Cultural Diversity’s Lens to a Wistful Future
Giving Thanks: A Native American Cultural Tradition
Governance, Selling & Making Products & Services with Beauty & a Bright Future
The previous 4 History Lesson Series read like a study of the human body: The brain and nervous system are the legal structure “Governing” requiring electricity and a complex language to communicate. Transportation (heart, arteries, veins) distributes sugars, fats, proteins for Commerce, Industry & Technology (muscles), all to flex within business & property rights (skeleton’s) boundaries. The West’s crowning achievement is its diversity: forms, hair, multiple skin colors creating Beauty: Parks, Schools, Hospitals and Churches. The prior 4 Lesson Series read like a bank robbery: innocents, exploitation, devastation, and a flood to cover up. The 1st lesson sets the stage by noting the planned outcome (melding of cultures into one) did not necessarily occur, but the West produced a series of events (Japanese Interment, Chinese Exclusion, Brothels, World War Actions, Immigration Mixing) that led to reforms producing an acceptance of Cultural Diversity that will be our Future. The ethnobotany issue for the Future is that our governments, human bodies and minds are primitive and slow changing, while technology and knowledge accumulation is surging, and we have been careless with the Earth.
A one sentence MBA might read, “Business is the making and selling of a product or a service at a profit.” And the West is often, “All business.” Caring for the Earth is seen as a moral or immoral issue, founding in Genesis 2:15 and “tree huggers” who might suggest a Green Creed. The post WW II GI Bills and the Homestead Acts “shuffled the cards” allowing the West to be built on meritocracy, with the freedom to “engage in business” (initially agriculture), allowing those with ability who accumulate skill and knowledge the freedom to apply their interests and work efforts in order to prosper. This was a wonderful thing, and we hoped you enjoyed this Series of Lessons. But there will be no home for the West’s hard won Cultural Diversity (with open access to jobs, residences, schools, hospitals, and marriages) without a healthy Earth in which to live. We humans are like the Western Hemlock whose top droops in the direction the wind is blowing all too often go with the flow.
If we were change, to give all publicly owned lands in the West –National Park-like protections (“National Parks with biodiversity” … not “National or State Forests monocultures”) the West could be a Beacon of Light for the World. We could end the Rocky Mountain Floristic Species’ Extinction Parade by changing publicly owned Land Use in the West while trading business exploitations for more beauty, less carbon and poisons in the air and water, and a cooler climate. If only we can learn from our West’s history just reviewed and double-down on proven achievements of our ancestors, we can truly benefit future generations. It was no our ancestors did not create the issues facing the World today, it was this writer’s generation.
They have almost all Happened on Our Watch and they are Hiding in Plain Sight. Challenges Post 1945 are many: Climate Change, Herbicides, Plastic Waste, Plutonium, Microwave Impact, Fungi & Plagues, and more. It may well be The Final Frontier. We ask if there is a solution without including the Spiritually Minded? Evidence abounds that the secular and scientific world is not finding a solution! This has been a human issue since the writing of Genesis 2:15 … we can use the Earth, but we must also care for it. For related topics: Once Grey Hills, Biodiverse Corridors, Careless Generation, Cease Livestock Grazing on Public Lands, Change Land Use Focus Forever, Lowering West Wind Temperatures, Rewild the West, Selective and no Clear-cutting of Forests.
When 10 highlighted lesson sections for The Wistful Present & Future Generations have been reviewed and answered, select the State or Province below for a Record of Completion.
Alberta British Columbia
Alaska California Colorado Idaho Montana
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Ethnobotanicals and native animals also mentioned: Contrarians: Madrona, Larch and Manzanita; Canines: Grey Wolves, Sea Wolves and Coyotes; Douglas Fir: Clones, Monoculture and Building Materials; Pilchuck Glass School: Czech Artists, Swedish Artists, Japanese Glass Artists, and Glass School Collections.