Thanks, Wes. Keeping a close eye on this. If it gets introduced again, my bags are already packed for a trip to Utah to photograph the exact landscapes on the chopping block. I already traveled to Nevada to document Pershing County lands that were part of the sell off. For those interested: https://forgottenlands.substack.com/p/dispatch-11-pershing-county-nevada.
Wes, I consider your coverage of these issues invaluable but I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t ground Mike Lee’s land privatization extremism in his religious beliefs. I assure you that the median Mormon does not hold his views about “dominion.”
The Udall family, including Stewart (Secretary of the Interior under LBJ), Mo (US Rep., cowrote the Alaska Lands Act) and Tom (Sen. from NM) are some of the greatest conservation-minded politicians we’ve had in this country. All of them were Mormon.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was proud of his conservation legacy. He secured protection for Gold Butte Natl Monument and Basin and Range Natl Monument. He was a lifelong Mormon.
Even among current members of Congress, Sen. John Curtis (UT) is probably the only Republican you can say genuinely supports climate science and clean energy. That’s not nothing.
Somehow the Mormon religion only ever comes up when discussing Mike Lee’s public lands extremism. I hate his policies, and I wish people would understand that he is not a representative voice for the church.
Unfortunately, I have to blame Cadillac Desert. Worth a read, but Marc Reisner ends up making a lot of psychoanalytic claims about the ineffable Mormon-ness of irrigation and land use in the West, and that sentiment seems to have stuck in the broader public consciousness ever since.
I think it'd be a disservice to fail to mention the role extremist religion plays in all this. Betsy Gaines Quammen's work should be essential reading: https://www.betsygainesquammen.com/american-zion
Have you read James Pogue’s “Chosen Country”? It’s my favorite book about the characters who have played a role in this sort of modern Sagebrush Rebellion redux. Pogue embeds himself with the Bundy clan for quite a while, and it’s fascinating to understand how they see themselves.
Pogue reminds me a lot of you. I think you two would get along well.
The impression I got from that book was that Ammon Bundy hated the mainline LDS church, and no longer considered himself a member.
Hey Wes, with you all the way in protecting public lands and appreciate your work to do so! Thanks for speaking out.
One thing I'd mention is that it is not a Mormon teaching that you can do whatever you want with the earth. Quite the contrary.
The current President of the church has said this,
"As beneficiaries of the divine Creation, what shall we do? We should care for the earth, be wise stewards over it, and preserve it for future generations.”
There's also this speech I found by one of the church leaders where he teaches that people have a duty to care for the earth.
I think if Mike Lee has a mentality that people can do whatever they want with the earth, his view is divergent from teachings of his church, not sourced from it.
Thanks for what you do, Wes. These folks, like Mike, can’t be trusted and need to be watched. My advice is to see it all now because it’s going to change.
I just posted this on his instagram https://www.instagram.com/senmikelee/ - Sen. Lee is reviving a plan to sell off 500,000 acres of our public lands to real estate developers. This is public land that belongs to ALL of us. Stop the sell-off, Mike! #ProtectOurLands #StopTheSellOff
We have to go directly to the source and call them out.
Maybe his voters will see what he's up to and vote him out or put pressure on him. We can only try to be the water that always finds a way. If you have other ideas, I'm all ears. Thanks for doing what you do Wes! Always on top of the action.
I've got a plan: We negotiate with the Mormon church to get them their right to cheat on their wives back, so long as they agree to leave the rest of us alone. If they play hardball, we can make sure magic underwear gets exempted from any future tariffs.
Wes, please. See my other comment. I’d love if you’d realize some of your readers don’t appreciate this kind of casual cruelty at our expense. You’re such a valuable voice for land conservation – I genuinely value reading your Substack, but stuff like this is just hurtful.
I certainly don't intend to cause any insult. It is very hard to square the LDS Church's history, beliefs, and teachings with a progressive view of the modern world. Factually describing that Mike Lee believes some very extreme shit that's far outside the norm, and that those beliefs along with his fealty to energy development interests drives his efforts to destroy the environment provides necessary context in this coverage.
I’m not disputing that Mike Lee has extreme beliefs. These kinds of jokes genuinely feel cruel and mean-spirited.
By way of analogy, I think that various conservative factions of Judaism have had a terrible influence in modern-day Israel, but that certainly doesn’t mean that you can paint all Jews with the same brush. There are certainly some extreme Zionist organizations with a lot of power (Likud, Mafdal). There are also plenty of factions within Judaism that strongly reject those ideologies.
Would you write an article critiquing Itamar Ben-Gvir, implying that his beliefs represented all of Judaism, and then throw in a dig about “magic skullcaps” (yarmulkes) in the comments?
If not, maybe consider why you’re perfectly happy to target Mormons with the same kind of rhetoric. There are millions of members of this church in the US. Please just think for a second before you resort to sweeping generalizations or simple cruelty. I would genuinely appreciate it.
Thanks, Wes. Keeping a close eye on this. If it gets introduced again, my bags are already packed for a trip to Utah to photograph the exact landscapes on the chopping block. I already traveled to Nevada to document Pershing County lands that were part of the sell off. For those interested: https://forgottenlands.substack.com/p/dispatch-11-pershing-county-nevada.
Wes, I consider your coverage of these issues invaluable but I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t ground Mike Lee’s land privatization extremism in his religious beliefs. I assure you that the median Mormon does not hold his views about “dominion.”
The Udall family, including Stewart (Secretary of the Interior under LBJ), Mo (US Rep., cowrote the Alaska Lands Act) and Tom (Sen. from NM) are some of the greatest conservation-minded politicians we’ve had in this country. All of them were Mormon.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was proud of his conservation legacy. He secured protection for Gold Butte Natl Monument and Basin and Range Natl Monument. He was a lifelong Mormon.
Even among current members of Congress, Sen. John Curtis (UT) is probably the only Republican you can say genuinely supports climate science and clean energy. That’s not nothing.
Somehow the Mormon religion only ever comes up when discussing Mike Lee’s public lands extremism. I hate his policies, and I wish people would understand that he is not a representative voice for the church.
Unfortunately, I have to blame Cadillac Desert. Worth a read, but Marc Reisner ends up making a lot of psychoanalytic claims about the ineffable Mormon-ness of irrigation and land use in the West, and that sentiment seems to have stuck in the broader public consciousness ever since.
I think it'd be a disservice to fail to mention the role extremist religion plays in all this. Betsy Gaines Quammen's work should be essential reading: https://www.betsygainesquammen.com/american-zion
Thanks for recommending this, I’ll check it out.
Have you read James Pogue’s “Chosen Country”? It’s my favorite book about the characters who have played a role in this sort of modern Sagebrush Rebellion redux. Pogue embeds himself with the Bundy clan for quite a while, and it’s fascinating to understand how they see themselves.
Pogue reminds me a lot of you. I think you two would get along well.
The impression I got from that book was that Ammon Bundy hated the mainline LDS church, and no longer considered himself a member.
James and I are buddies!
Oh awesome! Guess my intuition there wasn’t too bad. I can’t wait to read his upcoming book on rural California.
Hey Wes, with you all the way in protecting public lands and appreciate your work to do so! Thanks for speaking out.
One thing I'd mention is that it is not a Mormon teaching that you can do whatever you want with the earth. Quite the contrary.
The current President of the church has said this,
"As beneficiaries of the divine Creation, what shall we do? We should care for the earth, be wise stewards over it, and preserve it for future generations.”
There's also this speech I found by one of the church leaders where he teaches that people have a duty to care for the earth.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10/31causse?lang=eng
I think if Mike Lee has a mentality that people can do whatever they want with the earth, his view is divergent from teachings of his church, not sourced from it.
Appreciate the input.
Thanks for what you do, Wes. These folks, like Mike, can’t be trusted and need to be watched. My advice is to see it all now because it’s going to change.
I just posted this on his instagram https://www.instagram.com/senmikelee/ - Sen. Lee is reviving a plan to sell off 500,000 acres of our public lands to real estate developers. This is public land that belongs to ALL of us. Stop the sell-off, Mike! #ProtectOurLands #StopTheSellOff
We have to go directly to the source and call them out.
Unfortunately I think Mike Lee is pretty insulated form public pressure due to the radicalization of Utah's voters.
Maybe his voters will see what he's up to and vote him out or put pressure on him. We can only try to be the water that always finds a way. If you have other ideas, I'm all ears. Thanks for doing what you do Wes! Always on top of the action.
I've got a plan: We negotiate with the Mormon church to get them their right to cheat on their wives back, so long as they agree to leave the rest of us alone. If they play hardball, we can make sure magic underwear gets exempted from any future tariffs.
Wes, please. See my other comment. I’d love if you’d realize some of your readers don’t appreciate this kind of casual cruelty at our expense. You’re such a valuable voice for land conservation – I genuinely value reading your Substack, but stuff like this is just hurtful.
I certainly don't intend to cause any insult. It is very hard to square the LDS Church's history, beliefs, and teachings with a progressive view of the modern world. Factually describing that Mike Lee believes some very extreme shit that's far outside the norm, and that those beliefs along with his fealty to energy development interests drives his efforts to destroy the environment provides necessary context in this coverage.
I'm also reminded here of the church's role when I was writing so much about Scouting versus women and guys over a decade ago: https://gizmodo.com/how-the-boy-scouts-fostered-racial-equality-in-the-morm-1732555571
I’m not disputing that Mike Lee has extreme beliefs. These kinds of jokes genuinely feel cruel and mean-spirited.
By way of analogy, I think that various conservative factions of Judaism have had a terrible influence in modern-day Israel, but that certainly doesn’t mean that you can paint all Jews with the same brush. There are certainly some extreme Zionist organizations with a lot of power (Likud, Mafdal). There are also plenty of factions within Judaism that strongly reject those ideologies.
Would you write an article critiquing Itamar Ben-Gvir, implying that his beliefs represented all of Judaism, and then throw in a dig about “magic skullcaps” (yarmulkes) in the comments?
If not, maybe consider why you’re perfectly happy to target Mormons with the same kind of rhetoric. There are millions of members of this church in the US. Please just think for a second before you resort to sweeping generalizations or simple cruelty. I would genuinely appreciate it.
Keep fighting and calling and writing
Of course he did