On Thanksgiving AgLifeNW Magazine December Issue,

For us Klamath Basin farmers and ranchers, we mustn't forget to thank our God whom we pleaded with for irrigation water in 2001. We prayed for sound science. We prayed for irrigation water to be restored to our farms, refuges, parks and cemeteries. We prayed that this once-lake would at least be given enough water to restore our dried-up domestic wells and keep alive the baby birds in the dry ditches and canals. We prayed for peace of mind for our elderly veterans who were betrayed by their government and country that they fought to defend and farmed to feed. We prayed for our schools, and for the Hispanic farm workers who left homeless and jobless. We prayed like never before.

A day doesn't go by that we don't live the aftermath of 2001. The green fields in the spring, those delicate little sprouts, have never looked so gentle and alive. The golden hue of grain harvest has never been so golden. The smells of onions and garlic and potatoes in the fall, we will never take them for granted. When we listen to the frogs in the canals at night, see the full moon in a crystal-clear sky, hear our elderly veteran neighbors visit and laugh and talk about the crops, we cherish these things, almost afraid to believe they are true. In 2001 they weren’t true. Skies were filled with dust. Fields were bare. All was silent, our 'Silent Spring', except for the elderly crying, along with their children and their children. And many of our neighbors had auctions and had to move away.

Our God brought us another day. He brought us peer-reviewed science, although government agencies are ignoring it and forcing us to give them our water regardless of the science. But at least the truth is out, and it belongs to us. We could sit home and hope the world hears it and sees it, but that didn't work before.

God has brought us the realization that if we want the truth regarding our lives, our people, our crops, our wildlife, our hydrology, our science, to be known, the task is ours. This week alone people have written dozens of untrue newspaper and magazine articles regarding us irrigators. What do we do about it?

‘Environmentalists’ interview him pretending they want to learn, then turn around and write untrue articles about him. Farmers need him to help plan videos and stories and hearings to get the truth to the misinformed world. When he's on his tractor, his cell phone is ringing constantly from newspaper reporters, representatives, magazine editors, along with other farmers and ranchers who are trying to save their family farms. He helped start a foundation to give money to the needy and to educational purposes. He supported this and other informational Klamath websites. His farms and family life have suffered. Thank you Rob Crawford for your sacrifices. And he is only one of the many many farmers and ranchers and local businesspeople who have given up so much to help so many. When they see this water war and spiritual battle all over America, it fuels their determination to save these freedoms that their fathers fought to defend.

They have watched ‘environmentalists’ break Oregon and much of the West. With farms being regulated out of existence and their water stolen, unemployment has soared and wildlife has died. With the extermination of logging, Oregon has the highest unemployment in America, and more spotted owl habitat has burned up than ever was disturbed by timber harvest. Facts and real science are being ignored.

Our enemies are enemies of rural dwellers who, in their estimation, destroy our world with human presence. They are like a cancer, invading America is ways that are hidden until it is too late. Klamath Basin 2001.
We have two things that our enemies don't have. We don't have the tax-exempt funds. We don't have any government-agency-hired agenda-driven scientists. We don't own the national media. And we don't have government-funded attorneys at taxpayer’s expense.

But we have more.

We have truth.

And we have God.

Thank you God for another day, living side by side with the deer and geese and bunnies and fish and frogs and hard-working neighbors, like we have for a century.

Thank you for hearing our cries. For giving us representatives who see the truth. For giving us men and women who have devoted their lives to telling the truth, to saving our communities, and to saving our family farms and our American freedoms.

Thank you for promising that the truth will set us free.

For you who have so faithfully supported the Klamath farmers and ranchers, please keep supporting people, organizations, and media who have devoted their lives to defending America on the home front.

And please keep praying for the Robs and Mikes and Chris's and Patsys and Daves and Johns and hundreds more heroes. They need your prayers.

By Jacqui Krizo

Submitted to AgLife NW by www.klamathbasincrisis.org website