The Feds Have Stopped Pretending To Care
Apr. 30th, 2017 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOmaha and I went to Shellfest 2017! Not to be confused with Hellfest (a local heavy metal event), Shellfest is an biannual event to celebrate Washington State's crab, clam, oyster, and other shellfish, as well as both amateur and commercial interests in those areas.
Like all such events, there were booths touting the various agencies that contribute to this important Puget Sound industry. Omaha and I took a tour with the waterfront biologists who took us along the blustery natural jetty of Key Peninsula and showed us crabs, clams, worms, barnacles, and all the other really cool critters that teemed in the tidal zone. It was a lot of fun.
As we walked back to the parking lot, we walked through the booths area and I realized there wasn't a single federal agency represented. Usually, the USDA and the Coast Guard show up to something like this and have their own booths. Not this time. County, city, and state agencies were there: Tacoma Public Health, Pierce County Water, Washington State Fish & Wildlife. Even the state's boat safety program and the University of Washington had booths.
But no feds.
It's really starting to feel as if our federal government is in the hands of corporate interests that have only one goal: to strip mine the land and our wallets, to extract every last ounce of shareholder value and leave nothing behind. And it's the state governments that are left with the dual role of trying to preserve the environment from future generations, and protect its citizens from the deprivations of our corporate federal oligarchs.
Like all such events, there were booths touting the various agencies that contribute to this important Puget Sound industry. Omaha and I took a tour with the waterfront biologists who took us along the blustery natural jetty of Key Peninsula and showed us crabs, clams, worms, barnacles, and all the other really cool critters that teemed in the tidal zone. It was a lot of fun.
As we walked back to the parking lot, we walked through the booths area and I realized there wasn't a single federal agency represented. Usually, the USDA and the Coast Guard show up to something like this and have their own booths. Not this time. County, city, and state agencies were there: Tacoma Public Health, Pierce County Water, Washington State Fish & Wildlife. Even the state's boat safety program and the University of Washington had booths.
But no feds.
It's really starting to feel as if our federal government is in the hands of corporate interests that have only one goal: to strip mine the land and our wallets, to extract every last ounce of shareholder value and leave nothing behind. And it's the state governments that are left with the dual role of trying to preserve the environment from future generations, and protect its citizens from the deprivations of our corporate federal oligarchs.
