Brief reflection on the destructive but egalitarian nature of the Hell Fires

Moving with great rapidity, the fires in the Central Mountain section of Idaho are now vast in destructive scope.

The only consistency displayed by the weather reporters around here this summer is that, whatever's predicted, it always turns out much worse.

There are hints that, in the next few days, temps will cool a little and there may be some rain.  All in all that's good --  if that actually happens -- but strong winds are also expected.  And maybe lightning, which can spark more fires.

I learned long ago as a very small child that Nature is the Great Equalizer -- and that certainly includes timber and brush fires.  Vast stretches of pristine wilderness and much wildlife and some homes have now been destroyed in just a few weeks.  Homes -- low income, modest means, affluent and super affluent -- are directly threatened, especially via the Beaver Creek fire which is reaching into Sun Valley and close-by Ketchum.  Some of the most luxurious homes in this country, mostly owned by film celebrities, have fire within a mile to three or four.

The Fires haven't read Machiavelli, Adam Smith, Marx and Lenin, Keynes, Wright Mills.  They don't give a damn about any of that.

Hunter Bear

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Check out our massive social justice website with much
material on grassroots organizing techniques:
www.hunterbear.org  The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
.
See the new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book," 
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new substantial 
introduction by me. This book is a full, very detailed 
discussion of the rise and development of the Jackson  
Movement of 1962-63.  And this book is also an organizer's
how-to manual:  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm   

And see the related http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm 
and also "Fifty Years: Remembering Medgar Evers" :          
 http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/3876

See the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Many photos.)