Edward Abbey: "Immigration and Liberal Taboos"

One Life at a Time, Please | 1988 | Edward Abbey

[JackelopeBreeder]

Fifteen years later, this reads like it was written last week.

Abbey was neither liberal or conservative. He was a provocateur -- he tested and questioned all beliefs and all logic -- and was only happy when he had a good controversy in progress. I suffered twice from his keen wit -- skewered repeatedly about ten years before he wrote this essay. And yes, we had all been doing some very serious drinking that lasted until nearly dawn.

This essay came from one of his last books, One Life at a Time, Please. Almost the last thing he wrote. Somewhere in the frontal matter of the book (preface, foreword, copyright page -- the stuff nobody reads) he got in one zinger that should have been used as his epitaph.

"If there's anyone still present whom I've failed to insult . . . I apologize."

(My thanks to Milady madfly for finding this online somewhere. Warning: this wench is psychic. I lost my copy of the book years ago and have been trying to find another for months, just for this one essay. Then she emails it to me out of the blue.)

[I_Love_My_Husband]

THE Edward Abbey? OMG....this is sooo cool!

I consider myself one of the Green Republicans here, so this is too cool.

[RippleFire]

bump

[JackelopeBreeder]

Ping!

[Regulator]

I was sitting in a bar on 4th avenue in Tucson around about winter 1983 (remember the restaurant on the corner of 5th st.?). The well dressed patrons had just heard Abbey quoted in the press as saying that:

"Mexican illegal aliens should be stopped at the border, handed a gun, turned around, they'll know what to do when they get home".

They were all horrified, of course. Saying things like, "is Abbey a Nazi?". I laughed so hard at them, I spat up. They just stared. They thought he was some kind of fuzzy, furry Spotted-Owl hugging GreenMan. Umm, don't think so...

His book of quotations is still at my father's house in Tucson. Which is a good place for it....but the one thing that I have wondered over the last 10 years of this immivasion madness: where are all the people now who listened so fervently to Abbey and others in the 1970's? Collecting a paycheck from Club Sierra? Working deals at the Wilderness Society to get a cheap land deal through a public land trust donation? The silence from them is DEAFENING.

[Bernard Marx]

Jackelope Breeder wouldn't happen to be Chilton Williamson Jr., would he? I was raised in Idaho and it was common knowledge that Jackelopes were most often seen in Wyoming --a spot where Mr. Williamson has been known to hang his Stetson.

I attended the U. of New Mexico a year or two after Ed Abbey had departed the campus. A poster attributed to him was still decorating a few spots around the school. It read (approximately):

"There will be no peace until the last dictator is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

Yes, he was a provacateur.

[LouD]

I agree with you about Abbey - He defied labels, and was the iconclast's iconoclast.

My favorite Abbey quote was one on welfare; Abbey, who had actually worked at one time as a social worker, stated that we should offer all single women on welfare the option of sterilization, in exchange for a brand new Mustang convertible. He added "Not only would this cut down on welfare expenditures, but it would have the added benefit of eliminating from the gene pool anyone foolish enough to accept such a deal."

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Edward Abbey, patron saint of the extremist radical environmentalists and author of Ecotopia, their holy scripture

[JackelopeBreeder]

I'm afraid not. Uncle JB spent most of his so-called adult life wearing Army green and collecting data on the bars and saloons of the Far East.

Been to Idaho a couple of times, though.

[JackelopeBreeder]

Ernest Callenbach wrote Ecotopia.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Oh, you're right. But I know that Abbey is very highly regarded by the radical environmentalists

[Bernard Marx]

Your reference to getting drunk with Abbey caused me to think of Williamson, the paleo-con Senior Editor, Books, for "Chronicles." He also authors "The Hundredth Meridian" column which deals with the present and future of the West.

He's a great admirer of Abbey and they apparently were pals at one time. One of his columns a year or two ago was about a trip he made into the wilderness trying to find Abbey's grave on the anniversary of his passing. Williamson and his friends didn't find the gravesite but they had a rather drunken ceremony in Abbey's honor anyhow.

I agree with you that the eco-fascists who worship Abbey don't really know their man.

[WRhine]

Brilliant essay. Thanks for sharing it with us. Yes, it reads like it was written last week.

[JackelopeBreeder]

Most everyone got drunk with Abbey if the hour was late enough. I met him about a year after The Monkey Wrench Gang came out in paperback. He was still a bit unsure of what to do about the sudden notoriety, but enjoying it at the same time. ("But why don't I get the groupies like the rock stars do?")

He wrote the book as a reaction to a lot of questionable development issues here in the Southwest at the time. This place was about as corrupt as Mexico. Glen Canyon Dam just happened to be his pet peeve, and provided a good story line. He was first and last a writer.

[Erasmus]

I agree with you about Abbey - He defied labels, and was the iconclast's iconoclast.

And these days, it's hard for an iconoclast to keep up his image.

<]B^)

[madfly]

I had forgotten I sent that to you. Well,that does it, you are my new Psychic Friend, lol. Can't wait for your next wish, sir!

I have a dusty old copy of MonkeyWrench Gang next to a 1915 copy of Zane Grey's "Rainbow Trail".

You, my friend, are a born story teller, with an interesting past and a good memory! Keep 'em coming.

[WRhine]

Edward Abbey really hits the mark with this.....

"Especially when these uninvited millions bring with them an alien mode of life which - let us be honest about this - is not appealing to the majority of Americans. Why not? Because we prefer democratic government, for one thing; because we still hope for an open, spacious, uncrowded, and beautiful-yes, beautiful!-society, for another. The alternative, in the squalor, cruelty, and corruption of Latin America, is plain for all to see."

15 years later, the final sentence of this passage appears to be the destiny for America.

[PRND21]

...culturallymorally-generically impoverished people.

I agree with much of this but the above line in idiotic and racist.

[WRhine]

Yes, I know, if the American Indians had enforced such a policy none of us pale-faced honkies would be here. But the Indians were foolish, and divided, and failed to keep our WASP ancestors out. They've regretted it ever since.

At this point in American History I'd like to know how we are any different as a people than the American Indians were when it comes to being "Foolish" and "Divided". What's that they say about divide and conquer?