January 2002 Editorial
Owning a Piece of the Rock
The other day while driving through a residential neighborhood, I noticed the
many “for sale” signs. I got to thinking about land ownership and
what that entails. One can claim mineral and water rights, and even airspace
to a point. How far down into the dirt does one “own?” Does one’s
50 x 100-foot section of land continue in diminishing size to a single point
at the earth’s core? A jet can fly a few thousand feet above my house,
but my neighbor can’t build a bridge over my backyard. Just how far up
is “mine?” I thought about real estate, owning a piece of the rock,
landowners, and landlords. Aren’t we all truly just squatters?
Chief Seattle never would have professed to owning a single pebble of the earth.
He felt he was merely a visitor, a guest, the relative from out-of-town who
must make his bed and keep the sink clean lest he not be asked back. Chief
Seattle never laid claim to a single stream, lake, or bay. He may have drunk
from them, bathed in them, or traveled on them with his canoe, but he never
in a million moons considered a single drop to be his. Ownership was not his
thing. The word “deed” was not even in his vocabulary unless it
was preceded by the word “good.” The chief was the tenant, not the
landlord. He thanked the great Mother Earth for the privilege of his tenancy.
He asked for her permission to fish her waters and harvest her ground. The
good chief blessed the life of the deer he was about to kill, and gratefully
used every part of the animal. The deer became an extension of the man, cloaking
his body and wrapping the leader’s aura with its own.
In contrast, consider Western Civilization (make note of the root word “civil”),
which largely consists of plunderers, scoundrels, murderers, thieves, rapists,
the greedy, the self-centered, self-righteous, wasteful, slothful—not
to mention self-serving, back-stabbing liars and cheats. Western Civilization
never dreamed of asking anyone or anything for permission to move in; it just
took for itself. Its history is one big land grab. In “discovering”
America, a queen-pleasing, party-crashing Spaniard sailed into a neighborhood
much older than his own and planted his flag. It’s as though he looked
over his backyard fence for the very first time and saw more houses, except
that this fence happened to be the Atlantic Ocean, and all the rooftops belonged
to the Iroquois, Kwakiutl, Shawnee, Nez Percé, Paiute, Seminole, Zuni,
Massachusett, Cherokee, Arapaho, Haida, Okanogan, Tuscarora, Shoshone, Winnebago,
Sioux, Chickasaw, Kickapoo, Navajo, Hopi, Apache, Susquehanna.... Columbus
claimed the “New World” for Spain, took some “heathens”
back as house keepers for Isabella, and handed her the deed.
The history of Western Civilization is ultimately known for two things: blood
shed in the name of religion, and blood shed in the name of real estate. My
god is better than your god: off with your head. You’re on my land: off
with your head—no matter that you have lived on this land for the last
three-thousand years, I’m moving in. Mine. These are now my
harbors, my rivers, valleys, mountains, and fruited plains from sea
to shining sea, including the twelve-mile limit. This land is now mine to
build cities up0n, to pollute, to strip-mine, to burn, and to herd indigenous
peoples (such as Chief Seattle and all the other “heathens”) off
to reserved areas of undesirable, barren dirt—until I discover that there
is oil underneath that dirt, in which case I’ll relocate the heathens
to another “reserved area.” In the meantime I’ll create the
Bureau of Indian Affairs to keep an eye on them, tax them, and deny them benefits
while I go on sucking the oil out of the land, ripping up coal, stripping
the forests, paving the planet, and wiring the landscape with telephone poles
and power lines. I’ll build high rises, garbage dumps, factories, suburbs,
malls, parking lots, and sports arenas. Mine—all mine. This is
my land and I have a piece of paper to prove it: paper that is made
from trees I cut down (my trees now) and No, I didn’t ask permission
because they are mine to cut.
Western Civilization, a gas-guzzling, land-raping, consumer-driven society is now
the new landlord of North America. It sprawls across the continent, squashing
the life out of every person, plant, and animal that preceded it. Chief Seattle
never collected rent. He never slit his neighbor’s throat and raped and
murdered his neighbor’s wife so that he could move into their condo.
Even if those thoughts were to enter his head, he would certainly have first
asked permission. Who in this world today is asking permission? Does the phrase
“May I” even exist in the corporate vocabulary? The Trumps, Rockefellers,
and Helmslys of the world, along with the CEO’s of Coca Cola, Microsoft,
and Disney believe in “Me first,” “I am Number One,” “Outa
my way,” and “The one who dies with the most, wins.” All they
are—all civilization is—is one big bad tenant squatting on the face
of the earth, leaving gouges in the furniture, breaking everything it comes
in contact with, and not paying the rent. Earth hasn’t gotten a dime,
sou, or ruble out of civilization yet, and someday this tenant from Hell,
this freeloader without even a lease in his hip pocket, will be evicted big
time by the supreme landlord of us all: Mother Earth. And remember, never
piss-off a woman.
©2001 Stuart Vail
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