For thousands and
thousands of years this land, the Earth, has been walked by the most beautiful
of animal, the Tiger. Within a span of 100 years they are now facing
extinction. Only one out of the eight sub-species left has even a hope of
survival, the Bengal. This is a very
strange time to live, and often an angering one. My heart yearns for the safety
of these big cats. It yearns for us, another animal on this Earth, to feel with
the most sincerity our connection and kinship to everything on this Living
organism, Earth. We have no idea
what really will befall us and all of life when we extinct such a large species
such as the tiger. We are so removed from our killing, that most of us barely
feel it. Do you feel it now?
Do I? When we do feel it, I mean really let it inside, what do we do? What can
we do? The answer that we
really believe is... nothing. And unless we do something extreme then yes, that
is really the only answer. Let's take the
Bengal tigers in India, for example. They are the most protected and populated
tiger species, their population being around 3,000. Yes that's right 3,000! The Bengal is only one
of the four species of tiger still alive on the planet. The other four have
already been wiped out... The Caspien, in the 1950's. The Javan, in 1972. The
Bali, in 1937. The South China. The latest of these
to go was the South China tiger, when in 2003 scientists finally said that
after over 20 years of not seeing any in the wild, they were gone. In the mid
twentieth century, they were hunted down and killed like vermin. So, ok, we have the
Siberian tigers left (around 50), the Sumatran (400 to 500), the Indo-Chinese
(1,200 to 1.700), and the Bengal. Ok lets assume the money we send those
environmental agencies actually helps out the tigers - the last time I checked
the Bengal was protected by rangers and I thought "Oh, awesome! They will
protect them from poachers!" Well then I found out that those poor
bastards don't have the funding for vehicles, radios, guns, or even shoes! These
are the people protecting the last of the big cats on Earth! They also are
alone in a 5 kilometer radius of jungle. So when they see a jeep filled with
heavily armed poachers, you know what they do... Run! Even with the
Bengal’s, who live in "protected" areas, one tiger is poached each
day on average. You can do the math. When there are less than 3,000 left, they
don’t have much longer. My heart weeps.
Then I get very angry. I want to kill, and I don't want to calm down. I don't
want to forget. I don’t want to numb out. I don't want to just pray for the
tigers. I don’t want to just pray for the killing to stop. No. I'm talking
about real change. I'm talking about revolution. I don't believe in sending
money to organizations so they can make
“recreational parks" for tourists to see the last of the tigers.
No. Revolution. I'm not talking about believing in the system and voting for
some fuck head who believes in industry and business as usual more than sweet
animal life. No. Revolution. I don't believe in praying to some God whose own
book tells people that we have dominion over the land and animals. Dominion!
Fuck that. No. Revolution. I say stop working
for Them! We give them power. We do. It's time to stop. It's time to drop the
hell out. They are killing us! They are killing all Life! We are letting them.
I understand why. We have never known anything else. But if we are to live a
great life and feel our true potential, we must pull away from this repressing
dogmatic bullshit. We can't let the
corporations make us feel guilty by saying that they only do what they do to
provide for us the service we ask for. Fuck them. Planet killing fucks, Soul
raping fucks! How much longer are
we going to care about watching T.V. over watching the stars. We're not feeling
life when all our energy goes into making money. All of it. The truth is right
now life on the planet fucking sucks. Not real life, but the lives we are
handed, which is misery stacked on misery, so much so that we think that
escaping for a few hours or days is actually pleasurable. And of course it is
to a degree. It's fun to play games or have a drink with your friends - but not
at the expense of life on the planet. We live separate from the earth, and it's
killing us and making us insane. We are wildly thrashing from that insanity and
taking out everything in our path. The extinction of
tigers is just a small grain of sand in that insanity. But they matter to me
and they're deaths cannot go unpunished or in vain. No. We must reach into our
soul and hold onto what moves us and keep pushing until we are dead.
