just south of our porous borders, and you’ve got a very tenuous foundation for any form of civilization.

A people can always inherently recognize the presence of moral indignation in a man of righteousness. He has a kind of steady passion for the truth and a drive to do the right thing. His integrity is visible somehow, and a nation will warm to him. His words become beacons of hope and give good reason for young people to believe again that their efforts to change the world for the better are not in vain. Young people can still be impressed and deeply influenced by the seeing and the hearing of such a leader. We have all seen that recently in the attention given to the life and passing of Pope John Paul II. No matter what anybody’s arguments might have been as to his policies and dictates, no one could legitimately deny that man’s sense of commitment and personal pleading for the welfare of the world. Young people responded to that presence. That manhood. They spied something in themselves that they wanted to see enlivened. Could it be they were seeing what their birthright is all about: a growth into magnificence, living a life of purposefulness and meaning? And the real desire to discover others of similar appetite?

As we remain leaderless in this country, with no examples of human splendor to be showcased in this time of insatiable media, we squander our young people and allow them to be threatened by the influences of, for example, moronic biker gangs.
(One has to wonder: Where are the fathers in these biker gangs and how do they explain to their 12 year olds precisely what they’re doing? What heroes do they offer their children?)

CUE THE SACRED FLUTE
It was during the ‘90’s that the Nuu Chah Nulth native group of the west side of Vancouver Island regained control of some of their lands and were then empowered to husband it the way a true aboriginal nature lover would. Shortly after, the Hesquiaht band, one of their member tribes, clearcut its timber just north of Tofino in the general Clayoquot area.
The Cheam Indian band have been front and centre in the act of diminishing the salmon stocks of the Fraser River due to their untraditional use of nets cast across the river. The salmon stocks on this river are at risk of becoming extinct. This event would be an ecological disaster of extreme proportions.
The native salmon fishers on the west side of Vancouver Island, due to a favoured status, have an extended fishing season and plunder with gusto, uninterested apparently in stock counts.