Field Notes by John Cox, MFA

Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” as President John F. Kennedy stated, and challenged every American to contribute in some way to the public good. We have gone off-track, and need to get back our ethics, our responsibility in government and the way they operate, and too respect our lands and laws . . .

Today Field Notes take into consideration the ongoing irresponsibility and actions from our lands-based government agencies, and their management — or should I say, “. . . lack of management,” in the matters of managing America’s Federal-Lands appropriately.

The necessity of understanding the concept of our “human – connection” with our natural resources, wilderness, wildlife, and in reality, all that surrounds us, remains very significant. Today our natural environment is communicating with us quite well. In another words, the things our government agencies are doing in areas that are out of sight to most Americans, is devastating to our wildlife environments, our terrestrial environments, and our natural resources that supply 1/3 of Our Nation’s food chain supplements.

Conflicts of interest and illegal activities

I speak about the $512,000,000,000 subsidy-payouts to those participating in our government’s Grazing Permit Programs, quite a bit. The evidence for the situations and payouts over the past 19-20 years, are from government records as well as documents from government files, that are available to the public.

Now we find further abuse of our Public Lands, in particular in 6 of the 11 Western States, that Public Lands are dominant. There are ‘ranching operations’ ongoing, on our Public Lands (i.e. not next too, but on them, precisely – Our Public Lands and without authority or law) — that the ranchers actually live upon.

These are not homesteading situations, nor are they situations of grazing permit programs that are isolated living situations of crews taking care of cattle or sheep. These are situations that are people, Americans like you and I, that actually live and ranch, quite profitably I might add, and pay no rent, no lease, and pay no taxes, on the land they have lived upon for the past few decades, some less than . . .

When asked about the situations, the prevalent response from a few, is there remarks, “. . . we pay our grazing permit fees, so we find nothing wrong with this.”

I must say, the average American finds a lot wrong with this. Upon further perusal, I find the Bureau of Lands Management is very aware of these living arrangements – i.e. people they are related too, or, from the same Church Organization, for example

Many of us have also found evidence of severe conflicts of interest within the hiring practices of private contractors, as well as unqualified employees obtaining jobs within the DOI/BLM. We find many relatives, unreported to the Human-Resources section of the DOI/BLM, in both areas, both private contractors and as government employees.

Many of us have also found evidence of severe conflicts of interest, within DOI/BLM attachments to local and state Cattlemen Association’s, as well as other groups — for example the pesticide manufacturing industries, and hunting groups and organizations that promote special-interest agendas and the management-development of such, forced upon our Public Lands. This sacrifices too much for special-interest groups, inclusive of much of our terrestrial and wildlife environment, inclusive of wild horses, as well as ignoring the harmful effects of pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides, used on America’s Public Lands.

This is also disrespectful to the Taxpayer’s of America, who basically have no say in these $-Billions of dollars of Taxpayer money spent, and nothing to show for it . . . Exception: our lands and wildlife being destroyed, and we are lied to about these subjects, a cover-up in totality – In America; whereby, Taxation without Representation and facts to the Taxpayer’s, is Illegal, via Our Constitution and governing Laws.

Many of us have also found these activities to be illegal, unethical, as well as neutralizes and conflicts with proper lands management decision-making. These management situations are disguised as proper solutions or resolutions, placed into action-based ideologies, upon our Public Lands, yet destroy our Public Lands.

We find many of our Public Lands on the verge of non-useful destruction, or destroyed in total and currently unuseful. We find our water systems and natural watersheds to be compromised. We find the use of pesticides to be irrevocably-irresponsible, in particular on wildlife. We find these organizations and people that use the pesticides, and wildlife sacrificed for their use, to be irresponsible in total. These organizations scapegoat other wildlife, for example our Nation’s Apex Predators, which are inclusive of cougar, coyote, bear, wolves, and create a disturbing kill-off, irresponsibly and with prejudice, bias, and special-interest appeal the main motivating-circumstances.

Irresponsibility in Government

All of this I mention within these field notes, are simply the tip of the iceberg, on what is ongoing on our Public Lands today. It is an understatement to say we need more transparency of these government agencies that are working “out of sight” and within a total irresponsible work ethic. Lands are destroyed, and wildlife kill-off takes place from both unavailability of healthy ecology — as well as toxic chemicals (i.e. critical-mass dirt pollution) and less land for them for surviveability.

There is no doubt that our government legal entities should be investigating all of this, and yet, they do not do so. Our responsibility as American citizens remains, to be a voice for the voiceless, and ask our government and politicians why nothing is being done about any of this. The evidence is there. They are the managers of our lands, we should not have to say anything, nor should we have to demand honesty, ethics, and for government agencies to obey the laws that are in place, to avoid conflicts of interest and this type of illegal behavior. – 1/20/23 John Cox, MFA