Trump Removes Ivory Ban

Trump removes the Ivory Ban for U.S. Citizens hunting in Zimbabwe and Zambia.

It is disturbing that our country is often characterized as largely self-serving, materialistic and elitist.  We have become small yet we shrink more. There is something very mischievous in our president removing the 2014 Obama ban on transporting ivory back into the United States.  Reading the news today there is speculation this executive order is a solution for sons to bring their big game trophies home.  His pronouncement is retroactive to 2014 forward. Larger editorials and repeated comments from readers of the Washington Post, New York Post and Snoops and a host of others observe that this reversal is really about undoing absolutely everything Obama ordered during his administration.

Countries in East Africa like Tanzania allow elephant hunting.  Kenya does not.  It is a mixed bag in Africa but the continent is moving in the direction of saving wildlife for camera safaris, future generations and sharing the experience of simply living in awe of life, its manifestation of creation against the swashbuckling avarice of powerful oligarchies.

Kenya experienced a trying election last month.  Zimbabwe’s government, one of the countries Americans can now import elephant parts from is in turmoil.  There was a time when these countries looked to the United States for inspiration.  For some, the United States still provides inspiration but it seems an exclusive arrangement benefiting world elites revealed in an honest display of winner-take-all in the personality of a sexist chest-pounding president standing over the carcass of animals, change, dignity, world citizenship, and capitalistic fairness.

The reality of today’s leadership is revealed in blunt honesty about its self-serving nature.  It appears we have met the enemy and it is us, in the words of Walt Kelly.  But I think we are better than this, kinder to all people including a demonstration of the care for all living creatures.  Time will tell.  I hope so. Should citizens march on Washington D.C. again?