Zinke disgrace to our country?

Fewer than three enduring years ago, Ryan Zinke, the former kleptomaniac Secretary of the Interior, slithered into the Oval Office of President Trump. Zinke's tedious graft and deceit completed, he delivered a barratry report recommending rescinding the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Similar to a sticky-fingered sutler swilling goods and profits from agency trade posts to siphon fat-in-the-fire kickbacks to Secretary of War, William Belknap, during President Grant's administration, Zinke became the modern version of the thieving Indian Agent of generations past, but now under Trump.

On June 26, Trump signed the Executive Order on Protecting American Monuments, Memorials and Statues. The order, while repetitious of federal law, declares that, "No individual has the right to damage...or remove any monument." Trump acknowledged, "I just had the privilege of signing a very strong executive order protecting American monuments." Trump continued, "No individual or group has the right to damage, deface, or remove any monument."

The order proclaims that, "Key targets...against our country are public monuments," and that, "Their selection...reveals a deep ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past and to erase from the public mind any suggestion that our past may be worth honoring, cherishing, remembering or understanding."

Such a moment of four-flushing has never been accomplished within recent political times. But following Trump's own line of thinking and adhering to the legality of the new order, one wonders what will be the punishment for the henchmen of Trump's cabinet responsible for desecrating and dismantling Bears Ears? It seems highly criminal that this national monument will be allowed to suffer the deliberate threats of road development, forest removal for livestock grazing, unregulated motorized use, the ransacking of archaeological and cultural sites, and the promiscuity of extractive industries and their massacre for uranium and coal.

The Confederacy lasted five years and many of the statues that glorify the lost cause were erected less than 100 years ago; but the shrine of Bears Ears for the American Indian dates back over 13,000 years and contains over 100,000 invaluable cultural sites. It is an indispensable, living homeland.

James Adakai, of the Oljato Navajo, impressively said, "This monument is a healing that brought us together." He concluded, "Something that is sacred cannot be reversed."

Will Zinke, like Belknap, go slinking on his hands and knees to the anemic shoes and pantaloon cuffs of Trump, tearful and begging forgiveness for recommending the reduction of Bears Ears and opening up the corral gates of extractive development?

Is the order's outrage all bombast, a spoof, all scratch and no gutting? Trump insisted that people who remove monuments are, "A disgrace to our country," and they, "Hate our history...and they hate everything we prize as Americans," concluding that, "They don't love our country."

What does that say about Trump's removal of a national monument, celebrated and dedicated to every citizen of the country after one of the most prolonged, thoroughly researched and supported fights in our history?