Commentator Russell Sadler has written a winner with his newest Op-Ed titled: "Can we stop the toll roads?" (see appended)

Toll Roads are not the issue any more than recreation user fees are the issue. Both are  manifestations of the all encompassing effort now underway to commercialize, privatize, commodify, price and sell absolutely everything. Both are peas in the same pod. Yet what is rarely appreciated, is how many peas are in this one pod.

You've heard me speak of the Corporate Takeover of Nature and in that expression, nature refers to one of the peas. The pod contains a full universe and the threat is nothing less than the Corporate Takeover of Everything.

Sadler's Op-Ed is brilliant.

Scott

Those who follow National Park Issues probably have sensed that certain messages keep getting repeated over and over.  Those who follow these issues probably suspect that the messages are, in fact, carefully framed propaganda but may not have any way of confirming their suspicions.

Yesterday I listened to yesterday's Steven Pearce's National Park Visitation Congressional Hearing / Work Goup and heard a repulsive cabal of recreation / toursim cronies conspiring with members of Congress to advance a very particular industrial strength tourism agenda.

Like those within the cabal, I knew the actual source of those propaganda messages.

You see, years ago, I stumbled upon the Olgilvy Message Project for the National Park Service. Pasted below is how I shared what I'd discoverd with the Wild Wilderness in 2002.

Scott

GROUPS CALL FOR MORATORIUM ON DESTRUCTIVE PUBLIC LAND BILLS

80 grassroots groups urge colleagues to halt support for development/privatization bills

A coalition of 80 grassroots environmental organizations today issued an open letter (click here)  to the conservation community at large, urging their support to stop current legislation that would harm public lands. The groups are asking their colleagues to join them in opposing the legislation.

At issue are bills that combine wilderness designation with land and water development provisions. Four bills cited in the moratorium letter include privatization of public lands and critical wildlife habitat through giveaways, sales, and exchanges:

• White Pine County [Nevada] Conservation, Recreation and Development Act, S. 3772
• Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act, HR 3603
• Washington County [Utah] Growth and Conservation Act, S. 3636, HR 5769
• Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act, S. 3794 (Idaho)

"Some support these bills for their wilderness designations," the moratorium letter states, " but the bills are laden with environmentally damaging provisions and land privatization schemes that have dire implications for future public-land and wilderness protection."

The groups reason that the upcoming election, just weeks away, could change the makeup of Congress and open the way for wilderness bills free of development and privatization tradeoffs. Citizens have overwhelmingly rejected schemes by Congress and the Administration to sell off public lands.

Since 2000, an estimated 250,000 acres of public land have gone into private hands in just a handful of bills that mixed land sales, mammoth water pipelines, and local development subsidies with wilderness designation. Three such bills now pending in Congress would privatize more than 80,000 acres of public land. The fourth could open up as much as 75,000 federal acres for ranchers to select from in land trades.

To add insult to injury, the bills create highly-compromised wilderness designations that allow the use of snowmobiles, ATVs and helicopters for routine management practices, allow aerial gunning of predators to protect livestock, provide for stream-poisoning and military maneuvers, and allow clearcutting and other habitat modifications to benefit game species.

--END--

Ski-resorts represent an clear extreme commercialization, privatization (and yes) motorization of our National Forests. They also represent the shape of things to come. With ski-resorts, the lands are public, but the commercial improvements are not. Leases run 40 years and for that that period the mountain is, for all intends and purposes privatized. Without motorized lifts, downhill resorts could not function --- hence they are truly commercialized, privatized and motorized.

For more than a decade the ski-industry has enjoyed a unique working arrangement with their public sector partners (the USFS), and visa-versa. To illustrate that point, here's a short quote from an extraordinary speech Under Secretary of Agriculture Jim Lyons gave in 1997:

http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/lyons.htm

These challenges do afford us opportunities to explore new ways of doing business. Opportunities to enhance partnerships with the private sector. Opportunities to market our recreation products. And make the Forest Service "BRAND NAME" stand for high quality outdoor recreation experiences, synonymous with our mission as an agency "Caring for the Land and Serving People", and equal--in the public's eye--to the kind of quality one comes to expect out of a  Coleman stove, or an  REI parka, or a day at Disneyworld, or a run down one of the ski trails at Sun Valley.... My vision of the future for national forest recreation is an ambitious, and perhaps, a less traditional one. And, if we're to get there, we'll need your help.

A few months ago, Chief of the USFS Bosworth gave a very similar speech to a gathing of the National Ski Area Association.  If you missed the Lyon's speech, you might read it now to better see the glidepath upon which the Forest Service has been sliding. And if you want to read for yourself the current USFS thinking, pasted below is a condensed version of Bosworth's recent presentation.

The branding of outdoor recreation and the corporate takeover of nature are processes nearing completion. I sincerely hope that given the amount of momentum they've gain in the past decade, they can still be stopped.

Here is one of the dozen or so branded logos about which Lyon's spoke. The agency's entire product line can be viewed at www.wildwilderness.org/docs/brands.htm

Scott

Palm Mortuary - Death Valley National Park
RJ Reynolds - Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Wonder Bra - Grand Tetons National Park
Granite Construction - Mount Rushmore National Memorial
Weyerhauser - Sequoia National Park
Jack Danials - Whiskeytown National Recreation Area
McDonald's - Arches National Park
Oprah Winfrey - Black Canyon National Park
Crystal Geyser Springwater - Yellowstone National Park
Coors - Rocky Mountains National Park
Viagra - Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Clearasil - Crater Lake National Park
Koehler - Great Basin National Park
Rosie O'Donnel - Mammoth Cave National Park
Sinclair Gas-Dinosaur Nat'l Monument 

Today the President announced the nomination of Mary Peters,  "an advocate of user fees, or tolls, for building new highways". In a recent interview Peters was quoted as saying "You just can't depend on the federal government to bring the money in that was around when the interstate system was first built." Higher and higher user fees will be part of price we all must pay to provide the rich with more tax-cuts. The other price will be more impoverishing. Our interstate highway system will, bit-by-bit, be privatized and the enormous investment we funded over the years with our tax dollars will be handed over to private intestests at a deeply discounted value.

The same this is happening with our National Parks.
The same thing is happening with our public education.
The same thing is happening across the board.

The appointment of yet another free-market ideologue to a Cabinet position represents the next step in the Corporate Takeover of Everything.

SEE RELATED: Moving Down the Privatization Tollroad

 Scott

"The most predominant problem we have today is capacity and congestion," says Federal Highway Administrator Mary E. Peters. "One of the ways to deal with that is to bring the . . . market-based economy into this equation and determine where the private sector may be willing to invest." - Mary E. Peters

PS...  For those who'd like to see the DIRECT ANALOGY between the specific actions bringing about the privatization of our National Parks and the specific actions that will bring about the privatization of our National Highways, I offer up the following weblink. It will take you to a brief description of the book Street Smarts:  Competition, Entrepreneurship, and the Future of Roads --- a book for which Mary Peters has provided the foreword. The privatization tools and techniques she will bring to our Highway System are the privatization tools and techniques that are destroying so much of what once was good in America.

Scott

 "Who controls the past controls the future and who controls the present controls the past." -George Orwell

The downfall of the National Park System is following a path blazed most prominently by two State Park systems, those of New Hampshire and Texas. Today, those systems are in teetering upon collapse. As a result, state and park officials are proposing to radically commercialize and massively privatize those systems in an attempt to save them!

Pasted below is the latest installment in the downward spiral of New Hampshire's park system.
 
I have written about this many time and have for many years tried, as best I could, to use the New Hampshire system as a warning for what awaits the National Park System. Here are links to a five links to  earlier postings on this topic. I encourage readers to explore these links so as to better appreciate what is in store for the National Park system.

cash-carry-privatized-parks
market-based-user-fees-and-privatization-can-solve-budget-strains
privatization--commercialization/a-privatization-model-for-the-future
commercialization/cutting-park-funding-to-encourage-privatization
commercialization/free-market-national-park-congressional-testimony
 
Scott

"Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." - George Orwell

[Silver, of Wild Wilderness, says the McMenamins project sounds like part of a long line of corporate intrusions into parklands. He compares it to Fort Hancock in New Jersey or the Presidio in San Francisco, where the National Park Service has entered into public-private agreements to create developments on parklands.]

The privatization of our public lands via land sales and giveaways is finally getting the scrutiny it deserves. But these routes are neither the be-all nor the end-all of the massive privatization movement. They are not even the dominant route, as is suggested in the following Writers on the Range Op-Ed.

Here's a quote:

 [Trend number two may be worse. Its the outsourcing virus that is sweeping agencies like the U.S. Forest Service. Here, an idea that made sense in the past when applied to urban services such as trash collection may be focused on 75 percent of all the jobs in the agency, including fire suppression. If we do this long enough, and the ideologues push for this hard enough, its going to go like this: Why do we need the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, even the Park Service or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? So much of what they do has been outsourced; lets just get rid of them. Put some private sector, beltway, politically connected, market-mantra-chanting consulting firm in charge. It can manage the land, or else we could transfer the land to states. This move could make trend number one easier to accomplish.]

 [The chipping away at our publicly owned lands will happen incrementally, over time.]

What follows is a clear example of how the soon to be introduced Federal Recreation Lands Pass is being exploited for commercial advantage with the support of the National Park Foundation. The photo contest described below was mandated by law. The commercial tie-in with Casio, was not.

Curiously enough, the official name for this pass (as legislated by Congress) does not appear in this news release. The law stipulated that this pass MUST be called the "America the Beautiful Pass."

Here are the exact words of the law:

The Secretaries shall establish, and may charge a fee for, an interagency national pass to be known as the `America the Beautiful--the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass', which shall cover the entrance fee and standard amenity recreation fee for all Federal recreational lands and waters for which an entrance fee or a standard amenity recreation fee is charged.

As it happens, I believe that name has been copyrighted, is privately owned, and is unavailable.

That being the case, it appears that land managers have chosen to pretend the law does not exist, presumably hoping they don't get caught.

Perhaps this is a small point. Perhaps not.

Scott

The call is free, but when you dial the number, you'll be greeted with a short commercial from Unilever/Lipton. Welcome to our increasingly commercialized National Park System.

 Scott

 PS... Industry, as led by the American Recreation Coalition,  has been promoting this technology for years. To learn more, click here.

--- begin National Park Service news release --- 

July 31, 2006
NEWS RELEASE:  Valley Forge National Historical Park  
Contact:  Barbara Pollarine, Deputy Superintendent, 610-783-1037

History Lesson 21st Century Style:
Valley Forge National Historical Park Now offering Guided Cell Phone Tours

VALLEY FORGE, Pa., — Valley Forge National Historical Park is now using  cell phone technology to bring the stories of this special place to life for all users. “We’re utilizing this technology to get our message out in a new way,” said Park Superintendent, Mike Caldwell. “Since visitors use their own cell phone, there is no equipment to rent or store, nothing to check in or out, so it’s that much easier” he added.   Cell phone tours are part of the park’s effort to reach out to recreational users connecting healthy living with national parks as resources for their “daily minimum outdoor recreation requirement.” Almost everyone now carries a phone since staying connected has become essential and the technology offers a unique way to offer users to get information how and when they want it. Valley Forge is being supported in this by a grant from Unilever/Lipton, a Proud Partner of America’s National Parks.

   Taking the cell phone tours is simple and free except for the cost of the users cellular phone service minutes. Access is made by dialing 408-794-2820 and then entering the item number you want to hear. Messages cover both historical and natural history facts as well as voices and events recalling the winter encampment of the Continental Army. Messages are 2-3 minute pre-recorded prompts that follow the already existent Encampment Auto Tour of the park. Signage is located throughout the park at eleven key areas. A California based company, Guide by Cell, offers the service.

Who are some of the voices narrating prominent moments in Valley Forge’s history? One is Thomas Fleming, noted author of Washington’s Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge and many other works of fiction and non-fiction. “Fleming describes the opponents that Washington faced and the political alliances he formed to overcome them,” said Barbara Pollarine, Deputy Superintendent for Valley Forge NHP.   In addition to prompts featuring historical facts, there are separate extensions that feature the natural resources in the area and why Valley Forge was chosen as the site for the famous winter encampment.  “The goal of the tour is accessibility and diversity; to reach all visitors that use the Park on a daily basis,” explained Caldwell. The tour also includes prompts spoken by park rangers, the Oneida Indian Nation, volunteers and interns. “Eventually we’d like to offer the tours in French and Spanish,” added Pollarine.

Access to the Valley Forge Cell Phone Tour is 24-hours a day by dialing 408-794-2820.  Additional information can be obtained in the Welcome Center located at the intersection of Route 23 and North Gulph Road in King of Prussia, PA. For further information, please call 610-783-1077 or visit www.nps.gov/vafo

About Valley Forge National Historical Park Valley Forge National Historical Park educates present and future generations of Americans about one of the most defining events in our nation's history by preserving the natural and cultural resources that commemorate the encampment of the Continental Army at Valley Forge in 1777-78.

  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it     infozone    1.94.5

Pasted below is the Department of Interior's recently announcement about the availability of the newest version  "Toolbox for the Great Outdoors". They say it was developed in partnership with the American Recreation Coalition.

When the ARC announced release of the first version, they described the toolbox a little differently. They didn't call it a "partnership". Here's their description: 

"Toolbox for the Great Outdoors, an interactive CD-ROM recently developed by ARC with the assistance of key federal agencies."