Down here in deep South Texas, anytime you criticize SpaceX or Elon Musk on Facebook for anything, the bot swarms appear defending Musk and SpaceX and calling you pretty much every name in the book. I suppose some of them are real people. Some. Like Trump, Elon does not take criticism well. No wonder they get along so well. After all, Musk fixed the 2024 election for Trump, and gave him almost $300 million for buying ads, campaigning, etc. It would not surprise me if someday we uncover how Musk fixed the election for Trump. Again, Trump won all seven swing states in 2024 by a margin just large enough to not spur a recount? Quite suspicious. Could be the party that is always screeching about conspiracy theories against them most likely pulled off one in 2024. It's the classic projection. The louder they yell, the guiltier they are.
OK, slightly side-tracked there. This post below is from a local, Myra Paredes-Falcon, who is not too pleased with the way Musk is tearing up what was once protected, pristine lands.
A few days ago, I posted something critical of SpaceX and what is happening to the land here in South Texas.
It got shared a few times, and with those shares came the comments. Laughing emojis. Insults. People mocking the idea that some of us might actually give a damn about what happens to this land.
Curiosity got the best of me, so I looked at some of their profiles. And what struck me was that the vast majority didn't appear to be from South Texas. Some weren't even from Texas.
And it left me with a question I haven't been able to shake... What is it like to live somewhere and never feel any responsibility toward the place?
To live on its land, drive its roads, watch its sunsets, benefit from everything it offers and somehow never feel like you owe that place anything in return?
What is it like to look at South Texas and see acreage instead of home? To see development where we see habitat. To see dollar signs where we see history. To laugh when people who were raised here say, Please don't destroy what we have left.
I genuinely don't understand it. Because if I moved somewhere tomorrow, I would want to learn that place.
I would want to know its people. Its history... Its culture... Its wildlife... The things the people who have called it home for generations consider sacred.
I would understand that being welcomed somewhere doesn't give me permission to take from it without caring what gets left behind.
Maybe that's where the disconnect lies. Some people look at land and ask, “What can we do with this?”... While others ask, “What are we responsible for protecting?”
And when people laugh at those of us fighting for South Texas, I wonder if they understand what they're laughing at.
This isn't some abstract patch of dirt to us. This is where our parents raised us. Where our grandparents walked. Where generations of families have made their lives. Where wildlife still fights for enough habitat to survive.
It's the monte... The resacas... The palms against a pink and orange sky... The Laguna Madre... Boca Chica... The Gulf... This is home.
Maybe you have to truly love a place to understand why watching pieces of it disappear hurts. But what I will never understand is the belief that because something can be developed, exchanged, bulldozed, bought, or sold it should be.
And for the record, you don't have to be born in South Texas to belong here. You don't have to have generations buried in this soil to call the Valley home. But if you come here... if you choose to build a life here... I hope eventually you love this place enough to care about what happens to it.
Enough to listen to the people who were here before you. Enough to understand that progress and preservation do not have to be enemies. Enough to care about what will still be here long after all of us are gone.
Because this land doesn't really belong to any one of us. We are only its caretakers for a little while. And I want to leave behind a South Texas that the generations who come after us will still recognize as home.
Photo of Port Isabel Lighthouse
No comments:
Post a Comment