“The defeatist attitude makes me want to scream. The battles we are fighting are overwhelming, certainly. In my lifetime I have witnessed things getting worse. Still, we know for certain things will not get better if we do nothing. On autopilot, the society is set on a crash course. Our only hope is enough people intervening and taking action, people willing to risk something now so that we all don’t lose everything later. The only sense of empowerment I feel is by taking some action, whether it’s writing, working to undermine the existing structures, or sitting on the open prairie in December with a Dakota man trying to save our landbase. If our actions will do nothing, why would anyone even want to live in this world anymore? That kind of hopelessness (in the defeatist sense) means an embracing of victimage and complete powerlessness. Why bother living? Here the salmon have much to teach: either they make it up the river to spawn, or they die trying.”