I just got through reading a Huffington Post op-ed by Paul Slansky entitled A Note to Bill.  If you're a liberal or a Democrat, like me, and ever wonder why people don't like liberals or Democrats .... this is it!

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Paul Slansky's stated goal is to help get Barack Obama elected.  For some reason he blames Bill Clinton for Al Gore losing in 2000, the Iraq war, all the people who have died in it, and the McCain/Palin campaign.  This is in the first paragraph, and it goes downhill from there.  Firstly, Bill Clinton would have won a third term and Al Gore won the popular vote based on Bill Clinton's coattails.  Al Gore would have won by even more if Al Gore had not chosen to distance himself from Bill Clinton.  It wasn't the other way around, and Paul Slansky's tenuous grasp on facts and logic slips further as his argument continues.

He then projects that it pains Bill Clinton to say Obama's name?  What?  Get over it, you're seeing what you want to see.  Do I think Bill Clinton has warm-fuzzies about Barack Obama and thinks he's going to be the best president ever?  No, I don't think that Bill Clinton is particularly enamored of Barack Obama.  And, of course, he'd rather be campaigning for Hillary Clinton at this time.  But Clinton is living in a reality-based community at the moment and is doing what he should do and what his unique position in this country allows him to do--make reasoned and persuasive appeals to moderate, independent voters regarding why they should step into the poll and pull the lever under Obama's name.

I don't believe that some of Obama's supporters understand that some people like Obama, even admire and respect him, but are not quite at the idolatry level yet.  And these people need more Bill Clintons and less Paul Slanskys showing their support of Barack Obama

From the piece:

Barack Obama has to get himself elected.  He has to either find a way to get the same moderates who voted for Clinton to vote for him, or he has to register enough new voters to make the same tired Bubba, soccer mom, Reagan Democrat voting block irrelevant.  At the moment it looks like John McCain's campaign is imploding, but things may turn around.

I just don't understand why Paul Slansky feels so entitled to his own anger and his ability to publish it that he would cut off his nose to spite his face.  After verbally kicking Bill Clinton in the groin and chastizing a former President of the United States for not being peppy enough, he goes and demands that Bill Clinton get jazzed about Barack Obama.

This is the same argument that is repeated again and again by the more enthusiastic Barack Obama supporters.  Hillary is awful, we hate her, we distrust her supporters, you all are vicious and hateful.  Now, express your undying love for my candidate at once!  Do people see how criminally stupid this message is?  I really like Barack Obama.  I think if he is elected, he may be one of the best presidents in history.  I cannot stand the nasty, ineffective posturing of so-called supporters like Slansky.  It drives off Clinton supporters, moderates, independents, etc...

If you were going to go knock on doors for Barack Obama, would you really attack your neighbors for their previous stances or chastize them for not being already firmly in Obama's camp?  If you would you'd get a door slammed in your face.  This is what people like Slansky are doing on the internet.  Getting doors slammed in their faces. 

This is why in every Presidential election 10-13% of Democrats vote for Republicans.  It's why there is still a slim chance that John McCain can get elected.  Barack Obama is better than these supporters.  He deserves people who believe in his ability to win this election.  He is owed respect for being his own candidate and not trying to ride Bill Clinton's coattails.  He wants people to unite, to debate ideas, to be better than the politics of the past.  And he gets Paul Slansky.

Mountain gorillas, one of the most endangered species on earth have been caught in the middle of an extremely brutal civil war in one of the most important National Parks in the world.   Around one year ago, the extreme brutality and seeming senselessness of war was captured in the photographs of the murdered bodies of a few of these gentle creatures.

The images from last year were terrible because they not only showed complete innocents being destroyed for a cynical reason, but captured the almost helplessness to protect animals from afar.  What can be done to save species and their habitats when there is a war?  What happens when those animals and places become targets?
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Virunga National Park contains the greatest biodiversity of any park in Africa, as well as the widest range of habitats. Located in the Great Rift Valley, it boasts spectacular scenery unlike any other in the world. From the only alpine region in Africa with meadows filled with giant heather and dense forests with the largest glacier in Africa, to large savannas boasting populations of elephants and hippopotamuses. Active volcanoes dominate the landscape in the southern section of the park, including Nyiragongo, which contains a permanent lava lake at the bottom of the crater.

Founded in 1925, it was Africa's first national park. and was made a World Heritage Site in 1979. One-third of the remaining population of mountain gorillas live within its borders. It was the home of fabulous safari lodges, where people paid large sums of money for the privilege of seeing these rare and majestic animals. No mountain gorilla has ever survived in captivity so this corner of the planet was the only spot to see them.

In July 2007, four mountain gorillas were found executed. There was no sign that these deaths were the result of poaching as the bodies were left behind and there was no evidence of babies being stolen. The brutal pictures of the executed family reached the worldwide news. Later, it was discovered that a missing female had also been murdered, her infant presumed dead. Their deaths raised the total to nine for that year, a huge number considering the total estimated population in the world is only 700 mountain gorillas.

Park rangers attributed the deaths to the trade in charcoal, or makala as it is locally known. Harvesting within the protected borders of the park is illegal, and the gorillas were seen as an impediment to their ability to harvest the charcoal from the dense forests contained in Virunga. Makers of the makala tear down trees to build a mud covered dome, which is then lit on fire and allowed to burn for days. Rangers and conservationists pointed to members of the Congolese army as the main participants in this illegal harvest.

Since 1996, this area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DCR) has been home to an extremely violent and complex civil war. Though the war is centered in the eastern half of the country, it is in fact a multi-state war, with players from at least nine other countries in Africa involved and has been called Africa's World War.

You may be more familiar with the Rwandan genocide preceding this. The Hutu majority in Rwanda slaughtered 800,000 Tutsis, until the Tutsis gained power and the Hutus, including interahamwe, the militia groups who carried out the genocide, fled to refugee camps where the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko gave them refuge. From these camps, these militia members attacked both Zairian Tutsis, and made incursions to attack Rwandan Tutsis.

Rwanda and Uganda supported the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire, led by Laurent-Desire Kabila, to overthrow Mobutu.  In 1997, Mobutu fled and later died, and Kabila declared himself President.  He began by ordering a violent restoration of order and centralizing the nation which led to more violence in the Eastern provinces, where minority groups had thought they had been promised autonomy.

In August 1998, he ordered expelled all Tutsis under penalty of death and dismissed all Rwandan and Ugandan officials from the government they had helped him establish.  In general, the Kinsasha centered forces the Congolese national army, the Mai-Mai anti-foreigner militia groups, and the countries of Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad, Sudan, and Namibia.  The Tutsi ethnic groups in Rwanda and the DCR along with the governments of Rwanda and Burundi form another force.  Hutu forces within the Congo, including those ousted from Rwanda, often alligned with the Mai-Mai militias and Burundi rebels seeking to overthrow the Tutsi-led government, still seek to expel Tutsis and ethnically cleanse.  The last combatant is Uganda and Ugandan-backed rebels who claim that Kibala did not stop rebel groups from attacking within Uganda's borders.

The fighting went all across the DCR and the various factions sought to control land, peoples, and resources.  The Virunga National Forest at this time became closed to visitors due to obvious safety concerns as it was a literal battleground.  Due to the extreme poverty exacerbated by the war, and the need for militias and armies to fund themselves, some turned to poaching for bushmeat, either to consume or to sell.  In addition, and perhaps more harmful to the long-term future, was the widespread destruction of these lush forests for charcoal, or makala.

The war officially ended in 2003.  Kibala had died from an assassination in 2001, and his son took over control of the official government.  Although a UN report in 2001 accused Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe of exploiting illegal resources from the DCR, Rwanda continued to receive more international aid than it's larger neighbor.  Rwandan and Ugandan troops withdrew in 2002 subsequent to signing two different accords with the DCR.  The transitional government took over in 2003, but the warring parties within the DCR were extremely reluctant to cede power to the national administration and disarming and unifying them proved extremely difficult.

The Hutu and Tutsi conflict remains in the eastern provinces, with support from Rwanda to the Tutsi-alligned groups, and accusations that the CDR and Uganda continue to support the Hutus, including attacks into Rwanda.  Loosely organized militias still reign over their turfs in eastern Congo.  Rwandan and CDR national troops continue to try to gain control of land and access to the wealth of resources held within them.

Against the scale of a war where millions have died, that has generated numerous human rights abuses including the use of child soldiers and rape as a weapon, with the ghosts of a genocide still roaming the landscape, it seems like nothing could be done.  Is it even ethical to try to give money or support conservation in the area, when those resources could be used for humanitarian goals? 

People are still dying by the thousands and yet it was seeing those images that really got to me effectively.  I had heard about the war, and felt like sure, we aren't doing enough.  But it was only this that got me really interested in trying to learn more about this conflict and what can be done, which seems like very little.  Armchair activism is never that effective, really, but this seems like something that requires dramatic changes from within.

Perhaps if I'd seen other images, images of the children killed, or the famine victims, I would have been similarly touched.  I generally don't seek out that sort of information, I'm more likely to look at animals and conservationist issues.  I'm not sure what that says about me, but I'm definitely trying to look at the human world outside of my own country, the USA, and what is often on the news like Iraq, the Middle East, and China.

The Wildlife Direct blog from the Virunga National forest obliterates the line between people and the gorillas and habitat they protect.  They are the frontline fighters in this effort and they are risking their lives to do so.  Over 120 rangers have been killed in the line of duty - one as recently as a month ago.  The accounts are gripping, personal, troubling and informative. 

The most recent post is about how the families of these rangers are having to evacuate due to more fighting in the immediate area.  Rangers volunteered to stay on to protect the stations.

Sometimes I wonder about the absolute hypocrisy of Western conservationists in telling other people how to manage their land.  We didn't do a great job of preserving habitat and wildlife in our own country as we settled and developed, and it seems like we believe that these animals that are exotic to us are more worthy than those we could see a few miles from our own home. 

Reading these firsthand accounts, though, turns it around to where I began - extremely emotionally affected by their deaths and hoping that by contributing to the cause of real heros, it can help save one of my favorite animals on earth.